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Full text of "The imperial Bible-dictionary : historical, biographical, geographical, and doctrinal; including the natural history, antiquities, manners, customs and religious rites and ceremonies mentioned in the Scriptures, and an account of the several books of the Old and New Testamen; illustrated by numerous engravings"

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LIBRAf 


THE    IMPERIAL 


BIBLE-DICTIONARY, 


UBBAB 


PliKFACK, 


NKAKI.Y  twelve  years  have  elapsed  since  this  Jiible-Dictionnry  was  projected,  and  an 
understanding  come  to  between  the  Editor  and  the  Publishers  respecting  its  execu 
tion.  ( 'irennistances,  however,  occurred  to  prevent  the  actual  commencement  oi  the 
undertaking  so  earlv  as  was  intended ;  and  unforeseen  delays  have  occasionally  arisen 
during  the  progress  of  publication,  prolonging  the  period  of  completion  considerably 
beyond  th  -  time  originallv  contemplated.  When  the  design  was  formed  K>lt<>« 
('//dopa'<l<<t  was  tin;  oiilv  English  work  of  the  kind,  in  which  the  later  results  of 
biblical  scholarship  were  applied  to  the  elucidation  of  Scripture;  and  though  others 
have  appeared  sinee — in  particular  the  learned  and  comprehensive  work  edited  by 
Dr.  Smith— yet  from  the  plan  on  which  this  .Dictionary  was  projected,  and  the 
distinctive  aims  it  was  intended  to  reali/.e.  there  still  seems  to  1  e  a  place  lett  which 
it  mav  without  presumption  or  needless  rivalry  endeavour  to  till. 

The  circle  through  which  religious  inquiry— so  far  at  least  as  regards  an  intelli 
gent  study  of  the  sacred  records  has  spread  itself  in  this  country,  is  a  progressively 
expanding  one.  There  is  a  constantly  growing  class  of  persons  in  different  grades 
of  soeietv,  who,  without  any  professional  study  of  the  languages  and  literature  of 
the  llil. le.  are  yet  possessed  of  sufficient  culture,  and  intelligent  interest  in  sacred 
things,  to  dispose  and  enable  them  to  pn.lit  by  works  in  which  I. ib !i.-al  subjects 
are  handled  in  the  light  of  modern  learning  and  research,  if  not.  overloaded  with 
scholastic  forms  of  expression,  or  entering  into  very  minute  and  lengthened  investi 
gations.  To  a  certain  extent,  and  as  regards  all  the  greater  topics  and  interests  of 
the  Bilile.  the  wants  of  >uch  persons  do  not  materially  dilf.-r  from  those  of  a  vast 
proportion  of  the  ministers  of  the  gospel,  who  with  limited  resources,  and  with 
comparatively  lilt  It:  time  for  independent  research  and  continuous  study,  require  to 
have  at  command  a  store-house  of  knowledge  on  biblical  subjects  in  a  compendious 
form.  And  in  an  age  like  the  present,  in  which  knowledge  generally  is  so  much 
increased,  in  which  also  speculation  in  divine  things  is  so  rife,  and  weapons  are  so 
busily  plied  within  as  well  as  without  the  pale  of  the  visible  Church  to  undermine 
the  foundations  and  pervert  the  teaching  of  the  Word  of  Cod,  it  is  of  the  greatest 
moment  that  helps  of  the  kind  now  indicated  should  be.  amply  provided— such 
helps  especially  as  combine  with  the  fruits  of  enlightened  and  careful  inquiry  sound 
principles  of  Scriptural  interpretation,  and  are  not  too  voluminous  or  expensive  to 
be  accessible  to  an  extensive  circle  of  readers. 

It  was  with  such  views  and  aims  that  this  ]l]\>l>'-l)\ct'nn><iv >j  was  undertaken, 
and  has  been  carried  out ;  and  with  reference  to  these  it  ought  to  be  judged.  It 
were  vain,  however,  to  expect  that  it  could  preserve  throughout  a  method  equally 
appropriate  to  one  and  all  of  its  readers.  Embracing  such  a  manifold  variety  ot 


topics,  and  topics  that  stand  feinted  to  such  distant  clinics  and  remote  ages,  it  could 
scarcely  fail  that,  in  the  hands  even  of  a  single  writer,  some  articles  would  run  out 
to  points  that  may  seem  to  a  class  needlessly  minute,  others  bearing  too  much  the 
impress  of  a  learned  antiquarianisrn,  or  an  argumentative  theology ; -and  with  the, 
employment  of  a  number  of  writers  the  probability  that  such  may  occasionally 
happen  naturally  becomes  greater.  It  should  not,  therefore,  excite  any  surprise,  if 
articles  on  certain  subjects  should  be  found  which  will  scarcely  be  interesting,  or  in 
some  parts  altogether  intelligible,  except  to  those  who  have  made  biblical  learning 
their  proper  study.  The  work  would  not  accomplish  its  purpose,  without  grappling 
with  the  questions  and  the  difficulties  which  inevitably  require  articles  of  such  a 
description — while  still  it  will  be  found  that  they  form  no  great  proportion  of  the 
whole,  and  that  the  work  in  its  general  tenor  and  substance  is  adapted  to  the  use 
of  persons  who  have  enjoyed  a  good  ordinary  education. 

Above  all  other  books  the  Bible  stands  pre-eminent  for  its  profoundly  ethical 
character  and  aim;  keeping  constantly  in  view,  amid  all  its  variety  of  matter  and 
form,  the  high  purposes  of  a  revelation  from  heaven.  This  it  has  been  the  endeavour 
also  of  the  writers  of  this  work  to  bear  in  mind,  convinced  that  no  defence  or  elucida 
tion  of  Scripture  will  adequately  serve  its  purpose,  apart  from  an  insight  into  the 
spiritual  design  as  well  as  the  supernatural  character  of  revelation.  The  work,  there- 
tore,  is  based  on  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred  volume,  as  the  unerring  record  of  God's 
mind  and  will  to  men;  and  while  it  does  not  needlessly  obtrude,  yet  neither  does 
it  evade,  the  topics  which  more  peculiarly  distinguish  it  as  such  a  revelation;  it 
takes  them  in  their  proper  order,  as  forming  an  integral  and  essential  part  of  the 
volume  which  it  has  for  its  object  to  explain  and  vindicate.  In  the  lives,  also,  of 
the  more  prominent  actors  in  sacred  history  respect  has  commonly  been  had  to  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  their  course,  and  the  relations  they  respectively  held  to  the 
higher  purposes  of  the  divine  administration.  The  method,  no  doubt,  carries  with 
it  certain  difficulties  and  perils:  for  in  the  present  divided  state  of  Christendom  it 
is  impossible  to  traverse  thus  the  wide  domain  of  Scripture  without  occasionally 
striking  on  the  cherished  convictions  of  some  most  intelligent  and  conscientious 
believers.  It  should  be  enough,  in  such  a  case,  if  no  needle**  offence  is  given  (as 
none  such,  it  is  hoped,  will  be  found  here);  for  it  were  an  unworthy  compromise, 
and  unlike  the  spirit  of  the  Bible,  for  the  sake  of  a  few  minor  differences  to  practise 
a  general  reserve  on  the  great  themes  of  salvation,  and  treat  the  several  parts  of 
revelation  merely  as  the  component  items  or  accidental  accompaniments  of  an 
external  and  lifeless  framework. 

In  the  carrying  out  of  such  a  plan  it  will  be  understood  there  is  at  once  a  general 
and  an  individual  responsibility— the  one  that  of  the  Editor,  the  other  that  of  the 
several  contributors.  The  Editor  is  responsible  for  whatever  may  be  said  to  bear  on 
the  professed  scope  and  distinctive  principles  of  the  undertaking:  the  blame  is  his 
if  anything  should  appear  at  variance  with  the  divine  character  and  teaching  of 
Scripture,  inconsistent  with  the  great  principles  of  truth  and  duty,  or  palpably 
defective  and  erroneous  in  the  discussion  even  of  comparatively  common  topics. 
But  within  these  limits  each  writer  is  responsible  for  his  own  contributions;  and  as 
it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  every  article  should  bear  the  stamp  of  its  author's 
vein  of  thought  and  untrammelled  convictions,  so  there  may  be  occasional  expres 
sions  of  opinion,  and  occasional  interpretations  of  texts,  to  which  the  Editor  does 


I'EEFACK.  vii 

not  hold  himself  committed ;  as  there  may  be  also  in  his  own  portions  of  the  work 
certain  things  in  which  sonic-  of  his  fellow-labourers  will  lie  inclined  to  differ  from 
him.  But  such  differences,  he  is  convinced,  are  comparatively  lew,  and  form  no 
serious  abatement  on  the  prevailing  concord  of  sentiment. 

The  subjects  formally  treated  are  such  as  strictly  belong  to  a  dictionary  of  the 
Bible;  but  tor  the  sake  partly  of  convenience,  and  partly  on  account  of  references 
frequently  made  to  them  in  discussions  on  the  Bible,  the  books  and  some  of  the 
more  prominent  characters  of  the  Apocrypha  are  brieHy  noticed.  The  remarkable 
sect  ot  the  EsSEXES,  also,  belongs  to  the  same  class.  The  names  of  persons  and  of 
subjects  generally  an-,  with  few  exceptions,  given  as  they  appeal-  in  our  English 
Bible;  and  when  they  happen  to  ditler  from  the  form  found  in  the  original  text, 
such  differences  are  carefully  noted  at  the  beginning,  or  in  the  course  of  the  article. 
As  a  rule,  \vlieneveranythiiig  depends  on  the  precise  phraseology  of  the  original, 
the  original  itself  is  adduced.  There  are,  however,  certain  subjects  in  respect  to 
which  the  UMial  designation-  in  our  Engli.»h  Bible  are  either  not  sufficiently  definite, 
or  have  now  been  commonly  supplanted  by  others;  Mich  as  1  >i:<  ALOCJUE,  DKLI'CK, 
HADES,  PALESTIM:,  I'EXTATKIVH,  SANHEDRIM,  which  are  fitter  expressions  for  the 
subjects  requiring  to  be  handled  under  them  than  any  to  be  found  in  our  English 
Scriptures,  and  they  have  a'-coi-dinL;'l\'  been  adopted. 

All  the  names  of  persons  and  places  contained  in  the  Bible,  it  is  expected,  will 
be  found  in  this  Dtdionti.ri/;  but  with  a  view  to  economy  of  space,  and  a  conse 
quent  saving  ot  expeii-e.  a  considerable  number  of  names  of  persons,  of  whom 
nothing  particular  is  known,  which  appeal1  only  in  groups  or  genealogies,  and  some 
also  ol  the  more  obscure  place-.,  have  been  <_dven  only  in  an  Appendix,  with  a  refer 
ence  to  the  passage  or  passages  where  the  names  occur.  The  line  betwixt  these,  and 
certain  others  which  have  found  a  place  in  the  body  of  the  work  is  at  times  cer 
tainly  a  somewhat  indetinite  one;  a  few.  it  is  possible,  might  without  disadvantage, 
some  may  even  think  with  propriety,  have  changed  places;  but  the  number  of  such 
cannot  be  very  many.  A  second  Appendix  or  Index  has  been  prepared  of  the 
text-  which  have  received  incidental  illustration  in  the  course  of  the  work.  In 
this  li-t  such  texts  only  are  included  as  have  had  some  light  thrown  on  their 
meaning,  and  of  these  only  such  as  are  le—  immediately  connected  with  the  sub 
jects  under  which  they  occur,  not  texts  merely  referred  to,  or  those  which  every 
considerate  reader  might  see  to  be  necessarily  involved  in  the  treatment  of  tho>e 
subjects.  Iloth  lists  have  been  prepared  by  the  Key.  Sinclair  Manson. 

1  he  Editor  desires  at  the  close  of  his  labours  to  acknowledge  his  great  obliga 
tions  to  the  gentlemen  who  have  lent  him  their  valuable  and  hearty  en-operation. 
To  some  he  is  more  peculiarly  indebted,  having  respectively  taken  an  entire  series 
of  subjects,  relating  to  specific  departments;  in  particular,  the  Rev.  E.  A.  Litton, 
who,  along  with  some  kindred  topics,  has  discoursed  of  the  life  and  epistles  of 
St.  Paul:  the  Rev.  J)r.  Hamilton,  and  Mr.  P.  II.  (Josse.  who  have  respectively  charged 

%J  O 

themselves  with  tin-  botanical  and  the  zoological  departments;  and  Professors  Weir. 
Douglas,  and  Eadie,  who  have  each  furnished  a  considerable  variety  of  articles  on 
topics  relating  to  the  ( )ld  Testament.  Similar  mention  should  also  be  made  of  the  chief 
writers  of  the  more  elaborate  topographical  articles — Dr.  Bonar.  the  Rev.  E.  Wilton, 
the  Rev.  .).  Rowlands— -who  have  enriched  the  work  with  the  results  of  much 
personal  observation,  painstaking  research,  and  discriminating  study,  in  connection 

i  o  o  «.'   ' 


viii  PREFACE. 

with  a  large  number  of  places  (some  of  less,  some  of  greater  note).  Mainly  by  a 
growing  fulness  and  particularity  in  this  class  of  subjects  has  the  work  come  to 
exceed  tin-  dimensions  originally  intended;  but  this  enlargement  will,  it  is  hoped, 
be  found  amply  compensated  by  the  increased  interest  and  value  imparted  by  such 
contributions.  Mr.  Wilton  was  suddenly  cut  off  in  the  midst  of  his  labours;  but 
not  without  having  done  good  service  both  here  and  in  his  separate  treatise  (The 
Xc'jch,  or  tfonth  Con  at  I';/  «>f  ^cr/jttu/'Cj  in  vindicating  the  minute  accuracy  and 
truthfulness  of  Scripture.  Two  other  fellow-labourers,  it  may  be  added,  have  been 
called  to  their  rest  before  this  work  has  reached  its  completion — the  Rev.  John 
Macdonald  and  Professor  Lindsay. 

All  the  articles — except  those  for  which  the  Editor  is  himself  responsible — are 
marked  at  the  close  by  the  initials  of  the  several  writers.  He  would  willingly  have 
had  more  with  these,  so  that  less  (especially  in  the  earlier  part)  might  have  devolved 
upon  himself.  He  owes,  however,  to  his  friend  and  colleague  Professor  Douglas, 
beside  manv  contributions  on  Old  Testament  subjects,  the  greater  part  of  the  minor 
articles,  not  initialed,  in  letter  B.  Two  articles,  it  will  be  observed,  are  from  the 
pens  of  continental  contributors — those  on  the  books  of  Isaiah  and  Psalms — and  this 
chieflv  on  account  of  the  extent  to  which  these  peculiar  and  very  precious  portions 
of  Old  Testament  Scripture  have  been  subjected  by  the  rash  speculations  and 
disturbing  criticism  of  German  theologians.  It  seemed  most  for  the  benefit  of  the 
work  (besides  serving  as  a  pleasing  link  of  connection  between  home  and  foreign 
labourers  in  the  same  great  field)  that  those  portions  should  be  handled  by  persons 
who,  from  their  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  theological  literature  of  their 
country,  and  their  own  personal  eminence  in  connection  with  it,  might  be  considered 
in  a  special  manner  qualified  to  do  justice  to  the  subjects.  Such,  beyond  doubt,  are 
Professors  Delitzsch  and  Oehler. 

Very  particular  attention  has  been  given  to  the  illustrations,  which  include 
representations  of  the  plants  and  animals  mentioned  in  Scripture,  its  more  notable 
scenes  and  places,  eastern  garbs  and  manners,  and  the  remains  of  ancient  skill  and 
handicraft,  whether  as  connected  with  domestic,  social,  or  religious  life,  in  Palestine 
and  the  surrounding  countries.  Maps  also  and  plans,  of  a  convenient  form  and 
carefully  executed,  have  been  interspersed  to  illustrate  the  topography  of  some 
special  localities.  In  addition  to  such  pictorial  helps,  a  series  of  views  representing 
some  of  the  places  which  the  Bible  narrative  has  invested  with  peculiar  interest, 
accompanies  the  work. 

No  one  who  has  had  any  experience  in  the  practical  management  of  such  a  work 
can  need  to  be  told  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  preventing  occasional  omissions  and 
slips  of  a  minor  kind  from  creeping  in.  Besides  a  few  errata  given  elsewhere, 
including  the  ascription  to  Professor  Porter  of  a  particular  view  respecting  Bozra, 
a  few  subjects  (DiLL,  SPOIL,  TYPE,  WATER,  WILD  VINE)  were  by  some  oversight 
omitted  in  their  proper  places.  They  will  be  found  in  a  brief  Supplement,  along 
with  an  article  on  KSHTAOL,  left  in  writing  by  Mr.  Wilton,  which  from  its  relation 
to  ZORAH  (also  prepared  by  him,  and  inserted  in  its  proper  place)  it  has  been  thought 
advisable  to  preserve. 

PATK.    FA1RBAIRN,    D.D. 


LIST    OF    THE    WRITERS, 


WITH    THE    INITIALS    AFFIXED    TO    T II E I  It    ARTICLES. 


The  articles  written,  b>/  the  Editor  have  no  initials  attached. 


ARNOLD,  RKV.  J.  MUEHLEISEX,   H.D.,  J.M.  A. 

Author  of  "  English  Criticism  and  the  IVnta- 
teuch,"  "History  of  the  Rise  anil  Progress  oi 
Islamism,"  ic. 

ARTHUR,   RKV.   WILLIAM,   M.A W.  A. 

Author  of  "The  Tongue  of  Fire,"  "  A  Mission 
t)  the  Mysore,"  ic.  ;  Member  of  the  Royal 
Asiatic  Society,  Fellow  of  the,  Ethnological  So 
ciety. 

AYRE,   RKV.  JOHN,  M.A J.A. 

Of  Gonville  ami  Cains  Collect',  Cambridge; 
author  of  "  The  Treasury  of  Bible  Knowledge,'1 


RONAR,  RKV.   HORATIUS,   n.n H.  15. 

Authorof  "The  I.an.lof  Promise,"  "The  Desert 
of  Sinai, "ic. 

BONOMI,  JOSEPH,   K.  K.S.I..,  J.  I',. 

Authorof  "Nineveh  ami  its  Palaces,"  \c. 

BUCHANAN,    Ri:v.    ROBERT.    D.D.,  .  K.I'.. 

Author  of  "  Ecclesiastcs:  Its  Meaning  ami  its 
Lessons,"  "A  Clerical  Furlough  in  the  Holy 
Land,"  ALC. 

CHRISTMAS,  RKV.  HENRY,  M.A.,  K.H.S.,    H.  C     s. 

Author  of  "Sin:  Its  Causes  amlConseiiueiiiv.-." 
"Echoes  of  the  Universe,"  \.v 

CONSTABLE.    RKV.    IIKXRY.    M.A H.C. 

Prebemlarj"  of  Cork;  author  of  the  opening 
Essay  in  "  Gold  and  the  GOSIK-!,"  "  Kssays,  Cri- 
tical  and  Theological."  ic. 

DAVIDSON,   RKV.   A.   H.,   .M.A A.  B.  D. 

Professor  of  Hebrew,  New  College.  Kdinl.urgh; 
author  of  "A  Commentary  on  the  Book  of 
Job." 

.DELITZSCH,  DK.   FRANZ...  .  F.  D. 

Professor  of  Theology,  Erlangen;  authorof  Com 
mentaries  on  Habakkuk,  Genesis,  Psalms,  Bib- 
lische  Psychologie,  &c. 

D1CKSON,  RKV.    WILLIAM    P.,  u.n W.  1>.  D. 

Professor  of  Divinity  and  Biblical  Criticism, 
University  of  Glasgow. 

DOUGLAS,  RKV.   (iKOROK  C.  M., G.C.  M.D. 

Professor  of  Hebrew,  Free  Church  College, 
Glasgow,  and  Examiner  in  Mental  Philosophy 
for  graduation  in  Arts  in  the  University  of 
Glasgow. 


DREW,   RKV.  t;.  S.,  M.A., G.S.D. 

IiicunilH'iit  of  St.  -Barnabas,  South  Kenning- 
ton  ;  author  of  "Scripture  Lands  in  Connec 
tion  with  their  History,"  "  Revealed  Economy 
of  Heaven  and  Earth,"  ic. 

KADIK,   KKV.  JollX,  n.n.,  I.I..P J.  E. 

Professor  ,,f  Theology,  United  Presbyterian 
Church:  author  of  Commentaries  on  St.  Paul's 
F.pi.-tles  to  the  Ephesians,  Philiji]>ians,  and 
Colossians. 

FA1-DIXO,   KKV.  F.  J.,  n.n..  M.A..     .          F.J.F. 

Principal  of  Kotherham  College,  Yorkshire. 

FREW.   RKV.   ROBERT,  n.n R.  F. 

Editor  of  "  Barnes'  Notes  on  the  New  Testament." 

(ilRDLESTOXE,    RKV.    R.    BAKER...  R.  KG. 

Author  of  "Tin-  Anatomy  of  Scepticism." 

cossK.   PHILIP  HENRY,   F.K.S.,.  IMI.G. 

Torquay. 

HAMILTON,   KKV.  JAMKS,  n.n.,  K.I..S J.H. 

Authorof  "Life  in  Earnest,"  "The  Mount  of 
olives,"  &c. 

11EXI)ERSOX.    REV.  JAMES.   n.D J.He. 

Minister  of  Free  St.  Enoch's  Church,  Glasgow. 

HUNTER.   RKV.   ROBERT.  It.  H. 

Formerly  Missionary  in  India. 

JENXIXtiS.    RKV.    ISAAC.  I.J. 

Authorof  "Primitive  Itomanism,"  \c. 

KING,   RKV.    DAVID,   I.K.D .D.K. 

Authorof  "  Principles  of  Geology  in  Relation  to 
Religion,"  "A  Treatise  on  the  Lord's  Supper," 
A:c. 

LAUGHTON,  RKV.  WILLIAM.  \V.  L. 

Ministerof  Free  St.  Thomas'  C'hurch,  Greenock. 

LINDSAY,   RKV.   WILLIAM,  n.n., \V.L-y. 

Professor  of  Theology,  United  Presbyterian 
church;  authorof  "An  Jmiuiry  into  the  Law 
of  Christian  Marriage,"  &c. 

LITTON,    RKV.    EDW.   ARTHUR,   M.A.,...  E.  A.  L. 

Rector  of  Naunton.  Gloucestershire  ;  late  Fel 
low  of  Oriel:  examining  Chaplain  to  the  Lord 
Bishop  of  Durham;  authorof  "The  Church  of 
( 'hrist,"  "A  Guide  to  the  Study  of  Holy  Scrip 
ture,"  Sac. 

I, 


LIST   OF   THE    WRITERS. 


LORIMEE,   REV.  PETER,  D.D., P.  L. 

Professor  of  Theology  and  Hebrew,  Knglish 
Presbyterian  College,  London;  author  of  "Pa 
trick  Hamilton,"  "The  [Scottish  Reformation,'' 


PATOX,   REV.  JOHX  BROWN,  M.A.,  ....  J.B.P. 

Principal  of  the  Congregational  Institute  for 
Theological  and  Missionary  Training,  Notting 
ham. 


MACDOXXELL,  YEUY  RKV.  J.  C.,  D.D.,    J.  C.  M. 
Deanof  Cashel;  author  of  "  Donellan  Lectures 
for  1357. 

MAYO,  KEY.  ('HAS.   THEOPORK,  M.A.,  ('.  T.  M. 

Incumbent  of  llillinpleii.  near  Uxbridire 


SAYILE,  RKV.  P,.  WREY.  M.A., B.  W.  S. 

Author  of  "The  Introduction  of  Christianity 
into  Britain,''  \c 

SCOTT,   KEY.   THOMAS,   M.A T.  S. 

Rector  of  Wappenham,  Northamptonshire. 


MILLIGAX,   REV.   WILLIAM.   D.D W.  M. 

Professor  of  Divinity  and  Ciblieal  < 'riticism. 
University  of  Aberdeen. 

MILLS,  KKV.  JOHX.  F.K.G.S.,  M.R.A.S -I.  M. 

Author  of  "Xablous  and  tlu1  Modern  Samari 
tans,"  "The  British  .lews/'ic.;  Secretary  of  the 
Syro-Kgyiitian  Society,  and  of  the  Anglo-'Kibli- 
cal  Institute. 

MI'RPHY,    KEY.   JAMES  O.,  LL.D.   Trin. 

Collo.L'o.  Dnl.lin J.  (Jr.  M. 

Professor  of  Oriental  Languages,  Presbyterian 
College,  Belfast ;  author  of  "Critical  and  E\v- 
getical  Commentary  on  Genesis,  "on  "Kxodus," 
' 


OKIILER,  GUST.  FR..  DR.  Theol. 

Professor,  University  of  Tiibingen. 


SMEATOX,  REV.  GEORGE, G.  S. 

Professor    of    Tlieolotry,    New   College.     K.Iin- 
burgh. 

SMITH.   .IAMKS,   I.K.S..   ,,f  Jordan  hill J.  S. 

Author  of  "  A  Treatise  on  the  Voyage  and  Ship 
wreck  of  St.  Paul." 

WEBSTER.  REV.  WILLIAM.  M.A., W.W. 

Joint  author  of  "Grammatical  and  Kxegetical 
Notes  on  the  New  Testament." 

WEIR.  REV.  DUXCAX  TL,  D.U., D.H.W. 

Professor  of  Hebrew,  University  of  Glasgow; 


LIST   OF   THE   ENGRAVINGS   ON   STEEL 


VOL    J. 


TUN  1  i  l:                             I.N(.KA\  Kl..  I'Al.! 

r>KTHi.K.HEM.  (Frontispiece).  \\".   I,,  Leiteh       \\'.  Millet 

A.VTIocn     IN    SYKIA...                                                                                                           II.    Warren              \\'.    Millel         .  !l!l 

ATHENS \V.   L.   LeiU-h       \V.  Kiehards.m  i:,l 

Tin:  UriNs  OK  C.ESAKEA Sam.  j;,,u-l,  ...  ,\V.  Kifluinls.in  iMii 

TIIK  TOWN  AND   ISTHMTS  OK  Ci.iuNTH.  iVoiu  the  Acn i|,, ,'i- s.-tiii.  Muu-li..       \V.  ."Miller..  ;;.VJ 

UAMASCI-S,..                                                                              ...W.  'n-lliin .1.  11.  Kmiut  :«i:; 

ANCIK.NT  Ki-iiKsrs  -restored.                                                               .}•].  Falkenci A\".  Ki.-iiardson  r.L'7 

THK  SKA  OF   UALILKE,  from  near  the  Ruins  of  .Saphet. .                Aaron  Peuley   ..\V.  Itic'lianlson  r,17 

HK.r.KON.  .                                                                                                                  ..H.  (1.  Scions  ..    S.    Mrad-haw  7LM 

.TERrsAl.EM,  from  the  Mount  of  Olives,  .                                      ....H.  "Warren          W.  ."Miller..  s7^' 

I'I.AN     JERUSALEM,  Ancient  ami  Modern,  .                                                                ..I.  l)artlioloine\\  s7ii 

SCKNI.    ON    THK.    KlVKK    .JoIiDAN,                                                                             . .  ..SlUll.  liollgh W.   Kieliardsoll  '.».")( I 


ERRATA.— VOL.  I. 


Page  '2:!,  column  l>,  l::tli  line  from  top,/o/'  ACIISATII,  rnnl  ACIISHAPH. 

,,  133,  column  ",  1.0th  line  from  bottom, /"</•  Arnon  ran!  Aroer. 

.,  '234,  column  </,  -4th  line  from  top,  /'<//•  Porter,  ,-i<"l  Kosenmuller. 

,,  404,  column  «,  -dth  line  from  bottom, /o/1  Ge.  xxxvi.  4,  ,-nnl  Ge.  xxxvi.  II. 

,.  .001,  column  o.  .3d  lino  from  bottom, /b/1  1  Cli.  vi.  21,  /Y<W  1  Cli.  vi.  '-IT. 

.,  .'.li'),  column  a,  llith  line  from  top./')/1  1  Cli.  ii.  '21,  i-«<<l  1  Hi.  ii.  41. 

.,  .01(1,  column  ').  ilth  line  from  top,  fr>;-  wives,  read  sons. 

,,  043,  column  n.  27th  line  from  top,  />>/•  1  Ch.  vi.  14,  ;-.Y!</  1  Cli.  vi.  14. 

.,  093,  column  a,  4th  line  from  top, />»•  ver.  i!,  rer/il  ver.  7. 

,,  7(17,  column  a,  '23d  line  from  bottom,  for  P".  cxxviii.,  /rrc/  Ps.  cxviii 

,,  814,  column  >/,  17th  line  from  bottom,  for  Abitibii,  /•"•«'  Asahel. 

..  070,  column  '<,  -20tli  line  from  bottom,  /'-//•  [\v.  I,.],  irrnJ  f\v.  i.— y.  ! 


THE     IMPERIAL 

1J1BLE-DICT10XARY 


A. 

AA'RON  [properly  A/nti'mi.  but  derivation  and  tered  on  the  edge  of  the  desert  with  the  forces  of 
lueanin-  unknown],  the  brother  ,,f  Moses,  and  the  fi,-t  Amalek,  Aamn  again  stood  beside  Moses  in  the  same 
high-priest  ammi-  the  Israelites.  He  was  the  eldest  brotherly  and  subordinate  relation  he  and  Hnr  bear- 
son  of  Amram  and  Jnchehed.  both  of  the  tribe  of  Levi.  ing  up  together  the  hand-  of  the  man  of  Cod.  with  his 
and  of  the  mn-t  honourable  family  of  that  tribe;  for.  md  pointing  to  heaven,  in  token  of  their  dependence 
on  the  occasion  of  a  contest  among  the  tribes  as  to  on  the  aid  of  the  Most  High,  and  their  acknowledgment 
ri-hts  and  privileges,  when  each  tribe  had  to  be  rcpre-  of  Moses  as  the  special  ambassador  of  Heaven.  Kx.  xvii. 

sented  by  its  proper  head,  the  tril f    Levi  was  repre-  0.      Aamn.    however,    was    not  always  so   steadfa.-t   in 

sented  bv  Aamn.  Nu.  xvii.  3.      He  was  three  years  older  thus  adhering  to  his  place  and  calling ;  and,  like  many 

thanMoses,  Ex.  vii.7,  and  appears  to  have  l>een  born  either  who  are   fitted   by  nature   for  acting  only  a  secondary 

before  the  cruel  edict  of  Phanmh  was  issued  respecting  part,  he  was  too   easily  nmved  by  the   circumstances   nf 

the  destruction  nf  the  male  children  nf  the  Israelite-,  or  the  nmmeiit.      This  appeared  especially  on  the  occasion 

l>ef ore  families  were  brought  into  much  distress  by  its  nf   the   general   apostasy,  which  took   place  during  the 

operation.     We  kimw  imthin-  nf   Aaron's  earlier  his  j  absence  of   Moses  on  the  mount,  and  when  the  people 

tory.   excepting  that   he   married   Elisheba,  one  nf  the  prevailed  on  Aaron  to  make  for  them  a  molten  image. 

daughters  of  Amminadab.    ..f   the   tribe  of   .ludah.  by  The  elder  Jewish  writers  have  laboured  hard  to  vindi- 

whrnn  he  had  four  sons.  N'adab,    Abihu.    Klea/.ar,   and  cate  Aaron  from  the  charge  of  idolatry  on  this  unhappy 

Ithamar.  Ex.  vi.  23;  but   fmm  the  time   that   the  divine  occasion.      He  yielded,  some  nf  them  have  alleged,  to 

jmrpnse  to  deliver  Israel  fmm  the  yoke  of  K-ypt  he -an  the  people's  wishes  in  the  matter,  only  that  he-   might 

to  take  effect.  Aaron  -t 1  next  to  Moses  in  the  trans-  prevent  their  perpetrating  the  greater  crime  of  laying 

actions  that  led  to  its  accomplishment.      He  had  even,  violent  hands  on  himself,  in  ease  he  had  resisted  their 

it  would  seem,  set  out  to  consult  with  Moses   upon  the  importunate  demands;   others,    that  he  might  protract 

subject  before  the  deliverer  a] i] »-ared    upon   the   Held  of  the  business  till  Moses  should  return  and  am  -t  its  exe- 

contlict  :   f-«r   Mose.-  was   informed    bv  the    Lord   at   the  eution  ;   and    others   still,    again,  that   he   might  render 

burning  bu.-h   that  his   brother   Aamn   was  already  on  the  apostasy  less  complete,  by  proclaiming  a  festival  to 

tl,,.   NV:ly   to   i -t  him.   Kx.  iv   11       He  was   then   eighty-  Jehovah,   under  the  symbol  of   the   calf,  not  to   the  calf 

three  years  old.  and  it  says  much  at  least  for  his  alac-  itself   iP.ochart.  ll',,r.,s.   \.    ii.   c.    34).      Put  we  find   no 

ritv  of   spirit,  and    for  thi-  general  vigour  of  his   frame,  such  palliations  of  his  conduct    in   Scripture.      With  its 

that,    at    so    advanced   an  age.    he  should    have    been  wonted    and    stern    impartialitv    it   represents   him    as 

ready  to  make  common  cause  with  his  brother  in  such  having  contributed  to  bring  a  great  sin  upon  the  people, 

a  vast  and  perilous  undertaking.  and  made  them  naked  to  their  shame  before  their  ene- 

Tn  the  w,,rk  (-f  deliverance  itself,  as  in  the  important  mies,  Kx.  xxxii. 21-25.      Moses  even  speaks  of  having  made 

transactions  that  followed,  the  part  assign,  d  to  Aaron,  ,  his  sin  the  subject  of  .special  intercession,  as  being  one 

tliou-h  inferior  to  that  of   Moses,  was  one  of  high  con-  '  of  peculiar  aggravation,  Uo.ix.20.      It  was  not,  however, 

sideration  and  great  influence.      As  Moses  stood  in  the  '.  that  Aamn  prompted,  or  in  any  proper  respect  headed 

room  of  Cod.  issuing  from  time  to  time  the  orders  of  the  apostasy  ;  hut  only  that  he  showed  himself  too  facile 

Heaven,   so   Aamn   stood   in  the  room  of   Moses,  and  ;  in  giving  way  to  the  evil,  instead  of  using  the  authority 

acted  as  his   prophet  or  spokesman  to   make  known  to  ]  and  influence  he  possessed  to  withstand  it.      Such,  too, 

Pharaoh  what   Moses   put   into  his  mouth,  Kx.  iv.  il-ic,;  -  appears  to  have  been  the   part  he  acted  on  the  next  oc- 

vii.1,2.     For  tins  office,  it  is  intimated,  he  was  specially  casion   of   backsliding,    when,  along  with  Miriam,   he 

qualified  on  account  of  his  natural  fluency  of  speech,  a  '  yielded  to  a  spirit  of  envy  against  Moses,  and  reproached 

talent  in  which  his  more  gifted  brother  was  peculiarly  ;  him,  both  for  having  married  an  Ethiopian  woman  and 

deficient.      When  the  terrible  conflict  with  the  king  of  for  assuming  too  much  to  himself.  Nu.xii.      Miriam  was 

Egypt  was  over,  and  a  fresh  straggle  had  to  be  encoun-  j  plainly  the  ringleader  in  this  more,  private  outbreak. 

Vol..    I.  ^ 


A  AEON 


A  Al  KJX 


since  slit:  is  both  mentioned  first,  and  on  her,  as  tin; 
more  guilty  party,  the  special  judgment  of  Heaven 
conies  <io\vii. 

The  only  other  occasion  on  which  Aaron  is  charged 
with  open  transgression  was  at  that  feai-ful  tumult 
which  arose  in  the  desert  of  Zin,  on  account  of  (lie  want 
of  water,  and  which  overcame  even  the  stronger  faith 
and  more  patient  endurance  of  Moses,  Nu.  xx.i-13.  (Hue 
MOSES.)  It  betrayed  a  failure,  if  not  in  the  principle 
of  faith,  at  least  in  its  calm  and  persistent  exercise. 
And,  happening  as  it  did  at  a  comparatively  late  period 
in  the  wilderness  sojourn,  and  too  palpably  indicating 
an  imperfect  sanctification  in  the  two  leaders,  they  were, 
partly  on  their  own  account,  and  partly  as  a  solemn 
lesson  to  others,  alike  adjudged  to  die,  without  being 
permitted  to  enter  the  promised  land.  Still,  notwith 
standing  such  occasional  failures.  Aaron  was  undoubt 
edly,  for  the  period,  a  man  of  distinguished  excellence 
and  worth,  and  is  fitly  designated  ''the  saint  of  the 
Lord,"  r.s.  t-\i.  10.  In  his  appointment  to  the  sacred  and 
honourable  office  of  high-priest,  we  may  as  little  doubt 
that  respect  was  had  to  his  habitual  piety,  as  there  was 
to  the  peculiar  gifts  and  qualifications  of  .Moses  in  liis 
destination  to  the  work  of  mediator  and  deliverer.  As 
high-priest,  the  privilege  belonged  to  Aaron  of  drawing 
near  to  Cod,  and  ministering  in  his  immediate  presence 
-  a  privilege  which  emphatically  required  the  possession 
of  holiness  in  him  who  enjoyed  it.  This  was  symboli 
cally  represented  in  the  manifold  rites  of  sacrifice, 
washing,  and  anointing,  through  which  he  received 
consecration  to  the  oifice,  Le.viii.  ix.  (Sec  J'UIKST.')  The 
hallowed  dignity  of  the  high-priestly  ofiice  of  Aaron, 
great  and  honourable  in  itself,  appears  yet  more  so. 
when  viewed  in  the  typical  relationship  which  it  bore 
to  the  priesthood  of  Christ.  There  were  certain  obvious 
differences  between  them,  and  in  these  difi'erences  marks 
of  inferiority  on  the  part  of  Aaron  and  his  successors 
in  oitice,  which  it  became  necessary  to  render  prominent 
in  Xew  Testament  scripture,  on  account  of  the  mis 
taken  and  extravagant  views  entertained  regarding  the 
religion  of  the  old  covenant  by  the  pharisaieal  Jews  of 
later  times.  For  this  reason,  the  priesthood  of  Melchi- 
zedec  had  to  be  exalted  over  the  priesthood  of  Aaron, 
as  foreshadowing  more  distinctly  some  of  the;  higher 
and  more  peculiar  elements  of  the  Messiah's  priestly 
function,  lie.  vii.  But  there  still  was  both  a  closer  and 
a  more  varied  relation  between  the  priesthood  of 
Aaron  and  that  of  Christ.  For  it  was  a  priesthood 
exercised  in  immediate  connection  with  the  tabernacle, 
which  the  Lord  had  himself  planned,  and  chosen  for 
his  holy  habitation — a  priesthood  which,  in  every  fea 
ture  of  its  character  and  calling,  in  the  personal  quali 
fications  required  for  it,  the  vestments  worn  by  it,  the 
honours  and  privileges  it  enjoyed,  and  the  whole  train 
of  occasional  as  well  as  of  regular  ministrations  ap 
pointed  for  its  discharge,  had  a  divinely  ordained  respect 
to  the  better  things  to  come  in  Christ.  All  were,  in 
deed,  but  shadows  of  these  tetter  things  ;  yet  they  were 
shadows  bearing  throughout  the  form  and  likeness  of 
what  was  hereafter  to  be  revealed.  And  it  cannot  but 
be  regarded  as  a  high  honour  assigned  to  Aaron,  that 
he  should  have  1  cen  constituted  the  head  of  an  order 
which  had  such  lofty  bearings,  and  was  to  find  such  a 
glorious  consummation. 

But  taken  even  in  respect  to  its  more  immediate  re 
lations  and  interests,  there  was  a  not  unnatural  ten 
dency  to  pay  regard  to  the  honour  connected  with  the 


office,  rather  than  to  the  holiness  essential  to  its  proper 
discharge.  And  so  a  formidable  conspiracy,  headed  by 
Korah  (himself  of  the  tribe  of  Levi),  "Dathan,  and 
Abiram,  sprung  into  existence,  on  the  ground  that  the 
members  of  the  congregation  generally  were  holy,  and 
had  an  equal  right  to  draw  near  in  sacred  offices  to  Cod 
with  Aaron  and  Moses,  Nu.  xvi.  The  result  was  the 
destruction  of  those  who  thus  conspired,  by  the  imme 
diate  judgment  of  Cod;  and  occasion  was  also  taken 
from  the  transaction,  by  the  trial  of  the  rods,  to  render 
manifest  the  divine  choice  of  Aaron  to  the  peculiar 
honours  of  the  priesthood,  and  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  to 
the  discharge  of  sacred  functions.  The  almond-rod  of 
each  tribe,  with  the  distinctive  name  inscribed  on  it, 
being  laid  up  before  the  Lord,  the  rod  of  Aaron  alone 
was  found  to  bring  forth  buds,  and  bloom  blossoms,  and 
yield  almonds,  Nu.  xvii. — a  miraculous  sign  that  the 
great  Civer  of  life  and  fruitfulness  was  to  lie  with 
Aaron  and  his  sons  in  their  sacred  ministrations,  but 
not  witli  those  who  should  presume  of  their  own  accord 
to  intermeddle  with  the  functions  of  the  priesthood.  It 
proclaimed  that,  in  this  respect,  as  in  others,  the  divine 
order  must  lie  kept,  if  the  divine  blessing  was  to  be  ex 
perienced;  and  not  a  greater  good  could  be  found  bv 
traversing  it,  but  only  the  loss  of  that  which  might 
otherwise  be  secured.  The  action  of  Aaron  in  the 
midst  of  the  pestilence,  which  broke  out  immediately 
after  the  destruction  of  the  conspirators,  had  even 
already  pointed  in  the  same  direction.  The  people,  it 
is  said,  murmured  against  Moses  and  against  Aaron, 
and  gathered  together  in  a  hostile  attitude  on  the  day 
after  the  destruction  of  Korah  and  his  companv — as  if 
these  two  men  of  Cod  had  been  personally  chargeable 
with  the  evil  that  had  taken  place,  and  had  even  caused 
the  death  of  those  who  perished.  This  was  manifestly 
a  great  aggravation  of  the  guilt  which  had  been  incurred, 
and  was  a  virtual  abetting,  on  the  part  of  the  congre 
gation,  of  the  sin  of  the  rebels,  while  the  brand  of 
Heaven's  condemnation  was  still  fresh  upon  it.  One 
cannot,  therefore,  wonder  that  a  destroying  plague  from 
the  Lord  broke  out  among  the  people;  and  the  plague 
being  stayed,  when,  at  the  command  of  Moses.  Aaron,  as 
the  high-priest,  rushed  forth  with  his  censer,  filled  with 
live  coals  from  the  altar,  and  stood  between  the  living 
and  the  dead,  the  visible  attestation  of  Heaven  was 
given  to  the  acceptance  and  worth  of  his  priotly  inter 
cession,  Nu.  xvi.  40,  47. 

The  only  other  circumstance  of  moment  noticed  in 
the  life  of  Aaron  is  one  that  occurred  probably  at  a 
much  earlier  period  than  the  transactions  last  mentioned 
— the  loss,  namely,  he  sustained  in  the  death  of  his  two 
sons,  Xadab  and  A 1  lihn,  who  were  struck  dead  while 
ministering  with  strange  fire  in  the  priest's  office,  i.e.  x. 
l-.'i.  Aaron  seems  to  have  conducted  himself  with  a 
subdued  and  chastened  spirit  on  the  occasion;  bowed 
down  beneath  the  stroke,  yet  breathing  no  complaint 
against  its  severity.  His  own  death,  which  occurred 
in  the  last  year  of  the  sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  when 
he  was  ]  '2->  years  old.  is  said  in  the  earlier  notices  to 
have  taken  place  on  the  top  of  Mount  Hor,  and  in  the 

later  at    Mosera,   Nu.  xx.  27-29;  xxxih.  3S  ;  coinp.  with  DC.  x.  G. 

This  Mosera,  however,  is  only  to  be  regarded  as  the  name 
of  the  encampment  at  Mount  Hor,  where  the  closing 
scene  occurred.  At  the  command  of  God,  Moses  went 
up  to  the  mount,  accompanied  by  Aaron  and  his  son 
Fleazar,  in  the  sight  of  all  the  congregation;  and  there, 
withdrawn  from  mortal  gaze,  under  the  eye  of  Heaven, 


AARONITES 


and  as  in  the  precincts  of  the  upper  sanctuary  itself.  '  of  the  mountain  ran- 
the  venerable  high-priest  was  "  gathered  to  his  people." 
after  having  yielded  to  Kleazar  the  consecrated  robes 
which  he  had  so  long  worn  as  the  minister  of  the  earthly 


tabernac 


\\ 


d 


cs  of    Aiiti-LibamiSj   bursts  out 

through  a  tremendous  gorge  in  the  hills,  about  two 
miles  to  the  north-west  of  Damascus,  and  rushes  down 
into  the  plain.  The  Pharpar.  which  is  identified  with 


mpres 


impressive  in  tile  very  silence  and  secrecy  that  attended 
it!      Nor  was   it   without  mysterious   meaning  to  the 
people  in  whose   behalf  he  had  ministered  befo 
Lord;  for  by  such   a   veil  being  thrown  around   tl 
cease  of  Aaron,  coupled  with  the  skvev  elevation  where 
it  was  a]. pointed   to   take    place,  on   a  "  heaven- kissing 
hill,"  they  had  the  high-priest  of  their  profession  asso 
ciated  in   their  minds  onlv  with  living  ministrations. 


mity,   and  pursuing 
south   of  the   cit,    s 


its 


Aaron's  Tom!..  Mnuit  llor. 


pro 


his  function,  wlu-n  reaching 
er!  v  expiring,  as  ri.-ing  aloft 


ores 


and  were  taught  to  . 
its  earthly  close,  not 
and  coinmiii'_rling  in 
of  a  higher  region. 

AARONITES,  mentioned  in  1  Ch.  xii.  '-'7,  xxvii. 
17,  were  simply  the  descendants  of  Aaron,  the  meml>ers 
of  the  priesthood. 

AB,  a  late   name,  introduced   after   tl 
Babylon,  for  the  tilth   month  of  the  Jewish  year.      It 
never  occurs  under  this  apix-Hation  iu   Scripture.      (N't1 
MONTH.) 

ABAD'DON.  the  Hebrew  nam 
bottomless  pit  in  Re.  ix.  11   (^-i^t 

to   the   Cn-ek    Apollyon    idTroXXru 

plainly  but   another   name   for    the  prince  of   darkn 

expressing  what  he  is  in   res]  vet  to  tin 

deadly  character  of  the  agencies  he  employs. 

ABA'NA,  a  river  of  Damascus,  -J  Ki.  v.  1:2,  win-re 
it  is  mentioned  along  with  Pharpar.  another  river,  by 
Naaman,  tin-  Syrian  general.  Tin:  name  nowhere  else 


rse    eastward,    and   to   the 
Is  what  remains  of  it  into  the 

the  |  Bahret-Hijaneh  -the  southernmost  of  the  three  lakes 
de-  that  lie  to  the  east  of  Damascus.  That  part  of  the 
plain,  therefore,  in  which  Damascus  lies,  and  the  city 
it-elf,  are  indebted  for  the  ample  sU],|,lv  of  water  they 
enjoy  entirely  to  the  Barada,  whose  endlessly  subdivided 
streams  not  only  lind  their  way  into  every  field  and 

_      irarden  around   the  city,  but   into 

everv  street  and  every  court  of  a 
house  within  the  city  itself.  1'e- 
yond  the  city  its  reunited  waters 
flow  eastwards,  ami  finally  fall 
partly  into  the  Bahrct  es-Shurki- 
ycli.  and  partly  into  the  P.alnvt- 
i  1  Kibliyeh.  other  two  lakes  to 
the  east  of  the  cit\  ."  v  Uuclianan's 
Clerical  l-'nrl>u.<jh.\ 

ABA  RIM.    the 
mountain    chain,    on 
Jordan,  over  against 
of  which  Nebo 
were   so   many 

plural  word,  and  signifies  the  JKIK- 
t"i:/<tf  or  passi  s.  In  De.  \\xii.  II", 
.Mount  Nebo  is  spoken  of  as  be- 
lon'_riii'_;  to  it  :  "<n-t  tln-e  u].  into 
thisiiiountaiu  Ab.irim.  untoMount 
Nebo;"  and  au'ain.  Mount  Nebo 
is  assoeiat'-d  with  I'isu'ah  in  a  way 
that  indicates  the  one  to  have 
I-  en  only  a  hiu'h-  r  elevation  of  the 
;  went  up  from  tin-  plains  of  Moab 
'  Nebo,  to  the  top  of  I'isgah.  that 
rho,"  DC.  xxxiv.  1.  .Mention  is  also 


-.I.-.  Aral.ir  IV-tiv 


sann-  ran-'1  :  "  Mo.-t 
unto  the  mountain  i 
is  over  a-aiiist  .!>•] 


made  in  two  pas-au'es,  Nu.  xxi.  11;  xxxiii  it,  of  Ije-abarim, 
wliich  means  "heaps  of  Al.arim."  j.robal.lv  a  particular 
section  of  the  same  chain.  Tin-  chain  itself  reaches  from 
the  Dead  Sea  eastward  towards  tin-  wilderness,  and  he 
n-turn  from  longed  to  what  were  anciently  the  territories  of  Moab 
and  Amnioii. 

AB'BA.  the  Chaldaic  form  of  the  Hebrew  word  for 
father.  Jn  New  Testament  scripture  it  occurs  in  ad 
dresses  to  ( !od  ;  once  by  ( 'hrist,  Mar.  \iv.  :;r,,  and  twice 
by  tin-  apostle  Paul,  K.J.  \iii.  1.'. ;  (ia  iv.  (i,  coupled  with  the 
(•reek  synonvm  (7rarv)/<>,  as  if  nothing  but  the  familiar 
ami  endean-d  expression  could  adequately  express  tin: 
feelings  of  the  In  art.  In  the  two  passages  referred  to 
pernicious  and  ,',,„„  st.  Paul's  writings,  the  use  of  the  expression  is 
regarded  as  a  mark  of  the  filial  confidence  ami  liberty 
In-longing  to  believers  iii  gosp el  times  --  not,  probably, 
without  some  respect  to  the  ancient  custom  of  forbid 
ding  slaves  to  employ  the  term  in  addressing  their 


for  the  an-el  of  the 
i,  and  correspondin 
-K    tlisti-nii, ,-.      It   is 


occurs  in  Old  Testament  scripture,  nor  is  it  found  in  owners.  And  it  is  remarkable  that  while,  in  Old  Tes- 
any  other  ancient  writings.  It  is  now,  and  has  always  tament  times,  the  Lord  revealed  himself  as  a  father  to 
if  the  chief  felicitii 


been,  one  of  the  chief  felicities  connected  with  the 
natural  situation  of  Damascus,  that  the  town  itself,  and 
the  neighbouring  district,  have-  a  constant  and  copious 
supply  of  water  from  the  rivers  that  flow  through  it. 
The  Abana,  Inung  first  named  in  the  passage  from 
Kings,  is  commonly  identified  with  the  chief  river 
Barada.  "  which,  taking  its  rise  far  away  in  the  heart 


Israel,  even  called  Israel  his  first-born,  and  sometimes 
challenged  them  to  address  him  by  the  corresponding 
title,  as  in  Je.  iii.  -1,  '•  Wilt  thou  not  from  this  time 
crv  unto  me,  Mv  Father,  thou  art  the  guide  of  my 
youth  T'  yet,  in  reality,  the  saints  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment  never  appear  to  have  done  so.  Not  even  in  the 
I'salms,  with  all  the  fulness  and  fervency  of  their  ilevo- 


ABDOX 


ABEL 


tional  breathings,  lines  tho  suppliant  ever  rise  to  the 
true  filial  cry  of  Abba,  Father.  The  spirit  of  bondage 
still,  to  some  extent,  rested  upon  the  soul,  and  repressed 
the  freedom  of  its  intercourse  with  heaven.  The  new 
and  more  filial  spirit  takes  its  commencement  with 
Jesus,  who.  even  at  his  first  appearance  in  the  temple, 
used  the  emphatic  words,  Mi/  Father,  Lii.ii.-u>;  and  in 
all  the  recorded  utterances  of  his  soul  towards  the  sanc 
tuary  above,  excepting  the  cry  of  agony  on  the  cross, 
'•  Mv  God.  my  (Jod,  why  hast  thoii  forsaken  me?" 
constantly  addressed  (Jod  by  the  appellation  of  F.VTHKK, 
Jn.  xi.  41  ;  xii.  'J7,  2*  ;  xvii.  1,  ">,  A-c.  ;  Lu.  xxii.  lii  ;  xxiii.  ,'!4,  40,  &c. 
By  the  ''  ( )ur  i'ather."  also,  at  the  commencement  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  lie  puts  this  endearing  appellation 
into  the  month  of  all  his  disciples,  as  by  the  freedom 
of  access  to  the  holiest,  which  he  provided  for  them  by 
his  blood,  he  rendered  the  use  of  it  suitable  to  their 
condition.  Most  fitly,  therefore,  is  the  Abba,  Father, 
given  by  the  apostle  I'aul,  as  the  distinctive  -symbol  or 
index  of  a  true  Christian  relation. 

AB'DON  [serviceable].  1.  A  city  of  the  tribe  of 
A  slier,  made  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Levites,  and  given 
to  the  families  of  Gershom,  Jos.  xxi.  :;o;  l  Cli.  u.  74. — 2.  The 
name  of  one  of  the  judges  who,  before  the  institution 
of  the  kingdom,  ruled  over  Israel.  He  was  the  son  of 
Hillel,  an  Kphraimite.  and  judged  Israel  for  eight  years, 
Ju.  xii.  i:;-i:>. — 3.  Two  other  persons  are  mentioned  under 
this  name,  of  whom  nothing  particular  is  known, 
1  Cli.  viii.  :ii> ;  x.  30  ;  2  Cli.  xxxiv.  20. 

ABED'NEGO  [the  servant  of  N'cg'.i],  the  name  im 
posed  by  the  officer  of  the  king  of  Babylon  on  Azariah, 
cue  of  l>aniel's  godly  companions,  D:I.  i.  7.  He  is  only 
mentioned  in  connection  with  Shadrach  and  Mcshach, 
who  united  with  him  in  resisting  the  decree  of  Nebu 
chadnezzar  to  worship  his  golden  image,  and  chose 
rather  to  brave  the  appalling  terrors  of  the  fiery  furnace, 
from  which  they  were  miraculously  delivered,  Da.  iv.  L-O. 
(See  NKIJUCHADXKZZAK.  ) 

A'BEL  [t;m2^finess,  vanity],  the  second  son  of  Adam 
and  Kve.  Why  such  a  name  should  have  been  confer 
red  upon  him  we  are  not  told.  Possibly  something  in 
his  personal  appearance  might  have  suggested  the  dero 
gatory  appellation ;  or,  what  is  fully  more  probable, 
this  name,  by  which  he  is  known  to  history,  was  occa 
sioned  by  his  unhappy  fate,  and  expressed  the  feelings 
of  vexation  and  disappointment  which  that  affecting 
tragedy  awakened  in  the  bosoms  of  his  parents.  The 
rather  may  this  explanation  be  entertained,  as  the  name 
in  Abel's  case  is  not,  as  it  was  in  Cain's,  connected  with 
the  birth.  It  is  not  said,  Eve  brought  forth  a  son,  and 
called  him  Abel ;  but,  after  recording  the  birth  of  Cain, 
and  the  reason  of  his  being  so  designated,  the  sacred 
narrative  simply  relates  of  Eve,  "  And  she  again  bare 
his  brother  Abel,"  Go.  iv.  2.  It  was  quite  natural  that 
the  vanity  which  was  so  impressively  stamped  upon 
his  earthly  history  should  have  been  converted  into  his 
personal  designation.  The  notice  of  his  birth  is  imme 
diately  followed  by  that  of  his  occupation  in  after  life : 
he  "  was  a  keeper  of  sheep,"  while  Cain  was  "a  tiller 
of  the  ground" — two  different  lines  of  pursuit,  as  was 
natural  in  the  circumstances ;  but,  so  far  from  present 
ing  any  necessary  antagonism,  fitted  rather  to  co-ope 
rate  and  work  to  each  other's  hands.  Yet  out  of  this 
diversity  of  worldly  pursuit  arose,  it  would  seem,  that 
deadly  strife  which  ended  in  the  murder  of  Abel — it 
furnished  the  incidental  occasion,  though  certainly  not 
the  real  cause  of  the  quarrel.  "  And  in  process  of  time," 


it  is  said,  "Cain  brought  of  the  fruit  of  the  ground  an 
offering  unto  the  Lord.  And  Abel,  he  also  brought  of 
the  firstlings  of  his  flock,  ami  of  the  fat  thereof."  So 
far,  it  might  seem,  all  was  quite  natural;  each  took 
a  portion  of  the  increase  which  the  Lord  had  been 
pleased  to  grant  him,  in  that  particular  line  of  husban 
dry  to  which  he  had  chosen  to  apply  himself,  and  pre 
sented  it  as  a  sacred  oblation  to  the  Lord.  Yet  the 
result  was  widely  different  in  the  two  cases;  for,  it  is 
added,  ''the  Lord  had  respect  unto  Abel  and  to  his 
offering,  but  unto  Cain  and  to  his  offering  he  had  not 
respect."  There  must,  therefore,  have  been  some  fun 
damental  difference,  such  as  made  it  a  righteous  thing 
for  God  to  accept  the  one  worshipper  and  his  offering, 
and  reject  the  other.  Wherein  did  that  consist*  Was 
it  in  the  diverse  kind  of  offering?  or  in  the  spirit  and 
behaviour  respectively  characterizing  the  offerers' 

The  original  narrative  is  so  brief,  that  it  does  not 
afford  a  quite  ready  or  obvious  solution  of  these  ques 
tions.  It  plainly  enough,  however,  charge.--  sin  upon 
Cain,  and  even  an  obstinate  adherence  to  sin,  as  the 
ground  of  his  rejection.  When  by  some  visible  token 
— possibly  by  the  descent  of  fire  from  heaven,  or  by  a 
lightning  flash  from  between  the  cherubim  at  the  east 
of  the  garden  consuming  the  sacrifice — the  Lord  gave 
indication  of  his  acceptance  of  Abel's  offering,  to  the 
exclusion  of  Cain's,  "Cain  was  very  wroth,  and  his 
countenance  fell.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Cain,  Why 
art  thou  wroth?  and  why  is  thy  countenance  fallen? 
If  thou  doest  well,  shalt  thou  not  be  accepted?  And 
if  thou  doest  not  well,  sin  lieth  at  the  door.  And  unto 
thee  shall  be  his  desire,  and  thou  shalt  rule  over  him." 
So  the  passage  stands  in  the  authorized  English  version. 
Some  have  proposed  instead  of  "sin,"  to  substitute 
"sin-offering;"  on  the  ground  that  the  Hebrew  word 
for  sin  is  sometimes  put  for  si/i-ojTcrinr/,  and  that  the 
head  and  front  of  Cain's  offence  was  his  stout-hearted 
refusal  to  offer  an  animal  sacrifice  for  the  atonement  of 
sin.  It  is  fatal  to  this  view,  however,  that  what  were 
distinctively  called  sin-offerings  were  only  introduced 
at  the  giving  of  the  law  by  Moses,  till  \\hieh  time  the 
burnt-offering  was  the  proper  expiatory  sacrifice,  and  it 
is  never  designated  by  the  word  for  sin.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  rendering  by  sin  is  to  be  adhered 
to  as  correct,  only  sin  is  personified  as  a  seducer ;  and 
if,  in  the  last  clause,  the  masculine  pronoun  his  is  re 
tained,  it  should  lie  understood  as  referring  to  sin,  the 
only  proper  antecedent,  and  not  to  Abel.  The  more 
exact  translation  would  be,  "If  thou  doest  good,  shall 
there  not  be  acceptance  ?  And  if  thou  doest  not  good,  sin 
eoueheth  at  the  door;  and  unto  thee  shall  be  its  desire, 
and  thou  shalt  rule  over  it."  The  words  at  the  close 
refer  to  what  was  said  of  Eve,  in  her  relation  to  Adam, 
and  Adam's  proper  relation  to  her,  Ge.  iii.  10.  And  the 
meaning  of  the  whole  is,  that  the  real  root  of  the  evil, 
which  Caused  Cain's  annoyance  and  anger,  lay  with 
himself,  in  his  refusing  to  acknowledge  and  serve  God 
as  his  brother  did ;  that,  if  he  should  still  continue  in 
this  refusal,  the  sin  which  he  cherished  would  do  the 
part  of  a  tempter  to  him,  as  Eve  had  done  to  Adam — 
its  desire  would  be  towards  him,  to  lead  him  astray ; 
but  it  became  him  rather  to  do  the  manly  part,  and 
rule  over  it. 

It  thus  appears  from  the  narrative  itself,  that  a  sin 
ful  principle  had  the  ascendency  in  Cain's  bosom,  and 
was  the  real  cause  of  the  disrespect  that  was  shown  to 
him  and  to  his  offering.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  a 


ABEL 


ABIATHAR 


righteous  principle  in  Abel  which  secured  for  him  a 
place  in  the  divine  favour  and  blessing.  Such,  also,  is 
the  testimony  of  the  apostle  John,  when  lie  says  of 
Cain,  "  he  was  of  the  wicked  one  and  slew  his  brother. 
And  wherefore  slew  he  him?  Because  his  o\vn  works 
were  evil,  and  his  brother's  righteous,"  i  Ju.  iii.  12.  This, 
however,  is  still  general,  and  indicates  nothing  as  to 
where  we  are  to  seek  the  righteous  principle  in  the  one 
brother,  and  the  unrighteous  principle  in  the  other.  But 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  more  specific  information 
is  furnishfd,  when  it  is  said.  "By  faitli  Abel  offered  unto 
Cod  a  more  excellent  [literally,  a  greater]  sacrifice  than 
Cain,  bv  which  lie  obtained  witness  that  hi.-  was  righ 
teous.  ( lod  testifying  of  his  gifts,"  lie  xi.  I.  Here  the  mat 
ter  is  traced  up  to  its  root— to  faith  in  the  one  In-other, 
which  rendered  him  a  righteous  person,  and  made  his 
offering  what  Cod  could  own  and  bless;  and  to  tin- 
want  of  faith  in  the  other,  which  left  him  in  guilt  ami 
condemnation.  But  this  faith  must  have  been  some 
thing  morethana  general  belief  in  (lod.  and  an  acknow 
ledgment  of  him  as  tin-  supreme  object  of  worship,  for 
that  belonged  to  Cain  as  well  as  to  A  I>«-1.  It  mu-t  have 
been  faith  in  Cod  as  to  the  specific  kind  of  wi.rshipand 
service  which  he  had  made  known  to  them  as  accept 
able  in  his  Mght.  And  MI  the  C"l!cluMon  fore,  s  itself 
upon  us,  that  the  difference  in  iv>pect  to  the  offerings 
present "d  was  im  accidental  thing,  but  the  native  result 
of  the  different  states  of  tli'-  two  lirothers:  that  A  b, T> 
animal  sacrifice  was  on  this  account  more  excellent, 
because,  it  was  the  expn-s-ion  ,  ,f  his  faith  in  Cod  a^  to 

sin  and  salvation,  while  Cain  >t 1  upon  tin-  ground  of 

nature's  sufficiency,  and  thought  it  enough  to  surrender 
to  Cod  a  portion  of  his  own  labours.  (Sec  Su'RIFia-M 

AH  that  we  know  besides  of  Abel  is,  that  befell  a 
victim  to  the  ungodly  spite  and  fiendish  malice  of  his 
brother:  "And  Cain  talked  with  Abel  his  brother:  and 
it  came  to  pass  when  they  were  in  the  field,  that  Cain 
rose  up  against  Abel  his  brother,  and  slew  him."  A 
controversy  was  raised,  it  would  seem,  on  the  principle* 
which  respectively  animated  them,  and  the  different 
courses  they  pursued  ;  and.  unable  to  prevail  on  grounds 
of  reason,  Cain  resorted  to  the  arm  of  violence,  and 
wickedly  laid  tin-  man  of  faith  and  righteousness  in  the 
dust— a  melancholy  sign,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
world's  history,  of  the  deep  runted  enmity  lurking  in 
the  natural  man  to  the  things  of  Cod.  and  of  the  treat 
ment  which  the  children  of  faith  might  expect  to  receive 
from  it!  It  was  a  fact  pregnant  with  awful  meaning 
for  the  future,  that  the  first  righteous  man  in  Adam's 
family  should  also  have  become  tin-  fiivt  martyr  to 
righteousness;  yet  it  was  not  without  hope,  since  Hea 
ven  distinctly  identified  itself  with  his  testimony,  and 
espoused  the  cause  of  injured  rectitude  and  worth.  In 
such  a  case,  the  ascendency  of  evil  could  not  be  more 
than  temporary. 

A'BEL,  a  term  occuring  in  various  compound  words, 
which  are  employed  to  designate  certain  towns  and 
places  of  more  or  less  note.  When  so  used,  however, 
it  is  generally  supposed  to  be  in  the  sense  of  grassy 
plain  or  meadow,  of  which  traces  are  found  in  the 
Arabic  and  Syriac  languages.  None  of  the  places  hav 
ing  this  word  as  a  part  of  their  designation  rose  to 
much  importance ;  ami  little  more  is  necessary  than  to 
notice  their  distinctive  names  and  their  several  lo 
calities. 

A'BEL-BETH-MA'ACAH.  a  town  in  the  north  of 
Palestine,  which  is  mentioned  among  the  places  smitten 


by  Ben-hadad,  1  Ki.  xv.  2n,  and  apparently  was  the  same 
with  that  called  AP.EL-MAIM,  in  the  parallel  passage  of 
Chronicles,  -JCii.  x\i.  4.  It  was  again  taken  by  Tiglath- 
pileser,  who  sent  captives  from  it  into  Assyria,  2Ki.  xv.  -2'.\ 
It  was  also  the  place  of  refuge  to  which  Sheba  the  son  of 
Bichri  repaired,  who  headed  a  revolt  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  reign  of  David,  from  which  it  may  be  inferred  to 
have  been  a  place  of  considerable  strength.  But  by 
the  counsel  of  a  sas^e  woman  the  inhabitants  were  in 
duced  to  cut  off  his  head,  and  his  cause  went  down. 

2S:l.  XX.  11-L'J. 

A'BEL-KERA'MIM  [,,hiln«f  iln-  ruini<ml^\,  a  vil 
lage  of  the  Ammonites,  and  according  to  Kusebius 
about  six  Roman  miles  from  Philadelphia  or  Rabbath- 
Anmion.  It  no  doubt  got  its  distinctive  name  from  its 
excellent  vineyards  ;  and  for  centuries  after  the  Chris 
tian  era  it  is  reported  to  have  been  Mill  remarkable  for 
its  vintage,  Ju.  xi.  :;:;. 

A'BEL-MEHO'LAH  [;./«/«  of  dancing],  a  village  in 
the  territory  of  Issacbar.  supposed  to  have  stood  near  the 
Jordan,  celebrated  chiefly  as  having  been  the  birth-place 
of  the  prophet  Klisha.  i  Ki  xix  u;.  hut  also  occasionally 
referred  to  in  connection  with  other  events.  ,TM.  vii.  •.-.'; 
1  Ki.  iv.  rj. 

A'BEL-MIZ'RAIM  [plain  of  the  Kywtitins,  or,  if 
read  vvith  different  vowel  points  and  pronounced  with 
the  sharper  sou  nil  of  «.  as  appears  to  have  been  done  by 
the  Septuagint  translators.  t/t>  monniiii;/  »/  tl«'  /•-'.'////<- 
liitii.--].  the  name  not  of  a  town,  but  of  a  thrashing-floor, 
or  open  flat  place.  UM  d  for  the  purpose  of  thralling  and 
winnowing  corn,  at  \\hich  tin-  funeral  party  from  Kgypt. 
rested  and  mourned,  when  conveying  the  mortal  re 
mains  of  .Jacob  to  the  biiryinu'  ground  in  Maehpelah. 
(!,•.  1  11.  It  is  said  to  have  been  In  ifniitl,  that  is  on  the 

ea-t  of  Jordan;  and  .Jerome  must  have  been  wrong  in 
placing  it  mi  the  other  side  near  .Jericho. 

A  BEL  SHITTIM  |  plain  of  acacia*],  the  name  of  a 
place  on  tlje  east  of  .Jordan,  in  the  plains  of  .Moab,  some 
times  called  simply  ^hittim,  lsii»\\n  in  the  time  of 
.lo-ephus  by  the  name  of  Abila,  and  chiefly  remarkable 
as  the  scene  of  one  of  Israel's  greatest  backslidings  and 
most  severe  chastisements,  Nil.  xxv.  I  ;  x\\iii  III;  Mi.  vi.  .".. 

ABI'A.  or  AIU.YH.     .SV'-  AHI.IAII. 

ABI-AL'BON.      frc  Ami:i.. 

AB1  ATHAR  [father  of  pit  ntij],  a  high-priest  in  the 

time  of  David,  the  fourth  in  descent  from  Kli,  l  S:i.  xiv.  :; ; 
x\ii.  ii-'J";  and  of  that  line  of  Aaron's  family  which  was 
descended  from  Ithamar.  He  was  the  son  of  Ahimelech 
or  Ahiah.  as  he  is  called  in  1  Sa.  xiv.  :!».  and  ex-aped, 
apparently  alone,  from  the  fearful  slaughter  of  the 
prier-ts  at  Nob,  which  v,as  done  to  appea.-e  the  cruel 
jealousy  of  Saul,  by  the  hand  of  1  ><>eg  the  Kdomite. 
l  S;i.  xxii.  He  carried  with  him  the  ephod,  an  essential 
part  of  the  high- priest's  attire;  and  not  only  continued 
to  discharge  the  more  peculiar  offices  of  the  priesthood 
to  the  party  of  David  during  their  persecutions  from 
the  hand  of  Saul,  but  was  formally  recogni/.ed  as  high- 
priest  after  David  came  to  tin-  throne.  In  the  mean 
time,  however,  Zadok,  of  the  line  of  Klea/.ar,  had  suc 
ceeded  to  the  highest  functions  of  the  priesthood,  after 
the  death  of  Ahimelech,  and  I>avid  did  not  cause  him 
to  lie  displaced:  indeed,  the  priority  in  some  respect 
continued  to  be  held  by  him,  as  he  is  always  mentioned 
first  when  the  two  are  named  together.  But  both  Abi- 
athar  and  Zadok  appear  to  have  been  regarded  as  high- 
priests  during  the  greater  part  of  I  >avid's  reign,  -_'  Sa.  xx.  •>:>-, 
also  viii.  IT,  where  ••Ahimelech.  the  son  of  Abiathar, 


ABTATII.AR 


AHIHAIL 


SCCMIS  to  be  an  error  of  the  text  for  '•  Abiathar.  the  son 
of  Ahimeleeh."  Toward  the  close,  however,  of  David's 
life,  Abiathar  deviated  into  a  wrong  course  by  taking- 
part  with  Adonijah  in  his  ambitious  project  to  get  pos 
session  of  the  throne,  hoping  possibly  to  secure  for  him 
self  thereby  an  exclusive,  instead  of  a  divided  pontifi 
cate.  The  reverse,  however,  took  place  ;  for  he  was  de 
graded  from  his  office  by  Solomon,  and  sent  into  re 
tirement:  nor  do  any  of  his  descendants  ever  afcerwards 
appear  in  the  highest  function  of  the  priesthood.  The 
dishonour,  then  fore,  which  then  befell  him  and  his 
family,  is  justly  marked  as  among  the  humiliating  pro 
vidences  which  gave  fulfilment  to  the  doom  suspended 
over  the  house  of  Kli,  1  Ki.  ii.  -27.  In  Mar.  ii.  2(5,  Abia 
thar  is  represented,  in  a  discourse  of  our  Lord,  as  hav 
ing  been  high  priest  at  the  time  David  obtained  the 
showhr.  ad  to  eat;  while  the  history  in  Samuel  expressly 
states  that  his  father  Ahimelcch  was  the  presiding 
priest  with  whom  David  spoke,  and  from  whom  lie  re 
ceived  the  hallowed  bread.  Various  explanations  have 
been  given  of  this  seeming  discrepance,  but  \\ithsolittle 
success,  that  recent  commentators  of  note  have  pro 
nounced  it  to  lie  still  without  any  satisfactory  adjust 
ment.  The  solution,  we  are  disposed  to  think,  has  been 
looked  for  somewhat  in  the  wrong  direction.  The  state- 
in-  nt  of  our  Lord  simply  affirms,  that  the  transaction 
took  place  while  Abiatbai  was  apxifpevs,  which  strictly 
means  hiy/i-pt-i>-st.  But  terms,  it  is  well  known,  are 
not  always  used  in  their  stricter  sense,  and  their  cur 
rent  use  at  one  time  very  often  differs  from  what  it 
becomes  or  has  been  at  another.  In  Old  Testament 
times  the  term  Iny/i-firi'st  was  seldom  employed  ;  he  who 
really  held  the  office  was  often  called,  merely  by  way 
of  eminence,  the  priest— us,  for  example,  in  the  21st 
chapter  of  1st  Samuel,  which  relates  the  story  about  the 
showbread,  and  in  the  passages  referred  to  above  respect 
ing  Zadok  and  Abiathar.  An  entirely  different  usage 
comes  into  view  in  the  writings  of  the  Xew  Testa 
ment.  There,  the  term  h'ujh-pricst  is  of  frequent  oc 
currence,  but  it  is  often  used  in  a  more  extended  appli 
cation  than  the  emphatic  priest  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  so  as  to  include  any  one  of  priestly  rank,  who  took 
a  prominent  place  in  the  general  management  of  eccle 
siastical  affairs.  Hence  the  word  occurs  even  more 
frequently  in  the  plural  than  in  the  singular;  as  in  the 
(lospelof  Matthew,  where  it  appears  altogether  twenty- 
five  times,  but  of  these  no  fewer  than  eighteen  are  in 
the  plural,  though  from  the  adoption  of  chief  priests 
as  the  rendering,  the  fact  is  disguised  to  the  English 
reader.  This  later  usage  quite  naturally  arose  out  of 
the  altered  circumstances  which  sprung  up  in  Judea 
subsequent  to  the  return  from  the  Babylonish  exile,  in 
consequence  of  which  the  more  sacred  and  distinctive 
offices  of  the  high- priest  fell  comparatively  into  abey 
ance,  and  he  formed  only  one  of  a  class,  chiefly  com 
posed  of  priests,  through  whom  were  administered,  not 
only  all  strictly  ecclesiastical,  but  also  a  great  portion 
of  the  judicial,  functions  of  the  commonwealth.  The 
distinction  was  thus  practically  narrowed  between  the 
high-priest  proper,  and  the  elite  generally  of  the  priest 
hood  ;  on  which  account  the  name  dpxiepfis  was  ap 
plied  to  them  as  a  common  designation.  And  in  this 
we  are  furnished  with  a  perfectly  natural  and  adequate 
explanation  of  the  difficulty  before  us.  Our  Lord 
there,  in  the  application  of  the  term  hiyh-priest  to 
Abiathar,  simply  takes  it  in  its  current  and  later  ac 
ceptation,  as  denoting  one  who,  though  not  precisely  in 


the  highest,  still  was  at  the  time  referred  to  in  one 
of  the  higher  functions  of  the  priesthood;  he  was  in 
the  position  of  a  chief-priest  at  the  time,  and  took  part 
with  his  father  Ahimeleeh  in  the  daily  ministrations 
about  the  tabernacle.  In  this  sense-,  the  name  might 
have  been  coupled  indifferently, 'either  with  Ahimeleeh 
or  Aliiathar;  but  our  Lord  chose  to  couple  it  rather 
with  Abiathar,  when  speaking  of  an  action  in  the  life 
of  David,  because  of  the  (dose,  life-long  connection 
which  he  had  with  David  in  sacred  things,  while  the 
relation  of  Ahimelech  to  David  was  quite  incidental 
and  momentary.  Thus  all  becomes  plain,  and  there  is 
no  need  for  resorting  to  the  strained  and  arbitrary  sup 
positions  which  have  too  commonly  been  had  recourse 
to  by  commentators.  (S'/.v  PiUKsT.l 

A'BIB  If/ran  ear],  the  name  given  to  the  first  month 
in  the  Jewish  calendar.  (Sec  Mn\TH.) 

AB'IEL  \fathi-r  of  strci>;/th\.  1.  The  name  of  Saul's 
grandfather,  1  Sa.  ix.  I.  2.  The  name  of  one  of  the  thirty 
most  distinguished  men  of  David's  army,  1  Ch.  xi.  :;:>.  The 
latter  is  designated  Abi-alboii  in  2  Sa.  xxiii.  31.  a  word 
of  precisely  the  same  import. 

ABIE'ZER  [fatlur  <>f  help],  a  descendant  of  Manas- 
seh,  and  son  of  Gilead,  Jos.  xvii.  -j,  the  founder  of  the 
family  to  which  (iideon  belonged,  .Ju.  vi.  n,:;i.  It  was 
chiefly  by  the  prowess  of  members  of  that  family  that 
(iideon  gained  the  victory  he  won  over  the  host  of 
Midian,  and  hence  the  courteous  and  poetical  form  of 
the  rebuke  which  he  administered  to  the  Ephraimites, 
who  afterwards  contended  with  him.  on  account  of  not 
having  been  summoned  at  first  to  the  conflict  :  "  What 
have  1  done  now  in  comparison  of  you?  Is  not  the 
gleaning  of  the  grapes  of  Ephraim  better  than  the 
vintage  of  Abiezer  ?''  Ju.  viii.  •>•  that  is,  your  exploits  in 
following  up  the  victory,  and  capturing  the  two  princes, 
Zeba  and  Zalmunna,  bring  you  more  honour  than  ac 
crues  from  the  victory  itself  to  the  kindred  of  Abiezer. 
AJB'IGAIL  [fatlur  of  gladness  or  j<>y  —  or  perhaps, 
after  the  analogy  of  some  other  words,  compounded 
partly  of  abi,  my  father-gladness].  1.  ABIGAIL.  A  me 
morial  name,  commemorative  of  the  joy  which  the  birth 
had  occasioned  to  the  father.  It  is  familiarly  known 
as  the  name  of  Xabal's  wife,  who,  by  her  prudent  and 
active  interposition,  prevented  the  mischief  which  the 
churlish  behaviour  of  her  husband  toward  David  was 
like  to  have  occasioned,  iSa.xxv.H-12.  David  himself 
felt  deeply  indebted  to  her  for  the  part  she  acted  on  the 
occasion,  and  the  advice  she  tendered;  for  by  her  timely 
interference  he  was  saved  from  the  sin  of  avenging 
himself  with  his  own  hand.  He  took  a  wrong  way, 
however,  to  show  his  gratitude,  when,  after  the  deatli 
of  Xabal,  he  sent  for  her,  and  took  her  to  be  one  of  his 
own  wives. 

2.  ABIGAIL,  found  in  the  Hebrew  text  with  the 
variation  ABIGAL  at  2  Sa.  xvii.  25,  though  our  English 
Bible  retains  there  also  ABIGAIL  —  the  mother  of 
Amasa.  In  the  passage  referred  to  she  is  called  the 
daughter  of  Xahash,  while  at  1  Ch.  ii.  10,  she  appears  as 
David's  sister.  Either,  therefore,  Xahash  must  have 
been  another  name  for  Jesse,  which  is  not  very  likely; 
or  Abigail  must  have  been  but  half-sister  to  David. 

AB'IHAIL  is  found  in  the  English  Bible  as  the 
name  of  a  considerable  variety  of  persons ;  but  in  the 
original  the  word  is  not  always  the  same,  and  should 
be  read  sometimes  ABIHAIL  [father  of  lif/ht],  in  which 
form  it  occurs  as  the  name  of  the  wife  of  Rehoboam,  a 
daughter,  or  more  probably  a  grand-daughter  of  Eliab, 


ABIHU 


ABILENE 


David's  elder  brother,  2  ch.  ,\i.  IS;  sometimes  ABICHAIL 

[father  nf  strength],  Xu.  iii.  3~<;  ICh.ii.  2«;  v.  14;  Es.  ii.lj. 

ABI'HU  [father  of  him, or  my  father-he,  viz.  God].  It 
occurs  only  once  in  Scripture,  as  the  name  of  Aaron's 
second  son.  who  along  with  his  brother  Nadab  committed 
trespass  in  the  sin  of  offering  incense  before  the  Lord 
which  had  been  kindled  by  strange  fire.  What  is  meant 
by  strange  fire  in  this  connection  is,  in  other  words, 
common  fire — fire  taken  from  some  other  place  than  the 
brazen  altar  before  the  door  of  the  tabernacle,  which 
was  kept  perpetually  burning  for  the  offering  of  slain 
victims.  The  priests  were  expressly  commanded  to 
take  live  coals  from  this  altar  when  they  went  in  to 
burn  incense  at  the  golden  altar  in  the  sanctuary, 
Le.  xvi.  12;  first,  no  doiil.it,  because  the  fire  ever  burning 
there  had  originally  come  from  the  Lord's  presence. 
Le.  ix.  24,  and  was  therefore  to  lie  regarded  as  emphatically 
sacred  fire,  fire  of  Heaven's  own  kindling  :  and  also,  be 
cause  it  was  important  to  keep  up  in  men's  minds  the 
connection  between  prayer  (of  which  the  offering  of  in 
cense  was  a  symbol)  and  expiatory  sacrifice.  Only 
when  founded  in  atonement  by  blood,  and  sent  up  as 
on  the  flame  of  accepted  sacrifice,  can  it  ascend  before 
Cod  as  a  sweet-smelling  savour.  To  otter  incense, 
therefore,  with  strange  tire,  was.  in  a  most  important 
particular,  to  traverse  ihe  divine  appointment,  and  de 
secrate  the  hallowed  tilings  of  ( Jod.  As  a  solemn  warn 
ing  against  like  corruptions  in  the  future,  the  transgres 
sors  were  consumed  on  the  spot  by  a  bolt  of  fire;  and.  ' 
as  their  presumption  or  mistake  had  probably  aii-n 
from  too  free  indulgence  in  intoxicating  liquor,  an  ordi 
nance  was  immediately  issued  prohibiting  all  officiating 
priests  from  the  u>e  of  \\  in.-  or  >tn>ir;'  drink.  I,-.,  \.  1-11. 

ABI'JAH,  often  abhiv\iated  into  AHIAU  or  Ai'.i.v 
[in  y  fat  her -Jali],  expressive  in  him.  \\lio  first  imposed  or 
assumed  the  name,  of  filial  regard  to  .lehovah.  In  the 
more  lengthened  or  ahbreviatt  d  form  it  occurs  with  con 
siderable  frc<[uency  in  Scripture;  sometimes  as  tip- 
name  of  women,  u'h.  ii.  21 ;  -'Ch.  x\ix.  i,  but  more  com 
monly  as  that  of  men. 

1.  AISI.TAH.  the  son  and  successor  of  IJehoboam.  king 
of  .ludah,  iKi.  xv.  i;  2«'h  xiii.i  In  tin-  former  of  the.-e 
passages.  AKI.IAM  is  the  name  u>ed  instead  of  Ahijah.  of 
which  there  is  no  certain  explanation,  although  it  pro- 
balilv  originated  in  a  mere  textual  error  of  <  arly  date. 
There  is  an  apparent  discrepance  al>o  in  regard  t»  his 
mother,  between  the  accounts  in  Kings  and  (  'hruniel.'s. 
In  the  former,  i  Ki.  xv.  2,  it  is  said,  "his  mother's  name 
was  .Maachah,  the  daughter  of  Abishalom:"  while  in 
the  other.  2Ch.  xiii.2,  we  read,  "his  mother's  name;  was 
Micaiah.  the  daughter  of  Uriel  of  Cibeah."  .Maachah 
and  Micaiah  were  obviously  but  diH'erent  forms  of  th.' 
same  word,  and  Abishalom  was  merely  a  variation  of 
Absalom.  Of  Rehoboam's  eighteen  wives,  two  are  ex 
pressly  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  familv  of  David, 
2di.  xi.  i*;  and  if  we  suppose,  that  this  .Micaiah  or 
Maachah  was  a  third,  and  that  she  was  the  daughter 
immediately  of  Uriel,  remotely  of  Absalom,  his  ijrnnd-  \ 
daughter,  as  the  term  daughter  often  signifies,  we  have 
all  that  is  required  to  make  the  two  accounts  perfectly 
consistent.  In  regard  to  Abijah  himself,  it  would  ap 
pear,  from  a  comparison  of  the  narratives  in  the  hooks 
of  Kings  and  of  Chronicles,  that  he  was  at  first  actuated 
by  a  light  and  thoughtless  spirit,  and  is  hence  said  to 
have  "  walked  in  the  sins  of  his  father."  iKi.  xv.  :j,  but 
that  he  afterwards  became  more  interested  in  the  cause 
of  God,  and  in  its  behalf  carried  on  a  vigorous  warfare 


with  Jeroboam,  over  whom  he  gained  some  marked 
successes.  We  have  no  reason,  however,  to  conclude 
from  this  that  his  heart  was  ever  affected  as  it  should 
have  been  toward  God,  or  that  his  zeal  was  of  the  pure 
and  elevated  stamp  of  David's.  The  account  in  Chron 
icles,  2  Oh.  xiii.,  presents  him  in  a  more  favourable  light 
than  the  briefer  notice  contained  in  the  book  of  Kings  ; 
but  the  account  itself,  coupled  with  the  reformations 
presently  after  ascribed  to  Asa.  2Ch.  xiv.  2-;>,  plainly  im 
plies  that  his  zeal  expended  itself  more  on  warlike  opera 
tions  abroad,  than  on  the  internal  administration  of 
truth  and  righteousness.  His  reign  lasted  only  for  tlrree 
years. 

2.  ABIJAH.  the  second  son  of   Samuel,  who  judged 
in  Beersheba,  i  s.-i.  viii.  2 

3.  AHIJAH,  the  eldest  son  of  Jeroboam,  who  died  in 
early  youth,  and  with  the  commendation  of  having  some 
good  thing  in  him  toward  the  God  of  Israel,  l  Ki.  xiv.  13. 

4.  AlUJAH.  a  priest  of  the  line  of  Eleazar.  who  gave 
for  his  own  and  future  generations  the  distinctive  name 
to  one  of  the  priestly  courses,  the  one  to  which  Zechariah 
and  John  the  Baptist  belonged.  1  Ch,  xxiv.  lo;  Lu.  i.  ;>. 

ABI'JAM.     fe  ABIJAH,  1. 

ABILE'NE,  a  small  province  or  territory,  to  the 
north  of  1'alestino.  deriving  its  name  from  the  chief 
town  belonging  to  it.  Ami. A.  The  district  it-i  If  is  no 
where  very  exactlv  defined;  but  the  position  of  Abila 
is  known  to  have  been  on  the  road  from  lleliopolis 
iBaalbeci  to  Dama.-cus.  being  about  eighteen  Koinan 
miles  north- wi  .~t  from  the  hitler,  and  from  the  notices 
in  .losephus  and  St.  Luke,  it  is  connected  with  Pales 
tine  as  a  border  countrv  The  territory  of  Abilene, 
therefore,  appears  to  have  been  a  portion  of  Co>le  Syria. 
stretching  along  the  east  of  Anti-Lihanus,  beyond  Da- 
mascus,  and  reachim.:  southwards  to  the  extn  mities  of 
Galilee  and  Trachonitis.  The  only  point  of  interest  or 
importance  attaching  to  it.  in  a  hi.-torical  or  biblical 
ropect.  ari>es  from  the  mention  made  of  it  in  Lu.  iii.  1. 
It  is  there  stated,  in  connection  with  other  notices  of 
a  like  kind.  that,  at  the  commencement  of  John  the 
Baptist's  ministry.  Ly-anias  was  tetrarch  of  Abilene. 
This  lias  been  questioned  by  some  neological  and  infidel 
writers.  |',v  comparing  together  various  passages  in 
Jos,  phiis.  they  have  maintained  that,  at  the  time  re 
ferred  to  bv  St.  I. nke.  there  was  no  tc  trareh  or  separate 
governor  of  the  territory  of  Abilene;  that,  both  then  and 
fora  eon-iil' ral'le  peril"!  before,  it  had  been  merged  in 
the  jurisdiction  of  one  or  other  of  the  I  lerodian  family  ; 
and  that  the  only  Lysanias  connected  with  it  was  the 
son  of  one  I't'ilemieus.  who  was  killed,  afu  T  a  brief  n  ign. 
upwards  of  thirty  years  before  the  Christian  era.  Such, 
in  substance,  are  the  allegations  made  by  1 '<•  \\Ytte, 
Strauss,  and  many  others ;  but  when  the  matter  is 
closely  examined,  there  is  found  no  solid  foundation  for 
them.  The  statements  scattered  through  different  parts 
of  Josephus  are  of  a  kind  that  it  is  not  quite  easy  to  re 
concile  and  render  perfectly  harmonious  with  each  other, 
but.  when  fairly  put.  they  rather  confirm  than  contra 
dict  the  notice  in  St.  Luke;  for,  -while  .losephus  men 
tions  the  murder  of  the  Lysanias  above  referred  to.  by 
Anthony,  at  the  instigation  of  Cleopatra,  he  does  not 
call  him  tetrarch  of  Abilene,  nor  does  he  expressly  con 
nect  that  district  with  him.  Lysanias  and  his  father 
are  simply  styled  rulers  of  Chalcis  (Ant.  xiv.  7.  S  -1  ; 
xv.  4,  s'  1  :  Wars.  i.  !'•>,  $  1);  and.  afterwards,  lie  even 
pointedly  distinguishes  between  ( 'halcis  and  what  he 
culled  the  tetrarchy  of  Lysanias  (Ant.  xx.  7,  S  lj.  It 


ABIMAEL 


8 


ABISHAI 


is  quite  arbitrary,  therefore,  to  infer,  from  the  notices 
of  Josephus,  that  the  Lysanias  in  question  was  ever 
tetrarch  of  Abilene  ;  or  that  what  Joseplms  elsewhere 
terms  alternately  "the  house  (or  possession)  of  Lysa 
nias, "and  "the  house  of  Zenodorus"  (Ant.  xvii.  11,  §4; 
xv.  10,  §  ]),  is  to  be  identified  with  Abilene.  They  are 
rather  to  be  connected  with  the  (,'halcidene  district.  It 
is  in  reference  to  a  much  later  period — to  what  happened 
in  the  reigns  of  Caligula  and  Claudius,  or  the  period  im 
mediately  subsequent  to  the  events  of  gospel  history — 
that  Josephus  speaks  of  "the  tetrarchy  of  Abilene." 
lie  names  this  as  a  part  of  the  grant  bestowed,  first  by 
Caligula,  and  then  by  Claudius,  on  .Herod  Agrippa 
(Ant.  xviii.  (>,  £  ] 0 ;  xix.  5,  S  1)  ;  and  it  is  against  all 
probability  to  suppose  that  the  district  should  have  been 
so  called  from  a  Lysanias  who  had  been  slain  seventy 
or  eighty  years  before,  and  who,  even  if  lie  had  been 
exclusive  ruler  of  Abilene  (of  which  there  is  no  evid 
ence),  could  not  have  held  possession  of  it  above  four 
years.  Theremusthave  been  a  later  Lysanias — whether 
a  descendant  of  the  other  or  not — from  whom  the  dis 
trict  in  question  derived  the  name  of  the  tetrarchy  of 
Abilene.  Wo  that,  when  we  find  St.  Luke  speaking  of 
a  Lysanias,  tetrarch  of  Abilene,  at  the  beginning  of  our 
Lord's  ministry,  and  Joseplms,  at  periods  varying  from 
twelve  to  twenty  years  later,  speaking  of  the  disposal 
of  the  "tetrarchy  of  Lysanias,"  which  he  identifies 
with  Abilene  (Ant.  xix.  5,  §  1),  we  may  assuredly 
conclude,  with  Meyer  (Comin.  Lu.  iii.  1),  that  the 
testimony  of  Josephus  really  confirms  that  of  the  evan 
gelist. 

ABIM'AEL  [my  father  front  God],  the  name  of  a 
descendant  of  Joktan,  Gc.  x.  2S,  and  supposed  by  some  to 
have  been  the  stem-father  of  the  Mali,  or  Malitse,  an 
Arabian  tribe. — (See  Bochart's  Phalcy.  ii.  24.) 

ABIM'ELECH  [father  of  the  Kin<j,  or  simply  fat/tcr- 
l'in<j],  a  name  probably  originating  in  the  desire  of 
distinguishing  the  possessor  of  it  as  a  hereditary  mon 
arch,  whose  title  to  the  throne  was  not  obtained  by 
election,  or  won  by  conquest,  but  held  as  a  matter  of 
birthright. 

1.  2.  ABIMELECH,  the  name  of  a  king  of  Gerar,  in 
the  land  of  the  Philistines,  first  in  the  time  of  Abraham, 
and  again  in  the  time  of  Isaac,  Ge.  xx.  xxi.  xxvi.  The 
long  interval  between  the  two  notices,  coupled  with  the 
circumstances  narrated  of  each  respectively,  leave  little 
room  to  doubt  that  the  persons  mentioned  belonged  to 
different  generations,  and  were  probably  father  and  son. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  name  may  have  been  used  as 
a  designation,  less  properly  of  the  individual,  than  of 
the  reigning  chief  in  Gerar,  somewhat  like  Pharaoh  in 
Egypt.  The  transactions  which  the  successive  Abiin- 
elechs  had  with  Abraham  and  Isaac  will  fall  to  be 
noticed  in  connection  with  the  lives  of  those  two  patri 
archs,  as  the  transactions  derive  their  chief  importance 
from  the  light  they  throw  on  the  patriarchal  relations 
and  character. 

3.  ABIMELF.CH.  The  most  noted  person  who  bears 
this  name  in  Scripture  was  the  son  of  Gideon,  by  a 
concubine  in  Shechem.  After  the  death  of  his  father, 
he  aspired  to  the  place  of  power  and  authority  which 
had  latterly  been  held  by  Gideon,  and,  to  secure  his 
object,  slew,  with  the  help  of  the  Shechemites,  all  the 
legitimate  children  of  his  father,  with  the  exception  of 
Jotham,  who  effected  his  escape,  after  delivering  the 
memorable  and  striking  parable  recorded  in  Ju.  ix.  8-20. 
The  threat  of  retribution  uttered  at  the  close  of  this 


parable  against  the  people  of  Shechem,  and  those  who 
took  part  in  the  atrocious  proceedings  of  Abimelech, 
was  signally  executed ;  for,  on  the  occasion  of  a  revolt 
from  his  supremacy,  the  Shechemites  suffered  most 
severely  at  his  hands,  and  shortly  afterwards  he  shared 
himself  the  just  reward  of  his  deeds,  when,  pressing  the 
siege  of  Thebez,  he  was  felled  by  a  stone  thrown  at  him 
by  a  woman,  Ju.  ix.  r>o.  (See  GAAL.) 

ABESTADAB  [father  of  free-willingness,  or  liberal- 
it  ij\.  1.  A  Levite  of  Kirjath-jearim,  in  whose  house  the 
ark  remained  for  a  time,  i>S:i.  vii.  2.  One  of  Jesse's  sons, 
i  Sa.  xvi.  s.  3.  A  son  also  of  Saul,  who  perished  in 
Gilboa,  iSa.  xxxi.  2.  4.  One  of  the  officers  in  Solomon's 
establishment,  i  Ki.  iv.  11. 

ABI'RAM  [father  of  loftiness].  1.  One  of  the  chiefs 
of  the  tribe  of  Reuben,  who  joined  in  the  rebellion  of 
Korah,  and  perished  in  his  destruction,  Nu.  xvi.  (See 
AARON  and  KORAH.)  2.  The  name  of  the  first-born 
of  Hiel  the  Bethelite,  iKi.  xvi.  34.  (See  HiEL.) 

AB'ISHAG  [father  of  error],  a  Shunammite  virgin  of 
the  tribe  of  Issachar,  chosen  by  the  attendants  of  David 
to  cherish  him  in  his  extreme  age,  and  minister  to  him, 
i  Ki.  i.  1-4.  Though  not  strictly  married  to  David  or  ad 
mitted  to  sexual  connection  with  him,  she  was  yet 
regarded  as  belonging  to  the  royal  household  ;  and  when 
afterwards  sought  by  Adonijah  to  be  his  wife,  the  re 
quest  was  not  only  refused  by  Solomon,  but  the  very 
presenting  of  it,  being  regarded  as  a  sign  of  lurking 
ambition,  was  visited  with  the  death  of  Adonijah, 
i  Ki.  ii.  i:i-2.-,.  (Sec  ADONIJAH.) 

ABISH'AI  [father  of  gifts],  one  of  the  sons  of  Zeru- 
iah,  David's  sister,  and  a  younger  brother  of  Joab. 
Along  with  his  brothers,  Abishai  attached  himself  early 
to  the  cause  of  David,  shared  with  him  in  his  protracted 
perils  and  struggles,  and  became  ultimately  one  of  the 
leading  men  around  his  throne.  From  the  notices  given 
of  him,  he  appears  to  have  been  more  distinguished  for 
his  courage  and  military  prowess  than  for  the  graces  of 
a  divine  life.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  accompanied 
David  to  the  camp  of  Saul,  and  found  the  latter  asleep 
on  the  ground,  he  sought  permission  to  embrace  the 
opportunity  of  at  once  putting  an  end  to  the  persecu 
tor's  life.  ISa.  xxvi.  5-9.  On  another  occasion,  he  would 
fain  have  rushed  upon  Shimei,  when  coming  forth  to 
curse  David  in  the  day  of  his  calamity,  and  inflict  on 
him  summary  vengeance,  but  was  again  met  by  the 
stern  resistance  of  David,  2  Sa.  xvi.  9.  'NVe  find  him  also 
associated  with  Joab  in  the  crafty  and  cruel  policy  to 
which  Abner  fell  a  victim,  after  he  had  been  reconciled 
to  David,  2Sa.  iii.  .';o.  These  are  the  darker  spots  in  the 
history  of  Abishai,  which  certainly  present  him  to  our 
view  as  palpably  defective  in  the  milder  virtues  of  hu 
manity.  But  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed 
from  early  life,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  extremely 
unfavourable  for  the  cultivation  of  such  virtues ;  and 
the  faith,  and  devotedness,  and  chivalrous  ardour  which 
he  displayed  in  the  cause  of  David,  must  not  be  forgot 
ten.  None  cast  in  their  lot  with  David  more  heartily 
than  Abishai,  or  risked  more  on  his  account.  On  one 
occasion,  to  rescue  David's  life,  he  placed  his  own  in 
imminent  peril,  and  slew  the  Philistine  giant  Ishbi- 
benob,  by  whom  his  uncle  was  like  to  have  been  over 
come,  2Sa.  xxi.  15-ir.  He  was  also  one  of  the  three  who 
broke  through  the  Philistine  host,  to  obtain  for  David 
a  draught  of  water  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem, 
2Sa.  xxiii.  14-ir.  He  is  specially  named  in  connection 
with  the  victories  that  were  gained  over  the  Edomites 


ABISIIALOM 


9 


ABOMINATION 


and  the  Ammonites,  iCh.xviii.  12  ;  2Sa.  x.io,  as  a  large  |  up  his  voice,  and  wept  at  the  grave  of  Abner  ;  and  the 
share  of  the  honour  belonged  to  him.  In  regard  also  to  j  king  lamented  over  Abner,  and  said,  Died  Abner  as  a 
personal  bravery  and  individual  exploits,  he  is  ranked  '  fool  dieth  ?  Thy  hands  were  not  bound,  nor  thy  feet 
in  the  second  class  of  David's  heroes,  and  is  celebrated  put  into  fetters  :  as  a  man  falleth  before  wicked  men, 
as  having  withstood  300  men,  and  slain  them  with  his  so  fellest  thou,"  2Sa.iii  :;i-;u  The  meaning  of  this  dirge 
spear.  2Sa.xxiii  is.  No  account  has  been  preserved  of  plainly  is,  that  a  most  unfair  advantage  had  been  taken 
his  latter  days,  or  of  his  death.  of  Abner;  that,  if  the  sons  of  Zeruiah  thought  they  had 

ABISH'ALOM  [father  of  peact].  a  variation  of  the     a  just  ground  of  quarrel  with  him  for  the  death  of  their 
name  Absalom,  1  Ki.  xv.  2,  lo.comp.  wiiliiCh.  xi.  20.  ;  brother,  they  should  have  let  this  be  understood,  and 

ABLUTION.     S,e  WASHINGS,  SPRINKLINGS.  insisted  that  Abner  lie   delivered  up   to   the  hands  of 

AB'NER  [fath/r  of  liyht],  son  of  Ner.  and  cousin  of  justice  as  an  offender:  but  that,  instead  of  this,  they 
Raul,  the  chief  general  of  Saul's  armies,  1  Sa.  xiv.  50.  adopted  the  treacherous  policy  of  unscrupulous  and 
After  Saul's  death  he  still  adhered  to  the  interests  of  wicked  men.  against  which  even  the  innocent  can  pro- 
the  family,  and  used  his  influence  to  get  Ishbosheth  vide  themselves  with  no  adequate  defence.  Why  David 
established  on  the  throne  of  the  kingdom,  lie  con-  did  not  proceed  against  the  perpetrators  of  the  deed, 
tinned  to  pursue  this  course  for  seven  years,  during  but  contented  himself  with  lamenting  the  fate  of  Abner, 
which  time  various  encounters  took  place  between  the  and  uttering  his  condemnation  of  the  mode  in  which 
forces  of  David  and  Ishbosheth.  and  in  particular  two 
near  Gibeon  :  first  a  drawn  battle  between  twelve  cham 


pions  on  each  side,  who  mutually  slew  one  another,  and 
then  a  conflict  between  the  two  armies,  in  which  Abner 
was  defeated.  2 Sa.  ii.  -''..  Ill  the  pursuit,  however,  Asahel.  to  denote  whatever  is  particularly  offensive  to  tl 


it  had  been  brought  about,  will  be  considered  under  the 
life  of  David. 

ABOMINATION.     In  certain  applications  ,,f  this 
word  in  Scripture  there  is  nothing  peculiar;   it  is   used 

reli 


gious  feeliiiL.',  the  moral  sense,  or  even  the  natural 
relish  and  inclination  of  the  soul.  Thus  Israel  is  said, 
on  account  simply  of  the  antipathy  created  by  reverses 
in  war.  to  have  been  had  in  abomination  by  the  Philis 
tines.  1  Sa.  xiii.  4;  and  the  Psalmist,  in  like  manner, 
was  for  his  distressed  and  apparently  forlorn  condition 
reckoned  an  abomination  by  his  friends,  1's.  Ixxxviii.  s. 
The'  operations  of  unrighteous  principle,  the  practices  of 
manifest  corruption  and  sin  such  as  the  swellings  of 
pride,  lips  of  falsehood,  the  sacrifices  of  the  \\ickcd,  the 
foul  rites  of  idolatry  are  stiuinati/ed  as  abominations, 
I'r.  vi.  in;  xii.  22;  xv.  s  ;  Jo.  vi.  i;.,  ,vc.  It  was  a  quite  natural 
iportunitv  to  extension  of  the  same  manner  of  speech  to  apply  it  to 
At  the  same  outward  objects,  which  were  on  some  account  forbidden, 
and  to  be  shunned  as  evil;  for  example  to  the  articles 
of  food,  which  the  Israelites  were  prohibited  from  using, 
I,o.  xi.  in,  ii,. ve.  ;  to  the  sacrificial  food  connected  with 
the  worship  of  idols,  Y.L-C.  ix.  7;  and  in  particular  to  the 
idols  themsel\e.~  of  the  heathen,  to  Mile, nil  the  afmini- 
•nvtinii  of  the.  Ammonites.  Chemosh  the  abomination  of 

the   Moahites,   and   so    oil,    1    Ki.  xi.  :.,  7;  2  Ki.  xxiii.    l.'i  ;    Jo. 

iv.  1;  vii. 

None  of  these  applications  of  the  term  can  be  ac- 

liis    perfect   cognizance    of   the  fact,  that   the    cause  of  counted  peculiar,  further  than  that  they  very  strongly 

David  was  in  reality  the  cause  of  ( iod.      ''So  do  ( iod  to  indicate  the  feeling  of  repulsion  that  was.  or  should  be, 

Abner,  and  more  also,  except  as  the  Lord  hath  sworn  entertained  towards  the  objects  in  question.      But  in 

to  David,  even  so  I  do   to  him;   to   translate  the  king-  connection  with  the  history  of  the  children  of    Israel  in 

dom  from  the  house-  of  Saul,  and  to  set  up  the  throne  Kgvpt.  we  meet  with  applications  of  a  somewhat  sin- 

of  David  over  Israel,  and  over  Judah."      So  that,  from  gular  kind.      Thus  at  Kx.  viii.  'Jii,   Moses  excuses  him- 

his  own   confession,  Abner    had,  for  a  series   of  years,  self  from  assembling  his  countrymen  to  a   great  sacrin- 

been  engaged  in  withstanding  the  claims  of  one  whose  cial  solemnity   in   Egypt,  because   they   should   sacrifice 

destination  to   the    kingdom  he    knew  all    the  while  to  "  the  abomination  of  the  Kgyptians  before  their  eyes,'' 

have  received  the  sanction,  and  even  to  have  been  coil-  and  the  Egyptians  would  stone  them.      This  has  been 

firmed  by  the  oath  of  (iod.      In  such  a  case,  he  doubt-  explained  by  some  with  reference  to  the  cow,  which  it 

less  well  deserved  to  die;   though,  as  to  the  manner  of  was  held  improper  to  sacrifice,  being  sacred  to   Jsis,  so 

execution,  the  deed,  it  must  be  said,  was  not  righteously,  that  ''  all  Kgyptians  alike  paid  a  far  greater  reverence 

but  foully  done.      And  it  was  to  show  his  abhorrence  of  to  cows  than  to  any  other  cattle"   (Herod,  ii.  41.)      Of 

this,    and   his   freedom   from    all   participation    in   the  the  bovine  kind  male  calves  ami  bullocks  only  could  be 

treachery  under  which  it  had  been  accomplished,  that  offered  in  sacrifice.     The  chief  objection  to  this  explana- 

David  so  bitterly  grieved    for  the  death  of  Aliiier,  and  tion   is,   that  the   Hebrews  were  under  no  necessity  of 

so  pathetically  bewailed  it.      ''And  David  said  to  Joab,  coming  here  into  conflict  with  Egyptian  superstition, 

and  to  all  the  people  that  were  with  him,  Bend  your  and  did  not,  in  fact,  offer  cows  or  heifers  except  in  a 

clothes,  and  gird  you  with  sackcloth,  and  mourn  before  very  few  peculiar  cases.      The  offence  referred  to  must 

Abner.      And  king   David   himself  followed  the  bier,  therefore  have  attached  to  the  rites  of  worship,  possibly 

and  tliey  buried  Abner  in  Hebron:  and  the  king  lifted  to  the  mode  of  determining  what  was  properly  fit  for 

VOL.  I.  2  " 


the  brother  of  Joab.  fell  by  the  hand  of  Abner.  after 
having  been  warned  in  vain  to  turn  back  ;  and  in  n  - 
venge  for  this  act  of  bloodshed,  which  can  scarcely  lie 
regarded  otherwise  than  as  an  act  of  self-defence,  Ab 
ner.  sometime  afterwards,  was  himself  slain  by  .Joah. 
We  must  condemn  the  mode  that  was  taken  to  inflict 
capital  punishment  upon  Abner;  for.  as  lie  had  been 
received  to  terms  of  peace  with  David  had  even  been 
authorized  to  concert  measures  for  bringing  over  to 
David  the  tribes  that,  >till  adhered  to  the  house  ,,f  Saul. 
2Sa.iii.2l  —  it  was  against  all  righteous  and  honourable 
principles  to  call  him  back,  as  .Joab  and  Abishai  did. 
umler  colour  of  friendship,  and  sei/e  th 
plunge  a  dagger  into  his  heart.  2Sa.iii.-J 
time,  one  cannot  but  see  in  the  calamity  itself  a  divine 
retribution  —  not.  indeed,  for  the  death  of  Asahel.  hut 
for  the  opposition  to  (iud's  purpose  which  Aimer  had  so 
long  maintained,  and  tin-  great  sacrifice  of  life  of  which 
he  had  instrumentally  been  the  occasion.  It  was  an 
act  of  gross  sin  of  which  he  was  guilty,  with  one  of 
Saul's  concubines,  which  at  last  led  to  his  desertion  of 
Ishbosheth,  2Sa.  iii.  7,  >>  ;  and  in  meeting  the  charge  which 
on  that  account  was  brought  against  him,  he  indicated 


ABOMINATION 


10 


ABKAIIAM 


sacrifice  (in  which  the  Egyptians  were  very  particular), 
rather  than  to  the  kind  of  animds  from  which  the  vic 
tims  were  selected.  The  service  would  somehow  lie  so 
conducted  as  to  appear  an  abomination  to  the  people  of 
the  land.  The  remarkable  sacredness,  however,  asso 
ciated  with  the  cow  in  Egypt  serves  to  explain  another 
statement  made  in  the  history  ;  namely,  that  "  the 
Egyptians  might  not  eat  bread  with  the  Hebrews,  for 
that  is  an  abomination  to  the  Egyptians,"  (io.  xiiii.  :;i 
For  Herodotus  states,  in  connection  wiih  the  prevailing 
veneration  for  the  cow,  ''that  therefore  no  Egyptian 
man  or  woman  will  kiss  adreeian  on  the  month,  or  use 
the  knife,  spit,  or  cauldron  of  a  (ireok  [of  course,  also, 
of  a  Hebrew],  or  taste  of  the  flesh  of  a  pure  ox  that  has 
been  divided  by  a  Grecian  knife.  '  The  peculiar  place 
occupied  by  the  cow  in  their  religion  rendered  foreigners 
unclean  to  them,  and  obliged  them  to  eat  apart,  as  the 
Hebrews  had  to  do  afterwards,  through  the  distinctions 
of  food  introduced  by  the  laws  of  Moses.  A  still  further 
peculiarity  noticed  is,  that  ''  every  shepherd  is  an  abo 
mination  to  the  Egyptians,"  Co.  xlvi.  :;i.  The  fact  alone 
is  stated,  and  no  account  is  given,  either  in  profane  or 
,-aeivd  history,  of  the  origin  of  the  feeling.  Some  would 
connect  it  with  the  dominion  of  the  Hycsos,  or  shepherd 
race  in  Egypt,  which  had  produced  a  general  feeling  of 
antipathy  in  the  native  mind  to  the  occupation  itself; 
others,  perhaps  more  justly,  with  the  dislike  and  aversion 
naturally  entertained,  in  a  cultivated  country  like  Egypt, 
to  the  wandering  and  predatory  habits  of  the  nomade 
or  shepherd  tribes.  But  the  fact  itself  is  beyond  dispute, 
and  is  amply  attested  by  the  evidence  of  the  monuments, 
on  which  shepherds  are  always  represented  in  a  low  and 
degrading  attitude  (Wilkinson,  Anci-iit-  /;'v///i'.  ii.  liii. 
On  the  ground  of  their  prevailing  occupation,  therefore, 
the  Hebrews  when  they  entered  Egypt  were  naturally 
objects  of  suspicion  and  dislike  to  the  people  of  the 
country,  though  their  relation  to  Joseph  secured  for 
them  the  greatest  measure  of  respect  and  kindness  that 
was  possible  in  the  circumstances. 

ABOMINATION  OF  DESOLATION.  This  strik 
ing  and  somewhat  enigmatical  expression  occurs  pro- 
perl  v  but  once  in  the  English  Bible;  namely,  in  the 
address  delivered  by  our  Lord  to  his  disciples  respecting 
tin;  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  last  days,  Mut.  xxiv. 
i.'i;  M,ir.  xiii.  11.  But  as  there  introduced  it  is  given  as  a 
quotation  from  the  prophet  Daniel  —  "When  ye  shall 
see  the  abomination  of  desolation  spoken  of  by  Daniel 
the  prophet,  stand  in  the  holy  place,  whoso  readeth,  let 
him  understand" — although  when  we  turn  to  Daniel 
the  precise  expression  is  not  found  in  the  English  Bible. 
This  arises  from  the  translation  of  the  Septuagint  being 
adopted  by  our  Lord  (;->ot\vyfj.a  Ttjs  eprj/j.waeus),  the  ex 
act  equivalent  to  which  in  English  is  '•abomination  of 
desolation,"  while  the  original  in  Hebrew  slightly  differs. 
Tiie  passage  actually  referred  to  is  Da.  ix.  '27.  where 
our  translators  render  "  for  the  overspreading  of  abomi 
nations  he  shall  make  it  desolate."  This,  however,  is 
not  the  most  accurate  rendering;  it  should  rather  be 
''over  top  of  abominations  (will  be)  the  dcsolator,"  or 
destroyer.  And  so  again  in  two  other  passages,  which 
are  generally  understood  to  point  to  the  Maccabean 
times-  ''And  they  shall  place  (or  set  up)  the  abomina 
tion,  the  desolator,"  ch.  xi.  :t\,  ami  "till  the  abomination 
that  desolates,"  eh.  xii.  n.  The  chief  difference  among  com 
mentators,  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  expression,  has 
respect  to  the  point,  whether  the  abomination,  which 
somehow  should  carry  along  with  it  the  curse  of  desola 


tion,  ought  to  lie  understood  of  the  idolatrous  and  corrupt 
practices  which  should  inevitably  draw  down  desolating 
inflictions  of  vengeance,  or  of  the  heathen  powers  and 
weapons  of  war  that  should  be  the  immediate  instru 
ments  of  executing  them.  There  appear  to  be  conclusive 
reasons  for  understanding  the  expression  of  the  former. 
].  By  far  the  most  common  use  of  the  term  ulo'iii!  na 
tion  or  abominations,  when  referring  to  spiritual  things, 
and  especially  to  things  involving  severe  judgments  and 
sweeping  desolation,  is  in  respect  to  idolatrous,  and  other 
fou!  corruptions.  It  was  the  pollution  of  the  first  temple, 
or  the  worship  connected  with  it  by  such  things,  which 
iii  a  win  ile  .-cries  of  passages  is  described  as  the  abomina 
tions  thai  provoked  ( Jod  to  lay  it  in  ruins,  2Ki.  xxi.  'J-l"; 
Jo.  vii.  id-ii;  K/e.  v.  ii;  vii.  s,  !i,  ai-^:i.  A  in!  our  Lord  very  dis 
tinctly  intimated,  by  referring  on  another  occasion  to 
some  of  these  passages,  that  as  the  same  wickedness  sub 
stantially  was  lifting  itself  up  anew,  the  same  retribu 
tions  of  evil  might  certainly  be  expected  to  chastise  them. 
Mat.  xxi.  i:i.  '2.  When  reference  is  made  to  the  prophecy 
in  I  )aniel  it  is  coupled  with  a  word,  "Whoso  readeth 
let  him  understand,"  which  seems  evideiitlv  to  point  to 
a  profound  spiritual  meaning  in  the  prophecy,  >u<-h  as 
thoughtful  and  serious  minds  alone  could  appn  bend. 
But  this  could  only  be  the  case  if  abominations  in  the 
moral  sense;  were  meant;  for  the  defiling  and  desolating 
effect  of  heathen  armies  planting  themselves  in  the  holy 
place  was  what  a  child  might  perceive.  Such  dreadful 
and  unseemly  intruders  were  but  the  outward  signs 
of  the  real  abominations,  which  cried  for  vengeance  in 
the  ear  of  heaven.  The  compassing  of  Jerusalem  with 
armies,  therefore,  mentioned  in  Lu.  xxi.  2o.  ready  to 
bring  the  desolation,  is  not  to  be  reganh  d  as  the  same, 
with  the  abomination  of  desolation;  it  indicated  a  further 
stage  of  matters.  3.  The  abominations  which  were 
the  cause  of  the  desolations  an-  ever  spoken  of  as  spring 
ing  up  from  within,  among  the  covenant  people  them 
selves,  not  as  invasions  from  without.  They  are  so  re 
presented  in  Daniel  also,  ch.  \i.  r,o,  ;;L' ;  xii.  9,  id;  and  that 
the,  Jews  themselves,  the  better  sort  of  them  at  least,  so 
understood  the  matter,  is  plain  from  1  Mac.  i.  ;"i4-fj7, 
where,  with  reference  to  the  two  passages  of  Daniel  just 
noticed,  the  heathen-inclined  party  in  Israel  are  repre 
sented,  in  the  time  of  Antiochus,  as  the  real  persons 
who  "set  up  the  abomination  of  desolation  and  built 
idol  altars  ;"  coinp.  also  2  Mac.  iv.  1.1-17.  (See  on  the 
whole  subject,  Hengstenberg  on  the  Genuineness  of 
.Daniel,  ch.  iii.  §  3;  and  Cliristoloyy,  at  Da.  ix.  '27,  •with 
the  authorities  there  referred  to.) 

A'BRAHAM  [father  of  a  multitude,  previously 
ABRAM,  father  of  elevation,  or  high  father],  a  son  of 
Terah,  the  tenth  in  lineal  descent  from  Shem,  and  a 
native  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  So  much  is  certain  re 
specting  Abraham's  origin  and  his  natural  place  in  tin; 
world's  history,  but  the  sacred  record  provides  us  with 
no  materials  for  going  farther.  Of  the  three  sons  of  Te 
rah,  who  are  mentioned  in  the  order  of  Abram,  Xahor, 
and  Haran,  it  does  not  positively  affirm  that  Abram 
was  the  first-born ;  and  he  may  have  been  named  first 
merely  because  he  occupied  the  highest  place  in  the 
divine  purpose,  and  was  to  be  the  chief  subject  of  the 
sacred  narrative,  precisely  as  Shein  is  named  first  among 
the  sons  of  Noah,  though  Japhet  appears  to  have  been 
the  eldest.  Accordingly,  while  some  hold  Abraham  to 
have  been  really  the  eldest  son  of  Terah,  and  place  his 
birth  in  the  seventieth  j-ear  of  Terah's  life,  there  are 
others,  and  probably  a  still  larger  number,  who  make 


ABRAHAM 


11 


ABRAHAM 


him  the  youngest,  and  even  suppose  him  not  to  have 
huen  bom  till  Terah  was  130  years  old.  The  chief 
ground  for  this  latter  conclusion  is,  that  as  Terah  lived 
till  he  was  -05  years  of  age,  and  Abraham  was  75  when 
lie  left  Haran  for  the  land  of  Canaan,  this  75,  added  to 
1  ->u,  would  just  make  the  205  which  was  the  sum  of 
Terah's  life,  and  would  thus  render  Abraham's  removal 
to  Canaan  subsequent  to  his  father's  death  in  Haran. 
On  the  other  supposition,  that  Abraham  was  born  in 
the  seventieth  year  of  Terah,  the  father  must  have  been 
left  in  Haran  by  the  son,  and  even  have  continued  to 
linger  there  for  sixty  years  after  the  son's  departure. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  Old  Testament  narrative  ex 
pressly  at  variance  witli  this,  though  the  natural  im 
pression  produced  by  the  brief  account  in  ( <e.  xi.  ol.  3'2, 
is,  that  Terah's  death  had  actually  occurred  before  the 
removal  of  Abraham  to  the  land  of  Canaan.  And  the 
impression  is  confirmed  by  Stephen,  who,  in  his  speech 
before  the  Jewish  council,  distinctly  states,  that  only 
after  Terah's  death  did  Abraham  kave  Haran,  and  take 
his  departure  for  Canaan,  Ac.  vii  4.  So  that,  on  this 
view  of  the  matter.  .Stephen  must  either  have  fol!o\\ed 
an  erroneous  rabbinical  interpretation,  or  bv  the  death 

of  Terah  must   be.    und'T.-i !.    not    his    literal,  but  his 

spiritual  death — his  relapse  into  idolatrv.  Some  adopt 
the  one,  and  some  the  other  explanation;  but  neither 
view  can  be  regarded  as  quite  .-atisfactorv.  Coupling, 
then-fore,  the  affirmation  of  Stephen  with  \\hat  sei  m.s 
tin'  natural  imp"rt  of  the  original  narrative,  we  are  in- 
elined  to  n  st  in  tile  common  belief,  that  Terah  died 
before  Abraham's  actual  departure  from  .Mesopotamia, 
and  that  consequently  Abraham  was  most  probablv 
horn  at  a  comparativi  1\  late  period  in  his  father's  life. 
This  conclusion  ;s  strengthened  bv  the  collateral  cir 
cumstances,  that  Lot,  th"  son  of  llaran,  \\hu  accom 
panied  Abraham  into  Canaan,  appears,  at  no  u'lvat 
distance  from  their  entrance  into  it,  as  a  person  in  ad 
vanced  life,  with  a  family  well  u'rown,  and  that  Nahor, 
the  other  brother  of  Abraham,  married  Mileah.  the 
daughter  of  Haran.  These  notices  seem  to  imply  that, 
llaran  had  been  considerably  older  than  tin-  other  bro 
thers,  and  that  Abraham  may  not  have  been  \vrv  much 
older  than  Lot. 

The  only  express  call  to  Abraham  to  leave  hi-  killdn  d 
and  his  country,  recorded  in  Genesis,  is  the  one  that 
follows  the  notice  of  Terah's  d.  ath.  Go.  xii.  1-4;  the  call 
which  Abraham  immediately  obeyed  by  removing  into 
Canaan.  I'.ut  as  it  is  stated  at  the  close  of  the  preced 
ing  chapter,  xi.  :n,  that  "  Tt  rah  took  Abram  his  son. 
and  Lot  the  son  of  llaran.  his  son's  son,  and  Sarai  his 
daughter-in-law,  his  son  A  brain's  wife,  and  they  went 
forth  with  them  from  l.'r  of  tin.-  Chaldees.  to  go  into  the 
land  of  Canaan,"  the  earlier  Jewish  authorities  d'liilu 
dc  Alrakctmo,  §  15),  with  whom  also  Stephen  concurs, 
Ac.  vii.  L',  inferred  that  there  was  a  ]>r'«,r  call,  whether 
addressed  to  Abraham  individually,  or  to  him  in  com 
mon  with  his  father,  as  alone  adequate  to  account  for 
the  movement  of  Terah,  and  those  about  him,  toward 
the  land  of  Canaan.  That  leading,  as  they  did.  a 
immade  or  shepherd  life,  they  should  have  left  the  re 
gion  of  l"r,  with  the  view  of  settling  somewhere  else  in 
the  province  of  Chaldea,  would  have  been  nothing  ex 
traordinary  ;  but  that  they  should  have  done  so  with 
the  explicit  design  of  migrating  into  Canaan,  a  country 
so  far  distant,  and  with  which  they  had  no  natural  con 
nection — this  can  scarcely  be  accounted  for,  except  on 
the  supposition  of  a  special  call,  and  a  call  originating 


on  religious  grounds.  So,  also,  it  seems  to  be  plainly 
implied  in  Gc.  xv.  7,  where  God  says  to  Abraham.  "  I 
am  the  Lord  that  brought  thee  out  of  I'r  of  the  Chal 
dees;''  which  is  repeated  in  Xe.  ix.  7.  if  the  more 
immediate  reason  of  the  movement  was.  as  we  may 
naturally  suppose,  to  escape  from  the  idolatrous  tenden 
cies  which  had  already  begun  to  manifest  themselves  in 
their  native  region,  then  it  is  possible  enough,  that  in 
the  district  of  Haran,  which  was  still  within  the  boun 
daries  of  Mesopotamia,  though  in  the  direction  of 
Canaan,  the  family  may  have  found,  earlier  than  they 
at  first  expected,  a  place  of  sojourn,  where  thev  could 
live  in  comfort,  and  without  molestation  maintain  the 
worship  of  God  in  purity.  In  that  case  it  might  have 
been  perfectly  natural  for  them  to  halt  for  a  time  at 
Haran,  and  might  also  have  been  found  difficult,  from 
the  increasing  infirmities  of  Terah.  to  proceed  farther 
till  his  decease,  lint  as  such  a  partial  separation  from 
the  original  seat  of  the  family  was  insufficient  to  accom 
plish  the  divine  purpose,  so  a  fresh,  a  more  imperative, 
if  imt  also  a  more  specific  and  individual  call  came  to 
Abraham  after  the  death  of  Terah  ;  for  it  is  only  to 
that  period  that  we  can  with  any  propriety  refer  the 
call  recorded  at  the  U'giiining  of  ( !e.  xii.  :  and  we  must 
translate,  not  "  now  the  Lord  had  said."  as  in  our 
authorized  version,  but  simply  "Mow  the  .Lord  said  to 
Abram.  Get  thee  out  of  thy  country.'1  \e. 

This  call  to  Abraham  undoubtedly  forms  an  impor 
tant  era  in  the  history  of  the  divine  communications; 
it  introduced  a  class  of  relations  which  wen-  never,  in  a 
sense,  to  wax  old.  The  future  revelations  of  God's  will 
to  nun  always  bear,  to  some  extent,  the  Abrahamie 
I;  pe.  This  a7-ose  from  the  very  nature  of  the  relation 
into  which,  by  the  divine  call,  the  son  of  Terah  \\  as 
brought.  He  was  constituted.  inni\  iduall  v.  the  head 
ot  a  seed  of  blessing.  (],,.  Urst  link  of  a  chain  that  was 
to  I'm  brace  the  whole  multitude  of  ( I  .id's  elect :  so  that 
to  the  last  the  relative  position  ami  place  of  Abraham 
is  never  altogether  lost  sight  of.  Kven  believers  in 
<  hi  I  i  are  represented  as  Abraham's  seed,  and  those 
that  fall  asleep  iu  the  Lord  are  spoken  of  as  going  to 
Abraham's  bosom.  Till  the  time  of  A  braham,  the  re 
velations  of  God's  character  and  purposes  had  been  of 
ral  nature  ;  they  spoke  one  language  to  all  man 
kind,  and  neither  disclosed  truths  nor  coin-eyed  privi 
leges  to  i, 7U-  portion  of  the  human  family  which  were 
withheld  from  another.  J'.ut  ties  m- -tlmd  had  proved 
insufficient  to  keep  alive  tin'  true  knowledge  of  God, 
and  restrain  the  prevailing  tendency  to  corruption;  it 
left  the  cords  of  obligation  too  loose  upon  the  indivi 
dual  conscience  to  stem  the  encroachments  nf  evil,  and 
secure  tin-  transmission  from  age  to  age  of  the  principles 
of  godliness.  This  is  too  amply  confirmed  bv  the  his 
tory  of  the.  antediluvian  world.  Tin-re  was  light  enough 
then  to  guide  those  who  really  sought  the  way  of  peace, 
and  then;  were  symbols  and  institutions  of  worship 
through  which  to  give  practical  expression  to  their  faith 
and  hope  ;  but  means  were  still  -wanting  to  form  the 
true  worshippers,  by  a  special  organization,  into  a  dis 
tinct  society,  oi-  to  keep  them  aloof  from  contaminating 
influences;  and  the  result  was  a  continual  decay  of 
living  piety,  ending  in  such  a  general  dissolution  of 
manners,  that  nothing  but  the  overwhelming  visitation 
of  the  deluge  seemed  adequate  to  meet  the  evil.  Kven 
with  the  advantage  on  the  side  of  righteousness  gained 
by  this  terrific  judgment,  the  same  tendencies  soon  be 
gan  to  develope  themselves  anew  after  the  deluge; 


ABRAHAM 


12 


ABRAHAM 


within  ,1  few  generations  the  miracle  at  Babel  was 
necessary  to  confound  the  projects  of  men,  combining 
in  one  va~t  scheme  to  thwart  the  purposes  of  Heaven; 
and  even  the  posterity  of  Sliem,  which  hail  some  kind 
of  uviieral  distinction  conferred  on  it  in  divine  things 
by  the  prophecy  of  Noah,  was  ready  to  be  engulfed  in 
the  swelling  stream  of  pollution  ;  for  tin.1  service  of  idols 
had  already  commenced  among  the  1  letter  portions  of 
that  line  in  the  generation  to  which  Abraham  belonged, 
Jos.  x\iv.  2.  Jt  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  adopt 
another  course,  and.  for  the  sake  of  the_y  iirral  good  of 
the  world,  to  select  n,  ji<trticnfar  channel  of  blessing. 
This  is  the  principle  of  the  divine  government,  of  which 
Abraham  bee, Hue  tin-  fir-t,  lisiirj'  representative — indi 
vidual  election  to  special  privileges,  hopes,  and  obliga 
tions  ;  primarily,  indeed,  for  the  behoof  of  those  more 
immediately  concerned,  but  remotely  also  for  the  ben<-- 
ht  of  others,  nay.  with  the  express  object  and  design 
that  the  particular,  in  this  respect,,  might  become  the 
universal.  Hence,  the  call  to  Abraham  has  these  dis 
tinct  and  closely  connected  parts  : — 1.  The  elevation  of 
himself  as  an  individual,  by  the  free  choice  of  Heaven, 
to  the  enjoyment  of  a  near  and  friendly  relationship  to 
Cod;  the  Lord  reveals  himself  as  in  a  special  sense 
Abraham's  (iod,  and,  in  a  correspondingly  special  sense, 
recognizes  Abraham  as  his  servant.  2.  In  visible  token 
of  this  election,  and  as  a  sign  of  the  necessary  separa 
tion  it  involved  from  worldly  alliances  and  the  course 
of  nature's  depravity.  Abraham  was  enjoined  to  leave 
his  home  and  his  kindred,  and  go  forth,  under  the 
direction  of  God.  into  a  region  wli-re  he  should  dwell 
comparatively  alone.  .'5.  Then,  as  a  compensation  for 
what  lie  had  thus  to  sacrifice  of  natural  good,  or  rather 
as  a  proof  of  the  rich  and  plenteous  beneficence  con 
nected  with  an  interest  in  (!od,  the  patriarch  obtains 
th:,'  promise  of  a  land  for  a  possession,  and  of  a  nume 
rous  and  blessed  offspring  to  inherit  it.  4.  And,  finally, 
so  far  from  having  such  distinguished  honours  and  ele 
vated  prospects  conferred  on  him  for  any  selfish  end, 
the  blessing,  which  lie  and  his  family  were  to  be  the 
first  to  enjoy,  was  for  the  world  at  large;  he  and  his 
chosen  line  were  to  be,  not  a  fountain  sealed  up,  but  an 
ever- flowing  channel  of  highest  beneficence;  they  were 
to  be  peculiarly  identified  with  the  cause  of  Cod,  only 
that  this  cause  might  be  more  successfully  maintained, 
and  might  ultimately  diffuse  its  privileges  and  blessings 
among  all  the  families  of  the  earth.  These  points  are 
all  involved  in  the  call  addre.-sed  to  Abraham,  even  in 
its  earliest  recorded  form,  Ge.  xii.  1-t;  and  subsequent 
communications  merely  served  to  bring  out  more  dis 
tinctly  its  specific  parts,  or  to  exhibit  the  principles  on 
which  it  was  to  proceed  to  its  realization. 

Such  was  the  word  that  came  to  Abraham,  when  still 
only  a  Mesopotamian  herdsman  ;  and.  romantic  as  the 
prospect  might  seem  which  it  held  out  for  his  encour 
agement,  lie  responded  at  once  to  the  call,  by  an  im 
plicit  faith  and  a  child-like  obedience.  Departing  from 
Haran.  he  took  with  him  his  nephew  Lot.  and  all  that 
belonged  to  them.  "When,  however,  he  reached  the 
land  of  Canaan,  he  met  with  what  must  have  presented 
itself  as  a  staggering  difficulty;  for  he  found  it  not  an 
uninhabited  region,  waiting,  as  it  were,  to  receive  him. 
"The  Canaanite  was  already  in  the  land."  Gc.xii.fi. 
But  a  fresh  revelation  assured  him  that  this  should 
prove  no  insurmountable  obstacle,  and  that  he  should 
both  have  that  land  and  a  seed  to  inherit  it ;  on  which, 
we  are  told,  he  built  an  altar  to  the  Lord,  who  had 


appeared  to  him,  and  called  upon  his  name.  Hut  pre 
sently  another  difficulty  arose.  He  was  not  well  hi  the 
land  of  Canaan  till  a  dearth  set  in — not  a  partial  scar 
city  merely,  but  "a  grievous  famine  ;"  so  that,  having 
already  journeyed  well  to  the  south,  it  seemed  the 
readiest  mode  of  escaping  the  danger  which  threatened 
him  to  go  down  into  Egypt.  Jn  this  there  was,  un 
doubtedly,  a  partial  failure  of  his  faith,  as  he  had  no 
divine  direction  to  resort  to  Egypt ;  while  the  Lord  had 
expressly  commanded  him  to  sojourn  in  the  land  of 
Canaan,  with  an  implied  promise  of  protection  and  sup 
port.  And  this  false  step  soon  led  to  another;  for, 
going  to  Kgypt.  as  he  consciously  did.  without  a7iy 
divine  warrant,  he  began  to  doubt  respecting  his  per 
sona!  safety,  and  fell  upon  the  equivocating  device  of 
bidding  Sarah  call  him  her  brother — a  half  truth,  indeed, 
but  one-  that,  in  the  circumstances,  involved  a  whole 
lie.  He  probably  thought  that,  if  her  fair  complexion 
and  comely  appearance  should  attract  peculiar  regard 
among  the  swarthy  natives  of  Egypt,  Sarah  would  cer 
tainly  resist  any  offers  or  solicitations  that  mi-_dit  be 
made  to  detach  her  from  him,  while,  being  understood 
to  be  only  his  sister,  there  was  no  temptation,  on  her 
account,  to  do  violence  to  him.  Nothing,  at  least,  was 
likely  to  be  done  in  haste,  and  they  could  parry  any 
proposals  that  might  be  made,  till  it  was  again  in  their 
power  to  leave  the  land.  But  the  right  seems  even 
then  to  have  acquired  a  footing  in  Egypt,  which  has 
continued  in  the  despotic  countries  of  the  East  to  the 
present  times-  the  right  of  the  reigning  monarch  to 
possess  himself  of  any  unmarried  female  in  his  domi 
nions  whose  beauty  has  won  his  regard.  And  so.  with 
out  ceremony,  as  in  the  exercise  of  an  undisputed  pre 
rogative,  the  king  of  Egypt  sent  and  took  Sarah  into 
his  house,  for  the  purpose,  doubtless,  of  undergoing  the 
purifications  and  training'  that  were  required  to  prepare 
her  for  an  alliance  with  royalty.  The  Lord,  however, 
graciously  interposed  for  her  rescue,  inflicting  plagues 
on  the  house  of  Pharaoh,  which  prompted  inquiry,  and 
led  to  the  discovery  of  Sarah's  real  position.  Thus  (iod 
acted  for  his  own  name  sake,  and  took  occasion,  even 
from  the  sins  and  imperfections  of  his  people,  to  impress 
more  deeply  on  those  who  sought  to  do  them  wrong, 
their  peculiar  interest  in  the  favour  and  proti  ction  of 
Heaven.  I's.  cv.  ir>.  And  thus,  also,  it  appeared  that 
Abraham's  faith,  viewed  as  a  principle  of  righteousness, 
partook  of  infirmity,  and.  so  far  from  providing  a  meri 
torious  ground  of  acceptance,  itself  stood  in  need  of 
improvement. 

Abraham  returned  from  Egypt  richer  in  possessions 
than  he  entered  it,  having  received  liberal  gifts  from 
Pharaoh — an  earnest  of  what  his  posterity  were  one  day 
to  reap  on  a  much  grander  scale  from  Egyptian  oppres 
sors.  He  pitched  his  tent  anew  near  Hebron,  on  the 
plain  of  Mamre,  but  soon  found  that  the  pasture- 
grounds  there  were  too  circumscribed  for  the  herds  and 
flocks  he  now  possessed,  along  with  those  of  his  kinsman 
Lot;  therefore,  on  the  occasion  of  a  strife  among  the 
herdsmen,  Abraham  proposed  a  separation,  and  left 
Lot  to  choose  the  direction  he  might  wish  to  take.  The 
very  proposal  to  exercise  such  a  choice  clearly  implies 
that  the  land  was  still  but  partially  occupied,  and  that 
large  tracts  existed  as  common  or  unappropriated  pas 
ture-ground.  The  circumstance  itself,  however,  toge 
ther  with  the  actual  choice  of  Lot,  Avas  a  token  of  God's 
special  goodness  to  Abraham,  and  his  settled  purpose 
to  fulfil  the  promise  respecting  the  inheritance  ;  for,  as 


ABKAHAM 


13 


ABRAHAM 


Lot  was  led  to  fix  upon  a  place  of  sojourn  -which  lay 
actually  heyond  the  bounds  of  the  promised  land,  this 
land  itself  now  remained  for  the  sojourn  of  Abraham, 
in  pledge  of  its  future  occupancy.  And  hence,  imme 
diately  after  the  departure  of  Lot,  nnd  pointing  to  the 
significance  of  the  whole  transaction,  the  Lord  appeared 
aLfaiii  to  Abraham,  and  said.  "  Lift  up  now  thine  eyes, 
and  look  from  the  place  where  thou  art,  northward  and 
southward,  and  eastward  and  westward:  for  all  the 
land  which  thou  seest.  to  thee  will  I  give  it.  and  to  thy 
seed  for  ever."  Go.  xiii.  11, 15. 

At  no  great  distance,  apparently,  from  this  period, 
another  circumstance  occurred,  which  brought  out  lie- 
fore  the  people  of  the  land  how  high  a  place  Abraham 
held  in  the-  consideration  of  God,  and  how  much,  even 
already,  he  was  associated  with  the  divine  power  and 
blessinir.  This  was  the  invasion  of  the  cities  of  the 
plain  by  (.'hedorlaomer,  king  of  L'lam.  and  others — (.s  c 
Cili-:i>OKi.AOMF.K)  -issuing  in  the  capture  of  Lot,  and 
the  taking  of  much  spoil,  it  was  more  immediately  for 
the  sake  of  rescuing  his  kinsman  that  Abraham  was  led 
to  take  part  in  this  warlike  fray;  but,  movi  d  on  this 
account  b\  a  divine  imjiiibc.  a:s  \\vll  as  a  brotherly 
ati'rtiou.  he  sallied  forth  with  his  :'.]••  trained  servants, 
overtook  tin-  iiiavaudin.1'  ho-t  near  I  >an.  in  tin-  north  of 
L'alestine,  and,  after  smiting  th'  m  by  n'-Jit.  pursued 
tlieiii  to  the  neighbourhood  of  I  );unascus.  recovering 
Lot.  and  al!  th-  spoil  they  had  taken  fn -m  Sodom  and 
the  other  [.laces  they  had  plundered.  T'ne  who],.  ,,f  this 
sjioil  Abraham  surrendered  to  the  king  of  Sodom,  in 
token  of  his  free  lorn  from  all  sinister  motive*  in  his 
militarv  a  Iventiuv.  and  of  his  so]i  nui  determination  to 
avoid  even  the  appearance  of  liein^T  indebted  to  the  hum' 
of  such  a  ]ieo],l,..  JUit  one  singular  and  instniethe 
homage  he  paid  in  connection  v.hh  it:  he  gave  tithes 
of  all  to  another  kin^.  to  .Melehi/edek,  the  kinic  of  Salem. 
and  priest  of  the  Most  lli.uh  Cod.  Thi-  .Melchi/,  dek 
had  gone  forth  to  meet  Abraham  on  his  return  from 
victorv,  and  presented  him  with  refreshment  in  bread 
and  wine;  theivbv  acknowledging  Abraham  a~.  under 
God.  the  deliverer  of  the  country,  and.  on  account  of 
\\liat  lie  ]i:td  done,  bestowing  oil  hilll  tile  j.riestlv  bene 
diction.  That  Abraham  should  have  received  thi*  at 
the  hand-  of  Melchizedek,  and  should  also  have  given 
him  the  tenth  of  thesjn.il.  showed  that  lie  r>  co^ni/ed 
in  this  man.  not  merely  the  rightful  jiivrogative.-  of  an 
earthlv  j.rincc.  but  th"  character  of  a  true  representative 
of  the  ( ii.il  of  heaven  :  so  that,  in  payi:i-'  tithes  to  him. 
Abraham  did  homage  to  (iod.  and  confessed  himself 
but  an  instrument  in  the  success  which  had  been  won. 
(.SVe  MKU  niziiDKK.) 

Meanwhile,  no  advance  seemed  to  be  making  in  re 
gard  to  that  part  of  the  divine  promise — which  natu 
rally  lay  nearest  to  the  heart  of  Abraham-  the  posses 
sion  of  a  seed  to  inherit  and  transmit  his  peculiar  bless 
ing.  The  next  scene-  in  the  patriarch's  life  presents 
him  to  our  view  as  raised  to  fellowshij.  with  (lod  in 
vision,  and  giving  vent  to  the  lieavv  thoughts  that 
pressed  upon  his  bosom,  on  account  of  his  still  existing 
childless  condition.  After  (iod  had  assured  him  that 
he  was  his  shield  and  his  exceeding  great  reward,  the 
anxious  question  burst  from  the  patriarch,  "  Lord  (iod. 
what  wilt  thou  give  me.  seeing  1  go  childless,  and  the 
steward  of  my  house  is  this  Kliezer  of  Damascus  .'" 
i.e.  xv.  •>.  This  drew  fr<  >m  the  Lord  the  solemn  assurance, 
that  Abraham  should  have  an  heir  in  the  proper  sense, 
his  own  veritable  offspring;  and  not  only  so,  but  that 


from  the  seed  to  be  given  him  there  should  spring  a 
multitude  like  the  stars  of  heaven.  Abraham  believed 
the  word,  contrary  though  it  was  to  all  present  appear 
ances,  and  even  requiring  at  the  outset  to  surmount 
what  seemed  natural  impossibilities;  he  believed  that 
God  would  do  what  he  said,  and  "it  was  counted  to 
him  for  righteousness"—  that  is.  his  faith  in  (iod's  will 
ingness  and  power  to  fulfil  the  promised  good,  was  taken 
in  lieu  of  such  righteousness  as  might,  if  he  had  pos 
sessed  it,  have  entitled  him  to  look  for  that  good  as  a 
matter  of  debt.  Losing  sight  of  nature  and  self,  lie  was 
ready  to  look  for  all  to  the  infinite  sutiiciency  and  good- 
ress  of  God.  And  so.  there  being  an  explicit  engage 
ment  on  the  part  of  God,  and  a  responsive  faith  on  the 
part  of  Abraham,  a  covenant  transaction  was  entered 
into,  by  means  of  sacrifice,  for  the  jmrposc  of  ratifying, 
in  a  formal  and  solemn  manner,  what  had  taken  place, 
and  still  farther  assuring  the  mind  of  Abraham  as  to 
the  inheritance  destined  for  the  promised  seed.  The 
mat' rial<  were  duinely  chosen,  and  the  transactions 
connected  with  them  ordered,  so  as  to  be  at  once  sym 
bolical  of  the  future  and  confirmatory  of  the  ] in  sent. 
The  larger  sacrifices  were  to  con.-i-t  of  animals  three 
years  old  the  three  pointing  to  th-.-  three  complete 
generations  in  Iv_rvpt.  of  \\hich  mention  was  going  to 
be  made:  they  were  also  divided  into  two  equal  parts, 
more  distinctly  to  ivpreseiit  the  two  parties  engaged  in 
the  sanctioning  of  tin-  agreement;  and  then,  amid  a 
horror  of  great  darkness  v.hieh  fell  uj.oii  Abraham — 
prefigurative,  ash"  \\a.-  informed,  of  the  troubles  and 
conflicts  which  were,  esj.ecially  for  three  generations, 
t"  befall  liis  j iost«  I'ity.  and  through  which  the  eovoiiant- 
proini-e  \vus  to  pass  on  t>  its  accomplishment-  there 
appeared  "  a  smoking  furnace,  and  a  burning  lamj.  j.ass- 
ing  between,  the  pieces."  This  \\.-is  the  symbol  ef  the 
Lord's  -lory,  siib.-tantially  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  fire. 
formally  ownintr  tin-  sacrifice,  and  doubtless  consuming 
it  as  a  whole  burnt-ofi'ering.  And  on  the  sacrificial  ac 
tion  being  closed,  tin-  Lord  expressly  assure  d  Abraham, 
and  "made  a  covenant  v,ith  him. "  that  the  land  in 
which  h<'  lli-  n  sojourned  should  become  the  inheritance 
of  his  seed,  sj.ecifving,  as  an  additional  ground  of  assur 
ance,  the  Kiimdarii  s  of  tin-  hind,  and  naming  the  t  xist- 
ing  tribes  by  whom  it  was  for  the  time  occupied. 

Notwithstanding,  ho\\e\er,  this  formal  and  ratified 
eiiient,  another  long  period  of  inaction  succeeded, 
which  givatlv  tried  the  faith  of  A  I  raham.  ami  entirely 
exhausted  that  of  Sarah.  The  conviction  at  last  estah 
lished  itself  in  her  mind,  that  she  must  now  abandon 
all  hope  of  having  anv  jiersonal  connection  with  the 
promised  seed  ;  and  as  the  word  of  promise,  even  in  its 
most  exj.licit  form,  had  only  spoken  of  Abraham's  oii- 
spring.  the  thought  occurred  to  her.  that  the  maternal 
headship  must  have  been  destined  for  some  other  than 
herself,  and  that  the  nearest  connection  she  could  pos 
sibly  have  with  the  seed  of  blessing  should  be  through 
her  handmaid.  A  son  thus  obtained  would  be.  in  the 
strictest  sense,  Abraham's  child,  and  might  be  Sarah's 
also  by  adoption.  With  this  view  she  counselled  Abra 
ham  to  go  in  to  Hagar.  the  Kgvptian  bondmaid  ;  and 
j  he  too  readily  fell  in  with  the  advice.  The  evil  conse 
quences  were  not  long  in  discovering  themselves  :  the 
maid  became  elated  with  the-  prospects  of  her  condition, 
and  treated  her  mistress  with  contempt.  Domestic 
brawls  ensued,  which  led  to  the  exjudsion  of  Hagar 
from  the  house— the  providence  of  God  thus  setting  its 
seal  of  disapproval  on  the  connection  that  had  been 


A  Eli  All  AM 


A  E  It  AH  AM 


formed,  and  the  mode  employed  to  work  out  the,  pro 
mise-.  Eut,  by  divine  interference,  the  insubordination 
on  the.  part  of  llagar  was  quelled,  so  that  she  returned 
and  bore  a  sou.  .Ishmael.  Thirteen  years  more  elapsed, 

during  \\hieli  everything,  as  far  as  we  know,  moved  on 
with  perfect  equanimity,  and  the  child  grew  upon  the 
affections  of  Abraham,  who,  in  spite  of  what  had  hap 
pened  at  the  outset,  had  come  to  l,,,.k  upon  him  as  the 
commencement  of  the  promised  seed.  Eut  \\hcu  Abra 
ham  him.-elf  was  on  the  verge  of  his  hundredth  year, 
and  Sarah  was  but  U  n  years  younger,  the  Lord  again 
appeared  to  him  ;  and.  as  if  all  were  yet  to  be  done  that 
was  necessary  to  make  good  the  word  of  promise,  spake 
again  of  making  his  covenant  with  Abraham,  and  mul 
tiplying  him.  There,  was  no  repetition  of  the  sacrifices; 
so  far.  what  had  taken  place  before  was  held  to  be  still 
in  force.  Hut  the  ratification  of  the  covenant  was  cur 
ried  to  a  high'-r  stage,  by  the  appointment  of  a  sacra 
mental  pledg,-  and  >ymbol  of  it.  in  the  ordinance  of 
circumcision.  This  was  accompanied  by  a  fresh  assur 
ance  to  Abraham  that  he  should  have  a  seed  destined 
to  grow  into  vast  multitudes;  and  then  came  also  the 
new  and  more  specific  information,  that  Sarah  should 
give  birth  to  a  son,  who  should  be  the  first  of  the  illus 
trious  progeny.  In  commemoration  of  the  happy  era, 
and  in  proof  of  the  absolute  cert.aintv  of  what  was 
spoken,  the  name  of  the  patriarch  was  changed  from 

AiiRAM  \Ji'uj)i  fat  In  r\  to  AlJUAHAM    \ftitli«-  of  u    iiiulfi- 

f/i'li],  and  that  of  his  spouse  from  SARAI  [my  princess] 
into  SAKAH  [simply  pti'incess],  as  henceforth  to  be  related, 
not  to  one,  but  to  many,  destined  to  become  the  queen- 
mother  of  a  royal  and  countless  oil'spring.  The  tidings 
appeared  at  first  almost  to  exceed  belief.  Abraham 
received  what  was  spoken  with  a  kind  of  joyful  wonder, 
though  presently  the  thought  of  v,  hat  wtls  implied  in 
respect  to  Ishmael  cast  a  shade  of  gloom  over  the  pros 
pect;  and  when  the  matter  was,  shortly  after,  through 
the  visit  of  the  angels,  Gc.  xviii.,  brought  distinctly  before 
the  mind  of  Sarah,  she  could  scarcely  believe  for  joy. 
Eut  faith  did  spring  up,  through  which  also  she  received 
strength  to  conceive  seed  ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  fol 
lowing  year  Isaac  was  born  to  Abraham,  when  an  hun 
dred  years  old.  and  of  a  mother  who  was  ninety. 

This  long  delay  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  was 
no  arbitrary  postponement  of  the  expected  good,  or 
needless  prolongation  of  trial  to  the  faith  and  patience 
of  the  parents.  It  was  essentially  connected  with  the 
covenant  of  promise,  to  show  what  kind  of  seed  it  was 
intended  to  secure,  or  how  the  seed  should  be  entitled 
to  look  for  its  peculiar  heritage  of  blessing.  The  first 
child  of  promise  was  to  be,  in  this  respect,  a  sign  to  all 
coming  generations — the  primal  tvpe  of  the  whole  seed. 
And  for  this  two  things  were  necessary  ;  the  first  of 
which  was,  that  he  should  be  emphatically  the  gift  of 
God— not  born  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  of  the 
will  of  the  flesh  (as  Ishmael  was),  but  above  nature,  by 
the  special  agency  of  God;  for  what  the  covenant 
sought  was.  not  simply  seed,  but  a  godly  seed,  such  as 
might  be  recognized  to  be  properly  God's  offspring. 
And  though,  in  the  great  mass  of  those  who  should 
afterwards  constitute  the  seed,  this  divine  and  distinc 
tive  impress  could  only  be  of  a  spiritual  kind,  yet,  at  the 
commencement,  it  was  fit  that  the  natural  should  go 
along  with  the  spiritual,  and  correctly  image  it.  Eorn 
as  Isaac  was,  none  could  doubt  his  connection  with  the 
special  interposition  of  Heaven:  and  all  future  parents, 
who  might  wish  to  have  their  offsuring  becominf  true 


children  of  the  covenant,  were  taught  to  seek  for  as 
real  a  work  of  God  to  make  them  so,  though  of  a  less 
outward  kind.  Most  needful,  therefore,  was  it  for  the 
great  ends  of  the  covenant,  that  Isaac,  its  first  and 
typal  oflspring.  should  be  born  of  parents  so  aged,  that 
their  bodies  were  in  a  manner  dead,  and  were  only  ren 
dered  capable  of  producing  seed  by  the  supernatural 
power  of  (Jod.  Then,  f,,r  the  same  ends,  another  thing 
was  necessary — that  the  outgoing  of  this  supernatural 
poWi  r  should  be  connected  with  a  corresponding  spiri 
tually  supernatural  slate  on  the  part  of  the  parents. 
The  godly  seed  that  \\ as  to  issue  from  the  covenant  by 
the  special  agency  of  God,  must  not  be  expected  other 
wise  than  as  the  fruit  of  a  godly  parentage  ;  and  hence 
the  postponement  of  the  generation  of  Isaac  till  Abra 
ham  had  not  only  attained  to  the  higher  degrees  of  ex 
cellence,  but  had  also  received  the  rite  of  circumcision, 
the  symbol  of  a  purified  condition.  It  was  then  only 
that  the  powers  of  nature  were  miraculously  \iviiied  in 
the  aged  pair  for  the  production  of  the  promis'-d  s>-ed  : 
and  so  the  child  born  of  them  was  the  proper  tvpe  of 
what  the  covenant  aimed  at,  and  what  the  symbolical 
ordinance  connected  with  it  indicated,  namely,  a  spiri 
tual  seed,  in  which  the  divine  and  human,  grace  and 
nature,  should  meet  together  in  producing  true  subjects 
and  channels  of  blessing.  In  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
these  elements  were  to  nu  et  in  their  highest  de-r.  .-and 
most  perfect  form — not  in  co-operative  merely,  but  in 
organic  union;  and  the  result  consequently  was,  one 
in  whom  perfection  was  realized,  at  once  the  heir  and 
the  dispenser  of  all  blessings.  Eut  the  same  things 
had,  in  a  measure,  to  be  found  in  the  real  children  of 
the  covenant,  of  every  age  ;  and  those  in  whom  they 
were  not  might  indeed  be  of  Israel,  but  they  could 
not  be  the  Israel. 

The  supernatural  \  i\  ilicatlon  of  the  pow.  rs  of  animal 
life  which  took  place  in  Abraham  and  Sarah  after  the 
full  ratification  of  the  covenant,  while  it  accounts  for 
the  conception  of  seed  by  Sarah  when  past  age,  also 
explains  how  she  should  in  her  ninetieth  year  have  at 
tracted  the  notice  of  Abimelech,  king  of  Gerar,  and 
been  sought  for  as  an  object  of  desire,  Ge.  xx.  The  cir 
cumstance  has  often  been  objected  to  as  unnatural  by 
infidels  and  superficial  critics,  because  they  overlook 
the  most  essential  fact  of  the  case.  In  realitv.  both 
Abraham  and  Sarah  had  come,  through  the  superna 
tural  work  of  God  upon  their  frames,  to  renew  their 
youth.  They  had  returned,  in  a  manner,  to  the  prime 
of  life ;  and  the  story  of  Abimelech's  attempt  to  get 
possession,  of  Sarah  is  perfectly  in  place.  The  only 
cause  for  wonder  is,  that  the  previous  failure  of  the  de 
vice  resorted  to  by  Abraham  when  in  Kgypt.  should 
not  have  had  the  effect  of  preventing  hi  in  from  repeating 
it  now.  We  can  only  account  for  his  doing  so  by  the 
extreme  wickedness  which  he  saw  in  Gerar,  and  which, 
as  he  alleged  in  his  defence,  forced  on  him  the  convic 
tion,  that  "surely  the  fear  of  God  was  not  there,"  Ge. 
.\x.  n.  Like  one  suddenly  cast  among  lions,  he  caught 
at  what  seemed  for  the  moment  the  only  available  sub 
terfuge  ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  gracious  interposi 
tion  of  (rod,  all  his  hopes  had  been  wrecked — a  fresh 
proof,  even  in  the  father  of  the  faithful,  that  the  stability 
of  the  covenant  rests  not  on  what  they  are  to  God,  but 
what  God  is  to  them!  Abimelech  was  rebuked  by  (Jod 
in  a  dream,  arid  enjoined  to  release  Sarah  on  pain  of  the 
most  severe  judgments.  He  obeyed;  but  in  turn  rebuked 
Abraham  for  the  deception  he  had  practised,  though 


AB1LYHAM  15  ABRAHAM 

the  defence  offered  by  the  patriarch  was  received  with-  vation.  Jt  was  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  outwardly 
out  any  note  of  disapprobation.  He  even  bestowtd  and  palpably  the  great  truth,  that  God's*  method  of 
upon  the  patriarch  costly  presents,  on  the  ground  that  working  in  the  covenant  of  grace  must  have  its  counter- 
he  was  himself  in  part  to  blame  for  what  had  happened,  part  in  man's.  The  one  must  be  the  ivtlexof  the  other, 
and  that  he  owed  the  arrest  of  judgment  to  thu  inter-  ;  God  in  blessing  Abraham  triumphs  over  nature,  and 
cession  of  Abraham  as  a  man  of  Cod;  so  that  they  Abraham  triumphs  after  the  same  manner,  in  propor- 
parted  on  terms  of  friendship,  but  with  an  admonition  tion  as  he  is  blessed.  He  receives  a  special  ^ift.  a  child 
to  Sarah  to  cultivate  in  future  a  more  veiled  appear-  of  hope,  from  the  hand  of  God,  and  he  freely  surrenders 


ratification  of  the  covenant  to  have  occupied  a  high  ditioii  and  history,  of  all  who  should  become  proper 
moral  position,  and  the  procedure  of  Cod  was  conducted  subjects  and  channels  of  blessing  he  also  must  concur 
with  an  especial  aim  to  the  securing  of  personal  holiness  in  the  act;  on  God's  altar  he  must  sanctify  himself,  as 
as  the  great  end  of  the  covenant.  The  distinctive  badge  a  sign  to  all  who  would  possess  the  higher  life  in  Cod. 
of  the  covenant— the  sacrament  of  circumcision — was  a  ,  that  it  implies  and  carries  along  with  it  a  devout  sur- 
perpetual  monitor  to  this  effect,  calling  every  one  who  i  render  of  the  natural  life  to  the  service  and  glory  of 
received  it  to  put  off  the  old  man  of  corruption,  that  ,  Cod." — \  7'y/,o%//  of  ^•rii,tun\  i.  p.  :$:>1K 
he  might  walk  in  righteousness  before  God.  The  delay  j  !',y  this  extraordinary  demand,  therefore,  the  Lord 
practised  in  regard  to  that  part  of  the  covenant  which  sought  to  complete  the  instruction  which  the  early  cir- 
respected  tile  promised  seed,  and  the  much  longer  delay  cumstances  of  Isaac's  life,  as  the  first  ofl'sprin^  of  the 
tiiat  was  to  take  place  in  regard  to  that  other  part  covenant,  were  intended  to  impart,  and  to  purue  the 
which  concerned  the  possession  of  the  inheritance,  aflectioii  of  the  patriarch  toward  his  heaven-sent  child 
"because  the  ini(piity  of  the  Amorites  was  not  yet  full,"  from  the  earthliness  and  corruption  nf  nature.  Civat 
both  pointed  in  the  same  direction,  since  they  showed  as  the  trial  was,  his  faith  in  the  truth  and  faithfulness 
how  prominent  a  place  was  to  be  given  to  moral  con-  ,,f  Cod  had  grown  so  much,  thai  he  was  found  equal  to 
siderations  in  establishing  the  provisions  of  tlie  covenant,  the  task.  lie  believed  that  as  the  dead  womb  of  Sarah 
and  how  far  its  course  of  developnn  nt  was  to  rise  above  had  been  supernatural!  y  vivified  to  brine-  this  child  into 
iner.ly  natural  grounds  and  interests.  Abraham  him-  being,  so  the  dead  child  himself  could  he  restored  to 
self  enters  int..  thesi  views.  He  asn  nds  to  the  ,  leva-  life  again  when  the  word  and  the  \\i!l  ,.f  Cod  required 
tion  ot  the  divine  plan.  Aii'jvl.-  visit  him,  as  one  with  it :  and  in  this  confidence  he  procei  ded  to  carry  out  the 
whom  they  might  now-  have  familiar  converse.  The  injunction  laid  upon  him  — up  to  the  last  terrible  act- 
Lord  himself  talks  with  him  as  a  friend,  and  discloses  when  the  Lord  again  interposed,  and  declared  his  accept- 
to  him  the  secret  of  lleav.n  resp  cting  the  cities  of  the  ance  of  the  surrender  that  had  been  mad.'  in  principle 
plain,  (  xpivssly  because  Abraham  was  now  known  to  and  feeling,  as  equivalent,  for  the  purposes  aimed  at,  to 
lie  one  who  would  ••command  his  children  and  his  the  actual  sacrifice.  At  the  same  time,  a  ram  was  pro- 
Innischold  after  him,  to  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord,  to  do  vided  for  the  burnt- offering  in  the  room  of  Isaac -a 
justice  and  jud-ment."  Uu.  xviii.  lu.  The  patriarch,  in  more  fitting  type  in  this  respect  than  Isaac  could  have 
turn,  pleads  with  the  Lord,  in  the  full  consciousness  ,,f  been  of  the  on,  great  sacrifice  for  sin  :  and  the  venerable 
his  privih-vd  condition;  yet  only  in  so  far  as  he  f.  It  a  father  of  the  faithful  was  s,  nt  away  from  the  affecting 
regard  to  the  interests..!'  righteousness  could  justly  carry  scene  with  the  seal  of  Heaven's  highest  commendation, 
him- silently  acquiescing  at  last  in  the  destruction  of  and  with  the  divine  oath  superaddcd  to  all  the  other 
Sodoin  and  its  kindred  cities,  as  in  accordance  with  the  bonds  of  the  covenant,  that  its  provisions  should  be 
demands  of  righteousness.  But  Abraham  reached  the  fully  earned  out.  Abraham  had  now  risen  to  the 
highest  stage  of  spiritual  progress  and  Keif-sacrificing  highest  exercise  of  faith  and  obedience  of  which  he  was 
devotediiess  to  the  will  of  Heaven,  w  hen.  in  oliedi-  capable,  and  ill  his  conduct  had  giv  en  the  nearest  pos- 
ence  to  the  divine  call,  he  went  forth  to  offer  up  his  sible  reti.-x  of  the  divine  imaging  s..  Ion <_r  befon  hand 
son  Isaac  on  the  altar  of  (  ;.,d.  The  form  in  which  this  that  actual  surrender  to  death  of  the  Son,  the  only  Son, 
call  came  to  Abraham  made  full  and  touching  ivcogni-  whom  the  Father  from  eternity  loved,  in  order  that  the 
tion  of  the  gr.  atness  of  the  sacrifice  it  d.  mand.d  :  "'fake  covenant  might  be  fulfilled,  and  the  way  laid  ..pen  for  its 
now  thy  son,  thine  <,,J <i  son  Isaac,  w!/',,n  t/tmi  lovcst,  members  to  everlasting  life  and  blessing.  There  is  no 
and  get  thee  into  the  land  of  Moriah,  and  offer  him  there  need,  however,  when  seeking  to  make  out  the  proper 
for  a  burnt- offering."  It  was  a  trial,  indeed,  in  the  significance  of  this  part  of  A  hraham's  history,  whether 
strongest  sense.',  such  as  no  parent  on  earth  could  ever  in  its  more  immediate  or  its  prospective  bearing,  to  lay 
afterwards  be  called  literally  to  make,  since  no  one  ever  stress  on  the  precise  locality  where  the  transaction  was 
should  have  a  son  on  whose  prolonged  existence  so  appointed  to  take  place,  or  the  subordinate  circumstan- 
much  depended,  and  be  called  personally  to  put  an  end  ces  connected  with  its  performance.  Whether  the  mount 
to  it.  The  call  might  fitly  be  named  a  temptation,  as  ,  that  was  indicated  to  him  "in  the /,<»</  of  .Moriah"  was 
it  not  only  enjoined  the  patriarch  to  go  and  extin-  '  exactly  the  same  with  that,  which  was  afterwards  de- 
guish  a  life  incomparably  dear  to  him,  but  in  the  very  '  signaled  "M<.,iint  .Moriah,"  and  on  which  the  temple 
act  of  doing  so  to  destroy,  as  it  might  seem,  the  very  was  built,  must,  from  the  lack  of  definite  information, 
object  of  faith  and  hope,  and  enact  the  most  revolting  remain  somewhat  doubtful;  and  even  if  we  could  be 
rite  of  heathenism.  Yet,  th,, ugh  not  in  outward  reality  assured  of  it,  the  fact  would  be  significant  rather  as 
-God  never  intended  that— "in  heart  and  purpose  the  i  connected  with  the  typical  things  (if  the  temple  than 
act  must  be  done.  It  was  no  freak  of  arbitrary  power  '  with  the  antitypical  in  ( 'hrist ;  for  it  was  not  on  Mount 
to  command  the  sacrifice,  nor  for  the  purpose  merely  of  Moriah,  the  most  sacred  spot  within  the  city,  but  m  a 
raising  the  patriarch  to  a  kind  of  romantic  moral  ele-  |  place  called  Calvary,  a  place  of  pollution,  without  it, 


Ai'.SALOM 


ABSALOM 


that  Jesus  suffered.  The  particular  spot  and  other  in 
cidental  circumstances  should  bo  regarded  only  in  the 
light  of  accessories,  since  eiUier  they,  or  others  not 
materially  different,  must  have  accompanied  the  main 
Iran-action  ;  this  alone  is  important. 

But  few  incidents  are  recorded  in  the  remaining  pe 
riod  of  Abraham's  life,  Ho  removed  from  Beersheba, 
which  seems  to  have  been  his  settled  place  of  residence 
about  the  time  of  the  oil'.  ring  up  of  Isaac,  to  Hebron, 
where  Sarah  died,  an  hundred  and  twenty-seven  years 
old.  At  her  death,  and  doubtless  with  reference  to  the 
future,  occupancy  of  the  land  by  his  seed,  ho  secured  as 
his  own  property  a  burying-ground  in  the  held  of  Mach- 
pelah.  in  \\hic1i,  beside-  Sarah'-,  his  own  remains  and 
those  of  his  immediate  descendants  were  laid.  Some 
time  after  this,  with  the  view  of  securing  a  suitable 
alliance,  he  sent  by  the  hand  of  a  trusty  servant  to  the 
land  of  his  kindred,  and  obtained  for  his  son  Isaac, 
K'ebekah  lo  \\ife.  Finally,  he  took  to  himself  a  second 
wife.  Keinrah.  of  whose  country  and  connections  no 
thing  is  recorded;  but  by  her  ho  had  several  sons,  to 
•whom,  as  to  Ishmael,  he:  gave  smaller  portions,  while  he 
reserved  the  main  part  for  Isaac.  "  lie  died  in  a.  good 
old  age,  an  old  man  and  full  of  years,"  an  hundred  three 
score  and  iifieen.  He  was  buried  by  his  sons  Isaac 
and  Ishmael  in  the  cave  of  Machpelah;  without  an 
epitaph,  but  with  a  memorial  that  shall  be  ever  blessed 
—  a  witness,  while  living,  of  the  ennobling  result  that 
flows  from  a  cordial  surrender  to  the  call  of  (Jod  ;  and 
when  dead,  still  speaking  of  the  goodness  which  Ciod 
has  in  store  for  them  who  fear  Him,  and  who  com 
mit  themselves  in  implicit  faith  to  the  direction  of  his 
word,  Ge.  xxv.  9,  ID. 

AB'SALOM  [father  of  prace],  a  happy  name,  but  a 
sail  misnomer  for  the  restless  and  aspiring  youth  with 
whom  alone  it  stands  connected  in  Scripture,  and  ] 
who.  after  embroiling  first  a  family,  then  a  kingdom 
in  turmoil,  fell  a  victim  to  his  own.  rashness  and  folly. 
Absalom  was  the  third  son  of  David,  and  his  only 
son  by  Maaehah,  the  daughter  of  Talmai,  king  of  (ie- 
shnr,  '2  sa.  Hi.  ::.  .He  was  possessed  of  singular  grace 
and  beauty,  so  that  he  was  esteemed  when  grown  to 
manhood  the  handsomest  man  of  his  time.  From  the 
manner  in  which  he  is  reported  to  have  cultivated  his 
hair,  allowing  it  to  grow  till  it  is  even  said  to  have 
weighed  '200  shekels,  -2  Sa.  xiv.  :><;,  it  is  evident  that  he 
w-as  extremely  vain  of  his  personal  appearance,  and  be 
stowed  the  greatest  attention  on  his  exterior.  Had  his 
vanity,  however,  confined  itself  in  this  direction,  it 
would  have  ended  in  simple  foppery ;  but  in  process  of 
time  it  took  a  loftier  aim.  The  first  occasion  that 
stirred  his  spirit  into  a  flame  was.  indeed,  one  of  an  atro 
cious  description,  such  as  might  well  have  thrown  from 
its  proper  balance  a  wiser  and  more  considerate  spirit 
than  his.  This  was  the  violence  done  to  his  full  sister 
Tamar  by  A  union,  the  eldest  son  of  David — a  violence 
accompanied  by  such  consummate  deceit  beforehand, 
and  such  heartless  repudiation  afterwards,  that  it  cer 
tainly  merited  the  severest  chastisement.  David,  we  are 
told,  when  he  heard  of  what  had  happened,  "  was  very 
wroth,"  2Sa.  xiii.  21;  but  he  appears  to  have  taken  no 
decided  action  regarding  it  —unnerved,  doubtless,  by 
the  humiliating  recollection  of  his  own  recent  miscon 
duct  in  the  matter  of  Triali,  which  had  also  been  marked 
by  extraordinary  deceit  and  violence.  The  inaction  of 
David  served  as  an  excuse  for  the  vengeful  determina 
tion  of  Absalom,  who  could  not  tolerate  the  thought 


of  such  an  injury  having  being  done  to  his  sister  without 
signal  retribution.  But  the  better  to  effect  his  object, 
he  feigned  in  the  meantime  an  easy  indifference,  intend 
ing  to  compass  Jns  object  in  a  like  crafty  and  unscru 
pulous  manner  to  that  which  had  been  practised  by 
Anmon.  For  two  years  he  restrained  the  impetuosity 
of  his  spirit,  and  at  length,  when  all  suspicions  of  evil 
had  been  lulled  to  sleep,  he  brought  his  long  meditated 
purpose  to  a  head,  in  connection  with  a  sheep-shearing 
entertainment,  which  he  was  going  to  hold  in  I'.aal- 
ha/or,  a  place  at  no  great  distance-  from  Jerusalem, 
somewhere  between  Bethel  and  Jericho.  He  invited 
the  king  himself  to  this  entertainment,  not  probably 
expecting  or  even  wishing  the  invitation  to  bo  accepted. 
hut  the  more  effectually  to  throw  all  parties  oif  their 
guard,  and  prevent  the  idea  from  once  entering  their 
minds  that  any  project  of  evil  was  contemplated. 
Accordingly,  while  David  declined  going,  Anmon  and 
the  other  members  of  the  royal  family  went:  and.  in 
conformity  with  preconcerted  arrangements,  -when  Am- 
non  had  become  intoxicated  with  wine,  he  was  siain  by 
the  servants  of  Absalom.  The  other  brothers  wi  re- 
seized  with  consternation  on  seeing  what  was  done, 
and.  apprehending  a  general  slaughter,  ran  each  for 
his  mule,  and  made  as  fast  as  possible  for  Jerusalem  : 
but  it  was  soon  discovered  that  their  apprehensions 
were  groundless,  and  that  the  whole  -cluine  had  been 
concerted  for  the  murder  of  Anmon.  It  is  altogether  a 
dismal  story,  and  reveals  a  state  of  things  in  David's 
family  which,  had  it  not  been  disclosed  to  us  by  the 
faithful  pen  of  inspiration,  we  could  not  have  supposed 
to  exist,  or  scarcely  even  have  believed  to  be  possible. 
In  attempting  to  account  for  it  a  large  portion  of  blame- 
must  undoubtedly  be  attached  to  the  evil  practice  of 
polygamy,  which  in  David's  family,  as  in  every  other 
where  it  exists,  iieces.-arily  loosened  the  bonds  of  bro 
therhood,  and  gave  scope  to  feelings  of  jealousy  and 
lust,  for  which  otherwise  place  could  not  have  been 
found.  The  children  of  the  different  wives  living  to  a 
considerable  extent  apart,  naturally  came  to  look  upon 
each  other  as  so  many  related,  yet  distinct  and  sepa 
rate  circles:  and  the  differences  that  existed  amount  he 
several  mothers,  whether  in  original  rank,  or  in  con 
jugal  regard,  could  not  fail  to  foster  feelings  in  the 
children  adverse  to  domestic  harmony  and  affection.  In 
particular,  as  Absalom's  mother  was  the  daughter  of  a 
king,  and  herself  also,  in  all  probability,  like  her  chil 
dren,  distinguished  for  comeliness  of  form,  the  children 
would  readily  think  themselves  entitled  to  some  degree 
of  precedence;  and  this  could  not  but  tend  to  inflame 
the  unnatural  desire  of  Anmon  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  deepen  Absalom's  determination  to  have 
his  revenge.  The  offence,  too,  that  had  been  committed, 
was  aggravated  by  a  certain  measure  of  insolence  and 
presumption  in  the  manner  of  it.  But  along  with  this 
original  root  of  evil  in  the  household  of  David,  there 
was  the  pernicious  tendency  of  his  own  fatal  backsliding 
in  regard  to  Bathsheba .-  a  tendency  that  was  sure  to 
work  with  most  disastrous  effect  in  his  own  household, 
as  the  ill  example  of  the  parent  naturally  gave  wings 
to  corruption  in  the  bosoms  of  his  children,  and  ren 
dered  him  well  nigh  incapable  of  administering  a  vigi 
lant  and  wholesome  discipline.  The  outburst  of  wick 
edness,  therefore,  first  in  Amnon,  and  then  in  Absalom, 
was  but  the  fruit  of  the  great  moral  defection  which 
had  tarnished  the  career  of  David,  arid  of  which  the 
prophet  gave  him  no  doubtful  intimation,  when  he 


ABSALOM 


17 


ABSALOM 


said,  that  the  Lord  would  "raise  up  evil  against  him 
out  of  his  own  house"  and  that  "the  sword  should 
never  depart  from  it,"  L'Sa.  xii.  i<>.  11. 

Ju  tlie  murder  of  Ainnon,  Absalom  liad  satiated 
his  revenge  ;  but  he  had,  at  the  same  time,  sealed  his 
exclusion  from  the  presence  and  court  of  his  father. 
After  such  an  atrocious  procedure  he  durst  not  appear 
there  ;  and  accordingly  he  fled  to  (leshur.  and  put  him 
self  under  the  protection  of  his  maternal  grandfather. 
He  abode  there  for  three  years.  Whether  during  this 
time  be  kept  up  any  correspondence  with  parties  in 
Jsrael  we  are  not  told  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt,  from 
what  subsequently  took  place,  that  there  were  not  a  i 
fe-w  at  Jerusalem  and  elsewhere  who  wished  him  back  ;  j 
and  the  heart  also  of  David,  after  it  had  recovered 
from  the  shock  of  Anmon's  death,  again  longed  after  j 
Absalom.  .Foab,  with  his  shrewd  discernment,  was 
not  slow  to  perceive  how  the  current  was  running:  and 
anxious  to  have  the  credit  of  bringing  about  what  he 
judged  almost  certain  ere  long  to  take  place,  he  em 
ploved  a  wise  woman  of  Tekoah  to  introduce  the  mat 
ter  in  a  parabolical  discourse  to  the  king,  and  got  him 
virtually  committed  to  the  principle  of  Absalom's  re 
call,  before  the  king  was  aware  of  his  case  being 
brought  under  review.  When  lie  did  perceive  the 
drift  of  tin-  repr.-sentation.  he  at  onco  suspected  that 
the  hand  of  .(nab  was  in  tin-  device,  and  was  \\ell 
pleased,  we  mav  n-adilv  conceive,  when  lie  found  his 
suspicion  confirmed.  He  would  be  satisfied,  since  so 
sagacious  a  counsellor  had  taken  the  initiative,  that  the  ! 
kingdom  was  ripe  for  the  return  of  Absalom,  and  that 
he  could  gratify  his  personal  feeling-  toward  his  son. 
without  doing  violence  to  the  general  sense  ,,(  the  com- 
niunitv.  .loab  was  therefore  instructed  to  have  A  lisa- 
lorn  brought  back.  2S:i.  xiv.21,  though  the  liberty  to 
return  was  coupled  \\ith  the  restriction  that  Absalom 
should  so  far  confine  himself  to  his  own  house  as  to 
refrain  from  coming  into  the  kind's  presence.  The 
exiled  \outli  gladly  availed  him.-elf  of  the  opportunity 
presented  to  him  :  but  after  his  return  he  felt  gall'-d  by 
the  restraint  imposed  upon  him.  In  truth,  it  was  a 
piece  of  unskilful  management  to  coupl>-  his  return 
with  such  a  condition,  for  it  gave  to  his  case  an  aspect 
of  harsh  treatment:  and  the  lovers  of  gay  society  and 
c.'iirtlv  manners  would  bewail  it  a-  a  sort  of  public 
calainitv.  that  the  man  above  all  others  titled  to  shine 
in  places  of  fashionable  resort  should  be  kept  under 
a  cloud  of  dishonour.  The  policy  adopted  was  one  of 
those  half  measures,  which  by  w  hat,  they  withhold  more 
than  undo  the  eiiect  of  what  ha-  been  conci  ded.  And 
when  Absalom  saw  how  matters  had  been  workiiiLT  in 
his  favour,  he  set  his  heart  upon  getting  the  restraint 
withdrawn.  l-'or  this  purpose  he  sought  for  an  inter 
view  with  .loab,  in  the  hope  that  as  .loab  had  so  far 
effected  his  restoration,  he  might  not  be  unwilling  to 
accomplish  what  remained.  Hut  in  this  he  was  disap 
pointed,  .loab  had  probably  by  this  time  discerned  the 
dangerous  elements  that  were  gathering  about  Absa 
lom,  and  had  some-  apprehension  of  the  improper  use 
that  would  be  made  of  any  further  indulgence,  if  it  were 
granted.  He  therefore  declined  seeing  Absalom;  but 
the  latter,  with  that  mixture  of  boldness  and  cunning, 
which  appears  to  have  formed  so  remarkable  a  feature 
in  his  character,  put  his  servants  on  the  project  of  set 
ting  fire  to  Joab's  barley  field,  \\hidi  adjoined  to  Absa 
lom's,  and  thus  in  a  manner  forced  .loab  to  a  conference; 
and  then,  when  having  taunted  Joab  \\ith  the  folly  of 

Vol..    |. 


having  brought  him  fn  mi  a  foreign  exile  only  to  shut  him 
up  to  an  exile  at  home,  he  succeeded  in  getting  Joab's 
interest  engaged  in  his  behalf,  and  was  shortly  after 
wards  admitted  to  the  presence  of  his  father. 

Had  there  been  any  spark  of  right  principle  or  hon 
ourable  feeling  in  the  bosom  of  Absalom,  the  forbear 
ance  and  clemency  which  had  now  been  extended  toward 
him  would  have  bound  him  with  cords  of  unalterable 
attachment  to  the  person  and  throne  of  his  father.  But 
the  reverse  was  the  case;  personal  vanity  and  ambition 
were  his  ruling  principles;  and  he  now  addressed  him 
self  to  the  work  of  securing  their  full  gratification.  To 
understand  aright  this  part  of  his  career,  we  must  en 
deavour  to  realize  the  exact  position  nf  matters  at  the 
time,  and  know  the  materials  he  had  to  \\ork  upon. 
The  eye  of  Absalom  was  steadfastly  set  upon  the  throne  ; 
and  as  matters  then  stood,  there  were  many  things  to 
favour  his  attempt  to  reach  it.  could  he  only  bring  into 
play  a  sufficient  amount  of  skilful  management,  while, 
if  affairs  were  left  to  themselves,  he  had  every  reason  to 
dread  disappointment.  Kven  after  Amiion's  death  he 
was  not  absolutely  the  eldest  siirviv  ing  son  ;  for  ( 'hileah 
was  his  senior  by  birth,  and.  for  anything  we  know  to 
the  contrary.  v\a-  still  alive.  Moiv  than  that,  a  pecu 
liar  interest  huiii;-  around  another  and  younger  son  of 
David.  Solmnon.  concerning  whom  words  had  been 
spoken  and  names  imposed,  vv  hich  seemed  too  plainly  to 
point  in  tin-direction  of  the  kingdom,  and  of  which  Ab 
salom  could  scarcely  be  altogether  ignorant,  IC'h.  xxii.  !i; 
L'Sn.  xii.  •_'!,  •_'.'..  Then  there  was  the  consideration  of  his 
own  past  \\iekedness,  which  he  could  not  but  regard  ,'e- 
an  obstacle  in  his  way  to  the  throne  by  legitimate 
means,  especially  as  the  relation  of  his  father  to  Saul 
had  clearly  enough  shown,  that  moral  considerations 
must  here  have  important  weight,  and  David,  with  all 
his  partial  leanings,  was  not  the  man  to  set  them  wholly 
aside.  Such  things  obviously  left  but  little  hope  to 
Absalom  by  a  fair  and  orderly  course  of  procedure. 
Hut.  on  the  other  side,  he  had  many  advantages.  He 
was.  if  not  absolutely  the  eldest  son.  at  least  the  eldest 
of  any  consideration,  and  the  only  son  by  a  king's 
dau-hter.  l.'oyal  blood  on  both  sides  flovvt  d  in  hi.-  veins, 
and  his  appearance  and  manners  wen-  altogether  kindly. 
His  claims  were  thus  within  the  very  precincts  of  |.  gi- 
timacv  :  and.  if  he  could  but  interest  a  powerful  and 
influential  party  in  hi-  behalf,  a  bold  and  vv  i  11  concerted 
stroke  of  policy  miu'ht  carry  him  to  the  summit  of  his 
wishes.  I'ut  for  this,  he  must  inevitably  throw  himself 
chiefly  on  the  worse  elements  ,,|  society  in  his  fathers 
kingdom.  The  better  portion  were  too  enlightened  in 
their  views  of  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom,  and  also 
too  sensible  of  the  benefits  that  had  been  reaped  from 
David's  administration,  to  encourage  any  policy  hostile 
to  I  (avid's  interests,  or  at  variance  vv  ith  the  leading  prin 
ciples  of  his  government.  l!ut  there  was  a,  large  class 
of  another  kind  an  ungodly  portion,  whom  Saul's  policy 
had  tended  greatly  to  foster,  and  who,  though  they  had 
yielded  to  the  rising  fortunes  and  military  piovvess  of 
David,  yet  must  often  have  sighed,  amid  his  strivings 
after  righteousness,  for  what  they  would  call  the  good 
old  times  of  Saul.  Nay,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that 
a  verv  considerable  number,  both  at  Jerusalem  and 
throughout  the  land,  who  had  been  wont  by  means  of 
corruption  and  favouritism  to  secure  their  own  ends, 
till  the  more  stringent  and  impartial  rule  of  David  had 
put  a  check  on  their  courses,  would,  in  the  latter  days 
of  his  kingdom,  feel  as  if  they  had  many  a  grudge  to 


AnSALOM 


ABSALOM'S   TOM  15 


satisfy,  and  something  to  hope  fi>r  liy  a  change.  Such, 
in  tin;  actual  state  of  things,  wen;  the  elements  of  evil 
fermenting  around  Alisaloin,  by  skilfully  working  on 
whicli  he  might  hope  to  make  his  way  to  the  throne. 
He  resolved  to  throw  himself  into  tlie  vortex,  and  to 
l>ecom> — as  we  iind  from  the;  J'salms  of  David  written 
in  connection  with  Absalom's  rebellion,  lie  actually  did 
lieeome  the  head  of  the  ungodlv  part}'  in  the  kingdom 
-  the  party  that  sought  to  revive  the  times  of  Saul,  an<l 
strengthen  themselves  liy  worldly  resources  and  ]>lans  of 
wickeilness.  In  those  psalms,  such  as  I's.  iii.  iv.  xlii. 
Ixiii.  \c.,  |)avid  continually  speaks  of  those  who  had 
risen  up  against  him.  as  the  patrons  of  unrighteousness, 
the  formers  of  lies,  the  enemies  of  ( iod  as  well  as  of 
himself,  yea  //w  enemy  on  the  very  ground  of  his  adher 
ence  to  the  cause  of  righteousness  and  truth  :  so  that 
he  apparently  regarded  Ahsalom  (though  in  this  doubt 
less  he  was  too  much  swayed  by  overweening  personal 
affection)  more  as  the  seduced  than  the  seducer — the 
tool  of  other  men's  malice  and  ambition,  rather  than 
tin;  agent  of  his  own.  Absalom  was  precisely  the  man 
to  conciliate  the  regard,  and  head  the  movements  of 
this  party.  lie  was  as  capable  as  they  were  of  work 
ing  by  fraud  or  violence.  Then,  his  love  of  display,  his 
fine  chariots  and  horses,  his  numerous  foot-runners  and 
handsome  equipages,  gratified  their  carnal  tastes,  and 
promised,  were  he  on  the  throne,  to  throw  an  air  of 
splendour  around  the  kingdom,  even  beyond  what  it  had 
presented  in  the  days  of  Saul.  Added  to  this,  there  was 
his  wonderful  condescension  and  grace,  his  insinuating 
address,  liis  apparent  interest  in  every  one'  s  affairs,  his 
readiness  to  sympathize  with  them  in  their  matters  of 
complaint,  and  anxiety  to  right  their  cause,  had  he  but 
the  power  to  do  so  !  •_'  Sa.  xv.  1-5.  These  arts  were  success 
ful  ;  the  discontented  and  ungodly  party  in  the  kingdom 
had  found  the  man  they  desired  :  and  it  seemed  right  to 
ha/.ard  all  in  his  interest,  rather  than  continue  longer 
under  the  saintly  administration  of  David,  and  run  the 
chance  of  having  a  like-minded  successor  to  follow  him 
on  the  throne. 

The  mode  of  carrying  the  plan  into  effect  was  char 
acteristic  of  its  nature:  it  began  with  a  great  lie.  Ab 
salom  pretended  he  had  made  a  vow  to  the  Lord  in 
Gesliur,  which  required  to  be  paid  in  Hebron.  What 
it  was  we  are  not  told  ;  but  in  all  probability  he  meant 
a  Naxarite  vow  of  separation  for  a  certain  time  to  the 
Lord,  \\hieh  was  to  lie  begun  and  terminated  in  Hebron, 
as  a  place  more  suitable  than  .Jerusalem  for  such  a 
service.  It  looked  suspicious,  that  Absalom  should 
have  been  so  lung  in  making  any  mention  of  such  a 
vow,  if  he  really  had  undertaken  it ;  but  the  king  des 
cried  no  danger  in  the  proposal,  and  gave  him  leave  to 
depart.  Presently,  however,  the  secret  disclosed  itself ; 
so  many  from  Jerusalem  and  other  quarters  followed 
Absalom  to  Hebron,  and  among  these  persons  of  such 
high  consideration,  including  Ahithophel.  one  of  David's 
most  trusty  counsellors,  that  the  plot  was  seen  at  once 
to  be  widely  spread  as  well  as  deeply  laid.  David  per 
ceived  in  a  moment,  when  he  heard  how  matters  stood. 
that  the  old  Sauliiu;  party,  which  had  been  so  long 
smothered,  had  again  revived  in  the  conspiracy  of  Ab 
salom  ;  and,  being  confident  that  all  the  ungodly  ele 
ments  around  him  would  draw  in  that  direction,  he  saw 
that  his  safety  was  in  flight.  At  the  commencement 
of  this  flight,  the  open-mouthed  slander  and  cursing  of 
Shimei  confirmed  him  in  the  fears  he  entertained,  and 
showed  how  closely  connected  this  outburst  of  rebellion 


in  Absalom  was  with  the  smouldering  spirit  of  attach 
ment  to  the  house  of  Saul.  J'.ut  while  he  thus  had  good 
reason  to  lose  confidence;  in  man,  the  psalms  he  indited 
on  the  occasion  strikingly  exhibit  the  trust  he  still  re 
posed  in  (!od.  He  rested  in  the  belief,  that  Ife  who 
had  set  the  crown  upon  his  head,  in  the  face  of  the  most 
furious  opposition,  would  vindicate  his  right  to  hold  it, 
in  spite  of  all  that  were  now  against  him.  And  so  it 
proved.  The  success  of  Absalom,  indeed,  was  alarm 
ingly  rapid — it  seemed  as  if  all  was  yielding  to  his  touch  ; 
.Jerusalem  opened  its  gates  at  his  approach  ;  and  if  he 
had  followed  the  counsel  of  Ahithophel  to  pursue  the  king 
at  once,  and  overtake  him,  when  weary  and  downcast 
with  his  misfortunes,  the  triumph,  humanly  speaking, 
might  have  been  complete.  J'ut  (1ml  had  provided  to 
defeat  the  counsel  of  Ahithophcl.  The  cunning  and  de 
ceit  which  had  carried  Absalom  so  far  on  the  wings  of 
victory,  met  him  in  his  council-chamber;  his  own  mea 
sure  was  meted  back  to  him  in  the  skilful  part  played 
by  Hushai,  who  urged  delay  :  so  that  time  was  obtained 
for  David  and  his  adherents  to  rally  their  spirits  and 
concentrate;  their  forces  ;  and  when  the  final  struggle 
came  on,  the  tried  and  well-officered  bands  of  David 
completely  routed  the  comparatively  raw  and  undis 
ciplined  recruits  of  Absalom.  Absalom  himself  died  by 
the  hands  of  Joab,  after  having  been  caught  in  a  thicket 
of  the  wood  by  his  long  hair  ;  thus  falling  a  victim  at 
once  to  his  foppish  vanity,  and  his  unprincipled,  heait- 
less  ambition. 

The  most  affecting  part  in  the  whole  story  is  the 
yearning  fondness  with  which  the  heart  of  the  royal 
parent  continued  to  go  forth  toward  his  unnatural  and 
worthless  son.  To  the  very  last  his  bowels  moved  in 
this  direction.  The  charge  given  with  emphatic  earnest 
ness  before  the  battle,  and  heard  by  all  the  captains, 
was,  "Deal  gently  for  my  sake  with  the  young  man 
Absalom."  After  the  battle,  as  the  messengers  of 
victory  came  posting  on  one  after  another  to  the  seat 
of  the  king,  the  first  question  put  to  each  of  them  was, 
"  Is  the  young  man  Absalom  safe!"  And  when  the 
sad  tale  fell  on  the  monarch's  ear,  never  did  a  more 
piteous  lamentation  burst  from  the  lips  of  bereaved 
parent  than  was  then  poured  forth.  ''  ()  my  son  Absa 
lom,  my  son.  my  son  Absalom  !  would  (iod  1  had  died 
for  thee,  ()  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  !"  A  wonderful 
fascination  must  have  hung  around  the  man  who.  after 
such  a  career,  could  still  be  the  object  of  such  a  clinging 
affection.  But  Joab  had  taken  greatly  better  the  gauge 
of  Absalom's  real  position  and  proper  deserts;  and, 
rightly  conceiving  that  there  would  be  an  end  to  all 
order  and  rectitude  in  the  kingdom,  if  such  an  offender 
should  lie  allowed  to  escape,  he  inflicted  the  fatal  stroke, 
even  in  the  face  of  the  king's  pressing  injunction.  Nor 
did  David,  on  after  reflection,  condemn  the  deed;  for 
while  in  his  last  charge  he  recounted  things  in  Joab's 
past  course  by  which  he  had  made  himself  amenable  to 
justice,  not  a  word  of  rebuke  is  dropped  over  the  part 
he  took  in  the  termination  of  Absalom's  mournful 
career. 

AB'SALOM'S  TOMB,  the  modern  designation,  of  a 
kind  of  sepulchral  monument  in  the  valley  of  .Jehosha- 
phat,  which  stands  close  by  the  lower  bridge'  over  the 
Kedron.  It  consists  of  a  square  block,  hewn  from  the 
rocky  ledge,  to  which  it  originally  belonged,  ornamented 
on  each  side  with  engaged  columns  of  the  Ionic  order, 
and  surmounted  with  a  circular  building,  which  runs 
up  into  a  low  spire.  The  whole  elevation  is  about 


ABYSS 


19 


ACCAD 


forty  feet,  and  in  the  interior  there  is  a  small  exca-  j  cality,  excepting  that  to  our  apprehension  (whether  it 
vated  chamber.  How  this  composite  structure  should  :  may  lie  so  in  reality  or  not)  it  must  be  thought  of  as  at 
have;  come  to  lie  associated  with  the  name  of  Absalom  the  farthest  possible,  remove  from  the  heaven  of  light 
is  unite  unknown.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  it  be-  and  glory  —  therefore,  most  naturally  in  the  heart  of  the 
longs  to  a  much  later  period,  ami  it  certainly  has  no  ,  earth.  It  would  seem  to  be  some  relief  to  apostate 

spirits  to  be  allowed  to  leave  this 
lowest  hell  —  though  they  cannot 
thereby  escape  from  the  worse  hell 
of  their  own  bosom—  and  to  prose 
cute  schemes  of  mischief  in  the  dif 
ferent  spheres  of  terrestrial  life  and 
agency.  "Within  curtain  limits  this 
permission  is  granted  them,  not  on 
their  own  account,  but  in  subservi 
ence  to  the  purposes  of  Cod's  moral 
government  among  men.  And  when 
these  shall  have  been  accomplished, 
the  bars  of  their  eternal  prison-house 
shall  be  finally  closed  upon  them,  and 
their  doom  iu  it  rendered  only  more 
intensely  miserable  by  reason  of  the 
wickedness  they  had  practised  on 
earth,  •_'  IV.  ii.l;  ,Tm!ci;;Ue.  xx.  in. 

In  a  more  general   sense  the  term 
nli/M  or  d,cj>  is   used  of    the   state   of 
the  dead,  in   the   passage  paraphrased 
by  St.  Paul   from    Deuteronomy,    and 
applied    to     our     Lord's    profoimdcst 
humiliation  —  "  Who  shall  descend  in 
to   the  deep    (the   abyss)  '   that   is.   to 
•ring   up    Christ   again   fnun   the   dead,"    11,,.  x.  r.       In 
lying,    Christ's   bodily   part  descended   into   the  lower 
that  "style   of     parts  of  the  earth;  and  his  soul  also  is  conceived  of  as 
going  downwards      cut  off  for   a   time  from  the  land  of 
the  living;  although  in  reality  it  entered  into  a  state  of 
most  blessed  re]  lose,  and  enjoyed  the  sweets  of  paradise. 
So  that  nothing  detinitelv  local  is  to  be  inferred  from  such 
language  as  to  the  abode  of  departed  spirits.  (Sr,  HAIIKS.) 
AC'CAD,  one  of  five  cities  that  were  built  by  Nim- 
rod  in  the  land  of  Shinar 


tion  with  that  pillar  which  Absalom  i 


•neted   for  himself  in  the  king's 
obinson  regards  it  as  belonging  t 

minLTled  Creek  and  Kgyptian  art  which  prevailed  in  the 
oriental  provinces  of  the  Unman  empire."  He  thinks 
it  probably  of  the  same  age  as  the  architectural  re 
mains  of  I'etra  :  and  certainly  not  reaching  farther  back 
than  the  age  of  the  llerods. 

ABYSS,  the  Knglish  form  of  the  Creek  &,1vffffo<;, 
which  means  literally  wit/tout  huttoin,  hence  profound, 
di'i/i.  In  the  authorized  version  it  is  rendered  deep 
in  Lu.  viii.  :>1  ;  Uo.  x.  7,  and  Lot  to  mlt  us  pit,  or  pit, 
in  all  the  other  passages  where  it  occurs,  and  \\liich 
are  found  only  in  Uevelat'mn  eh.  ix.  ],•_',  ii;  \i.  r,  ir,&e.  The 
word  had  been  employed  by  the  (Jreek  translators 
of  the  Old  Testament,  chiefly  as  an  equivalent  for  the 
Heb.  2"irr  (tehom),  as  at  (Je.  i.  "2;  vii.  11  ;  Job  xxviii. 

]  I,  &c.  So  used,  it  jilaiuly  denoted  a  huge,  and  ap- 
parciitly  fathomless  assemblage  of  waters,  whether 
covering  the  surface,  or  concealed  within  the  bowels  of 
the  earth.  And  from  this  the  transition  was  natural 
and  easy  to  the  innermost  parts  of  the  earth  itself,  or 
the  regions  generally  of  the  lowest  depths  the  depths 
of  utter  darkness  and  irrecoverable  perdition. 

It  is  in  this  sense  the'  terms  d<:i*p  and  b<jttoml'~tsx  pit, 
corresponding  to  the  original  term  abys,t,  are  always 
used  in  New  Testament  scripture;  and  it  had  cer 
tainly  been  better  if  the  one  term  of  the  original 
(<tbijs»)  had  always  appeared  in  our  English  Bibles. 
The  (lemons  in  the  poor  Cadarene  maniac  besought 
the  Lord,  when  he  was  going  to  dispossess  them,  that 
he  would  not  cast  them  forth  into  the  abyss,  Lu.  viii.  31, 
that  is,  would  not  remand  them  to  the  dark  and  dreary 
abode,  which  is  their  proper  habitation,  and  which  is 
always  represented  as  in  the  lowest  conceivable  depths. 
Nothing  is  thereby  determined  as  to  the  precise  lo- 


Babylonia, 
that  a  remarkable   pile  of 


It  is 


cient  buildin 


[3.]        Aker-koof.     (Jhesney's  Euphrates  Expedition. 

known  by  the  name  of  Al-cr-loof,  and  situated  in  Sit- 
tacene,  about  nine  miles  west  from  the  Tigris,  may  be 
the  remains  of  the  ancient  city.  But  nothing  certain 
can  be  ascertained  on  the  subject,  especially  as  so  little 
is  known  of  the  original  place  itself. 


L'n 


ACIIA1A 


AC'CHO  [Ilch.  '^y,  probably  aun-hcated],  n  seaport 

\vitliiu  the  territory  of  tin:  tribe  of  A  slier,  and  about 
:!<i  mile-  to  tin1  smith  of  Tviv.  It  was  never  won 
from  tin-  hands  of  its  original  occupants,  ,Ju.i:a.  Its 
earlier  naiin1  with  Greek  and  Roman  writers  was  Ak<'. 
but  ultimately  it  was  c'oniinoidy  known  under  that  of 
I'tolemais,  which  it  derived  from  1'toleniv,  the  first 
Kgyptian  king  of  that  name,  who  greatly  improved  and. 
strengthened  it  (Strain),  xvi.  ^77;  I  Hod.  Sic.  \i.\.  \\',\ ; 
1'lin.  \d.t.  ll'tst.  v.  ]'.);  1  Mac.  x.  fjii,  &c.);  but  among 
Furopeans  it  is  better  known  by  the  name1  of  >7.  Jcitii 
'/Acre.  It  is  associated  \\ith  no  important  event  in 
Old  Testament  history,  and  in  the  Xe\v  is  only  men 
tioned  once.  when,  in  connection  with  the  journeying 

of  I'aul,  it  is  saiil  "  \Ve  came  to  Ptolemais,  and  salu 
ted  the  brethren,  and  abode  witli  them  one  day,"  Ac.  xxi.  7. 
[t  acquired  its  Europea-n  name  from  having-  been  as 
signed  by  the  crusaders  to  the  knights  of  St.  .lohn,  by 
\\hoiu  it  was  held  for  the  best  part  of  a  century,  but 
was  again  re-conquered  by  the  Mahometan  ]>ower  in 
12iM.  With  tin.:  native  population,  however,  it  lias  al 
ways  gone  by  the  name  of  Akka,  and  is  therefore,  as 
remarked  by  Mr.  Stanley.  "  a  remarkable  instance  of  the 
tenacity  with  whii-h  a  Semitic  name  has  outlived  the 
foreign  appellation  imposed  upon  it.  Ptoleniais — the 
title  wliich  it  bo7'e  for  the  many  centuries  of  (  hvek  and 
Human  sway  dropped  off  the  moment  that  sway  \\as 
broken;  and  in  the  modern  name  of  Acre,  the  ancient 
Accho.  derived  from  the  heated  sandy  tract  on  which 
the  town  was  built,  reasserted  its  rights"  (Sinn!  and 
Palestine,  p.  2iM).  The  harbour  of  Accho  is  shallow, 
and  can  only  accommodate  vessels  of  comparatively 
small  burden;  but.  such  as  it  is,  it  renders  the  place  of 
considerable  importance,  as  there  is  no  haven  nearly  so 
good  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  It  was  hence 
designated  by  Napoleon  the  key  of  Palestine,  and  in 
his  ambitious  designs  upon  Fgypt  and  the  Hast  he  made 
a  vigorous  attack  with  the  view  of  getting  possession  of 
it.  I!ut  it  made  so  gallant  a  resistance  under  the  able 
command  of  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  that  the  French  were  ob 
liged  to  desist.  It  has  since  been  the  subject  of  several 
sieges,  and  has  suffered  much  from  the  vicissitudes  of 
war.  So  late  as  1840,  it  was  bombarded  by  Admiral 
Stopford.  in  connection  with  the  operations  which  were 
then  carried  on  for  restoring  Syria  to  the  Porte.  The 
trade,  however,  for  Syria  is  now  chicHy  connected 
with  ]5eyront,  and  Acre  has  become  relatively  of  much 
less  importance.  The  existing  population  is  reckoned 
about  12, mm.  ,,f  which  one-third  are  Turks.  The 
period  of  its  peculiar  glory  was  that  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  when,  for  a  time,  it  formed  the  great  strong 
hold  of  the  crusaders  gibbon's  Jlitstori/,  eh.  lix.) 

ACCURSED.     Sec  ANATHEMA. 

ACEL'DAMA,  properly  HAKAI,-DEMA  [sn---^pr. 
ft  fid  of  blood],  the  name  given  to  the  plot  of  ground 
wliich  was  purchased  with  the  reward  of  Judas'  treach 
ery,  Ac.  i.  i!».  Its  position  is  no  further  described,  than 
that  it  is  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  "Potter's  Field." 
This  undoubtedly  identifies  it  with  the  valley  of  Hin- 
nom ;  for  what  was  called  emphatically  the  Potter's 
Field  was,  from  ancient  times,  associated  with  that  val 
ley.  Je.  x-x.  The  portion  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom  which 
forms  the  southern  declivity  from  .Mount  Zion,  was 
very  anciently  used  as  a  burying- place,  and  is  studded 
with  tombs,  chiefly  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  but  in  winch 


nothing  of  any  historical  interest  has  yet  been  found. 
The  tombs  themselves  are  rude  and  untasteful ;  one  of 
these,  about  half  way  up  the  hill,  and  directly  oppo 
site  the  pool  of  Siloam,  stands,  according  to  tradition, 
in  the  midst  of  the  Aceldama  of  Scripture.  .Jerome 
connects  it  with  the  same  spot,  in  his  Oiiomanticoii : 
and  nearly  all  the  earlier,  as  well  as  the  later  travellers, 
notice  it  in  their  descriptions  of  Jerusalem.  Maunde- 
ville,  Sandys,  and  .Manndrcll  each  speak  of  it  as  usid 
for  purposes  of  burial  in  their  day.  We  select  only  one 
of  the  latest  accounts:  •"  It  is  a  long,  vaulted  building, 
of  massive  masonry,  in  front  of  a  precipice  of  rock,  in 
which  is  apparently  a  natural  cave.  The  interior  is 
excavated  to  the  depth  of  some  twenty  feet,  thus  form 
ing  an  immense  charnel-house.  At  each  end  is  an 
|  opening,  through  which  we  have  a  dim  view  of  the  in- 
|  terior  ;  the  bottom  is  empty  and  dry,  with  a  few  half- 
decayed  bones  scattered  over  it.  The  charnel-house  is 
,  first  mentioned  by  IMaundeville.  The  bodies  of  the 
dead  were  thrown  loosely  into  it;  and  the  soil  was  be 
lieved  to  possess  the  remarkable  power  of  consuming 
them  in  the  short  space  of  forty-eight  hours  (Sandys). 
Tile  place  does  not  appear  to  have  been  used  for  burial 
for  more  than  a  century,  though  some  travellers  affirm 
they  have  seen  bodies  in  it  within  the  last  twenty 
years." — (M urniij'a  Jfnitd-/ioo/,-  for  ^//,'in  and  I'al'x- 
ti'iic,  by  Porter.) 

ACHA'IA,  in  the  classical  p<  riod  of  ancient  <  freece, 
.  was  a  comparatively  small  province  in  tin;  north-west 
of  the  Peloponnesus,  extending  along  the  Corinthian 
Gulf  for  about  (\~>  English  miles,  with  a  breadth  varying 
[  from  12  to  '20.  Hut  as  used  in  Xew  Testament  scrip- 
'  tnre,  the  name  includes  a  great  deal  more;  it  compre 
hends  the  whole  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  the  greater 
part  of  Greece  proper,  with  the  adjacent  islands;  so 
that  the  '•regions  of  Achaia''  in  St.  Paul.  L'<:<..  xi.  in, 
are  very  much  the  same  with  the  regions  of  classical 
(ireece.  This  change  was  introduced  after  the  con 
quest  of  that  country  by  the  1'omans — not  immediately, 
however,  hut  after  various  temporary  arrangements  had 
run  their  course.  Shortly  before  the  gospel  era.  the 
whole  of  Greece  was  divided  by  Augustus  into  three 
provinces,  the  most  southerly  of  which  was  called 
Achaia,  comprehending,  as  already  stated,  nearly  all 
that  was  wont  to  be  understood  under  the  general  name 
of  Greece;  while  to  the  north  lay,  first  Macedonia,  and 
then  Epirus.  The  boundaries  between  the  three1  pro 
vinces  are  nowhere  exactly  defined.  Achaia,  in  the 
large  sense  now  mentioned,  was  at  first  constituted  a 
senatorial  province,  and  was  accordingly  governed  by 
proconsuls.  P>ut  Tiberius  changed  it  into  an  imperial 
province,  when,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  government 
came  to  be  administered  by  proprietors  (Tacit.  An.  i. 
70).  Xot  long  afterwards,  however,  it  was  again  re 
stored  to  the  senate,  and  was  presided  over  by  a  pro 
consul  down  even  to  the  time  of  .Justinian  (Suet.  Claud. 
c.  2.")).  The  events  related  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
occurred,  some  of  them  before,  and  some  of  them  after 
this  latter  change;  and  nothing  but  the  most  minute 
faithfulness  and  accuracy  could  have  prevented  the 
sacred  historian  from  falling  into  error  in  the  use  of 
the  terms.  It  was  for  a  time  supposed,  even  by  some 
able  commentators,  that  an  error  had  been  committed 
at  ch.  xviii.  12,  where  Gallio  is  represented  as  the  pro 
consul  of  Achaia,  and  alterations  of  the  text  were  sug 
gested  to  put  the  matter  right.  P>ut  more  careful  in- 
quiry  fully  justified  the  accuracy  of  tin:  historian,  which 


ACHAICUS                                     - 

is  the  more  remarkaUe,  as  it  was  only  five  or  six  years 
previous  to  the  transactions  recorded  in  Acts  xviii.  that 
the  province  of  Achaia  had  been  restored  to  the  senate. 
ACHAICUS,  the  name  of  a  believer  in  the  region 
of  Achaia.  and  a  delegate  to  the  apostle  Paul  from  the 
church  of  Corinth,  icv  xvi.  17.    Nothing  further  is  known 
of  him. 
A  CHAN,  also  written  ACIIAR,  ich.  ii.  :.  which  means 
(roiiMiny  or  disturbing;  and  the  probability  is,  that  this 
slight  change  in  the  name  was  introduced  for  the  pur 
pose  of  rendering  it  significant  of  the  character  and 
historv  of  the  unfortunate  individual  it  refers  to.    Acli 
an  was  the  son  of  Carmi,  of  the  tribe  of  .ludah,   and 
at  the  taking  of  Jericho  was  guilty  of  a   trespass,  in 
what  is  called  "  the  accursed   thing,"  J».s.  vii.  1  ;   that  is, 
lie  secreted  for  his  own  personal  advantage  a  portion 
of  the   spoil   of  the   place  ivix.    a   P>ahylonish  garment. 
L'iMI  shekels  of  silver,  and  a  wedge  of  goldi,  which   had 
been  all  put  under  the  divine  ban,  and  solemnly  devoted 
to  the  Lord.      This    ban  had  been   put  up«.n  the  people 
and  possessions  of  Canaan  generally,  but  in  a  mop-  t?pe 
cial  and  emphatic  manner  it   \\as   laid    on    .lericho,    as 
the   first-fruits   of   the   land,  to   show,  as    Hen^st.-nberg 
justlv   state--    (C/,jvV<>/.  .)/'(/.    iv.  <i>.    "that   the  former 
possessors  of  the  lan.i  were  not  exterminated  by  human 
caprice,   but  bv  the  vengeance  of  Cod;   that   their   land 
and  their  goods  were   not   liestowed    upon  th.-  Israelites 
as   -poil.    but   as   a    lief   \\hich    He   had    reclaimed,    and 
which   He  could  now  1  est'.w  upon  another  vassal,  to  see 

1                                    ACHMETHA 

tial  part  of  God's  policy  toward  Israel,  to  treat  them  as 
one  compact  body  —  a    regularly  organized    whole—  to 
whose  common  welfare  or    adversitv    each    individual 
contributed,  and  in  which  also  he,  more  or  less,  shared: 
individuals  could  not  expect  to  attain  to  blessing  apart 
from  the  whole,  nor  the  whole  apart  from  the  faith  and 
integritv  of  individuals.      To  impress  this  upon  them 
from  the  first,    as   a   matter  of    vital   moment,    terrible 
things  in  righteousness  were  done,  and  among  these  the 
disaster  arising  out  of  the  sin  of  Aehan.      The  people 
were  made  to  feel,  that  the  infection  of  a  single  mem 
ber  of  the   bodv  was  fraught   with    peril   to  the  whole, 
and  doubtless  also  more  thoughtful  minds  were  smitten 
with   the   conviction    that,    though    but    one   man    had 
committed  the  particular  sin  condemned,  the  tendency 
to  fall  in  the  same  direction  was  far  from  In  ing  confined 
to  him.      '2.  The  other  question  connected  with  the  case 
of  Aehan  has  respect  to  the  severity  of  the  judgment 

not  onlv  the  culprit  himself,  but  his  entire  familv.  and 
1 

everv  living  creature  in  his  possession,  being  doomed  to 

of  this  undouhtcdlv  was  the  same  with  that  which  in 
volved  the  people  evnt  rally  in  Achan's  guilt      the  close 

between  one  portion  of  the  covenant  people  ami  another. 
Standing  under  one  covenant  bond,  each  was,   to  a  cer 
tain  extent,  responsible  for  another's  behaviour  :  and  the 
moral  interconnection  necessarily  assumed    its   strictest 

called  to  yield."      The  sin  of  Aehan.  therefore,  was,  .fa 
very  heinous  description;   it  was  a  virtual  infraction  of 
the  terms  on  which  Canaan  was  granted  to  the  children 
of  Israel,  and  turned   to   a  selfish  account  what   should 

to  the  express  enactments  of  Moses.   DC.  xxiv.  ir,,  were  not 
to   be  put  to  death  for  their  children,   nor  children  for 
their  parents.      P.ut  the  bond  was  still  a  very  <  lose  one, 
and  from   the   natural  tendency  of   the  heart  to  imbibe 

It  carried  also  the  spirit  of  idolatry  in  its  bosom,  and 
implied  that,  as  the   deed  was  done  in  secrecy,  the  Cod 
of  Israel  could  neither  see  nor  regard.      Such  a  spirit. 
manifesting   itself  at   such   a   time,  required   to   be  met 
with   the    most   severe   rebuke,    as   pregnant    (should    it 
prevail  i  with  mischief  to  the-  whole  community  of  Israel, 
and  subversive  of  the  design  for  which  they  were  to  be 
settled    iii   Canaan.        Accordingly,    a   repulse    was    ap 
pointed,    under    1'rovidciiee,    to  be   sustained   at    Ai,    to 
bring    out    in  a  palpable   form  the    fact   that    there  was 
something  essentially  wrong  with  the  people;  and  w  hen 
this  had   produced    its   due    impression,    and   a   general 
terror  was  spread  among  them,  they  were  directed  to 
the  sin  of  Aehan  as   the   cause   of  the  whole  evil.      Th  • 
actual  discovery  of  the  offender  was  obtained  by  casting 
the  lot,  who  then  made  full  confession  of  his  guilt,  and 
was  presentlv  afterwards,  with  all  his  family,  and  even 
his  cattle,  stoned  to   death  and   burned  to  ashes  by  Un 
assembled  congregation  of  Israel. 
The   melancholy   history   of    Aehan  gives  rise  to  two 
questions:--!.  Why  should  the  sin  of  Aehan  have  been 
imputed  to  the  congregation  at  large,  so   that,  on    its 
account,  the  whole  should  have  suffered  a  defeat  i      It 

the   parent   turned   aside   to   iniquity,    the    members   of 
his  household  should  be  found  free  from  the  contamina 
tion.      The  rather  so.  as  then,  greatlv  more   than  now. 

living  example  of  its  head  for  the  character  it  assumed. 
If.  therefore,  it  might  be  too   much  to  affirm,  in  regard 
to   the   case   before   us,    that  every  member.  if  Achan's 
family   participated    in    his    transgression,    and    hence 
shared  in  his  condemnation,  we  may.  at  least,  say  that 
the  .-•;,  //-,'/  of  Aclian  was  but  too  probably  characteristic 

tioiis  of  the  inevitable  ruin  sure  to  overtake  families,  if 
sin  should  get  possession  of  those  who  stood  at  the  head 
of  them,  tin-  entire   household   and    property  of  Aehan 
\\ei-.-  surrendered  to  destruction.      Thus,  in  both  the  re 
spects  adverted  to.  the  divine  procedure  is  capable  of  a 
perfect  justification  ;  and  the  severity  of  righteousness 
displaved  in  it  was  fitted  to  exert  a  most  salutary  and 
wholesome  influence  upon  the  families  of  Israel. 
A'CHISH,  the  import  of  which  is  uncertain,  occurs 
as  the  name  of  a  king  of   Cath.   at   whose   court   David 
twice  sought  and  found  protection,   i  Sa.  xxi.  in-i:.  ;  xxvii.  2; 
and  probably  also  of  another  king  of  <  lath,  to  whom,  at 
a  considerablv  later  period,  the  servants  of  Shimei  tied, 
!Ki.ii.:;:i.     The  reception  given  by  the  former  to  David 
will  be  noticed  in  tin   account  of  David's  life. 
ACH'METHA,  the;  ancient  and  scriptural   name   of 
Kcbatana.   the  metropolis  of   Media.      It   occurs,    how 
ever,   onlv  once,   i<;/r.  vi.  •_',  where  we  are  told,  the  decree 
of  Cvrus  respecting  the  restoration   of    the  Jews  was 
found  "at  Achnietha,  in  the  palace  that  is  in  the   pro 
vince  of  the  Medes."     In  the  Apocrypha  and  -losephus. 

in    the    strict    and    proper    sense  —  in   such  a  sense    as 
Adam's  sin  is  imputed  to  his  posterity,  or  the  righteous 
ness  of  Christ  to  his  people.      The  connection  in  this 
case  could  not,  from  the  nature  of  things,  be  nearly  sc 
close.      P.ut    the  divine  procedure  clearly  showed    that 
there  was  a  connection,  and  one  that  could  not  exist 
without  a  certain  participation  in  the  guilt,  and  a  con 
sequent  liubilit.v  to  the  punishment.      It  was  an  esscii- 

ACTTOll 


ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES 


Kcbatana  is  the  name  used.  Th;it  it  was  .1  strongly 
fortified  jilacc  is  evident  from  many  notices  in  ancient 
history;  sncli  as,  that,  after  the  disastrous  battle  of 
Arbela,  Harms  fled  thither,  as  to  a  place  of  compara 
tive  safety  (.  \rrian,  A  »'t/>.  iii.  1!M;  that  Alexander  trans 
ported  to  it,  the  plunder  he  had  taken  at  1'ahylon  and 
Siisi.  &'•.  The  building  "f  the  walls  of  the  citv.  which 
probably  formed  the  most  important  part  of  the  fortifi 
cations,  is  ascribed,  at  the  commencement  of  the  apo 
cryphal  book  Judith,  to  Arphaxad.  .Hut  who  this  king 
Arphaxad  might  be  is  quite  uncerta.in  ;  and  Herodotus 
makes  Dejoces  the  chief  founder  of  the  city,  as  a  place 
of  note  and  security,  and  represents  it  as  having  been 
surrounded  by  seven  concentric  walls,  each  inner  one 
rising  with  its  battlements  above  the  one  immediately 
before  it  (h.  i.  7*K  J'ut  this  is  onlv  to  be  taken  as  a 
matter  of  report  by  some  it  is  even  held  to  be  entirely 
fabulous:  and  certainly  it  does  not  square  well  with 
the  account  of  Polvbius,  who  states  that  the  city  had 
no  walls  around  it,  but  possessed  a  citadel  of  enormous 
strength.  It  is  unnecessary  here  to  enter  into  anv  fur 
ther  details  on  the  subject,  as  nothing  depends  on  it  for 
the  illustration  of  Scripture.  The  common  tradition 
identifies  the  modern  Hamadan  with  the  ancient  Eeba- 
tana.  which  stands  on  the  slopes  of  the  Elwand,  the  an- 


Hamadan,  ami  Ruins  of  the  Castle  of  Darius.— Chesnej 


cient  Orontes,  in  the  province  of  Irak.  It  is  in  a  fine 
elevated  position,  and  is  said  to  have  been  the  chief 
summer  residence  of  the  Persian  kings,  from  the  days 
of  Darius  to  those  of  Ghengis  Khan.  The  ruins  show, 
besides  the  so-called  palace  of  Darius  seen  in  the  view, 
the  tombs  of  Esther  and  Mordecai,  and  of  the  philoso 
pher  Avicenna.  The  present  population  is  said  to 
number  from  40.000  to  4f>.0<H>. 

A'CHOR  [f/'ijtJili <>;/].  a  valley  near  Jericho,  so  named 
from  having  been  the  scene  of  Achan's  punishment, 
J»s.  vii.-j i-'.'c.  It  never  occurs  again  in  the  history,  but 
is  employed  as  an  image  by  the  prophets  Isaiah  and 
Hosea,  when  depicting  the  better  days  in  prospect  for 
the  people  of  God,  which  should,  as  it  were,  reverse  the 
evil  that  had  taken  place  in  the  past,  and  turn  it  into 
experiences  of  blessing,  is. ixv.  10,  "The  valley  of  Achor 
shall  be  a  place  for  the  herds  to  lie  down  in" — a  place 
of  peaceful  rest,  instead  of,  as  in  the  days  of  old,  a 


scene  of  disquietude  and  sorrow;  n<>.  ii.i.i,  "T  will  give 
her  the  valley  of  Achor  for  a  door  of  hope" — in  other 
words,  I  will  bring  to  an  end  the  tribulations  arising 
out  of  sin.  and  substitute;  in  their  room  the  joyful  anti 
cipations  of  uninterrupted  life  and  blessing. 

ACH'SAH  \<ui  anklet],  a  daughter  (.f  Caleb.  In 
conformity  with  customs  not  unusual  in  ancient  times, 
she  was  promised  in  marriage  by  her  father  to  the  man 
who  should  take  the  city  of  Kirjath-sephir,  or  i  >ebir. 
This  feat  was  accomplished  by  Othniel.  the  nephew  of 
Caleb,  who  accordingly  received  Achsah  for  his  wife. 

JDS.  XV.  Ill,  17;  .Til.  i   lL',  l.'i. 

ACH'SAPH  [uichantment],  a  town  in  the  tribe  of 
A  slier,  Jos.  xi.  1  ;  xix.  •>»;  supposed  by  some  to  be  the 
same  as  A  echo,  and  by  others  as  Ach/ib.  The  latter 
supposition  is  certainly  improbable,  as  Ach/ib  is  also 
mentioned  in  Jos.  xix.  20. 

ACH'ZIB  [deceptive,  lyivy],  the  name  of  two  towns, 
of    which   very  little   is  known.       1.   A    place   situated 
in   the    tribe  of  Judah,  the   precise  locality  of  which  is 
no\\here   defined.   Jos.xv.44.       2.   Another,    and    appar 
ently  more   considerable   place,   within   the   boundaries 
of  the  tribe  of  A  slier,  about  10   miles  to   the   north  of 
Acre.       The    Israelites   were  at  first   unable   to   drive 
out  the  Philistines  from  it,  Ju.  i.  ?,\,  and  nothing  is  after 
wards  mentioned  of  it  in  par 
ticular.     It  still  survives  under 
the  name  of  Dsiii. 

ACEE  OF  LAND,  as  used  in 
Scripture,  is  a  less  exact  term 
than  an  English  reader  miu'lit 
suppose.  It  is  properly  a  i/iikr, 
namely,  such  a  c|iiantity  as  a 
yoke  of  oxen  might  plough  in 
a  day — perhaps  from  a  half  to 
three-quarters  of  an  imperial 
acre,  i  s.i.  .\iv.  n;  is.  v.  IM.&C. 

ACTS  OF    TIIK    Al'OSTLKS. 

the  name  commonly  used  to 
designate  the  fifth  book  in  the 
New  Testament  scriptures. 
It  obtained  this  title  at  a  very 
early  period,  though  sometimes 
the  epithet  /'"///  was  prefixed 
to  apostles,  and  sometimes  also 
it  was  reckoned  among  the 
gospels,  and  called  the  li'nxpcl 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Gos- 
pd  of  the  Resurrection.  The 

common  designation,  however,  has  always  been  that 
which  is  still  in  use;  and  the  early  and  all  but  unanimous 
tradition  of  the  church  assigns  its  human  composition  to 
the  pen  of  the  evangelist  Luke.  This  tradition  is  sup 
ported  by  various  grounds  of  an  internal  kind.  1.  Ac 
cording  to  the  preface  it  purports  to  have  been  written  bv 
the  same  person  who  composed  the  third  gospel,  and  for 
the  more  immediate  benefit  of  the  same  individual  (Theo- 
philus);  and  by  the  concurrent  voice  of  all  antiquity 
that  Gospel  is  attributed  to  St.  Luke.  2.  There  is  a 
striking  similarity  in  the  style  of  this  book  and  of  the 
third  Gospel,  such  as  might  naturally  be  looked  for  in 
the  writings  of  the  same  author :  the  dialect,  like  that  of 
the  Gospel,  is  in  general  less  Hebraistic  than  that  used 
by  the  other  evangelists,  and  it  contains  a  considerable 
number  of  words  and  phrases  which  are  rarely,  often 
never,  found  in  any  other  books  of  New  Testament 
scripture,  except  the  Gospel  of  Luke.  As  many  as 


s  Euphrates  Expedition. 


ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES                     -3  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES 

fifty  of  these  have  been  pointed  out — (see,  for  example,  if  what  we  had  chiefly  to  look  for  here  were  a  historical 

Davidson's  Introd.  §  1.)     3.   In  the  latter  part  of  the  account  of  the  life  and  labours  of  our  Lord's  apostles 
narrative,  from  eh.  xvi.  10,  onwards,  the  writer  usually  ;  after  he  had  left  them  !      Were  that  all,  every  one  must 

includes  himself  in  the  party  of  Paul,  and  speaks  as  one  be  struck  with  the  extremely  defective   nature  of  the 

who  had  been  an  eye-witness  of  many  of  the  transae-  work,  and  must  also  feel  that  in  its  object  it  occupies  a 

tions  which  took  place;  so,  in  particular,  lie  writes  at  much  lower  position  than  the  Oospcl  of  which  it  pur- 

ch.  xx.  5  :  xxi.  1  ;  xxvii.:  xxviii.      Now,  we  know  of  no  ports  to  lie  the  continuation.      P>ut  by  the  sacred  histo- 

other  person   who  was  on  such  a  footing  of  intimacy  rian  himself,   the   two   are  most  closely  connected    to- 

ain I  companionship  with  St.  Paul,  of  whom  this  can  be  gether  :    ''The  former  treatise  have    1  made.  O  Theo- 

properlv  understood,    but    the    evangelist    Luke.     Me  philus,  of  all  that  Jesus  began  both  to  do  and  teach  :" 

cannot,    with  some    in    later    times,    understand  it   of  it  was  but  the  bi<jinniii<i  of  his  mediatorial  agency  that 

Timothy;  for  at  ch.   xx.   4.    i>.   Timothy  is  mentioned  the    historical    account  in   the   dispel   had   embraced, 

among  others   who   accompanied  Paul  into  Asia,  and  though  it  reached  from   his  birth  to  his  resurrection  ; 

who,  it  is  said.   "  going  before  tarried  for  us  at  Troas."  and   now  —  such   is   the    fair   inference  from    the   words 

implying  that  the  historian  was  a  different  person  from  taken  in  connection  with  what  follows  \arnl  the  position 

any  of  those  specified.      Xor  can  we,  with   others,  sup-  of  the  verb.  ijptaTO.  before  .Jesus,  in  the  original,  makes 

pose  Silas  to  have  been  the  person  so   identifying  him-  the  inference  still   more   obviously  natural    than   in    the 

self  with  the  apostle.;  for  Silas  is  once  and  again  spoken  translation— now,  in  this  second  account  we  proceed  to 

of  in   the  third  person,  and  in  ch.   xv.  -'2,   \\henfirst  exhibit  the  continued  operation  of  that  agency,  and  the 


never  have  done  of  himself,  as  a    "chief  man   among  great  subject  of  the  evangelist's  delineations     the  real 

the  brethren."      Then,  though   Luke  is   ma    meiitioind  spring  of  the  movements  he  describes  ;  only  .b-sus  w  ith- 

by  name  in  the  history,  yet  we  know  from  tin-  allusions  drawn  within  the   veil,  ami   from    tin-   sanctuary  above 

in  tin-  later  epi.-tles  of  L'aul,  that  lie  was  a  bosom-friend  operating  by  the  grace  of  his  Spirit   upon   the  souls  of 

and  close  companion  of  tin-  apostle;  in   Phile.   -J  1   h>-    is  men,  and  actually  setting  up  tin1  kingdom,  which  it  was 

nairn-d  as  one  of   his    "  fellow-labourers,''  in  Col.  iv.  1  1  the   purpose   of   his  mission    to   establish    in    the  world, 

as  "the  beloved    physician."  and    in  -J  Ti,  iv.   11   as  the  Hence,    as   justly  stated    by    I'.aitmgarten.    who,    in   his 

one  faithful    friiiid    who  abode   with    him    to    tin-    last.  work    on    the  Acts,  has    the   merit  of   aw  akening  atteli- 

whi-n    so  many    forsook    him.      So   that  not   only   had  tion  to  this  higher  aim  of  the  book,  Jesus,  as  the  already 

Luke  gone  with  the  apostle  into  Italy,  but  he  continued  exalted  king  of  /ion,  appears,  on  all  suitable  occasions, 

to  hold  with  him  there  a  peculiarly  close  and  endearing  as  the  ruler  and  judge  of   supreme  resort  ;   tin-  apostles 

relationship;  ami   the  whole  of  tin-  incidental  notices  are  but  his  representatives  and  instruments  of  working. 

concerning  him.  and  the  relation  In-  held  to  the  apostle.  It  is  He  who  appoints   the   twelfth  witness,  that   takes 

tli! -place  of  the  fallen  apostle,  eli.  i.  2-1;   lie  who.  having  re 
ceived   the   promise   from    the    Father,  sends   down   the 

could    ha\c   written,    such   an   account  of  tin-  life  and  Holy  Spirit  with  power,  di.  ii.  :i:i ;  He,  •who  comes  near  to 

labours  of  Paul  as  is  found  in  this  book.  !  turn  the  people   from    their  inii|iiities  and  add   them   to 

As  to  the  sources  from  which  St.  Luke  drew  his  in-  tin-  membership  of  his  church,  ch.ii.47;  iii.ai;  lie  who 
formation,  and  respecting  which  (  lerman  critics  have  works  miracles  trom  time  to  time  by  the  hand  of  tin- 
been  wont  to  discourse  at  great  length,  though  to  little  apostles  :  who  sends  Peter  to  open  the  door  of  faith  to 
pur]  lose,  tlii -re  is  no  m-i  d  to  go  into  any  particular  in-  tin-  (  i  entiles  ;  who  instructs  Philip  to  go  ami  meet  the 
(|\iii\.  For  the  hitter  half  of  the  book,  the  man.  who  Ethiopian;  who  arrests  Haul  ill  his  career  of  persecution 
was  tin-  bosom  friend  of  tin-  apostle  to  whom  it  all  re-  and  makes  him  a  chosen  vessel  to  the  (! entiles  ;  in  short, 
lati-s.  ami  himself  also  the  almost  constant  eye- witness  w  1m  continually  appears  presiding  o\er  tin-  atl'airs  of  his 
of  the  transactions  described,  had  m>  occasion  to  go  in  church,  directing  his  servants  in  tlieir  course,  protecting 
ipii-st  of  original  sources  ;  he  had  these  beside  him.  at  tin  m  from  the  ham  Is  of  their  i  in  mies.  ami  in  the  midst 
lir-t  hand.  And  as  regards  the  historical  details  given,  .if  much  that  was  adverse,  still  giving  efi'ect  to  their 
ami  the  discourses  recorded  in  the  earlier  part,  there  ministrations,  ami  causing  tin-  truth  of  tin-  gospel  to 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  he  took  sulistantially  grow  and  bear  fruit.  \Ve  ha\e  tin  TI  -fore  in  this  book, 
the  sa course  with  this  portion  of  his  narrative,  that  not  merely  a  narrative  of  facts,  which  fell  out  at  tin- 
he  did  in  narrating  the  events  of  our  Saviour's  life  beginning  of  tin- Christian  church,  in  connection  more 
namely,  sought  ami  obtained  "a  perfect  understanding  especially  with  the  apostolic  agency  of  IVtei  and  I'aul, 
of  them  from  those  who  were  eve-witnesses  ami  min-  but  we  have,  first  of  all  ami  in  all,  the  ever-present  con- 
isters  of  the  word,"  I. u.  i.  •_',::.  \Yhile  in  all  things  guided  trolling  administrative  agency  of  tin1  Lord  .Jesus  Christ 
by  the  supernatural  direction  of  ( !od,  lie  could  not.  on  himself,  shedding  birth  the  powers  of  his  risen  life,  and 
that  account,  be  the  less,  but  would  rath'  r  be  the  more  giving  shape  ami  form  to  his  spiritual  and  everlasting 
careful,  to  make  use  of  the  most  authentic  means  within  kingdom.  If  this  leading  idea  is  kept  in  view,  it  will 

his  reach  for  knowing  precisely   all  that  In-  undertook     present  the  I k  of  Acts  to  tin-  mind  as   in   scope  ami 

to  relate1  of  the  hist  planting  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  aim  perfectly  akin  to  tin-   (lospels,  and  will  also  supply 

Of  this  we  shall  be   the   more  satisfied,  when  we   re-  a  connecting  thread  to  bind   together  into  a  consistent 

fleet   upon   the   high    design    with  which  he    wrote   this  whole  the  apparently  isolated  ami  somewhat  occasional 

sequel  to  his  gospel  histois.      A  somewhat  partial   and  notices  it  contains.      Nor,  if  contemplated  in  the   light 

superficial   viesv   has  very  commonly  been  taken  of   the  nosv  suggested,  will  it  appear  accidental,  that   tin-  his- 

book.      The  very  name-  gisen  to  it — "  Acts  of  the  Apos-  tory  should  terminate  with  Paul's  work  at  I  tome,  as  it 

ties"  --is  itself  a  proof  of  the  undue  regard  that  has  been  commences  with  the  work  of   the  twelve  in  Jerusalem  : 

had  to  the  merely  external  aspect  of  its  contents,  and  has  for  the  commission  of  Christ  to  hi: 

also  served  to  perpetuate  the  tendency  so  to  view  it,  as  '  that  tln-y  should  preach  the   gospel 


ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES 


ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES 


beginning  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  in  Kome,  the  centre  and 
c:i]iit;il  ul'  tin;  heathen  \\orld.  the  different  nations  might 
In-  said  tn  have  th-'ir  representation.  Tin-  truth  of  tin' 
gospel,  when  oner  fairly  planted  there,  might  well  In: 
regarded  as  in  the  act  of  taking  possession  of  the  world. 
It  i-  prohable,  however,  that  other  and  more  personal 


call,  as  then  understood.  At  the  close;  of  this  period 
there  were  churches  not  only  in  Jerusalem,  but  also  in 
Samaria  and  Galilee,  < 'tesarea.  Antioch,  and  still  more 
distant  regions,  eh.  ix.  :!i;  xi.  'lo,  L-I.  Another  and  third  era 
commences  with  tin;  conversion  of  Paul,  and  the  admis 
sion  of  the  family  of  Cornelius  into  the  bosom  of  tin: 


reasons  conspired  to  induce  the  evangelist  to  conclude  Church,  which  were  probably  not  far  asunder,  though 
his  narrative  \\heii  it  reached  the  period  of  Paul's  im-  we  may  suppose  the  conversion  of  Paul  to  have  been 
Hue.  That  period  formed  a  s 
as  well  as  a  long  pause  in  the  aji 


> ur.s  ;   anil  wi 


,f 

the.  future,  the  evangelist  might  deem  it  proper  to  bring 
his  account  to  a  close. 

When  we  turn    from  the  great  design   and   object  of 
the  book,  to  think  of  the  precise  period  and  order  of  its 


It  is  for  the  most  part  but  an  approximation  that  can 
be  attained  ;  and  commentators  ditler  considerably  in 
respect  to  the  dates  they  assign  to  specific  facts.  Since 
tin'  careful  investigations  of  Wiesler,  however  ((Jlirono- 
loyie  d'i>  Apostolwchen  Zeitultcrs),  there  has  been  more 
of  general  agreement  as  to  the  leading  points.  Taking 
the  vulgar  era  of  our  Lord's  birth  as  three  or  four  vears 


somewhat  earlier.  The  great  advance  now  made  was 
the  opening  of  the  door  of  faith  to  the  Gentiles,  simply 
«.•>•  Gentiles;  that  is,  without  having  submitted  to  cir 
cumcision  and  passed  through  the  Jewish  yoke.  The 
apostles  knew  from  the  first  our  Lord's  intention  to  ex 
tend  the  blessings  of  the  gospel  to  the  Centile  portion 
of  mankind  ;  the  original  commission  given  to  them 
before  lie  left  the  world  was  to  make  disciples  of  all 


to  the  year  '.'>>>  or  o7  ;  the  council  at 
decide  respecting  circumcision  probably 
nit  the  year  ;"id,  before  which  Paul's  first 
missionary  tour  had  been  accomplished,  and  shortly  after 
which  his  second  tour  commenced.  It  was  during  the 
year  (id  that  Felix  was  superseded  by  Festus,  at  which 
time  Paul  was,  and  hail  for  two  years  already  been  in 
bonds.  In  the  following  year  he  arrived  at  Home,  and 
continued,  with  the  degree  of  liberty  granted  him,  to 
preach  the  gospel  there  for  two  years  more  ;  so  that 
about  the  year  ('>'•)  the  sacred  historian  concluded  his 
narrative,  and  most  probably  about  the  same  period 
gave  it  forth  to  the  world. 

.•nts  comprised  within  the  thirty- three  years 
over  which  the  history  stretches,  may  not  unnaturally 
bo  ranged  under  three  great  divisions.  Paley,  in  his 
Evidences,  eh.  ix..  has  adopted  this  division  (coupling 
it,  however,  with  quite  improbable  dates),  and  since  his 
time  it  has  been  very  commonly  recognized.  T]n:  first 
period  embraces  the  strictly  Jewish  age  of  the  New 
Testament  church  —the  period  during  which  the  preach 
ing  of  tin-  gospel  was  confined  to  the  circumcision,  and 
the  converts  to  the  faith  consisted  only  of  believing 
Jews.  This  stage  reaches  to  the  death  of  Stephen, 
cli.  vii.,  and  probably  occupied  the  first  six  or  seven  vears 
of  the  Church's  history.  The  xtc.imd  stage — alivadv 
prepared  for  by  the  nature  of  Stephen's  j  preaching — 
began  with  the  persecution  which  ensued  on  his  death, 
and  which  dispersed  many  of  the  disciples  through  Sa 
maria  and  Galilee,  and,  in  the  case  of  some,  as  far  as 
Antioch,  Cyprus,  and  Phenice.  Wherever  they  went, 
we  are  told,  ''they  j  (reached  the  word,"  and  witli  a 
success  which  far  exceeded  their  expectations  ;  but  it 
was  still  only  to  the  Jews,  eh.  xi.  l<»,  at  least  to  none  but 
the  circumcised  ;  for  the  Samaritans  also  shared  in  the 
benefit,  though  they  held  only  a  sort  of  intermediate 
position  between  the  Jewish  and  Gentile  portions  of  the 
world.  I  Jut  in  this  ease  they  were  reckoned  as  more 
properly  belonging  to  the  Jewish,  since  they  practised 
circumcision,  and  so  came  within  reach  of  the  gospel 


Put  the  idea  seems  still  to  have  hung  upon  their  minds, 
that  to  receive  the  Christian  faith  the  Gentiles  must 
first  submit  to  the  yoke  of  Judaism.  Now,  however, 
by  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  on  the  family  of  Conidiiir-. 
while  still  uncireumcised.  and  by  the  calling  of  one  \\ho 
was  to  be  sent  as  an  apostle  especially  to  the  uneircum- 


eised  Gentiles,  the  bonds  were  in   a  manner  burst,  and 


event  at  Jerusalem,  and  a  few  other  occurrences  about 


the  same  period,  t 


rtions  of  the  Acts 


taken  up  in  tracing  the  progress  of  this  last  phase  of 
things,  as  connected  with  the  life  and  labours  of  him 
who  was  more  especially  charged  with  its  accomplish 
ment. 

lieside  the  benefit  yielded  by  the  book  of  Acts  from 
the  account  preserved  in  it  of  these  successive  stages  in 
the  early  history  and  planting  of  the  Christian  church, 
it  contains  materials,  more  particularly  in  its  later  por 
tion,  of  immense  value  for  establishing  the  authenticity 
and  genuineness  of  the  New  Testament  writings.  It 
has  been  by  means  of  a  minute  and  careful  comparison 
of  the  accounts  in  these  with  the  allusions  in  St.  Paul's 
epistles,  that  a  most  convincing,  and,  we  may  say.  an 
irrefragable  argument  has  been  formed  in  proof  of  the 
historical  verity  of  both.  It  is  to  Paley  that  the  honour 
is  due  of  exhibiting  this  proof,  and  establishing  the- 
argument  grounded  on  it  in  a  manner  which  leaves  little 
to  be  supplied  :  ami  his  Hunt:  Paidiini:  svill  ever  remain 
a  monument  of  his  fine  discrimination,  practical  saga 
city.  and  solid  judgment.  If  the  original  writings  of 
the  New  Testament  had  been  more  studied  on  the  Con 
tinent  in  the  spirit  and  principles  of  this  work,  many  a 
vain  and  groundless  theory  would  have  been  checked 
in  the  bud. 

The  more  special  helps  for  the  study  and  interpreta 
tion  of  the  book  of  Acts  are,  beside  the  general  com 
mentaries  on  the  New  Testament,  the  work  of  P>aum- 
garten  already  referred  to.  now  translated,  and  forming 
part  of  Clark's  Foreign  Library  —  a  work  in  some  parts 
fanciful,  in  others  prolix  and  involved,  but  abounding 
with  profound  thoughts,  and  pervaded  by  an  elevated 
spirit;  Biscoe  011  the  Jlistory  of  the  Acts  confirmed 
from  other  authors;  Neander's  History  of  the  Planting 
i  if  tin  Christian  Church  In/  the  Apostles  (forming  part 
of  Clark's  P>iblical  Cabinet);  TIte  Life  and  Letters  of 
the  Apostle  Paul,  byConybeare  and  Howson  ;  "Wiesler's 
Chronologic;  Hackett's  Exegetical  Commentary;  Alex 
ander's  Commentary,  &c. 


ADAH 


ADAM 


A'DAH  [ornament,  comeliness]  occurs  as  the  name 
of  one  of  the  wives  of  Lamech,  <Je.  iv.  ii»;  and  also  one 
of  the  wives  of  Esau.  Gc.  xxxvi.  4.  The  latter  seems  to 
have  been  originally  called  Judith,  Ge.  xxvi.  34;  but,  in 
accordance  with  a  practice  quite  common  in  the  East, 
with  a  change  of  state  there  was  assumed  a  change  of 
name. 

A'DAM  [to  be  rid.  or,  as  some  put  it,  earth-red, 
ruddi/],  the  name  given  to  our  first  parent,  and  from 
him  the  common  designation  in  Hebrew  of  mankind  at 
large.  It  seems  at  first  thought  somewhat  strange, 
that  the  head  of  the  human  family  should  have  received 
his  distinctive  name  from  the  affinity  which  he  had,  in 
the  lower  part  of  his  nature,  to  the  dust  of  the  earth — 
that  he  should  have  been  called  Adaui,  as  being  taken 
in  his  bodily  part  from  adama/i,  the  ground  ;  the  more 
especially  as  the  name  was  not  assumed  by  man  him 
self,  but  imposed  by  (iod,  and  imposed  in  immediate 
connection  with  man's  destination  to  bear  the  image  of 
(iod: —  "And  (.iod  said,  Let  us  make  man  (Adam)  in 
our  image,  after  our  likeness,"'  \c.  This  apparent 
incongruity  has  led  some,  in  particular  Kiehers  (Die 
Scltiififunys,  Paradieses  nnd  Siindjlutkcs  <i<sckickt<\ 
p.  1  (i3),  t<>  adopt  another  etymology  of  the  term  —to  make 
Adaui  a  derivative  of  danuth  (— ;rO,  to  //>:  liic< .  to 

res  mile.  Delit/.seh.  h»wever,  in  his  /'.<//.•// <A"<j;l  "J  !/i'. 
/;//,/.  (System  dcr  Hi/,/.  Psychologic,  p.  l'.<>.  has  objected 
to  this  view,  both  on  grammatical  and  other  grounds  ; 
ami  though  we  do  not  see  the  force  of  his  grammatical 
objection  to  the  derivation  in  question,  yet  \ve  think  he 
puts  the  matter  itself  rightly,  and  thereby  justilies  the 
received  opinion.  Man  got  his  name  A  dtuu  from  the 
earth,  ad'iut'ih,  not  because  of  its  being  his  character 
istic  dignity  that  (iod  made  him  after  his  image,  but 
because  of  this,  that  God  made  after  his  image  one  who 
h:id  1).  en  taken  from  the  earth.  The  likeness  to  ( iod 
man  had  in  common  with  the  angels,  but  that,  as  the 
possessor  of  this  likeness,  he  should  be  Adam  this  is 
v.  hat  brought  him  into  union  with  two  worlds  the 
\\orld  of  spirit  and  the  world  of  matter  rendered  him 
the  centre  and  the  bond  of  all  that  hail  been  made,  the 
titling  top^t.one  of  the  whole  work  of  creation,  and  the 
motive  principle  of  the  world's  history.  It  is  precisely 
hi*  having  the  image  of  (iod  in  an  earthen  vessel,  that, 
while  made  somewhat  lower  than  the  angels,  he  occu 
pies  a  higher  position  than  they  in  respect  to  the  affairs 
of  this  world.  1's.  viii.  ,'j ;  HLMJ.  .">. 

To  pass,  however,  from  the  name  to  the  reality,  the 
account  given  of  Adam  in  Scripture  must  always  be 
interesting  and  important,  from  the  relation  in  which, 
as  the  first  man.  he  stands  to  all  the  families  and  gene 
rations  of  mankind.  In  this  respect  the  subjects  of  chief 
moment  connected  with  his  history  divide  themselves 
into  three  parts  : — 1.  The  simple  fact  of  his  creation  at  a 
definite  stage  in  the  natural  history  of  the  world.  '2.  The 
state  in  which  he  was  created,  with  the  constitution 
of  things  under  which,  in  that  state,  he  was  placed. 
.'{.  The  loss  of  his  original  condition  by  transgression, 
and  the  immediate  and  remote  consequences  thence 
arising. 

1.  In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  points,  the  repre 
sentation  given  in  the  lirst  chapters  of  Genesis  is,  that 

Adam  was  absolutely  the  first  man,  and  was  created 
by  the  direct  agency  of  (iod  ;  that  this  act  of  creation, 
including  the  immediately  subsequent  creation  of  Eve. 

A  as  the  last  in  a  series  of  creative  acts,  which  extended 

Vol..   I. 


through  a  period  of  six  days  (whether  natural  days  or 
not  will  be  the  subject  of  future  inquiry  under  the 
article  CREATION);  and  that,  as  everything  up  to  this 
consummating  act  had  been  made  with  a  view  to  the 
future  support  and  well-being'  of  man.  so,  when  Adam 
and  his  spouse  were  brought  into  being,  they  were 
placed  over  all  as  the  proper  heads  of  the  world,  and 
had  its  best  things  subordinated  to  their  use.  This 
scriptural  account  is.  of  course,  entirely  opposed  to  the 
atheistic  hypothesis,  which  denies  any  definite  hi'giii- 
ning  to  the  human  race,  but  conceives  the  successive 
generations  of  men  to  have  run  on  in  a  kind  of  infinite 
series,  to  which  no  beginning  can  be  assigned.  Such 
a  hypothesis,  originally  propounded  by  heathen  philo 
sophers,  has  also  been  asserted  by  the  more  extreme 
section  of  infidel  writers  in  Christian  times.  lint  it 
will  scarcely  rind  any  advocates  in  the  present  day. 
The  voice  of  tradition,  which,  in  ;'ll  the  more  ancient 
nations,  uniformly  points  to  a  comparatively  recent 
period  for  the  origin  of  the  human  family,  has  now  re 
ceived  conclusive  attestations  from  learned  research  and 
scientific  inquiry.  Not  only  have  the  remains  of  human 
art  and  civilization,  the  more  they  have  been  explond, 
yielded  more  convincing  evidence  of  a  period  not  very 
remote  •when  the  human  family  itself  was  in  infancy, 
but  the  languages  of  the  world  also,  when  carefully 
investigated  and  compared,  as  they  ha\e  of  late  been, 
point  to  a  common  and  not  exceedingly  remote  origin. 
"  It  is  no  longer  probable  only,"  ways  Sir  William  Jones, 
"but  absolutely  certain,  that  the  whole  race  of  man 
kind  proceeded  from  Iran  (in  Western  Asiai  as  from  a 
centre,  whence  they  migrated  at  tirst  in  three  great 
colonies,  and  that  those  three  brandies  grew  from  a 
common  stock  which  had  been  miraculously  preserved 
in  a  general  convulsion  and  inundation  of  this  globe." 
And  Hiinseii,  writing  still  later,  states  it  as  "the  result 
of  the  most  accurate  linguistic  inquiries,  that  a  regular, 
not  stray  coincidence  merely,  has  been  proved  to  exist 
between  three  great  families  of  language  spreading  from 
the  north  of  Europe  to  the  tropic  lands  of  Asia  and 
Africa — a  coincidence  not  in  radical  words  only,  but 
even  in  the  formative  words  and  inflections  which  per 
vade  their  whole  structure,  and  are  interwoven,  as  it 
were,  with  every  sentence  pronounced  in  each  of  their 
branches.  All  the  nations."  he  adds.  "  \\hieh.  from  the 
dawn  of  history  to  our  days.  ha\e  been  the  leaders 
of  civilization  in  Asia.  Knrope,  and  Africa,  must  con 
sequently  have  had  one  beginning."  The  same  conclu 
sion  substantially  is  reached  by  Dr.  Donaldson,  who. 
after  staling  v,hat  has  already  been  accomplished  in 
this  department  of  learning,  expresses  his  conviction, 
on  the  ground  alone  of  the  affinities  of  language,  that 
"investigation  will  fully  confirm  what  the  great  apostle 
proclaimed  in  the  Areopagus,  that  (iod  hath  made  of 
one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face 
of  the  earth"  (AViw  Ci-nti/lnx.  p.  P.M.  The  conclusion 
is  still  further  confirmed  by  the  results  that  have  been 
gained  in  the  region  of  natural  science.  The  most 
skilful  and  accomplished  naturalists— such  as  Cuvier. 
Rlumenbach.  Pritchard—  have  established  beyond  any 
reasonable  doubt  the  unity  of  the  human  family  as  a 
species  (see  particularly  Pritchard's  History  of  Man)  ; 
and  those  who  have  prosecuted  geological  researches, 
while  they  have  found  remains  in  the  different  strata 
of  rocks  of  numberless  species  of  inferior  animals,  can 
point  to  no  human  petrifactions — none,  at  least,  but 
what  appear  in  some  comparatively  recent  and  local 


ADAM  20 

formations  -  a  proof  that  man  is  of  too  late  an  origin 
for  liis  remains  to  have  mingled  with  those  of  the  ex 
tinct  animal  tribes  of  preceding  ages. 

So  far,  therefore,  the  account  given  in  Genesis  of  the 
origin  of  the  human  race  l>y  the  creation,  last  of  all,  of 
a  human  pair,  stands  accredited  and  established  bv  the 
most  careful  investigations  of  human  reason.  Tradition, 
learning,  science,  in  their  matnrest  form,  here  pour  in 
their  contributions  to  support  the  testimony  of  revela 
tion.  And  for  another  form  of  the  atheistic,  or  at  least 
antiscriptural  hypothesis,  that  the  human  family,  in 
stead  of  being  all  descended  from  one  pair,  may  have 
sprung  from  several  pairs  created  in  different  quarters  of 
the  globe,  or  possibly  not  so  created,  but  developed  by 
spontaneous  generation  out  of  some  inferior  species  of 
the  animal  creation — as  regards  this  aspect  of  the  mat 
ter,  the  same  reasons  which  meet  the  other  form  of 
objection  are  equally  applicable  here  ;  for  a  variety  of 
original  pairs  either  developed  or  created  is  entirely  at 
variance  with  the  established  result  of  a  single  species, 
at  once  essentially  different  from  all  others,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  knit  together  by  the  bonds  of  internal  affini 
ties  of  thought  and  speech,  and  issuing  from  a  common, 
not  very  remote  centre.  Science  generally  can  tell  of 
no  separate  creations  for  animals  of  one  and  the  same 
species;  and  while  all  geologic  history  is  full  of  the 
beginnings  and  the  ends  of  species,  "it  exhibits  no 
genealogies  of  development"  (Miller's  Testimony  of  the 
RucJcs,  p.  '201 ).  So  that  the  natural  history  of  man  in  the 
Bible,  as  embodied  in  the  account  of  Adam's  creation 
and  its  results,  is  the  only  one  that  is  borne  out  by  the 
deductions  of  science  and  learning.  And  that,  when 
created,  he  must  have  been  formed  in  full  maturity,  as 
Adam  is  related  to  have  been,  was  a  necessity  arising 
from  the  very  conditions  of  existence.  To  have'  been 
able  even  in  the  most  favourable  circumstances  to  meet 
the  demands  of  nature,  and  provide  for  the  support  of 
himself  and  his  offspring,  he  must  have  had  from  the 
first  what  others  can  acquire  only  by  degrees  —the 
strength,  the  sagacity,  the  prudence,  which  belong  to 
the  manhood  of  life.  Had  he  been  created  otherwise, 
or  had  he  even  been  placed,  when  created,  in  a  situation 
ill  adapted  to  the  comfortable  maintenance  of  life, 
where  should  have  been  for  him  the  divine  wisdom  and 
beneficence  ?  And  how  could  existence  have  been  pre 
served  without  a  succession  of  miracle's  ?  The  earth  at 
large  required  to  undergo  a  process  of  preparation,  in 
order  to  become  a  fit  habitation  for  a  being  of  such 
capacities  and  wants.  And  not  only  so,  but  the  parti 
cular  region  where  the  first  parent  of  the  human  family 
was  to  be  located,  must  also  have  required  (if  goodness 
presided  over  his  destiny)  to  be  the  most  select  and 
fertile  spot  within  its  bounds.  Accordingly,  when  God 
had  formed  man,  he  placed  him  in  the  garden  of  Kden, 
which  he  had  specially  prepared  for  him,  with  fruitful 
herbs  and  trees,  and  whatever  was  good  for  food  and 
pleasant  to  the  eye. 

'2.  We  turn  now  to  our  second  point  of  inquiry — the 
state  in  which  Adam  was  created,  and  the  constitution 
of  things  under  which  in  that  state  lie  was  placed. 
The  introduction  of  Adam  and  Eve  last  in  the  order  of 
creation,  implies,  as  already  stated,  the  relative  supe 
riority  of  the  species  to  which  they  belonged  ;  they 
appear  as  the  culmination  of  a  creative  series.  This 
impression  is  confirmed  and  deepened  by  both  the 
accounts  given  in  the  two  first  chapters  of  Genesis  of 
Adam's  creation.  That  in  the  second  chapter,  which 


ADAM 


relates  more  especially  to  his  bodily  organization  and 
his  animal  life,  still  indicates  his  place  to  be  above  the 
rest  of  the  animal  creation.  "  And  the  Lord  God,"  it 
is  said,  "formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and 
I  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life;  and  man 
became  a  living  soul."  The  material,  indeed,  out  of 
which  the  formation  was  made,  is  earthly — "dust  of 
the  ground,"  though  of  that  ground  the  finer  particles  ; 
and  the  result  produced,  so  far  as  here  indicated,  is  not 
specifically  different  from  what  belonged  in  general  to 
I  the  animal  creation;  for  in  the  case  of  the  inferior 
\  orders  also,  it  is  given,  ch.  i.  21,  as  the  result  of  the  creative 
act,  that  each  after  its  kind  became  "  a  living  soul,"  or 
"living  creature,"  as  our  English  Bible  there  renders 
the  Hebrew  phrase.  We  may  not.  then-fore,  sa\  that 
Cod's  having  breathed  into  man's  nostrils  the  breath  of 
life,  and  thereby  made  him  a  living  soul  or  creature,  of 
itself  rendered  him  essentially  higher  and  better  than 
the  orders  that  preceded  him.  "But  still  there  is  a 
manifest  diflerence,  and  on  his  side  a  marked  superiorit  v 
—  not  merely  in  his  being  produced  as  the  last  and 
crowning  act  of  the  creative  energy  of  God,  but  also  in 
the  very  mode  and  style-  of  his  creation.  The  living 
creatures  generally,  which  were  formed  to  dwell  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth,  are  represented  as  coming  forth 
from  the  earth  when  impregnated  with  the  creative 
power  of  God's  Spirit,  and  assuming  as  they  rose  into 
being  their  severally  distinctive  forms,  like  so  many 
items  in  a  great  mass  of  animal  existence.  But  in  the 
case  of  man  it  is  not  the  spirit-impregnated  earth  that 
brings  forth;  it  is  God  himself  who  takes  of  the  earth. 
and  by  a  separate  individualizing  act,  fashions  his 
frame,  and  breathes  into  it  directly  from  himself  the 
breath  of  life  ; — a  distinct  personality,  and  in  the  attri 
butes  of  that  personality,  a  closer  relationship  to  God. 
a  form  of  being  that  might  fitly  be  designated  "  God's 
offspring."  Ac.  xvii.  IN.  This  is  plainly  what  the  narrative 
of  Adam's  creation  ascribes  to  him,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  beasts  of  the  field.  And  so  it  was  understood 
by  Elihu,  in  Job  xxxiii.  4,  when  he  said,  "  The  Spirit 
of  God  hath  made  me,  and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty 
hath  given  me  life"  —  i.e.  so  made  and  so  enlivened 
me,  that  I  have  in  me  somewhat  that  is  of  God,  and 
can  again  give  it  forth  for  the  understanding  and  profit 
of  others. 

This,  however,  becomes  still  more  plain — the  incom 
parable  greatness  and  superiority  of  nature  in  Adam. 
and  through  him  in  humanity  at  large,  impresses  itself 
upon  us  yet  more  forcibly  in  the  other  account  of  his 
creation,  which  has  for  its  leading  aim  the  exhibition  of 
that  wherein  he  differed  from  the  inferior  creatures. 
After  the  earth,  at  the  divine  bidding,  had  brought 
forth  these,  the  Lord  said,  "Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image,  after  our  likeness:  and  let  them  have  dominion," 
&c.  "So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the 
image  of  God  created  he  him  ;  male  and  female  created 
he  them."  Here  the  prominent  point  obviously  is,  not 
man's  relation  to  the  living  creaturehood,  Init  his  rela 
tion,  as  the  highest  of  earthly  creatures,  to  God  the 
resemblance  of  the  created  to  the  Creator.  And  in 
giving  expression  to  this,  it  will  be  observed,  two  terms 
are  used,  "in  our  imarje,  after  our  likeness,'"  which, 
though  nearly  related  in  meaning,  are  not  quite  iden 
tical.  The  one  has  respect  more  to  the  form,  the  other 
to  the  substance  or  ground  on  which  that  form  is  based  ; 
man  was  constituted  in  his  being  the  shadow  (so  tzclem 
originally  imports),  the  visible  reflex  of  God,  and,  in 


ADAM 


27 


ADAM 


order  to  lie  this,  he  received  the  impress  of  his  likeness. 
It  may  seem  to  savour  of  the  carnal  to  speak  of  a  form 
in  (rod,  as  if  it  ascribed  to  him  something  like  corporeal 
lineaments.  But  possibly  such  an  impression  only 
arises  from  our  imperfect  conception  of  spirit,  which, 
while  opposed  to  corporeiety,  may  be  perfectly  compa 
tible  with  form;  and  certainly,  what  seems  implied  here 
as  to  form  in  God,  is  in  other  parts  of  Scripture  dis 
tinctly  indicated ;  as  when  the  1'salmist  gives  vent  to 
the  expectation  of  his  heart,  in  the  words,  "1  shall  be 
satisfied  when  I  awake  with  thy  form:"  for  so  it  should 
be  rendered,  r.s.  xvii.  i;..  Undoubtedly,  however,  the 
resemblance  to  Deity,  in  which  man  was  made,  has 
respect,  primarily  and  fundamentally,  to  the  soul;  like 
(iod  he  was  formed  with  an  intelligent,  rational  spirit, 
with  an  understanding  and  a  will  of  its  own,  capable  of 
going  forth  in  free  and  controlling  agency  upon  all 
around  it,  and  disposed  by  the  innate  bent  of  its  facul 
ties  to  employ  its  powers  to  wise  and  righteous  ends. 
The  implantation  of  such  a  spirit  in  man  is  what  ren 
dered  him  as  by  right  of  nature,  the  lord  of  this  lower 
world,  and,  as  such,  the  representative  of  Deity.  Hut 
a  spirit  so  formed  required  for  its  calling  and  destiny  a 
corresponding  framework—  a  body  skilfully  adapted  to 
be  the  organ  of  its  communications  with  tin-  external 
wiii-ld,  to  express  its  feelings  and  execute  its  purpi  -e-  : 
so  that  if  his  spirit  is  the  immediate  likeness  or  image 
of  (Joil,  his  body  is  the  imau'e  of  that  ima'_re  ;  and  in 
what  he  does  through  the  instrumentality  of  this  body 
-in  the  aet'-d  iv>nlts  of  his  thoughts  and  inclinations 
there  was  from  the  first  designed  to  be.  and  there 
should  in  reality  ever  have  been,  exhibited  a  shadow  of 
Godhead. 

Such,  according  to  the  account  in  (  leiiesis.  is  thehi'jb 
place  assigned  in  the  work  of  creation  to  man,  primarily 
as  an  intelligent  and  moral  being,  and  secondarily  as 
possessing  a  fitting  bodily  organization.  As  the  two 
were  by  the  divine  Architect  linked  together  into  mi'- 
compound  personal  being,  so  in  both  man  holds  the 
same  relative  superiority ;  in  his  bodily  structure,  not 
less  than  in  his  intellectual  and  moral  nature,  he  is  the 
crowning  act  and  issue  of  creation.  And  it  is  singular. 
that  in  this  respect  also  modern  science  lends  its  confir 
mation  to  the  handwriting  of  Moses.  It  has  discov 
ered,  by  searching  into  the  remains  of  preceding  au'es 
and  generations  of  living  creatures,  that  there  ha.--  been 
a  manifest  progress  in  the  succession  of  beings  mi  the 
surface  of  the  earth— a  progress  in  the  direction  of  an 
increasing  resemblance  to  the  existing  forms  of  Inum, 
and  in  particular  to  man.  Tin.-  human  form  was  the 
archetypal  idea  or  exemplar  that  was  from  the  first  in 
the  divine  mind,  and  which,  by  successive  acts  of  crea 
tion,  it  was  ever  approximating,  till  the  period  of  full 
realization  arrived.  J!ut  the  connection  between  the 
earlier  and  the  later,  the  imperfect  and  the  perfect,  is 
not  that  of  direct  lineage  or  parental  descent,  as  if  it 
came  in  the  way  merely  of  natural  growth  and  develop 
ment.  The  connection,  as  Agassiz  has  said  in  his 
Principles  of  Zuoloyy,  "is  of  a  higher  and  immaterial 
nature;  it  is  to  be  sought  ill  the  view  of  the  Creator 
himself,  whose  aim  in  forming  the  earth,  in  allowing  it 
to  undergo  the  successive  changes  which  geologv  has 
pointed  out,  and  in  creating  successively  all  the  differ 
ent  types  of  animals  which  have  passed  away,  was  to 
introduce  man  upon  the  surface  of  our  globe.  Man  is 
the  end  toicard  which  the  animal  creation  has  tended 
Jrom  (he  first  appearance  of  the  first  palaeozoic  fishes." 


Thus  there  appears  a  remarkable  analogy  between  the 
works  of  God  in  nature  and  his  operations  in  grace ; 
the  earlier  creations  typified  man,  much  as  afterwards 
the  earlier  dispensations  typified  the  God-man.  ''The 
advent  of  man,  simply  as  such,  was  the  great  event 
prefigured  during  the  old  geologic  ages.  The  advent 
of  that  divine  Man,  '  who  hath  abolished  death,  and 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,'  was  the  great 
event  prefigured  during  the  historic  ages.  .It  is  these 
two  grand  events,  equally  portions  of  one  sublime 
scheme,  originated  when  God  took  counsel  with  himself 
in  the  depths  of  eternity,  that  bind  together  past,  j ire- 
sent,  and  future — the  geologic  with  the  patriarchal  and 
the  Christian  ages,  and  all  together  with  that  new 
heavens  and  new  earth,  the  last  of  many  creations,  in 
which  there  shall  be  'no  more  death  nor  curse,  but  the 
throne  of  God  and  the  Lamb  shall  be  in  it.  and  his 
servants  shall  serve  him.'"— (Miller's  Testimony  of  the 
Rocks,  p.  '21  (\.\ 

The  divine  record  says  nothing  of  the  personal  ap 
pearance  of  Adam  when  he  came  from  the  hands  of  his 
Oeator  ;  but  fashioned,  as  he  was,  by  the  immediate 
agency  of  God.  and  standing  chief  among  the  produc 
tions  which  were  all  pronounced  "vcrv  good."  we 
cannot  doubt  that  in  form  and  aspect  be  belonged  to 
the  highest  type  of  humanity.  The  region,  too.  where, 
according  to  all  the  indications  of  modern  research  as 
well  as  of  ancient  tradition,  the  human  family  had  its 
first  local  habitation.  fa\  ours  the  supposition.  The  exact 
site  of  Paradise  has.  by  subsequent  changes  on  tin 'earth's 
surface.  IK-CII  hopelessly  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  our 
investigations,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  lay 
somewhere  within  that  district  of  Western  Asia  in 
which  the  Caucasian  territory  is  situated ;  and  from 
the  earliest  periods  to  the  present  times  the  Caucasian 
type  of  man  has  always  been  placed  by  naturalists  in 
the  highest  rank.  The  sculptured  figures  in  the  ancient 
Assyrian.  Grecian,  and  even  Kgyptian  remains  bear 
much  of  this  cast;  and  in  proportion  as  the  offshoots  of 
the  original  race  receded  from  that  Caucasian  centre, 
and  planted  themselves  in  the  more  distant  extremities 
of  the  globe,  they  liecame  deteriorated  in  appearance. 
It  is.  therefore,  in  perfect  accordance  \\ith  all  that  we 
know,  and  have  reason  to  believe,  that  the  first  pair 
\\ei-i-.  even  in  a  physical  respect,  cast  in  the  finest 
mould  of  humanity,  and  that  there  is  more  than  poet 
ical  sentiment  in  the  delineation  of  Milton,  when  he 
described  them  as 

"  I  lit-  luvrlie.-t  pair 

That  ever  yet  in  love's  embraces  met ; 
Adam,  the  goodliest  IIIHM  of  mm  >inre  liurn. 
His  si nis  ;  the  fairest  of  her  daughters,  Kve." 
That  the  intellectual  and  moral  condition  of  Adam 
was   correspondingly    high   is  still  more   certain  -  it  is 

:  matter    of    positive    revelation.      The    divinely-formed 

image  of  Godhead,   like  every    workmanship  of    God, 

could  not  ]>c  otherwise  than  in  its  own  nature  perfect 

'•very   good" — especially   in   those    higher   elements 

;  which  constitute  the  distinctive  excellence  of  man,  and 
the  more  peculiar  resemblance  of  Deity.  Hence  it  is 
written,  "God  made  man  upright  "—intellectually  and 
morally  a  pattern  man  :  nothing  awry  in  his  constitu 
tion  or  character  ;  the  powers  of  his  nature  rightly 
balanced,  and  hence  clear  in  his  perceptions,  solid  in  his 
judgment ;  above  all,  sound  and  healthful  in  the  spiri 
tual  temperament  of  his  soul.  The  evidence  of  this 
appears  in  the  whole  account  given  of  Adam's  prim- 

,  eval  condition.     God  familiarly  converses  with  him,  as 


ADAM 


ADAM 


finding  in  him  a  lit  image  and  representative  of  himself; 
and  Adam  proves  capable  of  understanding,  and  learn 
ing  from  his  divine  Teacher.  Not  only  does  lie  enter 
intelligently  into  the  instructions  given  him  respecting 
his  business  and  calling  in  the  garden  of  Kden,  hut  the 
Lord  caused  the  inferior  creatures  that  had  been  made 
to  come  before  him,  ''to  see  what  lie  would  call  them; 
and  whatsoever  Adam  called  every  living  creature,  that 
was  the  name  then-of."  The  meaning  plainly  is,  that 
the  Lord  knew  he  had  discernment  to  perceive  the  dis 
tinctive  natures  of  each,  and  the  skill  needed  to  express 
this  in  appropriate  designations;  a  reach  of  thought, 
and  especially  a  power  of  embodying  thought  in  utter 
ance,  which  many  have  deemed  too  high  for  primeval 
man  .'  lUit  in  this  they  are  again  rebuked  by  the  pro- 
founder  philosophy  of  recent  times,  which  justly  refuses 
to  take  its  gauge  of  original  and  proper  humanity  from 
the  half-brutali/.ed  forms  of  savage  life.  "According 
to  my  fullest  conviction,"  savs  William  von  Mumholdt. 
one  of  the  greatest  students  of  the  philosophy  of  lan 
guage,  "speech  must  be  regarded  as  immediately  in 
herent  in  man;  for  it  is  altogether  inexplicable  as  the 
work  of  his  understanding  in  its  simple  consciousness. 
We  are  none  the  better  for  allowing  thousands  and 
thousands  of  years  for  its  invention.  There  could  be 
no  invention  of  language  unless  its  type  already  existed 
in  the  human  understanding."  Strictly  speaking,  how 
ever,  man  did  not  need  actually  to  invent;  lie  had  but 
to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  his  divine  Teacher.  God. 
according  to  the  inspired  record,  first  spake,  addressing 
himself  to  that  type  of  language  which  was  imprinted 
on  the  human  soul,  and  Adam  caught  up  the  lesson  : 
he  formed  his  speech  after  the  pattern  set  him  by  God. 
And  looking,  as  Adam  could  then  do,  into  the  nature 
of  things  with  a  cloudless  intellect  and  an  untroubled 
bosom,  the  language  in  which,  as  deputed  lord  of  crea 
tion,  lie  designated  the  various  creatures  presented  to 
him,  we  may  well  conceive,  was  most  aptly  significant 
of  the  respective  qualities  of  each,  and  afforded  ample 
illustration  of  his  own  quick  discernment  and  pene 
trating  insight. 

But  the  survey  which  Adam  was  thus  called  to  take 
of  the  inferior  creation  served,  in  another  respect,  to 
bring  out  his  high  position  ;  for,  while  lie  saw  in  the 
creatures  qualities  fitted  to  subserve  his  purposes,  and 
so  far  must  have  looked  upon  them  with  complacency, 
he  recognized,  at  the  same  time,  their  essential  inferior 
ity  to  himself — in.  none  of  them  was  there  found  a 
nature  like  his  own,  or  an  individual  fitted  to  be  a  meet 
associate  for  him.  Yet  they  had  each  their  own  proper 
associates — the  male  with  his  female;  and  the  thought 
could  scarcely  fail  to  press  itself  on  his  bosom,  why 
should  he  not  also,  amid  the  wealth  of  creation,  have  a 
mate  provided  for  him  t  The  bountiful  Author  of  his 
being,  however,  was  himself  conscious  of  this  need,  and 
proceeded  to  meet  it  in  a  manner  alike  singular  and 
edifying.  He  did  not  set  about  an  entirely  new  crea 
tion,  which  would  have  marred  the  unity  of  the  pair, 
as  together  representing  complete  humanity,  and  would 
also  have  exhibited  woman  in  an  attitude  of  too  great 
isolation  and  independence  ;  but  He  cast  Adam  into  a 
profound  sleep,  during  the  unconsciousness  of  which  a 
rib  was  taken  from  his  body,  and  formed  into  a  woman: 
thus,  in  the  very  mode  of  her  formation,  imaging  her 
true  position  and  calling  in  relation  to  man — first  her 
secondary  and  dependent  place,  as  derived  from  him, 
and  for  the  purpose  of  entering  as  a  handmaid  into 


the  sphere  already  occupied  by  him — then,  her  finer 
susceptibilities  and  more  delicate  structure,  as  fashioned 
out  of  matter  refined  into  human  flesh;  and,  finally, 
her  adaptation  for  awakening  and  reciprocating  the 
tenderer  feelings  of  nature,  as  having  been  developed 
from  that  part  of  Adam's  body  which  lies  near  to  and 
envelopes  the  heart.  These  were  great  and  fundamen 
tal  lessons  for  all  times.  And  Adam  again  discovered 
his  high  intelligence  and  profound  discernment,  when, 
on  the  presentation  to  him  of  this  fitting  partner,  he  at 
once  exclaimed,  "  This  now  is  bone-  — (or  more  exactly, 
"this  is  the  time/'  spoken  in  contrast  to  preceding 
occasions,  when  nothing  suitable  was  found,  "  this  is 
the  time,  bone")-  of  my  bone,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh." 
So,  as  he  had  given  names  to  the  other  creatures, 
expressive  of  their  respective  natures,  he  does  the  same 
also  with  his  wife  :  — "  She  shall  be  called  woman  (islta), 
because  she  was  taken  out  of  man  (/*•//);''  that  is.  her 
name,  indicative  of  her  nature  and  her  place,  must  bear 
the  impress  of  him  from  whom  she  has  been  derived  - 
her  standing  must  still  be  in  closest  connection  with 
him,  and  in  dependent,  though  free  and  willing,  subjVc- 
tioii  to  him. 

Now,  that  this  corporeal  and  intellectual  elevation 
was  accompanied  with  entire  moral  purity,  appears,  not 
only  from  the  capacity  shown  for  free  intercourse  with 
God,  and  the  disposition  to  fall  in  with  all  his  arrange 
ments,  but  also  from  the  express  statement  respecting 
both,  that  "they  were  naked,  and  were  not  ashamed." 
In  other  words,  they  had  no  consciousness  of  guilt  : 
sin,  as  yet.  wrought  not  in  their  bosoms,  and  they  were 
not  afraid  lest  their  naked  bodies  should  disclose  what 
they  would  wish  to  have  concealed.  Truth  alone  was 
in  their  inward  parts — the  truth  of  pure  and  holy  love  ; 
and  nothing  but  this  could  be  mirrored  in  the  features 
or  the  movements  of  their  external  frames. 

Such,  according  to  the  sacred  narrative,  was  man's 
original  state  ;  and  in  regard  to  the  constitution  under 
which  he  was  placed,  it  was,  first  of  all,  one  of  high 
privilege  and  enjoyment.  His  relative  means  and  ad 
vantages  corresponded  to  his  elevated  personal  condi 
tion..  The  lordship  of  all  was  committed  to  him  ;  and 
the  region  in  which  he  was  to  have  the  seat  of  his  do 
minion,  the  garden  formed  for  his  immediate  occupa 
tion,  was  emphatically  a  region  of  life  and  blessing. 
Copious  and  refreshing  streams  watered  it ;  herbs  and 
trees  of  every  kind,  fitted  to  minister  to  his  support  and 
gratification,  grew  within  its  borders;  and  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  tree  of  life,  capable,  whether  by  inherent  virtue 
or  by  sacramental  grace,  to  sustain  life  in  undecaying 
freshness  and  vigour;  so  that  provision  was  made,  not 
only  for  the  preservation  of  his  being,  but  also  for  the 
dew  of  his  youth  ever  abiding  on  him.  But.  secondly, 
along  with  this,  his  position  was  one  of  responsibility 
and  action.  He  was  not  to  dwell  in  an  idle  and  luxu 
rious  repose.  The  garden  itself  was  to  be  kept  and 
dressed,  that  it  might  yield  to  him  of  the  abundance 
and  variety  which  it  was  capable  of  affording  ;  and 
from  this,  as  a  select  and  blessed  centre,  he  was  to  ope 
rate  by  degrees  upon  the  world  around,  and  subdue  it 
to  himself — make  it  a  sort  of  extended  paradise.  It  is 
to  be  understood  that  the  work  thus  devolved  upon  him. 
if  the  original  constitution  of  things  had  stood,  would 
have  involved  no  toilsome  or  oppressive  labour,  but 
merely  regular  and  active  employment,  such  as  is  need 
ful  for  the  healthful  condition  of  the  human  frame  itself, 
and  the  happy  play  of  all  its  faculties ;  and  it  implied, 


ADAM 

besides,  the  dignity  and  honour  of  being  a  fellow- worker 
with  God,  in  carrying  the  appointed  theatre  of  man's 
existence  to  the  degree  of  perfection  which  potentially, 
indeed,  but  not  yet  actually,  belonged  to  it.  Finally, 
there  was  in  Adam's  original  position  the  danger  in 
herent  in  the  possession  (pf  a  will  entirely  free,  and 
having  within  its  reach  an  evil  as  well  as  a  good. 
The  charge,  to  keep  the  garden,  in  part  betokened 
this,  as  it  pointed  to  the  possibility  of  some  unholy  in- 

pf  Coil  and  the 
if  a  tree,  beside 

the  tree  of  life,  designated  "the  tree  of  the  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil.''  still  more  distinctly  betokened  it: 
and.  most  of  all.  the  explicit  charge  given  concerning 
this  tree  :  -  -"  Of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil  thou  shalt  not  eat:  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest 
thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die.''  Whether  the  tree  might 
possess  in  itself  noxious  properties,  which,  on  the  par 
ticipation  of  its  fruit,  would  by  natural  efficacy  work 
the  fatal  issue  here  threatened  —or  whether  it  was  an 


trusion  being  attempted  on  the  order 
well-being  of  the  world.      The  existence 


innocuous  tree,  set  up  merely  as  th 
so  that  the  infliction  of  death  shou 


test  i  if  allegiance, 
1  come  simply  as  a 


moral  result  through  the 
be    n-irard'-d    as   in    some 


speeial  visitation  of  < tod-  may 
doubtful:  though  the 


discredit  on  the 


dness  of  Cod.  as  if  lie  had  wi 


analogy  of   th'-   tree   of   lit'.-,  which   semis  to  have  had 
quite    peculiar    life-sustaining   virtu.-   implanted    in   it. 
(;.•.  iii.  -I',  and  the  further  analogy  of  God's  dealings  gen 
erally,  in   which  entirely    arbitrary   appointments,   not  I  interposed  the  threatened  penalty  of  death  as  a  bar  t 
grounded   in   the   nature    of   things,  are  ran-ly.  if  ever,      the   proposed   eating  of    th«-   fruit,  directly  denying  th 


ADAM 

results,  which  has  now  become  the  normal  one  for  man 
kind  at  their  entrance  into  the  world,  the  fall  of  our 
first  parents  has  acquired  for  their  posterity  the  most 
painful  interest.  The  history  is  a  very  brief  one.  and 
in  that  respect  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  vastness 
and  multiplicity  of  its  results.  The  story  begins  by 
telling  us  of  the  serpent,  that  there  was  a  subtlety  or 
cunning  in  it  above  the  other  beasts  of  the  field  ;  and 
as  the  story  proceeds,  and  informs  us  how  the  serpent's 
subtlety  displayed  itself,  the  impression  is  forced  upon 
our  minds,  that  there  were  in  it  more  than  bestial  pro 
perties — that  the  serpent  was  but  the  cover  and  instru 
ment  of  a  higher  power;  for  the  part  acted  by  it  here 
lay  beyond  the  sphere  of  things  properly  belonging  to  it. 
or  to  any  other  beast  of  the  field.  A  broad  line  of 
demarcation  separated  the  whole  of  them  from  Adam, 
as  Adam  himself  had  recogni/.ed  when  the  creatures 
jKissed  in  review  before  him:  none  of  them  were  capable 
of  becoming  associates  to  1 
reason.  .Here,  however,  tin 


..f 
•nt  -rets  the  faculty  of 


speech  —imperfectly,  it  might  be.  and  no  doubt  actually 
was.  as  compared  with  man's — yet  such  as  to  render  it 
capable  of  intelligent  utterance,  and  talking  familiarly 
with  Kvo.  Not  only  so.  but  the  thought  suggested  in 
what  was  spoken  was  a  thought  of  evil,  first  reflecting 


from  man  what  was  in  itself  ifood.  and  then,  \\lu-n  Fve 


made,  appear  to  favour  the  supposition  of  some  inherent 
noxiousness  in  the  tret:  of  knowledge  itself.  Hither 
way,  however,  the  existence  of  this  tree  in  the  midst  of 
the  garden,  with  the  condition  and  penalty  hung  over 
it.  tin:  perfect  freedom  granted  to  Adam  to  keep  or 
violate  the  condition,  and  the-  foreknown  results  in 
which  this  constitution  of  things  was  to  issue,  involves 
the  threat  question  of  the  origin  of  evil,  which  must 
ever  remain  for  man.  in  the  present  life,  an  inscrutable 
mvsterv.  A]  part  from  the  difficulties  of  that  question, 


and  looking  simply  to  matters  as  they  st 
that   Coil    saw   meet   to   suspend   the   wh 


d,  it  is  clear 
hole   of  Adam's 


state  and  prospects  on  an  alternative  but  an  alterna 
tive  which  imposed  no  hardship,  and  in  which  he  was 
at  perfect  lib'-rtv  to  take  tin-  one  side  or  the  other,  as 
his  own  heart  miirht  incline.  A  certain  /<•</«'<(•'  disad 
vantage  nn-rely  attended  tin-  side  of  obedience;  In- 
could  not  know  evil,  as,  perhaps,  it  was  known  by 


fact  that  there  should  ho  a  penalty,  as  Cod  had 
declared.  This  betokened  both  an  exercise  of  intelli 
gence  and  a  spirit  of  malice  in  the  serpent,  such  as 
could  not  properly  belong  to  any  of  the  creatures  which 
wen-  not  made  in  the  image  of  God's  rational  nature, 
and  yet  wen-  in  their  own  place  very  good.  \\  e  need 
not  wonder,  then-fore,  that  the  ancient  .lews,  both  in 
their  sacred  and  their  rabbinical  writings,  held  Satan 
to  have  been  here  the  prime  agent  ;  so  that  the  name 
(pf  the  old  serpent,  the  dragon,  and  s\n-h  like,  came  to 
be  synonymous  with  tin-  deceiver,  or  the  devil.  The 
allusions  of  New  Testament  scripture  confirm  this  view 
of  the  matter;  in  particular,  our  Lord  s  words  to  the 
.lews.  .Tn.vi.i.H:  "Ye  an-  of  your  father  tin  -  di-vil.  and 
the  lusts  of  your  father  ye  will  do.  He  was  a  murderer 
from  the  beurinninur.  and  abode  not  in  the  truth,  becau>e 
there  is  no  truth  in  him.  When  he  speaketh  a  lie.  he 


speaketh  of  his  own 


for  he  i 
thus   th 


superior  intt  lligences,  if  lie  abstained  from  partaking  "f     it."     The   connecting 

the  tree   of   knowledge:    but.  in  the  fulness   of   l>les.-iir_r     lying,  as  the  means  by  which  the  evil  was 


a  liar,  and  the  father  of 
charvv  of   murder  with 


around  him,  and  the  active  operations  in  which  his 
nature  might  find  genial  employment,  tin-re  was  enough 
to  satisfy  every  just  desire,  and,  with  the  plenteousiiess 
of  what  he  had,  to  prevent  any  craving  desire  for  what 


and  re] presenting  this  combination  of  falsehood  and 
murder  as  having  been  manifested  from  the  beginning, 
clearly  points  to  the  hi-torv  of  the  fall,  and  identifies 
the  part  there  ascribed  to  the  serpent  with  the  agency 


his  heavenly  1'ather  thought  fit  to  withhold.   Granting,  i  of   the  devil.     So  also  d«( 
therefore,  that  somehow  opportunity  and  freedom  to  sin     Paul  in  '1  Cor.  xi.  3,  when 


<  the  allusion   of   the  apostle 
the  beguiling  (pf  Kvo  by  the 


were  to  be  given  to  man,  and  that  the  alternative  of 
falling  through  sin,  as  well  as  of  standing  through 
righteousness,  must  have  been  placed  before  him,  we 
cannot  con  -eive  how  it  could  have  been  done  on  a  less 
exceptionable  footing,  or  coupled  with  an  easier  condi 
tion. 

:',.  The  sacred  narrative  does  not  inform  us  how  long 
Adam  and  his  partner  continued  in  their  original  state. 
From  no  child,  however,  having  been  born  to  them  till 
after  they  had  lost  it.  the  natural  inference  is,  that  the 
unfalleii  period  could  not  have  been  of  very  long  dura 
tion  ;  and  as  it  is  the  fallen  state,  with  its  disastrous 


serpent  through  subtlety  is  connected  with  the  deceitful 
working  of  satanic  agents  generally,  and  in  particular 
with  Satan's  transforming  himself  into  an  angel  of 
light,  vur.  12-i.v  Compare  also  such  passages  as  Mat.  iii. 
7;  1  Jn.  iii.  S  ;  Ke.  xii.  'J  ;  in  which  the  same  allusion 
is  manifest. 

We  are  warranted  to  assume,  then,  that  the  prime 
actor  in  the  history  of  the  fall  on  the  side  of  evil  was 
Satan  under  the  disguise  of  the  serpent — some  such 
disguise  being  necessary  in  the  yet  uncorrupt  world, 
that  the  temptation  might  acquire  the  requisite  body 


and  form.      Under  this  wicked 


th 


ADAM 


30 


ADAM 


by  an  inversion  of  the  natural  order  of  things — raising 
a  beast  of  the  field  out  of  its  proper  place,  leading  the 
irrational  to  presume  to  advise  and  guide  the  rational. 
And  as  it  began,  so  it  proceeded;  for  there  was  another 
in  version  of  the  proper  order,  in  the  woman — whose  name 
and  calling  alike  bound  her  to  follow  and  not  to  lead, 
to  act  in  connection  with  and  dependence  upon  her 
husband,  not  in  disregard  and  despite  of  him — of  her 
own  will  venturing  to  partake  of  the  tree,  and  thereafter 
persuading  him  to  follow  her  example.  The  weaker 
thus,  in  violation  of  Heaven's  fixed  appointment,  usur 
ped  the  place  of  the  stronger  vessel,  and  in  the  very 
quarter  of  danger  and  conflict  assumed  the  province  of 
giving  law  and  counsel,  instead  of  waiting  to  receive  it. 
•man,  by  improperly  yielding  to  her  own  more 


The 

impulsive    nature 


man    by    not   less    improperly 


pro- 


yielding  to  the  direction  and  example  of  his  wife — both 
by  losing  hold  of  tin;  eternal  truthfulness  of  ( Jod's  Word, 
and  departing  from  the  order  he  had  prescribed  for 
their  observance,  fell  from  their  high  estate,  and  in 
volved  themselves  in  guilt,  shame,  and  death.  The 
consequences  soon  became  apparent.  The  guilty  pair 
piv.-ently  knew  that  they  were  naked;  consciousness  of 
sin  made  them  dread  lest  indications  of  irregular  desire 
should  appear  in  the  unveiled  body;  and  they  sought 
to  cover  their  nakedness  with  garments  of  fig-leaves. 
I  Jut  still  they  were  not  protected  ;  for  the  sound  of  the 
divine  footsteps  in  the  garden  awoke  the  cry  of  guilt 
in  their  bosoms,  and  they  fled  into  the  covert  of  the 
trees  to  hide  themselves.  But  this  also  failed  ;  and 
they  were  dragged  forth  to  receive  the  fatal  sentence, 
which  doomed  them  and  all  their  posterity  to  suffering 
and  death,  tempered,  however,  by  the  blessed  promise 
that  mercy  was  to  arrest  the  full  execution  of  the 
penalty — that  the  woman  should  give  birth  to  a  seed 
which  should  bruise  the  serpent's  head;  in  other  words, 
should  have  an  offspring,  by  and  in  whom  the  evil  now 
introduced  should  be  again  abolished,  and  the  author 
of  the  evil  himself  crushed  in  his  dominion.  The 
mise  undoubtedly  implied  a  spiritual  victory — deliver 
ance  not  simply  from  the  effects  of  the  fall,  but  also 
from  the  sin  and  guilt,  in  which  the  essence  of  the  evil 
and  the  triumph  of  the  tempter  really  stood ;  so  that 
the  promised  reversion  of  the  evil  necessarily  carried 
redemption,  in  the  higher  sense,  in  its  bosom.  And 
on  the  ground  of  the  redemption  thus  dimly  indicated 
in  the  first  promise,  the  Lord  gave  the  fallen  pair 
a  real  clothing— a  clothing  of  skins,  derived  from  slain 
victims,  and  fitted  to  serve  as  a  suitable  covering  for 
their  bodies,  because  the  sacrifice  of  the  animal  life  had 
already  been  taken  as  a  covering  for  their  guilt.  (Sec 
SACRIFICE.) 

With  the  introduction,  however,  of  this  new  consti 
tution  of  grace  and  hope  for  the  fallen,  the  pristine  state 
of  things,  even  in  outward  form  and  appearance,  had 
<  'f  necessity  t<>  be  abolished.  Having  lost  the  righteous 
ness  with  which  access  to  the  tree  of  life  was  inseparably 
connected,  Adam  had  also  to  lose  his  place  in  Paradise, 
the  gate  of  which  was  thenceforth  barred  against  him ; 
and  in  the  way  to  the  tree  of  life  there  was  planted  a 
flaming  sword,  to  guard  against  intrusion  into  the 
sacred  territory;  while  cherubim  of  glory  took  the  place 
of  man  within,  and  kept  up  the  testimony  from  God, 
that  the  living  creaturehood  of  earth,  and  pre-eminently 
man,  its  constituted  head,  were  yet  destined  to  occupy 
the  region  of  pure  and  blessed  life.  (See  CHERUBIM.) 
All  that  we  are  told  further  of  Adam  and  his  partner 


is  associated  with  the  bestowal  of  a  succession  of  names. 
First  of  all,  a  new  name  was  given  by  Adam  to  his  wife  : 
"He  called  his  wife's  name  EVE  (lifc\  because  she  was 
mother  of  all  living."  Jt  was  the  expression  of  faith 
and  hope  amid  the  gloom  and  desolation  of  the  fall. 
Life,  it  virtually  said,  is  yet  to  prevail  in  the  midst  of 
death,  yea,  and  rise  above  it;  she  who  has  been  the 
occasion  of  letting  in  the  power  of  the  adversary  to 
destroy  is  now,  through  God's  grace,  to  be  the  channel 
of  introducing  a  seed  of  life  and  blessing.  The  name 
therefore,  as  has  been  justly  said  by  Delitxsch,  "bears 
the  impress  of  the  promise  ;  it  stands  in  contradistinction 
to  the  original  iaha  (woman),  a  proper  name,  and  desig 
nates  the  peculiar  individual  position  of  this  first  of 
women,  in  reference  to  the  entire  future  of  the  history 
of  salvation."  The  next  name  imposed  was  that  given 
to  the  first-born  of  the  human  family,  C.vix  [//often]  ; 
given  by  Kve,  however,  it  would  seem,  rather  than  by 
Adam,  and  apparently  indicating  her  confidence  that 
she  had  already  got  the  commencement  of  that  Peed 
of  blessing  which  was  to  be  truly  a  divine  gift,  and  was 
to  prevail  over  the  tempter.  Sad  experience  came  in 
to  correct  this  natural  and  joyful  expectation  ;  it  taught 
both  father  and  mother,  by  terrible  deeds  of  sin,  that 
in  the  bosom  of  their  own  offspring  there  was  to  be  a 
serpent's,  as  well  as  a  woman's  seed,  and  that  the  former 
was  even  to  have  fora  time  the  precedence  in  place  and 
power.  ABEL  [emptiness,  ran  it;/]  was  the  name  given 
to  the  next  child,  though  we  are  not  told  for  what  pre 
cise  reason  it  was  imposed,  nor  at  what  particular  time, 
but  most  probably  it  came  (as  already  suggested  under 
the  life  of  Abel)  after  his  untimely  end.  and  as  an  ex 
pression  of  the  grief  and  disappointment  which  it  oc 
casioned  in  the  hearts  of  the  parents.  But  the  next 
name  reverses  the  picture,  and  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
interesting  of  the  series,  on  account  of  the  cheering  light 
which  it  throws  on  the  state  and  feelings  of  these  pro 
genitors  of  the  human  family.  When  another  son  was 
given  to  them  after  the  death  of  Abel,  they  called  his 
name  SETH  [set  or  appointed] ;  "for  God  had  appointed 
them  another  seed  instead  of  Abel  whom  Cain  slew/' 
Ge.  iv.  25.  And  in  the  genealogical  chain  which  links 
together  Adam  and  Christ,  and  of  which  the  first  grand 
division  is  given  in  ch.  v.,  it  is  this  son  whom  Adam 
and  his  wife  called  Seth,  that  was  accounted  to  them 
for  a  seed;  "as  if  his  progeny  before  this  were  not  to 
be  reckoned ;  the  child  of  grace  had  perished,  and  the 
other  in  a  sense  was  not.  Adam,  therefore,  is  here 
distinctly  placed  at  the  head  of  a  spiritual  offspring — 
himself  with  his  partner  the  first  link  in  the  grand  chain 
of  blessing." — (Ti/pofoyi/  of  Scripture,  i.  276).  Other 
sons  and  daughters,  we  are  told,  were  born  to  Adam, 
though  no  specific  information  is  given  respecting  them  ; 
and  his  whole  term  of  life  is  stated  to  have  been  930 


This  primeval  history  is  inwrought  with  several 
grand  moral  principles,  to  say  nothing  of  its  incidental 
lessons.  1.  It  teaches  the  original  righteousness  of 
man's  nature,  and  his  possession  of  life — pure,  blessed, 
everlasting — as  the  proper  heritage  of  righteousness. 
2.  The  righteousness  and  life,  it  further  shows,  were 
suspended  on  a  condition,  the  easiest  that  can  well  be 
conceived — a  condition,  therefore,  eminently  reasonable 
and  just ;  so  that,  if  Adam,  with  his  finely  balanced 
mind  anil  high  moral  nature,  should  fail  to  keep  it  in 
the  face  of  one  temptation,  humanity  at  large  may 
justly  be  inferred  to  have  Ijeen  also  incapable  of  keeping 


ADAM 


31 


ADDER 


it ;  the  natural  man  in  his  best  estate,  and  with  every 
advantage  on  his  side,  could  in  no  circumstances  have 
abidden  in  holiness.  3.  Whatever  mysteries  lie  in  the 
background,  defying  the  reach  of  our  present  powers  of 
insight  or  reason,  the  loss  of  the  original  good,  we 
again  learn,  as  to  its  immediate  origin,  came  from  the 
abuse  of  that  freedom  which  was  essential  to  man's  in 
tellectual  and  moral  nature  as  the  image  of  Godhead, 
and  which,  viewed  in  connection  with  the  perfect  know 
ledge  he  possessed  as  to  the  consequences  of  obedience 
and  transgression,  rendered  the  blame  entirely  his  own. 
4.  Adam  and  Eve  having  been  constituted  the  living 
root  and  responsible  heads  of  the  human  family,  their 
fall  necessarily  became  the  fall  of  mankind;  every  child 
of  humanity  thenceforth  must  enter  the  world  an  heir 
of  sin  and  death.  5.  And  since  this  fall  was  permitted 
to  enter  through  one  man,  only  that  the  hope  of  reco 
very  to  another  and  more  secure  state  of  blessing  might 
lie  brought  in,  this  hope,  in  like  manner,  must  lie  made 
to  stand  in  one,  a  second  Adam,  though  in  nature  and 
sufficiency  unspeakably  higher  than  the  first;  for  thus 
only  could  any  prospect  be  afforded  to  the  world  of 
righteousness  and  life  being  regained.  So  far,  therefore, 
Adam  was  "the  type  of  him  that  was  to  come;"  the 
representative  character  sustained  bv  the  one  was  the 
imago  of  that  to  be  sustained  by  the  other;  and  the 
root  of  being,  which  in  the  first  man  so  soon  turned  into 
evil  for  his  natural  offspring,  becomes  in  the  second 
man,  the  Lord  from  heaven,  for  all  spiritually  related 
to  him,  the  sure  ground  of  a  life  that  cannot  die,  and 
a  glory  that  is  imperishable. 

ADAM,  ADA.MAH,  A  DA  MI,  different  modifica 
tions  of  the  same  word,  occur  as  names  of  cities  in  Pa 
lestine,  of  which  nothing  of  any  importance  is  known 
— the  first  in  Jos.  iii.  (j,  of  a  town  on  the  Jordan  ;  the 
second  in  Jos.  xix.  :5(J,  and  the  third  in  Jos.  xix.  :>:j.  of 
towns  in  tin;  tribe  of  Xaphtali. 

ADAMANT,  one  of  the  hardest  and  most  costly  of 
the  precious  stones,  and  often  used  as  a  symbol  of  im 
penetrable  or  enduring  firmness.  It  is  found  only  in 
the  English  BiMe  at  E/.e.  iii.  \>  and  Zee.  vii.  <),  but  in 
both  cases  as  the  translation  of  shell  it  ir,  which  is  also 
rendered  diamond.  This  latter  is  now  generally  re 
garded  as  tin;  proper  rendering  of  the  original. 

A'DAR,  the  name  given  to  the  last  month  in  the 
Jewish  year.  (Fee  MONTH.) 

AD'ASA,  a  place  not  far  from  Beth-horon,  nowhere 
mentioned  in  Old  Testament  scripture,  but  celebrated 
in  later  times  as  the  place  where  Judas  Maccabeus  routed 
the  Syrian  general  Xicanor,  i  .Mac.  vii.  to, seq. 

AD'BEEL  [sorrow  of  God],  a  Hebraism,  perhaps, 
for  very  great  sorrow,  the  name  of  Ishmael's  third  son, 

Go.  xxv.  13. 

AD'DAN  [probably  calamity,  but  somewhat  uncer 
tain],  possibly  a  variation  of  ADDON  [lord  or  master], 
for  both  Addan  and  Addon  occur  as  the  name  of  one 
of  the  returned  exiles  from  Babylon,  No.  vii.  ci;  Ezr.  ii.59. 

ADDER.  1  n  the  English  Bible  this  is  the  rendering 
of  four  distinct  Hebrew  words,  3yc,'2j?  (achskoov);  »;is 

(pethcn],  oftener  rendered  asp;  'jysv  (tziponi),  oftener 
rendered  cockatrice;  and  •£»£  w;  (shepipon).  Each  of  these 
doubtless  signifies  some  kind  of  venomous  serpent. 

Among  the  various  tribes  of  animals  which  are  ini 
mical  to  man,  there  is  none  that  can  compare  with  the 
venomous  snakes  for  the  deadly  fatality  of  their  enmity: 


the  lightning  stroke  of  their  poison- fangs  is  the  unerring 
signal  of  a  swift  dissolution,  preceded  by  torture  the 
most  horrible.  The  bite  of  a  vigorous  serpent  has 
been  known  to  produce  death  in  two  minutes.  Even 
where  the  consummation  is  not  so  fearfully  rapid,  its 
delay  is  but  a  brief  prolongation  of  the  intense  suffering. 
The  terrible  sympti  >ms  are  thus  described :  —A  sharp 
pain  in  the  part,  which  becomes  swollen,  shining  hot, 
red,  then  livid,  cold,  and  insensible.  The  pain  and  in 
flammation  spread,  and  become  more  intense ;  tierce 
shooting  pains  are  felt  in  other  parts,  and  a  burning  fire 
pervades  the  body.  The  eyes  water  profusely:  then 
come  swoonings,  sickness,  and  bilious  vomitings,  dif 
ficult  breathing,  cold  sweats,  and  sharp  pains  in  the 
loins.  The  skin  becomes  deadly  pale  or  deep  yellow, 
while  a  black  watery  blood  runs  from  the  wound,  which 
changes  to  a  yellowish  matter.  Violent  headache  suc 
ceeds,  and  giddiness,  faintness.  and  overwhelming  ter 
rors,  burning  tltirst.  gushing  discharges  of  blood  from 
the  orifices  of  the  body,  intolerable  fetor  of  breath, 
convulsive  hiccoughs,  and  death. 

From  these  circumstances  we  see  how  appropriate  an 
emblem  was  a  poisonous  serpent  of  any  insidious  deadly 
enemy,  and  in  particular  of  sin.  and  of  Satan,  the  arch- 
destroyer.  (.S((  SERPENT.) 

The  agent  of  these  terrible  results  is  an  inodorous, 
tasteless,  yellow  fluid,  secreted  by  peculiar  glands  seated 
on  the  cheeks,  and  stored 
for    use    in     membranous 
bags,    placed   at   the   side 
of   each    upper  ja\v.    and 
enveloping  the   base  of  a 
jr.]    Poison  bag  and  fang  of  Cobra,   large,       curved,      pointed 
tooth,    which   is    tubular 

(Xo.  ;">).  These  two  teeth,  or  fangs,  are  capable  of 
living  erected  by  a  muscular  apparatus  under  the  power 
of  the  animal,  when  they  project  at  nearly  a  right  angle 
from  the  jaw. 

The  manner  in  which  the  deadly  blow  is  inflicted  is 
remarkable,  and  is  alluded  to  in  Scripture.  When  the 
rage  of  the  snake  is  excited,  it  commonly  throws  its 
body  into  a  coil  more  or  less  close,  and  raises  the  ante 
rior  part  of  its  body.  The  neck  is  now  flattened  and 
dilated,  so  that  the  scales,  which  ordinarily  lie  in  close 


[C.]        Naja  liaje— Nnja  Mpudians.    Leu;;th  about  4  feet. 

contact,  are  separated  by  wide  interspaces  of  naked 
skin.  The  neck  is  bent  more  or  less  back,  the  head  pro 
jecting  in  a  horizontal  position.  In  an  instant  the  whole 
fore  part  of  the  animal  is  launched  forward  towards 
the  object  of  its  anger,  the  erected  tooth  is  forcibly 


A  DDEll 


A  DDK  I! 


struck  into  the  flesh,  and  withdrawn  with  the  velocity 
of  :i  thought.  Xo  doubt  the  rage  whieh  .stimulates  the 
action  calls  forth  an  increased  action  of  the  poison- 
glands,  by  which  the  store-sac  is  filled  with  the  secre 
tion.  The  muscular  contraction  which  gives  the  rapid 
blow  coiupressc-i  at  the  same  instant  the  sac,  and  as 
the  acute  point  of  the  fang  enters  the  flesh,  the  venom 
is  forced  through  the  tubular  centre  into  the  wound. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  with  certainty  what  particular 
species  is  indicated  by  each  Hebrew  word.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  the  adtxltoov  is  a  species  of  Naja  or 
hooded  snake,  probably  X<i'/a  tt<ij>' ;  that  the  jt'thni 
may  be  the  butan  of  the  modern  Arabs  (  Vipcra  hbdinu) ; 


[7.1        Horned  Viper- -CVrcsfcs  cormUus.     Length  about  14  inches. 

and  that  the  shepifon  is  the  Cerastes,  or  horned  viper. 
The  fzijiOiii  seems  not  to  have  been  identified. 

The  achs/ioov  is  alluded  to  but  once  in  Scripture, 
viz.  in  1's.  cxl.  3.  "Adders'  poison  is  under  their  lips;" 
a  passage  which  is  cited  by  Paul,  Ko.  iii.  is,  among 
others,  to  prove  the  utter  corruption  of  man,  and  his 
apostasy  from  (lod.  It  is  equivalent  to  saying,  "Their 
speech  is  wholly  and  intensely  wicked." 

The  pcthen  is  mentioned  in  the  following  passages : 
— In  De.  xxxii.  33,  where  its  venom  is  used  to  express 
the  excessive  vileness  of  the  ('entile  world;  Job  xx. 
]  1,  ]  I!,  where  it  expresses  the  doom  of  the  wicked  man 
(in  the  former  of  these  verses  the  poison-fluid  is  called 
"gall,"  doubtless  in  allusion  to  its  yellowness1);  Ps. 
Iviii.  4,  where  the  indifference  of  this  species  to  the 
arts  of  the  charmers  (to  be  described  presently)  repre 
sents  the  stupid  deafness  of  sinners  to  the  warnings  and 
invitations  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  Ps.  xci.  13,  where,  in 
prophetic  promise,  the  Lord  Jesus  is  assured  of  victory 
over  Satan  ;  and  Is.  xi.  8.  where  the  absence  of  all 
liurtf ulness  from  the  millennial  earth  is  expressed  by 
the  immunity  of  a  little  child  playing  over  the  hole  in 
which  the  pel  lien  lurks. 

The  word  tzipoin  occurs  as  follows  : — In  Pr.  xxiii.  32, 
the  insinuating  character  of  the  love  of  strong  drink, 
and  its  dreadful  result,  are  compared  to  the  treacherous 
death-blow  of  a  glittering  snake;  Is.  xi.  8  (see  above); 
Is.  lix.  ;",  apostate  Israel  is  described  as  producing 
nothing  but  wickedness — as  if  one  should  hatch  eggs 
and  they  should  prove  to  contain  venomous  adders ; 
Je.  viii.  17,  here  the  indifference  of  this  viper  (like  the 
jxtlu  n)  to  the  psyllic  art,  is  used  to  express  the  cruelty 
of  the  Chaldean  invaders,  not  to  be  thwarted  or  evaded. 

But  a  single  notice  occurs  of  the  shepipon,  viz.  in 
( le.  xlix.  17,  where  the  traitor- character  of  the  tribe 
of  Dan — the  first  outbursting  of  the  power  of  Satan  in 
apostasy  in  Israel-  is  compared  to  an  unseen  adder  in 
the  path,  which  causes  the  overthrow  of  the  mounted 
horseman,  A  curious  illustration  of  this  danger  is 
given  by  Henuiker: — "  I  was  hurrying  forward,  when 


on  a  sudden  my  camel  stopped  short;  I  spoke  to  it. 
but  without  effect;  I  goaded  it  gently,  but  in  vain  ;  at 
length  I  struck  it,  and  it  immediately  threw  itself  vici 
ously  upon  its  side,  flinging  me  with  considerable  force. 
.  .  .  The  cause  was  its  refusal  to  pass  by  a  small  snake 
that  lay  coiled  up  in  the  path." 

The  subject  of  serpent- charming,  alluded  to  in  the 
negative  descriptions  of  the  pc.tkcn,  I's.  Iviii.  t,  and  the 
l:i/n>ni,  Jo.  viii.  17,  as  well  as  in  the  epithet  "deaf."  ap 
plied  to  the  former,  is  one  involved  in  much  obscurity. 
[The  term  dt«f,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing,  like  that 
of  "stopping  the  ears."  is  merely  metaphoric.  None 
of  the  serpent  tribe  have  any  external  auditory  orifice, 
nor  the  least  appearance  of  a  tympanum.  The  story 
which  Calmet  cites,  of  the  adder  clapping  one  ear  on 
the  ground,  and  stopping  the  other  with  the  tip  of  its 
tail,  is  a  sheer  absurdity.  |  i'rom  time  immemorial  it  has 
been  a  well-known  fact  that  certain  persons  have  exer 
cised  a  wonderful  power  over  the  most  venomous  ser 
pents.  Multitudes  of  modern  observers  have  describ.-d 
the  practices  of  the  snake-charmers  in  such  terms  as  to 
leave  no  doubt  of  the  fact.  One  instance  may  suitico 
for  illustration.  INIr.  Gogerly,  a  missionary  in  India, 
says,  that  some  persons  being  incredulous  on  the  sub 
ject,  after  taking  the  most  careful  precautions  against 
any  trick  or  artifice  being  played,  sent  a  charmer  into 
the  garden  to  prove  his  powers : —  "  The  man  began  to 
play  upon  his  pipe,  and  proceeding  from  one  part  of  the 
garden  to  another,  for  some  minutes  stopped  at  a  part 
of  the  wall  much  injured  by  age,  and  intimated  that  a 
serpent  was  within.  He  then  played  quicker,  and  his 
notes  were  louder,  when  almost  immediately  a  large 
cobra- di-capello  put  forth  its  hooded  head,  and  the 
man  ran  fearlessly  to  the  spot,  seized  it  by  the  throat. 
and  drew  it  forth.  He  then  showed  the  poison-fangs, 
and  beat  them  out;  afterwards  it  was  taken  to  the 
room  where  his  baskets  were  left,  and  deposited  among 
the  rest."  "The  snake-charmer,"  observes  the  same 


[8.J 


Indian  Serpent  Charmers.—  Luard's  Views  in  India,  and 
Solvyn*'  Himlous. 


writer,  "  applies  his  pipe  to  his  mouth,  and  sends  forth 
a  few  of  his  peculiar  notes,  and  all  the  serpents  stop  as 
though  enchanted  ;  they  then  turn  towards  the  musician, 
and  approaching  him  within  two  feet,  raise  their  heads 


ADIXA 

from  the  ground,  and  bending  backwards  and  forwards 
keep  time  with  the  tune.  When  he  ceases  playing 
they  drop  their  heads  and  remain  quiet  on  the  ground." 

It  niav  be  observed  that  the  different  species  of  Naja 
(cobra- di-capello,  hooded  snake,  spectacled  snake),  and 
of  Cerastes  (horned  viper),  arc  those  which  manifest  an 
interest  in  musical  sounds,  and  are  capable  of  being 
••  charmed."  [i'.  n.  c.] 

AD'LN"A  [slvmli-i',  pliant],  the  name  of  one  of  1  >avid's 
chief  captains,  of  the  tribe  Jieuben.  H  li.  xi.  i± 

ADINO  THE  EZNITE  [hlsplutsurc-fJic-spca;-],  the 
chief  of  J)avid's  heroes,  called  also  the  'J'achmoiiite. 
who  is  said  to  have  lifted  up  his  spear  and  slain  :'<(Ki 
men  at  one  time,  -.'Sa.  .\xiii.  s.  (Sec  J  ASHOHKAM.) 

AD'MAH  [/•((/],  one  of  the  cities  of  the  plain,  that 
perished  in  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  ( !oiiiorrah. 
It  seems  to  have  been  of  small  size,  and  is  seldom  ex 
pressly  mentioned,  but  occurs  in  ('.<-.  \.  lii  ;  xiv.  •_'.  s  ; 
De.  x\i.\.  i':1. ;  Ho.  xi.  8. 

ADO'NAI,  the  Hebrew  word  for  LOUI>.  and  by  the 
Jews  ;i!wavs  substituted  for  .)  KlIoVAII  in  the  reading 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The  practice  is  of  old  stand- 
in '_r.  and  seems  even  to  liave  been  in  existence  at  the 
time  of  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  ( >ld  Testament. 
some  Centuries  before  the  liirth  ot'  ( 'hrist.  It  appears 
to  have  arisen  out  of  a  superstitious  dn -ad  of  pronoun 
cing  in  a  light  or  irreverent  manner  what  \\as  regarded 
as  the  more  p,  culiar  name  of  (!o<l.  and  thereby  incur 
ring  the  ^uilt  denounced  in  the  third  commandment. 
With  very  few  exceptions,  our  translators  have  followed 
tlie  example  of  the  Septuagint,  and  rendered  Jehovah 
as  well  as  Adonai  by  Lord.  t>Vf  LuRD  and  J  F.llov.ui.  i 

ADO'NI-BEZEK  [/.„-,/  ,,f  lit:d-].  IV/.ek  was  a 
Canaanitish  town,  somewhere  either  within  or  on  the 
confines  of  the  territory  of  Judah.  In  the  first  chapter 
of  . Judges  an  account  is  e-iveii  of  the  capture  of  the  place 
by  the  men  of  Judah,  and  of  w hat  befell  its  king  A  doni- 
be/.ek.  \\"heii  the\-  eot  him  into  their  hands,  it  is  said, 
they  cut  oil'  his  thumbs  and  his  great  toes.  requiting 
the  same  measure  to  him  that  he  had  dealt  t<>  others. 
"Threescore  and  ten  kings,"  he  said,  "having  their 
thumbs  and  their  great  toes  cut  "i!'.  gathered  under  my 
table"  a  shocking  example  of  petty  lord.-hip  and  bar- 
harous  cruelty.  The  kin  us,  of  course,  w  ho  were  subjected 
to  this  inhuman  treatment,  must  ha\e  lieeii  chieftains. 
rather  than  kinus,  in  the  ordinan  sense  ot  the  term, 
heads  of  little  townships  or  clans;  they  could  imt  other 
wise  have  fallen  in  such  numbers  under  the  sway  of  such 
a  little  tyrant  as  Adoni  -  he/.ek.  I'.ut  however  small 
their  jurisdiction,  they  certainly  had  a  right  to  look  for 
more  considerate  and  gentle  treatment  than  they  iv 
ceived  from  their  conqueror;  and  he  became  at  last  sen 
sible  of  his  enormity,  and  recognized  the  divine  retribu 
tion  in  the  severity  inflicted  upon  himself ;  for  he  added, 
"  As  J  have  done,  so  hath  ( Jod  requited  me.  i'>\  the  vic 
torious  party  he  was  taken  to  Jerusalem,  where  he  died. 

ADONI'JAH  [Lord-J<-/wral,},  the  son  of  David  by 
Haggith,  born  in  Hebron,  and  the  next  in  order  to 
Absalom.  He  :>.-ems  to  have  partaken,  to  a  consider 
able  extent,  both  of  the  faults  and  of  the  superficial  ex 
cellencies  of  Absalom.  Some  time  after  the  death  of 
Absalom,  and  on  the  ground  of  his  being  the  eldest 
that  survived  of  David's  family,  lie  also  laid  claim  to 
the  ri'jit  of  succession  t  >  the  throne,  and  when  his 
father  was  sinking  under  the  infirmities  of  age,  he  took 
steps  to  have  his  claim  established.  Like  Absalom,  he 
was  a  person  of  graceful  extc  rior  and  attractive  man- 

VOL.  I. 


5o  ADONl-ZEDKK 

!  ners  ;  and  with  the  view  of  drawing  around  him  a  party, 
and  pushing  his  way  to  the  throne,  lie  prepared  for 
himself  chariots  and  horses,  and  footmen  to  run  before 
him,  l  Ki.  i.  ">,(-'.  It  is  possible,  and  seems  indeed  to  be 
implied,  that  David  had  not  been  at  sufficient  pains  to 
cheek  these  indications  of  an  aspiring  disposition  in  A d- 
onijah  at  their  commencement ;  and  no  attempt  appears 
to  have  been  made  to  meet  the  advances  Adonijah  was 
visibly  making  toward  the  throne,  by  an  explicit  an 
nouncement  of  the  divine  purpose  in  behalf  of  Solomon. 
That  the  will  of  (MM!  in  this  respect  had  been  intimate  1 
at  a  comparatively  early  period,  and  that  David's  deter 
mination  also  was  taken,  is  evident;  but  only  a  limited 
number,  it  \\onld  appear,  had  been  fully  let  into  tie 
secret,  until  the  plans  of  Adonijah  had  ripened,  and  he 
was  actually  proclaimed  king  at  Kn-rogcl.  It  is  oniy 
in  this  way  we  can  explain  the  adherence  of  such  men 
as  Abiathar  the  priest  and  Joab  to  Adonijah.  They 
were  not  likely  to  have  taken  part  in  his  design,  if  they 
had  distinctly  understood  that  the  matter  of  the  succes 
sion  was  already  definitely  fixed,  both  on  (iod's  part 
and  on  l>avid's:  and  so  when  the  open  proclamation  of 
Adonijah  as  khiL;'  roused  David  and  those  about  him 
iVi.iii  their  supiueiie.-s,  and  Solomon  was  oflieially  con 
secrated  as  successor  to  his  fatln  r.  the  party  of  Adoni 
jah  melted  awav  from  him,  and  he  himself  (led  to  lay 
hold  on  the  horns  of  the  altar,  as  one  who  had  no  hope, 
even  for  his  life,  but  in  the  mercy  of  Heaven  It  had 
been  well  for  him  if  this  spirit  had  continued  to  hold  its 
swav;  as  he  was  forgiven  for  the  past,  so  he  might  have 
lived  on  peaceably  in  the  future.  Hut  an  aspiring  dis 
position  again  broke  out  in  him;  and  after  relating 
to  Hathshoba  what  reasons  he  had.  from  priority  of 
birth,  for  expecting  the  kingdom,  and  from  the  senti 
ments  of  the  people  evnerallv  being  on  his  side,  he  got 
her  to  ask  for  him  Ahishag  to  wife.  iKi.ii.ir>.  In  this 
request,  coupled  probably  with  other  things  that  ap 
peared  in  Adonijah,  Solomon  descried  the  old  spirit  of 
,  ambition  watching  its  opportunity  t"  grasp  after  the 
dominion,  and  gave  orders  for  his  instant  execution. 
If  in  this  the  procedure  of  Solomon  should  seem  some 
what  hasty  and  violent,  it  must  be  remembered  that, 
from  the  altered  circumstances  of  modern  times  and 
Kuropean  manners,  we  are  scarcely  competent  judges ; 
ind  that,  according  even  to  still  prevailing  notions  in 
the  l-'.ast.  such  a  request  as  was  made  by  Adonijah 
would  be  regarded  as  trenching  on  the  prerogatives  of 

the  reigning  sovereign.      Solomon,  there  is  •_:' I  reason 

to  think,  acted  from  necessity  rather  than  from  choice. 

ADONTRAM|/o,Vo//»;y/(/].appa7vutly  contracted 
in  some  passages  into  A  null  AM,  -'Si.  xx.  24;1  Ki.  xii.  18;  and 
again  changed  into  HADOHAM.  at'h.  x.  l*j  the  name  of  a 
principal  officer  in  the  times  of  Solomon  and  Kehoboam. 
who  had  charge  of  levies  and  tributes.  On  the  occa 
sion  of  the  revolt  which  took  place  at  the  commence 
ment  of  llehoboam's  reign,  he  was  sent  to  communicate 
the  king's  mind  to  the  people,  and  was  stoned  to  death 
in  the  uproar  that  ensued.  This  probably  arose,  less 
from  the  offensive  nature  of  the  reply  given  to  the 
people's  demands,  than  from  the  general  odium  which 
Adoniram  had  drawn  upon  himself  in  connection  with 
the  heavy  exactions  that  had  been  laid  upon  the  people. 
As  being  at  the  head  of  that  department,  he  would 
naturally  urge  on  the  matter  as  vigorously  as  possible, 
and  he  consequently  drew  upon  himself  the  popular  fury. 

ADONI-ZE'DEK  [lord  ,,f  rlyl.trrmisnmx.  or  upri(/J,t 
lord],  the  kiiiLr  of  Jerusalem,  at  tin-  time  when  the 


AJJOPTIOX 


34 


A  DOIT  I  OX 


Israelites  invaded  the  land  of  Can;, an.  The  name  is 
substantially  (if  the  same  import  with  tli;,t  which  was 
borne,  at  a  much  earlier  period,  bv  the  ruler  of  what 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  was  the  same  place.  Mel- 
elii/.ed.'k,  \\hich  means  Iclnrj  of  riyhtcousncsa,  was,  in 
Abraham's  day,  kin^'  "I  S.-dem,  whieli  is  understood  to 
have  been  tile  original  designation  of  .lemsali  in  ;  and 
it  wo\ild  seem  that  succeeding  rulers  of  the  place  had 
made  it  a  point  of  honour,  or  regarded  it  as  a  matter  of 
policy,  to  keep  up  the  ancient  title,  or  one  of  its  syno 
nyms.  |>nt,  unfortunately,  they  had  not  been  equally 
careful  to  keep  up  the  reality  which  the  name  indi 
cated.  Melclnzcdek  was  actually  a  righteous  king,  and 
a  priest  of  the  most  high  God,  but  since  his  days  cor 
ruption  of  all  kinds  had  made  fearful  progress  in  the 
land  of  Canaan;  and  from  the  active  part  which  Adoni- 
zedek  took  in  resisting  the  purposes  of  (Jod  toward 
Israel,  we  can  have  little  doubt  that  he  was  concerned 
in  all  the  abominations  for  which  summary  judgment 
was  inflicted  on  the  people  of  the  land,  lie  and  the 
surrounding  tribes  belonged  to  the  race  of  the  Anior- 
ites,  who  appear  to  have  occupied  nearly  all  that  part 
of  ('anaan  which  afterwards  fell  to  the  tribe  of  Judah, 
and  of  the  fulness  of  whose  iniquity  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest  special  mention  is  made.  What  more  imme 
diately,  however,  brought  Adoni-zedek  and  the  neigh 
bouring  princes  into  conflict  with  the  Israelites,  was 
their  combined  determination  to  destroy  the  Gibeonites 
for  having  made  a  covenant  of  peace  with  Joshua.  For 
this  purpose,  headed  by  Adoni  zedek,  they  laid  siege  to 
Gibeon;  but  tidings  we7-e  sent  by  the  besieged  to  Joshua, 
who,  in  consequence,  fell  upon  the  combined  forces  of 
the  Amorites,  utterly  discomfited  them,  and  put  Adoni- 
zedek  and  the  other  princes  to  death,  after  having 
dragged  them  from  the  cave  in  which  they  had  found  a 
temporary  asylum,  Jus.  x.  1-27.  It  was  on  this  memora 
ble  occasion  that  Joshua  is  related  to  have  called  upon 
the  sun  to  stand  still,  that  he  might  have  time  to  com 
plete  the  victory  he  had  won  over  the  enemy.  (For  the 
consideration  of  this  point,  sec  JOSHUA.) 

ADOPTION",  as  a  term,  occurs  only  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  with  reference  to  the  relation  in  which 
the  people  of  (Jod  stand  to  him.  as  his  children  by 
grace,  the  objects  of  his  special  love  and  favour.  The 
original  word,  i'LoOecria,  denotes  properly  the  act  of  re 
ceiving  into  a  family  one  who  does  not  belong  to  it  by 
birth:  literally,  placing  such  an  one  in  the  position  of 
a  son,  or  setting  him  among  the  children;  then,  by 
transference,  the  condition  or  privilege  of  the  adopted 
child — sonsfti/i.  The  practice,  in  its  merely  human  con 
nection,  was  evidently  of  very  remote  origin,  as  appears 
from  the  readiness  with  which  Abraham  first,  then. 
Sarah,  thought  of  another  than  their  own  actual  off 
spring  being  admitted  to  the  standing  of  a  child,  and 
constituted  heir  of  the  family  name  and  possessions, 
Ge.  xv.  2 ;  xvi.  2.  We  have  also  early  examples  of  adoption 
in  the  case  of  Moses,  who  was  taken  by  Pharaoh's 
daughter,  and  brought  up  as  her  son;  and  of  Fphraim 
and  Manasseh,  the  sons  of  Joseph,  to  whom  their 
grandfather  Jacob  gave  a  place  among  his  own  chil 
dren,  as  entitled  to  rank  with  them  in  the  promised  in 
heritance,  Go.  xlviii. "), o.  In  some  countries  adoption  has 
been  formally  recognized  and  regulated  by  law.  It  was 
so  both  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  The  right  of 
adoption  was  somewhat  restricted  by  the  Greeks,  at 
least  by  the  Athenians,  with  whose  usages  in  this  re 
spect  we  are  best  acquainted;  for  onlv  an  Athenian 


citizen  could  be  adopted  by  any  one,  and  that  only 
when  the  person  adopting  had  no  offspring  of  his  own. 
An  Athenian  citizen  was  obliged  to  divide  his  property 
among  his  own  children,  liy  the  Roman  law  the  right 
of  selection  was  less  limited,  but  it  also  proceeded  on 
the  principle  that  the  adoptive 'father  had  no  son  of  his 
own,  and  no  reasonable  expectation  of  having  any. 
The  act  of  adoption  lutd  to  be  done  under  the  authority 
of  a  magistrate;  and,  when  thus  legally  done,  it  con 
stituted  in  law  the  relation  of  father  and  son  precise] v 
as  if  the  adopted  son  had  been  born  to  the  father  in 
lawful  wedlock.  If  the  father  had  a  daughter,  the 
adopted  son  stood  to  her  in  the  relation  of  a  brother ; 
and  if  the  father  died  intestate,  the  same  son  succeeded 
to  the  property  as  heir  at  law.  There  appears  to  be  an 
allusion  to  this  right  of  the  adopted  child  to  the  name 
and  possessions  of  the  father,  in  the  reference  that  the 
apostle  Paul  makes  to  the  custom  of  adoption,  K<>.  viii. 

15-17. 

In  Scripture  the  people  of  ( !od  are  constantly  spoken 
of  a.s  his  children,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord 
Almighty;  as  such,  not  by  nature,  but  by  grace  not 
by  birth,  but  by  a  sovereign  act  of  favour  on  God's 
part.  It  is  as  marking  this  distinction  that  the  word 
adoption  has  its  special  significancy ;  it  expresses  at 
once  the  nature  of  the  privilege  and  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  bestowed.  It  is  peculiarlv  a  Xew  Testa 
ment  term;  for,  though  the  idea  of  sonship  often  occurs 
in  the  Old  Testament  in  connection  with  the  chosen 
people,  it  is  only  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ  that 
we  have  clear!}'  explained  to  us  on  what  ground,  in 
what  way,  and  to  what  extent,  this  privilege  can  be 
enjoyed  by  fallen  creatures. 

The  word  adoption  occurs  only  in  five  instances.  P,<>. 
viii.  1.1,  2.'!;  ix.  I ;  (ia.  iv. .', ;  E]>.  i.  '> ;  but  the  subject  is  often 
referred  to  elsewhere,  and  is  presented  under  a  varietv 
of  aspects.  On  God's  part,  adoption  is  represented 
1.  As  having  its  origin  in  his  eternal  counsel  and  pur 
pose,  Kp.  i.  4,  .">.  2.  As  flowing  immediately  from  Christ 
and  the  union  of  his  people  with  him,  Jn.  i.  12;  Ga.  iii.  21;: 
iv.  i,  ">.  Hence  the  parallel  between  the  relation  of  the 
Father  to  Christ  and  to  his  people,  Jn.  xx.  17 ; — Christ  is 
their  elder  brother,  Ru.  viii.  29;  they  are  joint-heirs  with 
him,  Ho.  viii.  17.  •''.  As  sealed  by  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  producing  in  them  the  character  and  disposition 
of  children,  Jn.  i.  12,13;  Ko.  viii.  ii-it);  Ga  iv.  0.  4.  As  con 
summated  at  the  resurrection,  P.O.  vu.  23.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  privilege  of  sonship,  as  enjoyed  by  God's 
people,  includes — 1.  The  love  and  favour  of  God  in  a 
special  and  pre-eminent  degree,  i  Jn.  iii.  i;  Ep.  v.  i;  .in.  xvii. 
23,  -'!'>.  2.  Fatherly  provision,  protection,  and  discipline 

at  God's  hand,  Mat.  vi.  31-33;  x.  29,30;  He.  xii.  5-S*.  3.  Access 
to  God  with  filial  confidence,  Ro.  viii.  I.'.,  2(i,  27  ;  1  Jn.  v.  M  ; 
Mat.  vi.  8,9.  4.  The  inheritance  of  future  glory  and 
blessedness.  Ro.  viii.  17, 1^  ;  P.e.  xxi.  7  ;  1  To.  i.  4. 

Christian  adoption  is  to  be  distinguished — 1.  From 
the  sonship  of  Adam,  who  is  spoken  of  a.s  the  son  of 
God,  Lu.  iii.  3S,  because,  as  the  first  man,  he  derived  his 
being  immediately  from  the  hand  of  (Jod,  and  was 
made  in  God's  image  and  likeness;  this  was  the  son- 
ship  of  creation.  2.  From  the  sonship  ascribed,  in  a 
still  more  limited  sense,  to  the  whole  human  family. 
They  are  all  the  offspring  of  (Jod,  becaxise  in  him  they 
live,  and  move,  and  have  their  being,  Ac.  xvii.  28, 29. 
3.  "From  the  sonship  or  adoption  ascribed  to  the  ancient 
people,  Ex.  iv.  22,  23 ;  Jo.  iii.  10 ;  Ro.  ix.  4.  This,  as  regarded 
the  nation  at  large,  and  the  earthly  inheritance  which 


ADORAM 

they  eiijuved,  was  only  a  typical  adoption— the  shadow, 
and  IK  it  the  substance.  The  true  saints  of  Cod,  indeed, 
iu  Old  Testament  times,  had  a  spiritual  sonship.  essen 
tially  the  same  as  that  which  is  enjoyed  under  the 
gospel;  though,  in  the  measure  of  its  manifestation  to 
them,  and  of  their  present  enjoyment  of  it,  it  fell  far 
short  of  the  Christian  privilege.  Ga.  iv.  1-7 

Old  Testament  believers  could  nut  have  more  than  a 
very  partial  revelation  of  it;  for  the  grace  and  love  of 
Cod  were  not  manifested  with  any  such  distinctness  as 
they  now  are,  in  the  person,  and  work,  and  word  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  The  law,  under  which  believers  were 
then  placed,  naturally  tended  to  product;  a  spirit  of 
bondage  and  fear;  its  effect  upon  the  conscience,  to 
some  extent,  interfered  with  the  freedom  uf  sonship. 
Hence  they  are  compared  to  the  heir  while  he  is  a  child, 
under  tutors  and  governors,  kept  undir  restraint — no 
better  than  a  servant,  as  regards  the  present  enjoyment 
of  his  privilege,  though  in  reality  lord  of  all.  Add  to 
all  this,  that  the  Holy  (llmst  was  not  yet  given;  the 
dispensation  of  the  Spirit  had  not  yet  come;  tin  eom- 
munication  of  grace  ami  of  spiritual  light  to  the  souls  of 
believers  was  comparatively  limited  and  partial  :  and 
it  will  be  manifest  how  imp-rlVet  must  ha\v  ln-i  n  their 
under.-tanding  and  enjoyment  of  the  privilege  of  son- 
ship,  though  it  did  really  belong  to  them. 

Jt  is  otherwise  with  New  Testament  believers.  In 
the  gospel  they  have  a  clear  discovery  of  the  riches  of 
God's  "frace,  as  well  as  of  his  gracious  purposes  uf  kind 
ness  toward  those  who  enjoy  this  particular  privilege, 
and  of  the  ground  and  manner  of  their  entei-'m^  into  it, 
through  the  mediatorial  work  of  ( 'hrist.  JVsides.  alont: 
with  this  revelation,  they  have  the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  in 
all  the  fulness  of  his  gracious  influences,  to  open  their 
understanding,  and  to  bear  witness  with  their  spirit 
that  they  are  the  children  of  (iod.  Tims  they  receive 
the  adoption  of  sons,  as  regards  the  actual  enjoyment  of 
it.  See  the  contrast  between  the  law  and  the  gospel,  in 
this  respect,  strikingly  illustrated  in  <  lal.  iv.  [w.  I..  | 

ADO'RAM.     Nee.  ADONIRAM. 

ADRAM'MELECH  [,,ui:/n(iic'  nct  <,f  llr  l-ing,  spl  n- 
tl',,1  klii<j\.  1.  The  name  of  one  of  the  idol-deities  that 
were  worshipped  by  the  Assyrian  colonists  who  occu 
pied  the  land  of  Israel  after  th  •  captivity  of  the  ten 
triln  s,  ^KI.  xvii.  31.  The  Sepharvites  burned  their  children 
in  the  fire  to  him,  whence  Adrammelech  may  In-  in 
ferred  to  have  been  substantially  identical  with  Moloch 
iSelden.  hi;  Diis  Si/riis,  i.  '.».  Some  have  also  sought  to 
connect  the  worship  uf  Adrammelech  with  that  of  the 
Min-wurship  of  the  .Persians:  and  still  a^ain  with  that 
of  the  Chronos  of  the  (ireeks;  but  these  are  rather 
speculations  than  opinions  resting  on  any  sure  historical 
grounds.  2.  The  name  of  one  of  the  sons  of  Senna 
cherib,  who,  along  with  his  brother  Share/.'-r.  murdered 
his  father,  when  engaged  in  an  act  of  worship,  'i  Ki  xix. :::. 

ADRAMYT'TIUM.  sometimes  also  written  ATKA- 
MYTTii'M.  and  ADKAMYTTKOS,  a  town  of  Asia  Minor, 
in  the  province  of  Mysia,  situated  over  against  Lesbos, 
on  the  river  ( 'aicus.  and  at  the  head  of  the  bay,  which, 
from  the  town,  was  called  Adramyttcnus.  It  was  in  a 
vessel  belonging  to  the  port  of  Adramyttinm  that  "Paul 
embarked  at  Caesarea  for  Italy,  AC.  \xvii.  •>,  from  which 
he  was  afterwards  transferred  to  an  Alexandrian  ship. 
It  is  said  to  have  derived  its  name  from  Adramys.  a 
brother  of  Crn-sus,  king  of  Lydia.  I'.ut,  if  such  was 
originally  the  case,  the  town  appears  ultimately  to  have 
assumed  a  Greek,  rather  than  an  Asiatic  character. 


•)  AIH'LLAM 

An  Athenian  colony  is  related  by  Strabo  to  have  set 
tled  at  it.  and  a  party  from  Delos  also  emigrated  thither 
(Thucyd.  v.  1).  It  is  known  to  have  been  a  flourishing 
seaport  in  the  times  of  the  kings  of  Pergamos  :  and  so 
recently  as  the  seventeenth  century  it  still  carried  on  ;i 
considerable  trade  in  boat-building  (Pococke's  Trunlt, 
u.  '2,  ]'i) ;  but  it  has  now  become  n  comparatively  poor 
and  filthy  village  ^Fellows'  Asin  Minor}.  It  is  still 
called  Adramyt  or  Endramit  ;  but  there  are  no  remains 
about  it  of  ancient  grandeur. 

A'DRIA,  also  HADKIA,  properly  the  gulf  that  lies 
between  Italv  on  the  west,  and  the  coasts  of  Dalmatia 
and  Albania  on  the  east.  It  \\as  often,  however,  re 
garded  as  a  sea.  part  of  the  Ionian,  and  vci  y  commonly 
the  Latins  called  it  Mar>'  Super  u  m,  the  t.'pper  Sea,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  Tyrrhenian,  which  they  desig 
nated  Marc  Infcrain.  the  Lower  Sea.  Adria.  or  lladria, 
was  rather  the  (ireek  than  the  Latin  name  for  it.  As 
to  the  limits  which  the  I  fadriatic  was  understood  to 
embrace,  these  appear  to  have  been  extremely  variable. 
Strabo  and  Plinv  placed  them  at  the  point  where  the 
heel  of  Italv  approaches  nearest  to  the  coast  of  (i recce, 
and  form-  a  sort  of  strait,  not  more  than  forty  miles 
wide;  but  very  ancient  writers,  in  particular  Scylax, 
represented  the  Adriatic  as  all  one  \\  ith  the  Ionian  Sea. 
Kveii  Strabo  speaks  of  the  Ionian  as  part  of  the  Adri 
atic  ;  and  Ptolemy  liii.  1>  designates  the  sea  which 
washes  the  (.'astern  shores  of  P.ruttiiim  and  Sicily  the 
Adriatic  (TO  '  AopianKov  Tri\ayos'i .  The  term  thus  came 
to  comprehend  the  whole  of  that  part  of  the  Mediter 
ranean  which  lies  around  the  southern  coast  of  Italy  ; 
so  that,  when  the  writer  of  the  Acts  speaks  of  the  ship 
in  which  Paul  sailed  being  tossed  about  in  Adria, 
shortlv  before  she  struck  on  the  coast  of  Malta,  he  uses 
language  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  current  geome 
trical  phraseologv  ;  and  the  term  Adria  in  Ac.  xxvii. 

'1~ ,   gives    no    countenance    to    the  idea  that  the  scene  of 

the  shipwreck  was  not  Malta  but  some  small  island  far 
up  in  the  LTulf.  (See-  Smith's  Voi/ti;/'  (t'/nl  S/tijiwrcck  of 
St.  1'niJ.  where  this  point,  and  many  others  connected 
with  it.  arc  most  carefully  investigated.) 

A'DRIEL  \ilx-lc  <,f<;,,<l\.  the  p<  rsun  tu  whom  Saul 
L'ave  in  marriage  his  daughter  Merab.  after  having 
promised  her  to  l)avid.  1  S:i.  \viii  l<>.  Five  of  his  sons 
were  slain  in  connection  with  the  request  of  the  ( iibeoii- 
it"s  for  exemplarv  punishment  on  Sauls  bloody  house, 
2Sa  xxi.8.  They  are  called  AdricTs  sens,  which  Michal, 
not  Meral',  bare  to  liim  ;  for  wliich  .s<  c  MICHAL;  and 
fur  the  slaughter  itself,  se<  ( '•  II:K»NITKS. 

ADUL'LAM.  1.  A  \vrv  ancient  town. situated  in  what 
was  afterwards  the  plain  country  of  the  tribe  of  .ludah, 
J«s.  xv. :;:.,  but  which  is  mentioned  as  a  well-known  place 
at  a  much  earlier  period.  Gc.  xxxviii.  i,  r_'.  At  the  time 
of  the  invasion  of  Canaan  by  the  Israelites,  it  is  placed 
among  the  royal  cities,  which  had  each  a  king  of  its 
own.  Jus.  xii.  i.'>;  and  after  the  revolt  of  the  ten  tribes  it 
was  one  of  th"  places  which  llehoboam  fortified,  2Cli. 
\i.  7.  At  a  later  period  still  it  is  referred  to  by  the 
prophet  Micah.  cli.  i.  i:.,  and,  according  to  the  common 
rendering,  is  called  "the  glory  of  Israel.''  P>ut  it  is 
scarcely  possible  that  this  can  be  the  correct  meaning; 
as,  from  anything  known  respecting  Adnllam,  it  would 
savour  of  extravagance  to  designate  such  a  place  em- 
phaticallv  the  glory  of  Israel;  the  more  so  as  the  city 
belonged  to  the  territory  of  .ludah,  and  not  to  what,  in 
the  days  of  Micah,  went  by  the  name  of  Jsrael,  the 
name  commonly  appropriated  to  the  ten  tribes.  The 


AIH'LLAM 


ADULTERY 


more  proper  rendering  is  that  which  is  given  in  the 
margin,  "  tho  glory  of  Israel  shall  come  to  Ailullain;" 
and  the  meaning  of  the  clause  seems  to  lie,  that  the 
nii'H  of  rank  and  wealth,  who  might  be  said  to  consti- 
tali1  Israel's  glory,  should  be  driven  southwards  as  far 
as  Adiillain,  liy  the  victorious  hosts  that  were  to  break 
in  ii|x>H  them  from  the  north;  for  Adullam  lay  in  tin; 
south-west  portion  of  .hidah,  not  very  far  from  (Jatli, 
and  the  passage  in  which  this  announcement  occurs 
contains  an  account  of  the  troubles  and  calamities  that 
were  to  sweep  over  the  land  Ly  the  northern  invaders, 
first  in  the  case  of  the  house  of  Israel,  and  then  in  that 
of  Judah. 

2.  ADM, i, AM,  a  cave,  the  favourite  haunt  of  .David, 
to  which  he 'retreated  in  the  time  of  greatest  danger, 
and  whither  also  his  parents  and  others  went  down  to 
join  him,  after  he  had  escaped  both  from  Saul  and  from 
the  king  of  (lath,  lSa.xxii.i-n,  has  often  been  supposed 
to  belong  to  the  neighbourhood  of  .the  city  of  the  same 
name;  but  this  is  altogether  improbable,  as  the  situa 
tion  of  the  citv  was  not  in  a  mountainous  and  rugged 
district,  where  caves  naturally  abound,  but  in  a  com 
paratively  plain,  and  level  tract  of  country.  And  it  is 
certain  that  modern  travellers  have  found  no  caves  near 
the  site  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  occupied  by 
Adullani.  capable  of  affording  a  safe  retreat  for  David, 
and  for  holding,  as  we  are  told  were  for  a  time  lodged 
in  it,  400  men.  The  old  tradition,  which  places  this 
cave  in  a  valley  near  the  Frank  mountain,  not  far  from 
the  Dead  Sea,  known  by  the  name  of  Wady  Khureitun, 
seems  to  indicate  the  proper  locality;  and  it  also  accords 
best  with  the  fact,  that  David,  on  escaping  from  it,  is 
represented  as  passing  into  the  confines  of  Moab,  which 
lay  on  the  other  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  leaving  there 
his  father  and  mother,  1  Sa.  xxii. :(,  4.  This  cave  is  in  a 
deep  ravine,  surrounded  on  each  side  by  precipitous 
rocks,  and  capable  of  being  approached  only  on  foot, 
along  the  side  of  the  cliffs.  Dr.  Robinson  was  not  able 
himself  to  visit  it,  but  his  companion  had  done  so,  and 
fully  confirmed  the  description  given  of  it  by  Irby 
and  Mangles.  These  gentlemen,  who  were  not  aware 
of  this  being  the  reputed  cave  of  Adullani,  prose-lit 
such  an  account  of  it  as  most  strikingly  accords 
with  the  purposes  to  which  it  was  applied  by  David. 
They  say: —  "It  runs  in  by  a  long,  winding,  narrow 
passage,  with  small  chambers  or  cavities  on  either  side. 
AVe  soon  came  to  a  large  chamber,  with  natural  arches 
of  great  height ;  from  this  hist  were  numerous  passages, 
leading  in  all  directions,  occasionally  joined  by  others 
at  right  angles,  and  forming  a  perfect  labyrinth,  which 
our  guides  assured  us  had  never  been  thoroughly  ex 
plored,  the  people  being  afraid  of  losing  themselves. 
The  passages  were  generally  four  feet  high,  by  three 
feet  wide,  and  were  all  on  a  level  with  each  other. 
The  grotto  was  perfectly  clear,  and  the  air  pure  and 
good."  One  can  easily  perceive  how  admirably  adapted 
such  a  vast  and  curiously  constructed  cavern  would  be 
as  a  hiding-place  for  David  and  his  persecuted  band  ; 
and  with  what  facility  they  could  lie  concealed,  as  on 
one  occasion  they  did,  iSa.  xxiv.,  in  some  of  those  dark 
transverse  passages,  while  Saul  came  in  to  the  mouth 
of  the  cave,  and  knew  not  that  he  was  at  the  mercy  of 
those  whose  life  he  was  pursuing.  It  is  the  more  pro- 
liable  that  this  was  the  cave  of  David's  peculiar  resort, 
as  it  lay  only  about  six  miles  to  the  south  of  Beth 
lehem,  his  native  place;  and  nothing  was  more  likelv 
than  that,  while  tending  his  father's  nocks,  he  should 


have  made  himself  intimately  acquainted  with  a  cavern 
so  near  at  hand,  and  so  remarkable  in  its  structure. 

ADULTERY  is  a  wilful  broach  of  the  marriage 
vow  by  either  of  the  parties  contracting  it ;  and,  accord 
ing  to  the  original  ideal  of  married  life,  presented  in  the 
formation  of  one  man  and  one  woman,  joined  by  the 
ordination  of  Cod  into  one  flesh,  such  a  breach  is  made 
whenever,  on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  there  is  sexual 
intercourse  with  a  third  party.  The  junction  of  the  pair 
into  one  body  or  flesh  comes,  in  that  case,  to  bo  virtually 
dissolved.  As  this  is  the  view  implied  in  the  original 
constitution  of  the  human  pair,  so  it  is  that  which  is 
expressly  exhibited  in  New  Testament  scripture.  In 
the  deliverances  pronounced,  first  by  our  Lord,  and  then 
by  the  apostle  Paul,  on  the  subject  of  marriage,  it  was 
not  the  introduction  of  something  new  which  was  set 
forth,  but  the  assertion  and  re-establishment  of  what 
was  from  the  beginning  ;  and  no  distinction  is  made  be 
tween  the  two  parties,  as  if  what  were  adultery  in  the 
one  might  not  be  sufficient  to  constitute  adultervin  the 
other.  There  is  one  and  the  same  law  for  both.  In 
answer  to  the  question  put  to  him  by  the  Pharisees, 
"  Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  for  every 
caused"  our  Lord  answered,  ••  Have  ye  not  read,  that 
Ife  which  made  them  at  the  beginning,  made  them  male 
and  female  .'  And  said.  Fur  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave 
father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife;  and  they 
twain  shall  be  one  flesh.  Wherefore,  they  are  no  more 
twain,  but  one  flesh.  What,  therefore,  (Jod  hath  joined 
together,  let  not  man  put  asunder.'1  And  when,  with 
the  hope  of  eliciting  some  modification  of  this  deliver 
ance  in  behalf  of  the  husband,  the  further  question  wa; 
asked,  "  Why  did  Aloses  then  command  to  give  a  writ 
ing  of  divorcement,  and  to  put  her  away  ?"  Jesus  re 
plied,  "  Moses,  because  of  the  hardness  of  your  hearts. 
suffered  you  to  put  away  your  wives  :  but  from  the  be 
ginning  it  was  not  so.  And  1  say  unto  you,  Whoso 
ever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  except  it  be  for  fornication, 
and  shall  marry  another,  committeth  adultery  ;  and 
whoso  marrieth  her  which  is  put  away,  doth  commit 
adultery,"  Mat.  xix.  3-9.  in  perfect  accordance  with  this, 
also,  is  the  doctrine  laid  down  by  the  apostle  Paul, 
K\<.  v.  L'.-,-:;:;;  i  Co.  vii.  i-i:j;  i  Ti.  iii.  T>.  But  while,  doctrinally, 
the  teaching  of  both  covenants  is  the  same  in  this  respect, 
and,  according  to  the  fundamental  law  of  both,  it  is 
adultery  in  the  man  as  well  as  in  the  woman  to  have 
commerce  with  another  person  than  the  one  proper 
spouse,  practically,  a  difference  on  the  man's  side  was 
admitted  in  ancient  times.  In  consequence  of  the  in 
troduction  of  concubinage  and  polygamy,  from  which 
even  the  chosen  seed  did  not  remain  free,  that  only 
came  to  be  regarded  as  adultery  which  involved  a  frau 
dulent  intermingling  of  seeds — such  an  intercourse  as 
exposed  a  man  to  the  fatherhood  and  charge  of  an  off 
spring  that  did  not  belong  to  him.  A  married  man,  in 
this  view  of  things,  might  have  more  wives  than  one 
without  being  an  adulterer ;  he  might  also  have  carnal 
intercourse  with  a  person  not  espoused  or  married  to 
him,  and  still  not  be  deemed  liable  to  the  charge  of 
adultery,  for  no  neighbour  was  thereby  wronged  in  his 
conjugal  rights,  or  had  a  spurious  offspring  fathered 
upon  him :  there  was  fornication,  but  not,  in  the  con 
ventional  sense  of  the  term,  adultery.  The  crime  of 
adultery  was  limited  to  the  case  of  those,  whether  men 
or  women,  who,  when  married  or  betrothed  to  one 
party,  had  sexual  intercourse  with  another ;  though,  in 
the  case  i  if  the  man,  only  if  this  other  was  also  a  mar- 


ADULTERY 


37 


ADULTERY 


ried  or  betrothed  party  :  but  not  so  in  the  case  of  the 
woman,  because  the  wrong  in  her  ease  was  equally 
done,  whether  the  person  with  whom  she  transgressed 


in  which  the  rigour  of 


either  upon 


the  male  or  the  female  guilty  of  incontinence. 

In  Greece  and  Rome  the  law  respecting  adultery  was 


were  single  or  married.      In  short,  it  was  the  condition  |  not  uniform,  either  in  the  provisions  enacted  or  in  the 


of  the  female  which  determined  the  legal  character  of     manner  of  enforcing  them.      T 
adultery:  if  she  was  not  betrothed  or  married,  neither     competent  to  the  husband,  if  1 
she   nor  the    person  having  intercourse  with  her  was 
counted  liable  to  the  charge.      And  among  the  Greeks 


his  evil  course,  to  take 
.-  putting  him  to  death. 


tli  countries  it  was 
tooted  the  adulterer 
ummary  vengeance  on  him, 
But  he  might  also  take  a 


and   Romans   the   same  view  substantially  obtained-      pecuniary  compensation  ;  or  he  might  institute  a  legal 
adultery  was  simply  the  violation  of  another  man's  U 
or  the  corruption  of  his  seed. 


process  against  either  of  the  offending  parties,  and,  if 
the  guilt  was  established,  the  parties  were  placed  very 

Why  the  divine  legislation    should   have    allowed   a  '  much  at  the  mercy  of  the  husband,   though  not  to  the 

extent  of  allowing  him  to  fall  upon  them  with  a  knife 
or  a  dagger  (Demos.  Kara  Xfeu'/>.  5;  1M.  In  the  time  of 
Augustus  a  law  was  enacted  at  Ifoiiio.  called  the  Julian 
law.  which  introduced  various  regulations  as  to  the 
mode  of  conducting  prosecutions  against  adulterers; 
ta-  !  and  the  penalties  it  enacted,  in  cr.se  of  conviction,  were 


practical  treatment  of  the  matter  in  the  man's  case. 
differing  so  materially  from  the  woman's,  and  from  the 
view  exhibited  in  the  ideal  set  up  at  the  creation  of  the 
first  pair,  will  be  considered  under  the  subject  DIVOKCK. 
But  in  regard  to  the  act  itself  of  adultcrv.  understood 
in  the  sense  now  explained,  the  law  of  the  Old 


death,  both  for  the  adulterer  and  for  the  adulteress. 
Lo.  xx.  10.  This,  indeed,  was  required  !>v  the  theorv  <>f 
the  constitution,  which,  being  framed  with  a  view  to 
'he  securing  of  a  commonwealth  conformed  to  the  fun 
damental  laws  of  the  two  tables,  could  not  tolerate  the 
deliberate  breach  of  any  of  the  greal  commandments. 
Death  was  the  penalty  attaehfd  to  the  open  violation 
of  each  of  them.  It  is  not  expiv-.-lv  >aid  in  the  passage 
of  Leviticus  how  the  per-ons  guilty  of  adultcrv  wi  r.  i  . 
be:  shun;  but  in  De.  xxii.  L'-J-  -I,  where  the  l;l\v  i-  airain 
enacted,  the  additional  case  is  .-uppo.-ed  of  a  betrothed 
damsel  having  been  guilty  of  the  crime,  and  both  par 
ties  are  adjudged  to  death  by  stoning.  The  case  of 
such  ] persons,  and  that  of  those  who  violate. 1  the  sanc 
tity  of  the  marriage  vow,  were  >o  m-arlv  akin,  that  the 
.lews  of  our  Lord's  time  could  scarcely  be  said  to  err. 
when  they  affirmed,  respecting  adultery  in  general,  that. 
.Moses  commanded  the  person  guiltv  of  it  to  be  .-toned 
to  death,  Jn.  viii.,3.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  thai  the 


with  the  third 


part  of  her  property,  and  liability  to  banishment  to 
some  remote  place:  for  the  man.  the  loss  of  half  his 
property,  with  a  like  liability  to  banishment.  The 
times  were,  however,  too  degenerate  to  admit  of  such 
a  law  being  generally  enforced  :  profligacy  of  every  kind 
not  only  kept  its  ground,  but  grew  more  shameless,  in 
spite  of  the  law.  till  the  spread  of  (  'hri-tianity  leavened 
society  with  a  better  spirit,  and  rendered  more  strin 
gent  measures  practicable.  By  a  mistaken  policy,  how 
ever.  ( 'on>tantine  introduced  the  old  .le\vi.-h  law,  and 
mad'  the  offence  capital.  Justinian  somewhat  modi 
fied  the  statute,  by  -ending  the  adulteress,  after  being 
scourged,  to  a  convent,  allowing  the  husband  to  take 
her  out  within  the  period  of  two  years;  and,  failing 
this,  she  was  compelled  to  as.-ume  the  habit,  and  spend 
the  remainder  of  her  life  in  the  convent. 

Such  barbarous  practice  s  as   cutting  off  th 
ears  of   the  guilty  partie-  do   not  appear   to 
ever  formally   enacted,    either   among   the    H 


th 


It 


e  nose  and 
have  been 
ebrews  or 
ported  by 


even  that  death  in  any  form,  was  u.-uallv  inflicted  on 
adulterers.  Too  commonly  a  sense  of  guilt  on  the  j,art 
of  those  who  had  the  administration  of  the  law  com 
mitted  to  them,  would  restrain  them  from  executing 
the  judgment  written;  and  as.  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
it  was  likely  to  be  left  much  in  the  hand- of  the  injured 
party,  it  was  natural  that  he  -diouhl  ^eii'-rallv  take  the 
milder  course  which  the  law  allowed,  of  ridding  him- 
self  of  the  culprit  by  a  bill  of  divorcement.  Accord 
ingly,  we  read  of  no  case  in  Old  Testament  scripture 
in  which  a  woman  taken  in  adultery  was  actually  put  infamy  th 
to  death;  and  Lightfoot  (//<//•.  //./;.  mi  Mult.  xix.  M  honour  up' 
te.-tities  that,  amid  all  his  multifarious  residing  in  the  scarcely  s; 
rabbinical  writings,  he  had  never  met  with  an  in.-tanco 
mentioned  of  an  adulteress  being  capitally  punished. 
There  might,  no  doubt,  be  cases  of  the  kind,  though  no 
notice  is  taken  of  them  either  in  the  sacred  or  the  rab 
binical  records;  and  the  allusion  in  IV.  vi.  '}-2-'.\~>,  to 
the  implacable  spirit  of  revenge  which  the  conduct  of 
the  adulterer  might  expect  to  awaken  in  the  bosom  of 
the  injured  husband,  plainly  indicates  that  the  ag 
grieved  party  sometimes  took  the  full  scope  which  the 
law  allowed  him,  of  recompensing  for  the  loss  of  domes 
tic  peace  and  honour  he  had  sustained  upon  the  head  of 


to  h 


I  tiodorus  d.  M 

dally  inflicted  upon  the  female  in 
male  was  simply  beaten  with  roil-, 
alr-o  said  to  have  •..•'nctioiied  it;  an 
both  in  Scripture  if..r  example,  !•'./, 
the  classics  .  Yir-'.  ./•.'/'.  vi.  -\:«^,  to  s 


been  the  punishment  spe- 
''LTV  pt.  while  the 
The  Persians  are 
references  exist, 
xxiii  '2~>)  and  in 
•h  personal  muti 


the  offender.  Yet,  from  the  comparative  seclusion  in 
which  women  lived  in  Palestine,  coupled  with  the  license 
practically  allowed  in  respect  to  concubines  and  di 
vorces,  the  probability  is,  that  the  cases  were  very  rare 


lations  as  not  unknown.  But  they  arc  probably  to  be 
understood  as  only  among  the  indignities  which  an  in 
jured  husband  was  deemed  at  liberty  to  inflict,  and  by 
which,  occasionally  at  lea.-t.  he  -ought  to  consign  to 
1  person  who  had  brought  shame  and  dis- 
n  his  family.  In  the  (  'hri>tian  code,  we  need 
scarcely  sav.  no  corporeal  inflictions  are  prescribed.  It 
has  higher  weapons  to  \\ield  than  the  carnal  sword; 
and  its  prime  object  is  rather,  by  means  of  nobler  in 
fluences,  to  prevent  such  crimes  from  blotting  the  face 
of  society,  than  smiting  them  with  specific  penalties 
when  they  have  appeared.  It  speaks  only  of  separa 
tion,  or  put tin(_r  away,  as  the  ultimate  remedy  in  the 
hand  of  the  injured  party:  and  even  that  is  rather  men 
tioned  as  a  right  that  may  be  used,  than  as  a  measure 
that  must  in  every  case  be  adopted. 

TIIK  TRIAL  OF  Ann.TKUY,  or  the  bringing  t<»  the  test 
f  a  special  religions  service  a  woman  suspected  by  her 


husband  to  have  been  guilty  of  unfaithfulness,  is  the 
most  peculiar  thing  connected  with  this  subject  in  the 
legislation  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  prescription 
for  it  is  given  in  Xu.  v.  ll-.'Sl.  Attempts  have  been 


ADULTERY 


ADULTERY 


made  l>y  various  writers  (lists  of  whom  may  lie  found 
in  Kitto's  Cyclopedia,  here,  and  in  Winer's  Ilcal-Wor- 
tii'lmi-Ii,  under  "  Khchruch")  to  establish  a  substantial 
agreement  between  the  prescriptions  of  .Moses  in  this 
matter  and  the  ordeals  practised  among  barbarous  and 
heathen  nations ;  and  it  lias  been  thought  that  the 
main  object  of  the  one,  as  \\ell  as  of  the  others  with 
which  it  is  compared,  was  to  give  the  suspected  person 
an  opportunity  of  vindicating  her  innocence,  by  a  sort 
of  oath  of  purgation,  so  solemnly  administered,  that,  if 
not  innocent,  she  would  almost  certainly  shrink  from 
the  trial.  There  may,  undoubtedly,  lie  sonic  measure 
of  truth  in  this  view.  Moses,  in  this,  as  in  so  many 
other  things,  may  have  been  led  by  God  to  build  upon 
a  foundation  already,  to  some  extent,  laid  in  the  prac 
tices  of  surrounding  nations,  rather  than  prescribe  what 
was  absolutely  ne\v.  ISut  a  general  resemblance  is  all 
that  can,  witli  any  truth,  lie  supposed  to  have  existed; 
and,  for  much  that  is  peculiar  in  the  ordinance  before 
us,  we  must  look  to  the  nature  of  the  theocracy  itself, 
and  the  great  end  aimed  at  in  all  its  institutions. 
Adultery,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  the  only  sus 
pected  crime  for  which  such  an  ordeal  was  appointed  by 
Moses,  and  not.  as  among  other  nations,  one  of  several 
which  were  placed  iu  the  same  category  ;  and  in  this 
case,  also,  the  one  suspected  crime  for  which  such  an 
ordeal  was  instituted  was,  liy  the  prescribed  ritual, 
brought  into  a  connection  with  the  ministers  and  the 
sanctuary  of  God  not  common  elsewhere.  Here  it  was 
a  strictly  religious  matter,  and  differed  materially  from 
the  kind  of  voluntary,  hap-hazard  trials  in  other  lands. 
The  ground  of  the  prescribed  trial  for  suspected  adul 
tery  -  as,  indeed,  for  the  Mosaic  legislation  generally 
upon  this  subject — stood  in  the  sort  of  married  rela 
tionship,  the  solemn  covenant-engagement  between  God 
and  Israel.  The  great  national  covenant  was  to  have 
its  parallel  in  every  family  of  Israel,  in  the  marriage-tie 
that  hound  together  man  and  wife;  and  hence,  even  in 
Moses,  Nu.  xv.  3<»,  as  often  afterwards  in  the  prophets, 
unfaithfulness  to  God  is  exhibited  under  the  image  of 
a  wanton  breach  of  the  marriage- vow.  With  such  a 
close  relation  between  the  individual  and  the  general, 
it  was  especially  necessary  to  have  the  connection  be 
tween  man  and  wife  placed  under  the  sanctions  of  re 
ligion,  guarded  on  every  hand  with  most  jealous  care, 
and  rendered  practically,  as  far  as  possible,  an  image  of 
the  behaviour  that  should  lie  maintained  between  Israel 
and  God.  There  was  the  more  propriety  in  this,  as  it 
was  in  connection  with  the  propagation  of  a  godly  seed 
that  the  covenant  proposed  to  reach  the  great  end  it 
contemplated,  of  blessing  the  world.  Adultery,  there 
fore,  as  being  not  only  the  breach  of  the  fa mily  com 
pact,  but  an  image  also  and  a  prelude  of  the  breach  of 
the  ii'itiunal  compact,  must  be  visited  with  death;  and 
even  the  strong  suspicion  of  its  having  been  committed, 
where  no  actual  proof  of  guilt  could  be  obtained,  must 
be  brought  as  by  appeal  to  God,  that  he  might  either 
vindicate  the  innocence,  or,  by  special  visitations  of 
judgment,  establish  the  guilt  of  the  suspected  party.  It 
was  only,  as  the  language  implies,  when  then;  wore 
grounds  for  very  strong  suspicion  being  entertained, 
that  the  matter  was  to  be  made  the  occasion  of  such  a 
solemn  appeal ;  and,  when  it  was  demanded,  the  hus 
band  and  wife  were  to  go  together  to  the  sanctuary, 
bringing  what  is  called  alike  ''her  offering,"  and  "an 
offering  of  jealousy,''  vcr.  i.v -'.">.  They  were  both  to  bring 
it,  although  it  was  more  properly  the  woman's  offering 


than  the  man's,  as  appears  from  its  being  consigned  to 
her  while  the  priest  was  going  through  the  appointed 
ritual,  vcr.  1*.  Jt  was  merely  a  cor  ban  or  meat- offering, 
consisting  of  the  tenth  part  of  an  ephah  of  barleymeal, 
but  without  the  usual  accompaniments  of  oil  and  frank 
incense,  which  were  symbols,  the  one  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
tin;  other  of  acceptable  prayer.  The  absence  of  these 
denoted  that  it  was  a  matter  of  doubt  whether  such  an 
offering — a  symbol  of  good  works,  as  all  meat  offerings 
were — had  any  real  connection  with  the  Spirit  of  grace, 
or  could  rise  with  acceptance  before  God  ;  it  was  to  be 
an  offering  presented,  as  it  were,  at  a  venture.  Comiiiir, 
then,  with  this  in  their  hands,  the  woman  was  solemnly 
•set  by  the  priest  before  the  Lord,  made  to  understand 
that  she  had  come  to  transact  with  him;  her  head- 
covering,  the  distinctive  badge  of  her  chastity,  was 
next  taken  off,  being  meanwhile  suspected  to  have  lost 
her  title  to  wear  it;  then  the  meat-offering  was  put 
into  her  hands,  as  one  maintaining  her  innocence,  and 
claiming  the  privilege  to  present  to  God  the  symbol  of 
a  righteous  life;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  priest, 
representing  the  interests  at  once  of  the  jealous  hut- 
liand  and  the  jealous  God  of  Israel,  stood  in  front  of 

;  her  with  the  symbol  of  the  curse.  This  consisted  of 
holy  water-  most  probably  water  taken  from  the  laver 

j  before  the  door  of  the  tabernacle  — mingled  with  dust 
from  the  floor  of  the  tabernacle,  with  a  reference  to  the 
dust  mentioned  in  the  original  curse  which  was  pro 
nounced  upon  the  serpent  and  his  seed.  On  this  ac 
count,  not  only  was  the  water  to  lie  put  into  an  earthen 
vessel — earthen,  as  contradistinguished  from  something 
of  higher  mould  -but  was  also  designated  litter,  since 
it  was  employed  in  connection  with  a  humiliating  trans 
action,  and  for  the  purpose  of  working  (on  the  supposi 
tion  of  guilt  having  been  incurred)  a  painful  result.  The 
priest  then,  with  this  symbol  of  the  curse  in  hix  hand, 
standing  before  the  woman  with  the  symbol  of  right 
eousness  in  Iters,  pronounced  over  her  the  following  ad 
juration  : —  "  .If  no  man  have  lain  with  thee,  and  if  thou 
hast  not  gone  aside  unto  uncleanness  under  thy  hus 
band — (so  the  words  should  be  rendered,  meaning, 
while  under  law  to  him), — be  thou  free  from  this  bit 
ter  water  that  causeth  the  curse.  But  if  thou  hast  gone 
aside  under  thy  husband,  and  if  thou  be  defiled,  and 
some  man  have  lain  with  thee  while  under  thy  husband, 
the  Lord  make  thee  a  curse  and  an  oath  among  thy 

;  people,  by  the  Lord  making  thy  thigh  to  rot,  and  thy 
belly  to  swell ;  and  this  water  that  causeth  the  curse, 
shall  go  into  thy  bowels,  to  make  thy  belly  to  swell, 
and  thy  thigh  to  rot."'  To  which  the  woman  was  to 
say  "Amen,  amen;"  and  the  priest  accepting  this  re 
sponse  as  a  protestation  of  the  woman's  innocence, 
finished  the  ceremony,  by  first  blotting  out  the  curse 
with  the  bitter  water,  then  waving  the  meat-offering  be 
fore  the  Lord,  burning  a  portion  of  it  on  the  altar,  and 
giving  the  woman  what  remained  of  the  bitter  water  to 
drink.  The  matter  was  thus  solemnly  left  in  the  hands 
of  God,  the  Supreme  Judge  and  Arbiter  of  causes.  If 
he  saw  that  the  suspicion  was  groundless  he  would  also 
see  to  it,  that  "the  curse  causeless  should  not  come;" 
but  if  otherwise,  then  rottenness  and  corruption  was  to 
sei/e  upon  the  culprit  in  those  very  parts  of  her  body 
which  she  had  prostituted  to  purposes  of  iniquity;  her 
moral  depravity  should  find  its  meet  recompense  and 
image  in  a  corresponding  outward  depravation.  This, 
of  course,  could  only  happen  if  the  Lord  really  lent  his 
countenance  to  the  transaction,  and  was  ready,  by  his 


ADUMMI.M 


39 


ADVOCATE 


special  providence,  to  carry  into  effect  what  was  done 
in  his  name.  But  the  entire  covenant  made  with  Israel 
proceeded  on  the  ground  of  such  a  real  presence  and 
such  a  special  providence  on  the  part  of  God;  and  if 
undoubted  proofs  of  this  appeared  in  the  more  general 
affairs  of  the  covenant,  it  were  unreasonable  to  question 
the  appearance  of  the  same  here,  as  often  as  circum 
stances  might  call  for  the  divine  interposition.  That 
no  instances  are  on  record  of  the  waters  of  the  curse 
having  been  administered  and  taken  effect,  is  no  evi 
dence  of  such  an  event  never  having  occurred:  for,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  they  must  have  been  of  very  rare 
occurrence. 

AlH'LTKRY,  IX  THE  SPIRITUAL  SKXSK,  meant,  as  ill-    ' 

ready  indicated,  unfaithfulness  to  covenant-engagements 
ou  the  part  of  the  people  of  Israel.  In  the  later  prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament  a  charge  to  this  effect,  ami  under 
this  form  of  representation,  was  with  great  frequency 
brought  against  the  covenant- people,  Jo.  iii  1-11 ;  ]•:/  xvi 
xxiii.,  Ilns.  i.  ii.  iii.  The  same  lanufua'_;e  is  occasionally 
found  in  the  New  Testament,  as  \shen  our  Lord  charges 
the  people  of  his  day  with  being  "an  adulterous  gene 
ration;"  and  in  the  symbolical  language  of  the  Kevv- 
latioii,  as  the  true  and  faithful  church  is  presented 
under  the  image  of  the  Lamb's  wife,  so  the  corrupt  and 
apostate  church  is  characteri/.'-d  as  a  spouse  giving  her 
self  up  to  the  seductive  arts  and  forbidden  pleasures  of 
aditlterv  ;  oiilv,  on  account  of  the  greater  guilt  con 
nected  with  such  a  course  in  Is'ew  Testament  times,  the 
stronger  figure  of  a  harlot  is  more  cuinnionly  employed, 
and  an  "unfaithful  wife  '  is  exchanged  fora  "mother 
of  abominations,"  Re.  xvii.  ]-:,. 

ADUM'MIM,  found  only  twice  in  Scripture,  ,T,,s.  xv.r  ; 
xviii.  17,  and  each  time  in  connection  witli  M  A.u.r.n,  IJO'DHJ 
nji,  or  (iKC'iit,  the  ascent  of  Ada/nni! in.  The  word  Adum 
mini  itself  means  rednesses,  or  /••  <l  i-urt/ix.  not  \\ithoiit 
reference,  it  has  been  thought,  to  the  shed, ling  of  blood, 
of  which  the  place  in  question  was  the  frequent  scene. 
It  lay  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jericho,  iu  the  direction 
toward  Jerusalem,  a  district  which  has  always  been  the 
favourite  haunt  of  robber-,  whence  our  Lord  took  it  as 
the  scene  of  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan,  who 
rescued  the  man  that  fell  amoii^  robber-;  and  Jerome 
expressly  interprets  the  word  (which  he  writes  yl(Zo»i(M.) 

by  bloods,   "  because,"  say-  he,   "  much  hi 1  was  shed 

iu  it  by  the  frequent  assaults  of  robbers"  (/;'/ii.tf.  ml 
/-,'/(.-;/.  cviii.  i  1'Ji.  1'iiit  that,  the  place  derived  its  name 
in  this  way  mu>t  be  regarded  as  quite  uncertain,  and 
indeed  not  very  probable.  It  is  nr>iv  likely  that  the 
colour  of  the  ground,  or  some  such  natural  circum 
stance,  uave  rise  in  the  designation.  The  ancient  char 
acteristic,  however,  of  that,  part  of  the  road  between 
Jerusalem  and  Jericho  ha-  been  retained  to  compara 
tively  recent  times;  for  the  complaints  of  travellers 
have,  scarcely  yet  ceased  as  to  the  depredations  of  rob 
bers  in  that  quarter. 

ADVOCATE.  This  word  occurs  only  once  in  the 
Knglish  Piihle,  i  Jn.  ii.  i,  as  an  appellation  of  the  glorified 
Saviour,  "  If  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  advocate  with 
the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous."  It  is  there 
used,  however,  as  the  rendering  of  a  Greek  word  which 
occurs  more  frequently  -7ra/)d/c,\?;Tos,  paraclete  but 
which  is  always  rendered  elsewhere  COIilfortcr.  It  is 
one  of  those  complex  words  for  which  it  is  impossible 
to  find  an  exact  parallel  in  the  Knglish  language,  or 
indeed  in  almost  any  other.  Literally,  and  originally, 
it  denotes  a  person  called  to  one's  aid,  as  does  also  the 


Latin  word  advocatus,  from  which  our  word  advocate 
comes ;  but  then  the  specific  purposes  for  which  per 
sons  might  be  thus  called  are  so  various,  that  the  word, 
in  consequence,  acquired  a  variety  of  secondary  mean 
ings.  It  might  designate  one  who  svas  called  in  to 
assist  as  a  witness,  or  one  who.  in  a  legal  difficulty,  was 
applied  to  for  advice— a  consulting  lawyer,  or  one  who 
pled  the  cause  of  a  client  in  open  court;  or  still  again, 
one  who,  in  times  of  trial  or  hardship,  sympathized 
with  the  afflicted,  and  administered  suitable  direction 
and  support.  The  Latin  advocatus,  also,  was  used  iu 
all  these  shades  of  meaning  except  the  last;  and  it  was 
not  till  the  latter  days  of  Koine,  till  the  republic  had 
given  way  to  the  empire,  that  it  came  to  signify  the 
public  pleader  or  orator  (Smith's  d'r.  ainl  Until.  A  nt.) 
In  this  sense  it  was  not  used  by  Cicero,  though  the  cor 
responding  word  7ra/)d\'\7;ros  had  long  before  been  so 
employed  in  Greece  by  Demosthenes;  for  example,  at  the 
beginning  of  his  speech,  Tra/ia.  Trapo-Tr/ia.  It  was  quite 
natural,  therefore,  for  the  fathers  to  understand  the 
word,  when  applied  to  Christ,  in  the  sense  of  advocate, 
which  man v  of  them  did,  although,  iu  our  use  of  the  term 
advocate,  regard  is  had  more  to  the  simple  pleading  of 
a  cause  in  court,  less  to  the  e'eneral  guidance  and  man 
agement  of  the  cause,  than  they  were  wont  to  associate 
with  the  term.  1'oth  shade's  of  meaning  should  un 
doubtedly  be  included  in  the  idea  we  form  of  Chri-t  as 
our  advocate  in  the  heavenly  places.  It  presents  him 
to  our  view  as  charging  himself  with  the  interests  of 
his  people,  and  e.-peciallv  when  they  fall  into  sin,  ainl 
are  in  danger  of  bavin*-;-  sentence  passed  against  them, 
interposing  in  their  behalf,  and.  through  the  merits  of 
his  death  and  intercession,  averting  the  evil.  Kvcn 
before  he  entered  within  the  veil,  he  gave  a  striking 
exemplification  of  what,  in  this  department  of  his  me 
diatorial  work,  he  would  do  for  them,  when  he  said  to 
I'eter,  "Simon.  Simon,  behold  Satan  hath  desired  to 
have  you,  that  lie  may  sift  you  as  wheat,  but  I  have 
prayed  for  thee,  that  thy  faith  fail  not." 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  this  sense  of  the  word 
/iiit-itrliti  is  scarcely  proper,  if  understood  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  to  whom  it  is  applied  in  the  other  passages  where 
it  occurs,  .In.  xiv.  i<!;  xv  :ii'i;  xvi.  7.  To  a  cei  tain  extent  there 
was  a  resemblance  bet  wee  n  what  the  I  lojy  Spirit  was  to 
do  for  the  di-ciples  after  ( 'hrist  had  withdrawn  his  per 
soiial  presence  from  them,  and  what  Christ  himself  had 
till  then  been  doinu';  and  hence,  in  the  first  of  the 
passages  above  referred  to,  the  Lord  said  he  would 
pray  the  Father  to  scud  t  In  -in  minl/ii  r  paraclete,  imply 
ing  that  the  Spirit  should,  in  a  sense,  fulfil  the'  part 
v\  hich  Christ  himself  had  done;  but  this,  manifestly, 
with  respect  to  the  directing,  sustaining,  and  comfort 
ing  influence  Christ  had  exercised  amoir^  them  rather 
than  to  any  distinct  advocacy  In;  had  plied  in  their  lie- 
half.  Accordingly,  the  Greek  fathers  generally  gave 
the  word  in  the  Gospel  of  , loh n  a  meaning  more  adapted 
to  this  aspect  of  the  matter;  they  threw  into  it,  indeed, 
very  much  of  the  sense  of  ntnifurt,  or  consolation,  which 
the  cognate  verb  and  nouns  have  in  New  Testament 
and  Hellenistic  (Ireek.  Following  them,  our  transla 
tors  have  rendered  the  word  there  by  comfnrtfr,  which 
is  perhaps  as  good  a  single  term  as  could  be  found. 
It  has,  however,  the  disadvantage  of  presenting  only  a 
part-  though  undoubtedly  a  most  prominent  part  -of 
the  complex  idea  which  the  original  word  conveys;  and 
along  with  or  under  the  comfort  which  was  to  be  con 
nected  with  the  presence  of  the  Spirit,  there  should  also 


tr. 


AGAG 


be  associated  in  our  minds  the  strengthening  and  moni 
tory  aid  which,  as  the  representative  and  gift  of  ( 'hrist, 
hu  was  intended  to  minister.  In  the  words  of  Arch 
deacon  Hare,  who,  in  his  Mission  <if  t/tc  Comforter, 
note  K,  has  given  a  discriminating  outline  of  the  litera 
ture  on  the  subject,  and  a  sensible  view  of  the  subject 
itself,  "  We  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  Spirit  is  the 
Comforter,  in  the1  primary  as  well  as  the  secondary  sense 
of  that  word,  and  that  In;  did  not  coinc  merely  to  con- 
solethe  disciples  for  their  loss,  hut  mainly  to  strengthen 
their  hearts  and  minds,  by  enabling  them  to  understand 
the  whole  truth,  and  to  feel  the  whole  power  of  the 
gospel." 

JENON,  a  place,  at  which  John  is  said  to  have 
baptized,  and  the  locality  of  which  is  no  further  indi 
cated  than  that  it  is  described  as  bc.in^  near  Salem, 
Jn  iii.L1::.  The  reason  a -signed  for  its  being  chosen  as 
a  place  for  the  ad  mil  list  ration  of  baptism  is  that.  "  there 
was  much  water  there."  And  indeed  the  name,  which 
is  simply  the  Chaldee  word  for  spi'iny*  1 71;  "y  ),  plainly 

implies  as  much.  ]Jut  the  precise  spot  is  still  involved 
in  uncertainty,  It  could  not  be  quite  near  to  the  .Tor- 
dan,  otherwise  the  waters  of  that  river  would  rather 
have  been  resorted  to  for  baptism.  The  probability  is 
that  it  lav  considerably  to  the  north,  and  towards 
Galilee,  if  not  actually  within  its  borders,  as  the  later 
labours  of  the  Baptist  undoubtedly  embraced  the  re 
gion  which  belonged  to  the  jurisdiction  of  Philip. 
(So:  SALEM  and  JOH\  BAPTIST.) 

AFFINITY.     Sec  MAKUIACK. 

AG'ABUS,  the  name  of  a  prophet  in  the  Christian 
church  at  Jerusalem,  who,  on  two  several  occasions,  is 
mentioned  as  having  come  from  Jerusalem  to  other 
places,  and  delivered  a  very  specific  prediction.  The 
first  of  these  took  place  at  Antioch.  notlony  apparently 
after  Paul  had  been  brought  by  Barnabas  to  make  that 
the  scene  of  his  regular  ministrations.  Along  with 
some  others  who  are  also  said  to  have  possessed  pro 
phetical  gifts,  Agabus  appeared  at  Antioch,  and  "  sig 
nified  by  the  Spirit  that  there  should  be  great  dearth 
throughout  all  the  world  :  which  came  to  pass  in  the 
days  of  Claudius  Ca'sar,"  Ac.  xi.2s.  It  is  matter  of  his 
torical  certainty  that  the  reign  of  Claudius  was  marked 
by  the  frequent  prevalence  of  famine.  \Ve  have  dis 
tinct  notices  of  at  least  three — one  more  especially  in 
connection  with  Greece,  another  with  Koine,  during 
which  the  emperor  was  openly  assaulted,  and  in  some 
danger  of  his  life  (Suet.  Claud,  c.  IS),  and  a  third 
which  pressed  heavily  upon  Judea  and  the  parts  around. 
Josephus  mentions  the  last,  which,  in  point  of  time, 
was  one  of  the  earliest  occurrences  of  famine  in  the 
time  of  Claudius,  probably  about  A.I).  44.  and  states 
that  the  queen  of  Adiabene,  who  was  at  Jerusalem 
during  the  calamity,  showed  great  liberality  and  vigour 
in  endeavouring  to  mitigate  the  evil,  and  even  sent  for 
supplies  to  Alexandria  and  Cyprus  (Ant.  xx.  2,  M. 
That  special  respect  might  be  had  in  the  prophecy  of 
Agabus  to  this  local  dearth  may  readily  be  admitted, 
can  scarcely  indeed  be  doubted,  from  the  practical  ap 
plication  immediately  made  by  the  disciples  at  Antioch 
of  the  knowledge  communicated  to  them  in  behalf  of 
the  brethren  in  Judea;  for.  in  anticipation  of  the  ap 
proaching  evil,  they  resolved  on  sending  thither  a  con 
tribution.  But  still  there  is  no  reason  why  the  pro 
phecy,  which  has  quite  a  general  aspect,  should  (with 
Lardner  and  many  commentators  on  the  Acts)  be  con 


fined  to  that  comparatively  restricted  theatre  of  the 
famine.  We  should  rather  regard  the  spirit  of  prophecy 
in  Agabus  as  following  up  the  testimony  of  Jesus,  and 
giving  indication  of  the  immediate  approach  of  one  of 
those  signs  of  evil  which  were  to  precede  and  herald 
the  downfall  of  the  Jewish  state.  There  .should  first  be 
famine,  our  Lord  had  said,  in  divers  places,  .Mat.  x.\iv.  7; 
and  Famine,  in  a  very  marked  and  distressing  manner. 
Agabus  now  announced  was  on  the  eve  of  breaking 
forth.  In  this  form  of  evil  tin;  period  of  judgment,  which 
was  to  have  so  fearful  a  termination,  v\as  presently  to 
make  a  commencement;  and  the  disciples  at  Antioch. 
rightly  conceiving,  both  from  the  nature  of  pn.plieev. 
which,  in  revealing  the  future,  al-.vavs  has  an  eye  espe 
cially  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  and  from  the  peculiar 
relation  of  Judea  to  the  coming  judgments  of  heaven, 
that,  however  widely  the  famine  might  spread,  it  was 
sure  to  make  its  appearance-  possibly  its  earliest  and 
severest  appearance  in  Judea.  deemed  it  a  matter  of 
Christian  duty  to  gather  up  something  beforehand  for 
their  brethren  in  that  region.  Thrrc  they  knew  the 
carcases  more  especially  was.  and  there  should  the  engh  > 
assuredly  be  gathered  together.  Still,  not  there  alone: 
the  world  generally  was  to  have  experience  of  famine. 
as  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  it  soon  had,  though 
not  always  at  the  same  moment.  And  we  thus  see 
how,  without  any  straining,  the  prophecy  of  Agabus 
had  at  once  a  general  and  a  special  application,  and 
how  naturally  the  disciples  at  Antioch  should  have 
turned  their  regards  toward  Judea.  when  they  heard 
the  announcement  that  a  season  of  famine  was  ready 
to  come  on  the  world. 

The  other  occasion  on  which  Agabus  came  down  from 
Jerusalem  and  delivered  a  prophecy,  which  presently 
pa-sed  into  fulfilment,  was  probably  about  sixteen  years 
later,  when  Paul  was  at  ( 'a-sarea.  on  his  way  to  Jem 
salem  for  the  last  time.  Tarrying  there-  for  some  dav- 
with  Philip  the  Evangelist.  Agabus  came  from  Jeru 
salem,  and  having  taken  Paul's  girdle,  and  bound  his 
own  hands  and  feet,  he  said,  '•  Thus  saith  the  Holy 
Ghost,  so  shall  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem  bind  the  man 
that  owneth  this  girdle,  and  shall  deliver  him  into  the 
hands  of  the  Gentiles,'"  Ac.xxi.ll.  In  this  prediction 
again  Agabus  treads  closely  on  the  footsteps  of  Jesus, 
in  the  great  prophecy  respecting  the  time  of  the  end. 
Mat.  xxiv.,  and  announced  that  what  was  there  said  of 
( 'hrist's  followers  going  to  be  delivered  up  to  be  afflicted, 
or  even  killed,  should  now  take  effect  at  Jerusalem  on 
the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  It  doubtless  pressed  upon 
the  spirit  of  Agabus.  as  well  as  upon  those  who  heard 
the  announcement,  as  a  sign  that  Jerusalem  was  fast 
filling  up  the  measure  of  her  sins,  and  that  the  day  of 
vengeance  must  be  drawing  on.  We  hear  no  more  of 
this  prophet :  but.  from  the  two  instances  recorded  of 
his  supernatural  insight  into  the  future,  we  can  have  no 
doubt  that  lie  was  one  of  those  who  received  the  Spirit 
in  peculiar  measure,  as  promised  to  the  disciples  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  them  things  to  come,  Jn.  xvi.  i;j. 

A'GAG,  derived,  it  is  understood,  from  an  Arabic 
verb,  which  signifies  to  burn,  to  be  fervent,  and  con 
sequently  bearing,  as  a  noun,  the  import  of  the  fiery,  or 
xplmdid  one.  It  occurs  only  as  the  name  of  the  king 
of  Amalek,  Nu.  xxiv.  ~;  iSa.  \v.  s^scq.;  find  the  question 
is,  whether  it  is  to  be  understood  as  a  proper  name,  the 
distinctive  appellation  of  a  particular  king,  or  as  a  name 
of  dignity  applicable  alike  to  a  succession  of  Amalekite 
kill's ',  The  latter  supposition  is  undoubtedly  favoured 


AGAGITE 


41 


AGES   OF   THE    WOKLD 


liy  the  reference  to  A  gag,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  pro 
phecy  of  Balaam,  Nu.  xxiv.  7,  where  speaking  of  the  might 
and  glory  of  Israel's  future  king,  he  says,  "  His  king 
.shall  be  higher  than  Agag."  If  understood  of  a  single 
individual,  this  allusion  would  he  in  ill  keeping  with 
the  ro-'t  of  the  prophecy,  which  is  of  a  strongly  ideal 
and  elevated  nature,  and  would  also  hut  poorly  illus 
trate  the  peerless  honour  of  him  who  was  to  be  exalted 
to  the  dominion  over  God's  heritage.  Besides,  as  the 
name  A',rag  itself,  from  its  most  probable  import,  very 
well  suits  as  a  general  name  of  dignity  for  the  head  of  a 
warlike  and  impetuous  race  like  the  Amalekites,  so  it  is 
in  perfect  accordance  with  the  prevailing  usage  of  those 
times,  that  the  Amalekite  kings  should  have  had  such 
a  common  designation.  Of  a  similar  kind  was  the  Pha- 
raoh  of  the  Egyptians,  Abimelech  of  the  Philistines, 
Mclchizedek  or  Adoni-zedek  of  the  Jebusites.  <\e.  Jt 
was  only  falling  in  with  this  general  custom  when  the 
heads  of  the  royal  line  in  Am.alek  took  the  name  of 
Agag.  So  that,  when  we-  come  to  the  historv  in  1  Sa. 
xv.,  where  the  triumph  of  Israel  over  the  Amalekites  is 
recorded,  the  Ai:ag  spoken  of  should  be  understood  pre- 
eisi-lv  as  the  Pharaoh  in  Ex.  xv.;  lie  was  for  the  time 
being  the  reigning  head  of  the  Amalekite  race;  and  it 
would  appear,  from  the  words  of  Samuel  to  him  (ver.  :'>:', 
"As  thy  .-word  hath  made  women  childless,  so  shall 
thy  inotlier  lie  childl'---  among  women"),  In-  bad  ki-pt 

Up  the  tierre  character  of  those  who  bo;t-te  1  ill  the 
name  of  the  ."'•''.'/  one.  But  he  at  length  reaped  as  be' 
sowed;  ;uid.  though  fragment-;  of  the  race  of  Amalek 
still  sur\  ived,  no  future  Au'a_r  ever  appears  in  coniiec- 
tion  with  their  hi.-t"ry. 

AGAG  1TE  is  found,  Ks  .  m.  i,  K>:  viii .::,:,;  ix.-ji,  in  con 
nection  with  liaman,  the  enemy  of  Mordecai.  .losephus 
explains  it  us  a  synonym  of  Amalekite,  and  so  it  pos 
sibly  was:  but  we  are  without  the  proper  materials  for 
either  invalidating  or  substantiating  the  explanation. 

AG'AP^,  the  Creek  term  for  l«v  feasts,  or  feasts 
of  charity,  as  they  are  called  in  St.  .hide's  epistle.  (>'<:<.' 
FKASTS.) 

AGATE  is  idven  in  our  version,  after  the  Septuagint 
(uxd77/?i  and  Vuluate,  as  the  rendering  of  the  Hebrew 
X2';;.  Kx.  xxviii  i:1;  \\.\i\.  i-.  Theseare  the  only  two  passages 

where  tin-  1 1 eb re w  slici'0  occurs,  both  times  as  (lie  name 

of   olle    of   the    precious    stolleS    ill    tile  hiu'll    priest's  bl'ea-t 

plate.  I'.nt  in  other  two  passages,  is  liv  I'.';  Ezo.  xxvii  fi, 
the  word  <»'/"'<  is  used  in  our  English  Mibles,  not  how 
ever  as  the  translation  of  the  same  Hebrew  word,  but 
for  one  entirely  dillerent,  kadcod  (->,•*•<'*} — a  proof  how 

arbitrarily  sometimes  the  meaning  of  such  specific  terms 
was  fixed.  Modern  interpretation  is  rather  disposed  to 
identify  the  ktidcod  with  the  ruby  than  with  the  a'jate, 
so  that  there  will  only  remain  the  two  passages  in  Kx- 
oilus  as  those  in  which  mention  is  made  of  the  aurate; 
and  even  for  this  we  are  entirely  dependent  on  the 
authority  of  the  Septuagint  translation.  Hut,  mi  the 
supposition  of  the  au'ate  being  really  the  stone  meant, 
we  may  simply  state,  that  the  term  is  a  general  name 
for  the  class  of  semi  |«  llucid  stones  which  in  this  coun 
try  usually  go  by  the  name  of  Scotch  pebbles.  They 
are  composed  of  crystal  intermixed  with  earth,  in  diffe 
rent  forms  ami  proportions,  variegated  with  veins  and 
clouds.  They  are  usually  arranged  according  to  the 
different  colours  of  their  ground,  and  thus  divided  into 
a  variety  of  species,  into  the  description  of  which  it  is 
needless  to  enter  here.  They  were  found  in  Egypt, 
Vol..  I. 


usually  of  a  reddish  colour,  veined  with  white,  and  in 
many  other  countries.  The  name  aijutc,  in  Greek 
achutts,  is  said  to  have  been  derived  from  the  river 
Achates  in  Sicily,  in  the  bed  of  which  they  were  found. 
Specimens  of  ancient  agates,  of  various  kinds,  and  often 
beautifully  engraved,  have  descended  to  modern  times, 
and  are  to  be  met  with  in  antique  collections. 

AGE  is  used  in  a  great  variety  of  significations 

often  in  the  sense  of  a  lifetime  or  a  century  ;  sometimes 
in  the  restricted  sense  of  personal  maturity,  as  when  we 
say  of  such  an  one.  that  he  is  of  age.  Jn.  ix.  L'I  ;  but  most 
commonly  in  contradistinction  to  infancy  or  youth,  and 
as  indicative  of  the  more  advanced  period  of  human 
life.  To  distinguish  this  from  the  other  senses  of  the 
word,  the  epithet  old  is  commonly  prefixed;  and.  with 
reference  to  age  in  this  sense,  tln-iv  is  scarcely  any  pe 
culiarity  in  Scripture  that  calls  for  particular  explana 
tion.  It  frequently  gives  expression  to  the  respect  that 
is  due  from  youth  to  old  age,  and  even  enjoins  it  as  a 
matter  of  obligation  :  as.  Lo.  xix.  32,  "  Mef ore  the  hoary 
head  thoushalt  stand  up.  and  honour  the  face  of  the  aged."' 
But  this  has  also  been  the  common  feeling  and  judg 
ment  of  mankind,  even  in  heathen  states  ;  and  probably 
amon<_r  the  Egyptians  and  Creeks  of  ancient  times,  and 
the  Chinese  and  .Mussulmans  of  the  present,  a  simple 
respect  for  the  hoary  head  of  av;e  has  been  carried  as 
high  as  it  usually  was  amon^  the  Hebrews  ;  for.  among 
the  Hebrews,  the  moral  element  came  in  here,  as  in 
other  thiiiLTs.  to  qualify  considerations  of  a  merely  na 
tural  kind.  Thus  Solomon,  while  be  pronounces  the 
hoary  head  to  be  "a  crown  of  glory,"  adds  the  impor 
tant  qualification,  "if  it  be  found  in  the  way  of  right 
eousness."  I'r.  xvi.  :;i  ;  and  Job  also  speaks  of  "the  au'ed 
rising  and  standing  up"  at  his  presence,  rh.  \\i\.  S,  imply 
ing  that  there  were  higher  elements  than  a<_re  entering 
into  the  account  that  should  be  made  of  the  social  rank 
of  individuals.  But  still  age  had,  anionu'  the  Hebrews, 
as  it  must  have  in  every  well-constituted  community,  a 
character  of  weight  attached  to  it.  unless  when  this  may 
have  been  forfeited  by  a  course  "f  profligacy  or  crime. 
In  ordinary  circumstances,  the  prolongation  of  life  to 
an  advanced  period  was  always  regarded  as  a  mark  of 
the  divine  mercy  and  loving  kindness:  it  was  the  sub 
ject  even  of  special  promises,  Xi-c.  viii.  t  ;  ,I.,ln.  '.'-I;  [.,  \lvi  I; 
u  hile  the  cutting  short  of  life  ill  the  midst  is  represented 
as  the  proper  portion  of  the  wicked.  I'.s.  lv.  L'.-J  ;  cii.  jt. 
I>ut  this  was  only  what  mi^lit  be  called  the  normal 
condition  of  things  ;  and  many  circumstances  mi^ht 
arise  to  prevent  its  being  carried  uniformly  into  extcu- 
tion.  If  God's  covenant  with  Israel,  pledging  long  life 
and  prosperity  to  those  who  remained  steadfast  to  its 
engagements,  h;ul  been  maintained  in  its  purity  and 
completeness  by  the  great  mass  of  the  people.,  the  ex 
ceptions,  either  on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  would 
ha\  e  been  comparatively  rare  :  but.  with  the  manifold 
imperfections  and  disorders  that  too  commonly  pre 
vailed,  it  is  only  what  ini'_dit  have  been  expected,  if 
premature  death  should  sometimes  have  befallen  the 
comparatively  good,  and  if  extended  age  was  often 
reached  by  those  who  should  have  been  cut  oil'  in  the 
midtime  of  their  days.  Still,  for  the  most  part,  even 
in  this  respect,  the  Lord  knew  how  to  distinguish  be 
tween  the  righteous  and  the  wicked  :  it  was  usually 
made  to  go  well  with  the  one  and  ill  with  the  other. 

AGES  OF  THE  WORLD.  In  various  passages 
of  Scripture,  mention  is  made  of  ages  with  reference 
to  the  history  of  the  world,  and  God's  successive  dis- 

6 


A  CONY 


AGRICULTURE 


pensations  in  connection  with  them.  Kp.  ii.  ~;  iii.  »,  21 ; 
I'ni.  i.  a;,  also  in  the  marginal  reading  of  Ps.  cxlv.  13  and 
Is.  xxvi.  I  The  word  would,  however,  have  lieeii  found 
in  a  Ljreat  variety  of  otlier  passages,  if  a  more  literal 
and  uniform  rendering  hail  been  adhered  to  ;  for  often 
where  it;/i'n  might,  and  sometimes  also  should  have  been 
found,  our  translators  have  adopted  w<>rl<ls.  The  ori 
ginal  word  (aJidiv,  aiuivts),  in  its  primary  meaning,  de 
notes  continuance  of  time  ;  hence  an  age  or  extended 
period  of  the  world's  history,  then  the  world  itself  as 
composed  of  a  succession  of  such  ages:  finally,  the  suc 
cession  apart  from  the  world,  amounting  in  the  sum  to 
an  indefinite  prolongation  eternity.  It  is  sometimes 
difficult  to  sav,  in  which  precisely  of  these  senses  the 
word  is  employed  ;  and  examples  may  be  found  of  all 
of  them  in  Scripture.  \  cry  commonly  the  meaning  is 
expressed  with  substantial  acenracv  by  irnrhl  -  as  in 
the  phrases,  "  the  cares  of  this  world,"  ''  the  children 
of  this  world,"  "tin- god  of  this  world,"  ,\.c..  Mat.  xiii.  22; 
Lu.  xvi.  t;  2  Co.  iv.  i; — the  world  being  contemplated  with 
respect  to  its  present  corrupt  and  perishable  state,  the 
existing  nu'e.  In  many  passages,  agnin,  the  nicamng 
substantial]  v  coincides  witli  eternity,  contemplated 
either  as  past  or  future — from  before  time,  or  to  beyond 
it,  for  ever.  Kp.  iii.  II;  .In.  ix.  ML';  Ln.  i  7i>;  -  I'c.  iii.  is  ; 
I  'I'i.  i.  17,  &.C.  But  ill  such  passages  as  IIo.  i.  2,  ''  through 
wliom  also  he  made  the  worlds  ;"  cli.  vi.:>,  "the  powers  of 
the  world  to  come  ;"  Kp.  i.  21,  "the  world  that  is  to  come." 
and  a  few  more  of  like  import,  it  would  perhaps  have 
been  better  to  substitute  age  or  ages  instead  ;  for  in 
such  eases  the  reference  is  not.  as  the  mere  English 
ivad-T  miu'lit  iie  apt  to  imagine,  to  the  material  fabric 
of  things,  but  to  its  divinely  appointed  form  and  con 
stitution.  The  world,  or  age  to  come,  was  a  familial- 
expression  among  the  Jews  for  the  Messiah's  kingdom; 
and  in  the  New  Testament  it  is  employed  partly  in  re 
gard  to  the  kingdom  as  now  established,  and  parti v  in 
regard  to  its  future  development — the  age  of  glory.  It 
is  used  in  this  latter  sense  by  our  Lord.  Mat.  xii.  .32 ; 
Mar.  x.  30 ;  Lu.  xx.  :;.'•.  The  ages  of  the  world  are.  therefore. 
the  great  cycles,  whether  of  degeneracy  and  corruption, 
or  of  progression  and  development,  through  which  it 
has  been  destined  to  pass,  and  in  part  has  passed,  al 
ready. 

AGONY  is  the  term  used  by  the  evangelist  Luke 
to  express  the  state  of  mind  in  which  our  Lord  was 
when  he  entered  oil  his  last  sufferings,  Lu.  xxii.  41.  The 
English  word  directs  our  thoughts  upon  the  mere  suffer 
ing  experienced  more  than  the  original,  dyuvia,  which 
expresses  more  immediately  the  terrible  mental  stru^u'le 
or  conflict  through  which  our  Lord  was  passing,  and 
only  as  subordinate  to  that  indicates  the  sense  of  pain. 
Wherein  precisely  the  struggle  consisted,  the  evangelist 
is  entirely  silent ;  but  he  gives  us  some  idea  of  its  fear 
ful  nature  when  he  tells  us  that,  in  conseqiuncc,  "his 
sweat  was  as  it  were  great  drops  of  blood  falling  down 
to  the  ground;"  that  is,  a  heavy  sweat,  not  wholly  of 
blood,  but  of  water  intermingled  with  blood.  ]f  it  had 
been  simply  Mood,  the  as  it  were  (ucrd}  would  not  have 
been  used  ;  and  if  there  had  not  been  blood  actually  pre 
sent,  we  can  see  no  proper  reason  why  mention  should 
have  been  made  of  it ;  nor,  apart  from  some  intermin 
gling  of  real  blood,  would  the  description  convey  the 
idea  of  extreme  anxiety  and  distress  of  soul  which  was 
evidently  meant  to  be  indicated.  What  fell,  therefore, 
was  sweat,  but  sweat  mingled  with  blood.  Much  the 
same  impression  also  is  conveyed  by  another  particular 


in  St.  Luke's  account  of  this  terrible  moment  in  our 
Lord's  history— the  circumstance  of  an  angel  appearing 
from  heaven  to  strengthen  him  ;  and  still  further,  by 
the  prayer,  mentioned  in  all  the  three  gospels,  which 
lie  thrice  uttered  with  intense  earnestness,  "  Father,  ij 
it  be  pnssililf,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me;;  nevertheless, 
not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt."  The  symptoms  and 
effects  only  have  been  discovered  to  us  ;  but  from  these 
we  can  easily  perceive  how  mighty  a  conflict  agitated 
the  soul  of  the  Redeemer — a  conflict  which  it  is  impos 
sible  to  resolve  into  the  anticipation  of  mere  bodily 
suffering  and  outward  indignity.  We  are  constrained 
to  look  beyond  this  to  the  awful  consciousness  of  human 
guilt  which  then  began  to  press  in  its  full  weight  upon 
the  heart  of  Jesus,  and  filled  bis  human  spirit  with  in 
describable  horror,  on  account  of  the  evil  involved  in 
such  guilt-bearing.  But  it  is  not  for  us  to  penetrate 
further,  or  to  attempt  to  lift  the  veil  which  the  pen  of 
inspiration  has  allowed  to  rest  on  this  part  of  the  l\e- 
dcemer's  internal  history. 

AGRICULTURE.  'Under  this  head  we  propose  to 
give  a  brief  account  of  some  of  the  more  distinctive  pe 
culiarities  which  attached  to  the  cultivation  of  the  land 
in  those  countries  of  which  the  V.ihle  speaks,  and  more 
particularly  in  Palestine.  There  are  points  of  agree 
ment  in  the  agriculture  of  all  nations,  general  conditions 
necessary  to  be  observed  by  those  who.  in  any  region, 
would  obtain  a  return  of  produce  from  the  earth.  To 
these  it  is  needless  to  refer  here.  It  is  understood  that 
the  ancients  as  well  as  the  moderns,  the  Hebrews  as 
well  as  other  people,  had  to  till  and  manure,  and  sow 
their  ground,  when  they  expected  to  derive  from  it  a 
fruitful  produce  ;  to  keep  under  the  weeds,  that  would 
otherwise  choke  the  vegetation;  to  observe  the  proper 
seasons  both  for  sowing  and  reaping;  and  to  take  the 
requisite  measures  for  securing,  thrashing,  and  disposing 
of  the  respective  crops.  But,  in  connection  with  these 
common  operations,  there  are  some  things  characteristic 
of  the  East  which  do  not  precisely  hold  of  the  West  ; 
and  some  things  also  which  distinguished  the  portions 
of  the  East  with  which  we  have  now  to  do,  in  ancient 
times,  from  what  belongs  to  them  in  the  present  day. 
It  is  such  only  that  require  any  special  notice. 

In  all  countries  the  climate  must  exert  a  modifying 
influence  on  the  kind  of  agriculture  that  is  pursued  in 
them  :  and  in  eastern  countries  generally,  in  Palestine 
among  the  rest,  the  heat  and  dryness  which  prevail 
during  a  great  portion  of  the  year  naturally  call  for 
some  peculiar  modes  of  treatment  :  not  nearly  to  such 
an  extent,  however,  as  in  Egypt  on  the  one  side,  or  in 
Assyria  on.  the  other.  In  these  regions  the  rains  are 
greatly  less  frequent  than  in  Palestine,  and  if  cultiva 
tion  is  to  be  carried  on  over  any  considerable  tract  of 
country,  irrigation  by  means  of  canals  and  aqueducts 
is  indispensable.  When  Babylonia  was  in  its  state  of 
ancient  richness  and  prosperity,  the  country  was  all  in 
tersected  with  these  channels  of  artificial  irrigation,  the 
remains  of  which  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the  present 
day  :  and  in  Egypt  they  have  been  maintained  in  great 
variety  and  abundance  from  the  earliest  times.  While 
these  countries  require  to  be  thus  supplied  with  mois 
ture,  in  order  to  sustain  vegetation  through  the  long- 
continued  droughts  of  summer,  they  also  have  the 
means  of  furnishing  it,  in  such  large  rivers  as  the  Eu 
phrates,  the  Tigris,  and  the  Nile.  But  in  Palestine  the 
streams  are  all  small,  with  the  exception  of  the  Jordan  ; 
even  it  does  not  contain  any  great  volume  of  water,  and 


AGRICULTURE 


43 


AGRICULTURE 


it  flows  besides,  during  tlie  main  part  of  its  course,  in 
so  depressed  a  channel,  that  the  waters  could  not  be 
conducted  over  any  extent  of  surrounding  country. 
Artificial  irrigation,  therefore,  never  appears  to  have 
been  much  practised  in  Canaan  ;  and  the  few  aqueducts, 
eif  which  the  remains  have  been  noticed  by  travellers, 
seem  to  have  been  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  driving 
mills,  supplying  dwelling-houses,  or  occasionally  per 
haps  watt-ring  orchards.  The  passages  often  produced 
in  proof  of  agricultural  fertility  by  artificial  means  of 
irrigation,  i's.  i.  -j-  is.  xxx.  -2:,,  evidently  refer  to  the  natu 
rally  fructifying  influence  of  streams  and  rivers.  The 
country  possesses  natural  advantages  which,  without 
such  expedients,  rendered  it  capable  of  general  cultiva 
tion  and  fruitfulness.  Its  mountainous  character  serves 
te.  abate  the  temperature,  while  it  also  enriches  the 
country  with  many  brooks  and  rivulets.  Even  in  June-. 
Dr.  Robinson  writes,  respecting  what  he  experienced  at 
Jerusalem,  "the  air  was  line,  and  the  he. a  not  oppres 
sive.  The  nights  are  uniformly  cool,  often  \\ithaheavv 
dew;  and  our  friends  had  never  occasion  to  dispense  I 
with  a  coverlet  upon  their  beds  durinur  summer."  Then, 
the  rains  are  more  freepuelit  and  contiiuud  than  in  many 
oth'T  eastern  countries.  Those  which  in  Si-riptuiv  are 
<-,-ille-e|  the-  Hii'/y  rains,  commence  usually  about  the  lath  r 
half  of  Oe-tol.e-r.  y,-t  not  setting  in  so  h<-a\ily,  or  pre 
vailing  so  continuously,  but  that  durinu'  the  intervals 
seed-corn  mav  be-  deposited  in  the-  ground.  Acconl- 
in-ly,  it  is  about  the-  end  of  October,  or  in  the  earlie-r 
part  eif  November,  that  wheat  begins  to  be-  sown,  and 
the  sowiiiLT  is  continued,  according  to  the  demands 
of  climate1  and  either  circumstances,  till  the  approach  of 
winter.  The  proper  seed-time  for  barley  is  in  January, 
and  tei  about  the  middle  of  February.  The  rains  in- 
e-rea~e,  ami  often  fail  heavily  during  the  last  five  or  six 
weeks  of  the  year;  but.  after  the- turn  of  the-  year,  they 
mode-rate,  and  only  come-  at  intervals  till  the  end  eif 
March,  when  they  usually  cease,  though  there  are  occa 
sional  showerseven  in  April  and  .May.  The  crops  thus 
obtain,  in  ordinary  seasons,  enough  of  moisture  to  bring 
them  to  maturity,  if  the  seed  has  be  en  ce.nimitti-d  at  the- 
proper  time-  to  the  ground.  They  ripen  early  ;  the  bar- 
lev,  in  the  more  forward  districts,  be-in-.;  commonly 
re-adv  for  the  sickle.-  about  the-  eml  of  April,  and  the 
wheat  nearly  a  fortnight  late-r:  but  in  the-  more-  hilly 
districts  two  or  three  weeks  more  must  be  aelded  to  the 
account.  On  the  .".th  of  June-,  Dr.  Robinson  found 
the-  people  at  Hebron  gathering  their  wheat  harvest: 
while,  e.n  the  1 'Jth  of  May.  the  thrashing  floors  at 
Jericho  hail  nearly  completed  their  work. 

The  chief  crops  raised  in  i'ale  -tin,-  were  undoubtedly 
barley  ami  wheat ;  fn.m  these  were:  derived  the  common 
bread  of  the  country.  Oats  are  not  grown  there,  but 
are  occasionally  found  in  other  parts  e.f  Syria.  Men 
tion,  however,  is  occasionally  made  of  other  kinds  of 
produce,  such  as  beans,  lentiles,  cummin,  cucumbers, 
flax,  &,..'.,  Jos.  ii.  C;  Ilo.  ii.5;  2Sa.  xvii.  2S;  xxiii.  11 ;  but  they 
appear  to  have  existed  only  in  small  quantities,  not  in 
such  abundance  as  to  tell  materially  on  the;  general 
produce  of  the  country.  From  the  subdivision  of  the 
land  among  all  the  families  of  Israel,  and  the  pains 
taken  to  secure  the  perpetuity  of  heritages,  the  farms 
must,  for  the  most  part,  have  been  small,  and  particular 
fields  could  seldom  exceed  a  few  acres.  Names  occa 
sionally  occur  in  history — those,  for  example,  of  Ijoaz 
and  Barzillai  — who  had  comparatively  large  possessions, 
and  a  considerable  number  of  persons  in  their  employ  ; 


but  such  instances  must  have  been  rare  ;  and  the  larue 
proportion  of  lands  in  cultivation  were  undoubtedly 
such  as  a  single  family,  with  the  aid  of  a  hired  servant 
or  two,  could  conveniently  manage.  We  are  led  te.  ex 
pect,  therefore,  that  the  mode  of  cultivation  would  be 
simple,  and  that  no  approach  would  be  made  to  the 
scientific  skill  which  the  energy  of  the  European  mind 
has  introduced  inte>  the  implements  and  uvm  nil  re 
sources  of  husbandry. 

Such,  certainly,  is  the  case.  The  farming  imple 
ments  which  were  anciently  used  in  Syria  and  the  East, 
and  svhich.  indeed,  have  retained  their  place  to  the  pre 
sent  day.  are  of  a  comparatively  rude  description.  It 
is  to  the  monuments  of  Egypt  that  we  are  chiefly  in 
debted  for  our  representations  of  these;  but,  as  Kgvpt 
stooel  at  the  head  of  the  ancient  worM  in  agricultural 
matters,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that,  for  the 
districts  of  Syria  and  the  Mast,  the  same  representations 
are  eejvally  suitable-.  No.  ii  exhibits  prebablv  one  of 


tin1  most  improved  ]>l»u>jh&  of  those-  times,  as  it  has 
both  a  well-pointed  share,  and  a  plough- tail  with  two 
handles,  though  these'  are  certainly  not  adjusted  so  as 
to  give  the  ploughman  much  command  over  the  share. 
l'le.ii'_dis  of  simpler  construction  were  ne>  doubt  then  in 
use-,  as  they  are  eve-n  now.  in  various  parts  of  Asia. 
Sir  ( '.  Fellows,  in  his  Excursion  in  Ax/a  Min<>r,  gives 
a  representation  of  the-  plough  that  he?  found  used  in 
.Mvsia.  in  ls:Js,  with  its  several  parts  and  accompani 
ments  (No.  KM.  "This  pie. ugh."  h'-  says,  "is  very 


[10  1        rieiu;;li.     I'VlldWS1  Asia  Mine 


simple,  and  seems  only  suiteel  to  the  light  soil  which 
prevails  here.  It  is  held  by  one  hand  only.  The  shape 
of  the  share  varies,  and  the:  plough  is  frequently  used 
without  any.  It  is  drawn  by  two  oxen,  yoked  from 
the  pole,  and  guided  by  a  long  reed  or  thin  stick,  which 
has  a  spade  or  scraper  feir  cleaning  the  share.''  Ploughs 
of  this  description  appear  often  te.  have  be-en  made  of 
the  trunk  eif  a  young  tree,  which  had  twe>  branches 
running  in  opposite  directions,  the  trunk  serving  for 
the  pole;  and  of  the  two  branches,  one.  rising  upwards, 


AGRICULTURE 


44 


AGRICULTURE 


the   < 

or  iron,  entered   the  ground,    an 
]>ut  most  commonly  the  several 


the  shai 


Thev 


separate  pieces  ol  timber,  and  joined  together. 
appear  always,  however,  to  have  been  of  very  imperfect 
construction,  and  in  Palestine  ami  the  adjoining  coun 
tries  were  almost  invariably  drawn  bv  oxen.  Such  is 
the  general  practice  also  in  the  present  day,  though 
occasionally  camels  and  asses  are  employed  in  the  ser 
in  Scripture,  nor  is  there 


ithcr,  covered  with  bron/o  '  practice  of  pulling  up  by  the  roots,  instead  of  cnttiii" 
the  corn,  also  prevailed  to  a  considerable  extent  in 
ancient  times.  The  corn  seldom  yields  so  much  straw 
as  in  this  country,  and  pulling  is  resorted  to  in  order  to 
obtain  a  larger  supply  of  fodder.  Maundrell  thus  de 
scribes  the  practice  as  he  noticed  it  in  1<i!»7:  —"All 
that  occurred  to  us  new  in  these  days'  travel  was  a  par 
ticular  way  used  by  the  country  people  in  gathering 
their  corn,  it  being  now  harvest  time.  They  plucked  it 
up  by  handfuls  from  the  roots,  leaving  the  most  fruitful 
fields  as  naked  as  if  nothing  had  ever  L.TOWII  on  them. 
This  was  their  practice  in  all  the  places  of  the  East  that 


in  Italy,  to  plough  in  |  I  have  seen ;  and  the  reason  is,  that  they  may  1< 


anything  on  the   ancient  monuments  corre 


It  seems  to  have  been  common  in 


,-d,   care  having  first  been  taken,   after  the  first 


11).  It  is  known  that  the  elder  Roman 
writers  considered  harrowing  after  sowing  a  proof  of 
bad  husbandry  (Coliua.  ii.  -1  ;  Pliny,  11.  A',  xviii.  20). 
The  lighter  form  of  the  ancient  and  eastern  plough, 
which  a  man  can  easily  lift  in  his  hand,  also  suited  this 
method  better  than  the  heavier  ploughs  which  are  used 
in  this  country.  The  yuails  used  in  Palestine,  in  earlier 
as  well  as  later  times,  appear  to  have  been  somewhat 
larger  than  the  one  represented  in  the  woodcut.  Maun- 
drell,  in  his  Travels,  tells  us  that  he  found  them  about 
eight  feet  long,  tipped  at  the  smaller  end  with  a  sharp 
point ;  while  the  larger,  which  was  about  six  inches  in 


if  their  straw,  which  is 
very  short,  and  necessary  for  the  sus 
tenance  of  their  cattle,  no  hav  being 
here  made.  I  mention  this."  he  adds, 
"because  it  seems  to  give  light  to 
that  expression  of  the  Psalms,  cxxix.  (;, 
'which  withereth  before  it  be  plucked 
up,'  where  there  seems  to  be  a  mani 
fest  allusion  to  the  custom.''  This 
undoubtedly  is  the;  correct  meaning 
of  the  expression  ;  and  the  real  allu 
sion  is  lost  sight  of  by  the  rendering 
in  the  authorized  version,  "before  it 
groweth  up.''  It  grows,  but  withers 
before;  the  plucking  time  comes:  an 
emblem  of  the  premature  decay  and  fruitlessness  of  the 


The  tln-asltiiifj  of  the  corn  partook,  and  in  Syria  still 
partakes,  of  the  same  rude  and  simple  style  of  operation 
which  characterizes  the  general  husbandry  of  the  East. 
The  sheaves  were  carried  straight  from  the  field,  either 
in  carts,  or,  as  more  commonly  happens  in  the  present 
day,  on  the  backs  of  camels  and  asses,  to  the  thrashing- 
floor.  What  was  used  for  this  purpose  was  some  open 
and  elevated  spot,  where  there  was  a  free  circulation  of 
air,  formed  into  a  circular  shape,  and  pounded  or  beaten 
into  a  hard  consistence.  On  this  open  space  the  sheaves 
were  spread  out,  and  sometimes  beaten  with  flails— a 
method  practised  especially  with  the  lighter  kinds  of 
grain,  such  as  fitches  or  cummin,  Is.  xxviii.  27 — but  more 
generally  by  means  of  oxen.  For  this  purpose  the  oxen 
we iv  yoked  side  by  side,  and  driven  round  over  the  corn, 


[12.]       Egyptians  Reaping.— lloselliui. 

circumference,  had  an  iron  spade  or  paddle.  One  can 
easily  understand  how  such  a  weapon  might  do  execution 
in  more  important  labour  than  that  of  urging  oxen  in  the 
plough,  as  Shamgar  is  reported  to  have  killed  six  hun 
dred  Philistines  with  one  of  them,  Ju.  iii.  31. 

/iaijiiii'/  in  .Palestine  was  frequently  done  by  the 
sickle,  to  which  reference  is  occasionally  made  in  Scrip 
ture.  But  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  modem 


[13.]    Pulling  Corn  and  Binding  Sheaves.  -Description  de  1'Kgypte. 

by  a  man  who  superintended  the  operation,  so  as  to  sub 
ject  the  entire  mass  to  a  sufficient  pressure,  as  shown  in 
No.  14:  or  the  oxen  were  yoked  to  a  sort  of  machine 
(what  the  Latins  called  trilnihun  or  tntJica),  which 
consisted  of  a  board  or  block  of  wood,  Avith  bits  of 
stone  or  pieces  of  iron  fastened  into  the  lower  surface 
to  make  it  rough,  and  rendered  heavy  by  some  weight, 
such  as  the  person  of  the  driver,  placed  on  it;  this  was 


AGRICULTURE 


AGRICULTURE 


dragged  over  the   corn,    and   hastened  the  operation. 
Is.  xxviii.  27 ;  xii.  15.     The  same  practices  are  still  followed. 


of  oxen,  but  very  rarely.      Dr.  Robinson  describes  tho 
operation  as  ho  witnessed  it  near  Jericho : — "  Here  there 


only  mules  and  horses  are  occasionally  employed  instead  ;  were  no  less  than  five  floors,  all  trodden  by  oxen,  cows, 


lli.l        Treadins  out  tho  Corn  with  Ox-n. -Wilkinson. 


and  younger  cattle,  arranged  in  eaeli  case  live  abreast.  | 
and  driven  round  in  a  circle,  or  rather  in  all  directions, 
over  the  floor.  The  sled  or  sledge  is  not  here  in  use. 
though  we  afterwards  met  with  it  in  the  north  of  Pales 
tine.  P>y  this  process  the  straw  is  broken  up  and 
becomes  chuff.  It  is  occasionally  turned  with  a  larure 
\\oodeii  fork,  having  two  prongs  ;  and,  when  sufficiently 
trodden,  is  thrown  up  with  the  same  fork  against  the 
wind,  in  order  to  separate  the  <_frain. 
•which  is  then  gathered  up  and  winnowed. 
''The  \\hole  process,"  he  adds,  "is  exceed 
ingly  wasti  ful,  from  the  transportation  of 
the  corn  on  the  backs  of  animals  to  the 
treading  out  upon  the  bare  ground"  (vol. 
ii.  j).  '111).  During  this  operation  the 
Mahometans,  it  seems,  generally  observe 
the  ancient  precept  of  not  muzzling  the 
ox  while  he  treadeth  out  the  corn:  but 
the  Greek  Christians  as  commonly  ki  >  [> 
them  tiiditly  muzzled. 

Two  thrashing  instruments,  still  used  in 
Asia  Minor,  are  exhibited  in  No.  lf>.  One 
of  them  exactly  resembles  the  ancient  tri- 
Indiun.  It  consists  of  two  stout  boards  firm-  JK, 

Iv  joined  together  at  a  convenient  angle; 
the  under  side  of  the  one  that  rests  on  the  ground 
being  set  full  of  sharp  flints  or  agates.  To  this 
machine  the  animals  are  yoked  by  means  of  ropes. 
The  other  is  simply  a  roller  formed  of  the  trunk  of  a 
tree,  with  a  pole  to  which  the  animals  are  attached. 
The  roller  is  merely  dragged  over  the  irruin.  without 


The  wtnncviincf,  it  may  also  lie  noted,  went  along 
with  the  thrashing.  As,  from  time  to  time,  the  mass  of 
chaif,  straw,  and  corn  was  tossed  up  with  tin:  pitchfork, 
the  lighter  particles  were  curried  awav  bv  the  \\ind; 
and  when  the  wind  was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  ell'ect 
the  separation,  a  winnowing-shovel  (TTTVOV)  was  em 
ployed  to  throw  it  more  forward  against  the  wind,  and 
create  an  additional  ventilation  (No.  17).  .I'v  this 


" 


Thrashing  Instruments  of  Asia  Minor.— Fellows. 


revolving ;  the  driver  occasionally  sitting  on  it  to  in 
crease  its  weight. 

In  the  Egyptian  sledge  or  wain,  represented  in  No. 
Ki.  the  sledge,  it  will  be  observed,  was  fixed  upon  a 
few  wooden  rollers,  which  were  armed  with  iron  rings, 
and  sometimes  also  serrated  edges,  for  the  purpose  of 
chopping  the  straw  and  bruising  out  the  corn. 


Thruslun;,'  « ith  tho  Slotlge.     L'Univera  rittoresciue. 

means  the  heavier  particles  fell  by  themselves  at  a 
shorter  distance  from  the  winnower.  It  is  this  part  of 
the  process  that  is  referred  to  by  John  the  Jiaptist, 
when,  speaking  of  the  spiritual  purification  to  lie  ef 
fected  bv  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  he  said,  ''  Whose 
winnowing-shovel  [so  it  should  be,  not  fan — TTTI'IOV]  is 
in  his  hand,  and  he  will  thoroughly  purge  his  floor," 
Mat.  iii.  I'-'.  In  addition  to  thc^e  winnowing  processes,  a 
sieve  was  also  employed  to  separate  the  corn,  not  so 
much  from  the  chaff,  as  from  the  earthy  and  other  fc  > reign 
ingredients  that  mi'j'ht  be  mixed  with  it.  Reference  is 
made  to  this,  Am.K  !i,  when  the  Lord  says,  '•  I  will 
command,  and  I  will  sift  the  house  of  Israel  among  all 
nations,  like  as  corn  is  sifted  in  a  sieve,  yet  shall  not 
the  least  grain  fall  to  the  earth" — the  earthy  and 
heavier  portions  being,  in  this  operation,  the  particles 
to  be  detached  by  falling  through;  and  since  no  grain, 
in  the  figure  hero  employed,  was  to  be  allowed  to  fall 
to  the  earth,  it  was  in  eif'ect  to  say  that  all  should  lie 
preserved.  Our  Lord  also  refers  to  the  same  operation 
when  he  says  to  Peter,  "Simon,  Simon,  behold  Satan 
hath  desired  to  have  you,  that  he  may  sift  you  as  wheat," 
Lu.  xxii.  31. 

It  is  manifest   that,  where  fields  of  any  extent  were 
in  cultivation,  these  thrashing  and  winnowing  processes 


AGRICULTURE 


40 


A  HAP, 


must  have  taken  a  considerable  time,  ami  the  owners 
would  coiise<|uentlv  need  to  keep  eareful  watch  over 
their  thrashing-floors  till  the  whole  was  finished.  Espe 
cially  would  this  need  to  be  done  where  hostile  tribes 


or  wandering  Araks  were  in  the  neighbourhood.  Ac 
cordingly,  we  find  Dr.  Robinson  stating,  respecting  the 
thrashing-floors  around  Hebron,  and  in  the  region  of 
Caza,  that  the  osvners  came  every  nil/lit  and  slept  on 
them,  as  a  security  against  law  less  depredations.  "We 
were,"'  lit:  says,  "in  the  midst  of  scenes  precisely  like 
those  of  the  book  of  Ruth;  where  Boaz  winnowed  bar 
ley  in  his  thrashing-floor,  and  laid  himself  down  at 
night  to  guard  the  heap  of  corn"  (vol.  ii.  p.  446). 

The  grain  thus  thrashed  and  winnowed — the  crop  of 
the  season — was  laid  up  in  granaries,  whence  it  was 
taken  to  be  sold  or  used,  as  occasion  required.  No.  18 
represents  the  storing  of  corn  in  Egypt,  where,  from 
early  times,  it  is  known  to  have  been  largely  practised. 


(18.1        Vaulted  Granaries. -Wilkinson. 

Reference  is  frequently  made  to  it  also  in  Scripture, 
but  without  any  distinct  indication  of  the  kind  of  places 
employed  for  the  purpose — except  that  from  1  icing 
familiarly  called  barns,  it  may  be  inferred  buildings  of 
some  sort  were  usually  adopted,  Do.  xxviii.  S;  rr.  iii.  io; 
Mat.  vi.  20;  xiii.  30;  Lu  xii.  18.  Subterranean  grottoes  or 
cellars  are  known  to  be  largely  employed  now  for  this 
purpose  in  some  places  in  the  East  (Russell's  Aleppo,  i. 
77) ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  Scripture  to  indicate  the 
existence  among  the  Israelites  of  granaries  of  that  de 
scription.  That,  in  the  better  periods  of  Israel's  history. 
grain  was  produced  in  very  considerable  quantities — 
notwithstanding  the  imperfection  in  the  implements 


and  the  arts  of  husbandry  admits  of  no  doubt.  Many 
notices,  both  in  profane  and  sacred  writers,  show  that 
Palestine  was  long  distinguished  as  a  grain  country  ; 
and  the  remains  of  terrac.es  constructed  along  the  sides 
of  mountains,  on  a  basis  of  mason- work,  for  the  purpose 
of  retaining  the  soil,  and  rendering  them  capable  of 
bearing  a  crop,  still  attest  the  spirit  of  enterprise  and 
activity  which  at  one  time  characterized  the  agricultur 
ists  of  Palestine.  That  the  country  now  lies  in  such 
comparative  barrenness  and  desolation  is  a  witness, 
more  immediately,  of  the  arbitrariness  and  abuse  of 
Turkish  misrule,  and  remotely  of  the  judgment  of 
Heaven  on  the  sin  and  apostasy  of  those  who  caused 
the  Lord  to  turn  against  them  and  become  their  enemy. 
That  better  times  are  in  store  for  the  land  may  justly 
be  anticipated  ;  but  that  it  will  ever  be  a  very  favour 
able  region  fur  the  exercise  of  agricultural  skill,  and 
the  raising  of  agricultural  produce,  in  the  sense  now 
understood  regarding  such  things  in  the  more  fertile 
and  industrial  countries  of  the  world,  is  against  all 
probability.  The  climate  and  the  soil  of  Palestine  are 
alike  hustile  to  such  an  expectation  ;  even,  in  the  mo-t 
favourable  circumstances,  the  most  that  can  be  looked 
for  is  an  improved  mode  of  cultivation,  and  a  certain 
moderate  decree  of  fruitfulness. 

AGRIFPA.      See  1 1  ERODIAS  F.VM  1 1.V. 
A'GUR,,  a  word  of  unknown  import,  and  the  name 
of  a  teacher,  otherwise  also  unknown,  whose   words, 
addressed  to  Ithiel  and  Teal  (most  probably  his  pupils!, 
form  the  thirtieth   chapter  (if    the  book  of   Proverbs. 
Many  conjectures  have  been  formed  in  regard  to  the 
name — some  identifying  it  with   Solomon,  and  many 
explanations  given  of  the  insertion  of  the  words  of  this 
chapter  under  that  name;  but,    as  nothing  has   been 
certainly  ascertained,  it  is  needless  to  recount  what  has 
been   attempted.       The   chapter  itself  con 
tains  a  fresh  collection  of  proverbial   utter 
ances,  much  in  the  style  of  Solomon's  :  and 
they  are  called  massa,  not  strictly  prophecy, 
as  in  the  authorized  version,  but  burden,  or 
weighty  deliverance,  probably  because  of  the 
important  matter  they  contained,  or  because 
of  the  heavy  issues  that,  to  a  certain  extent, 
were  wrapped  up  in  them.    The  word  is  often 
used  to  designate  the  message  of  a  prophet, 
but   only  when   the   message   delivered   was 
predominantly  of  a  severe  nature,  fraught 
in  some  respect  with  heavy  tidings ;  so  that 
it  was  not  so  properly  the  prospective  import 
of  the  words  spoken — the  predictive  element 
in  them— -as  that  which  gave  them  a  weighty 
and    judicial    aspect,    on   account  of   which 
they  were  termed  a  matna.      The  same  name 
on  another,  but  quite  parallel  ground,  is  here 
applied  to  the  utterances  of  Agur. 

A'HAB  [brother  of  father],  the  son  and  successor  of 
Omri,  himself  the  seventh  king  of  Israel  as  a  separate 
kingdom,  reigning  from  about  91$  to  897  before  Christ, 
twenty -one  years  and  some  months.  The  name  of 
Ahab  is  in  some  respects  the  blackest  in  the  whole  list 
of  Israelitish  monarchs;  it  bears  upon  it  the  darkest 
stain  of  infamy.  Jeroboam,  indeed,  had  the  bad  pre 
eminence  of  beginning  the  course  of  idolatrous  defection 
from  the  true  worship  of  Jehovah;  he  was  emphatically 
"  the  man  who  made  Israel  to  sin;"  but  the  still  worse 
pre-eminence  belongs  to  Ahab  of  having  turned  what 
was  but  a  tendency  in  Jeroboam's  policy  into  a  grievous 


AHAB 


AHASUERU.S 


reality,  of  proceeding  from  a  corruption  in  worship  to 
the  worship  of  corruption  itself.  For  thus  the  sacred 
historian  draws  the  distinction  between  Ahab  and  the 
other  kings  of  Israel: — "  He  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord  above  all  that  were  before  him.  And  it  came  to 
pass,  as  if  it  had  been  a  light  thing  for  him  to  walk  in 
the  sins  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Xebat,  that  he  took  to 
wife  .Jezebel,  the  (laughter  of  Ethbaal,  king  of  the 
Zidonians,  and  went  and  served  Baal,  and  worshipped 
him.  And  he  reared  up  an  altar  for  Baal  in  the  house 
of  Baal,  which  he  built  in  Samaria,"  i  Ki.  xvi.  30-3.'.  The 
tiling  in  which  Ahab,  under  the  influence  of  his  heathen 
wife,  went  so  far  beyond  his  predecessors  in  iniquity 
was,  his  openly  establishing  the  worship  of  Baal,  and 
consecrating,  as  we  afterwards  learn,  400  priests  for 
this  false  worship,  while  the  priests  and  prophets  of 
Jehovah  were  cut  oft',  iKi.  \\iii.  Nothing  so  flagrant  as 
tins  had  been  done  before.  The  sin  nf  Jeroboam  and 
his  ii'imediate  followers  consisted  in  corrupting  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  by  setting  up  images  in  Dan  and 
Bethel,  which,  indeed,  was  so  cxpivssly  contrary  to  the 
law  of  Muses  ainl  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
theocratic  constitution,  that  it  is  often  branded  us  idola 
try  and  heathenism.  Even  Jeroboam  himself  was 
ch.ir.vd  bv  the  prophet  Alii j ah  with  haviir_r  "  gone  and 
made  him  other  gods  and  molten  imaires  to  provoke 
the  Lord  to  anger,"  IKi  xiv.9.  Apparently  this  is  at  the 
outset  the  very  sin  of  Ahab  the  worship  of  other  L'»ds 
besides  Jehovah.  But  it  was  not  so  in  reality.  Jero- 
bo;im  and  his  ;idlieivnts  did  not  intend  to  set  up  another 
object  of  worship  than  Jehovah,  but  they  so  depraved 
tin-  worship,  and  t,rave  such  false  representations  of  his 
character  and  service  that  Jle  refused  to  own  it:  it  was 
not  He  they  worshipped,  but  other  gods.  They  hail 
excuses  and  sophistical  explanations  by  which  they  en 
deavoured  to  show  that,  while  they  formally  departed 
from  the  ritual  of  Moses  in  some  unimportant  parti 
culars,  they  still  kept  to  the  one  irreat  object  of  worship, 
and  were-  servants  of  the  livinir  God.  In  reference  to 
such  pretexts  it  is  said,  •_'  Ki.  xvii  ;>,  "And  the  children 
of  l.-racl  covered  words  (so  the  exact  rendering  isi  that 
were  not  so.  over  the  Lord  their  God,  and  built  them 
liijli  places,'1  &c.;  that  is,  the\  veiled  the  true  character 
of  their  corruptions  in  worship  bv  false  and  deceitful 
interpretations  of  God's  "Word  and  their  own  procedure, 
much  a<  the  L'omanists  do  now.  And  the  Lord,  strip 
ping  off  this  tliin-y  veil,  disregarding  all  their  vain  ex 
cuses,  charged  ujiiin  them  as  direct  apostasy  and  falling 
of!' tn  heath,  •nism  what  was  substantially  of  that  descrip 
tion,  though  formally  it  was  different.  Ahab,  however, 
followed  out  the  tendency  of  Jeroboam's  course  to  it< 
natural  results;  he  did  not  sin  by  halves,  like  his  pre 
decessors,  but,  casting  oft'  all  disguises  and  restraints, 
lie  openly  set  up  the  worship  of  Baal,  as  if  Baal  and 
Jehovah  were  but  one  (rod,  or  Jehovah,  in  so  far  as  he 
was  different,  were  to  have  his  claims  disallowed.  And 
this,  of  course,  involved  the  further  step  of  giving  up 
all  that  was  peculiar  in  the  worship  of  God-  the  dis 
continuance  of  the  stated  feasts,  the  substitution  of 
heathenish  for  the  Levitieal  rites  of  sacrifice,  and  the 
introduction  of  many  foul  abominations.  It  was  Jeze 
bel,  rather  than  Ahab,  who  was  the  active  agent  in 
bringing  about  this  religious  revolution;  his  guilt  con 
sisted  in  weakly  allowing  himself  to  be  led  by  the  will 
of  a  corrupt  and  imperious  woman  to  subvert  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  constitution  he  was  bound  to  uphold.  We 
read  of  moments  of  relenting  on  his  part,  and  occasions. 


when  better  impulses  prevailed  over  his  spirit,  but  none 
in  hers;  she  "strengthened  herself  in  her  wickedness.'' 
But  a  stronger  than  both  mingled  in  the  conflict;  and 
not  only  did  the  brave,  dauntless,  single  handed  Elijah 
stand  his  ground  against  all  their  machinations,  but  he 
was  enabled  also,  by  the  special  help  vouchsafed  to  him 
from  above,  to  pour  confusion  on  their  policy,  to  pro 
cure  the  destruction  of  Baal's  worshippers,  and  fear 
lessly  pronounce  the  doom  of  Ahab  and  Jex.ebel  them 
selves,  as  destined  to  a  violent  and  ignominious  end. 
Even  before  this  end  was  readied,  Ahab  and  his  part 
ner  had  practically  to  own  themselves  vanquished  ;  for 
the  purpose  they  had  formed  to  supplant  the  worship 
of  Jehovah  by  that  of  Baal  was  ultimately  resiled  from: 
the  stern  witness-bearing  of  Elijah  and  of  the  faithful 
remnant  that  adhered  to  him,  seconded,  as  it  was,  by 
the  appalling  judgments  of  Heaven,  held  the  impious 
monarch  in  cheek,  and  won  for  the  worshippers  of  Je 
hovah  a  freedom  and  security  in  their  obedience  to  the 
covenant  which  was  denied  them  at  the  outset.  The 
terrible  fate,  too,  of  Ahab  and  his  wife,  both  of  them 
slain,  as  Elijah  had  foretold,  and  their  blood  licked  by 
dogs  on  the  field  which  their  wickedness  ha  1  imbrued 
with  the  blood  of  the  guiltless,  read  a  salutary  lesson 
t<>  future  times:  so  that  the  worship  of  Baal  was  never 
a'_rain  So  openly  practised  and  so  fiercely  prosecuted. 
It  <till.  however,  covertly  held  its  place:  and.  from  the 
references  in  the  later  prophets,  n,,  ii.io,  "  It  shall  be 
at  that  day.  saith  the  Lord,  thoti  shalt  call  me  Ishi 
[/////  ltn.Ji<iit(l\,  and  shall  call  me  no  more  Baali  [mt/ 
/-'<"(/]."  Am  v.  -.'.-i-^r;  /ec.  \i;i  L>,  it  appears  that  in  the  reli 
gion  which  commonly  prevailed  there  was  a  recognition 
of  Baal  as  well  as  of  Jehovah.  The  people,  it  would 
seem,  formed  a  sort  of  compromise  between  the  two, 
abandoned  the  exclusiveness  of  the,  true  worship,  and 
only  regarded  the  religion  of  the  old  covenant  as  one 
form  of  the  honia'jv  that  miidit  be  paid  to  the  (iod  of 
heaven,  while  Baal's  was  another.  Thus  practically 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  was  made  to  shake  hands  with 
heathenism  :  and  the  leaven  introduced  by  Ahab  and 
his  guilty  partner  was  never  wholly  pur^'-d  out,  till  the 
dissolution  of  the  kingdom  scattered  to  the  winds  all 
the  ha>e  compromises  and  attendant  corruptions  which 
had  so  long  held  their  place  against  every  warning  and 
remonstrance.  (>'"'  J  K/KI:I:I..  KU.IAH.I 

2.  AHA]:,  son  of  Kolaiah,  a  false  prophet,  who,  along 
with  another  of  the  name  of  /edekiah,  uttered  pre 
dictions  that  Were  fitted  to  deceive  the  Babylonian 
exiles,  Jc  xxix.'Jl.  Jeremiah  wrote  a  letter  to  the  chil 
dren  of  the  captivity,  partly  to  warn  them  against 
giving  heed  to  the  predictions  thus  addressed  to  them, 
because  they  were  false,  and  denouncing  the  judgment 
of  Jleaven  against  those  who  uttered  them,  <-h.  xxix  4-'.'.'i. 

AHASUE'RUS,  according  to  the  Hebrew  A hash- 
rcri'is/i,  of  which  many  modifications  and  not  a  few 
derivations  have  been  produced.  It  is  needless  to  give 
more  than  the  last,  also  probably  the  most  correct,  from 
Gesenius  —"The  true  orthography  of  the  name  has 
come  to  light  of  late  from  what  is  called  the  cuneiform 
writing,  in  which  it  is  written  Kksliyarsha  or  Khshwcr- 
shc.  This  appears  to  be  an  old  and  harsher  form  of  the 
Persian  word  for  lini-kin'i.  In  imitation  of  this  harsher 
form,  the  Greeks  formed  the  word  Xt.rxcs;  the  Hebrews, 
by  prefixing  aleph  prosthetic,  made  Akhushwcrosh.  In 
stead  of  the  letters  of  softer  pronunciation,  s  and  sh, 
which  the  modern  Persians  use,  the  ancients  enunciated 
much  harsher  sounds."  The  Syriac  version  writes  it 


AHASUERUS  48 

Ac/ts/tircsli,  Mul  the  Septuagint '  A(r<70i;i7/>os.     The  name 
occurs   three   times   in  Scripture;  first,   in  ]  >a.   ix.    ], 
where  it  is  said,  that  "  Darius,  the  son  of  Ahasuerus,  oi 
the  seed  of  the  .Modus,  was  made  king  over  thu  (.'lial 
deans;"  again  in  Kzr.  iv.  (i,  where  the  adversaries  of  tilt 
returned  Jews  are  represented  as  writing  an  accusation 
against  them  in  the  reign  of  Ahasuerus  ;  and  lastly,  in 
the  hook  of  Ksther,  in  which  Ahasuerus  is  inven  as  the 
name   of  the  great    iMedo-  Persian    king    who    reigned 
from  India  unto  Ethiopia,  and  who,  in  a  freak  of  vanity 
and  caprice,  put   away    his   queen   Vashti  aTid   married 
the  Jewess    Esther.      It   is   impossible    that   the   three 
persons   thus   successively   designated    by   the   name   of 
Ahasuerus  can  have   been   the   same;   indeed,  it  seems 
next  to  certain  that  the  whole  three  were  different.    He 
who  was  the  father  of  the  person  designated  in  Daniel 
Dariua  the  Mede,  whether  he  might  be  alive  or  dead  at 
the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Babylon,  was  not,  at  least, 
recognized  a:;  king  over  the  Chaldeans,  and  could  not 
have  been    the  Ahasuerus   to  whom,  some   years  after 
wards,  the  adversaries  presented  their  accusation  against 
the  returned  Jews;  and  the  events  recorded  in  the  book 
of  Esther  belong  so  manifestly  to  a  period  considerably 
posterior  to  that  of  the  return  from  Babylon,  that  the 
Ahasuerus  there  mentioned  cannot,  with  the  least  show 
of  probability,   be  identified    with  either  of  the  other 
two.     The  only  question    of    any    moment  connected 
with  them  is,    What  names  in  profane  history  corre 
spond  with  thu  one  thus  variously  applied  in  Scripture'? 
"Who,  in  the  Medo- Persian  dynasty,  are  to  be   under 
stood  as  answering  to  the  first,  to  the  second,  and  to 
the  third  Ahasuerus  of  sacred  history?     The  question 
has   been  variously  answered,  and  even  in  the  latest 
investigations  is  still  receiving  different  solutions,  for 
which  the  tangled  web  of  Greek  Persian  history  (full  of 
apparent  or  real  inconsistencies),  and  the  attempted  de 
cipherings  of  the  Assyrian    inscriptions,   afford  ample 
scope.      The  subject  is  encompassed  with  too  much  of 
the  conjectural  and  the  uncertain  to  render  it  advisable, 
or  even  practicable    within   any  reasonable   hounds,   to 
present  an  outline  of  the  manifold   explanations  and 
adjustments  that  have  been  resorted  to.      As  matters 
yet  stand  it  is  needless  to  go  beyond  a  statement  of 
what  seem  the  greater  probabilities  of  the  case.      It  is 
probable,  in  regard  to  the  word  itself   (AhashvciM::h. 
Khshyarsha,  or  Xerxes),  that,  somewhat  like  the  Pha 
raoh  of  Egypt,  the  Abimelech  of  the  Philistines,  &c., 
it  had  an  appellative  import,   and  may  consequently 
have  been  applied  by  foreigners  as  a  proper  name  to 
several  individual  kings,  whose  special  names  and  char 
acteristics  were    but    partially  known    at    a   distance. 
But,  as  regards  the  three  applications  found  of  it  in 
Scripture,  it  is  probable  that  the  first  named,  the  father 
of  the  Median  -Darius,   was  the  Astyages  of  profane 
history   (Astyages,   Cyaxares,   and  Ahashverosh  being 
but  different  names  of  the  same  person,  or  forms  of  the 
same  name);  that  the  second,  who  appears  in  Ezra  as 
the  successor  of  Cyrus,  is  the  vain,  arbitrary,  and  hair- 
brained  Cambyses;  and  that  the  third,  the  equally  ca 
pricious  and  luxurious  husband  of  Vashti  and  Ksther, 
the  lordly  monarch  of  all  the  countries  lying  between 
India  and  Ethiopia,  the  magnificent  banquet-master, 
who  entertained  his  nobles  and  princes  for  an  hundred 
and  fourscore  days,    showing   them  the  riches  of   his 
glorious  kingdom  and  the  honour  of  his  excellent  ma 
jesty—that  this  was  no  other  than  the  Xerxes  so  cele 
brated  in  Grecian  history  for  his  pomp  and  luxury,  his 


AHAZ 


countless  retinue  of  servants  and  soldiers,  and  almost 
incredible  displays  of  passion  and  of  pleasure.  The 
probable  period  and  the  apparent  circumstances  of  the 
time  accord  best  with  those  of  his  reign;  and  the  at 
tempts  which  have  been  made  to  associate  the  events 
narrated  in  .Esther  with  Artaxerxes  Longimanus  or 
Darius  Ilystaspes  have  never  succeeded  in  obtaining 
general  credit.  Some  historical  points  of  a  collateral 
nature  will  lie  touched  upon  in  connection  with  ESTHKK, 
the  DARIUS  who  became  master  of  Babylon,  CYRUS 
the  author  of  the  decree  for  the  restoration  of  the  Jews. 
and  the  Jew  MORIH'.CAI,  who  rendered  such  important 
services,  first  to  the  king  of  Persia,  and  then  to  his  own 
countrymen  when  their  lives  were  sought  to  gratify  the 
cruel  ambition  of  Hainan. 

The  AIIASUKKUS  mentioned  in  Tobit  xiv.  ~[~i,  in  con 
nection  with  the  destruction  of  Nineveh,  must  be  un 
derstood  to  be  the  same  that  is  mentioned  in  J)a.  ix.  1, 
the  Astyages  or  Cyaxares  already  referred  to  of  profane 
history. 

AHA'VA  [derivation  and  meaning  uncertain],  a  river 
beside  which  the  Jewish  exiles  who  accompanied  Ezra 
from  Babylon  assembled,  and  from  which  they  set  out 
together  on  their  march  to  Jerusalem.  It  is  both  called 
the  river  Ahava  and  the  river  that  runs  to  Ahava, 
Kzr.  viii.  if>,  31.  The  conjectures  that  have  been  made 
respecting  the  precise  stream  and  place  meant  have 
attained  to  no  certainty.  In  all  probability  it  was  one 
of  the  smaller  rivers  that  flowed  into  the  Euphrates  in 
the  direction  nearest  to  Palestine. 

A'HAZ  [possessor],  son  and  successor  of  Jotham. 
the  eleventh  king  of  Judah,  who  reigned  for  sixteen 
years.  Apparently  some  error  has  crept  into  the  text 
of  '2  Ki.  xvi.  2,  which  gives  twenty  as  the  age  at  which 
he  ascended  the  throne,  while  his  son  Hezekiah  is  af 
firmed  to  have  been  twenty-five  years  old  when  he  suc 
ceeded  his  father  Ahaz,  rh.  xviii.  2.  Dying,  as  Ahaz  did, 
at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six,  Hezekiah,  according  to 
the  above  statement,  must  have  been  born  to  him  when 
he  was  but  eleven  years  old.  This  is  incredible;  and 
it  is  therefore  probable  that  the  number  twenty-five 
given  by  the  Septuagint,  Syriae,  and  Arabic  versions 
at  the  parallel  passage,  2Ch.  xxviii.  I,  was  really  the  age 
at  which  Ahaz  ascended  the  throne;  so  that  his  death 
would  take  place,  not  in  his  thirty- sixth  but  in  his  forty- 
first  year.  The  notices  given  of  his  conduct  in  sacred 
history  present  him  to  our  view  as  an  extremely  weak, 
hyocritical,  pusillanimous,  and  idolatrous  sovereign. 
His  religi( m  was  such  as  naturally  springs  f n >m  the  fears 
if  guilt  when  guided,  not  by  an  enlightened  knowledge 
of  God,  but  by  the  false  and  gloomy  lights  of  super 
stition.  Departing  from  the  law  of  God,  and  following 
the  perverse  procedure  of  the  kings  of  Syria  and  Israel, 
he  fell  into  many  heathen  abominations,  and  even  made 
his  son  pass  through  the  fire  in  sacrifice,  2Ki.  xvi.3.  In 
his  mistaken  zeal,  also,  for  a  worship  not  authorized  in 
the  law  of  God,  he  caused  an  altar  to  be  made  after  the 
pattern  of  one  he  had  seen  in  Damascus,  and  which, 
no  doubt,  was  of  a  more  ornate  description  than  the 
brazen  altar  made  after  the  pattern  shown  to  Moses  in 
the  mount,  ver.  10-10.  (Sre  AI.TAK.)  But,  like  all  who 
nave  tried  the  same  wilful  and  superstitious  course,  he 
failed  in  the  go-eat  object  he  had  in  view;  in  the  time 
danger  his  confidence  forsook  him.  Terrified  at  the 
threatening  and  combined  aspect  of  the  kings  of  Syria 
and  Israel,  he  foolishly  resorted  for  aid  to  the  king  of 
Assyria,  and  even  robbed  the  temple  to  pay  for  his 


AHAZIAH 


AH  I 


assistance — thus,  to  get  relief  from  an  immediate  evil, 
from  which,  too,  the  Lord  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  gave 
him  the  assurance  of  a  safe  deliverance,  is.  vii.,  bringing 
his  kingdom  under  tribute  to  the  Assyrian  monarchy. 
The  stem  rebuke  of  the  prophet  for  this  distrust  of 
Jehovah  does  not  seem  to  have  awakened  him  from  his 
dream  of  mingled  worldliness  and  superstition.  He 
died  to  all  appearance  as  he  lived  ;  and  the  kingdom 
was  only  saved — saved  even  then  but  for  a  time — from 
the  consequences  of  his  sinful  and  base  procedure,  by 
the  believing  and  magnanimous  conduct  of  his  son 
Hezekiah. 

AHAZI'AH — properly  AHAZ-JAH,  or  AHAZ-JATIC — 
[whom  the  Lord  prjtsi.issi.s  or  upholds]. —1.  A  king  of 
Israol,  the  son  of  the  idolatrous  and  wicked  Aliab. 
His  brief  history  is  given  in  2  Ki.  i..  together  with 
the  concluding  verses  of  1  Ki.  xxii.  That  such  a 
name  should  have  been  appropriated  to  the  eldest  son 
of  such  p.,  king,  shows  with  how  little  meaning  the 
mo>t  significant  names  were  sometimes  imposed  among 
the  ancient  Israelites,  and  with  how  little  effect  as 
regards  the  character  of  him  who  bore  it;  for  this 
Aha/.iah  trod,  as  far  a-  he  well  could,  in  the  footsteps 
of  his  father  Ahab:  '' he  walked,1'  it  is  said,  "in  the 
way  of  his  father,  and  in  the  way  of  his  mother,  and 
in  tlie  way  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Xehat,  who  made 
Israel  to  sin."  His  reign  only  lasted  two  years;  and. 
in  addition  to  the  general  account  given  of  its  per 
verse  anil  idolatrous  character,  only  two  specific  acts 
are  noticed  respecting  it.  The  first  is  his  joining  with 
Jehoshaphat,  king  of  Judah,  in  a  project  for  building 
ships  of  merchandise  to  trade  to  Tarshish:  but  the 


project   miscarried,    a-;    tli 


were  shattered  bv  a 


tempest  at  K/.ion-gaber.  This  disaster  came,  we  are  told 
in  the  book  of  Chronicles,  more  peculiarly  as  the  judg 
ment  of  Heaven  on  the  king  of  Judah.  for  entering 
into  so  close  an  alliance  with  one  whose  intimacy  he 
ought  to  have  slimmed;  for  a  prophet  of  the  name  of 
Klie/er  prophesied  on  the  occasion  against  Jehoshaphat, 
and  said.  "  Hecause  thou  hast  joined  thyself  with  Aha- 
/.iah.  the  Lord  hath  broken  thy  works,"  ach.xx.  37.  The 
king  of  Judah,  in  consequence,  broke  off  the  alliance, 
and  refused  to  have  any  further  commercial  dealings 
with  Aha/.iah,  iKi.i.  !:>.  The  other  circumstance  parti 
cularly  noticed  in  the  history  of  Ahaziah  is.  his  having 
fallen  down  through  a  lattice  in  the  upper  chamber 
of  his  house,  by  which  he  sustained  very  serious  injury; 
so  that  he  sent  to  inquire  of  Baal-zebub,  the  god  of 
Kkruii.  whether  he  should  recover  from  the  evil.  It 
•was  this  fresh  manifestation  of  the  heathenish  spirit, 
which  had  been  so  awfully  rebuked  in  the  death  of  his 
father  Ahab,  that  again  awoke  into  living  force  the  re 
solute  spirit  of  Elijah.  The  messengers  of  the  king  were 
met  by  the  prophet  on  their  way  to  Ekron,  and  sent 
back  to  their  master  with  the  solemn  charge  and  an 
nouncement,  "  Is  it  not  because  there  is  not  a  god  in 
Israel  that  ye  go  to  inquire  of  Baal-zebub,  the  god  of 
Ekron?  Now,  therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  thou 
shalt  not  come  down  from  that  bed  on  which  thou  art 
gone  up,  but  shalt  surely  die."  The  reception  of  this 
message,  instead  of  humbling  the  king,  and  leading  him 
t'>  seek  in  a  penitent  spirit  after  the  God  of  Israel,  only 
kindled  his  indignation  against  Elijah,  whom  he  readily 
understood  to  have  been  the  author  of  the  communica 
tion,  and  led  to  the  successive  despatch  of  three  com 
panies  of  soldiers,  charged  with  the  commission  of 
bringing  the  prophet  to  Samaria.  Of  these,  the  two 


first  were  consumed  by  fire  from  heaven;  but  on  the 
third  captain  assuming  a  humbler  attitude,  and  not 
commanding,  but  intreating  the  prophet  to  accompany 
him,  Elijah  complied;  and  beside  the  couch  of  Ahaziah 
repeated  afresh  the  word  he  had  at  first  put  into  the 
mouth  of  the  king's  messengers,  declaring  that,  as  Aha 
ziah  had  virtually  disowned  the  existence  of  a  God  in 
Israel,  he  should  not  recover  from  the  illness  under 
which  he  laboured.  And  so  it  proved:  by  severe  acts 
of  righteousness  he  was  made  to  know  that  there  was 
a  God  in  Israel,  to  whom  the  issues  of  life  and  death 
belonged.  And  the  lesson,  though  too  late  in  being 
learned  for  his  own  good,  was  not  altogether  in  vain  for 
his  successors;  for  the  more  rampant  idolatry  that  had 
been  introduced  by  Ahab  and  Jezebel  might  be  said 
to  die  with  Ahaziah — future  kings  on  the  throne  of 
Israel  sinned  after  the  pattern  of  Jeroboam  rather  than 
that  of  Ahab. 

2.  AHAX.IAII,  called  also  AZARTAH,  was  the  son  of 
Jehoram,  king  of  Judah.  He  was  the  nephew  of  the 
former  Ahaziah.  and  probably  was  named  after  him; 
for  his  father  Jehoram  married  a  daughter  of  Ahal>, 
2Ki.viii.is — the  infamous  Athaliah.  ]n  the  book  of 
Kings  he  is  said  to  have  been  twenty-two  years  old 
when  he  began  to  reign;  but,  in  2  Ch.  xxii.  '2,  it  is  made 
fort  >/  and  two — undoubtedly  a  corruption  of  the  text, 
arising  from  the  substitution  of  the  Hebrew  c,  the  let 
ter  for  forty,  instead  of  ;,  which  represents  twenty; 
for  his  father  Jehoram  only  reigned  eight  years,  and 
ascended  the  throne  at  the  aure  of  thirty-two  making 
together  forty.  -jCli.  xxi.  •>;  so  that  Ahaziah  could  by  no 
possibility  be  forty-two  when  he  succeeded  his  father  in 
the  kingdom.  His  reign  was  short  and  unhappy.  In 
the  course  of  the  first  year  of  it  he  went  to  visit  his 
uncle  Joram,  the  son  of  Ahab,  who  had  been  wounded 
by  the  Syrians  at  Ramoth-Gilead;  and  while  there  he 
fell  among  the  victims  of  Jehu's  revolt.  He  was  not 
actually  slain,  indeed,  upon  the  spot,  but  died  presently 
after,  at  Megiddo,  of  the  wounds  he  had  received.  This 
is  distinctly  stated  intlie  book  of  Kings,  -_'Ki.  ix.  L'7,  which 
is  more  full  and  explicit  in  its  account  of  the  circum 
stances  than  the  narrative  in  Chronicles.  In  the  latter 
there  is  some  vagueness:  and  there  appears  also  a  sin 
gular  looseness  and  variety  in  the  application  of  names 
to  this  unfortunate  king.  In  eh.  xxi.  1".  he  is  called 
Jehoahaz;  but  in  eh.  xxii.  2,  the  name  Ahaziah  is  given 
to  him,  on  the  occasion  of  his  ascending  the  throne; 
while  presently,  in  ver.  G  of  the  same  chapter,  he  is  de 
signated  Azariah.  Perhaps  this  variableness  in  respect 
to  the  names  associated  with  him  was  intended  to  be  a 
sort  of  reflection  of  the  outward  weakness  and  insta 
bility  of  his  character  and  government;  but,  as  to  the 
formal  ground  of  it,  it  has  its  explanation  in  the  sub 
stantial  agreement  of  all  the  names  referred  to.  They 
are  but  different  modes  of  expression  for  the  same  idea; 
AHA/.IAH  means  the  possessed,  or  upknldi.n  by  the  Lord; 
AZARIAH,  the  helped  of  the  Lord ;  and  JEHOAHAZ  is 
merely  a  transposition  of  the  two  words  of  which 
Ahaziah  is  composed  —  Ahaz  and  Jab.  or  Jehovah. 
Like  the  other,  it  points  to  the  Lord's  holding  fast; 
but,  alas!  from  the  want  of  right  principle  in  the  man, 
tlie  name,  in  all  its  forms,  was  like  a  satire  on  the 
reality:  instability,  not  holding  fast,  abandoned  to  his 
enemies,  not  possessed  by  the  Lord,  was  the  motto 
that  might  fitly  have  been  written  over  his  histoiy. 

A'HI  [brother]  occurs  once,  by  itself,  as  the  name  of 
an  individual,  ich.  vii .  s>;  but  more  frequently  it  has 


AllIJAH 


AIIIO 


another  term  appended  to  it.  asj«A,  Lord;  ion,  mother: 
azc.r,  hol]>;  lti«l.  Jew;  liiuJ,  junction  or  union;  examples 
of  which,  and  various  other  compounds  of  AMI,  arc  to 
lu:  found  among  the  names  of  Old  Testament  scripture; 
hut  we  notice,  onlv  those  of  whom  any  particular  inci 
dent-;  are  recorded. 

AHI'JAH,  or  Alil'Ail  [brother  of  the.  L»nl\.  ap 
pears  to  liave  heen  a  name  in  frequent  uso  amon<j  '''•• 
Jews,  as  examples  occur  of  a  consideralile  number  of 
persons  to  whom  it  is  applied,  i  Ch.  viii.  7;xi.  36;  xxvi.  20,  &e. 
But  the  only  person  of  anv  note  who  bore  the  name 
was  the  pp'phet  of  Shiloli,  who  first  announced  to  Jero 
boam  his  destined  elevation  to  the  throne,  and  after 
wards  denounced  in  severe  terms  the  guilt  of  Jeroboam 
to  his  wife,  when  she  went  to  inquire  concerning  the 
life  of  Aliijah,  the  son  of  Jeroboam,  and  foretold  also 
the  certainty  of  this  child's  death.  1  Ki.  xi.  29-30;  xiv.  2-1G. 
On  both  of  these  occasions  he  acted  an  important  part, 
and  gave  abundant  evidence  of  being  a  true  messenger 
of  God.  (Sec  JKKOBOAM.)  lie  lived  to  a  great  age; 
as,  at  the  time  of  the  visit  of  Jeroboam's  wife,  his  eyes 
are  said  to  have  been  set.  by  reason  of  his  age. 

AHI'KAM  [Iji-of/nr  »j'ri.;iiif/  l'j>,  or  d  ration],  the 
son  of  Shaphan,  a  person  of  note  in  the  time  of  Josiah 
and  immediately  subsequent  periods.  He  was  one  of 
four  persons  sent  by  Josiah  to  inquire  at  the  prophetess 
iiuldah  respecting  the  book  of  the  law.  2Ki.xxii.12;  and 
in  the  corrupt  and  perilous  times  that  followed,  he 
acted  a<  the  faithful  friend  and  protector  of  the  prophet 
Jeremiah.  .To.  xxvi.  2i;  as  did  also  his  son  Gedaliah,  who. 
under  the  Chaldeans,  became  governor  of  Judea,  Jo. 

xxxix.  14;  xl. ."!,(),  &c. 

AHIMA'AZ  [brother  f-f  anger,    choleric]   was  the 

name  of  one  of  Zadok's  sons,  who  was  employed  in  car 
rying  messages  between  David  and  the  party  that  stood 
faithful  to  him  in  the  time  of  Absalom's  rebellion.  2Ra. 
\v.  27, 30;  xvii.  17,  20;  xvi;i  i:»-2!>.  At  that  period  he  showed 
great  steadfastness  in  adhering  to  the  cause  of  David, 
and  hearty  zeal  in  endeavouring  to  advance  its  in 
terest-;  ;  but  nothing  further  is  recorded  of  him.  Two 
others  are  found  bearing  the  same  name — the  father- 
in-law  of  Saul,  iSa.  xiv.  so,  and  a  son-in-law  of  Solomon, 

1  Ki.  iv.  15. 

AHI'MAN  [niij  Brother,  "'^"J?  i.e.  who  is  :ny  fellow!} 
one  of  the  seed  of  giants,  or  Anakim,  who  remained 
still  in  the  land  of  Canaan  at  the  time  it  was  entered  by 
the  children  of  Israel.  He  dwelt  in  Mount  Hebron 
with  his  two  brothers,  from  whence  they  were  driven 
by  the  valour  of  Caleb,  who  got  possession  of  their  in 
heritance.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  name  of 
Ahimaii  was  uiveu  to  the  chief  of  the  three,  to  denote 
his  supposed  invincible  might.  The  passages  that  refer 

to  him  are  Nu.  xiii.  22;  Jos.  xv.  1 4;  ,Tii.  i.  10,  20. 

AHIM'ELECH  [Hay's  In-other],  the  great-grandson 
of  Eli,  air!  the  son  of  Ahitub,  supposed  by  some  to 
be  the  same  with  the  AHIAH  mentioned  in  1  Sa.  xiv. 
X,  ]^,  though  he  may  have  been  a  brother,  but  the 
priest  who  presided  at  the  sanctuary  in  Nob,  when 
David,  fleeing  from  the  presence  of  Saul,  obtained  the 
show-bread  for  the  relief  of  his  present  necessities,  and 
the  sword  of  Goliath  for  his  protection,  iSa.  xxi.  i.  The 
immediate  consequences  of  the  transaction  in  respect 
to  Ahimcleoh  were  of  unhappy  moment,  as  it  furnished, 
through  the  malignant  testimony  of  Doeg,  the  ground 
of  a  charge  of  conspiracy  with  David  against  the  life 
and  crown  of  Saul,  on  which  Ahimelech  and  the  priests 
at  Nob  were  ruthlessly  put  to  death.  That  there  was 


most  cruel  injustice  in  such  treatment  there  can  lie  no 
doubt;  for,  whatever  sins  of  a  more  general  kind  there 
may  have  been  in  those  descendants  of  Eli,  rendering, 
it  may  be,  some  fresh  manifestation  of  divine  severity 
a  matter  of  righteous  retribution,  in  the  particular  act 
referred  to  there  was  not  the  shadow  of  an  evil  design 
against  Saul  and  his  house.  It  was  rather  in  deference 
to  existing  authorities  than  in  defiance  of  them  that  the 
transaction  was  accomplished.  So  arbitrary  and  unjust 
was  the  sentence  felt  to  be  that  the  captain  of  the  guard 
even  refused  to  put  it  in  execution,  and  the  work  of 
destruction  was  handed  over  to  Doeg,  who  carried  it 
out  with  true  Edomite  malice  and  revenge.  In  the 
higher  aspect  of  the  matter,  also — that  which  concerned 
the  violation  of  a  standing  order  in  regard  to  the  con 
sumption  of  the  show-bread — the  part  acted  by  Ahi 
melech  received  its  justification  in  the  appeal  made  to 
it  by  our  Lord  as  a  rule  and  precedent  in  like  circum 
stances  for  future  times,  Mat.  xii.  3;  Mar.  ii.  2.~>.  The  Lord 
always  desires  mercy  rather  than  sacrifice;  and  the 
ritual  prescription  that  the  shew-brcad  should  be  eaten 
only  by  the  priests,  while  imperatively  binding  in  ordi 
nary  circumstances,  was  yet  properly  allowed  to  give 
way  when  the  urgent  wants  of  David  called  for  imme 
diate  relief.  So  both  David  and  Ahimelech  concluded 
at  the  time,  with  a  true  insight  into  the  nature  of  the 
divine  institutions;  and  the  principle  which  formed  the 
ground  of  this  conclusion  was  distinctly  announced  by 
our  Lord  as  a  fundamental  one  in  the  divine  adminis 
tration,  and  one  that  admitted  of  various  applications. 
Ahimelech  therefore  stands  fully  acquitted  for  the  part 
he  took  in  ministering  to  the  necessities  of  David,  al 
though  other  defections  in  him  and  those  about  him, 
mav  justly  have  rendered  them  liable  to  the  special 
judgments  of  Heaven.  (For  the  mention  of  Abiathar 
instead  of  Ahimelech,  M.-r.  ii.  20,  see  under  AIJIATHAK.) 

In  two  pa-saifes,  -jsa.  viii.  17;  iCh.  xxiv.  (i,  :>,\,  Ahimelech, 
son  of  Abiathar,  is  mentioned  along  with  Zadok  as  fill 
ing  the  higher  places  of  the  priesthood  in  the  time  of 
David.  This  must  either  be  a  textual  mistake  for  Abi 
athar,  the  son  of  Ahimelech,  or  Abiathar  must  have 
had  a  son  named  Ahimelech  after  the  priest  of  Nob, 
who,  in  the  latter  period  of  David's  reign,  came  to  be 
recognized  as  the  virtual  head  of  the  priesthood  in  that 
line.  This  is  quite  possible,  though  the  other  supposi 
tion  seems  rather  more  probable,  since,  even  at  the  close 
of  David's  life,  Abiathar  appeared  still  capable  of  taking 
an  active  part  in  public  affairs,  and  continued  to  bear 
the  designation  of  Abiathar  the  priest,  iKi.i.  7. 

AHIN'ADAB  [brother  of  nobility},  one  of  the  twelve 
officers,  presidents  of  so  many  districts,  who  had  by  turns 
for  a  single  month  to  keep  the  table  of  Solomon  supplied 
with  provisions.  Ahinadab's  district  was  Mahanaim, 
on  the  south-east  side  of  the  Jordan,  iKi.iv.  14.. 

AHIN'OAM  [brother  of  c/racc,  or  brother's  d<.liyht\ 
occurs  as  the  name  of  a  wife  of  Saul,  1  Sa.  xiv.  50;  and  also 
of  a  wife  of  David — the  mother  of  Amnon,  his  first 
born  son  ;  and  when  the  Amalekites  took  Ziklag  she 
was  among  the  spoil,  but  was  again  recovered  by  the 
skill  and  prowess  of  David,  i  Sa.  xxv.  43;  xxvii.  ,3;  xxx. 

AHI'O  [his  brother,  brotherly],  one  of  the  sons  of 
Abinadab,  who,  along  with  Vzziah,  drove  the  new  cart 
on  which  the  ark  of  the  Lord  was  placed  when  con 
ducted  from  Gibeah  toward  Jerusalem.  Ahio  went  in 
front,  probably  for  the  purpose  of  guiding  the  oxen, 
and  did  not  share  in  the  calamity  which  befell  his  In-o 
ther  Uzzah,  2Sa. vi.  1-1. 


AHITHOPIIEL 


Af-IOLIBAMAII 


AHITH'OPHEL  [brother  of  folly,  foolish},  a  some-  '  there  was  also  a  high-priest  of  this  name  under  Jothan, 
what  singular  name  for  one  whose  sagacity  ami  piu      the  son  of  Amariah,  ifh.  vi.  11,12. 

deuce  raised  him  to  the  highest  place  among  the  conn-  AHO'LAH  ami  AHO'LIBAH,  two  fictitious  or  sym- 
sellor.5  of  David.  He  comes  for  the  first  time  into  !  bolical  names,  under  which  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  in  the 
notice  in  connection  with  the  unnatural  revolt  of  Ab-  i  23d  chapter  of  his  hook,  delineates  the  story  of  Israel 
salom:  ami  it  is  trivuii  as  an  evidence  both  of  the  cun-  [  and  Judah,  with  special  reference  to  their  defections 
ning  policy  of  Absalom  and  of  the  strength  of  the  con-  ,  from  the  love  and  service  of  God,  and  the  heritage  of 
spiracy  he"  had  formed,  that  Ahithophel  had  been  won  evil  which  this  drew  upon  them.  AIKH.AH,  which  means 


her  tent — her  own  (that  is),  as  01 


ie  a  severe  blow  to  have  lost  his  support. 


supplication,  "  <)  Lord,  1  pray  thee,  turn  the  counsel  of 


tent  with  her,  and  with  that  the  true  symbols  of  wor 
ship,  and  divinely  authorized  medium  of  access  to  (!od. 
This  difference  however  appears,  in  the  description  of 
the  prophet,  as  little  more  than  a  theoretical  one:  it  is 
no  farther  made  account  of,  than  as  aH'ordiii'_T  a  ground 


against  all  human  expectation,  it  proved     not  so  much,  j  i  Der,  am 

liowever,  from  the  failure  of  politic  shrewdness  or  dis-  j  to  her  the  pre.cedence  in  guilt  and  punishment.  C'or- 
ceniment  011  the  part  of  Ahithophel.  as  from  the  con-  ruption  reached  its  maturity  sooner  in  that  ]>oriion  of 
fusion  that  was  poured  into  the  counsel  chamber  of  those  the  covenant-people  than  in  the  other,  and,  as  a  natn- 
\vith  whom  he  was  associated.  The  counsels  he  gave,  first  ral  coiise  pieiice,  divine  retriiiutiou  also  sooner  ran  ;t< 
that  Absalom  should  -o  in  to  his  father's  concubines,  course:  but  as  this  had  no  elfect  in  deterring  the  other 


and  then  that  they  should   instantly  pursue  and  attack 
the   army  of    David,  were   both   entilely    suited    to    th 
emergency:   as   it   was   only  by  bold    and    unscrupulou 
measures,  such   as  tl 
so  wicked  a  cause  wa 


portion  from  following  in  the  same  career  of  degeneracy, 
so  the  same  disastrous  results  ensued,  only  by  a  slower 
process  of  development.  Accordingly,  the  symbolical 

1  bv  Ahithophel,  that     delineation  ends  in  respect  to  both  with  the  exhibition 
-ain  even  a  temporary 


f  total  disgrace  and  overwhelming  ruin. 

success,  r.y  the  one  advice  he  sou-lit  to  shut  effectu-  AHO'LIAB  [futh<r'is  tent],  the  name  of  a  skilful  ar- 
allv  the  dour  against  all  reconciliation  with  the  king,  ,  tificer  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  who,  along  with  Bc/alecl, 
and  bv  the  other,  had  it  been  followed,  he  would  in  all  was  employed  in  construetiii-  some  of  tin;  more  ornat  • 
probability  have  utterly  discomfited  the  k'm_  himself,  parts  and  furniture  of  the  temple.  For  this,  not  only 
But  (lod  liad  determined  to  defeat  the  counsel  of  Alii-  were  his  natural  and  acquired  gifts  called  into  reqtiisi- 
thophel;  and  the  strata-em  he  had  planned  of  pursuing  tioii,  but  he  was  also  furnished  with  special  endowments 
instantly  after  David  was,  throu-h  the  artful  policy  of  from  above  for  the  occasion,  Kx.  xxxi.  l-C;xxxv.3t. 
[ I ushai,  rejected  for  a  more  cautious  and  dilatory  course.  AHO'LIBA'MAH  [tnd  of  the  Jilyh-jtlacc],  one  of 
Ahithophel,  mortified  at  the  slight  thus  put  upon  him,  lean's  wives,  the  dau-hter  of  Anah  the  Canaanite. 
and  no  doubt  also  anticipatin_-  the  disastrous  result  This,  however,  is  only  the  name  given  to  her  in  ( Je. 
which  was  sure  to  overtake  such  unskilful  leaders,  forth-  ,  xxxvi.  -2:  for,  when  originally  mention.-!,  she  is  called 
with  returned  to  his  house  and  han-ed  himself,  2Sa.  Judith,  the  dau-hter  of  lieeri  the  Hittite.  For  ".he 
xvii.  23— a  striking  example  of  the  insufficiency  of  mere  two  names  of  the  father.  ,«•  ANAII:  but.  in  iv-anl  to 
worldly  wisdom  to  -uide  itself  ari-ht  in  times  of  trial  the  wife,  it  is  remarkable  that  all  the  three  wives  of 
and  perplexity,  and  of  tin-  folly  v.'nicli  imi-a  inevitably,  Esau  appear  with  two  different  names  and  that,  in  the 
in  the  loin:  ran,  appear  in  the  conduct  of  everyone  case  of  each,  the  new  names  appear  in  the  genealogical 
who  has  no  hi-her  principle  to  follow  than  carlldy  table  of  eh.  xxxvi.  Judith  has  the  additional  name  of 
honour  or  ambition!  When  pietv  was  in  the  ascend-  ,  Aholibamah,  P.ashemath  the  Hittite  of  Adah,  and  Ma- 
ant,  Ahithophel's  sa-acity  led  him  to  fall  in  with  the  halath  the  Ishmaelite  of  Bashemath.  The  only  way  of 
spirit  of  the  times,  and  he  became  a  chosen  counsellor  explaining  this,  and  it  is  a  quite  natural  way  of  doing 


ance  with  the  native  bent  of  his  mind,  he  threw  off  the     that  still  very  commonly  obtains   in  the  East.      Of  this 
nask,  and  trusted  his  sagacity  would  equally  guide  him     custom  Sir  J.  Chardin  remarks    -"The  women  change 

their  names  more  frequently  than  the  men.      Women 


to  fortune  in  the  cam])  of  the  ungodly.  But  he  for-ot 
that  in  this  he  had  to  do  with  One  who  brings  to  nought 
the  understanding  of  the  prudent,  and  takes  the  wise 
in  their  own  craftiness.  His  wisdom  could  avail  nothing 
against  the  purposes  of  Heaven;  and  of  him,  as  of  the 
fool,  it  might  be  said,  "he  died  for  want  of  wisdom." 

AHI'TUB  [In-other  of  yoodncsn],  the  son  of  I'hinehas, 
Eli's  son,  and  the  father  of  Ahimelech,  1  Sx  xxii  >.i,  ii; 
the  father  also  of  Zadok,  -js.i.  viii.  17;  ich.  vi.  fi,&e.;  and 


who  marry  airain,  or  bind  themselves  to  any  fresh  en 
gagement,  commonly  alter  their  names  on  such  changes." 
It  was  the  more  likely,  also,  that  new  names  won" 


>e  mi] 


>osed  oil  Esau's  wive; 


d  from 


quarters  distasteful  to  Isaac  and  Kebekah;  and  the  new 
name  might  be  designed  to  indicate  that,  with  the 
change  of  relationship,  there  should  be  also  a  certain 
change  in  the  views  and  feelings  of  the  parties  entering 


AI1UZZATII 


ALABASTER 


into  it.  But  OH  the  supposition  (if  the  new  name 
having  boon  assumed  at  marriage,  it  was  natural  that 
that  name  should  have  been  given  at  the  mention  of 
the  marriage  ;  while,  afterwards,  when  the  genealogy 
of  the  families  was  presented,  it  was  not  less  natural 
that  the  original  name  should  lie  adhered  to.  This  is 
precisely  what  we  iind  in  the  book  of  Genesis. 

AHUZ'ZATH  [/<'»>•(, <,</"/(],  the  ''friend"  or  favourite 
of  the  Ahinielech  v, ho  reigned  at  Gera  in  Isaac's  time. 
The Septuagint explains  it  by  i>v/-i.<payuyos  [/jr  tile's  /nan], 
the  person  who  conducts  the  bride  from  her  father's 
house  to  her  new  abode.  As  employed,  Ue.  xxvi.  2fi,  it  is 
probably  meant  to  describe  Ahu/./.ath  as  one  of  those 
about  Abimeleeh  in  wlmni  he  reposed  confidence,  and 
who  could  negotiate  for  him  in  any  delicate  affair,  such 
as  that  which  concerned  the  differences  that  had  arisen 
between  his  servants  and  those  of  Isaac.  (<SVc  1>AAC.) 

A'l  [niins\.  a  royal  city  of  the  C'anaanites,  to  the 
east  of  Bethel;  sometimes  written  I  LAI.  and  so  written 
more  frequently  in  the  original  Hebrew  than  in  the 
English  Bible.  It  was  a  place  evidently  of  great  anti 
quity,  as  mention  is  made  of  it  at  the  first  appearance 
of  Abraham  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  (ie.xii.  s;  xiii.  ;i.  It 
was  not,  however,  a  large  place,  even  at  the  time  of 
the  invasion  of  Canaan  by  the  Israelites  ;  and  is  spoken 
of  as  of  such  limited  dimensions  and  slender  defences, 
that  two  or  three  thousand  men  might  readily  make 
themselves  masters  of  it,  J"s.vii.:>.  This  confidence,  in 
deed,  proved  to  be  misplaced;  yet  not  from  any  misap 
prehension  as  to  the  magnitude  of  the  place,  but  from 
the  sin  which  had  been  committed  by  the  Israelites, 
and  which,  in  righteous  judgment,  was  made  the  occa 
sion  of  spreading  fear  and  confusion  through  their  ranks. 
"When  the  sin  was  put  away,  the  capture  of  Ai  became 
an  easy  matter.  Though  laid  in  ashes  by  Joshua,  it 
appears  to  have  been  afterwards  rebuilt,  as  in  subse 
quent  times  it  is  mentioned  among  the  cities  of  ,Judea, 
Is.  x.  :;•••;  Kzr.  ii.  :is;  No.  vii.  :;•>;  but  modern  research  has  failed 
to  discover  any  ruins  near  Bethel  bearing  a  name  ap 
proaching  to  that  of  Ai.  After  carefully  exploring  the 
whole  district,  llobinson  states  that  he  came  to  the 
conclusion  of  assigning  as  the  probable  site  a  place  with 
some  ruins  south  of  Deir  Diwun.  It  is  an  hour  distant 
from  Bethel,  having  a  deep  wady  on  the  north,  and  two 
smaller  wadies  on  the  south,  in  which  the  ambuscade  of 
the  Israelites  might  easily  have  been  concealed. 

A 'IN,  or  EX,  a  fountain,  and  is  probably  used  in 
that  sense,  Nu.  xxxiv.  n,  of  a  specific  fountain,  one  of 
those  that  contributed  to  form  the  river  Jordan;  or  if 
of  a  town,  then  probably  of  one  situated  on  such  a 
fountain.  In  Jos.  xv.  o2,  and  other  places,  it  does 
occur  as  the  name  of  a  city  belonging  to  the  tribe  of 
Judah;  but  most  commonly  it  occurs  in  composition 
with  other  words,  denoting  places  which  were  in  some 
way  remarkable  for  the  fountains  connected  with  them, 
as  Engedi,  Enmishpat,  Enrogel,  &c.  It  was  also  the 
Hebrew  word  for  eye. 

A'JALON,  or  AI'JALON,  [a  lanje  star/],  the  name 
of  several  village*,  which,  however,  were  of  no  note ; 
one  in  the  tribo  of  Dan,  Ju.i.35;  another  in  the  tribe  of 
Ephraim.  icii.vi.09;  another  in  the  tribe  of  Zebulun, 
Ju.  xii.  12;  and  still  another  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, 
1  ch.  viii.  13;  but  it  is  chiefly  remarkable  as  the  name  of 
the  valley  over  which  Joshua  prayed  God  to  cause  the 
moon  to  stand  still,  in  the  day  of  his  victory  over  the 
combined  forces  of  the  Canaanite  kings,  Jos.  x.  12.  It 
appears  to  have  been  a  valley  in  the  neighbourhood 


of  that  Ajalon  which  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Dan. 
llobinson  found  in  the  supposed  direction  a  village 
called  Yalo,  which  he  conceived  to  be  the  modern  re 
presentative  of  this  Ajalon;  and  on  the  north  of  it  lav 
a  broad  and  very  fertile  valley,  the  same,  in  all  pro 
bability,  that  was  referred  to  in  the  address  of  Joshua. 
Yalo  lies  on  the  road  from  .Ramleh  to  Jerusalem, 
about  midway  between  them,  and  two  miles  or  so  from 
Amwas,  the  ancient  Jsicopolis. 

AKRAB'BIM  [.<i;,i-ji!<jitx]  gave  the  name  to  an  nsrcut 
or  chain  of  mountains  on  the  southern  border  of  Pales 
tine,  stretching  towards  the  Dead  Sea.  It  is  supposed 
to  have  been  so  called  from  being  infested  by  scorpions. 
Its  position  is  not  very  definitely  marked  in  Scripture, 
Nu.  xxxiv.  4;  Jus.  xv. :(;  Ju.  i.  ;;«;  and  the  precise  ridge  to  be 
understood  by  it  is  not  certainly  known. 

ALABASTER  [d\d/^ao-r/;os,  in  the  common  Greek 
dialect  and  the  New  Testament,  but  in  older  Greek 
aXd/BaffTos,  and  in  some  authors  as  plural,  dXd/3a<jT/mJ 
was  originally  the  name  of  a  nick,  the  compact  and 
fine-grained  gypsum — fn/pscoiis  alaiasttr.  Jt  differs 
from  marble  in  the  calcareous  matter  being  combined, 
not  with  carbonic,  but  with  sulphuric  acid,  and  in  it< 
incapacity  for  receiving  so  fine  a  polish.  It  approached, 
however,  in  hardness  to  the  marble;  and  by  the  Greeks 
was  sometimes  called  i/in/.v.  and  by  the  Latins  murmur 
oiii/cJiitifi.  It  is  of  a  whitish  colour;  and  was  chiefiv 
prized  by  the  ancients  on  account  of  its  adaptation  for 
vases,  urns,  jars,  and  boxes  for  holding  perfumes  and 
ointments.  So  much  was  it  used  for  these  purposes 
that  the  term  alabaster  passed  into  a  common  designa 
tion  for  vases  and  articles  appropriated  tu  the  reception 


[19.]        Egyptian  Alabaster  Vases.— British  Museum. 

of  the  costlier  perfumes,  though  they  were  often  made 
of  glass,  ivory,  and  other  substances,  as  well  as  of  the 
alabaster  rock.  The  expression  even  occurs  in  Theo 
critus  of  golden  alabasters  (xpvael  a.\d.j3a<7Tpa,  Jrfyl.  xv. 
114);  and  specimens  of  them,  of  various  kinds  of  stone 
and  other  materials,  have  been  found  in  the  Egvptian 
tombs.  Vessels  of  this  description  were  commonly 
made  of  a  tapering  shape,  not  mifrequently  with  a  long- 
narrow  neck,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  above  woodcut. 
It  will  thus  be  readily  perceived  how  the  woman  in 
the  gospels  who  came  to  anoint  Jesus  with  some  pre 
cious  spikenard,  might,  in  her  anxiety  to  have  the  work 
done,  break  some  part  of  the  alabaster  vase  or  box,  in 
stead  of  taking  time  to  open  it,  and  get  at  the  contents 
in  the  more  regular  way,  Mat.  xxvi.  ~;  Mar.  xiv.  3.  It  is 
perhaps  not  very  probable  that  she  would  have  taken 
such  a  course  if  the  vessel  had  really  been  of  alabaster, 
as  in  that  case  it  would  both  have  been  in  itself  of 


ALEXANDER 


53 


ALEXANDER 


Alexander  the  Great. 


some  value,  and  would  have  been  less  easily  broken ; 
but  if  made  of  glass,  as  it  most  likely  was,  the  method 
she  adopted  on  the  occasion  would  be  quite  natural. 

ALEX'ANDER,  THE  GREAT,  as  he  has  been  usually 
styled,  is  not  expressly  named  in  the  canonical  Scrip 
tures,  though  he  is  more  than  once  referred  to  in  con 
nection  with  the  kingdom  which  he  was  destined  to 
establish  in  Asia;  and  in 
the  first  book  of  Macca 
bees  is  explicitly  men 
tioned,  ch.i.  i- 8.  IntheSth 
chapter  of  Daniel's  pro 
phecies,  the  king  or  king 
dom  of  Grecia  is  sym 
bolized  bv  the  he-gout 
which  came  from  the 
West,  and  which  ran 
with  violence  against  the 
ram  that  symbolized  the 
Medo-  Persian  kingd<  >m, 

beat  it  down,  and  destroyed  it;  and  a  remarkable 
horn,  that  appeared  between  the  eyes  of  the  he- 
goat  is  distinctly  explained  to  represent  the  first 
head  or  founder  of  that  Grecian  kingdom,  vcr.21.  Jt 
is  impossible  to  understand  this  of  another  than 
Alexander;  and  there  are  other  passages  which  also 
point,  though  less  explicitlv,  in  the  same  direction. 
In  particular,  the  symbol  of  the  leopard,  ch.  vii.  (>,  which 
had  four  wings  on  its  back,  ami  four  heads  in  front 
—  the  image  of  the  third  great  worldly  dominion, 
beginning  witli  the  Chaldean;  and  the  kingdom  of 
brass,  represented  by  the  belly  and  thighs  of  the  vision 
exhibited  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  ch.  ii.  32, 39,  found  their  real 
ization  in  the  kingdom  which  had  its  foundations  laid, 
a/id  its  character  formed,  by  the  military  prowess  and 
European  policy  of  Alexander.  On  this  account  alone 
a  certain  acquaintance  with  the  life  and  exploits  of  this 
singular  man  are  iieces.-urv  to  the  proper  understanding 
of  Scripture.  J5ut  this  is  still  further  important  and 
necessary,  on  account  of  the  influence  which  the  con 
quests  of  Alexander  exercised  over  the  future  affairs  of 
the  divine  kingdom;  for  the  institutions  and  govern 
ment  planted  by  him  in  Asia,  introduced  a  powerful 
European  element  into  the  simplv  eastern  relations, 
amid  which  hitherto  the  covenant-people  hail  been 
placed,  and  in  their  experience  linked  the  Asiatic  to 
the  Grecian  modes  of  thought  and  expression.  It  turned 
henceforth  the  main  current  of  Jewish  enterprise  and 
colonization  chiefly  in  a  westerly  direction;  and  even 
brought  them  at  length  so  much  into  contact  with  a 
( irecian  population  and  Grecian  culture,  that  Greek  came 
as  naturally  to  be  the  original  language  of  New  Testa 
ment  scripture,  as  He-brew  had  been  that  of  the  Old. 

The  person  who  was  the  primary  agent  in  effecting 
this  revolution  was  the  son  of  Philip  of  Maeedon,  and 
was  born  in  the  year  3 .If 5  B.C.  His  father  had  already 
made  himself  master  of  all  Greece,  and  had  also  bcirmi 
to  cast  his  eyes  upon  the  vast  dominion  of  Persia  in  the 
East,  when  the  hand  of  death  cut  short  his  ambitions 
projects.  Alexander,  however,  who  inherited  the  fa 
ther's  ambition,  and  possessed  more  than  the  father's 
military  skill  and  accomplishments,  combined  with  sur 
passing  energy  of  character,  promptly  took  up  the  pro 
ject  of  avenging  on  Persia  the  ancient  wrongs  of  Greece, 
and  got  himself  created  by  the  Grecian  states  general 
of  the  forces  which  were  destined  to  that  mission.  Pro 
ceeding  thus  at  the  head  of  a  large  and  well-disciplined  , 


army,  and  furnished  with  all  needful  appliances,  his 
inarch  through  Asia  seemed  indeed  to  be  with  the  spring 
and  velocity  of  a  leopard;  the  luxurious  and  debilitated 
monarchy  of  Persia  fell  as  a  helpless  prey  into  his  hands, 
and  the  whole  of  the  East  and  Egypt  became  in  a  com 
paratively  brief  period  subject  to  his  sway.  From  his 
fiery  temper,  however,  and  his  irregular  habits,  lie  was 
better  fitted  for  achieving  conquests  than  establishing 
a  compact  and  enduring  dominion;  and  dying,  as  he 
did,  after  a  reign  of  little  more  than  twelve  years — 
dying,  too,  in  the  midst  of  revels  and  debauchery — he 
left  behind  him  an  empire  in  Asia  the  elements  of  which 
necessarily  hung  somewhat  loosely  together,  P>ut  withal 
they  took  root ;  and  the  supreme  power  in  the  Syrian 
part  of  the  empire  being  continued  for  generations  in 
the  hands  of  men  who  were  ambitious  of  treading  as 
far  as  possible  in  the  footsteps  of  Alexander,  the  new 
channels  of  civilization  and  commerce  which  he  opened 
were  preserved  and  deepened;  so  that,  when  at  length 
the  dominion  passed  o\er  to  the  Romans,  the  Grecian 
culture  and  impress  had  been  too  deeply  stamped  upon 
the  region  to  lie  greatly  affected  by  the  change:  and, 
while  the  persons  who  administered  the  LTO\  eminent 
were  Roman,  the  administration  itself,  the  language, 
the  literature,  the  manners  retained  much  of  their 
Grecian  character. 

The  leading  object  of  the  policy  of  Alexander  and 
his  successors  in  Asia  wa-;  to  secure  the  political  and 
social  ascendency  of  Greece.  This  required  the  strong 
arm  of  war  in  the  first  instance;  but  the  penetrating 
mind  of  the  conqueror  readily  perceived  that  more  than 
this  was  needed  to  accomplish  the  end  in  view,  and 
that  the  footing  primarily  gained  by  the  s\vord  must  be 
kept  and  consolidated  by  more  permanent  and  vital 
influences.  Accordingly,  every  encouragement  was 
from  the  first  given  to  the  settlement  of  Greeks  in  Asia, 
and  to  the  adoption  of  Greek  culture  and  manners  by 
Asiatics.  Alexander  himself  married  first  one  eastern 
princess  (Roxana),  then  another  (Parysati.-o,  and  eighty 
of  his  generals  and  1(1,000  of  his  troops  followed  the 
example  of  their  leader  by  marrying  Asiatic  wives,  and 
received  presents  for  doing  so.  On  the  other  side,  large 
numbers  of  Asiatics  were  enrolled  among  his  troops, 
and  initiated  into  the  Macedonian  tactics  and  discipline. 
Greek  cities  were  founded  partly  by  him,  but  in  still 
greater  number  by  his  successors,  which,  as  from  so 
many  centres,  diffused  throughout  the  East  the  lan 
guage  and  customs  of  Greece.  By  the  overthrow,  also, 
of  Tyre  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  establishment  on  the 
other  of  Alexandria,  with  its  facilities  of  communication 
with  the  East  by  the  wav  of  the  Red  Sea,  a  new  direc 
tion  was  given  to  the  commerce  of  the  world.  This 
now  was  laid  open  in  a  manner  it  had  never  been  before 
to  ( Jreek  and  also  to  Jewish  enterprise.  P.oth  at  Alex 
andria  and  in  other  Greek  settlements  the  Jews  had 
equal  rights  and  privileges  granted  them  with  the 
Greeks,  being  permitted  to  live  in  the  free  enjoyment 
of  their  religious  customs,  and  to  use  without  restraint 
the  advantages  for  trade  and  commerce  which  their 
position  afforded.  The  account  given  by  Josephus 
(Ant.  xi.  8)  of  the  reception  which  Alexander  met  with 
at  Jerusalem  by  the  high-priest,  and  the  interview  held 
between  them,  is  probably  in  great  part  fabulous;  but 
the  indulgence  there  spoken  of  as  having  been  accorded 
to  the  Jews,  and  the  rapid  increase  and  prosperity 
ascribed  to  them  afterwards  in  connection  with  Gre 
cian  rule  and  institutions,  admits  of  no  doubt.  How- 


ALEXANDER  £ 

ever  little,  therefore,  it  mi^ht  (alter  into  the  projects  of 
Alexander  and  those  who  were  chiefly  instrumental  in 
perpetuating  and  extending  his  policy  in  the  East,  a 
very  important  influence  was  thereby  exerted  on  the 
external  relations  of  the  covenant -people;  and  when 
the  tilings  of  thi;  old  economy  came  to  be  supplanted  by 
those  of  the  gospel  dispensation,  changes  of  place  and 
position,  of  language  and  modes  of  thought,  press  upon 
our  notice,  which  ever  remind  us  of  the  conquests  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  and  of  the  revolution  effected 
through  his  p.'licy  over  that  part  of  the  world  where 
the  ancient  people  of  God  were  chiefly  located.  Then 
more  especially,  and  through  this  instrumentality,  it 
was  that  Japhet  came  to  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem, 
and  began  to  exercise  that  mediate  and  directive  sway 
over  the  affair;  of  the  divine  kingdom  which  is  one  of 
the  great  characteristics  of  later,  as  compared  with 
earlier  times,  Gu.ix.  27. 

ALEX'ANDER  (P.ALAs^,  a  pretended  natural  son 
of  Aiitiochus  Epiphanes,  but  of  doubtful  parentage, 
who  makes  a  considerable  figure  in  the  history  of  the 
Maccabees,  and  in  Josephus.  In  opposition  to  Deme 
trius  Soter,  he  laid  claim  to  the  kingdom  of  Syria,  and 
obtained  a  temporary  success  ;  but  he  was  ultimately 
defeated  by  Nieator,  and  fled  into  Arabia,  where  he 
was  murdered  by  the  emir  Zabdiel,  who  sent  his  head 
as  an  acceptable  present  to  the  king  of  Egypt.  He 
only  reigned  four  years  over  Syria,  and  was  altogether 
selfish  in  his  views,  and  voluptuous  in  his  character  (see 
1  Mac.  x.  xi.,  and  Josephus,  xiii.  2). 

ALEX'ANDER  (.LvN.VKrsi,  a  personage  distin 
guished  in  apocryphal  history,  a  prince  of  the  J\lac- 
cabeaii  family.  (See  MACCABEES.) 

ALEX'ANDER,  the  name  of  four  persons  in  gospel 
history: — 1.  The  son  of  Simon  the  Cyrenian,  who  was 
compelled  to  bear,  for  a  portion  of  the  way,  the  cross  of 
Jesus,  Mir.  xv.  '21.  That  the  father  should  thus  have 
been  designated  from  the  son  renders  it  probable  that 
the  son  had  become  a  person  of  note  among  the  dis 
ciples. 

2.  ALEXANDER.     A  leading  Jew,  apparently  of  the 
kindred  of  the  high-priest,  and  of  the  sect  of  the  Sad- 
ducees,   who  took  an   active  part  in    endeavouring  to 
silence  the  apostles,  when  they  preached  Christ  and  the 
resurrection,  Ac.  iv.  o. 

3.  ALEXANDER.     A  Jew  at  Ephesus,  for  whom  the 
Jewish  party  there  were  anxious  to  secure  a  hearing 
in  the  midst  of  the  commotion  which  took  place  on  ac 
count  of  the  success  of  Paul's  preaching,  that  he  might 
offer  certain  explanations  in  their  behalf,  Ac.  xix.  3:5.     As 
the  effort,  was  unsuccessful,  it  is  impossible  to  say  what 
line  of  defence  Alexander  would   have  taken   up,  or  to 
what  precise  party  he  belonged. 

4.  ALEXANDER.     A  coppersmith,  who  had  professed 
to   embrace   Christianity,   but   who   afterwards,   along 
with  Hymeneus,  fell  into  grievous  errors,  and  acted  the 
part  of  an  enemy  of  the  gospel,  iTi.  i.  ai;  i-Ti.  iv.  11.     It 
is  probable  that  this  person  had  his  settled  residence  in 
Ephesus,  as  it  is  only  in  the  epistles  to  Timothy,  who 
had  been  sent  to  labour  for  a  time  there,  that  he  is 
expressly  mentioned  by  Paul;  though  the  allusion  in 
the  second  epistle  seems  most  naturally  to  imply  that 
the   apostle  had  met  him   also   in    Rome.      The  false 
opinions  he  had  adopted  are  not  particularly  described  ; 
but,  from  being  coupled  with  Hymeneus,  who,  in  one 
of  the  passages  referred  to,  is  represented  as  denying 
the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  and  saying  that  it  was 


A  LEXANDR1A 

past   already,    2Ti.  ii.  is,   the   probability   is,    that   both 
Alexander  and  Hymeneus  were  tinged  with  that  Gnostic 

spirit  which  sought  continually  to  impair  the  realities 
of  gospel  truth,  and  to  sublimate  them  into  certain 
lofty  but  vain  speculations.  They  would  hold,  it  is 
likely,  that  the  resurrection  of  the  believer  was  his 
being  raised  by  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  into  a 
higher  sphere;  and  this  would  probably  be  coupled 
with  the  usual  Gnostic  licentiousness,  of  holding  all 
such  privileged  to  follow  freely  the  promptings  of  their 
own  spirit,  wherever  that  might  lead  them.  In  such  a 
case,  we  can  easily  understand  how  Paul  should  have 
wo  earnestly  warned  Timothy  to  be  on  his  guard  against 
persons  of  so  subtle,  sophistical,  and  dangerous  a  spirit. 
ALEXAN'DRIA,  a  celebrated  city  and  seaport  of 
Egypt,  situated  on  the  Mediterranean,  about  12  miles 
west  from  the  Canopic  mouth  of  the  Nile.  It  was 
founded,  B.C.  332,  by  Alexander  the  Great,  upon  the 
site  of  the  small  village  of  Rhacotis  (Strabo,  xvii.  c.  i.  ii), 
and  opposite  to  the  little  island  of  Pharos,  which,  even 
before  the  time  of  Homer,  had  given  shelter  to  the 
<  .reek  traders  on  the  coast.  Alexander  selected  this 
spot  for  the  Greek  colony  which  he  proposed  to  found, 
from  the  great  natural  advantages  which  it  presented, 
and  from  the  capability  of  forming  the  dee])  water 
between  Rhacotis  and  the  isle  of  Pharos  into  a  harbour 
that  might  become  the  port  of  all  Egypt,  lie  accord 
ingly  ordered  Dinocrates,  the  architect  who  rebuilt  the 
temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  to  improve  the  harbour, 
and  to  lay  down  the  plan  of  the  new  city;  and  ho 
further  appointed  Cleomenes  of  Naucratis,  in  Egypt,  to 
act  as  superintendent.  The  lighthouse  upon  the  isle  of 
Pharos  was  to  be  named  after  his  friend,  lleplnestion, 
and  all  contracts  between  merchants  in  the  port  were 
to  commence  "In  the  name  of  Hepluestion."  The 
great  market  which  had  hitherto  existed  at  ( 'anopus 
was  speedily  removed  to  the  new  city,  which  thus  at 
once  rose  to  commercial  importance.  After  the  death 
of  Alexander,  the  building  of  the  city  was  carried  on 
briskly  by  his  successor,  Ptolemy  Lagus,  or  Soter,  but 
many  of  the  public  works  were  not  completed  till  the 
reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphia.  The  city  was  built 
upon  a  strip  of  land  between  the  sea  and  the  Lake 
Mareotis,  and  its  ground  plan  resembled  the  form  of  a 
Greek  chlamys,  or  s<  >ldier's  cloak.  The  two  main  streets. 
240  feet  wide,  left  a  free  passage  for  the  north  wind, 
which  alone  conveys  coolness  in  Egypt.  They  crossed 
each  other  at  right  angles  in  the  middle  of  the  city, 
which  was  three  miles  long  and  seven  broad,  and  the 
whole  of  the  streets  were  wide  enouu'li  for  carriages. 
The  long  narrow  island  of  Pharos  was  formed  into  a 
sort  of  breakwater  to  the  port,  by  joining  the  middle 
of  the  island  to  the  mainland  by  means  of  a  mole,  seven 
stadia  in  length,  and  hence  called  the  Heptastadium. 
To  let  the  water  pass,  there  were  two  breaks  in  the 
mole,  over  which  bridges  were  thrown.  The  public 
grounds  and  palaces  occupied  nearly  a  third  of  the  whole 
extent  of  the  city.  The  Royal  Docks,  the  Exchange, 
the  Posideion,  or  Temple  of  Neptune,  and  many  other 
public  buildings,  fronted  the  harbour.  There  also  stood 
the  burial  place  for  the  Greek  kings  of  Egypt,  called 
"the  Soma/'  because  it  held  "  the  body,"  as  that  of 
Alexander  was  called.  On  the  western  side  of  the 
Heptastadium,  and  on  the  outside  of  the  city,  were 
other  docks,  and  a  ship-canal  into  Lake  Mareotis,  as 
likewise  the  Necropolis,  or  public  burial  place  of  the 
city,  There  were  also  a  theatre,  an  amphitheatre,  a 


ALEXANDRIA 


ALEXAXDRIA 


gymnasium,  with  a  large  portico,  more  than  600  feet 
long,  and  supported  by  several  rows  of  marble  columns  ; 
a  stadium,  in  which  games  were  celebrated  every  fifth 
year;  a  hall  of  justice;  public  groves  or  gardens;  a 
hippodrome  for  chariot  races;  and  towering  above  all 
was  the  temple  of  Serapis,  the  Serapeum.  The  most 
famous  of  all  the  public  buildings  planned  by  Ptolemy 
Soter  were  the  library  and  museum,  or  College  of  Phil- 


osophy.  Tliey  were  Imilt  near  the  royal  palace,  in  that 
part  of  the  city  called  ISruchion,  and  contained  a  great 
hall,  used  as  a  lecture-room  and  common  dining-room  ; 
and  had  a  covered  walk  all  round  the  outside,  and  a 
seat  on  which  the  philosophers  sometimes  sat  in  the 
open  air.  Within  the  verge  of  the  Serapenm  was  a 
supplementary  library,  called  the  daughter  of  the  former. 
The  professors  of  the  college  were  supported  out  of  the 


ANCIENT 

ALEXANDRIA 

Stadia^ 


•  ///         O          |!Arsmprt:m    ,*$$*^TS*Sr'oSfmmv    ^L^J^rj  U  ^ 

V7        f  ' '  V~y  L_J  I.Mn-;pmii  ^— -—  ^°-         t; 


p'.iblie  income.  The  library,  which  was  open  equally  to 
all,  soon  became  the  largest  in  the  world,  being  aug 
mented  in  succeeding  reigns  until  it  contained  7<|IMHHI 
volumes,  including  '2(111/101)  volumes  of  the  library  of 
Pergamos,  which  .Mark  Antonv  had  given  to  Cleopatra 
in  reparation  of  the  loss  by  the  i'n\-  diiring  the  war 
between  Julius  Ca-sar  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  city. 
Alexandria  became  so  illustrious  for  its  schools,  that  the 
most  celebrated  philosophers,  and  men  eminent  in  all 
brandies  of  science,  resorted  thither  for  instruction. 
The  astronomical  school,  founded  by  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus,  maintained  its  reputation  till  the  time  of  the 
Saracens. 

The  lighthouse  at  Alexandria  was  not  finished  till 
the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphia,  B.C.  '2S4  2H>.  It 
was  Imilt  by  the  architect  Sostratus.  The  royal  burial 
place  was  ;dso  finished  in  this  reign,  and  Philadelphia 
removed  the  body  of  Alexander  from  Memphis  to  this 
city,  which  the  conqueror  himself  ha  1  planned,  and 
hither  pilgrims  came  and  bowed  before  the  golden  sar 
cophagus  in  which  the  hero's  body  was  placed.  Seleu- 
o;is  Cybia-actes,  li.c.  54,  is  said  to  have  stolen  the 
golden  coffin  of  Alexander.  The  Ptolemies  reigned 
over  Alexandria  2!'2  years,  and  on  the  death  of  Cleo 
patra,  B.C.  !50,  the  eitv  came  under  the  rule  of  the  Ro 
mans,  who  rendered  it  a  most  extensive  market  for 
grain.  The  emperor  Claudius,  A.I).  41-55,  founded 
the  Claudian  Museum;  and  Antoninus,  A.IX  1<>2-218, 
built  the  Gates  of  the  Sun  and  of  the  Moon,  and  like- 


wi<e  male  a  hippodrome*.  At  the  great  rebellion  of 
K^ypt,  A.D.  2'.»7,  Alexandria  was  besieged  by  Diocle 
tian,  when,  in  commemoration  of  his  humanity  in  stav 
ing  the  pillage  of  the  city,  the  inhabitants  erected  an 
equestrian  statue,  now  lost,  but  which  there  is  little 
doubt  surmounted  the  lofty  column  known  by  the  name 
of  Pompey's  Pillar,  the  base  of  which  still  bears  the  in 
scription,  "To  the  most  honoured  emperor,  the  saviour 
of  Alexandria,  the  unconquerable-  Diocletian." 

Alexandria  was  the,  seat  of  many  terrible  massacres, 
the  most  severe  of  which — those  under  Ptolemy  Euer- 
getesll.  or  Physeon,  B.C.  145,  and  under  Caracalla, 
A.D.  '21 1  -  so  entirely  depopulated  the  city,  as  to  render 
it  necessary  to  invite  strangers  from  various  countries 
to  re-people  it,  and  thus  to  restore  its  former  splendour. 

Although  Alexandria  is  not  mentioned  in  the  ( >ld  Tes 
tament,  and  only  incidentally  in  the  New.  Ac.  ii.  if);  vi.O; 
\viii.2i;  xvvii.C),  it  is  most  important  in  connection  with 
the  history  of  the  Jews,  and  from  the  foundation  of  an 
independent  sect  of  the  Jewish  religion.  The  Jews, 
being  highly  valued  as  citizens,  were  encouraged  to 
Kettle  in  the  new  colony,  and  a  large  part  of  the  city 
was,  allotted  to  them.  Of  the  three  classes  into  which 
the  population  was  divided — namely,  the  Macedonians, 
the  mercenaries,  and  the  native  Egyptians — the  Jews 
were  admitted  into  the  first  class  (Hecataeus  in  Josephus, 
c-mt.  A  p.  ii.  4),  having  equal  rights  with  the  Greek 
inhabitants,  while  they  were  governed  under  their  own 
c  ide  of  laws  by  their  own  governor,  termed  alabarclM 


ALEXANDRIA  I 

An<,'.  C.T'snr  erected  for  them  a  pillar  of  brass,  declar 
ing  their  privileges  as  citizens  (Josephus,  Ant.  xiv. 
e.  viii.)  Amongst  their  numerous  privileges  was  that  of 
the  custody  of  the  river  Xile  I.Iosephus,  nmt.  A  p.  ii.  M. 
Thev  had  ma.iv  line  .-ivna^'o^iies  in  the  citv,  and  like 
wise  one  at  Jerusalem,  together  with  an  academy  for 
the  instruction  of  their  youth  in  the  law  and  in  the 
Hebrew  language.  The  Jews  of  this  synagogue  were 
among  the  most  violent  opponents  of  Stephen,  Ac.  vi.d. 

Jn  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  A.D.  "Hi,  the  Jews  in  Alex 
andria  numbered  about  one-third  of  the  population,  as 
they  formed  the  majority  in  two  wards  out  of  the  five 
into  which  the  city  was  divided,  and  which  two  were 
called  the  Jews'  wards.  Notwithstanding  many  per 
secutions  and  massacres,  they  continued  to  form  a  large 
proportion  of  the  population,  and  retained  their  civil 
rights  till  A.».  41.1,  when  40,000  of  them  were  expelled 
at  the  instigation  of  Cyril,  the  Christian  patriarch  ;  but 
they  recovered  their  strength,  and  appear  to  have  lie- 
come  very  numerous  at  the  time  of  the  Saracen  con 
quest. 

In  the  list  of  Alexandrian  authors  is  Jesus,  the  son 
of  Siraeh,  who  translated  into  ("{reek  the  book  of  Wis 
dom,  or  Ecclesiasticus,  B.C.  1:5:2.  A  hundred  and  fifty 
years  later,  the  Alexandrian  Jews  had  taken  such  a 
high  literary  position,  that  even  the  Greeks  acknow 
ledged  them  as  the  first  writers  of  the  Alexandrian 
school.  Philo,  the  historian  of  their  sufferings  under 
Fla'vus  (Philo,  M.  Place,  de  Lc</.),  occupies  the  highest 
rank  amongst  the  scholars  of  the  Jews,  and  his  writings 
raised  the  school  of  Alexandria  to  a  place  equal  to  that 
it  had  attained  under  the  first  two  Ptolemies.  In  the 
history  of  philosophy  and  religion,  the  writings  of  Philo 
must  always  command  the  student's  most  careful  atten 
tion.  It  was  at  Alexandria  that  the  Greek  version  of 
the  Old  Testament,  called  the  Septuagint,  because  sup 
posed  to  have  been  translated  by  seventy  or  seventv-two 
learned  men,  was  made  at  the  instance  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,  according  to  the  authority  of  Aristeas, 
and  after  him  Josephus  (cont.  Ap.  ii.)  This  historv, 
however,  is  now  considered  doubtful,  but  there  are 
good  grounds  for  believing  that  this  early  translation 
had  a  place  in  the  famous  library. 

Alexandria  is  reported  to  have  enjoyed  the  ministry 
of  the  evangelist  Mark,  A.D.  59-60,  who  is  also  said  to 
have  suffered  martyrdom  there,  and  to  have  been  suc 
ceeded  by  Anianus.  Apollos  was  born  at  Alexandria, 
Ac.  xvUi.  -21.  We  have  an  instance  of  the  attention  paid 
by  the  Christian  school  at  Alexandria  to  copying  the 
books  of  Holy  Writ,  in  the  very  ancient  MS.  now 
extant  in  the  British  Museum,  called  the  Alexandrine 
IMS.,  bearing  to  be  written  by  Thecla,  a  lady  who  lived 
early  in  the  fifth  century.  The  Christians  of  the  present 
day  reverence  the  churches  dedicated  to  St.  Catharine 
and  St.  Mark.  The  last  is  celebrated  for  the  tomb  of 
the  evangelist,  whose  body  is  said  to  have  been  carried 
away  by  the  Venetians.  The  Copts  are  the  possessors 
of  this  church,  and  they  say  that  a  picture  which  it 
contains,  representing  the  archangel  Michael  with  a 
sword  in  his  hand,  was  painted  by  St.  Luke. 

A.D.  CIS,  the  Persians  entered  Alexandria,  and  soon 
held  all  the  Delta.  A.D.  04u,  22d  December,  after  a 
siege  of  fourteen  months,  the  city  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  Arabs.  Amron-ibn-al-Aad,  the  conqueror,  wrote 
to  the  caliph,  Omar  III.,  that  he  had  taken  a  city  in 
which  he  found  40uO  palaces,  4()00  public  baths,  400 
theatres,  12,000  sellers  of  herbs,  and  40,000  Jews  pay- 


3  ALEXANDRIA 

ing  tribute.  Such  was  the  store  of  wheat  that  he  sent 
on  camels'  backs  to  Medina,  that  the  Arabian  historian 
declares,  "that  the  first  of  an  unbroken  line  of  camels 
entered  the  holy  city  before  the  last  camel  had  left 
Egypt."  When  Alexandria  was  taken,  Amrou  set  his 
seal  upon  the  public  library  and  the  other  public  pro 
perty  of  the  city.  John  1'hiloponus  begged  that  the 
hooks  might  be  spared  ;  but,  on  applying  to  the  caliph, 
Omar  ordered  the  whole  to  be  burned.  Amrou  obeyed, 
and  sent  the  books  to  the  public  baths  of  the  citv, 
which  were  heated  by  them  for  the  space  of  six  months, 
A.D.  642.  Alexandria  remained  under  the  government 
of  the  caliphs  till  A.n.  !»24,  when  it  was  taken  by  the 
Mogrebeens,  or  Western  Arabs  ;  after  which  it  suffered 
many  changes  and  revolutions,  so  serious  to  its  pro 
sperity,  that  in  one  year,  1)28  (according  to  Eutyrhu.-i, 
above  200,000  of  the  inhabitants  perished. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  took  Alexandria  in  1  79*,  and  it 
remained  in  the  possession  of  the  French  till  thev  sur 
rendered  to  the  British,  September  2,  1801,  when  they 
were  finally  expelled  from  the  country.  Amon^  the 
trophies  taken  was  a  sarcophagus  (now  in  the  Briti>h 
Museum),  bearing  the  name  of  Amyrta-us,  and  sup 
posed  to  have  subsequently  contained  the  body  of  Alex 
ander  the  Great. 

.Mohammed  Ali  dug  a  canal,  called  El  Mahmoudieh, 
in  compliment  to  Mahmoud,  the  father  of  the  present 
sultan  Abd-el-Mejid,  which  opened  a  water  commu 
nication  with  the  Nile,  entering  that  river  at  a  place 
called  Fouah,  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  citv.  All 
about  the  city,  but  particularly  to  the  south  and  east, 
are  extensive  mounds,  and  fragments  of  ancient  luxurv 
and  magnificence,  granite  columns,  marble  statues,  and 
broken  pottery.  Among  this  last  are  frequently  found 
the  handles  of  amphorre,  stamped  with  a  device  signifi 
cative  of  the  place,  and  with  the  name  of  the  archon  who 
was  governor  at  the  time  the  amphone  left  the  shores 
of  Greece.  It  would  appear,  from  the  great  number  of 
these  handles  that  have  been  picked  up,  that  the  Alex 
andrians  carried  on  an  extensive  trade  in  the  various 
wines  produced  on  the  volcanic  soil  of  the  Greek  island-'. 
Houses  are  now  being  built  by  foreign  merchants  at 
some  distance  from  the  thickly  inhabited  part  of  the 
city,  especially  along  the  banks  of  the  canal,  and  there 
is  a  constant  digging  among  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
city  for  building  materials,  many  a  piece  of  Grecian  art 
being  broken  up  to  make  lime.  It  was  from  one  of 
these  excavations  that  the  colossal  foot  presented  to 
the  British  Museum  by  Mr.  Harris,  was  saved  from 
the  lime-kiln.  This  foot  probably  belonged  to  the  statue 
of  Jupiter  Serapis,  from  the  temple  already  mentioned. 
In  1 854,  in  preparing  foundations  for  a  new  building,  the 
workmen  turned  up  some  massive  remains,  supposed 
to  be  those  of  the  celebrated  museum  and  library. 
Mr.  Francis  Power  Cobbe  gives,  in  the  Atlicnrruiii, 
April  3,  1858,  an  account  of  the  discovery  of  a  kind 
of  sepulchral  Greek  chapel,  excavated  in  the  rocky 
elevation  on  which  Pompey's  Pillar  stands.  It  is  a 
very  irregular  cross.  In  the  north  transept  there  is 
an  apse  or  niche,  with  small  Ionic  pilasters  at  the  sides. 
The  chamber  opposite  this  is  about  twenty  feet  loner 
and  eight  feet  wide  ;  and  on  each  side,  and  at  the  end, 
is  a  double  row  of  deep  holes,  thirty-six  in  number, 
in  the  walls,  for  the  insertion  of  the  coffins  or  mummy 
cases — something  between  a  Roman  columbarium  and 
a  modern  English  vault.  The  chancel  contains  some 
frescoes  and  Greek  inscriptions  much  effaced,  but  on 


ALGUM 


ALLELUIA 


the  apse  is  still  visible  a  picture  of  the  miracle  of  the  (  tained  at  least  000,000  inhabitants  when  in  its 


loaves  and  fishes.      On  the  walls  of  the  chancel  arch 
are  two  life-size  figures,  one  bavins,'  wings,  the  oth 


being  Christ    restins. 


The    attitudes    and 


Modern  Alexandria  contains  about  40,000  inhabitants 
( Hogg's  17s/;  to  A  hxandriu ) — the  J  ews  numbering  only 
500  (St.  John's  Eyypt  and  Moltamnnd  A  li.  ii.);  but  it  is 
again  fast  rising  into  importance  as  a  seat  of  commerce 
and  the  grand  road  to  the  East.      The  modern  city  of 
Under  the  immediate  successors  of  Alexander,  the  ]  Alexandria  is  surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  built  by" the 
free  population  of  Alexandria  numbered  :ji.io,iino  ;  and,  |  Saracens  between  A.D.  1200-1300.      Some  parts  of  the 
including  slaves,   it  has  been  calculated  to  have  con-  i  walls  of  the  old  city  still  exist,,  and  the  ancient  vaulted 


draperies  are  simple,  resembling  the  inferior  Pompeian 


frescoes. 


reservoirs,  extending  under  the  whole  town,  are  almost 
entire.  The  ancient  necropolis  is  excavated  out  of  the 
solid  rock.  The  excavation  is  described  bv  I  )e  Tott  as 
200  feet  long  by  4o  feet  wide.  Jt  has  several  opening's 
at  the  sides,  forming  subterranean  streets,  containing 
horiy.oiital  niclies,  -_"l  indies  square  bv  'i  feet  deep,  nar- 
rowed  at  the  bottom,  and  separated  from  each  other  bv 
partitions  in  the  rock  7  or  s  indies  thick,  for  the  re 
ception  of  the  mummies.  The  situ  of  tliat  part  known 
to  have  been  Uhacotis  is  now  coscred  bv  the  sea;  but 
beneath  the  surface  of  the  water  are  visible  the  remains 


of  ancient  Iv_ryptian  statues  and  columns. 

[Arrhin,  111,,  iii.-vii.;  Aiiiini  inns  ManvUinus,  111,.  \xii.;  Hi..]. 
Sic.;  Strain),  lib.  xvii.;  Quint.  Curt.;  Justin;  I'HMS.III.;  Jose- 
I'lms,  Ant.;  Kusrli.  I'.',;-'.  //;.-•/.  ii.  li! ;  Alnil  I'haiT,'  DVII,  ix.;  Ali- 
ilallatif.  cup.  ix.;  .J.  .M;tla!:i  ;  (iildi.n,  caps.  In,  •_'-,  ,,|  :  Wilkin 
sun's  77,, /,.,-,-  Sharpe-'s  ///.-•/„ ,•//„;'  fy,/,,/  \  |.i  i,  j 

ALGUM.     Sre  ALMUG. 

ALIEN.     NM-STKANCKK. 

ALLEGORY  occurs  only  once  in  all  Scripture,  and 
in  that  one  place  owes  its  existence  to  a  scarcelv  accu 
rate  translation.  The  pa-^au'e  is  (  la.  iv.  21,  where,  with 
reference  to  the  story  of  Ha-ar  and  Ishmael.  Sarah  and 
Isaac,  as  an  embodiment  of  spiritual  truth,  tin-  apostle 
says,  "which  tilings  are  to  be  alleu'ori/ed  "  (arivd  ixnv 
d\\r)yopoviu.fva),  or  tran.-fern-d  to  aiiotlier  and  higher 
line  of  things — not  precisely,  as  in  the  authorized  ver 
sion.  "  are  an  allegory."  For  an  allegory,  in  the  strict 
and  proper  sense,  is  a  narrative  either  expressly  feigned 
for  the  purpose,  or.  if  describing  facts  which  really  took 
place,  describing  them  only  for  the  purpose-  of  repre 
senting  other  things  than  the  narrative,  in  its  imme 
diate  aspect,  brings  into  view;  so  that  the  narrative  is 
either  fictitious,  or  treated  as  if  it  were  so.  the  second 
ary  or  moral  import  being  alone  regarded.  St.  Paul, 
however,  as  Bishop  Marsh  justly  remarks  (Lecture  v. 
on  the  Interpretation  of  the  IllfJc],  "did  not  pronounce 
the  history  itself  an  allegory;  he  declared  only  that  it 
was  allegorized.  It  is  one  thing  to  say  that  a  history 
is  allegorized,  it  is  another  thing  to  say  that  it  is  alle 
gory  itself.  If  we  only  allegorize  a  historical  narra 
tive,  we  do  not  of  necessity  convert  it  into  allegory. 
And  though  allegorical  interpretation,  when  applied  to 
history,  may  be  applied  either  so  as  to  preserve  or  so 
as  to  destroy  its  historical  verity,  yet,  when  we  use  the 
verb  allegorize  as  St.  Paul  has  used"  if,  the  allegorical  in- 

Voi..  i. 


terpretation  is  manifestly  of  the  former  kind.  In  short 
when  St.  Paul  allegorized  the  history  of  the  two  sons  of 
Abraham,  and  compared  them  with  the  two  covenants, 
he  did  nothing  more  than  represent  the  !ir.--t  as  tvpes, 
the  latter  as  antitypes."  Hisnbject  was  >imp]y  to  state 
that  tile  portion  of  Old  Te-tanieia  hist. .rv  referred  to 
was  of  the  nature  of  a  revelation  concerning  the  great 
things  of  salvation,  and  to  indicate  u  hat,  were  the  truths 

which.  wht .n  spiritually  under-l I,  it  \vas  intended  to 

convey;  namely,  that  tin:  real  seed  of  <  !od  in  everv  a^e 
is,  like  Isaac,  begotten  by  the  special  agency  of  God, 
and  as  such,  is  free  to  serve  and  honour  him;  while 
those  who,  like  Ishmael.  are  born  merely  after  the  flesh, 
who  have  in  them  nothing  more  or  higher  than  nature 
has  conferred,  are  in  bondage  to  corruption,  and  can 
be  no  more  than  nominally  children  of  God. 

Neither  in  this  passage,  nor  in  any  other  part  of  New 
Testament  scripture,  is  a  \\arrantgiveii  for  that  alle 
gorical  mode  of  interpreting  the  historical  portions  of 
the  Old  Testament  which  prevailed  in  earlv  times,  and 
readied  its  climax  in  the  writings  and  school  of  Origcn. 
I'v  that  mode  the  script  lira!  narratives  were  held  some 
times  to  IM,-  unreal  accounts  as  regards  the  letter;  but 
more  commonly  they  were  treated  pr.-ei>elv  as  if  they 
were  such,  being  accoimno. la' ed  to  things,  not  simply 
involving  higher  exemplifications  of  dhine  truth  and 
principle,  but  totally  different  in  kind,  consequently 
arbitrary  and  capricious  in  the  particular  use  made  of 
them.  The  actual  source  of  such  interpretations  lav, 
Hot  in  Scripture  itself,  but  in  the  allegori/.inu's  of  Philo 
and  tlie  later  Platonists  generally.  The  only  allegories 
to  be  found  in  Scripture  are  its  parabolical  representa 
tions,  such  as,  in  the  Old  Testament,  Canticles,  Psalm.; 
xlv.  l\xx.,  Isa.  v.  1-7,  and  in  the  New,  tile  parables 
of  our  Lord.  In  these  there  is  an  immediate  or  osten 
sible  representation  of  certain  circumstances  and  trans 
actions,  simply  for  the  purpose  of  giving  an  exhibition 
of  another,  though  corresponding  class  of  things,  in  a 
different  and  higher  sphere  ;  and  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
one  the  other  would  not  have  been  introduced.  (Sec 
PAKAIU.KS  and  TYPES.) 

ALLELUIA,  or  II.m.Ki.riA,  a  Hebrew  word,  sig 
nifying  Praise  yi>  the  Lord.  It  was  a  common  form  of 
adoration  and  thanksgiving  in  the  Jewish  worship,  as 
a] (pears  from  its  frequent  employment  at  the  beginning 

8 


ALLIANCES 


/58 


ALMON  D 


and  the  close  of   Psalms,  iv  cvi.  cxi.  cxiii.  cxvii. 

from  the  earthly  it  is  transferred  l>y  St.  .John  to   tlie 

heavenly  temple,  Re.  xix.  i,:i,  1,0. 

ALLIANCES.      Under  this  term  mav 


xxxv.;  and  i  pertain  to  the  family — the  law  was  perfectly  explicit: 


hended  the  relations,  whether  of  a  political  or  a  social 
nature,  which  the  people  of  (iod  were,  or  were  not,  per 
mitted  to  form  with  strangers  —  national  alliances,  and 
alliance's  l>y  marriage.  In  regard  to  the  former,  nothing 
\'ery  definite  was  laid  down  in  the  legislation  of  Moses, 
except  a<  regards  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  land 
of  Canaan.  M  ith  them  the  Israelites  were  enjoined  to 
make  no  league,  pulilic  or  private,  but  to  carry  into 


Israel,  the  covenant-people  of  Jehovah,  could  lawfully 
enter  into  no  marriage- covenant  with  the  daughter  of  n 
strange  god  ;  for  this  was  to  poison  the  life  of  the  cove 
nant-people  at  its  very  fountain-head.  The  whole  char 
acter  and  aim  of  the  covenant  protested  against  alliances 
of  such  a  description,  and  they  were  both  expressly  for 
bidden  in  the  law,  Ho.  \i 
as  violations  of  the  fun< 

Iiant,  Kzra  i\.  x.;    Nil.  xiii.; 

open  to  members  of  the  covenant  to  marry  wives  from 
other  nations,  on  the  understanding  that  the  persons  i 


effect   the   decree   of    Heaven,  which  doomed  them  for     wedded   renounced   the  gods  and   corrupt   manners   of 
their  enormous  sins  to  utter  destruction,  Do.  vii  2  ;  Ju.  ii.  2.  [their  country,  and  embraced  instead  those  of  Israel. 


What  was  said  respecting  the  surrounding  nations  bore 
upon  the  religion  and  manners  prevalent  among  them, 
rather  than  upon  the  people  themselves:  Israel  was  not  to 
copy  after  their  idolatrous  and  sinful  practices,  but  still 
was,  if  possible,  to  cultivate  peaceful  and  friendly  rela 
tions  with  them.  This  possibility,  and  the  prospect  of 
it  in  a  way  honourable  to  Israel,  was  even 
held  out  as  a  promise  by  the  lawgiver,  dependent  on  the 
fidelity  of  the  people  to  their  covenant-engagements. 
In  that  case,  (lod  should  give  them  favour  among  the 
nations,  should  even  put  the  fear  of  them  upon  the 
nations,  and  should  enable  them  to  lend  to  these  as 
haying  more  than  they  themselves  might  need,  and 
standing  in  such  relations  to  others  that  the  latter 
shoulel  be  disposeel  to  receive  help  at  their  lianels,  Uo.  ii. 
L'.'I;  xv.  (!;  Go.  xxvii.  •>'.}.  So  that,  if  it  wa.s  a  part  of  Israel's 
calling  to  dwell  in  some  sense  alone,  anel  not  to  be 
numbered  with  the  nations,  they  were  not  the  less  ex 
pected  and  bound  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with 
those  around  them,  and  to  seek  their  good.  No  other 
wise,  indeed,  could  they  fulfil  their  mission  as  destined 
to  give  light  and  blessing  to  the  world.  Accordingly, 
when  the  commonwealth  of  Israel  was  fully  established 
in  Canaan,  and  it  was  numbered  in  the  community  of 


Of  this  various  examples  occurred,  and  some  are  ex 
pressly  noticed—  in  particular,  Ilahab,  Kuth,  Zipporah. 

AL'LON-BACH'UTH  [oak  <,fwccpin<j],  a  place  near 
Bethel  where  Deborah,  Ucbekah's  nurse,  was  buried. 
Go.  xxxv.  s.  The  place  is  remarkable  for  nothing  else, 
and  never  occurs  ai,rain. 

ALMOND.  The  almond  (.\mi/<j<l«lH* 
belongs  to  a  botanical  family,  Amygdalea-,  the  mem 
bers  of  which  are  widely  diffused,  and  most  of  them 
very  popular.  They  are  all  shrubs,  or  at  the  utmost 
trees  of  unambitious  stature,  such  as  the  sloe,  the: 
plum,  the  cherry,  the  peach,  the  cherry-laurel.  The 
fruit  of  this  family  consists  of  a  two-lobed  kernel,  in 
closed  in  a  shell,  which  again  is  surrounded  by  a  drupe 
or  juicy  covering.  In  some  members  of  the  family  this 
pulpy  covering,  when  ripe,  is  remarkably  rich  and  suc 
culent,  as  in  the  case  of  the  peach  and  nectarine,  and 
the  more  liquiel  an  el  acidulous  cherry  ;  but  the  drupe  of 
the  almond  is  dry  and  coriaceous,  and  the  kernel  alone 
is  valued.  In  England,  in  favourable  summers,  the 
almond  matures  its  fruit;  but  we  are  chiefly  familiar 
with  it  as  a  kernel,  or  as  a  nut  divested  of  its  soft 
outward  coating.  All  amygdaleous  plants  contain  in 
their  blossoms,  leaves,  and  fruit,  a  perceptible  trace  of 


nations,   formal  alliances   sprung  up  between   it   and  |  a  peculiar  principle,  with  the  aromatic  gust  of  which 
others,   which  were   not   denounced   as   in   themselves  '  every  one  is  familiar,  but  -which  usually  occurs  asso- 


wrong :  if  they  erred,  it  was  only  in  respect  to  the  ex 
tent  to  which  they  were  carried,  or  the  consequences 
which  they  were  suffered  to  entail.  The  alliance  be 
tween  Salomon  anel  Tyre,  establisheel  and  continued  for 
perfectly  proper  and  even  sacred  ends,  bears  through 
out  the  aspect  of  a  legitimate  character,  i  Ki.  v.  2-12;  ix.  27; 
and  in  later  times,  it  is  charged  as  a  special  ground  e>f 
judgment  against  Tyre,  that  she  had  not  remembered 
the  brotherly  covenant,  Am.  i.  7.  The  other  alliances  of 
Solomon,  those  with  Pharaoh  of  Egypt  and  several 
states  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Palestine,  are  represented 
in  a  less  favourable  light,  simply  because  he  allowed 
them  to  entangle  him  in  a  sinful  compliance  with  their 
idolatrous  practices  and  licentious  system  of  concubin 
age.  And  such  undoubtedly  was  the  general  tendeney 
of  the  political  alliances  of  the  Israelitish  people  in 
later  times  :  they  leel  to  too  close  an  imitation  of  heathen 
manners,  and  ultimately  to  too  great  dependence  upon 
heathen  counsel  anel  support,  and  so  became  among  the 
more  immediate  causes  that  led  to  the  degradation  and 
overthrow  of  the  kingdoms  both  of  Israel  anel  Judah. 
The  prophets  are  consequently  full  e>f  reproofs  and  warn 
ings  on  the  subject,  ami  some  of  their  more  striking  and 
pungent  delineations,  such  as  Eze.  xvi.  xxiii.,  Ho.  v., 
turn  especially  on  the  improper  character  anel  disastrous 
results  of  those  heathen  alliances. 

In  respect  to  the  other  form  of  alliances — those  which 


laboratory,  and  under  the 
infmitesimally  diffused  as 


ciateel  with  one  of  our  deadliest  poisons.  This  prussic 
aciel,  however,  in  nature's 
hand  of  the  Creator,  is  so 
seldom  to  exert  a  noxious  influence.  The  cook  or  con 
fectioner  puts  a  fragment  of  cherry-laurel  leaf  into  his 
elainty  dish,  and  gives  it  that  agreeable  sou)i<;on  so  dear 
to  epicures;  and  the  manufacturer  of  liqueurs  digests 
in  alcohol  the  kernels  of  the  poach,  the  nectarine,  or 
cherry,  and  produces  the  costly  noyau,  ratafia,  and 
maraschino. 


The   almond   is   diffused 


culture   f r<  > 


Spain,  and  is  found  to  bear  fruit  well  on 


i  China  to 
ith  sides  of 

the  Mediterranean;  but  there  is  no  region  where  it 
thrives  better  than  Syria,  or  where  it  is  so  truly  at 
home.  Accordingly,  when  Jacob  was  sending  a  j ire- 
sent  of  those  productions  of  Canaan  which  were  likely 
to  be  acceptable  to  an  Egyptian  grandee,  "the  best 
fruits  of  the  land,''  besides  balm,  and  myrrh,  and 
honey,  he  bade  his  sons  take  "  nuts  and  almonds," 
Go.  xliii.  11 ;  and  the  original  name  of  that  place  so  en 
deareel  to  bis  memory  as  Bethel,  originally  called  Luz, 
was  probably  derived  from  some  well-known  tree  of 
this  species;  for  there  can  be  little  eloubt  that  luz, 
amongst  the  Hebrews,  as  amongst  the  modern  Arabs 
(who  call  it  louz),  was  one  of  the  names  for  the  almond- 
tree,  Ge.  xxviii.  in.  If  so,  they  were  rods  not  of  "  hazel" 
(as  the  authorized  version  renders),  but  of  "  almoiieV 


ALMOND  i 

luz,  which  Jacob  employed  in  his  singular  experiment  on 
the  flocks  of  his  father- in- law  at  Padan-aram,  Go.  xxx.  37. 
To  this  day  "Jordan  almonds"  is  the  recognized  mar 
ket-name  for  the  best  samples  of  this  fruit,  in  common 
with  Tafilat  dates,  Eleme  figs,  &c.  The  name,  how 
ever,  is  little  more  than  a  tradition.  The  best  "Jordan 
almonds''  come  from  Malaga. 


/  ^" 

fl        x  t^^r^"  — 


With  its  oblong  oval,  sharpened  at  one  end  and 
rounded  at  the  other,  the  shape  of  the  .almond-nut  is 
remarkably  graceful,  and  it  was  the  pattern  selected 
for  the  bowls  of  the  golden  candlestick,  Kx.  xxv.  31-37  ; 
xx\vii.  i~;  unless,  indeed,  we  suppose  that  tlie  entire 
fruit  was  re]. resented  in  its  ripe  .and  opening  state, 
displaying  the  pointed  nut  within,  which  would  be  a 
peculiarly  elegant  design  for  the  cup  of  an  oil  cande 
labrum  :  the  round  sarcocarp  containing  the  oil,  and 
the  flame-shaped  nut  of  LTold  emitting  the  liu'ht  from 
its  apex.  Amongst  o;ir  designers  the  almond  still  does 
good  service;  although  in  I'.ritish  ornamentation  it, 
yields  to  the  national  .-vmhol  the  oak,  with  its  beauti 
ful  acorn  and  cup.  Hut  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that 
pieces  of  crystal,  called  "  almonds,"  are  still  used  l.v  tli" 
manufacturer  in  the  adorning  of  cut-glass  chandeliers. 

The  rod  of  Aaron  \\hich  miraculously  budded  and 
bore  fruit  in  a  single  ni'_dit,  yielded  "  almonds,''  Nu.  xvii  s 

As  we  have  mentioned,  it  is  extremely  probable 
that  lu;  was  one  of  the  Hebrew  names  for  the  almond  ; 
but  in  the  Old  Testament  it  is  usually  called  shakal 
(T5li;),  "the  waker,''  from  its  being  the  earliest  tree  that 

awakes  from  the  winter's  sleep.  Hence  it  is  employed 
as  an  expressive  emblem  in  the  outset  of  .Jeremiah's 
prophecies: — "The  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  me, 
saying,  Jeremiah,  what  seest  thou?  And  I  said,  I  see 
a  r.>d  of  an  almond  tree.  Then  the  Lord  said  to  me, 
Thou  has  rightly  seen  :  for  1  will  be  carli/  awake  with 
respect  to  my  word  to  perform  it,''  Je.  i.  11,  12-Dr.  K. 
Henderson's  translation.  In  Syria,  the  almond  blossoms 
in  February  (Schubert's  7iVtV.'  in  <la*  Moi-t/cnhiiid} ; 
and  in  the  squares  and  parks  of  London,  as  early  as 
March  or  April,  its  welcome  harbinger  anticipates  the 


ALMS 

boldest  of  our  native  foresters,  and  brings  to  the  frost- 
bound  citizens  good  tidings  of  the  spring. 

But  not  only  is  it  Flora's  precursor  among  the  trees; 
its  blossoms  expand  weeks  before  its  leaves.  This  pro 
pensity  to  display  its  blossoms  on  bare  branches  the 
almond  shares  with  several  of  its  kindred  :  and,  as  a 
parallel  to  Solomon's  image,  we  may  refer  to  its  cousin- 
german  the  sloe,  in  our  own  cold  dime  so  familiar,  with 
its  snowy  petals  sprinkled  on  the  black  and  dead-look 
ing  boughs.  To  this  it  has  usually  been  supposed  that 
the  royal  preacher  alludes  in  his  description  of  old  au'e, 
"when  the  almond  tree  shall  flourish,"  EC.  xii.  -i,  the 
blossoms  on  the  leafless  branches  denoting  the  beauti 
ful  crown  which  surmounts  the  unverdant  trunk  of  ad 
vancing  years.  To  this  it  has  of  late  been  objected 
that  the  blossom  "is  not  white  but  pink,  or  rather 
partly  pink  and  partly  white."' — (I'.onar's  Dem  rt  of 
Sinai,  p.  354  ;  Balfour's  /'hints  of  the  JU/>/<:')  As  far 
as  concerns  the  colour  of  the  blossom,  the  criticism  is 
entirely  just,  and  the  compilers,  who  have  followed 
one  another  in  speaking  of  the  "snowy"  or  "silvery" 
almond  flower,  are  altogether  wrong:  but  we  fancy 
that  the  force  of  the  comparison  lies,  not  in  the  tint  of 
the  flower,  but  in  its  beauty  and  its  loveliness.  "  The 
hoary  head  is  a  crown  of  glory,"  l'r.  x\i.  :;i  ;  but  an 
eastern  crown  was  usually  not  white,  but  goldi  n.  \  et 
who  can  find  fault  with  the  metaphor.'  The  hoary 
locks  are  the  crown  of  old  au'e,  and  the  almond  blossom 
is  the  garland  of  winter.  Often  have  we  seen  its  hardy 
petals  doiir.;  battle  \\ith  snow-storms  ami  sleet;  and 
though  the  hoar-frost  was  on  its  branches  over- night, 
its  frank  and  fearless  smile  was  ready  for  the  morning's 
sun.  How  pleasant  if  we  could  always  carry  the  meta 
phor  a  little  farther:  "The  hoary  head  is  a  crown  of 
glory,  if  it  be  found  in  the  way  of  righteousness."  In 
such  a  case,  "  the  flourishing  of  the  almond  tree"  would 
be  the  blossom  of  immortality  :  and  on  behalf  of  the 
old  disciple  we  should  rejoice  because  "  siiinnn T  is  near" 
--  a  brighter  association  than  that  which  is  contained 
in  Moore's  well  known  lines:  - 

"Tin'  hope,  in  iln-irns,  of  a  liaj^irr  hum, 

Tint  ali'_']it-  mi  misiTv's  l.n.w, 
S] .ring's  nut  of  the  sil\.T\  alniunil  tl.mri 
That  1.1 us  on  a  kalKsss  Louyh." 

However,  it  is  ri'_rht  to  add  that  Uescnius  adopts  a 
less  poetical  ]vnderiii'_r.  "and  the  almond  is  spurned,'' 
rejected  by  the  old  and  toothless  man,  although  in 
itself  a  delicious  and  much-pri/.ed  fruit.  [.i.  ii.j 

ALMS,  AI.MS-DKKDS.  The  word  all, if  is  not  only 
equivalent  in  meaning  to  the  (i reek  ('V^/.ux-cc?/,  of  \\hioh 
it  is  the  uniform  rendering  in  Scripture,  Ma.  vi.  2,  3,  Ac. 
iii.  i!,  &<• .,  but  is  also  derived  from  it  :  it  is  the  same  word 
in  an  abbreviated  and  modified  form.  As  found  in  the 
old  Saxon  translation  it  comes  pretty  near  the  original, 
(rlincssan,  which,  in  the  (Jerman,  became  changed  into 
alni'wn;  in  Wicklifl'e's  translation  it  is  given  a/nnxxr; 
in  Scotland  aicntoiis  is  still  familiarly  used  ;  but  in  Eng 
land  it  passed  first  into  ahum  (which  is  the  form  em 
ployed  by  Tyndale),  and  then,  by  further  contraction, 
into  alma.  It  is  really,  therefore,  a  singular,  though 
it  has  the  form  of  a  plural,  word.  The  Kngli.-h  term 
so  far  ditt'ers  from  the  (Jreek  original,  that  it  bears  only 
one  of  the  two  significations  which  belong  to  the  other  ; 
t\eri/j.o(n''vrj  first  denotes  pity,  then  the  special  exer 
cise  of  pity,  which  consists  in  bestowing  charity  on  the 
poor,  while  our  word  afins  is  confined  to  the  bestowal 
of  charity.  Hence,  to  mark  this  more  definitely,  the 


GO 


word  deed  or  di-uts  is  sometimes  added  to  it,  us  at  Ac. 
ix.  ,°)(>,  where  it  is  said  conccniin^  Dorcas,  tliiit  "sin: 
was  full  of  alms-deeds  which  she  did."  \Vliat  its  done, 
however,  or  given  in  this  respect,  is  no  further  entitled 
to  tlio  name  of  alms,  than  as  it  may  he  the  expression 
of  a  feeling  of  ninvy  toward  the  destitute. 

In  every  age  the  readiness  to  bestow  alms  upon  the 
really  necessitous  has  formed  a  distinguishing  charac 
teristic  of  the  goodness  which  is  required  and  com 
mended  in  tho  Word  of  (iod  ;  luit  there  can  be  710  doubt, 
that  the  attribute  of  beneficence  liolds  a.  more  promi 
nent  place  in  the  New  Testament  than  it  did  in  the 
Old.  Under  the  dispensation  brought  in  by  Moses 
there  was  less  room  for  the  development  of  such  a  virtue 
than  commonly  exists  in  Christian  times;  nor  had  it 
motives  to  present  of  nearly  such  commanding  energy 
for  the  grace-  of  liberality  as  an;  now  exhibited  in  the 
gospel.  From  the  general  distribution  of  property  in 
Israel,  and  the  precautions  taken  to  prevent  the  aliena 
tion  of  inheritances  on  the  one  hand,  as  well  as  the 
undue  accumulation  of  wealth  on  tin:  other,  cases  of 
extreme  poverty,  or  forms  of  pauperism,  must  have 
been  comparatively  rare.  Indeed,  if  the  laws  estab 
lished  by  Moses  had  been  faithfully  administered,  and 
the  polity  in  its  main  provisions  had  been  wrought  in 
any  measure  according  to  its  idea,  there  would  have 
been  such  a  general  diffusion  of  the  means  of  support 
and  comfort  as  must  have  rendered  scenes  of  destitution 
almost  unknown.  .For,  along  with  an  ample  territory, 
the  people  of  Israel  were  assured  by  the  covenant  of  a 
special  blessing  upon  their  fields  and  labours,  and  were 
solemnly  engaged  to  the  practice  of  that  righteousness 
which  is  itself  the  best  safeguard  against  misery  and 
want.  It  was  clearly  enough  foreseen,  however,  by 
.Moses,  that  the  ideal  lie  set  before  them  would  bo  but 
imperfectly  realized;  and  therefore,  while  legislating 
for  the  existence  and  perpetuation  of  a  state  of  things 
which  should  well-nigh  have  excluded  poverty,  and 
rendered  alms-giving  a  work  of  supererogation,  he  yet 
anticipated  the  Frequent  occurrence  of  circumstances 
which  should  call  for  the  exercise  of  a  bountiful  dispo 
sition.  He  even  announced  it  as  a  matter  of  undoubted 
certainty  that  '•  the  poor  should  never  cease  out  of  the 
land;"  and  "  therefore  "—such  was  the  obligation  he 
imposed  for  all  times —  ''there fore  I  command  thee. 
saying,  Thou  shalt  open,  thine  hand  wide  unto  thy 
brother,  to  thy  poor,  and  to  thy  needy,  in  thy  land." 
l)c.  xv.  11.  The  command  was  not  only  to  give  alms  in 
such  a  case,  but  to  give  liberally,  and  to  do  it  in  an 
ungrudging,  compassionate  spirit,  "  not  grieving  when 
they  gave"  (as  it  is  urged  in.  ver.  10),  and  so  "the 
Lord  their  God  should  bless  them  for  this  thing  in  all 
their  works,  and  in  all  that  they  put  their  hand  to." 
Many  other  instructions  of  like  import  are  scattered 
through  the  Pentateuch,  accompanied  by  considerations 
drawn  both  from  the  past  history  of  Israel  and  from 
the  expected  future  ;  and  certain  specific  provisions 
were  even  made  for  the  regular  distribution  of  alms  on 
a  large  scale  among  the  poorej  members  of  the  com 
monwealth.  The  institution  of  the  sabbatical  year  was 
of  this  description,  since  the  foremost  reason  for  its  ap 
pointment  was,  ''that  the  poor  of  the  people  might 
eat,"  Kx.  xxiii.  11.  Such,  also,  were  the  gleanings  of  corn 
and  fruit  which  were  annually  to  lie  left  on  purpose  that 
the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  and  the  widow  miulit  par 
ticipate  ill  the  bounties  of  the  season.  T)u  xxiv.  l!)-L"j;  and 
still  more,  the  tithings  every  third  year  which  were  to  1 


be  laid  up  in  store,  that  "the  Levite,  the  stranger,  the 
fatherless,  and  the  widow,  who  were  within  their  gates, 
might  come,  and  eat,  ami  be  satisfied,"  DU.  xiv.  2S,  2!).  A 
most  benign  and  charitable  spirit,  it  thus  appears,  per 
vaded  the  legislation  of  Moses.  Tho  people  could  not 
enter  into  the  genius  of  the  institutions  lie  set  up  with 
out  being  led  to  seek  their  prosperity  and  well-being  in 
connection  with  showing  mercy  to  the  poor.  The  writ 
ings  of  the  prophets  also  re-echo  the  instruction,  while 
they  show  how  grievously  the  spirit  of  the  Mosaic  polity 
in  this  respect  was  violated.  "The  oppression  of  the 
poor,"  robbing  the  fatherless  and  the  widow,  binding  in 
stead  of  breaking  every  yoke,  and  refusing  to  deal  out 
their  bread  to  the  hungry,  are  among  the  heaviest 
charges  brought  against  the  leading  members  of  the 
community,  and  are  specially  mentioned  amon'_r  the 
sins  which  drew  down  the  judgments  of  Heaven, 
Is.  Iviii.  i-7;  K/.e.  xviii.  7;  Am.  ii  7,  iVu. 

"With  the  commencement  of  the  gospel  age  a  new  era 
in  almsgiving,  as  in  the  spirit  of  kindness  and  good- will 
generally,  dawned  upon  the  world.  This  had  at  once 
the  spring  of  its  activity  and  the  pattern  of  its  working 
in  the  personal  history  and  mission  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  which,  with  special  reference  to  tins  subject,  is 
summed  up  by  the  apostle  in  the  memorable  words, 
that  "  though  he  was  rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  he  became 
poor,  that  we  through  his  poverty  might  be  made  rich." 
The  seeming  paradox  which  the  same  apostle  applied 
to  himself,  "poor,  yet  making  many  rich,"  had  un 
speakably  its  highest  exemplification  in  Christ — pri 
marily,  indeed,  and  mainly  in  respect  to  the  spiritual 
benefits  which  more  especially  constitute  the  well-being 
of  an  intelligent  and  accountable  creature,  vet  not  with 
out  regard  also  to  the  lower  comforts  which  are  required 
to  meet  their  bodily  wants.  Is'ot  a  few  of  hi:;  most 
striking  miracles  were  wrought  for  the  purpose  of 
making  provision  for  these  in  times  of  emergency;  and 
in  healing  the  sick,  opening  the  eyes  of  tho  blind,  re 
lieving  those  that  were  oppressed,  of  the  devil,  He  acted 
as  the  bestower  of  bounties  the  same  in  kind  as  those 
ministered  to  the  poor  by  the  alms  of  the  rich,  only  far 
superior  in  degree.  In  his  teaching,  too,  He  gave  a 
prominent  place  to  exercises  of  beneficence  in  this  direc 
tion  ;  as  when  He  exhorted  the  disciples  to  "give  alms 
of  such  things  as  they  had:"  nay,  to  give  with  such 
pure  and  single  aim  that  their  "  left  hand  should  not 
know  what  their  right  hand  did,"  and  on  objects  so  ut 
terly  poor  and  destitute  as  to  preclude  the  hope  of  any 
other  recompense  than  that  which  should  await  them 
at  the  resurrection  of  the  just ;  above  all,  the  emphasis 
He  laid  upon  alms-deeds  and  other  offices  of  mercy  to 
the  poor  of  the  flock  in  the  grand  delineation  of  the 
mud  judgment,  in  which  they  are  made  to  stand  as  the 
test  of  preparation  for  the  kingdom  of  the  Father, 

Mat.  vi.:i;  xxv.  31-4.".;  Lu.  vi.  .'!.">;  xi.  41;  xiv.  I,1:,  14.  It  is  impos 
sible,  therefore,  to  look  to  the  example  or  to  the  teach 
ing  of  Christ — impossible  yet  more,  to  come  under  the 
influence  of  his  own,  free,  generous,  self- sacrificing  love, 
without  feeling  convinced  that  almsgiving  must  form  a 
distinguishing  characteristic  in  his  genuine  followers,  so 
far  as  they  may  have  the  means  and  the  call  to  mani 
fest  it.  If  any  doubt  could  have  been  entertained  upon 
the  subject,  the  records  of  the  apostolic  church  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  dispel  it,  exhibiting  as  they  do, 
simultaneously  with  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  and  the  ex 
perience  of  life  and  joy  in  the  hearts  of  believers,  an 
amazing  outburst  of  liberality  towards  the  poorer  mem- 


ALMS 


61 


ALMS 


bers  of  the  body.  The  common  faitli  in  Jesus,  and  the 
full  indwelling  of  his  Spirit,  made  them  feel  as  "  of  one 
heart  and  one  soul,"  members  together  of  a  select 
brotherhood  ;  so  that  it  seemed  no  more  than  just,  that 
the  superfluity  of  some  should  go  to  relieve  the  neces 
sities  of  others.  And  recognizing  this  as  an  abiding 
relationship,  and  the  claim  arising  out  of  it  as  one  that 
must  be  ever  responded  to  in  the  church  of  Christ,  they 
presently  appointed  a  distinct  class  of  officers  (deacons) 
to  take  the  oversight  of  the  matter,  and  see  to  it  that 
none  of  the  really  destitute  were  neglected  in  the  daily 
ministrations.  Thus  aim-giving  was  from  the  first 
identified  with  the  church  of  Christ,  ingrafted,  we  may 
say,  as  an  essential  element  into  her  constitution  ;  and 
no  one  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  the  early  history 
of  the  church  can  be  ignorant  what  a  powerful  element 
it  proved  in  subduing  the  opposition  of  the  world,  and 
winning  aliens  to  the  fold  of  Christ. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  simple  fact  of  such  a  spirit  of 
charity  springing  forth  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Christian  church  that  demands  our  regard,  but  the 
healthf ulness  of  tone  and  practical  sagacity  that  char 
acterized  its  development.  lioth  in  respect  t<>  -iver 
and  receiver  there  was  an  admirable  balancing  of  prin 
ciples  and  duties.  On  the  one  side  all  was  perfectly 
free  and  spontaneous.  The  necessity  of  giving,  how 
ever  generally  felt,  was  not  imposed  as  a  condition  of 
membership,  far  less  was  any  attempt  made  to  impose 
a  definite  proportion  of  income,  like  the  old  law  of 
tithes,  as  the  amount  that  must  or  (nujht  to  be  contri 
buted  by  the  richer  members  of  the  church  forth.-  relief 

of  their  | rer  brethren.      "Whiles   it   remained,"  was 

the'  word  of  Peter  in  the  first  testing  case  that  arose 
about  the  matter  of  giving,  "was  it  not  thine  own! 
and  after  it  \\as  sold,  \yas  it  not  in  thine  own  power."1 
Ac.  v.  i.  Without  constraint  of  any  kind,  but  the  con 
straint  of  inward  principle  and  feeling,  it  was  left  to 
themselves  to  determine  whether  they  should  give  at 
all  to  the  common  fund,  or  to  what  extent  they  should 
give.  And,  in  like  manner,  the-  apo.,t!e  Paul,  when 
pressing  on  the  church  at  < 'orintli  the  duty  of  contri 
lulling  to  the  poor  saints  at  .Jerusalem,  was  careful  to 
urge  it  upon  tln-ir  consciences,  not  as  .-peaking  by  com 
mandment,  but  simply  "as  a  matter  of  bounty,"  and 
to  "prove  the  sincerity  of  their  love."  Sought  thus, 
on  the  one  side,  as  the  fruit  of  a  willing-  mind,  and 
urged  by  arguments  of  moral  suasion,  all  occasion  was 
cut  off.  on  the  other,  for  claiming  the  benefactions  of 
the  rich  as  a  right  to  be  possessed,  or  leaning  on  th.-m 
as  an  excuse  for  improvidence  and  sloth.  The  alms 
giving  laught  and  exemplified  in  the  apostolic  church 
has  nolhing  in  common  with  tin;  confiscating  and  level 
ling  doctrine  of  Socialism.  It  did  not  merge  the  indivi 
dual  in  the  community,  or  transfer  to  the  one  what,  by 
natural  ri-ht  and  lawful  possession,  belong,-,!  to  the 
other:  and  recognizing  thus  the  rights  of  the  indivi 
dual,  it,  of  necessity,  also  recognized  the  imperative 
obligation  of  each  member  of  the  church  t«-  support 
himself  and  those  dependent  upon  him,  by  his  own 
exertions;  and  only  in  the  event  of  this  failing  or 
proving  inadequate,  gave  him  a  title  to  look  for  aid 
from  the  treasury  of  the  church.  Even  in  the  first 
ardours  of  Christian  charity,  distribution  was  made, 
not  to  all  indiscriminately,  but  to  such  merely  as  had 
need.  A-.-,  ii.  r>.  Afterwards,  it  was  distinctly  announced 
that  if  any  one  would  not  work  (provided  he  was  cap 
able  of  doing  so),  neither  should  he  eat,  iTU.  iii.  id;  and 


by  proclaiming  the  elevated  principle  of  ics  being 
"  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive,"  Ac.  \\.sr-,,  the 
recipient  of  charity  was  made  to  occupy  relatively  an 
inferior  place  :  all,  even  those  in  the  humbler  ranks  of 
life,  were  taught  to  aim  at  the  nobler  distinction  of 
doing  something  to  relieve  the  wants  of  others,  rather 
than  being  indebted  to  others  for  their  own  relief. 
Hence,  nothing  can  well  be  conceived  more  alien  to  the 
spirit  and  genius  of  Christianity,  as  exhibited  in  the 
acts  and  precepts  of  the  apostolic'  age,  than  such  alms 
giving  as  might  encourage  an  idle  vagrancy  or  thrift 
less  improvidence,  even  in  individuals,  and,  still  more, 
as  might  foster  a  imndii-dnt  ord*  /•,  making  choice  of 
poverty  and  dependence  as  a  thin^  of  merit,  and  for  its 
own  sake  to  be  desired.  Nor  is  it  a  greatly  less  palp 
able  misreading  of  the  apostolic  history,  in  this  respect, 
which  is  made  by  communist  leaders,  and  by  certain 
theologians  (such  as  T.aur  and  Xeller),  when  it  is  held 
that  in  the  primitive  church  there  was  a  virtual  aboli 
tion  of  the  rights  of  prop.-rtv. 

The  church  of  the  apostles  in  this  mailer  of  alms 
giving,  while  it  is  a  witness  against  these  flagrant  per 
versions  and  false  theories,  is  also,  it  must  be  confessed 
with  sorrow,  a  model  which  no  longer  finds  in  Christen 
dom  its  proper  living  exemplification:  it  is  at  most  seen 
only  in  broken  lines  and  partial  resemblances.  As  the 
church  -Tew  and  expanded  in  the  world,  it  naturally 
became  more  difficult  to  keep  up,  in  its  life  and  vigour, 
the  spirit  of  brotherly  love,  of  \\hi.-h  Christian  aim-- 
-i\  in-  is  to  so  lar-e  an  extent  the  expression.  But  for 
-en.  rations  the  characteristic  was  more  or  less  pre 
served  in  all  the  churches,  and  many  noble  manifesta 
tions  of  liberality  continued  from  time  to  time  to  be 
given.  In  Justin  .Martyr's  time  it  was  the  re-ular 
custom  afier  di\ine  service  to  allow  the  rich  and  such 
as  were  willing  to  give  according  as  they  were  severally 
minded:  and  the  collection  was  deposited  with  the  pre 
siding  minister  oi-  bishop  for  the  relief  of  orphans  and 
widows,  or  tlio-ie  \\lio,  thnmgh  disea-e  or  any  other 
cause,  had  fallen  into  straits,  and  pi-r.-ons  -enerallv  in 
indigent  circumstances  (A/ml.  §  fi7).  The  departure 
from  apostolic  order  indicated  here,  in  giving  the  alms 
of  the  church  to  th.-  pa-tor,  instead  of  to  deacons  or  in 
ferior  officers  appointed  for  th,-  purpo-e,  could  scarcely 
have  become  common  in  .lu-tin's  time.  It  may  have 
arisen  in  certain  places  partly  from  the  difficulty  of 
getting  a  separate  class  of  officers  to  mana-e  it,  and 
partly,  it  may  be,  from  a  disposition  to  have  it  placed 
in  connection  with  the  highest  office  and  ministrations 
in  the  church.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  at  a  some 
what  later  period,  when  the  hierarchical  spirit  became 
more  fully  developed,  the  alms  of  the  church  came  also 
to  be  considered  as  eucharistical  offerings,  and  lost  their 
character  as  simply  acts  of  beneficence.  They  were  of 
the  things  that  pertained  to  the  altar,  and  hence  in 
their  administration  were  regarded  as  properly  belong 
ing  to  priestly  functions.  This  was  an  obvious  departure 
from  the  simplicity  of  the  gospel,  and  proved  in  after- 
times  one  of  the  greatest  sources  both  of  the  influence 
and  of  the  corruption  of  the  clergy.  I'ut  a  deviation 
not  less  marked  took  place  in  another  direction,  when 
the  state  formally  embraced  Christianity,  and  by  civil 
enactments  enforced  the  observance  of  what  was  at 
first,  and  in  its  own  nature  properly  is,  a  free-will  ser 
vice.  The  citizens,  simply  as  such,  then  came  to  be  le 
gally  bound  to  support  their  own  poor:  and,  reciprocally, 
the  poor  began  to  claim  as  a  right  their  title  to  share 


ALMS 


ALMUG  TKKK 


in  tin;  possessions  of  the  rich.  The  spontaneous,  conse 
quently  religions,  character  of  the  public  alms  for  re 
lieving  tin;  necessities  of  the  poor,  thus  fell  into  abey 
ance;  and,  excepting  in  so  far  as  the  hierarchical  spirit 
prevailed  to  possess,  itself  of  funds  that  were  considered 
strictly  ecclesiastical,  all  became  matter  of  state  regu 
lation  and  official  routine.  That  it  should  have  so  be 
come,  is  undoubtedly  a  striking  proof  of  the  influence 
which  Christianity  exercised  on  the  world,  ;uid  draws  a 
broad  line  of  demarcation  between  the  times  before  and 
subsequent  to  the  gospel;  for  heathendom  knew  of  no 
such  provision  for  the  wants  of  the  poor  as,  since  the 
establishment  of  Christianity,  has  in  most  Christian 
countries  found  public  recognition  in  the  laws  of  the 
state.  I'.ut  if  the  world  may  he  said  thereby  to  have 
gained,  the  church  certainly  has  lost,  and  no  longer 
realizes  -  at  least  in  the  manner  she  did  at  first — the 
ideal  of  a  just  representation,  of  the  mind  and  will  of 
Christ.  F<>r  as  He,  to  use  the  words  of  Baumgarten, 
"  in  the  days  of  his  flesh  sought  the  needy  and  the  sick, 
and  kindly  ministered  help  and  consolation,  so  it  is  his 
will  that  his  church  shall  exemplify  the  same  spirit  to 
wards  the  poor  and  afflicted,  and  substitute  its  offices 
of  charity  for  his  own  gracious  words  and  helping  hand. 
To  this  end  He  has  promised,  through  the  Holy  Spirit, 
to  make  the  church  the  abode  of  that  all-subduing  Live 
which  is  able  to  relieve  the  wants  of  the  whole  world. 
If  the  church  would  be  true  to  her  lord,  and  obey  the 
impulses  of  this  divine  love,  she  would  become  more 
deeply  conscious  of  her  own  wonderful  organism,  as  it 
was  in  apostolic  times;  and  meeting  the  wants  of  the 
world  in  the  power  of  this  spirit  of  active  benevolence, 
she  would  win  myriads  of  hearts  now  bound  by  Satan 
and  fettered  by  sin,  and  gain  greater  victories  than  were 
achieved  in  her  earlier  conflicts  with  pagan  Koine. 
And  who  shall  estimate  how  much  the  church  suffers, 
both  in  her  im\ard  character  and  her  external  pro 
sperity,  by  neglecting  this  important  part  of  her  mission  ? 
Shrinking  from  the  work  imposed  upon  her  for  the  re 
lief  of  human  woe,  and  transferring  it  into  an  organism 
not  endowed  with  the  requisite  qualifications  for  its 
proper  performance,  is  it  astonishing  that  that  which 
should  prove  itself  the  most  vital  and  powerful  organ 
ism  in  the  world  ha<  become  so  much  like  a  mere 
mechanism,  07'  rather,  indeed,  like  a  lifeless  corpse  • 

The  merit  belongs  to  Dr.  Chalmers  of  having  first, 
in  recent  times,  drawn  public  attention  to  this  subject: 
and  the  preceding  remarks  are  but  the  echo  of  many 
powerful  statements  and  appeals  which  he  made  in  re 
gard  to  it.  He  had  the  singular  merit,  also,  of  prac 
tically  proving  among  the;  neglected  and  miscellaneous 
population  of  a  city,  as  well  as  in  his  writings  eloquently 
expounding,  what  he  called  ''the  omnipotence  of  Chris 
tian  charity,"  and  the  vast  difference  both  in  character 
and  results  between  the  ' '  charity  of  law  and  the  charity 
of  the  gospel.''  There  may,  indeed,  be  a  degree  of 
exaggeration  in  the  evils  he  ascribed  to  the  existing 
poor-law  system;  but  no  one  who  has  been  called  to 
take  part  in  its  administration  can  refuse  to  own  that 
there  is  a  painful  amount  of  truth  in  his  representations, 
and  that  it  is  not  without  reason  he  asks,  "  With  what 
success  can  one  acquit  himself  as  a  minister  of  the 
New  Testament  in  the  presence  of  a  temptation,  by 
which  every  peasant  of  our  land  is  solicited  to  cast 
away  from  him  the  brightest  of  those  virtues  wherewith 
the  morality  of  the  sacred  volume  is  adorned  ?  By  what 
charm  shall  lie  woo  them  from  earth,  and  bear  their 


hearts  aspiringly  to  heaven,  while  such  a  bait  and  such 
a  bribery  are  held  forth  to  all  the  appetites  of  earthli- 
ness?  or,  how  can  he  rind  a  footing  for  the  religion  of 
charity  and  peace  in  a  land  broiling  with  litigation 
throughout  all  its  parishes,  and  where  charity,  trans 
formed  out  of  its  loveliness,  has  now  become  an  angry 
firebrand  for  lighting  up  the  most  vindictive  passions 
and  the  fiercest  jealousies  of  our  nature  V— (Christian 
an/l  Civic  Economy  of  Lunje  Town.-*,  c.  10.) 

In  the  meantime  the  churches  of  Christ  collectively, 
and  individual  Christians,  where  the  poor-law  system 
prevails  should  adapt  themselves  to  their  position  and 
circumstances — not  renouncing  the  law  of  Christ,  not 
ceasing  their  almsgiving  ax  Christians,  hut  seeking 
rather  to  turn  it  into  such  channels  as  open  for  it  the 
fittest  employments.  In  the  present  state  of  evangeli 
cal  Christendom,  especially  in  the  existing  condition  of 
its  large  towns,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  there 
is  enough  of  living  Christianity  in  its  churches,  and  of 
co-operative  love,  to  enable  them  adequately  to  under 
take  the  oversight  of  the  poor,  if  such  a  charge  were  to 
be  devolved  upon  them.  J'.ut  while  they  are  neither 
called  nor  permitted  to  assume  this  charge,  there  is  a 
great  deal  with  which  they  may  charge  themselves  ; 
and  if  not  in  ineetiiig  the  lower  wants  relieving  the 
bare  necessities  of  the  poor  around  them,  yet  in  minis 
tering  to  their  substantial  comfort  in  times  of  trouble 
and  distress,  and  in  providing  for  their  higher  interests, 
by  contributions  for  schools  and  hospitals,  reformatory, 
missionary,  sanatory  institutions,  ample  scope  will  still 
be  found,  as  well  for  particular  churches  as  for  single 
indisiduals  giving  alms  of  such  things  as  they  have. 
Dislocated  as  matters  in  many  respects  are,  it  shall  not 
be  for  want  of  opportunity,  if  any  Christian  person  or 
community  fails  to  give  evidence  of  a  Christian  spirit 
by  devising  liberal  things,  and  turning  "the  mammon 
of  unrighteousness"  into  an  active  instrument  for  ad 
vancing  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  elevating  the  condition 
of  the  poorer  members  of  society. 

ALMUG  TREE.  In  the  commission  which  Solo 
mon  gave  to  Hiram,  we  find  him  saying,  "  Send  me  also 
cedar  trees,  fir  trees,  and  algum  trees  out  of  Lebanon,"1 
L't'li.  ii.  s;  but,  in  executing  the  commission  we  are  told 
that,  whilst  Lebanon  supplied  the  firs  and  the  cedars,  it 
was  from  Ophir  that  Hiram's  navy  fetched  the  alguins 
or  almugs,  iKi.  x.  n;  2Ch.  ix.  10.  And  as  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  Ophir  was  a  port  in  the  Red  Sea  or  the 
Persian  Gulf,  there  can  be  equally  little  doubt  that  the 
almug  was  some  prized  wood  of  Eastern  Asia.  The 
purposes  for  which  Solomon  used  it  were  to  make  "pil 
lars  for  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  for  the  king's  house," 
as  well  as  "harps  and  psalteries,"  iKi.  x.  r.'.  Its  east 
ern  derivation,  together  with  a  costliness  entitling  it 
to  be  named  alongside  of  "precious  stones,"  has  sug 
gested  the  famous  sandal -wood  of  India,  and  there 
are  many  presumptions  in  favour  of  the  conjecture: 
such  as  the  remote  period  at  which  the  wood  has  been 
known  and  valued — its  early  introduction  into  Indian 
architecture— its  employment  in  the  manufacture,  not 
only  of  boxes  and  cabinets,  but  musical  instruments — 
and  the  fondness  of  Solomon  and  his  contemporaries  for 
other  fragrant  kinds  of  timber,  such  as  the  pine  and 
the  cedar. 

Randal-wood  (tin.ntalum  album},  giving  name  to  the 
natural  family  of  Santalacese,  is  a  native  of  the  moun 
tains  of  Malabar.  It  grows  to  a  height  of  twenty-fi ve  or 
thirty  feet,  and  would  probably  attain  a  loftier  stature 


63 


ALPHA 


vvere  it  not  for  the  temptation  of  its  costly  timber.  The 
outer  portions  of  the  trunk  have  little  fragrance,  but 
nothing  can  be  more  delightful  than  the  perfume  of  the 
inner  layers,  especially  towards  the  root;  and,  which  is 
no  small  recommendation  in  regions  alive  with  white 


Sandal-wood— Santalum  album. 


ants,  it  is  said  to  defy  the  attacks  of  all  insects.  At 
a  distant  period  the  portals  of  the  temple  of  Sonmauth, 
in  Gujerat,  were  adorned  with  gates  of  sandal-wood, 
lx  feet  high  by  I;"*  broad,  and  .'!  inches  thick,  carved  in 
elaborate  arabesques.  These  were  carried  ott'  in  loiM 
by  Malmiood  of  Ghu/.nee.  to  adorn  his  tomb  in  this 
famous  fortress  of  Afghanistan,  and  there  they  remained 
till  Ghu/.nee  was  dismantled  by  the  British  in  1>1± 
They  were  still  in  perfect  preservation,  and  were  re 
stored  to  tlie  idol-temple  with  much  pomp  and  circum 
stance  by  the  Karl  of  Kllenboroiigh.  [.I.  11.] 

ALOE.  Our  usual  association  with  the  aloe  is  phar 
maceutical,  and  far  from  agreeable.  The  bitter  purga 
tive  of  the  apothecary  is  an  extract  from  th  •  Aloe  sjii- 
cuta,  A.  socotrina,  A.  indica.  &c.,  plants  of  the  liliace 
ous  order,  and  with  the  general  appearance  of  which  we 
are  sufficiently  acquainted  through  their  representative 
and  ally,  the  stately  Yucca  yloriusa.  Those  stiff  tin- like 
specimens  which,  under  the  name  of  '•  American  aloes" 
(A'/uri1  amci'icana),  keep  their  station  throughout  the 
summer  in  green  tubs  on  well- trimmed  lawns,  but  \shich 
are  expected  to  blossom  no  more  than  the  painted  cl.c- 
v<iux-dc-frisc  on  the  wall  above  them,  belong  to  the 
amaryllid  order.  Between  these  aloes  and  the  aloes 
of  the  Bible  there  is  no  connection  whatever.  The  lat 
ter  are  what  the  Hebrew  original  denominates  (ihaliui 
and  (i/xrlot/i  (c'^nx  and  jv>r"iXb  "This  (or  lign-aloes, 

T-;  T-; 

as  it  is  sometimes  called)  was  undoubtedly  a  fragrant 
wood  which  the  Jews  received  by  importation  from  the 
Kast,  and  the  Indian  name  of  which  the  Hebrews 
adopted.  Called  aijila  in  Malay,  and  ilica  in  Hin- 
dee.  and  ayura  in  the  ancient  Sanscrit,  it  was  called 
<t/«iloth  by  the  Jews,  and  d\6rj  by  the  Greeks — even 
as  it  is  still  called  af/alic/nt  by  the  Arabs.  It  is  by  no 
means  improbable  that  this  fragrant  wood  was  yielded 
by  several  kinds  of  tree;  but  the  late  lamented  Dr. 
Forbes  Royle  has  succeeded  in  identifying  it  beyond  all 
dispute  with  the  Ar/uihtria  ar/allocfia  (more  properly 
A  .  ayallochum). — See  Royle's  Jlimalni/rin  Mountains, 


p.  171.  and  Plate  3(3.  This  is  an  immense  tree,  of  the 
order  Aquilariacese,  growing  on  the  mountainous  re 
gions  south  and  east  of  Silhet.  Portions  of  the  wood 
become  gorged  with  a  fragrant  resin,  and  (in  common, 
probably,  with  the  similar  wood  of  another  tree)  are 
pounded,  mixed  with  a  gummy  substance,  and  burned 
by  the  Chinese  in  their  temples.  This  aloes  or  eagle- 
wood  (so  misnamed  by  the  Portuguese  confounding  the 
Malay  ai/ila  with  the  Latin  uijaila),  was  a  favourite 
perfume  of  the  emperor  Napoleon  1..  and  was  frequently 
burned  in  his  palaces. 

From  Pr.  vii.  17.  and  Ps.  xlv.  8,  we  find  that  it  was 
customary  to  perfume  couches,  wearing  apparel,  &e.. 
with  odoriferous  substances,  one  of  which  was  lign-aloes. 


Describing  the  coronation  of  the  king  of  Abyssinia, 
Bruce  mentions  that  he  was  anointed,  then  crowned, 
and  finally  "  fumigated  with  incense  and  myrrh,  aloes, 
and  cassia.'' — (See  Mant.  on  J'.tdlid  xlv.)  1'ut  by  far 
the  worthiest  and  most  memorable  use  made  of  this  pre 
cious  perfume  was  on  the  occasion  mentioned,  .In.  xix. :;'.', 
where  we  are  told  that  Nicodemus,  having  obtained 
leave  to  bury  the  body  of  Jesus.  "  brought  a  mixture  of 
myrrh  and  aloes,  about  a  hundred  pound  weight,"  and 
placed  it  in  and  around  the  winding-sheet  in  which  the 
precious  remains  were'  enveloped.  The  quantity  here 
mentioned  is  very  great,  and  it  is  likely  that  the  less 
expensive  invrrh  bore  a  large  proportion  to  the  aloes, 
—  the  best  samples  of  which  were  worth  their  weight 
in  irold.  ]!ut  on  such  occasions  Hebrew  affection,  and 


sometimes,  perhaps,  Hebrew  ostentation,  were  exceed 
ingly  lavish.  Thus  eighty  pounds  of  spices  were  used 
at  the  funeral  of  Rabbi  Gamaliel,  the  elder  ;  and  500 
attendants  followed  the  bier  of  Herod,  carrying  spices. 
— (Wetstein  in  Jo.  xix.  :'.!<;  Josephus,  Antiy.  book  xvii. 
8,  3.)  [-'•  "-J 

AL'PHA.  the  first  letter  in  the  Greek  alphabet,  cor 
responding  to  the  Hebrew  al<ji/i ;  and,  indeed,  our  word 
alphabet  is  simply  made  up  of  the  two  first  names  of 
the  Greek  letters,  alfiha-litla.  As  previously  among 
the  Hebrews,  so  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the 


ALPILLUS  Gt 

letters  i if  tl)i'  alphabet  wei'e  employed  as  numerals ; 
:ui< I  hence  it,  became  quite  natural  t<>  use  the  tirst  and 
tin;  last,  (ifji/Ki  and  oi/ur/d,  fur  tin:  commencement  and 
(lie  conclusion  of  a  scries,  or  quite  absolutely  for  first 
and  last.  So  tiiev  are  used  liv  our  Lori!  in  the  Apo 
calypse,  when  He  styles  himself  "tin1  Alpha  and  the 
Omega,"  lie.  17  ;  x\i.  <i;  xxii.  I.1!,  and  explains  it  in  the  two 
latter  passages  liy  the  synonyms  "the  beginning  and 
tlie  end,  '  "the  tirst  and  the  last.  '  The  representation, 
InweyiT  expivssed,  has  respeet  to  what  ( 'hrist  is  citun- 
<iH>i:  it  indieates.  not  simply  that  fie  is  the  first  ami 
the  la.-t  of  a  series,  l.ut  ihat  the  whole  has  in  Him  alike1 
its  commencement  and  its  termination.  He  originated 
the  present  order  of  things,  ami  He  will  also  bring  it  to 
the  proper  issue ;  s:>  that  the  end  shall  correspond  to 
the  beginning",  and  he  all  very  good. 

ALPHyE'US.or  A  L 1  >  1 1  vA  S.the  father  of  the  second 
.lames,  who  is  commonly  called  Junns  the  Less,  to  dis 
tinguish  him  from  the  more  eminent  apostle,  James  the 

son    of    /ebedee,     M:it.  \. :',;  Miir.  iii.  1<;  Lu.  vi.  1."..       As    James 

is  also  represented  as  the  son  of  that  Mary  who  was 
sister  to  utn-  Lord's  mother,  whose  hushand  is  usually 
called  Cleophas.  .Tn.  six.  2fi;  Lu.  xxiv.  10;  Mat.  T.  3,  it  would 
appear  that  Alpheus  and  (.'leophas  are  luit  different 
names  for  the  same  person.  In  Jn.  xix.  2.~>  it  is  not 
pj-operly  Cleophas,  hut  Clopas  (KXwTras)  that  is  nsed  ; 
and  the  probability  is  that  Alpheus  and  Clopas  are 
equally  derived  from  the  FTehrew  ^Sr:  (h'ttphai),  the  one 

from  dropping  the  aspirate,  and  making  Alpha-us,  the 
ether  changing  it  into  /,'  or  hard  c,  and  making  Clopas. 
It  would  seem,  however,  that  there  is  another  Alpheus 
mentioned  in  New  Testament  scripture,  the  father  of 
Lev!  or  Matthew,  Mar.  ix.'.i;  Miit.  ii.  1 1.  P>ut  in  this  case 
nothing  whatever  is  known  of  the  father  excepting  the 
simple  fact  of  his  having  had  such  a  son;  while  in  re 
spect  to  the  former  Alpheus,  supposing  him  to  he  the 
same  with  Cleophas,  we  know  besides  that  he  was  among 
the  early  disciples  of  our  Lord,  and  along  with  another 
disciple  had  the  memorable  interview  with  Jesus  on  the 
way  to  Kmmaus,  immediately  after  the  resurrection, 
Lu.  xxiv. 

ALTAR  is  the  English  form  of  the  Latin  at  tare, 
which,  in  the  strictly  classical  writers,  occurs  only  in 
the  plural,  hut  in  later  times  was  familiarly  used  also 
in  the  singular.  It  was  a  derivative  of  alt  us  (high  or 
loftv),  and  hence  designated  the  erection  to  which  it 
was  applied  as  emphatically  a  height.  So,  indeed,  did 
the  other  Latin  word,  which  is  of  like  import,  and  was 
more  commonly  used  —uni,  derived  from  aipu,  I  raise, 
or  lift  up.  The  two  words  in  Latin  were  often  inter 
changed,  as  if  entirely  synonymous  ;  hut  properly  altar e 
was  a  high  altar,  and  am-  simply  an  altar — the  former 
such  as  was  dedicated  only  to  the  supreme  gods,  while 
the  latter  was  common  to  them  and  inferior  ohjects  of 
worship  (Virgil,  Eel.  v.  *>,"»).  The  term  most  commonly 
employed  in  Creek  is  quite  similar  in  its  meaning  and 
derivation — /3co/^6s,  originally  signifying  an  elevation  of 
any  sort,  hut  afterwards  appropriated  to  the  particular 
height,  or  erection  raised  for  divine  worship.  The 
Hebrew  word  p~s  (bamath)  or  jV-D  (bamot/t),  from 

T  T  T 

which  probably  the  Creek  was  derived,  has  the  sense  of 
/ii;ifi-/if(icc,  on  which  sacrifices  were  so  often  presented 
to  Jehovah  as  well  as  to  false  gods,  that  the  term  hiyh- 
places  came  to  denote,  not  merely  the  heights  them 
selves,  but  aLo  the  altars,  with  their  sanctuaries  and 


[27.]        Altars  on  High  Places.—  Kerr  Porter's  Persia 

discovered  itself  in  Israel,  to  resort  to  heights  for  the 
purpose  of  offering  it,  it  would  seem  that  some  instinc 
tive  feeling  in  men's  bosoms  led  them  to  associate  sacri 
fice  with  an  elevated  position,  as  the  fittest  theatre  for 
its  presentation,  and  that  something  of  that  description, 
if  not  naturally  provided,  should  be  artificially  con 


structed.  It  is  probable  that  this  feeling  arose  from 
the  idea  of  the  local  habitation  of  deity  being  in  the 
heavens  above  ;  whence  sacrifice  on  a  height  seemed 
in  closer  contact  with  the  object  of  worship,  or  the 
mind  more  readily  followed  it  to  its  proper  destination. 
]ii  the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah,  who  ever  represented 
himself  as  the  Cod  of  the  whole  earth,  and  present  with 
his  people  wherever  they  might  perform  acceptable 
service,  we  could  not  expect  much  regard  to  be  paid  to 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  that  nature:  indeed,  they  are 
plainly  discouraged,  as  inevitably  tending  to  superstition 
and  idolatry.  Nor  was  any  encouragement  ever  given 
to  the  use  of  costly  materials  or  elaborate  workmanship 
in  the  construction  of  altars.  In  this  respect,  there 
was  the  reverse  of  uniformity  in  the  altars  of  heathen 
antiquity:  they  existed  in  a  great  diversity  of  forms, 


ALTAR 

I  instruments  of  worship,  erected  on  them:  whence  they 
could  lie  spoken  of  as  being  built  or  removed,  1  Ki.  xi.  7; 
•2  Ki.  xxiii.  l,"i.  The  proper  name,  however,  for  altar,  in 
the  Hebrew  worship,  was  -•^-^  (iiiisbi'.aclt},  the  sue  ft - 

ji<-hi</-i>l<i.e.<',  derived  from  the  verb  /<>  sacrhici; ;  corre 
sponding  to  which  is  the  word  commonly  used  for 
rendering  it  in  the  Septuagint,  ^r<jtacrT?;/HOj'.  from 
bi'crta,  sacrifice.  It  indicated  nothing  as  to  the  form  or 
position  of  the  object  it  was  applied  to,  but  simply 
characterized  it  as  the  place  or  structure  which  was  set 
apart  for  the  presentation  of  slain  victims  to  Cud. 

Looking  to  the  general  import,  however,  of  the 
names  anciently  employed  to  designate  the  place  of 
sacrifice,  coupled  with  the  tendency,  which  so  often 


ALTAR 


ALTAR 


and  constructed  sometimes  of  the  commonest,  some 
times  of  the  costliest  materials.  Those  here  'exhibited 
from  some  of  the  older  nations  of  the  world,  are  evi 
dently  specimens  of  comparatively  simple  structure. 

,'  r 


rising  from  the  rudest  style  of  art  to  the  most  ornate,  I  workmanship  thereof,"  2Ki.  xvi.  10.     But  it  probably  did 

'  not  differ  materially  from  some  of  those  here  exhibited; 
though  it  must  have  been  greatly  more  attractive  in 
form  and  appearance  than  that  hitherto  standing  in 
the  court  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  for  Ahaz  to  have 
taken  the  strong  step  of  removing  the  latter  from  its 
wonted  place,  and  on  his  own  authority  substituting 
another  in  its  stead.  The  Lord  had  himself  prescribed 
the  form  of  the  altar  011  which  he  wished  his  people  to 
present  their  offerings;  and  it  was  an  evidence  of  a 
presumptuous  spirit  on  the  part  of  Aha/. -  a  fruit,  in 
deed,  of  that  vacillating,  temporizing,  and  superstitious 
policy  which  characterized  his  whole  procedure— to  in 
troduce  such  an  innovation  in  worship,  and  stamp  on 
the  very  altar  of  Jehvoah  the  impress  of  heathenism. 
No  wonder  that  a  mark  of  reprobation  is  set  upon  him 
when  pursuing  such  courses  ;  and  so  it  is  said,  with  em 
phasis,  "  This  is  that  King  Aha/,"  2  ch.  .\x\iii.  22. 

It  does  not  appear  that  any  particular  form  of  altar 
had    been   delivered    to   the   true    worshippers   of   (!od 
down  to  the  period   of  the  giving  of  the  law  ;  and.  as 
When  any  circumstance  occurred,  or  some  transao  '  far  as  can  be  gathered  from  the  records  of  the  patri- 

tion  was  entered  into,  which  seemed  to  call  for  the  pre- |  archal  religion,   the  simplest  structures  seem  to  have 

sentation  of  sacrifice,  if  no  fixed  altar  was  at  hand,  a 

temporary  one  was  immediately  raised  of  the  sods  or 


Altars.     1  and  2,  Assyrian  :   3,  Persian 


1 30.]        Babylonhm  Altars.     From  an  engraved  gem  ami  cylinder. 

stones  which  were  found  upon  the  spot;  but  those 
erected  for  regular  service,  in  connection  with  some 
statue  or  temple,  were  usually  constructed  of  brick  or 
of  stone— occasionally  in  a  square,  but  more  commonly, 
at  least  among  the  (Greeks  and  Romans,  in  a  round 
form,  and  very  often  adorned  with  sculpture  of  the 
most  tasteful  and  elaborate  description,  while  others 
appeared  without  any  ornament  whatever.  Specimens 


Greek  ami  Roman  Altars 


have  been  preserved  of  both  kinds,  as  those  in  Xo.  31, 
of  the  square  form  one  quite  simple,  another  more 
ornate,  and  a  third  highly  decorated;  others  are  given 
in  Xo.  3'J,  and  are  at  once  round  and  ornate. 

We  have  no  description  of  the  altar  which  was  seen 
by  King  Ahaz  at  Damascus,  with  the  beauty  of  which 
he  was  so  struck  that  he  obtained  a  pattern  of  it,  and 
caused  Urijah  the  priest  to  have  one  made  at  Jeru 
salem,  "  after  the  fashion  of  it,  and  according  to  all  the 
Vol..  1. 


\Uars.     1,  Ktruscan;  2,  Circular  Greek ;  3,  Tlonian  Tripod. 


been  deemed  sufficient.  P>ut,  at  the  institution  of  the 
tabernacle  worship,  specific  instructions  were  given  for 
the  erection  of  the  altar,  or,  as  we  may  rather  say,  of 
the  two  altars;  fur  two  structures  under  that  name 
were  recognized  in  the  furniture  of  the  tabernacle-  the 
altar  of  burnt-offering  and  the  altar  of  incense.  It,  was 
llie  former  of  these,  however,  that  was  emphatically 
called  the  altar,  as  it  was  on  it  that  all  sacrifices  of 
blood  were  presented,  while  the  other  was  simply  placed 
as  a  stand  or  table  within  the  tabernacle  for  the  ofli- 
ciating  priest  to  use  in  connection  with  the  pot  of  in 
cense;.  In  regard  to  this  altar,  prior  to  any  instructions 
concerning  the  erection  of  the  tabernacle,  and  imme 
diately  after  the  delivery  of  the  ten  commandments 
from  Sinai,  the  following  specific  directions  were  given  : 
"An  altar  of  earth  shalt  thou  make  i;nto  me,  and 
shalt  sacrifice  thereon  thy  burnt-offerings,"  &.c.  ;  "And 
if  thou  wilt  make  me  an  altar  of  stone,  thou  shalt  not 
build  it  of  hewn  stone;  for  if  thou  lift  up  thy  tool  upon 
it,  thou  hast  polluted  it.  Neither  shalt  thou  go  up  by 
steps  unto  mine  altar,  that  thy  nakedness  be  not  dis 
covered  thereon,"  Ex.  xx.  it- 20.  There  is  here  an  evident 
repudiation  of  all  pomp  and  ornament  in  connection 
with  this  altar  of  burnt-offering  — the  preferable  material 
to  be  used  in  it  being  earth,  or,  if  stone,  yet  stone  un 
hewn,  and  consequently  not  graven  by  art  or  man's 
device.  The  reason  of  this  cannot  be  sought  in  any 


ALTAI; 


general  dislike  t<>  tin-  costly  and  ornamental  in  divine 
worship ;  for.  in  the  structure  of  the  tabernacle  itself, 
and,  still  more,  afterwards  in  the  erection  of  the  temple, 
both  the  richest  materials  and  the  most  skilful  artificers 
were  employed.  It  is  rather  to  be  sought  in  the  general 
purport  and  design  of  the  altar,  -which  was  such  as  to 
consist  best  with  the  Simplest  form,  and  materials  of 
the  plainest  description;  for  it  was  peculiarly  flic  mo 
nument  and  remembrancer  of  man's  sin  the  special 
meeting-place  between  ( !od  and  his  creatures,  as  sinful ; 
mi  which  account  it  must  be  perpetually  receiving  the 
blood  of  slain  victims,  since  the  way  to  fellowship  with 
God  for  guilty  beings  could  only  be  found  through  an 
avenue  of  death.  And  because  the  altar  must  thus  lie 
ever  bearing  on  it  the  blood-stained  memorials  and 
fruits  of  sin,  "  what  so  suitable  for  the  material  of  which 
it  should  be  formed  as  the  mother-dust  of  earth,  or 
earth's  rough,  unpolished  stones,  taken  just  as  Cod  and 
nature  provided  them  '.  For  thus  the  worshippers  might 
most  easily  discern  the  appointed  place-  of  meeting  to 
be  of  God's  providing,  and  His  in  such  a  sense  that  no 
art  or  device  of  theirs  could  be  of  any  avail  to  fit  it  for 
the  high  end  it  was  intended  to  serve  :  nay,  that  their 
workmanship,  being  that  of  sinful  creatures,  must  tend 
rather  to  pollute  than  to  consecrate  and  enhance  the 
medium  of  reconciliation.  Materials  directly  fashioned 
by  the  hand  of  Cod  were  the  most  suitable  here  ;  nor 
tin  so  of  the  more  rare  and  costly  descriptions,  but  the 
simple  earth,  made  originally  for  man's  support  and 
nourishment,  and  now  become  the  witness  of  his  sin. 
the  drinker- in  of  his  forfeited  life,  the  theatre  and  home 
of  death."--  (Ti/poloyy,  ii.  p.  286. 1 

Tn  the  directions  afterwards  given.  Ex.  xxvii.  1-s,  for 
the  construction  of  the  altar  that  was  to  be  placed  in 
the  outer  court  of  the  tabernacle,  it  may  seem  strange 
that  no  explicit  mention  is  made  either  of  earth  or  of 
stone.  It  was  to  be  made  of  boards  of  shittim  or  acacia 
wood,  overlaid  with  brass,  to  be  in  form  a  square  of 
5  cubits,  or  about  S  feet;  in  height  3  cubits,  or  some 
where  about  ~>  feet,  and  with  projecting  points  or  horns 
at  each  of  the  four  corners.  It  was  to  be  made  "  hollow 
with  boards,"  and  Jewish  writers  have  held,  apparently 
with  reason,  that  this  hollow  space  between  the  boards 


[33.  j 


Altar  of  Burnt-offering.— Meyer's  Bibeldeutungen. 

pace  between  the  hoards,  over  which  the  utensils  for  fire  and  a 
placed,  while 


_    ....       -k    grating,   with    the    proj 

Kx.  ixvii.4,  5. 

i  the  carchb  or  ledpe  itself,  projectinx  from  th 
is  the  incline  toward  it  on  one  side,  for  the 

formed  of  earth  or  stonis. 
c  d,  are  the  horns  or  corner  projections  of  the 


was  to  1)0  filled  with  earth  or  stones  when  the  altar  was 
fixed  in  a  particular  place;  so  that  the  original  direc 
tion  applied  also  to  it,  and  the  boards  might  be  regarded 
as  having  their  chief  use  in  holding  the  earth  or  stones 
together,  and  supporting  the  fire-place,  with  the  fuel  and 
the  sacrifice.  Having  an  elevation  of  no  more  than 
44  or  5  feet,  no  steps  could  be  required  for  the  officiating 


priest,  a  mere  ledge  or  projecting  border  on  the  side 
would  be  quite  sufficient,  with  a  gentle  incline  towards 
it  formed  of  earth  or  of  stones.  This  seems  rtally  to 
have  been  provided  by  the  original  construction  of  the 
altar,  according  to  the  now  commonly  received  interpre 
tation  of  Kx.  xxvii.  4.  5,  where  it  is  said,  ''And  thou 
shalt  make  for  it  (the  altar)  a  grate  of  network  of  brass  ; 
and  upon  the  net  shalt  thon  make  four  brazen  rings  in 
the  four  corners  thereof.  And  thou  shalt  put  it  under 
the  carcob  (circuit  or  border,  as  the  word  seems  to  mean) 
of  the  altar  beneath,  that  the  net  may  be  even  to  the 
midst  of  the  altar."  That  is,  as  V.  Meyer  has,  we  be 
lieve,  correctly  explained  it  (Bibeldcutungcn,  p.  'Jill  ). 
there  was  to  be  a  sort  of  terrace  or  projecting  board 
half-way  up  the  altar  and  compassing  it  about,  on  which 
the  priests  might  stand,  or  articles  connected  with  the 
offerings  might  be  laid,  and  this  was  to  be  supported 
by  a  grating  of  brass  underneath,  of  net-like  construc 
tion,  as  exhibited  in  No.  3:!. 

This  pattern  probably  approaches  nearer  than   any 
other  that  has  been  presented  to  the  alt^r  nrijinaliv 


[34. 


Altar  of  Burnt-offering.— Friederich's  Symbolik. 


formed  to  accompany  the  tabernacle.  The  older,  and 
still  very  prevalent  idea  of  its  structure,  differed  chiefly 
in  regard  to  the  network  of  brass,  which  it  regarded  as  the 
grating  for  the  fire,  and  furnished  with  four  rings  that  it 
might  be  sunk  down  within  the  boards  and  at  some  dis 
tance;  from  them,  as  exhibited,  for  example,  in  No.  34, 
taken  from  Witsius,  and  often  reproduced  with  little 
variation.  The  chief  objection  to  this  form  is.  that  it  places 
the  network  of  brass  near  the  top  and  within  the  boards, 
instead  of  being,  as  the  description  seems  to  require, 
from  the  ground  upwards  to  the  middle,  and  conse 
quently  without— a  support,  in  short,  for  the  projecting 
carcob,  not  for  the  fire  and  the  sacrifice.  The  things 
connected  with  the  fire  are  not  minutely  described,  but 
are  included  in  the  enumeration  given  at  ver.  3,  "And 
thou  shalt  make  his  pans  to  receive  his  ashes,  and  his 
shovels,  and  his  basons,  and  his  flesh-hooks,  and  his 
fire-pans;  all  the  vessels  thereof  thou  shalt  make  of 
brass."  The  probability  is  that  there  was  no  grating 
upon  the  top,  but  simply  the  pans  for  fire  and  ashes 
resting  upon  stone  or  earth  within  the  boards,  and 
which  might  thus  be  easily  scraped,  or  removed  for 
cleansing,  as  occasion  required.  In  the  last  figure,  the 
four  corners  are  made  to  assume  a  crooked  or  horn-like 
shape;  and  in  that  respect,  perhaps,  it  differs  to  the 
better  from  the  former,  which,  in  other  respects,  we 
deem  greatly  the  best.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  the 
projecting  corners  might  have  been  called  horns  with 
out  actually  having  the  crooked  shape  of  a  horn  ;  they 
might  have  been  called  such  simply  as  abrupt  and 
pointed  projections.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Josephus 
in  his  description  of  the  altar  connected  with  the  Hero- 


ALTAI;  C 

dian  temple  (tobequoted  presently),  distinctly  indicates  ' 
the  horn-like  appearance  of  the  corners ;  and  the  pro 
minence  given  to  them,  not  only  at  the  erection  of  the 
altar,  but  also  in  the  more  important  sacrifices,  in  which 
they  were  uniformly  touched  with  the  blood,  Ex  xxix.  r2; 
Le.  iv.  7,«c.,  seems  most  easily  explained  by  a  reference 
to  the  idea  which  the  name  in  its  natural  meaning 
suggests.  In  Scripture  a  horn  is  constantly  used  as  a 
symbol  of  power  and  prevailing  might ;  and  the  culmin 
ating  points  of  the  altar,  where  God  revealed  himself 
in  mercy  to  inquiring  sinners,  might  fitly  be  made  to 
assume  the  appearance  of  horns,  not  merely  for  orna 
ment,  but,  along  with  that,  for  the  purpose  of  symbol 
izing  the  strength  and  security  of  the  divine  protection 
which  was  extended  to  those  who  came  to  share  in  its 
provisions.  Hence,  to  lay  hold  on  the  horns  of  the 
altar  was  but  another  name  for  grasping  at  the  power 
and  protection  of  Deity. 

In  the  arrangements  made  for  adapting  the  instru 
ments  of  worship  to  the  larger  proportions  of  the  temple, 
the  altar  of  burnt-offering  necessarily  partook  of  the 
general  character  of  the  change.  It  became  now  a 
square  of  ~2(>  cubits  {from  '•'>»  to  :;."i  feet),  instead  of  .",. 
and  was  raised  to  the  height  of  Id  cubits  ;  it  was  made 
also  entirely  of  brass,  but  in  other  respects  it  was  pro 
bably  much  the  same.  And  the  altar  attached  to  the 
temple  of  Herod,  we  learn  from  .losephus,  a-ain  greatly 
exceeded  in  its  dimensions  that  of  the  temple  of  Solo 
mon.  '•  Before  the  temple,"  says  he  (  li"<(;x  v.  fi.  <!i, 
"stood  the- altar,  ]~>  cubits  high,  and  equal  in  length 
and  breadth,  beinu  each  way  "in  cubits.  It  was  built 
in  the  figure  of  a  square,  and  it  had  corners  like  boms 
(literally,  jutting  up  into  horn-shaped  corners— /orpa- 
rot(5«?s  irpoa.vf:*x.uv  ywvias),  and  the  passage  up  to  it  was 
by  an  insensible  acclivity."  This  was,  no  doubt,  with 
the  view  of  meeting  the  requirement  in  Kx.  xx.  •_>»!  ;  and 
in  like  manner,  for  the  purjto.se  of  comjihin-  with  the 
instruction  to  avoid  any  hewn  work,  it  was,  we  are 
told,  "formed  \\ithout  any  iron  tool,  nor  was  it  ever  so 
much  as  touched  by  such  iron  tool."  In  this  latter 
statement  the  .Misehna  agrees  with  .losephus:  but  it 
differs  materially  as  to  the  dimensions,  making  the 
base  only  a  square  of  ,'J'j  cubits  and  the  top  of  2(j  ;  so 
that  it  is  impossible  to  jironoiinoe  with  certaintv  ujtou 
the  exact  measurement.  I  tut  there  can  be  little  doubt 
it  was  considerably  larger  than  Solomon's,  as  it  wa-s  a 
leading  jiart  of  Herod's  ambition,  in  his  costlv  repara 
tion  of  the  temple,  to  make  all  its  external  jn-oj^irtions 
sujierior  to  that  which  had  preceded.  And  it  had,  we 
are  informed,  what  must  also  in  some  form  have  lie- 
longed  to  the  altar  of  the  fii-st  temple,  a  jiijie  connected 
with  the  south-west  horn,  for  conveying  away  the  blood 
of  the  sacrifices.  This  discharged  itself  by  a  subter 
ranean  passage  into  the  brook  Kednm. 

It  was  a  marked  peculiarity  in  the  religion  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  besj>oke  an  essential  difference  be 
twixt  it  and  the  religions  of  heathendom,  that  it  not 
only  prescribed  so  definitely  the  form  of  the  altar  to  be 
used  in  sacrifice,  but  allowed  only  of  the  erection  of 
one  such  altar.  On  special  occasions,  such  as  the  dedi 
cation  of  Solomon's  temple,  when  the  one  altar  proved 
insufficient  for  the  numerous  offerings  that  were  pre 
sented,  the  circumstances  were  justly  deemed  sufficient 
to  warrant  the  temporary  consecration  and  use  of  an 
other,  iKi.viii.  04.  And  in  times  of  general  backsliding' 
and  disorder,  such  as  occurred  in  the  life  of  Samuel, 
when  the  tabernacle  itself  had  fallen  asunder,  and  still 


i  ALTAR 

more  in  that  of  Elijah,  when  the  very  foundations  were 
out  of  course — a  certain  freedom  was  required,  and  used 
also  by  prophetical  men  who  strove  against  the  evil  of 
the  times,  in  respect  to  the  employment  of  occasional 
altars  for  the  service  of  God.  F.ut  these  were  seasons 
of  emergency,  and  as  such,  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule.  In  ordinary  cases  the  ottering  of  sacrifice  even 
to  the  true  God.  and  without  any  intermixture  of  super 
stitious  rites,  elsewhere  than  at  the  one  altar  of  burnt- 
oftering,  is  always  marked  as  a  relative-  defection  from 
the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah:  and  this,  no  doubt, 
chiefly  because  of  its  tendency  to  mar  the  idea,  of  the 
divine  unity,  and  lead  to  the  introduction  of  other  gods. 
There  might  seem,  at  first  thought,  to  be  no  necessary 
connection  between  the  two;  the  one  God  of  Israel 
might  have  been  worshipped,  it  may  be  imagined,  as 
well  at  a  thousand  altars  jn  the  land  of  Canaan  as  He 
is  now  in  a  thousand  churches  of  Christendom.  So, 
doubtless.  He  might:  the  freedom  granted  to  the  patri- 
archs  in  the  erection  of  altars,  and  the  divine  accept 
ance  which  crowned  their  worship,  is  undoubted  evi 
dence  of  its  possibility.  Hut  the  tendency  was  all  in 
the  other  direction;  for  the  spirit  of  heathenism  vas 
the  deification  of  nature  in  i!s  varied  aspects,  and  even 
separate  localities  ;  and  during  the  ages  when  that  spirit 
acted  like  a  moral  contagion,  the  most,  etfeetual  wav  of 
checking  its  influence  was  to  concentrate  the  greater 
rites  of  worship  into  a  single  spot  to  stamp  upon  the 
national  mind  the  idea  < if  one  God,  by  the  palpable  and 
ever-abiding  tart  of  His  one  templeand  one  altar.  Once 
l'-t  i»  *iich  a  multiplicity  of  shiin.s  as  heathendom 
boasted  of  possessing,  and  its  multiplicity  of  gods  would 
have  followed  as  an  infallible  sequence.  Therefore, 
while  it  certainly  was  a  restraint  upon  the  spirit  in 
regard  to  fellowship  with  Heaven  a  restraint  which 
persons  of  ardent  piety  could  scarcely  help  at  times 
longing  to  have  removed  it  was  still,  upon  the  whole. 
I  tetter  than  such  liberty  as  was  sure  to  di -generate  into 
license.  And  the  restraint  itself  was  greatly  lightened 
to  earnest  and  reflecting  minds  :  it  was  even  turned  into 
an  occasion  of  elevating  their  views  concerning  God, 
and  raising  their  spirits  to  more  habitual  commerce  with 
Heaven,  by  the  consideration,  which  was  grounded  in 
the  v.-ry  nature  of  the  Levitieal  institution,  that  every 
believing  Israelite,  wherever  he  mi-lit  be,  bad  his  re 
presentation  in  the  priesthood  that  daily  ministered  at 
the  one  altar,  and  an  interest  in  tin-  nioniin-  and  even 
ing  sacrifice  which  was  there  perpetually  proceeding. 
Infinitely  better  than  the  possession  of  many  tutelary 
deities,  with  their  local  altars,  was  for  him  the  thought, 
that  the  praise  and  worship  of  the  whole  covenant 
people  was  ever  waiting  for  (bid  in  /ion,  and  that  from 
/ion  this  God  ruled  to  the  very  ends  of  the  earth. 

In  regard  to  the  typical  import  of  the  altar  of  burnt- 
offering,  or  its  bearing  on  Christian  times,  it  should  un 
doubtedly  be  viewed  in  its  totality,  and  not,  as  was  the 
custom  with  the  elder  typologists,  considered  piecemeal, 
that  in  every  individual  part  a  separate  and  diverse 
representation  may  be  found  of  the  person  or  work  of 
Christ.  It  is  easy,  in  such  a  way,  to  find  a  great  va 
riety  of  resemblances  between  the  old  and  the  new;  to 
see,  for  example,  in  the  materials  of  the  altar,  a  lire- 
figuration  of  the  humanity  of  Christ — in  the  horn,  of  his 
divinity— in  the  hollowness  between  the  boards,  of  his 
emptying  himself  of  heavenly  glory,  and  so  on.  I5ut 
such  resemblances  are  of  little  worth,  being  quite 
superficial  in  their  nature,  and  obtained  in  too  much 


(><s 


isolation  from  the  one  grand  aim  of  tlie  altar 
we  have  primarily  to  ascertain,  and  mainly  to  found 
upon,  is  tlie  leading  design,  with  which  the  altar  was 
set  up  in  com  -ction  with  the  symbolical  religion  of  the 
old  covenant.  In  that  respect  it  formed  the  appointed 
medium  of  communication  between  a  'holy  God  and 
sinful  man;  its  materials,  its  structure,  the  sacrificc.- 
hlood  presented  on  it,  were  all  adjusted  with  a  view  to 
its  prop  T  adaptation  to  this  end  :  and  in  tlie  great  idea 
which  it  thus  embodied,  \\e  readily  discover  a  funda- 
mental  agreement  with  the  character  and  mission  of 
Christ.  hi  him  now  is  found  the  appointed  medium 


What  !  natcd  struiitjc  tin-,  rendering  the  incense  produced  by 
it  an  unhallowed  offering.  It  was  for  this  offence  that 
Nadab  and  Abilm  were  visited  with  the  stroke  of  death, 
1,0.  x.  i,  sci).,  because  attempting  to  break  the  link  that 
connected  the  offering  of  incense  with  the  altar  of 
burnt-  offering.  And  still  further,  to  indicate  the  con- 
f  nretion  between  the  two  altars  and  their  respective 
offerings  on  tlie  great  day  of  atonement,  the  horns  of 
the  altar  of  incense  —  the  altar,  as  it  is  called,  before  the 
Lord,  •!.>'.  in  front  of  the  most  holy  place,  I.e.  xvi.  is,  lit, 
were  to  be  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  atonement, 
as  well  as  the  mercy-seat. 


All  clearly  and   distinctly 


of    int.  [-course    bctueeii   tin 

him,  but  through  him  alone,  can  the  sinner's  guilt  be 
atoned,  and  hi-  services  of  faith  and  love  rise  with  ac 
ceptance  to  the  Father:  so  that  what  purposes  the 
altar  served  to  the  Old  Testament  worshipper,  the 
same,  and  in  a  far  higher  manner,  does  Christ  serve  to 
the  believer  in  the  gospel:  and  the  oiieiie-s  of  the  ap 
pointed  medium  of  sacrificial  worship  in  former  times, 

has   now   also    its   counterpart   iu   the   one   name  given     mercy-seat,  implied   that    the    offering   presented   on   it 

had  to  do  with  the  more  inward  part  of  religion,  and 


imported  that  this  altar,  and  the  incense  appointed  to 
lie  ever  ascending  from  it,  were,  in  a  manner,  nothing, 
except  as  connected  with  and  based  upon  that  altar,  in 
the  stricter  sense,  on  which  sacrifices  of  blood  were 
continually  presented,  and  the  fire  was  kept  perpetu 
ally  alive  that  had  been  sent  down  from  above. 

The    mere   circumstance    of    this  altar  being  placed 
within    tlie    sanctuary,    and    directly    in    front    of    the 


in  the  person  of  Christ,  his  humiliation  from  the  highest  God.  than  its  first  initiation  into  his  service.  The 
to  the  lowest  condition,  his  vicarious  intercession,  and  ;  same  impression,  also,  is  conveyed  by  the  richer  and 
much  besides;  but  lire-indications  of  such  specific  '  more  ornate  appearance  it  presented  -  its  coating  and 
points  in  the  Christian  scheme  are  to  be  sought  in  crown  of  gold,  as  if  signs  of  honour,  not  of  humiliation, 
other  parts  of  the  Tabeinacle  worship,  rather  than  in  ;  were  becoming  in  connection  with  the  service  to  which 
the  altar  itself,  which  forms  the  common  basis  and  it  was  specially  appropriated.  These  impressions  are 


portal  of  them  all.      (See  TYPES,  TYPOLOGY.)  confirmed,    when   we    look    to    the    service    itseli     the 

2.   AI.TAK  or    l.NC'KNSK.  another  instrument  of  wor  continual  presentation  of  incense  before  the  throne  of 

ship,  hearing  the  same  general  name  of  altar,  differed  God;  for  of  what  was  this  a  symbol  but  of  acceptable, 

in   its  use,  from  believing    prayer!       So     Old    Testament    worshippers 


same 
materially   both   in  its   structure   an 


that   already  noticed.     In   form   it  presented  the   ap-     themselves  understood  ;  as  we  learn  from  the  Psalmist, 


pearanee  <>t  a  sqiiare- 
like  ho\-.  standing  erect, 
•1  cubits  or  'j\  feet  in 
height,  with  a  top  '21 
inches  square,  surroun 
ded  with  a  crown  of  gold, 
and  formed  of  hoards  all 
covered  with  gold.  At 
the  four  corners  it  had 
also  what  were  called 
horns,  Ex.  xxx.  2.  (The 


when  lie  entreats  that  his  prayer  might  be  set  before 
(Ind  as  incense  (literally,  "Let  my  prayer,  incense, 
be  set  before  thee,"  Ps.  cxli.  2),  and  from  tlie  action  no 
ticed  in  Luke  i.  10,  in  which  the  people  are  reported 
to  have  continued  praying  without,  while  Zecharias 
was  offering  incense  within  the  temple  —  doing  for 
themselves  in  the  reality  what  he  was  doing  for  all  the 
people  in  symbol.  Hence,  too,  in  1'ev.  v.  8,  viii.  3,  4, 
the  frankincense  or  sweet  odours  offered  by  tlie  angel 
on  the  golden  altar,  are  expressly  called  "the  prayers 
of  saints."  Was  it  not  a  most  fitting  emblem  of 

.-npposed  form  of  this  altar  is  represented.  No.  ol).  It  prayer  in  its  truest  and  largest  sense,  as  the  child-like 
could  not  be  strictly  termed  an  altar,  in  the  sense  of  \  outpouring  of  the  heart's  feelings  and  desires  toward 
nm&eacA  (sacrificing  place),  for  it  was  not  for  the  pre-  its  heavenly  Father?  Like  the  fragrance  of  the 
seni.dion  of  slain  victims  but  was  merely  a  bearer  or  |  sweetest  spices,  these  are  the  expression  of  the  spirit 
stand  for  the  incense-pot  within  the  tabernacle.  It  '  of  life  which,  through  Divine  grace,  has  come  to  live 
stood,  however,  iii  a  very  close  connection  with  the  and  breathe  in  the  children  of  faith;  and  not  less 
altar  of  burnt-  offering,  and  on  that  account,  probably,  grateful  than  the  one  to  the  natural  sense  of  man,  is 
had  the  same  general  name  applied  to  it  ;  for  the  pot  or  j  the  other  to  the  heart  of  God.  But  to  be  this  it  must 
censer  which  was  to  stand  on  it  was  every  morning  and  In-  the  genuine  breathing  of  a  true  spirit  of  life  —  nor 
evening  to  he  taken  by  the  officiating  priest,  and  replen-  only  so,  but  this  life  kindled  as  with  live  coals  from  the 
ished  first  with  live  coals  from  the  altar  of  burnt-  offering,  altar  of  sacrifice-  drawing  alike  its  vitality  and  its 
and  then  with  a  handful  of  sweet  spices  or  incense.  fragrance  from  believing  contact  with  the  one  great 

This  done,  it  was  to  be  placed  on  the  altar  of  incense,  medium  of  atonement  and  intercession.  In  that  altar 
which  stood  in  the  sanctuary,  immediately  before  the  of  incense,  therefore,  together  with  the  place  and  order 
veil,  causing  to  ascend,  as  it  is  said.  Kx.  xxx.  v  "  a  per-  of  service  appointed  for  it,  there  is  a  solemn  and  in- 
pctual  incense  before  the  Lord  throughout  their  gene-  struct!  ve  lesson  for  the  church  of  every  age,  showing 
rations."  This  perpetual  incense,  rising  within  the  I  how  prayer  must  be,  as  it  were,  the  daily  breath  of  the 
tabernacle,  thus  formed  a  sort  of  accompaniment  to  the  believing  soul,  must  be  ever  ascending  from  those  who 
hurnt-oiTering  perpetually  ascending  without;  one  fire  spiritually  dwell  in  the  house  of  God;  and  that  to  get 
slowly  consumed  both  ;  and  any  fire  employed  to  raise  and  to  maintain  it  in  real  efficacy,  there  must  be  an 
the  cloud  of  incense  in  the  sanctuary,  except  what  had  incessant  repairing  to  the  one  great  act  of  sacrifice. 
been  taken  from  the  altar  of  burnt-  offering,  was  desig-  which  has  been  presented  through  the  blood  of  Christ. 


A:\IALEK 


AMALEKITES 


Altars,  in  tlio  modern  sense,  as  part  of  the  furniture 
in  certain  Christian  churches,  do  not  come  into  con 
sideration  here  ;  since,  at  whatever  precise  period  intro 
duced,  they  are  certainly  subsequent  to  the  Christian 
era.  and  have  nothing  properly  to  countenance  them  in 
the  writings  of  the  New  Testament.  For  the  altar 
spoken  of  in  lie.  xiii.  1<>,  of  which  Christians  have  a 
right  to  cat,  as  contradistinguished  from  those  who 
served  the  tabernacle,  is  manifestly  Christ  himself — 
Christ  considered  as  the  spiritual  food  and  nourishment 
of  the  soul,  and  so  placed  in  contrast  with  the  fleshly 
and  outward  ordinances  to  which  the  adherents  of 
.Judaism  still  clung. 

AM'ALEK  [supposed  t<>  lie  derived  from  am.  people, 
and  fi'iqak,  to  lick  up],  occurs  uiilv  once  as  the  name  of 
an  individual  :  it  is  in  the  genealogy  ,>f  Esau's  offspring, 
at  Cm.  .\\xvi.  1<>.  \\hereTinina.  the  concubine  of  Eli- 
phaz,  Esau's  son.  is  said  to  have  borne  him  a  son.  Ama- 
lek.  Certain  traditions,  however,  have  been  raked  up 
from  among  the  Arabian-:,  which  point  to  an  earlier 
Anialek,  of  the  fifth  generation  from  Noalu  anil  who  is 
Mipposed  to  have  been  the  founder  of  a  tribe  of  Amalek- 
ites.  that  made  ;-omc  figure  in  very  remote  antiquity: 
and  are  also,  it  is  allied,  referred  to  in  a  few  passagi  s 

of   Scripture.       Thouuh    Ceseiiius.     however,    with     Le 

1 

('lerc,  Michaclis,  and  several  other  nun  ot  eminent 
learning,  liave  adopted  this  view,  there  seems  no  solid 
foundation  for  it  so  far  a-  Scripture  is  concerned:  and 
it  calls  for  no  farther  consideration  here 

AMAL'EKITES.  an  ancient  nomadic  tribe,  who  are 
found  at  various  points  in  Arabia  IVtr.-ea.  raiuriiiLr 
from  tli>'  south  of  Palestine  to  the  neighbourhood  of 
Sinai.  The  notions  formed  of  them  in  Scripture  are 
somewhat  embarrassing  ;  but  are  still,  when  caivfullv 
considc  red,  perfectly  compatible  with  the  id,  a  of  their 
being  the  otl  spring'  of  the  grandson  of  Esau — it  on!  v  it  is 
supposed  (what  involves  no  improbability),  that  while 
they  ]»elonged  to  the  common  stock  of  the  Ed>  unites,  tli.-v 
formed  to  some  e\ti  nt  a  tribe  by  themselves,  and  con 
sequently*  sometimes  acted  in  concert  with  the  other 
Edomites.  and  sometimes  appeared  as  occupying  an 
independent  position  and  territory  of  their  ov.  n.  I'.ut 
in  th>'  several  notion  u'iven  of  tliem.  they  appear  in  close 
connection  with  tin-  Edomite  territory:  and.  though 
found  in  different  quarters,  like  oth,-r  tribes  of  pnda- 
torv  habits,  the  western  juris  of  .Mount  Seir  seem  to 
have  furnished  their  nioi-e  r,  -ular  haunts. 

A  very  earlv  notice  occurs  of  them  in  <  ic.  xiv.  7.  in 
connection  with  the  invasion  of  Chedorlaoiner,  and  the 
kiii'_rs  who  were  confederate  with  him.  which  has  been 
held  by  the  authoritii  s  j;;~t  referred  to.  to  imply  their 
existence  as  a  people  even  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  it 
is  there  said  of  the  marauding  host,  that  "they  re 
turned  and  came  to  Enmislipat.  which  is  Kadesh.  and 
smote  all  the  country  of  the  Amalekites.  and  also  the 
Anioritt  s.  that  dwelt  in  I  la/.e/.on-tamar."  I'.ut  a 
marked  di>linction  is  to  be  noted  here  between  the 
Amalekites  and  the  oilier  tribes  specified:  it  is  only 
the,  rotutir;/  of  the  Amalekites  that  is  said  to  have 
been  smitten,  \sliile  in  regard  to  the  Aniorites  and  the 
various  tribes  mentioned  in  ver.  f».  <i,  \\lio  had  suf 
fered  in  the  southward  march  of  the  invaders,  it  is  the 
people  themselves  that  were  smitten.  This  cannot  be 
regarded  as  accidental:  it  is  plainly  intended  to  fix 
attention  only  on  the  tract  of  country  which  was 
afterwards  known  as  that  occupied  by  the  Amalekites; 
and  it  is  denominated  from  them  rather  than  from 


those  who  originally  possessed  it.  merely  because  it 
could  thereby,  in  the  time  of  the  Israelites,  be  more 
readily  identified.  This  is  the  more  probable  us.  in  re 
spect  to  the  place  mentioned  immediately  before,  the 
later  designation  is  given  as  well  as  the  earlier,  and 
given  first :  Enmishpat  (well  of  judgment),  which  is 
Kadesh — its  proper  name  being  Kadesh.  but  Enmish 
pat  came  also  to  be  given  to  it.  on  account  of  the 
judgment  afterwards  inflicted  there  upon  Closes  and 
Aaron.  Nu.  \x.  1-1:1.  Nor  is  there  any  great  diHiculty 
in  another  passage,  which  has  also  been  urged  as  indi 
cating  the  extreme  antiquity  of  the  Amalekites  as  a 
people.  It  is  where  .I'alaam,  looking  upon  Amalek, 
took  up  his  parable  concerning  them,  and  said,  "Ania 
lek.  the  first  of  the  nations,  but  his  latter  end  shall  be 
that  he  perish  for  ever."  Nu.  xxiv.  iii.  The  question 
here  is,  in  what  sense  are  they  designated  the  first' 

absolutely,  or  relatively  to  the  point  of  view  of  the 
speaker.'  Tin1  latter  is  clearly  the  most  natural  suppo 
sition,  especiallv  when  the  concluding  part  of  the  an 
nouncement  is  taken  into  account,  that  thev  are  destined 
to  perish  for  ever.  Why'  Because,  like  Moah  and  the 
other  tribes  spoken  of  iii  the  context,  they  took  up  the 
position  of  enemies  against  the  people  of  ( !od.  For  this 
their  latter  end  was  to  become  one.  not  of  strength  and 
li'lory.  but  of  extinction:  and  the  natural  inference 
therefore  is.  that  when  they  are  mentioned  as  having 
been  the  first.  H  is  not  prioritv  of  existence  as  a  people 
that  is  meant,  but  priority  in  that  enmity  which  formed 
their  most  marked  characteristic,  and  which  was  to 
pmve  the  cause  of  their  ruin.  Thev  had  taken  the  lead 
in  opposition  to  Cod's  cause  and  people,  and.  as  ex 
amples  of  the  divine  /<.'•  titti/nilx,  a  pre-eminence  was 
also  to  be  appointed  them  in  judgment  utter  extinc 
tion  was  to  be  their  lot.  This  is  the  view  thai  best 
accord.-  with  the  connection,  and  with  the  whole  stsle 
of  Balaam's  prophecies ;  audit  is  that  which  ancient 
Jewish  and  Christian  interpreter.-  put  upon  it.  Thus 
the  paraphrase  of  ( inkelos.  on  tli<  nrxt  vj  'tin.  iiatcnit.  is 
"the  he'/i  lining  of  the  wars  of  Israel:"  .Jonathan,  and 
the  note  of  the  Jerusalem  Tar^'urn  have,  "  the  first  of 
the  peoples  who  wauvd  war  against  the  house  of  Israel." 
And.  in  like  manner.  Jerome  explains,  "the  lirst  of 
the  nations  who  attacked  the  Israelites." 

llowe\er  I'.alaam  may  have  learned  the  facts  of 
Israel's  historv.  there  can  lie  no  doubt  that  IK:  had  ob 
tained  a  considerable  acquaintance  with  them:  and  in 
this  deliverance  upon  Amalek  lie  points  to  the  part 
which  Amalek  had  taken  aft' r  l.-rael  had  escaped  from 
the  bondage  of  Egypt,  ami  were  marching  as  a  penpK 
to  occupy  th-'  place  that  had  been  de.-tined  for  them. 
When  the\  w.-re  .-till  only  at  Ilephidim,  one  of  their 
earliest  encampments,  the  Amalekites  gathered  their 
forces  together,  and  came  forth  to  attack  them.  K\.  \\-\\. 
>.,  sc<]  That  the  attack  was  made  in  a  very  bitter  spirit, 
and  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  defeating  of  Cod's 
purpo-es  by  the  virtual  destruction  of  his  peculiar  people, 
is  evident  from  what  is  said  by  the  Lord  to  Moses,  after 
the  assailants  had  been  discomfited  by  Joshua,  "Write 
this  for  a  memorial  in  a.  book,  and  rehearse  it  in  the 
ears  of  Joshua:  for  1  will  utterly  put  out  the  remem 
brance  of  Amalek  under  heaven;"  and  also  from  what 
Moses  himself  said  in  respect  to  the  altar  he  raised  on 
the  occasion  "  He  called  it  Jehovah  nisi  (Jehovah 
mv  banner),  for  he  said,  Because  the  hand—  vi/..,  of 
Amalek  —was  upon  the  banner  of  the  Lord  (so  it  should 
be  rendered),  the  Lord  will  have  war  with  Amalek  from 


AMALEKITES 

generation  to  generation."  Acquainted,  from  his  rela 
tionship  to  Ksan,  with  the  peculiar  promises  made  to  the 
seed  of  Jacob,  but  with  the  Ksau-like  spirit  of  envy  in 
its  rankest  form,  Amalek  sought,  at  what  seemed  a 
favourable  juncture,  to  lav  his  hand,  as  it  wen',  on  the 


70 


AM  AS  A 


e   people  whom  C 
protect   and    Mess 


culous  passage  through  the  Ked  Sea,  and  tin:  destruction 
of  the  host  of  Pharaoh.  Therefor,-,  divine  retribution 
in  its  severest  form  must  overtake  him  :  Amalek,  as  a 
nation,  must  perish  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

•  induct  of  Amalck  on  the  occasion  referred  to, 
id  respecting  it.  were  not  lost  sight 
called  into  remembrance  in  one  of 
•sses  of  Moses.  While  the  dying 
a  legacy  of  kindness  for  the  Edom- 
ites  generally,  and  for  the  Kgyptians,  notwithstanding 
all  tin-  wrongs  that  had  been  stitl'ered  at  their  hands 
c'Thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Kdomito,  for  he  is  thy 
brother;  thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Kgyptian,  because 
thou  wast  a  stranger  in  his  land").  IV.xxiii  r,  he  said  re 
specting  Amalek.  "  IJeinember  \\hat  Amalek  did  unto 
thee  bv  the  way,  whenye  were  come  forth  out  of  Egypt; 
how  he  met  thee  by  the  way.  and  smote  the  hindmost 
of  thee.  all  that  were  feeble  behind  thee,  when  thou  wast 
faint  and  weary  :  and  he  feared  not  Cod.  Therefore,  it 
shall  be,  when  the  Lord  thv  Cod  hath  given  thee  rest 


endorsed  l>v  the  successive  generations  of  the  tribe,  who 
had  always  showed  themselves  ready  to  join  hands  with 
whatever  adversary  might  rise  up  against  Israel.  The 
hostility  <>f  such  a  people  was  evidently  of  a  kind  that 
could  not  be  conciliated;  it  could  be  mastered  only  by 
the  people  themselves  being  destroyed;  and  such  now 


the 


elivered  into   the  hands  of  Saul. 


He  failed  to  execute  it  so  fully  as  he  should  have  done  ; 
yet  their  power  as  a  separate  people  was  from  that  time 
completely  broken:  and  the  predatory  incursions  they 
made  upon  the  smith  of  Judah  in  the  time  of  l)a\id, 
with  the  retaliations  luj  practised  upon  them,  were  but 
as  the  smoking  tail  of  an  expiring  firebrand,  ISa.  xxx. 
Kor  henceforth  they  disappear  from  the  Held  of  history, 
with  the  exception  of  a  small  remnant  some\\here  on 
Mount  Seir,  who  are  simply  mentioned  as  being  put 
to  the  rout  in  Ile/ekiah's  time  by  certain  of  the  tribe 
of  Simeon,  and  finally  despoiled  of  their  territory,  l  cii. 
iv.  -I-',  43.  So  that  the  Word  of  Cod  here  also  stood  fast; 
and  the  first  of  the  surrounding  tribes  who  impiously 
sought  to  measure  their  strength  with  the  cause  and 
people  of  Cod  were  likewise  the  first  to  lose  their  na 
tional  existence. 

In  an  earlier  article,  AGAC;,  we  had  occasion  to 
show-  that  this  name  was  rather  indicative  of  the  royal 
dignity  of  the  chief  of  the  Amalekites,  than  the  designa 
tion  of  any  individual  possessor  of  the  throne.  It  was 
ised  in  a  similar  manner  to  Pharaoh  among  the  Egyp- 


ound  about,  in  the  land  which     tians,  and  Abimelech  among  the  Philistines;   and  was 

itself  expressive  of  the  fierce  and  warlike  character  which 

[Students 


from  all  thine  enemies  i 

the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee  for  an  inheritance  to  pos 
sess  it.    that  thou   shalt  blot  out  the  remembrance  of     was  cultivated  alike  by  prince  and  people. 
Amalek  from  under  heaven,"  Du.  xxv.  17-10.    The  peculiar     may  consult  particularly   Hongstenherg'.- 


guilt  and  malice  of  the  Amal-kites,  it  will  be  observed. 


d  a 


make  a  cruel  and  unprovoked  attack,  but  had  also  cast 
off' tlie  fear  of  Cod,  whom  they  had  sufficient  means  of 
knowing:  and  hence  -though  only,  of  course,  on  the 
supposition  that  the  same  spirit  should  continue  to 
animate  them  as  a  people— -the  Lord  took  Israel  bound 
to  make  them  monuments  of  the  righteous  judgment  of 
Heaven.  Too  clear  evidences  were  given  of  the  conti 
nuance  of  such  a  spirit ;  for  they  appear  to  have  con 
tinually  hung  011  the  march  of  the  Israelites,  and  joined 
with  the  Canaanites  in  the  first  encounter  with  the 
Israelites  on  the  borders  of  Canaan,  Xn.  xiv.  i:;-45 ;  and 
after  the  people  were  settled  in  the  land,  they  made 
incursions,  along  with  the  Midianites  and  the  children 
of  the  Kast,  destroying,  on  the  southern  portions  of  the 
land,  the  increase  of  the  earth,  and  leaving  it  behind 


them  little  better  than  a  desert.  Ju. 


At  that 


time  they  sustained  a  great  defeat  through  Cideori,  and 
for  a  considerable  period  are  no  more  heard  of .    15ut  that 


uf  t/ie  Pentateuch,  vol.  ii.  p.  '247.  English  translation; 
also  Kurtz,  History  nf  the  Old  Covenant,  vol.  iii.  p.  1, 
s.  1.] 

AMA'NA  [confirmation],  mentioned  as  a  mountain- 
top  in  Canticles  iv.  S,  apparently  one  of  the  Lebanon 
range,  and  supposed  by  some  also  to  be  the  same  with 
the  river  Abana,  -2  Ki.  v.  12.  Possibly  the  mountain 
may  have  been  that  from  which  the  river  derived  both 
its  source  and  its  name.  But  this  is  matter  merely  of 
conjecture. 

AMARIAH  [spokctt  uf  by  Jc.horah],  the  name  of  a 
great  number  of  persons,  none  of  whom,  however,  at 
tained  to  eminence,  i  ch.  \i.7;v: 

AM 'AS  A  [ourdiii],  1.  A  son  of  Ithra,  or  Jether,  by 
Abigail,  the  sister  of  Zeruiah,  and  consequently  cousin 
of  Joab,  but  apparently  an  illegitimate  son,  as  it  is  not 
said  that  Abigail  was  the  wife  of  Ithra,  but  merely 
that  he  went  in  unto  her,  and  she  bore  him  Amasa,  -2S;i. 
In  the  passage  just  referred  to  the  father  is 
called  Ithra  an  Israelite,  while  in  1  Ch.  ii.  17  he  is 
designated  Jether  the  I shmaelite.  Various  explanations 
have  been  given  of  this  discrepance  :  and  among  later 


they  still  retained  their  former  enmity,  and  only  watched  ,  critics  the  tendency  seems  to  be  to  regard  the  text  in 


their  opportunity,  may  be  certainly  inferred  from  what 
we  otherwise  know  of  them,  and  especially  from  the 
notice  u'iveii  in  connection  with  the  earlier  victories  of 
Saul,  in  which,  after  mentioning  what  lie  did  against 
the  Philistines.  Moab,  Ammon.  Edom,  and  the  kings 
of  Zobah,  it  is  added.  "And  he  gathered  an  host,  and 
smote  the  Amalekites,  and  delivered  Israel  out  of  the 
hands  of  them  that  spoiled  them."  i  Sa.  xiv.  4-;.  Then  came 
the  special  charge  of  Samuel  t<>  Saul  to  go  and  utterly 
destroy  Amalek.  l  Sa.  xv.  3,  grounded  formally  on  what 
Amalek  had  done  to  Israel  at  his  departure  from  Egypt, 


nit  on  that,  it  must  be  rememberei 


sanctioned  and 


Samuel  as  a  corruption  ;  not  only  because  it  differs  from 
the  reading  in  1  Chronicles,  but  because,  on  the  sup 
position  of  the  father  having  been  an  Israelite,  there 
would  have  been  no  occasion  for  mentioning  it.  He  was, 
in  that  case,  one  of  her  own  people  ;  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  an  Tshmaelite,  this  was  so  peculiar  a  cir 
cumstance  that  it  naturally  called  for  remark.  It  is  not 
improbable  that  this  solution  may  be  the  correct  one; 
yet  it  is  also  possible  that  the  name  of  Israelite  may- 
have  been  applied  to  him  as  indicating  that  he  merely 
belonged  in  general  to  the  covenant  people,  not  to  the 
tribe  of  Judali  in  particular  :  and  his  being  also  called  an 


A. MAS  A 


ri 


AMAZIAU 


Ishmaelite  may  denote,  what  the  word  sometimes  indi 
cates,  Ju.viii.L'4,  that  he  followed  the  customs  and  man 
ners  of  the  Ishmaelites.  Though  he  was  an  Israelite  by 
birth,  he  was  an  Arab  by  his  mode  of  life  :  and  so,  his 
Israelitish  birth  might  on  this  account  also  require  to 
be  noted.  Anyhow,  it  is  clear  there  was  something- 
irregular  and  unhappy  in  Amasa's  parentage  and  birth. 
And  one  can  easily  understand  how  this  may  have  led 
to  some  estrangement  between  him  and  his  mother's 
kindred,  and  how.  in  the  distractions  that  arose  in  the 
kingdom.  Amasa  should  have  l>een  found  to  espouse  the 
opposite  side  from  that  which  was  headed  by  David  and 
the  sons  of  Zeruiah.  No  mention  is  made  of  him  in 
the  earlier  struggles  and  conflicts  of  David's  life:  and. 
even  after  David  came  to  the  throne,  it  is  only  svith  the 
outbreak  of  Absalom's  rebellion  that  he  rises  into  notice, 
and  then  as  appointed  bv  Absalom  to  the  chief  command 
of  his  army.  Absalom  would  not  have  thought  of  set 
ting  Amasa  so  high  in  office  unles-  lie  had  been  already 
known  as  a  man  of  superior  energy  and  valour:  nor  is 
it  likely  he  could  have  -ot  him  to  accept  of  th-' appoint 
ment  unless  there  bad  been  some  secret  grudge  in  his 
bosom  -  a  conviction  of  bis  merits  having  been  over 
looked,  or  his  person  treatt  d  uitli  disregard,  by  l>avid 
and  those  about  him.  To  David  himself  it  must  have 
been  an  affecting  thought,  that,  while  a  son  headed  the 
rebellion,  a  nephew  was  placi-d  over  the  forci  s  by  which 
it  was  hoped  to  carry  the  project  into  effect,  and  lay  at 
once  the  life  and  the  empire  of  David  in  the  du.-t.  It 
is  possible,  too,  that  sonic  conviction  of  wrong,  or  at 
least  of  ungenerous  behaviour  towards  Ama-a.  may 
have  had  its  share  in  the  motives  that  prompted  David, 
after  th"  armv  of  the  rel>c!s  had  been  overthrown,  t" 
huld  ..ut  pn>|><>-als  of  honour  and  advancement  t" 
liis  nephew.  lie  then  at  last  n  co-ui/ed  Amasa  a-  \\\- 
kinsman,  and  sent  to  him  the  gracious  message,  "  Art 
thou  not  of  mv  bone  and  of  my  flesh  :  (  iod  do  so  to  me, 
and  more  also,  if  thou  be  not  captain  of  the  h"st  l>efore 
me  continually,  in  the  room  of  .Joab,  -i  Sa.  v,\  i::.  This, 
however,  was  a  rush  to  th.-  opposite  extreme;  for.  what 
ever  reasons  there  mi-lit  be  t"  dispose  the  kin-  to  super 
sede  .loab  in  the  chief  command,  certainly  Amasa.  fresh 
from  the  crime  of  an  active  participation  in  the  rebel 
lion,  which  had  shaken  the  kingdom  of  David  to  its 
verv  foundation,  was  not  the  man  to  take  his  place,  .loab 
had  indeed  sinned  against  the  king's  command  regard 
ing  Absalom,  and  had  sorely  lacerated  the  parent's 
heart  bv  violently  terminating  the  guilty  career  of  the 
son.  It  was  when  still  smarting  under  this  severe 
wound  that  David  sent  such  proposals  of  advancement 
to  Amasa:  so  that  a  sense  of  injury  sustained  at  the 
hand  of  Joab,  as  well  as.  it  may  be,  a  consciousness  of 
former  injury  or  ne-leet  shown  to  Amasa,  tended  to 
produce  this  recoil  in  the  heart  of  the  kin-.  I'.ut  .loab 
proved  again  too  strong  tor  his  master;  he  saw  the  ad 
verse  turn  which  affairs  were  beginning  to  take;  and 
when  Sheba's  rebellion  broke  out.  and  Amasa,  who 
had  been  sent  to  quell  it,  was  slower  in  his  movements 
than  was  expected,  .loab  seized  the  opportunity,  when 
suspicions  were  entertained  of  his  faithfulness  or  energy, 
and  Amasa  himself  was  off  his  guard,  to  thrust  a  dagger 
into  his  heart,  -J.Sa.  \x.  :>-l<>.  On. loab' s  part,  doubtless,  it  | 
was  a  most  unprincipled  and  cruel  act,  and  could  not 
but  call  forth  at  the  time  the  mournful  lamentation  of 
David,  as  it  afterwards  received  at  the  hands  of  Solomon 
its  meet  retribution.  Yet,  as  regards  Amasa  himself, 
when  we  think  of  the  countenance  he  had  given  to  the 


!  wicked  rebellion  of  Absalom,  and  the  impious  attempt 
he  had  made  to  cast  to  the  ground  the  crown  set  by 
God  himself  on  the  head  of  David,  it  were  hard  to  say, 
without  other  evidence  of  godly  sorrow  and  repentance 
than  is  found  in  the  sacred  narrative,  that  Amasa  de 
served  a  better  fate.  Thousands  of  lives  had  been 

I  sacrificed  through  that  treachery  and   revolt  which   he 

'  abetted;  and  unless  deep  contrition  had  penetrated  his 
soul,  condign  punishment,  rather  than  the  most  marked 
promotion,  was  the  kind  of  treatment  he  had  reason  to 
expect.  Still,  if  such  punishment  was  to  have  been 
awarded,  it  should  have  been  administered  in  another 
manner,  and  inflicted  by  a  different  hand. 

2.  AMASA.  the  name  of  an  Ephraimite  chief,  who 
earnestly  urged  the  dismissal  of  the  prisoners  whom 

1  Pekah,  king  of  Israel,  had  brought  captive  from  .ludah, 
•JCh.  xxviii.  l:1. 

AMAS'AI.  probably  a  variation  of  the  name 
Amasa.  It  is  used  of  at  least  four  different  persons, 
but  of  whom  nothing  very  particular  is  known,  i  cii.  \ii 

!••  ;  vi.  •_'.-,  ;  xv  -jl  :  '.'  Cli.  xxix.  1-. 

AMAZIAH  [stringthfitdl  of  the  /,«/•</],  1.  The  name 
of  one  of  the  kings  of  .ludah  the  son  of  ,b,ash.  lie 
ivi-ned  twenty-five  years,  from  about  n.c.  X>>  to  M>;». 
1 1  is  ]ei-n  was  of  a  verv  mixed  description,  both  as  to  the 
measures  pin-sued  under  it  and  the  results  with  \\hich 
thev  were  attended.  His  first  step  of  a  public  nature 
was  to  punish  those  \\lio  had  conspired  and  murdered 
his  father  :  and  in  this  part  of  his  procedure  he-  is  com 
mended  for  his  justice,  as  taking  vengeance  only  upon 
the  -\iiltv.  and  sparing  their  children,  who  had  no  par 
ticipation  in  the  crime.  When  he  found  himself  firmly 
seated  upon  the  throne,  he  set  about  reducing  the 
Kdomites  to  obed'u  nee:  for  during  the  miserable  admi 
nistration  of  .lehoraiu.  the  son  of  Jehoshaphat,  these 
had  caM  off  their  allegiance  to  .ludah.  and  had  doubt 
less  often  been  renewing  their  predatory  incursions  into 
the  .lev.  i>h  territory.  So  feeble,  however,  had  the  king 
doni  of  .ludah  become,  that  Ama/iah  \\as  afraid  to  \en 
lure  on  this  undertaking  with  such  forces  as  lie  could 
raise  amoli-  his  o\\u  people;  and  he  hired  \\ith  an 
hundred  talents  of  silver  an  hundred  thousand  troops 
from  the  kin-  of  Israel.  It  is  the  first  instance  on 
record  of  a  strictly  mercenary  army  employed  by  the 
covenant  people.  And  it  was  in  itself  a  false  step;  for 
it  necessarilv  brought  the  kingdom  of  .ludah  into  a 
dangerous  alliance  with  the  corrupt  court  of  Israel,  and 

placed  the  one  in  a  kind  of  dependence  Upon  the  other 
A  prophet,  therefore,  n  moiistrated  a-ainst  it,  foiv- 
warin  d  Ama/iah  of  the  certain  withdrawal  of  the  divine 
favour  if  lie  leaned  upon  such  auxiliarii  s.  and  assured 
him  of  success  if  he  put  his  trust  in  Cod.  and  went  tor- 
ward  with  thi'  resources  which  were  more  properly  his 
own.  In  compliance  with  this  counsel,  he  dismissed 
the  Israelitish  troops,  who  uere  greatly  olli-nded  at  the 
treatment  they  met  with,  and  revenged  themselves  by 
spreadin- havoc  and  desolation  through  various  cities 
on  their  way  back.  Ama/iah,  however,  succeeded  in 
his  expedition  :  the  Kdomites  were'  defeated  in  a  great 
battle  in  the  valley  of  Salt,  \vith  the  loss  altogether  of 
twenty  thousand  men:  and  their  chief  city,  Selah  (or 
1'etra),  was  taken  and  garrisoned  by  -Jewish  soldiers. 
Hut  while  on  the  held  of  battle  he  prevailed,  he  was 
himself  conquered  by  the  idolatry  of  Kdom.  At  the  very 
time  when  the  Ciod  of  his  fathers  had  given  him  a  dis 
tinguishing  token  of  his  favour  and  efficient  help,  he  fell 
off  from  his  allegiance,  and  did  service  to  the  gods  of 


AMBASSADOR 


AMETHYST 


his  prostrate  enemies.  It  was  a  display  of  weakness 
and  inconstancy  which  it  is  difficult  to  account  for, 
unless  it  were  from  tlie  false  policy — of  which  too  many 
examples  have  been  given  in  later  times — of  seeking  to 
conciliate  the  conquered  to  his  sway  l>y  paying  homage 
to  their  superstitions.  On  this  second,  and  still  worse 
defection  from  the  right  path,  a  prophet  again  came  to 
him  with  the  word  of  admonition,  reproving  him  for  the 
palpable  folly  of  ''.seeking  after  gods,  which  could  not 
deliver  their  own  people  out  of  his  hand."  But  Amaziah, 
elated  with  success,  and  confident  of  the  wisdom  of  his 
policy,  refused  now  to  listen  to  the  friendly  monitor 
who  spake  to  him  — even  threatened  him  with  chastise 
ment  if  he  should  persist  in  his  remonstrances  ;  and  was 
left  to  know  in  bitter  experience  the  truth  of  the  pro 
verb,  that  "  He  who  harderieth  his  heart  shall  fall  into 
mischief."'  Such,  the  dishonoured  prophet  assured  him, 
would  be  the  case.  ''He  knew, "he  said,  "that  God  had 
determined  to  destroy  him,  because  he  had  not  hearkened 
to  the  counsel  given  him."  And  so  it  proved  ;  for,  in  the 
pride  of  his  heart,  Amaziah  sent  a  challenge  to  Joash, 
the  king  of  Israel,  the  ground  of  which  is  not  stated, 
though  it  probably  arose  out  of  the  exasperation  pro 
duced  by  Amaziah's  treatment  of  the  forces  he  had 
hired  from  Joash,  and  the  disorders  that  followed. 
Joash,  however,  was  rather  disinclined  to  enter  into 
direct  conflict  with  Judah,  and,  by  a  parable,  endea 
voured  to  dissuade  Amaziah  from  his  purpose  :  but  in 
vain.  The  king  of  Judah  was  bent  on  measuring  his 
strength  with  the  king  of  Israel;  and.  doing  so  without 
any  just  cause,  and  in  defiance  of  the  counsel  of  Heaven, 
he  was  smitten  before  his  adversary,  and  was  carried 
by  Joash  in  triumph  into  his  own  city,  Jerusalem. 
Amaziah  had  his  life  spared ;  for  Joash  was  satisfied 
with  having  thoroughly  humbled  him,  and  returned 
from  Jerusalem  with  much  treasure  and  a  number  of 
hostages.  But  the  kingdom  never  recovered,  in  Ama 
ziah's  time,  the  blow  thus  inflicted  upon  it ;  and  he 
himself  at  last  fell,  like  his  father,  a  victim  to  a  con 
spiracy  formed  against  his  life.  He  appears  to  have 
got  notice  of  it  in  time  to  flee  to  Lachish ;  but  the  con 
spirators  followed  him  thither,  and  despatched  him.  He 
was  buried  in  Jerusalem  :  '2  Ki.  xiv.  ,  2Cli.  xxiv. 

2.  AMAZIAH,  a  priest  in  the  house  of  the  golden  calf 
at  Bethel,  in  the  time  of  Jeroboam  II.  The  only  thing 
besides  recorded  of  him  is  the  offence  he  took  at  the  re 
proofs  and  predictions  of  the  prophet  Amos,  whom  he 
would  fain  have  silenced,  or  remanded  to  his  native 
country,  as  one  spreading  disaffection  against  the 
king's  government.  The  interference  of  Amaziah  only 
drew  from  the  prophet  a  fresh  rebuke,  and  a  solemn 
denunciation  of  coming  judgment  upon  him,  and 
upon  the  whole  people  of  Israel,  Am.  vii.  10.  i". 

AMBASSADOR,  a  person  formally  deputed  by  a 
king  or  state  to  carry  some  message  of  importance,  or 
transact  some  official  business  in  the  name  of  the  party 
he  represents.  From  the  comparatively  isolated  posi 
tion  of  ancient  Israel,  and  the  relation  in  which  they 
stood  to  the  surrounding  countries,  the  employment  of 
ambassadors  could  not  be  a  stated  or  even  very  fre 
quent  practice ;  but  circumstances  did  occasionally 
arise  which  led  to  its  adoption,  as  when  David  sent 
ambassadors  to  Hanun,  king  of  the  Amorites,  to 
congratulate  him  on  his  ascension  to  the  throne,  and 
Hiram  for  a  like  purpose  sent  them  to  Solomon,  2Sa.  x.  L>  ; 
iKi.v.  i.  Sometimes  they  were  sent  both  from  and 
to  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,  on  more  question 


able  errands  —  for  conducting  negotiations  that  should 
not  have  been  entered  into;  but,  for  whatever  purpose 
sent,  it  always  was  the  part  of  an  ambassador  to  per 
sonate  the  authority  he  represented,  and  the  reception 
given  or  withheld  from  him  was  necessarily  regarded 
as  virtually  given  or  withheld  in  respect  to  the  party 
whose  representative  he  was. 

The  word  occurs  but  once  in  Xew  Testament  scrip 
ture,  -'Co.  v.  20,  and  is  there  employed  hy  the  apostle 
1'aul  to  designate  the  nature  and  dignity  of  the  office 
exercised  by  him  and  all  properly  qualified  preachers 
of  the  gospel.  They  are  ambassadors  for  Christ,  in 
his  stead  and  on  God's  behalf,  beseeching  all  men  to  be 
reconciled  to  God.  It  presents  a  striking  view  of  the 
importance  and  dignity  of  an  evangelical  ministry,  and 
should  have  its  effect  in  imparting  gravity,  seriousness, 
j  and  fidelity  to  those  who  exercise  it,  as  well  as  awaken 
ing  earnest  consideration  and  ready  acquiescence  from 
those  among  whom  it  is  exercised. 

AMBER.     ,S'ce  CHASMIL. 

AMEN,  a  Hebrew  word,  transferred  first  to  the 
Greek,  then  to  the  Latin,  whence  it  has  passed  into 
most  modern  languages.  Commonly  it  is  regarded  as 
primarily  an  adjective,  signifying  Jinn,  faithful,  sure, 
as  when  used  by  the  glorified  "Redeemer  in  lie.  iii.  14, 
where  he  styles  himself  "the  Amen,  the  faithful  and 
true  witness."  But  even  here  it  may  be  quite  fitly 
taken  as  an  adverb  in  the  sense  of  verily  ;  as  also  in 
Is.  Ixv.  1(J,  where  it  is  employed  as  an  epithet,  tJn 
God  of  the  verily.  The  verily,  He  who  is  absolutely 
and  emphatically  such,  as  Hengstenberg  has  justly  re 
marked,  "is  He  who  in  all  he  says,  whether  in  dis 
closing  the  depths  of  the  heart,  or  in  giving  forth 
threatenings  and  promises,  can  always  add  with  the 
fullest  right  the  verily  ;  while,  in  regard  to  everything 
that  a  short-sighted  man  may  speak,  there  constantly 
goes  along  with  it  a  mark  of  interrogation,  and  the 
more  so,  indeed,  the  more  confidently  he  speaks." 
I  Icnce,  it  is  very  frequently  used  by  our  Lord,  espe 
cially  in  connection  with  those  utterances  which  refer 
red  to  the  deeper  things  of  God,  or  the  things  which 
were  apt  to  awaken  the  incredulity,  if  not  the  opposi 
tion,  of  flesh  and  blood.  On  this  account,  also,  it  oc 
curs  most  frequently,  and  often  in  a  reduplicated  form 
in  the  Gospel  of  John,  which  records  more  of  such  dis 
courses  of  our  Lord  than  any  of  the  others.  In  its 
more  common  and  popular  use,  its  object  is  to  express 
an  assured  belief  of  something  that  has  been  spoken, 
whether  by  one's  self  or  by  another,  or  the  earnest 
desire  and  expectation  of  something  that  has  been 
announced  ;  therefore  importing,  so  it  in,  or  so  be  it. 
It  is  hence  fitly  used  at  the  close  of  a  prayer,  or  by  way 
of  response  to  the  prayers  presented  by  others  ;  in  which 
there  is  no  difference  among  Christians,  except  in  re 
gard  to  the  extent  to  which  the  responsive  Amen  — 
whether  with  suppressed  or  distinctly  uttered  acquies 
cence  —  should  be  admitted  in  the  services  of  the  sanc 
tuary  —  a  difference,  at  most,  but  of  form. 

AMETHYST,  the  Greek  term  ('  A^Ovaros),  for 
the  Heb.  ncSntfj  au'^  thence  derived  into  the  English. 


and  other  modern  languages.  The  stone  so  designated 
was  one  of  those  which  entered  into  the  high-priest's 
breastplate  —  the  ninth  in  number;  and  is  supposed  to 
have  derived  its  name  from  some  imagined  property  in 
regard  to  dreams  (the  Heb.  root  signifying  to  dream), 
as  the  Greek  did  in  regard  to  drunkenness.  The  stone 


AMMINADAB 


73 


AMMOX 


so   called,  like  the   hurl)  of   the   same  name,  was  eon-  to  cur.se  them."      On  this  account  they  were  not  to  be 

ceived  to  act  as  a  sort  of  charm  against  intoxication,  '  received  into  the  congregation  till  the  tenth  generation; 

and  wine-bibbers  are  reported  to  have  usually  worn  it  Do.  xxili.  3,  which  is  further  explained  by  saying  in  ver.  6,' 

about   their  necks.     Of  course,  it  was  from  no   such  "  Tlu.u  shalt  not  seek  their  peace  nor  their  prosperity 

ideas  that  the  stone  in  question  was  admitted  into  the  all  thy  days  for  ever"— a  perpetual  interdict.      And  so 

sacred  breastplate;  but  merely  from  its   having  are-  the  matter  was  understood  in  Xehemiah's  time;  for  it 

cognized  place  among  the  precious  gems.  is  there  recorded  that  on  a  certain  day  "they  read  in  the 

The    amethyst    is  a  transparent    gem,   exhibiting  a  book  of    Moses    in    the   audience   of    the  people;   and 

sort  of  purple  appearance,  composed  partly  of  a  strong  therein   it  was   found  written   that  the  Ammonite  and 

blue    and   of  a  deep   red,   but   these  variously   propor-  the  Moabite  should  not  come  into  the  congregation  of 

tioned,  and  the  purple  accordingly  presenting  different  the  Lord  for  ever,"  N'e.  xiii.  i.      It  may  well  be  doubted, 

tinges  from  the  violet  to  the  rose  colour.      The  oriental  however,  if  tl 


species  of   this  gem  ;  it  is  even  the  hardest   substance 


ssiiig   (.if  Israel.       The  ancient   .Jewish  writers   eer- 


known,   next  to  the  diamond.     The  ground  of  its  com-      tainly  did  not   sei  understand  it;  they  considered  the 
position   is    alumina,   intermingled  with  small  propor-     prohibition  only  as  referring  to  the  full  ri-dits  of  citi- 


tions  of  iron  and  silica,  whence  it  is  closely  related  to 
the  sapphire.      The  European  or  western   amethvst  is 
not   much  harder  than    crystal,  and  is  indeed  a   sort  of 
rock-crystal,  or  variety  of  quart/.      This    species  is   to 
be   found  in   considerable   abundance   in  must  countries 
of   Europe,    and    is    that    which,    both   in    ancient   and      b 
modern  times,  has  been  must  frequently  e-mploved  fur 
articles  of  jewellery.    To  which  kind  that  in  the  l.r.-ast 
plate  of  the  high-priest  belonged,  we  have  no  means  of 
ascertaining. 

AMMIX'ADAE   [pcoplt   >,f  liberality,   bounteous], 
occurs      to    say   nothing    of   its    occasional    appearance 


zenship,  not  to  the  privilege  of  entering  into  the  bond 
and  blessing  of  the  covenant:  and  justified  their  view 
both  by  the  ease  of  Ruth,  and  by  the  general  principles 
of  the  theocracy.  They  said,  as  quoted  by  Ainsworth 
n  lie.  \xiii.  :;,  "All  heathens  whosoever,  when  they 
come  proselytes,  and  have  taken  upon  them  all  the 
commandments  \\hich  are  in  the  lav,  ;  likewise  bond 
servants  when  they  are  made  free',  lo  '.  they  are  as 
Israelites  in  all  respects.  Nu.  iv.  15,  and  it  is  lawful  for 
them  to  come  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord  imme 
diatel.  And  the  proselyte  or  freed  man  may  marry 


in  some  genealogical  table 
name  of  one  of  the  ancestors  of  l>a\M.  the  father  of 
Elisheba.  who  became  the  wife  of  Aaron;  and  in  ('a. 
vi.  ]-J  the  chariots  of  Amminadali  are  spoken  of  ap 
parently  as  an  image  "f  fervent  action  and  lightning 
speed.  It  is  probable  there  was  sonic  person  of  that 


a  daughter  of  Israel  ;  and  the  Israelite  may  marry  her 
that  is  a  proselyte  or  made  free;  except  of  four  people 
only,  which  are  Anmioii,  Moab,  Kdom,  and  Egypt; 
for  these-  people,  when  any  (.f  them  becometh  a  prose 
lyte.  h.-  is  an  Israelite  in  all  respects,  save  in  the  case 
of  entering  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord.  The 
Ammonite  and  the  .Moabite  are  forbidden  for  ever— 


name   who  gave  occasion  to  the  proverbial  use  of  the  the  males,  but   not  the  females.      We  have  it  as  a  tra- 

expression.  but  no  trace  is  found  of   him  in  history.  dition   from   Mount    Sinai,   that  the   Ammonite  is  the 

AMMOX   [originally    I'.KX   A.MMI,  Gc   MX.  :;-,   son   ,,f  male,  and   the    .Moabite  is   the   male,  that  is   forbidden 

in;/  relative,   then  for  the  descendants   I'.KNE  AMJIOV,  for  ever  to  marry  a  daughter  ..f  Israel,  though  it  be  his 


CHILDKK.N  or  A.M.MON.  or  A.M.MOM  i  i;s],  tl 
of  one  of  the   sons    of    Eot.   Ge.  xix.  S.s.       Their   01 
territory,  after  they   became   a   people,   lay   toward    tl. 
east  of   I'alestine,  beyond    the  river  .Jabbok.  having  the 
possessions   of     Keuben   and    Cad    upon   the  west.    and. 
those    of    Moab   on    the    south,    bounded    by   the    river 
Arnon.     It  would  appear,  however,  that  they  \\ere  not 


sons  son,  to  the  world's  end.  Ihit  an  Ammonitess 
nal  and  a  Moabitess  arc  lawful  immediately,  as  the  other 
people."  According  to  this  view,  \\hich  seems  to  be 
grounded  in  reason,  and  supported  by  the  facts  of  his 
tory,  what  is  meant  by  entering  into  the  congregation 
ot  the  Lord,  is  complete  identification  as  a  people, 
admission  to  a  place  and  standing  as  members  of  the 


the   original   occupants   of   the   region,    but    wrested   it  commonwealth   of    Israel:   this   is  what  was  to  be  re- 

from    the    /am/.ummim.    a    race    of    giants.    Do.  ii.  w,  fused  to  the  Ammonites  and  Moabites,  so  long  as  the 

and  thereafter  settle.  1  down  in  it.  and  grew  into  a  con-  peculiar  constitution  of  Israel  stood,  but  without  pre- 

siderable  people.     The  Israelites  approached  the  b,,rder  judice  to  the  reception  of  believing  individuals  to  the 

of  their  territory,  when  on  their  way  to  the  possession  spiritual  benefits  of  the  covenant. 

of  Canaan,  but  did  not  actually  interfere  with  any  In  reality,  however,  the  Ammonites,  as  a  people,  were 
part  of  it-  at  least  with  no  part  that  at  the  time  was  as  little  disposed  to  ask,  as  the  Israelites  to  give,  a  corn- 
held  by  them;  though  a  portion  of  what  was  taken  mon  participation  in  national  honours  and  advantages. 
from  the  Amorites  that,  namely,  lying  between  the  The  unbrotherly  and  hostile  spirit  which  they  evinced 
rivers  Arnon  and  Jabbok-  was  afterwards  claimed  as  at  the  outset  was  transmitted  as  a  heritage  to  future 
by  right  theirs,  Ju.  xi.  12.  They  appear,  however,  to  generations,  and  exploded  in  many  fierce  encounters. 
have  taken  a  very  active  part  in  the  efforts  that  were  Shortly  after  the  children  of  Israel  had  entered  on  their 
made  by  the  tribes  ,,n  the  farther  side  <>f  Jordan  to  ,  new  possessions,  they  were  assailed,  and  kept  for  a 
>ppose  the  march  of  the  Israelites,  and  crush  their  time  in  a  sort  >,f  bondage,  by  the  Ammonites,  ii 


hopes  of  entering   the   land   of    Canaan.     For,    in  the  junction  with  the  people  of  Moab  and  Amalek,  Ju.  iii.  13. 

prohibition  laid    down   by   Moses  as    to  receiving  the  The  oppression  proved  but  temporary,   as  the  enemies 

Ammonites  into  the   congregation    of   the   Lord,  it  is  were  again  driven  back  with  great  slaughter.    But  at  a 

stated  as  the  ground  of  the  prohibition,  that  "they  had  subsequent  period,  probably  about  a  century  and  a  half 

not  met  them  with  bread  and  water  by  the  way,  when  later,  and  as  a  chastisement  to  Israel  for  their  spiritual 

the  Israelites  came  out  of  Egypt;"  not  only  so,  but  "had  defections,  the  Ammonites  again  rose  to  the  ascendant, 

hired/'  that  is,  had  gone  along  with  Moab  and  Midian  at  least  in  respect  to  the  Israelites  beyond  the  Jordan! 
in    hiring  "against    them    Balaam,  the    son    of   Beor,  j  and  pressed  heavily  upon  them.    It  was  on  this  occasion 


VOL.  I. 


LO 


AMXOX 


74 


AMOK1TE 


that  the  Israelites,  in  tin:  depth  of  their  distress,  called 
in  the  ;iid  of  .lephthah,  whose  sinister  birth  and  some 
what  lawless  character  would,  lint  for  the  emergency 
of  tlie  time,  have  disposed  them  t<i  slum  any  intimate 
eonneetioii  with  liim.  \\'hen  he  had  assumed  the  com 
mand  of  the  Israelitish  host,  he  sent  a  challenge  to  the 
king  of  the  Ammonites,  demanding  to  know  the  grounds 
of  his  quarrel  with  the  covenant  people  ;  which  was  an 
swered  hv  calling  to  remembrance  an  alleged  wrong 
that  was  sustained  by  Ammon  at  the  hands  of  the 
children  of  Israel  when  they  came  out  of  Egypt-  the 
seizure,  already  referred  to.  of  a  portion  of  their  terri 
tory.  This  charge  was  repelled  by  Jephthah,  in  a  de 
tailed  recital  of  the  circumstances  relating  to  Israel's 
progress  toward  ( 'anaan,  and  of  the  exact  position  of  the 
Ammonites  at  the  time  as  to  the  portion  of  territory  in 
question.  The  matter,  therefore,  came  to  a  conflict,  in 
which  the  Ammonites  sustained  a  complete  defeat,  .Ju.  xi.  ; 
Kilt  in  process  of  time  the  old  spirit  again  revived.  In 
the  age  of  Saul  the  Ammonites  appear  among  the  ene 
mies  over  whom  lie  gained  decisive  victories,  1  Sa.  xi.  ll  ; 
and  though  David  endeavoured  to  cultivate  friendly 
relations  with  them,  he  so  completely  failed  in  his  de 
sign,  that  it  was  from  them  he  received  some  of  his 
greatest  provocations  and  deadliest  assaults,  2Sx  x.;  I'M. 
ixxxiii.  7;  and  from  him,  in  return,  that  they  met  with 
their  most  dreadful  castigation  and  humiliating  reverse, 
•Jrta.  xii.  •.'<!- :n.  Still,  they  were  not  wholly  subdued.  Even 
in  the  next  reign  they  had  so  far  regained  their  posi 
tion  that  Solomon  obtained  SOUK;  of  his  many  wives 
from  them  :  and  receiving  these — not  like  Ii'uth,  humble 
converts  to  the  truth  of  (Jod,  but  with  all  their  idolatry 
cleaving  to  them — he  reared  for  them,  in  defiance  of  all 
reason  and  the  whole  spirit  of  the  theocracy,  "a  temple 
to  .Molech,  the  abomination  of  the  children  of  Ammoii," 
i  Ki.xi.:.  In  the  eye  of  Heaven  this  was  the  saddest  victory 
ever  gained  by  the  Ammonites  over  the  children  of 
Israel,  audit  could  not  fail  to  draw  down  the  inflictions 
of  its  righteous  displeasure.  The  rending  of  the  king 
dom  soon  followed,  and  the  permanent  depression  of  the 
house  of  David.  During  the  decline  and  fall  of  the 
kingdom,  the  Ammonites  from  time  to  time  renewed 
their  hostility;  though,  from  their  diminished  strength, 
they  rather  aided  the  attempts  of  others  than  made  anv 
vigorous  assaults  of  their  own,  2Ch.  xx. ;  Jo.  xlix.  i-  Am.  i.  i:;; 
Kze.  xxv.  3-0 ;  and,  at  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  Bal  >vlon, 
they  showed  their  spite  by  endeavouring,  though  in 
vain,  to  arrest  the  building  of  the  temple.  Some  of  the 
exiled  Jews  had  found  refuge  among  them  during  the  dis 
persion,  and,  it  would  seem,  had  intermarried  with  them  ; 
so  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  heathen  leaven, 
which  it  cost  Ezra  and  Xehemiah  such  difficulty  to  get 
purgei  1  out,  was  derived  from  this  quarter,  E/.r.  x.;  Xc.  xiii. 
At  a  later  period,  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  vari 
ous  battles  were  fought  with  them,  in  which  success 
was  chiefly  on  the  Jewish  side;  but  amid  the  changes 
that  ensued,  first  under  the  Grecian,  then  under  the 
Koman  supremacy,  the  Ammonites,  in  common  with 
the  -.mailer  tribes  in  their  neighbourhood,  lost  their 
independent  position,  and  gradually  became  amalgam 
ated  with  the  general  Arab  population.  In  Origen's 
time  their  country  was  comprised  under  the  common 
title  of  Arabia. 

AM'NOX  [faMfuJ],  David's  eldest  son,  by  Ahinoam 
tli''  Jezreelitess.  lie  was  born  at  Hebron.  Nothing- 
is  recorded  of  him  except  his  atrocious  conduct  toward 
his  half-sister  Tamar,  which  cost  him  his  life,  2Sa.  xiii 


14,  -'!).  The  circumstances  connected  with  it  and  his  own 
unhappy  end.  are  noticed  under  ABSALOM. 

A'MON  [workman,  arcliit<ct~\,  was  borne  as  a  name 
by  various  persons,  two  of  whom  are  little  more  than 
mentioned,  I  Ki.  xxii.  20  ;  2('h.  xviii.  •_';"> ;  Xt>.  vii.  ;V>,  and  a  third 
is  only  mentioned  to  his  discredit.  This  was  the  son  of 
.Manasseh,  and  his  successor  on  the  throne  of  Judah. 
His  reign  commenced  about  n.c.  <>14,  and  ended  miser 
ably  in  the  course  of  two  years.  In  his  personal  conduct 
and  public  administration  he  followed  the  worse,  not  the 
later  and  better  .part  of  his  father's  procedure,  restoring 
idolatry  in  its  most  obnoxious  form,  ami  with  its  wonted 
abominations,  ills  servants  conspired  against  him.  on 
what  grounds  is  not  stated,  and  killed  him  in  the  palace  ; 
but  the  people  of  the  land,  not  participating  in  their  views, 
conspired  in  turn  and  slew  the  murderers,  2  Ki.  xxi.  w-'X. 

A'MOXl,  the  name  of  one  of  the  Egyptian  deities. 
The  references  to  it  in  Scripture  are  somewhat 
obscured  to  the  English  reader  by  the  word,  through 
an  old  misapprehension,  being  unfortunately  trans 
lated,  instead  of  being  taken  as  a  proper  name.  Thus, 
in  Jer.  xlvi.  25,  "Behold,  1  will  punish  the  multitude 
of  Xo" — should  be,  "Behold,  I  will  punish  Amon 
of  Xo" — the  god  that  was  peculiarly  worshipped 
there;  after  which  naturally  follows  1'haraoh,  and 
Egypt  generally,  as  alike  doomed  to  severe  chastise 
ment.  So,  again,  in  Xahum  iii.  8,  "Art  thou  better 
than  populous  Xo?"  is  properly,  "Art  thou  better  than 
Xo- Amon  ? " —  the  city  which  was  devoted  to  the  worship 
of  Amon,  Ezo.  xxx.  1").  Xo  is  the  same  as  Thebes,  where, 
it  is  well  known,  the  deity  whom  the  Greeks  compared 
or  identified  with  their  Jupiter  was  worshipped  with 
much  devotion.  They  called  him  Ammon  or  Jupiter- 
Ammoii;  but  on  the  Egyptian  monuments  the  name  is 
written  A  inn  or  Amn-lie  (Amon  the  Sun),  and  was 
supposed  by  the  Greeks  and  IJomans  to  be  represented 
under  the  figure  of  a  human  form  with  a  ram's  head. 
But  this,  though  still  often  repeated,  has  been  proved 
by  the  more  accurate  investigations  of  modern  times  to 
be  a  mistake.  It  was  the  god  Ncph,  sometimes  written 
Knepli,  and  by  the  Greeks  Chnoubis,  who  was  so  repre 
sented,  and  the  proper  seat  of  whose  worship  was  not 
Thebes,  but  Mero'e,  and  who  also  had  a  famous  oracle 
in  the  Lybian.  desert.  The  Amon  of  Thebes,  ''king  of 
gods,"  as  he  was  called,  always  had  the  form  simply  of 
a  man  assigned  him,  and  in  one  of  the  characters  under 
which  he  was  worshipped  appears  to  have  been  virtually 
identified  with  the  sun,  in  another  with  the  Egyptian 
Pan  (Wilkinson's  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Egyp 
tians,  ch.  xiii.)  Being  represented  as  the  king  of  gods, 
and  holding  a  supreme  place  in  the  mythology  of  Egypt, 
we  can  easily  understand  why  he  should  have  been 
specially  mentioned  in  Scripture  when  the  gods  of 
Egypt  are  singled  out  for  vengeance.  The  worship  paid 
him,  like  that  of  the  worship  generally  which  was  cele 
brated  in  Egypt,  partook  of  much  that  was  impure,  as 
well  as  frivolous  and  absurd. 

AM'OBITE  [more  properly  EMOUITE  (Sept.  'A/mop- 
paioi\  probably  meaning  mountaineer],  one  of  the  ori 
ginal,  and,  indeed,  by  much  the  largest  and  most 
powerful  of  the  original  tribes  that  inhabited  the  land 
of  Canaan  before  the  Israelitish  conquest.  The  terri 
tory  they  occupied  lay  toward  the  soxith,  and  so  early 
as  the  time  of  Abraham  they  were  met  with  about 
Hebron  and  Hazezon-tamar.  At  the  time  of  the 
conquest,  they  are  represented  as  having  five  kings, 
whose  respective  scats  were  Jerusalem,  Hebron,  Jar- 


AMOKITE 


AMOS 


muth,  Lacliish,  and  Eglon,  Jos.  x.  5;  and  they  had  also 
possessed  themselves  of  considerable  territory  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Jordan,  where  Sihon  and  Og  latterly 
reigned.  Xu.  xxi.  21-24.  Partly  from  being  so  numerous 
and  powerful  a  tribe,  and  partly  also  from  their  occu 
pying  that  portion  of  the  Canaaiiitish  territory  with 
which  the  covenant  people  came  into  earliest  and  closest 
contact,  the  Amorites  are  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if 
thev  were  the  only  inhabitants  of  the  land.  Go.  xv.  if>; 
xlviii.  22;  Do.  i.  20.  And  their  strength  and  valour,  as  well 
as  numerical  greatness,  is  particularly  mentioned  by  the 
prophet  Amos:  "  i  destroyed  the  Amorite  before  them, 
whose  height  was  like  the  height  of  the  cedars,  and  he 
was  strong  as  the  oaks,"  rh.  ii.  y. 

The  Amorites  were  the  descendants  of  Emor.  the 
fourth  son  of  Canaan,  and  seem  early  to  have  attained  to 
a  bad  pre-eminence  among  tin.'  Canaaiiite  progeny,  for 
the  corrupt  and  dissolute  manners  which  distinguished 
the  race.  In  the  time  of  Abraham  their  iniquity  was  em 
phatically  noticed,  though  it  had  not  become  full,  except 
in  the  case  of  those  who  inhabited  the  fertile  plain  where 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  stood  ;  and  these,  for  a  warning 
to  the  rest,  were  made  monument.-  of  divine  judgment. 
What  effect  the  warning  might  have,  had  at  the  time, 
or  how  far  its  voice  may  have  reached,  we  have  no  par 
ticular  means  of  ascertaining,  as  the  chosen  seed  wi  re 
soon  afterwards  entirely  removed  from  the  region.  l',u; 
at  the  period  \\hentliev  returned,  under  the  divine  guid-  : 
ance.  to  get  possession  of  the  land,  we  are  distinctly  in 
formed  that  the  rankest  corruptions  had  again  taken  root  . 
amongst  the  Amorites.  as  well  as  the  other  inhabitants, 
and  that  the  time  of  retribution  had  come,  '['hat  portion 
of  them.  howe\er,  w  ho  dwelt  on  the  east  side  of  Jordan, 
being  beyond  the  limits  of  the  land  properly  destined  for 
the  children  of  Israel,  \\civ  not  necessarily  included  in 
the  doom  which  was  pronounced  upon  the  occupants  of 
Canaan,  and  niiu'ht  ha\e  been  spared,  if  thev  had  lis 
tened  to  the'  dictates  of  wisdom  and  discretion.  Moses, 
on  approaching  their  territory,  sent  a  message  to  Sihon, 
king  of  Heshbon.  simply  requesting  permission  to  pass 
unmolested  through  his  borders.  But  this  was  sternly 
refused,  and  all  the  forces  of  Sihon  were  presently 
gathered  together  to  cut  off  the  host  of  Isra,  1.  It  ended, 
however,  in  the  destruction  of  Sihon  and  his  people,  as 
a  similar  conflict  shortly  afterwards  also  terminated  with 
Og.  king  of  I'.ashan.  the  other  chief  of  that  section  of  the 
Amorites;  and  the  tract  of  country,  thus  cleared  of  its 
former  occupants,  was  divided  among  the  tribes  of  IJeti- 
beii,  Manasseh,  and  ( Jad.  as  being  peculiarly  suited  for 
the  pasturage  of  cattle,  in  which  they  were  richer  than 
the  other  tribes,  Xu  \\\U.  This  was  done  at  their  own 
request,  and  in  connection  with  many  protestations  on 

their  part,  and  solemn   vows  exacted  from  them,  that 

1 

they  would  remain  faithful  to  covenant  engagements, 
and  consider  themselves  one  with  their  brethren  in 
worship  and  polity,  notwithstanding  the  natural  boun 
dary-line  of  the  .Ionian  lying  between  them,  Jos.  xxii. 
But  in  the  result  it  turned  out  rather  unfavourable  to 
the  higher  interests  of  the  portion  of  the  people  located 
there.  Their  greater  distance  from  the  sanctuary  —their 
more  isolated  position  in  respect  to  their  brethren,  and 
greater  exposure  to  heathen  and  warlike  neighbours  on 
the  east  and  south,  tended  to  keep  them  morally  lower 
than  the  rest  of  the  tribes  —excepting  Dan,  upon  the 
extreme  north — and  subjected  them  also  to  more  fre 
quent  hostile  incursions. 

The  Amorites  within  the  bounds  of  Canaan  proper. 


headed  by  their  five  kings  and  subordinate  chiefs,  made 
a  stout  resistance  to  the  arms  of  the  Israelites;  but 
without  avail :  their  time  had  at  length  come,  and  no 
power  or  resources  at  their  command  could  save  them. 
They  were  not,  indeed,  utterly  exterminated  ;  but  they 
henceforth  existed  only  in  fragments  or  detached  por 
tions,  and  were  chiefly  confined  to  the  more  mountainous 
parts  of  the  country,  Ju.  i.  :ii-::ii.  Occasional  skirmishes, 
it  would  seem,  still  took  place  between  them  and  their 
conquerors  ;  for  it  is  noted  in  Samuel's  time,  as  a  thing 
distinctive  of  the  period,  that  there  was  then  peace  be 
tween  Israel  and  tin1  Amorites.  i  Sa.  vii.  14.  This  was  not 
equally  characteristic  of  the  age  that  followed:  for  the 
Cibeonites.  who  Were  of  the  stock  of  the  Amorites, 
were  so  severely  and  unjustly  dealt  with  by  Saul  that 
a  divine  judgment  was  afterwards  sent  to  avenge 
it.  2S;i.  x\i.;  and  1 'avid  made  war  upon  the  Jebusites, 
another  section  of  the  old  Amorite  race,  and  wrested  the 
stronghold  of  /ion  out  of  iheir  hand.  2S;x.  v.  c.-ii.  It  was 
from  one  of  these  Araunah,  the  Jebusite  that  Oavid 
afterwards  obtained  the  site  for  the  future  temple  (,«<> 
An  A  IN  A  ID.  Tlii'  last  notice  that,  occurs  of  them  is  one 
given  in  ooini!  ctioii  \\ith  the  ]-ei_ni  of  Solomon,  to  the 
etli-ct  that  he  imposed  a  tribute  upon  them,  alony- 
with  the  remnants  of  the  otlu  r  native  tribes  still  exist 
ing  in  the  land,  l  Ki.  i\.  L'H.  They  must  by  that  time  have 
become  comparatively  few  in  number,  and  thenceforth 
ceased  to  be  regarded,  or  at  least  taken  notice  of,  as  a 
separate  people. 

A'MOS  [zr.y,  burden],  the  1'n.phet  of  Tekoa,  a 
town  of  Jiidah.  formed  one  of  that  remarkable  group 
of  prophets  \\ho  appeared  during,  and  shortly  after 
the  reign  of  I'/./iah  [llosea,  Isaiah.  Mieah].  Of  his 
personal  condition  and  history,  our  information,  though 
it  embraces  only  a  l'<  w  li  ading  facts,  is  larger  than 
in  the  case  of  some  other  of  the  prophets.  For  these 
ancient  men  of  Cod  were  truly  worthy  of  the  name. 
With  them  (  iod  was  all  in  all;  and  everything  per 
sonal  to  themselves  was  kept  ill  the  hack  -  ground, 
exci  pt  in  so  far  as  it  might  help  to  illustrate  the 
message  with  \\hich  thev  were  intrusted. 

I.  Untruc/<  i'  <if  the  (inns:  itut  imm/  ,s- ///,•,•  iiiul  dan- 
y<rs. — Amos  appeared  at  a  -Teat  crisis  in  the  history 
of  Israel.  The  virgin  dan-liter  of  Israel  had  fallen. 
With  the  ivi 'j;n  of  Solomon  the  power  and  grandeur 
of  the  nation  had  passed  away.  Iml.  ed.  before  Solo 
mon  died  the  seeds  of  national  dissolution  had  been 
scattered  abroad;  and  they  had  ever  since  been  rising 
ainl  ripening  into  an  abundant  harvest  of  evils.  The 
separation  of  the  ten  tribes  from  Judah,  viewed  only  in 
its  political  aspect,  was  in  itself  a  fatal  blo\\  to  the 
pro  eminence  which  David  had  won  for  Israel  overall 
the  surrounding  nations.  His  kingdom,  divided  against 
itself,  was  no  longer  formidable  ;  and  it  was  not  long 
before  a  succession  of  revolts,  on  the  part  of  the  tribes 
he  had  subdued,  reduced  it  again  within  its  ancient 
narrow  boundaries.  J>ut  this  was  not  all.  The  sepa 
ration  of  the  ten  tribes  was  followed  by  results  still 
more  fatal.  Jn  order  to  maintain  their  political  inde 
pendence  of  Judah  and  of  the  house  of  David,  it  was 
necessary  to  break  up  the  religious  unity  which  was 
represented  and  maintained  by  the  one  temple,  and  the 
great  annual  gatherings  of  all  the  males  of  Israel 
within  its  walls.  By  withdrawing  the  ten  tribes  from 
the  place  in  which  Jehovah  had  specially  chosen  to 
set  his  name,  and  erecting  two  rival  sanctuaries  at 


A.MOS 


70 


AMOS 


Dun  and  Hi.-t.lirl,  where,  in  direct  violation  of  the 
second  commandment,  Jehovah  was  worshipped  under 
an  animal  form,  .lerolioam.  the  son  of  Nehat.  while 
appuivnth'  yielding  oiilv  to  the  demands  of  jiolitieal 
necessity,  stnu-k  with  fatal  rtl'ret  at  the  ascendency 
ami  free  action  of  those  religious  feelings  ;ind  comic 
tions,  which,  though  often  ignored  hv  the  mere  poli 
tician,  are  the  oiilv  stalile  foundation  on  which  can  In- 
reared  the  glory  or  happiness  of  a  nation.  NTnr  \\eiv 
the  fatal  results  of  the  measures  of  Jeroboam  confined 
to  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes.  The  people  of  .ludah, 
though  still  clinging  to  Jerusalem  as  tin-  centre  of  their 
religious  woiship,  and  s'ill  faithful  to  the  divinely 
chosen  house  of  Duv'ul.  conld  not,  and  did  not  remain 
uncontaminated  by  the  evil  example  of  their  neigh 
bours  and  brethren.  _ \mono-  them,  too,  the  worship 
on  the  high  places  superseded  in  a  great  measure  the 
wor-hip  of  .leliovuh  in  /ion:  and  at  last,  even  the 
abominations  of  Baal  and  Ashtoreth  were  imported 
from  the  iioi-thern  kingdom,  chiefly  through  the  in 
fluence  of  the  family  of  Ahab,  with  vvliich  the  house 
of  David  had  foolishly  and  sinfullv  entered  into  close 
alliance.  Thus  the  house  of  l.-rael.  in  both  its  branches, 
sank  deeper  and  deeper,  until  they  List  almost  entirely 
their  distinctive  character  as  God's  chosen  people,  and 
He  was  compelled  to  say  of  them,  as  He  does  by  the 
mouth  of  the  prophet  Amos,  "Are  ye  not  as  children  of 
the  Kthiopiaiis  unto  me.  O  children  of  Israel  T  Am.  ix.  r. 
But  Cod  did  not  cast  away  his  people  whom  He  fore 
knew.  From  the  regions  of  the  north  lie  stirred  up  a 
mighty  nation,  and  called  it  to  his  foot,  and  bade  it 
execute  his  wrath  upon  apostate  Israel.  And  within 
Israel  He  caused  the  voice  of  the  prophet  again  to  he- 
heard  with  power;  by  the  mouth  of  his  servants  he 
laid  bare  his  people's  sin,  pointed  to  the  overhanu-in^ 
cloud  of  wrath  which  was  ready  to  burst  upon  them, 
and  called  on  them  by  a  timely  penitence  to  avert 
the  impending  doom. 

Xo  reader  of  Scripture  can  fail  to  remark  the  won 
derful  harmony  with  which  this  twofold  operation  upon 
the  part  of  Cod  was  carried  forward.  Both  parts  of 
it  were  essential  to  success  the  external  and  the  in 
ternal.  The  one  without  the  other  would  have  failed 
to  wake  up  de-ad  Israel.  In  vain  would  Adonai  have 
.stirred  up  the  armies  of  the  north,  and  led  them  for 
ward  even  to  the  borders  of  his  chosen  heritage,  had 
not  J'.hori.t.h  at  the  same  time  summoned  forth  his  pro 
phets  to  proclaim  to  Israel  that  these  armies  were  his 
— that  He  led  them  011,  and  that  a  return  to  him 
was  the  only  way  of  averting  the  threatened  destruc 
tion.1  And  equally  vain  would  it  have  been  for  .Jehovah 
to  summon  forth  his  prophets  and  put  in  their  mouth 
words  of  loud  warning  and  earnest  expostulation,  had 
not  Acloiiai,  at  the  same  time,  stirred  up  the  armies 
of  the  north  to  come,  and  by  their  dreaded  presence 
give  power  to  the  prophets'  woi\U  The  movements  of 
Cod's  armies  muse  be  explained  by  the  representations 
of  his  ambassadors ;  and  the  representations  of  his 
ambassadors  must  be  enforced  by  the  movements  of 
his  armies.  The  consideration  of  this  harmonious  opera 
tion  of  God  beyond  and  within  Israel,  will  help  to  ex- 


plain  that  wonderful  revival  of  prophetic  activity  which 
distinguished  the  reign  of  L'zziah  and  his  immediate 
successors.  For  it  was  then  that  the  great  Assyrian 
power  begun  to  menace  Israel;  and  the  earlier  con 
flicts  with  the  surrounding  kingdoms  of  Syria,  and 
Ammen.  and  Moab,  and  Kdom,  and  1'hilistia  were 
not  remembered,  every  eye  being  turned  to  that  cloud 
in  the  north,  at  first  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand, 
which  was  gradually  spreading  wirier  and  wider,  and 
threatening  to  cover  with  its  black  .-hade  the  whole- 
sky. 

It  is  true  that  when  Amos  prophesied,  the  danger 
from  Assyria  did  not  appear  imminent  to  the  mass  of 
his  countrymen.  I'nder  Jeroboam  the  kingdom  of  the 
ten  tribes  had  risen  from  the  prostration  consequent 
upon  the  successful  assaults  of  ilazael  and  the  armies 
of  Syria.  And  in  the  joy  of  victory  over  enemies  close 
at  hand,  whom  they  regarded  with  all  the  animosity  of 
an  ancient  rivalry,  they  marked  not  the  onward  ad 
vance  of  a  more  distant  though  more  formidable  foe. 
Am.  vi.  But  the  prophet  of  the  Lord  saw  not  with  the 
eye  of  a  common  man.  Already  he  beheld  Israel  pros 
trate,  and  trampled  under  the  chariot  of  the  Assyrian 
invader;  and.  with  loud  call,  he  tried  to  wake  up  the 
j  slumbering  nation,  Am.  vii.il. 

II.  Jioiudies  proposed:  teaching  of  the  prophets. 
— But  how  shall  Israel  be  saved  from  the  overwhelm 
ing  rush  of  the  northern  host?  Fvcry  one  who  reads 
carefully  the  writings  of  this  period  must  be  aware  that 
this  was  the  great  question  which  pressed  for  an  imme 
diate  solution.  It  was  so.  even  when  Amos  wrote,  to 
the  far-seeing  prophet  himself,  and  very  soon  thereafter 
to  the  whole  nation.  Many  were  the  replies  which  tlii.-- 
question  called  forth,  traces  of  which  we  find  in  the 
historical  and  prophetic  scriptures.  With  a  large  party, 
especially  in  the  southern  kingdom,  the  policy  most  in 
favour  was.  to  call  in  to  their  aid  the  armies  of  Kgypt. 
the  only  great  pc.v.vr  which  was  strong  enough  to  enter 
into  conflict  with  the  northern  invader.  And  hence 
the  many  and  earnest  denunciations  of  this  party  and 
this  policy,  which  we  meet  with  in  the  writings  of  the 
prophets  — denunciations  which  were-  all  tin.-  more- vehe 
ment  the  more  dangerous  the  policy  they  contended 
against,  and  the  more  specious  and  plausible  the  argu 
ments  by  which  it  was  recommended.  Certainly  no 
thing  could  be  more  agreeable  to  those  politicians,  who 
thought  only  of  averting  the  present  danger,  heedless  of 
the  remote  consequences  of  the  policy  thev  pursued, 
than  the  suggestion,  that  safety  for  Israel  was  to  lie 
found  in  the  rivalries  of  Assyria  and  Egypt.  But  the 
prophets,  who  looked  deeper  than  the  common  sort  of 
thinkers,  saw  in  this  specious  and  temporizing  measure 
—  and  saw  truly,  as  experience  proved— nothing  less 
than  the  renunciation  of  Jehovah,  and  the  ruin  of  Israel. 
But  what  then  ?  Did  the  prophets  of  Jehovah  rest  satis 
fied  with  denouncing  the  policy  recommended  hv  others  '. 
Had  they  no  policy  of  their  own  \  The}-  had  ;  and  in 
the  writings  of  Amos  and  his  contemporaries  we  find 
the  principles  of  their  policy  fully  unfolded.  And  what 
was  their  policy  /  What  were  the  measures  they  re 
commended  as  alone  sufficient  to  meet  the  demands  of 
the  crisis  ?  They  may  all  be  summed  up  in  a  few  words  : 
Return  unto  the  Lord,  and  He  will  return  unto  you. 
Strange  policy  this  wherewith  to  meet  the  intrigues  and 
the  arms  of  Assyria.  We  can  scarcely  wonder  that  the 
prophets  who  recommended  it  were  looked  upon  as  a 
class  of  one-ideaed  and  impracticable  people,  far  behind 


AMOS 


AMOS 


the  age,  whom  it  was  useless  to  argue  with,  and  neces 
sary  to  get  rid  of  as  soon  as  possible. 
But  let  us  trace  the  operation  of  this  despised  policy 
as  we  find  it  developed  in  the  writings  of  the  prophets. 
We  find  it  branching  out  into  two  different  directions, 
and  thus  furnishing  an  antidote,  and  the  only  antidote, 
to  the  two  great  evils  which  were  destroying  Israel. 
These  evils  were  unrighteousness  and  division,  and  the 
antidote  to  these,  obedience  to  Jehovah's  law  and  faith 
m  Jehovah's  promise.     Why  was  it  that  Israel,  once  a 
great  power  on  the  earth,  had  now  become  the  pivv  of 
every  invader.-      It  was  because  unrighteousness,  like  a 
slow  poison,  was  eating  away,  and  division,  like  a  sharp 
sword,   had  cleft  asunder   the  strength  of  the  nation. 
And  of  what  avail  the  armies  of  Egypt  to  counti-ract 
the  working  of  that  poison,  or  to  heal  the  divisions  of 
the  house  of  Israel  !     Far  different  must  be  the  remedy. 
What  was  wanti-d,    as  the  prophets  clearly  saw.   was 
moral  power  and   union:  and  thrso  were  to  be  found 
only  in  Jehovah   -  in  his  law  and  in  his  promise.     K\vrv 
other  remedy  they  knew  to  be  utterly  inadequate. 
But   though  the  prophet-   knew  \\vll   that   theirs  was 
the  only  effective  remedy,  they  had  no  t  xpectation  that 
it  would  at  once  commend  itself  to  their  hearers.     Such 
radieal    measures  as  they  urged  are  rarely  had  recourse 
to  by  a  nation,  till  every  other  measure   has  been  tried 
in  vain,  and  the  nation  has  been  brought  to  the  brink 
of   ruin.      The   rotten   foundation    usually   remains   un 
heeded    until   the   .-uperstructuiv.  so  often  patehed,  and 
plastered,  and  painted,  falling  in  ruins,  lavs  it  bare,  and 
reveals  to  every  eye   the   folly  ami   infatuation  of  the 
short-sighted    occupants.       Such   the    prophets   already 
foresaw  would   be  the  fate  of    Israel.      They  had   little 
hope  ,,f  a  thorough  reformation,  until  e\erv  sort  <>f  prop 
and  patchwork  had  been  tried   in  vain,  and    Israel  had 
again  learned,    by   bitter  experience,   that   in  Jehovah 
alone  help  was  t"  lie  found,      lit  nee  the  darkne.-s  which 
overspreads  the  greater  part  of  their  prophecies.     There 
was   nothing   in    the    present   or   in   the  near  future   in 
cheer  and   encourage:    it  was   only  in  the   far  distance 
they  marked   some  faint   streaks  "f   li_ht.  piv-age- 
happier  day. 
111.  <.'  liai-art  n-  and  emit'  ,</.-:  nf  'In-  /,r<>j,/t<-ri/  nf  A  mos. 

-    If    HoW    We     take     Up    the     boi.k    "f     the     |i|Mphet    AllloS, 

we  shall  find  that   the  preceding   investigation   liar-  IP  it 
been  fruitless.     Regarding  it  as  a  \\h..]e.  the  prophecie- 
are,  for  the  mo.-t  part,  of  a  dark  and  gloomy  character. 
The  wrath  of  Jehovah  is  not  turned  away,  but  his  hand 
is  stretched  out  still.      Lvery  means  of  awakening  peni 
tence  has  been  tried,  and  tried  in  vain.      .Ichovah   has 
wrought  in  mercy  and  in  judgment:  but  both  have  proved 
equally  ineffectual,  ch.  ii.  u-ll;  Hi.  .';  iv.  f,-u.        His   forUar- 
ance  and  long-suffering,  instead  of  leading  to  repent 
ancc,   have  been  despised,  cli.  vi.  :i,  i)  ;  and  now  there  is 

never  find  him  brooding  over  the 
even  his   darkest  predictions   are  t 
ances  of  a  man  of  faith,  who  is  nol 
and  things  in  the  face,  having  con 
who  inaketh  all  things  work  for  got 
him.      He  had,  indeed,  a  tender  he; 

'uturc  despairingly  : 
vidently  the  utter- 
afraid  to  look  men 
idence  in  that  Cod 
d  to  them  that  love 
rt,  and  he  loved  his 
wed  his  tenderness 
icy,  or  to  blunt  the 
i   he  felt  inwardly 
bare  the  wounds  of 

>e  of  being  listened 
ot  on  that  account 
nd  address  to  them 
v.  4,  so.      And  he  en- 
:>eal  —  by  reminding 
imitv,  who  Jehovah 
-at  things  Jle   had 
Id.  ch.  ii.  !>,  and  what 

nation,  ch.  vii.  -2,:,;  but  he  never  alh 
of  heart  to  degenerate  into  efl'emiu 
sharp  words   of  reproof  with  whit- 
constrained,  divinely  called,  to  lay 
his  country. 
But  though  Amos  had  little  hoj 
to   by  the  rulers  of  Israel,  he  did  i 
refuse  to  obey  the  divine  impulse.  ; 
another  call  to  rtturn  to  Jiliont/i.  ch. 
forces  this  call  by  many  a  stirring  ap 
them,  in  language  of  wonderful  sub] 
is.  ch.  iv.  i::;  v.  «,&c  :  ix..  '.,(•,,  and    how  gr 
done  for  his  people  in  the  days  of   c 

evils  their  revolt   from   him  had   allx-au^    orougm,  upon 
them.  cli.  iv.  (sic.      To  enlarge  their   views  of  the  divine 
glory,  he  frequently  introduces  the  names  Adonai  and 
Cod  of    Hosts,  names   by  which  the    Lordship  and  all- 
embracing  Sovereignty  of  Jehovah  are   most  fittingly 
expressed.      The  compound   name   Adonai-  Jehovah  is 
with  him.  as  with  others  of   the  prophets,  a  special  fa 
vourite,  because  by  this  name  Cod  is  described  at  once 
in  his  distance-  and  in  his  nearness      in  his  might  and  in 

his  love. 

Nor  did   he  stop  here.      Not  satisfied  witli  a  general 
call  to  return  to  Jehovah,  as  the  one  essential  condition 
of  safety,  he  proclaimed  clearly,  and  in  language  which 
none  could  mistake,  what  is  implied   in  such  a  return. 
The-e  tv\o  things  are  implied      tin'  reformation  nf  the 

national  morals,  and  the  rK-nmstructinn  and  extension 

nf  tin:  l>ari<lir  i  injiiri-.      Like    Isaiah,  and  almost  in  tin- 
very  words  which  that  greatest  of  all  the  prophets  after 
wards  employed,  he  taught   the  impotence  of  the  cere 
monial  part  of  religion  when  separated  from  the  moral, 
ch.  v.  -_'l,ic.;  declaring   that  a  deep   moral  change  was  tin- 
great   desideratum,  tin.;   one    tiling   needful,   apart   from 
which  there  was  no  hope  for  the  nation.      "  Seek  good 
and   not  evil,  that  ye  may   live,  and    so   the    Lord,  tin- 
Cod  of    Hosts,  .-hall    be   with  you.      Hate  the  evil  and 
love  the  good,  and  establish  judgment  in  the  gate;   it 
may  be  that  tin-    Lord   Cod   of    Hosts  will  be  gracious 
unto  the  remnant  of  Joseph."  ch.  v.  H,  15,      The  oppres 
sions    and    wrongs   done    to   the    poor   and   helpless    he 
again  and    again  denounces   with    peculiar  Vehemence, 
ch.  ii.  ii;  v.  r,'.Mj;  viii.  I. 
But  the  moral  change  which  the  prophet  demanded 
could   not   stand    alone.      It  must  have   its   root   in  an 
earnest  .-eeking  after  Jehovah,  and  its  fruit  in  the  re 
union  of   Israel  into  one  people,  and   the  restoration  of 
the  ancient  monarchy  in  the  line  of  David.     Tin:  altars 
at  I)an.  and  Bethel,  and  Beersheba  must  be  broken  in 
pieces,  ch  iii.i-l;iv.!;v..i;vii.  10,  and  united  Israel  again  throng 
the  courts  of  /ion.      Though  Amos  addresses  his  pro 
phecies  chiefly  to  the  northern  kingdom,  yet  again  and 
again  he  loses  sight  of  the  unholy  separation,  and  speaks 
as  if  the  two  kingdoms  were  yet  one,  ch.  iii.  l;v.  iV27;  vi.  l; 
viii.  M.      And  he  closes  his  prophecy  with  a  joyous  anti 
cipation  of  the  time  when  "the  tabernacle  of  David  that 
is  fallen  shall  be   raised  up,  and  the   breaches  thereof 
shall  be  closed,''  and  all  the  nations  around  shall  again 
submit  themselves  to  the  rule  of  David's  line,  ch.  ix.  n,  &o. 
This  is  the  strictly  Messianic-  part  of  the  prophecies 

but  very  faint   hope  of  any  immediate   change   for  the 
better,  ch.  v.  1.'..      Many  dark  days  are  still  in  store  for 
rebellious  Israel  :  even  the  captivity  is  already  clearly 
foreseen,  ch.  iii.  n-i:i:  v.',,  vi.  14;  vii.ir.ic.      It  is  only  towards 
the  close  of   the  prophecy  that  the  language  becomes 
bright  and  hopeful,  ch.  i\.  11-1:,.     The  prophet  expresses 
his  firm  faith  in  Jehovah,  and  in  the  glorious  future 
reserved  for  humbled  and  penitent  Israel.    But  though 
Amos  prophesies,  for  the  most  part,  of  national  disaster 
and  overthrow,  vet   in  no  part  of  his  writings   do  we 
discover  any  traces  of  a  dull,   desponding  spirit.      He 
seems  to  have  been  by  nature  a  man  of  strong  mind, 
and  by  grace  a  man  of  bright   and  firm  faith.       We 

AMOS 


AMOS 


(if  Amos.  What  was  the  view  which  lie  himself  took 
of  the-  .Messianic.'  kingdom  we  know  not:  but  we  cannot 
doiilit  that  this  part  of  his  prophecy  receives  its  ulti 
mate  fulfilment,  not  in  any  visible  restoration  of  a  tem 
poral  sovereignty,  but  in  the  spiritual  triumphs  of  Him 
who  is  the  I'rince  of  Peace,  ami  in  the  universal  exten 
sion  of  that  kingdom  which  is  righteousness,  and  peace, 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  ch. ix.  11, 1.',  compared  with 
Act>  xv.  it;. 

This  prophecy  of  the  revival  of  the  1  >;i\  idic  kingdom, 
and  the  renewed  subjection  of  Edom  and  all  the  nations 
around  to  the  yoke  of  Israel,  connects  the  close  of  the 
book  with  its  commencement,  and  furnishes  an  argu 
ment  for  the  unity  and  mutual  connectedness  of  all  the 
parts  of  the  composition.  The  short  predictions  with 
which  the  book  begins,  against  Damascus,  and  Tyre, 
and  1'hilistia,  ami  Edom.  anil  Moab.  ami  Animon,  are 
bv  no  means  to  be  viewed  apart  and  out  of  connection 
•with  the  prophecies  which  follow.  .For  these  are  re 
garded  by  the  prophet,  not  as  independent  states,  but 
as  states  which  had  either  formed  part  of  the  empire 
of  David  or  had  been  bound  in  close  alliance  with  it. 
That  anci'  nt  union  hail  been  broken,  and  the  relation 
of  subjection  or  friendship  had  given  place  to  one  of 
rivalry  and  unnatural  and  violent  hostility,  ch.  i.  3,  <>,!>,  &u. 
To  the  re-establishment  of  the  Uavidic  empire,  it  was 
necessary  that  these  states  should  be  humbled ;  and 
this  accordingly  is  the  substance  of  the  prophecies 
against  them,  from  eh.  i.  3  to  eh.  ii.  3.  The  result  of  this 
humbling  we  find  in  the  close  of  the  book,  in  which  it 
is  prophesied  that  Israel,  penitent  and  again  united 
under  the  sceptre  of  David,  "should  inherit  the  rem 
nant  of  .Kdom  and  all  the  nations  oil  which  Jehovah's 
name  had  been  called,"  i.e.  all  the  nations  which  had 
formerly  been  subject  to  the  theocratic  kingdom  of 
David.  This  kingdom  re-established.  Assyria  would 
no  longer  be  formidable,  and  .Egypt  would  no  longer  be 
sued  for  help.  Wider  and  wider  would  the  boundaries 
of  this  divine  kingdom  and  its  beneficent  influence  ex 
tend,  until  all  the  earth  should  be  filled  with  the  know 
ledge  <.if  Jehovah  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea. 

IV.  Personal  character  and  history  of  Amos. — Who 
is  the  man  who  gives  utterance  to  these  great  thoughts? 
The  prophet  Amos  is  distinguished  from  most  of  the 
other  prophets  by  having  received  no  regular  pre 
paratory  training  for  the  work  to  which  he  was  sud 
denly  called.  .1  le  was  neither  prophet  nor  prophet's  son 
(or  disciple),  but  had  been  all  his  life  occupied  with  cattle, 
and  with  the  cultivation  of  sycamore  trees,  ch.  vii.  li. 
It  has  been  doubted  whether  Amos  belonged  to  what  may 
be  called  the  middle  or  the  lower  class  of  society.  The 
determination  of  this  question  depends  upon  the  meaning 
which  i;,  assigned  to  an  expression  (c"':pw;  DS2>  trans 
lated  in  our  version,  "a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit." 
It  has  been  thought  that  when  Amos  uses  these  words 
of  himself,  he  means  that  he  belonged  to  the  very  poorest 
class  of  society,  by  whom  alone  the  sweet  but  coarse  fruit 
of  the  sycamore  was  commonly  eaten.  But  it  is  quite 
evident  that  Amos  in  this  passage  describes,  not  the  sort 
of  food  he  ate,  but  the  occupation  in  which  he  was  en 
gaged.  And  the  sycamore  fruit  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  so  contemptible  as  it  is  sometimes  represented,  as 
we  find  it  in  Scripture  associated  with  the  fruit  of  the 
vine  and  the  olive.  rs.  ixxviii.  i:;  i  ch.  xxvii.  28.  On  the 
whole,  we  are  inclined  to  believe  with  the  Targuniist 
that  Amos  did  not  belong  to  the  lowest  da>s,  but  was 


1  himself  the  proprietor  of  a  sycamore  plantation,  aiiel 
also  of  the  flocks  and  herds  he  speaks  of.1  Notwith 
standing  his  not  having  received  the  customary  train 
ing  in  the  schools  of  the  prophets,  it  is  evident  that 
there  was  nothing  in  his  appearance  or  manner  of  ad 
dress  to  give  indication  of  this,  as  the  priest  of  Bethel 
evidently  regards  him  as  a  member  of  the  class  of  pro 
phets,  and  depending  for  his  subsistence  on  the  exercise 
of  his  prophetic  powers,  ch.vii.  12.  And  it  seems  to  have 
been  in  reply  to  the  insinuation  conveyed  by  the  words 
of  Amaxiah.  ''Go  and  mt  bread,"  See.,  that  Amos  gives 
the  account  of  himself  contained  in  ver.  14.  He:  tells 
the  haughty  priest  that  he  is  no  prophet  l>y  trade  -  that 
he  does  not  prophesy  as  a  means  of  procuring  a  living, 
but  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  Jehovah,  who  has 
called  him  away  from  his  ordinary  occupations  for  the 
express  purpose  of  making  known  his  will  to  his  people 
Israel:  so  far  from  prophesying  for  his  bread,  he  has 
left  all  to  obey  the  heavenly  impulse. 

The  township  of  Tekoa  was  the  ordinary  residence  of 
Amos,  a  district  with  which  were  associated  some  stir 
ring  recollections  of  the  olden  time,  which  could  not 
fail  powerfully  to  affect  the  character  of  its  population. 
The  town  was  situated  on  high  ground,  and  from  its 
walls  the  eye  might  range  over  a  wiele  prospect,  includ 
ing  part  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  mountains  of  Moab 
(liobinson,  i.  4S'ib  At  not  more  than  two  hours'  dis 
tance  northward,  and  quite  in  view,  was  the  town  of 
Bethlehem,  ennobled  by  so  many  sacred  associations. 
In  the  immediate  vicinity  had  been  wrought,  not  more 
than  a  century  before  Amos  prophesied,  a  great  work  of 
Jehovah  in  his  people's  defence,  the  invading  armies  of 
Ammon,  and  Moab,  and  Edom  being  discomfited  and 
destroyed,  not  by  the  sword,  but  by  the  prayers  e>f 
Jehoshaphat  and  his  people  ;  on  which  occasion  it  was 
that  that  pious  king  uttered  the  memorable  words  — 
''Hear  me,  0  Judah,  and  ye  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem, 
Believe  in  the  Lord  your  God,  so  shall  ye  be  established; 
believe  his  prophets,  so  shall  ye  prosper,"  2  Ch.  xx.  20. 
We  cannot  wonder  that  this  hallowed  region  should 
have  been  the  birthplace  of  one  of  the  Lord's  prophets. 

It  was  while  Amos  was  pursuing  his  wonted  occu 
pations  in  this  district  that  he  felt  himself  divinely  im 
pelled  to  leave  home  and  friends,  that  in  Bethel,  the 
head-quarters  of  Israel's  apostasy,  he  might  lift  up  his 
voice  for  Jehovah,  and  warn  Israel  of  the  coming  wrath. 
Bv  nature  he  was  endowed  with  a  strong  and  resolute: 
spirit.  Though  we  know  nothing  of  his  parentage,  we 
canne>t  doubt  that  he  was  early  instructed  in  the  law 
and  ways  of  the  Lord.  The  associations  of  his  birth 
place  must  have  rendered  this  instruction  peculiarly  im 
pressive.  As  he  wandered  in  the  wilderness  of  Tekoa. 
and  thought  of  Bethlehem  and  the  family  of  David,  now 
brought  so  low,  and  the  glory  of  Israel  a  memory  of  the 
past,  his  spirit  would  burn  within  him.  0  that  the 
days  of  eild  were  brought  back,  and  that  another  king 
after  God's  own  heart  were  enthroned  in  Zion  over 
penitent  and  united  Israel !  The  war  between  Judah 
and  Israel,  which  took  place  under  Amaziah,  the  father 
of  TJzziah,  and  which  issued  so  disastrously  for  Ju 
dah,  2  Ki.  xiv.  13,  must  have  deeply  affected  him  ;  and  his 


1  The  Hebrew  word  -,~i  in  Amos  i.  1,  is  found  elsewhere  only  in 
1  Ki.  iii.  4,  "  Mesha,  king  of  Moab,  was  a  sheep-master."  The  noun 
a'-V  is  found  in  net  other  passage,  but  is  explained  from  the  Arabic. 
Had  Amos  lieen  merely  a  hired  servant,  it  is  not  probable  that  his 
duties  would  have  been  of  so  multifarious  a  descriptiem. 


AMOS 


AMPHIPOL1S 


anxiety  would  be  greatly  increased  by  the  now  alarm 
ing  aspect  of  affairs  in  the  north,  and  the  utter  unpre- 
paredness  of  his  countrv,  divided  and  degenerate,  to 
ward  off  the  threatened  danger.  It  was  probably  after 
some  such  preparation  as  this  that  he  received  the 
divine  call  to  go  and  prophesy  to  Israel.1 

In  the  time  of  Amos  the  prophetic  class  had  greatly 
degenerated.  From  the  words  of  Amaziah,  the  priest 
of  ISethel,  we  conclude  that  prophesying  had  become 
as  it  were  a  trade,  and  that  many  enrolled  themselves 
among  the  prophets,  nut  with  a  view  to  the  religious 
improvement  of  themselves  or  others,  but  only  to  get  a 
living  in  a  way  which  was.  perhaps  less  laborious  and 
more  agreeable  than  other  occupations  allowed  of.  It 
was  probablv  to  mark  his  condemnation  of  this  gross 
perversion  of  the  prophetic  institution,  that  Jehovah 
raised  up  .Vinos  from  among  the  herdsmen  of  Tekoa  to 
be  the  bearer  of  his  message  to  Israel.  Amos  executed 
the  commission  intrusted  to  him  with  fearless  courage. 
Like  another  man  of  (iod.  whose  name  is  not  recorded, 
1  Ki.  xiii.  1,  he  went  up  from  .Judali  to  IVthcl,  and  there, 
in  the  verv  head-quarters  of  su]n  r.-tition,  and  before 
the  men  highest  in  power,  lie  declared  the-  word  of  .le- 
liovah,  ch.  vii.  in.  He  counted  not  liis  life  dear  unto  him. 
The  high-priest's  warn  HILT  to  tlee  he  ivplii  d  to  only  by 
denouncing  the  divine  judgment  on  him  and  his  house. 
How  long  he  remained  in  IJethel  we  know  not. 

V.  Tlu'  buuk  i if  Ainnti,  its  sfjii.cini  characteristics, 
date,  authenticity,  <tud  canonii-ul  unt/t't/'tt//. — The  book 
of  Amos,  as  it  is  now  arranged,  \\as  probably  written 
after  his  return  to  .ludah.  and  contains  the  subr-tance 
of  his  prophetic  discourses  in  the  form  of  a  coiitinuou.-- 
composition.  It  is  usually  divided  into  two  parts, 
ch.  i.  vi.  and  eh.  vii.-ix..  the  latter  containing  the 
notice  of  liis  journey,  and  an  account  of  the  visions,  by 
means  of  which  the  announcements  lie  was  to  make 
of  divine  judgment  were  apprehended  by  himself  more 
vividly,  and  communicated  in  a  more  lively  and  impres 
sive  wav  to  others.  The  last  live  verses,  containing 
tile  strictlv  .Messianic  part  of  the  book,  ought  perhaps 
to  form  a  separate  division. 

Of  the  subject-matter  of  the  book  we  have  already 
given  an  account.  The  language  is  pur.-,  though  not 
without  certain  peculiarities  which,  it  has  l>een  supposed, 
bear  the  character  of  provincialisms.  The  vigour  and 
liveliness  of  the  style  is  maintained  throughout.  Not 
a  few  vivid  pictures  are  scattered  <>\vr  the  book,  ch.i.  •-', 
iii.  12;  v.  in;  vi.:i,  in:  occasionally  the  thoughts  and  lan 
guage  almost  ei|ual  the  sublimity  of  Isaiah.  The  whole 
of  the  last  chapter  is  not  surpa.-si-d.  <  ither  in  thoughts 
or  in  language,  bv  any  other  portion  of  equal  length  of 
the  prophetic  writing. 

The  date  of  the  composition  of  the  book  as  it  now 
stands  is  probably  posterior  to  the  earthquake  men 
tioned  in  ch.  i.  1  as  having  happened  two  years  after 
the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  Annx.  I'rohably.  as  has 
been  supposed,  he,  regarded  that  terrible  earthquake, 
the  memory  of  which  was  long  preserved.  /CL-.  xiv. :,,  as 
a  sign  from  heaven  confirmatory  of  his  words-  the  divine 
echo  of  his  denunciations.  And  as.  amid  the  excite 
ment  and  consternation  caused  by  such  an  event,  the 
Ephraimites  would  probably  be  more  willing  than  for- 


1  The  exact  date  nf  the  mission  of  Ain»s  cannot  lie  assigned; 
it  must,  however,  lie  placed  in  the  beu'innini;  of  the  eighth  cen 
tury  before  Christ,  Uzxiah  beinfj  then  king  of  Judah,  and  Jere- 
boain  II.  king  of  Israel,  Am.  i.  1. 


merly  to  give  ear  to  the  divine  message,  the  prophet,  it 
may  be,  availed  himself  of  this  favourable  disposition 
to  repeat  his  appeals  to  them,  not  now-  in  person,  but 
by  a  written  summary  of  the  prophecies  he  had  formerly 
addressed  to  them  in  vain.  It  is  certain  that  we  meet 
with  references  to  the  earthquake  in  all  parts  of  the 
book.  Everywhere  the  prophet  regards  it  as  the  sym 
bol  and  the  presage  of  the  more  terrible  judgments 
which  impended  over  Israel,  ch.  i.  -2;  ii.ll;  iv.  2,  ii;  v.  s;  vi.  11; 
viii.  v;  ix.  ],.-). 

( >f  the  authorship  of  the  book  there  is  no  doubt.  Its 
internal  character  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  uni 
form  testimony  of  tradition.  In  everv  pa  ox-  Me  discover 
tile  mind  and  hand  of  a  man  familiar  with  agricultu 
ral  and  pastoral  pursuits,  ch.  i.  2;  ii.  i;i;  iii.  i,;.,  12;  i\.  i;  \.  n;,  i;i; 
vi  1L';  vi:.  1;  viii.  1. 

The  canonical  authority  of  the  bo.ik  is  likewise  be 
yond  question;  and  the  great  thoughts  to  which  it  gives 
such  fervid  utterance  are  not  less  precious  to  the  church 
now  than  when  Amos  wrote.-  That  .lehovah.  our  cove 
nant  ( iod.  is  also  Cod  of  nature  and  of  nations,  shaking 
tlie  mountains  and  ruling  amid  the  crash  of  empires; 
that  all  the  evils  which  have  e\er  atilicted  or  do  now 
afflict  the  church  (low  from  one  source  separation  from 
•  lehovah  and  that  these  evils  can  be  removed  onh  by 
re-union  with  him  and  faith  in  him:  that  the  sacrifices, 
however  eostlv.  of  the  \ \ ] iri o'hteous  and  ungodly  are  an 
abomination  to  .lehovah:  that  sin  is  never  so  hateful  to 
.lehovah  as  when  found  in  his  own  people,  ch.  iii.  2;  that- 
national  safety  and  u'reatni  ss  depend  not  on  external 
alliances  but  on  righteousness  and  union  within  ;  that 
cnieltv  and  covetousness  destroy  a  people  more  surely 
than  tlie  as.--a.ult  of  the  most  powerful  enemies,  ch  viii.  l,\c  ; 
that  n-\  er.-es  and  disasters,  whether  befalling  individuals 
or  nations,  are  Jehovah's  calls  to  self  searching  and 
penitence,  ch.  iv.  f>,ic.;  that  Jehovah  will  not  consent  to 
acct-pt  a  divided  homage,  ch  v  I,  .'•;  that  no  policy  is  so 
destructive  as  the  temporizing  policy  which  regards  only 
the  present  eiuer-vncy.  to  the  in  -leet  of  '.vreat  principles 
and  permanent  interests  ;  that  Jehovah's  covenant  with 
l>a\id  and  Isni'-l  in  New  Testament  language,  with 
Christ  and  his  church  shall  stand  for  evermore,  ch.  ix.  8; 
and  that  neither  tin-  opposition  of  his  enemii  s.  nor  the 
unfaithfulness  of  his  people,  though  they  may  retard, 
shall  ultimately  prevent  the  fulfilment  of  all  its  con 
ditions  and  proini.-es  :  these  are  truths  w  Inch  can  never 

grow  old,  which  belong  t one  age  or  dispensation 

of  religion,  but  an-  the  common  property  of  all  ages, 
and  the  only  true  foundation  of  the  progress  and  hap- 
piin  ss  of  mankind.  |Th'-  most  elaborate  commentary 
on  the  book  of  Ames  in  recent  times  is  that  of  J  >r. 
Custav  I'.aur  iCiesseii.  1M7>.  See  also  the  Commen 
taries  on  the  Minor  Prophets.  |  |n.  II.  w.| 

A'MOZ     Ivr.N.  yti-u-ii;/].  the  father  of   Isaiah,  often 

confounded  with  the  prophet  Amos  by  the  Creek 
fathers,  who  studied  the  Old  Testament  only  through 
the  medium  of  the  Septuagint  translation,  in  which 
the  two  names,  quite  distinct  in  Hebrew,  are  repre 
sented  by  the  same  letters  'A.aa'S.  [l>.  li.  W.) 

AMPHIP'OLIS  [composed  of  a«</«  and  rroMi,  rovivl. 
tlie  cit//\,  a  city  of  (I recce,  the  capital  of  the  eastern 
province  of  Macedonia.  It  had  its  name  from  its  posi 
tion — being  situated  on  an  eminence,  round  which  the 
river  Strvmon  flows,  so  that  the  site  of  the  town  had 

-  There  are  two  quotations  from  Amos  in  the  New  Testament, 
Acts  vii.  -12;  xv.  10. 


A  MR  AM 


AMULET 


the  appearance  of  a  sort  of  promontory.  Jt  was 
about  three  miles  from  the  sea;  and,  standing  in  a 
pass  \vhirh  traverses  the  mountains  that  border  the 
Strvmonic  (Julf,  it  occupied  a  very  important  and 
commanding  position,  since  oiilv  by  it  could  any 
available  communication  be  kept  up  between  the  gulf 
and  the  plains  in  the  interior.  It  had  also  in  its  vici 
nity  the  gold  and  silver  mines  of  ['angaeus,  and  large 
forests  of  ship-timber.  It  was  the  Athenians  who 
properly  laid  the  foundation  of  its  future  greatness  and 
prosperity  ;  for,  about  the  year  J',.c.  -}:>7,  they  sue- 
c 'edeil,  though  not  without  considerable  loss  of  men 
and  treasure,  in  planting  a  colony  there,  \\hich  soon 
attained  to  a  flourishing  condition.  It  fell  afterwards 
into  the  hands  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  and.  for  more 
than  a  century  and  a-half  before  the  Christian  era,  was 
included  in  the  Roman  empire.  It  had  the  privileges 
of  a  free  eitv.  It  stood  on  one  of  the  public  highways 
(  Via  E<jnatia\,  and  was  passed  by  Paul  and  Silas  when 
journeying  from  Philippi  to  Thessalonica,  Why  they 
did  not  also  remain  there,  and  endeavour  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  a  Christian  church,  we  are  not  told;  it 
is  merely  said  that  they  passed  through  it,  Ac.  xvii.  i.; 
but,  from  its  being  immediately  added  that,  after 
passing  through  it,  "they  came  to  Thessalonica,  where 
was  a  synagogue  of  the  Jews,"  we  may  with  some  pro 
bability  infer,  that  one  reason,  at  least,  of  so  short  a 
stay  being  made  at  Amphipolis  consisted  in  the  cir 
cumstance  of  there  being  no  Jews  in  it,  or  too  few  to 
form  the  proper  nucleus  of  a  Christian  community.  No 
subsequent  notice  occurs  respecting  it  in  Scripture,  nor 
does  it  make  any  figure  in  ecclesiastical  history.  A 
miserable  village  now  occupies  the  site,  called  Ycni- 
/•'/</,  "new  to\\n."  and  another  wretched  village  near 
it.  called  by  the  Turks  Yam  liull ;  and  a  few  remains  are- 
still  to  be  seen  of  the  ancient  town. 

AM'RAM.  [  -fH'iqilv  (if  exaltation],  a  son  of  Kohath, 
and  father  of  Moses  and  Aaron.  His  wife,  it  is  said, 
was  his  father's  sister,  Ex.  vi.20;  if  sister  in  the  strict 
sense,  then  she  must  have  been  within  the  degrees 
afterwards  prohibited.  I.e.  xviii.  ii> ;  but  possibly  the  term 
is  used  in  a  looser  sense.  He  lived  to  the  age  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty-seven. 

AM'RAPHEL  [meaning  unknown],  king  of  Shinar, 
or  Babylonia,  in  the  days  of  Abraham,  Go.  xiv.  1,9.  He 
is  known  only  as  one  of  the  four  kings  from  the  north 
east,  who  made  a  predatory  incursion  into  the  land  of 
Canaan,  and  were  overthrown  chiefly  through  the 
valour  and  energy  of  Abraham. 

AMULET,  som.'  sort  of  superstitious  ornament, 
used  as  a  charm  against  evil  influences,  such  as  were 
supposed  to  come  from  enchantments,  demoniac  agen 
cies,  noxious  stars,  epidemic  diseases,  or  what  in  some 
eastern  countries  has  been  from  time  immemorial  the 
source  of  greatest  anxiety,  the  evil  eye.  The  articles 
most  commonly  used  for  this  purpose  of  guardianship 
in  ancient  times,  were  gems  and  precious  stones,  par 
ticularly  ear-rings,  or  pieces  of  gold  and  silver,  on 
which  frequently  magical  fornmlze  were  inscribed,  and 
which  were  carried  about  the  person.  The  English 
word  nowhere  occurs  in  Scripture  :  but  the  word  &*crh 
(lehaskim],  found  in  Ts.  iii.  :>0,  and  translated  in 
our  version  ear-rings,  is  now  generally  understood  to 
have  the  meaning  of  amulets;  for  the  word  is  else 
where  used  in  the  sense  of  incantations,  magic,  and 
was  hence  naturally  applied  to  what  was  supposed 


magically  to  counteract  the  influence  of  such  things — 
an  anti-spell.  The  precise  object  indicated  by  the 
word  may  still  have  been  ear-rings.  A  ben  Ezra 
considered  them  to  be  pieces  of  silver  or  gold  with 
charms  inscribed  on  them  ;  but  ear-rings  were,  as  they 


|3C.]    Egyptian  Ear-ring  Amulets.— Wilkinson. 

still  indeed  are,  in  very  frequent  use  for  such  purposes, 
and  hence  they  formed  part  of  the  idolatrous  trappings 
and  furniture  which  Jacob  commanded  his  household 
to  put  away,  Go.  xxxv.  4;— only,  if  car-rings  were  the 
articles  intended  by  the  prophet,  it  must  be  in  the 
superstitious  sense  now  indicated.  ]t  was  probably 
with  the  view,  in  part,  of  weaning  the  Israelites 
from  this  form  of  superstition  that  Moses  instructed 
them  to  wear  fringes  upon  the  borders  of  their  gar 
ments,  with  a  ribband  of  blue,  "that  they  might 
look  upon  it,  and  remember  all  the  commandments  of 
the  Lord  and  do  them,  and  might  not  seek  after  their 
own  heart  and  their  own  eyes,  after  which  they  used 
to  go  a  whoring,"  Nu.  xv.  .>,  :!9.  That  is,  apparently,  in 
place  of  certain  idolatrous  or  superstitious  badges, 
which  they  were  wont  to  carry  about  them,  as  means 
of  safety  and  protection,  they  were  now  to  substitute 
those  fringes,  simply  as  remembrancers  that  they  were 
under  the  care  of  (Jod,  and  were  in  all  things  to  follow 
the  path  of  his  commandments.  But  so  strong  was  the 
tendency  in  the  false  direction,  that  the  very  ordinance 
intended  to  preserve  them  from  superstition  was  itself 
turned  into  an  occasion  of  fostering  it,  and  the  border- 
fringes  became  practically  amulets.  Thus,  one  of  the 
Rabbinical  authorities  writes,  on  the  passage  above 
cited,  "When  a  man  is  clothed  with  the  fringe,  and 
goeth  out  therewith  to  the  door  of  his  habitation,  he  is 
safe,  and  God  rejoiceth,  and  the  destroying  angel  de- 
parteth  from  thence,  and  the  man  shall  be  delivered 
from  all  hurt,  and  from  all  destruction"  (R.  Mena- 
ehem).  The  same  foolish  and  superstitious  use  was 
substantially  made  of  other  two  or  three  passages  of 
the  law,  Ex.  xiii.  9;  Do.  vi.  8;  xi.  IS;  in  which,  with  the  view 
of  enforcing  upon  the  people  the  necessity  of  being  at 
great  pains  to  remember  and  observe  the  statutes  im 
posed  upon  them,  they  were  told  to  bind  them  as  signs 
upon  their  hands,  and  put  them  as  frontlets  between 
their  eyes ;  that  is,  to  be  as  careful  and  constant  in 
their  regard  to  them  as  if  they  actually  had  them  em 
blazoned  on  these  conspicuous  parts  of  their  body. 
This,  however,  they  understood  in  later  times  to  refer 
to  the  mere  writing  out  on  bits  of  parchment  certain 
passages  of  the  law,  and  binding  them  on  their  hands 
and  heads  as  sacred  charms.  (See  FRONTLETS,  FKIXGES.  ) 
It  was  not,  however,  among  eastern  nations  merely, 
or  the  Jews,  who  caught  the  infection  of  their  idolatry, 
that  the  use  of  amulets  prevailed — the  evil  had  spread 
far  and  wide  tJirough  the  heathen  world  generally ; 
and  in  the  earlier  ages  of  Christianity  we  find  it  press 
ing  into  the  church,  as  one  of  the  relics  of  superstition 
to  which  the  people  fondly  clung,  even  after  they  had 
forsaken  the  grosser  forms  of  idolatry,  and  to  which 
they  sought  to  give  a  kind  of  Christian  direction. 
Pendants  and  preservatives,  called  periammata  and 
phylacteria,  were  quite  commonly  worn  by  converts 


AX  AT, 


81 


AXAFi 


from  heathenism,  having  a  text  of  Scripture  or  some  [  and  iu  the  same  locality  has  been  discovered  in  recen 


other  charm  written  on  them,  as  a  security  against 
danger,  or  a  means  of  defence  from  disease  and  other 
dreaded  evils.  Augustine,  in  his  epistle  to  Posidius, 
speaks  also  (Jf  ear-rings  as  being  worn  by  some  pro 
fessing  Christians  for  like  purposes,  and  which  the 


times,  about  ten  miles  S.S.W.  of  Hebron,  near  to  Shoco. 


A'NAH  [nvj> 


'.'( /•),  a  person  who  is  once  repre- 


is  more  specially  named  a  grandson  of  Seir.  and  MHI  of 


Zibeon,   whose  daughter 


>ne  of  th.o  wives  of 


insisted  on  retaining  because  such  things  were  not1  Ksau,  ch.  xxxvi.  2, 24,  2.1.  That  this  is  the  true  statement 
specifically  condemned  in  Scripture.  Hence  the  fa-  of  tlie  case,  and  not,  as  commonly  given,  that  there  are 
tilers  often  denounce  the  practice,  and  the  church  even  two  Anahs,  appears  thus:  '["he  Anah  in  ver.  '_'  and  ver. 
sometimes  interposed  its  authority  with  those  who  per-  i  25  must  be  the  same:  for  each  is  declared  to  be  the 
sisted  in  it.  ^  The  Council  of  Laodicea  (about  tlie  father  of  Aholibamah,  Esau's  wife.  Hut  the  same  Anah 
middle  of  the  fourth  century)  designated  amulet  bands  must  be  identical  with  the  Anah  in  ver.  •_>!.  for  the  one 
"chains  and  fetters  to  the  soul,"  and  prohibited  all  as  well  as  the  other  was  the  son  of  Ziheon.  Hence, 
clergymen  from  wearing  them  on  pain  of  excommunl-  when  Anah  K  first  mentioned  in  the  genealogy  at  verse 
cation  (Canon  36).  Clirysostom,  in  several  of  his  homi-  'Jo  among  the  sons  of  Seir.  it  must  be  sons  in 'the  wider 


Ill  Augustine,  I'.asil,  and  others,  like  passages  occur,  that  this  Anah  is  assigned  to  three  different  tribes 
I'.ut.  unfortunately,  the  remedies  prescribed  by  those  :  In  Genesis  xxvi.  :!1.  where  he  is  Krst  mentioned,  he  i. 
father,  to  meet  the  evil  approached  to,,  closely  to  the  called  a  Hittite;  in  xxxvi.  •_'.  he  is  represented  as  the 
'•;'  itself;  and  th  •  sign  of  the  cross,  on  which  they  son  of  Zibeon  the  Ilivite;  and  at  ver.  •_'  I  of  the  same 
laid  such  peculiar  str.  ss,  and  the  use  of  the  sacramental  chapter  he  is  numbered  among  the  descendants  of  Seir 
elements,  especially  of  the  consecrated  bread,  and  hit-  ;  the  Horite.  Occurring  as  these  different  designations 
l' r!.v  "''  'tai'l  men's  bones,  came  to  be  turned  very  do  at  sucli  comparatively  short  intervals,  it  seems  evi- 
much  t.^the  same  purposes  Us  had  \\..nt  to  be  served  j  dent  that  tliey  must  have  presented  n.>  difficult  v  to  those 
by  ear-rings,  texts  of  Scripture,  and  other  pendant  'who  were  conversant  \\ith  the  circumstances  of  the 
charms.  \\  her.  n  nestles  it  may  change  the  time,  and  that  they  app  ar  strange  to  us  merely  because 

form,  but  the  r.  aiity  remain.-  :  in  one  shape  or  another,  we  are  so  far  removed  fn.m  th.  se.  In  regard  to  Horite. 
it  must  have  its  amulets.  however,  there  is  no  proper  ditlieulty:  for  this  is  simph 

'"  modem  Kgypt,  amulets,  very  similar  in  form  to  an  ap|iellative,  signifying  mountainm;  «r  trot/laditc. 
those'  employed  by  tile  ancient  Jews  and  earl\  Chris-  as  the  ancients  call,  d  it  appli.  d  to  those  who  ]i\vd  in 
tia:.-.  are  in  common  use.  The  most  esteemed  of  all  rocky  regions,  and  occupied  eaves  instead  of  houses.  And 
lu<i<il>.<.  or  charms,  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Lane,  is  a  jnus-  i  then  of  the  two  other  designations,  Ilivite  and  Hittite. 
1,'ih.  or  copy  ,,f  the  Koran.  'I',,  it.  as  also  to  several  it  i.-  to  be  noted  that  the  one  appears  to  have  been  the 
other  charms  especially  to  scrolls  of  chapters  from  the  more  general  and  the  other  the  more  specific  genealo 
Koran,  or  names  of  the  prophet  MTV  peculiar  efii-  gical  distinction.  Hittiti  is  undoubtedly  used  a<  times 
eacy  is  attributed:  they  are  esteemed  preservatives  in  a  somewhat  comprehensive  sense,  as  including  various 


il>es  or  communities,  \\ith  their  several  kin--.  ,r,w  j  |. 
other  things.  The  names  or  passages  written  for  such  I  2Ki  ui.fi;iKi.x  ±>.  Hence  also,  when  the  prophef  K/.e- 
purjioses  are  first  covered  with  waxen  cloth,  to  preserve  ki.-l  proceeds  to  give  ;UI  allegorical  representation  of 
the  writing  from  injury  or  pollution,  then  inclosed  in  a  '  the  waywardness  and  guilt  of  the  covcna7it-pcople,  he 
ease-  of  thin  embossed  gold  or  silver,  which  is  attach. -d  be-ins  by  saying,  "Thy  nativity  is  of  the  land  of  (  . 
to  a  silk  string  or  a  chain,  and  generally  hung  on  the  '  naan  :  thy  fa  tin  r  was  an  Aniorit".  and  thv  mother  was 

•in  Hittite,"  \:/c  xvi  :;  as  if  these  two  names  were 
comprehensive  of  all  the  (  'anaanite  race.  When,  there 
fore,  the  wife  of  Ksau  is  fir.-t  nit  ntioiied  in  the  history, 
(u.  \\M.:;l,  s!ie  i-  simply  designated  as  the  daughter 
of  one.  who  belonged  (o  the  Ilittites  the  object  being 
to  indicate  that  she  v,  as  il  <  'anaale  te  bv  birth,  and  of 
that  extensive  branch  which  wi  nt  bv  the  "-eneral  name 


cni  Kt:yjiti;in  Aiaulut.     Lanu. 

In  Ion-ing  to   the    Hivite  section    of    the    Hittite   species. 

right  side,  above  the  gin  lie.      X<>.  :\~  exhibits   three  of  i  ll>  ngstenberg,  .1  nlli>  nt'n  .  ii..  /'/.«.  vi.) 

these.      '!'he  central  one  is   a  thin,  fiat  case,  containing  Another  r,  markable  thing  connected  v.ith  this  Anah 

a  folded   pap.  r:   it  is  about  the  third  of  an  inch  thick,  is  the  double  name  he  seems  to  have  borne.     It  is  only  in 

The   others   are   cylindrical    cases,    \\ith    hemispherical  the  genealogical  table  that  he  appears  under  the  name  of 

ends,    and    contain    scrolls:    they   are   worn   by  many  Anah;  for  in  tlie  liistory,  Ge.  xxvi.^t,  where  the  marriage  of 

women,    as   well   as   children:    but  those  of  the  poorer  his  daughter  with  Ksaii  is  mentioned,  he  is  called  P»i:r:i;i 

sort  have  them  of  a  somewhat  different  description.  the  Hittite.     The  word  /'ar!  means  fonfan itx,  the  man  of 

A'NAB  [probably  j,la<;  i.f  </wy/,.s],  a  town  in  the 
mountainous  district  of  .ludah.  from  which,  as  from 
Hebron,  Del.ir.  and  other  places.  Joshua  cut  oft'  the 
Anakim,  Jus.  xi  •_>!.  A  small  place  of  the  same  name  \  that  iniite  obscures  the  li'dit  it  serves  to  throw  on  the 

VOL.  I.  n 


introduced   which  explains   tin;  matter— though    it  is 


A  NANJ  AS 


peculiarity  referred  t<>.  Tin-  notice  is,  '•  i  i  was  this 
Aiiah  tliat  f»und  tlir  warm  springs  [so,  it  is  now  gene- 
rallv  agivcd.  the  word  -hould  In-  rendered,  not  mules]  in 
thu  wilderness,  as  In-  feel  the  asses  of  Xibeon  liis  father." 
The  spring-  iut:iint  are  supposed  to  lia\e  Keen  these 
afterwards  known  \>\  the  name  <>t'  Callirhoe.  \v;irin 
springs  tu  the  south  easl  of  the  I  lead  Sea.  lying  in  :> 
secluded  place,  which  could  only  lie  reached  by  a  nar 
row  x.i/.gag  | path  along  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  This 
path  opens  into  a  vallev,  which  is  crowded  with  different 
sorts  of  canes,  a > pens,  and  palms,  ami  into  \\  Inch  various 
warm  springs  precipitate  themselves;  they  do  so  in 
such  quantities,  that  Irliy  and  .Mangles  say.  on  reaching 
a  j)artic;ilar  shelf  of  the  rock.  "  We  found  ourselves  at 
what  might  In:  termed  a  hot  rivi  iv  so  copious  and  rapid 
is  it.  and  its  heat  so  little  abated.  This  continues,  as  it 
passes  downwards.  Ky  its  reevhing  constant  supplies  of 
water  of  the  same  temperature.  We  passed  four  almn- 
daut  sprinu'-.  all  within  the  distance  "f  half  a  mile,  dis 
charging  themselves  into  the  str<  am  at  right  angles  to 
its  course."  Supposing  these  to  he  the  springs  dis 
covered  I iy  Anah  a-  is  every  way  probable— one  can 
easilv  understand  how.  both  from  their  inclosed  situa 
tion,  their  extreme  copiousness  and  their  singular 
warmth,  the  disco\ervof  them  should  have  been  noted  as 
a  remarkable  circumstance  in  his  life,  and  should  have 
led  to  his  being  thereafter  familiarly  designated  lieeri 
—  the  man  of  the  fountain.  At  the  same  tune,  when  his 
name  was  given  in  the  genealogy,  it  fitly  appeared,  not 
under  this  somewhat  accidental  appellative,  but  as  that 
which  originally  and  properly  distinguished  him 
Anah. 

A'NAK.  AX'AKIM.  The  singular  word  (male  means 
'iucl-'-clniiii:  and.  in  the  plural,  'iim/.'ini  is  understood  to 
have  denoted  persons  with  marked  necks,  /our/-, t,  <•!,-<  il. 
and  then,  by  way  of  eminence,  a  race  of  men  with  long 
necks  and  of  gigantic  stature,  who  inhabited  Hebron 
and  the  surrounding  country  at  the  time  the  Israelites 
entered  the  promised  land.  The  name  always  appears 
either  as  flic  non.i  »f  A  nulc.  Xu.  xiii.  33;  Jos.  xv.  i-t;  Jn.  i.  20; 
or'A>  sons  of  tin  A  nn/.'/m,  ])c.  i.  L'xi.x  -:  or  simply  Aiutkiat. 

Dr.ii  10,11, -'l;.Ii is.xi.-Jl  ,'J-J;  xiv.l-i;  so  that  it  is  doubtful  whether 

they  were  descended  front  one  of  tin;  name  of  Anak,  or 
bore  the  name  of  sons  of  Anak.  and  Anakim.  merely  from 
their  being  men  of  lofty  stature.  In  Jos.  xv.  1".  Arba 
is  called  the  father  of  Anak.  which  makes  it  probable 
that  the  Anakim  sprung 
from  Arba:  and  the  imme 
diate  children  of  Anak 
\\ei-eSlu  shai.  Ahiman.  and 
Talmai.  The  report  of 
their  "Teat  stature  at  lirsi 
inspired  the  Israelites  with 
terror,  and  was  one  of  the 
circumstances  which  led 
them  to  rebel  against  the 
word  of  Cod  at  their  first 
approach  to  the  land  of 
*  'anaan.  Nu.  xiii.  :;.:  Hut 
afterwards  these  Anakim 
were  driven  from  their  pos 
sessions  by  Joshua,  and 
seem  to  have  been  extin 
guished  a- a  people.  CXCCpl 
ing  that  a  few  families  of 
the  race  e-ontinued  to  exist  in  the  country  of  the  1'hilis- 
tines.  out  of  wlmm  doubtless  came  the  afterwards  famous 


(loiiathof  (lath.  Those  people  are  depicted  on  th< 
Kuvptian  monuments  as  a  tall,  light- complexioned  race. 
In  the  liii-roglvphic  inscription  they  are  named  Tan- 
malm,  which  may  be  the  Egyptian  rendering  of  the 
Hebrew  word  Talmai,  allowing  for  the  interchange  of 
the  liquid  /  for  «.  so  constant  in  all  languages.  The 
figure  is  from  a  picture  on  a  wall  of  the  tomb  of  Oimenep- 
thah  I.,  supposed  to  represent  a  man  of  the  tribe  of 
Taimai,  one  of  the  sons  of  Anak.  (See  Ci ANTS.)  (]>ur- 
ton's  /'.'.rr(  r/itu  Hicrogtt/phica.)  [.I.  ];.] 

ANAM'MELECH  [compounded  ],robably  of  anam, 
a  statue  or  image,  and  nnl< /•//.  a  kinu'.  idol-god,  or  kinglv 
image],  applied  as  a  name  to  the  peculiar  deity  wor 
shipped  by  the  people  of  Sepharvaim.  The  worship 
paid  him  was  closely  allied  to  that  which  is  more  com 
nionly  known  as  belonging  to  the  Syrian  .Moloch:  for 
his  devotees  caused  their  children  to  pass  through  the 
lire.  2Ki.  xvii.  ;a.  Various  other  derivations  of  the  name; 
have  been  given,  and  conjectures  thrown  out  as  to  the 
deity,  and  the  particular  forms  of  idolatry  connected 
with  it:  lint  as  nothing  certain  has  boon  established, 
it  is  needless  to  yo  into  detail,-. 

ANANI'AS.  1.  A  member  of  the  original  <  'hristian 
community  at  Jerusalem  :  in  which,  for  a  time,  he  oc 
cupied  an  honourable;  place,  till  his  unhappy  aberra 
tion  from  the  path  of  uprightness,  with  the  fearful 
retribution  it  provoked,  brought  over  his  name  the 
shade  of  a  perpetual  infamy.  Ac.  v.  l-ll.  .He  and  his  wife 
Sapphira  arc  striking  examples  of  the  mischievous  re 
sults  which  will  sometimes  arise,  even  now.  from  the 
endeavour  to  carry  profession  beyond  principle --from 
people  aiming  at  being  accounted  better  in  the  church 
than  they  really  are.  That,  to  a  certain  extent,  these 
persons  had  come  under  the  influence  of  the  truth,  and 
had  sincerely  made  up  their  minds  to  take  part  with  the 
followers  of  Jesus,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt. 
In  formally  enlisting  themselves  among  the  number  of 
the  little  coinpanv.  they  showed  their  readiness  to 
brave  opposition  and  to  encounter  obloquy  for  the  sake 
of  Jesus:  and.  in  following  the  example  of  others — an 
example  which  they  were  equally  as  free  t->  shun  as 
to  follow  by  disposing  of  their  property  to  make  a 
contribution  to  the  common  funds  of  the  church,  they 
proved  their  willingness  to  make  at  least  snmr  temporal 
sacrifice  for  the  welfare  of  their  poorer  brethren.  Their 
hearts,  in  short,  wen:  to  a  certain  extent  alive  to  the 
faith,  and  moved  by  the  benignant  impulses,  of  the 
gospel :  but  still  not  sufficiently  moved  to  dispose 
them  to  take,  by  the'  largeness  of  their  benefactions, 
the  place  which  their  wealth  and  consideratiem  seemed 
to  indicate  as  proper  for  them.  They  would  therefore 
compromise  the'  matter  between  their  worldliness  on 
the  one1  side,  and  their  Christian  reputation  on  the 
either  -  pait  with  a  certain  portion  of  the  money  they 
received  for  the'  properly  they  had  sold,  and  make  it 
appear  as  if  that  portion  fornieel  the  whole  proceeds  of 
the'  sale.  Whether  they  had  calmly  weighed  what 
this  compromise  inveilveel,  or  had,  without  clue  eoii- 
sideratiem.  resorted  to  it  as  from  the  sudden  impulse1  of 
a  worldly  instinct,  it  plainly  eliel  involve  a  sacrifice  of 
right  principle'  a  mournful  disregard  of  truth  and  recti 
tude,  such  as,  if  a.llowed  to  proceed  in  the  church,  would 
have  brought  within  her  pale  the  hypocrisy,  the  fraud, 
the  selfishness,  the  false  show  anel  parade  of  the  world. 
Thi'i'e'fore,  it  was  met  with  a  searching  exposure  and 
an  appalling  rebuke.  How  the  falsehood  anil  fraud 
intended  to  be  practised  on  the-  occasion  by  Ananias 


ANANIAS 


ANANIAS 


and  Sapphira  should  have  come  to  light,  is  not  stated. 
Possibly  something  in  their  previous  character  had 
given  rise  to  the  suspicion  that  they  were  going  he-re  to 
play  a  deceitful  part,  and  may  have  led  to  investiga 
tions  which  established  their  guilt:  or.  without  any 
previous  inquiry  and  formal  evidence,  supernatural 
discernment  may  have  been  imparted  to  the  apostles, 
enabling  them  to  penetrate  through  the  fal-e  guise 
tint  was  assumed,  and.  bring  to  light  the  real  state  of 
the  case.  However  it  mav  have  been,  by  tin-  time 
that  the  contribution  came  to  b.-  laid  at  the  apostles' 
feet  -and  it  appears  to  have-  been  done,  wh>-u  they  were 
solemnly  met  to  receive  the  free-will  otf'.-rmgs  of  the 
brethren— Peter  was  in  a  condition  to  charge  Ananias 
with  deliberate  fraud,  in  pretending  that  what  he  now 
offered  was  the  whole  he  had  received  by  th-  sale  of 
his  property.  In  making  this  charge  the  only  thing 
that  seem-  p-euliar  is  the  stn  ngth  of  the  language  em 
ployed  by  the  apostle.  He  asked  Ananias,  --\Vh\ 
hath  Satan  filled  thine  heart  to  lie  to  the  Holy  Cho.-t. 
and  to  keep  hack  part  of  the  pri'v?"  And.  aft'  r  re 
minding  him  that  it  was  entirely  in  hi--  o\\n  power  t.. 
sell  the  properl  r  i  t.  and  when  sold  to  g-i\  part 
or  the  whole  as  he  himself  might  determine,  tin-  apo-tle 
again  charge.,  him  with  Iv'mj.  "  not  unto  men.  but  unto 
Cod.  The  special  aggravation  of  the  sin  is  thus  made 
to  stand  in  the  religious  character  of  th"  transaction 
in  th'  •  gilt  b  -ni'_!  presented  a-  an  oil'. -ring  to  (lod.  and  an 
otleriii'_  which,  a-  made,  carried  a  falsehood  in  it- 
front.  Tip-  apostles  were  acting  on  the  occasion  in 
their  official  capacity:  they  were  -ittinu  as  the  Spirit's 
agi  its  and  representatives,  to  receive  th--alin-<>f  the 
church:  so  that  what  he  said  and  did  to  them  w  as  in  el  lee  t 
said  and  done  to  the  Lord  it  was  a  daring  attempt  to 
praet':-e  imposition  on  the  ||..ly  Chost.  Ananias  him 
self  could  not  be  ignorant  of  this;  he  inu-t  have  felt 
that  lie  was  in  a  manner  defiling  the  sanctuary  •  .f  (  !ud, 
and  provoking  the  eves  of  his  -j'l'.rv  :  consequently,  hi, 
heart  must  have  been  previ"U-ly  strung  to  a  very  con 
siderable  hardih I  in  evil;  he  must  so  far  have  sur 
renderee  1  himself  to  the  spirit  of  covetousness,  that  it 
might  be  said  e,f  him.  as  of  oni  in  tin-  iatte-r  stages  of 
degeneracy,  Satan  hail  entered  his  heart  to  tempt  him  to 
siie-h  ungo. iliin-ss  :  Hut  the,-  bringing  of 
this  charge  against  Ananias,  ami  lav.ng  ban-  both  the 
reality  and  tin-  In  inousm---  of  his  guilt,  i-  tin-  who].- 
that  St.  I 'eter  does  on  the  occasion  ;  tin-re  is  no  intlie 
tion  of  corporeal  judunnnt  fioin  his  hand,  no  threaten 
ing;  c\vn  of  any  such  a~  beitm  n-adv  to  d.-se-'-inl  from 
the  prese-ui-e  of  Cod:  and  had  iiodmne  interpositieen 

folleiWV'l.      tlie     Utmost      that      We       call     slippos..      likely      to 

have  happene-d  in  tin-  way  of  judicial  proceeluiv.  would 
ha\.  he-en  tei  e-ast  him  out  of  the  church  as  unworthy  of 
a  place-  in  the  heeu~e  of  tin-  living  Cod.  |',ut.  as  a  seal 
to  tin-  condemnation  that  was  pronounced  upon  his  sin 
as  a  warning  to  others  who  might  in  future 
bring  corruption  into  tin-  spiritual  community  of  be 
lievers  as  a  sign  rais'-d  by  the  hand  uf  Cod  at  tin-  com 
mencement  of  the-  New  Testament  church,  to  testify  of 
the  guileless  simplicity  and  incorrupt  sincerity  which 
should  belong  to  all  who  join  themselves  to  its  member 
ship  -the  doom  of  death  instantly  fell  upon  the  con 
victed  transgressor.  \Ve  need  not  be  too  curious  in 
inquiring  how  this  death  was  brought  about:  whether 
the  startling  discovery  of  his  guilt  that  was  made  all  at 
once  to  1  mrst  on  him,  may  have  itself  operated  like  a 
convulsive  shock,  or.  along  with  this,  some-  miraculous 


j  agency  may  have   suddenly   arrested   the   pulse   of  life: 
,  the  result  in  either  case,  especially  when  taken  in  con 
nection  with  what  presently  after  befell  his  wife,  must 
be  ascribed  to  the  direct  interposition  of  Cod.      Ana- 
I  nias  first,  and  then  his  wife  Sapphira.    who   became  his 
.  partner  alike-  in  guilt  and   punishment,  perished  under 
'  tlie  ju'lgmcnt   of  Cod.   as  the  corrupters  of  his  infant 
church. 

< 'no  cannot  but  mark  a  close  resemblance  between 
,  what  thus  took  place  at  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  church,  and  the  mournful  occurrence  that 
struck  terror  into  the  members  of  the  Israelitish  com- 
•  monwealth.  shortly  after  th-ir  entrance  within  the 
boundaries  of  Canaan.  it  was  as  a  holy  community 
tln-y  went  thither,  and  were  to  he  made  possessors  of 
tin-  [and.  a-  Coil's  special  witnesses  against  the  crime- 
and  abominations  that  polluted  it:  precisely  as  it  was 
by  being  a  holy  temple  to  the  Lord,  and  keeping  itself 
separate  from  the  corruptions  of  the  world,  that  the 
church  of  tin-  New  Testament  was  to  make-  ln-ad  against 
tin-  peiwe-i-s  of  e\  il  anil  brim,;  all  under  its  swav.  In  the 
eilie  case,  howe-ver.  as  well  as  in  the  other,  the  world 
eiite-r.-d  with  its  pollutions  at  tin-  very  threshold  of  tin- 
history  :  ainl  heith  tinn-s  in  a  similar  guise-,  as  a  spirit 
of  eovetousnoss.  clinging  to  tin-  mammon  of  unright- 
teou-nes-;.  and  cloaking  itself  over  with  hypocrisy  and 
guile-.  The  trans_:r.  -,-o|-s  in  tin-  am-ie-nt  community. 
Achan  and  his  family,  were,  by  tin-  spee-ia!  interposition 
e>f  (oid.  drag".. -el  to  liuht.  and  consigned  to  destruction; 
and  . \naiiia-  and  >apphira.  tin-  transgressors  in  New 
Testament  times,  were  by  a  like  interposition  detee-feel 
ami  punished.  Tin-  immediate  -  II)  cf  -.  t'  o,  of  the  diyim- 
interposition  were  much  alike-:  a  salutary  fear  of 
s'm  was  struck  into  the  respective  communit i'-s,  and 
tli"  hearts  ot  all  more  thoroughly  roused  in  behalf  of 
tin-  interests  of  ri-_hte-ousne -ss.  Hut,  unfortunately,  the 
•-  in  both  cases  pro'.id  but  of  temporary  dura 
tion  Tin-  awful  warning  given  against  sin  fell  into 
,  oblivion  :  ami  before  the  apostles  had  hni-ln-d  their 
;  course,  asin  former  til nes  before  Joshua  liad  been  gathered 
to  liis  fa tliers.  many  forms  < if  corruption  had  gained  a  fool 
ing  within  tin-  s.-icre-d  territory.  Tin-  last  testimony 
from  tin-  ham!  of  the  apostle-,  who,  mi  this  occasion, 
so  ste-rnlv  r.  buk. -el  the-  incipient  e\il  tin-  second 
Kpi-tle  of  I'eter  hail  for  its  chief  objc-cl  tin-  lifting  of 
a  loud  and  einpha'ie  warning  a-_ain-t  tin-  hypocrisy 
ami  guile,  the  licentiousness  ami  corruption,  which  were 
air.  ady  making  tln-ir  appearance  among  the  chm-cln-s  of 
(  hrist.  and  wlm-h  In-  foresaxy  were  ele  stim  d  to  become 
yet  more  rampant.  Still,  the-  first  great  practical  tcs 
timoiiv  was  in. t  in  vain:  it  stand-  as  a  finger- post  for 
all  who  have  eyes  to  see  it.  and  makes  clear  as  noon 
day  tin-  purpose  of  Cod  to  r.  co-jni/.e-  onlv  siie-h  as  true- 
members  of  his  church  who  have  left  behind  tlie-m  the 
corrupt  ie  ins  of  the  world,  and  in  godly  sincerity-  an- 
yielding  themselves  to  his  service. 

Certain    petty   and    frivolous   objections,    which   have 

been   raiseel   mi   tin-  subject    1  iv  rationalist   inte-rpn-ters. 

so  eibviouslv   ari-e   from   partial  or  mistaken    views  of 

the-  transaction,  or  of  St.    1'i-te-r's  conduct  in  relation  to 

j  it.  that  they  deserve  no  particular  notice-. 

2.  AN  \.vi.\s.  a  Jewish  disciple  at  l>amascus,  to 
whom  tin-  Lord  appeared  in  a  vision,  and  instructed 
him  to  go  w  he-re-  Saul  of  Tarsus  at  the  time  was,  that 
he  might  lay  on  him  his  hands,  and  impart  to  him  anew 
his  sight.  Ae-.  i\.  in-17.  Ananias  expressed  his  astonishment 
at  receiving  such  a  commission,  having  heard  only  of  the 


ANATHEMA 


•- 


AXATIIK.MA 


fiery    y.eal    \\itll    which    Saul    llild    been    persecuting    the 

church  nf  Christ,  ami  of  the  authority  with  which,  for 
that  end.  he  had  come  armed  again.-t  tin- disciples  in 
I  ).-ima-cus.  I'.'.it  his  fears  and  suspicions  v.viv  laid  to  rest 
liv  tlii-  di\inc  as:.ni-anci',  that  this  man  had  now  become 
a  chosen  vessel  to  hear  the  name  of  Jesus  before  tile 
I  it  ntilcs,  and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Israel,  and  to 
> inter  great  things  for  its  sake.  i!e  accordingly  went 
as  coinmaiuled,  and  hoth  restored  sight  to  Saul  through 
the  imposition  of  hands,  and  received  him  by  baptism 
into  the  ( 'hristiuii  cuiiiinuiiity.  Nothing  farther  is 
known  fur  curtain  of  Ananias,  nor  have  we  anymore 
specitic  information  than  that  given  above  of  his  posi 
tion  in  the  church  at  I  >amascns.  Tradition  has  .sought 
to  cumpeiisite  for  this  defect  by  telling  us  that  be  be 
came  hi>hop  of  I>,-un.iscus,  and  of  course,  like  all 
apostles  and  primitive  bishops,  died  a  martyr.  P>ut  no 
credit  is  due  to  such  legends. 

3.  AXAMAS,  the  high-priest  at  the  time  of  St.  Paul's 
seizure  and  appearance  before  the  Sanhedrim  at  Jeru 
salem.  Ac  xxiii.2.  We  learn  nothing  more  of  him  in  the 
New  Testament  than  that  on  Paul  declaring  he  had 
lived  in  all  yood  conscience  before  Cod  till  that  day, 
he  commanded  those  beside  Paul  to  smite  him  (show 
ing  himself  to  be,  at  least,  a  person  of  violent  temper 
and  coarse  manners),  and  that  he  afterwards  went  down 
to  C;esarea  with  certain  elders,  to  lay  a  regular  charge 
i  'f  sedition  against  the  apostle,  Ac.  xxiv.  i.  Various  notices 
are  given  of  him  in  .losephus.  and  they  fully  confirm 
the  idea  conveyed  of  his  character  by  what  is  written 
in  the  Acts,  lie  had  been  nominated  to  the  office  of 
high -priest  by  Herod,  king  of  Chalcis,  in  A.D.  48,  but 
was  afterwards  oblig.-d  to  go  to  Home  and  defend  himself 
against  heavy  charges  that  were  brought  against  him 
(Ant.  xx.  f).  '2  ;  also  li.  '!).  There,  however,  he  was  ac 
quitted,  and  it  is  supposed  resumed  the  office  of  high- 
priest  "ii  his  return  to  Judea,  lint  shortly  before  the 
departure  of  Felix  he  was  deprived  of  the  office ;  and 
after  carrying  on  a  series  of  lawless  practices  by  the 
hands  of  what  Joseplms  calls  "very  wicked  servants." 
he  was  himself  at  last  killed,  by  the  Siearii.  or  zealot- 
robbers  (Ant.  xx.  «S.  ^  ;  also  <i.  -1).  He  appears  to  have 
been  altogether  one  of  the  most  worthless  and  desperate 
characters  that  ever  filled  the  office  of  high-priest. 

ANATH'EMA  [(Jr.  avdOe/na.  from  the  verb  dvari- 
OTJ.LU.  to  lay  up  or  suspend J  was,  properly,  anything 
presented  as  a  gift  to  a  temple,  and  hung  up  there  as  a 
sacred  memorial.  When  used,  however,  in  this  general 
sense,  as  it  often  is  in  the  classical  authors,  it  is  written 
\viih  a  long  f.  dvd8rj/jLa;  and  as  such  it  occurs  only  once 
in  the  New  Testament,  at  Luke  xxi.  5,  where  the 
disciples  remarked  to  the  Lord  concerning  the  temple, 
"how  it  was  adorned  with  goodly  stones  and  gifts'' 
tdvaOr/naffi).  Things  given  up  to  Cod  in  this  sense 
were  esteemed  honourable  as  well  as  sacred ;  they  were 
associated  with  the  more  gracious  and  benignant  aspect 
of  his  character.  T5ut  as  his  character  has  another 
aspect— that,  namely,  which  it  assumes  when  brought 
into  contact  with  incorrigible  and  hardened  iniquity, 
calling  forth  severe  and  punitive  justice-— so  if,  with 
respect  to  this  aspect  of  the  divine  character,  any  per 
son  or  object  were  solemnly  given  up  to  God,  it  would 
be  indeed  for  God's  glory,  but  for  the  dishonour  and 
destruction  <  .f  what  was  so  surrendered.  And  this  is  the 
idea  of  the  clicrcm  (=nr),  the  religious  curse  of  the 
Hebrews,  to  which  commonly  in  the  Greek  translation 


of  the  Old  Testament,  and  always  in  the  original  of  the 
New,  the  word  a.vdOep.a  corresponds.  It  denoted  some 
thing,  not  merely  dedicated  to  d'od,  but  forcibly  dedi 
cated  to  him— something  that  had  been  withdrawn 
from  his  service  and  worship,  so  that  he  was  not  glori- 
fiedi/i  it,  and  was  again,  by  the  ha  nils  of  another,  devoted 
to  him,  that  he  might  be  glorified  upfin  it.  This  is  a 
kind  of  consecration  peculiar  to  the  liible.  as  the  view 
of  the  divine  justice,  or  righteousness,  on  which  it  is 
based,  is  only  found  there;  heathenism  never  attained 
in  this  respect  to  any  proper  knowledge  of  Deity.  And 
the  thought  it  presents  is,  certainly,  a  very  solemnizing 
one;  bespeaking,  as  it  does,  the  setting  apart  of  things 
or  persons  from  a  common  to  a  sacred  use,  hallowing 
them  in  a  sense  to  the  Lord,  in  order  that  he  may 
consume  them,  or  otherwise  pour  upon  them  his  righ 
teous  indignation.  Hence  we  have  the  singular  expres 
sion,  not  unusual  in  the  original  Scriptures,  "  Accursed 

I  to  the  Lord"  (n'wS  fcHpj  ^-  xxvii.  •_>•;,  L<<)  ;  JOB.  vi.  10,21),  but 
T    i  -       :•' 

in  our  translation  softened  iuto  ;,mh  phr.-;si  sas  ••devoted 
lo  the  Lord,"  or  ••consecrated  to  the  Lord."  On  the 
first  historical  occasion  that  this  kind  of  consecration 
was  put  in  force,  dcxtroy  is  the  word  used  in  our  version, 
though  it  does  not  convey  the  precise  idea  of  the  ori 
ginal.  The  circumstance  is  recorded  in  Numbers  xxi. 
1-3,  "And  Israel  vowed  a  vow  unto  the  Lord,  and 
>aid.  If  thou  wilt  indeed  deliver  this  people  into  my 
hand,  then  J  will  utterly  destroy  [T,';^r,~.  i  will  make 

a  chc'rcm  or  anathema  of]  their  cities.  And  the  Lord 
hearkened  unto  the  voice  of  Israel,  and  delivered  up 
the  Canaanites;  and  they  utterly  destroyed  [made  an 
anathema  of]  them  and  their  cities  ;  and  h--  called  the 
name  of  that  place  Jformak  [the  anathematized,  or 
devoted  to  destruction]."  It  is  evidently  not  simple 
destruction  that  is  here  described  by  the  putting  under 
ckcreii)  or  anathema,  but  the  doing  of  this  as  a  sacrifice 
to  God — an  act  justified  and  demanded  by  the  interests 
of  holiness — and  one,  therefore,  which  required  to  be 
performed  in  a  peculiarly  solemn  frame  of  mind,  free 
from  carnal  passion  and  selfishness  of  spirit. 

Such  is  the  idea  of  the  Old  Testament  ckcrcm  or 
anathema ;  whatever  was  put  under  it  was  entirely 
withdrawn  from  its  human  use.  or  natural  relationship. 
and  given  wholly  to  the  Lord  — to  be  employed  in  his 
service,  if  capable  of  such  employment:  if  not.  to  be 
utterly  consumed.  Hence,  what  was  thus  devoted 
could  not  be  redeemed;  it  could  not.  by  any  ransom  or 
substitutionary  arrangement,  betaken  back  and  applied 
to  ordinary  purposes;  it  must  either  be  reserved  for 
strictly  sacred  uses,  or,  if  unfit  for  these,  devoted  to 
destruction.  "No  devoted  thing  [lit.  "nothing  that 
is  chcrcm"]  shall  be  sold  or  redeemed  ;  it  is  most  holy  to 
the  Lord.  None  dt  \oted.  which  shall  be  devoted  of 
men.  shall  be  redeemed,  but  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death,"  Le.  xxvii.  2*.  2!).  Hence  it  was  that  when  the  Ca 
naanites,  as  a  people,  were,  on  account  of  their  flagrant 
enormities  and  foul  abominations,  put  under  the  same 
ban  as  those-  mentioned  above  that  dwelt  about  Hormah, 
extermination  was  the  necessary  result :  they  were  se 
parated  to  the  Lord  sacredly  destined,  in  a  manner,  to 
the  severity  which  their  sins  had  provoked — consigned 
to  perdition.  And  as  a  clear  sign  to  the  Israelites 
themselves  that  such  was  the  nature  of  the  decree  which 
they  had  to  put  in  force  against  the  Canaanites;  that 
what  they  had  to  do  in  this  respect  was  strictly  a  work 
of  God,  and  that  everything  they  might  acquire  by 


AXATHEM  A  AX  ATHL.MA 

doing  it — the  hind,  the  cities,  the  goods,  which  reverted  he  does  it  like  those  Jews,  in  regard  to   himself,  when, 

to  them  for  a  possession— were  properly   the  Lord's,  speaking  of  his  deep  sorrow  on  account  of  the  apostate 

and  came  to  them  as  a  sacred  dowry  from  his  hand  ;—  condition  of  his  countrymen,  and   his  fervent  desire  for 

as  a  sign  of  all  this,  .Jericho,  the  first  city  in  the  land  their  salvation,  he   says.    "For   I    could  wish  \or  more 

which  they  had  to  attack',  had  the  anathema  laid  upon  exactly.  I  was  wishing—  implying  that  the  act  was  in 

it  in  the  most  stringent  manner,  and  the  most  comprc-  process  of  forming  itself,    but  remained  incomplete,  was 

hensive  form.     Xothing  belonging  to  it  was  to  be  appro-  checked  by   some  counter- consideration)  that   I  myself 

priated  as  the  people's  own;  the  treasure  was  to  be  brought  were  anathtma  from  Christ  fur  my  brethren,  my  kins- 

into  the  Lord\s  house ;  and  all  that  could  be  consumed—  men  according  t>  the  flesh."  Ku.ix.:;.     The  expression 

houses,  garments,  and  the  inhabitants  themselves,  with  has  given  rise  to  much  disputation,  and  many  attempts 

tlie,  exception  of  1'ahab — utterly  made  an  end  of.      In  have  been  made  to  draw  it  into  an   inferior  sense  than 

like  manner,  and  with  ref.  ivnce  specifically  to  idols,  it  what  the  words  seem  naturally   to  import.      Hut  such 

was  said,   "Andtho'i   shah   not   bring  an   abomination  attempts   are   to   be   discuura-vd.   as  tendir.";  rather   to 

into  thine  house,   and  In  conn-  a  cursed  thing  [an  ana-  embarrass  than  to  explicate  the  subject.     Let  it  onlv  be 

thema.    or  clu.rcm]   like    it:  tlnm   shah    utterly  detest,  uuderst 1.  that   the  apostle  is  himself  in  the    highest 

and  thuti  sha.lt  utterly  abhor  it;  f.,r  it.  is  cftcrcm,"  Ik.  mood  of  spiritual  feeling,  and.  in  consequence,  capable 
vii.  I'D.  It  is  wroiiu'to  -av  ot  such  cases  that  it  is  simplv  '.  of  beinu;  fullv  sympathized  with  hv  such  only  as  are 
the  vile  and  execrable  nature  of  the  object  that  i-  indi-  '  familiar  with  the  nioiv  elevated  frames  uf  the  Christian 
cated.  and  that  then-  is  no  idea  of  consecration  to  the  life.  Let  it  be  mid.  rstood.  further,  that  the  thought 
Lord  ;  the  general  principle  still  holds  good,  that  every-  expressed  is  not  a  decision  foimally  come  to.  or  a 
thim,r  i^'  i-' ni  is  must  holy  to  the  Lord.  (Inly,  in  the  purpose  cahidv  entertained  and  brought  forth  into 
case  of  .-inful  persons  and  polh;t.d  objects,  the  conse-  deliberate  action,  but  rather  a  sentiment  slim  d  in  his 
cration  was  with  a  view,  not  to  honourable  and  !>!>  .--,•,[  bosom  by  tin-  agony  ,,f  unutterable  sorrow  a  wish 
service,  but  to  the  exhibition  of  divine  justice  in  their  cherished  and  \vt  aufain  repressed,  as  if  it  mu>t  not  pass 
destrud  IK  vend  the  n-gion  ,,f  thought  and  feeling.  Let  this 
In  the  X>  w  Testament  use  of  the  \\ord  <innf/f  //<«  only  be  understood  as  to  the  state  of  mind  here  indi- 
the  idea  ,,f  consecration  i-.  perhaps,  less  prominent  cated  by  the  apostle,  and  tin-re  v.  ill  be  found  in  it  no- 
thai  i  in  th"  old  T<  .- tame) it  cfm'ciii,  though  it  i-  still  in-  thing  either  inconceivable  or  absolutely  singular.  It 
eluded  :  only,  the  thought  is  turned  somewhat  more  upon  is  ju.-t  that  state  of  rapt  devotion  so  finely  de-i-rib.  d 
the  execrable  nature  and  fearful  doom  of  tin  ubject  of  b\  Hac-oii.  a-  sometimes  attained  by  "Cod's  elected 
it.  It  occurs  altogether  only  live  or  six  tim« -.  and  saints,  who  have  wished  themselves  ra/.cd  out  of  the 
in  on,-  i,f  these  it  i--  a  company  of  Jews  who  use  it.  book  of  life  in  an  ecstasy  of  ,  harity  and  feeling  of 
so  that  it  i.-  not  bro'i'.j1it  into  contact  with  any  Chris-  infinit.-  communion"  a  f"<  lin-.;  as  if  life  would  be 
i'  ment.  "( 'i-rtain  .!<  \v  s  1  pound  theiu-e'.v ,  <  under  intolerable  to  them,  sliould  the  common  well -being  of  the 

ill  our  version  (literahy.  anath   matizcd  briptherli 1.   after   which   they  so  ardently   lon'jvd,  fail 

themsi  Ives],   "saving   that   the\    wo\:!d    neitlnr  eat  nor  to  he   reali/.ed.       It   is  this  asp-ct  of   the   matter  which 

d'-ink   till  they  had    killed     Haul."    Ac.  x   iii  I'J;    that   i-.  in  such  a  case,  should  be  contemplated  as  alone  present 

they  devoted    thein.-ely,-   in    this  way   to  destruction,  if  to  the  mind;   and    to  brim.;'   into  view   the  physical  ami 

they  should  P  -ile    IP  in  executing  the  purpose  they  had  moral  ruin,   the   final    despair   and    wretchedness  of   th" 

formed  respecting    Haul.      Hruhahly.  as  the  providence  lost      as  if  this  were  the  alternative  which  were  almost 

of  (  '•(»}.  bvivmovin";  Haul   suddenly  to  a   distance  from  preferred   hv    the   individual   to   his   existiii"'    state    and 
. 

them,  rendered  the  execution  of  their  scheme  imprac  prospects  were  entirely  to  mistake  the  r,  al  condition 
ticable.  they  would  hold  themselves  released  from  the  j  and  temper  <,f  -oul  expressed  on  such  occasions. 
p  naltv  they  had  voluntarily  incurred.  Hut  tlr-  feel-  '  Tin-  olln  r  passages  in  which  St.  Haul  emplovs  .-ma 
in-;  which  prompted  them  to  enter  into  the  engage-  thema  point  more  distinctly  to  the  moral  guilt  of  the 
m.  nt  was  doiibtle-s  nmcii  tin-  same  as  that  which  subject  of  it.  and  his  fit  destination  to  the  heav'n.-t 
animated  tin-  conspirators  a_;"ain-t  Herod's  life;  of  curse.  "No  one."  In-  savs,  1  Co.  xii.:i,  ".-.peaking  in 
whom  Josephus  tells  us  that,  when  detected  and  sei/.-d.  (  oid's  Spirit,  calls  Jesus  anathema;"  he  cannot  po  sihly 
"  tin  v  showed  no  -ha me  f, ,r  what  tln-v  wen-  about,  nor  think  and  speak  of  him  as  a  tit  object  of  di\  in,-  e.xecra- 
did  they  deny  it  :  but  exhibited  their  da-j^vr.-.  and  pro  tion.  Hut.  at  the  commem-emeiit  of  his  epistle  to  the 
t«  sted  that  tin-  conspiracy  tiny  had  sworn  to  wa-  a  (Jalatians,  the  apostle  himself  twice  over  pronounces  an 
holy  and  pious  action  :  that  what  they  intended  to  ,1,,  anathema  upon  the  person,  be  he  man  or  angel,  who 
was  not  for  gain,  or  for  any  indulgence  to  their  pa--  should  com-  preaching  another  gospel  than  that  which 
sioiis,  but  principally  for  those  comm-'ii  customs  of  he  had  himself  preached  ;  thereby  solemnly  consigning 
their  country  which  all  the  Jews  were  obliged  to  ob-  such  a  person,  as  guilty  of  the  greatest  impietv,  to  tin- 
serve,  or  else  to  die  for  them"  (Ant.  xv.  S.  <;  .  The  idea  '  justice  of  Cod  for  everlasting  reprobation  ;  ami.  at  the 
In  re.  however  misapplied  as  to  its  particular  direction,  close  of  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  In-  breathes 
was  still  that  of  the  religious  curse,  devoting  to  (Jod  as  by  forth  tin-  weight  v  utterance.  ••  If  any  man  love  not  the 
a  sacred  act,  and  for  the  infliction  of  the  heaviest  doom,  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  l'-t  him  be  anathema  maranatha." 
what,  in  the  circumstances,  was  deemed  unworthy  of  Here,  au'ain.  from  the  idea  of  its  being  supposed  to  be 
life.  So,  in  the  bosom  of  those  who  conspired  against  contrary  to  the  proper  spirit  of  an  apostle  that  he 
Haul,  the  sentiment  seems  to  have  been,  Let  our  life  be  should  wish  any  one  to  become,  in  the  full  and  proper 
forfeited  to  Clod,  as  a  thing  which  he  may  justly  exact  sense,  an  anathema,  the  import  of  tin-  expression  has 
at  our  hands,  if  we  withhold  our  hand  from  compassing  been  softened  to  mean  simply  that  such  an  one  should 
the  death  of  such  a  miscreant.  be  excluded  from  the  Christian  communion  that  lie 
It  is  the  apostle  Haul  himself  who.  in  the  other  has  no  proper  right  to  a  place  among  Christ's  flock. 
places  referred  to,  makes  use  of  the  anathema.  Once  lint  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  word  anathema  being 


I 


ANDREW 


so  u.-M-d  in  Scripture,  nor  is  there  auv  need  for  resorting 
to  it  here:  since,  if  it  is  the  revealed  will  of  Cod  that 
they  \\lio  arc  destitute  of  love  to  .lesus  should  he 
doomed  to  tinal  p<  rdition.  there  can  he  nothing  im 
proper  in  an  apostle,  nor  even  in  the  most  MTaphic 
hosom  in  hea\en.  \\ishiug  it  to  he  so.  It  is  hut  pray 
ing  that  Cod's  vul!  he  done.  Besides,  such  a  diluted 
meaning  would  leave  altogether  unexplained  the  con 
nect  in  ur  so  closely  together  of  the  two  Aramaic  words, 
iiiid.tlii  aid.  and  iiKiranatlni.  Such  a  connection,  espe 
cially  in  an  epistle  written  not  to  a  Syrian  but  to  a 
Crcciau  community,  seems  to  demand  that  the  words 
he  take  n  in  their  fullest  sense,  and  also  to  imply  that 
they  were  words  <  ither  themselves  in  familiar  use  with 
the  Christians,  or  grounded  upon  some  well-known 
[passage  of  Scripture  which  uas  thereby  recalled  to 
iln  ir  mind.  Mui'un-utha  i.-  tlie  Syriac  phrase  for  tin- 
Lord  mines;  and,  to  place  this  in  such  immediate  con- 
junction  with  the  announcement  of  an  anathema,  and 
to  do  so  in  one  of  the  last  sentences  of  the  epistle,  was 
to  remind  the  disciples,  in  the  most  impressive  manner, 
that  the  curse  as  well  as  the  blessing  has  its  operation 
in  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  and.  so  far  from  ceasing  at 
the  moment  of  his  coming,  only  rises  then  to  its  highest 
development:  so  that  it  behoves  all  to  look  well,  in 
tin:  meantime,  to  the  reality  of  their  interest  in  Christ, 
and  their  love  to  him.  The  apostle  does  not,  indeed, 
overlook  the  blessing:  for.  in  the  very  next  verse,  he 
pra\s  that  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  might  be 
with  them.  But,  knowing  as  lie  did,  that  there  were 
many  elements  of  corruption  working  in  the  church  at 
Corinth,  he  gives  special  prominence  to  the  other  and 
darker  a>pect of  tlie  matter:  and.  in  doing  so.  he  ex 
actly  follows  the  example  of  the  prophet  .Malachi,  whose 
closing  announcement  regarding  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  may  be  said  to  form  the  ground  of  the  apostle's 
representation:  for.  while  there  making  promise  of  the 
Lord  to  those  that  feared  his  name,  as  coming  to  hh  ss 
his  heritage,  he,  at  the  same  time,  proclaims  the  neces 
sity  of  a  great  and  general  reformation,  if  this  result 
was  to  be  generally  experienced:  but,  if  it  failed,  if 
there  should  i:ot  he  a  real  turning  of  hearts  to  the  Lord, 
then  the  coming  would  be  to  smite  the  earth  with  a 
chcrcm.  or  anathema.  Because  the  danger  was  no  great 
of  a  disastrous  result,  this  was  the  last  thought  the 
prophet  left  upon  the  members  of  the  old  covenant  in 
connection  with  the  subject.  In  like  manner  here,  and 
on  the  same  account,  the  apostle  makes  it  one  of  his  very 
latest  and  most  impressive  utterances  to  tlie  church  at 
Corinth.  The  anathema  therefore,  in  this  case  also,  is 
the  solemn  adjudication  of  the  characters  named  to  the 
doom  of  perdition,  as  fit  objects  of  the  punitive  justice 
of  Cod  -pronounced  now.  in  order  that  those  who  were 
in  danger  of  incurring  it  might  hasten  their  escape  from 
the  wrath  to  come.  <  Lightfoot  correctly  indicated  this 
interpretation  of  the  passage,  and  the  allusion  it  con 
tains,  to  .Mai.  iv.  •_'-(!,  but  improperly  and  unnaturally 
limited  its  application  to  the  Jews.  Ilengstenherg. 
in  his  C/iristoloyy,  justly  cxcepts  to  that  part  of  Light- 
toot's  interpretation.) 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  while  the  word 
anatftema  in  the  NYw  Testament,  as  cherem  in  the  Old. 
always  hears  the  higher  sense  we  have  ascribed  to  it. 
and  a  direct  reference  to  the  judgment  of  Heaven  upon 
the  abominable  and  reprobate,  a  certain  change  was 
introduced  both  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  the 
use  of  anathema,  and  by  at  least  tlie  later  Kabbinical 


writers  in  the  u.^e  of  i-hiruu.  Both  terms  came  to  he 
applied  to  church  censures  to  excommunication  in  its 
lighter  or  heavier  form.  What  was  strictly  called  the 
chcrcm  was  the  final  sentence  of  excommunication,  after 
lighter  censures  had  proved  unavailing:  and  it  con 
tains  (as  given,  for  example,  by  Buxtorf,  in  his  Lc.x. 
(.'Imld.  Tul ni,.  el  lialjbhi..  or  in  a  more  accessible  work, 
liy  Brown,  in  his  .liititjitit-im  of  ///-  J,V;s,  ii.  '2^7}  a 
revolting  and  detailed  multiplication  of  all  imaginable 
curses  and  inflictions  of  evil  on  the  head  of  the  un 
happy  subject.  But  the  name  was  also  applied  to  other 
forms  of  censure  on  the  part  of  the  synagogue.  With 
the  fathers,  anathema  was  used  indiilerently  of  excision 
from  the  church,  and  separation  from  Cod  :  sometimes 
the  one  explanation  is  given  and  sometimes  the  other, 
as  may  he  seen  by  consulting  Suicer's  T/i'-Mnrufi  on  the 
word.  Theodoret  even  explains  the  "Let  him  he  ana 
thema,"  in  ]  Co.  xvi.  -2'2.  by  "Let  him  be  removed 
from  the  common  body  of  the.  church  "—erroneously, 
we  certainly  think:  but  it  shows  how  soon  the  word 
had  come  to  receive  this  lower  application.  Jn  tin-  de 
crees  of  later  councils,  and  with  Komish  writers  gene 
rally,  to  In:  anathema,  is  but  another  term  for  being 
excommunicated,  or  cut  of!'  externally  from  the  num 
ber  of  the  faithful. 

AN'ATHOTH  [(inswn-x  to  i,rai/n:i],  occurs  a.>  a 
personal  name  in  some  of  the  genealogies,  icii.vii.  8; 
No.  x.  in;  but  it  is  chiefly  known  as  a  Levitical  town, 
Jeremiah's  birth- pi, uv  and  proper  residence — Je.  i  i. 
Very  little  besides  is  known  of  the  town  itself, 
though  it  is  occasionally  mentioned,  ^  S:i  xxiii,  27 ; 
Ezr.  ii.  u;j;  and  so  much  identified  had  it  become  in 
later  times  with  the  prophet,  that  in  Jerome's  day  it 
went  by  his  name:  "Anathoth.  <|u;e  hodie  appellatur 
Jeromia-''  (Onomast.)  It  layabout  three  or  four  miles 
north  of  Jerusalem:  and  is  supposed  to  have  been  the 
same  with  the  Anata  discovered  by  Proft  ssor  IJobinson. 
which  is  at  the  distance  of  an  hour  and  a  quarter  from 
Jerusalem,  and  stands  on  a  broad  ridge  of  hills,  from 
which  one  looks  down  upon  the  eastern  slopes  of  the 
hilly  ground  of  Benjamin,  and  sees  as  far  as  the  valley 
of  the  Jordan.  It  is  now  a  mere  village,  of  some  fifteen 
or  twenty  houses,  but  possesses  remains  of  ancient  walls 
and  of  foundations  that  seem  to  have  borne  houses  of 
respectable  size. 

ANCIENT  OF  DAYS,  an  expression  applied  to 
Jehovah  thrice  in  a  vision  of  Daniel,  cli.  vii.  <j,  i?,,  •>;>,  appa 
rently  much  in  the  same  .sense  as  Eternal.  The  ex 
pression  viewed  by  itself  is  somewhat  peculiar;  but  it 
is  doubtless  employed  by  way  of  contrast  to  the  succes 
sive  monarchies  which  appeared  one  after  another  rising 
before  the  eye  of  the  prophet.  These  all  proved  to  be 
ephemeral  existences,  partaking  of  the  corruption  and 
evanescence  of  earth  :  and  so,  when  the  supreme  Lord 
and  Covernor  of  all  appeared  to  pronounce  their  doom, 
and  set  up  his  own  everlasting  kingdom.  He  is  not  un 
naturally  symbolized  as  the  Ancient  of  Days— one  who 
was  not  like  those  new  formations,  the  offspring  of  a 
particular  time,  but  who  had  all  time,  in  a  manner,  in 
his  possession — one  whose  days  were  past  reckoning. 

AN'DREW  [Gr.  'AvSpeas],  one  of  the  earliest  dis 
ciples  of  our  Lord,  and  latterly  one  of  his  twelve 
apostles.  He  had  previously  attended  the  ministry  of 
John  the  Baptist,  but  clave  to  Jesus,  after  the  Baptist 
distinctly  pointed  him  out  as  the  Lamb  of  Cod.  Jn.  i. :!.-,- 40. 
He  was  a  fisherman  of  Bethsaida.  and  the  brother  of 
Simon  i'eter.  Xo  sooner  had  he  found  satisfaction  in 


AXDKOXKTS 


ANGELS 


his  own  mind  respecting  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  than  [  other  passages,  however,  in  \\liieh  the  rendering  un'jilis 

he  sought  for  his  In-other  Simon,   whom  lie  presently  i  is  sometimes  preserved,  but  in  which  the  reference  still 

. 
brought  to  Jesus,   and  who.  in  like  manner,  became  a     is  to  U-ings  or  agencies  of  an  earthly  kind,  not  to  those 

disciple  of  the  Xazarene.  It  was  some  time,  however,  :  possessed  of  angelic  natures,  Of  that  description  pro- 
before  either  Andrew  or  Simon  left  their  regular  occu-  i  bably  is  1's.  civ.  -I.  quoted  in  He.  i.  7.  "who  maketh 
pation.  and  gave  themselves  to  constant  attendance  ;  his  angels  spirits,  his  ministers  a  rlamini;'  tire:'  for  the 
upon  the  ministry  of  Jesus.  And  even  after  they  did  '  rendering.  "  He  maketh  winds  his  messengers"  or  angels, 
this,  extremely  little  is  recorded  of  Andrew,  who  seems  ',  certainly  appears  to  tit  in  most  naturally  with  the  train  of 
to  have  been  much  inferior  to  his  brother  in  thosequali-  i  thought  in  the  psalm,  and  also  to  serve  best  the  purpose 
fications  which  are  required  for  taking  a  lead  in  public  for  which  it  is  introduced  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
affairs.  He  is  mentioned  individually  on  but  three  Of  the  same  description  are  those  passages  in  v.hieh 
occasions— once,  when  the  difficulty  presented  itself  of  the  term  is  applied  to  prophets,  as  pel-sons  commis 
feeding  the  five  thousand  that  waited  on  ( 'hrist.  and  sioned  bv  (Jod  to  deliver  messages  in  his  name:  thus 
when  he  signified  that  a  lad  was  there  who  had  five  Haggai  is  called  the  Lord's  angel,  cli.  i.  i:i  (mmsenycr  in 
barlcv  loaves  and  two  fishes.  Jn.  vi.U;  again,  when  he  Lnirlish  version*,  as  is  Messiah's  forerunner  in  .Mai.  iii. 
took  some  part  in  introducing  certain  (Irctks  to  Jesus.  1  :  and  the  epithet  is  even  applied  to  Israel  u'enerallv. 
who  were  anxious  to  see  him  .Fii.  \ii.  £> :  and  tinallv.  with  reference  more  especially  to  his  prophetical  calling. 
when,  ahum1  with  Peter,  James,  and  John,  he  went  pri-  as  appointed  bv  ( iod  t"  IK-  the  liu'ht  and  benefactor  «t 
vateK  to  Jesus  to  get  a  fuller  revelation  of  his  mind  the  \\orld.  Is;i.  xlii.  in.  So.  again,  and  with  reference 
respecting  the  destruction  of  the  temple-buildings,  M:u  merely  to  anothi-r  a-pect  of  the  i  It-legated  trust  com 
x.n.  :;  This  wa.-  the  onlv  occasion  on  whieh  Andrew  initted  t<>  the  covenant- people,  there  an-  passages  m 
is  related  to  have  been  admitted  with  the  other  three  '  which  the  priesthood  lias  the  term  applied  to  it:  as  at 
to  a  more  private  int.  rvit-w  with  Jesus,  and  t"  witness  Mai.  i: .  7.  "The  priest's  lips  should  keep  knowledge,  and 
a  manifestation  of  his  divine  fulness,  which  was  with-  thi-v  should  seek  the  law  at  his  mouth:  for  he  is  the 
held  from  the  re-i .  l-'nr  anything;  farther,  we  knew  angel  (English  version,  messenger)  of  the  Lord  of  hosts.'1 
simplv  that  Andrew  took  part  with  his  brethren  in  their  This  plainly  is  said.  ii"t  of  each  individual  priest,  but 
apostolic  labours,  and  shared  the  common  perils  of  their  of  the  priesthood  as  a  bodv  :  collectively  they  were  the 
calling:  but  in  what  precise  departments  of  labmir.  «r  Lonl'.-  authorized  ministry,  his  anu'el  to  make  known 
throiurh  what  spet  itic  trial.-  and  ditticulties.  we  have  no  to  the  people  the  things  pertaining  to  his  will  and  w  .,r 
information  in  Scripture  t.r  in  other  reci mis  <  >t  authentic  ship.  And  the  same  explanation  substantially  i-  to  be 
history.  Trailition.  in  one  of  its  forms,  speaks  of  hi-  given  of  a  passage  in  Lcclesiastes.  often  little  under- 
having  gone  preaching  the  gosjK'1  to  Seythia  ;  in  another,  stood,  di  \  i-ii :  "\\'hett  thoii  vowesl  a  vow  unto  ( !«.tl. 
to  Or.eee;  in  -till  other-,  to  A-ia  M  i  nor.  'I'hrai  e.  \c.  defer  ni.t  topa\  it:  for  he  hath  no  pleasure  in  fools 
i  l-'.useb.  I/ in/,  iii.  I:  t<n),hrnn.  "/'.  lli<rai'.  •  /•  tirriji.  ;  pay  that  v\  h'u-li  thou  ha.-t  vowetl.  1  letter  is  it  that  ihon 
\icf]ifi.  ii.  !'">  :  and  finallv  reports  him  to  hav.  -ntt'ered  should,  -i  not  vow.  than  that  thou  shoiiltlest  vow  and 
martyrdom  at  1'atra-  in  Achaia.  on  the  peculiar  form  of!  not  pay.  Suiter  not  thy  mouth  to  cause  thy  flesh  to 
cross,  ''/'I'. /'  iii  i-ii,*..-!!/!!  i  X  '.  which  --til!  bear.-  hi-  nam.  .  sin:  inither  say  thou  before  the  aii^cl  ti;at  it  was  an 
I  lilt  no  trace  is  found  of  these  traditions  till  a  e,  .nipara-  error  :  that  is.  neither  ra.-hly  utter  with  thv  lips  what 
lively  kit'1  period  :  and  it  is  impossible  to  tell  what  tie  thon  hast  not  moral  strength  ami  fixedness  of  purpose 
-,'ive  of  credit,  or  whether  anv  cn-tlit  whate\t-r.  is  .hi.  enmrjli  to  pi-rforni  :  nor  if  tlioit  shotlldest  have  uttered 
to  them.  Mention  is  made  by  .-ome  early  writers  of  ;l  it  U"  before  the  priesthotitl.  the  Lord's  delegated  niinis- 
iiook  call'-d  the  •  Act-  of  Andrew."  and  also  of  -i  try  to  attend  to  such  things,  and  say  it  was  an  error. 

"Gospel   of   St.    Andrew,"    but  both  win-  held    by    the     thinking    to   -vt  oil'   bv   an    easy   confession,    that   thou 

• 

church  to  be  spurious  productions,  and  have  li.nj  qnce  hadst  don.  \\roiiu;'  in  making  the  vow.  These  later 
|ierished.  uses  of  the  word  iimjil.  in  the  ( >ld  Testament,  to  denote 

ANDRONICUS  [man  conijmroi-}.    a   kinsman  and     those  who  were  delegated  by  the  Lonl  to  tit,  prophetical 

or    prie-tlv    work      strictly,    indeed,    in    each    case,     the 
work  of  authoritative  instruction  and  oversight     serve 

linguist  led  hi  m-.  If  in  the  faith  and  labours  of  a  ( 'hri-tian  also  to  t  \  plain  the  peculiar  expression  in  the  addresses 
life,  that  he  had  acquired  a  name  among  the  apostle.-  to  the  seven  churches  of  A-ia  in  the  Apocalypse,  which 
generally.  In  calling  A  ndroniciis  his  fellow  prisoner,  were  sent  t<>  "the  angels  of  the  churches."  r'rom  the 
the  apostle  must  have  referred  t<>  some  previous  part  of  Old  Testament  usage,  which  i.-  here  undoubtedly  fol 
his  history,  when  they  had  suffered  together  for  the  lowed,  the  word  determines  nothing  as  to  the  question, 
cause  of  ( 'hrist  :  for  at  the  time  he  wrote  to  the  Roman.-  whether  what  is  m.  ant  by  <i,u/<l  was  one  individual  or  a 
he  was  not  in  bonds.  I',...  xvi.  7.  collection  of  individuals:  it  simply  designates  the  party. 

A 'NER  [meaning  uncertain],  a  Canaanite  chief,  who.  whether  consisting  of  one  or  more,  to  whom  belonged 
with  Esi-hol  and  Mannv.  joined  Abraham  in  pursuini;  the  authoritative  instruction  and  oversight  of  the  (Jhris- 
the  host  of  (  'hedorlaomer.  Gc.  xiv.  ;  also  the  name  of  a  ti;l!1  '••immunity  in  the  several  churches,  and  by  the 
Levitical  town  in  tin-  tribe  of  Munasseh.  i  ch.  vi.  ;...  VC17  name  suggests  the  greatness  and  responsibility  of 

ANGELS  [in  Creek  «77(-\ot.  and  in   Ht-bn-w   =^c.      the  trust. 

(  leiierallv  sjieaking,   however,   when    angels  are  men- 

Mlakiui].  Both  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  terms  originally  ti,,lu.(1  in  Scripture,  it  is  with  reference  to  sup,-rhuman 
ini]iort  any  kind  of  pel-sons  or  agencies  sent  forth— me*-  '  existences  rational  and  immortal  beings,  but  ttjjirltf. 
seHi/ws/andthey  are  occasionally  employed  in  Scripture  ;ls  contradistinguished  from  men  in  Mesh  and  blood, 
in  this  original  sense,  though  usually,  in  such  cases,  the  '  the  tenants  of  regions  suited  to  their  ethereal  natures, 
rendeiing  in  our  Knglish  version  is  not  angels,  but  mes-  not  occupying  a  local  habitation  mi  earth.  Yet.  even 
sengers.  (For  L-X.  Job  i  ll,  l  Sa.  xi.  :!;  Lu.  ix  .v>.)  There  arc  when  thus  limited,  there  is  considerable  latitude  in  the 


ANGELS 


ANGELS 


expression,  ;u;il  several  orders  of  being  are  comprised 
in  it.  1.  First,  there  are  those  more  commonly  under 
stood  liv  the  expression— the  aii'jvls  of  heuvcii,  or  of 
God,  ;is  they  are  called,  Mat.  xxiv.  30  ;  xiii. -II  ;  Jn.  i.  r>l  ;  M.-it. 
&\ii.  30.  They  are  nanu  d  in  eonnection  with  heaven, 
as  having  their  more  peculiar  abode  then.1,  where  are 
also  the  brighter  manifestations  of  the  divine  presence 
and  glory,  ami  which  is  always  represented  as,  rela 
tively  to  this  world  of  ours,  a  higher  and  more  blissful 
region.  God's  angels,  also,  they  are  emphatically  called ; 
not  merely  because  they  derived  their  being  from  him, 
and  are  sustained  by  his  power  for  this  belongs  to 
them  in  common  with  all  creation  -but  more  especially 
because  th^y  are  in  ;:  state  of  peculiar  nearness  to  Cod, 
and  are  his  immediate  agents  in  executing  the  purposes 
of  his  will.  It  is  as  possessing  the  ministry  of  such 
glorious  agents,  and  possessing  it  in  vast  numbers  as 
well  as  invincible  strength,  that  lie  takes  to  himself 
the  name  of  "  the  Lord  of  hosts''—  the  head  of  angelic 
myriads,  who  ever  hearken  to  his  voice,  and  are  ready 
t  )  fulfil  his  pleasure.  2.  Then  there  are  the  angels  of 
darkness,  vvlio  are  scarcely  ever  designated  simply  angels, 
or  the  angels,  but  usually  with  some  qualifying  terms, 
indicative  of  their  real  character  and  position — such  as 
"'the  d  vil's  angels,"  as  contrasted  with  the  angels  of 
God;  or  the  "angels  that  sinned,"  "that  kept  not 
their  iirst  estate,"  in  contradistinction,  as  well  to  what 
they  themselves  once  were,  as  to  the  party  that  remained 
steadfast,  M:,t.  xxv.  II  ;  -2  IV.  ii.  -I ;  Jink'  (i.  :j .  Finally,  there 
is  tlte  angel,  by  way  of  eminence — one  who,  from  the 
epithets  applied  to  him,  and  the  acts  ascribed  to  him, 
appears  to  be  infinitely  raised  above  all  besides  who 
b,:ar  the  name  of  angel— designated  sometimes  "the 
angel  of  the  Lord's  presence,"  "the  angel  in  whom  his 
name  is,"  "the  angel  of  the  covenant  and  Lord  of  the 
temple,"  "  .Michael  the  archangel."  I.-.  Km.  :>;  K\.  xxiii.  L>I; 
Mill.  iii.  1;  Juleii,  &i'.,  and  represented  as  offering  up  the 
prayers  of  God's  people,  discomfiting  their  enemies  and 
symbolically  taking  possession  of  the  whole  world  as 
his  proper  heritage.  Re.  viii.  3 ;  xii.  7 ;  x.  2.  It  is  uniformly 
but  one  being  to  whom  such  peculiar  acts  and  designa 
tions  are  ascribed  ;  they  are  never  spoken  of  as  belonging 
to  a  company,  or  as  .-shared  by  one  in  common  with 
some  others  ;  and,  as  they  clearly  imply  divine  proper 
ties,  and  performances  strictly  mediatorial  and  redemp 
tive,  they  can  be  understood  of  none  but  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  lYeci-ely  as  he  was  called  ••//,,>  apostle  and 
high-priest  of  our  profession."  from  being  in  these 
respects  the  original  and  perfection  of  which  others 
were  but  the  copy  ;  so  in  a  sense  altogether  peculiar  he 
bore  the  name  of  angel,  because  he  was,  as  no  other 
could  be,  the  delegate  of  .Heaven  to  sinful  men  — "He 
whom  the  Father  sent"  to  reveal  to  them  his  counsel, 
and  for  ever  establish  the  covenant  of  their  peace. 

It  is  only  to  those  comprised  in  the  first  of  these 
three  divisions  that  the  name  of  angels  is  distinctively 
appropriated,  and  respecting  whom  wo  have  now  to 
adduce  the  testimony  and  information  of  Scripture. 
This  may  be.  briefly  presented  under  two  points  of  in 
quiry  -  first,  What,  according  to  the  revelations  of 
Scripture,  is  their  own  state!  and  then,  What,  in  rela 
tion  to  us,  is  their  proper  function  and  employment  .' 

1.  In  regard  to  the  iirst  point,  the  language  of  Scrip 
ture  always  pre>ents  the  angels  to  our  view  as  in  the 
most  elevated  state  of  intelligence,  purity,  and  bliss. 
.Kndowed  with  faculties  which  fit  them  for  the  highest 
sphere  of  existence,  they  excel  in  strength,  and  without 


injury  can  endure  the  intuition  of  God,  Ps.  ciii.  20 ;  Jiut.  xviii. 
10.  In  moral  excellence  they  are  equally  exalted,  and 
are  therefore  called  emphatically  "the  holy  angels," 
"elect  angels,"  "angels  of  light,"  Mar.  viii.  ^s  ;  rri.  v.  21; 
.'Co.  \i.  11;  and  are  represented  as  ever  doing  the  will  of 
God--  doing  it  so  uniformly  and  perfectly  that  we  can 
seek  for  nothing  higher  and  better  in  ourselves  than  to 
aim  at  being  like  them.  Nor  in  the  sphere  of  their 
being  and  enjoyment  is  there  aught  of  want  or  disorder; 
all  is  in  delightful  harmony  with  their  natural  and 
moral  perfections  ;  and  to  have  our  destiny  associated 
with  theirs  -  our  condition  made  equal  to  theirs,  in  its 
functions  of  life  and  elements  of  blessing—- is  set  forth 
as  the  very  glory  of  the  resurrection-state  to  which 
Christ  has  called  us,  Lu.  x.\.  "i;;  Iiu.  xii.  22.  The  two,  indeed, 
may  not  be  in  all  respects  identical;  but  that  which 
is  exhibited  as  the  pattern  cannot,  in  any  essential 
respect,  be  inferior  to  what  is  to  be  fashioned  after  it. 

That  the  angelic  state  was  from  the  first  substan 
tially  what  it  still  is  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  from  the 
general  tenor  of  the  scriptural  representations.  Yet. 
in  these  a  certain  change  is  indicated  ;  not,  indeed, 
from  evil  to  good,  or  from  feebleness  to  strength,  but 
from  a  state  in  which  it  was  at  least  possible  to  fall,  to 
another  in  which  this  lias  ceased  to  be  possible — to  a 
state  of  abiding  holiness  and  endless  felicity.  The 
actual  fall  and  perdition  of  a  portion  of  their  number 
implies  that,  somehow,  the  possibility  we  speak  of  did 
at  one  period  exist  ;  and  the  angels  that  kept  their  first 
estate,  and  have  received  the  designation  of  elect  augx  Is 
— yea,  are  ranked  among  the  ministers  and  members 
of  Christ's  eternal  kingdom  -  must  have  made-  some 
advance  in  the  security  of  their  condition.  And  this, 
we  naturally  think,  must  infer  some  advance  also  in 
relative  perfection;  for  absolute  security  to  rational 
beings  in  the  enjoyment  of  life  and  blessing  we  can 
only  conceive  of  as  the  result  of  absolute  holiness  ;  they 
have  it —they  alone,  we  imagine,  can  have  it— in  whom 
holiness  has  become  so  deeply  rooted,  so  thoroughly 
pervasive  of  all  the  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  their 
being,  that  these  can  no  longer  feel  and  act  but  in  sub 
servience  to  holy  aims  and  principles  of  righteousness. 
So  far,  therefore,  the  angels  appear  to  have  become 
what  they  now  are — that  a  measure  of  security,  and. 
by  consequence,  a  degree  of  perfection— whether  in 
spiritual  knowledge  or  in  moral  energy  is  now  theirs. 
which  sometime  was  not. 

1'rom  the  representations  of  Scripture,  there  is  room 
also  for  another  distinction  in  regard  to  the  state  of 
angels,  though,  like  the  one  just  noticed,  it  cannot  bo 
more  than  generally  indicated  or  vaguely  apprehended. 
The  distinction  we  refer  to  is  a  diversity  in  rank  and 
power,  which,  there  seems  ground  for  asserting,  exists 
among  the  heavenly  hosts.  There  are  indications  in 
Scripture  of  something  like  angelic  orders.  For.  though 
the  term  archanycl  cannot  be  applied  in  this  connec 
tion,  being  used  only  as  the  designation  of  a  single 
personage — whom  we  take  to  be  the  Messiah  vet  the 
name  Gabriel  (hero,  or  mighty  one  of  God'),  assumed 
by  the  particular  angel  who  announced  to  Zacharias 
the  birth  of  John  the  Baptist,  Lu.  i.  in,  seems  to  import 
that  he  stood  in  some  nearer  relationship  to  God  than 
others  ;  it  appears  to  distinguish  him,  not  from  men-  - 
for  his  angelic  nature  alone  was  there  a  sufficient  dis 
tinction —  but  from  other  angels  less  elevated  in  power 
and  glory.  So  also,  in  IJe.  xviii.  21,  we  read  of  "a 
mighty  angel,"  as  if  all  were  not  precisely  such.  Then, 


ANfiELS  ANGELS 

ia  various  places  there  is  an  accumulation  of  epithets,  as  these,  "The  angel  of  the  Lord  onciunpt-th  round 
as  of  different  orders,  when,  referring  to  the  heavenly  about  them  that  fear  him.  and  dclivereth  them;"  "He 
inhabitants,  as  in  Kp.  i.  L'U,  :>].  where  Christ  is  said  to  shall  give  his  angels  eharire  concerning  thee  to  keep 
be  exalted  ''above  all  prineipality.  and  power,  and  thee  in  all  thy  ways  :  they  shall  bear  thee  up  in  their 
might,  and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named.  .  hands,  lest  thou  dash  thyfootagahista  stone,'' l's.  xxxiv  :: 
not  only  in  this  world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  !  \ci.  11,1^.  Similar  representations  ,,f  angelic  agencv 
coine;"  and  in  1  Pe.  iii.  '2'2,  where  he  is  again  said,  in  !  are  contained  in  New  Testament  scripture,  and  occupy, 
his  heavenly  exaltation,  to  have  "angels,  principalities,  indeed,  a  more  prominent  place,  in  conformity  with  the 
and  powers  made  subject  to  him.''  P>ut  if  such  expres-  '  general  character  and  design  of  the  gospel  to  render 
sions,  appear  to  render  probable  or  certain  the  existence  more  patent  the  connection  between  this  lower  world 
of  some  kind  of  personal  distinctions  among  the  angels  and  the  world  of  spirits.  So  that  it  is  onlv  what  mi^ht 
of  glory,  it  leaves  all  minuter  details  respecting  it  uniler  have  been  expected  beforehand,  when  we  learn  that 
a  veil  of  impenetrable  secrecy.  And  to  pn-mne.  like  our  Lord,  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  was  from  time  to 
the  ancient  .Jews,  to  single  out  four,  or  seven  primarv  time  ministered  to  bv  the  anircls  ;  that,  on  ascending  to 
anu'els  :  or.  like  the  IJabhins.  to  distribute  the  ang.-!i'-  the  regions  of  glory,  hi'  had  the  angels  made  subject  to 
hosts  into  ten  separate  classes:  or.  still  again,  with  him  for  carrying  forward  the  operations  ,,f  his  king- 
many  ot  the  Scholastics,  to  distribute  them  into  nine  dom  :  that  various  commission^  of  importance  were 
orders  or  choirs,  each  consisting  of  three  classes,  rcgu-  executed  through  their  lustrum, -ntalit v  during  the  life- 
larly  -raduated  in  knowledge  and  authority,  is  vainly  time  of  th"  apostles;  and  that,  gcnerallv,  the  doeti-ine 
to  intrude  into  those  things  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  concerning  tin-in  is  aniinunoed.  for  the  comfort  of  be 
am!  to  attempt  being  \\  i>e  above  what  is  \\ritteii.  lievers,  "  that  they  are  all  ministering  spirits  sent  forth 
<  'alvin.  with  his  accustom. -d  sense  and  -ravity.  remark-  to  minister  to  those  \\  h»  aiv  lieii-s  ,  ,f  salvation."  M,,r  i.  i  : ; 

"If   we  would   I  >e  truly  wise,  we   shall  give  no   heed  Lu.  xxii.  4:i;  Mii.  ii.  n>;  11V.  iii. -Jl  ;  Ac   xii.;IIe.i   II. 

to   those   foolish  notions  \\hieh  liave   been  d. -liv.  red  by  In  regard,  how.-v.-r.  to  the  kind  of  services  \\hi.-h  are 

idle   nii'ii   concerning  angelic   orders,   \\ithmit    warrant  actually  rendered  to  believers  by  the  ministry  of  angels, 

from  the  Won!  of  Cod"  i //i.v'.  i.  o.   II.  |i.  or  the  ben-tit-  \\  hicli   may  ju-tl\   lie  expected   from  it, 

[n  whatever  the  distinctions  among  angels  mav  con-  we  know  too  little  of  the  nexus  which  binds  together 
sist.  or  to  whatever  extent  it  may  reach,  it  cannot  in  in  anv  partieular  ease  the  world  of  sense  with  the 
the  least  interfere  with  the  happiness  tln-y  individuallv  world  of  spirits,  to  be  able  with  much  accuracy  to  de- 
enjoy.  For  this  happiness  arises,  in  tin-  first  instance,  termine.  Negatively,  we  can  so  far  define  as  to  exclude 
from  e.ieh  bein^  in  a  proper  relation  to  the  <  livat  (  'entre  from  the  field  of  their  agency  the  actual  communication 
of  life  and  blessing ;  and  then,  from  their  In  in-;  ap  of  life  and  grace  to  the  soul.  Nowhere  is  this  ascribed 
pointed  to  occupy  such  a  sphere,  and  take  part  in  such  to  them  in  Scripture  ;  on  1hocontrarv.it  is  uniformK 
services  and  employments,  as  are  alt"-vt!n -r  adapted  to  re], resented  as  an  es.-eiitiallv  divine  work,  and  therefore 
tlnir  state  and  faculties.  Th.'s,-  fundamental  condi-  not  to  lie  accomplished  by  a  created  agency.  leather. 
tions  l)eing  preserved,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  certain  Son.  and  Sjiirit  are  hen-  the  onlv  effective  agents, 
diversities,  both  in  natural  capacity  and  in  relative  po-  working,  in  so  far  as  subordinate  means  are  employed, 
sition.  may  bo  perfectly  compatible  with  their  mutual  through  a  human,  not  an  angelic  instrumentality,  in 
satisfaction  and  general  \s<  11- beiiiLT.  and  mav  even  con-  connection  with  the  word  and  ordinances  of  the  e.'"spel. 
tribute  to  secure  it  For  it.  may  tend  to  the  happy  The  things  \\hich  coin.-  \\ithin  th  -  -pin  iv  of  an-' lie 
order  am!  adjustment  of  the  several  parts.  ministration  bear  incidentally  upon  the  work  of  salva- 

•J.   The  information   of  Scripture  is  ^om, -what   more  tion,  rather  than  directly  touch  it ;  and.  as  regards  the 

varied  and  s|iecitic  upon    tin-  othi-r  point  of  inquiry  ordinary  history  of  the  Church  and  the  common  experi- 

their  proper  function  and    i  mployiii,  lit    in   relation   to  enee  of   believers,  they  have  to  do  with  the  averting  of 

us;  for  it  is  with  this  that  we  have  more  especially  to  evils  \\hich  miirht    too  seriouslv  afled   the   interests  of 

do.      In  not  a   few  passa-vs  tin  ir  kn»-A  l,-d-_v   of   \\hat  righteousness,  or  tin-  bringing  about  of  results  and  ope- 

pi-rtams  to  affairs  on  earth  is  distinctly  intimated;   and  rations  in  th'-  \\orld  which   are  fitted  to  ],roinote  them. 

their  inteivst  also  in  it  is  expressed,  as  yield  in  ur  an  occa-  When  it  is  r,  11,-cted  how  min-h  even  the  children  of  ( Jod 

sion  of  joy,    or  a  deeper  insight  into  the  purposes  of  an-  dependent  u],,,n  circumstances  of  <j-,,od  ,,r  evil,  and 

<!od.     Tin!-,   they  are  spoken  of  as  frequently  taking  how  much  for  the  cause  of  ( ;<»!,  whether  in   tin-  world 

part  in  communications  made  fr,,m  heaven   to  earth  at  lar-v  or  in  th<-  case  of  .-in-le  individiials.  oft'-n  turns 

as  desiring  to  look  into  the  things  which  concern  the  upon  a  particular  event  in    providence,  one  can   easily 

scheme   of  salvation      as   learning  from   the   successive  s,-e  what   ample    room    tin-re   mav    be   in    the    world   for 

evolution  of  the  divine  plan  more  than  tin  v  otherwise  such  timely  and  subtile  influences  as  the  quick  messengers 

knew  of  (Jod's  manifold  wisdom    -as  rejoicing  together  of   li'.;ht    are  capable  of   impart  in-'.       It    mi-Jit   be   too 

at  the  birth  of  Jesus,  and  even  over  the  return  of   indi-  much  to  sav.  as  has   occa.-ioiiallv  been   said    by  divines, 

vidual  wanderers  to  his  fold,  1  Pu.  i.  12;  Ep.  iii.  Hi;  Lu.  ii.  13;  that  all  the    beneficent    powers  of  nature   are  under  an- 

xv.  in.      I !ut  there  are  other  passages  in  which  they  are  gelic  direction,  and  that  every  auspicious  event  is  owing 

represented  as  directly  and  actively  ministering  to  the  to   their  interference  ;   there   are,  at    least,  no  sufficient 

good  of  believers,  and  shielding  or  delivering  them  from  grounds  in  Scripture  mi  which  to  build  so  sweeping  an 
the  evils  incident  to  their  earthly  lot.  The  office  of.  inference.  Rut,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  possible 

angels  in  this  respect  was  distinctly  understood  even  in  to  err  in  the  opposite  direction;   and  as  Scripture  gives 

Old  Testament  times,  as  is  implied  alone  in  the  name  us  clearly  to  understand,  that  there  are  myriads  of  an- 

the  "Lord  of  hosts."  so  often  given  there  to  (lod  in  liis  gelic  beings  in  the  heavenly  world,  who  are  continually 

relation  to  the  covenant-people—  in  the  frequent  inter-  I  ascending  and  descending  on  errands  of  mercy  for  men 

position   of    angels   to   disclose   tidings    or    accomplish  on  earth,  it  may  not  be  doubted  that,  in  many  a  change 

works  of  deliverance  —  and  in   such  general  assurances  which  takes  place  around  us,  there  are  important  opera- 

VOL.  I.  '      12 


ANKLET 


t  ions  performed  b\  them,  as  well    as    by  the   ostensible 
actors  and  by  the  material  agencies  of  nature. 

Jiut  whatever  individuals  or  the:  collective  body  of 
believers  may  owe  to  this  source,  there  arc  certain  laws 
and  limitations  under  which  it  must  always  be  under 
stood  to  be  conveyed.  The  fundamental  ground  of 
these  is,  that  the  e-tiicieney  of  angels  is  essentially  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  the  several  Persons  of  the  <iod- 
hcad  ;  it  is  such  merely  as  one  finite  being  is  capable 
of  exercising  toward  another.  Consequently,  it  never 
can  involve  anv  violent  interference  with  the  natural 
(towers  of  thought  and  reason  in  those  who  are  the 
subjects  of  it;  it  must  adapt  itself  to  the  laws  of  reci 
procal  action  established  between  finite  beings,  and  so 
can  only  work  to  the  ha. id.  or  set  bounds  to  the  actings 
of  nature-,  cannot  bring  into  play  elements  that  are  ab 
solutely  new.  Hence,  as  a  further  necessary  deduction, 
all  that  is  done  bv  angels  must  be  dene  in  connection 
with,  ami  by  means  of  natural  causes:  and  only  by 
intensifying,  or  in  some  particular  way  directing  these-, 
can  thc-v  exert  anv  decisive  influence  on  the  events  in 
progress.  Thus,  at  the  Pool  of  Jic-thesda  the  angel's 
power  wrought  through  the  waters,  not  independently 
of  them;  at  He-rod  Agrippa's  death,  through  the  worms 
that  consumed  him;  at  the  jail  of  I'hilippi,  through  the 
earthquake  that  shook  the  foundations  of  the  building; 
and  if  thus  in.  these  more  peculiar,  certainly  not  less  in 
the  more  regular  and  ordinary  interpositions  of  their 
]  lower.  J^>ut  this  take's  nothing  from  the  comfort  or 
efficacy  of  their  ministrations  ;  it  only  implies  that  these 
ministrations  are  incapable  of  being  viewed  apart  from 
the  channels  through  which  they  come,  and  that  the 
beings  who  render  them  are  not  to  be  taken  as  the 
objects  of  a  personal  regard  and  adoring  reverence. 
Hence,  while  the  hearts  of  believers  are  cheered  by  the 
thought  of  the  ministry  of  angels,  the  worshipping  of 
angels  has  been  from  the  first  expressly  interdicted,  Col. 

ii.  1-  ;    Ue-    sxi'.ft 

\  arious  fanc'ful  and  groundless  notions  have  been 
entertained  on  the  subject  of  angelic  ministrations,  and 
still  to  some  extent  prevail ;  such  as  that  a  part  of  their 
number  are  separated  for  the  special  work  of  praise:  in 
the  heavenly  places,  and  observe  hours  of  devotion; 
that  angels  act  as  a  kind  of  subordinate  intercessors, 
mediating  between  believers  and  Christ ;  that  individual 
angels  are  appointed  as  guardians  to  particular  persons, 
or  (as  it  has  sometimes  been  believed)  that  each  indi 
vidual  has  both  a  good  and  a  bad  angel  attending  on 
him  in  particular.  Of  such  notions,  this  latter  id, -a  of 
guardian  angels  to  every  believer,  and  even  to  every 
child,  is  the  only  one  that  in  Protestant  countries  can 
be  said  now  to  find  support;  it  is  based  more  especially 
on  the  saying  of  our  Lord  in  ^lat.  xviii.  10,  "Take 
heed,  that  ye'  despise  not  one  of  these;  little-  ones;  for  I 
say  unto  you,  that  ill  heaven  their  angels  do  alwavs 
behold  the  face  of  my  J-'ather.  which  is  in  heaven."  ( tin- 
Lord,  however,  is  not  speaking  he-re  of  little  children 
as  such,  but  of  his  disciples  under  the  character  of  little 
children  (whom,  in  humility  aiiel  lowliness  of  spirit,  he 
had  presented  as  their  proper  type)  ;  nor  does  he  speak 
of  individual  relationships  subsisting  between  these  and 
the  angels,  but  rather  of  the  common  interest  they  have 
in  angelic  ministrations,  ready  to  be  applied  as  ench  one 
of  them  has  need.  JUit  of  a  separate  guardianship  for 
each  individual,  there  is  not  a  word  dropped  he-re,  nor  in 
any  other  part  of  Scripture.  Even  in  Ac.  xii.  7,  where 
a  very  special  work  had  to  be  dune  for  Peter  by  the 


hand  of  an  angel,  there  is  nothing  of  the  historian's  own 
that  implies  any  individual  or  personal  relationship  of 
the  one  to  the  other;  the  angel  is  not  called  Peter's 
anu'el.  nor  is  the  angel  represented  as  waiting  upon  him 
like  a  tutelary  guardian;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  desig 
nated  "the  angel  of  the  Lord,"'  •and  is  spoken  of  as 
coming  to  1'eter  to  do  the  particular  office  required, 
and  departing  again  from  him  when  it  was  done.  Jt  is 
true,  the  inmates  of  .Mary's  house,  when  they  could  not 
credit  the  report  of  the  damsel,  that  Peter  himself  was 
at.  the  door,  said,  as  if  finding  in  the  thought  the  only 
conceivable  explanation  of  the- matter,  "  Jtishis  angel." 
But,  as  Ode  lias  justly  remarked  (f)i'  A-nyJla,  §  viii. 
c.  4),  "Jt  is  not  everything  that  is  recorded  by  the 
evangelists  as  spoken  by  the  .lews,  or  even  by  the 
disciples  of  Christ,  which  is  sound  and  worthy  of  credit. 
Nor  can  what  in  this  particular  case  was  true  of  Peter 
be:  afthmed  of  all  believers,  or  ought  it  to  be  so.  And, 
indeed,  that  Peter  himself  did  not  believe  that  a  par 
ticular  angel  was  assigned  to  him  for  guardianship, 
clearly  enough  appears  from  this,  that  when  Peter  got 
out  of  the  prison,  and  followed  the  angel  as  his  guide', 
he  did  not  as  yet  know  it  to  be  true  that  an  angel  was 
the  actor,  but  thought  he  saw  a  vision  :  and  at  length, 
after  the  departure  of  the  angel,  having  come  to 
himself,  he  said,  '  Xow,  1  know  of  a  surety  that  the 
Lord  hath  sent  his  anf/d,  and  delivered  me  from  the 
hand  of  Herod.'"'  (For  evil  eir  fallen  angels,  sec 
DEMONS,  DKVIL.) 

ANGLING,     fief  FISH. 

ANIMAL  FOOD.     See  FOOD. 

ANISE.     Sec  DILL. 

ANKLET;  an  ornament  inaele  of  gold,  silver,  or 
ivory,  and  worn  about  the  ankle  by  the  gayer  portion 
of  the  female  sex  in  various  oriental  countries,  both  in 
ancient  and  in  modern  times,  for  the  purpose  chiefly  of 
attracting  notice,  and  drawing  upon  them  the  eyes  of 
men.  They  were  so  constructed  as  to  produce  a  sort 
of  tinkling  noise  when  the  persein  walked;  and.  though 
they  are  not  expressly  named  in  Scripture,  yet  they  are 
undoubtedly  referred  to  by  Isaiah,  when,  annmg  other 
excesses  in  the  use  of  female  ornaments,  he  describes 
tin;  daughters  of  Zion  as  "  walking  and  mincing  as  the}' 
go,  and  making  a  tinkling  with  their  feet,"  ch.  iii.  1C. 
.It  has  been  supposed  that  they  are  also  alluded  to  in 
the  Koran,  (c.  xxv.),  where,  amid  various  injunctions  re 
specting  proper  modesty  of  attire  and  behaviour,  women 
are  ordered  "not  to  make  a  noise  with  their  feet,  that 
their  ornaments  which  they  hide  may  be  discovered." 
Such  is  Sale's  translation;  but  Savary  renders,  ''Let 
them  not  move  about  their  feet,  so  as  to  allow  those 
charms  to  be  seen  which  ought  to  be  veiled,"  so  that  it 
may  well  be  doubted  if  the  passage  contains  any  allu 
sion  tei  anklets.  Ornaments  of  this  description,  how 
ever,  were  undoubtedly  in  frequent  use  among  many 
of  the  ancient  nations,  and  to  this  day  still  exist  in 
Fgvpt,  India,  and  elsewhere  throughout  the  East. 
Specimens  are  given  of  them  in  the  ring  form  by  Wil 
kinson  (Ancient  Egyptians,  iii.  375),  and  by  Lane  in  his 
Modern  Eyyptiana,  iii.  App.  A.  He  says  of  them  — 
"  Anklets  (klnilklu'd]  of  solid  gold  or  silver,  and  of  the 
form  here  sketched,  are  worn  by  some  ladies,  but  are 
more  uncommon  than  they  formerly  were.  They  are, 
eif  course,  very  heavy,  and.  knocking  together  as  the 
wearer  walks,  make  a  ringing  noise ;  hence,  it  is  said 
in  a  song,  '  The  ringing  of  thine  anklets  has  deprived 
me  of  reason.'"  He  adds-,  a  little  further  on,  that 


ANNA 

"  small  kku.lkli.dlii  of  iron  are  worn  by  many  children. 
Jt  was  also  a  common  custom  among  the  Arabs  for 
girls  or  young  women  to  wear  a  string  of  bells  on  their 


feet.  1  have  seen  many  little  girls  in  Cairo  with  small 
round  bells  attached  to  their  anklets."  He  thinks  that 
it  i>  to  anklets  of  thi-  description  that  the  prophet  Isaiah 
probably  alludes  in  the  pa.— age  above  referred  to;  but 
that  mav  lie  doubted. 

AN'NA,  .laughter  of  I'hanuel.  of  the.  tribe  of  Ash,  r, 
and.  at  the  period  wln-n  she  is  mentioned  in  the  gospel 
narrative,  a  widow  of  tip-  advanced  a-.-  of  ei-htv-four. 
She  is  described  as  a  prophetess,  n,,i  probublv  from  anv 
ivgular  or  stated  manifestation  of  prophetic  -ifts.  but 
because  she  was  one  of  those  whose  hearts  were  more 
st.-adfastly  .-,-1  on  the  e\|iectatioii  of  .M.  ssiah'.-  advent. 
and.  by  the  superior  grace  conferred  on  In  r.  was  enabled 
to  announce  his  presence  when  h--  aetuallv  appear.-d  in 
the  temple,  and  broke  forth  on  the  occasion  in  words 
of  thanksgiving  and  prai  -.  ;  .  IT.  That  .-In- should 

have  been  enabled  at  such  a  time  to  lake  this  part, 
indicated  tin-  possession  of  a  certain  measure  of  the 
prophetic  spirit.  The  more  peculiar  notice,  however, 
which  is  given  of  this  pious  woman,  is  contained  in  the 
words,  "  She  was  of  a  -n  at  age,  an  I  hail  lived  with  an 
husband  seven  years  from  h,  r  vir-'initv.  and  di-part>-d 
not  from  the  temple,  but  served  ^(!od)  with  fa.-tin-s 
and  prayers  night  and  day."  The  meaning  of  thi- 
statement  plainly  is.  that  Anna  had  lived  but  seven 
years  in  the  married  state;  that  having  th--u  lost  her 
husband,  in-tead  of  marrying  a -a  in.  or  takin-  up  with 
other  things,  she  devoted  herself  to  a  life  of  fastin-  and 
I  .raver,  continually  attending  upon  ih--  ministrations  of 
the  sanctuary.  Not  that  she  actually  had  apartments 
in  the  temple  buildings  for  tin-re  is  no  n  a-on  to  sup 
pose  that  any  females  had  such— but  that  she  stated! v 
presented  herself  there  aiiio-i-  the  wi.rshipii.-i>,  and 
took  part  in  the  services  which  were  proceeding.  Lv.-n 
from  the  earliest  times  then-  seem  to  have-  be.  n  pious 
females  dedicating  themselves  thus  to  a  sort  of  priest 
like  consecration  and  constant  service;  for  at  Lx. 
xxxviii.  ,s  the  l.-iv.r  of  brass  is  said  to  have  been  made 
out  of  the  mirrors  of  the  women  who  dailv  assembled 
at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle;  it  is,  literallv.  the  serv 
ing-women  who  served.  Anna,  in  her  latter  years, 
joined  herself  to  this  class  ;  and  in  answer  to  her  faith 
ful  and  devoted  service,  had  the  high  honour  conferred 
on  her  of  becoming  one  of  the  immediate  heralds  of  the 
Saviour  of  the  world. 

AN'NAS,  called  in  Josephus  ANA.NTS,  is  first  men 
tioned  by  St.  Luke  along  with  Caiaphas,  as  being  to 
gether  high-priests  at  the  period  when  John  the  llaptist 


ANOINT 

entered  on  his  ministry,  Lu.  m.  •>.  Ik-  is  mentioned  a 
few  years  later  in  the  narrative  of  our  Lord's  last  suf 
ferings,  not  as  the  high-priest,  but  as  the  father-in-law 
of  Caiaphas,  who  at  the  time  held  the  office,  and  as 
having  a  considerable  sway  in  the  management  of 
affairs,  for  when  Christ  was  sei/ed  by  the  band  of  offi 
cers  he  was  first  led  away  to  Annas.  .In.  xviii.  i;;.  And 
again,  at  a  period  somewhat,  though  not  verv  much 
later,  he  reappears  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke  in 
connection  with  the  persecution  of  the  apostles,  and  is 
styled  simply  the  high-priest,  while  Caiaphas.  John, 
and  Alexander  are  coupled  with  him  as  his  coadjutors 
and  kindred,  Ac.  iv.  G.  l',y  comparing  the  history  of 
Josephus  (Ant.  xviii.  ~2.  1  ;  xx.  In,  ]).  we  learn  that, 
during  the  active  ministry  of  our  Lord,  and  for  some- 
years  afterwards,  the  office  of  high,  priest,  in  its  stricter 
sense,  was  tilled  by  Caiaphas.  Ilia  the  term  lii-li- 
priest  I-'"  AlUATHAKI  was  v.ry  commonly  used  of  those 

:  who,  though  not  in  possession  of  the  office,  shared  with 
Is   possessor   the   bight  r   places    of  judicial   power   and 

authority;   for.  as  matters  st 1   in   the  apostolic  age, 

the  men-  work  .-f  ministering  in  holy  things,  peculiar  to 
the  high-priest's  office,  comprised  but  a  small  part  of 
the  prerogatives  connected  with  it.  And  there  never, 
perhaps,  was  a  person  who.  for  a  longer  pt  riod,  and 
with  a  more  influential  sway,  exercised  those  accessories 
of  priestly  rank  than  the  Annas  before  us.  He  had 
been  himself  hi-h  priest  fur  upwards  of  twentv  vears, 

:  and  no  fewer  than  five  of  his  sons,  and  his  son  in  law 
Caiaphas.  successively  held  the  office,  so  that,  he  could 
scarcely  fail  to  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  perpetual  hiidi- 
priest:  so  far.  ind.-i-d.  as  adiuini  -tratioii  was  concerned, 
the  virtual  hi-h  priest,  whether  he  was  aetuallv  in  the 
office  or  not.  This  sufficiently  explains  whv  he  should 
have  b,-,  n  called  high-priest  along  \\ithCaiaphas.  bv 
Luke,  and  why  so  promim  nt  a  share  should  have  been 
ascribed  to  him  both  by  Luke  and  John  in  the  transac 
tions  of  the  gospel  era.  And  then-  is  no  need  fur  -oing 
into  the  (mc.stiuii  whether  he  may  not  have  held  the 
official  presidency  «f  the  Sanhedrim,  even  when  lie  had 
'•'•a.-ed  to  bo  hiuh  priest;  a  ijuestioll  which  then-  an- 
not  sufficient  materials  for  determining,  and  one  on 
which,  in  such  a  case  as  thi.-.  noihin-  can  be  said  to 
depend. 

ANNUNCIATION.  Set  MAUY. 
ANOINT.  ANOINTINC.  The  practice  of  anoint 
ing  with  oil.  or  with  oil  in  I. -mi  in-led  with  certain  per 
fumes,  seem.-  to  have  been  of  great  antiquity  in  the 
warm  regions  of  the  Smith  and  Last.  Its  use  falls  into 
luo  leadin-  di\i.-ions  the  common  and  the  sacred; 

th n-  b.  in- designed  for  purposes  of  in vigoration  or 

refreshment,  the  other  as  a  symbol  and   m.-aiisof  con 
secration. 

I.  Probably  the  earliest  authentic  notice  or  repre 
sentation  of  the  use  of  oil  for  any  special  purpose,  is 
that  in  the  history  of  Jacob,  when,  afti  r  his  n  markable 
dream  at  IVthel,  lie  pound  oil  on  the  stone  that  had 
served  him  for  a  pillow.  This  belongs  to  the  religions 
use  of  oil;  but  as  the  ivli-ioiis  in  this,  as  in  other  things, 
doubtless  had  its  foundation  in  the  natural,  no  reason 
able  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  the  patriarchs  were 
then  in  the  habit  t.f  employing  it  on  ordinary  occasions. 
In  Kgypt  the  practice  of  anointing,  at  least  the  heads 
of  persons,  was  so  common  in  ancient  times  that  it  ap 
pears  to  have  been  among  the'  civilities  which  were 
shown  to  guests  when  they  entered  the  house  where 
tliev  were  t<>  be  entertained. 


ANOINT 


ANOINT 


The  pru-eticc  was  equallv  common  among  the  Greeks. 
In  tlu:  apostolic  age  it  was  so  common  among  the  Jews 
of  Palestine  that  our  Lord  could  notice  the  omission  of 
it  by  Simon  the  Pharisee  as  a  plain  mark  of  coldness, 
if  not  a  breach  of  civility,  I.u.  \ii.  m.  Put  the  unguents 
u-ed  en  such  occasions  in  later  times  seem  to  have 
been  perfumes  rather  than 
u  they  were 
in  which  the 

fragrance  of  the  perfume 
was  regarded  as  the  more 
peculiar  excellence.  Such, 
especially,  were  those  con 
tained  in  alabaster  boxes 
or  port  elain  vas  s,  whi<  h 
had  MI  strong  an  odour, 
and  in  which  the  several  in 
gredients  were  so  finely 
blended,  that  the  vessel  has 

been  known  to  retain  its  scent  for  hundreds  of  years. 
in  the  simpler  and  earlier  form,  however,  in  which 
the  custom  of  anointing  svas  practised,  the  oily  sub 
stance  appears  to  have  been  the  principal,  if  not  the 
only  article  employed;  and  the  main  object  in  using 
it  was  the  preservation  of  the  health  and  elasticity 
of  the  bodily  frame.  .For  this  it  was  serviceable  in 
the  hot  and  arid  countries  of  the  East.  The  clothing 
there  is  necessarily  thin,  and  the  exposure  to  heat 
and  sand  naturally  induces  a  feeling  of  lassitude,  or 
sometimes  of  irritation,  which  the  application  of  oil 
is  titled  to  relieve.  The  strong  evaporation,  also, 
caused  by  the  heat,  requires  to  be  met  by  oily  and 
odoriferous  unguents.  "Anointing  the  skin  prevents 
the  excessive  evaporation  of  the  fluids  of  the  body, 
and  acts  as  clothing  in  both  sun  and  shade." — (Living 
stone's  Travtla  in  >s'.  Africa,  p.  24(i.)  In  like  manner 
the  elder  Xiebuhr  testifies  that  in  Yemen,  where  the 
climate  is  only  some  degrees  warmer  than  in  Palestine, 
'•  the  anointing  of  the  body  is  believed  to  strengthen 
and  protect  it  from  the  heat  of  the  sun,  by  which  the 
inhabitants  of  this  province,  as  they  wear  but  little 
clothing,  are  very  liable  to  suiter.  Oil,  by  closing  up 
the  pores  of  the  skin,  is  supposed  to  prevent  that  too 
copious  perspiration  which  enfeebles  the  frame.  When 
the  intense  heat  comes  in  they  always  anoint  their 
bodies  with  oil."  The  allusions  to  the  practice,  in  Old 
and  New  Testament  scripture,  are  of  great  frequency, 
although,  in  by  far  the  greater  number  of  instances,  it 
is  evidently  spoken  of  as  a  species  of  luxury,  as  con 
nected  with  refreshment,  invigoration,  and  gladness 
still  more  than  with  health,  and  therefore,  in  all  proba 
bility,  consisting  in  the  application  of  /„  rfn ,,u  il_  oil,  and 
that  not  so  much  to  the  body  generally  as  to  the  head. 
In  a  variety  of  passages  it  is  directly  mentioned  as  a 
source  of  hilarity  and  joy,  as -in  Ps.  xxiii.  5,  ''Thou 
anointest  my  head  with  oil:"  Ps.  xlv.  7:  Pr.  xxi.  17, 
"  He  that  loveth  wine  and  oil  shall  not  be  rich;"  ch. 
xxvii.  it,  "  Ointment  and  perfume  rejoice  the  heart." 
In  another  set  of  passages  the  disuse  of  it  in  times  of 
mourning  is  represented  as  a  fit  and  proper  thing, 
among  other  signs  and  accompaniments  of  grief;  as  at 
•1  Sa.  xiv.  -2,  where  the  widow  of  Tekdah,  when  disguis 
ing  herself  as  a  mourner,  is  enjoined  not  to  anoint  her 
self  with  oil:  and  in  like  manner  Daniel,  when  engaged 
in  exercises  of  fasting  and  humiliation,  tells  us  he  did 
not  anoint  himself  at  all,  ch.  x.  3;  comp.  also  Is.  Ixi.  :i; 
Mi.  vi.  15;  Mat.  vi.  17.  In  still  another  class  of 


the  use  of  oil  with  the  sick  is  spoken  of  as  customary 
and  proper,  partly,  it  would  appear,  as  a  medicament, 
and  partly  as  a  proof  of  kind  and  sympathetic  treat 
ment,  Is.  i.  (i;  Mar.  vi.  i:j;  Ja.  v.  14.  In  these  two  latter 
cases,  which  mention  the  use  of  oil  in  immediate  con 
nection  with  the  cure  of  the  diseased  the  miraculous 
cure  in  one'  of  the  cases  at  least,  if  not  in  both — there 
is  probably  some  reference  to  the  symbolical  import 
which  oil  came  to  bear  in  things  pertaining  to  the  glory 
and  service  of  (Jod,  so  that  they  may  in  part  be  referred 
I  to  the  next  division. 

'2.  It  is  rather  singular  that  the  first  instance  on 
record  of  the  religious  use  of  oil— that  already  referred 
to,  of  Jacob's  anointing  the  stone  at  IJethol  — has  respect, 
not  to  a  person,  but  to  a  thing.  It  was  evidently  de 
signed  to  be  a  formal  consecration  of  the  stone,  or  the 
spot  where-  it  lay,  to  a  sacred  purpose  ;  though,  under 
what  consideration  oil  was  employed  to  that  end,  and 
why  oil  rather  than  several  other  things  that  might  be 
named,  no  indication  whatever  is  given  in  the  narrative. 
The  intercourse  with  Egypt  had  as  yet  scarcely  com 
menced  on  the  part  of  the  chosen  family  ;  and  there  is 
no  ground  for  affirming  it  to  have  been  derived  from 
that  quarter  ;  we  might  rather  suppose  it  had  descended 
from  the  rites  and  customs  of  primeval  times.  It  is 
certain,  however,  that  oil  was  used  at  a  very  earlv 
period  in  Egypt  for  purposes  of  consecration.  Monarchs 
at  their  coronation  were  thus  set  apart,  and  were  called 
"the  anointed  of  the  gods."  So  we  are  told  by  Wil 
kinson,  (ch.  xv.),  who  adds,  "With  the  Egyptians,  as 
with  the  Jews,  the  investiture  to  any  sacred  orlice,  as 
that  of  king  or  priest,  was  confirmed  by  this  external 
sign  :  and  as  the  Jewish  lawgiver  mentions  the  cere 
mony  of  pouring  oil  upon  the  head  of  the  high-priest 
after  he  had  put  on  his  entire  dress,  with  the  mitre  and 
crown,  the  Egyptians  represent  the  anointing  of  their 
priests  and  kings  ujter  they  were  attired  in  their  full 
robes,  with  the  cap  and  crown  upon  their  head.  Some 
of  the  sculptures  introduce  a  priest  pouring  oil  over  the 
monarch,  in  the  presence  of  Thoth,  IIor-Hat,  Ombte, 


•'41. J        IIor-Hat  and  Thoth  pouring  emblems  of  life  and  purity 
over  Ainuimph  III.— Wilkinson. 

or  Nilus.  which  may  be  considered  a  representation  of 
the  ceremony  before  the  statues  of  those  gods.  The 
functionary  who  officiated  was  the  high-priest  of  the 
king.  He  was  clad  in  a  leopard  skin,  and  was  the 
same  who  attended  on  all  occasions  which  required 
him  to  assist  or  assume  the  duties  of  the  monarch 
in  the  temple.  They  also  anointed  the  statues  of 


ANOINT 


ANOINT 


the  gods;   which  was  done  with  the  little  finger  of   the      but  sealing  to  them   the  spiritual   qualifications   needed 
right  hand."  '•  for  its  efficient  discharge.      Hence,  after  describing  the 

The  formal  agreement  above  noticed  by  Sir  (J.  Wil-  preparation  for  the  oil  which  was  to  be  used  in  the 
kinson,  between  the  use  of  oil  among  the  Egyptians  work  of  consecration,  it  is  said,  "  And  thou  shalt  sanc- 
and  the  Israelites  in  consecrating  to  an  office,  may  un-  tify  them,  that  th.  y  (the  sanctuary  anil  its  furniture) 
doubtedly  be  regarded  as  evielence  that  the  .Mosaic  may  be  most  holy  ;  whatsoever  toucheth  the  m  shall  be 

holy.  And  thou  shalt  anoint  Aaron  ami  his  sons,  and 
consecrate  them,  that  they  may  minister  unto  me-  in 
the  priest's  office."  K\.  xxx.  ;;i,  :;n. 

In  later  passages  of  Scripture-,  the  meaning  of  the  rite 
is  brought  out  still  more-  distinctly,  and  its  respect  to 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  left  without  any  doubt. 
Thus,  when  Saul  was  anointed  to  be  kin-.  Samuel 
addeel.  "And  the  Spirit  of  the  Lonl  shall  come  upon 
thee.  i  s.i.  x.  i;.  And  when  1'aviil  was  appointed  in  the 
room  of  Saul,  we  are  t.ild,  "Then  Samuel  took  the 
horn  of  oil.  and  anointed  him  in  the  midst  of  his  bre 
thren  :  and  the-  Spirit  of  the  L»rd  came  itpeni  I  >avid  from 
that  day  forward  udong  with  the-  si-n  he  t^ot  the-  thin- 
signified)  :  but  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  departcel  from 
Saul,"  i  Sa.  xvi.  i:;-i  i—  having  forfeiti  d  his  right  to  the 
blessing,  his  fonner  anointing  now  became  to  him  but 
an  empty  ceremony.  The'  same  connection  is  brought 
[42.]  A  kiuganmiitingthustatueof  the  j.;..il  Kluim.  Wilkinson.  "lltil.v  Isaiah  proj)hetically  of  the  Messiah,  when  he 

introduces   tin-   latter  as   speaking.   "The   Spirit  of   the 

prescription  was  framed  with  some  regard  to  the  observ-  Lord  <!o.l  i.-  upon  me.  because  he'  hath  anointed  me  to 
anre-s  in  Kirypt  ;  for  by  the  time  the  former  was  insti-  preach  good  tidings  to  the  meek,"  1.-  Ixi.  ]  a  causal 
tilted,  the  Israelitish  people  had  been  long  habituated  to  connection:  th.-  Spirit  i-  upon  me-.  f,,r«nx>  he-  hath 
the  cu.-tom-  of  Kgypt  :  and  it  was  the-  part  of  wisdom,  anointed  me-  ;  for.  in  M.  ssiah's  case,  the  re-  could  be  no 
whensettingupabetterpohty,  to  take  ad  vantage  of  what  s--paration  between  th.' form  and  the  reality.  Inde-e-d. 
existed  there,  so  far  as  it  i-oulel  be-  safely  employed,  in  the  actual  history  of  Jesus,  the-  form  itself  fell  into 
I'.ut  then  it  must  be-  b..rm-  in  mind,  that  the-  formal  abeyance,  the-  reality  al.  -in-  conies  into  view  :  without 
coincide 'lice-  in  such  cases  by  no  mean.-  argued  a  siibstan-  any  external  anointing,  the  Spirit  of  tin-  Lord  descended 
tial  agreement,  and  that  the-  ival  in.  anin- of  the-  ol>-  upon  him  without  measure.  I'.ut  the-  projilu  t  spake 
se-rvaiie-.-  in  the  two  cases  may  have  been  very  dill,  r-  fromth.  Old  Testament  point  of  view,  in  which  e\t  rv- 
enl  it  must,  indeed,  have  been  so;  for  all  symbolical  thing  presented  itself  under  the  aspect  of  shadow  ami 
institutions  necessarily  derive-  tln-ir  eli.-tine-tiv.-  value-  s\inbol.  When  Ne-w  Te  r  tame  nt  times  come  these  tall 
and  signitiance  from  the  character  of  the-  ivligiem  away,  while  tin-  language-  derived  from  them  is  still 
with  which  the-y  are-  associated  :  they  e-mbo.ly.  in  some-  often  retained.  Hence,  in  Ac.  iv.  'J7.  tin-  apostles,  in 
respect  or  another,  it.-  spirit  and  design:  and  between  their  address  to  Ciod,  say  of  Jesus,  "Thy  holy  e-hild 
the  Kgyptian  and  the-  Jewish  ivli-ion,  there  was  this  whom  thou  hast  anuinttd ;"  and  still  more-  e  xpr.  -slv 
-rand  fundamental  disparity,  that  the-  one  was  only  a  I'oter,  ill  his  speech  to  Cornelius,  "  God  «Jto<?(i't^  JCSUH 
deification  of  nature-,  while  the-  other  was  throughout  of  Na/.areth  with  the  Holy  Chost  and  with  power," 
moral,  based  on  the  spiritual  and  righteous  cliaracter  of  A.-.  \ .  :.-.  So  also  of  < 'hristiaiis  -,-m-rally.  it  is  saiel  by 
<;"d.  Hence  the  consecration  of  a  king  or  a  statue  by  I'aul.  "II.-  who  hath  amiinted  us  is  God,"  2  Co.  i.  21 ; 
tin-  etliision  of  oil  in  an  Kgyptian  temple  had  notliing  and  by  John.  "  Ve  have  an  unction  from  th.-  llolvOm-. 
eif  what  may  be  e-all.-d  the-  ntnru/1//  *•!,•,;  ,1  about  it  :  it  and  ye  know  all  things."  l  .In.  ii.  Jn. 

merely  indicated  to  the  spi-ctators  that  the-  subje-ct  of  it  The-  ]iractie-e-  of  anointing  with  oil  as  regards  persons 
was  re-cognix'-el  by  the-  god  e.f  the  temple-,  and  was  in  <  >ld  Testament  times,  was  almost  entiivly  ce.nlined 
treated  with  that  mark  of  per.-mial  consideratiem  which  to  those  who  attaim-d  to  the-  higher  oflice-s  of  king  ami 
it  was  u.-ual  for  men  in  their  dwellings  to  bestow  on  priest.  Then-  is  only  om-  di.-tinct  occasion  on  record, 
such  perse  ms  and  things  as  tiny  .-..u-ht  specially  to  in  which  anointing  is  mentioned  ill  ei.nnec.tion  with  the 
honour  or  exalt.  The  king  so  anointed  was  solemnly  designation  of  a  pniphet  ;  it  is  in  respect  to  Klisha. 
recognized  as  the  guest  and  protege  of  the-  lord  of  the-  wh.-n  chosen  to  take-  th.-  pla.-e-  of  Llijah.  iKi.xix.  Ui; 
temple-  :  the  statue  was  se-t  apart  for.  and  so  far  id.-nti-  ami  it  was  so  on  that  particular  occasion,  probably  be 
lied  with,  the  god  it  represented,  and  be  ah  wen-  cause,  in  the-  peculiar  ciivuinstane.  .-  of  tin-  time,  the 
stamped  as  tit  for  their  respective  destinations.  Hut  in  call  to  prophetical  ministrations  as.-unu-d  more  than 
the  true  religion  some-thing  more  and  higher  was  in-  usually  the  character  of  a  specific  office  or  function  to  he 
volved  in  the  act  of  consecration.  The  article  or  sub-  discharged.  Klisha  was,  in  a  manner,  t«>  judge-  fur  Ood 
je-ct  was  brought  into  contact  with  the  holiness  of  Je  in  Israel,  and  to  exercise  a  kind  e.f  supernatural  autho- 
hovali.  and  was  made-  a  vessel  ami  instrument  of  the  ritv  and  ce.ntrol.  L\e-n  in  this  case,  however,  it  may 
Spirit  of  (lud.  Hence-,  anointing  with  oil  in  the  times  be-  doubted  whether  there  was  any  actual  effusion  of  oil, 
•  if  the  olel  covenant  was  always  a  symbol  of  the  gift  ami  whether  the  casting  of  Klijah's  mantle  over  Klisha 
ami  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  case  of  inanimate-  die!  not  itself  constitute  the  act  of  anointing.  For.  that 
objects  imparting  to  them  a  ceremonial  sac-redness,  so  as  the- term  was  sometimes  employed  even  in  ( >ld  Testa- 
to  fit  them  for  holy  ministrations  ;  and  in  the  case  of  ine-nt  times,  whe-n  there  was  no  actual  administration 
persons,  not  only  designating  them  to  a  sacred  office-,  of  ejil,  is  evident  freim  Is.  xlv.  1.  where-  ( '\rus  is  spoken 


ANT 


of  as  anointed  liy  (Jed.  Jf  oil  was  used,  it  would  pn>- 
li;it)ly  be  nut  simple  oil,  but,  as  in  tlu;  ease  of  the  priest 
hood,  a  compound  of  various  sweet  spices  mixed  with 
olive  oil.  These  are  called  in  our  version  staete, 
onycha.  and  galbamun,  Kx.  xxx.  :H;  but  tin;  names  are 
somewhat  conjectural;  and  nothing  further  can  IK: 
affirmed  regarding  the  compound,  than  that  it  was 
doubtless  formed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  yield  the  most 
fragrant  and  refreshing  perfume  ;  so  that,  irom  its  de 
lightful  and  exhilarating  influence  on  the  bodily  sense, 
it  might  aptly  image  the  blissful  ciiirt  of  the  Spirit's 
grace  on  the  soul. 

After  the  explanations  that  have  been  given,  it  is 
scarcelv  necessarv  to  do  more  than  notice,  that  the 
terms  Mixxiuli  and  C/n'ixt  have  become  per.-onal  desig 
nations  of  the  Redeemer,  simply  on  the  ground  of  his 
anointing  in  the  spiritual  sense.  (>Vc;  CiiuisT.)  In  an 
inferior  sense,  both  priests  and  kings  were  called  the, 
Lord's  anointed  ones,  or  his  Messiahs,  as  it  might  be 
rendered  (for  example.  [.,0.  vi.  22;  1  Ch.  xvi.  22).  Tint  the 
distinct;\  e  nan!"  of  //«  .Me>siah.  or  Anointed  <  hie,  came 
in  the  later  books  of  Old  Testament  scripture  to  be  ap 
propriated  to  Him,  on  whom  the  hopes  and  expectations 
of  (Jod's  people  were  hung,  1's.  ii.  2;  Da.  ix.  2.">,  2ii. 

ANT   Ir^:;.    netnCdah],   the   name  of    a   family   of 

four- winged  insects  t  Formicada-).  very  numerous  in 
species,  and  abundant  in  every  country  in  the  world 
except  the  Arctic  regions.  The  ants,  more  than  any 
other  insects,  manifest  that  division  of  the  body  into 
segments  which  characterizes  their  class  (inacctani,  cut 
into)  ;  the  abdomen  is  connected  with  the  thorax  by  an 
exceedingly  slender  pedicle,  and  frequently  the  former 
division  of  the  body  is  subdivided  into  segments,  which 
are  connected  only  by  a  similarly  attenuated  thread. 
This  remarkable  appearance  is,  doubtless  commemorated 
in  the  Hebrew  name,  from  s^*,  ntiuiiil.  to  cut  off.  to 
circumcise,  tie.  xvii.  n. 

To  some  of  our  readers  it  may  seem  strange  that 
ants  should  be  considered  four-winged  insects,  whereas 
they  may  have  never  seen  a  winged  individual  among 
the  thousands  of  ants  they  may  have  looked  upon. 
The  fact  is,  this  tribe  presents  the  curious  anomaly 
(paralleled  also  in  the  Termites,  or  white  ants,  of  another 
order)  of  three  forms  of  individuals — we  might  almost 
say,  three  sexes.  The  males  and  females  arc  furnished 
with  four  wings  on  their  leaving  the  chrysalis  state,  but 
soon  drop  them  spontaneously.  These  are  compara- 


mt  are  considered  as  iniper- 


at  all.      These-  are  sexless, 
fectly  developed  females. 

JS'o  insects  are  more  deservedly  celebrated  than  tlicso 
for  that  wonderfully  elaborate  instinct  which  imitates 
the  actings  of  reason,  and  that  not  the  reason  of  the  iso 
lated  and  selfish  savage,  but  of  the  civili/.ed  man,  living 
in  society,  and  labouring  with  self-denying  toil  and 
well-directed  energy  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  com 
monwealth.  In  the  societies  of  bees,  there  is  the  sem 
blance  ot  a  central  authority,  \\hich  we  have  agreed  to 
call  the  ijnii  ii,  and  so  those -industrious  insects  are  poeti 
cally  assumed  to  live  under  monarchical  government; 
but  110  such  conspicuous  personage  exists  in  an  ant's 
nest,  and  these  may  be  considered  true  republicans, 
who  carry  on  their  labours  without  ''guide,  overseer, 
or  ruler,"  I'r.  vi.  7,  prompted  by  the  unerring  instinct 
implanted  in  the  sensorium  of  each. 

Ill  two  passages  of  the  book  just  cited,  I'r.  vi.  f,-s  ; 
xxx.  21,  •_'.">,  the  ant  is  held  up  as  an  example  of  diligence, 
and,  according  to  the  plain  sense  of  the  words,  of  that 
prudence  which  provides  in  a  time  of  plentv  for  the 
season  of  scarcity.  Thus  Solomon,  in  the  former  pas 
sage,  sends  the  sluggard  to  the  ant  for  wisdom,  ''which 
provideth  her  meat  in  the  summer,  and  gathereth  her 
food  in  the  harvest.''  And  Agur,  in  the  latter  passage, 
extols  their  exceeding  wisdom,  because,  though  little 
and  not  strong,  "yet  they  prepare  their  meat  in  the 
summer." 

These  statements  have  acquired  a  more  than  usual 
measure  of  notoriety,  because  it  has  been  supposed  that 
they  present  an  example  of  popular  error  in  natural 
lii.-tory.  which  the  investigations  of  modern  science  have 
refuted.  A  great  multitude  of  ancient  writers  have  as 
serted  that  ants  store  up  grains  of  corn  in  their  nests, 
gathering  them  in  the  harvest ;  and  modern  popular  be 
lief  has  continued  the  assertion,  adding  to  it  the  remark 
able  circumstance  that  the  plumule,  or  germinating 
point,  is  carefully  bitten  out  of  every  grain,  before  it  is 
committed  to  the  subterranean  granary,  lest  it  should 
sprout  and  become  unfit  for  food  in  the  damp  earth. 
"Any  one,"  says  Addison,  in  his  interesting  paper,  No. 
l;j(J  of  the  (liiardian,  "may  make  the  experiment,  and 
even  see  that  there  is  no  germ  in  their  corn." 

Now  the  precision  of  mi  idem  science  has  shown  that 
our  European  ants  do  not  eat  corn  ;  but  that  they  do 
take  care  of,  and  carry  to  and  fro.  objects  which  in 
shape,  size,  and  colour  bear  so  close  a  resemblance  to 
grains  of  wheat,  as  readily  to  deceive  a  cursory  observer. 
These  objects,  however,  are  the  pupw  of  the  young  Ijnx.d 
in  their  cocoons.  It  has  hence  been  somewhat  hastily 
concluded,  that  the  whole  belief  of  antiquity  on  the  sub 
ject  has  been  erroneous,  and  that  the  statement,  though 
backed  by  the  authority  of  the  sacred  writers,  must  be 
consigned  to  the  category  of  vulgar  errors.1 

We  had  need,  however,  to  be  very  sure  of  our  facts 
when  we  attempt  to  correct  the  Spirit  of  God.  Neither 
Solomon  nor  Agur  expressly  names  ''corn,"  as  stored 
up;  "food,"  "meat,"  are  the  general  terms  used ;  and 
though  harvest  is  named,  it  may  be  understood  only  as 
the  time  when  the  "food,'''  whatever  it  be,  is  abundant. 
It  is  now  known  that  European  ants  subsist  largely  on 
the  saccharine  juice  secreted  by  aphides,  and  exuded  by 
the  latter  expressly  at  the  solicitation  of  the  former:  nay, 


tively  few  in  number;  but  there  is  another  race,  which 
are  the  workers,  and  which  constitute  the  main  body 
of  the  teeming  population,  which  never  have  any  wings 


ANT  0.' 

the  highest  authority  on  the  subject.  31.  Huber,  con 
firmed  by  others,  has  ascertained  that  the  ants  ii/ip)-isu» 
a  number  of  aphides  in  their  nests,  to  s/'i-vc  Jtirhir/  the 
u-i  liter  for  t/icir  suf>i>Ii/,  like  milch  cows  in  a  paddock. 

But  we  have  evidence  bearing  on  the  question  still 
more  directly.  Colonel  Sykes,  an  accomplished  zoolo 
gist,  finds  an  oriental  ant  which  literally  bears  out  the 
statements  of  Solomon  and  Agur:  he  has  named  it  Aftu 
providers.  The  following  note  from  his  diary  illus 
trates  the  habits  of  this  interesting  species: — 

"Poonah  (India),  June  111,  LvJl*. — In  my  morning 
walk  1  observed  more  than  a  score  of  little  heaps  of 
grass-seeds  (jiuiticiiiii}  in  several 
places,  on  uncultivated  land 
u.-ar  the  parade  ground  ;  each 
heap  contained  about  a  hand 
ful.  On  examination  J  found 
they  were  raised  bv  the  above 
species  of  ant.  hundreds  of 
which  were  employed  in  bring 
ing  Up  the  Seeds  to  the  surface 
from  a  store  below:  the  urain 
had  probably  got  wet  at  the 
S"ttiiiL,r  in  of  the  monsoon, 

and  the'  ants  had  taken  advantage  of  the  first  sunny 
day  to  bring  it  up  to  dry.  The  store  must  have 
l>eeii  laid  up  from  the  time  of  the  ripening  of  the 
grass-seeds  in  January  and  February.  As  1  was 
aware  this  fact  militated  against  the  observations  of 
entomologists  in  Kurope.  )  was  careful  not  to  deceive 
myself  by  Confounding  the  seeds  of  :i  /.nitii-unt  with 
the  pupa-  of  the  insect.  Faeh  ant  was  charged  with 
a  single  seed:  but  as  it  was  too  wei-hty  for  many  of 
them,  ami  as  the  strongest  had  some  ditticultv  in  scaling 
the  perpendicular  sides  of  the  cylindrical  hole  Lading 
to  the  nest  below,  many  weiv  the  falls  of  the  weaker 
ants  with  their  burdens  from  near  the  summit  to  the 
bottom.  1  observed  they  never  relaxed  their  hold  ;  and 
with  a  perseverance  atl-rdin^  a  useful  lesson  to  hu 
manity,  steadily  recommenced  the  ascent  after  each 
successive  tumble,  nor  halted  in  their  labour  until  they 
had  crowned  the  summit,  and  lodged  their  burden  on 
the  common  heap."  "On  the  ]:;thof  October  of  the 
same  year,"  adds  the  same  naturalist,  "afu  r  the  closing 
thunderstorms  of  the  nions.  ;..n.  I  found  this  species  in 
various  places  similarly  employed  as  they  had  been  in 
June  preceding  :  one  h'-ap  contained  a  double  handful  of 
grass  seeds.  It  is  probable  th.it  the  At'tt  jtrvridcmii*  a 
field  species  of  ant.  as  1  have  not  observi  d  it  in  houses."' 

The  I,',  v.  T.  \V.  Hope,  an  entomologist  ,,f  known 
eminence,  in  a  memoir  on  the  same  subject,  comments 
on  the  abo\e  statement.  lleoius  man\  authors,  not 
only  of  classical  antiquity,  but  IVrsian  and  Arabic 
writers,  who  maintain  that  ants  collect  and  store  up 
their  food,  contrary  to  the  belief  of  modern  entomolo 
gists.  Then  lie  observes  :  "  It  Colonel  S\  k,  s  is  accur 
ate  in  his  statements  and  he  can  scarcely  be  other 
wise,  for  he  has  specimens  of  the  seeds  he  saw  the  ants 
bringing  up  from  below  to  the  heap  on  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  specimens  of  the  grass  producing  the  seed. 
and  he  wrote  down  in  his  diary  the  same  day  the  facts 
as  he  had  witnessed  them  -  1  think  it  will  be  seen  at 
once  that  his  facts  tend  to  confirm  the  opinion  of  the 
ancients,  that  ants  provide  against  a  season  of  need, 
call  it  winter,  or  any  other  season.  .  .  So  little  is 


ANTEDILUVIAN   AGE 

known  respecting  the  economy  of  our  indigenous  in 
sects,  and  even  less  regarding  exotic  species,  that  it 
would  ho  rash  to  hazard  a  decided  opinion  concerning 
them.  And  it  will  be  borne  in  mind  (as  we  lind  to  be 
the  case  among  some  species  of  birds  and  mammalia), 
that  a  habit  which  characterizes  a  species  in  a  particu 
lar  climate,  is  no  longer  the  characteristic  of  that  species 
in  a  different  climate.  The  same  species  of  animal  that 
hybernates  in  extra-tropical  climates  no  longer  does  so 
within  the  tropics.  It  will  be  borne  in  mind  also  that, 
in  the  great  family  of  the  ants,  the  species  of  some 
genera  may  have  a  provident  instinct,  and  others  bo 
destitute  of  it.  ...  I  think  it  probable  that  the  ant 
of  which  Solomon  has  made  mention  belongs  to  the 
gums  Atta."- 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  adduce  the  parallel 
economy  «, fa  tribe  of  insects,  which,  though  they  belong 
to  another  zoological  order,  so  greatly  resemble  ants 
in  their  most  remarkable  peculiarities,  as  to  be  popu 
larly  associated  with  them.  We  refer  to  the  -white 
ants  (Termites*,  so  abundant  in  all  tropical  countries. 
These,  too,  lorm  populous  societies,  living  in  common 
wealth,  in  elaborate  structures,  which  are  constructed 
by  the  united  labours  of  the  whole.  We  have  not  any 
detailed  accounts  of  the  oriental  species;  but  in  the 
minute  and  careful  description,  by  Smcatlnnan.  of  the. 
African  kinds,  he  speaks  of  their  magazines  of  stored 


|  |ji  '       Hill-t  of  Termites,  or  Wliite  Ants  <.f  AfnVa.-Sine.itlim.-ir. 

food.  These  are  ••chambers  of  clay,  always  well  filled 
\\ith  provisions,  -which  to  the  naked  eve  seem  to  consist 
of  the  raspings  of  wood,  and  plants  which  the  termites 
destroy:  but  are  found  by  the  microscope  to  be  princi 
pally  the  gums  and  inspissated  juices  of  plants.  These 
are  thrown  together  in  little  masses,  some  of  which  are 
find1  than  others,  and  resemble  the  sugar  about  pre- 
s.  rved  fruits:  others  are  like  tears  of  gum.  one  quite 
transparent,  another  like  amber,  a  third  brown,  and  a 
fourth  <i\iite  opaque,  as  \\e  see  often  in  parcels  of  ordi- 
narv  gums."  '•''  \  ]'.  11.  (;.] 

ANTEDILUVIAN  AGE.  There  are  certain  dis 
tinctive  characteristics  of  the  age  before  the  flood,  as 
exhibited  in  the  brief  narratives  of  that  period  in  Old 
Testament  scripture,  which  will  be  more  advantageously 
considered  together,  than  distributed  into  separate  ar 
ticles.  They  fall  naturally  into  two  divisions — those 
which  respect  the  divine  administration  toward  man, 
and  those  which  respect  the  conduct  of  men  toward 
(iod  and  toward  each  other. 

1.  The  divine  administration  during  the  antediluvian 
period  of  the  world's  history,  appears  to  have  been 


ANTUDILT: v  i A x  AC; 


ANTEDILUVIAM    ACE 


eharaeteri/cd  above  all  subsequent  ages  ]>y  the  general 
mildness  and  forbearance  that  distinguished  it.  "Whether 
it  might  be.  that  tin,'  Lord  thought  good,  for  the  better 
display  of  Ms  paternal  character,  to  ]•. strain  the  natural 
consequences  of  tin1  fall  till  tin-  moral  had  more  fully 
developed  themselves,  or  because  the  infancy  of  the 
human  race,  required  to  have  indulgences  extended  to 
it  which  in  after  auvs  were  wisely  withheld,  there 
eertainlv  are  appearances  that,  seem  to  mark  a  rc- 
straint  on  the  judicial  procedure  of  Cod.  and  a  singu 
lar  extension  of  merely  natural  powers  and  liberties. 
Thus,  then:  is  almost  an  entire  absence  of  the  stringent 
enactments  and  penalties  of  law.  In  the  facts  of  crea 
tion,  and  the  dispensations  of  (loci  consequent  oil  the 
fall,  clear  indications  had  been  given  to  men  of  the 
greater  landmarks  of  duty;  and  until  it  was  seen  what 
use  should  be  made  of  these,  the  more  specific  forms  of 
prohibition  and  command  were  fitly  kept  in  abeyance. 
It  was  not  vet  the  proper  period  of  formal  law.  I  lence, 
when  Cain  was  found  guilty  of  the  atrocious  murder  of 
his  brother,  the  sentence  pronounced  against  him  was 
very  different  from  that  afterwards,  promulgated  - 
••  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood 
lie  sheil,"  Ge.ix.O;  it  simply  involved  an  exclusion,  from 
the  society  of  his  kindred,  the  necessity  of  retiring  to  a 
distance  from  their  common,  residence,  and  a  conse 
quent  aggravation  of  the  difficulties  attendant  on  the 
cultivation  of  the  .-oil  for  his  support:  ''the  earth,"'  it  was 
said.  "'; should  henceforth  not  yield  unto  him  her  strength,'1 
that  is.  he  should  find  it  more  difficult  than  formerly, 
from  the  disadvantages  of  his  position,  to  obtain  the 
means  of  sustenance  by  the  labour  of  his  hands,  lint 
when  he  complained  of  the  severity  of  this  sentence,  and 
urged  the  possibility  of  his  being  fallen  upon  and  de- 
stroved  as  a  common  outlaw,  ho  was  so  far  reassured 
by  the  declaration,  that  sevenfold  vengeance  was  to  be 
taken  of  any  one  that  might  kill  him  for  the  murder  of 
.Abel,  Uu.  iv.it- 1:>.  And  so  throughout  the  generations 
that  followed,  great  leniency  was  exercised  in  regard  to 
the  infliction  of  judgment  — a  leniency  which  was  abused 
only  to  the  more  prolific  growth  of  wickedness  and 
crime,  and  which  in  the  long  run  so  palpably  failed  in 
its  object,  that  it  required  at  last  to  )K:  supplanted  by 
the  terrors  of  the  most  overwhelming  judgment. 

Another  striking  proof  of  the  mild  and  beneficent 
rule  in  natural  things,  which  characterized  the  divine 
procedure  during  the  antediluvian  period,  appears  in 
the  longevity  of  the  patriarchs  who  then  lived.  The 
term  allotted  them  was,  on  an  average,  fully  ten 
times  as  large  as  that  which  in  Liter  ages  has  been 
assigned  as  the  measure  of  human  life  on  earth.  And 
one  can  easily  perceive  the  mercifulness  of  the  arrange 
ment,  as  it  gave  to  the  original  members  of  the  human 
family,  who  had  everything  to  learn  for  themselves, 
the  advantage  of  a  protracted  experience  to  mature 
their  skill  and  knowledge,  and  ample  opportunities  for 
imparting  to  others  the  benefit  of  their  acquisitions. 
In  regard,  however,  to  the  question,  how  the  longevity 
itself  may  have  been  produced,  and  wherein  lies  the 
constitutional  difference,  as  to  human  life,  between  the 
antediluvian  and  subsequent  periods  of  the  world's  his 
tory,  all  must  be  matter  of  conjecture.  Instances  have 
occurred  in  comparatively  recent  times  of  persons  living 
to  th.-  age  of  l.V)  and  upwards,  while  again  individuals 
have  born  known  to  go  through  the  whole  cycle  of 
youth,  manhood,  and  old  age,  and  die  at  little  more  than 
:2i>  years  old.  The  diversity  in  these  cases  is  relatively 


as  great  as  between  the  prolonged  age  attained  by  the 
antediluvians  and  the  reduced  longevity  of  modern  times; 
while,  in  the  one  class  of  cases  as  well  as  the  other,  we 
are  without  any  principle  to  account  for  the  difference. 
1'ossibly.  a  very  minute  difference  in  the  temperature 
of  the  antediluvian  world,  or  of  the  ingredients  entering 
into  the  composition  of  the  atmosphere,  may  have  been 
perfectly  sufficient  to  account  for  the  lengthened  period 
which  thi  human  frame  usually  survived  then,  as  com 
pared  with  the  limits  prescribed  to  it  now.  1>ut  how 
ever  produced,  the  facts  referred  to  are  sufficient  to  re 
move  all  objection  against  it  on  the  ground  of  natural 
impossibility  ;  and  in  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the 
human  family  at  that  early  period,  it  was  worthy  of  the 
divine  benignity  to  extend  the  term  of  life  greatly  beyond 
the  limits  within  which  it  has  been  ultimately  confined. 
We  have  no  very  exact  data  for  ascertaining  what 
influence  the  longevity  of  the  antediluvians  might  have 
had  upon  the  population  of  the  world,  or  at  what  rate 
of  progress  the  population  may  have  proceeded  as  com 
pared  with  modern  times.  Most  extravagant  calcula 
tions  have  sometimes  been  made  upon  the  subject :  and  a 
recent  popular  commentary  tells  us.  that  the  population 
of  the  world  at  the  time  of  the  deluge  "has  even  been 
estimated  as  high  as  two  millions  of  millions,''  that  is, 
more  than  two  thousand  times  the  number  of  its  present 
inhabitants,  after  the  work  of  increase  has  been  going 
on  for  thousands  of  vears.  Such  calculations  are  too 
extravagant  to  deserve  refutation,  and  they  derive  no 
countenance  whatever  from  the  sacred  records  of  the 
period.  These  not  only  leave  altogether  unnoticed  any 
bearing  the  longevity  of  men  might  have  upon  the  ratio  of 
increase,  but  they  contain  notices  which  appear  to  in 
dicate  that  the  ratio  was  by  no  means  great.  For  ex 
ample,  the  birth  of  Seth — the  son  who  was  given  to  our 
first  parents  in  the  room  of  Abel — does  not  take  place 
till  130  years  after  the  creation  ;  and  though  we  cannot 
doubt  that  there  were  births  in  Adam's  family  of  which 
no  express  notice  is  taken,  yetwhen  the  third  son  specified, 
the  one  child  of  hope  and  blessing  after  Abel,  stands  at 
the  distance  of  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  from  the 
commencement  of  the  human  family,  it  is  impossible  to 
avoid  the  conviction  that  the  births  were  compara 
tively  few  and  far  between.  Then,  in  the  representa 
tions  given  of  antediluvian  times,  there  is  nothing  that 
seems  to  indicate  a  wide  dispersion  of  inhabitants  over 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  nor  is  there  any  appearance  of 
distinct  nations  or  kingdoms.  On  the  contrary,  the 
human  family  presents  still  the  appearance  of  a  kind  of 
unity — divided,  indeed,  into  two  great  sections,  the  Cain- 
ites  and  the  believing  portion,  or  followers  of  Abel;  the 
latter,  however,  ultimately  merging  again,  almost  en 
tirely,  into  the  former — a  state  of  things  which  can 
scarcely  1 10  conceived  of,  either  on  the  one  side  or  the  other, 
as  embracing  a  very  extensive  circuit,  or  even  admitting 
much  diversity  of  classes  or  interests.  And  still  fur 
ther,  mention  is  made  in  those  early  records  of  only 
one  centre  of  religious  worship — that,  namely,  of  the 
divine  presence  towards  the  east  of  the  garden  of 
Eden,  from  which  Cain  is  said  to  have  gone  out,  Go.  iv.  Ki ; 
and  also  of  but  one  preacher  of  righteousness  (Xoah\, 
from  the  time  that  the  work  of  judgment  was  distinctly 
announced  and  the  general  call  to  repentance  began  to 
be  pressed  upon  the  world.  These  things,  taken  collec 
tively,  seem  to  leave  little  room  to  doubt  that  the  race 
of  mankind  was  of  comparatively  limited  amount  down 
to  the  close  of  the  antediluvian  period,  and  was  spread 


ANTEDILUVIAN   ACE  07  ANTEDILUVIAN   ACK 

over  no  very  extensive  range  of  territory.  This  also  is  '  progress  indicated  in  antediluvian  life  :  but  the  advanee- 
the  result  which  physical  considerations  might  have  ment  in  natural  skill  and  resources  was  accompanied 
led  us  to  arrive  at  as  the  most  probable  :  since  it  is  but  with  a  fearful  progression  in  moral  evil.  It  would  seem 
very  gradually,  and  in  consequence  of  changes  and  ac-  that  the  superiority  of  the  elder,  the  (Aiinite  branch  of 
eretions  forming  through  successive  ages,  that  the  soil  the  human  family,  in  inventive  and  useful  arts  was 
of  the  earth  became  properly  fitted  for  the  support  of  turned  into  an  occasion  of  domineering  pride,  and  vio- 
man  and  beast.  At  first,  it  is  probable,  a  limited  por-  lent  usurpation  and  wrong  toward  their  fellowmen. 
tion  only  of  its  surface  was  capable  of  yielding  a  fair  For.  immediately  after  the  notices  given  of  their  work- 
produce  :  and  when,  with  tin;  general  thinness  and  manship  in  brass  and  iron,  and  apparently  in  efficient 
poverty  of  the  soil,  we  take  into  account  the  compara-  connection  with  these,  the  inspired  narrative  proceeds 
live  want  of  skill  and  resources  that  must  for  a  con-  to  make  mention  of  deeds  of  outrage  and  bloodshed, 
siderable  time  have  e.xi-ted  as  to  its  proper  cultivation.  tie.  iv.  21-24.  And  when  this  line  of  procedure  was  once 
it  is  against  all  reasonable  belief  to  suppose,  that  the  generally  entered  on.  we  can  readily  conceive  how  the 
first  inhabited  region  should  have  been  equal  to  the  forbearance  and  benignity  which  characterized  Un 
comfortable  support  of  what  would  now  be  reckoned  a  divine  administration,  the  comparative  freedom  that 
numerous  and  teeming  population.  The  necessities  of  was  enjoyed  from  the  restraints  and  penalties  of  law. 
the  time  may  rather  be  said  to  have  demanded  a  slow  rate  and  the  protracted  duration  of  human  life,  \\ould  tend 
of  increase,  and  a  population  far  from  densely  compacted :  to  swell  the  tide  of  the  world's  d,pravit\.  and  make  tin- 
it  may  even  be  regarded  as  an  e.-sential  proof  of  the  worse  portion  of  mankind  in  a  great  degree  indifferent 
divine  lieni-'nity  toward  the  inhabitants  of  the  antedi-  to  the  consequences  of  their  proceedings.  The  e-oodn-ss 
luvian  world,  to  have  restrained  both  their  numbers,  and  of  Cod.  instead  of  leading  men  to  repentance,  was  only 
the  territory  they  occupied,  within  comparatively  mode-  taken  as  an  encouragement  to  sin.  and  nursed  the  law  less 
i^te  limits.  ness  of  their  spirits  to  proceed  to  further  excesses. 

'1.  Tin-  characteristics  on  tin-  other  side,  those  which  Tln-n-  were,  doubtless,  checks  of  various  kind-  intt  r 
appeared  in  the  conduct  of  men  toward  Cod  and  toward  posed  rebukes  and  judgments  in  providence,  from 
each  otln-r.  were  far  from  presenting  a  proper  cor-  time  to  time  administered,  that  ought  to  have  arn  st.-d 
ivspondence  with  the  procedure  of  Cod.  If  the  one  the  pi  ogress  of  iniquity.  Among  the  more  remarkable 
was  marked  by  its  mildness  and  benignity,  the  other  of  these  was  the  pn>t<  -t  raised  against  the  prevailing 
wa-  not  less  marked  by  its  general  lawlessness  and  vio-  wickedness  by  the  piv  eminently  godly  lit',-  of  Enoch, 
leiice.  This  is  the  leading  feature  that  is  brought  out  and  the  loud  warnin-  note  ,,f  coming  judgment  which 
in  the  history  of  antediluvian  times,  although  otln-r  lie  uttered  before  he  was  translated.  Nor  \\as  his 
points  are  incidentally  noticed.  It  is  evident  from  translation  itself  a  more  marked  seal  of  the  divine  ap 
what  i-  recorded,  that  eonsiderabli  advance  was  made  pr,,\al  ,.f  the  piety  which  distinguished  Enoch,  than  a 
din-in---;  tin-  period  in  the  art-  of  civilization  and  im  condemnation  of  the  evil  courses  a-'ain-t  which  he  had 
provement ;  and  so  far  from  emerging  out  of  a  state  of  habitually  \\itnes.-ed.  Hut  whatever  means  of  a  re- 
barbarism,  in  which  men  burrowed  underground,  and  pressive  or  reformatory  kind  were  used,  tiny  all  tailed 
''ed  on  roots  and  spontaneous  products  of  the  earth.  of  the  proper  etli-ct.  Tin-  ungodly  section  of  tin-  human 
they  appear  tV mi  tin-  tir.-t  in  tin-  exercise  of  intelligent  family  continually  encroached  upon  the  other:  so  that 
foresight,  and  tin-  possession  of  a  certain  degree  of  at  la,<  it  is  said,  "  the  sons  of  Cod  saw  the  daughters  of 
civilization,  which  only  required  to  -row  in  the  niulti-  men  that  they  w,  re  fair,  and  to-k  to  them  wives  of 
tnde  and  variety  ,,f  it-  resources.  Cain,  tin-  tir-t  son  all  which  they  chose."  (!<  vi  -j ;  by  forbidd.  n  alliances 
of  tin-  human  pair,  became  a  tiller  of  the  -round,  as  his  they  broke  down  tin  barriers  that  should  have  con- 
brother  Abel  was  a  feeder  of  -lie,p  both  doubtless  tinned  to  separate  the  good  from  the  evil,  and  gave 
taught  how  to  [Mil-sue  their  respective  occupation-  by  rise  to  a  uen.-ral  deprivation  of  order  and  rectitude. 
their  common  p.-uvnt.  When  Cain  was  forced  l.\  hi-  That  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  statement  there  can  Le 
unnatural  crime  to  retire  to  some  di-tance  from  the  little  doubt .  Some  of  tin-  earlier  fathers  held,  that  by 
original  centre  of  the  human  family.  In-  did  not  betake  the  sons  of  Cod  hen-  the  an-el-  were  to  be  understood, 
to  the  manner-  of  savage  lit',-,  but  built  tor  himself  a  Mid  that,  in  consequence  of  unnatural  loves  formed  b,- 
city.  It  must,  of  course,  have  been  a  city  of  -mall  tween  tlnm  and  those  daughters  of  men  a  Titanic 
dimensions,  reseiiihiin-  more  what  we  understand  by  a  brood  w viv  produced,  an  offspring  of  -i-antic  strength. 
village:  but  in  its  ven  projection  it  implied  a  certain  and  of  equally  gigantic  wickedness.  Thi- opinion,  which 
degree  of  knowledge  and  art.  an  appreciation  of  the  ad  at  intervals  ha-  always  had  it.-  advocates,  has  recently 
\anta-_esof  social  life.  and.  at  tin- same  time,  perhaps  l>een  revived,  and  with  considerable  ardour  maintained  by 
an  effort  to  alleviate  by  means  of  human  companion-  certain  Lutheran  theologians  lin  particular.  Haiimgar 
ship  the  apprehensions  and  consequences  of  guilt.  This  ten.  Kurtz.  Delit/.sch.  and  Stier).  Tiny  arum-  that  the 
last  may  even  have  been  the  more  immediate  prompter  term  ••sous  of  Cod"  was  never  applied  to  believers 
of  the  undertaking  :  hut  skill  and  art  must  have  l>een  at  among  nn-n  till  a  comparatively  late  period:  that  it 
hand  to  second  tin-  design  and  bring  it  into  shape,  nm-t.  therefore.  ha\,  been  used  with  inference  to  the 
Other  things  came  afterwards  the  invention  of  instru-  angels:  and  that  these  may  in  certain  circumstances  be 
ments  of  music,  of  harps  and  organs,  tools  of  brass  and  capable  of  maintainin--;  -,xual  intercourse  with  persons 
iron,  and  not  only  the  cultivation  of  the  vine,  but  the  on  earth,  and  producing  seed  by  them.  Hut  this  is 
manufacture  of  wine  from  it-  fruit,  of  which  the  sad  at  variance  alike  with  reason  and  revelation.  Neither 
incident  in  Noah's  declining  years  proved  too  mournful  nature  nor  Scripture  in  such  a  way  confounds  heaven 
a  witness.  There  can  lie  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  the  and  earth,  one  species  with  another.  Even  among  the 
antediluvian  period  was  one  of  civilization,  and.  in  the  living  creatures  that  on  earth  are  capable  of  producing 
(.'ainite  line  especially,  one  of  invention  and  progress.  offspring,  it  is  the  settled  law  of  nature,  that  each 

It  were  well,  however,  if  this  were  the  only  kind   of  propagates   only   after  its    kind:   and    it   were  an    un- 

13 


ANTICHRIST 


ANTICHRIST 


heard  of  travestying  of  such  :i  general  law,  if  angelic 
beings,  tlie  tenants  (if  an  entirely  different  sphere,  were 
to  become  the  parents  (if  a  fleshly  offspring  by  daugh 
ters  of  nieii.  I'.esides.  it  is  nut  simply  the  producing  "!' 
offspring  that  the  words  speak  of.  hut  marrying  wives, 
whieh  can  only  lie  predicated  of  men  in  flesh  and  blood  ; 
while  of  the  angelic  state  it  is  given  as  a  distinguishing 
characteristic,  that  they  \\lio  possess  it  "  neither  marry 
nor  are  given  in  marriage."  The  sons  of  Cod.  there 
fore,  must  be  a  portion  of  the  human  family  itself  (m-c 
SONS  OF  (!oi»;  they  were  simply  the  better  portion  of 
Adam's  descendants,  who.  though  not  hitherto  nor 
usually  in  that  early  age  called  expressly  God's  sons,  yet 
here  fitly  have  their  position  and  calling  designated  by 
this  its  higher  relationship,  in  order  to  indicate  more 
emphatically  the  degeneracy  and  the  guilt  involved  in 
wedding  themselves  to  those  who  knew  of  nothing  better 
or  higher  than  what  belonged  to  them  as  the  daughters 
of  men.  From  Seth  downward*,  that  smaller  section 
of  the  human  family  had  stood  apart  from  the  rest, 
and  were  honourablv  distinguished  by  their  relation  to 
the  worship  and  service  of  <  iod  :  they  had  all  along 
borne  /ti.i  name,  and  represented  li'm  interest  in  the 
world.  I'.ut  now.  at  length,  the  distinction  between 
them  and  others  gave  way  :  they  caught  the  general 
infection,  preferred  beauty  to  godliness,  followed  the 
\\ill  of  the  flesh  instead  of  the  will  of  Cod.  What 
could  then  be  looked  for  but  rampant  iniquity,  and 
total  dissolution  of  manners!  This  result  the  sacred 
narrative  marks  when  it  savs,  "  And  also  after  that, 
when  the  sons  of  (.iod  came  in  unto  the  daughters  of 
men.  ami  thev  bare  children  to  them,  the  same  became 
mighty  men.  which  were  of  did.  men  of  renown:  that 
is.  renowned  for  their  great  and  heaven-daring  wicked 
ness,  which  reached  its  maturity  only  after  the  intermar 
rying  of  the  more  select  with  the  looser  portion  of  man 
kind.  The  salt  had  lost  its  savour,  and  all  rushed  head 
long  to  ruin  :  a  memorable  and  instructive  warning  to  the 
people  of  (iod  in  every  age !  And  a  warning,  doubt 
less1,  intended  to  tell  with  special  effect  upon  the  chosen 
peopU;  of  Israel,  to  keep  them  from  those  promiscuous 
alliances  with  the  heathen  around  them,  which  ulti 
mately  proved  one  of  their  deadliest  snares,  Kx.  xxxiv.  i.\  ir>; 
l)o.  vii. :),  &c. 

Thus  ended  the  moral  and  religious  constitution  of 
things  in  the  world  before  the  Hood.  The  corruption  that 
wrought  in  man's  nature  proved  too  strong  for  the  bar 
riers  raised  against  it.  and  the  reformatory  discipline 
under  which  it  was  placed.  Another  phase  of  things 
must  needs  be  introduced,  if  Cod's  purpose  to  provide 
a  seed  of  the  woman,  destined  to  bruise  the  head  of  the 
serpent,  should  not  fail  of  its  accomplishment.  And 
as  preparatory  to  this,  the  remnant  that  was  still  left 
in  the  person  and  house  of  Xoah  must  be  preserved. 
and  the  destroying  judgment,  long  threatened  but  still 
delayed,  be  at  last  executed  upon  the  ungodly  race, 
who  had  resolutely  defied  Cod  and  hid  repentance  from 
their  eyes.  In  that  judgment  the  old  world  perishes, 
that  other  forms  of  administration,  better  adapted  to 
the  existing  condition  of  human  nature,  might  have  room 

to  develop  themselves. 

ANTICHRIST,  ANTICHRISTS.  The  word  is 
used  only  by  the  apostle  John,  and  by  him  four  times 
in  the  singular,  i  .hi.  ii  !•,,  -2-1  •  iv  3,  i;  Jn.  v.  7,  arid  once  in 
the  plural,  i  .in  ii.  i«.  The  interchange  between  the  sin 
gular  and  the  plural  is  itself  a  clear  proof,  that  when 
the  singular  is  employed,  it  is  not  to  In:  understood  as 


denoting  the  same  kind  of  exclusive  personality  which 
is  indicated  by  the  Christ.  ISefore  the  close  of  the 
apostolic  age.  St.  John  found  what  he  meant  by  the 
antichrist  already  realized  in  a  number  of  individuals. 
'•Ye  have  heard."  says  he.  "that  antichrist •  cometh, 
and  already  many  have  become  antichrists"  (so  the 
words  in  i  Jn.  ii.  1*  should  be  rendered);  they  had  IJCCOM? 
such,  having  originally  professed  to  belong  to  the  Chris 
tian  community,  but  afterwards,  in  accordance  with 
their  real  principles,  separated  themselves  from  it. 
This  seems  to  imply,  that  what  the  apostle  meant  by 
antichristianism  was  some  sort  of  apostasy,  or  deprava 
tion  of  tin?  faith,  which  rendered  those  who  fell  into  it 
really  opponents  of  the  truth  of  the  gospel  df  Christ, 
though  without  setting  themselves  in  format  contrariety 
i  to  it.  They  did  not  avowedly  abjure  the  Christian 
name,  but  they  evacuated  it  of  its  proper  and  essential 
elements.  And  so  we  are  taught  more  expressly  in  the 
other  passage*,  \\hich  describe  the  antichrist  as  •'deny 
ing  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ."  "denying  the  Father  and 
the  Son,"  "not  confessing  that  .Jesus  is  of  Cod,"  or 
i  "not  confessing  that  Jesus  is  come  in  the  flesh" — this, 
i  he  emphatically  adds  in  his  -Jd  Kpistle.  ver.  7.  "is  the 
deceiver  and  the  antichrist."  The  doctrinal  error  de 
nounced  in  these  expressions  might  almost  seem  to  be 
identical  with  Judaism,  since  the  unbelieving  portion  of 
the  Jews  denied  Jesus  to  lie  the  Christ,  or  to  be  of 
Cod.  Yet  it  could  not  be  the  apostle's  design  to  speak 
simply  of  Jews,  since  such  would  never  have  been  re 
presented  as  going  forth  from  the  Christian  communi 
ties;  nor  would  it  have  been  at  all  a  natural  form  of 
expression  to  say  of  them,  that  they  did  not  confess 
Jesus  to  have  come  in  the  Hesh.  or  to  be  of  Cod.  The 
"not  confessing"  rather  points  to  the  defective  and 
essentially  hollow  nature  of  the  faith  maintained,  than 
to  its  formal  contrariety  to  the  truth  of  the  gospel:  the 
parties  in  question  made  some  pretensions  to  this,  but 
they  did  not,  in  any  proper  sense,  confess  that  Jesus  is 
of  Cod,  and  that  he  has  come  in  the  flesh;  and  so  they 
virtually  denied  both  the  Father  and  the  Son.  or  were 
ignorant  of  the  true  nature  and  mutual  7-elations  of  both. 
i  It  is,  indeed,  scarcely  possible  to  understand  the  expres 
sions  used,  coupled  with  the  assertion  that  there  were 
1  many  to  whom  even  then  they  applied,  but  by  supposing 
that  the  apostle  alludes  in  them  to  those  who  became 
infected  with  the  Cnostic  spirit,  and  who  were  thereby- 
led,  not  formally  to  disavow  the  name  of  Jesus,  but 
in  some  sense  to  deny  the  realities  of  his  being  or 
passion  ;  explaining  away  either  his  proper  humanity 
or  his  essential  divinity,  and,  by  means  of  docetic 
appearances  nr  shadowy  emanations,  substantially 
making  void  the  true  doctrine  of  the  incarnation.  \\  e 
!  know,  from  other  sources,  that  a  tendency  of  this  de- 
'  scription  manifested  itself  at  a  very  early  period  among 
the  Asiatic  churches,  although  the  regular  development 
'  of  the  Cnostic  svstems  belongs  to  a  later  time.  And 
\  St.  John  stamps  even  the  first  imperfect  exhibitions  of 
the  tendency,  which  struck  at  the  historical  basis  of  the 
Christian  faith,  as  the  manifestation  of  the  spirit  of 
antichrist. 

Ft  is  clear,  from  this  comparison  of  the  statements  in 
John's  writings,  that  it  is  equally  against  the  apostle's 
!  use  of  the  word  antichrist  to  regard  it  as  denoting,  in 
its  primary  application  at  least,  either  one  who  avows 
himself  the  enemy  of  Christ  or  one  who  usurps  the 
place  of  ( 'hrist.  I'.oth  of  these  opinions  found  an  early 
advoeacv  in  the  Christian  church,  and  still  have  their 


AXTIOOH 


101 


AN  TICK 'I  I 


the  granite  pavement  of  the  great  street  by  Antoninus  ,  tinned  outside  the  pale  of  the  church  ;   ami  Chrvsostom 
Pius,  the  palace  built  by  Diocletian.  Xc.      From  its  own     speaks  of  3000  regular  paupers  receiving  aliment  from 


importance,  therefore,  as  the  finest  and  largest  city  in 
that  part  of  Asia,  and  also  from  its  commanding  position 
between  Asia  Minor  on  the  one  side,  and  the  regions  of 
Syria  on  the  other,  we  can  readily  understand  lio\v  the 
first  heralds  of  the  gospel  should  have  sought,  at  an 
early  period,  to  carry  there  the  tidings  of  salvation, 
and  lay  the  foundations  of  a  Christian  church  Indeed, 
the  Lord  appears  to  have  directed  the  course  of  his 
providence  so  as  to  secure  an  eariv  introduction  of  the 
gospel  into  Antioch  :  for  the  disciples,  who  had  been 
scattered  abroad  on  the  persecution  following  on  tin- 


death  of  Stephen,  went,  we  are  t 
preaching  the  Word,  though  still  only  to  the  .lews. 
Ac.  \i.  ID.  Presently,  however.  some  who  were  "f  (  'yprns 
and  (  'vrene  proceeded  a  step  farther,  and  r-pake  also  to 
the  (i  recks.  The  labours  of  both  partii  s  were  remark 
ably  blessed,  so  that  "  a  great  number"  are  said  to 
have  believed  and  turne  1  to  the  Lord,  (hi  hearing  "i 
such  a  result,  the  apostles  sent  forth  P.aniaha.-.  him.-elf 
al-o  ,-i  man  of  Cvprus,  to  carry  forward  the  work  that 
had  be.  'ii  so  auspicio'.i.-!y  begun,  and  to  orgai 
church  at  Antioch.  After  labouring  in  this  eapaeiti, 
for  some  time  alone,  he  went  to  Tarsus.  \\hei-e  Paul 
had  been  residing,  and  brought  this  per.-oii  to  aid  him 
in  tin;  work  of  •  -tahlishing  a  church  at  Antioch.  Their 
joint  ministry  was  continued  fora  w  hole  year,  and  with 
such  success  that  the  church  became  di.-tin^iii-hed  for 
tin;  variety  of  it.-  uit'ts.  its  libi-ralitv  of  spirit.  and  it- 
forwardne-s  in  the  cause  of  Chri.-t.  i  If  its  own  motion 
it  ,-ent  forth  Paul  and  Uarnabas  on  their  tii-.-t  mi-.-ioiMrv 
tour.  Ac.  \in  i;  and  from  the  in 
cidental  not  ices  found  n^pect  inn- 

it     ill    the    Act.S   of    the     Apo.-tle-, 

it    i.i    clear  that    tile   church    at, 

Antioch    continue.  1    throughout 

the  apostolic   au(1,   as   we   know 

it  remained   long  afterwards,   a 

centre  of  vigorous  Christian  oper 

ations.      It  i-  noted  th.it  the  dis 

ciple-  Were  first  called  Chri-t  ian  - 

there1,    Ac.  .\i.  -ii       a    result  ,   it  is 

vcrv  commoidy  supposed,  of  the 

satirical    and     scurrilous     spirit 

for  which  the  Antiochians  were 

proverbial.       Put  this  mav  very 

w.-ll    be    doubted  ;     for    it    is    in 

immediate  connection   uith   the 

rapid  growth  of  the  church  it.-elf 

that  the  notice  is    eiveii.  and    i! 

looks   rather  as    if  the  disciple- 

in    their    youthful    ardour    and 

y.e;d  assumed  the  name  to  themselve...  than  had  it  thru.-t 

on  tlie.m  from  without.      Nor  dors  the  name  betray  any 

thing  of  a  contemptuous  or  sneering  spirit:   on  the  con 

trary,    it    is    the    fitting   designation    of    the    people    of 

Christ,    as    being   all    partakers,    in  a   mea.-uiv.    of  that 

Spirit   which   rests   in   its  fulness  upon    him.      And   ac 

cordingly,  it  was  no  sooner  formed  than  it  be^an  to  be 

everywhere  appropriated  by  believers  as  their  common 

appellation,  l  IV.  iv.  ir,;  AC.  xxvi.  2-. 

After  the  jmblic  recognition  of  Christianity,  Antioch 
took  rank  with  Jerusalem  and  Alexandria  as  the  seat 
of  a  patriarchal  see.  In  the  time  of  (  'lirysostom  it  is 
said  to  have  contained  lnO,(i(Ki  Christians,  with  about 
as  many  more,  who,  whether  avowed  pagans  or  not,  con 


the  church,  while  still  there  were  numbers  of  unre 
lieved  poor  i  /lorn.  -Jii.  in  Mut/t.)  The  city  muttered 
greatly  by  earthquakes,  and  partly  through  these, 
partly  through  the  desolations  of  the  .Persians  under 
Chosroes.  it  had  sunk  so  low  in  the  time  of  Justinian. 
that  it  required  to  be  nearly  rebuilt,  it  never  regained 
its  former  importance,  and  had  its  share  in  all  the 
vicissitudes  that  passed  over  the  district  in  which  it  is 
situated  —  conquered  by  the  Saracens,  reconquered  by 
the  Greeks,  again  in  the  hands  of  the  Mahometans, 
for  a  time  held  by  the  Crusaders,  regained  anew  b  the 


lil.  as  far  as  Antioch     follower.-  of  the  false  Prophet.      It  is  now.  and  has  b 


for  a  loii'.;'  period,  little  more  than  a  village,  bearing  the 
Syrian  form  of  its  ancient  name.  Ant<ik'nlt,  and  con 
taining  a  few  thousand  inhabitants.  So  recently,  how 
ever.  as  iMliJ,  when  it  was  again  visitt  d  by  a  destruc 
tive  earthquake,  in  which  thousand-  of  li\i  s  were  lost. 
it  i.-  .-aid  to  have  contained  about  I!(I,IMI(I  inhabitants. 
Many  broken  and  scattered  remains  of  its  ancient 
givatnos  an1  -till  to  be  seen  ainon-;  its  ruiiis.  The  few 
Chri-tians  in  it  ha\e  no  church:  and  the  only  external 
mark  that  appears  to  have  survived  of  its  ancient 
Christianity,  is  the  name  thai  i.-  borne  by  the  eastern 
or  Alepp..  gate.  It  is  called  aft<  r  St.  Paul,  Hub 


sometimes  coupled  with  Phry-ia.  sometimes  with  Pisi 
dia.  1'tolemv  even  assigns  it  to  I'amphvlia;  but  this 
mu-t  have  been  a  mistake,  a.-  Pi.-idia  la/  between 
I'amphvlia  and  Phrvgia.  and  Antioch  stood  on  the 
hordt  is  of  th.-  latu-r.  Strabo  connects  it  with  Phrygia. 
who  also  tells  us  that  it  \\as  founded  by  a  colony  from 
Magnesia  on  the  Maander.  (hi  the  defeat  of  Antio- 
chu.-ni.  by  the  Ponians.  in  I,.'.  UMI,  it  was  transferred, 
alone-  \\ith  a  considerable  territory  in  Asia  .Minor,  to 
the  dominions  of  Kuniene.-  II.  of  IVrgamos.  The  whole 
district  was  in  process  of  time  added  to  the  I  toman 
empire,  and  Aiitioch  was  made  the  seat  of  a  procon 
sular  goveriiiiu-nt..  It  had  the  Italian  rights  conferred 
on  it.  which  put  it  constitutionally  on  a  footing  of 


ANTIOCHUS 


ANTIOCHUS 


equality  with  the  Italian  towns,  and  it  was  also  called 
Ciesarea.  Such  was  its  rank  and  position  when  visited 
by  tin;  first  heralds  of  the  gospel.  Paul  and  Barnabas. 
Though  far  from  rivalling  in  si/.e  and  importance  the 
Syrian  Antioeh.  which  had  sent  them  forth  on  their 
missionary  tour,  it  still  was  undoubtedly  a  place  of 
some  note,  and  must  have  possessed  a  pretty  numerous 
population.  The  sacred  historian  speaks  not  only  of 
its  having  a  Jewish  synagogue,  but  also  a  considerable 
class  of  religious  proselytes,  or  fearers  of  Cod,  Ac.  xiii. 
Id,  i:;,  who  joined  in  the  services  of  the  synagogue.  To 
this  class,  it  would  appear,  the  greatest  part  belonged 
who  joined  themselves  to  Paul  a.nd  Barnabas;  and 
though  these  ambassadors  of  Christ  themselves  were 
soon  obliged  to  depart  on  account  of  the  bigotry  and 
violence  that  were  exhibited  by  the  unbelieving  portion 
of  the  Jews,  yet  they  were  enabled  to  leave  behind 
them  a  baud  of  steadfast  diseipbs  of  the  faith,  who 
are  said  to  have  been  "filled  with  joy  and  with  the 
Holy  Ghost." 

No  further  notices  occur  in  New  Testament  scrip 
ture  of  the  church  planted  in  this  Antioeh  :  nor  does 
it  figure  in  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  first 
centuries.  We  know  little  more  of  it  than  that  it  j 
formed  one  of  twenty  churches  in  Pisiditi,  which 
were-  each  presided  over  by  a  bishop.  Modern  research, 
conducted  first  by  the  Uev.  F.  Arundell,  British  chap-  ; 
lain  at  Smyrna,  and  more  recently  by  Mr.  Hamilton,  j 
has  identified  the  site  of  Antioeh  with  a  place  called 
Yalobateh,  011  the  north-west  border  of  Karamania. 
near  Lake  Kgerdir.  There  have  been  found  at  it  the 
remains  of  several  large  buildings,  of  which  one  ap 
pears  to  have  been  a  spacious  church,  another  a  temple, 
possibly  that  of  Men  Arcajus,  who  was  peculiarly 
worshipped  there ;  and  as  many  as  twenty  arches  of  a 
vast  aqueduct  exist  in  a  state  of  comparative  perfec 
tion.  Descriptions  of  these  may  be  found  in  Arundell' s 
Discoveries  in  Asia  Minor,  1834  ;  and  Hamilton's  Re 
searches  In  Asia  Minor,  Pont  us  and  Armenia,  1842. 

ANTI'OCHUS  does  not  occur  as  the  name  of  any 
individual  in  the  canonical  writings  of  the  Old  or  New 
Testament,  but  from  the  frequent  mention  made  of  it 
in  the  apocryphal  books  of  the  Maccabees,  and  the  re 
ference  in  the  prophecies  of  Daniel  to  a  particular  king 
who  was  to  bear  the  name,  it  is  fit  that  a  brief  account 
should  here  be  given  of  the  Syrian  kings  who,  under 
the  name  of  Aiitiochus,  came  more  or  less  into  contact 
with  the  covenant  people.  There  were  altogether 
thirteen  of  this  name,  who  belonged  to  the  Greek- 
Asiatic  kingdom. 

1.  ANTIOCHUS  I.,  surnamed  Xotvr,  the  son  of  Scleu- 
cus  Nicator,  one  of  the  generals  of  Alexander,  scarcely 
requires  to  be  noticed,  as,  from  having  his  possessions, 
in  the  first  instance,  assigned  him  in  Upper  Asia,  and 
afterwards,  from  being   almost  constantly  engaged  in 
contests,    partly  for   the   kingdom   of   Macedonia   and 
partly  with  the  Gauls  in  Asia  Minor,  he  played  no  part 
in  connection  with  the  territory  of  Palestine. 

2.  ANTIOCHUS  II.,  surnamed  Tfieos,  son  of  the  pre 
ceding,  who  succeeded  his  father  B.C.  200  or  2(>1.  was. 
in  like  manner,  involved  in  continual  broils  and  war 
fare.     Ptolemy  Philadelphus  of  Egypt  gained  such  ad 
vantages  over  him  that  his   kingdom  became  greatly 
weakened.  And  having  concluded  a  peace  with  Ptolemy 
on  condition  of  putting  away  his  wife,   Laodice.  and 
marrying    Ptolemy's    daughter    Berenice,    the    former 
succeeded,  a  few  years  afterwards,  in  effecting  her  re 


union  with  Aiitiochus,  but  only  to  murder  both  him 
and  Berenice.  This  took  place  in  B.C.  24(.i,  after  An- 
tioehus  had  reigned  between  fourteen  and  fifteen  years. 
It  appears  to  be  to  this  king  of  Syria  that  prospective 
allusion  is  made  in  Da.  xi.  5,  where  the  king's  daughter 
of  the  south  (Egypt)  is  spoken,  of  as  coming  to  the 
king  of  the  north  (Syria)  to  make  an  agreement;  and  it 
is  said  that  she  should  not  retain  her  power,  but  should 
IK:  given  up. 

3.  ANTIOCHUS,  surnamed  I/IK  (jreat,  the  next  in  order, 
was  not  the  son.  hut  the  grandson  of  the  preceding,  the 
son  of  Seleucus  Callinicus,  who  attained  to  the  throne 
after  the  death  of  an  elder  brother  in  the  year  Ji.C.  223. 
He  was  then  only  fifteen  years   old.      His  reign  com 
menced  prosperously,  though  for  this  prosperity  he  was 
greatly  indebted   to  a  cousin,  Aclueus,  who  generously 
took  his   part.       Possessions  in   Asia  Minor  were  re 
gained  that  had  been  appropriated  by  Attains,  king  of 
Pergamos;  the  provinces  of  Media  and  Persia  were  also, 
after  some  reverses,  recovered;  and  a  successful   con 
flict  was  entered  into  with  Ptolemy  Philopater  of  Egypt, 
for  the  provinces  of  Coele- Syria,  Phoenicia,  and  Pales 
tine,  which  had  once  belonged  to  the  Syrian  dominion, 
but  latterly  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  king  of 
Egypt.      But  this  was  only  a  temporary  success  as  re 
gards  his  struggle  with  the  king  of  Egypt ;  for  Aiitio 
chus  suffered  a  severe  defeat  the  year  afterwards,  li.c. 
217,  and  was  obliged  to  give  up  his  claim  to  the  pro 
vinces  in  question.      About  thirteen  years  after,  and 
when   Egypt    had   a  boy    of    five   years    old    for    king 
(Ptolemy  Epiphanes),  Antiochus  again  entered  into  a 
war   with   that    country  and    regained    T'alestine    and 
Coele-Syria,  though  he  afterwards  made  a  peace  with 
Ptolemy,  gave  him  his  daughter  in  marriage,  and  gave 
also  those  two  provinces  as  her  dowry.     The  Jews  gave 
him  valuable  assistance  in  that  war  with  Egypt,  and 
obtained   in    return    important     privileges    from   him 
(Josephus,  Ant.  xii.  3,   3).      At  a  later  period  still,   he 
came  into  conflict  with  the   Romans,  and  was  defeated 
in  a  succession  of  battles,  lost  a  considerable  portion  of 
his    territory,    and    had    such  a  heavy  tribute  to  pay 
(15,000  Euboic  talents),  that  he  was  tempted  to  lay  his 
hands  on  the  treasures  of  a  temple  in  Elymais.  which 
cost  him  his  life ;  for  the   people  rose  up  against  him 
and  put  him  to  death,   B.C.  187.     This  appears  to  be 
the  king  of  the  north  that  is  referred  to  in  several  verses 
of  Da.  xi.,  beginning  at  ver.  11. 

4.  ANTIOCHUS,   surnamed  Epiphanes,  and    also    on 
coins  Tlieos,  was  the  one  who  beyond  all  the  rest  figured 
in  Jewish  history;  not,  however,  as  the  friend  or  ally  of 
the  covenant  people,  but  as  their  bitter  and  relentless 
enemy.     In  his  youth  he  had  been  given  by  his  father  as 
a  hostage  to  the  Romans,  but  was  released  through  the 
kindness  of  his  brother  Seleucus  Philopater,  who  sent 
his  own  son  in  his  stead.     In  the  same  year,  B.C.   175, 
Seleucus  himself  was  murdered  by  one  Heliodorus,  who 
seized  upon  the  throne,  but  was  speedily  dispossessed 
by  Aiitiochus.     His   sister  Cleopatra,    who  had  been 
married  to  the  king  of  Egypt,  having  died,  Antiochus 
laid  claim  to  the  provinces  of  Caele-S3:ria  and  Palestine. 
The  raising  of  this  claim  led  to  a  war  against  Egypt, 
which  was  prosecuted  through  four  campaigns  in  those 
provinces   (during    the  years    B.C.  171-168),   and  was 
at  last  carried  into  Egypt ;  but  the  Romans  there  in 
terposed,  and  obliged  Aiitiochus  to  desist.     It  was  in 
the  course  of  those  campaigns  for  the  conquest  of  Crele- 
Syria  and  Palestine,  that  he  practised  the  cruelties  upon 


A  XT  I  PAS 


103 


A.PHKK 


the  Jews  which  are  recorded  in  the  books  of  the  Macca 
bees,  and  which  gave  rise  to  the  heroic  strivings  for  inde 
pendence  that  issued  in  a  state  of  comparative,  though 
but  temporary  freedom.  Antiochus  twice  got  possession 
of  Jerusalem  ;  but  his  insane  attempt  to  extirpate  the 
Jewish  religion,  and  establish  in  its  stead  that  of  the 
Greek  divinities,  roused  the  national  spirit  against  him, 
and  his  troops,  under  the  command  of  Lysias.  sustained 
a  severe  defeat.  When  hastening  from  the  eastern  parts 
of  the  kingdom  to  revenge  this  disaster.  Antiochus 
died  at  Tabie  in  Persia,  in  a  state  of  madness.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  he  is  the  person  specially  re 
ferred  to  in  several  passages  of  the  book  of  Daniel, 
cli.  viii.  •_'3-.':>;  xi  31,  scq  :  which  describe,  p respectively, 
the  violent  and  sacrilegious  proceedings  of  a  Syrian 
king  against  the  covenant  people  and  the  sanctuary 
of  God.  He  not  only  killed  multitudes  of  the  peo 
ple  in  Jerusalem,  but  also  suppressed  the  Jewish 
worship,  and  defiled  the  sanctuary  by  introducing 
into  it  the  statue  of  Jupiter  Olympus ;  so  that  for  a 
time  the  adversarv  triumphed,  and  in  the  temple  of 
God  In-  exalted  hims -If  against  what  wa-  tlnn-wor 
shipped  and  adored. 

5.  ANTim'iirs  V..  sin-named  J-.'njntfor.  was  tin -son  of 
Kpiphanes,  a  bo\-  of  nine  years  old  when  he  succeeded  his 
father,  and   he  only  reigned   two  years    ii'..r.  I'l  1-1 1;-_'>. 
The   government    was    more    that    of    Lvsias,    who    as 
sumed  tin-  guardianship  of  tin-  voiin^  kin-_.  than  of  tin- 
king  himself,  and  for  both  the  one  and  tin-  other  it  soon 
calm:   to   an   end:    for.  after   various   conflicts   with   tin- 
Jews  and  others,  they  fell  into  tin-  hands  of    Demetrius 
Soter.  of   Ivjvpt.    who  appeared   as  a  claimant   for  the 
kingdom  of  Syria,  and  wen-  put  to  death. 

6.  Avnorurs  VI..   simiaim-d  7'/"</.v.  was  tin-  son  of 
Alexander  P.alas.  who  claimed    to  be  the  son  of  Antio 
chus  Kpiphanes.  and  was  killed  in  his  efforts   to  make 
g 1    his   title    to    the   throne.      Nor  did   tin-  son   suc 
ceed  in  establishing  his   kingdom:   for.  though  In-   had 
the  support  of  Jonathan  and  Simon,  tin-  Jewish  leaders, 
and  also  won  tin-  homage  of  tin-  larger  part  of  Syria.  In- 
was  killed   by  Trypholi.   who    had    professed    to   espoii.-e 
the  interest  of  tin-   ymni^   kin_r.      This  Ti-yplmn  was  in 
turn    killed    bv  tin-   ii'-xt   who    bore    the   name   and   ac 
quired  the  dominion. 

7.  ANTI"(-IU;S  VII..  .-nrnamed  >'/(/«  ''.-•.  was  a  younger 
son  of  Demetrius  Soter,  and  obtained    po-ses.-ioii  of  tin- 
throne  in  B.C.   1:57.      The   Jews.  win.   had   !u -en   /.-alous 
supporters  of   tin-  opposite  interest,  suffered  severely  at 
his  hands  :  ami,  after  a  long  siege.  .It  rusali  m  was  take  n 
bv  him    in    B.C.  ]•',:'>.       He  did   not.  however,  press  his 
victorv.  but   granted   them   an   honourable  peace.       Ib 
afterwards  fell  fighting  against  the    Parthians.       In  tin- 
last    chapters    of    1     Mac.    an    account    is    'jiveii   of    the 
earlier  transactions  of  this  kind's  rei^n  :  but  the  history 
abruptly  terminates.      It  is  needless   to    prosecute  tin- 
historv  of  this  race  of  nionarchs   farther,   as  it  is  little 
else  than  a  historv  of  civil   broils  and  contentions,  and 
the  chief  actors  came  greatly  less  into  contact  with  tin- 
affairs   of    Palestine,    than   those    who    belonged   to   the 
earlier  half  of  the  series. 

AN'TIPAS,  a  faithful  martyr  at  Pergamos  in  Asia 
Minor,  lie.  ii  i:;-,  hut  we  know  nothing  more  of  him.  And 
it  may  be  questioned,  perhaps,  whether  Antipas  was 
the  actual  name  of  the  person  referred  to,  and  not 
rather  an  epithet  indicative  of  the  steadfast  resistance- 
he  made  to  the  evil-doers  and  corruptions  around  him; 
for  the  word  means  against  all;  and  possibly  this,  like 


the  name  Jezebel  in  the  next  address,  was  a  designation 
of  character,  not  a  proper  name. 

AN'TIPAS  HEROD.    See  HERODIAN  FAMILY. 

ANTIFATER.  a  son  of  Herod.  Sec  HKKOUIAN 
FAMILY. 

ANTIPATRIS,  a  city  built  by  TIerod  the  Great, 
and  called  after  his  father  (Josephus,  An/,  xvi.  fi,  '2  : 
Win-iS.  i.  -J],  1M.  It  is  reported  to  have  been  built  in 
the  plain  C'apharsaba — "the  finest  plain  in  the  king 
dom."  well  supplied  with  water,  and  having  in  its 
neighbourhood  groves  of  large  trees.  Elsewhere  the 
historian  describes  the  site  of  this  plain  and  city  to 
have  lieen  not  verv  far  from  the  sea  of  Joppa  (Ant, 
xiii.  l.'i.  1 1.  from  which  it  was  distant  about  1'Ju  stadia.. 
We  learn  also  from  Ac.  xxiii.  .">!.  that  it  lay  mi  the. 
road  between  Jerusalem  and  Ca-sarea.  from  which  an 
ancient  itinerary  makes  it  distant  -<>  Human  miles. 
It  has  been  ascertained  that  the  ancient  name  (  jiphar 
saba  still  e\i>ts  in  the  plain  \\heiv  Antipatris  stood, 
under  the  Arabic  form  of  Kefr  Saba.  in  the  province  uf 
Nabulns.  The  Crusaders  erroneously  identified  the  city 
with  Arsuf.  a  place  much  nearer  the  shore,  and  the 
mistake  has  been  kept  up  till  comparatively  recent 
times  i  Ii'obinson's  {{(searches,  iii.  p.  b">i. 

ANTITYPE.     Sec  T>  IT. 

APES  occur  in  Scripture  only  in  connection  uith 
the  merchant- ships  of  Solomon,  which  are  said  in  their 
Tarshish  trade  to  have  imported  them  among  other 
rare  pruductions,  i  Ki  X.L-J;  L'Cli  ix.L'l.  The  word  eni- 
jiluved  for  these  in  the  original  is  the  plural  of  t-pp 
(leu/ill*,  which  a p| tears  in  Sanscrit  and  Malabar  as  l.'d/ii. 
and  in  (In-ek  as  /,  //TTOS.  /vy);io9.  Kn.ioi.  There  can  be  m> 
doubt  that  the  word  is  ri'jhtlv  translated  HJHX;  but  as 
nothing  is  said  of  the  particular  species  of  apes  referred 
to.  of  the  countries  uheiice  thev  \\ere  brought,  or  the 
purposes  to  which  they  \\ere  applied,  we  deem  it  i|uite 
unneces-.-irv  to  enter  into  the  natural  histor\  of  the 
animal.  Nothing  of  importance  could  be  derived  from 
such  an  ini|iiirv  for  the  iilustratioli  of  Scriptiu-e.  As 
ape-  abound  in  Africa,  and  various  species  of  them  are 
indigenous  to  the  countries  which  lie  along  the  African 
side  of  the  1,'ed  Sea.  it  is  probable  that  they  \\ere  <>b 
tained  from  some  port  in  that  region.  It  is  certain 
that  several  classes  were  known  to  the  ancients,  and 
were  chiefly  derived  from  Kthiopia  (I'lin.  viii.  Ml); 
specimen-  of  them,  with  IOUL;'  tails,  were  exhibitt  d  in 
the  games  celebrated  at  Home,  both  by  Pmnpey  and 
Ca-sar  (I'lill.  viii.  l!':  Solinus.  /><  i.ll'inj,.}  They  ap 
pear  to  have  been  eliieflv  pri/.ed  as  natural  curiosities 
or  monsters:  and  as  such,  in  all  probability,  they  were 
found  anioni:  the  importations  of  the  Tarshish  navy  of 
Solomon.  But  no  particulars  are  known  to  us  beyond 
tiie  fact  ol  such  importations. 

APHAR'SACHITES.  the  name  of  one  of  the  sec 
tions  of  colonists  brought  by  the  kinuf  of  Assyria  to 
people  Samaria,  after  the  captivity  of  the  ten  tribes, 
K/.r.v.c  Their  original  place  and  historv  are  altogether 
unknown.  A  I'IIAKSATIK  il  HKS.  in  K/.r.  iv. '.'.  is  probably 
but  another  form  of  the  same  name. 

APHAR'SITES  appear  to  have  been  a  distinct 
tribe  from  the  preceding.  K/r.  iv.n.  but  closely  allied  to 
them. 

APH'EK  \xtrni'/th  ;  hence  applied  as  an  appropriate 
designation  to  a  fortified  town).  Three  places,  ap 
parently,  though  not  unite  certainly,  all  distinct,  are  so 
designated  in  Scripture:  one  in  the  tribe  of  Asher. 
which  at  first  the  tribe  was  unable  to  get  possession  of. 


APOCHRYPHA 


Ju.  i. :«,  Mini  posMbly  tin-  same  as  the  village  Afka.  in 
Lebanon,  men  tinned  hv  Burckhardt  ami  other*:  another, 
near  which  IVidiadad  was  defeated  liy  the  Israelites. 
I  ;\i  XX.L'I'I,  which  seems  to  have  lain  much  farther  south. 
though  its  locality  is  left  very  undefined  :  and  another 
in  the  tribe  of  Issachar.  not  far  from  Je/n •>•].  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  which  the'  Philistines  once  and  again 
encamped  before  joining  battle  with  Israel,  l  Sa.  iv.  l  ; 
;,xix.  1. 

APOCALYPSE.     See  RKVKLATION. 
APOCRYPHA,  properly  concealed  or  hidden,  hut 

from  t-arlv  times  n.-ed  as  a  designation  of  writings. 
which  stand  in  a  certain  relation  to  the  canonical  Scrip- 
tures,  while  still  thev  want  canonical  authority.  It  is 
not  quite  certain  on  what  grounds  the  term  came  to  he 
so  applied,  and  various  reasons  have  lieen  assigned. 
The  most  probable  account  seems  to  be  that  it  was.  in 
the  iirst  instance,  used  to  denote  writings  secret  as  to 
their  origin  and  contents.  Then,  as  the  canonical  Scrip 
tures  Were  the  writings  publicly  read  and  appealed  to 
as  standards  of  faith  and  dutv.  those  other.-  were  also  de 
nominated  apocryphal,  as  being  tilted  for  use;  in  private, 
butnot  entitled  to  occupy  a  recognized  place  among  writ 
ings  strictly  authoritative  and  divine.  The  word,  how 
ever,  often  received  a  more  extended  application,  and 
characteri/ced  writings  which  were  of  spurious  origin,  and 
objectionable  in  character.  it  is  no\v.  and  for  long  lias 
been  appropriated,  by  way  of  eminence,  to  certain  books 
that  came  into  existence  between  tin  close  of  the  Old 
Testament  canon  and  the  commencement  of  the  Gospel 
dispensation.  They  are  the  two  books  of  Ksdras,  Tobit. 
.Judith,  the  sequel  of  Ksther.  Wisdom.  Ecclesiasticus, 
Barueh,  the  Son-  of  the  Three  Children,  the  Story  of 
Susanna,  the  Jdol  Inland  the  Dragon,  the  Prayer  of 
.Manasses.  and  the  two  books  of  .Maccabees.  These 
productions  have  come  down  to  us  only  in  the  Creek 
language,  and  have  noplace  in  the  .Jewish  canon.  But 
they  have  existed  from  the  earliest  times  in  the  Greek 
scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Septuauint.  and 
appear  there  interspersed  among  the  other  books,  as  if 
there  was  no  essential  difference  between  them. 

This  intermixture  of  thetv.o  classes  of  productions 
in  the  Septuagint  proved  to  be  an  unfortunate  circum 
stance  for  the  \  iews  of  the  ancient  church.  The  Greek- 
speaking  Jews  still  had  a  measure  of  acquaintance  with 
the  Hebrew  liibles.  and  could  thus  readily  distinguish 
between  the  Scriptures  which  composed  the  canon  of 
inspiration  and  the  subsequent  additions.  But  com 
paratively  few  of  the  ( 'hristian  fathers  knew  anything 
of  Hebrew:  they  could  usually  go  no  nearer  to  the 
original  than  the  Creek  scriptures,  and  thus  naturally 
fell  into  the  mistake  of  putting  the  apocryphal,  much 
on  a  footing  with  the  canonical,  writings.  Portions,  at 
least,  of  the  one  class,  as  well  as  the  other  were  fre 
quently  read  in  the  churches:  and  books  so  read,  whether 
strictly  authoritative  or  not.  went  hv  the  name  of 
canonical,  the  term  meaning,  however,  nothing  more 
than  that  they  belonged  to  the  list  of  works  adapted  for 
use  in  the  public  worship  of  God.  When  the  question 
was,  what,  in  the  stricter  sense,  we're  the  canonical  books 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Apocrypha  was  not  reckoned 
in  earlier  times— for  example,  in  the  enumeration  of 
the  Jewish  Scriptures  by  Melito  of  Sardis.  as  given  by 
Kusebius  (AVr/.  ///V.  iv.  iihi.  and  by  Ori gen.  as  also 
given  by  Kusehius  (iv.  2;")).  But  the  apocryphal  writ 
ings  gradually  crept  into  use.  The  councils  of  Car 
thage  in  :','.i7  ami  ll'.i  prohibited  any  ],,,,,ks  from  bein<_r 


publicly  read  which  were  not  canonical,  and  at  the 
same  time  included  most  of  the  Apocrypha  among  the 
canonical  specifying  Judith,  Tobit,  Wisdom,  Kcclesi- 
aslicus.  the  two  books  of  Maccabees.  Augustine  ex 
ercised  a  preponderating  influence  at  these  councils,  and 
unfortunately  on  this  subject  he  Vas  disqualified,  fYom 
want  of  Jewish  learning,  for  being  a  safe  guide.  He 
seems,  indeed,  to  have'  been  perfectly  aware  that  the 
apocryphal  books  were  not  included  in  the  Hebrew 
canon,  and  in  regard  to  some  of  them  occasionally  takes 
notice  of  the  fact.  But  he  does  not  on  this  account 
allow  any  exception  against  their  sacred  character;  he 
quotes  from  Baruch  as  a  genuine  production  of  Jere 
miah,  in  contrariety  to  some,  who  attributed  it  to  his 
scribe  (De  Cir.  xviii  :j:ji  ;  and  names  Tobit.  Judith, 
the  two  books  of  Maccabees,  the  two  of  Ksdras,  Wisdom, 
and  Ecclesiasticus,  as  strictly  authoritative  productions, 
and  the  two  latter  as  even  worthy  of  being  placed  among 
the  prophetical  1 1)<:  JJac.  C'/irinHnna.  ii.  1 3).  Jerome  in 
this  contrasted  favourably  with  Augustine,  a  distinc 
tion  he  doubtless  o\\ed  chiefly  to  his  more  accurate 
learning.  According  to  him.  that  alone  is  canonical 
which  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God:  and  though,  as 
he  says  in  his  introduction  to  Judith,  the  church  reads 
that  and  other  books  of  the  Apocrypha,  it  is  "only  for 
the  edification  of  the  people,  not  to  establish  the  au 
thority  of  ecclesiastical  doctrines."  In  the  famous 
Proloyus  Gahatux  he  enumerates  the  twenty-two  book's 
of  the  Jewish  canon,  and  adds.  '•  Whatever  is  beside 
these,  is  to  be  placed  in  the  Apocrypha  and  is  to  be 
read  only  for  edification."  Paiffmus,  his  contemporary, 
was  of  the  same  mind,  and  expressly  distinguishes 
between  those  books  by  which  matters  of  faith  are  to 
be  established,  and  others  "not  canonical,  but  ecclesi 
astical  (mentioning  various  books  of  the  Apocryphal, 
which  the  fathers  wished,  indeed,  to  be  read  in  churches, 
but  not  to  be  produced  for  authoritative  decisions  in 
matters  of  doctrine  (K.i-pos.  in  Kymli.  Aj><j*t.  2H1.  The 
Benedictine  editors  of  Jerome  say,  in  their  Prolegomena 
to  his  Translation  (Of>.  vol.  iii.),  that  "the  apocryphal 
books  were  not  for  some  time  after  the  age  of  Jerome 
and  Kuffmus  received  into  the  sacred  canon."  quoting 
an  old  MS.  of  the  Vulgate  Bible  in  proof:  and  they 
affirm  that  the  writings  to  which  was  assigned  the 
weight  of  canonical  Scripture  "consisted  of  such  as 
composed  the  canon  of  Hebrew  verity,  in  which  the 
books  called  either  apocryphal  or  ecclesiastical  by  the 
fathers  were  never  reckoned.  Xow.  however  (they 
add,  to  save  their  Catholic  orthodoxy),  that  they  have 
been  received  into  the  ecclesiastical  canon  without 
difference  as  to  authority,  they  deserve  equal  regard 
with  the  other  books  from  all  the  truly  pious,  who  glory 
in  adhering  to  the  decree  of  the  council  of  Trent  re 
specting  the  canonical  Scriptures." 

The  two  great  authorities  of  the  Uoman  church 
having  thus  assumed  different  positions  respecting  the 
writings  of  the  Apocrypha,  different  views  continued 
to  be  set  forth  from  time  to  time  on  the  subject.  Gre 
gory  the  Great,  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  Jerome, 
clearly  distinguishes  between  the  apocryphal  and  cano 
nical,  as  between  the  human  and  divine;  when  he 
cites  from  "holy  Scripture,''  it  is  always  the  inspired 
books  that  he  refers  to  (Moral,  in  Job,  viii.  c.  28,  v.  c. 
~[:'>};  but  when  he  appeals  to  the  first  book  of  Maccabees, 
it  is  coupled  with  an  apology  for  making  use  of  writ 
ings  which  have  no  proper  authority,  but  are  only  for 
edification  (Ibid,  xix  i:>).  Later  writers  are  also  to  be 


A  POC  Ull  VI '11 A 


iur> 


ArocHRYi'HA 


found  ;it  intervals  expressing  opinions  at  variance  with  j  the    New   Testament,   cany  us  directly  lack   to  what 
their  proper  canonicity.    Bede  for  example,  in  the  eighth    had  been    written    in   Malachi,    and  those   who   went 


century  distinguishes  properly  between  them  and  the 


sacred  writings 


t.   in  Ajmc.  iv.t;  and  Nicolas 


de  Lyra,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  one  of  the  great 
authorities  of  the  Catholic  church,  refers  to  the  distinc 
tion  drawn  by  Jerome  between  canonical  and  non- 
canonical,  but  states  that  it  had  commonly  been  lost 
sight  of,  and  represents  the  canonical  as  in  all  things 
surpassing  the  others  in  dignity  (I}r<f.  in  T<ib.  \c.> 


before  him,  T.u.i.  \7,&c.  Equally  striking  is  the  apparent 
oblivion  of  the  Apocrypha  in  the  last  hook  of  Scrip 
ture — the  Apocalypse — which  gathers  its  imagery  and 
language  from  all  the  earlier  revelations  of  Cod.  but 
takes  no  contribution  from  the  writings  composing  the 
Apocrypha.  4.  In  these  apocryphal  writings  them 
selves  als 
deficiency 


How,  then.it  may  naturally  be  asked,  should  the  Romish  a  deficiency  in  respect  to  originality,  majesty,  simplicity, 
church,  in  the  face  of  so  many  conflicting  testimonies,  and  power.  Nor  have  they,  like  the  sacred  books,  any 
have  elevated  the  Apocrypha  at  the  council  of  Trent  proper  connection  among  themselves ;  they  are  without 
to  a  level  with  the  inspired  writings?  It  was  certainly 
'lone  in  the  face  of  one  of  her  favourite  maxim-  tin- 
unanimous  consent  of  the  fathers;  but  this  was  coun 
terbalanced  by  the  desire  of  retaining  the  support  \\hieh 
the  Apocrypha  yielded  to  some  of  the  Romish  tenets, 
and  by  determined  <»ppo-',tion  to  the  Protestants,  \\lio 
had  unanimously  excluded  the  Apocrypha  from  tin- 
canonical  Scriptures,  though  in  certain  quarter-  it  was 
allowed  to  be  read  for  edification.  Romi  '  '  ' 

tics  have  sometimes  endeavoured  to  i;-ive  a  modified 
view  of  tii--  Tridi-ntine  council,  by  distiim'ui*hiiiir  be 
tween  canonical  of  the  first  and  canonical  of  tin-  se 
cond  rank,  and  holding  that  the  decree  of  the  council 
does  not  oblige  one  to  .-...-sign  the  Apocrypha  to  a 
higher  than  tin-  .-  condary  place.  P.ut  tin-  lanyuaue  is 
too  explicit  to  admit  of  such  an  interpretation,  and 
hence  it  has  never  been  generally  n-cogm/ed. 

In  regard  to  tin-  question  it-elf,  uh.-thor  tin-  Apo 
cr\pha  .-Innild  he  admitted  into  the  Old  Testament 
canon  or  excluded  from  it.  tin-  fo!le>uinur  may  be  tak.  n 
as  a  brief  summary  of  the  reasons  for  iiiaintainiiiy;  the 
negative  side:—  1.  There  i.-.  first  of  all.  tin-  hi*torieal 
argument  against  it  it  was  not  received  as  authorita 

tive  Scripture  by  tlmse  \\ln>  had  intrusted  to  tlnm  the  tobulus  in  tin  I* 
formation  of  the  <  >\,[  T,-. lament  canon.  Nor  have  whom  the  first  1 
tin- Jews  at  any  period  of  their  hi*toiy  put  the  apo 
cryphal  writings  on  a  level  with  th"*e  of  the  sacred 
books.  Jo.-ephus  expressly  di*tingui*hes  them  from 
the  latter;  1'hilo  never  refer.-  to  them  ;  and  tin-  Jewish 
authorities  of  later  time*,  so  far  from  >houin--;  any  de 
sire  to  exalt  the  Apocrypha  unduly,  not  unt'n-qin-ntl  v 
point  to  it  as  among  the  differences  subsisting  between 
them  and  Christians  uin-anin^.  of  course,  Romish 
Christian*',  that  they  reject,  while  the  others  receive, 
as  authoritative  the  apocryphal  books.  •_'.  Then,  then-  referred 
is  the  entire  silence  of  our  Lord  and  the  apostles  re 
specting  them.  |',y  the.-e  the  scriptures  of  the  (  Md 
Testament  are  quoted  \\ith  endless  frequency,  but 
never  tin-  Apocrypha.  The  Jcwi.-h  cation  jn-t  as  it 
stood  was  recogni/.td  and  sanctioned  as  tin  Word  of 
Cod  by  the  founders  of  tin-  Chri-tian  church,  and  all 
not  belonging  to  it  was  by  implication  excluded.  For. 
the  character  ascribed  by  them  to  the  Jewish  Scriptures 
was  distinctive  and  peculiar:  it  neither  was  nor  could 
be  shared  in  by  any  other  writings,  otherwise  a  charge 

of  unfaithful  dealing  in  regard  to  the  letter  of  Scripture     to  time  has   been  waged  within   the   bonne 
must    have    lain    against   the    spiritual    guides   of   the  j  tantism,  as  to  whether  the  Apocrypha  shoi 
Jewish  people,  which   is  ne-u-r  brought.      :i.   The  writ 
ings  of  the  New  Testament  stand  in  immediate  juxta- 


any  regular  plan  or  progressive  order,  but  are  simply 
an  aggregate  of  human  production*.  And  the  ditle- 
rence  ill  these  respects  betwixt  them  and  the  canonical 
Scriptures  is  plainly  indicated  in  the  writings  them- 
selves ;  for  the  son  of  Siraeh  claims  nothing  higher 
than  tlie  merit  of  learning  and  wisdom — prais.  -  the 
learned,  indeed,  as  in  his  day  the  highot  class.  1'n.I.aml 
cli.  xxxix.;  and  in  1  .Mae.  iv.  -l<>.  ix.  -J7.  xiv.  II.  the 
ias-  period  subsequent  to  the  clo.-ing  of  the  canon  appears 
to  be  regarded  as  a  poor  and  depressed  one.  as  com 
pared  v.ith  those  that  had  cnjo\,d  propln  tic  gifts. 
."».  They  contain  things  utterly  at  \ariamv  with  the  pro 
per  character  of  a  divine  revelation  fables,  falseh Is, 

and  errors  of  doctrine.  Thus  the  angel  in  Tobit.  who 
at  last  declares  himself  t"  be  Raphael,  had  at  the 
first  yjve  n  him.-elf  out  to  be  A/arias,  the  son  of  Ana 
nias  the  ( ireat.  Judith  imt  only  a<  ts  throughout  a  de 
ceitful  part,  but  even  prays  ( iod  to  own  and  make  use  of 
her  deceit,  c-li.  ix  in.  The  two  hook-  of  .Maccabees  contain 
various  historical  errors  and  contradictions  -  as  in  ivyard 
to  Judas,  who  is  *aid  in  tin-  first  book  t"  have  died  in 
tin-  l.VJel  year,  while  in  tin-  Iir*t  chapter  of  the  second 
book  In-  is  represented  as  joiiiin-  in  a  letter  to  Ari*- 
i  y.  ar  :  so  in  r.  gard  t»  Antioe-hus, 
k  represents  to  have  died  in  Kly- 

mais,  and  the  s.e-ond  t,,  have  perished  in  the-  mountains 
after  having  been  repulsed  at  IVr*e  polis.  Then,  there 
an-  the  ridiculous  fables  of  the  ti.-h  in  Tobit,  , 
of  Jeremiah's  taking  tin-  ark  and  altar  to  .Mount  Pis- 
'_rah.  and  hidiny  tlnm  in  a  cave,  -.'Ma.-  ii.;  of  !'..•!  anil 
the-  I>,agon.  and.  indeed,  the-  whole  story  of  Judith 
si-ems  little  else-  than  a  fable-,  as  there  is  no  perioel  in 
tin-  hi.-tory  of  post-  Pabylonish  times  to  \\hich  the 
trail-actions  narrated  in  it  can  with  any  probability  he 
f  alms.  too.  and  tin-  worth  of 

human  righteousness,  are  sometimes  discoiirseel  of  in  a 
,-tylc  little  accordant  with  the  spirit  of  the-  I'ible-;  anil 
even  the-  he -tie  T  parts  of  tin-  apocryphal  books  have  not 

a   little-   heterogeneous  matter  mixed  up  with  tin-  ir 1 

contaiiie-il  in  tin  111. 

Cpon    the    whole,    therefore,  tin  re   is   ample   reason, 
in  a  doctrinal   as    well   as    histe.rical    respect,  to  justify 
tin-   Protestant  churches  in   cxcluelin^   tin-  Apocrypha 
from  the  sae-ivd  cainm.  anil   to   e-omlemn    Rome  for   re- 
it.      In  tin-  controversy  also,  which   from   time 

f    Pn.tes- 
be  benine! 

up  with  the-  books  of  Scripture,  it  seems  obvious  that 
tin-  grounds  which  decide  the  one  question  should  also 


position  with  those  of  the  Old  ;  the  commencement  of  :  be  held  decisive  of  the  other.     For,  whatever  secondary 


the  go-pel    history    resume 
communications  when-  the 


the'  thread   of   the   divine 
later  prophets  of  the  pre- 


>r  incidental  benefits  may  be  derived  from  the'  study 
if   the   aprocyphal   books   as   the   w.inl   e.f   man.    they 


ceding  dispensation  dropped  it:  and.  as  if  nothing  of     should,  as  a  general  rule,  be  placed  in  no  such  dangerous 

inspired  matter  came  between,   the  first  utterances  of  j  proximity  to  the  Word  of  Cod.      What  is  emphatically 
Voi,  1  14 


APOCHUYPHAL    HOOKS 


100 


>OST! 


Th''.  Hook  of  God's  revelation  should  stand  alone  in 
its  sacrediu'ss  before  tin;  world;  so  that  none  may  lie 
tempted  to  confound  with  it  what  neither  possesses  the 
same  divine  character  nor  is  five  from  the  infusion  of 
human  error  and  corruption.  "  Kcclesiastical  approval 
and  usage,"  as  stated  in  ller/og's  /:'itci/c/.  regarding 
the  last  controversy  of  this  de  script'ion.  ''is  indeed  a 
weighty  consideration  :  hut  if  the  usa'jv  has  be'en  proved 
wrong,  a  tiiousand  years'  continuance  would  not  make 
it  right.  And  the  charge's  preferred  against  tho  Apo 
crypha,  have'  not  been  satisfactorily  answered.  ' 

APOCRYPHAL  LOOKS,  with  reference  to  New 
Tishtiiiriil  times,  as  understood  by  the  ancients,  com- 
]>ri>e  various  classes  of  writings  sometimes  genuine 
productions,  though  not  of  apostolical  authority,  such 
as  the  Kpi.-tio  ,i|'  Clement,  or  liie  Shepherd  of  Hennas; 
more  commonly  spurious  productions,  like  the  Prote- 
vangelium  of  James,  the  A})()Stolical  Constitutions,  the 
Preaching  of  .Peter,  ^c.,  falsely  assuming  the  name,  or 
pretending  to  represent  tin:  views  and  sentiments  of 
the  founders  of  the  Christian  church;  and  sometimes 
also  the  dangerous  books  composed  by  Gnostic  specu 
lator.-  and  heretical  teachers,  with  the  view  of  propo- 
irating  their  tenet.-.  I'nelue  weight  was  occasionally 
attached  to  certain  of  the  .-e  productions  by  some  of  the 
fathers  of  the  Christian  church,  and  the  spurious  have 
sometimes  been  considered  a-;  genuine;  but  no  serious 
attempt  has  been  made  to  exalt  them  to  the  rank  of 
sacred  Scripture,  although  the  things  contained  in  sonic; 
of  them  have  been  held  by  Romanists  for  apostolical 
traditions.  15ut  we  are  not  called  to  any  investigation 
of  this  point  hen'. 

APOLLO'JSITA,  a  city  of  Macedonia,  in  the  district 
of  Migdonia.  and  somewhere  about  30  Ifoman  miles 
from  Amphipolis.  Paul  and  Silas  took  it  on  their  way 
to  Thessalonica,  from  which  it  was  distant  about  37 
Roman  miles,  Ac.  xvii.i.  They  appear  to  have  made  no 
slay  in  it. 

APOL'LOS,  a  Jew  of  Alexandria,  who  took  a  pro 
minent  part  in  the  vindication  of  the  truth  and  cause  of 
•Jesus.  lie  is  first  mentioned  in  Acts  xviii.  24,  where 
he  is  described  as  a  gifted  and  persuasive  orator,  and 
mighty  in  the  Scriptures.  He  had  come  to  Ephesus. 
probably  about  A.D.  5(3,  for  what  specific  reason  is  not 
stated  :  hut  when  there  he  gave  evidence  at  once  of  his 
oratorical  powers,  and  of  his  zeal  in  the  work  of  the 
Lord,  by  holding  disputations  with  his  countrymen  in 
the  synagogue.  He  had  been  instructed,  we  are  told, 
in  the  way  of  the  Lord  before  coming  to  Epliesus,  and 
"spake  and  taught  diligently  the  things  concerning 
.lesus  '  (for  so  the  correct  reading  is  in  ver.  25).  Yet 
his  knowledge'  of  these  things  was  still  imperfect,  for  he 
knew,  it  is  said,  only  the  baptism  of  .John.  It  is  not 
•[uite  cei-tain.  however,  how  much  of  defect  is  indicated 
in  this  statement.  It  cannot  we'll  be  understood  as 
importing  simply,  that  he  knew  only  of  Jolm's  testi 
mony  respecting  the  immediate  approach  of  Messiah, 
and  his  baptism  of  repentance  as  a  preparation  for 
it.  For  such  knowledge  had  been  far  too  limited 
as  a  basis  for  controversial  discussion,  and  diligent 
teaching  of  the  things  concerning  Jesus  in  the  synagogue. 
The  probability  rather  is.  that  he  was  acquainted 
generally  with  the  facts  of  Christ's  history,  and  was 
penetrated  with  a  conviction  of  his  being  the  Messiah 
promised  to  the  fathers;  but  was  still  ignorant  of  the 
proper  results  of  Christ's  mission,  in  respect  to  the  gifts 
of  grace  provided  for  his  people,  and  the  new  constitu 


tion  of  the;  divine  kingdom  in  him.  That  it  was  some 
thing  more  than  a  merely  reformatory  work,  which 
Christ  came  to  accomplish;  that  not  repentance  alone, 
but  remission  of  sins  also  was  now  to  be  preached  in 
his  name;  that  in  him  the  whole  of  the  typical  eco 
nomy  had  found  its  completion,  and  a  new  order  of 
things,  with  its  appropriate  ordinances,  and  manifold 
endowments  of  the  Spirit  suited  to  them,  had  been  in 
stituted—all  this  A  polios  had  yet  to  learn  when  he 
came  to  Ephesus,  although  he  knew  enough  to  make 
him  a  formidable  opponent  to  his  unbelieving  country 
men.  I 'iiit  in  Acjuila  and  Priseilla,  recent  converts  of 
St.  Paul,  lie  met  with  more  enlightened  believers,  who 
were  at  once.'  able  and  willing  to  instruct  him  in  the 
way  ol  the  Lord  more  perfectly;  and  when  he  had  re- 
<  ei\.  d  tliis  fuller  instruction  he  .-et  out  for  the  regions 
of  Achaia,  which  for  the  present  were  deprived  of  the 
benefit  of  Paul's  ministrations.  There  he  laboured  for 
some  time  with  great  success,  (specially  among  the 
•lews,  whom,  it  is  said,  he  mightily  convinced,  Ac.  xviii.  :.'•-; 
and  at  Corinth  the  impression  he  made  was  so  deep, 
that  a  party  began  to  form  themselves  under  his  name-. 
This,  along  with  other  sehismatical  courses  of  a  like 
kind,  the:  apostle  relinked  in  his  first  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  but  he  gives  to  A  polios  the  honour,  con 
ceded  in  such  terms  to  no  other  fellow- labourer,  of 
watering  the  seed  which  he  himself  had  sown.  Xot 
only  so,  but  as  a  proof  of  the;  confidence  he  had  in 
his  teaching,  and  of  the  benefit  he  expected  it  to  yield 
to  the  church,  he  urged  Apollos  at  a  later  period  to  re 
turn  again  to  Corinth,  after  the  divisions  in  it  had  been 
rebuked,  and,  as  he  might  reasonably  hope,  were  likely 
to  be-  healed.  1  Co.  xvi.  12.  A  polios,  however,  declined, 
probably  from  a  feeling  of  dislike  at  the  dl.-sensioiis 
which  his  former  presence  had  in  some  derive  occa 
sioned.  The  only  other  notice  we  have  of  him  is  in 
Titus  iii.  13,  from  which  it  would  appear  that  he  had 
been  labouring  in  Crete.  An  ancient  tradition  has  re 
presented  him  as  ultimately  going  back  to  Corinth,  and 
becoming  settled  pastor  or  bishop  of  the  place,  but  this 
rests  on  ne>  good  authority.  His  appearance  in  the 
Christian  territory,  and  the  sphere  he  occupied  there, 
must  be  regarded  as  somewhat  peculiar.  He  took  a 
kind  of  independent  position,  while  still  he  got  his  more 
special  instruction  not  from  an  apostle,  but  from  two 
converts  of  an  apostle,  and  after  getting  this,  he  does 
not  seem  to  have  felt  himself  called  to  plant  churches, 
but  gave  himself  (though  not  as  an  ordinary  assistant) 
to  the  work  of  carrying  forward  what  Paul  had  be 'gun. 
Such  he  probably  saw  to  be  the  sphere  of  Christian 
action  most  suited  to  his  powers  and  advantages;  and 
there  can  lie  little  doubt,  that  in  cleaving  to  it  as  he 
did.  he  nobly  served  his  generation  according  to  the 
will  of  God.  " 

APOL'LYON  [destroyer],  applied  as  a  proper  name 
to  Satan  in  Ee.  ix.  11.  (&-e  Utvii,.) 

APOSTASY  [f alien u  awai/-  namely,  from  the  true 
faith  and  worship  of  God|.  The  term  is  applied  in  an 
emphatic  manner  to  a  great  and  general  defection  in 
the-  Christian  church,  by  St.  Paul,  in  2  Thcs.  ii.  3.  (Sec 
ANTICHRIST.) 

APOSTLE  [Cr.  dTrocTToXos],  one  sent  forth  with 
any  special  message  or  commission.  So  it  is  used  in 
I  he  Septuagint,  i  Ki.  xiv.  r>;  is.  xviii.  2;  and  in  a  few  passages 
also  in  the  new  Testament,  .in.  xiii.  10,  where  our  Lord  says 
generally  "the  apostle  (person  sent)  is  not  greater  than 
he  who  sent  him;"  and  2 Co.  viii.2:!;  riii.  ii.  25,  where  persons 


APOSTLE 


10; 


APOSTLE 


deputed  by  churches  on  special  errands  are  called  their 
apostles,  or  messengers.  These  are  too  often  loosely  con 
founded  together,  but  the  name  in  its  more  distinctive 
and  peculiar  sense,  as  descriptive  of  one  holding  office  in 
the  Christian  church,  was  applied  only  to  those  who  were 
Christ's  ambassadors — his  ambassadors  in  the  stricter 
sense — his  chosen  delegates  to  disclose  his  mind  to  men. 
and  settle  the  affairs  of  his  kingdom  upon  earth.  I'mler 
him  they  occupied  the  highest  official  position  in  the 
church,  and  while  they  had  some  things  in  common  with 
ordinary  ministers  of  the  gospel,  their  more  distinc 
tive  characteristics  belonged  exclusively  to  themselves. 
1.  They  stood  alone  in  respect  to  the  manner  of  their 
appointment:  it  came  from  wit/miif,  direct  from  Christ 
himself,  while  in  all  other  cases  the  appointment  of 
riders  was  to  spring  up  from  witliin  the-  church.  The 
original  twelve:  were  all  called  and  designati  d  t->  th'  ir 
office  by  Christ,  while  still  no  organi/.ed  society  or 
church  in  the  ordinary  s. use  existed.  When  one  was 

to   be   ordained   in   the    i in    of    Judas,    the   company 

of  disciples  did  nothing  further  than  choose  two  from 
their  number  \\lio  had  the  external  qualifications  ne- 
ci  iry  for  the  work;  but  left  the  actual  s.  lection 
in  the  hands  of  the  Lord,  to  be  decided  by  lot. 
Ac.i.-Jl.  And  I  "aid  once  and  a^ain  point-:  to  his  im 
mediate  disinflation  bv  Christ  as  the  primary  and 
most  e-sential  element  in  his  title  to  the  apostle- 
ship.  <;  .  i  .I-'-:  Ro  i.l;  [Co.  .xv.  i.  He  so  puts  the  question 
as  plainly  to  indicate,  that  it'  he  had  not  received  his 
calling  from  Christ  lie  could  have  had  no  right  to  th'- 
place  of  an  apostle.  And  this  necessarily  arose  from 
the  pro] H -r  destination  of  the  apo-tles,  which  was,  in 
Christ's  name  t»  lay  the  foundations  of  the  Christian 
church.  It  was  their  part  to  form  and  organize  the 
society  of  tin-  faithful:  and  consequently  th'-y  must 
themselves  have  a  prior  existence  in  their  official  ca- 
pacity— they  must  hold  din  ctly,  not  of  the  church.  1  ut 
of  Christ.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  ordinary  ministry ; 
the  Lord  bestow-  the  gifts  necessary  for  its  exercise, 
but  it  is  tin-  part  »!'  the  church  to  recognize  th.-  bestowal 
of  the  gifts,  and  call  those  who  have  ive.  iv.-d  them  to 
the  work  ;  so  that  "the  ministry  does  not  sustain  tin- 
church,  but  the  church  the  ministry."  "J.  The  number 
also  of  the  apostles  is  a  siu'ti  of  their  singular  and  special 
calling,  as  ciintradi.-tingnished  from  the  regular  and 
permanent  "tli.vrs  of  the  church.  'I  heir  number  is  a 
fixed  one  the  tn'ilcf  so  fixed,  doubtless,  with  refer 
ence  to  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  that,  the  several 
constituent  parts  of  the  covenant-people  inin'ht  see 
themselves  represented  in  the  apostleship.  Not  oulv 
was  this  historically  the  original  number  of  the  a] '".-ties 
chosen  by  the  Lord,  but  ideally  also  it  continued  the 
same;  and  in  the  apocalyptic  vi-i"ii.  when  tin- church 
presents  itself  to  view  in  its  perfected  condition  as  a 
glorious  building,  its  walls  appear  resting  "on  tw  i  Ive 
foundations,  which  had  on  them  twelve  names  of  the 
twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb,"  lie.  xxi.  11.  In  reality, 
after  the  calling  of  Paul  to  the  office,  there  were  thirteen 
in  the  office  ;  precisely  as  in  Old  Testament  times  there 
were  thirteen  tribes  after  the  elevation  of  two  of  .Joseph's 
sons  to  the  rank  of  separate  tribal  heads,  though  twelve 
remained  still  the  ideal  number.  Put  this.  a<.rain.  dis 
tinguishes  the  apostles  from  all  the  abiding  rulers  of  the 
church,  who  require  to  be  progressivly  multiplied,  as 
the  church  itself  grows  in  extent.  '•'>.  The  distinction 
is  equally  marked  in  the  power  and  authority  that 
belonged  to  the  office.  Tin-  apostles  were  authorized  to 


settle  everything  in  the  church  as  by  divine  right:  the 
Lord  himself  spake  and  acted  thr<  >ugh  them.  Hence  St. 
Paul  charges  the  Corinthians  to  acknowledge  that  the 
things  which  he  wrote  to  them  were  the  commandments 
of  the  Lord.  K'o.  xlv.  ::r,  which  was  but  a  particular 
mode  of  claiming  the  power  granted  to  the  apostles  col 
lectively  by  the  Lord,  when  he  gave  them  authority  to 
bind  and  loose  in  the  things  of  the  kingdom.  Mat.  x\iii,  is  , 
Jii.xx.^i-L':i.  This  plainly  required  the  higher  endow 
ments  of  the  Spirit — infallible  guidance,  and  marked 
them  as  extraordinary,  not  as  regular  and  permanent 
oilicers  in  the  church.  Their  singular  power  in  this 
respect  had  its  signature  in  another  the  peculiar  com 
mand  given  them  over  the  more  remarkable  operations 
of  the  Spirit.  Miraculous  gifts  were  not  altogether  con 
fined  to  the  apostles:  but  they  had  them  in  largest 
measure,  and  to  them,  it  would  appear,  belonged  ex- 
(  hi.-ively  th-1  power  of  imparting  such  gifts  by  the  laying 
on  of  their  hands.  No  e\  ii  lei  ice  whatever  exists  of  any 
besides  the  apostles  having  been  empowered  to  confer 
the  Spirit  in  this  manner.  F.veii  I'hilip.  with  all  the 
grace  bestowed  mi  him.  and  the  wonderful  edicts 
wrought  by  him  in  Samaria,  could  prevail  nothing  here  ; 
only  when  the  a]"  >:•!].  s  I'tt'-r  and  .lohn  went  and  laid 
their  hands  on  the  disciples  did  the  Spirit  come  with 
his  supernatural  opt  rations.  And  such  things  were 
doubtless  among  "  the  signs  of  an  apostle."  which  St. 
Paul  appeals  to  as  haui:^  been  \\nn;-ht  by  him  among 
the  Corinthians.  L'Co.xii.i^;  it  was  through  his  instru 
mentality  that  such  :;  rieh  illusion  of  spiritual  gifts 
came  down  upon  the  members  of  the  i  hmvli.  -1.  Th" 
apostolic  office,  w'ith  all  the  powers  and  privileges  belong 
ing  to  it.  in  tin.-  al.-o  \\.-is  singular,  that  it  In  re  r.  -peet 
to  the  whole  Christian  church.  There  wa>  nothing  local 
or  particular  in  their  destination  :  their  lield  was  to  he 
the  world,  like  the  church  whi'-h  they  were  appointed 
to  found.  They  were  each  to  the  entire  < 'hii.-tian  com- 
munitv  what  elders  or  episi  opoi  \\ere  to  the  particular 
communities  over  which  they  pre.-idi  d-  in  which  sense 
alone  Peter  and  John  alike  designate  themselves  ciders, 
i  IV.  v.  i;  -.'.111.1.  So  that,  as  on  oilier  accounts,  on  this 
also,  apostles  could  have  no  successors  ;  for  no  particular 
section  of  the  church  could  have  the  right  to  appoint 
officers  to  so  indefinite  a  sphere  of  action  ;  and  bishops, 
successors  of  the  apostles,  would  be  virtually  diocesans 
without  a  diocese. 

It  PUI  ins  to  have  been  but  jraduallv  that  the  full  im 
port  of  their  calling  opened  itself  out  to  the  minds  of  t  he 
apostles,  especially  in  iv-.pe.-t  to  its  world- wide  aspect 
and  b<  ariii'_T.  For  a  number  of  vt  ars  they  continued 
in  a  compact  body  about  Jerusalem  ;  and  it  was  through 
the  evangelistic  y.eal  of  others  rather  than  flu  inselves 
that  tin-  sphere  of  their  operations  in  the  first,  instance 
was  made  to  embrace  a  larger  compass.  Tiny  had, 
no  doubt,  a  LTreat  work  to  do  in  Ji  riisalem.  and  ample 
opportunities  of  testifying  of  the  things  respecting  the 
kingdom,  on  account  of  the  constant  resort  of  Jews  from 
all  quarters  to  that  centre  of  religions  worship.  Kven 
while  residing  there  they  could  come  into  contact  with 
men  from  nearly  every  part,  of  the  known  world:  and 
probably  the  time  they  actually  spent  together  at  Jeru 
salem,  in  availing  themselves  of  these  opportunities, 
and  building  up  the  church  of  Christ  in  its  original 
In ime,  was  not  more  than  the  exigencies  of  the  case 
actually  required.  Put  it  was  not  the  less  necessary, 
that  other  portions  of  the  field  should  be  occupied;  and 
in  the  providence  of  Cod  circumstances  were  made  to 


APPAREL 


108 


APPLE 


arise,  ami  agencies  were  employed,  winch  in  a  manner 
compelled  the  apostles  to  extend  their  operations,  and 
go  to  some  distance  fnun  Jerusalem.  Tin:  fruits  that 
sprang  from  the  dispersion  attendant  on  the  death  of 
Stephen,  the  labours  of  Philip  in  Samaria,  then  the 
message  from  Cornelius,  followed  immediately  after  by 
the  conversion  and  missionary  labours  of  Paul,  contri 
buted,  step  by  step,  to  give  the  truth  of  the  gospel  a, 
wider  diffusion,  and  to  call  forth  the  apostles  to  superin 
tend  and  direct  its  establishment  in  ditK-rent  regions. 
As  these  operations  in  the  foreign  Held  increased,  the 
presence  of  the  apostles  elsewhere  ihuii  at  Jerusalem 
must  have  been  mure  frequently  re<|iiired:  and  though 
\ve  cannot  attach  much  credit  to  the  traditions  which 
have1  been  handed  down,  respecting  the  several  countries 
to  which  they  are  said  respectively  to  have  carried  the 
gospel,  then-  yet  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  til  at  most 
of  them,  before  they  died,  had  travelled  into  other  lands, 
and  contributed  to  plant  in  them  Christian  elm  relies. 
We  know  for  certain  of  John's  connection  with  Asia 
-Miner,  uf  Peter's  with  P>abylon,  of  Paul's  with  the 
regions  of  the  "UVst:  and  though  similar  information 
lias  not  reached  ns  concerning  the  rest,  we  may  justly 
conclude  that  their  /eal  led  them  severally  to  take  a 
part  in  th"  ifreat  outward  movements  for  the  diffusion, 
of  Christianity. 

The  term  APOSTLE  is  once,  though  only  once,  in 
Scripture  applied  to  our  Lord;  in  lie.  iii.  1  he  is  called 
the  "apostle,  and  high- priest  of  our  profession.''  It 
merely  turns  into  a  personal  designation  the  idea  of  his 
being  the  One  emphatically  sent  by  the  Father  to  reveal 
his  mind  and  accomplish  the  work  of  reconciliation, 
eomp.  Jn.  iv. :;!;  v.  L':;,  ic. 

APPAREL.     Sec  DRESS. 

APPII-FOR'UM,  or  Fuuru-Arpn,  a  market-town 
on  the  Appian  Way.  at  the  distance  of  43  Roman  miles 
from  Iv'ome.  It  is  understood  to  have  derived  its  name 
from  the  Appius  Claudius  Caucus  who  constructed  the 
Appian  Way.  somewhat  more  than  three  centuries  before 
the  Christian  era.  It  grew  up  to  be  a  considerable  town, 
and  enjoyed  municipal  privileges.  From  the  account 
of  Horace  (Sat.  i.  f>>,  it  seems  to  have  been,  the  usual 
resting-place  of  travellers,  at  the  close  of  the  first  day's 
journey,  on  the  way  from  Home  to  P.rundusiuin.  And 
standing,  as  it  did,  on  the  border  of  the Pontine  Marshes, 
where  travellers  commonly  entered  on  a  canal  that  ex 
tended  to  near  Tarracina.  it  became  very  much  a  town 
of  boatmen  and  innkeepers.  The  only  notice  of  it  that 
occurs  in  sacred  history  is  in  connection  with  St.  Paul's 
journey  to  Rome  after  his  shipwreck.  He  was  met  on 
his  way  at  Appii- Forum  by  certain  brethren  from  Rome, 
Ac.  xxviii.  is,  who  had  somehow  got  intelligence  of  his 
approach.  He  appears  to  have  made  no  stay  in  it.  The 
place  has  long  since  fallen  into  total  decay,  and  its  site 
is  only  marked  by  certain  ruins,  which  are  found  on 
each  side  of  the  road,  and  by  the  forty-third  milestone, 
which  still  keeps  its  place. 

APPLE.  Xo  word  is  more  loosely  used  than  this 
and  its  equivalents  in  various  languages.  For  instance, 
the  Romans  called  almost  every  kind  of  globular  fruit 
jioniuni,  apples,  pears,  peaches,  cherries.  &c.,  not  even 
walnuts  exeepted  (see  Facciolati  Lexicon)  ;  and  we 
ourselves  speak  of  love-apples,  earth-apples,  oak-apples, 
pine-apples,  when  we  mean  the  tomatum,  the  tuberous 
root  of  the  bunium,  the  spongy  excrescence  which  grows 
on  the  leaves  and  branches  of  the  oak,  or  the  most  ex 
quisite  of  all  fruits,  the  Peruvian  nnanassa.  Like  the 


Arabs,  who  apply  the  name  indiscriminately  to  the 
lemon,  peach,  and  apricot,  as  well  as  the  true  apple,  it 
is  probable  that  the  Hebrews  employed  their  n*]8P>  (t<*J~>- 

jiiMc/i)  in  n,  wide  and  comprehensive  way  to  denote  anv 
round,  and  fragrant  fruit  -  the  root  being  «•;£•,  ''to 

breathe;''  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  they  had 
much  acquaintance  with  the  true  apple,  the  Pj/rna 
mulus  of  Liuniuus,  which  is  a  native  of  more  northern 
latitudes. 

]n  his  account  of  Alexander  Janna-us.  Josephus  tells 
us,  "  Mis  own  people  were  seditious  against  him  ;  for  at 
a  festival  which  was  then  celebrated,  when  he  stood 
upon  the  altar,  and  was  going  to  sacrifice,  the  nation 
rose  upon  him,  and  pelted  him  with  citrons  ;  for  the  law 
of  the  Jews  required  that  at  the  feast  of  tabernacles  every 
one  should  have  branches  of  the  palm  tree  end  citron 
tree"  (Antiq.  book  xiii.  eh.  115).  This  passage  shows 
not  only  that  the  ''thick"  or  umbrageous  trees  of 
Lo.  xxxiii.  -10,  suggested  to  Jewish  minds  the  citron,  but 
it  also  proves  how  plentiful  in  the  Holy  Land  was  the 
citron  tree,  when  every  worshipper  could  be  furnished 
with  a  living  and  fruit-laden  branch  of  it.  Xor  can 
there  be  any  reasonable  doubt  that  the  lappuach  or 
"apple"  of  Scripture  is  the  citron,  which,  besides  its 
former  abundance  in  Palestine,  admirably  bears  out 
the  allusions  of  the  sacred  writers.  The  citron,  or 
Citrus  mcdica—so  called  because  it  was  from  Media 


[47.  J 


that  the  Romans  first  received  it — belongs  to  the  natu 
ral  order  of  Auruntiaceas,  a  delightful  group,  including 
the  orange,  the  lime,  the  lemon,  and  the  shaddock. 
With  its  dark,  glossy,  laurel- look  ing  leaves,  its  ever 
green  branches,  often  bearing  simultaneously  ripe  fruits 
and  newly  opened  flowers,  and  thus  vouchsafing  to  the 
pilgrim  who  rests  in  its  deep  shadow  the  twofold  re 
freshment  of  a  delicious  banquet  and  a  fragrant  breeze, 
the  citron  may  well  claim  pre-eminence  ''among  the 
trees  of  the  wood,"  Ca.  ii.  :;. 

"  As  the  citron  tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood, 
So  is  my  Beloved  among  the  sons  : 
I  sat  down  under  his  shadow  with  great  delight, 
And  his  fruit  was  delicious  to  mv  taste." 


APPLE 


APPLE  OF  SOIKtM 


placed  in  the  common  treasury,  as  part  of  the  provision 

for  the  poor  of  the  congregation."  Their  anxiety  to 
obtain  them  with  the  stalk  still  adhering,  is  no  doubt  a 
faint  effort  to  secure  the  "thick"  branches  and  "boughs 
of  goodly  trees"  mentioned  in  Le.  xxiii.  40. 

In  our  own  country  there  is  a  large  consumption  of 
the  various  species  of  the  citrus  family.  The  citron 
itself,  with  su-ar  and  water,  furnishes 


In  our  own  climate  on  a  summer's  day  the  fragrance 
of  a  flowering  orange  or  citron  tree,  wafted  through  the 
open  casement  or  through  the  door  of  a  conservatory  into 
a  cool  apartment,  is  one  of  those  exquisite  visitations 
which,  lending  an  exotic  richness  to  the  air,  add  luxury  to 
the  shade,  and  till  with  southern  day- dreams  the  moments 
of  reprise.  But  in  glaring  climes  ''shade  and  greener v 
are  everything;''  and  describing  a  fairy-like  eastern 
garden,  the  traveller  says,  "It  was  passing  pleasant  frigeivnt  beverage;  its  rind  and  pulp  are  candied  and 
to  stroll  along  these  paths,  all  shadowy  with  orange  !  converted  into  sweetmeats,  and  its  essential  oil  is  ex- 
trees,  whose  fruit,  'like  lamps  in  a  night  of  green.'  |  tensively  employed  in  perfumery.  Of  the  juice  of  lemons 
hung  temptingly  over  our  heads.  The  fragrance  of  and  limes,  until  of  late,  thousands  of  gallons  were  yearly 
large  beds  of  roses  mingled  with  that  of  the  orange  required  for  our  navy,  where  it  greatly  contributed  to 
flower,  and  seemed  to  repose  on  the  quiet  airs  of  the  avert  the  ravages  of  such  scorbutic  disorders  as  last 
calm  evening.  In  the  midst  of  the  garden  we  came  to  eeiitury  often  converted  a  ship  of  war  into  a  floating 
a  vast  pavilion,  glittering  like  porcelain,  and  supported  hospital  :  and  in  the  form  of  crystulli/.cd  citric  acid,  it 
on  light  pillars,  which  formed  cloi.-ters  surrounding  an  is  .-till  indispensable.  For  oranges,  sueli  i.-  the  demand 
immense  marble  basin,  in  the  centre  of  which  sparkling  that  it  was  calculated  that  in  1N~>1. 
waters  gushed  from  a  picturesque  fountain.  Through 
the  clear  depths  of  the  water  gleamed  shoals  of  gold  and 
silver  ti-h."  (Warburton's  CVwce»<  an<l.  Cross.)  \Ve 
need  not  say  that  the  apple  in--  i-  by  no  means  re 
markable  for  tin-  depth  or  deliciousne-s  of  its  shade. 

Abounding  in  malic  and  citric  acid,  the  juice  of  the 
orange  and  its  congeners  is  one  of  the  most  agreeable. 
antidotes  which  the  I'nator's  bounty  has  provided 


aicainst  the  exhausting  thirst  and  incipient  fever  of 
sultry  climes.  A  settler  in  the  torrid  swamps  of  the 
Amazon  will  devour  a  do/en  o  rank's  lie  fore  his  morn  in  LT 
meal  (  \'ni;n:/r  i//>  tin1  Ania^jii.  iii  the  '•  Home  and  Co 
lonial  Lilirary "i,  and  in  tropical  regions  such  acidu-  like  its  parent,  tl 
lous  fruits  are  invaluable  on  aecoimt  of  their  aini-tVbnle 

\irtlles.        The.-e    XVelV     doubtless    Well    klloXVlltotho    He 


many    as 

-•>•'>.  1  !l!,:jHii  were  entered  for  home  consumption  an 
t  stimate.  however,  in  which  lemons  are  included.— - 
(  Pereira's  Ma/ii'ia  M  alien  ;  M  '(.'uiliich's  I>icti<j,iar>/  of 

Ti,e  apple.  ]iroperly  so  called  \Piir  us  -main."),  is  now 
cultivated  in  Pale-tine.  In  the  month  of  March,  Schu- 
d  rt  found  the  country  around  I'.ethlehem  and  Hebron 
embellished  xxith  liloss.iming  finiit-trees.  amongst  which 
he  observed  the  apricot,  the  pi  ar.  and  the  apple  (Itiise 
in  das  Mimjniland}.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  it  was 
first  introduced  by  monks  from  Western  Europe.  At 
all  events,  the  apple  does  not  occur  native  in  Palestine, 
di  tree,  in  our  o\\n  hedgerows. 

The  amelioration  of  this  unpromising  plant,  and  its 
gradual  elevation  into  the  Nexvtown  pippin  and  the 


f   Normandy,    are   amongst    tin-   most    won- 


pri/.cd  the  pleasant  pun^-nt  odour  emitted  by  the  rind. 
Macrobius  speaks  of  "citrosa  ve-tis,"  shoxxinn'  that  it 
was  usual  to  keeji  citrons  in  xvardrolies  for  the  sake  of 
their  perfume;  and.  likt  the  mo  1,-rn  oriental  ladies, 
whose  fax  mi  rite  \  inai'jrette  i-  a  citron,  in  our  oxvn  coun 
try  txvo  or  three  centuries  ajo  an  orange  wa 
monlv  used  as  a  scent-bottle,  that  it  max"  often  be  sei  n 
in  old  pictin-es  of  our  queens  and  peeresses.  It  xvas 
also  believed  to  hax  e  a  disinfecting  potency;  and  during  ! 

tlie  plague  of    London,  people  xxalked  the  -tr-els  smell- 


ing  at 


In 


derful   triumphs  of    horticultural    skill,   and   are  si-ni- 
[icanf    examples  of  the   rewards  xvith  \\hich  a  bountiful 
'  Yeate.r  i-  ready  to  <TO\VH   industry  and   perseverance. 
London    Horticultural  Society's  Catalogue  enunie- 
1  |o.i  xarieties  of   apple  as   noxv  knoxvn  in  Europe 
'•"in       and   America:    and    in   his  elaborate   Jlri'it/i    I'mii'if"'/// 
seen      |ls">]),   Mr.   Kobert   Hogur  describes  !M'J  sorts  as  more 
or  less  cultixated  iii   P.ritain. 

Although   it   is   so  usual    to   speak   of    the    forbidden 
fruit  of  paradise  a-  an    "apple."   xve   need   hardly  say 


>ing  with  these  medicinal  and     that  there  is  nothing  in  Scripture  to  indicate  what  kind 


find  such  expivs-  ,  ,f  tn  e  was  "the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil." 
I '.ut  in  the  fabled  "apples  of  di-eord."  and  in  the  golden 
apple  \\hich  Paris  u'axv  to  the  ;_o  Mess  of  luxe,  thereby 
kindling  the  Trojan  xvar,  i-  it  not  probable  that  the. 
prini'Aal  tradition  ri  appears  of 

"the  fruit 

of  tl.;tt  f.  irl  iic  ill. -11  nvi>,  \\linHi'  mortal  tast.; 
lin.irjlit  il,-aili  iniei  tl,,.  w,,vl,l,  ami  all  our  woo?"      [J.  n.  | 

APPLE  OF  SODOM  is  a  name  given   to   a  fruit 


i."— oh.  vii.  <:. 

Understood  as  belonging  to  this  beautiful  family 
then;  is  a  peculiar  felicity  in  the  compari-on,  "A  word 
fitly  spoken  is  li 


apples  which     gm \\inu'  on  tl 


citrons  of  gold  in  salvers  (or  baskets* 
of  silver,"  Pr.  xxv.  n.     The  famous  L: 
givxv  in  the  gardens  of  the  Hesperid 
ably  either  citrons  or  oranges. 

The  late  amiable  and  accomplished   Lady  Callcott. 

who  beguiled  years  of  in validism  compiling  A  Scripture  i  <lissolve  into  smoke 
Herbal,  I  nit  who  \\ill  by  no  means  give  up  the  apple  Fantastic  as  is  hi 
as  one  of  the  trees  of  the  Ilible.  mentions  that,  as  th 


shores  of  the  1  lead  Sea.      .losephus  says 
that  the   asb.-s  ,,f    th,-   five    cities    "still  grow   in   their 
fruits,"   "which   have  a  colour  as  if  tip  y  \\vre  tit  to  be 
eaten,    but   if   you   pluck   them   with   your  hands,    they 
ad  ashes"  (  \\',irit.  book  iv.  ch.S,  4b 
theory,    the  latter  portion    of    his 
tatement  is   by   no  means  fabulous.      At   'Ain  -Tidy, 


modern  Jews  still  use  citrons  at  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  '  Professor  Pobinson  found  several  specimens  of  the  tree, 
"in  London  considerable  sums  of  money  are  expended  i  from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  high.  "  The  fruit  greatly  resem- 
in  importing  them  of  the  best  kind,  for  the  purpose.  |  bles  externally  a  large  smooth  apple  or  orange,  hanging 
They  must  be  without  blemish,  and  the  stalk  must  still  :  in  clusters  of  three  or  four  together :  and  when  ripe  is  of 
adhere  to  them.  After  the  feast  is  over,  the  citrons  a  yellow  colour.  It  was  now  (May  Id)  fair  and  delicious 
are  openly  .-old,  and  the  money  produced  by  the  sale  is  ,  to  the  eye,  and  soft  to  the  touch  ;  but  on  being  pressed 


ARABIA 


nr  struck,  it  explodes  \vii.h  u  pull',  like  :i  bladder  or  pufi- 
l.all.  leaving  in  :  he  hand  onlv  the  shreds  of  tin-  tliiu 
7-iud  iiinl  a  few  lilires.  It  is  indeed  fillr'l  chiefly  with 
;i.ir,  like, 'i  bladder,  which  gives  it  the  round  Conn  :  while 


in  the  centre  a  sm:ill  slender  pod  run-;  through  it  from 
tlie  stem,  and  is  connected  by  thin  filaments  with  the, 
rind.  The,  pod  contains  a  small  quantity  of  tine  silk 
with  seeds.  The  Aral*  collect  the  silk  and  twist  it 
into  matches  for  their  guns  :  preferring  it  to  tho  com 
mon  match,  because  it  requires  no  sulphur  to  render  it 
combustible." --  (Bihlical  Researches,  -id  edit.  vol.  i. 
[>.  't'2'3.  See  also  Irby  and  Mangles'  Travels,  cli.  viii.) 
This  would  appear  to  lie  the  A.-f/'jiiaa  i/ii/antca  (Linn.), 
which  is  described  and  figured  by  Prosper  Alpinus, 
under  tho  name  of  the  "  I'.eid  el  ossar."  -(Hist.  Xaf. 
.K;/i/f>fi.  Lugd.  i'.at.  173,').  pars  1,  4:j.)  Ij.  n.] 

A'QUILA  AND  PRISCIL'LA,  husband  and  wife,  not 
to  he  separated  here,  as  they  are  always  united  together 
when  mentioned  in  saeivd  Scripture.  Priscilla  is  the 
diminutive  of  1'risca.  which  indeed  was  the  proper  name 
of  the  spouse  of  Aquila,  and  in  all  the  better  authorities 
is  the  name  actually  found  in  R<>.  xvi.  :},  as  it  is  also 
in  -  Ti.  iv.  Ill  :  but  Priscilla  seems  to  liave  been  more 
commonly  used  by  way  of  familiarity  or  endearment. 
And  as  she  is  commonly  named  first,  it  is  natural  to 
suppose  that  she  was,  if  not  actually  the  first  convert  of 
tlie  two  (for  that  can  only  be  matter  of  conjecture),  at 
least  the  most  active  and  devoted  belie\er.  When  the 
two  are  first  mentioned  in  the  sacred  narrative,  it  is  in 
the  character  of  Jews,  who  had  been  driven  from  Home 
by  the  decree  of  Claudius  (noticed  by  Suetonius,  Claud. 
e.  '_'".),  which  compelled  Jews.  011  account  of  certain 
disturbances  said  to  have  been  raised  by  them,  to  leave 
th"  city.  Aquila  and  1'riscilhi  took  up  their  abode  at 
Corinth,  and  were  found  by  the  apostle  Paul  there, 
on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  the  city,  Ac.xviii.2. 
It  seems  not  to  have  lieen  a  common  faith,  but  rather 
:i  common  occupation,  which  first  brought  them  together 

that,  namely,  of  tent-makers;   for   Aquila  is    simply 


designated  a  .lew  of  1'ontus.  and  as  a  Jew  an  exile  from 
Rome,  not  as  a  believer  in  Christ,  when  Paul  joined 
himself  to  the  household,  and  wrought  with  them  at 
the  tent- making.  P>ut  Aquila  and  Priscilla  soon 
became  among  his  most  devout  converts;  and  in  his 
iirst  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  he  sent  a  salutation,  not 
only  from  Aquila  and  Priscilla  iwho  were  then  -with 
himV  but  also  •' from  the  church  in  their  house."  Pein'_' 
at  Ephesus,  when  A  polios  Iirst  appeared  there,  they 
proved  of  eminent  service  to  him  by  tin:  fuller  instruc 
tions  they  Wi  re  <  nabled  to  impart  to  him  in  the  Chris 
tian  faith.  Ac.  xviii.  ii.  Further  on  still,  when  Paul  wrot  • 
his  epistle  to  the  Romans,  he  sends  one  of  his  tenderest 
salutations  to  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  whence  they  must 
by  that  time  have  removed  thither:  and  speaks  of  them 
as  having  ''for  his  life  laid  down  their  own  necks. " 
Itn.  xvi.  !.  By  and  by  they  appear  to  have  again  lei't 
Rome,  for  in  the  second  epistle  to  Timothy.  <-h.  iv .1:1,  a 
salutation  is  conveyed  to  them  as  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  Timothy,  who  was  at  the  time  so 
journing  about  Ephesus.  PossiMy  their  reception  of 
the  Christian  faith  rendered  it  somewhat  difficult  for 
them  to  earn  a  livelihood,  or  even  to  carry  on  their 
trade  in  peace  ;  and  this  may  have  necessitated  frequent 
changes  in  their  place  of  abode.  Put  whether  such  mav 
have  been  the  case  or  not,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
they  were  in  private  life  among  the  steadiest  adherents 
in  early  times  of  the  cause  of  Jesus,  and  contributed 
not  a  little,  by  their  exemplary  conduct  and  self-sacri 
ficing  zeal,  to  aid  its  propagation  in  the  world. 

AR  [city],  the  ancient  capital  of  Moab,  the  city  by 
way  of  eminence  ;  sometimes  also  called  Ar  of  Moab. 
Xu. xxi.i.'i  •_'•>;  Dc.ii.o.  It  stood  upon  the  southern  shore 
of  the  river  Arnon,  at  the  distance  of  a  few  miles  from 
the  Dead  Sea,  and  nearly  on  a  line  with  the  middle 
part  of  that  sea.  Its  later  name  was  Rabbath-Moab, 
and  tin.'  ruins,  which  are  about  a  mile  and  a  half  in 
circuit,  still  bear  the  name  of  Rabha.  The  remains  of 
a  temple  are  found  among  them,  and  some  Corinthian 
pillars  (Robinson,  Researches,  ii.  ~>(>(.n  ;  but  as  a  whole 
they  are  of  little  importance.  In  Jerome's  time  the 
place,  which  was  then  tin:  seat  of  a  bishop,  commonly 
bore  the  name  of  Areopolis,  which,  as  Jerome  remarks, 
was  simply  a  compound  made  up  of  the  Hebrew  and 
Greek  words  signifying  city. 

ARABIA   [Hcb.    a-vj»,  from   ri3"vj,',  an  arid,  s/tri/r 
T-:  TT-: 

tract],  the  name  of  an  extensive  country  of  SAY.  A.-ia. 
between  12°  35'  and  33J  45'  N.  lat.,  and  33°  50'  and 
51J3  55'  E.  Ion.  As  at  present  known,  it  is  bounded. 
X.  by  Palestine  and  Syria;  E.  by  the  Euphrates,  the 
Persian  Gulf,  and  the  Arabian  Sea:  S.  by  the  Ai'ahian 
Sea  anil  the  Sea  of  Bab-el- Mandeb  ;  and  W.  by  the 
Red  Sea  and  Egypt.  Greatest  length,  from  its  Egyp 
tian  frontier  to  the  Arabian  Sea,  nearly  1700  miles: 
greatest  width.  1400  miles:  area,  about  l.lon.iMMi  so. 
miles.  A  range  of  mountains  runs  nearly  south-east 
from  the  Dead  Sea  to  the  Sea  of  Bab-el- Mandeb. 

Owing  to  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  complete 
exploration  of  Arabia,  we  still  remain  imperfectly  ac 
quainted  with  it.  Travellers  have  but  partially  pene 
trated  a  short  distance  from  the  coast,  and  the  only 
European  who  lias  as  yet  crossed  the  country  from  sea 
to  sea.  is  Captain  Sadleir,  who,  in  LSI!*,  proceeded 
from  El  Katif,  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  to 
Derrayeh.  and  thence  to  Yembo,  on  the  Red  Sea.  Not 
withstanding  the  deficiency  of  precise  observations,  we 


AKA1JIA  111  ARABIA 

know   that  Arabia  lias   no   considerable,   and  scarcely  dering  tribes,  who   had   neither  towns  nor  other  ii.xed 

any  permanent  rivers  or  lakes,  and  that  taken  collec-  habitations,  but  dwelt  wholly   in  tents,    like  their  de- 

tively  it  is   a  dreary   waste  of  arid  wilderness,  naked  seendants,  the  modern  .I'.edouins. 

ruck,  rough  stones,  and  drifting  sand,  with  occasional  The  part  culled  the  Haiiran  or  Syrian  Desert  is 
green  spots  and  cultivated  valleys,  which,  however,  strewn  with  the  ruins  of  towns  and  villages  V  recent 
bear  but  a  small  proportion  to  the  sterile  wastes.  The  traveller.  Mr.  Cyril  Graham,  has  discovered  numerous 
desert  of  Ahkaf  (waves  of  sand),  X.  of  Hadramaut,  is  ,  inscriptions  in  Greek,  Palmyrene.  and  in  an  unknown 
of  a  peculiar  character,  swallowing  up  everything  which  character;  and  also  the  remains  of  some  very  ancient 
tails  into  it.  The  liaron  von  Wrede  threw  into  the  cities,  built  of  lar-e  square  stones  ,,f  basalt,  nni'ted  with- 
saiid  a  weight  with  sixty  fathoms  of  line  attached  to  out  cement.  Lie  deseribes  the  houses  as  perfect,  even 
it,  and  saw  the  \\hole  disappear  in  five  minutes.  to  the  stone  doors,  whieh  turn  on  pivots  let  into  the 
Ihe  southern  desert  does  not  possess  a  single  foun-  lintel  and  sill.  These  cities  are  in  the  country  of  Og 
tain  of  water,  and  there  are  no  rivers  or  perennial  kin- of  Bashun,  one  province  of  which  contained  "  three- 
streams  throughout  the  continent.  The  sandy  plains  score  "Teat  cities  with  walls."  besides  "unwalled  towns 

[the  IVhama.  which  have  been  left  by  the  retiring  a   great    many."    [)e.  iii.  I,:,,  i  Ki.  iv.  13.       (Set     [Lu'HAN  ) 

of  the  sea.  as  well  as  the  sands  of  the  interior,  produce  Farther  south   is  I'm-cl-Gama!.  whieh    Mr    Graham' is 

same  plants  as  in  North  Africa,   and  whieh  form  disposed  to  identify  with  the    P,eth-gamul  of  Jeremiah 

for  the  camel.     'I  he   Miamas  are  occasionally  re-  ch.  xlviii.  L-:J  (liuyal  Society  ,.f  Literature    MavlH    1S58) 

ieyed  by  wadie,  or  valleys   with  little  .streamlets aiuong         2.  ARABIA  FKLIX,  or  M-  //„,,„;.  .as  the  most  south-' 

lls  or  watering-stations  ern  district,  and  was  bounded.   Iv' by  the  Persian  Gulf 

carefully  preserved,  the  tanks  being  .Hen  built  of  stone.  S.  by  the  Arabian  Sea,  and  W.  bv  the  i;,d  Sea      Yemen 

\Vutcr  Ls  t!"'  Ull:st  vuluallk'  l"-"l«nv  t"  the  Arab,  and  ail(1  Hadramaut  (Hazannavcth."  Go  x  art  formed  part  of 

the  possession   ui    a  well  has  often  caused  disputes  and  the  Arabia    Felix   of  Strabo  and    Ptolemy,  whieh  pro- 

"I"""  Tehamas,  |,aMv  c,,lnprised  the  whole  of   Hedjaz  and  Oman,  with 

where    watered  or  eultivated,    and   the   valk-ys    i,:    the  ,)art   ,,f    Kl-Ahsa   and   Xedsjed.      Within  its   boundary 

were   Seba   ana   Sheba,    whose   kings  are  mentioned  h, 

x  r 'i^;;u"trv  was  long  distnguishuint..  two  parts-  tlu,   1Valms<    Uxil  ,(1;  :m.,  „,„.,„.„   h    is  Mlni|;M.,   cam(j 

'   m!";t  I>-™  and  Arabia  Felix.      To  these  Ptolemy,  thu  ,,„,„  (lf  .„,.,,,  v,,,.,   visilc.(,  S(illll,,,K  ,  ,..  x  1>.,(.,i 

thu  -'V'1  Alexandrian  geographer,  add,  d  a  third   dis-  lvl.    This  district  is  now  called    Kl- 1  l,dja/.  ,the  land  of 

tnet.  determuiing  the    Uurtlieru  limit,  which   he  nan,..!  piLrimaue..  on  accounts  the  citic^  of  M'.  -v.-.    the  l.irtll- 

Arabia  Petnea.     -Maculloeh  U/,^/.  y^d.)  considers  that  ,,l;u,,    all,|    M,,i;n:l.    the    burial-place   of    the   prophet 

.d   existence  ,1,..,,,-  the  Aral,,  Mahomet,    the  founder  of  the  .Muslim   religion.      It  is 

themselves,  an,l  that  the  ancient  Aral.ic  (livisions  of  ',,,.,^1,,]    ,.],;,,;,    ,,,     |>lmia,.ii;,.s.     ),,,,    thu    inhabitants 

the  country  are  as  identical  as  the  j.,  ople  and  the  Ian-  daim  desn  nt   fnun  .loktan.  soli   of    Kb,  r    Uo  s  ,,    who 

guage    with    those   existing   at    the    present  day.      The  erected  a  kingdom  in  Yemen.     They  have  always' lived 

Arabia  of  the  Hebrews  included  only  the  tract  between  m   ,iti(.s   .„,,,    ,„,,,„„„„    , ,.    ,inu.tised   agriculture 

I'alestuie  and  the  Kcil  Sea.  known   as  the  peninsula  of  and  commerce,  and  Were  anciently  reputed  very  wealthy 

Mount  Sinui,  though  the  term  Kedcm,  "  the  East,"  pro-  (1.liny,  HI,  vi.l.      Ha.lramaut.  along  the  southern  bor- 

bably  referred  to  Aral ,ia  Desertu.      Knsebius,  an,  1  other  .lers  of  Arabia,  was.  aud   ind,  ed  still  is.  marked  l,y  the 

ancient  authors,  eunsidered  as  parts  of  Arabia  the  cities  ]ar,r,,   numb,  r  ,,f  .lews  that   dwell    there       Lieutenant 

beyondJordan,  aud   of   what  they  called  the  third  1'a-  \Vellsteddiscovercd  at  Hadramaut  ruins  called  Kakab- 

stine.      lo  these  we  may  add  yet  another     namely.  (.l-llajar  (the  excavation   in   the  nick)    consisting  of  a 

"lu<1"  th"  Nilu  :u11'  lh"   i;"'   s-  jStralKi,  wall  :5(H.r4i.i  feet  liigh,  and  flanked  with  square  towers. 

XV1L   r-    u    -  whu'h-    l>>    U"'  ant-icnt    writers,    is  \Vithi,,  t]^  entrance  w;us  an   inscrii.tiuii   in  characters 

always   called   the  Arabian    Desert,    v.hile   that    on   the  J>  inehes  long. 

west  of  the  Nile  is  called  the  Libyan  Desert.  Arabia    Felix   was   rich   in   -ems    and    gold,    1  Ki  x  10; 

L.ABABIA  DK.SEUTA  lay  t<,  the  X.,  and  was  buun.led,  KZC.  xsvii.  •-  an«l  in  spices,   odoriferous  shrubs    and   fra- 

v  by  the  Euphrates,  aii.lW.  by  the  ^muuntains  of  Gilea<l.  grant  gums,    Kx.  xxx.  •'3,-Ji,:;i.      The   riehes  aud   luxuries 
It   included   the  northern   parts  of    the  elevated   table-   .  enumerated   by  ancient   writers  were   not,    however,  all 

land  known  at  the  present  day  as  Xedsjed  and  El- A  lisa,  native   products  of  the  country;    but    a,   they  reached 

and  of   the   surrounding   belt   of    plain   country   ealled  Palestine   aud    l-'.gvpt  through  Arabia,  they  were  sup- 

Gaur   or  Tehama.  whieh   varies   in  width  from  one   to  po.sed  to  have  been  found  there. 
two  days'   journey,  to    less   than  a    mile.      The   hills  of          :>,.    ARABIA   L'KTIl.KA.  or//,,    /,'„<•/•;   so  called   from  its 

Oman  form  the  east  shoulder  of   the  table  laud,  aud  the  (.;u  I'KTIIA  .  the  Selah  of  llo!v\\  rit.  -Ki.xiv.r; 

plains  ,-f  KI-Ahsa  terminate  its  inclination  towards  the  [s.xvi.i,  is  now  called    Hagar  or  II  ad  jar.  \\hich  si-nilies 

Persian  Gulf.     The  characteristic  features  of  this  table  stone  or  rock      the  peninsula  between  the  gulfs  of  Sue/, 

land  are  extensive  deserts  of  moving  sand,  with  a  few  and  Akabah.  and  bounded  X.  bv  Palestine  and   Egypt. 

thorny  .-limbs  aud  an  occasional  palm  tnv  and  spring  The  modern  Jiurr-et-tour-Sinai.  Desi  rt,  of  .M,,unt  Sinai, 

of  brackish  water.      .Icr,  miah  most  truly  describes  the  the  scene  of  the  wanderings   of   the  tribes  of    Israel,  is 

desert,    i-h.ii.6.   Tudmor  or  .Palmyra  was  on   the  north-  nearly  identical   with   the  Arabia    IVtrau   of   Ptolemy, 

east  frontier.    1  Ki.  i\.  is  ;  •_•  cii.  viii.  4.      I'aul    resorted    for  It   coniprellendcd   the   Syrian    Desert,    the   countries   of 

a  time  to  that  part  of  this  district  which  was  near  to  theCushites,    Moabitesj    Edomites,    Xabatheans,    and 

Damascus,     Ga.i.17.      The  early   inhabitants   of   Arabia  around  the  southern  coast  of   the  Dead  Sea  to  the  K'ed 

Deserta  were  the   L'ephaim,  the  Einim,  the  Zu/im,  and  Sea   and    Kgy|it.  the    Hivites,    Amalckites.    Miilianites, 

Xam/.ummim.  Ge.xiv.;,;  De.ii.  m.  11,  succeeded  by  the  Am-  and  the  desert  of  Mount  Sinai.  In  this  district  were 
monites,  the  Moabites,  the  I-'.dumites,  the  Hagarenes,  ,  situated  Kadesh-barnea.  Pharan.  L'ej.hidim.  E/ion- 
the  Xabatheans,  the  peopl...  ,,f  Kedar,  and  many  wan-  i  gaber.  Pithmah.  Oboth,  Arad,  lleshliuii,  &c.,  and 


ARABIA 


A  It  A  I '.I  A 


Mounts  Sinai  and  Jlor.  The  chief  characteristics  of  j 
Arabia  IVtra'a  arc  wile lerncsses  of  rocks  and  craggy 
piveipiees.  interspersed  \vitli  narrow  detiles  and  innu 
merable  xmdy  valleys,  many  of  \\liii-li  arc  nearly  as 
barren  as  the  rocks.  The  valley  of  tin-  mountain-range 
Kt-Tigh  ail'ords  tine  springs  and  excellent  pasturage. 
'I'hat  of  Wady  Kept.  supposed  valley  of  Kephidim.  near 
Jobel  Mousa,  is  described  as  most  delightful:  and 
\Vady  e'  1 Sheik,  ami  its  continuation  \Vady  Kciran  (/'«- 
rail,  Xu.  xiii. ::),  present  a  succession  of  gardens  and 
date  plantations,  almost  every  one  of  -which  has  a  well. 
About  thirty- three  miles  S.  K.  of  Ayoun  Mousa  (the 
fountain  of  Moses),  is  the  well  of  iiawarah,  the  IMarah 
of  Serijjtnre;  and  about  MX  or  seven  miles  S.  of  this  is 
Wady  Giirundcl,  supposed  to  be  the  Kiim  of  Moses. 
Tho.-e  ]iarts  of  the  country  remote  from  the  ocean  are 
rocky  and  mountainous.  The  southern  coast  is  a  wall 
of  nuked  rocks,  with  here  and  there  a  low  sandy  beach 
totally  devoid  of  herbage.  The  mountains,  brown  and 
bare,  rise  one  behind  another  to  the  height  of  1000  or 
15HO  feet, 

C/iiinili'.  The  climate  of  Arabia  resembles  greatly 
that  of  .North  Africa,  varying  according  to  the  elevation, 
soil,  and  proximity  to  the  sea.  It  has  its  dry  and  rainy 
seasons;  in  the  mountains  of  Yemen  showery  weather 
prevailing1  regularly  from  .June  to  September,  and  in 
the  east,  at  Oman,  from  November  to  February.  The 
neighbouring  plains  are  rarely  visited  by  rain.  About 
the  period  of  the  summer  solstice  the  deserts  suffer  from 
the  fearful  blast  known  us  the  simoom  or  hot  poison 
wind  from  the  south,  called  by  the  Turks  Samyeli. 

M  incra l<ii/i/. — Although  at  present  there  are  neither 
gold  nor  silver  mines  in  Arabia,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Yemen  once  yielded  gold.  There  are  some  iron 
mines  to  the  north  of  Yemen.  The  onyx  and  an  inferior 
description  of  emerald  are  also  found  in  the  same  dis 
trict.  The  other  minerals  are  basalt,  blue  alabaster,  and 
several  kinds  of  spai-s  and  selenite  (Niebuhr). 

Botany.  —  Among  the  vegetable  products  are  the 
manna  of  commerce,  nutmegs,  dates,  2  Ch.  xxxi.  r>,  cocoa 
and  fan-leaved  palms,  banana,  sugar  cane  (Arrian), 
tamarind,  coffee,  the  cotton  tree,  various  hard  woods, 
melons,  Xu.  xi  .'>,  and  pumpkins,  all  of  which  arc  indi 
genous,  or  have  grown  in  the  valleys  from  the  earliest 
ages:  with  thes.  grow  lavender,  wormwood,  jasmine, 
and  other  scented  plants.  Likewise  the  fig,  vine, 
pomegranate,  orange,  lemon,  quince,  plantain,  almond, 
(ic.  xiiii.  11,  apricot,  acacia  vera,  castor- oil  plant,  senna, 
white  lily,  aloe,  I'.s.  xlv.  s,  scsamum,  all  kinds  of  grain, 
tobacco,  indigo,  and  different  dye  herbs,  with  nume 
rous  M.rls  of  fruit  and  vegetables.  To  these  products 
are  to  lie  added  spicery,  balm,  myrrh,  Go.  xxxvii.  25,  be 
sides  frankincense,  Ex.  xxx.  si,  and  many  other  aromatic 
gums. 

Zoology. — The  most  remarkable  of  the  domestic  ani 
mals  are  the  camel,  the  horse,  the  ass,  Gc.xii.  i<i;  xxx.  43; 
xxxvii.  2.'),  and  broad-tailed  sheep,  2Ch.  xvii.  n.  There  are 
also  humped  oxen,  like  those  of  Syria,  and  the  goat.  The 
horses  are  of  two  kinds,  those  used  for  the  purposes  of 
labour,  and  the  true  Arab  horse  of  the  desert,  descended, 
they  say.  from  the  breed  of  Solomon,  and  of  which  they 
pretend  to  have  preserved  the  genealogy  unbroken. 
This  breed  is  not  by  any  means  numerous;  Burckhardt 
supposed  that  throughout  the  country  the  number  did 
not  exceed  f^.oOO.  Of  the  two  varieties  of  ass,  one  is 
peculiarly  strong  and  courageous,  and  most  valuable  in 
travelling.  The  beasts  of  burden  are  oxen,  mules,  2  Ki. 


v.  17;  i  C'b.  xii.  in,  and  camels.  The  camel  is  so  important 
to  the  Aral)  that  it  may  well  be  termed  by  him  the 
ship  of  the  desert.  It  is  the  most  frugal  of  all  domestic 
animals,  costs  less  than  a  horse  to  keep,  carries  a  greater 
wei-lit.  and  can  endure  greater  fatigue.  From  its  fru- 
L'.alitv  and  laboriousness  is  derived  its  name,  ycmd, 
eaniel.  which  signifies  "  to  requite."  because  more  than 
any  animal  it  requites  its  master.  In  Cairo  the  widow, 
at  the  funeral  of  the  husband,  cries.  '' 0  tliou  camel 
of  the  house,"'  or,  O  thou  who  liearest  the  burden  of  the 
house.  On  the  removal  of  a  trine,  the  camel  carrier, 
the  furniture  and  the  tents,  is.  \.\.\.  0;  Jc.  ii.  2:;;  Ks.  viii.  in. 
The  she-camel  furnishes  the  people  with  milk.  Among 
the  wild  animals  are  the  leopard,  hyena,  panther, 
j-iekal,  jerboa,  wolf.  fox.  boar.  apes,  wild  asses,  wild 
oxen,  goats,  and  antelopes.  Serpents  and  lizards 
abound.  Nn.  \-.i.  i.i;,  as  do  likewi>e  land  and  sea  turtl  s. 
In  the  fertile  districts  domestic  fowl,  pheasants,  par 
tridges,  guinea  fowl,  pigeons,  and  a  species  of  quail, 
are  plentiful.  The  most  celebrated  bird  is  the  locust- 
destroyer,  a  species  of  thrush,  called  by  the  natives 
KUniar-mof/.  The  ostrich,  named  by  the  Turks  the 
camel- bird,  inhabits  the  desert,  and  eagles  build  in  the 
mountains. 

Oriyin  of  flu:  Arabs. — Arabia  was  originally  peop].  d 
by  Cush,  the  son  of  11am.  and  his  descendants,  GO.  x.  7, 2"- 
:;ii,  who  were  succeeded  by  the  posterity  of  Xahor,  Abra 
ham,  and  Lot.  the  various  tribes  thus  formed,  of  what 
soever  denomination,  being  now  comprehended  in  the 
general  name  of  Arabians.  These  peoples  arc  divided 
into  those  who  dwell  in  houses  and  towns,  and  those 
who  live  in  tents  in  the  open  country  or  desert;  and 
so  striking  are  the  differences  between,  the  two  divi 
sions  as  to  leave  little  doubt  of  their  distinct  origin, 
each  class  still  retaining  the  distinguishing  features 
which  marked  it  in  the  earliest  times.  The  native 
writers  describe  two  classes  of  settlers,  the  old  tribes, 
now  extinct,  descended  from  the  sons  of  Iram  (Aram), 
and  the  present  inhabitants,  divided  into  the  pure,  de 
scended  from  Joktan,  and  the  Most- Arabi.  the  mixed  or 
naturalized  Arabs,  said  to  be  descended  from  Ishmael, 
by  a  daughter  of  Modad,  king  of  Hedjaz.  The  tribes 
of  Mahrak  and  Dhofar  speak  a  language  called  Khkili, 
which  circumstances  combine  to  identify  with  the 
Hamyaritic,  the  general  language  of  Southern  Arabia 
before  the  time  of  Mahomet,  but  it  does  not  follow,  on 
this  account,  that  they  are  a  distinct  race,  and  it  has 
been  surmised  that  they  are  only  descendants  of  the 
portion  of  the  population  who  rejected  Islamism  in  the 
first  instance.  Jews  have  always  been  numerous  in 
Arabia,  but  it  is  probable  that  the  majority  are  not 
Israelites  by  descent.  In  Yemen,  the  native  Je\\s  still 
form  a  considerable  community,  and  towards  Asir  are 
the  warlike  tribes  of  the  Belli  Holiab.  Xu.  x.  2;>:  Ju.  iv.  11, 
and  the  Beni  Arhab  (Rechab),  Je.  xxxv.  10. 

Government  and  Character  of  the  Arabs. — The  head 
of  each  tribe  is  called  a  sheikh,  or  elder,  and  the  gov 
ernment  is  hereditary  in  his  family,  but  elective  as  re 
gards  the  individual.  In  character  the  Aral)  is  proud  of 
his  descent,  generous,  hospitable,  intelligent,  eloquent, 
and  fond  of  poetry.  His  hospitality  is  such,  that  he 
kindles  beacon-fires  on  every  hill  to  conduct  the  way 
faring  traveller.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  superstitious, 
dishonest,  holding  robbery  to  be  a  right,  irascible,  vin 
dictive,  and  unforgiving,  all  quarrels  being  hereditary. 
The  war  of  the  two  horses,  Dahes  and  Ghebra.  about 
a  contested  race,  lasted  forty  years ;  that  of  Basus 


ARABIA 


11.3 


AH  Alii  A 


it  remained   until  the  taking  «f  the  city  l>y  Houlakou. 
grandson  of  .Jciighis  Khan.  A.D.  l-_>r,'i.      I'nder  Caliph 


Arab    tents    are     pean  history. 


rkest  peri 
The  ambassadors  and  agents 


Eur 
f  Al  Ma- 


et     nioun  had  orders  to  collect  the  most  important  books  that 


& 


sprung  from  killing  a  camel  which  had  drunk  at  a  for 
bidden   spring,   and   raged  many  years,  during   which 

nearly  all  the  principal  men  of  the  tribes  engaged  were     llaroun  al  Kaschid.  A.D.  rsU-809,    Al  Amin,   M^-lV 
cutoff'.     Niebuhr  esteems  the  Bedouin  as  the  only  true     and  Al  Mamoun.    M3-33.    the    Arabs  rose  '  to    great 

Arab- -the  "wild  man"  fulfilling  his  destiny,  Go.xvi.  ].ower,  and  attained  such  high  literary  and  scientific 
IO-IL',  still  preserving  his  liberty,  each  tribe  living  apart  eminence,  that  the  court  at  Bagdad  became  the  centre  of 
and  in  tents,  and  retaining  the  habits  of  h;s  fore-  learning  and  civilization  at  the  dark 
fathers,  E/.r.  via.  Ji;  Jnbi.  i:>:  Is  xxi.  i:;. 
from  liu  to  3d  feet  long,  and  not  m< 
high.  They  are  of  goats'  or 
camels'  hair  cloth,  and  black  or 
brown  in  colour.  Ca.  i.5  (Plinv, 
Xut.  Hist,  vi.i  Each  tent  is 
divided  into  two  jiarts.  one  of 
which  is  for  the  women.  \Vhen 
encamped,  the  tents  are  ar 
ranged  in  a  ring,  the  inclosuiv 
within  serving  as  a  pen  for  the 
cattle.  The  Arab../ the  desert 
has  never  been  subdued  by  any 
conqueror,  the  most  ancient  and 
powerful  tribes  at  i-nee  retirini;' 
into  the  desert  when  attacked 
by  a  foreign  enemy,  .],•  xlix.  -• 
The  Arab  of  the  towns,  in  con- 
eiice  of  commerce  and  of 
intercourse  with  strangers,  has 
l»t  many  of  his  peculiar  traits, 
and  his  character  is  much  de 
teriorated,  beinic  not  only  dis 
honest,  but  deceitful  and  un 
truthful. 

Kd'ujwn.          The      Arabian-- 
seem     to    have    regarded    Mecca 
and    the    Kaaba.    or    S|iiare.    with     1 
tlu;   earliest  times.      Mecca  is   as>"i1 
where     Ishmaol     was     saved,     and     when 
and  was  buried;   and  the  sacred  /em/em 

be   the    Well    pointed  out    I'V   tile  allgel.        Til 

also  assert  that   the   Kaaba  was   built   by 


to    I 


lin-s    from 
e  the  spot 
-     Hagar    died 
is  believed  to 
e  Mahometans 
S.-th,  of  stone 


and  clay.  and.  bein^  destroVeil  by  the  deb:g",  was  re 
built  by  Abraham  and  Nniia-l.  10,(KlO  angels  being  ap 
pointed  to  guard  it.  In  religion,  the  ancient  Arabians 
were  pure  Saba-ans,  worshipping  one  <  lod.  and  regard  in-- 

the  sun,  i n,  and  stars  as  .-uhordinate  intelligences.    I  n 

course  of  ages  this  i-eligimi  became  1  -s  pure;  innumer 
able  angels  w.  readmitted  into  their  worship,  3'ln  being 
enshrined  in  th-  Kaaba  as  tutelary  guardians  of  the 
Arab  year:  other  deities  were  gradually  added,  and 
even  the  Virgin  Mary  with  the  infant  .Je.-us  was  carved 
on  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  Kaaba  as  an  object  of  ador 
ation.  Other  religions  \vere  also  established,  until,  at 
the  time  of  the  birth  of  Mahomet.  A.D.  .'.70.  the  people 
were  nearly  equally  divided  into  Sab;ean.-.  dews.  Ma-  headc 
gians.  and  Christians.  Arabia  became  united  in  tl 
Moslim  faith,  A.D.  i ;•_'.•'. 

History.-    Tlie  Arabs  have  a  variety  of  traditions  n 
speeting  Abraham,  Moses,  Jethro,  Solomon,  and  othi 


could  be  discovered;  and  tin-  literary  relics  of  con 
quered  prov  inces  were  laid  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  as  the 
most  precious  tribute.  The  caliphs  disseminated  1<  a  ruing 
throughout  their  whole  dominions,  first  in  Africa,  where 
they  built  many  universities,  and  thence  through  Spain. 
To  the  Arabs  we  owe  the  system  of  arithmetical  char 
acters  m.w  in  u< -iieral  use;  and  in  astronomy,  chemistry, 
algebra,  medicine,  and  architecture,  they  were  un- 
e'|ualled.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that,  numerous  a  ;  are 
the  b-autiful  specimens  of  Saracenic  architecture  of  the 
middle  ages  in  the  countries  concpiered  by  the  Arabs, 
no  remains  of  the  period  are  found  in  Arabia  herself. 

Notwithstanding  the  rapid  and  extended  conquests 
et  the  Arabs.  Arabia  their  mother  country  has  always 
escaped  being  conquered  in  turn.  She  has  onlv  suf 
fered  Uvo  revolutions  since  the  time  of  Mahomet,  both 
of  a  religious  character.  The  first  the  objects  of 
which  wen  to  alter  tlie  ceremonial,  rescind  the  prohi 
bition  of  wine,  and  prevent  the  holy  pilgrimages  was 
v  Krmath,  .\.n.  V.HI,  and  desolated  the  country 
for  more  than  sixty  years.  The  second,  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  last  century,  to  reform  the  abuses  that  had 
encroached  upon  the  pure  doctrines  of  Mahomet,  was 
headed  by  Abd-el-Wahab.  The  Wahabee  doctrine 


Scripture  personages;  but  we  have  no  knowledge  of  any  ;  made  great  progress,  and  at  the  beginniii'/  of  the  present 
perfect  history  of  the   country:  although  a  few   fixed  |  century  both  Mecca  and   Medina  were  in  the  hands  of 


periods  have  been  ascertained  which  would  be  of  use  as 
data  for  comparison.     In  the  fourth  century  A.IX,  a  ki 


the  \Vahabees.      In  I*]:;,  Mahomet  Ali  conquered  and 

expelled  them  from  the  western  coast;   but  the  sect  is 


of  Yemen  embraced  Judaism  and  persecuted  the  Chris-  \  still  extensive  at  NYd-jed.  though  its  power  and  num- 
tians,  putting  several  thousands  of  them  to  the  sword. 

A.D.    (532-33,    the   successors  of   Mahomet  removed 

the  seat  of  the  empire  from  Medina  to  Damascus,  and  i  been  estimated  at  between  ll,0no,0(iu  and  12,000,000, 
thence,   by  Al  Mansur.   A.D.    7(53.    to  Bagdad,    where  I  but  the  data  are  quite  uncertain. 


bers  are  on  the  decline. 

The  present  population  of  the  whol 


of  Arabia  has 


VOL  I. 


15 


A  .11 A  MIC    LANGUAGE 

Mantifactur'S  and  Trade. — Gunpowder  was  known  ' 
to  the  Arabs  at  least  a  century  before  it  appears  in 
European  historv;  and  we  owe  to  them  the  introduc 
tion  and  cultivation  of  the  sugar-cane.  The  mechani 
cal  arts,  however,  are  at  the  lowest  point  with  them, 
all  handicraft  occupations  being  esteemed  as  degrad 
ing.  The  IVdouins  know  little  else  than  the  tanning 
of  leather  and  the  weaving  of  course  fabrics;  they  have 
a  few  blacksmiths  and  saddlers.  In  \Tementhereare 
workers  in  glass,  gold,  and  silver;  but  the  artificers  in 
the  precious  metals  arc  .ill  .lews  and  Iranians. 

Although  the  pearl  banks  in  the  Persian  Gulf  yield  ' 
a  considerable  revenue,  and  the  fishermen  on  the  south 
coasts  of  Arabia  collect  an  abundance  of  both  ambergris 
and  tortoise-shell,  it  is  now  known  that  the  valuable 
commodities  anciently  supposed  to  be  the  produce  of 
Arabia,  were  imported  from  India,  ( 'aramania,  and 
elsewhere.  Aden  was  the  ancient  centre  of  traffic  be 
tween  India  and  the  Jted  Sea,  and  Oherra.  on  the 
Persian  Gulf.  The  transit  trade  enriched  Arabia,  until 
the  passage  round  the  Cape  was  discovered;  but  steam 
navigation  has  restored  the  ancient  route  for  travellers, 
and  the  railway  and  the  telegraph  may  yet  revive  the 
commerce  of  the  country. 

Of  all  nations,  the  Aral  is  have  spread  farthest  over 
the  world,  colonies  being  found  in  every  region  from 
the  Senegal  to  the  Indus  from  the  Euphrates  to  Ma 
dagascar  (  RiKer.  /•'rd/.-n.nilc,  th.  ii.)  Throughout  their 
wanderings  they  have  preserved  their  language,  and 
peculiar  manners  and  customs,  many  being  precisely 
the  same  at  this  day  as  are  described  in  Scripture,  de 
monstrating  the  stationary  nature  of  the  usages  and 
habits  which  form  the  general  character  of  the  East 
(Laberdei,  and  rendering  an  intimate  knowledge  of 
this  people  essential  to  the  biblical  student:  while 
their  language.  1  icing  closely  allied  to  the  Hebrew, 
affords  a  most  important  aid  in  illustrating  Holy 
Writ, 

[Herodotus,  T/nd'ni.  107-113;  Stv.ibo,  lib.  xvi.;  Biodorus,  ii. ; 
Pliny,  .Y<'/.  //;.-•/.  v.  xii.  xix.;  Abul  Phara^ius  ;  Abul  Feda  ;  Ami. 
Mi'.',  ii.  ;  II'  ilerbelot  ;  Hucliart,  Hirrn:<ii<-<>i>,  lib.  iv.  cap.  0 ; 
8'j.le'e Koran ;  A!i  |j<-v's  Koror,;  Burekbardt's  Ki.run;  Niebuhr's 
Voyugeen  Arabia,  and  Description  </•  I'Arabie;  I.aborde,  Journey 
thi-in'-.ik  Af'iii',,,  Pitrcea;  WelL-tjd's  Trards  ni  Arub'nj;  Robinson's 
BMicul  Rif.archf.s:  Crichton's  Hist,  of  A  /•»'/• '»/  Wolf's  Missionary 
Jour, if >j.  [J.  B.] 

ARABIC  LANGUAGE.  This  language,  as  is  well 
known,  is  the  great  living  representative  of  the  class  of 
languages  usually  called  Semitic,  to  which  the  Hebrew 
also  belongs.  And  it  is  the  fact  of  its  close  relationship 
to  the  Hebrew,  and  its  consequent  value  to  the  expositor 
of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  that  entitles  it  to  a 
place  in  a  work  such  as  this. 

Of  the  general  characteristics  of  the  Semitic  lan 
guages  some  account  will  be  given  in  another  place. 
(See  HEBKF.W  LANGUAGE.)  Our  object  at  present  is  to 
point  out  the  special  relation  in  which  two  of  these  lan 
guages,  the  Arabic  and  Hebrew,  stand  to  one  another, 
and  thus  to  indicate  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  as 
sistance  which  we  may  expect  to  derive  from  the  study 
of  the  one  in  enlarging  our  knowledge  of  the  other. 

Independently,  indeed,  of  its  connection  with  the 
Hebrew,  the  Arabic  language  has  many  claims  on  the 
attention  of  the  student;  and  these,  though  the  expo 
sition  of  them  is  not  our  principal  object,  must  not  be 
left  altogether  unnoticed. 

1.  The  lanr/nayc  itself  is  very  remarkable:  its  dic 
tionary  is  of  wonderful  extent,  whilst  its  grammar  is 


4  A  If  A 1 1!C    LANGUAGE 

most  simple  and  regular,  and  at  the  same  time  makes 
ample  provision  for  the  expression  even  of  most  deli 
cate  shades  of  thought. 

•2.  Xo  lanrjuaije  has  been  spoken  over  a  leinjer  portion 
of  the  earth' a  surface. —  Erom  its  home  in  the  deserts  it 
has  extended  its  conquests  beyond  the  Indus  on  the 
east,  and  to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  on  the  west;  and 
southward  it  is  even  at  the  present  day  making  con 
siderable  advances,  spreading  over  the  central  regions 
of  Africa,  and  even  beyond  the  equator. — ( liarth's 
Travels  iii  Africa,  iii.  -\(>i>.) 

3.  The  extent  and  varietij  of  tli.c  Arabic  literature. — 
Few  languages  have  embraced  such  a  large  and  varied 
field  of  literature  as  the  Arabic,  though  the  days  of  its 
power  have  passed  away.  During  the  middle  ages,  it 
may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  as  many  books  were 
written  in  Arabic  as  in  all  the  other  languages  of  the 
earth  taken  together,  and  these  books  embraced  every 
department  of  knowledge.  (Compare  Hammer-Purg- 
stall's  great  work,  in  Gorman.  On  the  History  of  the 
Literature  of  the  Arahia'tus.)  And  the  influence  of  this 
wonderful  mental  activity  is  felt  even  to  the  present 
day.  Our  obligations  to  the  Arabian  writers,  not  only 
for  much  positive  knowledge,  but,  what  is  of  still  more 
consequence,  for  helping  to  communicate  to  the  Euro 
pean  mind  that  impulse,  which  has  resulted  in  the  ad 
vanced  knowledge  and  civilization  of  modern  times,  are 
well  known.  These  obligations  are  not  mere  matter  of 
history;  our  very  language  bears  in  its  composition,  and 
will  continue  to  bear  as  long  as  it  endures,  evidence  of 
the  mental  power  and  superiority  which  distinguished 
the  Arabians  of  the  middle-ages. — (Trench's  Enyiish, 
Past  ami  Present,  p.  7.) 

1.  The  historical  associations  of  the  Arabic  language 
constitute  for  it  another  claim  on  our  interest.  It  was 
the  language  of  those  sons  of  the  East  whose  wisdom 
had  become  proverbial  three  thousand  years  ago.  It 
was  the  language  in  which  Mohammed  promulgated  that 
system  of  mingled  truth  and  falsehood  which  occupies  so 
large  a  space  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  which 
even  now  has  not  ceased  to  influence  the  destinies  of 
mankind. 

I'ut  not  to  dwell  on  these  topics,  we  return  to  what 
constitutes  the  principal  claim  of  this  language  on  the 
attention  of  the  student  of  Scripture,  viz.  the  close 
affinity  in  which  it  stands  to  the  Hebrew,  and  the  valu 
able  aid  which  it  furnishes  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures. 

What  is  the  relation  in  which  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic 
languages  stand  to  one  another?  Are  they  sister  tongues, 
or  is  the  one  the  parent  of  the  other?  If  the  latter,  to 
which  is  the  position  of  priority  to  be  assigned  .'  These 
are  questions  which  have  been  very  variously  answered. 
Formerly  there  was  no  hesitation  in  assigning  the  prio 
rity  to  the  Hebrew;  at  present  the  prevailing  sentiment 
of  Semitic  scholars  seems  rather  to  favour  the  priority  of 
the  Arabic.  The  latter  is  very  decidedly  the  view  of 
Kodiger,  the  distinguished  professor  of  oriental  lan 
guages  at  Berlin,  formerly  at  Halle. 

There  are  two  acknowledged  facts,  the  one  of  which 
seems  to  favour  the  former  of  these  views  (the  priority  of 
the  Hebrew),  as  the  other  seems  to  favour  the  latter  (the 
priority  of  the  Arabic).  The  one  fact  is  that,  while  the 
commencement  of  the  existing  Hebrew  literature  dates 
from  the  fifteenth  century  before  Christ,  the  commence 
ment  of  the  existing  Arabic  literature  dates  only  from 
the  fifth  century  after  Christ.  It  seems  scarce  credible 


ARABIC  LANGUAGE 


ARABIC  LANGUAGE 


that  the  Hebrew  literature  should  be  two  thousand 
years  older  than  the  Arabic,  and.  notwithstanding, 
that  the  Arabic  language1  should  be  older  than  the 
Hebrew.  The  other  fact,  which  seems  to  lead  to  a  con 
clusion  just  the  reverse,  is  that  the  modern  Arabic  bears 
a  much  closer  resemblance  to  the  Hebrew  than  the  an 
cient  Arabic  does. 

A  little  consideration,  however,  is  sufficient  to  show- 
that  neither  of  tlu  facts  just  mentioned,  however  strik 
ing  arid  decisive  they  seem  at  first  glance,  is  of  itself 
sufficient  to  determine  the  question  of  the  relative  anti 
quity  of  the  two  languages.  The  Arabic  language  had 
its  home  among  a  people  who  lived  secluded  from  the 
other  nations  of  the  world,  and  preserved  during  many 
centuries  the  simple  manners  of  their  ancestors,  un 
tainted  by  the  corrupting  influence  of  foreign  associa 
tions.  And.  therefore,  we  cannot  at  once  pronounce 
untenable  the  hypothesis,  that  among  that  simple  se 
cluded  people  was  preserved  during  many  ages  a  form 
of  the  Semitic  tongue,  more  closely  approaching  to  the 
original  than  those  forms  which  we  find  prevailing 
among  the  Hebrews,  Chalde^s,  and  Syrians  nations 
which  acted  a  much  more  proniini  lit  part  on  the  world's 
stage,  and  were  much  more  powerfully  acted  upon  by 
foreign  influences.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that 
the  Hebrew  language  accords  with  the  modern  in  some 
forms  in  which  it  differs  from  the  ancient  Arabic.  .Iocs 
not  at  all  necessitate  the  conclusion  that  it  must  have 
•_foiie  th roii nil  a  series  of  changes  similar  to  that  through 
which  the  Arabic  has  passed.  We  have  no  iva-on  to 
beliey,-  that  the  ||.-hi"-w  ever  was  so  highly  cultivated 
and  so  larg.-K  developedas  the  Arabic.  And  therefore 
we  do  not  hesitate  to  accept  as  sufficient  the  solution 
of  the  difficulty  which  is  suggested  by  Kwald:  "In 
nmltis  lingua  rec.-ntior  ad  ea  ivdiit  qua-  politior  >  :  cul- 

tior  mutaverat."      '  .1  /•«/</(•  < li-'i i,intnr.  i.  >'<:  and  i ipar. • 

Himself s  Phil,  "f  // i,--f'iri/,  i.    ls-j.1 

We    believe   tllC      Hebrew    to   be   tile    cllU.T  sister  of    the 

Arabic.  In  the  latter  \\v  find  the  original  S,  untie 
language  much  more  fully  developed  than  in  the  former, 
and  larger  provision  made  for  the  exact  and  discrimi 
nating  expression  of  the  various  shades  of  thought. 
Much  that  the  Hebrew  leaves  to  be  caught-  up  from  the 
tune,  manner,  gesture,  is  formally  expressed  in  the 
Arabic.  There  is  also  very  little  of  composition  about 
the  Hebrew  literature,  as  is  evident  even  from  our  own 
version.  Its  great  thoughts  are  expressed  in  the  sim 
plest  way.  The  Arabic,  though  also  simple  in  it- 
structure,  is  far  more  artificial  than  the  Hebrew.  The 
thoughts  which  it  expresses  arc  more  formally  con 
nected  and  regularly  subordinated.  When  we  first 
meet  it  iu  history,  it  has  evidently  lost  much  of  the 
antique  simplicity  ami  artl^ssn.  ss  which  we  mark  at 
once  in  the  Hebrew  writings.  It  is  less  the  pure  un 
restrained  outflowing  of  thought.  It  has  been  more 
wrought  upon,  and  shaped  and  moulded. 

At  the  same  time,  while  we  believe  the  Hebrew  lan 
guage,  as  a  whole,  to  be  a  more  ancient  form  of  the 
Semitic  language  than  the  Arabic,  we  are  quite  pre 
pared  to  admit  that  there  have  been  preserved  to  us  in 
the  Arabic,  probably  from  the  operation  of  the  causes 
already  mentioned,  not  a  few  forms  which  approximate 
more  closely  to  those  of  the  original  language  than  the 
corresponding  forms  in  Hebrew. 

But,  though  scholars  may  differ  as  to  the  relative 
position  and  antiquity  of  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  two  languages  are  very  closely 


allied,  so  closely  that  it  is  impossible  to  have  a  thorough 
mastery  of  the  one  language  without  being  at  the  same 
time  acquainted  with  the  other,  at  least  in  its  general 
principles  and  leading  forms.  To  the  Hebrew  student 
especially,  a  knowledge  of  Arabic  is  of  great  import 
ance,  as  the  limited  extent  of  the  ancient  Hebrew 
literature  is  the  occasion  to  the  expositor  of  many  diffi 
culties,  for  the  removal  of  which  he  must  carefully 
gather  in.  and  make  diligent  use  of.  all  the  aids  within 
his  reach. 

I.  Points  of  resemblance  lutwcin  the  H>>>rcw  and 
Aruolc. —  Comparative  philologists  have  discussed  the 
i  question  whether  the  dictionary  or  the  grammar  fur 
nishes  the  better  test  of  the  relationship  of  languages. 
In  the  investigation  of  the  Semitic  languages  this  ques 
tion  has  no  place:  as  the  resemblances  between  all  these 
languages  in  dictionary  and  in  grammar  are  alike  num 
erous  and  decisive. 

1.  Dictionary  <//•  rout  resemblances.  The  greater 
number  of  the  Hebrew  roots  are  found  also  in  Aiabic, 
and  each  bearing  a  signification  either  identical  or  evi- 
d<  nth  related.  In  both  languages  the  roots  consist 
usually  of  three  letters :  and  tin  re  is  the  same  distinc 
tion  in  sense  between  the  three  classes  of  roots  techni 
cally  called  middle  A,  middle  I-:,  and  middle  V .  The 
pronouns  and  numerals  are  substantially  the  same. 

Krom  the  copious  dictionary  of  the  living  Arabic 
language  we  mav.  therefore1,  draw  larm-  materials  for 
the  use  of  the  Hebrew  lexicographer.  It  is  a  necessary 
consequence  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  writing-  be  in^  so 
tew  and  at  the  same  time  so  varied  in  their  character, 
that  many  Hebrew  roots  are  met  with  only  once  or 
twice,  and  the  lexicographer  has  then  fop •.  in  many 
cases,  great  difficulty  in  determining  their  exact  signifi 
cation,  in  such  cases  it  is  the  siiir^vstion  of  common 
sense  that  lie  should  turn  to  the  Arabic  dictionary,  in 
which  he  will  probably  find  the'  root  of  which  he  is  in 
doubt,  with  its  various  significations  aim. -\ed  :  and. 
from  a  comparison  of  th.se.  he  will  usually  be  able,  if 
not  absolutely  t"  determine  the  signification  of  the  root 
in  11. -brew,  at  least  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  in  which 
he  may  for  the  present  acquiesce,  until  some  new  source 
of  illustration  is  opened  up  to  him.  Though  this  course 
of  procedure,  which  seems  to  be  the  dictate  ,,f  common 
sens.-,  was  once  condemned  by  many  Hebrew  scholars, 
among  whom  Gussetius,  whose  lexicon  is  still  valuable, 
was  probably  the  most  eminent,  it  is  now  universally 
adopted,  and  has  been  the  means  of  eliciting  many  im 
portant  results. 

Hut  the  Arabic  dictionary  has  been  of  good  service 
not  only  in  determining  the  signification  of  rare1  He 
brew  roots,  but  also  in  throwing  new  light  upon  roots 
which  are  neither  rare  nor  of  doubtful  signification.  It 
is  now  the  ivcogni/.ed  duty  of  the  lexicographer,  not 
merely  to  collect  the  various  significations  of  each  root, 
but  to  arrange  these  significations  in  the  natural  and 
probable  order  of  their  development:  or.  if  a  root  has 
only  one  signification,  to  explain  as  far  as  possible  how- 
it  came  to  bear  it.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  in  order 
to  do  this  with  an}'  approach  to  accuracy,  a  range  of 
observation  much  more  extensive  than  is  furnished  by 
the  scanty  remains  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  literature  is  in 
dispensable.  Hence  the  extreme  importance  of  the  Arabic- 
dictionary  to  the  Hebrew  lexicographer,  who  is  able,  as 
is  evident  even  on  a  cursory  inspection  of  such  a  lexicon 
as  that  of  Gesenius,  to  draw  from  thence  a  new  and  large- 
store  of  materials.  Take  for  example  the  Hebrew 


ARABIC    LANGUAGE 


1 1  <  i 


A  It  ABIC    LAXGFAGF 


verb.   j,"v;;'i,-.  /"  xaral.      This  verb,  like  many  others,  is 

not  met  with  in  Hebrew  in  the  simple  kal  form.  Why 
so'  For  what  reason  is  the  hiphil  form  preferred? 
We  find  the  explanation  in  the  Arabic,  which  has 
preserved  the  simple  form  lost  in  Hebrew  (?MIJ ,  umplus 
if  patldus  fuit),  and  thus  enables  us  to  decide  that  the 
original  signification  of  y"i;y-i  is  to  'make  wide,  to 

enlarge;  hence,  to  e,i-tricat>\  to  (Jel!r<r,  to  xa-re. 

Again,  then-  are  other  roots  in  Hebrew  which  are 
found  to  bear  two  or  more  significations  so  widely 
different,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible,  by  any  exercise 
of  ingenuity  to  trace'  them  to  a  common  origin.  Turn 
ing  to  the  Arabic  dictionary  \\e  find  that  what  appears 
in  Hebrew  as  a  single  root  is  in  reality  two.  Tims 

-\an  =  jkz*  and  .jui.;  £>'-MI  =  Oj-=*  :UH'  u**r^ 

(See  Gesenius,   Ltlinjel/.  pp.   I  i.   I!'.1) 

Indeed,  so  fully  recognized  at  the  present  time  is 
the  value  of  the  Arabic  language  in  determining  and 
illustrating  the  signification  of  the  Hebrew  roots,  that  it 
is  perhaps  more  necessary  to  caution  against  the  abuse 
of  this  valuable  aid  than  to  recommend  its  use.  By 
the  German  scholars  especially,  the  Arabic  has  often 
been  repaired  to  for  aid  when  no  aid  was  needed.  If 
the  signification  of  a  root  is  already  sufficiently  deter 
mined  by  the  usage  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  we  must  not, 
as  has  sometimes  been  done,  ransack  the  cognate  lan 
guages  for  some  new  rendering,  unsupported  by  Hebrew 
usage,  but  more  consonant  with  the  dogmatic  preposses 
sions  of  the  interpreter.  We  cannot  lint  think  that 
something  of  this  sort  has  been  done  by  the  majority  of 
modern  expositors  in  affixing  to  the  root  nTi  iu  Is.  hi. 
In.  the  signification  of  exult. *• 

'2.  Resemblances  in  grammatical  formations. — These 
are  not  less  marked  than  the  resemblances  in  root- 
forms.  In  both  languages  we  have  the  same  distribu 
tion  of  the  letters  into  radicals  and  serviles  (the  only 
difference  being  that  in  Arabic  Plie  is  a  servile,  He  not, 
while  in  Hebrew  it  is  just  the  reverse);  the  same  close 
connection  between  verb  and  noun;  the  same  use  of 
fragmentary  pronouns,  prefixed  and  affixed,  in  the  in 
flection  of  the  roots;  in  the  verb  a  similar  system  of 
conjugations,  modes,  tenses,  &c.;  in  the  noun  corre 
sponding  forms  and  inflections;  in  the  numerals  from  15  to 
10  the  same  peculiarity  of  the  masculine  gender  being 
represented  by  the  feminine  form,  the  feminine  by  the 
masculine;  and  in  the  particles  <>f  most  common  oc 
currence  a  very  close  correspondence.  The  principles 
by  wliich  the  syntax  of  both  languages  is  regulated  are 
also  the  same.  In  both  the  subject  of  the  sentence  fre 
quently  stands  absolutely  at  the  beginning  of  the  sen 
tence;  when  it  does  not,  the  predicate  usually  precedes  it: 
in  both  the  adjective  stands  after  the  substantive  which 
it  defines  or  characterizes :  in  both  the  tense  usages, 
though  by  no  means  identical,  can  be  shown  to  rest 
upon  the  same  principles  :  in  both  a  verb  is  often  fol 
lowed  by  its  cognate  noun  either  with  or  without  an 


1  In  comparing  Hebrew  and  Arabic  roots,  tlic  student  must 
remember  that  the  law  of  the  eorresiiondence  of  sounds,  wliich 
is  exemplified  in  other  cognate  languages,  is  found  operating 
also  in  these,  inasmuch  as  the  Hebrew  .1  corresponds  to  the 
Arabic  ?!,,  and  the  Arabic  ah  to  the  Hebrew  x  ;  and  likewise 
that  we  observe  in  the  Arabic,  though  not,  so  strongly  as  in  the 
Syriac,  a  tendency  to  transform  the  sibilants  into  linguals ;  •</< 
being  frequently  changed  into  (I,  ,}  *  into  /,  z  into  ilh  (\\ 


adjective:  in  both  comparison  is  expressed  by  means  of 
the  preposition  "from:1'  in  both  two  nouns  in  construc 
tion  often  stand  for  a  noun  and  adjective,  or  simply 

|  for  an   adjective:    in  both    the   numerals  higher  than 

j  units  are  for  the  most  part  followed  by  a  singular  noun. 

|  Such    resemblances    as     these    might    be    multiplied ; 

|  but  the  above  are  sufficient  to  show  how  closely  the 
two  languages  are  allied  in  structure,  as  well  as  in 
root-forms. 

II.  Points  of  difference  between  the  Hebrew  and  Ara 
bic.  —  The  study  of  these  will  be  found  of  not  less 
consequence  in  ascertaining  the  principles  of  the  Semi 
tic  language,,  than  the  study  of  the  points  of  resem 
blance.  For  a  principle  is  always  the  better  understood, 
when  it  is  seen  working  not  always  in  the  same  direc 
tion,  but  in  different  directions,  and  under  different  in 
fluences. 

1.  Jtoot  differences. — When  we  find  an  Arabic  root 
consisting  of  the  same  letters  as  a  Hebrew  one,  we  must 
not  at  once  conclude  that  both  have  the  same  significa 
tion.      We  must  not  overlook  the  changes  caused  by 
the  influences   of  place,    and  time,    and  circumstance. 
The  two  roots  were  once,  indeed,  identical  in  significa 
tion — they  had  the  same  starting  point;  but  from  that 
point  onward  they  have  been  acted   upon  by  different 
influences,  these  influences  modifying  the  original  signi 
fication,  sometimes  indeed  very  slightly,  but  sometimes 

I  so  decidedly  as  to  render  it  doubtful  whether  roots 
which  now- stand  so  far  apart  could  ever  have  been  one. 
For  example,  no  roots  are  more  common  in  Hebrew 

than  the  verbs  ^Sri-  ne  went,  and  -i^n,  he  spoke.      But 
"I  -  T 

ti;rn  to  the  Arabic  lexicon.      We  disc-over  indeed  cor 
responding  roots;  but  how  different  the  significations 
attached    to   them !     The  former,    we   find,    means   in 
Arabic  he  perished;  the  latter,  he  arranged,  he  ruled. 
How  do  we  explain  this  '.      It  is  the  part  of  the  lexico 
grapher  to  trace  back  these  different  significations  to  a 
common  root;  and  in  the  attempt  to  do  so  he  is  often 
led  to  important  results  which  would  otherwise  have 
escaped  his  notice.      The  truth  is,  if  we  found  in  Arabic 
I  the  same  roots  bearing  exactly  the  same  significations 
;  as  in  Hebrew,  the  comparative  study  of  these  languages 
I  would   lose   much  of  its   importance.     It  is  from  the 
study  of  their  differences  that  the  most  valuable  results 
have  been  obtained. 

2.  Grammatical  differences. — Not  a  few;  of  the  forms 
and  inflections  of  the  Arabic  grammar  appear  to  he 
older  and  more  original  than  the  corresponding  forms 
in    Hebrew.       For  example,   the  pronouns  of   the  se 
cond  person  in  Arabic,   ant  a,   anti, . . .  antum,   antun- 
na,  are  older  than  the  Hebrew  forms  atta.  att,  attem, 
atten.      So    the    suffixes    Tea,   ki,....kum,    kunna,    are 
older  than  lea,   k.    kern,  ken.      It  is  evident  that  the 
Hebrew  katalt  was  originally  katalti.  as   in  Arabic, 
because  we  find  that  form  still  preserved   before  the 
suffixes :  for  the  same  reason  ketaltem  must  be  a  cor 
ruption  of  ketaltum  (the  Arabic  form).     The  vocaliza 
tion  also  of  the   Arabic  seems  purer  than  that  of  the 
Hebrew,  e.y.  Ar.  ytiktul,   Heb.  yiktol;  Ar.  kutel,   Heb. 
kotel;  Ar.  kattala,  Heb.  kittel,  &c.     So  the  diphthongs 
ai,  an.  retained  in  Arabic,  are  corrupted  into  ae,  6.  in 
Hebrew. 

Again,  in  Arabic  we  find  a  much  larger  development 
of  many  Hebrew  formations.  Much  that  seems  some 
what  fragmentary  and  isolated  in  Hebrew  appears 
in  Arabic  systematically  wrought  out  and  completed. 


ARABIC    LANGUAGE 


117 


ARABIC    VERSIONS 


This  is  seen  in  the  various  forms  of  the  Arabic  future 
tense,  of  which  v.v  have  the  germs  in  the  long  and  short 
future  of  the  Hebrew  :  in  the  regularity  with  which  the 
passive  formation  by  means  of  the  vowel  u  is  carried 
through  all  tin-  conjugations  of  the  verb  which  are  cap 
able  i if  receiving  a  passive  signification:  in  the  case 
terminations  of  the  noun,  of  which  in  Hebrew  we 
have  only  the  first  beginnings:  perhaps  also  in  the 
larger  use  of  the  dual  number. 

-Many  parts  also  of  the  Arabic  grammar,  which  seem 
most  distinctive  and  peculiar,  nu'.v  be  traced  to  prin 
ciples,  the  operation  of  which  we  observe  also  in  He 
brew.  The  must  remarkable  of  these  is  the  mode  in 
which  plurality  is  usually  expressed,  viz.  bv  means  of  a 
feminine  singular  abstract  iiutin,  technically  called  the 
jiliiruliti  j'riii-tiiii.  This  formation,  indeed,  is  not  pecu 
liar  to  tile  Arabic,  nor  even  to  the  Semitic  languages 
(Qmisen's  Philosophy  nf  L'ltii'er.tal  Jlistory,  i.  '2i>'2).  but 
in  Arabic  it  seems  more  regularly  and  widely  developed 
than  in  any  other  language.  In  Hebrew,  examples  of 
the  converse,  i.e.  of  the  plural  form  employed  to  de 
note  a  singular  idea,  are  more  common.  In  b. 'th  the 
ideal  predominates  over  tin-  real. 

With  regard  to  the  structure  and  connection  of 
sentences,  in  Arabic  the  van  con-'-cutive  disappears; 
but  instead  of  it  we  find  ether  forms  uf  constrtietion, 
which  show  that  the  two  tenses  have  substantiallv  the 
same  import  as  in  Hebrew.  There  i-  al-o  a  larger  use 
of  the  substantive  verb  a-  an  auxiliary.  Thus,  as  in 
Syriac,  a  pluperfect  tense  is  formed  bv  means  of  it;  and 
it  is  al.-o  found  -landing  before  the  future  to  describe 
past  continued,  or  habitual  action, 

l!ut.  not  to  delay  longer  on  details,  it  only  remains 
to  remark  in  general,  tint  the  Arabic  is  distinguished 
from  the  Hebrew  by  hein^  less  slit!'  and  formal  and 
more  flexible,  abounding  in  vowel  sounds.  In  both 
each  syllable  begins  with  a  consonant:  hut  in  \rahie 
no  syllable  either  begins  or  ends  \\ith  two  consonants. 
In  both  tile  syllable  which  ends  with  a  consonant  most 
frequently  takes  a  short  vowel;  but  the  A  rabie  ditl'ers 
from  the  Hebrew  in  admitting  the  short  \o\\,l  also 
into  the  unaccented  open  syllable,  I.e.  the  syllable 
ending  with  a  vowel.  Such  differences  in  the  lan 
guage  have  their  rout  in  the  character  of  the  people. 
The  Arabic  is  the  language  of  a  [ 
impulsive:  the  Hebrew,  of  a  peopl 
resolved. 

In  connection  with  the  Arabic  language  on^ht  to  be 
studied  the  Kthiopie,  which  in  some  , ,f  its  forms  ap 
proaches  still  nearer  to  the  Hebrew.  The  fraginentarv 
Himyaritic  inscriptions,  when  discovered  in  larger  num 
bers  and  fully  investigated,  will  probably  be  found  to 
present  the  Arabic  language  in  its  oldest  form.  Con 
nected  with  these  are  the  inscriptions  found  on  Mount 
Sinai,  which  are  still  in  process  of  decipherment. 

I'l'lic  Arabic  dictionary  \\1ii, -h  is  perhaps  most  accessible  is 
K  re  Hag's,  larger  and  smaller.  The  best  grammars  are  Do  Sacy's 
and  Mwald's,  e  u-h  in  two  volumes.  Of  the  staallor  sort  the  best  is 
thatof  Caspuri,  by  \Vri-ht  of  Dnlilin.  Humbert'*  <:ii,-ixt>-,lt,itlt>i\* 
excellent;  but  . \niol. 1's  ha.s  the  adxaiitag-;  of  having  a  lexicon 
attached.  The  student  may  also  avail  himself  of  Professor 
Wright's  J:,;MI,,  in  /,,-,-  *  ,„;<;<•  ,-:  ,-fionn  :  and  of  the  Ar«l,',<:  R<n,l 
infj  L-ttOn*,  published  by  Ji.-c.'-ter.  Compare  also  Hclniltens' 
On,ji,,i-s  If' /,,-tin  and  Dixwrtalio  7V,.,,?.  /'/,</.  ,!,  ,,li/itnt.'  L'tuym, 
Amlicie;  Professor  Robertson's  (Kdinbur»h)  Dixxtrtatio  dr  Ori- 
<jii<ctt  A,itl'jni/<it>'  Li,,tn"i  A,-i(l,lf,i  ;  and  the  notices  of  the  Arabic 
language  in  Iliiverniek's  In/i-tjiJci-tlf,,,  (Clarke's  Library);  and 
similar  works.]  In.  it.  w.  1 


:       ARABIC  VERSIONS.     Of  these,  printed  and  un- 

,  printed,  there  is  a  considerable  number;  none,  however, 
embracing  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures,  and  few  so  an- 

,  cieiit  as  to  render  the  study  of  them  a  profitable  labour 

i  to  the  biblical  student. 

Christianity  does  not  appear  at  any  time  to  have  taken 
deep  root  in  the  peninsula  of  Arabia.  We  read,  it  is  true, 
in  Scripture,  Gu.  i.ir,  of  a  journey  of  1'aul  into  Arabia 
soon  after  his  conversion,  but  to  what  part  of  Arabia 
lie  repaired,  or  whether  his  residence  there  resulted  in 
the  conversion  of  any  to  the  Christian  faith,  is  unknown. 
"  His  object  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel,  but  preparation  for  the  apostolic  work" 
lAlford).  It  is  certain  that  in  the  sixth  century,  the 
greater  number  of  tin1  Arabians  were  still  pagans. 
And  though  scattered  here  and  there  over  the  penin 
sula  wo  do  find  tribes  and  families  ef  Christians  and 
.lews,  and  read  also  of  churches  erected  in  various 
parts,  even  in  the  extreme  south,  and  of  bishops  ap 
pointed  to  minister  in  them,  yet  no  such  decided  sue 
cess  was  achieved  as  in  the  adjacent  regions  of  Syria. 
Mesopotamia,  and  Egypt.  (I'ococke.  >'/.<c.  Hitt.Arali. 
pp.  l:'o.  ];;7.  cd.  li;.",n;  Xeander,  iii.  1.",'!.  Trans.; 
Sale's  A'o,v«.  Prel.  Dis.  g  1.)  It  is  scarcely  matter 
of  surprise,  then  fore,  that  we  have  no  undoubted  evi 
dence  of  any  translation  of  the  Scriptun  s  into  Arabic 

having    been    executed    before   the    time   of   Mohammed. 

Sei  ih\  Davidson's  Rililical  Crit.  \.  *2i>5.)  Thcodoivt 
and  Chry-«--tom  make  mention  of  translations  into  the 
Latin,  Coptic,  IVr.-ian.  Syrian.  Indian.  Armenian,  and 
Kthiopic  languages,  but  they  make  no  mention  of  transla 
tions  into  Arabic.  (See  the  passages  quoted  in  U'aiton. 
PC 'ib  <i<ini<  unit,  v.  $  1.)  Yet.  when  we  consider  that 
some  of  the  Arabian  trib.  s  had  at  an  earlv  pcrioci 
been  converted  to  Christianity :  that  Christian  assem 
blies  were'  held,  in  which  a-'somhlies  the  public  reading 
of  the  Scriptures  in  the  native  language  alwavs  fornu  d 
part  of  the  service:  and  more  especially  when  we  take 
into  account  the  influence  which  ( 'hristianitv.  as  well  as 
.lud.ii-m.  exercised  on  the  teaching  of  MI  bammed  and 
the  doctrines  of  the  Koran.  \\e  cannot  but  conclude 
that  jiart  at  I'.'i-t  of  tin-  Christian  and  .lewish  Scrip 
tuivs  had  been  translated  into  Arabic  before  his  time. 
Whether,  however,  this  conclusion  be  well  founded  or 

not.  is  of   n i-eat  moment,  as  no  such  tran .-lation.  if 

it  ever  existed,  is  now  extant. 

It  is  to  the  ri*e  and  wonderful  extension  of  the  Mo 
hammed. m  religion,  and  the  consequent  elevation  of 
the  Arabic  laiiuruaov  to  a  rank  among  the  languages  of 
the  earth,  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  Greek  and  Latin, 
that  we  are  indebted  for  the  versions  of  Scripture  in 
that  language  of  which  we  are  now  in  posses.-ion.  In 
a  short  time  it  almost  superseded  the  Svriac  language 
in  the  north,  and  the  Greek  and  ('optic  in  Kgvpt ;  so 
that  it  became  necessarv.  for  the  maintenance  of  Chris 
tian  worship  in  those  n  gion<,  to  have  the  Scriptures 
translated  from  languages  which  were  falling  into  dis 
use  into  the  southern  tongue  which  was  so  rapidly 
supplanting  them.  Even  in  distant  Spain  this  neces 
sity  was  felt:  and  one  of  the  earliest  Arabic  versions 
we  read  of  was  from  the  pen  of  a  bishop  of  Seville,  who 
lived  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century.— ^Wal 
ton's  Pro!,  v.  1.  it.) 

It  is  unnecessary  to  give  any  detailed  account  of  the 
versions  which  thus  came  into  use.  For.  as  might  be 
anticipated  from  the  circumstances  in  which  these  ver 
sions  originated,  most  of  them  were  derived  not  directly 


ARABIC    VERSIONS 


ARARAT 


from  the  original  hut  from  sonio  other  translation,  Sy- 
riae,  Greek,  or  Latin,  and  arc  of  little  importance,  ex 
cept  for  the  criticism  of  the  versions  from  which  they 
were  taken.  Those  again  which  have  come  directly 
from' the  Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  (.{reek 
of  the  New,  are  none  of  them  older  than  the  tenth 
century,  ;ind  cannot  therefore  possess  the  same  autho 
rity  or  excite  the  same  interest,  as  the  other  versions 
which  have  descended  to  us  from  a  much  higher  an 
tiquity. 

The  Arabic  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  con 
tained  in  the  London  I'olyglott.  consists  of  various 
parts  written  by  different  authors,  of  whom,  with  one  ex 
ception,  not  even  the  name  is  known.  The  one  author, 
whose  name  is  known,  is  R.  Saadias,  distinguished  by 
the  title  Gaon  or  Haggaon,  the  Excellent,  who  rose  to 
high  eminence  among  the  teachers  of  the  Jewish 
schools  or  colleges  in  Babylonia  in  the  beginning  of 
the  ton tli  century.  It  is  supposed  that  he  translated 
the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  into  Arabic;  but  if 
this  supposition  be  correct,  the  greater  part  of  his  trans 
lation  has  been  lost,  all  that  is  now  extant  being  the 
Arabic  Pentateuch,  printed  in  the  Polygiott  Isaiah, 
printed  at  Jena.  1790-91,  and  Job.  still  in  manuscript. 
His  translation  of  the  Pentateuch,  though  free  and  dis 
playing  a  strong  tendency  to  modernize  ancient  ideas 
and  modes  of  expression,  and  also  occasionally  to 
modify  doctrinal  statements,  ought  not  to  be  called  a 
paraphrase,  as  it  is  for  the  most  part  sufficiently  exact, 
and  does  not  occupy  larger  space  than  the  other  more 
literal  versions.  .Its  modernizing  character  may  be 
judged  of  by  the  following  examples: — And  God  willed 
that  there  should  be  light,  Gc.  i. ?>;  this  is  an  account  of 
the  production,  kc.  (Eng.  ver.  "  these  are  the  generations 
of,"  &c.)  Gc.  ii.  4;  Enoch  walked  in  obedience  to  God, 
Go.v.  22;  sons  of  the  nobles  with  the  daughters  of  the 
common  people  ("sons  of  God  with  daughters  of  men"), 
Ge.  vi.  2;  cursed  be  the  father  of  Canaan  ("cursed  be 
Canaan'"),  Go.  ix.  25;  The  Eternal  ("I  am  that  lam"), 
Ex.  iii.  14 ;  punishing  the  faults  of  the  fathers  with  the 
children  ("visiting  on  the  children"),  Ex.  xx.r>;  do  not 
swear  falsely  by  the  name  of  God  thy  Lord,  &c.  Ex.  xx.  r. 
It  has  been  remarked  (see  Pococke's  Introd.  in  Walton's 
Polyijlott,  vol.  vi.)  that  he  avoids  what  are  called  the 
anthropomorphisms  of  Scripture,  substituting  "the  angel 
of  God,"  or  "the  voice  of  God,"  or  some  such  expres 
sion,  where  the  Hebrew  has  God  or  Jehovah,  as  in  Ge. 
iii.  8  ;  xi.  5,  &c.  Frequently  in  giving  names  of  places 
or  nations,  he  substitutes  the  modern  for  the  ancient 
name,  as  in  Ge.  x.,  into  which  he  introduces  Greeks, 
Turks,  Franks,  Slavonians,  Chinese,  &c. 

The  only  other  part  of  the  Polygiott  Arabic  version 
translated  from  the  Hebrew,  is  the  book  of  Joshua, 
which  closes  with  a  statement  to  that  effect ;  and  this 
statement  is  quite  borne  out  by  an  examination  of  the 
translation  itself,  though  there  are  passages  in  which 
it  seems  to  have  been  interpolated  from  the  LXX., 
as  in  eh.  vi.  end,  and  xxiv.  30.  it  is  evidently  not 
from  the  pen  of  Saadias,  though  it  agrees  with  his 
translation  in  some  particulars,  as  in  substituting  mo 
dern  for  ancient  names  (e.f/.  Sham  for  Canaan,  ch  v.n, 
&c.;  Irak  for  Shinar,  eh.  vji.  21 ;  Nablous  for  Shcchem,  ch. 
xxi.  21.)  The  translator,  whoever  he  was,  does  not  ap 
pear  to  have  been  a  person  of  much  capacity,  as  he 
makes  the  absurd  blunder  of  taking  the  geographical 
name  Shittim  for  a  common  noun,  and  translating 
"the  unbelievers'— a  translation,  however,  which  proves 


that  he  must  have  had  an  unpointed  Hebrew  MS.  be 
fore  him,  ch.  ii.  i ;  iii.  i. 

The  other  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  1  Ki.  xii. -2  Ki.  xii.  10,  which  Rodiger  refers 
to  a  Hebrew  original,  are  translated  cither  from  the 
Peschito  version  or  from  the  LXX.;  Job,  and  most  of 
the  historical  books  from  the  Syriac ;  the  Prophets, 
Psalms,  and  books  of  Solomon  from  the  Greek.  In 
the  New  Testament,  the  Gospels  are  translated  from 
the  Vulgate,  and  the  other  books,  though  not  at  second 
hand,  are  too  modern  to  lie  of  much  value.  For  details 
with  regard  to  these  and  the  other  Arabic  versions, 
printed  and  imprinted,  not  forming  part  of  the  London 
I'olyglott,  the  student  is  referred  to  such  works  as  Wal 
ton's  Prolegomena,  Davidson's  Biblical  Criticism,  and 
the  Introductions.  [n.  it.  w.] 

AR'AD,  the  name  of  a  Canaanite  city  somewhere  on 
the  southern  border  of  the  Promised  Land.  In  the  Eng 
lish  version  it  is  sometimes  unhappily  taken  for  the  name 
of  a  man — "  king  Arad,"  instead  of  "the  king  of  Arad," 
Nu. xxi. i;  xxxiii. 40;  while,  again,  in  other  passages  Arad 
is  represented  as  a  city,  Jos.  xii.  it;  Ju.  i.  i<;.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  it  was  the  name  of  a  city,  though  the 
exact  site  of  it  is  not  certainly  known.  In  the  passage 
of  Judges  referred  to  it  is  spoken  of  in  connection  with 
the  wilderness  of  Judah  ;  and  there  is  much  probability 
in  the  conjecture  of  Robinson,  that  a  hill  on  the  wav 
from  Petra  to  Hebron,  called  Tel  Arad.  may  indicate 
the  region  where  it  stood.  This  accords  pretty  well 
also  with  the  notice  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome,  who  make 
the  place  twenty  miles  from  Hebron. 

AR'ADUS.  "  Pee  AKVAD. 

ARAME'AN.     See  CHALDEE. 

AR'ARAT  [the  root  uncertain,  but  supposed  by 
Gesenius  to  be  Sanscrit,  and  to  mean  holy  [/round], 
a  province  in  Armenia,  upon  whose  mountains  the  ark 
of  Noah  rested,  Ge.  via.  4.  The  mountain  known  as 
Ararat,  lat.  39°  30'  N.  ;  Ion.  44°  35'  F.,  is  about 
35  miles  south-west  of  Erivan,  and  150 from  Frzeroom, 
and  forms  the  termination  of  a  range  of  mountains 
connected  with  the  Caucasian  chain,  the  eastern  and 
north-eastern  base  being  washed  by  the  river  Aras 
(Araxes).  The  mountain  consists  of  two  conical  peaks, 
the  highest  of  which,  according  to  Dr.  Parrot,  is  17,323 
English  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  14,320  feet 
above  the  plain  of  the  Aras.  The  lesser  peak,  which 
joins  the  higher  by  a  gentle  descent,  is  13, 100  feet  above 
the  sea,  and  10,140  feet  above  the  plain  of  the  Aras. 
The  two  peaks,  in  a  direct  line,  are  about  36,000  feet 
apart.  The  summit  of  the  highest  peak  is  a  slightly 
convex,  and  nearly  cruciform  platform  of  about  213 
English  feet  in  diameter,  composed  of  eternal  ice  un 
broken  by  rock  or  stone.  The  entire  upper  region,  from 
the  height  of  12,750  English  feet,  is  covered  with  per 
petual  snow  and  ice,  immense  avalanches  being  fre- 
rruently  precipitated  down  its  sides.  On  one  side  of  the 
greater  Ararat  is  a  chasm  having  the  appearance  of  the 
crater  of  a  volcano,  which  Tournefort  describes  as 
blackened  by  smoke,  and  from  which  Dr.  Reineggs 
states  that  he  saw  fire  and  smoke  issue  during  three 
successive  days  in  1785.  In  1840  the  whole  region  of 
Ararat  was  visited  by  an  eruption  and  earthquake, 
which  continued  at  intervals  from  the  end  of  June  to 
the  middle  of  September.  Dr.  Wagner,  who  visited 
the  spot  in  1843,  furnishes  an  account  of  that  event  as 
related  by  Sahatel  Chotschaieff,  brother  to  Stephen 
Aga,  village  elder  of  Arguri,  and  confirmed  by  other 


ARARAT 


ll'J 


ARARAT 


eye-witnesses.  The  substance  of  the  account  is,  that  i 
on  July  2d,  half  an  hour  before  sunset,  the  atmo 
sphere  clear,  the  inhabitants  of  Armenia  were  frightened 
by  a  loud  thundering  noise  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Great 
Ararat.  During  an  undulating  motion  of  the  earth, 
lasting  about  two  seconds,  which  wrought  great  destruc 
tion,  a  rent  was  found  in  the  end  of  the  great  chasm  about 


y  miles  above  Arguri,  out  of  which  rose  gas  and  vapour, 
hurling  with  immense  force  stones  ami  earth  over  the 
slope  of  the  mountain  down  into  the  plain.  The  vapour 
rose  higher  than  the  summit  of  Ararat,  and  appears  to 
have  been  wholly  of  aqueous  composition.  It  was  at  first 
of  various  colours,  principally  blue  and  red.  but  whether 
names  burst  forth  could  not  be  ascertained.  The  air 


was    filial    with    the    smell    of    ^jlj.ln 


\%.i.^      11  in   'i      »*  1 1 1 1      L:H       .-UK   11     '  'i       rvjliuiui    .       Lin       lli'Mllll.. 

lieavx-d,  and  the  earth  -hook  with  unremitting  tliundi 


,he  shower  of   mnd   and   stones    had    tvascd,   the  village 

of  Ar_niri.  and  tlie  monastery  and  chapel  of  St.  James, 
were  n.it  to  be  seen.  all.  a]oir_r  \s  hh  their  inmates   i.einj 


. 
n-  plain,  and  partly  slopped   up  the   bed.   and  altere 


e  course  of  tlie  small   ri\vr    Karasu. 


iiic  UUIUMU  01  me.  .-man  iner  rvarasu.  i  ms  sueam  01 
mud  was  three  times  repeated,  and  was  accompanied 
by  subterranean  noises  (Wagner's  A'-  !,•>•  mid,  </,  ,,i 

Tournefort  mentions,  that  the  miildle  region  or  Arai-at. 
even  to  the  borders  of  the  snow  limit,  is  inhabited  by 
tiger.-,  and  that  he  saw  them  within  7'M>  van  Is  of  him. 
Ker  Porter.  Morier.  Smith  and  Dwight,  and  Layard. 
have  supplied  most  graphic  dc-c-riptions  of  Ararat  and 
the  adjacent  country,  and  all  travellers  in  that  district, 
whether  before  or  since  tlie  earthquake  of  IMu,  have 
been  equally  surprised  and  filled  with  admiration  at  the 
sublime  form  of  the  mountain,  and  tlie  awe-inspiring 
radiance  of  its  peaks.  Near  the  base  of  Ararat  at 
Korvirah  is  the  celebrated  Armenian  church,  as  well  as 
the  prison  of  St.  Gregory,  the  apostle  of  Armenia.  The 
prison  is  a  narrow  cave  about  30  feet  deep.  The  plain 


b'raz 


•I    l>i\an.  and   the    valley   of   the    Aras.  are   extremcly 
leautiful  and  fertile,  hut  the  climate  is  not  healthy. 

The  \nnenians  assert,  that  in  order  to  preserve  the 
ark  of  Xoah,  no  one  i,  permitted  to  reach  the  top  of 
the  mountain.  They  therefore  deny  the  practicability 
of  the  aseeht  ;  ne\ ertheless  the  attempt  has  been  made 
at  various  periods,  though  for  a  long  time  unsuccess 
fully.  In  1 7* '"  the  enterprising  French  traveller  Tourne- 
Fort,  after  unremitting  exertions,  and  7-epeatcd  attempts, 
failed  in  reaching  the  top.  About  forty  years  ago  the 
Turki.-h  I'asha  of  llaya/eed  fitted  out  an  e.\]>editi(ni 
well  su|iplied  with  huts  and  provisions,  but.  after  sr.f- 
tVri  !;•_<•  severely,  tlie  explorers  failed.  Some  ten  years 
afterward  a  party,  headed  by  a  (  iei-man.  Professor 
I'arrot.  of  the  university  of  I'orpat  i.lonriefi,  in  Russia, 
made  a  fresh  and  well-sustained  effort,  and  after  two 
previous  failures,  actually  readied  the  summit  on  !>th 
I  (cfoher.  l.s-jjt. 

The  observations  effected  by  Parrot  have  been  fully 
confirmed  by  another  Russian  traveller.  If.  Abich, 
who.  v,  ith  six  companions,  readied  the  (op  of  the  Great 
Ararat  Vtiihout  difficulty.  July  H!',  IMfi.  He  reports 
that,  from  the  valley  between  the  two  peaks  nearly  MMMI 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  -ea.  the  a.-cent  can  witli 
facility  be  accomplished.  It  would  appear  even  that 
the  ascent  is  easier  than  that  of  .Mont  I!lanc;  and  the 
best  period  for  the  enterprise  is  the  end  of  July  or 
beginning  of  August,  when  there  is  annually  a  period 
of  atmospheric  quiet,  and  a  dear  unclouded  sky. 

Another  Russian.  ~\\ .  AntonomofY,  has  also  ascended 
to  the  top;  and  an  Englishman,  named  Seymour,  ac 
companied  by  a  guide  to  tourists,  named  Orvione,  and 
escorted  by  four  Cossacks  and  three  Armenians, 
claim-*  likewise  to  have  ascended  the  mountain,  and  to 
have  reached  the  level  summit  of  the  highest  peak  on 
1  Tth  September,  1S40.  —  (See  extract  from  a  letter  in  the 


ARETAS 


L't-iucity,  a    St.    Petersburg  journal.    Athenaeum,    Xo.  I 
]n:!."i,  p.  !U-f.) 

All  eastern  countries  point  to  some  mountain  within 
tlit-ir  lioiinils   or    vii:inity    coniieete<l    l>y   tradition   with 
the  deluge.      On  the  road  to  Peshawur  and  Cabul  there  | 
is  the  Sufued-Koh,  or  \Vhite  Mountain,  on  one  Hide,  and 
the  hill  of  Xoorghill,  or  Koorner.  on  the  other,  lielievod  : 
by  the  Afghans  to  be  the  mountains  of  the  ark.      There  [ 
is  also  Adam's  Peak  in   the  island  of   <  Vvl.m  ;    but   tho 
nio.-t  piv\alcnt  tradition   fixes  on    the  mountains  which 
separate  the   southern    part  of    Armenia  from   Mcsopu- 
tamia.  and  inclo.se.  the  lam !  of  tin-  Km  ds.  whence  Kardu, 
or  Carducha-au  range      otherwise   Cordian.  ( 'orevnean. 
or   C»n!y,vaii.       I '.ei-osus  and    Abydenus  give    very   full  i 
descriptions  of  the  delude,  perfectly  consonant  with  the  ! 

Mosaic  account.  They  name  Armenia,  as  the  resting- 
place  of  the  ark.  mention  the  report  a  report  accredited 
by  Chrysostom  and  other  writers  that  the  remains  were 
stil!  existing  when  th.-y  wrote,  and  that  the  natives 
made  bracelets  and  amulets  of  its  wood.  Xicolaus 
Dainaacenus  calls  the  mountain  ou  which  the  ark  was 
carried  iiaris  (-.hip)  :  Kpiphaniiis  .-tyles  it  Lubar.  and 
the  Xen.lavesta  Albordi  (Cory's  Ancient  Fi-nyiiinifiS. 
p.  -JK,  .'!:>.  :',4.  49).  The  Chaldean  or  Targum  version 
of  the  Bible  called  that  of  Onkelos,  reads  Mount 
Kardu  for  Ararat,  and  another  Targum  version,  called 
that  of  Jonathan,  reads,  by  mis-spelling.  Kadrum 
Mountains  (Ainsworth's  Tmrtlx  in  A aia  Minor,  &c.) 
Kardyou,  in  the  Chaldee.  is  said  by  Buxtorf  to  be  synony 
mous  witli  Armenian.  Erponins'  Arabic  version  of  the 
Pentateuch,  and  the  Book  of  Adam  of  the  Sabeans,  read 
.Ic'oel  el  Karud — the  mountain  of  the  Kurds.  The 
Koran  says,  "  tlie  ark  rested  on  KI  ,)udi,"  a  mountain 
east  of  .le/.irah  ilin  Omar  (Be/abde),  in  the  country  of 
Mosul,  on  tlie  Tigris;  at  the  base  of  the  mountain  is 
a  village  called  Karya  Themaneen,  the  village  of  tlie 
eighty  the  number  saved  from  the  deluge  according  to 
the  Mahometan  belief.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  El 
.Itidi  was  the  Xestorian  "Monastery  of  the  Ark,"  de 
stroyed  by  lightning  A.D.  77<J.  Ararat  is  called  by  the  ' 
Turks  Aghur  Dagh,  the  great  m<  nmtain  ;  by  the  modern 
Armenians.  Macis ;  by  the  Persians,  Asis,  tlie  happy 
or  fortunate  mountain,  and  Koh-i-Xuh,  Xoali's  moun 
tain.  Tlie  city  of  Xakhchevan  to  tlie  east  of  it,  and 
about  ](K»  miles  from  Erivan,  is,  acce,rding  to  tra 
dition,  and  as  its  name  also  imports,  the  first  place  of 
descent,  or  permanent  resting- place  after  the  flood. 

The  only  passages  in  the  original  text  in  which  Ararat 
occurs,  are  Go.  viii.  4;  -2  Ki.  xix.  37  ;  Is.  xxxvii.  38; 
Je.  li.  -27,  and  in  the  apocryphal  book  of  Tobit.  In 
tho  Vulgate  the  word  in  ~2  Ki.  and  in  Isaiah  is  rendered 
Armenia.  In  no  place  in  the  Bible  is  it  given  as  the 
name  of  a  mountain  :—"  The  ark  rested  .  .  .  .  upon 
the  mountains  of  Ararat."  Go. viii.  t;  the  sons  of  Senna 
cherib  ''escaped  into  the  land  of  Ararat  "  (rendered  Ar 
menia),  -JKi.  xix. 3-; is.  x.\.\vii.>;  "the  kingdoms  of  Ararat 
Miuni  (the  Minegas  of  Xicolaus  Damascenus)  and  ' 
A>hehenaz,"  Jo.  li.  27;  Is.  xiii.  2-4;  and  "mountains  of 
Ararath,'  Tobiti. -21.  Armenian  writers  mention  that; 
Ararad  was  an  ancient  province  of  their  country,  sup- 
|)osecHo  be  the  same  as  Kars  Bayazeed,  and  part  of 
Kurdistan  ;  and  Moses  ( 'horeiicnsis  contains  a  tradition 
that  tho  name  of  Ararat  is  derived  from  Araii,  a  con 
temporary  of  Semiramis.  who  was  killed  in  battle  with 
the  Babylonians,  whence  the  province  was  called  Araii- 
Arat  tlie  ruin  of  Aral.  Thus,  both  from  holy  writ 
and  local  tradition,  the  land  of  Ararat  may  be  satisfac- 


torily  identified  with  Armenia,  although  the  precise 
n  sting  place  of  the  ark  cannot  be  defined  with  an  equal 
approach  to  certainty. 

rr.mmefnrt.V  Vn.imjc  <1<,r,x  (,-  Lrrnnt ;  Sir  li.  K.  IWters  Tni- 
-•;  .M,  .riu.'s  Travels;  J  Jiu,il,,,l<lfs  I- ,;,,,„„  ,,/x  A.-i"  1 1  ;„,.•<  •  Rich's 
Ki'nli-tan;  V.m  lloll';  .M.  St.  intake's  .]/,  „„„>  „„  Armenia- 
.Munt.riih's  Tour  throwjh  A:erM!juH,  Journal  Gwj  Soc  vol.  iii  '• 
Kiimoir's  .4 Kin  Minor;  Wafer's  Rase  „,«•!,  ,/,„',  Ararat  '•  Ilu- 
l.ois'  }',,,,„„,  <„<(,„,,•  du  Cauca** ;  l>k-  BwMgnnr,  dc*  Ararat  durch 
H.  Abich,  .St.  Petersburg,  184'j. J  [.,  ,.  i 

ARAU'NAH  [written  also  AAUNAH,  2Sa.  x-xiv.  n;,i*,2o, 
and  in  1  Chronicles,  ch.  xxi.  15,  ORNAN],  the  proper  name 
of  a  Jebusite,  at  whose  thrashing-floor  the  plague,  in 
David's  time,  was  stayed.  Tlie  ground  was  aft.  i-wards 
bought  as  a  site  for  the  temple.  2(1,.  iii.  i;  and  from  the 
frank  and  liberal  manner  in  which  Araunah  acted  on 
the  occasion,  the  natural  inference  is,  that,  though  a, 
.Jebnsite  by  birth,  he  had  already  become  an  Israelite 
by  embracing  the  faith  of  his  conquerors. 

AR'BA,  an  ancient  name  for  Hebron    which  sec 

ARCHANGEL.     See  ANGELS. 

ARCHELAUS,  son  of  Herod  tlie  Great.  Stc 
ni-:i:oruA\  FAMILY. 

ARCHIP'PUS,  a  person  mentioned  in  Col.  iv.  17,  as 
one  to  whom  a  solemn  charge  was  to  lie  addressed  re 
specting  the  fulfilment  of  his  ministerial  duties:  ''And 
say  to  Archippus,  Take  heed  to  the  ministry  which 
thou  lias  received  from  the  Lord,  that  thou  fulfil  it." 
What  precisely  was  the  office  he  held,  and  whether  the 
sphere  of  its  operations  lay  in  Colosse  or  in  Laodicea 
(which  is  mentioned  in  the  verse  immediately  preced 
ing)  is  not  quite  clear:  and  the  records  of  Xew  Testa 
ment  scripture  supply  no  collateral  information  on  the 
subject.  From  tlie  earnestness  of  the  charge,  and  the 
admonitory  form  given  to  it.  there  is  some  apparent 
ground  for  inferring  that  a  lack  of  fidelity  had  begun  to 
discover  it>e]f  in  Archippus. 

ARCTU'RUS,  the  constellation  called  by  the  Latins 
Ursa  Major,  the  Great  Bear,  usually  designated  in  this 
country  the  Wain,  and  in  Job  ix.  9;  xxxviii.  32,  adopted 
by  our  translators  as  the  proper  equivalent  of  the 
Heb.  wy  or  i»»«  ash  or  aish.  The  best  lexiconraphers 

T  ~- 

of  the  present  day  concur  in  this  view.  (See  Gesen. 
Th<s.  at  the  words.) 

AREOP'AGUS  [Mam-hill],  or  the  court  which  was 
held  on  that  part  of  Athens.  See  ATHENS. 

AR'ETAS,  the  only  person  mentioned  under  this 
name  in  Scripture  is  one  who  is  also  styled  king,  and 
is  represented  as  being  in  possession  of  the  city  of  Da 
mascus,  2Co.xi.32.  The  allusion  to  him  comes  in  quite 
incidentally,  while  St.  Paul  is  relating  the  struggles  and 
dangers  through  which  he  had  passed  in  the  course  of 
his  apostleship ;  and  we  are  not  told  either  on  what 
account  the  title  of  king  was  applied  to  Aretas,  or  how 
ho  should  have  held  at  the  time  referred  to  the  govern 
ment  of  Damascus.  It  appears,  however,  that  Aretas 
«as  quite  a  common  name  among  Arabian  princes ;  one 
is  mentioned  in  2  Mac.  v.  S.  a  contemporary  of  Antio- 
ehus  Epiphanes  ;  another  is  discoursed  of  at  some  length 
by  Josophus,  Ant.  xiii.  13,  &c.,  who  flourished  from 
seventy  to  eighty  years  before  the  Christian  era.  The 
An-tas  referred  to  by  the  apostle  was  beyond  doubt  the 
king  of  the  Xabathean  Arabs,  whose  daughter  had  been 
married  to  Herod  Antipas.  Certain  misunderstand 
ings  arose  between  him  and  his  son-in-law  about  their 
respective  territories,  and  these  were  greatly  aggravated 
by  the  wicked  conduct  of  Herod,  in  divorcing  the 


ARCOJ; 


121 


ARK  OF  THK  CO  VEX  AM' 


daughter  of  Aretas,  and  assuming  his  brother  Philip's 
wife,  Herodias.  A  war  in  consequence  broke  out 
between  the  two  parties,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
army  of  Herod  sustained  a  total  defeat.  He  then 
sought  the  intervention  ami  aid  of  Tiberius  C'ltsar.  who 
ordered  Vitellius,  at  that  time  president  of  Svria,  to 
take  Aretas  dead  or  alive.  Yitellius  was  on  his  way 
to  execute  this  order  when  lie  heard  of  the  deatli  of 
Tiberius  (which  took  place  in  .March.  A.D.  37>.  and  he 
abandoned  the  expedition.  These  warlike  operations 
occurred  much  about  the  time  when  it  is  probable  St. 
Paul  made  his  visit  to  Damascus:  and  it  is  quite  pos 
sible — though  we  have  no  historical  notices  to  furnish 
us  with  certain  information  uii  the  subject  -that  in  the 
course  of  them  Aretas  had  pushed  his  advantage  against 
Herod  so  far  as  to  gain  po»,->sion  for  a  time  of  Da 
mascus,  and  appoint  over  it  his  etlmaivh  or  local  gover 
nor.  \Vie.-eler.  in  his  Clironoloyy  of  tin  Ajjostvlic  A*/'. 
adopts  rather  the  supposition,  that  Caligula,  who.  in  so 
m.iny  things,  reversed  the  polii-y  of  his  pivdec, --or 
Tiberius,  mav  have  conferred  on  Aretas  the  sovereignty 
of  Damascus  Various  cireiim  -tani-es  tend  to  ivndt  r 
tliis  idea  quite  prnbalile,  <  >[>;•, •ially  as  it  is  known  he 
so  far  went  counter  to  th-  plans  of  the  preceding  ,  m- 
pi-ror,  as  to  banish  Herod  . \ntipas.  and  raise  to  honour 
his  rival  and  n<-ph>'\v.  II,  rod  A^rippa.  .Mr.  Howsoii 
also  seems  inclined  to  fall  in  \\ith  this  latter  view  ivol. 
i.  p.  88).  Hither  of  tin-  two  suppositions  mi-dit  be  suf 
ficient  adequately  to  account  for  the  connection  of 
Aretas  with  Damascus  at  the  time  of  the  apostle's 
sojourn  in  it;  hut  hi-  allusion  to  the  historical  circum 
stance  is  at  once  so  entirely  incidental,  and  so  elo-dv 
entwined  with  his  own  per-onal  knowledge  and  experi- 
enee,  that  it  may  justly  be  held  independent  of  suppoi-t 
from  any  extraneous  sources.  It  mav  \»-  added,  that 
by  comparing  tin-  two  accounts  of  what  befell  the 
apostle  on  the  occasion,  Ac.  ix.  •.':;-_',"-;  :;<_'<>.  xi.  :;•_',  :;:i,  the  verif 
ableness  of  both  is  confirmed.  The  historian  Drives  it 
in  the  most  general  manner:  the  .1,  \\  s  sought  to  kill 
Paul,  watched  the  city  day  and  iii-lit  in  order  to  ae-  . 
conipli.-h  tlieir  purpose,  and  to  a\oid  their  vigilance  he 
wa-  let  down  from  the  citv  wall  b\-  iiiuhl  in  a  ba-h>  t. 
The  apostle  himself.  \\lio  nattirallv  was  somewhat  more 
specific,  mentions  the  additional  circuin-tauees  that  the 
etlmarcli  of  the'  city  liad  been  got  interested  against 
him,  so  as  even  to  station  guards  to  apprehend  him: 
and  that  not  by  night  only,  but  through  a  window 
niamely,  in  a  house  on  tin/  wall  of  the  citvi  lie  was  let 
down  in  a  basket,  and  escaped. 

AR'GOB  [heap  of  atones,  *'>m//\.  a  region  ,,n  the  east 
of  .Jordan,  belonging  to  the  territory  of  ( )g,  king  of 
Liashan,  and  said  to  contain  sixty  cities.  De.iii  i,  i::.  It 
fell  to  the  trilie  of  Maiiasseh.  and  was  taken  possession 
of  by  .lair,  and  the  towns  in  it  came  to  be  known  as 
HAVOTH-.JAIK.  which  see  ;  also  I'>A-IIA.N. 

ARIEL.  [1'i'ni  of  God,   that  is.   very  mighty  hen,). 
In   2  Sa.  xxiii.  2o   it   is   said  of   I'.eiiai  i'i   that  he  slew 
"two    lion-like   men    (two   ariols)   of   Moah."      JSut   in 
Is.    xxix.  1.  '2   it  is  applied    to   a  city     the  city  where 
David  dwelt,  by  whicli   we   must   doubtless  understand  i 
Jerusalem.      Why  it    should    have  been   so    called   is   a  ' 
matter  of  some  doubt,  and   different  reasons  have  been 
assigned  by  commentators.      Hut  the  probability  is  that 
it  is  used  as  an  epithet,  to  denote  the  strong  and  vic 
torious  might,  which,  under  <  !od.  belonged  to  that  citv 
as  the  chosen  residence  of   David — a  might,  however, 
which  was  now  departing  from  it  on  account  of  the  sins  j 
VOL.  I. 


of  Davids'  successors,  and  hence  the  prophet  goes  on  to 
represent  it  as  beleagured  and  distressed.  The  same 
term  is  also,  in  Eze.  xliii.  l/i.  Itj.  applied  to  something 
about  the  altar,  most  probably  the  hearth  or  fireplace ; 
but  on  what  account  is  not  known. 

AR'IMATHE'A,  the  city  of  that  .Joseph  who  had 
the  courage  to  ask,  and  the  honour  to  receive  for 
burial,  the  body  of  our  Lord.  lint,  like  himself,  the 
place  where  he  dwelt  is  wrapped  in  obscurity.  It  never 
occurs  again  in  the  evangelical  history  :  and  it  is  no 
further  described,  when  it  does  occur,  than  as  a  citv  of 
the  dews,  Lu. xxiii.  51.  The  Sept.  form  of  Ramathaini, 
LS:i  !.  i,  is  Armathaim.  which  has  been  supposed  to  be 
the  original  of  Arimathea  :  and  both  alike  have  been 
identified  with  IJamleh.  a  village  about  S  miles  south- 
east  of  Joppa ;  with  Hamah.  and  various  other  places. 
The  matter  is  still  under  dispute,  and  apparently  nothing 
certain  can  be  fix,  d.  -  (See  Staid,  y's  xinai  itml  1'a/i.s- 
tin>.  p.  224.) 

ARISTAR'CHUS.  a  Macedonian,  one  of  Paul's  com 
panions  in  travel  and  spiritual  labour.  Ac.  xix.  2i>;  xx.-i.ie , 
and  at  last,  it  would  soem.  his  companion  in  tribulation  ; 
for  in  (',,].  iv.  ]u  he  designates  him  \\iafdlow-prisoner. 
\\  e  have,  however,  no  account  of  his  apprehension,  or 
of  any  charge  laid  a-'ain-t  him:  audit  is  possible,  as 
.Meyer  suggests,  that  he  may  have  voluntarily  shared 
with  the  apostle  in  his  imprisonment.  The  same  term 
is  applied  in  I'hilenion.  via-.  •_•::,  to  Hpaphras;  whence,  it 
has  been  suppo>ed.  that  the  t\\o  faithful  and  attached 
friends  may  have  alternately  participated  in  the  apostle's 
bonds.  If  so,  we  have  in  such  fellowship  one  of  the 
finest  exemplifications  of  the  depth  and  tenderness  of 
Christian  -ympathy.  I'.ut  the  supposition  cannot  be 
regarded  as  !,v  anv  means  certain. 

ARISTOBU'LUS,  not  personally,  but  his  house 
hold  form-  the  subject  of  a  salutation  in  IJo.  xvi.  Id. 
It  is  possible  that  he  may  have  been  dead,  or  may  have 
remained  an  unbeli.-xer.  \\hile  hi.-  faniilv  embraced  the 
(  hri-tian  faith.  Nothing  is  known  of  him  individually. 

ARK,  the   rendering  of  -^p,  tjxil.  is  the  scriptural 

designation  of  two  vessels,  very  different  in  si/e,  and 
also  in  structure  the  mighty  bark  of  Noah,  and  the 
little  cofi; T  of  bulrushes,  in  which  the  infant  Moses 
floated  upon  the  waters  of  tae  Nile.  The  etymology  of 
the  original  is  unknown;  and  it  can.  therefore,  be  only 
matter  of  conjecture  why  the  same  term  should  have 
had  such  different  applications.  lint  for  the  oidvoiie 
of  tile  two  that  is  of  any  moment  here  the  AUK  OF 
NOAH  .V  DI:I.I LI:. 

ARK  OF  THE  COVENANT.  The  II, .brew term 
tor  ark  in  this  seii-e  is  '"-ix.  tiron,  which  signifies  a 

wooden  chest  of  any  sort,  corresponding  to  the  Latin 
area,  and  our  «;7\  or  chest.  As  connected  with  the 
sanctuary  of  ( Jod  it  receives  it-  IP  an  r  determination 
from  the  epithets  attached  to  it.  and  the  [dace  it  was 
appointed  to  occupy.  It  is  called  "the  ark  of  the 
testimony,"  K\.  \xv.  H;  also  the  ''ark  of  the  cove 
nant.  '  Nu.  x.  :;.; :  !><•.  xxxi.  L'D,  ,u-.,  anil  more  generally 
"the  ark  of  Cod."  l.Sa.  iii.  3;  iv.  ll,&c.  The  specific  pur 
pose  for  which  it  was  made,  was  to  preserve,  as  a  sacred 
deposit,  the  two  tables  of  the  covenant--  the  law  of  the 
ten  commandments.  And  as  these  commandments 
were  emphatically  the  terms  of  Cod's  covenant  with 
Israel  at  Sinai,  and  the  tables  on  which  they  were 
written  the  tables  of  the  covenant,  F.x.  xxxiv.  •_"•;  Tic.  iv.  i.'i; 
ix.  o,  11,  so  the  ark  into  which  they  were  put,  was  fitly 

16 


AUK  OF  THE  COVENANT 

designated     ''the  ark  of  th-.;  covenant."     These  same 
commandments  were  also,  in  a  peculiar  sense,   God's 
testimony — hi*  testimony  in  respect  to  his  own  holiness 
an  1  the  people's  sin — and  as  containing-  such  an  awful 
testimony,  the  sacred  chest  was  with  eijual  propriety 
designated  "the  ark  of  the  testimony."     The  materials 
of  which  it  was  made  were  shittim,  or  rather  acaeia 
wood— the  timber  used    in    the  fabrication  of   all  the 
furniture  of  the  tabernacle  ;    but  tin:   boards  formed  of 
this   wood  for  the   ark  were   overlaid  withhold,    both 
within  and  without,   Ex.xsv.ll.      -It   was   of  an  oblong 
form,  2.1  cubits  long  by  1  }  broad,  that  is  about  -H  feet 
by  about   2!,   surmounted  by  a  crown,   or  raised  and 
ornamented  border,   around  the   top.     The  dimensions, 
therefore,  were  comparatively  small  :  and  it  is  necessary 
to  suppose  that  the  two  tables  of  the  covenant  should 
have  been  placed  edge- wise  within  this  chest ;  otherwise 
it  could  not  have   been  large  enough  to  admit  them. 
Over  these  tables  was  placed  the  lid  of  the  ark,  called 
the  capordli,  or  mercy-seat.      And  at  cither  end,  look 
ing    toward    each    other,   were  two  composite  figures, 
called  cherubim  if  or  which  see  under  CHERUBIM).     It  is 
a  question,  whether  the  tables  of   the  law  alone  occu 
pied  the  interior  of  the  ark,    or  whether  it   contained 
besides  the  rod  of  Aaron  and  the  golden  pot  of  manna. 
In  He.  ix.  4  the  two  latter  are  coupled  with  the  tables 
of  the  covenant,  as  alike  related  to  the   ark,  "wherein 
was  the  golden  pot  that  had  manna,   and  Aaron's  rod 
that  budded,  and  the  tables  of  the  covenant."      But  at 
1  Ki.  viii.  9.  it  is  stated,  that  when  the  ark  was  brought 
into  the  temple  of  Solomon  there  was   "nothing  in  it 
save  the  two  tables  of  stone,  which  Moses  put  there  at 
Horeb."     And  the  language  used  respecting  the  other 
two  articles  in  the  original  passages  does  not  seem  to 
indicate  an  actual  deposition  in  the  ark.     The  pot  of 
manna  was  ''laid  up  before  the  testimony  to  be  kept," 
Ex.  xvi.  :u.  In  like  manner,  Aaron's  rod  that  had  budded 
was  "brought  before  the  testimony  to  be  kept  fora 
token  against  the  rebels,"  Nu.  xvii.io.     The  expression, 
"before  the  testimony,"  in  both  cases  points  to  a  posi 
tion   in  the  most  holy  place,   and  in  the    immediate 
presence  or    neighbourhood    of    the    ark,   rather    than 
within  its  boards— precisely  as    the  vail,  also,    which 
separated  the  holy  from  the  most  holy  place,   is  de 
scribed  as  being   "before  the   testimony,"    Ex.  xxvii.  21. 
The  Jewish  tradition,  however,  has  been,  that  the  little 
pot  of  maiiiia  and  Aaron's  rod  were  also  put  within  the 
ark  ;  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  can  readily  enough 
suppose  they  might  be,   were  it  only  for  the   sake  of 
better  preservation.     In  that  case,  the  passage  in  1  Ki. 
should  merely  be  regarded  as  indicating  what  were  the 
contents  of  the  ark,  according  to  the  ultimate  arrange 
ments  adopted  for  the  temple — yet  without  implying 
that  in  this,  as  in  some  other  points,  they  may  actually 
have  slightly  differed  in  the  tabernacle.     So  Delitzsch  at 
He.  ix.  4.     Either  this  view  must  be  taken,  or  it  must 
be  supposed  that,  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  pot 
of  manna  and  Aaron's  rod  are  associated  with  "  the  ark 
in  the  looser  sense — not  as  being  actually  in  it,  like  the 
tables  of  the    covenant,  but  forming,  along  with  them, 
and  it,  a  kind  of  sacred  whole." 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  proper 
contents  of  the  ark  were  the  two  tables  of  the  covenant, 
and  that  to  lie  the  repository  of  these  was  the  special 
purpose  for  which  it  was  made.  Simply  as  containing 
these,  it  formed  the  most  hallowed  portion  of  the  furni 
ture  in  the  tabernacle — was  the  peculiar  shrine  of  God- 


2  AUK  OF  THK  COVENANT 

head     so  that  with  it  the  presence  of  Jehovah  was  more 
especially  associated,  and  an  irreverence  done  to  it  was 
regarded  as  done  to  the  Majesty  of  heaven.      Hence  the 
awful  .solemnity  with  which  it  was  to  be  approached, 
and  the  severity  that  sometimes  avenged  any  improper 
familiarity  with  which  it  might  Ue  treated,  Nu.  iv.  20;  i  Sa. 
vi.  v.i;  2  Sa.  vi.  o.     Rightly  considered,  this  was  fitted  to  give 
a  sublime  view  of  the  character  of  the  Old  Testament 
religion,  and  placed  it  at  an  immeasurable  distance  from 
the  idolatrous  religions  of  heathendom.     These,  too,  had 
their  sacred  shrines,  and  shrines  that  occasionally  took 
a  form  not  very  dissimilar  to  the  ark  of  the  covenant; 
1  nit  in  reality  how  different !     "  The  innernu >st  sanctuary 
of  their  temples,"  says  Clement  of  Alexandria,  respecting 
the  Egyptians,    "is  overhung    with    gilded    tapestry; 
but  let  the  priest  remove  the  covering,  and  there  ap 
pears  a  cat,  or  a  crocodile,  or   a   domesticated  serpent 
wrapped  in  purple."      In  other  places,  they  only  so  far 
differed,  that,  instead  of  these  inferior  creatures  rever 
enced  as  symbols  of  Deity,  there  was  usually  a  statue 
of  some  sort  representing  the  person  of  the  object  wor 
shipped,  and  supposed  to  be  peculiarly  identified  with  his 
presence  and  power.     In  Egypt  itself  some  of  the  sacred 
shrines,  or  arks,  we  are  told  by  Wilkinson,  contained 
the  emblems  of  life  and  stability,  and  others  presented 
the    sacred   beetle   of    the   sun,    overshadowed   by   the 
wings  of  two  figures  of  the  goddess  Thmei,  or  Truth 
(Ancient    Egyptians,  v.    275).     Here  however,  in  the 
centre  of  the   Old  Testament  religion,  the  mind  was 
earned  far  above  all  such  inadequate  symbols  and  im 
perfect  representations   of  Deity,   which   were  greatly 
more  fitted  to  mislead  and  degrade  its  views  regarding 
the  true  object  of  worship,  than  to  give  them  a  proper 
character  and   direction.      The  aspect  in   which  God 
was  here  presented  to   men's   spiritual  contemplation 
and  religious  homage  was  that  of  the  moral  lawgiver — 
revealing  himself  as  the  Holy  One  and  the  Just,  him 
self    perfectly  good,    and    demanding   a   corresponding 
goodness  from  his  covenant- people  ;  so  that  continually 
as  they  drew  near  to   the  place  of  his   sanctuary,  the 
worshippers  were  called  to  think  of  Him  as  the  consum 
mation  of  all  excellence,  and  to  aim  at  a  resemblance  of 
the  same  as  the  design  of  all  the  privileges  they  enjoyed, 
and  the  services  they  engaged  in.     Nothing  could  show 
more  clearly  than  such  a  deposit  in  the  ark  of  God,  the 
essential  difference  between  the  Mosaic  institution  and 
the  rites  of  heathenism,  and  how,  with  all  that  it  pos 
sessed  of  the  symbolical  and  the  ritual,  there  still  lay  at 
its  foundation,  and  breathed  throughout  its  services,  an 
intensely  moral  and  spiritual  element.     For  it  was  this 
that  gave  the   tone  to    everything   prescribed    in  the 
ceremonial  of  worship,  and  that  should  have  character 
ized  with  its  spirit  of  holiness  every  act  of  homage  and 
obedience  performed  in  compliance  with  its  enactments. 
If  this,  however,  had  been  all  that  belonged  to  the 
ark,   and   characterized  the  religion    which  was  con 
nected  with  it,  a  most  important  and  necessary  element 
had    been  wanting,   which    is    required    to  adapt  the 
worship   of   God  to  the  circumstances  of  sinful  men. 
It  must  have  tended  to  overawe  their  hearts  and  keep 
them  at  a  distance  from  God,  rather  than  to  draw  them 
near  to  him ;  for  the  tables  of  testimony  continually 
witnessed  against  their  guilt,  and  proclaimed  their  lia 
bility  to  condemnation.     Hence,  the  ark  was  furnished 
with  a  plate  of  gold  upon  the  top,  which,  from  the 
name  given  to  it,  and  the  purposes  to  which  it  was  ap 
plied,  served  to  present  an  entirely  different  aspect  of 


AKK  OK  THK  COVENANT 


ARK  OF  THK  COVENANT 


the  character  of  Ciod  from  that  mainly  exhibited  in  the 
tables  of  the  covenant.  This  plate  was  called  the 
caporcth  or  coreriay,  not  simply,  however,  in  the  sense 
of  a  mere  top  or  lid  to  the  ark  and  its  contents,  but 
rather  on  account  of  its  concealing  and  putting  out  of 
view  what  these  disclosed  of  evil.  It  was  the  i\a<rrr]- 
pLov  or  propitiatory  (as  the  Septuagint  renders  it) — the 
>iii.'rc>/-scat,  in  connection  with  which  the  pardon  of 
guilt  was  to  be  obtained.  It  was  therefore  an  atone 
ment-covering,  and  was  the  appointed  place  on  which 
the  blood  of  reconciliation  was  annually  sprinkled  on 
the  great  day  of  atonement,  to  blot  out  all  the  trans 
gressions  which  tin;  law  of  the  testimony  underneath 
was  ever  charging  against  the  people.  On  account  of 
this  important  relation  of  the  caporeth  to  the  sins  of 
the  people,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  forgiveness  of 
(lod  upon  tlie  other,  it  is  never  represented  merely  as 
the  lid  of  the  ark,  but  has  a  separate  place  assigned  it 
in  the  descriptions  -iveii  of  the  sacred  furniture,  Kx. 
xxv.  17;. \xvi.34,  ic.,  and  sometimes  even  appears  as  the 
most  peculiar  and  prominent  thing  in  the  most  holv 
place,  i.,.  \\;  2.  In  1  (  h.  xxviii.  11.  this  place  i-  even 
denominated  from  it  "  the  house  of  the  propitiatory,"  or 
atonement-house.  Thus,  \\hilethe  ark.  as  the  deposi 
tary  of  the  two  tables  «,f  the  law,  kept  up  before  Israel 
a  perpetual  te  -t  inn  >ny  to  the  holine-s  of  (  lod's  charac- 
t'  r  nay.  exhibited  this  as  the  very  -round  of  all  the 
revelations  he  made  t"  l-ra.  1.  and  of  the  service  he 
required  at  their  hands  bv  lueans  of  tlie  propitiatorv, 
whicli  formed  its  covcriiiu-  above,  it  not  less  prom; 
nentlv  displayed  the  pardoning  mercy  of  (1ml.  which, 
in  accordance  with  the  prim-  covenant,  the  covenant  of 
proini-e.  he  was  ever  ready  to  impart  to  those  who  wen 
coii-cious  of  sin.  and  sou-'lit  to  him  with  true  peiii ten ee 
of  heart.  (Set  Kl  ASTS.  DAY  OK  AfONEMKNT.) 

The  history  of  this  ark  is  in  perfect  accordance  with 
its  intcnselv  moral  character.  Its  usual  and  stated 
residence  was  in  tlie  h"ly  of  holies  »f  the  tabernacle; 
hut,  to  a  certain  extent,  it  hail  a  separate  place  and 
history.  As  the  more  peculiar  symbol  of  the  L.rd's 
piv-eiicc,  it  was  borne  by  the  priests,  in  advance  of 
tin.'  whole  host,  Nil  \.:;:;:  Do.  i.  33;  on  which  account  also 
the  word  is  used  in  1's.  cxxxii.  S.  ''Arise,  ()  Lord, 
into  thy  rest,  thou.  and  the  ark  of  thy  strength."  In 
the  passage  through  the  Jordan,  it  was  at  the  presence 
of  the  ark  that  the  waters  he-;an  to  be  cut  off  from 
above,  and  oidv  when  it  was  withdrawn  from  the 
channel  of  the  rivt  r  that  the  waters  returned  to  their 
wonted  course,  .j,.s.  iii.  1 1- 17.  lint  at  a  future  time,  when 
Israel  had  corrupted  their  ways  before  God,  and  treated 
with  contempt  the  holiness  embodied  in  the  ark  as 
a  revelation  of  his  character,  it  was  found  to  carry  in> 
charm  with  it  when  brought  upon  the  field  of  battle: 
the  -reat  end  of  its  appointment  was  frustrated  by  the 
uickcdness  of  men,  and  the  Lord,  to  revenge  the  <|uar- 
rel  of  his  injured  holiness,  "delivered  his  strength 
into  captivity,  and  his  glory  into  the  enemy's  hand-," 
I'-..  1xxviii.ni;  iS:i.  iv .11.  The  ark  thus  taken  by  the  Phi 
listines,  though  it  did  not  continue  long  in  their  pos 
session,  still  remained  for  years  in  a  state  of  separation 
from  the  tabernacle;  it  was  only  restored  to  its  proper 
place  in  the  tabernacle,  after,  through  the  strenuous 
efforts  of  David,  the  interests  of  godliness  had  been 
ai_rain  revived,  usa.vi.  It  was  afterwards  transferred, 
along  with  the  other  sacred  furniture,  to  the  temple 
erected  by  Solomon,  where  it  appears  to  have  remained 
(for  the  passage  in  :M'h.  xxxv.  '•'>,  in  which  Josiah  com 


mands  the  priests  to  put  it  in  its  place,  and  not  to  bear 
it  oil  the  shoulders,  can  only  be  understood  of  some 
custom  that  hail  crept  in  contrary  to  the  law.  or.  it 
may  be,  some  temporary  removal  for  repairs)  till  the 
period  of  the  JJabyloiiish  exile.  I'.ut  then  again  the 
aggravated  and  inveterate  sins  of  the  people  drew  down 
the  divine  vengeance,  and  the  ark.  instead  of  proving 
a  bulwark  of  strength  and  safety,  itself  perished  in  the 
general  conflagration.  The  tradition  of  its  having 
been  removed  by  Jeremiah  before  the  conquest  of  Je 
rusalem,  and  deposited  in  a  cave  on  ]\lount  I'isgah. 
-'M;u-.  ii.4,  is  undoubtedly  fabulous.  As  the  temple  itself 
was  burned  with  tire,  so  we  may  certainly  conclude 
was  the  furniture  contained  in  it.  And  though  we 
have  the  be.M  -rounds  for  believing,  that  in  the  con 
struction  of  the  second  temple  most  of  the  articles  be 
longing  to  it  were  made  a-  near  a-;  possible  after  the 
pattern  of  those  in  the  first,  vet  there  is  some  -round 
for  thinking  thai  the  peculiar  sacredness  of  the  ark  and 
it-;  contents  stood  in  the  wav  of  its  re- construction. 
Kor  Josephus  expressly  ti  .--titles,  that  the  most  holy 
place  of  the  second  temple  was  empty  i  II '"/•.-•.  v.  .">.  fi1. 
and  Jewish  writers  generally  represent  the  absence  of 
the  ark  from  the  second  temple  as  one  of  the  great 
signs  of  its  inferiority  to  tin-  first.  They  state,  that  in 
place  of  tlie  ark  there  was  an  altar-stone  slightly  ele 
vate,  1  above  the  floor,  on  which  the  hi-h-prie.-t  -4,,  inkled 
the  blood  on  the  day  of  atonement.  This  cannot, 
however,  be  regariled  as  certain:  and  there  an-  writers, 
among  others  J'rideaux  (( 'mnn  <•'/«//,  sub  anno  fi(>n. 
who  maintain  that  there  was  an  imitation  also  of  the 
ark  in  tin-  second  temple,  since  it  was  re'iuiivd  for  the 
Mated  service  of  the  law.  The  testimony  of  Josephus 
seems  too  explicit  to  admit  of  that  supposition  :  but  if 
not  the  ark.  certainly  some  sort  of  sub-titute  for  it 
mu-t  be  supposed  to  have  been  in  the  nio-t  holy  place. 
otln  rwise  it  could  not  have  been  possible  for  the  later 
Jews  to  keep  the  -ivat  day  of  atom  nn-nt.  which  y<  t,  we 
know,  they  were  wont  to  do. 

The  relation  of  the    ark    of   Cod    to   articles,    some 
times   designated    by  a  like  name   among   the    heathen. 

i  can  in  n<>  respect  1  <•  regarded  as  close:  it  lias  more 
and  greater  points  of  diver.-ity  with  them  than  of 
similitude.  The  shrines  of  Egypt,  .-ay-  Sir  ('• .  Wil 
kinson,  "were  of  two  kinds;  the  one  a  -  ort  of  canopy, 
the  other  an  ark  or  sacred  beat,  which  may  be  termed 
the  -TI  at  shrine.  This  was  carried  with  great  pomp 
bv  tlie  prii  -1s.  a  certain  number  bein-'  seKcted  for 

;  that  duty,  who.  supporting  it  on  their  shoulders  by 
means  of  long  staves,  passing  through  metal  rin-'s  at 
the  side  of  the  sled-e  on  which  it  stood,  brought  it  into 
the  temple,  where  it  was  placed  on  a  stand  or  table,  in 
order  that  the  pn  scribed  ceremonies  might  be  performed 
before  it"  (vol.  v.  ch.  xv.)  Even  in  external  form  there 
is  but  a  slender  resemblance-  between  such  shrines  and 
the  ark  of  the  covenant.  The  following'  cut  from 
Wilkinson  is  perhap.-  tin-  one  that  conns  nearest  to  it. 
The  two  figures  without  (a  and  l\  are  taken  t<>  be  repre 
sentations,  one  of  the  king,  (lie  other  of  the  sphinx,  and 
the  two  winged  figures  within  are  forms  of  the  goddess 
Thmei  or  Truth — resembling'  cherubim,  says  Wilkin 
son,  but  the  resemblance  is  certainly  a  very  faint  one. 
even  externally,  and  in  its  design  and  object  entirely 
different.  The  boat-like  form  of  the  structure  also, 
which  is  common  to  it  witli  other  Egyptain  shrines,  has 
no  parallel  in  the  ark;  and  the  practice  of  carrying 
forth  the  shrines  as  preparatory  to  their  being  placed 


A  IJ  KITES 


ll'l 


iu  a  conspicuous  position,  where  they  might  receive  tlio 
marks  of  homage  and  veneration  paid  to  them,  is  011- 
tirc-ly  tlie  reverse  of  what  was  prescribed  respecting 
the  ark  of  the  covenant.  It  was  set  in  the  secret  place 


of  the  Most  High;  and  was  not  allowed  to  be  carried 
thence  except  for  purposes  of  travel,  and  even  then 
only  when  it  had  been  wrapped  Tip  in  coverings  that 
concealed  it  from  the  eye-;  of  the  people.  As  regards 
its  sacred  deposit — the  tables  of  the  law ---and  the  rela 
tion  in  which  these  and  it  together  stood  to  the  whole 
Mosaic  worship,  there  is  not  only,  as  stated  before, 
nothing  similar  in  the  religions  of  ancient  heathendom, 
but  much  that  is  strictly  antagonistic.  \Ve  are  there 
fore  of  opinion,  that  a  great  deal  more  has  often  been 
made  of  supposed  resemblances  between  the  ark,  and 
certain  things  in  the  temples  of  .Egypt  and  elsewhere, 
than  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  case  can  fairly 
warrant. 

ARK'ITES,  a  tribe  of  Canaauites,  mentioned  in  Ge. 
x.  17;  1  I'll.  i.  l.'i,  among  the  other  races  that  peopled 
Phoenicia  and  Palestine.  Their  chief  city,  with  which 
at  once  their  name  and  their  territory  were  associated, 
is  generally  agreed  to  have  been  the  Akra  or  A  era 
which  lay  near  the  base  of  Lebanon, 'on  the  north-west 
side,  between  Tripolis  and  Antaradus  (Pliny,  v.  1(5; 
Josephus,  Ant.  i.  0,  2).  Tt  was  distant  thirty -two  Ro- 
man  miles  from  the  latter  place,  and  latterly  received 
the  name  of  Ca.'sarea  Libaiii.  Its  ruins  were  seen  by 
Shaw  and  P.urckhardt. 

ARM,  the  more  common  instrument  of  human 
strength  and  agency,  is  very  often  employed  in  Scrip 
ture  as  a  symbol  of  power.  The  arm  of  God  is  thus 
used  as  but  another  expression  for  the  might  of  God, 
Ps.  ixxxix.  13;  is.  liii.  i,&c.;  and  to  break  the  arm  of  any  one 
is  all  one  with  destroying  hia  power,  Ezo.  xxx.2i.  Such 
expressions  as  "making  bare  the  arm,"  or  "redeeming 
with  a  stretched- out  arm,"  refer  to  the  action  of  war 
riors,  or  other  persons  employed  in  vigorous  and  ener 
getic  working,  who  must  have  full  and  free  scope  for 
their  arm,  in  order  to  accomplish  the  purpose  on 
which  they  are  intent;  when  spoken  of  Cod.  it  is,  in 
plain  terms,  to  give  a  striking,  triumphant  display  of 
the  divine  power  and  glory. 

ARMAGED'DON  [mountain  of  M^/iddo],  occurs 
only  once  as  a  compound  proper  name  in  Scripture,  and 
that  in  the  figurative  language  of  prophecy.  Re.  xvi.  in. 
Historically,  however,  Megiddo  (whether  as  a  hill,  or  a 
town  built  in  its  neighbourhood)  is  connected  with  a 
memorable  and  mournful  event  -the  overthrow  and 


death  of  .losiah  by  the  host  of  Pharaoh,  2Ki.  xxiii.  29, So 
.Not  only  did  this  event  cause  great  distress  and  lamen 
tation  at  the  time,  as  is  particularly  mentioned  in  2  Ch. 
xxxv.  '2~>,  and  awakened  in  men's  minds  sad  forebodings 
respecting  the  future,  lint  in  /ec.  xii.  ]  1,  it  is  incidentally 
referred  to  as  one  of  the  greatest  instances  of  general  and 
heartfelt  grief  on  record  :  "  There  shall  be  a  great  mourn 
ing  in  Jerusalem,  as  the  mourning  of  iladadrimmon  in 
the  valley  of  Megiddon."  In  the  Apocalypse  the  reference 
is  not  to  the  mourning  connected  with  the  event  that  took 
1  place  at  Megiddo,  but  to  the  event  itself  namely,  tin;  dis 
comfiture  of  the  professing  church  or  people  of  (bid,  as  re 
presented  by.)  osiali  and  his  army,  by  the  profane  worldly 
power.  On  this  account  it  served  to  the  eye  of  the  apo- 
calyptist  as  a  fit  type  of  a  similar,  but  much  grander  event 
ill  the  far-distant  future,  in  which  the  ungodly  world 
should  rise  up  with  such  concentrated  force  as  to  gain  the 
ascendency  over  a  degenerate  and  corrupt,  though  still 
professing  church.  This  spiritual  crisis  is  appropriately 
called  the  battle  of  Armageddon,  since  in  it  the  old 
catastrophe  at  Megiddo  should,  in  a  manner,  ho  enacted 
over  again;  and  the  mention  of  it  is,  therefore,  fitly 
introduced  by  the  significant  warning,  "  Behold,  I. 
come  as  a  thief;  blessed  is  he  that  watcheth,  and 
kecpeth  his  garments,  lest  he  walk  naked,  and  they 
see  his  shame."  (See  Eahbairn  on  ProjJtcri/  in  its  JJia- 
tiiictlvf  Xttture,  &c.,  p.  4iM.) 

ARMLET.     See  BRAC  i : i , i :r. 

ARMS,  ARMOUR.  The  weapons,  defensive  and 
offensive,  in  use  amongst  the  nations  of  antiquity  men 
tioned  in  Scripture,  are.  on  the  whole,  essentially  the 
same  in  all ;  the  general  species  undergoing  modifica 
tions  according  to  age  ami  country.  It  is  only  in  a  few 
instances  that  national  usages,  entirely  peculiar,  are- 
found  to  prevail.  In  the  following  remarks,  we  shall 


Greek  heavy-armed  "SVarriur.     Hope. 


endeavour  to  give  a  description  of  ancient  armour,  under 
its  principal  heads ;  noticing,  as  we  advance,  the  subor 
dinate  peculiarities  which  distinguished  one  nation  from 
another,  or  the  same  nation  in  different  periods  of  its 
history. 

P>y  way  of  introduction,  we  present  our  readers  with 
a  figure  of  a  Greek  heavy-armed  warrior,  attired  for 


battle,  whose  equipment  may  lie  taken  as  a,  standard 
with  which  to  compare  ancient  armour  in  general 
(Xo.  52).  It  will  be  perceived  that  it  consists  of  six 
distinct  portions:  —  first,  the  spear  (^yx05-  56pv.  hasta, 
Heb.  -c'-\  or  jvirK  or.  sometimes,  two  spears,  in  the, 

right  hand  ;  secondly,  the  helmet  (Kopvs,  Ki'veij,  yalca, 
y^i-  )  i  thirdly,  the  shield  (dffTris,  discus  —  Ovpe6s, 
scutum,  i.e.  the  Roman  shield  (Kp.  vi.  ir.K  «j~,  ,-tjy), 

supported  on  the  left  arm  ;  fourthly,  the  sword  (£i<f>os. 
ijludhis,  anri),  suspemled  on  the  left  side  by  a  licit, 

which  passed  over  the  right  shoulder:  fifthly,  the  cui 
rass  (6J}pa^.  I'ji'ica.  ?vn'i;),  covering  the  hodv.  with 

its  zone  or  girdle,  ifci'ij.  *-i  ivjidaiil.  -\vx>  :  and  sixthly. 
the  greaves  (i;i>r)/juofS,  <jcr<_n  .  --?'),  which  protected 

the  legs.  Sandals  in  this  figure  are  wanting.  The  por 
tions  of  armour  were  put  »n  in  an  order  the  reverse  <>f 
that  here  mentioned.  P,v  the  shield  and  cuirass  the-e 
warrior-  were  distinguished  from  the  light-  armed  troops. 
who  were  protected  ni'-relv  bv  a  garment  of  cloth  or 
leather,  and  who  fonidit  with  dart-,  .-tones,  l.o\\-,  and 
slings:  and  from  the  /,•  It'ix'ai  i  TT>  \raircui,  a  descrip- 
tion  of  soldiers  found  in  the  later  Creek  armies,  anil 
who.  instead  of  tile  large  round  shit-Id,  carried  a  small 
one  (called  7ri'\T77i,  and  in  other  respects  were  more 
lightly  equipped  than  tlie  heavy  -  armeil  soldiers 
(oTr.V'rcut. 

Tn  Xo.  53.  copied  from  the  arch  of  Septimus  Severus 
at  Rome,  a  Roman  soldier  of  that   au'e  is  represented. 


ARMS 

dagger,  knife,  falchion.  pole-axe,  battle-axe,  mace  or 
club,  and  lissan,  a  curved  stick,  still  in  use  among  the 
modern  Ethio])ians  :  and  defensively,  with  a,  helmet  of 
metal,  or  a  quilted  head  -piece  ;  a  cuirass,  made  of  metal 


[.'3.  j        JJiiinan  SoltlitT.     Bartoli'H  Arch  of  Severus. 

Tin-  several  parts  of  the  armour  will  be  seen  to  cor 
respond  with  those  of  the  Creek  hoplite,  except  that, 
in  place  of  a  sword,  the  Roman  bears  a  dagger  (/ud^atpa, 
jiiti/in)  on  his  right  side  :  and  instead  of  greaves  wears 
breeches,  and  sandals  (i-n/ii/n  ).  \>,y  St  Paul,  in  a  well- 
known  passage,  Kp.  vi.  11-17,  all  the  parts  of  the  Roman 
armour,  except  tlu  spear,  are  mentioned. 

AVith  respect  to  the  eastern  nations  ;  —the  Egyp 
tians  were  armed,  offensively,  with  the  bow,  spear,  two 
species  of  javelin,  sling,  a  short  and  straight  sword, 


\--syri.iii  S]i..-:i.nnrx 

plates,  i.r  quilted  with  metal  bands  ;  and  an  ample 
shield.  But  thev  had  no  greaves,  nor  any  covering  for 
the  arms,  save  a  -hort  sleeve,  which  was  a  part  of  the 
cuirass,  ami  extended  about  half-way  to  the  elbow 
(Wilkinson.  .lini/:/i>  Egyptians,  i.  p.  'Jl'.M.  The  arms 
of  tin-  early  Assvrians  wen-  the  s]>ear.  the  bow.  the 
sword,  the  dagger,  and  the  battle-axe.  The  sliic,'  is 
not  toiind  in  the  most  ancient  monuments  as  an  Assy 
rian  weapon:  it  was  perhaps  introduced  at  a  later 
period.  Tin-  .\--vnan  warrior  was  protected  by  a 
helmet  and  shield  ;  and.  according  to  th"  nature  of  the 
.-er\ice  he  hal  to  j n •rt'oriu.  sometimes  \\ith  a  coat  of 
scale  armour,  reaching  down  to  the  knees  or  ankle-, 
and  sometimes  with  an  embroidered  tunic,  probabh  of 
felt  or  leather.  They  wore  sandals:  and  the  spearmen 
and  slingers  had  irrcaw-.  which  appear  to  have  been  laced 
in  front.  ( Layard,  AV, /•<••//  nml  //.«,-  /.'•  /;<<///(.<.  ii.  c.  I1. 
In  the  armv  of  .\i-r\e.-.  the  Assyrians  wore  helmets  of 
brass,  and  carried  shields,  spears,  daggers,  and  wooden 
clubs  knotted  with  iron  (Herod.  7,  (53)  ;  the  Persians, 
with  the  exception  of  the  (lub.  were  similarly  equipped 
i  Ibid.  c.  til).  Of  the  Babylonians,  too.  these  were  no 
doubt  the  ordinary  weapons.  Nos.  ,~>  1  and  fi."i  represent 
:ui  Assyrian  spearman  and  Egyptian  heavy-anned 
soldier  attiivd  for  battle. 

We  n ow  proceed  to  a  more  minute  description  of  the 
several  portions  of  armour,  as  they  are  given  above; 
adopting  the  ordinary  division  into  iliffittt'tri'  and  (>f- 

/•  ;/.-•//••  . 

I>KIT.NSIVK  AKMHTK.  1.  Tin  >'/</</</.  The  ancient 
warriors  chief  defence  was  his  shield,  the  form  and 
material  of  which  were  various.  Tin-  Kgyptiari  shield 
was  about  half  the  soldier's  height,  and  generally 
double  its  own  breadth.  It  was  probably  formed  of 
wicker-work,  ora  wooden  frame,  and  was  covered  with 
bull's  hide,  having  the  hair  outwards,  with  one  or  more 
rims  of  metal,  and  metal  studs.  In  form  it  resembled 
an  ordinary  funereal  tablet,  bein^  circular  at  the  sum 
mit,  and  square  at  the  base;  and  near  the  upper  part 
of  the  outer  surface  was  a  circular  cavity  in  lieu  of  a 


\-2<> 


A  H.MS 


boss,  tin-  sides  of  which  were  deeper  than  its  centre 


where-  it  rose  nearly  to  the  level  of  the  shield  fNo.  :jd 


i).      For  what  purpose  this  was  intended   is   uneer 


tain.      To  the  inside  of  the  shield  was  attached  a  thong, 
by  wliii-li  tli'-y  suspended  it  upon  their  shoulders  ;  and 
a  handle,   witii  which  it  was  grasped  (No.  5t),  figs.  2,3). 
Some     of     the     lighter 
bucklers  were  furnished 
with  a  wooden  liar  (Xo. 
;")ti,   fi^.  •})    placed   across 
the    upper    part,    which 
was  held  with  the  hand. 
Sometimes  the  Kgvptian 
shield  was  of  extraordin 
ary  si/.'1,  and   pointed  at 
the  summit :   hut  instan 
ces  of  this  kind  are  ran' 
(Wilkinson,  i.  e.  3). 

The  shields  of  the 
Assyrians,  in  the  more 
ancient  bas-reliefs,  are 
either  circular  or  oblong; 
sometimes  of  gold  and 
silver,  but  more  fre 
quently  of  wicker-work,  covered  with  hides;  they  were 
held  bv  a  handle  fixed  to  the  centre.  The  round 


square  projection,  like  a  roof,  at  right  angles  to  the 
body  of  the  shield;  which  may  have  served  to  defend 
tin'  heads  of  the  combatants  against  missiles  from  the 
walls  of  a  castle. —  (Layard,  Nineveh,  ii.  c.  4). 

The  Hebrews  had  four  designations  for  the  shield; — 
H3V,  tzlnnak,   pc,  ma/jen,   &-<tf,  sheict,   ,-prD,  soMra/t. 

T-  I"T  T   •• 

The  tzinnah  was  a  large  shield,  covering  the  whole 
body,  the  maycn  a  smaller  one  ;  the  former  probably 
used  by  the  heavy- armed,  the  latter  by  the  light- armed 
troops  (iKi.  x.  10,17;  Ezok.  xxxix.  9).  The  shclet  seems  to 
have  differed  but  little  from  the  murjin.  (It  occurs  onlv 


|  ,7.1.]     Shields    1,  Assyrian.     2,3.  I'orsmn.  •  Layard,  Kerr  Porter. 

ill  the  plural  number.  2  Sa.  viii.  7;  2  Ki.  xi.  in).  The  word 
.yilx'rult.  is  found  only  in  Ps.  xci.  4.  The  larger  shields 
were  usually  of  wood,  covered  with  hides  ;  it  was  com 
mon  to  smear  them  with  oil,  that  they  might  glitter  in 
the  distance,  and  resist  moisture,  Is.  xxi. ».  Brazen 
shields  appear  to  have  been  the  exception  ;  the  whole 
of  the  giant's  armour,  1  Sa.  xvii.  .->,<;,  was  of  this  metal. 
Shields  overlaid  with  gold  were  the  ornament  of  princes, 


shield  is  often  highly  ornamented.  The  shield  used 
in  a  siege  covered  the  whole  person  of  the  warrior,  and 
was  furnished  at  the  top  with  a  curved  point,  or  a. 


[CO  i        Greek  Shield  (Clipcns).-Hopc. 

1  Ki.  x.  in,  or  their  immediate  attendants,  2  Sa.  viii.  :;  and 
were  sometimes  employed  to  decorate  the  walls  of 
palaces,  i  K\.  xiv.  21;.  The  shields  of  David  were  sus- 


ARMS 


ARMS 


pended,  as  a  memorial,  in  the  teniplo.  During  a  march 
the  soldier  carried  the  shield  on  his  shoulder,  covered 
with  a  piece  of  leather,  as  a  protection  against  the  dust, 
Jer.  xxii.  fi;  and,  in  the  conflict,  on  his  left  arm.  (See 
Winer,  Real-Worterbuch,  s.  r>.} 

The  large  shield  (dcrirU,  dipcu.<)  of  the  ("! reeks  and 
Romans,  was  originally  of  a  circular  form  ;  and  in  the 
Homeric  times,  was  large  enough  to  cover  the  whole 
liody.  It  was  made,  sometimes  of  osiers  twisted  toge 
ther,  sometimes  of  wood  ;  covered  with  ox-hides,  seve 
ral  folds  thick.  On  the  centre  was  a  projection,  called 
6u<pd\os,  ui/tiio,  or  Loss,  which  sometimes  terminated 
in  a  spike 

After  the    Roman  soldier  received  pay,  the  clipeus 


The  helmet  of  the  Egyptians  was  usually  of  linen 
cloth  quilted,  which  served  as  an  effectual  protection  to 
the  head,  without  the  inconvenience  of  metal  in  a  hot 


climate.  Some  helmets  descended  to  the  shoulder, 
other.;  oiilv  a  sln>rt  distance  In-low  the  ear:  and  the 
summit,  terminating  in  an  obtuse  point,  was  ornamented 
with  two  tassels,  of  a  green,  n  d.  or  Mack  colour.  No 
Kgvptian  helmet  occurs  with  a  crest. 

\Vhetherthe  lleLrews  wore  helmets  of  this  kind  is 
uncertain.  They  seem  to  have  Lceii  commonly  of 
bra-s,  i  s.i  svii.ss;  Lut  <>f  what  particular  form  we  have 
no  account. 

The  form  of  the  (I reek  and  Roman  helmets  (ircpi- 
Ke<f>a\a.ia,  Kp.  vi.i?)  is  so  well  known  as  not  to  require 
further  notice. 


was  discontinued  f"r  the'  xcntti.ii>.  tfiyi'us:  of  oval  or 
oblong  form,  and  adapted  to  the  shape  of  the  body. 

Significant  devices  on  >hieMs  are  of  ^n-at  antiquity. 
I-'.aeh  Roman  soldier  had  his  name  inscrilied  on  his 
shield.  St.  I'aul,  r.p  vi.  Hi,  uses  the  word  (A'/wos  rather 
than  d.TTris.  localise  h--  i<  de.-eriLinup  the  armour  <>f  a 
Roman  soldier. 

•2.  Tin  Il.Im't.  The  Assyrian  hc-lmet  assumed  dif 
ferent  .-hapes  in  diti'ereiit  au'es ;  Lut  the  earli>-~t,  and 
properly  Assvriau  form,  was  a  cap  of  iron,  terminating 
aliove  in  a  point,  and  snmetimes  furnished  with  Haps, 
covered  with  metal  scales.  pn>ti  ding  the  ears,  the  Laek 
of  the  head,  and  falling  over  the  shoulders  (No.  ''»•_', 


tig.  i).  Sometimes  plain  circular  caps,  fitting  closely  to 
the  head,  were  worn  (No.  tlii,  ii-.  L').  At  a  later  period, 
this  primitive  form  was  varied  with  a  curved  crest  or 
plume,  which  exhibits  considerable  variety  and  even 
elegance  (Xo.  G'2,  fig.  :)). 


I'll  I        1.  i;<p]ii:in  lii  ln.rt         2,  3,  ( Jivoli  HehuejU     He] 


."..  Tli'  Cuirass  or  l',i-«if>  j>/<t/>.  'I'he  skins  of  beasts 
were  prohablv  the  earliest  material  used  to  protect  the 
body.  These  were  soon  abandoned  for  the  coat  of 
mail,  of  which  there  were  various  kinds.  The  K-_r\  ptiaii 
cuirass  consisted  of  about  eleven  horizontal  rows  of 
metal  plates,  \\ell  .-eeinvd  by  brass  pin<  :  and  at  the 
hollow  of  tin  throat  a  narrower  range  of  plates  was  in 
troduced,  above  which  were  two  more,  completing  the 
collar,  or  covering  the  neck.  The  breadth  of  each 
plate  or  scale  was  little  more  than  an  inch,  twelve  of 
them  sufficing  to  cover  the  front  of  the  body  ;  and  the 
sleeves,  which  were  sometimes  so  short  as  to  extend 
less  than  half-wav  to  the  elbow,  con.-isted  of  two  rows 
of  similar  plates.  .Most  of  these  cuirasses  wire  without 
collars.  In  length  the  cuirass  may  have  been  little  1.  ss 
than  two  feet  and  a  half;  it  sometimes  covered  the 
thigh  nearly  to  the  knee;  and  in  order  to  prevent  its 
pressing  too  heavily  on  the  shoulder,  it  was  bound  with 
a  girdle  round  the  waist.  The  thigh,  and  that  part  of 
the  lindv  below  the  girdle,  were  usually  protected  with 
a  kind  of  kilt,  detached  from  the  cuira.-s.  Such  was 
tho  covering  of  the  heavy-armed  troops.  Hut  with  the 
light-armed  infantry,  and,  indeed,  among  the  Asiatic 
nations  in  general,  the  quilted  linen  cuirass  was  in 
much  request  (IFerod.  '2.  1S:2):  and  the  epithet  \<co- 
OiOprjZ,  which  occurs  more  than  once  in  Homer,  indi 
cates  the  use  of  it  among  the  early  ( mx.-ks.  In  the 
tombs  of  the  kings  near  Thebes,  a  coat  of  mail,  of  the 
description  first  mentioned,  is  represented ;  it  is  com- 


ARMS 


luitt-lv  ml.  yellow,  and  irrcen  ;  each 


C)6.  ]        Assyrian  Cuirass.     I.:iynr<l. 


ttires.  At  a  later  period  other  kinds  were  used  ,  the 
scales  were  larger,  and  appear  to  have  been  fastened  to 
bands  of  iron  or  copper.  The  armour  was  frequently 
ciul Missed  with  groups  of  iigures  and  fanciful  orna 
ments.  Not  unfrequently  the  warriors  are  dressed  in 
an  embroidered  tunic,  probably  of  felt  or  leather,  and 
sufficiently  thick  to  resist  the  weapons  then  in  use. 
Their  arms  wore  bare  from  above  the-  elbow,  and  their 
legs  from  the  knees  downwards,  except  when  they  wore 
the  long  coats  of  mail  reaching  to  the  ankles  (Layard, 
Xiiu.i'i.li,  ii.  c.  4). 

The    Hebrew  >"-i'c;,    sJtiryoit,   or   coat   of  mail,    was 


seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  coat,  and,  were  it  not  so 
highly  ornamented,  might  be  considered  a  vest,  to  ho 
worn  beneath  the  cuirass.  It  is  made  of  a  rich  stuff, 
worked  or  painted,  with  the  figures  of  lions  and  other 
animals,  such  as  are  common  upon  the  Greek  shield 
and  is  edged  with  a  neat  border  (No.  05,  fig.  2).  It  may 
have  been  intended  as  a  substitute  for  the  heavy  coat  of 
mail.  (Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egypt. i.c.3).  Occasionally, 
corslets  were  worn,  reaching  only  from  the  waist  to  the 
upper  part  of  the  breast,  and  supported  by  straps  over 
the  sin  mldiT,  which,  from  the  sculptured  representations 
ot  them,  appear  to  have  been  faced  witli  metal  plates. 

On  the  bas-reliefs  of  Nineveh,  the  warriors  who 
fought  in  chariots,  and  held  the  shield  for  the  defence 
of  the  king,  are  generally  seen  in  coats  of  scale  armour, 
which  descend  to  the  knees  or  the  ankles.  In  excavating 
tiie  earliest  palace  of  Nimroud,  Mr.  Layard  discovered 
a  quantity  of  the  scales  used  for  this  armour.  Each 
scale  was  separate,  and  was  of  iron,  from  two  to  three 
inches  in  length,  rounded  at  one  end,  and  squared  at 
the  other,  with  a  raised  or  embossed  line  in  the  centre  ; 
and  some  were  inlaid  with  copper.  They  were  pro- 


Vssyrian  Cuirass.     Layard. 


Virgil  (.En.  3,  467)  speak 


coat  of  mail  coin- 


scales.  The  vulnerable  part  was  where  the  scales  were 
connected,  or  where  the  coat  of  mail  joined  on  to  the 
other  parts  of  the  armour,  \  Ki.  xxii.  :u.  Of  linen,  or 
quilted  cuirasses,  no  mention  occurs  in  Scripture. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  occasionally  used  the  linen 
cuirass,  but  it  was  soon  superseded,  first,  by  cuirasses 
of  horn,  composed  of  small  pieces,  fastened,  like  fea 
thers.  upon  linen  shirts,  the  hoofs  of  animals  being 
sometimes  employed  for  this  purpose;  and  then  by  the  \ 
metallic  scale  armour.  Of  this  then-  were  two  kinds: 


f  Antoninus  and  Trajan. 


1  of  rings,  hooked  into  each  other  (faricait: 

mii<\,  which  may  have  been  a  species  of  chain- 


the  0wpa£    XeTrtowros,    the   scales   of   which   resembled  '  mail  :  such  as  was  worn  by  the  "Roman  hastuti. 


ARMS 


Besides  the  flexible  cuirass,  the  ( !  reeks  and  Romans.  '  superior  officers.  It  was  composed  of  leather,  and  the 
especially  in  early  times,  wore  one  composed  of  two  sole  was  thickly  studded  with  laru-e  nails  (Juv!  Hi,  -J4v 
solid  plates:  one  for  the  breast,  and  the  other  for  the  !  OFFENSIVE  WEAPONS.  ].  Th<>  $ic»n/.-  The  r>vn- 

tian  sword  was  short  and  straight,  from  two  and  a  half 
to  three  feet  in  length,  having  apparently  a  double 
edge,  and  tapering  to  a  sharp  point.  It  was  used  to 
cut  and  tlirust  :  but  sometimes  it  was  held  downwards, 
and  used  as  a  dagger.  The  handle  was  plain,  hollowed 
in  the  centre,  and  gradually  increasing  in  thickness  at 
either  extremity;  sometimes  inlaid  with  costly  stones, 
precious  woods,  or  metals.  That  worn  bv  the  kiny  in 


•   '  ;  '     .Mi!  Cnirass-3       il  m, 


back,  fitted  to  the  shape  of  the  body,  and  joined  by  his  girdle  was  frequently  surmounted  by  one  or  two 
bands  over  the  shoulders.  <  >H  tlie  iM,t  side  of  the  heads  ,,f  a  hawk,  the  symbol  of  the  sun. 'a  title  <_iven 
I'ody  the  plates  w,  re  united  by  hinges;  and  mi  the  to  the  I'.-vptian  monarehs  (No.  7'_'.  nM  n. 
left,  they  were  fastened  by  means  of  buckles.  Maud-  The  >w,,rd  thus  worn  was  in  r.  ality  a  dag-cr.  which 
of  metal,  terminated  bv  a  lion's  head,  or  some  other  was  also  a  connnon  Kgvptian  weapon.  It  was  much 
device,  often  supplied  the  place  of  the  leathern  straps  smaller  than  the  sword":  about  t,  n  or  seven  inches  in 
over  the  shoulders  ;  and  here,  too.  in  front,  the  l.'oiuan  leii-th,  taperm-  -radually  to  a  point.  The  haii.lle. 
soldier  was  accustomed  to  wear  his  decorations  ,,f  like  that  of  the  sword,  was  generally  inlaid  :  the  blade 
»°nour.  A  beautiful  pair  ,  f  bronze  shoulder- hands,  was  of  hronzo,  thicker  in  the  middle  than  in  the  edges, 
found,  A.D.  Is-Jii,  ,„.;,!•  the  river  Siris  in  Southern 
Italy,  i-  preserve!  in  the  I'.riii-h  Museum.  Around 
the  lower  edge  of  the  cuirass  were  attached  -traps. 
four  or  }i\e  inches  lung,  ,  ,f  leather,  or  perhaps  of  f,  It 
(rl/tcv),  and  covered  with  small  plate.-  of  metal.  Tht-e 
strajis  were  partly  for  ornament,  and  partlv  fora  |u-..- 
tccti,.n  to  the  lower  par;  •  f  th.-  bod\ . 

•I.  Qnarcs.  The  l^-ypt  ians.  as  has  been  observed, 
'l^'''1  "o  -iva-..  :  •'.  Assyrians  ,,nl\  ..ecasimiallv  so. 
<>n  the  sculpture-  of  Kouvunjik. 
spearmen  and  ^lingers  appi  ar  \\ith 
greaves,  probably  of  h-ath-  ror  brass. 
which  w.  iv  laced  in  t'r>nt  !,.i\  ard. 
.Yi/i>r>fi.  ii.  c.  -I  i.  ( loliath's  ^reave> 
were  of  brass,  i  s.i  xvii.fi  :  and  such 
pn.bably  were  in  use  among  the 
Israelites.  Amon--  the  ( 1  reeks  ami 
Ifomans  greaves  were  made  of 
bron/.e.  of  bra--,  of  tin.  and  some- 


/         \ 


and  slighth  grooved  in  that    pail.      It  \\as   inclosed   in 
a  leathern  sheath   i\o.   7-.  Ii.-s.  L',  :;i. 
times  of  silver  or  gold,  u-ith  a  lining  '\'\u  falchion,  with  a  single  ed-v.   intended  only  for 

of    leather,    felt,    or   cloth.       They   ' "        Assyrian  O reave,      cutting,    was   borne   by  li-ht  as    well    as   heavy   armed 
were   usually    secured    with    straps  troops:    the  blade  was  of   iron  or  bron/e.  the  handle  of 

round  the  calf  and   the  ankles.      They  were  LTaduallv      w'""'  '"'  h"ni  (N"-  "-•  "«"•  '••'ll- 

abandoned   by  the  Roman  soldier;  and  un.ler  the  em-          T1"'  Assynans  vvore  swords  and  (lasers  very  similar 

perors  were  chiefly  worn  hy  the  gladiators.  l"   th"st'   "f  tllr    l<vP^>ns.    with   handles   elaborately 

5.    From  tlie  -reave,  must  be  distinguished  the  war-     ornamente(l    (  ^nerally  two,  and  sometimes  three,  .lag- 

»koe  (nsD,  Is  ix.6     sceCesen.  Lcsicon.sub  race),  calwa      ^rs  appear  mscTte,!  inonesheath  which  was  then  passed 

through  the  -irdle   (Layard,   \i»n;.l<.    ii.    c.  4).     The 

The    Roman    cali-a   was   a   heavy   shoe,   worn   by  the     sword  of  the  Hebrews  probably  resembled  that  of  other 
mmoii   soldiers   and    the  centurions,   but  not   bv   tlie     eastern  nations.      It  hung  on   tin-  left  side,  in  a  girdle, 

17 


\I;.MS 

mietimtv 


III 


ARMS 


l  Sa.  xvii.  :iii.     and    was    sometimes    two-edge 

lie  iv   \"~},     Ju.  iii.  if!.      The    Greek     and     l\o 

had  a  straight,  two-edged  blade,  of  nearly  equal  width  -  venting    it    from    escaping    from 

from    hilt  to  point.      It  was  worn  in  a  scabbard  on    tl'" 


Swords,  various.  -Layard,  Uotta,  Kerr  Port 


(/iaxtt'pa.  puyio — Persia.',  aci/iaccs,  Hor.  Od.  i.  '11 ,  /»), 
which  was  worn  on  the  right.  The  LXX.  generally  ren 
der  3-,,"!,  clurcii.  by  the  word  fjLO.-xa.ipa:  and  this  latter 

is  the  expression  usually  employed  in  the  Xeu  Testa 
ment,  EI>.  vi.  17.  -Mdxcupct,  or  fiityio,  however,  property 
signifies  a  dagger  or  two-edged  knife,  sueh  as  is  worn 
at  this  day  among  the  Arnauts,  the  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Greeks.  Among  the  later  Jews,  the  Roman 
stca,  or  curved  dagger — the  chosen  weapon  of  assassins 
— came  into  use. 

•2.  The  Sjiiur,  Javelin,  tic. — This  weapon  was  com 
mon  to  ail  the  nations  of  antiquity.  The  Egyptians 
used  a  spear  of  wood,  with  a  metal  head,  between  five 
and  six  feet  long.  The  head  was  of  bronze  or  iron, 


Egyptian  Javi-lin=.  Sjiear  and  Dart  heads.— Wilkinson 


usually  with 


edge,  like  that  of  the  Greeks 


sometimes  used  as  a  spear  for  thrusting;  and  some 
times  it  was  darted,  the  knob  at  the  extremity  pre- 

the   warrior's  grasp. 

Lighter  javelins,  of  wood,  tapering  to  a  sharp  point,  or 
with  a  small  bronze  point,  were  also  in  use  (Wilkinson. 
Ancient  /•-','////</.  i.  c.  :>). 

The  spear  of  the  Assyrian  footman  was  short,  scarcely 
exceeding  the  height  of  a  man  ;  that  of  the  horseman 
appears  to  have  been  considerably  longer.  The  iron 
head  of  a  spear  from  Ximroud  has  been  deposited 
in  the  British  Museum.  The  shaft  was  probably  of 
some  strong  wood,  and  not  a  reed,  like  that  of  the 
modern  Arabs  (Layard,  Xincvch,  ii.  e.  4).  How  the 
several  terms  (rSZ\  r'jn,  Vp,  and  •yr:  ^  which,  in 

the  Old  Testament,  are  used  to  denote  a  spear  or 
javelin,  are  to  be  distinguished,  is  uncertain.  These 
weapons  were  used  more  commonly  for  thrusting  than 
for  throwing.  They  had  a  wooden  shaft,  ISa.  xvii.  7, 
and  a  brazen  or  iron  head,  L-SI.  xxi.  i<; ;  and  were  fur 
nished  at  the  other  extremity  with  an  iron  spike,  cap 
able  of  being  used  against  an  enemy,  -'Sa.  ii. -'3.  The 
only  peculiarity  which  the  Greek  and  Roman  spears, 
which  were  of  various  kinds; --lancca,  pilitni  (peculiar 
to  the  Romans),  jar. id um,  &c. —  present,  is  the  amen- 
tiiui,  a  leathern  thong  attached  to  the  middle  of  the 
shaft,  and  used  to  assist  the  warrior  in  throwing:  of 
this  no  trace  appears  in  the  Egyptian  or  Assyrian 
sculpture's. 

;5.  The  Bow. — This  was  a  principal  weapon  of  the 
Egyptians,  Assyrians,  and  Hebrews;  as  it  was,  in  after 
times,  of  the  Saxons. 
The  Egyptian  bow  was 
a  round  piece  of  wood, 
from  five  to  five  feet  and 
a  half  in  length,  either 
almost  straight,  and 
tapering  to  a  point  at 
both  ends,  or  curving 
inward  in  the  middle 
when  unstrung.  The 
string  was  fixed  upon  a 
projecting  piece  of  horn, 
or  inserted  into  a  groove 
or  notch  of  the  wood  at 
either  extremity.  lu 
stringing  it,  the  lower 
point  was  fixed  on  the 
L; round,  and  the  knee 
being  pressed  against 

the  inner  side,  the  string  was  passed  into  the  notch. 
Their  mode  of  drawing  it  was  either  with  the  fore 
finger  and  thumb,  or  the  two  forefingers  ;  and,  like 
the  old  English  archers,  they  carried  the  arrow  to  the 
ear,  the  shaft  passing  nearly  in  a  line  with  the  eye  ;—  a 
much  moi-3  effective  mode  of  using  this  weapon  than 
that  adopted  by  the  Greeks,  who  drew  the  string  to  the 
body  (Horn.  //.  4,  123).  Indeed,  the  how  was  more 
characteristic  of  Asia  than  of  Europe  :  the  Greeks  and 


but  the  weapon  had  no  spike  at  the  other  extremity  Romans  never  attached  much  importance  to  it.  though 
[ffavpuTTJs}  by  which  to  fix  it  into  the  ground.  (See  hoth  had  in  their  armies  a  corps  of  archers,  who  were 
ISa.  xxvi.  7.)  The  javelin,  lighter  and  shorter  than  the  usually  Cretans.  In  the  army  of  Xerxes,  on  the  con- 
spear,  was  also  of  wood,  and  similarly  armed  with  a  trary,  nearly  all  the  troops  were  armed  with  the  bow 
two-edged  metal  head,  generally  of  an  elongated  (Herod.  7,  01-80).  The  Egyptian  how-string  was  of 
diamond  shape  :  and  the  upper  extremity  of  the  shaft  \  hide,  catgut,  or  string ;  among  the  early  Greeks  it  was 
terminated  in  a  bronze  knob,  surmounted  by  a  ball,  !  usually  of  twisted  leather  (vevpa  j3oeia).  The  arrows 
to  which  were  attached  two  thongs  or  tassels.  It  was  !  varied  from  twenty- two  to  thirty-four  inches  in  length  ; 


.some  were  of  wood,  others  of  reed;  frequently  tipped 
with  a  metal  head,  and  winged  with  three  feathers,  as 
on  our  own  arrows.  Sometimes,  instead  of  the  metal 
head,  a  piece  of  hard  wood,  tapering  to  a  point,  was  in- 


On  the  bas-reliefs  of  Nineveh,  the  Assyrian  archer 
is  seen  equipped  in  all  respects  like  the  Egyptian.  The 
bows  are  of  t\vo  kind-:  one  long  and  slightly  curved, 
the  other  short,  and  almost  angular:  the  two  appear 


sertcd   into  the    reed;  and   sometime-,   a    piece  of   tlint 
supplied  its  pla<  v. 

K.-i'-h  bowman  \va>  furnished  with  a  capacious  quiver, 
about  four  inches  in  diainc1  -  >-.  c.intaini:i'_r  a  plentiful 
supply  of  arrows.  ("nlike  the  Creeks,  w]  i  carrie<l  the 
quiver  on  their  shoulder,  tin:  Ivjyptian  a  rein,  r,  v,  hen 
cir/a'-ed  in  combat,  had  it  sillily1,  nearly  hori/ontallv, 
liencatli  his  arm  :  the  sculptures,  indeed,  both  K_'\  ptian 
and  Assyrian  iLayard.  XimctJt,  ii.  p.  ."..">••>  also  repre 
sent  the  quiver  a-  restm^  on  tin-  back  :  but  thi-  was 
probably  only  during  a  maivh.  or  when  the  arrow.-.  \\  •  re 


79       JVr-iun.  •«  itli  How  nnd  l.Miivor. 


to  havi  been  carried  at  the  same  time  bv  those  wlio 
ton-lit  in  chariots.  The  quivers  appear  sluii'j;  o\  er  the 
back:  and,  like  the  Iv_r\  j.tiaii.  the  arcln  r  draws  the 
;irro\\  to  the  cheek  or  th  , -ar.  \\"heii  in  battle,  it  was 
customary  for  th--  \\arrior  to  hold  two  arrows  in  reserve 
in  hi-  riu'ht  hand  :  they  were  placed  within  the  fingers, 
and  did  not  interfere  with  the  motion  of  the  arm  when 
dra'A'iii'_r  ttie  how.  A  leather  or  linen  guard  wa-  fa-- 
teiced  by  traps  to  the  inside  of  the  left  arm,  to  protect 
it  when  the  arrow  u  as  di -charged  i  La  van  1.  \i~n.  ii.  c.  4  ). 


[77.  J        Kgyptiau  Aivhcr  and  Quiver.     Wilkinson. 

not  required.      It  wax  closed  by  a  lid  or  cover,  which,  Th(,  Hehrew.j,,lW  was  sometimes  of  metal,  ss.-i.xxli.3s; 

like  the  quiver  itself,  was  highly  decorated.  ^  wh(,n  j           was  R            ,      treading  jt .  an(,  whal 

The  bow,  when  not  used,  was  kept  in  a  case,  intended  iso;casiollallvren(leml  to  &«uUhe  how,  literally  means 

to  protect  it  against  the  sun  or  damp,  and  to  preserve  A,M 

...                                                 11.                        [  to  tread  it  (rrp  TH,  Ps.  vii.  12;  iCh.  v.  18).      \\hen  not 

its    elasticity.      It    was   always   attached   to    the   war-  v1--  ''-T 

chariots;  and  across  it  lay  another  large  case  contain-  in  use,  it  was  kept  in  a  case,  I  lab.  iii.  '.>.  The  arrows 
ing  an  abundant  stock  of  arrows  (Wilkinson,  Ancient  were  probably  of  reed,  and  were  sometimes  poisoned, 
£f/ypt.  i.  c.  '>).  i  jubvi.  i.  Whether  they  were  ever  tipped  with  combus- 


Al  {MS 


ARMS 


tible  materials  ("  liery  darts,"  Kp.  vi.  n;)  is  uncertain; 
though  snme  have  discovered  in  Ps.  vii.  ]'2  an  allusion 
to  this  practice.  Among  the  Israelites,  the  Beiija- 
mites,  l  I'll.  via.  in,  and  of  the  other  nations  of  ('aiiaan 
the  Philistines,  l  Sa.  xxxi. :;,  and  the  Klamites,  u.xxii.o, 
were  celebrated  as  archers. 

The  Scythian  and  Parthian  bows,  and  generally  those 
of  the  ancient  cavalry,  were  in  the  torm  of  a  Unman  ( ' : 
those  nf  the  Greeks  had  a  double  curvature,  and 
were  composed  of  t\u>  circular  pieces,  often  made;  of 
born  (Kif>as,  rortin),  united  in  the  middle. 

1.    Tin'   l^linij    ty^p.    o-0c-i'5o;'?7>.      This    \\eapon    wa.- 

in  common  use  among  the  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  an< 
Hebrews ;  and  afterwards  the  light-armed  troops  of 
the  Greek  and  Unman  armies  consisted,  in  great  part, 
of  slingers.  The  sling  was  made  sometimes  <>f  leather, 
and  sometimes  of  a  doubled  rope,  with  a  broad  thong 
in  the  middle  to  receive  the  stone.  Tt  had  a  loop  at 
one  end,  by  which  it  was  (irmly  fixed  to  the  hand, 
the  other  extremity  i.-capinu  from  the  grasp  n-<  the 
stone  was  thrown.  As  a  supply  of  missiles,  the  Egyp 
tians  carried  a  bag  of  round  stones  hanging  over  the 
shoulder;  while,  on  the  sculptures  of  Nineveh,  a  heap 
of  pebbles,  ready  for  use.  lies  at  the  feet  of  the  slimier. 


their  not  having  been  permitted,  when 


children,  to  taste  their  food,  until  they  had  dislodged  it 


Komun  Slingcr.    Column  of  Antoninus. 


o.  The  Battle-axe  and  Mace.— Allusions  to  these 
weapons  have  been  supposed  to  occur  in  Ps.  xxxv.  3 
V~OJD>  trdyapts,  Herod.  4,  7(^,  Prov.  xxv.  is  (¥<££, 

LXX.  poiraXov).  and  Ps.  ii.  !».  liut  to  what  extent 
they  were  in  use  among  the  Hebrews  is  uncertain. 
The  Egyptian  battle-axe  occurs  frequently  on  the  sculp 
tures.  Tt  was  about  two  nr  two  and  a  half  feet  in 
length,  and  witli  ;i  single  blade :  no  instance  being 
found  of  a  double  axe,  resembling  the  bijtcimis  of  the 
Romans.  The  blade  was  secured  by  bronze  pins,  and  the 
handle  bound  in  that  part  with  thongs,  to  prevent  the; 
wood  from  splitting.  The  soldier,  on  a  march,  either 
belli  it  in  his  hand,  or  suspended  it  on  his  back,  with 
the  blade  downwards.  In  shape  the  blade  resembled 
the  segment  of  a  circle,  divided  at  the  back  into  two 
smaller  segments,  whose  three  points  were  fastened  to 
the  handle  with  metal  pins.  Tt  was  of  bronze,  and  some 
times  of  steel ;  and  the  length  of  the  handle  was  double 
that  of  the  blade,  and  sometimes  even  more. 


The  illustration,  Xo.  83,  represents  a  Uoman  soldier 
in  the  act  of  slinging;  lit  has  a  provision  of  stones  in 
the  fold  of  his  pallium  or  cloak. 

Besides  stones,  plummets  of  lead,  in  shape  like  an 
acorn,  were  thrown  from  slings,  and  could  be  sent  to  a 
distance  of  b'OO  feet.  The  Hebrew  light-armed  troops 
commonly  used  slings,  -jKi.  iii.  LT;  ;  it  was  the  favourite 
weapon  of  the  Benjamites,  who  could  sling  equally  well 
with  either  hand,  Ju.  xx.  id.  Shepherds  used  it  to 
drive  oil'  beasts,  l  S;i.  xvii.  4i>;  and  with  what  precision  the 
stone  could  be  cast,  appears  from  the  encounter  of 
David  with  the  giant. 

The  sling  does  not  appear  to  have  been  in  use  among 
the  early  Greeks  :  at  least  no  mention  of  it  occurs  in 
the  Iliad.  Afterwards  the  Aearnanians,  and  then  the 

Achacans,  attained  the  greatest  expertness  in  managing  j       The    Egyptian    pole-axe  was    about    three    feet    in 
it ;  but  of  all  the  peoples  of  antiquity,  the  natives  of     length,  with  a  large  metal  ball,  to  which  the  blade  was 
the  Balearic  Isles  (Majorca  and  Minorca1)  enjoyed  the     fixed.      It  is  usually  seen  in  the  hand  of  chiefs, 
greatest   celebrity  as   slingers.      Their  skill  is  said   to  \       The  mace  was  similar  to  the  pole-axe,  but  without  a 


[84. 


Egyptian  15attle-axes,  Maces,  and  Club.— Wilkinson. 

,  Uattle-axcs.        3,  Pole-axe.        1.  Maces.        ,',,  Curved  Club. 


AKNON 


Made.  It  was  of  \\ood,  bound  with  bronze,  about  two 
and  a  half  feet  in  length,  and  furnished  with  an  angular 
piece  of  metal  projecting  from  the  handle,  which  may 
have  been  intended  as  a  guard.  Another  kind  of  mace, 
of  frequent  occurrence  on  the  sculptures,  had  no  ball: 
and  though  not  so  formidable,  must  have  been  a  more 
manageable  weapon  than  the  former.  These  maces 
were  borne  by  the  heavy-armed  infantry ;  and  each 
charioteer  was  furnished  with  one  or  more,  which  he 
carried  in  a  case  attached,  with  the  quiver,  to  the  side 
of  his  car. 

( )n  the  monuments  is  sometimes  seen  a  curved  stick 
mow  called  by  the  Arabs  //,->•'/,<.  i.e.  tonguei,  which 
was  probably  used  both  as  a  missile,  and  as  a  club  in 
close  combat.  It  was  about  two  feet  and  a  half  in 
length,  and  made  of  a  hard  wood  resembling  thorn 
(Wilkinson,  Anc'u.nt  E<jijj>>..  \.  c.  :j). 

The  Chaldaie  battle-axe-  -r^in1;)  are  mentioned 
b\  Jt.  rciniah.  cli.  xlvi.  L'L'. 

At  an  early  period  royal  armouries  c^-s^  TC1  ap- 
pear  established.  >,..,•  _-K: .  \x .  i.;  '  . 

ARNON  [rti.s/iiitj.  ruarin'j\,\\.  torrent-stream,  which 
aiK.-iently  formed  the  northern  boundary  of  the  Moabite. 
and  the  southern  of  the  Aniorite  territory.  Nn.  \\i.  i;;; 
xxii.oO;  Do  ii.24,J(i,&j  It  rises  in  the  mountains  of 
(>ilead.  near  Katraiie.  and  (lows  by  a  circuitous  route 
into  the  Dead  Sea.  The  lied  oi  the  river  is  rocky,  and 
its  course  lies  sometimes  through  narrow  ami  precipi 
tous  ravines.  In  summer  it  becomes  nearly  dried  up, 
but  in  winter  forms  often,  what  its  name  imports,  and 
what  many  large  blocks  aloii^  its  course  tossed  con 
siderably  abo\e  the  proper  channel  clearly  evince  it  to 
be.  ;i  riishiirj-  torrent.  The  modern  name  ot  the  wadv 
is  Modjeb  or  Mojib.  Descriptions  are  Liven  of  it  in 
the  Ti-avds'ii  llurckliardt.  and  of  Irby  and  Mangles. 

AR'OER  | /<«/.<•</  or  ,i- .'///].  the  name  of  several  towns 
mentioned  in  Scripture-.  1.  The  first  is  one  on  the 
north  of  iht;  river  Arnon.  and  is  mentioned  anioiiu'  the 
cities  taken  from  Sihon.  kin:;'  of  tiie  A  monies,  and 
afterwards  a-si-_ncd  to  the  tribe  of  Keilben.  Ii.- 

J.,s.  xiii.  l(j         It    -I |.     however,    close    on   tin;    border 

of  Moab,  and  inJcivmiah,  cli.  xlviii.  in,  is  brought  into 
notice  in  c.  iiinectioii  \\ith  the  desolations  nt  that  coun 
try,  lint  it  is  not  expressly  said  to  have  belonged  to 
the  territory  of  Moab.  2.  A  town  of  this  name  is 
connected  with  the  tribe  of  ( iad.  as  one  of  several 
towns  built  by  that  tribe  after  the  conquest  of  Canaan, 
Nil.  x\\n  :;).  In  Jos.  xiii.  '2,'i.  it  is  described  as  beinu' 
"before  Kabbah,"  mcaniii'-;,  probably,  that  it  lav  on 
the  road  from  Palestine  to  Kabbah,  or  somewhat  to  the 
west  of  it.  Nothing  beside.,  is  known  of  it.  3.  There 
uas  also  an  Arnnn  in  the  south  of  the  tribe  ,,f  Judah. 
one  of  the  places  to  which  David  sent  portions  alter  his 
victory  over  the  Amah-kites  at  Ziklau.  1  >.i.  \.\x.  •>.  It 
is  supjiosed  by  Dr.  Kobinson  to  have  been  situated  in 
a  broad  wadv.  bearini;'  the  name  of  'Ararah.  about 
'20  geographical  miles  to  the  south  of  Hebron.  I  It- 
found  then-  remains  of  old  foundations,  and  various 
pits,  apparently  dug  for  the  reception  of  water. 

AR'PAD.  or  A  K  I'll  A  D.  a  Syrian  city,  somewhere  in  | 
the  neighbourhood  of  H.amath,  with  which  it  is  always  | 
associated    in   Scripture   as  having  alike  fallen   under  j 
the   stroke   of    Sennacherib,    •_' Ki.  xviii.  :;i;  Is.  x.  !>;  xxxvi.  KI.  | 
Various  places,  more   or  less  known,  have  been  fixed 
upon  by  different  writers  as  probably  the  same  with  it. 
but  certainty  has  not  yet  been  gained. 


:       ARPHAX'AD  [meaning  uncertain],  son  of  Shem, 
I  born  two  years  after  the  flood:  he  was  the  father  of 
Salah,  and  lived  till  he  was  4o6  years   old.      Josephus 
represents   him    as   the    stem-father  of  the  Chaldeans 
(A  itt.  i.  (i.  -4).  which  is  thought  by  some  to  be  favoured 
by  the  etymology  of  the  compound  word  arpa-kcshad, 
probably  Chaldee- boundary.      (See  Ciesenius,  Lc.c.,  and 
Bochart.  Pluilcy.  ii.  4.) 
ARROW,     tset  Amis. 

ARTAXER'XES.  in  Hebrew  AKTACHSHAST,  and 
AliTACHSHASHTA,  Ezr.  iv.  7,  8;  vii.  7;  other  variations  are 
those  of  the  Armenian.  Artun/tfi;  and  of  the  Persian, 
Arttu'fis/ut^.  It  is  supposed  to  be  compounded  of  two 
words  sis,rnifyiny  strait;/  and  kiiuj.  which  nearly  accords 
with  the  explanation  of  Herodotus  (1.  \  i.  <i,S),  who 
makes  it  "ui-eat  warrior."  The  name,  which  thus  ap 
pears  to  have  been  a  sort  of  title,  seems  beyond  doubt 
to  have  been  applied  in  Scripture  to  more  persons  than 
one.  though  commentators  are  not  altogether  agreed  as 
to  the  kind's  meant  on  the  ditl'erent  occasions  on  which 
it  is  emoloyed.  The  tir-t  Artaxerxes,  mentioned  in 
Kzra  iv.  cannot,  as  Jo>ejihus  imagined  (Anf.  xi.  '2.  1), 
l>e  Cambyses,  but  nui-t  rather  be  the  pseudo-Smerdis, 
who  tor  a  >hort  time  obtainetl  possession  of  the  throne, 
and  who  was  succeeded  by  harius  H\sta-pes,  i;.c.  Ci'2'2. 
In  Kzra  also.  ch.  iv.  24,  Darius  ajijiears  as  the  suc- 
cessor  of  th'-  Artaxerxes  previmi.-K  mentioned.  It 
was  duriiiL;'  the  time  of  that  monarch,  that  the  opera 
tions  connected  with  the  building  of  the  telnple  at 

Jerusalem  were  most  completely  suspended;  which  per 
fectly  accords  with  the  supposition  of  its  being  the  time 
of  the  usurpation  of  the  pseudo-Smerdis,  as  the  disorder 
and  feebleness  at  the  centre  could  scarcely  fail  to  make 
themselves  felt  in  the  provincts.  The  supposition  is 
further  confirmed  by  the  mention  of  an  Ahasuerus 
•  Aha-hverosh  i  in  verse  'i,  ulm  appears  to  have  come 
bet\\ecn  ( 'vru-  and  the  Artaxerxes  mentioned  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  chapter.  Hut  the  Artaxerxes  men 
tioned  in  K/.ra  vii.  1,  in  the  seventh  year  of  whose 
reign  K/.ra  \\ent  up  to  Jerusalem  \\ith  a  >econd  com 
pany  of  Israelites,  must  have  been  a  different  person. 
In  all  probability  this  was  the  Artaxerxes  I  .oiigimanus 
of  the  (  Jreeks,  the  same  who  is  also  called  Artaxerxes 
in  the  bonk  of  Xeheiniah.  Jle  ascended  the  throne 
in  li.c.  Ml.  Some  have  endeavoured  to  identify  the 
Arta\tT.xe>  of  K/.ra  with  \er.\cs;  but  as  there  is  every 
reason  tor  believing  this  monarch  to  be  the  Ahasuerus 
of  K/IM  i\.  ii.  it  is  not  probable  that  lie  should  be 
.-poken  of  in  the  ;-ame  book  under  two  such  different 
names.  Hut  as  this  part  of  sacred  history  is  very  frag 
nieiitary.  and  has  nothing  in  common  with  \\liat  re 
mains  of  the  profane  history  of  the  period,  as  it  i>  also 
without  any  distinct  specification  of  dates,  it  is  impos 
sible  to  attain  to  more  than  a  probable  opinion  as  to 

the  preei.-e  persons  indicated  by  the  >everal  names; 
and  there  will  always,  perhaps,  be  some  room  for  dif 
ference  of  opinion  mi  the  Mibject.  The  later  authorities, 
Winer,  Hertheau,  <  ieseliius,  Bertholdt.  .Vc.,  make  out 
the  coiTe.spondencc  in  the  manner  briefly  given  above. 

ARTEMAS,  the  name  of  a  Christian,  whom  St. 
Paul  had  si  nut.;  thoughts  of  sending  to  Crete,  when 
Titus  was  labouring  as  an  evangelist  in  the  island,  Tit. 
iii.  i-j;  but  of  whom  nothing  further  is  kno\\n. 

ARU'MAH,  a  town  near  Sheehem,  at  which  Abime- 
lech  encamped,  .In.  i\.  n.  Nothing  further  is  known  of  it. 

AR'VAD  [probably  wanderiny- place,  or  /i/acc  for 
fvL'j'divcf}.  the  Aradus  of  the  CJreeks— an  island,  with  a 


ASA 

town  on  it  of  the  same  name,  on  the  coast  of  Phoenicia. 
and  according  to  Stnilio  originally  occupied,  and  tlio 
town  built,  by  Sidoniau  fugitives  (xvi.  '-.  s'  1  '•'<•  1 -1  V 
The  island  was  little  more  than  a  rock,  of  aliout  a  mile 
in  circumference,  with  steep  side.-,  and  with  lofty  houses 
erected  on  it.  Antaradus  mi  the  i.]>|iositi-  coast,  also 
la-longed  to  it.  It  is  referred  t<«  in  K/e.  \xvii.  \  11  ; 
from  which  it  appears  that  its  inhabitants  had  a  con 
siderable  share  in  the  navigation  and  commerce  of  the 
L'ho'nieiaus.  They  would  seem  for  a  time  to  have  had 
a  king  of  their  own  (Arrian,  Ah.c.  ii.  90);  and  even  in 
the  time  of  the  .Maccabees  they  t'onned  so  considerable 
a  stat''.  that  the  Roman  consul  is  represented  as  hav 
ing  made  known  to  them  the  alliance  entered  into 
with  Simon  Maccabeus,  i  Mac.  xv.  ss  I  ts  modern  name 
is  Ruail,  and  from  the  good  anchorage  it  affords  on  the 
side  toward  the  mainland,  it  is  still  frequented.  The 
inhahitants.  who  mimlier  near  IDIHI.  are  chiefly  em 
ployed  as  pilots,  shipbuilders,  and  sailors.  A  good 
many  of  the  coasting  vessels  are  huilt  there. 

A'SA  [ItcaUii'i,  or  j,/ii/K,'ri(i)i.],  the  name  of  the  son 
and  successor  of  Abi jail,  and  the  third  king  of  Judali, 
after  tlie  separation  from  Israel,  1  Ki  xv. ;  i?  Oh.  xvi.  He 
reigned  forty-one  years,  the  comnieneeinent  of  whieli 
is  variously  assigned  to  <j',r>,  $~>S,  !>tj"»  n.e.  in  1  Ki. 
xv.  In,  he  is  said  to  have  had  the  same  mother  as  his 
father  (ver.  2),  namely.  ]Maachah,  the  daughter  of 
Ahishaluin.  Tliere  can  be  little  douht  that  his  grand 
mother  is  there  meant,  and  that  she  is  designated  his 
mother,  because,  heinu'  himself  a  comparative  youth 
when  he  ascended  the  throne,  she  was  assumed  as  the 
Hi'/Hi'ufi,  or  reigning  queen,  the  queen-mother  in  this 
case,  who  was  to  have  a  recognized  place  of  honour  and 
influence  around  the  throne.  But  this  arrangement 
did  not  continue  long  :  for  Asa  proved  to  he  of  a  better 
spirit  in  religion  than  those  who  immediately  preceded 
him  on  tlie  throne  of  Judah  :  and  setting  his  heart  on 
the  removal  of  the  badges  and  instruments  of  idolatry 
out  of  the  land,  he  also  removed  Maachah  from  the 
place  ho  had  at  first  assigned  her  in  the  kingdom,  be 
cause  she  had  made  an  idol  in  a  grove  (or,  as  it  should 
rather  he,  to  Ashera,  the  Sidonian  Venus,  i  Ki.  xv.  i.'fV 
This  idol  Asa  caused  to  be  cut  down,  and  burned 
beside  the  brook  Kidron.  Other  reformations  were 
carried  forward  by  Asa,  and  all  the  more  flagrant 
abuses  rectified,  only,  it  is  said  in  1  Ki.  xv.  14.  the 
high  places  were  not  removed ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  2  Ch.  xiv.  -2.  the  high  places  are  among  the 
things  mentioned  as  having  been  taken  away.  The 
same  apparent  contradiction  occurs  in  the  case  of 
Jehoshaphat,  compare  -2  Ch.  xvii.  0  and  xx.  33.  And  the 

most  natural  explanation  seems  to  be,  that  the  high 
places  were  of  two  sorts — one  kind  appropriated  to  the 
worship  of  false  deities  (hence  sometimes  connected 
with  the  Ashera  images,  as  at  2  Ch.  xvii.  6),  which 
would  be  abolished  along  with  the  grosser  forms  of 
idolatry  ;  and  another  in  which  the  worship  was 
avowedly  paid  to  Jehovah.  The  latter,  as  only  an 
irregularity  in  form  (though  one  that  was  very  apt  to 
degenerate  into  more  serious  error),  might  be  tolerated. 
at  least  for  a  time,  even  in  a  reforming  age  ;  and  such 
seems  to  have  been  the  case  in  the  time  of  Asa.  The 
liiu'h  places  were  removed  in  so  far  as  they  had  been 
employed  in  the  service  of  false  gods;  but  they  were 
allowed  to  continue  as  convenient  meeting-places,  where 
the  people  had  been  wont  to  assemble  for  the  purpose 
of  doing  homage  to  Jehovah — their  zeal  not  being  yet 


•1  ASA 

strong  enough  to  carry  them  as  often  as  they  should 
have  gone  to  Jerusalem.  Asa  appears  to  have  been 
cliielly  engaged  during  the  first  ten  years  of  his  reign, 
which  were  years  of  external  peace,  in  the  prosecution 
of  those  religious  reforms:  but  in  the  eleventh  year  a 
formidable  adversary  appeared  in  the  person  of  Xerah, 
the  Ethiopian,  who  came  against  him.  it  is  said,  "with 
an  army  of  a  thousand  thousand,  and  three  hundred 
chariots,''  :M'h.  xiv.  d.  It  seems  to  have  been  simply  a 
marauding  expedition  :  for  no  reason  is  mooted  in  eon- 
nection  with  the  political  relations  of  tlie  two  countries 
tn  warrant  Mich  a  hostile  imaMon.  But  it  was  de 
feated  of  its  object :  for  Asa  and  his  people,  without 
neglecting  military  preparations,  east  themselves  on  the 
divine  protection,  and  obtained  a  decisive  victory  over 
the  enemy.  This  gratifying  result  was  blessed  to  the 
further  spread  of  godliness  at  home  ;  for,  .seeing  that 
(lod  was  with  them.  Asa  and  the  more  faithful  portion 
of  the  people  devoted  themselves  anew  to  the  work  of 
reformation,  to  which  they  were  also  stimulated  and 
encouraged  by  the  address  of  Azariah  the  prophet,  on 
their  return  from  the  conflict,  2Ch.  xv.  !-•>.  They  were 
now  joined  by  many  out  of  the  other  tribes,  who  aloni:' 
with  tlie  people  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  kept  a.  gram  I 
festival  of  joy  and  thanksgiving  in  the  fifteenth  year  of 
the  reign  of  Asa. 

The  festival  now  mentioned  was  probably,  in  a  reli 
gions  point  of  view,  the  crowning  period  of  Asa's  reign  : 
at  least,  after  this,  partial  defections  begin  to  appear, 
which  u'row  at  length  into  manifestly  improper  courses, 
llaasha,  king  of  Israel,  jealous  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
kingdom  of  Judah,  and  anxious  to  impose  a  check  on 
the  influx  of  people  to  it  from  the  northern  parts  of 
Israel,  set  about  fortifying  Ramah,  which  lay  on  the 
north  of  Jerusalem,  and  commanded  the  main  road  in 
that  direction.  This  is  said  to  have  been  done  in  the 
thirty-sixth  year  of  the  reign  of  Asa,  L'Ch.  xvi.  i;  but  as 
Baasha  beu'an  to  reign  in  the  third,  and  died  in  the 
twenty-sixth  year  of  Asa's  government,  i  Ki.  xv.  •_'%:;:;, 
there  must  be  some  mistake  in  the  period  assigned  for 
the  fortifying  of  If  amah  :  or,  perhaps,  the  thirty-six 
vears  mentioned  must  be  understood,  not  of  the  reign 
of  Asa,  but  of  the  separate  existence  of  the  kingdom  of 
Judah.  over  which  he  reigned.  Such  is  the  view  taken 
by  some  commentators,  which,  at  all  events,  brings  the 
circumstance  to  much  about  the  time  when  it  must 
have  taken  place,  namely,  to  the  sixteenth  or  seven 
teenth  year  of  Asa's  reign.  What  we  have  chiefly  to 
notice,  however,  in  connection  with  it,  is  the  question 
able  policy  of  Asa  to  counterwork  the  hostile  attempt 
of  Baasha.  He  entered  into  a  league  with  Ben-hadad 
of  Syria,  and  prompted  him  with  gifts  of  money  to 
make  war  upon  Israel.  This  had  the  desired  effect  of 
compelling  Baasha  to  desist  from  the  fortification  of 
Ramah;  but  it  indicated  a  misgiving  of  heart  in  Asa 
himself,  in  respect  to  the  great  source  of  strength  and 
hope,  and  drew  down  upon  him  the  solemn  rebuke  of 
heaven.  The  rebuke  was  administered  by  the  mouth 
of  Hanani  the  prophet,  who  charged  him  with  having 
exhibited  a  spirit  of  distrust  toward  God.  and  unduly 
relied  on  the  king  of  Israel ;  in  consequence  of  which 
he  declared,  there  might  certainly  be  looked  for  the 
occurrence  of  future  wars,  though  none  such  have  been 
expressly  recorded.  Asa  was  irritated,  not  humbled, 
by  the  rebuke  thus  administered  to  him  ;  he  even  so  far 
departed  from  the  better  spirit  that  had  animated  his 
earlier  years,  as  to  lay  violent  hands  on  the  prophet. 


ASAHEL 


ASH  1)01) 


and  cast  him  into  prison,  L'di.  xvi.  in.  This,  it  may  be 
hoped,  was  only  a  temporary  outburst  of  unsanctified 
passion.  I.ut  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that  Asa 
ever  properly  recovered  his  lost  ground  ;  and  his  case 
must  be  added  to  the  number  of  those  who.  though 
they  may  not  whollv  depart  from  the  faith,  yet  have 
their  strength  weakened  in  the  way,  and  end  their  spi 
ritual  course  very  differently  from  the  manner  in  \\liich 
it  was  begun.  For  Asa.  we  are  informed,  acted  op 
pressively  to  others,  as  well  as  to  Hanani  ;  and  in  his 
latter  days,  when  afflicted  with  a  disease  in  his  feet,  lie 
gave  way  again  to  the  same  distrustful  -pirit.  for  which 
lie  had  been  rebuked  by  the  prophet;  he  sought  to  the 
physicians,  but  not  to  the  L»nl.  He  appears  to  have 
been  a  man  more  distinguished  for  the  soundness  of 
his  understanding  in  spiritual  things,  than  fur  tin  H\  rli 
ness  or  vigour  of  his  faith.  He  clearlv  perceived  the 
sin  and  folly  of  idolatry,  and  so  far  a<  concerned  tin-  re 
moval  of  it>  abominations.  his  measure-  were  promptly 
taken  and  resolutely  pursued.  I'.ut  in  the  steadfast 
and  onward  prosecution  of  the  good  his  heart  faltered, 
and  when  the  work  of  external  ivform  was  accom 
plished,  it  seemed  as  if  }\<-  had  nothing  more  to  do  for 
Cod:  i-onsec|ueiitly  hi-  i '•  n-ouraded  i-ather  than  ad 
vanced:  and  onlv  on  the-  ne^athc  side  fulfilled  the 
covenant  into  which  In-  entered  alonu  with  lu<  peojile. 
"to  seek  the  Lord  Cod  of  their  fatliers  with  all  their 
heai't,  and  all  their  soul,"  -ih  \\  i;  It  u  a.-  :\  marked 
and  mournful  failing,  but  one  that  unfortunately  has 
too  maiiv  exemplifications  in  every  a^v  of  tin-  church. 

AS'AHEL  [muili  uf  <.<>d],  ne'phev,  of  David,  and 
brother  of  .li.ab  and  Ahi-hai.  1 1  is  chiel  peculiarity 
was  hi.-  swiftness  of  foot,  whieh  probablv  .-a\ed  l.;m  in 
maiiv  an  em-ountei-.  hut  at  last  co.-t  him  hi>  life  :  for  in 

hi-    hot     pursuit     after    Abller,    lie    MiH'elvd     llilll.-elf     to    lie 

thru-t  tln-oii-li  by  the  spear  of  the  Jiving  but  .-till 
valiant  chief.  •_'  Sa.  ii  (Si  •  \  ! 

ASAPIl!.',',vm///,/-oiT-,/A,Vo,'j.  1.  A  Lcvite.  anelson 

of  1'iarachia.-.  U'li  vi  .:;.;  \,  17  111  "J  I'll.  \\i\.  I'.O  he  i> 
designated  a  seer,  whose  etiusimis,  aloii-_r  with  tho.-e  of 
I  >avid.  were  adapted  to  the  celebration  of  (  [oil's  piai- 

ill  song.         This    110  doubt     refer-    to    eel-tain    of     the    p-;dlll- 

as  the  com])o.-itioii  of  A.-aph.  Twi-l\e  of  these  bear 
his  name  I'salin  b.  and  all  from  Ixxiii.  to  Kxxiii.  in 
elusi\e.  1 1  i.-  therefore  to  rate  the  place  and  calling  of 
Asa])h  too  low  to  characterize  him  a.-  simply  an  eminent 
musician,  and  on  this  a. -count  appointed  to  preside  over 
tlie  choral  M-rvici-s  instituted  bv  1  >a\  id  in  connection 
with  the  tahemacle-worship.  He  had  (|ualitications  of 
a  higher  kind  for  such  a  service,  beinu'  one  to  whom  tli-- 
Spirit  of  (iod  uave  LTrace  to  indite  -acred  songs,  as  well 
as  to  direct  and  iv-rulate-  the  ehantiiiLT  "f  .-neb  soii^-  in 
the  service  of  the  sanctuary.  Kve-n  of  his  sons,  who 
inherited  a  portion  of  hi-  spirit,  alonu  with  those  oi 
lleman  and  Jcduthun,  it  is  said  that  they  "  were  sepa 
rated  bv  1  >a\  id  to  prophesy  with  har]>s,  with  psalteries, 
and  with  cymbals,"  i  ch  xxv.  l,  indicating  the  important 
nature  of  the  work  gi\vn  them  to  do.  and  the  high 
position  of  the  persons  appointed  to  perform  it.  The 
separation  of  the  Asaph  familv  for  this  work  seems  to 
have  been  perpetuated  for  many  generations  (for  we 
read  of  them  still  in  K/r.  ii.  41  :  Xe.  vii.  4  It,  though, 
doubtless,  it  was  the  official  charge  only  in  connection 
with  the  choral  services  of  the  temple,  not  the  higher 
endowments  bestowed  at  first  on  the  family,  that  is  to 
be  understood  as  thus  descending  to  a  late  posterity. — 
2.  Beside  the  Asaph  of  David's  time,  there  was  one  a 


recorder  to  King  Hezekiah,  2Ki.  xviii.  is,  and  another  a 
keeper  of  the  royal  forests  under  Artaxerxes,  No.  ii.  s. 

AS'CALON.     Zee  ASKKI.ON. 

AS'ENATH.  an  Egyptian  term,  and  the  name  of 
the  daughter  of  I'otipherah,  priest  of  On,  who  became 
the  spouse  of  Joseph.  (Sec  JUSKPH.)  It  is  generally 
supposed  that  the  latter  part  of  the  name  is  that  of  the 
goddess  Xcith,  the  Minerva  of  the  Egyptians  :  and  the 
compound  term  is  by  Ceseiiius  conceived  to  mean,  she 
tr/in  is  of  A  «'//<.  .lablonski  interpreted  it  to  mean 
worsttippir  >.>f  Xi'ith.  In  such  a  matter,  certaintv  is 
unattainable. 

ASH.  hi  the  derisive  description  of  the  idol-maker. 
K  xliv.  1 1.  we  are  told 

••  He  howrtli  him  ilnwu  ev.laix 
lit-  taki/th  the  e-yiuvs-.  ami  I!K-  eak. 
Whirl,  ho  s;ivni;theiH-th  fur  himself  aiiUMij;  the  trees  t.f  tin- 

furest  ; 
Ik-  jilanti-tli  an  n*/t.  ami  tin-  vain  doth  nourish  it." 

'  The  Hehn  '-\    i-  —X  (orcn).   which  probablv  sutlX'ested  to 

translators  the  Latin  <>rn  u?  ;  but  we  have  no  evidence 
that  i  ither  the  manna  ash  (Oi'nus  ( tirujxtn},  or  our 
own  noble  a-h  tree  (Fraxinus  uccflsloi'),  is  a  native  of 
Palestine.  Martin  Luther  translates  it  fidin;  the 
Dutch  version  Jm  lolmboomi.  and  the  oldest  of  all. 
the  Septuagint,  jitm  (Trirr?).  whit-h.  as  usual,  is  fol 

lowed    bv    tile    X'lllu'ate    (fii'liUf.  [.I.   II.  | 

ASHDODf/o/v/rt'a/y./r^-r.  cast l<  ].  the  Azotus  of  the 

Cr.-ek-  and    Unmans,  modern  name   Ksdud.  1  Mac  iv  if,: 

A.-,  via    in;    a    cit^    of    the    1 'hilistines,    on    the   sea-coast, 

about     mid -way    between    ( !a/.a    and    Joppa,    and    the 

apital    of    one    of    their    live    states,    ,I..S  xiii. ::-.  I  Sa.  vi  17 

n  the  ori--in.il  di\i-ion  of   Palestine  amon^   the  twelve 

'tribes,  Ashdod  wa-  assigned  to  the  tribe  of  .ludah. 
.!•--  \.  i7;  but  it  n  maiiied  tor  many  generations  in  the 
hands  of  it-  ancient  inhabitant^.  It  was  there  that 
the  ark  of  Coil  was  dishonoured  bv  bein^  carried  as  a 
trophy  into  tin-  tempi-  of  a  heathen  deity  :  but  there 
al.-o  that  the  superior  miidit  and  -l.rx  ,,f  the  Cod  of 
Israel  became  manifest  in  the  prostration  of  Damon's 
image  in  the  temple,  i  Sa.  \  i  \V!ieii  the  I'liilistincs 
generally  wen-  subdued  by  the  Israelites,  this  town 
must  al-o  have  been  subject  to  their  sway;  but  we 
read  of  no  special  acts  of  violence  of  marks  of  subjuga 
tion  being  inflicted  upon  it  till  the  time  of  I'/./.iah, 
who  "broke  down  tin-  wall  of  Ashdod  and  built  cities 
about  it."  2C'li.  xxvi  i;.  Even  this  did  not  prove  more 
than  a  teniporarv  humiliation:  for  upwards  of  a  cen 
tury  later,  it  withstood  for  twenty-nine  years  the  force 
of  Iv-rypt,  the  longest  sie^e  on  record,  though  at  last  it 
was  taken  by  I'.-animeticus  about  i;.c.  (i:>l)  ;  and  when, 
more  than  a  century  later  still,  tin-  .lews  returned  from 
Mabylon.  the  population  of  Ashdod  was  in  so  flourish 
ing  a  condition,  that  the  women  of  the  place  became  a 
snare  to  them,  and  for  taking  wives  from  Ashdod  thev 
incurred  the  severe  reproof  of  Xehemiah,  No.  xiii.  23, 24. 
To  have  been  able  to  survive  such  changes  and  assaults, 
prove-;  it  to  have  been  a  place  of  great  strength,  and 
well  situated  as  to  the  general  sources  of  prosperity 
and  greatness.  I'.ut  its  decav  was  only  a  question  of 
time.  The  prophets  gave  clear  intimations  of  its  ulti- 

'  mate  ruin.  Jo.  xxv.  UH;  Am  i.  --,  &c. ;  and  in  the  wars  of  the 
Maccabees  it  suffered  so  severely  that  even  then  the 
predictions  appear  to  have  been  in  good  measure  ful- 
iilled,  i  JIac.  v.  o>.;  x.  77,  seq.;  xi.4.  In  the  gospel  age,  how 
ever,  it  was  still  a  place  of  some  note,  and  was  bestowed 
by  Augustus  a*  a  gift  on  Salome  (Joseph,  xvii.  l.°>,  5h 


ASHKK 


ASHTAROTH-KARXAIM 


Jt,  was  amonu'  the  places  visited  l>y  Philip  the  evan 
gelist,  Ac.  viii.  4i>;  and  became  at  an  early  period  tin- 
seat  ni'  a  Christian  church.  A  bishop  from  A/otus 
was  present  at  the  councils  of  Nice  and  Chalcedon,  also 
at  those  of  Seleiicia  and  Jerusalem.  Hut  this  is  no 
proof  of  any  great  importance  having  at  the  time  lie- 
longed  to  the  place  in  a  political  respect.  From  the 
dawn  of  European  civilization,  it  lias  been  knov.ii  only 
as  an  Arali  village,  situated  on  a  grassy  hill,  and  pos 
sessing  in  its  environs  the  remains  of  former  greatness. 
So  it  is  described  liy  irby  and  Man-'les.  wh.)  detected 
among  the  ruins  broken  arches  and  fragments  of  mai'ble 
pillars. 

ASH'ER  [lap,ni.  fortunate],  the  son  of  Jacob  by 
Zilpah.  the  handmaid  of  Leah,  Ge.xxx,  13,  and  the  patri 
archal  hea.d  of  one  of  the  twelve  tribes.  The  bless 
ings  pronounced,  iirst  by  Jacob,  and  afterwards  by 
Moses,  upon  this  tribe,  consist  chiefly  of  a  play  on  the 
import  of  the  name  Asher,  and  an  indication  that  the 
reality  should  correspond  with  the  happy  omen  implied 
in  it:  there  should  belong  to  the  tribe  a  rich  portion 
and  a  numerous  ollsprinir.  Gc.xlix.20;  l)e.  xx\iii.  24.  The 
tribe  soon  began  to  realixe  this  description  :  for,  though 
Asher  himself  had  only  four  sons  and  one  daughter, 
who  became  the  heads  of  so  many  families,  Xu.  xxvi. 
4i-!i;,  yet  by  the  time  of  the  departure  from  Egypt, 
they  were  41,;1(M»  strong,  and  at  the  numbering  toward 
the  close  of  the  wilderness  sojourn,  they  ranked  the 
fifth  of  the  tribes  in  multitude— having  53,400  full- 
grown  men,  ver.tr.  On  the  division  of  the  Promised 
.Land,  their  portion  was  assigned  them  in  one  of  the 
most  fertile  regions,  stretching  along  the  sea-coast  be 
tween  Carmel  and  Lebanon,  and  bounded  on  the  east 
by  the  territories  of  Zebulon  and  Xaphtali.  The  in 
heritance,  however,  was  but  partially  conquered  at  the 
first,  ,lu.  i.:u,:>2;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  was  never 
by  any  means  fully  possessed,  especially  on  the  northern 
side,  which  stretched  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Zido- 
nians.  There  seems  no  proper  ground  for  excluding, 
with  Kitto,  the  district  proper  of  Zidon  from  the  inherit 
ance  of  Asher:  the  passage,  in  particular,  of  Jos.  xix. 
'25,  seq.,  seems  plainly  to  favour  the  common  view.  In 
a  moral  aspect  the  proximity  of  Asher  to  the  idolatrous 
and  dissolute  superstition  of  the  Zidonians  must  have 
been  anything  but  favourable  to  their  spiritual  health  : 
and  as  some  of  the  worst  abominations  that  flowed  in 
upon  the  covenant-people  had  their  origin  in  that  quar 
ter,  we  may  well  conceive  that  the  Ashorites,  who  were 
the  nearest  to  the  region  of  pollution,  were  also  among 
the  first  to  fall  under  its  corrupting  influence  ;  the  more 
so,  as  the  corn,  the  wine,  and  the  oil,  which  their  ter 
ritory  yielded  in  such  abundance,  must  naturally  have 
led  them  to  cultivate  a  close  commercial  intercourse 
with  the  populous  but  non-agricultural  districts  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon.  Accordingly,  the  Asherites  never  appear 
taking  any  prominent  part  in  the  religious  struggles  of 
their  country;  the  great  deliverances  all  came  from 
other  quarters. 

ASHES  have  a  considerable  place  in  the  symbolical 
and  descriptive  imagery  of  Scripture,  and  usually  in  a 
somewhat  different  way  from  what  the  usages  of  mo 
dern  European  society  would  naturally  (suggest.  The 
custom  of  burning  a  taken  city  has  been  common  in 
all  ag.-s:  and  so  to  reduce  a  place  or  country  to  ashes, 
is  a  general  and  well-understood  expression  everywhere 
for  effecting  a  complete  destruction,  or  producing  a 
total  desolation.  Thus,  also  in  •_>  IV.  ii.  *;.  -'turning 


the  cities  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  into  ashes,"  Kzo. 
xxviii.lv  Hut  by  far  the  most  frequent  figurative  em 
ployment  of  the  term  in  Scripture  is  derived  from  the 
practice,  which  from  the  earliest  times  prevailed  in  the 
liast,  of  sitting  down  among  ashes,  or  covering  one's 
self  with  ashes,  as  a  symbol  of  grief  and  mourning. 
Thus  Job  in  the  time  of  his  calamity  sat  down  among  the 
ashes;  and  when  expressing  at  the  close  the  pungency 
of  his  contrition  for  past  sins  and  shortcomings,  he  said 
"  he  repented  in  dust  and  ashes,"  <-h.  ii  *;x!ii.  <;.  A  great 
variety  of  allusions  have  reference  to  this  custom. 
Ka.  iv.  i;  Is.  Iviii.  ;'>;  Ixi. :'.-,  Jo  vi.  20;  Mat.  xi.  21.  «c.  Sometimes  the 
image  is  carried  a  little  further,  and  persons  are  spoken 
of  as  tatln;/  ashes,  turning  them  not  only  into  a  sort  of 
attire,  but  even  into  an  article- of  food,  iv  cii.  <••;  is.  xiiv.  20; 
It  is  the  deepest  misery  and  degradation  that  is  meant 
thereby  to  be  expressed.  These  are  the  more  peculiar 
allusions  of  this  sort  in  Scripture;  but  occasionally  also 
reference  is  made  to  the  light  and  comparatively  worth 
less  nature  of  ashes — especially  of  such  ashes  as  form 
the  refuse  of  wood — which  may  lie  driven  about  by  the 
wind,  or  heedlessly  trodden  upon  by  the  foot  of  man. 
In  this  respect  Abraham  spoke  of  himself  as  ''dust  and 
ashes,"  and  the  wicked  are  represented  as  "  ashes 
under  the  soles  of  the  feet"  to  the  righteous,  <;e.  xviii  27. 

ASH'IMA,  the  name  of  a  divinity  worshipped  by 
the  people  of  Hamath,  and  of  doubtful  origin.  It  is 
mentioned  only  once  in  Scripture,  •>  Ki.  xvii.  :>.(>.  Some  of 
the  rabbinical  Jews  report  that  the  deity  was  wor 
shipped  under  the  form  of  a  goat,  and  a  goat  without 
wool.  -If  so — for  the  tradition  cannot  be  relied  on 
with  any  certainty — it  was  probably  one  of  the  wide 
spread  forms  of  the  Pan  \\oi-ship  of  heathen  antiquity. 
Various  other  conjectures  have  been  thrown  out,  on 
which  it  is  needless  to  enter,  as  none  of  them  have 
been  established. 

ASH'KENAZ,  the  proper  name  of  a  son  of  Gomer. 
and  grandson  of  Japhet,  Gc.  x. :;.  In  Je.  Ii.  i>7,  it  is 
coupled  with  Ararat  and  Minni,  apparently  as  the 
name  of  a  province  and  people  somewhere  about  Ar 
menia.  The  modern  Jews  have  identified  it  with  Ger 
many,  but  this  is  universally  regarded  as  an  entirely 
erroneous  application  of  the  term. 

ASH'PENAZ.  chief  of  the  Mahyloiiian  eunuchs,  to 
whom  was  committed  the  charge  of  Daniel  and  his 
companions,  Da.  i.  .",7. 

ASH'TAROTH,  or  AS'TAPOTH,  one  of  the  ancient 
towns  in  the  district  of  Bashan,  and  one  of  the  seats  of 
Og,  the  king  of  that  region  at  the  time  of  the  conquest 
of  Canaan.  He  is  said  to  have  dwelt  at  Ashtaroth. 
and  at  Edrei.  Do.  i.  4;  Jos.  ix.  uijxii.  4.  Tn  the  subsequent 
division  of  the  land  it  fell  to  the  half-tribe  of  Manas- 
seh.  and  was  made  a  Levitical  city  by  being  given  to 
the  Gershonites,  Jos.  xiii.  ?>i;  iCh.  vi.7i.  The  name  was  in 
all  probability  derived  from  the  female  deity  that  from 
remote  times  usurped  so  much  of  the  worship  which 
prevailed  in  the  Syrian  portions  of  Asia.  (See  ASHTO- 
KKTH.1  The  place  is  reported  by  Jerome  to  have  stood 
about  six  miles  from  Edrei:  but  the  site  has  not  been 
identified  in  modern  times. 

ASH'TAROTH-KARNA'IM,  or  Ashtaroth  of  the 
Two  Horns,  the  Horned,  mentioned  in  Ge.  xiv.  5,  as  one 
of  the  cities  occupied  by  the  Ilephaim,  and  smitten  by 
Chederlaomer  and  his  host,  is  generally  supposed  to  be 
the  same  place  as  that  simply  called  Ashtaroth.  The 
name  Kurnaini  was  probably  applied  to  it  from  the 


ASHTOTCKTK 


ASHTORETH 


identification  of  the  goddess  Ashtoivth  with  the  moon,  j  verbs  "to  serve,  worship,  seek  to.  o-o  after,  o-o  a  whoi-in-- 

or  from  the  ox-head  symbol  used  in  her  worship,     it  is  after,  put  away."  Me.:   but  never  to  "set  up"  or  "cast 

also  supposed  to  be  the  same  that  in  later  history  was  down,"  to  "adorn"1  or  to  "break  in  pieces."      And  we 

called  simply  Karnaim.    i  Mac.  v.  2fi,  43    (Josephus,    A  lit.  rind  the  same  distinction   observed    in   the   use  of  the 

xii.  8.  S  -L  Xc.i     But  this  cannot  be  reckoned  certain.  corresponding   plural   Ashtatv.th.    wliich   is   associated 

ASHTORETH,  the  great  goddess  of  the  Canaanitish  only  with  the  verbs  "serve"  and  "put  awav." 

nations  i\arapTTj  77  /j.fyicrTt}.  Sanchon.),  the  partner  of  :       'i'he  true  explanation  of  the  plural  forms  Baalim  and 

Baal,  with  wh,.se  worship  that  of  Ashtoreth   was   fre-  |  Ashtaroth  is  very  much  the  same  as  that  of  the  plural 

queiitly  associated,      hi  the  only  two  passages,  in  which  form  iiL.hini.     Thev  describe  these  false  o-ods,  or  the 

the  singular  form  of  the  name  appears  in   the  Hebrew  .  powers  which  these  u'ods  represent  and  embodv.  in  the 

Scriptures,  IKi.xi.  r,,. '!3,  and- Ki.xxiii.l:;,  it  is  followed  by  the  '  wide  extent    of   their   influence,    and   the  varied  forms 

title  ''God  of  the  Zidonians,'' from  which  it  is  evident  of  their  manifestation  (comp.   Movers,  J>1,~  /'i',i'>iii:iii; 

that  Zidou  was  one  of  the  principal  seats-  probably  the  vol.  i.  p.  172-17-")).     If  this  be  so,  we  have  in  the  prevail- 

principal  seat— of  lier  worship  in  Canaan:   a  conclusion  in-  use  of  the  form  Ashtaroth  anotlier  evidence  of  the 

vvhich  quite  accords  with  the  statements  of  the  Creek  predominance   of    the    Ashtoivth    worship  aiiion^-   tlie 

and  Uomaii  writers,  and  with  the  monumental  evidence  nation-  of  Canaan.- 

furnislied   by  the  inscriptions  which  still  survive  in  the  'I'he   important  question  now   presents   itself.    What 

Phoenician  tongue  iCesenius,  .!/<,,/.  Phan.  and  This.)  was  the  character  of  tliis  worship,  of  tin    wide  pivval- 

|The    longest   and   m...,t    imjiorlaiit  of   these   inst  rip-  enec  of  wh                     ,  the  most  ancient  times  we  have 

tions  wliich  ha.-;  yet    b  en    brought   to   !i_dit.  i-  that  on  so  d<                                      'I'M-  i-  a  question  to   \\hicli  we 

tlie  sarcophagus  of  a  XidMiii.ni    kin^  railed    Ksiimna/ar.  to  u'ivc  a  perfectly  satisfactory  reply,  partlv 

accidentally  discovered  at  Xidon  in  the  lie    Hebrew   Scriptures    \\hirii    constitnti     our 

of  l,xri."».       The    inscription    records  the   building  of    a  principal  source  of  information,  heinu'oriuinallv  intended 

tempi.'  for   the    worship  of    Astarte   by    the    king   and  for  the  use  .if  those  who  were   tliemselves  for  the  most 

l'i-;   mother,  Am-Astarte   by  nam.-.  who   was  h.-rsrlf  a  [.art  well  ac  mainled  with  the  character  of  t  lie  Aslitor- 

!      has    lie   n   tran-lat.-d    by  eth  rites,    present    u-    rather    with    general    statements 

several   scholars.      Th.-  translation  of    1,'odi-vr   \\ill   be  than  with  any  detailed  account  of  these  rites,  and  partly 

found  in  tl;.  •/;•-•....-';'   ,i    •  f'.M.i,'.  ix.  i;  17-  •  because  of  the  confusion  introduced    into  tin    notices, if 

But  the  worship  of  Ashtoreth  \\                        ;uis  om-  this  s                     ch    ma\    1-     gathered    t'n-m    the   Creek 

fined  within  the  narro\\   limits  of  Phu-nicia.      We  have  and   Itoman    writers,  b\    the    desire  of  these  writers  to 

scriptural  evii leiici          I                                er  the  whole  of  coniu                      -   of  the    Ashtoreth    worship  with  rites 

Canaan.      For  we  iiml  it  prevailing  not  only  among  the  of  their  own,  which   seemed  to   them  l.>  have  a  similar 

Philistines  on   tin                       I                                       ewise  origin  and  import,  thou.i'h   the  resemblance  of  the  one 

in  the  region  east  of  .Jordan,  where  it  n                       iken  to  the  other  was  by  no  means  perfect.      Still,  tlie  re  a  iv 

''I'm  root  at  ::  very  early  period,  i  ,M!  i-oiirln-ioii-,  on  the  correctness  of  which 

of  that  region   bein--  called  by  the  name  of   Ashtoreth.  we  may  reh   with  contideiice. 

;  Me.  i.  1;  J..s.  i.\  in;  xii.4;  xiii  [:;,    i;  n    .•..;•;  \i.  1 1.1  Tlie  first  jiassage   in    \\hich    the  name  Ashtaroth,  as 

tt  is  remarkable,  however,  that    in   the  name  of  this  the  name  of  a    heathen   -odde-s.   appear-    is. In.  ii.   1:1. 

city,    Ashtaroth  or    A   hteroth- Karnaim,    tlir  goddess  where  we  are  told  h<iw   tin-    i-i'aelite-   served   Jehovah 

name  Ashtoreth  appears   n-.t  in  its  singular  but    in  its  all  the  days  of  Joshua,  and   all  the   davs  of    thr  elders 

plural  form.      This  is  true  likewise  of  the  goddess-name  th  ii  outlived  Joshua  :   but  on  their  death  "there  arose 

it^rli.  whii'li  is  met  with  more   i'n  quently  in  tin-  plural  •          iieratioii  after  them  uliich  kin-w  not  Jehovah, 

form  Ashtaroth   than  in   the   singular   form  A.--htoi-rth,      llor  yet  the  works  \\hich  he  had  done  f-,|-  j-rarl 

eonip.  Ju.  ii  I  •  i.  in.  k  Jeho\ah  and  served  I'.aal  and  Ash- 
It  is  e\  id,  .nt  that  the  use  of  this  form  must  lie  ex  taroth."  (.'omjiare  with  this  Ju.  x.  (i,  "And  the  children 
|ihdn.-d  in  the  same  wav  as  the  use  of  the  correspond-  of  Is]  evil  again  in  the  sight  of  J.hovah,  and 
iii'j;  plural  form  I'.aalim,  witli  which  it  is  so  fi-e.juentlv  servetl  Baalim  and  Ashlar-. ;b.  and  the  L;ods  of  Svi'ia. 
associated.  Xow,  that  the  plural  fonn  Baalim  does  not  and  the  ;ods  of  /idon.  and  the  gods  of  Moab,"  .V;-. 
denote,  a-  (n-enius  and  otlu-rs  have  supposed,  ima-jv-  1'Voin  tli.  se  passages  it  appears  that  amon-;  the  multi- 
orothermaterials}-mbols,rcj)reseiitative<  if  the  presence  tud>- of  gods  \\oi-shipprd  by  the  grossly  siipi-rstitimis 
and  attributes  of  Baal,  apprars  from  the  di-iincti,,n  and  degra<led  nations  of  Canaan  \\hni  Nra.-l  invaded 
which  is  uniformly  observed  ln-twt-.ii  the  Baalim  and  and  conquered  their  land,  Baalim  and  Ashlar. .th  held 
the  ^y^n  rteVT,  mutzeboth  habaal,  tin-  images  or  1;"'  ''''~l  I1'1"'1'-  l'l(1  "llc  :^  the  -Teat  male  divinity. 

the  other  as  the  great   f.  male   divinitv.      This  worship 


"f  tl;.-  Hiinyariti 


'-'  It  is  worthy  of  reni.irk,  that  tlio  author  of  the  books  (if  Kiir.'s 
«ums  carefully  to  a\<.i,l  tin-   usi-  of  these  plural  forms.      Ho  is 
(Z,:ttxchr,}t  dtr  It.  M.  (1.  x.  C,-_').      It  i.--  certain  that  it,  was  lik,--      tho  only  one  of  the  sacred  writers  wl»o  employs  the  singular  form 

wist?  i-arried  we-twanl,  alon-  th.-  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  of  the  name  A-htoivth,  and  he  never  employs  the  plural  Ash- 
by  the  Ph.enici.-tn  colonists.  And  in  Assyria  we  find  in  j;re.it  j  taroth,  whieli  almit!  ;i]ipears  in  the  other  hooks  of  Scripture, 
repute  "our  lady"  Isehtar.  who  was  prol.al.ly  tli--  same  j.er.son,  |  So  in  his  ref.-reneus  to  the  worship  of  JJaal.  we  find  the  singular 
the  two  names  l.ehr.'  in  their  essential  elements  identical  (Haw-  i  form  of  the  nam-  introduced  more  than  thirtv  times,  the  plural 
linson's  Ilerodutiis,  i.  C,Jl-0:;ii).  |  f,,rm  only  (.nee  (1  Ki.  xviii.  Isj. 


18 


ASUTORETH 


138 


iiicr.  they  traced  the  operation  of  a  twofold  generating 

male    and    female 


sh  nations  named 
liaal,  i.e.  the  lord  or  husband,  or  when  conceived  of 
rather  as  a  power  than  as  a  person,  Baalim  ;  the  latter 
receive'!  the  name  Ashtoreth  or  Ashtarotli—  a,  name,  of 
tlie  origin  and  signification  of  which  no  probable  ac 
count  lias  yet  been  given.  To  the  united  operation  of 
these  two  gods  or  powers  they  traced  all  the  evolutions 
of  nature  and  of  providence.  The-  one  was  the  great 
father,  and  the  other  the  great  mother  of  all  To  these, 
therefore,  they  bowed  themselves  down  in  worship,  they 


I 


adopted 


offered    sacrift 

whatever   means   might   seem   to   their 

most  effectual  to  gain  their  favour. 

We   know  little   of  the  various  forms  under  which 


Ashtoreth  has 


ASHTORETH 

Iso  been,  connected  with  the  moon : 


and  this  connection  rests  in  part  upon  a  scriptural  basis. 
Vet  the  statements  of  Scripture,  usually  appealed  to  on 
this  point,  are  by  no  means  very  clear  and  decisive, 
Iiu.iv.19;  xvii. :;;  .7c.viii.fi;  L'Ki.  xvii.  Ki;  2  Cli.  xxxiii. .'!-">.  It  is 
certain  that  Baal  and  the  sun  were  not  identical:  the 
former  name  Baal  being  a  name  of  much  larger  import. 
The  sun,  doubtless,  was  regarded  as  «  Baal,  but  not  as 


Baal 


Phoenicians   had 


or  gods 


i  historian  Sanchoniathon  that 


called  Baal-shcmen  and  Baal-hamon  ((.le?-.  Mon.  PJifii .), 
and  it  is  probable  by  these  names  the  sun  is  to  bo  under 
stood.  But  the  name  Baal,  without  any  such  addition, 
is  not  to  be  so  restricted.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  at 
least  one  passage  of  Scripture  in  which  Baal  seems  to 
be  expressly  distinguished  from  the  sun,  "  Ki.  xxiii.  5: 
"They  burnt  incense  to  Baal,  to  the  sun,  and  to  the 
moon,"  ifcc.  And  certainly  in  the  numerous  passages 
in  which  not  the  singular  but  the  plural  form  Baalim 
is  used,  we  are  constrained  1 


her  images  had  the  head  of  an  ox;  whence  perhaps  the  j  much  wider  significance. 

name  Ashtaroth-Karnaim,  i.''.  Ashtarotli  of  the  Horns.          Still   it    must    be    allowed    that,    especially    in    the 


laliti 


1  powers  supposed  to  reside  in  the  divinity. 
Perhaps  it  was  a  natural  consequence  of  the  concep 
tion  which  lay  at  the  root  of  their  superstition,  that  the 
rites  by  which  these  divinities  were  worshipped  .should 
frequently  have  been  of  a  most  gross  and  lascivious  de 
scription.  This  we  know  was  the  case,  even  at  the 
earliest  period.  Xo  sooner  had  Israel  entered  the  land 
of  ( 'anaan,  than  we  find  them  seduced  and  entangled  by 
attendant  upon  tho  worship  of 
And  doubtless  these  orgies  are 
specially  referred  to  in  those  scriptures  which  speak  of 
the  horrible  abominations  which  had  drawn  down  the 
righteous  vengeance  of  Jehovah,  and  doomed  the  Canaaii- 
itish  nations  to  utter  destruction.  It  is  not  necessary 


the   lascivious  orgies 
Baal-peor,  Xu.  xxv.  i-:>. 


that  we  should 
able  practices. 


;o  into  detail  in  describing  these  abomiii- 
The  notices  of  them  which  we  find  in 


heathen  writers,  and  which  amply  confirm  the  state 
ments  of  Scripture,  are  well  known,  and  need  not  here 
be  repeated.' 


which  Ashtoreth  held  among  the  Caiiaanitish  objects  of 
worship,  and  the  rites  by  which  she  was  thought  to  be 
appropriately  honoured,  will  sufficiently  explain  the  use 
of  her  name  as  a  common  iionn  in  various  passages 


difficult  to  account  for.  Jt  arose  from  the  natural  ten 
dency  of  the  human  mind  to  materialize  and  localize, 
and  to  give  visible  form  and  shape  to  its  vague  and 
shadowy  conceptions.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  wor 
ship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  can  be  traced  back  to  a  very 
ancient  period,  but  it  docs  not  seem  to  have  been  the 
earliest  form  of  idolatry  among  the  Canaanitcs.  It 
seems  rather  to  have  been  a  later  growth — partly 
natural,  partly  stimulated  by  contact  with  other  nations. 
However  this  may  be,  it  could  have  been  no  difficult 
matter  to  engraft  the  worship  of  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  on  the  simpler  system  in  which  Baalim  and 
Ashtarotli  were  the  great  objects  of  worship.  What 
more  fitting  representative  and  embodiment  (so  to  speak) 
of  the  great  Father  than  the  glorious  and  beneficent 
orb  of  day,  the  source  of  light,  and  life,  and  beauty? 
And  then,  this  step  being  taken,  the  lesser  of  the  two 
great  orbs  became  the  natural  representative  and  em 
bodiment  of  his  female  companion  Ashtoreth.  And 
the  early  and  wide-spread  belief  of  a  close  and  myste 
rious  connection  between  heaven  and  earth,  between 
the  stars  above  and  the  course  of  nature  and  providence 
in  the  earth  below,  would  necessarily  tend  to  confirm 
and  perpetuate  the  connection  thus  established. 


of    Deuteronomy,  \ii.i:j;  xxviii.4,  is,  51,  to  denote  the  ewes         In  the  mythologies  of  all  nations,  we  find  the  same 

of  the  flock — rcncres  pccuris,  as   (Jesenius  explains  it,     close  connection  between  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly. 

fe'tnellce  greycm  propayantes.  Thus  the  great  goddess  of  the  Egyptians,  Isis,  whose 

Such  being  the  place  of  Astarte  among  the  Syrian  I  character  and  worship  seem  to  have  resembled  in  many 


divinities,  we  cannot  wonder  that  she  should  some 
times  lie  represented  by  western  writers  as  the  Juno, 
sometimes  as  the  Venus  of  Syria.2  There  is  no  doubt 
that  there  were  combined  in  her  character  and  worship 
some  of  the  attributes  of  both  these  goddesses.  She  was 
the  great  goddess — the  consort  of  the  lord  and  king  of 
gods  and  men:  and  she  was  the  great  mother — the 
source  of  generation,  power,  and  fruitfulness. 


1  Compare  Lucian,  \\--p, 
dotus  (i.  !!>:>),  sipiVia.  i 
toreth. 

2  Ot   «=i  Attpooir-s.v,  01   us  ''Hftiv,  01  at  TV,V  a/>%K;  xati   ir-ripfMtTa, 
•rutriv  £j  iyfSii  Txpxa-^vffKv  ai-rixv  ZKI  futriti  •mu.ii^ja-i.      Plutarch, 
quoted  l.y  Selden,  l>f  Dlis  Syris.     See  also  the  other  passages 
from  the  ancients,   quoted   in  that  treatise,   and   likewise  "by 
Geseninx,  77,. s.,  and  Winer,  Hi-nl-Wiirtfrlini-k. 


parts  those  of  Ashtoreth,  was  in  ancient  times  regarded 
sometimes  as  representing  the  earth,  sometimes  the 
moon,  sometimes  as  the  common  mother  of  all  (Jablon- 
ski,  Pant /i,.  sEyypt.  ii.  S,  17,  21).  The  same  is  true  of 
the  Greek  goddess  Aphrodite,  who  seems  to  have  been 
originally  the  same  as  the  Syrian  Ashtoreth,  as  indeed 
the  very  name  Aphrodite  may  possibly  indicate.  But 
on  this  we  need  not  enlarge.3 


3  "  Quis  nescius  est  coelum  et  terrain  ab  idolorum  cultoribus 
misceri  soiita?"  Selden,  De  J)iis  Syr  is,  synt.  ii.  cap.  2.  With 
regard  to  the  origin  of  the  name  Aphrodite,  it  may  possibly  be 
a  corruption  of  Ashtoreth  :  rn~i"  -  fi-pB?i  ''3" tlle  transposi 
tion  of  "i  and  ji,  and  the  change  of  -j  (=  ji  in  Syr.  and  Arab.) 
into  g,  with  which  7:  is  closely  allied.  (Compare  Sehultens, 
Opera  J/m.  p.  28-.)  The  tradition  with  regard  to  the  origin  of 
Aphrodite,  it  is  more  probable,  had  its  source  in  the  name,  than 
the  name  in  the  tradition. 


AS.HT011ETH 


L: 


ASHTOKETil 


This  being  so,  it  is  probable-  that  by  the  queen  of 
heaven,  mentioned  by  Jeremiah,  vii.  is,  and  xliv.  17, 18,  as 
A  chief  object  of  worship  t~>  tlie  Jews,  and  especially  to 
the  Jewish  women  of  his  day,  we  are  to  understand 
Ashtaroth.  which  name,  it  is  somewhat  remarkable, 
is  nowhere  found  in  the  prophetic  Scriptures.  Mill  we 
cannot  draw  from  this  fact  the  conclusion  that  the  title 
<[ueun  of  heaven  would  have  been  equally  descriptive 
of  the  AshtoreLh  of  earlier  times.  Jt  is  not  till  very 
late  in  the  history  of  Israel,  that  we  find  mention  made 
of  tiie  introduction  of  the  worship  of  the  host  of  heaven, 
i'Ki.  xvii.  Ki;  xxi.  :;,;•>;  x.\iii.  i,:,.  KC.  And  it  is  not  improbable 
that  the  influence  of  tiiis  worship,  which  some  have 
connected  with  the  presence  of  the  Assyrians  in  Pales 
tine,  mav  have  modified  the  conceptions  f'irmed  of  the 
ancient  divinities  and  the  leading  attributes  with  which 
they  were  invested.1 

With  regard  to  the  f.irms  and  observances  which 
accompanied  the  wor.-hip  of  Ashtaroth,  we  have  no  de 
tailed  information  in  .Scripture,  !'»r  the  iva-.m  already 
4'iven.  \Veivad  in  one  pass;i--e  of  a  house  "i1  temple 
of  Ashtaroth,  ISa.  xxxi.ln;  in  aiiotlier  of  a  high  plate  or 
artificial  eminence  erected  for  her  worship,  -K.  s  i 
lint  the  two  loealitn  -  which  arc  most  frequently  men- 
t:  mod  as  the  scene  of  th--  anci 

high  hill  and  the  shade  of  the  green  tree,  iv.  xii. .';  .'  Ki. 
!Lvi.4,ic.  It  is  probable  that  the  \\orship  of  i'aalim 
was  more  fr.-qu<  ntly  connected  with  the  former  of  i  In  se 
localities,  tirj  worship  <>:'  Ashtaroth  v.  itli  the  latter: 
but  the  two  divinities  \\eiv  so  closely  allied  in  characti  r. 
in  t!ie  [)owers  attrilnited  and  tin-  worship  presented  to 
them,  that  the  symbols  of  their  presence  were  often 
erected  on  the  same  spot,  and  both  r<  ceived  at  one  and 
the  same  time  the  homage  and  lh<  gifts  of  their  wor 
shippers. 

One  ijii'-stioii  of  importance  remains.  \\hat  were 
the  symljols  emploved  to  i  IK,  ix  out  tin  spot  where  these 
divinities  were  supposed  to  be  specially  prc.-ciit  ;  This 
leads  us  to  investigate  the  meaning  of  a  word  .if  fre 
quent  occurrence  in  Scripture,  with  regard  to  v,  hich 
there  has  been  very  great  diti'eivnce  of  opinion  amon- 
Hebrew  scholar*  the  Word  ,-|1w'X-  -(•-/"-/•a. 

Tim-'-  jii-iii.-ipal  opinions  liave  been  propounded  : 

1.  That  Ashera  means  i/rurc.  This  i;  the  mo:-t 
ancient  \ie\v,  being  that  of  the  LXX..  and  it  was  fol 
lowed  liv  the  translators  of  our  version. 

'2.  That  A-dn-ra  was  a  goddess-name,  nearly  identieal 
with  Ashtoreth.  This  \  i.-w  i-  in  substance  that  of 
( leseliius. 

'.',.  That  it  wa.;  a  -vmbolie  fi-un-.  at  first  nothing 
more  than  the  stock  or  stem  of  a  tree  fixed  in  tin- 
ground,  afterwards  some-  wooden  pillar  or  ima-_re,  more 
artificially  prepared  and  adorned,  i  Ki.  xxi.  7.  Of  tho^e 
who  hold  this  view,  some,  with  whom  we  have  no 
hesitation  in  agreeing,  regard  the  Ashera  as  the  svm- 
bol  of  the  goddess  Ashtoreth  :  others,  as  Movers,  deli) 
the  existence  of  any  such  connection,  distinguishing  be 
tween  Ashera  and  Ashtoreth  as  two  separate  divinities. 

1  In  He.  iv.  I '.i,  ,-incl  x\ii.  :;.  iiu-iitiiiii  is  made  of  the  worship 
of  tliu  host  »(  heaven,  luit  <>nly  as  a  possible  contingency,  not  a 
realized  f.ict .  Tlu-n-  i-  no -ood  evidence  th:it  Ashtaroth- Karnaim, 
or  tin.:  two  honie.l  .\.--litaroth,  has  any  reference  to  the  moon. 
fSanchoniathon,  in  Kusi-b.  P?,i;>.  EfU,«.l.  J>.  :>S,  edit,  loss.)  I!e- 
M.lus,  the  name  is  evidently  desei-i]itive,  not  of  the  form  under 
which  the  goddess  was  usually  worshipped,  but  of  a  special  and 
distinctive  form- peculiar  to  that  city  or  re-ion— probably  a 
form  similar  to  that  under  which  Isis  \\-.\A  worshipped  by  the 
ICjjyptians. 


1.  With  regard  to  the  first  and  most  ancient  of  these 
views,  it  is  now  abandoned  by  nearly  all  who  have 
made  accurate  inquiry  into  the  subject.  There  is  not 
a  single  passage  in  which  the  adoption  of  the  rendering 
"  urove"  is  unavoidable  ;  and  there  are  many  passages 
in  which  that  rendering  is  altogether  inadmissible.  For 
example,  we  find  the  Ashera  frequently  connected  with 
the  verbs  n'w'y>  ^"  make,  1  Ki.  xvi.  Uo;  -  Ki.  x\ii.  Ki;  xxi.  :>; 

•_  Ui.  xxxiii.:;;  T'zyr,,  to  set  tip,  2  cii.  xxxiii.  iti ;  N'yjrij  to 

;  bring  out.  -  Ki.  xxiii.  t>.      \\  e  find  an  Ashera  forming  the 

j  wood  on    which    a   single    o.x    was    sacrificed,    Ju.  vi.  ^i;; 

1  another  set  up  in  the  city  of  Samaria,  2Ki.  xiii.  r,;  and 
another  in  the  temple  of  Jehovah  at  Jerusalem,  L'Ki.x.xi.7. 
We  Mid  Asherim  under  green  trees,  and  covered  over 

j  by  curtains  or  tents  t2'n£>  wrought  for  them  by  their 
female  attendants  and  worshippers.  In  all  these  cases 

,  the  rendering  "  grove''  is  quite  unsuitable.      And  even 

j  the  passage  which   is   most    frequently  appealed  to  in 

[  defence  of  that  rendering,  Do.  xvi.  21,  "  Tliou  shalt  not 
plant  (v-j;;>  thee  an  A*lu  r.i,  any  tree  r.'j,'-v?2b  near  the 
,-diar  of  Jehovah  ;  neither  shalt  thou  sot  thee  up  a  stone 
pillar"  (r^X'-b  is  re-ally,  when  closely  examined,  rather 
adverse  to  it  than  otherwise.  The  most  obvious  mean 
ing  is.  Thou  shall  not  plant,  l>u.  xi.  r>.  near  the  altar  of 
Jehovah  an  Ashera  formed  out  of  any  tree,  nor  set  up 
anv  stone  pillar:  and  the  natural  conclusion  even  from 
this  passive.  whi.1i  alone  gives  even  the  semblance  of 
support  to  the  rendering  "  grove,"  is,  that  the  Ashera 
was  a  wooden  pillar,  or  trunk  of  a  tree,  perhaps  of 
some  peculiar  and  well  known  form,  to  wh:ch  a  sym 
bolic  character  of  some  kind  was  attached  a  conclu 
sion  borne  out  by  other  passages  of  l>euti  i  on,. my,  cli.  LV.2.S; 
..'-.,  i;t-.  x\:x  n;,  in  which  the  idol  pillars  or  images 
are  described  as  chiefly  of  two  sorts,  "  wood  and  stone  ;' 
bv  the  former  of  which  we  ma;,  Mipposc  the  Ashera  to 
be  meant,  by  the  latter,  the  ri^aC,  with  which,  not 
onlv  in  the  passage  now  under  consideration,  but  in  a 
multitude  of  other-,  the  Ashera  stands  in  close  and 
immediate  connection. 

L'.  Neither  have  we  any  authority  for  regarding  the 
A<hi-ra  as  a  goddess  worshipped  by  the  ( 'anaanites. 
either  the  goddess  Astar'n-  or  any  other.  The  passage 
which  seems  most  strongly  to  support  this  view  is 
1  Ki.  xviii.  1!',  where  we  read  of  Elijah's  encounter 
with  the  prophets  of  li.utl,  four  hundred  and  fifty  in 
number,  and  the  prophets  of  the  Ashera,  in  number 
four  hundred.  At  t'ir.-t  glance  thi-  passage  would  seem 
to  present  A-h.-ra  as  a  goddess,  the  companion  of  I'.aal, 
and  nearlv  equal  in  rank.  lint  on  looking  liack  two 

'  chapters  to  the  account  which  the  historian  uives  of 
the  inU-oduction  by  Ahab  of  the  worshi])  of  liaal  and 

1  of  the  Ashera,  w  find  there  is  a  clear  distinction  drawn 
between  them:  for  it  is  said,  "Ahab  setup  an  altar 

'  to  I'.aal  in  the  house  of  liaal  .  .  .  and  Ahab  made 
I-'-;— )  the  Ashera,"  L  Ki.  xvi.  32,33,  plainly  distinguishing 

between  TJaal.  the  divinity  in  whose  honour  altars 
i  were  erected  and  temples  built,  and  the  Ashera,  a 
J  thing  mud''  and  fashioned  by  human  hands. 

:i.  This  leads  to  the  true  view  of  Ashera,  as  an  idol 
svmbol,  and  more  particularly  a  symbol  of  the  goddess 
Ashtoreth.  That  the  Ashera  had  some  intimate  con 
nection  with  the  worshi])  of  Ashtoreth,  is  evident  from 
the  passage  just  remarked  on,  i  Ki.  xviii.  1'.',  and  many 

others.    Ju.  vi.  2.'.;  1  Ki.  xvi.  :;:;;  -J  Ki    xvii.  M,  Ki;  xviii.  4;  xix.  :!,&c., 


ASIA 


ASKELOX 


in  which  it  is  mentioned  tilling  \vitli  P>aal  or  the 
s>'!in  J~O"">  just  as  Ashtoreth  is  in  other  passages. 

Sou  also  2  Ki.  xxiii.  7,  for  a  notice  of  the  Ashera- rites. 
Mut  at  the  same  time  \ve  must  lie  careful  not  to  con 
found  the  Asliera  with  the  goddess  Ashtoreth;  for  the 
Scripture  never  does.  The  latter  (Ashtoreth  or  Ashta 
roth)  the  Scripture  always  speaks  of  as  a  divinity, /<;/• 
fi,iri'<?  df/ff,  and  si'rvid  dint  irort/ii/ijird  by  the  blinded 
heathen  (see  the  passages  already  quoted):  the  for 
mer  ithe  Asliera  i  as  a  material  svmlioi,  a  (ree,  a  trunk, 
which  is  planted  \y^i,  made  \  --ry  >,  *et  up  (s»S.1 
-v:yr:>;  in  only  one  passage,  2  CIi.  xxiv.  IS,  is  it  eon- 
ueeted  with  -!2>-  t"  serve,  l!ie  s\mbul  being  put  for 

the  divimtv.  A^ain,  the  Ashtaroth  Israel  is  com 
manded  to  jiut  away  (-vcn);  the  Asherim  to  cut 

down    (p-i2  yTj)   and  burn   with  lire  U-p'-^  nyS),   just 

as  they  were  enjoined  to  j>ut  «<"«//  Baal  from  among 
them,  but  to  I) i' calc  ui  pu.c<:s  n£",;)  the  pillars  of  Baal, 
which  were  of  stone.  Moreover,  the  Asherim  are  con- 
stantlv  connected  with  a.ltars,  images,  and  other  mate 
rials  of  idolatry:  the  A-htaioth  never,  Ex.  xxxiv.  13;  Do. 
vii.  I-:  xii.3,&c.' 

\\'e  are  thus  led  to  {he  conclusion  that,  just  as  the 
!72"C  of  stone  was  usually  the  symbol  of  Baal,  so  the 

Asliera  of  wood  was  the  symbol  of  Ashtaroth.  And 
this  conclusion  is  quite  in  harmony  with  what  we  learn 
from  other  sources  as  to  the  nature  of  the  idol  symbols 
which  were  in  use  in  most  ancient  times. —  (Potter's 
Greek  A, />!</.  1.  -l-i:>,  -1-1\>;  Sale's  Koran,  Prel.  Disc, 
i  1  :  ."Movers,  i.  fiG'J;  Euseb.  I>,;rp.  Enni'j.  p.  35,  99.) 
Thcv  were  nothing  more  dignified  than  stocks  and 
stones.  Tlu;  reason  why  the  symbol  of  Baal  was 
of  stone,  that  of  Ashtoreth  of  wood,  is  perhaps  to  be 
found  in  the  difference  of  sex  ;  the  stone  representing 
the  idea  of  strength,  the  tree  that  of  fruitfulness. 

[n.  ii.  w.] 

ASIA;  the  origin  of  the  name  is  involved  in  ob 
scurity,  but  as  a  designation,  along  with  Europe  and 
Africa,  of  one  of  the  greater  divisions  of  the  known 
world,  it  began  to  come  into  use  in  the  fifth  century 
[i.e.  In  the  X'ew  Testament,  however,  it  is  used  in 
a  narrower  sense,  as  it  also  very  generally  was  among 
the  ancients,  sometimes  for  Asia  Minor  and  sometimes 
for  pro-consular  Asia,  which  latterly  included  the  pro 
vinces  of  Phrygia,  Mysia,  Caria,  and  Lydia  (Cicero, 
Pro  Flacco,  c.  •27).  But  the  province  was  originally 
not  so  extensive;  and  even  afterwards  Phrygia  is  oc 
casionally  mentioned  in  another  connection — with  Ci- 
licia.  for  example,  as  when  Cicero  charges  Dolabella 
and  his  qua-stor  Verres  with  ravaging  Phrygia,  during 
the  time  that  the  former  held  the  province  of  Cilicia 
Verres,  Act.  ii.  1,  c.  38).  So  in  Acts  xvi.  G,  Phrygia 
is  distinguished  from  Asia,  as  if  it  did  not  properly 
lielong  to  the  province  so  designated:  and  so  also  in 
ch.  ii.  9,  10.  In  these  passages  it  is  probably  used, 
as  it  appears  also  to  be  in  the  Apocalypse  with 
respect  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia,  for  the  compa 
ratively  small  sea-board  district,  which  comprised  My 
sia,  Ionia,  and  Lydia,  and  which  had  Ephesus  for  its 
centre  and  capital. 


ASIA,  SEVEN  CHURCHES  OF.  Sse  their  names. 
ASIARCH^E,  AS1ARCHS,  or  rulers  of  Asia,  ren 
dered  in  the  English  version  the  chirf  of  Asia,  Ac.  xix.  31, 
were  the  annually  appointed  governors  of  the  cities  in 
]  m  )-ci  insular  Asia.  They  had  the  superintendence  of  the 
public  games  and  religious  rite*  in  honour  of  the  gods 
and  the  emperor,  which  they  had  to  conduct  at  their 
own  expense.  Hence,  only  wealthy  persons  could  hold 
the  office,  and  in  respect  to  social  position  they  must 
always  have  been  among  the  chief  men  of  the  place. 
K.ach  city,  it  would  appear,  cho.-o  one  of  their  own 
number  witii  a.  view  to  the  office,  and  out  of  the  whole 
number  thus  chosen,  ten  were  selected  by  the  assembly 
of  deputies,  who  formed  a  sort  of  council  of  Asiarchs, 

j  and  one  was  nominated  to  be  the  ('resident  <>r  head  of 
the  body,  it  is  disputed  whether  the  title  Asiarch  be 
longed  only  to  this  president,  or  to  the  whole  ten.  Tin; 
language  in  the  passage  above  n  fcnvd  to  from  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  seems  to  favour  the  idea  that  they  ex 
isted  in  considerable  numbers;  so  that  either  the  whole 
body  must  have  had  the  title  of  Anarchs,  or  the  title 
must  have  been  kept  up  by  way  of  courtesy,  toward 
those  who  had  formerly  enjoved  the  dimiitv.  One 
Asiarch  alone  is  noticed  in  Eusebius  as  having  had 
the  charge  of  matters  at  the  trial  of  Polycarp  (L'ccl. 

I  Hist.  iv.  15);  but  this,  as  \Vincr  remarks,  may  simply 
have  arisen  from  one  being  appointed  to  look  after 
that  particular  business,  while  for  the  public  so 
lemnities  generally  others  may  have  been  associated 
with  him.  Indeed,  the  notices  that  have  come  down 
to  us  regarding  the  office  an;  so  incidental  and  frag 
mentary,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  decide  with  confi 
dence  on  the  details;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 
customs  and  mode  of  procedure  regarding  it  differed  at 
one  time  as  compared  with  another. 

ASKELON  [Heb.  ASHKF.LOX,  probably  miyration], 
one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the  Philistines,  on  the  sea- 
coast  between  Gaza  and  Ashdod.  It  lay  within  the 
compass  of  the  territory  of  Judah,  and  was  about 
',}  7  gei  ^graphical  miles  south-west  of .]  erusaleni.  Derketo, 
which  seems  to  have  been  the  same  with  Atergatis, 
was  the  deity  chiefly  worshipped  there,  under  the  form 
of  a  female  head  and  shoulders,  tapering  away  into  a 
fish's  tail  (Lueian,  De  Dca  Si/rin,  xiv.)  There  was  pro- 
bably  some  affinity  between  this  worship  and  that  of 
Dagon,  the  tutelary  deity  of  Ashdod.  The  city  had 
not  only  the  advantages  of  a  seaport,  but  also  stood  in  a 
fruitful  region,  prolific  even  in  some  of  the  finer  pro 
ductions,  such  as  vines  and  aromatic  plants  (Pliny,  xix. 
32 ;  Strabo,  xvi.  759).  It  was  strongly  fortified,  and 
from  its  position  must  have  been  the  theatre  of  many  a 
conflict,  especially  during  the  wars  that  were  carried  on 
between  Egypt  and  Syria.  It  was  sometimes  subject 
to  the  one  and  sometimes  to  the  other,  1  Mac.  x.  N);\i.  i;<>; 
xii. :;:;  (Josephus,  Ant.  xii.  4,  5).  Herod  the  Great  was 
born  there,  and  he  afterwards  adorned  it  with  baths, 
colonnades,  and  other  ornamental  works  (Joseph.  Wars, 
i.  12,  11).  After  his  death  his  sister  Salome  made  it 
her  residence,  having  obtained  from  Augustus  the  use 
of  a  palace.  It  continued  to  be  a  place  of  considerable 
importance  in  later  times,  and  is  often  mentioned  in 
the  history  of  the  crusades.  Richard  held  his  court 
within  its  walls.  In  the  time  of  Sandys  (A.D.  1G10)  it 
still  was  the  seat  of  a  garrison,  although  it  had  other 
wise,  he  tells  us.  become  a  place  of  no  importance.  But 
it  has  1.  mg  since  fallen  into  decay  and  ruin.  Richardson 
found  "not  an  inhabitant  within  its  walls"  (Travels,  ii. 


ASXAl'PER  Ul  ASS 

);    and    I'obinson's    companion,    Mr.    Smith,  who  j  tended  by  the  word  -i'riy   (/:uhor),  in  Ju.  v.  in,    "Ye 


(Rf  search  r$.  n.  2l!(l).      Compare  Zee.  ix.  5;  Zep.  ii.  4:  Am  i.  8.  i  -,  ,  T,     ,        - 

*  OAT  .  T3T3T-T3     i     •  i  Ai!    XT  i  i      j  region,  a  rocky  \\  iklcmcss.     Its  hoofs  are  long,  hollow 

ASNAPPER,  designated  the  Great  and  the  Noble,  i 

is  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  introduction  into  ! 
Palestine   of   the   different  tribes  from  the  East,  who  1 
were  sent  to  take  the  place  of  the  exiled  Israelites,  Ezr.  ' 
iv.  10.      He  is  not  called  king  of  Assyria.,  and  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  ho  was   onlv  a  prince  or  satrap  of 
the  empire,  who  had  the  charge  of  this  particular  busi-  j 
ness. 

ASP  (•,-».  jicfhcn).  a  venomous  serpent.    (Sec  ADDEU.)  ' 

ASS  l,vr:r,  humor,  he-assi,  (•'TN,  utliim-,  she-ass^, 
(-\--«,  a//!,',  ass-colt  i.  The  most  familiar  species  of  the 

genus  Asiiuis,  belonging  to  the-  horse  family  (Eijuid;t^,  i 
of   which   tin:  generic   di.-tin  lions   are,  a   short,   erect; 
mane,   a  tail  furnished  \\itii  a  terminal   tuft  (if  hairs,  i 
and   a  tendency  to  a   banded  or  striped,  ratlier  than  a 
spotted  arrangement  in  the  colours. 

Tlu:  prohibition  nf  th«-  use  of  horses  (sec  Housi-'.i  to 
Israel.  caused  the  ass  to  }»•  held  in  higher  estimation 
than  it  holds  hi  oi,r  times.  It  \\as.  at  hast  down  to 
the  dav>  of  Solomon,  the  principal  beast  of  burden. 
lint  we  must  not  attribute  this  election  wholly  to  th- 
absence  or  scarcity  of  the-  horse.  for  in  Western  Asia 
the  ass  is  still  largely  used  for  tin-  saddle.  Though 

inferior  in  dignity  to  the  horse,  he  is  still  in  his  native  beneath,    with  very  sharp  edges,   a,  peculiarity  which 

regions  a   very  superior  animal   to  tin-   poor,  weather-  makes  it  sure-footed  in  ascending  and  descending  steep 

beaten,   stunted,    half-starved    beast  of   our  commons,  mountain  passes,  where  the  flat  hoof  of  the  horse  would 

Chat-din    and    oth.-rs    describe    tin-   Arabian   ass    as    a  be  insecure.      It  prefers  aromatic,  dry,  prickly  herbs  to 

really  elegant  creature.     Th.-  coat  is  smooth  and  dean,  the  most  succulent  and  tender  grass  :   is  fond  of  rolling 

the  carriag-  is  erect  and  pn>ud:   the  limbs  are  d.  an.  in  the  dry  dust  :  slitters  but  little  from  thirst  or  heat  ; 

wdl-foni:  d.  and  muscular,  and  are  well   thrown  out  in  drinks  seldom  and  little  ;   and  seems  to  ha\e  no  s.-n.-ible 

walking  or  gallo]  perspiration,  its  skin  In  inur  hard,  tough  and  insensitive. 

Asses  of   this  Arab   breed   are  used   exclusively  for  All  these  characters  writ  the  arid  rocky  wildernesses  of 

the  saddle,   and    are    imported    into   Syria   and    Persia.  Persia  and    Western   Asia,    the   nati\e  country   of  this 

where  they  are  highly  valued.  t^]ieciallv  bv  the  mollahs  valuable  animal. 

or  lawyers,  the  sheiks  or  r.  lu  ious  teachers,  and  dd.  rly  |,ik,.  all  other  ouadrupeds.  except   the  cloven-hoofed 

persons    p.f    th.--    opulent    classes.       They    are    fed    and  ruminants,  the  ass   wa-   und.  an   bv  the  .Mosaical    law; 

dressed   with   the   same  care   as  horses,    the  head-gear  and  it  is  recorded  as  a  proof  of  the  extremity  of  famine 

is   highly  ornamented,  and  the  saddle   is   covered    \\ith  to    \\hidi    tin-   inhabitants    of    Samaria     were   reduced, 

a  fine  carpet.      They  are  active,  spirited,  and  yet  siitii-  during    I  '..  nhaihid's    siege    of    that   city,    not  only    that 

ciently  docile.  ass'-j  f|,.s],  Was  eaten,  but   that   the   head,  a  part   \\hidi 

Other  breeds  are  equally  useful  in  the  more  humble  would    yip-Id    but    little  fli-sh,   was    sold    for   fourscore 

labours  of  ploughing  and  carrying  biirilp-ns.  pi,  e.-s  .if  .-il\i  ;-.  j  Ki.  vi.  •_•.'.. 

White  asses,  distinguished  not  only  by  their  colour.          .Notwithstanding  what  has  been  said  above  of  the 

but  by  their  stature  and  symmetry,  are  fivi|Up-ntIy  seen  universality  of  the  use  of  tin-  ass  for  the  saddle,  the  horse 

in  Western  Asia,  and  are  always  more  highly  esteemed  was  emploved  in  tin.-  Gentile  nations  for  the  carrving  of 

than  those  of  more   ordinary  hue.      The  editor  of   the  warriors    and    pt  rs,,ns    of    royal    digmlv.       And    from 

Pictorial   li'tUt'  says,  that  these   "are   usually  in  every  Solomon,  \\hotirst  broke  the  dixine  prohibition,  down- 

res]H-ct   the   finest  of    their  species,    and    their  owners  ward,    horses  formed  part  of  tin-   royal   state   in  .ludali 

certainly  take  more  pride  in  them  than  in  any  other  of  and    Israel.      Therefore  it  is  adduced  as  an  example  of 

their  asses.      They  sell  at  a  much  higher  j  price:   and  the  lowliness  and  meekness  of    Him  \\h»  \\astocome 

those    hackney    ass-men    who    make    a    livelihood    by  the   Anointed    King  of    Israel,    that    lie   should    "ride 

hiring  out    their    asses   to  persons    who    want  a   ride,  upon    an    ass.    and    upon   a  colt,    the   foal   of   an    ass," 

always  expect  better  pay  for  the  white  ass  than  for  [  Zuc.  i\.  (i. 

any  of  the  others."     After  describing  their  more  highly  |       An  ass  was  chosen,   in  the  sovereignty  of  Clod,   to 

ornamented  trappings,    lie   observes,    "but  above  all,  rebuke  the  covetous  eagerness  of   I  Salaam  for  reward. 

their  white  hides  are  fantastically  streaked  and  spotted     human  reason  and  speech  being  miraculously  conferred 

„  i  v 

with  the  red  stains  of  the  henna  plant,   a  barbarous  on  her  for  the  occasion:  -  "The  dumb  ass,   speaking 

kind  of  ornament  which  the  Western  Asiatics  are  fond  with  man's  voice,  forbad  the  madness  of  the  prophet,"' 

of  applying  to  their  own  beards  and  to  the  manes  and  ^iv.ii.ii',.    A  solemn  lesson,  teaching  us  of  how  little  value 

tails    of   their   white  horses."      Col.   Hamilton  Smith  in  God's  sight  are  gifts,  compared  with  obedient  love. 
thinks  that    this    red-spotted  character  is  what  is  in-          It  is  supposed  by  some  that  the  atlu'ii   was  dislin- 


ASS 


ASS 


Lruishod  from  the  /,<//,/,./•  not  merely  !>y  sex  (though  tin- 
word  is  feminine),  but  liy  breed:  that  it  was  a  superior 
race,  ol.t;iiiii-d  hv  crossing  tin-  domestic  with  the  wild 
ass,  ))</•</!.  Thus  the  possession  of  (il/nniif/i  would 
always  imply. riches  or  dignity.  Tin-  circumstance, 
however,  that  Job  had  hufi.ro  his  calamity  .".mi  of 
these  utlnniutli,  and  10(111  afterwards,  seems  to  us  to 
militate  strongly  against  the  supposition  that  these  \vi  r 
the  offspring  of  the  /mr/i,  unless  that  shy  and  swift 
animal  was  far  more  abundant  then  tliau  it  is  now. 

In  Is.  xxi.  7,  "11  chariot  of  asses"  is  seen  l.y  the 
watchman:  ami  as  it  is  in  connection  with  the  Fall  ol 
I'.aliylon.  perhaps  it  was  a  mode  of  draught  peculiar 
to  the  ^icdes.  No  pictorial  representation  exists,  so 
far  as  we  are  aware,  of  asses  yoked  to  a  chariot,  either 
in  the  monuments  of  ancient  lv_-ypt  or  of  Assyria.  Put 
it  is  curious  that  among  the  tributary  nations  that 
swelled  (he  anuv  of  X <  rxes,  .Herodotus  enumerates 
"  Indians"  (meaning  by  that  term  a  people  from  the 
banks  of  the  Indus,  whom  he  mentions  between  the 
M udes  and  the  ISactrians),  as  yoking  wild  asses  (pro- 
k-iblv  the  t/Ji<>t>r-l-hur)  to  their  v.'ar- chariots.  (Sec  the 
following  article.)  [p.  II.  (;.] 

ASS,    WILD    [x-i2.    perch;    -,'^y,    <<m/J.       Then 

seems  Lfood  reason  to  believe  that  at  lea:-t  four  wild 
species  of  Asinua  exist  in  Western  Asia,  \\7..  the 
Creator  wild  ass,  ///«.<.;•- /•///'/',  or  </.:/'///(•/?>/  (.1.  licml- 
»IIHX)\  the  kltu'i-  of  Persia  (A.  litininr}  ;  the  <m«;i<-r, 
L-'iuluit,  or  cross-barred  wild  ass  (A.  <>iia;/c>')  of  Tar- 
larv  and  Northern  Persia:  and  a  species  recently  de 
scribed  by  M.  Ceoff.  St.  liilairc.  under  the  name  of 
A.  JtCi/ii/i/iiiK,  from  a  specimen  sent  to  the  empress 
of  the  French  from  Egypt.  It  is  intermediate  be 
tween  the  yhoor-l'hur  and  the  horse,  agreeing  with 
the  former  in  colour  and  in  the  possession,  of  a  dorsal 
line,  but  of  much  smaller  size.  It  is  supposed  to  be  a 
native  of  the  Syrian  desert. 

Each  of  these  is  characterized  by  threat  fleetness,  so 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  overtake  them  even,  with  the 
swiftest  horses.  Colonel  Sykes  says  that  a  friend  of  his. 


[S6.J        Creator  Wild  Ass  or  Bziggetai—  .-lainus  heiiiwim*. 

in  his  morning  rides,  was  nscd  to  start  a  particular  wild 
ass  (probably  of  the  first-named  species),  so  frequently 
that  it  became  familiarly  known  to  him;  he  always 
gave  chase  to  it;  but  though  lie  piijucd  himself  on 
being  mounted  on  an  extremely  fleet  Arabian  horse,  be 
never  could  come  up  with  the  animal.  Sir  Pobert 
Xcr  Porter  has  graphically  described  his  fruitless  chase 


of  the  1,-fiin;  when  mounted   on  a  "  very  swift  Arab.' 
The  /•<.//,',-/;/  has  the  same  habits. 

Colonel  II.  Smith,  a  high  authority,  considers  the 
/,(',;//  to  IK;  the  <tli<><>r-klinr,  and  the  arud  to  be  the 
kliH.r.  Jf  this  be  correct,  we  must  suppose  either  that 
the  l'«nliiii  was  unknown  to  the  Hebrews,  though  it 
was  well  known  to  the  ( i  reeks,  or — which  is  more 
likiiy — that  it  was  confounded  with  the  llmr.  The 
i//n>:>r-!.-/ii/r  is  mouse-brown,  with  a  broad  dorsal  stripe, 
but  no  cross  stripe  on  the  shoulders;  the  /•///'/•  is  of  a 
li'.rht  reddish  colour,  becoming  gray  beneath  and  behind, 
with  neitbi  r  stripe  nor  cross:  the  /.-n/i/aii  is  silvery 
white,  with  a  coffee-coloured  dorsal  stripe,  and  a  cross 
strii'e  o\cr  the  shoulders. 

The  notices  of  these  animals  in  the  sacred  Scriptures 
are — allusions  to  their  indomitable  love  of  freedom  and 
hatred  of  restraint,  Go.  xvi.  l^,  when-  Islnnael  is  described 
literally  as  "a  wild-ass  man,"  J"l>  xxiv.  •>  •  xxxix.  5;  to 
their  self-will,  Jul.  .\i.  1:! ;  .)(.-.  ii.i'l;  to  their  silence-  when 
their  wants  are  satisfied.  Job  vi.  r> ;  to  their  fondness  for 
wild  and  lone  places,  Ps.  civ.  11;  1.x  xxxii.  11;  to  their  soli 
tary  habits.  Ilo.viii.'j;  and  t.>  their  custom  of  standing 
on  elevated  places,  Jc.  xiv.  (!. 

It  has  been  common  to  consider  the  domestic  ass  as 
the  progeny  of  some  one  or  other  of  the  wild  species, 
originally  caught  and  subdued  by  the  power  of  man, 
and  trained  in  the  course  of  generations  to  subjection 
and  servitude;  and  this  because  it  has  been  assumed, 
as  if  it  were  a  self-evident  truth,  that  man  could  have- 
come  into  possession  of  the  numerous  animals  which 
constitute  so  many  valuable  domestic  servants,  in  no 
other  way  than  by  reducing  them  from  a  primeval  con 
dition  of  freedom  to  bondage.  It  is  acknowledged  that 
the  wild  types  of  many  of  our  domestic  creatures  are 
either  not  to  be  found,  or  not  to  be  satisfactorily  identi 
fied;  but  a  sort  of  necessary  existence  is  demanded  for 
them:  and  efforts  are  made  to  unite  the  domestic  ani 
mals  now  with  one,  now  with  another,  species  which 
is  known  in  an  unsubdued  state.  Our  neat  cattle, 
sheep,  goat,  'log,  and  cat,  are  familiar  examples  of 
animals  whose  wild  parentage  is  altogether  unknown. 
In  the  case  of  the  horse  and  of  the  ass,  we  have  indeed 
wild  as  well  as  tame  individuals  existing  at  the  same 
period  ;  but  it  is  quite  as  legitimate  to  assume  that 
the  former  are  the  progeny  of  individuals  which  have 
emancipated  themselves  and  have  maintained  their 
freedom,  as  that  the  latter  are  descended  from  captive 
•parents-  supposing,  what  is  by  no  means  proved,  the 
specific  identity  of  the  wild  and  tame  races. 

To  us,  however,  it  seems  highly  probable  that  many 
animals  were,  originally  created  in  the  condition  which 
we  call  domestication,  and  in  no  other;  and  were  from 
the  very  first  given  by  Cod  to  man,  as  his  humble  com 
panions  and  servants,      .liven  in  Eden  the  duty  of  man 
•'to  dress  and  keep''  the  garden,  implies  the  use  of  im 
plements;    and  still  more  does  the  command  to   "till 
the  ground,"'  which  was  imposed  on  him  when  he  fell. 
Cut,  as  has  been  well   shown,  these   implements  could 
'  not  have  been  of  his  own  invention  and  manufacture, 
j  since  the  first  would  require  the  existence  of  ready-made 
i  implements  to  construct  them;    and  therefore  we  are 
1  compelled   to  suppe.se,  what,  indeed,  is  entirely  conso 
nant  with  all  we  are  taught  of  the  condition  of  the  newly 
created  man — that  such  mechanical  aids  as  were  needed 
for  the  due  performance  of  the  duties  imposed  upon  him, 
together  with  skill  to  use  them,  were  bestowed  on  him 
from  the  gracious  hands  of  his  Creator.     If  this  be  a 


ASSHUR 


U3 


ASSYRIA 


reasonable  conclusion,   it  seems  only  a  legitimate  fol 
lowing  up  of  the  same  piocess  of  reasoning,  to  presume 
that   docile  and   subject  animals    were    given  him   at 
the  same  time.     It,  for  example,  a  plough  was  put  into 
his  hand,   that  a  yoke  of  cattle 
accompanied   it ;    if   agricultural 
products    were    to   be   gathered, 
that   an   ass    or   two    would    be 
provided  to  carry   the  fruits  of 
the  earth;    if  the  wool  and  the 
milk  of  tho  flock   were  to  form 
an  important  portion  of  his  de 
pendence,     and     particularly    if 
a  Limb  was   appointed  to  be   a 
frequent   sacrifice,    that    a    flock 
of  sheep  would   be  furnished  for 
his  care,  and  probably  a  dog  to 
guard      them     from     the     wild 
beasts,  now  alienated  from,  and 
inimical  to,  man. 

Accordingly,  the  very  first 
picture  of  human  life  subsequent 
to  tho  expulsion  from  Kdeii, 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  has 
drawn,  presents  us  with  this  v, 

condition     of      things:      ''Abel 

was  a  kecpirof  sheep,"   and  the  sacrifice  of   "the  first 
lings  of  his  flock"  was  a  regular  act  of  worship. 

To  come  to  tin-  subject  of  this  article:  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  spoken  i.f  in  the  sacred  Scripture,  appears 
more  favourable  to  the  notion  that  the  wild  ass  is  an 
emancipated  domestic'  ass,  than  that  the  latter  is  a  re 
claimed  wild  one.  Jehovah  himself,  in  the  magnificent 

re  pi f  of  Job  out  of  the  whirlwind,  n.-ks,   "  \Vlio  h.dh 

sent  oil'  the  wild  ass  (the  /,<)•</!)  free'  or  who  hath 
loosed  the  bands  of  the  \\ild  ass  (the  i'ti-u'1)  .'"  It  may 
be  said  that  this  is  only  a  fk'iirative  way  c.f  ; 
inj;  the  condition  of  the  creature:  but  certainlv  the 
words  imply  a  state  of  servitude  anterior  to  its  t"iv  dom. 
The  question,  ill  whatever  way  it  lie  decided,  does  not 
touch  the  other  question,  of  the  speciiic  identity  of 
certain  wild  and  tame  races.  Whether,  for  example, 
the  tame  ass  is  specifically  identical  with  the  Iclmr,  does 
not  depend  on  the  relative  priority  of  the  conditions  of 
servitude  and  freedom.  \  i'.  II.  <:  j 

ASSH'UR.  a  son  of  Shem.  from  whom  the  name 
Assyria  is  derived.  Go.  x  11-22.  (>'«  ASSVIIIA.) 

AS'SOS,  or  AS'SUS,  a  city  of  Mysia,  in  Asin  Minor, 
on  the  Adramyttian  Culf,  \\ith  the  island  Le>hos 
lying  over  against  it.  It  stood  on  the  height  above  (lie 
harbour,  occupying  a  strong  natural  jio.--ii.ion,  which 
was  also  well  fortitii  d  by  art;  and  the  town  appears 
to  have  been  for  long  :i  flourishing  and  well- fre 
quented  sea-port.  It  occurs  in  the  history  of  St.  Paul's 
travels,  when  (.11  his  way  from  Crcece  to  Jerusalem 
for  the  last  time.  His  companions  took  ship  at  Troas, 
while  he  went  on  foot  and  joined  them  again  at  Assos, 
Ac.  xx.  i:;,  1 1.  Tho  vessel,  it  would  appear,  had  to  touch  at 
Assos,  and  as  to  reach  it  she  had  to  sail  round  the  pro 
montory  of  Loetuni,  1'aul  took  the  straight  route  on 
foot  from  Troas  to  Assos.  which  was  only  about  half 
the  distance  (20  Roman  miles),  which  he  could  easily 
accomplish  in  the  requisite  time.  There  are  still  numer 
ous  remains  of  the  ancient  town,  one  of  the  most  re 
markable  of  which  is  what  is  called  the  Street  of 
Tombs,  extending  to  a  great  distance  on  the  north-west 
of  the  citv.  and  each  tomb  formed  of  one  block  of 


i  granite.  These,  and  tho  other  remains,  consisting  of 
strong  walls,  theatres,  temples,  &'.•.,  have  been  de 
scribed  by  Fellows  in  his  A  tut  Minor,  p.  ;V2.  A  stone 
found  in  its  neighbourhood,  called  the  Assian  stone. 


$  •  ••&f?$£: 

*       h 


Tli-  AcrulK.lUt.f  Assei 

was  mm  h  used  in  ancient  times  for  coffins,  1  ring  re 
markable  for  its  Mesh-consuming  projtcrtv.  Thev  were 
hence  named  *air<'ji/i<t;/i,  flesh-consumers,  which  came 
by  and  by  to  be  applied  to  stone'  coflins  generally.  Tho 
j  •rojierty  in  the  As.-ian  stone  is  understood  to  have 
been  derived  from  its  limestone  ingredients;  lint  there 
\\:is  J.l'obably  some  exaggeration  ill  the  ,-nppesed  jioWiT 

ami  rajiiditv  with  which  it  acted  on  tho  bodies  com 
mitted  to  its  kci  ) 

ASSYRIA,  THE  COUNTRY  on  MOXAKCHV  op  AS 
SYRIA,  and  the  Ass1!  HI  AX  KMT!  ;:[•'..  lloth.  as  will  as  the 
people,  are  designated  in  Hebrew  Asshur,  from  Asslmr, 
Sin  m's  son:  in  the  Vulgate  it  is  rendered  liy  Assur  and 
As  yrii;  by  the  Creeks  Assyria  d'toleiny,  vi.  1)  and 
Aturia  .Strabo.  xvi.  /Jo"/),  Athuria  ( 1  Hon.  ( 'a  --.  xviii. 
•_''>>,  b-,  in/  merely  the  dialectic  exchange  of  ,s-  into  /. 
Kie-h  mentions  Ninu-oiid  on  the  Ti-i-'s.  1  <  tucen  five  and 
six  hours  north-east  of  Mosul,  which  tho  Turks  ''said 
Al  Athur,  or  Ashur.  from  which  the  whole;  country 
was  denominated"  (Rex/dam  in  h'imlixta>i,  ii.  12!»: 
Abu  el  I'Yilahi.  A  moiiLC  classical  writers  the  words  Assy- 
ria  and  Svria  are  fivqut  ntly  found  interchange  .1  (Strabo, 
xvi.  c.  i.),  and  some  modern  commentators  have  con- 
jee'tund  that  thi-  is  likewise;  the  case  in  Scripture 
(Ilii/.ig,  Ik'jriff  d.  Krltlk  Alt.  Test.  p.  93,  Heidelberg, 
1831;  H.ndtrson  on  Isaiah,  }>.  17:'',  London,  1S40). 

The  lion  was  the  emblematic  symbol  of  the  Assyrian 
empire,  !>;i.  vii.  I.  Tlie  .-•ymbolic  form  of  the  bull  miard- 
inu'  the  entrances  at  the  ]S"inevite  palaces,  according  to 
some,  was  adopted  by  the  king  of  Assyria,  in  allusion  to 
the  name  of  the  jicople:  "For  the  h:dl  is  called  xrlmnr 
and  tour,  fell, .win-/  the  dialects  of  th.e  Semitic  idiom, 
as  Assyria,  Aschoiir,  and  Aturia.  The  addition  of  the 
article  before  these  words  would  produce  llaschour  or 
Hatotir.  Thus  the  goddess  JIathor.  borrowed  by  Egypt 
from  Assyria,  is  rejiresented  under  the  form  of  a  cow. 
This  Hathor  is  the  same  as  Venus;  and  the  dove  con 
secrated  to  this  goddess  in  Syria  and  Cyprus,  is  called 
l/i/ir,  like  the  bull  or  cow"  (A.  de  Longperier,  Notice 
(/..-;  A  tit!'/.  A;.*.  /><!/>.  Pcrs.  <t  J!<h.  dti  Music  dn 
Lourrc,  !!d  edit.  1S.>1). 


ASSY:;  i  A 


144 


ASSY  IMA 


The  country  or  monarchy  of  Assyria,  or  A>svria 
Proper,  was  originally  of  I  nit  small  extent,  ami  had 
not,  like  Babylonia,  any  ureat  natural  frontiers  to  do- 
tern  line,  its  limits,  while  the  sites  of  the  cities  founded 
by  Asshur  are  as  yet  uncertain.  It  is  stated  to  have 
heen  "  bounded  on  the  north  by  Mount  Niphatos  and 
part  of  Armenia,:  on  the  east  by  that  part  of  Media. 
which  lies  towards  Mounts  Chalioras  and  Zagros;  on 
the  south  by  Susiana,  as  well  as  part  of  Babylonia; 
and  finally,  on  the  west  by  the  Tigris''  (Chcsney  s 
Stirrry  <>f  Jlv.pliratts,  i.;  Ptolemy,  vi.  1.  ;  Pliny,  Xal. 
.//tat.  v.  !:'>.;  Str.-iho,  xvi.  c.  i.)  It  very  nearly  corre 
sponds  to  the  modem  Kurdistan  with  :i  part  of  the 
pashalic  of  Mosul.  Of  Asshur' s  cities  the  site  of  Jle- 
hoboth  has  heen  shitted  everywhere,  hut  \ve  learn 
from  Chesney.  that  "  on  the  right  hank  of  the  Euphra 
tes,  at  the  north-western  extremity  of  the  plain,  of 
Shinar.  and  '•'> '.  miles  south-west  of  the  town,  of  Mayadin, 
are  extensive  ruins,  around  a  castle,  still  hearing  the 
name  of  Kehoboth."  The  ruins  of  Kalah  Shergat,  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  Tigris,  have  with  great  proba 
bility  been  identified  with  the  ancient  Oala.li  (Ains- 
worth.  Trait.-!.  Lund.  (lioy.  Society,  vol.  i.\.)  Nimroud  has 
been  identified  with  Resell  (Surrey  <>f  Jiuphrat.;  Jour. 
]!<t>/.  (r'tof/.  Focti/i/,  ix.  '.].'>•  and  sequel  of  Rawlinson  s 
^,'o/rs;  Xcnophon.  AinJt.  b.  iii.):  and  the  site  of  Nine 
veh  may  now  ho  spoken  of  with  certainty.  The  con 
clusive  identification  of  the  sites  of  Erech,  Accad,  and 
(Vdneh,  the  frontier  towns  of  Nimred's  kingdom,  would 
mark  the  southern  boundary  of  Assyria.  Ercch  is 
believed  to  lie  the  modern  "W  ark  ah,  the  Orchoe  of  the 
( i  reeks  (Eraser's  Mesopotamia  and  Assyria,  p.  l'J;>; 
Ohesney ;  Rawlinson's  Outline  of  Assyrian  History, 
Trans.  Roy.  fric.  Lit.  2d  series,  vi.  1);  Accad  or  Aceur, 
supposed  modern  Akkerkuf  (Ainsworth's  Researches  in 
Assyria);  and  t'alneh  is  fixed  by  the  concurrence  of  a 
great  mass  of  authority,  ancient  and  modern,  at  what 
was  the  ancient  Ctesiphon,  on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris 
about  13  milt.-:-  below  Bagdad,  the  surrounding  district 
being  called  by  the  Greeks  Chalonitis.  The  site  was 
afterwards  occupied  by  El  Madair.  This  site  does  not 
agree  with  that  mentioned  by  Chesncy,  who  identifies 
it  with  the  modern  Charchemish,  supporting  his  con 
jecture  by  the  note  in  Calmet  that  its  name  implied 
''last  built  town,"  or  "  border  town." 

Ptolemy  divides  Assyria  proper  into  six  provinces: 
Arrapaehitis  (from  Arphaxad  ?  Go.  x.  22-24,  Vater  on 
Genesis,  i.  1;">1)  011  the  north;  Oalakine,  or  Oalachone 
(Strabo),  perhaps  Chalack.  2Ki.  xvii.o,  on  the  south; 
Adiabene  Chadyab,  or  Hadyab ;  Arbelitis,  in  which 
was  Arbela,  now  Arbil,  where  Alexander  defeated 
Darius:  and  south  of  this,  Apolloniatis  and  Sittakene; 
the  capital  of  the  whole  country  being  Xineveh,  on  the 
east  bank  of  the  Tigris.  Mr.  Ainsworth  states  (Re 
searches  in  Assyria,  Lond.  1838),  that  "Assyria,  in 
cluding  Taurus,  is  distinguished  into  three  districts;  by 
its  structure  into  a  district  of  plntonic  and  metamor- 
phic  rocks,  a  district  of  sedentary  formations,  and  a 
district  of  alluvial  deposits;  by  configuration  into  a 
district  of  mountains,  a  district  of  stony  or  sandy 
places,  and  a  district  of  low  watery  plains;  by  natural 
productions  into  a  country  of  forests  and  fruit-trees, 
of  olives,  wine,  corn,  and  pasturage,  or  of  barren  rocks; 
a  country  of  mulberry,  cotton,  maize,  tobacco,  or  of 
barren  clay,  sand,  pebbly  or  rocky  plains;  and  into 
a  country  of  date  trees,  rice,  and  pasturage,  or  a  land 
of  saline  plants.  The  vegetation  of  Taurus  is  remark 


able  for  the  abundance  of  trees,,  shrubs,  and  plants  in 
the  northern,  and  their  comparative  absence  in  the 
southern  district."  When  Alexander  the  Great  de 
signed  to  build  a  fleet  he  was  forced  to  nse  cypress 
brought  from  Assyria,  and  from  the  groves  and  parks, 
as  there  was  a  scarcity  of  timber  in  Babylonia  (Arrian 
/;/.  Alc.r..  lib.  vii. ;  Strabo,  xvi.  1,  12).  "Besides  the 
productions  above  enumerated,  Kurdistan  yields  gall- 
nuts,  gum-arabic-,  mastic,  manna,  madder,  castor-oil, 
and  various  kinds  of  grain,  pulse,  and  fruit.  There 
are  naphtha  springs  on  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Tigris. 
The  animals  of  the  mountain  district  include  bears, 
panthers,  wolves,  lynxes,  foxes,  marmots,  dormice, 
fallow  and  red  deer,  roebucks,  antelopes,  and  goals. 
In  the  plains  are  found  lions,  tigers,  hya-nas,  jerboas, 
wild  boars,  beavers,  camels,"  t\.c.  (Ainsworth);  the 
sculptures  also  show  us  sheep,  oxen,  horses,  dogs,  hares, 
partridge's,  and  pheasants.  To  the  north  is  a  mass  of 
mountains  with  snowy  peaks;  on  the  west  is  the  impe 
tuous  Tigris  (Hiddekel,  Gc.  ii.  H;D;i.  x.  4),  across  which, 
28  miles  by  the  river  below  Nineveh,  is  the  celebrated 
dyke  of  solid  masonry  called  Zikru-1-awnz.  The  stream 
when  full  rushes  with  great  force  over  this  obstruction; 
7  miles  lower  down  there  is  another  dyke,  Xikr  Ismail, 
but  in  a  dilapidated  state.  In  its  progress  the  Tigris 
receives  from  Assyria  two  mountain  streams,  the  Great 
and  Little  Zab,  the  Sykos  and  Capros  of  the  Greeks. 

ASSYRIAN  EMPIKE. — As  the  sovereigns  of  Assyria 
increased  their  possessions  by  conquest,  the  name  of 
the  parent  country  was  given  to  each  new  acquisition, 
so  that  the  limits  of  the  empire  varied  at  different 
periods  ;  and  even  long  after  it  was  overthrown,  the 
name  was  retained  in  Mesopotamia  and  Babylonia. 
Thus,  Isaiah  describes  the  Assyrians  as  beyond  "the 
river"  (Euphrates),  ch.  vii.  20.  Nebuchadnezzar,  though 
ruling  at  Babylonia,  is  termed  king  of  Assyria,  2Ki. 
xxii.  2U;  and  Darius,  king  of  Persia,  is  called  king  of 
Assyria,  Ezr.  vi.  22.  The  empire  under  Tiglath  Pileser 
comprehended  not  on!}'  Assyria  proper,  the  moun 
tains  of  Kurdistan,  and  the  country  between  Kur 
distan  and  the  Caucasus,  but  likewise  Media,  Syria, 
and  the  northern  part  of  Palestine.  Shalmaneser  added 
Israel,  Sidon,  Acre,  and  Cyprus  to  the  empire.  The 
Assyrian  empire  attained  its  greatest  limits  under  the 
ChaldaBO  -  Babylonian  rule,  in  the  time  of  Nebuchad 
nezzar,  when  it  comprised  all  "Western  Asia  as  far 
as  the  Mediterranean  and  confines  of  Egypt.  Evid 
ences  of  the  sway  of  the  Assyrians  still  exist  in  the 
pillars,  boundary  tablet*,  and  inscriptions  at  [Mount 
El  wand  (ancient  Orontes);  Behistun;  the  pass  of  Keli 
Shin;  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Van:  at  Nahr-al-kelb, 
tablets  with  portrait  of  king  \a  cast  of  one  in  the  British 
Museum] ;  at  Lamaka  in  Cyprus,  tablet  with  portrait  of 
the  same  king  (the  original  in  the  museum  at  Berlin};  in 
the  desert  between  the  Nile  and  the  Red  Sea;  at  Dash 
Tappeh  in  the  plain  of  Mirgaudab;  one  on  the  banks 
of  the  Euphrates;  some  at  Mel  Amir;  and  the  broken 
obelisk  at  Susa.  Though  many  of  the  inscriptions  are 
the  chronicles  of  Median  and  Persian  sovereigns,  they 
still  mark  with  certainty  the  extent  of  the  preceding 
Assyrian  empire. 

History. — "Out  of  that  land  went  forth  Asshur, 
and  builded  Nineveh,  and  the  city  Eehohoth.  and 
Calah,  and  Heseri,  between  Nineveh  and  Calah :  the 
same  is  a  great  city,"  Ge.  x.  11-20  (Aspin,  A nal.  Un- 
Hist.  i.  297).  Of  the  sons  of  Shem  Scripture  has 
recorded  nothing  except  of  Asshur.  but  of  him  the 


ASS  VIM  A 


145 


ASSYRIA 


record  is  of  the  highest  importance,  as  it  fixes  the  :  Assyrian  monarchy  took  place  22S4  B.C.  The  Armenian 
epoch  of  the  kingdom  of  Assyria.  It  may  be  inferred  historian  Eusebius  places  it  1340  years  before  the  first 
from  Genesis  that  Asshur  had  originally  dwelt  in  the  Olympiad,  or  211(5  B.C.  xEmilius  Sura,  quoted  by 
plains  of  Sliinar,  and  that  he  led  a  company  or  tribe  Paterculus,  says  it  \vas  '2145  B.C.  An  extract  from 
from  Babel,  travelling  up  the  Tigris  and  settling  in  Polyhistor,  found  in  the  Armenian  Chronicle,  and  be- 
the  land  to  which  he  gave  his  name,  Assyria  being  the  ;  lieved  to  be  an  extract  from  Berosus,  the  ancient  na- 
Greek  derivative  from  the  Hebrew  Asshur.  Some  ,  live  historian,  contains  a  table  from  the  dynasties  of 
adopt  the  marginal  reading,  "he  (Nimrod)  went  out  the  old  Assyrian  empire,  assigning  the  date  of  each, 
into  Assyria;"  but  the  verse  in  Micah,  eh.  v.  0,  strongly  and  the  computation  of  the  whole  inves  the  epoch  2317 
corroborates  the  received  text,  "  And  they  shall  waste  B.C.  as  that  of  the  foundation  of'the  first  nionaivhv. 
the  land  of  Assyria  with  the  sword,  (tad  the  land  of  This  date  differs  so  immaterially  from  that  of  the  Bib- 
Nimro'l  in  the  entrance  thereof,"  a  passage  which  im-  lical  chronology,  that  it  would  'not  be  unreasonable  to 
plies  distinct  founders  for  the  separate  kingdoms  of  assume  that  Ninus  may  have  been  the  great-grandson, 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  which  were  both  united  in  the  or.  at  all  events,  no  very  remote  descendant  of  Asshur. 


Assyrian  monarchy  about  the  time  of  this  prophecy. 
Mow  long  Asshur  lived,  or  how  far  he  established  his 
power,  are  not  to  be  learned  from  the  sacTed  narrative. 
After  the  foundation  of  the  kingdoms  of  Nimrod 
and  Asshur,  we  meet  with  no  direct  mention  in  Scrip 
ture  of  either  Nineveh  or  its  king  for  a  period  of  lotin 


Dr. 


Abydenus.  in  the  Armenian  edition  of  Kuscbius'  Chro- 
r.iflr,  j places  Ninus  sixth  in  descent  from  Belus,  the 
first  king  of  the  Assyrians:  and  the  editor,  in  a  note 
produces  some  passages  from  .Moses  Choronensis  and 
others,  to  show  that  such  was  the  general  opinion 
among  the  Armenians  (Cory's  I'raynu'Htf,  p.  Gin.  This 


th'-r  learned  men  are  inclined     account,  which  makes  Ninus  contemporary  with  Abra 


ham  (Cory.  p.  3»'p),  the  tenth  generation  from  Shem 
(I'ctavius  says  Abraham  was  born  in  the  twenty-fourth 
year  of  Semiramis'  reign,  lib.  i.  c  2)  perfectly  accords 


the  two  kingdoms,   hut  merely  throws  the  date  of  their     wiih    t! 


duration  of  the  Assyrian  empire,  which,  it 
origin  forward.  In  Genesis  xiv.  11,  Chedorlaomer.  is  generally  agi-eed,  did  not  exceed  1300  years  from  its 
king  of  Klam  tin  the  south  of  Persia),  held  five  petty  rise  to  the  fall  of  Sardanapalus.  about  ',Mi4  BO.,  but 

"  urine 


twelve'   years, 


H 


mentioned  as  being  in  league  with  Amraphel, 
kiii'.:'  of  Sliinar,  who  (.losephus,  Anti*/.  lib.  i.  e.  10 
was  ;i  commander  in  the  Assyrian  armv,  and  likewise 
with  Arioch,  king  of  Kllasar,  Kl-Asar  may  not  this  be 


which  Kusehius  says  lasted  llilO  years  (Cory,  p.  7-1'. 
Jf  we  reckon  backwards  13<K.)  years,  we  shall  find  that 
the  reign  of  Ninus  commenced  1  lo  years  after  Nimrod 
began  to  be  mighty  on  earth.  Some  have  inferred  from 
the  statement  of  Berosus  that  Ninus  was  the  son  of 


It  is  probable  that  these  kings  were      Ximrod;  hut  ind,  peiioVntlv  of  this  tl 


Assyrian  satraps  or  viceroys,  according  to  the  subse 
quent  Assyrian  boast.  "Are  not  my  princes  altogether 
kings?''  Is  \v  Towards  the  cl 

we  au'ain  meet  with  traces  of  Assyria  as  an  independent 
and  formidable  state.  Balaam  the  seer,  addressing  the 
Kenites,  a  tribe  of  highlanders  east  of  the  Jordan,  took 


of  the  Armenian  chroniclers  is  highly  corroborative  of 
the  hypothesis  that  Babylonia  and  Assyria  were  orgin- 
f  the-  Mo.-aic  age,  ally  two  distinct  kingdoms,  and  it  is  likewise  perfectly 
consistent  with  the  authorities  who  ascribe  the  founda 
tion  of  the  Assyrian  empire  to  Xinus.  Asshur  was  the 
founder  ,,f  the  iitoitm-c/iy  only  of  Assyria,  but  the  be- 


in  his  rei'jn. 

Ninus  confirmed  the  magnitude  of  his  domination  by 

continual  possession  until  he  had  subdued  the  whole  (if 


up  this  parable,  "Strong  is  thy  dwelling-  place,  and  thou  ginning   of   the  empire,    Eze.  xxiii.  23,   may   In.'   computed 

puttest  thy  nest  in  a  rock.      Nevertheless  the  Kenites  from  his  descendant   Ninus.  \sh..  was  king  of   both  As- 

shall   be  wasted,   until   Asshur    shall    carry   thee  away  syria  and  Babylonia,  which  were  for  the  first  time  united 
captive."      And  his  subsequent   parable   of   \eiigeance 
upon  Assyria:  "  And  ships  .-hall  come  from  the  coast 
of  Chittim.  and  shall  atHict  Asshur,"  N'u.  xxiv.  21-24.      We 

also   find    that   shortly   after   the  death   of   Joshua,  the  the  East.      His  la.-t  war  was  with  Oxyartes  or  Zoroaster, 

Israelites  submitted  to  the  arms  of  Chushan-rishathaim,  king  of  the  Bactrians  (Justin,  lib.  i'.  c.  1  i,  whom  he  at. 

king  of  Mesopotamia,  which  was  then  a  separate  govern-  last  conquered   through  the  expedients  of  Semiramis, 

incut  from    Assyria,    Ju.iii.7-io,   though   Josephus   calls  wife  of   Mellon    (Diod.  Sic.  lib.  ii.  c.    1>.      Ninus  suhse- 

him  king  of  Assyria  (Ant.  \.  :'>,  2).      Psalm  Ixxxiii.  ,s  (jueiitly  married  Semiramis,  who  succeeded  to  his  throne. 

says.  "  Assur  also  is  joined  with  them"  against   Israel.  In  the  course  of  a  reign  of  forty-two  years  (Africanus 

but  we  have  no  other  express  mention  of  the  Assyrian  and  Eusebius)  this  queen,  the  first  on  record,  helped  to 

kings,  until  the  reign  of  Jeroboam   II.  (&•>'>   it.  CO,  al-  consolidate  the  oldest  empire  named  in  history.     Her  sou 

though   we   are   not  without  allusions  to   the  state  (.f  Ninyas  was  the  next  king  of  the  empire,  and  has   been 

the  kingdom  during  the  latter  part  of  this  period,   Go.  identified  with  Chedorlaomer,  king  of  Elam,  Go.  xiv.,  14,5,  o; 

xv.l8;Ex.xxiii.31;lKi.  iv.21-24;lCh.xviii.3;Ps.lxxii.8.   This  ter-   :  Is.x.8;   (Shuckford's  .SVtr.  and  J'rof.  Jlist.  Con.   b.    vi.) 

minates  what  may  be  styled  the  first  historical  period  He  died  after  a  reign  of  thirty  -eight  years,  transmitting 

of  the  Assyrian  empire  according  to  Scripture.     Before  to  his  successors  an  empire  so  well  constituted  as  to  remain 

entering  upon  the  second  period,  which  is  derived  from  '  in  the  hands  of  a  series  (.f  kings  for  thirty  generations. 

Holy  Writ,  with  some  aid  from  profane  historians,  it  is  Although  we  have  no  direct  history  of  the  acts  of  any  of 

desirable  to  supply  a  brief  history  from  the  Greek  and  these  sovereigns,  beyond  those  sure  indications  of  their 


Armenian  writers. 


rule  afforded  by  the  sculptures  and  inscriptions  which 


According  to  Scripture,  Nineveh  was  founded  by  As-     have  been  found   in   Persia,    Media,    Armenia,    Cojle- 
shur  about  2230  B.C.,  but  according  to  Diodorus  iSieulus,  ;  Syria,  and  Cyprus,  the  records  of  other  nations  furnish 
quoting  Ctesias,  it  was  founded  21S3  B.C.  (lib.  ii.  c.  1).  -  occasional  gleams  of  information  connected  with  As- 
Herodotus    is  silent   upon    this   point,    but  Africanus,  '  svria. 
quoted   by  Syneellus,  states  that  the  foundation  of  the          Scripture  tells  us  of  Jacob's   visit  to  his  uncle  Laban 

VOL  I  19 


ASSYRIA 

in  Mesopotamia,  lie.  xxix.  in,  and  of  the  servitude  of  the 
Israelites  under  Chushan  rishathaim,  about  1  K><)  IU'., 
Ju.  iii.  i-:'.  I  leykab,  king  of  Armenia,  after  a  protracted 
contest,  subdued  Amyntas,  seventeenth  king  of  Assyria; 
but  his  successor,  P.elochus,  recovered  his  territory,  and 
killed  Heykab  (Cory's  /''ray.  p.  72,  73,  77).  The  most 
interesting  revelations  are  likely  to  result  from  the  read 
ings  of  Egyptian  monuments,  some  of  which  leave  it 
beyond  doubt  that  Mesopotamia  was  conquered,  and 
siege  laid  to  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  by  the  Egyptians, 
between  1100  and  1300  B.C.  (Birch's  Ohgcrvationx  on 
Obdisk  oft/a  Al  Mtli/an,  and  on  (he  Talild  of  Karnalc, 
Tran*.  Roy.  Sor.  Lit.  2d  series,  vol.  ii.  p.  218, 
317,315:  Lepsius  Attsmilit.  t.  xiv;  Vyses'  Journal. 
vol.  iii.)  The  Egyptian  monuments  do  not  as  yet  fur 
nish  us  with  later  data  connected  with  Assyria,  but  it 
was  under  the  reign  of  its  early  kings  that  I'amesos  the 
Great  (Sesostris  of  the  Greeks!  pursued  his  conquests 
in  the  .East  far  beyond  Assyria.  Plato  makes  the 
kingdom  of  Troy  at  the  time  of  Priam.  1184  B.C.,  a 
dependant  of  the  Assyrian  empire  (D<  Ley.  lib.  iii.  68/5; 


G  ASSYRIA 

I'oJlin,  vol.  ii.);  and  J  >iodorus  says  (lib.  ii.  c.  2)  that 
Teutamus,  the  twentieth  from  Ninyas,  sent  '2(1,000 
troops  and  200  chariots  to  the  assistance  of  the  Trojans, 
whose  king,  Priam,  was  a  prince  under  the  Assyrian 
empire.  Herodotus  says  nothing  of  Assyria  until  he 
begins  to  relate  how  Media  became  a  nation.  Thus, 
he  says,  when  speaking  of  an  event  which  happened 
71  1  B.C.,  that  the  Assyrians  had  ruled  Tppcr  Asia  r>20 
years  before  that:  (Clio,  xcv.)  —  a  discrepancy  from  the 
statements  of  other  writers,  to  be  easily  reconciled  by 
the  supposition  that  Ctesias  dated  from  the  earliest 
establishment  of  the  monarchy,  while  Herodotus  con 
fines  himself  to  the  establishment  of  the  great  empire 
over  Central  Asia. 

The  historical  period,  properly  so  called,  of  Assyrian 
history  begins  with  the  fall  of  the  first  empire  under 
Sardanapalus,  whose  true  name  was  perhaps  Asser- 
Iladan-Pul,  syllables  which  we  shall  find  used  in  many 
of  the  names  of  the  later  kings.  His  throne  was  over 
turned  by  the  MedeS;  commanded  by  Arbaces,  who  made 
himself  king  of  Assyria  about  «.C.  804.  After  tho 


[83.]        An  Assyrian  King  in  his  Chariot  of  State  ftfimroud).— Layar.l's  Monuments  of  Xineveh  v 


death  of  Arbaoes  the  Mode,  the  Assyrians  made  them 
selves  again  independent.     The  first  of  the  new  line  of 
kings  was  Pul.  1  Oh.  v.  -2ft,  in  whose  reign  Menahem,  king  ! 
of  Israel,  provoked  a  war  with  Assyria,  is.c.  773.     He  j 
conquered  Tipsah  or  Thapsacus  on  the  Euphrates,  and  [ 
put  the  inhabitants  to  death  with  great  cruelty,  2  Ki.  xv.  10.  j 
The  following  year  Pul  marched  into  Samaria,  and  the  j 
Israelites  purchased  a  peace  at  the  price  of  1000  talents  j 
of  silver.      B.C.  7-r>3,   Tiglath-Pileser,  or  Pul-Asser,  the 
next  king  of  Assyria,  also  found  an  excuse  for  invading 
Samaria.     In  the  civil  war  between  Israel  and  Judah, 
when  the  Israelites  called  to  their  help  the  king  of  Syria, 
whose  capital  was    Damascus,    Aha/,,    king   of  Judah, 
sent  a  large  sum  of  money  to  purchase  the  help  of  the 
Assyrians.     Tiglath  accordingly  led  an  army  against 
Syria,  conquered  Damascus,  and  slew  lie/in  the  king. 


He  entirely  vanquished  the  Israelites,  and  took  from 
them  the  larger  part  of  the  kingdom.  He  then  added 
to  the  Assyrian  empire  not  only  Syria,  but  Gilead  and 
Naphtali,  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  and  Galilee  to  the 
north,  leaving  to  the  Israelites  only  the  province  of 
Samaria.  He  carried  his  captives  to  the  farthest  end 
of  his  own  kingdom,  the  banks  of  the  river  Kir,  which 
flows  into  the  Caspian  Sea.  Ahaz,  king  of  Judah,  went 
in  person  to  Damascus  to  pay  homage  to  the  Assyrian 

conqueror,     2  Ki.  xv.  20;     xvi.  5-10;    ICh.  v.2C;    2Ch.xxviii.lfi. 

Shalrnaneser.  the  next  king  of  Assyria,  B.C.  734,  is  also 
called  Shalman  by  the  prophet  Hosea,  and  Enemessar 


Phe  name  of  this  king,  inscribed  on  pavement  slab,  and  on 


labs  built  into  the  walls  of  the  palace  at  Nimroud,  is  conjee 


urod  to  be  Till  or  Tiglath-Pileser.— Translation  of  names  in 


fjav.'ird's  Mnrimiif-ntf  "f  N 


ASSYRIA 


14; 


by  To  bit,  oh.  i.-2.    In  the  Canons  of  Syncellus  and  J  'toleinv      Lachi.-h  in  pi 
he  is  called  Nabonassar  vCory.  Anc.  L<ra<j.  p.  78,  7!M.     terms   of  suli 
In  the  ninth  year  of  his  reign  lie  led  an  army  against     treasury,  and 
Hoshea,  king  of  Israel,  which  was  now  reduced  within 
the  limits  of  Samaria.     At  the  end  of  three  vears  he 
had  wholly  conquered  this  people, 
carrying  away  into  captivity  the 
chief  men  of  the  ten  tribes.     He 
placed      them     at      Halah      near 
Xineveh,   at  Habor  on  the  river 
Gozan,  and  in  some  of  the  cities  of 
the  Modes,  and  settled  Cutheans 
from     r.abylonia    in    their    place, 
L'Ki.xviii  !i-ii;  xvii.  .>().     lie  also  con 
quered  Sidon  and   Acre,  and  the 
island  of  Cyprus.  Tyre  alone  hold 
ing  out  against  a  siege  (Menander 
in  Josephus,  .\nti</.  x.  1  1,  2).  Shal 
maneser  died   before  the  removal 
of  the    Israelites   was 
and  the  prisoners  wen 
as    a    present    to    his 
Hi),  x.ii.    Sennacherib,  ( 
by  Hosea,  succeeded  Shalmaneser 

(IJ.C.     7-><>).         GeSClliuS     is     disposed 

to  identify  him  with  the  Sardana- 
palus  who  is  said  to  have  built 
the  cities  of  Anchiale  and  Tarsus 
in('ilicia  (Arrian.  /;>/><</.  ufAli.r. 
ii.  5;  Strabo,  xiv.  4,  ,S>.  He  com 
pleted  the  deportation  of  the 
Israelites,  and  then  invaded  Judea. 
in  tin;  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign 
of  He/.-kiah  (H.c.71  1>.  He  marched 
without  interruj)tion  through 
Galilee  and  Samaria,  which  we 
Assyria,  and  entered  the  country  , 

and  .Migron.  He  laid  up  hi-  carriages  at  Michmash  a- 
he  came  ujion  the  hill  country  around  Jerusalem. 
The  people  tied  at  his  approach,  and  all  resistance 
seemed  hopeless.  While  Sennacherib  was  besie'_rinu' 


ASSYRIA 

i.  Hezekiah  sent  messengers  to  make- 
ion,    and    lie   had    to   drain    his   own 
borrow  from   that  of  the  temple,   to 
raise  the  tribute  exacted.  :>nn  talents  of  silver  and  ."0 
talents  of  gold.    I.e.   about  .f2o'i>.8."0, '  -JKi.viii.il;  it'll. 


11  now  provinces  of  '  \\\n  In  the  meantime  Sennacherib  sent  part  of  his 
f  r.enjamin  at  Aiath  army,  under  the  command  of  Tartan.  -  Ki  xviii.  ir, 
southward,  against  the  cities  of  the  south.  Tartan 
endeavoured  to  persuade  th'-  people  of  Jerusalem  to 
open  the  '/ates.  lint  made  no  attempt  to  storm  the 
city.  He  then  moved  forward,  laid  siege  to  A/otus, 


I'.'1',  i      Cajii-ivi.1  Israelites  before  Sennacherib.    (Kouyuujik  ) 

and   soon   captured  the    place,    Is.  xxxvi.  xxxvii.       When  beautiful  simplicity  by  Isaiah,  ch.xxxvii.ai;  2 Ki.xix.35;  Herod 

Sennacheril)  had  made  terms  with  Hezekiah,  he  led  his  ' 

army  against   Tlrhakah   the    Kthiopian.  king  of   Kirvpt.  !       '  A"""1-  ""•  '"8c«I'ti';''«  'li^overe.l  at   K.mjunjik,  .ami  now 

i                            i  .                ,1           i-    r-     r-    ,1  in  tin1  limi^h  Museum,  i>iiin-  recording  the  ox;u;t  iiniount  hen- 

who  was  marching  to   the  relief  of  the  Jews.      At  Pel-  mention0(]>  ;ir,,,,,|in,,  t(,  „„.  ltuv.  ,„,   Hinrk.s  to  wl.oi.i  i.  due 

lisium.  the  frontier  town  on  the  most  easterly  branch  of  :   the  disrovc-iy  nf  the  i-iini-ifm-iii   inniHTtls.      It  is  desir;il.le  to  (ix- 

the  Nile,  he  was  met  by  an    Kgyptian  army  under  the  i'l:tin  that,  although  the  sulijeut-matu-r  «.f  the  ;iccon>i>;iiiyiiig 

command  of  Sethos,  a  priest  of   Memphis.    "]',ut  before  ,    '""^rations  ^  self-evident,  the  i.mper  nanu-s  are,  to  a  certain 

,,,,,,                    ,       ,  I   extent,  conjectural  renderings  of  the  fuiicit'orin  inscriptions  on 

any  battle  took  place,  the  Assyrian  host  was  cut  off  by  i  the3cui1)ture;  tl,e authority  being  Lavard's  IHwtrteinMnwh 

that  signal    catastrophe    which   is    described   with  such  anil  ii<ii>>it<>,i. 


ASSYRIA 


ASSYRIA 


ii.  MI.  Sennacherib  himself  escaped  alive,  and  returned 
homo  "and  dwelt  at"'  Nineveh  (Geseuius'  Comment  on 
Iiiuiit/i.  p.  ODD).  Merodach  Baladan,  who  was  then 
reigning  at  Babylon,  may  have  felt  himself  too  strong 
to  he  treated  as  the  vassal  of  Nineveh  ;  he  made  a  treaty 
with  Hezekiali.  This  probably  provoked  Sennacherib, 
and  caused  the  latter  years  of  his  reign  to  he  employed 
in  wars  with  the  Babylonians  (A.  Polyhistor  in  Euseh. 
Ar. Citron.  ;  Cory's  Fragment,-;,  p.  01);  till  at  length,  as 
he  was  worshipping  in  the  temple  of  the  Assyrian  god 
N'isroch,  he  was  murdered  by  his  sons  AdranniK'leeh 
and  Sharezer.  They  escaped  from  punishment  over  tlie 
northern  frontier  into  Armenia,  which  had  been  able  to 
hold  itself  independent  of  Assyria,  and  Esarhaddon  his 
son  reigned  in  his  stead,  is.  xxxvii.  :!7,  :is;  ->Ki.  xix.  :i7.  Sen 
nacherib  had  reigned  for  perhaps  thirty-seven  years  over 
Assyria,  Media,  Galilee,  and  Samaria,  and  probably 
held  Babylon  as  a  dependent  province,  governed  by  a 
tributary  monarch.  Isaiah,  ch.  xx.  i,  mentions  a  king  of 
Assyria  named  Sargon,  who  is  identified  by  some  with 
Sennacherib,  and  by  others,  either  with  Shahnaiieser 
(Von  Gumpach),  or  with  Esarhaddon  (Calmet,  Sharpc). 
Gesenius  (Comment  on  Is«.)  is  of  opinion  that  Sargon 
was  a  king  of  Assyria,  who  succeeded  Shalmaneser. 
M.  Longperier  (Notice  di:s  Anliquitcs  Assyriennes,  <tr., 
dn  Musi'.e  de  Louvre,  3d  edition,  1854)  states  that  the 
principal  inscription  on  one  of  the  bulls  at  Khorsabad 
commences  with  the  royal  formula,  ''  Sargon,  king  of  the 
country  of  Assur."  There  are  cylinders  bearing  the 
name  of  Sargon,  and  Oppert  calls  him  the  father  of  Sen 
nacherib  (Citron,  of  Assyrians).  The  date  of  Esarhad 
don' s  gaming  the  throne  of  Nineveh  is  uncertain;  but 
the  time  that  he  became  Icing  of  Babylon  is  better 
known,  for  in  the  year  B.C.  680  he  put  an  end  to  a  line 
of  kings  who  had  reigned  there  for  sixty-seven  years 
(Ptolemy's  Canon,  and  that  of  Syncellus  in  Cory's 
Fray,  p.  SO,  81,  83).  Towards  the  end  of  his  reign  he 
sent  an  army  against  Manasseh,  king  of  Jiidah,  and 
carried  him  prisoner  to  Babylon,  but  after  a  short  time 
he  released  him,  and  again  seated  him  on  the  throne  of 
Jerusalem.  2Cli.xxxiii.il.  Esarhaddon  is  the  Sarchedon 
of  Tobit,  eh.  i.  21,  the  Asaradinus  of  Ptolemy's  Canon, 
and  is  supposed  to  be  the  A  snapper  of  Ezra,  ch.  iv.  2,10. 
There  are  cylinders  and  fragments  of  Esarhaddon,  and 
likewise  of  Sennacherib  in  the  British  Museum  (Raw- 
liuson,  London  Monthly  Review,  No.  1).  Sardochceus, 
the  next  king  (B.C.  607),  reigned  over  Nineveh,  Babylon, 
and  Israel  for  twenty  years ;  and  over  Media,  also,  till 
that  country  revolted,  remaining  independent  for  one 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  years.  Chyniladan  (B.C.  047) 
reigned  twenty- two  years  ;  but  during  this  reign  As 
syria  was  still  further  weakened  by  the  loss  of  Babylon, 
which  then  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Chaldeans.  In 
025  B.C.  their  leader,  Nabopolassar  (Nebuchodonosor 
of  Judith),  was  king  of  that  city,  and  of  the  lower  half 
of  the  valley  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates.  Two  years 
later  he  marched  northward  against  Nineveh,  which  he 
stormed  and  sacked,  Tobit  xiv.  4, 10, 15;  Na.  i.  8-l4;ii.  6,8, 9; 
iii.  i:;-ir>.  On  the  conquest  of  Nineveh  by  Nabopolassar 
the  city  was  by  no  means  destroyed:  but  the  empire  of 
Assyria  fell,  and  merged  in  that  of  Babylonia.  It  is 
likely  that  the  book  of  Jonah  was  written  about  this 
time.  The  Jews  had  expected  that  Nineveh,  the  great 
enemy  of  their  nation,  would  have  been  for  ever  and 
wholly  destroyed;  but  Assyria  is  no  longer  unfriendly 
to  them,  and  the  purport  of  the  book  of  Jonah  is  to  ex 
plain  the  justice  of  God's  government  in  sparing  that 


city,  which  had  repented  of  its  enmity,  and  should  now 
find  favour  in  their  sight.  Josiah,  king  of  Judah,  finds  a 
friend  and  protector  in  Nabopolassar,  king  of  Assyria. 
During  the  civil  wars  between  Nineveh  and  Babylon, 
Assyria  was  yet  further  weakened  by  an  inroad  of  the 
Scythians,  who  first  came  upon  the  Medes,  and  wholly 
routed  the  army  which  Cyaxares  the  king  sent  against 
them.  They  then  crossed  Mesopotamia,  laying  waste  the 
country  as  they  passed  (Herodotus,!.  103).  At  this  period 
Neclio,  king  of  Egypt,  pushed  his  arms  east\vard,  claim 
ing  authority  over  Samaria  and  Judea;  but  Josiah,  king 
of  Judah,  was  true  to  the  Babylonians.  The  Egyptians 
were  victorious — Josiah  was  slain,  and  the  whole  of 
Palestine  fell  into  the  power  of  the  Egyptians,  who  set 
up  a  new  king  over  Judah.  A  few  Years  later,  how 
ever,  Nabopolassar  again  reduced  the  Jews  to  their 
former  state  of  vassalage  under  Babylon,  2Ki.  xxiii.  2:1. 
Nabopolassru-  was  now  old,  and  his  son  Nebuchadnezzar 
(Cylinders)  commanded  for  him  as  general,  carrying  on 
the  war  against  the  Egyptians  on  the  debateable  ground 
of  1'alestine.  After  three  years  Neclio  again  entered 
the  country,  and  inarched  as  far  as  Carchemish,  on  the 
Euphrates,  where  lie  was  totally  defeated  by  Nebu 
chadnezzar,  2  Ki.  xxv.  1;  2  Ch.  xxxv.  2(i;  xxxvi.  1;  Bcrosus  in  Jo- 
sephu.s.  By  this  battle  the  Babylonians  regained  their 
power  over  Jerusalem,  and  drove  the  Egyptians  out  of 
the  country.  Nebuchadnezzar  carried  the  Jewish  nobles 
captive  to  Babylon,  and  Judea  remained  a  province  of 
that  monarchy.  Nebuchadnezzar  succeeded  his  father 
B.C.  605,  and  fixed  his  seat  of  government  at  Babylon. 
Jerusalem  twice  rebelled,  but  he  reduced  it  to  obedience, 
although,  on  the  second  rel  Million,  Hophra,  king  of 
Egypt,  came  to  aid  the  Jews.  Nebuchadnezzar  de 
feated  the  Egyptians,  and  deprived  them  of  every  pos 
session  that  they  had  held  in  Palestine.  Arabia,  or  the 
island  of  Cyprus. 

After  the  death  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  B.C.  502,  Evil- 
Merodach,  Nergal-sarezer.  of  whom  there  is  one  cylin 
der  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  Labousardochus 
(Oppert,  Citron.  Ass.  ct  Bab.},  and  Nabonidas,  the 
latest  king  of  whom  we  have  cylinders  (Rawlinson, 
London  Monthly  Review,  No.  1,  1S57),  reigned  over 
Babylon,  and  held  Nineveh;  but  the  Median  power 
was  now  rising,  and  Cyrus,  at  the  head  of  the  united 
armies  of  Media  and  Persia,  conquered  Babylon  and 
put  an  end  to  the  monarchy.  After  a  few  years  Cyrus 
i  united  the  kingdoms  of  Media  and  Persia,  by  right  of 
i  inheritance — thus,  B.C.  530,  adding  to  the  land  of  his 
birth  the  whole  of  the  possessions  which  had  been  held 
by  Sennacherib,  and  more  than  those  of  Nebuchad 
nezzar. 

When  the  cuneiform  shall  have  been  more  certainly 
read,  further  particulars  of  Assyrian  hi>ti-ry  may  be 
obtained,  especially  with  regard  to  the  kings  who  built 
the  palaces  of  Nineveh.  The  sculptures  that  have  been 
discovered,  which  appeal  so  directly  to  the  understand 
ing  through  the  universal  language  of  art,  also  throw 
an  important  light  on  the  history,  and  manners  and 
customs  of  the  people;  while  the  inscribed  tablets  or 
pillars  (KCC  article  TABLETS)  set  up  at  various  places, 
furnish  indisputable  data  as  to  the  boundaries  of  the 
em]  lire. 

The  government  of  Assyria  was  strictly  despotic,  and 
the  monarch  was  especially  styled  "  the  great  king," 
2  Ki.  xviii.  u;  is.  xxxvi.  4.  He  was  entirely  surrounded 
by  the  numerous  officers  of  his  household,  who  were 
chiefly  eunuchs,  and  whose  portraits  and  relative  duties 


ASSYRIA 


140 


ASS  YE  I A 


have  been  handed  down  to  us  in  the  Xinevite  sculp 
tures.  The  governors  of  provinces  and  towns,  Da,,  i.  0; 
iii.  a  (sec  GOVERNORS),  were  apparently  powerful  princes. 
On  the  sculptures  the  great  king  is  frequently  seen  in 
conference  with  a  richly  dressed  bearded  officer,  who 
would  seem  to  be  of  nearly  equal  rank  with  the  king 
himself.  The  early  religion  of  the  Assyrians  was  a 
symbolic  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  This  gra 
dually  degenerated  until  numerous  gods  were  included 
in  the  worship.  Scripture  mentions  Xisroch,  Bel,  Xeb<», 
Anammelech,  Adrammelech,  Tartak,  Xibhaz,  &(•.,  i;c. 
(Gesenius  o>i  Isaiah);  and  the  sculptures  likewise 
show  us — Dagon,  Ilus,  JSaal  (\vhieh  see),  and  many 
i  ithers. 

Herodotus  supplies  many  particular-;  relating  \^>  the 
government  and  manm. rs  and  cu.-tom-;  of  the  As 
syrians  (i.  I'.'fJ-'Jiil  i.  In  addition  to  those  he  details, 
Strabo  describes  the  mode  of  di.-]><>^ni'_;'  of  voting  women 
in  marriage  ;  and  likewise  mentions  three  tribunals,  one 
consisting  of  persons  past  military  service,  another  (.i' 
nobles,  and  a  third  of  old  men.  beside-  another  appointed 
by  the  king.  "It  was  the  business  of  the  latter  to 
dispose  of  the  virgins  in  marna'/e.  and  to  determine 
causes  respecting  adultery  ;  of  another,  to  decide  th,i>,. 
relative  to  theft  :  and  of  the  third,  tlio.-e  of  assault  and 
violence"  (I),  xvi.  c.  i.  L'n i.  It  i.-  a  curious  subject  for 
remark  ami  speculation,  that  the  A>s\rian  remains  do 


not  disclose'  any  representations  of  funeral  ceremonies, 
or  indications  of  respect  for  the  dead — in  this,  so  strongly 
contrasted  with  Egyptian  monuments,  on  which  funeral 
subjects  are  so  conspicuous,  and  evidences  of  veneration 
for  the  dead  are  so  universal.  Connected  with  this  sub 
ject,  it  is  singular  that  there  should  be  no  instances  of 
sepulture  in  Assyrian  mounds;  but  Babylonia  is  full  of 
cemeteries,  being  apparently  the  burial  ground  of  As 
syria (T.  K.  Loftus,  Ti-ui-'ln  hi  Chadldft.  p.  1(,>8). 

The  tract  of  country  which  formed  Assyria  proper  is 
now  under  the  nominal  rule  of  the  Porte;  some  of 
the  people  are  stationary  in  villages,  while  others  are 
nomadic.  They  profess  the  faith  of  Islam,  and  are  of 
the  Sunee  sect.  The  Christian  population  is  scattered 
over  the  whole  country,  but  is  most  numerous  in  the 
north:  it  includes  Chalda'ans,  Xestorians.  Syrians, 
Armenians,  \c. 

|  I'm-  .-iiv. >uiits  cif  the^e.  and  i.f  the  country  and  people  of  the 
piv.-en;  day,  MV  drain's  K(g(n,-ianK,  Loud,  isil;  Ainsworth'.s 
TnmUamt  Jtnow/ux  in  Axia  M  or,  M.xojwita  in,  .O.,  Loud. 
1-1:.';  I.ayard's  \lnn\li  •<.,,/  !tx  !{•  „,«',„*;  Uad-er's  Xtstoriait* 
unildinr  Ji.l  ml*;  Jnv.rnnl  i,f  Sccrnl  Literature,  \o\.  iv.  p.  ."'/:'.; 
IVrk iii's  R,-xiil,nct  ,„  fimin,  1843;  Shade's  lfix(,,rif  \nt>  •,  Loud. 
iv,l  ;  iipperf-  ri,,-., „„[„,,;,  iligAfti/rienxdtl'S  BubylnnUng,  Paris, 
1857.]  [j.  u.J 

The  following  is  an  abridged  extract  trom  |  )r.  (  ijipert's 
f^/ironnl'iifi/,  which  is  chielly  derived  from  the  monu 
ments  and  cylinder.-.  : 


E  ASSYRIANS  AND  BABYLONIANS,"  i-,y  J)H.  JULES  OIM-KUT. 


[.—DYNASTIES    N<  >N  SKMI  I'lc, 
uniU'r  tin-  name  nf  S>  ytliic  Su|>ivmary  i 


l.'iiiu  \(  ar.>. 


II.— SEMITIC    DOMINATION. 

i.   I-'IRST  CHAT. i). I:\N   i:\nn:;.      Forty-nine  kings  during  450  years, 
First  kin-  niikn.m  n. 

l.-nii'la-an,  l.nr.l  of  Assyria  (aljout    l!Oi'). 

Sain-i  Hen,  son  i.f  l.-niMnxan  c'.lt  year-  before  Assuunlayanl. 
Naranisin,  Uini;  "f  tin1  four  n'^ioiit-. 

(The  nani,->  »(  tin-  cither  kin-s  ai'e  not  yet  cieeipheivil.) 
11.   Aii\i'.   INVASION,      l-j-lit  kind's  during  I'l'i  years,     .... 

The  Khet  of  thu  l-:-y|itian  liierc.,ul\  phicv,  an -on  1  in.-  to  .\l.  .le  Itoiigc,  rrc.l.alily  tlie  Diiinniukh  of  the  A  Syrians. 
iii.   l!i:i.\T  AS.S\I:IAN    l-:\ii'ii:i:.      Forty-fivu  kings  during  526  years, 

a.    First  />,,//(<'<</.     Xiniiipallcnikin,  first  kin-,  .  l:;l  t 

A  soiinlayan,  son  of  the  iireceiling,         .  aliout  i:;i»i 

Moutakkil-Xabou,  scm  of  the  pi-irnlin-,  ,,      r_>7n 

Assour  ris-ili,  son  of  the  juveeclm-  (rc.ninieneenient  of  the  As.-yrian  power,  follow  in-  l.lie 

Egyptian  preixjnderance,  whicli  had  lasteil  500  years),        .  .          aliout       I-.'.MI 

'Tighith-l'iluser  I.,  son  of  tlie  jireeodin^  (liistorical  cylincU-r  of  son  ]ines\        .  ,.          ]  L'-JO 

Sard, -ma  pal  us  I.,  son  of  tin;  preeeilin-r      .  .  ,.  ]-Joo 

Ti'glath-Pileser  II., 

Sack  of  Nineveh  by  the  Chaldeans,  41S  years  before  the  first,  year  of  Sennacherib,    ,,  111'.! 

lielochus  I.,  son  of  the  preceding,  .  ....          lino 

/'.  &.COIK.I  Di.ina.tty.    Belitaras  (Ji,  1-knt-i, v/.«-,i/)(  usurper,         .  ,.,  1)00 

Sahnanassar  I.,  founder  of  tlie  palace  of  Calah  (Nimroud),  ,,          lo.'«o 

_^anlanaiialus  1J_.,  great-grandson  of  Hclitar.-ts.  .  .  ,,  10'JU 

Sahnanassar  11.,  son  of  tlie  preceding,     .  .,  1000 

Assour-dan-il  I.,  son  of  the  preceding,    .  .  ,,  -'SO 

Uelochus  II.,  grandson  of  Assour-dan-il  I.,        .  -  ,,  070 

Tiglath-Hleser  III.,  son  of  the  preceding,          .  .  .  ,  M" 

-^ajd_a,n;ipjtjus_IIL,  son  of  the  preec'ding.     Great  coiic|iieror,     . 

Sahnanassar  III.,  .son  of  the  preceding.      Adversary  of  Jehu,  King  of  Israel  (Siu 

rovd  OMisk),    .  .  ... 

Satnsi-ou  II.,  son  of  the  preceding,         .  • 

lielochus  III.,  son  of  the  preceding,  huslmnd  of  Soiniramis  (Saiiimouraiiiit), 
Semirainis,  17  years  alone,  ....... 


III.      DIVISION   01'    DOMINION    1JKTWKKN    SUK.MITES    AND   AKIANS. 

MKDIA  and 

U.U1YI.UN.  NlNEVKH.  I'msiA. 

|  [  A  i'ian  rejiubli 

I'l.ul  lielcsis  founds  tho  empire  of  Chal  I  First  kin- of  liabylon  .subjugates  Aa 


Soutroiik     Nak- 

!     hounta. 
747-7U:;     e'onimeiiecmontof  the  captivity  of  Israel,       740 

7:;l-7_n     Salmanazar   I  V.  takes  Samaria  (7-'iM,  Aspabara, 

and  is  dethroned  by  Sargon,    .          .   725-72U  about,  7l!i 


704-70:;  |  *Sennacherib,  sou  of  Sargon,       .         .  704-070 

711^-dliO  (Cylinders,  and  seal  of  contemporary 
Egyptian  king  Sabaco,  probably  tho 
So  of  '2  Kings  xvii.  4,  liavo  boon 
found  at  Nineveh.) 


Anarchy,      . 
Uulibus, 

Assourinaddinson,  sun  of  Sennacherib,  ti:i!M>ii,S 

Irigibd,      .  •  <5!'::-»f'2 

Mesisimardocus,  •   692-688 

Anarch v,      .  ....  6SS-CSO    Campaign  against  Egypt  and  Judea, 

•AssarhaJdoil,  son  of  Sennacherib.     .    GSO-GC.S  ! 

king  of  Assyria,  of  Egj-pt,  and  of  Meroo, 


Saosdouchin, 


r,7t;-i',(;s  '  I'hranrtes,  Tiouminan   ron 

Ii57-6:i5        «|iioro.l   by  Sar 

;     danapaliis  V 
.  CGS-C47  |  Tiglath-PileserV.,sonof  Assarhaddon,  Gii.S-fiG 


*SardanapalusV.,soiiofAssarhaddoM,  (if,o-c,47 

Assour  dan  i!  II.,  son  of  SaiilanapalusV.(Chyniladan  of  the  Greeks),  last  king  of  Assyria,  t',47-G-l.", 
Total  destruction  of  Nineveh ('-"' 

I',  U^  I.OMAN     \>\  SASTY,    . 

Nabopallasar  (Naliou  i>all-niumir),  and  Nitocris  the  Iv.ryptian,  025-604 

*Nabuchodonosor(AV(6ow-toi«?oiir)--0((,'iOzt)-),      ....  Gnl-:,.;i 

Evil  Merodach  (^r«-»io)-cJotd-) 061-559 


'Nergalsarassar  (Niryal-sarr  oiisour), 
l.aboiisardorlius  (Bd-akh-isrovJc).  son  of  the  im-ceding,  !i  months, 

*Nabonid  (ATrt6oit-jto7tf'(0,  son  of  Nabou-balatirib,    . 

Cyrus  tak.s  liabyh.n 

Cyrus,  king  of  Babylon  and  of  nations, 

Cambyses, 

Nidintabel,  psoudo-Xabuchodonosor,  son  of  Nabonid,  . 
Damia,  son  of  Ilystaspes,  takes  Babylon  the  fli-st  timo, 

Arakhou,  pseudo-Nabuohodoiiosor, 

Darius  takes  Babylon  the  secoiid  tiine, 


.  .r)L".)-"i-'J  ;  (Jomates      the       .Magian. 

.  ;")L.'L!-.ri]s        pseudo-Snierdis,     .          .    ">'J:i 

.  ;"ilS  j  Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes 

.  517-510!     (Darius  the  Mede),        .521-480 

.  :')  1 1) 


Nabouinitouk  renders  himself  indeijendent,  and  reigus  with  his  son  BoLsaroussour,  about  508-4.88 

Complete  submission  of  the  Chaldasans ,        .        .     ,,     488         [Xerxes  I.,  Ahasuerus  of 

:     the  Jews  (Lather,  47:!,),     4Mi-  li'ij 

*  Tho  asterisk  indicates  that  eylinders  have  been  found  bearing  tho  name  in  cuneiform  characters. 


ASTAROTH.  ASTAKTK.     See  ASHTAUUTH. 

ASTROLOGY.     >S'(,  DIVINATIOX. 

ATAROTH  [rnwnK\,  occurs,  singly  or  in  composi 
tion  with  some  other  word,  as  the  name  of  various  places 
in  Scripture.  Tin-re  was  an  Ataroth  on  the  borders  of 
Kphraim,  Jos.xvi.  2,7.  Another  in  the  tribe  of  Gad  be 
yond  the  Jordan,  Nu  \\xii. :;,:;!:  also  an  Atarotli-Shophaa 
in  the  same  tribe,  cli.  xxxii.  :;.">,  if  not  the  same  with  that 
of  the  preceding  verse:  and  an  Ataroth-beth-Joab  in 
the  tribe  of  Judah,  i  t'li.  ii.  ;V1.  Nothing  remarkable  is 
recorded  of  any  of  them. 

ATHALIAH  [a filleted  »f  JchoraJ,],  a  daughter  of 
A  hub  the  infamous  kino;  (1f  Israel,  and  most  likely  also, 
though  it  is  not  expressly  stated,  of  his  still  more  in 
famous  wife  Jezebel.  The  name  was  not  improbably 
imposed  as  a  memorial  of  those  severe  and,  as  they 
would  doubtless  reckon  them,  harsh  judgments  which 
were  inflicted  on  them,  at  the  instance  of  Elijah,  by 
the  (!od  of  Israel.  In  '2  I'll.  xxii.  (5,  Athaliah  is  called 
the  daughter  of  Omri,  evidently  meaning  a  daughter 
of  that  house  of  which  Omri  was  the  founder  and 
head;  for  In  eh.  \xi.  tj.  of  the  same  book,  she  is  ex- 


j  pressly  named  the  daughter  of  Ahab,  the  son  of  Omri. 
She  became  the  wife  of  Jehoram,  the  son  of  Jehosha- 
pliat,  king  of  Judah — an  alliance  that  proved  the  source 
of  incalculable  evils  to  the  house  of  David,  and  was  the 
bitter  fruit  of  that  improper  intimacy  which  Jehosha- 
piiat  had  contracted  with  the  idolatrous  king  of  Israel, 
leho.-hapliat  himself  had  maintained  the  intimacy  as  a 
mere  matter  of  policy,  but  had  personally  kept  aloof 
from  the  abominations  patronized  by  the  house  of  Ahab. 
It  was  otherwise,  however,  with  his  son;  he  came  into 
contact  with  the  evil,  while  his  mind  was  still  in  the 
susceptibility  of  youth,  and  had  been  but  imperfectly 
fortified  with  right  principle.  Jehoram  therefore,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  "  walked  in  the  way  of  the 
kings  of  Israel,  as  did  the  house  of  Ahab,  for  he  had 

i  the  daughter  of  Ahab  to  wife,"  2Ch.  xxi.n.  Athaliah.  it 
is  evident,  inherited  much  of  the  imperious  will,  as 
well  as  the  depraved  moral  sense  of  her  mother  Jeze 
bel,  and  exercised  a  disastrous  sway,  first  over  her 
own  husband,  then,  after  his  untimely  death,  over  her 
son  Ahaziah,  who  speedily  perished,  along  with  his 
uncle  Jehoram,  king  of  Israel,  by  the  hand  of  Jehu. 


ATHENS 


ATHENS 


Of  these  the  tir.st  w;;s  the  Acropolis,  at  once  the  citadel, 
the  museum,  and  the  treasury  of  Athens ;  an  oblong 
craggy  rock,  of  about  1000  feet  in  length,  by  500  in 
breadth,  terminating  abruptly  in  precipices  on  every  side 
except  the  west,  where  alone  it  was  accessible.  Separated 
from  the  western  end  of  the  Acropolis  by  a  hollow  which 
formed  the  communication  between  the  northern  and 
southern  parts  of  the  city,  rises   a   rocky  height,  the 
Areiopagus     or     Mars'     Hill, 
from  the  summit  of  which  St. 
Paul   addressed   his    Athenian 
audience.      To  the  smith- west 
lie   the   hills  of  the  Pnvx,   on 
which    the    assemblies   of    the 
people  were   held,  and   <>f  the 
Museium.       Two    streams    on 
opposite  sides  of  the  city  flow 
south- wards,    but    are    lost   in 
the  plain  before  they  reach  the 
sea;     that    on    the     east,    the 
llissus,     makes     a     bend     and 
passes  the  city  in  a  south-west 
direction;    that   on    the    we-t, 
the  Cephissus.  traverses  a  l"ii<_: 
line  of  dark  olive-groves,  which 
winds  like  a  river  through  the 
vale,  and    forms  a  striking  ob 
ject,  from  the  almost  total  ab 
sence     of     other     vegetation. 
From  the  Acropolis,  at  about 

five  miles'  distance,  could  be  seen  the  Saronic  Gulf,  now 
the  (lull  of  <E_;-ina.  with  the  harbours  of  Athens  the 
Phalerum,  and  I'ir;eus.  The  climate  was  celebrated  for 
its  salubrity  and  beautv.  Such  was  the  transparent 
clearness  of  the  atmosphere,  that  time  seemed  to  have 
no  ellect  upon  the  edifices  with  which  the  citv  wa~ 
adorned,  which,  in  the  time  of  Pausanias,  about  A.D.  1  73, 
.--till  ri-taiiied  the  original  beauty  of  the  Pentelie  marble- 
of  which  they  were  constructed.  From  the  same  eau<o 
the  citizens  passed  much  of  their  time,  and  the  great 
public  assemblies,  whether  for  business  or  pleasure, 
took  place,  in  the  open  air. 

The  general  appearance  of  Athens  in  her  palmy 
ilavs  was  to  a  stranger  not  verv  inviting.  Th- 
were  narrow  and  crooked,  the  houses  mean,  and  the 
town  but  ill  supplied  with  water.  It  was  not  until  a 
later  a'_ro,  v.hen  public  spirit  was  on  the  wain-,  thai 
private  houses  he^an  to  vie  in  magnificence  with  the 
public  edifices.  In  these,  latter  consisted  the  real  glorv 
of  Athens.  \Ve>liali  now  request  the  reader  to  accom 
pany  us  in  a  short  expedition  through  the  city,  as  it 
may  be  supposed  to  have  presented  itself  to  a  traveller 
about  the  middle  of  the  first  century  of  the  Christian 
era. 

Ascending  from  the  Pira-us  along  the  carriage  road 
which  lay  between  the  ruins  of  the  Long  Walls,  he  would 
enter  the  city  by  the  I'ciraicgate,  which  stood  between 
the  hills  of  the  I'nyx  and  the  Museium.  On  the  slop 
ing  ground  of  the  former  he  would  behold  the  place 
where  the  most  celebrated  orators  harangued  the  most 
refined  audience  of  antiquity  :  a  semicircle,  the  radius 
of  which  varied  from  'in  to  Mi  yards,  and  the  chord  of 
which  was  formed  by  a  line  of  rock  vertically  hewn,  so 
as  to  present  to  the  spectator  the  appearance  of  a  wall. 
At  the  middle  point  of  this  wall  a  rectangular  stone 
jutted  out,  the  celebrated  P>ema,  from  which  the  speak 
ers  addressed  the  people  in  the  area  below  them.  On 

Vol..   I. 


this  rostrum  stood  Solon,  Aristides,  Themistocles, 
Pericles,  and  Demosthenes.  The  stone,  together  with 
the  steps  by  which  the  speakers  mounted  it,  and  some 
remains  of  seats  hewn  in  the  solid  rock-,  are  still  visible. 
On  the  opposite  side  of  the  road  is  the  eminence  of  the 
Museium,  so  called  from  the  poet  Musicus,  who  is  sup 
posed  to  have  been  buried  there.  At  a  later  period 
its  summit  was  crowned  with  a  building  called  the 


monument  of  Philopappus,  who.  after  being  consul  at 
Home  in  the  rci^n  of  Trajan,  retired  to  Athens  to  spend 
the  remainder  of  his  days  in  that  citv.  ( 'oiitinuing  our 
course  ailing  a  street  of  colonnades,  before  which  stood 
bra/'-n  images  of  illustrioii--  men,  we  should  come  to 
tli.-  A^-ora,  or  marke-i  place',  in  a  quarter  of  the  citv 
called  (.'eramicus.  probably  from  some  ancient  potteries 
that  "iice  were  worked  theiv.  Here  our  attention  would 
be  arrested  by  the  Stoa  I'.asileius.  or  !o>val  Colonnade, 
where  the  archon  held  his  court ;  the  Stoa  Kleuthcrius, 
contain!!!.:  paintings  of  the  gods,  of  Theseus,  of  the 
People,  and  of  the  battle  of  Mmtiiiea  ;  the  altar  of  the 
twelve  L'ods  ;  the  Metroum,  a  temple  dedicated  to  the 
mother  of  tlu:  gods;  the  Tholus,  a  circular  building, 
containing  silver  images  of  the  u"ds,  where  the  Prv- 
tanes  took  their  meals  and  olfi-ivd  sacrifice;  the  statues 
of  the  Eponynii,  or  deified  heroes,  who  gave  names  to 
the  Athenian  tribes  ;  the  temple  of  Mars,  surrounded 
with  the  statues  of  Hercules,  Theseus,  Apollo,  and 
Pindar;  at  a  short  distance,  on  the  ascent  to  the  Aero 
p"lis,  the  statiu-sof  I  larmodius  and  Aristogeiton ;  and 
the  temple  of  Venus,  containing  a  statue  of  tin;  goddess 
in  Parian  marble,  executed  by  Phidias.  Here  too  stood 
the  celebrated  Stoa  Piecile,  so  called  from  the  paint 
ings  with  which  it  was  decorated,  representing  scenes 
from  the  mythical  period,  and  from  later  Athenian 
historv.  in  this  portico  Ze-ne>  openeel  the  school  of  phi 
losophy,  called  from  this  circumstance  the  Stole:,  which 
exercised  so  important  an  influence  both  in  Greece  and 
Home.  Passing  on  northwards  towards  the  gate  called 
Dipylum,  we  amvo  at  the  temple  of  Theseus,  built 
about  B.C.  I'!;",  to  receive  the  bones  of  this  hero,  which 
!  had  been  brought  for  that  purpose  from  Se-yros  to 
I  Athens  by  Cimon.  Its  architecture  was  of  the  Doric 
order.  The  length  of  this  building  was  about  1<>4 
feet,  its  breadth  about  45  ;  and  34  columns,  13  on  each 
side,  and  4  at  each  front,  surrounded  it.  In  sanctity 

20 


ATHENS 


it  was  not   inferi 
inclosure    was  st 


>r  to  th 
large   ;; 


Parthenon ;  and  its  saoro'l 
occasionally  to  servo   as  a 


4  ATHENS 

\viu--s,  which  projected   '-VI  feet  in  front  of  the  central 
colonnade.      Once  a  year,  through  the  central  door,  the 


id  ,  magnificent  procession  of  the  Panathenaea  passed,  bear 


place  of   military   assembly.     The  frie/>< 

with  sculptures' in  the  highest  style  of  Grecian  art,  ing  the  pep/us,  or  sacred  robe,  to  the  statue  of  Athena 
while  the  interior  was  decorated  with  paintings  com-  Polias  in  the  Erectheium.  Passing  within  the  Pro- 
memorating  the  achievements  of  Theseus.  This  temple  pyhva  we  are  introduced  to  a*ceiie  of  unrivalled  splen- 
is  the  best  preserved  of  all  the  ancient  edifices  of  Athens,  dour,  the  whole  surface  of  the  rock  being  covered  with 
For  many  centuries  it  was  used  as  a-  Christian  church,  the  most  precious  monuments  of  art. 
dedicated  to  St.  George,  and  is  now  the  national  The  number  of  statues  in  particular  was  prodigious, 
museum  of  Athens.  Retracing  our  steps  southwards,  Our  space  will  only  permit  us  to  notice  some  of  the 
we  reach  the  Areiopagus,  already  described  as  lying  to  principal  structures.  A  little  to  the  left  stood  the 
the  north- west  of  the  Acropolis:  it  derived  its  name  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Athena  Promachus,  while  to 
from  the  tradition  that  Ares  was  here  tried  by  the  the  right,  on  the  highest  part  of  the  platform,  might  be 
assembled  u'ods  for  the  murder  of  the  son  of  Poseidon.  ;  seen  the  Parthenon,  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  Greek 
On  this  hill  sat  the  famous  council  called  the  Upper,  to  !  architecture.  This  renowned  edifice  was  of  the  Doric 
distinguish  it  from  the  Council  of  Five  Hundred,  which  order,  and  built  entirely  of  Pentelic  marble.  It  measured 
assembled  in  another  place.  Sixteen  steps  cut  in  the  about  228  feet  in  length,  by  102  feet  in  breadth,  and 
rock,  and  still  visible,  lead  up  the  hill,  and  terminate  in  (!(>  feet  in  height.  Its  peristyle  consisted  of  eight  Doric 
a  bench,  forming  three  sides  of  a  square;  on  this  the  columns  on  each  front,  and  seventeen  on  each  side,  these 
judges  sat  when  engaged  in  their  official  functions.  ,  columns  being  0  feet  2  inches  at  the  base,  and  84  feet 
Close  underneath  a  deep  fissure  in  the  rock  leads  to  a  ;  in  height.  Within  these,  at  either  end,  a  second  range 
gloomy  cavern,  the  fabled  sanctuary  of  the  Eume-  'of  columns  of  ;"U  feet  diameter  extended,  forming  a  ves- 
nides  "or  Furies— a  name  never  pronounced  by  the  '  tibule  to  the  door.  The  whole  building  was  adorned 
Athenians  without  a  feeling  of  superstitious  fear.  At  within  and  without  with  exquisite  sculptures  from 
the  foot  of  the  hill,  on  the  north-eastern  side,  the  ruins  '  the  hand  of  Phidias,  or  artists  under  his  direction;  and 
of  a  small  church,  dedicated  to  Dionysius  the  Areiopa-  ,  in  the  eastern  portion  of  the  cella  was  placed  the 
gite,  have  been  discovered.  Leaving  the  Areiopagus,  ,  famous  chryselephantine,  or  ivory  and  gold  statue  of 
we  should  ascend,  by  a  road  which  led  from  the  Agora,  '.  Athena,  also  the  work  of  Phidias,  which  had  but  one 
paved  with  Pentelic  marble,  the  western  side  of  the  rival  in  Greece,  a  statue  of  Jupiter  Olympius,  of  simi- 
Acropolis,  and  find  ourselves  confronted  by  one  of  the  lar  materials,  and  by  the  same  master.  It  was  inge- 
u-reatest  productions  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  the  Pro-  ;  niously  contrived  that  the  gold,  which  is  said  to  have 
pyla?a,  or  gateway  through  which  the  citadel  was  been  40  talents  in  weight,  could  be  removed  and  re- 
entered.  At  this  place  the  rock  is  hut  about  108  feet  placed  at  pleasure.  The  Parthenon  was  converted  into 
in  width,  and  the  architects  conceived  the  bold  design  '  a  Christian  church,  dedicated  to  the  holy  Virgin. 

Under  the  Turks  it  became  a 
mosque,  and,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  roof,  continued 
tolerably  perfect  until  1(!S7, 
when,  as  has  been  related,  it 
was  nearly  destroyed  by  the 

'•'^ "'i' '- ; ' ': "•>•  :i  j  Venetians.     Many  of  its  finest 

4P^£iif^  sculptures    were    at    the    be- 

.      't'.?:.;,'"       -'•        -----;,:       ':  ginning  of  this  century  removed 

to  England  by  Lord  Elgin, 
and  are  now  deposited  in  the 
British  Museum.  Opposite  to 
the  Parthenon,  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  Acropolis,  stood 
the  Erectheium.  or  temple  of 
Erectheus,  who  seems  to  have 
been  the  same  with  the  god 
Poseidon,  one  of  the  most 
ancient  and  venerated  struc 
tures  of  Athens.  It  contained 
the  statue  of  Athena  Polias, 
said  to  have  fallen  from  hea 
ven  ;  the  sacred  olive  -  tree 
which  Athena  caused  to  spring 
building  which  from  the  earth  in  her  contest  with  Poseidon  for  the  pos- 


The  Parthenon  and  Interior  nf  the  Propyisea.— Williams' Greece. 


of  filling  up  the  whole  space  with 
should  at  once  fortify  and  adorn  the  citadel.  The  cen 
tral  portion  consisted  of  two  porticos,  one  looking  to 
wards  the  city,  the  other  towards  the  interior,  divided 


session  of  Athens ;  and  the  salt  well  which  Poseidon 
produced  by  the  stroke  of  his  trident.  The  Erectheium, 
unlike  the  other  Grecian  temples,  which  were  usually 


by  a  wall  pierced  by  five  doors,  by  which  the  Acropolis  '  simple  oblongs  with  two  porticos,  one  at  either  end, 
was  entered.  These  porticos  consisted  of  six  fluted  .  was  almost  cruciform  in  appearance,  possessing  at  the 
Doric  columns,  29  feet  in  height,  behind  which  rose  western  end  two  porticos  which  projected  north  and 
two  rows  of  slender  Ionic  pillars,  supporting  a  roof  of  south  from  the  main  building,  that  on  the  northern 
solid  marble  beams.  The  sides  were  occupied  by  two  side  consisting  of  six  Ionic  columns,  four  in  the  front, 


ATHENS 


155 


ATHENS 


and  one  on  either  flank — that  on  the  southern,  of  a  roof 
supported  by  six  caryatides,  or  female  figures  clothed 
in  long  draperies.  The  Ionic  columns  and  four  of  the 
caryatides  are  still  standing ;  the  fifth,  lately  discovered, 
has  been  restored  to  its  place,  and  the  sixth  is  in  the 
British  Museum.  A  part  of  the  building,  from  the 
tradition  that  Cecrops  was  buried  there,  was  called  the 
Cecropium.  Many  other  smaller  temples  and  sanctua 
ries,  which  it  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate,  covered 
the  rock  of  Cecrops. 

Descending  once  more  the  Propyhea.  and  turning  to 
the  right  or  northern  side  of  the  Acropolis,  we  come 
to  the  portico  of  Athena  Archegetes;  the  Horologium 
of  Andronicus  Cyrrhestes,  a  building  of  octagonal  shape. 
witli  its  eight  sides  facing  the  eight  winds,  surmounted 
by  a  bronze  Triton  turning  on  a  pivot,  at  «nru  the 
weather-cock  and  the  public  cluck  c-f  Athens;  the 
Prytaneium,  where  the  laws  of  Solon  were  preserved: 
and  the  street  of  the  Trip"ds.  lined  with  small  temples 
on  which  tilt:  tripods  gained  by  the  victors  in  the 
theatrical  contests  \\viv  placed,  and  where  the  choru'_ric 
monument  of  l,y.-ierates.  commonly  called  the  Lantern 
of  Demosthenes,  still  exists.  Kurther  on.  to  the  south 
east,  we.  rind  the  gigantic  temple  of  Olvmpiau  Zeus,  re 
maining  at  St.  Paul's  \i.-it  in  pretty  much  the  same 
state  in  which  it  had  existed  for  more  than  4uu  wars. 
Half  finished  as  it  was,  however,  it  excited  the  admi 
ration  of  strangers,  on  account  of  its  va-t  proportions 
and  line  design.  It  was  at  length  completed  bv  Hadrian. 
The  length  of  the  building  was  :','>[  feet,  its  breadth 
171;  it  was  adorned  \\ith  pju  columns,  1'!  of  which 
yet  remain  standing,  above  (JO  feet  high,  and  64  feet  in 
diamet.  r.  Close  to  it  was  the  fountain  of  (  'allirhoe,  or 
Enneacrunmis  inine-pi|>.-di,  upon  which  the  Athenians 
ehietly  depended  for  their  supplie.-  of  water.  <  'oiitiiiiiing 
our  course  on  the  south  side  of  the  Acropolis,  we  should 
have  to  notice  the  Odeiuni  or  Music  Theatre  of  Pericles. 
with  its  roof  formed  ,,ut  of  the  masts  of  the  Persian 
ships  captured  at  Salamis  ;  the  great  1  >ionysiae  Theatre. 
excavated  out  of  the  r<>ck.  .-aid  to  have  been  capable  of 
accommodating  30,000  spectators;  and  the  Odeium  of 
Iiegilla.  And  here  we  find  ourselves  once  more  close- 
to  the  Agora,  our  bri.  f  survey  of  the  eit\  within  the 
walls  being  completed.  In  the  suburbs  were  several 
remarkable  localities.  On  the  north-west  side  lav  the 
Academy,  a  grove  of  ]ilane  trees  and  olive  plantations. 
\\atered  by  the-  Cephissus,  anil  laid  out  in  walks  and 
fountains.  The  road  which  Kd  to  it  from  the  eit\  wa.- 
lined  with  the  monuments  of  illustrious  men,  espeeiallv 
those  who  had  fallen  in  battle.  In  the  Academy  Plato 
and  his  successors  tauu'ht.  whence  thev  received  the 
name  of  academic;  philosophers.  All  that  remains  of 
this  place,  the  favourite  haunt  of  philosophy  and  the 
muses,  is  the  modern  name  Ahathymia.  and  an  open 
space  of  ground  of  about  ;j  acres  in  extent,  occupied  by  a 
few  gardens  and  vineyards.  A  little  to  the  north  of  the 
Academy  might  be  seen  the  hill  of  ('oleums,  the  scene 
of  one  of  the  finest  tragedies  of  Sophocles.  Cynosann-s, 
at  the  foot  of  Mount  Eycabettus,  was  a  spot  consecrated 
to  Hercules,  and  possessed  a  gymnasium;  it  is  supposed 
to  have  given  its  name  to  the  sect  of  Cynic  philosophers, 
Antisthencs,  the  founder  of  that  school,  having  there 
taught.  South  of  Cynosarges  was  the  Lyceium,  a 
sacred  inclosure dedicated  to  Apollo  Lyceius,  and  deco 
rated  with  fountains  anil  plantations.  It  was  the  princi 
pal  gymnasium  of  Athens,  and  was  frequented  by  such 
of  the  youth  as  addicted  themselves  to  martial  exercises. 


It  was  a  favorite  resort  too  of  the  philosophers  :  and 
amidst  its  groves  it  was  that  Aristotle  delivered  those 
walking  prelections  which  gained  for  his  school  the  name 
of  Peripatetics.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Ilissus,  in 
Agnv,  a  south-eastern  suburb,  stood  the  Eleusinium.  or 
temple  of  Ceres,  and  the  great  Stadium,  where  the 
gymnastic  contests  of  the  Panathenaic  games  took  place. 
It  rose,  in  the  shape  of  an  amphitheatre,  from  the  bank 
of  the  river,  and  was  capable  on  e.xtraordinarv  occa 
sions  of  accommodating  So, noil  spectators.  Part  of  it 
was  furnished  with  marble  seats  by  Herodes  Atticus  ; 
these  have  entirely  disappeared,  but  the  hollow,  covered 
with  grass,  and  with  ruins  here  and  there  visible,  still 
remains. 

The  foregoing  is  a  sketch,  necessarily  brief,  of  the 
principal  buildings  and  localities  of  Athens.  After  pel- 
using  it  the  reader  will  probably  better  understand  how 
St.  Paul's  spirit  must  have  been  "stirred  within  him 
w!i<n  he  -a\\  the  whole  city  given  to  idolatry,"  Ac.  xvii.  n; 
In  truth  the-  statues,  sanctuaries,  monuments,  and 

temples    were    countless  :    and    susceptible    as    the  uTeat 

apostle  evidently  was  of  the  impressions  of  art 
and  poetry,  all  sentiments  of  this  kind  were  swal 
lowed  up  in  the  mingled  feelings  of  pitv  and  indig 
nation  with  which  he  beheld  the  prevalent  superstition. 
It  was.  indeed,  an  idolatry  as  gross  and  as  reallv  de 
basing,  though  veiled  micKr  a  fainr  form,  a.- that  of  the 
modern.  Hindoo,  when  he  worships  the  hideous  crea 
tions  of  his  own  hands.  The  altar  which  he  mentions 
a-  having  met.  \\ith  in  the  eitv,  with  the  inscription. 
"  To  the  unknown  ('•<«],"  has  occasioned  ^mie  ditlicultv 
to  the  interpreter-  of  Scripture.  No  such  altar  is  nic-n- 
tioned  by  ancient  writers ;  this,  however,  is  no  reason 
\\hy  it  should  not  have  existed.  There  wciv  probablv 
several  .-nch  altars  at  Athens,  dedicated  bv  per.-on>  upon 
whom  some  calamity  had  fallen,  or  to  whom  some  de 
liverance  had  been  vouchsafed;  and  who,  in  ignorance 
of  tin1  parti'-ular  deity  to  whom  these  events  were  to  be 

thought  owing,  inscribed  them  to  an  unknown  god. 
Th"  apostle  lavs  hold  of  the  circumstance  to  direct  the 
minds  of  the  Athenians  to  Him  whose  existence-  thev 
thus  unconsciously  acknowledged,  and  whom  they 
••  ignorantly  worshipped."  And  when  we  call  to  mind 
the  scene  that  must  have  presented  itself  to  him  as  he 
stood  on  the  Areiopagus— the  majestic  structures,  in 
vested  with  the  twofold  associations  of  exquisite  beauty 
and  time-honoured  sanctity  ;  the  groups  of  statuary 
which  everywhere  recalled  the  traditions  of  the  my 
thological  am-  ;  the  sanctuaries  and  altars,  each  of  which 
had  its  legend  and  its  presiding  genius  we-  can  in  some 
measure  estimate  the  faith  and  courage  with  which  he 
announced  to  his  frivolous  audience  the  first  truths  of 
natural  religion,  declaring  that  the  supreme  Deity 
"dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  bauds,  neither  is 
served  by  the  hands  of  men.  as  though  he-  needed 
anything:"  that  since  "  we  are  the  offspring  of  (lid. 
we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  (iodhead  is  like  unto 
gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by  the;  art  and  device 
of  man." 

Institutions.  The  political  history  of  Athens  does 
not  fall  within  our  province.  Suffice  it  to  observe  that 
the  government  was  at  first  monarchical,  to  the  death 
of  Codrus,  li.c.  luiJS  ;  then  aristocratical,  the  title  of 
king  being  exchanged  for  that  of  Archon,  whose  office 
was  at  first  hereditary,  and  for  life,  but  afterwards  was 
limited  to  ten  years,  and  at  length  became  annual,  the 
number  of  Archons  at  the  same  time  beinj/  increased 


AT  I  TENS 


ATHENS 


to  nine.  Disorders  arising  from  the  contentions  among 
the  ruling  l>oily,  and  from  the  ill-pressed  state  of  the 
people.  Draco  first,  and  then  Solon,  was  called  in  to 
apply  a  remedy  by  drawing  up  a  definite  code  of  laws. 
Tin;  laws  of  Solon  formed  the  groundwork  of  the  civil 
polity  of  Athens;  and  though  democratic  in  tendency, 
provided  a  check  against  popular  excesses,  by  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  Council  of  Four  Hundred,  and  by  the 
powers  vested  in  the  court  of  Areiopagus.  The  usur 
pation  of  Pusistratus  restored  for  a  brief  period  mo 
narchical  rule,  but  after  his  expulsion  the  power  of 
the  nobles  declined,  and  Cleisthenes,  by  a  iie\v  arrange 
ment  of  the  Athenian  tribes,  and  by  the  institution  of 
ostracism,  gave  the  last  blow  to  the  oligarchy,  and  the 
government  thenceforward  became  a  pure  democracy. 
With  the  maintenance  of  the  democratical  spirit  the 
glory  of  Athens  rose  and  culminated  ;  with  its  extinction 
she  fell  for  ever. 

The  supreme  power,  legislative  and  executive,  resided 
in  the  Ecelesia,  or  general  assembly,  of  which  all  legiti 
mate  citizens,  not  labouring  under  any  loss  of  civil  rights, 
were  by  right  members.  The  assemblies  were  originally 
held  in  the  Agora,  afterwards  they  were  transferred  to 
the  Pnyx,  and  finally  to  the  great  Dionysiac  theatre. 
All  matters,  foreign  and  domestic,  of  national  import 
were  in  the  last  resort  determined  by  this  body.  Its  de 
liberations  were,  however,  in  some  measure  controlled  by 
the  Senate,  or  Council  of  Five  Hundred,  chosen  by  lot, 
which  discussed  and  voted  upon  all  matters  before  they 
were  submitted  to  the  assembly.  The  Senate  was  divided 
into  ten  sections  of  fifty  each,  the  members  of  which  were 
called  Prytanes ;  they  acted  as  presidents  of  both  the 
assembly  and  the  council  during  thirty-live  or  thirty- 
six  days,  so  as  to  complete  the  lunar  year.  Each 
section  was  again  divided  into  five  bodies  of  ten  each, 
who  were  called  Proedri,  and  who  presided  over  the 
rest  for  a  week  in  turn ;  of  the  Proedri  one  was  chosen 
for  ever}-  day  of  the  week  as  chairman  of  the  Senate, 
with  the  title  of  Epistates.  The  Archons,  from  ad 
ministering  the  government,  had  gradually  sunk  to  the 
position  of  municipal  magistrates,  though  they  retained 
the  names  derived  from  a  more  aristocratic  period.  The 
first  of  the  nine  was  called  Epoirymus,  from  the  year 
being  distinguished  by  his  name  ;  the  second  was  styled 
king,  his  functions,  as  used  to  be  the  case  with  the  old 
kings  in  their  capacity  of  high-priest,  being  connected 
with  religion ;  the  third  bore  the  name  of  Pole-march, 
and  originally,  as  the  name  imports,  was  commander- 
in- chief  of  the  army  ;  the  remaining  six  were  called 
Thesmotheta?,  or  legislators,  their  duty  being  to  review 
every  year  the  body  of  laws,  with  the  view  of  detect 
ing  inconsistencies,  or  supplying  what  was  wanting. 
At  the  conclusion  of  their  year  of  office,  if  they  had 
discharged  their  duties  satisfactorily,  they  were  admitted 
members  of  the  Areiopagus.  This  celebrated  court 
possesses  some  interest  for  the  biblical  student,  as  being 
that  possibly  before  which  St.  Paul  was  taken  when 
attempting  to  speak  to  the  motley  crowd  assembled  in 
the  Agora,  of  "Jesus  and  the  resurrection."  It  is 
indeed  doubtful  whether  he  was  led  to  the  Hill  of  Mars 
in  order  to  undergo  a  formal  trial ;  the  language  of 
Scripture  rather  militates  against  such  a  supposition: 
nor  indeed  is  it  clear  that  the  court  was  then  formally 
sitting,  though  the  mention  of  Dionysius  the  Areiopagite 
as  one  of  the  apostle's  converts  may  lead  us  to  think 
that  it  was.  T3e  this  as  it  may,  a  few  words  on  the 
constitution  and  functions  of  this  Senate  may  not  be  in 


appropriate.  The  Areiopagus  was  a  body  of  very- 
remote  antiquity,  and  its  special  jurisdiction  was  in 
cases  of  intentional  homicide.  Ancient  legends  reported 
that  before  it  Ares  was  tried  for  the  murder  of  Poseidon's 
son,  and  Orestes  for  the  murder  of  his  mother.  "It 
gradually  assumed  to  itself  very- extensive  powers.  It 
exercised  a  censorial  superintendence  over  the  lives  and 
habits  of  the  citizens,  regulated  the  proceedings  of  the 
public  assembly,  and  took  cognizance  of  certain  offences 
against  religion,  particularly  the  introduction  of  new 
and  unauthorized  forms  of  public  worship.  These  powers 
were  not  derived  from  any  grant  of  the  people,  lint 
from  the  custom  of  immemorial  antiquity,  and  were 
sustained  by  general  reverence  and  awe.  The  conse 
crated  locality,  crowned  with  a  temple  dedicated  to 
Mars,  and  with  the  sanctuary  of  the  Furies  in  a  dark 
cleft  of  the  rock,  immediately  below  the  seats  of  the 
!  judges,  was  regarded  by  the  Athenian  populace  to  a 
late  period  with  a  superstitious  veneration.  Nor  was 
this  feeling  undeserved.  For  a  long  series  of  ages  no 
one  had  ventured  to  impugn  the  fairness  and  imparti 
ality  of  the  decisions  of  this  court.  The  proceedings 
were  as  follows: — The  judges  sat  in  the  open  air,  under 
the  presidency  of  the  king-archon.  The  accuser  took 
a  solemn  oath  over  the  slaughtered  victims  that  the 
charge  was  true  ;  the  accused,  with  the  same  solemni 
ties,  denied  it;  each  party  then,  in  succession,  stated 
his  case  in  the  plainest  language,  all  ornaments  of 
oratory  or  appeals  to  the  passions  being  forbidden.  At 
the  conclusion  of  the  first  speech  a  criminal  accused  of 
murder  might,  if  he  pleased,  expatriate  himself,  and 
thus  avoid  capital  punishment ;  but  his  exile  was  in 
that  case  perpetual,  and  his  property  confiscated  and 
exposed  to  public  sale.  The  cause  being  heard,  the 
judges  proceeded  to  give  their  vote  by  ballot,  two  urns 
being  provided  for  that  purpose ;  if  the  votes  proved 
equal,  an  acquittal  took  place.  An  assembly  of  this 
character,  the  members  of  which  enjoyed  a  life-long 
tenure  of  office,  was  naturally  aristocratic  in  tendency  ; 
it  became  therefore  a  main  object  with  Pericles,  the 
head  of  the  popular  party,  to  diminish  the  powers  of 
the  Areiopagus.  This  he  effected  by  the  institution  of 
dicasteries,  or  jury- courts,  composed  of  the  main  body 
of  the  citizens,  6000  of  whom  were  annually  chosen  by 
lot,  and  then  divided  into  ten  panels,  the  remainder 
forming  a  supplement  to  fill  up  vacancies.  Before  one 
or  other  of  these  panels  every  cause,  civil  arid  criminal, 
was  brought ;  and  the  Areiopagus,  stripped  of  its  cen 
sorial  and  other  judicial  competence,  became  a  mere 
court  of  homicide.  Still  it  never  quite  lost  its  religious 
character  ;  among  other  reasons,  because  the  procedure 
in  cases  of  homicide  was  among  the  Greeks  not  less 
religious  than  judicial.  Some  sentiment  of  this  kind 
may  have  influenced  the  Athenians  in  conducting  the 
great  apostle  to  the  Areiopagus  ;  it  probably  seemed  to 
them,  even  if  they  contemplated  no  formal  judicial 
process  yet,  the  fittest  place  for  a  religious  discussion  or 
exposition,  such  as  on  this  occasion  they  expected  to  hear. 
Schools  of  Philosophy. — Athens  was  the  chosen  home 
of  philosophy,  as  well  as  of  the  fine  arts.  Nor  can  the 
obstacles  which  Christianity  had  to  overcome,  and  which 
apparently  prevented  the  formation  of  any  considerable 
church  in  that  city,  be  appreciated  without  some 
knowledge  of  the  philosophical  tendencies  of  that  age, 
particularly  of  those  of  the  two  sects  which  St.  Paul 
seems  principally  to  have  encountered,  the  Stoics  and 
the  Epicureans. 


ATHENS                                      1V>7  ATOXKMKNT 

Greek  philosophy  was  first   cultivated   in  the   Ionic  |  Against  Kpicurus  he  taught  that  virtue,  not  pleasure, 

colonies  of  Asia  Minor  :   from  thence  it  migrated  with  is  the  chief  good  ;  but  the  virtuous  man  of  the   Stoics 

Pythagoras  to  Alagna  Gnecia,  until  the  conquests  of  the  ;  was  abeing  exempt  from  human  passions,  self-sumein"- 

Persians  and  the  troubles  of  Southern  Italy  compelled  and  wrapped  in  an  austere  apathy.      Pleasure  was  no 

it  to  take  refuge  at  Athens,  which  thenceforward  became  good,  pain  was  no  evil.      The  qualitv  of  neither  men  in. r 

to  the  ancient  world  the  centre  of  intellectual  civili-  i  actions  admitted  of  degrees;  all  gocxf actions  were  equally 

zation.      Its   earlier  speculations    were  physical,  in  the  so,  and  so  were  all  bad  enes.      Keason  was  the  supreme 

more  limited  sense  of  the  word  :  they  were  directed  to  law  of  life  :   virtue  consisted   in   living  conformably  to 

elucidate  the   constitution    of    the    material    universe,  reason,    vice    in   disregarding   its    dictates.      The  wise 

and  the  laws  by  which  it  was  governed.      Socrates  was  man  alone  was  free,  and  a  kin-;.     Such  was  the  Stoic 

the  first  who  taught  that  the   "proper  study  of  man-  morality:    their  views    on   other   points   \\cre  equally 

kind  is  man,"'  and  from  his  time  philosophical  inquiry  erroneous.      They  were  pantheists  ;   Cod  was  not  with- 

assumed  a  new  direction,  and    began  to  labour  in  the  out,   but   in   the   world:   God   was   the   reason   of   the 

field  of   ethical    science.      Plato  in   the  Academy,   and  world.      They  held  that  the  soul  is  corporeal  and  perish- 

Aristotle  in  the  Lyceium,  the  two  greatest  of  Socrates'  able.     They    permitted,    and,     on    certain    occasions, 

successors,  enunciated  those  moral  and  political  theories  recommended  suicide.      With   such  a  spirit   and   with 

which  have  exercised  such  an  important  influence  on  such  tenets  C'hristianity  could  have  nothing  in  common  ; 

human  thought,  both   within   and   without  the  pale  of  and,  even  more  perhaps  than  the  Kpicinvans.  the  Stoics 

Christianity.     P.utit  was  not  these  schools  of  philosophy  needed  to  be  converted,  and    become  as  little  children, 

directly  before  they  could  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven.      Put 

against  the  principles  of   the  gospel.      St.    Paul's  chief  both   systems   were  antagonistic   to  the  gospel,   which 

opponents  were   found   amongst   the   followers  of    Kpi-  teaches  us  at  once  that  duty,  nol    self-indulgence,  is  to 

•  •urns  and   Xeiio,  philosopher^   whose  doctrines  at  that  lie  our  governing  motive,  and  that  humility,  not  pride, 

time  divide,!  the  attention  of  thoughtful  minds.  is  the  temper  that  befits   -uilty  and   sinful' man.      It  is 

Kpicurus  was  born.  B.C.  :3o7,  inthe  vicinity  of  Athens,  no  matter  of  wonder,  therefore,    that    \\heii  they  heard 

"'I r  parents.      At  an  early  age   he  addicted  himself  the  truths  of    the    gospel,    some   of   St.    Paul's 'hearers 

to  philosophical   study;   visited   in  succession   Athens,  "mocked,  and   others  said,  we  \\  ill  hear  thee  a^ain  of 

where  he  only  remained  one  year ;   Colophon.  Mityl.  lie,  this  uiatti  r,"  Ac  >  ni.  "•_',  and  that  the  apostle  left  behind 

and   Lamp-acus  ;   and  finally,   in    his   thirty-sixth   year,  him  in    this  renowned   city    comparativdv  feu   seals  to 

returned  to  Athens,  where,  in  a  garden  in  the  midst  of  his  ministry. 

the  city,   he  opened  the  school  of  philosophy  which  hears  [t'»r  furtln-r  information,   -  ••  Lmkr's    /                         Ail, 


it.-eh.  \\-eivtormed  by  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms  ;  i-  s; 'ivim  '•  ami  Smith's />/rt<Wov/ 

the  idea  of  ail  intelligent  cause  beiii'_r  incompatible  with  ".   '•  •  '  ,  .v, .',,,„,.  I  p    .-,.  i..] 

the  misery  prevalent  in   the    world,  and    with  the  tran-          ATONEMENT.      This   is   a   strictlv   Knulish    \\ord. 

•  piil  serenity  of  the  -0,1s.      The   soul    was   a   corporeal  and  originally  meant    nethin-   more  than  h,  imj  at  un< ; 

substance,  and  perished  u:'h  th--  body.      The  existence  though  u-ually  with  an  implied  reference  to  a  previous 

of  Deity  was  not  absolutely  denied  ;    but  the  deitv  of  alienation  or  disagreement.      Thus  Sir  Thomas    M..IV 

Kpieurus  was  a  beiiu-,  remo.'ed   from  all   interest  or  in-  speaks  of    "the    late   made  attonemente,  in    which   the 

terference  in  the  affairs  of  men.     There  was  no  moral  king's    pleesure    hadde    more    place    than    the   parlies 

governor  of  the  world.      Consistently  with  these  views,  willes;"   and   Tyndall.  remark  in--  on  the  expression   in 

I-'.picurus  taught  that  pleasure  is  the  great  end  of   life,  1  Tim.  ii.  ~>,  "  (  hie  <  ,.„].  :tr.,\  one  Mediator,"  «  \plains. 

and  the  sovereign  good :    virtue  itself  is  to  be  sought  for  "that   is   to   say,   advocate,  intercessor,  01-  an  atone- 

the  pleasure  that  attends  it.      He  him-elf  is  said  to  have  maker  between  Cod   and   man."      Kven   in  Shakspearo 

been  a  man  of  abstemious  tastes  and  habits  ;  but  with  i  (Wu Wo,  act  iv.),  we  have  the  verb  so  used  :    "I  would 

persons  of    stronger    passions  his    philosuphy   naturally  do  much  to  atone  them  for  the   ]o\v   |   bear  to  Cassio." 

led  to  the   indulgence   of   the   M-j-ossest    sensuality.      At  P.ut  the  transition  was  very  natural   and  easy  from  the 

best,    it   was  a  system   of   refined    <eltishne,.- :    and    at  sense  of  being  or  making  at   one,  to  that  of  the  means 

Athens,     and     afterwards     at     b'oine,     its    favourable  or  agency  whereby  the  existing  ditt'erence  was  healed, 

reception    marked    the   decline  of    public    \irtne    and  and  a  good  understanding  was   established.      And   this 

patriotism.  |,v    and    by    calm-   to   be    the  received    meaning    of   the 

Tin.-  rise  of  the  Stoic  philosophy  was  nearly  contcm-  word  (t/'nt>  ii'u:nt,  as  in  the  following  passa-e   from  .Mil 

poraneous  with  that  of    Kpicurus.    but  it  took  a  diame-  ton:     - 

trically   opposite    direction.      Zeiio.    its  founder,    was   a  ". \tiniomoiit  for  liimsolf,  (.r  i.ffi-riiij,' mwt, 

native  of    Citium,    whence    he   passed    to    Athens,    and  Indobted  and  undmie,  Iiath  110110  to  Ijriug," 

attended  various  schools  of  philosophy.      After  twenty  and  in  Cow];er's  Himl,  b.  ix.    - 

years'   study   1 p-ned    a    school    himself   in   the   Stoa  "  Belmld  me  now 

J'ipcile,  or  Painted  Porch,  and  taught  many  years  with  I'riMnivil  to  s<«.tlir  him  with  atoni'munts  l;irur, 

great  reputation.       His  design    was  a  noble  one-  to  in-  of  gifts  inestimablo." 

vigorate   the    soul  of    Greece,  which    at    that   time    lay  In  this  sense    the    word    is   used    with   LM'eat    frctpiencv 

prostrate    under    enervating   influences.        Liberty   was  in  the  Old   Testament  scriptures,  and  especially  in   the 

extinct,    and    indifference,    scepticism,    and    epicurean'  very  common   phrase    of    "making   atonement''   for  a 

softness    were    the    prevailing    tendencies.       Society  person  or  an  object— /.<?.  giving  or  doing  that  whereby 

seemed  on  the  point  of  dissolution.      Zeno  hoped,  by  a  source  of  estrangement  is  removed,  a  reconciliation 

the  austerity  of  his  doctrines,  to  arrest  the  progress  of  is   effected.       Occasionally    the    alternative    phrase  of 

the  disease:    but    he    strained    the   bow    till   it   broke,  "making  reconciliation,"  as  at  Lc.  viii.  I:"!;  Kze.  xlv.  lf>: 


ATONEMENT 


ATONEMENT 


l>a.  ix.  -  K  is  adopted;  and  as  the  expression  in  the 
original  is  the  same  there  as  in  the  other  cases,  the 
"  making  reconciliation"  must  be  understood  as  simply 
equivalent  to  "making  atonement,"  and  consequently, 
as  used  in  the  English  J>ible.  r(C.e>nc/'/f  and  reconcilia 
tion  are  synonymous  with  atonu  and  atonement.  In 
the  New  Testament  our  translators  have  only  used  the 
word  (it»ncnuu>  once,  vi/..  at  lu>.  v.  II,  "  by  whom 
i< 'hrist)  we  have  received  the  atonement."  In  other 
passages,  where  the.  same  word  (KaraXXayri)  occurs, 
whether  as  a  noun  or  a  verb,  they  have  rendered  it  by 
reconcile  and  reconciliation,  Uo.  xl.  15}2C'o.  v.  l*,Hi-  And 
there  is  another  word  (iXdcr/co/.(cu,  tXaoyxos)  for  which 
they  have  adopted  this  term  also,  and  occasionally  pro- 
pitiation,  as  the  proper  equivalent  when  it  occurs  in 
the  New  Testament.  Thus  at  He.  ii.  17,  Christ's 
priesthood  is  described  as  having  been  what  it  is  in 
order  "to  make  reconciliation  (tis  TO  IXdffKfaOai)  for 
the  sins  of  the  people,"  which  might  with  equal  pro 
priety  have  been  rendered  "to  make  atonement''  for 
them.  And  so  again  at  1  .In.  ii.  '_',  what  is  in  our  version. 
"  He  is  the  propitiation."  might  have  been,  and,  in 
accordance  with  Old  Testament  u.>age,  should  rather 
have  been,  "  lie  is  the  atonement  (6  iXacr/xos)  of  our 
sins."  In  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament 
it  is  this  word,  or  rather  its  compound  (e^iXdffKOfj.ai, 
c'^iXaoyxos),  which  is  most  commonly  used,  where  our 
tran-lutors  have  employed  the  expressions  atonement, 
or  ma/,' iii '/  a'o'iii  iiu  nt.  So  far,  therefore,  as  regards  the 
subject  itself  treated  of  in  the  passages  referred  to,  it 
is  of  no  moment  whether  these  terms  be  used,  or  those 
formed  from  propitiate,  reconcile,  and  we  may  add  also 
ransom,  which  i.s  sometimes  employed  in  lieu  of  the 
others,  as  at  Ps.  xlix.  8  ;  Job  xxxiii.  21. 

The  form  of  expression  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
\\hich  has  been  thus  differently  rendered,  and  from 
which  those  of  the  New  Testament  are  derived,  is 
somewhat  peculiar.  The  verb  commonly  employed  is 
the  piel  form  (kipper,  153)  of  kaphar,  to  cover;  and 

being,  as  it  usually  is,  coupled  with  the  preposition 
upon  (^y)  in  respect  to  the  person  or  thing  that  is  the,  | 

object  of  the   verb,  it  means   to   ceirer  upon,  so  as  to  , 
conceal  or  put  away,  to  make  expiation  for,  or  atone  in 
respect  to  what  has  caused  disagreement.     The  noun 
employed  in  the  same  connection  is  a  derivative  of  this 
verb — kophcr  (133) — and  means  that  which  covers   in 

the  sense  now  mentioned,  obliterates,  as  it  were,   the 
ground  of  quarrel,  constitutes  the  matter  of  expiation, 
or  the  atonement  -  price.     And  as    here    undoubtedly  ! 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament  is  entirely  based 
upon  that  of  the  Old,  and  the  relations  also  of  the  one,  j 
in  connection  with  which  the  terms  are  applied,  closely 
correspond  with  those  of  the  other,  the  ideas  associated 
with   their  use  amid  the   sensible  transactions  of  the 
old  economy,  must  go  far  to  establish  the  same  for  them 
when  transferred  to  the  higher  concerns  of  the  new. 

Various  points  of  importance,  which  possess  a  collat 
eral  relation  to  the  subject,  would  require  to  be  con-  j 
sidered  if  it  were  to  receive  a  full  and  comprehensive  j 
treatment ;  such  as,  the  origin  of  sacrifice,   the  diffe 
rent  kinds  of  sacrificial  offering,  with  their  appropriate 
rites,  &c.     These  will  be  handled  under  the  heads  SAC 
RIFICE  and  OFFERINGS.     But,  meanwhile,  viewing  the  ! 
word  atonement  in  its   common  use,  as  indicative   of  i 
thoughts  and  ideas  which  are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  j 


Scripture,  and  which  enter  into  the  verv  heart  of  the 
religion  of  the  Hible,  we  have  to  inquire,  What  precisely 
do  they  include?  Does  the  change,  which  the  term 
implies,  from  a  hostile  to  a  friendly  relationship,  affect 
both  parties  interested,  or  one  of  them  alone  !  And 
as  importing  a  provision  for  accomplishing  a  transition 
from  the  one  state-  to  the  other,  does  it  indicate  what 
was  required  on  the  part  of  (!od  to  justify  his  entering 
into  terms  of  peace  with  men,  or  simply  what  was  just 
and  becoming  in  men,  when  seeking  to  find  acceptance 
with  God?  Important  differences  are  obviously  in 
volved  in  these  alternatives,  and  it  must  be  well  to 
know,  on  solid  grounds,  which  it  is  proper  to  adopt. 

I.  In  endeavouring  to  arrive  at  a  correct  judgment 
on  the  points  at  issue,  we  naturally  turn  to  the  Old  Tes 
tament  scriptures,  where  the  subject  is  presented  both 
in  its  earlier  and  its  more  elementary  form.  There  are 
passages  in  which  atonements  are  there  spoken  of  in  a 
somewhat  loose  and  popular  sense,  so  that  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  gather  anything  very  definite  from  them 
as  to  the  religious  bearing  of  the  matter.  For  exam 
ple,  it  is  said  of  the  wicked  in  Pr.  xxi.  1  s,  that  "  he  is  an 
atonement,"  or  ransom  (Jcophcr)  for  the  righteous,  mean 
ing  simply  that  in  times  of  judgment  the  life  of  the  one  is 
taken  for  that  of  the  other,  the  one  falls  a  victim  to  the 
stroke  of  vengeance  while  the  other  escapes.  The 
term  was  also  used  in  civil  transactions;  as  when 
the  owner  of  a  vicious  ox,  that  had  gored  a  person,  was 
obliged  to  pay  an  atonement  or  redemption-price  for 
his  own  life,  F.x.  xxi.  ;;n.  Even  in  such  cases  one  can 
see,  that  certain  fundamental  ideas  are  involved  in  the 
representation  employed,  including  a,  liability  to  evil 
somehow  incurred,  a  possibility  of  escaping  from  it 
without  personal  suffering,  and  this  by  the  substitution 
of  one  thing'  or  one  being  in  the  place  of  another. 

1'ut  it  is  only  when  we  turn  to  the  strictly  religious 
province,  that  we  find — as  there  alone,  indeed,  could  we 
justly  expect  to  find — the  doctrine  of  atonement  brought 
clearly  and  distinctly  out.  We  select  a  few  out  of 
many  plain,  unambiguous  passages  that  exist  of  this  de 
scription  : — Le.  i.  4,  which  says  in  respect  to  theburnt- 
offering.  "  He  shall  put  his  hand  upon  the  head  of  the 
burnt-ottering,  and  it  shall  be  accepted  for  him  to  make 
atonement  for  him;''  Le.  iv.  '20,  in  respect  to  the  sin- 
offering,  "  and  the  priest  shall  make  atonement  for  him 
from  his  sin,  and  it  shall  be  forgiven  him ;"  so  again  at 
Le.  v.  16,  for  the  trespass- offering;  the  contrast  to 
which  in  both  cases,  when  the  sacrifice  was  not  offered, 
was — the  soul  bears  its  iniquity,  that  is,  is  subject  to  the 
penalty  of  death  for  the  transgression,  ch.v.  1,17.  Still 
more  fully  and  explicitly  in  regard  to  the  great  day  of 
atonement,  Le.  xvi.,  on  which  the  high- priest  was  with 
various  offerings  of  blood  to  "  make  an  atonement  for 

the  holy  sanctuary,  and  for  the  tabernacle  of  the  con- 

j 

gregation,  and  for  the  altar;  and  he  shall  make  an 
atonement  for  the  priests,  and  for  all  the  people  of 
the  congregation,"  vcr.  33.  Indeed,  as  it  was  these 
alone  who  were  capable  of  transgression,  the  atonement 
could  only  be  understood  to  be  made  for  the  sanc 
tuary  and  its  appendage5?,  as  having  been  defiled  by  the 
sins  of  the  people,  and  thereby,  in  a  manner,  rendered 
unfit  for  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  So 
that  it  still  was  the  people's  guilt  that  was  atoned  for, 
even  when  the  several  parts  and  articles  of  the  taber 
nacle  were  directly  contemplated  ;  as  is  intimated  in  the 
closing  verse,  "  And  this  shall  be  an  everlasting  statute 
unto  you  to  make  an  atonement  for  the  children  of  Israel 


ATON  E:\IENT 


ATONEMENT 


for  all  their  sins  once  a  year."  The  same  had  already 
been  stated  at  ver.  10,  "  He  shall  make  an  atonement 
for  the  holy  place,  becau.se  of  the  uncleanness  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  and  because  of  their  transgression 
in  all  their  sins."  To  the  like  effect  in  Ex.e.  xlv..  which 
discourses  of  the  sacrifices  connected  with  his  ideal 
temple,  it  is  given  as  the  object  of  these,  that  they  should 
be  for  the  reconciliation  or  atonement  of  the  house,  viz. 
the  temple,  and  for  the  house  of  Israel,  \vr.  i ;..  ir,  iv  And, 
to  mention  no  more,  there  is  the  passage  in  Le.  xvii.  1 1 . 
which  in  one  respect  is  the  most  important  of  the 
whole,  as  it  enunciates  the  general  principle,  on  which 
all  the  particular  statements  regarding  atonements  in 
the  stricter  sense  are  founded.  Correctly  rendered  it 
runs  thus,  ''For  the  soul  (iif/JttsJti  of  the  nVsh  is  in 
the  blood,  and  I  have  u'iven  it  to  you  upon  the  altar, 
to  atone  for  your  souls.  for  the  blood  atones  through 
the  soul  (/iancji/iesli.1."  It  occurs  in  connection  with  the 
prohibition  against  eatiiiLr  blood,  and  assigns  a  reason 
for  that,  which  is  to  this  eili-ct,  "You  mu~t  not  eat 
the  blood,  because  (iod  has  appointed  it  as  the  mean- 
of  atonement  for  your  sins.  Hut  it  is  such  from  heiiiLi' 
the  bearer  of  the  natural  life,  the  soul.  Not  simply, 
therefore,  as  blood,  but  a-  haviiiu:  the  soul  or  life  in  it. 
does  it  atone:  the  soul  of  tile  oll'ered  victim  is  Llivell  to 

atone  for  the  soul  of  the  sinner  who  olKr.-  it."  Such 
is  the  meaning  "f  the  statement,  and  the  application  to 
lie  made  of  it  to  the  subject,  under  consideration  is 
thus  clearly  exhibited  by  Kurt/.:  "The  Lord  says,  1  gave 
you  the  blood  upon  the  altar  to  make  atonement  for 
your  souls  therefore  blood  for  blood,  soul  for  soul. 
That  the  sinner  may  escape  death,  death  mu-t  aliuht 

on  the  sacrifice:  the  Limitless  b] 1  is  shed    in  order  to 

cover,  to  atone  for  the  guilty.  I  >eath  is  the  w.-cjvs  of 
sin:  the  sacrificed  animal  suffers  death,  not  in  payment 
of  its  own  sin  (for  it  is  without  sin.  Lfuiltlessi,  but  as 
payment  of  another's  sin:  it  therefore  suffers  death 
as  a  substitution  for  the  oli^ri-r.  and  Jehovah,  who 
<jiin  the  blood  as  the  means  of  atonement,  iveo^ni/es 
this  substitution.  The  blood  shed,  then,  in  the  death 
of  the  victim,  is  the  atonement  for  the  sinner:  as 
the  sin  has  been  imputed  to  the  victim,  the  satisfaction 
that  has  heel)  made  through  its  death  is  imputed  to 
the  sinner."  i.l/'<x"/x-7n  Off' r,  p.  :',!.> 

Now.  in  the  whole  of  these  representations,  beside 
what  is  implied  regarding  the  previous  state  of  the 
person  who  was  the  subject  of  the  atonement,  as  one  con 
scious  of  sin.  and  in  consequence  liable  to  punishment, 
two  -real  principles  wen-  distinctly  exhibited.  The^/V.s' 
of  these  is,  that  there  was  fi/nii  t/i  i  in/  lit  tli'  cli' inii'lii- 
aiid  <j<>r>rniii<iit  df  Hod.  ti-li/cli  <,li/irtin-/i/  presented  a 
hlndcrance  to  (lie  obtaining  of  pardon,  or  LTettiiiLT  anew 
into  a  state  of  favour  and  fellowship  with  Heaven. 
Mere  desire  on  the  sinner's  part,  however  sincere  and 
earnest,  could  not  accomplish  this;  an  obstacle  existed. 
till  it  was  removed  out  of  the  \\ay  by  a  valid  operation 
done  for  him.  and  upon  him.  What  really  constituted 
the  obstacle,  we  elsewhere  learn,  was  the  relation  in 
which  the  sinner's  guilt  placed  him  to  the  righteous 
ness  of  God  ;  before  this  he  stood  condemned  for  his 
transgression,  and  had  the  penalty  of  death  hung  over 
him.  But  apart  from  its  precise  nature,  which  comes 
out  in  other  revelations,  the  suspension  of  the  sinner's 
pardon  on  something  done  in  his  behalf  clearly  lie- 
spoke  the  existence  of  an  outstanding  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  his  return  to  the  divine  favour — a  hinderance  that 
had  to  be  removed  fur  him,  rather  than  Ity  him.  Then, 


secondly,  corresponding  to  this  recognized  and  felt  ob 
stacle,  there  was  for  its  removal  th e  sacrificial  substitu 
tion  of  an  aiiinial's  life  for  the  forfeited  life  of  the  sin 
ner — a  substitution  appointed  In/  dud.  and  presaittd 
lil  the  simur  v:ho  soni/ltt  to  be  atom.il.  ^Manifestly, 
therefore,  throughout  the  process  there  was  a  mutual 
respondencv.  in  which  both  parties  were  alike  in 
terested.  If  the  cause  of  offence  and  alienation  origi 
nated  with  the  sinner  in  his  violation  of  the  law  of 
(iod,  when  once  originated  it  no  longer  rested  there --a 
mighty  obstacle  thenceforth  interposed  on  the  part  of 
(iod.  which  the  sinner  could  not.  if  lie  would,  remove 
out  of  the  way;  and  it  became  as  necessary  for  (iod  to 
be  reconciled  toward  him,  as  for  him  to  be  reconciled 
toward  (Jod.  So.  au'ain,  in  respect  to  the  reconcilia 
tion  itself,  while  the  sinner  must  fall  in  with  the 
mode  institute. 1  for  obtaining  it,  and  must  accept  of 
the  substitution  provided  in  his  behalf,  the  appoint 
ment  of  the  substitution,  and  endowing  it  with  the  re 
quisite  efficacy,  must  be  of  (iod;  for  the  sinner  could 
escape  from  bis  fears,  lie  could  attain  t"  satisfaction 
respect  iii'_r  his  state,  oiilv  by  realizing  the  fact  of  a 
prior  or  a  concurrent  satisfaction  on  the  part  of  Clod. 
In  short,  the  sinner's  guilt  tir-t,  then  (iod's  justice  de 
creeing  death  against  the  guilt,  constituted  together  the 
Around  of  disagreement  which  called  for  an  atonement. 
And,  on  the  other  side,  (iod's  pardoning  mercy  layin-- 
opeii  the  way  of  return — this  first,  then  the  sinner's 
faith  and  repentance  embracing  the  provision  made, 
together  met  in  and  constituted  the  atonement. 

Such  is  the  plain  import  of  the  ( Hd  Testament 
teaching  upon  the  suhjtct,  of  atonement:  which  also, 
in  regard  t"  tin-  beliefs  involved  in  it.  derived  collate 
ral  support,  from  the  ascertained  feel  in  LI'S  and  practices 
of  ancient  heathendom.  "  By  the  general  practice,  to 
use  the  words  of  I'.ishop  I'.utler  (A  nal.  p.  ii.  c.  f.),  "of 
propitiatory  sacrifices  over  the  heathen  world,  the  no 
tion  of  repentance  heiiiLi'  alone  sufficient  to  expiate 
uuilt  [Or  rather  to  deliver  from  its  condemnation],  ap 
pears  to  be  contrary  to  the  general  sense  of  mankind." 
It  bore  unmistakeahle  evidence  to  the  deep  conviction 
in  men's  bosoms,  that  something  more  than  repentance 
was  nmhd  to  set  them  rinht  with  the  Deity  a  sacri 
ficial  i  'ft'eriiiLi'  to  compensate  for  their  guilt,  or  turn  away 
the  \\rath  it  bad  justlv  incurred.  And  it  betokened 
a  belief,  though  at  best  a  wavering,  faltering  belief, 
that  the  kind  of  sacrifices  actually  presented  ini'iht 
avail  for  the  end  in  view.  1 1  was  here,  that  for  those 
who  wanted  the  clear  li^ht  of  revelation  the  LI  rand  de- 
feet  lay  :  havin<_r  only  nature  to  consult  as  to  the 
validity  of  their  sacrificial  off.  rinu^.  they  could  never 
assure  themselves  of  a  clear  warrant  or  of  a  satisfactory 
response.  "  Kven  the  blithest  (ii-eek,"  says  Creu/er 
i  Si/ a, /K.I/ //,'.  i.  p.  171).  "could  not  but  be  sensible  of  a 
secret  dread  before-  each  of  his  Li'ods;  in  their  working  lay 
a  sort  of  demoniacal  agency.  Kvery  manifestation  of  a 
heathen  deity  carried  with  it  something  of  an  alarming 
nature,  and  the  felt,  nearness  of  the  gods,  even  at  the 

1  most  joyous  feasts,  was  accompanied  with  a  sense  of 
terror.  People  always  felt  themselves  in  the  presence 
of  a  dread  nature-power,  on  which  they  knew  not  how 
to  reckon.  For,  who  could  tell  what  the  deity  might 

I  suspend  over  him,  an  abject  and  weak  mortal'?    As  the 

i  spring  and  the  river  freshen  the  atmosphere,  invigorate 

i 

'  plants,  animals,  and  human   beings,   but   also,   in  the 

form  of  rushing  torrents,  overflow  their  banks,  desolate 
corn-fields,  sweep  along  with  them  men  and  beasts, 


ATONEMENT 


ATONEMENT 


so  could  the  unlimited  power  of  the  gods  at  any  moment 
manifest  itself  in  terrific  outbursts."  Hence  the  per 
petual  tendency  in  heathen  sacrifice  to  the  shedding  of 
Inuiian  blood  as  its  proper  culmination—nothing  less 
I  icing  deemed,  in  seasons  of  greater  emergency  and 
deeper  conviction,  an  offering  of  sufficient  value  to 
avert  the  judgment  due  to  human  guilt  and  disobedi 
ence.  The  members  of  the  old  covenant  were  saved 
from  such  alarming  fears  and  sucli  revolting  expedients 
by  means  of  the  supernatural  economy  under  which 
they  were  placed,  and  which,  through  a  regulated  sys 
tem  of  animal  sacrifice,  gave  them  assurance1  of  the 
divine  forgiveness.  So  far  they  stood  on  a  much 
higher  level  than  the  heathen — namely,  when  they  un 
derstood  and  used  aright  their  privileges;  but  the 
Jewish,  as  well  as  the  heathen  faith,  which  embodied 
itself  in  acts  of  sacrificial  worship,  held  pardon  of  sin 
to  be  attainable  through  offerings  of  blood  presented 
in  the  room  of  the  guilty— and  no  otherwise. 

It  is  true,  that  on  certain,  occasions  we  find  an  aton 
ing  value  to  have  been  attributed  to  means  which 
could  scarcely  be  said  to  possess  the  character  of  a 
proper  substitution,  by  the  giving  of  life  for  life.  Thus 
persons  in  very  humble  circumstances  were  allowed  to 
make  expiation  of  sin  with  a  little  flour,  Lc.  v.  11;  and 
at  the  outbreaking  of  the  plague  in  the  cam])  of  Israel, 
Aaron  made  atonement  by  rushing  in  among  the  people 
and  offering  incense,  Xu.  xvi.  47.  But  these  were  mani 
festly  exceptional  cases,  and  in  the  pressing  urgency  of 
the  moment  were  accepted,  as  by  a  God  who  delighteth 
in  mercy,  even  while  he  is  exercising  judgment,  though 
still  with  no  intention  whatever  of  supplanting  the 
proper  methods  of  relief.  The  incense  in  the  one  case. 
which  was  a  symbolical  prayer,  what  was  it  but  an 
immediate  pleading  for  mercy,  till  something  further 
might  be  done  ?  And  the  flour,  in  the  other,  was  ex 
pressly  given  as  a  substitute  for  the  living  victim,  which 
in  all  ordinary  circumstances  was  required  for  the  ex 
piation  of  sin.  Such  palpably  provisional  appoint 
ments  were  but  some  of  the  more  evident  signs  of  im 
perfection  in  an  economy,  which  was  throughout  im 
perfect,  and  by  its  very  imperfections  gave  promise  of 
better  things  to  come.  The  element  of  vicarious  satis 
faction  was  still  present,  even  in  its  most  imperfect 
services.  And  as  regards  the  general  aspect  and  ten 
dency  of  its  institutions,  it  must,  we  conceive,  have 
been  next  to  impossible  for  any  one  to  live  under  them, 
and  fail  to  imbibe  from  them  the  two  great  principles 
formerly  stated — viz.  that  by  reason  of  sin  a  ground  of 
disagreement,  an  objective  hinderance,  was  raised  be 
tween  the  sinner  and  God:  and  that  this  could  be  re 
moved  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  an  animal's  life  in  the 
room  of  the  sinner's  life. 

There  has  been  no  want  of  theories,  however,  to  get 
rid  of  these  conclusions;  yet  with  so  little  of  solid  proof, 
that  none  of  them  has  been  able  for  any  length  of  time 
to  maintain  its  ground.  Specimens  of  some  earlier 
theories  may  be  seen  in  Magee  on  the  Atonement,  notes 
38,  48,  49;  with  certain  modifications  and  a  few  more 
plausible  adjustments  they  have  again  appeared.  There 
is  the  theory  of  Blihr,  for  example,  in  his  Symbolik  des 
Mas.  Cultus,  who  rejects  the  vicarious  nature  of  the 
ancient  sacrifices,  and  regards  them  simply  as  sym 
bolical  of  the  feelings  and  exercises  of  the  worshipper 
— the  giving  away  on  his  part  of  the  animal  life  of  his 
victim  to  God,  imaging  the  giving  away  or  giving  back 
of  his  own  life  to  God,  in  a  spirit  of  true  repentance  and 


faith.  J5y  this  surrender  of  the  natural  selfish  princi 
ple  of  life,  which  dies,  as  it  were,  in  the  act  of  repent 
ance  and  faith,  sin  is  covered  by  being  extirpated — the 
atonement  is  made.  According  to  this  explanation,  then, 
the  action  with  the  victim  could  have  had  no  indepen 
dent  value,  it  must  have  been  but  the  reflection  and 
shadow  of  what  pertained  to  the  worshipper;  it  was  all 
subjective  merely,  and  might  have  been  dispensed  with, 
if  the  right  dispositions  were  themselves  in  proper  exer 
cise,  lint  this  is  very  different  from  the  impression 
naturally  conveyed  to  the  mind  by  the  language  of  Scrip 
ture  on  the  subject :  there  the  sacrificial  offering  appears 
as  a  sine  qua  11  on,  a  thing  without  which  forgiveness 
could  not  be  attained,  and  through  which  forgiveness  was 
obtained,  not  so  properly  by  as/w  the  sinner.  Then, 
why  such  stress  laid  upon  the  death  of  the  victim,  and 
the  presentation  of  that  which  bespoke  the  death?  To 
image  the  possession  of  a  higher  life  by  the  deatli  of  a 
lower,  however  common  in  the  New  Testament,  is  foreign 
to  the  Old  :  the  time  for  such  a  mode  of  representation 
had  not  yet  come,  and  in  the  circumstances  could 
never  have  been  thought  of  by  the  worshippers.  To 
them,  as  the  guilt  of  their  sin  formed  a  great  objective 
hinderance,  so  the  offering  of  the  slain  victim  must  have 
appeared  as  a  great  objective  remedy. 

Another  mode  of  explanation,  revived  lately  bv  Keil, 
would  lay  stress  merely  upon  the  presentation  of  tin,' 
blood,  apart  from  the  death  of  the  victim :  the  atone 
ment  consists,  not  in  the  slaying  of  the  victim  laden 
with  the  offerer's  guilt,  but  in  the  bringing  of  the  blood 
to  the  altar,  which  symbolized  the  reception  of  the 
worshipper  to  the  favour  and  fellowship  of  God.  True, 
in  a  certain  sense;  but  this  very  blood  derived  its  main 
significance  from  the  judgment  of  death  that  ha,d  passed 
on  it — from  its  having  been  the  life-blood  of  an  ap 
pointed  victim.  The  presentation  of  the  blood  at  the 
altar  was  the  formal  acceptance  of  the  life  that  had 
been  substituted  in  the  room  of  the  sinner's.  The  theory 
proceeds  on  an  utter  misapprehension  of  the  nature  of 
the  relation  between  the  offerer  and  the  victim,  as  if 
the  one  were  the  symbol  of  the  other.  The  victim  was 
the  offerer's  substitute,  not  his  symbol;  and  the  life- 
blood  was  given  by  God  as  an  intermediate  thing  be 
tween  himself  and  the  sinner,  possessing  in  it  by  divine 
ordination  an  atoning  property,  whereby  the  two  might 
become  one  again.  "  The  sacrifical  offering  was  a  dif 
ferent  thing  from  the  offerer;  it  was  simply  what  it  was, 
and  did  not  import  what  it  was  not''  (Uelitzsch). 

Still  another  theory,  which  is  by  no  means  new,  but 
has  received  somewhat  of  a  fresh  colouring,  and  has 
been  elaborated  with  great  pains  by  Hofmann  in.  his 
Schriftbeiveis,  regai'ds  the  offering  of  sacrificial  victims 
in  former  times  as  a  sort  of  payment  to  God — in  peace- 
offerings  a  payment  by  way  of  thankful  acknowledg 
ment  for  the  mercies  received  or  expected  from  his 
hand;  and  in  sin  or  burnt  offerings  a  payment  in  com 
pensation  of  the  sin,  such  as  God  himself  sanctioned, 
and  by  which  he  pledged  himself  to  be  again  gracious 
to  the  sinner.  There  is  nothing  properly  vicarious  in 
the  nature  of  the  offering;  it  is  simply  a  gift  put  into 
the  hands  of  the  worshipper,  which,  on  being  presented 
at  the  altar,  God  agrees  to  accept  as  payment.  The 
worshipper  was  thereby  taught  to  feel,  that  there  was 
not  to  be  a  simple  forgiveness  of  his  sin;  he  had  to  give 
a  certain  compensation,  though  still  it  was  his  own 
repentance  and  faith  which  properly  admitted  him  to 
blessing.  Like  the  others,  this  is  a  mere  theory  of  the 


ATONEMENT 


161 


ATONEMENT 


closet,  which  has  nothing  to  countenance  it  in  the  more 
obvious  and  palpable  features  of  the  ancient  sacrificial 
institute,  and  which  could  never  have  occurred  to  any 
one  living  under  it.  For,  if  compensation  by  way  of 
payment  were  the  radical  idea  of  the  transaction,  why 
should  it  have  turned  so  peculiarly  upon  one  kind — the 
offering  of  animal  life?  On  that  supposition  one  would 
have  expected  offerings  from  the  wine-press  or  from 
the  barn- floor  in  some  sort  of  proportion  to  those  from 
the  flock,  which  was  so  far,  however,  from  being  the 
case,  that  offerings  of  that  description  are  never  named 
in  connection  with  forgiveness  of  sin,  and  when  pre 
sented,  as  they  occasionally  were,  in  the  meat  and 
drink  offering,  it  was  only  in  trifling  quantities,  and  as 
an  appendage  to  sacrifices  of  blood.  Why,  a'_rain,  even 
in  these  was  such  prominence  given  to  the  blood,  and  in 
connection  witli  that,  to  the  death  of  the  victim.'  If 
the  ottering  availed  simplv  as  a  debt- payment,  thru, 
surelv,  the  more  it  could  retain  of  value  the  better; 
and  to  render  that  indispensable,  \\hicii  in  a  manner 
destroyed  its  value  as  a  living  creature,  was  a  strange 
thing  to  associate  with  the  idea  of  payment.  This  in 
evitably  fonvd  on  men's  consideration,  not  what  it  was 
as  a  valuable  commodity,  but  what  it  was  as  a  life. 
I'.esiiles,  a<  helit/.sch  has  justly  remarked  ion  IL  !,>•( tcs, 
p.  "4oi,  tlie  theory  entirely  mistakes  the  proper  nature 
of  atonement.  To  atone  is  strictlv  to  cover  (whence 
the  name'  of  the  mercy  seat,  capofit//  or  covering),  but 
not  in  the  sense  of  Ifofmann,  as  covennir  a  debt  bv 
paving  it.  This  is  a  metaphor  entirely  alien  to  Hebrew 
usage.  What  was  covered  was  sin  and  impuritv,  or 
that  wherein  these  resided.  And  from  what  were  they 
covered!  J-'roiu  Cod's  righteous  judgment,  \shidi  con 
demned  them  as  hateful  in  his  si-lit,  or  from  his  wrath, 
which  was  ready  to  flame  out  against  everything  op- 
po-.'d  to  his  moral  puritv.  What  was  put  between  man 
and  this  coiisumiii'_:  /.eal  on  the  part  of  Cod  to  bear  the 
doom,  which  would  oth'Twi>e  alight  upon  the  sinner 
that,  in  the  sense  of  ( )ld  Testament  scripture,  is  an 
atonement,  it  is  the  covei-in^  of  guilt.  Any  other  \  lew, 
however  ingeniously  supported,  must  lie  held  to  be  in 
consistent  with  the  plain  sense  and  import  of  Scrip 
ture. 

If.  I'.ut  as  existing  in  Old  Testament  times,  all  was 
provisional.  The  means  of  atonement  in  the  blood  of 
slain  victims  was  r/lv  n  by  Cod  for  the  time  then  pre 
sent;  but  of  so  inadequate  a  kind,  when  compared  with 
the  ^ivat  object  to  be  accomplished,  that  it  was  impos 
sible  especially  when  coupled  with  the  intimations  of 
prophecy—  for  the  more  thoughtful  and  reflecting  minds 
among  the  covenant- people  not  to  anticipate  a  period 
when  the  divine  administration  in  this  respect  would 
assume  a  more  perfect  form.  The  clearer  liuht  of  tin- 
gospel  leaves  us  now,  at  least,  in  no  mom  to  doubt, 
that  the  whole  of  the  sacrificial  institute  of  the  old 
covenant  rested  on  the  assumption,  eternally  present 
to  the  divine  mind,  of  the  Son's  willing  sacrifice  of  him 
self  on  the  cross  for  the  sins  of  men.  Itishere  alone,  as 
the  later  Scriptures  declare,  that  the  real,  the  only  valid 
and  effectual  atonement  is  to  be  found.  l!ut.  while 
there  is  an  infinite  difference  between  this  and  the 
temporary  expedients  that  preceded  it,  in  respect  to 
inherent  worth,  the  correspondence  between  the  pre 
paratory  and  the  ultimate  in  the  divine  economy  in 
dispensably  required  that  the  principle  of  both  should 
be  the  same — that  what  the  ancient  worshipper's  rela 
tion  was  to  his  moans  of  atonement,  the  same  should 

VOL.  I. 


now  be  the  relation  of  believers  to  the  perfect  offering 
of  Christ.  The  one  could  not  otherwise  have  formed 
the  shadow  and  preparation  of  the  other.  ]f,  there 
fore,  the  principle  of  vicarious  satisfaction  stands  fast 
in  the  Old  Testament  sacrifices — not  invalidated,  but 
rather  confirmed  by  the  attempts  that  have  been  made 
to  get  rid  of  it — and  if  in  the  carrying  out  of  this  prin 
ciple  the  blood  of  slain  victims  as  the  bcaivr  of  their 
life  was  what  formed  the  matter  of  the  atonement,  it 
must  equally  stand  fast  in  regard  to  the  work  of 
Christ,  that  it  is  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself,  or  the  pre 
sentation  of  his  life-blood  to  Cod.  and  by  this  as  a  vica 
rious  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  men,  that  he  prevails 
for  their  redemption.  The  proof  of  the  one  position  i> 
virtually  the  proof  of  the  other. 

J!ut  the  language  of  the  New  Testament  also  fully 
bears  out  this  view;  and  it  is  found  just  as  impracti 
cable  to  explain  >atisfaetorily  what  is  stated  directly 
respecting  Christ's  work,  without  reference  to  the 
atonement  in  its  common  acceptation,  as  to  do  so  \\ith 
its  typical  adumbrations.  We  can  here  only  point  to 
some  of  tlie  more  explicit  passages  :  but  they  are  quite 
sufficient  to  cstahli>h  both  of  the  two  fundamental  points 
now  indicated.  (1.)  Vicari<>ut  xttti.ifitctiiin  is  plainly 
exhibited  in  the  following  statements  :  "  The  Son  of  man 
came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and 
'jive  his  life  a  ransom  for  many"  (di'rl  TTO\\^I'.  in  the 
room  of  many).  M-it.  xx.  :."•;  ''  Who  gave  himself  a  ran 
som  for  all."  m.  ii.  i;;  "Cod  made  him  to  be  sin  for  us, 
•who  knew  no  sin,  that  we  might  lie  made  the  righteous 
ness  of  God  in  him,"  2l'o.  v.  21;  "  ( 'hri.-t  loved  the  church 
and  gave  himself  for  it;"  "  J'v  one  offering  he  has 
for  ever  ]<•  rfected  them  that  are  sanctified  :"  "  He  bare 
our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree;"  "  1  le  suffered  for 
our  sins,  t;;t.  just  for  the  unjust,  that  he  might  bring 
us  unto  ( i oil;"  ••  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,"  &c., 
KC  v  2.i;  He.  x.  14;  IPc.  ii.  24;iii.  lS;Un.  ii.  2  \'1.\  Tin  SilCi'ificial 
(l<nt//  <  if  Christ,  or  ijir'niij  <nc<i//  "/  Ii  it  //ft  t<>  tin  /•''<'/<>/•, 
as  in  fulfilment  of  a  sentence  of  condemnation,  is  not 
less  clearly  marked  as  the  act  in  which  the-  vicarious 
character  of  Christ's  work  concentrated  itself,  and 
through  which  it  accomplished  the  reeded  redemption. 
"The  Lamb  of  Cod.  that  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the 
world,"  "our  passover  alsn  \\as  sacrificed  for  us,  ( 'lirist,'' 
"redeemed  with  tlie  precious  blood  of  Christ,  as  of  a 
lamb  without  blemish  and  without  spot,''  .Tn  i.  i»i ;  l  Co.  v.  7; 
i  '.'••  i  19  "  I  lay  down  my  life  for  tlie  sheep."  Jn.  x.  i:>; 
"  Him  hath  Cod  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through 
faith  in  his  blood,  to  declare  his  righteousness  for  the 
remission  of  r-in-.  that  are  past."  "  He  was  delivered  for 
our  offences,  and  raised  again  for  our  justification," 
Ro.  iii.  25;  iv.  25;  "  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse 
of  the  law.  being  made  a  curse  for  us."  <;-i.  iii.  i:: ;  "The 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  his  Son.  cleanseth  from  all  sin." 
"  He  hath  washed  us  from  our  sins  in  his  blood,'' 
Un.i.  r;  He.  i.  r. ;  "  For  if  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats, 
and  the  ashes  of  an  heifer  sprinkling  the  unclean,  sanc- 
tin'eth  to  the  purifviiiu'  of  the  flesh;  how  much  more 
shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the  Eternal 
Spirit  offered  himself  without  spot  to  Cod,  purge  your 
conscience  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  Cod," 
lie.  ix.  i.-(,  11. 

These  are  after  all  but  a  few  out  of  a  mass  of  testi 
monies,  that  more  or  less  explicitly  speak  the  same 
language  and  breathe  the  same  spirit.  Yet  with  them 
alone  before  us,  the  evidence  in  favour  of  the  two  great 
points  which  make  up  the  Christian  doctrine  of  atonc- 

21 


ATONEMENT 


ATONEMENT 


incut  must  1)0  held  to  be  incontrovertible  by  all  simple 
and  unsophisticated  minds.     The  alHrmation  of  Soame 
Jeiiyns  on  the  subject,  frequently  quoted,  is  scarcely  too 
strong:    "  That  Christ  suffered    and  died  as  an  atone-  | 
ment  for   the   sins   of  mankind,  is  a  doctrine  so  con-  i 
.-tantly  and  so  strongly  enforced  through  every  part   of  , 
the  New  Testament,  that  whoever  will  seriously  peruso 
those  writings,  and  deny  that  it  is  there,  may,  with  as 
much    reason  and   truth,    after   reading   the    works  of 
Thiicydides  and  I,ivy.  assert,  that  in  them  no  mention 
i.,  made  of  any  facts  relative  to   the   histories  of  Greece 
and  Home"  (fiiti'r/inl  Evidence}. 

It  is  less,  however,  with  direct  denial  <  of  the  doctrine 
of  atonement,  than  with  modes  of  explanation  respect- 
in--  it  which  take  the  very  substance  out  of  it.  that  its 
advocates  ill  the  present  age  have  to  do.  Theories 
conceived  on  a  philosophic  basis,  and  drawing  sup 
port  from  some  incidental  and  subordinate  aspects  of 
tin-  subject,  but  leaving  out  the  more  palpable,  which 
in  such  a  case  are  necessarily  the  more  vital  and  im 
portant  features  of  it,  are  constantly  rising  into  notice. 
Thus,  in  the  hands  of  a  philosophic  rationalist  the  pas 
sages  which  speak  of  Christ  being  a  curse  and  ransom 
for  his  people,  are  evacuated  of  nearly  all  that  bears  even 
the  semblance  of  the  real  doctrine:  "  We  must  distin 
guish."  it  is  said,  ''between  the  spirit  and  the  letter, 
the  inward  meaning  and  the  figure  of  the  Jewish  law. 
The  inward  meaning  is,  that  Christ's  teaching,  and  life, 
and  death  drew  men  to  him,  until  they  were  taken  out 
of  themselves  and  in  all  their  thoughts  and  actions 
became  one  with  him"  (Jowett  on  St.  Paul's  l-')>isi.l<:s, 
i.  -Jill).  In  like  manner,  the  shedding  of  his  blood 
as  an  oll'erinu'  for  men's  sins,  is  resolved  into  a  Jewish 
figure,  and  the  thing  meant  is,  "  that  he  was  put  to 
death  by  sinful  men,  and  raised  out  of  the  state  of  sin, 
in  this  sense  taking  their  sins  upon  himself.''  If  this 
were  all,  then  one  could  easily  understand  what  the 
same  writer  has  elsewhere  said,  that  "  heathen  and 
Jewish  sacrifices  rather  show  us  what  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  was  not,  than  what  it  is"  (ii.  479).  Only,  an 
insuperable  difficulty  on  this  view  of  the  matter  re 
mains,  viz.  how  Christ  and  his  apostles  should  have 
so  habitually  brought  his  work,  not  into  contrast,  but 
into  comparison  with  the  ancient  sacrifices,  and  repre 
sented  it  as  the  proper  realization  of  the  principles  on 
which  they  proceeded.  That  they  did  so  can  scarcely 
admit  of  a  question;  they  constantly  point  to  sacri 
fice  as  the  most  perfect  type  of  Christ's  redemption ; 
and  if  in  this  we  are  not  disposal  to  impugn  their  wis 
dom  or  integrity,  there  seems  no  alternative  left  but  to 
hold  that  their  views  radically  differed  from  those  of 
the  author  just  quoted.  They  perceived  resemblances 
v.here  he  would  find  only  contrasts.  Not  only  so,  but 
on  such  a  view  the  same  inward  meaning  substantially 
may  be  found  in  Paul's  labours  and  sufferings  as  in 
Christ's:  these  too  tended  to  take  men  out  of  them 
selves  and  draw  them  into  a  spiritual  oneness  with 
himself.  Yet  Paul  abhorred  the  very  thought  of  being 
put  on  a  level  with  Christ,  and  preached  salvation  only 
in  the  name  of  Christ. 

A  similar  contrariety  to  the  plain  import  of  the 
scriptural  statements  discovers  itself  in  some  who  pre 
serve  a  little  more  of  the  form  of  truth,  and  recognize  a 
sort  of  atonement.  Thus,  •'  ( 'hrist's  death  is  a  sacrifice, 
the  only  complete  sacrifice  ever  offered,  the  entire  sur 
render  of  the  whole  spirit  and  body  to  Cod.  ...  In  it  all 
the  wisdom,  and  truth,  and  glory  of  Cod  were  mani 


fested  to  the  creature;  in  it  man  is  presented  as  a  holy 
and  acceptable  sacrifice  to  Cod"  (Maurice's  Essays,  p. 
1  .(X).  In  short,  Christ  is  a  kind  of  embodied  humanity, 
and  in  his  perfect  surrender  of  self,  in  doing  and  suf 
fering,  to  the  will  of  the  Father,  every  member  of 
humanity  is  entitled  to  regard  himself  as  represented — 
Christ's  sacrifice  of  self  is  his  sacrifice.  So  also  sub 
stantially  ISiilir  and  Hofmann,  the  latter  of  whom 
says.  ''Christ  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  another,  who  has 
performed  that  which  humanity  should  have  per 
formed  but  could  not  do  it  ;  he  is  not  to  be  viewed  so 
externally  in  relation  to  it.  but  is  the  one  in  whom 
humanity  was  originally  mafic,  and  \slio  again  comes 
into  it.  lie  is  that  Son  of  man.  in  whom  it  has  its 
second  Adam.  Nor  is  it  merely  a  vicarious  work 
through  which  he  has  reconciled  us  to  God;  we  are 
not  simply  throurjh  him  reconciled,  but  in  him.''  The 
Lord  himself,  however,  says  expressly  the  reverse; 
he  came,  as  lie  informs  us,  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  in  the 
room  of  many — as  one  in  such  a  sense  different  from 
them,  that  he  could  take  their  place,  and  act  between 
them  and  Cod:  and  tliruv.'ik  him.  says  the  apostle,  not 
iii  him.  we  received  the  atonement,  Ro.  v.ll.  "What  be 
comes,  indeed,  of  the  whole  ollice  of  Christ  as  media 
tor,  if  he  is  incapable  of  occupying,  or  does  not  in  fact 
occupy,  a  middle  place  between  man  and  God-  It  is 
true,  they  who  believe  in  him  become  spiritually  one 
with  him,  and  are  made  partakers  of  his  life ;  but 
this  is  the  result  of  the  work  of  atonement  in  their 
behalf,  and  comes  from  their  interest  in  its  provisions. 
Humanity  as  Christ  found  it  was  laden  with  sin,  and 
as  such  under  the  curse  and  condemnation  of  death. 
On  this  account  he  must  enter  vicariously  into  its  room, 
and  bear  its  burden  ;  and  only  when  he  has  done  so, 
and  has  become  the  heir  of  an  endless  life,  does  he  also 
become  for  men  the  head  of  a  new  and  better  creation. 
His  satisfaction  unto  death  for  their  guilt  is  the  very 
ground  of  the  new  life  and  destiny  he  has  secured  for 
those  that  believe  on  his  name. 

If  it  is  impossible  on  scriptural  grounds  to  hold  the 
identity  of  Christ  with  humanity,  which  the  theorists 
referred  to  maintain,  it  is  equally  impossible  to  find 
the  objective  ground  of  comfort  and  satisfaction  in  his 
work,  which  the  inspired  writers  do,  011  the  supposition 
of  its  being  simply  a  sublime  and  perfect  surrenderof  self, 
in  doing  and  suffering,  to  the  will  of  the  Father --a.  self- 
sacrifice  which  his  people  are  to  be  blessed  in  only  by 
being  drawn  to  imbibe  its  spirit  and  imitate  its  ex 
ample.  Strip  this  notion  of  its  artful  accommodation 
of  the  language  of  Scripture  concerning  sacrifice,  and 
what  does  it  amount  to  but  this  ( — See  in  Christ  a  per 
fect  exemplar  of  the  highest  kind  of  obedience — ac 
cepted,  blessed,  honoured  of  the  Father  through  that 
obedience,  and  proclaiming  that  if  you  follow  him  in 
the  one,  you  shall  share  with  him  in  the  other !  Alas  ! 
it  is  the  very  thing  I  want,  will  be  said  by  the  con 
science-stricken  sinner — the  view  of  Christ's  perfection 
but  makes  me  feel  the  more  intensely  the  depth  of  my 
own  sinfnlness,  and  the  distance  at  which  I  stand  from 
the  rectitude  of  a  holy  being;  and  if  I  can  only  look  to 
him  as  a  faultless  pattern  of  righteousness,  I  must  cry  out 
with  Peter,  "  Depart  from  mo,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man, 
()  Lord."  Totally  different  is  the  view  presented  in 
Scripture,  when  it  sets  forth  the  perfection  of  Christ's 
work  as,  in  the  first  instance,  the  foundation  of  peace 
for  the  sinner,  a  propitiation  for  his  guilt,  through 
which  as  a  pardoned  and  accepted  believer  he  may 


ATONEMENT 


163 


ATONEMENT 


enter  into  fellowship  with  God.  Primarily  it  is  set 
before  him  as  an  objective  ground  of  confidence,  and 
only  by  and  by  is  it  wrought  as  a  living  example  into 
his  experience. 

This  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  which  has  so  strong 
and  broad  a  foundation  in  Scripture,  is  also  responded 
to  by  the  profoundest  feelings  and  convictions  of  the 
human  heart.  '*  However  strange  it  may  appear,  hu 
man  nature  in  every  ag-/  has  craved  for  expiation  of  sin 
as  a  preliminary  to  its  pardon,  and  lias  sought  not 
merely  forgiveness,  but  forgiveness  through  atonement. 
It  was  because  the  key-note  of  sacrifice  was  punishment 
— because  a  penal  and  vicarious  deatli  preceded  the 
attempt  to  approach  tht;  Deity  acceptably,  or  offer  the 
surrender  of  self  to  his  service,  that  it  struck  an  an 
swering  chord  in  every  human  heart,  and  maintained  its 
place  in  the  religion  of  almost  every  tribe  mi  the  face 
of  the  globe,  and  through  every  phase  of  civilization, 
from  the  barbarous  rites  of  the  wandering  Scythian  to 
the  refined  heathenism  of  Greece  and  Koine."  (Mac 
doiiell's  /I'ltiij'la/i  L'.cturm.  p.  !>S.)  The  explanation  is 
to  be  sought  in  the  ineradicable  impression  upon  the 
human  heart  of  the  claim-;  of  justice  or  righteousness. 
which  instinctively  demands  that  these  !>••  satisfied 
before  the  blessings  of  divine  forgiveness  and  love  can 
be  enjoy. -d.  It  is  because  justice  is  reco.j-ni/ed  as  the 
fundamental  element  of  all  ^oodness.  Every  attribute  of 
excellence,  love  itself,  is  conditioned  by  the  demands  of 
justice,  and  if  justice  is  living  and  sensitive  anywhere,  as 
justly  remarked  by  I  >r.  Shedd  of  America,  "it  must  be 
so  in  its  eternal  seat  and  home.  If  law  is  jealous  f<>r  its 
own  authority  and  maintenance  anywhere,  it  must  he 
in  that  IM-HHT.  to  whom  all  eyes  in  the  universe  an- 
turned  v,  ith  the  inquiry.  'Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  do  rijht  '.'  \\hat.  then-fore,  conscience  affirms  in 
the  transgressor's  case.  Cod  affirms,  and  is  the  first  to 
atlinn.  What  conscience  fee!-:  in  re-jieet  to  tran-^'res- 
sion,  Cod  feels,  and  is  the  first  to  feel.  All  that  i<  re 
quisite  in  order  to  the  satisfaction  and  pacification  of 
conscience  to wai'i Is  the  sinful  son!  in  \\hich  it  dwells, 
is  also  requisite  iii  order  to  the  sati.-faction  and  pacifi 
cation  of  God  the  Just ;  and  it  is  requisite  in  the  for 
mer  case,  onlv  li-  cause  it  is  fir.-t  requisite  in  the  latter. 
Tlie  subjective  iii  man  is  shaped  bv  the  objective  in 
Cod,  and  not  the  objective  in  (Soil  by  the  subjective 
in  man.  The  consciousness  of  the  conscience  is  but  the 
reflex  of  the  consciousness  of  God."  >  Bib.  > 
1S59,  p.  7-17.) 

In  full  accordance-  \\ith  such  views,  we  find  in  the 
epistle  t-i  the  Romans,  which  contains  the  most  syste 
matic  and  formal  exposition  of  the  scheme  of  salvation 
in  all  Scripture,  that  righteousness,  not  grace,  occupies 
the  foremost  place.  The  apoMle  declares  himself  to 
have  been  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  "be 
cause  therein  is  revealed  the  righteousness  of  (iod  from 
faith  to  faith,''  ch.i.17;  and  the  grand  scope  and  end  of 
its  wonderful  provisions  of  ui'race  is  affirmed  to  be,  that 
"God  miuht  be  just,  and  the  justifier  of  him  that 
believeth  in  Jesus,"  eh.  iii.  a;  -  grace  with  its  inexhaustible 
riches  thus  raisiiiLT  itself  011  a  background  of  righte 
ousness,  and  so  far  from  being  impaired,  immensely 
enhanced  by  the  connection.  To  say,  as  is  often 
done,  that  it  exhibits  God  as  less  willing  to  forgive 
than  his  creatures  are  bound  to  be,  as  taking  delight  in 
executing  vengeance  on  sin,  or  yielding  to  the  extremity 
of  suffering  what  he  withheld  on  considerations  of  mercy, 
is  altogether  to  misrepresent  ami  caricature  the  truth 


of  God.  It  is  not  as  if  the  demands  of  righteousness 
were  pressed  apart  from  the  yearnings  of  love;  but 
rather  that  love  itself  willingly,  and  with  the  spontane 
ous  surrender  of  what  was  required,  moved  in  the 
channel  of  that  righteousness  which  it  delights  above 
all  to  honour.  In  one  and  the  same  act.  love  rose  to  its 
highest  exercise,  and  righteousness  accomplished  its 
noblest  work— the  two  together  glorifying  the  Godhead 
with  a  perfect  glory.  The  atonement,  therefore,  does 
not  render  (iod  merciful,  but  admits  of  his  showing 
mercy  in  consistence  with  the  moral  rectitude  of  his 
government,  and  besto\\ing  a  free'  salvation  on  the 
guilty  without  violence  or  dishonour  to  the  justice  of 
his  administration.  Hence,  also,  of  all  the  means  of 
moral  suasion,  which  have  proved  of  value  to  awaken 
or  sustain  love  in  the  human  bosom,  none  has  been 
known  to  work  with  one-half  the  energy  and  effect  that 
have  flowed  fimu  the  believing  apprehension  of  the 
great  fact  of  the  atonement  that  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  died,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  or  that  God  so 
loved  the  world,  as  to  give  his  only  begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  helievcth  in  him  might  not  perish,  but  have 
eternal  life. 

1  I  I.  But  there  may  be  shades  of  difference  in  regard  to 
the  cssi  ii'ia!  iia/urc  and  jiriipi  r  <//;/'<  ctx  of  the  atonement. 
F.ven  those  \\ho  an'ive  in  holding  the  strict Iv  vicarious 
character  of  Christ's  sufferings  and  death,  are  not  en 
tirely  at  one  in  their  mode  of  explaining  wherein 
precisely  the  efficacy  and  bearing  of  th"  atonement 
consists.  The  differences  here  chiefly  respect  the  two 
points.  What  is  the  kind  of  satisfaction  rendered  by  the 
atonement  of  Christ  to  the  divine  justice  I  and  for 
whom  has  it  been  rendered'  for  mankind  at  large,  or 
an  elect  portion  of  them  in  particular'  It  was  onlv 
gradually  that  the  views  of  theologians  on  these  points 
W(  re  brought  out.  and  thrown  into  a  systematic  form. 
I '.ut  we  are  not,  on  this  account,  to  conclude  that  the 
substance  of  the  truth  was  not  held  from  the  \  erv  lirst 
by  the  sounder  portion  of  the  church.  Anselm  of 
Cantt  rbury  undoubtedly  had  the  merit  of  being  the 
first  to  write  a  length,  ned  treatise  on  the  subject,  and 
to  reason  out  in  a  formal  manner  what  is  called  the 
satisfaction  theory.  The  elements  of  that  theory  were 
lulil  from  the  first,  and  are  plainly  exhibited  in  New 
Testament  scripture,  as  \\ell  as  in  some  of  the  lust 
of  the  fathers.  Then-  \\ ,  re  no  doubt  in  former  times, 
as  wi  11  as  now.  partial  and  dcfecti\e  \ii-ws  occasionally 
broached  respecting  the  atonement:  and,  in  particular, 
too  -Teat  account  was  sometimes  made  of  the  relation 
in  which  it  stood  to  the  po\\er  and  dominion  of  Satan. 
Hut  Anselm  so  ch-arlv  explained  and  vindicated  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement  as  a  satisfaction  to  the 
honour  or  justice  of  God  for  the  offence  caused  by  hu 
man  sinfulness.  that  it  came  to  be  generally  acquiesced 
in,  and  at  the  time  of  the  Rt  formation  was  substantially 
espoused  bv  all  the  leading  theologians--  Roman,  Lu 
theran  and  'Reformed.  I'ndoubtedly  the  idea  was 
often  pressed  too  far,  first  bv  some  of  the  schoolmen 
and  afterwards  by  certain  J'rotestaut  divines,  as  if  the 
guilt  of  men,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  satisfaction 
required  to  meet  it.  on  the  other,  were  capable  of  being 
weighed  and  adjusted  like  a  mercantile  transaction. 
Statements  have  even  been  made  to  the  ell'ect,  that 
precisely  the  amount  of  penalty  due  for  the  sins  of  those 
who  were  to  be  redeemed  was  laid  upon  Jesus,  and 
borne  bv  him  in  his  work  of  suffering  obedience.  This, 
as  justly  stated  by  Dr.  Macdonell,  was  to  treat  redemp- 


ATONEMENT 


104 


ATONEMENT 


tion  as  it'  it  ''dealt  with  things,  not  with  persons  ;  and 
applied  to  the  spiritual  necessities  of  an  immortal  being, 
and  its  relations  to  the  fountain  of  all  holiness  and  love, 
the  same  formula  that  would  solve  pecuniary  liabilities, 
and  regulate  the  mere  legal  relation  of  creditor  and 

debtor Dealing  as  the  divine  law  does  with  sin 

and  holiness,  with  purity  and  impurity  of  heart,  it  must 
have  been  shaped,  so  as  to  dispense  punishment  and 
forgiveness  according  to  the  wickedness  or  holiness, 
not  of  the  acts  only,  but  of  the  being  who  acts.  Hence, 
Christ's  work  of  redemption,  however  mysterious,  seems 
to  spring  from  a  deep  and  intimate  relationship  to  those 
whom  he  redeems.  It  is  not  only  because  he  suffers 
what  they  ouuht  to  have  suflered.  that  mercy  has 
become  possible  ;  but  because  He  who  suffered  and  did 
such  things  bore  some  deep  and  mysterious  relation  to 
the  spirits  of  those  for  whom  He  suffered  and  acted; 
so  that  every  pang  He  felt,  and  every  act  He  did, 
vibrated  to  the  extremities  of  that  body  of  which  He 
is  the  head,  and  placed  not  their  acts,  but  the  actors 
themselves  in  a  new  relation  to  the  divine  government, 
and  to  the  fountain  of  holiness  and  life." — (Doncllan 
Lectures,  p.  140,  241.) 

These  considerations  in  no  way  invalidate,  they 
rather  confirm  the  viewT,  that  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ  are  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  penal 
satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  men — which  is  also  distinctly 
indicated  in  the  declarations  which  exhibit  him  as 
having  borne  our  sins,  given  himself  a  ransom  for  many, 
redeemed  or  purchased  the  church  with  his  blood,  &,c. 
Short  of  such  a  satisfaction,  there  could  be  no  adequate 
basis  for  the  dispensation  of  grace  and  blessing  to  the 
sinful ;  and  every  scheme,  however  shaped  and  modi- 
lied,  which  proceeds  on  the  supposition  of  less  being 
required,  must  still  lie  open  to  the  objection  long  ago 
urged  by  Taylor  against  that  of  Dr.  Clarke :  "If  there 
was  any  relaxation  of  punishment  in  the  scheme,  any 
thing  short  of  an  adequate  satisfaction,  so  far  there  was 
a  remission  of  sin  freely ;  and  if  any  part  of  the  sin 
might  be  forgiven  without  a  satisfaction,  so  might  the 
whole.  And  our  justification  and  salvation  may  arise 
entirely  from  the  benevolence,  and  grace,  and  love  of 
God  to  man,  and  be  the  free  gift  of  God  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  words " — free,  he  means,  as  contradis 
tinguished  from  such  benefits  grounded  on  a  work  of 
atonement — free,  as  being  the  offspring  of  simple  mercy 
(Ben  Mordecai's  Letters,  ii.  691).  A  scheme,  which 
carries  imperfection  in  its  very  nature  has  no  solid  foot 
ing,  licit  even  in  the  reckoning  of  men ;  even  they  will 
soon  be  found  (like  Taylor)  taking  from  it  what  it  seems 
to  have ;  for,  if  God  can  dispense  with  the  claims  of 
justice  in  part,  they  will  certainly  conclude  He  can  as 
easily  do  it  in  whole ;  and,  indeed,  they  will  be  sure 
to  regard  a  gratuitous  absolution  more  becoming  his 
divine  majesty  than  one  providing  only  a  partial  satis 
faction. 

In  accordance,  therefore,  with  the  tenor  of  the  pre 
ceding  statements,  and  with  the  plain,  import  of  many 
passages  of  Scripture,  we  must  hold  to  the  necessity  of 
a  proper  satisfaction.  But  then  we  must  beware  of 
confounding  this  satisfaction  with  transactions  of  a 
merely  commercial  kind.  The  relation  it  holds  to 
moral  agents,  and  the  high  as  well  as  complicated 
moral  elements  involved  in  it,  place  it  in  an  essentially 
different  category.  On  this  account,  even,  after  the 
satisfaction  has  been  provided  and  offered,  the  question 
respecting  the  personal  state  of  individuals  still  remains 


to  be  determined  ;  no  one  is  entitled  to  say,  as  he  might 
do  after  the  discharge  of  a  pecuniary  obligation,  The 
debt  is  cancelled,  and  1  am  no  longer  liable  to  be  called 
to  account  for  its  liabilities.  Here  there  have  also  to 
lie  brought  into  view  the  mutual  relations  of  the  re 
spective  parties,  and  the  treatment  they  are  disposed  to 
give  to  the  work  of  Christ,  or  the  account  they  make  of 
it.  The  matter,  indeed,  is  of  such  a  kind,  that  it 
reaches  up  to  the  throne  of  God,  and  stretches  far  and 
wide  in  its  moral  bearings  on  the  interests  of  his  ever 
lasting  kingdom.  He,  therefore,  alone  can  determine 
what  is  a  proper  satisfaction,  and  in  what  manner  it 
may  be  made  available  to  the  souls  of  men,  without 
interfering  with  the  interests  of  righteousness.  To  our 
view  mysteries  on  every  side  hang  around  the  subject, 
such  as,  perhaps,  no  finite  mind  can  entirely  fathom. 
We  should  be  the  more  thankful,  that  He  who  can  do 
so  has  done  it ;  and  that  in  the  perfect  holiness  and 
peerless  dignity  of  the  great  High-priest,  he  perceives 
such  an  infinite  worthiness  and  sufficiency  as  renders 
it  not  only  compatible  with  his  justice,  but  conducive 
to  his  highest  glory,  to  bestow  salvation  on  as  many 
as  believe  in  the  name  of  his  Son. 

Further,  it  is  impossible  to  give  due  weight  to  the 
considerations  already  mentioned,  and  especially  to  the 
relation  subsisting  between  the  Mediator  and  the  persons, 
as  well  as  the  actions,  of  those  whom  he  represents  in 
his  great  undertaking,  without  perceiving  that  his 
work  must  be  regarded  as  having  a  more  special  bear 
ing  and  respect  to  some  than  to  others.  This  may 
have  been,  and  doubtless  has  been  incautiously  stated 
by  some  of  the  advocates  of  what  is  called  particular 
rcdciiiption,  so  as  to  beget  the  impression,  that  Christ's 
atonement  had  110  distinct  bearing  011  the  condition  of 
any,  excepting  such  as  may  be  destined  ultimately  to 
share  in  its  blessings.  Unquestionably  a  false  impres 
sion,  whenever  produced.  For  nothing  can  be  plainer 
from  the  announcements  of  Scripture  on  the  subject, 
than  that  the  atonement  of  Christ  is  presented  as  the 
grand  objective  exhibition  of  the  mind  and  will  of  God 
toward  the  entire  world  of  sinful  men — the  revelation  of 
what  is  in  his  heart  for  their  deliverance  from  wrath — 
and  the  historical  ground  011  which,  not  only  the  gospel 
call  is  addressed  to  sinners  without  distinction,  but 
every  individual  rejecting  the  call  shall  be  held  de 
serving  of  the  heaviest  condemnation.  The  ambas 
sadors  of  the  gospel  are  warranted  to  go  to  every 
creature  within  the  circle  of  fallen  humanity,  and, 
011  the  basis  of  Christ's  perfected  sacrifice,  say  to  each 
in  succession,  Here  is  the  provision  which  Heaven's 
hive  has  made  and  freely  offers  to  thee;  see  here  the 
proper  ransom  for  thy  guilt,  and  the  way  of  access  for 
thee  to  a  full  inheritance  of  life  and  blessing;  believe 
and  live.  But  in  doing  this,  there  is  no  need  for  frit 
tering  away  the  work  of  atonement  itself,  or  repre 
senting  it  in  the  light  merely  of  some  kind  of  general 
display  of  righteousness  against  the  demerit  of  sin,  or 
satisfaction  to  public  justice,  such  as  simply  renders 
salvation  possible  to  all;  for  we  should  thus  take  from 
the  real  worth  and  efficacy  of  the  atonement,  in  the 
same  proportion  as  we  widen  the  sphere  of  its  reference. 
We  should  also  leave  without  any  satisfactory  explana 
tion  the  many  passages  which  speak  of  it  as  actually 
securing  the  eternal  well-being  of  those  for  whom  it  was 
more  especially  given.  The  particular  must  have  its 
full  weight  assigned  to  it,  not  less  than  the  general. 
And  in  the  representations  of  Scripture  upon  the  subject 


ATONEMENT 


10y 


A  VIM 


it  is  the  particular,  much  more  than  the  general  aspects 
of  it  which  are  brought  into  view;  that  is  to  say,  they 
are  directed  to  the  end  of  showing  what  the  work  of 
Christ's  satisfaction  is  ami  secures  for  those  who  indi 
vidually  make  it  the  ground  of  their  faitli  in  God, 
rather  than  of  explicating  the  wider  relation  in  which 
it  stands  to  the  impenitent  and  lost.  Even  in  that 
most  general  and  gracious  exhibition  of  the  truth, 
which  is  given  near  the  commencement  of  John's 
(iospel.  "God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life,''  it  still  is 
the  mysterious  personal  relation  subsisting,  through 
believing,  between  the  Redeemer  and  a  definite  portion 
of  the  lost  that  is  rendered  prominent;  on  this  is  made  to 
turn  the  whole,  question  as  to  the  extent  and  validity  of 
the  atonement — so  far  as  men  have  occasion  practically 
to  consider  it.  On  either  side,  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind,  that  the  subject  belongs  to  the  deep  things  of 
God,  and  has  bearings  which  it  is  impossible  for  men 
now  cither  to  explicate  so  clearly,  or  so  exactly  define 
as  to  leave  no  room  for  speculative  doubts  and  difficul 
ties.  I!ut  then-  is  enough  to  satisfy  the  humble  in 
quirer,  enough  even  to  inspire  him  with  childlike  con 
fidence  and  joy — having  this  twofold  a-snranee  to  rest 
on,  that  there  is  in  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  a  merit 
sufficient  for  all.  adapted  to  all.  freely  offered  to  all:  and 
that  for  as  many  as  receive  the  gift,  and  enter  through 
it  into  the  bond  of  God's  covenant,  tin  iv  is  a  relation 
formed  between  them  and  ( 'hrist,  which  no  power  can 
dissolve,  and  which  renders  tin-in  indefeasible  possessors 
and  heirs  of  all  that  is  his. 

[Tin-  literature  rm  tho  atonement  is  .  >f  vast  extent,  and  it  is  im 
possible  here  tn  dii  IIKUV  than  indicate  a  few  leading  sources, 
iiavhr.,'  reference  more  particularly  t<>  tin-  present  aspects  .if  the 
discus.-ions  raised  on  it.  l-'or  the  history  of  the  doctrine 
Uaur's  I'.  .-•/,/'  ..,,,..,/./,,•.  is  perhaps  the  fullest  and  must  com 
prehensive,  though  it  is  nut  altogether  fu-c  from  doctrinal  bia- 
(seo  lirlt.  i',,'/  For.  El-angelical  Rffifir.  N'o.  :;r,i.  The  schola.-tic 
development  of  the  subject  is  treated  of  in  Hampden'-.  11" 
LtCtio-'f.  The  points  agitated  between  the  Lutheran  and  the 
Reformed,  also  bet  ween  (Jalvinistst  >n  the  one  side  and  Arminians 
oil  the  other,  with  the  older  Socinians,  are  discussed  at  :  reat 
leii-th  in  Turret  in-  i  7  ' . .,'.  v.  .Is.  ii.  and  iv.,  where 

authorities;  on  the  other  side  are  referred  to.  The  \v..rk  of  Out 
run  i.  /'•  Sacriliriii,  may  still  be  consulted  with  advantage  ;  and 
so  also  may  Ma'.ve  •  :."ir^li  it  is  of  very  une.|U  T 

merit,  and  some  of  its  positions  eannot   be   maintained,  at    Last 
in  the  f..l-in  ^is-en  them  by  the  anther.      The    Four  V 
the  Atonement,  icitli  y,,!.,--,  by    Dr.   I've   Smith,    is  a   later   work, 
truversiir.,'  inucli  the  same  tie1.. I  as  thar  of  Ma _•.-,•.  and  rwpeetable 
lx>th  as  to  learning  and  ability.     In  the  /'/•,  !          ,  both 

series,  there  arc  some  acute  and  able  essays  on  the  subject  and 
its  kindred  topics.  See  also  Symington  on  tin  Atonement  uml 
Intfi-Ci-fsifin  nfChi-itt.  and  f,.r  si, me  acute,  discussions,  |)r.  ('and 
\\f\iontkf.Alonemtnt.  Tlio  later  Ji.imjJ'm  Lictuns  by  Thomp 
son,  Litton,  and  Mansell,  discuss  various  points  coiinecteil  with 
the  subject,  iu  opposition  to  recent  theories;  and  Maed.  uiell's 
lii,,i'll>cn  Lfrti i. i-a  also  handle  with  ability  some  of  the  leading 
objections  lately  raised  against  the  doctrine.  In  Germany  the 
false  views  of  Hiilir  and  Hofinann  have  been  met,  among  others, 
by  Kurt/  in  his  Mmxi iff/n-  O/n'.  -,••  Ilengstenberij,  in  various  parts 
of  his  ('hi-lftiitiiii,i  (new  edition);  Delit/sch,  in  an  ap]iendix  tohi.s 
(.'<rni)iient(ti-i/  on  tin'  llibf,  n:f ;  also  in  separate  treatises  by  1'hilippi, 
l-:brard,  and  Ilarna.-h.] 

ATONEMENT,  DAY  OF.     Kee  FEASTS. 
ATTALIA,   a  city  and  sea-port  in  Pamphylia,  on 

the  southern  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  on  the  mouth  of  the 
river  Catarrhaetes,  and  at  the  head  of  the  gulf  Adalia. 
Jt  was  fount  led  by  Attains  Philadelphia,  king  of  Per- 
gamos,  anil  frtim  him  tlerived  its  name.  It  received  a 
passing  visit  from  Paul  and  Harnabas  on  returnin"  from 


thuir  first  missionary  tour  ;  and  from  that  port  they  took 
ship  to  Antioch,  Ac.  \iv.  i>,~>,  iVi.  It  exists  now  in  a  com 
paratively  reduced  condition  under  the  name  of  Adalia  ; 
but  abundant  ruins,  which  are  all  Roman,  remain  to 
attest  its  ancient  greatness.  It  still  lias  a  population 
of  about  SOO'I,  and  is  the  chief  port  on  the  south  coast 
of  Asia  Minor,  holding  relatively  the  same  place  it  did 
of  old. 

AUGUSTUS  [rcna-alle,  majestic],  the  name  of  the 
first  Roman  emperor,  assumed  after  he  became  invested 
with  supreme  power  in  the  Roman  state  :  himself  of 
the  Octavian  family,  but  adopted  by  his  grand- uncle' 
Julius  Ciesar.  \Vhen  so  adopted,  the  name  he  took 
was  Caius  Julius  Caesar  Octavianus.  Very  great  care 
was  taken  of  his  education,  and  his  training  for  public 
life,  by  Julius  ( ';esar,  who  kept  him  much  about  himself, 


and  raisi  d  him  in  earlv  life  to  distinguished  honours. 
He  was  only  in  his  nineteenth  year  when  his  uncle  was 
murdered  (B.C.  II).  and  it  fell  to  him  chiefly  to  revenge 
the  death  of  his  great  relative.  After  many  conflicts, 
and  temporary  arrangements  with  other  parties,  lie  at 
last,  by  the  defeat  of  Antony  at  Aotinni.  became  sole 
master  of  the  empire.  In  K.r.  -'.<  he  received  the  title, 
of  [inperator  for  ever.  lie  used  the  absolute  power  he 
bad  ae.|uiriil  \\ith  -p-at  prudence  and  moderation.  Jn 
Scripture  he  is  mentioned  only  once,  in  connection  with 
tin-  decree  \\bieli  formed  the  incidental  occasion  of  the 
birth  of  .lesus  at  Hethlehem.  i.'-'e/'  niuli'i-  ('VKKXirs.l 
He  died  A.I).  1-1.  at  the  age  of  seventy-six. 

AVA.  one  of  the  places  fmrn  which  the  kin-;  of 
Assyria  brought  inhabitants  to  occupy  the  depopulated 
lands  of  Samaria.  -.'  Ki  \\ii  -j|.  Various  conjectures 
have  been  formed  regarding  its  precise  locality,  but 
nothing  for  certain  is  kno\\n  concerning  it.  In  all  pro 
bability  it  was  the  capital  of  a  small  district,  somewhere 
iti  the  region  of  .Mesopotamia. 

AVEN  [  vanity,  wickedness],  occurs  as  the  name  of  a 
plain  in  Am.  i.  ?>,  and  in  connection  with  the  kingdom 
of  Syria.  No  accounts  have  been  preserved  elsewhere 
of  a  Syrian  valley  with  this  name:  and  it  is  possible, 
as  has  been  conjectured  by  some,  that  the  prophet  used 
the  word  appellativt-ly  branding  some  well-known 
valley  within  its  bounds  (that,  perhaps,  of  Lebanon  or 
C'ti-le  Syria)  as  the  valley  of  vanity  or  wickedness,  on 
account  of  the  idolatrous  and  sinful  practices  with 
which  it  hail  been  associated.  In  this  way  Meth-aven 
was  certainly  used  as  a  nickname  of  I'ethel  -  house  of 
iniquity,  instead  of  house  of  (  hid,  Ho.  v.  s. 

AVENGER  OF  BLOOD.  &c  BLOOD,  AVKNGEROF. 

AVIM,  or  AVITKS,  apparently  an  original  Ca- 
naanitish  tribe,  who  had  their  possessions  on  the  Philis 
tine  coast.  They  are  mentioned  in  De.  ii.  2)5,  as 
having  "dwelt  in  Ha/.erim,  unto  Azzah,"  or  (Ja/a, 
until  they  were  dispossessed  by  the  C'aphtorim  or  Philis 
tines.  In  Jos.  xiii.  o,  they  are  placed  close  beside  the 
five  Philistine  cities,  but  are  not  reckoned  of  them.  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  A  vim  were  only  par- 


AWL 


1GG 


AZZAH 


tially  dispossessed  by  the  Philistines,  and  th.it  they 
continued  to  occupy,  down  to  the  time  (.if  .Joshua,  a 
tract  of  country  near  Gaza,  and  probably  stretching 
southwards  toward  the  desert  of  Shur. 

AWL    [lleb.  yvnc  ;  from  a   verb  that  signifies  to 

bore]  is  simply  a  boring  instrument;  and  occurs  twice 
in  connection  with  the  boring  of  a  slave's  ear  who  chose 
to  remain  perpetually  in  the  service  of  his  master, 
Ex.  xxi.O;  Tie.  xv.  17.  It  was  doubtless  a  sharp-pointed 
instrument  of  the  simplest  kind,  and  could  not  mate 
rially  differ  from  such  as  are  in  familiar  use  at  the  pre 
sent  time. 

AXE  is  the  rendering  in  the  English  Bible  of  two 
or  three  different  terms  in  the  original,  which  probably 
designated  instruments  not  altogether  alike.  The  com 
monest,  and  possibly  the  earliest  term  is  a'-pp,  liardvin, 

found  in  .In.  ix.  »<;  1  s,i.  xiii.  '2<>,  21;  Ts.  Ixxiv.  •,,  ?;c.  Its  deriva 
tion  is  uncertain  :  but  there  can  be  no  doubt,  from  the 
connection,  that  it  denotes  the  axe  or  hatchet  usually 
employed  in  felling  trees  and  lopping  off  branches. 


[95.]       Ancient  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  Axes. 
1,2,  8,  Egyptian  -Wilkinsou.  4,  5,  Assyrian. -british  Museum. 

Another  term,  and  which  Gesenius  supposes  to  have 
been  merely  the  softer  form  of  kardom,  was  yarzen, 
HIS,  from  the  root  to  cut,  or  cut  off,  De.  xix. 5;  xx.  19; 

Is.  x.  15.  Whether  altogether  the  same  instrument  as  the 
kardom  or  not,  it  seems  to  have  been  used  in  precisely 
the  same  manner,  for  felling  trees  and  cutting  wood. 
In  two  other  places,  Is.  xliv.  12,  and  Jo.  x.  3,  the  term 
*jyyc.  maatzdd,  is  also  employed ;  in  the  one  case  for 

the  operations  of  the  smith  when  fashioning  his  heated 
iron  into  shape,  and  in  the  other,  for  the  carpenter's 
workmanship  on  the  wood  of  a  forest  tree.  It  is  in  re 
spect  to  the  production  of  an  idol  out  of  the  wood  and 
iron  respectively  that  the  word  is  used  in  both  these 
cases ;  and  the  natural  supposition,  is,  that  it  was  a 
lighter  instrument  than  the  proper  axe  or  hatchet ; 
something,  perhaps,  approaching  nearer  to  a  large 
knife  or  chisel.  But  we  have  no  means  for  determining 
the  exact  nature  of  the  instrument,  or  how  far  it  might 
differ  from  those  previously  referred  to. 


AZABIAH  [helped  of  Jehovah],  one  of  the  most 
common,  names  among  the  Israelites  ;  it  occurs  with 
such  frequency  in  the  genealogies  of  persons  who  are 
otherwise  quite  unknown,  that  it  were  only  to  consume 
time  and  space  to  individualize  them.  We  shall  notice 
only  those  of  whom  some  specific  actions  are  recorded. 

1.  AZARIAJI,  high-priest  in  the  reign  of  Uz/.iah,  king 
of  J udah,  L'Ch.  xxvi.ir,  20.     The  name  of  his  immediate 
father  is  not  given  in  the  passages  referred  to  ;  and  it 
is  doubtful  whether  any  of  the  Azariahs  in  the  genea 
logical  table  of  1  Ch.  vi.,  or  which  of  them,  is  to  be  iden 
tified   with   him.      It  is  recorded   to  his  honour,    that 
when  Czziah,  in  his  pride  and  elation  of  heart,  insisted 
upon  going  into  the  house  of  God  and  offering  incense, 
Azariah    faithfully   withstood    him,    and   declared   the 
action,  if  persevered  in,    should  not  be  to   the  king's 
honour.     The  visitation  of  leprosy  which  presently  befell 
the  king  attested  the  fidelity  of  the  high-priest's  pro 
cedure,  and  the  soundness  of  his  advice. 

2.  AZARIAH,  a  high-priest  in  the  days  of  Hezekiah, 
son  of   Urijah,  who  went  along  with  the  king  in  his 
efforts  after  reform,  and  zealously  co-operated  in  the 
restoration  of  the  temple  courts  and  services,  2Ch.  xxxi 

10-13. 

3.  AZARTAH,  the  son  of  Oded,  2Ch.xv.  i,  and  himself 
also  called  Oded  in  ver.  S,  in  the  reign  of  Asa,  king  of 
Judah.     After  Asa  had  accomplished  certain  reforms 
in  his  kingdom,  and  had  smitten  a  great  force  under 
Zerah,  king  of  the  Ethiopians,  who  came  against  him, 
he  was  addressed  by  the  son  of  Oded  in  very  spirited 
and  encouraging  words,  in  which  he  told  the  king,  that 
the  prosperity  which  had  hitherto  attended  him,  was 
because  of  his  fidelity  to  God,  and  assuring  him  that 
if  he  proceeded  in  the  same  course  of  integrity  and  zeal, 
the  Lord  would  still  be  with  him  and  his  people ;  but 
if  otherwise,  they  might  expect  a  reverse.     The  address 
had    the   happiest  effect   on  Asa,   and  his  spirit  was 
stirred  up  to  do  much    more    in   the    reformation    of 
abuses. 

4.  AZARTAH.   This  name  is  in  several  places  applied 
to  King  Uzziah,  2Ki.  xiv.  21;  xv.  i,o,&c.     It  has  been  sup 
posed  by  some,  that  as  the  high- priest  during  part  of 
his  reign  was  an  Azariah,  the  name  may  on  this  account 
have  been  transferred   to  the  king — a  very   unlikely 
supposition.     The  probability  is,  that  as  Uzziah  signi 
fies  the  might  of  Jehovah,  and  Azariah  the  helped  of 
Jehoveih,  the  names  were  occasionally  interchanged,  as 
importing  substantially  the  same  thing. 

5.  AZARIAH,    the  original  name  of   a    pious  youth 
who  was  carried  to  Babylon ;  he  became  better  known 
there    under  the   new  designation  of    Abcdneyo,   and 
became  distinguished   for  his   fidelity  to  the  cause  of 
God,  and  the  wonderful  tokens  he  received  of  the  divine 
favour  and  protection,  Da.  i.  o-in.    (Sec  NEBUCHADNEZZAR.) 

AZOTUS,  the  name  by  which  Ashdod  is  designated 
in  the  New  Testament.  (See  A.SHDOD.) 

AZZAH,  another  form  of  what  is  more  commonly 

put  GAZA,   and  indeed  the   more  correct  form.     It  is 

]  found  only  in  a  few  passages,   De.  ii.  23;  1  Ki.  iv.  24;  Jo.  xxv. 

20.      It    would    certainly    have    been    better   to   retain 

j  throughout  one  mode  of  spelling.      (See  GAZA.) 


BAAL 


167 


BAAL 


B. 


BA'AL  [owner,  jwsscssor].  I.  The  fundamental  idea, 
both  in  tlie  verb  ami  in  the  noun,  seems  to  he  not  so 
much  "lord"  or  "master,"'  though  this  is  approved 
l>y  Geseiiius,  but  rather  "occupant,"  hence  "pro 
prietor"  or  possessor  [see  the  remarks  of  Ilengstenben:, 
Christoloyie,  ou  Jo.  iii.  14;  and  compare  the  prevalent 
use  of  this  noun  in  Hebrew  to  qualify  another,  pos 
sessor,  or  occupant,  of  dreams,  of  wrath,  of  appetite, 
of  devices,  of  horns,  of  wings,  of  hair,  for  which  »v 
should  use  an  adjective,  to  express  possession  of  the 
quality  or  attribute,  wrathful,  greedy,  winded.  \c.] 
'J'liis  is  continued  by  the  prevalent  meaning  of  Baal, 
occupant  or  owner,  in  geographical  conijiound  names 
(*f>  BAAI.-I'I:I:A/IM,  Bi-:Tn-SnAi.!<HA.and  BAAI.-TAM.MI.I 
it  is  thus  distinguished  from  Ai><>.\,  wliicli  is  pro 
perly  ''Lord:"  while  it  is  more  nearly  allied  t 
term  used  by  Melchisedec,  Go.  xiv.  in,  "the  most  hiuh 
Cod,  possessor  of  heaven  and  earth."  At  the  sumo 
time,  it  is  not  improbabi,-  that  -Melchisedec  inten 
tionally  varied  the  word,  so  as  to  avoid  the  u-e  of 
Baal,  which  must  already  have  had  a  definite  idola 
trous  meaning,  and  even  to  express  a  more  Active  or 
rgetic  possession  ;md  government  of  theuni\.r>e 
than  would  be  suggested,  either  by  the  etvmolo-y  of 
Baal  or  by  its  usage  in  worship. 

2.  I'.AAI.  is  the  name  of  a  heathen  deity,  very  gene- 
rally  worsliippcd  by  the  nation,  with  whom  the  Israel 
ites  eliielly  came  in  contact.  We  find  the  name  anion^ 
the  Canaanitcs  and  the  1'lio'iiicians.  and  also  in  inscrip 
tions  wliich  have  been  collected  in  t!,.-  1'h.enician  colo- 
niis,  in  Cyprus,  .Malta.  Cartha-e,  xc.  And  we  have 
the  evidence  of  the  promim  nci  assigneil  to  his  worship 
in  the  multitude  of  names  of  mm  into  the  composition 
of  which  Baal  enters,  Lthbaal  [<ci'/t,  />>!/].  llasdrubal 
I'"1!'  <>f  Baal],  Hannibal  [;/race  of  Baal],  .Muthum- 
ballas  [man  (,f  /;,<((/],  ,YC.  This  contracted  form  of  the 
syllable,  Jin/,  may  be  due  to  the  extreme  ditlieultv  of 
representing  the  lleb.  a'ut  (y)  in  Kur  >pean  writing; 
or  it  may  be  connected  with  the  contracted  form  of  the 
name  /;.-'/  pri,  which  predominated  in  the  Chaldean 

worship,  and  is  used  in  Is.  xlvi.  1:  Je.  1.  '_' ;  li.  II: 
and  in  the  apocryphal  additions  to  Daniel.  An  inter 
mediate  form,  ^yi,  /I,,'/,  is  used  in  Aramaic:  but 

within  the  Bible  it  is  found  only  as  a  common  noun, 
not  as  a  proper  name,  Ezr.  iv.  >,  n,  17.  Instead  of  the 
singular,  it  is  very  often  the  plural  which  is  used, 
Baalim,  Ju.  ii.  li;  in.  •;  viii.  33;  x.  ID  ;  1  Sa,.  vii.  4  ;  xii.  M  ;  urii. 

xxiv.  7;  Ho.  ii.  i:i,  17,    a  usage  wliich    Gesellilis  explain-    by 

saying  that  it  means  images  of  Baal ;  while  others  pre 
fer  to  explain  it  as  indicating  or  including  the  various 
modifications  of  Baal,  such  as  iiaal-I'eor,  Baal-Berith, 
Beel/ebuh.  Possibly  it  is  simply  what  used  to  be  called 
by  Hebrew  grammarians  the  /ifurulls  (.rcdlaifia;  like 
Klohim,  the  usual  name  for  God.  Certainly  in  hoth 
the  singular  and  plural  form,  it  is  accustomed,  like 
Klohim.  to  take  the  article,  Habbaal,  JIabbaalim. 

The  Israelites  were  tainted  by  the  worship  of  Baal- 
Peor,  while  still  in  the  wilderness,  Xu.  xxv.  &c.  Among 
the  Canaanites  unquestionably  this  worship  had  been 
very  common,  probably  predominant;  and  in  every 
time  of  backsliding  by  the  Israelites,  during  the  period 


!  of  the  judges,  this  species  of  idolatry  seems  to  have 
!  been  readily  learned  from  the  remnants  of  these  nations 
j  which  ought  to  have  been  utterly  destroyed.  Gideon 
1  is  honourably  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Jernbbaal, 
that  is,  "  let  Baal  plead,"  ,ln.  vi.  3-2-,  vii.  i,  &c.,  on  account 
of  his  energy  and  success  in  extirpating  this  evil  prac 
tice.  From  the  time  of  Samuel  we  do  not  read  of  .Baal 
in  Israel  until  the  reign  of  Aliab.  i  Ki.  xvi.  ;;i,  Ac.., 
when  the  apostasy  from  Jehovah  to  Baal  reached  its 
height  under  the  influence  of  two  causes  which  acted 
together  \\ith  tremendous  potency:  from  within,  the 
deep  moral  and  spiritual  corruption  of  the  people; 
and  from  without,  the  king's  marriage  with  Je/ebel, 
daughter  of  Kthbaal  (meaning  "with  Baal,"  other- 
\\ise  named  Ithobal,  "  Baal  with  him"),  the  priest  of 
I'.aal.  and  the  king  of  the  Zidonians.  This  princess 
seems  to  have  been  a  zealot  for  the  worshiji  of  her  idol, 
prepared  to  persecute  to  the  death  those  who  refused 
to  abandon  the  service  of  the  Cod  of  their  fathers,  or 
at  least  to  amalgamate  it  with  that  of  Baal.  "We  find 
that  >he  introduced,  or  greatly  increased,  the  means 
for  maintaining  and  advancing  the  worship  of  Baal,  so 
that  Hi.  re  were  gathered  in  one  day  four  hundred  and 
fifty  prophets  of  Baal,  and  four  hundred  prophets  of 
"the  groves,"  or  of  Ashera,  \\ho  ate  at  the  queen's 
table,  1  Ki.  xviii.  !:>;  a.-  again,  some  years  later,  we  read 
of  a  multitude  of  "the  prophets  of  Baal,  and  his  ser 
vant-,  and  his  priests,"  L' Ki.  x.  ly.  And  in  connection 
with  tliis  religious  establishment  there  was  a  house  of 
Baal,  which  Ahab  built  and  Jehu  utterly  dcstro\ed, 
1  Ki.  xvi.  ::-j:  -I  Ki.  x.  L'l,  '27.  A  similar  house  of  Baal  seems 
to  have  been  erected  in  Ji  ru-alem  at  the  time  \\hen 
Ahab's  family  were  intermarried  with  the  familv  of 
I 'avid:  and  then,  is  a  brief  record  of  it  al.-o  U  -inu' 
broken  down,  and  the  idolatrous  emblems  and  persons 
being  destroyed,  on  occasion  of  the  death  of  Athaliah, 
-!  Ki.  xi.  1\  This  deep-seated  corruption  and  apostasy 
was  resisted,  energetically  and  successfully,  by  the 
UTeat  restorer  of  th.-  la\\  of  -Moses  in  Israel,  the  prophet 
Klijah  :  and  the  outward  overthrow  of  the  worship  of 
I'.aal  which  Jehu  accomplished  at  the  time  that  he  ex 
tirpated  the  house  of  Ahab,  and  seated  himself  on  the 
throne  of  the  ten  tribes,  was  the  natural  expres- 
•  ioii  in  the  sphere  of  social  ;md  civil  polities  of  the 
spiritual  revolution  which  the  prophet  had  undertaken 
single-handed.  Tlie  poison,  however,  does  not  appear 
'  ever  to  have  been  expelled  from  the  minds  of  the  dege 
nerate  people  of  ,b-ho\;ih,  although  \h<-  history  of  the 
times  of  the  later  kings  is  too  brief  to  enable  us  to 
state  the  particulars  in  the  working  of  this  pollution. 
I'l'obably  it  neVer  rose  to  the  height  of  avowed  opposi 
tion  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  a--  it  had  done  in  the 
period  preccdiiii: 'the  violent  but  predominantly  external 
revolution  which  Jehu  efiectod.  Yet  the  substantial 
mischief  continued  to  operate  in  another  and  a  subtler 
form.  Either  Baal  and  Jehovah  were  identified  in 
name,  or  else,  at  least,  the  moral  character  of  the  (!od 
of  Israel  was  overlooked,  and,  in  correspondence  with 
this,  the  moral  character  required  in  his  worship  and 
his  worshippers.  In  this  case  it  would  make  no  prac 
tical  difference  that  the  name  of  P.aal  was  not  in  use ; 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  it  might  have  been  ;  and  the 


108 


BAAL 


children  of  Israel  might  lie  regarded  as  one  and  the  same 
with  the  heathen  nations  round  about  them.  It  is  thus 
that  they  are  regarded  liy  the  prophet  Amos,  ch.  ii.  4-12. 
And  Hosea  even  speaks  of  the  nominal  worship  of  Je 
hovah  as  a  virtual  worship  of  Baal,  n«.  ii.  11-17.  In  a 
similar  manner  we  find  the  worship  of  Baalim  intro-  j 
dueed  or  patronized  in  Judah  by  kin^  Alia/.,  ~i  t'h.  xxviii.  2, 
and  put  down  by  Hezekiah,  2  Ki.  xviii.  4;  again  estab 
lished  by  Manassoh,  who  appears  to  have  aimed  at  re 
storing  the  st;ite  of  feeling  and  opinion  which  prevailed 
under  Ahab's  dynasty.  2  Ki.  xxi.  :;,  romiaiv  .Mi.  vi.  ifi,  and 
finallv  aboli>hed  amid  the  efforts  at  reformation  on  tlie 
part  of  Josiah,  -2  K.I.  xxiii.  i-ii;  after  which  we  read  of 
only  "the  remnant  of  Baal/'  Zci>.  i.  \. 

The  offerings  to  Baal  were  probably  in  part  of  vege 
table  products,  Ho.  ii.  5,  *;  but  ehielly  of  animals,  as  a 
bullock  is  mentioned,  i  Ki.  xviii.  2:;,  and  even  of  human 
beings,  especially  children,  Ju.  xix.  ',;  xxxii.  ?,:,,  and  many 
other  passages,  if  those  writers  be  correct,  who  consider 
Moloch  to  be  one  particular  representation  of  Baal,  the 
nviicrie  name  of  the  idol.  Classical  writers  have  made 
it  well  known  that  such  human  sacrifices  were  common 
in  the  Tvriau  and  Carthaginian  worship.  And  the 
frantic  worship,  with  self-inflicted  wounds,  i  Ki.  xviii.  LN, 
agrees  also  with  the  classical  notices  of  self- mutilations 
of  the  (rail!.  (See  Lucian,  DC  Dai  $</>'«,  and  Apuleius, 
in  his  romance  of  the  Golden  Ass,  for  many  references 
to  the  subject.)  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  severi 
ties  of  self-mutilation  were  connected,  by  a  natural 
reaction,  with  the  horrible  impurities  attending  the 
worship  of  Baal  and  Ashtaroth.  And  Baal's  "ser 
vants,"  2KL  x.  iii,  were  in  all  probability  the  same  as,  or 
intimately  connected  with,  the  n'ii'lp  (kdeshim,  per 
sons  "consecrated"  to  the  vilest  purposes  in  the  wor 
ship  of  the  idol),  whose  existence  is  often  mentioned, 
and  whose  removal  was  always  an  important  step  in 
the  way  of  reformation,  1  Ki.  xiv.  21;  xv.  12;  xxii.  40;  2Ki. 
xxiii.  7.  The  impure  nature  of  the  worship  of  Belus  at 
Babylon  is  noticed  by  Herodotus  (i.  181,  182);  and  at 
Carthage  by  others,  though  there  is  still  obscurity  hang 
ing  over  this  latter  subject.  Scripture  also  makes  re 
peated  mention  of  incense  being  burned  to  Baal,  Je.  vii.  V; 
xi.  13,  17;  xxxii.  20;  this  last  passage  intimating  that  the 
flat  roofs  of  houses  in  Jerusalem  were  made  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  altars.  No  doubt  other  contrivances 
were  in  use,  after  the  destruction  and  before  the  erec 
tion  of  those  "  houses  of  Baal,"  in  the  most  gorgeous 
period  of  his  worship  among  the  Israelites.  The  ear 
liest  mention  of  his  worship  is  in  this  respect  very 
simple,  Nu.  xxii.  41,  "  Balak  took  Balaam  and  brought 
him  up  into  the  high  places  of  Baal" — probably  some 
mere  hill-tops — "  that  thence  he  might  see  the  utmost 
part  of  the  people."  One  other  act  of  worship  is  men 
tioned  in  Scripture,  that  of  kissing  Baal,  iKi.  xix.  is. 
This,  of  course,  implies  an  image  which  was  kissed  ; 
and  occasionally  the  image  of  Baal  is  expressly  men 
tioned,  as  in  connection  with  its  destruction  by  Joram, 
the  son  of  Ahab,  and  again  by  Jehu,  2  Ki.  iii.  2;  x.  20. 
There  cannot  be  reasonable  doubt  that  it  is  the  statues 
of  I'aal  which  are  meant,  though  the  name  of  Baal  is 
not  added,  where  statues  are  often  mentioned  in  con 
nection  with  the  Asherim,  "the  groves"  of  our  trans- 

lltors,   1  Ki.  xiv.  23;  2Ki.  xviii.  1;   xxiii.  11;   2  Cli.  xiv.  i! ;   xxxi.  1 ; 

Mi.  v.  13;  for  it  is  the  same  peculiar  word   (matstscbak) 
TT,  rendered  in  our  version   "  standing  image,"   or 


"  statue,"  more  strictly  perhaps  "pillar.''  And  there 
is  much  probability  in  another  identification  of  these 
images  of  Baal  with  the  ".sun-images,"  as  they  are 
well  translated  in  the  margin,  the  hammanim  (c%:"rN 

•  T  ~ 

Ls.  xvii.  s;  xxvii.  9;  Kzo.  vi.  4,  (i,  which,  are  said  to  have  been 
above  the  altars  of  Baal,  2Ch.  xxxiv.  4.  Such  pillars 
would  be  very  suitable  for  the  worship  of  the  sun-god, 
and  easily  might  be,  and  probably  were  employed  for 
sundials.  In  Je.  xliii.  Li,  we  have  accordingly  "the 
pillars  <>f  the  house  of  the  sun"  (in  our  version,  "the 
images  of  Bethshemesh")  in  the  land  of  l\gvpt  threat 
ened  with  destruction  by  the  invading  army  of  Nebu- 
chadnexxar.  There  is  evidence  in  classical  writers  that, 
in  some  of  the  temples  in  which  Baal  was  worshipped, 
there  was  no  image  ;  and  in  the  passage  already  referred 
to,  Herod,  i.  181,  this  is  asserted  of  the  temple  of  Belus 
at  Babylon;  but  in  another  temple  of  Zeus,  who  is 
identified  with  Belus,  he  says  (c.  183)  there  was  an 
image  of  gold,  in  human  shape,  twelve  cubits  high,  and 
again  a  great  image  of  him,  ^U(J  talents  of  gold  having 
been  spent  on  it  and  its  accompaniments.  And  he 
tells  (ii.  4  \ )  that  at  Tyre  he  saw  the  temple  of  Hercules 
(tin'  Tvrian  Hercules  again  being  identified  with  Baal), 
with  two  "pillars''  in  it,  one  of  gold,  and  one  of  eme 
rald.  Diodorus  Siculus  speaks  of  the  image  at  Carthage 
as  having  outstretched  hands  to  receive  the  children 
that  were  offered  to  it.  And  Gesenius  has  preserved 
two  representations  of  him  in  the  Monumenta  Phoenicia, 
one  with  grapes  and  pomegranates  in  his  hands,  and 
one  with  rays  of  light  round  his  head. 

It  is  now  generally  admitted  that  heathen  worship 
was  essentially  a  deification  of  nature  ;  and  the  worship 
of  the  god  Baal  and  the  goddess  Ashtoreth,  or,  in  the 
plural,  of  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth,  was  an  adoration  of 
the  productive  powers  of  nature,  including  a  reference 
to  the  two  forms  in  which  that  power  is  manifested  in 
animal  life,  the  male  form  and  the  female.  But  con 
siderable  difficulty  has  been  felt  by  those  who  have  at 
tempted  to  identify  Baal  with  one  or  other  of  the  gods 
of  classical  mythology.  As  the  highest  divinity,  he  has 
been  pronounced  the  same  as  the  Greek  Zeus  and 
Roman  Jupiter;  also  as  the  more  ancient  Cronos,  or 
Saturn,  probably  on  account  of  the  human  sacrifices 
which  were  offered  to  him.  Again,  he  has  been  assumed 
to  be  Ares,  or  Mars,  as  there  are  traces  of  his  being 
considered  the  god  of  war.  More  especially  the  Greeks 
identified  the  Belus  of  Tyre  and  its  colonies  with  Her 
cules  ;  to  whom  the  apostate  high-priest  Jason  sent 
magnificent  gifts,  according  to  2  Mac.  iv.  18-20. 
At  Tyre  he  had  the  name  occasionally  of  Malqcrcth, 
(rnpSc).  contracted  from  MALK-QERETH  [king  of  the 
city] ;  and  the  same  title  has  been  published  by  Gese 
nius  from  a  Maltese  bilingual  inscription.  With  this 
title,  perhaps,  is  to  lie  compared  that  in  Ju.  viii.  33  ; 
ix.  4,  BAAL-BERITH  [owner  of  the  covenant],  he  with 
whom  the  city  is  in  league.  But  more  frequently  the 
Greeks  appear  to  have  rendered  Baal  by  "  the  sun,"  or 
"the  sun-god,"  as  at  Heliopolis  and  Palmyra.  A 
Palmyrene  inscription  denominates  him  BAAL  SHKMKSH, 
l^'C'i*  Sj?S  [owner  of  the  sun].  And  in  Philo  of 

By  bios,  we  are  told  of  his  title  among  the  Phoenicians, 
Boel-sameii,  or,  as  it  is  given  at  Carthage  by  Augustine, 
and  much  earlier  by  Plautus  in  his  Paenulus,  Balsamen, 
which  is  manifestly  BEEL-SHAMAIX,  •*£•&  ^j»a  [owner 

of  heaven]   with  which  compare  and  contrast  the  title 


P.AALAH 


1G9 


BAAL-MKON 


of  the  true  God  in  the  mouth  of  Melchisedec.  It  is 
probable  that  all  these  representations  of  Baal  may  be 
traced  up  to  one  common  source,  the  sun-god  being  his 
primary  character :  and  any  little  difficulties  or  confu 
sion  will  not  startle  those  who  consider  how  all  mytho 
logical  subjects  are  confused,  and  how  this  was  noticed 
by  ( 'icero  ( l>iy,  Xntura  iJcoruni,  iii.  ]  i>),  where  he  alludes 
to  several  Jupiters,  and  reckons  up  six  Hercules  :  of 
whom  he  says  the  fourth,  tlie  son  of  Jupiter,  is  chiefly 
honoured  by  the  Tyrians ;  and  the  fifth,  called  Bclus, 
is  worshipped  in  India  (question,  in  the  remote  East, 
Babylon  and  beyond).  Vet  the  learned  and  acute 
Gesenius  maintained,  in  opposition  to  the  Liviieral  opi 
nion,  that  Jupiter  J'.elus.  whom  the  Babylonians  wor 
shipped,  and  with  them  probably  the  other  Baal- 
worshippers,  was  not  the  sun.  but  the  planet,  Jupiter, 
as  he  believed  that  Ashtoivth  was  the  planet  Venus, 
ami  not  the  moon  :  while  he  admits,  in  his  article  on 
Ashtoreth  in  his  Thesaurus,  that  the  representation 
may  have  varied  at  ditl'erent  times  and  places.  Jf  tin- 
be  gran teil,  as  the  likeli.  --t  solution  of  -..me  perplexities 
in  the  investigation  of  the  subject,  it  is  natural  to  sup 
pose  that  the  worship  of  the  sun  and  moon  was  the 
earlier  form  of  idolatry  :  and  that  it  was  a  later  refine 
ment  which  connected  the  names  of  Baal  ami  Ashtoreth 
with  the  planet<  Jupiter  and  Venus,  as  the  stars  of  ill 
and  good  luck  respectively.  A  passau"  in  the  hi-torv 
of  Josiah's  reformation  in  Jerusalem.  -j  Ki  xxiii. .",  has 

been    appealed   to   on    b-tll    Sides,    but   it   does    not.    decide 

which  of  tins,,  views  was  taken  of  Baal  at  that  time 
and  place;  "and  he  put  down  the  idolatrous  prii-ts 
whom  the  ki  nil's  of  Judah  had  ordained  to  burn  incense 
in  the  hiidi  places,  in  the  cities  of  Judah.  and  in  the 
] places  round  about  Jerusalem  ;  them  also  that  burned 
incense  unto  P.aal.  to  the  sun,  and  to  the  moon,  and  to 
the  planets  mow  gem-rally  translated,  as  in  tin-  margin. 
'  to  the  tw.  lye  signs  of  the  zodiac'),  and  to  all  the  host 
of  heaven."  More  liirht.  however,  may  yet  be  thrown 
upon  the  subject  by  A-^vrian  researches  now  in  pro^n  ;s. 
In  the  meantime,  Kawlinson.  in  his  translation  of 
Herodotus.  Appendix  to  the  first  book.  Kssay  x.  Nos. 
(iii.)  and  ix.i  -peaks  of  two  gods  Bel:  the  second  of 
whom  is  P..)  Merodaeh.  the  planet  Jupiter,  while  the 
lir-t  and  more  important  is  the  second  -od  of  the  fiiM 
triad,  Bel  Xiprn,  who>e  name  is  possibly  connected 
with  that  of  Nimrod.  He  thinks  also  that  it  is  uncer 
tain  whether  Bel  and  Baal  are  from  the  same  i t. 

The  standard  books  of  reference  on  this  .-nhject. 
anioni;'  older  authorities,  are  Scldeii,  !>*•  l>ii-<  ^i/rl.i. 
and  Peri/onius.  <>,-i;tii>i.t  //<//;///<//,/<'(;.•  and  anioni: 
recent  writers,  two  work-,  of  Milliter,  on  the  religion  of 
the  Carthaginians  and  on  that  of  the  Babylonians; 
Gesenius.  in  his  Commentary  on  Isaiah,  and  his  article 
'•  Bel,"  in  the  Kncyclopa-dia  ,,f  Krsch  and  Griiber:  and 
Movers,  in  his  work  on  the  Phienicians,  and  bis  article 
on  the  same  subject  in  Krsch  and  Criiber. 

3.  BAAL  occurs  twice  as  name  of  a  man,  i  Ch.  v. :,; 
viii.  30;  repeat..!,  ix.  :;fi.  possibly,  as  has  been  suggested,  a 
contracted  form  of  some  compound  name.  It  also  oc 
curs  as  the  name  of  a  town,  l  ch.  iv.  :c;,  which  is  reckoned 
the  same  as  Baalath-Beer,  Jos.  xix.  8,  and  perhaps  the 
same  as  Baalah.  [c.  c.  M.D.] 

BA'ALAH,  or  BAA  LK.  Kc  Kru.iATii-JE.\iUM,  for 
which  it  is  another  name. 

BA'ALATH.  a  town  in  tribe  of  Dan,  and  one  of  the 
frontier  towns  built  by  Solomon.  Jus.  xix.  ii;  i  Ki.  ix.  ir,-iv 

B A' AL-BE'RITH  [/,'««/.  or /<»•</,  of  the  covenant],  a 


name  given  to  Baal  by  the  Canaanitcs  of  Shechcm  and 
the  backsliding  Israelites  after  the  deatli  of  Gideon, 
Ju.  viii. . •).-{;  tx.-i.  (See  BAAL,  also  SHKCHKM.) 

BA'AL-GAD  [/.'««/,  or  o truer,  of  ijoml  JueJ,-].  This 
is  repeatedly  named  as  the  furthest  point,  in  a  northerly 
direction,  of  Joshua's  Canaanitish  expeditions  and  con 
quests,  Jus.  xi.  17;  xii.  7;  xiii.  5.  The  manner  in  which  it 
is  mentioned  implies  that  it  was  a  well-known  place  : 
but  nothing  is  mentioned  to  mark  out  its  position,  more 
than  that  it  was  in  the  valley  of  Lebanon,  under  Mount 
Hermon:  the  word  for  "valley''  being  that  which  sug 
gests  a  wide  valley,  or  a  "plain."  as  it  is  often  trans 
lated.  Some  writers  have  assumed  it  to  be  the  famous 
Baalbek,  or  Heliopolis,  whose  ruins  arc  to  this  dav 
among  the  most  remarkable  in  the  lands  of  the  Bible; 
but  this  conjecture  woiild  necessitate  a  somewhat  un 
natural  interpretation,  that  Baal-gad  wa<  the  i-.i-c/usire 
limit  of  Joshua's  conquests,  the  first  citv  beyond  what 
he  subdued,  or  rather  the  first  <•< ntn/ri/  and  Icim/ilnm.  as 
Dr.  \V.  M.  Thomson  understands  (The  Ln  inland  tin' 
Hook.  |P.  •_<:;:;.  -j::i..  for  the  citi/  lay  considerably  be 
yond,  l 'tilers  identify  it  with  the  modern  village  of 
Hasheiva.  which  lies  almost  exactly  on  the'  line  con 
necting  1  l.amascus  w  ith  the  mouth  of  the  river  Leontes, 
hut  considerably  nearer  the  latt.  r  point  than  the  foriiu  r. 
A  more  recent  opinion  still,  which  has  the  support  of 
Mr.  Porter  (Murray's  //a,ii//,,,o/.;  p.  !  lo.  117)  and 
Dr.  Robinson,  is  that  it  was  Ca  -area  I'hilippi.  long 
knc  wu  by  the  name  of  Paneas.  at  present  corrupted 
into  P.aliias.  Baal,  the  gnat  object  of  ('anaanitish 
worship,  is  thus  supposed  to  have  had  a  sanctuary  be 
side  the  beautiful  fountain  which  is  one  of  the  sources 
el  the  Jordan,  w  hich  sanctuary  became  sacred  to  the 
nn-at  --oil  Pan.  in  the  times  of  Greek  supremacy. 

BAAL-HAMON  [ltaal,w  owner,  of  a  multitude; 
or,  as  some  conjecture.  Baal-Amon,  equivalent  to 
Jupiter  Annnoii],  a  place  where  Solomon  had  a  great 
vineyard,  c  i  v  ii.  n  The  site  is  unknown,  unless  it  be  a 
place  near  Dothaim.  ]'r\auiL-i>  or  I>a\a,'<..'i'.  Balamo, 
named  in  Judith  viii.  !'•. 

BA'AL-HA'NAN  [Baa?  i* various].  1.  Tic  name 
of  one  of  tin-  earlie.-t  race  of  kings  in  Kdom.  Ce.  xxxvi. 
•>.:.'.';  l  ch.  i.  in.  :,'>.  Nothing  is  recorded  of  him.  but  that 
he  was  son  of  A.-hbor.  2.  An  officer  of  David,  over 
seer  of  the  olive-trees  and  the  sycamore-trees  that  were 
in  the  "  low  plain*,"  or  Sin  phelah.  l  ch.  xx\ii.  2v  lie  is 
called  a  Gederite. 

BA'AL-HA'ZOR  [Raul,  or  owner,  of  „  village],  a 
place  "  beside  Kphraim.''  where  Absalom  had  sheep- 
shearers,  and  where  he  took  his  hi ly  and  treacherous 

revenge  on  his  brother  Amiion,  2  si.  xiii.  2:;,  \c,.  The 
place  is  otherwise  unknown,  unless,  as  Gesenius  con 
jectures,  it  be  the  same  as  Ha/.or  in  the  tribe  of  Ben 
jamin.  NY.  xi.  :;::,  which  mav  answer  to  T<  I  'A/.fir  in 
\  an  de  Velde's  ma]),  a  little  to  the  east  of  a  line  con 
necting  Bethel  and  Shilob,  and  equally  distant  from 

both. 

BA'AL-HERMON  {llaal,  or  oicncr,  of  Ifn-inon],  a 
place  mentioned  .In.  iii.  :;.  which,  by  comparison  with 
Jos.  xiii.  ;5,  has  been  identified  with  Baal-gad  (which 
see).  As  it  is  called  iiiount  Baal-hermon,  and  not  the' 
cifi/.  this  may  agree  with  what  was  there  mentioned  as 
to  Baal-pad  beinu'  an  old  ('anaanitish  sanctuary  on  the 
edge  of  Hermon.  Itis  again  mentioned  as  the  northern 
limit  of  the  eastern  half  tribe  of  Manasseh,  l  Ch.  v.  2:). 

BA'AL-ME'ON  [Haul,  or  on;nn;  of  a  habitation], 
or  BKTH-I;A.\I.  MKON  [house,  of.  &e.].  a  town  of  which 

22 


n 


BABEL 


the  Keubenites  took  possession.  ,-unl  \vliicli  along  with 
Nebo  they  built  (perhaps  rebuilt,  or  fortified),  but  with 
;i  change  oi  name,  Nil.  \\xii.  .>;  perhaps  so  as  to  avoid 
the  idolatrous  name,  tor  it,  is  called  Beth-meon,  Jr.  xlviii, 
i'i.  It  was  held  liy  the  llciihenites  till  the  captivity, 
Jo;:,  xi  i.  17,  I  (.Ih.  v  s,  \vheii  it  ]i;issc<l  into  the  hands  of  the 
Moabitcs,  to  whom  it,  is  said  to  belong  l>v  Jeremiah 
and  liy  K/.ekiel,  KXU.  xxv. »,  who  seems  to  make  it  one  of 
three  most  distinguished  cities  in  that  "".iorious  land. 
Probably  it  is  the  same  city  \\hich  is  named  Beon, 
Nu.  xxxii.  :;,  by  a  commnn  change  °i  //  and  ni .  Since 
the  time  of  Sectzen  and  Buivklianlt.  it  lias  huoii  iden 
tified  with  certain  ruins  on  a  hill,  forty-live  minutes' 
journey  or  two  miles  south  of  lieshbon  ^Murray's  lluinl- 
/took.  [>.  '_".i.s,  i:'.1!'!,  named  Ma' in:  though  others  prefer 
placiuu'  it  t'artln-r  .-•oiitli.  near  the  \Vady/urkah  Ma'in. 
because.  Jerome  ^peak-  of  it  as  a  lai'n'e  village  in  his 
days,  nine  Roman  miles  from  lleshbon,  width  also 
agrees  with  what  lie  says  of  the  vicinity  of  hot  springs. 

BAAL-PEOR.  the  namo  of  a  Moabite  deity  why 
so  called  is  uncertain.  Having  failed  through  Balaam 
to  In-ill^'  a  curse  upon  the  Israelites,  the  people  of  Moab 
seem  to  have-  lieeii  instructed  liy  that  covetous  and  un 
faithful  prophet  to  cl'ect  their  purpose  indirectly,  by 
seducing  the  people  into  idolatry,  which  was  too  suc 
cessfully  accomplished  by  means  of  the  daughters  of 
Moab.  This  defection  drew  down  upon  them  the  judg 
ment  of  (lod.  in  which  so  many  as  1*4,000  perished, 
Nu.  xxv.  i-ii;  x  xi.l-is.  It  was  under  the  name  of  Baal- 
poor  that  tlie  fal-e  deity  on  this  memorable  occasion 
was  worshipped:  and  it  is  highly  probable,  though  not 
absolutely  certain,  that  the  form  of  worship  associated 
with  the  name  uas  of  a  licentious  character.  As  prac 
tised  by  tiie  Israelites  it  appears  to  have  been  accom 
panied  with  wantoimess  and  profligacy.  In  one  place 
it  is  spoken  of  as  peculiarly  connected  witli  the  dead, 
V*.  v\'\.  •><;  the  worshippers  ''ate  the  sacrifices  of  the 
dead." 

BA'AL-PE'RAZIM  [o(fi?ero/Ara(cAft<(],aname  given 
by  .David  to  a  place  in  or  near  the  valley  of  Rephaim, 
on  the  west  side  of  Jerusalem,  where  he  defeated  the 
Philistine's  in  a  remarkable  manner,  and  in  accordance 
with  nil  oracle  of  ( !-od  previously  given  him,  2S.i.  v.  is-a'i; 
it'll,  xiv.  n.  The  circumstance  is  referred  to  by  Isaiah, 
and  the  place  is  called  Mount  Pera/.im,  ch.  xxviii.  ^:.  The 
name  was  imposed  by  David  on  account  of  the  breaches 
which,  through  his  instrumentality,  the  Lord  had  made 
on  the  enemy,  lie,  or  the  Lord  through  him,  had 
proved  himself  to  be  master  of  the  breaches,  or  the 
discomtiture.  made  upon  the  Philistine  host.  So  that 
the  BAAL  here  has  no  respect  to  the  idol-god,  but  is 
taken  in  its  appellative  sense  a  sense  which  some,  in 
particular  ( leseiiius,  would  extend  to  all  names  of  places 
in  which  .Baal  forms  part  of  the  compound  designation. 

BAAL-SHALISHA  [/lual,  or  owner,  of  Shalisha]. 
This  place  is  mentioned  only  in  2  Ki.  iv.  42,  and  is  un 
known,  unless  as  probably  connected  with  the  land  of 
Shalisha,  1  S.i.  ix.  t.  In  the  Septuagint,  the  name  seems 
to  have  stood  Beth- Shalisha  [the  house  of  ShalishaJ. 

BA'AL-TA'MAR  [owner  of  a  palm-tree],  unknown 
except  as  mentioned  in  Ju.  xx.  33.  Eusebius  says 
that  in  his  day  the  local  name  for  it  was  BETH-TAMAK 
[place  of  a  palm-tree],  and  that  it  lay  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  ( Jibeah.  The  palm-tree  of  Deborah  was  between 
Ilamah  and  Bethel,  Ju.iv. :,;  and  Mr.  Stanley,  in  his 
>•'//<"/  ainl  I'alixlim.  p.  1  l">.  llii.  suggests  that  this  may 
be  the  palm-tree  alluded  to.  .But  this  is  less  likelv, 


on  account  of  the  peculiar  form  of  the  word  for  her 
tree,  tnnicr  ;  and  because  she  judged  .Israel  at  a  time 
subsequent  to  the  battle  of  Baal-tamar. 

BAAL-ZE'BUB  [the.  .////-,yo-/j  may  have  been  either 
the  god  who  was  relied  on  for  driving  flies  away,  or 
their  lord  and  master  in  any  reverence  which  was  paid 
to  them.  We  read  of  Aha/iah,  king  of  Israel,  that  he 
sent  to  this  god  at  Kkron  to  inquire  \\hether  lie  should 
recover  from  an  accident,  L'  Ki.  i.  -2-c.,  n;,  for  which  act  lie 
was  threatened  witii  the  severest  displeasure  of  the 
Lord  by  Klijali.  In  the  New  Testament  (according  to 
the  correct  text)  we  find  this  name  altered  to  Beel/e- 
bul.  the  "  dung-u'od,"  as  if  in  contempt:  and  the  Jews 
in  our  Lord's  day  are  supposed  to  have  employed  it  as 
a  contemptuous  title  for  Satan,  the  author  of  idolatry 
and  the  proper  lord  of  all  the  false  gods  whom  the  blinded 
nations  feared.  M:it.  x.  •_'">;  ,\ii.  lii.  (>'"•  BKJ;[./KBI:L.) 

BAAL-ZE'PPION  [place,,/  Ti/p/ion,  according  to 
(•esenius,  but  very  doubtful],  a  place  at  or  near  which 
the  Israelites  encamped  before  Pharaoh  overtook  them 
as  lie  pursued  them  to  the  Red  Sea,  Kx.  xiv.  \>;  Nu.  \xxiii.  7 
(Sri;  \VII.DI:I;NK.SS  SOJOURN.) 

B  A' ASH  A  [liud,  according  to  (i  esenius;  very 
doubtful],  the  first  king  of  the  second  dynasty  which 
reigned  over  the  ten  tribes.  lie  was  the  instrument  of 
vengeance  whom  (lod  raised  up  to  cut  off  the  house  of 
Jeroboam  "who  made  Israelto  sin,"'  l  Ki.  xv.  •_':,. vc.  But 
as  he  did  this,  not  out  of  respect  to  the  prediction  of 
God's  prophet,  but  in  order  to  gratify  his  own  cruelty 
and  ambition,  it  was  itself  a,  grievous  sin,  for  which  he 
in  turn  was  called  to  account,  ch.  xvi.  r.  There  it  is 
v.  ritleii  that  he  provoked  the  Lord  ''to  aiiLjcr  with  the 
work  of  his  hands,  in  being  like  the  hou>e  of  Jeroboam, 
and  because  hi;  killed /<//„-."  But  this  last  clause  might 
be  at  least  as  well  translated  "because  he  smote  it,'' 
namely  the  house  of  Jeroboam,  for  Jeroboam  himself 
seems  rather  to  have  died  in  peace,  ch.  xiv.  20.  Baasha- 
I  adhered  in  his  policy  to  all  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  and 
probably  went  further  in  the  direction  of  compelling  the 
people  to  worship  the  calves,  and  to  break  oft' all  inter 
course  with  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  and  the  worship  at 
Jerusalem,  ch.  xv.  17. 

BABEL,  TOWER  OF.  If  a  proper  verbal  unifor 
mity  had  been  retained  in  our  English  Bible,  what  is 
there  designated  the  Tower  of  Babel,  would  have  been 
called  the  Tower  of  Babylon;  or  Babel  would  have  been 
the  designation  alike  of  the  tower  and  the  city;  for  in 
the  original  Jialx.1  is  the  word  used  to  express  both. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  proper  import  of  the 
name,  and  the  occasion  which  gave  rise  to  it.  A  deri 
vative  of  the  verb  (^3)  io  confound,  it  signifies  confu 
sion,  '•  because  the  Lord  did  there  (at  the  building  of 
the  tower  so  called)  confound  the  language  of  all  the 
earth,"  Co.  xi.  n.  And  the  immediate  reason  of  his  doing 
so,  it  is  also  expressly  said,  was  that  the  families  of 
mankind,  who  had  leagued  themselves  together  for  the 
erection  of  a  gigantic  tower,  might  fail  to  understand 
each  other,  and  so  might  be  scattered  abroad  upon  the 
face  of  all  the  earth.  We  are  further  told,  that  the 
purpose  of  Heaven  in  the  matter  was  accomplished, 
and  that  from  the  period  in  question  dates  the  forma 
tion  of  distinct  tribes,  growing  into  separate  nationali 
ties,  and  i,r"ing  forth  from  a  common  centre  to  occupy 
the  diilerent  climes  and  regions  of  the  habitable  globe. 

Both  the  aim  of  men  in  setting  about  the  building  of 
such  a  tower,  and  the  manner  of  the  divine  frustration 


BABEL                                       1 

<"'                                    BABYLON 

of  it,  have  been  the  occasion  of  fruitful  conjecture,  and  of 

Heaven.      .It   was   one  of   the   best  salt 

guards  against 

diverse  opinions,  among  sacred  critics  and  divines.    The 

the  recurrence  of  such  enormities  as  had 

brought  on  the 

subject  also  became  involved  in  early  fable  and  tradi 

judgment  of  the  general    deluge:    and    1 

nd  the  founda- 

tion,  which  assumed  a  considerable   diversity  of  forms. 

tion   of  a  world-wide   and    ever-nTowin;. 

developmeiit, 

but  usually  spake  to  the  ctiect,  that  the  race  of  giants 

such  as   would    naturally  tend   to    keep 

in   check   local 

who  had  escaped  the  flood  formed  the  daring  project  of 

evils,  and  by  the   better  agencies  of  om 

region  stiinu- 

scaling  the  heavens  by  means  of  a  lofty  tower;  that  their 

late  into  action  similar  agencies  in  an. 

ther.      History 

attempt  provoked  the  an^er  of  the  Bowers  above,  who 

.supplies  innumerable  instanci  s  of  the  w 

lolesome  inthi- 

disconcerted  the  project  by  introducing  confusion  among 

ence  of  race   upon  race,  and  nation   up. 

n  nation;  and 

the    builders    themselves,    or    by   smiting  the   work   of 

the    successive    attempts   made   by    the 

great    ancient 

their  hands  with  lightning   and  the  fury  of  tempests. 

monarchies  to  weld   them  in  a  modified 

form  together 

(See   the   accounts   in   Stackhouse's    Hist.  <>f  fin  Jl/'/,le, 

again,   required   for  the   world's  own   w 

-11-  being  'to   be 

b.  ii.  e.  :].)      It  is  needless  here  to  go  into  details  of  this 

perpetually  battled  and  confounded  anew 

('S'«?  Avn:- 

description.     The  account  in  Scripture,    which  is  our 

mi.rviAx  AGIO 

only   authentic    source   of  information,    ascribes   to   the 

The  Tower  of    Babel,  as  originally  pr. 

jected.  having 

projector.-  .if  the  undertaking  two  definite  objects,    and 

been  arrested  in  its  course  of  erection,  c 

innot  with  the 

no  more  —  first,  that  they  might  make  t..  themselves  a 

least  certainty    be   identified    with    any 

buildings  of  a 

name,    or   acquire    renown    as    men    capable   of    .-.rane 

later    kind,    such   as    the  magnificent  an 

1    lofty  temple 

tilings;  and   secondly,  that   they   might   prevent  a  scat 

of  Belus,    of   which   some  account  v,  ill    1 

e  found  in  the 

tering    of    their    numb,  r--    over   the    face    of    the    .  arth. 

next    article.        That    many    writers    of 

classical    and 

How   tin-   erection   of  a    lofty    tower    was  expected   to 

Christian  time.-  did  so  identify  them,  is 

inly  a  proof  of 

secure   this  latter    object    is    not    indicated:     but   tin-re 

the  influence  of  ancient  fable  and  traditi. 

m.      It  cannot 

seems  no  reason  to  believe,  as  has  often  been  supposed. 

even  be  known  whether  the  original  buildine-.  intended 

that  it  was   intended   for   purposes   of   idolatry,  or  as   a 

tii  become  a  tower  which  should  pierce  th. 

\  e-rv  heavens. 

place  of  ivfii'jv  in  case  of  any   future  deluge,  or  with  a 

attained  to  any  considerable  elevation  at 

all.'   The  pro- 

view  to  the  general  -af.-ty  and  protection  of   the  people 

liabilities   are    rather   on    the    opposite    s 

ile  :    and   it  is. 

in  the  sin-rounding  regions.      So  far  as  the   Bible  narra- 

therefore,  entirely  out  of  place  to  bring  int..  comparison 

a   bond  of    unity  and    local    attachment  from  bein-   the 

here  the  edifices    of    the  (  'hale  lean     l'iab\l. 
N  inn-olid  of  modern  times.    The  whole  tl 

'ii    or   the-  Ilirs 
at  can  be  said 

wonderful  achievement  of  a  still  undivided  race:  though 

n  spec-tin:;-    a    historical    connection    b.-t\ 

cell     til'  111     is. 

they  would    doubtless    stri\e   to   have    i  t  con.-t  n  let.  .  1    so 

that     tin-    city    of    Babel,    bc-un     by     Nimrod.    and    the 

as  to  tit  it  for  seizing  certain   social   or  religious  pur- 

tower  of    Babel,    then   also  ,,r   not   very  1' 

>ng  afterwards 

Ui  •       •               i    i          i.i 

commenced,  probably  .-t  1   much   upon 

the-    same  site 

n  se  noinmjj  is  recorded  :  and  tlie  \am- 

u'lorious  spirit  displaced  in  the  undertaking-  a-  if  their 

a-    that    occupied    by  th.     later    city  and 

it-   \\oiidi-rful 

own  renown    were  the   hiji.  st   thin-  they  had   to  care 

structures.      The  mate-rial-   al.-o    t.  .r  bricl 

and   cement. 

for      and    their    de-ire   through   means   of   it   to   thwart 

. 

are   known    t,,    have    existed    then-    as    in    tln-ir   native- 

i  io(l  .-  declared  design    regarding  the  diinision  of    man 

kind  throughout   the   earth.    <;.-i\,    were   of   themselves 

home. 

.sufficient  to  provoke  the   judicial    interposition  of  Hea 

BABYLON  |ll.b.  I'.AKKL,  en,ifu*i,,n 

see  preceding 

ven.      That  there  was  something  miraculous  in  this  in 

article],  the  capital  of   Babylonia   and   of 

the-    Assyrian 

terposition   seems   plainly  implied  in  the  narrative;   as. 

empire    under    the-    ChaLUeo-  Babylonian     rule-.       (Pet. 

indeed,  on  simply  natural  principles,  it  Were  impossible 

AsM  KIA.  i 

to  account  for  such   a    confusion   of   laii-ua'_|v  amon-   a 

Sit,    ami    Deter!  !,t  inn.—  Babyl,,,,.    ],,i 

'_:    the    largest 

comparatively  small    population,  as  would    be  sufficient 

and    most    powerful    city    of    antiquity 

(  1  >a.     iv.     "id  : 

to  arrest  the  progress  of  a  building  project,  and  in  a  man 

Herod,    i.    178;    Joseph.    \iii.    (',,    1),    was  situated    in 

ner  force  entire  troops  of  the  builders  into  a  separation 

a  spacious  plain  mi  each    shore  of  the  riv 

-r  Euphrates, 

from  their  cherished    home.       Yet.  ih-  re   is   no  need  for 

a  .out  'Jon  miles  above  the    junction   of  t 

n-  Tigris,  and 

to  lead  to  the   invention   of   languages  altogether   new. 

:5<l()  above  the    Persian   (uilf.      The  clime 
city    and    the   height   of   the    wall   have    1 

nsions  of  the 
een   variously 

That  economy  of  means  which  has  so  commonly  been 

stated,  the  diH'eiviiees  probably  arising  fr 

mi  the  adop- 

remarked  in  the  later  manifestations   of  (lod's   miracu 

tion  of  different  standards  of  measurement 

.         Herodotus 

lous  workini;.    would   doul.tle-s    be  ..b-er\ed   also   her.-: 

informs  us  that  by  reason  of  the  extent  of 

the  city  those; 

and  as  certain  superficial  changes  and  modal  variations 

v.  ho  occupied  the  centre  knew  not    when 

(In-  .  xtrcmi- 

might  ha\e  served  the  purpose  in   view,  the  prohahilitv 

ties    were   captured  (i.  Ill]  ;   also  Je.   Ii.  :'. 

1  i.    and    Ljives 

is,  that  such  chiefly  at  least  if  not  alone    were  resorted 

i             •                r 

- 

the    circumference   at    -!s|i    stadia,    or   al  out    i>o    miles 
d.  17S>:   Stral...  (xvi.    c-.  i.  f>)  at  :>.'.  stadia,  the-  height 

l".       1  ins  supposition,   in  accordance  as  it  is    with   the 

general   principles   of  the  divine  government,    is   eon-  • 

..f  the  wall  i;.'i   feet,  ami    the    width    32    f. 

et  ;    IModorus 

firmed  by  the  ascertained  results  of  comparative'  philo 

Siculus.  quoting  Ctesias,  :ji!n  stadia,   but 

!ii*  stadia  on 

logy,  which  have  brought  out   points   of  radical  agree 

the  authority  of  (  'litarchus.   who  was   at 

Babylon  with 

ment,  even  after  the  lapse   of   many  ages,  between   the 

Alexander  (ii.  f  i:  Huintus  (  'urtius  (v.  1  )  sa\s  .'Jh-  stadia, 

lanu'ua-vs  of  the  tribes   and    nations   who  peopled   tin- 

. 

().)  teet  Ingli,  and  •  !_;  hroad  ;  and  J  liny   (\ 

1.    -0)    till    lio- 

countries  that  lay  around  the  seat   of  ancient  Babylon. 

man  mile's,  •Juii  feet  hiuh.  and  ;"><i  feet  wic 

e. 

'Phe    scattering  of   the   postdiluvian   race  of  mankind. 

Adopting  the  measurement  of   Herode 

tus,  that   the 

when  they  had   become  sufficiently  numerous  to  admit 

city  was  a  quadrangle  of   \~>   mile's  .m    e\ 

cry   side,    we. 

of  such  a  measure,  and  diff'usiii'_r  them  abroad  as  the  seed- 

rind  that  the  area  within  the'  walls  contain 

I'd  •I'l'i  sc|iiare 

corn  of  future   nationalities,  was  a  wholesome  proceed- 

miles   (.\im  ri/it  t'omjiaratlre  tflze  of  ('///' 

*},  a  magni- 

BABYLON 


[7-2 


BABYLON 


.Jules  Oppert,  who  has  pursued  his  investigations  dur 
ing  a  residence  of  two  years  upon  the  spot,  and  \vhu 
states  that  the  remains  cover  a  space;  of  more  than  '200 
s<|iiare  miles  (At/n lut-iini,  Sejit.  22,  1  h55.  ]i.  109M.  Not 
withstanding  the  extent  of  the  ruins,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  population,  as  compared  with  modern 
Kuropean  towns,  bore  no  commensurate  proportion  to 
the  immense  area  inclosed.  Indeed  the  numerous 
squares  exceeding  two  miles  in  circuit  into  which  the 
city  is  described  to  have  been  divided,  covered  more 
than  two  thirds  of  the  entire  area,  while  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  remaining  space  being  occupied  by  wide 
streets,  fortifications,  and  public  buildings,  but  a  com 
paratively  small  extent  was  left  for  the;  dwellings  of  the 
people.  That  the  squares  were  under  cultivation  may 
unhesitatingly  be  assumed  even  without  the  testimony  of 
Quintus  Curtius,  who  relates  (v.  1)  that  sufficient  arable 
and  pasture  land  was  contained  within  the  walls  to 
supply  the  wants  of  all  the  inhabitants.  The  army 
derived  its  subsistence  from  the  whole  of  Assyria,  the 
Babylonian  territory  providing  only  a  third  part  (Herod, 
i.  192),  thus  enabling  the  city  to  accumulate  stores  for 
periods  of  emergency,  such  as  the  siege  by  Cyrus,  when, 
according  to  Xeiiophoii  i/'//r<^.  vii.  5),  it  had  provisions 
for  twenty  years.  In  the  subsequent  siege  by  Darius,  son 
of  llvstaspes,  which  lasted  one  year  and  seven  months, 
the  city7  was  subdued  again  by  stratagem,  and  not  by 
famine  (Herod,  iii.  152).  The  population  has  been 
variously  estimated — the  conjecture  of  1,200,000  being- 
supported  by  the  fact  that  Seleucia,  with  a  population 
of  GOO, 000,  is  stated  to  have  been  about  half  the  size 
of  Babylon  when  in  her  glory  (Pliny,  vi.  30). 

Herodotus,  who  visited  Babylon  after  the  conquest 
by  Cyrus,  and  while  it  still  preserved  much  of  its 
previous  glory,  is  the  source  whence  the  most  detailed 
description  can  be  derived  ;  and  his  account  is  substan 
tially  corroborated  by  the  testimony7  and  researches  of 
all  subsequent  writers,  and  by  the  discoveries  resulting 
from  the  excavations  of  the  present  age  (Eavvlinson, 
Trans.  Asiatic  and  (Icoy.  Socs.)  He  describes  the  city 
as  a  perfect  square,  each  side  being  15  miles  in  length, 
and  the  whole  circuit  GO  miles.  It  was  surrounded 
first  by7  a  deep  wide  moat  filled  with  water,  and  next 
by  a  wall  87  feet  in  breadth,  Jc.  li.  58,  and  350  feet  in 
height.  The  earth  dug  out  of  the  moat  was  consumed 
in  making  the  bricks  that  lined  its  sides,  and  of  which 
the  w7all  itself  was  likewise  built,  so  that  some  estimate 
may  be  formed  of  the  depth  and  width  of  the  moat  by 
the  height  and  thickness  of  the  walls.  The  thirty 
lower  courses  of  bricks  were  wattled  with  reeds,  and 
the  whole  was  cemented  by  hot  asphalt  brought  from 
Is  (Hit),  a  city  upon  a  tributary  of  the  Euphrates,  eight 
days'  jotirney  above  Babylon.  On  each  edge  of  the 
top  of  the  wall,  like  a  parapet,  was  a  line  of  dwellings 
of  one  story  fronting  each  other,  the  road  between  being 
of  sufficient  width  to  allow  of  turning  a  chariot  with 
four  horses.  In  the  circumference  of  the  wall  there 
were  100  gates,  25  011  each  side,  all  of  brass,  is.  xlv.  •>,  as 
were  also  the  posts  and  lintels.  Jeremiah. ch.  xxv.  20;  li.  41, 
calls  Babylon  Shcsharh — a  name  conjectured  by  C.  B. 
Michaelis  to  be  derived  from  shikshach,  "to  overlay 
with  iron  or  other  plates,"  whence  the  city  might  be 
called  "brazen-gated."  Diodorus  adds  (lib.  ii.)  that 
between  every  two  of  these  gates  were  three  towers, 
10  feet  above  the  walls,  at  necessary  intervals,  the  city 
being  defended  at  other  points  by  extensive  marshes. 
Although  the  outer  wall  was  the  chief  defence,  a  second 


ran  round  within,  not  much  inferior  in  strength  but 
narrower.  The  city  was  divided  into  two  nearly  equal 
parts  by  the  river  Euphrates  running  from  north  to 
south,  and  tin;  wall  with  wide  quays  outside  was  carried 
along  each  bank,  the  sides  of  the  river  being  lined  with 
brick.  In  the  middle  of  each  division  of  the  city  were 
fortified  buildings;  in  one,  the  royal  palace,  v\ith  a 
spacious  and  strong  inclosure  ;  and  in  the  other,  the 
precinct  of  Jupiter  Belus,  a  square  building  of  2  fur 
longs  on  every  side.  The  city  was  intersected  by 
streets,  running  in  straight  lines  from  gate  to  gate,  there 
being  50  streets  in  all,  each  15  miles  in  length,  and  151 
feet  broad,  with  small  brazen  gates  leading  down  to 
the  river.  The  houses  were  three  and  four  stories  hiu'h. 
Four  other  streets,  each  200  feet  wide,  the  houses  being 
only  on  one  side,  and  the  walls  on  the  other,  encom 
passed  the  city.  The  intersections  of  the  streets  formed 
(>7G  squares,  each  4?;  furlongs  on  every  side,  or  2.j  miles 
in  circuit  (l)iod.  Sic.  ii.)  A  bridge,  a  furlong  in  length 
and  GO  feet  wide,  admirably  constructed  of  stones, 
bound  together  with  plates  of  lead  and  iron,  was  built 
across  the  river  about  the  ruddle  of  the  city.  At  each 
extremity  of  the  bridge  was  a  palace,  the  old  palace 
being  011  the  eastern,  and  the  new  on  the  western  side 
of  the  river  (I)iod.  ii.  8).  To  prevent  the  city  suffering 
from  the  overflowing  of  the  river  during  the  summer 
months,  immense  embankments  were  raised  on  either 
side,  with  canals  to  turn  the  ilood  waters  into  the  Tigris. 
On  the  western  side  of  the  city7  an  artificial  lake,  40 
miles  square,  or  1GO  in  circumference,  and  35  feet  deep, 
or  75  according  to  Megastheiies,  was  excavated,  into 
which  the  river  was  turned  during  the  execution  of  the 
bridge  and  other  great  works.  When  the  river  was 
brought  back  to  its  ancient  channel,  on  the  comple 
tion  of  the  works,  the  lake  became  a  marsh,  which 
served  as  a  defence  for  the  city. 

Later  writers  (Diodorus  Sic.  ii.  7,  0,  10  ;  Strabo,  xvi. 
c.  i.  2,  5  ;  Q.  Curtius,  v.  c.  i.),  describe  yet  more  wonder 
ful  monuments  than  are  mentioned  by  Herodotus. 
Among  these  are  a  tunnel  under  the  Euphrates  ;  sub 
terranean  banqueting  rooms  of  brass  ;  and  the  famous 
hanging  gardens.  Strabo  says  that  among  the  seven 
wonders  of  the  world  are  reckoned  the  outer  wall  of  the 
city,  and  the  hanging  garden,  the  shape  of  which  was 
a  square  of  400  feet  on  each  side,  rising  terrace  above 
terrace,  to  the  height  of  350  feet,  and  ascended  by 
stairs  10  feet  wide.  The  terraces  were  supported  by 
large  vaultings,  resting  upon  cube-shaped  pillars,  which 
were  hollow,  and  filled  with  earth  to  allow7  trees 
of  the  largest  size  to  be  planted — the  whole  being  con 
structed  of  baked  bricks  and  asphalt.  The  entire 
structure  was  strengthened  and  bound  together  by  a 
wall,  22  feet  in  thickness.  The  level  of  each  terrace 
was  covered  with  large  stones,  over  which  were  beds  of 
rushes,  then  a  thick  layer  of  asphalt,  next  two  courses 
of  bricks  likewise  cemented  with  asphalt,  and  finally 
plates  of  lead  to  prevent  leakage.  The  earth  being 
heaped  on  the  platform  and  terraces,  and  large  trees 
planted,  the  whole  had  the  appearance  from  a  distance 
of  "woods  overhanging  mountains  "  (Q.  Curtius,  v.  5). 
The  garden  was  watered  by  means  of  engines  for  rais 
ing  water  from  the  Euphrates,  which  flowed  close  to 
the  base.  This  great  work  is  affirmed  to  have  been 
effected  by  Nebuchadnezzar  to  gratify  his  wife  Amytis, 
daughter  of  Astyages,  who  retained  strong  predilections 
for  the  hills  and  groves  which  abounded  in  her  native 
Media.  As  the  Bible  and  Herodotus  are  both  silent 


BABYLON 


173 


BABYLON 


the  rhaldaans,  who  are  priests  of  this  deity,  say."' 
This  temple  did  nut  attain  its  full  splendour  until  the 
time  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  greatly  enlarged  and 
beautified  it.  Berosus,  a  Babylonian  and  a  priest  of 


respecting  the  hanging  gardens  of  Babylon,  the  marvel 
lous  accounts  above  eited  have  been  doubted  by  almost 
all  writers.      The   Assyrian  sculptures   in   the  British 
Museum,  however,  throw  a  most  important  light  on  this 
interesting  subject,   the  uncovered   ruins  at   Nineveh  j 
revealing  representations   of   gardens  and   groves,   re-  | 
sembling  those  whose  very   existence   at   Babylon   has  | 
been  disputed.      It  is  not  a  little  singular  that  no  his-  ! 
toriaii  should  mention  the  hanging  gardens  of  Nineveh,  ! 
although  the  stone  recur  Is  taken  out  of  the  palace  of 
Sennacherib  so  distinctly  inform  us  that  the  mounds  or 
tels  on  which  the  palaces  stood  were  planted  with  rows 
of  iir  trees.    Xu.  ii. ::,  the  fig,    the  vine,   and  the  pome 
granate.      They  .show  us  also  tin.1  means  of  irrigation, 
and  the  description  of  machinery  used  in  raising  water, 
the  system  being  precisely  that  employed  at  the  present 
day  iri  irrigating  corn-fields  in   Egypt   (."il,  .">-   of  A'mt-  \ 

yunjik  (iallu'ij,  B.  M.i      (hi'-  scene  exhibits  in  a  valley,  j 

and  connecting  two  hills,  a  line  of  arches  either  to  sup-   ,  |r,Cj    Restoration  of  the  Temple  of  IVlus,  according  to  Herodotus 


planted  with  trees,  and  leading  to  a  temple  or  to\\er  at 
the  to] i  of  a  hill:  a  tower  seeming  always  to  have  been 
a  necessary  appendage  to  an  eastern  garden  ils.  v.  '2: 
Mat.  x\i.  :;:! :  Lu.  xiv. 'Js  ;  Meason's  Z«»c/«c«/)(  Arc/d- 
tcctiire,  Lond.  IS'28  ;  .Maundivll's  Tntrclt). 

On  the  other  hand,  while-  11.  rodotns  -ives  us  full 
details  of  the  wall.-  of  Babylon,  and  the  Bible  dwells 
on  her  •' broad  walls"  and  "high  gates,"  Je.li.0-,  both. 
as  has  been  observed,  are  silent  iv-anling  the  hanging 
gardens,  vet  Diodorus  and  Straho,  at  a  considerably 
later  period,  speak  of  them  with  positive  c<  rtainty. 
A  reasonable  inference,  therefore,  is  that  the  garden- 
did  exist  at  Babylon,  a.-  we  see  they  had  done  pre 
viously  at  Nineveh,  and  that  the  adornment  of  the 
numerous  mounds  in  As.-\na  may  have-  been  so  usual 
in  earlv  times  as  to  have  e.-caped  notice  by  the  more 
ancient  writers,  in  the  same  way  that  mod.  ni  writers 
have  passed  over  that  species  of  hanging  ;_ardcii  still 
extant  at  the  east  of  the  platform  supported  ..n  arches 
where  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  once  stood,  and  where 
now  .-lands  the  mosque  El  Ak-a.  The  palace  attached 
to  the  hanging  gardens  of  Babylon  was  unequalled  in 
si/.e  and  splendour.  Its  outer  wall  had  a  circuit  of  six 
miles,  while  within  it  were  two  other  embattled  walls  and 
a  large  tower.  All  the  gates  were  uf  brass,  :- 
The  interior  of  this  palace  was  splendidly  decorated 
with  .-tat  iii  •-  of  men  and  animals,  and  it  was  besides 
furnished  with  vessels  of  u'old  and  silver,  and  with 
everv  speci.s  of  luxury  accumulated  in  the  course 
of  the  extended  conquests  of  Nebuchadne//.ar.  (See 
also  ,M<  ua.-theiie.-  in  Aliydeiius.  in  Cory's  i'r<i<ini<  ,/>.<. 
p.  -H-l'i.) 

The  temple  of  I'.elus  is  described  a-  entirely  occupy 
ing  one  of  the  squares  into  which  the  city  was  divided. 
Herodotus  .-ay s(i.  181,  3),  that  "  iu  the  midst  of  this  pre 
cinct  is  built  a  solid  tower  of  one  stade  both  in  length 
and  breadth,  and  on  this  tower  rose  another,  and  another 
upon  that  to  the  number  of  eight.  An  ascent  to  these 
is  outside,  runninu'  spirally  round  all  the  towers.  About 
the  middle  of  the  ascent  there  is  a  landing-place  and 
seats,  on  which  those  who  Uo  up  sit  down  and  rest 
themselves:  and  in  the  uppermost  tower  stands  a 
spacious  temple,  and  in  this  temple  is  placed,  hand 
somely  furnished,  a  large  couch,  and  by  its  side  a  table 
of  L;-"ld.  No  statue  has  been  erected  within  it,  nor  does 
any  mortal  pass  the  night  there,  except  only  a  native 
woman  chosen  bv  the  ^ml  out  of  the  whole  nation,  as 


Belus  of  the  time  of  Alexandi  r,  appears  to  have 
sketched  his  historv  of  the  earlier  times  from  the  deline 
ations  upon  the  v.alls  of  tin  temple.— (Cory's  /><(,'/.  p. 
---'24  :  I'./e.  xv, ii.  n.)  The  summit  of  the  temple  was  de 
voted  to  astronomical  purposes.  Herodotus  states 
di.  l»".ii  that  the  (Irecks  learned  from  the  Babylonians 
the  pole  and  the  sun-dial,  and  the  division  of  the  day 
into  twelve  parts;  and  Calisthenes  the  philosopher  ob 
tained  tor  Aristotle  (  'lialda-an  observations  for  1!H>3 
years,  from  the  origin  of  the  Babylonian  monarchy  to 
i  he  time  of  All  xandt  r.  d'rideaux.  Connect,  part  i.  b. 
ii.;  Joseph.  C«ii/.  .I/-.  Ii.  i.)  The  tirst  eclipse  on  record 
was  oi  served  \vitli  accuracy  at  Babylon  it  was  lunar, 
and  happt  ne.l  March  Hah,  7-1  B.I'.,  according  to 
I'toldiiv.  Strabo  informs  us  that  Alexander  intended 
to  repair  the  tower,  and  actually  employed  In, Odd  men 
two  mouths  in  clearing  away  the  rubbish,  hut  he  did 
not  survive  to  accomplish  his  great  undertaking. 

With  the  exception  of  the  stone  bridge  across  the 
Euphrates,  all  the  -real  works  of  Babvlon  were  con 
structed  of  sun-dried  and  kiln-dried  bricks,  generally 
stamped  with  figures  or  letters.  (,S»  BKHKS.)  Straw  or 

reeds  Were  laid  between  the  Courses,  and  the  whole 
wa.-  cemented  either  with  bitumen  or  with  mortar  and 
slime.  Vitrified  bricks  were  much  employed  in  build- 
in--,  and  it  has  been  suggested  by  the  late  ('apt.  New- 
bold,  that  in  order  to  render  their  edifices  more  durable, 
the  Babylonians  submitted  them  when  erected  to  the 
heat  of  a  furnace.  iT.  K.  Loftus,  Travels  in  Chaldcca, 
London,  IN:.?,  p.  :5L) 

The  country  around  Babylon  was  intersected  by 
numerous  canals,  "the  rivers  of  Babylon,''  iv  rxx\\ii.  i,  -i, 
serving  the  purposes  of  drainage  and  irrigation,  and 
rendering  the  light  soil  peculiarly  fertile,  especially  in 
corn.  The  large.-t  ot  these,  the  royal  canal,  which 
connected  the  Euphrates  with  the  Tigris,  was  naviga 
ble  for  merchant  vessels  (Herod,  i.  193,  1 '.'•!).  The 
origin  of  this  canal  is  traditionally  attributed  to  Nim- 
rod  and  ( 'u.-h.  but  according  to  Abydmus  to  Nebu- 
chadnex/.ar.  Strabo  fells  us  ixvi.  11)  that  Alexander 
inspected  the  canals  and  ordered  them  tube  cleared  by 
his  followers.  In  clearing  one  in  the  marshes  near 
Arabia,  he  opened  and  minutely  examined  the  sepul 
chres  of  the  kings,  most  of  which  were  situated  among 
these  lakes. 

J/!.tf<»-i/.~  The  foundation  of  the  city  of  Babylon  has 
been  referred  to  the  impious  attempt  to  build  a  city 


and  a  to\\er,  which  resulted  in  the  dispersion  of  nian- 
kind,  (iu.  \i  I!'.  I'Sr  •  niK/i'i-  B.\r,Ki..|  According,  how 
ever,  to  MO  IK.'  authors  tin1  founder  of  Babylon  \\;is 
Belus  tlir  Assvri.-ui,  who  began  tu  rciu'ii  in  tin;  time  of 
Sliamgar,  jiid'jc  I')'  l-racl.  Bolus  left  his  empire  to  liis 
sun  Niniis.  \\lio  uas  succeedt  d  by  his  wife  Scmiramis, 
Xinva.-,  and  others,  their  rule  extending  over  a  period 
nf  ;rjll  year.-,  <  I  lend,  i.  ii.">).  during  the  whole  of 
which  interval  the  province  and  city  of  I'.aliylon  were 
under  the  administration  of  governors  appointed  by  the 
king  uf  Assyria.  Althoun'h  Seinirainis  would  appeal- 
to  have-  removed  her  court  to  Babylon,  which  she  en 
larged,  embellished  with  magnificent  buildings,  and 
surrounded  \\itli  walls,  renderinu'  it  the  mighty  Bahy- 
lon  so  reiio\\  ned  in  hi.-.tory  i  I  >iod.  Sic.  ii.  I  ;  Herod,  i.  1  7S, 
IMI,  i,s|;  n.  Curt,  v.i.  \et  Niiieuh  continued  to  l;e 
the  supreme  city  of  the  empire  until  the  revolt  of  A  r- 
haces  the  .Mcde,  \\ho  was  instigated  liy  Belesis,  gover 
nor  of  Babylon,  to  overthrow  the  Assyrian  empire 
(l)iod.Sic.  ii.  2).  I'Yom  this  time  I'.aliylon  became  the 
scat  of  imperial  power  (Herod,  i.  1 7M.  Belesis  being 
the  first  kin-'.  Belesis  is  identified  hy  .M.  ( ippert  ((.'///•«//. 
Ax.<i/>'inii!«i<t</  /!n/ir/li>ii<<tit.*-)  \\ith  Xahonassar.  the  Shal- 
maneser  of  Scripture,  accord  inn'  to  the  ecclesiastical  I 
and  astronomical  canons  of  Synceiliis.  Synceilus  tells 
us  (L'lii-on.  207)  that  Xahona-sar  destroyed  the  me 
mentoes  of  the  kings  prior  to  himself,  in  order  that  the 
enumeration  of  the  ( 'halda'an  kings  might  commence 
with  him;  and  from  his  era,  B.C.  717.  we  have  regular 
lists  of  kings,  and  repeated  mention  of  the  Chahheans  or 
Babylonians  (sec  CIIAMX-KANS)  in  Scripture.  ^lerodaeh 
Baladan,  king  of  Babylon  (the  Mardocempadus  of 
Ptolemy),  the  date  of  \\iiose  reinii  is  fixed  l>v  a  lunar 
eclipse,  made  a  treaty  \\ith  lie/.ehiah.  kin-'  of  .ludah. 
is.  xx.  IL>.  Sennacherib  levied  an  army  against  his  successor 
.Klibus  (Alex.  Polyhistor,  En.  Ar.  Citron.  42>.  whom 
he  defeated.  He  then  appointed  his  own  son,  Esarhad- 
don,  to  he  king  of  i'.abylon,  thus  terminatini;'  a  line  of 
kings  who  had  reigned  there  sixty-seven  years  ( 1'tolemy's 
('«»<»!,  and  that  of  Synceilus  in  Cory's  Fni<iniciitx). 
Babylon  continued  to  advance  in  prosperity  until  the 
reign  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  when  the  era  of  her  proper 
u'reatness  commences,  it  \\as  under  this  monarch  that 
the  ( 'haliheans,  an  old  but  hitherto  powerless  race,  ap 
peared  on  the  scene  as  a  great  and  warlike  nation. 
It  was  (liev  \\lio  invaded  -ludea  and  carried  awav  the 
people  into  captivity,  Je.  x\iv.  :>;  x\v.  i^  ;  I'.xc.  xii.  i:s;  Da.  i.  1,L'; 
Hind.  sic.  ii.  1-2;  I'ml.  v.;  JosoiOi.  i.;  Knsuli.  ix.  I'nder  Nebuchad- 
ne/.xar  liabylou  became  the  mistress  of  the  J^ast,  and 
her  vast  power  caused  the  jealousv  of  surrounding  na 
tions.  Pharaoh- Kecho  was  tin;  first  to  take  up  arms 
against  her.  and  marched  as  far  as  ( 'archemish,  on  the 
Kuphrates,  where  he  was  wholly  defeated  bv  the  1'aby. 
Ionian  army.  It  was  immediately  after  this  great 
battle  that  the  Chaldaeaus  marched  njioii  Jerusalem. 
and  carried  captive  to  Babylon  the  Jewish  nobles, 
among  whom  wire  Daniel  and  his  three  friends,  Ha- 
naniah,  .Michael,  and  Azariah,  \\liile  .ludea  remained 
a  province  of  the  Babylonian  monarchy.  Jerusalem 
twice  rebelled  after  this,  but  it  was  easily  reduced  to 
obedience,  although  at  the  second  rebellion  Hophra.  king 
of  Kgypt,  came  up  to  help  the  Jews.  Xebuchadnezx.ar 
defeated  the  Egyptians,  and  took  a  way  from  them  all 
their  possessions  in  Palestine,  Arabia,  and  Cyprus. 
'The  conc|iie.-t  of  Kgypt  was  the  crowning  work  of  Ne 
buchadnezzar's  active  life';  and  on  his  return  to  Jiabv- 
l>m  he  seems  to  have  devoted  the  remainder  of  Ids 


reign  to  improving  and  beautifying  the  city,  most  of  the 
great  works  for  which  it  became  famous  being  due  to 
him  or  to  Nitocris  his  queen.  Kvil-Merodac.h  suc 
ceeded  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  Belshazzar  succeeded 
K\  il-  .Merodach  (Berosus  in  Joseph.  \.Cont.  Ajtimi,  p. 
In  l.'ii.  Hut  the  ^Median  po\v<y  was  now  rising.  The 
.Modes  \\cre  ill  close  alliance  with  the  Persians,  and 
the  young  Cyrus,  at  the  head  of  the  united  armies, 
routed  the  Babylonians  in  several  battles,  and  at  last 
conquered  Babylon  and  terminated  the  monarchy, 
Is.  xlv.  I;  Xtiiopliun,  Cyr<>i>.  vii.  r,;  I Irnxl.  i.  1!U ;  I);i.  v.  J'abylon 
now  remained  subject  to  tin:  1'ersian  jiower  till  the 
reign  of  Darius  Hystaspes,  when  it  revolted.  There- 
volt  was  suppressed,  but  Darius  punished  the  Babylo 
nians  by  removing  the  brazen  gates  and  destroying  the 
walls  (Hi.  rod.  iii.  1T.1M.  Xerxes  is  reported  to  have 
plundered  and  defaced  the  temple  of  JJelus.  (Strabo, 
xvi.  :">).  Notwithstanding  its  conquest  by  Persia,  J'a- 
l>\lou  continued  a  large  city,  and  the  capital  of  the 
plain  watered  by  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates.  Though 
no  longer  the  seat  of  government,  it  was  still  the  seat 
of  trade,  and  of  great  importance  when  visited  by 
Alexander,  on  his  overthrow  of  the  Persian  monarchy, 
B.C.  '•'>•! -I.  Alexander  died  there,  and  on  the  division  of 
his  \\ide  conquests  among  his  generals.  Babylon  in  a 
i'.  u  years  In  came  the  kingdom  of  Seleucus  and  his  suc 
cessors.  Seleucus  Nicator  founded  and  fortified  Seleii- 
cia  on  the  Tigris,  3(KI  stadia  distant  from  Babylon, 
and  transferred  to  it  the  seat  of  empire  (Strabo.  xvi.  ;">>. 
l-'rom  this  time  Babylon  rapidly  declined,  but  though 
in  ruins,  it  was  still  a  place  of  importance  at  the  com 
mencement  of  the  Christian  era,  il'e.  v.  i:;.  It  is  said  by 
Jerome  to  have  been  turned  into  a  hunting  park  by  the 
Parthian  king's  who  overthrew  the  Seleucidian  dynasty. 
In  the  early  days  of  Arab  power  the  great  Babylon  had 
dwindled  to  a  mere  name,  and  A.I),  lllll.  the  present 
town  of  Hillah  was  founded  on  part  of  its  site.  (See 
also  .losephus,  A'uf.  i.  !);  <L>.  Curtius,  v.  ];  Pliny,  ii.  iifi; 
J'om]).  .Mela,  i.;  Ptol.  v.  20;  vi.  '20;  Sharpe's  J/iat.  of 
A;'////"V'  vol.  i.  282;  Is.  .xiii.  ]-'22;  xiv.  4-27;  xxi.  Si;  xliv. 
27,  2S;  xlv.  ]-3;  xlvi.  1,  2;  xlvii.  1-1  o:  Je.  xxv.  2-14; 
1.  ]-4(i;  Ii.  l-(!4.) 

Ruins  and  Remains. — The  ruins  of  Babylon  are  in 
describably  grand,  desolate,  and  suggestive,  the  ex 
tensive  plain  for  miles  around  being  studded  with 
vast  mounds  of  earth  and  brick,  some  imposing  ruins, 
and  heaps  of  sun-dried  and  kiln-burned  bricks.  Inter 
mingled  with  the  surrounding  rubbish  are  highly  vitrified 
bricks,  fragments  of  glass,  pottery,  marble,  inscribed 
bricks,  and  bitumen,  while  the  soil  itself  is  so  impreg 
nated  with  nitre  as  to  destroy  .'ill  vegetation,  render 
ing  the  desolation  of  the  scene  yet  more  impressive. 
The  first  and  most  important  of  the  mounds  is  the 
P.irs  Nimroud,  supposed  by  Xiebuhr,  Rich,  and 
others,  to  be  the  temple  of  Belus,  which  Herodotus 
tells  us  was  separated  from  the  palace  by  the  river. 
It  is  situated  rather  more  than  six  miles  from  -Hillah, 
the  rugged  tower  standing  amidst  and  crowning  ex 
tensive  masses  of  ruin  (.Chesney,  Surrey  of  Euphrates}. 
According  to  Rich,  the  mound  rises  to  IS'S  feet  high, 
basing  on  its  summit  a  compact  mass  of  brick-work 
:'>7  feet  high  by  28  feet  broad,  the  whole  being  thus 
2'!."i  feet  in  perpendicular  height.  1'awlinson  gives  the 
entire  height,  exclusive  of  the  tower  on  the  top.  as 
1 ;".:")  feet.  It  is  rent  into  two  parts  nearly  the  whole 
way  down,  and  the  base  is  surrounded  by  immense 
unshapen  piles  of  brick-work  bearing  unmistakeable 


MABYLOX 


175 


BABYLOX 


evidence  of    fire.      The  excavations    of    Rawlinson   in  I  pyramid   of  (Jhiza,  as  compared   with    the    Birs   Xim- 

1854  confirm  the  correctness  of  the  observations  made     roiid. 

by  Rich,  Ker  Porter,  and   Buckingham,  of  the  exist-          The   first   "Teat   mill    seen    on    approaching   ancient 

ence  of  several  stages  noticed  in 

the  earlier  part  of   this  article. 

He   found    it    laid    out    in    the 

form  of  seven  terraces,  arranged 

in  the  order  in  which  the  ( 'hal- 

(heans  or  Sabeans  supposed  the 

planetary  spheres  to  exist,  each 

terrace  being  painted  in  different 

colours,  in  order  to  represent  its 

respective     planet    (  Rawlinson, 

Matin;/  <>f  /iri/l.t/i   Asmciation, 

(Glasgow,  Sept.  l>th,  1  *.~>~t  ;  and 

Sni-iiiii.  .Ian.  TS.",.O      Tlie  angles 

face  the  cardinal    points.       The 

lowest  stage,  black  i  Sat  urn),  con 
sists  o"  bricks  covered  with  bi 
tumen  ;  the  second  stage  (the 

Kartln,  of  hrowni.-h   bricks  :   the 

third  staue  (Mars),  of  red  bricks: 

the   fourth    stage    (the    Sum.    of 

yellow     bricks     ^ilt  :     the     fifth 

sta-v    i  Mercnrv  i,    vellow    u'n-eii 

bricks;    the  sixth  stage  (\'eiius). 

blue  :    the   ruined   tower   on    tin 

summit,  of  -ray  bricks.  The  relative  dimensions  of  Babylon  from  the  north,  is  the  high  pile  of  unbaked 

I  nick -work,  the  mound  of  Bab.  -I.  called  by  Rich  "  Mu- 
jelebeh."  but  which  is  known  to  the  A  rabs  as  "Babel" 
(  Ainsworth,  /,'*.<.  ///  A**iiriti,\>.  If!!'  :  Layard.  Xi/i.ninl 
/I'll,,  p.  ll'l  ;  Loft  us,  L'ltald.  <uid  NI/N.  p.  17).  It  lies 
four  miles  and  a  i|i;arter  north  of  Ilillah.  having  a 
s< [iiare  superficies  of  4!), 000  feet,  and  at  its  south-eastern 

corner  att. tins  ail  elevation  of  'U    feet.       To  the  solltll  of 


1.-,:,  feet. 

A  passage  has  been  discovered  in  the  second  stage, 
and  it  is  surmised  that  the  stairs  for  ascending  to  the 
top  \\erc  on  the  north-eastern  side.  Within  the  brick 
work  at  the  northern  and  eastern  cornel's  of  the  third 


IJiiv.  Ninm.ud.  from  tin-  Xertli  west.-  Fmni  a  sketch  l.y  .1    liaillie  I-'nisci 


OS.]    Restoration  of  tin-  Temple  of  IMus,  apeor.liiif,'  t< 

Sir  II    Knwlins.,11. 


stage  were  found  two  trrrtt  r,,ttn  cylinders  (now  in  the 
I'.ritisli  Museum)  inscribed  with  the  history  of  the 
building,  and  stating  that  having  fallen  into  decay 
in  the  course  of  the  fidf  years  since  it  was  erected. 
it  had  been  repaired  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  etc.  This 
would  fix  the  date  of  the  original  structure  at  11  00  n.c. 
Diagrams  are  subjoined  of  the  temple  of  I'.elus  accord 
ing  to  Herodotus,  of  the'  restoration  which  Rawlinson's 
excavations  have  brought  to  light,  and  of  the  great 


this  is  a  Lfreat  mound  also  called  Miijelebeh,  or  Kasr. 
from  the  ruin  upon  it  having  a  square  superficies  <>f 
1-2H.OUO  feet,  and  a  height  of  only  _'S  feet.  The-  great 
brick  ruin,  called  the  Kasr.  or  Palace,  al  out  70  feet. 
in  height  according  to  Uich,  stands  at  the'  south-west 
corner  of  this  central  mound.  To  the  south  is  the 
Ann-am  I  bn  Ali.  having  an  area,  of  KM,  000  feet,  and 
an  elevation  of  -J:!  feet.  The  whole  of  these  ruins  lie 
within  a  compass  of  two  and  a  half  simare  miles  (A ins- 


BABYLON 


BABYLON 


worth,  up.  cit.)  1  find  an  old  corroboration  of  tin- 
central  mound  being  the  Mtijelcbeli  in  Beauehamp — 
"  This  heap  (the  Kasr),  and  11 10  mount  of  Babel,  arc 
commonly  called  by  the  Arabs  Maklonbah,  tliat  is  to 
say,  turned  topsy-turvy,"— -quoted  by  Major  Ifcmiell  in 
his  lllutti-ntion*  to  the  (,'coi/ni />//>/  «f  llcnxlotiix. 

This  will  explain  how  the  moinuls  of  Babel,  and 
that  with  the  Kasr  and  Atheleh  in  it  have  come 
to  be  confounded  under  the  name  of  Mtijelibeh. 
There  is  also  the  following  passage  in  leaser's  Ax- 
si/ri(t,  p.  130: — It  (Babel)  is  called  by  the  Arabs 
Mukalibe,  or  Mujelibe,  the  first  of  which  words  means 
tho  "overturned,"  a  term  which,  Mr.  Rich  oliserves, 
lit  sometimes  applied  to  the  K<ixr.  The  Mujelebeh  has 
been  read  as  if  it  were  Mukalliba,  from  Kilba,  the 
''  overturned  or  overthrown  ;"  whereas  a  mncli  nearer 
affinity  exists  in  Mujelobeh,  plural  of  Jelib,  "a  slave 
or  captive,  the  house  of  the  captives,"  and  not  impro 
bably  the  residence  of  the  Israelites  who  remained  in 
Babylon.  This  reading-is  favoured  by  the  name  Harut 
and  JMarrit  given  to  the  mound  by  the  natives,  from  a 
tradition,  that  near  the  foot  of  the  ruin  there  is  an  in 
visible  pit,  where  D'Herbelot  relates  that  the  rebellious 
people  are  hung  with  their  heels  upwards  until  the 
day  of  judgment  (Ainsworth,  RcseaTelies  iii  Atxi/rift, 
ItW}.  The  sides  of  the  mound  P.abel,  called  by  Rich 
Mnjelebeh,  face  the  cardinal  points.  Near  the  summit. 
on  the  western  side,  is  a  low  wall  of  unburned  bricks, 
mixed  with  chopped  straw  or  reeds,  and  having  between 


every  course  of  bricks  a  layer  of  reeds.  The  whole  is 
cemented  with  clay  mortar.  On  the  north  side  similar 
remains  may  he  traced,  and  the  south-west  angle  is 
surmounted  by  a  species  of  turret.  In  the  northern 
face  is  a  recess,  whence  a  passage  branches  off',  sloping 
upwards  in  a  westerly  direction.  Upon  excavating 
here  Mr.  .Rich  arrived  at  a  hollow  pier  (J<»  feet  square, 
lined  with  brick  cemented  with  bitumen,  and  filled  with 
earth,  the  whole  corresponding  with  Strabo's  descrip 
tion  of  the  hollow  piers  which  supported  the  hanging 
gardens,  and  which  received  trees  of  the  largest  si/.e 
(we,  (intc).  Rich  also  discovered,  in  a  continuation  of 
this  passage,  in  an  easterly  direction,  a  wooden  coffin 
containing  a  skeleton.  A  little  farther  on  the  skeleton 
of  a  child  was  found,  whence  it  has  been  surmised  that 
the  Mnjelebeh  was  a  pyramidal  tomb  for  the  dead,  but 
I  Ainsworth  conjectures  that  it  was  an  ancient  temple 
of  Belus. 

The  sculptures,  inscribed  bricks,  and  glazed  and 
coloured  tiles  found  at  the  Kasr,  have  caused  it  to  be 
generally  regarded  as  the  site  of  the  large  palace  cele 
brated  for  its  hanging  gardens.  (  leneral  Chesney  says 
(Kxp.  to  Enpli.  and  T/</.  ii.  (H5),  that  in  IS:'.!  there 
was  a  passage  under  the  Kasr  formed  with  bricks  in 
the  manner  of  a  modern  vault  :  but  in  1S3G  the  bricks 
composing  this  part  of  the  ruins  were  entirely  removed. 
This  he  believed  to  be  the  remnant  of  the  tunnel  or 
subterraneous  communication  between  the  two  palaces 
(I)iod.  Sic.  book  ii.  c.  ix.)  From  the  portions  of 


The  Mujelebeh.— Rich's  Memoir  on  Babylon. 


wall  still  standing,  and  from  the  surrounding  detached 
masses,  it  would  appear  that  all  the  bricks  used  were 
baked,  and  that  the  face  of  each  was  invariably  placed 
downwards.  It  was  in  this  mound  that  .Rich  found  a 
rudely  executed  lion  of  colossal  dimensions.  Chesney 
observes  that  on  a  careful  examination  it  appears  to  be 
an  elephant  crushing  a  man  beneath  his  ponderous 
weight.  A  portion  of  the  back  may  be  distinguished  : 
but  the  space  cut  out  of  the  back  for  the  howdah  leaves 
no  doubt  that  an  elephant  was  represented  (ii.  (5 3 11). 
On  the  north  side  of  the  Kasr  stands  the  solitary  tree 
called  by  the  Arabs  Atheleh,  and  which,  notwith 
standing  its  great  antiquity,  still  bears  spreading  green 
branches.  According  to  tradition,  it  sheltered  the 
caliph  Ali  when  sinking  with  fatigue  after  the  battle 
of  Hillah.  The  Atheleh  is  the  ^Tamarisk  oriental!*. 
Rich  says,  by  mistake,  lifjnum  ritie.  It  is  very  com 
mon  in  Egypt. 

The  mound  called  Amram  Ibn  Ali  has  been  plausi 
bly  identified  with  the  western  palace.  The  foregoing 
three  groups  of  mounds  were  all  inclosed  by  ridges 


and  mounds  of  rampnrts  forming  two  lines  of  de 
fence  in  the  shape  of  a  triangle,  of  which  the  mound 
of  P.abel,  called  by  Rich  the  Mujelebeh,  was  one 
solid  angle  ;  the  other  beyond  Amram,  and  the  third 
to  the  east.  The  fourth  quarter  is  marked  in  its 
central  space  by  the  mound  Al-Heimar.  or  Haiinir.  an 
isolated  eminence  having  a  superficies  of  10, <><>0  feet, 
and  an  elevation  of  44  feet,  with  a  ruin  on  the  summit 
8  feet  high  (Ainsworth').  Al-Heimar  on  the  east,  and 
Birs  Nimroud  on  the  south,  form  two  corners  of  avast 
square  (Loftus).  Within,  the  date-groves  of  Hillah  are 
mounds  indicating  the  existence  of  older  foundations, 
and  which  may  eventually  prove  to  be  a  portion  of  the 
lost  western  half  of  ancient  Babylon  (Loftus).  It  is 
said,  that  in  the  time  of  Alexander,  antique  monuments 
abounded  in  the  Lamlum  marshes,  which  are  1G  miles 
south  of  Babylon;  and  Arrian  says  that  the  monuments 
or  tombs  of  the  Assyrian  kings  were  reported  to  lie 
placed  in  the  marshes ;  a  report  nearly  substantiated 
by  the  fact  that  Messrs.  Fraser  and  Ross  found  glazed 
earthenware  coffins  on  some  of  the  existing  mounds. 


BABYLON 

Beyond  Sariit,  and  below  Kut  Amarah,  are  the  ruins 
of  a  bridge  of  masonry  over  the  Tigris,  which  bridge 
was  probably  on  the  line  of  road  attributed  to  Semi- 
ramis.  At  Teib  the  road  joins  a  causeway  of  consider 
able  length,  and  it  possibly  terminated  at  or  near  Tel 
Heiniar  (Ainsworth).  In  the  excavation  of  these 
mounds  tens  of  thousands  of  bricks  have  been  found,  all 
stamped  with  the  combination  of  characters  which  has 
been  read  as  Nebuchadnezzar.  Rawlinson  says  "that 
every  ruin,  from  some  distance  north  of  Bagdad,  as  far 
south  as  the  Birs  Nimroud,  is  of  the  age  of  Nebuchad 
nezzar.  I  have  examined  the  bricks  in  aitu,  belonging 
perhaps  to  one  hundred  different  towns  and  cities  within 
this  area  of  about  lUO  miles  in  length,  and  I  JO  or  4<>  in 
breadth,  and  I  never  found  any  other  legend  than  that 
of  Nebuchadnezzar,  son  of  Nabopalasar,  kiii'j;  of 
Babylon." 

Since  Darius  destroyed  the  walls  of  Babylon.  2:UiO 
years  ago,  the  ruins  have  been  a  never-failing  brick 
field,  city  after  city  being  b-.iiit  from  its  materials. 
Seleucia  by  the  Creeks.  ( 'tesiphon  by  the  I'arthiaiis, 
Al  Meidan  by  the  Persians,  Kut'a.  Kerbella  by  the 
Caliphs,  Ilillah,  Ballad,  besides  innumerable  towns, 
villages.  \c..  have  all  arisen  in  succession  from  the 
ruins  of  the  mighty  Babylon.  The  floods  of  the  Ku 
phrates  have  assisted  in  disintegrating  and  burying  the 
remains,  until  no  single  locality  recorded  in  history  can 
as  yet  I..-  identiti.  .1  with  certainty. 

The  modern  town  of  Iliilah.  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Kuphrates.  occupii  s  nearly  the  centre  of  the  southern 
part  of  the  old  inelosuns.  It  is  surrounded  by  mud 
walls  and  a  deep  ditch,  and  has  four  uates.  The  popu 
lation  now  is  from  IHMIH  to  I.MIHO.  in.-hnlin'j-  a  con 
siderable  number  of  .lews.  In  the  time  of  Benjamin 
of  Tudela,  llillah  contained  lo.ooo  .lews  and  four 
syna--ounies.  <>pp,-rt  says.  ••'Ibis  town  was  built  in 
the  el.  veiith  century,  when  the  Kuphrates,  wlii.-h.  since 
the  fifth  century  of  our  era,  had  taken  another-  direction, 
re-entered  its  old  Clialda-an  bed.  It  is  the  i-ustuin  of 
the  oriental  people  to  settle  on  ruim ;  so  that  most  of 
their  cities,  and  all  kubbets  and  worship-places  occupy 
the  sites  of  more  ancient  building.  The  Mahometan 
city  of  llillah  was  built,  from  Babylonian  materials, 
and  I  dare  say,  then-  is  not  a  single  room  where  a  brick 
might  not  be  seen  .-tamped  with  the  nan..-  ,,f  \.-bu- 
chadne/./.ar."  The  Kuphrates  at  llillah  in  its  medium 
state  is  4".M  feet  wide,  and  71  feel  deep.  Its  mean 
v.-locity  is  '_'.}  miles  an  hour.  It  annually  overflows 
its  banks,  inundating  tin-  surrounding  country  for  many 
miles,  and  filling  the  canals  with  which  it  i-  inter 
sected.  The  soil  is  extremely  fertile,  and  the  air  salu 
brious. 

[Xiebuhr.  ('„,/,<,/.•  , ,;  A, •«!,;,•,  ii.  2:!4-'2:?7  ;  Hainv,,]f  s  TV,',-,/.?, 
l'<74,  Arc.;  Kennel's  Cm,,.  //,,-.  j.  4.-,;i,  £,;.;  Mi-nan's  Trrinls  in 
f!,nl<li.'«:  Kinnear;  lii.-li.  .V,  ,„,.<;•„„  t/,,_  R,,;,,.i  „/ Jl,,/, „/,-,,,,  ISIiii; 
Ker  Porter's  Tru,-:!.-;  ISL-J;  Ainswortli'K  K,^» „,;•!„«,  ls:;s;  Fraser's 
in  K'nii-'lii/i'ii,  IslO;  Cesc-niiirt  in  the  I '//,/. 7, ,«,/,',  of  Krseh 
ami  C.niber;  ]Ieeren.  hhm  :  Winer,  />',' ',/;..-,•/,,.,•  R.,,1  ]\T,,-t,  ,-/,,„•/,,• 
rioseimiuller,  /)','//';..,•/,,  All,  i-il,, (,,,.-ktiii'li- :  \Vhal,  *V>  .»•,-/,  ;<•/,/,,  ,/,•,- 
M<  r,i.  S/.r.:  T.ayar.l's  f)i«,-o,;  r!?g  in  tke  Jin!,,*  of  Smmh  «  «d 

1S5-1 ;  Tninstirtio,,'*  of  //,»/„/  Asiatic  Society  and  Royal  Sorifty'nf 
Literature.}  r.r.  ,..  |  ' 

BABYLON.  SYMBOLICAL,  or  MYSTICAL. 
Babylon  in  this  sense  occurs  only  in  the  book  of  Reve 
lation.  Romish  writers  generally,  and  some  also  among 
Protestants,  would  understand  the  expression  in  1  Pe. 

v.    13.   ''The  church  at  Babylon,  elected  together   with 
Vol..  I. 


'  BABYLON 

you,"  of  Babylon  in  a  mystical  sense,  namely  of  pagan 
Rome.  But  this  is  against  all  probability.  There  is 
no  conceivable  reason  why  Peter  should  have  disguised 
under  such  a  figurative  appellation  the  place  from 
which  he  wrote  his  epistle;  and  in  an  epistle  remarka 
ble  for  its  simplicity  and  directness  of  speech,  it  would 
have  been  a  sort  of  anomaly  to  fall  at  its  close  upon  a 
symbolical  designation  of  his  place  of  reside  nee,  for 
which  the  epistle  itself  could  furnish  no  key.  and  which 
is  also  without  parallel  in  any  of  the  other  epistles  of 
the  Mew-  Testament.  The  Apocalypse  differs  from 
these  portions  of  Scripture,  in  being  written  through 
out  in  symbolical  language;  and  it  was  therefore  per 
fectly  natural  that,  among  other  appropriations  of  an 
cient  names  and  relations  to  indicate  things  of  a  cor 
responding  nature  in  Christian  times,  Babylon,  which 
played  so  important  a  part  in  the  history  of  the  cove 
nant-people,  should  have  found  a  place.  Even  when 
introduced  there  it  is  accompanied  with  a  note  of  ex- 
'  planation  as  to  the  sen--  in  which  it  is  to  be  taken, 
I  "  Upon  her  (i.e.  the  whore's)  forehead  was  a  name 
written.  MysrKK-i,  BABYLON  mi:  CKKAT,  the  mother 
of  harlots  and  abominations  of  the  earth,"  De.  xvii. ;,. 
The  name  is  thus  avowedly  employed  as  a  mystical 
de-illation  of  a  party,  personified  as  a  woman  of  loose 
character,  of  an  arrogant  and  blasphemous  spirit, 
persecuting'  the  saints  of  Cod,  and  exercising  a  corrupt 
and  dominant  influence  over  the  kingdoms  of  tin;  earth 
(represented  by  her  sitting  upon  the  beast  with  seven 
heads  and  ten  horns,  the  symbol  of  the  worldly  powers, 
\vr. :;);  and  so  employed,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  avoid 
thinking  of  a  degenerate  and  virtually  apostate  church, 
which,  in.-tead  of  continuing,  what  she  had  at  first  ap 
peared  to  the  apocalypti-t.  as  a  chaste  woman,  flying  to 
a  place  of  refuge  in  order  to  preserve  her  fidelity  to 
Cod  and  freedom  from  worldly  pollution,  ch.  xii  1,14,  had 
gradually  become  changed  in  her  position  and  char 
acter,  so  as.  like  Babylon  of  old.  to  contain  indeed 
within  b.-r  the  true  seed  of  Cod,  but  to  act  unfaithfully 
and  oppressively  towards  them,  the  corrupt.-!-  of  their 
virtue,  and  while  professing  to  be  a  friend,  in  reality 
the  most  dangerous  and  determined  enemy  of  their  true 
interest.  This  natural  impression  of  the  symbolical 
meaning  is  confirmed,  and  rendered  in  a  manner  cer 
tain,  by  th'-  place  wh,  re  thi-  corrupt  pi  r-onai;o.  bear 
ing  the  name  of  mystical  Babylon,  was  descried  by 
St.  John  namely,  in  the  wilderness,  th.  xvii.3,  the  most 
unsuitable  place  to  look  for  a  reigning  political  power, 
or  an  earthly  cit\  viewed  as  the  seat  and  centre  of 
worldly  dominion,  but  the  exact  .and  proper  locality, 
if  tin-  party  thus  represented  was  a  spiritual  power, 
and  a  power  historically  connected  with  that  which 
had  been  before  seen  flying  info  the  wilderness — al 
though  meanwhile  sadly  transformed  as  regards  its 
own  state  and  its  relation  to  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world.  Such  characteristics  cannot  by  any  fair  inter 
pretation  be  considered  as  meeting  in  pagan  Rome, 
but  they  do  most  palpably  meet  in  papal  Rome ;  not, 
however,  the  city  so  called,  but  the  system  of  corrupt 
and  heathenized  Christianity  of  which  the  pope  is 
the  head  and  representative.  The  representation,  un 
doubtedly,  has  its  grandest  historical  embodiment 
there,  yet  not  its  only  one;  for  wherever  the  profes 
sedly  Christian  church  has  fallen  from  its  purity  of 
faith  and  practice,  has  imbibed  the  spirit  of  the  world, 
and  opposed  and  persecuted  the  true  people  of  Cod, 
there  also  is  to  IK;  seen  the  sad  and  mournful  spectacle 

23 


178 


15  ACS 


of  tin:  woman  having  become  an  harlot,  or  Jerusalem 
transformed  into  a  Babylon. 

BACA  \n:n'piii<j!  in ni />/',->•//-! rcc'f].  THK  YAUJ-:Y  OF, 
p.s.  ixxxiv.  i>,  is  imt  kim\vii  ill  any  way  except  as  mentioned 
in  this  passage.  It  may  mean  "  the  valley  of  weeping," 
and  so  \\ould  answer  to  such  a  place  as  Bochim,  .lu.ii..'.. 
Whether  it  refers  to  any  actually  existing  valli-y  in 
particular,  such  as  that  \alky  with  mulberry-trees  (ac 
cording  to  our  v<  rsion),  2  Sa.  v.  a::,  in  which  1  >avid  over 
threw  tin:  PhilUtines.  is  altogether  uncei-tain.  It  may 
lie  a-  mere  ]M-rsoiiitieation  of  a  moral  slate,  .-mil  may 
describe  the  faith  and  [)atience  of  the  pilgrims  \\iio 
travelled  through  any  iln  ary  or  desert  portion  of  the  way 
with  chcerfuliies,-..  as  they  journeyed  onwards  to  appear 
liet'ore  ( .od  in  /ion.  This  is  certainly  the  use  which 
Christians  nio.-t  justilialily  m:ike  of  the  passage  in  re 
ference  to  their  own  pilgrimage  to  the  Jerusalem  which 
is  above.  In  the  version  of  the  English  Prayer  Book, 
it  is  "'  the:  vale  of  miser}'.'' 

BADGER;  the  English  rendering  of  «'h.%  (tachask), 

an  animal  whose  skin  was  employed  for  the  outer 
covering  of  the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  Kx.xxvi.&o., 
as  well  as  for  protecting  the  ark  of  testimony,  the  table, 
the  candle>!ii  k.  the  golden  altar,  the  instruments  of 
ministrv,  and  the  altar  of  burnt- offering,  Nu.  iv.,  during 
the  transport  of  these  from  place  to  place.  That  the 
same  skin  was  us.  d  for  making  shoes,  probably  of  deli 
cate  texture  for  Indies,  appears  from  Kze.  xvi.  ]  (.1.  where 
Jelio\ah.  pathetically  setting  forth  the  ingratitude  of 
Jerusalem  under  the  figure  of  a  delicate  and  beautiful 
woman  whom  he  had  brought  up  from  infancy,  savs, 
'•'1  shod  thee  with  tar/nttt/t.  skin."' 

That  no  animal  corresponding  to  the  badger  is  in 
tended  is  universally  admitted  by  competent  judges. 
There  is  no  such  animal  in  Syria.  Arabia,  or  Egypt ;  and 
if  there  were,  it  would  bo  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  suf 
ficient  number  of  the  skins  of  so  small  and  solitary  an 
animal  could  have  been  found  in  the  possession  of  the 
Israelites  on  their  exodus  from  Egypt,  to  meet  the  re- 


1 101. 1       Tacliaitze— A  ntilope  barbata. 

quirements  of  the  tabernacle  and  all  its  furniture.  It 
becomes  then  a  matter  of  interest  to  inquire  what 
was  the  tarJxixJi. 

Two  identifications  have  been  proposed,  each  of  which 
has  considerable  plausibility,  both  on  the  ground  of 
etymology  and  on  that  of  local  abundance.  The  first 
of  these  would  make  it  a  kind  of  whale  common  ill  the 


Ived  Sea.  Thevenot  speaks  of  a  kind  of  sea- man,  which 
is  taken  near  the  port  of  Tor.  "  Jt  is  a  great  strong  fish, 
and  hath  two  hands,  which  are  like  the  hands  of  a  man, 
saving  that  the  lingers  are  joined  together  with  a  skin, 
like  the  foot  of  a  goose  ;  hut  the  skin  of  the  fish  is  like 
tilt:  skin  of  a,  wild  goat  or  chamois.  "When  they  spy 
that  fish,  they  strike  him  on  the  back  with  harping  irons, 
as  they  do  whales,  and  so  kill  him.  They  use  the  skin 
of  it  for  making  buck!,  rs,  which  are  musket-proof.'' 
Niebuhr  adds  the  information  that  ''a  merchant  of 
Abushahr  called  I/H/HIX/I  that  fish  which  the  captains 
of  Kngli'-h  ships  call  j/firjinixf."  The  same  traveller 
reports  that  he  saw  prodigious  schools  of  these  animals 
swimming.  Professor  Uiippell  ascertained  by  personal 
examination,  that  the  creature  in  question  was  a  sort  of 
during,  a,  genus  of  marine  Pachydermata,  to  which  he 
gave  the  name  nf  Halicore  talicrnaculi,  from  a  convic 
tion  that  it  was  the  tackash  of  .Moses.  It  grows  to 

eighteen  feet  in  length. 

Certainly  many  of  the  requisite  conditions  are  satis 
fied  by  this  identification:  an  animal  bearing  the  same 
name — daJtash=:tachash—oi  large  size,  existing  in 
prodigious  numbers,  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the 
wilderness  of  Sinai,  whose  skin  is  habitually  used  in  the 
arts.  And  yet  tlr-re  seems  an  insuperable  objection  to 
it.  Of  those  creatures  that  were  ceremonially  unclean, 
it  was  ordained,  that  any  part  of  their  carcass  touching 
man.  or  anv  vessel,  should  render  it  unclean.  Now, 
the  Ilalicore  m:i:  r  certainly  have  come  into  this  eate- 
gorv,  for  it  was  decreed  "All  that  have  not  fins  nor 
scales  in  the  seas,  .  .  .  they  shall  be  an  abomina 
tion  unto  you,''  Le.  xi.  i".  To  suppose,  therefore,  that 
the  tabernacle,  and  its  most  holy  vessels,  the  ark  of 
the  covenant,  the  altars.  c\:c..  were  habitually  COM  red 
with  the  skin  of  an  abomination,  is  utterly  impossible. 

Another  suggestion  is  made  by  Colonel  H.  Smith,  to 
which  we  are  inclined  to  accede.  He  says,  "Negroland 
and  Central  and  Eastern  Africa  contain  a  number  of 
ruminating  animal-!  of  the  great  antelope  family  ;  they 
are  known  to  the  natives  under  various  names,  such  as 
pacassc,  cmpacasst,  thacafse,  facassc,  and  tachaitzc, 
all  more  or  less  varieties  of  the  word  tachasli:  they  are 
of  considerable  size,  often  of  slaty  and  purple  gray  co 
lours,1  and  might  be  termed  stag-goats  and  ox-goats. 
Of  th''S'!  one  or  more  occur  in  the  hunting  scenes  on 
Egyptian  monuments;  and  therefore  we  may  conclude 
that  the  skins  were  accessible  in  abundance,  and  may 
have  been  dressed  with  the  hair  011  for  coverings  ot 
bau'c-!'age,  and  for  boots,  such  as  we  see  worn  by  the 
human  figures  in  the  same  processions.  Thus  we  have 
the  greater  number  of  the  conditions  of  the  question 
snUicientlv  '-eali/.ed  to  enable  us  to  draw  the  inference 
that  t'ifJta;:Ji  refers  to  a  ruminant  of  the  aigocerine  or 
damalinc  groups,  most  likely  of  an  iron-gray  or  slaty 
coloured  species.  -  [r.  H.  o.] 

BAGS.  Scripture  mentions  a  peculiar  use  of  bags, 
which  has  prevailed  down  to  this  day  in  the  East,  for 
holding  money.  The  currency  being  chiefly  or  wholly 
in  silver,  it  has  become  of  importance,  both  for  pay 
ments  to  government,  and  for  ordinary  transactions 
between  individuals,  to  have  large  sums  ready  counted, 
and  sealed  up  in  a  bag;  and  as  long  as  the  known  seal 
continues  unbroken,  these  bags  are  passed  from  hand 
to  hand  with  pert'. -et  confidence  as  containing  the  money 


BAHURIM  1 

which  they  are  alleged  to  do.  The  practice  has  been 
traced  back  to  that  remote  antiquity  to  which  the 
monuments  of  Egypt  belong,  and  we  have  no  reason  to 
think  that  it  was  unusual  among  the  Jews.  Xaamau 
bound  two  talents  of  silver  in  two  bags  for  Cehazi, 
2Ki.  v.  2:;.  The  scribe  of  king  Joash  and  the  high- 
priest  bound  up  (in  the  margin  of  our  version;  well 
rendered  ''put  up  in  bags"  in  the  text  itself),  and  told 
or  counted  the  money  that  was  found  in  the  house  of 
the  Lord,  2  Ki.  xii.  10.  But  as  even  these  bags  do  not  last 
forever,  our  Lord  bids  us  "provide  bags  which  wax 
not  old,"  J.u.  xii. :!.-!. 

BAHU'RIM  [youths].  Apparently  this  place  was 
not  far  from  Jerusalem  in  an  easterly  direction,  as  it  is 
named  in  close  connection  with  Enrogel  and  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  and  as  Shimei,  v%ho  belonged  to  it,  was  of 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin.  It  is  repeatedly  mentioned  in 
the  hi.-tory  of  David,  2Sa.  iii.  i>;;  xvi.5;  xvii.  i-  One  of  his 
officers,  A/.maveth,  was  a  Baharumite,  1  ch.  xi. :;;;,  or 
Barhumite,  as  it  is  written.  2Sa.xxiii.:  t. 
BAKE.  6'ee  BKEAU. 

BA'LAAM  [not  a  people,  perhaps  implying  a?i  alien, 
compare  .Lo-ammi,  Ho.  i.  u,  so  CJesenius  ;  or  destructive 
to  a  jKM^i-,  according  to  Sinionis],  a  remarkable-  sooth 
sayer,  whose  history  is  given  in  Nu.  xxii.-xxiv.  lie 
belonged  to  Aram  or  Syria,  the  mountains  of  the  east, 
was  the  son  of  I  n-or  or  Bosor.  2Pe.ii.lji,  and  dwelt  at 
"  1'ethor,  which  is  by  the  river  of  the  land  of  the  children 
of  his  people;"  from  which  expressions  it  has  be. -n 
thought  probable  that  he  came  from  the  countries  watered 
by  the  Tigris  or  the  L'uphrate>  :  as,  indeed,  hisconntrv  is 
said  to  have  been  Mesopotamia,  Uu.  xxiii.  4,  it  mav  lie 
from  the  very  country  of  Abraham.  I" rot'  the  Chald-es, 
since  the  Chaldeans  were  always  famous  among  ancient 
nations  for  th-ir  .-kill  in  divining.  \\'h<  n  the  Moabites 
became  alarmed  at  tin:  appearance  of  the  Israelites 
among  them,  on  their  way  from  Kgvpt  to  Canaan, 
Balak  the  king  of  Moab  twice  sent  an  urgent  request 
by  some  of  his  chief  nobles,  and  rendered  it  the  more 
effective  by  the  promise  of  gifts  and  honours,  to  induce 
Balaam  to  come  and  curse  this  people,  that  so  ho 
might  prevail  against  them.  The  first  time  I'.alaam 
was  expressly  forbidden  by  the  Lord  to  go,  and  accord 
ingly  he  refused  ;  the  second  time  lie  received  permis 
sion  to  go.  either  a  permission  given  in  anger  on  account 
of  his  importunity,  or  a  permission  resting  upon  some 
condition  \\hich  he  disregarded,  rh  xxii.  20,  21.  Since  he 
went  thus  perversely,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  met  him 
in  the  way.  resisted  him.  rebuked  him  b\-  making  his 
ass  speak,  2  IV.  ii.  !>;,  and  finally  permitted  him  to  go 
forward  only  with  a  spirit  thoroughly  humbled  and 
prepared  to  adhere  most  scrupulously  to  what  the  Lord 
should  put  into  his  month.  Much  needless  ridicule  ha- 
beeii  directed  by  unbelievers  against  the  account  of 
I'.alaam  and  his  ass  ;  and  apologists  for  the  truth  of  the  , 
P.ibk:  have  sometimes  been  led  to  explain  the  transac 
tion  as  a  vision.  Hut  the  plain  historical  statement 
need  give  no  trouble  to  those  who  believe  that  the 
serpent  spoke  with  Kve :  if  one  creature  was  made  to 
speak  as  the  instrument  of  Satan,  another  might  well 
do  the  same  as  an  instrument  of  the  great  Angel  of  the  ' 
Covenant. 

Balaam  did  go  forward  to  Balak  and  built  altars, 
certainly  the  first  time,  and  probably  on  the  subsequent 
occasions,  at  the  high  places  of  Baal,  and  offered  sacri 
fices,  and  used  enchantments.  But  four  times  he  ut 
tered  prophecies,  which  are  among  the  noblest  and 


!'  BALANCE 

J  dLstinetest  in  .Scripture,  bearing  testimony  to  the  calling 
of  Israel  to  be  the  chosen  people  of  Jehovah,  to  the 
|  blessings  which  were  in  store  for  them,  and  which  no 
enchantment,  or  curse,  or  force,  could  take  from  them, 
to  the  rise  of  the  Star  out  of  Jacob,  and  to  the  destruc 
tion  of  all  his  enemies.  Balak  seems  to  have  parted 
from  him  in  the  utmost  displeasure,  and  lie  went  back 
to  his  own  place,  Xu.  xxiv.  10-13,25.  But  somehow  he 
must  have  been  induced  to  return  to  Balak.  for  it  was 
with  him  that  the  contrivance  originated  hv  which  the 
Israelites  brought  a  curse  upon  themselves,  lie.  ii.  14. 
(See  B.YAl.-i'KiiiO.  And  he  met  his  death  by  the  sword 
among  the  .Midianites  \\hom  the  children  of  Israel  de 
stroyed,  when  they  had  returned  to  the  Cod  of  their 
fathers,  and  had  been  directed  by  him  to  take  vengeance 
on  their  seducers,  \u.  \.\\i.  \  u;;  .j(,s.  xiii.  21,  2J. 

There  are  difficulties  in  Balaam's  historv  which 
canned  now  be  fully  removed:  in  particular,  that  so 
worthless  a  man  should  seem  to  be  a  prophet  of  Je- 
hovah,  and  ,-hould  actually  be  the  mouth-piece  of  four 
prophecies  which  hold  a  remarkable  place  in  the  pages 
oi  >cripfure.  I 'el-hap.-  we  may  say  th'..-  much  in  partial 
explanation,  that  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah  in  patriarchal 
times,  as  appears  from  the  cases  of  M,  Ichiscdcc,  and  Job, 
and  Jcthro.  survived  to  some  degree  amidst  general 
corruption  and  idolatry  ;  that  such  also  was  the  case  in 
the  native  country  of  Abraham,  which,  in  its  moral 
and  religious  condition.  was  certainly  superior  to  Canaan 
and  the  surrounding  districts.  Gc  xxiv.  :i,  4;  xxvii.li;;  that 
Halaam  may  have  had  this  head-Kiiowledg,  to  a  large 
extent,  and  may  have  prided  him-elf  on  it,  while  it  had 
no  proper  influence  on  his  heart,  while,  in  fact,  on  the 
contrary,  he  was  turning  it  to  the  pui'po.-es  of  those 
who  think  that  gain  is  godliness,  by  trading  with  the 
name  of  the  great  Cod  in  his  practice  of  divination. 
•2  IV.  ii.  l{-it;;  .lu.lcll;  that  Cod  was  pleased  to  use  this  un 
godly  man  to  bear  witness  to  the  cause  of  truth,  and 
to  the  interests  of  his  (  hoseii  and  Anointed,  when  the 
church  was  passing  from  it.-  patriarchal  to  its  Mosaic 
form,  as  again  he  was  pleased  to  call  in  such  witness 
from  without  in  the  case  of  ( 'aiaphas.  when  the  church 
was  passing  from  its  Mosaic  to  its  Christian  form, 
.Fn.  xi.  m-jL1;  that  the  extolled  bier-sing  of  tins  (  neinv  was 
peculiarly  encouraging  to  the  [sraelites  in  1  heir  diflicult 
p'>.-iti(iii  ;  and  th:it.  finally,  he  set  up  this  man  as  a 
beacon,  to  \\arn  mankind  in  all  time  coming  of  the 
awful  ruin  which  impends  over  the  heads  of  those  who 
han. lie  the  Word  of  Cod  deceitfully,  and  speak  in  his 
name,  while  they  have  no  per.-onal  interest  in  his  cove 
nant  which  they  take  into  their  month.  [<;.  C.  M.  1).] 
BA'LADAX.  Ne  MKKODACH-BALADAN. 
BA'LAK  \>,i<j>tii\.  He  was  the  son  of  Xippor.  and 
the  king  of  .Moab  at  the  time  that  the  l.-radites  were 
passing  by  his  country  to  take  possession  of  the  land  of 
Canaan.  (  For  the  particular.-  of  his  history,  see  the 
article  I'.AI.AAM.)  It  appears  from  Jn.  xi.  li."i.  that  he 
consented  to  let  the  Israelites  alone,  however  unwill 
ingly  he  may  have  done  so,  when  he  found  that  Balaam 
positively  refused  to  curse  them.  This  exactly  agrees 
with  the  language  of  his  invitation  to  the  soothsayer, 
NIL  xxii.  <;.  In  Jos.  xxiv.  !»  he  is  said  to  have  arisen  and 
warred  against  Israel;  yet  this  is  explained  as  consist 
ing  in  his  sending  and  calling  for  Balaam. 

BALANCE.  That  a  balance  with  scale's  was  early 
known  to  the  Hebrews,  and  in  frequent  use,  is  evident 
from  the  familiar  references  to  it  in  Old  Testament 
Scripture,  Le.  xix.  :;r;;  J,,b  vi.  2;  xx.xi.  c;  iio.  xii.  7,  io.  No  in- 


P.ALANCK 


180 


UALDNKSS 


dieation,  however,  is  anywhere  given  of  the  kind  of 
instrument  employed  ;  and,  as  in  such  mutters  the 
Hebrews  were  imitators  rather  than  inventors,  the 
natural  supposition  is.  that  the  common  balance  of 
Kgypt  was  that  also  commonly  employed  amongst  them. 
Of  this  we  are  furnished  by  Lepsius  \\it\i  a  representa 
tion  from  an  Egyptian  tomb,  in  which  a  person  appears 


to  be  weighing  rings  of  gold  or  silver,  with  weights  in 
the  form  of  a  bull's  head. 

Another  specimen  has  been  given  by  Wilkinson  from 
the  monuments  of  Thebes;  concerning  which  he  says, 
"The  principle  of  it  was  simple  and  ingenious;  the 
beam  passed  through  a  ring  suspended  from  a  horizon 
tal  rod,  immediately  above  and  parallel  to  it,  and, 
when  equally  balanced,  the  ring,  which  was  large 
enough  to  allow  the  beam  to  play  freely,  showed  when 
the  scales  were  equallv  poised,  and  had  the  additional 
effect  of  preventing  tin:  beam  tilting  when  the  goods 
were  taken  out  of  one  and  the  weights  suffered  to  re 
main  in  the  other.  To  the  lower  part  of  the  ring  a 
small  plummet  was  fixed  ;  and  this  being  touched  by 
the  hand,  and  found  to  hang  freely,  indicated,  without 
the  necessity  of  looking  at  the  beam,  that  the  weight 
was  just"  (Anc.  Egyptians,  iii.  240).  There  are  still 


H03.J    Assyrian  Balance,  from  Sculptures  at  Khorsabad.-  Layard. 

other  specimens,  one  in  particular  of  a  balance  used  for 
weighing  gold  or  other  metals,  in  which  the  cross  beam 
turned  upon  a  pin  at  the  summit  of  the  upright  pole, 
and,  instead  of  strings  suspending  the  scales,  there  was 
an  arm  on  either  side  terminating  in  a  hook,  to  which 


the  precious  metal  was  attached  in  small  bags.  The 
Assyrian  monuments  furnish  another  example,  which 
exhibits,  however,  nothing  peculiar  in  structure,  and 
seems  to  represent  warriors  bearing  away  in  triumph 
the  idols  of  the  conquered  nations,  or  breaking  them 
in  pieces,  and  dividing  the  fragjnents. 

In  a  figurative  respect,  the  balance  is  usually  em 
ployed  in  Scripture  as  an  emblem  of  justice  and  fair 
dealing,  for  example,  Ji>i>  xxxi.  C;  J'.s.  ixii.  it;  1'r.  xi.  i;  but  in 
one  passage,  a  pair  of  balances  or  scales  appears  to  be 
taken  as  an  imago  of  scarcity,  betokening  that  provi 
sions  would  need  to  lie  weighed  out  with  scrupulous 
care  and  economy,  RU.  vi.  5.  Other  interpretations  of 
the  symbol  have  been  given,  but  that  now  adverted  to 
is  so  much  the  most  natural,  that  it  has  received  the 
support  of  all  the  better  expositors. 

BALD  LOCUST  [cy^,     soldm],     some  insect    of 

the  orthopterous  order,  and  probably  of  the  family 
Gryllida,',  the  use  of  which  as  food  is  permitted  to 
Israel  in  Le.  xi.  ~2'2.  In  eases  like  this,  where  onlv  the 
bare  appellation  of  some  animal  is  given,  occurring  no 
where  else  in  Scripture,  the  attempt  to  identify  it  is 
almost  hopeless.  The  effort  to  elicit  the  meaning  by 
seeking  out  the  Hebrew  root  generally  ends  in  disap 
pointment :  or  if  it  satisfies  the  investigator,  it  usually 
satisfies  no  one  else.  The  Septuagint  translation  some 
times  affords  help;  but  in  the  present  case,  much  depend 
ence  cannot  be  placed  on  the  traditional  meaning  of 
an  obscure  term  some  fourteen  centuries  old.  It  here 
renders  the  word  by  drraKos.  about  which  we  have 
scarcely  any  more  certainty  than  about  the  original. 
All  we  can  conjecture  is  that,  since  it  is  included  among 
' '  the  flying  creeping  things  that  go  upon  all  four,  which 
have  legs  above  their  feet,  to  leap  withal  upon  the 
earth"'- -a  graphic  definition  of  the  locust  tribe — it  is 
no  doubt  some  one  of  the  very  numerous  species  of  this 
family,  which  abound  during  the  dry  season  in  Western 
Asia. 

The  field  which  we  regard  as  most  likely  to  yield 
fruit  in  this  line  of  investigation  is  as  yet  almost  un 
tried.  If  an  observant  and  careful  naturalist  were  to 
collect  the  specimens  of  natural  history  in  Palestine  and 
the  neighbouring  countries,  procuring  the  local  names 
by  which  they  are  known  in  the  Syriac,  Arabic,  Turk 
ish,  and  other  languages,  and  doing  this,  not  by  one  or 
two  inquiries,  but  by  many,  and  in  various  localities, 
it  might  be  found  that  appellations  of  three  thousand 
years  old.  to  which  there  have  seemed  no  clue,  are  still 
extant.  [P.  H.  G.] 

BALDNESS  is  spoken  of  in  Scripture  as  a  defect 
which  seriously  interfered  with  comeliness  or  beauty  ; 
and  the  more  naturally  so.  as  the  hair  was  permitted 
in  manv  cases  to  grow  with  peculiar  luxuriance  by  way 
of  ornament.  Hence,  baldness  was  a  common  mark  of 
mourning.  Jo.  xvi.  r>;  KZO.  vii.  is,  &c.,  and  was  a  punishment 
inflicted  on  captives.  Do.  xxi.  12;  Is.  iii.  21.  It  may  have 
also  been  regarded  with  dislike,  as  affording  a  certain 
ground  for  suspicion  of  leprosy,  Le.  xiii.  40-42.  But  the 
address  of  the  mocking  younf/  people  at  Bethel  to 
Elislia,  "  Go  up,  thou  baldhead,"  2  Ki.  ii.  23,  may  denote 
nothing  more  than  their  opinion  that  he  was  old,  and 
had  been  long  enough  in  the  world,  so  might  now  go 
up  to  heaven,  as  he  alleged  that  his  master  had  gone. 
Baldness  of  itself  was  expressly  distinguished  from  the 
leprosy,  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  had  certain  points  of 
contact  with  it,  Le.  xiii.  40-44;  as  indeed  almost  all  the 


BALM   OF  GILEAD 


181 


BALM   OF  G1LEA1) 


directions  for  the  priests  \vlio  examined  a  suspected 
leper,  included  some  reference  to  the  state  of  the  hair. 
Also,  in  the  mysterious  case  of  leprosy  in  a  garment, 


Abyssinia,  the  fragrant  ivsin  of  wlu'ch  is  known  in 
commerce  as  the  ' '  balsam  of  Mecca."  Like  most  plants 
yielding  gum  or  gum-resin,  the  Amyris  requires  a  high 


one  of  the  marks  of  disease  was  a  bareness,  or,  as  the  temperature  to  elaborate  its  peculiar  principle  in  per- 
marginal  translation  more  literally  presents  the  original,  fection  ;  and  in  the  deeply  depressed  and  sultry  valleys 
a  baldness,  I.e.  xiii.  65.  The  priests  were  forbidden  to  '  of  the  Jordan  it  would  tind  a  climate  almost  as  conge- 
make  baldness  on  their  heads,  as  well  as  to  shave  off  nial  as  that  of  Yemen,  where  we  tind  it  now.  Xor  is  it 
the  corners  of  their  beards,  Le.xxi.5;  to  which  prohibi-  impossible  that  there  may  have  existed  in  Gilead  at  an 
tiou  Ezekiel  alludes,  ch.  xiiv.  ->o,  "Neither  shall  they  |  early  period  a  plantation  of  the  self -same  Amyris;  but, 
shave  their  heads,  nor  suffer  their  locks  to  grow  long:  ;  yielding  to  the  superior  qualities  of  the  queen  of  Sheba's 
they  shall  only  poll  their  heads."  The  Jewish  inter-  newly  imported  specimens,  the  growth  of  Gilead  may 
pretation  of  the  statutes  therefore  excluded  a  bald  have  become  obsolete,  and  bequeathed  its  name  and 
priest  from  ministering  at  the  altar;  though  this  must  honours  to  its  more  favoured  rival. 

be  regarded  as  an  inference  merely,  for  baldness  is  not  :  The  Ami/ris  Giliadnisis  is  an  evergreen  shrub  or 
mentioned  in  the  list  of  disqualifications,  LC.  xxi.  IMM,  tree,  belonging  to  the  natural  order  Amyridacese.  Its 
though  it  might  lie  connected  with  a  cutaneous  disease  |  height  is  about  fourteen  feet,  with  a  trunk  eight  or  ten 
which  is  named  there.  The  army  of  Nebuchadnezzar  '  inches  in  diameter.  The  wood  is  light  and  open,  and 
is  said  to  have  grown  bald  in  the  course  of  the  siege  of 
Tyre.  Eze  xxix.i-;  ),ut  this  was  appaivntly  in  consequence 
of  hardships,  perhaps  especially  the  carrying  of  heavy 
burdens  on  their  shoulders.  It  therefore  indicated 
nothing  in  the  way  of  reproach,  nor  implied  the  exist 
ence  of  disease. 

BALM  OF  GILEAD.  Our  English  word  balm, 
and  its  French  equivalent  baumc,  are  the  contracted 
form  of  Laham,  a  word  i.id.Wauoc)  which  the  Greeks 
have  adopted  from  the  Hebrew  words  >— ^  and  ««:^>, 

lord  or  cfttif  of  oil*.  }  n  ordinary  language  the  word  i> 
used  \er\  loosely,  but  here  we  are  oulv  concerned  with 
the  MiUtuncc  to  which  the  English  translation  of  the 
Bible  has  given  this  name. 

A.-  early  as  the  days  of  Jacob  the  district  of  Gilead 
yielded  aromatic  substances  which  were  in  irivat  re- 
quc.-t.  After  casting  Joseph  into  a  pit.  we  are  told 
that  his  brothers  espied  a  caravan  on  its  wav  from 
Gilead  to  Egypt,  "\\ith  their  camels  bearing  spit-cry, 
and  balm  and  myrrh."  tie.  xxxvii.  '2o.  Afterwards,  when 
Jacob  despatched  hi>  embassy  into  Egvpt.  his  present 
to  the  unknown  ruler  included  "a  little  balm,"Gu.  xliii.  n; 
aud  at  an  interval  of  more  than  IOIHI  years  later. 


we  iind   that   th«-   same   reuion  was 


.•lebrated   for 


the  same  production,  for  we  tind  Jeremiah  asking.  "  Is 
there  no  balm  in  Gileail.'"  and  from  an  expression  in 
the  prophet  Ezekiel.  we  find  still  later  that  balm  was 
one  of  the  commodities  which  lit  brew  merchants  car 
ried  to  the  market  of  Tyre,  K/e.  xxvii.  17.  In  all  these 
passages  the  original  word  is  <-\v,  tsari. 

During  the   interval,    however,    between   Jacob   and 


the  small  and  ,-cantv  leaves  resemble  rue.  After  the 
dog-days,  when  the  circulation  of  the  sap  is  most  vigor 
ous,  incisions  are  made  into  the  bark,  and  the  balsam 
is  received  in  small  earthen  bottles.  The  supply  is 
very  scanty.  Three  or  four  drops  exude  in  a  day 
through  ;l  single  orifice,  and  the  entire  amount  yielded 
by  the  gardens  of  Jericho  did  not  exceed  six  or  seven 
gallons  a  year.  When  first  exuded  the  balsam  is  of  a 
whitish  tinge,  inclining  to  yellow,  and  somewhat  turbid, 
and  its  odour  is  almost  as  pungent  as  volatile  salts: 


Jeremiah,  we  are  told   by  Jos.-phus  that  the  queen  of     but,  after  standing  some  time,  it  becomes  pellucid  and 
Sheba   brought  "the  root  of  the  balsam"  as  a  present     deepens  to  an  almo.  t  golden  colour.      With  its  gem-like 

appearance,  its  aromatic  odour,  and  its  great  rarity- — 
being  worth  twice  its  weight  in  silver --  it  has  always 
been  highly  valued  in  the  Kast  as  a  remedy.  It  is 
considered  very  efficacious  in  the  cure  of  wounds,  and 
the  Egyptians  esteem  it  as  a  preventive  of  the  plague. 
As  a  vulnerary  it  appears  to  have  lie-on  valued  in  the 
days  of  Jeremiah,  rli.  viii.  •_'•_';  and  could  it  be  procured  as 
easily  as  the  balsams  of  I'eru  arid  Tolu,  it  is  likely  that 
it  would  find  a  place  in  European  pharmacy. 

In  describing  Palestine,  Tacitus  says  that  in  all  its 
productions  it  equals  Italy,  besides  possessing  the  palm 
and  the  balsam  (//ixt.  v.  ('»);  and  the  far-famed  tree 
excited  the  cupidity  of  successive  invaders.  By  Pompev 
it  was  exhibited  in  the  streets  of  Rome  as  one  of  the 
spoils  of  the  newly  conquered  province,  B.C.  05  ;  and 


to  Solomon  (Ant!'/,  book  viii.  >j.  t;.*  :  and  tl 
no  doubt  that,  in  the  later  days  of  Jewish  history,  the 
neighbourhood  of  Jericho  was  believed  to  be  the  onlv 
spot  where  the  true  balsam  grew,  and  even  there  its 
culture  was  confined  to  two  gardens,  the  one  twenty 
acres  in  extent,  the  other  much  smaller  (Theophrastus). 
In  the  region  of  Gilead  the  only  production  now 
which  has  any  afiinity  to  balm  or  balsam  is  a  species 
of  Eheagnus,  from  the  kernels  of  which  a  balsamic  oil 
is  extracted  (Journal  of  Hi/mtatioii  of  .Malta  J'ro- 
testant  Culli't/i',  p.  4<""3);  and  even  the  balsam  gardens 
of  Jericho  have  perished  ami  left  no  trace.  There  is 
little  reason,  however,  to  doubt  that  the  plants  with 
which  they  were  stocked  were  the  Amyris  Gileadensin, 
or  A.  opijlalsanium,  which  was  found  by  Bruce  in 


BAM  A II 


BANNER 


one  of  the  wonderful  trees  graced  the  triumph  of  Ves 
pasian,  A.I).  71*.  During  the  invasion  of  Titus  two 
battles  took  place  at  the  balsam  proves  of  Jericho,  the 
last  being  to  prevent  the  Jews  ill  their  despairing 
frenzy  from  destroying  the  trees.  They  then  became 
public  properly,  and  were  placed  under  the  protection 
of  an  imperial  guard  ;  but  history  does  not  record  how 
long  the  two  plantations  survived.  [•).  n.] 

BA'MAH  |<(  It  if/It  /ilacc],  is  so  translated  in  the  first 
part  of  the  verse,  Kxo.  xx.  •«.•>,  though  it  is  left  untrans 
lated  in  the  second  part,  and  is  possibly  to  be  taken  as 
the  name  of  some  particular  place,  famous  for  unlawful 
worship.  (Me  more  under  HHUI  PLACES.) 

BANNER.  This  in  our  English  Bible  is  one  of  the 
terms  employed  for  the  Jleb.  nftt  (p;\  which,  however, 

is  as  frequently  rendered  by  aislyii,  and  occasionally 
also  bv  standard.  It  properly  means  anything  raised 
or  lifted  ii]>  as  an  object  of  special  regard  or  a  centre 
of  attraction ;  and  so  might  have  fitly  enough  de 
signated  the  military  insignia  under  which  particular 
armies  or  battalions  of  armies  ranged  themselves. 


lions,  the  other  having  the  figure  of  a  person,  probably 
a  divinity,  standing  over  two  bulls  and  drawing  a  bow. 
The  two  figures  standing  in  the  middle  are  called  also 
standards,  but  are  more  likely  to  have  been  connected 


In  reality,  however,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
so  used.  The  distinctive  badge  of  the  four  divi 
sions  of  the  congregation  of  Israel,  as  they  marched 
through  the  wilderness,  is  called  deycl  0?;n),  a  word 

probably  of  much  the  same  import ;  while  the  smaller 
distinction  of  the  several  families  that  composed  the 
division,  their  respective  mark  or  sign,  was  named  oth 
(ri"x)>  ^'i-  ii-  2-  None  of  them,  however,  probably  cor 
responded  iu  appearance  to  our  banner  or  ensign ;  for, 
not  flags  of  distinctive  colours  or  with  written  inscrip 
tions,  but  rather  figures  in  wood,  or  sail  on  the  top  of 
a  pole,  with  some  sacred  object  or  emblematical  de 
vice  engraved  upon  them,  seem  to  have  been  the  kind 
of  standards  used  in  Egypt,  and  were  probably  also 
adopted  by  the  Israelites.  A  considerable  variety  of 
these  have  been  found  among  the  Egyptian  remains. 
Only  two  distinct  specimens  of  Assyrian  military  stan 
dards  have  been  discovered.  They  are  those  marked 
1  and  2  in  cut  (No.  106),  both  in  the  form  of  circles, 
the  one  exhibiting  two  bulls  running  in  opposite  direc- 


with  religious  than  with  military  purposes,  as  they  were 
found  standing  in  front  of  an  altar.  The  military  ban 
ner  appears  to  have  been  usually  fixed  on  a  long  staff, 
and  supported  by  a  rest  in  front  of  the  chariot,  to  which 
they  were  attached  by  a  long  rod  or  rope  (Layard's 
JYin.  and  llab.  ii.  p.  347). 

The  Roman  standards  were  characteristically  different 
in  form  from  those  already  exhibited,  but  call  for  no  par 
ticular  explanation  here,  as  they  can  have  no  special 
bearing  on  the  manners  of  the  ancient  Israelites.  "We 
give,  however,  a  representation  of  some  of  them  in  cut 
No.  107.  It  is  quite  uncertain,  however,  whether  the  Is 
raelites  in  their  ordinary  military  operations  were  accus 
tomed  to  use  banners  of  any  sort,  or,  if  used,  in  what 
manner  and  to  what  extent.  The  references  in  Scripture 
are  of  too  general  a  nature  to  enable  us  to  found  de 
terminate  conclusions  upon  them,  although  they  may 
not  unnaturally  be  understood  as  implying  a  common 
practice.  But  the  nes  of  Scripture  in  the  great  ma 
jority,  and  nearly,  indeed,  the  whole  of  its  applications, 
whether  rendered  banner,  ensign,  or  standard,  bears 


[107.]        Roman  Standards  or  Banners. 
From  Montfaucon  •;.!,  2\      Hope  i3,  -I'.      Arch  of  Titus  (5). 

respect,  not  to  marks  of  distinction  between  one  party 
and  another,  but  to  signals  of  observation,  things 
really  or  figuratively  raised  aloft  as  rallying-points  for 
awakening  men's  concern,  and  concentrating  their 
energetic  strivings  and  hopes.  Hence  elevated  poles, 
or  mountain- tops,  are  spoken  of  as  the  proper  positions 


I'.ANQUETS 


183 


BANQUETS 


for  displaying  the  banner,  Xu.  xxi.S;  ls.xiii.2;xxx.U;  and  Jesus'  bosom,  Jn.  \iii. -j:;,  •.•:,.  The  introduction  of  this 
around  it,  as  the  .symbol  of  divine  faithfulness  and  luxurious  practice  may  be  reprehended  in  Am.  vi.  4. 
strength,  or  the  rallying- point  of  all  that  was  true  and  The  use  of  fragrant  odours  at  these  festivities  is  often 
steadfast  in  the  divine  cause,  the  people  of  (!od  are  re-  referred  to  in  Scripture,  1's.  xxiii.  r>;  EC.  ix.  7,  s;  Am.  vi  4-fi 
presented  as  gathering,  Is.  v.  21; ;  xlix.  •!•> ;  Ps.  Ix.  4.  Hence,  On  occasion  of  very  large  entertainments,  or  where 
also,  011  one  occasion  we  find  it 
applied  to  an  altar  —the  altar  which 
Moses  built  011  the  defeat  of  Ama- 
K-k,  for  th.3  jiurpo.se,  no  doubt,  of 
offering  on  it  sacrifices  of  thanks 
giving  of  praise  to  the  Lord;  ''he 
called  the  name  of  it  JKHUVAH- 
yissi,"  Jehorah  my  banner,  K*.wii. 
i.'i,  meaning  that  nndcr  the  name  of 
Jehovah,  as  his  covenant  (!od,  he 
would  fight  against  Amalek  with 
the  assured  liojie  and  confidence  of 
a  final  vii-tory.  In  short,  it  \\as 
not  apparently  as  an  arbitrary  SIL  n, 
or  a  mark  of  internal  distinction 
between  OIK;  band  and  another  of 
the  covenant  -  people-,  that  M-.<-h 
things  are1  sj>okeii  of,  liut  as  a 

common  object  of  regard,  and  an  emblem  of  successful 
conflict. 

BANQUETS.     The  eastern  nations  are  much  given 
to  hospitality ;  and   in   agreement  \\  ith   this  character, 


11" 


Kcclinin:,'  at  T;il .!(.•.     Montfaucou's  Antiquities. 


from  any  other  cause  it  was  desirable-  that  some  one 
besides  the  head  of  the  house  should  have  the  charge, 
there  was  a  special  ••  governor  of  the  feast"  appointed, 
•'''•  ii.  -,  :'.  And  due  order  in  taking  their  j>laees  at 
we  read  continually  in  Scripture  of  the  feasts  given  to  table,  according  tip  rank  or  peculiar  favour,  seems  to 
friends.  .Many  of  them,  indeed,  her,-  a  certain  ivii-  have  been  much  attended  to  ;  SIP  that  once  and  again 
gious  character;  as  when  the  Israelites  went  up  to  our  Lord  ivbuked  those  who  [pressed  into  the  upper- 
appear  bet.  >iv  the  Lord,  they  were  to  feast  in  his  pre-  most  places,  instead  of  taking  a  humbler  position, 


and  fatherless,  and  other 
rejoice  along  \\iih  them, 
earlier  notices,  we  1 


7-ln.  The  principal  meal  appears  to 
upper,  \\hicli  \\as  commonly  taken 
aKo  read  of  strangers  being 


the  feasts.  In  the  later  times  the  sejiaratioii  of  the 
sexes  appears  to  have  been  common,  as  it  is  at  the  pie- 
sent  day  in  I'ale.-tine  and  the  surrounding  countries  : 


vet  in  ih 


-pels  then-  are  traci  s  of  the  greater  free       in  the  M 


it  more  nearly  resembled   our  lunch,  I.u.  :,i.  :;7,  >;  xiv.  \-i 
In  i  arly  tim<  s  ue  read  of  dining  at  noon,  u'e.  xliii.  1C. 
The  food  \\as  no  doubt  eaten  then,  as  it  is  at  present 


dom  which  is  preserved  by  juire  morality,  .In.  ii.  l;  xii.3. 
From  the  jiarable  of  the  marriage- feast,  M;u.  x\i;  ,  we 
may  eoiielude  that  jiractices  prevailed  at  formal  ma-ni-  Pi 
ticeut  banquets  in  our  Lord's  time.  >ucli  as  are  reported 
I iy  travellers  to  be  still  in  oceasi.inal  use.  A  general 
invitation  was  first  given;  and  then  those  who  had  ac 
cepted  it  were  summoned  a  >econd  time  by  messengers 
at  the  very  hour  at  which  they  were  to  come  ;  compare 
with  this  I'rov.  ix.  }-','>.  Also,  he-  u  ho  gave  the  enter 
tainment  may  have  often  given  juvseiits  of  robes  to  the 
giie>ts.  to  be  worn  in  honour  of  the  donor  at  the  time. 


untries,  without  the  use  of  any  articles 
like  our  knives  and  fork-  and  spoons.  The  hands 
w  re  dipped  togi  iher  into  the  di>h,  M..r.  xiv.  L'O.  See  also 
ix.  -'i;  xx\i.  I.'.,  where  "  bosom"  is  a  mistranslation  ;  it 
o;i'_ht  to  be  "  jilate"  or  "  di.-h."  The  refoiv  after  meals 
the  hands  were  wij.ed  with  a  cloth,  when  water  had 
been  pi  Hired  over  th<  m,  i!  k'i.  m.  n;  or,  according  to  a 
common  Creek  practice,  they  were  rubbed  clean  witli 
pieces  of  bread,  \\hieh  were  then  givedily  devoured  by 
the  d,,.js  under  the  table.  At  other  times  there  were 
ihVhes  prepared  for  t  he  dill. Tent  persons  invited;  and 


the  master  of  the  fea>t  might  set  ajiart  a  di-h  and  semi 

and  to  be  preserved  afterwards  as  a  token  of  his  regard.  I  it  to  a  particular  j person   in   the  presence  of  the   whole 

<  >ld    Testament,    it     company,  by  way  of  doing  him  sjpecial  honour,  <;e.  xliii.  ::i; 
Sa    i.  I,  .';  ix.  •_::;, '.'I;  wi;h  wlii.-li  compare  2  Su.  xi    8. 


In    the    early    writings    of    tl 

a.]ijiears  distinctly  enough  that  the  guests  .«//  at 
table,  much  as  we  do  ourselves.  Go.  xliii.  33;  ISa.  xvi.  11. 
The  j>assago  from  Samuel  referred  to,  more  strictly 


th 


rendered,    rejm; 

feast,   as   we   are  wont    to   speak   of   sitting    round   the 

table.      r.efoiv    the    time    of   our    Lord,    however,   the 


Since  the  jpeople  were  accustomed  to  feasting  on  tin 
sacrifices  of  peace-offering  when   they  appeared   lief  on 

minimi  emblem 


the     the   Lord,  such  a  banquet  is  a   common   emblem  of  the 
happiness  of  heaven,  Is.  x\v.  <;;  Ma.  viii.  n;  La  xiv.  l.',,  &<•. 

The  occasions  on  which  feasting  was  common  among 
.lews  had  adopted  the  luxurious  practice,  which  was  the  Jews  are  such  as  might  be  expected.  There  were, 
also  in  use  among  their  masters  the  Persians,  Ks.  vii.  8,  of  course,  tlie  f/rcat  sacred  feasts  before  the  Lord,  DC.  xvi. 
and  the  L'omans,  of  n  rliuiint  upon  couches,  though  this  IIP,  11,  and  other  ocraaionf  of  .*«ov//V//,y,  j>0.  xii.  r,,  &c. ;  xiv. 
is  not  exjiressed  by  our  translators.  This  exj.lains  how  ;-_>-2fl;  1  Sa  ix.  u-u'i;  l  Ki.  iii.  i:,;  including  occasions  of  core- 
it  should  have  happened  that  tin;  women  came  behind  >irnit-mu/.-in>/,  Go.  xxvi.  2S-.ii;  xxxi.  -11,  :.i;  with  which  may 
the  couch  where  Jesus  lay,  and  anointed  his  outstretched  be  reckoned  acknowledgment  of  a  <ir«tt  ]irnr'nhn- 
feet,  Lu.  vii.  37, 3S;  Jn.  xii.  2,  3;  and  also  how  John,  who  was  tint  d<-Hrrranr<\  i-x  viii.  17.  A  sacred  character  might 
next  to  him  at  table,  when  they  ate  the  last  passover,  also  mingle  in  feasts  in  connection  with  ordi'nnri/  pro- 
should  be  described  as  the  discijile  who  leaned  cm  \  vidential  occurrences ;  as  the  idolatrous  worship  at  the 


BANQUETS 


184 


BAPTISM 


riiitaf/c-fcast,  .lu.  ix.  2r;  and  Job's  sacrifice  on  his  sons' 
feast-da//.^,  perhaps  birth-da;/.*,  .Job  i.  i,  :>;  other  birth-day 
occasions,  Pharaoh's,  Co.  xi.  20,  and  Herod's,  Mat.  xiv.  0, 
perhaps  also  that  mentioned  in  Ho.  vii. :,,  though  this  may 
1)0  rather  a  feast  on  a  kinyn  decision  to  Hit-  throne,  as 
at  i  Ki.  i.  fl;  marriage- feast*,  which  sometimes  lasted 

several  days,  Go.  xxix.  L'L>;  Ju.  xiv.  1U;  Ks.  ii.  IS;  Mat.  xxii.  2-4; 
.in.  ii.l;  H'Cdn'niiJ  ftast,  Co.  xxi.  S;  burial  feast,  USa.iii.35; 
Jo.  xvi.7;  Ho.  9.  1;  sheep-S/tCa)'inf/,  1  Sa.  xxv  2,  s,  ;;t!;  2  Sa.  xiii. 

2;!--.'0.  And  of  course  there-  were  also  feasts  in  the  way 
of  ordinar  hospitality,  to  a  friend  to  whom  honour 


had  to  do  with  many  of  these  festivities.  Cut  No.  101.) 
gives  a  representation,  from  the  Assyrian  remains,  of 
parties  apparently  at  a  feast,  and  pledging  each  other 
with  their  enps.  (  For  information  as  to  the  drinks  com 
monly  in  use,  see  under  WINE.  See  also  FEASTS  or 
LOVE.)  [G.  c.  M.  D.] 

BAPTISM.  As  the  name  of  a  religious  ordinance, 
baptism  belongs  to  New  Testament  times.  Under  the 
old  economy  there  was  a  varied  use  of  water  as  a  sym 
bol  of  cleansing.  Thus,  the  priests  had  to  wash  their 
hands  and  feet  as  they  entered  into  the  tabernacle  of 


was  to  be  shown.  Lu.  v.  29,  especially  to  a  stranger,  ae-  j  God  to  perform  the  daily  service,  Kx.  xxx.  17-21;  the  high- 
cordinf  to  the  laws  of  oriental  hospitality,  Go.  xviii.  G-S;  priest,  on  the  great  day  of  atonement,  had  besides  to 
xix.  3;  2Sa.  iii.  2:i;  xii.  1;  in  most  of  which  passages  we  see  1  wash  his  flesh  in  the  holy  place,  Lc.  xvi.23;  and  in  cases 
the  simplicity  and  quickness  with  which  such  feasts  of  defilement  from  leprosy,  or  from  the  touch  of  a  dead 
were  prepared,  by  sending  to  the  herd  or  flock,  killing 
an  animal,  preparing  it  immediately,  and  baking  cakes, 
no  doubt  unleavened,  on  account  of  the  urgent  haste. 

The  commonest  Hebrew  expression  for  partaking  of 
a  meal  is  "  to  eat  bread."  a  phrase  which  of  course  docs 
not  exclude  the  fact  of  drinfciit;/  as  well;  just  as  eating 
and  drinkini;-  in  the  sacred  feast  of  the  communion  are 
frequently  designated  '•  the  breaking  of  bread,"  and  as 
the  very  existence  of  the  cup  in  the  passovcr  supper, 
which  our  Lord  took  and  appropriated  to  his  own  Sup 
per,  is  not  directly  noticed  in  the  Old  Testament.  How 
ever,  we  are  not  left  to  infer  this  drinking  from  the 
nature  of  the  case.  It  is  explicitly  named  by  Isaiah, 
ch.  xxv.  o,  in  his  "  feast  of  fat  things,  of  wine  on  the  lees  :" 
and  in  J)e.  xiv.  20,  where  "wine  and  strong  drink" 
are  specified  among  the  articles  which  might  be  pur 
chased  bv  the  people  who  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  feast 
before  the  Lord  ;  a  direction  which  was  no  doubt  often 
grievously  misunderstood  or  abused,  else  we  should  not 


ture,  are  in  He.  ix.  10,  called  divers  baptisms  (5ia<popois 


(BaTTTifffJiOis).  But  they  were  all  connected  with  special 
occasions  —  sometimes  of  more,  sometimes  of  less  fre 
quent  occurence;  and  with  the  occasion,  the  mode  also 
of  administering  the  water  differed  considerably.  In 
some  it  W7as  washing,  in  others  sprinkling;  when  wash 
ing  was  employed,  sometimes  the  whole  body,  some 
times  only  a  part  of  the  body  partook  in  the  ablution; 
and  sometimes  again  it  was  the  clothes  rather  than 
the  body  itself,  as  having  to  some  extent  come  into 
contact  with  the  polluting  element.  So  far,  therefore, 
as  regards  the  institutions  of  the  old  covenant,  and  the 
Scriptures  of  that  covenant,  a  small  approach  only  is 
made  toward  that  state  of  things  which  meets  us  at  the 
gospel  era,  when  the  forerunner  of  our  Lord  came  forth 
with  a  specific  ordinance  of  baptism,  as  an  initiatory 


read  Eli's  accusation  of  Hannah,  as  if  she  had  become  .  rite  to  be  administered  to  all  who  listened  to  his  word; 

drunken  in  the  Lord's  presence,  1  Sa.  i.  14,1'>.      Drinking  j  and.   at  a  later  period,  the  apostles  received  through 

wine  is  also  mentioned  in  the  history  of  Nabal's  and  J  such   an    ordinance    all    believers  into    the   church    of 

Absalom's  sheep-  shearing  feasts  ;  though  it  is  worthy  i  Christ. 

1.  It  has  been  attempted  to  fill  up  this  gap  by  estab 
lishing  the  existence,  at  and  prior  to  the  gospel  era,  of 
a  Jewish  -proselyte  baptism.  Many  of  the  more  learned 
inquirers  into  biblical  antiquities,  including  Buxtorf, 
Lightfoot,  Selden,  Schiittgen,  Wall,  ice.,  have  been  of 
opinion  that  the  Jews  were  in  the  habit  of  admitting 
proselytes  to  the  Jewish  faith  by  an  ordinance  of  bap 
tism  accompanying  the  rite  of  circumcision.  At  the 
time  that  Wall  wrote  his  history  of  infant  baptism. 
this  was  so  much  the  common  belief  among  the  learned, 
that  he  speaks  of  it  as  a  kind  of  settled  point.  "  It  is 
evident,"  says  he,  "that  the  custom  of  the  Jews  before 
our  Saviour's  time  (and,  as  they  themselves  affirm, 
from  the  beginning  of  their  law),  was  to  baptize  as 
well  as  circumcise  any  proselyte  that  came  over  to 
them  from  the  nations.  .  .  .  They  reckoned  all  mankind 
beside  themselves  to  be  in  an  unclean  state,  and  not 
capable  of  being  entered  into  the  covenant  of  Israelites 
without  a  washing  or  baptism,  to  denote  their  purifica- 


[109.]        Assyrian  Banquet—  Botta. 
and  over  whom  there  came  such  a  fearful  change  when 


"the  wine  had  gone  out  of  him,"  made  no  mention  of 
wine  in  his  account  of  his  preparations  ;  he  said  merely 
''my  bread,  and  my  water,  and  my  flesh  that  I  have 
killed  for  my  shearers."  The  prophets  also  solemnly 
denounce  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  excesses  of  drink 

ing    at    feasts,   Is.  v.  11,12;  xxiv.  9-11;  Ho.  vii.  .">;  Am.  iv.  1;  vi.  0. 

In  fact,  one  of  the  commonest  names  for  a  feast  in 
Hebrew  is  mishteh,  which  equally  with  the  Greek  sym- 
posiun,  by  its  etymology,  indicates  how  much  drinking 


tion  from  their  uncleanness.  And  this  was  called  the 
baptizing  of  them  into  Moses"  (vol.  i.  4}.  Later  and 
more  discriminating  investigations,  however,  have  shown 
this  view  to  be  untenable.  It  may  almost,  indeed,  be 
held  fatal  to  it,  that  both  Philo  and  Josephus,  who  on 
so  many  occasions  refer  to  the  religious  opinions  and 
practices  of  their  countrymen,  never  once  allude  to 
any  such  initiatory  baptismal  rite.;  in  Josephus  the  ad 
mission  of  strangers  is  expressly  said  to  have  been  by 
circumcision  and  sacrifice  (Ant.  xiii.  9:  xx.  2);  and  there 


BAPTISM 


18o 


BAPTISM 


is  the  like  silence  respecting  baptism  in  the  apocryphal  one  whose  mission  might  form  the  commencement  of  n, 

writings,  in  the  Targums  of  Onkelos  and  of  Jonathan,  new  era  in  the  church  to  inaugurate  the   change  by  n 

It  were  impossible  to  account  for  such  general  silence,  public   baptism.     They  might    the   more   readily  judge 

if  the  practice  had  really  existeel  at  the  time.     There  is  thus,  as  the  language  etf  prophecy,  in  poiiitincr"  to  the 

110  evidence   of  a  Jewish  proselyte  baptism  till  about  ,  brighter  era  of  Messiah's  times,  had  occasionally  given 

the  fourth  century  of  the   Christian  era,  when  it  does  prominence  to  the  thought  of  a  cleansing-  as  by  water- 

appear  as  a  custom  already  in  use,  but  one  not  proba-  for  example,  in   L'ze.  xxxvi.  25.   "Then  will  I  'sprinkle 

bly  introduced  till  the  end  of  the  third  century;  and  clean  water  upon  you.  and   ye  shall  be  clean;   from  all 

the  statements  of  rabbinical  writers  respecting  its  pre-  your  filthiness  and  from   all  your   idols  will  I  cleanse 

Christian,  and  even  Mosaic  institution,  are  mere  asser-  you;"'  and  Zee.  xiii.  ].   "  In  that  day  there  shall  be  a 

tions  without  pr..of.      It  probably  sprung  up  thus:   the  fountain  cancel  to   the  house  of  Paviel.  and  to  the  in- 

admission  of  proselytes  was  originally  made  by  circum-  habitants  of  Jerusalem,  for  sin  anel  for  unclcanness." 
cision  and  sacrifice,  but  as  usual,  a  lustration  preceded         Jt  is  clear  even  from  the  brief  re-cord  of  John's  minis- 

the  sacrifice,  performed,  like  legal  lustrations  generally,  try  preserved  in  the-  Gospels,  that  he  felt  bin 

by    the    persons    themselves-.      By    and    by,    he>wever,  m 

when    sacrifices    had    ceased,   the-   lustration    took  the  tr 

place   of  the   discontinued  racrifh  o,    anel  at  last  gn-w  j  repentance 

into  a  sort  of  initiatory  rite,  holding  with   those  f,.r-  this,  and  an  expression,   that  occurs   in   erne  of   his  ad- 

mally  received  from  without  into  the  Jewish  faith  (such  dresses  plainly  eleclaivs  it.  "lie-  that  sent  me-  to  baptize 

as   slaves   anel   foundling-si    relatively   mm-h    the-    same  with  water,  the  same  said  unto  me."  &c.,  Jn.  i.  33.      But 

place  as  with  converts  to  (  hristiaiiity.      This  view  lias  this  mission  of  John    to   baptize   cannot,   of  course-,  lie 


been  ably  vindicated  by  Schneckenberger  in  a  separate     se-p 


f  preaching:   the  latter  pr< 


in.  The  Kssenes,  however,  approached  somewhat  nearer 
than  the  other  Jews  of  the  apostolic-  age  to  this  ulti 
mate  use  of  an  initiatory  rite  by  water.  For,  aft.  r  :i 
year's  submission  to  their  discipline,  applicants  were 


condition,   em    the  one:   side,   as  far 
usiiess.    anil,    on    the-   otlie  r.    on    the 

alle>weel  to  use  their  waters  of  purification  (Joseph.  !!'«/•.<>  near  prospect  and  expectation  of  the  Le.rd's  coming  to 
ii.  8,  <>').  Vet  even  with  them  this  was  not  such  a  use:  take  cognizanev  of  their  state,  and  ivmodel  his  king- 
of  water  as  properly  constituted  the  subject  a  member  dom.  Jn  what  manner  the  Lore!  should  appear,  anel 
of  the  sect  (for  he  had  still  to  be  in  training  fe>r  two  what  precise'  form  He  should  give',  when  be'  app.-.-uvel. 
years),  nor  de>es  it  appear  to  have  fonned  anything  like  to  the  order  and  constitution  ..f  his  kingdom.  Je.hu 
a  singular  and  distinguishing  act;  it  was  simply  an  ad- ,  might  very  impcrtVctlv  ceimprehend  :  he  ha.l  in  that 


mission  of  the-  person  to  theise  daily  abluti-ns  which 
they  prae-tiseel  as  a  part  of  their  n-gnlar  discipline-,  anel 
marke-d  his  entrance  em  a  moiv  eomple-te  and  rigid 
ceremonialism. 


respect,  like-  others,  to  be  himself  a  le •arne-r.  and  to  fol 
low  the  footsie  ps  of  Pi-ovielene-c  as  tli.-se-  might  succes 
sively  e.pen  the-  truth  to  his  view.  That  things  did 
not  turn  out  exactly  as  he  had  antie-ipatoel.  is  cvielent 


1!.    In  the  state  of   things,  (lien  fore,  \\hie-li  prevailed     from    the   message    he   sent    at    a   subsequent   stage   to 

Jesus:  but  it  !<  not  the  less  clear,  from  the  whole  his 
tory  of  his  career,  that  he  looked  for  a  manifestation  of 
(Jodhead,  and  an  organi/ation  of  the  divine  kingdom, 

ispeiised  by  John  to  very  difli-n-nt  from  any  mere  external  display  of  power, 
his  instructions,  and  or  re-adjustment  of  political  relations.  The  spirit  of 
John  could  never  have  i-(  sted  with  satisfaction  in  such 
superficial  modes  and  elements  of  p-form.  And,  ac 
cordingly,  his  preaching  was  far  from  merely  gra/Ing 
the  surface;  it  was  full  of  moral  power  and  energy, 
and  dealt  directly  with  the  heart  and  conscience-.  ||is 
aim  \\;is  to  get  men  right  with  Cod  to  get  a  people 
formed  to  genuine  repentance  on  their  own  part,  and, 
on  the  part  of  (  lod,  accepted  and  forgiven,  so  that  they 

I  lence,  his 
f   his 

>een   "  unto    repentance," 
remission  ot  sins.     Lu.  iii.3;Mat.  iii.  11.    Hence 
clearly  implying,  that  if  he-  had  been  any  one  of  these,      abo,  as  the  necessary  consequence  of  such  a  high  moral 

in   the   sense    underst 1     by    them,    they   would   have     aim.  coupled  with   his   being   divinely  commissioned   to 

found  ill  the  circumstance  an  explanation  of  his  baptis-  prosecute  it,  his  preaching  could  not  be  a  mere  call 
mal  institution,  while  nothing  less  in  their  view  could  from  man  to  repent,  nor  his  baptism  a  mere  adminis- 
properly account  for  it.  His  baptism,  therefore,  struck  tration  of  water.  There  was  some-thing  of  the-  power 
them  as  a  novelty,  yet  a  novelty  not  unlikely  to  appear  and  authority  of  God  in  both— only  less,  greatly  indeed 
in  connection  with  such  missions  and  movements  as  |  less,  than  in  the  baptism  to  be  brought  in  by  Christ. 
were  then  commonly  anticipated.  There  had  been  On  account  of  the  vast  difference  between  the  two, 
such  a  prevailing  use  of  water  in  the  lustrations  of  the  '  John  ex-presses  it  by  way  of  contrast  his  a  baptism 
old  covenant,  and  men's  ideas  had  been  so  familiarized  with  water,  Christ's  a  baptism  with  the  Spirit:  precisely 
to  it  as  indicative  of  a  change  to  the  better,  that  it  i  as  the  Lord  himself  said  of  things  under  the  old  dis- 
seemed,  in  their  apprehensions,  perfectly  natural  for  pensation,  "I  desire  mercy  and  not  sacrifice,"  and 
VOL.  I.  24 


up   to  the   gospel   era.  there   appears   nothing   properly 
analogous  to  what  meets  us  at  the  commencement  of 
that  era  in  Jolm'g  li<ij,/^m.      This  was  evidently  in  the 
strictest  sense  an   initiatory  rite, 
those  who  submitted  themselves  t 

entered    into   his    design      di-pciised    one,-    for  all,   and. 
forming  so  characteristic  a  feature  in  his  mission,  that 
he  is  represented   as   coming   into   all   the   region   about 
Jordan  "preaching  the  baptism  of  repentance,"  r.n.iii.::. 
The  singularity  of  this   course   was   among  the  things 
which  attracted   notice   and   aroused  the  general  expec 
tation    respecting    Mm,    as    divinely    commissioned    or 
claiming  to  originate  a  new  phase  of  things  in  the  his 
tory  of  Cod's  dealings  with   men.      This  came  out  very     might  be   really  prepared   for  his   coming.       He] 
distinctly  in  the  question  put  to  John  by  the  emissaries     baptism,    which    embodied   the  aim    and    result 
of  the  Pharisee's.    "Why   haptizest  thou  then,  if  thou     j. reaching,    is   said    to   ha 
lie  not  the;  Christ,  nor  Klias,  nor  the  prophet'"  Jn.  i.  •_•:,,     and  "unto  remission  of 


BAPTISM 


18G 


BAPTISM 


again  under  the  now,  "  I  am  come,  not  to  send  peace 
on  the  earth,  but  a  sword."  Still,  the  difference  is  one 
only  of  degree,  not  of  kind;  as  John's  preaching  and 
baptism  were  alike  of  Cod,  they  could  not  be  altogether 
without  either  the  stamp  of  his  authority,  or  the  grace 
of  his  Spirit. 

If  this  be  clear  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  is  ren 
dered  still  more!  clear  by  the  relation  in  which  Christ 
placed  himself  to  the  baptism  of  .John.  When  coming 
to  receive  it,  he  declared  submission  to  the  ordinance  to 
be  a  part  of  that  righteousness  which  must  all  he  ful 
filled  by  him,  Mut.  iii.  i.'»;  not,  therefore,  a  merely  exter 
nal  rite,  destitute  of  any  proper  virtue,  butaii  ordinance 
of  Heaven,  that  carried,  when  entered  into  aright, 
communion  with  the  Spirit,  as  well  as  obedience  to  the 
will,  of  the  Father.  Accordingly,  it  was  precisely  at 
that  moment  of  his  history,  that  the  Spirit  descended 
in  visible  form  and  plenitude  of  grace  upon  the  Saviour  ; 
and  it  is  a  principle  pervading  the  whole  economy  of 
the  divine  kingdom,  that  there  was  nothing  absolutely 
singular  in  the  history  of  .Jesus — that  what  he  found  in 
its  fulness  and  perfection,  others  may  also  in  measure 
obtain,  and  after  the  manner  that  he  himself  did.  So 
that,  by  means  of  Christ's  experience,  .John's  baptism 
was  proved  to  be  to  all  who  would  properly  receive  it 
an  ordinance  of  grace  and  blessing.  And  not  only  so, 
but  Christ  himself — as  if  purposely  to  show  how  it  stood 
connected  with  the  grace  of  God,  anil  what  benefits  id 
its  own  time  and  place  it  was  fitted  to  yield — for  a 
season  prosecuted  the  work  of  John's  baptism,  as  well 
as  of  John's  preaching.  "  When  he  heard  that  John 
was  cast  into  prison,  he  departed  into  Galilee,  and  be 
gan  to  say,  Itepcnt :  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand,"  Mat.  iv.  12, 17 — that  is,  he  took  up  John's  word, 
when  John  could  no  longer  himself  proclaim  it,  making 
his  own  agency,  in  the  first  instance,  a  continuation  of 
John's.  And  so  in  regard  to  baptism;  through  his 
disciples  he  began  also  to  baptize,  even  before  John  was 
cast  into  prison  ;  and  it  is  recorded  that  more  came  to 
him  for  baptism  than  were  then  coming  to  John,  Jn. iii. 
20.  But  as  this  appeared  to  be  somewhat  misunderstood 
by  some  of  John's  disciples,  and  proved  the  occasion  of 
certain  disputes,  Jesus  seems  to  have  discontinued  the 
practice.  That  he  should,  however,  even  for  a  time 
have  identified  his  ministry  with  John's  preaching  and 
baptism,  was  a  convincing  proof  of  the  close  connection 
between  John's  agency  and  his,  and  also  of  John's  bap 
tism  being  more  than  a  mere  water- ordinance. 

3.  But  all  this,  whether  in  connection  with  John  or 
with  Christ,  was  preliminary  ;  it  belonged  to  a  transi 
tion  state,  in  which  the  old  was  gradually  passing  into 
the  new  ;  and  Christian  baptism,  or  baptism  as  a  stand 
ing  ordinance  in  the  Christian  church,  belongs  to  a  later 
period.  It  did  not  commence  till  the  personal  work  of 
Christ  on  earth  was  finished,  and  had  its  formal  institu 
tion  when  he  gave  to  his  disciples  the  commission, 
"  Go  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the 
name  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  These  words,  in  themselves  so  simple,  have 
given  occasion,  in  a  very  remarkable  manner,  to  that 
tendency  to  extremes,  in  which  the  human  mind  is  ever 
manifesting  its  weakness.  In  one  extreme  we  have  the 
advocates  of  ritualism  virtually  ignoring  the  primary 
and  fundamental  element  of  teaching,  of  which  baptism 
was  here  exhibited  as  the  complement,  regarding  it,  at 
least,  as  entirely  subordinate,  and  laying  the  whole 
stress  of  a  vital  connection  between  the  soul  and  Christ's 


kingdom  on  the  due  administration  of  an  outward  ordin 
ance.  In  the  other  extreme,  we  have  the  advocates 
of  spiritualism  (as  among  the  Quakers  and  various  cog 
nate  sects)  repudiating  the  external  rite  altogether, 
maintaining  that  the  baptism  meant  by  our  Lord  was 
to  be  nothing  different  from  thte  internal  endowments 
of  the  Spirit,  and  that  to  keep  up  water  baptism,  in 
any  form,  is  to  corrupt  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit, 
by  improperly  retaining  a  remnant  of  Judaism.  Both 
extremes  do  palpable  violence  to  the  original  appoint 
ment  of  Christ,  and  require  forced  and  arbitrary  con 
structions  to  be  put  upon  it  and  the  collateral  passages 
of  Scripture. 

That  our  Lord  meant  to  retain  baptism  as  a  formal 
institution  in  his  kingdom,  may  be  regarded  as  certain 
— first  of  all,  from  the  relation  already  noticed  between 
his  work  and  John's.  The  difference  here  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  a  contrast,  but  a  progression — a  relative  supe 
riority  in  the  one  as  compared  with  the  other ;  on  which 
account,  as  all  was  not  outward  in  John's  baptism,  so 
neither  could  all  be  inward  in  Christ's.  Only,  the  two 
distinctive  elements  did,  as  it  were,  change  places — 
the  water,  which  had  been  the  prominent  thing  in 
John's,  giving  wTay  in  that  respect  to  the  Spirit,  though 
without  ceasing  to  retain  its  proper  place.  Substan 
tially,  indeed,  the  same  difference  exists  in  regard  to 
the  revealed  word.  Under  the  old  economy,  and  in  the 
hands  of  John,  this  word  was  spoken,  and  spoken  in 
suitable  adaptation  to  the  state  and  circumstances  of 
the  time ;  but,  from  the  comparative  defect  of  the 
Spirit's  grace,  it  was  attended  with  little  power — 
it  remained,  to  a  large  extent,  but  a  word.  In  respect, 
however,  to  gospel  times,  the  word  is  itself  spoken  of 
as  spirit  and  life,  Jn.  vi.  c:f,  a  light  that  shines  into  the 
soul,  and  gives  there  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  2  Co.  iv.  o.  But 
it  were  folly,  on  this  account,  to  treat  the  external  word 
as  a  thing  no  longer  needed,  and  to  be  allowed  to  fall 
into  disuse.  2.  That  our  Lord  should  have  thrown  the 
baptizing  into  the  form  of  a  command,  and  charged  it 
upon  the  working  of  a  human  agency,  is  another  clear 
proof  of  its  being  designed  to  form  an  external  insti 
tution.  If  it  had  stood  simply  in  the  bestowal  of  the 
Spirit  directly  imparting  spiritual  blessing,  it  could  not 
have  been  so  committed  to  men's  instrumentality. 
They  are  never  represented  as  having  power  to  give  the 
Spirit  for  saving  purposes.  When  the  baptism  of  the 
Spirit  is  spoken  of,  it  is  always  Christ  himself  who  ap 
pears  as  the  administrator,  or  the  Father  through  him. 
Even  the  miraculous  gifts,  such  as  speaking  with 
tongues,  the  mere  signs  of  the  Spirit's  presence  for 
higher  ends,  were  only  communicated  in  certain  cases 
through  the  hands  of  the  apostles  (but  through  theirs 
alone)  in  attestation  of  their  divine  commission  to  settle 
the  foundations  of  the  Christian  church  ;  it  was  not 
their  obligation  properly  to  do  such  things,  but  rather 
their  distinctive  privilege  and  honour  that  such  things 
should  be  done  by  the  Lord  through  them.  And, 
accordingly,  the  distinction  died  with  themselves  (sec 
APOSTLES).  To  enjoin  the  administration  of  baptism 
upon  the  Christian  church  at  large,  as  a  thing  that  was 
to  go  along  through  all  time  with  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel,  if  it  were  to  have  been  entirely  inward,  could 
only  have  been  fitted  to  mislead  ;  and  the  sense  in 
which  the  words  have  been  all  but  universally  under 
stood  is  the  manifest  proof  of  their  natural  import. 
3.  The  practice  of  the  apostles  is  a  further  and  conclu- 


BAPTISM 


BAPTISM 


sive  proof  of  the  same.      If  some  of  the  passages  which  '  formal  observances.      One  need  not  wonder,  therefore, 


speak  of  their  connection  with  the  baptism  of  believers 
might  admit  of  being  explained  without  the  supposition 
of  an  external  baptism,  there  are  others  in  which  that 


however  much  it  may  be  regretted,  that  the  predomi 
nantly  spiritual  character  of  the  new  dispensation,  and 
the  ascendency  it  seeks  to  establish  for  the  higher  ele- 


supposition  is  impracticable,  and  in  which,  if  there  i  ments  of  working,  should  have  been  found  more  than 
should  have  been  no  water  baptism  in  the  Christian  many  of  its  professed  votaries  have  been  willing  to 
church,  it  is  necessary  to  hold  that  they  erred — erred,  acquiesce  in;  and.  in  particular,  that  the  simple  ordin- 


riot  merely  as  private  individuals  occasionally  falling  be 
fore  temptation,  but  even  in  their  apostolic  agency.  Jt 
was  undoubtedly  in  his  capacity  and  work  as  an  apostle 
that  St.  Peter  visited  the  house  of  Cornelius;  and  if.  when 


ance  of  baptism  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,  should  have  been  turned  into  a 
piece  of  rigid  and  mysterious  ritualism.  This  view  has 
no  countenance  any  more  than  the  other  in  New  Tes- 


he  said,  '•  Can  any  one  forbid  water  that  these  should  turnout  scripture.  The  relation  of  baptism,  in  the 
not  lie  baptized,  which  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost  j  original  appointment,  to  the  preaching  and  belief  of 
as  well  as  we  f"  Ac.  x.  47,  he  acted  rashly,  and  "  carried  the  truth,  is  itself  a  sufiicicnt  testimony  against  it  ;  for 
the  practices  of  the  law  into  the  domain  of  the  gospel,"  j  the  baptizing  is  thereby  made  the  accessory  of  the  truth 
there  is  an  end  of  the  matter  ;  the  very  foundations  of  '  taught  and  received,  not  rice  rtrsd  :  "Go  and  teach, 


the  Christian  church  are  shaken:  th 


whom  we  chicHy  know  the  mind  of  Christ,  did  not  in 
reality  know  it.  This  opens  the  door  to  rationalism, 
and  how  far  it  may  be  allowed  to  proceed  can  only  be 
a  question  of  degree.  The  rather  so,  as  Peter  did  not 
stand  alone  in  the  matter.  Paul  also  confesses  to 
having  baptized  per.-ons  at  Corinth,  and  only  so  far  dis 
tinguishes  between  the  \\orkof  baptizing  and  preaching, 
that  he  regarded  the  latter  as  that  which  he  had  more 
especially  to  m'nd.  LCo.i.  n-iv  doubtless  because  it  was 
the  one  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  other,  and 
in  a  manner  carried  it  in  its  train.  Hut  he  does  not 


s,  through  ;  baptizing."      ''He  that  belicvcth 


d  is  baptized,  shall 
be  saved."  Ordinarily,  there  should  be  both:  yet  not 
in  the  same  rank,  nor  in  the  same  order  of  necessity. 
The  teaching  and  believing  is  a  more  fundamental  thing 
than  the  baptizing;  then  might  be  salvation  without 
baptism,  as  in  the  case  of  the  penitent  thief  on  the 
cross;  but  not  salvation  without  believing  aim  ng  such 
as  are  capable  of  exercising  it.  Hence,  while  it  is  said, 
"He  that  believcth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved  ;'' 
the  converse  is,  "  He  that  bclievcth  not  shall  lie  con- 
di  iniicd."  i',ilii  \iir_;'  admits  within  the  pale  of  salva 
tion.  For  those  really,  or  by  profession  within,  baptism 


say  a  word  either  there,  or  anywhere  else,  against  hap-      must   ordinarily  be  taken   as  an   accompaniment,   beim 


tism  by  water  as  an  ordinance  in  the  church  of  Chri.-t ; 
nothing  to  indicate  that  he  accounted  it  at  variance 
with  the  genius  of  the  gospel,  and  a  remnant  of  .Ju 
daism.  With  the  pi-oi:,-r  remain-  of  Judaism,  the  beg 
garly  elements  of  the  old  covenant,  he  dealt  in  a  quite  nect 
liitfi-ivnt  manner,  and  strenuously  n -i.-ted  their  intro 
duction  into  the-  Gentile  churches.  Hut  an  initiatory 
ordinance  of  baptism,  as  we  have  already  shown,  was 
not  Judaistie;  it  had  its  rise  with  the  dawn  of  the 
gospel  dispensation:  and  th'-  u'l-oumh  relied  upon  by 


amoii-_p  the  means  provided  to  insure  the  proper  result ; 
bui  thi-  not  bi-lieviii'.;-  (whether  baptism  may  have  been 
administered  or  noO  leaves  those  it  adheres  to  still 
standing  without:  the  living  bond  is  wanting  that  coii- 
the  soul  with  Christ,  and  nothing  can  supply  its 
place. 

Such  is  the  teaching  of  Scripture  as  connected  witli 
tin-  original  institut  ion  of  baptism  ;  and  there  is  nothing 
in  thi-  stati-monts  subsequently  made  of  a  contrary 
nature,  u  hen  thi-  pas.-age>  are  can-fully  weighed,  but 


spiritualists  For  the  oppn.-ite  view  are  without  foim-     much  rather  to  confirm  it.    Itis  very  explicitly  confirmed 


dation.     So  that,  whether  we  look  to   the   practice  of 

tin-  apostles,  or  to  the  native  import  of  the  words  of 
( 'hrist.  or  to  the  relation  of  Christian  baptism  In  \\hat 
immediately  preceded  it.  we  are  shut  up  to  the  conclu 
sion,  that  it  was  from  the  first  nn-ant  to  b<-  an  outward 
and  standing  ordinance  in  the  church  of  Christ. 


by  what  the  apostle  Paid  says  of  preaching  the  gospel, 
as  being  his  special  work  rather  than  baptizing;  for  as 
an  apostle  it  was  his  more  peculiar  calling  to  lav  the 
foundation  of  the  church  in  different  places ;  to  bring 
men  into  living  acquaintance  and  fellowship  with 
('hrist;  ami  tin.- exhibition  of  the  gospel  is  the  grand 


It  is  not  out  of  placet' >  urge  these  considerations  here  instrument  in  the  hand  of  the  Spirit  for  eficcting  this, 
respecting  the  institution  of  baptism  as  a  Christian  ordi-  ,  \\  h<  n  it  is  accomplished,  the  administration  of  ordin- 
nance  ;  for  though  the  view  tln-y  oppose  has  never  been 
widely  embraced,  yet  it  has  its  hereditary  advocates, 


and  individual 


s  are  ever  an 


n  arising  from  other 
quarters  to  propound  it  afresh  (see.  for  example,  a  trea- 


anci-s,  and  baptism  among  the  rest,  comes  as  a  matter 
of  c-oiirsi-.  So  needful  are  these  for  earning  on  and 
completing  the  work  of  grace  in  the  soul  so  much  are 
they  the  regular  channels  of  grace  to  the  soul,  that 
tise  lately  issued  in  Edinburgh,  entitled  Chritstian  J!u/>-  \  salvation  is  often  expressly  connected  with  them.  'Jims 
tiai/L  Xfiiritual,  iiot  lilt  mil,  by  R.  Macnair,  M.A.,  IX'IM.  of  baptism  it,  is  said  that  it  saves,  l  !'u.  iii.  i.'l;  he  that  is 
But,  undoubtedly,  the  other  extreme  is  both  the  more  baptized  into  Christ  has  put  on  Christ,  and  those  that 
extensively  held,  and  is  also,  in  some  respects,  the  !  have  been  buried  with  him  in  baptism  have  also  risen 
on  the  spiritual  interests  with  him  through  faith  of  the  operation  of  God,  ci:i.  iii. 
natural  tendency  of  the  I  27;  O>1.  ii.  n.  Putin  the  same  manner,  it  is  said  of  the 


more  dangerous  in  its  bearin 
of  men.  It  falls  in  with  the 
human  mind,  in  its  existing  state,  to  place  undue  de 
pendence  upon  the  outward  in  sacred  tilings,  and  turn 
religion  into  a  form.  On  this  account,  the  Old  Testa 
ment  religion  itself,  with  all  its  ceremonialism,  was  not 
ceremonial  enough  for  the  people  placed  under  it;  and 
throughout  their  history,  there  constantly  appears  a 
disposition  to  treat  its  ordinances  as  more  outward  than 
they  really  were,  and  to  make  up  for  what  was  wanting 
in  the  spirit  it  required,  by  adding  to  the  number  of  its 


word  that  it  quickens  the  dead  ;   that  sinners  are  begot 
ten  by  it  to  God;   that   it 


dience,  Ja 


sanctifies  the  soul   unto   obe 
17,  &c.;  and  of  j>r(ii/o;  that  he 


wo  ass   n 


ks  in  t 


.In.  i  i;i;  xvii.  1 
e  name  of  Christ,  believing,  shall  receive 


whatever  he  may  seek,  Ji 


In  their  own  place, 


and  in  diverse  ways,  the  ordinances  an;  all  available  as 
means — efficient  means,  if  rightly  employed  and  be- 
lievingly  handled  ;  but  their  place  is  still  only  instru 
mental  and  subordinate  ;  while  the  direct  act  of  the 


BAPTISM 


188 


BAPTISM 


ml  in   resting,  through   tin;  Spirit,   upon   Christ,  and 


The  Reformed  churches  generally  concur  in  holding 


founders  of  the  church.      What  pains  they  took  to  in 


struct  individual  applicants,  or  into  what  forms  they 
might  require  confessions  of  faith  and  avowals  of  Chris 
tian  experience  to  be  thrown,  wo  have  no  proper  means 
of  ascertaining.  But  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 

this  doctrine  of  baptism.  They  regard  it,  when  received  >  that  the  repentance  toward  Gad  and  faith  toward  the 
in  respect  to  its  original  institution  and  doctrinal  char-  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  formed  the  sum  of  apostolic 
acter,  not  as  the  efficient  cause  of  faith  and  spiritual  lire-aching,  was  in  some  form  implicitly  or  expressly 
life,  but,  like  circumcision,  n<>.  iv.,  the  sign  and  seal  of  demanded  of  the  applicants  for  baptism.  For,  in  own- 
these  to  the  believing  participant ;  and  that  both  ways  ing  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  they  were  necessarily  un- 

both  as  from  Cod  to  the  baptized,  pledging  through     del-stood  to  own  it  as  taught  by  the  apostles— owned, 

an  established  ordinance  in  his  church  all  the  grace  therefore,  that  this  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  the  living 
connected  with  faith  and  life;  and  on  the  part  of  the  God;  that  through  his  death  and  resurrection  he  had 
haptizvd,  ratifying  as  by  a  solemn  act  of  adhesion  and  become  the  Redeemer  of  a  lost  world  ;  that  he  had  ob- 
surrender  of  himself  to  God  his  belief  in  the  gospel,  and  tained  for  as  many  as  believe  upon  his  name  remission 
obligation  to  comply  with  its  precepts.  But  for  these  '  of  sin,  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  renew  their 
ends  the  virtue  of  the  ordinance  hangs,  not  on  the  ritual  souls  after  the  image  of  God,  the  sure  hope  of  eternal 
administration  (as  Romanists,  and  in  part  also  Luthe-  life;  and  that  they  as  sinners  accepted  of  the  offer  of 
rans  hold),  but  on  the  working  of  God's  Spirit,  and  the  j  this  Saviour,  and  resolved  to  give  themselves  to  his  ser- 


exercise  of  faith  in  the  subjects  of  the  ordinance. 

4.  The  conditions  of  baptism,  or  the  amount  of  reli 
gious  knowledge  and  state  of  spiritual  attainment  re 
quired  of  those  who  were  recognized  as  proper  subjects 


vice.  The  whole  tenor  of  the  apostolic  teaching,  and  the 
occasional  notices  furnished  of  their  proceedings,  seem 
plainly  to  indicate,  that  they  looked  for  such  a  profes 
sion  of  doctrinal  belief  and  Christian  practice  from 


,>f  the  ordinance,  are  not  fully  and  categorically  exhi-  j  those  who  sought  admission  into  the  church ;  and  the 
bited  in  New  Testament  scripture  ;  they  are  rather  cases  first  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  then  of  Simon  the 
implied  in  the  nature  of  the  ordinance,  and  left  to  be  ;  sorcerer,  show  that  the  repentance  of  sin,  and  adherence 
inferred  from  attendant  circumstances,  than  formally  ,  to  Jesus  for  deliverance  from  its  guilt  and  power, 
and  distinctly  enunciated.  From  the  connection  be-  |  formed  essential  elements,  in  their  view,  of  a  right  pre- 
tween  John's  baptism  and  that  of  Christ,  and  the  man-  ]  paration  for  the  initiatory  ordinance.  Such  as  failed 
iier  in  which  the  one  merged  into  the  other,  they  could  in  these  respects  were  treated  as  unwarranted  intruders 
not  bo  quite  uniform.  But  even  in  John's  case —  within  the  Christian  fold  ;  and  hence  the  sincere  recep- 
founded,  as  Ins  baptism  was,  on  the  call  to  repent,  and  |  tioii  of  baptism  is  regarded  by  the  apostle  Peter  as 
the  necessity  of  having  sin  renounced  and  forgiven,  in  '  necessarily  carrying  along  with  it  "the  answer  of  a 
order  to  be  prepared  for  the  event  immediately  in  pro-  good  conscience" — a  conscience  purged  through  right 
spect  of  the  Lord's  coming — it  is  clear  that,  from  the  views  of  sin,  and  faith  in  the  person  and  work  of  the 
first,  all  who  honestly  approached  to  the  waters  of  bap-  Saviour,  i  Pe.  Hi.  21. 

tism,  must  have  come  with  a  sincere  confession  of  their  Whether  the  conditions  of  Christian  baptism  in  the 
own  sinfulness,  of  their  desire  to  obtain  remission  on  !  apostolic  age  were  of  such  a  kind  as  to  necessitate  the 
account  of  it,  and  of  their  belief  in  the  near  advent  of  re-baptizing  of  those  who  had  submitted  to  John's  bap- 


Messiah.  By  and  by  the  indefiniteness  'which  hung 
around  the  latter  point  gave  way  to  more  determinate 
convictions  ;  and  even  before  John  quitted  the  field  of 
his  preparatory  working,  the  hope  of  a  coming,  had 
begun  to  be  supplanted  by  the  belief  of  a  present, 
Saviour.  Bat  as  this  Saviour  did  not  appear  in  the 
character  which  men's  anticipations  had  fashioned  to 
themselves,  and  the  faith  even  of  those  who  attached 
themselves  to  his  person  ere  long  met  with  things  fitted 
to  make  it  stagger,  the  process  of  active  proselytism 
was  wisely  suspended  for  a  time,  and  only  when  the 
work  of  Christ  on  earth  was  finished,  and  the  materials 
were  before  the  world  for  arriving  at  a  full  and  intelli 
gent  belief  regarding  him,  were  applicants  for  baptism 
required  to  make  formal  confession  of  their  faith  in  Jesus 
as  the  Messiah.  Accordingly,  after  the  ascension,  this 
became  the  more  prominent  point,  both  in  the  apostolic 


tism,  may  be  left  among  the  points  respecting  which 
our  information  is  too  partial  and  defective  for  an  ex 
plicit  deliverance.  We  read  only  of  one  occasion  on 
which  persons  who  had  participated  in  John's  baptism 
are  expressly  said  to  have  had  the  Christian  ordinance 
administered  to  them ;  namely,  the  case  of  the  twelve 
disciples  whom  Paul  fell  in  with  at  Ephesus,  proba 
bly  about  the  year  59,  Ac.  xix.  1-7.  The  case  of  those 
persons,  however,  can  by  no  means  be  regarded  as 
a  fair  specimen  of  the  subjects  of  John's  baptism. 
For  full  five  and  twenty  years  after  the  death  of 
Christ  they  had  yet  come  to  no  definite  views  of  him, 
nor  had  even  so  much  as  heard  whether  there  were 
any  Holy  Ghost  —  although  John  himself  expressly 
made  mention  of  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  what 
might  surely  be  looked  for  by  all  who  waited  for  the 
consolation  of  Israel.  They  seem  to  have  been  much 


preaching,  and  in  the  terms  of  communion  presented  j  in  the  condition  of  persons  who  had  yet  to  learn 
to  those  who  through  baptism  might  seek  to  enter  into  the  principles  of  the  gospel — who  had  shared,  indeed, 
fellowship  with  the  Christian  community.  While  that,  at  an  earlier  period  in  the  excitement  and  the  hopes 
however,  was  the  chief,  it  was  by  no  means  the  only  raised  by  the  Baptist,  and  professed  themselves  to  be 
point ;  from  the  very  nature  of  things  it  could  not  '  his  disciples — but  had  afterwards  sunk  back,  and  given 
stand  alone  ;  and  to  say,  as  sometimes  has  been  said,  i  themselves  little  or  no  further  concern  about  the  matter, 
that  nothing  more  was  expected  or  required  at  baptism  :  We  ought  not  to  judge  by  such  a  case  of  what  might 
of  entrants  into  the  Christian  church  of  apostolic  times,  have  been  deemed  proper  in  respect  to  those  who 


than  a  simple  acknowledgment  of  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus,  is  palpably  to  understate  the  case,  and  to  leave 
out  elements  that  could  not  possibly  be  ignored  by  the 


lived  amid  the  scenes  of  gospel  history,  and  who,  after 
submitting  to  the  baptism  of  John,  and  accredited  the 
prospect  of  an  immediately  approaching  Saviour,  had 


BAPTISM 


189 


BAPTISM 


cordially  embraced  Jesus  as  that  Saviour,  and  entered  '  did  not  baptize  himself  before  dinner,  Lu.  xi.ss.  In  such 
into  the  hope  of  his  salvation.  In  that  condition  were  cases,  it  is  out  of  the  ([uestioii  to  think  of  entire  bodily 
the  twelve  apostles,  the  whole  hundred  and  twenty  in  immersions — such  were  not  common  among  the  Jews 
the  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem,  and  doubtless  many  before  meals,  or  even  as  a  regular  custom,  except  among 
more  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  who  had  passed  the  Essenes,  and  it  is  necessary  to  adhere  to  the  sense  of 
through  substantially  the  same  experience  and  fob  washing,  with  the  accessory  idea  of  purification  or  cleans- 
lowed  the  same  course.  The  faith  of  such  persons  had  ing  from  legal  defilement — washing  with  a  view  to  a  kind 
developed,  their  knowledge  had  ripened,  their  views  ill  of  sacred  effect.  There  is.  therefore,  a  certain  vague- 
many  respects  had  become  more  clear  and  enlightened:  ness  and  variable  use  in  the  principal  word,  and  the 
but  there  had  been  no  radical  change  in  their  senti-  manner  of  its  application,  as  if  for  the  purpose  of  leav- 
ments;  they  but  acted  out  the  profession  they  had  ing  some  room  for  diversity  of  mode  in  the  Christian 
already  made,  and  entered  on  the  heritage  of  blessing  church.  Hence  the  early  versions  do  not  translate  tin- 
pledged  to  them  in  tlie  baptism  they  had  received;  they  word,  but  simply  adopt  it.  Nor,  when  one  looks  to 
needed  only  the  internal  baptism  of  the  Spirit;  and  the  facts  of  the  case  in  early  times,  and  tliinks  of  hun- 
when  this  came,  it  is  extremely  unlikely  that  they  dreds.  or  even  thousands  being  baptized  at  a  river  side 
should  have  been  again  bapti/.ed  with  water.  But  be-  in  open  day,  is  it  possible  to  understand  how  it  could 
tvveen  the  case  of  such  persons  and  those  mentioned  have 
in  the  Acts.  ch.  xix  ,  there  may  have  been  many  of  a  mon 
less  marked  description  either  way:  and  it 
probable  that  the  mode.-  of  treatment  as  t< 
correspondingly  differed.  (See  also  on  what  is  implied 
in  knowing  only  John's  baptism,  under  Al'oLLos.) 

.r>.   In  regard  to  the  ini,i_/r  nf  mini inixt> rimj  bajititm 
in  apostolic  times,  whether  by  immersion  onlv,  if  bv 

immersion,  whether  by  immersion  of  the  whole  body,  or  usually   had   to   the   cleansing   proptrtv  of  water,    and 

more  specially  of  the  head,  or  whether  again  by  acts  that  which   is   not   ordinarily   associated  with  dipping,  but 

might  more  properly  be  denominated  washing  or  sprink-  rather   with    washing    or    with    sprinkling    (if    ritual 


sted  with  the  general 


d,  not  to  say  com 


lecency,  that  the  rite  should  have  been  adminis- 
not  im-     tered  by  a  total  immersion.      It  would  be  strange  indeed 
laptism     if  in  such  a  matter  si -me  liberty  had  not  been  allowed, 
especially  in   a  religion    wherein   the    ceremonial    ele 
ment  holds  so  subordinate  a  j.kue. 

Jt  confirms  this  view,  that  \\heii  reference  is  made 
to  the  symbolical  import  of    the  ordinance,   respect  i-s 


ling— these  points,  it  is  \vell  known,  have  formed  the 
subject  of  keen  discussion,  and  are  likely  to  do  so  still. 
It  cannot  be  supposed  that  within  the  limits  of  a  few 
sentences  any  fre-h  li^ht  can  be  ,-!n.d  upon  the  subject, 
or  even  the  materials  Mipplii  d  of  a  comprehensive 
of  its  merits,  and  a  fully  informed  judgment. 


Usage  is  taken  into  account).  Thus,  the  word  ad 
dressed  by  Ananias  to  Paul  was  "Arise,  and  be  bap 
ti/.ed,  and  wash  away  tbv  sins;"  and  in  Kp.  v.  '2i>,  2G, 
it  is  said,  "  Christ  loved  the  church,  and  gave  hims.-lf 

le 


of  the  Holy  Ohost,"  \c.      There  can  be  no  doubt   that 
the  allusion   in  these  and    some  other  passages   is  to 


view     for  it,  that  hi,-   might  sanctify   and    cleanse   it.   bv  tl 
Our     washing  of  water,  by  the  word;"  also  in  Tit.  iii.  5,  "  He 

conviction  is.  that  Christ  and  his  disciples  did  not  seek     saved  us  by  the  washing  of  regeneration,  and  renewing 
to  bind    the   church   to   any  precise    form,  and  that  the 
language    employed    is   hence    of    a  somewhat    general 

and  variable   description.      The   expression  used  by  the     the    water   in    the  ordinance,  simply  as   an  element  of 
evangelist  Matthew  is  "bapti/.ed  in  water."  or  "in  the     cleansing:  and  if  pains  be  taken  to  keep  that  idea  pro- 
river  Jordan,"  uh.iii.n.ll;   but  St.  Luke  uses  the  dative.      miiieul,  the 
"  baptized    with    water."  ch.  iii.  id;    and  neither    form    of     to  be  servei 

leing  buried  with  Christ 

in    baptism,    i:<>.  \i.  y,  i,  Oil.  ii.  12  ;  and   it  has   often    been 
alleged  that  this  must   point  to  the  act  of  immersion  in 
:-n  in  a  forma!  resp.  ct  the  resemblance 
close;   for   death  is  not  naturally  as- 
out  every  night  into  the  valley  of  Bethulia  and  baptiz-     sociated  with  a  dipping  in  water:  Christ's  burial  placed 
ing  herself  in   the  cam])  at   the   fountain  of   water;   the     his   body   not   in   water,    nor    in    earth,    but  in   a    rock, 


reat  obj 
There  are 

expression  is  such  as  to  denote,  by  any  sort  of  necessity,      believers  are  re]  .resented 

corporeal   immersion,    unless   tin-    word   bapti:<    did  of 

itself  involve  this  idea.      So  it  has  often  been  attempted 

to  be  proved,  but  without  success.      The  case  of  Judith     the  water.    But. 

in  the  Apocrypha,  ch.  xii  .  :,  who  is  represi  ntt  d  as  going     is  far  from   beiu 


t  of  its  employment  would  seem 
e  two  passages,  indeed,  in  which 


reference  in  Sirach  xx.xiv.  -2~>  to  the  case  of  one  being 
baptized  from  a  dead  body,  and  auain  defiling  himself 
bv  a  fresh  touch  of  the  corpse;  the  mention  in  He.  i.\. 


and  not  by  an  ordinary  act  of  immersion,  but  by  a 
horizontal  elevation.  And  then,  the  image  of  bury- 
ing  Used  by  the  apostle  is  one  only  of  a  variety  of 
10  of  "divers  baptisms"  under  the  law,  are  all  at  vari-  figures  connected  with  baptism.  Jn  the  passage  of 
ance  with  the  notion  of  immersion  being  inseparable  Romans  lie  introduces  that  also  of  planting — "planted 
from  the  meaning  of  the  word.  For  it  is  incredible  in  the  likeness  of  his  death,  and  of  his  resurrection" 
that  Judith  could  have  been  in  the  habit  of  practising  -  and  elsewhere  of  putting  oif  the  body  of  the  sins  of 
proper  immersion  at  a  fountain  in  the  open  camp;  it  is  the  flesh  and  putting  on  Christ,  as  of  persons  first  un 
certain  that  cleansing  from  the  defilement  contracted  !  dressing  and  then  dressing  anew.  It  is  not,  in  any  of 
by  touching  a  dead  body  consisted  mainly  in  being  the  passages,  to  the  iitudi:  of  administering  baptism 
sprinkled  with  water,  having  in  it  the  ashes  of  the  red  .  that  the  apostle  appears  to  refer,  but  to  the  spiritual 
heifer;  and  the  purifications  under  the  law.  described  ':  rtaliti/  involved  in  it— as  the  formal  act  of  surrender  to 
as  "divers  baptisms."  bad  chiefly  to  do  with  rinsings,  Christ,  wherein,  by  virtue  of  our  spiritual  union  to  him, 


sprinklings,  and  washings  of  parts  of  the  body,  or  of  the 
garments.  (Si'C  BATH  i  x  ( ; . )  In  the  gospel  hist<  try,  also, 
we  have  the  word  baptized  used  both  of  the  Pharisees  and 
of  our  Lord,  in  a  manner  that  cannot  stand  with  bodily 
immersion:  the  Pharisees  when  thev  came  from  the  mar- 


we  have  fellowship  with  him  in  his  death  to  sin,  and  in 
his  resurrection  to  life  and  glory. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  state,  that  the  symbolical 
accompaniments  introduced  into  the  administration 
>f  the  ordinance  by  the  ritualistic  tendency  of  early 


ket  did  not  eat  except  they  baptized  themselves,  Mar.  vii.  4,  I  times— such  as  three-fold  immersion,  putting  on   after 
and  a  Pharisee  wondered  on  one  occasion  that  our  Lord     baptism  of  white  garments,  receiving  milk  and  honey, 


BAPTISM 


190 


BAPTISM  EOTt  TILE  DEAD 


exorcism.  &c. — and  which,  of  course,  have  found  their 
cherished  resting-place  in  Home,  have  no  warrant  in 
Scripture.  Most  of  them  are  mentioned  by  Tertulliau 
(De  Cor.  $  l>)  as  having  already  obtained  a  footing  in 
Africa,  and  are  vindicated  by  him  as  proper  to  lie  ob 
served,  on  the  ground  of  traditionary  usage,  though 
destitute  of  scriptural  authority.  Such  things,  when 
they  came  in,  did  not  add  to  the  instructive  significance 
and  real  ellicacy  of  baptism  ;  they  detracted  from  both 
by  overlaying  witli  ceremony  its  simple  import,  and 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  turning  it  into  a  kind  of 
sacred  magic. 

0'.  The  question  of  infant,  as  contradistinguished 
from  (ulu.lt  baptism,  is  the  only  remaining  point  that 
falls  to  be  noticed,  but  it  is  one  that  calls  for  too 
lengthened  inquiry  to  be  taken  up  here.  Undoubtedly, 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases  it  is  of  the  baptism  of 
adults  that  the  records  of  the  New  Testament  most 
.directly  and  commonly  treat.  The  command  first  to 
teach  and  then  to  bapti/.e  implies  that  such  were  the 
parties  more  immediately  contemplated,  and  such  the 
order  of  nature  in  the  matter.  Explicit  statements  of 
baptism  being  administered  to  the  infants  of  believers 
are  not  to  be  found:  butiii  such  cases  as  those  of  Lydia 
— "she  was  baptized  and  her  household" — and  of  the 
jailor  at  Philippi — "  and  he  was  baptized  and  all  his 
straightway/'  Ac.  xvi.,  do  naturally  seem  to  imply  an  ad 
mission  of  the  family  as  such,  and  an  admission,  on 
the  ground  of  its  relationship  to  the  head,  to  the 
church  by  baptism.  The  one  follows  so  close  upon 
the  other,  and  seems  to  stand  in  such  immediate  de 
pendence  npoii  it,  that  there  scarcely  seems  room  for 
separate  acts  of  conversion.  Then,  the  long -estab 
lished  connection  between  parent  and  child  in  a  cove 
nant-relationship,  and  the  essential  agreement  between 
baptism  and  circumcision  in  spiritual  import  and  eco 
nomical  design,  come  most  materially  in  support  of 
the  paedo- baptist  argument.  But  those  who  wish  to 
study  the  subject  must  have  recourse  to  such  works 
as  Wall  on  Infant  Baptism,  with  Dr.  Gale's  Reflec 
tions;  Carson  on  Baptism;  and  on  the  opposite  side, 
Wilson  on  Infant  Baptism,  Dr.  Wardlaw  on  Infant 
Baptism,  Halley  on  Infant  Baptism,  &c. 

BAPTISM  is  occasionally  iised  in  a  tropical  man 
ner  in  Scripture.  It  is  so  in  the  simplest  manner,  or 
with  the  nearest  approach  to  its  primary  meaning,  by 
St.  Paul  in  1  Co.  x.  2,  where  he  represents  the  Israel 
ites  who  left  Egypt  as  having  been  baptized  into  Moses 
in  the  lied  Sea  and  in  the  cloud,  which  then  over 
shadowed  and  protected  them ;  meaning,  that  these 
transactions  and  events  held  much  the  same  place,  and 
served  much  the  same  design,  in  respect  to  their  rela 
tion  to  Moses,  that  baptism  now  does  with  believers  in 
their  relation  to  Christ.  In.  the  one  case  as  well  as 
the  other,  there  was  a  divinely  appointed  method  of 
initiation,  which  mutually  pledged  the  parties  to  all 
that  followed.  In  a  still  more  distinctly  tropical  man 
ner  our  Lord  uses  the  word,  when  he  says,  "I  have  a 
baptism  to  be  baptized  with,  and  how  am  I  straitened 
till  it  be  accomplished  ?"  Lu.  xii.  50;  and  again  to  the  sons 
of  Zebedee,  ' '  Can  ye  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  drink  of, 
and  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized 
with?"  Mar. x. 33.  In  both  cases,  the  baptism  spoken  of 
is  plainly  a  synonym  for  the  sufferings  through  which 
our  Lord  was  to  pass,  and  that  not  as  a  matter  of 
necessity,  but  as  a  matter  of  choice — with  the  full  con 
sent  and  willing  resignation  of  his  soul.  The  reference, 


we  conceive,  is  not  (as  it  is  very  often  put)  t<>  the  pri 
mary  sense  of  the  word  baptize,  as  if  Christ  meant  to 
present  the  idea  of  his  going  to  be  plunged  into  or 
overwhelmed  in  a  sea  of  sorrow  and  affliction;  but 
rather  to  its  secondary  or  acquired  sense  of  a  rite  of 
si >1( 'inn  initiation,  just  as  in  the  cup  connected  with 
it  the  reference  is  to  the  .symbolical  use  made  of 
a  drinking  cup  by  the  prophets  as  a  symbol  of  wrath. 
Through  suffering  even  unto  death  Christ  must  con 
secrate  himself  to  the  Father,  as  the  Redeemer  of 
men,  thereby  at  once  drinking  in  their  behalf  a  cup  of 
wnith  on  account  of  sin,  and  sealing  his  purpose  of  per 
fect  devotion  to  their  eternal  interests.  Publicly  and 
formally  he  did  then  what  in  spirit  he  had  done  before 
— thoroughly  committed  himself  to  their  cause,  and  to 
the  fulfilment  of  all  the  demands  of  righteousness  in 
volved  in  its  successful  management. 

BAPTISM  FOR  THE  DEAD,  or  more  properly, 
"those  baptized  for  the  dead,"  is  a  peculiar  expression 
used  by  the  apostle  Paul  in  1  Co.  xv.  2(.),  in  the  course 
of  his  argumentation  on  the  subject  of  the  resurrection. 
The  whole  verse  runs  thus:  "Else,  what  shall  they  do 
who  are  baptized  for  the  dead  ?  I  f  the  dead  rise  not  at  all, 
why  are  they  also  baptized  for  the  dead  f '  A  great  variety 
of  interpretations  have  been  proposed  in  explanation  of 
this  peculiar  reference  (which  may  be  seen  in  any  of 
the  more  recent  commentaries),  but  nothing  altogether 
satisfactory  can  yet  be  said  to  have  been  produced. 
In  several  of  the  interpretations,  respect  is  supposed 
to  have  been  had  to  views  and  practices  which  were 
of  much  later  growth  than  the  apostolic  age,  and  which 
could  never,  even  if  they  had  existed,  been  referred  to 
in  this  argumentative  manner  by  the  apostle.  Tint; 
holds  especially  of  the  notion  that  the  allusion  is  to  the 
practice  of  receiving  baptism  vicariously  for  friends 
who  had  died  before  the  rite  had  been  administered  to 
them  —  a  practice  which,  as  has  been  justly  said, 
"was  never  adopted,  except  by  some  obscure  sects  of 
Gnostics,  who  seem  to  have  founded  their  custom  on 
this  very  passage"  (Conybeare  and  Ilowson,  ii.  5!»). 
The  view  rather  to  be  adopted  is  that  which  was  in 
substance  proposed  by  Clericus  and  Doederlein,  and 
which  contemplates  the  baptized  as  ever  coming  for 
ward  to  fill  up  the  vacancies  created  by.  the  deceased ; 
so  that  the  one  rush  in,  as  it  were,  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  other.  "The  vacancies  left  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Christian  army,  when  saints  and  martyrs  fall  asleep  in 
Jesus,  are  supplied  by  fresh  recruits,  eager  to  be  bap 
tized  as  they  were,  and  pledged  by  baptism  to  fall  as 
they  fell,  at  the  post  of  duty  and  danger.  It  is  a 
touching  sight  which  the  Lord's  baptized  host  presents 
to  view,  especially  in  troublous  times.  Column  after 
column  advancing  to  the  breach,  as  on  a  forlorn  hope, 
in  the  storming  of  Satan's  citadel  of  worldly  pomp  and 
power,  is  mowed  down  by  the  ruthless  fire  of  persecu 
tion.  But  ever  as  one  line  disappears,  a  new  band  of 
volunteers  starts  up,  candidates  for  the  seal  of  baptism, 
even  though  in  their  case,  as  in  the  case  of  their  prede 
cessors  in  the  deadly  strife,  the  seal  of  baptism  is  to 
be  the  earnest  of  the  bloody  crown  of  martyrdom" 
(Candlish  on  1  Cor.  xv.)  This  is  well  put— only,  at  the 
time  the  apostle  wrote,  persecution  to  the  extent  of 
martyrdom  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed;  it  had 
as  yet  taken  place  in  but  a  few  isolated  cases.  And  if 
the  idea  is  extended,  so  as  to  take  in  the  vacancies 
caused  by  the  ordinary  death  of  believers  (as  was  done, 
indeed,  by  the  original  propounders  of  the  view),  then 


BAR 


191 


BARLEY 


the  baptisms  referred  to  must  be  those  also  of  an  ordi-  |  to  transmute  this  Hard  nun  murinum  into  any  of  the 
nary  kind;  they  constituted  the  successive  additions  gene-  !  cultivated  varieties.     Tlic  same  thing  maybe  said  of 

rally,  which  were  being  made  to  the  Christian  commu-     wheat.      And  joining  the  two  facts  together firstly, 

that  these  all-important  grains  are  neviT  found  truly 
wild  or  native  ;  and,  secondly,  that  it  is  a  process  round 
about,  and  far  from  obvious,  by  which  they  are  converted 
into  cakes  and  loaves,  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  it 


nity;  and  one  is  at  some  loss  to  understand  why  the 
apostle  should  have  sought  a  support  to  his  argument 
in  so  common  a  connection  between  the  living  and  the 
dead.  Yet  while  the  view  is  attended  with  such  appa 
rent  embarrassments,  it  scums  upon  the  whole  the  most  \  is  in  a  sense  peculiarly  emphatic  that  "our  Father  who 
worthy  of  acceptation;  and  our  diiliculty  in  entering  '  is  in  heaven"  has  given  us  our  "daily  bread."  In  the 
into  the  peculiar  aspect  in  which  it  presents  the  bap-  ,  world's  infancy  many  things  lay  ready  to  the  hand  of 
tism  of  believers,  may  pos.sibly  arise  from  our  inability  the  new-come  tenant,  and  with  unsophisticated  senses, 
to  realize  distinctly  the  circumstances  in  the  eye  of  the  it  would  not  need  much  instruction  to  guide  him  to  the 
apostle  when  he  wrote.  use  of  such  fruits  as  the  pine- apple  or  ripe  orange.  But 

BAR  [.S-OH].  It  is  a  common  member  of  compound  who  gave  the  hmt  to  the  first  miller  ?  Who  taught  the 
names,  as  is  also  Jlcti,  which  has  the  same  meaning,  first  baker'  How  did  it  occur  to  any  one  to  rub  down 
lien,  however,  prevails  in  the  pure  Hebrew  names  of  the  into  a  powder  the  grains  of  a  coarse  grass,  and  then 
Old  Testament,  and  liar  in  those  of  the  New,  because  work  this  powder  with  water  into  paste,  and  then 
it  is  much  more  in  use  in  the  Chalike  and  Svriae  hui-  kindle  a  iire  to  bake  it  into  bread  '  Were  not  the  wor- 


guages,    which    greatly  altered   Hebrew   expression   in 
later  times. 

BARAB'BAS.     A    man   engaged    in  sedition.    and 

guilty  of  murder,  whom  Pilate  released  to  the  .lews  at 
the  time  that  he   delivered   Jesus  to  lie  crucified.      It 

th 


if  Ceres  pointing  towards  a  truth  through  the 
of  their  idolatry  '  -May  we  not  suppose  that 
the  u.-e  of  corn  is  as  ancient  as  the  days  \\iieii  man 
still  unfallen  received  his  lesson  direct  from  (  !od  {  And 
when  he  fell  from  this  blessedness,  and  was  driven  forth 


was  his  practice  perhaps  it  had  been  al 
of  governors  before  him.  to  phase  the  populace  who 
assembled  every  year  at  the  f>  ast  of  the  passover.  by 
irivinj-  a  free  pardon  to  any  prisoner  whom  they  chose 
to  name,  M:it.  xxvii.  lii-26;  Mur.  xv.  G-15;  Lu.  xxiii.  1C--J1  ;  Jn, 
xviii.  :;IP,  -in. 

BA'RACHEL  [/,/,.• ^  t,;,,/.  ]     X,,   ELIIU*. 

BARACHl'AS.     See  ZACHAIUAS. 

BA'RAK  |  Iliihtniivi]  ].rol.ably  the  same  as  Harm*, 
tlie  surname  of  the  Carthaginian  Hamilear  -  one  of  the 
judges  who  was  coiiimis>ioiied  },y  the  prophetess  Debo 
rah  to  deliver  Israel  from  bondage  to  Jahin  the  Canaanit- 
ish  kini;-  of  J  la/or,  in  the  tribe  of  Naphtali.  to  which 
tribe  P.arak  belonged.  He  utteily  destroy,  d  .labin's 
army,  and  the  king  and  his  jvneral  Sisera  perished.  Yet 
the  chief  -lory  was  snatched  from  P.arak  by  a  woman, 
because  his  weak  faith  would  not  let  him  go  to  the 
work  unless  Deborah  would  go  along  with  him,  .hi.  iv  v.;  puirshment  to; 
Fs.  Ixxxiii.  !>,  10.  For  the  chronology,  see  the  article  the  men.  Tim 
tlrin;i-:s.  He  is  named  as  an  example  of  faith.  Ho.  xi.  ::•_'. 

BARBAHIAN.  A  word  often  used  by  us  to  de 
note  a  man  of  cruelty.  lint  like  the  word  .<iiriii/<  oc 
casionally  amon'_r  ourselves,  it,  meant,  amon^the  Creeks, 
nothing  worse  than  uncultivated  or  um  i\  ili/ed  :  and  in 
their  self-esteem  they  applied  this  term  to  all  nations 


at    Ill-rail  in  the  sweat   of  his  fac 


ma     not   the 


except  themselves:   and  the  Romans 


selves    with    the   (J  reeks 
sovereignty    and  partoo 


•iated  them- 
as  they  succeeded  to  their 
of  their  cultivation.  This  is 


exile  have  been  in  mercy  allowed  to  carry  with  him 
into  the  house  of  his  pilgrimage  this  "staff  of  life?" 

Palestine  was  a  "land  of  wheat  and  barley,''  Ho.  viii.  8. 
Barley  was  givi  n  to  horses  ami  dromedaries,  1  Ki.  iv.  2\ 
but  it  was  also  converted  into  bread  for  the  food  of 
man.  !•:/.,>.  iv.  u.  In  the  multitude  which  surrounded 
the  Saviour  in  the  fields  near  I'ethsaida,  the  only  sup 
plies  forthcoming  were  "five  barley-loaves  and  two 
small  h'shes,"  .In.  vi.  it.  I  Jut,  if  we  may  take  as  a  cri 
terion  the  expression,  "  A  measure  of  wheat  for  a  penny. 
and  three  measures  c,f  Karl'-v  for  a  penny.''  lie.  vi.  (i,  the 
relative  value  of  wheat  was  threefold  greater.  There 
was  the  same  preference  for  wheat  in  other  lands. 
Amongst,  tlie  1,'onians  barley  was  the  food  of  horses  ; 
and  each  cavalry-soldier  was  allowed  a  certain  sum  by 
way  of  barley-money  -"a'3  JinrdKirinin."1  Jt  was  a 
stitute  barley  for  the  usual  rations  of 
when  some  of  his  cohorts  had  lost 
their  standard-;.  Claudius  .Marcellus  ordered  them  to  be 
reduced  to  barley  (I,ivv.  xxvii.  loK  The  same  prefer 
ence  of  wheateu  bread  manift  sts  itself  in  almost  every 
country  which  permits  the  choice,  notwithstanding  the 
superior  sweetness  of  barley. 

(  >ne  <jTeat  recommendation  of  barley  is  the  rapidity 


with  which  it  ripens.  Kveii  in  Norway,  with  the  help 
of  the  long  midsummer  sunshine,  it  is  said  that  some 
times  less  than  two  months  intervenes  between  reapii 


its  use  in  the  New  Testament.  All  men  are  either]  and  seed-time.  The  consequence  is  that  in  some  coun- 
Jews  or  (lentiles.  All  Gentiles  or  heathen  nations  may  :  tries,  such  as  Spain,  they  are  able  to  procure  two  crops 
sometimes  be  called  (Ireeks,  i  Oi.  i.  ^--.'i  ;  but  taking  in  one  season.  Some  of  their  barley  the  Jews  sowed  or 

if  the  autumnal  rains.  <  Ictober  or 
ni   as   the   depth  of   winter 


planted  at  the  time 


but    taking 

the    term    in    its    strict    sense,    all    other    nations    are 
then    Barbarians,    Ko.  i .  n.      Barbarians    in   one    place, 
Col.  iii.  11,  are  distinguished  from  Scythians  ;   the  former,     was  past,   so  that  the  crop  was  ripe  about  the  time  of 
perhaps,  being  nations  subject  to  the  Roman  emperor,  :  the  passover,   or,    as   we    should   now   say,    at   Easter. 


and  Scythians  being  then  a  general  name  for  all  the 
wild  natioTis  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Roman  empire. 

BAR-JE'SUS.     See  EI.YMAS. 

BAR- JONAS.     X,r  PETKU. 

BARLEY.  Of  this  well-known  and  widely  diffused 
cereal  it  is  impossible  to  assign  the  native  country.  On 
the  top  of  turf-walls  and  on  thin  soils  there  grows  a 
little  grass  extremely  like  it  -the  wall- barley  or  mouse- 
barley  ;  but  even  Lamarck  would  have  found  it  difficult 


Under  date,  June  ;"»,  in  the  south  of  Palestine,  Messrs. 
Bonar  and  M'Cheync  found  "all  the  operations  of  har 
vest  going  on  at  the;  same  time.  Some  were  cutting 
down  the  barley  with  a  reaping-hook  not  unlike  our 
own.  but  all  of  iron,  and  longer  in  the  handle  and 
smaller  in  the  hook.  Others  were  gathering  what  was 
cut  down  into  sheaves.  Many  were  gleaning,  and  some 
were  employed  in  carrying  home  what  had  been  cut 
down  and  gathered.  We  met  four  camels  heavily  laden 


BARNABAS 


BAUTlMyEUS 


with  ripe  ^heaves,  each  camel  having  hells  < if  a  dil!erciit 
note  suspended  from  its  neck,  which  sounded  cheerfully 
as  they  moved  slowly  on.  Perhaps  these  hells  may  he 


and  the  rank  \vi 


mndaiit,  that  asses  and  other 


cattle  were  feeding  on  the  part  of  the  field  that  had 
been  newly  cut." — (Narrative,  ch.  ii.)  Amongst  a  rural 
population  agricultural  processes  and  the  different  stages 
of  husbandry  furnish  a  natural  calendar,  and  ''barley- 
harvest"  was  a  great  land- mark  in  the  year  of  the  Jew 
ish  fanner  ;  and  when  such  a  man  read  in  the  sacred  nar 
rative  that  Saul's  seven  sons  were  put  to  death  "in  the 


understood  as  countenancing  the  idea  that  Barnabas 
was  reckoned  to  be  on  a  footing  as  to  office  with  the 
twelve,  who  were  the  Lord's  apostles,  and  with  whom 
Paul  was  associated  only  by  an  immediate  designation 
from  Heaven,  Ga.  i.  1,17.  Yet  Barnabas  and  Paul  were 
together  sent  up  from  the  church  at  Antioch  to  the 
church  at  Jerusalem,  and  were  recognized  as  the  leaders 
in  evangelistic  work  among  the  heathen,  by  the  three 
prominent  apostles,  at  a  time  when  they  reckoned  it 
their  duty  to  concentrate  their  own  labours  upon  the 
circumcision,  Ga.  ii  9;  Ac.  xv. 

When  an  unhappy  difference,  in  connection  with  the 
case   of    his  nephew  Mark,    separated  Barnabas  from 


beginning  of  barley-harvest,''  and  that  Uizpah  watched  |  Paul,  as  they  were  on  the  point  of   beginning  a  second 

journey  together,  he  departed  to  Cyprus,  where  he  had 


over  their  bodies  ''from  the  beginning  of  harvest  until 
water  dropped  upon  them  out  of  heaven,"  2  Sa.  xxi.  9,  10 


preached  in  the  course  of  their  earlier  mission,  Ac. 


that  is,   until  the  commencement  of  the  autumnal    It  is  an  old  tradition  that  he  suffered  martyrdom  in  this 


rains,  th 


idea  was  sium-estcd  to  him  as  would  be     his  native  island  ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  was 


post  from  May  till  September.  [j.  H.] 

BAR'NABAS  [son  of  prophecy  or  of  consolation]. 


to  us  were  we  told  that  the  poor  mother  kept  her  weary  |  at   least   called   to  his  rest   at   a   comparatively    early 

period.      For  while  Paul  afterwards  wrote  of  him  in  such 
a  wav  as  to  show  that  their   "sharp  contention"  was 

It  was  the  surname  given  by  the  apostles  to  a  Levite  soon  forgotten,  there  is  no  further  account  of  his  labours, 
named  Joscs— or  Joseph,  as  there  is  good  authority  for  and  but  one  allusion  to  them,  ico.  ix.  G;  while  we  find  his 
reading— whoso  family  had  settled  in  Cyprus.  This  nephew  Mark  attending  upon  Paul  in  such  a  way  as  he 
surname  might  be  naturally  translated  the  "son  of  pro-  would  have  been  less  likely  to  do  so  long  as  Barnabas 
phecy,"  and  we  know  that  he  was  a  prophet  or  inspired  lived,  and  had  a  first  claim  to  his  services,  Col.  iv.  c.  There 
teacher  in  the  church,  Ac.  xiii.  i.  But  it  is  rendered  by  is  a  writing  extant  which  is  called  the  Epistle  of  Barna- 
Luke  the  "son  of  consolation,"  Ac.  iv.  30;  for  indeed  this  i  has,  and  which  many  have  attributed  to  him.  But  its 
was  the  great  object  of  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  to  console  !  superficial  handling  of  divine  truth,  and  its  mistakes 


and  support  believers  with  that  sure  word   which 


about  the  Jewish  history  and  worship,  into  which  the 


light  to  them  in  this  dark  world,  2  To.  i.  19.     That  passage  !  Levite  Barnabas   could  not  have  fallen,  have  led  the 
in  Acts  gives  evidence   that  he  was  a  comfort  to  the  ]  best  critics  to  reckon  it  a  forgery.  [<;.  c.  Ji.  n.'J 

BAR'SABAS.     <SVc  JOSEPH  and  JUDAS. 

BARTHOLOMEW  [the  son  of  Tholomcn;  or,  as 


church  in  his  deeds  as  well  as  by  his  words  ;  for  in  the 

difficulties  of  the  infant  church  he   was   found  among 

those  who  had  land  and   sold  it,    and  laid   the  price  at     the  word  might  equally  be  written,   son  of  Talmai,  a 

the  apostles'  feet,  leaving  himself  nothing   to   depend  |  name  which  is  found  in  the  Old  Testament].     Bartho- 


upon  but  the  labour  of  his  own  hands,  i  Co.  ix.  c.  He 
was  honoured  by  God  to  have  such  discerning  of  spirits 
and  largeness  of  heart  as  to  acknowledge  the  persecutor 
Saul  of  Tarsus  for  a  brother  in  the  Lord,  at  a  time  when 
no  other  believer  in  Jerusalem  was  willing  to  confide  in 
the  sincerity  of  his  conversion,  and  he  introduced  him 
to  the  fellowship  of  the  church  in  that  city,  AC.  ix.  27. 


lomcw  was  one  of  the  twelve  apostles,  and  is  commonly 
reckoned  the  same  as  Nathanael,  because  Matthew, 
Mark,  and  Luke  mention  Bartholomew,  but  never 
Nathanael ;  while  John  mentions  Nathanael,  but  never 
Bartholomew.  In  agreement  with  this,  John  repre 
sents  Philip  as  the  intimate  friend  of  Nathanael ;  and 
in  the  lists  of  the  other  three  evangelists  Philip  and 


He   again  was  honoured   to   be  sent  forth  from  that     Bartholomew  are  invariably  placed  together,   Mat.  x.  3; 
mother  church  to   Antioch,    to  superintend  the  work  j  Mar.  iti.  is;  Lu.  vi.  1 1;  comp.  Ac.  i.  is.     In  this  case  we  may 


there,  amid  the  difficult  questions  which  were  certain  to 
arise  at  the  time  when  the  Gentiles  were  being  first 
admitted  on  equal  terms  with  the  Jews  to  the  privileges 
of  the  gospel ;  and  there  he  laboured  for  a  year  with 
great  success,  assisted  by  his  friend  Saul,  whom  he  had 
searched  out  on  purpose,  Ac.  xi.  22-20.  And  it  is  in  re 
ference  to  his  work  on  that  occasion  that  the  testimony 
is  borne  in  the  Word  of  God,  in  which  there  is  little  of 
panegyric  pronounced  over  human  instruments,  "  for  he 
was  a  good  man,  and  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of 
faith."  The  ascertained  facts  of  his  subsequent  history 
are  almost  inseparable  from  the  life  of  Saul,  who  is  best 
known  to  us  by  the  name  of  Paul  the  Apostle.  They 
were  sent  up  from  Antioch  to  Jerusalem  with  contri 
butions  for  the  poor  saints  there.  They  came  back  to 
Antioch  bringing  with  them  Barnabas'  sister's  son, 
John,  who  had  the  surname  of  Mark.  They  were  set 
apart  by  the  express  appointment  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
be  missionaries,  and  they  went  together  on  the  first  of 
Paul's  great  journeys.  Hence,  probably,  the  name 
"  apostles,"  namely,  of  the  church,  her  special  delegates, 
is  applied  to  both  of  them,  Ac  xiv.  14;  and  it  is  not  to  be 


therefore  suppose  that  from  his  father  the  name  Bar 
tholomew  was  given  to  Nathanael,  as  Peter  bore  the 
name  Bar- Jonas,  and  Joses  (or  Joseph,  as  others  read) 
that  of  Barnabas.  We  have  nothing  special  recorded 
of  him  except  that  he  was  brought  with  difficulty  by 
Philip  to  regard  Jesus  as  the  promised  Saviour,  while 
yet  our  Lord  bore  that  high  testimony  to  him,  "  Behold 
an  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom  is  no  guile!"  Jn.  i.  45,  ic. 
After  the  resurrection  he  was  one  of  the  seven  to  whom 
our  Lord  revealed  himself  at  the  Lake  of  Tiberias, 
Jn.  xxi  2;  and  he  is  there  spoken  of  as  belonging  to  Cana 
of  Galilee.  There  are  traditions  of  his  going  to  India  to 
preach  the  gospel,  and  carrying  thither  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew,  written  in  Hebrew,  as  also  of  his  suffering 
martyrdom  by  crucifixion  in  Armenia  or  in  Cilicia. 
But  these  reports  must  be  received  with  more  or  less  of 
doubt ;  and  in  fact  India  is  used  by  ancient  writers  in 
a  loose  way  to  represent  some  distant  eastern  region  of 


which  they  were  very  ignorant. 


[a.  c.  M.  D.] 


BARTIM^E'US  [son  of  Timceus],  the  blind  beggar 
who  was  cured  by  our  Lord  as  he  went  out  of  Jericho, 
Mar.  x.  40.  The  narrative  suggests  that  he  was  persevering 


BAB  r 


BASH AX 


and  unwavering  in  his  f;iith  ;  and  this  becomes  the 
more  obvious  if  \ve  connect  it  with  the  account  in 
Luke,  iu  such  a  way  as  to  infer  that  he  had  made  ap 
plication  first  of  all  as  Jesus  was  entering  the  city, 
I.,ii.  xviii.  :;.•>,  which  must  have  been  a  day  before.  Lu.  xix.  r>. 
It  is  not  wonderful  that  these  evangelists  should  single 
out  this  remarkable  character  and  pass  another  unnoticed 
who  was  healed  along  with  him.  Mat.  xx  30. 

BA'RUCH  [/,/c.--.WJ.  a  scribe,  and  a  trusty  friend  of 
the  prophet  Jeremiah.  He  was  the  son  of  Xeriah,  and 
grandson  of  Maaseiah,  and  therefore  was  probablv  a 
brother  of  the  Jewish  nobleman  Seraiuh,  to  whom 
Jeremiah  intrusted  the  reading  of  his  great  prophecy 
against  Babylon.  Jo.  xxxii.  vi;  li.  :,;*,  ie.  Jeremiah  employed 
Barueh  as  his  secretary  to  write  out  his  prophecies 
against  the  Jews  and  other  nations,  and  (as  lie  was 
himself  shut  up  in  prison  to  read  them  in  the  bearing 
of  the  people,  ch.  xxxvi.  i-*;  a  task  which  Baruch  a^ain 
discharged,  ver. y,&c.,  in  v.-ry  difficult  circiimstane'-s, 
for  king  Jehoiakim  cut  the  roll  of  the  writing  to  pieces 
with  his  penknife,  and  bu.rn.-d  it  in  the  lire  :  and  h,-  also 
searched  for  the  prophet  and  his  friend  to  put  them  to 
death,  but  the  Lord  hid  them.  <  dice  more  Barudi  was 
honoured  to  use  his  pen  at  the  dietation  of  the  prophet, 
to  write  out  a  more  complete  set  of  pr, -dictions,  to  some 
considerable  extent  probably  the  same  as  the  hook  of 
Jeremiah  now  found  in  the  Bib!,..  For  his  faithful 
services,  iianich  received  a  promise  from  the  Lord,  that 
his  life  >hould  be  spared  amid  all  the  calamities  which 
were  coming  on  his  nation.  JL..  xlv.  When  Jeremiah 
bought  the  lield  \\hieh  belonged  to  liis  uncle  at  A  na- 
thoth,  in  the  year  before  Jerusalem  was  destroyed, 
l'';'t-:ieh  \vas  the  person  to  whom  ho  intru.-t.,-d  the  papers 
connected  with  the  transaction,  Jo.  xxxii.  U',l:i.  The 
latest  matter  recorded  about  him  is,  that  lie  \\asstill 
faithful  to  the  prophet,  and  shared  in  the  contempt  and 
ill-usage  li'-aped  upon  him  by  the  remnant  of  Jt.ws  who 
tied  into  Lgypt,  Ju  \liii  ::,,;.  Tlieiv  is  a  small  bonk  in 
the  Apocrypha  ascribed  io  ilarudi.  1ml  the  evidence  of 
its  later  composition,  and  its  mistakes,  are  fatal  to  its 
reputation.  |,;.  r.  M.  ,>.  | 

BARZIL'LAI  [maile  of  ,r,jnL  an  aged  Liileadite,  a 
man  of  great  wealth,  wh,,  took  a  principal  part  in  sup 
plying  the  wants  of  kinur  David  during  all  the  time- of 
the  rebellion  of  Absalom.  The  king  would  gladly 
have  taken  him  to  Jerusalem  on  his  own  return, 
but  Barzillai  steadily  ivfu-rd,  on  account  of  a  ire  and 
frailty.  His  son  (.'liimiiam  however  was  taken  iiist«-ad, 
liSa  xvii.  L'7;  xix.  :;i-  i<i.  And  other  sons  seem  to  have  after 
wards  been  taken  to  court,  and  to  have  been  all  of  them 
ivcomiin-nded  particularly  to  the  favour  of  Solomon  by 
David  in  his  dying  instructions,  i  Ki  a.  7. 

BA'SHAN  [meaning  un,-ertain,  perhaps  .«>j'f  /v'<7, 
xdil\,  is  tile  name  in  Scripture  for  a  singularly  rich 
tract  of  country  lyini;  beyond  the  Jordan,  between 
.Mount  Hennon  and  tin;  land  of  Cilead.  These  two 
regions,  1'ashan  and  Cilead,  attracted  the  attention  of 
those  tribes  that  desired  to  continue'  the  pastoral  life  to 
which  they  and  their  fathers  had  been  accustomed; 
Gilead  being  divided  between  Reuben  and  (iad,  and 
1'ashan  being  given  to  tin-  half  tribe  of  Manasseh, 
\u.  xxxii.  i-:;:!.  Modern  travellers  speak  with  enthusiasm 
and  delight  of  its  forests,  in  which  oaks  abound,  worthy 
to  be  set  alongside  of  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  is.  ii.  i:i; 
Kzc.  xxvii.  (i;  Zee.  xi.  •>;  and  of  the  herds  of  bulls  of  Bashan 
in  noble  pasture  ground.  1's.  xxii.  ]•_' ;  Am.  iv.  1;  Mi.  vii.  ll. 

Bashan  had  been  the  kingdom  of  the  Canaanite  iriant 
VOL.  I. 


Og.  whom  Moses  destroyed,  Nu.xxi.33;  and  one  district 
of  the  country.  Argob,  had  at  that  time  sixty  fenced 
cities,  with  walls,  gates,  and  bars,  besides  unwalled 
towns  a  great  many,  DL-.  iii.  4, .-,.  These  were  standing  or 
restored  in  Solomon's  days,  iKi.iv.  i;i;  and  to  this  day 
there  are  many  points,  from  which  the  traveller  can  look 
and  see  the  remains  of  more  than  half  that  number. 

There  are  difficulties  in  regard  to  the  geography  of 
Bashan.  owing  to  its  situation  in  a  wild  and  unexplored 
region,  to  this  hour  one  of  the  most  dangerous  in  or 
around  Palestine,  and  pronounced  to  be  the  same  in 
their  day  by  Strabo  and  Josephus.  In  the  present 
century  a  vast  impulse  was  given  to  discovery  by  the 
enterprises  of  Bnrckhardt.  who  lived  among  the  Arabs 
as  if  he  were  a  native,  and  made  bis  way  to  many 
places  which  had  been  inaccessible  to  his  predecessors, 
and  \\ho  penetrated  in  this  direction  as  far  as  Salcah, 
the  extreme  eastern  limit  of  Bashan.  see  Do.  iii.  t<>,  now 
called  Sulkhad.  and  to  other  places  in  the  neighbour 
hood.  In  the  year  lv">7  an  adventurous  and  successful 
English  traveller,  .Mr.  Cyril  C.  Craham.  pass,  d  even 
further  to  the  east  of  the  Jebel  Ilauran.  across  a  desert 
plain,  thickly  covered  with  black  volcanic  stones,  hence 
named  /:'/  //,in-n/i ,  that  is,  "a  region  covered  with  black- 
burning  stones,"  and  to  the  Saf.ih.  "The  Safah  is  a 
great  natural  fortress,  thickly  covered  with  huge  shat- 
tered  masses  of  basalt,  the  paths  through  which  are 
tortuous  Insures,  known  only  to  the  \\ild  race  who 
inhabit  it.  In  the  interior  is  a  ran^e  of  volcanic  til.*, 
on  the  east  side  of  which  are  several  ruin,  d  (owns  and 
ullages.  |',y  \\hom  were  they  built,  and  \\hciiwere 
they  inhabited  .'  The  desert  tribes  \\hohave  had  un 
disputed  possession  for  at  h-a>t  1  L'IHI  years  are  not  gheii 
to  architecture,  and  never  were It  is  ques 
tionable  wh.th,  r  the  s\\  ay  of  the  Creeks  or  Romans 
ever  extend,  ,1  so  far  into  the  de>,  rt.  or  at  lea.-t  \\as 
ever  so  secure  as  to  ,_;i\e  encouragement  to  the  plant 
ing  of  colonies  and  the  building  of  towns.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  know  mere  ,,f  tin-  character  and  style 
of  these  ruins,  which  appear  to  resemble  those  struc 
tures  of  a  primitive  age  still  found  amid  the  mountains 
of  I'.ashan."  "The  Safah  resembles  an  island  rising 
it]>  out  of  the  Hat  plain,  and  the  rock  of  which  the 
whole  surface  i>  formed  looks  like  molten  metal.  Hu^e 
fissures  and  seams  run  through  it.  rendering  access  to 

the  interior  almost   impossible The   \\hole 

western  side  is  swept  by  the  Harrah,  and  is  uninhabi 
table  ;  we  therefore  skirt  the  eastern  side,  and  in  about 
an  hour  come  upon  traces  of  an  (tin-tint  romf,  with 
stones  at  regular  intervals,  inscribed  with  regular 
characters  rent  /»//////</  tin  Sinnitif.  These  continue  until 
we  n-aeh  the  ruins  of  a  to\\n.  wholly  built  of  \\hite 
stones,  and  thus  contrasting  strangely  with  the  black 

strata  of  the  Safah  and  the  adjoining  plain 

The  style  of  architecture  resembles  that,  of  the  ancient 
cities  in  the  liauran,  stone  roofs,  stone  doors,  and 
massive  stone  walls.  X'o  inscriptions  have  been  found. 
hut  there  are  fragments  of  rude  sculptures  apparently 
of  a  very  early  aye." —  (Murray's  Handlioolc,  by  Porter, 
p.  Ixii.  Ixiii.,  ;">]'.».)  In  another  neighbouring  place 
Mr.  Graham  found  hundreds  of  inscriptions,  again 
in  a  character  resembling  the  Sinaitic,  and  accompanied, 
as  in  the  Sinai  peninsula,  with  rude  figures  of  camels, 
deer,  asses,  tigers,  and  horsemen.  All  this  is  the  pro 
vince  of  Bathanyeh,  the  classical  Batmuia,  or  BASIIAN 
proper. 

Between  Damascus  and  this  outermost  region  which 

25 


J  5  AS  [ 1 A  N  -H  A  VOT1I- J  A I  11 


194 


BASTAKDS 


is  beside  Jol>ol  Haur.ln  lies  the  cotmtry  of  the  Lejuh,  I 
answering  to  the  ancient  province  of  TliACHONMTls, 
a  region  remarkable  for  the  ruins  of  great  cities,  de 
scribed  by  Burckhardt  and  others,  corresponding  in 
their  massive  rocky  strength,  and  their  adjuncts  of 
caverns,  to  the  description  which  .losephus  has  given  of 
them  as  excessively  difficult  of  access,  and  affording 
commodious  shelter  to  their  lawless  inhabitants  (Aufi'/. 
xv.  10,  1).  lu  tliis  country  lie  the  very  ancient  cities 
of  Edrei  and  Keiiath,  now  Edhr.ia  and  Kunawat ;  the 
country  of  Aiu;oi!,  De.  iii.  I:;,  1 1,  is  almost  certainly  this 
very  region.  South  of  the  Lejah,  Traehonitis.  or  Argob, 
and  west  of  Bataiuea  or  Bashan  proper,  lies  the  rich 
plain  of  the  1  L.U'RAX,  strictly  so  called,  a  name  preserved 
unaltered  from  the  times  of  Ezekicl,  ch.  xlvii.  10,  but  also 
named  at  present  En-NukrttJt,  "  the  plain,"  the  most 
fertile  region  in  Syria  according  to  competent  judges, 
and  said  to  be  tilled  with  deserted  villages  and  towns, 
the  most  familiar  of  which  to  us,  as  being  named  in 
Scripture,  are  the  northern  BOZKAH,  now  Basrah,  and 
Bi-".TiK;AMUi,,  now  Um-el-Jemal.  West  of  Hauran,  to 
wards  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  the  Jordan,  and  the  Lake  of 
Merom,  lies  the  better  known  province  of  Juu/dn,  the 
classical  Gcmlonitls,  and  the  region  in  which  the  city  of 
refuge  GOLAN"  must  have  stood  ;  northward  of  Jaulan 
and  Hauran  lies  Jed  fir.  the  ltur;ea  of  the  New  Testa 
ment,  and  of  the  classics,  the  country  of  JliTUK  the  son 
of  Ishmael. 

These  several  provinces,  Bashan  proper,  Hauran, 
A.rgob,  and  Golan,  possibly  Jetur  in  addition,  seem  to 
have  composed  the  kingdom  of  Bashan,  that  of  the 
giant  Og.  But  the  geographical  term  Bashan  might 
be  taken  either  in  a  wider  sense,  as  the  kingdom,  in 
which  sense  it  is  spoken  of  as  the  country  of  the  half 
tribe  of  Alana^seh  beyond  Jordan;  or  in  the  narrower 
sense  of  the  province  of  Bashan,  the  most  distant  and 
outlying  part  of  the  country,  just  as  Hauran  is  used  at 
this  day  both  in  a  wider  and  in  a  stricter  sense.  .From 
inattention  to  this  distinction  it  is  alleged  that  there 
has  been  much  confusion  in  the  descriptions  and  maps, 
from  the  time  of  Eusebius  downward.  In  the  Xew 
Testament,  as  might  be  expected,  we  do  not  meet  with 
Bashan  in  the  sense  of  the  kingdom,  which  had  passed 
away  some  fifteen  hundred  years  before  ;  and  the  pro 
vince  of  Bashan  lay  out  too  far  to  the  east  to  be  men 
tioned  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  :  so  that  the  name  Bashan 
does  not  appear  at  all  in  this  portion  of  Scripture. 

[The  fullest  iiml  most  accurate  account  of  all  geographical 
matters  connected  with  ISashan  must  at  present  he  looked  for  in 
the  Rev.  J.  L.  Porter's  Fire.  1'tars  iii  Dammtcus.  A  shorter 
statement  is  given  by  the  author  himself,  in  his  Handbook  for 
Travellers  in  Syria  and  Palestine.  _Mr.  Graham  has  given  somo 
account  of  his  own  discoveries  and  observations,  in  the  Ciinibri'lye 
Jlssai/s  for  ISoS.  ]  [<;.  c.  M.  n.J 

BA'SHAN-HAVOTH-JAIR.     Sec  HAVOTH-JATK. 

BASH'EMATH,  or  BASMATH  [tweet- smel tin;/]. 
1.  A  daughter  of  Elon  the  Hittite,  who  became  the 
wife  of  Esau,  Ge.  xxvi.  :u.  2.  A  daughter  of  Ishmael, 
who  also  became  a  wife  of  Esau,  the  third  he  is  said  to 
have  taken,  Ge.  xxviii.  9;  xxxvi.  3.  It  is  only  in  the  last  of 
these  two  passages  that  she  bears  the  name  of  Bashe- 
math  ;  in  the  former  she  is  called  Malialath.  All  Esau's 
wives  appear  to  have  received  new  names  on  being 
married,  probably  with  the  view  of  becoming  more  dis 
tinctly  separated  from  their  kindred  ;  and  it  would  seem 
that  the  daughter  of  Ishmael  was  permitted  to  choose, 
or  obliged  to  accept  of  the  maiden  name  of  the  daughter 
of  Elon.  (See  under  AHOLIBAMAH.)  3.  A  daughter 


of  Solomon,  who  became  married  to  one  of  his  officers, 
1  Ki.iv.  If). 

BASKETS  are  often  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  no 
less  than  four  or  even  six  words  in  the  Old  Testament 
I  icing  so  rendered,  and  three  in  the  New  Testament. 
Tlie  commonest  word  in  the  Old  Testament  is  .tall,  a 
word  derived  from  a  root  expressing  flexibility,  and 
referring  no  doubt  to  the  materials  of  which  a  basket 
is  usually  constructed.  This  word  is  used  of  the  bas 
kets  with  bread  on  the  head  of  Pharaoh's  butler,  Ge.  x). 
10, &c.,  in  our  version  "  white  baskets,"  and  in  the  mar 
gin,  ••full  of  holes,"  renderings  not  destitute  of  autho 
rity,  but  now  generally  given  up  for  "  baskets  of  white 
bread;"  of  a  basket  with  the  flesh  of  Gideon's  present 
or  offering,  Ju.  vi.  lit;  and  of  a  basket  with  the  bread  for 
the  meat-offerings  brought  before  the  altar  at  the  taber 
nacle.  Ex.  xxix.  :;,  &c.;  Le.  viii.  •>,  &c.;  Nu.  vi.  15,  &c.  A  closely 
connected  form  is  salsillafi,  a  grape-gatherer's  basket, 
Jo.  vi.  9.  A  word  which  appears  entirely  different  in  form, 
but  which  Gesenius  reckons  to  be  distantly  connected 
with  sail,  is  K-nr,  occurring  only  in  two  chapters  in 
Deuteronomy;  in  ch.  xxvi.  ~2,  4,  of  the  basket  in  which 
the  first-fruits  were  brought  before  the  Lord  ;  and  in 
ch.  xxviii.  ;">,  17,  of  the  basket  in  which  the  harvest  or 
household  stores  may  have  been  kept.  Another  word 
still,  occurring  under  the  two  cognate  forms  of  d'Cid  and 
dfidai,  is  used  of  the  two  symbolical  baskets  of  figs 
which  Jeremiah  saw  before  the  temple  of  the  Lord, 
cii.  xxiv.  i,  2,  probably  with  allusion  to  the  first-fruits  in 
De.  xxvi.  '2  ;  so  that  the  first  three  words  have  been  all 
employed  in  reference  to  religious  services.  It  is  the 
same  word  dud  which  is  used  to  describe  the  vessel 
which  carried  the  heads  of  Ahab's  sons  to  Jehu,  2  Ki. 
x.  7;  and  also  the  vessel  used  by  the  Israelitish  bondmen 
in  Egypt,  Ps.  Ixxxi.  G,  translated  "pots"  in  our  version, 
though  now  commonly  identified  with  the  baskets  in 
which  clay  was  carried  for  bricks.  But  in  both  these 
instances  "pots"  is  a  legitimate  translation,  as  this  is 
the  common  meaning  of  the  word.  The  last  word  for 
basket  is  dub,  "  a  basket  of  summer  fruit,"  Am.  viii.  i; 
used  in  the  other  passage  where  it  occurs  for  a  bird 
cage  or  bird- trap.  Gesenius  conjectures  that  it  might 
be  a  basket  with  a  lid  coming  down  and  covering  in 
what  it  contained. 

There  are  two  different  words  which  are  kept  care 
fully  distinct  in  the  original,  but  are  indiscriminately 
rendered  "baskets"  filled  with  the  fragments  of  the 
loaves  and  fishes  with  which,  on  two  occasions,  Jesus 

fed    the    multitudes,   Mat.  xiv.  20;  xv.  37;  xvi.  9, 10;    but   it   is 

difficult  to  identify  them  with  particular  kinds  of  bas 
kets  at  the  present  day.  The  one  used  in  the  account 
of  the  four  thousand  being  fed,  is  used  also  in  describ 
ing  the  escape  of  Paul  from  Damascus,  Ac.  ix.  25,  though 
he  himself  employs  another  word,  2  Co.  xi.  33.  The  bas 
kets  in  use  now  in  eastern  countries  bear  a  strong  re 
semblance  to  those  which  are  found  represented  on  the 
monuments  of  Egypt.  In  shape,  and  material,  and 
workmanship,  they  are  often  the  same  as  our  own  ;  or 
when  different,  are  yet  not  at  all  inferior,  fo.  c.  M.  D.] 

BASTARDS  were  forbidden  to  enter  the  congrega 
tion  of  the  Lord  to  the  tenth  generation,  as  Ammo 
nites  and  Moabites  also  were,  De.  xxiii.  2,  3.  Jephthah, 
however,  was  the  son  of  a  strange  woman,  and  had 
been  driven  out  by  the  legitimate  offspring  ;  yet  he  was 
called  by  God  to  be  the  judge  of  his  people  Israel, 
Ju.  xi.  i,  2.  The  Lord  threatened  that  a  bastard  should 
dwell  in  Ashdod  at  the  time  that  the  pride  of  the 


Philistines  should  be  cut  off.  Zoc.ix.o.  But  in  Deutero 
nomy  and  Zechariah  the  word  is  peculiar,  and  is 
reckoned  by  some  to  mean  the  offspring  of  an  inces 
tuous  union.  The  word  itself  is  niamztr  (-rite),  and 

only  occurs  in  the  two  passages  referred  to.  It  is  of 
uncertain  etymology,  and  both  Jewish  and  Christian 
interpreters  differ  in  regard  to  its  precise  meaning.  It 
is  certain,  however,  that  the  rabbinical  authorities,  in 
earlier  as  well  as  recent  times,  understand  it  not  of 
persons  simply  born  out  of  wedlock,  but  of  the  off 
spring  of  incestuous  connections,  or  of  matrimonial  alli 
ances  that  were  forbidden  as  altogether  improper.  It 
does  not  appear  that  bastards,  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
were  regarded  as  the  proper  subjects  of  the  prohibition 
in  De.  xxiii.  :!,  as  appears  from  the  cases  alone  of 
Jephthah  and  Amasa  (see  under  both) ;  and  the  modern 
-Jews  are  of  opinion  that  they  might  be  admitted  even 
to  the  priesthood.  They  had.  however,  r.o  claim  to  a 
share  in  the  paternal  inheritance,  or  to  the  proper  filial 
standing  and  treatment  of  children  of  the  family.  And 
this  is  what  is  referred  to  in  lie.  xii.  7,  where  a  con 
trast  is  drawn  between  the  treatment  which  (iod's  true 
children  might  expect,  as  compared  with  that  given  to 
such  as  are  not  so  related  to  him,  by  means  of  an  .-din 
t-ion  to  the  difference  between  bastards  and  sons.  The 
meaning  is,  that  as  the  rights,  the  privileges,  the  hopes 
of  sons,  so  also  the  training  and  discipline  proper  to 
such,  belong  to  the-  one  class,  but  not  to  the  other. 
~BAT  (efivy,  atallcpJt},  "the  darkness- bird."  Many 

species  of  this  tribe  (Cheiroptera)  are  found  in  We.-t- 
ern  Asia,  as  in  all  warm  countries,  but  the  forms  do 
not  differ  from  those  of  Europe.  In  the  Mosaic  law 
it  was  proscribed  as  unclean,  and  was  ranked  amon^ 
birds,  but  closing  up  the  series,  \M.  xi  i:i;  Ik-,  xiv.  1-,  in 
each  passage  introduc'inn  the  \\ingcd  insects.  Zoo],  -i- 
cally,  however,  as  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe,  the 
bat  is  a  true  quadruped,  distinguished  from  otKrs  of 
its  class  by  an  enormous  elongation  of  the  hones  of 
the  arm  and  fingers,  and  by  a  membrane  stretched 
over  them,  and  extending  to  the  hind  limbs;  bv  \\hieh 
modification  the  animal  is  able  to  exert  a  power  of 
proper  and  continued  flight. 

Col.  II.  Smith  elaborately  argues  ( Kitto's  I!//i.  Ci/rl.} 
that  some  of  the  great  frugivorous  bats  1 1'teropnsi  must 
be  alluded  to  iii  the  prohibition;  on  the  ground  that 
the  flesh  of  the  insectivorous  species  \\ould  offer  no 
temptation  to  be  used  as  food,  while  "  the  fact  [of  the 
prohibition]  evidently  shows  that  there  were  at  the 
time  men  or  tribes  who  ate  animals  classed  with  hats." 
We  do  not  think,  however,  that  any  such  allusion  is  at 
all  evident.  The  distinction  of  "clean"  and  ''unclean'' 
had  reference  not  merely  to  food,  but  to  sacrifice,  and 
to  ceremonial  defilement  from  contact,  Jv-e.;  and  other 
creatures,  as  little  tempting  as  the  insectivorous  bats, 
arc  certainly  prohibited,  as  the  mouse,  the  li/ard.  and 
the  mole.  Jt  is  however  fatal  to  the  suggestion  of  this 
learned  zoologist,  that  none  of  the  frugivorous  bats  are 
natives  of  Western  Asia  or  North  Africa,  while  the 
small  insectivorous  species  are  abundant  in  those  coun 
tries. 

The  habit  of  this  ord  -r  of  animals  is  to  dwell  in  dark 
and  desolate  places  by  day.  Caverns,  old  hollow  trees, 
ruined  towers,  and  similar  places,  are  chiefly  sought  by 
them ;  the  qualifications  of  their  diurnal  resort  being 
that  it  should  be  dark,  secluded,  and  quiet,  sufficiently 


[110 


J'.arli;istflk'  J'.at 


such  gloomy  retreats  they  may  almost  with  certainty 
be  found  associating  inconsiderable  numbers,  hanging 
head  downward,  with  folded  wings,  from  some  projec 
tion  of  the  roof,  to  which  they  cling  by  means  of  the 
sharp  curvi'i  claws  of  their  hind  feet. 

Allusion  to  this  habit  is  found  in  Is.  ii.  '20,  where  the 
terrible  glory  of  the  "day  of  the  Lord."  the  period  of 
the  manifestation  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  is  described  as 
producing,  among  other  effects,  the  destruction  of 
idols.  The  terrified  idolaters  shall  cast  away  the  idols 
in  which  they  have  trusted  to  the  most  obscene  and  ob 
scure  retreats  (set  Mm. I  >,  \\hile  they  themselves  seek 
a  vain  protection  in  the  clefts  of  the  rocks  from  the 
wrath  of  the  Lamb.  Ro.vi.10.  The  \\  hole  of  these  two 
passages  may  lie  usefully  read,  and  c  impart  d  together, 
as  showing  in  what  liuht  much  that  is  now  highly 
valued  as  enhancing  the  glory  of  man  the  hiidi  to\\ers. 
and  the  fenced  walls,  the  ships  of  Tarshish.  and  the 
plea-ant  pictures  \\ill  appear  in  that  dav  when  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  revealed,  and  all  flesh  shall 
see  it  together.  Is.  xl  :..  [  I',  n.  ii. | 

BATH,  J'.ATHIXC.  It  is  certain  that  baths  of 
the  kind  in  ti<e  throughout  Svria  at  present,  as  also 
among  the  (Ineks  and  Romans  in  the  West,  and  the 
Persians  in  the  Ea.-t,  were  common  in  Palestine  at  the 
time  of  the  llcrods.  and  afterwards;  the  testimony  of 
Josephus,  and  the  monumental  evidence  in  ruined  eil  ies, 
are  suliicient  to  prevent  any  doubts  upon  this  subject. 
P.ut  there  is  certainly  no  proof  in  Scripture  that  these 
luxurious  and  costly  indulgences  existed  among  the 
ancient  Israelites;  neither  has  valid  proof  from  other 
sources  ever  been  produced.  .Manifestly,  it  ought 
not  to  be  inferred  from  the  existence  of  the  practice 
among  the  Egyptians,  most  of  whom  lived  within 
easy  reach  of  the  Nile;  when -a-,  if  we  except  the 
Jordan,  there-  is  scarcity  a  running  stream  in  J 'ales- 
tine  proper  which  would  afford  facilities  for  such  bath 
ing  during  summer,  the  season  in  which  it  was  to  be 
chiefly  desired.  Certainly  the  verb  ra/iutx  ("m), 

•which  is  in  our  version  rendered  "  bathe,"  is  equally 
rendered  "wash;"  and  it  would  he  difficult  to  show 
that  immcrtioii  is  an  idea  proper  to  tin-  word.  On  the 
contrary,  the  only  proper  meaning  which  Oesenius 
assigns  to  it  is  that  of  wa-hing.  whether  applied  to  the 
human  body,  both  as  a  whole,  and  in  reference  to  its 
principal  parts  for  washing,  the  hands,  feet,  and  face, 
or  whether  to  the  parts  of  a  sacrifice;  and  he  says,  in 
Arabic  the  verb  means  to  wash  either  the  body  or  clothes, 
also  to  perspire  violently,  that  is,  according  to  him,  to 
lie  bathed  in  perspiration.  There  are  passages,  too,  in 
which  the  idea  of  immersion  seems  to  be  positively  ex 
cluded,  as  at  Ex.  xxx.  19,  of  the  laver  with  water  put 
into  it.  "  Aaron  and  his  sons  shall  wash  their  hands 


19G 


BDELLU'M 


and  their  feet  thereat,"  literally  "therefrom  ;"  I'a.  v.  1  2, 
••  His  eves  arc  washed  with  milk  ;"  also  1  Ki.  xxii.  :>S, 
when  translated  in  the  only  way  the  original  permits, 
"And  [one]  ran  a  stream  of  water  on  the  chariot 
at  the  }«.ol  of  Samaria,  and  the  dogs  licked  up  his 
blood,  and  the  harlots  bathed  ;"  three  contemporaneous  j 
actions  strikingly  evincing  the  degradation  to  which 
Providence  subjected  the  remains  of  Ahab;  but  surely 
even  the  harlots  would  be  prevented  from  immersing 
themselves  there,  both  by  their  own  feelings  and  by 
public-  authority.  Moreover,  the  word  raltat*,  to  bathe 
or  wash  the  body,  and  ca'/nx  (D3-:),  to  wash  clothes, 

which  are  kept  apart  in  the:r  literal  meaning,  are  used 
without  distinction  in  the  metaphorical  application  to 
sin;  and  this  points  to  c/ea>i,<iii</  as  the  true  force  of 
l)o th  verbs. 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  bathing,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  had  no  place  in  the  religious  ordinances 
of  the  old  covenant.  Jn  certain  cases  of  corporeal  de-  ' 
filement,  it  is  possible  that  the  immersion  of  the  body  ; 
in  a  bath  miirht  have  satisfied  the  demands  of  the  law 
giver ;  but  it  could  not  have  done  so  in  the  great  mass 
of  cases  :  the  more  active  form  of  washing  was  required, 
in  order  to  symbolize  with  greater  distinctness  the  idea 
of  religious  purirication.  The  only  other  action  with 
water  sanctioned  in  the  law  for  purifications  was  that  of 
sprinkling. 

BATH,  a  measure  for  liquids  among  the  Hebrews, 
equal  to  about  7  gallons  English.     (See  WEIGHTS  AND  ; 
MEASURES.) 

BATH'SHEBA  [damjltter  of  ait  oath,  or  dany liter  of  \ 
xere»~\,  the  wife  of  Uriah,  one  of  David's  officers,  with 
whom  the  king  committed  adultery,  and  whom  he  i 
married  after  he  had  treacherously  procured  her  hus 
band's  death,  2  Sa,  xi.  Besides  other  children,  she 
bore  Solomon  to  David,  and,  according  to  the  Jewish 
writers,  her  powers  of  mind  had  much  to  do  with  the 
development  of  her  son's  wisdom.  Certainly  we  find 
instances  of  her  vigorous  understanding,  her  kindness 
of  heart,  and  her  influence  over  both  David  and 
Solomon,  1  Ki.i.  n-31;  ii.  13-21.  In  Samuel  she  is  named 
Bathshcba,  the  daughter  of  Eliam,  perhaps  that  mighty 
man  of  David's  army  who  was  son  of  Ahithophel,  2  Sa. 
xxiii.  34;  in  1  Ch.  iii.  .5,  by  a  slight  variety  of  pronuncia 
tion,  she  is  called  Bath-shua,  the  daughter  of  Ammiel ; 
and  she  is  there  said  to  have  borne  three  other  sons  to 
David. 

BATTERING-RAM.  This  was  a  well-known  in 
strument  of  ancient  warfare,  a  long  heavy  mass  of 
wood,  often  with  a  metal  head,  swung  backward  and 
forward,  so  as  to  make  a  breach  in  the  wall  of  a  be 
sieged  town.  The  name  in  Greek  and  Latin  is  the 
same  as  that  of  a  living  ram,  obviously  011  account  of 
the  resemblance  of  its  work  to  the  butting  of  a  ram  ; 
and  this  seems  the  simplest  meaning  of  the  Hebrew 
word  for  a  ram,  as  it  is  used  in  Eze.  iv.  2  ;  xxi.  22. 
Yet  some  good  authorities  have  hesitated ;  and  in  this 
latter  verse,  where  the  word  occurs  twice,  the  first  time 
"battering-rams"  is  put  only  in.  the  margin  by  our 
translators.  Possibly,  by  what  our  translators  have 
rendered  "engines  of  war,"  Eze. xxvi.  9,  the  same  instru 
ment  is  specially  intended  :  the  exact  rendering  might 
be  given  "  the  stroke  of  that  which  is  right  opposite.'' 
BATTLEMENT.  See  HOUSE. 

BAY-TREE.    In  Ps.  xxxvii.  35,  a  prosperous  world 
ling  is  compared  to  a  flourishing  ezrach  (mix)-     The 


radical  signification,  ''to  rise,"  "to  spring  up,"  as  -A 
plant,  might  apply  to  almost  any  tree,  more  especially 
to  one  indigenous  and  growing  vigorously  in  its  native 
soil;  which  would  be  a  very  good  emblem  of  a  wealthy 
chief  or  freeholder,  dwelling  among  his  own  people,  and 
casting  his  shadow  over  his  ancestral  acres;  and  we 
doubt  if  we  are  justified  in  making  it  more  definite. 
Accordingly,  Horsley  renders  it  "a  tree  flourishing  in 
its  native  soil,"  Mason  Good  "a  vigorous  tree,"  and 
most  of  ',he  Jewish  commentators  make  it  "a  native 
tree,"  as  opposed  to  one  that  has  been  transplanted. 
However,  the  Septuagint  and  Vulgate  have  translated 
it.  "cedar,"  and  most  of  the  modern  European  versions 
make  it  the  "laurel"  or  "bay."  Thus,  too,  Sir  Philip 
Sidney : — 

"  Like  l.wrell  fresh  himself  out-spreading." 
And  Arthur  Joiistoii : — 


Nor  •will  the  reader  grudge  the  following  quotation 
from  Racine.  It  gives  the  sudden  turn  of  the  original 
very  happily,  and  French  poetry  contains  no  better 
stanza ; — 

"  J'ai  vu  1'impie  adore  sur  la  terre ; 
Pareil  au  cidre,  il  cadiait  dans  le*  deux 

Sou  front  audacieux; 
II  semblait  a  sou  gre  gouverner  le  tonnerre, 

Foulait  aux  pieds  ses  ennernis  vaincus : 
,Te  u'ai  fait  quo  passer,  il  n'etait  deja  plus." 

As  the  bay  sufficiently  answers  the  purpose  of  the 
text,  some,  like  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  notwithstanding 
the  slightiiess  of  its  claims,  will  be  "unwilling  to 
exclude  that  noble  plant  from  the  honour  of  having  its 
name  in  Scripture."  "With  the  appearance  of  the 
common  bay  (Laurus  nolilis)  every  one  is  familiar ;  and 
from  the  use  of  its  evergreen  branches  in  crowning 
Roman  conquerors,  it  has  acquired  proud  and  heroic 
associations.  These,  however,  it  could  hardly  convey 
to  Hebrew  minds,  as  it  was  not  used  for  the  victor's 
garland  in  Palestine.  There  was  nothing  to  prevent  it 
from  growing  in  Judea,  as  it  is  a  native  of  both  Xor- 
thern  Africa  and  Southern  Europe,  and  it  still  flourishes 
at  Antioch.  [,r.  if.] 

BDEL'LIUM  (dr.  /35e'XX<ov),  the  term  employed  in 
the  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  translations,  and  adopted 
generally  in  the  modern,  for  the  Heb.  bedolach  (nV"o). 

It  occurs  only  twice  in  Scripture;  first,  as  a  precious 
commodity  of  some  sort  furnished  by  the  land  of  Havi- 
iah,  Ge.  ii.  14,  and  afterwards  as  an  object  with  which, 
in  respect  to  colour,  to  compare  the  manna  of  the 
desert,  Xu.  xi.  ~.  The  ancients  applied  the  name  to  the 
gum  of  a  tree  which  grew  in  Arabia,  as  well  as  India 
and  Babylonia,  nearly  the  colour  of  frankincense, 
whitish  and  pellucid.  The  chief  objection  to  this  view 
is,  that  it  is  not  such  a  precious  natural  production 
as  that  one  might  expect  it  to  be  noticed  among  the 
peculiar  treasures  of  Havilah ;  where  also  its  appear 
ance  among  gold  and  precious  stones  looks  somewhat 
strange.  Bocharfc  (Ilieroz.  ii.  674-683)  held  it  to  signify 
pearh,  and  has  supported  his  view,  as  usual,  by  a  great 
profusion  of  learning.  Gesenius,  and  the  best  authori- 


BEAN 


197 


ties  of  recent  times,  are  disposed  to  concur  in  the  same 
view. 

BEAN.  Amongst  the  supplies  which  Barzillai  sent 
to  David  and  his  attendants  in  their  flight  from  Absalom 
were  ''  beans,"  and  they  were  also  an  ingredient  in  the 
bread  which  Ezekiel  was  directed  to  prepare  previous 
to  his  representative  siege  of  Jerusalem,  -j  Sa.  xvii.  2<; 
Kzo.  iv.  !i.  From  the  Hebrew  ^>j»,  pol,  or  phol,  we  have 
our  English  pulse,  as  the  Romans  had  their  puls  or 
bean- pottage.  Beans  were  extensively  cultivated  in  the 
East,  as  they  still  are:  and  although  not  so  prized  for 
food  as  some  of  the  cereals,  their  nutritious  qualities 
were  well  known  to  the  ancients,  and  they  were  largely 
employed  in  feeding  slaves  and  the  poorer  people,  as  well 
as  horses.  Nor  was  our  common  bean  (/•'«/<«  ,-ii/;/arix) 
the  only  legume  with  which  the  Jews  were  acquainted. 
They  had  lentils,  and  vetches,  and  pease  or  "parched 
pulse,''  under  which  words  the  reader  will  find  further 
information.  f.i.  H.] 

BEAR  (3-1,  and  3'*?,  rfor).  No  doubt  exists  about 
the  identity  of  this  animal,  which  still  bears  its  ancient 
Hebrew  name  in  the  dialect--  of  Western  Asia.  The  u'enus 
is  well  known  as  containing  the  largest,  strongest,  and 
most  formidable  carnivorous  quadruped  of  Europe;  but 
the  species  mentioned  ill  the  sacred  Scriptures  is  one 
peculiar  to  the  mountainous  parts  of  Palestine  and  Svria, 
and  has  only  recently  come  under  the  recognition  of 
naturalist.-.  A  specimen  killed  by  Khreiib' r_r  and 
Hemprich.  in  Lebanon,  ali'onlcd  the  first  opportunity 
of  determining  this  anciently  renowned  animal,  and  they, 
(hiding  it  undescribed,  named  it  Crtii*  >'//;•/<<<•/'.--•.  It  is 


• 


I  HI.  ]        Syrian   Hear     I'rsus  Suriacus. 

about  as  large  as  the  brown  bear  of  Europe,  but  is 
lower  on  the  legs,  proportionately  higher  at  the 
withers,  furnished  with  a  conspicuous  tail,  and  a  high 
inane  of  stiff  hair  between  the  shoulders.  Its  colour 
is  a  yellowish-white,  sometimes  deepening  to  buff,  and 
occasionally  clouded  with  light  and  dark  tints. 

Besides  the  notices  that  occur  in  Scripture,  we  have 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  bears  in  Syria  from  early 
times.  In  an  ancient  Egyptian  painting  representing 
tribute  brought  to  Thothmes  III.,  the  bearers,  a  fair- 
haired,  bearded  race,  clad  in  long  garments,  and  white 
gloves,  bring  among  many  other  articles  a  living  bear, 
which  by  its  form  and  colour  belongs  to  the  present 
species.  Many  of,  the  adjuncts  of  this  scene  indicate 
the  people  to  be  Phoenicians. 

A  procession  much  like  this  occurred  in  Egypt  long 


j  after,  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphia,  where  "a 
single  white  bear''  made  a  prominent  figure.1  And 
Prosper  Alpinus  speaks  of  white  bears  as  existing  in 

!  Arabia-  and  Egypt. 

In  the  middle  ages  the  crusaders  occasionally  fell  in 
with  the  Syrian  bear,  and  gave  testimony  to  its  fero 
city.  Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  during  the  siege  of  Antioch, 
was  riding  in  a  neighbouring  forest,  when  he  saw  a 
peasant  carrying  a  load  of  wood,  fleeing  from  an  en 
raged  bear.  The  king  gallantly  spurred  to  the  rescue. 
and  the  animal  turning  upon  him,  he  was  unhorsed  bv 
its  furious  assault  on  his  steed,  and  fought  on  foot. 
After  a  severe  struggle,  in  which  he  was  dangerously 
wounded,  he  buried  his  sword  to  the  hilt  in  his  savage 
foe,  and  killed  him.3 

The  value  of  this  story  is  the  continuation  it  affords 
of  the  ancient  reputation  of  this  beast  for  power  and 
ferocity.  The  allusions  to  it  in  the  sacred  writers 
constantly  represent  it  as  little  inferior  to  the  lion  in 
savage  violence,  \\iili  which  animal  it  is  frequently 
associated  in  historical  narrative-,  1  Sa.  xvii.  34-37,  and  in 
poetical  imagery,  iv.  \x\iii  \:>;  La.  iii  in;  iin.  \\\\.  -t  >.;  ,\m. 
v.  19.  The  ferocity  of  this  powerful  brute  was  the 
divine  instrument  in  the  punishment  of  forty- two 
youths,  who  blasphemously  mocked  the  mission  of 
Klislia,  LKi.ii.  iM.  This  ferocity  is  manifested  \\ith  pe 
culiar  intensity  by  the  female,  either  in  defence  of  her 
cubs,  or  in  revenge  for  the  loss  of  them,  -i  Sa.  xvii.  s;  Pr 
xvii.  IL',  &c. ;  a  fact  illustrated  by  many  well-known  mo 
dern  narratives  of  other  species,  particularly  the  Polar 
bear,  to  which  the  Syrian  species  exhibits  a  close 
affinity.  [  r.  n.  (;.] 

BEARD.  The  Egyptians  shaved  very  carefully, 
although  they  were  accustomed  to  wear  false  beards: 
hence  Joseph  shaved  before  going  into  Pharaoh's  pre 
sence,  (ic.xli.  11.  But  the  nations  of  AN" (.-stern  Asia  to 
this  day  wear  the  beard  long,  and  reckon  this  notmcivlv 
an  ornament,  but  an  essential  to  manlv  character. 
There  is  abundant  evidence  in  Scripture  that  this  was 
also  the  custom  among  the  Israelites.  Not  to  trim  it 
carefully  and  often  was  a  proof  of  deep  distress,  as  in 
the  instance  of  Mephibosheth  during  the  rebellion  of 
Absalom,  2Ka.  xix.  21.  Still  nioie  severe  grief,  especially 
(iii  occasion  of  the  death  of  near  relations,  was  expressed 
by  cutting  oft' the  beard,  which  an  Arab  or  Turk  at  the 
present  day  will  not  do  without  the  constraint  of  the 
strongest  motives,  is.  \v.2;Ju.  xiviii.  :;r;  and  this  was  also 
done  by  the  worshippers  of  ( Jod  in  deep  distress.  K/.r.  ix.  ."i; 
Je.xli..r>.  Ezekiel  was  commanded  to  .shave  off  his  hair 
and  his  beard,  as  a  mark  of  the  deep  degradation  to 
which  Jerusalem  was  about  to  be  exposed.  K/e.  v.i.ic.; 
with  which  compare  the  metaphorical  use  of  shaving  in 
a  prediction  of  the  Assyrians  coming  against  the  people 
of  (Jod.  is.  vii.iin.  And  David's  ambassadors  to  the  king 
(  f  the  Ammonites  had  the  half  of  their  beards  shaven 
off,  which  was  reckoned  an  insult  of  so  gross  a  kind 
that  it  kept  them  for  a  time  from  their  master's  pre 
sence,  and  gave  occasion  to  a  bloody  war,  'J  Sa.  x.  Vs&c.; 
and  the  endurance  of  a  similar  indignity  is  attributed  to 
Christ  by  the  prophet,  Is.  1.0.  Even  to  touch  the  beard 
was  reckoned  a  liberty  too  great  to  be  taken  except  by 
the  nearest  friends;  hence  we  may  estimate  how  abomi 
nable  the  treachery  of  Joab  was,  as  we  read  that  he  took 

1  A ili'ii.  v.  201,  Kd.  Casauli. 

-  Arabia  (see  1'lin.  v.  L't)  was  considered   by    the  Greeks   to 
iiK-lude  the  highlands*  of  Mesopotamia. 
3  Matth.  Paris,  Enyl.  ii.  ?A  (IC-lin. 


BEAST 


BEAST 


Amasa  his  cousin  by  the  beard,  to  kiss  him  (or,  as 
others  equally  well  translate,  tt>  kiss  it),  when  ininie- 
diately  he  struck  him  dead,  L'Sa.  xx.it.  In  certain  eases 
of  .suspected  leprosy  shaving  was  enjoined:  also  at  the 
purification  of  the  leper.  Lu.  xiii. :;:; ;  xiv.  it.  The  people 
were  forliidden  to  round  the  corners  of  their  lieads  or 
mar  the  corners  of  their  beards,  i.e.  .\i\.  LV;  thus  distin 
guishing  themselves  from  the  Egyptians,  \\lio  shaved 
all  tlie  hair  away;  and  from  certain  of  their  Arab 
neighbours,  who  are  said  to  have  trimmed  their  beards 
in  the  very  manner  that  is  here  forbidden,  so  as  to  dedi 
cate  themselves  to  one  of  their  idol  deities.  This  custom 
is  pointed  at  in  .le.  ix.  2'i.  and  other  pa-sa^es,  where 
the  marginal  rendering,  "  all  having  tin:  corners  polled." 
is  to  be  preferred  to  that  of  the  text.  fc.C.  11.  J).  ] 

BEAST.  There  are  two  principal  Hebrew  words, 
of  which  this  is  the  rendering — ,icn2>  k<-'htn<a/t,  and 

T  ••  : 

•H,  /""'•  Of  these  the  latter,  with  its  Chaldee  repre 
sentative  NVP>  JiSiva/hf  is  the  more  comprehensive, 

seemingly  including  everything  that  possesses  animal 
life.  It  therefore  corresponds  to  the  Greek  &ov,  lir'nv/ 
creature,  in  its  widest  application.  It  is  sometimes, 
however,  used  in  a  more  restricted  sense,  as  in  Ge.  i.  21.2.'); 
vii.  it,  21, ic  ,  as  distinguishing  certain  kinds  of  animals 
from  /icluiititft,  which  is  there  rendered  "cattle." 

Perhaps  we  might  say  that  this  latter  sense  indicates  a 
binary  division  of  quadrupeds,  corresponding  to  that 
of  Linmeus — the  Mtfinah  representing  the  L'ngulata 
or  hoofed  quadrupeds  (of  which  i»y^,  bur,  occurring 
in  only  four  passages,  is  a  synonym),  and  the  hai 
standing  for  the  numerous  clawed  races  —  theUnguicu- 
lata.  Limueus's  third  subdivision,  the  -Mutica,  includ 
ing  the  whales  and  similar  animals,  were,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  ranged  with  tile  fishes. 

Taking  into  view  the  whole  animate  creation,  exclusive 
of  man,  who  is  treated  of  in  the  Holy  Scripture  under  a 
very  different  aspect  from  that  of  his  zoological  posi 
tion,  the  first  and  most  obvious  distribution  seems  to 
have  been  founded  on.  the  localities  frequented  by  ani 
mals.  "  the  beast  of  the  earth,  the  fov\l  of  the  air,  and 
tlie  fish  of  the  sea;''  separating,  however,  from  the  first, 
"the  creeping  thing:"  this  we  find  in  the  Mosaic  ac 
count  of  the  creation.  In  the  sacred  narrative  of  the 
deluge,  the  same  arrangement  is  adopted  as  regards 
terrestrial  and  aerial  animals;  and  beasts  are  further 
divided  into  clean  and  unclean.  But  indications  of  a 
much  more  elaborate  division  appear  in  the  book  of 
Leviticus,  ch.  xi.,  and  in  the  parallel  passage  in  Deuter 
onomy,  ch.  xiv.;  which  we  notice  the  more  readily,  be 
cause  it  is  by  far  the  earliest  attempt  at  that  orderly 
arrangement  which  we  usually  designate  system,  and 
because  it  seems  to  have  been  generally  neglected  by 
those  who  have  written  the  history  of  zoology.  The 
principal  orders  of  animals  are  very  clearly  distin 
guished.  "  Whatsoever  parteth  the  hoof,  and  is  cloven- 
footed,  and  cheweth  the  cud  among  the  beasts,"  Le.  xi.  3, 
indicates,  of  course,  the  Ruminantia  of  modern  science; 
"the  coney"  and  "the  hare,"'  ver.  •:>,  (i,  may  be  con 
sidered  as  typical  of  the  liodentia,1  and  "the  swine," 
ver.  7,  of  the  J'achydermata  ;  while  ''whatsoever  goeth 
upon  his  paws,  among  all  manner  of  beasts  that  go  on 


1  It  ilui/s  not.  seem  a  suflicieiit  ohjortion  to  this  view,  that  the 
classification  is  not  in  all  respects  natural.  Admitting  the 
coney  to  be  the  modern  hiirnx,  and  a  true  pachyderm,  still  its 
external  appearance  is  that  of  a  rodent. 


all  four,"  ver.  27,  seems  to  point  out  clearly  enough  the 
Carnivora.  Then,  among  aerial  animals,  we  have 
somewhat  less  distinctly  the  Ilaptores,  Irisessores,  Xata- 
tores,  and  Grallatores,  associated,  however,  with  the  bat; 
all  of  which,  being  prohibited,  leave  the  gallinaceous 
order  separated  as  clean,  ver.  i:;-'l:i.  The  "fowls  that 
creep,  going  upon  all  four,"  ver.  2i>,  and  the  "flying 
creeping  things,"  ver.  23,  are  not  unaptly  descriptive  of 
winged  insects,  among  which  tin;  saltatory  Orthoptera 
are  graphically  noted  as  those  creeping  things  "  which 
have  legs  above  their  feet,  to  leap  withal  upon  the 
earth,"  vur.  21.  The  aquatic  tribes  are  distinguished  into 
"  such  as  have  fins  and  scales  in  tlie  waters,"  VLT.  •;',  tlv 
true  Irishes,  and  ''all  that  have  not  fins  and  scales," 
vor.  in,  perhaps  meaning  the  Amphibia  or  the  Cetacca. 
Besides  these,  there  is  a  heterogeneous  assemblage  of 
creatures  denominated  "creeping  things,"  ver.  20,  if 
which  small  size  seems  to  be  the  only  common  charac 
ter,  including  (at  least,  in  our  translation)  ''the  weasel, 
the  mouse,  and  the  tortoise  after  his  kind,  and  the 
:  ferret,  arid  the  chameleon,  and  the  lizard,  and  the  snail, 
and  the  mole."  In  order  to  estimate  the  value  of  this 
arrangement,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  object  of 
the  sacred  writer  was  not  at  all  a  systematic  distribu 
tion  of  the  animal  kingdom,  which  is  only  casually  in 
troduced  for  the  purpose;  of  instituting  a  ceremonial 
permission  or  prohibition  of  certain  sorts  of  animal 
i  food;  that  the  animals  noticed  are  only  those  of  a  very 
|  limited  district;  and,  out  of  these,  none  but  such  as 
might  offer  any  temptation  to  be  used  as  food;  and  that 
the  incongruities  and  anomalies  would  probably  be 
much  diminished,  could  we  with  certainty  know  the 
spct  ies  in  every  case  intended  by  the  sacred  historian. 

[p.  H.  r;.] 

BEAST,  in  a  figurative  or  symbolical  sense,  i.-  fre 
quently  employed  in  Scripture,  and  always  (unle>s 
where  there  is  a  mistranslation)  with  reference  to  the 
sensual  and  grovelling,  or  ferocious  and  brutal  natures 
which  properly  belong  to  the  beast  creation.  Thus,  the 
psalmist  speaks  of  himself  as  being  "like  a  beast  before 
God,"  while  giving  way  to  merely  outward  and  fleshly 
considerations,  r.s.  ixxiii.  22;  and  of  the  savage  multitude 
at  Ephesus,  who  stormed  and  raged  for  St.  Paul's  life, 
he  says  "he  had  fought  with  beasts  at  Ephesus,"  iCo. 
xv.  32.  So,  in  many  other  passages,  Jobxviii.  3;  Ps.  xlix.  12; 
ixviii.  30;  2l'e.  ii.  12, &o.  In  the  Apocalypse  there  is  what 
is  called  emphatically  THE  BEAST,  by  which  is  obviously 
meant  a  worldly  power — or  rather  an  ideal  representa 
tion  of  the  power  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  in  its  sensual, 
lawless,  God-opposing  character,  exhibiting  itself  in  the 
treatment  given  by  the  several  kingdoms  of  the  world 
to  the  cause  and  people  of  Christ,  Re.  xiii.  i,ic.;  xv.  2;  xvii.S; 
\iv  10.  This  image,  like  several  others  in  the  same  book, 
is  taken  from  the  vision  of  iJaniel,  in  which  the  succes 
sive  worldly  monarchies  which  were  to  arise,  and  were, 
one  after  another,  to  acquire  a  sort  of  world-wide  do 
minion,  are  represented  by  so  many  wild  beasts  ascend 
ing  out  of  a  tempestuous  sea— that  is,  so  many  selfish, 
fierce,  tyrannical,  godless  existences  tossed  up  by  the 
tumultuous  elements  of  a  troubled  world — while  the 
properly  divine  kingdom,  the  only  one  which  had  a 
right  to  exist,  and  which  should  ultimately  prove  the 
one  universal  and  everlasting  kingdom,  was  imaged  hy 
one  like  a  son  of  man — godlike,  reasonable,  humaniz 
ing,  blessed,  Da.  vii.  It  is  the  same  contrast  between 
the  beastly  and  the  divine-human  which,  with  certain 
modifications,  and  with  much  more  of  detail,  is  ex- 


BKCHK1; 


19D 


hibited  in  the  apocalyptic  vision  respecting;  tlie  l>east. 
But  what  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  same  hook  are  desig 
nated  the  four  btaxts — viz.  the  cherubic  forms,  oh.  iv. 
G,8,&c.,  should  have  been  tlie  four  liviny  micx,  or  the  four 
creature*.  ]''or  the  word  in  the  original  here  is  quite 
different  from,  that  used  of  the  beast  already  referred  to.  j  he  a  variety  of  pronunciation  for 


In  the  latter  case  it  is  ^-ripiov,  beast  in  the  strict  sense, 


and  »,  may  easily  be  mistaken  in  Hebrew:  and  this  is 
the  way  in  which  the  name  has  been  read  by  the 
Greek  and  Syriac  translators,  the  authors  of  two  an 
cient  and  much  esteemed  versions.  A  much  simpler 
conjecture  of  Kwald  and  Gescnius  is.  that  Ik-dan  may 

Ahdon,  1;\-  dropping 


with  reference  to  its  untamed,  savage  nature,  wild  l>ea«t; 

whereas,  in  the  other  case,  the  term   is  j'uia,  creatures 

with  life,  applied  to  the  cherubic  forms  as  the  peculiar  ;  prohablv  mu 

representatives  of  the   life-property    that    is   in    God.  i  ;lnd  the  mov 

(.S'ee  CHERUJ>IM.)     One  cannot  but  regret  that  object-' 

so  distinct,  and  in  their  qualities  so  diametrically  op- 


the  first  letter,  as  the  interchange  of  the  long 


and  o  is  common,  and  presents  no  difficulty. 
BEDS   in    Palestine,   among  the   ancient  Jew 


posed,  should  have  been  designated  by  the  same  appel-      !>11; 


were 

they  are  now.  of  two  kinds,  the  fixed 
We  read  at  times  of  a  special  bed 

chamber,  which  was  no  doubt  in  the  imu-riuest  part  of 
the    house,    where    tin-  women    slept:    such   might    be 


lation  in  our  Kn_;'lish  Bibles. 

BE'CHER  \jif,<tJ,<,ri>.  al-o  ,,„„,,,,  ,-nm<>\.  1.  The 
second  son  of  Benjamin,  according  to  the  genealogy  of 
r.enjamin's  house  in  (Ie.  xlvi.  •_']  and  in  1  t'h.  vii.  o. 
In  the  former  list,  however,  he  appears  as  th<-  si  cond 
"f  ten  sons,  while  in  the  latter  he  is  one  of  only  three. 
!u  a  still  further  li-t,  1  Ch.  viii.  i,  2,  the  sons  of  lit  n  jam  in 
are  '.nveii  as  five  in  all,  but  B'-cheris  not 
named  as  one  of  them  :  nor  are  the  other-' 
ilie  same  as  in  the  original  li.-t  «\  (  leiie-is.  •-•<, 
excepting  1  !ela  ami  Ashbel.  It  is  -insular 
also,  as  regards  Becher,  that  in  the  eim- 
m<  ration  of  the  families  of  Benjamin  in  the 
\\ildcrne-s.  that  of  lieeher  does  not  occur. 
N'u.  xxvi.ys.  The-e  -trairjv  i!i\ t  -r-ities  pro-  **^S| 
bably  arose  from  the  different  objects  with  ^Hj  ' 

which  the  respective  ^eiioal<  i^ies  \\  ere  drawn 
ii] i  — some  having  re- pee t  chiefly  to  the  im 
mediate  otl'sjiring  of  Benjamin,  others  to 
the  distinct  families  that  L:TCW  out  of  the.-e, 
which  miudit  au'ain  admit  of  certain  modi 
fications  at  successive  sta-v-  in  the  hi.-torv 
of  the  tribe,  from  the  remarkable  vici-si- 
ttldes  the  tribe  underwent.  The  dreadful 
calamity  that  befell  the  tribe,  through  its 
own  pervcrseiie-s,  as  ree,,rdeil  in  the  con 
cluding  chapters  of  Judges,  must  alone 
have  produced  a  -Teat  disorganization  in 
its  family  arrangements  -  some,  perhaps, 
entirely  lo-in_r  their  di-iinctivc  po-i;ion, 
coming  in  tlieir  place. 

2.   J'.i-n-iii-.i:.      A 

xxvi.  3.'),  who,  however,  is  called  Bered  in  1  Ch.  vii.  'J11. 
It  is  pos.-iblo  that  this  is  the  same  person  as  the  pre 
ceding;  for,  as  the  family  of  Kphraim  at  an  .  arlv 


s  into  which  the  frogs  were  to  penetrate.  Ex.  viii.:); 
and  that  of  the  king  of  Syria,  in  which  nothing  could 
b.-  secret  from  Kiidia,  2Ki.  vi.  1:!  ;  conipnre  EC.  x.  20.  We 
read  also  of  a  bed-chamber  in  which  the  young  king 
doash  was  hidden  from  the  usurper  Athaliah.  •JKi.xi..; 
but  the  correct  translation  there  is.  "the  chamber  of 
the  bed-."  a  store-room  into  which  beds  and  bedding 
Aon-  earned  dnriii'j-  the  dav-time  when  thev  were  not 


--•' 
I  Hi.  1 


n  u>e.  as  is  n.'W  pretty  -em-rally  understood.  The 
chief  sleeping  place,  however,  was  usually  the  laru'e 

u  of    Kphraini,  according  to   Nu.     room  of  the  house,  with  a  raised  platform  atone  end  of 

the  room,  or  on  two  or  three  -ides  of  it.  this  being  occa 
sionally  i  ovi  r>(l  with  a  cushion,  somewhat  in  the  style 
of  cut  No.  1  I  ii.  In  siich  a  room  the  master  of  the  house 


period  suffered  -fiic vi  ni-1  v  in  a  conflict  with  the  men  of  and  his  family  mi-bt  all  sleep  together,  as  in  the  parable, 
( Jath.  1  ch.  vii .21,  some  have  thought  that  Becher,  the 
son  of  Benjamin,  married  into  hi-  family,  and  hence 
forth  was  reckoned  .as  of  the  tribe  of  Kphraini.  If 
this  were  so,  it  would  explain  the  appearance  of  a 
family  of  Beeherites  or  Bachrites  among  the  descen 
dants  of  Kphraini  in  the  wilderness,  Nu.  xxvi.  :;•.,  and  the 
non-appearance  of  such  in  Benjamin. 


''my  children  are  n..\v  \\iih  me  in  bed."  r,u.xi.7.     Th 

liioveable   bedstead,  like  our  own  to  some  extent,  might 

be  made  of  various  materials.  'I  he  uiant  ( )g  had  his 
bedstead  of  iron.  Do. iii.  11,  perhaps  to  su-ge-4  the  idea 
that  iiothin-'  less  strong  would  be  sufficient  to  bear  his 
weight,  as  would  doubtless  have  been  true  of  one  made 
of  palm-sticks,  such  as  are  common  at  the  present  day. 


BE'DAN   is  named  among  the  judge's  win 
Israel,  in  the  speech   of   Samuel  on   retiring 


hen    luxury  be-all   to  creep  in,  the 
'f   ivory,  -Am.  vi.  4.      Both 

fixed   and   the  nioveahle    beds  may  have  been  used 
couches  or   sofas  during   the   day,    1  Su.  xxviii.  2;; ;  Exc. 


delivered     At  a  later  peri 

from   his  '  prophet  Amos  mentions   bed:- 


There  are  four  or  five  common  words  in  the  Old  Testa- 


active  labours,   iSnxii.  U;    no  such  name,   however,   is  .  tlit 

•.riven   in    the  book   of   Judges.      It  is  by  the  f'haldee  for 

paraphrast  translated   "the  son  of  Dan."  having  been  xa 

by  him  applied  to  Samson,  who  belonged  to  that  trib 

Some  suppose  him  to  be  Jair,  the  Gileadite  judge,  thus  meiit.  which  are  all  translated  "  bed."      Two  of  these, 

distinguished  from  the  elder   Jair;    for   Bedan  was  a  initial  and   niixlicah,  are  most  used,  and  are  of  quite 

name   in  eastern  Manasseh.     Others  take  it  to  be  a  general  import,  indicating  simply,  by  their  etymology, 

mistaken  reading  for  Barak,  as  the  letters  r  and  d,  k  places  for  lying:  and  hence  were  applied  to  couches  or 


BEDS 


200 


BEE 


seats  at  an  entertainment,  and  also  to  the  bier  on  which 
a  do;ul  body  is  carried  to  the  grave,  and  to  the  lair  in 
which  it  rests  at  last,  liSa.  iii.  :)i;  iCh.  xvi.  H.  Another  word, 
'cm*,  used  in  Am.  vi.  4;  SOUL;-  i.  10,  itc.,  from  the  con 
text  and  from  the  derivation,  suggests  the  notion  of  a 


IZ'IL'l 


Hnul-i-estorl'iU 


eovered  bed — a  bedstead  with  hangings;  as  in  the 
apocryphal  book  of  Judith,  xiii.  9,  there  is  mention 
made  of  a  bed  with  a  net-work  hung  on  pillars  for  ex 
cluding  the  flies.  The  same  word  is  repeatedly  used 
of  a  bed  for  a  sick  person,  probably  therefore  constructed 
with  more  attention  to  comfort,  Ps.  vi.rt;  xli.3;  Ji.bvii.  i:i. 
Another  word,  Jiuppah,  which  occurs  twice  (rendered 
"chamber"  in  Pr.  xix.  6,  and  "closet,"  Joel  ii.  10),  is 
now  generally  taken  to  be  ''a  marriage  bed;''  and  both 
from  this  circumstance,  and  from  its  etymology,  it  also 
seems  to  have  possessed  a  cover  or  canopy.  The  re 
maining  word,  y  at  slid ,  is  simply  anything  spread  or  laid 
down,  and  perhaps  refers  rather  to  the  bed-clothes  than 
to  that  on  which  they  are  laid. 

The  bed-clothes  were  very  simple — a  quilt  or  wrap 
per  of  any  kind,  thicker  or  thinner  according  to  the 
weather,  but  generally  such  that  a  person  might  rise 
and  roll  it  together,  and  so  ' '  carry  his  bed  "  away  with 
him,  Jn.  v.  s-ii,&c.  Particularly  in  the  case  of  the  poor, 
there  might  be  nothing  more  than  the  outer  garment, 
which,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  was  often  not  worn 
upon  the  body,  and  hence  was  likely  enough  to  be  offered 
as  a  pledge  when  the  poor  man  had  to  borrow,  but  which 
the  law  of  God  required  the  creditor  to  return  at  night 
fall,  in  order  that  its  owner  might  sleep  in  it,  Ex.  \\ii- 
20,27;  Do.  xxiv.  12,  is.  We  read  of  Jacob  taking  a  stone 
for  his  pillow,  Go.  xxviii.  ii,  which  Dr.  Thomson  (The  Land 
and  the  Book,  p.  c.i)  says  is  often  to  be  seen  at  present;  while 
he  adds  that  he  himself  has  tried  it,  but  never  with 
success.  In  1  Sa.  xix.  13,  we  read  of  a  pillow  of  goats' 
hair  in  David's  house;  and  in  Eze.  xiii.  18,  20,  of  luxu 


rious  pillows  sewed  by  the  women  who  laboured  to 
turn  the  people  from  the  living  God:  there  is,  however, 
some  obscurity  in  both  passages.  In  I'r.  vii.  1C,  17  we 
have  an  account  of  other  luxurious  arrangements  not 
unknown  about  beds  :  but  it  is  in  the  address  of  the 
adulteress,  from  which  we  M'e  scarcely  warranted  to 
infer  any  general  practice. 

One  word  more,  ml&nalt,  a  place  for  spending  the 
night,  is  translated  "cottage,"  Is.  i.  s  ;  xxiv.  20 ;  in  the 
second  of  which  passages,  perhaps  also  in  the  first,  it 
may  lie  better  translated  "a  hammock,"  a  hanging 
bed  slung  from  the  bough  of  a  tree  or  some  such  sup 
port,  still  used  for  sleeping  in  with  safety  from  wild 
beasts  by  those  who  have  to  watch  in  the  fields. 

[G.  t.  M.  I).  | 

BEE    (rrv>:r,   <^'j'-»-aJi),    the   most  celebrated   of  :,11 
T       ; 

insects,  both  on  account  of  its  wonderful  instincts,  and 
its  ministering  to  human  sustenance  and  convenience 
by  the  production  of  honey  and  wax.  The  direct 
mention  of  it  in  the  Sacred  Scripture  rather  refers  to 
its  i  tower  of  inflicting  injury  with  its  poisonous  sting. 
The  bee  belongs  to  the  order  I  fymenoptera  among  in 
sects,  which  is  characterized  by  the  possession  of  two 
pairs  of  transparent  wind's,  which  are  neither  clothed 
with  scales  nor  netted;  and  a  sheathed  ovipositor, 'which 
in  many  cases  (in  the  bee  among  others)  is  acutely 
pointed,  and  communicates  with  a  bladder,  into  which 
is  secreted  a  highly  irritant  poison. 

The  irascibility  of  these  little  insects,  the  boldness 
which  prompts  them  to  attack  any  enemy,  however 
superior  in  size  and  power  to  themselves,  and  the  per 
tinacity  with  which  they  pursue  the  object  of  their 
anger,  are  alluded  to  in  Holy  Scripture.  Moses,  re 
minding  the  Israelites  of  their  powerlessness  before 
their  enemies,  when  faithless  and  disobedient,  tells 
them,  Do.  i. -i-t,  that  the  Amorites  had  chased  them 
as  bees  do.  Again,  in  Ps.  cxviii.,  the  p-almist  compares 
the  numerous  and  virulent  enemies  that  surrounded 
him  to  these  angry  insects — "they  compassed  me  about 
like  bees."  Once  more,  this  insect,  by  its  numerous 
swarms,  its  habit  of  rifling  every  flower,  and  its  formi 
dable  weapon  of  offence,  was  no  unworthy  emblem  of 
the  threatened  invasion  of  Assyria:  "The  Lord  shall 
hiss  ....  for  the  bee  that  is  in  the  land  of  Assyria,'' 
Is.  vii.  1\  I'.i. 

These  allusions  are  well  borne  out  by  profane  writers 
and  modern  observers.  Pliny  tells  us  that  in  some 
parts  of  Crete,  the  bees  were  so  annoying  that  the  in 
habitants  were  obliged  to  forsake  their  homes.  Ami 
some  parts  of  Scvthia  are  described  by  /Elian  as  having 
been  uninhabitable,  on  account  of  the  numerous  swarms 
of  bees  that  infested  them.  Mungo  Park,  while  travel 
ling  in  Africa,  proved  the  prowess  of  these  minute  but 
formidable  foes.  Some  of  his  people  having  met  with 
a  populous  hive,  imprudently  attempted  to  plunder  it 
of  its  honey.  The  swarm  rushed  out  in  fury,  and  at 
tacked  the  company  so  vigorously,  that  man  and  beast 
fled  in  all  directions.  The  horses  were  never  recovered, 
and  several  of  the  asses  were  so  severely  stung  that 
they  died  the  next  day. — (Trardt,  ii.  37.) 

Scriptural  references  to  honey  are  much  more  nume 
rous  than  those  to  the  bee.  In  one  remarkable  pas- 
sa^e,  indeed,  Ju.  xiv.,  we  find  both.  Samson  having  slain 
a  young  lion — a  lion  in  the  full  vigour  of  youthful 
strength — found,  on  returning  to  the  spot,  a  swarm  of 
bees  and  a  comb  of  honey  in  the  cavity  of  the  dried 


BEE 


201 


BEEE 


carcase,  or  perhaps  in  the  skeleton — in  cither  case,  the 
sun  and  wind  having  so  effectually  dried  up  the  organic 
matter  as  to  deprive  it  of  all  smell—  so  that  he  obtained 
refreshment  (or  himself  and  for  his  kindred  out  of  the 
spoiled  spoiler.  Uf  this  incident  he  made  a  riddle, 
which,  ble-sed  he  (Joel,  \ve  can  read,  though  the  1'hil- 
istines  could  not.  We  know  ho\v  the  Mighty  One,  of 
\vhuia  Samson  was  a  copious  type,  spoiled  the  "  strong 
man  armed,"  met  the  ''roaring  lion'5  in  his  pride  and 
1  >•  >\ver,  "and  destroyed  him  that  had  the  pi  >\ver  of  death.'' 
We  well  k)]o\v  how  from  that  victory  J!e  obtained 
glory  and  joy  for  hiins.  If,  and  everlasting  glory  and 
joy  for  us  also,  whom,  though  \ve  had  no  part  in  the 
peril  of  the  conflict,  lie  call-;  to  .share  in  the  spoils  (,f 
the  conquest. 

The  abundant, •  (.f  honey  in  i'alestine  was  promi 
nently  noticed  in  ele.-criptious  of  the  superior  advan 
tages  of  the  land  over  th  >se  of  K -/vpt.  Its  scaivitv 
in  the  latter  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  .Jacob 
thought  "  :v  little  honey"  worth  sendiii'_r  a<  an  item 
in  the  present  which  was  t.  >  conciliate  the  man  that 
.-pake  roughly.  Ge.xliii.ll.  ()>•.  the  other  band,  ('anaan 
is  repeatedly  spoken  of  a-;  "  a  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey."  Kx.iii.  S&«-  it  would  seem  that,  in  general 
at  least,  tliis  honey  was  the  produce  of  wild  be.  s.  i'r. 
xxv.  K,;  sometimes  deposited  in  boles  of  tlie  rm.ks.  lie. 
xxxii.  l:;;  IV  K\\J  lii,  sometimes  in  the  cavities  of  lioll,  ,\v 
trei  s,  iSa.  xiv.,  as  i-  :-lill  conn  i  ion  in  warm  conn  tries,  as 
the  writer  knows  from  experience.  John  the  I'i.-ipti-t, 
ill  the  wilderness  of  .J:,dea,  \\as  sustained  bv  the 
abundance  o;'  this  supplv — "  !lis  meat  was  locusts  ard 
wild  honey,"  Mat.  iii  1.  Another  sniistanee,  liuwever, 
the  produce  of  certain  trees,  lias  also  been  understood 
by  the  term  there,  for  which  see  H<>M.;Y  (Wn.D) 

I  loiiey  formed  an  important  part  of  the  diet  of  the 
western  Asiatics.  probably  being  consumed  c|uite  as 
.Vcely  as  sugar  is  \\  ith  us.  Repeated  notices  allude  to 
this:  it  was  included  in  the  supplies  afforded  by  Bar/il- 
lai  and  others  to  l>avid  on  his  expulsion  from  .brn-a- 
K'in  in  the  revolt  of  Absalom.  2S:i.  xvii.  2',i;  and  in  the  prc- 
sent  sent  by  .Jeroboam  t  >  Ahijah,  i;K:  \-.v. :;;  and  in  the 
provisions  stored  up  by  the  men  spared  from  the  mas 
sacre  of  |.-hmael.  the  -on  of  Netlianiali,  .!<.•.  \!i  v;  and  in 
tin.'  food  which  .Jerusalem  is  described  as  hahituallv 
eatiiiu".  in  Jehovah's  solemn  upljraie  lings,  Kzo.  xvi.i:!,i'.i; 
and  it  was  to  form  a  prominent  part  of  the  sustenance 
of  the  virgin's  Son,  Is.  vii.  ir>;  as  it  did  of  every  one  left 
in  Israel  during'  the  Rabvlnni.-h  eaptivitv.  vor  L'l'. 

In  several  of  these  pa-sau'fs  hoiiev  is  associated  with 
butter;  by  whicli  latter  \ve  arc  to  understand  either 
cream,  or  butter  newly  churned  in  that  mild  and  semi- 
tluid  state  in  which  (in  hot  climates  at  least)  it  can 
scarcely  be  distinguished  from  cream.  Fluidity  is  a 
prominent  idea  in  many  of  these  allusions,  \\hich  v.  ill 
better  agree  with  our  notions  of  cream  than  of  butter: 
wild  honey  is  frequently  almost  as  li.mid  as  wat'T.  Tliat 
the  mixture  of  honey  and  butter  (ore-ream),  whicli  would 
be  far  too  luscious  for  a  western  palate,  is  still  eaten 
in  Palestine,  we  have  the  testimony  of  modern  travel 
lers.  D'Arvieux  says  of  th ••  Arabs  that  ''one  of  their 
chief  breakfasts  is  cream  or  fresh  butter  mixed  in  a 
mess  of  honey;  these  do  not  seem  to  suit  very  well 
together;  but  experience  toadies  that  this  is  no  bad  mix 
ture,  nor  disagreeable  in  its  taste,  if  one  is  ever  so  little 
accustomed  to  it."  -(J/bno/rs,  iii.  209.)  More  recently 
Captains  Irby  and  Mangles  speak  of  the  same  custom: 

—"They  gave  us  some  honey  and  butter  together,  with 

Vol..  I.' 


bread  to  dip  in  it;  Xarsah  desiring  one  of  his  men  to 
mix  the  two  ingredients  for  us,  as  we  were  awkward 
at  it.  The  Arab  having  stirred  the  mixture  up  well 
with  his  fingers,  showed  his  dexterity  at  consuming 
as  well  as  mixing,  and  recompensed  himself  for  his 
trouble  by  eating  half  of  it." — u'Vcm /*  lit  E'jn^t,  &e., 
203.)  (For  the  relation  of  honey  to  the  offerings  at  the 
tabernacle,  see  HONEY,  and  OFFKKI.NCS.) 

The  other  product  of  the  bee  wax — is  occasionally 
spoken  of  under  a  proper  appellation  (.i;^.  tlmia;/}, 

distinct   from   that  of  the  honey-comb  (,-£•,  'n»i>lt(tli\. 

It  was  probably  therefore  used  officinally  (i.e.  sold 
in  shop.-),  but  the  sacred  allusions  throw  no  light  en 
this,  being  confined  to  its  quality  of  melting  under  the 
application  of  heat,  iv  \xii.  i  u  ixvia  _'.,..• 

That  the  industry,  the  fruitful  ness,  or  some  other  qua- 
i  ty  of  the  bee.  perhaps  that  of  producing  sweetness,  had 
early  excited  admiration,  appears  from  I\  males  being 
named  after  it.  Deborah,  the  nurse  of  Rcbckah,  GO. 
xxxv.  S  and  Deborah,  the  prophetess  v,  1m  \\ith  Barak 
delivered  Israel.  .In.  iv,  bore  the  humble  name  of  "  bee," 
just  as,  in  later  days,  the  laborious  friend  of  saints 
and  \\ido\vs  was  named  ai'Ur  the  elegant  gazelle, 
Ac.  ix  !  1'.  II.  c.  | 

BEEL'ZEBUB.     ,s,   BAAL/EI;I:B. 
BEEL'ZEBUL.      This,  as  already   indicated   under 
1'.  \Al./r.i:ri;,  is  the   proper  form  of   what  appears  in  the 
!  version  of  th-  X.  \\  Totameiit  as  Bee  !/.ehub 
a  reading  without  Mippurt  from   the  Creek.      In  re 
gard    to    the    precise    import    of    IV-i  l/.ehul,    however, 
commentators  are  not  quite  agried.      lhni</- Ion/  is  the 
sense  n<lo]ited   by    Buxtorf  and    Lightfoot,    ami    is  the 
one  ,-till  mo- 1  commonlv  received,  but  several  ce  inmien- 
tators    of   note    (including   .Micliaelis.    1'a.nlus.   Mcvcr). 
lia\e  objected   to   it.    mi   the  ground  that,  as  r.eW  not 
-.1/1  >it  is  dunu'.  the  won!  should    in    that  case   have   been 
I'.i  el/ebel.      The  proper  meaning  of  :tl,ul  in   Hebrew  is 
domicile,  Im'.ltnf',,,,!  .•  and  so  the   autlmrilies  referred  to 
would  understand  the   epithi  t   as    meaninu'   lord  »f  t/ic 
domicile.      I !ut  tliis  seems   by  much  too  general  a  de 
signation  for  the  most  distinctive  and  opprobrious  title 
of  the  I'rinee  of  darkness.      It   is  also,  wo  are  told   by 
Li-htfoot    [//-.,•.    II, h.   at    Mat.    xii.  2.".i.an   undoubted 
fact,    that  :.diiil  occurs    in  the    rabbinical   writings  in 
tlie  sense  of  (liitif/  and  dn,i,il,lll ;  and  in  tliat  sense  it  is 
nsvd  as  a  familiar  epithet  of  loathing  and  contempt  for 
idolatry   and    idol    worship.       Hence,  savs  he,   "among 
1  all  the  devils  they  naturally  esteemed   that  devil  tlie 
'  worst,  the    fon]e-t.    and,    as    it   \\eiv,  the    Jiriuce   of   the 
rest,  who  ruled  over  the  idols,  and  by  wlioin  oracles  and 
miracles  were  u'iveii   forth   a.uiong  heathens   and    idola 
ters.      And    thev    were    of    this    opinion,    because   tliev 
held  idolatry  aJiove  all  other  things  chiefly  wicked  and 
>  abominable,  and  to  be  the  prince  and  head  of  evil." 

BE'EIi,  "  '/".'/  i'''11'  thouuh  iii  our  translation  it  has 
unfortiinatclv  bec-n  often  confounihd  with  Ain  or 
Eli.  u.  foiDifntii  or  ."•/>/•/////;  l.eth  being  frequently  used, 
alone;  <ir  c-ompounded  \sitli  other  words,  as  names  of 
places. 

BE'ER,  a  town  which  is  not  improbably  tlie  same 
as  lir.F.uoTH  (whie-h  is  the  plural  f<  rm),  and  has  been 
identical  with  a  larje  village  of  7(10  ,,r  Slid  Moslems,  and 
three  eir  four  C'hri-tian  families,  now  called  Birch,  a 
few  miles  to  the  north  of  Jerusalem,  a  little  south-west 
of  Bethel,  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  i'Si.iv.2.  It  was 
originally  associated  with  (libeon  as  one  of  the  four 


UKKR-EMM 


BEHEMOTH 


cities  df  the  llivites  which  Hindu  peace  with  Joshua  by 
a  stratagem.  .Tos.  ix.  17.  The  Beer  to  which  Jotham  fled 
fioiiiliis  brother  Abimelech  m:>.  v  have  been  this  city  for 
anything  wo  know,  but  tin:  language  is  too  indefinite 
t'i  enable  MS  tn  speak  with  certaiiilv.  Jn.  i\.  L'L.  Neither 
cm  we  oiler  with  confidence  .my  explanation  of  the 
tli'ditof  the  inhabitants  of  JSeeroth  t'.>  (attain).  '-'Sa  jv.3. 

BEER-ELLM  [//„'  c/-///  //•(•//  nf  tin-  !,<!•<,..<].  is.  xv.  s, 
v,a-  a  city  ill  or  near  the  land  of  .Mo;il>;  and  is  taken 
usually  to  lie  the  Beer  where  the  noiiles  of  Israel  dug 
the  \\ell  under  the  dinvtioii  of  Mosetf,  N'u.  xxi.  LO-1S.  its 
position  has  not  1  .  ined. 

BKKin.     .s'n   AHHUBAM  \n. 

BEER-LAHAI-ROT  [wll  of  t/,<  UritHj,  ga-ing  One], 
a  naiao  given  l:y  liau'ar  to  a  spring,  to  which  shu  was 
divinely  directed  in  the  day  of  her  extremity,  when 
driven  from  thu  tent  of  Sarah  Go.xvi.14.  i  ts  situation 
is  de.-cril>ed  as  having  been  between  Kadcshand  Bered, 
on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness,  which  lay  towards  Shur, 
01  the  u-;iy  t.i  Kg\pt.  At  a  later  period  Isaac,  is 
found  once  and  again  d\\  elling  beside,  it,  Go.  xxiv,  GJ; 

XXV.  1  I. 

BEEROTH.     ,Sn  P.KEK. 

BEER-SHE'BA  [t>:M  of  tin    oath,  s7,cba  King  con- 

i.  a  city  in  ilif:  extreme  south  of  the 

Promised  hand  -so  that  from  Dan  to  Beer-sheba  was  a 
common  form  of  expression  for  the  entire  length  of  the 
country;  and  a  place,  moreover,  of  very  great  antiquity. 
It  was  associated  with  the  personal  history  both  of 
Abraham  and  of  Isaac,  and  first  obtained  the  name  of 
Geer-sheba,  on  account  of  the  oath,  or  covenant  of  peace, 
which  Abimelecli  entered  into  \\ith  A Irraham  in  con 
nection  with  it.  This  is  expressly  given  a>  the  origin 
of  the  name  by  the  sacred  historian,  Ue.  xxi.  :;i;  and  to 
connect  it,  as  some  would  do,  with  the  .-•even  lambs  pre 
sented  hy  Abraham  to  Abimeleuh  on  the  occasion  (x/utj/i 
being  the  name  for  xtrcit),  is  quite,  fanciful.  In  Isaac's 
tune  also,  we  find  the  name  imposed  a  second  time,  and 
on  the  same  ground-  because  an  oath  of  peace  had 
passed  between  him  and  the  king  of  (Jerar,  Go.  xxvi.  33. 
Hut  the  place,  though  situated  on  the  edge  of  the  desert, 
is  remarkable  for  its  plenitude  of  wells,  there  being  alto 
gether  seven  within  a  short  distance  of  each  other;  and 
it  is  possible  enough  that  the  precise  well  designated 
.r>c',-r-sheba  by  Isaac  was  not  the  sam  •  which  had  pre- 
viously  received  the  name  from  Abraham.  There  still 
are  two  principal  wells,  at  the  distance  of  a  hundred 
yards  from  each  other,  which  pour  their  streams  into 
the  AVady  es-Seba.  The  wells  themselves  are  called 
i'.ir  es-Seba.  The  larger  of  them  is  12.J,  feet  in  diame 
ter,  and  44i  feet  from  the  bottom  to  the  surface  of  the 
water  :  thu  other  is  ,~>  feet  in  diameter,  and  42  feet  deep. 
The  water,  we  are  informed,  of  both  these  wells  is  hi 
great  abundance,  and  of  good  quality;  the  finest,  Ro 
binson  states,  he  had  ta-t  ed  since  he  left  Sinai  (Re 
searches  i.  p.  301).  They  are  also  surrounded  by  drinking- 
tro'ighs  ,,f  ston-j  for  camels  and  flocks  such  as  they  pro 
bably  had  from  patriarchal  times  ;  while  the  curb-stones 
are  deeply  worn  by  thu  friction  of  the  ropes  in- drawing 
up  water  by  the  hand.  The  five  smaller  wells  lie  at 
some  distance  from  those  two  larger  ones,  and  are  often 
missed  by  travellers. 

Beer-sheba  is  interesting  from  its  associations,  rather 
than  from  its  intrinsic  importance,  as  an  inhabited  place. 
N  it  her  the  notices  connected  with  it,  nor  the  strag- 
gli'iv;  ruins  still  existing  in  the  neighbourhood,  give  in- 
ili~at:on  of  extensive  buildings  or  a  dense  population. 


'By  .Kusebics  it  was  described  as  merely  a  large  village 
with  a  Roman  garrison;  and  it  probably  never  was 
more.  Hut  it  cannot  be  viewed  without  interest,  when 
considered  as  one  of  the  more  peculiar  places  of  patri 
archal,  sojourn --the  place  where  Abraham  planted  a 
grove,  and  worshipped  ".lehovali,  the  everlasting  Cod/' 
irom  whence  al.-o  he  set  out  to  olii  r  up  Isaac  as  a  sacri 
fice  in  the  land  of  JMoriah;  the  place  where  Isaac  re 
sided  when  he  was  bowing  dowii  under  the  infirmities 
of  age,  u here  .Jacob  stole  from  him  the  blessing  that 
was  meant  by  the  misjudgln--  father  for  the  profane 
Esau,  and  that  obliged  Jacol)  to  Hee  from  his  brother's 
to  the  lend  of  I'adan-aram,  tiu.  xxviii. in;  the 
place,  in  all  probability,  where  the  two  brothers  met 
yet  again  to  convey  the  n  mains  of  their  aged  father  to 
of  Mamre,  ami  where,  at  a  later  period,  Jacob 
rested  on  his  descent  to  .Egypt,  and  called  on  the  (iod 
of  his  father  Isaac,  Ue.  xlvi.  i.  Ileer-sheba  is  further  noted 
as  the  place  in  which  Samuel's  sons  acted  as  judges, 
and  at  which  Elijah  halted  on  his  way  to  Uoreb,  where 
also  he  h  ft  his  servant,  while  all  alone  he  himself 
advanced  into  the  wilderness.  1  n  later  times  it  became 
forsaken  of  its  proper  glory,  and  is  noted  as  anioii^  the 
places  which  took  a  lead  in  the  practice  of  idolatry. 
What  was  designated  the  "way"  and  "manner''  of 
Beer-shcba,  was  pointed  to  as  a  beacon  to  be  shunned, 
not  a  course  to  be  followed,  Am.  v.  6;  viii.  14.  In  Chris 
tian  times,  however,  it  was  visited  by  the  gospel,  and 
became,  in  process  of  time,  the  seat  of  a  bishop:  but  it 
appears  to  have  sunk  into  a  state  of  decay  before  the 
period  of  the  crusades.  Even  its  site  was  then  mis- 
I  taken,  and  it  had  probably  ceased  to  be  inhabited. 

BEETLE  t'-.j-r-,  hargol).  This  word,  which  occurs 
but  once  in  Serijit'.'ro,  Lo.  xi.  22,  maybe  with  tolerable 
certainty  concluded  to  mean,  not  what  is  properly  a 
'.  beetle,  that  is  an  insect  whose  wings  are  covered  by 
leathery  sheaths,  meet  in  y  in  o  xtrai;////  Inn,  but  rather 
a  species  of  locust  or  grasshopper,  whose  wings  are 
covered  by  sheaths  that  are  only  semi-coriaceous,  and 
that  overlap  each  other. 

No  direct  clue  to  the  identification  of  the  /tarf/ol 
exists;  but  as  the  Septuagint  render  thu  word  by 
6(/jio,adx?79,  "  serpent  -  killer,"  a  term  which  designates 
the  ichneumon,  it  lias  been  ingeniously  suggested  by 
the  Rev.  J.  F.  l>enham  (Ci/cl.  I"-1:!.  Lit.  art.  Chargol) 
that  a  species  of  Truxalis  is  intended.  F(  >r  this  is  a  genus 
of  Orthoptera,  agreeing  generally  with  the  locust  in  ex 
ternal  characters,  but  distinguished  by  a  remarkable 
elongation  and  projection  of  the  forehead  in  a  conical 
form,  and  of  carnivorous  propensities,  hunting  and 
feeding  on  other  insects.  The  services  it  thus  renders  to 
man  by  keeping  down  the  breeds  of  voracious  and  noi 
some  insects  seem  to  have  obtained  for  it  a  common 
appi .llation  with  that  of  the  little  weasel  (/ro^/i.-'/t.--), 
which  carries  on  its  warfare  against  serpents  and  cro 
codiles,  [i'.  II.  G.j 

BEHEMOTH  (n'^nS^       This   word  is   commonly 


considered 


th 


"plural  of    excellence,''  of    ricnS> 

T  •    : 

liclicmah  (arc  BEAST);  in  which  sense  it  certainly  oc 
curs  in  Ps.  1.  10:  "The  cattle  (V/ich-mot/<)  upon  a  thou 
sand  hills." 

The  magnificent  description  in  Job  xxxix.  15-24, 
however,  is  apparently  the  portrait  of  some  particular 
species,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  some  mighty 
p-ichyderni  is  meant,  but  whether  the  elephant  or  the 


J5KHEMOTH 


hippopotamus,  critics  and  naturalists  are  not  agreed. 
There  are  some  particulars  in  the  description  which 
answer  better  to  the  former  than  the  letter.  "He 
moveth  his  tail  like  a  cedar"  can  scarcely  be  said  of 
tiie  hippopotamus,  whose  tail  is  short  and  insignificant: 
fiat  of  the  elephant  is  larger:  but  if  the  word  rendered 
"tail"  (327)  could  mean  the  proboscis,  the  comparison 

would  be  strikingly  poetical.  The  latter  part  of  ver. 
1'),  generally  rendered,  "He  that  made  him  hath  also 
furnished  him  with  his  weapon.''  would  apply,  /'ft/tin 
rtndu'in'j  lie  «'T(//to/.  butter  to  the  elephant,  who  carries 
conspicuous  tusks,  than  to  the  hippopotamus,  whose 
teeth,  though  large,  can  scarcely  be  called  weapons. 
The  account  of  the  habitat  of  the  cn.ature.  "the  moun 
tains  ....  where  a'.l  the  beasts  of  the  fkld  play." 
"  under  tiie  shady  trees,"  agrees  belter  with  an  animal 
which,  though  delighting  to  bathe  and  to  lie  in  the 
morasses,  is  an  inhabitant  of  the  forests,  than  \\ith  one 
which  ordinarily  dwell.;  immersed  in  lakes  and  rivers, 
and  never  wanders  far  lY"iu  tin-  waterside.  Finallv. 
the  feat  mentioned  i:i  the  closing  sentence,  "his  no>e 
picrceth  through  snares,"  doe-  not  seem  so  fitted  to  the 
broad,  bluff,  square  muzzle  of  the  h:ppopotamus.  as  to 
ong,  -•  nsith  ".liar  trunk  of  the  elephant, 

which  the  aninrd  in  fact  i:  es  <•  ,M>tantlv  to  test  doubt 
ful  obj.-cts,  and  to  remove  ..r  destroy  sucii  as  impede  or 
annov  him. 

.\..r\vouldit   much   i,    .  lis  interpreta 

tion  thai  the  ekphant  is  not  a  native  of  ihe  region 
in  which  the  scene  of  1  laid.  \\  V  are  inelin.  d 

to  believe  that  the  book  (,{  Jo!)  was  written  by  Moses, 
probably  during  his  seclusion  in  Midiau,  or  bv  some 
other  inspired  anther,  of  remote  antiquitv,  familiar 
with  life  iii  Kg\  pi  a!;d  Aral. 'a;  and  should  then-fore 
expect  to  iind  the'  seencry  and  adjuncts  Ivjvptian, 
or  Arabian,  or  both  combined.  I'.ut  that  the  «  i.  pliant 


was  w,  11  known  i:;  Kgypt  i-  proved  not  oidv  bv  the 
use  of  ivory  in  the  arts,  specimens  of  which  are  pre 
served  in  abundance,  but  also  by  the  representation 
of  the  animal  itself  .,11  early  Fv^vptian  monuments,  as 
ina  painting  representing  tribute  brought  to  Thoth- 
nies  ill.,  who  was  probably  the  Pharaoh  who  pa 
tronized  Joseph.  This  s.-ems  to  have  been  the  Indian 
elephant,  but  surely  th"  African  species  must  have  been 
much  more  familiarly  known.  Even  at  the  present 
day  the  forests  of  Tigre  and  Wnjjerat  in  Abyssinia  are 
full  ..f  wild  elephants,  the  hunting  of  which  forms  an 


important  occupation  of  the  natives.  lUit  this  verv 
region  was  the  centre  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  IMcroo, 
whose  civilization  was  even  of  a  higher  antiquity  than 
that  of  Egypt  itself,  according  to  tradition.  That  free 
intercourse  must  have  taken  place  between  the  two 
countries  from  the  earliest  ages  is  evident:  they  were 
not  unfrequently  united  nude!1  one  monarch:  and  the 
pyramids  and  other  monumental  remains  which  are 
preserved  in  Ethiopia  show  that  one  religion  was  com 
mon  to  both. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  leviathan  is  to  be  understood 
of  the  crocodile,  which  there  seems  no  sufficient  reason 
to  doubt  (fee  LKVIATUAN).  the  association  of  this  rep 
tile  with  the  behemoth  would  favour  the  identification 
of  the  latter  with  the  hippopotamus.  The  two  crca 
iuivs  wt  re  together  considered  as  peculiarly  Ku'vptian: 
they  were  the  pride  of  the  country;  its  most  powerful 
ili  s  of  the  brute  creation:  ;lnd  likily  to  be  soli  ct<  d 
poet  as  the  most  notable  illustrations  of  creative 
power.  Accordingly  we  find  them  so  associated  in  an- 
.  ii  at  works  of  art.  as  at  IKreulamum  and  in  the  l';\ 

pavement. 

In  reply  it  nikhl  be  urged  that  in  Ethiopia  the  ele 
phant  is  as  much  associated  with  the  crocodile  as  k  the 
hippopotamus:  understanding  the  association  witii  the 
i;init<  i  if  the  sacred  description,  the  one  being  an  inha 
bitant  of  the  for.  st,  tli"  otlu  r  of  the  water.  And  as  f,, 
probabilities,  we  must  consider  (regarding  the  book  of 
.lob  as  divinely  inspired)  not  what  an  Fgyptiau  puel, 
wuiild  be  likely  to  select,  but  what  Jehovah  himself 
i  be  likely  to  select  in  his  app-al  to  an  Arabian 
patriareh.  \\iiieh  cunsideration  vcrv  much  diminishes 
the  supposed  force  of  Kg\  p;iau  prestige  in  the  s.  lection 
of  sub;. 

of  tiie  description  to  th  •  el,  pliant 
r.-ceivcs  some  coidirmation  from  the  fact  that  the  mo 
dern  Arabs  are  in  the  habit  of  adding  the  qii 

'///  to  their  name  for  (hi<  quadn:ped,  u  hen  lie  is 
very  large  (StrahlujibLTg,!..  lo:!,  English  transliitinn).  It  ap- 
pears  to  be  the  same  appellation,  dialectically  alt.  i  il, 
•>\  hich  the  inhabitants  of  Sib.  ria  have  given  to  the  fossil 
•lephant,  lii"  i-i -mains  of  which  are  so  abundant  on  their 
fro/en  shores  viz.  that  of  nt<(ntiit<>t/i. 

On  tho  whole  we  incline  to  the  old  identification  of 
U'liemoth  with  the  elephant:  unless  it  be  supposed 
that  the  name  is  not  that  if  an  indi\idual  specks 
at  all,  but  rather  that  of  an  '.magiuarv  tvp.-  of  the  order 
I'.iehydermata.  in  which  th"  characters  common  t"  the 
mure  bulky  races  are  brought  tog.  th.-r  to  give  eft',  ct  to 
the  picture.  Tins  supposition,  ho\\.  vi  r.  seem  •  d,  roga- 
t.ry  to  the  truthfulness  of  the  Divine  Author. 

[  :•.  u.  c.| 

BE'KAH,  half--he!,el.  So  WEIGHTS  AND  MEASI  KES. 

EEL.     .s,   j;.\  .u.. 

BEL  AND  Tin:  DRAGON,  an  aproeryphal  addition 
to  the  book  of  Dalii.  1.  \\  ritell  pi  ol. ably  in  tin-  t  ime  of  the 
I'tokmVs.  and  for  the  purpose  <.f  expo-ing  (lie  deceit 
and  imp  isture  connected  with  the  Baal  -  worship  of 
Mahylon.  1 5ut  it  is  it-elf  an  incredible  and  foolkli 
story.  (>'«  D.\xna.) 

BE'LA  \«  amilltm'inu  »/>.  or  il«tt  «•/,;,•/,  !x  smil- 
hnriil  ///<].  1.  This  was  the  original  name  of  the  onlv 
one  of  the  five  wicked  cities  of  the  plain  which  escaped 
tho  vengeance  of  the  Lord,  and  it  was  spared  on  ac 
count  of  the  earnest  pleading  of  Lot,  that  it  might  be 
granted  to  him  as  a  place  of  refuse.  He  said  '•  is  it 
not  a  little  one  f  and  in  memory  of  his  successful  inter- 


BELIAL 


204 


BELSHAZZAE 


cession,  it  received  the  name  of  Zoar,  that  is  "  little 
ness,"  (Jo.  xix.  20-22.  De  Saulcy  thought  he  recognized 
its  name  in  Zuweirah,  on  the  south-west  of  the  Dead 
Sea:  lint  in  the  original  there  is  no  such  resemblance 
between  the  names  as  there  appears  to  l.e  in  English. 
On  the  contrary,  Dr.  Robinson  lias  followed  Irby  and 
Mangles'  conjecture,  and  identified  Zoar  with  a  large 
nfm  at  the  north  side  of  Kl  Lis.'ui.  that  is,  "the  tongue," 
the  peninsula  which  juts  out  into  the  Dead  Sea  towards 
the  south-east,  between  the  terminations  of  the  Wady 
Beni  ITamid  and  the  Wady  el  Dera'ah  or  Wady  Kerek; 
and  his  opinion  seems  now  to  lie  favourably  received. 
Conjecture  had  placed  Zoar  further  to  the  south,  relying 
upon  De.  xxxiv.  3;  but  at  the  utmost  this  only  sup 
poses  that  there  was  no  town  further  to  the  south 
which  caught  the  eye  of  Moses  in  his  dying  prospect. 
It  is  mentioned  as  a  Moabite  city,  Is.  \v.  .'>-,  Jo.  xlvi;i..';i. 
It  was  a  place  of  some  importance  and  the  seat  of  a 
<  'hristian  bishop  in  much  later  times,  and  is  said  to  have 
been  inhabited  so  late  as  the  fourteenth  century. 

2.  BK'LA.  The  name  of  several  persons;  (1)  Ge. 
xxxvi.  32,  33  and  1  Ch.  i.  43,  44,  the  son  of  Boor,  the 
first  king  recorded  to  have  reigned  in  Edom.  Some 
Jewish  writers  have  identified  him  with  Balaam  the  son 
of  Boor;  but  this  is  scarcely  possible,  and  it  is  uncertain 
whether  they  were  even  of  the  same  extraction.  ("2)  The 
first-named  son  of  Benjamin  in  Ge.  xlvi.  '21,  &c.  (3)  A 
prince  in  the  tribe  of  Reuben,  1CU.  v.  8. 

BE'LIAL  Iworthless)ies3\  is  translated  as  if  it  were  a 
proper  name,  and  for  this  there  is  some  countenance  in 
the  language  of  the  apostle,  2Co.vi.i5:  "  What  concord 
hath  Christ  with  Belial  f  But  this  appears  to  he  a 
later  use  of  the  word,  just  as  Satan  is  called  "  the 
Wicked  One,"  because  all  wickedness  finds  its  perfec 
tion,  or  quintessence  in  him.  For  the  literal  meaning 
of  Belial  is  worthlcssness,  hence  wickedness,  as  in  this 
English  word,  and  in  the  Latin  ncqvam  ;  and  so  it  might 
have  been  perfectly  well  rendered  in  the  passages  of 
the  Old  Testament  ill  which  it  occurs,  Do.  xiii.13;  i  fia.  x. 
27 ;  1  Ki.  xxi.  lo,  &c.  One  or  two  passages,  ju.  xix.  22  ;  1  Sa. 
ii.  12,  may  have  led  to  a  notion  which  has  been  preva 
lent,  that  he  was  specially  the  patron  of  licentiousness: 
but  the  suggestion  of  any  such  idea  is  from  the  context 
alone,  and  it  is  excluded  by  the  sense  of  other  pas 
sages. 

BELLOWS  are  expressly  mentioned  only  in  Je.  vi. 
20,  though  other  passages,  which  speak  of  blowing 
the  fire,  Ezo.  xxii.  21;  I.,.  Hv.  10,  may  possibly  refer  to  them 


[115.]       Egyptian  Bellows  -Gournah,  Thebes.— From  Cailliaud. 

as  among  the  instruments  wont  to  be  employed  for 
such  a  purpose.  But  as  wood  was  the  common  fuel 
in  ancient  times,  and  kindles  readily,  a  fan  would 
generally  be  sufficient.  The  bellows,  it  is  probable, 
would  be  called  into  requisition  only  for  smelting  and 


refining  processes,  or  operations  which  demanded  a 
more  intense  heat.  Such,  apparently,  was  the  only 
use  of  them  in  Egypt,  where,  however,  thev  seem  to 
have  been  of  great  antiquity,  and  of  familiar  use  in  the 
age  of  Moses.  The  representation  of  bellows  given  below 
is  assigned  to  the  reiu'ii  of  Thothmes  III.,  the  supposed 
contemporary  of  Moses.  The  bellows,  it  will  be  observed, 
were  worked  by  the  foot  of  the  operator  pressing  alter 
nately  upon  two  skins  till  they  were  exhausted,  while 
by  means  of  a  cord  in  each  hand  he  attain  pulled  up  the 
skin  for  the  admission  of  a  fresh  supply  of  air.  The 
fire  blown  upon  is  that  of  a  worker  in  metal.  And 
that  the  prophet  Jeremiah  had  respect  to  a  similar  use 
of  the  instrument  is  clear  from  the  connection,  "  The 
bellows  are  burned,  the  lead  is  consumed  of  the  fire, 
the  founder  melteth  in  vain." 

BELLS.  Largo  bells,  such  as  are  now  used  in 
churches,  were  unknown  in  ancient  times ;  nor  are 
they  used  by  the  Mahometan  inhabitants  of  the 
lands  of  tin;  Bible  at  the  present  day.  Small  bells 
however,  were  in  use  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  no  doubt  also  among  the  Jews.  The  high- priest 
wore  little  bells  of  gold  round  the  skirt  of  his  interme 
diate  dress,  the  robe  of  the  ephod.  Partly  they  may 
have  been  for  ornament,  like  the  ornaments  in  the  shape 
of  pomegranates  which  were  placed  alternately  with 
them.  But  partly  also  they  were  of  use,  to  rinir  as 
often  as  the  high-priest  moved,  so  as  to  announce  his 
approach  and  his  retirement,  else  he  would  have  been 
exposed  to  death,  on  account  of  his  trifling  with  the 
majesty  of  the  Lord's  presence,  Ex.  xxviii.  33-35.  A  time 
is  foretold,  ZOL-.  xh-.  20,  when  God's  truth  shall  so  have 
spread,  and  God's  fear  have  so  pervaded  the  minds  of 
men  in  even  their  commonest  occupations,  that  the 
inscription,  "Holiness  to  the  Lord,"  which  the  high- 
priest  wore  upon .  the  golden  plate  attached  to  his 
mitre,  should  be  equally  borne  by  the  bells  of  the 
horses;  that  is,  even  the  commonest  things  should  bear 
a  sacred  character.  Probably  it  was  the  practice  then, 
as  it  is  now,  that  horses  and  other  beasts  of  burden 
carried  such  bells,  to  cheer  them  in  their  motions  by 
the  lively  sound,  and  to  keep  any  of  the  party  from 
wandering,  or  to  bring  them  together  again,  even 
though  travelling  by  night  and  over  trackless  districts. 

In  Is.  iii.  16-18,  reference  is  made  to  little  tinkling 
bells  which  are  worn  by  women  in  the  East  to  this 
day  upon  their  wrists  and  ankles,  and  with  which  the 
gay  and  thoughtless  attracted  attention  and  expected 
to  gain  admiration.  [<;.  c.  M.  rx] 

BELSHAZ'ZAR  [perhaps  prince  of  Bel]  was  the  last 
kingof  Babylon,  who  reigned  at  least  three  years,  Da.viii.  i, 
and  of  whom  we  have  an  account  in  the  fifth  chapter  of 
Daniel,  his  impious  feast,  the  writing  on  the  wall  by  a 
mysterious  hand,  the  reading  and  exposition  of  the  in 
scription  by  the  prophet,  and  the  taking  of  the  Chal 
dean  kingdom  that  night  by  the  Medes  and  Persians, 
while  the  king  himself  was  slain.  Unbelievers  who 
have  endeavoured  to  throw  discredit  upon  the  Bible  in 
general,  and  011  this  book  of  Daniel  in  particular,  have 
dwelt  much  upon  the  difference  between  this  account 
and  that  of  uninspired  historians,  according  to  which, 
although  they  tell  that  Babylon  was  taken  by  storm  in 
the  night  during  a  drunken  feast,  comp.  Is.  xxi.  4,5,  yet 
the  last  king  of  Babylon  met  the  armies  of  Cyrus  in 
the  open  plain  and  was  defeated  ;  whereupon  he  shut 
himself  up  in  a  neighbouring  city,  Borsippa,  and  there 
soon  after  made  a  peaceable  surrender,  was  kindly 


BELTESHAZZAK  '2( 

received  by  the  conqueror,  and  ended  his  days  in  peace 
in  a  distant  country.  To  this  the  reply  of  believing  men  , 
has  been  twofold :  jh'^t,  that  where  we  have  two  con- 
nicting  accounts,  even  a  worldly  man  may  have  reason 
to  reckon  Daniel  as  good  a  voucher  for  the  truth  as 
Greek  historians,  who  lived  at  a  great  distance  and 
were  ill  acquainted  with  the  language  ;  and  second,  that 
the  accounts  miu'ht  possibly  be  shown  not  to  be  con 
flicting,  if  we  were  only  better  acquainted  with  the 
circumstances.  This  second  reply  has  actually  proved  - 
to  be  the  truth.  For  the  inscriptions  found  of  late  in 
Borsippa  and  the  Babylonian  ruins,  have  informed  us 
that  the  last  king  of  Babylon  did  associate  his  son  with 
him  in  the  u'ov,-rnm';nt.  and  left  him  in  the  city,  where 
he  was  slain  when  it  wa-  taken,  while  the  father  fo-,i  Jit 
the  disastrous  hatti''  on  tiie  outside,  which  led  to  the 
saving  of  his  life  by  a  timely  surrender.  This  sons 
name  is  at  present iva  I  by  Rawiinso'-i  Belshar<-/.a:-.  An 
ingenious  view  has  been  supported  by  Niebuhr,  but 
there  are  serious  difficulties  connected  \\ith  it.  that 
Belshaz/.ar  was  slain  tw.-ntv-.>i'.e  years  before  t'yrus 
."line  to  ihe-  thn.ne  of  Babvion.  ,-.,::•,>.  1>,L  x.  i::,  ami  that 
Darius  the  -Med..-  ascended  the  throne  as  the  rijitful 
in-ir.  through  connection  \\.th  Nebuchadnezzar  by 
marria:  -.  Of  course  this  theory  meets  the  ditli'-i.i'v 
above  mentioned  in  a  dill'eivnt  maimi-v.  But.  in  truth, 
we  Jiiive  \vrv  few  reliable'  accounts  of  Babylonian 
history,  and  especially  at  the  period  in  question. 

BELTE  SHAZ'ZAR,   the  name  given  to   Daniel  at  i 
the  tim  •  thai  N'ehu-'hadii'-y./ar  chan^'d    the    iiam.  s   of 
his  thr,    •  ••  .     h ..    :.       All    of    tin.  Ill    seem    i 

names  in  honour  of  idols. 

BEXi.-/';.  Thi;  word  is  pure  Hebrew:  compare 
what  has  l»en  -  .-yd  of  th.-  use  of  the  Syriac  or  <  'haldi  e 
uord  BAK.  which  lias  the  same  m.-auin^.  in  some 
cases  it  is  diliicult  to  decid"  wln-tln-r  it  is  be  -t  to  trans 
late  Ben  or  to  1-  avi  i'  nntranslat  d,  as  part  of  the 
proper  name,  (fur  v.-rsioii  has  occasionally  m-  t  this 
ditii-'uliv  by  taking  tiie  one  c  mrse  in  the  text  and  the 
other  in  the  margin,  l  Ki  iv.  !>,  i  . .  - 

BEXA'IAH  \/,<  irlw,,i  Jchorali  lia*l,nin  <>r\.  tl 
of  .b-lioiada.  of  Kab/i-el.  a  city  in  the  extreme  south  of 
Jndah,  Jns  xv.  21,  one  of  David's  heroes,  whose  «••-.;- 
and  rank  are  mentioned  ;u  '_'  Sa.  xxiii.  'JO-'J:',  ;  1  Oh. 
xi.  '2-2-2't.  \Vh:l  -  Joal)  lived,  lie  was  commander  of 
David's  chosen  troops,  the  Oherethites  and  Pelethites, 
2S.i.viiU  Vnd  when  Joab  entered  into  the  conspiracy 
to  set  Adonijah  on  the  throne,  Solomon  gave  the  in 
junction  to  Beiiaiab  t->  put  the  traitor  I"  death,  and 
promoted  him  t->  the  vac;mt  oliie--  of  captain  <-f  the 
host,  i  Ki  i  :;ii;  M.-.N-3.J.  !!'•  was  c.>mnrmd<T  also  of  one 
of  David's  monthly  courses,  iCh.xxvii  r>,n,  \\hoi-e  he  is 
calh-d  a  chief-priest. 

BEX-AM'MI  [xo/i  <(fllt;,  ,„„,,!,},  tiie  son  of  Lot  and 
hi-i  younger  dauu'hter.  from  wh»m  sprang  the  Ammon 
ites,  GO  \-;\  :;-.  (See  A.MMn\rn-:s.\ 

BENHADAD  [x""  "/  //'"/'"'.  who  is  mentioned 
by  uninspired  writers  as  a  god,  indeed,  is  called  by 
some  the  chief  god  of  the  Syrian^].  It  is  the  name  of 
three  kind's  of  Syria  :  - 

1.  He  who  assisted  Baadia  against  Asa.  till  presents 
from  the  latter  induced  him  to  become  the  enemy  of 
the  ten  tribes,  iKi.xv.l*;  in  which  policy  we  find  his 
successors  continuing  with  little  ehan.:e  till  almost  the 
end  of  that  kingdom.  It  is  impossible  to  determine 
whether  he  stood  in  any  relation  to  that  Had  ad  the 
Ivlomite  who  became  the  enemy  of  Solomon,  l  Ki.  xi.  !4-2:>. 


o  BKXJAMIX 

2.  The  king  with  whom  Ahab  carried  on  repeated 
wars.  iKi.  xx.  x\ii.,  in  which  the  Syrians  would  have  an- 
nihilated  Israel,  in  all  human  probability,  but  for  the 
insolent    boasting    of    Benhadad    against    the   God    of 
Israel.     As  Ahab,  however,  wanted  faith  to  make  any 
good  use  of  the  miraculous  interferences  on  his  behalf, 
and  in   punishment   of  this    blasphemer,   his  own  life 
went  for  that  of  the  man  whom  he  spared.     Benhadad 
carried  on  wars  with  Allan's  son  Jehoram,   2Ki.vi.vii. 
For  some  time  the  plans  of  the  Syrians  were  revealed 
to   the   king   of   Israel   by   the   prophet   Elislia.      And 
though.  011  one  occasion,  the  Israelites  were  brought  to 
the  brink  of  ruin.  yet.  according  to  this  prophet's  inti- 
mation.  a  panic   took   po»es-ion    of  ihe   Syrian  army, 
ami   Samaria   was  delivered    at   once    from    war  and 
famine.      Once  more,    we   iind   him   brought   into  con- 
tact  with  Elisha,  wlieii  he  sent  to  ask  whether  he  should 
recover  from  an  ilhic-s.  and  received  the   ansv.irthat 
he  ceriainlv  mi-.';h'.  thai  i- to  say,  there  was  nothing  to 
prevent  tiii>  in   th--   nature  of   the  case  :  while   yet  the 
prophet  informed  the  messenger.    l!a/a'-l,    tiiat  /"   was 
calKd  by  Cod  to  occupy  tiie  throne  of  Syria,  and  that 
his  master  Miould   die.      Thereupon    ]!a/.ael  returned, 
imoved  up  i'.  nhadad   with   Imp.-;  of   c.  rlain   recovery. 
murdered  him  the  next  day,  and  took  possession  of  the 
throne.  2  Ki.  vi:l  : 

3.  The  son  of  Hazael,  and  his  successor  on  the  throne 
of  Syria,  was  at  lir>(  prosperous  in  his  wars  with  Israel. 
but  in  the  end  lost  all  that  h.-  had  gained,  in  three  dis- 
astrous  battles,   according  to  the  prediction   of    Elisha 
on  his  deathbed.  2Ki.  xiii.  :i,  n-i'i.2.-,.  ["c.  c.  M.  i>.] 

BEN'JAMIN  [*nn  <>f  U«  r'«jlit  liwnl\.  the  youngest 
son  of  Jacob,  and  the  second  whom  Rachel  bore  to  him, 
died  on  giving  biith  to  this  child.  She 
d  him  B<-i>oni.  '"the  son  of  m\  pain;' 
changed  this  to  a  more  phasing  cxpivs 
sion,  signified  by  Benjamin,  \\iih  v.hich  compare  I's. 
Ixxx.  17,  "the  man  of  thy  right  hand,"  the  title  given 
to  the  Lord's  chosen  people,  or  rather  to  Clirist  their 
covenant-head.  Benjamin  was  his  father's  favourite. 
after  tin  disappearance  of  Joseph,  Rachel's  other  son, 
'  i  -;  and  Joseph  ]>aid  him  special  honour,  both 
before  and  after  he  had  mad-'  him-elf  known  to  his 
bn  thr.-n.  <;.;.  xliii.  ::i;  xlv.  -jj.  Benjamin  apjiears  to  have 
had  ten  sons  i.-"  Bi-vii  i:i;>.  Uo.xlvi  21;  yet  the  tribe  was 
on.- of  th.-  smallest  in  Israel,  and  is  so  spoken  of  often  in 
Scripture,  i  s:1  ix.  21;  r-  Kviii.2r.  Tiiis  was  pai-tly  owing 
to  the  guilt  of  the  tribe,  in  shielding  the  wicked  men 
who  committed  a  horrible  outrage  at  Gib.-ah,  on  ac- 
coi' lit  of  which  all  the  other  tribes  united  in  making 
war  with  it.  and  brouglit  it  so  mar  destruction  that 
only  six  hundred  m.-n  were  h-t't.  The  d.-tails  of  this 
melancholy  tissue  of  sin  and  sutlering  are  given  in  the 
last  chapters  of  th-  book  of  Judges;  a.  also  the  scheme 
by  which  these  few  men  were  provided  with  wives, 
after  the  otli.-r  tribes  bud  sworn  that,  they  would  permit 
no  intermarriage.  There  must,  however,  have  been 
causes  for  the  sinallness  of  the  tribe  in  operation  from 
the  first :  for  these  ten  sons  ,,f  Benjamin  produced  only 
seven  heads  of  families  ;  and  the  number  of  the  tribe 
at  the  first  census  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai  was  only 
:tf,40u:  and  at  the  second,  in  the  plains  of  Moab, 
-l.^Oo,  Nu.  i.3«,3r;  xxyi.  :i«-ll.  Afterwards  it  multiplied 
greatly:  for  in  the  time  of  David  there  were  reckoned 
f)<i,434  mighty  men  of  valour,  and  it  is  not  dear  that 
this  was  at  all  the  entire  strength  of  the  tribe,  1  Ch.  vii. 
o-l-J.  In  the  time  of  king  Asa  they  bad  risen  to  280,000, 


BENOXl 


BEBTAH 


2  Ch.  xiv.  s,  and  m  tlr.'  time  of  Jehoshaphat  apparently 
still  higher,  to  :5SO,000,  2Ch.  xvii.  ir.is.  Even  when 
small  in  numbers  tlr,'  tribe  of  Benjamin  was  already 
distinguislied  by  its  character  for  bravery,  and  by  the 
favour  uf  the  Lord,  as  is  indieatt  d  iu  the  blessings  of 
.Jacob  and  Moses,  Gu.  xlix,  -11 ;  lie.  \\xiii.  rj.  To  the  hra\ery 
\vo  have  testimony  in  tin?  fact  already  noticed,  that  the  j 
Hen  jamitcs  standing  alone  ni.nl,-  \\ar  against  ail  the 
other  tribes  united:  ami  these  "  -n;is  of  tlie  right 
hand"  \\viv  famous  fur  haviii1.:"  among  them  men  left- 
handed,  probably  such  as  could  use  either  hand  alike 
well,  and  \sith  fatal  dexterity,  Ju.  iii.  !:">;  xx. Ifi;  It'h.xii.  2. 
'I'he  favour  of  be'niLj  "a  pt  ople  near  tin.1  L<  rd  wa- 
granted  to  them,  as  to  the  other  children  of  Rachel, 
since  they  took  their  place  immediately  behind  the; 
tabernacle  in  the  order  of  march  through  tin;  wilderness, 
Nu.  x.  21,24;  TS.  Ixxx.  2.  And  when  the  Lord  had  refused 
the  tab  ma.  !  •  of  Jos  ph.  and  1  rought  Sliiloh  to  desol 
ation,  the  new  place  in  which  he  \sas  pleased  to  put  iiis 
name  was  .Mount  /':<.;!.  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  which 
>  i'.cnjamin  than  to  Judah. 

although  ic   was  specially  the  object  of  his 

choice,  r.s.  Ixxviii.  Giv;?,(K  ill  the  political  relations  of  the 
tribes  the.  tribe  of  Benjamin  mi^'ht  naturally  have  held 
\vith  that  of  Kphraim.  to  which  it  was  most  nearly  con 
nected  by  blood ;  observe  also  iu  the  song  of  Deborah 
its  position  between  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  Ju.  v.  M. 
But  it  seems  to  have  occupied  a.  middle  position  in  i 
politics,  as  it  did  in  situation,  Jos.  xvili.,  bitweeiitlie  two 
great  r:1.  al  tribes  of  Kphrirm  and  .lu.l.-di.  Saul,  the  first 
king  of  Israel,  belonged  to  this  tribe,  and  it  is  easy  to 
see  how  natural  ait'ection  would  have  an  eil'eet  in  re 
taining  the  Bcnjamitea  on  Saul's  side,  and  prejudicing 
them  against  David,  when  the  Lord  transferred  the 
kingdom  to  him,  1  Ch.  xii.  211 ;  iS.i.  ii.  so.&u.  Hut  the  choice 
of  Jerusalem  as  David's  capital,  and  the  seat  of  the 
worship  of  the  Lord,  must  have  had  a  powerful  influ 
ence  in  leading  the  two  tribes  of  .Judah  and  .Benjamin 
to  coalesce.  This  may  be  tin;  explanation,  of  the  fact 
that  the  kingdom  of  the  descendants  of  j)avid  io  at 
tim  s  spoken  of  as  being  confined  to  the.  single  tribe  of 
•  hidah,  iKi.  xi.  13;  xii.  20;  while  from  other  passages  it  is 
clear  that,  as  a  whole,  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  was  also 
faithful  to  David's  house,  i  Ki.  xii.  23;  2Ch.  xi.  Vet  a  part 
of  the  people,  as  well  as  a  part  of  the  territurv,  may 
have  gone  with  the  ten  tribes:  for  Bethel  was  within 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  and  yet  was  one  of  the  two 
of  the  worship  of  the  calves,  which  was  commenced  by 
Jeroboam.  and  was  kept  up  to  the  end  of  the  kingdom 
of  the.  ten  tribes.  After  the  exiles  returned  from 
Ualr-.lon,  we  read  very  little  of  the  separate  tribes:  yet 
there  is  enough  to  show  that  Benjamin  and  Judah  we. re 
the  two  tribes  which  kept  closest  together,  and  contri 
buted  most  to  the  new  colony  in  Judea,  Kxr.  x.  0;  No.  xi. 
In  the  New  Testament  we  read  that  Saul  of  Tarsus. 
ere  yet  he  was  brought  to  receive  the  righteousness  of 
Christ,  and  made  an  apostle,  valued  himself  on  his 
pur..'  descent  from  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  as  a  Hebrew 
of  the  Hebrews,  Phi.  iii.  5.  The  territory  assigned  to 
Benjamin  was  very  small;  but  the  soil  was  rich,  and 
the  position  was  important,  both  on  account  of  its 
relation  to  the  other  tribes,  and  on  account  of  its  natu 
ral  peculiarities,  which  made  it  the  key  of  the  land  of 
Palestine.  Much  very  interesting  matter  in  reference 
to  this  point  may  be  found  in  Stanley's  filial,  and  Pa 
lestine.  [G.  c.  M.  r>  ] 
BEISTO'NI.  Sec  BENJAMIN. 


BERA'CHAH  [^/c.wV/].  A  valley  received  this 
name  from  Jehoshaphat  and  his  people,  in  memory  of 
the  amazing  deliverance  granted  to  them  from  the  in 
road  of  the  Moabites.  An;;':  .niies,  and  other  invaders. 
After  three  days'  spoiling  tie  self  destroyed  hosts  of 
the  enemy,  on  the  fourth  day  the  king  and  the  people 
assembled  at  the  spot  and  blessed  the  Lord;  hence  the 
name  Berachah,  or  " blessing,"  2Ch.xx.2G.  There  is  a 
;'•«•///  with  a  few  ruins  in  it  known  by  the  name  of 
[ienik&t,  between  the  two  roads  to  Hebron  fr  >m  Te- 
koah  and  from  Jerusalem,  and  rather  nearer  Hebron 
than  .li-rii-' ,-ilem.  These  are  now  identified  with  Bcra- 
ehah,  both  on  account  of  tin-  similaritj  of  the  nun:.'. 
and  on  account  of  the  situation,  which  agrees  well  \\  ith 
the  notice  of  its  vicinity  both  to  Tekoah  and  to  Engedi, 
tin's  wady  beimr,  a"cord!iur  to  Mr.  Porter,  in  the  very 
course  >ii!l  taken  by  the  bands  of  Arab.-  v.ho  come 
from  .Moali  round  the  south  end  of  the  Dead  Sea  to 
make  incursions  upon  Southern  Palestine. 

BERE'A.  a  city  of  Macedonia,  in  that  part  of  it 
which  i.;  called  Kmathia.  lying  west  and  somewhat 
south  of  Thessalonica,  in  a  fertile  district  of  country 
which  is  watered  by  the  river  Axius  or  Astricus,  a 
tributary  of  the  Haliacinon,  and  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Bermius.  But  there  is  some  indistinctness  in  the  ac 
counts  given  of  it,  partly  owing  to  a  statement  in 
Thucydidep,,  i.  61,  which  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with 
other  information,  partly  owing  to  the  river  cl 
its  course,  and  parJy  owing  to  the  imperfect  state 
of  our  present  text  of  Strabo.  It  is  variously  re 
presented  as  being  from  ;">o  to  HO  Roman  miles  from 
Thessalonica.,  and  :jO  from  1'clla.  It  is  said  to  have 
been  called  Boor  by  the  Turks  ;  but  certainly  the  name 
by  which  it  is  now  generally  known  is  Kara  Feria  or 
Verria.  The  remains  of  the  ancient  city  are  consider 
able,  and  it  is  reckoned  one  of  the  most  agreeable  towns 
of  that  country  at  present,  and.  a  place  of  importance, 
with  a  population  of  •JO(K)  f'am'.lle*.  or,  as  others  say, 
of  20,00(1  inhabitants. 

In  the  experience  of  Paul  the  Bereans  were  well  dis 
posed  towards  the  gospel :  the  Jews  of  Berea  have  re 
ceived  from  the  inspired  historian,  the  testimony  that 
they  were  more  noble- minded  than  those  in  Thessalo 
nica,  and  that  they  searched  the  Scriptures  daily  and 
candidly,  so  as  to  compare  these  with  the  preaching  of 
the  apostle.  One  of  his  companions  in  labour  and 
travel  was  Sopater  of  Berea,  Ac.  xvii.  io-i:j;  xx-.  i. 

BE'RED  [hail].  The  well  Becr-lahai-roi  is  de 
scribed  as  lying  between  Kadesh  and  Bered:  but  this 
latter  place  is  entirely  unknown.  There  is  some  va 
riety  in  the  name  as  given  by  ancient  versions;  but 
whether  these  are  guesses  at  an  explanation  or  not,  we 
have  no  means  of  determining. 

BERENICE.     .S'«  c  BERN  i  c  E. 

BERI'AH  [/;;  fr'il.  but  it  has  also  been  rendered  a 
ft 'ft].  1.  A  son  of  Ephraim,  born  after  a  great  calamity 
had  befallen  the  family,  in  which  several  of  the  elder 
sons  appear  to  have  been  cut  oft':  on  which  account  the 
father  called  the  name  of  this  younger  son  Beriah,  "  be 
cause  it  went  ill  with  his  house,"  iCh.  vii.  23.  This  ex 
planation  determines  so  plainly  the  origin  of  the  name, 
that  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  how  it  should 
be  understood.  Cesenius  adheres  to  this  sense  and  re 
jects  the  other.  2.  A  son  of  Asher,  from  whom  sprang 
the  family  of  the  Beriites,  Ge.xM.i7;  NU  xx  i.-u.  3.  A 
Benjamite,  who  along  with  his  brother  Shema  expelled 
the  Gathites  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Ajalon,  where 


BERITES                                  -0.'  J3ESOII 

they  had  their  residence,  iCh.  \iii.is.  4.  A  Levite  of  the  |  been  destroyed  by  Tryphon,  suriuuued  Diodotus,  about 

house  of  Shimei,  iC'h.  xxiii.  10.  r>.C.  150  (s.tnbo,  xvi.  cap.  ii.  1-,  i;i,  -2:  Ptol.  xv.  4;  Pliny,  v.  2u). 

BE'RITES,  OK  BEKi'vI,  apparently  a  tribe  or  '  Under  Augustus  it  became  a  great  military  coloivy,  by 

family  of  people,  who  are  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  name  of  Felix  Julia,  and  was  afterwards  endowed 

Joab's  pursuit  alter  Sheba,  and  along  with  those  of  with  the  jn.f  italicum  (1'liny;  Josoi-li.  IM.  Ji  <:.vii. ;;,  iK  It 

Abel  and  Beth-maachah,  L'SU.  .\\.  u.  They  must  either  j  was  tit  Berytus  that  lierod  the  C-reat  procured  the 

have  been  Israelite.-,  or.  at  least,  favourably  disposed  mock  trial  to  be  held  over  his  two  sous  (.R.sei-li.  Antiq. 

toward  the  house  of  David;  fur  they  took  part  with  xvi.  c.  11.  l-fi).  The  eider  Agrippa  tidoriud  the  citv  witli 

Joab  on  tlie  occasion  referred  to.  Xo  furtlier  notice  is  a  splendid  theatre  and  amphitheatre,  besides  baths  and 

taken  of  them.  porticoes.  After  the  destruction  of  Jeru.-altm,  Titu.-, 

BERNI'CE.  The  eldest  daughter  of  that  king  Herod  celebrated  litre  the  birthday  (.f  his  fatlier  Vespasian 

who  was  eaten  up  (if  worms,  and  sifter  of  Agrippa  by  games  and  >ho\vs  of  gladiators,  in  \\hk-h  manv  of 

before  whom  .Paul  pled  his  cause  in  the  hearing  of  the  captive  Jews  perished  (Josqilms).  In  the  succeeding 

Festus,  Ac.  x\vi.  There  were  horrible  suspicions  of  in-  c  enturit  -  I'ervtus  became  renowned  as  a  school  of  ( 'reck 

cestuous  connection  between  In  r  and  her  broth. -r,  in  '  le;iming,  luirtieiilarly  law,  until  the  town  was  laid  in 

consequence  of  which  she  married  a  second  time.  having  '  ruins  l-v  an  c.-:rtliiiiiake.  A.D.  ;"  1  I  .  Ku- 

been  previously  marri.  d  to  hi-r  uncle.  Herod,  kii  .  I  relates  thai  the  martyr  Appian  resided  here  for 

Chalcis ;  but  h  r  •  -,  nd  hu.-band.  1'olemon,  the  king  of  a  time  to  pursue  (1  reek  :eular  learnh)  :  and  Gregorv 

Cilicia.  soon  divorced  her.  the  Thaun  also  came  hero  to  pe)  it'  in 

mistress  of  TitiH.  tiie  emperor  of  Home:  but  he  broke  u\il  Saw  (Kuseb.de  Martyr.  Talari  c  ,'.  it  \\  ;i>  made  a 

"tl'lii  i  with  her  when  he  attained  to  1  •  C'hri  tian  bishopric  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  patri- 

rnity.  i,  and  is  mentioned  hv  Jerome  as  one 

BERODAOil  BAL'ADAX.  ,  Vc  MEIIODACH  BAL-  of  the  phi  isi  I  by  l^uila  (Reiand,rahu.st.2iu).  his 

•\i).\N.  also  famous  in  Christian  legends  as  the  region  \\licre 

BERYL.'  i  stone,  and  in  the  English  I'.i!  !e  the  combat  took  place  l)ctween  St.  lieorge  and  tin- 

Hie  synonym  of  the  l!c!>.  /"/'.••/'/ /'.-//  (•;;>-^r1-  "r  tartes-  llragmi.  and  his  reputed  tomb  and  the  Dragon's  \\ell 

l.yno   means  "certain   what  ;'r'  ^;l1  >h"u "  (M                                                  '•     Uuri»S 

gem  is  meant  l.v  this  st •.   '  The   Soptiw-int   uses  no  the  crus^les  it_was  freijuently  capture.!  an.l  recaptured. 

•    than   three  words  to  render,  in   different   places,  ^  cHy  remained    in   the  hands  of  tlie  Christians  till 

the  original  Elebr                    I    Kx.  xx^iii.  2n,  wlurJ   the  ^\™:  ^»>ho  tn,,,^  of   the  sultan  took  the  city, 

and  laid  it  in  rums.      During  the  seveiitci  nth  ct  ntury 

•'•;"^"l!u   (lrs;   1!1   tho  fourth  row  on  the  high-  it  w^  f,,r  a  timu  t^  cajlitia  of  tl^  I)n,,o  emir  Fakr-c,!- 

pn,-     ,  breastplate,  chrysolite,  not    beryl,    is   the  term  ^       XVi;i  ;u  ,,,.,„,_,;,,  ,entu,^    ,;,  i),.jl  h;ls 

employe.l.      Our  translators  have  given  <7^V/N^^  a- the  ,(  ,,,,v  ;,ll,,uis,,  fl,,ln   l!a,ni,,   ,„  ,.u   ,i;.l,,,.  th(.  ,,,„,,.,.  ()f 

marginal  reading  at    Kzo.  x:  viii.   i:5,  where  the  gem  is  ].;„„,,,,„,  ,,..•    .]     t  in  September,  1840,  it  was  laid  in 

mentioned  among   the   treasures   of  the   king  of    Tyre,  ,  partial  ruin  by  a  bombardment  from  the  combined  Fnir- 

l)Ut  they  still  n  Lain  './/"'  in  the  text.      Th-  more  com-  ,  I!-!,  and  Austrian  Hci  t       At  the  present  time  it  is  again 

moii  opinion   ,,(  modern   times   \\-uId  identify,   the  tar-  rising   to    pro-peritv   (Vuluuy,  ii.  iriii-ir.ii;  Unlnnson,  ii.  4!)i-iu7, 

itonu  with   tli"  c                    :•  topaz.      I'.u:  if  this  .                                                                        i  u,:;ii-4i). 

Ke  the  more  corn  ct  \  lew,  it  L-,  .-till  ipiite  prohahl.-  that  'i'ln-  modern  to\\  n  i>  'huilt  upon  tin-  site  of  ihe  ancient 

the  beryl  had  a    place   in   the   sacred  breastplate,  as   it  city,  hut  tin  n   are  few    remains  uf  tmtiijiiitv  to  be  met 

inly  had  in  the  figurative  delineation  of  the   \\alN  \.ith.tlie   principal   being  a  thick   wail,   supposed  to  I  e 

of  the  \e\v  J.Tiisah  m,  llo.  xxi.  L'H.      ]'»  r\l  is  n  variety  of  of  tlie  time  of  Hi-rod,  and   along   tin-   shore,  and  partlv 

ineraM,  but  is  ot    inferior  value,  tind  dill'ei-s   from  uniler  water,  some  mosaic  pavements  and  fra"'ineiits  of 

it  chiefly  in  colour.      Instead  of  the  deep  green,  \\hieh  walls  and  columns.      Thn-e  graniti-   column--,    and   the 

di>tiiigui>he>   the    emerald   proper,  the    h.-rvl    presents  b;ise  of  a  fourth,  still    --(and    \\ithin    the  eitv    near  the 

the   diverse   shades  •  f   sea-green,    pale-blue,    \cllo\\ish,  smith- wi-r-ti-rn    wall;     and    out.-ide    the    same    \\all    are 

and  so]                      aimi..-t  \\-jtliont  colour,  nearly  \\hite.  oilier  columns   some  of  gi'aiiite,  and  some  of  linu>toiic. 

BERYTUS  (I'.iiii'""'  >,  a,  town  on  the  coast  of  Syria.  Numerous  ancient  columns  lie  as  a  foundation  luiioath 

Hi  miles  X.X.W.  of  Sidon.      It   is  the    P.crytus  of  tin;  the  quay.      lieyond  the  south- Western  wall  is  an  ancieii 

•  Creeks,  and   by  sonic  su])]iosed   to   be  the    |',,  rothai  or  road  cut  in  the  rock,  and  outside  the  south-western  gate: 

I Jerothah  of  Scripture,  I;SH.  vi         •  is  a  deep  fountain   with  a  flight    of    steps  covered  with 

and  Kuiiian  (^-o-'iMpiij).      Although  the  notices  in  Scripture  solid  masonry  :   tin-    fountain    is   said   to   be    fid   by  an 

may  admit  of  doubt  from  seeming  to  rest  too  much  on  ancient  subterranean  a<|Uoduet,  <lisco\  i-red  a  feu    years 

identity  of  name,  yet  the  place  is  deemed  admissible  hi  re  a-o.      The  ar.-lii-s  and  remains  of  another  large  aqueduct 

irom  the  importance  of   it  ;  position  near  to  Sidon  and  by    \\hieh    tin-    city     \\as     .-cppli,  d    \\ith     watt  r    from 

Lebanon,  and  from  the  tablets  set  up  in  the  neighbour-  .Lebanon  are  still  to  be  si  <  n  ( IN.liiiison.iii  7-1::).     A  curious 

hood  by  f.n  Assyrian  king,  conjectured  to  be  the  Shah  ancient  inscription,  discoveretl  in  the neighl)ourhood,was 

maneser  wlio  overran  riitrnicia  (Inscribe:!  Tablets,  Xuhr-el-  -  found  by.M.  Letronn-   to  relate  to  ail  aoueduct.       [.J.  n.] 

KV,b).     JVrytiK  was  a  very  ancient  town  of  the  1'ho-ni-  BESOR  \ijoml  m  •'.  .  or  p,  rhaps  cool]:  a .  1  rook  wlii,  h 

cians  (Sancoiiiatho,  Euscb.  Pr;u[>.  Kvan.  i.  in),   and    is    said   to  rises  in  tin-  hills   of   the   south    country    of   Judah.  and 

have  derived   its  name  from  the   I'ho-nician  god  I'.aal-  falls  into  the  Mediterranean  Sea   about  five;  miles,  or  as 

Becrith,    "lord   of  v.x-lls;"   or  else  from   tlie   number  !  some  say,  ten,  south  of  (Ia/:;i;   but  it-*   situation  is  not 

of  wells  amund,  lictr  signifying  a  nr//  in  the  language  j  certain.      At  this  brook    David  left  a   third  part  of  his 

of  the    country  (Stephen  of  Byzantium).     The(!reek  and  i  men.    who    were    too   much    exhausted   to    follow   the 

Latin  geographers  all  call  it  Berytus.  and  Strabo  re-  Amah-kites  into  the  desert,  to  which  they  had  ivtircd 

lates  that  it  was  taken  by  the   Romans,  after  having  after  burning  Ziklag,  1  Sa.  xxx.  !i,  in,  21. 


BETH 


208 


BETHEL 


BETH  [_/«>/wj,  is  ii  common  element  in  the  mimes 
of  place,;. 

BETHA'BABA  \/ioiixc  <>f  a  /err//].  a  town  on  the 
further,  or  custom  side  of  Jordan,  \\hcro  .John  the 
Baptist  laboured  for  a  time,  Jn.  i.  28.  This  name  is 
written  differently  in  the  best  copies  of  the  original, 
Bethany — a  name,  however,  which  may  lie  translated 
"  boat-house,"  and  which  would  come  to  substantially 
tlie  same  meaning  as  Bethabara.  Many  have  conjec 
tured  that  it  lay  opposite  to  the  place  where  the  valley 
from  .Jericho  runs  down  to  the  river,  and  for  this  rea 
son,  it  has  been  identified  with  the  place  where  Joshua 
and  the  people  of  Israel  crossed  into  Canaan.  V.'ith 
somewhat  stronger  probability,  we  may  believe  that  it 
is  the  same  as  Belh-barah,  the  fords  of  Jordan  which 
the  men  of  fsraol  seized  by  direction  of  Gideon,  so  as 
to  destroy-  their  Midianite  oppressors,  .Tu.  vii.  -i\. 

BETH' ANY  [perhaps  the  house  or  /.tare  of  unripe 
(/ah* :  but  see  another  meaning  under  BKTHABAUA]  is 
at  the  present  day  an  insignificant  village ;  but  it  is 
associated  impcrishably  in  the  minds  of  all  who  read 
the  Bible,  with  the  last  days  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  as  we 
have  the  record  of  these  in  all  the,  four  Gospels.  It 
lies  upon  the  south-eastern  slope  of  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  and  the  names  of  the  mount  and  of  the  village 
alike  indicate  the  fertile  and  carefully-cultivated  nature 
of  the  district.  It  is  considerably  less  than  two  miles 
from  Jerusalem  (fifteen  stadia,  Jn.  xi.  1*),  and  was  thus 
within  nn  easy  distance  for  our  Lord  to  go  out  and  in, 
night  and  morning,  while  during  the  entire  day  he 
taught  in  the  city.  All  the  more  lie  was  attracted  t<  >  the 
place,  bv  his  affection  for  Lazarus,  whom  he  raised  from 
the  dead,  and  for  his  two  sifters,  at  whose  house  he  is 
thought  to  have  resided.  The  present  name  of  Bethany, 
Kl  'A/iriyeli,  is  formed  from  the  name  of  Lazarus. 
That  house,  and  also  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  a  cave  or 
vault  in  the  limestone  rock  of  the  district,  are  shown  to 
travellers,  but  all  these  exhibitions  must  be  looked  at 
with  extreme  suspicion.  After  our  Lord  rose  from  the 
dead,  the  last  time  that  he  was  with  his  disci] ties,  he 
led  them  out  as  far  as  Bethany,  and  there  he  was 
parted  from  them,  and  taken  up  into  heaven,  Lu.  xxiv.  50; 
though  a  different  and  altogether  improbable  account, 
furnished  by  tradition,  represents  him  as  ascending 
from  one  of  the  highest  points  of  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
and  in  full  view  of  the  city. 

BETHAR'BEL  [house  of  the  snare  of  God]  is  men 
tioned  only  once,  Ho.  x.  11,  and  might  almost  as  well  be 
passed  unnoticed,  since  we  know  nothing  certainly 
about  it.  There  is  an  account,  however,  given  re 
peatedly  by  Josephus,  of  a  place  named  Arbela,  which 
may  very  naturally  he  taken  for  Betharbel,  and  which 
is  recognized  in  Irbid,  a  mass  of  ruins  011  the  south 
west  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  a  little  to  the  north  of  the 
town  of  Tiberias.  It  was  remarkable  for  the  number 
and  size  of  its  caves,  which  were  difficult  to  approach, 
and  still  more  to  take  by  storm.  Hence  they  became 
the  favourite  resort  of  robbers,  who  were  conquered  by 
the  soldiers  of  king  Herod,  only  by  means  of  the  con 
trivance  of  letting  them  down  in  boxes,  well  supported 
by  chains  from  the  rocks  above.  They  were  also  the 
resort  of  many  Jews  at  the  time  of  the  last  war  with 
the  Romans.  We  may  at  least  conjecture,  with  pro 
bability,  that  Hosea  speaks  of  something  of  the  same 
kind  in  the  time  of  the  Assyrian  invasion,  and  of  the 
horrible  excesses  of  the  barbarous  soldiers. 

BETH'AVEN  [the  house  of  vanity  or  of  iniquity], 


a  town  to  the  east  of  Bethel,  Jo.--,  vii.  2,  but  apparently 
so  close  to  it  as  to  come  to  lie  reckoned  all  one  witli  it, 
and  for  certain  reasons  to  have  the  names  used  indis 
criminately.  (>'tc  BI-;TIU:L.) 

BETH-DA'GON  [house  of  Dayon],  the  name  of  two 
ancient  towns,  the  one  in  the. low  country  of  Judah, 
Jos.  xv.  41;  and  the  other  on  the  border  line  of  A  slier, 
Jus.  xix.  27.  They  never  occur  in  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  Israelites;  and  are  no  further  of  interest,  than  as 
showing  how  the  worship  of  l)agon  had  in  different 
directions  extended  itself  along  the  Philistine  coast  at 
the  time  of  the  Israelitish  conquest. 

BETH-DIB'LATHA'IM  [h<»i*c  of  the,  tn-o  cakes],  a 
city  of  Moab,  mentioned  only  in  Je.  xlviii.  '2'2.  The 
kind  of  cakes,  from  which  the  place  deiived  its  name, 
were  made  of  figs,  and  of  a  round  shape,  dry  and  hard. 
The  place  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  same  witli 
Almon-diblathaim. 

BETH'EL  [the  house,  of  God]  is  mentioned  in  the 
history  of  Abraham  as  a  place  near  which  he  spread 
his  tent,  Go.  xii.  S;  xiii. :;,  and  the  district  is  pronounced 
by  travellers  to  be  eminently  suitable  for  pasturage. 
But  the  town  was  called  Luz  in  his  days,  and  probably 
for  a  long  time  after,  by  the  Canaanites.  It  received 
the  name  of  Bethel,  ';the  house  of  God,"  from  its 
nearness  to  that  place  (perhaps  the  very  spot  where 
Abraham  pitched  his  tent  and  built  his  altar)  in  which 
.Jacob  lay  down  and  dreamed  his  dream,  and  was 
brought  distinctly  into  covenant  with  Jehovah  the  God 
of  his  fathers,  whom  he  now  took  to  be  his  God,  Cu. 
xxviii.  10-22.  Even  at  that  time,  as  he  was  going  away 
to  Padaii-Aram,  he  gave  this  name  to  the  place,  and 
set  up  his  pillar,  and  did  solemn  service  to  the  Lord  ; 
but  all  this  was  repeated  by  him  more  publicly,  along 
with  his  whole  family  as  a  sanctified  family,  on  his 
return  home,  after  an  interval  of  considerably  more 
than  twenty  years  at  least,  at  which  time  also  his 
change  of  name  from  Jacob  to  Israel  was  solemnly 
confirmed,  Gc.  xxxv.  The  town  of  Bethel  was  assigned 
by  Joshua  to  the  Benjamites,  but  they  appear  to  have 
been  either  unable  to  take  it  or  careless  about  doing 
so  ;  and  it  was  actually  taken,  through  the  treachery 
of  one  of  its  inhabitants,  by  the  children  of  Joseph, 
Jn.  i.  22-20.  Ill  fact,  it  lies  oil  the  extreme  north  border 
of  Benjamin,  about  twelve  .Roman  miles  (somewhat  less 
than  ours)  north  of  Jerusalem,  and  very  close  to  the 
tribe  of  Ephraim.  We  are  the  less  surprised,  then, 
to  find  that  it  belonged  to  the  kingdom  of  the  Ten 
Tribes,  when  the  nation  came  to  bo  torn  asunder.  As 
the  distinguished  place  of  Abraham's  and  Jacob's  wor 
ship,  we  may  believe  that  much  veneration  was  shown 
to  it.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  place  to  which  the 
ark  was  brought  by  the  assembled  congregation,  to  be 
near  them  for  worship  and  advice,  during  the  civil  war 
with  Benjamin,  as  recorded  in  the  end  of  the  book  of 
Judges  ;  though  this  is  made  somewhat  obscure  by  our 
version  rendering  Bethel  "the  house  of  God,"  which 
had  better  have  been  left  untranslated.  See  especially 
eh.  xx.  20-28,  also  perhaps  ]  Sa.  x.  3.  It  was  one  of 
the  three  places  which  Samuel  selected  for  judgment  in 
his  circuits,  when  there  was  no  proper  centre  for  Israel. 
When  therefore  Jeroboam  strengthened  the  political 
feelings  of  his  adherents,  by  giving  way  to  the  loose 
views  about  religious  observance  which  were  palatable 
to  multitudes,  he  chose  Bethel  as  one  of  the  two  reli 
gious  centres  at  which  he  established  the  worship  of  the 
j  golden  calves,  i  Ki.  xii.  xiii.  In  this  latter  chapter  there 


BETHEI;                           20<)  BETHESDA 

is  the  account  of  the  solemn  threatenings  of  God  against  look  on  them  as  entirely  descriptive,  and  not  as  the  ap- 

the  place,  which  were  repeated  by  later  prophets,  Am.  vii.,  pellations  of  any  particular  spots  whatever, 

and  which  were  at  length  fulfilled  by  the  good  Josiah,  BETHESDA  [hottxc  of  mo-ctf],  the  name  of  a  sort 

who  broke  down   the   altar   and   the  high  place,    and  of  reservoir,  or.  as  St.  John  calls  it,  a  n>cini)iii>i</-nool 

burned  dead  men's  bones  upon  the  altar  to  pollute  it,  and  (Ko\vfj.j3ri^pa),  which  was    in   ancient  times  beside  the 

took  away  all  traces  of  the  old  idolatry.  i>  Ki.xxiii.  LVJU.  sheep-gate   (for  so  it  should  be.  not  sheep  -market)  of 

The  possession  of  it  by  the  kingdom  of  Judah  in  the  Jerusalem,  Jn.  v.  •_>.      The  site  is  no  further  defined,  and 

time  of  Abijah,  2  Ch.  xiii.  in,  must  have  been  very  brief,  the  only  additional  particular  yiven   of  it  as  a  natural 

During  the  time  that  the  unlawful  services  there  con-  object  is,  that  it    had    "five    porches,"  or   colonnades. 

tinned,  the  old  glory  of  Bethel  was  eclipsed  ;  and  instead  for  the  protection  and   comfort   of  those  who  came  to 

of  the  house  of  God.  which   it  professed  to  be,  his  true  make  use  of  the  waters.      Modern    research    has    failed 

worshippers  reckoned   it   to  be  "the   house  of  vanity."'  to  determine  with  certainty   where   the   remains  of  this 

or  "  house  of  iniquity,"  as  Bethaven  means,  with  which  pool  are  to  be  found,  or  even  to  be  sought  for.     The 

they  identified  it.      (>VC  BKTHAVEN.  and   compare  th--  sheep-gate  itself,  by  which  the  evangelist  would   make 

language  of  Hosea  iv.    If.  :  v.    8:  x.   r,.  8.)     Vet.   for  known  to  us  its  immediate  locality,  is  assigned  by  soine 

part  of   that  melancholy  time,   there   was  a  school  of  to  the  north-east,  by  others  to  the   south-east,  quarter 

the  prophets   there.    3Ki.  ii.2,3.      In    its    purified   state.  ,,f  the  city:  and,   accordingly,    two   different    localities 

Bethel    was  re- occupied  by   the  people  who   returned  have  been  fixed  on,  as  the  probable  site  of  the  Bethesda 

from  Babylon,  comp.  E/.r.  ii.  2S  with  .V-.  xi.  ::i;    but  no  fur-     , 1.      <  ,„    t)lt.   north-east    a    reservoir   or    tank,   called 

ther  notice  is  taken  of  it  ill  Scripture.  P.irket  Israil.   beside  the  modern   gate  of  St.  Stephen, 

The  position  of   Bethel  being,  as  laid  down  by  Euse-  has   by  ancient  tradition   been  identified    with  it,    and 

bins  and  Jerome.  1  •_>  Roman  miles  from  Jerusalem,  and  is  very  commonly  >till   h"ld  to  be  the  modern  repivs.  n- 

on   the    right  hand    of    the    road    to    Shechem.    corn:-  tative    of   Bethesda:    having  chiefly   in    its   favour  the 

sponds  precisely  with  the  ruins  which  bear  th--  name  of  twofold   circumstance,  that   the  remains  appear  to  be 

lieitin;  a  name  not  so  greatly  altered  from  1 1 ri-inal  those  of  an  ancient  reservoir,  and   that  the  north-east 

as   to   cause   any   s.-rious    difficulty,    for   the    liquids    /  quarter  of  the  city,  within   which   it  lies,  is  known  to 

and    //    v.-i-y   often    interchange.       It    stands   upon   the  have  I.,, rue  the  somewhat  similar  name  of   P.ezetha  in 

point    of    a    low   rocky    ridge,    between    two    shallow  the  gospel  age.    Others,  however,  including  Dr.  Hobin- 

iead!es,   which  unite  and  fall   into  the  Wady  Suweinit  son,  would  connect  it  with  the  south-east  and  the  foun- 

toward  the  south-east.     There  are  ruins   which   spread  tain  ..f  the  Virgin,  placing  it  in  the  valley  of  the  Kedron, 

over  the  entire  surface  of   the  ridge  ;  particularly  there    and  a  little  above  the  ( 1  of  Siloam.      Certainty  seems 

are  the  remains  of  one  of  the   largest    res'-rvoirs  in   the  to  be   unattainable;   and    where  the    landmarks  are  so 

country,  :',M   feet   Ion--   by  ~1 1  7  broad.      And  then-  are  few  and  imperfect,  it    is  as   well   to  adhere  to  the  ..Id 

oth.-r  indications  that  it  must,  in  later  times,  have  been  tradition.       P.ut  the  exact  site  is  of  comparatively  little 

more   important   than   the    lar-v    village   that  it  was   in  moment. 


Thenius  (see  his  views  briefly  in  his  (',„„„„  nt.ini.  L-  Ki  which  relates  to  the  work  of  healing,  of  uhieh  it 
ii.  i)  and  Keil  dn  his  L'unnncntar;!  on  Joshua)  n>t  their  was  f..r  a  time  the  theatre  and  the  medium.  From 
opinion  that  our  -vography  of  this  part  of  IVnjamin  the  account  of  the  evangelist,  as  connected  with  the 
has  been  erroneous,  as  it  is  confessedly  one  of  the  least  poor  paraKtie.  who  had  come  to  obtain  an  interest  in 
explored  districts  of  the  Holy  Land.  With  »>me  un-  its  healing  virtue,  it  appears  that  at  certain  times  a 
important  differences  as  t.  detail  about  Gilgal.  they  troubling  or  agitation  took  place  in  the  waters  of  tin- 
make  the  tit  ii  of  Gilgal  the  modern  Jll/t/i,t.  as  distin-  pool,  and  that  whoever  first  could  then  avail  himself  of 
guished  from  the  ^/«a  Gilgal,  where  the  Israelites  first  them.  b\  phm-ing  in.  found  deliverance  from  his 
encamped  in  Canaan;  then  they  identify  I'.ethel  with  malady.  This  comes  out  in  the  paralytic's  statement 
Sinjil,  a  little  to  the  north-east  of  Jiljilia.  and  Ai  with  at  ver.  7.  as  given  with  perfect  unanimity  by  all  the 
Turmiu  '.!//</,  still  a  little  to  the  north  east  of  Sinjil  ;  copies.  Hut  in  the  more  specific  statemenl  at  ver.  -1, 
while  again,  a  little  further  on,  and  almost  due  north,  as  from  the  evangelist  himself  that  not  only  was  it 
lies  A'<  HAH.  which  confessedly  is  the  ancient  Shiloh.  It  the  first  per.-on  alone  that  stepped  in  at  the  troubling 
will  be  necessary,  however,  to  have  this  theory  more  of  the  waters  who  was  healed  of  whatever  disease  he 
thoroughly  tested.  [,;.  c.  M.  P.]  had.  but  that  the  trouhlin-  which  imparted  the  healim/ 
BETHER  {ilisto-t'ini,  or  cuttiny-  HJ,\.  is  only  once  efficacy  was  caused  by  the  descent  of  an  angel  there 
mentioned  in  the  I'.ible,  i  :l.  ii  17,  and  nowhere  in  any  is  not  the  same  general  agreement.  It  is  omitted  in 
other  book.  There  are  great  doubts  whether  it  be  the  .MSS.  IK  '  I),  but  is  found  with  certain  slight  variations, 
name  of  a  place  at  all :  and  a  very  probable  opinion  is.  not  materially  air'cctm-  the  sense,  in  as  many  as  twelve 
that  the  mountains  of  Bether  an;  simply  any  rugged  uncial  .MSS.  (A  E  F  G  II  I  K  L  M  I"  V  A), 'in  the  an- 
mountains,  cut  up  by  gorges  and  water- courses,  of  cient  Syria.-  and  Vulgate  versions,  the  Ethiopic  and 
which  there  are  many  examples  in  Palestine.  In  the  Arabic:  was  commented  on  by  T.rtiillian.  without  any 
history  of  David's  wars  with  Abner.  we  read  (.f  the  suspicion  expressed  of  its  genuineness,  and  was  acknow- 
latter  marching  home  through  all  I  Jithron.  L' Sa.  ii.  •»>.  ledged  by  Ambrose.  Augustine.  Chrysostom,  Cyril, 
which,  from  the  context,  must  plainly  have  been  the  Theophylact.  and  Euthymins.  The  external  evidence 
country  beyond  Jordan,  a  region  precisely  of  this  sort,  thus  appears  to  be  very  strong  in  its  favour:  and  as  the 
Bithron  is  a  derivative  form  in  Hebrew  from  the  simple  chief  point  in  the  passage  omitted  in  a  few  of  the 
stem  Bether,  and  might  imply  abounding  in  the  Bether  authorities  has  respect,  not  so  properly  to  the  facts  of 
characteristics,  that  is  t>  say.  a  rugged  district.  It  is  the  case,  as  to  a  doctrine  respecting  those  facts,  and  a 

best,  then,  to  connect  these  two  names  together,  and  to  doctrine   not   unlikely   to    occasion    offence   to  certain 
VOL.  I  27 


I'.KTH  GAMFL 


210 


RETH-.IESHIMOTH 


minds,  il  is  fully  as  probable  tliat  doctrinal  prejudice 
led  to  its  omission  in  the  few,  as  to  its  insertion  in  tin- 
many.  We  are  therefore  scarcely  disposed  to  go 
along  with  Tisohendorf  and  Griesbach  in  rejecting  it; 
the  rather  so,  since  from  the  facts  of  the  case,  as  given  in 
other  parts  of  the  narrative,  some  supernatural  agency 
was  plainly  at  work  in  the  periodical  troubling  and 
energi/ing  of  the  waters,  and  the  kind  of  agency  in 
([Uestion  perfectly  accords  in  nature  with  what  is  else 
where  written  of  the  ministry  of  angels.  If  an  anuvl 
was  sent  to  loose  ihf  chain>  of  Peter  and  release  him 
from  the  u'rasp  of  a  peivccutor  ;  and  if  an  angel  was 
again  sent  to  smite  that  per>ecutor  himself,  and  eaur-e 
him  to  be  suddenly  eat^n  up  of  worms,  why  might  not 
an  anevl  be  also  employed  at  particular  seasons  to  im 
part  a,  healing  virtue  to  the  waters  of  this  public  bath, 
or  swimming-pool,  such  as  they  could  not  have  natu 
rally  possessed,  but  such  as  the  higher  interests  of 
(iod's  kingdom  might  require?  There  is  nothing  im 
probable  in  this,  on  the  supposition  of  angelic  agency, 
for  purposes  of  special  interposition  being  at  times 
called  into  play:  and  at  such  a  time  as  tliat  now  under 
consideration,  there  were  ends — one,  can  readily  under 
stand — that  might  be  served  by  certain  smaller  and 
more  fitful  acts  of  supernatural  working,  as  well  as 
by  those  which  constituted  the  peculiar  distinction  of 
the  gospel  age.  They  were,  signs  that  God  was  then 
in  a  special  manner  visiting  his  people;  while  the  limi 
tation  and  restraint  thrown  around  them,  showed  that 
greater  things  than  these  were  needed  to  restore  the 
lapsed  and  fallen  condition  of  Israel.  They  were  \\it- 
uesses  "f  the  far  greater  might  ami  glory  of  Him,  who 
with  a  single  word  could  heal,  not  one  merely  at  a 
time,  but  all  who  might  come  to  him.  of  whatever 
disease  they  had.  And  if  the  Jews  were  ready  to  ac 
knowledge  an  anu'el's  hand  in  the  few  and  fitful  acts  of 
healing  connected  with  ISethesda.  what  but  inveterate 
blindness  and  obstinacy  could  prevent  them  from  per 
ceiving  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  Son  of  the  Highest! 

The  rationalistic  explanations  of  a  former  age,  which 
ascribed  the  healing  virtue  of  the  pool  of  Bethesda, 
sometimes  to  certain  qualities  derived  from  the  flowing 
of  the  blood  or  the  washing  of  the  intestines  of  slain 
victims,  sometimes  to  the  natural  efficacy  of  the  waters 
as  possibly  flowing  from  hot  springs,  deserve  no  con 
sideration.  They  are  palpably  at  variance  with  the 
gospel  narrative,  even  in  that  part  which  underlies  no 
suspicion  of  interpolation,  and  carry  improbability  on 
their  front.  If  we  admit  the  truthfulness  of  the  nar 
rative,  we  must  hold  the  work  of  healing  to  have  been 
special  and  supernatural. 

BETH-GA'MUL  [house  <if  a  weaned  one,  perhaps 
house  of  a  raijtc/].  This  place  is  only  once  named, 
Je.  xlviii.  23,  among  the  cities  of  Moab  "  far  and  near, " 
on  which  he  threatens  judgment.  There  is  no  apparent 
reason  for  refusing  to  identify  it  with  L'm-el-Jemal,  one 
of  the  recently  discovered  deserted  cities  of  the  H  an  ran 
(ace  BASHAN),  although  this  extends  "  the  plain  country 
of  Moab/1  vev  -21,  further  than  we  might  have  been 
inclined  to  do  according  to  preconceived  opinions  ;  for 
it  is  some  five  hours  nearer  the  ordinary  "land  of 
Moab  "  than  IWrah,  which  is  named  along  with  it. 
Um-el-Jemal  means  in  Arabic  "  mother  of  a  camel," 
and  is  connected  witli  the  ancient  name,  whether  that 
has  been  ri^htlv  or  wron^lv  understood. 

BETH-HAC'CEREM  \h<>,,xe  of  the  rhieijanl}.  This 
is  mentioned  in  Je.  vi.  1.  "  O  ye  children  of  Benjamin, 


gather  yourselves  together  to  flee  out  of  the  midst  of 
Jerusalem,  and  blow  the  trumpet  in  Tekoa,  and  set  up 
a  sign  of  fire  in  Beth-haccerem ;  for  evil  appeareth  out 
of  the  north,  and  great  destruction."  From  these 
words  we  may  infer  (1)  that  it  was  south  of  Jerusalem  ; 
('2\  that  it  was  near  Tekoa  ;  ('•}>)  that  it  was  on  such  an 
eminence  as  to  be  suitable  for  a  fire-signal.  Hence  the 
conjecture'  that  it  might  be  on  a  remarkable  conical 
hill  south-east  of  Bethlehem,  and  north-east  of  Tekoa, 
known  as  "  the  Frank  Mountain,"  owing  to  an  npocrv 
plial  story  of  the  crusaders  having  kept  possession  of 
it  fortv  years  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  The  native; 
name  for  it  is  Jcbel  Fureidis.  It  commands  a  noble 
view  of  all  the  surrounding  country,  and  has  ruins  on 
its  summit,  not  Saracenic,  but  1  Ionian,  which  bear 
witness  to  its  having  once  been  used  as  a  place  for 
watching  and  commanding  the  neighbourhood.  Stronger 
reason  can  be  given  for  identifying  it  with  Ilerodium, 
a  castle  erected  by  Herod  the  Great.  The  ruler  of  part 
of  Beth-haccerem  (or,  of  the  region  round  it,  as  Go- 
senius  and  others  translate1)  assisted  Nehemiah  in  re- 
buildini;-  the  wall  of  Jerusalem,  No.  iii.  14. 

BETH-HO'GLAH  [house  of  a  partridge].  This  place 
is  named  three  times,  Jds.xv.fi;  xviii.  10,  21,  as  on  the 
boundary  line  between  the  tribes  of  Judah  and  Benja 
min,  but,  according  to  the  last  text,  belonging  to  I'len- 
jamin.  Its  site  is  identified  by  means  of  a  large  foun 
tain,  bearing  the  ancient  name,  with  the  usual  change 
of  if  into ./',  'A in  Hajla,  very  near  the  Jordan,  on  the 
read  from  Jericho,  which  sends  out  a  stream  that  waters 
abundantly  the  plain,  and  nearer  Jericho,  a  ruined 
convent,  Kusr  Hajla.  Jerome  mentions  the  place 
under  a  slightly  altered  name,  Bethagla  ;  but  he  gives 
a  different  meanini;-  to  the  name,  and  brings  it  into  a 
whimsical  connection  with  the  mourning  at  Jacob's 
funeral. 

BETH-HO'RON  [home  or  place  of  rarer,™],  the 
name  of  two  towns,  the  Upper  and  the  Nether,  half 
an  hour's  journey  apart,  still  subsisting  as  villages 
under  the  slightly  altered  name  of  Beit  Ur.  They 
were  in  the  border  country  of  Benjamin  and  Ephraim, 
but  apparently  were  assigned  to  the  latter,  Jos.  xvi. 
.1,  ;< ;  xviii.  i.'i ;  i  Cli.  vii.  24,  in  which  last  passage  a  female 
Ephraimite  is  named  as  the  Imilder  of  them.  The 
I'pper  was  reckoned  to  be  twelve  Koman  miles  (some 
what  less  by  our  measurement),  or  one  hundred 
Greek  stadia  from  Jerusalem.  They7  stand  in  a  steep 
narrow  valley,  called  the  Ascent  and  the  Descent  of 
Betli-horon.  along  which  has  always  been  the  great 
road  of  communication,  at  least  where  heavy  bag 
gage  had  to  be  transported,  between  Jerusalem  and 
the  sea-coast.  Therefore,  it  has  been  a  key  to  the  pos 
session  of  a  large  part  of  the  country,  and  has  been 
distinguished  for  many  sanguinary  struggles  since  that 
earliest  one  on  record,  when  the  sun  and  moon  stood 
still,  in  order  that  Joshua  might  complete  the  ruin  of 
the  allied  kings  of  the  south  of  Canaan,  Jos.  x.io,  n. 
Therefore  also  we  read  of  Solomon  building  and  forti 
fying  both  villages,  20h.  viii.  ~>  (the  nether,  iKi.ix.ir),  and 
at  both  there  are  great  foundation  stones  visible  to  this 
day.  ISeth-horon  was  given  to  the  Levites,  to  the 
family  of  Kohath.  Jos.  xxi.  22. 

BETH-JE'SHIMOTH  [home  or  place  of  Jcsolnfe 
/i-i/i/i  ri/fxsrx].  This  is  the  last  but  one  of  the  stations 
in  the  journeying*  of  the  Israelites  recorded  in  Nu. 
xxxiii..  seevcr.  4ii.  It  belonged  to  the  kingdom  of  Sihon. 
and  was  afterwards  assigned  to  the  tribe  of  Reuben, 


BETHLEHEM 


•211 


BETHLEHEM 


along  with  it  in  Joshua's  list  of  Ueubenite  cities.  It 
has  not  yet  been  discovered  by  modern  ge.  igraphers  ; 
but  Eusebius  has  spoken  of  it  as  being  ten  Uoman  miles 
south  from  opposite  Jericho,  on  the  Dead  Sea 

BETHLEHEM 
city  of  Judah,  Ju.  x 

"fl'ltntij,  in  allusion  to  the  fertility  of  the  circumjacent 
country.  It  is  distant  from  Jerusalem,  by  the  Jafla 
gate,  about  two  hours'  journey,  the  road  over  the  valley 
of  Uephaim,  a  wild  uncultivated  tract,  being  very 
beautiful  and  full  of  interest.  On  either  side  are  well- 


known  hills  and  m. 


tlie  Storms .  .1  the  middle  ages  (Lc  Peru  Xaud,  A\.yagc  Nouveau, 
liv.  iv.  p.  4w  •  :,lso  Karl  von  Kaumer,  FalastiMa,  p.  oO;i).      The  roof 
of   the   church   is   supported    by   numerous   Corinthian 
.columns,   of   a  stone   found  in  the  neighbourhood    a 

•eiluig  of  bread].     1.  A  I  gray  limestone    nearly  approaching  to   marble      The 
r:  perhaps  metaphorically  AOKM     lofty  roof   of  the   nave  is  formed  of  cedar- wood,    of 

most  admirable  carpentry,  and  is  still  in  good  preser 
vation.  Between  the  columns  lamps  are  hung,  and  a 
chandelier  is  also  suspended  from  the  roof,  the  whole  of 
which  are  always  lighted  during  Easter.  The  interior 
•  if  the  church  is  otherwise  but  little  decorated.  Two 
spiral  staircases,  each  of  fifteen  steps,  lead  down  to  the 
(irotto  of  the  Nativity,  which  is  sonic  twenty  feet  below 


uuuents  :   on  the   plain  near  Bcth- 


lehem  is  the  tomb  of   Kadi.  1  ia  nmdern  building,  in  a 


wild  and  solitary  spot  without  palm,  cypress, 
or    any    single    tree    to    spread    its    shad.-. 
In   the   distance   is   Mount    Hebron.     The 
place  is  generally  called  1  iethleh.  in  Judah, 
Mat.  ii.  (i,   and    Methlehcm    of    Judea,    also 
Bethlehem     Ephratah     (the     fruitful'.    Go. 
xlviii.  7;  Mi.  v.  2 ;    and    lik. -wise     the     City    of 
David,  Ju.  vii.  42.    The  inhabitants  are  st  vied 
indiscriminately  Methlehemit<-s,  1  Sa  xvi.  i,  ]-.; 
xvii. :,-,  and  Ephrathites,    iiu.  i.  2;  i  sa.  xvii.  12. 
It  is  at  present   called    M.-it    Lahm.    house 
i'J  flcsk.       Methlehem   is   rendered   memor 
able  and   holy   as   the   birthplace  of   David 
and    of    Jesus    (hrist.       Boa/,    Ol.ed,    and 
Jesse  were  likewise   b..rn   tin  iv.    Uu.  jv.21,22 
Solomon's   pool.,   lay  to  the  south  of    Meth 
lehem  ;  and  to  the  south-east  stood  the  an 
cient  Thekoa  built   by   Kehoboam.  and   the 
native   place  <.f   the   prophet  Amos,  Am  i.  1; 
vii.l4.li;  although   some   suppose   h.-  merely 
retired  there   whenilriven    from    Methel    by 
Amaziah,  ch.vii.  iu-12.     The  ruins  of  a  cliiuvh  at  T.ko; 
are  pointed   out  as  the   place  of   his   sepulture  o 
Kuiso  111  .las  .M-rir.!,]  u.'l,  1!.  lii   p.  'M.       Farther   to  the 
we.-t   is   the  valley  rendered   memorable  by  the  .1 
tion  of  the  host  of  Sennacherib, 2  Ki.  MX.  ;;:.;  [...  .\.\\\ii.  ;;u.   ( In 
the  north-ea-t  of  the  town  i.>  the  deep  valley  \vh.-re  the 
angels  are  reported  to  have  appeared  to  the  shepherds, 

I.u.ii.  S;  and  where  Dr.  Clarke  found  a  well  of  pure  and      MAKIA  Ji-:srs  Ciiu 
delicious  water,  which  he  identities  with  that  so  longed 
for  by  David,  2  Sa.  xxiii.  i;.-ls. 

The  site  of  Methlehem  has  n<-\.  r  been  disputed,  a.-  it 
has  always  been  an  inhabited  place,  and  the  resort  of 
pilgrims.  Although  the  town  does  not  appear  ever  to 
have  been  of  very  great  si/,e.  yet  its  situation  on  the 
brow  of  a  high  hill  commanding  an  extensive  view  of  the 
surrounding  country  rendered  it  of  considerable  import 
ance,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  fa.  t  that  it  was  for 
tified  by  Kehoboam,  2Ch.  xi.S,0.  At  the  present  day  it  |  (Sa  CAVE.)  Near  tl 
is  a  large  strangling-  village  with  one  principal  street,  chre  of  the  Innocent 


Grotto  ul   tin-  Natnitj,  D.-ilil.-h 


The  roofs  of  the  houses  are  flat,  and  uj 
top  is  an  apiary  constructed  of  a  series 
The  sides  of  the  hill  and  the  sloj 


the  level  of    tile    church.       This  crvpt.    \vhich    is    ,",!»  feet 

long,  1  1  feet  broad,  and  !•  feet  high,  is  hewn  out  of  the 
south       r.M-k.  and  the  sides   and    floor  are   lined  with  marbles. 
-true-      A  rich  altar,  \\ln.re   lamps  continually  burn,  is  erected 
over  the  place   when-  the  Kedeenier  is  said  to  have  been 
born,  the  spot  being  marked    by  a   silver  star  inlaid   in 
white   marble,    and    an    inscription.    Hie   m:    VinciNE 
ITS  .N.vrvs  KST.       In  a  .-mall  recess 
.f   the  sides  of  the  crypt,  and  a  little   below  the 
level  of  the  floor,  i.,  :l  block  of  white  marble  hollowed 
out  in  the  form  of  a  niang.  r.  Lu.  ii.  12.      Some  paintings 
adorn    the    crypt,    and    the    church    likewise    contains 
remains   of    mosaics,    paintings   on   wood,    and    various 
decrees   of   synods   and    councils   of    early   ages.       Not 
withstanding  the  force  of  tradition,  the  authenticity  of 
the  (Jrotto  (.f   the    Nativity  has   been   much   disputed, 
and    will    continue    to    be    a    subject     of    controversy, 
grotto  are  the  Chapel  and  Sepnl- 
the  chapels   of   St.   Joseph    and 


f  earthen  pots. 
without  the   town 


abound   in  vines,    figs,    almonds,    olives,   and  aromatic 
plants.      The   population    is   ah 
entirely   of    Christians.      They 
struggle  of   1^:34,  and  suffer. 


when  Ibraliim  Pasha  triumphed. 

A  little  beyond  the  northern  extremity  of  the  town 
is  the  magnificent  Church  of  the  Nativity,  said  to  have 
been  built  by  the  empress  Helena  over  the  very  birth- 


.v.ry  house-  other  saints,  the  sepulchres  of  the  female  saints  1'aula 
and  Eustochia,  of  Eusebius;  and  of  St.  Jerome,  the 
most  interesting  of  all,  because  here  lie  is  known  to  have 
passed  the  greater  portion  of  his  life,  in  acts  of  devo 
tion,  in  studying  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  in  compos 
ing  works  whose  influence  has  reached  even  to  present 
times.  The  church  of  St.  Helena  is  within  the  walls  of 
an  Armenian  monastery,  the  inmates  of  which  make 
Wads  and  crosses  for  the  devout,  and  mark  emblems  by 
means  of  gunpowder  upon  the  persons  of  pilgrims. 
They  also  carve  in  mother-of-pearl,  and  make  inkstands 


nit  liooii,  and   consists 
were    foremost    in    the 
ly  in  consequence 


place  of  the  Saviour,  but  subsequently  demolished  by  j  of  a  hard  black  wood  like  ebony. 


[.I.  B.] 


BETH-NLMRAH 


BETHSAIDA 


[The  passages  of  Scripture  having  respect  to  Beth 
lehem  which  chiefly  need  explanation,  are  Mi.  v.  '2 
and  .Mat.  ii.  (i  -  the  one  containing  the  prediction  of 
Christ's  birth  at  i'.ethlehein,  the  other  quoting  it  with 
reference  to  the  fulfilment.  But  there  are  certain 
noticeable  differences  between  the  two.  The  prophet 
calls  it  "Bethlehem  Ephratah;"  in  the  evangelist  it  is 
put  ''Bethlehem,  in  the  land  of  Judith"  (lit. .)  udah-land). 
This  change,  however,  makes  no  difference  in  the  mean 
ing,  and  was  done  merely  for  the  purpose  of  rendering 
the  identification  more  easy  and  certain.  Between 
the  time  of  the  prophet  and  the  evangelist  Ephratah 
had  gone  into  desuetude  as  a  designation  of  the  place, 
and  so  the  evangelist  substitutes  "  land  of  Judah"  as  the 
virtual  equivalent,  distinguishing  it  from  any  other 
Bethlehem.  But  there  is  a  mure  marked  difference. 
The  prophet  says  of  Bethlehem,  "  Thou  art  little  to  be 
among  the  thousands  of  Judah"  (so  the  exact  reading 
is— too  small  to  be  reckoned  among  them).  But  the 
evangelist  quotes  the  words  as  if  they  stood  "  art  by 
no  means  least  among  the  princes  of  Judah" — appa 
rently  the  very  opposite  meaning — having  not  the  lowest 
place  among  the  princes  (or  leaders  of  thousands),  in 
stead  of.  as  in  the  other,  too  little  to  be  reckoned  among 
them.  Formally,  indeed,  the  representations  differ, 
yet  their  substantial  import  is  alike,  and  the  evangelist 
merely  adapts  the  language  to  the  altered  circumstances 
of  the  time.  The  prophet  evidently  meant  to  lay  stress 
upon  two  things — the  littleness  of  Bethlehem  in  one 
respect  (namely,  as  compared  with  the  population  of 
other  cities  or  cantonal  divisions  in  Judea),  and  its 
greatness,  notwithstanding,  in  another  (as  the  destined 
birth-place  of  the  everlasting  Head  of  the  divine  king 
dom).  In  the  evangelist's  time  the  relations  had  in  a 
manner  changed  ;  the  predicted  event  had  taken  place 
which  was  to  ennoble  Bethlehem,  and  so  he  renders 
prominent  the  attribute  of  greatness  thence  arising, 
and  throws  into  the  background  the  natural,  antece 
dent  littleness.  Still  this  littleness  is  here  also  implied  : 
Thou  art  not  the  least ;  it  might  seem  as  if  thou  wert, 
but  thou  art  otherwise  in  reality,  for  out  of  thee  pro 
ceeds  the  long-expected  Ruler  of  Israel.  In  substance, 
therefore,  the  two  forms  of  the  representation  coincide  ; 
and  the  slight  changes  introduced,  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Spirit,  by  the  pen  of  the  evangelist,  only  serve 
as  a  living  bond  to  connect  the  word  with  the  historical 
circumstances  of  his  time. — ED.] 

2.  BETHLEHEM;  a  city  of  Zebulun,  Jos.  xix.  15, 10;  Ju. 
xii.10;  Ezr.  ii.  21.  It  is  recognized  in  a  wretched  village 
of  a  few  hovels,  called  Beit  Lahm,  about  six  miles  west 
of  Nazareth,  half  way  towards  the  Kishoii. 

BETH-NIM'RAH,  or  NIMRAH  [place  of  clear 
water],  a  town  of  the  kingdom  of  Sihon.  assigned  to  the 
tribe  of  (lad,  Xu.  xxxii.  3,3G;  Jos.  xiii.  27 ;  but  near  the 
borders  of  the  tribe  of  Reuben.  As  the  eastern  tribes 
sank  into  powerlessness,  and  went  into  captivity,  their 
territory  fell  into  the  hands  of  their  neighbours,  the 
Ammonites  and  Moabites.  Isaiah  threatened  as  a 
punishment  of  the  latter,  that  the  torrent  which  flows 
past  it  into  the  Jordan,  or  whatever  else  might  be  the 
waters  of  Ninirim  (wrhich  is  the  plural  form  of  Nimrah) 
should  be  dried  up,  is.  xv.  c.  It  is  identified  with  Nim- 
rin,  which  stands  about  two  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
Jordan,  very  close  to  the  road  from  Jericho  to  Es-  Salt, 
the  ancient  Ramoth-Gilead. 

BETHPHA'GE  [house  of  figs],  a  village  on  the  decli 
vity  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  near  to  Jerusalem  and 


Bethany,  Mat.  xxi.  1;  Mar.  xi.  1;  Lu.  xix.  29.  The  marginal 
note  that  it  was  somewhat  nearer  to  Jerusalem  than 
Bethany,  seems  certainly  more  in  accordance  with  the 
text,  than  the  generally  adopted  site  beyond  that  place. 
The  situation  on  the  descent  of  Olivet  must  have  been 
highly  romantic,  and  in  all  probability  it  was  fruitful, 
as  its  name  imports  -but  at  the  present  day  there  are 
no  remains  of  its  former  celebrity.  It  was  at  Beth- 
phage  that  the  ass  and  the  colt,  ''whereon  yet  never 
man  sat,"  were  found,  Mat.  xxi.  2-7;  Mar.  xi.  4-S  Lu.xix.  32-:!5. 

The  Talmudists  say  that  Bethphage  was  within  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  but  at  the  utmost  circuit  of  them. 
It  is  also  said  that  the  victims  intended  for  sacrifice 
were  kept  there  ;  and  hence,  it  has  been  surmised,  the 
reason  why  the  Saviour  proceeded  from  that  village  to 
offer  himself  as  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  It 
was  formerly  a  custom  to  make  a  solemn  procession  on 
Palm  Sunday  from  Bethphage  to  the  Holy  Citv  ;  but 
the  Mussulmans  compelled  the  monks  to  abolish  the 
ceremony.  [.I.  B.J 

BETH-RE'HOB.     See  REHOB. 

BETHSA'IDA  [home  of  fixh].  1.  A  city  in  Galilee, 
Jn.i.  44;  xii.  21,  on  the  western  coast  of  the  Sea  of  Tibe 
rias.  (See  GALILEE.)  The  apostles  Peter,  Andrew,  and 
Philip  were  of  this  city,  which  was  frequently  visited 
by  our  Lord,  who  upbraided  the  inhabitants  for  not 
receiving  his  instructions,  Lu.  x.  13.  Although  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bethsaida  is  approximately  ascer 
tained,  the  precise  site  is  still  unknown,  and  has 
afforded  travellers  abundant  matter  for  speculation. 
The  latest  historical  notice  of  it  is  by  Jerome,  who 
savs  that  "  Capernaum,  Tiberias,  Bethsaida,  and  Cho- 
raziii,  were  situated  on  the  shore  of  the  lake"  (Ilieron. 
in  Esa.  ix.  i).  Le  Pere  Naud  fixes  it  at  Mejdel  (Voyage, 
p.  578),  between  Khan  Minyeh  and  Mejdel:  Seetzen  at 
Khan  Minyeh  (Zachs  Monatl.  C'orr.  xviii.  34^);  and  Pococke 
at  Irbid  (ii.  9u)  ;  but  Dr.  Robinson  remarks  that  no 
Muslim  knows  of  any  such  name,  though  they  would 
infallibly  answer  a  leading  question  in  the  affirmative, 
while  the  native  Christians  have  learned  the  names 
from  the  New  Testament  according  to  the  opinions  of 
the  monks  (Bib.  Res.  iii.  2!)«). 

Dr.  Robinson  infers  that  Bethsaida  was  on  the  shore 
of  Tiberias,  and  not  far  from  Capernaum ;  because, 
when  our  Lord  sent  away  the  five  thousand  on  the 
north- eastern  quarter  of  the  lake,  Mark,  ch.  vi.  45,  re 
lates  that  they  entered  into  a  boat  in  order  to  cross 
the  lake  to  Bethsaida ;  while  John,  ch.  vi.  17,  says  they 
''  went  over  the  sea  toward  Capernaum."  Being  driven 
out  of  their  course  Jesus  came  to  them  walking  on  the 
sea,  after  which  they  landed  in  Gennesaret,  and  re 
paired  to  Capernaum,  Mar  vi  5:i-.">i),  Mat.  xiv.  34;  Jn  vi.  24,25. 

The  apparent  discrepancy  disappears  if  Bethsaida  lay 
near  to  Capernaum  ;  and  it  is  supposed  that  the  dis 
ciples  intended  first  to  touch  at  the  former  place  before 
landing  at  the  latter.  As  they  were  driven  out  of  their 
course  towards  the  south,  and  came  to  Capernaum  from 
that  quarter,  it  would  seem  most  probable  that  Beth 
saida  lay  north  of  Capernaum — a  view  strengthened 
by  the  foregoing  passage  in  Jerome.  To  all  this  may 
be  added  the  direct  testimony  of  St.  "Willibald,  who 
visited  the  Holy  Land  in  the  eighth  century.  He  pro 
ceeded  along  the  lake  by  Magdala  to  Capernaum,  where 
were  a  house  and  a  great  wall.  Thence  to  Bethsaida, 
where  was  a  church — thence  to  Chorazin,  where  also 
was  a  church — and  then  to  the  sources  of  the  Jordan, 
thus  giving  the  order  of  the  towns,  and  confirming  the 


BETHSAIDA 


213 


BETH-SEIAX 


accounts  of  Jerome,  Antoninus,  and  Arculfus  (Life  of 
St.  Willibald;  Wright's  Early  Travels  in  Palestine). 

Bethsaida  was  a  place  of  importance,  being  expressly 
called  a  city,  Jn.  i.  44.  Robinson  identifies  as  its  pro 
bable  site  'Ain  et  Tabighah,  a  small  village  in  a  little 
plain  or  wady,  with  a  very  copious  stream  bursting 
from  an  immense  fountain,  slightly  warm,  but  so  brack 
ish  as  nut  to  be  drinkable.  East  of  the  mills,  on  the 
right  of  the  path,  is  a  brackish  fountain,  inclosed  by  a 
circular  wall  <>f  stone,  or  a  reservoir  like  those  at  'Ain 
el  Barideh  :  it  is  called  'Ain  Eyub,  or  Tannur  Ey.'ib — 
Fountain  or  Oven  of  Job.  Kt  Tabighah  is  mentioned 
by  Cotovicus,  A.U.  15H8  (Tabojia  Crttov.  p.  a.i:i)  ;  but  the 
name  does  not  appear  again  until  the  time  of  Burck- 
hardt  (Travels,  :>1M  ;  though  Scetzen  notices  tile  br.'ickisli 
stream  IScetzen  in  Z.ichs,  p.  :;i-;  Rciscn.  i.  3I1;  HiMieal  Ken.  ii. 
t"5,  lull;  iii.  .r>:  i, :»)). 

2.  BETHSAIDA  of  Gaulonitis,  afterwards  called  Julias. 
That  theri;  were  two  Bethsaidas  lias  been  satisfactorily 
established  by  the  elaborate  analysis  of  Keland  (Palrcs- 
tma,  i.  l-l;  ii  <!v;,  M;.O  that  ill  Calil'-e.  on  the  \\vst  of  the 
Sea  of  Tilierias.  bring  unquot  ionaM  v  the  "city  of 
Andrew  and  Peter;"  whilst  tliere  is  every  presumptive 
evidence  that  the  city  in  ( 'aulonitis,  (.11  the  ca-t  of  tin; 
sea,  is  that  "in  the  desert  place"  when:  Christ  fed 
the  five  thoii-aiid.  |.u.  ix.  10-17,  ami  "  healeil  them  that 
had  nerd  of  healing."  it  was  probably  also  at  this 
Bethsaida  that  the  blind  man  was  iv.-toivd  to  siuht, 
.Mar.  viii.  ^L'-L'I;,  as  it  woiil.l  be  on  the  road  to  the  to\vn-i  of 
Ciesarea  l'hilij>pi,  next  vi-ito-1  l>v  our  Lord,  Mar.  viii.  -27. 

The  mention  of  ( laul.  >nit  i>  marks  the  situation  of 
Bethsaida  on  the  east  of  the  .Ionian,  as  decidedly  as 
that  of  Calilce  does  tin.'  B>-th-aida  on  the  west,  and  t  • 
this  day  the  adjacent  district  on  tin-  ea>t  bears  the 
name  of  .laiilan.  I'linv  so  places  it  (Nat.  H>;.  xv  >  ;  and 
.losephus  says  it  was  in  lower  (iauloiiitis.  just  above 
the  entrance  of  the  Jordan  into  the  lake  (Wars,  ii.  9,  l; 
iii.  in,:).  Jt  was  originally  a  >mall  town,  bearing  the 
name  of  l',eth.-aida  ;  but  l'hili[i  the  Tetraivh,  having 
raised  it  to  the  honour  of  a  city,  b.ith  in  respect  to  the 
number  of  its  inhabitants  and  other  niean>  of  .-tivn-lh, 
called  it  Julias,  after  Julia,  tin:  daughter  of  the  em 
peror  Augustus  iAiui.| .xviii.  u',  11.  1'hilip  himself  died 
here,  and  was  buried  in  a  costly  tomb  i. \ntiq  xiiii.4,t>). 
The  mountains  on  the  oa>t  of  th.-  valley  of  the  Jordan 
throw  out  a  spur,  called  by  the  Arabs  Et  Tel  <tho 
hilli,  and  upon  it  are  some  ruins,  which  the  K-.-V.  Kli 
Smith  found  to  be  the  most  extensive  of  any  in  the 
plain,  and  which  probably  mark  the  site  of  Julias. 
The  ruins  consist  entirely  of  unh'-wn  volcanic  stones, 
without  any  indications  of  the  order  of  architecture. 

Pococke  calls  the  Tel  in  <|iu  --tio'i  Telonv,  and  also 
makes  it  the  site  of  Julias,  vol.  ii  :.'.  Seet/.-n  places 
Julias  at  his  Tallanihje  (Zuchs  Monatl.  Corr.  xviii.  34ti).  The 
neighbouring  plain  is  described  as  well  cultivated  and 
fertile,  producing  corn,  mai/.e.  and  rice.  Burckhardt 
speaks  of  honey  of  the  finest  quality  being  found  there 
(Travels,  :;ii;>.  and  of  gourds  and  cucumbers  of  early 
grow tli.  Herds  of  buffaloes  and  other  horned  cattle 
roam  this  plain. 

It  may  bo  added  that  the  preceding  view  of  the  two 
Bethsaidas,  which  is  the  one  generally  accredited  in 
modern  times,  has  been  disputed  by  Dr.  Thomson,  in  his 
work  Tin'  L,i,i<l  iui'1  the  /!„„/.;  but  on  grounds  that  can 
scarcely  yet  be  accepted  as  quite  satisfactory.  He 
thinks  the  apparent  difference  in  the  accounts  of  the 
evangelists,  seeming  to  necessitate  the  existence  of  two 


cities  of  the  same  name  on  the  lake,  may  be  explained 
by  placing  Bethsaida  partly  on  the  one  side  of  the 
river  Jordan,  where  it  Mows  into  the  lake,  and  partly 
on  the  other — also  by  placing  Capernaum  farther  to 
wards  the  northern  extremity  of  the  lake  than  is  usually 
done  ;  and,  finally,  by  supposing  that  the  boat  con 
taining  the  disciples,  afterwards  joined  by  our  Lord, 
was  driven  out  of  its  course  by  the  violence  of  the 
storm  which  they  encountered  on  the  niyht  after  the 
miracle  of  the  loaves  and  li.-hes.  and  carried  past  Ca 
pernaum  to  about  the  middle  of  the  lake  (part  ii.  c .  Ziti. 
There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  absolutely  impossible  in  the 
account,  and,  if  established,  it  would  relieve  us  of  the 
s.',-ming  strangeness  of  a  double  Bethsaida  within  a 
very  few  miles  of  each  other.  But  it  does  not  explain 
the  notices  iii  the  evangelical  narratives  and  Josephus 
in  a  way  that  appears  natural,  and  the  generally  re 
ceived  account  is  still  likely  to  be  regarded  as  the 
more  probable  one.  |,l.  B.J 

BETH-SHAN,  or  BETH  SHE'AX  [tic  hontc  of 
H>i'nt\.  This  town  is  little  mentioned  in  Scripture,  and 
was  probably  not  much  in  the  possession  of  the  Israel 
ite-;  :  as  we  are  also  told  that  the  rabbins  did  not 
reckon  it  a  Jewish  town,  but  one  of  an  unholy  people. 
Jt  is  still  known  by  the  rabbinical  corruption  of  its 
name  in  the  Bible,  Beisan.  It  lay  in  a  richly  watered 
situation,  about  1-1  miles  to  the  south  of  the  Sea  of 
Calilce,  and  1  miles  west  of  the  Jordan,  on  the  brow 
of  uho>e  deep  valley  it  -lands,  and  in  the  district  con 
nected  with  the  -Teat  plain  of  Je/.reel.  This  plain  was 
occupied  by  a  wealthy,  warlike,  yet  commercial  people, 
who  maintained  intimate  relations  with  the  I'hu'iiicians 
on  the  north,  and  the  Phili-tines  mi  the  south,  and  who 
seem  in  general  to  have  resisted  the  yoke  of  Israel. 
For  this  city,  and  several  others,  which  lay  naturally 
into  the  country  of  l.-sachar  and  A  slier,  were  assigned 
to  the  half  tribe  of  Manasseh,  but  were  never  actually 
conquered  1  ,y  it.  Jos  xvii.  II;  Ju.  i.  27.  And  as  soon  as 
Saul  was  defeated  and  slain  by  the  Philistines,  in  the 
valley  of  Jezreel,  we  tind  the  conquerors  on  friendly 
terms  with  the  inhabitants  of  Beth-shan,  putting  his 
armour  in  the  house  of  Ashtaroth.  and  fastening  his 
body  to  the  wall  of  the  city,  1  Sa.  xxxi.  in;  1  Ch.  x.  S-l".  in 
later  times  the  Jews  call(  d  it  Seythopolis.  "  the  city  of 
the  Scythians,"  a  powerful  nation  who  poured  down 
from  Northern  A.-ia  into  Syria.  Media,  and  Palestine, 
as  tar  as  Ashkelon,  spn  adini;  terror  everywhere,  even 
to  the  borders  of  Kuypt  (Herod,  i.  105).  This  irruption 
happened  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  king  Josiah. 
And  though  it  i.-.  not  expressly  mentioned  in  Scripture, 
yet  these  Scythians  have  been  reckoned  by  some  dis 
tinguished  expositors  to  be  the  terrible  scourge  out  of 
the  ii'irtli  which  is  referred  to  by  the  prophets  of  that 
time,  e-p'-cially  by  Jeremiah  ;  and  according  to  this 
theory,  Beth-shan  became  one  of  their  chii  f  strongholds 
in  Palestine,  in  memory  of  which  it  wa.-  called  Scytho 
polis.  ( >n  the  other  hand,  eminent  scholars  denv  that 
there  is  any  reference  to  the  Scythians  in  this  name, 
which  they  connect  with  Succoth.  If  it  was  thus 
reckoned  a  heathen  city  in  the  midst  of  the  Jewish 
people,  we  shall  not,  wonder  at  so  important  a  town 
remaining  unvisited  by  our  Lord,  so  far  as  we  are 
aware,  since-  his  personal  ministry  was  confined  to  the 
house  of  Israel,  although  he  may  have  visited  it  when 
he  came  into  the  "coasts  of  Decapolis,"  to  which  this 
city  belonged.  It  was.  however,  at  one  time  under  the 
power  of  the  Israelites,  for  in  the  flourishing  days  of 


BET1I-SHEA1ESH 


iM  1 


BEZEK 


Solomon,  who  reduced  all  the  Canaanites  left  in  the 
land  to  a  state  of  subjection,  and  even  servitude,  it  had 
to  bear  its  part  in  contributing  to  the  heavy  expenses 
of  the  royal  table,  1  Ki.  ix.  2n,21;  iv.  12.  There  are  at  the 
present  day  extensive  ruins,  more  than  '•>  miles  in  cir 
cumference,  but  altogether  of  a  heathen,  and  not  of  a 
Jewish,  character.  At  this  day,  .Porter  says  (p.  ;;.">('>), 
"the  village  is  poor,  but  populous,  containing  a  colony 
ofsome;">HU  Kgyptians,  brought  hen?  by  I  brahim  Pasha, 
and  now  sadly  oppressed  by  the  wild  nomads  of  the  Ch<">r, 
and  the  still  wilder  l!uda\\in,  from  beyond  Jordan." 

[<_;.  C.  M.  n.  | 
BETH-SHE  MESH  [houseoftJu  tun  \.     1.  An  Lgyp- 

tiaii  city,  Jo.  xliii.  is,  so  designated  from  the  worship  of 

' 

the  sun  for  which  it  was  celebrated.  It  is  more  com 
monly  known  by  the  name  of  On  (which  see).  2.  The 
name  is  also  appropriated  to  at  least  two.  or  perhaps 
three,  cities  in  ( 'atiaan,  which  had  no  doubt  been  re 
markable  for  sun-  worship.  Only  one  of  these,  how 
ever,  is  known  to  us  any  further  than  by  the  occurrence 
of  the  name  in  the  geographical  lists  of  the  book  of 
Joshua  ;  and  this  one  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  men 
tioned  there  under  the  name  of  Ir-shemesh,  or  "the 
city  of  the  sun,"  Jos.  xix.  41,  where  it  is  named  among 
the  cities  of  Dan.  But  rather  it  belonged  to  the  tribe 
of  Judah,  though  on  the  very  borders  of  the  two  tribes. 
A\  e  can  identify  its  site  from  the  description  of  Euse 
bius,  who  places  it  10  miles  from  Eleutheropolis,  on  the 
road  to  Nicopolis  ;  and  here  there  are  now  ruins  to  be 
found,  named,  "A  in  e>h-Shems,  or  "  fountain  of  the  sun." 
It  was  a  city  given  to  the  priests,  Jos.  xxi.  1C;  but  being 
on  the  frontier,  we  read  of  it  in  the  disastrous  reign  of 
Aha/  as  being  taken  by  the  Philistines.  Xo  doubt, 
owing  to  its  nearness  to  them,  it  was  the  city  to  which 
the  milk-kine  naturally  first  came  with  the  ark  of 
Cod,  when  the  Ekronites  refused  to  keep  it,  iSa.  v. \i. 
And  so  the  wisdom  of  (!od  arranged  it  that  on  that 
occasion  there  should  be  priests  and  Levites  on  the 
spot  to  receive  the  ark  with  all  honour,  and  to  offer 
sacrifice  before  it.  The  people  of  Israel,  however, 
seem  to  have  crowded  in  from  all  quarters,  and  ventured 
to  gaze  into  the  ark,  on  account  of  which  the  Lord 
smote  them  with  a  fearful  slaughter.  In  later  history 
Beth- shemesh  is  again  distinguished  in  a  melancholy 
manner,  as  the  scene  of  a  battle  between  Joash,  king 
of  Israel,  and  Amaziah,  king  of  Judah,  in  which  the 
latter  was  defeated,  and  lost  his  independence,  2Ki.  xiv. 
8-14.  Beth- shemesh  and  its  vicinity  formed  one  of  the 
twelve  districts  which  made  monthly  provision  for 
Solomon's  table,  1  Ki.  iv.  u.  [(;.  c.  u.  D.] 

BETH-TAPTUAH  [/,,,im-  <>f  the.  citron  o?  apple], 
a  town  or  village  in  the  mountainous  part  of  the  terri 
tory  of  Judah,  Jos.  xv.  ;•>:),  not  subsequently  mentioned  in 
history,  but  deserving  notice  as  among  the  ancient 
places  recently  identified.  Robinson  discovered  it  in 
the  name  Teji'tt/i,  an  old  village  on  a  mountainous  ridge, 
not  far  from  Hebron,  and  "lying  in  the  midst  of  olive- 
groves  and  vineyards."  Robinson  adds,  "Many  of  the 
former  terraces  along  the  hill-sides  are  still  in  use,  and 
the  land  looks  somewhat  as  it  may  have  done  in  an 
cient  times"  (Researches,  ii.  p.  42s). 

BETHU'EL  [man  of  (rod,  according  to  Ueseiiius], 
the  father  of  Lalian  and  Rebekah,  Ge.  xxii.  22,23;  xxiv.  50. 
It  is  strange  that  in  this  latter  passage  he  should  be  in 
troduced  as  taking  a  very  subordinate  part  in  the  mar 
riage  of  his  daughter  to  Isaac;  but  in  the  silence  of  Scrip 
ture,  there  is  110  advantage  to  be  gained  by  conjecture. 


BETH-ZUR  [the  house  <>f  a  rock}  is  described  by 
the  Jewish  historian  Josephus  as  the  strongest  fortress 
in  Judca;  and  it  is  often  mentioned  in  the  history  of 
the  .Maccabees.  In  Scripture,  however,  it  is  only 
named  as  one  of  the  cities  of  .Judah,  Jos  xv.  ^  which 
Kehoboam  fortified,  after  the  ten  tribes  had  broken  off 
from  him,  L'Cii.  xi.  7;  and  again,  as  a  place  whose  ruler 
took  part  in  building  the  wall  of  Jerusalem,  No  iii.  Ki. 
We  are  told  by  Kuscbius  and  Jerome  that  it  lav 'Jo 
IJoinan  miles  from  Jerusalem,  on  the  road  to  Hebron. 
so  that  there  is  undoubtedly  some  error  in  the  passage, 
2Mac.  xi.  ."•,  which  calls  it  a  strong  place,  distant  from 
Jerusalem  ]~>  stadia.  About  that  position,  which 
Eusebius  assigns  to  it,  there  stands  a  half-ruined  tower, 
and  near  it  "a  fountain  surrounded  by  massive  foun 
dations  and  excavated  tombs.  The  place  is  sometimes 
called  Dirweli,  but  the  name  of  the  tower  is  Beit  Stir, 
which  suggests  at  once  the  Beth-x.ur  of  Joshua,  men 
tioned  in  connection  with  Halhul"  \i>ortei-,p.  72),  which 
corresponds  to  the  neighbouring  village  of  Hulhul.  A 
very  ancient  tradition,  reported  by  Eusebius  and 
.Jerome,  fixes  on  this  as  the  scene  of  the  baptism  of  the 
Ethiopian  eunuch,  Ac.  via.  20-40,  which  Robinson  rejects 
on  account  of  a  different  geographical  theory  which  he 
supports.  Of  course  it  is  a  subject  on  which  certainty 
is  scarcely  attainable. 

BETROTHING.     Zee  M.UUUAGE. 

BEU'LAH  [«  in'trrhd  ff/iinin],  a  mystical  name  given 
to  Zion  by  the  prophet  Isaiah,  ch.  ixii.  4,  according  to  a 
common  use  of  the  marriage  relationship  to  set  forth 
the  covenant  of  <_rrace. 

BEYOND  is  frequently  used  in  the  geographical 
descriptions  of  Canaan,  in  connection  with  the  river 
Jordan,  which  divided  the  country  into  two  parts. 
Occasionally  there  seems  to  be  some  confusion  in  the 
use  of  the  word,  which  is  removed  as  soon  as  we  re 
member  that  l>ei/oii(l  takes  its  meaning  from  the  place 
in  which  the  writer,  or  speaker,  or  hearer  is  supposed 
to  be.  Moses  died  on  the  east  side  of  Jordan,  and  in 
his  writings,  which  went  far  to  mould  the  habits  of  ex 
pression  in  all  time  coming,  "  beyond  Jordan  "  would 
naturally  mean  to  the  mxt  of  the  river.  But  Joshua, 
and  those  others  who  spoke  and  wrote  in  that  western 
part  of  Canaan,  which  was  strictly  the  Promised  Land, 
would  commonly  mean  by  the  same  words  the  country 
to  the  ea.tf  of  Jordan.  Sometimes  our  translators  have 
removed  the  difficulty  out  of  sight  by  a  loose  transla 
tion —  "on  this  side,"  instead  of  "beyond,"  as  in  Nu. 
xxxii.  11),  where  the  double  meaning  of  the  expression, 
according  to  the  point  from  which  we  reckon,  is  very 
distinctly  seen  by  a  literal  translation:  "  For  we  will 
not  inherit  with  them  beyond  Jordan,  and  forward; 
because  our  inheritance  is  fallen  to  us  beyond  Jordan 
eastward." 

BEYROUT.     Atc  BEKYTTS. 

BEZAL'EEL  [in.  the  shadow  of  God,  that  is,  under 
(i<>d'f  protection],  the  son  of  Uri,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah, 
who  was  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit  so  as  to  be  fitted 
for  the  chief  direction  in  building  and  preparing  the 
tabernacle,  Kx.  xxxi.  2,&c.  ( For  his  genealogy,  see  1  Ch.  ii. 
19,  20.) 

BE'ZEK  [«  flash  of  li</htnin<i\,  a  city  over  which 
there  reigned  a  cruel  king,  whose  destruction  is  recorded 
in  Ju.  i.  4,  &c.  That  passage  might  lead  us  to  suppose 
that  Bezek  lay  within  the  tribe  of  Judah,  or  that  of 
Simeon ;  but  the  only  place  of  this  name  of  which  the 
ancient  geographers  speak  (strictly,  indeed,  two  places 


BEZER 


21") 


BIBLE 


close  together)  was  17  miles  from  Shechem.  on  the 
road  to  Beth-shan,  and  therefore  in  Ephraim  or  Ma- 
nasseh.  This  situation  agrees  well  with  what  we  should 
expect  as  the  scene  of  the  numbering  of  king  Saul's  first 
army,  i  Sa  xi  s.  Modern  travellers  have  not  identified  it. 
BE'ZER  [probably  f /old- ore ;  perhaps  fortification], 
one  of  the  cities  of  refuge,  in  the  tribe  of  Reuben,  Do.  iv.  43; 
Jos.  xx.  s,ic.  Its  site  has  not  been  determined. 

BIBLE  [Honk]  -THE  BOOK,  by  \vav  of  eminence. 
Under  this  general  term  we  propose  to  indicate  some 
of  the  leading  characteristics  which  distinguish  the 
Bible  in  its  entireness,  as  the  book  of  Cod's  revelation 
to  men:  other  points,  having  respect  to  the  text,  ver 
sions,  &c.,  of  the  Bible,  bein^  reserved  for  the  more  ap- 
priate  term  Sc  HI  ."TURKS. 

1.  The  first  thinir.  perhaps,  that  in  such  a  relation  most 
naturally  suggests  itself,  is  the  air  of  truthfulness  and 
probity  which  breathes  throughout  the  writings  of  tin- 
Bible—  sucli  as  cminentlv  befits  a  work  brariiii:1  on  it 
the  stamp  of  God's  authority,  and  such  al-<>  a<  not  oiily 
places  it  on  a  level  with  the  best  of  human  productions 
but  even  rai.-e<  it  above  tliem.  Kverv  one  knows  that 
there  is  usually  a  marked  difference  in  this  respect  be 
tween  genuine  and  spurious  productions,  or  between 
productions  written  in  a  sincere  and  earnest  spirit,  and 
those  which  owe  their  existence  to  some  sinister  aim.  ' 
A  \\riter  with  such  a  serious  flaw  in  his  mental  compo 
sition,  or  such  an  obliquity  in  his  purpose,  as  to  admit 
of  his  beconiiii'_r  the  author  of  writings  false  in  their 
pretensions,  or  improp,  r  in  their  design,  can  scan-civ 
fail  to  discover  this  if  not  in  a  \\T"im  moral  bias,  at 
lca-t  in  a  depressed  moral  tone.  l-']v-lm.-<s.  elevation 
of  spirit,  the  warmth  and  eiier^v  "f  a  soul  hcatin<_r 
under  the  impulse  of  the  highest  considerations  of 
Irnth  and  duU,  are  iiol  to  be  expected  from  such  a 
quarter. 

Now.  the  Bible  is  beyond  any  other  1 k  remarkable 

for  the  possession  of  these  hi-her  .nudities.  Though 
consist  inur  of  a  uri-at  varutv  of  production-  histo- 
ries,  didactic  compositions,  epistolarv  communications,  ! 
o.les,  and  songs  tonchinu'  al-o.  with  the  greatest  free 
dom,  on  an  immeii-e  variety  of  topics,  and  written  by 
persons  in  all  conditions  of  life,  from  the  herdsman  to 
the  kin-',  it  yet  preserves  throughout  the  same  charac 
ter,  and  stands  unrivalled  for  its  genuine  simplicity  and 
its  hi-h  moral  aim.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive 
how  any  one  could  peruse  it  with  any  decree  of  can-, 
without  bein-_r  penetrated  by  the  conviction  that  tin- 
writers  were  elevated  far  above  anything  selfish  or  am 
bitions-- that,  on  the  contrary,  their  'j-rand  object  was 
to  make  known  the  truth  of  Heaven  in  every  form  in 
which  they  had  to  deal  with  it,  whether  men  miirlit 

hear   or   whether    they    mi<_dit    forbear.        Ind 1,    in   a 

very  lar^e  proportion  of  what  is  written,  the  writing 
bears  the  aspect  of  a  testimony  delivered  in  the  face 
of  the  most  strenuous  opposition,  and  with  the  inevit 
able  sacrifice  of  comfort,  or  peril  of  life,  to  him  who  de 
livered  it.  Considered  merely  as  a  book,  the  volume 
of  inspiration  is  pervaded  by  the  spirit  of  martyrdom, 
and  the  men  who  were  employed  in  inditing  it  stand 
for  the  most  part  superior  alike  to  the  threats  and  the 
allurements  of  the  world. 

'2.  We  note,  again,  the  singular  adaptation  that  ap 
pears  in  the  I'.ible  to  the  mingled  and  diversified  char 
acter  of  man's  present  state  and  condition 

There  are  varieties  in  this  respect,  both  in  man  con 
sidered  individually,  and  in  one  man  as  compared  with 


another.  Every  man  is  a  compound  being,  not  only  as 
having  a  body  and  a  soul  united  together  into  one  frame, 
but  also  as  having  a  combination  of  powers  and  pro 
perties,  widely  differing  from  each  other,  yet  together 
making  up  his  intellectual  and  moral  behnr.  And  not 
one  merely,  but  the  whole  of  these  must  be  suitably 
1  wrought  upon  and  stimulated,  if  he  is  to  he  addressed 
:  in  the  manner  which  is  best  calculated  to  interest  and 
improve  him.  There  is  in  every  rational  man  a  power 
•  of  thought,  and  a  susceptibility  of  feeling— a  reason,  a 
memory,  a  fancy-  a  heart  and  conscience.  And  while 
each  individual  possesses  these  several  faculties  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  different  individuals  have  them 
in  measures  infinitely  diversified;  in  one  the  power  of 
thought  is  predominant,  in  another  the  susceptibility  of 
feelin-;  then  the  power  of  thought  is  seen  to  take 
the  form,  here  more  peculiarly  of  strength  of  reason, 
thereof  an  exercise  of  memory,  then-  again  of  flights 
of  fancy:  while  in  the  state  of  the  heart  and  conscience 
there  is  every  shade,  from  the  most  soft  and  tender,  to 
the  most  hardened  and  corrupt  in  all,  still  the  same 
natural  elements  of  thought  and  feeling,  yet  these  ele 
ments  endlessly  varied  in  their  distribution  and  ex 
ercise. 

Xow,  we  can  conceive  a  revelation  from  (!od  ad 
dressed  more  especially  t<>  one  of  these  parts  of  human 
nature,  and  consequently  better  adapted  to  the  state  of 
those  in  whom  that  particular  part  was  predominant 
than  to  others.  It  might  be  notwithstanding  a  verita 
ble  communication  from  (  lod,  and  though  a  partial,  yet 
;-till  an  important  boon  to  the  human  family.  But 
since  the  I'.ible  purport*  to  be  a  revelation  to  the  World 
at  laive,  a  revelation  that  has  been  accumulating 
tliroiiLfh  successive  ages,  till  it  has  assumed  the  form  of 
a  completed  record  of  the  divine  will  for  mankind  in 
their  more  advanced  condition  and  univeisal  aspect,  it 
Miivly  must  be  no  mean  evidence  of  its  really  being 
from  Cod,  if  its  own  varied  materials  have  a  suitable 
correspondence  with  the  varied  characteristics  it  has  to 
meet  with  ainon--  men.  So  far,  it  carries  in  its  very 
structure  the  si^n  of  ///.-s-  superintending  and  directing 
agency,  who  alone  thoroughly  knows  what  is  in  man, 
and  fitly  re] presents  the  wide-  relationship  in  which  he 
stands  to  men  generally  as  his  offspring. 

This  stamp  of  divinity  is  very  clearly  impressed  on 
the  Bible.  Infidels,  looking  at  it  superficially,  and 
jud'_r'm'_r  each  from  bis  own  point  of  view,  have  often 
found  fault  with  the  form  in  which  it  appears,  in  one 
respect  or  another.  And  we  may  justly  admit,  that 
the  very  wisest  of  men  that  ever  lived,  if  left  tip  himself 
to  devise  in  what  precise  shape,  or  with  what  actual 
materials,  a  revelation  from  Heaven  should  be  best 
con  .tructed.  would  never  have  fallen  upon  such  apian 
as  has  been  pursued  by  the  sacn  d  writers;  for  his  in 
tellectual  vision  could  only  have  comprehended  apart — 
a  comparatively  small  part  of  the  conditions  that  required 
to  be  met .  Cod  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  has  proved 
himself  to  be  wiser  than  men.  His  eye  surveyed  the 
whole  field:  and  by  the  ••divers  manners,''  as  well  of 
the  persons  employed  to  write,  as  of  the  things  writ 
ten  by  them,  he  has  provided  the  proper  seed  for  it  all. 

(1.)  Even  the  inferior  part  of  man's  nature  his 
body — is  not  overlooked  in  the  structure  of  the  revela 
tion  provided  for  him.  Its  powerful  influence  over  his 
thoughts  and  feelings  is  fully  taken  into  account.  And 
as  it  is  through  his  senses  that  he  gets  his  most  lively 
impressions  of  things,  so  sensible  images,  and  the 


BIBLE 


objects  with  which  lie  is  most  habitually  conversant  in 
material  nature,  are  employed  in  great  variety  to  aid 
his  conceptions  of  what  is  spiritual  and  divine.  The 
l,-iii'j;ii;!urc  of  the  Bible  lias  not  the  attenuated  and  im 
palpable  form  which  philosophy  would  have  given  to  it. 
It  deals  with  men  a*  men  seeking  to  reach  in  the 
most  effectual  way  both  their  understandings  and  their 
hearts;  and  so.  all  nature  in  a  manner  is  laid  under 
contribution  to  furnish  a  vivid  diction  and  appropriate 
imagery  the  firmament  above,  and  the  earth  beneath. 
with  their  manifold  aspects  and  scenery:  the  products 
of  nature,  the  handiworks  of  art.  the  manners  and  cus 
toms  of  life:  all.  in  short,  that  is  familiar  to  the  eye, 
and  falls  within  the  observation  of  men  as  connec 
ted  with  the  world  around  them,  comes  into  play  in 
Scripture,  as  materials  for  the  many  emblems,  simili 
tudes,  and  parables,  by  which  it  makes  known  the 
truth  of  God.  In  this  respect  alone,  there  is  an  am 
plitude,  a  richness,  a  kind  of  universality  in  the  book 
of  God's  revelation,  which  is  nowhere  else  to  be  found. 

(~2.)  Then,  there  is  its  wonderful  adaptation  to  man 
kind,  in  regard  to  the  large  share  that  memory  has  in 
their  mental  constitution.  It  is  this  which  disposes 
them  so  much  to  delight  in  history,  and  makes  the 
lives  of  men  and  the  records  of  former  times  one  of 
the  most  engaging-  modes  of  communicating1  instruc 
tion.  In  proportion  to  its  size,  the  narratives  of  Scrip 
ture,  which  fall  in  with  this  aptitude  of  nature,  occupy 
a  large  space:  and  they  exist  ill  the  greatest  variety-  - 
not  merely  the  general,  as  in  the  history  of  nations, 
but  the  particular  also,  in  family  portraitures  and  the 
memoirs  of  private  life.  Whether  it  be  the  mind  of 
the  peasant  or  the  philosopher,  the  unlettered  youth 
or  the  man  of  cultivated  intellect,  there  are  no  charac 
ters  that  take  such  a  deep  hold  of  the  memory  as  those 
of  the  saints  and  patriarchs  of  the  Bible:  no  stories  so 
interesting,  and  so  lasting  in  the  impressions  they  pro 
duce,  as  those  of  Adam  and  Eve,  Abraham,  Jacob, 
Joseph,  Samuel,  Elijah,  Daniel,  above  all,  the  nar 
ratives  of  the  life,  sufferings,  and  death  of  Jesus. 
Why  does  modern  literature  of  all  descriptions  abound 
so  much  with  allusions  to  these.'  Why  do  painting, 
and  sculpture,  and  music  employ  themselves  so  much 
in  endeavouring-  to  reproduce  them  in  new  and  ever- 
varying  forms  of  art '.  Why,  but  because  their  touch 
ing  simplicity  and  profound  meaning  have  awakened  a 
sympathy  and  created  an  interest  peculiarly  their 
own.  They  have,  in  a  manner,  taken  possession  of 
humanity. 

(3.)  Higher  still,  the  Bible  addresses  itself  to  the 
more  exalted  faculties  of  man,  and  nowhere  is  such 
food  and  exercise  provided  for  these  as  in  the  book  of 
God's  revelation.  For  the  spirit  of  contemplation,  tilery 
are  the  solemnest  themes  on  which  the  mind  can  ex 
patiate,  thoughts  that  strike  into  the  lowest  depths,  or 
lift  the  soul  up  as  on  angelic  wings  to  wander  through 
eternity.  For  the  discerning  and  reasoning  faculty, 
there  are  the  weightiest  sentences  of  wisdom,  the  most 
searching  truths,  the  most  stirring  appeals  and  conclu 
sive  ratiocinations  that  were  ever  penned.  Fancy,  nay 
imagination,  can  here  find  its  highest  gratification;  and 
the  very  same  book,  which  has  a  charm  for  babes  and 
sucklings,  which  by  its  strains  of  familiar  imagery  and 
heart  -  affecting  truth,  is  the  cherished  companion  of 
cottage  patriarchs,  is  the  living  fountain  at  which 
Shakspeare  and  Milton,  and  other  men  of  kindred 
genius,  drew  "  the  elements  of  that  copious  flood  of 


rich  and  varied  poetry,  which  rolled,  and  still  rolls,  in 
golden  splendour  in  the  high  places  of  our  literature." 
The  world  knows  nothing  besides  to  be  compared  with 
this.  And  were  it  only  for  its  wondrous  adaptation 
to  all  ranks  and  classes  of  men  its  power  to  touch 
the  deepest  springs  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  the 
magic  sway  which  it  wields  alike  over  the  humblest 
and  the  loftiest  of  human  intellects,  we  mi^ht  well 
say  of  this  book,  as  the  magicians  of  Egypt  said  of  the 
miracle  of  .Moses,  "It  is  the  finder  of  God;"  for  it 
combines  individualism  and  universalism,  the  simple 
and  the  profound,  the  tender  and  the  majestic,  as  the 
agency  of  His  Spirit  alone  could  have  done. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  in  re 
gard  to  its  manner  of  instruction,  of  course  applies 
peculiarly  to  the  method  of  instruction  adopted  bv 
Jesus  Christ.  No  teaching  was  like  his  for  its  richness 
in  what  may  lie  called  *<  mimi!  truths,  and  the  commu 
nication  of  these  in  forms  fitted  to  take  hold  of  so  many 
bosoms.  Of  one  part  of  this  alone,  it  has  been  justly 
said,  "Let  any  man  attempt  to  speak  in  parables; 
nay,  to  produce  one  single  parable;  nay,  to  find  one 
out  of  the  Bible  in  the  whole  compass  of  human  litera 
ture  ;  nay,  to  compare  what  are  so  called  in  other  parts 
of  the  Bible,  few  as  they  are  even  there,  with  those 
uttered  habitually,  incessantly  by  Christ.  Those  threat, 
simple,  luminous,  and  yet  wholly  inimitable  exposi 
tions,  not  of  duties  merely,  or  even  mainly,  but  of  fun 
damental,  and  most  generally  of  before  unknown  or 
unregarded  truths,  constituted  the  distinctive  peculiar 
ity  of  Christ's  manner,  and  was  felt  by  those  around 
him  to  impart  to  it  a  character  and  a  power  altogether 
divine.  Well  and  truly  might  they  say,  Never  man 
spake  like  this  man"  (Virginia  Lectures,  p.  3-12). 

3.  It  may  justly  be  noted,  as  another  leading  charac 
teristic  of  the  Bible,  the  practical  tendency,  as  it  is 
sometimes  called,  but,  as  we  would  rather  express  it. 
the  high  moral  tone,  that  pervades  it.  since  it  ever 
keeps  in  view,  for  its  chief  end,  right  views  of  God's 
moral  character,  then  the  right  moral  relation  of  men 
to  God,  and  of  men  to  each  other.  It  is  true  that  ex 
ceptions  have  been  taken  by  adversaries  against  the 
Bible  on  this  very  point,  and  that  it  has  sometimes 
been  charged  with  having  an  immoral  or  licentious  ten 
dency.  But  this  can  only  be  affirmed  with  the  slight 
est  degree  of  plausibility,  when  certain  portions  are 
isolated,  and  considered  out  of  their  proper  bearing- and 
connection,  or  when  the  statements  it  contains  are 
represented  in  a  false  and  distorted  light.  And  the 
fact  is  beyond  all  dispute,  that  the  pervading  tendency 
and  object  of  all  its  histories,  the  aim  of  all  its  legisla 
tion,  the  direct  bearing  of  all  its  doctrines,  precepts, 
expostulations,  warnings,  institutions,  and  ordinances, 
is  what  we  have  represented — to  bring  men  under  right 
apprehensions  and  the  felt  influence  of  what  is  morally 
good  in  God,  that  it  may  be  reflected  and  copied  in 
themselves.  The  fact  is  beyond  dispute,  that  the  per 
sons  who  have  themselves  attained  to  the  highest  moral 
tone,  and  the  greatest  purity  of  heart  and  behaviour, 
are  those  who  are  most  familiar  with  this  book  of  God's 
revelation,  and  who  make  no  hesitation  in  ascribing  to 
their  acquaintance  with  it  whatever  in  this  respect  dis 
tinguishes  them  from  others.  Nor  is  there  any  one 
who  does  not  feel  a  marked  difference  in  the  kind  of 
impression  produced  by  it  and  by  even  the  best  of 
human  productions — as  if  here  only  they  got  spiritual 
and  moral  truth  at  the  fountain-head — direct  from  the 


BIBLE  I'  17  i'-IBLE 

source  of  light  and  holiness;  while  elsewhere  it  is  to  lie  ,  of  the  incorruptible  Hod  into   an    image  made  like  to 
found  only  at  second  hand.     There  is  a  bearing  aloft,  j  corruptible  man,  and  to  birds,  and  four-footed  beasts, 

as  it  were,   above,   not  only  the  corruptions,    but   the  and   creeping  tilings."      Such   was  the  atmosphere  in 

weaknesses    and  infirmities    of    nature  —  a    depth    and  which  the  Israelites  had  lived   during  their   abode  in 

power  of  penetration,  as  of  spirit  dealing  with  spirit,  Egypt:  and  not  without  having  received  some  taint  of 

stripping   off  outward   disguises,  and   laying  open  the  evil  from  it.  as  the  history  of   their  subsequent   back- 

real  essence  of  things  as  to  right  raid  wrong  :  -a  gra-  slidings.   and  especially   their  speed  v  relapse  into    the 

vity  and  earnestness,  a  yearning   solicitude  about  the  mirthful  and  libidinous  worship  of  the  golden  calf,  too 

one  great  object  of  a  right  state  of  heart  and  behaviour.  clearly  indicated.      But  it  was  when  fresh  from  such  a 

and.    with  the  view   of  reaching  that,   a   propriety,   a  region,   that  the   law  of   the   ten   commandments  was 

force,  and  a  significance  in  the  things  unfolded:  such  proclaimed  in  their  hearing,  and  laid  as  the  foundation 

as  is  not  to  be  equally  found  elsewhere,  and  cannot  but  of  their  entire  polity  ;     a  law  which  unfolds  the  clearest 

most  sacred 


the  world  has  had,  and  the  advancement  that  has  been  purest  worship  and  the  highest   moralitv  ;  and   in  its 

made,  through  the  progress  of  centuries  in  knowledge  very  form  is  a  model  of  pu-tVi-iion  and  completeness. 

and   civilization,   the  Bible  still    holds,    in   the  respect  Wisdom  of  this    kind    -Moses    could   least   of   all  have 

now  mentioned,   a  preeminent   place.      Hut,  we  must  learned  from  the  Egyptians;  nor  could  it  have  become 

remember,  this  is  not  a   fair  comparison,  or  one  that  his  except  by  descending  from  above. 

does  proper  justice  to  it  ;   since  a  large  proportion  oi  its  But  what    is   true  of  this   portion,  may  substantially 


of  other  productions   is  but  a  fruit  author-hip     the    productions    of   men    belonging   to    a 

and  a  reflection   ot    its   own.      If  we    throw  ourselves  comparatively  small  people,  surrounded  on  every   side, 

back  on  tlie  earlier  ages  or'  tin.  world,  and  look  to  the  and  through  a  long  track  of  ages,  bv  many  and  power- 

writings  that  were  a>-ociated  \\ith  the  other  religions  ful  nations,  in  every  one  of  which,  as  to  religion  and 
of  antiquity  m-  even  look  to  the  writings  of  a  later  :  morality,  it  might  be  justly  said  "  the  foundations  were 

date,  which  have  assumed,  though  falsely  assumed,  to  out  of  course."    Among  these  nations  there  were  no  true 

be  of  like  origin  and  character  with  the  Word  of  Hod,  notions   of  Clod;  and    hence   there    could   be   no   right 

we    then    perceive    what  an    immense    gulf    separates  views  interwoven  with  their  religions  of  the  moral  at- 

betwecu  \\liat  is  of  Hod.  and  what  is  merely  of  man.  tribute-  of    lieity.  and  of  man's   relation   to   these.      A 

Compare-   tlie   earlier   portions   of   the    I'.ible,  for  ex-  pantheistic  element  lay  at  the  bottom  of  all  the   forms 

ample,    with   the    cosmogonies,    tin-    fables   of   religious  they   a.-.-umed.       Hence,  as   Bahr   lias   justly  remarked, 

adventure   or    trail-formation,    the    personal    lives    and  contrasting   the   spirit  of   these   ancient   religions    with 

public  operations    Lobe  found  in  the  religious   rr  .....  -ds  that  of  the  Old  Testament  :    "  The  ultimate  foundation 

ot  the  Hindoo.-  or  Egyptians  or  even  in  the  more  soU-r,  of  all  heathenism  is  pantheism.      Hence  the  idea  of  the 

yet  in  reality  most  absurd  and  extravagant  mythologies  oneness  of  the    l'i\ine    Being  \\as  not  absolutely  lost, 

of  (  i  recce  and  Koine  ;  and  what  a  contrast  do  we  behold  '  but  this  oneness  was  not  at  all  that  of  a  personal  exist- 

It  is  a   contrast,  not   merely  in   this  or  that   particular,  ence.  poss.  -sin<.;  self-consciousness   and   self-determiua- 

but  in  the  whole  tone  and  tendency  of  the  two  classes  tion,  but  an  impersonal   Om;   the   great   //,  a   neuter- 

of  productions.     Those  heathen  records  do  not  seem  to  abstract,  the  product  of  mere  speculation,  which  is  at 

have  even  aimed  at  the  same  point,  which  always  keeps  once    everything   and    nothing.      Wherever   the    l)eitv 

the   ascendency   in   the  Word   of   Hod  -being,    for    the  appeared  as  a  person,  it  ceased  to  be  one,  and  resolved 

most    part,    dreaming   reveries  or   idle  tales,  tilted    at  itself  into  an  infinite  multiplicity.      But  all  the-,-  gods 

best   to  gratify  a  vain   curiosity,  or,  as   too   often  hap-  were  mere   personifications   of    the   different   powers   of 

pe-ned,    to    excite     a    prurient    imagination.      Had    we  nature.      From  a  religion  which   was   so   physical  in  its 

nothing  but  tin    two  tables  of   the   ten   commandments  fundamental   character,  then;   could  only  be  developed 

as  a  revelation  of  (lod's  character  and  of  man's  duty  an  ethics,  which   should    b-ar  the   hue  and  form  of   the 

in  the  earlier  portions  of  the    Bible,  we  might  set  it  physical.      Above  all  that  is  moral    rose   natural  neci  - 

with    triumphant    confidence    against    the    whole    that  sity,  fate,  to  which  gods  and   men  were  alike  subject; 

ancient  heathenism  ha-  delivered   to  us;  ma  only  as  the  highe-t  moral  aim  for  man  was  to  yield  an  absolute 

better  than  its  best,  but  we  mi^ht   rather  say.  as  light  submission  to  this  necessity,  and  generally  to  transfuse 

to  its  darkness.      But  when    did    such  a    revelation   of  himself  into  nature   as    being    id  -ntitied  with    J)i-ity:1o 

moral  truth  and  duty  appear  among  the  Hebrews  {      At  represent  in  himself  its  life,  and  especially  that  charac- 

the  very  time  when  they  had  escaped    from  tlie   closest  teristic  of   it.  perfect   harmony,  conformity   to  law   and 

contact,  and  all   but   national  conjunction,  with  a  land  rale.      The  Mosaic  religion,  on  the   other  hand,  has  for 

and  people   most   profoundly  immersed   in   the  grossest  its  first  principle  the  oneness  and  absolute   spirituality 

idolatry  and    pollution.       l-'or  there    can    lie    no   doubt  of  Cod.      The   Godhead    is   no   neuter-abstract,    no   //, 

that  the  Egypt  of  the  1'haraohs  was  the  great  seat  of  but  /  .  Jehovah  is  altogether   a   personal  (Jod.       Tlie 

ancient  superstition,  as  well  as  of  ancient  learning  and  whole  world,  with  everything  it  contains,  is  his  work. 

civilization.      As  far  back  as  our  information  carries  us  the  offspring  of  his  own  free  act,  his  creation.      He  is 

—a  period  certainly  more  remote  than   that   at  which  in  the  world,  indeed,  but  not  as  properly  one  with  it; 

Israel  sojourned  within  its  borders  —  the  Egyptians  he  is  infinitely  above  it,  and  can  clothe  himself  with  it, 
were  wholly  given  to  idolatry  ami  its  kindred  abomina-  :  as  with  a  garment,  or  fold  it  up,  and  lay  it  aside  as  he 
tions  :  and  on  them,  in  an  especial  sense,  was  charge-  I  pleases.  Now.  this  Hod,  who  reveals  and  manifests 
able  the  guilt  and  folly  of  "  having  changed  the  glory  '  himself  through  all  creation,  in  carrying  into  execution 

Vol..  I.  28 


B1BLK 


BIBLE 


his  purpose  t<>  save  and  bless  all  the  families  of  tho 
earth,  revealed  and  manifested  himself  in  an  especial 
manner  to  one  race  and  people.  The  centre  of  this 
revelation  is  the  word  which  he  spoke  to  Israel;  hut 
this  word  is  his  law.  the  expression  of  his  holy  perfect 
will.  The  essential  character,  therefore,  of  the  special 
revelation  of  Cod  i.s  holiness  Its  substance  is,  '  Be  ye 
holy,  for  !  am  holv.'  So  that  the  religion  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  throughout  ethical  ;  it  always,  addresses 
itself  to  the  will  of  man,  and  deals  with  him  as  a,  moral 
being.  Everything  that  (iod  did  for  Israel,  in  the 
manifestations  he  gave  of  himself,  aims  at  this  as  its 
final  end,  that  Israel  should  sanctify  the  name  of  Jeho 
vah,  and  thereby  himself  be  sanctified1'  (Symbulik,i.  3f)-.37). 

.Now  that  such  a.  revelation,  so  distinctively  moral, 
and  in  its  moralitv  so  eminently  pure  and  elevated, 
should  have  originated  among  a  people  HO  small  and 
unimportant  in  other  respects,  should  have  received 
additions  from  age  to  age,  in  the  form  of  histories,  laws, 
psalmodie  poems,  didactic  pieces,  prophetic  revela 
tions,  and  yet  never  diverged— flowing  on  in  its  crystal 
clearness,  though  the  turbid  elements  of  pantheistic 
and  idolatrous  corruptions)  were  working  all  around  and 
seeking  to  press  in  at  every  avenue— receiving  new 
contributions,  whereby  it  acquired  additional  volume, 
but  still  maintaining  its  freedom  from  surrounding 
error,  still  holding  up  the  spiritually  pure  and  good, 
till  it  grew  into  the  full  and  perfect  form  of  the  Chris 
tian  religion — such  a  phenomenon  can  have  but  one 
valid  solution,  the  solution  of  Scripture  itself — that  the 
men  by  whom  the  writings  were  indited  wrote  as  they 
were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

And  then  it  is  not  only  as  contrasted  with  the  ancient 
heathen  writings,  and  the  spirit  of  heathen  religions,  but 
with  assumed  revelations  of  a  merely  human  kind,  in 
more  modern  and  civilized  times,  that  the  revelation  of 
God  in  the  Bible  holds  its  high  superiority  of  tone  and 
bearing.  The  writings  of  which  it  consists  assume  to 
be  a  revelation  from  heaven  ;  but  if  we  look  to  other 
writings  professing  to  possess  this  character — even  with 
the  Bible  before  them  as  a  model — we  perceive  at  once 
how  immensely  they  differ  for  the  worse.  Look,  for 
example,  to  the  Koran,  made  up  of  pretended  commu 
nications  from  God,  and  doubtless  the  production  of  a 
man  of  no  ordinary  powers — yet  not  only  is  its  moral 
tone  incomparably  lower  than  that  of  the  Bible,  but  it 
is  continually  travelling  into  a  region  that  has  no  moral 
bearing  at  all,  giving  accounts  which,  if  real,  could 
only  be  fitted  to  gratify  an  impertinent  curiosity7  re 
specting  divine  things,  and  lift  men  out  of  their  proper 
sphere.  The  speculative  has  quite  another  place  there 
than  it  has  in  the  Bible — and  so  has  it  also  in  the  fabu 
lous  legends  of  Jews  and  Catholics — in  the  revelations 
of  visionaries,  such  as  those  whom  Rome  has  canonized 
as  saints,  or  Swedenborg,  or  Xayler.  which  are  full  of 
minute  descriptions  of  what,  did  it  actually  exist,  would 
be  of  no  practical  value,  and  so  realize  the  apostle's  an 
ticipation  of  the  visionary-,  •'  intruding  into  those  things 
he  has  not  seen,  vainly  puffed  up  with  his  fleshlv  mind.'' 
The  sacred  writers  avoid  such  tempting  heights  .  for, 
like  men  taught  of  God,  they  have  a  one  tlihif/  in  view 
throughout — a  grand  moral  aim  and  purpose,  to  which 
even  their  loftiest  discoveries  are  subordinate. 

4.  Coming  now  more  closely  to  the  contents  of  Scrip 
ture,  as  bearing  on  this  moral  or  practical  object,  we 
notice,  further,  the  view  there  exhibited  of  man's  natu 
ral  condition  and  prospects.  This  is  in  perfect  accord- 


j  ance  with  the  lessons  of  experience,  and  the  workings 
'  of  conscience,  and  hence  furnishes  another  characteris 
tic  mark  of  Scripture,  and   an   evidence  of   its   divine 
character  and  origin. 

The  lessons  of  experience,  and  the  workings  of  con 
science,  no  doubt,  lie  within  the.province  of  man's  own 
research  and  observation.  And  it  mav  be  objected, 
that  if  the  exhibitions  of  human  nature  given  in  Scrip 
ture  do  indeed  accord  with  these,  the  human  discern 
ment  and  insight  of  the  sacred  writers  was  sufficient  to 
account  for  it.  Jt  might  certainly  have  been  so,  if  in 
!  each  of  these  writers  there  had  been  a  kind  of  concen 
trated  humanity,  whereby  he  should  have  been  rendered 
capable  of  reading  aright  the  records  of  all  experience, 
and  giving  forth  a  fair  and  impartial  reflection  of  the 
workings  of  conscience  general! v.  But  what  merely 
human  writer  could  have  adequately  performed  such  a 
task'*  Man's  individualism,  when  left  to  itself,  continually 
leads  him  astray  in  one  direction  or  another  from  the 
right  path;  and  in  nothing  more  has  it  done  so  than  in 
respect  to  this  very  point,  which  seems  to  be  so  level 
to  the  capacities  of  all — the  view  taken  of  mail's  natural 
state  and  prospects.  Listen  to  one  class  of  writers, 
and  you  would  believe  there  is  nothing  radically' bad  in 
human  nature — a  certain  weakness,  no  doubt,  a  prone- 
ness  to  err,  when  exposed  to  temptation,  or  placed  in 
unfavourable  circumstances — but  no  inherent  tendency 
in  the  wrong  direction,  or  native  incapacity  to  ascer 
tain  or  perform  the  right.  Listen,  again,  to  others,  and 
everything  appears  vicious  and  polluted — -not  a  ray 
of  light,  or  an  element  of  good — there  is  room  only 
for  contempt  or  despair.  And  between  these  two 
extremes,  infinite  varieties,  and  we  may  add  manifold 
inconsistencies;  for  very  often  in  these  merely  human 
writers,  what  is  affirmed  in  the  general  is  denied  in 
detail;  and  some  of  the  worst  things  said  of  particular 
men,  or  classes  of  men,  are  to  be  found  in  those  writers 
who  are  the  loudest  in  extolling  human  nature  at  large. 
Xow,  we  may  say  of  the  representation  given  of  man's 
natural  state  in  the  Word  of  God,  there  is  nothing  par 
tial  or  exclusive — there  is  a  mirror  true  to  nature — 
true  on  both  sides,  the  darker  as  well  as  the  brighter, 
and  the  brighter  as  well  as  the  darker.  On  the  dark 
side  it  does  certainly  speak  in  very  strong  terms,  repre 
senting  man  as  naturally  fallen — polluted  at  his  very 
birth — and  when  left  to  himself  incapable  of  doing  any 
thing  that  can  properly  deserve  God's  favour,  or  recover 
himself  from  ruin.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it  repre 
sents  this,  not  as  the  original  state  of  mankind  —not  in 
the  strict  and  proper  sense  their  natural  state,  but  a 
secondary  and  derived  one  —  and  one  that  their  own 
hearts  and  consciences,  when  fairly  tested,  reclaim 
against  as  evil,  yet  confess  to  as  true.  As  the  Bible 
declares,  so  men  feel,  that  their  condition  by  nature  is 
of  an  anomalous  character,  that  it  contains  a  bitter 
root,  ever  yielding  the  most  corrupt  and  noxious  fruit; 
while  still,  as  if  this  were  a  superinduced,  and  not  the 
primary'  and  normal  state,  there  is  a  relish  and  a  desire 
for  better  things — a  condemnation  of  the  bad  even  when 
it  is  followed,  and  an  approbation  of  the  good  even 
when  it  is  neglected. 

The  history  of  the  world  in  every  age,  and  in  every 
country  under  heaven,  has  but  too  sadly  confirmed  the 
scriptural  representation  in  its  darker  side  :  —  every 
where,  and  at  all  times,  as  the  well-spring  of  life  has 
flowed  on,  it  has  sent  forth  troubled  and  noisome 
\\  liters.  When  placed  under  the  freest  and  mildest  form 


BIBLE 

of  the   divine  administration   the  world  has  ever  seen,  to  perceive  it  to  lie  good  that  the  truth  should  prevail. 

as  it  existed  before  the  flood,  the  result  of  that  grand  ,  It  recognizes  certain  moral  caj  labilities  and  desires  in 

experiment  was,  that   the  wickedness  of  man  became  the  soul,  which  it  plies  with  all   manner  of  considera- 

great,  and  violence  overspread  the  earth,  so  that  nothing  tions  and  motives,  fitted  to  stimulate  them  into  activity, 

remained  for  divine  wisdom,   but   to   sweep  away  the  and  engage  them  on  the  side  of  Cod  and  holiness.      It 

mass  of  pollution,  and   bring  in  a  new  state  of  things,  i  treats  men  as  lost,  and  yet  capable  of  recovery  _  as  de- 

under  more  stringent    and   powerful  checks.       Under  '  praved  in  their  whole  natures,  and  vet  susceptible  of 

this  state,  different  races  sprang  up,  and  nations  formed  purity-  -as  labouring  under  a  moral  paralvsis,  ami  yet 

themselves,   with  manifold   diversities  of    tongue,   and  the   subjects   of   a  moral   treatment   which   may   raise 

government,  and  civil   as  well    as  sacred   institutions;  them  to  the  highest  place,  and  tit  them  for  the  noblest 

but  with  one  melancholy  result  in  all  as  to  the  great  employment  in  the  kingdom  of  God.     Such  is  the  mix- 

point    now    under    consideration  —  the    result,    namely,  ture  of  light  and  shade,  of  good  and  evil  in  man's  con- 

described   by  the  psalmist,  of  the   Lord  looking  down  dition   by  nature,  as  represented  in  Scripture:   and  in 

from  heaven,  and  seeing  none  righteous,  no  not  one;  both  respects  it  finds  an  echo  in  every  man's  conscience, 

and  by  the  apostle,  in  the  dreadful  picture  lie  draws  of  who  listens  with   patience   to   its   statements,  and  tests 

the  ignorance,  corruption,  and  profligacy  of  the  heathen  them   by  a   n  feivnce  to   the  reports  of   his  own  expe- 

world,  in  the  first  chapter  uf  his  epistle  to  the  Romans,  riem-e.      It  is   in   respect   to  the  evil  that  -.iMially  there 

Every  count  in  these  indictments  can  lie  verified   from  is  the  greatest  disposition  to  resist  its  testimony;  espe- 

heathen  sources.      And  even  amonir  those  more  favour-  cially  in  regard  to  the  completeness  ,,f  the  disorder  that 

ably  circumstanced  -the    Jew-;,   for  example      what   a  has  entered  into  men's  relation  to  God.      I'.nt  whenever 


time  to   time   to  strive   a^'ain-t    their  ungodliness,  and  is  the  great   law  of  their  being;   that  when  thev  break 

lay  bare  all    the  deceitful  workings.   of   their  hearts  and  loose  from  this,  all  ,.f   necessity  must   be   out  of   course 

the  tortuous  p"liey  .if  their  lives,  that  we  have  the  most  with  them-  as  it.  w..;ild  be  with  a  planet  were  it  to  for- 

tull    and    searching   delineations  of   human   corruption  |  sake  its  appointed  orbit  —  or  as  it  is  in  the  mind,  which 

Yet    so   just   are    they,    that  ha*  ceased  to  obey  the  law  of  reason,  where  every  thought 

re   really  .•pened    to  the  truth  •  is  a  wanderer,  because  it  n<.  longer  pertains  to  the  pro 

of   things      whenever   he  takes  a    calm   and    thoughtful  vincc   of   the   rational.       It    is  this,    they  then   perceive, 

review  of   his  own  heart  and   conduct,  he   finds   no  Ian-  which  makes  the  whole  h,  ad  sick,  and   the  whole  heart 

guage   so   precisely   suited    to    his  state   as   the  M>hmn  faint.      And  there  needs  only  in   any  case  the  opening 

elianies  and   penitential  confessions  of  the  <  'Id  Te.-ta-  of  the  eyes  to  a  right   apprehension  of  one's  relation  to 

inent.  (.iod,  to   insure  a  full  absent  to   the  humiliating  repix- 

'^  et  with  all  this,  then-  is  ncV<T  a  denial  of  the  heller  sentatiolis  of  Scripture,  and  a  heartfelt  aei|uiescenee  in 

element  in  human  nature,  nor  an  abandonment  of  hope  them  as  applicable  to  one's  own  spiritual  condition. 

concerning   it,  a>  if   it  were  incapable  of   recovery,  and  .r'.    We  shall  only  point  further  to  the  views  unfolded 

must   be  given   over   to    irrecoverable  ruin.      The  vciy  in  Scripture  on  the   part    of    Cod    for    the   purpose   of 

doctrine  ot   the   fall,  \\lieii   ri^htlv   understood,   implies  meeting  and   remedying  man's   natural  condition  and 

the'  exist.  -nee  of    that    better    element,  and    a   Around  ,.f  prospects.      These,   we    aura  in    iind.    are    such   as    to    be 

hope    lor   the    future;     for   it    teaches    that    the   c\  il    in  speak  their  divine   origin  -  for   thev  are    in    perfect  ac 

man's   i  ......  lition    uas    not    an    original    and    necessary  cordance  with   the  heart's  deepesl    convictions  uf  \\hat 

thing      that,  on  the  conlrarv,  he  came  at  first  pure  and  is  ^-ood  and  right,  and    present  such   a   complication    of 

u'  .....  1  from  the  hand  of  his  (  'real  >r.  and  that  the  miserv  m*  ans  and  inotivi  -  as  is  everj    way  worthy  of  the  lofty 

and    emptiness   with    which    lie    is    now   associated,   are  source   from    which   thev  come,    and    the   nect  ssities    of 

not  emblems  of   his  Father,  or  the  legitimate  results  of  the    occasion    which    called    them    forth.       For   surely, 

that  Father's  work   in  him.  but  of  its  disorder  and  cor-  "  when  \\v  read  a  historv.  \\hlch  authoritatively  claims 

ruption.      So  that  he  «/•'//  look    to  the  rock  whence  he  to  be  an  exhibition  of  the  character  of  Cod  in  his  deal- 

was    hewn    with    a    measure   of    humble   expectation   or  in^s    \\ith    men      if   in    that   history  we    1'md    \\hat   fills 

trust,  that  the   hand  which  originally  made   may  again  and  overflows  our  most    enlarged    conceptions  of   moral 

apply    its    power,   and    ca-t   out    the    evil    that   has   dis-  \\orth    and    loveliness    in    the    Supreme    IVin".      if  our 

figured   its   own  workmanship.      Then,  the  whole  char-  reason  di-co\ers  in    it   a   svstem,  which   tcives   peace   to 

acter  and  design  of  Cod's  scheme  of  ivdemptiv  v  irraee  the   conscience   bv    the   very   exhibition    |of   truth  and 

proceeds  on  the  assumption  of  ail  element  of  good  still  goodness]   which   ipiickens   its  sensibility      that,  it  dis- 

in  man.      For  it  is  of  the  nature  of  a  restoration  —or,  as  pels  the  terror,  of  u'uilt  bv   the   \  erv  tact  which  asso- 

it   is  called    in    Scripture,    a   regeneration  —  a   working  dates  .sin  with    the   fell    loathfuir  of   the  heart  --that   it 

upon  what   still   remains   of   Cod's  workmanship  in  the  combines,  in   one    wondrous   and    consistent  whole,  our 

soul,  so  as  through  grace  to  raise  and  bring  it  to  a  state  most  fearful  forebodings  and  our  most  splendid  anticipa- 

of  relative  perfection  and  blessedness.      The  purpose  of  tions   for  futuritv      that  the  object  of  all  its  tendencies 

God,  as  revealed   throughout  the  whole  Bible,  is  not  to  is  the  perfection    of   moral   happiness,    ami    that  these 

destroy,  and  then  reconstruct  something  entirely  new  tendencies  are   naturallv  connected  with   the    belief  of 

out  of  the  materials,  but  to  found    the   new  and   better  its  facts-  if  we  see  all   this  in  the   gospel,  we  may  then 

order  of  things  on  the  basis  of  the  old,  by  giving  it  the  say  that  our  own  eves  have  seen  its  truth,  and  that  we 

right  direction,  and  elevating  it  to  the  proper  tone.      It  need  no  other  testimony.      We  may,  then,  well  believe 

takes  for  granted,  that  there  is  in  the  soul  still  a  capa-  that  Cod  has  been  pleased  in  pity  to  our  wretchedness. 

city  for  discerning  the   truth,  so  far  at  least  as  to  be  ami  in  condescension    to   our  feebleness,  to  clothe  the 

able   to  distinguish   between   this  and   its  opposite,  and  ;  eternal  laws  which   regulate  his   spiritual   government. 


U.BLI-: 


BIBLE 


in  such  ;i  form  as  may  l>c  palpalile  to  our  conceptions, 
and  adapted  to  the  urgency  of  our  necessities"  (Erskine's 

Int.  Kvid.p.  is). 

This  is  a  general  representation,  in  a  hypothetical 
form,  of  the  character  of  God's  revelation  of  himself  in 
Scripture,  to  meet  the  great  wants  and  necessities  of 
our  condition.  But  to  realize  distinctly  its  bearing  in 
an  argumentative  respect,  we  must  view  the  subject  in 
some  detail.  There  are  three  aspects  more  particularly 
in  which  it  may  ho  contemplated,  or  three  great  lines 
of  accordance  bet \\veti  the  revelation  of  God's  character 
and  purposes,  and  the  tilings  belonging  to  men's  state 
and  experience. 

(1.)  In  the  first  place,  they  accord  with  the  testi 
mony  of  conscience  as  to  what  is  morally  right.  This 
is  a  kind  of  accordance  that  could  by  no  possibility  be 
dispensed  with.  For  the  actings  of  conscience  are  the 
great  natural  evidence  we  possess  of  the  character  of 
Hod,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  obligations  arising  out  of 
our  relation  to  him.  Tt  is  upon  the  basis  of  conscience 
that  natural  religion  more  especially  raises  itself ;  and 
the  views  we  naturally  entertain  of  God's  moral  attri 
butes  are  simply  derived  from  a  kind  of  infinite  expan 
sion  of  the  good  that  conscience  approves  and  owns. 
We  have  no  other  ultimate  test,  to  which  we  can  bring 
all  pretensions  of  a  religious  kind,  as  to  their  moral 
tendency  and  bearing  :  and  any  religious  system  which 
might  present  a  view  of  the  divine  character  and  admi 
nistration  at  variance  with  our  innate  moral  convic 
tions,  must  be  rejected  by  us  as  false. 

Now,  the  good  which  approves  itself  in  the  eye  of 
conscience  comprehends  the  sterner  as  well,  as  the 
gentler  graces,  and  the  one  as  even  prior  to  and 
more  fundamental  than  the  other — truth,  integrity, 
justice,  faithfulness //r.-^;  and  tke.n  mercy,  loving-kind 
ness,  beneficence.  All  are  perfectly  agreed  upon  these 
elements  of  goodness,  and  upon  this  being  the  order  of 
their  relative  importance,  in  so  far  as  regards  the  char 
acter  of  a  fellow-creature.  We  may  admire  and  love 
the  softer  graces  of  humanity,  when  we  see  them  dis 
played  in  another;  but  we  demand  the  more  severe: 
we  can  on  no  account  dispense  with  what  is  just  and 
right,  nor,  where  these  are  wanting,  can  any  amount  of 
the  other  compensate  in  our  esteem  for  the  defect.  If 
such  is  the  nature  of  our  moral  convictions  in  respect 
to  men,  it  stands  to  reason  that  they  should  be  the 
same  in  respect  to  God;  and  that  there  also  the  sterner 
elements  of  rectitude  should  be  conceived  of  as  not 
less,  but  rather  of  more  absolute  and  primary  import 
ance  than  those  of  kindness  and  mercy.  It  is  certainly 
otherwise  often  in  point  of  fact.  There  is  a  disposition 
on  the  part  of  many,  especially  of  those  who  view  the 
matter  superficially,  or  who  think  under  the  glow  of  an 
imaginative  or  sentimental  temperament,  to  lose  sight 
comparatively  of  the  things  that  are  true  and  just  in 
the  character  of  Deity,  and  to  make  account  only  of 
the  gracious  and  benignant.  A  God  all  mercy,  or  rich 
only  in  kindness,  is  the  God  they  picture  to  themselves. 
But  such  a  God  is  as  much  an  idol — a  nonentity,  as  the 
false  gods  of  heathenism.  And  it  is  felt  to  be  so,  when 
ever  the  sense  of  guilt  is  really  awakened  in  the  con 
science.  The  thought  of  God,  as  a  moral  governor, 
essentially  and  faultlessly  just  in  his  administration, 
and,  as  the  natural  result  of  this,  the  fear  of  his  dis 
pleasure  on  account  of  sin — these  are  what  take  resist 
less  hold  of  the  mind,  and  haunt  it  continually.  So 
Aurungzebe,  for  example,  when  conscience- stricken  and 


drawing  near  to  death,  gave  vent  to  his  feelings  in  the 
memorable  words,  "Wherever  I  turn  my  eyes  I  see 
nothing  but  the  Divinity" — viz.  as  a  just  and  righteous 
Being,  naming  indignation  against  the  wicked  deeds 
which  he  was  conscious  of  having  committed  against 
law  and  justice.  But  is  it  not  a  weakness  or  a  misap 
prehension  to  think  thus  of  God  ?  Is  it  not  to  imagine 
i  the  existence  of  feelings  in  Him  which  are  never  re 
garded  as  an  excellence,  but  a  blemish  among  men? 
i  For  who  does  not  shrink  from  the  resentful  and  implac- 
;  able,  when  such  characters  are  seen  on  earth  ?  Mercy, 
;  compassion,  forgiveness,  placability,  are  virtues,  when 
the  objects  of  them  are  the  penitent  and  humble  ;  and 
the  reverse  is  universally  felt  to  be  vicious.  So  it  is 
often  alleged,  for  the  purpose  of  disparaging  or  modify 
ing  the  statements  of  the  Bible.  But  the  cases  are  by 
no  means  parallel ; — for  the  objection  takes  into  account 
simply  the  relation,  common  alike  to  both  cases,  of  an 
offender  and  an  offended  party ;  but  loses  sin'lit  of  what 
is  peculiar  to  one  of  them — the  all-important  fact  of  a 
moral  government  in  God.  to  which  the  sinner  stands 
related  as  a  transgressor  and  a  rebel.  The  question  in 
this  case  comes  to  be  whether  there  really  is  a  moral 
government  with  God.  As  Chalmers  has  justly  said. 
' '  There  can  be  no  government  without  law,  and  every 
law  must  have  its  sanctions.  What  becomes  of  the 
truth  or  the  dignity  of  heaven's  government,  if  man  is 
to  rebel,  and  God,  stripped  of  every  attribute  but  tender- 
i  ness,  can  give  no  demonstration  of  his  incensed  and 
1  violated  majesty?  There  is  no  positively  no  law,  if 
;  there  be  not  a  force  and  a  certainty  in  its  sanctions. 
i  Take  away  from  jurisprudence  its  penalties,  or,  what 
were  still  worse,  let  the  penalties  only  be  denounced, 
but  never  lie  exacted,  and  we  reduce  the  whole  to  an 
unsubstantial  mockery.  The  fabric  of  moral  govern 
ment  falls  to  pieces:  and,  instead  of  a  great  presiding 
authority  in  the  universe,  we  have  a  subverted  throne, 
and  a  degraded  sovereign."  Yes;  and  with  the  honour 
and  authority  of  God,  we  should  lose  all  security  for 
the  peace  and  well-being  of  his  creatures.  Nothing- 
short  of  absolute  rectitude  on  his  part  can  secure  this  ; 
and  any  exhibition  of  a  slack  jurisprudence,  or  an  in 
dulgent  weakness,  would  bring  the  most  fearful  danger 
and  uncertainty  into  their  prospects  of  final  bliss. 

There  are  multitudes  who  cannot  reason  thus,  yet 
feel  the  truth  contained  in  the  representation  ;  who  are. 
as  it  were,  instinctively  and  irresistibly  impressed  with 
'  it,  by  the  workings  of  their  conscience.  And  it  is  iii- 
|  deed  well  that  the  power  of  conscience  proves  too 
mighty  in  the  long-run,  for  all  the  false  reasoning  and 
ihajltmsi/  sentimentalism  that  is  often  thrown  around  the 
subject.  But  by  nothing  conceivable  could  the  enlight 
ened  and  the  awakened  conscience  be  more  thoroughly 
met  and  satisfied,  than  by  the  representations  of  God's 
character  given  in  the  gospel,  and  embodied  in  its 
scheme  of  grace  for  sinners.  The  essential  righteous 
ness  of  the  Deity  forms  the  groundwork  of  the  whole : 
it  is  that  which  calls  for  the  condemnation  of  man  as 
sinful,  and  constitutes  the  need  of  a  plan  of  salvation 
to  recover  him  from  its  ruin.  And  conscience  re-echoes 
the  justice  of  the  condemnation,  and  confesses  to  the 
need  of  a  plan  for  salvation.  Conscience  itself,  however, 
could  go  no  farther ;  nor  could  the  powers  of  nature 
give  it  any  effectual  aid  in  seeking  for  what  might 
satisfy  the  need.  But  when  we  listen  to  what  God  has 
provided  and  done,  as  unfolded  in  the  gospel-  -when  we 
consider  the  revelation  of  his  righteousness  in  the  per- 


BIBLE 


•221 


BIBLE 


sonal  obedience  unto  death  of  his  own  Son,  establishing 
in  every  particular  the  demands  and  sanctions  of  the 
divine  law — and  this  for  the  very  purpose  of  opening  a 
way  of  escape  for  the  guilty  ;  that  while  righteousness 
was  maintained  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  his 
government,  mercy  and  loving- kindness  might  go  forth 
in  free  and  bountiful  exercise  toward  those  who  have 
rendered  themselves  obnoxious  to  its  penalties  ; — there 
is  the  presence  of  all  that  is  fitted  to  allay  the  terrors 
of  conscience,  and  give  peace  to  it,  without  weakening 
in  the  least  its  regard  to  righteousness,  but.  on  the  con 
trary,  strengthening  and  confirming  it.  And  thus  there 
arises  from  the  felt  correspondence  between  the  over 
tures  of  the  gospel  and  the  profoundest  convictions  of 
the  soul,  an  evidence  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  iv\ela- 
tion  which  is  disclosed  in  the  Bible.  Shall  we  discern 
the  operation  of  a  designing  hand,  and  a  fatherly  care, 
in  the  accordance  that  prevails  between  the  constitu 
tion  of  man,  and  the-  external  world  in  which  he  is 
placed  -between  the  eye  that  sees,  ami  the  ear  that 
hears,  and  the  appetite  that  desires  and  tastes,  and  the 
infinite  variety  of  objects  fitted  to  plea-e.  and  satisfy. 
and  regale  these  bodilv  si-uses  -and  nut  much  rather 
discern  the  presence  of  the  sain.-  designing  hand  and 
fatherly  care,  in  Mich  a  marvellous  exhibition  of 
heaven  s  highest  attributes  to  quell  the  greatest  anxie 
ties  that  can  agitate  a  sinner's  b<>s, >m.  and  settle  the 
mightiest  controversy  that  affects  his  well-being  '  The 
argument  in  both  cases  i-  the  same  in  kind  :  but  in  this 
last  case,  the  harmonies  are  of  a  much  profounder  kind, 
and  carry  us  nearer  to  th  -  bo-oiu  of  Godhead.  v<  • 
ATONEMENT.) 

('2.)  Another  line  of  h:inaonies  is  to  be  found  in  the 
accordance  of  the  revelation  of  Cod  in  Christ  with  the 
emotional  part  of  our  natures;  which  is  >o  admirably 
adapted  to  these1  as  to  furnish  them  with  the  highest 
stimulants  to  riinit  exertion,  and  in  the  manner  most 
lilted  to  tell  on  them  with  the  proper  effect.  \Ve 
write  now,  it  will  be  observed,  of  the  bearing  and  ten 
dency  of  the  plan  of  <!od  -not  n/iji  <•!',,•<  ///,  in  respect  to 
the  ur<  at  question  of  an  adjustment  between  Gods 
righteousness  and  the  pardon  of  man's  iruilt — but  silb- 
jci'ttt'c/i/,  in  respect  to  the  effect  upon  man's  heart  and 
conduct,  which  tlie  plan,  when  embraced,  is  fitted  to 
produce.  A  religion  suited  to  fallen  man,  must  not 
only  provide  what  is  necessary  l->  secure  a  return  to 
(iod's  favour  and  blessing,  but  also  what  is  adapted  to 
work  beneficially  upon  his  fceliiii-s.  and  draw  these 
forth  into  all  becoming  exercises  toward  God  and  man, 
or  to  reproduce,  in  it.-  various  features,  the  moral  ima^e 
of  (iod  on  the  soul.  Were  there  no  fitness  in  the  gospel 
to  accomplish  this  end,  we  should  unhesitatingly  say, 
it  wanted  an  es-ential  element  of  a  divine  revelation. 
The  facts  and  doctrines  it  unfold.-,  would  then  possess 
no  natural  connection  with  the  moral  obligations  it 
imposes,  and  the  character  it  requires;  -  in  other  words, 
its  revelations  of  supernatural  objects  would  have  no 
definite  bearing  on  men's  duties  and  well-being.  This 
defect  is  one  of  the  most  prominent  blemishes  in  the 
false  religions  that  have  prevailed  in  the  world.  "The 
very  states  which  have  chiefly  excelled  in  arts,  and  lite 
rature,  and  civil  government,  have  failed  here  most 
lamentably.  Their  moral  precepts  might  (sometimes) 
be  very  good  ;  but  then  thc.-c  precepts  had  as  much  con 
nection  with  the  history  of  astronomy  as  with  the  doc 
trines  of  their  religion.  Which  of  the  adventures  of 
Jupiter,  or  1'rama,  or  Osiris,  could  be  urged  as  a 


powerful  motive  to  excite  to  a  high  moral  feeling,  or  to 
produce  a  high  moral  action  I  The  force  of  the  moral  pre 
cepts  was  rather  lessened  than  increased  by  the  facts  of 
their  mythology.  In  the  religion  of  Mahomet  there  are 
many  excellent  precepts;  but  it  contains  no  illustra 
tion  of  the  character  of  God,  which  has  any  particular 
tendency  beyond,  or  even  equal  to,  that  of  natural  re 
ligion,  to  enforce  these  precepts.  Indeed,  one  of  the 
most  important  doctrines  which  lie  taught,  viz.  a  future 
life  beyond  the  grave,  from  the  shape  he  gave  to  it. 
tended  to  counteract  his  moral  precepts,  lie  described 
it  as  a  state  of  indulgence  in  sensual  gratifications, 
which  never  cloyed  the  appetite  ;  and  yet  lie  preached 
temperance  and  self-denial.  The  philosophical  systems 
of  theology  are  no  less  liable  to  the  charge  of  absurditv 
than  the  popular  superstitions.  No  one  can  read 
Cicero's  work  on  the  nature  of  the  gods,  without  ac 
knowledging  the  justice  of  the  apostle's  sentence  upon 
that  class  of  reasoiiers.  'professing  themselves  to  be 
wi<e,  they  became  fools'  "  (Erskine's  Kud.  \*.  c.">. 

Now.  where  in  these  false  religions  we  have  a 
marked  deficiency  and  blemi.-h,  in  the  scheme  of  grace 
revealed  in  the  gospel  we  have  the  highest  style  of 
excellence.  In  the  lir.-t  instance,  its  doctrines  are,  to 
a  large  extent,  embodied  in  facts,  which  removes  them 
from  the  shadowy  form  of  abstract  principles,  and  gives 
them  the  palpability  and  impressive  character  of  reali 
ties.  Then  the  facts  and  doctrines  alike  are  of  a  pro 
foundly  moral  nature  -t<  :tifyingat  every  point  against 
sin  and  for  holiness  ;  and  thus  they  are  lilted  to  arouse 
and  quicken  the  moral  feelings  of  every  mind  that  is  hn- 
piv.-- ed  bv  them.  Not  oiilvso,  but  thev  are  calculated 
in  the  most  peculiar  manner,  by  the  nio-t  telling  and 
persuasive  considerations,  to  engage  the  heart  on  the 
-ide  of  goodii'-ss.  The  fundamental  and  vital  principle 
of  all  Lfoodiiess  is  love  to  (iod.  But  this  higher  prin 
ciple  of  love  cannot,  any  more  than  love  of  a  natural 
kind,  spring  up  in  the  bosom  .apart  from  the  contem 
plation  of  a  loveable  object.  It  will  not  come  and  go 
at  a  bidding;  but,  like  other  emotions,  must  be  drawn 
forth  bv  the  n-ali/.ed  existence  of  qualities  fitted  to 
attract  and  win.  And  this  is  pre-eminently  the  glorv 
and  triumph  of  the  gospel,  that,  without  lowering  in 
anv  respect  the  moral  character  of  (iod,  without  abat 
ing  one  iota  of  his  righteous  claims,  it  at  the  same  time 
exhibits  such  wondrous  manifestations  of  his  pity  and 
yearning  tenderness  toward  sinners,  aa  leaves  nothing 
to  be-  desired  further  in  the  wav  of  moral  suasion  to 
move  and  influence  the  heart  to  give  its  aflections  to 
him.  Never  at  least  did  love  disclose  itself  \\ith  such 
freeness,  or  come  near  to  human  bosoms  with  such  a 
gift;  ami  it  is  of  all  conceivable  things  most  fitted  to 
overcome  the  waywardness  of  the  sinner's  will,  ami 
engage  him  to  love  God  with  somewhat  of  the  same 
love  svith  which  he  has  been  loved  of  him. 

Nor,  finally,  is  this  manifestation  of  (iod's  character 

of   love  in  Christ   less   fitted    to  tell    upon  the  gracious 

'  and  kindly  affections  generally.      For  it  is  in  the  nature 

'  of  things  impossible,  that  any  one  should  embrace  the 

truth  of  a   redeeming  (iod,    and   have  his  conscience 

touched  by  the  hin'h   considerations  it  presents  to  his 

regard,  without  feeling  constrained   to  love  others,  as 

he  has  himself  been  loved  ;  to  show  mercy,  and  do  good 

to  them,  as  it  has  been  done  to  him  ;  to  copy  after,  in 

short,  and  reflect  God's  character,  as  that  appears  in 

the  face  of  Jesus  Christ ; — so  that  a  full  and  perfect 

,  realization  of  the  truth  would  of  necessity  carry  along 


BIBLK 


with  it  the  perfection  of  tlio  Christian  life.  Tims  tho 
roughly  in  the  Christian  scheme  do  the  doctrines  tally 
with  the  precepts,  and  the  reception  of  the  one  dispose 
the  heart  to  the  observance  of  the  other. 

(:•>.)  \Ve  have  still  to  mark  another  line  of  accordance 
in  the  revelations  of  the  I.iible  with  our  state  anil  ex 
perience;  and  in  that  an  additional  evidence  of  its 
strictly  divine  character,  viz.  its  accordance  with  our 
circumstances  in  life.  \Ve  can  only  glance  at  the  lead 
ing  characteristics  of  these,  which  differ  immensely  with 
different  individuals,  and  yet  have  in  all  some  common 
points  of  agreement.  They  are  alwavs,  for  example, 
more  or  less  fraught  with  temptation,  and  as  such, 
fitted  to  force  on  Christian  minds  a  sense  of  their  own 
weakness,  and  their  need  of  a  higher  power  to  guide 
and  sustain  them.  We  say  especially  Christ  in  it  minds 
— for  as  it  is  these  alone  which  have  become  pro 
perly  alive  to  the  evil  and  the  good  in  the  world,  so  it 
is  they  alone  that  are  fully  conscious  of  the  strength  of 
temptation,  and  their  own  inability  to  meet  it  aright. 
But  no  one,  who  docs  become  alive  to  this,  can  fail  to 
perceive  how  thoroughly  the  revelation  of  God  in  the 
gospel  contemplates  and  provides  for  it  —more  espe 
cially  in  the  encouragement  it  holds  out  to  believing  ; 
prayer,  and  the  assurances  it  gives  of  the  aid  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  AVithout  disparaging  human  means,  or 
throwing  the  least  discouragement  in  the  way  of  per 
sonal  exertion — but  on  the  contrary  demanding  these 
— it  yet  presents  God  to  us  in  the  aspect  of  a  gracious 
.Father,  knowing  the  difficulties  with  which  his  children 
have  in  this  respect  to  contend  with,  and  stooping  in 
infinite  mercy  to  listen  to  their  petitions  for  help,  and 
to  give  to  them  such  supplies  of  his  Spirit  as  they  may 
require.  In  this,  the  revelation  of  God  proves  itself  to 
be  from  one  who  knows  our  frame,  and  adapts  himself 
to  our  circumstances.  Again,  these  circumstances  are 
always  in  some  degree,  and  often  to  a  very  (jrcat  degree, 
connected  with  trouble  and  distress.  A  religion  which 
did  not  take  this  into  account,  and  provide  peculiar 
grounds  of  consolation  for  it,  could  not  be  thoroughly 
adapted  to  the  present  state  of  the  believer.  But  so 
much  is  it  provided  for  in  Scripture,  that  it  is  impos 
sible  for  any  one  to  take  even  a  cursory  glance  into  its 
contents,  without  perceiving  that  it  has  especial  respect 
to  this  feature  in  our  condition.  It  is  never  known,  how 
ever,  how  very  much  there  is  of  a  tender  and  consola 
tory  character  in  the  Word  of  God,  till  circumstances 
of  distress  actually  come  into  men's  experience.  Then 
alone  does  the  infinite  fulness  and  variety  of  consola 
tion  that  is  treasured  up  there  open  out  to  their  minds 
— and  there  is  no  sentiment  in  it  that  is  more  fre 
quently  and  more  thoroughly  responded  to  by  tried  be 
lievers,  than  that  of  the  psalmist,  when  he  says,  ' '  This 
word  of  thine  is  my  comfort  in  my  affliction." 

\\  e  shall  notice  only  another  feature  in  the  circum 
stances  of  believers  on  earth,  to  which  the  revelation  of 
God  in  New  Testament  scripture  particularly  is  adapted 
— and  that  is,  their  manifold  and  ever-changing  variety,  ; 
which  requires  to  be  met  by  the  enforcement  of  great 
principles,  rather  than  by  the  multiplication  of  specific 
rules  of  action  and  duty.      Religions  that  take  the  latter 
direction,  can  be  fitted  only  for  a  limited  range  and  a 
contracted  interest — as  was  the  case  to   some  extent 
even    with    the    religion    of    the    Old    Testament,    in 
which,   from  the   constraint   of  circumstances,   it  was  j 
found   necessary,   till  the  predicted  time   of  reforma-  i 
tion,  to  hedge  round  the  church  with   a  multitude  of  i 


specific  bonds  and  regulations.  This  peculiarity  ren 
dered  the  form  of  religion  prescribed  in  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  unfit  for  the  observance  of  men  in 
all  times  and  places;  and  yet  there  were  great  principles 
also  there,  underlying  all  that  was  merely  outward 
and  ceremonial,  which  gave  it  an  immense  superiority 
over  the  ritual,  caste-religions  in  other  parts  of  Asia; 
nay,  which  enabled  a  devout  Jew,  wherever  his  lot 
might  be  cast,  to  rise  in  spiritual  thought  and  moral 
excellence  far  beyond  all  the  religionists  of  ancient 
times.  But  when  the  period  arrived  for  the  "dispen 
sation  of  the  fulness  of  times,"  and  the  necessity  no 
longer  existed  for  the  trammels  and  limitations  which 
the  old  covenant  had  imposed,  then  all  took  a  higher 
direction;  the  religion  of  the  Bible  became  distinguished 
for  its  comparative  freedom  from  the  special  and  the 
external,  and  for  the  predominance  it  gives  to  vital 
truths  and  principles  of  action.  It  undoubtedly  ex 
hibits,  even  in  regard  to  outward  behaviour,  the  great 
landmarks  of  duty;  so  that  no  sincere  inquirer  need 
be  at  loss  as  to  the  kind  of  actions  in  which  his  faith 
should  discover  its  sincerity;  but  it  rarely  descends  into 
details,  and  is  no  more  in  this  respect  the  book  of  the 
Asiatic  than  of  the  European,  of  the  prince  than  of 
the  peasant,  of  the  philosopher  than  of  the  ploughman. 
Its  field  is  the  world.  ''Other  codes  and  other  con 
stitutions  have  been  framed  for  the  separate  countries 
of  the  world,  and  they  tell  the  wisdom  of  their  respec 
tive  but  earthly  legislators ;  but  this  in  its  characters 
alike  of  goodness  and  of  greatness,  and  withal  of  bound 
less  application,  obviously  announces  itself  as  the  code 
of  humanity;  and  bespeaks  the  comprehensive  wisdom 
of  Him  who,  devising  for  all  times  and  for  all  people, 
is  the  legislator  of  the  species.  It  is  not  the  workman 
ship  of  a  few  peasants  in  J  udea.  The  perfection  of  its 
moral  characteristics  speaks  to  us  of  a  different  foun 
tain-head,  and  decisively  points  us  to  the  celestial  ori 
gin  wdience  it  must  have  sprung"  (Chalmers'  Evidences,  ii. 

p.  59). 

Such  are  some  of  the  leading  characteristics  of  the 
Bible,  as  a  revelation  from  God,  which  are,  at  the 
same  time,  evidences  of  its  divine  character  and  its 
heavenly  origin.  They  could  not  have  belonged  to  it 
in  any  form,  without  telling  powerfully  upon  the  hearts 
and  consciences  of  those  to  whom  it  came.  But  they 
have  all  become  mightily  enhanced  and  incalculably 
heightened  in  their  moral  influence  by  being  associated, 
as  they  are,  in  the  later  portions  of  the  Bible,  with 
the  person  and  the  work  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in 
whom  every  attribute  of  excellence  found  its  perfect 
development,  and  through  whom  men  have  at  once  the 
call  and  the  possibility  placed  before  them  of  being 
made  like  him  in  whatever  is  great  and  good.  From 
the  time  of  his  appearance  in  the  world,  it  is  no  longer 
the  simple  teaching  of  the  Bible  that  we  have  to  mark, 
as  to  the  higher  elements  of  truth  and  duty,  but  the 
wonderful  attractions  of  a  person,  who  combines  in 
his  mysterious  being  heaven  and  earth,  the  sympathies 
of  a  man  with  the  infinite  resources  of  Godhead;  and 
who  by  what  he  has  done  for  those  that  receive  him. 
and  what  he  has  promised  to  do,  has  imparted  a  charm 
and  a  power,  hitherto  unknown,  to  all  that  is  great 
and  good  in  the  Bible.  Ideas  in  this  respect  have  now 
become  facts;  the  way  into  the  holiest  has  been  laid 
open  for  as  many  as  are  willing  to  enter  it ;  and  an 
infinitely  powerful  and  loving  Friend,  who  has  already 
attained,  beckons  them  to  come,  and  assures  them  of 


BIEK 


I  SIR!) 


3,  indicating  a  species  which 
s  correctly)  xjittrrotc.  (»Stc 
Christianity  unfolded  in  the-  Bible  has  funned  a  new  SPAKKUW.)  The  word  is  evidently  an  imitation  of 
era  for  the  world;  not  merely,  as  having  by  the  superi-  i  the  note  ''tsip"  of  the  house  sparrow,  which,  being  the 
ority  of  its  teaching  purified  the  moral  atmosphere  of  ,  most  abundant  bird  in  Palestine,  as  it  is  with  us.  would 
the  soul,  and  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  but  |  be  likely  to  become  the  representative  of  a  race,  and 
also,  and  still  more,  as  bringing  men  into  fellowship,  |  tints  the  specific  term  gradually  became  uvneric. 
through  Christ,  with  a  living  personality,  that  un-  ;  The  numerous  allusions  to  the  capture  of  birds  show 
speakably  ennobles  their  position,  and  creates  in  them  that  fowling  was  pursued  amoni:  the  Israelites  with 
at  once  the  will  and  the  power  to  be  good.  This  is  i  avidity,  as  it  was  among  the  ancient  Egyptians.  The 
what  above  all  besides  makes  it  quick  and  powerful,  in  numerous  paintings  preserved  in  the  tombs  of  the 
its  moral  effects  upon  the  soul,  and  has  rendered  it  in  latter  people,  illustrating  almost  every  state  of  society 
time  past,  and  must  ever  render  it  still,  the  peculiar  i  and  every  occupation  pursued  by  the  people,  afford 
instrument  of  the  world's  regeneration.  (X«  also  IN 
SPIRATION). 

BIER.     ,SVe  BURIAL. 

BIL'DAD  \.<on  <>f  contention  diyjutant],  one  of  the 
three  friends  mentioned  in  Job  ii.  1],  as  coming  to  com 
fort  him,  but  who  in  fact  added  to  his  grief.  Three 
chapters,  viii.  xviii.  and  .x.xv. .  are  filled  with  his  ad 
dresses,  which  occupy  a  middle  place  in  violence  of 
attack  between  those  of  Elipha/.  and  those  of  Zophar. 
Ilildad  is  called  the  Shuhite.  which  is  commonly  inter 
preted  to  mi 'an  the  descendant  of  Shuah,  one  of  the  sons 
of  Abraham  and  Keturah,  Cu.  xxv.  •_'. 

BI'LEAM.  a  toun  in  Western  Manasseh,  ich  vi.7o; 
apparently  the  same  as  1  IJI.KAM. 

BILHAH,  the  handmaid  whom  Laban  nave  to 
liachel  on  occasion  of  her  marriage  to  Jacob.  When 
Rachel  had  no  children  she  persuaded  Jacob  to  take 
Bilhah  as  his  concubine,  and  she  bore  him  two  >ons. 
J)an  and  Naphtali,  <;c-  xxx  :: -v  Her  misconduct  after 
wards  was  a  source  of  terrible  urief  to  Jacob,  i;,-  xxxv. 


BIRD.  The  most  comprehensive  Hebrew  term  for 
a  bird  is  ppy,  <)/<•'/.  which  m^ans  "  one  that  flies."  It  is 
used  in  the  narrative  of  creation.  Ciu  i.  ii  for  the  t'eathcTvd 
race  generally,  as  also  in  the  account  of  the  stockiiiL'  of 
the  ark  oi  Noah,  Go.vi-viii  ln(Je.  xl.  11'.  I  >e.  xxviii. 
'_!'!,  1  Sa.  xvii.  -It,  4'!,  Je.  vii.  :;:!,  and  other  places,  the 
word  is  used  for  birds  of  prey.  In  ( Je.  viii.  'Ju.  Le.  i. 
14,  !>•'.  xiv.  -Jo.  1's.  Ixxviii.  -27.  \c..  the  connexion 
shows  that  species  ceremonially  clean  are  meant.  In 
I/-,  xi.  •Ju-'j:;.  and  l)e.  xiv.  lit.  the  same  term  is  used 
to  indicate  winged  insects.  It  is  manifest,  therefore, 
that  the  governing  idea  etvmologieallv  indicated  in  the 
word  \\as  maintained  in  its  use; 
and  that,  though  principally  ap 
plied  to  birds,  because  these  are  ^^ 
the  most  conspicuous  ••fliers."  ^^>Y.-V.^  •, 
yet  the  term  was  comprehensive 
enough  to  embrace  evervthinir 
that  hath  a  wiii'_r. 

The  ravenous  birds  seem  to  have 
appropriated  to  them  the  generic 
appellation  wy.  a't.  which  is  per- 

hajis  the  origin  of  the  ( Jreek  cifro?, 
(injli,  Tlie  use  of  this  term  is 
very  limited  in  Scriptun  .  Imt  it 
is  scattered  from  (Jem-sis  and  Job 
to  Jeremiah  and  Ex.ekiel.  Its  r 


copious  rcpresentatK 
serve  just  as  truly 
modes  and  implements. 

The  net.  uin.  and  snare,  worked  by  means  of  cords, 
arc  repeatedly  spoken  of.  as  apt  images  both  of  the 
temptations  of  Satan  to  which  men  in  general  are  sub 
ject,  and  of  the  insidious  designs  of  evil  men.  hv  which 
they  endeavour  t"  bring  mischief  on  their  innocent 
neighbours.  s,-el'-  xci  3;<:xxiv.  7;  cxl..'> ;  Jo  v  '.'r, ;  Ani .  iii  :,,!n-. 
l''or  the  cajiture  of  birds,  "the  trap  was  generally  made 
ol  net- work  strained  over  a  frame.  It  consisted  < if  two 
semicircular  sides  or  flaps,  of  equal  si/.cs,  one  or  both 
moving  on  the  common  bar,  or  axis,  upon  which  they 
I'.-stecl.  When  the  trap  uas  set.  the  two  flaps  were 


pouncing  on  pr 
The  word  -v 


lical   idea  is  that  of    kept  open    by   means   of    strings,    probably  of    oatirut. 
which,  the  moment  the  bait  that  stood  in  the  centre  of 

<«-ith   its  Chalice   form  -^y.     the  bar  was  touched,  slipped  aside,  and  allowed  the  two 
/:'j>/nir).  is  commonly  used   for  >mall   birds,  considered     flaps  to  collapse,  and  thus  secured,  the  bird, 
clean  by  the  law:  such  as  were  caught  for  the  beauty  of          "  AnotlieJ  kind,   which  was   s  ;uaie.  appears  to  )ia\e 
their  plumage,  for  their  song,  or  for  the  table.      It  has    closed  in  the   same   manner;   but    its   construction    was 


224 


difl'erent,  the  framework  running  across  the  centre,  upon  the  birds  ;  in  the  picture-  before  us,  slit;  has  just 
and  not.  as  in  the  others,  round  the  edges  of  the  trap"  j  caught  one  in  her  mouth,  while  (with  a  skill  somewhat 
(Wilkinson's  Anc.  Egypt,  iii.  3(t).  j  incredible)  she  holds  another  with  her  two  fore  paws, 

A  chip -net  is  frequently  represented,  not  very  dis-  and  a  third  between  her  hind  paws.  Jt  is  probable, 
similar  to  those  in  use  among  bird-catchers  at  present, 
but  larger.  "It  consisted  of  two  sides,  or  frames, 
over  which  tin;  net-work  was  strained;  at  one  end  was 
a  short  rope,  which  they  fastened  to  a  bush,  or  a  cluster 
of  reeds;  and  at  the  other  was  one  of  considerable  length, 
which,  as  soon  as  the  birds  were  seen  feeding  in  the 
area  within  the  net.  was  pulled  by  the  fowlers,  causing 
the  instantaneous  collapsion  of  the  two  sides'  (Ibid.  iii.  -16). 

This  larger  net  is  often  depicted  as  spread  on  the 
surface  of  a  reedy  pool,  probably  in  a  space  cleared  for 
the  purpose  ;  the  men  who  worked  it  being  concealed 
from  view  among  the  tall  water-plants,  while  a  man  was 
stationed  at  another  place,  whence  he  could  watch  the 
net;  and  when  the  wild  fowl  were  assembled,  he  gave 
the  signal  to  pull  the  collapsing  rope,  and  secure  the 
booty.  The  watchman  is  occasionally  represented 
making  a  sign  of  silence,  while  the  birds  are  np- 
preaching. 

The  sudden  and  unexpected  arrest  of  a  bird  by  means 
of  a  "'"  snare,"  is  used  bv  the  Lord  Jesus  to  set  forth 

with  vivid  power  the  awful  suddenness  with  which  his  also,  that  the  repugnance  of  this  animal  to  wet  her 
second  coming  shall  overtake  the  world  sleeping  in  its  ;  feet  having  been  overcome  by  training,  she  was  accus- 


carnal  security.  L\- 


As  the  thoughtless  bird  runs 


pecking  hither  and  thither,  unsuspicious  of  the  springe 
that  lies  among  the  grass,  in  a  moment  the  fatal  noose 
is  round  its  throat,  and  all  is  over  with  it.  "  So  shall 
it  be  when  the  Son  of  man  is  revealed  !" 

In  Egypt  fowl  of  larger  bulk  and  higher  sapidity 
than  the  small  birds  of  the  field  were  much  sought 
after;  we  refer  to  the  numerous  kinds  of  water-fowl 


tomed  to  fetch  such  birds  as  fell  into  the  water. 

But  the  sportsman  depended  for  his  chief  success  on 
a  short  staff  of  heavy  wood,  having  a  double  curve, 
which  he  threw  at  the  birds.  From  some  of  the  paint 
ings  it  appears  that  he  discharged  several  of  these  mis 
siles  in  rapid  succession,  as  the  flocks  arose,  and  from 
the  action  of  a  youth  in  one,  who  holds  a  stick  to  the 
principal,  it  maj'  have  been  the  office  of  his  attendants 


that  abounded  on  the  Nile.     The  banks  of  the  Jordan  j  to  keep  him  supplied   with  weapons   as  he  discharged 
were,  it  is  true,  less  suitable  as  a  resort  for  the  nata-     them,  without  loss  of  time. 


torial   birds  than  the   reedy  margins  of  the  Egyptian 
river;  but  the  expanse  of  the  lakes  of  Galilee  were  of 


The  infatuation  of  a  young  man  who  is  seduced  into 
sin  by  the  fair  speech  of  a  strange  woman,  is  compared 


old,  as  now,  frequented  by  many  kinds,  whose  juicy  |  by  the  royal  preacher  to  the  folly  of  a  bird  that  "  hasteth 
and  well-flavoured  flesh  would  present  too  strong  a  temp-  j  to  the  snare,  and  knowetli  not  that  it  is  for  his  life," 
tatioii  to  human  appetite  to  be  overlooked;  especially  as  |  I'r.  vii.  -xi.  And  the  fatal  result  of  such  folly  is  repre- 
the  lawr  enforced  no  prohibition  against  them,  while  in  j  sented  by  the  "dart  striking  through  the  liver"  of  the 
Egypt  they  constituted  (the  goose  in  particular)  a  very 
large  and  important  part  of  the  food  of  the  people. 

Elliot  describes  the  Lake  of  Tiberias  as  '"'covered 
with  wild-ducks"  when  he  was  there.  And  Kitto, 
who  quotes  this  expression  (Pict.  Hist.  ofPalest.  ii.  ceciv.) 
enumerates  many  kinds  of  duck,  wigeon,  and  teal, 
beside  the  swan  and  goose,  as  abundant  in  the 
waters  of  Syria  and  the  Holy  Land. 

The  capture  of  such  birds  as  these  is  a  favourite 
subject  of  the  Egyptian,  paintings.  One  of  these 
specimens  of  very  ancient  art,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  affords  the  original  of  the  accompanying 
engraving. 

The  fowler  was  usually  attended  by  some  female 
members  of  his  family,  \vlio  do  not,  however,  ap 
pear  to  have  aided  his  operations.  Embarking  on 
board  a  boat,  with  a  few  decoy- birds,  and  a  trained 
cat,  they  proceeded  to  such  parts  of  the  river  as 
were  fringed  with  dense  masses  of  the  tall  papyrus 
reed.  Water-fowl  of  various  species  swarmed  in 
these  rushy  covers;  and,  by  the  number  of  nests  with 


Assyrian  shooting  birds.  —  Khorsabad. 


eggs  and  young  usually  represented,  wre  are  doubtless 


hunted  victim,  a  figure  which  brings  before  us  another 
mode  of  obtaining  the  game,  viz.  by  shooting. 

Here  the  Assyrian  monuments  supply  the  illustra 
tion  which  is  lacking  in  those  of   Egypt :  for  in  the 


15  IKD-CAGES  2 

palace  of  Kliorsabad  there  is  a  series  of  slabs,  to  which 
further  reference  may  be  made  (see  HUNTIXI;),  repre 
senting  the  Assyrian  monarch  taking-  his  pastime  in  a 
paradise  or  great  hunting-ground.  Some  of  the  attend 
ants  are  shooting  with  arrows  the  birds  which  are  de 
picted  numerously  enough  in  the  forest.  Many  of  these 
are  shown  in  flight,  some  on  trees,  others  running  on  the 
ground.  We  can  recognize  some  of  the  kinds  intended. 
One,  from  its  curved  beak,  and  from  its  action  -  running 
up  the  perpendicular  trunk  of  a  tree  —is  probablv  some 


large  species  of  cuckoo;  another  still  larger,  several 
times  repeated,  with  the  two  central  feathers  of  the'  tail 
much  longer  than  the  re  4,  appears  to  be  the  pheasant. 


BISHOP 

Birth  is  the  commencement  of  life  in  the  world:  and 
hence  the  "new  birth,"  and  being  "  born  again,"  are 
common  expre-sions  in  Scripture  for  that  great  change 
which  is  wrought  by  the  Spirit  of  God  when  men  be 
come  partakers  of  life  eternal  in  Christ  Jesus. 

BIRTH-DAYS  have  been  celebrated  as  times  of 
rejoicing  and  feasting  in  most  countries.  Co 


Jews,  and  even  it   (if  the   expression    is 

stood  literally,  and  not  as  the  dav  of  his  acces-ion   to 


the  throne,  which 


as  it  is  evidently  an  object  of  desire  to  the  sportsmen  : 
ami  we  know  that  the  mountain  forests  of  Armenia 
were  the  native  re-ion  of  this  fine  bird.  Partridges 
and  quails  may  also  be  id'-ntiticd  in  thi-  interestin" 
picture. 

The  injunction   by   the   Mosaic  law.    in   the  case  of 
finding  a   bird's   nest,  that   the   dam    was   to   be  let  go, 
when  the  eg-s  or  youn-   were  taken,    Uc.xxii.fi,  wa<  a 
strikin-  pro  .f  of  God's  care  for  spam, 
was  well  calculated  to  teach  the  p.-opl 
derness,   and  r.  gard    for  other  than   their  own    selfis 
-ratifications.  [-,,_  H    G\ 

BIRD-CAGES  are  twice  mentioned  in  Scripture,  to  be  applied  .-p -ciall 
Je.v.27;  Re.  xviii.  2;  but  there  is  no  other  reference  to  I  n  a  patriarchal  statt 
birds  being  kept  for  pleasure  in  the  house,  miles 

"playin-  with  a  bird"  be  nndiT.-t 1   of  this.   .Tobxli 

Perhaps   the  explanation    of   this    silence,   which   cold 

scarcely  be  looked  for  if  birds  were  as  commonly  kept  in     evideiic 

cages  as  they  are  with  u-,  mav  be   found    in   the  much  '•  but  not 


s  the  explanation  of  some  writers! 
like  many  other  thin-s   which  the 


Herod  s  did.  as  a  copy  of  the  customs  of  their  b'oman 
masters  and  other  heathen  neighbours.  Ccrtainlv  we 
are  told  that  the  later  Hebrews  looked  on  the  celebra 
tion  ,.f  birth-days  as  a  part  of  idolatrous  worship,  a 
view  which  would  be  abundantly  continue  1  hv  what 
they  saw  of  the  common  observance-  associated  with 
these  days.  Vet  the  language  of  Jeremiah,  taken  in 
connection  with  that  of  Job,  does  furnish  some  ground 
s.  M:c,  x. 2D,  and  for  thinking  that  birth-days  in  -encral  were  jovfullv 
mercy  and  ten-  '  remembered,  Ji.i.ri  3,ic.;Je  \\  it,  it- 

BIRTHRIGHT   is  anythin-  t  .  which    one    is    en 
titled  in  virtue  of  his  birth.      The  word,  however,  came 
to    the    ri-hts   of   the   first-born, 
of    society,  this   would  give  him 

authority  over  the  tribe  to  which  he  belonged,  as  in 
later  times  we  read  of  the  kingdom  naturally  descend- 
in-  in  this  way.  IK,  n  r.:  •_•<•],  xxi  3.  There  is  no  clear 
f  the  eldest  son  being  the  priest  of  the  family, 
little  against  it.  except  in  so  far  a-  prince 
greater  abundance  of  .-'// /.•'/«/-!. irds  with  us.  And  the  and  priest  m:-ht  be  one  and  the  same  person,  as  it 
passage  in  Jeremiah  ought  probably  to  be  understood  would  frequently  I,.-  till  the  law  of  Moses  in-titut.-d  n 

of  a  cage  or  loop  with    birds  in  it.  for  the  purpose  of     social   priesth I    for    Israel   in   the  familv  of  Aaron. 

'I'he  first-born  enjoyed  a  double  portion  of  his  father's 
property,  of  \\hich  the  law  of  Moses  forbade  the  father 
to  deprive  him  by  mere  caprice.  Do  xxi  l.vir.  I'.ut  it  is 
not  clear  that  this  law  would  have  prevented  the  first 
born  from  li.-ing  it  by  his  own  criminal  conduct,  as 
happened  under  th-  patriarchs,  ifli.v.  1,2.  Still  less, 
of  eour-e,  could  it  prevent  a  first-born  son  from  re- 
nounein-  his  right,  as  Ksau  sold  his.  Co  \xv  31-34. 
Since  this  birthri-ht  in  the  family  of  Abraham  brought 
the  bi-hest  spiritual  blessin-s  along  \\ith  it,  L-an's 
sale  of  hi<  for  a  mess  of  potta-e  wa-  an  act  of  reckless 
sensuality  which  stamped  him  as  a  profane  person, 
Hc.xii.lii.  The  first-born  biin-  the  first-fruits  of  the 


enticin-  and  entrappin-  other  birds. 

BIRTH.      (  n>d  adjnd-ed  a  -p  'cial  peiialtv  t  >  woman 
at    the   fall,    namely,    the   pains    and   dangers   of  child- 


Scripture,  a-  an  emble 
-nfferin-.     The  apostle 
connection  with  other  mark 
hi-    been   pleaded    to    lay   u 


Kvc's  part  in  the  ruin  of  our  world:  while  at  the  same 
tiiii-  lie  adds,  that  in  respect  of  spiritual  privileges  and 
hopes  ut  salvation,  -he  i-  in  no  way  beh;nd  her  partner 

m. in  ai riling  to    the  ble-sed  offers  of   the  -ospel.  but 

rather  is  in  the  direct  way  towards  etijovinir  them, 
when  she  meekly  bears  what  has  been  as.-igned  to  her. 
ITi.ii.ll-l...  The<e  pains  and  dan-ers.  however,  varv 
under  the  influence  of  different  climates  and  different 
states  of  society.  They  sutler  considerable  mitigation 
among  the  half-civiii/.ed  and  the  hard-working:  and  Cod 
brought  this  law  of  nature'  into  operation,  tliou-h  pr»- 
bably  be  aided  it  by  a  .-pecial  and  miraculous  blessin-, 
durin-  the  ].ersecution  of  bis  people  in  the  land  of  Kgvpt, 
K\.  i.  l.vni  |',y  the  Mo-aio  law  a  woman  wa- declared  to 
be  unclean  for  forty  days  in  the  case  of  the  birth  of  a 
male  child,  and  twice  as  long  if  it  were  a  female  ;  after 
which  the  mother  must  bring  for  her  cleansing  a  sin- 
offering  and  a  burnt-offering.  I.o  xii.;  as  is  reported  to  have 
been  done  by  the  mother  of  our  Lord.  Lu  ii.-jt.  As  soon 
as  a  child  was  born,  it  was  washed,  rubbed  with  salt, 
an  1  wrapped  in  swaddling-bands.  K/.;.  xvi.  i,  which  last 
custom  was  long  widely  spread  throu-h  the  world,  as  it 
still  is  in  the  East;  and  it  is  said  not  to  have  been  aban- 


d  >ned  in  our  own  c 
VOL   I. 


untrv  until  the  last  centurv. 


harvest  of  men,  so  to  speak,  God  repeatedly  dealt  with 
tin  in  as  representatives  of  the  entire  number.  In  this 
way  we  read  of  tin;  destruction  of  the  first-born  of 
K-vpt  and  the  >aving  of  the  first-born  of  Israel.  «. win- 
to  which  the  first-born  were  taken  to  be  bolv  to  the 
Lord.  i-:x  xxii  2fl,  thou-h  afterwards  he  directed  that 
they  should  be  redeemed,  while  he  took  the  tribe  of 
Levi  instead  of  them.  Nu.iii  I2,iu.;viii  u.ic.  P>ut  in  the 
same  way  the  whole  people  of  Israel  were  Cod's  first 
born  among  the  nations.  K\  u-  L-J,  as  the  spiritual  Israel 
or  church  of  ( Jod  at  all  times  must  be.  Ilo.  \ii  -j:; ;  .In.  i.  is. 
The  ground  or  reason  of  this  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the 
fact  that  the  real  Israel,  with  all  the  privileges  and 
consecration  of  the  first-born,  is  the  man  Christ  Jesus, 
who  is  at  the  same  time  the  only- begotten  Son  of  God, 
the  Heir  of  all  things,  and  the  First-born  among  manv 
brethren.  Jn.  i  1^;  He.  i.  t;  Ho.  viii .2:1. 

BISHOP.    The  opinions  of  theologians  have  differed 
from  very  remote  times  as  to  the  proper  organization 

29 


BISHOP 


BITTER 


;iiiil  goveniment  of  the  Christian  church:  and  one  of  the 
leading  questions  which  lias  ever  and  anon  come  up  for 
discussion  relates  to  the  otHee  of  a  bishop.  Does  Scrip- 
ture  teach  that  there  ought  to  he  an  official  order  ill  the 
church,  distinct  from  and  superior  to  the  ordinary  min 
isters  of  the  Word,  having  the  right  to  ordain  and  preside  j 
over  the  pastors  of  congregations?  This  question  is 
answered  in  the  aliirmativc  by  a  large  proportion  of 
Episcopalians,  those  who  uphold  as  divine  the  office  of 
bishop  in  its  modern  sense  as  including  the  superinten 
dence  of  a  diocese:  and  hy  some  of  them  it  is  urged  so 
strenuously,  that  they  believe  then:  is  no  church-state, 
no  rightful  ministry,  no  authoritative  preaching  of 
the  Word  or  administration  of  the  sacraments,  where 
such  bishops  do  not  exist.  Presbyterians  and  Congre- 
gationalists  or  .Independents,  together  with  not  a  few 
who  belong  to  the  Episcopal  Protestant  churches, 
answer  the  ((uestion  in  the  negative.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  discuss  such  a  question  ;  but  it  may  bo  per 
mitted  to  mention  the  form  which  the  controversy  has 
now  in  general  assumed.  .After  the  very  thorough 
examination  which  has  been  made  of  all  the  materials 
in  existence  for  forming  a,  decided  opinion,  the  advo 
cates  of  the  divine  right  of  Episcopacy,  in  the  s^nse 
here  explained,  do  now  in  general  an'ree  with  its  im- 
pugners  so  far,  that  the  scriptural  use  of  the  word 
bishop  is  not  that  use  which  is  contended  for.  One 
class  of  Episcopalians  rest  very  much  on  the  general 
consent  of  the  church  after  the  age  of  the  apostles;  and 
the  other  class,  who  find  evidence  in  favour  of  diocesan 
liishops  within  Scripture  itself,  for  the  most  part  do  so 
on  account  of  what  is  said  in  the  commencement  of  the 
book  of  Revelation  as  to  the  angels  of  the  churches,  or 
they  identify  Timothy  and  Titus  with  modern  bishops,  or 
they  look  on  bishops  now  as  the  successors  of  the  apostles. 
Hut  the  bishops  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
and  in  the  Epistles  are  not  distinguishable  from  the 
elders.  A  bishop  means  an  overseer,  as  it  is  translated 
Acts  xx.  28  :  and  this  title  is  given  to  those  who  in  ver. 
1  7  were  called  the  elders  of  the  church,  elder  being  the 
translation  of  the  Greek  title  presbyter.  ["The  English 
Bible  has  hardly  dealt  fairly  in  this  case  with  the  sacred 
text,  in  rendering  (.TriuKbirovs  orersccrs  :  whereas  it 
ought  there,  as  in  all  other  places,  to  have  been  bishops, 
that  the  fact  of  bishops  and  elders  having  been  origi 
nally  and  apostolically  synonymous  might  be  apparent 
to  the  ordinary  English  reader,  which  now  it  is  not."— 
Al/ord.~\  And  by  these  names  the  office-bearers  who 
taught  and  ruled  the  congregations  are  called;  oi-erseers, 
on  account  of  the  work  they  had  to  do,  lie.  xiii.  7, 17, 24; 
1  Th.  v.  12, 13;  1  To.  v.  i,  2;  and  elders,  on  account  of  their  nr/c, 
or  the  gravity  arid  fully  formed,  consistent  character  to 
which  they  had  attained.  They  are  also  called  pastors 
or  shepherds,  on  account  of  their  charge  of  the  flock  of 
God,  as  declared  in  many  of  these  passages,  Ep.  iv.  11. 
Bishops  and  elders  arc  not  mentioned  together,  but 
only  the  one  or  the  other,  AC.  xiv.  23;  Phi.  i.  i.  And  in  stat 
ing  the  qualifications  for  office  in  the  church,  Paul 
passes  at  once  from  bishops  to  deacons,  1  Ti.  iii.;  Tit.  i.  In. 
these  passages,  besides  the  personal  qualifications,  there 
are  some  mentioned  which  relate  to  the  family:  such  as 
ruling  their  own  households  rightly;  being  the  husband 
of  one  wife,  that  is,  probably,  not  stained  with  an  evil 
reputation  in  consequence  of  polygamy  and  divorce ; 
and  having  faithful  or  1  lelieving  children.  A  s  the  bishop 
was  the  marked  man  in  the  church,  and  the  church 
was  marked  in  the  eye  of  the  world,  and  had,  espe 


cially  at  that  time  when  the  gospel  was  first  preached, 
the  work  assigned  to  it  of  restoring  the  foundations  of 
society  which  had  been  destroyed  by  false  religion,  such 
requirements  were  justly  held  as  essential  as  those  on 
which,  in  modern  times,  attention  is  more  especially 
directed.  (Sec  Er.UF.u.)  [<:.c.  M.D.] 

BI'THRON.       »>«  BKTHKK. 

BITHYN'IA,  a  province  of  Asia  Minor,  the  nearest 
part  to  Europe,  being  directly  opposite  to  Constanti 
nople,  and  stretching  thence  eastward  along  the  shore 
of  the  J '.lack  Sea.  There  is  considerable  difficulty  in 
fixing  the  boundaries  of  Bithynia,  and  fortunately  it 
is  of  no  importance  for  the  illustration  of  the  Xew  Tes 
tament,  especially  as  it  does  not  name  even  one  of  the 
towns  of  this  province  in  which  churches  must  have 
been  gathered,  and  in  which  we  learn  from  church  his 
tory  that  they  became  famous.  Probably  these  boun 
daries  varied  considerably  at  different  times.  Strabo 
(xii  p.  Sfi:;),  makes  them  to  be,  on  the  east  the  Paphlago- 
nians,  Mariandyni,  and  some  tribes  of  the  Epicteti ;  on 
the  north,  the  line  of  coast  of  the  Huxine,  extending  from 
the  month  of  the  Sangarius  to  the  straits  at  By/antium 
and  Chalcedon  ;  on  the  west,  the  Propoiitis  ;  and  on  the 
south,  ilysia  and  Phrygia  Epictetus,  otherwise  called 
Hellespontiaca  Phrygia.  A  pretty  full  and  easily  ac 
cessible  discussion  of  the  subject  may  be  found  in 
Smith's  D/ctio/Hiri/  of  (Ircck  ami  Human  frcof/ra/J/i/, 
where  it  is  affirmed  that  our  maps  usually  make  the 
country  too  limited  :  at  the  same  time  it  is  said,  that  to 
fix  precisely  a  southern  boundary  seems  impossible.  In 
like  manner,  Bithynia  is  often  used  as  including  at 
least  a  considerable  portion  of  the  country  of  I'ontus 
oil  the  east,  which  had  been  an  entirely  distinct  king 
dom,  but  which  came  only  by  degrees  into  the  power 
of  the  Romans,  the  last  king  resigning  his  dominion  to 
Nero,  A.D.  03,  from  which  time  Pontus  appears  by 
name  in  the  list  of  Roman  province*.  But,  earlier 
than  Xero's  time,  it  is  probable  that  local  usage  at 
least  had  assigned  an  independent  place  to  Pontus, 
which  is  named  in  the  list  of  countries  from  which 
people  had  come  up  011  the  day  of  Pentecost,  Ac.  ii.  n, 
while  Bithynia  is  passed  over  in  silence.  In  the  in 
scription  of  the  first  epistle  of  Peter,  Pontus  is  placed 
at  the  beginning,  and  Bithynia  at  the  end  of  the  list 
of  countries. 

The  people  were  reckoned  uncivilized  by  some  of 
their  polished  neighbours.  The  Word  of  Hod,  however, 
appears  to  have  struck  root  early  and  deep  among 
them;  for,  though  Paul  was  once  forbidden  by  the 
Spirit  to  preach  among  them,  Ac.  xvi.  7,  yet  the  first 
epistle  of  Peter  is  addressed  to  the  strangers,  that  is, 
Cod's  pilgrims,  1  Pe.  i.  1,  in  Bithynia  and  the  neigh 
bouring  countries.  And  we  know  that,  within  a  gene 
ration  after  the  death  of  most  of  the  apostles,  the 
heathen  governor  of  the  country,  Pliny  the  younger, 
wrote  a  letter,  which  is  still  preserved,  to  his  master 
the  emperor  Trajan,  announcing  how  wonderfully 
Christianity  had  spread  there,  so  that  the  idolatrous 
temples  were  deserted,  and  the  sacrifices  were  aban 
doned  by  multitudes  ;  in  consequence  of  which,  counte 
nance  was  given  to  a  cruel  persecution,  with  the  view 
of  forcing  them  back  to  heathenism. 

BITTER  is  used  in  Scripture  as  an  emblem  of  sor 
row  or  suffering  in  any  way,  Ru.  i.  20,  &c.  We  read  in 
Am.  viii.  10,  of  a  bitter  day;  in  Hal),  i.  0,  of  the  Chal 
deans  as  a  bitter  and  hasty  nation;  in  Ac.  viii.  20,  of 
Simon  at  Samaria  being  still  in  the  gall  of  bitterness, 


&o.  The  Israelites  were  required  to  eat  the  passover 
with  (titter  herbs,  Kx.  xii.  >;  a  very  natural  appointment, 
as  they  remembered  the  bitterness  of  their  bondage, 
Ex.  i.  14,  and  connected  this  bondage  and  their  escape 
from  it  with  sin,  which  was  its  source,  and  the  free 
grace  of  God  who  had  delivered  them,  by  which  they 
were  called  to  deep  humiliation  and  earnest  repentance. 
What  these  bitter  herbs  in  particular  were,  it  is  now 
impossible  to  say;  if,  indeed,  the  truth  be  not  that  none 
in  particular  were  intended,  but  that  any  might  be 
taken  according  to  convenience. 

BITTERN  nsj3i  kippod.    Whether  this  word  signi 

fies  a  beast  or  a  bird  lias  been  much  di.-puted.      It  oc 
curs  but  three  times,  and  in  all   under  circumstance-; 
closely  similar,  viz.  as  an  accompaniment  of  utter  de 
solation.      Thus  in  Js.  xiv.  •!:">,  in  the  magnificent  dir-e 
upon  tlie  king.  if  Babylon,  the  Lord  declares  that  he  will 
make  that  proud  and  populous  citv  "a   possession  for  | 
tin.1  k/ji/in<l,  and  pools  of  water."      Again,  in  Is.  xxxiv.  i 
1  1,  where  in  conne<-ti"!i  with  the  names  of  Id  mm  -a  and 
Bo/rah,  a  state  of  terrible  judgment  and  desolation  is  i 
described.  as  introduct»ry  t»  the  restoration  and  bless 
ing  of  ransomed  Israel,  cli.xxxv  ,  the  picture  of  the  deso 
lation   is   heightened    by    the    presence    of   the   kippnd  :  \ 

"tin.'  coi'inoraiit  and  the  /-/////.»/  shall  po.~^ess  it." 
And  onee  in.  ire,  in  Xep.  ii.  1  J,  the  destruction  of  Nin- 
evi-h,  then  in  the  height  of  her  '_d"rv,  is  predicted  in 
the  following  terms  :  ".Jehovah  will  make  Nineveh  a 
desolation  and  dry  like  a  wilderness.  And  tlneks  shall 
lit;  down  in  the  mid-t  of  her,  all  the  beasts  of  the  na 
tions;  both  the  cormorant  and  the  /•/'//;»»/  shall  lod^e 
in  th-'  upper  lintels  [anjoiin'  the  laileli  cornices)  of  it: 
their  voice  shall  sing  |cry  |  tlirougli  the  windows  ;  desola 
tion  shall  lie  in  the  thresholds,  \\lielihe  hath  uncovered 
the  cedar-work. 

The  general  meaning  of  this  imagery  i-;  clear.  w  bet  her 
\\e  can  identity  the  particular  species  or  not;  \\hich 
point  is  therefore  interesting  chiefly  in  a  critical  view. 
I'ol.  Hamilton  Smith  labours  to  establish  the  common 
Knglish  rendering,  identifying  the  /•//,/,'»/  with  Un 
common  bittern  i  ISntum-ii*  xt<  //"/•/.-•!,  \\hieh  is  doubtless 
an  inhabitant  of  the  regions  indicated,  and  is  a  .-hv 
and  lonelv  bird,  with  a  solemn  startling  voice.  I'.ut 
the  proper  haunt  of  these  Ardeada-  is  water  ;  ri---dy, 
rushy  pools  and  shallow  streams  are  indispensable  to 
them,  both  as  atl'ordinv;  th-'in  f  .....  i.  and  a  convenient 
shelter  for  their  n,  sts.  The  ruins  of  I',ah\  Ion  do  indci  d 
stand  in  a  plain,  which  is  studdi  d  with  pools  ami 
marsho.  and  here  the  bittern  doubtless  finds  a  conge 
nial  home.  I'.ut  i  \eii  here  its  presence  can  searcelv  be 
red  as  indicative  of  desolation,  wh,!e  the  ruins 


•<  BLASPHEMY 

The  porcupine  (l[i/gtri(  crittnta)  answers  every  re 
quirement  of  the  appellation.  It  is  abundant  tlirough- 
out  Palestine.  Syria,  and  the  Euphrates  valley.  It  is 
a  nocturnal  animal,  and  therefore  lit  to  associate  with 
the  "  doleful  creatures  "  which  are  the  companions  of 
the  kijij'oil.  It  habitually  conceals  itself  in  dark  and 
lonely  places,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  found  in  the 


I 


of  Nineveh  have  no  \\ater  but  the  Tigris:  and  though 
the  Ardeaihe  may  certainly  be  looked  for  there.  they 
cannot  be  considered  as  characteristic  of  one  part  of 
the  rivers  course  more  than  another:  tin  v  were  pro 
bably  as  common  ulon^  the  rushy  margin  of  the  river 
when  the  queenly  city  stood  as  now.  The  arid  piv- 
einels  of  I'xi/.raii  and  other  Idumeail  cities,  however. 
totally  destitute  of  water,  absolutely  preclude  the  re 
sort  of  the  bittern  thither,  and  therefore  compel  us  to 
look  for  some  other  identification  of  the.  kqipod. 

The  philolov,crs  ha\e  almost  unanimously  referred 
the  word  to  a  hed_;chou'  or  porcupine.  The  Septuagint 
render  it  in  all  the  passages  by  ixlvos;  and  the  com 
mon  name  of  the  porcupine  throughout  Syria  is  kaii.- 
jihud,  which  is  etymologically  the  same  as  -5^7. 


ruins  of  fduniea  and  of  ]',;d,ylon.  Mr.  Ifieh  expressly 
says  in  his  attempts  to  explore  the  burned  mounds  of  an 
cient  Babylon,  which  arc  full  of  passages  and  galleries. 
"  1  fnmul'iuantitiesnf  [)orcupine([iiills."  And  in  the  visit 
of  the  Scottish  deputation  to  Palestine,  it  is  recorded 
that  "J>r.  Keith  tried  to  ascertain  from  [the  Bedouin 
chief)  the  fact  of  porcupines  being  found  in  Pctra:  he 
asked  him  what  the  k«ii;/fii<l  was.  when  the  Bedouin 
immediately  imitated  the  cry  it  uttered;  and  on  bein<_; 
shown  a  porcupine  quill,  at  once  ivco^ni/ed  it  as  be 
longing  to  the  /•«//;//»./."  This  wild  and  sudden  cry  of 
the  porcupine  forms  another  feature  in  the  identifica 
tion  with  the  doleful  creature  whose  voice  was  to  sound 
from  the  sculptured  windows.  1 1>.  n.  c.| 

BLACK  is  often  used  in  Scripture  to  denote  mourn 
ing.  though  there  is  no  c\  idence  that  the  Jews  actually 
wore  mourning  clothes  of  a  black  colour,  as  we  are  ac 
customed  to  do.  In  Mai.  iii.  I  I,  we  read  the  question 
of  the  hypocrites,  ''  What  profit  is  it  that  we  have 
walked  mournfully  (literally,  as  in  the  margin,  in  black; 
before  the  Lord.'  '  There  seems  to  have  been  an  im 
pression  a ug  the  people  that  excessive  hunger  and 

thirst  changed  the  colour  to  blackne-s.  See  especially 
La.  iv.  S  ;  v.  111.  But  the  words  in  these  two  passages 
refer  more  distinctly  to  the  colour  of  black,  than  does 
the  indeterminate  word  in  Malachi. 

BLA1NS  i-  a  word  used  in  the  description  of  the 
sixth  plague  which  was  sent  on  the  lv_;\  ptiaiis,  when 
Moses  scattered  the  furnace  ashes  in  the  air,  and  thus 
produced  a  boil  breaking  forth  with  Mains  upon  man 
and  upon  beast,  Kx.  ix.  !i,l<>.  [t  is  impossible  to  identify 
it  with  any  of  our  diseases  by  this  gem  ral  description. 
But  it  must  ha\e  been  some  sort  of  eruption  on  the 
skin,  perhaps  so  severe  as  to  bi  come  an  ulceiated  son-. 

BLASPHEMY  is  a  term  derived  from  the  (ireek 
language,  in  which  it  means  evil-speaking,  reviling, 
ami  the  like;  and  it  i.-  accordingly  so  rendered  in  our 
version,  as  in  .hide  0,  "a  r<iiliii'j  accusation,  '  literally 
"an  accusation  of  bla-pheiny,"  or  £>a  blasphemous  ac 
cusation."  Sometimes,  perhaps,  the  word  blasphemy 
has  been  retained  by  our  translators,  when  the  general 
meaning.  "  evil- speaking,"  or  '"calumny,"  might  have 
been  preferable,  as  in  Col.  iii.  8,  "Put  oil'  all  these; 
anger,  wrath,  malice,  blustpltemy,  filthy  communication, 
out  of  your  mouth."'  For  in  the  special  sense  imposed 
oil  the  word  in  the  Bible,  and  in  which  alone  we  use  it 
in  English,  blasphemy  is  confined  to  calumn)  or  wilful 


P.LASTrs 


BLINDNESS 


evil-speaking  against  (!-<>il,  in  his  being,  pursunal  attri 
butes,  word,  or  works.  A.nd  there  are  two  great  forms 
wliicli  blasphemy  assumes.  Hither,  first,  we  may  attri 
bute  some  evil  to  Cod,  <>r  (wliieh  is  the  same  in  sub 
stance)  take  away  some  good  which  we  ought  to  attri 
bute  to  him,  as  in  grossly  profane  use  of  his  name, 
I.e.  xxiv.  Il,^i-.;  KD.ii.il.  Or  else,  secondly,  we  may  uive 
the  attributes  of  Cod  to  a  creature,  robbing  Cod  of  that 
which  we  know  we  are  wrongfully  giving  to  another; 
and  this  is  the  form  of  blasphemy  which  the  Jews  pre 
tended  to  charge  upon  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  I.U.V.L'I; 
M.tt.  xxvi.  i;:>;  jn.  x.  ."»!>.  The  Jewish  punishment  of  blas- 
phemy  was  sinning  to  death,  Lo.  xxiv.  it;,  i:;;  cunixirc  Ac.  vi. 
11-1.');  ami  vii.  r.Mii). 

Blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Chost  was  a  sin  of 
which  our  Lord  pronounced  those  Jews  guilty,  who  saw 
his  blessed  miracles  of  love  and  mercy,  as  he  cast  out 
the  unclean  spirits  by  whom  men  were  possessed,  and 
yet  shut  their  minds  against  all  conviction,  and  endea 
voured  to  ruin  his  character  among  those  whom  they 
could  influence,  by  alleging  that  he  cast  out  devils  by  the 
prince  of  the  devils.  There  was  to  be  noticed,  in  those 
who  committed  this  sin.  a  resolute  opposition,  in  the 
most  obnoxious  form,  to  the  convincing  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit;  since  they  not  only  resisted  the  amazing 
evidence  with  which  he  pressed  on  their  attention  the 
divine  claims  of  the  Redeemer,  but  also  maliciously  and 
senselessly  attributed  to  Satan  the  working  of  the  good 
and  gracious  Spirit  of  Cod  ;  and  there  was  not  only  the 
deliberate  scaring  of  their  own  consciences,  so  that  no 
impression  could  henceforth  be  made  on  them,  but  there 
was  the  desperate  determination  to  involve  others  in 
their  own  intentional  perversion  of  the  truth  of  Cod  in 
a  matter  which  directly  and  immediately  related  to  sal 
vation.  Hence  our  Lord  declared  their  sin  to  be  un 
pardonable,  Mat.  xii.  lil,  Ac.;  Mar.  iii.  '_'*,&<'•  It  is  plain 
enough  that  no  one  now  can  commit  the  precis*'  sin 
which  these  eye-witnesses  of  his  miracles  committed  — 
the  same  formal  act  can  no  longer  be  repeated,  as,  the 
actual  circumstances  that  occasioned  it  no  longer  occur. 
Yet  it  were  rash  to  assert,  with  some,  that  men  are 
incapable  of  committing  this  sin  now;  for  this  were  to 
assume  that  change  of  outward  circumstances  made  an 
essential  difference.  Bather  we  may  believe  that  the 
awful  warning  has  been  set  clown  at  length  with  the 
view  of  furnishing  a  necessary  caution  to  the  end  of 
time.  There  may  be  manifestations  of  the  Spirit  in 
which  he  testifies  to  the  Lord  Jesus  as  striking! v  as 
by  these  miracles;  and  surely  there  maybe  the  same 
malicious  resistance  to  the  Spirit  in  one's  own  heart, 
coupled  with  the  same  profligate  attempt  to  involve 
others  in  that  guilt.  There  is  much  plausibilitv.  there 
fore,  in  the  view  of  those  who  reckon  that  this  sin  is 
spoken  of  in  He.  vi.  4-f!  ;  x.  29;  and  in  1  Jn.  v.  10. 
But  granting  that  this  is  so,  we  need  not  wonder  that 
a  mystery  overhangs  the  whole  of  this  fearful  subject. 
Xo  one,  perhaps,  is  in  circumstances  to  know  exactly 
what  this  sin  is,  who  has  not  committed  it;  while  he 
who  has  committed  it  is  given  over  to  a  reprobate 
mind,  so  as  never  to  have  any  qualms  of  conscience 
on  account  of  it,  nor  any  desire  to  bestow  consideration 
upon  it.  |'c.  c.  M.  n.  j 

BLA'STUS,  the  chamberlain  of  King  Herod  Aurip- 
pa.  The  people  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  secured  his  good 
offices,  when  they  aimed  at  a  reconciliation  with  the 
king;  for  it  was  natural  that  such  officers  should  have 
great  influence  with  their  masters,  Ac.  xii.  20. 


BLEMISHES,  spots,  or  stains,  were  personal  de 
fects  which  marked  out  certain  members  of  the  priestly 
family  as  unfit  for  drawing  near  to  minister  at  the  altar 
of  (iod,  though  he  kindly  reserved  to  them  all  their 
worldly  immunities  and  privileges;  and  again,  similar 
defects  which  marked  out  individuals  among  the  ani 
mals  usually  ottered  in  sacrifice  as  being  unfit  to  be 
offered,  l-u.  xxi.  ii;-2i;  xxii.  L'II-L'.").  .According  to  the  nature 
of  the  institutions  of  worship  in  the  Old  Testament, 
these  bodily  defects  were  symbols  of  spiritual  blemishes, 
from  which  Christ,  our  great  High-priest  and  atoning 
sacrifice,  and  all  his  people  as  priests  and  sacrifices  in 
a  subordinate  sense,  are  free,  i  Pe.  i.  ni;  Kj>.  v.  .7;  KD.  xii.  i. 

BLESSING  is  used  in  Scripture,  as  in  common  lan 
guage,  in  various  senses.  Most  strictly  and  properly, 
perhaps,  (!od  is  said  to  bless  men,  «;e  i.  -Jvxxii.  '<";  m  the 
one  case  unf alien  man,  in  the  other  case  men  fallen, 
but  to  be  recovered  by  the  covenant  of  grace.  Answer 
ing  to  this,  men  are  said  to  bless  Cod,  when  they  ac 
knowledge  his  having  blessed  them,  and  praise  him  for  it, 
Ps.  ciii.  Further,  men  bless  their  fellowmen,  when  they 
pray  Cod  to  bestow  his  blessing.  When  this  is  done 
with  authority,  according  to  Cod's  known  will,  "the 
less  is  blessed  of  the  better,"  lie.  vii.  7;  and  that  blessing 
which  Cod  instructs  his  servants  in  any  case  to  pro 
nounce,  he  will  charge  himself  actually  to  bestow. 
Thus  it  was  the  standing  duty  and  privilege  of  the  priests 
of  the  family  of  Aaron  to  bless  the  people  of  Israel  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  DC.  x.  s,  the  special  form  of  bless 
ing  being  set  down  at  length  in  Nu.  vi.  '2'2-'27 .  Partly 
following  the  example  of  Noah,  <;e.  ix.  a;,  27,  the  aged  or 
dying  patriarchs  Isaac  and  Jacob  were  also  directed 
by  the  Spirit  of  prophecy  to  pronounce  very  remarkable 
blessings  upon  their  children,  Ge.  xxvii.  xlviii.  .xlix.  This 
last  passage,  the  parting  words  of  Jacob  to  his  sons, 
marking  out  their  character  and  their  history  in  their 
persons  and  in  their  descendants,  not  simply  as  men, 
but  as  the  heads  of  Cod's  covenant-people,  and  with 
reference  to  his  promises  of  the  coining  Saviour  and  his 
salvation  for  which  they  were  to  wait,  may  be  compared 
with  the  blessing  which  Moses,  ere  he  died,  was  guided 
to  pronounce  upon  the  people,  as  they  were  on  the  point 
of  entering  the  Land  of  Promise,  Do.  x.xxii1. 

BLESSING,  THE  CUP  OF,  a  name  applied  to 
the  cup  in  the  Lord's  supper,  i  CD.  x.  10,  as  it  would 
seem,  on  account  of  the  same  name  having  been  given 
by  the  Jews  to  the  cup  of  wine  used  in  the  supper  of 
the  passover. 

BLESSING,  VALLEY  OF.     ,sve  BEKACUAH. 

BLINDING.     .Vc  PUMS.HMKNTS. 

BLINDNESS  is  a  defect  painfully  known  to  man 
kind  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe.  It  is  however  awfully 
common  in  Kgypt  :lt  the  present  day,  and  probably  may 
have  been  so  for  ages.  Tn  the  Bible  we  read  of  it  as 
not  merely  a  common  failing  in  extreme  old  age,  as 
seems  to  have  happened  in  the  instances  of  Isaac,  Jacob, 
and  the  prophet  Ahijah,  but  also  as  a  somewhat  pre 
valent  disease,  if  we  may  conjecture  from  the  prominent 
place  which  cures  of  blindness  occupy  in  the  miracles 
of  Jesus.  To  some  extent  this  may  have  been  arranged 
on  acci  >unt  of  the  striking  spiritual  instruction  which  such 
cures  were  calculated  to  convey,  see  Jn.  ix.  For  blindness 
is  a  natural  and  common  emblem  of  spiritual  darkness  : 
and,  in  fact,  bodily  blindness  was  sometimes  inflicted 
by  miracle  as  a  punishment  in  itself,  and  a  means  of 
bringing  home  to  a  sinner  the  conviction  of  his  helpless 
and  miserable  condition  when  he  should  fall  into  the 


BLOOD 


hands  of  tho  God  with  whom  \vo  have  to  do.  Go.  xix.  11; 
UKi.vi.  is;  Ac  ix.  v>;  xiii.  ii.  As  ill  other  similar  cases,  the 
law  of  God  to  Israel  required  them  to  deal  tenderly 
with  those  on  whom  his  hand  was  laid  in  the  way  of 
such  a  heavy  infliction  as  this,  Le.  xix.  H;  De.  xxvii.  is, 
Blindness  was  also  inflicted  as  a  punishment,  Ju.  xvi.  ->\, 

-  Ivi.  xxv.  7;comp.  1  Sa.  xi.  2. 

BLOOD  was  forbidden  to  lie  eaten  l>y  the  people  of 
(iod  during  the  dispensation  of  the  Old  Testament, 
this  rule  having  been  given  to  Xoah  at  the  time  when 
animal  food  was  first  permitted  to  man.  Go  ix.  4,  and  tho 
prohibition  being  very  often  repeated  in  the  laws  of 
.Moses.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  this 
was  on  account  of  the  blood  being  specially  ott'rred  to 
God  in  sacrifice.  The  same  reason  in  some  measure 
applied  to  the  fat;  so  that  in  one  passage  the  fat  and 
the  blond  an.'  forbiddi-n  together,  i.«  iii.  17.  But  tho 
meaning  of  this  is  moiv  fully  to  In;  explained  under  tin- 
article  S.U'KIKK'K.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  tho  life  is 
in  the  blood,  as  is  often  declared  by  .Moses,  and  that 
the  life  of  the  sacrifice  was  taken  and  the  blood  offered 
to  God,  as  a  representative  of  the  offerer,  and  a  suh.sti- 
tute  for  him,  Le.  xvii.  il  ;  in  \\hicli  versu  the  la.-t  clause 
'literally  translate, I  makes  this  truth  plainer,  "The  life 
of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blond  ;  and  I  have  given  it  to  v.u 
upon  the  altar  to  make  an  atonement  for  yur  souls; 
for  it  is  the  blood  that  maketh  an  atonement  by  means 
ot  the  .soul.''  >,'o\v  that  animal  sacrifices  have  been 
abolish,'. I  by  the  one  sacrilic f  Christ,  it  is  the  pre 
valent  opinion  of  Christians  that  blood  may  be  eaten  as 
uell  as  any  other  article  of  diet.  In  holding  this  view, 
it  is  ot'  course  necessary  to  hold  al>o  that  the  decree  of 
the  council  at  Jerusalem  which  forbade  the  eating  of 
blood,  A'-,  xv,  was  a  temporary  arraum  -m.  nt,  rendered 
expedient  by  the  then  existing  relations  of  Jewish  and 
( ieutile  ( 'hristians. 

BLOOD,  AVENGER  OF.  In  the  countries  aroun.l 
Palestine  th'-  practice  prevails,  and  always  has  pre 
vailed,  so  far  as  we  know,  of  leaving  the  punishment  of 
manslaughter  or  murder  (for  tho  two  are  not  clearly 
di-UimuUhed<  to  the  nearest  relation  of  the  deceased, 

\\  ho  is  called  in  Scripture  the  avenger  of  hi I.      Traces 

of  its  existence  occur  in  the  remotest  times  of  the  pa 
triarchs,  Uo.  ix.  .'>,(!;  xxvii.  41,  4.->;  comp  2  Sa.  xiv.  7.  A  better 
system  of  jurisprudence  takes  this,  as  well  as  lighter 
punishments,  out  of  the  hands  of  private  parties  alto 
gether,  and  place*  it  in  the  hands  of  the  magistrate. 
As  a  mitigation  of  the  evil,  the  feuds,  and  passinnate- 
ncss,  and  loss  of  precious  life,  in  many  cases  a  nioiiev- 
payment  has  been  more  or  less  recommended  or  en 
forced;  and  it  was  allowed  to  the  Arabs  by  their  false 
prophet  .Mahomet.  Something  of  the  same  practice  of 
blood- revenge,  and  the  same  permission  of  compensa 
tion,  is  found  in  the  ancient  Icelandic  sau'as  ;  and  resem 
blances,  more  or  less  dose,  appear  in  the  laws  of  \vrv 
many  primitive  nations.  In  the  political  law  of  Israel. 
( Joel  permitted  the  practice  of  punishment  by  the  nearest 
relative  to  continue,  while  rules  were  laid  down  to  pie 
vent  the  chief  abuses  incident  to  it.  The  distinction 
was  sharply  drawn  between  murder  and  manslaughter. 
For  tho  former  no  ransom  or  satisfaction  was  permitted. 
In  the  case  of  the  latter,  however,  there  were  six  cities 
set  apart  out  of  the  number  which  the  Levites  occu 
pied,  placed  at  suitabl,'  distances  over  the  extent  of  tho 
land,  thro;  on  each  side  of  Jordan,  with  roads  leading  to 
them  which  wore  well  l<opt  up,  and  those  were  cities  of 
refuge  to  which  the  man-slayer  might  flee,  and  within 


which  he  should  dwell  safely  without  fear  of  the  avenger. 
But  he  was  not  permitted  to  return  to  his  own  place  ; 
in  fact,  he  had  no  safety  if  he  left  his  place  of  refuge, 
until  the  death  of  the  high-priest  during  whose  term 
of  office  his  misfortune  had  occurred,  Xu.  \xxv.  10,  ie.; 
Do.  xix.  1-1:;. 

Some  readers  of  the  Bible  have  expressed  amazement 
at  the  incorporation  of  this  law  of  blood-revenge  into 
the  law  of  (.rod  to  Israel,  no  matter  under  what  restric 
tions.  But  the  manner  in  which  a  punishment  is  in 
flicted,  is  one  of  those  arrangements  of  subordinate  im 
portance  which  may  vary  greatly  with  the  varying 
circumstances  of  those  among  whom  the  law  is  estab 
lished.  There  is  an  extremely  favourable  testimony 
borne  to  the  working  of  even  the  Arab  law  by  two  most 
competent  witnesses,  Uurckhardt  and  Lavard.  The 
latter  writes  I  liiso"vcrics  ill  tho  Ruin.-,  of  Nineveh  ;uul  Bal.ylon, 

t>.  :i'i:..  ;:n<;)  :  — "  Although  a  law,  rendering  a  man  respon 
sible  for  blood  shed  by  any  one  related  to  him  within  the 
fifth  decree,  may  appear  to  members  of  a  civilized  com 
munity  one  of  extraordinary  rigour,  and  involving  al 
most  manifest  injustice,  it  must  nevertheless  be  admit 
ted,  that  no  power  vested  in  any  one  individual,  and 
no  punishment  however  severe,  could  tend  more  to  the 
maintenance  of  order  and  the  prevention  of  bloodshed 
amongst  the  wild  tribes  of  the  desert.  As  Bmvkhardt 
has  justly  remarked,  '  This  salutary  institution  has  con 
tributed,  in  a  greater  degree  than  any  other  circum 
stance,  to  prevent  the  warlike  tribes  of  Arabia  from 
exterminating  one  another."  If  the  eflects  of  this 


arrane'euieu 


t    h 


•ecu  MI  nappy,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  the  wisdom  of  God  was  fully  justified  in  im 
posing  it,  in  a  modified  and  amended  form  (and  not, 
perhaps,  without  a  t\  pica!  import  in  the  connection  be 
tween  the  death  of  the  high-priest  and  the  return  of  the 
man  slaver  from  the  city  of  refuge),  on  a  people  of  the 
same  race,  feelings,  and  habits  as  the  Arabs,  and  living 
in  close  proximity  to  the  great  Arabian  divert,  into 
which  the  murderer  miuht  generally  have'  i  scaped  be 
fore  tin-  magistrate  could  apprehend  him,  after  the  de 
lays  which  are  inseparable  from  forms  of  justice. 

|G.  c'.  M.  l).  | 

BLOODY  SWEAT.     ,s,  Ar.oxv. 

BOANER'GES  [*nns  -/  thunder,  but  not  pure  He 
brew,  some  vernacular  Aramaic  form),  a  name  which 
our  Lord  applied  to  James  and  John,  the  sons  of  Xebe- 
dee.  whom  lie  chose  to  be  apostles  :  the  meaning  of  the 
title  being  added  by  the  evangelist.  .Mar.  iii.  ir.  There 
is  in.  explanation  of  the  reason  of  this  surname.  Per 
haps  it  referred  to  a  fiery  impetuosity  in  their  natural 
dispositions,  Lu.  ix.  4!i,:,l.  This  may  seem  very  unlike 
what  we  should  have  anticipated  in  the  disciple  whom 
JeMis  loved.  l!ut  the  tenderness  which  marked  bis 
later  character  may  have  been  the  effect  of  special  grace, 
as  he  and  his  brother  had  ventured,  in  a  peculiar  man 
ner,  to  offer  themselves  to  be  baptized  with  the  baptism 
with  which  their  Lord  was  baptized,  Mur.  x.  .>, :'». 

BOAR.  SOW,  S WINK  (i«-,  chaz'ir;  {••>,  /<>/.<,  Xo'tpos. 

<•/!<>! r<>x).  The  scriptural  allusions  to  this  well-known 
animal  are  far  less  numerous  than  might  have  been  ex 
pected,  from  its  common  occurrence  in  Palestine  and 
the  neighbouring  countries,  as  well  as  from  its  having 
l)ecoiue  to  Jewish  minds  the  impersonation  of  that  which 
is  unclean  and  abominable.  Its  flesh  was  indeed  for 
bidden  to  be  eaten  by  the  law  of  Moses,  Lo.  xi.  •;  Do.  xiv.  f; 
but  so  was  the  flesh  of  the  camel,  and  of  other  animals. 


'no  A  it 


230 


BOCHLM 


which  never  appear  to  hiivu  been  regarded  with  such  '  The  predatory  habits  of  the  wild  swine  are  alluded 
abhorrence  as  the  swine.  In  tho  horrible  cruelties  per-  '  to  in  that  beautiful  allegory,  1's.  Ixxx.  i:j,  in  which  Israel 
petrated  by  Antiochus  upon  the  .Jews,  2  Mac.  vi.  vii.,  the  is  <le])icted  under  the  symbol  of  a  choice  vine,  trans- 
eating  of  swine's  flesh  was  the  test  of  apostasy  ;  and  in  ])lanted  and  tended  by  Jehovah's  care,  but  now  exposed 

to  the  brutal  assaults  of  the  heathen,  who,  like  a  wild 
boar  in  a  vineyard,  trampled  it  under  foot  and  laid  it 
Ixvi.  17,  are  levelled  at  those  profane  Israelites  "  who  ate     waste. 

tilings  was  in 


accordance    witli    this    odious    eminence,    some    of    the 
closing  denunciations  of    the   prophet    Isaiah,    Is.lxv.4; 


swine's  flesh,  and  broth  of  abominable, 
their  vessels.''  Among  the  modern  Jews  the  habit  of 
considering  this  kind  of  meat  as  polluted,  has  induced 
a  revulsion  which  is  in  nowise  subject  to  the  will ;  so 
that  individuals  converted  to  Christianity,  and  perfectly 
aware  that  the  divine  prohibition  had  ceased,  have 
struggled  earnestly  but  vainly  to  overcome  their  anti 


pathy  to  it,  though  sincerely  desirous  of  conforming  to 
the  customs  of  their  C'hristian  brethren. 

In  the  time  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  covctousness  had  so 
far  effected  a  compromise  with  duty,  that  Israelites 
could  keep  large  herds  of  the  abominable  animal  whose 
flesh  they  dared  not  touch.  A  herd  of  above  two  thou 
sand  is  mentioned  in  the  sacred  narrative  as  fed  on  the 
eastern  borders  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  Gadarenes  might  salve  their  consciences  by  the 
remembrance  that,  though  they  could  not  eat  pork,  the 


Gentiles  could  and  did,  and  Gentile  money  would  not 


introducing,  into  his  beautiful  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son,  the  image  of  the  young  man  being  sent  into  the 
fields  to  feed  swine,  Lu.  xv.  i:.,  as  the  lowest  point  of 
degradation  and  misery  to  a  Jew,  though  the  scene  \vas 
laid  in  "a  far  country." 


has  seen  good  to  record,  there  is  solemn  spiritual  in 
struction  hidden  beneath  the  surface.  The  lord  of  the 
vineyard,  the  heir  of  the  inheritance,  comes  to  visit 
his  portion,  and  he  finds  it  occupied  by  demons  and 
swine;  the  brute  and  the  devil  are  rioting  in  what  he 
had  set  apart  for  himself  as  "  a  delightsome  land."  The 
unclean  beasts  rush  from  his  presence  into  the  sea  ;  the 
unclean  spirits  are  driven  into  the  abyss;  but  Israel  have 
no  heart  for  the  deliverance:  they  prefer  their  devils  and 
their  swine  to  the  Holy  One  of  God;  they  intreat  him  to 
depart  out  of  their  coasts;  and  as  he  does  not  go  quickly 
enough,  they  kill  him,  and  cast  him  out.  What  a  picture 
of  man — man  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances 
— man  under  the  immediate  government  of  God  ! 

The  sordid  habits  of  the  swine,  at  least  in  a  state  of 
domestication,  its  filthy  and  indiscriminate  feeding,  and 
its  irreclaimable  fondness  for  wallowing  in  the  mire, 
2  i'u.  ii.  •!•>,  are  fit  emblems  of  that  proclivity  to  sin  which 


That  such  are  the  habits  of  the  wild  boar,  we  have 
abundant  testimonies  from  travellers.  The  wooded 
region  that  surrounds  the  sources  of  the  Jordan,  the 
shaggy  slopes  of  Tabor  and  Carmel,  and  the 
thickets  that  border  the  persistent  river-courses,  still 
shelter  numerous  wild  swine,  which  continually  make 
their  predatory  forays  into  the  cultivated  fields  and 
vineyards,  to  the  great  loss  of  the  agriculturists.  Air. 
Hartley  has  recorded  an  incident  strikingly  in  unison 
with  the  above  allusion.  His  friend,  the  Ivev.  Air. 
Leeves,  was  proceeding  in  the  dusk  of  the  evening  from 
Constantinople  to  Therapia.  1'assing  a  vineyard,  he 
observed  an  animal  of  large  size  rushing  forth  front 
among  the  vines,  crossing  the  road,  and  taking  to  night 
with  great  precipitation.  "The  Creek  syrogee,  who 
was  riding  first,  exclaimed,  '  Yopovvi  \  Yopovvi  ! '--- '  Wild 
boar!  "Wild  boar!' — and  really  it  proved  a  wild  boar, 
who  was  retreating  from  the  vineyards  to  the  wood. 
'  What  has  the  wild  boar  to  do  in  the  vineyard  T  in 
quired  Mr.  Leeves.  'Oh!'  said  the  syrogee,  "tis  the 
custom  of  wild  boars  to  frequent  the  vineyards,  and  to 
devour  the  grapes.'  And  it  is  astonishing  what  havoc 
a  wild  boar  is  capable  of  effecting  during  a  single  night. 
What  with  eating,  and  what  with  trampling  under  foot, 
he  will  destroy  a  vast  quantity  of  grapes"  ( Kcsuarche.s  in 
34).  [P.H.G.] 


1.  The  name  of 


BOAT.     &e  SHIP. 

BO'AZ,  OR  BO'OZ  [I inly  or  ayilc 


a  man  who  occupies  a  prominent  position  in  the  book  of 
Ruth.  He  married  Ruth,  in  virtue  of  his  being  the 
nearest  relative  of  her  deceased  husband  who  was  will 
ing  to  take  on  himself  the  responsibilities  and  duties 
imposed  on  such  by  the  law  of  Moses,  Do.  xxv.  5.  There 
are  circumstances  in  his  conduct  which  appear  some 
what  strange  to  us  ;  but  they  are  easily  explained  from 
the  simplicity  of  early  manners,  and  also  from  customs 
still  prevalent  in  the  East.  Yet  no  one  can  read  the 
book  in  an  unprejudiced  spirit,  without  the  impression 
that  this  was  a  pure  and  high-minded  man,  one  that 
feared  the  Lord,  and  aimed  at  fulfilling  his  obligations 
to  his  fellowmen  in  the  kindliest  spirit.  Boaz  and  Ruth 
were  ancestors  of  David,  and  so  of  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  BOA/  was  also  the  name  of  one  of  the  two  pillars 
erected  at  the  porch  of  Solomon's  temple,  1  Ki.  vii.  21. 
The  meaning  of  this  name  is  often  stated  to  be,  as  in 
the  margin  of  the  Bible,  "  In  it  is  strength,"  but  this 


marks  the  corrupt  nature  of  man;  and  perhaps  contri-  ',  explanation  is  at  the  best  extremely  doubtful, 
buted,  by  association  of  ideas,  to  beget  that  feeling  of  |       BO'CHIM  [u-ccper*~]  was  the  name  given  to  a  place 
abhorrence  to  the  animal,  to  which  we  have  above  al-     which  is  otherwise  unknown  to  us,  where  the  children  of 
hided.      No  jewellery  could  make  a  swine's  face  comely,  .  Israel  wept  before  the  Lord  and  sacrificed  to  him,  when 
as  the  absence  of  virtue  makes  female  beauty  itself    they  had  been  rebuked  for  their  sinful  conformity  to  the 


hateful,  Pr.  xi.  ±>. 

The  brutish  insensibility  of  the  swine  to  everything 
but  their  own  foul  appetites,  is  employed  by  the  Lord 
Jesus,  Mat.  vii.  (i,  to  represent  gross  and  sensual  persons 
on  whom  the  kindly  offices  of  brotherly  reproof  would 
be  thrown  away  ;  and  the  presentation  of  the  more 
refined  and  deeper  enjoyments  of  heavenly  and  divine 
things,  might  subject  the  speaker  to  vile  abuse  and 
spiteful  persecution. 


heathen,  Ju.  ii.  1-5.  The  first  verse  cannot  be  translated 
correctly  otherwise  than  thus,  "And  the  Angel  of  the 
Lord  (not  an  angel,  as  in  our  version)  came  up  from 
Gilgal  to  Bochim,  and  said,  I  have  made  you  to  go  up 
out  of  Egypt,"  &c.  We  must,  therefore,  understand 
it  of  a  miraculous  and  easily  observable  movement  of 
the  uncreated  Angel  of  the  Covenant,  the  same  who 
had  gone  before  the  people  in  the  pillar  of  cloud,  and 
who  now  mo  veil  up  to  this  place  of  solemn  repentance 


BOH  AX 


BOTTLES 


from  Gilgal,  where  the  congregation  may  have  met  in 
memory  of  the  early  days  of  God's  presence,  while 
Joshua  lived,  and  when  the  covenant  was  first  publicly 
ratified  in  the  Land  of  Promise,  De.  xi.  29,3d;  Jos.  v.  o,  10. 

BO  HAN  [the  Thumb],  a  son  of  Reuben,  in  honour 
of  whom  a  stone  was  named,  that  is  twice  mentioned 
as  a  land-mark  in  tracing  the  boundary  between  the 
tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  Jos.  xv.  C;  xviii.  ir.  No 
thing  is  known  either  of  the  person  or  of  the  place. 

BOND,  BONDAGE.     &c  SLAVKKY. 

BOOK.  The  substances  used  for  books  and  for 
writing  upon  are  treated  of  under  WRITING.  There 
are,  however,  some  expressions  in  Scripture  which  may 
suitably  be  noticed  at  present. 

To  ait  a.  botilc,  as  some  of  the  prophets  \\viv  com 
manded  to  do,  Kze.  ii.  v;  iii.  2;  lie.  x.  '.>,  can  only  mean,  as  a 
svmbol,  to  master  the  contents  <>f  the  book  :  as  i;  is  ex 
plained,  Jo.  xv.  ic,. 

A  KI it/i'il  !>"<>!:  is  one  closed  up  from  view  ;  for  seals 
were  often  put  on  articles  to  keep  them  secret,  in  cases 
in  which  it  would  have  been  our  custom  to  make  them 
safe  under  lock  and  key.  Is.  .\\ix.n.  Jf  such  a  book 
were  H'ri/tcn  vithin  am/  mi  the  liarkxldc,  He.  v.  l  i  which 
is  casilv  intelligible,  if  we  reinoniljer  that  ancient  liooks 
were  generally  roll*  of  paperi,  a  writing  of  tliis  sort 
\\niild  not  be  legible  till  tile  seals  \\vre  broken:  and 
yet  portions,  at  least  fragments  of  it.  inight  be  read,  so 
as  to  awaken  curiosity.  And  sucli  is  pre-eminently  the 
case  with  (  '« id's  Imok  of  history.  stretching  forward  into 
all  time. 

THK  HOOK  or  TIII:  Livixr..  IN.  i\;\.  2-,  or  Tin:  P.OMK 
or  LIFK.  Phi.  iv.  3,  which  two  expressions  are  the  sajiie 
in  Hebrew,  appears  at  first  .-i^lit  to  represent  all  livim: 
men  as  written  down  in  a  book  before  (  lod.  out  of  which 
they  are  struck  or  blotted  when  they  die,  Kx.  xxxii.  :ii!. 
Hut  the  more  that  men  considered  wliat  it  was  to  lie 
''written  aino  IT.;'  the  liviiiLT  in  Jerusalem,"  and  for  "the 
Lord  to  count,  when  lie  writeth  up  the  people,  that 
this  man  was  born  there."  [s.  iv.3;  Ps.lxxxvii.  G,  the  more 
tliev  would  understand  that  his  book,  in  the  strict  sense, 
t) ic  list  of  his  own  people,  is  one  in  which  no  blotting  out 
is  possible,  so  that  all  who  are  written  in  it,  shall  never 
lie  touched  by  the  second  death.  This  is  "the  Lamb's 
book  of  lite."  i;,.  !;•;.  ;,;  Xx.  i:,;  \\i  27.  The  figure  of  speech 
is  reckoned  by  some  to  refer  immediately  to  a  roll  of 
citizens,  bv  others  I"  the  muster  roll  of  an  army 

BOOTHS  are  huts  made  of  branches  of  trees,  or  such 
other  verv  perishal)le  materials,  in  places  of  this  sort 
Jacob  and  his  family  seem  to  have  dwelt  as  they  came 
from  I'adan-aram  into  ( 'anaan  ;  for  "booths"  is  the 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  word  Succotll,  (ic.  rxxiii.  17. 
In  a  place  of  the  same  sort,  the  people,  or  at  least  their 
leaders,  may  have  dwelt  when  they  came  out  of  Ivjvpt. 
Kx  \iii.2n.  .In  memory  of  this,  their  dwelling  in  booths 
(including,  no  doubt,  their  dwelling  in  tents  in  the  wil 
derness,  since  I nith  were  habitations  of  the  same  slight 
and  easily  nioveable  kind),  the  children  of  Israel  were 
required  to  dwell  in  booths  every  year  during  the  feast 
of  tabernacles,  or  of  booths,  as  the  word  might  have 
been  rendered,  with  greater  attention  to  uniformity, 
I,o.  xxiii.  :!:!-».•?;  nnap.  Xe.  vih.  11-fv 

BOOTY.     See  SPOIL. 

BORROW.  It  is  extremely  unfortunate  that  this 
word  should  have  been  used  by  our  translators  in  the 
account  of  the  Israelites  receiving  the  riches  of  Egypt, 
when  they  were  on  the  point  of  leaving  the  country  for 
ever,  Ex.  iii.  22;  xii.  3.1,  3fi.  In  this  mistranslation  they 


have  certainly  followed  the  example  of  many  who  went 
before  them,  as  they  have  been  defended  by  eminent 
scholars  down  to  the  present  day;  hut  there  is  no 
ground  whatever  for  thinking  that  the  verb  in  the  ori 
ginal  has  in  itself  any  meaning  besides  that  of  simple 
asking.  The  latter  of  these  two  passages  should  there 
fore  run  us  :  "  And  the  children  of  Israel  did  according 
to  the  word  of  Moses,  and  they  axkal  of  the  Egyptians 
jewels  of  silver,  and  jewels  of  gold,  and  raiment.  And 
the  Lord  gave  the  people  favour  in  the  sight  of  tin- 
Egyptians,  so  that  they  m/nlc  than  auk''  such  things  as 
they  required,  or  perhaps,  "  urged  them  to  ask  :  and  they 
spoiled  the  Egyptians."  The  Egyptians  had  lost  their 
power  of  oppressing  the  Israelites:  in  fact,  were  afraid 
that  they  were  changing  places  with  them,  tlu  y  were 
anxious  therefore  that  the  Israelites  should  be  gone, 
and  to  hasten  their  departure,  they  pressed  them  to  ask. 
and  to  take  anything,  however  precious,  which  they 
might  desire.  This  agrees  with  the  prophetic  description 
of  Moses.  Kx.  xi.  s,  and  with  the  language  of  I's.  cv.  3T,  38. 
All  the  more  the  Israelites  might  make  heavy  demands 
when  they  remembered  their  past  sufferings,  and  when 

j  they  proposed  to  adorn  themselves  for  going  out  to  hold 
their  feast  to  the  Lord.  lint  it  is  an  unfounded  and 

j  unreasonable  assumption  that  the  Egyptians  could  pos 
sibly  imagine  that  the  transaction  \\as  a  borrowing; 
and  the  defences  which  have  been  offered  for  the  conduct 
of  the  Israelites,  on  the  supposition  that  it  was  so,  are 
not  satisfactory. 

BOSOM.  The  intimacy  and  love  which  we  also 
express  bv  this  word,  as  when  we  speak  of  Imfn'in 
friends,  was  well  known  to  the  ancients,  and  is  found 
in  the  language  of  Scripture.  In  fact,  the  expression 
was  literally  a  description  of  the  nearest  friend,  who  at 
a  feast,  \slien  they  reclined  on  couches,  actually  lav  in 
the  bosom  of  another.  .In  xiii.  2:;.  Thus  the  beggar 
La/arus.  in  our  Lord's  discourse.  \\as  carried  at  his 
death,  by  angels,  into  Abraham's  bosom,  that  is,  to  a 
high  place  at  the  feast  with  Abraham.  Isaac,  and  Jacob, 
in  the  kingdom  of  God.  Thus,  too,  the  only-begotten 
Son  is  said  to  lie  in  the  bosom  of  the  Eather,  Jn.  i.  is. 
Again,  as  the  Good  Shepherd,  lie  is  himself  represented 
carrying  the  lambs  in  his  bosom,  is.  \i.n. 

BOSSES.  The  out-standing  parts  of  a  shield,  and 
thus  the  thickest  and  strongest.  Yet  against  these  do 
t!v  enemies  of  God  ru>h.  madly  and  powerlessly. 

Jol.  XV.  L'li. 

BOTTLES.     The   most  common  words  in  the  old 

and  New  Testaments,  which  we  render  "bottles,"  are 
literally  nothing  else  than  ''skins."  The  skins  of  ani 
mals,  oxen,  sheep,  and  goats,  the  last  most  frequently 


^\0 


[122.|        Skin  TVittlos. 


among  the  Arabs,  are  still  in  common  use  i.i  Asia  for 
carrying  water,  wine,  and  other  liquids;  the  openings 
at  the  feet  and  at  the  neck  being  close  J.  up  entirely,  or 
so  as  to  be  used  for  pouring  out  the  contents.  Such 


nOTTLES 


now 


skin  bottk's  have  many  advantages,  and  especially  for 


c.irriaure  on  the  hacks  or  both  men  and   animals  when 


travelling    through    districts    where    water    is    scarce 


n'i  t:>  a  chili  from  a  Skin 


124.1        Egyptian  Bottles  of  Glass  and  Earthenware, 
i-'ruiu  specimens  in  the  British  Museum. 

1,  Darkish  olive  preen  class,  similar  to  the  colour  now  used.  3,  4,  Glass 
olive  green  tint.  5,  White  class.  2.  G,  Vane-atr,!  this-;,  hlu  •  and  yellow. 
7.  Deep  blue  glass.  8,  Eartueir.vare,  Ii;;lit  reddish  colour.  t),  11,  1-2,  Red 
earthenware. 

Jus.  ix.  4, 13.  Especially  new  wine,  at  the  time  of  fermen 
tation,  would  be  apt  to  rend  old  skins,  Mat.  ix.  17,  as  in 
deed  even  new  ones  might  sometimes  with  difficulty 
resist  the  strain  and  pressure.  Job  xxxii.  in.  Such  a  skin- 


[125.]     Assyrian  Bottles  of  Glass.  —  From  specimens  in  Brit.  Mus. 
1.  liluo  glass  bottle.        '2,  Purple  handled. 


They  would  wear  done,  however,  immeasurably  sooner 
than  glass  bottles  —as  in  the  case  of  the  bottles  of  the 
Gibeonites,  which  had  grown  old,  and  rent,  and  had 
been  bound  up  during  their  journey,  as  they  pretended, 


these  skin-bottles.  Bottles  of  glass,  and  porcelain,  and 
earthen- ware,  of  all  shapes,  from  the  simplest  to  the 
most  ornamental,  many  of  them  beautiful  in  form,  are 
1  found  in  abundance  in  the  monuments  of  Egypt,  and 
of  a  date  probably  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  .Moses: 
and  we  have  no  reason  to  doujbt  that  the  art  of  making 
these  was  carried  with  them  by  the  Israelites.  There 
are  frequent  indications  of  their  having  such  bottles, 
and  at  a  very  early  period  of  their  history.  .Jeremiah 
expressly  mentions  the  potters'  earthen  bottles,  and  the 
dashing  of  them  to  pieces,  Je.  xix.  i-in;  xiii.  12-11. 

BOW,  BOWING,  as  an  attitude  indicative  of  rever 
ence  or  respect,  appears  to  have  been  in  use  from  the  ear 
liest  times.   We  read  of  Abraham,  when  transacting  with 
the  Canaanite   chiefs  for  the  purchase   of   a    burying- 
ground,  rising  up,  and  ''  bowing  himself  to  the  people 
of  the    land/'    Go.  xxiii.  7.      .Reference  is  made  to   the 
custom  once  and  again  in  the  history  of  Abraham's  im 
mediate  descendants  ;  and  when  Jacob,  on  the  occasion 
of  meeting  with  his  brother  Esau,  wished  to  show  pecu 
liar  deference  and  regard,  he  is  even  said  to  have  bowed 
j  himself  to  the  ground  seven  times.  Go.  xxxiii.  3.      Bowing 
;  of  this  sort —bowing  to  the  ground  —is  such  a  bending 
}  of  the  body  as  brings  the  upper  part  into  nearly  right 
]  angles  with  tli3  lower,  and  is  to  this  day  very  frequently 
practised  in  the  East.     There,   indeed,  both  in  earlier 
and  later  times,  such   marks  of  obeisance  have  often 
been  carried  much  further — not   to  profound   bowing 
j  merely,  but  to  absolute  prostration,  or  falling  on  one's 
face  to  the  ground.      This  practice  also  is  noticed  in 
j  Scripture,   though  most  commonly  in  connection  with 
strictly  religious  homage,  Go.  xvii. :;;  1.  IS;  Le.  ix.  21,  &c.  The 
more  common  attitude,  even  for  the  expression  of  such 
homage,  was  bowing;  and  hence  to  "bow  the  knee  to 
Jehovah,"   or  to  Baal,  became  a  familiar  mode  of  ex 
pressing  the  doing  of  worship  and  service  to  them.  Jos. 

xxiii.  7, 10;  IKi.  xix.  18;  Is.  xlv.  2:1,  &c. 

BOW.  The  Bow  ix  THE  CLOUD,  or  llainhoiL;  is  an 
object  so  striking  to  even  the  most  careless  and  unima 
ginative,  that  we  cannot  wonder  at  the  fables  of  poets, 
and  the  use  which  has  been  made  of  it  in  heathen 
mythology.  In  Scripture  itself  this  bow  is  introduced 
as  the  sign  of  the  covenant  which  God  made  with  Xoali, 
on  occasion  of  accepting  the  sacrifice  which  the  patriarch 
offered  after  he  came  out  in  safety  from  the  ark, 
Ge.  ix.  i:i-i7.  As  often  as  it  appeared,  it  was  to  be  a 
pledge  that  God  would  no  more  send  a  universal  deluge 
to  destroy  the  race  of  man  :  as,  iu  fact,  the  very  nature 
of  the  rainbow  implies  that  the  rain  is  only  partial,  that 
there  is  sunshine  as  well  as  shower.  1 1  has  been  some 
times  alleged  that  this  passage  assumes  that  a  rainbow 
had  never  been  seen  before.  But  such  an  allegation  is 
not  warranted  by  parallel  passages  in  Scripture,  from 
which  we  learn  that  objects  in  nature,  or  practices  in 
use  among  men  already,  were  taken  out  of  the  sphere 
of  ordinary  natural  life,  and  elevated  to  a  higher  plat 
form,  when  God  set  them  apart  to  his  own  service  as 
tokens  of  one  or  other  of  his  covenants :  and  this  is  all 
that  is  asserted  in  regard  to  the  rainbow.  This  ''ap 
pearance  of  the  bow  that  is  in  the  cloud  in  the  day  of 
rain"  was  witnessed  by  Ezekiel,  ch.  i.  2s,  in  his  vision  of 
the  glory  which  surrounded  the  Lord  when  sitting  on  his 
throne  of  glory  ;  and  again,  it  appears  in  the  visions  of 
the  book  of  .Revelations,  cli.  iv.  3;  x.  1.  In  all  these  cases, 
there  need  be  no  question  that  the  rainbow  is  the  sign 
or  seal  of  the  covenant  of  grace,  the  token  of  that  cove 
nant  in  which  God  remembers  mercy  in  the  midst  of 


BOW 


BOZRAH 


wrath,  and  spares  his  chosen  remnant  at  the  very 
time  of  taking  vengeance  on  his  enemies.  In  this  way 
Peter  has  connected  the  salvation  of  Xoah  by  the 
Hood  with  another  token  of  the  covenant  of  grace, 
!  Pe.  iii.  in,  ii.  \c,.  <;.  M.  ix] 

BOW.     Xrr  ARMS. 

BOWELS.  These  are  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  as  the 
seat  of  the  feelings,  especially  mercy  and  compassion, 
Ge.  xliii.  so ;  Phi.  ii.  i;  much  as  the  heart  is  reckoned 
among  us. 

BOWL.  Several  words  in  Hebrew  are  rendered  bv 
this  term  in  the  English  Bible,  and  no  doubt  with 
substantial  correctness;  though  minor  differences  in  the 
structure  of  the  respective  vessels  indicated  arc;  neces 
sarily  lost  siu'iit  of.  I '.tit  iin  means  exist  for  obtaining 
any  direct  information  respecting  these;  and  as  the 
Hebrews  were  not  a  manufacturing  people,  the  proba 
bility  is.  that  the  vessels  commonly  in  use  of  ih.a  de 
scription  would  exhibit  no  great  variety,  and  would  he 
much  of  the  same  sort  as  existed  amon^  the  nations 


1,  Uronz,-  I 
:i,  I,  Ivu-tii.'ii  i; 
.1,  l!lu,.  porcdii 
7.  <H:i/c<l  iiiirtl 
teoDtlnlvi 


aroun  1  them.  Specimens  «i  these  are  given  in  the  an 
nexed  cut  (  N'o.  1  •_>(!)  from  th  •  remains  of  1-V-ypt  and 
Assyria.  It  \vill  be  observed,  not  only  that  they  are 
nearly  all  ornamented  with  sculpture,  but  that  two  of 
them  (fig*.  3, -l)  have  also  inscription-  written  ,.n  the 
inner  surface.  This  appears  to  have  I  icon  a  practice 
peculiar  to  Assyria;  and  what  is  curious  i  though  no  re 
ference  i-  made  to  it  in  Scriptmvi  the  inscriptions  on 
some  of  the  bowls  discovered  are  \\rilten  in  characters 
not  unlike  the  I  lebrew.  and  supposed  to  express  cer 
tain  amulets  or  charms  in  the  dial. lean  language. 
The  dilticulty  connected  with  the  deciphering  of  the 
characters  is  aggravated  by  the  extreme  faintness  in 
many  places  of  tin;  ink  in  which  they  have  been  writ 
ten.  Hut  an  attempt  has,  notwithstanding,  been  made 
by  Mr.-Kllis  of  the  British  Museum  to  render  them 
into  English.  !!••  admits  it  to  be  in  yreat  part  con 
jectural;  but  both  lie  and  Mr.  Bayard  are  of  opinion, 
that  there  can  be  little  doubt  of  the  Jewish  origin  of 
the  inscribed  howls,  and  that  they  may  reasonably  lie 
supposed  to  have  belonged  to  the  descendants  of  those 
Jews  who  wen;  carried  captive  bv  Nebuchadnezzar  to 
Babylon  (Lavar.l's  Nineveh  aii.l  i'.ubyhm,  p.  .•,.«--,:<<;).  As  mat 
ters  stand  at  present,  it  is  the /»;•>/!  only  of  the  bowls, 
and  the  fact  that  they  sometimes  contained  inscriptions 
inside,  of  which  any  certain  account  can  be  made. 

Vol..    I. 


BOX  TREE.  Describing  the  Tyrian  navy  Ezekiel 
says:  —  ''Of  oaks  of  Bashan  they  made  thy  oars,  thy 
plank-work  (deck)  they  made  ivory  (i.e.  they  inlaid 
with  ivory),  with  boxes  from  the  isle  of  Cyprus,"1  eh. 
xxvii.  t! — Faii-bairn's  translation.  And  in  predicting  the 
church's  final  prosperity,  Isaiah  says: — "The  glory  of 
Lebanon  shall  come  unto  thee,  the  fir  tree,  the  pine 
tree,  and  the  box  together,  to  beautify  the  place  of  my 
sanctuary/'  di.ix.i:;.  The  original  word  hv^xm.  1«i*knrt 

has  usually  been  rendered  "box  tree,"  and  there  is  no 
good  reason  against  it  :  although  some  have  fancied, 
that  the  passage,  is.  xii  in.  requires  a  loftier  and  more 
imposing  tree.  Any  one,  however,  who  has  seen  the 
beauty  imparted  to  a  chalky  ridge,  like  Boxhill  in 
.  .Surrey,  by  a  profusion  of  this  pretty  evergreen,  will 
allow  that  it  might  be  an  appropriate  and  \v<  leome 
ornament  to  the  desert. 

The  box  tree  (Hiis/ix  *  ,n/,frri,'(  //.-•),  belonging  to  the 
order  Euphorbiaceit,  occurs  throughout  Europe  and 
Asia,  from  ;>7  to  :~>'2  N.  lat.,  usually  mi  mountains, 
and  as  an  undergrowth  amongst  other  tries.  In  Bri 
tain  we  are  most  familiar  with  it  as  a  lowly  but  com 
pact  edging  around  garden  paths;  but  when  allowed 
to  grow  untrinrmed,  it  \\ill  attain  a  b'-iuht  of  live  and 
twenty  feet.  Its  tolerance  of  the  knife  has  made  it 
the  favourite  material  for  "verdant  sculpture;"  and 
that  fashion  of  carving  trees  into  fantastic  shapes, 
which  we  iiM!aI!\  ascribe  to  the  early  Dutch  gardeners, 
i-i  as  old  as  the  days  of  IMiny,  for  his  Tusctilan  villa 
was  adorned  with  animal.-  cut  out  of  box  in  r,.w.- 
answering  to  one  another.  'I  he  yellow  wood  is  re 
markably  hard  and  solid,  being  the  onlv  Kun.pean 
timber  which  v,  ill  .-ink  in  water.  (London's  Trees  ami 
shrubs.)  It  take>  a  very  tine  polish,  and  was  formerly 
much  used  in  cabinet-making.  In  the  town  of  St. 
Claude1,  in  France,  th'-v  still  manufacture,  both  from 
the  mots  and  hranehes  of  the  box.  vast  quanlitns  of 
snuff-boxes,  button*,  rosary  beads,  and  spoons;  but  the 
_Teat  modern  demand  is  for  wood-engraving.  To  the 
wood-engraver  box  is  what  ivory  is  to  ihe  miniature 
painter.  For  this  purpose  the  specimens  occurring  in 
northern  latitudes  are  usually  too  small  ;  but  large 
supplies  are  \earl\  imported  from  Turkey  and  the 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 

Xo  wood  could  be  more  suitable  for  in-laying,  the 
purpose  to  which  it,  i.,  ascribed  bv  K/.ekiel.  It  cuts 
beautifully,  and.  when  properly  seasoned,  is  not  ivadv 
to  war]).  Ilciie.  it  is  the  material  most  commonly 
used  for  earpi-nters'  rules,  the  scales  of  thermometers, 
and  mathematical  in-truni'-nts.  where  precision  and 
fineness  of  notation  are  indispensable.  [.i.  n.| 

BOZ'RAH  [induxim  ,  xlicrpfolJ],  one  of  the  ],rincipal 
towns  in  the  territory  of  Kdoni.  Itappears  in  the  e;ir 
liest  list  we  have  of  the  Fdomite  race  and  their  local 
settlements,  f.v.  xxxvi.  :«,  where  .lobab.  the  successor  of 
P.ela  as  king  of  F.dom.  is  styled  "  Jobab  of  Bozrah." 
From  the  connection,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  this  place  lay  somewhere  in  the  proper  Fdomito 
territory,  between  the  south  of  ( 'anaan  and  the  Red  Sea. 
The  references  to  it  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  and 
Amos,  is.  xxxiv.i;;  ixiii.  i;  Am.  i.  ii,  convey  the  same  im 
pression  ;  they  point  to  it  as  a  chief  city  of  Kdoni,  at  a 
time  when  the  possessions  of  that  tribe  are  known  to 
have  been  usually  confined  to  the  well-known  mountain 
range  of  Idumsea.  An  allusion  in  Micah.  eh.  ii.  li,  simply 
by  way  of  comparison,  "as  the  flocks  of  Bozrah,''  in- 

30 


m.'ACKLETS 


J34 


P.ltACELETS 


dicates  nothing  as  to  the  Ideality;  mid  it  is  even  doubtful 
whether  the  word  should  lie  taken  as  a  proper  name, 
whether  we  should  not  render,  "as  Hocks  of  the  fold. 
The  only  other  passage  in  Scripture  in  which  the 
name  occurs  is  Jo.  xlviii.  '24  ;  and  there  it  is  classed 
with  Kerioth,  lletlnueon,  and  other  cities  of  .Moab,  far 
or  iionr.  on  wliich  the  judgment  of  Heaven  was  going 
to  fall.  It  is  supposed  hv  some  (amon'_r  others,  by 
Itobinson.  Researches,  ii.  p.  .'.71)  that  this  was  the  same 
city  with  that  referred  to  in  the  other  passages,  as  in 
those  turbulent  and  warring  times,  particular  districts 
mid  towns  often  passed  from  one  hand  to  another. 
This  may  certainly  !>«•  regarded  as  possible,  though  one 
can  scarcely  say  altogether  probable;  and  it  is,  upon 
the  whole,  more  natural  to  imagine,  that,  within  the 
proper  territory  of  .Moab,  there  was  some  place  of  the 
name  <>f  |;(i/.rah.  though  in  itself  of  little  note,  and 
hence  not  elsewhere  mentioned.  This  is  by  no  means 
unlikely,  as  the  word  is  one  that,  in  pastoral  coun 
tries,  would  naturally  lie  deemed  an  appropriate  desig 
nation  for  several  places. 

That  the  ISozrah,  in  all  the  other  passages  of  Scripture, 
was  a  strictly  Edoinitish  town  both  in  locality  and  popu 
lation,  and  not  ia-;  Porter,  Kitto.  and  some  others,  have 
held)  the  P.ostra  of  the  ( )  reeks  and  1  tomans,  far  oil'  in 
the  Hauran,  at  the  distance  of  So  or 'loo  miles  from  the 
proper  country  of  Kdom,  is  the  opinion  of  by  much  tilt- 
greatest  number  of  biblical  interpreters  and  uv-ogn>- 
pliers.  A  city  so  closely  identified  with  Kdom  as 
P>ozrah  is  in  Scripture,  and  manifestly  regarded  as  one 
of  its  centres  of  power  and  influence,  could  never  have- 
been  a  place  remote  from  the  ordinary  possessions  of 
the  tribe,  and  at  the  mo.-t  held  in  some  occasional 
periods  of  military  conquest.  History  knows  nothing 
even  of  such  ;  nor  is  there  any  evidence  that  the  Mostra 
in  question  was  ever  noticed  in  Scripture.  The  [''do- 
mite  I'ozrah,  with  which  alone  we  have  to  do,  was  iden 
tified  by  P.nrckhardt  witli  Busseirah.  or  P>usairoh.  a 
village  about  "l'\  hours  south  of  Tfifileh,  situated  on  a 
hill,  with  a  small  castle  on  the  top,  and  containing 
nearly  fifty  houses.  This  is  most  probably  the  ivpre- 
seiitativo  of  the  old  city  and  fortress,  though  nothing 
remains  of  the  ancient  strength  and  greatness.  It  lies 
about  half  way  between  .Petra  and  the  Dead  Sea,  and 
in  its  present  state  is  a  place  of  110  interest.  Centuries 
of  desolation  have  passed  over  it,  as  over  most  other 
towns  in  the  region. 

BRACELETS.  In  all  countries  of  the  world  there 
prevails  the  practice  of  wearing  ornaments  on  the  wrist, 
to  which  we  familiarly  give  the  name  of  bracelets.  Hut 
owing  to  the  lavish  use  of  these  in  the  lands  of  the 
Ilil  >le,  as  testified  by  travellers  to  this  day  in  Syria, 
Kgvpt,  and  Persia,  it  has  become  usual  to  employ  an 
additional  name,  am  let;  partly  because  these  are  worn 
in  such  numbers  that  they  run  up  the  arm,  so  as  to 
occupy  the  greater  part  of  the  space  between  the  wrist 
and  the  elbow,  and  partly  because  it  has  been  suggested 
that  armlet  might  be  restricted  to  designate  the  orna 
ment  worn  by  men.  and  especially  by  princes  or  other 
men  of  rank,  as  one  of  the  marks  of  their  high  position. 
There  are  five  Hebrew  words,  which  are  all  occasionally 
translated  lirncdit  in  our  version.  Two  of  these  may 
lie  at  once  set  aside,  ^TZ,  j>(fl<i/,  Go.  xxxviii.  is, -_>f>,  which 
is  elsewhere  rendered  lace,  thread,  ribband,  and  here 
means  the  >/i/ard  of  Judah's  signet  or  other  ornaments; 
and  IT,  hlnilih,  Ex..  xxxv.  22,  commonly  rendered  a  hoai; 
and  here  probably  a  hrnncJi  or  ornamental  pin.  Of  the 


other  throe,  n">'\i%  */;m///,  is  used  only  once,  in  the 
plural,  Is.  iii.  i!i;  etymologically  it  means  a  clinin,  or 
something  irrcatli  cd;  and  bracelets  of  this  kind  of  work 
are  common  in  the  East,  though  it  is  unsafe  to  press 
such  an  argument.  The  other  two  words  are  TCY. 


tzfinlil,  and  -"lyYtt'  ftsHtlaJi,  which  are  more  difficult 
to  distinguish.  The  former,  signifving  by  its  etymology 
anything  that  is  bound  together,  and  closely  connected 
with  the  word  for  "  a  yoke,"  is  used  in  Nu.  xxxi  />()  with 
nothing  to  identify  it,  but  elsewhere  always  in  the  plural, 
and  with  the  addition  "upon  the  hands,"  Go.  xxiv.  •>•>,  ::n, 
•17;  Ezc.  xvi.  11;  xxiii.  4-J-.  we  have  therefore  enough  to  satisfy 
us  that  it  is  a  bracelet.  The  remaining  word,  ets'ada/i, 
occurring  in  ~2  Sa.  i.  10:  "I  took  ....  the  bracelet 
that  was  on  his  arm."  is  obviously  one  of  the  insignia 
of  royalty  found  on  the  body  of  Saul,  and  is  what  we 
have  already  called  an  <ir,,i!<t.  In  the  only  other  pas 
sage  in  which  it  occurs,  Nu.  xxxi.  :.",  and  where  it  is  ren 
dered  ''chain,"  on  account  of  feem Id,  " bracelet,"  which 
immediately  follows,  it  is  still  rendered  cinn/i-f  by  Kitto, 
and  he  takes  it  to  be  the  ornament  of  the  men,  as  the 
followin'.:'  word  he  takes  to  IK:  that  of  the  women. 

But  the  etymolou'V  of  ftx'adali  connects  it  immedi 
ately  with  the  verb  in  xtc)>.  and  therefore  it  might  with 
great  propriety  be  rendered  by  another  word,  which 
acquaintance  with  eastern  habits  has  brought  into  use 


among  us,  an  anklet.  Were  it  not  that  the  above-men 
tioned  text  relating  to  king  Saul  makes  it  manifest  that 
it  sometimes  meant  an  armlet,  there  would  be  no  reason 


BRAMBLE 


JLUtEAl) 


to  hesitate  about  calling  it  an  anklet;  Eor  in  addition 
to  the  argum 'lit  from  etymology,  there  is  another  from 
the  existence  of  an  additional  word,  differing  from  it 
only  in  the  pronunciation  of  a  helping  vowel,  te  \ulah. 
Is.  iii.  *P,  rightly  translated  in  English,  with  the  authority 
of  ancient  versions  and  tradition,  "ornaments  of  the 
legs."  And  this  is  confirmed  by  the  use  of  vet  one 
word  more,  \/r.<,  is.  iii.  1-,  properly  a  feller,  hut  tliere 
ijiiite  correctly  rendered  'tinkling  ornaments  about 
their  feet.  '  An  anklet  is  eertainlv  an  ornament  of 
which  we  do  not  readily  think  much:  but  it  is  com 
monly  worn,  and  much  admired  in  Syria  and  Egypt, 
and  more  or  less  in  India.  It  is  shown  on  the  Egyptian 
sculptures  as  worn  by  both  men  and  women  ;  and  it  was 
reckoned  of  so  much  importance  by  Mahomet,  that  in 
the  Koran  lie  forbade  women  to  use  it.  |<;.  r.  M.  I).  ' 

BRAMBLE.  To  English  readers  the  word  bramble 
at  once  suggests  the  trailing  hush  so  plentiful  in  almost 
every  hedge,  whose  '•black-berries"  have  stained  so 
many  "little  lips"  beside-  those  of  the  babes  in  th ••  old 
ballad,  and  whose  curved  priekle.-.  intliet  on  rapacious 
fingers  so  severe  a  penalty.  But  the  common  bramble 
(Rubus  fructicosua)  is  a  nortliern  plant.  '1'lie  uttnl 
crjS'l  of  tlie  Bible  is  more  probably  a  species  of  the 

rhanmaecous  order  — a  plant  of  \\hich  I  )ioseorides  gives 
as  a  synonym  dra5,ui  (Harris's  .Viinml  IIi-,:.,ry  of  il.c  liil.ltO, 
and  which  greatly  snrpa.sses  it-  Briti.-h  ally,  tin-  Rliam- 
nus  cathurtti-n.t.  or  buektliorn.  in  the  profusion  of  its 
stilt' and  trenchant  thorns  projecting  from  its  flexible, 
and  drooping  branches.  The  plant  in  question,  the 
Puliurustiriilcattimtf  Lamouroux,  or  lUnunnut  /m/ii/rn.* 
of  Linnaeus,  is  a  deciduous  bush  or  lowly  tree,  abundant 
in  1'alcstiiic.  It  also  grows  freely  in  Italy,  where  it  is 
used  for  making  fences;  but  fm-  tin-;,  owing  to  its  pro 
pensity  to  spread  and  encroach,  it  is  not  so  well  adapted 


f  129. J        Christ's  thorn  -Zi.v;/;-/t«.s  ,i/,i»w  Christi. 

as  our  own  beautiful  hawthorn  or  May.  However, 
with  its  jagged  branches  and  its  stunted  stature,  no 
tree  could  be  more  fitting  for  the  preposterous  and 
consequential  speaker  in  Jotham's  parable,  Ju.  ix.  s-is. 
This  is  the  oldest  fable  in  existence,  and  it  is  interest- 


1  ing  to  note  that   the  dramatis  pcrtuTuc  belong  to  the 
I  vegetable  kingdom. 

The   "bramble- bush"  of  Ln.    vi.    44  i^drosV   is  evi- 

\  dently  some  lowly  thorny  shrub,  by  its  habit  or  stature 

i  suggesting  the  vine.     Very  possibly  it  is  the  same  plant 

!  which  has  acquired  a  solemn  interest  from  the  cireum- 

:  stance  that  it  is   generally   recognized    as   that  \\hieh 

'  furnished   the   materials  for  the   crown   of  thorns,    Mat. 

xxvii.  .:>.      The  plant  to  which  we  allude  is  closely  allied 

to    the    paliurus    above    described --vi/..    the    /i.:i/j>/<it* 

i  fjiinii.    (.'/triffi   of    Willdeiiow.    named    IiluUnitux   f/n'mt 

Ciirixti  by  Linmuus,  and  Rltdiiu/iix  AV/(V<(  by  Forskal. 

This   shrubby  plant   grows   to  the  height  of  six  feet   or 

more,  and  yields  a  slightly  acid  fruit,  about  the  size  of 

the  sloe,  which  is  eaten  by  the    Egyptians  and  Arabs. 

Like  its  cognate,  palinrus.  it  abound-  in  flexible  twi-s, 

which  are   armed    with   a    profusion    of    sharp,    strong 

prickles,  growing  in   pairs,  the  one   straight,  the  other 

somewhat  recurved.  [,).  M.] 

BRANCH.  Sinct.  it  i-  common  to  speak  of  a  family 
as  a  tree,  the  members  of  that  family  are  its  branches;  a 
manner  of  speaking  which  is  found  in  our  own  language 
as  \\ell  as  in  that  of  the  Bible.  .Naturally  we  iind  it 
used  especially  of  distinguished  families,  who  are  com 
pared  to  lofty  trees,  as  the  royal  family  of  l>a\id  is  to 
the  cedar  of  Lebanon.  i-;/L.  xvii  So  Christ,  the  Son  of 
l»a\iil,  is  named  a  Branch  and  a  Rod  from  the  stem 
and  ro,,t  ,,f  I  lavid.  and  of  I  >a\  id'-  obscure  father  .lose, 
as  he  '_TC\\  up  out  of  the  dry  -round  \\heii  the  royal 
family  w  a-  reduced  to  a  \ery  low  condition,  (s.xi.1; 
liii  -.  And  this  name,  the  Branch,  came  to  be  a  special 
title  of  the  promised  Saviour,  Jo.  xxiii.j;  Zoc.  hi.  S;  vi.  12 
An  <il,. in, 'ui, (I, I,  l,riin,-lt.  again.  Is.  xiv.  in,  has  been  ex 
plained  to  lie  a  branch  on  which  a  malefactor  had  been 
handed,  and  which  i-  alleged  to  have  been  buried  alon-' 
\\itli  him.  I'ultni-i  tin  hi-iini-li  t<>  tin  HIIKC,  K/.c.  viii.  ir, 
must  lie  some  idolatrous  ceremony,  but  it  is  not  cer 
tainly  kno\vn  wha' . 

BRASS.  This  word  is  u-ed  by  u-  to  denote  a  mixed 
metal,  composed  of  copper  and  /inc.  which  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  known  till  the  thirteenth  century. 
At  any  rate  ,,<  lm.<li>  Ih.  which  is  translated  in  the 
liible  "brass."  must  have  been  a  natural  metal,  dug 
out  of  the  earth,  hu.viii  :i;  and  uc  nerallv  it  is  supposed 
to  have  been  copper.  However,  it  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  alter  the  common  rendering,  especially  \\heii  we  con 
sider  that  it  ha-  been  usual  in  all  a'_res  to  mix  up  copper 
with  other  meia!-.  for  greater  comenience  in  working, 
and  for  superior  qualities  which  it  thus  acquires.  One 
of  these  mixed  metals  connected  with  copper  is  bronze, 
and  thi<  was  extensively  employed  in  ancient  time-,  and 
it  may  be  strictly  tin;  metal  intended  in  many  parts 
ot  Scripture.  Brass  is  a  common  emblem  of  strength, 
I's  cvii.  10;  Je.i.  1*;  .Mi.  iv.  in,  as  indeed  arms  and  armour 
were  often  made  of  this  metal,  as  we  make  them  of 
-teel.  By  a  iie\\  'application  of  the  ti^mv,  brass  is  used 
for  stubbornness,  and  perhaps  impudence,  is.  \lviii.  !;  Jo. 
vi.  L"<.  (.Si  further  under  CnrrKK.i 

BRAZEN  SERPENT.  (See  SKIU>KNT,  I'.HAXEN). 
BREAD.  In  the  liible  1,,-nnl  is  taken  in  a  pretty 
wide  sense,  as  including  all  that  supports  life;  as  in 
the  petition.  "<live  us  this  day  our  daily  l>rcad."  But 
in  strictness  it  denotes  baked  food,  and  especially  loaves. 
Tn  general  these  must  have  been  thinner  and  crisper 
than  our  loaves,  more  like  many  cakes  or  biscuits,  as 
indeed  frequent  mention  is  made  of  wafers,  which  are 
the  thinnest  cakes  that  can  be  baked  :  and  owing  to 


BKKAI) 


this  peculiarity,  we  read  habitually,  in  it  of  cuttimj  bread,  j  into  baggage  which  they  curried  on  their  shoulders  out 
but  of  !n-c<iJ:in<i  bread.  The  material  used  might  be  \  of  Kgypt,  Kx.xii.;;i.  Some  suppose  them  to  have  been 
any  kind  of  meal  or  Hour;  l,ut  practically  \ve  may'  mere  pieces  of  ka'Jier,  such  as  are  at  present  used  for 
reckon  that  it  was  chief! v  wheat  Hour  or  barley  meal, 


generally  the  former,  unless  the  latter  is  expressly 
named,  Ju.  vii.  i:;,  Ju.  vi.  ;i,  in  which  passages  there  is  an 
allusion  to  h.'irley  as  furnishing  the  coarser  and  poorer 
of  the  two  chief  kinds  of  bread.  Compare  the  prices  of 
these  two  kinds  of  food,  •>  Ki.  vii.  1 ;  Ho.  vi  o.  Families 


1.  2.  "K-yptuais  delivering  <1'>u:,rh.        '•'>,  Egyptian  baker 


appear  to  have  baked  their  own  bread  in  general,  wliich 
even  a  king's  daughter  might  do,  2Sa.xiii.fi,  as  the  mis 
tress  of  the  house  had  done  in  primitive  patriarchal 
times,  Go.  xviii.  o.  But  there  were  also  professed  bakers, 
Uo.  vii  i;  jo.  xxxvii.-'i,  probably  for  the  most  part  in  the 
large  towns,  where  public  ovens  would  be  convenient 


From  specimens 


il'33.J        Egyptian  curryiii;,-  loaves,  with  seeds  .stuck  on  thci 


this  purpose  by  the  wandering  Arabs:  others  believe 
that  they  were  bowls  of  wood,  but  not  large,  intended 
only  to  hold  the  'oread  which  one  family  used  during 
a  single  day.  From  the  account  of  the  meat-offerings, 
that  is,  offerings  not  of  animals,  given  in  the  second 
chapter  of  Leviticus,  Dr.  Kitto  thinks  that  he  traces 
three  different  styles  of  baking  in  use  among  the 
Israelites,  wliich  are  in  use  among  the  Arabs  to  this 
day.  According  to  ver.  4,  there  was  the  meat-offering 
baked  in  the  oven,  of  stone,  or  metal,  or  earthenware; 
this  includes  both  cakes  of  an  ordinary  thickness,  baked 
inside,  and  also  wafers  of  dough,  dropped  in  thin  lay  ITS 
on  the  outside.  According  to  ver.  5,  there  was  the  meat 
offering  baked  in  a  pan,  or  as  the  margin  renders  it,  on 
a  flat  plate  or  slice,  and  then  broken  in  pieces  ;  this  pan 
or  plate  being  a  sheet  of  metal  laid  over  the  fire,  on 
which  their  cakes  might  be  baked,  as  oat  cakes  still  are. 
baked  among  the  peasantry  of  Scotland.  And  accord 
ing  to  ver.  7,  there  was  the  meat-offering  baked  in 
the  frying-pan,  which  might  naturally  be  understood 
to  be  not  a  kind  of  bread  at  all,  rather  something  of 
the  nature  of  a  pudding,  but  which  Kitto  supposes  to 
be  bread  baked  upon  the  hearth-stone,  or  on  a  plate 


A rali  woman  rolling  out  dough  to  form 
cakes  of  liruaa.— Lavanl. 


covering  a  pit  in  the  floor,  which  had  been  filled  with 
fuel  and  used  for  heating  the  room  as  well  as  for  cooking 
Amis  AND  AKMOUR  ;  also 


and  economical  for  the  poor.      We  read  in  Scripture  of 

both  leavened  and  unleavened   bread.     The  kneading 

troughs   on   which  they   wrought   the   dough  were  so  I       BREASTPLATE. 

small,  that  the  children  of  Israel  could  make  them  up  '  I'UIHST,  DKESS  or. 

BRICKS.  The  earliest  bricks  on  record,  those  used 
in  building  the  city  and  tower  of  Babel,  were  of  clay 
burned  in  the  fire.  "  Let  us  make  brick,  and  burn  them 


BRICKS 


237 


BRICKS 


thoroughly.     And  they  had  brick  fur  stone,  and  slime  , 
had  they  for  mortar,"  Go.  xi.  j.     Brick  kilns  are  men 
tioned,  2  Sa.  xiL  '31 ;  Je.  xliii.ii;  Xa.iii.  14.    inscribed  or  painted 
bricks  or  tiles  are  also  mentioned  in  Eze.  iv.  1. 

lu  ancient  Egypt  the  bricks  were  invariably  crude 
or  unbaked;  and  Wilkinson  observes,  that  when  kiln- 
burned   bricks  are  found,  they  are  known  to  be  of  the  ] 
Roman  time.     The  crude  bricks  were  made  of  a  black  j 
loamy  earth,  which  possessed  little  tenacity  until  mixed  I 
with  straw,  K.v.v.7-is.     They  varied  in  forms  and  dimen-  : 
sions.  some  having  been  found  of  a  wedge  shape,  to  be 
used  in  the  construction  of  arches.     The  must  usual  sizes  I 
are  lij  inches  long,  7  or  8  inches  wide,  and  ~>  or  o'  indies 
thick.      When  used  in  the  construction  <if  walls  they 
were  laid  on  the  flat  side,  but  when  in  building  arches 
they  were  laid  edgeways.     They  are   frequently  found 
stamped  on  one  side  with  hieroglyphics,  some  having  an 
oval  with  the  prenomeii  of  the  I'haraoh  either  in  whose 
reign  they  were  made,  or  perhaps  signifying  that  they 
were  to  be  used  in  the  construction  of  some  edifice  be 
longing  to  that  Pharaoh  named  in  the  oval.    .More  bricks 
bearing  the  name  of  Thothmes  Jll.  ahe  Pharaoh  \\  ho 
reigned  a  short  time  In-fore  the  exodus)  have  been  dis 
covered  than  of  any  other  pcrio-l  i  Wi!ki;»"ut.      A  larue 
depot  of  the  bricks  of  Thothmes  ill.  was  found  under  the 
sand  close  to  the  river  in  a  desert  place,  near  the  town 


of  E'siut;  and  some  thirty  years  ago  several  boat-loads 
were  conveyed  to  the  opposite  shore  and  there  burned, 
by  order  of  Ibrahim  Pasha,  to  be  used  in  the  construc 
tion  of  a  dyke.  There  are  bricks  in  the  British  Museum 
stamped  with  the  names  of  Pharaohs  Thothmes  IT.  and 
IV;  of  Amunophth  II.  and  111.;  of  Rameses  II.;  and 
of  a  priest  of  Amun  Parenmfer  ;  but  none  have  been 
discovered  bearing  the  name  of  any  of  the  Ptolemies 
or  of  the  Roman  emperors.  In  the  British  Museum  is 
an  ancient  stamp  of  wood,  engraven  with  the  name  of 
Amunophth,  that  was  used  for  the  purpose  of  marking 
the  bricks. 

It  is  to  be  presumed  that  in  Egvpt  bricks  were  used 
in  the  construction  of  the  ordinary  dwelling-houses,  all 
of  which  have  entirely  disappeared.  The  only  remain 
ing  examples  of  their  use  are  in  three  pyramids,  in  the 
walls  surrounding  temples,  in  tombs,  in  certain  arches 
in  the  vieinitv  of  the  Meninonium,  and  in  some  other 
constructions  at  Thebes.  Anioii^  the  most  remarkable 
of  tue.-e  are  the  remains  of  a  wall  called  (Jisr  el  Agoos, 
"the  Old  Man's  Dyke."  which  extended  from  the  sea 
to  K'souan  ;  some  tombs  at  l>uvrcl  Medceiieh,  behind 
(Jooniet  .Miirratv.  of  the  time  of  Amunophth  I.,  the 
vaulted  roofs  beinur  lined  \\ith  crude1  brick,  where  the 
friable  nature  of  the  ruck  urged  the  necessity  of  some 
such  protection,  proving  the  existence  of  the  arch  so 


[135.)       Brickniakiiig.— From  Kgyiitian  monuments. 


early  as  1540  B.C.  ;  and  some  small  brick  pyramids,  the 
central  chambers  of  which  have  likewise  vaulted  roofs 
(Wilkinson's  Thebes,  p.  wi,  120,  !:!«,  ?,:,C, ;  also  Anuicut  Egyptians, 

ii.  p.nr.ysl 

Brickmaking  being  esteemed  by  the  ancient  Egyp 
tians  an  unhealthy  and  laborious  occupation,  Xa.  Hi.  13,14, 
was  imposed  upon  captives  and  slaves.  In  a  tomb  at 
(loornet,  or  Gournon,  that  of  the  chief  architect  Rek- 


share,  is  a  representation  of  some  light-coloured  people 
(bondsmen)  employed  in  bringing  water,  digging  clay 
with  implements  resembling  hoes,  kneading  the  clay, 
and  pressing  it  into  the  brick  mould,  carrying  the 
bricks,  and  piling  them  up  for  use.  The  labourers  are 
urged  on  by  taskmasters  with  their  whips  and  goads, 
and  the  whole  work  is  superintended  by  an  officer  seated 
apart.  According  to  Dr.  Lepsius  and  Mr.  Osburn,  this 


BRICKS 


238 


BRICKS 


picture  is  01  the  time  of  Thothmes  ILL,  and  there  can  frequently  painted,  and  some  have  been  found  at  Nim- 

hardly  be  a  doubt  that  it  represents  a  company  of  the  roud  with  remains  of  gilding  (I.ayanl).      The  Ninevites 

oppressed    Hebrews   engaged  as  described   in   Exodus,  j  also  made  use  of   bricks  painted  with  various  colours 

ch.  i.  11-14 ;  v.  G-lS,  presenting   the  scenes  most  vividly  be-  and   devices,   and  then  vitrified.      These  covered   that 

f"ru  us-  part   of   the    walls    of   the    royal    residences    above    the 

In  modern  Egypt  the  art  of  brickmaking  is  almost  alaba>ter  slabs,  as  high  as  the  veiling  of  the  chamber; 


whether  the  colouring  and  vitreous  surface  were  added 
The  word  till),  now  used  in  Kgypt  for  brick,  is  the  j  after  the  construction  of  the  wall,  may  be  a  matter  of 
same  as  the  Coptic  liXilii,  and  the  combination  of  j  conjecture.  The  crude  bricks  were  not  inscribed,  but 
hieroglyphics.  !  the  burned  bricks  bore  cuneiform  characters.  The  in- 

Among  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  both  kiln-  s.-riptions  on  the  bricks  of  both  Nineveh  and  I'.ahvlun 
burned  and  sun-dried  bricks  were  common.  The  burned  :  are  written  sometimes  with  the  instrument  used  for 
bricks  used  in  the  great  edifices  of  IJabylon  (x«  BABYLON)  '  making  the  cuneiform  character  while  the  clay  was  yet 


are     enerall    about   li!   ind 


re  by 


inches  in 


thickness.      They  are   usually  stamped  with  cuneiform 


characters;  some   have   rude   figures   of   animals  upon 


soft,  sometimes  engraved  after  it  was  baked,  but 
generally  the  stamp  was  inserted  in  the  moalil  «/  tin' 
In-ii-k,  and  not  applied  nj'lo-  t!/c  hrirk  trie;  ntnde,  as  in 
the  example  of  Egyptian  bricks  of  the  time  of  the 
Pharaohs. 

It  may  not  be  inappropriate  here  to  describe  the 
leading  features  which  distinguish  the  royal  and  sacred 
edifices  of  Assyria,  and  to  offer  a  few  conjectures  respect 
ing  the  mode  of  construction  employed.  The  researches 
of  Botta  and  Rich  have  proved  that  the  great  Assyrian 
palaces  were  invariably  built  upon  artificial  mounds,  by 
which  they  were  raised  30  or  10  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  plain  on  which  they  stood;  and  that  this  pedestal 
or  sub-basement  was  not  a  mere  accumulation  of  loose 
earth  incrusted  with  stone  or  bricks,  but  was  a  regularly 
constructed  elevation,  built  of  layers  of  sun-dried  1  nicks 
solidly  united  with  the  same  clay  of  which  the  bricks 
themselves  were  made.  It  further  appears  that  this 
substructure  was  solid  throughout,  excepting  where 
drains  or  water-pipes  were  inserted,  or  where  subter 
ranean  channels,  like  the  aqueducts  found  by  Sir  Robert 
.Porter  at  Persepolis.  existed  (Travels,  i.  ii  ) :  and  that  the 


them:  and  tens  of  thousands,  according  to  Sir  11.  Raw-  mass  of  bricks  forming  the  mound  was  incased  round 
linson,  bear  the  name  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Vitrified  j  the  sides  with  well-squared  blocks  of  limestone.  The 
bricks  of  different  colours  were  common,  and  it  has  I  whole  of  the  upper  surface  of  the  mound,  not  occupied 
been  conjectured  that  many  of  the  principal  structures  '  with  buildings,  was  likewise  protected  by  two  layers  of 
were  subjected  to  fire  after  they  were  built,  so  as  to  kiln-burned  bricks  or  tiles,  from  11  to  134  inches  square 
vitrify  the  entire  surface.  In  building  walls  wattled  j  by  5  inches  deep,  all  inscribed  on  the  under  side,  and 
reeds  appear  to  have  been  laid  between  the  courses  of  cemented  together  with  a  coating  of  bitumen.  The 

upper  layer  was  separated  from  the  lower  by  a  stratum 


bricks,  and  the  whole  cemented  together  with  hot 
asphalte  (ilerud.  i.  un),  or  with  clay  mortar  (Babylon  Kasr.) 
In  Assyria,  baked  bricks  being  rarely  used,  no  sncli 
masses  of  them  exist  as  are  found  at  Babylon,  the  chief 
portion  of  the  ruins  of  Assyrian  cities  being  composed 
if  crude  bricks  reduced  by  age  into  a  state  only  distin- 


of  sand  (>  indies  ill  thickness,  so  that  if  any  moisture 
chanced  to  penetrate,  it  would  most  likely  be  dissipated 
in  the  sandy  stratum,  and  thence  be  drained  off  before  it 
could  touch  the  second  layer  of  tiles.  The  mode  of  as 
cending  to  the  entrance  was  doubtless  by  inclined  planes 


guishable  from  the  soil  by  the  regular  and  often  dif-  !  or  stairs,  resembling  the  existing  example  at  Persepolis. 
ferent  coloured  lines  perceptible  on  the  sides  of  newly  |  The  accompanying  section  (No.  137)  will  explain  the 
opened  trenches.  A  tenacious  clay,  moistened  and  j  structure  of  the  walls,  as  well  as  our  own  notion  of  the 
mixed  with  chopped  straw,  united  the  sun-dried  bricks,  j  construction  of  the  roof  or  ceiling  of  the  chambers.  It 
reed  and  bitumen  not  being  employed  in  Assyrian  would  seem  from  an  examination  of  the  existing  ruins, 
edifices  as  at  Babylon  to  cement  the  layers  of  bricks,  that  the  walls  of  crude  bricks  having  been  raised  to  the 
although  bitumen  was  occasionally  used  to  unite  stones  '  required  height,  they  were  cased  with  slabs  of  gypsum 
and  even  burned  bricks  (Luyanl's  Discoveries  at  Nineveh).  ;  to  the  height  of  10  feet,  A:  that  from  the  top  of  the 


The  bricks  used  in  the  buildings  of  Nineveh  are 
of  various  dimensions,  from  1  foot  square  and  \  or 
f<  inches  thick,  to  IS  indies  square  and  3  inches  thick. 
Radiated  bricks  have  been  discovered  9  inches  deep, 


slabs  to  the  top  of  the  wall  the  crude  bricks  were  cased 
with  kiln-burned  bricks  or  tiles  n,  the  lowest  course  c, 
which  rested  immediately  upon  the  slab,  being  provided 
with  a  kind  of  projecting  brick  moulding  or  ornament, 


13  inches  outward  width,  and  10  inches  inner  or  nar-  ;  which  curved  over  and  beyond  the  slabs,  so  as  to  form 
rowest  width  (Aius«-<>rth).  When  baked  in  the  sun  only.  ;  a  continuous  lock,  to  prevent  their  falling  forward,  the 
they  were  employed  in  the  construction  of  the  tels  moulding  being  retained  in  its  position  by  the  weight 


•r  mounds  and  walls;  and  when  burned  in  the  kiln, 
they  were  applied  to  the  flooring  of  rooms  and  the  pav 
ing  of  courts  of  the  palaces.  The  crude  bricks  were 


if  the  courses  above ;  and  finally,  that  the  baked  tiles 
or  bricks  u  were  jiainted  on  the  surface  presented  to 
the  interior  of  the  rooms,  in  various  colours  and  pat- 


BRICKS 


BRIDLE 


terns,  including  figures  of  men  and  animals.  Thus  far 
there  is  unequivocal  evidence  of  the  structure  of  the 
walls  of  the  chambers,  but  beyond  this  we  are  dependent 
entirely  upon  speculation  and  analogies.  Our  own  con 
jecture  is,  that  the  solid  wall  having  been  raised,  the  top 
was  covered  in  with  a  course  of  burned  bricks  cemented 
with  bitumen,  upon  which,  as  in  the  instance  of  the 
courts,  there  was  a  stratum  of  sand,  and  then  another 
layer  of  kiln-burned  bricks  n.  also  cemented  with  bitn- 


ini'ii.  I  pon  this  thick  wall  we  suppose  the  surface 
bricks  of  i!i.'  chamber  p.  P.  to  hav>-  been  cunt  inued  for 
some  feet,  occasional  intervals  being  left  fur  tin1  ndmis- 
sicin  of  li-lit  and  air.  as  exhibited  in  the  centre  part  of 
the  roof  of  the  hall  of  columns  at  Karnak.  and  in  other 
Kgyptian  temples.  It  is  surmised  that  the  beams  nf 
tile  roof  K  rested  upon  these  dwarf  walls.  reai'lii!i'_r  across 
the  entire  width  of  the  chain bers,  \\liieb  at,  Khorsabad 
never  exceeded  :}:',  feet.  'I'he  forests  north  of  Nineveh 
would  furnish  abundance  of  large  timber,  even  cedar, 
the  approved  wood  for  the  purpose.  iKi.\i  !i,m;  vii.'_>,3. 
In  the  larger  apartments  there  cannot  be  any  difficulty 
in  adopting  a  wooden  column,  for  there  are  representa 
tions  of  columns  on  the  sculptures,  and  Strabo  tells  us 
(xvi.  i.  r,1)  that  the  Babylonians  supported  the  roofs  of  their 
houses  by  pillars  of  wood.  M.  Place  discovered  at  Khor 
sabad  a  roll  of  thin  copper,  which  may  have  incased  a 
wooden  pillar,  and  close  to  it  were  some  thin  pieces  of 
gold,  which  exactly  fitted  the  ornament  on  the  copper. 
The  inference  is,  that  the  wooden  columns  were  first 
incased  in  copper,  and  then  plated  with  gold.  "  lie 
overlaid  the  posts  with  fine  gold."  u'f'h  iii.7.  "The  gold 
fitted  upon  the  carved  work."  i  Ki.  vi..r>.  The  beams 
having  been  placed  upon  the  dwarf  walls,  the  rafters 
were  next  laid  over  them  in  the  contrary  direction,  and 


j  upon  these  again  the  planks  of  cedar,  which,  as  well  as 
[  the  beams,  might  be  ornamented  with  vermilion,  Jo.  xxii. 
'  14,  still  a  common  combination  with  green,  for  the  orna 
mentation  of  the  ceilings  in  the  best  chambers  of  the 
houses  in  Cairo.      Above  the  planks  there  was  probably 
a  course  of  burned  bricks,  cemented  with  bitumen,  and 

•  then  a  layer  of  clay  and  earth,  in   the  way  the  roofs  of 
houses  in  Syria  are  now  made,  for  Botta  found  among 
the  rubbish  in  the  interior  of  some   of  the  chambers  at 

:  Khorsabad  tile  stone  rollers  resembling  our  garden 
rollers,  and  like  those  called  in<ilintlnht,  used  to  this 
day  to  roll  and  harden  the  roofs  of  the  Syrian  houses 

1  after  the  winter  rains.      This  implement  being  always 

i  kept  on  the  roof  then  as  now,  it  is  supposed  fell  into  the 
chamber  with  the  rafters  at  the  time  of  the  conflagra 
tion  which  reduced  the  palace  to  a  ruinous  heap. 

The  top  of   thi'  solid  walls,  betwi  eu  the  dwarf  piers, 

'  afforded  ample  space  for  shady  passages  and  sleeping 
apartments  during  the  hot  mouths  of  the  year,  and  at 
the  same  time  gave  every  facility  for  regulating  the 
shutters  and  other  obvious  contrivances  for  excluding 
the  ravs  of  the  sun.  and  i'or  pivventin.;'  the  -.now  «.r  rain 
from  drifting  into  the  chambers  below.  Ko  staircases 
or  means  of  gaining  the  upper  apartments  have  Keen 

!  discovered  ;  but  so  much  of  the  buildings  have  dis 
appeared,  that  the  absence  of  all  indication  of  those 
important  parts  of  the  edifices  is  in  no  way  remarkable, 
especially  as  we  know  from  {he  Kgyptian  temples  that 
the  staircase  up  to  the  roof  was  frcijUeiitl v  contained  in 
the  thickness  of  the  wall.  The  proportion  of  Ilie  voids  to 
the  solid  of  the  walls  would  remarkably  favour  the  same 
mode  of  construction.  As  regard  the  courts,  it  is  not 
improbable  that  u  o.  n  leu  columns  were  used  to  support 

•  an  awning,  which  was  held  down  and  fastened  to  marble 
rin^s  inserted   in  the  paveim  nt.  and  to  tin-  riiiLjs  on  the 

i  backs  of  hroir/.e   lions.  Ks.i.'i.fi.      \\earoin  ignorance  as 

1  lo  the  contrivance  for  the  upper  pivots  for  banking  tin; 

doors,  \\liethei-  they  were  inserted  into  a  slab  which 
stretched  across  the  opening  from  jamb  to  jamb,  or 
whi  (her  certain  copper  rings  in  the  Mriti>h  -Museum 
were'  not  fixed  into  the  walls  above  the  slabs  for  the 
purpose  of  i-ecei \-iiiLT  the  pivots.  It  \\ill  lie  sci  n  that 

1  the  foregoing  restoration  of  the  roof  is  in  many  respects 
analogous  to  ancient  Kgyptian  tempi's,  and  to  modern 
modes  of  const  ruction  in  tin-  Kast.  and  that  it  is  assumed 
that  tbf  roofs  were  geiierallv  flat.  Tin  re  is.  however, 
evidence  in  the  illustrations  upon  the  walls  that  pitched 
roofs  were  likewise  used  in  Assyrian  buildings.  In  one 
the  building  is  raised  upon  a  sub  basement :  and  the  roof 
is  pitched,  the  pediment  or  gable  end  being  presented  to 

the  spectator.  The  same  illustration  affords  examples 
of  flat  roofs  and  of  numerous  windows. 

[P.otta's  Letters  on  Nineveh;  lionoini's  Nimveli  ru.d  its  Pal.ioc?, 
p.  liiii.llii,  117,11%  1^7,  L'll-L'1%  ::d  fdit..  ISii";  FCJIVUSMII.'S  Palaces 
(if  N'ineveli  .-in.1  Persejiolis  Rest,  red.]  |.i.  i:.| 

BRIDE,  BRIDEGROOM,    BRIDE -CHAMBER. 

SVr  M. \KKI\CK. 

BRIDLE,  in  the  Bible  this  word  is  frequently 
used  both  in  its  proper.  l's.  xxxii.  '.> ;  Pr.  xxvi  u,  and  in  its 

figurative  Sense,  2  Ki.  xix. 'J4-;   Is.  xxx.liS;  xxxvii.  L'!i;  Job  xxx.  11; 

xli  i::;  Ps.  xxxix.  1:  .la.  i.  mi;  iii.  L>.  The  Assyrian  sculptures, 
which  throw  so  important  a  liuht  on  many  passages 
of  Scripture,  contain  representations  of  captives  with 
bridles  in  the  lips,  presenting  a  common  metaphor  lite 
rally  before  us.  In  one  subject  (Hott.i,  Plate  us)  may  be 
recognized  the  fate  which  befell  Zedekiah  king  of  Judah, 
as  recorded  in  '2  KIIILCS,  and  which  would  appear  to 


BRIER 


•2-W 


have  been  no  uncommon  punishment  for  the  crime  of 
rebellion.  In  the  centre  .stands  the  Assyrian  king, 
lief  ore  him  are  three  persons,  the  foremost  of  whom  is 
on  his  knees  imploring  mercy,  and  the  two  others  are 
standing  in  a  humble  posture.  The  king  is  represented 
thrusting  the  point  of  his  spear  into  one  of  the  eyes  of 
the  supplicant,  while  ho  holds  in  his  left  hand  the  end 
of  a  cord  which  proceeds  from  rings  that  have  been 


inserted  into  the  lower  lip  of  all  three  of  the  captives, 
who  are  likewise  both  manacled  and  fettered.  In 
another  scene  three  people  .clothed  in  sheepskins  are 
kneeling  in  supplication  before  the  king.  The  prisoners 
are  all  fettered,  and  have  in  the  lower  lip  a  ring,  to 
which  is  attached  a  thin  cord  held  by  the  king.  In 
other  examples  of  prisoners  with  rings  in  their  lips,  are 
some  of  short  stature  wearing  short  beards,  tasselled 
caps,  long  tunics,  and  boots  or  Imsen  (Rottn,  Plate  s.'i). 
These  we  conceive  to  be  natives  of  Palestine,  Jews, 
probably  Samaritans.  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that 
when  Sennacherib,  a  successor  of  the  founder  of  the 
palace  of  Khorsabad,  invaded  .Tudea,  the  prophetic  mes 
sage  sent  by  Isaiah  in  reply  to  the  prayer  of  Hezekiah, 
should  contain  the  metaphor  here  embodied,  (is.  xxxvii. 

•JO;  also  2  Ki.  xix.  27;  Jionomi,  Nineveh  and  its  Palaces,  p.  104-8, 

yd  edit.)  Herodotus  relates  that  when  Memphis  was 
taken  by  Cambyses,  he  made  the  son  of  Psammenitus, 
the  king  of  the  Egyptians,  with  2000  noble  youths, 
march  to  execution  "with  halters  about  their  necks 
and  a  bridle  in  their  mouths'"  (Hi  n).  [j.  ]?.] 

BRIER.     Ke  THORN. 

BRIMSTONE.  This  well-known  natural  substance, 
known  also  by  the  name  of  sulphur,  found  in  many 
places  in  large  quantities,  burns  with  a  suffocating 
smell.  It  was  a  storm  of  fire  and  brimstone  which  de 
stroyed  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  Ge.  xix.  21 ;  and  though 
plainly  this  was  a  miraculous  judgment  from  the  hand 
of  the  Lord,  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
judgment  took  this  particular  form  in  connection  with 
the  brimstone  and  bitumen  which  abound  in  the  district. 
This  judgment  is  constantly  referred  to  as  an  example, 
pledge,  and  foretaste  of  the  final  and  universal  judg 
ment  of  the  ungodly.  Hence  the  frequent  mention  of 
brimstone,  chiefly  if  not  entirely  in  a  metaphorical  sense, 


when  reference  is  made  to  the  punishment  of  the  wicked, 

Job  xviii.  15;   I's.  xi.  fi ;   Is.  xxxiv.  9  ;    Re.  xix.  20,  &c. 

BROOK.  A  small  river  is  the  common  meaning  of 
this  word.  In  our  version  of  the  Scriptures  it  answers 
chiefly  to  what  we  call  a  torrent  (in  Hebrew,  naJtal), 
which  runs  with  strength  in  sortie  seasons  of  the  year, 
but  during  the  summer  months  is  often  entirely  dried 
up.  Thus  the  word  has  come  to  express  the  torrent- 
bed,  even  though  it  be  destitute  of  water.  Unfortu 
nately  the  same  word  in  the  original  is  at  times  ren 
dered  a  river.  So  it  has  been  in  the  case  of  the  brook 
"f  EgyP^  a  small  torrent  to  the  south  of  Gaza,  which 
was  the  border  of  the  land  of  Canaan  in  the  direction  of 
Egypt,  but  which  has  been  confounded  with  the  river  of 
Egypt,  namely,  the  Nile,  in  consequence  of  this  inexact 
translation  in  Nu.  xxxiv.  5  ;  Jos.  xv.  4,  47 

BROTHER.  Besides  the  strict  meaning  of  this 
word,  the  male  child  of  the  same  parent  or  parents  as 
another,  it  is  used  in  looser  senses,  to  which  we  have 
become  accustomed  from  reading  the  Bible,  if  riot  from 
the  natural  variations  of  meaning  in  every  language. 
Thus  it  takes  in  more  distant  relations,  though  pre 
eminently  cousins,  or  others  nearly  related,  Ge.  xiii.  8  ; 
Do.  xxv.  ;'>,  c.  At  other  times  it  may  be  any  of  the  same 
elan,  tribe,  or  nation,  Ex.  xxxii.  27;  Je.  xxxiv.  9.  It  seems 
to  be  extended  to  all  mankind,  as  being  made  of  one 
blood,  Gc.ix.,->.  In  the  New  Testament,  the  plural  espe 
cially  is  most  frequently  in  use  as  a  name  for  the  dis 
ciples  of  Christ,  who  are  all  in  Him  the  children  of  God 
and  household  of  faith.  Whether  the  brethren  of  Jesus, 
who  are  repeatedly  mentioned  in  the  gospels,  were  the 
children  of  His  mother  Mary,  or  more  distant  relatives, 
is  a  question  presenting  difficulties  which  have  deterred 
many  careful  inquirers  from  pronouncing  a  decided  opi 
nion  either  way. 

BUCKLER,     ,SVr  ARMS  AND  ARMOUR. 

BUL  [raiti],  the  name  of  one  of  the  Hebrew  months, 
so  called  from  the  rains  which  usually  fell  at  the  period 
of  the  year  to  which  it  belonged.  It  was  the  eighth 
month,  and  usually  included  a  part  of  our  November 
and  December.  (S'ec  MONTH.) 

BULL,  BULLOCK.  The  Hebrew  language,  like 
our  own  and  most  others,  had  several  terms  by  which 
the  sexes,  ages,  and  other  conditions  of  domestic  ani 
mals  were  distinguished.  Neat  cattle  occupied  a  very 
prominent  place  among  a  people  so  eminently  pastoral 
and  agricultural  as  the  Hebrews  ;  and  the  selection  of 
the  species  as  one  of  the  regular  victims  of  the  sacri 
ficial  altar,  give  it  additional  importance.  The  terms 
in  most  frequent  use  are  -03,  lidkaltr,  and  vttf,  xhor 

(Chakl.  i>pi,  toltr};  the' former  of  which  appears  in  the 
Arabic  al-hakar,  and  the  latter,  by  a  common  change 
of  «  to  f,  in  the  tor,  faur,  taimis,  &c.,  of  the  Indo- 
Germanic  languages.  These  two  words  seem  to  have 
been  used  indiscriminately  and  interchangeably  (see  Go. 
xxxii.  5,7;  Ex.  xxii.  i ;  i  Ki.  i.  !),  io,  &c.)  for  domestic  cattle  in 
a  generic  sense.  The  word  13  (with  a  slight  variation) 

jiar,  is  also  extensively  employed,  especially  in  the 
directions  for  sacrifices ;  it  appears  specifically  to  mean 
a  young  bull,  or  one  in  the  prime  of  his  vigour,  a 
"bullock,"  but  not  emasculated,  SjJ?>  tf/i'/,  is  pre 
cisely  correspondent  to  our  term  "calf,"  by  which  it  is 
almost  invariably  rendered. 

Besides  these,  the  word  pjVx,  al-looplt  (with  varia 
tions),  was  occasionally  used,  with  a  loose  generic  mean- 


.BULL 


111 


15  I'LL 


mg;  while  -VSN,  o6-«»-  (literally  mighty),  was  applied  j  The  milk  of  the  cow  was  habitually  drunk  fresh  and 
at  first  as  a  descriptive  epithet,  and  then  conventionally  *0111'  a>  110Vl~-  an'!  Jt  xva>  UM-'(1  tur  the  making  of  butter 
as  an  appellation  to  the  ferocious,  semi-wild,  bovine  :Uld  cheese-  as  we  l^ni  fi'"'"  the  mention  of  "butter 
races,  which  roamed  through  the  forest  pastures  of  I  \xxiU1'  and  "^ecse  of  kine,"  2Sa.  xvii.29. 

Western  Asia.  th°   slleelj  alul  of   thl'  S™*  «'as  however  used 

Tlie  ust 


_  eeveat  tesewereunmutilatel                hetempcr 

cannot   doubt     hat  it    was   included   in    the    'cattle  and  docility  of  the   breed   must  have   been  remarkable 

which  Jabal  reared,   and  that   it  accompanied  Adam  to  fit  them  for  such  service       In  the  case  of  the  rest,, 

out  of  paradise.      (See  observations  on  domestication,  ration  of   th,,   ark    by  the    Philistines,    i  Sa  vi  7    milch 

under  Ass.,      Abram,  in  his  migration   from   Mesopo-  kine  were  indeed  employed  for  purposes  ,,f  draught  •  but 


maternal  affection. 
OITTT 
" 


gyp:  an  soon  ater  te  nuitpca-  ,-  .  i 
tion  of  the  cattle  of  Abram  and  Lot  was  so  great  that  ' 
contention  among  tlie  herd  men  and  separation  ensued. 
•  lol,.  who,,,  we  suppo,e  to  |1:lve  lived  about  the  same 
time,  had  live  hundreil  yoke  of  oxen,  i  i.  ...  before,  and  a  I'-ach  of  the-e  words  occurs  bu<  once  in  the  sacred  Scrip- 
thousand  yoke,  ch.  xlii.  12,  after,  his  affliction.  Forty  kiiie  tures  ;  the  latter  in  the  list  uf  clean  animals.  nc.xiv.,->, 
and  ten  bulls,  Ge.  xxxii.  i:,,  formed  a  portion  of  tlie  pre-  and  the  former  as  the  name  of  a  creature  of  great  power 
sent  wherewith  Jacob  deprecated  the  jealousy  ,,f  hi.,  taken  in  a  n,  t.  i,  :.  iti  Tliere  is  a  large  species  of  ante- 
brother  K-au.  And  many  other  less  definite  phrases  ],,pt.  known  t.)  the  Arabs  by  the  name  of  wild  ox 

cr  <l  i/-«8//l,  the  AntUnj*    bubali*  of  Pallas,  whieli  is 
common   in   th(>   Syrian   divert,   as  well   as  throughout 


-*';. 


scattt-r.-d  over  the  sacred  narratives  li,-lp  t,i  -liow  us 
how  extensive  w.-iv  tlie  possessions  of  herds,  which 
swelled  the  substance  of  tlie  early  patriarch-.  \Vc 
know  nothing  ,,f  the  specific  Lived  of  cattle  [lossessed 
by  tho-.-  patriarchs;  but.  coming  as  the\  did  I'mm  the 
ilistaiit  east,  it  i.-  by  no  means  improbable  that  their 
cattle  were  not  unlike  tho>e  uf  the  Indian  tvpe.  A 
luill  uf  this  breed  is  represented  in  the  annexed  wood 
cut  (Xo.  139.) 

Tlie  first  mention  of  the  actual  use  of  animal  food 
i !  hough  the  grant  (.f  it  was  much  earlier,  Gc.  ix.  3),  is 
cni  tlie  occasion  of  Abraham's  hospitality  to  the  thr>  .• 
divine  strangers  that  stood  at  his  tent  door,  when  he 
took  "a  calf,  tender  ami  uoud."  and  dressed  it  with 
butter  and  milk.  Go.  xviii.r.R  Then!  is  no  reason  to  sup 
pose  that  the  patriarch  as  yet  suspected  his  guests  to 
be  superhuman  :  and  the  feast  was  merely  an  exhibition 
of  ordinary  hospitality  offered  to  dignified  travellers. 
Vet  the  slaughter  of  the  herds  for  food  was  by  no 
means  a  common  occurrence  among  the  pastoral  tribes, 
if  we  may  judge  from  the  permanence  of  oriental  cus 
toms:  and  the  partaking  of  flesh  was  rather  an  occa 
sional  dainty  than  a  daily  necessity  as  with  us. 
VOL.  i. 


every  part  of  Northern  Africa.  Shaw  say-  that  it  is  of 
;i  familiar  dUpo-itiun.  and  that  the  young  calves  fre 
i|iiently  mix  \\itii  domestic  cattle,  and  soon  learn  to 
attach  thcin,-elve,  to  the  herd  v,  ithoiit  attempting  to 
escape  afterwards.  Th--y  light  Lk<  the  common  bull 
by  lowering  the  head,  and  striking  suddenly  upwards 
witli  tiif  horns,  which  an  formidable  weapons,  cither 
for  attack  «.r  defence.  The  animal  is  larger  than  a 
.-tag,  and  i>  particularly  remarkable  for  the  great  length 
of  its  head,  and  iis  narrow,  flat,  and  straight  forehead 
and  face,  which  are  verv  ox-like. 

This  creature  i<  frequently  represented  in  tlie  paint 
ings  of  the  Iv_'vp!  ian  fomlis  a-  an  object  of  chase.  It 
is  worthy  of  note,  that  tlie  mode- of  pursuing  are  always 
such  as  aim  not  at  killing  the  animal,  but  taking  it 
alive,  which  is  quite  accordant  with  what  is  stated 
above  of  the  aptitude  uf  tlie  /!</,•<>•  <[  mi.<li  for  domesti 
cation.  Thus  the  hunter,  accompanied  by  his  flogs, 
sometimes  -hoots  the  wild  ox  with  arrows,  but  th<'y 
are  blunted  arrows  or  knobbed  at  the  extremity,  and 
are  calculated  to  stun  but  not  to  kill  the  prey.  This 
effect  indeed  is  evidently  depicted,  for  the  animal  is 
arrested  without  falling,  and  the  arrows  are  always 

31 


BULL 


BULL 


directed  so  as  to  strike  the  head.  In  other  scenes,  the 
hunter  captures  the  wild  hull  by  moans  of  a  noose  or 
lasso,  ,is  wild  horses  are  taken  on  tin;  pampas  of  South 
America. 


It  is  tlu.'ivi'ore  interest! ng.  and  a,t  the  s:uue  time  con 
firmatory  of  tho  identity  <>f  ilie  species,  that  the  wild 
hull,  [s.li.  20,  is  r<:  presented  as  captured  in  a  net,  vainly 
enraged  at  being  deprived  of  liberty,  hut  not  injured. 

Besides  the  t»li ,  occasional  allusions  occur  in  Scrip 
ture  to  a  nice  of  bovine  animals,  which  if  not  existing 
in  the  pristine  wildness  of  nature,  yet  roamed  the  forest 
Blades  in  uncontrolled  liberty,  and  manifested  all  the 
riower  and  ferocity  of  these  creatures  in  a  state  of  self- 
dependence.  Bashan,  with  its  rich  pastures,  varied  by 
fore.- N  of  oak  and  poplar,  was  celebrated  for  its  herds 
of  semi-wild  cattle,  if  the v  were  no  mor.e.  The  Lord 


•  icMis  on  the  cross,  I's.  xxii.  r.',  cemplains  of  the  virulence 
of  his  surrounding  enemies  under  the  emblem  of  these 
furious  beasts  —  ''Many  bulls  have  compassed  me: 
strong  bulls  of  Bashan  have  beset  me  round/'  And 
many  passages  occur  in  which  the  image  is  used  to 
express  brute  power  and  savage  "ferocity. 

Tho  sculptures  recently  exhumed  from  the  Niiievite 
palaces  abound  in  representations  of  this  savage  of  the 
i'ore>t;  for  the  conquest  of  the  wild  bull  by  the  prowess 
of  th"  Assyrian  kin^  was  an  exploit  deemed  worthy,  no 
less  than  that  of  the  lion,  of  representation  on  the  sculp 
tured  walls  of  his  palao-.  And  let  us  not  think  lightly 
of  this  herbivorous  animal,  as  if  it  were  a  timid  or  a 
powerless  foe.  The  figures  on  the  bas-reliefs  show 
that  the  species  was  the  Cms  of  ancient  Europe  (Bus 
/'/•('.-.•,  Smith),  not  the  his.ni  or  aurochs;  and  a  comparison 
of  th"  representations  of  the  Assyrian  artists  with  a 
fine  fiu'ure  of  the  wild  urns  in  Griffith's  Anininl  King 
dom  (iv.41l),  shows  how  carefully  the  former  attended 
to  minute  characters  of  specific  identity.  Of  this  spe 
cies  were  the,  \\-ild  bulls  of  the  Hercyniaii  forest,  which 
C';esar  describes  (lib.  vi.)  as  little  inferior  to  elephants  in 
size,  of  great  strength  and  swiftness,  sparing  neither 
man  nor  beast,  when  they  had  caught  sight  of  him. 
The  race  seems  to  have  spread  over  the  whole  of  Europe 
;<nd  \Vestern  Asia,  reaching  even  to  Britain:  the  huge 
forest  that  surrounded  ancient  London  was  infested 
with  these  linrt.3  si/hestres,  ;im<>ng  other  wild  beasts;  and 
the  race  is  supposed  still  to  exist  in  a  semi-domesticated 


[142.]       Hunting  Wilil  Bull — from  Monuments  of  Nineveh.— Layard. 


state,  in  the  white  oxen  of  Chilliiigliam  and  some  ethers 
of  our  northern  parks.  The  ferocity  of  the  urns  distin 
guished  it  from  the  bison,  even  among  the  Latin  poets, 
and  it  was  esteemed  inferior  to  no  animal  in  savage 
power.  Hence  the  destruction  of  one  was  a  great 
exploit,  worthy  of  heroic  fame.  Philip  of  Macedon 
killed  a  wild  bull  in  Mount  Orbela,  which  had  made 
vast  havoc  and  produced  great  terror  among  the  inha 
bitants  :  its  spoils  he  hung  up  in  commemoration  of  his 
feat  in  the  vestibule  of  the  temple  of  Hercules.  The 
legendary  exploit  of  Guy,  Earl  of  Warwick,  in  freeing 
the  neighbourhood  from  a  terrible  dun  cow,  whether 
historically  true  or  not,  implied  a  traditionary  terror 
of  the  animal ;  and  the  family  of  Turnbull  in  Scotland 
are  said  to  owe  their  patronymic  to  a  hero  who  turned 
a  wild  bull  from  Robert  Bruce  when  it  had  attacked 
him  in  hunting. 

Whether  or  not  the  beautiful  white  cattle  preserved 


with  great  care  in  some  of  our  northern  parks,  are 
descended  from  the  nrl  which  lorded  it  in  the  forests 
of  ancient  Europe  and  Western  Asia,  their  manners 
may  illustrate  the  scriptural  allusions  already  quoted. 
•'The  bulls,  at  the  first  appearance  of  any  person,  set 
off  in  full  gallop,  and  at  the  distance  of  two  or  three 
hundred  yards  make  a  wheel  round,  and  come  boldly 
up  again,  tossing  their  heads  in  a  menacing  manner  : 
on  a  sudden  they  make  a  full  stop,  at  the  distance  of 
forty  or  fifty  yards,  looking  wildly  at  the  object  of  their 
surprise;  but  upon  the  least  motion  Vicing  made,  they 
all  again  turn  round  and  fly  off  with  equal  speed,  but 
not  to  the  same  distance :  forming  a  shorter  circle,  and 
again  returning  with  a  bolder  and  more  threatening  as 
pect  than  before,  they  approach  much  nearer,  probably 
within  thirty  yards,  when  they  make  another  stand, 
and  again  fly  off;  this  they  do  several  times,  shortening 
their  distance,  and  advancing  nearer,  till  they  come 


BULRUSH  1' 

within  ten  yards ;  when  most  people  think  it  prudent 
to  leave  them,  not  choosing  to  provoke  them  further  : 


3 


BURY 


for  there  is  little  doulit  l.ut,  in  two  or  three  tarns  more, 
they  would  make  an  attack"  (M'c 
BULRUSH.    See  REED.  [IMI.  c.] 

BURDEN.  This  often  occurs,  in  the  prophets,  as  tin- 
title  of  their  announcements,  chiefly  In  Is.  xiii.-xxiii. 
"The  burden  of  tli-  desert  <>f  the  sea."  and  "  the  burden 
(if  the  valley  of  vi-i  11."  N  xxi.  1 ;  xxii.  1,  ;.re  prophecies 
against  Babylon  and  .len:*alem.  ()iu-e  it  is  perhaps 
applied  to  an  entire  book,  ''the  burden  of  the  \vorcl  of 
the  Lord  to  Isr.it  1  liy  .Malaehi."  Th-  expression  seems 
to  imply  that  it  is  a  pr-'ph,  cy  nf  evil,  as  it  is  sin_'nlarlv 
suitable  in  -2  Kj.  jx.  '27,  ;  hut  yet  there  ar-  passages 
where  there  is  m.  .re  or  less  ditlic.iltv  in  upholding  this 
meaning,  and  where  our  tran*lator*  have  (lit  ivfore  'Jvcii 
\i])  their  own  iviid'-rin.',  "  burden, '  for  the  more  general 
w»rd  "  prophecy,"  rr  xxx  i;  xxxi.  1:  and  many  modern 
Hebrew  scholars  have  attempted  to  defend  this  render 
ing  iniiver-ally.  biiLnnt  by  valid  reasons.  This,  name, 
'•tho  l.nrdeii  of  the  Lord,"  appears  somehow  tu  have 
jirovoked  the  si- mi  of  tin:  unbelieving  people  in  the 
days  of  Jeremiah,  t°>  whuin  the  command  was  therefor  • 
uiven  to  discontinue  it.  though  a  threatening  was  added 
that  the  Lord  would  bring  desolation  and  ruin  upon 
them  and  their  false  pro  ph.  !s.  Jc.  xxiii  :  :  10.  Yet  it  was 
used  anew  by  Zechariah  and  Malaehi. 


BURNT-OFFERING.  Sec  OFFERINGS. 
^  BURY,  BURIAL.  The  practice  of  burying  the 
dead  seems  to  commend  itself  to  mankind  in  general, 
unless  in  those  savage  status  of  soeiety  in  which  even 
such  a  feeling  as  respect  for  the  remains  of  departed 
friends  has  become  wholly  blunted.  It  is  the  practice  : 
which  has  obtained  in  all  Chri>lian  countries,  partly 
no  doubt  owing  to  the  influence  of  example  in  the  case 
of  our  Saviour:  but.  besides.  \\e  trace  it  in  the  Old 
Testament  as  the  uniform  practice  of  the  Jews.  For. 
all  who  have  Icen  made  acquainted  with  Cod  as  in 
covenant  with  them,  have  known  him  as  "  the  Cod  not 
of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  and  have  preserved  the 
body  with  what  care  they  could,  committing  it  to  the 
earth  in  hope  of  a  blessed  resurrection.  It  is  true  that 
there  are  traces  of  two  heathenish  practice*,  embalming 
and  burning:  but  they  are  meiv  trace-,  and  afford  no 
reason  for  supposing  the  practio  s  to  have  been  adopted 
among  the  people  of  Hod  to  any  :ippivciab!e  extent. 
The  Egyptians  had  early  betaken  themselves  to  the 
singular  custom  of  embalming  tin  ir  dead,  as  if.  for  want 
of  any  better  hope,  they  would  bid  defiance  to  the 
ravages  of  the  last  enemy,  and  de'av  the  process  of  cor 
ruption  to  the  very  latest  possible  moment.  Yet  cvui 
Jacob  and  Josi  ph.  \\h<>  were  embalnn  d.  as  per 
their  exalted  rank  in  lv_vpt  w  eiv  wont  to  In 
buried  in  the  same  place,  probably  in  the  sanv 
ner,  as  other*  who  had  Uen  committed  to  th. 
without  undergoing  thi*  process,  Go.  xlix.  29 ;  l.M 
the  wish  expressed  so  strongly  by  them  to  be 
in  the  Land  of  Promise,  and  where  their  forefathers 
Abraham  and  l*aae  l.-iy.  when  taken  in  connection  witli 
Abniham's  i-efusal  to  lie  buried  among  the  idolatrous 
Cana.anifes,  and  his  earnestness  to  ae^uiiv  a  burial- 
place  which  *hol|!d  be  eXelllsivelv  his  (>WI1,  i',0  \\ili  (!-!•, 

are  mark*  of  the  same  truth  having  hold  of  their  minds. 
namely,  a  conviction  that  their  very  bodies  belonged  to 
the  Lord  th.-ir  Cod.  and  were  in  f.dth  to  be  conmiitted 
to  th'-  du>t  to  \\hich  they  must  return.  Souith  th" 
other  lu-ath'-nish  practice  of  binning  the  dead,  it  seems 
to  have  hi  en  altogether  exceptional:  in  time  of  a  plague, 
.'or  instance,  when  this  burning  might  cheek  infection. 
Am.  vi  d,  in;  or  in  such  a  ca*e  as  King  Saul's,  whose  bodv 
was  so  man  Jed  that  a  dec'  nt  ordinary  burial  could  \\  ith 
d.iiiicultv  be  given,  though  in  thi-  ca*e  al*o  the  b  >in  * 


»rr^J^C££^r 


[lit.]        Ancient  Egyptian  Funeral  Procession.—  From  Cailliainl. 


received  the  rites  of  burial.  1  Sa.  xxxi.  i.',t3.  However,  we 
read  of  a  lar^e  use  of  sjiices  which  were  laid  alongside 
of  the  body,  perhaps  wrapped  up  in  the  clothes  which 
were  wound  about  it.  or  burned  upon  the  spot  to  cause 
a  sweet  odour:  and  an  amount  of  costlv  spices  was 
sometimes  lavished  in  this  manner  which  strikes  a  care 
ful  reader  with  amazement.  1'Cli.xvi.  n;  Jn.xix.:i:i,  41 1. 

The  heat  of  the  climate  in  Palestine  makes  it  desir 
able  to  hasten  the  funeral  as  much  as  possible,  some 
times  within  an  hour  or  two  of  death,  seldom  so  long 


as  a  whole  day  after:  and  in  the  cases  of  Ananias  and 
Sapphira,  Ac.  v.  l,&c.,  interment  seems  to  have  taken 
place  without  delay.  Another  reason  would  urge  this 
among  the  Jews — the  law  which  made  any  one  unclean 
for  seven  days  who  touched  a  dead  body,  or  was  in  a 
dwelling  along  with  one.  Xu.  xix.  11,11.  As  soon  as  the 
breath  was  gone,  the  nearest  relatives  closed  the  eyes 
and  nave  a  parting  kiss.  Ge.  xhi.  I ;  1.1.  Then  the  body 
was  washed  with  water  and  dressed,  and  laid  out  for 
burial.  Ac.  ix.  3",  rolled  in  a  sheet,  Mut.  xxv;i.r,!i,  or  bound 


r.FRY 


in  grave-clothes,  Jn.\i.  n.  N\  believer  the  news  of  the 
decease  spread  abroad,  friends  and  neighbours  came 
crowding  in  and  filled  the  house  with  loud,  wild  lamen 
tations  :  and  these  were  frequently  the  more  remarkable 
for  apparent  violence  of  emotion  when  hired  mourners 
were  called  in.  who  even  made  use  of  instrumental 
music  to  add  to  the  piercing  wailing  sounds.  :\latix.2:i. 


with    Mar.  v.  :js  ;    ,le.  ix,  17; 

accompanied  the  body 
to  the  grave,  with 
every  gesticulation 
that  could  express 
ungovernable  grief  • 
tearing  their  hair, 
beating  their  breasts, 
rending  their  gar 
ments,  and  uttering 
lamentable  cries,  all 
which  have  been  often 
described  by  modern 
travellers  in  the  East. 
The  body  was  seldom 
put  in  a  cofHn.  though 
a  special  reason  might 
require  this,  as  when  Joseph's  body  was  to  be  carried  up 
to  Canaan:  but  the  present  custom  of  these  countries 
seems  to  have  nl«>  prevailed  of  old,  to  carry  the  body 
simply  on  a  lied  or  bier,  borne  by  the  friends,  while 
some  nearest  relations  or  others  most  deeply  interested 
walked  immediately  behind.  Ge.xxv.b.O;  L'sa  iii.:;i,ic  ;  Lu. 
vii.  12.  The  body,  dressed  in  its  grave-clothes,  which 
might  be  very  much  the  same  as  those  that  were  worn 
during  life,  and  with  a  napkin  wrapped  round  the 
face,  Jn.  xi.  44;  xix.  40,  was  then  laid  in  the  grave,  and 
the  funeral  partv  returned  homo  to  eat  the  mourning 


for  those  mourners  to  go  to  the  grave  and  weep  there, 
.In.  xi.  lit,  :',]. 

The  time  during  which  these  gatherings  of  sym 
pathizers  continued,  and  the  extent  to  which  money 
was  laid  out  upon  the  funeral  itself,  anil  the  feasting 
connected  with  it,  are  not  determinable  from  Scripture, 
though  there  is  mention  of  seven  days.  (ie.  1.  in;  i  Sa  xxxi. 
i";  and  a  month.  Nu  xv-".>:  I)c  xxxiv.  8.  I'.ut  if  an  approxi- 


1146.)    Sepulchres  of  the  Kings,  Jerusalem.-  TiOberts'  Holy 

feast.  Je.xvi.fi,-;  EXC.  xxiv.  17;  Ho.  ix.  4.  From  the  first  of 
these  texts  it  may  be  inferred  that  certain  heathen 
practices  of  cutting  the  hair  and  tearing  the  flesh  in 
mourning,  had  crept  into  use  in  spite  of  the  law  of 
(tod  against  them,  Le.  xix.  •_>*.  From  the  history  of 
Lazarus  and  his  sisters,  we  see  that  it  was  usual  for 
friends  to  continue  for  days  coming  in  order  to  con 
sole  the  bereaved  relatives,  and  that  it  WHS  also  usual 


mate  estimate  is  permissible  from  practices  in  Syria  at 
present,  everything  was  arranged  on  an  excessive  and 
extravagant  scale.  Dr.  Thomson  furnishes  some  good 
evidence  of  this  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  lol-lOM.  He 

speaks  of  the  enormous  gatherings  being  repeated  at 
stated  times  for  forty  days;   and  he  mentions  a  case 
I  that  occurred  a,s  he  was  writing,  of  a  young  friend  who 
had    lost  his  father,  and    from   whom  the  ecclesiastics 
were  demanding  2o,000  piastres  for   their  subsequent 
services.      And   he  believes   that  as   families  are  now 
often  reduced  to  poverty  by  funerals,  it  was  so   also 
in  ancient  times.      And   on   this  principle 
he    explains    the    protestation    which    an 
Israelite  made  in   the  year  of  tithing,  as 
to    his  having  completed    his  givings    for 
religious  and  charitable  purposes,  De.  xxvi 
H,  "I  have  not  eaten  thereof  in  my  mourn 
ing,    neither    have    I    taken    away  aught 
thereof    for   any  unclean   use.    nor    given 
aught  thereof  for  the  dead;"  that  is,   he- 
had  not  been  tempted  in  any  such  emer 
gency,  and  amidst  its  expensive  and   op 
pressive    demands,    to    alienate   from    the 
service  of  C^od  and  the  wants  of  the  poor 
that  which  ought  rightfully  to  be  devoted 
to  them.     (Jn  the  other  hand,  it  has  been 
alleged  that  there  is  danger  of  error  in  con 
necting  such  extravagances  with  the  older 
and  better  period  of  the  Israelitish  history. 
Burial-places  are  in  the  East  still  kept 
with  great  neatness,  often  fenced  in  and 
planted  with  trees,  as  Abraham's  appears  to 
have  been.    Often  there  is  a  title  telling  who 
,and.  lias  been  buried  on  the  spot,  a  practice  also 

of  the  Israelites,  2Ki.  x\iii.i7.  These  burial- 
places,  being  unclean  by  the  law  of  Moses,  were  on  the 
outside  of  the  cities,  except  in  the  case  of  Jerusalem,  as 
is  reported,  where  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings  were  in 
the  city  of  David,  2Ch.  xvi.  14,  the  like  being  done  in 
Samaria  with  the  kings  of  the  ten  tribes,  if  we  may 
judge  from  2  Ki.  x.  35  ;  xiii.  9.  &c.  An  exception  ap 
pears  also  to  have  been  made  in  favour  of  Samuel. 
j  i  Sn. x\v.  i  ;  xxviii.  3.  Perhaps  the  half- heathenish  worship 


r.UKY 


P-TTTEH 


of  the  ten  tribes  led  the  people,  however,  to  bury  beside 
their  altare,  as  at  Bethel,  in  the  same  manner  in  which 
churchyards  came  to  be  burial-places  among  Christians 


Hi   ,        Man  i  if  Sepulchres  of  tin-  Kind's,  Jerusalem.  — Jiurclay's 


in  times  of  superstition,  L' Ki.  xxiii  i:>,l«  f  I  raves  may 
some-times  have  been  quite  like  our  own  ;  but  the  pre 
vailing  taste  was  to  build  houses  for  the  dead,  which 
men  might  do  for  themselves  during  their  lifetime,  and 


[148  j        Sepulchre  with  stone  at  its  mouth.  -Barclay';) 
City  of  the  Great  King. 

often  these  were  cut  out  of  the  living  rock,  isa.xxv.i-, 
1  Ki  ii  31;  Is.  xxii.ui;  I.n  \\iii. :.:{.  To  a  cave  there  was  a 
door,  or  sometimes  a  stone  was  rolled  to  the  mouth  of 
it,  as  at  the  graves  of  Lazarus  and  our  Lord.  At  other 
times  they  seem  to  have  stood  very  open,  and  to  have 


afforded  a  shelter  to  outcasts  from  society,  la.  Ixv.  4;  Mar. 
v. ;').  But  in  order  that  those  who  wished  to  live  in 
obedience  to  the  law  might  not  contract  impurity  unin 
tentionally,  the  multitudes  of  sepulchres  about  Jeru 
salem  are  said  to  have  been  whitewashed  every  year 
about  the  time  of  the  passover.  so  that  all  might  easily 
avoid  them.  This  has  been  understood  to  give  point  to 
our  Saviour's  denunciation  of  the  hypocrites  of  his  day, 
whom  lie  compared  to  the  newly  whitened  sepulchres. 
Mat.  xxiii.  J7. 

There  was  no  greater  dishonour  possible  than  the 
violation  of  the  sepulchres  of  the  dead,  which  (!od 
threatened  and  brought  to  pass  on  daring  introducers 
and  supporter*  of  idolatry  among  his  professed  people. 
i:  Ki.  xxiii.  i.">,.vc. ;  Je  viii.i,^  To  others  it  was  threatened, 
as  a  punishment  of  similar  severity,  that  they  should 
be  deprived  of  burial  altogether,  -jKi.ix.it>;  Je  \xii.  i>,ni 
The  same  indignity  was  threatened  to  the  blasphemous 
king  of  Assyria.  Is.  \h  i-.i. -jn.  Public  criminals,  who  had 
been  put  to  death,  were  buried.  He  xxi. -JL'.  •->:;,  but  of 
course  with  as  little  of  respect  as  was  consistent  with 
common  decency.  This  would  naturally  have  been  tin- 
fate  of  our  Lord's  Imdv.  from  which,  however,  it  was 
•preserved  by  the  special  providence  of  (iod,  according 
to  what  had  been  foretold.  Is  liii  ..;  Ju.  xix.  31-42. 

There  are  magnificent  ranges  of  tombs,  named  those 
of  the  kings,  of  the  judges,  and  of  the  prophets,  still 
standm--  at  Jerusalem.  Scripture  also  speaks  of  the 
graves  of  the  common  people,  -.'Ki  xxiii.  (!;  Je.  XXVJ.2H,  of 
which  it  is  less  reasonable  to  expect  distinct  traces. 

[<J.C.  M.  1>.| 

BUSHEL  is  used  in  our  version  to  express  the  On  ,-k 

(or  rather   liomani  n«><iinf,  which  was   almost   equal   to 

OUT  peck.        (>'((    .Ml'.AS!  KK.s. 

BUTTER.  There  are  comparatively  but  few  pas 
sages  of  Scripture  in  which  this  word  occurs,  and  they 
are  all  in  tin-  Old  Testament.  Nor  are  Hebrew 
M-holars  by  any  means  agreed  that  tmltir  is  the  proper 
renderini:  of  ;b.-  corresponding  1<  rm  in  the  original 
(rX^r1-  I  >i  rived  from  a  root  still  existing  in  the  Ara 
bic,  which  signifies  thick  or  coagulated,  it,  is  under 
stood  to  denote  the  thicker  portion  or  produce  of  milk, 
but  whether  en-am,  or  butter.  <>r  curdled  sour  milk,  is 
doubted.  It  is  in  favour  of  butter  that  all  the  more 
ancient  translations,  (J reek  and  Latin,  adopt  it.  But  as 
j  this  in  the  Last  does  i.ot  differ  very  greatly  from  cream, 
and  has  nothing  like  the  consolidated  form  of  butter 
in  European  countries,  the  word  might  quite  naturally 
be  applied  also  to  cream  the  flower  or  fatness  of  milk, 
as  Jaivhi  and  some  of  the  rabbins  take  it.  The  mode 
of  churning,  which  travellers  describe  as  prevalent  in 
the  regions  about  Palestine,  is  probably  the  same  that 
was  practised  in  remote  times  The  milk  is  put  into 
a  skin-bair  la  whole  goat  skin  sewed  up  so  as  to  form 
a  ha"-)  and  suspended  in  a  slight  frame,  or  between  two 
sticks  leaning  against  the  tent  <>r  house:  then  it  is 
moved  to  and  fro  with  a  jerk  till  the  butter  is  obtained 
(Robinson's  Researches,  ii  p.  ISM;  Th"iiiMin's  Land  and  Honk,  p. 
ii.  c.  IS;  llanner's  Observations,  i.  111).  Hut  the  article  St)  ob 
tained  is  usually  in  a  semifluid  state,  and  only  once  in 
his  travels  does  Robinson  speak  of  meeting  with  what 
could  be  called  good  butter  (ii  r>~).  Thomson  says, 
that  ''in  winter  it  resembles  curdled  honey,  in  summer 
it  is  mere  oil."  "Some  of  the  farmers,"  he  adds, 
"have  learned  to  make  our  kind  of  butter,  but  it  soon 
becomes  rancid,  and  indeed  it  is  never  good.  One 


C/ESA11KA 


may  therefore  easily  understand  the  expression  in  Job      and.  it  may  be  (as  in  Is.  vii.  1;1,  '_>•_>).  in  contrast  to  the 
xxix.  (i.  "When  I  washed  my  steps   with   butter,  and      sparse-ness  and  poverty  of  the  inhabitants, 
the  rock  poured  mi;  out  rivers  of  oil" — butter  and 
being  almost  equally  fluid,  and   both   alike  syml 


richness  and  plenty;  ho  also  speaks  of  brooks  of  butter, 
ch.  xx.  i:.  Aral,  cookery  indulges  very  freely  in  the 
use  of  butter,  though  in  the  better  days  of  Palestine 
oil  from  the  olive-tree  was  probably  more  used  for  such 
purpose-.  "  I'.utter  and  honey"  are,  occasionally  em - 


A  tribe  against  whom   Jeremiah 
who   probably    dwelt   in  Desert 


BUZ   [<-<>nh;>,f>t..\ 
prophesied,    ch.  xxv. 

Arabia,  not  far  from  Dcdan  and  Tema.  who  are  joined 
with  i'.u/.  Klihu  may  have  belonged  to  this  tribe,  as 
he  is  named  the  Buzite,  ,l<.i.  xxxii.  i.  And  as  he  is  also 
said  to  have  been  of  the  kindred  of  Ram,  or  Aram,  the 
father  of  the  Syrians,  the  tribe  may  have  sprung  from 
1'ux.  the  nephew  of  Abraham,  whose  brother  Kemuel 


c. 


CAB.  A  small  Hebrew  m  -asiire.  which,  according 
to  rabbinical  authority,  was  the  160 til  part  of  an 
homer,  or  the  loth  of  an  ephah:  e,|iial  to  -i'l'  pints  im 
perial  measure-.  It  is  mentioned  in  L*  Ki.  vi.  2,">,  in 
connection  with  the  terrible  scarcity  which  then  pre 
vailed,  and  which  is  said  to  have  r. -ached  such  a  height, 
that  the  fourth  part  of  a  cab  of  dove's  dung  was  sold 
for  five  pieces  of  silver. 

CA'BUL.  1.  A  place  on  the  border  of  the  tribe  of 
Asher.  Jos.  x;x.  'JT;  probal.lv  the  same  as  the  village 
( 'habolo  of  .losephus,  on  the  confines  of  J'tolemais,  forty 
stadia  distant  from  Jotapata  (Life,  sect. 43,  45).  lfol.in.--on 
found  in  this  neighbourhood  a  village.  Kabul,  which  he 
regards  a-  the  representative  of  the  ancient  ( 'abid  (Re 
searches,  iii.  88,  edit.  ISnc).  In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  Kabul  was  a  place  of  .Jewish  pilgrimage. 

2.  A  district  comprising  twenty  cities  in  tin;  north 
of  Pale-stint;  presented  by  Solomon  to  Hiram,  king  of 
Tyre,  in  acknowledgment  of  his  services  in  the  erec 
tion  of  the  temple  and  the  royal  palace,  iKi.ix.  i:;.  Hi 
ram  on  visiting  the  cities  was  dissatisfied  with  the  L;! ft: 
"  he  called  them  the  land  of  Cabul;"  and  appears  to 
have  restored  the  district  to  Solomon  then  or  shortly 
after.  2  Ch.  \iii  •>.  The  appellation  evidently  expresses 
contempt  (Ocsonias,  Tliosrmrtis,  p.  C,ii);  but  what  may  be  its 
precise'  meaning,  or  what  may  have  been  the  cause  of 
Hiram's  dissatisfaction,  it  is  difficult  to  determine. 
According  to  Josephus  (Aiitiq.  viii.o.  sect,  s),  the  term  de 
notes  in  the  Phu-nician  language  "  what  does  not 
plea-e;"  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  cognate  dialects 
confirmatory  of  this  opinion.  Various  other  etymolo 
gies  have  been  proposed,  but  so  doubtful  that  they  need 
not  be  adverted  to.  It  was  a  question  \vith  the  older 
commentators  how  Solomon,  contrary  to  the  Mosaic 
law,  could  alienate  any  portion  of  the  land  which 
Jehovah  had  given  to  his  people  Israel;  but  an  explana 
tion  may  be  found  in  the  circumstance,  that  the  district 
was  probably  of  recent  conquest  and  not  yet  inhabited 
by  Israelites.  Galileo,  within  which  it  lay.  comprised 
at  the  time  only  the  northern  part  of  the  province 
which  latterly  bore  that  name,  and  was  designated 
"Galilee  of  the  Gentiles/'  is.  i\.  i.  showing  that  down  to 
a  much  later  period  it  was  inhabited  chiefly  by  heathen. 
It  was  only  after  the  citit  s  were  restored  to  Solomon, 
2Ch.  viii.2,  that  he  caused  the  children  of  Israel  to  inha 
bit  them  ;  and  whence  they  were  carried  captive  by 
Tiglath-pileser,  2Ki.xv.  :M.  (SeuKcil,  Die  Biicher  derKonigc, 
1>.13!>).  [0.  M.] 


C.ZESAR.  A  name  assumed  as  a  title  of  honour  by 
tlie  Roman  emperors  after  Augustus,  who  took  it  him 
self  as  the  adopted  son  of  Julius  (  'a-sar.  It  thus  be 
came,  like  the  Pharaoh  of  Kuypt.  or  the  Abimelech  of 
ihe  Philistines,  a  general  designation  for  the  head  of 
the  Roman  state.  In  this  manner  it  is  applied  in  the 
.New  Testament  writings  to  four  .successive  emperors;  — 
Augustus.  Lu.ii.  1;  Tiberius.  Lu.  iii.  1;  Claudius.  1,1.1.  xi.  :><•; 
.Nero.  AC.  xxv.  s.  (See  the  several  names,  i 

C^ESARE'A.  Then-  were  two  cities  bearing  this 
general  name,  mentioned  in  gospel  history,  the  one. 
as  the  more  noted  and  larger  place,  called  simply 
Csesarea.  the  other  by  way  of  distinction  denominated 
Ca-san-a  Philippi:  the  one  also  within  the  bounds  of 
Palestine  proper,  the  other  on  its  extreme  limits,  if  not 
a  little  beyond  them. 

1.  C.KSAKKA  PALKSTIXA.  This  city,  originally  called 
Str.ito's  Tower.  Lay  upon  the  Syrian  (toast,  about  half 
way  between  Joppa  on  the  south,  and  Cape  Carmel  on 
the  north,  it  stood  in  the  plain  of  Sharon,  an  exten 
sive,  open,  somewhat  undulating  pastoral  district,  and 
on  the  highway  between  Tyre  and  Egypt.  It  was 
about  thirty -five  Roman  miles  distant  from  Joppa,  and 
fifty-five  from  Jerusalem  by  the  nearest  route:  but  the 
common  road  was  from  sixty-live  to  seventy.  Hence 
the  company  of  soldiers  who  conveyed  Paul  from  Jeru 
salem  to  ( 'a-sarea  took  nearly  t\\o  days  to  the  journey. 
Ac.  xxiii.  :n,"L',  while  the  messengers  of  Cornelius  from 
('a-sarea  to  Peter  at  Joppa  appear  to  have  travelled 
the  distance  in  one  day,  ch.  x.n.  PX-I'IIL!  one  of  the 
most  considerable  places  in  Palestine  at  the  period  of 
the  gospel  age,  and  the  usual  seat  of  the  Roman  pro 
curator,  as  it  had  previously  been  of  Herod,  frequent 
mention  is  made  of  it  in  connection  with  apostolic  agency 
and  tht  history  of  the  early  church.  There  first,  through 
the  family  of  Cornelius,  the  door  of  faith  was  opened 
to  the  Gentiles  by  the  special  direction  of  Heaven,  and 
the  ministry  of  the  apostle  Peter.  There  also,  and 
probably  about  the  same  period,  Paul  found  a  tempo- 
rarv  refuse,  when  he  was  obliged  to  quit  Jerusalem  on 
his  first  visit  after  conversion,  and  before  he  returned 
TO  his  native  city,  Tarsus.  Ac.ix.3n.  At  a  later  period 
he  was  carried  to  the  place  as  a  prisoner  and  detained 
in  bonds  for  two  whole  years,  Ac.  xxiii..1"!;  xxiv.  27.  Peter, 
in  like  manner,  when  persecuted  by  Herod  in  Jerusa 
lem,  sought  arid  found  a  temporary  asylum  inCsesarea, 
Ac.  xii.  i».  It  was  the  residence  for  many  years  of  Philip 
the  evangelist,  Ac.  viii.  40  ;  xxi.  £,  1C. ;  and  occasional  visits, 


CAIAl'HAS 


CAIN 


larged  and  embellished.      Ills  father  Herod  had  already  ' 
done  something  in  the  same  direction,  and,  in  particu-  j 
lar,  had  built  a  beautiful  marble  temple,  which  he  dedi 
cated  to  liis  great  patron  Augustus  C;esar;    but  the  son 
added   immensely    to    the    size    ;md    s])leiidour    of    the 
place.       It  thenceforth  became   known    by  tin:   name   of 
('a-san-a  1'hilippi,  but  the   natives  appear  still  to  havo 
retained    the    more  ancient  designation.      In  history  it 
is  ofb  n  call,  il  (.  'a'-ar-a   I'aneas. 

At  a  memorable  period  in  our  Lord's  history  he  re 
treated  for  a  season  to  this  remote  city,  and  in  its  im 
mediate  neighbourhood,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe, 
occurred  the  remarkable  scene  of  the  transfiguration  on 
the  mount,  Mat.  \vi.  i:;;  xvii.  i.  Jesus  was  then  seeking  re 
tirement,  for  the  purpose  of  being  more  alone  with  his 
disciples,  and  preparing  their  minds  for  the  trying  events 
that  were  before  them.  It  was  accordingly  when  in 
that  region  that  he  began  to  give  them  more  distinct  inti 
mations  of  his  approaching  snilerin'rs,  death,  and  resur 
rection,  and  disclosed  to  them,  in  the  most  striking  and 
emphatic  manner,  the  spiritual  nature  of  the  kingdom 
he  \\a,s  going  to  establish.  The  discourses  and  transac 
tions  of  that  period  formed  a,  marked  era  in  the  history 
of  his  earthly  ministry,  though  the  disciples  at  the 
time  could  very  imperfectly  apprehend  their  import 
and  design:  only  when  the  Spirit  came,  and  brought 
ail  tilings  in  their  true  light  and  proper  bearing  to  re 
membrance,  could  they  reap  the  full  benefit  of  the  in 
struction.  Ca'sarea  Philippi,  however,  with  its  coasts, 
appears  to  have  been  chosen  for  these  more  select 
communications  merely  on  account  of  its  remoteness 
and  | privacy;  nor  is  anything  said  of  the  place  itself  - 
how  it  treated  Jesus,  or  how  lit;  conducted  himself  to 
ward  it.  The  report  of  Luscbius.  that  the  woman  who 
was  cured  of  the  issue  of  blood  resided  there,  cannot 
be  regarded  as  of  any  authority.  Asa  town,  the  place 
continued  to  have  a  certain  degree  of  importance  for  many 
ages.  l-'requent  mention  is  ma.de  of  it  in  the  history 
of  the  enisades,  and,  after  a  variety  of  changes,  it  was 
iinally  lost  to  the  Christians  in  the  year  1 165.  The  most 
remarkable  thing  about  it  now  is  an  old  and  majestic 
castle  (Shuboibeh)  standing  on  a  height  above  the  site 
<>f  the  city,  supposed  to  have  been  in  part  built  by  the 
Ilerodian  princes,  though  chieily  of  later  erection,  and 
the  scene  of  many  a  conflict  in  the  days  of  the  crusades. 
CAI'APHAS  [supposed  to  be  a  derivative  of  the 
Aramaic  word  ki-ji/irix.  rock|,  the  name  of  the  person 
who  was  in  the  position  of  high-priest  during  the  period 
of  our  Lord's  ministry  and  death.  He  is  said  by  Jose- 
phus  to  have  had  Joseph  for  his  proper  name,  having 
( 'aiaphas  for  his  surname(Antiq.  xviii.  2, 2; 4,:;).  He  held  the 
oitice  of  high- priest  for  a  considerable  time,  having 
been  appointed  by  Valerius  (Jratus  in  A.D.  25  or  26, 
and  retaining  it -till  A.D.  ;>7,  when  lie  was  removed  by 
Ytarcellus.  As  this  was.  at  the  time,  a  very  unusual 
tenure  of  office,  no  fewer  than  four  high-priests  having 
been  deposed  by  the  Gratus  to  whom  he  owed  his  ele 
vation,  it  may  not  unnaturally  be  regarded  as  a  sign  of 
that  "\igorous,  but  withal  crafty  and  unscrupulous 
character,  which  plainly  discovers  itself  in  his  proceed 
ings  toward  Christ  and  the  apostles.  He  was  married 
to  the  daughter  of  Annas,  or  Ananus,  who  had  been 
himself  high-priest  for  several  years,  and  five  of  whose 
sons  had  successively,  though  for  comparatively  brief 
|)(  riods,  held  the  same  office,  (Joscphus,  Antiq  xviii.  0,1). 
This  sufficiently  explains  the  high  sacerdotal  rank 
and  iniluence  which  Annas  continued  to  enjoy,  and 


how  he  should  be  coupled  with  Caiaphas,  as  substan 
tially  on  a  footing  with  him,  in  the  management  of  ec 
clesiastical  affairs.  Tn  Lu.  iii.  2,  Annas  and  (.'aiaphas 
are  together  named  high-priests;  in  Jn.  xviii.  13-2-1,  the 
band  that  sei/ed  .Jesus  are  represented  as  first  leading 
him  to  Annas,  and,  while  Caiaphas  is  called  by  way  of 
eminence  the  high-priest  for  that  year,  yet  both  have 
that  term  applied  to  them;  and  again  in  Ac.  iv.  0,  An 
nas  is  associated  with  ('aiaphas,  and  designated  the 
high-priest,  either  from  presiding  at  the  council,  or  from 
taking  the  more  active  part  in  the  proceedings  against 
the  apostles.  ('^«\  for  the  reason  of  this  extension  of 
the  term  high-priest,  under  the  article  A  KIATIIAK.) 

.It  was  before  ('aiaphas,  as  presiding  high-priest  at 
the  time,  that  .lesus  confessed  himself  to  be  the  Sou  of 
Cod.  anil  by  him  that  the  judgment  of  blasphemy  was 
pronounced  against  tin-  Holy  due  of  Israel.  This  was. 
undoubtedly,  the  most  awful  fact  in  his  history,  and 
the  crowning  point  of  his  guilt.  Hut,  perhaps,  the 
most  peculiar  thing  recorded  of  him  is  the  circumstance 
of  his  having  uttered  a  word  respecting  Christ  which, 
from  its  being  the  utterance  of  the  high-priest,  is  de 
clared  by  the  evangelist  to  have  been,  in  a  sense  diffe 
rent  from  that  intended  by  the  speaker,  a  prophecy. 
The  word  itself  was,  "  Ye  know  nothing  at  all;  nor 
consider  that  it  is  expedient  for  us  that  one  man  should 
die  for  the  people,  and  that  the  whole  nation  perish  not. 
And  this,"  adds  the  evangelist,  ''spake  he,  not  of  him 
self,  but  being  high-priest  that  year,  he  prophesied 
that  Jesus  should  die  for  that  nation;  and  not  for  that 
nation  only,  but  that  he  should  u'ather  together  in  one 
the  children  of  God  that  are  scattered  abroad,"  Jn.  xi 
•v.i-tt.  The  case  was  altogether  extraordinary  and  pecu 
liar.  God's  ordinary  method  in  making  prophetical 
announcements  to  his  people,  was  through  the  agency 
of  //"///  men,  speaking  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
(•host.  These  alone  could  be  the  properly  qualified 
arid  willing  instruments  of  such  a  work.  Hut  occa 
sionally  instruments  of  another  kind  were  (though  only 
in  an  incidental  and  subordinate  manner)  pressed  into 
the  service.  The  most  remarkable  instance  of  that 
description  was  l!alaam  ;  and  to  the  same  class  must 
be  assigned  Caiaphas,  who,  in  a  very  singular  and  mo 
mentous  crisis  of  affairs,  was  led  to  utter  a.  sentiment, 
"  in  which  thoughtful  and  reflective  minds  could  not 
fail  to  perceive  the  overruling  hand  of  God.  It  was, 
we  may  say,  the  guiding  of  the  last  official  representa 
tive  of  the  priestly  order  enigmatically  to  disclose  the 
event,  which  was  at  once  to  antiquate  its  existence  and 
to  fulfil  the  end  of  its  appointment.  And  this  might 
the  more  fitly  be  done  hv  one  who  knew  not  what  he 
said,  as  the  priesthood  generally  at  the  time  had  ceased 
to  know  the  mystery  of  its  own  vocation."  ( t'l-ophecy 
vicwud  in  respect  to  ii  s  Distinctive  '.viture.  ie.  }<  -Int.) 

CAIN  [ti-/t(if  Is  i/ottcn,  Ki-'/m .-.-/V/«,/],  the  name  given 
by  Eve  to  her  first-born  son,  as  one  whom  she  had 
gotten  from,  or  rather  with  the  Lord.  Her  words  at 
the  birth  are  somewhat  peculiar,  ''  I  have  gotten  a  man, 
IVrv-pX.  with  (namely,  witli  the  help  of)  Jehovah." 

T      ; 

Such  we  take  to  be  the  correct  meaning  of  the  original, 

and  not.  as  some  would  render  it,  "  I  have  gotten  a  man, 

Jehovah."     Dr.  Pye  Smith,  in  his  Scripture  Testimony, 

even  goes  so  far  a>  to  say,  that  ' ;  there  seems  no  option 

]  to  an  interpreter,  who  is  resolved  to  follow  the  tair  and 

I  grammatical  signification  of  the  words  before  him,  but 

to  translate  the  words  thus."     But  even  he,  and  most 


4  CAIN 

others  who  adept  the  same  rendering',  are  obliged  to  know  that  he  had  here  to  do  with  more  than  a  fellow- 
explain  away  the  sense  which  such  a  rendering  yields;  :  creature:  and  that,  however  he  might  have  succeeded  in 
as  it  is  against  all  probability  to  suppose  that  Eve  now  j  getting  rid  of  Abel's  presence,  and  concealing  (asitwonld 
imagined  she  had  actually  given  birth  to  the  incarnate  seem)  the  place  and  mode  of  his  decease,  he  had  to 
Jehovah.  This  idea,  which  the  words  on  the  view  in  answer  for  it  to  a  higher  tribunal.  The  proud,  heaven- 
question  must  have  expressed,  is  softened  into  "some-  daring  spirit,  even  in  this  showed  itself,  at  least  at  the 
tiling  connected  with  the  Divine  Being" — a  meaning  first  call  to  a  reckoning  with  Heaven;  for  when  the 
which  is  not  materially  different  from  that  obtained  by  Lord  demanded  of  him,  "Where  is  Abel  thy  brother!" 
the  other  and,  as  we  conceive,  more  natural  rendering,  the  stout-hearted  reply  was,  "  I  know  not ;  am  I  my 
We  find  the  same  form  of  expression  in  the  following  brother's  keeper .'"  But  God  was  not  so  to  be  mocked  ; 
passages,  Ge.  v.  24;  vi.  ii;  xliii.  id;  Ju.  i.  ii:,  signifying  ti'ith,  in  and  the  charge  was  instantly  laid  against  him.  "  What 
the  sense  of  in  fcllo t/'x/i >/i  icit/i  (lod,  or  some  other  per-  hast  thon  done!  the  voice  of  thy  brother's  blood  crieth 
son  spoken  of;  and  in  Ju.  viii.  7,  it  hears  the  cognate  unto  me  from  the  ground:"-  not  concealed  and  buried 
sense  c if  wit/,  tin •  Itlji  <>/  (''  with  the  help  of  thorns  of  in  the  earth,  as  Cain  in  the  frenzy  of  his  impetuous 
the  wilderness,"  &c.)  Lve  simply  meant,  as  we  con 
ceive,  to  indicate  that  the  child  she  had  now  given  birth  lifting  up  a 
to  had  come  to  her  in  connection  with  Jehovah's  gra- 

cious   presence  or  helping  hand  -  referring,    no   doubt,  judgment  to   be  milicUd,    "  thou   art  cursed   from   the 

more  immediately  to  the  manner  in  which  she  had  been  earth,    which  hath  opened    her  mouth   to   receive  thy 

home  through  the  troubles  of  her  first  parturition,  and  ;  brother's  blond   from   thy  hand:   when  thou   tillest  the 

how,    notwithstanding  the  sorrows   and    dangers  con-  LTround,    it    shall   not    henceforth    yield    unto   thee   its 

nectcd  with  it.  Cod  had  been    pleaded    to   give   her  tin  strength:   a  fugitive  and   a   yagabond  (wanderer)    shall 

eonmicnc<  nient   of  a  seed.      This  part ieular  seed.    how-  thou  lie  in  the  earth."      It   is  rather  tile  mildness   than 

ever,  proved  in  process  of  time  of  a  very  dhtiTen;  kind  the  severity  of  this  punishment  which  miu'ht  now  strike 

from  what  the  maternal  feelings  of  Kve  would  naturally  us.  considering  the  atrocity  of  the  crime  \\hich  provoked 

prompt  her  at  the   moment  of   his   birth   to   anticipate:  it:   since    nothing  more   seemed    to   be   indicated   as   to 

and  the  event  which  first  awoke  in  her  bosom  the  con-  physical    evil   in    what    was    threatened,     than    banish 

sciousness  of    a    mother's   joy  was  destined    to    he  asso-  meiit    to   som*-    distance    from    the   original  seat    of   the 

eiated  in  her  future  experience  with  the  pangs  of  paren-  human  family,  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  occupy  - 

tal  bereavement.  ing  a  less   fertile  region,  \\lnTe  tin;  means  of  procuring 

Tlie  records  of  primeval  times  are  too  brief  to  di.-pei  subsistence  should  lie  more  dilliciilt  of  acquisition.  It 
the  mystery  that  hangs  around  this  melancholy  catas-  appeared  otherwise,  however,  to  the  oii'eiidcr  him- 
trophe.  How  the  first-born  of  parents,  who  had  them  -elf :  his  pride,  evidently  still  unsubdued,  writhed  under 
.-elves  trodden  the  blissful  haunts  ..f  paradise,  and  who  '  the  stroke;  and  he  exclaimed,  ".My  punishment  is 
could  scarcely  fail  to  strive,  by  pious  atl'ection  toward  greater  than  1  can  bear."  What  led  him  to -p^ak  thus 
their  immediate  offspring,  to  have  the  distance  narrowed  appears  to  have'  been  not  so  much  the  physical  as  the 
a-  much  as  possible  between  what  originally  had  been  social  evils  of  his  position  the  alienation  alike  fmm 
the  condition  of  man.  and  what  through  >in  it  had  now  <  •«({  and  man  into  \\hich  he  was  now  thrown,  and  the 
become;  how,  in  spite  of  all  this,  and  of  the  many  rea  .-a vagi'  horrors  of  the  state  of  isolation  and  outlawry  to 
sons  and  inducements  which  the  infancy  of  the  world  \vhich  he  was  consigned.  "  IVhold,"  said  he.  "thou 
pre.-eiited  for  drawinu'  closer  together  the  bands  of  hast  driven  me  out  this  day  from  the  face  of  the  earth ; 
human  concord,  the  root  of  evil  in  Cain  should  have  and  from  thy  face  shall  J  be  hid  (rather,  must  1  hide 
sprung  so  wildly,  and  reached  such  a  f.  arful  height,  as  myself';  and  1  shall  be  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond  in 
to  issue  in  the  unnatural  crime  of  fratricide,  it  is  diiti-  tin-  earth;  and  it  shall  come  to  pa-s  that  whosoever 
.•nit  even  to  conjecture.  As,  however,  it,  was  evidently  iindeth  me  shall  slay  me."  Not  an  expression  of  regret 
a  tVelin-  of  wounded  pride  which  at  last  precipitated  in  <  scaj.es  him  ;  the  sense  of  injury  inflicted,  or  likely  to 
Cain  the  commission  of  the  fatal  act,  we  can  scarcely  be  inflicted  upon  himself,  is  all  that  he  is  concerned 
doubt  that  the  growth,  however  it  may  have  come  about:  and  he  seems  utterly  unconscious  of  any  moral 
about,  of  a  proud  rebellious  spirit  of  opposition  to  the  necessity  for  his  appointment  to  such  a  lot,  as  the  con 
will  of  Heaven  in  the  matter  of  religious  worship,  was  sequence  of  the  unl.mtherly  and  inhuman  spirit  he  had 
the  form  which  the  evil  in  him  more'  especially  assumed,  displayed.  There  was  just  one  indication  of  a  softened 
and  the  direct  cause  of  the  direful  consequences  that  mood  in  what  he  said— in  his  feeling  it  to  be  an  iiitoler- 
followed.  Fmm  the  existence  of  such  a  spirit  in  Cain,  able  burden  to  he  treated  as  an  exile  from  human  so- 
manifesting  itself  in  the  kind  of  worship  he  presented,  ciety,  and  exposed  to  the  calamities  of  an  outlaw  from 
the  Lord  refused  to  show  that  respect  to  It i*  ottering  heaven:  and.  as  a  tok.  n  of  mercy  still  mingling  with 
which  lie  showed  to  Abel's  :  and  this  favour  exhibited  the  judgment,  the  Lord  was  graciously  pleased  to  set 
toward  the  younger  brother,  in  preference  to  the  elder,  so  I  bounds  to  the  evil  by  assuring  him  of  protection  to  his  life 
stung  the  haughty  spirit  of  Cain,  that  the  sullen  scowl  of  '  —"Whosoever  slayeth  Cain,  vengeance  shall  betaken 
wrath  settled  upon  his  countenance— settled  so  fixedly,  of  him  sevenfold."  In  short,  the  punishment  was  limited 
that  even  the  expostulation  of  Heaven  proved  unavail-  to  the  moral  effects  that  justly  flowed  from  his  crime- 
ing  to  remove  it,  and  no  satisfaction  could  be  found  for  in  accordance  with  the  general  clemency  which  charac- 
the  affront  he  had  sustained,  till  the  In-other,  who  had  terizcd  the  divine  administration  during  the  antediluvian 
been  the  innocent  occasion  of  it,  had  been  violently  :  age,  and  which  was  peculiarly  marked  by  the  absence 
made  away  with.  (Xcc  AP.EL.)  of  law  and  penalty.  (See  ANTEDILUVIAN  AGE.)  He 

Cain,  however,  soon  found  that  such  a  mode  of  get-  :  was  simply  to  be  placed  at  an  outside  by  Adam  and  the 

ting  relief  from  one  source  of  annoyance  entailed  upon  other  members  of   the  human  family,  as  one  morally 

him  anoth-r  and  a  orcater.      He  was  presently  made  to  ,  unfit  to  enjoy  the  benefits  of  free  and  social  intercom- 

VOL.  I.  32 


CAIN  AN 

munion.  And  the  Lord.  \vt.-  are  told,  oven  "'  set  a  in:irk 
upon  l';ii]),"  «>r.  as  it  should  rather  lie,  "appointed  u 
siirn  for  Cain,"  lest  any  (hiding  him  should  kill  him. 
What  tlii-  sign  was  we.  have  no  ine;i,'is  of  ascertaining, 
and  all  conjectures  upon  the  subject  have  proved  of  n 


)()  CAINAN 

2.  A  postdiluvian  patriarch,  introduced  in  our  Lord's 
Lrencalogy  in  Lu.  iii.  uii,  as  the  son  of  Arphaxad  and 
father  of  Sal  a.  The  name  occurs  in  the  Scptuagint 
version  of  (Jr.  x.  22  after  Aram;  and  in  ver.  24  \\ith 
the  addition,  '•  and  Ar[>ha.\ad  begat  Cainan,  and  Cainan 


cii-cumstanees  of  the  ease,  however,     begat   Sala ;"'   while  chap.  xi.   1^,  1:5   assigns  to  him  a 


and  from  the  use  elsewhere  made  of  the  expression,  i 

i  \  uni>lo,  .lu.  vi.  17;  Is.  vii.  H>,  11,  we  are 

of  some  visible    token,  which   the 

such  as  might   serve   the   purpose   of   a  confirmation  of 

the  word  spoken,  and  a  pledge  of  its  fuliilment 


,_,  jneriition  of  1130  years.      Of  all  this  there  is  no  trace 

naturally  led  to  think      whatever  in   the   Hebrew  text  ;   a  circumstance   which 
L.  ml    gave   to   Cain,     has    given    rise    to    much    discussion    among    biblical 
critics.     The  matter  may  be  of  little  importance  in  it- 

e  worn  spoKen,  ana  a  pieieje  ..i  luo  .u^,.^..  Keif;   but   it  has   a   considerable    bearing    on   question* 

The  sacred  history  tells  us  little  more  of  the  personal  relative  to  the  state  of  the  Hebrew  text.  Jt  is  chiefly, 
history  of  Cain  :  but  it  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  however,  from  its  connection  with  the  controversy  re- 
tli,.  „.,„!],  ,,  spirit  which  continued  to  characterize  him.  specting  the  chronology  of  the  Septnagint,  that  it  de- 
and '"which  from  him  descended  to  hi*  posterity.  "  He  inands  special  examination.  Dismissing  the  various 
went  out  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,"  that  is,  from  '  attempts  at  reconciling,  in  this  instance,  the  Original 
the  place  probably  at  the  eastern  approach  of  Eden,  J  with  the  LXX..  as  incapable  of  leading  to  any  satisfac- 
vvherethe  Lord  manifested  his  presence  to  those  who  !  tory  result,  the  only  alternative  is,  either  the  corruption 
sought  him  iu  the  appointed  channels  of  worship;  and  of  our  present  Hebrew  text  in  these  genealogical  pas- 
" dwelt  in  the  laud  of  Nod  on  the  east  of  Eden."  As  sages,  or  the  incorrectne-'s  of  the  Septuagint,  whence 
Nod  simply  means  exile,  the  land  which  Cain  chore  for  in  that  case  it  must  have  been  taken  by  Luke,  or  a 
his  future 'habitation  evidently -ot  its  name  from  the  !  transcriber  of  his  gospel. 

condition  of  its  original  occupant:  it  was  stamped  as  \  The  latter  alternative  is  supported  by  the  following 
the  Botany  Ha//  of  the  primitive  earth.  He,  we  may  be  evidence  :  first,  the  reading  of  the  LXX.  is  not  corro- 
,ure  did  not  wish  it  to  be  so  designated  ;  and  the  city,  borated  by  any  independent  well- authenticated  testi- 


whieh,  we  are  told,  he  afterwards  built,  he  called  by 
the  name  of  his  son  Lnoch.  Nothing  more  is  recorded 
of  him  personally,  except  that  he  took  a  wife  with  him 
to  the  place  of  his  sojourn,  and  had  a  family  by  her. 


mony  apart  from  Luke  iii.  o(>.  The  Samaritan  Penta 
teuch,  the  Targums  of  Jonathan  and  Onkelos,  the 
Syriac,  Vulgate,  Arabic,  and  other  ancient  versions, 
contain  no  trace  of  this  second  Cainan.  ]S'o  mention  is 


That  this  wife  was  one  of  the  daughters  of  Adam  and  made  of  him  by  Phil,,  or  Josephus :  the  latter,  m  par- 
Fvc  we  'ire  Dimply  left  to  infer  from  the  fact  of  their  ticular,  not  only  omits  him  m  his  list  of  the  patriarchs 
being  the  parents  of  all  living.  But  it  is  not  the  prac-  after  the  flood,  but  by  implication  in  the  testimonies  he 
tice  of  the  sacred  historian,  in  tlu.se  brief  notices  of  the  deduces  from  Bcrosus  (Antiq.  i.  7,  sect,  a),  and  others  who 
earliest  times,  to  record  the  birth  of  daughters  indivi-  make  Abraham  to  be  the  h,,1h  from  Noah.  The  same 
dually  Adam  and  those  who  followed  him,  are  said  is  the  case  with  such  of  the  fathers  as  adverted  to  this 
generally  to  have  begotten  sons  and  daughters:  but  matter:  as  Theophilus,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  and  Origen, 
even  of  "the  sons  only  tlie  more  prominent  links  of  the  the  latter,  on  the  testimony  of  Procopius  of  Gaza,  mark- 
chain  are  "iven  It  is  absurd,  therefore,  to  raise  any  '  ing  the  passage  with  an  obelisk  vt)  in  his  copy  of  the 
'  question  as  to  the  ouarter  whence  Cain  derived  his  LXX.  to  denote  its  spuriousness.  Eusebius  also  and 
wife  or  to  regard  the  notice  respecting  his  wife  as  an  Jerome  omitted  the  second  Cainan.  Irerueus 
evidence  of  other  tribes  beinu' in  existence  at  the  time,  '  llreresos,  1.  iii.  33)  reckons  seventy-two  generations  from 
beside  the  offspring  of  Adam.  The  sacred  narrative  Adam  to  Christ;  whereas,  including  Cainan,  the  nuni- 
lends  no  countenance  to  such  an  idea  :  but  it  presents  her  would  have  been  seventy-three. 
Cain  himself  as  a  kind  of  second  head  of  the  primitive  !  Secondly,  the  testimony  of  the  Septuagint  itself 
population  of  the  world -the  head  of  that  seed  which  j  not  uniform  and  consistent.  It  is  true  all  the 
virtually  espoused  the  cause  of  the  adversary,  and  be-  j  contain  the  important  addition  m  Ge.  xi.  12,  differing, 
came  at  length  involved  in  his  doom.  Driven,  as  Cain  however,  greatly  as  to  the  years  assigned  to  his  genera- 
an.l  his  immediate  offspring  were,  to  the  occupancy  of  tioii  (see  Landschreiber,  Qudlen  »  Text  dev  LXX.  Bielefeld,  issr., 
a  less  favoured  position,  and  determined,  possibly,  in  p.  a),  l>ut  three  }ISS.  in  Holmes's  collation  omit  the 
the  spirit  of  rivalry  and' pride,  to  work  up  against  the  |  name  in  Ge.  x.  22,  24.  But  of  more  importance  is  the 
difficulties  of  their  lot,  they  were  not  disappointed  in  !  fact,  that  it  is  altogether  wanting  m  the  genealogical 
findiiK"  such  a  reward  as  usually  attends  the  efforts  of  table  in  1  C'h.  i.  24. 

those  who  ply  to  the  utmost  their  worldly  resources.         On  the  other  hand,  the  strongest  argument  for  the 
The  colonists  of  the  land  of  Xod  soon  became  a  vigo-     genuineness  of  the  reading  of  the  Septuagmt  is  Lu.  in 
rous  settlement,  which  in  numbers,  in  inventive  skill,     S.1 ;  but  even  here  the   Codex  Bezce   one  of  the  oldest 
in  articles  of  refinement,  and  instruments  of  war,  gave     MSS.  known,  omits  the  name;  and  according  t 
them  a    decided    advantage    over    the    better   line    of    liger  (Prolog,  ad  Chronicon  Eusutii,  Leyd.  1606),  other  ancie 
-Vdam's  posterity  ;  so  that  those  who  commenced  life  as  j  MSS.  likewise  omitted  it.     Another  argument  relied  on 
exiles  and  outlaws  rose  by  degrees  to  the  ascendency  in     by  the  defenders  of  the  Septuagint   is  the  testimony  of 
the  world  that  had  exiled  them,  and  ruled  it  with  a  rod     Demetrius,  said  by  Hales  to  be  a  heathen  chronolc 
of  iron,     lint  while  they  could  thus  prevail  over  their     of  Alexandria  (B.C.  220),  who  made  the  period  from  the 

i  , i  _!_•    —       ,   j-i,,-.    ^l^rn^rt -.-.-*-  -,-P     Tonnl->  mfn     Ko-vnt,  t h<»    S.'UIH: 


fellowmeii,  the  righteousness  of  Cod  proved  greatly  too 
strong  for  them,  and  in  the  desolation  of  the  flood 
destroyed  and  destroyers  alike  found  a  common  grave. 


CAI'NAJST  [f 


:  Filrst;  weapon  maker,  Ges.]    1. 


An  antediluvian   patriarch,   the  son  of  Enos,   and  the 
father  of  Mahalaieel,  Gs.v.9,  12;  i  cu.i.  2-,  Lu.iii.  37. 


creation  to  the  descent  of  Jacob  into  Egypt  the  same 
as  that  given  in  the  Septuagint;  thus  including  the 
generation  of  Cainan.  Admitting,  however,  that  De 
metrius  followed  the  Greek  version  of  the  Scriptures, 
this  only  proves  that,  at  that  early  period,  it  contained 
the  present  reading,  but  it  decides  nothing  as  to  tli3 


C  ALA  II  '!• 

state  of  the  Hebrew  text.  Objection  is  also  taken  to  ! 
the  view  given  above  of  the  evidence  of  Bercsus,  Ire-  j 
meus,  and  others,  who  reckon  up  the  number  of  gene-  I 
rations,  ami  their  testimony  is  declared,  on  the  con 
trary,  to  be  favourable  to  the  genuineness  of  the  Sep- 
tuagint.  Et  must,  indeed,  be  admitted  that  such  state 
ments  are  ambiguous,  and  may  be  differently  viewed 
according  as  the  first  member  may  or  may  not  be  in 
cluded  in  the  series  ;  and  it  is  therefore  better  to  attach 
no  weight  to  them.  Irrespective,  however,  of  such 
arguments,  so  strongly  does  the  testimony  in  favour  of 
the  Hebrew  text  preponderate,  that  even  strenuous 
advocates  of  the  chronology  of  the  Septuagint,  as  Hales, 
for  example  (Now  Analy.  of  Chron.  i.  p.  2M)),  feel  in  this  in 
stance  constrained  to  abandon  their  iruide.  Of  course 
the  reading  in  Luke  iii.  :',i',  Ins  no  hi  Ji.  r  authority  than 
the  source  whence  it  was  taken  ;  and  there  can  be  no 
hesitation  in  pronouncing  it  to  be  the  addition  of  some 
transcriber,  first,  perhaps,  in  the  form  of  a  marginal 
note,  afterwards  embodied  in  the  text.  (See  Usher,  DC 
(.'uinriiie  Ar]ilm\:i<li  Fili-i, Critic!  Sacri.vu]  vi  •  Railliu  Oims  Histor 
etrhronologicum,  Anist.  Kfi.l,  p.  L'.i-:;n).  [i>.  \|.| 

CALAH  jo/,/  age\,  one  of  four  cities  in  Assyria 
founder]  by  Nimrod  as  a.  Dew  centre  of  his  extended 
empire,  which  at  first  embraced  only  Shinar :  for  so  the 
•-omewhat  ambiguous  statement  in  ( !e.  x.  ]«,  11  (see 

mar;/,  r..  v.1,  is  underst 1  by  the  most  eminent  modern 

Hebraists,  a-;  Tueh,  Knob,],  and  Ddit/sch.  All  that 
is  stated  regarding  the  situation  ,,f  ( 'alah  is,  that  tin- 
city  I.Vsen.  described  as  "n  great  city"  (Oe  x.rA,  lav 
bet\vei;n  it  and  Xiiicveh.  It  was  held  bv  I'.ocliart  and 
others,  that  the  name  was  preserved  in  thar  of  an  \  \ 
rian  province  called  by  Strabo  ( 'alaehc  no.  lietween  Ilie 
sources  of  the  Lycus  and  tin-  Ti-ri-  :  but.  this  is  uncer 
tain.  The  name  frequently  occurs  in  the  inscripf  ions 
of  Nimroiid.  and  from  these  it  appears  that  Calah  lav 
on  the  ea-t  of  the  Tigris  d..ivar<l,  Nineveh  and  Raliylnn,  p 
r.t.)  Itawlinson  would  identify  it  with  the  present  Xim- 
ro.id.  but  Layard  objects  that  this  sit--  is  too  near  to 
Xineveh  to  admit  the  city  K'esen  between  it  and  ( 'alah 
Hl'i'l.  1-  <K«0  Dr.  l.obdell  finds  it  at  K.ila  S],,, -hat.  which 
hetakestolM-theCaenaeofXenophon  (AnalUi.  i,-, 
four  days  south  of  Mosid  (IW)lioth.  Sacra,  April,  1W,  p.  2:;f,\ 
bnt  this  is  on  the  west  of  the  Ti-rH,  and  so  cannot  be 
I  'alah.  if  the  reading  of  the  monuments  is  cornet.  The 
name  docs  not  occur  a-ain  in  the  I'.ible.  unless  as  main 
tained  by  I'.ocliart  I  I'ii.-iVn.  iv.  -J-Jt.  (  ieseliius  O'hes'iur.  p.  Os|. 
and  others,  it  be  the  same  as  llalah.  2Ki  xvii  r,,  xvlii  3-11, 
whither  Sliahnanezer  carriecl  (he  Israelites  captive. 


CALF- WORSHIP 


CALAMUS,     fto  CANE. 

CA'LEB  [»/".'/],  the  name  of  a  person,  who  occupies  a 
distinguished  and  honourable  place  in  early  Israclitish 
history  the  only  one.  except  Joshua,  of  those  who  left 
the  land  of  Kgypt  that  were  permitted  to  enter  the 
land  of  Canaan.  In  the  books  of  Moses  he  is  desig 
nated  the  son  of  .lephunnoh,  Xn.xiii.fi;  \iv.  <5,  21,  but  of 
Jephunneh  himself  there  is  no  fmther  notice.  And  it 
would  appear,  by  comparing  other  notices  concerning 
Caleb,  that  Jephunneh  was  not  of  the  seed  of  Israel  at 
all,  and  that  this  family,  which  rose  to  so  honourable  a 
place  among  the  covenant-people,  belonged  by  descent 
to  a  foreign  race.  For  in  Jos.  xiv.  1  1,  Caleb  is  called 
"Caleb  the  son  of  Jephunneh  tJif  Kfttrzltc"  a  native 
of  that  tribe:  and  in  eh.  xv.  1",  after  describing  the 
boundaries  of  the  portion  of  Judah,  it  is  said  of  Caleb 
the  son  of  Jephunneh.  that  Joshua  "  gave  him  apart 


among  tlie  children  of  Judah.  according  to  the  com 
mandment  of  the  Lord  to  Joshua,  the  city  of  Arba,  the 
father  of  Anak,  which  is  Hebron."  This  dearly  be 
speaks  a  peculiarity  in  the  case  of  Caleb;  for  if  he  had 
belonged  by  birth  to  the  tribe  of  Judah.  his  inheritance 
in  that  tribe  must  have  fallen  to  him  Us  a  matter  of 
course;  and  there  should  have  been  no  need  fur  any 
special  commandment  from  the  Lord  upon  the  subject. 
l.ut  on  the  supposition  of  his  having  been  by  birth  a, 
stranger,  an  Israelite  only  by  adoption,  we  can  easily 
understand  the  reason  of  such  an  explicit  direction'; 
,  and  the  mention  of  the  Keiiezite  in  the  preceding 
chapter  in  connection  with  the  ancestral  origin  of  the 
family  explains  the  peculiarity.  Then,  when  we  turn 
to  the  genealogical  table  in  1  Ch.  ii.  ].s-^0.  where  we 
(  doubtless  have  the  public  and  strictly  Israditish  form 
j  of  the  matter,  the  paternity  of  Caleb  is  attached  to  the 
head  of  the  family  in  the  tribe  of  Jndah.  with  which 
i  he  came  to  be  associated;  he  is  there  called  "Caleb 
;  the  son  of  ife/ron;"  for  there  is  good  reason  to  believe, 
;  that  the  Caleb  there  mentioned  i>  the  same  that  is  so 
.favourably  kno\\n  in  earlier  history,  not  \\  ith-tajidin- 
that  in  1  Ch.  iv.  ].~,  lie  is  a-aiu  mentioned  as  ''Caleb 
the  son  of  Jephunneh."  and  as  the  father  of  a  different 
off-priii-  from  what  had  been  previously  given.  The 
different  sons  are.  in  all  probability,  the  sons  by  dif 
ferent  wives,  having  (heir  lots  in  different  localities, 
determined  by  the  family  and  place  of  their  respective 
mothers  or  wives  ;  for  in  di.  ii.  )•_'.  v.v  have  -till  another 
li-t  of  the  ol)-prin-  of  imdoiibt.dly  the  same  Caleb  that 
is  mentioned  in  ver.  1S--_'0;  whence  it  is  likdv  that 
!li"  three  names  indicate  buf  one  person,  onlv  viewed 
as  the  head,  through  several  \\ive-,  of  so  manv  di-timt 
families  in  l-rad.  Apart  from  tin-,  howe\er,  and 
looking  simply  to  the  original  notices  in  the  IVntateuch. 

there  seems  - 1  -round  f..r  condudin-  that  (  'alcb  was 

not  by  birth  of  the  stock  of  l-rad.  but  that  by  sub 
mining  ft.  the  bond  of  Cod'-  covenant  with  Israel,  and 
by  marriage  allyin-  himself  to  particular  famili.  -  within 
its  pale,  lie  attained  to  a  place  of  power  and  influence 
among  them,  and  in  steadfastness  to  the  faiih  of  Cod's 
covenant  rose  hi-h  above  mo>t  of  those  who  \\.  re  in 
the  strictest  sense  "of  the  stock  of  [srael,  Hebrews  of 

the    Hebrews." 

CALF- WORSHIP,  a  form  ,,f  false  worship  to  which 
the  ancient  I.-radites  a  pp.  :ir  to  have  been  peculiarly 
prone.  The  first  species  of  idolatry  into  which  they 
fell  after  their  deliverance  from  the  land  of  K-vpt,  wa  ; 
that  of  the  -olden  calf,  formed  out  of  the  ear-rings  of 
the  people.  Kx.  xxxii.  2.  And  when,  ,'i-ain,  at  a  later 
period,  not  the  worship  strictly  speaking  of  fal<e  gods, 
but  the  false  or  corrupt  worship  of  the  true  Cod,  was 
introduced  by  Jeroboam,  it  took  precisely  the  same 
type  of  the  adoration  of  golden  calves  s.  t  up  for  the  con 
venience  of  the  people,  one  at  I'.ethd  in  the  south, 
and  another  at  Dan  in  the  north,  t  Ki.  .\n.  L'\  Xor  is  it 
unimportant  to  notice,  that  the  author  ,,f  (his  idolatrous 
innovation,  though  a  native  Israelite,  had  been  for  a 
considerable  time  a  resilient  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  having 
fled  thither  to  escape  the  jealousy  of  Solomon,  and  only 
returned  when  he  heard  of  Solomon's  death,  rh.  xi.  to 
This  species  of  worship  having  thus  originally  appeared 
when  the  entire  people  were  fresh  from  the  land  of 
Egypt,  and  having,  on  its  second  and  more  formal 
introduction,  been  set  up  by  a  man  who  had  some 
time  previously  dwelt  as  a  sojoumer  in  the  same  land, 
seems  plainly  to  point  to  K-ypt  as  the  source  of  the 


CALF- WORSHIP 


corruption.      Xot  only  might  this  he  inferred  from  the 
passages   referred   to,   Init   it  is   expressly  affirmed    by 
Stephen,  in  Ac.  vii.  :V.i.  4(1—"  Whom  our  fathers  svoiild 
not  obey,  but  thrust  him  from  them,  and  in  their  In-arls 
turned    back    again    into    Kgypt.    saying    unto    Aaron. 
.Make  us   ^ods  to   go  before  us."  Me.       And   1'hilo  -'ives 
the  same  aeeount  of  the  matter  (l>e  Vita  M..Ms,iii.  i'.  (i77)  — 
"  Forgetful  of   the   homage   due   to   the   Supreme,  they 
became  /.ealots  in  the  fabrication  of  Egyptian  idols:  and 
having  eonstrueted   a  golden  bull,  an  imitation  of  the 
animal  that  was  esteemed  most  saered  in  that  country, 
they    presented    unhallowed    sacrifices."        Indeed,    the 
nature  of   the  worship  itself  is   conclusive   evidence   of 
the  quarter  whence  it  was  derived  ;   for  the  distinctive 
characteri.-tie  of  K-vHtian  idolatry  was  the  tendency  it 
displayed    to   worship  the  deities  under   the   symbolical 
representation  of  animal  forms.     In  other  countries  it 
was  the  human    form      predominantly,  al   least,  though 
in  a  few  peculiar  cases  this  was   combined  with  one  ot 
the   inferior  creation  -  under  which  the   heathen   mind 
imaged  to  Itself  the  divine  ;  and   accordingly  the  Baal 
and   A.shtorcth  worship  which,  in  various  shapes  and 
modifications,  flowed  in  upon  .Israel   from  the   lands   in 
the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Canaan,  always  asso 
ciated  itself  with  the  fabrication  of  images  in  the  like 
ness  of  men  or  women.      In  Kgypt  it  was  otherwise. 
There   certain   live   animals  were    kept   in   some  of   the 
temples,  and  held  in  especial  veneration  -above  all.  the 
bull  Apis,  which,  in  the  temple  of  Memphis,  was  treated 
with  the   most   sacred   regard.      "But  while   such   liriinj 
animal   forms  were  preserved   in  some  of  the  temples, 
the    rc/ifi.:<i  ntntiiiiix    of    these    animals,     as    stated     by 
Jablonski  (Pan.  Proi.  p  Mi),    "were   exhibited   in  most  of 
the  other  temples  throughout  the  whole  of    Kgypt,  and 
are  still  to   be  seen   in    their   ruins."      In   like   manner 
Strabo  says  of  the    Kgyptian  temples,  "They  have  no 
carved  work,  at  least  not  of  any  human  likeness,  but 
of  some  kind  of  irrational  creature"  Uvii.  805).      So  strong 
was  the  bent  of  the   Egyptian   mind  in  this  direction, 
that  when  king  Mycerinus,   as   related  by   Herodotus 
(ii.  i-".A,  devised  religious  honours  for  his  daughter,  in 
stead  of  erecting  for  her  a  statue  of  costly  materials  or 
beautiful  proportions,  he  is  reported  to  have  made  a 
hollow  wooden  cow,  which  he   gilded,   and  ill  that   de 
posited  her  corpse.      Whether  there  was  any  truth  in 
the  story  or  not,  the   account   shows  how  the  idea  of 
deification    in    that    country  naturally    shaped   itself. 
The  gilded    cow   was  undoubtedly  conceived  of  as   a 
female  deity  (with  which,  if  the  daughter  of  Mycerinus 
was  deposited  within  it,  she  must  have  been  supposed 
to  be  in  some  sort  identified),  and  every  day.  as  Hero 
dotus  testifies,  aroinatics  of  all  sorts  were  burned  before 
it,   and  a  lamp  kept  perpetually  lighted  in  the  apart 
ment   (.sec  further  Bochart,  Hieroz.  ii.  rh.  53,  and  Heng.-ituii'berf,', 
Pent.  i.  Diss.  l"). 

There  can,  therefore,  be  no  reasonable  doubt  whence 
the  Israelites,  either  in  the  earlier  or  the  later  periods 
of  their  history,  derived  the  bovine  form  of  their  idola 
trous  worship.  By  the  adoption  of  such  a  form,  they 
gave  proof  of  turning  back  in  their  hearts  toward 
Kirvpt.  The  choosing  of  untj  symbolical  form  was 
wrong,  because  it  is  fitted  to  dishonour  and  falsify, 
rather  than  represent  the  Godhead  ;  and  such  especially 
must  have  been  the  case,  when  the  f  07-111  was  that  of  an 
irrational  animal.  From  the  use  of  cattle  in  husbandry, 
the  bovine  form  was  probably  in  Egypt  raised  to  this 
dignity  beyond  any  others,  because-,  being  pre-eminently 


r»l'  CALF-WORSHIP 

!  an  agricultural  country,  that  form  might  be  supposed 
the  most  perfect  natural  symbol  of  the  productive  and 
genial  powers  of  deity.  And  as  Canaan  bore  in  that 
respect  a  considerable  resemblance  to  Egypt,  it  would 
doubtless  be  maintained  by  Jeroboam  and  his  abettors, 
that  the  figures  lie  set  up  were' an  innocent  and  appro 
priate  symbolizing  of  the  true  (iod.  They  had  also  the 
example  of  Aaron  to  appeal  to,  and  of  this  they  evidently 
took  advantage,  as  thev  are  reported  to  have  invited  the 
people  to  worship  in  the  very  words  originally  used  in  the 
wilderness,  "These  lie  thy  gods  (thy  Flohim),  ()  Israel, 
which  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,'1  1  Ki 
xii.  2N;  K.x.  xxxii.  i.  We  can  easily  conceive,  too,  that  plaus 
ible  arguments  might  not  be  wanting  to  justify  then  what 
had  been  condemned  in  the  wilderness  ;  especially,  how 
it  might  lie  said,  that  the  people  had  now  been  so  long 
removed  from  Kgypt.  that  they  might  with  safety  em 
ploy  some  of  the  forms,  without  associating  with  them 
the  gross  and  debasing  notions  of  the  Egyptians — that 
they  might  with  advantage  make  use  of  a  symbol  of 
(iod,  without  sinking  the  spiritual  in  tin/  material. 
Such  plausible  sophisms  as  these  would,  undoubtedly, 
lie  employed  to  reconcile  the  covenant-people  to  the 
calf-worship  iveommended  to  their  observance.  But 
the  prophets  treated  them  as  flimsy  pretexts.  They 
stigmatized  the  golden  calves  as  strange  gods,  and  the 
worship  of  them  as  spiritual  whoredom.  1  Ki.  xiv.  9;  II<>. 
iv.  14,  &c. 

Why  that  which  in  Egypt  assumed  the  form  of  a  bull 
or  a  cow  worship — worship  under  the  symbol  of  the  full- 
grown  bovine  form — should  in  Israel  have  been  repre 
sented  as  that  of  a  calf,  cannot  be  determined  with  per 
fect  certainty.  It  probably  arose  in  part  from  the  com 
paratively  small  size  which,  in  accordance  with  the 
furniture  of  the  tabernacle,  was  given  to  the  images; 
1  and,  indeed,  in  Egypt  itself,  many  of  the  sacred  shrines 
which  contained  representations  of  the  objects  of  wor 
ship  were  evidently,  ;is  appears  from  the  pictures  of 
them  that  have  survived,  of  a  diminutive  size.  But  the 
stronger  reason,  in  all  probability,  is,  that,  as  it  is  from 
the  pen  of  inspired  men  that  the  accounts  have  been 
transmitted  to  us,  so  they  have  in  this  sought  to  give 
an  aspect  of  puerility  and  insignificance  to  the  corrup 
tion  ;  they  would  present  the  contrast  between  what 
was  and  should  have  been  in  the  most  striking  form. 
Men  having  the  knowledge  of  the  eternal  Jehovah,  and 
yet  bowing  down  to  a  senseless  rnlf .'  There  is,  there 
fore,  a  kind  of  ironical  turn  in  such  expressions  as, 
"Thy  calf,  ()  Samaria  I"  "Let  them  kiss  the  calves!11 
as  if  degrading  ignorance  and  brutality  had  therein 
reached  their  climax  ! 

The  calf  or  bovine  form  of  worship  in  Egypt  was  of 
a  bacchanalian  character,  being  accompanied  with 
boisterous  demonstrations  of  feasting  and  revelry. 
Speaking  of  the  feast  of  Apis,  Herodotus  says,  that 
"as  soon  as  he  appeared,  straightway  all  the  Egyptians 
arrayed  themselves  in  their  gayest  attire,  and  fell  to 
feasting  and  jollity"  (Hi.  27).  Indeed  this  seems  to  have 
been  characteristic  of  Egyptian  worship  generally  ;  for, 
at  the  great  annual  feast  at  Bubastis,  or  Bi-Pasht,  in 
honour  of  the  goddess  Pasht,  the  Egyptian  Diana,  who 
was  worshipped  under  the  form  of  a  human  figure  with 
the  head  of  a  lioness  or  a  cat,  there  were  also  baccha 
nalian  processions,  in  the  course  of  which  women  played 
on  the  castanets,  and  men  on  the  flute,  while  others 
clapped  their  hands ;  and  more  grape-wine  is  said  to 
have  been  consumed  at  the  festival  than  during  all  the 


CALF- WORSHIP 


CALVARY 


rest  of  the  year  (Her.  ii.  GO).  Processions  formed  a  very 
prominent  part  of  the  religion  of  Egypt;  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that,  as  remarked  by  Drumann,  a  German 
writer,  and  fully  established  by  Creuzer,  in  his  $yml/o- 
Ilk,  vol.  i.  —"The  processions  were  like  orgies,  in  which 
even  the  women  appeared,  amidst  indecent  songs  and 
dances,  noisy  music,  and  bacchanalian  feasts  ;  that  there 
were  also  mummeries,  in  which  they  painted  their  faces, 
and  struck  or  ridiculed  the  bystanders."  \Ve  can  thus 
easily  understand  how,  011  setting  up  the  worship  of  the 
golden  calf  in  the  wilderness,  it  should  have  been  said 
of  the  people,  that  "  they  sat  down  to  eat  and  drink,  and 
rose  up  to  play,"  and  that  Moses,  on  approaching,  heard 
the  noise  of  persons  singing  and  dancing,  Ex.  xxxii  >;,  ir-i:'. 
They  were,  in  fact,  celebrating  the  orgies  of  an  Egyp 
tian  festival,  although  it  was  professedly  in  honour  of 
Jehovah  that  the  worship  was  performed  ;  so  readily  did 
the  heathenish  in  /"/•//;  degenerate  into  the  heathenish 
in  practice.  In  later  times  also,  the  same  tendency 
soon  discovered  itself,  notwithstanding  the  pains  that 
would  naturally  lie  taken  by  Jeroboam  and  his  party  to 
prevent  it:  for.  in  adopting  the  symbol  ,if  the  ealf, 
they  corrupted  the  religion  of  the  old  covenant  at  its 
centre,  and  altogether  obscured  the  essential  -lory  of 
tilt,-  divine  character.  Kvcii  if  the  worshippers  looked 
through  the  symbol  to  the  lieing  it  represented,  it,  could 
tell  them  of  nothing  but  of  his  natural  attributes  -his 
productive  power  in  the  sphere  of  physical  life  :  leaving 
entirely  in  the  shade  the  moral  elements  \\  bicli  pecu 
liarly  distinguish  the  Cod  of  the  Mible.  When  once 
Jehovah  was  contemplated  simply  as  the  author  of  na 
ture,  the  door  was  open  for  heathenism  of  every  form, 
which  is  but  the  varied  dedication  of  nature.  And  so 
it  happened  in  Israel  :  the  worship  of  Jeroboam's  calves 
was  found  to  draw  aft<T  it.  as  an  inseparable  r>--ult. 
all  sorts  of  will- worship  and  idolatry. 

We  simplv  add.  in  regard  to  the  historical  ground  of 
the    Israelitish   calf  worship,    that,  while   Apis  was   the 


|1K)  J        Mm-vU  or  Mm-.  -  Description  ck  1'Efjypt. 

highest  object  of  this  kind  of  worship  among  the  Egyp 
tians,  there  was,  at  least  in  later  Egyptian  history, 
another  had  in  great  reverence.  Plutarch  says  (De  Is 
p.  33),  "  Mnevis,  the  sacred  ox  of  Heliopolis,  was 
honoured  by  the  Egyptians  with  a  reverence  next  to 
the  Apis,  whose  sire  some  have  pretended  him  to  be.'' 
Sir  C.  Wilkinson  states  that  "the  bull  of  Heliopolis 


appears  to  have  been  called  in  the  hieroglyphic  legends, 
Mne.  It  had  a  globe  and  feathers  on  its  head;  but 
though  on  the  monuments  of  Upper  Egypt,  it  is  evi 
dent  that  it  did  not  enjoy  the  same  honours  as  Apis, 
beyond  the  precincts  of  its  own  city"  (vol.  v. p.  i>.>:}.  He 
adds,  however,  that  "  it  was  from  this,  and  not  from 
Apis,  that  the  Israelites  borrowed  their  notions  of  the 
golden  calf ;  and  the  offerings,  dancing,  and  rejoicings 
practised  on  the  occasion,  were  doubtless  in  imitation 
of  a  ceremony  they  had  witnessed  in  honour  of  Mnevis, 
during  their  sojourn  in  Egypt."  This  proceeds,  of 
course,  on  the  supposition  that  the  worship  of  Mnevis 
had  been  established  prior  to  the  exodus — which,  how 
ever,  is  doubted  bv  some  of  the  learned,  in  particular 
by  Henu'stenbcrg.  in  the  portion  of  his  work  on  the 
Pentateuch  above  referred  to.  P>ut  it  is  a  matter  of 
no  practical  moment;  as  it  is  understood  that  the  wor 
ship  of  the  two  bulls  was  perfectly  similar  in  kind;  and 
the  reason  of  supposing  Mnevis  rather  than  Apis  to 
have  been  more  immediately  in  view  at  the  erection  of 
the  irolden  calf,  arises  simplv  from  the  greater  proxi- 
mitv  of  the  seat  of  his  worship  to  the  settlements  of 
Israel  in  Egypt. 

CAL'NEH,  OR  ( 'A'LNO.  one  of  the  cities  which  con 
stituted  Nimrod's  first  seat  of  empire  —  "  the  beginning 
of  his  kingdom."  Ge.  x.  10.  It  was  situated  "  in  the  land 
of  Shinar."  the  Scripture  designation  of  P>abylonia 
proper,  or  the  southern  plain  which  reaches  to  the  Per 
sian  Culf.  C.c  xi.  '_'  ;  li;i.  i.  -  ;  romp,  with  ,7e.  xxviii.  .".  In 
Isaiah  xi.  11.  Shinar  is  distinguished  from  Asshnr 
(Assvria  i,  which  formed  its  northern  boundary.  The 
older  uriters.  following  the  Targums  of  Jerusalem  and 
of  Jonathan,  and  the  fat  In  us  Ensebius  and  Jerome, 
and  ivlviii'.:  also  on  the  fact  that  Pliny  (vi.  :;<>>  slates  that 
Ctesiphon  was  in  Chalonitis,  identified  Calneh  with  Ctesi- 
phon,  a  city  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Tigris,  opposite 
to  Seleucia  (.losephus,  Autiii.  xviii.  !i,  sect.  9)  ;  but  this  does 
not  correspond  to  its  designation  in  the  land  of  Shinar, 
or  in  the  plain  between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris. 
and  prohablv  near  the  former.  l!a\\  linson  lias  suggested 
that  its  site  is  to  be  looked  for  at  NifU-r.  where  there 
are  extensive  ruins,  a  view  adopted  ''V  Loftus  (Kcse;uvlH-s 

in  Ch:iM:.-i  and  <HM;IM:I.  I,"ii'l.  1V.7,  p.  li>").       Tht  re  is  nothing 

improbable  in  this  supposition,  but  it  waits  confirma 
tion.  The  name,  though  with  a  slight  difference  in  the 
Masoi-i  tic  punctuation,  occurs  in  Amos  vi.  '2,  and  pro- 
bablv  the  same  place  is  meant  1  iv  <  'aln< >.  Is,  x.  n,  for  it  is 
MI  ntioiied  along  with  Hamath.  as  in  Amos  vi.  ±  The 
reference  in  .Amos  is  to  some  calamitv  which  had  over 
taken  this  city,  and  to  its  then  prostrate  state,  serving 
as  a  warning  to  Israel.  This  was  probably  its  subju 
gation  by  the  Assyrians  (Baur,  Der  I'rophetAinoK,  Cii.-sM.-ii, 
1M7,  p.  3M).  as  intimated  in  the  boastfid  language 
ascribed  to  their  monarch,  Is.  x.  n,  "Is  not  ( 'alno  as 
Carchemish'  is  not,  Hamath  as  Arpad!  is  not  Sa 
maria  as  Damascus?"  the  meaning  of  which  evidently 
is,  that  none  of  the  cities  against  which  he  had  directed 
his  arms  bad  been  able  to  resist  him:  one  and  all  fell 
before  his  indomitable  might.  [n.  M.] 

CALVARY,  the  name  given  to  the  spot  where  our 
Lord  was  crucified.  It  is  properly  the  Latin  name  of 
the  place,  the  Vulgate  translating  falrurlii;  but  Un 
original  or  Hebrew  designation  was  Golgotha,  and  the 
Greek  synonym  given  in  the  Gospels  is  Kpaviov.  The 
import  of  each  alike  is  xkntl ;  Christ  was  crucified  on  a 
place,  which  had  its  name  from  a  skull,  doubtless  be 
cause  it  was  a  place  for  executions,  and  had  already 


CAMKL 


CAMEL 


received  an  infamous  character  from  its  connection  with      (1'imny  Cyclopedia).     It  is  true  the  remarkable  peculiarity 
the  heads  of  dead  men.      For  the  place  itself,  see  under  !  last  mentioned  has  been  discredited  by  Ikirekhardt  and 


JERUSALEM  and  its  environs. 

CAMEL,  a  well-known  ruminant  quadruped,  whose 
native  regions  are  Central  and  Western   Asia.      ''The 
problem    being    proposed    to     construct    an    animated 
machine    that    should    be 
best  calculated  to  meet  the 
exigencies   of    the  animal, 
where    could    we    find    a 
better  solution  of   it   than 
in  the  construction  of  the 
camel?     The  pads  or  sole- 
cushions  of  the  spreading 


others  ;  but  the  positive  testimony  of  Bruce  (iv.  iiOfi)  and 
other  travellers  has  been  confirmed  by  the  anatomical 
dissections  of  Sir  Everard  Home. 

The  scriptural  allusions  must  Till  be  considered  as  re 
ferring  to  the  same  species,  that  with  a  single  hump, 
known  to  naturalists  as  the  Arabian  camel  (Camelux 
dromcdarius).  Notwithstanding  this  scientific  appella 
tion,  the  term  dromedary  is  not,  as  often  supposed,  a 
distinction  of  species,  but  of  breed.  The  word  is  of 
Greek  origin,  from  5/>o/j.as,  a  runner  (Spc/M,  to  run),  and 
indicates  merely  n,  swift  breed,  bearing  about  the  same 
relation  to  "camel,"  as  our  word  "racer''  does  to 
'"horse."  Every  dromedary  is  a  camel,  but  every 
camel  is  not  a  dromedary. 

There  is  another  species,  the  TJactrian  camel  (C.  f/ac- 


feet  are  divided  into  two 
toes  without  beiuu'  exter 
nally  separated,  which 

buoy  up.  as  it  were,  the;  whole  bulk  with  their  expan-   ,   trtanii.s),   distinguished  by  having   two  humps  on  tl 
sive    elasticity   from    sinking    in   the    sand,   on   which     back  ;  but  the  native  regions  of  this  kind  are  the  steppe 
it   advances   with   silent    step;  the   nostrils  so  formed 
that  the  animal  can  close  them  at  will  to  exclude  the 


f  Tartary  and   Central  Asia.      This  species  is  bred  in 
the  north   of   Turkey,    but  in   Syria   and    Palestine   is 
drift  sand  of  the  parching  simoom  ;  the  powerful  upper      scarcely  known. 

incisor  teeth  for  assisting  in  the  division  of  the  tough  ;  The  unsightly  excrescence  on  the  back,  known  as  the 
prickly  shrubs  and  dry  stunted  herbage  of  the  desert;  hump,  is  another  express  provision  to  adapt  the  animal 
and,  above  all,  the  cellular  structure  of  the  stomach,  for  its  geographical  position.  It  is  a  fatty  secretion, 
which  is  capable  of  being  converted  into  an  assemblage  stored  up  under  favourable  circumstances  as  a  reservoir 
of  water-tanks—bear  ample  testimony  to  the  care  mani-  ,  of  nutriment  against  scarcity  ;  being  absorbed  into  the 
fested  iu  the  structure  of  this  extraordinary  quadruped"  !  system  when  the  animal  is  pinched  for  food,  a  casualty 


that  is  continually  occurring  in  the  long  caravan 
marches  across  barren  deserts.  The  Arabs  say  that 
"the  camel  feeds  on  its  own  hump;"  and  hence,  on 
setting  out  on  a  journey.,  they  are  solicitous  about  the 
condition  of  these  excrescences ;  since,  if  they  are 
plump,  the  animals  can  bear  long-continued  fatigue  and 
short  commons  with  impunity. 

All  these  peculiarities  pre-eminently  adapt  the  camel 
for  the  desert :  no  other  animal  would  replace  it.  From 
very  early  times  it  has  been  the  great  medium  of  com 
merce  across  the  desert.  Tt  was  to  a  caravan  of  "  Tsh- 
maelites  with  their  camels  bearing  spicery,  and  balm, 
and  myrrh,"  that  Joseph  was  sold  by  his  wicked 
brethren.  And  at  a  still  more  remote  era,  the  pastoral 
wealth  of  Job  included,  before  his  calamity,  three  thou 
sand  camels,  and  afterwards  six  thousand  ;  an  enormous 
stock,  probably  unapproached  in  modern  times.  Aris 


totle,  however,  mentions  Arabians  who  possessed  the 
first-named  number. 

From  the  context  of  Gen.  xii.  1  6,  it  seems  implied 
that  the  animal  wealth  enumerated  as  possessed  by 
Abram  in  Egypt,  was  conferred  on  him  by  the  Pharaoh, 
as  an  amende,  for  the  abduction  of  Sarai :  it  is  strange, 
therefore,  that  the  camel  nowhere  occxirs,  we  believe, 
1  in  the  multitudinous  representations  of  Egyptian  man 
ners  depicted  in  the  tombs  ;  though  these  include  many 
pictures  of  agricultural  occupations,  of  cattle,  and  other 
animals,  wild  and  tame. 

Tn  the  present  made  by  Jacob  to  Esau,  Go.  xxxii.  is, 
thirty  milch  camels  were  included,  which  indicates  the 
use  of  camels'  milk.  At  present  it  is  much  used  by  the 
Arabs;  " it  is  the  milk  for  drink;  that  of  the  goats 
and  sheep  being  generally  made  into  butter.  Even  the 
young  horse- colts,  after  being  weaned,  are  fed  exclu- 


CAMEL 


sively  on  camels'  milk  for  a  considerable  time,  and 
in  some  tribes  the  adult  horses  partake  of  it  largely. 
Flour  made  into  a  paste  with  sour  camels'  milk  is  a 
standing  dish  among  the  Bedouins.  .Rice  or  Hour, 
boiled  with  sweet  camels'  milk,  is  another"  (Kitto,  Hist. 

i'f  I'alustine,  ii.  3iw). 

The  swiftness  of  the  dromedary,  or  runniii:,'  camel,  is 
alluded  to  several  times  in  Scripture.  It  is  named 
123 »  liu'hcr,  "X'Z^,  raiunia<']< ,  and  'c;2"i>  rvluxh;  this  last 

agreeing  with  r<-i-/if.<,  which  C'ul.  II.  Smith  gives  as  one 
of  the  modern  Arabic  names  of  the  swift  camel.  The 
term  CM^JV«17"SJ>  cic/tusJitC'i'uniiii,  Es.  via.  in,  11,  appears 

to  be  the  Hebrew  plural  form  of  a  Persian  word 
having  the  same  meaning. 

Purchas  (vi.  i,  sect,  u)  speaks  of  a  sort  of  dromedary 
called  nt'jiuiliil,  whiuh  are  accustomed  to  perform  jour 
neys  of  nine  hundred  mill.'.;  in  eight  davs  ai  furthest. 
And  this  is  confirmed  by  other  authorities.  Lvon  >avs 
that  the  makerry  (>  /  In  'trio  of  the  North  African  Arabs 
\\ill  continue  at  a  long  trot  of  nine  miles  an  hour  for 
many  hours  ti'g.-ther.  Tin;  '•  sabayee,''  said  to  be  the 
fleetest  breed  of  running  camel,  will,  it  is  a.-serted, 
[)erfonn  a  journey  of  six  hundred  and  thirty  mile-  in 
live  days.  Til*-  Arabs  thus  express  tin-  proverbial 
swiftness  of  the  heirie  :  •'  Wln-n  th<>u  shall  me.-t  </ 
/<(//•/(*,  and  say  to  the  rid' T  'Salem  aleikl'  (I'eace  be 
toyciul),  eri'  he  .-hdl  have  an-wen-d  tin--  '.\leik  .-a 
lem  ! '  he  will  lie  afar  oft',  and  nearlv  out  of  sight,  for 
his  swiftness  is  like  the  wind."  On  such  steeds  \\a> 
the  IVr-ian  monarch'-  dt  cive  \\  hirled  to  tin- extremi 
ties  of  his  va-t  empire,  that  authorized  the  .lews  to 
withstand  the  murderous  intentions  of  the  cruel  Hainan. 
!•:>.  viii.  1-1. 

The  canii'l  was  included.  !,.•  \i  t,  among  UK-  1  leasts 
\\hieh  were  interdicted  from  food  and  sacrifice  as  cere- 
inoniallv  unelcaii.  (Net  C  I.KAN'  BK  \ST.-O  Though  a 
ruminant,  it  is  an  aberrant  form,  deviating  from  the 
typical  character  of  its  order  in  the  form  of  its  foot. 
'•  Instead  of  having  short  and  abruptly  truncated  toes, 
completely  i-nvclop.-d  in  l:irj;e  hoofs,  flattened  internally, 
and  t'orniino;  tin-  sole  basis  on  \\hicli  the  animal  rests  in 
progression,  the  camels  have  their  to*es  elongated  for 
wards,  and  terminating  in  small  horny  appendages,  sur- 
I'ounding  the  last  phalanx  alone,  rounded  above,  and 
on  either  side,  and  somewhat  curved,  while  the  under 
surface  •  i  the  foot,  on  which  the v  tread,  is  covered  onlv 

by  a  thickened  callous  skin"  (i,.ml.  ;m.l  Mcn;^.  of/,,,,1.  Soc. 
i.  271).  Jn  its  dentition  also,  as  well  as  in  some  other 
particulars,  the  camel  approaches  the  Pachydermata. 

The  longliairof  the  camel,  which  is  somewhat  woolly 
in  texture,  becomes,  towards  the  close  of  spring,  loose, 
and  is  easily  pulled  away  in  locks  from  the  skin.  This 
material  is  applied  by  the  modern  Arabs  to  various 
purposes,  the  principal  of  which  is  the  weaving  it 
into  a  coarse  sort  of  cloth,  chiefly  used  for  tent-cover 
ings.  Garments  of  this  rouurh  and  sordid  material  were 
worn  by  the  Baptist  in  his  severe  course  of  isolation  in 
the  wilderness,  M;it.  iii.  4.  It  was  an  outward  mark  of  that  I 
deadness  to  carnal  enjoyment  and  mortification  which  j 
marked  John's  mission  as  God's  prophet  in  the  apostasy 
of  Israel — the  position  they  ought  to  have  taken,  if  they 
had  known  their  true  ci  mdition  before  Jehovah.  In  this, 
too,  he  imitated  his  great  predecessor  and  type,  Elijah, 
t  Ki.  i.  fr,  in  a  time  of  similar  degeneracy  (sec  also  Zee.  xiii.  4). 

[P.H.G.] 


CAMPHIRE.     In  the  Song  of  Solomon,  i.  14;  iv.  i;;, 
occurs  the  word  n£2  (kophcr),  evidently  denoting  some 

fragrant  plant.  Our  translators  have  rendered  it  ca/n- 
phirc,  or  camphor;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
conjecture  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  is  correct,  and  that 
the  kopher  of  the  Hebrews  is  the  same  as  the  Ki'irpos  of 
the  Greeks,  and  the  well-known  henna  of  the  East. 

The  henna  of  the  Arabs  is  a  species  of  privet  (/.uv: 
ftiiitia  ino'iitiii).    Throughout  the  summer,  in  the  gardens 


of  Kgypt  ami  I'ale.-tine.  it  yields  its  delicate  little  clus 
ters  of  blossom,  lilac-coloured.  On  account  of  their 
exquisite  pei-fume  they  an-  highly  prized,  and  one  of  the 
street-cries  of  Cairo  is,  "  O  odours  of  paradise!  O 
flowers  of  the  henna!'  These  flowers  grow  in  light 
open  tufts,  and  are  compart  d  by  .Mariti  to  "an  up 
turned  cluster  of  grapes  ;"  and  when  we  remember  that 
thev  are  still  worn  in  their  bosom  by  the  ladies  of  the 
Ka>t.  nothing  can  be  more  deseriptive  of  a  heartfelt 
afli-ction  than  the  language  of  the  Canticle: 

'•  Mv  In-loved  is  until  Hi''  as  a  rlii-trr  nf  henna 
Trolii  t  hi-  \  i  iii -van  Is  lor  u'anlcii.--)  of  Kir_'eili.'' 

[...  II.] 

CA'NA,  a  town  in  <  lalilee,  at  no  ^reat  distance  from 
Capernaum,  and  remarkable  chiefly  as  basing  been  the 
scene  of  our  Lord's  first  miracle.  It  was  there  he 
turned  the  water  into  wine,  Jn.  ii.  1.  It  was  also  the  city 
of  Nathanael  ;  and  the  place  where  Jesus  was  applied  to 
by  the  courtier  or  nobleman  from  Capernaum  in  behalf 
of  his  dying  son,  and  with  a  word  effected  the  cure. 
We  have  no  further  notice  of  it  in  New  Testament  his 
tory,  and  it  is  never  mentioned  in  the  Old.  A  long- 
established  tradition  has  identified  it  with  a  village  bear 
ing  the  name  of  Kefr  Kenna.  which  lies  about  four 
miles  north-east  from  Nazareth,  on  the  road  to  Tiberias, 
and  about  fifteen  miles  from  the  latter  place.  Dr.  Robin 
son,  however,  disputes  the  correctness  of  this  tradition, 
and  decides  in  favour  of  a  place  called  Kana-el-Jelil, 
somewhat  farther  off,  and  in  a  more  northerly  direc- 


CANAAN 


CANAAN 


tion.  "As  far,"  he  says,  ''as  tlu  prevalence  of  an 
ancient  name  among  the  common  people  is  any  evidence 
for  the  identity  of  an  ancient  site — and  I  hold  it  to  be  j 
the  strongest  of  all  testimony,  when,  as  here,  not  sub-  | 
ject  to  extraneous  influences,  but  rather  in  opposition 
to  them  -  so  far  is  the  weight  of  evidence  in  favour  of 
this  northern  K ana-el- Jelil,  as  the  true  site  of  the  an 
cient  Cana  of  Galilee.  The  name  is  identical,  :md 
stands  the  same  in  the  Arabic  version  of  the  New  Tes 
tament  ;  while  tin;  form  Kefr  Kenna  can  only  be  twisted 
by  force  into  a  like  shape.  ( )n  this  single  ground,  there 
fore,  we  should  be  authorized  to  reject  the  present 
monastic  position  of  (.'ana,  and  fix  the  site  at  Cana-el- 
Jelil;  which  likewise  is  sufficiently  near  to  Nazareth 
to  accord  with  all  the  circumstances  of  the  history. :1 

A  place  bearing  substantially  the  same  name,  but 
written  Kanah,  is  mentioned  in  Jos.  xix.  liS,  situated 
within  the  tribe  of  Asher,  and  apparently  not  far  from 
Sidon. 

CA'NAAN  [/ti<)-r!i<nit\,  Ho.  xii.  7,  where  it  is  used  in 
this  sense  of  degenerate'  Israel:  "Canaan!  (merchant) 
the  balances  of  deceit  are  in  his  hand.''  The  word  is 
found  also  in  other  passages  in  the  sense  of  merchant, 
Is.  xxiii.  s;  Kze.  xvii.  I,  &c  ;  but  this  possibly,  as  is  held  by 
some,  maybe  a  secondary  meaning,  flowing  from  its 
use  as  a  pi'oper  name.  As  a  proper  name,  it  occurs 
first  of  one  of  the  sons  of  Ham — and,  as  there  seems 
good  reason  to  believe,  the  youngest  son.  For  lie  is 
mentioned  la>t  in  the  genealogy  of  Ham's  family, 
Ge.  x.  r,:  and.  when  there  was  no  >peeial  reason  for  de 
parting  from  the  order  of  nature  (such  as  arose  from  the 
mention  of  the  chosen  line),  the  names  would  naturallv 
hold  the  place  in  the  u'eiiealogical  table  which  belonged 
to  them  as  children  in  the  family.  Canaan,  however, 
though  seemingly  the  youngest  son  of  Ham,  is  brought 
into  singular  prominence  in  connection  with  his  father's 
unbecoming  behaviour  toward  Noah,  and  represented 
as  somehow  bound  up  with  the  father  in  respect  to  the 
guilt  and  the  punishment.  It  is  said  that  "Ham,  the 
father  of  Canaan,  saw  the  nakedness  of  his  father,  and 
told  his  two  brethren  without."  And  when  Noah  re 
covered  himself,  and  pronounced  the  remarkable  pro 
phecy  that  indicated  the  general  destiny  of  his  offspring. 
not  only  is  Canaan  individually  mentioned,  but  in  the 
mention  of  him  the  father  appears  to  be  forgotten,  and 
three  successive  times  is  his  name  uttered  with  a  curse. 
"'  And  he  said,  Cursed  be  Canaan  ;  a  servant  of  servants 
shall  he  be  unto  his  brethren.  Blessed  be  the  Lord 
God  of  Shem  :  and  Canaan  shall  be  his  servant.  •  God 
shall  enlarge  Japheth,  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the  tents 
of  Shem  ;  and  Canaan  shall  be  his  servant."  Go.  ix.  22-27. 
To  account  for  this  very  striking  peculiarity,  various 
conjectures  have  been  made — such  as  suggesting  an 
alteration  in  the  text,  reading.  Cursed  be  Ham.  the 
father  of  Canaan — for  which  there  is  no  authority  :  and 
supposing  that  Canaan  may  have  actively  participated 
in  his  father's  guilt  on  the  occasion,  which  also  is  with 
out  any  countenance  from  the  narrative,  and,  even  if 
warranted,  would  not  sufficiently  explain  the  singular 
prominence  Lfiven  to  the  name  of  Canaan.  The  most 
natural  explanation  is  that  which  proceeds  oil  the 
ground  of  a  correspondence  between  the  relation  of 
Ham  to  Noah  on  the  one  side,  and  of  Canaan  to  Ham 
on  the  other.  Ham,  the  youngest  son  of  Noah,  had 
acted  with  indecent  levity  toward  his  father,  becoming 
a  shame  and  reproach  to  him  in  his  old  age  ;  and  so,  in 
the  retributive  providence  of  God,  Hani  should  be 


punished  in  iiix  youngest  son;  indecent  levity  in  that 
branch  of  his  family,  growing  into  shameful  profligacy 
and  insufferable  abominations,  should  contaminate  the 
line,  and  hang  as  a  cloud  of  doom  over  its  future  desti 
nies.  (,sv<;  HAM.) 

CANAAN,  PEOPLE  OF,  CANAANITES,  the 
descendants  of  the  Canaan  just  mentioned.  In  the  ori 
ginal  genealogical  table,  the  family  tree  is  given  thus: 
"  And  ( 'anaan  begat  Sidon  his  first-born,  and  Heth, 
and  the  .lehusite,  and  the  Amorite,  and  the  Girgasite, 
and  the  Ilivite.  and  the  Arkite,  and  the  Sinite.  and  the 
Arvadite,  and  the  Zemarite,  and  the  llamathite;  and 
afterwards  were  the  families  of  the  Canaanites  spread 
abroad.  And  the  border  of  the  Canaanites  was  from 
Sidon.  as  thou  eoniest  to  (ierar,  unto  Gaza;  as  thou 
L4'oe>t  unto  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  Admah  and  Ze- 
boim.  even  unto  Lasha,"  Ge.  .x.  i.">-m.  Here  two  points 
naturally  suggest  themselves  for  separate  consideration  : 
the  Canaanite  progeny  viewed  as  a  race  among  the 
tribal  divisions  of  the  human  family,  and  the  character 
and  destiny  which  more  peculiarly  distinguished  them. 

(1.)  In  regard  to  the  first  point,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  larger  proportion  of  the  tribes  into  which 
the  stem  of  ( 'anaan  branched  forth  ;  we  meet  with  them 
too  frequently  in  sacred  history  to  be  in  any  difficulty, 
either  as  to  who  they  were  or  where  they  were  to  be 
met  with.  If  we  know  next  to  nothing  about  the  Ze 
marite  and  the  Sinite,  this  can  only  arise  from  their 
being  among  the  smaller  sections  of  the  race;  for  the 
connection  in  which  the  names  occur  renders  it  mani 
fest  that  they  had  their  place  among  the  families  which 
stretched  along  the  Mediterranean  coast  from  Lebanon 
on  the  north,  to  the  I  lead  Sea  and  the  country  of  the 
1'hilistines  on  the  south.  The  race  was  unquestionably 
a  very  prolific,  active,  and  enterprising  one.  They 
rapidly  grew  into  a  numerous  progeny,  having  been 
already  extensively  spread  abroad  at  the  comparatively 
early  period  when  Abraham  came  as  a  sojourner  into 
the  region  they  occupied  :  "  the  Canaanite  was  then  in 
the  land"  as  a  settled  inhabitant,  though  still  evidently 
forming  but  a  sparse  population.  Their  situation  proved 
favourable  both  for  agriculture  and  commerce;  and  in 
neither  respect  did  they  neglect  the  advantages  placed 
within  their  reach.  At  the  time  of  the  conquest  under 
Josh.ua..  about  B.C.  145(1,  it  is  evident  that  the  land 
was  already  in  a  state  <  if  general  cultivation ;  since,  in 
the  books  of  Closes  we  have  the  most  glowing  descrip 
tions  of  its  fertility  and  resources,  and  the  greatest 
difficulties  of  the  invaders  arose  from  the  number  of  its 
inhabitants,  and  the  height  to  which  they  had  risen  in 
the  arts  of  eivili/ed  life.  The  commercial  cities  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon  are  also  mentioned  as  in  existence,  Jcs.  xi\ 
2\2:i.  and  as  even  then  enjoying  an  honourable  distinc 
tion  ;  for  they  are1  singled  out  in  the  list  of  neighbouring 
cities  for  special  notice — the  one  as  "great  Sidon,"  the 
other  as  "  the  strong  city  of  Tyre."  This  perfectly  ac 
cords  with  the  traditions  of  Phoenician  history  in  pro 
fane  writers,  which  represent  these  Canaanite  cities  on 
the  Phoenician  coast  as.  in  the  very  dawn  of  civilization, 
taking  the  lead  in  commercial  enterprise,  and,  while  en 
riching  themselves,  benefiting  others  by  their  busy  trade 
and  maritime  intercourse.  As  the  first  merchants  of 
the  world,  they  must  also  have  been,  if  not  actually  the 
inventors  of  writing  (for  it  probably  had  an  antediluvian 
origin),  at  least  its  earliest  cultivators  ;  since  their  com 
mercial  necessities  would  naturally  call  it  into  requisi 
tion  ;  ami  we  ran  thus  easily  account  for  the  tradition 


CAXAAX 


CANAAN 


which  ascribes  both  the  invention  of  letters  and  their  !  derable  accessions  from  those  who  sou-dit  refuse  by 
introduction  among  the  Lmians  to  the  Pluenicians.  flight  at  the  conquest  of  Canaan  by  Joshua.  .Multi- 
Commerce  then,  as  so  often  since,  proved  the  pioneer  tudes  undoubtedly  did  seek  refuse 'in  that  way  and 
of  learn  ing  and  civilization.  And  there  must  undoubt-  |  the  African  colonies  of  the  Phcpnicians  woiild  '  very 
edly  have  been  superior  natural  qualities  in  the  mental  naturally  present  themselves  as  a  seasonable  outlet  for 
,uul  physical  constitution,  as  well  as  advantages  in  the  them.  'This  (.pinion  was  maintained  and.  with  hi* 
local  position,  of  a  race  which  could  so  distinguish  itself  usual  profusion  of  learning  advocated  by  Bochart 
for  active  energy,  and  take  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  '  U'lmleg  i.  c.  ^  ;  and  lakr  researches  hav, 
civil  and  commercial  history  of  nations.  ,  reason  to  call  it  in  question. 

It  is  not.  however,  what  the  progeny  of  Canaan  be-  '       "Thus,    then,"   we  may   conclude   in    th 
came  and  did  in  the  region  of  their  proper  home,  that     ileeren,  who.  in  his  second  chapter  on  the  Phoenicians 
is  here  to  be  made  account  of;  for  they  took  an  impor-     gives  a  clear  and  succinct  account  of  the  ,  nter 
taut  place  among  the  earlier  colonists,  as  well  as  the 
enterprising  traders  of  the  world.    In  the  original  record 
already  quoted  from  (iuiiesis,  it  is  said,  after  enumerat 
ing  the   different    Palestinian   tribes  that   sprang  from 
Canaan,  that  "afterwards  the  families  of  the  Canaan 
ites  were  spread  abroad."      \Ve  have  here  an  indication 
of   the   emigrating  spirit   that   distinguished   especially 
the  Phoenician  section  of  the  race,  and  the  foreign  set 
tlements  that  were  planted  by  them.      Of  these  wo  have 
no  account  in  Old  Testament  scripture:  but  the  defect 
is  to    Some    extent    supplied    by  notices    that    have    been 
transmitted     through     other    channels,    or    have    been 
gathered    from    extant    inscriptions    and     monuments. 
< '\pnis.  it  has  been  ascertained,  was  at  an  early  period 
possessed    and    coh, nixed  by   them,   and    a    great    many 
Phoenician   inscriptions  have   been  found  on  it.      Tlieir 
progress  westward  can  be   distinctly  traced  at  intervals 
along  the  coast  of   Asia  Minor,  and    among  the  i-lands 
of  the  Archipela-o  ;   they  had  possessions  in  Crete;  the 
greater  part  of  the   Cyelades  were   coloiii/.ed   by  them 
(Tliucyd  i  -i  :   they  left  traces  of  their 
and  Sanios.  (  'ilicia.  <  'aria,  and  Lvdia 
mention  ,,f  the  n  mains  of   their  giga 
lions  in  the  island  of  Thasos  (vi.47)  ; 

Thrace   also   they   had    mining   settlements  (1'Iin  vii.;,r); 
and  the  promontories  and  adjacent  i.-Ies  of  Sicily,  and 
Tartessus  .the  Tarshish  of  Scripture!,  and  other  pi; 
in  the  soiitl 

poses  of  minii!-  ami  commercial  enterprise.  (Tlmi-yd.  vi.  •_'; 
Vclluiiis.i.  L').      But  their  largest  colonies,  and  those  which 


perations  in  Chi 

:    I  [erodotus  make 


c  mininu' 
ong  the  c 


ipera- 
astof 


_  rising 

and  expansive  energies  of  the  Caiiaanite  race,  "this 
remarkable  people  spread  themselves,  not  by  fire  and 
sword,  and  sanguinary  conquests,  but  by  peaceable  and 
slower  efforts,  yet  equally  certain.  No  overthrown  cities 
and  desolated  countries,  such  as  marked  the  military 
expeditions  of  the  Medes  and  Assyrians,  marked  their 
progress;  but  a  long  series  of  flourishing  colonies,  agri 
culture,  and  the  arts  of  peace  among  the  pre\  ioiisly 
rude  barbarians,  pointed  out  the  victorious  career  of 
the  Tyrian  Hercules."  Would  that  the  umrnl  in  theii 
history  bad  in  any  measure  corresponded  with  the  pJi//- 
x! fii I  and  mental.'  The  issue  should  then  have  been 
very  dirlcivnt.  But  all  was  marred  by  the  incorrigible 
and  wide-sjn-ead  corrujition  of  manners,  in  which  they 
attained  so  bad  a  pre-eminence,  that  they  became  tin- 
peculiar  subjects  of  divine-  wrath. 
(2.)  This  has  respect  to  the  se, 
be  noticed-  their  character  am 

sented     ill     the    1 ks    of     Moses. 

heathenism   reached.    amon-   the 

and  a  Cravat  ion   of   foulness   considerably 

of   the   surrounding:   nations,   such    as   to    deserve  and 

draw    down    the   more    severe    inflictions   of    Heaven's 

judgment.      The.se.  for  a  warning  to  tlie  rest,  fell   fir-t 

upon  Sodom   and   the   other  cities  of  the   plain,  which 

outran   all    their   neighbours    in    the    race    of   impurity. 


•ond  point  that  was  to 
destiny.  As  reprc- 
the  abominations  of 
Canaanites.  a  depth 
nd  that 


But  as  the  work  of  evil  still  proceeded,  and  the  people, 

t  Spam,  were  long  held  by  them  for  pur-    as  a  whole,  became  at  length  a   reproach  to  humanity, 

the  Lord  laid  their  laud  under  bis  solemn  ban.  by  which 
it    was    withdrawn    frun    its    original    occupancy,    and, 
kept  longest  possession  of  the  field,  were  their  settle-,  after  be  in-  purged  of  its  shameful 


purged  nt   its  shameful  abominations,  was 

Jtica,  their  earliest  set-  '  set  apart  to  a  strictly  sacred  purpose:  it  was  constituted, 
1,  more  than  a  thousand     in  a  peculiar  sense,  the  Lord's  own  land,  and,  as  such, 
was  given  for  the  inheritance  of  his  co\-(  nant -people 
<,<«  ANATHEMA.)     Such  is  the  scriptural  account  of  the 
nly  one  that  will    stand    a   close 
xamination.      Other  and  milder  representations  have 


meiits  in  the  north  of  A  t'rii 

tlement,  founded,  it  is  supj 

years  li.c.  ( Pliny,  xvi.  79;   A  list.  Mn-.-ib.  Auscnlt.c.l4fl)  ;  Hippo, 

Adrunietum,   above  all,  Carthage.      Traces   existed  in 

these  hater  pla<vs,  so  late  as  the  time  of  Augustine,  of     matti  r  :   and  it  is  tl 

the    Phu-nician    origin    of   the  people;   for  1 


connection  with  a  very  fanciful  allusion  to  th,-  case  of    sometimes  been  set  forth,  with  the  view  of  meeting  the 
the  Canaanitish  woman,  whose  daughter  was  healed  by     objections  of   unbelievers  to  the  apparent   harshness   of 

i   as   tl 


•  ur  Lord  (Epis.  ad  Rom  Expositio.c.  13),  that  if   the  rustics 


about  Hippo  wen;  asked  what  they  were,  as  to  their 
origin,  they  were  wont  to  answer  Clitmniii,  that  is,  he 
adds,  "by  the  mere  change  of  a  letter  ( 'muKiniti  .•<" 
(Chanam,  i'.c.  Chanameos  esse).  Procopius,  also, 
•makes  mention  of  a  monument  found  in  Tigitina,  with 


llie  scriptural   ac<  ount 


old  Jewish  tradi 


tioii,  that  in  the  original  distribution  of  the  earth  amon<_r 
the  descendants  of  Noah,  tin;  land  of  Ca.naan  was 
assigned  f,,  the  children  of  Israel;  and  the  view  of 
Michael™,  that  the  forefathers  of  Israel,  by  dwelling 
for  a  time  as  herdsmen  in  the  land,  had  acquired  a 


this  inscription,  'Huels  iap.iv  ol  ^uytvTfs  O.TTO  irpoffuirov  '  right  to  the  soil,  which  it  was  competent  for  them  to 
'\-nffov  roS  \fiffrov,  NVe  are  those  who  fled  from  the  pre-  |  make  good  whenever  they  pleased  at  the  edire  of  the 
sence  of  Joshua  the  plunderer  (VuruUll.  ii  i..) ;  and  it  is  i  sword.  Such  explanations  are  palpably  insufficient: 
said  that  traditions  exist  among  the  Arabians,  to  the  ''  they  rest  on  no  proper  historical  basis,  and  are  too 
effect  that  the  people  of  Barbary  were  the  descendants  j  manifestly  of  the  nature  of  shifts  for  the  occasion  to 
of  these  refugees.  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  ;  serve  the  purpose  for  which  they  are  invented.  If  the 
circumstance.  While  for  commercial  purposes  merely,  i  extirpation  of  the  Canaanites,  and  the  occupation  of 
the  Phoenicians  were  led  to  establish  colonies  at  a  very  their  territory,  by  the  Israelites,  cannot  be  vindicated 
remote  period  on  the  African  coast,  it  is  by  no  means  on  the  great'  principles  of  righteousness,  no  considera- 
unlikely  that  these  colonies  might  receive  very  consi-  !  tions  of  a  more  recondite  \u-  simply  'political  kind 
V'"-L  33 


CANAAN 

<l   in  r<  coneiling  it  In  men's  convictions 


can    ever  su 
of  right. 

It  is  true  we  .ire  possessed  of   no   such  minute  or  de 
tailed  account  of  the  ni. .nil  condition  of  the  Canaauitcs. 
as  mi^ht  enable  us  to  institute  a   close  comparison  be 
tween   them  in  that  respect  and  the   other  nations  of 
ancient  heathendom.      I'.ut  we  know  for  certain,  that  a 
dreadful  depravation  of  manners  became  generally  pre 
valent  an  ion-'  them  at  an    early  period,  and  -Tew  till  it 
reached  a  shameful  height.      It  is  chiefly  of  the  I'heeni- 
cian  branch  of  the  inhabitants,  and  their  colonial  estab 
lishments,  that  we  have  notices  in  the  classical  remains 
of  antiquity  :  but  these  are  such  as  to  convey  a  very 
distinct  impression  of  more  than  ordinary  dissoluteness. 
and,    in    general,    of    a   low    moral  tone.       Phcenirian 
faith  appears  to  have  been   held   in   much  the  same  re 
pute  as  I'nii/r.  faith;  a   "  i'h(enieian  lie,"   Strabo  tells 
us,  was  a   common    saying  (iii.  p.  17")  :  and  the  general 
tradition    respecting    the    Astarte    or    Venns    worship, 
which  always  carried  along  with  it  scandalous  excesses, 
points  to  Syria,  and  often    i-pecially  to  I'hfcnicia,  as  Un 
original  seat.      When  we  turn  to  the   earlier  records  of 
the  I'.ible,  we  find  evident  symptoms  of  this  demoraliza 
tion  as  a  thing  already  at  work,  though  by  no  means 
advanced  to  its  tinal  stages.     The  iniquity  of  the  Amo- 
rites    had    become   palpable,  only    it   was   not   yet   full, 
(ie.  xv.  ni;  but  in  the   cities  of  the   plain,  where  circum 
stances  favoured  its  development,  it  had  reached   such 
a  height,  even  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  as  to  draw  down 
the  consuming  lire  of    Heaven.      The  case  of  these  was 
like  a  mirror,  in  which  the  whole  future  of  the  ( lanaan- 
ite  raee  reflected  itself:  first,   the  scandalous  practices 
toward  which  nature  in  them  seemed  to  have  a  peculiar 
tendency,  and  following  on  these  the  righteous  judg 
ment  of  Heaven,  laying  its  terrible  arrest  on  the  evil 
by  -weeping  the  evil-doers  into  the  pit  of  destruction' 
Had  the  people  of  Canaan  not  been  already  far  gone  in 
the  way  of  perdition,  the   fearful  outbreak  of  sin  and 
judgment  in  the  vale  of  Sodom  would  have  sounded  (as 
it  was  no  doubt  designed  to  do)  like  a  solemn  warning- 
note  in  their  ears,  and  led  them  to  turn  back  in  their 
course   of  degeneracy.      For  this,   however,   it   proved 
quite  inell'ectual:  and  when  we  open  the  page  of  sacred 
history  a  few  generations  later,  the  most  appalling  re 
presentations   meet  us  of  the  moral  condition  of  the 
(.'anaanites.      Thus,    after   mentioning    and  forbidding 
the  foulest   abominations,   in  respect  to   carnal  indul 
gence,  and  going  after  "'strange  Mesh,"   it  is  added  in 
Le.  xviii.   "2i:   "Defile  not  yourselves  in  any  of  these 
tilings ;  for  in  all  these  the  nations  are  defiled  that  I 
cast  out  before  you  :  and  the  land  is  defiled  ;  therefore 
I  do  visit  the  iniquity  thereof  upon  it,  and  the  land 
itself  vomiteth  out  its  inhabitants."     So  also  in  regard 
to  its  idolatrous  worship,  with  the  horrid  rites  and  super 
stitious  practices  attending  it,  it  is  said,  "  All  that  do 
these  things  are  an  abomination  to  the  Lord:  and  be 
cause  of  these  abominations  the  Lord  thy  God  doth 
drive  them  out  from  before  thee."  Do.  xviii.  \-2. 

Now.  it  is  possible  enough,  that  there  may  have  been 
particular  places,  or  even  whole  countries,  as  much 
addicted  to  these  gross  and  polluting  practices  as  the 
Canaanitcs,  which  yet  were  not  made  the  subjects  of 
so  special  and  overwhelming  a  judgment;  but  this,  if 
it  we're  so — and  we  cannot  be  quite  sure  that  it  actually 
has  been— would  not  essentially  alter  the  case  in  regard 
to  the  Canaanitcs.  It  is  clear,  from  the  statements 
given  on  the  authority  of  God  himself,  that  by  the  time 


iS  CANAAN 

the  sentence  of  extermination  was  issued  against  them, 
they  had  fallen  into  a  state  of   profound  and  hopeless 
depravity;  their  sins  were  of  that  kind,  which  may  be 
emphatically  said  t«»  cry  to  Heaven  for  vengeance;  and 
so  the   ban  of  extermination   under  which   they   were 
placed  involves  no  other  difflfcnlty  than  has  to  be  en 
countered   in  the   judgment  executed   upon    the  ante 
diluvian  world   by  the  flood;   or  the   destruction   that 
overthrew  the  cities  of   the  plain;  or  the  desolations 
that  ultimately  swept  like  a  torrent  over    Israel  itself; 
or,  indeed,  any  of  the  general  calamities  which  ( lod  has 
from  time  to  time  sent  upon  the  world  to  chastise  men 
for  their   corruptions.     The  ultimate!  ground   and  ra 
tionale  of  them  all.  is  the  fact  of  a  moral  Governor  of 
the  world,  who  mu~t  vindicate  hi-  authority,  and  often. 
by  fearful    things  in  righteousness,  recall   the  \\avward 
hearts  of  men  to  soberness  and  truth.      Let  this  great 
fact  be  but  granted  and  allowed  its  due  weight,  and  the 
mystery  that  hangs  over  such  cases  of  retribution   to  ^a 
large  .  xteiit  disappears.      Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  in 
regard  to  the  ('anaanites,  how  much  to  them  of  mercy 
was   mill-led   with  the  judgment:  that  to  give  space 
for  repentance,  the  stroke  of  vengeance  was  for  ccntu- 
rit  s  d,  laved  ;  that  various  means  of  reformation  were 
employed,  (specially  ill  the  exhibition  of  judgment  upon 
the  cities  of  the  plain,  and  the  living  testimony  of  such 
eminent  witnesses  for  the  truth  as  Melchi/edic,  Abra 
ham,  and  his  immediate  descendants;  that  plain  inti 
mations  also  were   given,   from  time   to   time,    of  the 
coming  doom— all  tending,  when   duly   considered,   to 
show  how  loath  God  was  to  execute  the  work  of  doom, 
and  rendering  more  manifest  the  incurable  corruption 
and  heedless  profligacy  of   those  on   whom  it  was  to 
alight. 

Such  being  the  real  state  of  the  case  as  regards  the 
('anaanites  themselves,  it  is  obviously  a  secondary  con 
sideration,  by  what  sort  of  instrumentality  the  sentence 
of  doom  might  be  put  in  execution.  But  if  respect  be 
had— as  it  manifestly,  and  even  pre-eminently,  ought 
in  such  a  case  to  be— to  the  mum/  aspect  and  bearing 
of  the  transaction,  then  decidedly  the  fittest  instrumen 
tality  was  the  agency  of  the  people  who  were  to  suc 
ceed  to  the  possession  of  the  land.  For,  entering  thus 
on  their  new  destiny  as  the  select  instruments  of 
Heaven  for  putting  in  force  its  decree  against  trans 
gressors,  and  consecrating  the  land  for  a  peculiar  pos 
session  <>f  God,  the  most  effectual  means  that  could  be 
devised  were  taken,  to  impress  upon  their  minds  the 
holy  nature  of  their  calling,  and  commit  them  irrevoc 
ably  to  the  cause  of  righteousness.  They  could  no 
longer  think  of  the  foundations  of  their  national  exist 
ence  without  being  reminded  of  their  obligation  to  keep 
themselves  from  the  pollutions  of  the  world.  The  very 
position  they  occupied  was  a  perpetual  call  to  heline>s 
of  heart  and  conduct ;  nor  could  they  turn  back  to  the 
corruptions,  on  account  of  which  they  had  been  com 
missioned  to  drive  out  their  predecessors  from  before 
them,  without  turning  their  own  glory  into  shame,  and 
practically  disannulling  their  title  to  the  inheritance. 

And  there  is  a  still  further  consideration  not  to  be 
overlooked  in  the  vindication  of  this  part  of  the  divine 
procedure— namely,  its  typical  bearing  on  the  interests 
of  God's  kingdom.  Nothing  in  Old  Testament  times 
can  be  fully  understood,  unless  it  is  brought  into  con 
nection  with  the  grander  things  that  were  to  happen  in 
the  ends  of  the  world,  and  of  which  all  that  went  be 
fore  was,  in  one  respect  or  another,  but  the  foreshadow 


CANAAJN  '2 

and  preparation.  In  that  scheme  of  provisional  ar 
rangements  which  was  interwoven  with  the  history  of 
ancient  Israel,  Canaan  was  the  land  of  rest,  the  inherit 
ance,  and,  as  such,  the  type  and  pledge  of  that  ever 
lasting  inheritance  which  is  laid  up  for  the  saints  in 
glory.  Jiut  tills  inheritance  can  only  be  entered  by 
those  for  win  mi  it  is  destined  as  conquerors:  it  is  to 
be  won  from  the  hand  of  the  adversary:  and  if  thev 
cannot  overmaster  the  powers  of  evil,  judge  Satan,  and 
cast  him  out,  with  all  his  lies  and  abominations,  neither 
can  they  sit  down  and  possess  the  kingdom.  Now.  in 
all  this  the  earthly  inheritance  must  be  the  ima^e  of 
the  heavenly.  The  work  given  to  .Joshua  and  the  host 
of  Israel  must  anticipate  what,  in  the  higher  sphere  of 
the  spiritual  life,  was  to  lie  done  by  .lesus  and  his  re 
deemed  people.  And  if  the  historv  of  Israel  as  to  its 
entrance  on  the  land  of  Canaan  had  been  materially 
different  from  what  it  actually  was,  one  does  not  see 
how  the  things  that  then  happened  could  have  ade 
quately  forecast  the  future,  and  served  properlv  to  ex 
liibit,  on  the  theatre  of  the  outward  and  visible,  the 
pattern  of  what  is  spiritual  and  eternal. 

Thus,  when  viewed  in  its  proper  li^ht,  and  its  various 
relations,  the  remarkable  fate  of  the  (  'anaanites,  though 
so  often  assailed  by  infidels,  is  capable  of  a  satisfactory 
explanation;  and  the-  Ilible  account,  whieh  bring-; 
clearly  and  broad Iv  out  the  great  moral  principle  s  c  n 
nect.-d  with  it,  is  that  \\hieii  most  appn>\es  it-elf  to 
our  intelligent  apprehensions  and  spiritual  convictions. 

CANAAN,  LAND  OF.  viewed  as  the  inheritance 
of  Israel.  The  laiiu'iiaire  emplo\vd  respecting  the  land 
of  the  Canaanites  is  somewhat  variable,  according  to 
the  point  of  view  from  which  it  was  contemplated  ;  and 
occasionally  terms  an-  employed  \\hichitisnot  <|iiite 
easy  to  reconcile  with  what  is  elsewhere  stated.  But 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  boundaries  '.riven  in 
the  -vnealo-ical  table  of  Cc.  x.  l.V-ll',  comprise  all  that 
strictlv  belonged  to  the  land,  which  received  its  deno 
mination  from  them.  What  tin  v  held  elsewhere,  after 
they  had  heinin  to  "spread  themselves  abroad."  be 
longed  to  them  merely  as  isolated  points,  mercantile 
emporiums,  or  colonial  settlements.  Looking,  there 
fore,  to  that  original  geographical  statement,  we  find 
that  "the  border  of  the  ('anaanites  \\as  from  Sidoii,  as 
thoii  comest  from  <  Jerar,  unto  ( ia/.a" — that  is,  from  the 
southern  side  of  Lebanon  aloir.,'  the  .Mediterranean  coa-t 
to  the  eountrv  of  the  Phili-tines.  Then  it  turned  right 
east  to  the  Dead  Sea,  "as  thou  goest  unto  Sodom  and 
( lomorrah,  and  Admah  and  /eboim,  even  unto  Lasha.'' 
The  city  of  La-ha  is  not  again  referred  to;  but  it  was 
manifestly  in  the  immediate-  neighbourhood  of  the  cities 
of  the  plain.  So  that,  as  thus  defined,  the  country  of 
the  ( 'anaanites  was  simplv  the  tract  lyinu'  within  the 
.Ionian  and  the  Mediterranean,  and  stretching  from 
Mount  Lebanon  on  the  north  to  the  I  K-ad  Sea  and  the 
wilderness  of  .ludah  on  the  south.  It  is  chiefly  oil  the 
northern  line  that,  uncertainty  hangs,  though,  as  the 
conquests  appear  to  have  ^one  no  farther  than  Mount 
Kermoii,  and  Si. Ion  is  the  most  northerly  town  ex 
pressly  mentioned  in  the  tribe  of  Asher,  the  probability 
is  that  the  real  boundary  line  lay  not  far  beyond  Sidon. 

(Si'i-   H.\ MAT II.) 

The  terms  of  the  promise  given  to  the  Israelites  per- 
fectlv  accord  with  this,  when  they  are  properly  read. 
In  the  first  local  description,  indeed,  made  to  Abraham, 
Ge.  xv.  1^-21,  a  wider  compass  seems  to  be  embraced: 
"Unto  thv  seed  have  T  given  this  land,  from  the  river 


CANAAN 

of  Egypt  to  the  great  river,  the  river  Kuphrates."'  ]>ut 
the  specification  that  follows  shows  what  was  the  por 
tion  more  particularly  meant,  "the  Kenites.  and  the 
Keuizzites,  and  the  Kadmonites.  and  the  Hittites,  and 
the  Perizzites,  and  the  Rephaims,  and  the  Amorites, 
and  the  (-'anaanites,  and  the  Cirgasites,  and  the  .lebu- 
sites"— all  tribes  that  lav  within  the  region  designated 
above.  Either,  therefore,  in  the  general  outline  "  from 
the  river  of  Jv_rvpt  to  the  river  Euphrates,"  there  was 
meant  to  be  held  out  to  the  covenant-people  such  a 
place  and  position  as  would  secure  their  ascendency 
over  the  whole  of  that  district  (which  proved  to  be  the 
,  case  in  the  better  periods  of  their  history)  :  or  the  pro 
mise  was  made  to  Abraham,  not  merely  as  the  head  of 
the  covenant  people,  but  as  the  common  father  of  the 
Ishmaelite  as  well  as  Israelite  tribes,  with  various 
other  families  that  ultimately  merged  in  these,  and 
which  unquestionably  did  spread  themselves  by  de 
crees  over  the  entire  region  in  question.  The  fornu  r 
supposition,  however,  seems  the  more  natural ;  as,  by 
the  distinct  tribes  mentioned,  we  appear  to  be  told 
what  was  to  be  the  proper  possession  of  Abraham's 
seed,  while  it  is  at  the  same  time  indicated  that,  as  the 
owners  of  such  a  t<  rritory.  they  should  \\ield  a  much 
more  extensive  sway.  If  we  look  from  the  promise  t  > 
the  historical  record  of  the  fulfilment,  we  find  the  same 
conclusion  forced  on  us  as  to  the  proper  boundaries  of 
the  land  of  ( 'anaan  :  "The  Lord  gave  unto  Israel,"  it 
is  said  in  .}<•+.  x\i.  •!:!,  "all  the  land  which  he  sware 
to  give  unto  their  fathers:  and  they  possessed  it,  ami 
dwelt  therein.  .  .  .  There  failed  not  ought  of  any  good 
thing,  which  the  Lord  had  spoken  unto  tin-  house  of 
Israel  ;  all  came  to  pass."1  This  refer-,  of  course,  only 
to  the  extent  and  compass  of  territory  brought  under 
the  power  of  Israel,  \\hic-h  reached  to  the  utmost 
bounds  of  the  Promised  Land,  and  even  on  the  farther 
side  of  .Ionian  included  a  considerable  tract  of  country, 
that  formed  no  part  of  \\hat  was  strictly  Canaanitish 
soil.  \Yithin  the  territory  actually  won,  there  were, 
as  the  sacred  history  elsewhere  informs  us.  various 
strongholds  ami  cities  belonging  to  the  original  inhabi 
tants  which  still  held  their  -round,  and  some  ,,f  which 
\\ere  never  wholly  dispossessed.  But  these  Mere  only 
a  few  isolated  spots,  \\hich\\ould  have  been  of  little 
moment  if  Israel  had  remained  steadfast  to  the  covenant 
of  (eid,  and  \\hich,  e\vn  as  it  was,  were  gradually  re 
duced  within  narrower  bounds,  till  they  well-niidi  dis 
appeared.  During  the  struggles  that  ensued  with  these 
n-mnants  of  the  ancient  stock,  the  <  'anaanites  are  some 
times  mentioned  as  distinct  from  the  particular  tribes, 
and  a  .labin,  kinu'  of  ('anaan.  is  even  represented  as  for 
a  time-  lording  it  over  Israel,  .in.  iv.  i!;  also  iii.  r.,  be.  .But 
the  connection  renders  it  plain  that  these  were  but  por 
tions  of  the  original  race  in  certain  localities,  retaining 
for  some  reason  or  another  the  general  name  of  the 
raee.  without  bein'_r  ivco^ni/ed  as  a  distinct  tribe. 

The  country  thus  defined  and  hounded  was  of  com 
paratively  limited  extent.  In  breadth,  from  .Jordan 
to  the  Mediterranean,  it  rarely  exceeds  fifty  miles: 
and  from  ])an  to  T.eersheba,  its  two  extreme  cities  in 
a  longitudinal  direction,  the  distance  does  not  exceed 
ISO  miles.  Allowing  a  little  margin  for  territory  not 
conquered  by  the  Israelites,  the  whole  region  of  Canaan 
proper  could  scarcelv  have  formed  more-  than  a  sipiarc 
of  :>IM)  miles  in  one  direction  by  fid  in  another,  or  an 
area  of  l<l,0uu  square  miles.  But,  as  if  to  compensate 
for  this  smallness  of  range,  it  was  extremely  varied 


CANAAN 


CANAAN 


in  its  natural  features,  aii'l  in  its  characteristics  of  soil 
and  climate  distinguished  by  manifold  diversities. 
These  it  derived  in  a  very  threat  decree  from  the  ridges 
of  hills  that  intersect  the  country,  and  which  now  form, 
as  they  must  ever  have  done,  one  of  its  most  striking 
peculiarities.  Standing  in  what  is  not  far  from  the 
middle  of  the  whole  region,  in  the  vast  and  fertile 
plain  of  Esdraelon,  one  perceives  on  looking  northwards 
a  va^t  amphitheatre  of  mountains,  commencing  with  a 
varietv  of  smaller  eminences  near  at  hand,  and  rising 
bv  degrees  into  the  loftier  ridu'es  that  look  down  upon 
the  Sea  of  Calile.',  til!  they  reach  their  culmination  in 
the  HIIOWV  summit,  of  .Mount  llernion,  ]U,t.Min  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea.  On  the  other  side  there  is 
also  to  lie  seen  a  succession  of  eminences,  with  a  gene 
ral  rise  toward  the  south  in  the  immediate  fore 
ground  the  ridge  of  Carniel,  stretching  almost  right 
acrosM  the  country,  but  even  at  its  greatest  height  near 
the  western  coast  not  rising  above  1,100  feet;  then  the 
hills  of  Samaria  and  the  northern  parts  of  Judah,  which 
sometimes  attain  an  elevation  of  '200U  feet,  and  these 
swelling  onwards  like  a  vast  sea  of  rock,  till  in  the  re 
gion  about  Hebron  they  rise  about  ;50<>0  feet,  whence 
they  begin  to  take  for  a  time  a  downward  inclination. 
''  As  a  general  rule,''  therefore,  to  use  the  words  of 
Stanley,  "  Palestine  is  not  merely  a  mountainous 
country,  but  a  mass  of  mountains,  rising  from  a  level 
sea-coast  on  the  west,  and  from  a  level  desert  on  the  east, 
only  cut  asunder  by  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  from 
north  to  south,  and  by  the  \alley  of  Je/reel  from  east 
to  west.  The  result  of  this  peculiarity  is,  that  not 
merely  the  hill-tops,  but  the  valleys  and  plains  of  the 
interior  of  Palestine,  both  east  and  west,  are  them 
selves  so  hiidi  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  as  to  partake 
of  all  the  main  characteristics  of  mountainous  history 
and  scenery.  Jerusalem  is  of  nearly  the  same  eleva 
tion  as  the  highest  ground  in  England,  and  most  of 
the  chief  cities  of  Palestine  are  several  hundred  feet 
above  the  Mediterranean  Sea"  (Sinai  and  Palestine,-,  p.  12M. 
The  prevailing  character  of  the  rock  of  which  these 
mountain  ridges  are  composed  is  limestone,  and  that 
belonging  for  the  most  part  to  the  Jura  and  chalk  for 
mation.  There  are  no  volcanic  formations.,  except  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Dead  Sea;  hut  in  the  northern 
parts  basalt  occasionally  interchanges  with  the  lime 
stone,  and  on  that  as  its  basis  rests  the  great  plain  of 
Ksdraelon.  The  limestone  of  the  higher  elevations  in 
Samaria  and  Judah  is  firm  and  compact;  but  in  other 
place.--  it  becomes  soft  and  marly,  producing,  when 
properly  supplied  with  moisture,  a  luxuriant  vegetation. 
As  this,  however,  often  comparatively  fails,  especially 
in  summer,  and.  amid  the  general  stagnation  that  pre 
vails,  little  is  done  by  artificial  means  to  stimulate  the 
vegetation,  the  hills  too  often  present  to  the  traveller  a 
bare,  whitish,  or  gray  and  parched  aspect,  fitted  rather 
to  fatigue  than  to  please  the  eye,  and  to  awaken  feel 
ings  of  disappointment.  Hut  the  capabilities  both  of 
the  soil  and  of  the  climate  are  great;  they  are  favour 
able,  in  particular,  to  the  cultivation  of  the  vine,  the 
fig,  the  olive,  and  the  mull  jerry;  and  when  the  land 
was  filled  with  a  thriving  and  active  population — as  it 
was  under  the  original  inhabitants  before  the  conquest, 
and  for  ages  afterwards  under  the  covenant-people — 
its  appearance  must  have  been  very  different  from 
what  it  now  presents.  It  was  then,  no  doubt,  most 
truthfully  described  byMos's.  as  emphatically  "a  good 
land;  a  land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and  depths 


that  spring  out  of  valleys  and  hills;  a  land  of  wheat,  and 
barley,  and  vines,  and  fig- trees,  and  pomegranates  ;  a 
land  of  oil-olive,  and  honey;  a  land  wherein  thou  shalt 
eat  bread  without  scarceness,  thou  shalt  not  lack  any- 
thinginit;  aland  whose  stones  are  iron,  and  out  of  whose 
hills  thou  mayest  dig  brass,"'  Du.-viii.  7-9.  Even  to  this  day 
many  of  these  hills  bear  evidence,  in  their  scarped 
rocks  and  ruined  terrace-walls,  to  the  pains  that  in 
ancient  times  had  been  taken  to  collect  the  mould  on 
their  slopes,  and  raise  on  it  a  fruitful  cultivation.  That 
it  is  not  only  enpablcof  bearing,  but  actually  has  borne, 
a  clothed  and  fertile  appearance,  and  su>tained  in  com 
fort  a  numerous  population,  admits  now  of  no  manner 
of  doubt.  Taking  all.  therefore,  into  account — what  the 
[  land  of  Canaan  was  by  nature,  and  what  it  had  been 
!  made  by  industry  and  art — its  pleasant  varieties  of 

hill  and  dale,  its   crystal    streams    and   flowing    brooks, 
J 

its  fertile  plains,  terraced  hills,  and  wild  romantic  up 
lands  the  land  might  well  (to  use  again  the  language 
of  Stanley)  ''  be  considered  the  prize  of  the  eastern 
world,  tilt.;  possession  of  which  was  the  mark  of  Cod's 
peculiar  favour;  the  spot  for  which  the  nations  would 
contend,  as  on  a  smaller  scale  the  Ucdouin  trihcs  for 
some  'diamond  of  the  desert'  —  some  '  palm  -  grove 
islanded  amid  the  waste.'  And  a  land,  of  which  the 
blessings  were1  so  evidently  the  gift  of  Cod,  not  as  in 
Kuvpt,  of  man's  labour;  which  also,  by  reason  of  its 
narrow  extent,  was  so  constantly  within  reach  and 
sight  of  the  neighbouring  desert,  was  eminently  calcu 
lated  to  raise  the  thoughts  of  the  nation  to  the  Supreme 
(•iver  of  all  these  b]er->in^s.  and  to  bind  it  by  the 
dearest  ties  to  the  land  which  he  had  so  manifestly 

favoured"  (Sinai  and  I'alcstino,  \>.  12:;). 

This  last  consideration  touches  on  the  reasons  which 
may  have  led  to  the  selection  of  Canaan  as  the  posses 
sion  of  Cod's  peculiar  people.  In  that  respect  some 
weight  may  justly  be  assigned  to  it.  But  beside  the 
natural  properties  of  the  land  itself,  which  in  extent, 
appearance,  and  resources,  singularly  fitted  it  for  the 
home  of  such  a  people  as  Israel,  the  relative  position 
of  Canaan  in  respect  to  the  surrounding  countries 
must  be  regarded  as  what  chiefly  exercised  a  determin 
ing  influence.  The  advantages  which  the  land  of 
Canaan  afforded  to  its  original  inhabitants  for  develop 
ing  their  energies,  and  rising  to  civil  and  commercial 
rank  in  the  world,  were  emblematic  of  similar  advan 
tages  which,  in  a  moral  respect,  it  presented  to  the 
chosen  people  for  fulfilling  their  high  calling,  and  ope 
rating  with  etl'eet  upon  the  ignorance  and  corruption 
of  the  world.  Israel  was  to  be  (iod's  light  among  the 
nations  of  ancient  time;  and  the  land  of  Canaan  was 
the  most  appropriate  eminence  on  which  it  could  be 
placed.  "  i  have  set  it,''  said  Cod,  "in  the  midst  of 
the  nations  and  the  countries  round  about,"  K/,c.  v.  ». 
"Viewing  the  world  as  it  existed  at  the  time  of 
Israel's  settlement  in  Canaan,  and  for  a  thousand 
years  afterwards,  we  believe  it  would  be  impossible  to 
fix  upon  a  single  region  so  admirably  fitted,  at  once  to 
serve  as  a  suitable  dwelling-place  for  such  a  people, 
and  to  enable  them,  as  from  a  central  and  well- chosen 
vantage-ground,  to  act  with  success  upon  the  heathen 
ism  of  the  world.  It  lay  nearly  mid- way  between  the 
oldest  and  most  influential  states  of  antiquity — on  the 
(  ne  side  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  with  their  dependencies; 
on  the  other  Babylon,  Nineveh,  India — the  seats  of 
art  and  civilization,  when  the  rest  of  the  world  still 
lay  in  comparative  barbarism,  and  to  which  the  much 


CANDACE 


261 


CANDLE 


later,  but  ultimately  more  powerful  commonwealths  '  was  marked  by  Jtiippel  of  Frankfort  in  the  land  of 
of  Europe  were  primarily  indebted  for  their  skill,  and  Kurgos,  somewhat  beyond  Meroe.  At  one  pyramid 
even  their  philosophy  and  religion.  Then,  in  the  im-  he  found,  among  other  things,  two  female  figures  at 
mediate  neighbourhood  were  the  Phienician  mariners,  the  entrance,  holding  lances  in  their  hands,  ami  in  the 
whose  sails  frequented  every  harbour  of  the  civilized  act  of  piercing  with  them  a  band  of  prisoners;  also  in 
world;  ami  all  around,  the  ishmaelite  tribes,  the  great  ;  various  others  "  the  reliefs  represent  apotheoses  of 
inland  traders,  who  kept  up  a  perpetual  and  most  ex-  female  figures  only,  while  in  all  others  they  represent 
tensive  intercourse  among  the  different  communities  of  ,  heroes,  to  whom  offerings  are  brought."  "  If  we  look 
Southern  Asia  and  Northern  Africa.  So  that  isolated  :  into  history,"  Heeren  adds,  "we  shall  there  find  some 
as  the  land  of  Canaan  in  some  respects  was.  it  was  ;  little  help  towards  a  general  explanation.  'Among 
the  very  reverse  of  being  withdrawn  to  a  corner;  and  !  the  Ethiopians,'  says  Strabo,  speaking  of  Meroe,  the 
no  region  in  the  whole  ancient  world  could  have  been  women  are  also  armed.'  We  know,  too,  that  they 
selected,  that  afforded  more  obvious  and  varied  facilities 
for  exerting  a  beneficial  and  commanding  influence  on 
the  ininduf  ancient  heathendom"  (K;uri>:urn's  K/ekk>l,i>.(iM. 
Unfortunately,  the  ad\ant,-uvs  thus  placed  within  the 
reach  of  Israel  were  but  rarely  used  as  they  slioul 
have  been;  and  it  ultimately  fared  with  them,  the 
conquerors  of  Canaan,  much  as  it  had  previously  fared 
with  the  original  occupants.  (For  the  present  state  of 
the  country,  see  undt  r  PALESTINE.) 

CANDACE,  the  English  form  of  Kacoao;,  and  the 
designation  of  that  queen  of  the  Ethiopians,  whoso 
eunuch  or  treasurer  was  converted  to  the  faith  of  the 
gospel  through  the  instrumentality  of  1'hilip,  when  on 
the  way  back  from  Jerusalem  to  Ethiopia,  Ac.  viii.  ;>7,sc<i. 
The  Ethiopia  here  referred  to,  it  is  now  on  all  hands 
agreed,  was  that  iv/ion  in  Upper  Nuliia.  which  an 
ciently  went  by  the  name  of  Meroe,  sometimes  called 
''the  Island  of  Meroe,"  fr..m  its  situation  between 
the  Nile  on  the  .me  side,  and  the  Atbara  on  tin-other. 
Tlie  term  ( 'A.NDAII:  appears  to  have  been  rather  an 
official  title  than  a  proper  name,  somewhat  like  the 
I'haraoh  of  Kgvpt.  This  is  expressly  testified  by  I'liny 
(vi  ,:..,  who,  spt-akin--  of  centurions  sent  by  NVro  to 
explore  the-  country,  gives  it  as  their  report,  that  "a 
\\oman  reigned  in  Meroe,  ( '<n«l<i'it  u>-;nare  in  Meroe 
Candaceiii,  which  name  had  no\\  for  a  l.m^  time  been 
transmitted  to  its  queens."'  We  have  notices  in  Strabo 
(\vii  s-jn)  ;ind  I  >io  Cassins  (Hv .:,)  of  a  queen  of  Mt  roe 
called  Candaco  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  who  wa: 
\\arlike  disposition,  and  betwixt  whom  and  the  gover 
nor  of  Kgypt.  Cains  IVtronius,  then-  \\  as  some  skir 
mishing  not  to  her  advantage,  for  she  \\as  tir-t  de 
feated  in  battle,  ami  then  had  lit  r  capital.  Napata. 
taken.  Fust-bills  also  mentions  that  so  late  even  as 
his  day  the  queens  of  Ethiopia  continued  to  bear  the 
name  of  Caiidaee. 

This  singular  prominence  uiven  to  females  in  th.  • 
governing  power  of  Ethiopia,  is  confirmed  by  the 
monuments  of  the  country.  Comparing  these  with 
the  remains  of  ancient  Egypt.  Heeren  says.  "  The 
most  remarkable  difference  appears  in  tin-  persons 
offering:  the  queens  appear  with  the  kinifs  ;  and  not 
merely  as  presenting  offerings,  but  as  heroines  and 
conquerors.  Nothing  of  this  kind  has  yet  been  dis- 


a  Nitocris  aintni'4  the  ancient  queens  of  Kthiopiu,  wh 


!!.-,;;.  |         FeniiVlu  \Van-ii.r.-    CuilUu.Vs  Vi.ya--  a  Mm 


tlie  conquest  of   Ethiopia  by  Sesostris  there  is 
with    lit  r   ,-oiis.   who  appear-,    before   him    as   a 
f  j   captive.       A   Ion:,'  succession    of    queens    under  t he  t it  le 
of  (  'a m lace  must  have  reigned  there  ;  and  when  at  las!, 
tin-  seat  of  empire  was  removed  from  Meroe  to  Napata. 
near  Mount  In-rkal.  then-  was   also   there  a  queen  who 
ruled  under  the  title  of  Candaee.       It  is  not,  therefore, 
strange,  but  quite  agreeable  to  Ethiopian  usages,  to  see 
a  queen  in  a  warlike  habit  near  her  coii-ort  ;   although 
history  has  preserved  nothing  particular  on  the  subject. 

It  may  justly  be  inferred  from  the  Ethiopian  eunuch 
under  Candace  having  gone  to  Jerusalem  to  worship, 
that  Judaism  had  obtained  considerable  prevalence  in 
the  country,  to  which  their  practice,  from  remote 
times,  i ,f  the  rite  of  circumcision  may  have  not  a  little 
contributed.  Tradition  ascribes  to  the  converted 
eunuch  the  conversion  also  of  Candace.  and  of  many 
of  her  subjects,  to  the  faith.  This  is  quite  probable, 


covered  in  the  Egyptian  reliefs,  either  in  Egypt  or  but  no  certain  accounts  have  reached  us  on  the  subject. 
Nubia"  (Am-iulit  Kgypt.  rh.  ii.)  Referring  to  the  repre-  |  CANDLE  is  frequently  used  in  the  Knglish  version 
sentations  in  one  of  the  pyramids,  as  given  by  (.'ail-  of  the  I'ilile,  where  /HHIJ>.  or  the  more  general  term 
laud,  Heeren  states,  that  ''in  one  compartment  a  l>;/ftt,  would  have  been  the  more  literal  rendering, 
female  warrior,  with  the  royal  ensigns  on  her  head,  {  Usually,  however,  candle  gives  the  substantial  import, 
and  richly  attired,  drags  forward  a  number  of  captives  !  since  at  the  time  the  translation  was  made  candles 
as  offerings  to  the  gods;  upon  the  other  she  is  in  a  had  relatively  the  same  place  in  domestic  use  that 
warlike  habit,  about  to  destroy  the  same  group,  whose  lamps  had  in  ancient  Israel.  Symbolically,  the  ex- 
heads  are  fastened  together  by  the  top  hair.  On  a  pression  is  used  (1)  with  reference  to  the  clearness  and 
third  relief  in  the  sanctuary  she  is  making  an  offering  accuracy  of  view,  which  is  obtained  by  means  of  a 
of  frankincense  to  the  goddess."  The  same  peculiarity  j  candle  in  searching  through  an  apartment,  as  when 


CANDLESTICK 


CANDLESTICK 


the  Lord  speaks  of  searching  Jerusalem  with  candles, 
Zcji>.  i.  i-i;  or  when  the  spirit  of  man  itself,  the- light  of 
conscience  within,  is  called  the  Lord's  candle  to  search 
the  inward  parts,  1'r.  xx.  ^7;  ('-'  \\ith  reference  to  the 
knowledge  or  discernment  generally,  which  is  insepar 
able  from  it  simply  as  a  light,  as  when  our  Lord  calls 
his  people  the  light  of  the  world,  Mat.  v.  14;  (I!)  with 
reference  to  the  cheering  and  gladdening  influence, 
which  when  properly  supplied  a  candle  sheds  through 
the  house,  as  when  it  is  said  of  David,  that  he  was  the 
lamp  or  candle  of  Israel,  KSa.  xxi.  17;  or  of  the  wicked, 
that  the  lamp  of  the  wicked  shall  lie  put  out,  1'r.  xiii.  !). 
CANDLESTICK  [TO;-:,  mcnorah,  lamp -stand, 

T       : 

light- hearer],  the  distinctive  name  for  the  candela 
brum  of  the  sanctuary,  and  used  only  for  it,  and  of 
those  made  after  its  pattern  for  the  temple,  t  Ki.  \ii.-ui. 
According  to  the  directions  given  for  making  it  in  Ex. 
xxv.  yi-'J'.l,  it  was  formed  of  a  talent  of  pure  ^-old. 
Tin,-  description  given  of  it  is  perfectly  intelligible  and 
plain  as  regards  its  general  structure  and  appearance, 
but  is  not  sufficiently  explicit  to  enable  ns  to  deter 
mine  with  accuracy  the  subordinate  parts.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  had  in  the  centre  an  upright  stem, 
and  that  from  this  stem  branched  out  six  arms,  three 
on  each  side,  so  as  to  present  atop,  along  with  the 
central  column,  a  seven-fold  light.  It  is  not,  how 
ever,  distinctly  said,  that  the  six  lateral  and  the  one 
central  supports  were  all  to  rise  to  the  same  height, 
and  the  lamps  standing  oil  them  were  to  ho  on  a  level. 
This  might  very  naturally  present  itself  as  the  most 
appropriate  form,  and,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  figure 
of  the  candlestick  inscribed  on  the  triumphal  arch  of 
Titus,  among  the  furniture  of  the  second  temple,  it 
would  seem  also  to  have  heen  the  form  actually 
adopted. 

There  is  a  certain  indistinctness  also  about  the  orna 
ments  with  which  it  was  to  be  covered.  In  Ex.  xxv. 
33,  34,  there  are  required  to  he  made  "  three  bowls 
like  unto  almonds,  with  a  knop  and  a  flower  in  one 
branch;  and  three  howls  made  like  almonds  in  the  other 
branch,  with  a  knop  and  a  flower:  so  in  the  six  branches 
that  come  out  of  the  candlestick.  And  in  the  candle 
stick  (viz.  in  the  main  stem,  as  contradistinguished 
from  the  branches)  shall  be  four  bowls  made  like  unto 
almonds,  with  their  knops  and  their  flowers."  Almond- 
shaped  bowls  or  cups  evidently  form  the  first  part  of 
these  ornaments;  and  as  flowers  are  mentioned  sepa 
rately,  the  natural  inference  is,  that  the  fruit  not  the 
flower  of  the  almond  is  what  is  here  referred  to — a  cup- 
like  ornament  shaped  after  the  form  of  an  almond.  The 
next  ornament  is  more  uncertain;  in  the  English  Bible 
it  is  called  /•/?";>,  in  tha  Hebrew  it  is  kiipJttnr.  and  the 
Septuagint  and  Vulgate  translations  render  it  by  words 
(<r<paipitiTrjpe^,  sphcrulce)  which  merely  indicate  around 
or  spherical  shape.  Josephus  and  some  of  the  ancients 
understood  by  it  apple*,  or  rather  pomff/ranafes.  But 
the  term  is  not  that  which  is  elsewhere  applied  to  either 
apples  or  pomegranates;  and  it  is  impossible  to  go 
further  than  to  say,  that  it  seems  to  denote  something 
of  a  rounded  form:  and  knops  may  serve  as  well  as  any 
thing  else  for  a  rendering.  This  particular  ornament 
was  to  be  succeeded  by  a  Hower;  and  the  whole  three 
--almond-shaped  cup,  knop,  and  flower — were  to  he 
three  times  repeated  on  each  branch,  and  four  times 
011  the  main  stem :  so  that  the  same  ornamental  series 
occurred  in  all  twenty-two  times  upon  the  candlestick. 


I  n  regard  to  the  base,  no  particular  directions  are  given; 
but  for  the  lamps,  it  is  clear  that  they  merely  rested 
upon  the  top  of  the  diiicrelit  brandies  and  the  stem,  and 
were  not  an  integral  part  of  the  main  piece.  Indeed, 


Bit!! 


ic  lit  nf  the  )ji-;iiic-lifs  of  the  UukU.li 
1,  I'luii.    i,  Elevation. 


it  could  not  well  lie  otherwise,  as  it  had  been  very 
dillieult  to  get  them  properly  cleaned  and  trimmed 
if  they  had  been  attached  to  the  stand  on  which  they 
rested. 

From  the  description  thus  given,  there  will  obviously 
appear  no  ground  for  the  opinion  which  would  regard 
the  candlestick  as  intended  to  represent  a  fruit-bearing 
tree,  consisting  of  a  main  stem  and  of  six  branches. 
This  would  anyhow  have  been  unnatural,  seeing  that 
not  fruit  but  lights  formed  the  end  or  consummation 
to  which  all  was  manifestly  designed  to  contribute. 
But  even  in  the  relative  position  of  the  ornaments 
themselves  there  is  nothing  to  countenance  the  idea; 
since,  while  these  comprised  representations  of  both  fruit 
and  flowers,  the  fruit  took  precedence  of  the  flowers, 
and  not  the  flowers  of  the  fruit,  as  in  the  field  of 
nature.  There  is  no  reason  for  supposing  the  ornaments 
to  have  had  any  other  design  than  to  add  to  the  ele 
gance  and  ornateness  of  the  structure,  precisely  as  the 
more  elaborate  parts  of  the  high-priest's  dress  were 
said  to  be  for  ornament  and  for  beauty.  The  solid 
gold,  in  like  manner,  of  which  the  whole  was  composed, 
was  intended  to  give  an  impression  of  the  costly  and 
precious  nature  of  the  article,  as  serving  an  important 
and  valuable  purpose  in  the  Old  Testament  economy. 

In  this  purpose  we  are,  doubtless,  to  include  its 
more  immediate  or  natural  use,  simply  as  a  provision 
for  diffusing  material  light.  There  being  no  windows 
in  the  tabernacle,  the  light  could  only  enter  by  the 
outer  curtain,  which  was  drawn  up  bv  day;  and,  if 
there  was  not  to  be  tet.il  darkness  during  the  night, 
there'  must  have  IK -en  some  means  for  artificially  supply 
ing  it.  This  was  done  through  the  golden  candlestick, 
which  Aaron  was  commanded  to  "light  in  the  evening," 
so  as  to  cause  them  to  burn  "from  evening  to  morn 
ing  before  the  Lord,"  Ex.  xxvii.  21;  xxx.  7,  ?;  Le.  xxiv.  3. 
Hence,  we  read  of  the  Lord  having  appeared  to  Samuel 
"before  the  lamp  of  God  went  out  in  the  temple  of  the 
Lord,"  iSa.  iii.3;  namely,  before  the  time  when  the 
dawn  of  day  rendered  the  artificial  light  in  the  sanc 
tuary  no  longer  necessary.  Josephus,  indeed,  states 
that  the  custom  was  to  keep  the  lamps  burning  night 
and  day;  but  this,  if  correct,  only  proves  the  later 
usage  to  have  been  so  far  different  from  the  earlier, 
and  perhaps  arose  from  the  same  feeling  which  led  the 
people  to  multiply  rites  and  fasts  beyond  what  were 
ore  scribed  in  the  law  of  Moses.  The  candlestick,  in 


CANDLESTICK 


CANE 


its  natural  use,  as  represented  in  Scripture,  was  a 
substitute  for  the  natural  light  of  day:  hence,  to  be 
brought  into  requisition  only  when  this  failed:  so  that 
the  dwelling  of  Uod  might  never  appear  to  be  enveloped 
in  gloom,  or  without  the  apparatus  necessary  for  con 
ducting  holy  ministrations.  And  had  the  tabernacle, 
or  temple,  to  which  the  candlestick  belonged,  been 
erected  simply  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  suitable 
and  appropriate  services  to  (Jod,  in  connection  with 
the  religious  economy  then  existing,  there  might  possi 
bly  have  been  no  further  design  contemplated  in  its 
structure  and  use  than  the  one  now  mentioned,  of 
giving  light  in  the  sanctuary  to  those  who  might  be 
ministering  in  holv  things.  J'ut  as  everything  in  the 
earthly  tabernacle  was  made  to  image  what  pertained 
to  a  higher — framed  so  as  to  symboli/.e  the  spiritual 
truths  of  (Jod's  kingdom,  both  as  then  unfolded,  and 
as  destined  hereafter  to  receive  a  fuller  development, 
the  natural  use  of  the  candlestick  could  by  no  means 
exhaust  its  meaning,  but  must  only  have  formed  the 
ground  of  a  spiritual  and  tvpieal  u-i  .  I'ut  as  this  can 
not  be  exhibited  properly  excepting  in  c.iiinectioii  with 
the  tabernacle  itself,  and  its  other  articles  of  furniture, 
we  postpone  the  co]isiderati"li  ot  it  till  we  reach  the 
subject  of  the  tabernacle. 

The  original  candle-tick  of  course  perished  at  the 
time  of  the  Chaldean  conquest,  alon^r  with  the  other 
articles  necessary  for  the  daily  service  of  the  sanctuary. 
which  hail  remained  in  it  to  the  last.  In  the  second 
temple,  it  would  seem,  that  a  return  was  made  to  the 
simplicitv  of  the  first  arrangement;  at  lea-t  in  the  book 
of  .Maccabees  mention  is  made  only  of  one  candlestick, 
while  the  temple  of  Solomon  was  furnished  with  ten 
(comparf  1  Ki.  vii.  Ill ;  1  Mac.  i.  1M  ;  iv  111,  .'.(i).  Josephlls,  too, 

speaks  as  if  then-  was  onlv  one  in  the  second  temple 
(W^rs,  vii.  M;  and  tlie  representation  on  the  arch  of  Titus 


lem,  where  it  was  lost  sight  of.     But  the  correctness 
of  these  reports  cannot  be  confidently  relied  on. 

CANE.     The  English  word  cane  is  almost  identical 
with  the  Hebrew  kanth  (r:p),  and  its  (.'reek  and  Latin 

equivalents  KO.VVO.  and  canna ;  and  like  the  correspond 
ing  words  rccd, grass,  &c.,  it  is  very  loosely  used.      The 


Portion  of  las  ivli.-f  on  An-h  of  Titus,  show-inn  the  Golden 


leaves  no  r  loin  t<>  doubt  that  it  was  carried  to  Home 
along  with  other  sacred  spoils.  It  is  reported  to  have 
been  included  in  tin'  plunder  taken  by  Genseric  to 
Africa  in  A.n.  4f>f>:  to  have  been  re-captured  from  the 
Vandals  by  1'elisarius  in  A.I).  .>:>:>,  and  carried  to 
Constantino] ile;  finally,  to  have  been  sent  to  Jerusa- 


cane  from  which  su^ar  is  extracted  (Saccfiarnm  <•;///,-/»- 
'//•//ii/}  is  a  urass;  whilst  the  canes  made  into  walking 
s-ticks,  into  the  floating  cables  of  ships  in  the  Mast  em 
Archijielago.  and  into  the  bottoms  of  chairs  and  other 
kinds  of  wicker-work,  are  more  nearlv  allied  to  the 
palms.  It  is  a  convenient  popular  name  fur  anv  plant 
of  a  tubular  structure  rising  above  the  dignity  of  a  reed, 
but  falling  short  of  a  palm. 

In  our  own  country  there  are  grasses  which  yield  a 
pleasant  perfume,  the  most  frequent  and  familiar  being 
the  Anthoxanthum  ndoratinn,  or  sweet-scented  vernal- 
•_rrass,  which  mainlv  contributes  the  delightful  fra-rance 
t()  new-made  hay.  In  India  such  grasses  are  still  more 
abundant.  Then-  is  mie  genus  especially  distinguished 
for  its  oilorifi  rmis  virtues,  the  Andrrtprir/on.  The  n.ot.-i 
of  the  .-I.  nuirtratinn,  called  "  kbus-klius"  in  Hindec, 
are  worked  into  screens  or  "tatties."  which  in  hut 
weather  are  placed  bef..iv  the  ddors  and  windows  of 
houses.  1  luring  the  h' at  of  the  day  these  tatties  are 
constantly  drenched  with  water,  and  as  the  dry  hot 
wind  from  without  flows  through,  causing  a  rapid 
evaporation,  it  comes  into  tlie  apartments  '20  '  or  .'50° 
reduced  in  temperature,  and  charmingly  fragrant. 
Another  And rofint/nn,  the  species  srhccnmttlnis,  is  well 
known  as  the  lemon- grass,  and  a  third,  A .  rti/umi/s 
rtromnti'rtix,  is  propounded  by  I  >r.  I'oyle  with  much  pro 
bability  as  the  Ka\a/j.oi;  apo/nariKos  of  Dioscorides,  and 
the  "sweet-cane"  or  "calamus"  of  Scripture.  The 
circumstance  of  its  coming  from  a  "far  country  "is  all 
in  favour  of  Dr.  Itoyle's  supposition.  It  occurs  in 
Central  India,  being  found  as  far  north  as  Delhi,  and 
south  to  between  the  Godavery  and  Nagpore.  Tt  is  a 
tall  plant,  and  yields  the  fragrant  grass-oil  of  Central 


CANKERWORM 


204 


Tlie  query  has  been  often   propounded,  whether  the 
"sweet-cane"   of   Scripture  may  not  he  the  sugar-cane 
To   tills    it    may  lie  sufficient   to  1'ejily, 
'  the  I  lelnvws  seems  to  have  lieen  valued 
•tiirss  nf  its  taste  I  tut  of  its  smell,  Is.  .\liii 


.-ible  that  the  Jew>  may  have  become 
acquainted  with  sugar  within  the  biblical  period,  although 

we  have  no  evidence  that  it  was  known  so  far  west-  , 
ward  till  the  conquests  of  Alexander  opened  the  way  to 
its  discovery.  (Si.-e  Kalo.nui-'-.  lli>!  ury  M'Su^ir,  in  the  Mcni.>iiv 
..f  Hie  I'liilosiiphk-al  Society  of  Manclicstcr,  vol.  iv.  p.  -J:il. )  At  a 
coni]iarati\ielv  early  period  the  sugar-cane  was  freely 
cultivated  iu  Syria,  and  the  //((//'author  of  the  ''(«esta  ! 
Dei  jier  Francos."  tells  how  kindly  the  crusaders  took 
to  it:  "  ( 'alamellos  ibi<lem  mellitos,  quos  voeant  zn.crK. 
suxit  popuhis  illornm  salubri  succo  hetatus."  "At  the 
time  of  harvest  tiie  inhabitants  bruise  it  when  ripe 
in  mortars,  and  set  aside  the  strained  juice  in  vessels, 
till  it  solidifies  in  the  semblance  of  snow  or  white  salt,  i 
Mixed  with  bread,  or  treated  with  water,  they  use  it 
as  pottage,  and  prefer  it  to  honey.  The  besiegers  of 
Albaria  Marra  and  Acchas,  having  suffered  fearfully 
from  hunger,  were  greatly  refreshed  thereby."  [j.  H.) 

CANKERWORM  (p-»,  ;/,M-),  a  voracious,  gre 
garious  inject,  very  destructive  to  vegetation.  Sonic 
have  supposed  the  Egyptian  chafer  (^fitrnJin  ustsacer)  to 
be  the  insect  intended,  but  it  by  no  means  meets  the 
requirements  of  the  sacred  text.  Only  in  the  larva 
state  does  this  beetle  feed,  and  in  that  condition  it  is 
stationary,  solitary,  and  concealed  beneath  the  earth. 
I.n  1's.  cv.  :54,  the  term  caterpillars  (English  version) 
seems  equivalent  to  /nr/i.-sh,  which  composed  one  of  the 
plagues  of  Egypt.  "The  locusts  came,  and  [even?] 
<'<i.tci'j>i//a):-*,  «i/</  t/niJ  without  mi-nilicr.'  Jeremiah,  li.  14, -.7, 
and  Nahum,  iii.  i.vir,  allude  also  to  the  immense  numbers 
of  these  insects,  as  well  as  to  the  suddenness  with 
which  they  appear  and  depart  after  having  performed 
their  work  of  devastation.  In  the  latter  prophet,  as 
well  as  in  Joel,  i.  4 ;  ii.  i'.%  the  term  seems  to  be  nearly 
identical  with  that  rendered  /itnixf,  or  at  least  to  differ 
from  it  only  as  one  species  differs  from  another  closely 
allied  to  it  in  form  and  manners.  In  Je.  li.  27,  the 
epithet  roni/Ji  (-cp,  that  which  stands  out)  is  applied  to 
the  i/clt/c,  which  may  help  to  identify  it  with  some  of 
the  tropical  (Iryllida-,  which  are  formidably  spinous. 
(>'«  LOCUST.)  [p.  ii.  c;.] 

CAN'NEH  is  mentioned  in  connection  with  Haran  j 
and  Eden  as  trading  with  Tyre,  K/e.  xxvii.  •>:>,,  but  nothing 
further  is  known  regarding  it.  After  Bochart  it  is 
usually  identified  with  Calneh,  but  the  conjecture  is 
destitute  of  evidence;  while  the  fact  of  Calneh' s  destruc 
tion  by  the  Assyrians  long  before  the  time  of  Ezekiel 
is  utterly  unfavourable  to  it.  Michaelis  takes  it  to  be 
the  Kane  of  Ptolemy  (vi.  7,  sect.  10),  a  place  of  trade,  and 
a  promontory  on  the  south  coast  of  Arabia,  and  accord 
ing  to  Arrian  the  king's  chief  place  of  export  for  the  in 
cense  country.  This  seems  countenanced  by  the  fact  of 
its  being  mentioned  along  with  other  Arabian  localities, 
particularly  Eden,  by  many  taken  to  be  the  modern 

Aden   in  Arabia.       (See  KiK.bel,  Die  Volker-tafel  der  Genesis, 
Ciossen,  l-;,n,  p.  a;n.)  [l).  j[.] 

CANON,  is  simply  the  Greek  word  Kavuv,  which 
has  U;en  adopted  as  a  convenient  term  for  expressing 


what  is  of  binding  authority,  especially  and  prc- 
emiuently  the  collected  books  of  sacred  Scripture.  Jn 
its  original  meaning,  however,  the  word  denoted  a  cam 
or  /•«</,  whether  as  a  natural  production  or  as  a  straight 
rod  for  purposes  of  measurement.  It  came,  however. 
to  be  used  tropically  for  a  ttiuulitrd  or  rn/r,  by  which 
anything  was  to  lie  compared  or  adjusted;  in  which 
sense-  it  is  of  frequent  use  among  classical  writers,  and 
also  iiccurs  in  the  New  Testament,  as  in(ia.  vi.  Ill, 
"as  many  as  walk  by  this  rule"  (rw  KO.VVVI  roiVw): 
'1  Co.  x.  \:'>.  The  rule  meant  in  these  cases  is  to  be 
understood  quite  generally  of  any  prescribed  order,  or 
line  of  procedure  which  it  is  proper  to  observe,  and 
has  no  special  ivferince  to  the  collected  volume  of  Scrip 
ture.  By  a  still  further  extension  of  the  original  im 
port,  it  came  too.  among  the  early  ecclesiastical  writers. 
to  signify  rule  or  measure  in  a  more  restricted  sense — 
an  accredited  and  authoritative  account,  first  of  that 
doctrine  which  from  apostolic  teaching  was  generally 
received  among  the  churches  of  Christ,  then,  of  per 
sons  and  things-  for  example,  a  list  of  clergy  in  any 
particular  place,  of  psalms  and  hymns  for  public  use, 
of  decrees  of  councils,  of  books  fitted  for  employment 
in  the  services  of  the  sanctuary.  This  latter  use  is  not 
a  scriptural  one.  and  did  not  prevail  till  some  time  in 
the  third  century. 

The  term  in  its  application  to  sacred  Scripture  bein-- 
thus  of  ecclesiastical,  not  of  biblical  usage,  it  does  not 
properly  come  into  consideration  here.  Tint  to  com 
plete  the  history  of  the  word,  and  to  indicate  more 
distinctly  its  relation  to  the  Bible,  we  must  note,  that 
even  when  it  began  to  be  applied  to  the  sacred  writ 
ings,  it  was  not  confined  to  writings  in  the  strictest 
sense  authoritative  and  divine,  but  included  such  as 
were  deemed  proper  to  be  read  in  churches.  In  this 
way  some  books  not  claiming  inspired  authority  were 
reckoned  canonical,  and  some  again  actually  forming 
part  of  Scripture — in  particular,  Canticles  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  book  of  Revelation  in  the  New- 
were  omitted  from  the  list,  because  they  were  con 
sidered  unsuitable  for  public  use.  There  is  extant  a 
book  of  Philastrius,  a  friend  of  Ambrose  (De  Jlit-rcxi- 
Jiitx),  in  which  he  gives  a  catalogue  of  what  he  calls 
ration  iral  IXIO/.-K,  but  which  wants  both  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  and  the  Apocalypse;  while  yet,  in  another 
part  of  the  treatise,  he  calls  those  heretics  who  refuse 
to  include  the  Apocalypse  in  Scripture — plainly  show 
ing  that  with  him  the  canonical  was  by  no  means 
synonymous  with  inspired  or  authoritative.  In  like 
manner,  (.in-gory  Na/ian/.en  at  once  calls  the  Apoca 
lypse  the  last  work  of  grace,  and  at  the  same  time 
place*  it  among  the  apocryphal;  that  is,  the  private  or 
non-canonical,  as  contradistinguished  from  those  which 
were  familiarly  employed  in  the  public  assemblies  (Stuart 

on  the  Canon,  p.  27,  -*•). 

This  laxity  in  regard  to  the  use  of  the  term  canoni 
cal  was  fraught  with  serious  consequences,  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out  under  the  article  APOCRYPHA;  but 
the  term  itself  became  gradually  more  definite  in  its 
application,  ft  was  at  length  regarded  as  the  proper 
designation  only  of  such  writings  as  are  strictly  autho 
ritative  and  divine,  the  ultimate  standards  of  faith  and 
practice  to  the  church  of  Christ,  although  parties  dif 
fered,  and  still  differ,  in  regard  to  what  writings  should 
be  so  reckoned.  Such  in  later  times  is  the  sense  uni 
versally  ascribed  to  it ;  so  that  the  sacred  canon  is  all  one 
with  holy  Scripture  ;  and  the  question  which  respects 


CAXT1CLKS  205  CANTICLES 

the  Old  and  Xew  Testament  canon  is  simply  that  I  i.  14  with  iv.  13;  ii.  9  with  viii.  14  ;  in  all  of  which  passao-es  we 
which  respects  the  genuineness  and  the  authority  of  the  :  meet  with  rare  Hebrew  words,  found  nowhere  else  in 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  Xew  Testament.  (Sec  there-  the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  which,  recurrino-  a--ain 
fore,  for  the  dismission  of  the  subject,  under  Srim'-  ;  and  ayain  as  they  do  in  this  Song,  stamp  upon  all  its 
TURKS.)  -parts  a  markedly  distinctive  character,  and  render  the 

CANTICLES  (S'-vjjTI    T"i;:    "Aw^-a    a.(rfj.dTuv:    Sy-  ]  unity  of   the   whole   composition    evident   and    striking. 

<>f    tcisdmiit-    T-tr-um        i  ^  ln:l^  a'S"    ''°    1VU1;"''<L'('   tnat-    notwithstanding  the 
••'•  -scurity  of  the  poem,  there  may  be  discovered  through 


(lie  King  .if    Israel   spake  befoiv  the  Lord  of  the  whole  and  that  the  close  throws  us  back  again  upon  the  com 

world.)     Our  remarks  upon  this  must  interesting  and  niencement  (eomp.  ch.  viii.  11, 12,  with  i.  G,  especially  the 

diltieult  portion  ,,f  the  01.1   Testament    scriptures    we  Arameanform  •  ?-'  «- 15),  thus  making  it  evident  thai, 
shall  arrange  under  the  following  heads  :  •  ••••:- 

I.    I'nitv  (,f  the  Composition.  V> '    have  l>ef"n'  us  Ullt  a  collection  of  songs  which  may 

II     Subject-math  r  '  ''*'  st'l':ll':itely  interprete •!.  hut  a  single  poem,  the  various 

III.    Form  and  Arrangement  of  the  several  1'aris.  1'^rts  of  which   can   be  rightly  understood    and    inter- 

I  \".    Age  and  Authorship,  [ireted  onh   when  viewed  as  parts  of  a  harmonious  and 

V.   Canonical  Authority.  self-consistent  unity. 

!.    'i'iia.t  the  Song  of  Son-;-;  is  not  a  collection  of  sepa-          -1  '•   ''''"'  question  of  the  n.u't//  of  the  poem   thus   in 

rate  lyric-;,  but,  as  the  title   indicates,    forms  one  c.mti-  trodtices  us  to  a  much  more  difficult  and  important  one  : 

nuous  composition,  ought  not  to  be  disputed.      The  title  vi/..   What  is  iis  xnl,ji  ,-t  >      What  was  tiie  design  ..I    the 

i-  not,  "  The  Son^s  of  Suloiaoji "  \\\-  in  the  book  of  I'JM-  author  in  its  composition  >      \\'liat  is  tl'.e  peculiar  char 

verbs, '-The  Proverbs  of  Solomon"),  but  "TheSoiigof  acter  of  the  thoughts  and   feelings  to    \\hich  he  gives 

Songs,    which    is   Solomon's,"11    i.i.    the   most    beautiful  utterance  in  the  beautiful  and  glowing  language  of  this 

and  precious  «,f  songs,    ju  4  as   the    .Messiah's  title    of  Song!      A  first  answer  to  these  questions   is  at  hand. 

Kin-' of  kings  describes  him  as  the  mo-t  powerful  and  It  needs  but  one  glance  a!  the  Song  to  discover  that  its 

glorious  of  kings.      It  is  entitled  r<  Song,  not  a  collection  theme   is   (,,n:      The  poet  .-ings  the   loves  uf  Shelomo 

of  songs;  a-nd  no  one  who  reads  it,  even  in  our  English  and  Shulammiih.      The  Song  begins: 
version,  with  any  degree  of  attention  can  fail  to  r«  mark  ••  May  ho  kiss  mo  with  kisses  of  Iris  mmnh, 

that  the  title  gives  a  true  account  of  its  character  ;  the  Km- sweeter  aiv  tin  love*  than  wine." 

parts  into  which  the  composition  is  distribut.  d  being  so  And  the  exjiressions  already  mentioiieil  as  occurring  in 

related,  b,,th  in  matter  and  in  form,  as  to  constitute   a  ;dl  parts  of  the   sou--,    and    thus   manifesting   its  uiiitv, 

singlepocm.      N^itonly  does  one  spirit  breathe  through  indicate    likeui-e   its    character.       Like   the   t'ortv  iii'th 

the  whole;    but  all  the  pan-  and  member-;  of  the  poem  p-alm.  it  i<  a  Son--  of    Loves:    it   is   indeed   tin   Son--  ,,f 

are  Htly  framed  together,  each  being  evidently  intended  Loves,  the  choicest  of  all  such  songs. 
not  to  be  complete   in   itself,  but   to   enter  into  harmo-          So  far  all  are  agreed.      Hut  when   we   take  the   uexl 

nious   union    wit],   the   others.      The   characters  iif   we  stej)  and    in.|uire.     \\diat   i-,   the  character   of  the   love 

may  so  call  them)  are  the  same  throughout.      Solomon  which  p.mrs  it. -elf  forth  in  this    Hebrew  Son--'   \ve  are 

or  Shelomo,  the   beloved   1-^1)  of   Shtlhuumith  (or  the  overwhelmed    by  the   multitude  of   conHietin-;   answers 

sh'.ilammite.  as  in  Eng.  vers.,  \  i.  13)  ;   Shulammith.  tlie  \\hich  our  question  summons  forth  from  the  expositorv 

love    'so    our   version    renders  -• y-   perhaps   somewhat  tomes  of  critics,  ancii-nt  and  modern,  Jewish  and  Chris 

,     i    ,     ,-    .  tian,  livin-    and   d',ail.      Strange    that   a   son--  of  loves 
too  .strongly)  01  Solomon,  and  the  daughters  ot  Jerusa-  ' 

should  have  been  the easion  oi   so  manv  critical  eon- 


t  exi.ressmn  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  otl,,-r  songs  from  the  i  to  gain   for  the    views  they  propounded    even  a  tempo- 
same  author,  and  woulil  iviidn-  tlie  title   thus-   "The  finest  of  •    a  TL  •          i   '  •  i  ,  • 

,,.,,.  «  i          ..  rary  influence.      It  is  only  in  recent  times  that  the  two 

nit  songs  composed  liy  Solomon,    or,  "  The  finest  of  Solomon's  ,        '.      ,  , 

songs"  (iy,f  /toit;xr/,<n  HH,-/,.,-  ,/,-.,-  ../.  /;.  i.  js4.)    So  Week  (E;,>    '  Parties  have   become  more  equally  balanced  ;  the  hte- 

l-Mt'.i.ii,  s.  f,;;:,).      I  ivither  think  that  y.* •«-    -H«),  must  lie  ralist  view  having  been  adopted,  as  we  might  have  an- 

renilei-e.1  ul»solute]y.   "Tlie   finest  of  .songs,"  not  of  Solomon's  tici]iated,    by   the   great   majority   of    modern   Cerman 

merely,  but  of  all  songs.  critics,    and    so    elaborated    and    illustrated    bv    these 
VOL.  I.  34  ' 


The  various  expositions,  however,  mav  all  be  ranged 
under  two  heads,  the  literal  and  the  nlfe'forirul  thou-di 

rtoristic  expressions  recur  again  and  again,     some  cxi)0sitors  take  a  middle  positi and  endeavour 

among  women,"  the  form  of  ad-  ,,,  |)rcsellt  „  vi,,u-  ,,f  the  poem  in  which  the  literal  and 
ith  which  Shulammith  is  approa.-h..-d  by  the  the  allegorical  are  combined  and  harmoniml.  So  far 
daugh tersc.f. Jerusalem,  eh.  i.s;  r.y;vi  l ;"  Whom  my  soul  as  numbers  are  concerned,  the  allegorical  interpreters 
loveth,"  the  fond  epithet  used  by  Shulammith  in  speak  have  -really  the  advantage  of  theii  opponents.  The 
ing  of  her  absent  Beloved,  di.  i.r;  iii.  1-4  ;  '-.My  1',,-lovedis  allegorical  may  indeed  claim  to  be  the  traditional  expo 
'"'"'•-  :mcl  '  -'""  llis-  "'•  feedeth  among  the  lilies,'  sition  of  the  Song.  Tlie  venerable  fathers  of  the  C'hris- 
di.ii.  tfi;  vi.  3;  "  I  adjure  you,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jemsa-  tian  ehm-eh  concur  with  th(-  great  .h\\i-h  teachers  in 
lem,  by  the  roes  and  hinds  of  the  field,"  &c.,  ch.ii.  r;  iii.  ;,:  recognizing  it-  allegorical  character.  The  Targum  on 
v.  «;viii.  4;  "  When  the  evening  breeze  blows  ( D^,",  rs2.  i  the  Son--,  which  may  be  regarded  as  embodying  the 
and  the  shadows  flee  away,"  &c.,  ch.ii.  u;iv.ij;  cmnp'alsoJh  !  :"lth"ri/':l1  exjmsition  of  the  Jewish  synagogue,  is  alle- 
iv  l,  '2,  with  i.  l,-,:u,.i  v,  ;,;  , -;,;  i,,  uie  Ilebrew.'ii  i:!,'i5,  withvii  13-  ^'"'it-':l1  tl'roughout.  IMMHI  an  early  period,  indeed,  we 

'     read  occasionally  of  a  few,  both  amon-;  .lev,  s  and  Chris 
tians,    who    ventured    to    question   the    decision    of   the- 


C.  AXTICLKS 


CANTICLES 


writers  as  to  commend  it  to  tin:  acceptance  of  not  a  few 
am 01 114  tin:  critics  and  theologians  of  other  countries. 

The  fact  that  the  allegorical  exposition  has.  so  far  as 
can  be  ascertained,  been  till  quite  recently  the  recog 
nized  exposition  alike  of  the  Christian  church  and  of 
the  Jewish  synagogue,  is  an  important  fact,  which  can 
not  be  overlooked  by  any  fair  and  candid  inquirer. 
Still  this  fact  is  by  no  means  decisive  of  the  question  at 
issue:  for  numbers  have  not  always  truth  and  reason 
on  their  side.  We  proceed,  therefore,  to  a  review  of 
the  argument  in  support  of  either  hypothesis. 

Those  who  interpret  the  Song  literally  agree  in  hold 
ing  that  it  is  an  outpouring  of  merely  human  loves. 
Hut  when  we  inquire  a  little  more  closely,  we  discover 
among  these  interpreters  a  great  and  wide  diversity  of 
sentiment,  and  that  not  on  lesser  matters  of  detail, 
on  which  diversity  of  sentiment  is  only  what  might  be  ex 
pected  when  we  have  to  deal  with  a  poem  of  such  high 
excellence  and  of  so  great  antiquity,  but  with  regard 
to  its  main  scope,  design,  and  argument.  So  decided 
is  this  difference,  that  while  some  expositors  hold  that 
Shulammith  is  the  wife  of  Solomon,  who  dotes  on  him 
with  the  fondest  conjugal  affection,  and  in  this  poem 
gives  warmest  expression  to  her  love,  others  (and  this 
is  a  favourite  view  with  the  Moderns}  maintain  that 
she  is  a  simple  maiden  whom  Solomon,  overcome  by 
love,  seeks  to  allure  into  his  already  well-filled  harem, 
but  who.  having  previously  pledged  her  faith  to  a  vil 
lage  youth  of  her  own  rank,  resists  with  success  the 
solicitations  of  royalty,  and  maintains  fidelity  to  her 
humble  lover. 

We  cannot  but  think  that  so  great  a  diversity  of  sen 
timent  furnishes  a  strong  argument  in  favour  of  the  al 
legorical  interpretation.  Surely  if  this  were  a  common 
love  song,  the  author  would  never  have  left  it  open  to 
dispute  whether  he  intended  to  represent  his  heroine  as 
doting  upon  his  hero,  or  as  resisting  his  advances  and 
giving  her  love  to  another. 

It  is  no  sufficient  reply  to  this  statement  to  allege 
that  there  is  a  not  less  decided  difference  of  sentiment 
among  allegorical  interpreters.  For  allegorical  compo 
sition  is  necessarily  obscure,  and  in  interpreting  it,  it  is 
easy  to  run  into  various  and  erroneous  views.  More 
over,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  of  two  diverse  interpre 
tations  of  an  allegorical  composition,  it  is  not  necessary 
that  one  or  other  be  set  down  as  erroneous,  inasmuch 
as  the  principles  or  sentiments  which  the  allegory  em 
bodies,  may  have  a  great  variety  of  manifestations,  each 
of  which  may  be  regarded  as  so  far  a  legitimate  inter 
pretation  of  it. 

We  are  not  aware  that  in  the  whole  range  of  human 
literature  any  love  song  can  be  pointed  out.  so  obscurely 
expressed  as  to  leave  it  open  to  dispute  whether  the 
two  principal  parties  stand  to  one  another  in  the  rela 
tion  of  friendship  or  of  aversion.  And  we  therefore  con 
clude  some  deeper  meaning  lies  in  the  obscure  utter 
ances  of  a  poem  which  has  been  so  grievously  misunder 
stood  either  by  one  section  or  by  another  of  the  literalist 
interpreters. 

But  let  us  turn  to  the  Song  itself.  Xo  naine  of  God. 
it  has  often  been  remarked,  appears  in  it,  except  in  one 
passage  (viii .  o,  rt"  ronV£;)  to  which  no  importance  is  to 

be  attached.  Some  of  the  descriptive  passages  are  cer 
tainly  expressed  in  language  which  jars  somewhat  with 
our  ideas  of  taste  and  propriety.  The  veil  of  allegory. 
it  has  moreover  been  urged,  is  never  even  for  an  instant 


removed,  so  as  to  betray  tin- true  character  of  the  poem, 
if  it  be  an  allegory.  Wo  may  read  the  whole — multi 
tudes  have  read  the  whole — from  beginning  to  end. 
without  having  awakened  within  them  one  spiritual 
aspiration  ;  but  rather  the  reverse.  It  is  added  that 
there  are  no  references  to  it  in' the  other  Scriptures,  to 
show  that  it  was  regarded  and  made  use  of  as  an  ex 
pression  of  spiritual  emotion,  either  by  the  prophets  of 
the  Old  Testament,  or  by  our  Lord  and  his  apostles 
under  the  Xew. 

To  these  and  similar  arguments  employed  by  the 
literalist  interpreters  we  have  given  all  due  considera 
tion;  yet,  without  having  any  conscious  bias  towards 
either  side,  we  feel  bound  to  adhere  to  the  allegorical 
interpretation,  as  not  only  the  most  ancient,  but  on 
other  grounds  the  most  probable. 

Fhvi  of  all,  with  regard  to  those  parts  of  tin-  Song 
which  are  objected  to  on  the  ground  of  taste  and  pro 
priety,  they  will  be  found  to  be  wonderfully  few  and 
far  between,  and  most  of  them  may  be  paralleled  by 
other  passages  of  Scripture,  which  are  allowed  to  have 
a  spiritual  import.  .For  example  the  very  first  words, 
"May  he  kiss  me  with  kisses  of  his  lips,'"  have  a  parallel 
in  Pr.  xxiv.  2'i.  "He  giveth  lip- kisses  who  returneth 
a  proper  answer;"  from  which  we  gather  that  the  lip- 
kiss  was  a  proverbial  expression  for  high  satisfaction 
and  delight.  Again,  the  description  in  ch.  iv.  ;">,  which 
is  repeated  in  other  parts  of  the  Song,  has  been  objected 
toby  some  fastidious  critics:  yet  Lowth,  the  bishop  and 
the  man  of  fine  taste,  is  quite  enraptured  with  it.  and 
asks, "  Quid  delicatius,  quid  exquisitius,  quid  etiam  aptius 
et  expressius.  cogitari  potest?"  It  is  allowed,  indeed, 
that  some  of  the  expressions  employed  are  not  such  as 
any  religious  poet  of  our  age  and  country  would  use. 
But  every  one  knows  that  the  standard  of  propriety  in 
such  matters  is  continually  undergoing  change.  Lan 
guage  which  not  very  long  ago  the  most  staid  and  mo- 
\  dest  matron  might  have  employed  with  perfect  pro 
priety,  would  now  be  regarded  as  unbecoming.  And 
why  then  should  we  wonder  if  in  an  old  song  of  love, 
brought  to  us  from  the  far  East,  we  stumble  upon 
some  utterances  which  dy.  not  quite  accord  with  our 
standard?  Of  course  these  remarks  apply  only  to 
matters  of  taste  and  propriety.  They  do  not  touch  the 
morality  of  the  poem.  The  standard  of  morals  cannot 
change .  And  if  it  were  possible  to  point  out  anything 
1  approaching  to  the  immoral  or  impure  in  the  Song  of 
Solomon,  that  would  at  once  destroy  its  claim  to  a 
place  among  the  sacred  Scriptures,  and  to  the  charac 
ter  of  a  sacred  allegory.  But  it  need  scarcely  be  said 
that  there  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  such  an  alle 
gation.  Those  who  have  found  anything  unholy  in  this 
Song  have  themselves  put  it  there. 

It  has  been  much  insisted  on  that  no  name  of  God 
appears  in  any  part  of  the  Song.  On  first  thoughts 
this  is  certainly  matter  of  surprise.  A  divine  song 
in  which  is  no  mention  of  God !  But  on  more  ma 
ture  consideration  this  fact,  instead  of  throwing  doubt 
upon,  really  furnishes  an  argument  in  favour  of  the 
allegorical  interpretation.  According  to  that  inter 
pretation  in  its  received  form,  Shelomo  stands  for  Je 
hovah,  or  for  the  Messiah,  Jehovah  manifest  in  the 
flesh.  What  then  though  the  name  Jehovah,  or  Elo- 
him,  or  Adonai  is  not  found  in  the  poem?  Jehovah 
himself  is  there,  in  his  representative  Shelomo.  To 
have  introduced  Jehovah,  as  a  being  distinct  from  She 
lomo.  might  have  marred  and  obscured  the  allegory 


CANTICLES  I'D?  OANT1CLKS 

At  :uiy   rate.   supposing  Shelomo  to   he  the  ivpresen-  j  moreover,  has  n<a  ;i  few  points  of  resemblance   t"  the 

tative  of  Jehovah,  the  absence  of  nil  the  divine  names  j  Song  of  Son-s :   yet   no  one  questions  their  jiarabolie 

from  tile  poem  is  easily  explained.       r'or  in  truth  She-  '  character.      That  is   decisively  established,  not  by  am  - 

lomo  becomes  for  the  time  a  divine  name;  and  Jeho-  :  thing  in  them,  but  by  their  adjuncts —  the  character  of 

vah.  so  far  from  being  absent  from  the  poem,  is  found  to  Him  who  spoke  them,  and  the  circumstances  in  which 

be  its  leading  character  from  beginning  to  end.  they    were    spoken.       Now,    though    we    cannot    trace 

\\hile.  however,  the  omission  of  the  usual  names  of  back  the  Song  of  Songs   to  its   author  and  origin  with 

God  is  thus  easily  accounted  for  on  the  allegorical  hy-  such  decisive  evidence    as    we  happily  jm.-si.ss  in  the 

Jjothesis,  we  cannot  see  how  it  can  be  rendered  consis-  case  of  our  Lord's  parables;   still  it  is  of 


with  the  view  of  re 
conciling  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  Song  with  its  under  which  it  was  u-ual  to  represent  and  portrav  the 
inspiration  and  canonicity.  According  to  one  form  of  spiritual  and  heavenly  by  means  of  carnal  and  earthh 
this  hypothe.-is  the  Son-  i-  a  poetical  embodiment  .-vmbols. 

•  if   the  idea  of  marriage,  Shulaminith   being   the   model  Further,  we  seem  to  be   just'lied  in  taking  a  distinc- 

wife.      Accor.liiig  to  another,  Shulammith  is  the  model  tion    between   the   jioetie    allegory    and    the  prophetic 

maiden,  steadta-t  in  her  purity  and  in  faithfulness  to  her  allegory.      In    the   latter,    the   instruction  of  others  \)\ 

humble  lover,  even    when    preyed    by   the   solicitations  means   of  an   allegorical    rejuvsentation    is    the    object 

of  royalty.       Vet    how  can  it  be  explained,  consistently  directlv   aimed  at;   and.  this   bein-    the  case,  it  is   vcrv 

with  the  uniform  teaching  of  Scrijiture,  that  this  model  necessary  that    the  veil   ,,f  alleuory  should  not   be  too 

closely  drawn,  le.-t  the  true  character  and  ends  of  the 
composition  should  he  mi.-.-.-d  or  lost  si-la  of.  J'.ut  in 
the  jioetic  allegory,  instruction  is  not  the  lir.-t  and  di- 

-is  good  without  being  godly,  virtuous   without  being  rect    object    of    the   author:    his   first   object    is  to  give 

pious.'     Surely  the  Scrijiture  does  not  elsewhere  conn-  utterance  to  the  wide  ranging  thoughts  and  o\erilow- 

tenance  this   apparent    independency  of  \irtue  on  jiietv  in-  emotions  of  his  own  breast  :    in  this  case,   therefore, 
and  the  fear  of  Cod. 

We    pass    now    to   the   objection    which   ha-   perhap.-  which  he  ha-   cho-.-n    to   clothe    his 

been  mo.-t  lar-.-ly  in-i-ted  upon    by  the   litcrali.-t  inter-  necessarv. 

jireter.-;    \  i/..  that  in  the  jioem  itself  there  is  no  intima-  Hitherto  we   have   conducted    our   argument   on   the 

tion  whatever  of  its  alle-orical  character,  in.  hint  which  supposition  that  the  Son-   contains  within  itself  n,,  dc- 

may  serve  to  betray   the  deeper  meaning  supposed   to  cisive  evidence  of  its  allegorical  character;  and  we  have 

lie    under    what    seems   to    he   nothiu-   more  than    love  admitted  that  this    supposition   seems   to    be  warranted 


a  tew  particulars  the  poem  before  us:    but  it  is   alleged  conclusion.    This  at  least  has  been  our  own  experience, 

that  into  all  of  the.-e  expressions  are  introduced  which  The  longer  we  have  .-tudied  the  Song,  the  stronger  has 

betray  their   real   character   and    spiritual   si-nificauee.  become  our  impression,  derived   eiitirelv  from   internal 

and  it  is  maintained  that,  seeing  there  are  no  such  inti-  evidence,  of   its   allegorical  character.      The  grounds  of 

matioiis  of  it.,  allegorical  character  in  the  Son--  ,,f  Solo-  thi-  persuasion  cannot  be  fully  disj. laved  \\  ithout  taking 

mon,  \\e  have  no  reason  to  regard  it  as  other  than  what  a  minute  survey  of   the   whole  poem,  which  our  limits 

it  seems  to  be     a  poetical  rej)reseiitation  of  scenes  from  and  present  object    forbid:    but  the  following  remarks 

I'eal  lite.  may  be  sufficient  to  explain  their  nature. 

Tip-  objection   is   not    without   weight.        We    admit  They  are   of   two   sorts,  iiujntin  and   poxitivt      ncga- 


tures,  hut  by  itself,  a  few  leaves  of  ancient  poesy  du- up  of  the  various  pin  in.mena  without    having   recourse   to 

from  the  ruins  of  the  old  world,  we  would  very  jirobably  the  allegorical    hypothesis;   positive,    inasmuch  as  the 

glance  over  the  whole  from  he-inning  to  end  without  any  structure  of  the  poem  in  various  parts  semis  to  furnish 

thought  of  its  bein-  desi-ned  to  give  expression    to  the  direct  evidence  of  its  allegorical  character, 

deep    religious    feelin--    and    .-vmpathics.        lint    closer  None    of   the   literalist   interpreters   ha\e   evtr   been 

study  of  the  Son-  could    not   fail   to   alter  our  estimate  able  satisfactorily  to  lay  ban-    the  group  of  facts  which 

of   its   character  and   value.      And   the   following  con-  must,  according  to  their  hypothesis,  form  the  centre  of 

siderations  seem  quite  sufficient  to  obviate  the  force  of  the   poem.      We  have  already  remarked   that  tin     most 

the  objection.  dher-e  and  contradictory  views  have'  been  propounded 

It   is    not   alle-v d   that  every  allegory  must  contain  upon  thi-  point.      There  is  no  concurrence  of  sentiment 

within  it     in  its  composition,  in  its  phraseology— some  aimm-.    these    interpreters    upon    any   one    hypothesis. 

decisive  evidence  that  it    i-   an  allegory.     ( »n  the  con-  One  of  the  more  recent,  propounded   by  an  evangelical 

trary.  that  is  regarded  as  the  most  perfect,  in  which  theologian  of  Germany,  is  as  follows:      He  sujijioses  that 

the    veil    of    alle-ory     most    completely     overspreads  an  annalist  of  the  reiun  of  Solomon,  had  he  put  on  re- 

the  entire  composition.      The   proof  of  the  allegorical  cord  the  circumstances  which  form  the  ground-work  of 

character  of  a  composition  may  hi'  not  in  itself  but  in  the  poem,  which   unfortunate!  v   no   annalist  has  done, 

its  adjuncts — such   as  its   authorship  and  the  circum-  would  have  employed  some  .such  language  as  this  :"  In 

stances  of  its  first  appearance.     Several  of  our  Lord's  such  and    such    a   year   king  Solomon  took   to  wife  a 

parables   contain  no  internal   evidence  that  they  are  young  woman  of  Snnem.  and  she  was  very  fair,  and  he 

parables;  as,  for  example,  the  para bl. •  of  the  prodigal  preferred  her  before  all  his  other  wives,  and  advanced 

son,   one   of    the  most   beautiful   of    them  all,    which,  her  brothers  who  were  vine-dressers  to  great  honour" 


CANTICLES 


CANTICLES 


(Dulitxsdi,  p.  1<;>).  Fortunate  young  lady  !  Fortunate  yet 
unfortunate:  Fortunate  to  have  been  so  loved  and, 
HO  sung !  Yet  how  unfortunate  t<>  have  been  consigned 
for  so  many  au'cs  to  utter  oblivion,  not  because  she 
w.-iiit.rd  a  sacred  hard,  but  because  tin:  hard  wanted  a 
critical  and  clear-sighted  interpreter! 

Now  contrast  with  the  hypothesis  just  mentioned, 
another,  which  in  various  forms  has  met,  as  has  been 
already  noticed,  with  very  general  acceptance  among 
( Jerman  expositors,  and  which  even  in  this  country  is  not 
without  its  advocates.  In  one  of  the  most  recent  com 
mentaries  on  the  Song  of  Solomon,  the  narrative  of 
facts  supposed  to  form  the  historical  basis  of  the  Song 
is  given  as  follows:  —"There  was  a  family  living  at 
Shulem  consisting  of  a  widowed  mother,  several  sons, 
and  one  daughter,  who  maintained  themselves  by 

farming  and  pasturage In  course  of  time,  the 

sist'T,  while  tending  the  Hock,  met  with  a  graceful 
shepherd  youth  to  whom  she  afterwards  became 
espoused On  one  occasion  while  entering  a  gar 
den,  she  accidentally  came  into  the  presence  of  king 
Solomon,  who  happened  to  he  on  a  summer  visit  to  that 
neighbourhood.  Struck  with  the  beauty  of  the  damsel, 
the  king  conducted  her  into  the  royal  tent,  and  there, 
a.ssisted  by  his  court-ladies,  endeavoured  with  alluring 
(latteries  and  promises  to  gain  her  affections,  but  with 
out  effect The  king,  however,  took  her  with  him 

to  his  capital  in  great  pomp,  in  the  hope  of  dazzling 
her  with  his  splendour  ;  but  neither  did  this  prevail. 
....  The  king  convinced  at  last  that  he  could  not 
possibly  prevail  was  obliged  to  dismiss  her;  and  the 
shepherdess  in  company  with  her  beloved  shepherd  re 
turned  to  her  native  place "  (The  Song  of  Song*: 

Translated,  &c.,by  Christian  I).  Ginslmrg. ) 

\Ye  do  not  propose  to  enter  minutely  into  an  ex 
amination  of  these  hypotheses.  What  we  would  mean 
while  call  attention  to  is  the  support  which  the  alle 
gorical  hypothesis  derives  from  the  conflicting  and 
mutually  destructive  views  of  those  who  reject  it. 

With  regard  to  the  positive  evidence  which  the  poem 
itself  furnishes  of  its  allegorical  character,  we  have  al 
ready  remarked  that  it  cannot  be  fully  exhibited  with 
out  entering  more  at  large  on  expository  ground  than 
can  be  done  in  a  work  like  the  present.  All  we  can  do 
is  to  point  out  its  more  marked  and  prominent  features. 

What  arc  the  names  of  the  leading  characters  in  the 
poem?  They  are  Shelomo,  or  Solomon,  and  Shulam- 
mith,  or  the  Shulammite,  names  which  come  from  the 
same  root,  and  correspond  in  signification.  This  re 
semblance  cannot  be  accidental;  it  must  be  designed: 
the  names,  therefore,  must  he  regarded  as  significant. 
This  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  two  passages,  one  at 
the  commencement  and  the  other  at  the  close  of  the 
poem.  In  the  former,  ch.  i. :;,  "As  ointment  poured  out 
is  thy  name."  there  appears  to  be  a  special  reference  to 
the  meaning  of  the  name  Shelomo,  viz.  peaceful,  peace- 
giver,  the  spreading  abroad  of  peace  being  compared  to 
the  pouring  out  of  the  sweet  ointment  which  "  maketh 
the  face  to  shine,"  and  diffuses  a  mellowing  and  soothing 
influence.  Compare  Ps.  cxxxiii.,  "  Behold  how  good 
and  pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in 
unity  :  it  is  like  the  precious  ointment  on  the  head,  that 
ran  down  to  the  beard,  even  Aaron's  beard,"  &c.  In 
the  other  passage,  ch.  viii.  10,  Shulammith  seems  to  explain 
her  own  name,  when  she  describes  herself  as  one  who 
has  found  peace,  xhalom  (s'^v)  ;  and  it  is  remarkable 


that  the  name  Shulammith  is  not  found  in  the  earlier 
parts  of  the  Song,  but  only  towards  the  close,  ch.vii.  i. 
after  her  union  with  Shelomo  has  been  perfected,  and 
she  lias  found  peace  in  his  love.  Coinp.  Jn.  xvi.: :;:;.  From 
all  which  it  appears  to  be  a  legitimate  conclusion  that 
the  names  Shelomo  and  Shulammith  are  employed  in 
the  poem  significantly  as  t\uijtmcc-f/irer  and  the  }>cni'c- 
rcccifcr ;  and  if  so,  it  will  be  allowed  that  this  conclu 
sion  .gives  very  considerable  support  to  the  allegorical 
exposition. 

We  are  aware  that,  by  a  considerable  number  of  recent 
expositors,  the  name  Shulammith  has  been  regarded  as 
equivalent  to  Shunammith,  or  Shunammite,  i.e.  inhabi 
tant  of  Shunem,  l  Ki.  i. :',,  &c.  This  view  is  favoured  by  the 
LXX.  :  yet  there  can  be  no  question  that  Shulammith 
is  the  right  reading,  and  we  have  no  evidence  that 
Shunem  was  also  called  Shulem  by  the  ancient  Hebrews. 
Wherever  the  town  is  mentioned  in  Scripture,  it  is 
written  Shunem,  and  tin;  derivative  adjective  Shunam 
mith.  JUore  probable  is  the  connection  pointed  out  by 
some  of  the  older  expositors  between  Shulammith  and 
Salem,  the  old  name  of  Jerusalem,  which  certainly 
comes  from  the  same  root.  According  to  this  etymo 
logy,  the  Shulamite  might  represent  one  admitted  to 
the  citizenship  of  Salem,  which  would  give  a  true  and 
excellent  sense.  But  it  is  better  to  adhere  to  the  com 
mon  explanation  of  the  name  which  has  been  given 
above.  It  is  well,  however,  to  remark  that  the  name 
given  to  the  bride  is  not  Shelomith,  the  feminine  form 
of  Shelomo,  and  which  is  found  among  the  female  names 
of  the  Hebrews,  Lc.  xxiv.  11,  but  Shulammith,  which  does 
not  appear  to  be  a  proper  noun  at  all,  but  a  common 
noun  formed  from  the  pual  conjugation  CT'C',  and 

having  the  passive  signification  of  a  reconciled  one  — 
one  restored  to  amity  and  happiness  (qui  in  fidem  ac 
tutelam  Dei  traditns  et  receptus  est,  Gc*.  Thus.),  from 
which  we  gain  a  clear  view  of  the  spiritual  relation  of 
Shelomo  and  Shulammith. 

We  might  now  enter  upon  a  particular  examination 
of  the  various  passages  in  which  the  names  Shelomo  and 
Shulammith  are  introduced  into  the  poem,  with  the  view 
of  showing  that  the  former  always  signifies  the  peace- 
giver,  the  protector,  the  guardian;  and  the  latter,  peace- 
enjoying,  secure,  happy.  Comp.  ch.  i.  /»,  the  curtain* 
of  Solomon;  ch.  iii.  7,  the  jift/anr/uiii  of  Solomon  surround 
ed  by  sixty  heroes  of  the  heroes  of  Israel ;  ch.  viii.  8,  the 
vineyard  of  Solomon,  well  fenced,  on  Baal  Hamon,  i.e. 
a  place  of  repose  and  calm  delight  amid  the  noise  and 
contentions  of  the  world;  and  also  ch.  vii.  1,  the  only  pas 
sage  in  which  the  name  or  rather  title,  the  Shulammite, 
is  found,  and  where  it  is  evidently  employed  to  repre 
sent  the  bride  in  the  state  of  security  and  happiness  and 
honour  to  which  she  has  attained,  being  immediately 
followed  by  the  title  of  Prince's  Daughter,  ch.  vii.  L',  and 
preceded,  ch.vi.  10,  by  the  remarkable  description,  which 
is  of  itself  a  very  strong  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  the, 
allegorical  exposition,  "Fair  as  the  moon,  clear  as 
the  sun,  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners."' 

1  f  we  pass  now  from  the  names  Shelomo  and  Shulam 
mith  to  the  body  of  the  poem,  we  find  that  the  ideas 
contained  in  these  names  are  carried  through  the  whole. 
Shelomo  is  the  king  in  whose  presence  there  is  perfect 
peace  and  fulness  of  joy,  as  is  beautifully  represented  in 
eh.  i.  12  :  he  is  the  shepherd,  feeding  among  the  lilies  :  he 
is  the  owner  of  a  vineyard,  filled  with  the  choicest  vines, 
t-omp.  ch.  viii.  11  with  Is.  vii.  23,  under  which  his  servants 


CANTICLES 


CANTICLES 


ivpi.se  securely,  undisturbed  by  the  tumults  of  the  outer 
world,  Jn.  xvi. :;:!,  and  of  the  pleasant  fruit  (.if  which  they 
eat  delightedly,  ch.ii.  :>,-,  v.  i.  And  as  Slielomo  is  the  peace- 
giver,  so  his  bride  is  represented  first  as  a  peace- seeker, 
and  at  length  as  a  peace-finder.  She  has  been  hardly 
used  even  by  her  nearest  of  kin,  ch.  i.  0;  cump.  IV  Ixix.  <i, 
driven  forth  from  her  own  vineyard,  where  alone  she 
found  peace,  to  labour  in  other  vineyards  in  which  she 
could  take  no  delight,  and  where  there  was  no  covert 
to  protect  her  from  the  scorching  summer's  sun.  Her 
countenance,  though  still  beautiful,  is  black  with  ex 
posure,  and  toil,  and  anguish  of  heart.  The  contrast 
between  the  countenances  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom, 
as  de-cribed  by  the  former,  ought  to  lie  carefully  marked 
even  in  the  terms  employed.  She  is  black  (r^r.V'i. 


sense,  as  descriptive  of  the  church's  affliction,  or  the 
depression  and  desolation  of  the  believer,  is  rendered 
very  probable  by  a  comparison  of  the  only  other  passage 
in  which  \\  e  find  the  same  term-  contrasted,  vi/.  La. 
iv.  7,  s.  Her  Xazarites  were  purer  than  snow,  tliev  \\ere 
whiter  ;>rV!  than  milk,  thev  were  more  ruddv  (v:-s> 

:  T 

than  rubies .   .   .   .    ;   their  visage  is  blacker  than  a  coal 

(TiPw;>.      '''he   comparison    "black    as  the  tents  of    Ke- 

dar,"  di  i.:,,  is  also  to  be  marke<l,  and  viewed  in  the  light 
of  the  only  <>tli'T  jiassage  in  which  the  tents  of  Kedar 
are  mentioned  :  "  Woe  is  me  that  I  sojourn  in  .Meseeh, 
that  I  ilwell  in  the  t< -nts  of  Kedarl  my  soul  bath  lon_r 
dwelt  with  him  Unit  Imtit/i  /H n*;  ,"  i's.  c.\x.  ">,  li.  |-'urthrr, 
Shulaininith  is  described  bv  the  poet  as  dwelling  ill  the 
wilderness,  and  brought  up  from  thence  by  her  beloved, 
eh.  iii.ii;  viii.:,.  Everyone  familiar  with  the  Scriptures 
must  be  aware  that  this  is  one  of  the  most  common 
figures  empl»\od  by  the  sacred  writers  to  describe  a 
state  of  atllictioii.  Comp.  espcciallv  lie.  xii.  u'  and 
Ho.  ii.  ]tj,  in  which  last  passage  there  is  a  contrast 
between  the  wilderness  and  the  vineyard  which  strik 
ingly  illustrate-  the  descriptions  of  this  Son-':  "  I  will 
allure  AT.  and  bring  her  into  the  wilderness,  and  speak 
comfortably  to  her,  and  1  will  ^i\e  her  her  vinevards 

from  thence and  she  shall  sing   there  as  in   the 

days  ot  her  youth."  This  pas>ai_;e  mav.  indeed,  he  r\  - 
Carded  as  throwing  very  great  light  upon  the  Son--  ,.f 
Solomon:  it  is  in  faet  a  siimmarv  of  it.  In  the  com 
mencement  of  the  S.mu\  Shulammith  is  represented  as 
driven  out  of  her  vineyard  into  the  wilderness.  And 
what  is  the  picture  opened  np  to  us  in  the  close  of  it : 
Shi' is  seen  coming  u]i  from  the  wilderness  leaning  upon 
her  beloved.  Hi.  viii.  5:  she  takes  possession  of  the  vinevard 
she  bad  lost,  ch.  viii.  i-j :  and  sitting  in  IK  r  gardens,  in  the 
full  joy  of  her  heart,  she  sings  to  her  beloved,  ch  viii.  i::,  it. 
We  shall  not  extend  our  remarks  on  this  part  of  our 
subject  further.  We  shall  only  add  that,  in  addition  to 
the  internal  evidence  for  the  allegorical  interpretation, 
a  speeimeii  of  which  has  just  been  adduced,  that  inter 
pretation  receives  strong  support  from  other  parts  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures.  [Ci.inp.  I's.  xlv.  throughout,  especially 
VL-I-.  l.'.-l\  witli  t':i.  i  1  ;  1'r.  i.-ix.  ;  Is.  v.  1,  &c. ;  xxvii.  2-fi;  liv.  ', ; 
Ki.  1";  Ixii.  1;  II. i.  i.-iii.,  ainlxiv.;  5Cep.  iii.  ll-'JO  ;  Je.  ii.  2;  lii.  1; 
K/e.  xvi.  and  xxiii  Compare  :i'.-o  in  the  Apocrypha,  Wisdom 
of  Solomon,  vii.  viii.,  juid  Kcc.  xxiv  In  "the  voice  of  the 
bridegroom  and  the  voice  of  the  bride.''  so  frequently 
introduced  by  Jeremiah,  uh.  vii.  :;i ;  xvi.  n;  xxv  io;  xxxiii.  11, 
there  is  perhaps  a  reference  to  the  Song  of  Solomon, 


especially  as  in  the  last  passage  it  is  followed  by  "  the 
voice  of  them  that  shall  say,  Praise  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
for  the  Lord  is  good  ;  for  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever: 
and  of  them  that  shall  bring  the  sacrifice  of  praise  into 
the  house  of  the  Lord."  Those  who  wish  to  see  a  much 
more  full  collection  of  the  probable  or  possible  scriptural 
references  or  allusions  to  the  Song  of  Solomon,  may  con 
sult  Mr.  Moody  Stuart's  CviitnH  atari/.  See  also  Heng- 
stenberg,  Das  llohclicd,  p.  -.'.-u,  w,  •_'.-,::.]  It  has  all  along  from 
the  earliest  times,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  been  the 
received  exposition  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  churches. 

i  By  the  former,  indeed,  the  book  was  regarded  as  spe 
cially  sacred;  and  we  know  with  what  devout  earnestness 
and  sympathy  it  has  been  studied  by  some  of  the  nob]e>t 
and  purest  spirits  that  have  adorned  the  latter.  It 
is  true  there  is  no  direct  quotation  from  it  in  the  New 

Testament:  for  the  very  obvious  reason  that  the  ap 
peals  of  our  Lord  and  his  apostles  to  the  <  )ld  Testament 

'  were   intended   chiclly   to   illustrate   the  growth    of  the 

|  Christian  out  of  the  Jewish  dispensation;  and  this  is 
not  the  subject  of  the  Song  of  Solomon:  but,  though 
there  may  be  no  formal  quotation,  we  cannot  but  think 
that  an  attentive  reader  will  rind  many  allusions  to  it, 
much  that  brings  its  glowing  scenes  to  mind,  especially 
in  the  writing'-  "f  J"hn.  and  in  some  of  the  parables 
and  discourses  of  our  Lord,  .Mat.  \\i  :::>,:;i.  t:;;  xxii.  •_';  xxv.  l; 
.In.  iii.  '.".I;  Kph.  v  -7:  lie  ii;.  -jo;  xjx.  7;  xxii.  17,  '_>n. 

With  regard  to  the  ditlerent  foi'ins  which  the  allego 
rical  exposition  has  a-siuued  in  the  hands  of  ditl'ereiit 
commentators,  we  must  reject  that  one  which  makes 
Shulammith  the  incarnation,  so  to  speak,  of  \Yisdom; 
for  this,  among  other  reasons,  that  it  is  Shulammith 
who  seeks  and  finds  rest  in  the  love  of  Shelomo.  rather 
than  Shelomo  in  that  of  Shulammith.  Hut  IM  twcen 
the  other  leadinu  expositions  it  is  not  necessarv  that  we 
should  pronounce  any  discriminating  judgment,  at  least 
in  so  far  as  regards  their  prominent  features.  Shelomo 
is  the  peace  bestower.  It  is  in  his  love  that Shulammith 
finds  peace.  He  may  be  regarded,  therefore,  citln  r  as 
the  representative  of  Jehovah,  the  Covenant-Cod  and 
KiiiLj-of  Israel,  or  as  a  type  ..f  the  .Messiah,  the  Prince 
of  peace.  There  is  no  reason  that  we  should  give  an 

j  exclusive  preference  to  one  or  other  of  tlltse  exposi 
tions.  Koi'  an  all' ".""Heal  representation,  like  a  pro- 
photic  word,  may  have  more  than  one  form  of  realiza 
tion  or  fulfilment.  And  so,  too.  of  Slndammith.  She 

I  may  be  regarded  as  the  representative  of  the  Church, 
or  of  the  individual  -mil  which  seeks  and  finds  rest  in 

i  Christ.  If  we  have  any  preference  for  the  former 
view,  it  is  only  because  it  seems  to  be  more  in  harmony 
with  the  national  character  < if  the  dispensation  under 
which  the  Song  of  Songs  was  written,  and  by  the  prin 
ciples  of  which  we  must  to  a  certain  extent  be  guided 
in  its  interpretation. 

To  what  may  bo  called  the  historico-allegorical  and 
prophet ico-allegorical  interpretations  of  the  Song,  the 
former  of  which  discovers  in  it  a  veiled  history  of  the 
past,  the  latter  a  veiled  prophecy  of  the  future.  \\  e  have 
space  only  to  make  this  passing  allusion.  One  of  the 
most  ancient  examples  of  the  former,  with  which,  how 
ever,  the  prophetical  is  combined,  will  be  found  in  the 
Jewish  Targum  on  the  Song:  among  the  most  recent 
examples  of  the  latter  is  a  t'oiiUiiaituri/,  by  Mr.  Moody- 
Stuart  of  Edinburgh. 

LI  i.  We  pass  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  form, 
under  which  the  subject  just  described  is  presented  to 
us  in  the  Song  of  Songs.  It  is  evidently  that  of  a  nup- 


r 


CANTICLES  'I 

tial  song  distributed  iutd  various  parts.  We  shall  net 
discuss  tin;  question  wliich  lias  been  so  much  agitated, 
whether  it  is  to  In;  classed  among  dramatic  eomposi- 
tiuiis,  for  th'.'  answer  to  that  question  must  depuid  en 
tirely  upon  thf  meaning  which  is  assigned  to  the  word 
(Iniiiuttic.  If.  under  the  head  of  dramatic  composition, 
we  include  every  poem  into  which  dialogue  enters,  then 
of  course  the  Song  of  Solids  must  he  regarded  as  a 
drama.  Hut  as  this  term  is  usiiallv  understood  to  mean 
an  artificial  and  highly- wrought  composition  into  wliich 
action  largely  enters,  to  wliich  character  the  Song  of 
Songs  has  no  claim,  and  as  terms  ought  always  to  lie 
employed  in  the  ,-ense  in  which  they  are  commonly 
undei'st I,  we  must  regard  the  use  of  the  term  dra 
matic  in  the  present  case  as  calculated  to  give  an  erro 
neous  idea  of  the  character  of  the  poem.  In  our  view 
of  the  formal  arrangement  of  the  poem,  we  take  a 
middle  position  between  those  who  represent  it  as  a 
regular  drama,  distributing  it  into  acts  and  scenes, 
which  we  cannot  but  think  displays  a  great  want  of 
taste  and  judgment  in  the  handling  of  so  ancient  and 
simple  a  composition,  and  those  who  hold  the  view  men 
tioned  at  the  commencement  of  this  paper  that  it  is  not 
a  continuous  composition  at  all,  but  a  collection  of  scpa- 
raie  lyrics.  N\  c  hold  the  Song  of  Sonu's  to  be  simply 
a  descriptive  nuptial  song  or  poem,  distributed  into 
parts  ;  these  parts  being  distinguished  from  one  another 
both  by  matter  and  by  form. 

After  examining  very  carefully  the  Song  itself,  and 
the  various  plans  which  have  been  proposed  for  its  dis 
tribution  into  parts,  we  have  come  to  the  following 
conclusion.  The  parts  of  wliich  it  consists  are  live, 
perhaps  with  some  reference  to  the  fivefold  distribution 
of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  hook  of  1'salms,  and  are  as 
follows,  vi/..  :  - 

A.       i.     1      ii.  7. 

I!,      ii.     y  — iii.  ;"i. 

C.     iii.     (5 — vi.  '•>. 

I),     vi.  Id     viii.   1. 

E.  viii.     4  —  14 

These  parts,  we  have  said,  are  separated  from  one 
another,  both  formally  by  artificial  marks  of  separa 
tion,  and  by  their  contents. 

With  regard  to  the  artificial  distribution  of  the  poem, 
it  is  Mitlieielit  to  remark,  that  the  first  two  of  the  five 
divisions  just  mentioned  have  the,  same  ending  ("I  ad 
jure  you,  O  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  ece.,")  and  the  last  • 
three  the  same  beginning  (''  Who  is  this,"  ece.)  The 
middle  division  (,C)  is  much  longer  than  the  others,  but 
that  arises  from  the  nature  of  its  subject :  it  is  the  prin 
cipal  division  of  the  song. 

Proceeding  to  examine  these  parts,  we  find  that  they 
are  distinguished  from  one  another  not  only  by  the  arti 
ficial  contrivance  above  noted,  but  by  a  real  difference 
of  subject-matter.  What  this  difference  is,  however, 
is  not  equally  clear  in  all  the  divisions.  The  second, 
third,  and  fourth  divisions  present  no  great  difficulty  ; 
and  they  evidently  form  the  body  of  the.  poem.  The 
other  two  divisions,  the  introductory  and  concluding, 
are  more  obscure.  We  shall  therefore  commence  with 
the  former. 

The  third  division  (C)  first  invites  attention.  It  is 
the  central  division,  much  longer  than  any  of  the  others, 
and  evidently  contains  the  principal  matter.  Its  sub 
ject  is  UK  -Hiarriar/c.  it  begins  with  a  description  of  ; 
Solomon's  palanquin,  as  it  is  seen  in  the  distance  ap 
proaching  from  the  wilderness,  borne  on  high,  clouds  of 


"<•  CANTICLES 

incense  rising  and  covering  it.  and  all  around  a  body 
guard  of  the  heroes  of  Israel.  Who  is  this  '.  !  t  is  the 
bride  conducted  towards  his  royal  mansion  by  her  roval 
lover.  'Tis  "the  day  of  Solomon's  mui-riwic,  the  day 
of  the  gladness  of  his  heart."  eh.  iii.  11.  The  daughters  of 
Jerusalem  (like  the  ten  virgius  of  our  Lord's  parable') 
are  called  upon  to  go  forth  and  meet  the  royal  bride 
groom.  Then  follows  the  bridegroom's  praise  of  his 
bride.  lie  dwells  chiefly  on  the  beauty  of  her  \eiled 
countenance,  cli.  iv.  ]-:>.  This  pas-age  has  been  a}. pealed 
to  by  the  literalist  interpreters  as  a  ground  of  opposi 
tion  to  the  allegorical  scheme.  "The  following  lan 
guage,"  savs  Dr.  I  )avidson.  quoting  the  pa.-sage,  in  his 
Inirwluctioii  tu  tin  dl<l  Testament,  "supposed  by  the 
allegorical  interpreters  to  be  spoken  by  Jehovah  to 
Israel,  or  by  Christ  to  his  church,  appears  to  us  inde 
corous  and  irreverent  on  that  hypothesis.  But  surely 
this  statement  proceeds  on  a  mistaken  view  of  the  na 
ture  and  interpretation  of  an  allegory.  .No  judicious 
interpreter  ever  supposed  the  language  in  question  to 
be  "spoken  by  .Jehovah  to  Israel,  or  by  Christ  to  his 
church."  All  that  is  meant  is  that  .Jehovah  does  love 
his  church,  and  think  her  mo. -4  beautiful  and  precious. 
The  language  quoted  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  the  ex 
pression  which  Jejiovah  gives  to  these  feelings,  for  if  it 
were,  /In  JKII  in  ti'ould  nut  he  an  ulleyvry  at  all ;  but  as 
the  expression  of  corresponding  feelings,  glowing  in  the 
breast  of  a  human  Liver. 

The  stanza,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  which  follows,  is 
very  remarkable,  and  is  distinguished  from  the  other 
parts  of  the  poem  by  the  frequent  repetition  of  the  ap 
pellations  flriili:  and  /NX/I  ;•-  /iriiii',  which  are  found  no 
where  else,  rh.  i\-.  s-v.  l.  With  regard  to  the  latter  of  these 
app"llntion-;.  Heng--tenbei-u-  rightly  remarks  that  it  i.- 
"  a  holy  riddle  ;"  but  its  meaning  is  sufficiently  unfolded 
by  such  passages  as  Mar.  iii.  '-'>ij  :  "  Whosoever  .-hall  do 
the  will  of  (!od,  the  same  is  my  brother,  and  sister,  and 
mother.''  Jn  reply  to  the  bridegroom's  ardent  utterance 
of  love,  in  which  he  compares  her  to  a  garden  full  of  all 
i  odoriferous  plants,  the  perfume  of  wliich  fills  and  in 
toxicates  the  soul,  the  bride  no  longer  draws  back,  but 
gives  herself  up  to  his  love:  still  not  without  lowly 
wondering  thoughts  and  fears,  kst  she  should  prove 
unworthy  of  such  a  spouse: 

•'  Awake,  O  north  wind! 
Uraw  near,  t)  .south  wind  ! 
Blow  upon  my  garden, 
Let  its  perfumes  flow  forth  ; 
That  my  beloved,  eninin;,'  to  his  garden, 
May  cut  its  choicest  fruit;-." 

The  reply  of  the  bridegroom,  eh.  v.  i.  "  I  have  come  to  my 
garden,"  &o..  forms  the  centre-point  of  the  whole  poem. 
The  bridegroom  and  the  bride  are  now  one.  The  mar 
riage  union  is  complete.  (.'omp.  Is.  l.\ii.  :,,  "  As  the  bride 
groom  ivjoiceth  over  the  bride,  so  will  thy  dod  rejoice 
over  thee."  But  we  need  not  po  to  other  passages  of 
Scripture  to  prove  the  spiritual  import  of  the  passage 
before  us.  That  is  very  evident  from  the  passage  itself, 
not  only  from  the  .-.•/.•.•/Yr-bride  of  the  first  clause,  but 
also  from  the  closing  words  in  which  the  bridegroom 
calls  upon  his  friends  to  come  and  share  the  fulness  of 

his  joy — 

"Eat,  0  friends! 
Drink,  yea,  drink  abundantly,  O  beloved  !" 

(Compare  Is.  Iv.  1.) 

This  concludes  the  first  half  of  the  third  or  C  divi 
sion  of  the  poem.  The  second  half,  which  is  of  about 
equal  length,  eh.  v.  2-vi.  n,  is  the  counterpart  of  the  first. 


CANTICLES 


271 


CANTICLES 


It  contains  the  shady  side  of  the  picture.      The  raptu-  I       Such  is  the  wondering  inquiry  of  the  onlookers.    She 
rous  joys  of  low  cannot  last  always.     There  is  a  re-     is  ashamed  to  bo  thus  seized  upon.     She  thinks  of  her 

humble  origin  and   sudden  elevation,  and  turns  away 


action  ;  and  the  reaction  is  the  Beater,  the  more  intense 
the  joy  and  the  deeper  the  love.  This  is  beautifully 
represented  by  tin.-  poet.  Theliride  slumbers:  but  her 


from  their  gaze.      They  call  to  her  to  return,  and  allow 
them   to  admire  her   beauty.     Her  replv   is  modestly 


slumbers  are  disturbed.    '•  J  slept,  but  my  heart  waked,"  |  humble  as  before.      Why  do  ye  make  a  spectacle  of  me  ( 

ch  v.  2.      She  dreams.      Her  beloved  comes  to  the  door  j  "What  is  there  in  me  to  draw  the  wondering  eye  (    Then 

of  her  chamber,      lie  calls  to  her;  he  knocks;   but  she  !  follows  a  description  of  the  queen  in  all  the  majesty  of 

does  not  open  to  him,  <-ii.  v  :).      He  puts  his  hand  in  at  the  her  form,  and  the  beauty  of  her  royal  apparel,  rh.  vii   n-i;. 

hole  of  the  door:  then   she  rises  and  opens  to  her  be-  The  words  are  not  those  of  tho  king,  as  is  commonly 

loved:   but  it  is  too  late -he  is  gone.      Her  soul  is  now  :  thought,  but  of  the  people,  as  is  very  clear  both   from 

tilled  with   the  anguish  of   love,  as  it  was   but   a  little  the  manner  in  which  they  are  introduced  and  from  the 

ago  enraptured  with  its  joys.      This   is   finely  described  title    by    which    she    i-    addressed— Prince's    daughter, 

by  the  poet.      She  wanders  forth,  just  as  she  had  risen  Their  praise  seems  to  end   with   the   sixth   verse,  "  A 

from  her  couch,  in  search  of  her  beloved.      She  encoun-  •  kin-,  is  enchained    by  thy  Howinic  locks."    which  words 

tens  the  rude  watchmen.      She  appeals  to  the  daughters  '  naturally  introduce  the  king  himself  as   speaker.      Jle 

of  Jerusalem,  and    -ives   a  glowing   description  of  her  echoes  all  the  praises  of  the  people,  dwelling  not  on  the 

beloved.      At  last  she  awakes,  and  it  is  a  dream.      She  beauty  of  her  countenance  as  before,  but  on  the  stati 

tiiidsher  beloved  where  she  had  left  him  -in  his  garden,  liness  and  majesty  of  her  tjiieenly  form,  which  he  com 

cli.vi   2,  compared  with  v.  1.     A nd  her  joy  again  finds  utter-  pares   to    the  palm-tree   ch.  vii    s.      She   hangs    upon    his 

ance  in  the  words,  "  I  am  my  beloved's,  and  my  beloved  words  delightedly.      With  all  her  humble  thoughts  of 

i<  mine;  lie   feedeth  among  the   lilies."      \\s!    He   is  herself,  she  cannot   conceal  from  heisdf  that  she  is  the 

not    gone,    as    I    had    thought.      It    was    lint   a   dream  beloved  of  the  king  :  and.  emboldened   by  this  convic- 

created  by  my  foolish    fears.      He  will  never  leave  me.  tion,  -he  gives   passionate   utterance  to  lier  love  in   iv- 

never  for.-ake  me.      ]  am  ever  his,  and  he  is  ever  mine.  lurn.      She  exults  in  his  love: 

The  third  division  of  the  poem  closes  with  the 
response  of  the  bridegroom.  He  praises  the  heautv  of 
h'T  countenance.  As  he  i-  to  her.  so  she  is  to  him.  the 
ehiefest  among  ten  thousand,  and  altogether  li.velv. 
nuecns,  con<-ubines,  virgins  without  number—  she  alone 
is  more  precious  than  all.  Nav.  so  surpassing  is  In  r 
beautv.  that  even  those  who  miuht  have  1,-oked  upon 

her  with  the  jealous  eyes  of  rivals  are  overpowered  by  ''""  "f  tlu'  first  <livisi""  "f  t!i1'  s""^  ^  '   '-  !i    ••  ^  <1" 

close  of  whi.-h   also    (hey  are    four.d    with   a    very  slight 


"His  left  hand  is  under  my  brad. 
And  liis  ritdit  lian.l  embraces)  me. 
I  adjure  you,  dauphins  of  Jcru.-alem. 
That  ye  wake  nut  up, 
\Vak.-i i  ii, ,t  ii]i  I,ove 
Till  she  pleases"  (ch.  viii   ::,-(). 


her   belov, 

We  shall  only  indicate   our  views  of   the  second   ami  its  •lll'''-":'t-i'>'1  "f  M't  and  shade.      The  bride  gives  ex 

fourth  divisions  of  the  poem  (P,  and  l».      They  ilescribe.  I'Vcssion  to  her  lowly    thoughts  of  herself,  and    tells  in 

as  tbeir   portion    indicates,  the  form,,-  the  loves  of   tin-  tVu'  u'"nls  tll('  st"r.v  "f   1|IT  -T''  f-      "  M.'  "".tiler's   sons 

"eriod    before    mai-riage.    tin-    latter    tin-    loves    of    tin  (I's.Kix.'.i)  were  angry  with  me  (Is.  xli  1);  xlv  LM),  they  made 


tion  of  light  and   shad,  :    but,  as  we   might  anticipate.  t1'""   w1"'"'  m.V  -11"1  llivi  th'   where   tl'oii   tV('l!"^-   I  M«y 

the   light  is  not   so   brilliant    in.r  the  shade    so   de,r.  (|l"'k]-"     The  daughters  of  Jerusalem  comfort  in  vain. 

Compare  the  encounter  with  the  watchman  in  eh.  iii.  a  IXT- *•"      '''"<   """'  tllr  s''l'"';  is  «"»lenly  fhangeil,  vor. ». 

with  ,-h.  v.  7.      As  in  the  third  division,  it  is  in  a  dream  llcT  '"''"V'1   is   restored  :   and    in   his   presence  she  in- 

that  her  fears  manifest  their  presenc  dulges  in   sweet   anticipation   of   comino;    joys.      "  My 

"  T'pon  mv  bed  bv  ni.'lit  li'11'1'  '-'v''1    *"i'tb   its  perfume."    ror.  11.       Her  antici|ia 

I  -on-lit  him  whom  my  soul  loveth:  *  ions  shape  them  e]ve-  in  (lie  form  of  an  imagined  dia 

1  sou-lit,  but  found  him  not."  logiie    between    her    beloved    and    herself,   in    which    free 

This  part,  t!u-  second,  contains  several  passages  of  and  glowing  expression  is  given  to  their  mutual  love, 
great  poetic  beauty.  It  describe-  the  spring  t  hue  of  di.  i.  is-ii.3.  She  sinks,  overcome  with  love  and  joy,  ch.  ii.<; 
love,  ,-h  i:  lo-l.'i.  The  fourth  division  (D)  describes  the)  In  the  la.-1  division  of  the  Song,  ch.  viii.  r,-!4,  we  find 

the  joyous  anticipations  of  the  first  division  fully 
realized.  The  bride  is  seen  coining  up  from  the  wilder 
ness,  leaning  upon  1,,-r  beloved.  In  his  imchanuing 
love  she  has  found  peace.  \xr.  m.  The  lost  vineyard,  ch.  i.  (i, 
is  regained,  but  only  to  be  laid  as  an  offering  at  the 
feet  of  her  beloved,  ch.  vii-:.  12.  Her  mother's  sons,  by 
whom  she  had  been  hardly  treated,  cii.i.ii,  are  forgiven, 
ch.viii  12,  last  clause.3  The  wilderness  is  forgotten;  her 


tion    to   which   the   love  of   Slnlomo  ha-   elevated   her. 
It  begins: 

•  Win.  is  tlii-  that  looketh  forth  as  the  moniinir, 

Fair  as  the  ni.ii.n, 

(  'leal1  as  the  -mi. 

Terrible  as  an  armv  with  banners?" 


'-'  It  is  worthy  of  not  ire  that,  the  epithet   "  Daughters  of  Jeru 
salem"  is  fiiiim!  uov.hure.  clsi:  in  the  Old  Testament  except  in 
this  Sung;  which,  therefore,  it  is  ))i-obal,loi,ur  l.oril  had  in  iiiiml 
when  he  sai.l,  "  I  l.-nv/liters  of  Jenisaleiu,  we,'),  not  for  me,"  A'C.. 
"  lorks"  in  our   ver-ii.il.  and  of  the  T7"l,   eh.  v.  7.      Compare      I.u    xxiii.  -S. 

vith  eh  i'ii  "  It  uriv  be  added  '  3  '"  ' '''  v'"'  S>  ''''  '*  's  t'ie  ''rpt'll'en  "^  ^linlammitli  win,  arc 
introduced  s],eakin^'.  Those  verses  correspond  to  eh.  i.  Ii.  They 
are  somewhat  olisrure,  and  have  been  variously  interpreted. 


CAXTJCLKS 


CAXTK'LKS 


Kden  is  restored  :  and  in  the  shade  of  its  pleasant  tr 
she  sim's  forth  the  joy  of  her  heart,  vur.  13.' 

1  \'.  '.In/It,  >i-.--l<'ti>  <>f  (In  •  >'"  in/,  mill  I'/'tn    a,i<l  Tinn 
;tn    Composition.     This    head    einl.Viiees    a    variety 


is  evident  that  siu-h  a  use  (.f  the  name  was  nmcii  more 
fitting  after  the  death  of  King  Solomon  than  during 
his  life.  \\'e  can  well  understand  ho\v.  :iiiiid  the 
troubles  which  followed  dose  upon  the  death  of  that 


by  their  importance.  In  re-ard  to  some  other  books  ;  of  repose  to  disturb  and  divide  the  church  for  many 
of  the  Did  Testament— the  prophetical,  for  example  centuries,  his  reign,  to  the  glories  of  which  th-  people 
questions  of  date  and  authorship  are  of  vital  moment.  ,  of  Israel  looked  back  with  pride  and  fond  longing, 
Hut  the  subject-matter  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  is  «,f  should  have  become  the  recognized  type  of  that  glorious 
such  a  character  that  its  value  does  not  depend  on  any  future  period  of  peace  and  unbroken  prosperity,  m 
circumstances  of  time  and  place.  It  will  continue  I  which  every  true  Israelite  Ijelieved  all  present  tr..ubles 
equally  edifying  to  the  church  whether  it  is  found  to  ;  and  distresses  would,  issue  at  last.  I'-ut  durinu  the  ac- 
belong  to  the  "age  of  Solomon  or  to  that  of  the  cap-  |  tual  life  of  Solomon,  especially  when  we  consider  the 

tivity. 

The-  title  ascribes  it  to  Solomon:  and  this  accordingly 
must  be  received   as    the    most    ancient   tradition   with  r 

regard  to  the  authorship,  and  must  have  ail  the  weight      use  would  have  been  made  of  it  by  him  sol 
attached  to  it    which    is   due    to  such  a  tradition.       lint 


r  eastern 


irm   seen 

And  there  are  other  considerations  which  serve  to 
throw  considerable  doubt  on  the  tradition  embodied  in 
the  title. 

1.    From  the  subject-matter  of  the  Song,  it  seems  to 
have  proceeded   from   one    of    those   periods,   when    the 
experience  of  the  church  was  of  a  more  mixed  descrip 
tion  than  accords    with    the    historical    accounts   of   the 
ivi'jji    of    Solomon.       The    bride    describes    herself    as 
hardly  treated  by   her   brethren,  driven   forth  from  tin 
parental   roof,    dwelling    in   the    wilderness,    an 
with  exposure  to   the  scorching  summer' 
description  does  not  find  its  counterpart, 
are   informed,    in   any    part  of   the   reign  of  Solomon: 
nor  can  it  be  applied  to  the  reign  of   David  his  prede 
cessor.       It  is  true  that  the  name  and  reign  of  Solomon 


-un. 
far 


Jerusalem  and  Zien.  which  are  introduced  as  the  centre 
and  head-quarters  of  divine  worship,  almost  all  the 
local  references  are  to  the  northern  and  eastern  divi 
sions  of  the  land  of  Israel.  ( Jeneral  references  to  Leba 
non.  Carmel.  Sharon.  Cilead,  and  Damascus,  we  might 
expect  in  compositions  coming  from  any  divi-ion  ot 
Palestine.  I'.ut  the  author  of  the  Song  speaks,  as  if 
from  familiar  acquaintance,  of  the  tower  of  Lebanon 
looking  toward  Damascus,  di.  vii  ;,,  of  the  flocks  of  goats 
Hack  !  reposing  on  .Mount  Oilead,  eh.  iv.  i,  a  comparison  which 
This  ;  he  repeats  in  eh.  vi.  ;>•.  of  Tir/ah.  of  the  dance  of  Ma 
is  we  hanaim.  ch.  vii.  1,  and  of  the  pools  of  lleshbon  by  the 
gate  of  .liath-rabbim.  ch.  vii.  I.  From  which  it  would 
appear  that  these  were  the  localities  \\ith  which  the 
author  of  the  Song  was  most  familiar,  as  they  are  the 


correspond  with   the   bright  side  of  the  picture  pro-     first  to  present  themselves  to  his  mind,  while  in  search 

sented  to  us  in   the    Song-   but   still  we  are  disposed  to  :  <-f  wmie  suitable  comparison  or  illustration, 
believe  that  the  feelings  of  rapturous  joy  in  the    Lord 
to   which    the   Song   give*   expression  must  have  pro- 


Ami  this  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  language  of 
the  Song.      It  is  natural   to  suppose  that  the    Hebrew 
•ceded  not  from  a  period  of  nettled  tranquillity,  like  tho     language,  as  spoken  by  the  northern  tribes,   and  still 


of    Solomon,    but   from   a   period  of  conflict 


more  as  spoken  by   the  tribes  east  of  Jordan    had  a 
loser  affinity  to  the  Syria.-  and  Arabic  than  the   l!e- 


darkness  issuing  in  the  joy  of  a  glorious  deliverance. 

•)     If  we  have  rightly  decided   that   the  name  Solo-  brew  spoken  in  Jerusalem  and  the  neighbourhood 

ruon  has  in  this  song  a  symbolical  or  typical  import,   it  tween  the  northern  tribes  of  Israel  and  the  s 

•  llaniath  and  Damascus,  and  between  the  eastern  tribes 

Hut,  comparing  them  with  ch.  i.  f,,  they  seem  to  represent  tlic  ^^  ^   \rabians  of  the  "Teat  desert,  from  whom  they 

by  no  wel-defid  '  (lary-  tliere  was 


or  a  door,  I.',  firm  and  constant,  or  giddy  and  easilj  accessible     .,ffi.(.te(,  th(j  ciuu,u.tL.r  ,,f  the  lan-uage  spoken  by  these 
to  temptation,  they  will  endeavour  not  to  be  losers  by  her.      Ihe  -  ,  f 

silver  tower  and  the  planks  of  adar,  represent  the  anticipated     northern  and  eastern  tribes.      Now,  lit! 


aeeession  nl'    wealth    th 
sister. 

i  it  is  important  to  notice,  the  epithets  by  which  Solomon 
addresses  the  Shulammite  in  the  various  divisions  of  the  poem. 
In  the  first  (A),  the  only  epithet  he  employs  is  TVJP,  my  friend 

or  my  love,  fn  the  second  (B),  he  ad.ls  to  T^y-v  »r,r  and  »rO  V, 
my  fair  one  and  my  dove.  Tn  the  third  (C),'  which  'is  the  prin 
cipal  division,  in  addition  to  all  the  above,  we  find  n^S-  " '"•""'>« 
r?2:  niy  sister  bride,  and  T :?,"?.•  niy  perfeet  one.  In  the 
fourth  division  (D),  all  the  foregoing  epithets  are  dropped,  and 
the  bride  is  spoken  of  only  as  3-13  r2  and  rVSSVtfH.  And 
in  the  fifth  (K;  we  find  only  the  epithet 


described  the  state  of 


Hebrew  writings;   they  are  very  clearly  distinguished 
from   the  Chahleisms  of  the  books  of  Chronicles,  Ezra. 


roiicih  the  jndieious  bestowment  of  their      the  Song  of  Solomon,   as  ill  that  of  other   compositions. 

such  as  the  sonu  of  Deborah,  unquestionably  emanat 
ing  from  those  tribes,  we  seem  to  discover  traces  of 
this  influence.  Words  belonging  to  the  Syriac  or 
Aral  dc  language,  or  to  both,  but  found  nowhere  else 
in  the  Hebrew  writings,  we  frequently  meet  with  in 
the  Song  of  Solomon,  ch.ii.H;  iv.  1,14;  v.  3;  vii.  3;  viii.fi.  Oc 
casionally  we  find  roots  common  in  the  other  Hebrew 
books  here  under  a  Syriac  form.  ch.  i.  17,  r-vn2.  =  £V>S,  aill> 
.e  syntax  also  a  Syriac  influence 
i.  c  ;  iii.  r.  Yet  these  Syriasms  and 
Arabisms  do  not  at  all  connect  this  Song  with  the  later 


CAXT1CLES 


CAPF.RXAOl 


&c.     Their  presence  is  to  be  accounted  for  not  by  late-  ;  of  Songs   formed  a  recognized  portion    of    the  sacred 
ness  but  by  locality  of  composition.  l  Scriptures  in  the  days  of  "our  Lord  and  his  apostles  (as 

Now,  if  the  foregoing  remarks  render  it  probable  is  indeed  otherwise'  evident  from  the  allusions  they 
that  the  Song  of  Solomon  is  a  production  of  the  northern  make  to  itV  and  has  received  the  sanction  of  his  autho- 
or  eastern  division  of  the  land  of  Israel,  and  not  of  rity.  Indeed  the  title  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  prove 
Judah.  they  of  course  throw  great  doubt  on  the  ancient  that  from  the  most  ancient  period  the  Song  has  been 
tradition  which  assigns  the  authorship  to  Solomon.  i  accounted  sacred.  For  why  was  it  called  the  Sono-  of 

At  the  same  time  we  cannot  concur  with  those  who  Songs?  Several  of  the  psalms  have  the  title  "Sono-  " 
throw  the  composition  of  the  Song  forward  on  the  age  '  but  this  is  called  "Song  of  Songs."  Why  ?  Whence 
of  the  Babylonish  captivity.  The  historical  references  this  preference  I  In  what  consists  the  superiority  of 
point  to  a  much  earlier  date.  The  tribes  beyond  Jor-  this  song?  Surely,  had  it  not  been  regarded  as  an  in- 
dan,  it  is  evident,  had  not  been  carried  captive  when  spired  composition,  it  would  not  have  been  dignified 
the  Song  was  written:  otherwise  it  would 
have  contained  allusions  to  the  flocks  )•<•]» 
Gilead,  to  the  dance  of  Mahanaim.  and  the 

Heshbon  by  the  gate  of  Hath-rabbini.  The  mention  of  would  have  induced  the  ancient  Jewish  fath,  rs  to  be 
Tir/.ah  in  immediate  connection  with  Jerusalem,  ch  vi  t.  stow  upon  it  so  exalted  a  title,  had  they  not  recognized 
seems  to  carry  us  a  step  farther  bark  still,  and  to  point  its  sacred  and  sublimely  mysterious  character.  Finally, 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  Song  was  written  some  time  the  references  to  the  Sono-  in  the  other  books  of  Old 
in  that  half  century  i'.?.".-!^.-,  B.C.),  din-in-  which  Tir  Testament  scripture  i-  the  crowning  proof  of  its  hav- 
/ah  and  Jerusalem  were  the  two  capital  cities  of  [srae],  ing  been  recognized,  even  from  the  time  of  its  eomposi 
the  one  of  the  northern,  the  other  of  the  southern  king-  tion,  as  the  production  of  one  who  spake  as  he  was 
dom.  To  this  period  also  point  the  f res] mess  and  min 
uteness  of  the  allusions  to  the  transactions  ,,f  the  rei-jn 
of  Solomon  which  are  scattered  over  the  poem.  DuriiiLT 
that  period,  \\hen  the  separation  between  Israel  and 
Judah  was  still  recent,  there  must  have  been  alaruvparty 
in  the  former  kin-don,  who  longed  for  reunion  \\ith 
their  national  sanctuary  and  with  the  divinely  chosen 
family  of  David,  and  who  lived  in  the  linn  faith  that 

the    period    they    SO    anxiously    loll_cd    f,,r    Would     speedilv 

arrive,  \Uieii  l.-rael  \\o\ild  ajain  be  one  -.lie  in  Jehovah 
their  Cod  and  Solomon  their  king.  It  is  n,.t  improba 
ble  that  the  Song  of  Son-s  proceeded  from  some  one 
belonging  to  this  party.  I'.ut  this  i-  :l  matter  mi  which 
certainty  cannot  ho  attained. 

V.  Finally,  with  regard  to  the  ?',/„,„//,•„/  ,|  „//,, „•;/,/ 
of  the  Sono-,  it  has  alw.ny-  been  r,  co-nixed  both  by  the 
Je\\ish  and  by  thr  <  'hi-ist ia u  church.  1 1  is  true  that,,  both 
in  ancient  and  modern  times,  doubts  h.Uv  been  enter 
tained  and  expressed  on  this  subject  by  individual 
members  of  both  churches.  l!ut  these  doubts  have 
always  been  met  and  overpowered  by  the  general  voice 
of  the  church  teachers  sometimes  by  their  solemn  ec 
clesiastical  deci-ion.  From  the  treatise  Vadaim,  -•-•, 
towards  the  .-lose  ,,f  the  MMma.  we  tiud  thai  a  deci 
sion  of  this  kind  was  pronounced  by  the  Jewish  doctors 
early  in  our  era:  but  this  decision  was  intended  not  to 
define  for  the  first  time  the  belief  of  the  church,  but 
to  give  expression  to  what  already  was.  and  had  all  ahm- 
been,  the  established  belief,  and  to  meet  th,  doubts  of  a 
few.'  There  can  be  no  doubt,  then  fore,  that  the  S,,n«- 


moved  by  the   H,,ly  Ghost. 

[^positions  of  (he  Song  of  Songs  are  numberless.  Amon- 
modern  German  commentators.  Kwald.  I>elil/sch.  and  Hen- 
stenbei-g  ma\  he  mentioned,  each  as  representing  a  ei.-iss.  The 
two  most  recent  commentaries  in  Knglisl,  are  those  uf  Mr.  tiins 

burg  and  Mr  M ly  Stuart,  to  both  of  which,  though  differing 

very  uiddy  from  one  another,  an.!  also  from  the  view  uf  the  Son- 
given  in  the  foregoing  pages  we  won  1,1  ivfer  the  student  for  ample 
information,  with  iv-anl  to  the  principal  authors  who  have 
written  on  the  Sung  of  Songs,  and  th,.-  views  thej  have  taken 
of  it. 


CAPER'NAUM. 

Sea  of  Tib,  rias,  and  , 
It  comes  into  notic 
ojispe]  history,  as  a  i> 


M.  \\.| 


s  follows,  according  to  the  ivn.lerint;  of  Iv 
"All    sirred    scriptures    make    the    hands 
of  the   I'hari-ees,  arising  out  of  their  siiper- 
•il  \olume.     See  farther  on  in  the 


•ity  on  th-    western   side  of  the 
its  upper  or  northern  di\  isioii. 

at      the    colunii  lirelnelit    -  ,f    the 

e  which  our  Lord  visited  at  an 

earh  p.  riod,  but  \\ithoiit  ivmainino  in  it  more  than  a 
t--w  da_\s,  .I,,  ji  |j.  and  at  which  he  afterwards  fixed  his 
residence  so  continuously,  that  it  became  for  a  con 
siderable  portion  of  his  active  ministry  the  centre  of  li'^ 
operations.  The  occasion  of  our  Lord's  thus  repairing 
t<><  'apern.-umi  is  mo-t  distinctly  marked  by  theevanovlist 
.Matiheu.  who  says.  "  X,,w  uhoi  Jesus  liad  heard  that 
John  was  cast  into  prison,  he  departed  (or  withdrew) 
into  Cable,-,  and  leasing  Xa/;aivtli,  he  came  and  dwelt 
in  Capernaum,  v,  hich  is  up-ni  the  sea-coast,  in  the 
borders  of  Zabulon  and  Xephthalim."  Mai  iv. I2,ia.  The 
language  implies,  that  it.  was  a  sort  of  withdrawal  from 
a  more  conspicuous  ,„.  accessilile  place,  to  one  more 
convenient  for  the  work  of  a  ,|iiiet  and  laborious 
mini.sti-v.  which  our  Lord  mad,  at  the  time:  and  the 
language  i>  explained,  in  connection  with  the  historical 
event  \\hich  occasioned  the  \\ithdrawal  in  ,|iu  stion.  1,\ 
the  circumstance  that  l»ioc,i  sare;,  ,,r  Sepphoris,  which 
onnuon  residence  of  Herod  Antipa-;,  lay  in  the 

immediate  neiuhbourh 1  of  Na/aivth,  at  the  distance 

-.f  onK   five  or  six  miles.      After  1 1 --rod,  therefore,  had 
so  far  committed  himself  against   the  cause  of  C oil  as 


'  The  passage  i. 
Sola  and  Uaphal 
unclean  (a  doct  i  ii 
stitious  iv.erciav  for  the  sacred  \, 

same  treatise,  ch.  iv  sect.  6).  The  Canticles  an,l  Kcclesiastes  to  throw  the  .Haptist  into  prison,  there  was  no  reason- 
make  the  hands  un,  lean.  (The  separate  mention  of  tliese  two 
books  shows  that  some  dorjit>  had  lieeii  expressed  wit li  regard 
to  their  canonicity,  as  we  find  in  what  follows.]  R.  Jeliudah 
>aith.  Canticles  make  the  hands  unclean,  but  Kcclesiastes  is 
subject  to  a  dispute.  K.  Jos,'  saith,  Kcclesiastes  does  not  make 
the  hands  unclean  [i.e.  it  is  not  canonical],  but  Canticles  are 
subject  to  a  dispute.  .  .  .  M.  Simeon  ben  A/ai  said,  I  have  it 
as  a  tradition  from  the  mouths  of  seventy-two  elders,  on  the  day 
they  in, lueted  R.  Kleazar  lien  Ax.ariah  into  the  president's  seat, 
that  Canticles  and  Kci-Iesiast.es  make  the  hands  unclean.  Ii! 
-\kibah  said,  Mercy  forbid'  Xo  man  in  Israel  ever  disputed 

Vol..  I. 


able  prospect  of  Jesus  'being  allowed  t,,  prosecute  in 
quietness  and  freedom  his  peaceful  but  reforming  agency, 
from  a  position  so  near  the  palace  of  the  royal  persecutor. 
Prudence  required  that  lie  should  retire  to  a  region 


holy,  but  the  Canticles  are  holy  of  holies."— l"«cfai»i,  chap.  iii. 


35 


CAI'KRXAFM 


L>74 


CAPHTOR 


where  lie  was  less  likely  to  lie  disturbed  in  his  opera 
tions;  and  as  lie  had  no  prospect  of  finding  this  in  the 
soutli,  where  the  priestly  and  traditional  influence  of 
Jerusalem  was  sure  to  impede  him  at  every  step,  he 
naturally  directed  his  course  northwards,  and  fixed 
upon  Capernaum,  winch  lay  in  the  fertile  tract  of 
Gennesaret,  as  on  all  accounts  the  most  suitable  for  his 
purpose.  It  was  also  within  that  (Galilean  district  to 
which  ancient  prophecy  had  pointed,  as  in  itself  one  of 
the  most  spiritually  depressed,  yet  the  first  that  was  des 
tined  to  be  shone  upon  by  the  clear  light  of  the  new- 
dispensation:  hence  the  evangelist  mark's  in  our  Lord's 
going  to  reside  and  labour  in  Capernaum  the  fulfilment 
of  the  prophecy  in  Is.  ix.  1,  '2.  .But  the  more  imme 
diate,  reason  was  the  relative  position  of  the  places,  as 
at  a  considerable  distance  from  Herod  and  the  more 
active  enemies  of  the  truth. 

The  precise  period  during  which  .lesus  continued  to 
make  Capernaum  his  more  settled  place  of  abode  can 
not  be  accurately  determined.  Jt  must  have  been 
somewhere  between  one  and  two  years;  long  enough 
to  admit  of  its  being  designated  "his  own  city,'1  Mat. 
ix.  i,  and  also  to  admit  of  its  being  characterized  as  the 
chief  of  those  cities  around  the  northern  shore  of  the 
Galilean  lake,  in  which  most  of  his  mighty  works  had 
been  done,  but  which  still  repented  not,  nor  believed 
the  gospel,  Mat.  xi.  20-2.'!.  The  address  to  Capernaum 
was  the  most  solemn  and  severe  delivered  on  the  occa 
sion,  "  And  thou,  Capernaum,  which  art  exalted  unto 
heaven  (raised,  that  is,  to  the  highest  elevation  in  point 
of  privilege  and  honour  by  my  habitual  presence  and 
superhuman  works)  slialt  be  brought  down  to  hell;  for. 
if  the  mighty  works  which  have  been  done  in  thee  had 
been  done  in  Sodom,  it  would  have  remained  until 
this  day."  The  words  cannot  be  understood  as  denot 
ing  less  than  an  entire  downfall,  or  a  sweeping  desola 
tion,  such  as  if  the  place  were  to  be  swallowed  up  in 
the  all- devouring  gulf  of  Hades.  That  they  have  been 
literally  fulfilled  is  so  little  a  matter  of  doubt,  that  the 
only  difficulty  with  modern  inquirers  has  been  to  as 
certain  precisely  where  it  stood.  Dr.  Robinson  tells 
us,  that  the  very  name  of  Capernaum,  as  well  as  those 
of  Bethsaida  and  Chorazin,  have  perished;  after  making 
the  most  minute  and  persevering  inquiry  among  the 
Arab  population  along  the  western  shore  of  the  lake, 
and  around  its  northern  extremity,  he  indicates  the 
result  by  saying,  ' '  Xo  Muslim  knew  of  any  such  names, 
nor  of  anything  that  could  be  so  moulded  as  to  resem 
ble  them"  (Researches,  iii.  p.  29.)).  He  adds,  that  the  Chris 
tians  of  Nazareth,  who  arc  acquainted  with  the  names 
from  the  New  Testament,  apply  them  to  different 
places,  according  to  the  opinions  of  their  monastic 
teachers,  or  as  may  best  suit  their  own  convenience  in 
answering  the  inquiries  of  travellers.  The  actual  site  has 
with  good  reason  been  sought  near  the  fountain  which 
Josephus  calls  Capharnaum,  and  which,  in  all  proba 
bility,  derived  its  name  from  the  village.  This  foun 
tain  was  situated  in  a  very  fertile  tract,  lying  along  the 
shores  of  the  lake,  and  bearing  in  Josephus  the  name 
of  "  the  land  of  Gennesaret."  But  there  is  a  diversity 
of  opinion  as  to  what  may  have  been  the  particular 
fountain  which  was  meant  by  Josephus :  and  two 
places  in  particular  have  been  fixed  upon  and  respec 
tively  contended  for  as  the  proper  one — one  at  Khan 
Miniyeh,  and  another  more  to  the  north  at  Tell  Hum. 
The  subject  has  been  very  carefully  considered  by  Dr. 
Robinson,  especially  in  his  supplementary  volume  of 


Researches,  and  everything  said  that  can  well  be  urged 
in  favour  of  Khan  Miniyeh.  Dr.  Robinson's  view  is 
thus  summed  up:  ''That  Gennesaret  was  a  known  and 
limited  tract ;  that,  according  to  the  evangelists,  Caper 
naum  was  situated  in  or  near  that  tract;  that  the  cir 
cumstances  mentioned  by  Josephus  go  to  fix  it  near 
Ain  et  Tin  [adjoining  Khan  Miniyeh];  that  down  to 
the  seventeenth  century  it  was  recognized  there  by  all 
the  more  intelligent  travellers;  and  it  was,  apparently, 
during  the  seventeenth  century  that  the  tradition  began 
to  waver,  and  transfer  the  site  of  Capernaum  to  Tell 
Hum.  The  latter  is  first  mentioned  bv  Nau.  about 

A.I).   1(J7-J."       (Researches,  p.  35>O 

Xot  a  few  recent  writers,  including  Stanley,  concur 
with  Robinson  in  this  view  of  the  matter,  but  hii;h 
authorities  ^Wilson,  V.  de  Velde.  Thomson)  adhere 
still  to  the  more  common  opinion  of  Tell  Hflm  being 
the  proper  site.  V.  de  Vclde  says,  "  The  position  of 
Tell  Hum  seems  to  us  to  agree  in  every  respect  with 
the  gospel  narrative,  being  /tear,  not  ///,  the  land  of 
Gennesaret,  and  not  far  from  the  east  side  of  the  lake, 
to  allow  people  to  follow-  Jesus  on  foot,  whilst  he  was 
crossing  the  water  with  his  disciples,  .Tn.  vi.  2.  That 
position  would  also  make  Kepharnome  a  near  and 
convenient  resting-place  for  Josephus,  when  he  was 
ill;  and  its  name,  although  it  mci;/  be  a  borrowed  one, 
may  also  be  the  remains  of  its  ancient  appellation." 
Dr.  Thomson  says,  too,  that  he  "  attaches  great  weight 
to  the  name.  Hum  is  the  last  syllable  of  Kefr  na  hti/a, 
as  it  was  anciently  spelled,  and  it  is  a  very  common 
mode  of  curtailing  old  names  to  retain  only  the  final 
syllable.  Thus  we  have  Zib  for  Achzib,  and  Fik  for 
Aphcah,"  &c.  He  adds,  "so  far  as  I  can  discover, 
after  spending  many  weeks  in  this  neighbourhood 
off  and  on  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  the  invariable 
tradition  of  the  Arabs  and  the  Jews  fixes  Capernaum 
at  Tell  Hum.  and  I  believe  correctly"  (The  Laud  and  the 
Book,i>  ii.  c.  24).  The  absolute  determination  between  the 
two  proposed  sites  is  fortunately  not  of  great  moment. 
If  we  take  Tell  Hum  (which,  undoubtedly,  has  the 
greatest  number  of  authorities  on  its  side),  the  site  of 

'  Capernaum  comes  to  be  fixed  very  near  the  top  of  the 
lake,  on  the  west  side;  while  if  Khan  Miniyeh  is  pre 
ferred,  it  must  be  assigned  about  three  or  four  miles 

:  farther  south.  That  is  the  whole  difference.  The 
place  itself  was  of  no  great  note,  either  in  a  commercial 
or  a  political  respect;  its  title  to  a  place  in  history  arises 

i  simply  from  its  connection  with  the  life  and  ministry 

I  of  Jesus;  and  this,  unfortunately,  served  but  to  tell  with 
disastrous  effect  on  itself. 

CAPHTOR  the  original  seat  of  the  Philistines, 
Am.  ix.  ~,  who  are  therefore  called  Caphtorim,  Do.  ii.  23, 
and  "the  remnant  of  the  country  (or  rather,  inland)  of 
Caphtor,"  Jo.  xivii.  4.  Before  determining  the  country 
here  meant,  notice  must  be  taken  of  an  apparent  con 
tradiction  between  these  statements  regarding  the  ori 
gin  of  the  Philistines  and  the  relation  intimated  in 
Ge.  x.  14.  Mizraim  begat  "  Pathrusim.  and  Caslu- 
him,  out  of  whom  (rather,  wltmce)  came  Philistim 
and  Caphtorim."  Vater  and  Tuch  suppose  a  trans 
position  of  the  text  of  this  passage,  taking  Caphto 
rim  to  have  followed  Casluhim.  before  the  relative 
clause:  but  of  a  corruption  of  the  text  there  is  no  evi 
dence:  the  Samaritan,  all  the  ancient  versions,  as  also 
1  Ch.  i.  12,  agree  with  the  present  reading  in  Genesis. 
The  passage  however,  it  is  to  be  remarked,  has  no  re 
ference  as  usually  taken  to  descent,  but  only  intimates 


CAPPADOCIA 

that  the  Philistines  once  dwelt  by  the  Casluhim.  and 
from  them  proceeded  to  other  settlements;  the  expres 
sion  2w;O  NV>  (yatza  mlssJiain)  has  merely  a  local  re 
ference,  as  departure  from  a  place  or  land  ^Knobel, 
vClkurtafel,  p.  215).  Still  the  fact  remains  that  the  Caph- 
torim  and  Philistim  are  here  introduced  as  distinct 
people,  or  perhaps  as  two  portions  of  the  same  people. 
The  latter  supposition  is  confirmed  by  several  passages 
which  intimate  a  distinction,  and  yet  a  very  close  con 
nection  between  the  Philistim  and  another  people 
called  the  Kerethim,  Eze.  xxv.  M  ;  Zep.  ii.  r> ;  indeed  the 
names  are  interchangeable,  compare  i  Sa.  xxx.  14  with  ver.  10. 
The  reference  in  Genesis  may  be  to  some  migration  of 
the  Philistim,  either  prior  to  their  settlement  in  Caph 
tor,  or  intermediate  between  their  departure  from  it 
and  their  final  settlement  on  the  western  coast  of 
Palestine,  and  to  a  sojourn  with  their  brethren  the 
Casluhim.  who  are  supposed  to  have  inhabited  the  dis 
trict  between  Pelusium  and  Gaza.  The  whole  subject, 
however,  is  involved  in  obscurity:  for  even  witli  regard 
to  the  determination  of  Caphtor  it-elf  nothing  can  with 
certainty  be  affirmed.  That  it  is  not  Cappadoeia.  as 
the  older  writers  following  the  Septuagint  and  the 
TargmiLs  held,  is  now  generally  admitted.  That  Caph 
tor  was  an  island  plainly  appears  from  .le.  xlvii.  J .  f"r 
although  th"  term  \s*  sometimes  means  "a  maritime 
land,"  "a  coast."  ,../.  I-.  xx.  (J,  yet  as  Hit/.i-  ha: 
shown,  in  the  present  instance  it  can  only  be  "an  ; 
island"  (Cr(  lor  1'liilistHur,  Lcip.  i-i:>,  \>.  15);  and  if 

so,  various  considerations  show  that  it  must  be  looked 
for  in  tip-  Mediterranean.  Tin-  i -lands  Cyprus  and  Crete 
divide  the  suffrages  of  modern  writers  on  this  subject, 
but  as  the  fanner  is  invariably  in  the  Old  Testament 
named  Chittim,  its  claim  to  be  regarded  a<  Caphtor  is 
obviously  excluded,  ('rete.  on  tin-  other  hand,  if  not 
Caphtor,  has  no  Hebrew  name  a  conclusion  not  easily 
reconciled  with  its  importance.  Tin-  designation  of 
the  Philistines  as  Ker.-tliim  mav  probably  have  some 
relation  to  their  Cretan  origin.  The  testimony  of 
classic  authors  is  in  favour  of  ('rete.  particularly  that 
of  Tacitus  (Hist.  v.  •_'*.  who  evidently  confounding  the  | 
.lews  with  the  Philistin  -s.  after  whom  Palestine  was 
named,  says,  ".lula-os,  (  'reta  insula  profugos,  novissi 
ma  Libya;  insi.-disse."  iSeo  I!.u;r,  Our  Prophet  Aim*,  p.  70-Sii;  , 
Delitzsdi,  Genesis,  p.  2:Ni,  2!»1  )  [\i.  M.| 

CAPPADOCIA.   an   extensive    district    of    Asia  I 
Minor,  the  boundaries  and  divisions  of  which  are  diffe-  j 
rently  described  by  ancient    writers,  and  appear  indeed 
to  have  varied   considerably   from  time  to  time.      lint 
as  a  Roman  province,  to  which  state  it  was  reduced  by  j 
Tiberius   in  A.T).  17.    it    was   bounded    on   the   north    by  •- 
Pontus,   on   the  east   by  the    Euphrates   and  Armenia 
Minor,  on  the  south  by  .Mount  Taurus  and  Cilicia.  and  i 
by  Phrygia  and  Galatia  on  the  west.      The  region  is  for  ! 
the  most  part  of   a  mountainous   nature,   and   on  this  ' 
account    was    colder    than    Pontus.    which  lay  to  the 
north  of  it.      It  abounded  with  fine  pasture  lands,  and 
was  distinguished    for    its  good    breed  of   horses.      In 
various  parts,  however,  it   was  capable   of  cultivation, 
and  yielded  wheat  of  fine  quality,  with  other  kinds  of 
grain,    grapes,    and    the    more    delicate    fruits.      It  is 
rarely  mentioned  in  the  gospel  history;  but  on  the  day 
of    Pentecost    sojourners    at    Jerusalem    from    Cappa 
docia  are  mentioned  among  those  who  heard  in  their 
own  tongues  the   apostles  speaking  of  the   wonderful  ( 


CAPTIVITY 

things  of  God;  and  the  apostle  Peter  includes  the 
Jewish  Christians  in  Cappadocia  among  the  strangers 
scattered  abroad,  to  whom  his  first  epistle  was  ad 
dressed,  Ac.  ii.  U;  i  iv.  i.  i.  It  thus  appears,  that  Cappa 
docia,  like  other  provinces  in  Asia  Minor,  had  become 
to  a  certain  extent  the  residence  of  dispersed  Jews 
before  the  Christian  era:  but  we  know  nothing  of  the 
proportion  as  to  numbers  in  which  they  may  have 
dwelt  there,  nor  as  to  the  particular  localities  and  oc 
cupations  with  which  they  more  especially  connected 
themselves. 

CAPTIVITY  is  a  word  which  may  lie  taken  so 
strictly  as  to  mean  imprisonment.  But  a  body  of 
captive-;,  men  taken  in  war  and  in  the  first  instance 
plaeed  in  confinement,  might  often  or  even  generally 
lie  set  at  liberty,  and  left  with  comparatively  few 
restrictions  pressing  on  them,  so  long  as  they  conducted 
themselves  peaceably  and  submissively  in  the  foreign 
country  to  which  they  had  been  carried.  And  thus,  by 
an  easy  modification  of  meaning,  captives  and  captivity 
are  used  in  Scripture  very  much  in  the  common  sense  of 
exile;  yet  with  the  notion  that  this  state  of  exile  was 
compulsory,  and  that  the  persons  so  exiled  were  in  a  de 
pendent  or  oppressed  condition  in  the  land  of  their 
sojourn,  not  at  all  as  refugees  may  be  and  often  are  in 
our  own  country.  In  this  sense  we  have  learned  from 
Scripture  to  speak  of  the  P>abylonish  captivity,  which 
is  explained  to  be  "  th"  carrying  awav  into  Babylon." 
Mat  i.  17. 

I 'lit  the  removal  of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  though  we 
often  speak  of  it  as  a  single  event,  was  n  ally  a  very 
complex  process.  The  larger  number  of  the  people 
were  carried  awav.  not  to  Babylon,  but  to  Assyria, 
that  earlier  empire  which  was  afterwards  swallowed  up 
by  P.ab\lon.  And  the  period  during  which  their  re 
moval  was  gradually  effected  was  not  less  than  1/JO 
years.  Tin  >v  were,  however,  three  "Teat  captivities. 
First,  in  the  reign  of  Pekah  kin^  of  Israel,  who  was 
murdered  about  B.C.  7o!».  the  king  of  A-syria.  Ti"lath- 
pde-.T.  came  up  and  smote  th"  north-eastern  part  of 
the  land.  ••Gilcad.  Galilee,  all  the  land  of  Xaphtali, 
and  can-led  them  capthe  to  Assyria,"  -.-  Ki.  \v.  -»jt  pro 
bably  in  this  carrying  out  the  policy  of  his  predecessor 
Pul,  who  had  come  up  against  the  land  but  had  been 
bribed  away  by  king  Menahem.  2  Ki.  xv.  1(1,20.  (  'ertainly 
these  two  kinx'-.  Pul  and  Ti'j'lath-pilc  S-T.  are  expressly 
named  together  as  those  who  carried  away  the  Ileu- 
beiiites,  and  the  (  Jadites.  and  the  half  tribe  of  Manassch 
who  dwelt  beside  tin-in  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the 
Jordan,  and  brought  them  unto  Halah.and  I  labor,  and 
Mara,  and  to  the  river  Go/an.  1  Ch.  v. 25, 26.  Secondly, 
in  the  reiu'ii  of  Hoshea  king  of  Israel,  Shalmanex.er 
kill1.'  of  Assyria  came  up  against  the  land,  and  after 
leaving  him  for  a  time  upon  the  throne  as  a  tributary, 
hi:  imprisoned  him  on  account  of  treachery  and  revolt, 
and  at  the  end  of  a  three  years'  siege,  took  Samaria 
and  carried  the  remainder  of  the  ten  tribes  away, 
about  n.r.  7-1  or  71'-'.  to  a  district  apparently  the 
same  as  that  to  which  their  countrymen  had  already 
been  brought  he  "placed  them  in  llalah.  and  Habor. 
by  the  river  of  Gozan,  and  in  the  cities  of  the  Medcs,  " 
2Ki.xvii.fi.  Thirdly,  the  two  tribes,  that  constituted 
the  kingdom  of  Judah,  were  carried  captive  by  Ne 
buchadnezzar  king  of  Babylon,  2Ki.  xxiv.  xxv. 

Even  this  last  captivity,  the  carrying  away  of  the 
people  of  Judah  to  Babylon,  was  not  accomplished  at 
once.  Three  distinct  captivities  are  mentioned,  Jc.lii. 


CAPTIVITY 


CAPTIVITY 


^-r,o  Tlit!  first,  of  3:jiiO  persons,  in  the  seventh  year  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  is  no  doubt  the  same  as  that  placed 
in  the  eighth  year  of  his  reign  (for  such  (inferences 
occur  frequently  in  the  histories  of  kings  in  the  Bible, 
and  are  to  be  traced  to  the  practice  of  counting 
the  beu'inniu--  of  the  year  from  diii'ereiiL  mouths.  <>r 
reckoning  the  mouths  of  a  broken  year  sometimes  t<> 
the  iviun  which  ended  in  it,  sometimes  to  the  reign 
which  began  in  it),  when  he  carried  oil' the  weak  young 
prince  Jehoiaehin.  three  months  after  the  death  of  Je- 
lioiakim  his  father.  2  Ki.  xxiv.  1Q-1C.  P.ut  the  number 
mentioned  by  .leremiah  seems  to  apply  only  to  some 
more  distinguished  portion  of  the  captive*,  for  in  this 
passage  princes,  officers  of  state,  mighty  men  of  valour, 
craftsmen,  and  smiths  are  included,  apparently  to 
the  number  of  l,VM)il,  while  only  the  poorest  sort  "I 
the  people  are  said  to  have  been  left.  The  second  re 
moval  was  eleven  years  later,  in  the  eighteenth  of  Ne- 
bnchadne/,/.:ir,  i;.c.  5SS,  or  5Sl>  according  to  others, 
when  he  destroyed  Jerusalem  and  carried  offZedekiah 
the  last  king;  at  this  time  S'3'2  persons  were  taken  away. 
The  third  removal  was  in  the  twenty-third  of  Ne 
buchadnezzar,  when  745  were  taken  to  Babylon  by 
Xebuzar-adan,  the  captain  of  the  guard;  by  which  act 
of  gleaning  it  would  seem  that  the  land  was  left  utterly 
empty  of  inhabitants.  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
that  this  is  only  a  partial  enumeration  of  the  people 
who  were  carried  to  Babylon  from  the  land  of  Judah, 
not  improbably  a  very  large  number  more  may  have 
been  taken  from  the  country  districts,  and  even  from 
Jerusalem  itself  at  an  earlier  time.  Of  this  we  have  a 
trace  in  Da.  i.  1,  2,  "In  the  third  year  of  Jehoiakim 
king  of  Judah  came  Nebuchadnezzar  king  of  Babylon 
unto  Jerusalem  and  besieged  it.  And  the  Lord  gave 
Jehoiakim  king  of  Judah  into  his  hand,  with  part  of 
ih.'  \essels  of  the  house  of  God,  which  he  carried  into 
the  land  of  Shinar,  to  the  house  of  his  god."  We 
should  not  have  known  distinctly  about  this  event  but 
for  the  circumstance  that  Daniel  was  carried  away 
among  the  number.  And  in  dealing  with  a  history  of 
whose  details  we  are  so  ignorant,  it  is  miserable  criticism 
which  endeavours  to  injure  the  credibility  of  the  books 
of  Scripture  because  one  of  them  mentions  circum 
stances  which  we  do  not  know  how  to  adjust  with  de 
tails  narrated  by  another.  Certainly  there  is  a  general 
reference  to  some  event  of  this  sort,  when  Jehoiakim 
was  conquered  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  being  taken  to  Babylon,  yet  was  left  behind, 
•i  Ch.  xxxvi.  o.  And  just  as  certainly  there  is  nothing  in 
what  the  Lord  said,  Jo.  xxv.  i,&c.,  to  contradict  this  state 
ment,  in  spite  of  what  some  have  alleged  to  the  con 
trary. 

This  prophecy  by  .leremiah  contains  the  remarkable 
statement  that  the  captivity  should  last  for  seventy 
years,  after  which  the  king  of  HabyWs  yoke  was  to 
be  broken,  and  himself  and  his  people  punished.  And 
again,  he  prophesied  the  restoration  of  the  people  and 
the  renewal  of  the  Lord's  goodness  to  them  in  their 
own  land.  Je.  xxix.io.&c.  The  fulfilment  of  these  pro 
phecies  is  found  by  the  inspired  writers  themselves, 
Kzr.  i.t;  Da.  ix.2,  in  the  edict  of  Cyrus,  which  gave  the 
people  liberty  and  encouragement  to  return  to  their 
own  land.  The  edict  was  issued  on  his  taking  Baby 
lon.  B.C.  H'M;  or.  as  some  think,  after  a  two  years'  reign 
of  Darius  :  and  so  the  commencement  of  the  period 
is  to  be  dated  from  B.C.  606,  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoia 
kim,  in  which  Jeremiah  delivered  his  message  to  the 


prostrated  people,  whose  political  independence  was 
gone,  and  a  large  number  of  whose  fellow-countrymen 
seem  to  have  been  just  newly  led  into  exile,  or  to  have 
been  (in  the  point  of  being  so  led,  according  to  the 
different  views  which  expositors  have  taken.  But  that 
carrying  to  Babylon  was  not  completed  ecclesiastically 
till  the  temple  was  destroyed,  about  B.C.  586;  and 
perhaps  we  should  say  that  the  ecclesiastical  restora 
tion  was  not  complete  for  seventy  years  from  that 
date,  when  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  was  accom 
plished  in  the  sixth  year  of  king  Darius,  Kzr.  vi.  i:>. 

The  history  of  the  return  of  "the  children  of  the 
captivity,'"  or  "the  children  of  the  province/'  as  they 
named  themselves,  is  given  chiefly  in  the  books  of  K/.ra 
and  Nehemiah,  though  information  is  also  to  be  found 
in  the  prophecies  of  Haggai  and  Zechariali.  Fn  gene 
ral  the  course  of  events  was  this:  -the  decree  of  Cyrus 
encouraged  the  people  to  return,  with  such  money  and 
goods  a-  they  could  gather,  and  indeed  they  were  aided 
by  the  contributions  of  many  who  did  not  return  along 
with  them;  all  being  placed  under  the  care  of  Shcsh- 
ba/zar  prince  of  Judah,  who  seems  to  have  been  the 
same  as  Zerubbabel,  or  else  to  have  soon  died  and 
been  succeeded  by  him.  But  after  settling  themselves 
down  in  Jerusalem  and  around  it.  and  erecting  the 
altar  for  sacrifices,  and  laying  the  foundation  of  the 
temple,  they  had  otters  of  assistance  from  the  heathens 
who  had  come  to  inhabit  Samaria  and  the  vacant 
country  round  about  them:  on  declining  which  help 
they  were  exposed  to  the  bitterest  hostility  of  these 
pretended  allies.  In  fact,  after  the  death  of  Cyrus 
the  building  of  the  temple  was  forcibly  stopped  by 
tiiem  until  the  second  year  of  king  Darius.  Then. 
1  under  the  vigorous  urgent  ministry  of  the  prophets, 
the  prince  and  people  were  encouraged  to  resume;  and 
an  appeal  from  their  enemies  to  the  king  produced  a 
royal  decree  eminently  favourable  to  them,  so  that  the 
temple  was  completed  about  the  year  B.C.  516.  The 
next  event  of  importance  was  the  arrival  of  new  colo 
nists  under  Ezra  the  scribe,  in  the  seventh  year  of 
king  Artaxerxes,  and  with  new  privileges  bestowed 
by  him.  Some  writers  date  this  B.C.  478.  because 
they  identify  the  king  with  him  whom  the  Creeks 
called  Xerxes:  but  in  general  he  has  been  identified 
with  the  Greek  Artaxerxes  I.,  and  in  this  case  the 
date  is  B.C.  457,  as  in  our  Knglish  Bibles.  Next  came 
Nehemiah.  the  cup-bearer  of  Artaxerxes,  in  the  twen 
tieth  year  of  his  reign.  B.C.  445,  and  by  his  liberality, 
self-denial,  and  persevering  wisdom,  the  walls  of  the  city 
were  built,  its  fortifications  completed,  its  worship  re 
stored  to  full  vigour  and  original  purity,  and  the  whole 
colony  established  on  as  firm  and  satisfactory  a  basis  as 
seems  to  have  been  possible  in  these  days  when  the 
outward  glory  of  the  theocracy  was  waning.  These 
two  last  dates  are  thrown  ten  years  earlier  by  a  few 
writers,  who  believe  that  a  miscalculation  in  the  com 
mon  chronology  has  given  that  number  of  years  too 
much  to  the  reign  of  Xerxes,  and  in  consequence  has 
thrown  the  accession  of  Artaxerxes  proportionally  too 
late. 

The  two  tribes,  or  people  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah, 
had  been  nearly  all  carried  away:  and  the  returning 
people  seem  to  have  been  chiefly  of  these  two  tribes,  so 
much  so  that  the  prevalent  name  for  the  nation  hence 
forward  was  Jews.  The  ten  tribes  perhaps  were  not  so 
completely  carried  away,  at  least  it  has  long  been  a 
prevailing  opinion  that  a  number  of  them  amalgamated 


CAPTIVITY 


CAPTIVITY 


with  the  heathen  nations  who  were  brought  into  the 
land  of  Israel,  and  so  formed  the  mongrel  race  of  Sama 
ritans  described  in  2  Ki.  xvii.  There  are  those,  how 
ever,  who  deny  that  there  was  old  Israelitish  blood  in  the 
Samaritans;  the  most  distinguished  of  these  in  our  day 
is  Hengstenberg.  At  any  rate,  the  ten  tribes  were 
carried  farther  off,  were  left  longer  in  captivity,  and 
were  more  heathenish  in  their  tendencies:  on  all  which 
accounts  they  were  likely  to  return  to  their  own  land 
in  much  smaller  numbers  than  the  tribes  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin.  Yet  we  find  the  sacrifices  at  the  return 
offered  expressly  fur  all  the  twelve  tribes,  Kzr.  viii.  35.  \Ve 
have  dwellers  in  Jerusalem  mentioned  from  among  the 
ten  tribes,  1  C'h.  ix.  1-3.  The  whole  number  who  came 
up  in  the  time  of  Cyrus  is  declared  both  by  E/.ra  and 
Nehcmiah  to  have  been  -l'J.:)i;o,  and  yet  the  particular 
families  as  rii unit  rated  by  Ezra  amount  to  only  1*1), SIS, 
bv  Xchemiah  to  oO,UDO;  from  which  the  inference  i.s 
not  unreasonable,  that  these  belonged  to  the  two  tribes 
and  the  Levites,  who.-e  g.-nealogie.-  hail  been  pi  rfectly 
preserved  at  Babylon,  so  that  any  deficiencies  for 
seventy  year.-  \veiv  not  ditlieult  to  >upply:  when  a.-  the 
remaining  l'J,0(>n  in-longed  to  the  ten  tribes,  who  were 
more  widely  and  longer  scattered,  so  as  to  lie  unable 
to  trace  the  particulars  of  their  lineage  .-alisfactorily. 
The  language  of  Jsaiah,  cli.  xi  12, 13, of  Jeremiah,  oh.  ill.  i*, 

\vi.  I.',;  x\xi.  r-20,  of  E/.ekiel,  oh.  xxx\  ii.  Hi,  of  Hosea,  oh. 
i.  lo,  11,  may  be  to  a  lar_;v  extent  symbolical,  yet 
seems  to  piv-suppose  a  literal  return  of  the  two  u'lvat 
divisions  of  the  children  of  Israel.  Tin-  lan^uaue  of 
Zechariah  also,  oh.  ix.  i::;  x.  <;,  \<>,  appears  to  speak  of 
thi.~  as  having  actually  happened.  In  the  New  Testa 
ment  we  read  of  the  entire  body  of  the  twelve  tribes 
as  still  subsiding  and  waiting  on  the  service  of  Cod, 
Ac.  xxvi.  7  ;  Ja.  i.  1.  And  though  search  has  been  made 
for  the  lost  ten  tribes,  from  age  to  age,  in  all  quarters 
of  the  globe,  tli.  re  i.>  no  trace  of  tin  in  any\\ln-re. 
That  many  mingled  amonur  the  heathen  is  verv  pro 
bable:  and  the  rest  appear  to  have  fallen  into  tin- 
rank.-  of  their  eoiintrviiieii.  after  the  eaptiutv  of  the 
whole  twelve  tribes  had  removed  the  cau-e  of  their 
melancholy  schism.  Of  course  among  the  returned 
.lews,  as  well  as  amoiiu'  the  much  larger  number  \\lio 
did  not  re-turn,  the  distinction  of  tribes  came  to  be 
more  and  more  lost  sight  of;  and  this  result  \\as 
reached  the  more  readily  and  the  sooner,  because  the 
tribes  did  not  d  \\vll  M-paratelv  and  have  their  distinct 
portions,  administrations,  and  interests,  a-  they  had 
during  their  earlier  settlement  in  the  land  of  Canaan. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  particularly  here  of  that 
which  falls  beyond  the  time  of  Scripture  history,  the 
second  and  more  awful  captivity  of  the  Jews  by  the 
Roman  power.  As  our  Lord  had  foretold,  the  very 
generation  who  rejected  him  and  put  him  to  death 
lived  to  see  their  national  existence  utterlv  ruined, 
their  city  and  their  temple  finally  destroyed.  Joseplms. 
a  contemporar\  and  eye-witness,  and  a  man  with  excel 
lent  opportunities  for  obtaining  information,  speaks  of 
1,100,000  as  having  perished  in  the  siege  of  Jerusa 
lem,  which  was  taken  by  Titus  A.I).  70.  and  the 
wretched  remnant  were  sold  for  slaves  till  the  market 
was  glutted,  and  the  words  of  Moses  seemed  literally 
verified,  "  The  Lord  shall  bring  thee  into  Egypt  again 
with  ships,  by  the  way  whereof  I  spake  unto  thee, 
thou  shalt  see  it  no  more  again:  and  there  ye  shall 
be  sold  unto  your  enemies  for  bondmen  and  bond 
women,  and  no  man  shall  buy  you,"  Do.  xxviii.  G.S.  Gra 


dually  the  severity  of  their  ixoman  masters  relaxed, 
and  the  Jews  of  Palestine  were  encouraged  to  revolt, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  false  Christ  who  named  himself 
Bar-Cochaba,  ''the  Son  of  the  Star,"  alluding  to  Ba 
laam's  prophecy,  Na.  xxiv.  ir.  But  the  emperor  Adrian 
destroyed  them  miserably,  forbade  them  to  come  near 
Jerusalem,  and  rebuilt  it  as  a  heathen  city,  calling  it 
•Elia,  after  one  of  his  own  names,  A.D,  135. 

The  cause  of  these  great  captivities  must  be  sought 
for  in  the  purpose  of  God,  which  he  had  made  known  to 
the  children  of  Israel  when  he  called  them  to  be  his 
people.  He  promised  the  land  of  Canaan  to  Abraham 
and  to  those  who  succeeded  him,  as  a  possession  for 
them  and  their  seed,  whose  God  lie  engaged  to  be. 
But  as  he  swore  in  his  wrath  that  the  generation  who 
came  out  of  Egypt  should  not  see  that  good  land  which 
lie  had  promised  to  their  fathers,  NH.  xiv  ,  because  thev 
were  in  truth  not  his  people,  whatever  profusion  thev 
might  make  of  being  his:  so  be  warned  two  successive 
generations  who  were  on  the  point  of  entering  and 
taking  possession,  that  the-  land  was  his.  and  that  they 
could  hold  it  by  no  other  tenure  than  the  covenant 
\\liichhehad  graciously  made  known  to  them,  while 
the  breach  of  the  covenant  must  be  followed  by  exile, 
I.e.xxvi.;  DC.  xxviii.  The  prophets  Hosea,  Amos,  .Micah. 
Isaiah,  as  well  as  tho.-e  who  lived  nearer  the  final 
catastrophe,  reminded  the  people  of  these  warnings, 
and  denounced  the  approach  of  unavoidable  ruin  to  the 
inhabitants  of  what  ought  to  have  been  the  Lord's  land. 
And  the  facts  of  the  lii.-tory  are  the  filling  up  of  that 
prophetic  sketch  which  .Moses  had  given  to  the  people 
from  the  beginning. 

Politically,  however,  there  were  other  causes  at  work, 
and  we  trace  the  u.^e  of  these  as  instruments  in  the 
hand  of  Cod,  though  his  overruling  providence  was 
unsuspected  by  the  great  actors  in  these  worldly  changes, 
[s.vo-7.  It  was  not  an  uncommon  practice  among  an 
cient  conquerors  to  remove  those  \\hom  thev  had  sub 
dued  to  new  seats  of  colonization:  for  the  despots  of 
those  ages  and  countries  were  reckless  of  human  life  and 
happiness,  and  they  were  not  like.lv  to  be  deterred  bv 
scruples  and  diiliculties  about  concerns  of  inferior  im 
portance.  Sometimes  thev  carried  oil'  the  picked  men 
of  \\arto  recruit  their  armies  in  distant  regions,  and 
by  this  contrivance  thev  at  the  >,-imc  time  broke  the 
military  power  of  the  nation  which  they  had  con 
quered.  Sometimes  thev  carried  oil  skilled  artisans  to 
fill  the  magnificent  capitals  which  they  had  built,  but. 
for  which  they  bad  not  found  inhabitants;  or,  thev 
carried  oil'  multitudes  of  unskilled  labourers,  whose 
lives  wen-  prodigally  spent  in  the  execution  of  great 
public  works.  Sometimes  tin  y  depopulated  entire  pro 
vinces,  transferring  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  one 
to  the  other,  thus  punishing  them  by  exile  from  their 
home,  and  making  them  feel  that  revolt  was  hopeless, 
vet  of  It-ring  them  the  means  of  earning  a  livelihood  in 
tlit;  new  country  and  new  circumstances  in  which  they 
found  themselves.  This  last  seuns  to  have  been  the 
case  with  the  ten  tribes,  aKi.  xvii.;  and  also  with  the 
two  tribes,  from  the  first  proposal  under  Sennacherib 
onwards  till  its  accomplishment  after  the  murder  of 
Gedaliah  the  Jewish  governor  of  the  remnant  left  in 
their  own  land,  -j.  Ki.  xviii.  :!i, :;.';  x\v.  n,  i-j, -j;,,-jii.  Only  by 
a  special  providence  the  land  of  Judah  was  left  empty 
through  these  seventy  years  of  captivity,  ready  to  be 
re-occupied  when  Israel  returned  to  favour  with  God. 

Once  more,  there  are  moral  purposes  which  we  can- 


CARBUNCLE 


278 


CARMEL 


not  fail  tu  trace  in  the  captivity.  God  at  first  ap 
pointed  Israel  to  dwell  alone  among  the  nations,  as  a 
little  reclaimed  territory,  while  the  great  world  on  every 
side  of  them  was  a  moral  waste.  As  often  as  they 
forgot  their  high  calling  and  mingled  themselves  among 
the  heathen  and  learned  their  works,  they  also  were 
.subjected  to  sull'erings  v,hieh  taught  them  to  return  to 
God.  And  one  of  the  severest  of  these,  just  before  the 
kingly  government  was  established  in  Israel,  when  the 
judges  were  proved  to  be  insuMicii  nt  for  ruling  the 
people,  and  when  the  worship  at  Shiloh  became  pol 
luted  and  was  violently  terminated,  is  called  the  "  cap 
tivity  of  the  land,"  Ju.  xviii.  :iO,  although  we  have  no 
reason  to  think  that  any  considerable  number  of  people 
were  exiled.  But  the  captivity  in  Babylon  waa  then-suit 
that  justly  befell  the  covenant  people  from  their  becoming 
assimilated  to  heathen  states,  whence  God  no  longer 
protected  them,  but  broke  them  up  and  left  them  to 
be  sucked  into  the  movements  of  the  u'l'eat  political 
whirlpools  of  Kgypt.  and  A.-syria.  and  Babylon,  which 
destroyed  the  independence  of  the  minor  states  in  the 
civilized  world.  The  land  of  Israel  became  involved  in 
the  fortunes  of  the  surrounding  lands,  when  it  was  no 
longer  a  focus  of  light,  in  some  respects  rather  a  focus 
of  corruption.  .But  afflictions  were  sanctified  to  many 
of  the  scattered  people,  and  they  became  a  leaven  to 
work  upon  the  masses  of  heathenism.  It  is  impossible 
to  say  with  any  certainty  how  they  were  treated  by 
their  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  conquerors.  The 
mere  mention  of  elders  of  the  people  among  the  cap 
tives  to  whom  Kzekiel  ministered  is  no  proof  that  the 
outward  organization  of  Jewish  law  and  government 
was  permitted  to  subsist,  though  this  is  the  tradition 
handed  down  to  us.  1'salm  cxxxvii.  might  rather 
favour  the  opinion  that  they  were  generally  ill-treated. 
Yet  the  books  of  Daniel,  Ezra,  Xehemiah,  and  Esther 
prove  that  individual  .lews  did  rise  to  high  distinc 
tion,  and  exercised  a  powerful  influence  over  the  hea 
then.  Probably  we  may  infer  that  their  condition 
as  a  whole  was  improving,  and  was  more  than  toler 
able,  when  (,'yrus  established  the  Persian  empire  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Babylonian,  from  the  fact  that  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  remained  in  the  coun 
tries  of  their  adoption  instead  of  returning  to  Judea. 
it  was  the  policy  of  Alexander  the  Great,  and  of 
his  successors  both  in  Syria  and  in  Egypt,  to  treat  the 
Jews  kindly  and  to  give  them  many  privileges.  This 
permanent  dispersion  of  so  large  a  part  of  the  Jewish 
people  through  Asia  and  Europe,  spread  some  know 
ledge  of  the  true  God  very  widely  among  the  heathen, 
and  paved  the  way  for  the  preaching  of  the  go.-pel  of 
Christ  to  all  nations,  as  we  observe  in  the  Xew  Testament 
throughout,  but  especially  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
It  was  thus  that  the  course  of  events  made  the  terri 
torial  arrangements  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation  pass 
gradually  into  those  very  different  arrangements  of  the 
Christian  dispensation.,  which  are  free  from  any  arti 
ficial  limitations  as  to  either  time  or  space,  [c.  C.  M.  ]>.] 
CARBUNCLE,  the  name  of  a  precious  gem,  which 
is  now  more  commonly  called  yarnet,  and  twice  found 
in  the  English  Bible  as  the  translation  of  rrnS>  Kx- 

xxviii.  17;  Eze.  xxviii.  13.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  if  such 
be  the  proper  rendering  of  the  original.  The  word  is 
obviously  derived  from  p-Q,  to  glitter,  to  //';/htc»,  and 

must  have  been  applied  to  some  gem  which  shed  the 
appearance  of  a  fiery  or  lightning  brightness.  Car- 


j  bunele,  which  means  literally  a  little  coal,  undoubtedly 

|  has  somewhat  of  this  appearance,  being  of  a  bright 
red,  and  when  held  to  the  sun  resembles  a  piece  of 
burning  charcoal.  It  may  be  regarded,  therefore,  as 
perfectly  probable  that  this  was  the  gem  referred  to: 
hut  it  is  impossible  to  speak  with  certainty  on  tin- 
subject.  In  Ex.  xxviii.  17,  the  Septuagint,  Vulgate, 
and  Josephus  all  have  smnrayclfiK,  or  emerald,  where 
carbuncle  is  in  the  English  Bible;  but  this  seems  to 
lie  not  so  properly  a  different  translation  of  the  ori^in;d 
term,  as  a  transposition  of  the  two  terms  which  follow 
each  other — emerald  and  carlnmcle,  instead  of  car 
buncle  and  emerald.  For  at  Eze.  xxviii.  1/i.  where  the 
two  terms  agtiin  occur  in  succession,  the  Septuagint 
follows  the  reverse  order  and  corresponds  with  tin- 
English  version.  There  is,  at  all  events,  no  need  for 
altering  the  common  rendering  in  either  case  ;  but  wo 
may  add  Braun  has  endeavoured  to  prove  that  Ihe 
emerald  is  the  gem  meant  (DcVest.  Siicreclott.);  and  AYi- 
ner  and  Gesenius  both  lean  to  his  opinion. 

CARCHE'MISH,  a  place  of  considerable  importance 
on  the  Euphrates,  Je.  xlvi. -j;  L'(.  h.  xxxv.  L>O.  The  earliest 
mention  of  it  is  in  Is.  x.  {>,  in  an  enumeration  of  the 
cities  conquered  by  the  Assyrians.  It  next  appears  as 
the  scene  of  a  battle  between  Pharaoh  Xecho  king  of 
Egypt,  and  the  Babylonians,  when  the  latter  were  de 
feated;  Jo^iah  king  of  Judah.  who  attempted  to  op 
pose  Xecho's  march,  having  also  been  slain,  -'Ch.xxxv.  ^n-ji 

:   Four  years  afterwards,    however.    Pharaoh  Xecho  w;i.- 

i  here  discomfited  by  X'ebuchadnezzar  king  of  Babylon, 
JL-.  xh-i.  2.  The  site  of  Carchemish  is  generally  placed 
near  the  junction  of  the  Chahoras  of  the  Greek  geo-r.-i - 

!  pliers,  the  Chebar  of   the  Israelitish  captivity,  :iKi.  xviii. 

[  11;  K-/.C.  i.  1,  with  the  Euphrates.  I  Fere  was  tin;  Circesium 
of  the  classical  writers.  The  place  is  still  known  to  the 
Bedouins  by  the  name  of  Carkeseea  (Layard,  Nineveh  and 
liabylon,  p.  •_':;;).  This  locality,  although  once  of  so  much 
importance,  is  now  utterly  waste.  "  From  its  mouth 
to  its  source,  from  Carchemish  to  1  fas- al-ain.  there  is  now 
no  single  permanent  habitation  on  the  Kliabour.  Its 
rich  meadows  and  its  deserted  ruins  are  alike  become 
the  encamping  places  of  the  wandering  Arab"  (Layard. 
Ibid.  p.  ist).  Dr.  Ilinks  however  maintains  from  his 
reading  of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  that  the  true  site 

!  of  Carchemish  is  at  or  near  Bir,  en  the  opposite  bank 
of  the  Euphrates,  and  about  20t>  miles  higher  up  than 
it  is  generally  thought  to  be  (Journal  <>f  Sac.  Lit.  July. 
i-~.il,  p.  u>M.  It  would  he  premature  to  pronounce  a 

!  judgment  on  the  arguments  adduced  in  support  of  this 
view  while  any  doubts  remain  as  to  the  correctness  of 
the  readings  from  the  monuments.  [u.  jr.] 

CAR'MEL  [the  /><(>•/<•,  or  vincijurd-Ukc  f/ardcn].    The 

,  word  frequently  occurs  as  an  appellative,  not  as  a 
proper  name,  and  is  usually  rendered  by  "  fruitful 
field,"  or  something  of  like  import,  Is.  xxix.  17 ;  xxxii.  ir, ; 
Je.  ii.  7,&c.  But  as  a  proper  name  it  is  applied  first  and 
chiefly  to  a  mountain  and  promontory  in  the  tribe  of 
Asher,  and  also  to  a  town  in  the  tribe  of  Judah. 

1.  MOUNT  CAiorKL,  more  properly  an  elevated  ridge 
than  a  mountain  in  the  ordinaiy  sense,  forms  one  of 
the  more  striking  and  attractive  features  in  central 
Palestine.  It  is  altogether  fully  twelve  miles  long,  is 
sometimes  called  eighteen,  and  on  the  side  toward 
the  sea  juts  out  into  a  bluff  promontory  or  head 
land,  the  only  thing  that  deserves  the  name  on  the  sea 
coast  of  Palestine.  This  headland  lies  a  few  miles  to 
the  south  of  Ptolemais  or  Acre.  It  is  in  various  parts  of 


CARMEL 


270 


CASSIA 


quite  easy  ascent  from  the  sea.  and  on  that  side  is  only 
about  600  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea;  as  it  stretches 
toward  the  south-east  it  rises  higher,  and  toward  the 
eastern  extremity  it  reaches  an.  elevation  of  about  1000 
feet.  Of  its  general  aspect  Stanley  says  (Sinai  and  Pa 
lestine,  p.  j.c'K  "  Its  name  is  certainly  taken  from  its  gar 
den-like  appearance,  and  which,  as  it  has  no  peculiarity 
of  shape,  is  its  chief  distinction.  By  this,  its  pro 
tracted  range,  bounding  the  whole  of  the  southern 
corner  of  the  great  plain  [viz.  of  Esdraelon],  is  marked 
out  from  the  surrounding  scenery.  Uocky  dulls,  with 
deep  jungles  of  copse,  are  found  there  alone  in  J'aLs- 
tine.  And  though  to  European  eyes  it  presents  a 
forest  beauty  only  of  an  inferior  order,  there  is  no 
wonder  that  to  an  Israelite  it  seemed,  '  the  park'  of  his 
country;  that  the  tresses  of  the  brides'  head  should  be 
compared  to  its  woods:  that  its  ornaments  should  be 
regarded  as  the  type  of  natural  beauty;  that  the  wither 
ing  of  its  fruits  should  be  considered  as  the  type  of 
natural  desolation,"  (_'a  vii  5;  Is.  xxxv.  2;  Am.  i. ->. 

Toward  the  south  Camiel  >l  pes  gradually  down  into 
tin:  hill;  of  Samaria  and  the  plain  of  Sharon,  in  which 
stood  tlie  ;p.neient  (_';esarea.  In  «ane  parts  there  are 
prettv  dee])  ravines;  but  the  more  rugged,  as  well  as 
the  loftier  part  of  the  ranuv  is  toward  the  north-east: 
and  it  is  with  that  part  that  tradition  associate,  the 
memorable  scene  of  conflict  bet\\  eeii  Elijah  and  the 
prophets  of  Baal,  \>>  -idc  a  spring  whieh  is  said  to  be 
perennial,  and  miuht  therefore  have  been  still  tlowinj 
even  in  a  season  of  peculiar  drought.  It  is  the  ex 
treme  eastern  point  of  the  range,  where  the  last  \ie\\  of 
tlie  ~ea  is  obtained  :  and  there,  it  is  said,  the  I  >ru<es  who 
reside  ill  the  neighbouring  villages  as-eniMe  once  a 
year  to  ott'.-r  sacrifice,  i  For  the  character  of  the  scene 
itself,  fa  EI.I.IAH.I  The  foiv-t  -  of  C;,rni'-!.  >pok>-n  of 
in  ancient  ]iro|ihecy,  have  disappeared  :  so  also  its 
vinevards,  if  it  ever  had  anv  ;  and  tin  mountain  can 
onlv  be  eh:iraeteri/.ed  now  as  a  fine  pasture  field.  It 
could  never  have  been  very  thickly  inhabited,  as  it 
must  alwavs  have  been  a  pastoral  district.  There  ;ir' 
to  be  seen  tlie  ruins  of  several  villages  on  it,  none  of 
them  apparently  indicative  of  large  or  numerous  build-  1 
ings,  and  ten  or  twelve  villages  are  still  found  within 
its  precincts.  The  most  remarkable  thing  now.  and  for 
many  generations  connected  with  it.  is  the  convent,  : 
tlie  original  seat  of  the  ban-footed  monks,  whose  cstab-  : 
lishmeiits  from  the  thirteenth  century  began  to  spread 
over  Europe.  The  traditions  of  the  Latin  church 
connect  this  order  with  Klijah,  but  without  the  slightest 
foundation  in  history.  The  real  founder  of  the  eon- 
vent  was  Bertholdt,  a  ( 'alabrian.  who  went  to  the  Holy 
Land  as  a  crusader  in  the  twelfth  ceiiturv.  and  at  the 
traditional  abode  of  Klijah  founded  a  community  of 
hermits.  In  I-!.")!'  St.  Louis  erected  a  convent  for  the 
order  in  Paris,  which  tended  considerably  to  increase 
its  popularity  in  France  and  (lermany:  hut  lie  was  nut, 
as  is  sometimes  stated,  its  proper  founder.  The  o  in 
vent  on  Carnul  is  still  kept  up,  ami  occupied  by  about 
twenty  Latin  monks.  At  the  siege  of  Acre  Napoleon 
used  it  as  an  hospital. 

How  far  Elijah  might  be  wont  to  resort  to  Mount 
Carmel,  or  whether  he  miu'ht  ever  have  had  a  place  of 
residence  there,  is  altogether  doubtful.      It  is  probable 
that,  beside  the  sacrificial  conflict  with  the  priests  of 
Baal,  the  severe  action  of  the  prophet  in  calling  down  ' 
fire  from  heaven  to  consume  successive  companies  of  ; 
troops  sent  by  the  king   of  Israel  to   apprehend  him, 


took  place  oil  Carmel.  For  the  first  company  is  said 
to  have  found  him  sitting  on  the  top — not  ''  of  a  hill," 
as  in  the  English  Bible,  but  of  "the  mount,"  mean 
ing  probably  that  mount  with  which  he  had  been  pre 
viously  associated  as  a  man  of  Cod,  to  which  he  might 
be  known  at  least  occasionally  to  resort,  JKi  i  11.  That 
Elisha  was  in  the  habit  of  sojourning  on  Carmel  is 
plain  from  the  affecting  narrative  of  the  Shunammite. 
coupled  with  other  notices  in  his  history.  Immedi 
ately  after  the  ascent  of  Elijah  he  went  to  Mount  Carmel, 
and  when  the  Shunammite  required  his  presence  for  the 
recovery  of  her  child,  it  was  to  Carmel  that  she  repaired, 
i  Ki.  ii. -.V. ;  iv.  2:>.  But  even  in  his  case  these  were  ap 
parently  but  occasional  visits,  though  it  is  by  no  means 
improbable  (considering  the  wonderful  and  stirring- 
events  to  which  Carmel  had  borne  witness  in  the  day-; 
of  Elijah)  that  one  of  the  schools  of  the  prophets  may 
in  Elisha's  time  have  had  its  settlement  there.  But 
ancient  history  knows  nothing  of  an  order  of  religious 
recluses  connected  with  Carmel  as  their  proper  home. 

2.  CAKMKI,.  as  a  city,  was  situated  in  the  mountain 
district  of  Judah,  and  was  the  residence  of  the  churlish 
Nabal.  whose  wife  Abigail  \\as  afterwards  espoused  bv 
David.  Jos.  \v .;,.-,;  isi  \x\  •>,  in;  xxvii.  3.  It  is  in  all  proba 
bility  the  same  Carmel  at  \\hich  Saul  set  up  a  place 
after  his  victory  over  Amalek,  lSa.xv.12.  The  ruins  of 
the  ['lace  still  exist,  and  have  been  found  about  ten 
mile-;  south-east  from  Hebron,  bearing  the  name  of 
A'urii/i/l.  They  are  of  considerable  extent,  and  among 
them  are  the  remains  of  a  cattle  of  great  strength. 
In  the  time  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome  it  was  the  seat 
of  a  lo'inan  garrison,  but  it  makes  no  figure  in  Bible 
history. 

CAR  MI  [cine-tlrtsscr].  1.  The  father  of  the  unhappy 
Achan  who  troubled  Israel,  Jos.  vii.  1, is.  It  is  probably 
the  same  person  who  is  meant  in  1  Ch.  iv.  ],  and 
n. lined  among  the  sons  of  Judah — intending  his  re 
inoter  as  well  as  more  immediate  offspring.  2.  A 
son  of  Reuben,  and  the  head  of  the  Reuhinite  family 
called  Carmites.  (ir  xlvi.  1);  Ex.  vi.  14  ;  1  Ch.  v.3. 

CAR'PUS,  an  early  believer  at  Troas.  with  whom 
St.  Paul  appears  to  have  been  on  tt  rnis  of  intimate 
fellowship,  since  he  left  with  him  a  cloak  and  par<  h- 
meiits;  but  of  whom  nothing  else  is  known,  ^'li.  iv.  13. 

CARTS.     .s<  \VAGOX.S. 

CASLU'HIM  (Sept.  X.a.fffj.wt>i(i/j),  mentioned  in 
(!e.  x.  11,  among  the  descendants  of  Mi/raim.  in  other 
Words,  as  a  branch  of  the  lv_ryptian  race.  Bochart  has 
endeavoured  to  identify  them  with  the  Colchians,  who, 
accord inu'  to  Herodotus,  wen-  of  Egyptian  origin 
(1'lialei;.  iv.:;i).  Bochart  has  brought  all  the  available 
learning-  to  bear  upon  the  subject,  and  has  rendered 
the  opinion  he  advocates  probable;  but  the  materials 
are  too  few  to  enable  us  to  arrive  at  certainty:  and  as 
the  Casluhim  take  no  place  in  sacred  history,  nothing 
depends  on  the  precise  opinion  that  may  be  entertained 
regarding  them,  (u-senius  concurs  in  Bochart's  view. 

CASSIA  (r,"*p,  /ciild'.i/i).     One  of  the  commodities  in 

which  the  Tyrian  merchants  traded,  and  one  of  the  in 
gredients  vised  in  tin.- preparation  of  "the  holy  anointing 
oil,'' Kx.  xvx.i'i;  Kzu  xxvii.  r.i.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
the  word  is  rightly  translated  cassia,  as  well  as  the 
Icctztnth  (fViy'Xrj)  of  Ps.  xlv.  S,  and  we  mav  add  of 
Job  xlii.  14. 

The  cassia  known  to  the  Hebrews  was  one  of  the 
productions  now  familiar  to  commerce  as  casxia  liijnca, 


CASTOR    ANT)    POLU'X 


C.VVKS 


which,  according  t<>  1  »r.  Wight,  is  obtained  from  vari- 
ous  species  cf  tlio  genus  Cinnamomum.  (>Vc  innltr 
CINNAMON. i  hike  thf  cinnamon  of  the  shops,  it  is  the 
inner  bark  of  the  tree  which  yields  it,  stripped  off  and 
dried.  It  may  be  as  well  to  mention  that  cassia  bark 
and  cassia  buds  are  not  obtainable  fruni  the  botanical 


genus  Cassia.  Tin-  leaves  and  pods  of  this  last,  or  at 
least  of  its  two  specie-;  ( '<i?tin  lanccolatx,  and  C.  oboralu, 
yield  the  less  popular  drug  known  as  senna. 

P>oth  as  an  unguent  for  the  person,  and  as  one  of 
the  perfumes  thrown  on  the  funeral  pile,  cassia  as  well 
as  cinnamon  was  largely  used  by  the  "Romans.  Says 
Martial  to  the  fop  — 

"Quod  heinper  casiaque,  ciiinamoqiU', 
I-'ragras — 

Hides  no.-i,  l.Wacim:,  ml  nliiiite*: 
M;ilo,  quam  Uciu'  nli-ru,  nil  olero." 

Fpigr.  vi.  55. 

And  in  tile  following  enumeration  of  funereal  per 
fumes,  the  myrrh,  the  incense,  the  cassia,  and  the  cin 
namon  remind  us  of  scriptural  combinations  : — 

'•rn<,'iieiita,  et  c.isins.  et  ok'iit.um  fmieva  myiTlmm. 
Thnvaque  de  niedio  semicreniata  ru^o, 
Kt  qua;  de  Stygio  rapuisti  ciimama  Irctu, 
Impvobe  de  turpi,  Zoile,  n>dde  sinu."         Epiin-.  xi.  5t. 
(Seualso  Porsius,  S:it.  vi.:;<i).  fj.  H.] 

CASTOR  AND  POLLUX,  the  Dioscuri  of  hea 
then  mythology,  the  fabled  twin  sons  of  Jupiter  and 
Leda.  They  were  regarded  as  the  kind  of  protect 
ing  genii  of  mariners,  ami  their  %ures  were  in  con 
sequence  frequently  affixed  to  vessels  as  a  propitious 
sign.  It  is  simply  in  this  use  and  application  that 
they  occur  in  Scripture;  the  ship  in  which  Paul  sailed 
from  Malta  had  for  its  sign  Castor  and  Pollux, 
Ac.  xxviii.  11;  compare  also  Heir.  Car.  i.  3,  \>  •  iv.  8.  31 ;  Xen.  Syinb. 


ill.  2!). 

CATERPILLAR 


The 


former  term  is  derived  from  S^-,  chased,  to  consume, 


term  "  cater])illar"  is  used  for  the  larval  stage  of  but 
terflies,  moths,  and  sawflies  ;  and  though  some  of  these 
are  sufficiently  gregarious  in  their  habits  to  strip  shrubs 
in  gardens  of  their  leaves,  yet  their  devastations,  espe 
cially  in  a  sub-tropical  climate,  where  vegetation  is 
vigorous  and  rapid,  are  rarely  of  much  importance. 
The  locust  tribe,  on  the  other  hand,  have  always  been 
regarded  with  dread  and  dismay  in  the  East;  generally 
appearing  in  countless  hosts,  and  denuding  the  dis 
tricts  on  which  they  alight  of  every  green  thing. 

The  Sept.  usually  render  <-li<i»il  by  (Ipovxos,  a  word 
of  like  etymological  significance,  which  all  antiquity 
concurs  in  representing  as  the  name  of  some  species  or 
stagi)  of  i/i-i///ii.-<:  perhaps  the  wingless  larva  stage  of  the 
common  locust,  but  not  confined  to  this  sense.  "We 
must  always  bear  in  mind  that  the  precision  of  modern 
science  was  unknown  in  early  times,  and  it  would  be 
absurd  to  look  for  greater  exactitude  than  even  now 
prevails  among  men  in  general,  llovv  many  even  among 
well-educated  persons  can  now  distinguish  one  species 
of  insect  from,  another'  How  many  can  tell  the  lead 
ing  difference  between  a  bee  and  a  svrphus.  between  a 
humble-bee  and  a  blue- bottle  ' 

The  word  occurs  only  in  a  few,  vi/,.  1  Ki.  viii.  '.\~  ; 
•J  Ch.  vi.  28;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  fii;  Is.  xxxiii.  4;  Joeli.  4;  ii.  2">. 
The  attributes  and  associations  of  the  animal  intended, 
confirm  its  identification  with  some  sort  of  locust. 

For  p^i,  yclc/c,  see  CANKF.KWOKM.  [i>.  u.  c.] 

CATTLE.     See  BITLI,. 

CAUL  occurs  in  two  senses  in  the  English  Jiible. 
In  Is.  iii.  IS,  it  is  used  of  a,  female  head-dress,  a  sort 
of  net-work  worn  by  way  of  ornament.  P.ut  in  Ho. 

j  xiii.  8,  where  the  Lord  represents  himself  as  ^'oinu'  to 
meet  Ephraim  like  a  hear  robbed  of  her  \vhe]ps,  ami 
says  "  I  will  rend  the  caul  of  their  heart,"  it  means 
the  praecordium,  or  membranous  vessel  that  contains 
the  heart.  In  the  original  the  words  are  quite  diffe 
rent  in  the  two  cases. 

CAVES.  It  is  one  of  the  distinguishing  features 
of  the  earlier  historical  records  of  Scripture,  the  fre 
quent  mention  that  occurs  in  them  of  caves,  and  the 
important  ends  that  were  sometimes  served  by  them 
in  the  history  of  Cod's  people.  When  Lot  was  obliged 
to  escape  for  his  life  from  the  vengeance  that  fell  upon 
Sodom,  it  was  in  a  cave  that  he  and  his  daughters 
found  a  temporary  refuge,  GO .  xix.so.  The  cave  of 
Machpelah  became  through  Abraham's  choice  and 
purchase  the  common  sepulchre  of  himself  and  his  im- 

'  mediate  relatives — whence  also  the  practice  of  burying 
in  caves  naturally  acquired  a  kind  of  sacred  sanction 
among  the  covenant-people,  and  appears  to  have  been 
preferred  to  other  places  when  circumstances  were  not 
unfavourable  to  its  adoption.  So  commonly  was  this 
the  case,  that  the  imagery  of  certain  parts  of  Scripture 

i  can  be  properly  explained  only  by  a  reference  to  the 
practice  of  turning  the  caves  of  the  earth  into  burying 
vaults.  In  particular,  the  graphic  and  sublime  de 
lineation  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  respecting  the  descent 
of  the  king  of  Babylon  into  the  chambers  of  the  dead, 
eh.  xiv .,  is  of  this  description.  Babylon  herself  is  there 
personified  in  her  monarch,  who  is  represented  as  cast 
down  by  the  mighty  power  of  God  from  his  towering 
elevation,  and  sent  as  a  humbled  captive  into  the 
midst  of  the  slain,  who  raise  over  him  the  shout  of  ex 
ultation  as  at  last  brought  down  among  themselves. 
It  is,  of  course,  an  ideal  scene,  but  the  drapery  in 


which  it  is  clothed  was  evidently  suggested  by  the  prac 
tice  of  burying  in  caves,  where  the  dead  were  laid  in 
rows  along  the  ledges  of  the  rock — or,  as  it  was  after- 
wan  Is  improved  upon  by  the  richer  and  more  princely 
classes  of  the  people,  who  hewed  out  for  themselves 
sepulchres  in  the  rock,  adorning  them  with  fretted 
roofs  and  stately  pillars,  and  furnishing  them  with 
cells  on  either  side  for  the  remains  of  the  departed. 
(See  Lowth,  De  Sac.  Poesi  Hub.  rrselec.  vii.)  In  tile  glowing 
description  of  Isaiah,  it  is  as  if  all  these  tenants  of 
the  sepulchral  vaults  had  at  once  started  from  their 
slumber,  and  sent  forth  out  of  their  stony  casements 
the  chorus  of  a  common  rejoicing! 

Hut  the  services  fur  which  caves  were  often  made 
available  to  the  living  were  of  irivater  interest  and  im 
portance  than  thust-  which  they  rendered  to  the  dead. 
In  times  of  oppression  and  cruel  bondage  the  Israelites 
frequently  sought  refuge  in  the  caves  of  the  earth. 
Ju.  vi.  2;1  Sa.  xiii.  (>;1  Ki.  xviii.  4;  aildduring  the  most  memor 
able  period  of  domestic  persecution,  when  for  nianv 
tedious  years  the  sun  of  .less.-  was  obliged  to  seek  for 
places  of  r.treat  and  safety  from  the  relentless  jca'ousv 
and  hatred  of  Saul,  it  was  often  to  the  dark  and  capa 
cious  recesses  of  the  caves  in  the  southern  territory  of 
.ludah  that  lie  owed  the  means  of  his  preservation. 
He  went  and  hid  himself  in  the  cave  of  Adullam. 
is.i.xxii.i;  and  most  probably  there,  as  that  was  em 
phatically  //,,  cave  to  \\hidi  he  betook,  though  others 
also  were  occasionally  resorted  to,  he  indited  the  pa 
thetic  and  instructive  lyric  which  forms  I'.-alm  cxlii.. 
in  which,  among  other  deep-toned  utterances  of  soul, 
he  says,  "  I  looked  on  my  right  hand  ami  beheld, 
but  there  was  no  man  that  would  know  me  :  refuse 
tailed  me;  no  man  cared  for  mv  .soul.  I  cried  unto  thee, 
<*  Lord  ;  J  said,  Thou  art  mv  refuse,  and  mv  portion 
in  the  land  of  the  living."  In  a  cave  somewhat  far 
ther  ott'.  in  the  wilderness  of  Kn-edi.  near  the  shores  of 
the  Dead  Sea.  l>avid  escaped  the  purMiit  of  Saul  onlv 
by  remaining  bid  with  his  men  in  the  side-,  of  the 
cave,  while  Saul  came  into  its  month  without  perceiv 
ing  them,  isu.  xxiv.  i.  Dr.  Robinson  savs  of  the  whole 
of  that  region,  that  "the  country  i-  full  of  caverns, 
which  might  then  serve  as  lurking  places  for  J)avid 
and  his  men,  as  they  do  for  outlaws  in  the  present  day" 
(liL">c;uvlios, ii  p.  •_>";>.  And  of  one  of  these  caverns  in  the 
district  of  Lngedi.  Captain  L\  nch  of  the  American  ex 
pedition  remarks,  that  it  was  "large  enough  to  contain 
thirty  men."  and  that  "  it  has  a  lonur,  low.  narrow 
gallery,  runnini:  from  one  side,  which  would  be  invisi- 
l»le  when  the  sun  does  not  shine  through  the  en 
trance"  (p.  -v.i  p..>sibly  the  very  gallery  on  \\hich 
David  and  his  little  band  lay  concealed  when  Saul 
presented  himself  in  the  mouth  of  the  cavern.  Hut  far 
larger  caves  exist  at  no  great  distance  from  the  same 
region;  for  near  the  south-west  extremity  of  the  Dead 
Sea.  in  the  salt  mountain  of  Khasm  I'sdum.  Dr.  Ro 
binson  gives  the  following  account  of  a  remarkable 
cavern,  of  which,  he  says,  the  Arabs  had  frequently 
spoken:  -"  It  is  on  a  level  with  the  ground,  beneath  a 
precipice  of  salt.  The  mouth  is  of  an  irregular  form, 
ten  or  twelve  feet  high,  and  about  the  same  in  breadth. 
Here  we  stopped  forty  minutes  in  order  to  examine  the 
interior  of  the  cavern.  This  soon  becomes  merely  a 
small  irregular  gallery  or  fissure  in  the  rock,  with  a  water 
course  in  the  bottom,  in  which  water  was  still  in  some 
places  trickling.  \Ve  followed  this  gallery  with  lights. 
and  with  some  difficulty,  for  .'!<lo  or  400  feet,  into  the 


CEPA  11 

heart  of  the  mountain,  to  a  point  where  it  branches  oil' 
into  two  smaller  lissures,  and  then  returned"  (ii.  p.  485). 
But  these  are  only  specimens  of  what  is  to  be  found 
in  many  parts  of  Palestine  and  its  immediate  neigh 
bourhood.  In  various  places,  particularly  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Hebron  and  other  pastoral  places,  the 
peasants  often  live  for  a  considerable  part  of  the  year 
in  caves:  and  in  times  of  war — such  as  those  of  \\hich 
a  detailed  account  is  given  by  Josephus — the  caves  in 
different  parts  of  the  country  were  often  occupied  bv 
parties  of  soldiers,  and  fortified. 

The  ascetic  tendency  which  in  the  Essenes  had  ob 
tained  a  footing  in  the  southern  parts  of  Palestine  be 
fore  the  gospel  age,  and  which  after  the  second  century 
began  to  develope  itself  powerfully  throughout  the  Kast 
in  connection  with  Christianity,  naturally  disposed 
many  to  take  up  their  abode  in  caves,  as  one  of  the 
mo.-t  approved  modes  of  forsaking  the  world,  and 
giving  themselves  up  to  a  R tired  and  contemplative 
life.  Then  grottoes,  or  caves,  partly  of  a  natural  and 
partly  of  an  artificial  description,  came  to  be  in  pecu 
liar  \eguo.  and  were  looked  upon  as  deriving  a  cer 
tain  degree  of  sanctity  from  their  subterranean  posi 
tion.  The  pa-Mon  in  this  line  even  giv\\  to  such  a 
height,  that  it  led  to  a  general  traditional  disfigurement 
of  the  facts  of  gospel  historx.  as  was  long  ago  remarked 
by  .Maundrell,  in  his  Jmi  nui/  fmni  A/<JIJH>  to  Jerusalem 
inl''>'.'7.  He  .-ays.  when  speaking  of  the  transfigura 
tion,  "  1  cannot  forbear  to  mention  in  this  place  an  ob 
servation,  which  is  very  obvious  to  all  that  visit  the 
Holy  Land,  viz.  that  almost  all  pa-sages  and  historie- 
related  in  the  gospel,  are  represented  by  them  that 
undertake  to  -how  where  everything  was  done  as 
having  been  done  most  of  them  in  grottoes;  and  tint! 
even  in  such  cases  where  the  condition  and  the  circum 
stances  of  the  actions  themselves  seem  to  recpiire  places 
of  another  nature.  Thus,  if  you  would  see  the  place 
where  St.  Ann  was  delivered  of  the  blessed  Virgin,  vou 
are  carried  to  a  grotto;  if  the  place  of  the  annunciation, 
it  is  also  a  grotto;  if  the  place  where  the  blessed 
Virgin  saluted  Kli/.abeth;  if  that  of  the  P.aptist's  or  of 
our  blej.se. |  Lord's  nativity:  if  that  of  the  agony,  or  that 
ot  St.  IVt.r's  repentance,  or  that  win-re  the  apostles 
made  the  creed,  or  this  of  the  transfiguration,  all  these 
places  are  also  grottoes;  and.  in  a  word,  wherever  you 
go,  you  rind  almost  everything  is  represented  as  done 
underground.  Certainly  grottoes  were  anciently  held 
in  great  esteem,  or  else  th.-v  could  never  have  been 
assigned,  in  .-pite  of  all  probability,  as  the  places  in 
which  were  done  so  many  various  actions.'1 

CEDAR.     The    cedar    (71^.    ere:)    belongs    to    the 

natural  order  Conifer*.  To  that  noble  division  must 
be  assigned  some  of  the  most  imperial  forms  in  the 
vegetable  kingdom  the  ,1  )w/ra/v«,  or  Norfolk  Island 
pine,  attaining  an  altitude  of  -joo  feet,  and  the  ll'i /////_'/- 
toiua.  on  the  mountains  of  ( 'alifornia.  of  which  speci 
mens  are  -till  standing  :ioO  feet  in  height  and  50  in 
circumference.  The  habits  of  tin-  order  are  generally 
hardy;  from  their  pine  forests  our  Scandinavian  kindred 
derive  a  large  proportion  of  such  wealth  as  commerce 
brings  them,  and  both  the  imported  larch  and  the  in 
digenous  Scotch  iir  redeem  from  sterility  many  thou 
sands  of  acres  in  the  less  genial  regions  of  our  own 
Jiritish  isles. 

When  a  .-eedling  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  (Culrms 
Lilian  i'l  atii.-cts  the  spire  like  or  pyramidal  form,  like 

36 


('EDAU 


must  oi'  its  kindred,  and  consequently  the  bole  is  usually 
straight  and  erect.  But  when  it  lias  reached  maturity 
"tlio  leading  shoot  becomes  greatly  diminished,  or 
entirely  ceases  to  LITOW  ;  at  the  same  time  the  lateral 


[153.]       Cedar  of  Lebanon— CwZrtts  l.ih'mi. 

hranehes  increase  in  size  and  length,  so  as  at  last  to 
cover  a  space  whose  diameter  is  often  much  greater 
than  the  height  of  the  tree  itself."  It  is  then  a  wide- 
spreading  tree  with  a  flattened  pyramidal  summit,  and 
with  horizontal  branches,  usually  disposed  in  so  many 
tiers  or  stages  (Sclby's  l-'orost  Trees,  p.  w).  As  its  leaves 
remain  two  years  on  the  branches,  and  as  every  spring 
contributes  a  fresh  supply,  it  is  an  evergreen — in  this 
resembling  other  members  of  the  tir  family,  which,  the 
larches  excepted.  retain  the  same  suit  for  a  year  or 
upwards,  and  drop  the  old  foliage  so  gradually  as  to 
render  the  "fall  of  the  leaf  "  in  their  case  imperceptible. 
( 'edars  still  grow  on  the  raii'^e  of  Lebanon,  as  well  as 
on  the  Taurus  chain  in  Asia  Minor.  There  is  one  group 
on  the  Lebanon,  not  far  from  Tripoli,  to  which  almost 
every  tourist  pays  a  pilgrimage.  In  1S:>:>  Lamar  tine  thus 
describes  them:-—"  NVe  alighted,  and  sat  down  under  a 
rock  to  contemplate  them.  These  trees  are  the  most 
renowned  natural  monuments  in  the  universe  ;  religion, 
poetry,  and  history  have  all  equally  celebrated  them. 
The  Arabs  of  all  sects  retain  a  traditional  veneration 
for  these  trees.  They  attribute  to  them  not  only  a 
vegetative  power  which  enables  them  to  live  eternally, 
but  also  an  intelligence  wbii-h  causes  them  to  manifest 
signs  of  wisdom  and  foresight,  similar  to  those  of  reason 
and  instinct  in  man.  They  are  said  to  understand  the 
changes  of  seasons  ;  they  stir  their  vast  branches  as  if 
they  were  limbs;  they  spread  out  or  contract  their 
boughs,  inclining  them  towards  heaven  or  towards 
earth,  according  as  the  snow  prepares  to  fall  or  to  melt ! 
....  Every  year,  in  the  month  of  June,  the  in 
habitants  of  Beschierai,  of  Eden,  of  Kanobin,  and  the 
other  neighbouring  valleys  and  villages,  climb  up  to 
these  cedars,  and  celebrate  mass  at  their  feet.  How 


many  prayers  have  resounded  under  these  branches, 
and  what  more  beautiful  canopy  for  worship  can  exist !  " 
At  this  spot  there  arc  some  hundreds  of  smaller  cedars, 
:  but  the  ten  or  twelve  patriarchs  are  pre-eminent.  It 
has  been  remarked  that  they  are  all  much  fun-owed  by 
lightning,  which  seems  to  strike*  them  frequently;  and 
this  will  at  once  remind  the  reader  of  1's.  xxix.  ;"», 
where  it  is  e\pn-ssly  said.  ''The  voice  of  the  Lord 
breaketh  the  cedars:  yea,  the  Lord  bivaketh  the  cedars 
of  Lebanon."  To  J  )r.  Graham,  now  of  Bonn,  we  are 
indebted  for  the  following  measurements  of  the  twelve 
largest  cedars  on  Lebanon:  The  circumferences  of  the 
trunk  at  the  base  he  found  to  be  respectively  •]()  feet. 

largest  having  thus  a  circumference  of  \1  feet,  or  a 
diameter  of  nearly  1<>  feet  (Graham's  Jordan  and  the  Rhine, 
l>.  •_'(;).  They  LTI-OW  at  an  elevation  of  about  6000  feet 
above  the  sea,  and  where  for  a  long  period  of  every 
year  they  are  surrounded  by  snow.  This  lofty  eleva 
tion  enables  them  to  be  thoroughly  at  home  on  the 
ordinal-}  level  of  higher  latitudes. 

For  nearly  '-'on  years  the  cedar  has  been  naturalized 
in  Great  Britain,  and  thrives  as  well  in  English  parks 
as  on  its  native  mountain.  At  Chelsea  there  are  still 
standing  two  cedars  which  were  planted  in  the  Botanic 
Garden  there  in  .1iis:j.  but  which  being  then  three  feet 
high  must  already  have  been  some  years  old.  They  were 
anxiously  watched  by  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  who  in  a  letter 
to  his  friend,  the  excellent  John  Ray.  March,  1  o's.j,  says, 
•'One  thing  I  much  wonder  to  see,  that  the  (_\<lr<i* 
1  .Ifoti/ix  Lilniiii,  the  inhabitant  of  a  very  different  climate, 
should  thrive  here  so  well  as.  without  pot  or  green- 
hou.-e.  to  be  alii-  to  propagate  itself  by  layers  this 
spring.  Seeds  sown  last  autumn  have,  a-  yet.  thriven 
very  well,  and  are  likely  to  hold  out."  In  the  library 
of  the  British  Museum  there  is  •'  An  Account  of  the 
Cedar  of  Lihanus  now  growing  in  the  garden  of  Queen 
Kli/abeth's  palace  at  Hendon,  17$X"  [by  R.  Gougb]  ; 
with  some  valuable  MS.  notes  apparently  by  Sir  Joseph 
Hanks.  This  paper,  on  the  authority  of  "well-estab 
lished  tradition,"  claims  for  a  cedar  at  Hendon,  which 
was  blown  over  on  New-Year's  day,  177!',  the  honour 
of  having  been  planted  by  Queen  Elizabeth's  own  hand. 
For  this  there  is  nothing  but  tradition,  and  the  silence 
of  lieranl,  Parkinson.  Evelyn,  and  Ray  renders  it 
extremely  improbable.  (See  the  Centlei nan's  Mai;  iz'ne,  March, 
177'J.)  Of  historical  cedars  we  have  seen  none  more  in 
teresting  than  a  group  of  four  at  Caen  \Vood,  Hamp- 
stead,  planted  by  the  great  Lord  Mansfield  in  17.">t). 
and  which,  springing  to  a  height  of  nearly  i>()  feet 
before  they  break  into  branches,  are  each  of  them  up 
wards  of  100  feet  high,  with  a  trunk  averaging  nearly 
I;"!  feet  in  circumference.  In  Scotland  the  first  cedars 
were  planted  at  Hopetoun  House  in  17-10,  and,  as 
tradition  says,  were  brought  thither  by  Archibald, 
Duke  of  Argyle. 

I  ts  fivMiieiit  occurrence  will  render  most  of  our  readers 
familiar  with  the  general  appearance  of  the  cedar.  In 
the  statelier  specimens  the  mighty  bole  and  the  massive 
ramification  convey  a  powerful  impression  of  strength 
and  majesty  ;  whilst  the  "shadowing  shroud"  of  others, 
extending  their  branches  so  as  to  measure  from  side  to 
side  more  than  the  height  of  the  tree,  coupled  with  the 
foliage  so  dense  and  impenetrable,  recalls  the  magnifi 
cent  description  of  Ezekiel :  — 

"  Iteholil,  the  Assyrian  was  a  cedar  in  Lebanon, 
With  a  shadowing  shroud,  of  a  high  stature  ; 


CEDAI; 

And  his  top  was  among  thick  bough*. 

The  waters  made  him  great,  .   .   . 

Therefore  his  height  was  exalted  above  all  the  trees  of  the 

field,  and  his  boughs  were  multiplied  ; 
And  his  branches  became  long,  because  of  the  multitude 

of  the  waters  where  he  shot  forth. 

All  the  fouls  of  heaven  made  their  nests  in  his  boughs. 
And   under  his    branches  did   all  the   ln-asts  of  the  lield 

bring  forth  their  young, 
And  under  his  shadow  dwelt  all  great  nations." 

Kze.  .xxxi.  l-;e  comp.  Ps.  Ixxx.  Hi;  xeii.  I  •_'. 
On  the  sublime  description  of  the  poet  we  can  offer  no 
better  commentary  than  the  remarks  of  (.'ilpin,  the  ac 
complished   author  of    /•'//•( .,7  S<-<n<ri/: — "Two  of  the 
principal  characteristics  of  the  cedar  are  marked:   the 
first  is  the  multiplicity  and  length  of  its  branches.     \-\-\\ 
trees  divide  so  many  fair  branches  from  the  main  stem. 
or  .spread  over   so   large  a  compass   of  ground.      'His 
boughs    are    multiplied,'    as    L/,-kiel     says,     'and    his 
branches   become    long;'    which  David    calls   spreading 
abroad.       His  very  boughs  are  eoiial  to  the  stem  of  a  fir 
or  a  chestnut.      The  second  characteristic  i-  what  K/e- 
kiel,  with  great  beauty  and  aptness,  calls  his    'shadow 
ing  shroud/      No  live  in  th.-  fon  st  is  more  remarkable 
/or  its    close-woven   leafy   canopy.      Ky.ckiel's   cedar  is 
marked  as  a  tree  of  full   and  perfect    on,\\th.    from  the 
circumstance  of  its  top  being  among  the  thick  boughs. 
Every  young  tree  has  a  leading  branch  or  two.  which 
continue    spiring   above   the   rest   till   the  tree  has    at 
tained  its  full  size.      Th.'n   it   becomes,  in  the  languag,- 
of  the  nurseryman,  dump-headed,  but  in  the  language 
of  eastern  sublimity,  'its  top  is  amon^  the.  thick  boughs; ' 
that    is.    no  distinction   of   any   spiry   head   ,.r  leading 
branch   appears;    the    head    and    the    branches    are    all 
mixed  together."      I  V.  \V.  M.  Thomson  calls  attention 
to  a   peculiarity    which    we  have  often    marked  in   the 
home-grown   specimens      the   flat  and  stratified  ramifi 
cation.      "The    branches   are   thrown    out   liori/.oiiiallv 
from  the  parent    trunk.      These,  a-ain.  part  into  limbs 
which  preserve  the  same  horizontal  direction,  and  soon 
down  to  the   minutest    twigs;    and   even    the  arrange 
ment  ot  the  clustered   leave-  has  the   same  uvneral  ten 
dency.      Climb  into  one,  and   you  are   delighted  with  a 
succession  of   verdant   tl,.,,,-s  spread   around  the  trunk, 
and  gradually  narrowing  as  you  ascend.      The  beautiful 

cones  seem  to  stand  upon,  or  rise  out  of  thi-  green  11 • 

ing"  (The  Lund  ami  the  Book,  p.  L'.HI,!,!  .-.,-;, x.-.  ,  So  emble 
matic  of  imperial  grandeur  and  permanence,  both  the 
painter  and  the  poet  have  lar-ely  employed  it  in  th.-ir 
lays  and  their  landscapes  ;  and  the  admirer  of  .Martin',- 
elaborate  ovations  uill  recall  the  Hat-topped  cedars 
which  he  sets  , ,n  high  in  his  ( Jurden  of  Lden,  and  in  his 
Mahylon.  Alluding  to  the  sensitive  ,m;dity  ascribed  to 
the  tree  by  the  Maronites,  Soiithey  say-  -' 

••  It  was  a  cedar  tree 

That  w,,ke  him  from  the  deadly  drowsiness; 
Its  hroa<l  round  spreading  braiieh.-s,  when  they  f.-lt 
Tiie  snow,  rose  upward  in  a  |«,int  to  heaven, 
\nd.  siamliiiu'  in  their  strength  civet, 
Iteiied  the  baiiied  storm." 


And  Shakspeare.  on  the  fall  of  Warwick  :- 

"  Thus  yields  the  cedar  to  the  axe's  edge, 
\Vlio-e  arms  yavc  shelter  to  the  princely  eagle, 
Under  whose  shade  the  ramping  lion  slept, 
Whose  top  branch  oxerpeer'd  .love's  spreading  tree, 
And  kept  low  shrubs  from  winter's  powerful  wind.' 


The  wood  of  the  cedar  contains  a  considerable  amount 
•  of  resin.  This  causes  it  to  burn  with  a  lively  and  bril 
liant  flame,  and  when  the  red  heifer  was  sacrificed,  the 
priest  was  commanded  to  take  "cedar-wood,  and  hyssop 
and  scarlet,  and  cast  it  into  the  midst  of  the  burning 
heifer/  Xu.  \ix.ti.  But  whatever  might  be  its  effect  on 
the  flame  of  the  altar,  the  cedar  had  a  deeper  signifi 
cance  :  for  in  the  instructions  for  cleansing  the  leper, 
and  the  house  of  the  leper.  U  v.  ii,  ID,  and  where  then- 
is  no  mention  of  incremation,  cedar-wood  is  one  of  the 
ingredients  prescribed.  The  allusion  is  probably  to  its 
incorruptible  -pialities.  These  were  well  known  to 
the  ancients.  A  gum  which  exuded  from  the  stein, 
called  by  the  L'omans  ctdriu,  was  used  for  embalming 
the  dead,  and  the  leaves  of  papyrus  when  rubb,  d  \\ith 
it  were  secure  from  the  attacks  of  worms.  It  is  said 
that  th,'  books  of  N  uma  were  found  in  his  tomb  un 
injured,  being  indebted  for  their  preservation  to  the 
eedria  in  which  they  had  been  steeped.  So  distasteful  to 
insects  is  this  principle  that  there  are  few  better  means 
of  protecting  furs  and  woollen  fabrics  from  the  attacks 
of  moths  than  intru-tinj-  them  to  a  wardrobe  lined  \\  ith 
cedar,  or  even  placing  beside  them  chips  ,,r  shavings 
of  cedar- wood.  The  proverb,  "  eedro  digna,"  is  thus 
as  well  founded  as  it  is  classical:  and  in  the  language  of 
symbols  the  Hebrew  worshipper  hailed  the  employment 
of  this  amaranthine  and  antiseptic'  auvnt ,  as  an  assur 
ance  that  the  cure  was  complete,  and  that  the  plague 
should  return  no  more. 

The  wood  of  the  cedar  grown  in  this  country  is  too 
soft  and  spongy,  and  warps  too  easily,  to  be  well  adapted 
for  cabinet  Work.  Doubtless  it  would  be  different  with 
the  slow-grown  trunks  \\hi.-h  had  consolidated  their 
fil"v  f"i'  a  thousand  years  amid<t  the  snows  of  the 
mountain;  and  no  carpenter  need  desire  a  more  com 
pact  or  close-grained  plank  than  an  authentic  -peeinieii 
from  Lebanon  at  this  moment  before  us.  I'iinvtelN 
us  that  after  l-jmi  years  th.  cedar  timber  of  a  temple 
at  I  tica  \\as  perfectly  sound,  and  at  Sauuntum  in 
Spain,  he  say-  that  a  cedar  image  of  Diana,  older  than 
the  Trojan  war.  was  found  and  spared  by  Hannibal. 

How  long  the  80,000  hewers  mentioned  in  1  Ki.  v.  ].",. 
were  employed  in  the  mountains  we  are  not  told,  but, 
the  consumption  ..f  cedar  for  the  temple,  for  "  the  house 
..f  the  forest  of  Lebanon."  and  for  the  other  undertak 
ings  of  the  sumptuous  monarch,  must  have  been  enor 
mously  great.  It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  the  cedar 
forest  never  recovered  the  inroad,  ami  the  only  exten 
sive  tract  of  cedar  no\\  existing  in  those  regions  is  that 
which  M.  Bove  discovered  between  Sakhleheaiid  Dcr-cl- 
Khanier,  in  a  locality  so  remote  that  its  existence  was 
probably  unknown  to  Hiram,  and  so  inacce»ib]e  that 
tlie  timber  could  only  be  removed  on  the  backs  of 
animals.  It  is  right  to  add.  however,  that  we  think  it 
by  no  means  unlikely  that  under  the  g.  neric  name 
"cedar"  were  include,!,  besides  the  true  r.  l/,/,aiii,  the 
several  varieties  of  pine,  cypress,  and  juniper  which 
the  same  region  yielded,  and  some  of  which,  like  "the 
tall  fragrant  juniper  of  the  Lebanon,  with  its  fine  red 
heart  woo.!,"  were  admirably  adapted  for  architectural 
purposes. 

From  -2  Ki.  xix.  -2:',  it  appears  to  have  been  one 
object  of  Sennacherib's  ambition  to  "go  up  to  the  sides 
of  Lebanon,  and  cut  down  the  tall  cedars  thereof."  In 
this  attempt  he  was  at  that  time  battled  by  the  direct 
interposition  of  the  Most  High,  and  the  miraculous  de 
struction  of  his  army.  Hut  what  he  then  failed  to  effect 


was  accomplished  by  another  Assyrian  monarch,  ami 
the  prophecies  regarding  the  decline  of  Lebanon  have 
been  exactly  fulfilled:  "The  rest  of  the  trees  of  his 
forest  have  <,frown  so  few,  that  a  little  child  may  write 
them,"  Jo.  xxii  fi-7;  Is.  x.  1'J.  An  inscription  has  been 
found  at  Nimroiid  recording  the  eoii(|uests  ot  an  As 
syrian  king  in  Northern  Syria,  and  his  spoliation  of  the 
much- coveted  mountain  (Layanrs  N'inuvuh  ami  l:al>yl,,n, 

Closely    allied   to    the    "glory  of    Lebanon"    is    that 
other  cedar,  which  may  well  bu  called  "  the  glory  of  the 


[159.1       Cedar    Cedrv*  Deotlitra. 

Himalayas."  The  deodara  (<h<»ider<t,  or  "tree  of 
God,"  see Ps.  civ.  16),  the  Calru*  Dtodara,  with  a  stature 
of  150  feet,  with  the  "shadowing  shroud"  of  its  beauti 
fully  drooping  brandies,  with  the  glaucous  bloom  of  its 
dark-green  leaves,  and  with  its  delightfully  fragrant 
timber,  is  the  sacred  tree  of  the  Hindoos,  and  is  almost 
uniformly  employed  in  the  construction  of  their  temples. 
Indeed,  the  recent  researches  of  Dr.  J.  I).  Hooker  leave 
little  room  to  doubt  that  the  three  grand  monarchs  of 
the  mountain,  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  of  the  Himalaya 
((.'.  Deod'ira),  and  of  the  Atlas  range  in  Northern 
Africa  (C.  atltmtifa),  are  all  varieties  of  the  same 
species,  which,  in  localities  widely  sundered  and  in 
climates  of  greater  or  less  humidity,  have  acquired  a 
style  and  habit  of  marked  and  enduring  diversity.  (See 

tliu  Natural  History  lU-vicw  fnr  .T:ui.  1-liL'.  ]>.  11-lv)  [•'.  H.  ] 

CEDRON.     A'«   KIUKOX. 

CEILING.     >Yc  Hoi  si:. 

CEN'CHRE^.  OK  CKNCHREA.  the  port  of  Co 
rinth  on  the  eastern  side,  and  at  the  distance  of  between 
eight  and  nine  miles  from  the  city.  It  was  itself  a 
considerable  place,  and  shared  in  St.  Paul's  labour- 
while  he  resided  at  Corinth.  A  church  was  in  ex 
istence  there  when  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  was 
written;  for  inch.  xvi.  1,  Plwhe.  a  member  of  that 
church,  is  commended  to  their  favourable  notice;  and 
in  Ac.  xviii.  IS.  Paul  is  spoken  of  as  having  shorn 
his  head  in  Cenchre;e,  in  connection  with  a  vuw,  im- 


i  C  EN  SKI! 

(living  that  he  sometimes  resided  there.  (<SV-<  CORINTH.) 
There  is  now  only  a  small  village  on  the  site,  and  com 
paratively  few  traces  are  to  be  seen  of  the  ancient 
buildings. 

CENSER,    tlu:   vessel   employed   for    presenting   in 
cense  to  the    Lord   in    the  sanctuary,   and    which  was 
appointed  to  be  set  every  morning  on  the  altar  of  in 
cense'  when  the  priest  went  in  to  dress  the   lamps,  and 
again  at  even  on  his  going  to   light  them.      Live   coals 
from  the  altar  of   burnt-offering  were  put  into  it.  and 
then  a  quantity  of  incense  was  thrown  on  them,  cans- 
ing   a  cloud   of  sweet  perfume  to  ascend,    and  to  (ill 
the   sanctuary.      No   description,   however,  is  given  of 
this  part  of  the  sacred  furniture.      It  is  not  even  men 
tinned  by  name  in  the  original  instructions  respecting 
the  erection  of  the  tabernacle  :  in  connection  with  the 
altar  of  incense,  it  is  merely  said,  that   Aaron   was  to 
burn  incense  thereon  every  morning  when  he  went  in  to 
dress    the    lamps,  and    when   he    lighted   them    at   even, 
l-'.x.  xxv. 7, s.      How  he  was  to  do  so,  or  what  sort  of  ves 
sel  was  to  be  employed   on   the   occasion,  is   left  altoge 
ther  unnoticed.      I  Jut  at   Nu.  iv.  14.  censers   are  men 
tioned  amoni;-  the  vessels  of  the  tabernacle,  which  were 
to  be  wrapped  up  in  proper  coverings  when  the  order  was 
given  to  march.      And  from  various  passages,    I.u,  x.  i; 
NU.  xvi. 0,17,  in  which  each  ministering  priest  is  spoken 
of   as  bavin;,'-  his  censer,  it  would   appear  that  they  ex 
isted  in  considerable  numbers -too   much  so  to   be  of 
I  very  costly  material.      Indeed,  as  the  censers  of  Korah 
and   his   company  are    expressly  said    to    have    been   of 
lu-ass,  Xn.  xvi.  :c.i,  and  had  been  in  use  for  priestly  minis 
trations  before  the  rebellion,  the  natural  supposition  is. 
that  they    were  all   made  of    the   same  material:  and 
hence,  that  the  ;/<>/</rii  censers  made  by  Solomon  for  the 
temple,    iKi.  vii. :,»,  were,  like   many  other  things,  of  a 
costlier  fabric,  and  possibly  also  of  a  more,  ornate  form, 
than  those  used  in  the  tabernacle. 

Neither,  however,  in  connection  with  the  erection  of 
the  tabernacle,  nor  with  that  of  the  temple,  is  the  least 
idea  conveyed  of  the  form  and  appearance  of  the  censers 
employed:  nor  is  it  known  whether  any  diversity  in  this 


incense  on  the  flame  in  censer.— Rosellini 


respect  might  be  allowed.  It  has  been  supposed  (for 
I  example  by  Kitto)  that  they  were  of  different  eonstrue- 
'  tions;  at  least,  that  the  censer  used  by  the  high-priest 
i  on  the  day  of  atonement,  which  he  was  to  carry  in  his 

hand  into  the  most  holy  place,  Le.  xvi.  12, 13,  must  have 
I  differed  from  that  placed  in  the  daily  service  on  the 


CENTURION 

ill  tar  of  incense.  But  there  is  no  necessity  for  this,  if 
the  one  used  \>y  the  high-priest  on  the  day  of  atone 
ment  required  a  handle,  that  he  might  carry  and  hold 
it  for  a  time,  so  also  did  the  others;  for  as  no  fire 
was  allowed  to  be  put  into  a  censer  hut  that  taken 
from  the  brazen  altar.  I.e.  x.  1,  all  other  being  accounted 
Kti'unijc  fin',  it  was  necessary  that  every  censer  should 
have  a  handle  in  order  that  it  might  be  conveniently 
carried  from  the  altar  to  the  sanctuary  and  set  in  its 
proper  place.  The  probability  is.  that  the  original 
censers  bore  the  resemblance  of  some  sort  of  pan  or  small 
pot,  with  a  handle  at  one  or  at  both  of  the  side.-  for  lift 
ing  by.  rather  than  the  vase-like  forms  with  perforated 
lids  used  in  the  religious  of  classical  antiquity,  and  now 
in  the  Church  of  Koine.  The  Kgvptian  censers,  so  far 
as  one  can  judye  from  the  figures  preserved  of  them, 
appear  to  have  been  chiefly  designed  for  holding  in  the 
hand,  and  could  scarcely  be  of  the  same  form  with 
those  used  in  the  tabernacle. 

CENTURION,  the  captain  of  u  century  or  hundred, 
in  ancient  armies.  Frequent  mention  is  made  of  this 
officer  in  gospel  history.  though  -eidoiii  with  ivfiTeiice 
to  the  exact  number  of  men  under  his  authority.  There 
is  such  a  retVivncf.  ho\\<  \  er,  in  Ac.  xxiii.  "Jo.  where 
Claudius  Lvsias  orders  tiro  ccnlurianx  to  get  ready 
witli  their  ti<-. i  Inuiilriil  m<  n  to  convey  I'aul  safely  mi 
his  \\av  to  (  ;e-aiva.  Speeial  mention  is  made  of  two 
centurions  on  account  of  the  benefit  they  derived  from 
their  religions  opportunities  in  Palestine,  and  the  high 
attainments  to  \vhieh  they  ro>e  in  di\ine  knowledge 
and  faith.  The  first  of  th.->e  i>  the  one  wh.i.  at  a  com 
paratively  early  period  of  our  Lord's  public  ministry, 
sent  to  him  a  request  that  he  \\ould  n  cover  his  dyinur 
servant,  and  ex  press. -d  his  belief  that  if  .1.  >us  but 
-avi  the  uonl  at  a  distance  the  d.-iivd  .-fleet  \\ould 
assuredly  follow.  Mat.  viii.  :,-M-  which  drew  from  oiii-  : 
Lord  th--  striking  declaration.  "  Verily.  1  have  not 
found  so  great  faith,  no  not  in  Israel. '  This  person  | 
was  not  nceessarilv  (as  is  of  ten  loosely  affirmed)  or  even 
probablv.  a  Koinan.  Kesidinu'.  as  he  appeal's  to  have  | 
done,  at  ('a]>ernauni,  which  lay  within  the  jurisdiction  j 
of  Herod  Antipas.  the-  natural  inference  is  that  lie  be 
longed  to  the  army  of  Herod,  which  we  know  to  have 
been  modelled  after  the  Koinan  pattern:  and  so,  while 
certainlv  a  heathen  l.v  birth,  uas  much  nioie  lik.-U  to 
have  been  of  Syrian  or  (! reek  parentage  than  of  Koinan. 
Italian  citi/.ns  were  not  wont  to  enter  the  armi.  -  oi 
petty  sovereigns.  The  other  centurion  is  ( 'ornelius,  who 
was  in  all  probability  a  K.mian,  and  wlio  even  before 
his  reception  into  the  ('hristian  church  i>  characterized 
as  a  devout  man,  and  one  that  feared  (OM!  with  all  his 
house.  .\r  \.  l;  so  that  though  a  Ceil  tile  by  birth,  lie  had 
undergone  the  preparation  of  the  law  before  he'  was 
called  to  receive  the  gospel.  It  may  be  right  to  add 
to  these-  two.  the  centurion  \\lio.  after  basing  heard 
and  seen  all  that  took  place  at  tin;  crucifixion  of  Jesus, 
uttered  the  memorable  words,  "Verily  this  man  was 
the  Son  of  (iod"  the  more  memorable  (whether  he 
understood  their  full  import  or  not),  that  Jesus  had 
been  condemned  by  the  Jewish  leaders  expressly  on 
the  ground  of  his  having  claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  Cod. 
It  was  ordered  that  an  intelligent  heathen  confessed 
the  very  faith  which  the  Jewish  rulers  repudiated,  and 
by  so  doing  became  a  sign  of  the  transference  of 
the  kingdom  from  Jewish  to  Gentile  hands.  All  the 
three,  indeed,  might  be  regarded  as  signs  of  a  like 
description;  for  as  the  faith  in  each  one  of  them  was 


^  CHALCEDONY 

remarkable,  so  there  is  in  the  application  made  of  it  a 
distinct  pointing,  in  one  form  or  another,  to  the  gather 
ing  of  the  heathen  into  the  fold  of  Christ. 

CE'PHAS,  the  Aramaic  word  for  rock'  or  atone, 
corresponding  to  the  Creek  lle'rpos  the  surname  given 
by  our  Lord  to  Simon  Barjonas.  (>'<r  I'KTF.H.) 

CHAFF,  the  refuse  of  thrashed  and  winnowed  corn, 
the  &,\\:pov  of  the  Greeks,  comprehending',  as  used  in 
Scripture,  not  merely  the  outer  covering  of  the  grain, 
but  also  the  chopped  straw,  which,  according  to  the1  an 
cieiit  process  of  thrashing  and  winnowing,  became 
mingled  with  what  is  now  more  commonly  designated 
chatK  Forming  the  lighter,  and  the  comparatively 
worthless  part  of  the  produce,  chaff  in  Scripture  is 
fiviju.-ntK  used  as  a  svinbul  of  \\hat  is  doctrinally 
or  morallv  of  a  similar  description  -  -of  false  teaching, 
Jo.  xxiii  i* ;  of  vain  counsels  that  are  destined  to  come 
to  nought,  is  xxxiii.  ii;  of  fruitless  professors  and  evil 
doers,  who  must  be  driven  away  by  the  tempest  or 
consumed  by  the  fire  of  Cod's  wrath.  IN  i.  4;xxxv.5; 
Mat.iii.  !•_'. 

CHAIN.  From  a  very  remote  antiquity  chains  ap 
pear  to  have  been  in  use,  both  as  ornaments  and  as 
instruments  of  punishment  and  bondage;  in  the  one 
case  beiii'_r  made  of  li^ht  fabric  and  co-tly  material, 
chieflv  gold,  in  the  other  usually  of  iron,  and  of  greatly 
coarser  and  ^ron-vr  workmanship.  It  is  the  orna 
mental  use  of  them  that  is  first  mentioned  in  Scripture, 
in  the  case  of  Joseph,  \\h>>  on  bis  elevation  by  I'haraoh 
had  a  chain  of  gold  put  about  his  neck,  CJc  \H  TJ  But 
as  lie  had  already  been  l><inii<l  in  prison,  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  he  had  previously  had  some  experience 
of  chains  of  another  description.  Chains  also  and 
bracelets  are  mentioned  among  the  spoil  which  the 
Israelites  obtained  from  the  Midianitish  and  Mmiael- 
itc  tribes  whom  they  overcame,  Nil.  xx\i.  f><>;  .lu.  viii  'JO 
And  the  breastplate  of  the  liiuh  priest  \\as  fastened  to 
ouches  with  chains  of  wreatheii  work  much  probably  as 
the  judges  of  F.g\  pt  were  accustomed  to  wear  little 
inia-'c  -  of  the  ^odde--s  Tlinu-i  or  truth  suspended  by 
Lj-old  chains  ffuui  tin  if  //«•/,'.  Indeed,  as  ornaments, 
chains  sei  m  to  have  been  in  constant  use  am  on-.;  the 
Israelites  and  other  nations  of  antiquity  from  the' 
earliest  times,  and  \\cre  \\orn  alike  by  men  and  by 
Women,  I'r  i.  !>;  Kze.  xvi  II  ;  C;i  i.  10;iv.O. 

The  iron  chain  of  bondage  and  confinement  is  also 
of  earlv  occurrence,  and  no  doubt  in  the  despotic 
countries  of  the  Fast  was  in  frequent  demand.  In 
various  passages  of  Scripture  it  is  taken  as  the  natural 
svmbol  of  oppression  or  punishment,  I. a.  iii.  7  ;  K/.e.  vii.  •_':!; 
I's.  cxlix.  \.vc.  Jn  the  later  times  of  biblical  history, 
when  we  come  upon  Koinan  usage,  the  custom  of  at 
taching  a  prisoner  by  a  chain  to  a.  soldier,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  closer  custoilv,  meets  us  in  the  narratives  of 
apostolic  suiterin'_r.  Paul's  chain — that,  namely,  which 
bound  his  riuht  baud  to  the  left  of  the  soldier  who  had 
charge  of  him  -  is  .nice  and  again  referred  to;  and  when 
Herod  was  determined  to  make  sure  of  Peter's  safe 
cnstodv.  he  even  caused  both  hands  to  be  thus  fastened 
!  to  the  hand  of  a  soldier  at  either  side  of  him,  Ac.  xii.C. 

CHALCEDONY  (Cr.  ^aX/c^Sui'),  occurs  only  once 

in  Scripture-  as   the   name  of  a  precious  stone— OIK;   of 

!  those  figuratively  employed  as  the  foundations  of  the 

new  Jerusalem,  lie.  xxi .lit.      It   is    a   species   of   quartz, 

!  and  does  not  materially  differ  from  the  agate.      It  oc- 

|  curs  in  irregular  masses,  forming  grotesqxie  cavities  in 

the  trap   rocks,    and  occasionally  also  in  the  granite. 


CHALDEANS 


CHALDEANS 


Tin'  most  beautiful  specimens  ki)d\\ii  were  found  in 
one  nt  tin  mine*  (if  Cornwall,  bearing  the  name  of 
Trevascus.  It  is  of  tine  and  compact  texture,  semi- 
transparent,  in  hardness  somewhat  inferior  to  rock- 
crystal;  and  lias  been  much  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
cu]is.  plates  (especially  in  India,  where  tliis  species  of 
manufacture  has  been  carried  to  a  wonderful  perfec 
tion),  knife  -  handles,  snuff- boxes,  tVe.  The  common 
colour  of  chalcedony  is  a  light  brown,  approaching 
often  to  white:  but  various  other  colours  also  occa 
sionally  enter  into  it. 

CHALDEANS.  CASDIM  strictly  the  people  of 
Chaldea.  the  mo>t  southerly  region  of  I'.abylonia 
^Mesopotamia),  but  applied  in  Scripture  to  the  people 
generally  of  the  Habyli  .iiian  kingdom,  2Ki.  xxv.;  Is.  xiii 
lit.  The  term  Chaldeans  likewise  signifies  learned 
men.  philosophers,  possibly  the  priesthood,  ba.  ii.  2-10 ; 
iii.  8;  iv.  7;  v.  r,  11.  The  earliest  recorded  notice  of  the 
Chaldeans  as  a  people  is  in  ( Je.  xi.  l'8-:!l,  wheiv  "  Tr 
(Edessa)  of  the  Chaldees"  is  mentioned  as  the  land  of 
the  nativity  of  the  family  of  Abraham,  and  whence 
Terah.  his  son  Abrani,  and  his  grandson  Lot.  with  their 
families.  "  went  forth  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan." 

The  Chaldeans  are  thought  to  owe  their  origin  1.0 
Chesed.  son  of  Nahor,  Ge  xxii.  22;  (Vllanus,  lib.  m.  K;. 
Jerome  says,  "Chased,  son  of  Nahor.  from  whom  C'has- 
dim,  afterwards  Cbald;ei."  Chesed.  however,  only 
united  the  scattered  tribes  into  a  nation  of  the  land  of 
Tr,  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  they  were  a  distinct 
tribe  or  people  (Jorum,  in  Bluest  on  (ie.  xxii.  ;  Bind.  i.  2> ; 
Strabo,  xvi.  c.  iii.  1 ;  Ains\vort!i'.s  Researches  in  A.ss.)  It  lias 
lieen  supposed  by  some  that  the  Chaldeans  were  de 
scended  from  the  Kurds,  a  hardy  race,  who  still  inhabit 
the  mountains  of  Kurdistan  between  Nineveh  and 
Media,  and  that  they  founded  l"r  prior  to  the  time  of 
Abraham.  Jeremiah  speaks  of  it  as  "an  ancient  nation, 
a  nation  whose  language  thou  knowest  not.''  eh.  v.  15. 
From  Isaiah,  ch.  xxiii.i:;,  it  may  be  inferred  that  they 
were  not  united  as  a  nation  until  ''the  Assyrians 
founded  it  for  them  that  dwell  in  the  wilderness."  In 
the  time  of  Job,  they  are  mentioned  as  making  warlike 
and  predatory  excursions  into  Arabia,  Job  i.  17  The 
Bible  makes  no  further  mention  of  the  Chaldeans  till  the 
time  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  2  Ki.  xxiv.  2,  when  Habakkuk 
calls  them  a  "bitter  and  hastv  nation,  which  shall 
march  through  the  breadth  of  the  land  to  possess  the 
dwelling  places  that  are  not  theirs,"  ch.  i.  o-m.  From  Be- 
rosus.  Abydenus,  and  other  fragments  in  Eusebius, 
and  from  the  canon  of  Ptolemy,  some  useful  informa 
tion  may  be  obtained  ;  but  it  is  so  impossible  to  connect 
their  accounts  with  the  sacred  text,  that  they  are  re 
commended  for  separate  study  and  investigation  (sec 

Cory's  Fragments,  1832,  p.  -21,  30,  .",2,  :i(i,  It,  04  ;  fur  dynasties, (17- 84). 
According  to  Syiicellus.  the  Chaldeans  were  the  first 
who  assumed  the  title  of  kings,  the  first  being  Euechius.  ' 
or  Nimrod.who  reigned  at  Babylon,  and  was  succeeded 
by  a  dynasty,  the  whole  term  of  which  was  I'-J".  years. 
To  these  Chaldean  kings  succeeded  an  Arabian  dynasty 
which  lasted  215  years,  when  the  people  would  appear 
to  have  come  under  the  rule  of  the  Assyrians,  the  seat 
of  government  of  this  portion  of  the  empire  being  at 
Babylon.  After  the  revolt  of  Babylon,  and  the  con 
quest  of  the  Assyrian  empire  by  the  Medes  (Diod.  Sic.  iii. 
2,  after  ctesias,  ii.),  the  Chaldeo- Babylonians  acquired  a 
temporary  independence.  The  ecclesiastical  and  astro 
nomical  canons  preserved  by  Syncellus.  and  the  canon 
of  Ptolemseus.  enumerate  from  the  time  of  Nabonassar. 


li.c.  717.  "  who  is  the  same  as  Salmanassar,  king  of  the 
Chaldeans,  to  Nirigasolasarus,  who  is  Belshazzar," 
nineteen  Chaldean  or  Babylonian  kings,  whose  united 
reigns,  including  two  periods  of  interregnum,  amount 
to  \\i-2  years.  Fifth  on  these  lists  is  Mardo-eempadns, 
tlie  .Merodaeh  Baladan,  who  made  a  treaty  with  Heze 
kiah  king  of  Judah,  2Ki.  .\x.  12;  2  Cin-on  xxxii.  31;  Is  xxxix.l, 
in  the  time  of  Sennacherib.  Sennacherib  appears  to 
have  levied  an  army  against  the  successors  of  Merodaeh, 
and  to  have  appointed  his  sou  Esarhaddon  (13th  on  the 
canons!  king  of  Babylon.  i;.c.  (,MI.  (Alex.  Polyhistor, 
Ku.  Ar.  C'hrun.  12.)  Sardocheus,  the  next  king,  reigned 
over  Uahyloii.  Nineveh,  and  Israel,  tor  twenty  year.-. 
Sardocheus  was  succeeded  by  Ch\  niladan.  during  whose 
reign  of  twenty-two  years  Babylon  revolted,  and  Nabo- 
polassar  (Kith  king  of  the  canons)  became  king  of  tin- 
city  and  of  the  lower  half  of  the  valley  of  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates.  Nabopolassar  formed  a  league  with 
Cyaxares.  king  of  .Media,  and  conquered  Assyria,  con 
solidated  the-  empire  under  the  Chaldean  rule,  and  from 
this  time  the  Chaldeans  and  Babylonians  appear  to  he 
identical,  2  Ki.  xxv.;  i*.  xiii.  ]'.<-,  xxiii.  i:;;  .Je.  xxiv.  ,r>;  xxv.  12;  i.  j; 

Eze.i.  3,11,24;  xii.  13;  Da.ix.  1.  (>'«  P.AliYI.dN.)  l.'nderNe- 
i  buchadnezzar,  the  son  and  successor  of  Nabopolassar, 
the  Chaldeo-Babylouian  empire  attained  its  gi-eatest 
j>ower  and  extent,  comprehending  all  Western  Asia  as 
far  as  the  Mediterranean.  Nebuchadnezzar  was  suc 
ceeded  by  his  son  Evil- Merodaeh,  2  Ki.  xxv.  27,  who  re 
leased  Jehoiachin,  king  of  Judah.  from  his  prison,  and 
set  "his  throne  above  the  throne  of  the  kings  that  were 
with  him  in  Babylon,"  vcr.  L'».  Evil-Merodach  was  suc 
ceeded  by  Nergalsarassor  (.\>l'i:/n.<n/(i^i,'/i.-<  of  Ptolemy  I, 
of  whom  there  is  a  cylinder  at  Trinity  College,  Cam 
bridge.  After  him  Labonsanloi-hus  reigned  a  few 
months,  and  the  last  king  of  the  Chaldean  dynasty 
was  Nabonidas  (Xabijittdltitx  of  1'toleiny.  and  the  /,«////- 
nitiix  of  Herodotus  (i.  188;  see  also  Herusus  in  Ju.s..-i>lnis 
i.  M),  of  whom  there  are  four  cylinders  in  the  British 
Museum.  No  cylinders  have  been  found  of  a  later 
date  than  Nabonidas,  who  is  supposed  to  be  the  Bel- 
shazzar  of  the  Bible,  Da.  v.  The  Medo- Persian  army 
conquered  Babylon  about  u.c.  538;  Belshazzar  was 
slain,  and  "Darius  the  Median  (the  same  with  Cv- 
axares  II..  according  to  Mr.  S.  Sharpe)  took  the  king 
dom,  being  about  three  score  and  two  years  old,"  D.-i.  v. 

:iii,.-!l  ;  ix   1         U-efer  also  to  Da.  vi.  ^-;  x.   1. 

The  form  of  the  Chaldean  government  was  entirely 
despotic;  the  monarch  was  styled  "king  of  kings,"  Da. 
ii.  :i7,  and  his  will  was  as  supreme  as  his  decrees  were 
cruel  and  merciless,  Da.  ii.  »•  iii.  i:>;  vi.  ,*;  Je.  xxix.22.  The 
kingdom  was  divided  into  provinces,  governed  by 
satraps  or  viceroys,  Da.  vi.  i-  is.  x.  8.  (See  GoVEHXnits  OF 
PRIIVIXCKS.)  The  king  was  inaccessible  to  his  subjects, 
and  lived  in  great  state,  retired  within  his  palace  like 
the  Persians,  Ks.  ii.  Iii, '.'I;  iii.  1;  iv.  L';  Da  ii.  4!i;  King's  Jluuse, 
Nineveh  and  its  Palaces,  ;id  editiun,  IP.  •£}',  2,'is.  The  king's 
counsellors.  Da.  iii.  24-27,  and  officers  of  the  household 
(which  see),  were  various,  and  are  specially  described  in 
Daniel,  ch.  i.;;;  ii.  14, -19;  iii.  2,3  ;  vi.  2.  The  Chaldeans  of 
Babylon  were  .Sabeans.  and  worshipped  the  heavenly 
bodies,  the  planets  Jupiter,  Mercury,  Venus,  Saturn, 
and  Mars  being  honoured,  as  Bel,  Nebo,  Meni,  &c. 

(ffesenius  on  Isaiah  ;  also  Bolus  in  art.  Babylon).  ItawlillSOU 
reads  a  passage  in  one  inscription  found  at  Nimroud, 
to  the  effect  that  Phulnkh.  the  Pul  of  Scripture.  Pha- 
lock  (pf  the  LXX..  and  Bolochos  of  the  Greeks,  received 
the  homage  of  the  Chaldeans,  and  sacrificed  in  the 


CHALDEANS 


CIIALDEE    LAXUUAGE 


cities  of  Babylon,  Borsippo,  and  Cutha,  to  the  respec 
tive  tutelar  divinities  Bel,  Xebo,  and  Xergal.  -JKi.  vii.:;n. 
The  Chaldeans  boasted  of  having  astronomical  observa 
tions  for  a  period  of  4 7". 000  years  (Cicero;  Epigones  quoted 
in  I'liiiy;  inni  art.  Buby]..n) ;  but  there  are  no  authenticated 
reports  prior  to  the  era  of  Nabonassar,  and  to  the  eclipses 
observed  at  Babylon  during  the  reigns  of  the  Mardo- 
cvmpadus  (Merodach  Baladan)  of  Ptolemy,  of  Xabo- 
palassar,  Cambyses,  and  Darius. 

The  language  spoken  in  Babylon  in  the  time  of 
Xebuchadnezzar,  and  with  which  the  Jews  would  be 
familiar,  was  probably  Chaldee,  identical  with  that  of 
part  of  the  book  of  Daniel,  and  distinct  from  the 
"tongue  of  the  Chaldeans."  iu  i.  i,  specially  tauuht  to 
the  Hebrew  children.  I'.oth  Deuteronomy,  ch.xxviii.4ii, 
and  Jeremiah,  ch.  v.  i:>,  make  mention  of  the  Chaldees 
as  a  '•  nation  whose  language"  the  Jews  knew  not,  a 
circumstance  that  would  favour  the  a.-sumption  that 
the  (  haldees  were  Kurds,  whose  language  would  pm- 
bably  lie  a  very  distinct  dialect  from  tin-  (  'haldee  of  the 
liook  of  Daniel,  or  the  Svriac  (Aramaic*. 

l.ayard.  speakinu' of  themod.-ni  Chaldeans,  -ays  that 
the  language  is  a  Shemitic  dialect  allied  to  the  Hebrew. 
Arabic,  and  Syria.-,  and  still  called  Chaldaui  or  Chal 
dee.  "In  its  written  form  it  bears  a  close  re-,  ml. lance 
to  the  Chald.-e  of  tin-  book  ,f  Daniel.  Iti.-an  inte 
resting  fact  that  the  Cttaldeaii  spoken  in  As.-yria  is 
almost  identical  with  tin-  language  of  tin- Salnans.  ,,r 
Christian-  of  St.  John,  as  they  an-  vulgarly  called  a 
remarkable  tribe  who  reside  in  the  province  of  Kluisi- 
tan,  or  Snsiana.  and  in  the  district-  in-ar  tin-  mouth  of 
the  Euphrates,  and  who  are  probably  the  descendants 
of  tin-  ancient  inhabitants  of  P,;divlonia  and  Chald.-a" 
(l'"pul:ir  Ace. unit  M!'  Disci  ivories  ;it  NiiiL-vi.-li,  vii.  p.  1  |-j,  l-;.n 

A  in  iii,r  the  four  thrones  mentioned  in  Daniel,  ,-h  vii , 
the  kingdom  of  tin-  Cliald.-es  is  symboliz.-d  as  a  lion 
having  ea^l'-s'  \\inu-. 

In  Da.  ii.  '_'  four  kind<  of  mairiciai.s  an  named 
"the  magicians,  and  th.-  astrologers,  and  the  sor 
cerers,  and  tin-  Chaldean-:"  tin--.-  la.-t  ln-inir  a  sort 
of  philosophers,  \vlio  were  evmpt  from  all  public 
oiiic-es  and  emi)loyments,  tln-ir  studi'  -  lieinu'  physic, 
astrology,  the  foretelling'  of  future  events,  interpreta 
tion  ot  dream-  bv  au^'irv,  \\or-liip  of  th>-  gods,  \" 
Among  the  wise  nn-n  of  P.abylon  they  seem  to  take  tin- 
lead,  and  1x3  the  spokesmen,  hi  ii.  ui;  iv  ii-!i;  v  r, «.  n.  The 
Cn  eks  and  I  ioinans  applied  the  term  Chaldean  to  tin- 
whole  order  of  learned  nu-n  of  l.abvlon  (Stnibo,  xvi  c  i  ii; 
Uiod.  Sic.  ii.  2!);  Ck-uro,  UcDiv.  i.l,-.').  At  the  time  of  the 
Arab  invasion,  tin-  Icarnin--  of  tin-  Hast  was  still  chiefly 
to  be  found  with  the  Chaldeans.  We  are  indebted  to 
them  for  the  preservation  of  numerous  precious  frag 
ment.-  of  (h-cek  learning,  as  the  dv.-ks  were  many 
centuries  before  to  their  ancestors,  the  ('haldees  of 
I  '.a  bv  Ion.  for  tin-  records  of  astronomy  and  the  el. -men  ts 
of  eastern  science.  Tin-  caliph  Al  Mannum  sent 
learned  Xestorians  into  Syria,  Armenia,  and  Kirvpt.  to 
collect  manuscripts,  and  confided  for  translation  to  his 
Chaldean  subjects,  amongst  other  treatises,  those  of 
Aristotle  andCalen  ^Luyanl's  I'op.  Ace.  Nine-veil,  e.  vii.  p.  i:a, 


Upon  the  walls  of  the  Assyrian  palaces  are  represen 
tations  of  various  magi,  all  distinguished  bv  a  peculia 
rity  of  dress.  It  may  be  difficult  to  determine  the 
class  to  which  they  respectively  belong,  but  there 
is  one  (Hcjitu,  pi.  xliii.)  who 
may  be  particularized  as 
a  diviner,  and  probably 
of  the  Chaldean  race-:  for 
his  person  is  much 
thinner,  and  his  features 
are  more  delicate  than 
are  these  ,,f  the  other  at 
tendants  of  the  court,  in- 
dicatiii'_r  a  dill'crent  order 
of  occupations,  and  an 
exemption  from  the  ruder 
and  more  active  employ 
ments  of  life.  [.i.  ]>.  | 
CHALDEE  LAN 
GUAGE.  The  (  haldce 
being  a  form  of  the  .1  >•<>- 
an  fin  language,  one  of  tin- 
three  principal  varieties 
"f  the  ancient  Semitic  (xt  <• 
articles  on  A  UAIiir  LAN 

lil'ACJE,     Hi:i-.iii:w     LAN 
ci'Ai.K.i.weshall  point  out. 
in  ral  characteristics  of  the  Ara- 
fi-om    tin-    llebivu    and    Arabic 
.••(•ond  ('lac   .  the  special  charac- 

as  a  dialect  of  tin-  Aramean. 

I.  Of  tin  Aramnin  /,«».'/«<'.'/i'.—Tlu.- region  called  in 
tin-  Hebrew  Scripture.-  Anon,  may  be  described  gene 
rally  as  occupying  the  northern  and  north -ea.-tern  divi 
sion.-  of  that  corner  of  A,-ia  which  was  the  home  of 
the  Semitic  languages.  It  was  bounded  on  the  north 
by  the  Taurus  ran,,  and  tin-  river  Tigris,  which  latter 
al.-o  formed  it-  ea-tern  boundary:  on  tin-  west,  bv 
the  Mediterranean  and  .Mount  Lebanon;  and  on  the 
south,  by  Pal. -tiin-  and  tin-  Arabian  desert  (Wii,L-i-, 
i;  w  in.  Its  principal  divisions  are  frequently  mentioned 
in  Scripture,  viz.:  A  ram  -  naharaim.  or  Padan-aram 
(Mesopotamia),  and.  west  of  the  Kuphrates.  Damascus, 
Ilamath.  Zobah,  ic.  Tin  inhabitants  were  chiefly  of 
Semitic  de.-eent.  and  spoke  a  Si  mitic  language,  which 
in  Scripture  is  called  Aramith.  jvmXi  -  Ki.  xviii.  -i;; 

ha  ii.  l:  K/i-  iv  r.  r'rom  th,-  j ia.-sa •_;•.•>  just  quoted,  it 
appear.-  that  this  Aramean  lan_na'_:v  was  \er\-  exten 
sively  known,  not  only  within  tin-  limits  above  men 
tioned,  but  beyond  th'-iii.  Tin  princes  of  A-svria  and 
.hn lea  Wei-.-  familiar  with  it;  it  was  ,-poken  in  the 
palace  of  Xebuchadnezzar;  and  e\i-n  formed  the.  me 
dium  of  correspondence  between  the  Persian  court  and 
it-  -nbject-  iu  Jiidia  and  Samaria.  It  may  also  lay 
claim  to  a  hiidi  antiquity,  havinu'  probably  been  the 
laii'_rua-je  of  Abraham  previous  to  his  migration  into 
Palestine,  1).  \\.  ..  and  c.-rtainlv  of  his  grand-nephew 
Lalian.  (.c.  xx.\i.  ir.  Put  unfortunately  the  older  monu 
ments  uf  the  language  have  perished  :  the  Chaldee  por- 
iv.l;  HiuiiboMfs  CIISIIK.S,  ii.  (  :,).  I  n  later  times,  professed  tions  of  Daniel  and  K/.ra  being  the  earliest  specimens 
diviners,  astrologers,  and  ..xpoundcrs  of  dreams,  were  we  possess  of  a  language  which  had  probably  existed 
known  by  the  name  of  Chaldeans  in  the  western  world  :  and  flourished  at  least  two  thousand  years  before. 
(Joseph.  Wars,  ii.  7,3),  in  the  same  way  as  the  modern  pro-  •  The  question  as  to  the  relative  antiquity  of  the 
fessional  divines  of  Egypt  are  called  Mo^hrabin,  thereby  Hebrew  and  Aramean  has  been  frequently  discussed  by 
intimating  that  they  originally  came  from  Tunis,  Tripoli,  the  learned  ;  and  the  conclusion  in  which  most  compe- 
or  Morocco,  countries  to  the  west  of  Egypt.  tent  inquirers  seem  now  to  acquiesce  is,  that  the  two 


(Ml ALDE E  LAXG  C A( ;  E 


CHALDEE  LANGUAGE 


languages  do  not  stand  to  one  another  in  the  relation 
of  mother  and  daughter,  liut  are  sister- languages,  the 
offspring  of  a  common  parent.  The  Arumean  certainly 
occupied  the  region  to  which  all  tradition  points  as  the 
primeval  abode  of  mankind,  and  from  which,  according 
to  Scripture,  the  nations  were  spread  abroad  over  the 
earth.  It  is,  moreover,  in  several  respects,  less  devel 
oped  and  cultivated  than  either  the  Hebrew  or  the 
Arabic.  I>ut  poverty  of  forms  is  by  no  means  a  proof 
of  superior  antiquity ;  and  our  ignorance  of  the  exact 
nature  and  results  of  the  transaction  at  JSabel  hinders 
us  from  attaching  so  much  importance  to  the  circum 
stance  of  geographical  locality  as  it  might  otherwise 
deserve. 

Of  the  Aramean  language  there  are  two  forms  or 
dialects,  vitf.  the  Chaldeo  and  the  Syriac — the  former, 
as  the  name  indicates,  prevailing  in  the  eastern,  the 
latter  in  the  western  parts  of  Aramea.  In  both  of 
these  dialects  numerous  writings  are  still  extant,  from 
the  examination  of  which,  notwithstanding  their  com 
parative  recency,  we  may  obtain  a  pretty  accurate  idea 
of  what  the  old  language  really  was,  and  of  the  points 
in  which  it  diliered  from  the  Hebrew.  The  results  are 
as  follows  :  — 

1.  With  respect  to  zounds,  letters  of  the  T  class 
usually  supplant  the  Hebrew  sibilant;  as  f«V  he  re 
turned,  the  Hebrew  of  which  is  si  tab  :  d'liah,  gold,  the 
Hebrew  of  which  is  zahan.  The  strong  Hebrew  letter 
V  is  in  many  words  weakened  into  y,  which  hitter, 
moreover,  seems  to  have  lost  in  Aramean  the  rough 
guttural  sound  which  it  sometimes  had  in  Hebrew,  and 
still  frequently  retains  in  Arabic  :  as.  e.g.  ^y  =  Heb. 
p«|V  ;  jpx  —  Hcb.  V-IN.  And,  lastly,  the  rovcls  are 

much  more  sparingly  employed  in  Aramean  than  in 
cither  of  the  sister- languages  ;  and  this  peculiarity  is  of 
the  greater  consequence,  as  the  vowel  sounds  have  very 
important  functions  assigned  to  them  in  the  structure 
and  inflexion  of  all  the  languages  of  the  Semitic  class. 
'2.  With  regard  to  word*  and  form.-*,  the  Aramean 
language  is  defective  in  the  following  particulars:  (1.) 
It  has  no  definite  article,  or  rather,  to  express  the  article, 
it  employs  not  a  prefix,  like  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic, 
but  an  affix  (x  ) :  which  affix,  however,  having  in 

T 

course  of  time  lost  much  of  its  original  definite  force, 
came  to  be  regarded  and  employed  as  a  constituent 
part  of  words,  of  which  it  had  at  first  been  but  an  oc 
casional  appendage  ;  and  hence  the  language,  as  we 
find  it  in  the  extant  writings,  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
possess  a  definite  article  at  all.  (2.)  The  dual  number 
is  almost  entirely  wanting,  not  only  in  verbs  and  ad 
jectives,  as  in  Hebrew,  but  also  in  nouns,  even  such 
nouns  as  hand,  eye,  &c..  which  denote  objects  double 
by  nature.  (3.)  In  the  verb,  the  purehi  passirc  conju 
gations,  distinguished  in  Hebrew  and  Arabic  by  the 
U  sound,  are  altogether  wanting,  if  we  except  a  few 
traces  met  with  in  biblical  Chaldee,  which  have  usually 
been  regarded  rather  as  hebraiziiig  than  as  genuine  Ara 
mean  forms.  The  nip/ial  conjugation  is  also  wanting. 
(4.)  An  important  defect  is  the  absence  of  the  distinc 
tion  between  the  strong  and  weak  forms,  employed  in 
Hebrew  to  represent  respectively  the  concrete  and  the 
abstract,  and  to  describe  the  verbal  action  as  perfect  or 
imperfect,  realized  or  not  yet  realized.  \5.)  Of  the 
tense,  commonly  called  future,  there  is  only  one  form ; 
the  other  forms  which  appear  in  Hebrew,  and  still 
more  prominently  in  Arabic,  being  almost  unknown. 


To  compensate  in  some  measure  for  these  defects,  we 
find  in  Aramean,  (1.)  A  more  regular,  though  less  ex 
tensive,  conjugation  system,  consisting  of  three  act  ire 
and  three  reflexive  or  passive  conjugations,  the  latter 
all  formed  on  the  same  model  by  the  prefix  p^-  The 

Ackafi.l  conjugation,  also,  of  which  only  some  traces  are 
found  in  Hebrew,  is  in  more  common  use  in  Aramean. 
(2.)  Separate  forms  or  combinations  to  express  present, 
imperfect,  and  pluperfect  time,  which  in  Hebrew  are 
;  either  altogether  wanting,  or  are  met  with  much  less 
frequently.  The  expression  for  pluperfect  time,  how 
ever,  is  rather  a  Syriac  than  an  Aramean  form,  not 
being  found  in  the  earlier  Chaldee  writings  (Schaafs 
(>l>us  Anumem.i,  ]>.  :!<;i).  It  may  also  be  ol iserved  (3.)  that 
adjectives  are  more  numerous  than  in  Hebrew,  and 
separate  forms  for  the  ordinal  numbers  are  not  limited 
to  the  units. 

3.  With  regard  to  ni/nta.f.  the  three  principal  pecu 
liarities  are  :  (1.)  The  fs/irrxxtoii  <>f  tin-  genitive  relation 
by  means  of  the  relative,  the  former  of  the  two  related 
nouns  being  put  in  the  emphatic  state,  or  having  a 
suffix  attached  to  it.  This  is  a  much  less  imaginative, 
and  more  cumbrous  method  than  the  Hebrew.  (2.)  The 
absence  of  the  ran  comecutire  or  relative,  which  meets  us 
so  frequently  in  the  Hebrew  writings,  and  gives  them 
so  peculiar  a  character.  (3.)  The  frequent  use  of  the 
participle,  where  in  Hebrew  a  finite  tense  would  appear. 
The  effect  of  these  peculiarities  is  to  take  away  very 
much  from  the  life  and  poetical  character  of  the  lan 
guage,  and  to  render  it  dull,  prosaic,  and  common 
place,  though,  it  may  be,  more  exact  and  full  in  the 
expression  of  thought. 

1  f.  The  Chfddee  Dialect.— The  points  of  difference  be 
tween  the  Syriac  and  (.'haldec  are  not  sufficiently  nume 
rous  and  marked  to  constitute  them  separate  languages. 
They  are  merely  dialectic.  The  principal  of  them  are 
as  follows: — (I.1)  The  Chaldee  a  sound  becomes  in  Sy 
riac  i~>.  The  Hebrew  occupies  a  middle  position,  agree 
ing  sometimes  with  the  Syriac,  sometimes  with  the  Chal 
dee.  It  is  somewhat  curious  that,  in  this  point,  the 
language  which  is  called  the  modern  tfi/riac  agrees  with 
the  ancient  Chaldee  (Stocldart's  Grammar  of  Modern  Syriac). 
j  Perhaps  this  is  explained  by  the  geographical  position 
j  of  the  Christian  tribes  by  whom  this  language  is  spoken. 
j  (2.)  The  Chaldee.  according  to  the  traditional  pronun- 
i  ciation.  is  without  diphthongs,  differing  in  this  from 
i  the  Syriac.  (3.)  The  doubling  of  a  letter,  admissible 
in  Chaldee.  seems  to  have  been  avoided  in  Syriac,  in 
the  punctuation  of  which  there  is,  consequently,  no 
sign  equivalent  to  dagcsh  forte  of  the  Hebrew,  or 
teschdid  of  the  Arabian  grammarians.  (4.)  In  Syriac, 
the  3d  masc.  sing,  and  3d  inasc.  and  fern.  pi.  of 
the  future  tense  are  formed  by  prefixing  /?,  instead  of 
;/  of  the  Chaldee  and  of  the  other  Semitic  languages. 
The  reason  perhaps  is,  that  in  Syriac  initial  i/od  was 
too  feeble  to  maintain  its  consonantal  power  in  such  a 
position.  The  Talmudists  frequently  make  a  similar 
change  of  a  feeble  letter  at  the  beginning  of  a  word 
into  •.  Compare  also  the  forms  nins  71  n^  of  the  bibli 
cal  Chaldec.  (5.)  The  Chaldee  infinitive  wants  the 
Syriac  prefix  »i,  except  in  the  peal  conjugation.  (6.) 
The  form  of  the  demonstrative  pronoun  is  likewise 
different. 

Historical  Notice  of  the  Chaldec  Language. — As  has 
been  already  mentioned,  the  most  ancient  specimens  of 


CHALDEE  LANGUAGE 


289 


CHAMBERS  OF  IMAGERY' 


Chaldee  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  contained  in 
the  sacred  Scriptures.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the 
exploration  of  the  monumental  remains  of  the  great 
eastern  empires,  which  has  of  late  years  been  carried 
011  with  so  much  zeal  and  success,  may  bring  to  light 
some  Clialdee  monuments  and  inscriptions  of  a  more 
ancient  date,  and  enable  us  to  trace  the  progress  of  the 
language  through  some  of  its  earlier  stages.  Already 
various  inscriptions  in  Semitic  characters  have  been 
detected  on  the  weights,  cylinders.  ecc.,  found  in  the 
ruins  of  the  Chaldean  cities  (Layard's  Nineveh  and  Babylon, 
p.  GUI,  CoO;  Zeitschrift  dcr  Dentcli.  llorg.  Gesell.  vol.  ix.  p.  -170, 
note).  A  discovery,  specially  interesting,  has  been  made 
by  Mr.  Layard  of  several  cups  or  bowls  of  earthenware, 
containing  inscriptions  which  have  been  very  success 
fully  deciphered  by  Mr.  Kl!i.-  of  tlie  British  Museum. 
They  are  found  to  contain  amulets  or  charms  against 

evil  Spirits  (Nineveh  and  i;ahyl..:i,  p.  .>.',  .Vc.,  Xcitsch.  dcr  D. 
M.  G.  vol.  ix.  p.  Ki.v-lxi).  The  date  of  these  inscriptions  is 
not  accurately  ascertained,  but  it  can  scarcely  lie  carried 
higher  than  twelve  or  fourt-en  centuries.  It  has  been 
remarked  that  they  contain  the  final  lett'-rs  r>-.  &c., 
which  were  of  later  introduction;  and  a  writer  in  the 
Journal  of  the  German  Oriental  Society  thinks  he  has 
detected  evidence  that  they  mu-t  lie  later  than  the  era 
of  Mohammed.  IJesidcs  thc.-c  recent  discoveries,  the 
student  of  Chaldee  may  examine  with  advantage  the 
J'almyreiie  inscriptions,  long  since  made  known  to  the 
world  (Phil.  Trans,  for  year  175-1),  and  the  Kgvptio-Ara- 
mean  monuments  and  papyri,  described  bv  Ge.-eiiiiis  in 
his  great  work  on  1'lneiiieian  Antii(iiities  iMon.  Ph.,-:,  ],. 
22>'.-21.->.  See  also  l'.-r  another  Kgypt.-Aram.  Inscription,  Z.  dur 
D.  M.  (',.  vol.  XL  p.  (;:,). 

Still  it  is  not  probable  that  any  of  the.-e  monuments 
belongs  to  a  period  so  remote  as  the  au'c  of  I  laniel  or 
E/.ra  :  and  most  of  them  are  of  much  more  recent  date. 
And,  besides,  it  must  be  allowed  that  monumental  in 
scriptions,  from  their  very  nature,  can  convey  to  u>  but 
a  very  imperfect  idea  of  the  character  of  a  laiiiruauv. 
especially  when  these  inscriptions  are  without  aux 
iliaries  to  indicate  the  vowel  sounds.  The  principal 
source  of  our  knowledge  of  the  <  'bailee,  as  of  other 
laiiu'iia-'es,  must  be  found  in  the  literature  which  has 
come  down  to  us  in  that  laniniavv. 

This  literature  lias  usually  been  arranged  in  two  divi 
sions,  viz.:  t/ic  HiU'ii-ol  dm!,/, ,_  ,,r  those  portions  of 
the  Old  Testament  scriptures  which  are  written  in 

Chaldee,  Da.  ii.  4-vii  28;  K/r  iv  6-vi.  l-;  and  vii.  1-J-2G;  and  .Tc. 
x.ii;  and  ///•:  <'lm/il«  nf  //,,  Tui-'im,^  <n,tl  «t],<  r  hit,;- 
Jci'-i.f/t  i<:riti>i'/s.  The  former  is  distinguished  by  a 
closer  approach  to  the  Hebrew  idiom,  and  is  therefore 
considered  less  pure  than  the'  Chaldee  of  the  Tanrum 
of  Onkelos.  tin- oldest  and  most  valuable  of  the  Tar- 
gums.  The  following  peculiarities  of  tli"  biblical  ( 'lial- 
dec  may  be  marked  :  (1.)  The  more  frequent  use  of  the 
construct  state.  (2.)  The  occasional  use  of  the  future 
tense  in  describing  past  action.  Da  iv.  .10-33;  vi.  ai;  vii.  10, 
and  also  in  describing  continued  and  habitual  action, 
Dan.  iv.  9, Hi;  vii.  2".  (3.)  The  frequent  use  of  ,-i  for  N  both  as 
a  feeble  letter,  and  as  a  formative  prefix  of  the  aphel 
and  passive  conjugations.  (4.1  The  suffixes  ^n  T<^ 
frequently  take  the  forms  c«n  C^D  in  Ezra.  These 
forms  also  appear  in  the  later  Targums.  (5.)  The  use 
of  the  Hebrew  hiphil  ami  hophal  conjugations,  Da.  v.  i:i; 
i-ii.  11,22;  Kzr.  iv.  13.  (6.)  The  occasional  use  of  the  dual 

number,  Da  ii.  a,.    (7.^   The  occasional  use  of  the  netra- 
VOL.  1. 


tive  particle  ^N-     But  compare  Onkelos  on  Ge.  xix.  7. 

(S.)  The  use  of  the  passive  participle  with  the  affixes 
of  the  preterite  tense.  Most  of  these  peculiarities  have 
been  set  down  as  Hebraisms  ;  but  the  correctness  of 
this  view  is  not  established.  Some  of  them  probablv 
belong  to  an  older  form  of  the  language  than  that 
which  appears  in  the  Targums.  It  is  certain  that  the 
Egyptio-Aramean  monuments,  even  the  stone  of  Car- 
pentras,  which,  according  to  Gcsenius,  is  not  of  Jewish 
origin,  exhibit  forms  not  less  decidedly  Hebraistic  than 
those  above  mentioned  ;  c.<j.  r,  for  N  .  «;  for  •-[  (=.  Heb. 

•7!  and   »\y   for  U;;S%-  or  n^J  (Gcsenius,  M,.n.  rhcen.  p.  22)>). 

And  in  the  Babylonisli  cuneiform,  according  to  Dr. 
liineks,  the  future  is  constantly  used  to  denote  past 
action. 

With  regard  to  the  second  division  of  the  Chaldee 
literature,  consisting  of  the  Targums  and  other  later 
Jewish  works,  it  is  characterized  bv  ^reat  diversity  of 
idiom  and  style,  arising  in  part  from  the  influence  of 
time  and  social  changes,  and  in  some  measure  also  from 
the  fact  that  the  same  derive  of  attention  was  not  paid 
to  the  accurate  transcription  of  these  works  as  to  that 
of  the  sacred  writings.  Already,  even  in  the  Taru'um 
of  Onkelos,  we  find  the  quiescent  letters  more  largely 
introduced  as  vowel  marks  than  in  the  biblical  Chaldce, 
i  ;/.  the  suffix  7t  of  the  latter  becomes  -|»  in  the 

former,  and  the  termination  ;•  takes  the  form  j-«  . 
Contracted  forms  also  become  more  numerous,  as  vp 
for  ,--T~.  and  the  change  of  «T|  into  the  prefix  n. 

In  the  Tarinim  of  Jonathan  on  the  Prophets,  these 
divergencies  from  the  biblical  Chaldee  become  more 
decided.  Occasionally,  indeed,  even  in  Onkelos,  forms 
a |  'pear  \\  hicli  \\  e  should  expect  to  find  onlv  in  the  latest 
Clialdee  writings;  but  in  characterizing  a  document, 
we  m u>t  not  attach  too  great  importance  to  forms  which 
arc  of  rare  occurrence,  as  it  is  not  uncommon  for  an 
ancient  document  to  lie  somewhat  modernized  in  pro- 
ccss  of  transcription.  In  the  later  Targums  we  meet 
with  many  new  and  strange  words  and  forms,  not  a 
few  of  them  traceable  to  foreign  influence.  I  Jut  into 
tin'  minute  detail  of  these  peculiarities  our  space  does 
not  permit  us  to  enter. 

[Tip-  student  ••('  ( 'liaM.-e  will  tind  tin-  lu-co.-snvy  aid-  in  Winer's 
Chaldee  Grammar;  liuxt.n-fs  ri.ald.v  and  Haliliiiiio  Lexicon  ; 
Schaat's  (  i  pi  is  A  rani:  i 'ii  in  ;  lieelen's  < 'Inv.-toniatliy.  ]  [n.  II.  w.  ] 

CHAMBERING  is  used  only  once  in  our  Scriptures, 
and  in  a  bad  sense  of  lewd  and  licentious  behaviour, 
Uo.  xiii.  i::.  The  word  in  the  original,  Koirij,  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  that  sense,  not  even  in  New  Testa 
ment  scripture,  but  such  is  undoubtedly  the  meaning 
it  bears  in  the  passage  just  referred  to. 

CHAMBERS  OF  IMAGERY  is  a  peculiar  expres 
sion  of  the  prophet  Ezekiel.  and  by  him  used  only  on 
one  occasion,  ch.  viii.  12,  when  he  is  portraying  in  vivid 
and  striking  colours  tlie  idolatrous  corruptions  which 
had  obtained  a  footing  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah  dur 
ing  the  later  stages  of  its  history.  It  has  respect, 
indeed,  only  to  one  form  of  those  corruptions — the 
imitation  of  the  manners  of  Egypt,  by  painting  on  the 
wall  of  a  chamber  representations  of  the  irrational 
creatures,  and  various  idols,  which  were  the  immediate 
objects  of  veneration  and  worship.  When  earned  by 
the  Spirit  of  God  from  the  banks  of  the  Chebar  to  the 
temple  courts  of  Jerusalem,  the  prophet  hears,  among 

37 


(TLAMI'.EIIS    OK    I.MAOKRY 


CHAMKLEOX 


other  thing's,  the  voice  of  tin;  Lord  saying  to  him,  "Sou 
of  man,  dig  now  in  the  wall;  and  1  dug  in  the  wall, 
and  behold  a  door.  And  he  said  to  me,  Come  and  see 
the  evil  abominations  which  they  arc  practising  here. 
And  [  came  and  looked,  and  liehold  every  form  of 
creeping  thing's,  and  abominable  lieasts,  and  ail  the 
idols  of  the  house  of  Israel,  portrayed  everywhere  on 
the  wall  round  aliout.  And  there  stood  before  them 
seventy  men.  elders  nf  ili<'  house  of  Israel,  and  Jaa/.a- 
niah  the  son  of  Shaphan  stood  in  the  midst  of  them, 
each  man  \\ith  his  c>-nser  in  liis  hand,  and  the  prayer 
(or  worship!  of  the  cloud  of  incense  ascending'.  And 
he  said  to  inc.  Jlast  thou  seen.  son  of  man,  what  the 
elders  of  the  liousi  of  Israel  are  doing  in  the,  dark. 
every  man  in  the  chambers  of  his  imagery;  for  they 
say,  .lehovah  docs  not  see  us,  Jehovah  has  forsaken  the 
earth"  (vci-.S-li;  F:urb;vmi'(i Translation).  The  practice  of 
painting  on  chamber-walls  objects  of  \\orship,  and  even 
giving  elaborate  and  detailed  representations  of  the 
religious  services  performed  in  honour  of  them,  was  ap 
parently  of  Egyptian  origin  ;  it  was  at  least  carried  to 
its  chief  perfection  there  ;  and  there  alone  did  the 
downward  tendency  of  idolatry  go  so  far  as  to  conse 
crate  to  religious  honours  "creeping-  things  and  abomin 
able  beasts."  Of  this,  ample  proof  has  been  given  by 
late  writers  on  Egyptian  antiquities,  as  may  be  seen, 
for  example,  in  \\ilkinsons  Maiinirx  -/m./  Customs  of 
the  Aiifitiif  /:''////''"'"•••'.  ch.  xiv.  Such  a  description, 
therefore,  as  that  of  the  prophet  Ezi.kiel  very  fitly 
served  the  purpose  of  representing  the  degenerate  in 
habitants  of  .ludah  and  Jerusalem  as  giving  way  to  an 
egyptizing  spirit  in  religion  ;  instead  of  adhering  to 
the  prescribed  worship  of  .Jehovah,  they  went  a  whoring 
after  the  idolatrous  practices  of  the  heathen — each  one 
taking  up  with  what  in  these  most  peculiarly  struck  his 
fancy,  or  seemed  best  adapted  to  allay  his  superstitious 
fears,  and  giving  to  that  a  place  in  filx  chambers  of 
imagery.  The  prophet  lays  stress « m  the  diversity — every 
man  having,  as  it  were,  his  own  chamber,  replenished 
with  his  own  darling  objects  of  idolatrous  regard  (for 
such  ever  is  the  divergent,  self-willed  tendency  of 
idolatry):  and  also  points  to  the  conscious  shame  con 
nected  with  it :  what  they  did  in  this  lower  phase  of 
idol- worship  they  did  ''in  the  dark,"  and  as  in  cham 
bers  which  were  closed  up  and  required  to  be  dug 
into  that  they  might  be  surveyed.  We  have  110  reason 
to  think,  as  lias  sometimes  been  imagined,  that  this  hole- 
and-corner  seeresy  was  itself  an  imitation  of  heathen 
usage,  as  if  such  also  were  the  usual  practice  in  Egypt. 
No  doubt,  inner  chambers,  difficult  of  access,  in  tombs 
and  other  monuments  of  Egypt,  have  been  found  ex 
hibiting  such  pictorial  representations  as  those  described 
bv  Ezekiel;  but  these  were  not  the  places  where  worship 
was  performed  ;  they  but  preserved  the  entablatures 
on  wliich  were  portrayed  the  objects  of  worship,  or  the 
worship  itself,  for  a  memorial  to  future  generations. 
The  spiritually- degraded  Egyptians,  like  the  heathen 
generally,  knowing  nothing  better,  were  not  ashamed 
of  their  idolatry  ;  they  rather  gloried  in  their  shame, 
and  connected  their  beast-worship  with  public  proces 
sions  and  boisterous  demonstrations.  But  the  Israelites 
could  not  sink  quite  so  low  ;  and  while  their  supersti 
tious  fears  and  depraved  hearts  led  them  to  lust,  in 
this  respect,  after  the  abominations  of  Egypt,  their 
better  knowledge  made  them  conscious  of  a  certain 
degree  of  shame  in  what  they  did.  and  caused  them  to 
practise  their  foul  rites  in  the  darkness  of  seeresy. 


It  is  a  mistake,  therefore,  to  suppose,  that  the  repre 
sentation  of  the  prophet  respecting  the  withdrawn  and 
studiously  hidden  nature  of  the  worship  referred  to  had 
its  parallel  in  the  province  of  heathenism.  It  is  a  mis 
take  also  (however  commonly  fallen  into)  to  suppose 
that  the  prophetic  delineation  "was  intended  to  exhibit 
an  actual  scene  taking  place  in  the  temple  chambers; 
this  is  partly  guarded  against  by  the  statement,  that 

I  what  the  prophet  saw  was  a  representation  of  what 
every  man  was  doinn' in  ///.<  chambers  of  imagery:  it 
was  but  gi\  ing  a  kind  of  rehearsal  of  what  was  daily 
proceeding  in  tin-  land.  And  the  same  might  be  in 
ferred  still  more  from  the  ideal  character  of  the  whole 
description;  the  prophet  throughout  the  chapter  de 
scribes  what  lie  saw  "in  the  visions  of  God,"  and  in 
which,  as  elsewhere  so  doubtless  also  here,  he  was  pre 
sented  with  no  literal  details  or  matter-of-fact  transac 
tions,  but  with  a  condensed  and  life-like  exhibition  of 
tin:  truth  of  things,  such  as,  though  in  itself  an  ideal 

!  picture,  would  still  convey  a  faithful  impression  of  the 
reality.  The  scene,  therefore,  which  passed  before  his 
spiritual  eye  was  laid  in  the  temple  buildings,  because 
the  temple  was  at  once  the  centre  and  the  image  of  the 
whole  kingdom.  "As  the  heart  of  the  nation  had  its 
seat  there,  so  there  also,  in  the  mongrel  and  polluted 
character  of  the  worship  celebrated,  the  guilt  of  the 
people  found  its  representation;  and,  hence,  when  the 
object  was  to  present  a  clear  and  palpable  exhibition  of 
the  crying  abominations  that  existed  in  the  land,  the 
scene  \\asmosttitly  laid  in  the  temple,  and  assumed 
the  form  of  things  seen  and  transacted  in  its  court.-. 

!  But  we1  are  no  more  to  ivjard  the  things  themselves  in 
the  precise  form  and  combination  here  given  to  them, 
as  all  actually  meeting  together  at  any  particular  mo 
ment  in  the  temple- worship,  and  simply  transcribed  by 

j  the  prophet  from  the  occurrences  of  real  life,  than  to 
regard  the  instructions  that  immediately  follow — viz. 
to  set  a  mark  for  preservation  on  the  foreheads  of  some, 
and  to  destroy  the  rest  with  weapons  of  slaughter — as 

1  actually  put  in  force  at   the  time,  and   in  the   manner 

I  there  described  "  (Fairbairn's  Ezekiel,  p.  8C). 

CHAMELEON  (n'r,  /.'w/0.  It  is  difficult  to  de 
termine,  with  any  approach  to  certainty,  obscure  ani 
mals  which  are  but  once  or  twice  alluded  to  in  Scrip 
ture  ;  and  especially  when  their  names  are  simply 
mentioned,  with  no  glance  at  their  attributes  or  their 
habits.  The  Hebrew  word  rendered  chameleon  occurs 
as  the  name  of  an  animal  but  once,  Lc.  xi  :;n;  and  the 
only  clue  that  we  have  to  its  meaning,  besides  its  sound, 
is  its  association  with  certain  other  unclean  and  forbidden 
creatures,  which  are  termed  "creeping  things,"  and 
which  may  reasonably  be  presumed  to  be  the  smaller 
quadruped  Ueptilia.  Our  English  version  follows  the 
LXX.  in  rendering  |-o,  chameleon,  xayucu\e'w;'.  The 

chameleon  is  an  oriental  animal,  and  was  doubtless 
familiar  enough  to  the  Alexandrian  Jews;  but  these 
were  probably  no  naturalists,  and  are  therefore  no 
more  sure  authority  on  a  question  like  this,  than  a 
dozen  Oxford  divines  would  be  in  deciding  what  bird  is 
the  woodwale  of  our  early  ballads. 

The  word  /.-niti'li  occurs  frequently  in  the  Scriptures, 
but  with  the  single  exception  of  Le.  xi.  3't,  it  invari 
ably  means  xtmi'/t/i.  We  do  not  think  that  the  term 
as  signifying  a  reptile  has  the  slightest  affinity  with 
the  word  so  spelled,  in  its  normal  signification,  any 


CHAMELEON 


CHAMOIS 


more  than  our  English  word  Jiumblc-bet  has  with  the 
moral  adjective  humble.  Each  is  an  example  of  an 
imitation  word ;  the  reptile  is  doubtless  named  koucJi 
from  its  iTniik. 

Now  we  have  never  heard  or  read  any  allusion  to 
the  voice  of  the  chameleon.  There  is,  however,  a  tribe 
of  small  lizards  common  in  the  warmer  regions  of  the 
earth,  several  species  of  which  are  abundant  in  Western 
Asia  and  Egypt,  whose  remarkably  harsh  croaking, 
pertinaciously  uttered  in  dwellings  and  out-houses 
during  the  silence  of  night,  has  forced  them  on  general 
attention,  and  secured  for  them  names  imitative  of  their 
voices  in  various  languages,  as  tn<-k<i\,  f/dtji ,  f/ccko, 
croakiixj  Ii~it.nl,  &o.  We  refer  to  the  family  Gecko- 
tidie,  and  to  one  or  other  of  the  commoner  species  of  this 


I  It'll        The  Ccdin     I'ti/tidactuluKhattsi'liiulxtii 

family,  perhaps  the  I'l v<»/ '  n-t /// '//y  /, ,/,.-y,  /y///W/V,  or  the 
Platydacti/lus  "•<///////''/<».•<  of  modei-n  zoologists. 

The  geckos  are  small  li/.ards.  u-ual!  v  somewhat  clumsy 
in  form,  stealthy  and  cat  like  in  their  actions,  secret i ML; 
themselves  in  holes  and  crevices  by  dav.  and  at  ni^ht 
coining  forth  to  prey  upon  nocturnal  insects.  The  form 
of  the  eye  indicates  their  season  of  acti\  it  v:  for  the  pupil. 
which  is  capable  of  -Teat  expansion  and  contraction. 
closes  to  a  vertical  line.  The  animals  crawl  with  ease  and 
confidence  on  perpendicular  walls,  and  even  on  the  under 
sides  of  ceilings,  beams,  and  the  like,  provided  these 
have  a  somewhat  roughened  surface.  This  curious 
] lower,  the  rapidity  with  which  they  disappear  in  some 
crevice  when  alarmed,  and  their  sombre  and  lurid  hues, 
their  association  with  niuht.  their  loud  and  harsh  croak, 
their  slow  and  stealthy  pace,  and  especially  a  certain 
sinister  expression  of  countenance,  produced  by  the 
larire  u'lobular  eve.  unprotected  by  an  eyelid  and 
divided  by  its  linear  pupil,  have  combined  to  give  to 
these  reptiles  in  all  countries  a  popular  reputation  for 
malignity  and  venom,  and  they  are  generally  much 
dreaded.  This  reputation,  however,  appears  to  be 
wholly  groundless:  and  the  story  told  by  Hasselquist, 
of  a  man  who  would  lay  hold  of  the  reptile,  and  whose 
hand  instantly  became  covered  with  red  pustules,  in 
flamed  and  itching,  must  be  received  with  suspicion. 
Still  more  incredible  is  another  account  by  the  same 
naturalist,  to  the  effect  that  he  saw  at  Cairo  two  women 
and  a  girl,  at  the  point  of  death,  from  having  eaten 
some  cheese  over  which  a  gecko  had  crawled  ! 

The  most  interesting  point  in  the  economy  of  these 
curious  lizards  is  the  structure  of  their  feet,  by  which 
they  are  enabled  to  defy  the  laws  of  gravity.  The  feet 
are  nearly  equal,  short,  stout,  and  terminated  by  five 
toes,  differing  little  in  length,  which  radiate  as  if  from 


a  centre,  so  as  to  form  two  thirds  of  a  circle.  The 
under  surface  of  the  toes  is.  in  most  of  the  genera, 
much  widened,  and  furnished  with  small  plates  or 
laminae,  overlapping  each  other  in  a  regular  manner, 
which  varies  in  different  genera  and  species.  The  toes 
are  frequently  united  by  a  membrane  at  their  base. 
The  claws  are  pointed,  hooked,  and  kept  constantly 
sharp,  by  an  apparatus  by  which  they  are  capable  of 
retraction,  like  those  of  the  cat. 

It  is  by  means  of  the  singular  lamellated  structure  of 
the  under  surface  of  the  toes,  that  these  reptiles,  or  at 
least  many  of  them,  are  enabled  to  clin-'  to  vertical  or 
even  inverted  surfaces,  as  house-flies  do.  The  mode  in 
which  this  is  effected  we  do  not  thoroughly  under 
stand;  but  we  may  conjecture  that  it  is  bv  tin-  raising 
of  these  imbricated  plates  by  muscular  action,  so  as  to 
form  a  vacuum  beneath  the  sole,  when  the  pressure  of 
the  external  air  causes  the  toe  to  adhere  firmly  to  the 
surface.  The  similarity  of  the  structure  to  that  of  the 
coronal  sucker  in  tin-  remora  suggests  this  explana 
tion.  A  familiar  illustration  of  the  principle  is  seen  in 
the  leathern  suckers  which  children  make,  which  ad 
here  so  firmly  that  large  stones  are  lifted  by  them. 

'  [I..H.IS.J 

CHAMOIS    i--::.   :,„„,•>.       It    may  with  safety  be 

assumed  that  the  antelope  which  we  understand  by 
the  term  rham<>ix.  an  animal  which  is  never  seen  except 
amoirj;  the  loftiest  and  most  inaccessible  peaks  of  such 
mountain  chains  as  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees,  the 
Taurus  and  the  Caucasus,  would  not  have  been  men 
tioned  among  the  creatures  whose  flesh  was  permitted 
to  Knc  1  :  but  uhat  the  zcinri'  was  is  uncertain. 

The  word  occurs  but  once.  Iv  xiv  ;>,  where  it  is  asso 
ciated  with  other  w  ild  ruminants,  in  an  order  which,  so 
far  as  we  can  identify  them,  appears  to  be^in  with  the 
smaller  kinds,  and  to  eo  ,,n  to  the  larger.  If  any 
thing  can  be  adduced  from  this,  the  :,«.>•  ought  to  be 
the  largest  of  all.  since  it  is  the  last  enumerated.  The 
LXX.,  followed  by  the  Vulgate,  render  the  term  by 
Ka/J.ri\o~rd.pda.\is,  cfiinflo/jartlnllx ;  and  as  this  is  an 
animal  which  it  was  impossible  to  confound  with  any 
oilier,  and  which  once  known  bv  name  could  never 
have  been  forgotten,  much  weight  must  attach  to  their 
identification  ;  especially  as  the  Arabic  version  gives 
the  same  rendering,  ://•"//;. 

At  this  day  the  giraffe  i  1'nmi  /n/iiii-i/n/i.-t  </ir</fl'<n, 
now  so  familiar  to  us  from  the  numerous  specimens 
•which  ornament  our  menageries,  and  which  breed  freely 
in  captivity,  is  found  commonly  in  Nubia,  anil  many 
other  parts  of  East  and  South  Africa.  It  frequents 
vast  plains,  feeding  mainly  on  the  foliage  of  the  arbo 
rescent  Mimosea1.  in  company  with  the  ostrich,  many 
antelopes,  and  wild  Equida\  Now.  many  of  the  geo 
logical  and  botanical  characteristics  of  such  regions 
exist  in  Arabia  and  Southern  Syria:  and  it  is  by  no 
means  improbable  that,  at  the  time  of  the  exodus,  the 
giraffe  (whose  name  is  Arabic)  was  found  scattered 
over  the  peninsula.  If  so.  it  would  be  likely  to  fall  in 
the  way  of  the  Israelites  during  their  forty  years'  wan 
derings,  and.  when  seen,  would  be  an  object  of  desire 
for  the  wholesomeness  and  quantity  of  its  flesh.  It 
was  certainly  familiar  to  the  early  Egyptians,  who  have 
represented  it  on  their  monuments,  though  it  does  not 
occur  in  their  hunting  scenes.  And  in  later  times  the 
Romans  were  able  to  procure  considerable  numbers  of 
this  magnificent  creature  from  Alexandria  for  their 


CHAMOIS 


CHAOS 


shows   and  pomps.     The  third  Gordian,  for  example, 
exhibited  Leu  giraffes  at  once. 

Cognate  words  to  zmn-r  are  used  to  signify  a  branch 
or  twiu'.  and  music  or  singing.  Tlie  latter  .souse  seems 
to  be  peculiarly  inapplicable  to  tlie  giraffe:  for  under 
no  circumstances  is  it  known  ev<_r  to  utter  a  sound.  But 
its  habit  of  feeding,  bv  gathering  with  its  tongue  and 


tli''3  1        (lir;iflV.      I'r.iin    Ki_y]>ti;ui  juiintiii.4.  representing  clii 


cropping  the  twi^s  of  trees,  inav  hear  a  relation  to  tlie 
former  sense.  On  the  whole,  we  think  it  likely  that 
this  beautiful  and  stately  ruminant  is  the  "  chamois"  of 
tlie  English  version. 

The  giraffe  is  tlie  largest  of  ruminants,  attaining 
a  height  of  18  feet,  a  considerable  part  of  which  is. 
however,  due  to  the  long  and  swan-like  neck,  the  grace 
and  elegance  of  which  add  much  to  the  charm  of  this 
beautiful  animal.  Tlie  legs.  too.  are  long;  but  still 
the  body  is  far  more  bulky  than  that  of  the  largest  ox. 
The  withers  are  considerably  higher  than  the  rump,  a 
disproportion  which  does  not  reside  in  the  legs — for  the 
hind  legs  have  a  slight  advantage  in  this  respect — but 
in  the  elongation  of  the  shoulder-blades,  ami  the 
height  of  the  spinous  processes  of  the  first  dorsal 
vertebra*.  The  countenance  is  antelope-like,  with  a 
most  gentle  expression,  and  the  eye  has  all  the  dark 
lustrous  fulness  of  that  of  the  gazelle.  The  phy 
siognomy  is.  in  fact,  a  correct  index  of  the  character; 
for  it  is  a  most  gentle  and  harmless  creature,  notwith 
standing  its  vast  <}7A-  and  immense  muscular  power. 
Its  means  of  defence  are.  first,  its  swiftness  of  foot: 
and  here  its  length  of  limb  stands  it  in  good  stead,  for 
it  strides  over  the  ground  with  a  loose  shambling  gait, 
which  a  good  horse  has  difficulty  in  overtaking.  Se 
condly,  it  can  and  does  throw  round  its  hind  leg  with 
great  force,  if  its  pursuer  approaches  too  close.  Le 
Vaillant  says  from  his  personal  knowledge  that,  by  its 
kicking,  it  often  tires  out.  discourages,  and  even  beats 
off  the  lion.  And  Dr.  Livingstone  considers  that  there 
would  be  little  to  choose  between  a  blow  from  this 
sledge-hammer  of  a  hoof,  and  one  from  the  arm  of  a 
windmill.  The  males  in  the  Zoological  Gardens  at 
London  are  said  to  fight  occasionally  in  a  singular  but 
very  effective  manner,  by  swinging  the  head  round, 
with  the  long  neck  as  a  radius,  and  striking  the  head 
of  the  adversary  with  immense  force. 

The  skin  of  the  giralfe  is  of  a  light  bay  hue,  studded 


with  great  irregular  spots,  which  are  chestnut  in  the 
female,  and  nearly  black  in  the  male:  these  angular 
spots  are  so  arranged  as  to  leave  narrow  winding  in 
terstices  of  the  ground  colour.  Its  head  is  adorned 
with  two  short  permanent  horns,  tipped  with  hair,  and 
there  is  a  rudimentary  third  horn,  placed  medially  upon 
the  forehead.  [i~.  II.  Q.J 

CHANGERS  OF  MONEY  were  a  class  of 
traders  who  sprang  up  in  the  later  times  of  the 
Jewish  commonwealth,  chiefly  for  the  accom 
modation  of  the  dispersed  .lews  who  came  to  the 
annual  feasts  at  Jerusalem  These  occasional 
visitants  required  to  have  the  coin  of  the  differ 
ent  countries  from  which  they  came  exchanged 
for  that  which  was  current  in  the  land  of  their 
fathers;  and  as  they  all  required  the  didrachma, 
or  half-shekel,  which  was  imposed  at  the  erec 
tion  of  the  tabernacle  upon  every  full-grown 
male,  Kx.  xxxviii.  a;, and  continued  to  be  recognized 
as  binding  in  future  generations  when  they  pre 
sented  themselves  at  the  temple  courts,  so.  for 
their  greater  convenience,  the  money- changers 
planted  their  tables  in  that  part  of  the  temple 
buildings  which  was  called  the  court  of  the 
Gentiles.  It  was  there  our  Lord  found  them, 
and  manifested  his  righteous  indignation  at  the 
prof anation  which  they  had  brought  into  the  house 
of  God.  by  driving  them  out  of  its  sacred  precincts. 
Mat.  x\i.  ]•_'-.  .In.  ii.  14.  Even  lawful  merchandise 
ceased  to  be  lawful  when  carried  on  there;  and  it  is  not 
doubtfully  intimated  by  our  Lord,  on  the  second  occasion 
that  he  resorted  to  this  severity,  that  the  mode  of  con 
ducting  the  merchandise  itself  was  unjust;  for  he  charges 
them  with  having  made  God's  house  "a  den  of  thieves." 
CHAOS.  This,  although  not  a  scriptural  term,  is  yet 
frequently  used  to  designate  the  state  of  the  earth  at 
the  period  of  its  history  set  forth  ill  Ge.  i.  2.  Derived 
from  the  Greek  and  l.'oman  cosmogonies,  it  had  been 
early  introduced  by  Christian  commentators  into  this 
biblical  connection.  According  to  Hcsiod  (Theog.  lid) 
chaos  was  the  vacant  and  infinite  space  which  existed 
previous  to  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  out  of  which 
the  gods,  men.  and  all  things  sprang  into  being.  Ovid's 
account  of  chaos  is  considerably  different.  He  describes 
it  as  a  confused  mass,  which  contained  the  elements  of 
all  things  which  were  formed  out  of  it  (Jlet.im.  i.  f.> 
Notions  somewhat  similar,  though  differently  expressed. 
prevailed  throughout  almost  all  the  ancient  world, 
showing  that  they  must  have  been  derived  from  some 
common  source,  being  in  all  probabilitv  primeval  tra 
ditions  of  the  creation,  which  in  their  uncorrupted 
puritv  have  been  preserved  only  in  the  sacred  Scrip 
tures.  Some  cosmogonies,  indeed,  as  the  Phoenician, 
retain  the  1  liblical  terms  descriptive  of  chaos,  but  changed 
into  personal  existences  :  for  instance,  the  Hebrew  term 
«|l-l'3('<o7wN.  emptiness,  being  transformed  into  BAAU,  the 
name  of  the  producing  principle.  I3ut  while  a  few  cosmo 
gonies  admit  that  it  was  through  the  agency  of  a  god 
that  chaos  was  reduced  into  order,  which  resulted  in 
the  present  mundane  system,  the  great  majority  are 
entirely  atheistic,  ascribing  the  action  either  to  the  pro 
perties  and  dispositions  of  matter,  or  to  a  blind  necessity: 
while  they  all  differ  from  the  scriptural  account  of 
creation  by  making  chaos  a  primarily  independent  exist 
ence,  contrary  to  the  biblical  doctrine  which  makes  it 
the  creation  of  God.  or  at  leasts  limits  its  duration 
bv  a  prior  act  of  creation. 


CHAOS 


CHAOS 


As  this,  however,  is  a  subject  greatly  misapprehended, 
owing  to  the  misapplication  of  the  term  chaos  to  the 
Mosaic  account  of  the  creation,  with  which  it  has  little 
in  common,  and  to  the  supposed  collision  between  the 
language  of  Scripture  and  modern  geological  discoveries, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  the  import  of  Go.  i.  2,  and 
its  connection  both  with  the  initial  announcement  respect 
ing  the  creation  and  with  the  narrative  which  follows. 

First,  this  account  of  the  earth's  condition  follows  an 
announcement — the  first  in  the  sacred  record.  "  In  the 
beginning  (rod  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
it  will  be  shown  in  the  article  CREATION  that  this  an 
nouncement,  while  giving  no  intimation  as  to  the  ques 
tion  of  time,  or  in  any  way  limiting  the  antiquity  of 
the  universe  or  the  earth,  distinctly  teaches  that  the 
original  act  of  creation  had  respect  to  the  origination 
of  matter,  and  the  disposition  of  the  matter  so  created 
into  distinct  masses  throughout  space  to  form  tin- 
nucleus  of  worlds  and  systems;  but  it  will  be  necessary 
to  consider  here  the  relation  of  this  original  creating  act 
to  the  chaotic  state'  of  the  earth.  The  first  verse  is 
frequently  regarded  as  a  general  title  and  summary  of 
the  chapter,  on  the  ground  chiefly  that  the  creation  oi 
the  heavens  and  of  the  earth  i-  subsequently  mentioned. 
vcr.8,10.  l!ut  as  "tile  heavens"  and  "the  earth"  in  the 
latter  ca-e  are  evidently  used  in  a  different  sense  from 
what  they  arc  in  the  first  verse,  and  as  this  supposition, 
beside  destroying  the  continuity  of  the  discourse,  gives 
a  commencement  <>f  the  narrative  grammatically  un 
precedented  in  the  liible,  and  further  presents  the  earth 
in  such  a  stall-  as  would  readily  induce  belief  in  an 
eternal  chaos,  a  doctrine  altogether  foreign  to  Scrip 
ture,  there  is  no  alternative-  but  to  regard  the  passasri 
as  announcing  the  first  creatinu'  act  of  the  series.  The 
state  of  the  earth  at  tin's  >tauv  is  described  as  "  without 
form  and  void;''  but  a  closer  rendering  would  he 
"emptiness  and  vacuitv,"  a  combination  of  synonymous 
terms  accord in<_r  to  a  Hebrew  idiom  to  express  complete 
desolation:  \\hile  the  scene  is  further  deepened  by  the 
intimation  that  "darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the 
deep,"  the  universal  ocean  with  which,  as  stated  in  I's. 
civ.  (i.  the  earth  was  at  that  time  enveloped. 

But  a  question  .irises  whether  this  description  applies 
to  the  earth's  original  state,  and  before  the  process  of 
creation  issued  in  order  and  life,  or  to  an  after  period 
in  its  history,  when,  through  some  convulsion,  darkness 
and  death  succeeded  a  former  creation.  The  latter 
supposition  is  adopted  by  many,  who  maintain  that  the 
terms  descriptive  of  the  desolation  are  elsewhere  used  of 
devastations  of  previously  fertile  and  populous  regions, 
Is.  xxxiv.  ll  ;  Ju.  iv.  -2:;.  This  may,  indeed,  be  conceded 
without  any  disadvantage  to  our  argument,  for  there 
is  no  similar  passage  with  which  the  present  can  be 
compared.  Another  argument  in  support  of  this  view- 
is  that  such  a  rude  chaotic  state  ill  accords  with  a  pro 
duction  of  God,  and  his  expressed  end  in  creation,  Is. 
xlv  is;  but  this  is  confounding  the  end  with  the  begin 
ning,  and  demanding  that  the  work  only  commenced 
should  resemble  the  completed  structure.  It  is  unneces 
sary  to  reply  to  such  arguments,  for  the  original  will 
not,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  admit  of  this 
construction:  for  the  rendering,  "the  earth  became," 
on  this  supposition,  instead  of  "the  earth  was,"  would 
require  to  have  been  differently  expressed  in  Hebrew 
(Kurtz,  Bibel  uiiil  Astronomic,  Berlin,  1-.V!,  p.  K)4).  Butnotonly 

is  this  view  philologically  inadmissible — the  very  science 
in  favour  of  which  it  is  maintained  sternly  refuses  the 


benefit  proffered;  geology  will  not  admit,  any  more  than 
the  narrative  in  Genesis,  of  any  break  in  the  great  crea 
tive  process,  or  any  convulsion  which  cuts  off  the  present 
orders  of  life  on  the  earth  from  those  which  preceded. 

1  "  From  the  origin  of   organic  life."   remarks   Professor 

,  Phillips,  "there  is  no  break  in  the  vast  chain  of  organic 
development  till  we  reach  the  existing  order  of  things: 
no  one  geological  period,  long  or  short,  no  one  series  of 
stratified  rocks,  is  ever  devoid  of  traces  of  life.  The 
world,  once  inhabited,  has  apparently  never,  for  any 
ascertainable  period,  been  totally  despoiled  of  its  living 
wonders."  The  same  is  the  testimony  of  all  geologists. 
It  is  necessary  to  advert  to  this,  from  the  circumstance 
that  when  the  discoveries  of  geology  relative  to  the  aire 
of  the  earth  began  to  trouble  the  interpreter  of  Scrip 
ture,  an  escape  from  the  difficulty  was  sought  in  the 
assumption  that  Genesis  describes  only  a  renovation  of 
the  earth's  surface  after  some  desolating  convulsion,  at 
first  thought  to  be  universal:  hut  as  the  progress  of  the 
science  rendered  this  untenable,  the  chaos  was  next 
taken  to  lie  of  limited  extent,  and  confined  to  some 
portion  of  Western  Asia  d'u-  sn.itii.  Script.  ;m<l  (;o>l..gy,  .MH 
e<lit.  ]'  -.'.-.iii,  and  that  it  makes  no  reference  to  the  creations 
the-  evidences  of  which  are  preserved  in  the  rocks,  but 
only  to  the  vegetable  and  animal  productions  at  present 
in  existence,  and  introduced  in  the  course  of  six  natural 

•  days.  l!ut  this  assumption,  even  in  its  latest  and  most 
limited  form,  of  a  chaos  immediately  preceding  the 
creation  of  man.  i>  distinctly  n  pudiated  by  u'eologv, 
while  it  is  equally  at  variance,  as  already  remarked, 
both  with  the  letter  and  tin-  spirit  of  the  .Mosaic  narra 
live:  so  that  a  reconciliation  between  (  lenesisand  geology 
HUM  be  snii'jht  on  other  prineipli  s  than  the  supposition 
that  Ge.  i.  '2  describes  the  wreck  of  an  older  world: 
and  not.  as  it  should  manifestly  betaken.  :is  descriptive 
of  the  primeval  state  of  the  earth  before  any  arrange 
ment  of  its  surface  be^an. 

Secondly,  it  is  necessary  to  examine  the  biblical  de 
scription  of  chaos,  and  consider  its  relation  to  modern 
discoveries  and  theories  of  creation.  From  such  it 
.-tands  altogether  apart,  neither  impeding  investigation, 
nor  countenancing  in  particular  any  of  the  theories  in 

:  support  of  which  scientific  men  are  divided.  <  >f  am 
stages  through  which  the  earth  may  have  passed,  down 
to  the  period  when  it  was  surrounded  by  the  dark 

'  chaotic  waters,  Scripture  is  r-iYnt.  For  any  expression 
to  the  contrary,  it  may.  according  to  modern  hypotheses, 
have  existed  as  diffused  nebulous  matter,  afterwards 
condensed  into  a  molten  mass,  gradually  cooling  down 
so  as  to  admit  of  a  watery  envelope,  or  its  formation  may 
have  proceeded  in  accordance  with  the  Neptunian  prin 
eiples.  or,  indeed,  in  any  other  way  which  science  may 
ultimately  determine:  for-  all  that  Scripture  affirms  is 
(and  so  far  there  is  no  antagonism  between  its  testimony 
and  that  of  science),  that  at  the  period  in  question,  some 
early  stage  in  the  earth's  history,  life,  and  the  first  con 
ditions  of  life,  were  wanting.  Nor  can  the  duration  of 
this  chaotic  period  be  determined  from  anything  in 

|  the  narrative,  which  is  equally  reserved  regarding  any 
physical  processes  which  may  have  bejn  going  on  in 
the  interval;  but  that  it  was  a  short  period,  or  one  of 
inactivity,  there  is  no  reason  to  conclude  from  anything 
known  from  nature  or  revelation  of  the  operations  of 
the  omnipotent  Creator.  There  was  a  pledge  however 
in  the  character  of  the  Creator  and  his  initial  act,  as 
announced  in  the  first  sentence  of  the  Bible,  that  the 
state  of  matters  next  described  should  not  always  be: 


CHARGE!,' 


CHARIOTS 


thus  saith  the  Lord  that  created  the  heavens;  God 
himself  that  formed  the  earth  and  made  it;  1 
established  it  not  in  vain"  (^p,  tn/in,  mtjithitm  the 
condition  described  in  tie.  i.  -2  was  not  to  be  a  terminal 
result  "  lie  formed  it  to  lie  inhabited,"  Is.  \lv.  IN.  More 
over,  it  is  declared  that  "  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon 
the  face  of  the  waters."  another  important  point  in 
which  the  cosmogony  of  the  Bible,  and  in  particular  its 
chaos,  differs  from  all  the  atheistic  notions  current  in 
ancient  or  modern  times,  which  attribute  the  results 
either  to  the  ••fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms."  or  to 
"  laws  of  nature  "  acting,  strange  to  say,  independent 
of  or  without  a  la\v-givcr.  It  strikingly  accords  too 


r  according  to  the  declaration  of  the  prophet  —  "  For     iron  of  Sisera,  .in.  i.  in,  as  a   terrible   advantage  on  the 

^  ide  of  the  enemy.  The  Philistines  in  their  war  against 
hath  ;  Saul  had  30,  000  chariots,  isa.  xiii.5.  David  took  1000 
war-  chariots  from  Uadade/.er  king  of  Assyria,  but 
burned  '.toil,  reserving  only  100  for  himself,  -'Sa.  viii.  47. 
The  mountainous  nature  of  the  country  of  .ludea  rend 
ered  chariots  comparatively  useless,  nevertheless  Solo 
mon  made  himself  a  chariot  of  the  wood  of  Lebanon, 
Songiii.!!  ;  and  he  also  brought  chariots  from  Ei^yjit. 
iK"i.x.i;:i;  but  there  is  no  mention  of  their  being  employed 
in  battle.  The  king  of  Syria.  Antioehus  L'upator,  led 
300  chariots  armed  with  scythes  against  Jmhea.  ^M:K- 
xiii.  1,-j.  Nahum  alludes  constantly  to  chariots,  di.  ii  :;,  i 
If  we  examine  the  sculptures  of  Iv/ypt  we  find  that 


with  the  latest  discoveries  of  science  that   light  should     the  strength  of  the  armies  of  the  Pharaohs  was  in  their 
be  the  first  product  of  the  creating  Spirit,  who  brooded     chariots,  an  Kgyptian  army  being  composed  exclusively 

haotic   deep      light   in  its    universality 

',  and  not  as  a  satellite  to  the  earth  in 


over  this  dark  c 
throughout  spac 
the  absence  of  t 


sometimes   sh 


thr 


persons  in  each  chariot  the 
CHARGER,  an  old,  but  now  antiquated  term  for  a  skilled  warrior,  his  shield- bearer,  and  the  charioteer,  a 
kind  of  hollow  plate  or  trencher,  for  serving  up  anything  circumstance  that  throws  a  very  important  light  on  a 
on  -  such  as  Hour  or  oil  -  used  also  for  the  presentation  passa,,-e  in  Kxodus,  xiv.7,  that  has  given  rise  to  much 
of  John  Baptist's  head  to  Herodias,  Nn.vli.79;  Mat. xiv. 8.  speculation.  (See  Gescnius  or  Parkhurst  under  »^--.  i 
The  word  was  properly  a  general  term,  indicating  what  ''  -t 

bore  or  was  loaded  with  any  weight,  and  hence  had  Tho  w"r'1  wmrh  in  "ur  tuxt  is  translated  rii^tah, 
various  applications,  among  others  to  a  horse  as  ridden  mtians  literally  a  thinl  man,  who  was  a  chosen  war- 
upon,  which  is  still  in  use.  j  ri°r,  an  expert  bowman  in  each  chariot,  and  the 

CHARIOTS.  The  Hebrew  words  I,K  rl,-ah<ilt  and  !  Egyptian  representation  proves  that  some  chariots  did 
/•(/••//  appear  to  lie  used  indiscriminately  to  denote  contain  this  third  man.  This  fact  is  further  illustrated 
state  chariots,  c;o.  xli.  VA-,  xlvi.  •».*•,  1  Sa.  viii.  11;  2 Sa. xv.  1,  and  by  a  reference  to  the  Assyrian  sculptures,  where  the 
war-chariots,  Ex. xv. 4;  Joclii. 5;  2Ki.  ix.20,21,24.  The  words  war-chariots  almost  invariably  contain  three  men,  the 
rncrkah,  nk<-l>,  and  <i<j<iltith,  are  all  rendered  chariots  of  warrior,  the  shield-hearer,  and  the  charioteer.  In  no 
any  or  every  nation,  K\.  xiv.  \\-t  Jos.  xvii.  IS;  ,lu  i.  ID;  iv.  ;:;  instance  is  an  Iv/vptian  ever  represented  on  hoj'sebaek. 
L'Ki.v.  9;  ix.L'i.i'i;  x.  ift;  is.  xxi.  7,!i.  Aijaloth,  in  I's.  xlvi.  !i,  is  Such  palpable  evidence  that  the  Egyptians  did  not 
assumed  to  indicate  war- chariots, but  it  more  frequently  employ  cavalry  is  ditlicult  to  reconcile  with  tlie  Scrip- 
applies  to  waggons  or  carts,  <;c.  xiv  1:1,21,  •>."•,  Xu.  vii.  :!,«-:>;  ture  account  of  the  pursuit  of  the  Israelites,  which 
1  Sa.  vi.  (i- 14.  expressly  speaks  of  "  the  horses  and  chariots  of  Pharaoh, 

The  earliest  notice  of  chariots  upon  record  is  in  Ge.  and  his  horsemen,"  KN.  xiv.  ii.  Hengstenberg,  after  a 
xli.  43,  where  Joseph  is  made  to  ride  in  the  second  critical  examination  of  the  text,  says,  in  his  A''//////  ami 
chariot  which  Pharaoh  had.  and  although  we  have  t/tc  Books  of  Moses  (p.  120),  that  "Moses  does  not  men 
tion  cavalry  at  all ;  that,  according  to  him.  the  Egyptian 
army  is  composed  only  of  chariots  of  war,  arid  that  he. 
therefore,  agrees  in  a  wonderful  manner  with  the  native 
Egyptian  monuments."  It  is  demonstrated  that  the 
word  rekc/i,  rendered  "horsemen,"  does  not  mean  "ca 
valry,"  but  merely  riders  hi  the  chariots,  in  other  words, 
chariot- warriors.  Kx.  xiv.  7,  which  gives  the  first  account 
of  the  Iv_jyptian  army,  says,  "  that  he  took  six  hundred 
chosen  chariots,  and  all  the  chariots  of  Ei;ypt,  and  cap 
tains  over  every  one  of  them"  (or  in  each)  —that  taken 
in  connection  with  this,  the  "horsemen"  inverse'.1 
and  the  subsequent  verses,  means  literally  ''riders," 
not  ii/x»i  the  horses,  but  hi  the  chariots;  and  that, 
though  Moses"  song  of  triumph  mentions  the  "horse 
and  his  rider,"  Kx.xv.  i,  yet,  that  ver.  4  clearly  indicates 
that  by  rider  chariot-rider  is  understood.  "  Pharaoh's 
chariots  and  his  host  hath  he  cast  into  the  sea ;  his 
chosen  captains  also  (chariot-warriors)  are  drowned  in 
Egyptian  monuments  of  the  period,  there  is  no  repre-  the  Red  Sea." 

sentation  of  a  chariot  of  any  kind  until  the  reign  of  The  Egyptian  monuments  exhibit  various  descrip- 
Rhamses  1.,  about  1300  B.C.,  and  the  subsequent  reign  tions  of  chariots,  all  similar  in  form,  having  but  two 
of  his  son  Rhamses  II.,  when  they  appear  in  great  wheels  (excepting  in  one  obscure  instance),  and  differ- 
abundancc,  and  from  which  time  they  are  of  constant  ing  only  in  the  richness  of  detail,  all  being  furnished 
recurrence.  ,  alike  with  the  bow  and  arrow-case  conveniently  attached 

In  ancient  warfare  chariots  must  have  been  of  the  to  the  sides.  The  frame-work,  wheels,  pole,  and  yoke 
greatest  importance,  and  accordingly  we  read  of  the  were  of  wood,  and  the  fittings  of  the  inside,  the  bind- 
chariots  of  the  Egyptians,  and  of  the  900  chariots  of  ings  of  the  irv.ue  work,  as  well  as  the  harness,  were 


Egyptian  War-cliariot.-  Rosellini. 


CHARIOTS 


UIA  RIOTS 


f  tanned  leather,  l>v  which  the 


such  numerous  trades  that  in  'I  hel 


i  if  the  city   was   assign 

Kuyptians  in  the  Time  of  the  I'l 

pants  of  the  chariot  aluavs  stood. 

Tin-  kind's  cliariot  was  in  1:0  n  sp< 
those  of  his  suhji  cts.  excepting  ill  tht' 
nf  its  fittings,  and  that  he  usuallv  stan 
uliarioteer  or  shield-hearer,  the  reins  < 
being  fastened  about  his  waist,  leavinir  his  hands  fi-ec 
to  discharge  his  arrows,  or  to  deal  death  with  his  spear 
o]-  falchion.  'I'he  ln-iiiLT  alone  in  his  chariot  niav  lie  a 
-vmliol  that  to  him  belonged  the  entire  'Jory  of  the 
victory.  'I'he  chariot  of  Joseph  was  doulitle-.-  a  -tat' 
chariot  snch  as  \ve  are  familial-  \\  ith  from  the  paintings. 


|1C6.  |        Assyrian  War-chariot.  •  Layanl. 


They  were  often  accompanied  hy  numerous  attendants 
and  running  footmen  \Wilkii. 


,  Egyptians,  18 


He 


run    before   his    chariots,"    isa.  viii.  n.      "Absalom   pre 
pared  him  chariots  and  horses,   and  fifty   men  to  run 
fore  him.''  _'sa.  xv.  i. 

The  sculptures  discovered  at  Khorsabad, 
Nimroud.  and  Kouyunjik  afford  precise  in 
formation  regarding  the  chariots  used  by 
the  Assyrians.  Xa.  ii.:i,4. 

The  illustration  (No.  l(>i>)  selecteil  from 
the  sculptures  from  Nimroud,  shows  bow- 
closely  the  Assyrian  chariot  resembled  the 
Egyptian  in  all  material  points.  ''To  the 
sides  are  attached,  crossing  each  other,  two 
quivers  full  of  arrows.  Kach  quiver  con 
tains  a  small  bow,  and  is  likewise  furnished 
with  a  hatchet.  Proceeding  from  the  front 
of  the  chariot,  over  or  between  the  horses, 
is  a  richly  embroidered  ap|  endage,  which 
ems  to  resemble  the  embroidered  hang'iiiLif. 
and  sometimes  padded  ,-eparation  used  in 
India  for  preventing  the  horses  coming 
together.  This  appendage  is  peculiar  to 
the  chariots  represented  at  Ximrond.  The 
bossed  shield  of  the  king  is  placed  at  the 
back  of  the  chariot,  scrying  for  further 
security  :  in  front  is  the  metal  bar  fixed  to 
the  pole,  as  in  the  chariots  of  Kgvpt,  and 
the  pole  terminates  in  the  head  of  a  swan: 
Kgyptian  example  the  termination  is  a  ball, 
•ar  is  inserted  behind  the  chariot  in  a  place 
appointed  for  it.  decorated  yy  ith  a  human  head.  The 
harness  and  trappings  of  the  horses  are  precisely  like 
the  Kgyptiaii.  Pendant  at  the  side  of  the  horse  is  a 
circular  ornament,  terminal  ini;-  in  tassels,  analogous  to 
that  divided  into  thongs  at  the  side  of  the  Kgvptian 
horse,  which  may  be  intended  to  accelerate  the  pace 
of  the  animal,  as  in  the  case  ot  the  spiked  halls  fastened 
to  the  trappings  of  the  race  horses  of  the  ( 'orso  in 
Koine.  In  both  example-  several  bands  pas-  over 
the  chest,  and  lapping  over  the  shoulders  of  the  horses. 
join  the  ligaments  attached  to  the  pole  or  yoke.  A 
remarkable  band  and 
thong.  through  the 
upper  end  of  which 
passes  a  single  rein,  is 
the  same  in  both  har 
nesses.  The  tails  of 
t!ie  .\>syrian  horses  are 
fancifully  compressed 
in  the  centre,  while  the 
Kgyptiaii  horses  have 
a  band  round  the  uppi  r 
part  or  root.  Around 
the  neck  of  the  As 
syrian  horses  is  a  string 
•  if  alternately  large  and 
small  beads,  which  ap 
pear  to  have  cuneiform 
characters  cut  upon 
them — possibly  a  chap- 
le.t  of  amulets,  accord 
ing  to  the  custom  of  the 
oriental  nations  of  the 
present  day  "  (Niu.  an.l 
its  Pal.  iv>7,  p.  2i'jfi,  2,">7,  ;i.i7).  The  wheels  of  the  war-chariots 
are  usually  heavy,  with  broad  felloes,  and  have  some- 


will  take  your  sons,  and  appoint  them  for  himself,  for  j  times  six  and   sometimes  eight  spokes.     The  chariots 
his  chariots,   and  to  be  his  horsemen,  and  some  shall     are   drawn    by   two    and    frequently    by    three    horses 


CHARITY 


CHEESE 


abreast;  and  on  the  sculptures  found  at  Khorsabad  is  a 
representation  of  a  quadriga  carried  oil  tlie  shoulders 
of  some  men  of  giant  stature.  The  war -chariots 
usually  carry  three — the  charioteer,  the  warrior,  ami 
the  shield- bearer.  One  illustration  shows  the  svarrior 
and  his  shield-bearer  righting  on  foot,  in  front  of  the 
chariot,  \\  Inch  contains  the  driver,  while  a  groom  holds 
tile  horses'  heads.  The  state  chariots  are  highly  decor 
ated,  and  contain  three — the  king,  his  umbrella- bearer, 
and  the  charioteer.  (>'«•  itfnxtratiuH,  A.SSYKIA.)  The 
hunting-  chariots  at  Khorsabad  and  Kouyunjik  are 
generally  lighter  than  those  at  Nimroud,  have  not  the 
quivers  of  arrows  at  the  sides,  but  merely  one  quiver 
towards  the  front.  They  are  usually  drawn  by  two 
horses  ;  in  these  the  king  is  sometimes  accompanied  by 
two  spearmen  and  the  charioteer.  Carts  and  waggons, 
drawn  by  oxen,  are  frequently  .shown  both  on  tiie 
Egyptian  and  Assyrian  monuments. 

The  Persepolitan  sculptures  in  the  British  Museum 
furnish  examples  of  the  Persian  chariots,  which  appear 
to  have  been  larger  in  the  body  than  those  of  either 
Egypt  or  Assyria.  [j.  is.] 

CHARITY  comes  to  us,  through  the  medium  of 
the  French  charitc,  from  the  Latin  curitas,  in  its 
secondary  sense  of  /ore  accompanied  with  esteem,  form;/ 
affection,  warm  rer/ard.  This  appears  to  have  been  the 
common  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
the  English  language,  while  a! ins  was  appropriated  to 
express  the  outward  benefaction  in  which  charity 
manifested  itself  toward  its  objects.  F>y  and  by,  how 
ever,  the  latter  expression  fell  into  disuse,  and  charity 
came  to  signify  the  external  gift  of  kindly  affection, 
even  more  than  the  affection  itself.  Love,  in  this  latter 
respect,  took  very  much  the  place  of  charity.  The 
changes  through  which  the  language  has  thus  passed 
cannot  be  affirmed  to  be  altogether  for  the  better ;  and 
they  certainly  give  rise  to  a  considerable  iiidefmiteness, 
and  occasional  confusion  of  terms.  Lore  is  made  to 
comprehend  both  mere  natural  liking,  a  simple  instinct 
of  the  animal,  nature,  and  the  highest  principle  of  the 
moral  nature — the  very  perfection  of  all  spiritual  excel 
lence  :  two  things  immensely  different.  Charity  too 
still  retains  its  double  meaning,  and  vacillates  between 
the  kindly  affection,  which  it  always  should  comprise 
as  its  chief  element,  and  the  extension  of  material 
relief  to  the  needy,  which  may  or  may  not  carry  along 
with  it  any  exercise  of  genuine  kindness.  In  a  con 
siderable  number  of  passages  charity  has  been  adopted 
by  our  translators  as  the  proper  synonym  for  dyd-n-rj, 
lore;  it  had  been  so  by  Wycliffe,  and  his  example  was 
followed  by  subsequent  translators.  Very  commonly 
the  connection  renders  it  manifest  that  the  word  has 
respect  to  inward  affection  or  principle,  not  to  any  out 
ward  benefaction ;  it  does  so  especially  in  the  remark 
able  passage,  iCo.  xiii.,  where  the  apostle  draws  a  sharp 
distinction  between  the  charity  spoken  of  and  the  largest 
acts  of  beneficence — even  the  giving  of  all  one's  goods 
to  the  poor.  In  such  cases  110  reader  of  any  intelligence 
can  imagine  that  it  is  the  mere  act  of  almsgiving  which 
draws  forth  the  eulogium  of  the  apostle.  But  it  certainly 
had  been  better,  if,  where  the  word  dydir-r}  is  used  in 
Scripture,  it  had  been  translated  uniformly  either  by 
charity  or  by  love ;  and  in  the  present  state  of  the 
English  language,  if  a  fresh  translation  were  made, 
we  could  not  hesitate  to  prefer  the  rendering  of  lore. 

CHAS'MAL,  or  more  properly  CHASH'MAL,  the 
name  of  some  sort  of  metal  of  extraordinary  brightness, 


in  respect  to  this  quality  referred  to  by  Ezekiel,  ch.  i  4, 
"  like  the  bright  glitter  of  Chasmal  in  the  midst  of  the 
tire;"  also  oh.  i.  -11;  viii.  2.  Our  translators  have  rendered  it 
amber;  but  this  undoubtedly  is  wrong.  The  Septuagint 
probably  gave  the  right  meaning  by  ijXfKTpof,  which,  as 
is  now  agreed,  was  not  amber,  but  a  compound  metal 
made  up  of  gold  and  silver,  and  remarkable  for  its 
shining  brightness.  Gesenius,  however,  prefers  under 
standing  it  of  polished  brass,  or  brass  made  smooth, 
furbished.  He  thinks  this  strengthened  by  the  expres 
sion  "smooth  brass,"'  ch.  viii.  i",  conveyed  by  different 
words,  but  used  in  a  similar  connection.  The  term 
Xa\KO\i(3avov,  in  Re.  i.  15,  is  also  thought  to  favour  the 
idea  of  brass,  this  being,  if  not  the  only  metal,  yet  the 
chief  ingredient  in  the  composition  ;  but  the  word 
rather  appears  to  be  a  synonym  for  another  compound 
expression  of  Ezekiel — s^p  rr^'rj  (ncho&hcth  kalal), 

T  T          :•       . 

ch.  i.7,  brass  in  a  glow  or  white  heat.  Respecting  chas- 
mal,  the  opinion  now  commonly  entertained  is  that 
mentioned  above,  a  composite  of  gold  and  silver,  and, 
from  its  remarkable  brightness,  fitly  imaging  the  clear 
and  dazzling  splendour  of  the  divine  Majesty.  In  this 
symbolical  sense  it  is  used  by  Ezekiel,  so  far  differing 
from  fire,  as  this  is  always  connected  with  the  severity 
or  punitive  righteousness  of  God. 

CHE'BAR,  more  properly  KEBAR,  Sept.  Xo/3<£/>, 
a  river  011  which  a  considerable  portion  of  the  Jewish 
captives  was  located  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  including  that 
to  which  the  prophet  Ezekiel  belonged,  2  Ki.  xxiv.  15 ; 
Kze.  i.  i,  3,  &c.  There  can  be  110  doubt  that  it  is  the  same 
river  as  that  called  by  the  Greeks  Chaboras ;  it  is  a 
river  of  Mesopotamia,  the  only  large  river  that  flows 
into  the  Euphrates,  which  it  does  at  Circcsium.  It  is 
fed  by  several  smaller  streams.  The  present  name  is 
K halt  dr.  In  the  mode  of  exhibiting  the  ancient  name 
there  is  considerable  variation ;  beside  those  already 
given,  we  meet  with  Chabura,  Aborrhas,  and  Aburas 
(Smith's  Diet,  of  Greek  and  Rom.  Geography). 

CHE'DORLA'OMER,  the  name  of  a  king,  of  whom 
we  know  nothing  more  than  what  is  recorded  in  Ge. 
xiv.,  where  he  is  described  as  king  of  Elani —  a  district 
afterwards  associated  with  Persia  and  Media — and  the 
leader  of  four  kings,  who  seemed  to  have  formed  a 
league  for  the  purpose  of  subjugating  and  spoiling  the 
tribes  in  the  land  of  Canaan  and  its  neighbourhood. 
In  this  they  met  with  considerable  success  ;  but  after 
taking  Sodom  and  carrying  off  Lot,  the  kinsman  of 
Abraham,  among  the  captives,  they  were  pursued  by 
the  father  of  the  faithful,  and  defeated  with  great  loss 
in  the  northern  parts  of  Palestine. 

CHEESE.  It  would  seem  that  the  Hebrews  had  no 
fixed  or  appropriate  name  for  what  we  designate  cheese. 
In  the  English  Bible  the  word  cheese  is  found  alto 
gether  thrice  ;  but  on  one  of  the  occasions,  the  term 
in  the  original  is  the  one  commonly  employed  for  milk. 
Thus  in  1  Sa.  xvii.  18,  Jesse,  on  sending  David  to  his 
brothers  at  the  camp,  says  to  him,  "Carry  these  ten 
cheeses" — literally,  "these  ten  cuttings  of  milk  :"  milk, 
of  course,  in  the  fluid  state  cannot  be  understood,  be 
cause  in  that  case  one  could  not  speak  of  cuttings  ;  and 
we  are  therefore  obliged  to  think  of  milk  in  the  com 
pressed  form  of  cheese,  and  most  likely  done  up,  as  it 
still  commonly  is  in  the  East,  in  small  cakes,  strongly 
salted,  soft  when  new,  but  presently  becoming  very  dry 
and  hard.  So  made,  it  necessarily  is  of  an  inferior  de 
scription,  and,  by  travellers  from  this  country,  is  usually 


CHKMOSH  - 

spoken  of  with  disrelish.  Job.  di.  x.  10,  asks,  "Hast 
thou  not  poured  me  out  as  milk,  and  curdled  (coagulated) 
me  like  cheese  .'  '  The  word  here  (nj»32),  nowhere  else 

used,  is  from  a  root  that  signifies  to  contract  or  draw 
up,  and  hence  is  quite  naturally  applied  to  the  curdling 
up  or  contracting  of  milk  into  cheese.  The  adjective 
occurs  in  Lev.  xxi.  '20.  of  gibbous  or  humpbacked  per 
sons.  In  the  third  anil  only  remaining  passage.  :.'  s.i 
xvii.  L';I,  the  word  is  again  different,  a  plural  word  r^w''. 

and  is  rendered  r/Hiti*,  only  from  the  connection  appa 
rently  requiring  that  sense  ("honey,  and  butter,  and 
sheep,  and  c/H/xt  <>f  l.-'un-"\,  and  from  the  ancient  inter 
preters  having  so  understood  it.  But  how  it  should 
have  come  to  be  so  used  is  not  certainly  known,  the 
verb- root  from  which  the  word  seem*  to  lie  derived 
commonly  signifying  to  make  bare  or  naked.  The 
want  alone  of  any  fixed  term  \'«v  cheese,  and  the  rare 
ness  of  tlie  allusions  that  appear  to  be  made  to  the  sub 
ject  in  Scripture,  are  clear  signs  of  the  very  inferior 
place  which  it  had  as  an  article  <>f  food  among  the 
ancient  Hebrews.  And  if  the  cheese  now  used  in 
Palestine  i.*  found  to  be  of  po,,r  quality,  we  mav  cer 
tainly  infer,  from  what  has  been  stated,  .that  it  is  not 
the  loss  of  a  domestic  art  that  one,-  HourMied  \\hich  we 
are  called  to  mark,  but  rather  the  failure  in  former  aw 
well  as  piv-ein  times  properly  to  acquire  it. 

CHEMOSH.  the  national  god  of  the  Moabite.-. 
i  Ki.  xi.  7; -' Ki  xxiii.  l:);  Je.  xlviii  7,  i::,  who  were  on  that  ac- 
eoiint  called  "the  p.-ojil.-  of  Cliemosh,"  Vi  xxi  LM:  .!,.• 
xlviii.  in.  At  an  early  period  the  same  deitv  ap]>ears, 
too.  a--  tlii-  national  god  of  the  Ammonite-.  .iu.  \i  LM, 
though  his  worship  seems  afterward*  to  liave  u'iven 
place  to  that  of  .Moloch.  .Je  xlix.  l.  ::;  1  Ki.  xi.  .1,  7;  just  as 
in  the  case  >  f  tin-  Moal.it. -s  thems.  Ives  the  wor.-hip  of 
Baal-|ieor  preceded  or  accumpanied  that  of  Chcinosh. 
.Nil.  xxv.  :;,:,;  Jcis  xxii  17.  With  regard  to  the-  Annnoniti  s 
then-  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  supposition  of  their 
national  god  being  de>i-'iiat"d  by  the  two  names  Moloch 
and  Chemosh  :  for  the  former  is  onlv  a  sort  of  general 
designation  of  the  deity  as  /•/'/«/.  just  as  Baal,  or  /<//•/. 
may  liave  been  in  tin-  other  case,  if  we  are  to  assume 
with  -leroine  that  the  Cliemosli  of  the  .Moabites  was  ; 
identical  with  th> -ir  Baal  peor.  Nor  i-  it  strange  to 
Mud  the  same  object  of  worship  amonu  j»  ojile  so  closelv 
related  a*  the  Moabites  and  the  Ammonites,  particn 
larly  \\hen  mentioned  in  connection  \\ith  matters  of 
common  concern.  Jos.  xiii.  L':;;  .In.  xi.  l.v  From  the  Moab 
ites  the  worship  of  (  'hem<.-h  pa— ed  over  to  othercoun 
tries:  for  traces  of  it  are  found  at  Tvre,  Babvlon.  and 
among  various  Arab  tribes  (Koycr,  nddit.  od  SoMen  de  Dii-, 
Syris,  hi;..  1U7-.'.  p  Dii).  It  was  even  introduced  amono- (he 
Hebrews  by  Solomon,  who  "built  a  hiurh  place  for 
Chemosh.  the  abomination  of  Moab,  in  the  hill  that  is  , 
before  Jerusalem,"  i  KI  xi.7. 

From  various  notices  in  Arab  writers,  and  from  an 
olil  Jewish  tradition  (Winer,  Realw'iirterbuch,  i.  p.  2±'i),  the 
Arabs  w  i.id  appear  to  have  worshipped  Chemosh 
under  tin:  ti.  ure  of  a  black  stone  (not  xftir,  as  frequently  ' 
repeated  in  Fnglish  books,  as  Kitto,  ('?/f.  /!!/>.  I/it.  i.  j 
p  -1-21  ;  Henderson.  .1,  ,•< ,///.///.  p.  'l:\-l,  from  a  slip  in 
\\  iner).  Bersiktah,  as  quoted  by  Haekmann  (I)isst.  do 
reinoscho,  p  is),  says,  "  (  Vniosch  lapis  erat  niger."  ]5ut 
as  to  the  attributes  of  this  god,  his  mode  of  worship,  or 
ins  relation  to  the  other  and  better  known  gods  of 
heathenism,  there  is  nothing  better  than  conjecture. 

Le  Clerc   (Common,  in  N'u  x\i  •«>)  supposes   that    Chemosh 
VOL.   1. 


"  CHEHFTH1TES 

represented  the  sun;  others,  as  ISever  (lor.  fit.)  take 
him  for  the  planet  Saturn  ;  while  Hackmaim,  who  has 
devoted  a  dissertation  to  the  subject  (reprinted  in  (.(el- 
rich's  Cnllirti/)  Opusctilorjtm,  Bremse,  1  7(>8,  vol.  i.  p. 
17-00).  regards  him  as  ''the  war-u'od"of  the  Moahites. 
Kven  the  etymology  of  the  name  is  a  matter  of  dispute. 
The  probability  however  is.  that  Chemosh,  if  not  iden- 
i  tieal  with,  as  Jerome  holds,  yet  was  closelv  related  to 
Baal-peor.  |i>.  M.  | 

CHENANI'AH  Q/«odH«M  or  furour  ../  ./«//].  one  of 
the  presidents  of  the  temple  music,  and  the  one  who 
had  charge  of  the  choral  services  which  accompanied 
the  ark  of  the  Lord  when  it  was  conducted  from  the 
house  of  Obed-cdom  to  the  hill  of  /ion,  I  ill.  xv.  22. 

CHERET KITES   AND    PELETH1TES    iT.n2r, 

•r^T,".      The   body-gtiar.1  of   kin--    David,  and   of  kini; 

David  alone,  not  of  Saul  his  predecessor,  nor  of  auv  of 
his  successors,  either  on  the  throne  of  Judah  o|-  of 

Israel.  For  it  is  onlv  in  narrating  the  historv  of 
David  that  the  Chenthite*  and  IVlcthites  are  men 
tioned  by  the  sacred  writers.  I'efore  his  reiu'n.  and 
also  aft'-r  his  decease,  th.'  troop-  -.peeialiy  attached  to 
the  royal  person  appear  to  ha\e  yoiie  by  the  name 
C'Vi-.  or  "the  runner-."  It  was  his  "runner*"  or 

guard  \\li.ini  Saul  ordered  to  slay  Ahimelech  and  the 
jiriests  of  Nob.  i  S;i  xxii.  17.  l.'nder  L'ehoboam  we  find 
"  runner*"  acting  as  gate-keoj>ers  of  the  ro\al  palace, 
a-  well  as  attendants  on  the  kinu'  w  hen  he  \\  cut  abroad. 
1  Ki.  xh  i-7,--.  A  lid  thi'V  are  afterwards  mentioned  several 
time*  in  the  subsequent  history  of  Judah  and  l-ra'-l. 
.'Ki  x.'.'.-,;  \i  !,\-  lii  the  latest  books  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  tin-  name  "  runner"  i.*  used  in  the  more  restricted 
s'-n-e  of  "courier,"  liC'li.  xxx.  (1;  Ks.  iii.  i:i.i.'>;  viii.n.  I'ut 
in  the  history  of  |).a\id  we  never  read  of  the  runners 
I--V--'.  but  alway-  of  the  < 'hercthiti  *  and  Pelethites, 

\\lio  seem,  therefore,  under  that  monarch  to  have  d is 
charged  the  same  duties  as  were  discharged  bv  the 
~-¥i  under  his  predecessor  and  his  succt  ssors.1 

The  captaincy  of  this  body  .if  troops  was,  as  we  might 
anticipate,  a  post  of  distinguished  honour,  and  was  be- 
sto\\ed  bv  |)a\id  on  one  of  his  bravest  officers,  Benaiah 

the     soli     of     Jehoiada.     -J  Sa    viii.  is;     xx.  'JK ;     I  Cli    \viii.l7. 

I  nder  the  command  of  I'l.-naiah  we  Mud  them  in  attend 
ance  ii] ion  David  when  lie  (led  from  his  son  Absalom, 
and  afterwards  forming  part  of  the  armv  whidi  Joab 
hurriedly  a-sembled  and  l->d  against  Slieba  the  son  of 

Bichri.  who  after  the  .leath  of  Absalom,  heade.l  the 
rebels  in  the  north.  It  is  evident,  howevc  r.  that  this 
latter  was  an  extraordinary  dntv  imposed  upon  the 
Cherethites  and  PeJethites,  2  SM  xx.  o,  7,  and  that  ha. I 
not  Amasa  delaye<]  to  assemble  the  men  of  Judah,  they 
would  not,  liave  been  hurried  away  from  their  proper 
position  and  function  of  attendance  upon  the  king's 
person.  The  proclamation  of  Solomon  as  king,  just 
before  his  father's  death,  is  the  last  occasion  on  which 
they  are  mentioned  in  the  history  of  Israel,  l  Ki.  i.  :;\  ll. 
Their  captain,  however,  Benaiah,  took  an  active  and 
prominent  part  in  the  settlement  of  the  kingdom  under 
Solomon,  by  whom  he  was  advanced  to  the  highest 
military  position  as  general  of  the  whole  army  in  the 
room  of  Joab.  l  Ki.  ii.  .".!,  ::.'.. 

1  It  is  possible  tliat  the  l,(idy  of  M-CK,]^  c;ill<.,I  Clu-njt.liitfs  and 
Peletliites  cniitinurd  to  fnnn  the  royal  l.o.ly  guard  also  under 
Solomon  ;  I, at  mi  this  point  we  have  no  evidumv,  only  we  do 
not  read  of  runners  during  his  reign. 

18 


CHEIIKTHITKS 


1>9S 


CHE  RUT, 


But  what  mean  the  names  Cherethites  and  Pele-  '  were  mingled  some  native  Cherethites,  whom  the 
thites,  and  why  was  the  body-guard  of  David  so  called  '.  presence  and  fain.;  of  David  had  attracted  to  his 
This  is  a  ditiicult  question,"  which  has  been  variously  standard,  and  attached  to  his  person  and  to  his  reli- 
Bi-ed.  Some  explain  the  names  as  common  nouns.  gi»n. 


),  from 


the  roots  ,-n2  Jui'-l  i."  L\.I.  and  appeal  t< 
of  O'VMTI  «n2ri.  whieli    \ve    find    in   ~2  Ki.  xi. 

•    T  T  :  *  T   ~ 

Gesenius.      Hut  this  view  is  very  improbable 
if  Pelethites  has  the  signification  of  runners, 


th 


4,  ID.      S, 

For  (1), 


This  view,  we  think,  is  confirmed  by  the  addition  of 
Pelethite  to  the  tribal  name  Ciierethite.  This  term  has 
occasioned  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  to  critics.  The 
opinion  of  Ewald  that  it  is  just  another  form  of  Philis 
tine  ( «nSs  —  'IW^S  )  cannot  easily  be  assented  to. 


vhv  intro-  i  More  probable  is  its  connection  with  D«aSB>  "escaped," 


duce  a  new  word  am 
Heb 


a  foreign  word  instead  of  the  pure 


word  c'X-c.  which  had   previously 


to   designate' 


It   is   very 


questionable  whether  this  signification  can  be  derived  ,       CHER'ITH  [gc/i<i.ntt!nn  \.  the  name  of  a  brook,  to  the 


from  the  Arabic  root  which  is   appealed   to.  and  which 


means   rather  t 
(3.)     The    form 


th-i:.  to 
>m2   do 


"slayer,"  the  participle  being  rrQ  and  not  jvc,  :uu'  ^ts 
signification  ''cutter,"  rarely  "slayer."  except  when  it  is 
followed  by  the  noun  -'s>n.  head,  (  \.\  The  combination 

D'Vini  n2^.  a])pealed  to  as  analogous  to  TI^^I  <rn2n- 
•  T  T  :      •  T  -  •••:-: :•••:- 

is  found  only  in  one  section  of  the  Scripture  history, 
•I  Ki.  xi.  4,  HI.  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  two  words 


_  ^ 

of  which  it  is  composed  have  the  same  close  connection     nleaut.  influenced  partly  by  the  name,  which  differs  from 


with  one  another  as  the  words  -m;  and  .7^3,  which  are 
never  found  separate.      Besides,  the  signification  of  nan 


<treams  and  lurking-places  of  which  Elijah  was  sent 
during  a  portion  of  the  years  of  famine,  i  Ki.  xvii  n-7;  but 
the  locality  of  which  is  no  further  designated  than  that 
it  was  before,  or  upon  the  face  of  Jordan.  Fusebius, 
Jerome,  and  many  others,  have  thought  that  this  ex 
pression  pointed  to  a  brook  and  valley  on  the  east  of 
Jordan  :  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such  frequently 
is  the  local  import  of  UK;  phrase.  But  it  is  also  often 
used  in  the  more  general  sense  of  orer  against,  towards, 
Gu.  i.  L'n;  xviii.  ifi;  xix  L'V'CC.  Robinson  has  mentioned  Wady 
Kelt,  near  Jericho,  as  probably  the  brook  and  valley 


We  do  not  hesitate,  therefore,  to  adopt  the  other 
view  which  has  been  taken  of  the  words  •-na  and  «r>?£, 
viz.  that  they  are  national  or  tribal  names.  With  regard 
to  the  former,  Cherethite,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
this  is  the  correct  explanation  of  it,  (1)  because  we  find 
from  other  passages  of  Scripture  that  (  'herethite  was  a 
name  of  the  Philistine  tribes,  or  of  one  division  of 


them,  and  was  s> 


id  in  the  time  of  David,  i  ; 


.  r>.      Some  connect  these 

Cherethites  of  Philistia  with  the  island  of  Crete,  and 
not  improbably,  though  the  evidence,  it  must  be  allowed, 
is  defective  (compare  Vitriuga  in  Jesaiam,  vul.  i.  p.  •) 
Along  with  the  Cherethites  and  i'elethites  are  men 
tioned  in  -2  Sa.  xv.  18  "the  Gittites,  six  hundred  men 
wliich  followed  David  froniGath;"  and  this  seems  to 
favour  the  conclusion  that  the  two  former  names  are 


of  the  same  description  as  the  latter,  \  i/.  local  or  tribal 
names. 

Assuming  this  explanation  of  Cherethite  to  be  cor 
rect,  a  further  question  remains — Were  the  Cherethites 
of  king  David  a  body  of  foreign  troops  '.  or  were  they 
Israelites  who,  from  a  lengthened  residence  in  foreign 
parts,  had  attached  to  them  a  foreign  name?  The 
former  is  the  common  opinion,  but  we  are  by  no  means 
sure  that  it  is  the  correct  one.  We  cannot  think  it 
probable  that  David  alone  of  all  the  kings  of  Israel 
should  have  surrounded  himself  with  a  foreign  body 
guard.  Besides  they  were  under  the  command  of  one  of 
the  heroes  of  Israel.  Rather  would  we  believe  that  they 
were  for  the  most  part  Israelites,  who  being  partisans 
of  David,  or  for  some  other  cause,  had  been  com 
pelled  during  the  reign  of  Saul  to  take  refuge  among 
the  Cherethites  of  Philistia,  and  who.  having  shared 
David's  adversity,  were  naturally  regarded  by  him. 
on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  as  the  men  in  whose 
fidelity  he  could  place  the  most  perfect  confidence. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  quite  possible  that  with  these 


the  ancient  Hebrew  in  little  more  than  the  substitution 
of  a  /,•  for  an  /,  letters  which  are  frequently  interchanged; 
and  partly  by  the  nature  of  the  wady  itself,  which  is  a  deep 
and  narrow  glen,  looking  as  if  it  had  been  cut  out  of  the 
rocks  that  overhang  it  with  their  tremendous  precipices. 
This  appearance  mitrht  have  suggested  the  name,  which 
indicates  something  "cutoff'/'  ''separated.'  Van  de 
Velde  suggests  Ain  Fasael,  a  little  to  the  north,  which 
certainly,  as  he  describes  it.  might  well,  in  a  season  of 
drought,  accord  with  the  nature  of  the  retreat  to  which 
we  may  suppose  Elijah  to  have  been  sent.  "A  steep 
and  rocky  track,"  says  lie,  ''of  more  than  a  thousand 
feet  led  us  onward.  The  further  we  came  down  the  warm 
and  fiery  wind  fr<  >m  the  Ghor  met  us  right  in  the  face.  .  . 
(2.)  All  was  burned.  Thistles,  grass,  flower^.,  and  shrubs, 
grew  here  with  rare  luxuriance,  but  now  everything 
was  burned  white,  like  hay  or  straw,  and  this  standing 
perhaps  five  or  six  feet  high.  My  guides,  as  well  as 
myself,  thought  we  should  die  while  in  this  gigantic 
furnace.  At  last  we  see  living  green.  A  thicket  of 
wild  Jig-trees  and  oak-shrubs  mixed,  and  intermixed 
with  oleanders  and  thorny  plants,  seems  as  it  were  to 
hide  itself  at  the  base  of  the  glowing  rocks,  keeping 


full  vigour  of  life,  notwithstanding  the  extraordinary 
heat.  What  may  be  the  cause  of  this  '.  It  is  a  fountain 
of  living  waters  which  keeps  the  leaves  of  these  trees 
green,  whilst  everything  round  about  is  consumed  by 
drought  and  heat.  'This  is  Ain  Fasael,'  said  my  guide. 
There  is  a  distance  of  three  quarters  of  an  hour  between 
the  fountain  and  the  end  of  the  valley  in  the  plain  of 
the  JUrdan.  The  rocks  on  both  sides  of  the  valley 
contain  a  great  many  natural  caves."  Whether  this 
might  really  be  the  temporary  hiding-place  of  Elijah  or 
not,  it  were  difficult  to  conceive  anything  more  suited 
to  the  purpose,  or  that  seems  more  entirely  to  meet  the 
conditions  required  for  the  occasion. 

CHER'UB,  and  plural  CHEK'UHIM.  (a«p2  onins),  tne 


name  of  certain  mystic  appearances,  i  >r  composite  figures, 
which  are  first   mentioned  in    connection   with  the  ex- 


CHER  IT, 


CHE urn 


pulsion  of  our  iirsfc  parents  from  tho  tree  of  life  and  the 
garden  of  Eden.  "And  the  Lord  (iod  planed  at  the 
east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  the  cherubim,  and  a  flaming 
sword,  which  turned  everyway,  to  keep  the  way  of  the 
tree  of  life.''  The  silence  that  is  here  observed  on  the 
fir.-t  mention  of  the  cherubim  respecting  their  precise 
nature,  or  their  actual  structure,  is  striking;  and  the 
more  so.  that  they  are  introduced  as  certain  definite 
and  familiar  objects— " placed  tltc  cherubim" — as  if 
they  were  so  well  known  to  those  for  whom  the  sacred 
narrative  was  more  immediately  designed,  that  no  par 
ticular  description  was  needed  Nor  is  it  much  other 
wise  when,  centuries  later,  at  the  erection  of  the  taber 
nacle,  in  the  wilderness,  the  cherubim  again  appear  in 
connection  with  the  more  peculiar  dwelling- place  of 
(MH!.  For  while  Moses  was  instructed  to  plac.  -a  cherub 
at  each  end  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  nothing  what 
ever  is  said  of  their  form  ami  structure,  excepting  what 
is  implied  in  their  having  fac<  s  that  were  made  to  look 
toward  the  mercy-scat,  and  outstretched  wings  that 
spread  themselves  like  a  covering  over  it.  K.x.  xxv.  in,  -_NI 
However,  therefore,  it  may  have  happened,  there  can 
lie  no  doubt  of  the  fact,  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  are 
suppose.!  to  have  been  s..  far  acquainted  with  the 
cherubic  form-  a-  to  render  any  description  of  them  on 
the  part  of  the  sacred  hi.-'.orian  unnecessary;  and  we 
are  left  to  gather  from  the  later,  and  somewhat  inci 
dental  representations  of  Scripture,  coupled  with  those 
brief  historical  notices  of  an  earlier  kind,  all  that  can 
now  lie  known  respecting  them. 

1.  In  endeavouring  to  obtain  some  definite  notions 
respecting  tile  cherubim,  we  must,  at  the  <  mtset,  abandon 
all  hope  of  deriving  any  help  from  the  import  or  deriva 
tion  of  the  word.  This  has  been  twisted  into  various 
forms,  and  has  been  subjected  •  •  halites  or 

transpositions  in  the  letters,  in  order  to  make  it  throw 
light  upon  the  nature  of  the  subject,  but  with  no  con 
vincing  or  -atisfaetorv  re>ult.  Thus,  hv  taking  the 
-  at  the  beginning  as  the  particle  of  similitude.  1'ark- 
Inirst  and  the  Hutchinsonians  arrive  at  the  imp-it  "  like 
the  mighty,"  or  "  the  great  one:"  by  transposing  the 
two  tirst  1.  ttcrs,  and  viewing  /•»  /•»'/  as  all  one  with  /•</••  '>, 
Hyde,  and  latterlv  Hofmann  and  others,  would  take 
it  in  the  sen.-e  of  chariot,  the  distinctive  name..f  tl,,. 
chariot  of  Deity  :  by  a  still  diH'eivnt  alt'  ration,  and  a 
reference  to  the  Sanscrit.  Delit/x-h  tind>  its  ]•, »,t  in  a 
verb  to  lay  hold  of.  to  grasp,  and  understands  it  of  the 
cherubim  as  the  holders  up  or  bearers  ,,f  the  throne  of 
<iod,  ,Vc.  Mut  everything  of  this  sort  is  conji  ' 
and  conjecture,  for  the  most  part,  resorted  to  at  second 
hand,  to  lend  support  to  the  idea  that  on  .  ,t  h  r  grounds 
has  already  been  formed  of  the  design  and  use  of  the 
cherubim.  The  Hutchinsonians,  with  their  usual  arbi 
trariness,  conceived  the  cherubim  to  be  symbols  of  the 
Triune  .Jehovah  in  union  with  man,  hence  //,,//•  ridicu- 
ous  explanation  of  the  term.  In  like  manner,  the 
other  pel-sons  referred  to.  giving  undue  prominence!  to 
certain  passages  of  Scripture,  chiefly  of  a  poetical  cast, 
have  sought  to  connect  the  clu-rubim  in  such  a  \\ay 
with  the  manifested  presence  of  Deity,  that  to  make 
tho  word  expressive  of  his  throne  or  chariot,  was  to 
obtain  a  subsidiary  aid  to  their  theory.  But  the  notions 
themselves  are  untenable  ;  and  the  word  so  pressed  into 
the  service  can  be  of  no  avail  in  securing  for  them  an 
intelligent  support. 

'2.  To  look,  then,  at  what  is  said  of  the  form  and 
appearance  of  the  cherubim,  it  must  be  admitted  that 


they  are  not  presented  to  our  view  as  always  entirely 
alike.  And  possibly  it  was  on  that  account  that  Jose- 
phus  declared  no  one  in  his  dav  knew,  or  could  even 
conjecture,  what  was  the  shape  of  the  cherubim  which 
Solomon  made  for  the  most  holy  place  of  the  temple 
(Ant.  viii. ;{,  :0.  But  on  such  a  subject  we  cannot  place 
much  dependence  on  the  authority  of  Josephus  ;  for  we 
can  easily  conceive  how  he  might  think  it  expedient  to 
feign  ignorance  on  a  point  of  this  nature,  when  writing 
:  more  especially  with  a  view  to  (^entile  readers;  and 
the  rather  so.  as  we  find  him  committing  two  mistakes 
here,  on  points  concerning  which  he  could  easily  have 
obtained  correct  information,  ll'e  affirms  the  cherubim 
for  the  temple  to  have  been  made  of  solid  gold,  and  to 
have  been  ~>  cubits  high  ;  while  in  the  sacred  history 
they  are  declared  to  have  been  made  of  wood,  overlaid 
with  gold,  and  to  have  been  Id  cubits  in  height.  iKi.vi. 
•-•:.:'-.  In  such  a  case  one  cannot  lay  much  stress  on  any 
statement  of  Josephus,  as  to  the  entire  ignorance  that 
prevailed  regarding  their  form.  There  can.  however, 
be  no  doubt  that  the  representations  given  of  them  at 
one  place  do  not  always  entirely  corn-pond  with  those 
given  at  another:  and  we  may  so  far  accord  with  the 
"pinion  indicated  by  the  .Jewish  historian,  that  as,  re 
gards  certain  variable  elements,  no  ,me  could  know 
whether  the  cherubim,  either  of  the  tabernacle  or  of 
Solomon's  temple,  possessed  them  or  not.  For  example. 
the  cherubim  seen  by  Iv'.ekiel  beneath  the  throne  of 
(lod  are  represented  as  having  each  four  faces  and 
four  wings,  while  in  the  cherubim  carved  upon  the 
walls  of  hi.-  figurative  temple  two  faces  oiilv  are  ascribed 
to  each  :  indeed,  there  was  strictlv  but  one  face  to  each, 
for  he  speaks  of  the  representation  as  one  whole,  and 
says  that  on  the  walls  there  \\as  a  perpetual  repetition 
of  the  same  figures  a  palm  tree  in  the  middle,  with  a 
cheruli,  having  a  man's  face  on  the  one  side,  looking 
toward  it,  and  a  cherub  on  the  other  with  a  lion's  face. 
ch.  xli.  1-,1'J:  each,  therefore,  exhibited  but  one  distinct 
face,  lli. nigh  this  possibly  arose  from  its  being  but  a 
side  \  iew.  Again.  Rc.iv.-.s,  the  "living  creatures." 
as  the  cherubim  are  there  designated,  are  represented. 
ii"t  as  existing  in  one  corporeity  with  four  faces,  but  as 
a  fourfold  creaturehood,  each  having  a  face  diverge 
troin  the  other-  altogether  four  faces,  but  six  wings. 
And  in  the  Apocalypse  the  liodies  of  the  creatures  ap 
pear  full  "f  eyes,  as  they  do  also  in  K/.e.  \.  12,  where, 
with  his  usual  particularism,  the  prophet  represents 
•'  their  \\hole  flesh,  and  their  backs,  and  their  hands, 
and  their  wings.  as  full  of  CMS:  while  in  his  first 
vision  the  eyes  are  connected  only  with  the  wheel-work, 
to  which  tin-  cherubim  \\eiv  attached,  ,-li.i.  I-.  ]t  seems 
plain,  therefore,  that  certain  circumstantial  diflereih  e 
were  deemed  allowable  in  the  ideal  representations  of 
the  cherubim,  and  we  may  justlv  infer  also  in  the  ac 
tual  form-  given  to  them. 

l,iit  with  these  circumstantial  differences,  there  are 
certain  marked  characteristics,  that  seem  always  to 
belong  to  the  cherubim,  wherever  they  distinctly  ap 
pear.  One  is  that  they  are  composite  animal  forms; 
and  \shen  these  animal  forms  are  specified.  tlieyal\va\s 
consist  of  the  likeness  of  man.  the  lion,  the  ox,  and  the 
eagle.  This  fourfold  composition  is  brought  so  promi 
nently  out  in  the  visions  of  K/okicl.  and  these  visions 
themselves  stand  in  such  close  relation  to  the  temple, 
that  we  cannot  doubt,  the  figures  set  up  there  in  the 
most  holy  place,  over  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  partook 
of  the  same  compound  elements.  It  is  perfectly  pos- 


CHEKl'T- 


sible,  however,  that  tin1  composition  may  have  I  icon 
dill'erently  moulded  ;  that  the  fourfold  likeness  may  not 
have  been  all  exhibited  in  the  tact',  but  partly  in  the 
face  and  partly  in  the  members  of  the  hodv.  Such 
seems  tn  have  been  the  case  in  tin:  wall- cherubim  in 
E/ekieTs  vision  already  reft  rr<  d  to:  the  features  alone 
"i  a  man  and  of  a  lion  appeared  in  the  face  ;  luit  from 
each  being  still  dcsignatid  a.  cherub,  woaiv  l-'d  to  con 
clude  that  the  figure  svas  not  that  simplv  of  a  man  and 
of  a  lion  ropeetively,  l>ut  possessed  the  usual  composite 
.-trncturc — the  existences  not  represented  in  the  face 
appearing  in  other  and  subordinate  parts  of  the  body. 
So  mav  it  ha\e  been,  for  anything  \\'e  know,  in  the 
cherubic  figures  on  the  ark  of  the  eovenant,  ami  on  the 
east  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  lint  we  are  not  the  less 
to  believe,  that  ill  the  figures  as  a  whole,  in  one  mode 
or  another,  the  four  animal  existences  of  man,  lion,  ox. 
and  eagle,  had  their  representation.  It  is  essential  to 
the  cherub  that  it  be  a  composite  figure  :  and  that, 
however  precisely  moulded,  the  composition  should 
partake  of  the  four  different  elements  in  question. 

Another  point  that.  comes  distinctlv  out  in  the  cher 
ubic  representations  is  the  prominence  of  the  human 
form.  Kurt/  thinks  that  their  predominantly  human 
aspect  may  be  inferred  alone  from  the  absence  of 
definite  descriptions  of  them  in  the  earlier  records  of 
Scripture  (IIer*>g's  Kucycl.  art.  Cherubim).  That,  perhaps, 
may  be  questioned,  at  least  as  a  general  statement; 
though  ground  may  be  found  for  it,  if  the  historical 
position  from  the  first  assigned  to  the  cherubim  is  duly 
taken  into  account.  For  one  cannot  conceive  that  the 
way  to  the  tree  of  life,  after  man's  expulsion  from  the 
garden  of  Eden,  or  the  place  of  immediate  proximity 
to  the  divine  presence  in  the  hols'  of  holies,  could  have 
been  surrendered  to  any  ideal  occupants  that  bore  the 
aspect  and  conveyed  the  impression  of  a  lower  terrene 
existence  than  of  him  who  was  made  in  the  image  of 
(.tod.  But  other  representations  bring  the  point  in 
question  clearly  into  view  ;  as  when  it  is  said.  K/e.  i.  f>, 
that  ''they  had  the  appearance  of  a  mail."  So  also, 
Re.  iv.  r,  it  is  said  of  the  third  cherubic  form,  that  "it 
had  a  face  as  a  man"  meaning,  apparently,  that  the 
fa.ee  in  this  case  corresponded  to  the  body ;  that  the 
countenance,  like  tlte  general  form,  was  human,  while, 
in  the  others,  the  face  differed  from  the  human  structure 
it  surmounted.  The  same  thing  further  appear.-  from 
the  possession  and  active  employment  of  a  hand,  which 
is  once  and  again  ascribed  to  the  cherubim;  and,  finally, 
from  the  part  they  are  represented  as  taking,  aloiy  with 
the  elders  and  the  redeemed  generally,  in  the  Apocalypse, 
in  ci  lebrating  the  praise  of  Cod.  and  rehearsing  the 
wonders  of  redemption,  ch.  iv.  N  ;  \.  n,  1-2.  The  only 
passage  that  seems  to  convey  a  different  impression, 
and  one  that  is  often  appealed  to  in  opposition  to  the 
view  we  maintain,  is  E/,e.  x.  14,  where,  in  respect  to 
the  cherubic  vision  before  him,  the  prophet  says,  "  And 
every  one  had  four  faces:  the  first  face  the  face  of  a 
cherub,  and  the  second  face  the  face  of  a  man.  and  the 
third  the  face  of  a  lion,  and  the  fourth  the  face  of  an 
eagle."  Here,  since  in  the  three  last  faces,  the  likeness 
of  a  man.  a  lion,  and  an  eau'le.  respectively,  was  descried, 
while,  in  that  of  the  first,  the  prophet  speaks  of  seeing 
simply  the  face  of  a  cherub,  it  has  been  very  commonly 
supposed  that  the  ox- aspect  must  have  been  meant,  and 
that,  consequently,  the  cherubit  form  must  have  been 
predominantly  bovine — otherwise  the  ox-aspect  could 
not  thus  have  been  left  in  abeyance,  and  that  of  a 


cherub  substituted  in  its  stead.  But  this  would  be  to 
place  the  representation  here  at  variance  with  other 
representations  of  the  same  prophet,  and  even  of  this 
chapter,  svhere  he  speaks  so  distinctly  of  the  man's 
hand,  being  under  the  svings,  and  the  doing  by  the 
cherubim  of  a  man's  part.  Tlie  proper  explanation  of 
the  passage  appears  to  be,  that  the  prophet,  who  simply 
describes  what  passed  in  vision  before  him,  was  stand 
ing  at  the  time  right  in  front  of  one  of  the  cherubim, 
the  one  who  gave  the  lise  coals  to  the  angel  :  that,  ac- 

'  cordingly.  he  could  not  say.  in  regard  to  this  particular 
\  '  ' 

cherub,  which  form  was  most  prominent  in  the  face 

for  the  whole  cherubic  features  presented  themselves 
to  his  eye  :  what  he  saw  was  just  the  complete  face  of 
a  cherub;  while,  having  only  a  .s/V/r  view  of  the  others, 
which  stood  at  different  angles  to  his  position,  they 
ses'erally  exhibited  the  different  forms  he  ascribes  to 
them.  (See  I-'airbaii-n's  K/.ckiel  in  Iwn.) 

:>.  Now.  these  marked  peculiarities  in  the  structure 
of  the  cherubim  their  being  alwass  presented  to  our 
view  as  composite  forms,  made  up  of  four  animal  exist 
ences.  but  with  the  shape  and  lineaments  of  humanity 
for  the  ground  and  body  of  the  whole  draw  a  broad 
line  of  demarcation  between  them  and  the  winged 
forms  svhich  have  come  to  light  among  the  remains  of 
Egyptian  and  Assyrian  antiquities.  Some  sort  of 
affinity  may,  indeed,  be  allowed  to  have  existeil  between 
the  latter  and  the  cherubim,  as  both  alike  were  com 
posite  forms  of  animal  existence,  not  representations  of 
creatures  that  have  any  actual  place  in  the  realms  of 
animated  being.  But  the  comparison  does  not  carry 
us  beyond  this  general  idea  of  resemblance.  The 
heathen  figures  consist  almost  exclusively  of  some  bestial 
form  svith  a  man's  head — wings,  perhaps,  superadded, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  tsvo  huge  bulls  obtained  at  Nineveh 

or  of  a  single  form  with  svings  appended  to  it. 

Monstrous  combinations  of  a  like  kind  have  also  been 
found  in  Egypt,  of  which  those  exhibited  in  the  cuts, 
Nos.  307  — 171,  from  the  paintings  of  Beni-Hassan  and 
Thebes,  may  be  taken  as  specimens. 

Mesides  such  representations  as  these,  it  seems  to 
have  been  quite  common  to  attach  wings  to  any  par 
ticular  animal  form — such  as  that  of  a  serpent,  of  a 
lion,  of  a  man,  or  even  of  an  inanimate  object;  whether 
for  ornament,  or  with  some  symbolical  aim.  cannot  be 
certainly  knosvn.  But  all  such  representations  differ 
so  widely  from  the  cherubim,  especially,  come  so  far 
short  of  that  complex  structure,  svith  its  remarkable 
prominence  of  the  human  figure,  that  very  little  ac 
count  can  be  made  of  it.  in  explaining  the  design  of  the 
cherubim,  or  even  in  determining  their  specific  form. 
Audit  cannot  have  been  from  any  loose  or  general 
resemblance  of  this  sort,  that  the  sacred  historian 
refrained  from  giving,  at  the  first  mention  of  the  cheru 
bim,  a  more  particular  description  of  their  structure 
and  appearance. 

4.  Leaving  this  line  of  inquiry,  therefore,  as  one 
that  can  yield  no  available  results,  we  return  to  look  at 
the  wonderful  scriptural  compound  itself:  and  ask, 
What  may  have  been  the  object  of  combining  svith  the 
human  form  those  other  creaturely  existences,  which  in 
the  cherubic  figures  were,  in  a  manner,  grafted  upon  it  ' 
If  the  human  was,  as  we  have  reason  to  believe,  the 
prominent  and  pervading  part  of  the  composite  struc 
ture,  then  the  subsidiary  animal  forms  must  have  been 
intended  somehow  to  contribute  to  its  ideal  perfection 

to  throw  around  the  common  attributes  of  humanity 


CHEKUJ! 


301 


CHER  IT- 


others,  which  are  more  strikingly  represented  in  certain  strength:  <>f  tame  animals,  the  ox,  from  liis  common 

(if  the  inferior  creation,  than  in  him  who  is  its  proper  ,  employment  among  the  ancients  in  the  labours  of  hus- 

lord  and  its  liead.      Nor  can  there  l>e  any  doubt  that,  !  bandry,  tlie  natural   image   of   patient  and  productive 

of  the  animal  creation,   those  actually  selected  for  the  industry:  and  of  birds,  from  his  velocity  and  strength 

purpose  are  each  the   highest  (namely,  if  viewed   from  of   wing,  capable  alike  of  the   most  rapid  movements 

the  stand-point  of  antiquity)  in   their  respective  pro-  and  the  most  aerial  flight,  the  eagle,  the  highest  embo- 

vinees  :  -of  wild  animals,   the  lion,  king  of  the  forest  diluent   of  soaring  energy    and   angelic   nimhleness  of 

--the    representative    of    royal    majesty   and    fearful  i  action.     These  different  qualities  are  so  well  known  to 


.]       Winged  human-hauled  Liuu.     I.;iy;inl. 


La 

^%i    -'>"A     j/3£.    ':•       sS 
r  ,r  _^r 


belong  to  the  several   nvutuiv-    mentioned,  and  are  so 

often  brought  into  notice  in  Scripture  itself,  that  no 
one  can  doubt  the  fitness  of  each  tun-present  and  imago 
the  particular  qualities  connected  with  them.  And  to 
pn-M'iit  the  human  form  as  invested  and  conjoined  with 
the  cr<  at u rely  personifications  of  such  div.  rse  qualities, 
was  to  exhibit  a  coiien-te  ideal  of  ( -xn -11. -lie.-,  human. 
indeed,  in  its  groundwork,  basing  man's  intellectual 
anil  moral  powers  for  its  mo-t  fundamental  characteri.-.- 
tie,  \>t  higher  in  its  collective  attributes  and  att.iin- 
ments  than  can  be  claimed  for  humanity  in  tin;  existing 
state  df  things.  It  was  to  show  man.  not  oiilv  as  pos 
sessed  of  his  own  superior  physical  and  -piritual  nature, 
but  that  as  also  endowed  with  lion-like  maje-tv  and 
strength,  bovine  patience  of  toil  and  productiveness, 
aquiline  elevation  of  aim  and  velocitv  of  movement  - 
properties  which,  if  it  does  not  entirely  want,  yet  it  so 
imperfectly  possesses,  and  can  so  partially  exercise,  that 
one  can  easily  apprehend  how  much  they  would  add  to 
its  completeness.  I'ut  in  respect  to  the  further  quo 
tion,  why  the  nature:  of  man  should  have  been  so  exhi 
bited  in  ideal  combination  with  th  -se  animal  existences, 
and  the  properties  they  symbolized,  the  answer  must 
be  sought  in  the  collateral  information  that  is  given 
concerning  the  cherubim,  especially  as  regards  the  posi 
tions  they  were  appointed  to  occupy,  and  the  kind  of 
services  they  are  represented  as  performing. 

/>.   It  is  impossible  to  do  more  here  than  briefly  glance 
at,  and  bring  together,  the  several   points  of  informa-  ! 
tion  which  may  be  gathered  from  the  different  notices  | 


of  Scripture  iv-pecting  the  cherubim.  (  hie  thing— and 
what  may  fitly  lie  mentioned  in  the  first  place  is  com 
mon  to  all  the  representations,  viz.  their  ministering,  and, 
consequently,  creaturely  character.  No  one  who  con 
siders  what  is  said  of  them  could  mistake  them  for  em 
blem,  ,,('  J>,-ity  :  so  far  from  being  objects  of  adoration, 
they  themselves  worship  and  serve.  In  their  verv  first 
employment,  as  comiecttd  \\ith  the  garden  of  Kden, 
they  have  a  work  to  do — indeed,  man's  proper  work  - 
to  ke,  1 1  tin-  uay  to  tin-  tree  of  life.  When  placed  in  the 
innermost  sanctuarv.  at  each  end  of  the  ark  of  thcco\e- 
nant,  the  attitude  in  \\hieh  tln-v  stood  was  that  of 
adoring  contemplation.  Ionising  toward  the  metw  seat. 
where  reconciliation  for  iniquity  was  made,  and  the 
tin-one  of  grace  established  for  men.  1'asMnu  from 
their  objective  representation  to  the  use  made  of  them 
in  prophetic  \i-ioii.  we  find  them,  in  more  than  one 
place,  supplying  the  ministers  of  vengeance  with  the 
materials  of  divine  wrath  upon  human  guilt,  Ene.  x.  7; 
Rev.  xv  7;  and  airain.  thev  ap|»  ar  in  the  highest  and 
foremost  rank  of  those  heavenly  attendants  of  the  King 
of  /ion.  who  perjietuallv  show  forth  his  praise  and  extol 
the  wonders  of  his  grace,  Re.  iv.  s  ;  v.  11.  Creaturely 
position  and  ministerial  service  are  what  evidently  be 
long  to  tin-in  but  these  of  the  most  exalted  and 
honourable  kind.  For,  think,  secondly,  of  the  posi 
tions  assigned  them  —always  in  the  nearest  relationship 
to  God,  where  God's  holiness,  and  the  life  connected 
with  it,  most  peculiarly  dwell.  They  first  make  their 
appearance  in  the  blissful  haunts  of  paradise,  the  pro- 


fllERF!', 


CUE  RTF. 


visional  occupants  of  mans  lost  inheritance;  and,  as 
.such,  the  witnesses  of  a  moral  glory,  which  man  was 
no  longer  capable  of  sustaining.  In  the  most  holy 
place,  they  form,  with  their  composite  forms  and  out 
stretched  wings,  tlie  immediate  attendants  of  the  Great  j 
King;  his  dwelling  there  is  above  the  mercy-seat  and  j 
between  the  cherubim.  K\.  \\v.  •_'•_';  not  upon  them,  as 
tlic  hearers  of  his  majesty  or  the  pillars  of  bis  throne, 
but  betu'ei  n  thrin,  as  having  them  for  the  familiars  of 
his  presence,  and  hi>  seleetest  instruments  of  working, 
lleiice  also,  in  the  passages  above  referred  to  from 
K/.ekiel  and  the  Apocalypse,  it  is  they  who  furnish 
angels  with  the  materials  of  action,  as  standing  nearer 
to  the  throne  of  Godhead  even  than  they;  and  while 
angels  and  elders  \\eiv  seen  mnini  nhmit  the  throne  by 
the  Apocalyptist.  the  cherubic  forms  appeared  in  the 
•iiiiel.tl  i)/' the  throne,  as  well  as  round  about  it,  Ue.  iv  1-1;. 
Closest  proximity  to  (iod.  therefore,  and,  by  necessary 
consequence,  fitness  for  the  loftiest  sphere  of  holv  and 
blessed  life,  are  what  we  are  taught  to  associate  with 
the  cherubim  in  Scripture.  And  then,  lastly,  there  is 
the  property  of  life  itself,  most  remarkably  associated  [ 
with  them.  They  are  emphatically  the  liviinj  creature*  ! 
— so  called  in  K/.ekiel  and  Revelation  about  thirty 
times;  and  because  all  life,  therefore  are  they  also 
sometimes  represented  as  all  eyes — which  are  the  most 
peculiar  organ  and  index  of  life — and  all  motion,  never  , 
resting  in  their  ministrations  of  service,  as  if  life  were 
theirs  in  undecayinu  freshness  and  immortal  vigour. 
But  life,  so  closely  linked  to  the  presence  of  (rod.  and 
so  ceaselessly  employed  ill  doing  service  to  Him,  must 
be  pre-eminently  holy  life  —life  at  once  enjoyed  and  j 
exercised  in  connection  with  the  righteous  purposes  of 
the  divine  government  toward  men  ;  and  so  they  must 
be  regarded  as  standing  at  the  farthest  possible  remove 
from  both  sin  and  death. 

If  the  points  now  noticed,    which  include  the  more 
fundamental  and  important  representations  concerning 
the  cherubim,   are   allowed  their  due  weight,  the  de-  i 
scription  in  Ps.  xviii.  10  of  God's  manifestation  for  the 
deliverance  of  the  psalmist,  in  which  it  is  said,    "  He  j 
rode  upon  a  cherub,  and  did   fly  :  yea,  he  did  fly  upon 
the  wings  of  the  wind,"  cannot  occasion  any  difficulty. 
It  must  be  .understood   simply  as  a   poetical  allusion, 

and  no  more  in  the  one   part  than  in  the  other  should 
1 

it  be  pressed  closely.  The  winds  are  God's  instruments  ! 
of  working — his  messengers,  or  angels,  as  they  are  called 
in  Ps.  civ.  1 :  and  so.  poetically,  he  may  be  represented  j 
as  flying  upon  these,  when  the  object  is  to  exhibit  him  ', 
as  moving  swiftly  <  m  wards  to  the  execution  of  his  purpose. 
In  like  manner,  and  with  a  similar  play  of  imagination, 
lie  might  be  represented  as  riding  upon  a  cherub:  not 
that  this  was  ever  meant  to  be  understood  as  the  pro 
per  throne  or  chariot  of  Deity  (which  were  at  variance 
with  the  spirit  of  all  the  leading  representations1),  but 
merely  as  the  crcatm-ely  form  with  which  he  had  most 
peculiarly  associated  his  presence  and  his  glory ;  so  that 
he  was  naturally  thought  of  by  the  psalmist  in  connec 
tion  with  that  form — serving  himself  of  its  ministry — 
when  coming  as  the  covenant-God  to  avenge  the  cause 
of  his  servant.  It  is  but  a  passing  and  poetical  allu 
sion,  and  cannot,  with  any  propriety,  be  turned  into  a 
principal  passage. 

6.   If  now  we  bring  to  a  practical  bearing  the  infor 
mation  that  has  been  evolved  respecting  the  cherubim,  | 
and  keep  prominently  in  view,  as  we  ought,  the  histo-  , 
rical  use   made    of   them,    we   shall  perceive  it   to   be  j 


greatly  too  indefinite  a  description  of  their  nature  and 
design  to  say  of  them  that  ''they  were  symbols  of  the 
presence  of  God"  (Kalisch),  or  "  the  created  witnesses  and 
bearers  of  the  divine  glory"  (Kurtz).  Doubtless,  they 
were  both  the  one  and  the  other;  but  so  was  the  flam 
ing  sword  .-it  the  gate  of  Eden.'  which  yet  was  different 
from  the  cherubim:  so  afterwards  was  the  ark  of  the 
covenant  and  tin:  shekinah  on  the  top  of  it;  and  so,  in 
a  greater  or  less  decree,  is  evt  ry  institution  and  ordi 
nance  of  God.  We  must  look  for  something  more 
specific  :  espeeially  since,  if  viewed  in  so  general  a  light, 
the  bearing  actually  exercised  by  them  on  the  faith  of 
God's  people  would,  from  the  positions  assigned  the 
cherubim,  be  of  the  most  diverse  and  heterogeneous 
kind.  So  Kalisch,  indeed,  unfolds  the  matter,  inter 
preting  the  significance'  of  the  cherubim  in  their  different 
positions  by  way  of  a  formal  contrast :  "  The  cherubim 
are  types  of  the  providence  and  proximity  of  God  ;  but 
the  cherubim  of  paradise  are  the  effects  of  the  aliena 
tion  of  men  from  (Jod  ;  those  on  the  mercy-scat  symbo 
lize  their  conciliation.  The  former  guard  a  treasure, 
which  is  for  ever  denied  to  man  ;  the  latter,  one  which 
was  proclaimed  to  all  nations  as  their  common  inherit 
ance.  The  former  are,  therefore,  armed  with  a  fearful 
weapon,  resembling  the  terrific  flashes  of  lightning; 
the  others  look  lovingly  down  upon  the  ark,  oversha 
dowing  it  with  their  protecting  wings.  The  one  tvpifv 
a  covenant  destroyed,  the  others  a  covenant  concluded  ; 
and.  instead  of  the  tree  of  life,  of  which  the  one  deprives 
the  human  families,  the  others  point  to  a  trea.-ure. 
which  is  also  a  tree  of  life  to  those  who  cling  to  it'' 
(Conmi  in,  den  hi.  I-J-LM).  Such  a  mode  of  interpretation 
is  altogether  arbitrary,  and.  while  affecting  precision 
and  certainty,  it  really  exhibits  the  greatest  looseness 
and  caprice.  Divine  symbols  were  not  capable,  after 
this  fashion,  of  speaking  for  and  against,  giving  intima 
tions  of  death  or  life  according  to  the  mere  circum 
stances  of  their  position  ;  and  God  as.  little  intended, 
by  the  symbolical  apparatus  at  the  east  of  Eden,  to 
shut  out  all  hope  of  life  from  fallen  man,  as  afterwards, 
by  means  of  the  sacred  furniture  in  his  sanctuary,  to 
proclaim  it  as  the  common  inheritance  of  all  nations. 
In  both  cases  alike,  as  (Jod  himself  changes  not.  and 
no  esM'iitial  change  had  taken  place  in  the  circum 
stances  of  mankind,  we;  cannot  doubt  that  there  also  was 
presented  the  same  hope  to  the  fallen,  guarded  by  the 
like  safeguards  and  limitations,  and  that  as  God  -was 
not  all  mercy  in  the  tabernacle,  neither  was  he  all  terror 
at  the  gate  of  Eden.  Indeed,  it  was  precisely  through 
the  cherubim  of  glory,  that  his  mercy  found  symbolical 
expression  to  those  who  came  to  worship  before  him  on 
the  east  of  Eden,  as  it  did  also,  with  some  variation, 
and  somewhat  fuller  accompaniments,  in  the  most  holy 
place  of  the  tabernacle. 

Eor  we  have  no  reason  to  associate  the  flaming,  ever- 
revolving  sword  with  the  cherubim,  so  as  to  form  the 
two  into  one  compound  symbol,  and  regard  the  sword 
as  waved  by  the  hands  of  a  cherub.  The  sacred  text 
gives  no  countenance  to  that  idea;  it  rather  presents 
them  to  our  view  as  separate,  though  related  objects, 
necessary,  when  taken  together,  to  convey  that  com 
plex  instruction  which  the  circumstances  of  men  re 
quired,  and  awaken  in  their  bosom  the  feelings  which 
it  became  them  to  entertain.  For  this,  however,  an 
image  of  terror  and  repulsion  could  not  have  sufficed, 
'•  There  was  needed  along  with  it  an  image  of  mercy 
and  hope  ;  and  both  were  given  in  the  appearances  that 


CHER  UP. 


303 


CHESTNUT 


actually  presented  themselves.      When  the  eye  of  man  !  places— representatives,  not  of  what  it  actually  is,  but 
looked    to    the    sword,    with    its    burnished    and    tiery     of  what  it  was  destined   to   become,  when  the 'purpose 


aspect,  lie  could  not  but  be  struck  with  awe  at  the 
thought  of  (iod's  severe  and  retributive  justice.  But 
when  he  saw  at  the  same  time,  in  near  and  friendly 
connection  with  that  emblem  of  Jehovah's  righteous 
ness,  living  or  life-like  forms  of  being,  cast  pre-emi- 


of  God  in  its  behalf  was  accomplished,  and  other  ele 
ments  than  those  now  belonging  to  it  had  gathered  into 
its  condition.  They  were  made  after  an  ideal  form, 
not  simply  in  the  likeness  of  man,  in  order  that  the 
lofty  privilege  to  which  they  pointed  might  not  he  sv 


nently  in  his  own  mould,  but  bearing  along  with  his    posed  to  be  the  heritage  of  man  as  fallen ;  and  vet  with 

the  likeness  also  of  the  choicest  species  of  the  animal  so  much  of  man's  likeness  in  their  general  structure  as 
creation  around  him,  what  could  he  think,  but  that  still  to  inspire  the  confidence,  that  for  man  they  were  de- 
for  creatures  of  earthly  rank,  for  himself  most  of  all,  signed  to  light  the  way  of  peace  and  hope,  (iod  mani- 
an  interest  was  reserved  by  the  mercy  of  (iod  in  the  ;  fested  as  dwelling  between  the  cherubim  is  ( iod  appear- 
things  that  pertained  to  the  blessed  region  of  life  '.  .  ing  in  a  state  of  blessed  nearness  to  men.  and  in  cove- 
That  region  could  not  now.  by  reason  of  sin.  be  actually  '  mint  for  their  redemption  from  sin,  that  he  may  briii"- 
possessed  by  him:  but  it  was  provisionally  held,  by  them  to  dwell  in  his  presence  and  -lory.  And'  hence" 
composite  forms  of  creature-life,  in  which  his  nature  :  when  the  vision  is  opened  into  the  filial  issues  of  re- 


appeared  as  the  predominating  elem 


And  for  what     demption.  the  r 


end,  if  not  to  teach,  that  when  that  nature  of  his  seen  dwelling  with  them,  and  thev  with  (.iod;  but  the 
should  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  avenging  justice  cherubim,  as  no  longer  needed  to  point  the  wav,  when 
of  (.iod,  when  raised  to  its  yet  destined  state  of  perfec-  the  end  itself  has  been  reached,  have  finally  disap- 
tion,  it  should  regain  its  place  in  the  blissful  haunts  '  peared  :  they  belonged  to  that  which  was  in  part,  and 
from  which  it  had  meanwhile  been  excluded  .'  So  that,  when  the  perfect  has  come,  for  ever  pass  awav. 
standing  before  the  eastern  approach  to  Kden,  and  Having  thus  at  some  length  unfolded  what  we  take 
scanning  with  intelligence  tin-  appearances  that  there  to  be  the  true  meaning  and  place  of  the  cherubim,  it 
presented  themselves  to  his  view,  the  child  of  faith  j  seems  unnecessary  to  go  over  in  detail  the  various  and 
might  say  to  himself.  That  region  of  life  is  not  finally  (,fu.n  fanciful  theories  which  ha 
lost  to  me.  Jt  has  neither  been  blotted  from  the  face  t,u.lk.r  ;nic]  latt.r  timt.s  o]1  th 
of  creation,  nor  intrusted  to  beings  of  another  sphere.  seell  brieflv  exhihite(1  in  th|.  ; 


Earthly  forms  still  hold  possession  of  it.    Better  things,    t((   V()j         |   .>i.>_.),^ 
then,  are  doubtless  in  reserve  for  them;  and   /,///  na-         CHESTNUT  "  I 
ture,    which  stands   out   so   conspicuously   above    them 
all,  fallen  though  it  be  at  present,  is  assuredly  destined 


ave  been  broached  in 
ibject.  Thev  may  be 
JIKJII,  already  referred 


Jacob  made  speekli 


xxx.    :<7,   we   are    t,,],]  that 
of  armon-twigs,  «v;ny,  and 

to  rise  again,   and  enjoy  in  the  reality  what    is   there    from  Eze.  xxxi.  >s,  we  find  that  this  armon  was  a  stately 
ideally  and  representatively  assigned   to  it  "  iFuir- 

The  instruction  was  not  materially  diti'i  rent 
which  was  conveyed  by  the  cherubim  on  the  ark  — 
only  it  belonged  to  a  more  advanced  stage  of  the 
divine  dispensations,  and  marked  a  progress  in  the 
relation  of  man  to  his  proper  end.  Here  also,  a.- 
at  Kden,  there  are  awful  manifestations  of  t  lie  jus 
tice  of  (iod;  the  divine  presence  shrouds  itself  in 
a  pillar  of  cloud,  from  which  emanations  of  wrath 
:ire  ever  ready  to  break  forth  on  the-  profane,  and 
not  even  can  the  holiest  in  standing  venture  to 
approach  without  the  incense  of  prayer  and  the 
blood  of  atonement  wherewith  to  sprinkle  the 
mercy-seat.  lint  still  the  secret  place  of  the  Most 
Hii;h  ''an  be  so  entered;  the  region  of  divine  life 
and  fellowship  is  no  longer  an  utterly  barred  one; 
the  way  is  at  least  partially  "pencil,  though  but 
provisionally,  and  as  through  a  veil  darkly;  and 
the  cherubim  of  glory,  imaging  manhood  in  its 
ideal  perfection,  and,  with  their  eye  ever  intent  on 
the  blood  -  sprinkled  mercy  -  seat,  encompass  the 
dwelling-place  of  Jehovah,  as  much  as  to  say,  that 
if  men  did  but  come  through  this  sanctified  medium, 
and  lay  hold  on  the  hope  set  before  them,  they  should 
also  in  faith  have  their  dwelling  there  ;  that  even  now 
they  should  be  permitted  to  drink  from  the  fountain 


life:  and  that,  when  the  mystery  of  (iod  wa 
they  should  in  his  immediate  presence   hav 
of  joys  for  evermore. 


•ft 
|172  ]       Chestnut-tree- Pfa<rt>i«sowntoZ/s. 

tree  with  magnificent  branches,  and  each  context  favours 

h  soil  and   near 


the  supposition  that   it  grew  i 

water,  like  the  poplar  and  willow.      In  common,  there- 
finished,     f,,re,  with  the  great  majority  of  interpreters,  we  accept 
experience     the    rendering    of    the    Septuagint    and    Vulgate,    and 
assume  that  the  Platanus  or  plane  is  intended. 


\Ve  conclude,  then,  that  the  cherubim  were  designed 
pre-eminently  to  be  symbols  of  faith  and  hope  to  the 


The  Ptntrtiui*  oritntiiHx,   or  plane  of    Palestine  ami 
of  classical  antiquity,  must  not  be  confounded  with  tht 


fallen  yet   believing  people  of  (iod.      They  were  ideal  'plane-tree,  commonly  so  called   in  Scotland   and  Eng- 
representatives  of  humanity  in  the  highest  and  holiest  ;  land.     This  last  is  a  maple.  Acer  pseudo-platanus,  and 


CIIIKF   OK   ASIA 


30-1 


(TIT LI> I!  KX 


like  the  rest  of  its  saccharine  family,  it  contains  a  sweet 
sap  in  the  liburmmi  or  under  bark,  for  the  sake  of 
which  it  is  often  tapped  by  school-hoys  in  spring.  F.ven 
by  those  least  familiar  with  plants,  the  false  plane  or 
sycamore  may  be  readily  distinguished  from  the;  plane, 
oriental  ;md  occidental,  by  its  seeds.  In  the  former 
they  are  kit/*,  or  twin  carpels.  Flattened  into  wing-like 
discs;  in  the  latter,  they  are  globular  caskets  or  cat 
kins-balls  more  or  hiss  rough,  which  hang  on  the 
branches  throughout  the  winter  in  graceful  strings  or 
tassels,  suggesting  the  name  of  button-wood,  by  which 
the  /•*.  orr!i(fiit<i//x  is  usually  known  in  the  I'nited 
States  of  America. 

There  is  no  tree  with  which  a  Londoner  is  more 
familial',  or  for  which  he  ought  to  be  more  grateful. 
\Ve  know  not  whether  aught  of  its  vigour  in  the  midst 
of  smoke  and  dust  is  to  be  ascribed  to  its  faculty  of 
shedding  its  bark,  and  so  coming  out  in  a  new  coat 
every  year  ;  but  both  the  species  thrive  luxuriantly,  and 
with  their  leafy  canopy  afford  a  shelter  alike  impene 
trable  by  sun  and  shower. 

A  native  of  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  ('recce,  the  plane 
was  a  special  favourite  with  the  ancients.  The  groves 
of  Academus  were  groves  of  plane,  and  it  was  under 
avenues  of  plane  that  Aristotle  and  his  Peripatetics 
promenaded, 

"  Whilst  nourishing  a  youth  sublime, 
With  the  fairy  fruits  of  knowledge,  and  the  long  result  of  time." 

Pliny  tells  us  of  some  celebrated  planes  -one  at  Veli- 
ternuni,  in  whose  hollow  trunk  the  emperor  Caligula 
entertained  fifteen  guests;  another  in  Lycia,  which 
in  the  same  way  accommodated  Licinius  Alucianus, 
the  consul,  and  a  festive  party  of  seventeen  besides — 
"large  ipsa  toros  pi-ebente  fronde,  ab  oinni  alflatu  secu- 
rum,  optaiitem  inibrium  per  folia  crepitus,  hetiorem, 
quam  marmorum  nitoro.  pictune  varietate,  laquearium 
auro,  cubuis.se  in  eadein"  (Plinii  Xat.  Hist.  lib.  xii.  r>).  If 
not  the  same  tree,  it  was  in  the  same  neighbourhood 
that  the  famous  plane-tree  grew  which  arrested  Xerxes 
on  his  march,  and  for  which  he  showed  such  crazy 
fondness — according  to  ^lian,  decorating  it  with  scarfs, 
and  necklaces,  and  costly  jewels,  and  when  at  last  ob 
liged  to  tear  himself  away  from  it,  causing  a  golden 
medal  to  be  struck  as  a  commemoration  of  it. 

This  plane  is  a  native  of  Palestine,  and,  next  to  the 
cedar,  no  tree  could  supply  Kzekiel  with  a  worthier 
image  of  massive  strength  and  stately  grandeur. 

[...  ii.] 

CHIEF  OF  ASIA.     ,Stc  ASTAKCH.-E. 

CHILDREN.  Tn  the  authorized  version  of  Scrip 
ture,  the  term  is  often  used  in  a  general  sense  for  off 
spring  or  descendants,  and  where  xnns  would  be  the 
more  exact  synonym  for  the  original :  as  children  of 
Abraham,  children  of  Israel.  P>nt  taking  the  word 
with  reference  to  children  strictly  so  called,  there  are 
certain  things  deserving  of  notice  respecting  the  posi 
tion  of  such  among  the  covenant- people,  and  the  usages 
to  which  it  gave  rise:  (1.)  The  most  distinguishing 
peculiarity,  perhaps,  was  the  close  identification  of 
children  with  parents  in  their  covenant-standing.  The 
ordinance  of  circumcision,  which  formed  the  introduc 
tion  to  the  covenant,  and  might  be  called  its  personal 
badge,  was  administered  to  infants  of  eight  days  old, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  connecting  parent  and  child 
together  in  the  same  bond  of  obligation  and  promise 
toward  Clod.  And  it  was  impossible  that  this  could  be 
done  in  a  right  spirit,  and  with  any  suitable  apprehen 


sion  of  the  meaning  involved  in  the  transaction,  with 
out  elevating  the  relation  of  the  child  in  respect  to 
its  parent,  rendering  it  in  a  manner  sacred  in  his  eyes. 
Among  such  a  people  children  would  naturally  bo  re 
garded  as  (Jod's  gifts,  in  a  more  peculiar  sense  than 
they  should  otherwise  have  been,  and  only  among  them 
could  the  saying  have;  arisen--"  Lo,  children  are  (bid's 
heritage.''  ('2.)  In  consequence  of  this  covenant-rela 
tionship,  there  emerged  another  peculiarity  -  the  solemn 
mutual  responsibilities  laid  upon  each.  Parents  in  Israel 
were  taken  bound  to  have  their  children  reared  in  their 
own  faith,  and  fitted  for  occupying  in  due  time  the 
place  of  true  members  of  the  covenant;  and  hence  the 
many  injunctions  imposed  on  them  in  the  law  to  teach 
their  children  and  to  command  them  to  walk  in  the 
way  of  the  Lord,  (Jo.  xviii.  i'j;  Du.  vi.  7;  xi.  in  ;  hence  also 
the  kind  of  sacred  honour  which  parents  were  entitled 
to  expect,  and  children  were  bound  to  render,  while' 
still  under  the  parental  roof.  This  received  its  highest 
sanction  in  the  fifth  commandment  of  the  law,  -which 
accorded  to  parents  a  certain  measure  of  that  honour 
which  properly  belongs  todod,  and  suspended  on  its 
due  observance  the  prolonged  existence  of  the  children 
of  the  covenant  in  the  land  given  to  them  for  an  inherit 
ance.  It  proceeded  on  the  great  principle,  that  the 
relation  of  children  to  their  earthly  parents  was  to  be 
so  recognized  and  acted  on  as  to  form  a  suitable  prepa 
ration  for  the  higher  relationship  which  in  mature  ye;ir> 
they  were  to  hold  toward  (rod,  and  that  where  the  one 
failed  there  was  no  reasonable  prospect  of  the  other 
being  properly  maintained.  In  regard  to  specific  mea 
sures,  however,  we  have  110  information.  In  later  times, 
the  child  at  five  years  old  was  placed  more  directly 
under  the  charge  of  the  father,  and  at  twelve  he  reached 
a  new  stage1;  he  was  then  called  Ijcn-hatorali,  son  of  the 
law,  and  was  initiated  in  a  more  advanced  discipline 
and  instruction.  ('•}.)  It  necessarily  followed  from 
this  connection  between  parent  and  child,  as  a  third 
note  of  distinction,  that  very  severe  measures  should 
be  taken  with  such  children  as  set  at  nought  the  honour 
and  restraints  of  parental  authority.  Xot  only  was  the 
general  law  enacted,  that  every  one  should  fear  his 
father  and  his  mother,  and  this  placed  in  immediate 
connection  with  the  call  to  keep  the  Sabbaths  of  the 
Lord  and  worship  only  him,  Lu.  xix. :!,  but  there  were 
such  more  specific  enactments  as  the  following:-'  "Tie 
that  smiteth  his  father  or  his  mother  shall  .surely  be 
put  to  death,"  and  even  he  that  cursed  them  was  to 
share  the  same  fate.  Ex.  xxi.  i:>,  17  ;  "cursed  be  he  that 
setteth  light  by  his  father  or  his  mother,"'  Do.  xxvii.  HI; 
and  if  any  parent  should  openly  accuse  his  so7i  as  stub 
born  and  rebellious  before  the  elders  of  the  city,  the 
people  were  to  stone  him  with  stones,  till  he  died. 
DC.  xxi.  21.  It  may  well  be  supposed,  that  enactments 
like  these  would  very  rarely  be  carried  into  effect,  even 
when  cases  occurred  fully  warranting  the  infliction  of 
the  penalty ;  natural  affection  would  commonly  prevail 
over  the  demands  of  justice  ;  but  the  very  insertion  of 
such  laws  in  the  statute-book  of  the  nation  was  a  strong 
testimony  to  the  spirit  that  should  pervade  the  relation 
ship.  (4.)  We  may  regard  it,  perhaps,  as  only  another 
natural  sequence  of  the  fundamental  character  of  this 
relation,  that  children  were  politically,  as  well  as  socially 
and  religiously,  bound  up  in  the  closest  manner  with 
their  parents.  The  inheritance  of  the  parent  fell  by 
legal  right  to  his  offspring,  divided  among  his  sons  into 
equal  parts,  excepting  that  the  eldest  obtained  a  double 


CHILDREN 


305 


CHIOS 


portion  iu  honour  of  his  birthright.     And  as  the  pos-  ,  this  respect  its  offspring.     It  proceeds  out  of  itself,  has 


become  concrete  in  it,  and  only  because  the  fruit- bear 
ing  power  has  thus  entered  into  it,  i*  the  hill  itself 
fruit-bearing.  The  same  thing  also  is  indicated  in  our 
mode  of  expression;  for  we  name  that,  which  natu 
rally  yields  fruit,  not  merely  fruit-bearing,  but  fruit/w/, 


sessions  of  the  Israelites  were  thus  subject  to  a  regular 
rule  of  succession,  wills  were  not  known  amongst  them. 
The  connection  was  equally  close  on  the  other  side  ;  for 
in  cases  of  extreme  poverty  the  child  might  be  sold  for 
the  debt  of  the  parent.  The  law,  indeed,  did  not  ex 
pressly  authorize  this  ;  but  as  the  father  himself  might  which  expresses  the  /•/.•<  /nit/ru,  the  inherent  power.  T 
be  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  bondman  for  payment  such  a  principle  of  derivation  must  be  referred,  not 
of  his  debt,  it  was  but  natural  to  infer  that  his  children  i  only  all  similar  expressions — such  as  'sons  of  might,' 
also  were  to  be  held  liable  to  the  same  fate.  Practi-  I  'daughters  of  song' — but  a] 
cally,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  this  was  the  course  taken,  struction  with  periods,  when 
L' Ki.  iv.  i ;  Is.  l.i,  No.  v.  5  ;  but  in  the  case  of  children  as 


thers,  as  in  the  con- 
,*'->//  or  child]  signifies 


well  as  parents,  the  merciful  provision  came  into  play,  thu  P"*1™*  of  tht'  l>^i™lar  time-for  example,  a,  child 
that  the  bondage  could  only  last  till  the  year  of  release.  '  l  tr°ublous  time  ;  all  those  expressions,  in  short, 
I.e.  xxv.SU-42,  and  even  while  it  lasted,  was  to  be  alleviated  wluch  :it  ilKt  ^token  merely  a  resemblance  or  a  subor- 


with  proper  marks  of  brotherly  kindness.  As  a  check 
also  against  the  worst,  and  as  a  regulating  principle  in 
ordinary  judicial  transactions,  it  was  enacted,  that  the 
children  should  not  be  put  to  death  for  the  parents, 
any  more  than  the  parents  for  the  children,  Do.  xxiv.  n;. 


inate  relation,  but  in  which  this  signification  is  always 

£™u"d^  upon  the  notion  in  question I'ltiklnn 

"J  obedience,  of  faitli,  therefore,  are  those  who  through 
f:lith  have  become  that  \\hich  they  now  are.  through  its 
being  implanted  within  them;  who  have  been  born 


CHILDREN,    like    SONS,    is   often    used    figuratively     again,  and  hence  possess  the  character  of  faith,  and  are 

of  persons  who  are  distinguished,  whether  for  good  or  always  ready  for  obedience.  It  was  consequently  a 
evil,  by  some  particular  quality  or  power:  they  are  right  feeling  which  led  the  older  translators  and  expo- 
called  children  of  that  quality  or  power,  to  mark  more  sitors  to  retain  the  word  cliild  (vix.  in  l  IV.  i.  it),  although 
distinctly  its  predominance  in  them;  they  appear,  in  a  they  sought,  without  clearness  of  \ii-w.  to  refer  it  im- 
manncr.  to  be  born  of  it.  Thus  the  true  recipients  of  mediately  to  Cod,  or  put  on  it  the  interpretation  rhll- 
the  gospel  aiv  called  "children  of  light,"  having  the  dren  <>f  llml.  which  makes  the  obedience  as  such  to  be 
knowledge  of  Cod  in  Christ,  the  only  knowledge  that  easily  known.  J'.ut  the  proper  way  of  rendering  the 
brings  salvation,  shining  into  their  hearts,  and  fashion 
ing;  their  whole  character  and  lives,  Lu.xvi.8;  also  "chil 
dren  of  obedience."  on  account  of  the  free  and  ready 
spirit  of  submission  to  the  divine  will  which  diaracteri/c-. 
them,  ]  IV.  i.  It:  and  the  more  immediate  disciples  of 


Bridegroom   of  his 


Christ,  those  who  hailed  him  as  th 
church,  and  rejoiced  in  the  gladsoi 
which  it  was  his  mission  to 

named  "children  of  the  bride-chamber,"  M  it.  ix.  i:..  On 
the  other  side,  we  havesucli  expressions  as  ''children 
of  hell,"  "sons  of  Belial."  "children  of  this  World," 
"children  of  the  wicked  one,"  M  :t  xiii.38 ;  xxiii.  t:.;  i.u. 
xvi.  s1,  to  denote  the  moral  depravation  and  inevitable 
ruin  of  those  who  arc  opposed  to  the  principles  of  righte- 


connection  is  this  children  of  faith  are  children  of 
grace,  which  is  equivalent  to  children  of  (  lod  ;  /'.- .  ( Jod, 
through  the  faith  which  is  wrought  in  them  by  his 
".race,  makes  them  to  yield  obedience  to  himself,  or  to 
be  his  children."  And  so  indeed  of  all  such  expres 
sions;  the  particular  quality  or  power  is  viewed  as 

me  light  and   liberty     taking  possession   of  the  man.  so  as  to  give  birth  and 
Lr  to  the  world,   are     being  to  him  in  the  state  and   aspect    under  considera 
tion  :    he  virtually  becomes  its  offspring. 

CHILDREN  OF  GOD,  AND  CHILDREN  BY 
ADOPTION'.  ,s>.  ADOPTION. 

CHIL'EAB  [probable  meaning.  Ilk,  /,/*/„//,,./•],  the 
name'  of  David's  son  by  Abigail.  L'^:I  i;i  ::.  but  who  is 
elsewhere  called  Daniel,  in,  iii  i.  The  reason  of  this 


ousness  and  truth.     Sometimes  even  the  term  is  applied     twofold    name    is    uncertain;    but    for    the    rabbinical 
more  specifically  in  reference  to  a  particular  dement  of     notions  concernini:  it,  and  some  speculations  of  his  own, 

l>  i;i;:s. 


life,  or  phase  of  character,  as  in  Mat.  xi.  1  :>.  where 
persons  wisdy  fulfilling  the.'  work  of  Cod  are  called 
"  children  of  wisdom:"  Ac  iv.  ::n,  where  Barnabas,  "son  of 
consolation,"  is  given  as  a  surname  to  .loses;  as  als  » 
Mar.  iii.  17.  where  John  and  James  are  styled  "sons  of 
thunder;"  and  many  things  of  a  similar  description. 
The  rationale  of  this  form  of  speech  ha-  been  excellently 
unfolded  by  Steiger  in  his  remarks  on  1  IV.  i.  M: 
"  In  the  oriental  way  of  contemplating  things,  the 
general  is  not  only  reeogni/.ed  as  a  reality,  but  as  some 
thing  more  real  and  earlier  than  the  individual  that 
hold 
Hen 


sec   Hurhart,  Him./ 

CHIM'HAM  [lani/Hixhliif/,  I, ,,„,;„,,].  son  of  Bar/illai 
the  ( lilcadito.  who,  at  the  father's  request,  was  taken 
by  David  to  Jerusalem,  after  the  quelling  of  Absalom's 
rebellion,  for  the  purpose  of  beiiiL;  treated  with  royal 
favour  and  distinction,  !»sa.xix.  37,3*.  History  has  pre 
served  no  further  notice  of  him. 

CHIN'NERETH,  CHINN'KK'OTH.  CINNK 
RKTTI-  -for  so  many  forms  does  the  word  assume  the 


>f  an  ancient   town  on  th 
which   the   lake    itself   is   suppos 
name,  Jus.  Nix.  :;:.;  xi.  -j ;   Dr.  iii  17. 
the  conquest  to   have   sunk  int< 


Lake  of  Calilee,  from 
d    to  have   derived    its 
The  place  seems  after 
bscurity,  as  it  is  un- 


f  it,  which  is  therefore  viewed  as   its  offsprin 

so  many  expressions  that  appear  to  us  straiu 

and  incongruous,  but  which  we  should  not  soften  and  known  in  the  history  of  the  covenant  people.  P.ut,  as 
explain  away  in  translation.  Thus  a  fruitful  hill  is  i  what  was  originally  called  the  Sea  of  Chinnereth,  N'u. 
/  •//  friiitf/i/iirx.i,  where  in  idea  we  find  our  xx\h  n,  bore  ultimately  the  name  of  the  Sea  of  Tiberias, 


poetical  expression  'father  of  fruits.'  But  as  the  [  it  has  been  very  commonly  supposed,  that  the  modern 
latter  mode  of  considering  things,  which  is  customary  Tiberias  rose  on  the  site'  of  the  ancient  Chinnereth. 
with  us,  points  onwards  to  the  appearance  and  the  con-  (See  TIBKHIAS.) 


sequences,  so  the  other  goes  back  to  the  nature  and  the 
ground.  According  to  it,  regard  is  had  to  the  origin  of 
the  hill  as  touching  its  fruitfulness,  and  consequently 


the  general  fruitfulness  appears  quite 
VOL.  J. 


CHI'OS,  an  island   in  the  Archipelago,   near  which 
St.  Paul   passed  on  his  way  from  Mitylene  to  Samoa, 
It  lay  very  nearly  in  a  straight  line  between 


irrectly  as  in  \  Lesbos,  in  which  Mitylene  was,  and  Samoa,  and  was 

39 


c 


name  is  Seio,  or,  as  the  Greeks  s]iell  and  pronounce  it. 
Kliio.  No  record  exists  of  its  connection  with  (  hris- 
tianity  in  apostolic  times  ;  but  after  the  lapse  of  aues. 
we  read  of  a  Bishop  of  Chios,  showing  that  the  gospel 
had  obtained  a  footing  on  its  shores.  During  the  struggle  ! 
of  the  war  for  independence,  it  became  the  scene  of  a 
terrible  tragedy  -the  Turks  having  in  LbH  fallen  on 
it.  and  committed  a  dreadful  massacre  among  the  in 
habitants. 

CHIS'LEU,  UK  CM  ISLKV,  the  ninth  mouth  uf  tin- 
Jewish  year,  commencing  with  the  new  moon  in  De 
cember  or  the  latter  part  of  November.  The  term 
itself  is  understood  to  be  of  Persian  origin.  Tin;  chief 
observance  connected  with  it  was  ''the  feast  of  the 
dedication,"  as  it  was  culled,  kept  in  commemoration 
of  the  purification  of  the  temple  after  it  had  been  im 
piously  profaned  by  Antiochus  Kpiphanes,  i  Mac  iv,&>\ 
.In.  x  22.  The  feast  began  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  the 
month,  and  lasted  for  eight  days.  The  modem  Jews 
fast  on  the  sixth  day  of  it.  on  account  of  the  destruction 
of  Jeremiah's  roll  by  king  .lehoiakim:  and  the  seventh 
is  said  to  be  a  feast  of  joy  in  commemoration  of  king 
Herod's  death. 

CHIT'TIM,  UK  KFTTIM.the  Kittians,  descendants 
of  Japheth  by  J  avail,  t;e.  x.  4,  and  generally  believed  to 
be  the  same  with  the  Cyprians,  in  Scripture  it  occurs 
only  as  a  plural,  with  reference  to  the  people,  rather 
than  the  place  ;  but  the  singular  has  been  found  in  a 
bilinguar  inscription  discovered  at  Athens,  in  which  the 
name  of  a  Cyprian  buried  at  Athens  is  written  both  in 
Greek  and  in  Phoenician  letters:  he  is  designated  Xoi 
jUTji'ios  Ktrtei's,  Numenins  the  Kitian,  a  native  of  Citinm 
in  Cyprus.  Cicero  speaks  of  the  inhabitants  of  Citium 
as  a  Phoenician  colony  ( Do  Fiuiims,  iv.  20) ;  and  Dr.  Pococke, 
when  there,  copied  as  many  as  thirty-three  inscriptions 
in  Phoenician  characters.  But  the  word  Chittim  was 
also  used  by  the  Hebrews  as  a  general  name  for  the 
isles  of  the  sea,  probably  because  in  their  earlier  history 
Cyprus  was  the  chief  island  with  which  they  were  ac 
quainted.  Josephus  testifies  as  to  the  fact,  though  his 
mode  of  accounting  for  it  may  he  disputed  — "  Che- 
thimus  possessed  the  island  of  Chethima,  which  is  now 
called  Cyprus,  and  from  this  all  islands  and  the  most 
part  of  maritime  places  are  called  Chethim  by  the  He 
brews  (Ant.  i.  o,  i).  In  this  more  extended  sense  the  word 
is  used  in  Nu.  xxiv.  '24;  Je.  ii.  10;  Eze.  xxvii.  G;  Da. 
xi.  30.  A  special  respect  is,  no  doubt,  had  to  the  islands 
in  the  .-Egean,  and  towns  along  the  coast  of  Greece, 
because  these  were  the  insular  and  maritime  places,  be 
yond  which  the  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  could 
scarcely  lie  said  to  extend.  .Bochart  has  laboured  to 
support  the  rendering  of  the  Vulgate,  which  has  identi 
fied  Chittim  with  the  Romans;  but  the  prevailing  opi 
nion  now  is  what  has  just  been  stated  -that  the  term 
primarily  denoted  Cyprus,  and  then  was  extended  so  as 
to  comprehend  the  islands  in  the  yEgean,  and  people 
generally  across  the  seas.  (Seo  Gesenius'  Thesaurus;  Ilcng- 
steuberg's  Balaam,  at  Xu.  xxiv.  21;  Tococke's  Desci-iption  of  the 
Kast,  vol.  ii.  p.  213.) 

CHI'UN,  a  word  of  disputed  import,  and  occurring 
only  once  in  Scripture.  The  prophet  Amos,  when 
charging  the  Israelites  with  a  hereditary  proneness  to 
idolatry,  points  back  to  the  state  of  matters  in  the  wil 
derness,  and  asks  — "  Have  ye  offered  unto  me  sacrifices 


and  offerings  in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  ()  house  of 
Israel  '  But  [i.e.  no,  not  unto  me  did  ye  present  sacri 
fices  and  offerings,  but]  ye  love  the  tabernacle  of  your 
.Moloch,  and  Cliiun  your  images,  the  star  of  your  god, 
which  ye  made  to  yourselves"  ch.  v.  2;.,  20.  The  Sep- 
tuagint  changed  the  latter  part  of  the  statement  thus  — 
"  Ye  took  up  the  tabernacle  of  Moloch,  and  the  star  of 
your  god  Uemphan,  figures  which  ye  made  to  worship 
them."  And  this  version  of  the  words  is  adopted  by 
Stephen  in  the  Acts,  and  brought  forward  as  a  proof 
that  the  people  in  the  wilderness  had  been  ''  uiven  up 
t"  worship  the  host  of  heaven."'  It  has  been  Imi^ 
matter  of  controversy,  what  form  or  aspect  of  heathen- 
worship  might  be  meant  in  the  original  passage  bv 
Chiun;  and  also  how  the  Septuagint  could  have  turned 
''  Chiun  your  images,  the  star  of  your  god,"  into  "  the 
s'ar  of  your  god  Hemphan.  images."  The  words  of 
the  original  have  evidently  to  some  extent  been  trans 
posed  in  the  Septuagint;  but  in  regard  to  the  chief 
point,  the  opinion  most  generally  entertained  by  the 
learned  has  been,  that  the  Kii'n  or  A'cra/i  of  Ames  wa-; 
read  by  the  (ireek  translator  /!•  nin  or  tin i/i!< un .  which 
last  appears  to  be  the  correct  reading,  and  that  Ibis  uas 
understood  to  be  an  Egyptian  name  for  Saturn.  Hence 
also  the  Syrian  version,  at  a  later  period,  gave  Saturn 
as  the  proper  rendering,  with  special  reference  doubt- 
i  less  to  the  planet  Saturn,  which  was  worshipped  by 
1  some  eastern  nations  among  the  host  of  heaven  as  a 
kind  of  evil  genius.  The  authorities,  however,  upon 
which  this  view  chiefly  rested,  have  rather  fallen  into 
disrepute  of  late;  and  Gesenius,  who  had  previously 
(•spoused  and  vindicated  the  view,  in  his  last  and  most 
matured  opinions  abandoned  it.  He  came  to  the  con- 
I  vietion,  which  is  acquiesced  in  by  Hengstenberg  and 
many  others,  that  the  Cliiun  of  the  prophet  is  no  deity 
at  all,  but  ought  to  be  translated  statue  or  i/iiaf/c.  as, 
indeed,  it  was  long  ago  rendered  by  the  Latin  Vulgate, 
iniai/litt/ii  idulnrxin  n-xtroriijii.  The  rendering  then  be 
comes —  "Ye  bore  the  tabernacle  (strictly,  booth)  of 
your  Moloch,  and  the  figure  (or  image)  of  your  idols, 
the  star  of  your  god,  which  ye  made  for  yourselves." 
This  view  is  the  rather  to  be  acquiesced  in.  as  it  is 
against  all  probability  to  suppose  that  a  deity  so  little 
known  as  Chiun.  Ruiphan.  or  Remphan  (whichever 
form  may  be  preferred),  if  such  an  one  ever  ivrdly 
existed  as  an  object  of  worship,  should  have  been  intro 
duced  in  so  familiar  and  incidental  a  manner  by  the 
prophet.  He  must,  we  naturally  think,  have  alluded 
to  forms  of  worship  which  were  generally  known  to  have 
existed,  and  were  familiar  to  the  minds  of  all.  But  the 
use  made  of  the  passage  by  Stephen  is  perfectly  justi 
fiable:  since  the  prophet  undoubtedly  identifies  the  wor 
ship  referred  to  with  an  idolatrous  regard  to  the  host  of 
heaven,  employing,  as  he  does,  the  expression  "the 
star  of  your  god,"  or  "your  star-god."  Indeed,  through 
out  the  world  of  ancient  heathendom,  idolatry  and  star- 
worship  always  stood  in  close  affinity  with  each  other. 
:  The  worship  of  the  Syrian  Baal  or  Moloch  was  quite 
commonly  identified  with  the  sun.  as  Ashtaroth  or  As- 
tarte  was  with  the  moon ;  the  one  was  the  king  of 
heaven,  the  other  the  queen;  and  star-  worship  (making 
this  include  the  heavenly  bodies  generally)  might  be 
regarded  as  in  ancient  times  inseparable  from  Jalxe 
worship. 

Viewed  in  a  doctrinal  respect,  the  chief  peculiarity 
of  the  passage  in  Amos  arises  from  the  measure  of  guilt 
it  seems  to  charge  upon  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  as  if 


CTILOE 


307 


('HEIST   JESUS 


during  the  whole  period  of  sojourn  there  the  people  had 
continued  in  the  open  practice  of  heathen  worship,  and 
had  carried  about  with  them  idolatrous  tents  and  images ! 
It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  this  could  be  the  case, 
considering  both  the  searching  oversight  under  which 
they  were  placed,  and  the  occasional  testimonies  that 
are  given  of  their  progressive  advancement  in  the  wil 
derness  toward  a  sound  spiritual  condition.  These  testi 
monies,  indeed,  never  pronounce  an  unqualified  approval 
of  their  state;  nay.  they  leave  us  in  no  doubt,  that  to 
the  last  a  considerable  intermixture  survived  of  th--' 
stubborn  :md  carnal  spirit  of  idolatry,  Do.  \.  Hi;  xxix.  2-4; 
xxxi.  Hi,  seij  ;  E/.e.  xx.  7-17;  while  still,  as  a  whole,  the  people 
toward  the  close  of  the  wilderness-sojourn  are  repre 
sented  as  in  a  state  of  greater  purity  and  devotedness 
than  either  when  they  left  Egypt,  or  than  they  after 
wards  continued  fur  any  length  uf  time  to  maintain. 
Jus.  xxiii.  xxiv. :  .Te.  ii.  2,  :\,xf.  There  is  nu  real  contrariety, 
however,  in  the  representations,  when  they  are  pro 
perly  balanced  and  compared.  Relatively.  Israel  in 
the  wilderness  became  an  holy  people  ;  the  effect  of  the 
discipline  and  judgments  through  which  they  passed 
was  to  make  th'-m  such — otherwise  God  could  never, 
at  the  close  of  the  period,  have  conducted  them  into 
the  land  of  Canaan,  from  which  at  an  earlier  date,  and 
when  they  were  in  a  woiv-e  condition.  lie  hail  kept 
them  back.  Hut  the  purit.v  wa<  still  only  comparative, 
not  absolute,  as  was  but  tuu  clearly  evinced  bv  the 
occasional  miirmu  rings  of  the  people,  and  the  falling 
away  of  so  many  of  them,  near  the  termination  of  the 
wilderness-period,  to  the  worship  of  Baal-peor,  N'u  x\v. 
It  is  t,,  tliis  column..^,  never  wholly  eradicated,  exist 
ence  and  operation  of  the  old  leaven  that  the  prophet 
Amos  points.  lie  does  not  mean  to  say  as  seems 
often  to  be  imagined  that  this  was  the  preponderating 
element  in  their  condition,  or  that  in  consequence  ,,f  it 
the  people  never  ceased  to  bear  about  with  them  the 
instruments  and  to  eii^.-i^e  in  the  services  of  idolatry. 
The  meaning  rather  is,  that  their  natural  tendency  lav 
in  this  direction  ;  and  that,  looking  to  the  stroll1.:  bent 
of  their  disposition,  or  their  general  characteristics  as  a 
people,  it  might  be  said  that  they  performed  their  sacri 
fices  to  others  than  .Jehovah,  and  turned  his  tabernacle 
into  a  sort  of  idol- tent.  In  a  word,  while  he  u'.a\ c  them 
the  true  religion,  they  failed  even  in  the  earlier  and 
comparatively  purer  part  of  their  history  t<>  k<  ep  i'. 
entire,  and  \\civ  ever  intermingling  and  defiling  it  with 
the  corruptions  of  heathenism.  Such  appears  to  be  the 
real  purport  of  the  charge  of  the  prophet. 

CHLO'E.  the  name  of  a  Christian  female  at  Corinth, 
fmm  the  members  of  whose  family  Paul  received  his 
information  respecting  the  unhappy  divisions  that  had 
sprung  up  there  after  he  returned  to  Asia,  l  Co.  i.  n. 
She  is  never  again  mentioned. 

CHORA'ZiN.  a  town  in  Calilev.  on  the  S,  a  of  Tibe 
rias,  and  evidently  not  far  from  Capernaum  and  IVth- 
saida,  along  with  which  it  is  mentioned  by  our  Lord,  and 
left  with  a  woe  upon  its  head,  on  account  of  its  neglect 
of  gospel  privileges,  Mat.  xi.  21.  It  is  rather  singular, 
that  while  it  i.-  thus  in  a  parting  word  of  Christ  raised 
to  a  bad  pre-eminence,  as  one  of  the  cities  "wherein 
most  of  his  mighty  works  were  done,  and  still  repented 
not,"  the  narratives  of  the  evangelists  never  notice  any 
visit  of  our  Lord  to  the  place,  or  any  work  done  in  it 
— an  incidental  proof  how  much  is  left  unrecorded  of 
the  things  that  rilled  up  our  Lord's  active  ministry. 
No  trace  has  yet  been  found  of  its  site. 


CHRIST  JESUS.  It  is  of  no  practical  moment 
whether  we  couple  the  personality  of  our  .Redeemer 
with  the  name  CHRIST,  or  with  that  of  JESPS.  Very 
commonly  the  latter  is  preferred,  as  being  historically- 
and  properly  the  personal  designation,  lint  if  respect 
be  had  to  the  whole  course  of  revelation  on  the  subject 
- — if  the  divine  testimonies  /><f<»'c  the  incarnation  lie 
taken  into  account,  as  well  as  those  posterior  to  it,  it 
may  seem  fully  as  natural  to  give  the  preference  to  the 
name  of  Christ  or  Messiah;  for  lief  ore  the  volume  of 
Old  Testament  scripture  had  closed,  this  had  come  to 
receive  a  strictly  personal  application,  and  \\as  em 
ployed  much  as  a  proper  name.  On  this  account, 
therefore,  and  because  it  is  the  name  from  which  has 
flowed  the  more  distinctive  epithets  both  of  the  people 
and  of  the  cause  of  Jesus,  we  adopt  it  as  presenting  the 
fittest  place  for  the  little  that  can  be  said  directly,  in  a 
work  like  the  present,  on  the  wonderful  and  glorious 
Jieiiii:  to  whom  it  relates. 

Th"  name  (.'/ir/at  in  (Ireek.  MIHH/LI/I  in  Hebrew. 
beariiiLT.  as  it  does,  the  participial  or  adjective  sense  of 
itiiohilttf.  was  capable  of  being  applied,  and  actually 
was  applied,  in  the  earlier  parts  of  Scripture,  to  a 
variety  of  persons.  Because  the  high- priest  was  empha 
tically  the  anointed  one  at  the  first  institution  of  the 
tabernacle  worship,  he  is  therefore  called  "the  priest., 
the  Christ"  tllcb.  li<tnt<i«'lii<«-li.  (Ir.  6  if/<f(';  6  \piaTvs, 
Lo.  iv.  :n.  After  the  institution  of  the  kingly  office,  and 
the  >eiting  apart  of  him  who  bore  it  bv  an  act  of  con 
secration  with  oil.  he  became,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  the 
Lord's  anointed,  or  the  Christ  of  the  Lord,  as  Saul  is 
once  and  au'ain  designated  bv  David,  l  Sa.  xii.: :•;,."•,  .•tc. 
Hannah,  however,  at  the  close  of  her  song  of  praise, 
had  already  given  the  word  a  loftier  direction — not 
without  re-pert,  it  may  be.  to  the  more  immediate 
bearers  of  the  royal  dignity,  but  still  more  especially 
pointing  to  one  who  should  gather  into  his  person  the 
highest  powers  and  prerogatives  as-ociated  with  the 
cho-eii  peuple.  and  uive  them  a  world-wide  develop 
ment  ;  for  she  speaks  of  the  Lord  "  exalting  the  horn 
of  his  .Messiah"  (anointed),  so  as,  at  the  same  time,  to 
"judge  the  ends  of  the  earth."  In  1's.  ii.,  the  Lord's 
Christ  is  He  who  is  (lod's  Son  by  way  of  eminence, 
and  who  receives  the  heritage  of  earth  to  its  utmost 
bounds  as  his  sure  possession.  And,  to  say  nothing  of 
other  passages,  in  Daniel,  di  i\  ,  we  find  the  term  ap 
plied  to  the  expected  deliverer,  without  the  article 
or  anv  accompanying  epithet,  precisely  as  a  proper 
name:  "Know,  therefore,  and  understand,  that  from 
the  going  forth  of  the  commandment  unto  Messiah 
(Christ)  Prince;"  and  again,  "And  after  threescore 
and  two  weeks  shall  Messiah  (Christ,  be  cut  off," 
ver  L'.'I,  'Jii. 

It  need  not  surprise  us.  therefore,  when  we  open  the 
New  Testament,  to  find,  in  the  very  first  announce 
ment  of  the  actual  birth  of  the  Saviour,  this  name  ap 
plied  to  Him  as  a  personal  designation:  "  .Fear  not," 
said  the  angels  to  the  shepherds,  "for  unto  you  is  born 
this  dav  in  the  city  of  David,  a  Saviour,  who  is  Christ, 
Lord"  (os  f<TTii>  \piffrfc  Kvptos,  Lu.  ii.  11).  But  before 
his  birth,  the  name,  in  its  (hvek  form.  Jesus  (Hebrew 
Vex/ma)  had  been  divinely  appointed  for  his  more 
strictly  personal  designation.  ''Thou  shalt  call  his 
name  Jesus,"  said  the  angel  to  Joseph.  "  for  he  shall 
save  his  people  from  their  sins."  Unfortunately,  by 
the  translation,  the  ground  of  the  connection  is  lost 
between  the  name  and  the  reason  assigned  for  its  impo- 


CHRIST   .JUKI'S 


CHRIST  .JESUS 


sition ;  there  being  n«  formal  resemblance  between 
Jciin.i  mid  he  shall  save.  As  originally  spoken,  it  would 
lieotherwi.se;  it  would  run  thus,  Yet/ma  /•/  Yiix/iii/a 
•— y\i'V  *3  yV#' —  Saviour,  for  lie  shall  save.  And 
when  sin*  are  mentioned  as  the  specific  evil  from  which 
thr  bearer  of  this  name  was  to  save  his  people,  it  was 
intimated  from  the  outset  that  he  was  to  appear  pre 
eminently  as  a  spiritual  Redeemer — one  who  had  higher 
ends  ill  view,  and  a  nobler  mission  to  accomplish,  than 
the  political  regeneration  of  his  country,  or  tile  promo 
tion  of  the  im 'rely  secular  interests  of  the  world.  If 
these  should  anyhow  come  within  the  scope  of  his  bene 
volent  working,  it  could  only  be  as  results  following  in 
the  train  of  his  more  direct  and  proper  undertaking. 

When  viewed  in  respect  to  their  ultimate  meaning, 
the  two  names  of  Jesus  and  Christ  differ  only  by  point 
ing  to  diverse  aspects  of  his  high  calling:  the  one 
(.Jesus)  gave  indication  of  the  nature  of  the  work  he 
had  to  do,  the  other  (Christ)  bespoke  his  consecration 
and  special  endowment  for  the  service  it  required  at  his 
hands.  Each  implied  the  other  :  He  could  not  have 
been  the  Jesus,  if  he  had  not  been  destined  to  receive 
the  unction  which  constituted  him  the  Christ;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  should  He  have  been  constituted  the  Christ, 
unless  the  infinitely  great  and  important  work,  implied  in 
his  being  the  Jesus,  had  been  committed  to  his  charge. 
There  had  been  persons  who  preceded  him  in  the 
divine  administration  bearing  the  names,  and  to  some 
extent  also  possessing  the  reality  of  what  he  was  to  be 
and  do  among  men  ;  but  it  was  only  as  the  faint  and 
imperfect  image,  the  mere  shadow  of  what  was  to  be 
found  in  him.  Consequently,  those  of  them  who  might 
be  said  to  be  Christed  or  anointed,  the  priests,  the 
kings,  and  occasionally  also  the  prophets  of  the  olden 
time,  had  no  such  consecration  as  he  had  ;  they  had  the 
external  anointing,  and  in  part  also  the  Spirit's  grace 
which  it  symbolized  (for  Cod  never  mocks  his  true  ser 
vants  with  a  mere  shell  that  has  no  kernel) ;  but  it  was 
a  grace  that  could  be  measured  ;  and  the  very  stress 
laid  upon  the  outward  rite  bespoke  the  comparative 
deficiency  of  the  internal  gift.  In  Him,  however,  who 
came  as  the  great  antitype  of  all  those  provisional  in 
struments  of  grace  and  salvation,  the  outward  alto 
gether  disappears,  because  the  inward  in  its  perfection 
has  come.  His  anointing  consists  of  the  indwelling  of 
the  Spirit,  formally  bestowed  at  his  baptism,  bestowed 
not  by  measure;  and  having,  in  the  plenitude  of  this 
grace,  finished  the  work  given  him  to  do  for  his  people, 
he  obtains  the  same  in  measure  also  for  them;  MI  that 
they  become  Chrlstcd  in  him,  2C<>.  i.  21,  and  receive  out 
of  his  fulness  grace  for  grace.  As  it  was  the  unction 
of  the  Holy  One  that  made  him  the  Christ,  so  it  is 
their  receiving  from  him  the  same  unction,  in  propor 
tion  to  their  capacity  and  their  need,  which  gives  them 
a  participation  in  his  work,  and  a  standing  in  his  king 
dom,  Un.ii.2D;  Ku.  viii.n.  (Compare  what  is  said  under 
ANOINTING.) 

Tn  the  historical  manifestation  of  the  person  and 
work  of  our  Lord,  the  question  which  had  to  find  a 
practical  solution  bore  respect  to  the  significance  of 
both  names  ;  for  it  was  in  reality  all  one  to  ask,  whether 
he  was  entitled  to  bear  the  name  of  Jesus?  or  whether 
he  ought  to  be  recognized  as  the  Christ?  But  it  was 
otherwise,  as  matters  actually  evolved  themselves.  The 
deep  import  of  the  name  Jesus  was  concealed  from 
the  men  of  his  generation,  on  account  of  its  being  borne 


from  childhood  as  a  personal  designation;  in  t/teirv\uw 
it  merely  served  to  distinguish  him  as  an  individual 
from  other  individuals  around  him.  But  from  the  time 
that  he  began  to  manifest  himself  to  Israel,  the  ques 
tion  which  naturally  arose  in  men's  minds  was,  whether 
this  Jesus  was  thr  Clirixtf  Was  he  indeed  the  person 
predetermined  in  the  counsels  of  Heaven  to  hold  the 
ottiee,  and  fulfil  the  destiny,  of  the  Lord's  Anointed  ! 
Hence,  throughout  the  gospels,  whenever  the  discourse 
turns  upon  the  claims  of  Jesus,  it  has  respect  in  some 
form  to  his  being  or  not  being  the  Christ  (the  article 
being  always  prefixed,  at  least  in  the  original)  ;  and  the 
substance,  first  of  apostolic  belief,  and  then  of  apostolic: 
preaching,  was  that  Jesus  of  Xazareth  was  indeed  the 
Christ,  Mat.  xvi.  id;  Jn.  vi.  <;:);  Ac.  ii.  :;r,;  ix.22;  x.  :;s;  xvii.  ?,.  But 
when  we  reach  a  more  advanced  stage  of  gospel  hi.-4orv, 
when  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  was  fully  established  in 
the  convictions  of  believers,  and  Christian  communi 
ties  were  everywhere  founded  on  the  conviction  as 
a  fully  authenticated  fact,  the  term  Christ  also  passed 
into  a  personal  designation;  and  instead  of  ''Jesus 
the  Christ,"  the  common  form  of  expression  came  to 
be  "Jesus  Christ,"  or  "Christ  Jesus,"  as  we  find  it 
indifferently  used  in  the  epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 
Another  question,  however — though  one  that  might 
be  said  to  be  involved  in  the  application  of  these  names 
— called  for  an  intelligent  decision  at  the  hands  of  those 
who  were  brought  into  contact  with  the  personal  minis 
try  of  our  Lord,  and  one  which  for  a  time  staggered 
some  who  were  ready  to  give  a  believing  response  to 
the  other:  namely,  Who  or  what  was  this  Christ  as  to 
the  constitution  of  his  person  '.  There  would  have  been 
no  difficulty  in  answering  such  a  question,  if  men  had 
understood  what  was  implied  in  the  anointing  which 
constituted  him  the  Christ.  If  they  had  known  that  this 
consisted  in  his  receiving  the  Spirit  without  measure,  so 
as  to  be  empowered  for  the  execution  of  all  divine  ope 
rations,  they  would  have  perceived  that  He  must  him 
self  be  possessed  of  the  power  and  prerogatives  of  God 
head  ;  for,  otherwise,  he  could  not  have  been  the  reci 
pient  and  bearer  of  such  a  gift.  He  who  can  hold  all 
the  Spirit's  fulness,  must  already  be  a  partaker  of  the 
Spirit's  infinitude.  Nor  was  less  involved  in  his  being 
the  Jesus,  the  world's  Saviour  from  sin,  though  the 
conclusion  in  this  respect  was  not  one  that  might 
be  so  directly  reached.  For  whether  sin  were  viewed 
as  a  debt  to  the  justice  of  Clod,  or  a  moral  plague  in 
fecting  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  humanity,  who  could 
prevail  to  remove  it  ?  What  must  he  be,  who  should 
be  found  competent  to  pay  such  a  debt,  or  to  apply  an 
efficient  remedy  to  that  all-pervading  disease?  In 
neither  of  its  aspects  was  this  a  work  for  man  to  ac 
complish — not  even  though  he  should  himself  be  free 
from  any  actual  participation  in  the  evil.  It  is  the 
spoiling  of  God's  workmanship  that  has  here  to  be 
grappled  with — the  moral  and  physical  ruin  of  a  world  ; 
and  every  effort  must  prove  insufficient  to  the  task,  which 
cannot  bring  to  its  aid  the  infinite  resources  of  God 
head.  No  one,  therefore,  could  rightly  apprehend  the 
work  which  Jesus  had  to  do  as  the  Saviour,  without 
having  the  conviction  forced  on  him,  that  energies  alto 
gether  supernatural,  powers  essentially  and  properly 
divine,  must  needs  be  lodged  in  his  person  ;  and  whe 
ther  contemplated  as  the  Jesus  or  the  Christ,  there 
must  be  about  him  all  that  ages  before  was  indicated 
by  the  prophet,  when  he  announced  him  as  "  Immanuel, 
God  with  us,"  Is.  vii  14. 


CHRIST   JESUS 


309 


CHRIST   JESUS 


But  even  the  better  part  of  our  Lord's  countrymen, 
his  disciples  themselves,  \vere»slovv  in  yielding  to  this 
conviction ;  and  long  after  they  had  ceased  to  doubt 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  Christ,  they  shrunk 
from  the  thought  of  his  either  possessing  a  divine  na 
ture,  or  having  to  perform  a  strictly  divine  work.  The 
great  mass  of  his  countrymen  would  not  entertain  the 
thought  at  all.  Some  kind  of  reformation  from  the  evils 
of  sin  they  were  willing  enough  to  expect  at  his  hands  ; 
but  not  such  a  work  as  should  provide  for  its  utter  j 
extirpation  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  in  its  : 
accomplishment  should  bring  into  play  the  infinite  per-  j 
fections  of  Godhead.  This  was  an  idea  of  Messiah's  1 
person  and  mission  which  had  never  entered  their  mind 
to  conceive  ;  and  as  often  as  Jesus  tried  to  urge  it  on 
their  notice,  or  commend  it  to  their  belief,  they  repelled 
the  attempt,  and  raised  the  charge  of  blasphemy. 
When  he  claimed  divine  [lowers  and  prerogatives  in 
connection  with  his  work,  as  having  to  deal  directly 
with  sin,  or  as  supernaturallv  manifesting  itself  in  the 
effects  it  produced,  M;it.  ix.  :;-<',;  Lu.  vii.  >•-,  lit;  and  when  once 
and  a '/a  in  he  vindicated  for  himself  a  personal  relation 
ship  to  the  Father,  such  as  was  indispensable  to  his 
office,  but  such  as  no  created  being  might  dare  to  ap 
propriate,  .In.  v.  17,  l1-;  vi  :;r,-.;,;;  x.  2S-38;  the  result  was  uni 
formly  tlie  same  an  indignant  repudiation  of  the 
thought,  followed  sometimes  bv  an  attempt  to  overbear 
him  with  violence.  Even  when  the  question  was  put 
to  tlie  Jewish  leaders  in  a  kind  of  hypothetical  form, 
raised  on  an  announcement  of  ancient  prophecy  -when 
they  were  demanded,  how  David  could  call  Messiah 
Lord,  whom  yet  he  delighted  to  anticipate  as  his  son. 
they  were  entirely  gravelled — so  completely  did  the 
idea  of  a  properly  divine  person  and  work  in  the  Mes 
siah  transcend  what  they  had  ever  imagined  as  possible. 
Mat.  x\ii.  rj-ic,.  And  when,  bv  the  overruling  providence 
of  (loci,  all  other  devices  failed  for  laving  an  accusation 
against  Jesus,  which  miidit  warrant  the  judicial  ex 
tinction  of  his  earthly  career,  their  strong  repugnance 
to  any  claim  of  divinitv  found  vent  to  itself  in  the 
solemn  condemnation  they  pronounced  upon  him  for 
confessing  that  he  was  the  Son  of  ( lod  ;  so  that  the 
formal  ground  of  his  crucifixion,  on  the  part  of  man, 
was  his  claiming  to  be  what  the  nature  of  his  oltiee  and 
mission,  whether  as  announced  beforehand  bv  Old  Tes 
tament  prophets,  or  as  more  distinctly  exhibited  by 
himself,  imperativelv  required  that  he  should  be,  Mat. 
xxvi.  Til. 

Tlie  disciples  of  our  Lord  were  not  so  impregnably 
sealed  against  the  truth.  It  made  wav  upon  their  con 
victions,  though  somewhat  slowly  and  fitfully.  They 
seemed  to  have  an  impression  of  it  at  one  time,  while 
they  had  lost  it,  or  had  all  hut  lost  it,  at  another.  XVar 
the  commencement  of  his  ministry,  and  after  an  unex 
pected  manifestation  of  supernatural  insight,  he  was 
greeted  by  Xathanael  as  the  Son  of  (iod,  Jn  i.  n>.  Peter, 
too,  at  an  early  period,  and  after  witnessing  a  like  dis 
play  of  the  supernatural,  exclaimed  as  one  penetrated 
and  overwhelmed  with  a  sense  of  the  presence  of  Deity, 
'•Depart  from  me.  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord," 
I. u.  v.  *.  But  in  process  of  time  the  minds  of  the  dis 
ciples  began  to  shake  ;  their  confidence  in  the  divinity 
of  their  Master  gave  way;  so  that  many,  it  is  said,  on 
hearing  certain  strong  declarations  of  Jesus  respect 
ing  his  all-sufficiency  to  his  people,  went  back  and 
walked  no  more  with  him,  .in.  vi.  i;r.;  and  at  a  later  period 
still,  Peter  received  his  special  blessing  for  simply  con 


fessing  what  apparently  had  been  held  long  before,  that 
Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  (iod, 
Mat.  xvi.  ID.  The  difficulty,  it  would  seem,  was  not  so 
much  in  getting  some  apprehension  or  belief  of  the 
truth  respecting  Christ's  divine  character — manifesta 
tions  of  this  were  ever  and  anon  bursting  forth  which 
flashed  conviction  at  the  time  on  the  minds  of  the  dis 
ciples  ;  but  then  these  were  succeeded  by  other  things, 
so  different  from  what  they  expected,  and  so  hard  to 
reconcile  with  the  notion  of  omnipotence,  that  darkness 
and  doubt  again  took  possession  of  their  hearts. 
Hence,  the  chief  difficulty  lay  in  getting  an  intelligent 
and  settled  belief  of  the  truth,  such  as  should  abide, 
like  an  anchor,  sun.'  and  steadfast  ;  and  it  was  faith  of 
this  stamp,  divinely  wrought  in  the  soul,  which  1'eter 
was  the  first  to  attain,  but  which  they  all  came  by  de 
rives  to  possess,  not  excepting  the  incredulous  Thomas, 
who  at  last  exclaimed.  "My  Lord,  and  my  (lod." 

The  whole  history,  indeed,  of  Christ's  appearance 
and  work  on  earth  was  strange  and  mysterious  to  those 
about  him.  So  far  from  anticipating  everything  (as 
(lernian  theorists  have  dreamed),  and  out  of  their  anti 
cipatioiis  \\eaving  a  history  that  was  never  acted,  they 
could  not  understand  it  when  they  saw  it  occurring  be 
fore  their  eyes.  Kvery  winding  in  the  course  was  a 
riddle  till  the.'  light  of  the  Spirit  shone  upon  it;  even 
the  prophecies,  which  so  often  pointed  the  way  to  the 
events  in  progress,  were  not  thought  of,  at  least  not 
perceived  in  their  proper  bearing,  till  the  events  them 
selves  recalled  their  existence  ;  and  most  commonly  the 
immediate  agents  in  their  accomplishment  were  those 
who  were  the  most  anxious  to  defeat  the  claims  of 
Jesus.  With  this  striking  originality  in  the  muttrr  of 
I'hrir-t's  historv,  the /!/;•//<  it  assumes  in  the  evnngelieal 
narratives  perfectly  o  irrespoiids.  The  tinker  of  (lod  may 
be  everywhere  traced  in  the  one  as  well  as  in  the  other. 
It  is  the  most  wonderful  of  all  stories  that  is  there  nar 
rated  ;  and  yet  what  a  divine'  simplicity  pervades  the 
narration!  as  if  it  were  but  a  series  of  ordinarv  occur 
rences,  on  which  not  a  mark  of  admiration  need  be 
raised,  or  a  word  of  personal  feeling  expressed.  And 
amid  so  many  things  fitted  to  create  sin-prise,  and  stir 
the  deepest  emotions  of  the  send,  what  a  singular  re 
serve  in  withholding  what  might  have  been  fitted  to 
gratify  human  curiosity  !  Over  how  many  parts  of  our 
Lord's  life,  especially  of  its  early  stages,  is  the  veil  allowed 
to  hang,  where  a  merely  human  hand  would  so  readily 
have'  uplifted  it!  And  in  regard  to  what  forms  the 
1  most  wonderful,  what,  spiritually  considered,  is  the,' 
most  important  section  of  the  entire  history,  namely, 
the  closing  scenes  of  his  earthlv  career,  one  of  the  most 
inveterate  infidels  could  not  refuse,  in  a  moment  of 
salutarv  thought,  to  give  his  t  .-timony  to  the  inimit- 
1  able  character  of  the  narrative.  "In  spite  of  all  we 
have  said,"  exclaimed  Diderot,  in  a  meeting  of  unbe 
lievers  at  the  I'.aron  d'Holbach's.  "  and  no  doubt  with 
much  reason,  against  that  cursed  book.  I  will  defy  you, 
with  all  your  abilities,  to  compose  a  narrative  which 
1  shall  tie  as  simple',  and  at  the-  same  time  as  sublime,  as 
touching,  as  the  account  of  the  last  sufferings  and  deatli 
of  Jesus  Christ— which  shall  produce  the  same  effect, 
make  so  deep  an  impression,  one  so  geiierally  felt,  and 
the  influence  of  which  shall  be  as  fresh  as  ever  after 
the  lapse  of  so  many  centuries."  (Reported  by  Hess,  and 

quoted  by  Stier,  at  Lu.   xxiii.  :!!,  Kedcu  Jcsn.vi.  j>.    l!lli  ) 

It  is  constantly  assumed  in  the  gospels  and  epistles 
of  the  Xew  Testament,  that  the  office  of  Jesus  as  the 


cm; IST  JESUS 


CHRIST   JESUS 


Christ  had  a  threefold  aspect,  and  comprised  kinds  of 
administration,  which  in  earlier  times  were  usually  dis 
charged  by  distinct  persons  —prophets,  priests,  and 
kin^s.  Occasionally  these  were  to  some  extent  com 
bined  even  in  Old  Testament  times:  as  in  the  case  of 
I")avid.  wlio  was  at  unco  a  kin^  and  a  prophet,  ami  in 
the  cases  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel.  who  were  alike  pro 
phets  and  priests.  Viewed  as  offices,  however,  the 
three  orders  were  separate,  ami  the  consecration  which 
qualified  for  one.  neither  involved  a  call  nor  con 
ferred  a  title  to  the  others.  Mut  in  Chris-t  they  all 
met :  his  anointing  of  the  Spirit  qualified  alike  for  each  ; 
and,  indeed,  from  the  moment  of  his  entering  on  the 
work  ^'iveii  him  to  do,  the  discharge  of  every  one  of 
them  be^an  simultaneously  to  proceed.  In  all  he  did, 
there  was  at  once  a  prophetical,  a  priestly,  and  a  kingly 
element — although  what  was  done  might  formally  he- 
long  to  one  oHice  rather  than  to  another.  For  ex 
ample,  his  miraculous  healing  of  diseases  may  natu 
rally  he  assigned  to  his  kingly  office,  as  being,  in  its 
must  obvious  character,  a  manifestation  of  that  royal 
authority  and  divine  power,  hy  which  he  can  subdue 
all  tilings  to  himself  for  the  good  of  his  people:  but  the 
prophetical  element  was  also  there  ;  for  all  the  acts  of 
that  description  which  proceeded  from  his  hand  were 
indicative  of  his  mission  and  work,  in  their  higher  and 
more  properly  redemptive  character:  and  a  priestly 
element  besides,  since  they  showed  him  actually  charg 
ing  himself  with  the  evils  of  humanity,  and  vicariously 
bearing  the  heavy  burden,  Mat.  viii.  17.  Ill  like  manner, 
the  death  of  .Jesus  on  the  cross,  from  the  more  imme 
diate  and  ostensible  ends  that  had  to  be  accomplished 
by  it,  is  most  appropriately  associated  with  his  priestly 
office,  seeing  it  was  thereby  he  made  reconciliation  for 
the  sins  of  the  world  ;  but  in  that  death,  too,  there  was 
kingly  might,  spoiling  principalities  and  powers,  and 
the  rulers  of  darkness ;  and  prophetical  teaching  in  its 
highest  exercise,  for  nothing,  not  even  in  the  history  j 
of  Christ's  undertaking,  is  comparable  to  his  death,  for 
the  light  it  sheds  over  the  purposes  of  God,  and  the 
insight  it  affords  into  his  character  as  connected  with 
the  work  of  man's  salvation.  When  Christ's  agency, 
therefore,  is  distributed  into  the  threefold  office  of  pro 
phet,  priest,  and  king,  the  division,  it  must  be  remem 
bered,  is  made,  not  so  properly  for  the  purpose  of  draw 
ing  a  line  of  separation  between  the  different  parts  of 
his  work,  as  for  assisting  our  apprehensions  in  regard 
to  the  more  prominent  character  and  the  manifold  bear 
ing  of  each;  and  in  apportioning  any  particular  act  to 
one  office,  we  are  not  to  lie  understood  as  denying  its 
subordinate  relation  to  another.  It  was,  doubtless,  to 
prevent  any  such  impression  from  arising  in  the  mind, 
that  no  formal  distribution  of  Christ's  work  is  made  in 
Scripture. 

We  are  not  the  less  plainly,  however,  given  to  un 
derstand,  that  he  was  the  prophet,  priest,  and  king  of 
his  church ;  and  in  each  respect  rose  incomparably 
above  all  who  at  any  previous  period  were  called  to 
discharge  the  functions  implied  in  these  titles.  As 
.PROPHET,  his  appearance  in  the  world  constitutes  a  new 
era,  in  respect  to  which  it  is  said  by  the  apostle  John, 
"  the  darkness  is  now  past,  and  the  clear  light  shineth." 
Not  that  Christ  taught,  or  professed  to  teach,  anything 
absolutely  new  ;  preceding  teachers  of  the  church  had 
been  his  own  messengers,  endowed  with  a  portion  of  his 
own  Spirit ;  and  he  could  not  appear  in  a  relation  of  ab 
solute  independence  toward  them,  far  less  assume  a  posi 


tion  of  antagonism,  as  if  coming  to  destroy  what  they  had 
established.  The  germ  already  existed,  in  the  divine  in 
stitutions  and  prophetical  teachings  of  the  old  covenant, 
of  all  that  was  to  develope  itself  in  him  ;  but  in  the  deve 
lopment  of  that  germ,  there  was  such  a  reach  of  dis 
cernment,  such  a  breadth  of. view,  such  a  loftiness  of 
ami.  such  a  many-sided  fulness  of  instruction,  and  all 
cast  into  forms  so  admirably  fitted  to  take  a  deep  and 
lasting  hold  of  the  hearts  of  mankind,  as  has  left  even 
the  greatest  of  those  who  went  before  at  an  immeasur 
able  distance  from  Him.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  was 
tile  veil  properly  uplifted  from  the  upper  sanctuary,  and 
the  Lord  of  glory  openly  disclosed  to  men's  view,  as 
full  ot  grace,  and  truth,  according  to  the  word  of  Christ 
himself,  "  No  one  hath  seen  God  at  any  time,  the  only 
begotten  .Son,  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he 
hath  declared  him,"  .In.  iii.  ifi.  In  the  strictly  moral 
sphere  also,  we  perceive  the  same  relative  superiority, 
the  same  realized  perfection;  for  Christ,  to  use  the 
words  of  Air.  Taylor,  "  as  founder  of  a  system  of  mun 
dane  ethics,  revises  and  overrules  all  bygone  moralities, 
issuing  anew  whatever  is  of  unchangeable  obligation, 
and  consigning  to  non-observance  or  oblivion  whatever 
had  a  temporary  force  or  a  local  reason.  With  a 
touch  --with  a  word — a  word  of  far-reaching  inferences, 
he  rides  the  ages  to  come  ;  and  he  so  sends  morality 
forward — he  so  launches  it  into  the  boundless  futurity 
of  the  human  system  on  earth,  as  that  it  shall  need  no 
re-dressing,  no  complementing,  no  retrenchment,  even 
in  the  most  distant  era"  ( Kustnrati<  u  i.f  Utiiuf,  \>.  Z~o).  It 
was  the  more  remarkable  that  //'.  should  appear  a  pro 
phet  of  this  lofty  stamp,  when  we  reflect  how  many 
others  had  been  working  at  the  same  problem,  and 
failed  in  the  attempt  —  Jewish  theosophists  at  Alex 
andria,  who  combined  the  advantage  of  an  acquaintance 
with  God's  earlier  revelations  witlj  the  highest  culture 
of  heathendom;  Scribes  and  Pharisees  in  Judea,  who 
could  think  of  nothing  higher  or  better  for  the  future 
of  the  world  than  the  diffusion  of  unmodified  Judaism ; 
and  Kssenes.  the  ascetic  reformers  of  Judaism,  who  only 
succeeded  in  compounding  out  of  pharisaic  and  mystic 
elements,  a  system  which  was  repulsive  to  the  common 
sentiments  of  mankind,  and  died  in  the  deserts  that 
gave  it  birth.  How  should  one  who,  humanly  con 
sidered,  was  but  a  Jewish  peasant  in  an  obscure  Gali 
lean  village,  have  so  readily  done  what  all  besides  had 
failed  to  accomplish — should,  in  a  few  short  years,  have 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  universal  religion  and  a  perfect 
morality — were  it  not  that  the  human  in  Him  was  in 
formed  and  elevated  by  the  divine  ! 

The  PRIKSTHOOD  of  Jesus  was  of  a  kind  that  bespoke, 
if  possible,  a  still  higher  elevation  above  those  around 
him,  and  a  yet  deeper  insight  into  the  mysteries  of 
Godhead.  The  priestly  element  had  entered  largely 
into  the  religion  of  Judaism  ;  its  sacrifices  and  oblations 
had  all  to  be  offered  by  a  mediating  priesthood;  and  by 
them  alone,  as  having  immediate  access  to  God,  could 
the  more  peculiar  intercessions  for  the  blessing  of  Heaven 
be  made  with  acceptance.  But  could  it  with  all  these 
prevail  to  satisfy  the  conscience?  Did  it  adequately 
meet  the  moral  wrong  occasioned  by  sin  in  the  govern 
ment  of  God.  and  provide  on  grounds  of  righteousness 
for  its  final  extirpation?  So  the  men  of  our  Lord's 
generation  seemed  universally  to  think.  Not  a  thought 
apparently  had  ever  crossed  their  imaginations  respect 
ing  the  merely  provisional  nature  of  the  ritual  institu 
tions  of  Aloses;  they  held  it  blasphemy  to  breathe  a 


CHI!  1ST   JESUS 


311 


CHRIST   JESl'S 


sentiment  in  that  direction,  Mat.  xxvii.  m ;  AC.  vi.  14.  Y'et 
their  own  prophets  hail  given  no  doubtful  indications 
of  something  higher  being  needed — of  a  covenant  and 
a  priesthood,  founded  upon  better  promises,  and  destined 
to  secure  more  satisfactory  results.  David  had  looked 
forward  in  joyful  hope  to  his  great  Successor — Him 
who  was  to  he  at  once  his  son  and  Lord — being  a  priest 
upon  the  throne,  a  priest  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek, 
I's.  ex.  4.  And  the  later  prophets,  when  pointing  to  the  ! 
time  of  his  appearing,  spoke  in  ominous  terms  of  sutler- 
ings  that  were  to  precede,  as  well  as  of  a  glory  that  was 
to  follow  ;  of  a  fearful  struggle  with  sin,  in  which  his 
very  soul  was  to  be  poured  out,  and  a  ransom  of  price 
less  value  paid,  whereby  the  guilt  of  iniquity  was  l«  be 
for  ever  atoned,  sacrifice  and  oblation  to  cea.se.  a  new 
and  higher  temple  consecrated,  Is.  liii  \  l<> ;  Ha.  i\.  L'I),  -27 ; 
Zou.  vi.  ]-j;  xiii.  l.  It  was  the  mighty  burden  of  these 
prophetic  boding*  which  Jesus  undertook  to  bear,  when 
lie  assumed  the  high-priesthood  of  our  profession,  as 
well  as  of  that  implied  in  the  handwriting  of  ordinances 
going  before,  which  with  manifold  iteration  pressed  the 
claims  of  a  debt  that  was  never  paid  :  and  with  perfect 
consciousness  of  all  that  it  called  him  to  do  and  t» 
suiter,  he  said,  as  he  entered  on  the  work  ''Sacrifice 
and  ottering  thoii  wouldest  not,  but  a  bodv  has  thmi  pre 
pared  me:  l,o.  1  conn-  (in  the  volume  of  the  book  it 
is  written  of  me)  to  do  thy  will.  O  Coil,"  He  x,  6,7.  So 
completely  in  this  did  Je>us  stand  alone,  that  the  work 
was  already  done  before  he  could  uvt  men  distinctlv  to 
apprehend  the  neces.-itv  of  its  accomplishment.  Hut 
then  at  lenifth  the  light  broke  upon  their  minds;  the 
conviction  forced  itself  upon  them,  that  here  also  the 
true  idea  was  reali/ed  in  its  perfection  :  MUCC  the  priest 
and  the  oll'eriug.  the  person  to  intercede  and  the 
ground  of  the  intercession  beini;'  one  and  the  same,  and 
that  one  of  spotless  purity  and  infinite  worth,  there 
c  mid  lie  nothing  wanting  to  insure  full  and  perpetual 
acceptance  with  the  Father.  So.  "by  one  ottering  lie 
lias  for  ever  perfected  them  that  are  sanctified."  and 
mi  the  uroinid  of  that  all-sufficient  offering,  "  lie  is  able 
to  save  to  the  uttermost  them  that  come  unto  God  by 
him." 

The  Kixci.v  office  of  ( 'hri>t  so  far  differed  from  the 
priestly,  that  it  formed  the  matter  of  universal  expec 
tation  all  looked  for  him  as  the  King  of  /ion.  This 
had  been  so  prominently  announced  in  the  ancient  pro 
phecies,  and  was  also  associated  in  so  palpable  a  manner 
with  the  circumstances  of  his  appearance  in  the  world, 
that  a  ceitain  unanimity  could  scarcelv  be  avoided. 
The  angel  who  gave  intimation  of  his  birth  to  Marv. 
declared  that  the  throne  of  his  father  David  should  be 
given  to  him  ;  and  the  eastern  mairi.  who  came  to  do 
homage  to  him  at  his  birth,  inquired  after  him.  and 
when  they  found  where  he  was.  did  obeisance  to  him 
in  the  specific  character  of  King  of  tin- Jews.  iv.i  i.  ::•_> ; 
Mat.  ii  L'.seq.  When  the  time  approached  for  his  manifest 
ing  himself  to  Israel,  the  era  was  heralded  by  his  fore 
runner  as  that  which  was  to  be  signalized  by  the  setting 
up  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  he  therefore,  who 
was  at  hand  to  do  it.  could  himself  be  no  other  than 
the  proper  king.  The  same  truth  breaks  out  at  inter 
vals  throughout  the  whole  of  his  career,  and  formed  the 
most  prominent  part  of  the  good  confession  which  he 
witnessed  before  i'ilate  and  sealed  with  his  blood, 
Jn.  xviii.  :ii>,  :!7.  There  was  no  question  then  whether  he 
was  to  be  a  king,  but  only  what  sort  of  king.  Here  it  [ 
was  that  the  difference  between  Jesus  and  others  dis-  i 


covered  itself,  and  that  his  incomparably  deeper  insight 
into  the  mind  of  God  and  the  real  nature  of  things 
shone  fully  out.  The  kingdom  over  which  he  was  to 
preside  could  be  no  merely  terrene  dominion  or  worldly 
lordship,  such  as  they  in  their  superficial  earthliness 
imagined  ;  it  must  stand  in  fitting  accordance  with  the 
other  parts  of  his  office,  and  be,  indeed,  the  natural 
outgoing  and  result  of  the  revelations  of  divine  truth 
which  he  brought  as  the  prophet,  and  the  priceless  re 
demption  from  the  evil  of  sin  which  he  executed  as  the 
high-priest  of  his  people.  Like  these,  therefore,  it  must 
be  predominantly  spiritual  in  its  character  and  agencies 
—a  kingdom,  as  he  himself  testified,  founded  in  t/tc 
trnt/t,  and  through  the  truth  operating  upon  the  hearts 
and  consciences  of  men.  Thus  only  could  lie  make 
them  willing  subjects  of  the  King  of  heaven,  and  pro 
vide  tor  himself  a  dominion,  such  as  it  became  him  the 
Lord  of  glory  to  wield,  and  as  he  could  render  it,  where- 
ever  it  prevailed,  a  kingdom  of  righteousness,  and  peace. 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  That  he  ever  had  any 
other  plan  in  view  respecting  his  kingdom,  as  has  some 
times  of  late  been  asserted,  is  devoid  of  all  proof.  In 
his  sermon  on  the  mount,  in  his  parables,  as  well  as  in 
the  whole  tenor  and  spirit  of  his  life,  he  made  it  evident 
that  he  had  no  sympathy  with  the  carnal  views  of  his 
countrym.  n.  and  that  his  kingdom  was  to  be  one  root 
ing  it-elf  within,  and  developing  itself  in  all  that  is  holy 
and  good. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  otiice-  of  Christ  form  ulie 
complex  and  closely  related  whole— each,  when  rightly 
understood,  is  the  necessary  complement  of  the  other; 
and  thoiiuh  they  were  from  the  first  contemplated  as 
essential  to  the  work  of  Christ,  and  as  such  had  forme, 1 
the  theme  of  prophetic  intimation,  yet  in  the  idea  con 
ceived  of  them,  and  the  manner  in  which  that  idea  was 
actually  realized,  we  perceive  undoubted  evidence  of  a 
divine  elevation  and  a  true  originality.  The  appear 
ance  in  this  world  of  one  capable  of  forming  so  loft\  a 
conception  of  his  office,  as  the  foundation  of  a  new 
standing  and  destiny  for  fallen  man,  and  embodying 
the  conception  in  the  actual  doing  and  suffering  of  what 
it  required  at  his  hands,  was  an  event  of  surpassing 
interest  and  importance;  it  was  like  the  bursting  forth 
of  a  fiv-.li  spring-time  upon  the  world,  (jr.  as  it  is  repre 
sented  in  Scripture  itself,  the  commencement  of  a  new 
creation.  To  conic  forth  as  one  not  despairing  of  the 
thorough  reformation  of  the  world  notwithstanding 
the  foul  abominations  that  were  feeding  upon  its  vitals, 
and  the  many  fruitless  efforts  that  had  been  made  to 
rectify  them  was  itself  matter  of  admiration.  J>ut  it 
was  greatly  more  so  to  exhibit  in  his  own  spirit  and  beha 
viour  the  living  exemplar  of  what  a  world  MI  renovated 
would  lie  to  be  co-ni/.aiit  of  all  sin.  and  yet  himself 
free  from  any  taint  of  its  impurities  in  thought  and 
deeil  perfectly  conformed  to  the  holiness  of  (Jod ;  and 
not  only  this  in  himself,  but  generously  braving  the 
mighty  task  of  undertaking  to  make  as  many  as  would 
submit  to  him  partakers  of  the  same  excellence,  heirs 
of  the  same  glorious  destiny.  This  was  emphatically 
a  new  thing  in  the  world,  and  was  fitted  to  produce,  as 
it  actually  has  produced,  a  mighty  revolution  in  indivi 
dual  and  social  life,  such  as  may  well  serve  for  a  pledge 
and  earnest  of  what  still  remains  to  be  accomplished. 
It  was  of  necessity  that  he.  who  had  charged  himself 
with  the  work,  should  be  without  spot  or  blemish. 
For.  as  has  been  justly  said,  "the  real  manifestation  of 
divine  grace  can  exist  only  in  one  in  whom  the  one 


cm; IST  .iKsrs 


CHRIST    JESUS 


spring  of  action  is  the  fulness  of  love  which  he  derives 
from  perfect  fellowship  with  C-od,  and  in  whom  this 
forms  the  principle'  which  regulates  his  whole  life.  The 
power  of  a  new  life  in  God  can  proceed  only  from  that 
source  in  which  all  the  creative  power  of  this  life  lies. 
Now  this  is  the  idea  of  a  sinless  and  holy  personality. 
Were  there  not  at  the  head  of  the  Christian  religion 
such  a  beinir,  it  were  inconceivable  how  it  could  be 
eminently  the  religion  of  reconciliation  and  redemp 
tion,  or  how  the  deep-rooted  consciousness  of  being  re 
conciled  and  redeemed  should  have  come  to  form  the 
fundamental  belief  of  the  Christian  world.  With  such 
a  being  at  the  head  of  Christianity  this  is  at  once  ex 
plained"'  (UhiKum's  Hinlossness  of  Jesus,  p.  i±i).  it  is  ex 
plained,  if  --but  only  if— along  with  the  existence  of 
the  perfect  life  that  is  in  Jesus,  we  take  into  account 
the  provision  he  made  for  its  communication  to  the 
souls  of  men.  Like  the  corn  of  wheat  that  must  fall 
into  the  ground  and  die  before  it  can  bring  forth  fruit, 
so  Jesus  had  not  only  to  be  in  himself  the  Living  One, 
but  also  to  die  in  the  room  of  others,  that  he  might 
communicate  to  them  of  the  life  that  is  in  himself  ;  and 
so,  when  we  combine  with  the  properties  of  his  person 
and  the  faultless  excellencies  of  his  life,  the  perfection 
also  of  his  mediatorial  work,  there  is  everything  that 
is  required  to  render  him  the  stay  and  the  hope  of 
mankind. 

DATES  AND  PERIODS  CONXECTED  WITH  THE  HISTORY 
OF  JESUS  CHRIST.---  The  common  era  of  A.D.  was  fixed 
by  the  Abbot  Dionysius  Exiguus  in  the  sixth  century, 
and  assumes  the  birth  of  Jesus  to  have  taken  place  in 
the  year  of  the  city  Rome  754.  A  more  careful  exa 
mination,  however,  of  the  historical  data  proves  this 
to  have  been  about  four  years  too  late.  (1.)  For,  in 
the  first  place,  the  gospel  narrative  leaves  no  room  to 
doubt  that  the  birth  of  Jesus  took  place  before  the 
death  of  Herod  the  (treat.  But  there  is  good  reason 
to  believe  that  Herod  died  in  the  year  of  Rome  750, 
and  shortly  after  a  noticeable  eclipse  of  the  moon  that 
took  place  that  year  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvii.  u,  4 ;  M ;  9,  3).  (2.) 
This  date  is  confirmed  by  the  historical  circumstances 
given  by  Luke,  ch.iii.  1,2,  in  connection  with  the  Baptist's 
entering  on  his  public  ministry,  presently  after  which 
Jesus  is  affirmed  to  have  been  about  thirty  years  of  age, 
ch.iii.  23.  The  most  specific  of  the  circumstances  noted 
is,  that  it  was  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius.  Augustus 
had  died  in  the  year  of  the  city  767:  if  15  were  added 
to  that,  we  should  have  782,  and  again  30  subtracted, 
for  the  approximate  period  of  Christ's  birth,  we  should 
have  the  year  of  the  city  752.  This  brings  the  matter 
two  years  farther  down  than  the  former  date  ;  but  then 
it  is  known  that  Tiberius  was  associated  in  the  imperial 
government  with  Augustus  two  years  before  the  death 
of  the  latter ;  and  if  these  two  years  are  included,  as  is 
most  probable,  then  the  fifteenth  of  Tiberius  would  be 
coincident  with  the  year  of  the  city  750.  (3.)  An 
argument  is  also  deducible  from  the  presidentship  of 
Cyrenius,  as  mentioned  in  Lu.  ii.  2  ;  for  according  to 
recent  investigations,  this  could  not  have  commenced 
earlier  than  about  four  years  before  the  common  era  of 
A.D.,  or  lasted  longer  than  two  years.  But  this  cannot 
be  exhibited  in  detail  here.  (See  under  CYREXIUS.)  (4.) 
The  early  Christian  fathers,  Ireiueus,  Tertullian,  Cle 
ment  of  Alexandria,  and  of  later  date  Eusebius  and  Epi- 
phanius,  concur  in  placing  it  in  751  or  752.  They  do  not, 
however,  appear  to  have  investigated  the  matter  very 
carefully,  and  rested  chiefly  upon  the  fifteenth  of  Tibe 


rius.  Indeed,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  determine  quite 
exactly  the  time;  but  if  we  should  say  not  less  than  three, 
and  not  more  than  four  years  before  the  common  era,  we 
must  be  on  either  side  within  the  mark.  Pretty  long- 
discussions  upon  the  subject  may  be  found  in  J'Vnes 
Clinton's  Fasti  Roman  i ;  Ideler,-  Hamlh.  </cr  Cltrw,olo<jii\ 
vol.  ii.  ;  (hvswelTs  Harmon i/,  vol.  i.  ;  Lardner's  Crcdt- 
l>ilit>i,  vol.  i. 

The  season  of  the  year  when  Christ  was  born  has 
also,  it  is  now  generally  admitted,  been  wrongly  iixed. 
Tt  was  a  considerable  time  before  any  day  appears  to 
have  been  observed  as  an  anniversary  ;  and  when  an 
observance  of  that  description  began,  churches  and  in 
dividuals  in  different  parts  of  the  world  differed  from 
each  other  regarding  the  proper  time.  The  Eastern 
church  for  a  time  coupled  together  the  birth  and  bap 
tism  of  Jesus,  and  celebrated  both  on  the  6th  of  January 
as  the  Epiphany.  Ultimately  the  Romish  tradition 
came  to  prevail  which  connected  it  with  the  25th  of 
December.  The  circumstance  that  shepherds  were 
found  by  night  tending  their  flocks  on  the  plains  of 
.Bethlehem,  when  the  event  happened,  is  alone  decisive 
evidence  against  this  opinion  ;  for  there  the  nights  are 
greatly  too  cold  at  that  season  of  the  year  to  admit  of 
such  a  practice.  The  custom  now  is,  and  doubtless  was 
also  then,  for  the  shepherds  to  begin  to  tent  it  with 
their  flocks  about  the  vernal  equinox,  and  to  cease 
doing  so  shortly  after  the  autumnal.  One  or  other  of 
these  periods  has  been  thought  the  most  probable  by 
independent  inquirers  ;  and  the  greater  probability,  we 
think,  on  general  grounds,  is  in  favour  of  the  vernal 
equinox.  Such  is  the  opinion  also  of  Mr.  Ores  well 
(Harmony,  vol.  i.  p.  :isi,  seq.),  though  several  of  his  grounds 
appear  fanciful.  There  are  historical  probabilities,  how 
ever,  that  seem  to  point  in  that  direction  ;  and  surely, 
if  the  event  was  ordered,  as  we  may  well  conceive  it 
might  be,  so  as  to  present  some  fitting  correspondence 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  no  period  of 
the  year  could  be  imagined  more  appropriate  for  the  birth 
of  Him  who  was  to  make  all  things  new,  than  the  fresh 
and  joyous  season  of  spring,  when  the  deadness  of  winter 
has  gone,  and  everything  is  ready  to  hurst  forth  into  leaf 
and  blossom.  That  season  also  presented  a  historical, 
as  well  as  a  natural  correspondence;  for  it  was  then 
that  the  birth-day  of  Israel  as  a  people  had  commenced, 
and  in  the  feast  of  the  passover  had  its  ever-recurring 
commemoration.  It  was  worthy  of  divine  wisdom  to 
arrange  it,  that  the  event,  which  was  to  constitute  tin- 
new  and  higher  life-era,  should  take  place  about  the 
same  period;  and  the  coincidence  might  even  serve  as 
one  of  the  incidental  circumstances  that  gave  indica 
tion  of  the  great  reality  being  come. 

That  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  therefore,  took  place 
in  the  year  of  Rome  750,  and  most  probably  in  the 
spring  of  that  year,  may  be  regarded  as  the  nearest  ap 
proximation  to  the  truth  we  can  now  arrive  at.  But 
the  exact  year  of  his  death  is  still  matter  of  dispute, 
and  will  probably  continue  to  be  so.  This  arises  chiefly 
from  the  vague  manner  in  which  one  of  the  feasts  occur 
ring  during  his  ministry  is  indicated  by  St.  John  ;  that, 
namely,  noticed  at  ch.vi.  1,  at  which  he  healed  the  poor 
paralytic  beside  the  pool  of  Bethesda.  If  this  feast 
was  the  passover,  as  is  believed  by  many  of  the  ablest 
commentators,  then  his  entire  ministry  must  have  ex 
tended  over  three  years— about  three  and  a  half— as  in 
that  case  there  would  be  three  passovers,  including  the 
last,  on  which  he  was  present  at  Jerusalem,  Jn.  ii,  13; 


CHRISTIANS 


CHBOXICLKS 


v.  i ;  xiii.  i,  and  oiio  which  apparently  he  did  not  attend 
oil  account  of  the  violence  exhibited  toward  him  by  the 
Jews  about  Jerusalem,  Jn.  vi.  4;  vii.  i.  Nut  a  few,  how 
ever,  contend  for  the  feast  mentioned  in  Jn.  v.  1  beintr 
that,  not  of  the  passover,  but  of  Purim,  which  took 
place  in  the  latter  part  of  February  or  beginning  of 
March  —  in  which  case  the  passover  referred  to  at  Jn.  vi. 
4,  may  have  been  that  of  the  April  following,  and  the 
whole  duration  of  the  public  ministry  of  Jesus  may  not 
have  exceeded  three  and  a  half  years.  Wieseler  (Chn.u. 
synops.  p.  -JH2,  ss.),  among  others,  strenuously  ado]  its  this 
view:  but  in  doinur  so.  he  crowds  the  events  of  one  of 
the  most  important  stages  of  Christ's  ministry  into 
what  one  cannot  but  feel  to  lie  an  incredibly  short 
period.  He  would  throw  all  that  is  recorded  between 
Mat.  iv.  1  '2  and  ch.  xv..  into  th>-  transactions  <>f  mie  or 
two  months,  placing  also  the  I'aptist's  imprisonment  in 
March,  and  his  death  in  April  of  the  same  year.  This 
is  against  all  probability  ;  and  the  grounds  of  the  cal 
f-illation  are  in  manv  respects  extivnielv  fanciful.  It  is 
plain,  that  after  the  first  pass.  >\er  which  our  Lord 
attended  subsequent  to  his  baptism,  he  continued  fur 
a  considerable  time  about  the  Jordan  and  in  Judea. 
Jn.  iii.  L'2 ;  iv.  i-.'i ;  and  that  lie  should,  in  the  course  of 
what  remained  of  the  year,  have  himself  performed 
three  distinct  missionary  tours  through  (Galilee,  M  u  iv 
L'::-L'.">  ;  I. u.  viii.  i  ;  Mat.  ix.  .Vi-38,  beside  sending  out  his  dis 
ciples  on  a  similar  tour.  Mat.  x.  i.  deliverhr_r  the  sermon 
on  the  mount,  and  doing  many  of  his  mightiest  works 

all  which  would  be  necessary  on  the  supposition  in 
ijuestion  is  so  extreme!?  unlikely,  that  nothing  but 
the  most  urgent  reasons  could  commend  it  to  our  lielief. 
It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  more  than  probabilities, 
where  the  data  are  so  comparatively  few  and  u'etieral  ; 
but  they  seem  decidedly  Beater  on  the  side  of  those 
who  hold  that  the  feast  in  Jn.  v.  1  was  a  passover:  that 
there'  were  consequently  three  passovcrs  in  our  Lord's 
ministry,  beside  the  one  at  which  be  died,  or  in  all 
four:  and  that  his  death  took  place  in  his  thirty  fourth 
year.  If  his  birth  occurred,  as  we  suppose,  in  i  .(.'.  7-">". 
and  his  baptism  in  r.r.  7*",  then  his  death  would  fall 
in  r.r.  7S4. 

As  all  the  more  important  incidents  and  transactions 
belonging  to  our  L<>nl'>  earthlv  career  will  be  found 
noticed  in  connection  with  the  persons  and  places  with 
which  thev  are  respectively  associated,  it  is  deemed 
unnecessary  to  irive  anything  like  a  detailed  outline  of 
his  life  on  earth.  <>Vr,  for  example.  JUSKIMI.  MAIM. 
CYKEMI'S,  II  i;i;<>l>.  TKMI'TATIuN  (Till-:).  I'KSI  KKK<TH>N, 
I  >KM»N  I  \r.\l.  PnSM->SI<i\s  AMI  ClHKS.  TliAXSFHirKA- 
TION,  &(O 

CHRISTIANS  (X/H<maw>.  the  now  prevailing  de 
signation  of  the  followers  of  Jesus,  and  first  applied  to 
them,  we  are  told,  in  Antioch,  AC.  xi.2i>.  This  appella 
tion,  on  the  part  "I'  the  Antioehiaus,  has  often  been 
ascribed  to  the  Ii'_dit  and  sarcastic  humour  of  the  heathen 
population,  and  consequently  regarded  as,  in  its  origin, 
something  like  a  nickname.  I5ut  there  is  no  valid 
'_Tound  for  this:  and  when  the  relation  between  Christ 
and  his  people,  in  respect  to  what  constituted  him 
emphatically  the  Christ,  is  duly  taken  into  account,  as 
stated  in  the  preceding  article,  one  might  be  inclined 
to  say,  that  if  the  name  did  not  actually  arise  within 
the  Christian  community,  it  ought  to  have  done  so. 
Indeed,  the  probability  is  on  the  side  of  its  having  actu 
ally  so  arisen.  We  cannot  otherwise  account  for  its 
ready  adoption  by  believers,  and  its  almost  universal 


application.  St.  Peter  uses  it  as  the  tit  designation  of 
Christ's  people— as  a  term  for  such  already  in  familiar 
use,  1  IV.  iv.  Hi;  and  certainly  not  in  any  slighting,  but  a 
most  deeply  serious  mood,  it  was  used  by  kiu<j;  Agrippa, 
when  he  exclaimed,  "Almost  thou  persuadest  me  to  be 
ja  Christian !"  Ac.  xxvi. -JS  ;  hut  when  a  contemptuous 
spirit  sought  vent  to  itself,  it  betook  to  such  epithets  as 
Nazarenes,  (-Jalileans,  that  were  plainly  meant  to  cast 
upon  Master  and  disciple  a  common,  reproach. 

CHRONICLES,  THE  BOOKS  OF.  Tl us  great 
historical  work  stands  last  in  order  and  forms  but  one 
book  in  the  Hebrew  canon.  Its  arrangement  after  the 
books  of  Kings,  and  its  division  into  two  parts,  is  the 
work  of  the  LXX.  This  division  was  adopted  by  the 
early  printer  I'.ombeiv.  in  his  editions  of  the  Hebrew 
.1'iihle.  and  is  now  followed  generally  in  the  printed 
text  and  in  all  the  versions. 

I.  .\'<nnc  ami  Citiifnif.i.  The  Hebrew  name  of  the 
book  is  2'ETI  "^2^1  ('/''''•'"  //'<////<'//<///;>.  /'vi/v/x.  or  rather 
in't.-t  nf  tin  i/ii/i*.  much  the  same  as  "journals"  or  "an 
nals."  The  title  given  to  it  by  the  LXX  was  lla/iaVi- 
TTOjUtca.  "things  which  are  left,"  an  ambiguous,  and 
therefore  unsuitable  designation,  whether  it  be  taken, 
with  Movers  and  llavernick.  as  denoting  "remains" 
of  other  historical  works  or  with  I  >e  Wette  and  others, 
as  '•  things  omitted,"  understanding  it  of  the  writer's 
design,  which  is  not  properly  the  case,  to  supplement 
the  omissions  of  the  earlier  canonical  histories.  The 
usual,  and  verv  appropriate  name  Chronicles,  '' <Lltn>ni- 
r,,n  tntinit  i/ii-iini  /lixtnriii ,"  was  given  to  it  by  Jerome. 

According  to  its  fmittntu  the  I k  forms  three  u-]vat 

parts,  thus  : 

1 .  <  lenealogical  tables,  interspersed  with  geograjihical, 
historical,  and  other  remarks,  K'h.  i.— ix.,  vi/. 

Thi'  generations  i.f  Adam  to  Abraham,  di  i.  i  •>*•  of 
Abraham  and  Ksau,  eh.  i.  L'x-r>l ;  of  Jacob  and  his  s<>n 
Judah.  i'h  ii.;  of  king  llavid.  i-li  iii  ;  of  .1  udah  in  another 
line,  rli.  iv.  ]  -j:i;  of  Simeon,  ch.  iv.  i'1-i:!;  <if  Reuben,  Cad. 
and  Manasse.  with  historical  and  topographical  notices, 
ch.  v.;  two  lists  of  the  sons  of  Levi.  eh.  vi.  1-30;  gellea- 
lcM_'ical  registers  of  llemaii  and  Asapli,  di  \i  ::i  ;:: ;  of 
Merari,  ch.  vi.  44-r.U;  of  Aaron,  with  list  of  the  ivsideiices 
of  the  Levitical  families,  ch.  vi.5(i-Sl;  list  of  the  sons  of 
fssachar,  ch.  vii.  i-r>;  of  Benjamin  and  Naphtali.di  vii.i;-i::; 
of  Manasse.  ch.  vii.  14- lit;  of  Kphraim,  with  notices  of 
their  possessions,  ch.  vii.  ai--.".i;  of  A  slier,  d>  vii.  :!(i-in ;  a 
second  list  of  the  descendants  of  lieujamin,  with  the 
genealogy  of  Saul.  di.  viii.;  list  of  families  dwelling  at 
Jerusalem,  with  intimation  of  the  tribes  to  which  thev 
belonged,  d,  ix 

•_'.  The  history  of  the  reigns  of  David  and  Solomon, 
I  Ch.  x.-'jcii.  ix.,  tlie  narrative  beginning  with  the  disas 
trous  en'jai^eineiit  with  the  Philistines,  wherein  Saul 
and  his  three  sons  perished.  The  remark  that  ''Saul 
died  for  his  transgression  which  he  committed  against 
tin-  Lord,"  K'li  x.  i:t,  introduces  the  call  of  David  to  the 
throne,  ver.  1 1. 

:?.  The  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  — excluding 
that  of  Israel  from  the  separation  under  Hehoboam  to 
the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  state  by  the  Chaldeans, 
•JCli.  x.-xxxvi.,  with  a  notice,  in  the  last  two  versos,  of  the 
permission  granted  by  Cvrus  to  the  exiles  to  return 
home  and  rebuild  their  temple. 

Besides  important  notices  of  an  historical  character 
not  found  in  the  other  books,  there  are  others  of  a 
doctrinal  and  devotional  nature.  There  is  one  psalm. 

40 


CHRONICLES 


314 


('HRONK'LKS 


i  Ch.  xvi.  7-3rt,  the  first  which   David  assigned   for  public 
worship,  ver.  7. 

II.  ]{, lotion  of  Chronicles  to  tin  earlier  <\m»in<-<tl 
Hooks.  From  the  analysis  of  contents  now  presented 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  Chronicles  traverse  nearly  the 
whole  field  of  Old  Testament  history,  and  must,  incon 
sequence,  present  many  points  of  contact  with  the 
earlier  Scriptures,  historical  and  prophetical,  more  espe 
cially  however  with  the  books  of  Samuel  and  of  Kings. 

1.  Sources  of  tin  Chronicles:  Whether  the  older 
canonical  Scriptures,  or  original  independent  docu 
ments? With  regard  to  the  ^enealoirical  tables  in  the 

first  nine  chapters,  this  question  is  easily  settled;  for 
although  the  genealogies  of  1  ( 'h.  i.-ii.  '2  are  substantially 
the  same  as  in  Genesis,  greatly  abridged,  and  with  the 
omission  of  nearly  all  the  historical  notices,  these  matters 
being  already  so  well  known  as  to  render  repetition 
unnecessary  - -a  strong,  because  indirect,  argument  for 
the  authority  of  the  Mosaic  writings—yet  the  greater 
portion  of  those  which  follow  is  found  nowhere  else. 
Even  in  this  abridgment  of  the  older  genealogies  there 
is  manifested  much  independence.  In  proof  'if  this  it 
is  only  necessary  to  observe  some  of  the  appended  notices, 
e.<j.  ich.  i  M,  "Hadad  died  also,"  an  addition  to  Ge. 
xxxvi.  39,  it  being  inferred  by  Hengsteiiberg  ((Jcnuin  of 
the  Pentateuch,  vol.  ii.  p.  245),  and  others,  from  the  latter 
passage,  that  Hadad  was  still  living  in  the  time  of 
Moses.  After  1  Ch.  ii.  2  the  genealogical  lists  are  in 
terspersed  with  fuller  details,  and  the  work  attains  to 
more  completeness  and  independence.  It  is  difficult, 
Inwever,  to  determine  how  far  the  present  books  of 
Samuel  and  of  Kings  were  made  use  of  by  the  writer 
of  the  Chronicles.  Titles  of  books  specially  referred  to 
as  authorities  by  the  writer:  — 

(1.)  The  words  (or  acts,  y,  n:n,  dibrc]  of  Samuel,  of 

Nathan,  and  of  Gad,  i  Ch.  xxix.  2i». 

(2.)  The  words  (acts)  of  Nathan,  the'  prophecy  of 
Abijah,  the  visions  of  Iddo,  2Ch.  ix.2:i. 

(3.)  The  book  of  the  kings  of  Judah  and  Israel, 
variously  referred  to  as  («},  The  book  of  the  kings  of 
Judah  and  Israel,  2  Ch.  xxv.  20;  xxvi.  20;  xxxii.  32 ;  (I),  The 
book  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah.  2Ch.xxvii.  7; 
xxxv.  27;  xxxvi  s  ;  («•),  The  book  of  the  kings  of  Judah  and 
Israel— the  Hebrew  title  slightly  different  from  (a), 
2Ch.  xvi.  11. 

(4.)    The    book    of    the   kings   of    Israel,    2  Ch.  xx.  34; 


.      . 
('>.)  The  midrash  (story,  E.  V.),  of  the  book  of  the 

Kings,   2Uli.  xxiv.27. 

(6.)  The  book  (acts)  of  the  prophet  Shemaiah,  and  of 
the  seer  Iddo,  2  Ch.  xii.  15. 

(7.^  The  midrash  of  the  prophet  Iddo.  2Ch.  xiii.  •>•>. 

(8.)  The  words  of  Jehu,  the  son  of  Hanani,  2  Ch  xx.  :u. 

(9.)  The  acts  of  Uzziah,  written  by  the  prophet  Isaiah, 
the  son  of  Amos,  2  Ch.  xxxii.  32. 

(10.)  The  words  of  Hosai  (the  seers,  E.  V.,  after  the 
LXX.),  2  ch.  xxxiii.  in. 

(11.)   The  chronicles  of  king  David,  1  Ch.  xxvii.24. 

(1-2. "I  The  Lamentations  [of  Jeremiah,  but  different 
from  the  canonical  book],  ac.'h.  xxxv.  2:.. 

(13.)  Tlie  vision  of  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amos,  2Ch.  xxxii.  32; 
probably  the  canonical  book  of  that  prophet. 

In  addition  to  this  ample  list  of  authorities,  reference 
is  made  to  genealogical  registers,  ich.  v.  7,17;  vii.  7,!>;  ix.  i; 
public  archives,  though  in  some  cases  no  doubt  private 
documents,  called  in  Ne.  vii.  5  »>nM  iBD  (sephcr  Jiay- 


•i/acltas),  "  book  of  the  genealogies.''  It  is  well  known 
how  careful  the  Jews  were  as  to  this  matter  ;  and  there- 
is  evidence,  Kzr.  ii.  02,  of  the  inconveniences  it  occasioned 
them  when  they  could  not  satisfactorily  establish  their 
descent.  It  is  also  easy  to  see  the  puqiose  which,  in 
divine  providence,  tiiis  was  intended  to  subserve. 

If  any  value  is   to   be  attached  to  this  history,  it  is 
unquestionable  that  those  documents  must  have  been 
in  existence  at  the  time,  and  that  they  were  consulted 
:  by  the  writer  of  the  Chronicles.      By  no  ingenuity  can 
I  it  lie  shown  that  these   writings,  or  the  greater  portion 
of  them,  were  the  present  hooks  of  Samuel  and  Kings, 
|  as  l)e  Wette,  Movers,    and   others  maintain;   for  not 
'  only  are  the  titles  too  numerous  and   varied   for  that 
'  supposition,  but  they  are  referred  to  for  further  infor 
mation,  on  matters    entirely   omitted   in   the   books  of 
Samuel  and    Kings,  or   if  mentioned,  yet    with   greater 
brevity  than  in  the  Chronicles.      If  further  proof  were 
i  wanting   of   the   independence    of    the   other   historical 
books  which  marks  the   Chronicles,  it  would   be   found 
in  the  diversities   by   which  they  are  severally  distin 
guished,  amounting,   as  sometimes  alleged,   to  coritra- 
1  dictions,  and  certainly  to  divergences  only  explicable 
by  difference   of   sources,  and    a  selection  of   materials 
'  consonant  with  the  design  of  the  respective  writers. 

•2.   Illation  of  Contents. — Still,  however,  the  relation 
of  the  Chronicles  to  the  books  of  Samuel  and  Kings  is 
very  great.      In  the  history  of  David,  of  Solomon,  and 
the  kings  of  Judah,  there  are  upwards  of  forty  sections 
'  in  common,  only  occasionally  distinguished  by  a  different 
i  arrangement.     But,    on    the    other   hand,   many    par- 
j  ticulars,   more  especially    in    the  lives   of   David    and 
Solomon,  recorded  in  these  books,   are  entirely  passed 
over  in  the  Chronicles,  and  in   their  stead   are  given 
1  notices  of  the  state  of  religion  and  of  public  worship. 

(1.)  The  /;riiiri/l(i/  omissions  in  tin  <  'hmiiirlcs.  are : 
i  The  family  scene  between  Michal  and  David,  2Sa.  vi.  20-23; 
David's  kindness  to  Mephibosheth,  2Sa.  ix.;  his  adultery 
with  Bathsheba,  2Sa.  xi.  2-xii.25;  his  son  Amnoii's  defile 
ment  of  Tamar,  and  the  rebellion  of  Absalom,  2Sa.  xiv.~ 
xix.;  the  revolt  of  Sheba,  2Sa.xx.;  the  delivering  np  of 
Saul's  sons  to  the  Gibeonites,  2Sa.  xxi.  i-ii;  war  with  the 
Philistines,  2  Sa.  xxi.  iii-17;  David's  psalm  of  thanksgiving, 
and  last  words,  2Sa.  xxii.-xxiii.7;  Adoni jah's  attempted 
usurpation,  and  the  anointing  of  Solomon,  i  Ki.  i. ;  David's 
last  will,  iKi.  ii.  1-9;  Solomon's  throne  established  by  the 
punishment  of  his  opponents,  iKi.ii.  13-40;  his  marriage 
with  Pharaoh's  daughter,  iKi.  in.  1;  his  wise  decision, 
iKi.iii.10-28;  his  officers,  glory,  and  wisdom,  IKi.  i\-.;  his 
strange  wives,  and  idolatry,  iKi.xi.  1-40.  The  entire 
omission  of  the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel.  (See 
on  this  and  the  particulars  which  immediately  follow,  Keil,  Ein- 
leitung,  p.  4SO-4S2,  Frankf.  I*o3.) 

(2.)  Matter  jicculiar  t<>  the  Chronicles. — List  of  the 
heroes  who  came  to  David  at  Ziklag,  and  of  the  hosts  who 
came  to  Hebron  to  make  him  king,  ich.xii.;  David's 
preparation  for  building  the  temple,  ch.  xxii.;  the  enu- 
|  meratioii  and  order  of  the  Levites  and  priests,  ch.  xxiii.- 
xxvi.;  the  order  of  the  army  and  its  captains,  ch.xxvii.; 
David's  directions  in  public  assembly  shortly  before  his 
death,  ch.xxviii.  xxix.;  Rehoboam's  fortifications,  his  re 
ception  of  the  priests  and  Levites  who  fled  from  the 
kingdom  of  Israel,  his  wives  and  children,  2  ch  xi.  f.-24; 
Abi  jail's  war  with  Jeroboam,  ch.  xiii.  3-20;  notice  of  Abijah  s 
wives  and  children,  ch.  xiii.2i;  Asa's  works  in  fortifying 
his  kingdom,  and  his  victory  over  Zcrah  the  Cushite, 
ch.xiv.  3-14;  a  prophecy  of  Azariah  which  induced  Asa 


CHRONICLES 


315 


CHRONICLES 


to  put  down  idolatry,  oh.  xv.  i-i.i;  address  of  the  prophet 
Hanani,  oh.  xvi.  7-in;  Jchoshaphat's  endeavours  to  restore 
the  worship  of  Jehovah,  his  power  and  riches,  ch.xvii.  2- 
xviii.  i;  his  instructions  and  ordinances  as  to  judgment, 
ch.  xix.;  his  victory  over  the  Ammonites  and  Moabitcs, 
oil.  xx.  i-3u;  his  provision  for  his  sons,  and  their  death  by 
his  son  and  successor,  Jchoram,  ch.  xxi.  2-4;  Jehoram's 
idolatry  and  punishment,  ch.  xxi.  n-i'.i;  death  of  the 
high-priest  Jehoiada,  and  the  apostasy  of  Joash,  ch.  xxiv. 
1.1-22;  Amaziah's  warlike  preparations,  cii.  xxv.  ;,-i.i;  his 
idolatry,  ch.  xxv.  n-iG;  Uzziah's  wars,  victories,  and  forces, 
oli.  xxvi.  n-15;  Jotham's  war  with  the  Ammonites,  ch.  xxvii. 
•Hi;  Hezekiah's  reformation  and  passover.  ch.  xxix.  :;- 
\xxi.2i;  his  riches,  ch.  xxxii.  17-3";  Manasseh's  captivity, 
release,  and  reformation,  ch.  xxxiii.  11-17. 

(3.)  Matter  UK, n  /»////  related  in  Chronicles.  -Tin- 
list  of  David's  heroes,  iCh.  xii.  11- 17,  of  which  the  names. 
vcr.42-1",  are  wanting  in  2  Sa.  xxiii.  S.  \c.;  the  removal 
of  the  ark  from  Kirjath-jearim  to  Mount  /ion,  ich.  xiii.; 
xv.  2-24;  xvi.  4-43,  comp.  with  2  Sa.vi.;  the  candlesticks,  tables. 
and  courts  of  the  temple,  2Ch.  i\.  n-'.i,  comp.  wiih  1  Ki.  vii.  >, :;y; 
descrijition  of  the  bra/en  scaflbld  on  wliich  Solomon 
knelt,  2  Ch.  vi.  12, 13,  comp.  with  1  Ki.  viii.  22  ;  in  Solomon's 
prayer,  the  passage  2 Ch.  vi.  41,  42,  from  1's.  exxxii.  7-'.': 
mention  of  the  lire  from  heaven  consuming  the  burnt- 
oHering,  2Ch.  vii.  l,ic.;  enlargement  of  the  divine  promise, 
u  Ch. \  ii.  12-1  i.,c<. nip.  w.th  i  Ki.ix.3;  Shishak's  invasion  of  J  udea: 
the  address  of  the  prophet  Shemaiah,  2Ch.  xii.  2-s,  comp. 
witli  1  Ki.  xiv.  2:i;  Ama/.iah's  victory  over  the  Kdoinitcs.  ' 
2  Ch.  xxv.  ll-lil,  coiiip.  with  2  Ki.  xiv.  7  ;  L'/./iah's  leprosy;  its 
cause,  2  Ch.  xxvi.  10-21,  comp.  witli  -  Ki  xv.  S;  the  pa-.-o\vr 

under  Josiah,  2  C'li.  x\xv.  2-1:1,  cmim   with  2  Ki  x\ii  21  io 

. 
3.    Dcslyn    of   tin     Chronicles.— Art.    examination    of 

these  particulars  of  omis.-ions,  additions,  and  variations, 
as  compared  with  the  earlier  historical  books,  will  enable 
the  rca<lcr  to  ascertain  the  manner  in  which  the  writer 
of  the  Chronicles  used  the  old  memoirs  to  which  lie 
refers,  and  the  special  object  of  his  history.  Tin  par 
ticulars  in  which  he  varies  from  the  earlier  historical 

1 ks  are  not  accidental,  hut  are  strongly  indicative  of 

a  plan.  This  is  particularly  seen  in  the  additions  and 
reflections  introduced  into  his  nairati\.,  indicating 
strong  theocratic  views.  See.  f..r  instance,  how  In 
dwells  on  the  history  ,,f  David,  Asa.  Jchoshaphat. 
lle/.ekiah.  and  like  minded  kings,  adding  many  im 
portant  particulars  to  the  not  unfrecpu  nth  abbreviated 
statements  in  the  parallel  books.  Hut  still  more  does 
this  appear  in  the  entire  omission  of  aught  that  respects 
the  kingdom  of  Israel,  save  only  the  intimation  in  the 
genealogical  tables  that  lu-ubcii.  Cad.  and  Manasseh 
were  carried  away  captive  by  the  Assyrians  because 
of  their  sins,  i  ch.  v.  2.1,21;. 

It  is  a  very  superficial  criticism  which  regards  these 
additions  as  indicative  merely  of  a  Levitical  spirit,  and 
the  omission  again  of  some  particulars  in  the  life  of 
David,  and  other  kind's  of  Judah,  as  simply  apologetic; 
while  it  would  account  for  the  exclusion  of  all  reference 
to  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes,  from  the  hatred  with 
which  they  were  regarded  by  their  brethren  of  Judah. 
It  is  certainly  more  reasonable  to  conclude  that  the 
additional  details,  the  specification  of  the  Levitical  and 
priestly  functions  according  to  their  original  arrange 
ments,  were  designed  to  adapt  the  history  to  the 
altered  circumstances  of  the  times,  to  the  exigencies 
introduced  by  the  entire  overthrow  of  the  one  kingdom, 
and  the  seventy  years'  desolation  of  the  other;  and  that 
the  writer,  through  the  teaching  of  the  divine  Spirit,  had  i 


been  led  to  a  more  direct  application  of  the  promises 
made  to  David,  and  to  discern  in  these  alone  the  future 
restoration  and  stability  of  his  country.  This  indeed  is 
a  marked  characteristic  of  the  sacred  literature  of  the 
restoration  period,  and  it  would  be  instructive  to  trace 
how  the  influence  of  the  captivity,  with  its  preceding 
and  concomitant  providences,  conduced  to  this  end. 
These  principles  operated  strongly  in  the  writer  of  the 
Chronicles.  Thus  1  Ch.  xvii.  11-14,  comp.  with  2  Sa. 
vii.  1:2-10,  manifests  more  distinctly  the  Messianic 
character  of  the  promises  made  to  David,  the  views 
no  doubt  being  corrected  by  the  calamities  which  had 
overtaken  the  nation  ami  the  royal  house.  The  natural 
seed  of  David  is  lost  sight  of  in  the  spiritual,  so  that 
there  is  no  longer  reference  to  a  forsaking  of  Jehovah's 
law,  anticipated  in  the  message  of  Nathan,  as  given  in 
'1  Sa.  vii.  1  4,  nor  intimation  of  the  punishment  by  which 
defection  should  inevitably  he  followed.  So  also  with 
David's  thankful  acknowledgment  to  Cod  for  this 
gracious  promise:  "And  this  was  vet  a  small  tiling  in 
thy  si-ht,  <>  Lord  Cod;  but  thou  hast  spoken  also  of 
thy  servant's  house  for  a  great  while  to  come:  and  is 
this  the  manner  of  man  lessen  ri\"^-  turnth  /nl<t<l<i>/i, 

T  T  T  T 

tin  Ian-  ,,f  tin  man),  ()  Lord  Cod?"  asu  vii. in :  the  last 
clause  of  which  is  thus  inven  in  1  Ch.  xvii.  17,  "Thou 
h:e-t  regarded  me  <<<•<'' in/in;/  tn  tin  ordci'  "ft/ti  man  fr/mi 
'ii>' in  (r^ytr,  c-N,1^  "V-rT.  k<t"r  li<ia.ij'im  Jtammaalah), 

•>  Lord  Cod."  (Sec  rye  Smith,  Script.  Test.  i.  p.  171, 4th  cd.) 
I'ut  thi'  .Messianic  aspirations  are  still  more  marked  in 
ill,  _ivneal<"/ieal  tables,  where  it  may  be  seen  that  while 
no  place  is  '.riven  to  .-oine  .if  tin-  tribes,  as  Dan  and 
/cbiihin.  the  genealogy  of  the  tribe  .it'  Judah.  in  the 
line  of  l>avid.  is  traced  from  Adam  down  to  the  writer's 
own  time,  i  ch.  i.  1-27;  ii.  1,3-1.1;  lii  ,  extending  to  a  point 
beyond  any  other  Old  Testament  record  of  a  strictly 
historical  nature,  and  so  forming  the  last  U)d  Testa 
ment  link  of  that  genealogical  chain  which  is  resumed 
and  completed  in  the  New  Testament.  Mai.  i.  In  par 
ticular,  the  important  note  in  these  seemingly  dry 
registers,  K'li.  v.  2,  ••Judah  prevailed  above  his  brethren, 
and  of  him  the  chief  ruler."  i.e.  the  chief  ruler  or  prince 
was  destined  to  spring  (not  as  in  K.  V.  <-<i,n<  }  from 
Judah,  in  evident  allusion  to  ( !o.  xlix.  1".  on  \\hich 
sec  also  1  Ch.  xxviii.  1.  win-re  David  recognizes  the 
choice  of  Judah  as  "  rul'-r." 

Other  peculiarities  distinuui-hinu  th.  book  of  Chro 
nicles,  and  fitting  it  for  the  altered  circumstances  in  the 
time  of  its  composition,  are  the  substitution  of  modern 
and  more  common  expressions  for  such  as  had  become 
unusual  or  obsolete  :  compare  in  the  original  1  Ch.  x.  1:>. 
with  1  Sa.  xxxi.  l~2;  1  Ch.  xv.  I*!'  with  '_'  Sa.  vi.  It!,  .vc., 
particularly  the  substitution  for  the  old  names  of  places, 
those  which  were  in  use  in  the  writers  own  day:  thus, 
( lexer,  l  Ch.  xx.  I,  instead  of  Cob,  2Su.  xxi. is.  Abel  Maim, 
Abel  on  the  water  iMeronO,  2Cli.  xvi  i,  instead  of  Abel- 
beth-maachah,  iKi.  \v.  a'.  So  also  the  ..mission  of  geo 
graphical  names  which  had  become  unknown,  or  had 
ceased  to  be  of  interest,  as  Helam,  2 Sa.  x.  10, 17,  omitted 
in  1  Ch.  xix.  17;  so  also  Zair,  2Ki.  viii.  21,  comp.  with  2Ch.- 
xxi.  ii.  See  particularly  2  Sa.  xxiv  4-8,  comp.  witli 

1  Ch.  xxi.  4.     There  is  also  the  endeavour  to  substitute 
more  definite  expressions  for  such   as   were  indefinite, 
and  so  possibly  ambiguous,  as  2  Ch.  xxxviii.  •'>,  comp. 
with  2   Ki.   xvi.    %  :    and   2  Ch.  xxiv.  24,  comp.   with 

2  Ki.  xxii.  It). 

III.   Credibility. — The  credibility  of  the  Chronicles 


CHRONICLES 


310 


CHRONICLES 


has  been  greatly  coiitoste.il  by  rationalistic  writers,  but 
by  none  with  more  tenacity  than  De  Wette,  first  in 
his  lkitra<ic  ziir  Einlcittnt'j,  Halle,  180t>,  i.  p.  1-1:52, 
anil  subsequently  in  the  successive  editions  of  his 
K<II/I  if  nit;/,  where  he  has  brought  together  every  sort 
of  difficulty  and  alleged  contradiction,  many  of  which 
rest  only  011  assumptions,  which  would  not  lie  toler 
ated  if  applied  to  any  other  than  a  biblical  writer. 
It  indeed  cannot  be  denied  that  many  difficulties  do 
exist  in  this  portion  of  Scripture,  and  not  a  few  apparent 
contradictions  between  its  statements  and  those  of  the 
other  historical  books,  particularly  as  regards  proper 
names  and  numbers,  but  which,  even  if  they  cannot  be 
satisfactorily  explained,  scarcely  warrant  the  calling  in 
question  the  sincerity  or  the  credibility  of  the  writer. 
Thus,  for  instance,  it  is  objected  that  ]  Ch.  ii.  6  is  a 
false  combination  of  1  Ki.  v.  11  [iv.  3]];  but  nothing- 
is  more  common  than  the  recurrence  of  the  same  names 
in  different  families  and  tribes,  and  at  different  periods; 
and  although  Hiiverniek  unnecessarily  admits  that  some 
of  the  names  in  the  two  passages  are  identical,  it  would 
certainly  indicate  rare  confusion  on  the  part  of  the 
writer  of  the  Chronicles  to  bring  together  times  and 
persons  so  far  apart  from  one  another.  Ethan  the 
Esrathite,  of  the  family  of  Alerari,  1  Ch.  vi.  w  [14,  E.v.], 
was  one  of  David's  masters  of  song,  1  Ch.  xv.  17,  and 
the  author  of  Ps.  Ixxxix.  Heman,  also  an  Esratliite, 
and  author  of  Ps.  Ixxxviii.,  was  a  leader  of  David's 
sacred  choir,  i  Ch.  xv.  IT,  and  it  is  utterly  inconceivable 
that  persons,  as  it  would  appear,  so  well  known  to  the 
writer  of  the  Chronicles,  should  so  inconsiderately  be 
reckoned  among  the  posterity  of  Judah,  and  assigned 
to  a  time  so  long  antecedent  to  that  of  David. 

There  are  however  real  difficulties,  particularly  in 
the  genealogical  tables,  and  also  in  various  numerical 
statements,  and  these,  it  may  be  supposed,  arise  in  a 
great  measure  from  corruption  of  the  text ;  for  it  is  in 
such  cases  that  there  is  the  greatest  facility  for  the  rise 
and  the  perpetuation  of  false  readings,  the  context 
affording  little  aid  for  their  detection,  or  rectification  if 
detected.  The  text  of  the  Chronicles  furnishes  many 
instances  of  such  corruptions,  although  in  several  cases, 
where  it  differs  from  the  corresponding  passages  in  the 
books  of  Samuel  and  of  Kings,  it  is  just  as  possible  that 
it  shows  the  true  reading.  A  remarkable  case  is  1  Ch. 
vi.  13  [28],  "  And  the  sons  of  Samuel;  the  first-born 
Vashni  and  Abiah,"  comp.  with  1  Sa.  viii.  2,  "Now 
the  name  of  his  first-born  was  Joel,  and  the  name  of  his 
second  Abiah.''  It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  contradiction 
has  arisen.  The  name  Joel  had  fallen  out  of  1  Ch.  vi.  115, 
and  some  transcriber,  seeing  the  necessity  for  some  name 
after  "the  first-born,''  transformed  »j^:ni  (re/iaskciii), 

"and  the  second,"  into  a  proper  name.  Vashni.  The 
mistake  is  as  old  as  the  LXX.  :  6  TT/JOJTOTO/COS  2(m  Kal 
'  Aj3td.  The  Syriac  and  Arabic  read  as  in  Samuel  (.Tour. 
ofSac.  Lit.  April,  1852, p.  198).  In  2  Ch.  xiii.  2  the  mother 
of  Abijah  is  named  ' '  Michaiah,  the  daughter  of  Uriel 
of  Gibeah,"  but  in  1  Ki.  xv.  2,  10,  13  "  Maachah,  the 
daughter  of  Abishalom.''  The  LXX.  and  Syriac  have 
Maaehah  also  in  2  Ch.,  which  must  have  been  the 
correct  reading.  As  the  mother  of  Abijah  is  designated 
the  daughter  of  Absalom,  this  may  mean  no  more  than 
grand- daughter,  Uriel  being  the  husband  of  Absalom's 
daughter  ;  but  as  Abijah's  wife,  and  the  mother  of  Asa, 
is  also  called  Maaehah,  i  Ki.  xv.  13;  2  Ch.  xv.  10,  it  may  be 


that  in  2  Ch.  xiii.  2  the  name  of  Asa's  mother  is  written 
instead  of  that  of  Abijah's. 

1.  Passages  where  the  readings  in  Chronicles  are  ob 
viously  corrupt:  sometimes  the  work  itself  showing  the 
erroneousness  of  the  reading.   Thus,  '-'Ch.  xxii.  L',  Aha/.iah's 
age  when   he  began   to   reign' is   stated    at    42  years; 
2  Ki.  viii.  20  makes  it  22,  and  with   this  agree  all  the 
versions,  whereas  the  reading  of  Chronicles  is  confirmed 
only    by    the    Vulgate.      As    Jehoram,    the    father    of 
Ahaziah,  lived  only  4U  years,  2Ch.  xxi.  20,  it  is  impossible 
that  his  son  could  have  been  42  years  when  he  begun 
to  reign.      Other  examples  are   1    Ch.   xviii.   4,   comp. 
with  2  Sa.  viii.  4  ;  2  Ch.  iii.  15;  iv.  5.  comp.  with  ]  Ki. 
vii.  15,  2(1;  1   Ch.   xi.   11,   comp.   with  2  Sa.   xxiii.  8; 
1  Ch.  xxi.  12,  com]),  with  2  Sa.  xxiv.  13;   2  Ch.  ix.  25, 
com]),  with  1  Ki.  v.  (J. 

2.  Passages  where  the  correct  reading  is  that  of  the 
Chronicles.      The    father    of    Amasa    is  designated    in 

1  Ch.  ii.  17.  "J  ether,  the  Ix/unaelite ;'  in  2  Sa.  xvii.  25, 
"  Ithra,   an  Itrar/ite.."      Examples  of  numerical  state 
ments:   1  Ch.  xviii.  4,  comp.  with  2  Sa.  viii.  4  ;   1  Ch. 
xix.    18,  comp.  with  2  Sa.  x.  18;   1    Ch.  xxi.  12,  com]), 
with  2  Sa.   xxiv.   13;  2   Ch.    iii.   15,  and  1   Ki.  vii.  Ki, 
comp.   with  2  Ki.  xxv.  17;  the  height  of  the  "chapi 
ters"   on  the  brazen   pillars,  as  given  in   the  first  two 
passages,  is  confirmed  by  .)e.  Iii.  22. 

3.  Passages  where  the  correct  reading  is  doubtful : 

2  Ch.  ii.  2,  17  [18],  com}),  with  1  Ki.  v.  3d  [1(5] ;  2  Ch. 
viii.  Id,  comp.  with  1  Ki.  ix.  23;  2  Ch.  viii.  IS,  comp. 
with  1  Ki.  ix.  28.     (On  the  numerical  discrepancies,  see  Reinke, 
licitrage  zur  ErkHirung  des  alt.  Testamentes,  vol.  i.  1  ste.  Abhand.) 

4.  Passages  erroneously  regarded  as  contradictory  : 
Between  2  Ch.  xxviii.  20  and  2  Ki.  xvi.  7-{>,  there  is  no 
contradiction,  as  they  relate  to  different  stages  of  the 
war  ;  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  mercenary  Tiglath- 
pileser  from  an  ally  became  an  opponent ;  a  fact  even 
intimated  in  2  Ki.  xvi.  18,  by  Ahaz's  removal  of  a  gal 
lery  which  might  afford  access   to  an  enemy,    "  from 
the  presence  of  (or  for  fear  of.  »;sr:,  mippene)  the  king  of 

Assyria."  In  1  Ch.  xi.  23,  "An  Egyptian,  a  man  of  great 
stature,  five  cubits  high,  and  in  the  Egyptian's  hand 
was  a  spear  like  a  weaver's  beam;''  2  Sa.  xxiii.  21,  "An 
Egyptian,  a  goodly  man  (nsnc  '^''X,  ish  mare,  a  man  of 

appearance],  and  the  Egyptian  had  a  spear  in  his  hand." 
The  explanation  of  Reinke  is  exceedingly  forced;  and  is 
in  fact  unnecessary,  for  there  is  no  contradiction;  the  one 
passage  being  more  specific,  but  still  in  accordance  with 
and  its  purport  implied  in  the  other:  the  Egyptian's 
noticeable  appearance  was  his  stature,  with  which  also 
his  spear  corresponded.  2  Ch.  xxxiv.  3-7  places  the 
reformation  under  Josiah  in  the  twelfth  year  of  his  age, 
while  2  Ki.  xxii.  3  assigns  to  it  the  eighteenth.  The- 
nius  stoutly  opposes  the  statement  in  the  Chronicles  ; 
but  Bertheau  satisfactorily  shows  that  the  two  state 
ments  are  perfectly  reconcilable,  2  Ch.  xxxiv.  3-7  re 
ferring  only  to  the  beginning  of  the  work  of  reforma 
tion,  while  the  other  passage  points  to  some  great  pro 
gress  in  it,  the  rooting  out  of  idolatry.  According  to 
the  one  statement,  the  work  of  reformation  was  begun 
in  the  twelfth,  according  to  the  other  it  was  finished  in 
the  eighteenth  year.  This  is  required  by  2  Ch.  xxxv. 
IS).  The  same  with  many  others. 

The  discrepancies,  even  were  there  no  satisfactory 
solution,  cannot  greatly  affect  the  character  of  the 
writer  of  the  Chronicles :  for  first,  the  probability  as 
reo-ards  correctness  will  be  found  on  the  part  of  the 


CHRONICLES 


later  writer,  who,  having  the  earlier  works  before  him, 
would  not  unnecessarily,  in  matters  of  fact,  and  plain 
numerical  statements,  where  differences  and  contradic 
tions  were  so  easily  discernible,  vary  from  the  earlier 
accounts  favoured  by  the  authority  arising  from  age 
and  prior  acceptance.  There  can  be  110  question,  more 
over,  that  many  of  the  discrepancies  are  owing  to  the 
fault  of  copyists  :  while  in  some  they  are  the  result  of 
the  different  views  and  designs  of  the  respective  writers, 
or  the  brevity  of  their  statements. 

In  proof,  however,  of  the  accuracy  of  the  Chronicles, 
the  following  particulars  are  worthy  of  consideration: 

First,  The  writer  is  exceedingly  definite  in  his  state 
ments.  Thus  the  time  when  it  occurred  to  David  t<> 
build  the  temple  of  the  L<>rd  is  indicated,  i  .s;i.  vii.  i, 
'•  It  came  to  pass  when  the  king  sat  13'£*«  «2>  /•''  !i"s/nt/i) 

-  T 

in  his  house,''  &e.,  but  more  definitely  stated  in  ]  Ch. 
xvii.  ]  (2'i'»  -fzx'z,  kaaxher  ytixhab)  ••n.--  *<>uit  us  he  sat," 

-  T        :•  —.  - 

&C.  (sue  Hengstfiiberg,  Chistnl.  i.  p.  Ml.  Berlin,  1V>4),  while  the 
omission  of  the  words,  "and  the  Lord  had  given  him  rest 
round  about  from  all  his  enemies,"  removes  the  chrono 
logical  difficulty  in  that  statement.  Of  his  accuracy, 
again,  in  t!ie  genealogical  notices,  the  following  example 
may  suffice.  In  ]  Ch.  ii.  J'i,  mention  is  made  of  two 
si.-ters  of  David,  Abigail  and  Zeruiah,  the  latter  of  \\liom 
was  the  motlier  of  .loab.  Abishai,  and  Asahel,  who  are 
never  designated  after  their  father,  but  always  after 
their  more  illustrious  mother,  2  .sn.  ii.  i^;  x\i.  ]7,\c.  Amasa 
is  referred  to  as  a  blood  relation  of  David,  :;  SH.  xix.  ll; 
according  to  '1  Sa.  xvii.  '2.~>,  Amasa  was  a  son  of  Abi 
gail,  and  .-he  sister  of  Zeruiah,  the  motlier  of  .loab; 
but  tlie  daughter  of  N  abash,  not  of  .les.-e,  and  thus  only 
the  lialf-si.-ter  of  J)avid.  Therefore  it  is  that,  in  the 
genealogy  of  Jesse,  i  i  ii  ii  13-17,  .-he  is  not  style. 1  hi- 
daiiLrhter,  but  onh  referred  to  as  the  si.-ter  of  David; 
a  distinction  \\hich  doe>  not,  at  first  sight  strike  the 
reader,  and  the  force  of  \\hich  could  not  indeed  be 
learned  without  the  information  furnished  in  the  book 
of  Samuel.  So  also  2  Ch.  vii.  7-1"  explains  the  abbre 
viated  statement,  1  Ki.  viii.  <!f>,  and  the  otherwise  con 
tradictory  expression  "the  eighth  day."  ver.  »i'i  a 
proof  how  many  of  the  discrepancies  arise  simply  from 
the  brevity  of  tin:  statement. 

>'i  i-i,  //•////,  The  scrupulous  exactness  with  \\hich  the 
writer  excerpts  from  the  original  documents,  is  vouched 
for  by  the  fact  of  his  sometimes  retaining  the  very 
words,  although  involving  expressions  no  longer  appli 
cable  to  his  own  time  a  practice  which,  strange  to  say, 
has  furnished  ground  to  assail  his  accuracy.  Thus  th>- 
Simeonites  are  said  to  possess  the  seats  of  the  Amide- 
kites  in  Mount  Seir,  dwelling  there  "unto  this  day," 
i  cii.  iv.  4\>,  i:;,  although,  lonur  prior  to  the  composition  of 
the  history,  they  had  been  removed  from  all  their  pos 
sessions.  So  also,  in  the  account  of  the  removal  of  the 
ark  to  Solomons  temple,  it  is  added,  "and  there  it  is 
unto  this  day,"  ii  Ch.  v.  <j. 

Last///,  hut  of  more  importance,  is  the  indirect  confir 
mation  given  to  several  statements  in  the  Chronicles 
by  other  passages  of  Scripture.  Thus,  He/ekiah's  pre 
parations  in  fortifying  .Jerusalem,  when  threatened  by 
Sennacherib  -  his  stopping  the  fountains  and  "the 
brook  that  ran  through  the  midst  of  the  land,"  -i  ch. 
xxxii.  i-r>,  are  fully  confirmed  by  Is.  xxii.  8-11,  and,  ac 
cording  to  Ewald,  by  Psalm  xlviii.  1:3,  &<:.  ;  but  which 
Hengstenberg  with  more  probability  refers  to  the  vic 
tory  of  Jchnshaphat,  2  ch.  xx  A  further  reference  to 


31V  CHRONICLES 

this  victory  of  Jehoshaphat  is  found  in  Joel  iv.  [iii.j ; 
the  prophetic  vision  resting  on  this  history,  which  is 
thus  the  foundation  of  the  divine  judgment  on  the  ene 
mies  of  the  theocracy.  (See  Iliivernk-k,  Kinleituut;,  ii.  i.  p. 
2Ki.)  In  the  reign  of  Jehoram  the  Philistines  and 
Arabians  invaded  Judah,  plundered  the  royal  palace, 
and  carried  away  the  king's  sons  and  wives,  -i  ch.  xxi. 
in,  ir.  To  this  incident  the  prophet  Joel  refers,  ch.  iv. 
[iii.] ,-.,  o,  where  the  Philistines  are  threatened  for  their 
plundering  the  Lord's  property,  and  their  sale  of  the 
Israelitish  captives:  the  same  also  in  Am.  i.  t>.  The 
Philistines,  again,  in  the  time  of  Aha/.,  invaded  the 
south  of  Judah,  and  took  several  important  cities,  '2  Ch. 
xx\iii.  i\  With  this  agrees  the  prophecy  of  Js.  xiv. 
li.S-W,  which  as.'aiii  finds  its  fulfilment  in  '2  Ki.  xviii.  S. 

It  is  important  also  to  notice  how  the  Chronicles 
form  a  commentary  on  various  passages  of  the  other 
books,  and  evince  the  accuracy  of  such  statements  as 
at  first  sight  seem  to  contain  discrepancies.  Thus,  in 
'1  Sa.  vii.  ;">,  no  reason  is  assigned  why  David  should 
not  build  the  house  of  the  Lord:  and  in  1  Ki.  v.  17 
['•'>].  in  the  message  of  Solomon  to  Hiram,  an  external 
reason  only  is  assigned,  as  the  heathen  prince  could  not 
comprehend  the  deeper  one.  This,  however,  is  given 
in  David's  communication  first  to  Solomon,  i  Ch.  xxii.  \ 
and  afterwards  to  Israel  in  assembly,  i  ch.  xxviii. :(.  The 
addition.  "  l!ut  I  have  chosen  Jerusalem  that  my 
name  might  he  there,"  uch.  vi.  ii,  onnii.  wiih  l  Ki.  viii.  iti,  is 
exceedingly  important:  the  choice  of  Jerusalem,  as  the 
centre  of  the  theocracy,  was  dependent  oil  the  choice  of 
David  to  be  ruler  over  Israel  the  one  was  included  in 
the  other.  •_'  Su.  vii.  The  truthfulness  of  the  history  may 
be  said  to  be  even  attested  by  the  names  of  the  exiles 
born  shortly  before  the  restoration,  from  their  so  natu 
rally  reflecting  the  hopes  which  about  that  time  must 
have  been  strongly  entertained.  Thus  1  Ch.  iii.  lit,  2<>  : 
Hananiah  (Jt/mni/i's  yran')  ;  P.crechiah  (Jehorali>» 
lilt**in<i>i  :  lla>adiah  (./<  /<<u'ti  It's  mcrrif)  ;  and  Jushab- 
hesed  (mi  rr//  r<  turns). 

IV.  A;/>  and  Author.  That  the  Chronicles  form 
one  of  tho  latest  of  the  Old  Testament  compositions 
cannot  admit  of  doubt.  Its  reference  to  the  decree  of 
Cyrus  respecting  the  restoration,  •_'  Ch.  xxxvi.  L'L',  L':;,  is 
sufficient  evidence  of  this.  There  is  further  the  cir 
cumstance  that  it  brings  down  the  genealogy  of  David, 
l  ch.  iii .1:1,  Ac  .  to  a  period  admitted  mi  all  hands  to  be 
subsequent  to  the  restoration.  Indeed,  according  to 
1  >e  Wette  (Einlcitiiiig,  scot.  LK'j)  and  others,  the  genealogy 
of  David  is  brought  down  to  the  third  generation  after 
Neliemiah,  on  the  assumption  that  Sheinaiah,  the  son 
of  Shecaniah.  vcr.  -JL',  was  a  contemporary  of  Neliemiah, 
Ne.  iii.  li'.i;  but,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  including 
Keil.  Movers,  and  Havernick,  it  goes  no  further  than 
I'elatiah  and  Jesiah.  ver.  --'I,  the  grandsons  of  Zerub- 
babel,  the  writer  then  adding,  as  they  think,  some 
names  from  Da\id"s  surviving  posterity  in  general.  In 
proof  of  this,  observe  that  it  is  not  said  that  Shemaiah 
was  the  son  of  Shecaniah;  indeed,  the  contrary  is  in 
timated,  from  the  way  in  which  the  words  "  sons  of  "  are 
prefixed  to  several  of  the  names,  but  without  mention 
of  the  names  of  such  sons  :  all  that  the  writer  evidently 
meant  was  to  enumerate  the  more  distinguished  indi 
viduals  and  families  of  the  posterity  of  David  who  re 
turned  from  exile,  but  without  specifying  the  particular 
relation  in  which  they  stood  to  Zerubbabel.  This  is 
probably  the  case  with  the  names  in  ver.  2<>,  which 
seem  to  interrupt  the  genealogy  of  Zerubbabel  in  ver. 


CHRONICLES 


CHRONICLES 


11),  21.  With  regard  to  Zerubbabel,  the  statement  is  |  modern  writers  in  general,  consider  Ezra  to  IK-  the 
express;  and  to  show  still  more  the  writer's  intimate  author.  Ewald  (Geachichto  des  Volkes  Israol,  2  te  Ansg.  i.  p.  saa) 
acquaintance  witli,  and  interest  in  the  matter,  Shelo-  admits  tliat  tlie  C Chronicles  and  the  book  of  Ezra  are  by 
mith,  a  daughter  of  Zerubbabel,  is  inserted.  At  all  '  the  same  author,  and  even  contends  that  they  originally 
events,  Shemaiah,  vcr.  L-  was  unquestionably  not  a  de-  formed  one  work,  not  the  production  of  Ezra  himself 
scendant,  hut  a  contemporary  of  Zerubbabel:  he  was  but  a  much  later  writer.  Jakn  denies  all  appearance 


i>ne  of  the  princes   who  returned   from  exile;  and  his     of   similarity   between   the   Chronicles   and  Ezra,  and 
genealogy,  which  extends  to  the  third  generation,  was     ascribes  the  former  to  some  unknown  writer  at  the' close 
parallel  with  that  of  Zerubbabel,  which  reaches  onlytr 
the  second,  but  coming  down  to  the  same  time.     Tin. 


name  Hattush, 


of  a  descendant  of  David,  who  returned  with  Ezra  from 
Babylon:  this  would  favour  the  view  advanced,  it'  the 
identity  could  be  established;  but  for  this  there  is  no 
evidence.  I.ut  a  more  important  note  of  time  is  the 
notice  in  1  Ch.  ix.  17,  IN,  regarding  the  Levitieal  por 
ters,  "  who  hitherto  (n-imj;,  ad  henna,  until  now,  to 

the  time  of  the  writer)  waited  in  the  king's  gate;"  and 
of  two  of  which,  Akktib  and  Talnion,  mention  is  made 
in  Ne.  xii.  25,  2fj,  as  "keeping  the  ward,  at  the  thres- 


f  the  captivity. 

The  identity  of  authorship  of  the  hooks  of  ( •hronicles 
Kzr.  viii.  2,  as  that     and  Kzra  can  be  established   by  numerous  arguments 


additional  to  the  marks  of  similarity  in  expression 
already  adverted  to.  The  internal  relation  of  the 
Chronicles  and  the  book  of  Ezra  was  early  recognized. 
This  is  seen  from  the  arrangement  of  the  two  adopted 
by  the  LXX.  different  from  that  of  the  Jewish  canon. 
Further,  the  writer  of  the  third  (apocryphal)  book  of 
Ezra  has  wrought  up  the  two  writings  into  one.  The 
Talmud  and  the  rabbins  maintain  that  Ezra  was  the 
writer  of  the  Chronicles;  indeed,  according  to  If  net 


holds  of  the  gates  ....  m  the  days  of  Nehemiah  and     (Domon8t-Evangelloa,lv.H),  "  Esram  libros  Paralipomenon 


of  Ezra  the  priest  tl 


lucubrasse,  Ebreorum  omnium  est  fama  consentiens." 


These   conclusions    from   historical  notices   are   con-          The  conclusion  of  Chronicles,  and  the   beginning  of 

firmed  by  various  peculiarities  of  expression  arid  by  the  lhe  bl"'k  "f  ;1<:/r!l>   uro  almost  identical  in  expression, 

whole   literary  character  of  the   composition.      Of  the  from  which  it  is  but  reasonable  to  infer  that  the  one 

peculiarities  marking  the  late  age  of  the  writer,  is  tin,-  Was  mtell(lo(l  to  1)e  a  continuation  of  the  other,  the  one 

term  .-.-^  (hi  rah ).  Iv  V.  "palace,"  applied  to  the  temple,  llist"r-v  terminating  with  the  decree  for  the  restoration 

'  from  cai>tivity,  the  other  narrating  how  that  decree  w 


instead  of  tlie  old  and  usual  *-;•-  \!i< /,•<//}.      This  was  an 

imitation  of  the  great  Persian  cities,  in  correspondence 
with  which  Jerusalem  is    conceived   of  as   havino-  its 


obtained,  and  how  it  was  carried  out.  Without  this 
connection  tlie  opening  words  of  the  book  of  Ezra  must 
appear  exceedingly  abrupt,  presenting  a  form  of  coin- 


palace,   afterwards   called   Bd/>ts.      Another  term  with  i '  mencemc-nt  which  is  in  reality  only  a .continuation, 
which  the  Hebrews  became  acquainted  in  P.abylon  was  !  Ex.  i.i.)    The  connection  thus  indicated  is  further  evinced 


yiS  (I'til:),  /'i/MH.i,  which  occurs  in  none  of  the  older 
books,  notwithstanding  the  frequent  mention  of  cotton. 
and  is  found  only  in  1  Ch.  iv.  21  ;  xv.  27  ;  2  Ch.  v.  12, 
13;  Es.  i.  6;  and  in  a  book  written  in  C'haldea,  Eze. 


by  the  style,  the  manner  of  narration,  and  of  regarding 
events  from  a  Levitieal  point  of  view,  common  to  the 
two  works  ;  the  whole  spirit,  in  fact,  and  characteristics 
are  identical.  Thus  the  frequent  citations  of  the  law, 

xxvii.  16  (Eichhorn,  Einleitung,  sect.  403),      So  also  the  men-     and  in  similar  terms,  as  ES'CCa   (kamishpat),  meaniij" 

tion  of  T'avm  (adar/con),  E.  V.  "dram,"  but  more  cor- 

1    :— :  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,    iCh.xxiii.  si;  2  Ch.  xxxv. 

rectly  ihtrtc,  i  ch.  xxix.  •-,  also  K/.r.  ii.  ca-  viii.  -11-,  Ne.  vii.  70,  a  |  13;  K/r.  iii.  4,  yet  also  in  No.  viii.  18.     The  descriptions  of  the 

Persian  coin,    the  current  money  of  the  time.     Jahn  (  sacrificial  rites  are  in  the  two  books  very  full,  and  in 


(Einleitung,  sect.  AO)  refers  to  a  remark  in  2  Ch.  iii.  3,  that 
the  cubit  was  after  the  "  first  (or  old)  measure,"  inti 
mating  that  a  new  standard  was  in  use  in  the  time  of 
the  writer.  The  literary  character  of  the  work,  in 
general,  entirely  betokens  a  period  when  the  language 
was  greatly  deteriorated  through  foreign  influences, 
particularly  during  the  exile,  manifesting  many  pecu 
liarities  of  style  and  orthography.  Many  examples  of 
tlie  latter,  as  the  interchange  of  nlcjih  with  he  quies 
cent,  may  be  seen  on  comparing  the  two  lists  of  David's 


nearly  the  same  terms,  comp.  EZV.  ii.  2-5  with  passages  like 
iCh.  xvi.  40;  ach.  viii.  is;  xiii.il;  so  also  the  account  of  the 
celebration  of  the  passover,  Ezr.  vi.  19,  &c.,aml  2Ch.  xx.\.  3.1 ; 
and  the  order  of  the  Levites  in  charge  of  the  temple, 
Ezr.  iii.  8, 9;  1  Ch.  xxxiii.  2,3.  What  presents  the  greatest 
apparent  contrast  in  the  two  books  is  the  high- priest's 
-vnealogv,  in  1  Ch.  vi.  1-15  in  the  descending  line 
terminating  with  the  captivity,  and  in  Ezr.  vii.  1-5 
in  the  ascending  line  from  that  priest  himself  to 
Aaron  ;  but  a  little  consideration  will  reconcile  the  dis- 


heroes  in  1  Ch.  ix.  and  2  Sam.  xiii.  With  respect,  !  crepancy.  The  two  lists  are  partly  parallel,  and  partly 
again,  to  the  later  books,  more  particularly  that  of  Ezra,  !  the  one  is  a  continuation  of  the  other;  as  regards  the 
there  are  many  important  resemblances,  a  list  of  which  !  latter  point  there  can  be  no  conflict,  and  as  to  the 
may  be  found  in  Havernick,  p.  270.  j  former  it  will  be  observed  that  the  list  in  Ezra  is  con- 

This  determination  of  the  age  of  the  composition  ;  siderably  abridged,  many  links  being  omitted  (Bertheau), 
narrows  the  ground  of  inquiry  as  to  its  authorship.  The  j  and  this  could  the  more  readily  be  done  if  the  writer 
Jewish  opinion  that  Ezra  was  the  author  of  the  Chron-  had  elsewhere  given  a  complete  register.  So  far  then 


icles  was  universally  received  down  to  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  when  it  was  called  in  question  by 
the  English  deistical  writer  Hobbes,  who  assigned  to 


for  the  identity  of  the  writer  of  the  Chronicles  and  of 
the  book  of  Ezra ;  but  for  the  proof  that  this  was  Ezra 
himself,  "the  ready  scribe  in  the  law  of  the  Lord," 


it  an  earlier  date.     It  was  Spinoza  who  first  referred  it,  i  reference  is  made  to  the  article  EZRA. 

on  the  contrary,  to  a  later  period  than  the  time  of  Ezra,  \Exegttical  77f?,/.<;.— The  Chronicles  is  a  portion  of  Scripture 

briii  ging  it  down  to  the  time  of  the  Maccabees    a  view  i  wllicn-  although  well  deserving  of  careful  study,  has  been  rarely 

adopted  in  modem  times  by  Gramber-   and  partly  by  '  "m'Je  th«  s"hJect  <*  Carafe  exposition,  either  in  ancient  or 

n    *                                       ,,.         -                       p>            f«"«v   ".v  modern  times.     Recently,  however,  very  valuable  dissertations 

De  \\  ettc.    Carpzov,  Eichhorn,  Havernick,  Welte,  and  have  appeared  in  defence  of  its  credibility,  rich  in  critical  and 


CTIIIOXOLOGY 


31 U 


CHRONOLOGY 


exegetical  matter:  particularly  .so  Keil's  Vff&uck  uber  die  Sucker  particular  lino  in  and  throu<rh  which  any  oTeat  act  was 

dtr  Chrotdk.  Berlin,  1S33;   Movers'  Untei-swltuni/tn  Hit.  die  t>itjl.  ,^cl,,,,il,l  !>.-.,.«•„•.*  ,  1   tl,   ,    ti  *    f     r  -i. 

„,  n  .,   ,,  or  should  oe  ettecteu,  than  the  precise  epoch  of  its  occur- 

Ckroiak,  Bonn,  Ib.U  ;  and  the  portion  of  llavermck  s  Einl.ettv.itri*  n,     ,,  .     , 

in  da,  alt,  Tl*t.  Krlang.  1839,  II.  i.  Beet.  172-181,  devoted  to  this  ™nce-     T°  thi.S  ^  ls  P™ba%  to  be  asenhed  the  various 

subject.    The  parallel  passages  in  Samuel  and  Kings  furnish  much  lireaks  occurring  m  the  record,  showing  that  tliu  Scrip- 

aid  to  the  expositor;  at  the  same  time,  the  differences  thus  pre  tures  look    more   to   the   futurt:   than  to  the  past.      Hut 

sented  give  rise  to  some  of  his  greatest  difficulties.     Next  in  ini-  \  notwithstanding   tlie   obscurities  arising   from   this   cir- 

portanceistlieversionoftheLXX.,  which,  u^m  the  whole,  closely  eumstance.  and  others  which  a  venerable  age  and  rela- 

f>llo\vs  tlie   Masoretic  text.   Movers   and   Ijertheau  consideriii"  <-;    ,        ,    ti  1-4.    i- 

tion  to  the  earliest  tunes  may  have  thrown  upon  th 
Chronicles  one  of  the  best  executed  portions  of  the  LXX.    Th  ' 


is  "lily  one  Tan:um  on  tlie  Chronicles,  a  iiroiluetiuii  uf  tlie  latter 
half  of  the  seventh  century— P«ra,;/i/-«sis  C'/t«ldntca  Ui>,-lCh,-«y,i- 
Cjfum  cum  <••  -•.  I.ntiiw.  ct  nvtlx  Ikflcii,-!  vols.  4 to,  Aug.  Vind.  ir,M)-s:i, 
an  improved  t'dition  of  wiiioli,  by  Wilkins,  appeared  at  . \inst. 
1715.  It  is  said  to  be  of  little  critical  value.  Tlieodoret,  (Jii-s- 
tioii'.s  in  l'a~,-ali/i<>i,tfit<j>t,  Opera  i:J.  Schulze,  vol.  i.  Hal;e.  17ii:i : 
Procopius  of  G.i/ii,  In  lihi-iis  K'.iiiin,  it  Pantlij,.  Nr/,. ,/;,<,  Meursii 
opera,  vol.  viii.  ]).  1.  fol.  Florent.  1741.  A  valuable  work, 
according  to  Carpzov,  particularly  fur  the  genealogical  ivui-icy.-, 
is  Lavater's  Cuiumcntafim  in  tilt, -ox  /'.'/•<//;>,/„,  „..,"„,  fol.  Ti^iiri. 
(lleidell).  I.V.i;i).  The  note-  of  Miehaelis  on  1  Chron.,'  and 


<-;    ,         ,    ti  1-4.    i- 

tion  to  the  earliest  tu 

,  .,  ,    ^     ,  ,         ,.,,.      ,.        . 

Old    lestaineiit,   the  uimcultics  in   its  chronology  are 

probably  not  greater  than  those  which  attach  to  the 
Xew  Testament,  and  certainly  they  aiv  less  than  those 
found  in  any  other  ancient  history.  Indeed,  no  small 
part  of  tlie  difficulties  have  arisen  from  futile  and  un 
warranted  attempts  to  bring  the  Hebrew  chronology 
into  harmony  with  other  schemes,  which,  in  a  great 
measure,  are  palpably  fabulous,  while  in  no  particular 
can  they  be  supposed  to  re-t  upon  better  evidence  than 


jf  Kjimbach  on  •_'  rim 

11.,  in  .-(/ 

notation 

.<  ;,!  //,/ 

I':.,,,,-,,  ,,!,. 

i    1'.  r. 

the  bibl 

cal  hist 

iry. 

Text,    libi-os,    vol.     iii.    Hahe,    T 

20,     de>, 

r\e    noti 

.e.       The 

only 

Our  1 

units  f-. 

rbid  taking  a  c 

miplete 

survey 

of  scrip- 

nodern  work  is  Di>  ////• 

/,,,-,/,,-  <•/,,  -.,„,  y,-,,  •/,-/,;,•/  ,-.,,,  !•:,•,,.<!  /i.  ,-'/,.,',', 

tural  chrenoIo;_<-\ 

:  and  instead  therefore 

of  oflcrini'  desul- 

Uip.  l.s,Vl.  of  eonsidei 
ilUtic.J 

ibl.-  crit 

cal  valu 

-.  but   de 

L-idedly  r 

|i, 

1111,11- 

M    | 

torv  remarks  on  so  ext 

•mled  a 

field,  the  present  articl 

e 

will  be.  limited  to  the  <  >ld  Test: 

uneiit,  : 

ind  to  an  exami- 

CHRONOLOGY.     Th, 

divisic 

n    and 

computation 

nation  < 

f  its  nn 

>re  imjii 

•I'tailt   el 

lochs,  a 

s  the  di 

liiire.  the 

if  time  must  from  tin-  earli 

•st  peri 

.d  have 

engage 

1  the 

call  of  Abraham,  the  exode  from  Eu'V] 

t,  with 

the  addi- 

ittention  of  mankin 

1.     Sue 

i  natural  and  o 

ivious  cycles 

tion  of 

some  n 

marks 

Hi  the  date  of   the   fotlll 

lation  i 

f 

is  the  dav.  month,  and  yeai 

.  would 

present  the  readiest 

the    temple  ;    fol 

thus  far  thei-e 

can  be 

no  proper  colli- 

ueans   for   noting   the   course    of    the   sea.-. 

>ns  am 

the 

sion  with  any  external  t 

•hronolo 

.TV.  and 

the  data  for  th 

irder  of    events.       The    liible,  the-  o 

dv  autl 

entic  n 

cord 

adjustment  of  any  difficulties  must  be 

-uUL'ht  f 

or  in  th 

e 

if   the   first    ages    o 

human    histoi 

V,    sllo\\ 

s   that   these 

I'.ible   al 

ille. 

livisions   of  time  v\ 

ere    early  in  use-.      Tin 

lives  of 

the 

1.  /••/• 

,)ll     thf 

Crcutli 

n    t«    th 

'    7>i  /!!>/,.      The 

chrom 

Kitriarchy,  be-inuiii--  with  tin-  first  man.  were  coin] 

ated 

Laical  i 

lata   which   tin 

Bible 

supj)lies 

with   regard   to 

iy  years,  measured. 

there  is  no  c|in  stimi,  b\-  the  annual 

this    period    are 

sutlicii 

utlv    an 

pie   am 

1    explicit.       The 

•olll'Se     of     the     SUll. 

and   in 

>t    consistm:.',    a 

~    sometimes 

history  proceed 

-    b\   ui  iieratioii 

s,  but  in  order 

to  avoid 

dleged,  of  mere  lull 

itions. 

Month 

salsu  ai 

e  mellti 

,ned 

the  nnet 

rtaintv 

arising 

from  a 

term  si 

variab] 

•  and  in- 

ii  the  history  of  tin 

deluge 

:   and  it  has  be 

•n  com] 

II  ted 

definite. 

tin-   length   of 

the  generation 

is  in  e\'ery  case 

rom  the  data  there 

furnished,  that  the  time  of  Noah's 

distinct! 

v  -tate, 

.      J'.nt 

here   unfortunately  tin-   biblical 

Jiere  was  a  we,  IK 

cycle  too    is  Wl 

th  !_'i'eat   probability 

ironologer  em 
determining  \\\ 

•oimter.s  one  of 

ether   he   is   ill    1 

Ins  clint   <litli( 
ossession  of  tin 

ulties,  in 
genuine 

lednced   from   the  s 

line  hi^ 

tory;  1, 

ut  whether   thi> 

\\as 

text,  si-einu  that  there  are  important  variations 

between 

lie  divisic  >n  of  time 

reforre 

1   to  in 

the    expression 

"at 

the     lie 

iivw    and   sucl 

closeh 

related    documents    as 

he  end  <if  the  days 

Ge.  iv. 

:t,  is  uncertain, 

as   this 

may 

the  Samaritan 

'entatelicll.  tlie 

Septuagint  version,  an 

1 

>erhaps  with   greater  proha 

lility  be  under 

stood    of 

the 

the  writings   of 

tloscphus.      The   nature   and   extent  < 

f 

•lose   of  the   year. 

But  although 

sufficient  intimation 

these   discrepancies    will    be   se(;n    from    the 

ollowill 

, 

s  given  in  the  I'.iblt 

•  that  the  computation 

of    tlllR 

was 

tables,   ( 

omprising  this 

and    tin-  siiccct 

ding  iieriod,  fo 

r 

•arefully  attended    to    from 

the  Iii 

st,     Vet 

considerable 

both   an 

•    affected    ill    the    saim 

manner;   and 

they  are 

lifficulties   attend    tin-   chronology 

.f    the   . 

irly  his 

»ry, 

here    bn 

light  ti 

gether  in  order 

to  illustrate  more  fully 

rom  this  circumstance  amo 

ng  otln 

rs.  that 

the  ehr,,no- 

the  principle  in 

which  the  variations  original  e. 

,  and  s 

j 

ogv  was  subori  limit 

ito  the 

/ell  ealo 

.TV  ;  it  b 

eing  deemed 

helping 

lossiblv 

to  detect  whereinto  the  corruption  has 

iy  the  sacred  hi-torian  of  more  ini] 

>rt  an  ce 

to  mark  the 

been  introduced. 

TAIII.I:    I 

From  tin  Creation  t<>  tl«   7></u</<-. 

Lived  before  Bir 

ll  of  Kid 

•*t  Son. 

After  the  liirth  of  KldcM.  Soil. 

Total  Leu, 

;th  of  I.  if,.. 

Hebr. 

Sum. 

Sept. 

Hebr 

s 

^ 

Josel) 

Ib  1,1 

y 

loxi'll 

Adam,.      .      . 

_. 

' 

130 

130 

230 

230 

800 

Mill 

7(111 

7(1(1 

930 

930 

930 

930 

Seth,     .      . 

105 

105 

205 

205 

807 

807 

7117 

7H7 

912 

912 

912 

912 

Enos,    . 

90 

90 

1  DO 

190 

815 

815 

715 

71", 

905 

905 

905 

905 

Cainan. 

7o 

7" 

170 

17o 

840 

840 

740 

740 

910 

910 

910 

910 

Mahalalecl.     .      . 

65 

65 

165 

165 

830 

830 

73o 

730 

895 

895 

895 

895 

.Tared,  .... 

162 

62 

162 

162 

800 

785 

800 

800 

962 

847 

962 

962 

Enoch,  .... 

65 

65 

165 

165 

300 

300 

200 

200 

365 

365 

365 

365 

Methuselah.    . 

187 

67 

187 

187 

782 

653 

782 

782 

969 

720 

969 

969 

Lamech,    . 

182 

53 

188 

182 

595 

600 

565 

595 

777 

653 

753 

777 

Noah  at  the  flood, 

600 

600 

600 

600 

To  the.  flood,  .      . 

1656 

1307 

2262 

2256 

I 

CHRONOLOGY 

TAKI.F,   II. 


•'^l*'1  f'lfROXOLOOY 

tin-  Dilmjc  t<>  tin'  Hirtii  of  A  hrnhnin. 


Lived  before  l',ii 
Hebr.         S.-iiii 

111  of  Kldest  Soil. 

After  t.l 
[Joln- 

t;  Hirth  of  Kldost 

Total  Length  o 

Di'lmjf.       Shrill.       .        .             2* 

•> 

•2         1  •_' 

SOO 

/500 

fiOO 

—  «—- 

COO 

Arphaxad                           3/5 

1  |jfj 

1:5:")  !   1:5/5 

403 

303 

403 

438 

|  (  'ainan  11  

130 

330] 

Salah  3o 

13d 

13d       130 

40:5         303 

303 

433 

Kber  34       i;;i 

13-1       134          -130 

•270 

•270 

4o| 

Peleg.                .     .     .       :5i»     j  i:5(i 

13(i       13o          2o;i 

109 

•2oii 

239 

Ken!  i     32        132 

132       130          ^07 

107 

•207 

239 

Senig.       .            .      .      .  |      30 

130 

130       13'2       |   -200 

100 

•2oo 

230 

X.-ihcr  29 

79 

79       I'Jd          11H           <>9 

129 

148 

Terah.      .      .            .      .        70     1      7(1 

7o-         70         13")          75 

1  3/5 

205        14/5 

Tu  birth  of  Al.raliain.      2!'2         '.Ml' 

107-2       993 

Sept. 


Inspection  c if  llu:  preceding  tattles  will  >li.i\v  that  be 
tween  the  Hebrew  text  and  the  Septuagint,  with  which 
Josephus  closely  agrees,  tliere  is  a  remarkable  difference1 
in  the  lengths  of  the  successive  generations,  amounting  j 
to  IJOO  years  in  tile  antedeluvian,  and  to  7<H>  years  in  the  ; 
postdeluvian;  while  the  systematic  appearance  exhibited 
by  the  variations  in  the  case  of  the  several  patriarchs, 
proves  that  it  is  the  result  not  of  accident  but  of  de 
sign.  In  the  Hebrew  the  centenary  deficiencies  in  the 
lengths  of  the  generations  are  added  to  the  residues  of 
the  lives  ;  while  in  tile  Septuagint  the  centenary  addi 
tions  to  the  lengths  of  the  generations  are  subtracted 
from  the  residues  of  lives,  so  as  to  make  the  total 
length  of  the  lives  in  the  two  alike.  On  which  side  the 
fabrication  is  to  be  charged,  is  a  question  greatly  dis 
puted  among  chronologers.  It  is  unnecessary  to  cite 
the  eminent  authorities  who  have  ranged  themselves  on 
either  side  of  this  controversy;  suffice  it  to  say.  that 
the  fathers  of  the  church,  Origeii  and  Jerome  excepted, 
from  their  acquaintance  only  with  the  Septuagint,  fol 
lowed  its  method  of  reckoning;  but  on  the  revival  of 
Flebrew  learning  at  and  after  the  Reformation,  more 
deference  was  shown  to  the  Masoretio  chronology. 
About  a  century  after  that  religious  movement.  Arch 
bishop  Usher  published  his  great  work,  Anna/ex  Vttn-is 
Testament  i,  Lond.  ](>/50.  fol.,  founded  on  the  Hebrew 
text.  The  chronology  of  the  English  Bible  was  re 
gulated  by  this  scheme.  Among  the  other  works  on 
this  subject,  and  on  the  same  side,  produced  during 
that  period  of  profound  learning,  mention  must  be  made 
of  the  elaborate  work,  now  almost  unknown,  of  the 
erudite  Principal  Robert  Baillie  of  the  university 
of  (Glasgow,  entitled  <))><••)•!*  //i.-ttnrici  tt  Chronologifii 
Lihri  flmi,  Amstel.  ]»!(!:!.  fol.  On  the  other  hand. 
Isaac  Vossius  appeared  in  defence  of  the  Septuagint 
in  his  hiwrtatio  <lc  rerti  ^Etate  Mnndi,  Hag.  li>/50. 

4to.  The  labours  of  Jackson  (Chronological  Antiquities, 
3vols.  4to,  Limd.  17MK  and  of  Hales  (New  Analysis  of  Chrono 
logy,  2d  edit.  4  vols.  M-O,  Lond.  ivsn),  have  greatly  contri 
buted  in  procuring  among  British  scholars  a  preference 
for  the  chronology  of  the  Septuagint,  although  there 
are  not  wanting  many  symptoms  of  a  reaction,  to  men 
tion  only  Clinton's  Fasti  Hellenic!,  Oxford,  1834,  &c.. 
and  Brown's  On/o  Sn/'/nritm,  Lond.  1847.  in  both  of 
which  the  Hebrew  chronology  is  followed. 

The  chronology  of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  meets 
at  present  with  no  favour ;  and  in  fact  the  evidences  of 
the  liberties  which  have  been  taken  with  this  recension 


are  of  too  glaring  a  character  to  escape  notice:  as  for 
instance  the  circumstance  that  of  the  ten  antediluvian 
patriarchs,  three — viz.  , tared,  Methuselah,  and  Lamoeh 
--died  in  the  year  assigned  to  the  flood.  But  irrespec 
tive  of  this,  its  testimony  in  favour  of  either  of  the  other 
two  chronologies  is  neutralized  by  the  fact  that,  while  in 
regard  to  the  period  before  the  deluge,  omitting  Xoali. 
whose  history  was  too  minute  and  circumstantial  to  ad 
mit  of  being  tampered  with,  it  agrees  with  the  Hebrew 
except  in  three  instances,  in  two  of  which  the  Hebrew 
corresponds  with  the  LXX.,  and  in  the  other  with  Jose 
phus;  whereas,  with  respect  to  the  postdeluvian  period, 
it  agrees  with  the  LXX.  in  every  instance,  exeeptinif 
only  in  the  case  of  Cainan. 

The  chief  reliance,  however,  of  the  advocates  of  the 
extended  chronology  is  on  the  testimony  of  Josephus 

(Russell.  Connection  of  Sue.  and  Prof.  Hist.  i.  p.fiT,  Lond.  lMi~),  but 
even  here  the  evidence  is  not  so  unimpeachable  as  at  first 
it  may  appear.  The  similarity  observable  between  the 
Septuagint  and  Josephus  in  the  first  period  is  indeed  so 
striking,  particularly  when  viewed  in  connection  with 
the  diversity  which  marks  the  .second,  as  of  itself  to 
awaken  suspicion  that  the  one  chronology  has  been 
conformed  to  the  other,  independently  of  the  Hebrew 
original.  This  suspicion  is  further  strengthened  by  find 
ing  that  in  other  passages  of  Josephus,  as,  for  example, 
Antii/.  vii.  3.  sec.  1;  x.  8,  sec.  ,r>,  the  Hebrew  chrono 
logy  has  been  followed.  These  passages,  bearing  only 
incidentally  on  the  matter  in  dispute,  and  involving 
besides  arithmetical  processes,  may  in  that  way  have 
escaped  the  adjustments  to  which  the  more  obvious  and 
direct  statements  comprised  in  two  short  sections  ( Antii|. 
i. ,%  sec.  4;  (i,  sec  r>)  had  been  subjected.  It  might  be  un 
fair  to  press  such  discrepancies  as  the  statement  (Antiq. 
i. :!,  .sec.  3)  of  the  period  of  the  deluge  at  2656,  whereas 
the  sum  of  the  generations  specified  in  the  next  section 
amounts  only  to  -2-2.r)()  years  ;  or  the  statement  (Antiq.  i.  <;, 
sec.  r>)  that  Abraham  was  born  202  years  after  the  deluge, 
while  the  actual  sum  of  the  generations  specified  imme 
diately  after  is  993  years  ;  for  the  first  is  obviously  an 
inadvertence,  and  the  other  may  have  been  the  attempt 
of  a  transcriber  to  introduce  the  shorter  reckoning. 
Should  it,  however,  be  urged,  that  the  four  terms  of 
Josephus,  for  there  are  so  many  at  least,  into  which 
the  shorter  computation  enters  singly  or  in  combina 
tion  (Jour,  of  Sac.  Lit.  Jan.  i8.->o,  p.  (ii)  have  been  falsified, 
a  process  very  unlikely,  as  nothing  could  be  thereby 
gained,  while  the  other  more  numerous  and  direct  terms 


CHRONOLOGY 


CHRONOLOGY 


were  untouched,  the  authority  of  Josephus  in  this  contro 
versy  suffers  greatly  from  the  corruption  thus  assumed. 
Tf,  as  Hales  admits  (New  Anal  of  Chron.  1.  p.  294),  "his 
dates  have  been  miserably  mangled  and  perverted,  fre 
quently  by  accident  and  frequently  by  design,"  there 
is  a  strong  presumption,  from  the  ignorance  of  the  He 
brew  Scriptures  on  the  part  of  his  transcribers,  com 
pared  with  the  general  acquaintance  with  the  Greek 
version  and  the  decided  preference  shown  to  its  chrono 
logy,  that  it  was  f  ram  the  latter  rather  than  frmn  the 
fi inner  the  variations  proceeded. 

In  the  absence  then  of  all  consistent  testimony  <>n 
t'le  part  of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  and  even  of 
.Toscphus,  although  not  readily  admitted  by  his  advo 
cates,  recourse  is  had  to  other  considerations  for  prov 
ing  the  superiority  of  the  longer  chronology.  Of  the 
grounds  on  which  J  >r.  Russell,  in  his  one-sided  plea  for 
the  Septuagint.  founds  the  assumption  of  a  corruption 
of  the  Hebrew  text,  one  is.  that  the  .lews  had  both  :v 
motive  and  an  opportunity  for  falsifying  their  Scrip 
tures  (Connection,  p.  7:>,-7:'i,  the  motive  being  that  their 
rejection  of  < 'lirist  rendered  necessary  an  extensive 
change  in  their  dates  and  calculations,  owing  to  a 
generally  entertained  opinion  that  the  world  was  to 
continue  only  (idiid  years,  and  that  < 'hrist  was  to  ap 
pear  in  the  sixth  millennium:  while  an  opportunity  for 
effecting  the  change  was  found  in  the  troubled  state  of 
affairs  during  their  wars  with  the  Itomans,  when  many 
copies  of  their  sacred  books  wen-  lost,  while  those  that 
remained  were  confined  to  themselves,  and  understood 
only  by  few.  Without,  however,  entering  into  u  dis 
cussion  of  these  assertions,  it  is  enough  to  remark  that 
they  can  be  met  by  others  equally  plausible  if  not,  more 
convincing.  \\  hat  greater  opportunity  could  have  pre 
sented  itself  for  conforming  the  scriptural  dates  to  a 
theory,  if  such  existed,  than  that  afford,  d  by  the  publi 
cation  of  the  LXX..  and  before'  copies  were  to  any 
extent  multiplied.'  And  that  some  such  antecedent 
theory  existed  as  is  disclosed  by  the  longer  chronology, 
and  that  consequently  there  was  a  motive  for  extend 
ing  the  scriptural  scheme,  admits  of  no  doubt:  and  it 
may  be  added,  that  it  is  to  the  influence  of  this  or 
similar  theories  that  the  chronology  of  the  I, XX.  is 
indebted  for  much  of  its  present  acceptance.  Indepen 
dently  of  numerous  minor  traces  which  the  Septuagint 
version  bears  of  the  soil  on  which  it  was  produced,  it 
can  be  shown  pretty  clearly,  if  there  be  any  truth  in 
the  scheme  of  Egyptian  chronology  lately  propounded 
by  1'oole  ^I,.n>  .!•>.-] iti.-uM-.  I,ni,.l.  1-.MI,  that  tile  extended 
reckoning  was  an  endeavour  to  bring  the  chronology  of 
the  sacred  Scriptures  into  harmony  with  that  of  Egypt. 
Tlie  very  fact  then,  if  such  it  should  lie  proved,  that  the 
Septuagint  synchronizes  with  the  Egyptian  chronology, 
instead  of  proving  the  correctness  of  the  former  as 
against  the  Hebrew,  is,  considering  the  uncertain  sources 
whence  the  Egyptian  chronology  was  deduced,  the  prin 
ciples  on  which  it  •was  constructed,  and  the  disposition 
so  strong  in  that  people  and  other  ancient  nations  of 
assigning  a  high  and  even  fabulous  date  to  their  origin 
-witness  the  dynasties  of  Manetho,  which  Bunsen  and 
Lepsius  are  vainly  labouring  to  reduce  within  some 
conceivable  limits  —  the  strongest  possible  testimony 
against  the  scheme  followed  by  the  Septuagint. 

Another  presumption  advanced  against  the  integrity 
i  if  the  Hebrew  text,  is  f<  nmd  in  the  difficulties  with  which, 
as  regards  especially  the  postdeluvian  patriarchs,  the 

statements  are  encumbered,  owing  to  the  short  period 

VOL.  I. 


between  the  flood  and  Abraham;  as  for  instance  tin- 
fact  of  that  patriarch  being  made  contemporary  with 
Noah  for  more  than  half  a  century,  and  with  Sliem 
(luring  his  whole  lifetime.  Attaching  no  weight  to  the 
other  difficulties  alleged,  as  that  Abraham  alone,  and 

I  to  the  exclusion  of  Sliem.  the  founder  of  the  family, 
who,  according  to  the  chonology.  was  then  alive,  was 

.  introduced  into  covenant  with  God  through  the  rite  of 
circumcision  (Russell,  Connec.  i.  p.  <w).  as  resting  on  a  mis 
apprehension  of  the  object  of  the  divine  procedure, 

i  there  are,  it  must  be  allowed,  considerable  difficulties 
attaching  to  the  chronology  of  this  period.  But  these 
admit  of  being  regarded  in  two  different  lights.  They 
are  either  the  result  of  the  abbreviation  introduced  into 
the  Hebrew  text,  or  they  have  been  the  occasion  of  the 
lengthened  scheme  adopted  by  the  Septuagint.  In  the 
former  case  they  must  have  been  as  apparent  to  the 
authors  of  the  forgery  as  to  modern  critics,  and  so  have 
discouraged  any  such  attempts  :  while  on  the  other 
hand,  the  existence  of  these  difficulties  and  seeming  con 
tradictions  furnished  very  strong  motives  for  their  re 
moval.  The  quarter  most  susceptible  to  such  influ 
ences,  it  is  not  difficult  to  indicate:  for  the  matter  is 
raised  from  the  region  of  conjecture  by  the  circumstance 
that  in  one  instance  the  Septuagint  goes  beyond  its 
usual  caution  of  merely  lengthening  the  generation,  by 
the  addition  of  a  new  name  and  generation  to  the 
genealogies,  and  for  which  there  is  no  support  whatever 
(.-•«/  < '.\INA\\  so  that  even  its  great  defender  Hales  ad 
mits —  ''The  Septuagint  version  is  not  to  be  followed 
implicitly:  it  requires  correction  in  some  parts"  (NVw 
Anal,  of  Chron.  i.  p.  2Mi)-  an  admi-Mon  which  goes  far  to 
damage  its  entire  authority  in  the  present  controversy. 
\or  is  the  aspect  of  matters  at  all  improved  in  favour 
of  the  Septuagint,  when  from  these  more  external  con 
siderations  we  turn  to  an  investigation  of  the  changes 
effected.  On  examining  Table  I.  given  above,  one  of 
the  first  things  that  strikes  th"  reader  is  the  remarkable 
uniformity  which  characteri/es  the  riirures  in  the  first 
column  headed  N/ />/..  the  same  also  with  the  >'«//;(.,  pre 
senting  upon  the  whole  a  gradual  diminution  in  the 
lengths  of  the  successive  generations,  and  a  marked 
contrast  with  the  figures  in  the  //<///•.  column.  In  the 
one  case  there  is  something  very  like  an  artificial  for 
mula:  in  the  other,  there  are  the  natural  inequalities 
and  abrupt  changes  which  may  be  expected  in  real  life. 
But  these  attempts  at  uniformity  were  carried  too  far, 
and  to  an  extent  which  threatened  to  upset  the  system  : 
for  notice  must  be  taken  of  an  important  variation  in 
the  L.rener,\tion  of  Methuselah,  the  best  Greek  MSS. 
makinir  it  Io7  years.  This  reading,  adopted  by  Stier 
and  Theile  (['olyglotton-isibul,  Bielufeld,  1M7),  and  by  Tisch- 
endorf,  in  his  edition  of  the  Septuagint  (Lips.  is:,<>), 
makes  the  uniformity  still  more  marked  :  but  it  was 
somehow  perceived  that  this  required  that  Methuselah 

j  should  survive  the  flood  for  at  least  fourteen  years.  In 
examining  Table  II.  also,  it  will  be  perceived  that  the 
Septuagint  assigns  nearly  the  same  length  to  a  genera 
tion  as  in  the  preceding  period,  although  after  the  flood 
human  life  was  reduced  at  once  to  one-half,  and  gradu 
ally  to  one-third  and  one-fourth  of  what  it  had  been 
before  that  catastrophe.  But  enough:  there  is,  to  say 
the  least,  no  such  preponderating  testimony  in  favour 
of  the  Septuagint  chronology,  as  furnishes  any  ground 
for  setting  up  its  authority  against  that  of  the  original : 
and  the  latter  must  still  be  regarded  as  possessing  the 

'  strongest  claim  to  our  belief. 

41 


CHRONOLOGY 


CHRONOLOGY 


TAIM.K  l!f. --  From  tin  Cn-nt/nii  t<,  tin  F I  <>•«].  showing,  according  (i.)  t<>  tin;  Hebrew,  and  (ii.'l  to  the  Greek 
reckoning--!.  The  mmil)cr  of  years  tlial  cadi  Patriarch  was  contemporary  with  the  other.  '2.  The  years  of 
the  World  in  which  each  \vn<  born  and  died.  :.',.  The  ALCC  of  each. 


J 

•jr. 

"-•                  rt                 .1; 

•j 

:j 

*\  (1  ju  1  1 

yso 

: 

Setll,    .      . 

-.mi 

'.>!•_> 

linos 

095 

M  >~ 

DO/i 

(  'aiiiM.n. 

Cil.'i 

717 

Mf>     fin 

Mahalalorl.    .      . 

/i  :>.") 

(i47 

l\->     sin     Sft.l 

.Tared 

4711 

5*2 

(i.so      77-''      N')ii 

902 

Enoch.      . 

308 

/iti" 

Methuselah,  .      . 

;',•>/; 

in:',      5  IS      tin:! 

7:!;-) 

:',IM 

l.nnit'cli  

5(j 

1(58 

2lil>     3C.1     4  It; 

.148 

1  l: 

Noah  

M       17!'      -2:'.  1 

oGG 

Sheni.  \c.     . 

Adam. 
Setli,    . 
Enos,  . 
( 'aina.n, 
Mahalal 
.Tared, 
Enoch 
Methusrlah 
Lamech,  . 
Noah.  . 
Sliem,  &C., 

The  Flood, 


y,  -      i  Horn.     Died.  '    Age.   ' 


XOTE.— The  upper  division  is  after  the  Hebrew,  the  lower  after  (he  LXX. 


IT.  From  tltc  D<hi;/c  In  tic  Call  <>/  .\br<ili<im. — Much 
that  properly  belong  to  this  period  has  been  antici 
pated  in  the  remarks  on  the  comparative  value  of  the 
Hebrew  and  Soptuagint  chronologies,  for  the  tamper 
ing  with  the  record  has  been  pursued  to  a  certain  extent 
to  the  case  of  Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham.  That 
point  being  once  settled,  little  remains  to  embarrass 
the  reader.  Oaiuan,  also  introduced  by  the  Septuagint 
into  this  period,  has  been  already  sufficiently  considered 
(*•«•  ( 'AINAN).  There  is  one  point,  however,  in  connec 
tion  with  this  period  not  yet  adverted  to,  not  certainly 
of  the  same  importance,  nor  of  the  same  nature,  as  those 
already  considered,  yet  one  which  has  afforded  ample 
room  for  disputation  to  biblical  chronologers.  This  is 
the  year  of  Abraham's  birth.  The  difficulty  here,  how 
ever,  does  not  arise,  as  in  the  former  case,  from  anything 
properly  external  to  the  Scriptures,  or  such  as  would 
bring  in  question  the  integrity  of  the  text,  but  originates 
in  a  statement  recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  the 
nature  of  which  will  presently  appear. 

According  to  Go.  xi.  2(5,  Terah  was  seventy  years 
old  when  he  begat  Abraham,  Nahor,  and  Haran ;  ac 
cording  to  Ge.  xi.  32,  Terah  died  at  the  age  of  205  years  ; 
while  Ge.  xii.  4  states  that  Abraham  was  seventy-five 
years  old  when,  in  consequence  of  the  divine  call,  he 
departed  from  Haran  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan. 
On  this  reckoning  Terah  must  have  survived  the 
migration  of  Abraham  sixty  years.  The  protomartyr 
Stephen,  in  his  address  before  the  Jewish  council,  Ac 
vii.  4,  however,  expressly  states  that  Terah  predeceased 
his  son's  migration:  "When  his  father  was  dead,  he 
( Abraham1)  removed  him  into  this  land  wherein  ye  now 


dwell.''  Some  writers  content  themselves  with  the 
remark  that  the  Jewish  chronology  which  Stephen  here 
followed  must  have  been  at  fault;  so  Alford  (Greek 
Test,  in  loc.)  and  Kurtz  (Ilerzog's  Roal-Enoyklopadie,  i.  p.  n), 
without  once  adverting  to  the  strong  improbability  that 
the  Jews  should  have  so  misinterpreted  such  a  plain 
passage  of  their  Scriptures,  and  one  so  related  to  the 
history  of  their  great  ancestor ;  while  others  as  sum 
marily  dispose  of  the  contradiction  by  feigning  a  visit 
of  Abraham  to  Terah  before  his  death,  after  whose  de 
cease  he  returned  to  the  Promised  Land.  Not  satisfied 
with  these  or  similar  modes  of  adjustment,  not  a  few 
eminent  chronologers  take  a  different  view  of  Ge.  xi.  2G, 
holding  that  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  from  this 
passage  that  Abraham  was  the  eldest  son  of  Terah,  and 
so  born  in  the  year  specified.  On  the  contrary,  they 
make  him  to  have  been  the  youngest  son.  and  born  when 
his  father  was  1  :\(  >  years  old .  Usher  is  usually  regarded 
as  the  propounder  of  this  theory ;  but  it  is  of  much 
older  date,  having  been  held  by  Calvin,  Musculus.  and 
others  of  the  Reformation  period. 

In  estimating  the  weight  due  to  this  supposition,  it 
must  be  at  once  admitted  that  the  mention  of  Terah' s 
death  before  the  historian  enters  upon  the  history  of 
Abraham,  is  in  itself  no  evidence  of  the  real  order  of 
the  events  recorded,  as  it  often  occurs  in  Scripture  that 
all  that  concerns  a  particular  individual  is  disposed  of 
before  treating  of  the  next  historical  personage.  It  must 
also  be  admitted  that  Go.  v.  32,  where  Shorn,  although 
the  second  son  of  Noah,  is  placed  first  of  his  three  sons, 
all  of  whom  are  said  to  have  been  born  in  the  500th 
year  of  their  father,  is  not  altogether  analogous  to  the 


CHRONOLOGY 


323 


CHRONOLOGY 


present   passage ;    for  possibly   only  a   short   interval  j 
elapsed  between  the  birth  of  Noah's  sons,  while  with 
regard  to  Terah  no  less  than  sixty  years  are  alleged  j 
between  the  eldest  and  the  youngest.      It  is  also  some 
what   unfavourable  to  this  view  that  there  is  thus  no 
direct  intimation  of  the  year  of  Abraham's  birth —the 
most  illustrious  personage  of  Old  Testament  history — 
if  the  want  is  not  compensated  by  the  express  mention  of 
his  age  at  the  time  of  his  call,  a  far  more  important  epoch 
as  regards  the  sacred  history  than  that  of  his  birth. 

But  notwithstanding  these  deductions,  there  are  argu 
ments  of  no  little  weight  favourable  to  this  supposition. 
Haran,  whom  it  is  thus  concluded  was  the  eldest  sun 
of  Teruh,  predeceased  his  father,  leaving  one  son,  Lot, 
and  two  daughters,  Milcah  and  Iscah,  Go.  xi.  27-L':i.  Mileah 
became  the  wife  of  her  uncle  Nahor  ;  but  of  Iscah  there 
is  110  further  mention  under  that  name  in  Scripture. 
Abraham's  wife  is  named  Sarai,  but  the  historian  here 
gives  no  hint  who  or  whence  she  was;  and  not  until  a 
subsequent  stage  in  the  historv.  and  from  a  statement 
of  Abraham  himself,  does  it  appear  that  she  was  his 
sister,  Go.  xx.  12.  From  the  manner  in  which  Iscah's 
name  is  introduced  in  connection  with  Milcah's.  in  the 
notice  of  the  marriages  of  Abraham  and  Nahor,  and 
no  further  reference  to  her  — not  even  on  the  removal 
of  Terah  ami  his  family  to  Haran,  when  a  list  of  the 
(•migrants  is  '/m-n,  <;,.  si.  :;i  :  "  And  Terah  took  Abram 
his  son.  and  Lot  the  son  of  Haran  his  son's  son.  and 
Sarai  his  daughter-in-law,  bis  son  Abrain's  wife;" — from 
this  and  other  considerations  it  has  not  unfrequently 
been  concluded,  even  by  such  as  are  by  no  means  in 
clined  to  the  vie\v  in  support  of  which  this  argument  is 
no\v  adduced,  that  Iscah  must  have  I"  eu  another  name 
for  Sarai.  The  rabbinical  writers  in  general  held  this 
identitv.  as  appears  from  the  Talmud,  the  Talcum  of 
Jonathan,  and  also  from  .laivhi ;  and  it  was  the  current 
opinion  in  th--  time  of  Josephus  (Auti>i  i.  fi.sect.  M.  The 
only  thing  that  can  be  urged  to  the  contrary  is  Abra 
ham's  statement,  Go.  \\.  TJ,  "And  yet  indeed  she  is  my 
sister:  she  is  the  daughter  of  mv  father,  but  not  the 
daughter  of  my  mother."  From  this  it  is  objected  that 
the  last  clause  forbids  the  taking  of  the  term  "  sister"  in 
the  same  latitude  as  "  brother  '  elsewhere,  or  as  denoting 
"  a  niece,''  as  if  Sarah  was  the  ;/riiinl-<(iiii;//if(  r  of  Terah. 
This  objection  is  of  little  weight,  considering  the  cir 
cumstances  in  which  Abraham  made  the  statement. 
He  had  been  convicted  of  practising  a  deception  in 
giving  out  that  Sarah  was  not  his  wife  but  his  si.-ter, 
and  in  now  palliating  his  offence  lie  had  a  motive  for 
placing  his  consanguineal  relation  to  Sarah  in  the  nio.-t 
colourable  li^ht:  he  cannot,  however,  say  that  she  is 
his  full  sister,  but  is  a  step  further  removed- she  is  not 
the  daughter  of  his  mother  this  not  hcini;  the  notiee 
of  a  second  marriage  of  Terah,  but  a  hint  of  the  real 
state  of  the  case.  Now,  if  the  identity  of  Iscah  and 
Sarah  can  be  established,  it  follows  that  Abraham  must 
have  been  much  younger  than  Haran,  whose  daughter 
was  only  ten  years  younger  than  her  husband,  Co.  xvii.  17. 

Another  consideration  which  renders  it  highly  pro 
bable  that  Tenth's  death  was  prior  to  Abraham's  re-  j 
moval  from  Haran  is,  that  otherwise  the  aged  patriarch  j 
must  have  been  left  there  alone,  for  all  the  members  of 
his  family  specified  as  having  accompanied  him  from 
Ur  of  the  Chaldees  followed  Abraham  into  Canaan,  Go. 
xii.  ">.      Kven  Lot,  who  had  no  divine  call  to  undertake 
a  journey  in  a  worldly  point  of  view  so  unpromising — 
that  Lot  was  susceptible  to  such  considerations  appears 


from  his  history,  Go.  xiii.  in,  n — joins  his  uncle,  instead  of 
remaining  with  his  desolate  grandfather.  This  is  in 
conceivable  if  Terah  was  still  alive.  Further,  there  is 
no  communication  kept  up  between  the  emigrants  into 
Canaan  ami  the  relatives  left  behind  at  the  original  seat 
of  the  family.  Not  until  after  the  intended  offering 
of  Isaac,  fifty  years  at  least  after  the  entrance  into 
Canaan,  did  Abraham  hear  of  the  state  of  his  brother's 
family,  Go.  xxii.  20.  If  then  Terah  must  have  died  prior 
to  Abraham's  removal  to  Canaan,  the  latter  must 
have  been  born  when  his  father  was  1MO  years  old,  or 
:jO-2  years  after  the  flood.  (See  Table  lV."oii  p.  3-2-1.) 

111.  From  the  L'ull  of  Al>ru/ntm  t<>  tin  /:'.<W<.  —From 
the  creation  to  tin.-  death  of  .Joseph,  there  is  an  unin 
terrupted  series  of  dates;  but  from  the  latter  event  to 
the  exodus  there  is  no  note  of  time,  save  the  statement 
in  F\.  xii.  4i>.  that  a  period  of  4.'io  years  had  elapsed 
between  the  children  of  Israel's  departure  from  1'Vypt 
and  the  commencement  of  their  sojourn  ;  but  whether 
this  included  their  sojourn  in  Canaan  or  only  in  E<_jypt, 
is  a  point  much  controverted.  The  Septuagint  ((.'«</(.<• 
\'<(t'«-<tn>if\  ^ives  the  pa-^.-i-v  thus:  "  But  the  sojourn 
ing  of  the  children  of  Israel,  during  which  they  dwelt 
iu  Furypt  "/"/  in  t'n  Iund  i >f  CuitiKiii,  was  Kio  years." 
The  Samaritan  recension:  "And  the  sojourn  of  the 
children  of  Israel  and  of  their  fathers  'm  the  hind  <>f 
Canaan  «/«/  in  the  land  of  Fgypt,"  \c.  ;  and  this  read 
ing  is  followed  by  the  Alexandrian  codex  of  the  Scp- 
tuagint.  That  the-e  aie  unauthorized  additions  to  the 
text  is  not  denied  by  any  biblical  critic,  although  it 
may  be  questioned  whether  they  do  not  correctly  con- 
\vv  the  import  of  the  original. 

\\\\i  first  as  to  the  facts  of  the  ease  dedueihli-  from 
tlie  genealogies  and  notes  of  time  as  far  as  they  ex 
tend.  From  the  call  of  Abraham  to  the  birth  of  Isaac. 
-~>  years,  Gon.  \ii.  I;  xxi.  .". ;  hence  to  the  birth  of  Jacob, 
o'o  years.  Go  \\,  i;;,,  and  again  to  Jacob's  going  down 
to  Fnvpt.  l:;o  years  more,  GO.  vlvii. », us,  or  2">  -f-iiu-f-  i;',ii 
^•21fi  years  in  all.  NOW  Levi,  whose  ueuealo-y  is 
iriveli  ill  Fx.  vi.  l»i-'2<>.  must  have  been  about  42  years 
when  he  went  do\\n  with  his  father  into  F^'vpt,  and 
as  he  lived  in  all  137  years,  he  must  have  spent 
!';">  years  then-.  lint  Amram  the  father  of  Moses  mar 
ried  his  father  Kohath's  sister  Joehebed,  "  the  daughter 
of  Le\i.  whom  her  mother  bare  to  Levi  in  Egypt,'' 
NIL  xxvi.  :,',',  who  mu.-t  therefore  have  been  born  within 
the  period  of  II;")  years  just  specified,  extending  from 
the  going  down  to  Fgypt  to  the  death  of  Levi.  lint 
as  Moses  was  So  years  old  at  the  exode,  Kx  vii.  7,  it  is 
evident  that  the  sojourn  in  Fgvpt  could  not  have  ex 
tended  to  anything  approaching  Ion  years,  without 
assigning  to  the  mother  of  Moses  at  the  time  of  bis 
birth  an  age  altogether  inconceivable.  But  taking 
Joehebed's  auv  at  about  4/i,  and  supposing  her  to  have 
been  born  !~i  years  before  the  death  of  her  father  Levi, 
we  shall  have  'jo  -J--1")  -}-  so  —  -21',  years  for  the  sojourn 
in  Egypt,  which  added  to  the  interval  from  the  call  of 
Abraham  to  Jacob's  removal  into  "Egypt,  ^ives  the 
whole  period  of  -Irin  years.  With  this  agrees  the  state 
ment  of  the  apostle  Paul  in  ( !a.  iii.  1  7,  where  he  reckons 
the  period  from  the  promises  made  to  Abraham  to  the 
giving  of  the  law  as  430  years. 

There  are  unquestionably  serious  difficulties  con 
nected  with  this  view,  the  most  important  of  which  is 
that  it  is  opposed  to  the  express  statement  of  Ex.  xii. 
40,  not  as  in  the  English  version,  ''Now  the  sojourn 
ing  of  the  children  of  Israel,  ir/ni  ilii-clf,"  but,  "Now 


CHRONOLOGY  •'>-!  CHRONOLOGY 

TAHI.K   IN'.  —From  Ilie  Flood  to  (lit  Dcaf/i  of  Jacob. 


No.di.   . 

|    Shem,     . 
Arphaxad. 
Salah.    . 
Kber,     . 
1'clcg, 
I'eu, 
Si -rug.   . 
Nahor, 
Terah,  . 
Aliraham. 
Isaac.    . 
Jacob.  . 

Noah,  . 
Shem,  . 
Arphaxad. 
<  'ainan, 
Salah.  . 
Kber,  . 
IVleg.  . 
Reu,  . 

Nahor. 
Terah,  . 
Abraham, 
I  saac.    . 
.Jacob,  . 


1056 

200(3 

950 

1556 

2156 

600 

1658 

2096 

438 

1693 

2126 

433 

1723 

2187 

464 

1757 

1996 

239 

1787 

2026 

239 

1819 

20-19 

230 

1849 

1997 

148 

1878 

2093 

205  • 

1948 

2123 

175 

•JiMs 

2228 

180 

1-17  2108 

2255 

147 

'  1662 

2612 

950 

2162 

2762 

600 

2264 

2802 

538 

2399 

2859 

460 

2529 

2962 

433 

2659 

3063 

404 

2793 

3132 

339 

21*23 

3262 

339 

3055 

3385 

330 

3185 

3393 

•208 

3264 

3510 

250 

3334 

3509 

175 

3434 

3614 

180 

117  3494 

3641 

147 

NOTI 


the  sojourning  of  the  children  of  Israel  id  tick  tlnij 
sojuimn-d  in  Egypt,  was  430  years."  But  the  difficulties 
arising  from  the  limited  time  afforded  by  the  shorter 
period  for  the  multiplication  of  the  Israelites  to  such  a 
derive,  as  even  more  than  eighty  years  before  the  exode 
t«>  alarm  the  Egyptian  government,  are  as  nothing  com 
pared  with  the  demand  made,  on  the  supposition  of  the 
longer  sojourn,  that  several  generations  between  Kohath 
and  Ann-am  have  been  intentionally  or  accidentally 
passed  over  in  the  genealogical  tables  (Kurtz,  Geschichto 
des  Alton  Buiules,  ii.  p.  iM.  In  confirmation  of  the  longer 
period,  it  is  maintained  that  the  period  of  Israel's 
sojourning  in  a  strange  land,  and  of  their  servitude  and 
sore  affliction,  is  prophetically  announced  as  400  years, 
Gc.  xv.  is,  an  intimation  referred  to  in  Ac.  vii.  6.  That 
tills,  however,  is  not  to  be  too  closely  pressed  and  ap 
plied  exclusively  to  Egypt,  appears  from  the  following 
considerations.  Without  insisting  that  prophecy  is  to 
be  interpreted  by  history,  and  not  conversely  history 
by  prophecy,  it  may  be  remarked  that  while  no  parti 
cular  country  is  specified,  the  appellation  ' '  a  land  that 
is  not  theirs"  was,  as  regards  Abraham  and  his  imme 
diate  posterity,  more  applicable  to  Canaan  than  it  was 
to  Egypt  during  the  Israelites'  sojourn  there.  Up  to 
the  time  when  it  was  taken  possession  of  by  Joshua, 
Canaan,  though  the  "land  of  promise,''  was  in  every 
sense  a  xtr<iii<ie  (aXXorpia.  Iloli.  xi.  u,  comp.  Ac.  vii.  a)  land, 
Abraham  or  his  posterity  having  no  possession  in  it 
beyond  a  place  of  sepulture,  and  no  fixed  dwelling, 
whereas  in  Egypt  they  had  the  land  of  Goshen  by  royal 
grant.  Further,  that  this  intimation  comprised  more 


than  the  sojourn  in  Egypt,  is  also  shown  by  the  fact 
that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  state  of  servitude,  oppn-s-iun. 
and  exile,  is  limited  by  the  fourth  generation,  before;  the 
close  of  which  they  should  be  put  in  possession,  of  their 
own  land.  If  this  was  not  to  be  reckoned  from  the  time 
when  the  promise  was  made,  but  from  some  future,  un 
known,  and  it  might  be  remote  term,  it  could  afford  but 
little  encouragement ;  for  if  so,  it  might  actually  extend 
as  well  to  4000  as  to  400  years.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  statement,  or  that  part  of  it  which  fore 
told  .servitude  and  oppression,  applied  only  to  a  por 
tion  of  the  time  even  as  regards  Egypt,  and  not  to  the 
whole  period  indicated,  needs  no  proof  ;  and  yet  it  shows 
the  danger  of  pressing  too  closely  prophetic  announce 
ments  of  this  kind.  The  true  exposition  of  Ex.  xii.  4o 
seems  to  be  that  the  historian  of  the  exodus,  looking 
back  from  the  position  to  which,  in  accordance  with 
this  divine  promise,  Israel  had  now  attained,  regarded 
the  whole  intervening  experience  as  preparatory  to  this 
,  redemption — the  state  of  wandering  and  oppression  had 
\  readied  its  lowest  point,  had,  in  fact,  been  realized  in 
the  Egyptian  bondage,  which  might  therefore  be  said 
to  represent  it.  It  is  only  on  this  supposition  that  we 
can  explain  not  merely  the  actual  state  of  the  ease  as 
detailed  in  or  deducible  from  the  preceding  record,  but 
also  the  universal  opinion  entertained  among  the  Jews 
themselves  as  to  the  shorter  period,  as  may  be  seen  in 
the  writings  of  their  rabbis  and  of  Josephus  (Antiq.  ii.  is. 
sect.  2),  apparently  in  strong  antagonism  to  this  passage 
of  Scripture,  an  antagonism  which  early  led  to  the  inter 
polations  in  the  versions,  as  already  adverted  to. 


CHRONOLOGY 


32o 


CHURCH 


IV.   From  the  L'.rode  to  the  Foundation  »f  Solomon's  j  chronology  of  Ac.  xiii.  '20,  it  may  he  added,  corresponds 


Temple. — There  is  no  portion  of  hiblical  history  which, 
as  regards  details,  presents  so  many  clu-onological  diffi 
culties  as  this.  For  forty-seven  years  after  the  exode, 
the  course  of  the  history  is  clearly  defined,  but  after 
wards  there  are  various  interruptions,  and  sometimes 
an  entire  absence  of  chronological  data.  From  Joshua's 
division  of  the  land,  Jos.  xiv.  10,  comp.  w  th  De.  ii.  11,  to  the 
servitude  under  Chushan-Rishathaim,  Ju.  in.  s,  there  is  no 


explicit  indication  of  time.     After  this  there  are  various  !  and  the  king's  house. 


exactly  with  that  followed  by  Josephus,  who  reckons 
592  years  from  the  exode  to  the  building  of  the  temple 
(Antiq.  viii.  3,  sect,  i),  the  alleged  contradiction  between 
this  and  the  612  years,  as  given  in  two  other  passages 
(Antiq.  xx.  m,  sect,  i;  Cent.  Apiou.  ii.  2),  arising  from  over 
looking  the  fact  that  the  latter  period,  which  Hales 
erroneously  regards  as  spurious  (New  Analysis  .,f  Chron.  i. 
p.  210),  includes  the  time  occupied  in  building  the  temple 


data  down  to  the  death  of  Samson,  from  which  to  the 
accession  of  David   they  are   again  very  scanty.     In 


In  the  subsequent  periods  of  Old  Testament  history, 
there  are  various  chronological  difficulties;  as  for  in. 


these  circumstances,  it  is  only  an  approximation  that  stance,  in  determining  the  duration  of  the  Hebrew 
can  be  attained  with  regard  to  numerous  particulars,  monarchy,  and  tracing  the  parallelism  of  the  two  king- 
There  are,  however,  several  checks  supplied  by  a  com-  donis  from  their  separation  under  Kehoboam  to  the 
parisoii  of  various  statements  in  the  narrative;  while  deportation  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel.  These  difficulties, 
the  whole  period  is  covered  by  the  intimation  in  1  Ki.  though  exceedingly  numerous  and  perplexing,  do  not 
vi.  1,  that  from  the  coming  out  of  Israel  from  Egypt  i  involve  such  important  consequences  as  those  already 
to  the  fourth  year  of  Solomon's  reign,  when  he  founded  considered:  they  concern  minute  details  rather  than 
the  temple,  there  were  -l.su  years.  P.ut  here  again  two  '  extended  periods,  and  arise  not  from  the  want  of  nume- 
formidahle  difficulties  present  themselves.  The  first  is,  rous  and  explicit  chronological  data,  but  from  causes 
that  this  number  is  far  exceeded  by  the  sum  of  the 
years  obtained  from  a  careful  consideration  of  the 
materials  furnished  in  the  history  of  the  judges.  This 
if  taken  bv  itself  might  admit  of  explanation,  as  .-how- 
ing  that  ,-onie  <  rror  had  entered  into  the  computation, 
possibly  because  some  of  the  judges  were  not  successive 
but  contemporaneous,  and  exercising  their  functions 
in  different  districts,  or  because  r.-K'in: 
on  round  numbers,  of  which  there  are 


not  yet  fully  apprehended  by  the  biblical  expositor. 
For  this,  however,  and  the  various  particulars  connected 
with  the  preceding  periods,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
other  articles.  [l>.  M.] 

CHRYSOLITE  [x^'craVtfos.  Rev.  xxi.Li>,  literally, 
(/olden  stu/n  \,  a  n'eiicral  name  for  precious  stones  of  a 
yellowish  colour,  but  understood  to  be  commonly  ap- 
to<>  implicitly  plied  to  the  topaz  of  the  moderns.  (>'<•  Tui'A/..) 
i  many  traces  CHRYSOP'RASUS  [xf> IUOTT/KWOS,  Kev.  xxi.  in,  lite- 
in  the  book  of  Judges,  or  from  some  other  cause.  J'.nt  rally,  '/'//</-/<(/•  or  //<  //«"•-<//•«>/.  a  name  i;i\en  to  precious 
another  and  more  inexplicable  difficulty  tends  greatly  -tones  composed  of  these  colours].  It  is  generally  re- 
to  diminish  the  probability  of  this  supposition,  and  garded  as  having  lx;en  applied  to  a  species  of  beryl. 

CHUB,  a  country  or  people  associated  \\  ith  Kthiopia, 
Lud.  I'hut,  and  other-  in  K/.e.  xx.x.  .">,  but  of  which 
nothing  is  knosvn. 
mere  conjectures. 

CHURCH,  a  term  «1 


This 


indeed  renders  any  such  reconciliation  nugatory, 
is  the  statement  of  the  apo-tlc  Paul.  Ac.  xiii.  l-  ^  : 
"About  the  time  of  forty  years  suffered  he  their  man 
ners  in  tin-  wilderness.  And  when  he  had  iie-troved 
seven  nations  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  he  divided  their 
land  to  them  by  lot.  And  after  that  lie  gave  unto 
them  judges  about  the  -pace  of  J.'jU  years,  until  Samuel 
the  prophet.  And  afterward  they  desired  a  king:  and 
(Jod  gave  unto  them  Saul  the  >on  of  ( 'i-.  a  man  of  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin,  by  the  space  of  forty  years.  And 


The  opinions  of  commentators  are 


rived  fmin  the  (Ireck  Ki'/iiaKof, 
literally,  tin  L<>r<r*  huuge  ;  after  the  analogy  of  the 
words  dm  KTO/>OI>,  dvaKdov,  which,  originally  denoting  a 
royal  palace,  came  to  signify  a  temple,  especially  that 
of  Castor  and  1'ollux.  'J'he  corresponding  term  in  the 
New  Testament  is  either  fKK\ij(rla,  i.e.  the  assembly  of 


\\heii  he  had   removed   him,    he   raised   up  unto  them     the  called,  or  crwcry&ryT; ;  this  last,  however,  only  occurs 


ti 


their   king."      There  are  here  three  terms  '  twice,  viz.  .la.  ii.  2  and    Hi 


Lot 


expressons 


of  In,  450,  and   K)  years;  and  the  first  question  is,  Are     are  used  indifferently  by   the   Alexandrian  translators 
they  consecutive.'  or  does  the  second  period  apply  only     to  express  the  Hebrew  word-  --,..  and  T".  the  cougre- 

"   "'     interval          

d  into 


to  the  rule  of  the  judges,  passing  over  the 
from  the  entry  into  Canaan  to  the  first  of  these  rulers  ' 
Many  writers  maintain  that  no  other  sense  can  be 
uiven  to  the  words  than  that  the  time  of  the  jud_es 
alone  lasted  -loll  years,  but  this  is  perhaps  pressing  the 


gation  of  Israel:  from  the  Septuagint  they  pas 
the  Xew  Testament,  but  the  former,  (KK\ri<jia,  gradually, 
in  the  language  '  >f  ( 'hri.-tians,  supplanted  the  latter,  both 
because  St.  Paul  commonly  emplovs  it  in  his  epistles, 


language  too  far.  It  need  not,  however,  lie  disputed,  as  I  :ul:'  especially  because  it  became  necessary  to  mark  the 
on  either  supposition  the  period  far  exceeds  that  given  '  distinction  between  the  ( 'hristian  church  and  the  Jewish 
in  1  Ki.  vi,  1  ;  nor  does  it  make  any  material  differ-  i  synagogue.  An  assembly  of  the  called,  or  of  Christians, 
once  that,  as  indicated  by  the  word  ws  (<itx>t't),  -J/><)  is  a  i  viewed  in  relation  to  Christ,  its  heavenly  king,  present 
round  numbc  r.  The  attempts  at  reconciling  these  two  by  his  Spirit  wherever  two  or  three  are  gathered  in  his 
passages  have  been  numerous  but  unavailing,  and  as  !  name,  M:it.  xviii  -jn;  and  viewed  also  in  relation  to  its 
the  statement  in  ]  Ki.  vi.  1  is  manifestly  at  variance  !  structure,  which  is  that  of  an  organized  body,  and  not  of 
with  the  data  supplied  by  the  history  itself,  there  is  no  a  collection  of  atoms  without  mutual  dependence  and 
remedy  but  to  admit  that  the  text  has  been  somehow  a  common  end,  i  Co.  xii.,  was  fitly  called  Kvpia.Kbv  (kirchc, 
corrupted.  There  is  the  less  difficulty  in  making  this  kirk,  churdi).  as  the  palace  or  building  in  which  the 
admission,  from  the  circumstance  that  there  is  no  refer-  Lord,  by  his  Spirit,  resides,  Ep.  ii.  22.  The  word  fKK\r)ffia 
ence  to  this  date  by  any  of  the  various  writers  who  com-  never,  in  the  New  Testament,  signifies  the  actual  build- 
piled  histories  of  the  Jews  from  the  materials  supplied  ing  in  which  Christians  assembled  for  public  worship  : 
in  the  ]>ible  down  to  Kusebius,  who  first  employed  it  the  first  mention  of  regular  structures  of  that  kind 
as  the  basis  of  some  chronological  hypothesis.  The  occurs  long  after  the  apostolic  age. 


Cill'Kcll 


CHURCH 


Examining  carefully  the  language  of  Scripture  on  this 
subject,  we  find  two,  and  only  two,  really  distinct 
meanings  of  the  term  fKK\ri<ria,  according  as  it  is  used 
tu  signify  either  one  or  more  local  Christian  societies, 
or  the  one  true  chiuvh,  which,  though  a  really  existing 
body,  has  no  visible  head,  or  common  visible  govern 
ment,  up. Hi  earth.  In  the  sense  of  a  visible  society, 
the  word  sometimes  denotes  a  company  of  Christians 
small  enough  to  meet  for  worship  in  a  single  house, 
itii.  xvi. ;".;  somi 'times  a  larger  community,  comprehended 
within  the  limits  of  a  city  or  a  district,  as  the  church 
of  Koine,  or  of  Corinth,  or  the  churches  of  Galatia; 
occasionally  perhaps,  though  this  meaning  is  open  to 
question,  the  whole  assemblage  of  local  churches 
throughout  the  world,  or  the  visible  church  catholic. 
OIL  the  other  hand,  we  read  of  "the  church  of  God 
aiiioii;/''  such  societies,  Ac.  \x.  2s;  of  the  church  as  "the 
body,"  and  the  bride,  of  Christ,  which  he  will  one  day 
present  to  himself,  "without  spot,  or  wrinkle,  or  any 
such  thing,"  Ep.v.  23-27;  of  "the  general  assembly  and 
church  of  the  first- born,  which  are  written  in  heaven," 
llc.xii. 2:);  with  other  descriptions  of  like  import.  In 
such  passages  as  these  the  idea  of  locality  evidently 
disappears,  and  gives  place  to  a  view  of  the  church, 
inward,  spiritual,  or,  in  theological  language,  mystical. 
Most  of  the  errors  that  have  prevailed  on  this  subject 
have  arisen  from  a  neglect  or  denial  of  the  distinction 
here  indicated.  In.  the  remarks  that  follow  we  shall 
attempt,  first,  to  describe  the  organization  of  local 
Christian  societies ;  and,  secondly,  to  point  out  the 
connection,  and  yet  the  distinction  between  them  and 
the  one  true,  or  as  Protestant  theologians  call  it,  the 
invisible  church. 

I.  Christ,  it  is  admitted  on  all  sides,  came  not  merely 
to  promulgate  certain  doctrines,  hitherto  unknown  or 
but  partially  known,  but  to  found  upon  earth  a  com 
munity,  or  system  of  communities,  to  which  his  disciples 
should  belong.  Christianity  was  to  have,  not  merely 
adherents,  in  the  sense  in  which  any  school  of  ancient 
philosophy  might  be  said  to  have  such,  but  a  visible  form 
and  consistence  in  the  world;  its  followers  were  to  be 
enrolled  in  social  combinations,  the  limits  of  which 
should  be  well  defined  and  easily  ascertained.  Thus 
alone,  as  Bishop  Butler  remarks  (Anal.  p.  ii.  c.  i.),  could 
the  new  religion  maintain  itself  from  age  to  age,  amidst 
the  changes  of  society  and  the  fluctuations  of  opinion. 
"  Miraculous  powers  were  given  to  the  first  preachers 
of  Christianity,  in  order  to  their  introducing  it  into  the 
world;  a  visible  church  was  established  in  order  to 
continue  it,  and  carry  it  on  successively  throughout  all 
a^es.  Had  Moses  and  the  prophets,  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  only  taught,  and  by  miracles  proved,  religion 
to  their  contemporaries,  the  benefits  of  their  instructions 
would  have  reached  but  to  a  small  part  of  mankind. 
Christianity  must  have  been  in  a  great  degree  sunk  and 
forgotten  in  a  very  few  ages."  Now  to  the  idea  of  a 
visible  community;  it  seems  essential  that  there  should 
be,  (1)  Outward  signs  or  tokens  of  admission  into,  and 
continuance  in  it;  (2)  A  form  of  polity,  and  an  executive 
government,  authorized  to  perform  public  acts,  and  to 
enforce  such  regulations  as  the  society  may  think  fit  to 
impose  upon  its  members. 

Whence,  in  the  case  before  us,  were  these  indispens 
able  constituent  elements  of  visible  union  derived '?  We 
must  remember  that  Christianity  was  not  an  isolated 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  the  world,  but  the  last  of 
a  long  series  of  divine  dispensations,  each  of  which  pre 


pared  the  way  for  its  successor.  Christianity  is  the 
offspring  of  Judaism.  Its  founder  was  himself  a  son 
of  Abraham  after  the  fiesh;  its  first  heralds  were  all 
Jews;  its  first  adherents  were  gathered  from  that  na 
tion.  It  was  but  natural  then  that,  as  far  as  was  pos 
sible,  Christianity  should  assimilate  to  itself  the  existing 
institutions  amongst  which  it  sprang  up.  Accordingly 
our  Lord,  in  those  express  appointments  of  his  which 
were  to  distinguish  his  followers  from  the  rest  of  man 
kind,  adopted,  with  certain  modifications,  ordinances 
and  customs  which  he  found  in  being,  and  with  which 
his  disciples  were  familiar. 

Three  such  appointments  can  lie  traced  to  Christ's 
own  institution — the  two  sacraments,  baptism  and  the 
Lord's  supper,  and  the  ministry  of  the  'Word.  The  rite 
of  baptism,  whether,  as  some  have  supposed,  cmploytd 
among  the  Jews  before  the  Christian  era  in  the  admis 
sion  of  proselytes  to  Judaism,  at  least  well  known  as  the 
symbol  of  the  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist,  was  consti 
tuted  by  our  Lord  the  rite  of  admission  to  the  Christian 
covenant :  only,  instead  of  being  a  baptism  of  repentance 
merely,  it  was  to  be  baptism  in  the  name  of  the  .Father, 
and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost — a  form  based 
upon  the  distinctive  doctrine  of  Christianity,  that  of  the 
Trinity  in  unity.  But  to  those  within  the  sacred  in- 
closure  stated  instruction  was  to  be  furnished ;  the 
nations  were  first  to  be  "discipled"  by  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel  and  baptism,  and  then  to  be  brought 
under  a  course  of  "teaching,"  Mat.  xxviii.  111,20 :  now, 
stated  teaching  implies  the  existence,  sooner  or  later, 
of  a  ministerial  order,  one  of  whose  offices  this  should 
be  ;  and  thus  the  second  external  rite  of  a  Christian 
society  is  the  ministry  of  the  Word.  Finally,  as  a 
pledge  and  seal  of  continued  fellowship  with  Christ  and 
his  members,  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  supper  was 
appointed,  borrowed  from  ceremonies  customary  at  the 
passover,  and  intended,  amongst  the  spiritual  Israel  of 
the  Christian  church,  to  take  the  place  of  the  ancient 
ordinance,  Mat.  xxvi.  2(>- 2*  ;  iCo.  v. 7, 8.  From  these  con 
siderations  it  is  that  the  Reformed  Confessions  generally 
define  a  local  church  to  be  "a  congregation  of  faithful 
men,  in  the  which  the  pure  Word  of  God  is  preached, 
and  the  sacraments  be  duly  administered  according  to 
Christ's  ordinance"  (uoini>.  Angl.  art.  xi.O;  though,  to  these 
notes  some,  as  the  Scottish  Confession,  add  a  third,  the 
exercise  of  discipline.  And  they  insist  upon  these  notes 
as  the  essential  ones,  because  of  none  other  can  it  be 
said  that  they  are  of  Christ's  own  appointment. 

The  polity  of  the  church,  to  which  we  now  proceed, 
must,  in  like  manner,  be  supposed  to  have  had  its  basis 
in  existing  arrangements  connected  with  the  old  dis 
pensation  ;  but  since  we  have  here  110  distinct  prescrip 
tion  of  our  Lord  to  allege,  the  question  becomes  one  of 
historical  research.  Two  models,  or  platforms,  of 
church  polity,  and  only  two,  were  known  to  the  apostles; 
the  divinely  prescribed  temple  service,  with  its  threefold 
ministry  of  high-priest,  priest,  and  Levites,  and  the 
more  recent  institution  of  the  synagogue.  This  latter 
plays  so  important  a  part  in  the  early  promulgation  of 
the  gospel,  that  a  few  words  on  its  rise  and  its  nature 
may  not  be  ont  of  place.  The  worship  of  the  synagc  >gue, 
in  the  distinct  form  in  which  it  meets  us  in  the  New 
Testament,  cannot  be  referred  to  an  earlier  date  than 
the  Babylonish  captivity.  The  exiles  of  Zion,  "  by  the 
waters  of  Babylon,"  deprived  of  the  temple  services, 
endeavoured  to  supply  their  place  by  such  religious 
exercises  as  still  remained  within  their  reach :  they 


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327 


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came  together  as  opportunity  offered,  to  liear  at  the 
mouth  of  a  prophet  words  of  consolation  and  instruc 
tion,  Kzc.  xiv.  i;  xx.  i;xxxiii.  31.  Restored  to  their  native  land, 
the  Jews  continued  these  homiletic  services,  the  value  of 
which  would  be  the  more  felt  when  the  gift  of  prophecy 
was  withdrawn.  In  the  book  of  Nehemiah,  ch.  viii.  i-s 
we  have  an  account  of  a  religious  service  which  presents 
a  close  resemblance  to  what  afterwards  became  the 
stated  worship  of  the  synagogue  :  Ezra  ascended  a 
pulpit  of  wood,  read  portions  of  Scripture,  which  were 
interpreted  to  the  people,  and  the  whole  concluded 
with  prayer  and  thanksgiving.  The  example  thus  set 
was  speedily  followed,  and  in  Jerusalem  alone,  in  our 
Lord's  time,  there  are  said  to  have  been  4S^  synau"u'ui  s. 
The  dispersion  of  the  Jews  after  the  captivity  produced 
a  corresponding  diffusion  of  the  new  mode  of  worship; 
and  at  the  time  of  Christ.  Jews,  and  Jewish  synagogues, 
were  found  established  in  every  considerable  city  of  the 
Roman  empire. 

From  what  lias  been  said,  the  nature  of  the  svna- 
gogical  worship  may  be  leathered.  With  the  temple, 
or  tlie  Levitical  worship,  tin-  synagogue  had  no  con 
nection.  Its  services  were  not  tvpical  and  sacrificial, 
but  verbal  :md  homiletic.  The  function  of  teaching, 
though  properly  belonging  to  the  rulers  of  tin-  syna- 

Lfou'lle.     could     lie    delegated    to    any     properly    (nullified 

person.  Thus  our  Lord,  in  his  character  of  Rabbi,  or 
teacher,  '"preached,"  without  hinderance,  "in  their 

synagogues  throughout  (lalilee,"  Mar.  i.  :«i;  and  to  the 
apostles,  in  their  journeys,  the  same  permission  appears 
to  have  been  freely  granted.  \\  it.h  respect  to  the  polity 
of  the  synagogue,  it  was  generally  framed  on  the  pivs- 
byterian  model  ;  a  college,  or  senate  of  persons  skilled 
in  the  law,  being  invested  with  the  chief  authority  ;  but 
sometimes,  in  the  smaller  villages,  a  single  doctor  of 
the  law  administered  its  affairs.  Thus,  in  the  New 
Testament,  we  read  sometimes  of  the  "rulers,"  and 
sometimes  of  the  "ruler"  of  the  synagogue.  The 
duties  of  the  governing  elders  were  to  teach  and  to  rule; 
while  upon  another  class  of  inferior  ministers  devolved 
the  care  of  tli<'  xu'ivd  1 ks  and  other  subordinate 

officer.        IJesides     hein<_r    used     for    public    Worship,     tile 

synagogues  were  places  of  public  instruction,  and  courts 
of  judicature  for  smaller  offences  ;  they  were  empowered 
to  inflict  the  penalties  of  scourging  and  of  excommuni 
cation,  Mat.  x.  17;  Lu.  xii.  11 ;  .7n.  xi.  2J. 

l»i<l  the  a]io:-tle<  then  frame  the  polity  of  the  church 
after  the  pattern  of  the  temple  or  of  the  synagogue- 
Kach  side  of  the  question  has  had  its,  advocates;  but 
the  impartial  reader  of  the  New  Testament  will  pro 
bably  have  no  difficulty  in  arriving  at  the  latter  con 
clusion.  In  the  first  place,  the  services  of  the  temple 
were,  as  we  know,  incapable  of  multiplication;  they 
were,  bv  divine  appointment,  fixed  to  one  spot:  and 
no  Jew.  rightly  instructed  in  the  principles  of  his 
religion,  ever  could,  or  did,  think  of  erecting  in  a  foreign 
land  a  counterpart  of  the  sacred  structure.  How  then 
could  it  have  occurred  to  the  apostles  to  establish 
Christian  temples  in  each  city  in  which  they  preached; 
In  the  next  place,  the  early  history  of  Christianity  shows 
how  solicitous  the  apostles  were  to  avoid  any  visible 
rupture  with  the  theocracy,  as  long  as  the  latter  stood. 
They,  with  the  first  converts,  frequented  the  temple 
at  tlie  appointed  hours  of  prayer.  Ac .  iii.i;  and  even  the 
great  apostle  of  the  uncircumcision,  who  so  zealously 
vindicated  the  liberty  of  the  (lentile  converts  from  the 
yoke  of  the  law,  thought  it  not  inconsistent  with  his 


professed  opinions  to  comply,  as  a  matter  of  expediency, 
with  the  legal  ordinances,  Ac.  xxi.  a.  We  read  that  the 
believing  Jews  at  Jerusalem  were  "  all  zealous  of  the 
law,"  Ac.  xxi.  20;  and  the  apostle  who  records  this  fact 
mentions  it  without  any  mark  of  disapprobation.  But 
to  have  established  in  the  Christian  church  a  transcript 
of  the  temple  and  its  services,  and  that  in  close  prox 
imity  to  the  original  building  (for  in  Jerusalem  the  first 
congregations  of  Christians  came  into  existence1),  would 
have  placed  them  in  direct  opposition  to  the  existing 
economy:  and.  as  far  as  human  hinderances  could  do 
so.  would  have  seriously  impeded  the  progress  of  the 
gospel.  It  is  not  then  antecedently  probable  that  the 
apostles  would  have  adopted  this  platform  of  church 
\i(  ilitv. 

And  this  surmise  is  amply  confirmed  bv  the  actual 
correspondence  which  the  New  Testament  exhibits 
between  the  organization  of  the  first  church  and  that 
of  the  synagogue.  Two  of  the  orders  of  the  Christian 
ministry '.\t-re.  beyond  doubt,  borrowed  from  the  Jewish 
institution  those  of  the  diaconate  and  the  preshyterate. 
It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  former  was  first  in 
stituted  in  the  persons  of  Stephen  and  his  companions, 
Ac.  vi .;  but  however  this  may  be.  it  is  certain  that  the 
deacons  of  St.  Paul's  epistles  and  of  subsequent  church 
history  corresponded  substantially  to  the  inferior 
ministers  of  the  syna^ou'ue.  Tlie  next  grade,  that  of 
presbyters,  is  still  more  clearly  of  synairou'ical  origin. 
The  appellation  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
word  denoting  the  elders  of  the  synagogue:  and  the 
functions  were  identical.  According  to  St.  Paul  a 
|iiv-l>\  ter,  or  f/ii,-i<'i>j,it.<  (these'  terms  in  the  apostolical 
epistles  denoting  the  same  order),  "  mu-a  be  apt  to 
teach,'1  '"able  by  sound  doctrine  both  to  exhort  and 
convince  the  gainsayei-s  ;"  the  elders  that  ruled  well, 
as  well  as  taught.  "  were  to  be  counted  worthy  of  double 
honour,"  iTi.  iii  2;  v.  17;  L.'overninir  and  teaching  being, 
as  in  the  svna^o^ue,  their  main  duties:  \\bile  no  pas- 
sage  can  be  adduced  in  which  the  sacerdotal  term 
/i i<i-<iix,  proper  to  the  temple,  is  applied  to  any  order 
of  Christian  ministers. 

Such,  for  a  time,  was  the  polity  of  the  early  church  : 
it  was  governed  by  apostles,  presbyters,  and  deacons, 
tlie  first  bein  ^  o-cnmeiiical,  the  two  last  local,  officers. 
Of  the  third  well-known  order,  that  of  bishops,  the 
origin  is  more  obscure.  Many  have  thought  that  in 
the  commissions  of  Timothy  and  Titus  we  have  an 
episcopate  proper;  but  this  is  hardly  compatible  with 
the  fact  that  these  ministers  were  evidently  not  sta 
tionary  at  Kphesus  and  (  Yete;  indeed,  weren.it  intended 
to  be  so  by  St.  Paul  (see  2Ti.  iv.  21;  Tit  iii,  12V  They,  in 
fact,  belonged  to  a  class  of  persons  who  may  fitly  be 
called  apostolical  commissioners:  these  were  not  attached 
to  any  particular  church  or  district,  but  remained  in 
attendance  upon  St.  Paul,  and  by  him  were  despatched 
to  various  places  as  need  required.  Such  also  were  Sil- 
vanus,  Sosthenes,  Lucius,  Tyehicns,  probably  the  "mes 
sengers"  (dTrocrroXoi)  of  the  churches  mentioned  in  2  Co. 
viii.  I'.'i,  and  others.  At  most,  then,  we  can  say  that  in 
Timothy  ami  Titus  we  have  the  rudiment  of  the  episcopal 
offict;.  On  the  other  hand,  no  sooner  do  we  pass  from 
inspired  to  uninspired  history  than  we  find  this  form  of 
government  universally  prevailing.  It  is  spoken  of  by 
Ignatius,  for  example,  in  a  manner  which  shows  that  it 
was  even  then  of  no  new  date.  It  is  difficult  to  account 
for  this  universal  ami  apparently  uncontested  diffusion, 
save  on  the  supposition  of  its  having  been  instituted  or 


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328 


CHURCH 


sanctioned  by  the  apostles.  On  the  whole,  we  shall 
probably  not  be  far  wrong  in  supposing  that,  not  long 
after  St.  Paul's  death  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
the  surviving  apostles  either  confirmed  an  informal 


future  corruption  is  manifest,  regards  the  collected 
episcopate  of  Christendom  as  forming  a  corporation,  an 
undivided  whole,  of  which  each  bishop  is  the  represen 
tative.  "The  church,"  he  writes,  "one  and  catholic 


,  , 

episcopacy    which    had     naturally    sprung    up    in    the     is  knit  and  compacted  together  by  the  mutual  adhesion 


churches,  or  appointed  for  the  first  time  this  new 


f  a  cemented  priesthood  ;"   "the  episcopate  bein"-  one 

' 


of  ministers,  placing  such  apostolical  men  as  Timothy  is  represented  in  its  totality  in  individuals"  (K^ist  ixix 
and  Titus  in  the  localities  with  which  they  were  best  De  unit.  Kccles )  When  once  this  Cvprianic  idea  of  the 
acquainted,  which  explains  and  accounts  for  the  an-  unity  of  the  universal  episcopate  had  taken  hold  of 
cient  tradition  that  these  two  were  the  first  bishops  of  men's  minds,  that  of  a  living  centre,  in  whom  the  whole 
Ephesus  and  Crete  respectively.  It  was  natural  that  body  should  see  its  unity  visibly  represented,  followed 
the  apostles,  as  the  most  eminent  of  their  number  were  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  in  due  time  was'  realized, 
gradually  removed  by  death,  should  look  forward  svith  And  viewed  in  this  light  there  was  nothing  positively 
some  anxiety  to  the  period  when  the  church  should  be  antichristian  in  the  primacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Ron  it- 
left  wholly  without  those  inspired  guides  who  had  If  it  was  not  against  the  principles  of  the  gospel  for 
formed  a  common  centre  and  bond  of  union  which  the  faithful  of  a  diocese  to  gather  themselves' round  a 
all  Christians  recognized.  To  supply  the  deficiency  as  bishop,  or  for  the  bishops  of  a  province  to  evolve  out 
far  as  might  be,  they,  if  the  almost  unanimous  testi 
mony  of  the  early  church  is  to  be  accepted,  instituted 
this  superior  order  of  ministers,  who  should  at  once 
serve  as  centres  of  unity  to  the  churches  under  their 

particular  jurisdiction,   and   organs   of  communication  !  the  whole  body.      At  what  point  the   Papacy  began  to 

between  them  and  other  Christian  societies.      Such  was  assume    an   unchristian   character  will   be  shown  here  - 
the  ancient  idea  of  the  episcopate,  .and  flux  far,  but  not  '  after. 

as   inheriting  apostolic   powers,    may  bishops  be   con-          11.   Such  is  a  sketch  of  the  organization  of  the  visible 

sidered  as  successors  of  the  apostles.      They  were  sue-  church.      We  proceed  now  to  make  some  remarks  upon 

eessors  so  far  as  that  by  their  means  the  visible  church,  the    distinction,    and  yet  the  inseparable    connection, 

which  otherwise  might  have  become  disintegrated,  was  between  the  church  as  it  appears  and  the  church  in  its 

held  together,  and  made  conscious,  so  to  speak,  of  its  truth.      But  what  is   the  church   in   its  truth?     Or.  in 

essential  unity.      Under  this  aspect  the  episcopate  may  other  words,   wherein  does  the  essential   being  of  the 

be  regarded  as,  on  the  one  hand,  the  natural  expression  church  consist  '!•     How  are  we  to  define  it  \     These  are 
of  Christian  union:  and,  on  the  other,  as  a  safeguard  '  preliminary  questions  which  require  some  answer.  Two, 


of  their  number  a  metropolitan  centre,  no  more,  it 
should  seem,  was  it  for  the  episcopate  of  the  Roman 
empire  to  develope  from  itself  a  centre,  which  should 
have  the  effect  of  binding  together  ,-m,|  consolidating 


inter- communion  of  the  various  parts  of  the  body  with     whose  essence  lies  in  its  polity  and  its  rites;  the  other, 
each  other,  a  result  which,  as  has  been  observed,  was  :  that  of  the  Protestant,  regards  it  as  primarily  a  coin- 


secured  by  the  institution  of  episcopacy. 

With  episcopacy  we  leave  entirely  the  ground  of 
apostolical  appointment,  it  being  admitted  by  all  parties 
that  the  subsequent  developments  of  polity  are  of  un- 


munion  or  congregation  of  saints,  of  those,  that  is,  who 
are  in  living  union  with  Christ.  In  the  eye  of  the 
Romanist  all  are  truly  members  of  the  true  church, 
and  therefore  members  of  Christ,  who 


.,  'jts  the  same 

inspired  origin.  Their  natural  history,  however,  is  the  faith,  receive  the  same  sacraments,  and  are  in  communion 
same.  ^  The  tendency  to  visible  union  which  led  the  with  the  Bishop  of  Rome  :  it  matters  not  whether  they 
Christians  of  a  given  locality  to  congregate  round  a  be  destitute  of  saving  faith,  or  even  living  in  mortal  sin 
living  centre,  impelled,  in  like  manner,  neighbouring  i  (Cat.  Rom.  c.  x.  s.  10).  Consistently  with  this  view,  the 
churches  with  their  bishops  to  form  centres  of  union  ;  attributes  of  the  church  all  assume  an  external  character: 
hence  the  origin  of  provincial  synods  and  of  metro-  '  its  unity  consists  in  its  subjection  to  one  visible  head, 
politans.  Metropolitan  circles  themselves  soon  ex-  !  the  occupant  for  the  time  being  of  the  chair  of  St.  Peter; 
panded  into  still  more  extensive  combinations;  and,  in  its  sanctity  in  its  being  dedicated  to  Cod  in  the  same 
fact,  so  long  as  no  political  impediments  arrested  the  sense  in  which  the  vessels  of  the  tabernacle  were:  its 
work  of  consolidation,  there  was  no  reason  why  it  should  '  apostolicity  in  the  lawful  succession  of  pastors.  This 
not  continually  advance.  As  long  as  the  Roman  empire  theory,  as  is  obvious,  applies  those  descriptions  of  the 
hald  together  no  such  impediments  existed.  Hence  we  church  which  speak  of  it  as  the  body  or  the  bride  of 
find  provinces  coalescing  into  patriarchates,  political  Christ  to  an  external  community,  viz.  the  papal;  as 
considerations  determining  the  patriarchal  sees  to  the  external,  in  the  language  of  Bellarmin,  "as  the  Roman 
three  leading  churches  of  Rome,  Antioch,  and  Alex-  people,  the  kingdom  of  France,  or  the  republic  of  Venice" 
andria.  Later  on,  Rome,  the  capital  of  the  world,  (De  Eccles.  Mil.  c.  2) ;  and  so  confounds  the  two  aspects  of  the 
and  the  scene  of  the  labours  and  death  of  the  great  church,  between  which,  as  we  believe.  Scripture  estab- 
apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  assumes  the  lead  in  ecclesias-  !  lishes  a  distinction.  It  is  against  this  low  and  secular 
tical  as  once  in  political  affairs :  the  Roman  patriarch  conception  of  the  church,  which  ignores  its  essential 
became  invested,  not  by  any  fonnal  delegation  of  power,  characteristic,  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  an 
but  by  tacit  consent  and  the  custom  of  the  church,  \  operative  principle  in  the  hearts  of  Christians,  that  the 
with  an  undefined  precedency,  which  in  due  time  Reformed  Confessions  mean  to  protest,  when  they  de- 
settled  down  into  an  acknowledged  primacy,  with  fixed  scribe  the  true  church  as  invisible.  What  they  mean 
rights  and  privileges.  So  early  as  the  age  of  Cyprian  is.  that  that  which  makes  us  members  of  Christ,  and  of 
the  groundwork  of  the  Papacy  had  been  laid.  That  Christ's  body.  viz.  saving  faith,  is  invisible,  for  God 
great  churchman,  in  whose  works  the  germ  of  many  a  alone  can  see  the  heart-  "  Though  the  men  be  visible," 


CHURCH 


329 


CHURCH 


to  adopt  Bishop  Taylor's  language,  "yet  the  quality 
and  excellence  by  which  they  are  distinguished  from 
mere  professors  and  outsides  of  Christians,  this,  I  say. 
is  not  visible  "  (Uissuasivu  from  Popery,  part  ii  b.  i.  s.  1 ). 

What,  let  us  ask,  was  the  church  when  it  first  came 
into  existence  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  antecedently  to 
any  work  of  visible  organization?  What  it  was  then, 
will  for  ever  determine  wherein  its  true  being  lies.  But 
at  that  moment  it  was  not  primarily  a  visible  institu 
tion,  whether  episcopal  or  presbyterian,  but  simply  a 
company  of  men,  ''all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost," 
Ac.  ii.4.  Jt  was  the  promised  descent  of  the  Spirit,  and 
not  a  visible  polity,  or  the  practice  of  visible  rites, 
which  transformed  a  company  of  Jewish  believers  into 
members  of  Christ.  The  apostles  themselves,  oitii-ially 
appointed  as  they  had  been  before  this  event,  do  not 
attempt  to  execute  the  char."'  e«mmitd-d  to  th- -m  until 
it  had  taken  place:  then,  and  not  until  then,  do  they 
proceed  to  preach  and  organi/.*-.  So  that  the  church 
was  in  being  before  sin-  u'ave  anv  vi-iMe  evidences  of 
her  existence  :  that  is.  she  is  primarily,  or  before  she 
is  anything  els--,  a  communion  of  saints.  This  com 
munion,  of  saints,  once  in  bviiiL:'.  does  not.  indeed,  re 
main  a  mere  invisible-  communion  :  ( 'hristians  assemble, 
under  the  guidance  and  teaching  of  the  apostles,  for 
religious  exercises,  tin-  sacraments  now  begin  to  be  ad 
ministered,  the  "Word  to  lie  ] m -ached:  still  the  /'A-/  of  Un 
church  is  olio-  for  all  fixed.  And  the  order  of  things 
lien-  first  presented  is  maintained  throughout,  it"  the 
Lord  "added  to  the  church  daily  such  as  -di-ndd  he 
saved,"  they  were  addt-d,  not  on  the  supposition  of  a 
mere  external  profession,  but  as  rtp-ntant  1>< -li< -\ VPS. 
Ac.  ii.  .'is  :w;  not  in  the  mass,  but  a-  the  Lord  gave  them 
power  to  believe:  that  is,  there  was  supposed  to  b.-  a 
work  of  the  Spirit  on  tin-  heart  antecedently  to  visible 
union  with  the  church.  In  lik<-  manner  tin-  sacraments 
were  to  be  administered,  not  promiscuously,  hut  to 
believers;  to  real  believers,  as  far  as  man  could  judge. 
Tlii-  «//</.>  njif  rn'ii/ii  view  of  Rome  finds  no  countenance 
in  Scripture.  A  member  of  Christ,  or  of  Christ's  body 
(for  the  expressions  are  co-extensive),  is  piv.-umed  to  U- 
in  Christ,  as  the  branch  in  tin-  vine.  Jn.xv.  i,  i.e.  \>\  a 
vital,  sanctifying  union:  nor  can  anv  pa^-a^v  he 
adduced  in  which  the  expression  "in  Christ"  may  not 
be  shown  to  presuppose  repentance  and  faith.  Hence, 
the  saerani<-nt-  or  other  ordinances  give,  not  bein-_r. 
hut  vixihlf  beiii'4'.  t  i  the  church:  tin-  faith  which  unites 
to  Christ,  unseen  by  man,  gives  evidence  of  its  existence 

by  submission  to  Christ's  ordinances,  and  by  the  g 1 

fruits  which  it  bears:  the  church  therefore  can  esteem 
no  man  a  Christian  until  hi-  be  bapti/.ed.  Rut  as  tin- 
fruits  of  faith  do  not  make  faith  what  it  is,  so  the  ordi 
nances  and  external  equipments  of  the  church  do  not 
constitute  its  true  essential  Ic-ing.  To  ascertain  this 
we  must  consider  what  will  abide  after  time  shall  lie  no 
nioi-e.  and  the  means  of  grace  no  longer  needed.  And 
this  can  be  nothing  but  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
by  which  the  new  creature  is  formed,  and  carried  on  to 
perfection, 

Jt  may  be  replied  that  this  is  contrary  to  the  analogy 
of  the  elder  dispensation,  of  which  forms  were  the 
essence,  and  in  which  that  which  was  visible  preceded 
that  which  was  unseen.  The  fact  is  admitted  ;  but  so 
far  from  there  being  any  analogy  between  the  two  dis 
pensations  in  this  particular  point,  the  reverse  is  the 
case;  they  are  strongly  contrasted,  both  in  the  declara 
tions  of  the  New  Testament  and  in  actual  fact.  Of 
Vol..  1. 


the  law  it  is  said  that  it  was  the  ministration  of  the 
"letter,"  while  the  gospel  is  that  of  the  "Spirit:"  the 
former  was  a  yoke  of  bondage,  but  "  where  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  is  there  is  liberty,"  2Ci.  iii.  IT;  "the  law  came 
by  Moses,  grace  and  truth  by  Jesus  ( 'hrist."  .in.  i  ir.  A 
complicated  ritual,  descending  to  the  minutest  details, 
regulated  from  without  the  religious  life  of  the  Jew. 
He  could  not  move  in  any  direction  without  finding 
himself  confronted  by  some  law  or  precept,  which  con 
fined  his  liberty  of  action,  and  prescribed  what  course 
he  was  to  take.  [f  a  tabernacle  was  to  be  erected,  i. 
must  be  of  a  certain  size,  of  certain  materials,  of  certain 
furniture:  if  there  must  be  priests  to  minister  in  it. 
their  tribe  and  family,  their  ritual  of  consecration,  their 
very  garments  must  all  be  accurately  prescribed  :  if 
the  worshipper  would  offer  sacrifice,  a  number  of  minute 
ceremonies  must  l>e  observed.  Hi-  food,  his  raiment. 
his  domestic  arrangements,  were  nritter  of  law.  "  Touch 
not.  t.-iste  not.  handle  not;"  this  was  the  spirit  of  the 
.Mosaic  religion  ;  and  by  reason  of  the  tlu-ocratical  form 
of  governm«-nt.  all  the  re^ulat'on-  of  the  law.  political 
and  domestic,  as  well  as  those  appertaining  to  the 
worship  of  God.  partook  of  a  religious  character.  The 
law.  in  short,  was  "a  schoolmaster"  to  bring  the  Jew 
to  Christ;  a  preparatory  system  working,  aftt  r  tin' 
manner  of  educational  systems,  from  without  inwards; 
that  is.  aiming,  by  means  of  external  discipline,  at 
impressing  certain  habit*  of  thought  and  fcelini;-.  as  the 
mould  impresses  its  figure  on  the  pa-si\v  clav.  Under 
such  a  sy.-tein.  a  ceremonial  law  had  its  natural  pln.ee  ; 
just  as  in  the  process  of  education,  especially  its  earlier 
stages.  Wf  content  ourselves  with  literal  prescriptions, 
and  multiply  rides  to  meet  e\crv  possible  case.  And 
if  it  be  asla-d  w  hy  so  elementary  a  system  was  in -cessin '. 
tin-  reply  is  that  the  Jew.  when  iirst  plaivd  mid'T  his 
la\\.  was  incapable  of  a  more  spiritual  one.  .Moth  in 
knowledge  and  in  spiritual  power  he  was  a  child. 
Ga.  iv.  :t;  tin-  great  truths  veiled  under  the  Levitical 
ritual  were  but  dimly,  if  at  all.  apprehended  by  him  : 
the  gift  of  the  spirit  was  not  his  by  covenant,  .In  vii.  40; 
as  a  child  cons'-queiitly  he  was  treated.  And  it  was 
only  by  slow  decrees,  as  prophecy  expanded  its  scope, 
and  t'le  temporal  theocracy  began  to  be  shaken,  thai- 
he  learned  to  separate  the  letter  from  the  spirit,  and  to 
pass  from  the  childhood  to  the  manhood  of  religion. 

Let  tile  volume  of  the  New  Testament  be  opened, 
and  how  different,  in  the  point  under  consideration,  is 
the  religious  system  there  portrayed  !  Christ  assuredly 
was  no  law  _;iver  in  the  sense  in  which  Moses  was.  I  lad 
he  been  so,  he  would  ha\e  commenced  his  ministry  by 
laying  down  a  complicated  system  of  enactments,  by 
establishing  a  ritual  and  a  graduated  hierarchy.  i'.ut 
nothing  of  this  kin. 1  appears  in  the  original  record  ;  a 
ceremonial  law  finds  no  place  in  the  first  promulgation 
of  Christianity,  ('hrist  appears  in  the  character  of  a 
teacher:  and  if  at  the  close  of  his  ministry  he  instituted 
the  two  sacraments,  as  visible  pledges  of  union  with 
himself  and  with  his  people,  vet  in  their  nature  and 
in  the  principle  of  their  operation  they  were  entirely 
different  from  legal  ordinances.  'They  were  not  to  the 
disciples  new  in  form,  though  they  were  so  in  applica 
tion  :  they  are  not  the  formative  instruments  but  the 
visible  expression  of  the  life  within.  They  were  not 
given  in  conjunction  with  the  appointment  of  a  priestly 
order,  in  whose  hands  alone  they  were  to  possess  a 
covenanted  validity:  nor  with  a  prescribed  ritual.  Re 
lievers  are  to  be  bapti/.ed  in  the  name  of  the  Father. 

42 


I     i 


curucH 


Son,  ;ind  Holy  (ihost;  baptized  Christians  are  to  cat 
of  thi,'  bread  and  drink  of  the  cup:  thus  much,  and  not 
much  more,  can  lie  positively  gathered  from  the  terms 
of  the  original  institution,  which  comprises  no  liturgical 
formularv.  and  seems  purposely  t<>  decline  any  details 
of  ritual.  And  this,  liecause  Christians  are  regarded 
as  no  longer  children,  but .men  in  discernment,  in  uhose 
ease  therefore  general  rules  take  tin  place  of  literal 
prescriptions.  The  same  may  lie  said  of  the  apostolic  ap 
pointments  which  meet  us  later  on  in  the  inspired  pages. 
\\'e  have  certain  general  prim-ipl.  s,  certain  leading 
precedents,  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  Christian 
societies:  but.  as  before,  a  studied  absence  of  minute 
detail,  a  singular  abstinence  from  positive  legislation  on 
such  points.  It  seems  as  if  the  apostles  thought  that 
( 'hristians  could  be  trusted,  to  a  great  extent,  to  frame 
regulations  for  themselves,  always  of  course  in  an 
apostolical  spirit,  as  circumstances  might  call  for  a  con 
traction  or  extension  of  the  existing  ones.  The  band 
which  encircles  Christianity  in  the  Christian  Scriptures 
is  of  elastic  materials.  In  nothing  is  the  difference 
between  the  two  dispensations  more  marked  than  in 
the  i/radnnl  manner  in  which  the  visible  organization 
of  the  church  proceeded.  While  the  Mosaic  system 
was  imposed  perfected  at  once  in  all  its  organic  parts, 
the  polity  of  the  church  advanced  step  by  step  as  need 
required.  Mad  the  apostles  followed  the  analogy  of  the 
earlier  economy,  they  would  have  carried  about  with 
them  a  fixed  model,  which  they  would  have  set  up  at 
once  in  all  its  integrity  wherever  they  obtained  a  foot 
ing.  How  differently  they  proceeded  needs  not  to  be 
pointed  out.  As  long  as  the  simple]'  arrangements 
sufficed,  they  were  suffered  to  remain  :  it  was  only  when 
difficulties  arose,  or  the  extension  of  Christianity 
rendered  additional  organization  necessary,  that  the 
apostles  interfered  to  supply  the  deft  ct.  The  diaconate 
arose  from  incidental  circumstances;  presbyters  and 
bishops  were  the  supply  for  obvious  necessities.  Creeds 
and  liturgies  Jiad  the  same  origin.  When  heresies  arose. 
more  stringent  tests  had  to  be  applied  to  candidates  for 
baptism  ;  when  a  mixed  multitude  began  to  crowd  into 
the  church,  it  was  no  longer  safe,  a.s  at  the  first,  to  trust 
the  exercises  of  public  devotion  to  unpremeditated 
efforts.  In  short,  the  Christian  society  followed  the 
law  of  all  societies,  which  have  their  true  being  within  : 
it  developed  itself  from  within  outwards  :  not.  like  the 
Mosaic  system,  in  the  reverse  direction.  The  point  at 
which  the  papal  theory  became  unchristian  was  when 
it  transformed  this  process  of  natural  development  into 
a  system  of  prescribed  lav :  as  when  it  asserts  that 
episcopacy  was  in  the  original  draught  of  ecclesiastical 
polity  given  by  Christ  to  the  apostles,  that  the  pope  is 
jure  d/ritit)  head  of  the  visible  church,  etc.:  from  which, 
of  course,  it  follows  that  all  who  may  separate  from 
the  Papacy  are  as  much  transgressors  of  a  divine  ordi 
nance  as  were  Korah,  Dathan.  and  Abiram. 

If  the  church  then  be,  in  its  idea,  a  community  of 
those  who  are  in  vital  union  with  Christ,  and  under  the 
influence  of  his  Spirit,  it  is  obvious  why  we  cannot 
identify  it.  under  this  aspect,  with  the  aggregate  of 
local  Christian  societies  in  the  world.  For  we  know, 
both  from  the  prophetic  announcements  of  Christ  him 
self,  and  from  experience,  that  every  visible  church  is 
like  a  field  containing  tares  mixed  with  the  wheat : 
containing,  that  is.  many  who,  though  by  profession 
Christians,  are  not  members  of  Christ,  nor  led  by  his 
Spirit,  but  who  cannot  at  present  be  separated  from 


external  communion  with  the  true  believers.      These  are 
not  really  of  the  church,  that   is,  of  the  church  in   its 

!  truth;  but  are  accidentally,  in  this  life,  joined  to  it: 
hereafter  Christ  himself  will  dissolve  the  outward  con 
nection.  Mat.  \xv.  32.  Add  to  this  that  ill  visible  churches 
we  never  can  do  more  than  apj)rt>jcimate  to  the  proper 

j  position  which  each  member  of  Christ  holds  hi  his  body. 
Many  are  first  in  a  visible  church  who  are  last  in  the 
true  church,  and  r«-v  ?Y;>v/.  And  Scripture,  as  we 

!  have  seen,  recogni/es  the  distinction;  speaking  of 
churches,  but  also  of  //,,  Church,  which  is  the  body  of 

,  Christ.  Jt  is  only  to  this  latter  that  the  attributes  of 
the  Constantinopolitan  creed  really  belong.  Jt  is  only 
of  this  that  it  can  be  truly  said  that  it  is  holy.  This 
too  alone  is  one;  one  by  au  organic  unity,  and  not 
merely  by  .v///o/r.s,s-  of  parts.  Jf  the  J'apal  theory  of 
the  visible  unity  < if  the  church  under  one  rtxi/ttc  head 
be  not.  as  it  is  not  under  present  circumstances,  capable 
of  realization,  the  only  unity  of  which  local  churches, 
as  such,  are  susceptible  is  tiiiiiciu.*.*  of  polity,  faith,  and 
sacraments  ;  but  in  no  proper  sense  are  they  one  society, 
which  implies  a  central  u<>\ 'eminent :  they  are  inde 
pendent  communities,  founded  on  the  same  principles 
and  having  the  same  objects,  and  so  far  only  are  one, 
one  as  the  monarchies  of  Furope  are  one.  But  Scrip 
ture  speaks  of  a  higher  unity  than  this;  of  a  unity 
under  one  "  He-ad, from  whom  the  whole  body  "  is  "fitly 
joined  together  and  compacted;"  of  an  organic  unity, 
<  >r  that  which  results  from  the  connection  of  the  members 
with  the  Head  and  with  each  other.  Such  a  unity  tin- 
true  church  alone  possesses  ;  being,  in  fact,  always  one- 
society,  or  j'i-!*jii</jlicit.  under  its  unseen  Head,  governed 
and  animated  by  one  Spirit,  but  not  yet  manifested  in  its 
corporate  capacity,  K<>.  via.  HI.  To  the  invisible  church  too 
alone  belong,  ill  their  proper  and  full  meaning,  thetheo- 
cratical  terms,  election,  adoption,  priesthood,  temple, 
and  sacrifice,  i\.c.;  the  body  of  Christ  now  occupying 
the  place  of  the  theocratical  nation  in  its  collective 
capacity;  while  in  local  churches  the  synagogue  re 
appears.  Hence,  in  such  churches  there  is  no  proper 
priesthood  or  sacrifice  ;  if  these  terms  are  used  under 
the  gospel  it  is  only  figuratively  (seel  J'o.  ii.9;  Ho.  xiii.i:>). 
The  Christian  temple  is  not  a  material  building,  but 
"  the  blessed  company  of  all  faithful  people,"  the  ''  living 
stones,  built  up  a  spiritual  house,  to  offer  spiritual  sacri 
fices,"  iPo.  ii.  ;•>. 

Do  we  then  make  two  distinct  churches,  a  visible  and 
an  invisible  1  By  no  means.  If  the  distinction  between 
the  church  in  its  idea,  and  the  church  as  it  appears,  is 
scriptural,  not  less  so  is  the  indissoluble  connection 
between  the  two.  The  connection  lies  in  the  means  of 
grace,  the  Word  and  the  sacraments,  which,  administered 
by  visible  churches  as  sucA,  are  the  instruments  whereby 
the  body  of  Christ  is  replenished  with  members  and 
built  up  in  the  faith.  To  visible  churches  this  ministry 
is  committed,  for.  the  virtue  of  Christ's  ordinances  <le- 
peiidiii'_:'  ii] ion  his  promise  and  the  faith  of  the  recipient, 
it  matters  not  by  whom  they  are  administered  ;  the 
unworthiness  of  the  minister,  howevei  much  to  be 
lamented,  is  no  bar  to  the  efficacy  of  the  Word  and  the 
sacraments :  and  since  by  these  the  true  church  is 
gathered  in.  it  is  obvious  that  the  members  of  Christ 
are  always  part,  a  larger  or  a  smaller  one,  according  to 
circumstances,  of  some  local  Christian  society  :  Extra 
vocatorum  ctftum  11011  stint  quserendi  electi.  Hence, 
to  constitute  «  true  church,  it  is  sufficient  that  there  the 
pure  Word  of  (rod  be  preached,  and  the  sacraments  duly 


CHU.SHAX-UISHATHAIM  331  CILICIA 

administered  ;  for  then  we  are  assured  that  there,  in  [  Cilicia,  that  the  country  begins  materially  to  change  its 
that  locality,  there  will  be  a  part  of  Christ's  body ;  which,  i  character:  the  portion  to  the  west,  the  Tracheia,  con- 
when  tribulation  or  persecution  thins  the  ranks  of  mere  !  tains  a  comparatively  narrow  sea-board  of  level  country 
nominal  Christians,  may  become  more  and  more  co-  while  to  the  east,  the  Pedias,  the  beach  becomes  low 
extensive  with  the  visible  society,  though  we  cannot  and  gravelly,  and  there  are  broad  plains  that  extend 
expect  that  it  ever  will  be  exactly  so.  The  error  of  inland  to  the  foot  of  the  mountains.  These  plains  are 
sectarian  movements  has  commonly  been,  the  forget-  j  intersected  by  three  considerable  rivers,  which  being  fed 
ting  that  this  hidden  condition,  this  external  coiijunc-  ;  in  summer  by  the  melting  of  the  snow  on  Taurus,  are 
tion  with  heterogeneous  elements,  is  an  imperfection  |  remarkable  for  the  coldness-  -the  Cydnus  (now  called 
necessarily  attaching  at  present  to  the  body  of  Christ:  '.  I'hulgar  IXigh).  on  which  Tarsus  stood,  up  to  which  it 
whence  the  violent  attempts  to  sever  the  connection.  •  was  navigable  in  ancient  times,  though  now.  on  account 
and  form  a  society  of  true  saints;  that  is,  to  maitifitt  of  bars  formed  near  the  mouth,  it  can  onlv  be  entered 
the  sons  of  Cod  before  the  time; — attempts  which,  as 
might  be  expected,  end  in  disappointment.  A  very 
brief  time  elapses  before  the  separatist  body,  however  farthc.-t  to  the  east,  and  Mowing  into  the  I'av  of  I  ssus, 
pure  at  first,  attracts  to  itself  impure  adjuncts  ;  and  so  is  th<  Pyramus  i.lihun).  the  largest  of  the  three,  which 
the  work  has  to  be  begun  again,  with  no  better  success,  is  estimated  by  Xenophon  at  (!ni)  feet  wide  at  the  point 
It  is,  in  truth,  one  and  the  same  church  that  is  the  ob-  where  it  was  pa-sed  l>v  the  annv  of  Cvrus  (Aimb.  i.  -I, 
ject  of  consideration,  only  iv^ardi  d  under  ditl'creiit  sect.  1\  but  it  is  supposed  to  have  since  then  changed  its 
aspects  or  from  different  points  of  view,  according  as  direction,  and  to  enter  the  sea  upwards  of 'Jo  miles  to 
we  fix  our  attention  on  it-  external  notes,  and  its  visible  the  cast  of  its  ancient  outlet;  it  is  now  about  ,'MKI  feet 
condition  ill  this  world,  or  its  true  essential  being.  The  wide  near  the  mouth.  Pu-side>  onlinarv  product.-,  the 
distinction  therefore  is  not  absolute,  but  relative;  which,  district  was  distinguished  for  its  breed  of  horses,  its 
if  it  had  b'-eii  borne  in  mind.  \\»u!d  have  obviated  saffron,  and  also  a  -ort  of  cloth,  made  of  Boats'  hair, 
many  of  the  misconceptions  that  have  prevailed  on  this  which  went  anion-  the  Romans  bv  the  name  of  <•!/!- 
subject.  dual.  "Cilicia,  surrounded  by  mountain  barriers,  with 

[The  reader  w-ho  w-ishes  for  further  iafonuatioii  oil  the  subject      a    loiiu    coast    and    numerous    ports,  a    fertile  plain,  and 

mountains  covered  \\itli  forests,  possessed  "Teat  natural 
advantages.      It-   position    between   Syria   on    the   one 

'    ,         . 

<"1''-  ;iui1  l  '"  lvsl  "'  Asla  -Minor  "»  the  other,  made  it 
jtingt  ilcrclirittlicln  K'urln- :  and  in  npp<»itioii  to  some  >i' U  ithe'  the  highway  from  the  Hellespont  and  th>-  Itospliorus  to 
peculiar  NK-WS,  Rit.schl,  /.  ,  .  k  •/,.;.]  t\lc  eastern  shore  of  the  .Mediterranean,  and  the  middle 

CHU'SHAN-  OK  (TSHAN-R1SHATHAI.M  course  of  the  Euphrates.  I  ts  proximity  to  Syria  invites 
[  /-.'//lin/ii'iii  i  if  <i-l,-l,-«ln  i . ••.«.<],  the  somewhat  peculiar  name  the  cupidity  of  any  one  who  is  nia-ter  of  that  countrv  : 
of  a  king  of  McM'potamia.  who  oppre-.-ed  the  Israelites  and  the  (.reck  rulers  of  Kgvpt  coveted  the  possession 
for  eiidit years.  They  were  delivered  from  his  hand  by  "f  th"  oppo-ite  coast  of  Cilicia.  \\hich  contains  the 
Othniel.  .Ju.  iii. --IM.  No  other  kinu'  of  Mesopotamia  is  materials  of  shipbuilding,  which  Kgvpt  docs  not" 
mentioned  in  history  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  this  per-  (Smith's  Die!  of  Creek  :i^<\  K<>in.  (ie.ignii  hyi.  It  would  ap- 
soii  was  merely  a  chieftain  of  the  district,  who  hv  dint  pear  that  the  Romans  about  the  Christian  era  some 
of  superior  eiiergv,  and  perhaps  unscrupulous  policy,  tunes  coupled  Cilieia  with  Svria  for  one  provincial 
established  for  himself  a  sort  of  kiny'doni,  which  proved  administration.  i  .s  «  article-  CVUKN  I  r>.  i  'J'he  more 
of  ephemeral  existence-.  immediate  occasion  of  this  was  the  necessitv  of  subdu- 

CHU'Z.V  iXorjayi,  the  .-tcward  of  Herod  Antipas.  ing.  and  keeping  in  subjection,  the  hardy  mountaineers, 
mentioned  only  in  connection  \\ith  his  \\ife  Joanna,  with  th<-ir  bold  and  troublesome  chiefs,  who  held  pos- 
who  was  one  of  the  pious  women  that  miui-tcn-d  to  session  of  the  higher  and  less  cultivated  districts  of  the 
the  Lord  of  their  sul)stauce,  I,u.  viii. :;.  region. 

CILJC'IA,  the  ancient  division  of  Asia  Minor  which  j  The-  Cilician.-  are  understood  to  have  been  of  Ara- 
lav  neare.-t  to  Syria,  having  the  .Mediterranean  on  the  maic  origin,  and  are  expressly  said  by  Herodotus  to 
south.  I'amphylia  on  the  we-t.  the  Taurus  rau-_;v  on  ha\e  deri\ed  their  name  from  ( 'ili\,  a  son  of  Agenor, 
the  north,  separating  it  from  l.ycaoiiia  and  (  'apjiailocia.  the  I'hcenician  (vii.  ni).  It  was  not  till  after  the  time 
and  on  the  east  the  ran^i  of  Ainanus  with  the  Svrian  of  Alexander  that  the  <; reeks  began  to  settle  in  it; 
frontier.  It  was  divided  into  two  parts  a  western,  but  in  process  of  time  the1,  became  the  possessors  of  its 
called  Cilicia  I'edias  (level  or  plain),  and  an  eastern,  chief  to -A  us  and  the  leaders  of  it*  civilization.  Tarsus 
Cilicia  Tracheia  (rough  or  mountainous);  the  former  on  the  Cydnus,  Seleuchia  on  the  Calycadnus,  Antiochia 
well  watered  and  fertile,  the  latter  rugged,  and  chiefly,  and  Ai^inoe  on  the  coast  of  the  Tracheia.  were  all 
fit  for  timber  and  pasturage.  The  boundary-lines,  in  Cn-ek  towns:  and  Tarsus  rose  to  become  one  of  the 
regard  to  these  divisions,  and  in  regard  to  the  separa-  uivai  schools  for  taste  and  learning  in  the  ancient  world, 
tion  of  Cilicia  from  I'amphylia,  seem  to  have  been  either  j  it  has  acquired  a  greater  renown,  however,  from  being 
shifting  or  imperfectly  known ;  for  ancient  authors  are  |  the  birthplace  of  tin:  apostle  1'aul.  .Mopsuestia  or 
by  no  means  agreed  in  the  accounts  they  give  of  them.  !  Mopsus,  another  town  situated  on  the  Pyramus,  and 
Strabo,  for  example,  places  the  boundary  between  j  near  the  eastern  border  of  the  province,  also  acquired 
Cilicia  and  Pamphylia  at  Coracesium,  26  miles  farther  j  celebrity  from  having  become  toward  the  close  of  the 
east  than  it  is  placed  by  I'liny.  who  takes  the  river  j  fourth  century  the  residence  of  Theodore,  whose  theo- 
Melas  as  the  separation;  while  another,  Mela,  fixes  ;  logical  writings  exercised  a  powerful  influence  in  the 
on  the  promontory  Anemurium,  /JO  miles  more  to  the  [  East,  and  gave  rise  to  considerable  heats  and  contro- 
east  than  Strabo's.  It  is  about  the  river  Lamus,  which  •  versies.  Shortly  before  the  Christian  era,  the  sea  along 
Strabo  makes  the  division  between  the  two  parts  of  the  Cilician  coast  had  been  much  infested  by  pirates, 


CINNAMON" 


CIRCUMCISION 


who  sided  with  Mithridates  in  the  war  carried  on  hy 
that  monarch  against  Koine,  and  were  also  extensively 
engaged  in  the  slave  trade.  But  they  were  at  last  mas 
tered  hy  Pompey  ;  and  the  sea,  as  well  as  the  land  in 
that  part  of  the  world,  was  la-ought  under  the  all-power 
ful  sway  of  Rome. 

CINNAMON    f'vijpj.      Like    cassia,   cinnamon   is 

mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament  only  as  a  perfume, 
Kx.  xxx.  23;Pr.  vii.  17;  C;i.  iv.  IV.  Amongst  ourselves  it  is 
chietlv  used  1>\-  th.e  o iol<  as  a  condiment,  and  hy  the 
physician  as  a  tonic  and  carminative,  a  gentle  cordial 
and  stimulant, 

The  hest  cinnamon  is  procured  from  L'iiiiiaiiionnuii 
zeylanicum,  extensively  cultivated  in  Ceylon  and  .lava. 
This  little  tree  belongs  to  the  laurel  family,  and  the 
leaf  is  not  unlike  the  laurel,  though  of  a,  lighter  green. 


(173.1 


The  white  hlossoni  comes  out  with  great  profusion, 
and  for  many  miles  around  Colombo  brightens  all  the 
landscape  in  its  season,  although  it  diffuses  hardly  any 
perceptible  odour  through  the  air.  Tin's  flower  is  fol 
lowed  hy  a  nut,  from  which  an  oil  is  extracted,  and  as 
this  oil  burn*  with  a  delightful  fragrance,  when  receiv 
ing  ambassadors  and  on  high  state  occasions  the  kings 
of  Candy  used  to  have  lamps  of  it  burning  in  their 
audience  chamber.  The  wood  itself  is  pervaded  by 
the  same  grateful  perfume,  and  walking-sticks  of  cin 
namon  wood  are  highly  prized,  as  well  as  little  articles 
ii f  cabinet-work.  (I'eroival's  Account  <>f  Ceylnn,  p.  ;;:;t;-:;.-)i.'\ 

When  branches  of  the  tree  are  three  years  old,  and 
not  nil  ire  than  two  or  three  inches  in  diameter,  they 
are  lopped  off  and  peeled.  The  epidermis  and  green 
pulpy  matter  are  afterwards  carefully  scraped  off,  and 
the  inner  bark  which  remains,  of  a  brownish  yellow 
colour,  is  made  up  into  quills,  with  the  smaller  intro 
duced  into  the  larger,  dried  in  the  sun,  and  packed  up 
in  bundles. 

In  commerce  c«.W«  liijnva,  chiefly  from  the  Chinese 
markets,  is  often  substituted  for  cinnamon.  The  cassia 
has  a  stronger  and  coarser  flavour,  a  darker  colour,  and 
a  shorter  resinous  fracture,  and  its  decoction  gives  a 


blue  colour  when  treated  with  tincture  of  iodine,  which 
the  true  cinnamon  does  not.  "The  great  consumers  of 
cinnamon  are  the  chocolate- makers  of  Spain,  Italy. 
France,  and  Mexico,  and  by  them  the  difference  in 
flavour  between  cinnamon  and  cassia  is  readily  de 
tected.  An  extensive  dealer  in  cinnamon  informs  me 
that  the  Germans,  Turks,  and  Russians  prefer  cassia, 
and  will  not  purchase  cinnamon,  the  delicate  flavour  of 
which  is  not  strong  enough  for  them.  In  illustration 
of  this,  I  was  told  that  some  cinnamon  (valued  at 
:j.-'.  (i<t.  per  II).)  having  been  by  mistake  sent  to  Con 
stantinople,  was  unsaleable  there  at  any  price ;  while 
i-tt.i.-tin  //i/nf-ii  i  worth  about  <!*/.  per  lb. )  was  in  great  re 
quest.''  (Pereira's  Materia  Medica,  1300.)  [.1.  H.] 
CINNERETH.  See  C  i  n  \  x  K  H  KT  1 1 . 
CIRCUMCISION.  The  word  denotes  Dimply  the 
(•utility  nrnini'f,  but  is  used  technically  of  that  particular 
cutting  off  or  around  of  the  foreskin  in  males,  which 
from  early  times  had  become  an  established  practice 
among  various  nations.  It  first  comes  into  notice  in 
Scripture  in  connection  with  the  covenant  made  with 
Abraham,  Cio.  xvii.  10-11,  "This  is  my  covenant  which 
ye  shall  keep  between  me  and  you,  and  thy  seed  after 
thce :  every  man-child  among  you  shall  lie  circum 
cised.  And  ye  shall  circumcise  the  flesh  of  your  fore 
skin  ;  and  it  shall  be  a  token  of  the  covenant  betwixt 
me  and  you.  And  he  that  is  eiuht  days  old  shall 
be  circumcised  among  you,  every  man-child  in  your 
generations ;  he  that  is  born  in  the  house,  or  bought 

of  any   stranger,    which   is   not   of  thy   seed 

And  the  uncircumcised  man-child,  whose  flesh  of  his 
foreskin  is  not  circumcised,  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off 
from  his  people;  lie  hath  broken  my  covenant."  One 
might  almost  gather  from  these  words  that  the  rite 
was  not  appointed  as  something  absolutely  new;  but 
was  rather  adopted  as,  to  some  extent,  an  existing 
practice,  and,  with  a  definite  prescription  as  to  the  day 
for  its  administration,  associated  with  the  divine 
covenant  as  the  proper  rite  of  initiation  into  its  privi 
leges,  prospects,  and  obligations.  Such,  at  least,  ap 
pears  to  have  been  the  fact.  There  is  undoubted  evi 
dence  of  the  rite  having  been  practised  from  very  early 
times  by  the  Egyptians  and  Ethiopians.  Herodotus 
professes  himself  in  doubt  whether  its  origin  ought  to 
be  ascribed  to  the  one  of  these  nations  or  the  other 
(ii.  inO,  but  seems  confident  that  it  should  be  sought 
nowhere  else.  This  would  not  of  itself,  however,  be 
decisive  of  the  question;  for  Herodotus  proves  himself 
to  be  no  authority  except  in  regard  to  the  existence  nf 
the  custom:  since  he  affirms  of  the  Syrians  in  Pales- 

'  tine,  that  they  acknowledged  they  had  derived  it  from 
the  Eu'vptians  --a  palpable  mistake;  and  the  commenee- 

'  merit  of  the  practice  among  the  chosen  people  dates 
from  eight  to  ten  or  eleven  centuries  before  the  time  of 
Herodotus — an  enormous  period  in  the  early  history  of 
the  world,  and  quite  sufficient  to  admit  of  any  practice 
like  this  having  extended  to  and  become  naturalized 
in  quarters  entirely  different  from  the  place  of  its 

i  origin.      And  if  the  relation  of  the  Israelites  towards 

•  the  Egyptians  and  other  races  in  the  north  of  Africa 
had  been  such  as  to  have  made  it  natural  for  the  latter 
to  borrosv  in  matters  of  this  sort  from  them,  the  just 
conclusion,  so  far  as  historical  grounds  go,  would  be  to 
make  the  first  existence  of  circumcision  coeval  with  its 
institution  as  connected  with  the  Abraliamic  covenant: 
for  the  record  of  this  is  by  far  our  earliest  historical 
notice  of  its  observance.  But  it  cannot  be  fairly  said 


ClKCUMClSiOX 


333 


CIRCUMCISION 


that  the  position  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt,  or  their  re-  '  circumstanced,  as  the  Egyptians,  the  Ethiopians,  the 

lation  subsequently  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  north  of  Troglodytes,  the  Kafirs  of  South  Africa,  and  islanders 

Africa,  was  of  the  kind  required  for  such  a  derivation  in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

of  the  practice.  It  was  not  from  those  who  were  ,  The  connection  of  the  practice  with  cleanliness,  which 
first  despised  or  hated  as  an  insignificant  band  of  herds-  in  the  case  of  the  Egyptians  was  very  distinctly  indi- 
men,  and  afterwards  eyed  with  jealousy  as  rivals  or  cated  by  Herodotus  i^ii.  ;;r),  and  which  was  also  men- 
striven  against  as  enemies,  that  the  proud  Egyptians  tioned  by  Philo,  has  something  more  to  be  said  in  its 

who  sought  to  take  the  lead  among  the  nations,  and  favour,  as  a  natural  reason  for  the  existence   of  the 

fdoried  in  being  reckoned  the  teachers  not  the  disciples  practice.      It  might  at  least    have  some  weight  with 

of  others  in  respect  to  religion  and  manners — were  at  so  peculiar  a  people  as  the  ancient  Egyptians — so  pecu- 

all  likely  to  borrow  the  rite  of  circumcision  ;   and  this  liar  also  in  their  notions  of  cleanliness,   that   for  the 

view  of  its  origin  and  diffusion  through  that  part  of  sake  of  this,  Herodotus  tells  us,  they  drank  from  cups  of 

Africa,    once    zealously   maintained    (for   example    by  brass,  which  they  scoured  every  day;  wore   linen  gar- 

Witsius  ui}iio^L'</>/ptiaca),  is  now  commonly  abandoned,  meiits  always  newly  washed;  and  that  the  priests,  who 

It  is  not  so  easy  to  determine  either  the  precise  re-  were  the   kind   of   pattern-men,  washed  themselves  in 

gion   where   the   practice   originated,    or    the  grounds  cold  water  twice  every  day  and  twice  every  night,  and 

which  led  to  its  adoption.      From  the  measure  of  pain-  even  shaved  their  whole   body  every  third  day,  that  no 

fulness   and   mutilation   involved   in   the   operation,   it  vermin  might  be  harboured  about  their  persons.      The 

could  not  but  be  otherwise  than  repugnant  to  the   na-  historian  may  have  been   perfectly  ri^ht  in  saying  of 

tural  feelings;  and  it  must  have  been  associated   with  them,  that  "  they  circumcised  themselves  for  the  sake 

some  important  considerations  of  a  physical  or  religions  of  cleanliness,  thinking  it  better  to  be  clean  than  to  lie 

kind, before  it  could  have  obtained  such  early  and  wide-  handsome."      Vet  one  can  scarcely  think,  that  even  tor 

spread   prevalence.       It  has  been  supposed,   and   is  still  tit.  ,11,  this  could  be  an  adequate  reason  for  the  existence 

maintained  in  certain  quarters  with  a  plentiful  degree  of  a    really    national    practice;    it    might  possibly  go 

of  confidence,  that  the  primary  ground  of   its   adoption     far  to  a< tint    for  it   among   the   priests,  the  separated 

was  of  a  phvsical  nature— that  in  the  places  of  its  first  and,  as  to  cleanliness,  the  normal  men:   but  it<  connec- 
rise  and  most  general  prevalence  it  was  actually  found  tion  with  cleanlii 
to  be  conducive  to  health,  and  was  believed  to  be   pro 
ductive  of  fruitfulness,  and  was   hence  regarded  as  a 
sort    of    medicinal    application    tK:ili-ch   on  Genesis  xu;  I 
The   proof   of   this,    however,    is   very   meagre,  and    far 
from    sufficient    to    establish    the    position    for    which 
it    is    adduced.      It    is    true,    Philo  long   ago   thought 
that  the  practice  had  originated  in  the  belief  of  its  ten 
dency    to    promote   health    and    fruitfulness:    l,nt,    like  eiice  among  the  Egyptians,  or  was  not  confined  chiefly 


was  too  limited  and  incidental  to 
originate  and  maintain  it  as  a  general  observance 
union^  the  mass  of  the  people:  and  certainly  it  could 
have  little  weight  with  the  savage  Troglodytes,  ami  the 
barbarous  or  semi-  barbarous  nations  in  other  parts  of 
Africa  that  are  said  to  have  practised  the  rite  from 
the  remotest  antiquity.  There  is,  however,  some  reason 
to  doubt  whether  it  actually  bail  a  national  preval 


many  other  of  I'hilo's  views,  this  was  merely  the 
opinion  of  a  philosophical  religionist  speculating  in  his 
closet.  "  It  prevents  the  disease  of  carbuncle"-  -much, 
we  suppose,  as  the  amputating  of  the  foot  would  pre 
vent  u'oiit;  but  there  are  not  many  that  for  the  sake  of 


to    the   priestly    and    military   classes.      Herodotus,    n 
doubt,  speaks  of  it  as  if  it  had  been  national;  but  he  was 
wont  to  juds_re  too  much  from  apparent  circumstances  — 
wont  also  to  draw   too  general  and   sweeping  conclu 
sions  from  partial  facts,  and  even  sometimes  to  take  for 


avoiding  the  contingency  of  a  very  occasional  disease  facts  what  were  but  vague  traditions  or  virtual  fables; 
of  either  sort,  would  think  of  forestalling  the  evil  by  and  it  mav  still  have  been  the  case  at  the  time  he 
such  a  remedy.  It  is  also  stated  that  it  is  a  pivvcn-  visited  ICgypt,  that  neither  were  the  people  as  a  whole 
tive  against  certain  local  disorders  in  the  parts,  that  it  circumcised,  nor  were  motives  of  cleanliness  the  sole 
precludes  physical  inconvenience  among  the  bushmcii,  ground  for  its  observance  by  those  who  practised  the 
that  the  attempted  abolition  of  something  similar  ti  rite.  The  passage  in  .Jos.  v.  %2~!i,  so  often  referred  to 
circumcision  among  th-  females  in  Abyssinia,  through  (still also  by  Wilkinson,  Ancient  K-jpti  u.s,  v.  31T;  :m«l  KaiUch  on 
the  exertions  of  certain  Catholic  missionaries,  was  fol-  Co.  xvii.  1<>>  as  a  proof  of  the  universal  practice  of  circnm- 
lowvd  by  dangerous  physical  consequences,  which  ob-  cision  amon-;  the  K-yptians  in  ancient  times,  and  of 
liged  them  to  desist  -all  manifestly  gross  exaggera-  their  accounting  those  unclean  who  hatl  not  undergone 
tions  of  some  fancied,  or  at  most  merely  exceptional  it,  is  quite  misunderstood  when  so  applied.  After 
and  peculiar  case  s.  \Vhy  is  no  physical  inconvenience  stating  that  the  people  had  not  been  circumcised  who 
or  corporeal  malady  (of  a  general  description)  found  had  been  born  during  the  sojourn  in  the  wilderness, 
fp.m  the  want  of  the  practice  among  tribes  and  na-  and  that  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  the  Lord 
tions  inhabiting  similar  latitudes  and  following  like  >  Joshua  caused  them  to  be  circumcised  after  the  passage 
occupations  to  those  of  the  peoples  among  whom  it  has  of  Jordan  had  been  effected,  "the  Lord,  it  is  added 
prevailed!  It  is  perfectly  possible,  that  men  in  cer-  by  the  historian,  "said  to  Joshua,  This  day  have  1 
tain  circumstances  may  have  supposed  they  incurred,  rolled  away  the  reproach  of  Egypt  from  off  you;"  as  if 
the  maladies  and  inconveniences  referred  to  from  the'  —such  is  the  interpretation  put  upon  the  words — the 
want  of  circumcision,  or  avoided  them  from  having  Egyptians  had  been  cognizant  of  the  fact  of  the  rite  of 
undergone  it;  but  the  tilings  themselves  are  so  partial,  circumcision  having  fallen  into  desuetude  during  the 
and  the  occasions  so  rare,  on  which  the  occurrence  of  forty  years'  sojourn,  and  had  in  consequence  Veen 
them  could  be  attributed  to  such  a  cause,  that  it  is  in  taunting  the  Israelites  as  an  unclean  people.  An  al- 
the  highest  degree  improbable  the  practice  should,  for  •.  together  improbable  supposition— for,  cut  off  as  the 
such  reasons,  have  acquired  the  prevalence  and  tenacity  .  Israelites  were  from  any  direct  intercourse  with  Egypt, 
of  a  national  custom  among  even  a  single  people,  to  say  how  were  the  Egyptians  so  much  as  to  know  that  the 
nothing  of  people  so  widely  removed,  and  so  differently  |  rite  had  ceased  to  be  performed  \  Other  tribes,  it  was 


CIRCUMCISION 


C1UCTMCIS10X 


known,  practised  it  in  the  desert  -  and  why  might  not 
they  ?  Why,  at  any  of  the  stations  where  the  Israelites 
rested  for  weeks  or  months  together,  might  they  not 
have  found  time  and  opportunity  to  practise  so  compa- 
tively  simple  an  operation.'  One  does  not  see  how  the 
knowledge,  or  even  the  suspicion  of  the  fact  in  question, 
should  have  got  abroad  in  Kgypt.  and  formed  there  the 
subject  of  remark  to  the  prejudice;  of  Israel.  Xor,  if 
their  imcircumeised  state  had  become  perfectly  known 
in  Egypt,  does  it  appear  how  the  administration  of  the 
rite  should  of  itself  have  been  sufficient  to  take  awav 
the  reproach  of  Kgypt.  The  children  of  Israel  entered 
Kgypt  as  a  circumcised  people,  and  yet  were  so  far 
from  being  free  from  reproach,  that  they  were  looked 
upon  as  a  sort  of  abomination  by  the  Egyptians, 
Go.  xlvi.  :;t;  so  little,  on  the  Kgyptiau  side,  had  circum 
cision  to  do,  either  with  the  first  occasion,  or  with  the 
ultimate  removal  of  a  ground  of  reproach. 

Ft  is  to  other  and  more  serious  aspects  of  the  position 
of  the  Israelites  that  we  must  look  for  a  proper  expla 
nation  of  what  is  said  respecting  the  rolling  away  of 
the  reproach  of  Egypt;  their  old  task-masters  there  had 
something  else  and  greater  to  reproach  them  with,  in 
connection  with  the  wilderness  sojourn,  than  the  simple 
non-observance  of  circumcision.  For  the  Israelites 
had  left  Kgvpt  with  strong  assurances  and  high  hopes 
of  being  soon  put  in  possession  of  a  land  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey;  but  how  had  it  turned  out?  Instead 
of  a  quiet  settlement  in  a  rich  and  fertile  territory, 
they  had  found  only  a  wandering  to  and  fro  in  the 
trackless  desert.  This  was  the  reproach  that  Moses 
anticipated,  when  he  heard  for  the  first  time  of  the 
Lord's  purpose  to  fall  from  the  immediate  execution  of 
the  covenant- promise :  ''Wherefore  should  the  Egyp 
tians  speak  and  say.  For  mischief  did  he  bring  them 
out,  to  slay  them  in  the  mountains,  and  to  consume 
them  from  the  face  of  the  earth?"  Ex.  xxxii.  IL'.  And  so 
again,  when  the  determination  was  actually  formed  to 
delay  the  fulfilment  for  a  generation,  and  a  threat  was 
even  held  out  of  an  utter  destruction  of  the  people,  the 
same  thought  recurs  to  Moses — ' -  Then  the  Egyptians 
will  hear  it,  and  will  tell  it  to  the  inhabitants  of  this 
land;"  "  Remember  thy  servants  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob;  lest  the  land  whence  tluni  broughtest  us  out 
say,  Because  the  Lord  was  not  able  to  bring  them  into 
the  land  which  lie  promised  them,  and  because  he 
hated  them,  he  hath  brought  them  out  to  slay  them  in 
the  wilderness,"  Nu.  xiv.  is,  i-i;  De.  ix.  27, us.  This  was  em 
phatically  the  reproach  of  Egypt,  which  she  cast  upon 
the  covenant- people  up  till  the  period  in  question — the 
non-fulfilment  of  the  grand  promise  of  the  covenant. 
But  why  should  the  rolling  away  of  that  reproach  be  so 
especially  coupled  with  the  circumcising  of  the  new 
generation,  after  they  had  crossed  the  Jordan  ?  Simply 
because  this  was  the  fit  and  proper  time  for  initiating 
into  the  covenant  those  in  whose  behalf  its  provisions 
were  now  to  be  implemented.  The  fathers — all  the 
full-grown  men  who  had  left  Egypt — had,  on  account 
of  their  wayward  and  rebellious  spirit,  been  rejected  by 
the  Lord ;  the  covenant,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned, 
was  suspended,  and  had  necessarily  to  be  so  for  their 
children  too,  till  these  children  had  arrived  at  the  state 
when  they  could  act  for  themselves.  These  historical 
circumstances  are  distinctly  noticed  by  way  of  explana 
tion  in  the  passage  of  Joshua.  Hence,  circumcision, 
the  peculiar  sign  of  the  covenant,  properly  fell  into 
abeyance,  while  the  covenant  itself  was  under  a  kind 


of  suspense  ;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  time  for 
fulfilling  the  covenant  had  returned,  it  was  fit  that 
the  people  should,  by  the  administration  of  the  distinc 
tive  rite,  be  again  formally  brought  under  its  yoke;  and 
lit,  too,  that  the  precise  moment  for  doing  this  should 
lie  when,  by  the  destruction  of  the  Amorites  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Jordan,  and  the  miraculous  crossing  of 
the  Jordan  itself,  the  people  had  undoubted  evidence  of 
the  Lord's  purpose  to  fulfil  all  he  had  promised.  They 
hail  now  received  ample  encouragement  to  enter  into 
the  covenant;  and  to  indicate  the  nearness  and  certainty 
of  the  connection  between  this  and  the  fulfilment,  the 
Lord  declared  that  already  the  reproach  of  Egypt  was 
rolled  away;  there  should  be  no  longer  occasion  for  it. 
(Sue  Calvin,  Ileng.stenbcrg,  Kcil,  on  the  passage  referred  in.) 

Rightly  viewed,  then,  no  support  can  be  obtained 
from  this  passage  in  favour  of  the  view  that  the  Kgvp 
tians  as  a  nation  practised  circumcision,  and  that  they 
so  generally  associated  it  with  notions  of  cleanness  as 
to  reproach  those  who  omitted  its  observance  with  being 
in  a  shameful  condition.  That  the  Egyptians  viewed 
the  practice  as  having  some  sort  of  relation  to  clean 
ness,  and  that  this  might  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
reasons  which  led  to  its  observance  there,  especially 
among  the  priests,  is  all  that  can  fairly  be  affirmed  on 
the  subject.  Whether  or  not  it  was  ever  so  gene 
rally  practised  in  Egypt  as  to  be  a  national  usage,  it 
appeal's  to  have  been  regarded  as  strictly  binding  only 
on  the  priesthood,  and  those  who  were  initiated  into 
the  sacred  mysteries — on  which  account,  it  is  reported 
the  priests  refused  to  initiate  Pythagoras,  unless  he 
first  submitted  to  be  circumcised  (Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  i.  p. 
130).  It  did,  therefore,  in  point  of  fact  come  to  be  as 
sociated  with  religion — a  religion  that  made  undue  ac 
count  of  outward  distinctions  and  merely  natural  virtues 
— and  was  recognized  as  the  distinctive  badge  of  those 
who  were  its  more  peculiar  representatives.  Xow.  no 
thing  more  is  needed  as  a  basis  for  the  use  made  of  it 
in  connection  with  the  covenant  of  God.  For,  what 
was  the  design  of  that  covenant?  It  was  to  constitute 
those  who  belonged  to  it  a  chosen  people — a  people 
brought  into  such  near  relationship  to  Jehovah,  that 
they  should  be  called  a  kingdom  of  priests.  Kx.  xix  ti;  De. 
vii.n, 7;  and  might,  as  having  such  a  peculiar  interest  in 
him,  be  at  once  the  subject  of  his  distinguishing  good 
ness  and  the  witnesses  of  his  truth  and  glory.  The 
institution  afterwards  of  a  priestly  class  in  Israel  in  no 
respect  cancelled  this  general  destination  of  the  people; 
it  only  served,  by  the  elevation  of  a  more  select  portion, 
with  its  peculiar  rights  and  symbolical  ministrations, 
to  exhibit  the  true  nature  of  the  calling  and  destination 
of  the  people.  Xow.  in  affixing  circumcision  to  such  a 
covenant,  as  its  peculiar  badge  and  seal,  the  one  neces 
sarily  came  to  participate  in  the  character  of  the  other: 
circumcision  could  no  longer  be  what  it  was  in  Egypt,  and 
perhaps  in  other  heathenish  countries,  a  mere  symbol  of 
cleanliness  or  of  separation  to  a  distinct  religious  position; 
it  became  impressed  with  the  moral  nature  of  the  God 
of  the  covenant  to  which  it  was  attached,  and  symbo 
lized  the  holiness  which  was  the  essential  element  and 
grand  aim  of  his  character  and  government.  Cleanli 
ness  in  the  spiritual  sphere — in  other  words,  separation 
from  the  defilements  of  nature,  and  surrender  as  from 
a  new  position  to  the  love  and  service  of  God — this, 
which  was  to  form  the  characteristic  of  members  of  the 
covenant,  became  also  the  import  of  the  distinctive 
badge  or  sign  of  the  covenant — circumcision. 


ClRcr.MClsloX 


CISTERX 


There  was  a  natural  fitness  in  the  ordinance  for  such  !  of  the  second  week's  existence  of  the  child.  Amon« 
a  purpose,  apart  from  the  historical  reason  for  its  em-  .  the  Latins  the  day  for  giving  the  child  a  name  was  the 
ployment.  By  the  mutilation  it  practises  on  the  organ  !  eighth  if  a  girl,  the  ninth  if  a  boy;  and  there  was  on 
of  generation,  it  points  to  corruption  in  its  source  as  the  occasion  a  solemnity  preceded  bv  a  lustration  of 
adhering  to  the  very  being  and  birth  of  men — propa-  the  child,  on  which  account  it  was  called  the  lustra- 
gating  itself  by  the  settled  constitution  of  nature,  which  tion-day  (({<<'*  tiixtrifiii'}.  The  tenth  dav  appears  to 
transmits  from  parent  to  child  a  common  impurity,  have  been  commonly  observed  among  the  Creeks  for  a 
.Most  appropriately,  therefore,  might  a  rite,  which  con-  similar  purpose,  though  the  seventh  is  also  mentioned: 
sisted  in  cutting  off  somewhat  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh  and  it  was  usual  to  signali/.e  it  by  a  sacrifice  and  a 
of  nature's  productiveness,  be  taken  as  the  symbol  of  a  ,  feast,  to  which  friends  were  invited.  These  customs 
covenant,  which  called  men  away  from  nature's  pollu-  are  indicative  of  a  tendency,  that  probablv  discovered 
tion,  and  sought  to  raise  them  into  blessed  fellowship  itself  generally  in  the  early  history  of  nations,  to  have, 
with  the  life  and  holiness  of  Cod.  It.  as  it  were,  along  with  the  imposition  of  a  name  on  the  child, 
espoused  the  circumcised  to  Jehovah.  Ex.  iv.  L<:,,  that  he  whereby  it  came  to  assume  a  kind  of  separate  indivi- 
and  his  offspring  might  occupy  a  higher  sphere,  and  ',  duality,  a  religious  ceremony,  having  respect  to  its 
follow  the  direction  of  a  purer  impulse,  than  could  be  purification  from  sin  and  its  commendation  to  the 


found  in  the  merely  natural  line  of  tilings. 

There  can  1 

Israelite-  themselves  perfectly  understood   this  svml>o- 
lical   import    and    bearing  of   the  rite   of   circumcision. 
They  knew  that   it    bespoke   puritv    of   heart    and    con 
duct.  <>r  implied  the  call   to   a  holy  life,  mi  the   part  of     individuality 
the  members  of  the  covenant,  and  was  no  mere  badge  of  ,  revolutions  c 
external  separation  from  the  other  nations  of  the  earth 

which,  indeed,  it  could  hut  imperfectlv  do  from  its 
prevalence  ainon^  surrounding  tribes.  Hence  .Mox.- 
expressed  hi-  incapacity  for  the  high  and  linlv  work  to 
which  the  Lord  called  him,  bv  saying  that  "  he  was  a 
man  of  uncireumcised  lips."  |--A  vi.  i-j:  it  was  but  corrupt 

IK. til  iv  that  spoke  in  him.  Hence  also  he  exhorted  till' 
people,  with  reference  to  the  peculiar  service  before 
them,  to  ••  circumcise  the  foreskin  of  their  heart,  and 
be  no  more  stilt' necked."  IK-  x.  ii;  :  as  auain  at  a  later 
period  the  prophet  Jeremiah.  "  Break  up  your  fallow- 
ground,  and  sow  not  a;non_r  thorn-;  ciivunn-i-e  your 
selves  to  tlie  Lord,  and  take  away  the  foreskins  of  your 
heart."  cli  iv.  i.  So  that  St.  Paul  simply  indicated  what 


favour  of  Heaven.      And  as  circumcision,  from  its  na 

loubt  that  the    better  part   of  the     ture  and   design,  was    not  only   a   rite  of  purification, 

but  an  iiiltintui-i/  rite  of  that  description,  introducing 
the  child  into  its  r<n-(n<.iitt  life  and  prospects,  it  was  fit 
that  it  should  be  coeval  with  what  stamped  the  child's 
that,  at  the  end  of  one  of  the  briefest 
time,  on  the  entrance  of  a  fresh  week  of 
his  earthly  existence,  when  he  received  his  proper 
name,  he  should  also  receive  the  sign  of  his  covenant- 
standing.  In  later  times  we  find  it  expressly  noted 
that  the  name  and  the  circumcision  went  together, 
Lu.  ii.  .v.i;  and  the  probability  is  it  was  so  from  the  first. 
The  son  of  an  Israelite  was  thus  constituted  a  member 
of  the  covenant  at  the  same  moment  that  he  received 
his  designation  as  a  distinct  member  of  the  family. 

In  the  case  of  foreigners  coming  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  true  (  ,od.  and  seeking  to  be  admitted  to  a  partici 
pation  in  the  bl<  ->i !!•_;•  of  the  family  of  A braham,  cir- 
cumc;-ion  was  indispensable.  Strangers  might  come 
and  worship,  without  it.  in  the  court  of  the  Gentiles, 
but  they  could  not  be  reco^ni/.ed  as  members  of  the 


all  aloiiM-  was  involved  in  the  ordinance,  and  put  mi  it 
a  Christian  interpretation,  when  he  said.  "  We  are  the 
circumcision  who  worship  God  in  the  Spirit."  I'hi.  iii  :: 
It  had  become,  however,  too  do>elv  interwoven  with 
the  ceremonials  of  Judaism,  and  was  itself  of  a  nature 
too  grossly  carnal,  to  lie  suited  to  the  dispensation  of 
the  gospel,  and  was  (••ins,.,|uently.  with  the  introduc 
tion  of  the 

like  spiritual  import,  and  in  better  accordance 
genius  of  Christianity. 


covenant.  Of  those  who  submitted  to  this  condition 
on  a  larue  scale,  there  were  the  Idunieans,  \\heii  they 
had  been  vanquished  by-John  Hyrcanus  (1  Mac.  i.  41, 42), 
who  must  therefore  have  previously  abandoned  the 
practice,  and  tlie  people  of  Adiabeiie  with  their  king 
I /.bates  (Jos.  Ant  XX,  2). 

CISTERN.     The  word  usually  translated  cistern  in 
•supplanted  by  another  ordinance  of     Scripture   c\'-r.   l><>r\  properly   signifies  a  < 


th 


ith  th 
Abrahamic 


Jn  connecting  circumcision  with 
covenant,  the  Lord  c\pres-!v  ordained  i 
on  the  eighth  day:  "  And  he  that  i 
(literally,  a  son  of  eight  days)  shal 
ai  long  you.  every  man-child  in  yu 
There  is  no  evidence  that  anv  of  the  ancient  tribes  or 


/lit:  and  according  to  the  connection,  is  to  be  taken  in 
the  sense  of  cistern,  pit.  prison  house,  or  sepulchre. 
When  tlie  reference  is  to  a  place  used  as  a  receptacle  f oi 


administration     waters,  cistern  is.  of  course,  the  proper  rendering;  and 


L-ight  davs 


in   that    case,  as    the    uords   for   cistern   and    well    verv 


be  circumcised  nearly  correspond  (Air  and  //<)/•),  so  there  is  often  no 
:•  uvneratioiis."  material  difference  between  the  things  signified  bv 
them.  For,  one  class  of  cisterns  consisted  of  excava- 
nations  among  whom  circumcision  prevailed,  except  timis  formed  around  a  spring,  for  the  purpose  of  rc- 
those  sprung  from  Abraham,  performed  it  at  so  early  a  taining  the  water,  which  at  certain  seasons  bubbled  up 
period:  it  seems  rather,  so  far  as  their  practice  in  this  from  below:  and  such  might  indifferently  be  called 
resp  :ct  is  known,  to  have  been  reserved  to  the  age  of  wells  or  cisterns.  Others,  however,  and  these  what 
puberty.  There  may  still,  however,  have  been  some-  more  commonly  bore  the  name  of  cisterns,  were  covered 
thing  in  the  usages  of  early  times  which  rendered  it  reservoirs  dug  out  of  the  rock  or  earth,  into  which, 
fitting  to  have  the  rite  performed  about  the  eighth  during  the  rainy  seasons,  either  the  rain  itself  or  the 
day,  so  as  the  better  to  draw  men's  attention  to  its  ,  waters  of  some  flowing  stream  were  conducted,  and 
spiritual  import,  and  prevent  them  from  substituting  |  kept  in  store  for  the  season  of  drought.  And  these 
other  things  of  a  superstitious  nature  in  its  place.  [  again  varied,  according  to  circumstances,  both  in  their 
Religious  rites  connected  with  the  period  of  childhood  dimensions  and  in  the  manner  in  which  they  were  pre- 
appear  to  have  been  introduced  at  an  early  period,  and  pared — some  being  dug  in  the  simplest  style,  others 
in  later  times  at  least,  most  probably  also  in  earlier,  lined  with  wood  or  with  cement,  and  others  again  fitted 
were  wont  to  be  connected  with  the  commencement  :  up  with  considerable  ornament.  Describing  some  of 


CISTERN 

the  commoner  sort,  on  the  route  from  'Akka  to  Jerusa 
lem,  and  near  the  village  of  Ilableh,  Dr.  Robinson 
says,  in  the  supplementary  volume  of  his  Researches, 
"  We  were  here  surrounded  by  cisterns  dug  out  in  solid 
rooks,  mostly  with  a  round  opening  at  the  top.  Some- 
were  entirely  open.  One  of  them,  seven  feet  long  by 
live  broad  a'nd  three  doe]),  was  merely  sunk  in  the  rock, 
with  two  steps  to  descend  into  it.  Another,  of  similar 
dimensions,  had  but  one  step  left  in  it,  A  larger  cistern 
was  near  the  water- course:  it  was  twelve  feet  long  by 


The  Tloyal  Ci.-tcru  of  Die  Temple.— Barelaj 


nine  broad,  and  about  eight  fret  deep;  two  rude  and 
very  flat  arches  were  thrown  over  it.  and  on  these 
rested  the  covering  of  flat  stones,  some  of  which  still 
remained.  All  these  excavations  were  evidently  an 
cient"  (p. 137). 

President  Olin,  in  his  Tmreh  (i\.  p.  M),  describes  some 
thing  of  a  better  sort  near  Hebron:  ".lust  without  the 
city 'are  some  cisterns,  which  probably  belong  to  a  very 
early  age.  A  large  basin,  forty- seven  paces  square, 
stands  outside  the  gate  by  which  we  entered  the  city. 
It  was  nearly  full  of  greenish  water,  and  has  been  re 
paired  at  a  period  apparently  not  very  remote,  -ft  is 
of  very  solid  workmanship,  built  of  hewn  limestone, 
and  may  be  eighteen  or  twenty  feet  deep.  The  descent 
is  by  flights  of  stairs  situated  at  the  four  corners,  by 
which  the  water  is  brought  up  in  vessels  and  skins, 
and  poured  into  troughs  for  the  flocks,  or  carried  away 
for  domestic  uses,  It  was  not  at  this  time  lit  for  drink 
ing.  Another  pool,  of  smaller  dimensions,  occupies 
higher  ground  on  the  north  side  of  the  city.  These 
reservoirs  are  filled  by  the  rains,  and  are  unconnected 
with  any  perennial  fountain. 

In  a  country  like  Palestine,  to  which  summer  is 
always  more  or  less  a  season  of  drought,  which  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  have  more  than  one  perennial 
stream  (the  Jordan),  it  must  from  the  earliest  times 
have  been  one  of  the  chief  cares  of  the  inhabitants  to 
provide  themselves  with  such  artificial  means  of  supply 
as  cisterns;  and  no  town  of  any  size,  not  immediately 
on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  could  have  thought  itself 
safe  without  them.  The  most  exact  information  we 
have  of  any  particular  place  in  this  respect  relates  to 
Jerusalem.  The  natural  situation  of  the  city  is  by  no 
means  advantageous  for  the  supply  of  water.  There 


G  CITIZENSHIP 

are  only  three  small  fountains  in  its  immediate  vicinity, 
belonging  to  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,   and  none  in 
the  city  itself.     Yet  the  supply  of  water  must  have  1  teen 
ample;  for  never,  even  during  the  long  and  terrible  sieges 
which  it  has  had  to  endure,  do  we  read  of  any  scarcity 
of  water  having  prevailed;  thousands  are  recorded  to 
have  perished  of  hunger,  but   no   mention   is  made  of 
their  sufferings  being  aggravated  by  thirst.     The  be 
siegers  often  suffered  from  want  of  water,  but  not  the 
besieged  (Jos,  Ant  xiii.  8,2;  Wars, v.  12,  3,9,4);  plainly  imply 
ing  that  the  city  was  furnished  with  the  means 
of  laying  in  a  large  supply  for  the  time  to 
come.     The  peculiarity  is  briefly  noticed   in 
the   description   of   Strabo :    "Jerusalem — a 
rocky,    well  -  inclosed    fortress,    within   well- 
watered,  but   without  wholly  dry"  (xvi.2,4n). 
In  explaining  how  it  should  have  been   so, 
we  must  again  refer  to  Dr.  Robinson,  who 
says,    "The  main  dependence  of  Jerusalem 
for  water  at  the  present  day  is  (.11  its   cis 
terns;  and  this  has  probably  always  been  the 
case.     1  have  already  spoken  of  the  immense 
cisterns   now  and  anciently  existing  within 
the  area  of  the  temple,   supplied  partly  by 
rain-water    and    partly    by    the    aqueduct. 
These  of  themselves  in  the  case  of  a  siege 
would  furnish   a  tolerable  supply.      But  in 
addition    to    these,    almost    every   house   in 
Jerusalem  of  any  size  is  understood  to  have 
at  least  one  or  more  cisterns,  excavated  in 
the  soft  limestone  rock  on  which  the  city  is 
built"  (i.  P.  4so).      He  then  refers  to  the  house 
of  a  gentleman  in  which  he  resided,  and  which 
had  so  many  as  four  cisterns,  one  of  these  measuring  no 
less  than   thirty  feet  square  and   twenty  deep.      The 
water  is  conducted  into  these   cisterns  from  the  roof 
when  rain  falls  ;  and  with  proper  care  remains  pure  and 
sweet  through  the  whole  of  summer.     Such  now  is,  and 
such  also  from  the  remotest  times  must  have  been,  the 
method  taken  to  keep  Jerusalem  supplied  with  water; 
and   much    the    same    necessity  existed  in  regard  to 
most  of  the  cities  and  towns  in  the  land  of  Canaan. 

Various  allusions  by  way  of  figure  are  made  to  cis 
terns  in  Scripture.  The  breaking  of  the  wheel  at  the 
cistern — the  wheel  that  was  used  to  send  down  and 
pull  up  again  the  bucket  which  drew  water  from  the 
larger  cisterns — is  used  in  EC.  xii.  6,  as  an  image  of 
the  breaking  up  of  the  animal  economy,  which  perpe 
tually  sends,  while  it  is  at  work,  the  flow  of  vital  blood 
from  the  heart  to  the  extremities.  To  drink  waters 
out  of  one's  own  cistern  is  a  proverbial  expression. 
I'r.v.  ir,,  for  confining  one's  self  to  the  legitimate  sources 
of  pleasure  which  God  has  associated  with  our  state, 
as  contradistinguished  from  those  which  are  the  pro 
perty  of  others^  But  the  merely  human  and  artificial 
nature  of  cisterns,  which  are  of  man's  workmanship 
and  have  no  living  spring  within  them,  serve  as  a  fit 
emblem  of  the  insufficiency  of  creature- confidences,  and 
of  the  folly  of  preferring  these  to  the  infinite  and  ever- 
flowing  fulness  of  God— as  in  the  solemn  charge  of  the 
prophet.  "  My  people  have  committed  two  evils;  they 
i  have  forsaken  me,  the  fountain  of  living  waters,  and 
!  hewed  them  out  cisterns,  broken  cisterns  that  can  hold 
no  water,"  Jc.ii.is. 

CITIES  OF  REFUGE.     See  REFUGE  (CITIES  OF). 
CITIZENSHIP  played   an  important   part  in  the 
ancient  republics  of  Greece  and  Rome,  to  which  there 


CITIZENSHIP 


837 


CLAUDIUS 


is  no  exact  parallel  hi  the  history  of  the  covenant- 
people.  With  the  latter  it  was  not  the  rights  of  a 
particular  city  to  which  importance  was  attached,  but 
the  rights  of  the  community  at  large,  in  whatever  par 
ticular  locality  any  member  of  it  might  have  his  lot 
cast.  In  so  far  as  relative  distinctions  existed,  it  was 
with  tribes  and  families,  not  with  particular  cities,  that 
they  were  connected.  Citizenship  in  the  ordinary  sense 
rises  into  importance  only  once  in  Scripture — namely, 
in  the  case  of  the  apostle  Paul.  He  had  by  birth  the 
rights  of  a  Roman  citizen;  and  these  he  put  forward 
on  one  occasion  to  obtain  a  slight  mark  of  respect  in 
recompence  for  the  wrong  that  had  been  dune  him. 
Ac.  xvi.  37;  on  another,  to  shield  himself  from  an 
unjust  castigation.  Ac.  xxii.  •.:.">;  and  still  nn  another,  to 
secure  for  his  cause  an  impartial  hearing  at  Rome, 
when  it  was  like  to  be  overborne  by  the  craft  and 
subtilty  of  men  in  Judea,  Ac.  \xv.  11.  The  rights  them 
selves  of  Roman  citizens  were  of  two  classes:  one 
higher,  entitling  the  person  who  ln-ld  the  citizenship 
to  vote  in  a  tribe  on  anv  public  measure,  and  also  to 
enjoy  the  honours  of  magistracy,  as  well  as  to  discharge 
the  functions  and  pursue  the  occupations  of  private  life. 
This  was  citizenship  in  the  complete  sense.  But  it 
could  not  he  possessed  by  many:  and  a  lower  decree  of 
citizenship  was  frequently  possessed  and  '  Xeivised.  by 
virtue  of  which  one  was  entitled  to  claim  the  full  pro 
tection  of  the  laws,  and  enjoy  the  comforts  and  im 
munities  of  social  life.  The  establishment  of  the  em 
pire,  with  the  political  changes  to  which  it  gave  rise,  na 
turally  led  to  a  gradual  approximation  of  the  two  classes. 
by  iirst  lowerim.11,  then  virtually  abolishing  the  moiv 
distinctive  privileges  of  the  hi_rhi  r  das-;.  A<  pos 
sessed  by  the  apostle  I'.ail  the  riuht  of  dti/eiiship  nm-t 
be  understood  to  belong  to  the  other  class;  it  entitled 
him  to  the  private  liberties  of  a  native  Roman,  an  1  the 
protection  of  the  general  laws  of  the  empire.  I  low  he 
should  have  come  to  acquire  this  ri-ht  ha-  been  matter 
of  dispute;  but  there  is  imw  no  longer  any  doubt  that 
it  was  acquired,  not  from  hi-  having  been  bom  in 
Tarsus  (which  was  a  free  city  only  in  the  sense  of  hav 
ing  the  right  to  he  governed  by  its  own  magistrates), 
but  as  being  the  son  of  a  father  who,  on  grounds  of 
personal  merit  or  by  purchase,  had  been  rais>  ,1  to  the 
rank  of  a  citi/.en.  It  is  a  matter  of  certainty  that 
Jews  \\vre  not  unfrequentlv  [toman  citizens  (.r..s  Ant 

.\iv.  in,:;;  Wars,  ii.  1  l,ii). 

Jewish  citizenship  -usin^  the  word  in  the  more  ex 
tended  sense --depended  mi  compliance  with  the  terms 
of  the  covenant.  The  sacred  was  here  the  basis  of  the 
civil;  and  they  only  who  by  circumcision  had  been 
received  within  the  bonds  of  the  covenant,  and  after 
wards  conformed  themselves  to  tin:  rites  and  obligations 
it  imposed,  were  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  common 
wealth  of  Israel.  The  place  thus  acquired  might  be 
again  forfeited  by  committing  those  transgressions 
which  had  capital  penalties  annexed  to  them,  and 
doubtless  in  all  cases  when  these  were  incurred,  and 
when  no  repentance  followed,  the  guilty  individuals 
nrrc  excluded  in  the  reckoning  of  Heaven;  such  souls, 
according  to  the  oft-repeated  formula,  m-rt  cut  o/?'from 
among  their  people.  But  if  we  look  to  the  outward,  or 
human  administration,  this  result  by  no  means  uniformly 
followed;  and  men  might  be,  too  commonly  were,  recog 
nized  as  members  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  after 
they  had  broken  some  of  its  fundamental  laws.  The 
right  of  citizenship,  therefore,  would  vary,  according 

Vol..    I. 


as  it  might  be  a  human  or  a  divine  point  of  view  from 
which  it  was  contemplated. 

In  cine  passage — though  the  reference  is  lost  in  our 
translation — St.  Paul  designates  the  place  and  calling 
of  Christians  from  their  connection  with  a  city;  he  says, 
"our  citizenship  (or  commonwealth,  for  in  one  or  othei 
of  these  related  senses  must  TroXi'reiy^a  be  understood) 
is  in  heaven,  from  whence  also  we  look  for  the  Saviour'' 
— that  is,  even  now  we  have  our  names  enrolled  as 
members  of  that  celestial  community,  of  which  Christ 
is  himself  the  ever- living  Head;  and  it  behoves  us  to  act 
in  accordance  with  the  exalted  position  we  occupy,  and 
the  animating  prospects  it  sets  before  us. 

CITY.  This  word  is  evidently  used  with  some  lati 
tude  in  Scripture,  so  as  to  include  the  smaller  towns, 
and  sometimes  even  what  must  have  been  little  more 
than  strangling  villages.  For  example,  Cain  is  repre 
sented  as  building  a  city,  Ge.  iv.  17,  and  Bethel,  the  ancient 
Luz,  is  called  a  city  at  the  time  of «)  acol  Ts  passing  soj<  >urn 
at  it.  lie.  xxviii.  ni.  These  could  then  have  been  nothing 
but  hamlets:  and  many  similar  cases  might  be  referred 
to.  Most  commonly,  however,  the  term  was  applied 
to  larger  places,  and  such  as  were  surrounded  with 
walls,  strengthened  at  proper  intervals  by  fortresses, 
and  usually  posse-sing  besides  a  citadel  or  tower  of 
greater  strength  in  the  centre.  The  cities  of  Palestine 
ieein  to  have  been  commonly  of  this  description,  even 
so  early  as  the  conquest  by  the  Canaanites ;  for  the 
spies  reported  that  their  cities  were  "  walled  ami  very 
:  irreat,"  and  .Mo  es  himself  describes  them  as  "great  and 
fenced  Up  to  heaven,"  Xn.  xiii.  I'-;  lir.  i\  1.  The  gates  ill 

;  the  walls  appear  to  have  been  made  of  different  mate 
rial- :  as  sometimes  they  are  spoken  of  as  burned  with 
lire,  \\hich  sei  ins  to  imply  that  tin  y  \\eiv  of  wood,  and 
sometimes  they  are  said  to  have  been  made  of  brass 
Am.  i.  7, 1";  Is  \]v.  -i.  The  citii  s  also  ditlered  very  much  as 
to  the  character  of  the  streets:  in  most  cases  they  must 
anciently  have  been,  as  tiny  still  are,  narrow;  while 
there  \\ere  others,  tllouuh  We  know  of  nolle  such  ill  the 
land  of  Canaan,  which  had  large  open  spaces  and 
ample  gardens  \\itliin  their  precinct.-.  Babylon,  in 
particular,  is  w(  11  known  to  have  been  of  this  descrip 
tion.  |!ut  tin'  distinguishing  features  of  each  city  will 
fall  to  be  noticed  i;i  connection  \\ith  the  individual 
name. 

CITY  oi  DAVID  lias  a  different  sense  in  the  New 
from  what  it  bears  in  tin-  Old  Testament.  1'y  the 
aiiuels  who  announced  the  birth  of  Christ,  Bethlehem 
was  called  the  City  of  lH\id.  I.u  ii.  11,  as  being  tin- 
place  where  David  had  been  boj-ii,  and  win-re  he  re 
sided  till  he  was  anointed  king.  But  the  fortress  of 
the  .lebusitt •.-,  which  David  took,  and  which  lie  after 
wards  chose  for  his  peculiar  dwelling-place,  went  by 
the  name  of  his  city,  1  l'h.  xi.  .">.  It  was  more  commonly 
called  Mount  Zioii. 

CITY  OF  (Jon  was  applied  as  a  designation  of  .Jeru 
salem,  IN.  xhi.l,  on  account  of  its  lieing  from  the  time 
of  David  the  place  where  Cod  more  peculiarly  put 
his  name,  and  where  the  temple  stood.  The  designa 
tion  expressed  its  most  glorious  distinction. 

CLAU'DA,  a  small  island,  to  the  south-west  of 
Crete,  mentioned  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  voyage 
and  shipwreck,  Ac.  xx.ii.  10.  Its  modern  name  is  (luzzo. 

CLAU'DIUS,  the  fifth  I  toman  emperor,  whose  full 
name  was  Tiberius  Claudius  Nero  Germanicus,  suc 
ceeded  Caligula,  and  reigned  from  A.D.  41  to  54. 
Compared  with  his  predecessor,  Claudius  maybe  thought 

43 


CLAUDIUS   LYSTAS 


338 


CLEAN    AND   UNCLEAN 


of  with  respect,  though  lie  was  a  \veak  man,  the  tool 
of  women  anil  of  favourites,  and  among  some  good 
things  did  many  also  that  were  bad.  His  name  occurs 
only  twice  in  sacred  history;  first  in  connection  with  a 
famine,  which  was  felt  with  severity  in  the  'East. 
Ac.  xi.  2s,  scq.;  and  then  as  the  author  of  a  decree,  which 
obliged  all  Jews  to  flee  from  Rome.  Ac.  xviii.  2.  In  re 
gard  to  the  former,  his  reign  was  noted  for  the  frequent 
occurrence  of  scarcity  (Lardner,  Credibility,  b.i.  uli.  n);  and  in 
regard  to  the  second,  we  have  the  express  testimony  of 
Suetonius,  who  in  his  life  of  thi<  emperor  (di.  i'.)  says, 
"He  expelled  the  Jews  from  Rome,  who  were  con 
tinually  raising  disturbances,  Chrcstus  being  their 
leader"  (impulsore  Chresto).  It  has  commonly  been 
supposed  that  by  Chrestus  is  here  meant  Jesus  Christ, 
and  that  Suetonius  having  heard  of  the  fame  of  Jesus, 
imagined  he  had  something  to  do  with  the  local  dis 
turbances  which  led  Claudius  to  banish  the  Jews  for  a 
time  from  Home,  or  possibly  meant  to  state  that  the 
disturbances  themselves  arose  from  contending^  about 
the  truth  of  Jesus.  The  point  either  way  must  still  be 
held  doubtful;  but  apart  from  it  the  passage  contains  a 
very  explicit  testimony  to  the  fact  recorded  by  St. 
Luke. 

CLAU'DIUS  LYSIAS.  See  under  LYSIAS. 
CLEAN  AND  UNCLEAN  are  terms  of  frequent 
occurrence  in  connection  with  the  rites  and  usages  of 
the  old  covenant.  Like  everything  there,  while  they 
have  a  primary  bearing  on  the  outward  state  and  be 
haviour,  they  have  also  a  higher  and  symbolical  import. 
To  get  any  distinct  idea  of  the  lessons  intended  to  be 
conveyed  by  the  arrangements  respecting  clean  and 
unclean,  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  these  in  some 
detail. 

I.  The  first  distinction  of  the  kind  that  meets  us  in 
Scripture  is  clean  and  unclean  in  respect  to  ANIMALS  — 
animals,  however,  not  in  themselves,  but  in  their  rela 
tion  to  man's  use.  It  appears  so  early  as  the  deluge, 
and  is  referred  to  as  an  already  existing  distinction, 
not  as  one  then  for  the  first  time  introduced.  Noah 
was  commanded  to  take  with  him  into  the  ark  of  every 
clean  beast  by  sevens,  and  of  the  unclean  by  twos ;  for 
the  reason,  no  doubt,  that  the  one  were  required  for 
purposes  which  the  other  were  not,  and  which  would 
render  a  single  pair  of  each  an  inadequate  supply 
for  the  necessities  even  of  the  small  remnant  of  the 
human  family  preserved  in  the  ark.  These  necessities, 
however,  were  not  connected  with  food;  for  up  till  the 
period  of  the  deluge  there  is  110  appearance  of  animal 
food  having  been  either  granted  to  men,  or  indulged  in 
by  them.  Presently  after  the  deluge,  however,  the 
liberty  was  conceded,  and  when  first  conceded,  it  seems 
to  have  been  without  restriction:  "Every  moving  thing 
that  liveth  shall  be  meat  for  yon,  even  as  the  green 
herb  have  I  given  you  all  things,"  Ge.  ix.  3 — not  a  certain 
portion  merely  of  the  living  creaturehood,  but  the 
whole,  in  so  far  as  man  might  find  it  serviceable  for 
bodily  support.  The  grant  itself  was  unlimited;  it 
was  left  to  mankind  themselves  to  set  any  limits  they 
might  choose  to  its  application.  We  must  look  else 
where,  therefore,  than  to  dietary  regulations  for  the 
original  ground  of  the  distinction  among  animals  into 
clean  and  unclean;  and  we  can  think  of  nothing  but 
the  ancient  usages  in  regard  to  sacrifice.  Indeed,  the 
sacred  narrative  itself  plainly  enough  points  in  this 
direction;  for  it  tells  us  that  Noah,  on  coming  out  of 
the  ark,  "  built  an  altar  unto  the  Lord;  and  took  of 


every  rlntii  beast,  and  of  every  clean  fowl,  and  offered 
burnt  -  offerings  on  the  altar,"  Go.  viii.  20 — the  clean, 
therefore,  were  those  deemed  fit  for  sacrifice,  the  un 
clean  such  as  were  unfit. 

As  the  origin  of  the  distinction  is  lost  in  primeval 
antiquity,  the  principles  on  which  it  proceeded,  and  the 
lines  of  demarcation  it  drew,  cannot  be  known  with 
certainty.  Our  reasoning  upon  the  subject  must  be  to 
some  extent  conjectural.  The  history  of  the  fall,  how 
ever,  forms  the  ground  of  a  certain  distinction  in  the 
animal  world ;  the  serpent  being  thenceforth  pro 
nounced  accursed  above  all  creatures,  it  could  scarcely 
fail  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  extreme  type  of  an  exist 
ing  evil  in  nature — the  palpable  embodiment  of  some 
thing  mischievous,  and,  as  such,  unclean,  not  to  be 
brought  into  familiar  contact  witli  the  pure  and  good. 
Observation  and  experience  would  soon  enable  the  earlier 
inhabitants  of  the  world  to  add  to  the  same  class,  ac 
cording  as  indications  were  discovered  of  wild  natures 
or  noxious  qualities  in  the  different  species  of  creatures 
around  them.  And  though  there  might  be  many 
with  which  their  acquaintance  was  too  partial  to  admit 
of  their  determining  to  which  category  they  properly 
belonged,  yet  we  can  easily  understand  how  birds  and 
animals  of  prey,  creatures  armed  with  stinas  or  other 
obvious  weapons  of  offence,  or  animals  like  the  swine, 
disgusting  in  their  smell  and  filthy  in  their  habits, 
would  as  by  common  consent  be  assigned  to  the  class 
that  had  some  affinity  with  evil,  that  bore  on  them  the 
impress  of  impurity;  while  the  tame  and  docile  crea 
tures  of  the  ruminant  species — the  cow,  the  goat,  the 
sheep — and  in  the  feathered  tribe  the  cooing,  gentle 
dove,  would  not  less  naturally  be  viewed  as  reflections 
of  the  opposite  qualities,  because  seeming  to  have 
something  akin  to  the  humaner  instincts  of  mankind. 
Thus  from  the  first  there  were  found  the  occasion  and 
elements  of  a  certain  distinction  among  the  inferior 
creatures;  and  as  animal  sacrifice  occupied  the  chief 
place  in  religious  worship,  the  latter  class  of  creatures, 
in  which  the  good  so  obviously  preponderated,  would, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  be  deemed  the  proper  materials 
wherewith  to  conduct  the  sacrificial  service.  Such  a 
mode  of  thinking,  in  itself  natural,  wTould  be  greatly  con 
firmed  and  rendered  in  a  sense  imperative,  if — as  there 
is  good  reason  to  believe — the  Lord  by  an  overt  act  laid 
the  foundation  of  animal  sacrifice,  by  himself  taking 
the  life  of  one  or  more  animals,  in  order  to  provide  a 
symbolical,  as  well  as  a  real  clothing  for  the  first  trans 
gressors.  (See  SACRIFICE.) 

The  distinction  thus  begun,  and  probably  at  first 
confined  within  very  narrow  limits,  was  in  process  of 
time  more  fully  developed,  and  extended  from  the  in 
stitutions  of  worship  to  the  articles  of  daily  food. 
When  the  law  entered,  the  scattered  elements  of  sound 
thought  and  symbolical  action  which  previously  ex 
isted  were  in  this,  as  in  other  departments  of  religion, 
formed  into  a  regular  system,  so  as  to  be  made  subser 
vient  to  a  properly  varied  and  wholesome  instruction. 
Probably  little  alteration  was  needed  in  regard  to  the 
victims  for  sacrifice,  except  to  fix  the  line  more  defi 
nitely  on  the  negative  side  between  the  clean  and  the 
unclean,  as  the  general  corruption  of  worship,  and  in 
particular  the  practice,  very  early  introduced,  of  sacri 
ficing  to  evil  as  well  as  to  benignant  deities,  had  gra 
dually  led  to  the  immolation  of  nearly  all  sorts  of 
animals.  In  Egypt  pigs  were  sacrificed  as  well  as 
sheep  and  oxen,  and  not  only  goats  and  bulls,  but  also 


CLEAN    AND    UNCLEAN  *>i 

dogs,  cats,  crocodiles,  &c.,  were  accounted  sacred,  and 
had  their  respective  modes  and  places  of  divine  honour. 
In  the  ^Mosaic  law,  therefore,  a  return  was  made  to  an 
earlier  and  purer  system;  and  all  sacrifices  were  con 
fined  to  animals  of  the  flock  and  herd — that  is,  sheep, 
goats,  and  cattle — and  to  birds  of  the  dove  species. 
But  in  respect  to  food  a  somewhat  wider  latitude  was 
allowed,  though  only,  one  might  say,  in  the  same  line. 
Thus  the  animals  pronounced  clean  were  those  which 
at  once  chew  the  cud  and  divide  the  hoof,  and 
which  all  belong  substantially  to  the  herd  and  the 
flock,  simply  including  along  with  those  just  men 
tioned,  creatures  of  the  deer  species.  They  are  the 
kinds  which  in  all  countries  and  ages  men  have  gene 
rally,  and  as  it  were  instinctively,  fixed  upon  for  their 
chief  supplies  of  animal  food,  being  those  that  best 
concoct  their  own  food.  Of  the  four  classes  mentioned 
in  Le.  xi.  4-7.  which  approach  the  permitted  line,  yet 
arc  kept  without  it — the  cam. -1,  because,  while  chewing 
the  cud,  he  does  not  divide  the  hoof;  the  coney  (Ilcb. 
tJi'tjj/itt/i,  probably  the  jerboa),  and  the  hare,  because 
they  chew  the  cud,  but  in.-tead  of  a  dividi  d  hoof,  have 
a  foot  with  three  or  more  toes;  and  the  s\\iiic.  because 
there  is  the  divided  hoof  without  the  chewing  of  the 
cud:  they  were  not  such  a-  to  occasion  by  their  prohi 
bition  any  material  privation  or  inconvenience.  Tin- 
two  first  have  nowhere  been  sought  after  as  articles  of 
food:  and  of  the  two  last,  the  haiv.  from  its  shy  and 
timid,  nature,  never  could  be  much  us.  d.  and  the 
swine,  though  by  dint  of  modern  refinement  it  ha.-  hi  i  n 
turned  into  a  common  and  wholesome  means  of  support, 
still  holds  an  inferior  place,  and  appears  to  have  stood 
vet  lower  in  remote  antiquity.  Tin-  ni"-t  degrading 
employment  in  the  field.-  was  that  of  -\\  in.-  herd:  and. 
in  Egypt,  if  anv  even  touched  a  pig  he  was  ohIL'  '1  to 
bathe  himself  and  wa.-h  his  garments  ilkT'.tl.'t.  ii  i:). 

The  Fl.MlKs  allowed  for  food  were  marki-d  out  by  a 
distinction  equally  simple  and  characteristic  with  that  of 
the  animals:  those  which  had  tins  and  scales  were  to  be  ac 
counted  clean,  all  others  unclean.  And  these,  again,  com 
prise  a  considerable  proportion  of  such  as  are  esteemed 
to  this  day  the  most  wholesome  and  a, re. -able,  and, 
indeed,  relatively  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  fish 
than  were  accessible  to  the  Israelites  in  ( 'anaan  :  for 
those  found  in  the  Jordan  and  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret 
mostly  have  the  characteristics  of  the  clean,  and  those 
also  known  to  exist  in  the  .Mediterranean,  along  the 
Syrian  coast  —  mackerel  and  other  common  sort.-  are  of 
the  same  description.  The  rule  excluded  from  tin- 
table  of  the  Israelites  fishes  of  an  oily  nature,  and  shell 
fish  which  are  also,  howi  ver.  less  digestible  than  the 
others:  but  it  gave  them  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  evi  n 
in  a  culinary  respect  they  could  have  occasion  for. 

In  respect  to  BIRDS  no  specific  rule  is  laid  down,  but 
certain  kinds  only  are  interdicted  by  name:  and  the 
names  are  such  as  to  render  it  impossible  for  us  in  many 
cases  to  identify  them.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  how 
ever,  that  they  consisted  almost  entirely,  perhaps  it 
should  be  said  without  reserve  entirely,  of  birds  of  piev: 
leaving  all  such  as  feed  on  grain,  and  are  in  nature  akin 
to  the  domesticated  animals,  in  the  category  of  clean, 
and  proper  for  food. 

The  INSECTS  allowed  to  be  catui  are  described  as 
those  "  which  have  legs  above  their  feet,  to  leap  withal 
upon  the  earth,"  such  as  "  the  locust,  the  bald  locust, 
the  beetle,  and  the  grasshopper  after  their  kind," 
Le.  xi.  -.'1, 22  The  description  evidently  points  to  a  quality 


CLEAN    AND    UNCLEAN 

that  lifts  the  several  species  mentioned  somewhat 
above  the  crawling,  slimy  brood  that  are  more  pro 
perly  comprised  under  the  name  of  insects:  and  though 
even  those  allowed  for 'use  form  very  poor  articles  of 
food,  they  yet  want  the  filthy  and  repulsive  character 
which  attaches  to  the  insect  tribe  generally. 

Now,  it  is  clear,  on  a  moment's  reflection,  that  what 
ever  may  have  been  the  design  of  drawing  such  dis 
tinctions  between  clean  and  unclean  in  food,  there  was 
nothing  ascetic  in  the  matter;  the  object  could  not 
have  been  to  make  anv  material  abridgment  of  the 
ordinary  pleasures  of  the  table.  For.  with  all  that  was 
cut  off',  enough  was  still  allowed  to  gratifv  every  rea 
sonable  indulgence  ;  in  each  department  of  animal  ex 
istence  the  best,  the  most  wholesome,  the  most  agree 
able  to  the  palate  were  freely  allowed.  So  much  was 
this  the  case,  that  the  view  might  with  some  ap 
pearance  of  truth  be  maintained  (as  it  has  once  and 
again  been  propounded,  for  example  by  ^liehaelis.  and 
by  Beard  in  KAtto's  Cyclopedia),  \\hich  treats  the  regula 
tions  as  in  their  main  object  of  a  sanitary  nature,  re 
straining  the  covenant  -  people  from  such  articles  of 
food  as  miuht  tend  to  induce  scrofulous  or  other  diseases, 
and  directiiiL,'  them  to  tho.-c  which  were  suited  to 
tin-  climate  and  likely  to  produce  cleanly  habits  and  a 
healthful  husbandry.  This  mi^ht  not  unfairly  be  said, 
if  one  looked  simply  to  the  physical  aspect  of  the  matter, 
and  made  account  only  of  the  relation  between  the 
animal  natiin  .-  to  be  su.-tained  and  the  animal  food 
ui\eii  for  their  nouri-hm.-nt.  But  in  the  revelations  of 
(on!  to  Israel,  and  the  institutions  he  s<  t  up  amongst 
them.  iii'thim:  bears  this  merely  natural  and  economi 
cal  character;  all  is  pervaded  by  the  ethical  spirit,  and 
ever  aims  at  bringing  into  view  the  eternal  distinc 
tions  bet  we.  n  good  and  evil  of  a  moral  kind,  of  rh;ht  and 
wrong.  Nor  did  the  Lawgiver  leave  it  at  all  doubtful 
that  such  also  was  his  object  in  establishing  the  dis 
tinction.-  between  clean  and  unclean  in  food.  For  the 
things  forbidden  are  not  simply  laid  under  an  interdict 
as  unlawful,  but  they  are  pronounced  abominations. 
Defilement,  not  merely  some  certain  or  contingent 
malady,  should  ensue  on  partaking  of  them.  i.u.  .\i.  in,  n,<ve. 
And  not  only  so,  but  the  reason  of  all  the  prohibitions 

re-peeling  t" 1  i.-.  at  the  close  traced  up  to  the  holiness 

of  Cod,  and  the  neees-ity  of  his  people  being  conformed 
to  his  imaue  therein.  "  Ye  shall  not  make  yourselves 
abominable.  .  .  .  for  i  am  the  Lord  your  Cod:  ye  shall 
therefore  -aiictiu  youi'st  lyes,  and  ye  shall  be  holy,  for  I 
am  holy:  neither  shall  ye  defile  yourselves  with  any 
manner  of  creeping  thing  that  cn-epeth  upon  the  earth. 
For  I  am  the  Lord  that  brin-eth  you  up  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  to  be  your  Cod  :  ye  shall  therefore  be  holy, 
for  I  am  Imlv."  I.e.  xi.  1.T-4.Y  What  explicit  utterances, 
and  strong  iterations  in  regard  to  the  connection  be 
tween  the  dietary  restrictions  laid  upon  them  and  the 
moral  character  they  were  to  maintain! — as  if  Cod 
would  have  no  member  of  the  covenant  to  lie  ignorant 
or  unmindful  of  the  relation  in  which  all  stood  to  holi 
ness  of  heart  and  conduct ! 

We  may  not  on  this  account  require  to  overlook  the 
propriety  and  wholesomeness  of  the  restrictions  in  a 
dietary  point  «>f  view,  for  here,  as  in  many  other 
respects,  the  moral  may  have  based  itself  upon  the 
natural,  and  the  good  in  the  one  sphere  served  as  a 
handmaid  to  point  the  way  to  a  higher  good  in  the 
other.  But  in  regard  to  this  higher  good  itself,  we 
are  not,  like  the  Jewish  doctors  and  their  too  numerous 


CLEAN    AND    I'N  CLEAN 


3+0 


CLEAN    AND    TNCLEAN 


followers  in  Christian  times,  to  think  of  the  merely 
external  separation  which  was  to  he  maintained  be 
twixt  Israel  as  a  people  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
different  nations  of  the  world  on  the  other  -as  if 
Israel  were  imaged  in  the  clean  animals,  Egyptians, 
I'.aiiylonians,  Philistines,  ,\.c.,  in  the  unclean.  For 
such  a  separation  might  have  lieen  kept  up  by  mere 
diversity  of  custom-,  apart  from  anything  essentially 
moral;  and  in  itself  was  never  set  forth  as  an  end  to  be 
aimed  at,  excepting  in  so  far  as  it  might  be  necessitated 
by  the  holiness  of  the  one  class  and  the  abominable 
corruptions  of  the  others.  Otherwise  than  as  a  pre 
caution  for  maintaining,  or  the  means  of  exhibiting 
Israel's  distinctive  holiness,  national  isolation  would 
have  been  an  evil  rather  than  a  good;  it  could  only 
have  tended  las  was  proved  by  tin/  actual  result)  to 
nourish  in  the  covenant  -  people  a  spirit  of  self-compla 
cent  pride,  and  shut  them  up  in  a  hardened  exclusive- 
ness  from  the  surrounding  nations,  to  whom  they  were 
called  to  be  a  blessing.  We  must  therefore  look 
deeper  to  get  at  the  true  rationale  of  the  matter. 
Corporeal  things  were  here  the  ordained  symbols  of 
spiritual;  and  as  in  the  one  Israel  had  to  look  primarily 
to  himself,  so  had  he  in  respect  to  the  other.  The  clean 
and  the  unclean  in  the  animal  world  had  its  counter 
part  in  his  own  soul;  and  the  watchfulness  and  the  care 
with  which  he  had  to  guide  his  choice  among  the  living 
creatures  around  him,  that  were  fitted  to  minister  to 
his  support  or  comfort,  must  perpetually  admonish 
him  of  the  like  watchfulness  and  care  he  should  apply- 
to  the  region  of  his  spiritual  being.  There  also  he  is 
constantly  in  danger  of  coming  into  contact  with 
abominations  which  may  leave  the  taint  of  impurity 
behind.  He  must  know  every  day,  every  hour  of  his 
waking  existence,  to  refuse  the  evil  and  choose  the 
good;  and  he  can  do  so,  only  by  accepting  that  which 
the  law  of  his  Cod  declared  to  be  akin  to  his  own 
moral  nature,  precisely  as  the  same  law  prescribed 
what  was  most  akin  to  his  physical  nature  for  the 
materials  of  his  bodily  food.  Thus  the  things  of  the 
corporeal  life  were  made  to  serve  as  an  image  of  the 
spiritual,  and  the  restrictions  laid  upon  the  appetite, 
when  properly  understood,  became  like  a  bit  and  bridle 
to  the  soul. 

The  view  now  given  of  the  distinction  between  clean 
and  unclean  in  food,  is  in  perfect  accordance  with  the 
use  made  of  it  in  the  vision  of  St.  Peter,  Ac,  x.  When 
the  door  of  entrance  into  the  church  of  God  was  to  be 
laid  open  to  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews — uncircum- 
cumcised  as  well  as  circumcised — he  was  made  to 
see  a  great  sheet  let  down  from  heaven,  filled  with  all 
manner  of  four-footed  beasts  of  the  earth,  and  wild 
beasts,  and  creeping  things,  and  fowls  of  the  air;  and 
heard  the  word  addressed  to  him,  "  Rise,  Peter,  kill 
and  eat."  His  Jewish  feeling  led  him  instinctively  to 
reply,  "Not  so,  Lord;  for  I  have  never  eaten  anything 
common  or  unclean."  But  the  voice  again  rejoined, 
''  What  God  hath  cleansed,  that  call  not  thou  com 
mon."  It  is  a  superficial  explanation  of  this  parabolical 
vision  to  say,  that  it  pointed  directly  and  merely  to  the 
abolition  of  external  distinctions  between  Jew  and 
Gentile;  which  would  imply,  that  tin;  prohibition  for 
merly  existing  in  regard  to  the  eating  of  unclean 
things  had  no  other  end  than  the  maintenance  of  such 
distinctions.  Its  immediate  and  primary  object  was  to 
teach  that  the  sanctification  wrought  by  God  was  the 
grand  thing,  and  that  where  this  had  been  accomplished. 


all  other  things,  as  of  inferior  moment,  must  be  regarded 
as  of  themselves  falling  into  abeyance.  The  distinction 
between  clean  and  unclean  in  food  was  itself  but  an 
imperfect  mode  of  helping  the  true  sanctification  of 
men,  and  was  hence  destined  to  go  into  desuetude  the 
moment  higher  means  were  brdught  to  bear  with  effect 
upon  the  end  in  question.  Hence  the  ready  application 
of  the  principle  to  the  case  of  Cornelius  and  his  family: 
God  puts  his  Spirit  into  them,  and  gives  them  the  un 
doubted  seal  of  salvation,  while  they  are  still  out 
wardly  uneircumcised ;  but  what  of  this.?  The  end  is 
already  reached;  the  Lord  himself  has  sanctified  them; 
they  have  become  under  his  own  hand  vessels  of  honour, 
fitted  for  the  Master's  use:  •'  What  then  am  I  that  I 
should  withstand  Cod  .'"'  So  the  apostle  reasoned  with 
himself,  and  justly.  He  thought  that  if  the  spiritual 
reality  were  now  secured  by  the  direct  action  of  tin- 
word  and  Spirit  of  God.  there  was  no  longer  any  need 
for  the  old  fleshly  symbol;  Heaven  above  had  dispensed 
with  it,  and  so  .should  the  Church  on  earth.  We  thus, 
no  doubt,  reach  the  abolition  of  any  formal  distinction 
on  the  part  of  God  between  Jew  and  Gentile;  but  only 
by  first  arriving  at  a  deeper  truth— the  establishment 
of  the  new  and  more  effective  method  of  purification 
through  the  grace  of  Christ,  whereby  the  old  fleshly 
ordinances  and  symbolical  distinctions  became  anti 
quated.  This  was  the  more  immediate  point  aimed  at. 

II.  There  were  various  other  grounds  and  occasion-^ 
of  uncleanness  under  the  old  covenant,  but  they  all 
rest  on  the  same  fundamental  principle  as  that  now 
unfolded  ;  and  it  is  consequently  the  less  needful  to 
dwell  upon  them.  In  them  also  the  external  defile 
ments  were  but  the  image  of  the  internal ;  they  contin 
ually  spoke  of  a  higher  purification  being  needed  than 
that  which  concerned  the  flesh. 

For  example,  the  mere  touch  of  the  dead  defiled: 
though  it  were  the  carcase  of  a  clean  beast,  yet  if  a 
man  came  anyhow  into  contact  with  it,  he  remained 
unclean  till  the  even,  Lc.  xi.  ;yj-  if  it  were  the  carcase  of 
a  beast  in  itself  unclean,  the  impurity  became  inten 
sified,  and  he  could  only  be  cleansed  by  a  trespass- 
ofl'ering.  Le.  v.  •>  •,  if  it  were  the  dead  body  (if  a  relative, 
or  of  some  other  fellow  -  creature,  as  the  occasion  was 
greater  so  the  defilement  also  rose  higher,  and  he  could 
only  be  cleansed  by  the  application  of  water,  mingled 
with  the  ashes  of  the  red  heifer,  continued  at  intervals 
during  seven  days,  Nu.  xix.  11,  VI  \  and  whenever  death 
happened  in  a  house  or  tent,  all  in  it  and  about  it  re 
mained  under  the  taint  of  defilement  for  seven  davs. 
ft  was  not  that  there  was  anything  directly  sinful  in 
the  contact  itself  with  the  dead  in  such  cases — this 
may  have  come  about  without  the  slightest  blame,  or 
even  in  the  discharge  of  imperative  duty;  but  still  the 
individual  was  brought  into  contact  with  that  which 
was  the  wages  of  sin  and  the  awful  image  of  its 
accursed  nature.  Therefore,  to  carry  up  his  thoughts 
to  the  source  of  the  evil,  and  impress  him  with  a  salu 
tary  horror  of  the  real  defiler,  the  symbolical  system 
under  which  he  was  placed  made  the  occasions  of  ac 
cidental,  or  even  necessary  intercourse  with  the  dead, 
the  means  of  awakening  salutary  impressions  in  the 
soul.  It  virtually  said,  by  all  such  appointments, 
Beware  of  sin,  which  is  the  death  of  the  soul,  and 
which  is  the  ultimate  cause  of  all  that  interferes  with 
the  enjoyment  of  life  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  same  explanation  is  to  be  given  of  the  unclean- 
ness  connected  with  leprosy,  which  was  viewed  as  a  sort 


CLEMENT 


341 


CLOUD 


of  living  death,  the  disease  that  bore  the  most  exact  of  his  career,  Clement  was  at  Philippi,  and  apparently 

irua>re  of  sin.      (<S'ce  LEPROSY.)  holding  some  office  in  the  church  there.     He  may,  of 

But  another,    and  indeed   the  only  additional   class  course,  afterwards  have   removed   to   Rome,  and  have 

of  defilements  of  a  general  kind,  sprang  from  what  may  l>een  raised  to  the  charge  of  the  church  there  formed. 

sie     uarter—  the    enera-  P.ut  the  tradition  is  too  late  in  its  oriin,  and  too  vari- 


rigin,  and  too  vari- 
nfidence  in  it 


not  unfitly  be  called  the  opposite  quarter—  the  genera-  P.ut  the  tradition  is  t 

tioii    and    birth   of   children.      Uncleaiuiess    was    con-  able  in  its  statements,  to  beget  much 

tracted,  though   in   different  degrees  and  differing  also  favour.      .Jerome's  version  of  the  :-tory  makes  him  sue- 

as  to  the  form  of  purification  by  which  cleansing  was  to  :  ceed  Peter  as  Bishop  of  Koine,  and   Tcrtullian  repre- 

be  obtained,  on  the  part  of  men  by  irregular  discharge*  sents  him  as  ordained  by  Peter.      Others  place    Linus 


f  ore   Clement:  and  a   still  further   variation    places 
n  Peter  and  Linus.     Ruf 


from  the  generative  organs,  and  on  the  part  of  women  by     . 

their  periodical  issues,  and  more  especially  by  childbirth,     Cletus  and  Anacletus  betvv ,.,.,,  ,     ..... 

Lc.  xii.  xv.  This  can  only  bo  understood  by  a  reference  to  ,  finus  endeavoured  to  harmonize  the  discrepancies  to 
the  law  of  gene-ration,  as  the  channel  of  transmitting  the  some  extent  by  making  Linus  and  Clement  to  be  joint- 
depravity  which  by  reason  of  the  fall  has  become  in-  'bishops.  Modern  Rome  authoritatively  determines 
herent  in  human  nature.  It  pointed  to  the  pollution  (.'lenient  to  have  been  the  second  from  Peter:  her 
which  has  tainted  the  very  fountain  of  life  on  earth,  order  of  succession  is,  Peter,  Linus.  Clement,  (.'Ictus, 


and    perpetually  pres-ed   on   men's  attention  the  great     Anacletus. 
truth  uttered  from   the   depth   of    the  psalmist's   e.xpe-      following  it. 
rielice,  when   he   confessed.   "  IVhold.    I   was   ,-hapen  in 
iniquity,    and    in    sin    did   my  mother   conceive   inc.' 

Thoughtful  persons  could  never  have  reflected  (ill  tilt- 
legal  ordinances  of  this  description,  without  perceiv 
ing  in  them  the  clear  indications  of  a  sore  disease  at 
the  very  root  of  humanity,  though  humiliatinu'  circum  . 
stances  in  their  own  history,  such  as  that  which  called 
forth  the  penitential  cry  of  David,  would  at  times 
•live  additional  force  and  pungency  to  the  lesson.  On 


history,   rather  than 
:.! 

The  epistle  which  goes  by  the  name  of  Clement  is 
certainly  a  writing  of  great  antiquity,  has  every  appear 
ance  of  being  a  genuine  production,  is  in  perfect  ac 
cordance  with  the  teaching  of  Paul,  and  on  several 
account-  i.-  tin-  mo-t  precious  of  the  remains  that  belong 


to  the 
apostl 


if  tli 


In  the  first  centuries  it  was  often  read  in  tin 
churches.      It  lias  survived  to  modern  times  in  a  singh 
v,  forming  part  of  the  MS.  that  contains  the  famous 


plained  the      Alexandrian   copy   of   the   Creek  Scriptures,  known   as 


the-  same   ground,  perhaps,   mav 
striking  peculiarity  in  the   case   of   a  female,  a: 
parcel  with  a  male  birth-  the  uncleanness  in  the  former 
case  bein-_r  appointed  to  last  for  >ixty->ix  days  (in  such 
a  sense  to  last,  that  the-  mother  could  only  then  conic  to 
the;  house'  of  ( Jod,  and  present  her  purification  offerinu'i, 
while   in   tin?  other  the  one  half,  or   thirty-three  day.-. 
were  sufficient.  I.e.  xii.    It  is  with  woman  that  the  fall  was 
more  directly  connected:   in  her  condition  also  that  its 
present  effects    are    more   conspicuously   manifest:   and 
it  was   not   unlit,   that   a  standing  testimony  to  such 
things  should  be  embodied  in  the  ordinances  connected 
with  her  purification.     P.esides.  the  ordinance  of  circum 
cision,  in   the  case  of  the  male  child,  came  at  tin-   c 
mencemellt  of  the  second  week,  to  separate,   in  a  sense.       1 

betwixt  it  and  the  mother,  and  raise  it  to  an  individual     :• 
covenant  position,  while  nothing  of  a  like  nature  was     ] 
administered  to  the  female  child.     But  considered  cither 
way,  the  link   of   original   sin.   connecting  parent  and 
child  in  a  common  evil,  and   the  child  of  one  sex  more 
peculiarly  than  another,  is  what  sec-ins  most  naturally 
to  account  for  the  difference  of  time. 

CLEM'ENT   ((Jr.    KV/u???)   is  named  only  once  in     relied  on. 
the    New   Testament,    but    named    with    much    esteem          CLEOPHAS.      >Vr  A  LI'llKUs. 

CLOAK.     Nt<  DKKSS. 

CLOTHING.     ,<fcc  DRESS. 

Philippi,  and  whose  names  were  ill  the  book  of  life.  CLOUD.  There  is  a  frequent  figurative  use  of  cloud 
I'lii.  iv. .-{.  Early  tradition,  appearing  first  in  Origen,  in  Scripture,  which  sometimes  bears  a  more  special  re- 
then  confirmed  by  Eusebius,  Jerome,  and  others  of  spect  to  the  peculiarities  of  a  Syrian  climate,  but  vvhicli 
the  fatlvrs,  have  identified  this  person,  with  the  Cle-  can  still  without  material  difficulty  I 
ni'-nt  of  Rome,  who,  toward  the  close  of  the  first  cen- 


Codc-x  A. 

CLE'OPAS    (.(Jr.   K \fJ7rasi,  one  of  the  two  disciples 
win  tfa\(  !!ed  to   Kmmaus   on   the  day  of  the   resurrec 
tion,  and  had  the-   nie-iuorable   interview  with  .lesus  re 
corded   in    Lu.  xxiv.      The.-   name    of   the  other  disciple 
is   not    ^iveii.    but    Cleopas    :s   expressly    mentioned    at 
ver.  I*.      And  it  has  been  a  question,  whether  he  is  the 
same  with  the  person  called    Cleophas.    K\c-.'7ra?,   in  .In. 
xix.  '2^i.      This  latter  person  is   more   commonly  called 
Alpheu-.    Cr.   A\f/)cuo?,  which   is    but   another   mode   of 
pronouncing  the  Aramaic   original,  and  was   the  father 
of  .lames  the  Less.    ( (pinions  have  varied  as  to  the  qiu  s- 
iin-     tion   of   his   identity    with   Cleopas.    and   tin-re  are  no 
•rounds   for  arriving   at   a  determinate    judgment.       It 
i-ems   strange-    if  they  Were    n,,t    the-  same,    and    if   the 
11  TSOII  named  Cleopas  was  now  for  the  first   time  men- 
should  on  such 
comparatively 

hitherto  overlooked.      \'>\ii  the  circum- 
staiiO'  -  of  the  time  were  altogether  peculiar;   and  com- 
ilities  are  not.  in  -uch  a  case,  to  be   great!  v 


tioned    in  gospel  history,  that  our 
an    0,'ca-i'in    have    appeared    to   o 

obscure  as  t 


ami    honour    by    St.     Paul,     as    one    of    those    fellow- 
lab,  illl-ers  who  had   been  especially  sel'V  ire.able  to  him  at 


tury,  wrote  the  epi 


understood   by 

the  inhabitants  of  nearly  every  region  of  the;  habitable 
......      .    .     ...      t_  ;tle  addressed  by  that  church  to  the     globe.     The  long  continued  and  often  scorching  heat  of 

church  at  Corinth,  included  in  the-  writings  of  the  summer,  which  for  months  prevails  throughout  Syria 
apostolical  fathers.  Koman  Catholic  authorities  have  witli  little  or  no  interruption,  naturally  rendered  clouds 
universally  accredited  this  tradition;  but  among  Protes-  ,  an  image-  of  refreshment  and  blessing  beyond  what 
taut  writers  opinions  have;  varied.  And,  indeed,  there  persons  living  in  a  more  temperate  and  variable  climate 
are  110  grounds  to  go  upon  for  any  definite  opinion,  might  be  disposeel  to  make.-  them:  there  is  at  least  a 
ap; 

we  merel 
inent  at 


are  no  grounds  to  go    upon   for   any  definite  opinion,     might   be   disposed  to  make.-  them:  there  is  at  least  a 
apart  from  tradition.      So  far  as  Scripture  is  concerned,     force  and  emphasis  in  such  a  use  of  the  natural  pheno- 
•ely  know  that  at  the  time  of   Paul's  imprison-     niena,  for  the  natives  of  eastern  climes,  which  the  others 
t  Koine,  and  within  a  short  period  of  the  close  i  can  but  imperfectly  apprehend.     Thus  Solomon  takes 


CLOUD 


•'  a  cloud  of  the  latter  rain''  as  the  most  fitting  emblem, 
under  which  to  represent  the  hopeful  and  gladdening 
influence  of  the  king's  favourable  countenance  upon 
those  who  enjoy  it.  Pr.  xvi.  i;> ;  and  the  commanding  of 
the  clouds  to  rain  not,  or  as  it  is  again  expressed,  shut 
ting  up  the  heaven  so  that  there  be  no  rain,  was  wont 
to  lie  given  as  the  most  appalling  signal  of  coming 
sterility  and  desolation,  Is.  v.  o ;  Du.  xi.  IT.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  darkening  of  the  sky  by  the  intervention  of 
clouds  gave  to  these,  when  considered  by  themselves, 
and  especially  as  contrasted  with  the  habitual  clearness 
of  an  eastern  atmosphere,  an  aspect  of  gloom,  and  ren 
dered  them  the  natural  emblems  of  frowning  events  in 
providence  and  seasons  of  darkness  and  sorrow.  So, 
for  example,  Joel  represents  the  period  of  approaching 
jxulgment  as  "a  day  of  clouds  and  of  thick  darkness." 
ch.  H.  2,  and  the  desolating  host  of  Cod  appears  in  the 
vision  of  Ezekiel  as  "a  cloud  covering  the  land," 
ch.  xxxviii.  '.).  The  Lord  himself,  with  reference  to  the 
severer  aspect  of  his  character,  the  punitive  righteous 
ness  which  is  ever  ready  to  take  vengeance  on  sin,  is 
described  as  having  "  clouds  and  darkness  round  about 
him,"  not  without  respect  also  to  the  mysteriousiiess  of 
the  procedure  in  which  this  not  unfrequeiitly  shows 
itself,  Ps.  xcvii  2;  La.  iii.  4n.  The  fleet,  airy,  vision-like 
appearance  which  the  clouds  often  present  in  the  higher 
regions  of  the  atmosphere,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
terrific  elements  of  power,  the  balls  of  lightning,  some 
times  treasured  up  in  them,  rendered  them  again  ap 
propriate  signs  of  Jehovah's  movements  in  providence 
—the  chariots,  as  it  were,  on  which  he  rides  to  the 
execution  of  his  purposes,  Ps.  civ.  3 ;  is.  xix.  i ;  Da.  vii.  13. 
Finally,  their  height  above  the  earth  serves  as  a  symbol 
of  what  is  lofty  in  character,  and  they  are  employed  as 
a  kind  of  svnonym  for  the  visible  heavens  ;  thus  God's 
faithfulness  is  said  to  reach  to  the  clouds,  and  in  the 
clouds  his  strength  has  its  seat,  PS.  Mi.  10,  ixviii.  34;  i.e. 
both  alike  are  above  the  measure  and  limit  of  earthly 
things,  they  partake  of  the  vastness  and  perfection  of 
heaven. 

CLOUD,  PILLAR  OF.  This  is  constantly  repre 
sented  as  the  more  peculiar  seat  and  symbol  of  the 
Lord's  presence  with  his  ancient  people,  during  the 
most  singular  period  of  their  history ;  that  namely 
which  commenced  with  their  deliverance  from  the  power 
of  Pharaoh,  and  reached  to  their  settlement  in  the  land 
of  Canaan.  On  the  very  night  of  the  deliverance  this 
remarkable  symbol  made  its  appearance  ;  and  the  same 
passage  which  first  announces  its  existence  tells  us  also 
of  its  continued  presence  with  the  covenant  -  people 
during  their  unsettled  condition.  "  And  the  Lord 
went  before  them  by  day  in  a  pillar  of  a  cloud,  to  lead 
them  the  way ;  and  by  night  in  a  pillar  of  fire,  to  give 
them  light,  to  go  by  day  and  night.  He  took  not  away 
the  pillar  of  the  cloud  by  day,  nor  the  pillar  of  fire  by 
night,  from  before  the  people,"  Ex.  xiii.  21,  22.  Within  a 
very  brief  period  of  their  starting,  they  reaped  an  im 
portant  benefit  of  an  outward  kind  from  this  super 
natural  cloud ;  for  on  the  occasion  of  their  passing 
through  the  Red  Sea.  the  cloud  removed  from  the  front 
to  the  rear  of  the  Israelitish  host,  so  as  to  form  a  screen 
between  them  and  the  Egyptians,  under  cover  of  which 
the  passage  to  the  opposite  shore  was  securely  and 
quietly  effected ;  to  the  escaping  party  it  "gave  light 
by  night,"  while  to  their  pursuers  it  "  was  a  cloud  and 
darkness."  This  alone  shows  the  variable  appearances 
which  the  cloud  was  capable  of  presenting ;  it  assumed 


different  forms  and  aspects,  according  to  the  circum 
stances  of  the  time,  and  the  ends  more  immediately  to 
be  served  by  it.  From  the  standing  designation  of  a 
pillar,  which  is  applied  to  it  with  considerable  fre 
quency,  we  must  suppose  it  to  have  usually  presented 
a  columnar  appearance  rising-  toward  heaven  ;  while 
occasionally  it  seems  to  have  expanded  itself,  in  order 
to  form  a  covering,  whether,  as  in  the  passage  above 
referred  to,  from  the  violence  of  the  enemy,  or  as  other 
passages  would  appear  to  imply,  from  the  intense  heat 
and  brightness  of  the  sky,  Ps.  cv.  y.>;  is.  iv.  5.  It  is  ex 
pressly  stated,  that  by  day  it  was  like  a  cloud  covering 
the  tabernacle,  while  by  night  "there  was  upon  the 
tabernacle  as  it  were  the  appearance  of  lire  until  the 
morning,"  >*u.  ix.  15.  AYe  may  therefore  describe  it  as 
a  fiery  column,  enveloped  in  a  cloud-like  smoke — the 
fire  being  so  repressed  as  not  to  be  seen  during  the  dav, 
but  shining  forth  with  a  mild  radiance  during  the 
nin'ht. 

This  cloud-like  and  fiery  column  might  no  doubt  have 
served  as  the  sign  of  the  Lord's  immediate  presence 
with  his  people,  without  having  any  peculiar  aptitude 
for  the  purpose — that  is,  it  might  have  been  arbitrarily 
chosen  to  be  the  symbol  of  the  divine  presence,  though 
there  should  have  belonged  to  it  no  special  aptitude  for 
such  a  design,  beyond  the  circumstance  that  the  Lord 
had  thought  good  to  select  it.  But  such  is  not  usually 
the  way  in  which  sacred  symbols  are  chosen  ;  they  have 
a  natural  use  or  significance  that  forms  the  basis  of  the 
higher  end  to  which  they  are  applied,  and  in  a  measure 
also  supplies  the  key  to  a  right  understanding  of  their 
import.  And  there  is  the  more  probability  that  the 
same  was  the  case  here,  as  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  fire 
was,  above  all  others,  that  with  which  God  identified 
himself  in  Israel.  Nor  is  there  any  difficulty  in  dis 
cerning  the  iiaturnal  aptness  of  the  symbol.  For  re 
garding  the  internal  fire  as  the  heart  and  body  of  the 
appearance,  this,  whether  considered  in  respect  to  the 
light  it  emits,  its  radiant  splendour,  or  its  fervent  heat 
(all  which  are  in  Is.  iv.  5  associated  with  the  sacred 
pillar),  constituted  one  of  the  most  striking  emblems  of 
the  divine  nature,  and  one  of  constant  recurrence  in 
Scripture.  "  God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at 
all,"  says  the  apostle  John,  Un.  i.  ;>,  meaning  by  light, 
of  course,  what  is  such  in  the  moral  sphere,  unspotted 
holiness  and  truth,  but  in  the  very  mode  of  expressing 
it  indicating  the  affinity  between  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual ;  as  was  done  also  by  the  psalmist,  when  he  re 
presented  God  as  covering  himself  with  light  as  with  a 
garment,  Ps.  civ.  2.  Fire  as  light,  then,  is  the  natural 
emblem  of  God's  purity;  as  splendour  it  is  the  emblem 
of  his  ineffable  glory,  Ex.  xxiv.  17 ;  Da.  vii.  10;  and  as  fer 
vent  heat  the  emblem  of  his  holy  hatred  and  consuming 
wrath  against  sin,  De.  iv.  21 ;  lie.  xii.  29.  So  that  in  every 
aspect  of  it,  this  fiery  column  was  a  peculiarly  fit  and 
expressive  symbol  of  the  character  of  God  in  his  rela 
tion  to  the  co venaiit- people ;  and  the  cloudy  form, 
which  even  by  night  veiled  the  fiery  brightness,  and 
during  the  day  altogether  overshadowed  it,  reminded 
them  that  he  was  a  God  who  concealed  at  the  very 
time  that  he  manifested  himself ;  that  the  light  in 
which  he  really  dwelt  was  inaccessible  and  full  of 
glory ;  and  that  it  became  his  people  to  tremble  before 
him,  as  incapable  yet  of  knowing  more  than  a  small 
part  of  his  ways,  even  while  they  rejoiced  in  the  good 
ness  that  he  made  to  pass  before  them. 

It    was    undoubtedly  intended    that    in    the  appre- 


343 


COAL 


hensions  of  the  people  the  more  benignant  aspects  of  ing  seems  to  be  coals  not  yet  lighted.  Jt  occurs  only 
the  symbol  should  predominate.  And  hence  in  its  three  times  :  twice  when  the  smith  working  in  the  coals 
ordinary  appearance  there  was  nothing  frowning  or  is  mentioned,  Is.xliv.j2;  liv.in,  where  the  connection  de- 
terrific:  the  fiery  glow  was  tempered  and  restrained  by  '  termiues  nothing  as  to  the  precise  meanin--  ;  but  th- 
thc  circumambient  cloud;  and  the  offices  ,,f  kindness  t]m,l  time,  Pr.xxvi.2i,  where  tin-other  word  is  also  used 


being.  Still  elements  of  terror  lay  within:  and  the  mg  coals,"  '•  as  coals  are  to  burning  coals,  and  wood  to 
fiery  ebullitions  that  sometimes  burst  forth  from  it  to  lire."  And  this  meaning  •'burning  coals"  seems  to 
consume  the  transgressors  gave  solemn  testimony  to  the  ')e  suitable  to  all  the  passages  in  which  the  word  occurs, 
fact  that  the  same  righteousness  which  was  pledged  while  it  is  absolutely  necessary  in  some  of  them,  as 
to  protect  and  bless  the  people,  if  they  remained  stead-  besides  the  one  now  quoted.  Ps.  cxl.  l<i;  Pr.  vi.  '28,  trans- 
fast  to  the  covenant,  was  also  ready  to  chastise  their  lated  "hot  coals."  Pr.  xxv.  :>:>;  -J  Sa.  xiv.  7,  in  which  last 
unfaithfulness,  LC  x  •>;  Nu.  xvi.  35.  text  to  quench  one's  coal  is  obviously  a  metaphor  for  ex- 


Xo  mention  is  made  of  the   cloud    after    the   people 
left  the  wilderness  and  took  possession  of  the  Promised 


tinguishing  one's  family  and  house,  as  similar  expressions 
among  ourselves,   such  as  desolated  hearths. 


Land,  until  the  consecration  of  Solomon's  temple,  when.     At  times,  however,  the  meaning  of  this  more  frequently 

in  token  of  the  Lord's  owning  the  place  as  his  peculiar     used  word  is  brought  out  with  the  greatest  distinctness 


dwelling,  in  lieu  of  tin-  now  antiquated  tabernacle,  the 
cloud  again  appeared  as  the  symbol  of  the  divine  -lorv. 
I'Cli.v.  1:1,  it.  There  is  no  reason,  however,  to  suppose 
this  to  have  been  more  than  a  momentary  si;rn.  one 
^iven  for  the  occasion.  it  v.ould  have  been  against 
the  genius  of  the  old  covenant  to  render  UHI/  -,-mbol  of 
the  Lord's  presence  stationary  and  permanent;  to 
have  done  so  would  have  In -en  to  _rive  a  dangerous 
encouragement  to  the  idolatrous  tendencies  of  the 
people.  Hence,  while  God  did  not  wholly  abstain 
from  the  use  of  symbolical  manifestations  of  him-,  If. 
he  took  care  to  vary  them,  so  as  t,,  k,-rp  up  the  im 
pression  that  they  were  only  symbols;  nor  did  lie  ever 
employ  them  more  than  occasionally,  that  their  design 
might  appear  to  b. •  but  temporary  help-  to  his  people's 
faith.  The  «///<//;<//  si-i)  of  his  presence,  and  the  fixed 
exhibition  of  his  character,  was  to  be  found  in  the 
tabernacle,  with  its  sacred  ark  and  tables  of  the  cove 
nant.  To  this  alone  Israel  was  to  look,  and  to  the 
great  realities  enshrined  in  its  structure  and  services 


in  the  original  by  an  addition,  such  as  coal 
once,  K/e  i  Ki,  liiirniuij  coals  of  jiff. 

Jt  has  been  disputed  whether  the  Hebrews  IKK 
at  all.  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  or  merely  char 
coal.  I'ut  there  is  strong  reason  to  believe  that  real  coal, 
the  same  as  ours,  was  employed  in  the  ancient  world, 
and  the  mountains  of  Lebanon  do  certainly  contain 
seams  of  eoal.  which  occasionally  crop  out  at  the  surface. 
These  have  been  worked  by  the  present  uncivilized  and 
negligent  governors  of  the  country,  so  that  we  may  well 
believe  they  were  not  neglected  by  the  Phoenicians. 
'lucre  is  therefore  nothing  improbable  in  the  supposition 
that  the  Israelites  \\vro  acquainted  with  mineral  coal. 
This  would  admirably  suit  two  passages  of  a  poetical 
description,  in  which  coals  are  said  to  be  kindled  by  the 
breath  of  leviathan,  J,.b\li  21,  and  by  the  breath  of  the 
Lord  in  his  glorious  appearance.  I1-  xvii:  8.  Hut  while 
we  -rant  this  to  be  the  more  natural  way  of  understand 
ing  metaphors  which  would  lie  strangely  tame  if  we 
referred  them  to  artificial  fuel,  we  have  no  reason  to 


for  the   living  manifestation   of  Cod's  favour,  and  the     think  that  mineral  coal  was  in  common  use,  and  there 
continued  enjoyment  of  his  blessing.      It  was  jn  perfect     are  some  passages  of  Scripture  which  di.-tinetly  point  to 

natur 


accordance,  therefore,   with   th 


•f   th 


whol 

old  economy,  that  the  pillar  of  cloud  si 
as  a  regular  manifestation  of  l)eity,  to  be 
with  the  tabernacle  or  temple  after  the  people  had 
been  settled  in  Canaan;  and  it  is  only  from  having 
overlooked  these  fundamental  considerations,  that 
Jewish,  and  also  some  Christian  writers,  have  con 
tended  for  its  permanent  existence  till  the  destruction 
of  the  temple  by  the  I'abylonians.  Kzekiel,  indeed, 
speaks  about  that  time  of  seeing  the  glory  of  the  Lord 
leaving  the  temple,  <-h.  x.  1 ;  xi.  •_':; ;  hut  it  was  of  what 
appeared  in  vision  that  the  prophet  spoke;  and,  in 
the  reality,  it  merely  announced  the  fact  that  Cod  had 


the  substance  from  which  the  coal  was  derived. 
This  is  in  harmony  with  the  use  of  charcoal  in  eastern 
connected  countries  at  the  present  day.  Thus,  coals  of  juniper, 
or  broom,  are  mentioned,  I's  cxx.4.  In  Is.  xliv.  li»,  and 
K:-.e.  xxiv.  1 1,  we  read  of  coals  in  immediate  connection 
with  the  burning  of  wood  spoken  of  in  the  preceding 
context.  And  in  Le.  xvi.  1  '2  the  high-priest  is  com 
manded  to  go  into  the  most  holv  place,  with  a  censer 
full  of  burning  coals  of  fire  from  oft'  the  altar  ;  on  which 
altar  we  know  that  wood  was  regularly  burned,  whereas 
mineral  coal  could  scarcely  have  been  obtained  by  the 
Israelites  as  they  moved  through  the  desert. 


In  the  New  Testament  coals  are  mentioned  only  in 
now.  on  account  of  the  people's  sins,  actually  deserted  l!o.  xii.  •_><"!,  a  ((notation  from  Pr.  xxv.  '2'2.  A  slightly 
the  house,  and  surrendered  it  to  desolation.  modified  form  of  the  word  occurs  in  .In.  xviii.  18;  xxi.  9, 

CNI'DUS,  the  name  of  a  city  and  peninsula  in  the  which  is  well  rendered  "a  fire  of  coals;"  but  it  deter- 
south-west  part  of  Asia  Minor,  and  situated  between  mines  nothing  as  to  the  material,  whether  it  was  wood 
the  islands  of  Rhodes  and  Cos.  It  is  mentioned  in  the  0!'  »"t  • 

One  or  two  other  passages  occur,  in  which  the  sense 
substantially  given  in  our  version,  though  the  word 
"  coal '"  is  used  with,  at  the  best,  questionable  accuracy. 


narrative  of  St.  Paul's  voyage  toward  Eome,  as  a  point 
which  they  had  great  difficulty  in  reaching,  on  account 
of  the  opposition  of  the  wind,  Ac.  xxvii. :. 


COAL,  COALS.     Two  Hebrew  words  are  found  in 


Scripture,   which  are  rendered 
our  version.     One  of  these  (art, 


r   "coals"   in 
is  traced  to  a 


In  La.  iv.  S,  "their  visage  is  blacker  than  a  coal,"  the 


literal  rendering  is  that  of  the  margin,  '•  is  darker  than 
blackness."      In  1  Ki.  xix.  <>,  Elijah  saw  "a  cake  baken 
on  the  coals."  perhaps  rather  upon  a  hot  stone;  and  a 
root  signifying  ///</(•/•.  and  accordingly  its  proper  mean-  ,  like  remark  may  lie  made  on  the    "live  coal  from  off 


COAT 


COCK 


viii.  0,  "the-  coals  thereof  are  coals  of  tire:"  perhaps 
it  had  hefii  better  left  in  general,  "the  flame,"  or 
"the  burnini:  thereof."  This  same  word  occurs  in  Hub. 


count;  for  the  precise  always  explains  the  more 
general.  But  the  second  was  plainly  the  crowing, 
par  eminence;  the  first  probably  being  the  voice  of  a 
more  distant  bird,  faintly  falling  upon  Peters  ear,  and 
producing  no  reflection,  or  the  preliminary  solitary 


jals  went   forth   at  his  feet,"  more  \  crow  of  some  cock  wakeful  before  the  time. 
probably,  burnings,  inflammations,  that  is,  some  sort  i       That  domestic  poultry  were  kept  by  the  Israelites  at 
of  disease,  as  rendered  in  the  margin,  and  also  else-      a  very  early  period  is  highly  probable.      Several  species 
where  in  Scripture.  L';- ('-  M-  D-l 

COAT.     K-e  DKKSS. 

COCK,   11 HX    (\\\tKTup,   opvis,  lit.   Am/).     No  re- 


apparently  distinct  are  still  found  wild  in  the  forests 
and  jungles  of  India,  and  two  at  least,  f>a//nx  ^onnc- 
rtitii  and  (j.  Stanley  i,  are  abundant  in  the  woods  of  the 


co'nii/.ed  allusion  to  domestic  poultry  occurs  in  the  Old  i  Western  Ghauts,  to  which  our  familiar  fowl  bear  so 
Testament,  but  as  there  is  no  enumeration  of  species  of  close  a  resemblance  that  naturalists  consider  the  former 
the  birds  permitted  to  the  Hebrews  for  food  in  Le.  xi.  to  be  their  original.  Domestic  poultry  have  existed  in 
and  De.  xiv.,  it  is  possible  that  it  may  have  been  in-  Hindoostan  from  the  remotest  antiquity ;  probably 
eluded  in  the  "eiieral  term  "all  clean  birds "  of  the  much  earlier  than  the  twelfth  century  B.C.  ;  for  in  the 
latter  passage.  Institutes  of  Mcnv,  which  Sir  William  Jones  assigns  to 

In  the  New  Testament  the  compassion  of  the  Lord     that  age,  we  read  of  "  the  breed  of  the  town-cock."  and 
.Jesus  toward  Jerusalem  is  touchhigly  compared  by  him     of  the  practice  of  cock-fighting  (v.  i-2;  is.  222). 
to  the  tender  care  of  the  maternal  hen  over  her  chickens:          When  the  cock  found  its  way  to  Western  Asia  and 
"  How  often  would  J   have  gathered  thy  children  to-     Europe  we  have  no  record.      Fowl  of  plumage  so  gorge- 
gether,  as  a  hen  doth  gather  her  brood  under  her  wings,     ons,  of  size  so  noble,  of  flesh  so  sapid,  of  habits  so  do- 
aiid  ve   would  not,"   I/.i  xiii.  ::•»;  Mat.  xxiii.  :;r.      The  other     mestic,  of  increase  so  prolific,  would  doubtless  early  be 
passages  which  make  mention  of  the  species  are  those     carried  along  the  various  tracks  of  oriental  commerce, 
in  which  the  crowing  of  the  cock  is  alluded  to,  either  ; 
generally  as  the  conventional  mark  of  a  certain  hour  of 
the  night,  Mar.  xiii.  3:>,  or  specially  as  the  signal  given  to 
Peter  011  the  occasion  of  his  faithless  denial  of  his  Lord, 
Mat.  xxvi.  34,74,  &c. 

An  assertion  in  the  Mishna— "  They  do  not  breed 
cocks  at  Jerusalem,  because  of  the  holy  things" — has 
been    supposed  to  militate    against  the   possibility   of  I 
Peter's  hearing  a  cock  crow  011  the  occasion  referred  to.  i 
The   mere   existence  of   a  general  rule  cannot   weigli 
against  a  recorded  fact,  for  laws  even  far  more  stringent 
than  this  are  frequently  transgressed.      But  the  cock 
needs  not  to  have  been  in  Jerusalem,  for   Peter  was 
standing  in  the  porch  of  the  high-priest's  palace,  witli 

the  slope  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  just  over  against  him  There  is  no  trace  of  it,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  on  the 
not  half  a  mile  distant,  whence  he  might  hear  with  monuments  of  Pharaonic  Egypt ;  but  we  find  the  cock 
shrill  distinctness  the  crow  of  a  cock,  in  the  deep  silence  :  figured  in  those  of  Assyria.  In  a  hunting  and  shooting 
of  the  hour  that  just  precedes  the  dawn  of  day.  scene  depicted  at  Khorsabad  (Botta,  pi.  cvm.-cxiv.),  the 

The  term  "cock- crowing"  used  by  the  Lord  Jesus  in  scene  is  laid  in  a  forest  whose  characteristics  seem  to 
Mar.  xiii.  35  is  manifestly  conventional  for  a  certain  indicate  a  mountain  region,  such  as  Media  or  Armenia, 
season  of  the  night.  The  ancients  divided  the  period  Much  game  is  represented,  including  many  kinds  of 
between  sunset  and  sunrise  into  four  watches,  which  birds,  one  of  which  seems  to  be  the  pheasant.  But  the 
were  sometimes  numbered  "the  first,  second,  third,  most  interesting  is  a  large  bird,  which  appears  from  iti 
fourth  watch  of  the  night,"  Lu.  xii.3>;  Mat.  xiv.  25;  and  at  form,  gait,  and  arching  tail,  to  be  our  common  cock  ; 
other  times  received  distinct  names,  as  in  Mar.  xiii.  35—  it  is  walking  on  the  ground  amidst  the  trees.  So  far 
"the  even,"  from  sunset  to  about  nine  o  clock ;  "mid-  as  this  is  evidence,  it  would  go  to  prove  that  the  fowl, 
night,"  from  the  hour  just  named  to  twelve;  "cock-  ;  in  a  wild  state,  existed  at  that  period  in  Western  Asia, 
crowing,"  from  twelve  to  three  ;  and  "morning,"  from  though  now  unknown  on  this  side  the  Indus, 
three  to  sunrise.  Cocks  generally  crow  without  much  The  cock  and  hen  are  distinctly  represented  in  the 
regularity  in  the  latter  part  of  the  night,  and  are  mostly  '  Xanthiansculptures,of  an  era  probably  contemporaneous 
vociferous  a  little  before  day-break  ;  so  that,  though  with  the  Khorsabad  palace  of  Nineveh.  They  appear 
the  "shrill  clarion"  was  not  often  heard  until  the  third  ]  also  on  Etruscan  paintings,  having  probably  a  much 
watch  was  actually  past,  yet,  as  the  most  striking  pe-  higher  antiquity  (Mrs.  Gray's  Etruria.p.  28,«V  The  early 


culiarity  of  a  portion   of  the  night   for  the  most  part 
devoid  of   any   obvious  characters,    the   third   division 


(keeks  and  Romans   figure   them  on  their  coins  and 
U-ems,  and  speak  of  them  as  perfectly  familiar  objects, 


might  be  well  named  from  it ;  especially  as  there  is  an  with  no  allusion  to  their  introduction.     They  had  even 

occasional  preliminary   crow   uttered   soon  after  mid-  found  their  way  into  Britain  at  some  unknown  period 

ni<rht.  long  anterior  to  the  Roman  invasion :  for  Csosar  tells 

The  difficulty  that,  according  to  three  evangelists,  the  us  with  surprise  that  the  Britons  did  not  think  it  right 

L  >rd  Jesus  announced  the  threefold  sin  of  Peter  before  to  eat  the  goose  or  the  hen  ;  though  they  bred  both  for 

the  cock  should  crow,  while  according  to  Mark  it  was  the   pleasure  of  keeping  them  (Bell.  Gall.  lib.  v.) 

predicted  and  occurred  before  the  cock  crew  twice,  is  a  very  interesting  allusion,  since  we  are  compelled  to 

easily  met.     Mark's   is  doubtless  the  more  exact  ac-  refer  their  introduction  into  this  island  to  the  agency 


COCKATRICE 


COLOSSE 


of  the  Phoenicians,  who  traded  to  Cornwall  r'or  tin  cen 
turies  before  Home  was  built.  Under  these  circum 
stances  their  absence  from  Egypt,  where  in  modern 
times  they  have  been  artificially  bred  to  so  immense  an 
extent,  becomes  a  remarkable  and  unaccountable  fact. 

[P.H.G.] 

COCKATRICE.     See  ADDF.U. 
COCKLE.     &e  WILD  VINK. 

COLLEGE  is  the  name  applied  in  the  English  Bible  to 
the  place  where  Huldah  the  prophetess  resided:  ''So  Hil- 
kiah  the  priest,  and  Ahikam.  and  Achbor.  and  Shaphan, 
and  Asahiah,  went  unto  Huldah  the  prophetess,  the  wife 
of  Shallum  the  son  of  Tikvah.  the  son  of  Harhas  keeper 
of  the  wardrobe;  (now  she  dwelt  in  the  college  in  Je 
rusalem):  and  they  communed  with  her."  .'  Ki.  x\ii.  n.  If 
the  word  college  were  to  be  understood  in  anything 
like  its  modern  >ciise.  as  a  place  for  academic  pursuits 
or  the  study  of  sacred  Laming,  it  could  not  but  ap 
pear  strange  that  a  woman  should  have  had  apart 
ments  in  it.  The  idi-a  is  attributable  to  the  rabbinical 
authorities,  who  explain  r.'.'Z",  ""'••</< "'/',  as  some  sort 

of  school-house  in  th<-  neighbourhood  of  the  tempi''. 
]!ut  the  word  is  merely  a  numeral,  *t<-<m(l,  and  is 
always  used  of  something  in  the  second  rank  »r  second 
place,  or.  more  gem  rally,  another  as  contradistin 
guished  from  a  lirst.  So  that  when  u>< d  here  of  the 
dwelling-place  of  Huldah.  it  must  refer  to  a  part  of  the 
city  which  might  in  some  seii>e  lie  regarded  as  second 
to  that  more  immediately  in  view:  "in  tin1  other,  or 
lower  part."  that  which  was,  so  to  speak,  a  second 
citv.  ('oni)iare  /ep.  i.  I1':  Ne.  xi.  '.',  \\heiva  part  of 
the  city  is  expre>s|y  no  calle  I. 

COLONY,  in  the-  K'oman  sense,  the  only  sense  in 
wliich  it  occurs  in  Scripture,  and  even  that  onlv  once. 
Ar.x'.i  12,  was  a  kind  of  otlshoot  from  tin-  parent  state, 
consisting  of  a  body  of  citi/.ens,  \\lio  were  M  nt  out 
with  the  formal  sanction  and  approbation  of  that  .-tate 
to  found  and  possess  a  commonwealth.  A  law  was 
passed,  authorizing  a  colony  in  a  particular  place  to  In: 
founded,  fixing  the  quantity  of  land  in  connection  with 
it  to  be  distributed,  and  appointing  certain  persons, 
who  varied  in  number  according  to  cin-uin-tanees.  to 
superintend  the  execution  of  the  decree.  The  members 
of  the  colonv  went  voluntarily  to  the  new  field:  no 
one  was  under  any  constraint  to  ^n;  and  those  who 
went  still  retained  the  rights  of  li'ninan  citi/eiis. 
Of  course,  if  the  place  was  distant,  they  could  rarely 
exercise  these;  but  ill  their  new  Si  ttlelilellt  itself  they 
had  civic  rights  precisely  similar  to  those  cnjovd  b\ 
the  members  of  the  Roman  state  resident  in  the  capi 
tal.  So  that  a  1  Ionian  colony  was  a  sort  of  image  of 
the  parent  city-  itself,  strictly,  a  part  of  the  Roman 
state,  and  within  its  own  jurisdiction  ruled  and  governed 
precisely  like  the  other.  (Seo  Smith's  Dictionary  of  (jruukand 
Roman  Antiquity.)  Philippi  is  the  only  place  mentioned 
in  Scripture  as  possessing  such  a  character ;  and  the 
fact  of  its  having  become  a  colony  will  be  shown  at  the 
proper  place. 

COLOS'SE  (l\o\o<rffal.  sometimes  spelled  KoXacrcrai), 
a  citv  of  Phrvgia,  on  the  river  Lycus,  a  branch  of  the 
Mieander.  The  first  mention  of  it  occurs  in  Herodotus 
(vii.  ,'in):  this  historian  narrates  that  Xerxes,  when  on 
his  march  todrcece,  passed  from  Anana  to  Colossre, 
where  "the  river  Lycus,  sinking  into  a  chasm  in  the 
town,  disappears  under  ground,  and  emerging  at  ~>  stades 
distance,  Hows  into  the  3I;eandcr.''  That  it  was  situ- 

Voi..  I. 


ated  south  of  the  Ma'ander  appears  from  Xenophon's 
statement  (Anal) .  i.  2.  s.  tit,  that  Cyrus,  on  his  way  to  the 
Euphrates,  crossed  the  Ma'ander.  and  after  a  march  of 
8  parasangs,   arrived  at  Colossa?.    which  the  historian 
I  describes  as  a  large  and  populous  city.      Not  far  from 
I  it  lay  the  towns  of  Apamea,  Hierapolis,  and  Laodiceia. 
It  is  said,  in  common  with  the  two  latter  towns,  to  have 
suffered,  shortly  after  its  reception  of  the  gospel,  from 
an  earthquake:    but  it  mu-t  speedily  have  recovered 
!  from  this  calamity,  as  in  the  twelfth  year  of  Nero  it  is 
'  spoken  of  as  a  flourishing  place.      It  was  never,   how 
ever,  regarded  as   the  principal   town   of  Phrygia;  for 
when  that  province  was  divided  into  Phrygia  Pacatiana 
and  Phrygia  Salutaris,  Colossa'  stood  only  sixth  in  the 
former   division.      Poth    Laodiceia    and    Colossa'   were 
:  famous  for  their  wool   manufacture,  and  for  their  skill 
!  in  the  art  of  dyeing. 

(iivat  uncertainty  formerly  existed  as  to  the  exact 
site  of  the  town.  In  the  middle  ages  a  place  called 
( 'home,  celebrated  for  being  the  birthplace  of  Nicetas 
Choniates.  the  Byzantine  writer,  rose  up  in  the  vicinity, 
and  Colossa,'  di. -appeared.  A  village  called  ( 'honos  now 
exists  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Chome  (Hamilton,  AM:I 
Minor,  i.  p  :,nM  J-'or  many  ages  it  was  thought  that 
(  'home,  and  then  i  'hoiio-,  markt  d  the  position  of  Colossa'. 
but  the  more  accurate  researches  of  Mr.  Hamilton  have 
fixed  the  actual  site  on  a  plain  about  '•*>  miles  to  the 
north  of  the  present  village.  Here  he  found  ruins. 
fragments  of  columns,  and  a  quantity  of  pottery,  which 
latter  circumstance  u-ually  denotes  the  former  site  of 
an  eastern  citv.  He  discovered  too  the  cavea  of  a 
theatre,  with  some  seats  still  in  preservation,  and  a 
laru'e  space  of  ground  covered  with  blocks  of  >tuiie.  wliich. 
after  some  examination,  proved  to  be  the  necropolis  of 
the  ancient  town.  In  order  to  identify  these  remains 
with  the  Colossa.'  of  Herodotus,  it  is  necessary  to  form 
>onie  probable  hvpothesis  respecting  the  cleft  or  chasm 
wliich  the  historian,  mentions  as  bein^  in  the  midst  of 
the  town,  and  receiving  into  itself  the  river  Lycus. 
The  following  clear  explanation  of  this  circumstance  is 
from  the  work  of  Mr.  Hamilton.  Amidst  the  ruins  a 
bridge  spans  a  rapid  stream,  formed  by  the  junction  of 
three  risers  immediately  above  the  bridge,  the  principal 
of  which,  now  called  the  Tchuruk,  .Mr.  Hamilton  sup 
poses  to  be  the  Lvriis.  Into  it  two  streams,  one,  from 
1 
the  north  and  the  other  from  the  south,  pour  their 

waters;  both  possessing,  in  a  remarkable  decree,  the 
property  of  petrifying.  The  calcareous  deposit  of  these 
rivers,  settling  on  the  plants  and  other  obstructions 
which  the  stream  m-els  with,  converts  them  into  its 
own  substance ;  and  in  this  manner  cletts  are  formed, 
which  gradually  approach  each  other  from  either  side, 
and  in  time  would  meet,  forming  a  natural  arch,  beneath 
which  the  main  current  would  continue  to  flow,  its 
rapidity  preventing  the  settlement  of  the  calcareous 
matter.  "It  is  indeed  most  apparent,"  writes  Mr. 
Hamilton,  "  that  this  has  been  the  case:  that  in  the 
narrow  gorge.:  throuidi  which  the  united  streams  dis 
charge  their  waters  below  the  bridge,  the  two  cliff's  have 
been  joined,  and  thus  formed  the  x«  ""/"<*  7^.  through 
wliich,  as  Herodotus  reports,  the  waters  flowed  by  a 
subterranean  channel  for  half  a  mile,  the  soft  crust 
having  been  in  all  probability  broken  up  by  an  earth 
quake."  So  powerful  is  the  action  of  the  Ak-su,  one 
of  these  rivers,  that  a  brick  thrown  into  it  speedily 
becomes  covered  with  a  thick  incrustation,  and  even 
has  its  pores  rilled  up  by  infiltration.  That  this  is  the 

44 


COLOSSIANS 


COLOSSIANS 


sjnit  which    Herodotus  descril>es  admits  now  of   little. 
doubt. 

Colossru  was  the  seat  of  a  Christian  church,  to  which  St. 
Paul  addressed  one  of  his  epistles.  P>y  whom  the  church 
was  founded  is  uncertain.  In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
St.  Paul  is  said  to  have  made  two  journeys  through 
Phrygia;  the  first,  cli.  xvi.  <;,  to  introduce  the  gospel  into 
those  regions,  the  second,  ch.xviii.  23,  for  the  purpose  of 
confirming  the  disciples  ;  but  on  neither  occasion  is 
any  mention  made  of  his  having  visited  Coloss;e.  This 
silence  of  the  inspired  history,  coupled  with  the  declara 
tion  of  the  apostle  that  the  Colossians  had  not  seen  him 
in  person,  Col.  ii.  1,  militates  strongly  against  the  supposi 
tion  of  his  having  himself  founded  this  church.  The 
contrary  opinion  has  however  been  maintained  by  some 
writers  of  eminence,  especially  Lardner,  whose  work, 
or  Dr.  Davidson's  I ntrotl m-timi,  may  be  consulted  on  this 
point.  If  St.  Paul  was  not  the  founder,  that  honour 
must  probably  be  assigned  to  Epaphras,  who  was 
with  the  apostle  at  Rome  when  the  epistle  to  the  Colos 
sians  was  written,  and  from  whom,  no  doubt,  he  received 
the  information  which  led  him  to  address  them.  In 
eh.  i.  7  of  the  epistle,  the  Colossians  are  said  to  have 
"learned"  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  Cod  from  Epaphras, 
'•a  faithful  minister  of  Christ  in  their  behalf;"  from 
which,  in  the  absence  of  positive  data,  we  may  conclude 
that  he  was  one  at  least  of  those  to  whom  his  fellow- 
countrymen  were  indebted  for  their  knowledge  of  Christ. 
It  is  very  probable  indeed  that  during  St.  Paul's  length 
ened  sojourn  at  Ephesus,  he  was  brought  into  com 
munication,  by  means  of  visitors,  with  various  cities  of 
Asia  Minor,  which  thus  became  acquainted  with  the 
gospel,  and  towards  the  churches  of  which,  though  he 
had  never  visited  them  in  person,  he  stood  virtually 
in  the  relation  of  a  spiritual  father.  Such  seems  to 
have  been  the  case  with  Laodiceia  and  Hierapolis,  Col. 
ii.  1;  iv.  I'.',,  in  the  vicinity  of  Colosste  ;  and  a  similar  hy 
pothesis  will  account  for  any  peculiarities  in  the  epistle 
to  this  last-named  city.  For  thus  it  would  be  true  that 
the  apostle  had  never  been  himself  there  ;  while,  at  the 
same  time,  he  could  address  the  Colossian  converts  with 
an  intimacy  of  personal  feeling,  and  assume  a  position 
towards  them  which  would  have  been  out  of  place  in 
the  case  of  a  church  in  the  establishment  of  which  he 
had  had  no  share  whatever.  Thus  too  will  the  facts, 
011  which  so  much  stress  is  laid  by  Lardner  and  others, 
l:>e  accounted  for,  that  the  epistle  exhibits  such  an  inti 
mate  acquaintance  with  the  affairs  of  the  church,  and 
with  so  many  of  its  members,  and  seems  also  to  pre 
suppose,  on  the  part  of  the  Colossians,  an  acquaintance 
with  Timothy,  who,  we  know,  was  Paul's  companion  on 
his  first  journey  through  Phrygia.  Nothing  is  more 
likely  than  that  this  intimate  knowledge  was  gained  on 
either  side  by  visits,  on  the  part  of  Epaphras,  Archippus, 
Philemon,  Apphia,  and  other  members  of  the  Colossian 
church,  to  St.  Paul  at  Ephesus,  and  perhaps  other 
places  ;  where  they  would  also  be  brought  into  inter 
course  with  Timothy.  The  question  must  remain  to 
some  extent  in  uncertainty  ;  but  the  probabilities  are 
certainly  in  favour  of  the  latter  view,  and  against  that 
of  Lardner,  which  Theodoret  seems  to  have  been  the 
first  to  suggest.  [>•  A.  r,.] 

COLOSSIANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE.  The  genuine 
ness  and  integrity  of  this  epistle  were  never  questioned 
in  ancient  times ;  nor  indeed  in  modern,  until  a  few- 
German  critics,  in  other  respects  deserving  of  a  hear 
ing,  but  apparently  unable  to  resist  the  proneness  to 


unwarranted  scepticism  peculiar  to  their  country,  threw 
out  doubts  upon  the  subject.  Mayerhoff  of  Berlin,  in 
a  work  published  in  1838,  attempted  to  prove  that  the 
epistle  is  not  the  production  of  St.  Paul ;  in  which  he 
\vas  followed  by  Baur  of  Tubingen,  whose  researches 
have  apparently  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  of  all 
the  epistles  ascribed  to  the  apostle,  those  to  the  Romans, 
Corinthians,  and  Galatians  alone  are  beyond  doubt 
genuine.  The  reasons  which  these  writers  allege  for 
their  opinion  are  of  a  very  unsubstantial  character. 
Mayerhoff  insists  upon  the  peculiarities  of  style,  and 
especially  the  d-rra^  Xfyo/u.eva,  which,  as  he  alleges, 
distinguish  this  epistle  from  the  genuine  ones  of  St. 
Paul.  Of  peculiar  expressions  it  contains,  no  doubt, 
an  unusual  number  ;  but  this  is  easily  accounted  for  by 
the  nature  of  the  subjects  on  which  the  writer  treats. 
In  general,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  argument  from 
a.Tra.%  Xeyufj-fva  is  of  little  weight,  unless  supported  by 
internal  and  external  evidence.  Internal  marks  of 
spuriousness  Mayerhoff  professes  to  find  in  the  ' ' poverty 
of  thought,"  and  absence  of  logical  arrangement,  which, 
in  his  opinion,  the  epistle  exhibits  ;  an  opinion  which 
the  unbiassed  readers  of  it  are  not  likely  to  share.  Baur 
seems  to  reject  the  epistle  011  the  same  ground  as  he 
does  the  pastoral  epistles :  viz.  the  alleged  occurrence 
of  ideas  and  words  derived  from  the  later  Gnostic  and 
Montanist  heresies,  whence  he  draws  the  conclusion 
that  it  must  have  been  written  subsequently  to  the 
appearance  of  those  heresies.  But  why  may  not  the 
reverse  have  been  the  case,  and  the  heresiarchs,  by  em 
ploying  them  in  a  iie\v  sense,  have  adapted  the  apostle's 
expressions  to  their  own  uses '!  How  little  dependence 
is  to  be  placed  on  such  purely  subjective  arguments 
appears  from  the  circumstance,  that  on  the  same  grounds, 
and  as  decidedly,  as  Mayerhoff  pronounces  the  epistle 
to  the  Colossians  spurious,  does  De  Wette  reject  that 
to  the  Ephesians  ;  so  that  these  critics  mutually  cut  the 
ground  from  under  each  other. 

Of  the  external  testimonies  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
epistle  the  following  are  a  few: — Iremeus,  Adv.  liter. 
lib.  iii.  c.  14 :  "  And  again,  in  the  epistle  to  the  Colos 
sians,  he  says,  '  Luke  the  beloved  physician  greets  you,' 
Col.  iv.  14." — Clement  of  Alexandria,  Strom,  lib.  i.  p.  '277: 
•'  And  in  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  he  says,  '  Warn 
ing  every  man,  and  teaching  in  all  wisdom,  that  we 
may  present  every  man  perfect  in  Christ,'  Col.  i.  28."— 
Tertulliaii,  De  Prccscrijt.  lift  ret.  c.  vii. :  "  The  apostle, 
writing  to  the  Colossians,  warns  us  against  philosophy, 
'  Take  heed,'  says  lie,  '  lest  any  one  circumvent  you 
through  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  according  to  the 
tradition  of  men,'  Col.  U.S." — De  Resurrect.  Carnit,  c.  '2:3: 
'•The  apostle,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Colossians,  teaches 
that  we  were  once  dead  in  sins,  alienated  from  God, 
with  feelings  hostile  to  him;  then  that  we  were  buried 
with  Christ  in  baptism,  &c.,  '  And  you,  when  you  were 
dead  in  your  sins,  and  the  uncircumcision  of  your  flesh, 
he  hath  quickened  with  him,  having  forgiven  you  all 
trespasses,' Col.  ii.  13." — Later  testimonies  it  is  needless 
to  adduce. 

Place  and  Time  »f  Writing. — The  determination  of 
the  latter  point  depends  upon  that  of  the  former,  on 
which  different  opinions  have  been  held.  It  must  be 
premised  that  we  cannot,  as  regards  the  time  and  place 
of  writing,  separate  the  three  epistles  to  the  Ephesians, 
Colossians,  and  Philemon ;  the  two  former  are  connected 
by  similarity  of  contents,  and  their  common  bearer 
Tychicus  ;  the  two  latter  by  the  salutations  of  Epaphras, 


COLOSSIANS 


347 


COLOSSIANS 


Marcus,  Aristarchus,  Demas,  ami  Lucas,  and  the  mis-  (journey  to  Spain  never  took  place,  or  was  postponed  ; 
sion  of  Onesinms,  mentioned   in   liotli.      Xo\v  it  is  ol>-     and  if  so,  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  in  the  supposi- 


vious  from  Ep.  iii.  1.  iv.  1.  and  vi.  '20;  from  Phile.  9,  1": 
and  from  L'ol.  iv.  3,  that  all  three  epistles  were  written 
by  the  apostle  during-  a  time  of  imprisonment;  and 


tioii  that,  on  his  liberation  from  Koine,  he,  instead  of 
proceeding  direct  to  Asia  Minor,  took  Greece  and  Mace 
donia  in  his  way.  and  visited  Philippi  before  lie  arrived 


since  the  inspired  history  mentions  but  tw 
on  which,  for  any  length  of  time,  he  was  in 
at  (Aesarea  for  about  eighteen  months.  Ac.  xxi.-J7,  and  at 
Home   for  two   years.    AC.  xxviii.  :!<i,   between    these    two 
our  choice  must   be   made'.      General   belief,    from    an 
cient    times  downwards,    has    been    in    favour  of    the 
Roman  imprisonment ;   but   recently  the  other  side  ot 
the  question  has  been  adopted  by  some  German  critics 
of  note,  among  others  by  Schul/.  Schott.  Bottger.  \Vig- 
gers.  and   lately   Meyer.      Xeander.   however.  Harless. 
and  others,  have  declared  themselves  for  the  common 
opinion:    and    not  without   reason,    for    the  objections 
against  it  seen 
are  the  jirinci| 
apostle  would 
at  Ca'sarea  to 
to  this  it  may 


ccasioiis  •  at  Colossa;.  On  the  whole,  this  is  a  case  in  which  ex- 
nds,  vi/..  :  ternal  tradition  may  pru[>erly  be  allowed  to  determine 
the  question  ;  and  this  is  unequivocally  in  favour  of 
Home  as  the  place  of  authorship.  (See  Srhulx,  stud.  \ih<l 
Kritik.  IvJ'.i,  ]•.  (il-',  1'.;  Winers,  Do  1-41,  i>.  i:;H:  NuaiuU-r,  Ai^stol- 
gusdiidito,  i.  p  l:;ii  ;  Huvlu-s,  Kplies.  Uriel'.  i>  .>  ;  ;uul  Davidson's 
1  litre,  iuct  ) 

This  point  being  assumed  as  settled,  the  date  of  the 
epistle  ranges  within  narrow  limits.  The  latest  period 
that  has  been  assigned  to  the  Roman  captivity  is  A.n.  »>:'>. 
the  earliest  A.I),  (id;  the  epistle  then  must  have  been 
written  between  (!u-(j."».  and  probably  in  the  year  <>'2 


i    by  no  means  decisive, 
al :  ---It  does  not  seem   probable  that  the 
suffer  nearly  two  years  of  imprisonment 
elapse  without  employini;'  his  pen.       But 
lie  replied,  in   the   first  place,   that   other 


epistles  mav  have  bei-n  written  (luring  that 

yet  not  the  three  in  question  :  and   «  condl 

equally  improbable  that   the  two  years   of   the    Roman 

imprisonment  passed  without   memorial,  and   uh.a  \\e 

assign  to  the  ,,ne  period  we   must,  in  the  present   case. 

take  from  the  other.      To  thi-  must  be  added   that  the 


I;  but  the  exact  date  cannot  lie  determined. 
I  Kor  the  order  in  which  the  cognate  epistles  were  written. 
see  the  article  on  the  Ki'l-Ti.i:  T<>  Till-:  EIMIKSIANS.) 

Tin    (>',;,  i-f  ,,f  tin    /-Jf,!.tt/<.      Tliis  ismaniust  on   the 
surface.      The  apostle    had    received    information,    pro- 
riod.  and     bablv  through  Kpaphras.  of  the  appearance  of  erroneous 
that   it  is     tendencies,  both  doctrinal  and  practical,  in  the  Culussian 
church,  against  which  he  felt   it   incumbent   on   him  to 
warn  his  readers.    Three  such  tendencies  are  specified  :•   - 
1.    A  pretentious  philosophy,  which  affected  an  esoteric 
knowledge,    received     through     tradition,    and    which 


niich    more   strict   than 

that  at  Rome,  in  the  early  part  of  the  latter  :  and  there 
fore  less  likely  to  fiirni-h  opportunity  fur  wri tin 4- epistles. 
It  is  uru'ed,  an'ain.  that  it  is  mure  natural  that  <  hie-mms 
should  have  fled  to  Cicsarea,  which  was  comparatively 
near,  than  to  Rome,  which  was  at  a  distance.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  vast  metropolis  like  Rome  \\ould 
afford  better  sin  Her  to  a  fugitive  than  a  provincial 
town;  and  from  the  constant  intercourse  lietween  the 
provinces  and  the  capital  <  >nesimns  would  experience  no 
difficulty  in  escaping  thither.  Meyer,  after  \Vigufers 
insists  upon  the  omission  of  the  name  of  Onesimus  in 
the  pa-^e.'V  of  the  epistle  to  the  Kphesians.  in  which 
St.  I'aul  recommends  Tychicus  to  that  church.  KI>.  vi.  21, 
which,  he  think.-,  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the 
supposition  that  the  two  companions  started  from 
C;esarea,  in  which  case  they  would  necessarily  arrive  at 
Colossa'  first,  where  (  >n.  -iiuus  would  lie  dropped,  and 
Tychicus  proce.-d  to  Kphe-sus  alone.  But  to  found  an 
argument  on  such  a  slender  foundation  as  this  is  ob 
viously  unsafe.  It  was  not  necessary  to  commend 
Onesimus  to  the  Kphe-siau  church,  inasmuch  as  not  he 
but  Tychicus  was  properly  the  bearer  of  tidings  from 
St.  Paul,  and  indeed  he  had  no  other  reason  for  touch 
ing  at  Ephesus  but  that  he  was  journeying  in  company 
with  Tychicus.  I  n  Cul.  iv.  9,  where  Onesimus  is  named, 
the  case  is  different :  he  had  been  an  inhabitant  of  the 
town,  was  one  of  themselves,  and  was  now  returning 
under  peculiar  and  interesting  circumstances.  Finally, 
it  is  remarked  that  St.  Paul  requests  Philemon  to  pre 
pare  him  a  lodging  at  Colossa'.  in  the  expectation  that 
he  would  be  enabled  to  repair  thither  shortly,  Philu.  22; 
whereas  in  Phi.  ii.  '2-4  he  expresses  a  resolution  of  pro-  the  vulgar.  With  this  false  >piritu!i!ism  was  usually 
ceeding.  after  the  termination  of  his  Roman  imprison-  |  combined  an  element  of  oriental  theosophy,  with  its 
meiit,  to  Macedonia,  and  thence,  according  to  the  plan  doctrine  of  the  essential  evil  of  matter,  and  the  ascetic 


n    unhallowed 

speculations  on  tin.1  number  ami  nature  of  the  spiritual 
beings  with  which  the  invisible  world  is  peopled.  01. 
ii.s.ls.  -j.  The  ob-ei-\  aiice.  if  not  the  asserted  obliga 
tion  (for  this  does  not  appear),  of  Jewish  ordinances. 
Col.ii.  lfi,2(t-22.  '•'>.  The  practice  of  ascetic  regulations, 
Col.ii.2:i.  A  question  here  at  once  arises:  Were  these 
various  errors  found  united  in  the  same  party  or  indi 
vidual  '  At  first  sieht  they  seem  mutually  to  exclude1 
each  either.  The  pharisaic  Judai/ers  exhibited  nei 
proneness  either  to  a  speculative  gnosis  or  to  asceti 
cism;  th>'  Gnostic  ascetic's,  on  the  oilier  haml,  were' 
usually  e.ppe.se-d  te i  a  ri'/nl  ceremonialism.  It  it  so  im 
probable  heiwever  that,  in  a  small  community  like  that 
of  Colossre,  three  distinct  parties  shouM  have  existed, 
that  we  are  driven  to  the'  eonehision  that  the  corrupt 
temlencies  in  question  did  really  exist  in  combination 
in  the-  same  per.-oiis:  ami  the  diiliculty  will  perhaps  be 
alli'vialeel  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  in  the  apostolic  age 
two  classes  of  juelai/ing  teachers,  equally  opposed  to 
the  simplicity  e,f  the  apo>tolic  message,  though  in 
ditfere-nt  \\a\s.  busied  the-nisclves  in  seewing  tares  among 
the  wheat  in  the  visible  church.  The  former  consisted 
of  the  rig'nl  formalists,  chiefly  I'hari-ees,  \\h,,  occupy 
preiminent  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  Acts  and  in 


several  of  St.    Paul's   epistles,    and   \\h 
the   continued    obligation   of    the 
Gentile   converts;    the   latter   wt 


utended  foi 
aw    of    Mo; 

specula!  i\ 


Ihi 


ents  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  whose  principle  it  was 
to  subordinate  the  letter  to  the  spirit,  or  rather  to  treat 
the  former  as  a  mere  shell,  which  the  initiated  were  at 
liberty  to  cast  away  as  worthless,  or  intended  only  for 


laid   down 
eastwards. 


n    Ro.  xv.  "2-1.  '2-4.    westwards   rather  than 
It   is  impossible,    however,    to    say    what 


changes  the  apostle  may  have  been  induced  by  circum- 


practices  by  which  it  was  supposed  that  the  soul  is  tc 
be  emancipated  from  the  material  thraldom  under  which 
it  at  present  labours.  To  angelology,  or  the  framing 


stances  to  make  in  his  plans;   probably  the  projected  |  of  angelic  genealogies,  the  Jews  in  general  of  that  age 


COLOSSI  A  NS 


were  notoriously  addicted;  in  the  pastoral  epistles  (see 
1  Ti.  i.  n,  we  again  meet  this  idle  form  of  speculation.  \ 
That  persons,  imbued  with  these  various  notions,  sliould. 
on  becoming  Christians,  attempt  an  amalgamation  <>f 
them  \\itli  their  new  faith  is  but  natural:  and  the  ill- 
assorted  union  seems  to  have  ^iveii  birth  to  the  (Miosii- 
eism  of  a  subsequent  age,  with  its  monstrous  tenets,  the 
product  of  an  unbridled  imagination.  Teachers  then, 
or  perhaps  a  single  teacher,  (;<>].  n.  K;,  of  this  east  of 
.ludaisni  had  effected  an  entrance  into  the  Colossian 
clnirch,  and  seems  to  have  there  experienced  a  favour 
able  reception.  Jn  a  (J  entile  community  like  tiiis 
pharisaie  Judaism  could  not  have  so  easily  gained  a 
tooting;  bill  ihe  mixture  of  mystical  speculation  and 
ascetic  di>ripline,  whicli  distinguished  the  section  of  the 
Alexandrian  school  alluded  to.  was  just  adapted  to  at 
tract  the  unstable;  especially  in  I'hrygia,  from  time 
immemorial  the  land  of  mystic  rites,  such  as  those  con 
nected  \\  ith  the  worship  of  ( 'ybele,  and  of  magical  super 
stition.  From  this  congenial  soil,  in  a  subsequent  age, 
Montanism  sprang ;  and.  as  Neander  remarks  (Apostel- 
gosdiichtu,  i.  IP.  ML'),  it  is  remarkable  that,  in  the  fourth 
century,  the  council  of  Laodicea  was  compelled  to  pro 
hibit  a  species  of  angel- worship,  which  appears  to  have 
maintained  its  ground  in  these  regions  (ov  oei  UpLffTiavovs 
....  ayyt\ovs  ovo/Aafctv  Kal  ffwdi^av.  Can.  3j). 

We  must  not.  however,  suppose  that  these  tendencies 
had  worked  themselves  out  into  a  distinct  system,  or 
had  brought  forth  the  bitter  practical  fruits  which  were 
their  natural  consequence,  and  which,  at  a  later  period, 
distinguished  the  heresiarchs  alluded  to  in  the  pastoral 
epistles,  and  the  followers  of  Cerinthus.  The  corrupt 
teaching  was  as  yet  in  its  bud.  The  apostle  therefore 
recommends  no  harsh  measures,  such  as  excommunica 
tion  ;  lie  treats  the  case  as  one  rather  of  ignorance  and 
inexperience  ;  as  that  of  erring  but  sincere  Christians, 
not  of  active  opponents  ;  and  seeks  by  gentle  persuasion 
to  win  them  back  to  their  allegiance  to  Christ. 

Content*.  —  Like  the  majority  of  St.  Paul's  epistles. 
that  to  the  Colossiaiis  consists  of  two  main  divisions, 
one  of  which  contains  the  doctrinal,  the  other  the  prac 
tical  matter.  Of  these  the  former,  again,  contains  two 
distinct  portions  ;  from  the  commencement  of  the  epistle 
to  ch.  i.  27,  and  from  that  point  to  the  end  of  ch.  ii. 
In  the  former  of  these  portions  the  apostle,  after  the 
usual  salutation,  returns  thanks  to  (!od  for  their  faith 
and  love,  of  which  he  had  received  accounts  from 
I'lpaphras.  ch.  i.  1-8;  and  describes  the  earnestness  of  his 
prayers  in  their  behalf  that  they  might  continually  ad 
vance  in  spiritual  wisdom,  power,  and  fruitfulness. 
ch.  i.  '.i-i'J.  The  ultimate  source  of  the  blessings  whicli 
they  enjoyed  was  the  love  of  the  Father:  by  whose 
grace  they  had  been  transferred  from  a  state  of  sinful 
alienation  into  a  state  of  acceptance,  in  and  through 
Christ,  whose  blood  was  sufficient  to  cleanse  from  all 
sin;  who  before  his  entrance  into  the  world,  as  Creator, 
claimed  equality  with  the  Father,  and  is  now  constituted 
Head  of  the  Church  and  Lord  of  all  things,  cli.  i.  i-'-.v. 
The  second  paragraph  commences  with  an  expression 
of  the  apostle's  solicitude  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  . 
those  churches  which  had  not  enjoyed  his  personal  i 
ministry,  the  Colossiaiis  among  the  number;  whence  I 
he  passes  to  the  immediate  object  of  the  epistle,  and  | 
exhorts  his  readers,  as  they  had  received  Christ,  to 
walk  in  him.  and  not  to  permit  themselves  either  to  lie 
seduced  from  the  simplicity  of  the  faith  by  a  show  of 
human  wisdom,  or  to  be  entangled  in  a  yoke  of  bondage 


to  ceremonial  observances  from  which  Christ  had  set 
them  free.  In  Christ  they  were  complete  ;  in  him  they 
possessed  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge; 
risen  with  him  to  a  new  and  heavenly  life,  they  were 
dead,  as  well  to  the-  rudiments  of  a  lower  stage  of  re 
ligions  knowledge,  as  to  the  sins  of  their  former  uncon 
verted  state,  ch.  i.  .".i-ii;.  i. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  epistle  the  apostle  enforces 
the  practical  duties  flowing  from  these  truths.  Having 
put  on  tin;  new  man  they  were  to  mortify  the  fleshly 
nature;  cultivate  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  especially  hu 
mility  and  love;  and  by  mutual  admonition  and  in 
struction  promote  the  spiritual  well-being  of  the  whole 
body.  ch.  Hi.  :")-iv  This  general  exhortation  to  holiness 
of  life'  then  branehe-  out  into  particulars,  embracing 
the  relative  duties  of  husband  and  wife,  children  and 
parents,  masters  and  servants,  di.iii.  if— iv.  -1.  The  writer 
in  treats  their  prayers  that  the  Word  of  (Jod  might,  in 
his  bonds,  have  free  course;  and  refers  them  to  Tychicus. 
the  bearer  of  the  epistle,  for  further  information  re 
specting  himself.  The  salutations  of  those  who  were 
with  him  at  Home,  and  an  injunction  to  transmit  the 
epistle  to  the  church  of  Laodieea.  and  in  turn  to  pro 
cure  one  which  had  been  written  to  that  church,  con 
clude  the  epistle,  to  which  the  apostle,  with  his  own 
hand,  attaches  iiis  signature. 

[This  epistle  has  not  been  so  much  commented  on  as  sonic 
ctlu'i-s  of  s-t.  Paul.  For  tin:  funeral  .souse  and  connection,  Pave 
nant  (L'.i'jio,*.  Kjiitl.  od  Cut.  Ucnuva,  1055)  and  Calvin  may  Ije 
consulted;  for  critical  imvno-v-,  Olshausen,  Bahr  (Basel,  ls:'0;, 
Alfurd;  also  the  recent  npmmcnuiries  of  Kllicot  and  Kadic  | 

COMFORTER.     See  ADVOCATE. 
COMMANDMENT.     See  DECALOGUE. 

COMMON  has  not  imfrequently  in  Scripture  the 
sense  of  unclean,  as  in  the  word  of  St.  Peter,  "  I  have  not 
eaten  anything  common  or  unclean,"  Ac.  x.  14 ;  also  Mar. 
vii.  :>;  Rom.  xiv.  14,  &e.  This  is  easily  explained.  The 
sanctified  was  what  was  set  apart  to  God.  taken  out  of 
the  category  of  common  things,  and  impressed  in  some 
respect  with  a  sacred  character;  so  that  what  still  re 
mained  common  was  in  the  eye  of  the  law  virtually 
unclean.  (In  respect  to  the  ordinary  use  of  the  word, 
in  the  expression  "  having  all  tilings  common,"  see 
ALMSGIVING.) 

CONCISION  [i-iittinf/  rtn-iif/].  a  contemptuous  term 
used  by  St.  Paul  in  Phi.  iii.  2,  to  denote  the  zealots  for 
circumcision.  He  changes  the  term  for  the  purpose  of 
indicating  more  pointedly  their  real  character;  instead 
of  saying  "  beware  of  the  circumcision,"  7repiTOfj.rjv, 
namely  the  party  who  pressed  the  necessity  of  still 
observing  that  ordinance,  he  says,  '•  beware  of  the  con 
cision."  KaTa.TOfi'rjv :  as  much  as  to  say.  they  no  longer 
deserve  the  old  and  venerable  name;  what  tin  i/  stickle 
for  is  a  mere  concision,  a  flesh-cutting.  And  then  he 
goes  on  to  state  the  reason,  "for  v:e  are  the  circumci 
sion"  —the  reality  has  now  passed  over  into  us.  who 
believe  in  Christ  and  are  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  our 
minds. 

CONCUBINE  ( Feb.  tt^2,  Gr.  7raX\a/as  or  7raX\a/c7?. 

Lat.  i>(V<\? — all  manifestly  but  different  variations  of 
the  same  word)  was  the  name  given  to  a  sort  of  second 
or  inferior  wife — one  who  shared  the  bed  of  the  man, 
and  had  a  recognized  position  in  the  household,  though 
still  occupying  the  place  to  some  extent  of  a  servant, 
and  subject  to  the  proper  spouse,  if  there  was  one  in 
the  house.  Among  the  Romans  it  was  only  at  a  com- 


CONCUBINE 


paratively  late  period  that  concubinage  acquired  any 
kind  of  legal  sanction:  but  when  it  did  so,  ctni'tubiim 
came  to  be  generally  substituted  for  the  hitherto  more 
common  }if  Ilex  or  mistress.  Among  the  Greeks,  how 
ever,  the  distinction  between  wife  and  concubine  was 
recognized  by  Demosthenes  as  one  even  then  well  estab 
lished  and  familiarly  known— -the  former  being,  as  he 
says,  for  the  begetting  of  legitimate  children  and  taking 
charge  of  the  affairs  of  the  house,  the  other  for  per 
forming  daily  ministrations  about  the  person  (<.-.  XIMCV. 
J.'ifiS  -M).  In  the  East  concubinage  had  manifestly  come 
centuries  before  into  general  practice.  It  meets  us  in 
Ge.  xxii.  i>4.  in  a  notice  respecting  the  family  of 
Methuel,  the  father  of  Uubekah,  who.  in  addition  to 
eight  children  bv  his  wife  ^Jileali.  had  also  a  concu 
bine,  liciimah.  \\lio  bore  him  four  children  besides. 
Indeed,  it  had  substantially  appeared  before  in  the 
household  of  Abraham  himself:  for  when  hf  consented 
to  take  Hagar  to  his  b..-d,  although  it  was  as  Sarili's 
liondmaid  that  slie  was  so  received,  yet  the  relation 
meant  to  be  established  was  undouhtedlv  mucli  of  the 
same  sort;  the  cliildreii  to  be  bom  of  Hagar  were  to 
be  reckoned,  in  some  sort,  as  Sarah's,  and  to  take 
rank  as  proper  members  of  the  family.  Thi>  inten 
tion  was  afterwards  modified  by  divine  interference: 
but  the  son  of  Hag.ir  was  still  bv  no  means  reckoned 
illegitimate,  and  it  uas  from  incidental  circumstances, 
rather  than  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  Ishmacl 
did  not  meet  with  an  alto-ether  eonvspoi:' ling  treat 
ment.  In  the  next  generation  of  the  chosen  familv 
we  find  no  mention  e.|'  a  state  of  concubinage;  Isaac 
seems  to  have  had  no  partner  of  his  b«  d  but  Kcbekah. 
and  no  children  but  In  r  twin  son-  Hfraii  and  .laeob. 
J>ut  in  the  next  generation  again  the  cvi!  re  appears 
in  an  aggravated  f,,rni:  and  not  oiilv  does  F.saii  mul 
tiply  his  wives  at  ph-a-nre.  bill  .Jacob  al<o  ;dlo\\-  him- 
self  to  In;  led  by  eoiii]iarati\  ely  trivial  and  unworthv 
considerations  to  take  thsi  t\\o  wives,  and  tlien  two 
concubines.  Nor  was  the  practice  ever  whollv  dis 
continued  among  the  covenant-people;  it  \va-  brought 
t  i  some  extent  under  law,  and  placed  substantially  on 
the  footing  of  a  marriage-relationship,  Kx.  xxi  Mi;  Do  \\i 
I'l.se'i.h  so  that  the  man  who  entered  into  it  was  not 
allowed  summarily,  and  without  anv  reason  assigned  or 
regular  proceeding  instituted,  to  jput  awav  even  a 
bondmaid  or  captive,  whom  he  had  thus  received  tohis 
bed  and  board,  but  was  hoimd  to  give  her  a  legal 
writing.  And  this  state  of  thing-  existed  till  the  com 
ing  of  Chri.-t.  wh.  n  a  higher  tone  of  feeling  and  a 
stricter  praetic"  were  introduced.  P.ut  the  considera 
tion  of  it  more  ]>r»perly  belongs  to  the  subject  of  di 
vorce,  or  to  the  more  general  subject  of  marriage. 
(Si'C  MAKRIACI:.! 

The  chief  difficulty  connected  with  the  matter  of 
concubinage  (which  equally  applies,  however,  to  the 
marriage  of  more  wives  than  one)  bears  on  the  ap 
parent  laxity  of  permitting  it  at  any  period  among  the 
covenant-people,  and  the  apparent  inconsistence  in  the 
divine  administration  of  permitting  it  at  one  period 
and  prohibiting  it  at  another.  It  seems  as  if  either 
the  principles  of  the  divine  government  were  not  so 
unchangeable  as  they  are  commonly  represented,  or 
the  persons  commissioned  to  reveal  them  had  not  been 
equally  inspired  at  one  time  as  compared  with  another. 
This,  however,  were  a  hasty  conclusion;  for  the  question 
really  resolves  itself  into  the  larger  one,  which  concerns 
the  progression  of  the  divine  plan,  and  the  consequent 


I  toleration  of  defects  and  imperfections  in  the  earlier, 
which  must  cease  to  appear  in  the  later,  stages.  In  the 
natural  administration  of  God  there  is  such  a  difference 
in  the  inevitable  conditions  of  childhood  and  vouth  as 
compared  with  those  of  mature  life,  and  in  the  entire 
condition  of  mankind  on  earth  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  angelic  world  or  of  the  redeemed  in  glory. 
And  as  the  church  of  the  old  covenant  stood  greatly 
below  that  of  the  new  in  point  of  knowledge  and  grace, 
it  was.  in  like  manner,  inevitable  that  there  should 

1  have  been  in  various  respects  a  defective  practice, 
marks  of  moral  inferiority  in  private  and  social  life, 
such  as  should  have  no  existence  now.  since  the  rela 
tively  perfect  has  come.  Such  precisely  was  the  case 
in  respect  to  the  point  now  under  consideration.  The 
original  appointment  of  God  in  regard  to  the  familv 
constitution,  that  it  r-hould  be  based  upon  the  union  of 
one  man  and  one  woman,  and  that  these  two  bv 
reason  of  their  union  should  be  regarded  as  one  flesh, 
made  it  clear  to  all  \shat  was  the  mind  of  God.  and 
uhat.  for  those  aiming  at  perfection,  was  the  standard 
to  which  they  ought  to  have  conformed.  I'm  the  cor 
ruptions  consequent  upon  the  fall,  which  grew  and 
widened  as  the  history  of  the  world  proceeded,  so 
marred  the  original  constitution  in  respect  to  the  mar 
riage  relationship,  that  the  proper  standard  fell  practi 
cally  into  abeyance,  and  the  whole  that  seemed  meet 
to  divine  wisdom,  at  the  setting  up  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment  economy  by  Moses,  was  to  impose  certain  checks 
and  restraints  of  a  legal  kind  in  the  way  of  its  execs 
sive  \iolatioii.  It  was  ordained  that  n«>  one  who  had 
taken  a  woman  to  \\ife.  even  though  it  was  a  wife  of 
inferior  standing,  a  sort  of  concubine,  should  put  her 
away  without  a  writing  of  divorce,  which  necessarily 
required  time,  and  con-id., -ration,  and  the  emplovnient, 
(for  tin  most  part  i  if  a  scribe,  ami  witnesses  an  im 
perfect  cluck,  no  doubt,  but  :  till  a  check  in  the  wa\  oi 
arbitrary  procedure,  and  as  a  general  or  civil  regnla 
tioii  i\\  Iiich  it  really  was),  possibly  carrying  (lie  restraint 
as  far  as  could  safely  be  done.  The  very  enactment 
of  such  a  regulation,  us  our  Lord  argued  against  the 
Pharisees.  MM.  xix.s,was  a  uitm  ss  against  the  hardness 
of  their  heart>.  and  it  was  an  utter  abuse  of  its  design 
to  regard  it  as  a  license  to  ]„•  indulged  in.  instead  of  a 
restraint  to  be  borne.  It  set  limits  within  which  the 
authorities  Ini_ht  tolerate  the  existing  imperfections, 
but  it  left,  umvpi.-d'-d  the  original  appointment,  and. 
prop' rly  viewed,  should  liavebu'  served  to  recall  men's 
attention  to  it. 

So  difficult  was  it  to  turn  the  title  of  d,  geiieracv  in 
this  respect  which  had  set  in  upon  the  world,  and  so 
hard  even  for  the  highest  authority  to  prevail  in  purg 
ing  the  moral  atmosphere  of  society,  that  the  practice 
of  concubinage  yielded  only  in  the  slowest  and  most 
gradual  manner  even  to  our  Lord's  explicit  declaration. 
Long  after  the  establishment  of  Christianity  the  state 
recognized  concubinage,  as  contradistinguished  from 
marriage;,  though  not  in  co-existence  with  it;  and  even 
so  late  as  the  year  A.t).  4lHI  the  first  ecclesiastical  council 
of  Toledo  allowed  communion  to  persons  living  in  con 
cubinage,  while  it  excluded  polygamists.  For  centuries 
concubinage  was  quite  common  both  among  clergy  and 
laity.  It  was  first  formally  abolished  among  the  clergy, 
but  only  with  general  effect  about  the  period  of  the 
Reformation;  afterwards,  also,  it  was  denied  to  the 
laity;  and  the  ci\il  law  gradually  conformed  itself  to 
the  ecclesiastical. 


COX  I A  li 


COPPER 


Their  hair  is  a  brown-yellow,  which  becomes  pale  and 
long  as  the  animals  grow  old.  In  appearance,  on  ac 
count  of  the  great  vivacity  of  the  eyes,  the  head  being 
close  to  the  shoulders,  and  the  buttocks  being  drawn 
in.  and  without  a  tail,  they  resemble  the  guinea-pig. 
Their  logs  are  all  of  the  same  height,  but  the  form  of 
their  feet  is  peculiar;  instead  of  nails  or  claws  they 
have  three  toes  in  front  and  four  behind,  and  they  walk 
like  rabbits  on  the  whole  length  of  the  foot.  The  Arabs 
call  it  (I  innlicr.  and  know  no  other  name  for  it.  It  is 
common  in  this  part  of  the  country,  and  lives  upon  the 
scantv  herbage  with  which  the  rain  in  the  neighbour- 
A  small  quadruped  common  hood  of  springs  supplies  it"  (Lahm-cle.p.iu).  [p.  IT.  G.] 

CO'OS,  OK  <'<)S,  a  small  but  fertile  island  in  the 
.•Egean  Sea.  off  the  south-west  point  of  Asia  Minor. 
which  was  once  touched  by  the  apostle  Paul  on  his 
way  from  (ireece  to  Jerusalem.  Ac.  xxi.  1.  It  does  not 
a,)  (pear  that  he  rested  at  it.  or  perhaps  did  more  than 
pass  bv  it:  so  that  nothing  depends  on  its  state  for  the 
illustration  of  apostolic  history.  ft  is  about  twenty- 
live  miles  long  by  ten  broad. 

COPPER  occurs  only  once  in  our  translation  of  the 


CONIAH.     SVr  JKCOXIAH. 

CONVERSION,  when  usi-il  in  a  religious  sense,  is 
a  turning  from  sin  to  holiness,  or  from  the  love  of  self 
and  the  world  to  the  love  and  service  of  (iod.  The 
things  included  in  it  will  he  treated  of  under  I'KPKNT- 
ANCK  and  IlKHKNKi:  VTION. 

CONVOCATION,  is  a  calliim  together,  or  an  as 
semblage  of  a  sacred  character;  and  hence  has  the 
epithet  //•<///  usually  attached  to  it.  It  denotes  such 
meetings  for  sacred  purposes  as  took  place  at  the  stated 
festivals,  and  oil  Sabbaths.  Ex.  xii.  ID;  I.e.  xxili.L':  Nu.  x.  2: 

CONY  (\3v,  *l'«l>I"t" 

in  the  rocky  parts  of  Palestine  and  surrounding  coun 
tries,  having  no  affinity  with  the  rabbit  of  Europe,  but 
belonging  to  a  different  order.  Strange  to  say.  its 
nearest  affinity  is  with  the  huge  rhinoceros  :  and  though 
the  assertion  mav  startle  some  who  behold  a  little 
creature,  not  unlike  a  guinea-pig  in  form  and  size,  yet 
if  they  were  to  compare  the  skeleton  of  the  so-called 
cony  with  that  of  the  huge  pachyderm,  they  would  find 
exceedingly  little  diversity  between  the  two.  except  in  Scri 
dimensions.  It  is  the  J/i/mx  zi/rianis  of  zoologist 


The  Cony    ITiirnx  syrwcim 


nce    n 

•s.  though  if  it  were  the  proper  rendering 
there,  one  can  scarcely  avoid  the  conclusion  that  it 
should  have  appeared  al-o  in  other  passages.  It  i<  at 
Ezr.  viii.  '11.  where,  among  the  vessels  reported  to 
have  been  brought  back  from  Babylon.  we  Hud  men 
tion  made  of  "two  vessels  of  fine  copper,  precious  as 
gold."  The  word  is  that  usually  rendered  brass  (r^Ti'- 
and  undoubtedly  indicates  a  metal  hard,  well  tem 
pered,  and  capable  of  taking  a  very  fine  polish,  so  as, 
on  that  account,  to  possess  a  high  value.  This  could 
not  be  said  simply  of  copper,  especially  at  Babylon. 
where  it  is  known  to  have  existed  in  considerable 
abundance,  and  to  have  been  in  comparatively  com 
mon  use.  Either  brass,  therefore,  which  is  a  compound 
of  copper  and  tin,  or  some  other  alloy,  in  which  cop 
Various  local  names  have  been  applied  to  the  tkup/ian.  per  formed  a  principal  part,  must  have  been  meant. 
The  LXX.  translate  the  word  by  XoLP6ypv\\os,  "a  If  in  this  passage  brass  should  rather  have  been  used 
grunting  -hog."  According  to  Bruce  it  is  called  in  than  copper,  there  are  others  in  which  the  reverse  holds; 
Abyssinia  asM-ofco.  In  Syria  the  tennis  Ganam  hnn-l,  it  should  have  been  copper  and  not  brass.  Thus,  in 
which  the  French  zoologists  have  metamorphosed  into  i  De.  viii.  9,  it  is  said  respecting  Canaan/'  Out  of  whose 
Daman;  to  the  modern  Arabs  it  is  familiarly  known  as  hills  thou  mayest  dig  brass;"  and  again  in  Job  xxvm.  '2, 
theweber  It  is  said  to  inhabit  in  numbers  the  precipices  "Brass  is  molten  out  of  the  stone;"  certainly  not 
which  border  that  terrific  fissure  which  affords  an  exit  brass  in  either  case,  which,  being  an  alloy,  is  never 
for  the  Kidron.  as  well  as  other  inaccessible  rocks.  Its  found  in  a  native  state;  but  probably  enough  copper, 
feet  are  not  suited  for  burrowing  the  toes  being  round  as  this  was  one  of  the  mineral  products  «,t  the  Holy 
and  soft,  protected  by  broad  hoof-like  nails  :  but  it  re-  Land.  And  the  allusion,  in  the  last  of  the  two  passages 
sorts  to  caverns  or  deep  clefts  in  the  rocks.  Here  the  to  the  process  by  which  it  was  obtained,  clearly  implies 
little  animal  dwells  in  society,  a  score  or  more  being  that  the  smelting  of  copper  from  the  ore  was  known  at 
frequently  seen  sitting  at  the  mouth  of  their  cave,  bask-  the  period  when  the  book  of  Job  was  composed.  It 
in"  in  the  sun  or  coming  out  to  enjoy  the  freshness  of  should  be  understood,  then,  that  when  reference  is 
the  evening  air.  ;  made  to  the  ore,  or  to  the  metal  in  its  original 

Laborde  thus  notices  this  little  animal:—  "Two  of     state,   not  brass,  but  copper  is  the  word  that  * 
our  -aides  set  out   upon  an  excursion,  their  -uns  on     be  employed.      "In   most   other  instances,1    as  statec 
their   shoulders,    saying   they   would    go   and  hunt   the     by  Mr.  Napier  (Ancient  Workers  and  Artificers  in  Metal,  p  54), 
oueber   an  animal  commonly  met  with  in  this  part  of     "the  word  brass  should  be  translated  bronze,  an  alloy 
the  mountain       In  the  course  of  a  few  hours  they  re-      well  known  in  the  earliest  times;  and  as  copper  is  the 
turned,  bringing  something  wrapped  up  in  their  cloaks,     principal  metal  in  this  alloy,  it  follows  that  a  reft 
We   saw  by  the  merriment  displayed  on  their  counte-  !  to  bronze  necessitates  a  previous  metallurgical  oper 
nances    thai  they  had  not  been  unlucky.     They  imme-     tion  for   copper."     The   same  writer  also  states,  tli 
diatelv  produced  four  little  animals,  which  they  had     -many    of    the    ancient    copper   alloys   had  to   stand 
found  in  their  lair   being  the  whole  of  the  family—  the     working  by  the  hammer  ;  and  their  working  was  such, 
father  and  mother,  and  two  young  ones  a  fortnight  old.  '  either  for  toughness  or  hardness,  that  we  cannot  at  the 
These  creatures,  which  are  very  lively  in  their  move-     present   .lay  make    anything  like  i 
ments.   endeavoured   to  bite  when   they  were   caught.  !  strong  presumptive  evidence  that  the  copper  as  well 


CORAL 


351 


COR  DAK" 


the  tin  they  used  for  these  alloys  must  have  been 
pure,  and  that  they  had  means  for  effecting  this 
object." 

It  confirms  the  view  now  given  of  the  early  know 
ledge  of  copper,  and  of  the  processes  necessary  to  bring 
it  to  practical  use,  that  at  the  discovery  of  America 
the  natives  were  found  in  plentiful  possession  of  articles 
made  of  this  mineral.  "Columbus,  when  at  Cape  Hon 
duras,  was  visited  by  a  trading  canoe  of  Indians. 
Amongst  the  various  articles  of  merchandise  were  small 
hatchets  made  of  copper,  to  hew  wood,  small  bells, 
and  plates,  and  crucibles  for  melting  copper.  When 
tile  Spaniards  first  entered  the  province  of  Turpan, 
they  found  the  Indians  in  possession  of  abundance  of 
copper  axes.  The  ancient  Peruvians  used  copper  fur 
precisely  the  same  purpose  with  the  Mexicans:  their 
copper  axes  differ  very  little  in  shape  from  ours.  The 
knowledge  of  alloying  (.-upper  ss'as  possessed  hv  both 
the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians,  whereby  they  were  en 
abled  to  make  instruments  of  copper  of  sutlident  hard 
ness  to  answer  tin-  purpose-*  for  which  steel  is  now 
deemed  essential.  The  metal  u-,e,l  as  an  allov  for 
copper  was  tin:  and  the  \arious  Permian  articles 
subjected  to  analysis  are  found  to  contain  from  three 
to  six  per  cent,  uf  that  metal"  (Silliman's  Journal, ii. p.. ll). 

It  is  ascertained  that  the  Ivjvptians  at  an  early 
period  were  well  acquainted  witli  working  in  hroii/e; 
and  it  is  most  likely  that  what  are  called  brazen 
vessels  in  the  books  of  Moses  were  really  of  bronze; 
this  rather  than  -imple  copper,  becau.-e  ln-oii/e  is  less 
subject  to  tarnish,  and  takes  on  a  finer  polish:  and 
rather  bronze  than  brass,  because  zinc,  which  forms  a 
component  element  in  brass,  does  not.  as  far  as  y.  t 
discovered,  appear  to  have  been  known  to  the  ancients. 

CORAL  (r^s-v   ramnth).      In  Job  x.xviii.  18,  this 

word  occurs  as  the  name  of  some  proverbially  precious 
tiling,  being  enumerated  with  pearls.  -vnis  of  various 
kinds,  and  gold,  as  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with 
wisdom.  The  only  other  example  of  the  word  ;s  |-;/.e. 
\\vii.  1'!,  where  Syria  is  represented  as  occupying  in 
the  markets  of  Tyre  with  r<iui<>t!i,  among  other  things. 

The  etymology  of  the  word  is  obscure.  Tin;  I. XX. 
seem  to  have  been  quite  ignorant  of  what  it  meant:  for 
in  the  latter  passage  they  transcribe  it  as  the  name  of 
a  place,  while  in  the  former  they  stran-vly  render  it  liy 
"meteors"  or  "the  heavenly  bodies."  The  local 
dialects  give  us  little  li-Jit  on  the  matter. 

The  various  people.-,  enumerated  by  K/.ekiel  as  trad 
ing  in  the  markets  of  Tyre,  may  have  been  either  the 
buyers  or  the  sellers  of  the  articles  enumerated.  In 
the  instance  in  question,  ••purple-"  is  one  of  the  articles 
in  which  Syria  is  described  as  trading.  I'.ut  purple 
was  one  of  the  staple  productions  of  Tyre,  and  Syria 
would  scarcely  have  brought  purple  to  sell  at  Tyre,  but 
would  doubtless  be  there  as  a  purchaser.  Moreover, 
her  trade  is  expressly  said  to  have  been  in  "the  wares 
of  Tyre's  making."  Hence  probably  rmuotli  was  an 
article  manufactured  by  the  Tyrians,  and  sold  by  them 
to  the  Syrians.  The  Creek  writers,  Homer  especially, 
frequently  allude  to  the  Sidonians,  the  near  neighbours 
and  compatriots  of  the  Tyrians,  as  the  manufacturers 
of  all  kinds  of  l>ij<>ntn-if  and  jewellery. 

The  received  and  traditional  rendering  of  nuuotli  by 
coral  is  probably  correct.     From  time  immemorial  there  ! 
has  been  a  great  demand  for  this  article  in  the  East,  : 
wrought   as   at   this   day   into   various   ornaments  and 


jewels;  and  from  the  same  remote  antiquity  has  the 
supply  of  the  raw  material  been  drawn  from  the  coast 
of  North  Africa;  the  chief  seat  of  the  fishery  being  to 
the  present  time  the  immediate  vicinity  and  bay  of 
Tunis,  where  once  sat  Carthage,  the  queenly  daughter 
of  royal  Tyre.  The  red  coral  would  therefore  certainly 
lie  one  of  the  articles  which  Tyre  would  receive  in  the 
rough  state  from  her  colony  Carthage,  and  which  her 
skilled  artists  would  work  up  for  the  adornment  of  the 
Syrian  ladies.  It  is  doubtless  the  i-mmitli  of  the  Hebrews. 
The  red  coral  is  the  stony  skeleton  of  a  compound 
zoophyte,  allied  to  the  sea-anemones  of  our  coasts.  It 
forms  a  much-branching  shrub,  of  which  the  beautiful 
scarlet  stone  forms  the  solid  axis,  which  is  covered  dur 
ing  life  by  a  fleshy  hark,  out  of  which  protrude  here 
and  tin-re  upon  the  surface  minute  polypes  with  eight 
tentacles.  It  gross  s  only  in  the  Mediterranean,  anil 
principally,  as  already  observed,  on  the  African  coast, 
from  Tunis  to  Oran.  It  is  found  attached  to  the  rocks 
at  considerable  depths,  as  from  -2u  to  I'Jn  fathoms. 


/       *'         '' 


The  demand  for  it  has  given  rise  to  a  fishers  of  some 
importance,  about  ]^"  boats  being  employed  in  it  on 
the  coast  of  Algeria,  of  which  l.r,<;  fish  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Uciiia.  and  ('alia,  obtaining  ;iii,(HHl  kilo 
grammes  (about  7-i(  cwt.-.)  of  coral,  ssliieh.  selling  at 
the  rate  of  (in  francs  per  kilogramme,  produces  a  return 
of  £yO,  00(1  sterling. 

The  mode  by  which  it  is  obtained  is  the  same  which 
has  alsvass  prevailed,  and  is  rude  and  wasteful.  A 
great  cross  of  wood  loaded  ssith  stones,  and  carrying  at 
the  end  of  each  arm  a  sort  of  net  formed  of  cords  partly 
untwisted,  is  lowered  from  a  boat,  and  dragged  over 
the  bottom.  The  brandies  of  the  corals  are  entangled 
in  this  apparatus,  and  as  the  boat  moves  on  are-  torn 
off';  at  intervals  it  is  pulled  up  and  the  produce  secured. 
Of  course  a  '_;Teat  deal  must  lie  broken  off' which  is  not 
secured,  but  vet  it  is  a  profitable  employment.  A  boat 
manned  by  nine  or  ten  hands  has  been  known  to  bring- 
in  Mi  or  loo  kilogrammes  in  a  day,  yielding  .t'lid  or  .t'2.") 
sterling;  but  such  success  is  rare.  The  fishery  is  pro 
secuted  from  the  1st  of  April  to  the  end  of  September, 
during  which  there  may  be  on  the  average  about  loo 
days  in  which  the  fishermen  can  work.  [i'.  n.  (;.) 

CORBAN,  the  Hebrew  term  for  a  -ift  or  ottering, 
in  the  general  sense  to  Cod.  The  corresponding  term 
in  Creek  is  oCiftov ;  but  in  a  discourse  of  our  Lord,  in 
which  he  reproved  the  false  teaching  of  the  Scribes, 
the  original  word  forlmu  is  preserved  by  the  evangelist 


CORINTH 


.Mark,  though  he  gives,  at  tliu  same  time,  its  inturpre-      size   of  a  corn    of   white   pepper,    of   a  grayisli-yelli 


tation.       Moses    had   commanded    children    to  honour     colour,  and  finely  rib 


We  need  not  supp 


that 


their   parents,    and   had  said    that    if   any  one    cursed     the  manna  was  coloured  like  a  coriander,  but  its  parti- 
father  or  mother  he  should  die  the  death,  "  hut  ye  say." 
adds  our    Lord,  "  If  a  man  shall  say   to  his  father  or 
mother,  Corban,   that  is  to  say,  a  gift,    by  whatsoever 
thou  mightost  be  profited  by  me;  lie  shall  bo  free:   and 
ye  sutler  him  no  more  to  do  ought  for  Ids  father  or  his 
mother,"  ch.  \ii  11,12.      The  words  "  lie  shall  be  free/'  it 
is    proper    to    state,    are    inserted    in    the    translation  ; 
morel  v  to  bring  out  the  meaning  more  distinctly,  there  \ 
being  nothing  corresponding  to   them   in  the  original.  | 
They  mav  bo  omitted,  however,  and  what  follows  taken  ' 
as  the  concluding  portion  of  the  deliverance  of  the  scribes  : 
— thus:   "If  a  man  shall  say  to  liis  father  or  mother,   ' 
Corban.    that    is    to  say,    a   gift,    by  whatsoever  thou 
mightest  be  profited  by  me  ;  ye  even  suffer  him  no  more 
to  do  ought  for  his  father  or  his  mother."'    There  can  be 
no  doubt  as  to  the  substantial  meaning  of  the  passage, 
though  there  are  minor  shades  of  difference  among  in 
terpreters  as  to  their  modes  of  eliciting  it,  or  the  ex 
tent  to  which  the  rabbinical  maxim,  referred  to  l>y  our 
Lord,  actually  reached.      Plainly,  our  Lord  meant  to 
say,  that  the  honour  which  a  child  owed  to  his  parents 
bound  him  to  give  of  his  substance  to  these  parents 
whatever   they   might   actually  need,    and   that  when 
such  needful  portion  was  withdrawn  from  so  befitting  a 
purpose  by  being  destined  as  a  gift  to  God,   this  was 
only,  under  the  pretext  of  honouring   God,   doing  de 
spite  to  his  most  explicit  injunctions — dishonouring  God 
by  dishonouring  his  earthly  representatives.   Such  would 
be  the  case  if  the  proceeding  referred  to  were  adopted  in  i  cles  were  the  size   of  this  seed,  familiar  to  the  Jews 
respect  to  a  single  article  which  the  parents  of  a  youth  ,  and  not  unknown  to  ourselves.      (Winer's  Rcaiwurterbuoii; 
might  actually  require,  and  which  by  an  unseasonable     Kalisch  on  Exodus ;  Pereira's  Materia  Medica.)  [.I.  II.] 

consecration  to  the  altar  he  withheld  from  them.  But,  !  CORTNTH.  One  of  the  most  celebrated  cities  of 
of  course,  the  iniquity  complained  of  would  be  much  ,  Greece,  capital  of  a  small  district  in  the  neck  of  land 
greater  if  a  youth  were  allowed  to  pronounce  that  joining  the  Peloponnesus  with  the  northern  division  of 
word  of  devotion  to  religious  uses  upon  all  he  had,  and  Greece.  The  proper  name  of  this  district  was  Isthmus  ; 
after  doing  so  were  allowed  to  retain  the  whole  for  from  which  circumstance  the  title  came  to  be  applied  to 
his  own  use,  though  prohibited  from  giving  it  to  others,  any  similar  strip  of  territory  connecting  a  peninsula 
even  to  his  own  parents — if  such  were  the  practice  in  with  the  mainland.  The  original  name  of  the  city  was 
question,  as  Lightfoot  has  endeavoured  to  show  from  Ephyre ;  afterwards,  though  at  what  time  is  uncertain, 
rabbinical  authorities,  the  case  as  against  the  Jewish  i  it  assumed  the  appellation  by  which  it  is  known  in  his- 
teachers  becomes  greatly  aggravated.  But  it  may  be  |  tory.  By  Homer  it  is  indifferently  called  Ephyre  and 
doubted  how  far  this  extreme  is  involved  in  the  charge  Corinth.  The  latter  name  still  survives  in  the  modern 
of  our  Lord.  I  corruption,  Gortho. 

CORIANDER.     Ex.   xvi.   31,   the  manna  is  com-  |       Ifistori/.—'From  the  names  which  certain  places  in 
pared  to  »3S  15  J?-VT,  tllc  Hce(l  of  '/c((/-  white.    This  must     the  city  retained,  and  especially  from  the  oriental  char- 
|TT     "  '  acter  of  the  worship  of  Aphrodite  or  Venus,  to  whom 

have  been  a  plant  familiar  to  those  for  whom  the  in-  ;  the  ^^  ()f  tho  AcrocorintllU!jj  or  citatlel  of  Corinth, 
spired  penman  wrote,  and  we  incidentally  learn  that  was  (le(licatctl>  it  lias  been  argued,  and  with  great  pro- 
in  the  old  Punic  or  Phoenician  language,  closely  alien  1)abilitV;  that  thc  district  was' first  colonized  by  Phceni- 
to  the  Hebrew,  the  name  of  the  coriander  was  tjokl.  ciauRj  \vhf);  we  knoW;  possessed  other  settlements  in 
With  the  exception  of  the  Samaritan  codex,  which  has  ( ;reece.  The  oriental  settlers  appear  to  have  been  suc- 
or>/:a  decorticata,  or  shelled  rice,  all  the  old  versions  i  cecded  by  a  mixed  population  of  .-Eolians  and  lonians. 
are  unanimous  in  rendering  it  coriander.  ;  the  former,  however,  being  the  dominant  race,  as  is 

Coriandrum  xatlrum  is  a  plant  of  the  umbelliferous  proved  by  the  traditions  which  represent  the  earliest 
order,  occurring  throughout  the  entire  coast  of  the  j  rulers  of  Corinth  as  belonging  to  it.  Among  these  the 
Mediterranean.  In  Egypt  its  seeds  are  eaten  as  a  '  mythological  heroes  Sisyphus — whose  reputed  cunning 
condiment  with  other  articles  of  food,  and  in  our  own  no  doubt  typified  the  mercantile  spirit  of  the  coin- 
country  the  tender  leaves  are  used  in  soups  and  salads,  immity  over  which  he  reigned,  and  Bellerophon — whose 
In  Essex  it  is  cultivated  to  a  large  extent  for  the  sake  exploits  rivalled  those  of  Hercules,  occupy  a  conspi- 
of  its  seeds.  These,  owing  to  the  presence  of  a  volatile  '•  cuous  place.  The  latter  was  worshipped  with  divine 


oil,  when  dried   have  an  agreeable  aromatic  flavour, 
and  they  are  in  great  demand  among  confectioners  and 


the  bakers  of  sugar  lon-boits 

The  fruit,  or  coriander- seed,   is 


honours  at  Corinth.     A  still  earlier  legend  connects  the 
name  of  the  city  with  Corinthus,  a  descendant  of  ^'E 


rlob 


the  father  of  Medea,  who  is  said  to  have  abandoned  the 
.ilar.  about  the  '  sovereignty  of  Corinth  for  that  of  Colchis.      On  the 


CORINTH  i 

hi  a  commercial  point  of  view  :  resigning  that  title,  as 
regards  literature  and  philosophy,  to  her  political  rival 
and  inveterate  foe  Athens.  In  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  city  were  celebrated  every  third  year  the  Isthmian 
games,  so  called  from  the  scene  of  their  celebration. 
One  of  the  most  important  contests,  the  foot-race,  fur 
nished  St.  Paul  with  striking  illustrations  of  the  Chris 
tian  life,  of  which,  in  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
he  takes  care  to  avail  himself,  1  Co.  ix.  •21-27. 

Introduction  of  the  Gospel  to  Corinth.  —  Insignificant, 
however,  as  the  place  which  Corinth,  as  compared  with 
Athens,  holds  in  the  estimation  of  the  classical  student, 
it  occupies  a  far  more  important  position  than  the 
latter  city  in  the  early  history  of  the  church.  A  flourish 
ing  Christian  community  was  there  founded  by  the 
great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  to  which  two  of  his  most 
important  epistles  were  addressed.  The  following  is  a 
brief  account  of  this  event.  Jt  was  on  his  second  mis 
sionary  journey,  A.-,  xviii.  i,  that  I'aul.  leaving  Athens, 
where  the  gospel  had  had  but  .-canty  surer---,  turned 
his  stcj  s  towards  Corinth.  The  iva.-oiis  which  deter 
mined  his  course  thither  are  nut  difficult  to  conceive. 
Corinth  was  then  the  metropolis  of  the  province  of 
Achaia,  and  the  principal  seat  of  -:<i\ ,  nnnent  and 
trade.  Its  ports  were  erowded  with  vessels,  and  it- 
streets  swarmed  with  a  mixed  population  of  ,ie\\s, 
Greeks,  and  Koman  attendants  upon  the  proeoii-iil. 
The  constant  communication  which  went  <>n  between  it 
and  the  most  flourishing  regions  both  of  the  Kastand  the 
\Vest,  including  Koine  itself,  would  in.-ure  the  exten 
sive  propagation  of  the  <jo>pel.  .Moivo\er,  as  wa-  their 
custom  in  mercantile  cities,  .lews  had  here  eon-jre'jati  ,| 
in  great  numbers;  and  in  every  place  whieh  St.  I'aul 
visited,  it  was  to  his  brethren  alter  the  llesli  that  lie 
first  address! -i  1  himself.  At  this  particular  period  too. 
the  decree  of  the  emperor  Claudius  banishing  ,b\\s 
from  Konie,  had  increased  the  number  of  Hebrew  resi 
dents  in  ( 'orinth.  Impelled  no  doubt  bv  these  conside 
rations,  the  apostle  here  took  up  his  abode.  He  found 
in  the  citv  two  .lews.  Aquila  and  his  wife  I'rir-oilla. 
natives  of  I'ontus.  on  the  shores  of  the  Kuxine  Sea. 
who.  in  consequence  of  the  decree  of  Claudius,  had 
repaired  thither:  and  discovering  that  they  were  of  the 
same  trade  which  he  himself  had  been  taught  in  his 
youth,  the  manufacture  of  haircloth  tents,  he  asso 
ciated  himself  with  them.  Their  conversion  appears  to 
have  speedily  followed;  and  they  In  came  valuable  fel 
low-helpers  with  the  apostle  in  his  arduous  labours. 
These  labours  commenced  immediatelv;  every  Sabbath 
in  the  synagogue,  in  which  as  a  doctor  of  the  law  he 
had  a  right  to  teach,  Paul  reasoned  out  of  the  Scrip 
tures,  persuading  both  native  .Jews  and  proselytes  that 
Jesus  was  the  Christ.  A  fresh  impulse  was  communi 
cated  to  his  zeal,  by  the  arrival  of  his  lie-loved  friends 
Timotheus  and  Silas,  with  jovful  tidings  of  the  pro 
sperous  condition  of  the  church  of  Thessalonica.  So 
energetic  an  assault  upon  the  strong-holds  of  Jewish 
bigotry  and  unbelief  could  not  be  made  without  excit 
ing  the  hostility  of  that  perverse  people  :  they  organized 
a  formidable  resistance:  they  blasphemed  the  holy 
name  which  Paul  preached  :  and  at  length  the  apostle, 
with  a  symbolical  action  expressive  of  final  rejection  , 
C'he  shook  his  raiment,  and  said  unto  them,  Your 
blood  be  upon  your  own  heads,''  Ac.  xviii.  <;).  turned  from 
them  to  the  Gentiles.  The  house  of  Justus,  a  converted 
proselyte,  contiguous  to  the  synagogue,  furnished  a 
convenient  place  of  resort  for  those  who  were  desirous 


>•'  COR  I  XT  HI  AN  S 

of  instruction.  Encouraged  by  a  vision,  in  which  the 
Lord  declared  that  he  had  much  people  in  the  city, 
Paul  continued  his  labours,  which  resulted  in  the  con 
version  of  many  of  the  Corinthians;  aiiion^-  whom  Ste 
phanas  with  his  household.  1  Co.  xvi.  i.\  and  the  hospit 
able  Gains,  ito.  x-\i.  2.1',  deserve  particular  mention  :  and 
what  was  of  still  greater  importance,  of  Crispus.  the 
ruler  of  the  synagogue.  These  persons  the  apostle, 
deviating  from  his  ordinary  practice,  bapti/.ed  himself, 
1  Co.  i.  14-16.  A  year  and  a  half  had  thus  been  spent, 
when  a  new  proconsul,  Gallio,  the  brother  of  Anna-Un 
Seneca,  the  philosopher,  arrived  at  Corinth,  to  assume 
the  reins  of  government.  The  unbelie vin^  Jews,  exa>- 
perated  by  the  progress  of  the  gospel,  and  especially  by 
the  defection  of  Crispus.  lost  no  time  in  accusing  I'aul 
before  Oallio  of  violating  the  law  of  .Moses.  Fortu 
nately  for  the  infant  church,  the  new  ^'overuor  was  a 
man  of  sense  and  humanity.  Refusing  to  hear  the 
apostle's  defence,  he  drove  the  Jews  from  before  the 
judgment  seat  :  alleging  that,  if  their  complaint  had 
related  to  any  breach  of  the  criminal  law  of  Rome,  he 
would  have  listened  to  it.  but  that  he  would  not  inter 
meddle  in  their  private  religious  disputes.  To  add  to 
their  discomfiture,  the  (iiveks.  encouraged  bv  the  im 
partiality  or  apathy  of  the  proconsul,  proceeded  to  per 
sonal  violence,  and  beat  Sostheiies.  the  chief  ruler  of 
the  synagogue,  before  the  very  judgment-seat,  Gallio 
looking  on  with  inditten  nee.  A  decisive  triumph  was 
thus  gained  by  the  Christians:  and  Paul  continued  his 
labours  unmolested,  until  circumstances  called  him  to 
l>-a\e  this  missionary  field  and  proceed  to  Asia  .Minor. 
I  Miriii'.:1  the  apostle's  absence  from  ('orinth.  Apollos, 
an  Alexandrian  Jew  and  former  disciple  of  John  the. 
l'iapti-t.  \\lio  had  been  led  by  means  of  Aquila  and 
I'riseilla  to  tin-  knowledge  of  Chri-t.  repaired  thither; 
and  heiii'_c  both  eloquent  and  learned,  successfully  took 
up  the  work  where  I'aul  had  left  it.  and  watered  the 
seed  of  disine  grace  \\hicli  the  apostle  had  planted, 
i  C'o  iii.o.  The  subsequent  condition  of  the  Corinthian 
church,  and  tin-  number  of  St.  Paul's  visits  to  it.  Mill 
be  be-t  considered  under  the  article  on  the  Knsri.Ks 
TO  -I'll!-;  COKINTIIIANS.  This  church  afterwards  fell  into 
obscurity,  though  one  of  its  bi-lmps,  1'ioiiysius.  who 
lived  towards  the  close  of  tin-  second  century,  is  said  to 
have  exercised  considerable  influence  over  the  surround- 
ini:'  Christian  communities. 

p  Mi  the  hi.-t.Ty  ainl  t<  >jx  igrri]  h\  of  Corinth.  Smith's  It'iri .  sect. 
v. ;  Cramer,  Ancient  Grccf,  iii.  sect.  15;  .-mil  l.cak.-'s  Mnmt,  iii. 
c.  '2S,  in:i\  !»'  .'nn-ulii-il  u  ilh  advantage.  <  Mi  tin;  f.nunlin-  of  the 
Corinthian  church,  tin-  in-|'irjd  narrat  i\  ••  in  Ac.  xviii..  illus- 
trated  liy  St.  Paul's  two  epistles,  is  i.ur  sole  and  mir  sufficient 
authin-itv.  ]  1  K.  A.  i..  1 

CORINTHIANS,    EPISTLES   TO   THE.      Two 

of  the  principal  epistles  of  the  great  apostle  of  the  ( Jen- 
tiles  :  as  expositions  of  doctrine,  second  in  importance 
only  to  the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  the  most  instruc 
tive  of  all  the  inspired  compositions  of  their  class,  from 
the  insight  which  they  furnish  into  the  personal  char 
acter  of  St.  I'aul  himself,  and  the  constitution,  parties, 
and  heresies,  of  the  apostolic  church. 

(!< miin( n<!>!t  Hi"]  fnttf/riti/.-  On  the  former  of  these 
points  no  doubt,  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  has  ever 
been  entertained.  These  epistles  are  so  strongly  im 
pressed  with  the  spirit  and  peculiarities  of  St.  Paul, 
both  in  their  matter  and  in  their  style,  and  the  his 
torical  notices  which  they  contain  so  faithfully  corre 
spond  with  the  narrative  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
that  to  que-tion  their  genuineness  would  be  to  question 


co  i ;  IN  Tin  AN  s 

the  existence  of  the  apostle  himself.  Even  ( Jerni.-in  criti- 
cism,  which  has  left  few  of  the  books  of  the  canon  un- 
assailed,  here  acknowledges  the  irresistible  force  of  the 
evidence,  and  acquiesces  in  the  general  belief  of  Chris- 
tendom.  The  externaJ  testimony  is  as  satisfactory  as 
the  internal.  Our  limits  will  only  permit  us  to  cite  a 
few  of  the  earliest  writers  who  allude  to  the  authorship 
of  our  epistles.  Clement  of  [tome,  towards  the  close 
of  the  first  century,  writing-  to  the  Corinthians,  urges 
them  to  "take  the  epistle  of  the  blessed  apostle  Paul." 
"What, "he  proceeds,  "in  the  commencement  of  the 
gospel,  did  he  write  to  you  ':  Truly  under  the  influ 
ence  of  the  Spirit  he  gave  you  injunctions  respecting 
himself,  and  Cephas,  and  Apollos,  on  account  of  your 
having  been,  even  then,  addicted  to  party  spirit"  (c.  xlvii.; 
comp.  1  Co.  i.  M).  Polycnrp.  about  A.ix  120:  "Are  we 
ignorant  that,  as  Paul  teaches,  the  saints  shall  judge 
the  world?"  (Kpist.  c.  xi.;  comp.  1  Cor.  vi.  2).  The  epistle 
to  Diogiietus,  in  the  works  of  Justin  Martyr,  A.LI.  10'7  : 
"The  apostle,  censuring  that  knowledge  which  is  exer 
cised  without  sincerity,  says,  'knowledge  puffeth  up, 
but  charity  edifieth,'  "  I  Co.  viii  i.  Iremcus,  A.IX  177: 
"The  apostle  also,  in  that  epistle  which  he  addressed 
to  the  Corinthians,  plainly  teaches  the  same,  when  he 
says,  '  I  would  not  have  you  ignorant,  brethren,  that 
all  our  fathers  were  under  the  cloud,'  "  &c.  (Adv.  iLer. 
h.  iv.  c.  27;  i  Co.  x.  1-12).  Atheiiagoras,  A.I).  177  :  "  It  is 
manifest  that,  according  to  the  apostle,  'this  corrup 
tible  must  put  on  incorruption,  in  order  that  the  dead  j 
being  restored  to  life,  each  may  receive  the  things  done 
in  the  body,  whether  good  or  bad1  ''  (Do  Resurrect.  Mort. ; 
1  Co.  xv.  24  ;  2  Co.  v.  lo).  Clement  of  Alexandria,  A.  1).  1  S'.i  : 
"The  blessed  Paul  has  released  us  from  this  inquiry  in 
his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  in  which  he  writes 

'  Brethren,  be  not  children  in  understanding :   but  in 

malice  be  ye  children,  but  in  understanding  be  per 
fect' "  (Paj.-lag.  i.  33 ;  iCo.  xiv.  20).  Tertullian,  A.D.  200: 
"Paul,  hi  the  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  notices 
persons  who  denied,  or  doubted,  the  resurrection  of  the 
body"  (De  Fncocnp.  c.  33).  The  same  writers  frequently 
quote  the  second  epistle.  Thenceforward  the  stream 
of  external  testimony  becomes  wide  and  full. — As  re 
gards  the  integrity  of  the  epistles,  that  of  the  first  lias 
never  been  disputed  ;  with  the  second  the  case  has  been 
otherwise.  The  discrepancy,  in  point  of  tone,  between 
the  first  eight  chapters  of  this  epistle,  in  which  the 
apostle  addresses  his  readers  rather  in  terms  of  com 
mendation  than  of  censure,  and  the  last  five,  which 
are  of  an  objurgatory  character,  led  Semler,  a  German 
theologian  of  the  last  century,  to  propound  the  hypo 
thesis  that  it  consists  of  three  distinct  epistles,  viz. — 
(1),  ch.  ix  ,  an  epistle  to  the  churches  of  Achaia  on  the 
subject  of  a  collection  for  the  saints  at  Jerusalem;  (2), 
ch.  x.  ]-xiii.  10,  an  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  assert 
ing  St.  Paul's  apostolical  authority ;  and  (3),  the  re 
maining  portions  of  the  epistle  as  it  stands.  Others 
(Weber,  Paulus)  supposed  that  the  latter  half  was  a 
separate  composition  ;  thus  making  the  present  epistle 
to  consist  of  two  originally  distinct  ones.  This  latter 
supposition  was  adopted  partly  to  account  for  the  dis 
appearance  of  an  epistle  assumed  to  have  been  written 
between  our  first  and  second,  and  which  it  was  thought 
we  actually  have  in  either  the  former  or  the  latter  por 
tion  of  the  second  epistle  ;  an  assumption,  however, 
which  itself  rests  on  doubtful  grounds.  Respecting  the 
main  fact  upon  which  all  these  theories  are  based,  viz. 
the  change  of  subject  and  tone  in  the  last  chapters  of 


li  CORINTHIANS 

the  second  epistle,  it  may  be  observed  that  it  is  not 
greater  than  several  transitions  which  occur  in  the  first 
epistle  ;  and  that  it  is  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  sup 
posing  that  the  apostle,  without  expressly  naming  them, 
addresses  himself  in  the  two  portions  of  the  epistle  to 
different  sections  of  the  church  ;  in  the  first  eight  chap 
ters  to  those  who  acknowledged  his  apostolic  mission 
and  submitted  to  his  exhortations  :  in  the  remainder 
to  those  who,  misled  by  the  judaizing  teachers,  were 
still  disposed  to  question  his  authority.  We  have  every 
reason  then  to  believe  that  the  second,  not  less  than  the 
first,  epistle  has  come  down  to  us  in  its  original  form. 

Xnntber  of  E]>lxtl<:x  icritfen  Inj  i*t.  Paul  to  the  L'ori/i- 
thtattx. — Connected,  as  we  have  seen,  with  the  discus 
sion  respecting  the  integrity  of  our  second  epistle,  is  the 
question,  How  many  epistles  did   St.   Paul  address  to 
the  Corinthian  church  ? — a  point  on  which  different  opi 
nions  have  been  maintained.      The  determination  of  it 
depends,  in  great  measure,  upon  that  of  another  ques 
tion,  viz.  How  many  visits  did  St.   Paul  make  to  the 
Corinthians?    on  which  therefore  it  will  be  necessary 
to  make   a  few  remarks.      The   Acts   of   the  Apostle;! 
make   mention    of    two   visits   only   of    the   apostle   to 
Corinth;   the   former   in  Ac.   xviii.,   when   the   church 
was  founded,  and  which  was  of  eighteen  months'  dura 
tion  :  the  latter  in  Ac.  xx.  2,  which  took  place  after 
Paul  had  been  driven  from  Ephesus  by  the  tumult  of 
Demetrius,    and    had    completed    his   journey   through 
Macedonia.      Before  this  latter  visit,  both  our  present 
epistles  must  have  been  written  ;  the  first  from  Ephesus, 
the  second  from  one  of  the  Macedonian  churches  dur 
ing  the  journey  just  mentioned.      It  would  appear  then 
that  up  to  the  sending  of  the  second  epistle  only  one 
visit  had  taken  place,  and  that  the  apostle's  knowledge 
of  the  state  of  the  Corinthian  church,  as  exhibited  in 
the  epistles,  had  been  derived  from  the  reports  of  others 
(the  household  of  Chloe,  i  Co.  i.  n,    and  probably  Ste 
phanas,,  Fortunatus,  and  Achaicus,  the  messengers  of 
the  Corinthian  church) ;  and  this  is  the  ordinary  hypo 
thesis.     It  is,  however,  very  difficult  to  reconcile  it  with 
the  express  statements  of  St.  Paul  himself  in  2  Co.  xii. 
14  and  xiii.  1,  that  he  was  now  about  for  the  third 
time  to  visit  Corinth.     The  expressions  of  the  former 
passage  ("  Behold,  the  third  time  I  am  ready  to  come 
unto   you")   have   indeed   been  interpreted   to   signify 
merely,  that  the   apostle  had  now,  for  the  third  time, 
entertained  the  intention  of  a  journey  :  but  this  can 
1  hardly  be  called  the  natural  meaning  of  the  words,  and 
moreover  it  leaves  the  second  passage  unexplained.     If 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  professed  to  give  a  complete 
account  of  St.  Paul's  labours  and  journeys,  it  would  of 
course  govern  our  interpretation  of  the  epistles ;  but 
since  this  history  is  manifestly  of  a  fragmentary  char 
acter,  it  is  best,  as  in  the  similar  instance  of  the  journey- 
to  Arabia,  of  which  110  mention  is  found  in  the  Acts, 
to  supplement  it  from  St.  Paul's  own  statements,  and 
to  suppose  that  a  journey,  of  which  no  record  remains, 
!  took  place.     The  limits  of  time  within  which  we  must 
:  place  it  are  easily  determined.     It  is  plain  from  2  Co. 
i.  28,  that  in  the  interval  between  the  writing  of  our 
'  two  epistles  St.  Paul  had  not  seen  the  Corinthians  :  and 
j  since  the  first  epistle  was  sent  from  Ephesus  not  long 
before  he  left  that  city,  the  visit  in  question  must  have 
been  paid  some  time  during  his  sojourn  there.     We 
gather  from  the  apostle's  expressions  when  referring  to 
it,  2  Co.  ii.  i,  that  it  was  of  a  painful  character,  and  at 
the  time  productive  of  little  fruit. 


CORINTHIANS 


COPJNTHIANS 


Assuming  the  fact  of  this  unrecorded  visit,  we  can 
have  the  less  hesitation  in  taking  in  their  natural  sense 
the  words  on  which  the  question  of  the  number  of  the 
Corinthian  epistles  mainly  turns.  ''  I  wrote  unto  you,'' 
says  St.  I'aul  in  1  Co.  v.  (>,  "in  the"  or  "my"  "epistle 
not  to  company  with  fornicators.'  As  far  as  the  form 
of  the  expression  is  concerned,  the  words  may  be  well 
understood  of  the  epistle  which  the  apostle  was  then 
writing:  we  have  a  similar  usage  in  Po.  xvi.  ~2'2.  Col. 
iv.  1<>,  1  Tli.  v.  -27,  and  '2  Th.  iii.  H.  But  the  great, 
the  almost  insuperable,  difficulty  remains,  that  in  o in- 
present  first  epistle  no  such  injunction  appears;  and 
the  usual  reference  of  commentators  to  the  excommu 
nication  of  the  incestuous  person,  as  by  implication  in 
volving  such  a  command,  is  hardly  satisfactory.  The 
excommunication  in  question  was  a  solemn  act  of  St. 
Paul  himself,  and  of  a  peculiar  nature,  see  l  Co.  v.  4,  5, 
apparently  occasioned  by  the  neglect  of  the  church  to 
comply  with  a  previous  admonition  to  the  same  effect. 
and  which  appears  to  have  been  interpret,  d  too  strictly  : 
to  have  been  supposed,  that  i-.  to  include  unhelicver.- 
as  well  as  delinquent  brethren.  St.  I'aul.  alluding  to 
this  former  admonition,  conveyed,  as  it  should  seem,  in 
a  lost  epistle,  correct.-  the  misunderstanding,  and  ex 
plains  that  it  was  intended  to  apply  only  to  the  l.itt.  r 
class  of  persons,  sec  I  Co  ».  1".  11.  There  seems  then 

reason  to  suppose  that  at  least  OIK  epistle  to  this  church 
lias  not  been  preserved  ;  nor  is  there  any  difficulty  in 
admitting  this,  if  we  remember  that  not  every  compo 
sition  of  an  inspired  man  nrist  necessarih  have  been 
composed  under  the  influence  of  inspiration,  and  there 
fore  intended  to  form  a  part  of  the  canon.  The  pro 
phets,  for  example,  must  have  left  many  writings  which 
were  never  admitl'-d  into  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment:  of  Solomon's  varied  composition-,  l  Ki.  iv. 
only  a  few  were  by  the  ancient  church  deemed  worthy 
of  that  honour.  Jn  like  manner  the  apostles  may  have 
indited  many  letters  which,  like  their  oral  teaching, 
have  not  been  handed  down,  js  it  credible  that,  during 
his  active  and  prolonged  ministry,  St.  I'aul  wrote  no 
more  than  his  fourteen  canonical  cpi>tl.-s  f  (  Vrtain 
letters  may  have  perished,  because  not  written  under 
the  influence  of  in.-piration;  the  ///.-•/, ,'/M/  compositions 
both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  forming  but  a 
small  portion,  a  divinely  superintended  selection  of 
the  productions  of  their  several  authors-  a  circum 
stance  which  lias  not  been  always  borne  in  mind  by 
critics,  c.<j.  Bishop  Middioton,  \\}\«,  discussing  the 
question  before  us  writes  —"Besides  the  extreme 
improbability  that  a  canonical  book  should  have  been 

lost, no  instance   has  been   produced   in  which 

an  ancient  writer  has  cited  the  pretended  first  epistle, 
or  even  alluded  to  its  existence"  (On  the  Greek  Art.; 
i  Co.  v.)  But  an  apostolic  epistle  is  not  necessarily 
a  canonical  book  ;  and  the  absence  of  reference,  on 
the  part  of  early  authors,  to  the  lost  epistle,  is  suffi 
ciently  accounted  for  by  the  fact  of  its  not  having 
formed  part  of  the  canon.  The  order  of  events,  then, 
may  be  arranged  as  follows:  During  his  sojourn  at 
Kphesus,  St.  Paul,  receiving  unfavourable  tidings  of  the 
state  of  the  Corinthian  church,  especially  of  its  laxity 
of  discipline,  addressed  an  epistle  to  it  on  this  subject, 
to  which  the  Corinthians  replied,  l  Co.  vii.  1.  His  written 
admonitions  proving  of  little  avail,  he  paid  them  a 
short  visit,  as  it  should  seem  with  no  better  result.  On 
his  return  to  Kphesus.  and  not  long  before  his  departure 
from  that  city,  he  wrote  a  second  epistle,  our  present 


iirst,  in  which  he  enters  at  length  upon  the  points,  both 
in  practice  and  in  doctrine,  which  needed  correction. 
Soon  afterwards  he  left  Ephesus  and  proceeded  to  Mace 
donia,  having  first  sent  Timothy.  Ac.  \i\.  -21,  and  then 
Titus,  -J  Co.  vii.  :<,  to  Corinth,  to  report  upon  the  state  of 
things  there,  and  especially  upon  the  effect  which  the 
epistle  had  produced.  On  Titus's  rejoining  him  in 
Macedonia  with  more  favourable  accounts,  our  second 
epistle  was  written,  and  was  followed,  shortly  after 
wards,  by  the  apostle  himself.  Tims  much  may  be 
regarded  as  borne  out  by  our  existing  sources  of  infor 
mation  :  much  more  doubtful  is  the  theory,  first  pro 
pounded  by  Bleek,  that  Titus  carried  with  him  an  epistle 
which  has  also  been  ]o>l.  so  that  in  all  four  epistles  were 
addressed  to  tile  Corinthians.  Block's  conjecture  was 
founded  on  certain  expressions  in  our  second  epistle, 
which  seemed  to  him  inapplicable  to  anything  contained 
in  the  piv>cnt  lir.-t,  particularly  such  passages  as  2  Co. 
ii.  :'.,  !.  and  vii.  1'J  :  whence  lie  concluded  that  an  inter 
mediate  epistle  nm>t  have  been  sent  from  Macedonia, 
couched  in  terms  of  stroii-  censure.  His  hypothesis, 
howevt  r.  seems  to  rest  on  insufficient  grounds;  and  by 
ri  cent  writers,  Ncander  among  the  rest,  it  ha.-  bet  n 
rejected. 

Plan  a,,,/  Tinii  »J '  H'ritui;/.  --On  these  points  little 
need  be  added  to  the  observations  already  made.  "J 
will  tarry  at  Kphesiis  until  I'entecost."  1  Co  xvi.  \  points 
out  both  the  place  and  the  time  of  writing:  the  subscrip 
tion  in  our  Knu'lisli  Ilibles  "  from  i'hilippi"  being  mani- 
t'e-tlv  erroneous.  Since  St.  Paul  left  Kphe.-us  about, 

1  \ntcco-t    A.Il.     ~i7.    thi>   epistle   lllUst    have     beell    \\  lit  tell 

in  the  early  part  of  that  year.  The  bearers  of  it  were 
probably  Stephanas  Fortunatus.  and  Achaicus,  l  c<>. 
x-.i.  17,  delegates  from  the  Corinthian  church  to  Kphesiis. 
The  notices  contained  in  the  s«  cond  epistle  are  not  MI 
definite.  I'aul  hail  recently  1-t't  Asia,  -j  Co.  i.  s,  for  Mace 
donia,  taking  Trou*  in  his  way,  \\herc  he  had  expected 
to  meet  Titus,  on  the  return  of  the  latter  from  Corinth, 

2  Co  ii.  1-,  i:;.       Disappointed   in  this,  he  pas.-ed   over  into 
Macedonia,    where   Titus    joined    him.    and    where    thi- 
epistle   was   written,  •.  h.  ix.  'J       at  what    particular   place 
i>    uncertain.      Since   after  the  sending  of   it  lie  visited 
(.recce    and    abode    there    three    months.    Ac.  NX.:;,   and 
then  is  found  at  Ka.-ter  A.I).  58  at  I'hilippi,  on  his  return 
to  Jerusalem,  it   mu.-t   ha\e    been  written    towards   the 
latter  end  of  A.I).  fi7.      The  bearers  of  it  wire  Titus  and 
two  brethren,  wlm.-e  names  are  not  mentioned,  but  one 
of  whom  was  probably  Luke.  L' (  o.  viii.  l..  --'. 

Mutt  of  tin  Corinthian  Church  at  il>  time.-  -The  rich 
and  luxurious  metropoli-  of  On  ice  was  not  in  itself  a 
favourable  lield  for  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  its 
nati\e  -implicitv.  The  vi.-ible  success  indeed  of  the 
apostle's  labours  was,  as  compared  with  that  achieved 
in  other  places,  very  great :  but  many  of  the  converts 
were  but  imperfectly  established  in  the  faith  and  prac 
tice  of  the  gospel.  On  the  one  hand,  the  habit  of  philo 
sophical  speculation,  so  congenial  to  the  Hellenic  mind, 
arrayed  itself  against  that  submission  of  the  intellect 
which  revelation  presupposes  and  demands,  or  still 
more  perniciously  attempted  so  to  spiritualize  the  facts 
of  the  gospel  as  to  deprive  them  of  objective  reality  ; 
on  the  other,  the  laxity  of  Corinthian  morals  could  with 
difficulty  be  taught  to  abandon  practices  which  were 
wholly  inconsistent  with  the  elevated  standard  of  the 
new  religion.  As  long  as  Paul  was  present  in  person, 
his  apostolic  authority  sufficed  to  check  these  corrupt 
tendencies  :  but  his  departure  was  the  signal  for  their 


overt  manifestation.  To  these  dangers,  naturally  aris-  [ 
ing  from  the  character  and  associations  of  the  converts,  | 
must  be  added  the  influence  of  rival  teachers,  whose  j 
doctrines  were  more  or  less  antagonistic  to  those  which 
I'aul  had  delivered.  That  judai/.ing  section  of  the 
apostolic  church  which  followed  in  the  wake  of  the 
u'reat  apostle  wherever  be  went,  marking  him  out  for 
its  especial  enmitv,  appears  to  have  despatched  to 
Corinth,  as  it  did  to  Galatia.  some  of  its  emissaries, 
carrying  with  them  letters  of  recommendation  from  other 
churches.  2  Co.  Hi.  i,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  an  ad 
verse  partv.  As  elsewhere,  so  in  Corinth,  it  was  part 
of  their  plan  to  counteract  the  inllueiice  and  disparage 
the  authority  of  I'aul.  by  throwing  doubts  upon  the 
validity  of  his  apostolic  mission,  and  drawing  injurious 
comparisons  between  him  and  those  of  the  twelve  who 
had  seen  the  .Lord  in  the  flesh.  As  one  extreme  usually 
produces  its  opposite,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
they  who  had  cordially  embraced  the  teaching  of  the 
apostle  should  have  been  tempted  to  identify  his  doc 
trine  with  his  person:  and  forgetting  that  lie  was  but 
the  instrument  of  a-  higher  power,  to  which,  and  not  to 
man,  the  spiritual  increase  was  to  be  referred,  to  inscribe 
his  name  on  their  banners  as  the  leader  of  a  party. 
Moreover,  the  chief  fellow- worker  with  Paul  in  this 
church  had  been,  unconsciously  no  doubt,  the  occasion 
of  a  division  of  sentiment.  It  had  been  the  apostle's 
care  to  deliver  his  message  with  the  utmost  simplicity 
of  speech,  lest  he  should  foster  the  notion,  so  likely  to 
prevail  in  a  Greek  city,  that  Christianity  was  but  a 
new  philosophical  system,  to  be  recommended  by  the 
graces  of  oratory,  or  a  show  of  superior  intellectual 
subtilty :  he  "came  not  with  excellency  of  speech  or 
of  wisdom,"  that  their  "faith"'  might  "not  stand  in 
the  wisdom  of  men  but  in  the  power  of  God.''  His 
successor,  however,  the  eloquent  Apollos.  proceeded  to 
erect  upon  the  foundation  thus  laid  a  structure  more  in 
unison  with  the  intellectual  habits  of  the  Alexandrian 
school,  in  which  he  had  been  nurtured.  There  could, 
indeed,  have  been  no  essential  difference  between  his 
doctrine  and  that  of  Paul,  for  he  is  everywhere  spoken 
of  as  a  faithful  minister  of  Christ;  but  to  the  Corin 
thian  taste  his  mode  of  expounding  the  Old  Testament, 
and  his  greater  facility  in  the  use  of  the  Greek  lan 
guage,  may  have  proved  more  attractive  than  the  simple 
energy  of  the  apostle,  and  gathered  to  him  a  body  of 
peculiar  admirers. 

In  this  manner,  no  doubt,  it  is  that  the  origin  of  three 
of  the  parties  mentioned  in  1  Co.  i.  12  is  to  be  accounted 
for.  Some  declared  themselves  to  be  for  Paul,  others 
for  Apollos,  while  the  judaizing  party  chose  the  name 
of  Peter,  the  apostle  of  the  circumcision,  as  their  watch 
word  :  a  circumstance  which  proves  that  they  had  by 
no  means  the  same  influence  at  Corinth  as  at  Galatia, 
for  otherwise  they  would  probably  have  named  them 
selves  after  James,  whom  the  strictest  section  of  the 
Jewish  Christians  regarded  as  their  head.  It  docs  not. 
in  fact,  appear  that  at  Corinth  they  ventured  to  assert 
the  continued  obligation  of  the  law  of  Moses,  even  to 
the  extent  of  submitting  to  circumcision,  as  they  did  in 
other  places  :  the  temper  of  those  with  whom  they  had 
to  deal  rendered  caution  in  their  proceedings  necessary. 
What  is  meant  by  the  fourth  party  alluded  to  by  St. 
Paul,  that  which  professed  to  be  of  Christ,  is  more  dif 
ficult  of  determination.  At  first  sight  we  might  be  led 
to  suppose  that  it  consisted  of  those  who.  influenced  by 
feelings  of  enmity  towards  Paul,  insisted  upon  the  fact 


CORINTHIANS 

that  he  had  not.  like  the  other  apostles,  seen  our  Lord 
in  the  flesh,  and  attempted  on  this  ground  to  assign 
to  him  a  position  of  inferiority  :  they  had  received  the 
gospel  from  eye-witnesses  and  ear-witnesses  of  the 
Word  of  life  ;  the  adherents  of  Paul  from  one  who,  as 
lie  himself  confesses,  was  born  out  of  due  time.  And 
this  hypothesis  might  seem  to  be  confirmed  by  the  only 
two  passages  in  which  any  explanation  appears  of  the 
ambiguous  expression  in  question,  \r/..  '2  Co.  v.  1'i  and 
x.  7:  in  the  former  of  which  I'aul  declares  that  to  have 
known  Christ  after  the  flesh  confers,  under  the  gospel, 
no  prerogative:  and  in  the  latter  claims  a  closeness  of 
connection  with  Christ  not  inferior  to  that  of  which 
this  party  boasted.  It  labours,  however,  under  the  ob 
jection,  a  great  if  not  a  fatal  one.  that  thus  there  would 
be  no  real  distinction  between  the  partv  of  Peter  and 
the  party  of  ( 'hrist :  since  the  former  took  precisely  the 
same  ground  in  their  opposition  to  Paul,  viz.  that  of 
instituting  injurious  comparisons  between  him  and  the 
rest  of  the  apostolic  college;  whereas  the  language  of 
the  epistle  seems  naturally  to  imply  that  "they  of 
('hrist"  constituted  a  distinct  partv.  Tf  it  be  urged,  as 
it  is  with  great  acntcness  by  Jiaur.  that  just  as  the 
followers  of  Apollos  are  spoken  of  as  distinct  from  those 
of  Paul,  and  yet  we  cannot  suppose  that  any  essential 
difference  existed  between  them  ;  so  the  party  of  Christ 
may  be  classed  under  that  of  Peter,  as  a  subdivision, 
possessing  the  common  quality  of  judaistic  tendencies, 
but  distinguished  by  a  peculiar  animosity  against  I'aul 
as  an  individual  :  and  thus  there  were  but  two  really 
distinct  parties,  that  of  Paul  and  that  of  Peter,  either 
with  its  subordinate  modification —it  may  be  replied 
that  in  this  case  we  should  expect  to  find  the  name  of 
some  apostle,  or  human  leader,  corresponding  to  that 
of  Apollos,  and  not  the  name  of  Christ,  as  the  symbol 
of  this  peculiar  section.  If  this  objection  be  thought 
an  insuperable  one,  the  only  remaining  theory  which 
possesses  any  show  of  reason  is  that  of  Neander  and 
Olshausen;  that,  not  judaistic  but  rationalistic  ten 
dencies  formed  the  characteristic  of  this  portion  of  the 
Corinthian  church ;  that,  in  opposition  to  the  legal  and 
scrupulous  spirit  of  the  former,  it  was  distinguished  by 
the  opposite  extreme  of  laxity  and  philosophical  indif- 
ferentism.  In  point  of  fact,  the  polemical  portion  of 
the  first  epistle  (the  second  contains  no  dogmatical  or 
ethical  discussion)  is  directed  almost  entirely  against, 
not  legal  tendencies  such  as  those  which  form  the  sub 
ject  of  the  epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  Colossians,  but 
such  an  abuse  of  Christian  liberty  as  might  lie  expected 
to  exhibit  itself  in  the  heathen  centre  of  Greek  civiliza 
tion.  In  the  first  four  chapters  the  apostle  argues 
against  an  undue  estimation  of  human  wisdom,  with  a 
manifest  reference  to  the  Greek  philosophy:  the  case 
of  the  incestuous  person  which  follows,  indicates  a 
laxity  of  morals  which  is  not  likely  to  have  been  of 
Jewish  origin  :  under  the  aspect  of  the  possible  inex 
pediency  of  things  in  themselves  abstractedly  lawful, 
the  questions  respecting  pleading  before  heathen  tri 
bunals,  marriage,  and  the  partaking  of  flesh  offered  to 
idols,  are  treated  :  in  the  tenth  chapter  the  examples 
from  the  history  of  the  Israelites  seem  intended  as 
warnings  against  a  licentious  perversion  of  the  grace  of 
God.  If.  now.  we  suppose  that,  among  the  manifold 
varieties  of  opinion  that  prevailed  in  this  church,  there 
were  some  who  renounced  all  connection  with  the 
apostles,  who,  though  but  human  instruments,  were 
nevertheless  the  appointed  instruments  of  establishing 


CORINTHIANS 


CORINTHIANS 


Christianity  in  tlio  world ;  and  on  the  ground  of  some 
traditionary  sayings  of  our  Lord,  or  even  without  such 
a  basis,  professed  to  frame  for  themselves  a  philosophic 
Christianity,  which  both  in  doctrine  and  practice  should 
affect  a  latitudinarian  freedom — arrogating  to  them 
selves,  as  distinguished  from  their  brethren  in  the  faith, 
the  exclusive  title  of  Christians  :  we  have,  perhaps,  as 
near  an  approximation  to  the  truth  as  the  confessed 
difficulties  which  surround  the  subject  will  permit. 

The  evils  arising  from  the  prevalence  of  party  spirit 
did  not  terminate  witli  the  divisions  thereby  introduced 
into  the  church.  Each  section  receding  as  far  as  pos 
sible  from  the  antagonist  one,  serious  extremes  of  error 
were  the  necessary  result.  Ecclesiastical  discipline 
became  so  relaxed,  from  the  difficulty  no  doubt  of  en 
forcing  it  under  present  circumstances,  that  delinquents 
of  the  worst  description  were  tolerated  in  the  com 
munion  of  the  church,  1  Co.  r.  The  precepts  of  ( 'hristian 
charity  were  on  all  sides  forgotten.  Anioiii;-  r-piritual 
gifts,  which  at  Corinth  manifested  themselves  in  un 
usual  abundance,  those  were  chiefly  valued,  not  which 
ministered  to  tin-  general  edification,  but  which  nio>t 
tended  to  exalt  the  individual,  1  Co.  xiv.  I  )iif'eivnces 
anionir  ( 'liri-tiaiis.  iu-ti-ad  of  IM-'HI^.  as  was  the  usual 
p7-aet.ice,  referred  to  arbitrator-;  chosen  from  themselves 
Wore  brought  before  heathen  courts  of  judicature,  to  the 
scandal  of  the  Christian  name.  ch.  vi.  On  the  subject  of 
marriage,  extreme  opinions  were  held.  Christianity,  in 
opposition  to  a  false  asceticism,  pronounces  marriage 
honourable  in  all.  and  sees  in  it  an  emblem  of  the  union 
between  Christ  and  hU  church,  KI>.  v. -JO-ai;  yet,  equally 
opposed  to  tin-  Jewish  sentiment,  which  attached  dis 
grace  to  an  unmarried  life,  it  contemplates  cases  in 
which  the  latter  n,av  be  chosen,  not  oid\  without 
danger,  but  as  a  special  mean-  of  advancing  the  k;n-_-- 
dom  of  ( lud,  M  r  .  xi\.  11,  rj.  At  Corinth  tin  r-  seems  to 
have  been,  on  the  one  hand,  a  di-poMtion.  probably  on 
the  part  of  the  followers  of  Paul,  who  was  him>elf  1111 
married,  to  exalt  celibacy,  as  in  itself  a  meritorious 
state;  and.  on  the  other,  an  attempt,  proceeding  no 
doubt  from  the  party  of  Peter,  to  make  marriage  obli 
gatory  on  all,  and  so  to  abridge  the  I'-uitimate  liberty 
of  Christians  in  this  respect,  u'".  vii  He -re  too,  as  at 
Rome,  I',.),  xiv.,  disputes  had  arisen  respecting  the  lawful 
ness  of  eating  meat  which  had  been  offered  to  idols.  To 
the  Jewish  Christians,  by  whom,  under  the  law.  tin- 
feasts  of  the  peace-offerings  had  been  regarded  as  sym 
bolical  of  communion  with  Jehovah,  this  practice  ap 
peared  little  less  than  idolatry  :  while  even  ( (entile  con 
verts,  of  scrupulous  conscience,  miii'ht  entertain  doubts 
on  the  subject.  However  groundless  in  themselves  such 
scruples  might  be  -  for  true  it  was  that  idols  were 
"nothing  in  the  world,"  and  meat  offered  to  them 
could  contract  no  real  pollution  it  was  the  duty  of 
those  who  possessed  clearer  light  to  respect  them,  and 
to  abstain  from  what  might  wound  the  conscience  of 
the  weaker  brethren.  This,  however,  they  were  far 
from  doing.  They  boasted  of  their  knowledge;  they 
insisted  u]i  in  their  abstract  right  to  act  as  they  pleased 
in  things  indifferent.  Some  proceeded  so  far  as  to  par 
take  of  the  banquets  celebrated  in  the  very  temples  of 
the  heathen  deities.  The  eoiiscejuence  was,  not  only 
that  scrupulous  consciences  were  offended,  but  that 
some  were  tempted,  against  their  convictions,  to  follow 
the  example  set  them,  and  to  commit  what  they  con 
ceived  to  be  sin,  it'o.  \iii  x. 

In  the  celebration  of  divine  worship  abuses  had  crept 


in.  Contrary  to  the  Creek  custom,  the  women  ap 
peared  in  the  assembly  unveiled,  1C<>.  xi.  5;  and  even 
ventured  to  speak  in  public,  ch.  xiv.  ru  But  especially 
in  the  most  sacred  and  distinctive  ordinance  of  Chris 
tianity  did  tile  leading  defect  of  this  church  exhibit  it 
self  ;  and  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  supper,  intended 
to  be  both  a  means  and  a  symbol  of  the  fellowship  of 
believers  with  each  other  and  with  their  Lord,  became 
an  occasion  of  dissension  and  invidious  separation.  At 
the  U'jKjic  or  love-feast  with  which,  in  the  apostolic 
age,  the  ordinance  was  wont  to  conclude,  the  worship 
pers  usually  partook,  without  distinction,  of  the  viands 
provided;  but  at  Corinth  a  custom  prevailed  of  each 
contributor  to  the  banquet  consuming  his  own  portion 
apart;  which  necessarily  brought  out  into  strong  relief 
the  distinction  between  rich  and  poor,  destroyed  the 
notion  of  equality  in  the  presence  of  Christ  the  common 
Lord,  and  even  gave  rise  to  disgraceful  excess,  ic'o.  xi. 

Serious  doctrinal  errors  complete  the  melancholy 
picture  which  this  apostolic  community  presented.  If 
then-  is  any  tenet  which  peculiarly  belongs  to  the  gospel, 
it  is  that  of  thi.-  resurrection  of  the  bodv,  which  Christ, 
\\a-  tin-  first  authoritatively  to  announce,  Jn.  v.  2s, L'O,  and 
of  which  b\-  his  own  resurrection  he  has  ifiveii  a  visible 
pledge.  Tins  fundamental  doctrine  was  called  in  ques 
tion  by  certain  of  the  Corinthian  church;  and  if  the 
partv  of  Christ,  has  been  rightly  described  as  consisting 
of  speculative  religionists,  who  moulded  tile  truths  of 
iv \  i -latioii  to  >u it  their  ta-te,  we  can  hardly  be  mistaken 
in  supposing  th.it  from  them  this  heretical  tendency 
proceeded.  After  the  faction  of  the  false  spiritualism 
which  pervaded  the  (Gnostic  heresies  of  the  next  age. 
and  the  seeds  of  which  were  coeval  with  the  gospel 
it-ilf,  they  probably  inti  rpreted  the  apostolic  teaching 
on  the  point  in  question  to  signify  a  mere  spiritual  re 
Minvctioii  of  the  soul,  to  take  place  in  this  life;  thus 
not  onlv  robbing  the  doctrine  of  its  true  \alue  and  sig 
nificance,  but.  hv  implication,  denying  the  fact  of  Christ's 
resurrection,  and  therewith  undermining  the  whole 
structure  of  redemption:  for.  as  the  apostle  remarks, 
"if  <'hri>t  be  not  rai.-ed.  your  faith  is  vain,  ye  are  yet, 
in  vonr  sins."  i  (. '•<  \\. 

Such  was  the  state  <  f  affairs  in  the  ( 'orinthian  church 
a  verv  >hort  time  after  the  apostle's  presence  had  been 
withdrawn  from  it.  So  soon,  and  with  such  diligence, 
did  the  enemy  sow  tans  among  the  wheat.  The  pic 
ture.  thoii-Ji  painful,  is  in-t  ructi\  e  ;  not  only  as  furnish- 
iii'_r  the  natural  history  of  kindred  errors  in  our  own 
time,  but  as  teaching  us  how  fond  the  notion  is,  some 
times  entertained,  of  tin- immaculate  purity  of  the  early 
church,  and  how  from  the  first,  hccording  to  St.  Paul's 
own  predictions.  Ac.  x\.  •_':', :;",  heresy  and  schism  found  an 
entrance-  into  each  visible  ('hristian  community. 

('<>nt<iitx  "f  lli>  J;'/>!*t/<.-<.  The  first  epistle  may.  as 
Olshausen  remarks,  be  divided  into  four  parts.  In  the 
first,  extending  from  the  commencement  to  the  end  of 
ch.  iv.,  Paul  discourses  generally  on  the  divided  state 
of  the  church.  He  traces  their  party-spirit  to  its  true 
source,  an  undue  estimation  of  the  wisdom  of  this 
world,  whereas  Christ  alone  is  the  wisdom  as  well  as 
the  [lower  of  (iod,  ch.  i.  For  himself,  he  had  deter 
mined  to  know  and  to  preach  nothing  save  Christ  and 
him  crucified  :  and  this  with  all  plainness  of  speech. 
Such  to] lies,  however,  and  such  a  mode;  of  delivering 
them,  onlv  the  spiritual  man  could  appreciate;  it  was 
from  their  deficiency  of  spiritual  apprehension  that  the 


COPvINTHlAXS 


COUMOKAXT 


Corinthians  had  attached  so  much  importance  to  the  j  very  chiefest  apostles,  either  in  the  natural  privilege  of 
human  instrument,  and  exalted  one  teacher  above  '  Jewish  birth  or  in  the  evidences  of  an  apostolic  com- 
another,  whereas,  whether  it  were  Paul,  or  Apollos,  or  mission.  He  had  wrought  miracles  among  them;  he 
Peter,  all  were  but  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  Cod,  had  received  revelations  from  the  Lord.  His  labours 
ch.ii.iii.  That  he  himself  was  a  true  apostle  of  Christ,  and  his  sufferings  in  the  service  of  Christ  had  been 
his  sufferings  for  the  gospel's  sake  sufficiently  proved  ;  far  more  abundant  than  those  of  his  opponents.  He, 
but  under  any  circumstances  man's  judgment  weighed  especially,  their  spiritual  father,  should  not  have  been 
little  with  him.  and  his  ultimate  appeal  was  to  the  thus  compelled  to  vindicate  his  authority  ;  they  them- 
Searcherof  hearts,  ch.  iv.  The  second  division,  from  selves,  the  fruit  of  his  ministry,  were  his  letters  of  com- 
ch.  v.  1  to  x.  3:5,  is  occupied  with  the  concerns  of  mendatioii ;  let  his  enemies  produce,  if  they  could,  a 
Christians  as  individuals.  The  incestuous  person  was  similar  testimony.  Since  the  latter  sought  a  proof  of 
to  be  excommunicated  ;  the  command,  however,  given  Christ  speaking  in  him,  they  should  have  it  if,  when  he 
in  a  former  epistle,  to  separate  themselves  from  delin-  arrived,  he  should  find  matters  in  no  better  a  condition  ; 
quents  of  this  description  was  to  be  understood  as  ap-  :  but  he  trusted  that  such  an  exercise  of  discipline  would 
plying  only  to  those  who  called  themselves  brethren,  i  not  be  found  necessary.  An  exhortation  to  mutual 
chv  "Differences  amon<>-  Christians  were  not  to  be  love  and  peace  brings  the  epistle  to  a  close, 
brought  before  heathen  tribunals,  ch.  vi.  On  the  ques-  ;  [Ou  the  subjects  of  this  article,  the  reader  may  consult  Neander, 
tion  of  marriage  St.  Paul  delivers  his  opinion  that, 
while  forced  celibacy,  apart  from  a  special  call  thereto, 
could  not  but  prove  pernicious,  there  might  be  cases,  Bilroth  ou  ditto,  translated,  and  forming  i  vols.  of  Clark's  JSi6- 


Heal  Cabi>«t;  also,  Hodg 
CORMORANT 


n  the  two  Epistles 

,  «/,„/«,/,,  Le.  xi.  IT  ;  Do.  xiv.  17; 

;  l-aatl.  Is.  xxxiv.  ii;Zei>.  ii.  14).   The  kaath  is  elsewhere 


'  «i* 

rendered  pelican  (,«e  PELICAN),  and  this  seems  to  be  its 
correct  meaning.  \Ve  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  our 
English  version  is  right  also  in  considering  the  xhuUtc/t 
to  be  the  cormorant.  The  LXX.  render  the  word  by 
KciTapaKTys,  or  that  which  rushes  down  ;  which  idea  is 
also  expressed  by  the  Hebrew  ip^',  to  cast  down. 


or  there  might  arise  circumstances,  which  would  justify 
the  adoption  (if  single  life  :  adducing  his  own  example 
as  an  instance  in  point,  ch.  vii.  With  reference  to  idol- 
offerings,  Christian  liberty  was  not  to  be  strained  so  as 
to  become  virtually  intolerance :  all  things  might  be 
lawful,  but  all  things  were  not  expedient  :  and  though 
in  itself  one  kind  of  meat  was  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  another,  the  law  of  ( 'hristiaii  charity  imposed  re 
straint  where  indulgence  would  cause  offence  or  lead 
to  a  violation  of  conscience,  cli.  viii.  ix.  x.  In  the  third 
portion  of  the  epistle  Paul  gives  directions  for  the  Col.  Hamilton  Smith  prefers  the  Caspian  tern,  on  the 
decent  celebration  of  public  worship  ;  with  a  particular  ground  that  the  cormorants  catch  their  prey  by  diving, 
reference  to  the  abuses  which  prevailed  in  the  mode 
of  celebrating  the  Lord's  supper,  and  in  the  exercise 
of  the  extraordinary  gifts  of  prophecy  and  speaking 
with  tongues.  Inasmuch  as  the  edification  of  the 
whole  body  was  to  be  principally  studied,  prophecy, 
which  could  be  understood  by  all.  was  to  be  preferred 
to  the  gift  of  tongues,  which,  without  an  interpreter, 
remained  fruitless  save  to  the  speaker  himself,  ch.  xi.-xiv. 
Lastly,  in  ch.  xv.  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  is,  by 
analogies  drawn  from  the  natural  world,  in  a  masterly 
manner  vindicated  ;  and  the  epistle  concludes  with  a 
request  that  a  contribution  might  be  made  for  the  saints 
at  Jerusalem,  who  at  that  time  stood  in  need  of  temporal 
assistance  from  their  Gentile  brethren,  ch.  xvi. 

The  second  epistle  arranges  itself  under  three  divisions. 
In  the  first,  ch.  i.-vii.  ir>,  the  apostle  speaks  of  his  suf 
ferings  for  the  gospel's  sake  ;  the  burden  of  which,  how 
ever,  was  alleviated  by  a  consciousness  of  the  dignity 
of  his  office,  as  a  minister  of  the  Xew  Testament,  and 
by  the  prospect  of  that  exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of 

glory  which  awaits  the  faithful  servants  of  the  Lord.  '  "and  none  of  them  rush  flying  upon  their  prey," 
The  incestuous  person,  having  given  satisfactory  proofs  though  he  allows  that  the  gannet  does.  Pnit  he  has 
of  repentance,  was  to  be  received  again  to  the  com-  ;  mistaken  the  habit  of  the  true  cormorants,  for  these,  like 
munion  of  the  church.  He  was  rejoiced  to  find  that  the  gannet  and  other  Pelccanidrc,  frequently  drop  from 
his  former  epistle,  which  he  had  written  out  of  much  a  height  upon  their  fishy  prey,  as  may  readily  be  ob- 
affliction  of  heart  and  with  many  tears,  had  produced  served  in  both  of  our  native  species, 
a  salutary  impression,  and  led  to  measures  of  practical  The  greater  cormorant  (Ph«!an-ocomxcarbo)h-e([uents 
amendment.  The  second  portion,  ch.viii.ix.,  enters  at  rocky  coasts,  where  it  delights  to  sit  on  lofty  projecting 


himself  against  the  insinuations  of  the  false  teachers  !  More  frequently,   however,   it  shoots   along  in  a  line 


who  had  endeavoured  to  undermine  his  authority. 
Though  he  might  be  comparatively  rude  in  speech,  he 
was  not  so  in  knowledge  ;  nor  did  he  come  behind  the 


nearly  close  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  or  sitting  on 
the  wave,  dives  after  the  prey.  It  is  trained  to  fish 
for  man's  use  in  China. 


il 


This  bird  is  common  on  tlie  coasts  of  Syria  and 
Palestine:  Rauwolff  saw  numbers  of  black,  long-necked 
birds,  sitting  among  the  rocks  and  sea- washed  crags 
near  Acre.  Me  supposed  them  sea-eagles,  but  his 
description  precludes  the  supposition  ;  they  were  no 
doubt  cormorants.  [r.  H.  <;.| 

CORN.  The  Hebrews,  like  ourselves,  had  a  generic 
word  for  all  kinds  of  grain,  including  the  cereals  and 

their  allies,     p^   (tlayaii)  is  nearly  equivalent  to  our 

'  -T 

English  "  corn."  and  would  comprehend  millet,  rye, 
barley,  \c.,  as  well  as  wheat,  all  of  which  will  be  found 
noticed  in  their  proper  places.  Besides  these,  it  is  hy 
110  means  improbable  that  the  Hebrews  were  acquainted 
with  what  we  call  Indian  corn,  or  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  Turkish  corn,  the  Zm.  /;)'?//.<  of  Linnajus. 

In  LSI  7,  Parinelltier  (X'mveau  Dicti<m;i;ui-e  <nii>t.  .VUu- 
rullo,  tunic  xviii.),  founding  on  the  silence  of  Yarro,  Colu- 
laella,  Pliny,  and  the  other  agricultural  and  botanical 
writers  of  classical  antiquity,  concluded  that  maize  was 
unknown  till  the  discovery  of  America:  and  in  l^:il. 
Meyer  asserted  that  "  n<  .thin.;'  in  botanical  ^'"^rapliv 
is  more  certain  than  the  NYu  World  derivation  of 
mai/<j"  I'lU'ile.l  I iy  Diu-luirtrc  in  (>r!.iu'uv\  Uict.  .I'lli-t.  N.tt.'l 

1  lut  since  then,  in  his  magnificent  monograph  (Hist  N  .•'.- 
relic  <lu  M:ii-,  iv,,;i.  M.  I'.miafous.  the  director  ,,f  tl,.. 
Royal  (iardeii  of  Agriculture  at  Turin,  has  shown  that 
it  is  figured  in  a  ('liinese  botanical  work  as  old  as  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  time  when  the  dis 
coveries  of  Columbus  cnulil  scarcely  have  penetrated  t  . 
the  celestial  empire  :  and  what  is  more  concluMve.  in 
IMS'.  .M.  Kifaud  iliscovered  under  the  head  of  a  mummy 
at  Thebes,  not  only  grains  but  leaves  of  Indian  corn. 
Xor  is  it  at  all  impossible  that  the  (,'na  of  Homer  and 
Theophrastus  may  include  the  plant  in  question.  The 
wide  ditl'usion  ,,f  this  com  throujh  the  Indian  arehi- 
pelago.  and  on  the  Indian  continent  itsvlf.  is  in  favour 
of  the  hypothesis  which  claims  it  as  a  native  of  tin1  <  >ld 
World,  and  if  it  wa>  known  to  the  Ku vptians,  nothing 
could  be  more  natural  than  its  early  introduction  into 
Palestine. 

In  his  amusing  and  characteristic  treatise  on  "('oh 
belt's  ( 'orn."  remarking  on  the  ofli-i-in^  of  "uTeen  ears 
of  corn."  i.c.  ji.  ii,  the  author  >av>  "  What  a  curious 
meat-offering,  to  parch  ^n-en  Drains  of  wheat  li\'  the 
fire!  < 'h.  no;  tins  ineat-ofieriny  wa>  to  coiisi.--t  of  ears 
of  green  corn  [maize]  :  that  i>  to  say.  c-.n-n  in  the  milky 
state,  roasted  before  the  fire:  and  in>  wonder  that  it  \\a> 
chosen  for  an  ottering,  for  the  most  delicious  tiling  it  is 
that  ever  delighted  the  palate  of  human  IMMII^.  Tin- 
general  way  of  cooking  these1  'green  ears.'  as  the-  Ame 
ricans  call  them,  is  to  boil  them,  and  to  eat  them  as 
bread  along  with  meat,  or  sometimes  with  butter.  The 
context  would  add  additional  conviction,  if  any  were 
wanted;  for  the  loth  verse  says,  '  tlnui  shall  /mt  nil 
II/HIII  it.  and  lay  frankincense  thereon."  Now  we,  when 
we  have  roasted  our  ears  of  corn  before  the  fire,  put 
Imttif  and  >alt  thereon."  If  we  were  absolutely  secure 
in  assuming  that  the  corn  of  the  Bible  may  occasionally 
denote  this  plant,  it  would  give  additional  expressive 
ness  to  the  numerous  passages  which  speak  of  "eating- 
green  ears,"  of  "cutting  off'  the  tops  of  the  ears  of 
corn,''  and  such  presents  as  ''full  ears  of  corn  in  Mr 
Itiiskx  thereof,''  1M.  .\\iii.  It  ;  Jul>  \\i\-.  iM  ;  Mat.  xii.  1;  '>  Ki.  iv.  i. 
There  is  also  force  in  what  C'obbett  savs  regarding  Ihe 
"  seven  ears  of  corn  coming  up  on  one  stalk''  in  Pha-  j 
raoh's  dream,  <;e.  xh  :>.  "The  i/-/«<tt  root  will  send  up  , 


sometimes,  if  it  have  room.  fn,m  twenty  to  fifty  xta//.:<, 
but  ne\er  more  than  mi<  c/i-  upon  nuc  .-•/«//•.  Seven 
ears  is  a  great  number  for  a  corn  plant  to  have:  but 
(and  the  fact  is  truly  curious)  the  A*!r if  }'«/•/•  Kmihn/ 
1'wt,  of  the  -JtJth  of  August  last,  records  as  a  wonder  a 
corn-stalk  on  the  farm  of  a  Mr.  Dickerson.  in  Bedford 


count  v.  having  .-••</•<//  full  ears  upon  it.  A  ml  it  happens 
singularly  enough,  that  one  single  corn  plant  in  my 
field  has  on  one  stalk  seven  ears  of  corn."  |.i.  ll.| 

CORNE'LILJS.  a  Koinan  centurion,  or  commander 
of  a  huinlred.  in  what  was  called  the  I  In  In-  band, 
Ac.  \.  i.  The  band  (/TTTfifia,  nttiiiljititiix)  consisted  of  two 
I'eiiturie-,  and  formed  the  third  part  of  a  cohort,  as  this 
again  the  tenth  part  of  a  legion.  This  particular  band 
bearing  the  epithet  of  Italic  probably  arose  from  its 
consisting  chiefly  of  soldi,  rs  levied  in  Italy  although 
such  names  as  "the  (  'oldstream  <  luanU."  "  the  Suther 
land  Miuhlandei-s."  \e..  familiarly  applied  to  regiments 
in  our  own  country,  and  continued  \\  hen  they  no  longer 
indicate  the  quarter  \\hence  the  individual  men  have 
been  derived,  .-hows  that  the  term  Italic  cannot  of 
itself  be  regarded  as  a  certain  proof  that  the  band  at 
that  particular  time  was  composed  of  men  who  strictly 
belonged  to  Ftalv.  Still  this  circumstance,  coupled 
.vith  his  own  undoubtedly  Roman  name,  Cornelius, 
may  justly  be  held  conclusive  as  to  himself.  The 
Cornelian  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  families  of 
Rome;  and  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  the 
person  before  us  may  have  been  of  this  noble  patrician 
stock,  especially  as  the  emperor  Julian  classes  him 
amonu'  the  few  persons  of  distinction  that  in  early 
times  embraced  Christianity.  He  may  have  been, 
however,  of  inferior  rank:  as  in  later  times  many  ple 
beians  are  mentioned  bearing  the  name  of  Cornelii,  and 
Sulla  alone,  who  belonged  to  that  '/en*,  liberated  no 

46 


(JOKNELU  S 


CORNER-STONE 


fewer  than  lUjOUd  slaves,  and  gave  them  his  family 
name. 

The  Cornelius  \vlu>  lias  accjuired  so  honourable  a 
place  in  New  Testament  history  was  evidently  a  per 
son  of  free,  open,  ingenuous  mind,  and,  even  before 
his  formal  admission  into  the  Christian  church,  well 
advanced  in  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  the  true  God. 
At  the  first  mention  of  his  name  he  is  described  as  a 
(/erni/t  person,  and  one  who  feared,  not  the  deities,  but 
rbv  ()ebi>,  the  one  (!od,  and  that  too  with  all  his 
household,  Ac  x.2.  Unacquainted  as  we  arc  with  the 
earlier  history  of  Cornelius,  we  can  say  nothing,  ex 
cept  by  conjecture,  in  regard  to  the  means  or  oppor 
tunities  by  which  he  may  have  been  led  so  far  into  the 
reception  of  the  truth.  It  is  probable  enough  that  his 
position  at  Ca'sarea.  and  his  occasional  residence  in 
other  parts  of  Syria,  perhaps  of  Palestine  itself,  may 
have  brought  him  into  contact  with  some  of  the  more 
intelligent  Jews,  who,  though  adhering  with  blinded 
prejudice  to  what  they  should  now  have  abandoned, 
still  stood  immeasurably  above  the  best  instructed 
heathen  as  to  the  clearness  of  their  views  and  the 
strength  of  their  convictions  in  divine  tilings.  It  is 
perfectly  conceivable  that  he  may  also  have  formed 
some  acquaintance  with  one  or  more  persons  if  not 
actually  converts  to  the  Christian  faith,  yet  favourably 
inclined  toward  it.  and  not  unwilling  to  turn  his  mind 
in  that  direction.  This  even  seems  to  be  not  doubtfully 
implied  in  the  commencement  of  St.  Peter's  address  to 
him:  since  it  is  there  said,  "  The  word  which  God  sent 
unto  the  children  of  Israel,  preaching  peace  by  Jesus 
Christ,  that  word,  >/e  1,-iioir  which  was  publir-hed 
throughout  all  Judea,  and  began  from  Galilee  after  the 
baptism  which  John  preached,"  Ac.x. 30,37.  A.  certain 
acquaintance  with  the  facts  of  gospel  history,  on  the 
part  of  Cornelius  and  his  household,  is  here  assumed 
by  the  apostle;  he  sets  out  on,  the  supposition  that  what 
now  was  needed  was  merely  such  an  authoritative  de 
claration  of  the  truth  as  might  warrant  the  implicit 
faith  of  those  who  heard,  and  qualify  them  for  entering 
into  the  membership  of  the  church.  The  same  thing 
appears  further  to  be  implied  in  Cornelius  being  so 
expressly  designated  a  man  of  prayer  and  charity,  and 
in  both  respects  of  so  earnest  and  faithful  a  character, 
that  they  had  been  going  up  for  a  memorial  before 
God.  When  all  these  things  are  put  together,  it  seems 
impossible  to  doubt  that  this  man  and  his  family  had 
even  before  the  visit  of  the  apostle  Peter  attained  to 
the  knowledge  of  God,  were  honestly  acting  according 
to  their  light  and  privileges,  and  in  the  sincerity  of 
their  heart  were  desirous  of  obtaining  more  informa 
tion,  or  arriving  at  more  assured  convictions  than  they 
yet  possessed  of  the  truths  respecting  Christ's  person 
and  work  among  men.  They  were  already  in  God's 
sight  accepted,  and  it  was  only  necessary  that  their 
recognized  position  among  men  should  be  in  accor 
dance  with  their  state  lief  ore  him.  and  should  have 
added  to  it  the  spiritual  endowments  connected  with 
a  place  in  the  Christian  church. 

Such  plainly  appears  to  have  been  the  case  of  Cor 
nelius  at  the  time  immediately  preceding  Peter's  visit: 
and  it  is  needless  to  embarrass  one's  self  with  the  ques 
tion,  whether  he  belonged  to  what  were  subsequently 
called  proselytes  of  the  gate,  or  to  that  called  proselytes 
of  righteousness.  It  is  quite  uncertain  when  such 
epithets  began  to  be  applied,  and,  however  settled,  it 
can  throw  no  light  upon  the  case  of  Cornelius.  He 


was  still  undoubtedly  a  Gentile  so  far  as  circumcision 
was  concerned,  and  was  hence  represented  by  the 
apostle  as  a  man  of  another  race  or  tribe,  and  in  Jewish 
estimation  unclean.  The  \vhole  point  and  moral  of 
Peter's  mission  to  him  turned  upon  that,  as  the  first 
element  in  the  case,  and  upon  God's  accepting  him  to 
salvation  notwithstanding  as  the  second.  It  was  pre 
cisely  here  that  the  apostles  and  the  infant  church 
needed  a  clear  light  and  an  explicit  warrant.  They  knew 
perfectly  that  the  salvation  of  Christ  was  for  Gentiles 
as  well  as  Jews,  and  that  the  gospel  they  had  to 
| 'reach  had  every  creature  of  mankind  for  its  object. 
The  commission  they  received  from  Christ  before  his 
departure  left  them  in  no  doubt  respecting  this,  Mar.  xvi.i:,; 
Lu.  >.xiv.  17;  and  they  themselves  at  the  outset  gave  ex 
pression  to  the  universality  of  the  call  arid  the  world 
wide  comprehensiveness  of  its  aim,  Ac,  ii.  :','.<;  m  21.  But 
the  question  that  still  waited  for  practical  solution  was, 
Were  those  who  might  embrace  the  call  from  other 
nations  to  be  received  without  circumcision?  Could 
they  find  an  entrance  into  the  church  of  ( 'hrist  with 
out  passing  through  the  gate  of  Judaism  !  The  disciples 
as  a  whole-- whatever  may  have  been  the  convictions 
of  individual  members — were  still  of  opinion  that  the  old 
U'ate  must  stand,  that  as  yet  at  least  they  had  no  autho 
rity  for  dispensing  with  it.  Therefore,  that  the  bar 
rier  might  be  removed,  and  the  door  of  faith  freely 
opened  to  the  Gentiles,  the  case  of  Cornelius,  with  the 
special  revelation  given  to  Peter  beforehand  and  the 
transactions  that  shortly  after  ensued,  arose  at  the 
fitting  time,  and  led  all  who  were  willing  to  be  instructed 
to  the  proper  result.  P>y  the  vision  granted  to  Peter, 
he  was  indoctrinated  in  the  great  fundamental  prin 
ciple,  that  what  God  had  cleansed  he  should  not  call 
common  or  unclean;  and  then  by  the  messengers  from 
Cornelius,  sent  in  obedience  to  another  vision  from 
above,  he  was  guided  with  unerring  certainty  to  its 
application.  He  presently  learned  that  this  pious, 
though  uncircumcised.  soldier  was  already  a  man  ac 
cepted  of  God,  virtually  in  a  sanctified  condition;  and 
on  proclaiming  to  him  and  his  household  the  gospel  of 
Christ's  salvation,  he  saw  the  Spirit  descending  on  them, 
and  giving  manifestation  of  his  presence  by  the  same 
miraculous  signs  which  had  at  first  appeared  in  the 
apostles  themselves.  Clearly,  enough,  therefore,  God 
had  sanctified  these  believing  heathen,  and  could  Peter, 
could  any  man  in  the  Christian  church,  venture  to 
call  them  unclean?  The  question  was  coiiclu>ively 
solved,  and  to  reject  from  the  membership  of  the 
Christian  church  an  uncircumcised  believer  in  Christ 
was  henceforth  in  effect,  as  Peter  put  it  before  the 
gainsayers,  to  withstand  God,  Ac.  xi.  ir. 

CORNER-STONE,  is  an  epithet  prospectively  ap 
plied  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  to  the  Messiah  in  ch.  xxviii. 
IS.  ••  Mehold  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a  foundation  a  stone,  a 
tried  stone,  a  precious  corner-stone,  a  sure  foundation.'' 
The  reference  is  obviously  to  the  foundation  of  the 
building,  and  when  the  corner -stone  is  particularly 
specified,  it  can  only  be  because  this  occupied  the  most 
important  place  in  the  foundation  of  the  building — 
that  which  held  together  the  outer  walls,  and  on  which 
the  whole  structure  might  be  said  more  especially  to  rest. 
In  Ps.  cxviii.  '22,  which  in  all  probability  is  a  later  com 
position,  it  is  called  the  head  or  chief  stone  of  the 
corner;  and  in  Ep.  ii.  20:  1  Pe.  ii.  8,  10,  the  epithet  is 
applied  specifically  to  Christ;  he  is  called  the  chief 
corner-stone.  The  ideas  suggested  by  it  in  respect  to 


CORNET 


Christ  arc  hi.s  fundamental  importance,  as  prophet, 
priest,  and  king  to  the  church,  the  massive  strength  of 
this  foundation,  and  its  admirable  fitness  for  at  once 


sustaining  and   binding  together  in  Messed  fellowship  i  a  covenant  with  Al 


•>  COVENANT 

represented  as  parsing  between  the  pieces  ,»f  the  sacri 
fice,  as  Abraham  himself  had  evidently  done  lief  ore, 
and  "in  that  same  day."  it  is  added,  "the  Lord  made 


the  whole  brotherhood  of  faith. 

CORNET,   a   loud   sounding  instrument,   a 


It   ma 


doubted,  how 


ever,  whether  this  solemn  act  of  passing  between  parts 


»f  '  of  the  sacritk 


not  confined  to  strictly  d 


eating  together  may  have  been  all  that  was  customary. 
Such  apparently  was  the  case  when  Jacob  and  Lahan 
entered  into  covenant,  <ie.  xx.vi.  :.t.  ]'>ut  whatever  the 


horn-trumpet,    used    commonly   for   warlike    purposes,     nants.    while    in    covenants    generally   saerifieii 
(>'<•(:  Tiu:ni'K.T.) 
COSTUME.     See  DKESS. 
COUNCIL.     ,Vr  SANHKDRIM. 
COVENANT  iHeb.  ma,  berith)  is  applied  to  vari 
ous  transactions  between  Cod  and  man.      Divines  very 
covenants,  and  under  these 
specific  or  partial  kind  that 


particular  forn 


ere    is    reason    to    h 


that  th 


solemn   killing   and  eating  usual  at  the   ratification  of 
important  contracts  was  what   originated   the  peculiar 
venant: 


commonly  make  two  main  .-..> ,. -n.ijiu.-,  .HIM  mmei  uiese 

„"    .,  ,  ...  ,.   ,  ,  .     .  expression    tor  covenant:    and    this,    once    established 

range  all  others  ot  a  more  specific  or  partial  kind  that  f    ,  ,-«•       i  •      u- 

•     (,.,.,  appears  to  have  diffused  itself  generally;  as  anion..-  tin 

occur  in  Scripture;  viz.  the  covenant  ot  works,  and  the  \  c,VL.]<s    .    ,  „,.        •       «i 

covenant  of  grace  the  first  made  with  Adam,  settling- 
the  terms  of  the  original  constitution  of  things,  and  fixing 
the  alternative  that  should  ensue  on  its  violation:  the 
other  entered  into  between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  for 
the  redemption  of  as  many  out  of  the  fallen  race  as 
should  attain  to  life  eternal.  (Sou  \Vitsiu.s  <m  the  Covenants, 
Ui.lgelev's  Burly  of  Divinity;  Boston's  Notes  on  the  Marrow  of 
Modern  JMvinity.)  It  is  proper  to  note,  however,  that 
such  a  division  is  better  fitted  for  bringing  out  doc- 
trinally  the  great  features  of  the  plan  of  Cod.  and 


•eeks  appears  in  their  OpKia  refj.veiv,  tnrov^a.%  rtu... 
and  the  Latins,  fn  <//>x  jlriri'.  fuila*  ictnnt. 

The  first  transaction  we  meet  with  in  Scripture 
which  is  expressly  designated  a  covenant  is  that  en 
tered  into  with  Noah  after  the  flood.  The  Lord  then 
established  his  covenant  with  Noah,  and  for  the  ob 
vious  and  permanent  sign  of  it  set  his  bow  in  the 
cloud.  Ge.ix.ll-17.  And  the  next  is  the  one  already 
referred  to  in  Ce.  xv..  when  he  first  entered  into 
covenant  with  Abraham.  On  both  of  these  occa- 
ions,  however,  there  was  not  strictly  a  mutual  coni- 


tlie  specific   be.-irin-  uf  individual  parts   of  the  divine     pact,  but  an  ordination  on  the  part  of  Cod.  according 
administration  in  regard   to   it,  than  throwing  light  on     to  which  special  arrangements  in   providence   were  to 


the  distincti\e   uses  of  the  term  covenant  in  Scripture. 
The  constitution  under  which  A 


those    interested    in    the   covenant,    and 

am  was  placed,  how-  mi^lit  be  looked  for  with  the  same  confidence  that  men 
look  to  each  other  for  the  fulfilling  of  a  contract.  In 
the  Noachic  covenant  there  was  simply  the  ratification 
of  Cod's  purpose  to  | .reserve  the  world  against  any 
future  deluge,  and  to  continue  the  race  of  men  and  the 


ever  it  may  have  possessed  the  essential  characteristics 
of  a  covenant,  is  never  designated  by  that  name  in  the 
Word  of  God,  not  even  in  II...  vi.  7:  for  if  we  should 
there  read  with  some  commentators,  both  in  former 

and  present    times.    "They,    like    Adam,    have  trans-  other  races  of  the  animal  creation  throughout  all  suc- 

gressed  the  covenant,"  it  still  comes  short  of  an  explicit  ceeding  ages.      In  like  manner  in  the  first  draught,  as 

application  of  the  term  mrennnt  to  the  Adamic  consti-  we  may  call  it.  of  the  Abrahamic  covenant,  the  \\hole 

tution.      Th<  covenant  which  the   prophet  refers   t"  as  that  was  announced  was  Cod's  settled   purpose  to  con 

having  been  transgressed,  was  undoubtedly  that  which  vey  to  Abraham   and  his   seed   the   inheritance  of  the 

had  been  made  with   Israel  at  Sinai;  and  the  allusion  to  land  of  Canaan.  Gc.  xv.  18  21.      We  can  thus  easily  under- 

A  dam  (supposing  it  to  exist*  could  not.  in  stri.-tii.-s.  stand  how  the  Septuagint  should  have  rendered  the  Heb. 

be    carried    further  than    to    indicate,    that   as    he  had  term  i<rM,  on  these  occasions  and  generally  wherever 


transgressed  against  one  divine  ordination,  so  had  they 
against  another,    lint  it  seems  a  more  natural  view  of  the 


it  afterwards  occurs,  h\-  the  word  5ialh'ii;r).  disposition  or 
will,  rather  than  by  (jcvO!}Kri,  compact  or  mutual  agree- 
passage  to  take  it  as  given  in  our  Kn-li-di  I'.ihle.  •'They,  inent.  This  latter  term  would  naturally  appear  to  carry 
like  men,  have  transgressed  the  covenant:"  they  have  too  much  the  aspect  of  an  engagement  in  which  the  con- 
acted  the  common  part  of  humanity  ;  notwithstanding  tracting  persons  stood  somewhat  <>n  a  footing,  and  mutu- 
all  that  has  been  done  for  them,  in  spite  of  the  spe-  ally  bound  thems.  Ives  by  obligations,  to  convey  a  suit- 
cial  grace  and  privilege's  conferred  upon  them,  they  ahle  impression  of  those  transactions  in  which  nothing 
have  acted  no  better  than  men  generally  like  them  directly  or  prominently  appeared  but  the  l.ountifnlness 
tailing  in  steadfastness,  and  turning  aside  into  the  path  of  (Jod  in  purposing,  and  his  faithfulness  in  accomplish- 

•ig  what  lie    |.ur|.osed.      It  was  thought   better  to  take 


of  transgresson. 

The  Hebrew  term   for  covenant,  In  ritl,  is  commonly     the  other  term,   which,    while   it    failed    to   express   th 

<,  then     contracting  element  in  a  covenant,  brought  more  forci 


derived  from  the  root  ,-^3  (Mni/t).  t« 


toitif:  and  it  is  supposed  that  the  name  was  so  derived 
from  the  practice  of  ratifying  such  agreements  by  a 
religious  act  the  contracting  parties  uniting  together 
in  the  presentation  of  an  animal  sacrifice,  and  passing 
between  the  parts  of  the  victim.  This  explanation  seems 
to  have  the  countenance  of  ,Ie.  xxxiv.  IS.  where  the 
Lord  charges  the  people  with  having  failed  to  perform 
"  the  words  of  the  covenant  which  they  made  before 
him,  when  they  cut  the  calf  in  twain,  and  passed  Ije- 


tween  the  parts  thereof."      It  derives 
also  from  Ge.  xv.  !l,  sei).,  where  the 


•me  countenance 
smoking  furnace 


and  burning  lamp."  symbols  of  the  Lord's  presence,  are 


bly  out  than  any  other  could  have  done,  what  really 
was  most  prominent  in  the  earlier  covenants  of  (Jod 
with  men  -  his  own  gracious  disposal  of  his  affairs  for 
their  good.  As  the  divine  plan  proceeded,  the  contract 
ing  element  was  brought  more  distinctly  forward  in 
respect  to  man.  Even  in  the  covenant  with  Abraham, 
when  it  was  established  in  its  more  mature  form,  Co.  xvii  , 
while  a  still  fuller  exhibition  than  formerly  was  made 
of  the  rich  grace  that  was  to  be  the  heritage  of  Abra 
ham  and  his  seed,  there  was  at  the  same  time  an  ex 
press  stipulation  that  the  members  of  the  covenant 
should  be  all  circumcised  —  which  again  implied  that 
they  should  be  holy  -otherwise,  they  had  no  reason  to 


COVKXAXT 


,'ilit 


CO VEX A XT 


look  for  the  blessings  promised  in  the  covenant.  The 
covenant  of  law  ratified  at  .Mount  Sinai,  and  grafted 
on  that  earlier  covenant  of  promise,  reversed,  in  the 
respect  now  under  consideration,  the  relation,  of  things: 
it  gave  special  prominence  to  the  obligations  laid  upon 
the  people,  and  threw  more  into  the  background  the  pur 
poses  of  mercy  and  loving-kindness  entertained  toward 
them  on  the  part  of  (!od.  It  ran  throughout  in  this 
strain:  Since  Cod  lias  proved  himself  to  be  such  a 
benefactor  toward  you,  you  must  in  return  act  in  a 
corresponding  manner  toward  him;  and  if  you  fail  to 
do  so.  every  privilege  is  forfeited,  every  promise  in  the 
earlier  covenant  is  ready  to  be  withdrawn.  These  are 
the  two  covenants  to  which  attention  is  specially  drawn 
in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament.  JUit  there  was. 
also  the  covenant  made  witli  the  house  of  David, 
L'Su.  vii.,  which  formed  tho  basis  and  occasion  of  many 
representations  contained  in  the  later  prophetical 
Scriptures.  It  was  in  reality,  however,  but  another 
and  more  specific  form  of  the  covenant  with  Abra 
ham,  and  had  for  its  main  object  to  mark  with  greater 
exactness  the  line  through  which  the  grand  purpose  .if 
blessing  promised  in  the  Abrahamic  covenant  was  to 
find  its  accomplishment.  The  seed-royal  thenceforth 
was  to  be  in  the  house  of  David,  and  in  connection  with 
it,  especially  in  connection  with  one  who  was  to  he 
pre-eminently  the  child  of  promise  in  that  house — all 
good,  first  to  Israel,  and  then  to  the  other  families  of 
the  earth,  was  to  have  its  destined  realization.  Ps.  ii.  xxii.; 
Is.  ix.  <;,  7,  &c.  This  later  covenant,  therefore,  if  viewed 
in  respect  to  its  higher  interests,  coincides  with  the 
Abrahamic  covenant;  it  points  to  the  same  ultimate 
issues,  requires  also  the  same  medium  for  bringing  them 
to  pass,  and  differs  only  in  more  specifically  indicat 
ing  the  particular  channel  and  mode  through  which 
the  result  was  to  be  attained. 

It  is  evident  from  what  has  been  said,  that  the  whole 
of  these  covenants  found  their  accomplishment  in  Christ 

-though  in  different  respects,  and  according  to  their 
distinctive  ends  and  objects.  The  covenant  of  Xoah 
was  confirmed  in  him,  because  lie  placed  on  a  sure  and 
permanent  foundation  that  kingdom  of  righteousness 
which  was  the  only  effectual  safeguard  against  future 
condemnation  and  wrath ;  so  also  the  covenant  with 
Abraham,  because  he  has  made  good  the  perfect  righ 
teousness,  by  virtue  of  which  a  well-spring  of  life  and 
blessing  was  opened  for  every  race  and  generation  of 
men;  and  so  again,  the  covenant  with  David,  because 
he  is  that  horn  of  salvation  raised  up  in  David's  house, 
who  is  to  reign  for  ever  over  God's  heritage,  and  who 
will  reign  till  all  his  and  their  enemies  are  made  his 
footstool.  Finally,  even  the  covenant  of  law  may  be 
said  to  have  found  its  confirmation  in  Christ:  for  its  high 
demands  of  righteousness  were  satisfied  to  the  full  by 
his  obedience  unto  death,  and  the  principles  enshrined 
in  its  symbolical  ritual  were  once  for  all  established, 
though  the  external  forms  enshrining  them,  as  being 
by  their  very  nature  of  a  provisional  kind,  were  made 
to  vanish  away. 

In  New  Testament  scripture  we  read  only  of  two 
covenants — the  new  and  the  old.  the  former  brought 
in  and  established  by  the  work  of  Christ,  and  the  latter 
in  consequence  ceasing  to  exist.  The  relation  between 
these  covenants,  and  the  necessity  of  the  one  giving 

way  when  the  other  was  formally  introduced,  is  the 
point  that  is  argued  at  length  in  the  epistle  to  the 

Hebrews,  especially  in  ch.  vii.-x.     .By  the  old  in  this 


'  case  is  meant  the  covenant  of  law,  with  all  its  outward 
institutions  and  corporeal  services,  ratified  at  Sinai  — 
regarded  as  old,  simply  because  in  the  order  of  time 
its  full  and  formal  ratification  had  taken  place  before 
the  other  was  properly  brought  into  formal  operation. 
fn  ijn'iu  this  other  had  existed  from  the  first;  and  par- 

'  tial  exhibitions  had  been  given  of  it  all  along  the 
world's  history.  It  was  involved  in  the  promise  of  re 
covery  given  at  the  fall;  for  this  contained  in  its  bosom 

1  the  whole  work  and  issues  of  redemption.  It  was  still 
more  distinctly  indicated  in  the  covenants  made,  first 

j  with  Abraham  and  then  with  David;  as  is  formally 
proved  in  several  places  by  the  inspired  writers  of  the 
Xew  Testament.  Ac.  ii.  25-30;  Ga.  iii.  13-29,  &c.  So  that  if 
one  looks  to  the  heart  and  substance  of  the  matter,  the 
covenant  sealed  by  the  blood  of  ( 'hrist,  and  with  its  glori 
ous  heritage  of  blessings  made  sure  in  him  to  all  the  >f-<l 
of  believers,  might  justly  be  called  the  old  covenant,  in 
comparison  of  which  the  covenant  of  Sinai  was  of  re 
cent  origin  as  well  as  of  temporary  duration.  I5ut  in 
popular  and  current  designations  respect  is  usually  had 
to  the  more  obvious  a.-pect  of  things;  and  as  the  eove- 

'  nant  of  law  had  run  its  course,  and  for  many  genera 
tions  had  held  a  prominent  place  in  the  minds  of  the 

1  people  before  the  covenant  of  promise  attained  to  its 
completeness,  and  received  its  proper  establishment  in 
Christ,  so  it  naturally  became  known  as  the  new,  while 
that  which  it  antiquated,  and  at  the  same  time  fulfilled, 
was  designated  the  old. 

This  covenant  of  grace,  whether  in  its  more  provi 
sional  forms,  or  now  when  brought  to  it>  complete  and 
perfected  state  in  Christ,  mainly  exhibits  what  God  would 
do.  or  has  done,  for  men.  and  as  t-uch  may  admit  of 
being  contrasted  with  the  transaction  at  Sinai  as  a 
covenant  in  the  stricter  sense.  There  is  such  a  con 
trast  in  Ga.  iii.  lii-]S.  where  the  revelation  of  law  is 
called  emphatically  tlit  <""<•<  nftiit,  while  the  exhibition 
of  God's  purpose  of  grace  to  Abraham,  and  confirmed 
in  Christ,  is  represented  as  the  n-nril  nf  /im/n  !.<r,  or 
simply  the  iini'mitts.  And  in  a  passage.  He.  ix.  ];">-LS. 
which  has  given  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  controversy,  this 
new  covenant,  or  covenant  of  promise,  is  presented  in 
the  light  of  a  testament,  or  disposition  of  goods  on  the 

I  part  of  Christ  the  testator.  This  undoubtedly  is  the 
natural  import  of  the  language,  and.  we  are  persuaded. 

i  is  also  its  real  meaning.   The  explanation  is  to  be  sought 

\  in  the  particular  aspect  under  which  in  that  part  of 
the  epistle  the  sacred  writer  contemplates  the  cove 
nant.  It  is  that  which,  as  already  noticed,  led  the 
ancient  Greek  interpreters  to  employ  the  term  diaOrjKrj. 
disposition  or  testament,  rather  than  crvvO-qKir),  compact, 
as  the  synonym  for  the  Heb.  (ji-rit/i;  viz.  the  promi 
nent  exhibition  given  in  it  to  the  grace  and  loving- 
kindness  of  God.  It  appeared  more  as  God's  revealed 
mode  of  disposing  of  his  affairs  for  the  good  of  his 
people,  than  a  mutual  engagement  between  him  and 
them.  The  contracting  element  consequently  retires 
into  the  background,  and  the  beneficiary  alone  becomes 
prominent.  Hence,  there  is  a  real  point  of  contact  be 
tween  the  divine  covenant  and  a  human  testament— an 
aspect  common  to  them  both,  which  is  seized  upon  as 
affording  an  incidental  illustration  to  the  line  of  argu 
ment  pursued  in  the  epistle.  A  testator,  who  dis 
poses  of  his  goods  by  a  regular  will,  must  himself  lose 

i  O  J 

possession  of  them  by  death  before  the  disposition  takes 
effect;  and  Christ,  as  mediator  of  the  new  covenant, 
in  reality  its  proper  author,  was  substantially  in  the 


COVENANT 


CREATION 


same  position  as  regarded  the  bestowal  of  its  blessings. 
These  blessings  were  all  his;  so  far  as  he  was  personally 
concerned  he  had  them  from  the  first  in  inexhaustible 
fulness;  but  only  by  first  in  a  sense  quitting  possession 
of  them,  could  lie  bestow  011  others  a  title  to  the  in 
heritance  of  them;  by  death  he  must  lose  all,  that  they 
who  lav  under  the  ban  of  death  might  come  in  him  t<> 
inherit  all.  And  thus  the  ideas  of  covenant  and  testa 
ment  coalesce  in  the  work  of  Christ;  he  is  at  o:ice 
mediator  and  testator — by  the  same  act  establishing 
for  ever  what  God  pledged  himself  in  covenant  to  pro 
vide,  and  transmitting  to  the  members  of  his  elect 
family  the  everlasting  inheritance  of  life  and  blessing. 

(See  for  a  fuller  explanation  of  the  subject,  Fairbaini's  Henncneu- 
ticul  Manual,  p.  :>14,  seq  ) 

The  passage  just  referred  to  in  Hebrews  is  the  only 
one  in  which  the  idea  of  testament  is  connected  with 
diaOrjKri,  and  the  onlv  one  where  it  should  have  been  so 
translated.  In  all  other  passages  where  tfatanint  now 
stands,  the  term  r,in,ni/it  should  be  .-ubstituted  :  and 
what  we  now  call  the  Scripuuvs  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  had  been  uioiv  fitly  designated  the  Scrip 
tures  of  the  Old  and  Neu  '  'orcnants.  The  Vulgate  by 
its  tcstiiiiaittuiii.  instead  of  /</  (/»*,  in  this  gave  an  tin 
happy  direction  to  the  versions  of  modern  Kurope.  In 
particular  the  words  us>  d  by  .itir  Lord  at  the  iiistitu- 
tion  of  the  supper,  should  have  been  rendered.  "  This 

cup  is  the  new   covenant   in   my  1>1 1,"  as  this  would 

far  more  readily,  and  without  any  danger  of  confusing 
the  idea  in  people's  minds,  have  made  manifest  the 
reference  intended  to  the  better  covenant,  founded  on 
better  promises,  which  was  to  lie  confirmed  by  the 
blood  of  C'hrist.  The  employment  of  this  term  would 
also  serve  to  keep  in  view  what,  doubtlt  ss  is  designed 
not  to  lie  forgotten  the  mutual  engagement  which 
still  subsists,  even  in  this  higher  covenant,  between  the 
Lord  and  his  people.  Comparatively  .-peaking  the 
contracting  element  may  be  said  to  have  fallen  int<- 
abeyance,  but  not  absolutely:  it  is  still  there:  and 
while  the  Lord  engages  to  sustain  a  certain  part  to 
ward  his  people,  they,  in  return,  stand  i  nga'_'cd  to 
sustain  a  corresponding  part  toward  him.  This  d..,  s 
not  warrant  us  to  say  that  the  fulfilling  of  llnii-  part  in 
the  covenant  forms  the  condition  on  which  they  arc  to 
expect  the  fulfilment  of  his.  The  proper  representation 
rather  is,  that  the  performance  of  Cod's  part  in  lie- 
stowing  the  benefits  of  the  covenant  mi  those  who 
reallv  enter  into  it.  carries  ahmg  with  it,  as  a  neces 
sary  consequence,  their  reception  of  the  gifts  conferred, 
and  their  use  of  them  unto  all  righteous  and  beneficent 
ends.  Where  this  latter  is  not  done,  it  is  a  clear  .-ign 
that  the  ftthcr  has  never  actually  been  experienced  :  so 
that  for  any  to  imagine  they  are  partakers  of  the  cove 
nant,  while  they  are  still  leaving  unfulfilled  the  holy  ends 
at  which  it  aims,  is  but  to  deceive  themselves  with  a 
notion  of  blessing,  without  the  corresponding  reality. 

COVKNANT  OK  SALT  is  a    proverbial    expression  oc 
casionally    used    in   Scripture    for  a  fixed  and   settled 
arrangement.      Salt    being    the    great    preservative  in  j 
natural  things,  the  antidote  to   corruption  and  decay, 
it  is  coupled  witli  covenant  to  denote  the  perpetuity  of 
what  is  promised.     Thus  the  heave- offerings  were  said  , 
to  be  uiven   to  the    family  of   Aaron  by  a  covenant  of 
salt,  Xu.  xviii.  lit;  and  the  kingdom  over  Israel  is,  in  like 
manner,  said  by  Abijah  to  have  been  given  to   David  ( 
and  his  sons  for  ever,  by  a  covenant  of  salt.   •_'  cu.  xiii.  .".  ( 
— in  other  words,  by  a  perpetual  destination. 


CRACKNELS,  a  kind  of  cakes,  baked  hard,  and 
somewhat  resembling  the  harder  sorts  of  biscuit  among 
us,  i  Ki.  xiv.  3. 

CRANE    (c>r.,    aoof,    I?.,  xxxviii.  1  I ;  r.D,  .-,•/.<,  Je.  viii.  l'\. 

A  migratory  bird  with  a  sibilant  voice,  is  indicated  by 
these  words :  our  crane  answers  well  enough  to  the 
former  requisite,  but  not  to  the  latter,  for  its  voice  is  a 
Lnul  sonorous  clangour.  The  LXX.,  however,  ren 
der  the  word  ill  each  case  by  xcXiSuw,  swallow,  which 
is  more  obviously  migratory  than  the  former,  because 
much  more  familiarly  known,  and  because  its  migra 
tions  are  performed  in  large  hosts,  which  assemble  in 
the  siyiit  of  man  before  they  take  their  departure.  J  ts 
voice,  too,  is  a  soft  sibilant  chattering,  well  expressed 

by   the  sound  of  the  Word  Ktii. 

All  the  species  of  swallow  and  swift,  live  in  number, 
that  are  known  in  Ki  inland,  are  common  in  Kgypt  and 
Palestine.  As  another  word  seems  to  designate  the 
s\\ift  (ni-t  Sw.vi.i.'iwi,  we  may  probably  understand 
either  the  chimney-swallow  (llirando  i-tixtiai),  or  the 
house-martin  (//.  urltien);  or  possibly  both  may  he  in 
cluded  in  an  indiscriminate  appellation. 

The  former  is  probably  partially  migratory  and  par 
tial!  v  permanent  in  Palestine.  It  is  wholly  migratory 
in  Asia  Minor,  being  seen  only  from  April  to  October. 
In  Abyssinia  Bruce  found  it  in  winter.  In  Kgypt  it 
has  bet  n  seen  tr "ini:  south  in  autumn:  while  Napier,  in 
his  Ri  niini.-ii-i  in'<  *  "/  ^i/ri<(,  records  finding  it  near  Ks- 
draelon  in  December  and  January. 

Jehovah  contrasts  the  instinctive  knowledge  and 
punctualitv  of  these  and  other  nii^ratin^  birds  with 
the  stupidity  and  carelessness  of  his  covenant- people. 

[P.H.I:.] 

CREATION.  A  profound  interest  has  ever  attached 
to  the  subject  expressed  by  this  term,  the  human  mind 
wherever  raised  to  a  true  consciousness  of  itself  being- 
led  by  a  kind  of  necessity  to  inquire  into  the  nature 
and  origin  of  the  things  around  it.  Xo  ancient  reli 
gion  \\as  complete  without,  its  cosmogony— a  strong 
attestation  to  the  fundamental  character  of  the  prin 
ciple,  however  perverted  in  heathenism,  which  refers 
ail  things  to  Cod;  and  no  philosophy  could  avoid  spe 
culating  on  the  same  great  and  mysterious  theme, 
rarely  leading  however  to  satisfactory  conclusions.  The 
sacred  books  of  the  Hebrews,  the  mo-t  ancient  literature 
extant,  have  also  their  cosmogony:  but  while  all  the 
otlu  i1  speculations  of  antiquity  on  this  subject  are  now 
unheeded  or  forgotten,  except  as  matters  of  curiosity, 
this  possesses  a  vitality  \\hich  has  survived  the  greatest 
revolutions  in  human  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  a 
powi  r  which  no  amount  of  resistance  has  succeeded  in 
overcoming.  In  former  times  it  was  attempted,  but 
unsuccessfully,  to  reduce  this  cosmogony  to  the  level  of 
those  of  heathenism,  with  which  it  has  little  in  common  ; 
but  more  recently  it  has  been  subjected  to  another  and 
severer  ordeal  by  being  confronted  with  the  accumu 
lated  facts  of  modern  science,  busied  with  investigating 
the  origin  and  history  of  the  earth.  The  result  to  the 
Bible  is,  as  mi.uht  have  been  expected,  variously  viewed, 
according  to  the  qualifications  and  opportunities  for 
judging,  and  even  the  prejudices  of  individuals.  Some 
without  much  scruple  abandon  the  Hebrew  narrative 
as  an  obsolete  relic  of  the  past,  bearing,  as  they  allege, 
the  marks  of  immature  knowledge  or  limited  research, 
a  product  of  the  Egyptian  learning  of  Moses  or  some 
equally  questionable  source.  Others  on  the  contrary 


CRKATiON 


have  their  faith  in  it  as  a  divine  testimony  greatly 
confirmed  ;  while  ;i  third  and  perhaps  larger  party  have, 
from  a  supposed  conflict  of  statements,  various  doulits 
awakened  within  tin  in,  and  they  are  beset  with  diffi 
culties  which  they  are  unable  to  solve.  Thev  cannot 
close  their  eyes  t>  the  irresistilile  evidence  of  science, 
which  seem-;  to  conflict  with  some  of  the  commonly  un 
derstood  statements  of  Scripture  as  t<>  the  age  of  the 
earth  and  its  primeval  condition  ;  nor  stop  their  ears  to 
the  testimony  of  credible  witnesses,  who  inav  be  more* 
conversant  with  scientific  matters  than  themselves;  and 
yet  they  an;  unwilling  to  discredit  that  time-honoured 
record  on  which,  as  regards  all  other  and  for  higher 
interests,  they  can  implicitly  ivlv. 

It  is  this  aspect  of  matters  which  has  at  present  <_nveii 
an  unprecedented  interest  to  all  that  bears  on  th-'  rela 
tion  of  reason  and  revelation  in  those  points  in  parti 
cular  where  they  come  more  immediately  into  contact, 
and  renders  more;  than  ever  necessary  a  calm  review  of 
the  chief  questions  in  dispute.  l!ut  as  it  is  to  the 
doubting  and  perplexed,  who  still,  however,  retain  a  firm 
belief  in  the  authority  and  inspiration  of  (u-nesis.  that 
the  following  remarks  are  principally  submitted,  all 
questions  as  to  the  source  whence  Moses  derived  his 
cosmogony,  or  the  mode  in  which  it  was  communicated 
to  him,  may  he  dismissed  as  irrelevant;  and  so  also 
the  attempts,  either  prompted  by  hostility  to  the  Bible 
or  proceeding  from  ignorance  of  its  character,  to  resolve 
its  opening  statements  into  myths  or  poetry,  as  incom 
patible  with  what  they  profess  to  be,  and  as  they  are 
understood,  in  the  subsequent  inspired  writings — a  his 
torical  narration  of  the  acts  of  the  Almighty  Creator 
when  he  called  the  universe  and  the  earth  into  beiiiu'. 

Having  thus  greatly  narrowed  the  very  extended 
field  of  inquiry,  we  proceed  to  examine  some  of  the 
more  important  particulars  in  which  the  narrative  of 
the  creation  in  Genesis  comes  into  contact,  or  as  manv 
allege  into  collision,  with  the  authenticated  facts  of  geo 
logy,  physiology,  and  the  kindred  sciences.  For  greater 
distinctness  an  arrangement  is  adopted,  which  if  not 
the  most  logical,  yet  admits  of  the  greatest  compre 
hension,  beginning  with  some  preliminary  observations 
serviceable  to  the  main  discussion. 

I.  Sources  of  Information — R«i*un  and  Revolution. 
Any  knowledge  man  may  possess  of  the  nature  of  crea 
tion,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  universe  or  the  earth 
was  brought  into  its  present  condition  and  made  the 
abode  of  life,  must  be  derived  solely  from  the  commu 
nications  of  the  Creator  himself ;  for  no  human  eye 
witnessed  the  operations,  and  no  mere  theory  or  specu 
lation  could  ever  attain  to  any  certainty  on  the  subject. 
The  Creator  has  been  pleased  to  make  such  communi 
cations  :  He  has  written  the  earth's  history  in  inde 
structible  character  <  >n  its  own  re  >ckv  1 » >s< >m ;  and  although 
the  writing  had  been  long  unheeded,  it  has  at  length 
attracted  the  notice  of  learned  and  inquiring  minds. 
But  this  is  not  the  only  record  of  creation:  there  is 
another  book  in  which  it  has  also  a  place  assigned  to  it 
by  God.  Xo  inquirer  after  truth  will  do  riu'ht  if  he 
neglect  either  the  testimony  of  Scripture  or  the  teaching 
of  science;  but  it  is  of  no  less  importance  that  he  bear 
in  mind  the  diversity  of  their  ends,  if  he  would  arrive 
at  the  whole  truth  and  avoid  what  must  otherwise  ap 
pear  contradictions.  The  object  of  the  Bible  is  not  to 
teach  science  :  its  aim  is  moral  and  religious  ;  but  while 
it  must  of  necessity  impart  such  information  as  fully 
apprises  man  of  the  character  of  the  Creator,  and  his 


own  relation  to  him  and  to  the  creatures,  it  is  obvious 
that  it  will  bo  conveyed  in  a  language  immediately 
intelligible,  and  not  in  a  form  fitted  only  to  bewilder 
minds  untutored  in  the  language  of  science.  But  though 
different  in  their  ends,  science  and  revelation  cannot 
be  hostile  in  their  relation,  seeing  that  if  the  one  is  a 
discovery  of  God  through  his  works,  the  other  is  the 
discovery  of  God  in  his  \\ord.  There  may  be,  and  no 
doubt  are,  misinterpretations  of  the  language  of  the 
one  record  as  well  as  of  the  other,  giving  rise  to  apparent 
contradictions,  not  chargeable  entirely,  however,  to  the 
side  of  the  biblical  expositor;  for  there  have  been  as 
many  false  theories  in  science  as  there  have  been  faulty 
expositions  of  Scripture.  But  even  as  it  is,  the  har 
mony  is  greater  than  the  discord;  and  scripture  expo 
sition  lias  certainly  been  benefited  by  the  Bible  being 
brought  for  a  time  into  a  supposed  antagonism  with 
science.  A  reference  need  only  be  made  to  the  great 
< 'opernican  controversy  which  agitated  men's  minds  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  which  though  now  only  pro 
voking  a  smile  at  the  obtuseness  and  obstinacy  of 
theologians,  was  at  the  time  no  special  indication  of 
mental  weakness  or  bigotry,  but  only  afforded  a  proof 
that  an  adjustment  cannot  be  immediately  effected 
between  a  newly-discovered  truth  and  all  previous  con 
ceptions,  yet  in  time  such  an  adjustment  was  effected 
without  any  violence  to  the  language  of  Scripture,  nay. 
rather  with  some  advantage,  inasmuch  as  part  of  its 
language  was  henceforth  better  understood. 

It  is  also  to  be  noted,  that  it  is  as  little  prejudicial 
•  to  the  character  of  Scripture  as  an  inspired  production, 
that  its  interpretation  varies  or  advances  with  the 
amount  of  knowledge  which,  no  doubt  with  other  and 
higher  requisites,  the  expositor  at  any  time  brings  to 
bear  upon  it.  as  it  is  to  the  great  phenomena  of  nature 
that  they  were  long  the  subject  of  wild  hypothes*  s.  and 
are  now  only  coming  to  be  better  understood -tin;  only 
legitimate  conclusion  being  that  in  neither  case  do  there 
exist  infallible  interpreters.  In  these  circumstances 
there  need  be  no  hesitation  in  admitting  that  there  an.' 
contradictions  on  the  subject  of  creation,  not  between 
the  two  records  themselves,  which  cannot  be.  as  having 
God  for  their  common  author,  but  between  man's  inter 
pretations  of  them ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  a  most 
emphatic  protest  ought  to  be  raised  against  the  appli 
cation  of  the  epithet  "irreconcilable"  to  such  contra 
dictions,  as  being  a  term  unwarranted  by  experience, 
and  but  little  consonant  with  the  modesty  of  true 
philosophy.  .V  man  must  have  fully  mastered  all 
sciences,  and  be  at  the  same  time  an  infallible  inter 
preter  of  God's  Word,  before  lie  can  venture  on  the  use 
of  such  terms — qualifications  somewhat  surpassing  even 
the  attainments  of  those  "competent!)/  informal  /n-i-xmix 
of  the  present  day."  in  whose  minds,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Baden  Powell,  ''the  literal  interpretation 
of  the  judaical  cosmogony  has  died  a  natural  death" 
(Unity  of  Worlds,  p.  4.». 

II.  T!K  Mature,  of  Creittioii  UK  deducible  from  Revela 
tion  and  Xcu'iii'f. — Taking  "creation"  in  its  highest 
sense  of  the  origination  of  the  material  universe,  it  is 
admitted  by  the  highest  authorities  (see  Ilerscliel,  Prelim. 
Disc,  on  Nat.  Phil.  j>.  :>).  to  be  a  subject  beyond  the  range 
of  science ;  and  even  in  its  secondary  meaning  of  the 
orderly  arrangement  of  matter  into  the  forms  which  it 
now  presents,  it  comes  only  partially  within  its  range. 
Geology  can  trace  back  the  earth's  history  to  a  certain 
point,  but  beyond  that  it  cannot  penetrate  :  the  first 


CREATION 


307 


CUE  AT!  OX 


pages  if  ever  written  have  been  obliterated ;  and  so  the  all,  but  rests  entirely  on  metaphysical  grounds.  But 
stony  record  maintains  a  complete  silence  as  to  the  that  the  creation  ot  Gene-sis  goes  beyond  the  mere 
world's  birth.  Nor  is  the  evidence  afforded  by  astro-  arrangement  of  matter  and  fashioning  it  into  worlds  or 
nomy  in  any  degree  more  explicit.  No  doubt  there  systems,  and  includes  the  origination  of  matter  by  a 
are  not  wanting  theories,  which  as  matters  of  probabi-  primordial  act,  appears  from  the  following  eonsidera- 
lity  may  be  entitled  to  more  or  less  consideration;  but  tions:— - 

it  ought  to  be  distinctly  remembered  that  they  are  1.  By  such  as  maintain  the  opposite  view,  it  is  argued 
simply  theories,  and  not  authenticated  facts. 

Creation  in  the  strictest  sense  can  be  known  only 
from  revelation.  It  is  the  Bible  alone  that  can  tell 
of  the  origin  of  the  universe  and  of  its  great  efficient 
Cause.  '•  Through  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds 
were  framed  by  the  word  of  God,"  lie.  xi.  :; ;  and  the 
testimony  whereon  faith  relies  is  the  declaration — "  In 
the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth," 
c;e.  i.  i.  But  although  science  can  furnish  no  reliable 
information  regarding  that  beginning,  there  are  other 
beginnings  of  which  it  clearly  testifies.  It  does  teach 
that  all  the  orders  of  life  now  in  existence,  and  many 
older  but  now  extinct,  had  a  beginninu':  and  the  same 
also  as  regards  the  still  more  ancient  sidereal  motions 
which  have  gone  on  so  lom_;'  and  so  regularly.  That 
the  universe  is  not  eternal,  is  a  truth  fully  established. 
So  numerous  and  indubitable  are  the  indication-  of  be 
ginnings  of  order  and  life,  that  this  is  now  a  demon 
strated  fact,  no  longer  dependent  on  the  subtilties  of 
metaphysics,  but  on  evidence  patent  to  common  sense 
and  understanding.  "The  •infinite  series'  of  the 
atheists  of  former  times  can  have  no  place  in  modern 
science:  all  organic  existences,  recent  or  extinct,  vege 
table  or  animal,  have  had  their  beginning;  tin-re  was 
a  time  when  they  were  not.  The  geologist  can  indicate 
that  time,  if  not  by  years,  at  least  by  periods,  and  show 
what  its  relations  were  to  the  periods  that  went  before 
and  that  came  after:  and  as  it  is  equally  a  n-co-ni/.ed 
truth  on  both  sides  of  tin-  controversy,  that  as  .Mime- 
thing  now  exists,  something  must  have  existed  forever, 
and  as  it  must  now  lie.  not  less  surely  recognized  that 
that  something  was  not  the  race  of  man,  m>r  vet  any 
other  of  tin- many  races  of  man's  predecessors  or  con 
temporaries,  tin-  question.  What  then  was  that  some 
thing?  conies  with  a  point  and  directness  which  it  did 
not  ] losses.-;  at  any  former  time"  (Milkr,  Testimony  of  the 
Rocks,  ji.  1:17,  in-). 

Mut  while  revelation  must  thus  be  tin-  primar\  and 
in  part  the  only  source  of  information  as  to  creation 
and  the  origin  of  things,  it  is  important  to  keep  in  view 
what  Scripture  really  does  say  upon  the  subject,  and 
what  it  passes  over  in  silence.  Its  several  statements 
on  the  first  of  these  points  will  come  under  considora-  pure,  absolute  monotheism  of  the  lit  brews,  inculcated 
tion  in  a  subsequent  section  ;  but  in  the  meantime  it  in  m>  passage  of  Scripture  more  plainly  than  in  the  first 
will  be  necessary  to  determine  how  the  act  ascribed  to  sentence  of  Genesis.  This  is  tin-  distinguishing  char- 
the  divine  Being  in  tile  opening  sentence  of  the  Mible,  acteristie  of  the  biblical  creation,  as  opposed  to  all 
"  fn  the  beginning  God  crttitul,"  &<-.,  is  to  be  under-  heathen  cosmogonies  and  philosophical  speculations, 
stood,  whether  it  is  to  be  taken  as  intimating  the  ori-  that  it  represents  the  pure  and  simple  idea  of  a  creation 
gination  of  matter,  or  merely  the  arrangement  of  matter  from  nothing,  without  eternal  matter  and  without  demi- 
previously  existing.  [  urgie  co-operation. 

The  latter  is  the  view  more  generally  adopted,  and  ,  Mut  with  the  exception  of  ascribing  creation  from 
by  parties  who  in  the  motives  by  which  they  are  innu-  '  the  first  act  to  the  closing  operation  absolutely  to  God, 
enced  are  directly  opposed  to  one  another;  one  class  and  giving  intimation  of  the  order  of  the  divine  opera- 
being  actuated  by  the  desire  to  reduce  the  biblical  crea-  tions,  particularly  as  regards  the  creation  of  man,  Scrip- 
tion  to  the  level  of  heathen  cosmogonies  ;  and  the  other,  ture  maintains  a  remarkable  reserve,  not  anticipating 
to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  scientific  discoveries.  Of  science  or  cramping  human  inquiry.  As  to  the  mode 
the  latter  class  again,  some  admit  that  absolute  crea-  of  the  Creator's  working  in  particular,  there  is  an  abso- 
tion  is  a  biblical  doctrine,  though  not  taught  in  Genesis,  :  lute  silence,  the  record  showing  only  that  the  several 
or  deducible  from  the  Hebrew  term  rendered  tn  create ;  '  productions  were  pure  efforts  of  the  divine  will,  to  which 
while  others  deny  that  it  is  taught  in  the  Scriptures  at  no  resistance  was  offered.  With  this  we  must  be  satis- 


that  no  importance  can   be   attached  to  the  term  N-\£ 

(A«ra),  to  create,  inasmuch  as  it  is  synonymous,  and  as 
such  frequently  interchanged,  with  other  two  terms 
r.'Zy  («-••<(')  and  -iv%  (:/<-(/:«'/•),  respectively  rendered  tn 

IT  -T 

hi'ili  and  f<>  fiith  imi,  but  neither  of  which  is  ever  taken 
to  indicate  absolute  creation.  Mut  while  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  terms  are  sometimes  interchanged, 
yet  there  is  such  a  marked  limitation  in  their  use  as 
shows  that  the  terms  are  not  synonymous,  but  that  the 
first  is  separate  and  distinct  from  the  others.  It  would 
be  out  of  place  here  to  enter  upon  critical  disquisition 
of  Hebrew  roots  and  etymologies  in  support  of  this  pro 
position,  and  for  which  tin-  reader  may  consult  .Mae 

donald's  L'nafl mil  tin    Fall,  Kdin.  1S56,  ]>.  Gl-O'-J; 

suffice  it  to  remark,  that  so  determinate  is  the  idea  ex- 
pr<  ssed  by  the  term  N-^,  that  this  particular  verb  is 

exclusively  confined  to  di\  ine  acts,  unlike  the  others, 
which  are  used  of  human  as  well  as  divine  operations. 
No  doulit  its  usage  is  not  limited  to  tin-  primordial 
creation,  but  extends  to  other  acts  of  Cod  as  well,  yet 
only  in  a  secondary  acceptation,  and  in  no  case  is  there 
any  refer,  nee  to  pi-,--,  xisting  materials,  though  of  course 
except  in  the  lir.-t  creating  act  such  is  not  absolutely 
excluded. 

•J.    Mut  another  consideration  is,  that  whatever  may 
lie  the  gem  ral  usage  of  tin-  t>  rm  s—;.  the  question  turns 

not  so  much  on  the  si  use  of  the  verb  taken  alone  ami 
apart  from  the  context,  as  on  the  way  in  which  it  is  to 
lie  viewed  in  such  a  peculiar  collocation  as  "  In  lln 
ln'jiiiniii'i  God  i-i'iiitiil  the  heavens  ami  the  earth." 
(Iran led  that  in  it-ilf  the  term  does  not  absolutely 
deny  or  affirm  the  presence  of  piv-existin--;  matter,  ami 
that  this  can  le  inferred  onl\  from  tin-  context  or  the 
subject  treated  of,  the  question  comes  to  be,  What  can 
be  the  meaning  of  the  term  here  ;  The  expression, 
"  in  the  beginning,''  evidently  refers  to  the  //<<//'//;<///// 
of  created  existence,  in  contradistinction  to  the  eternal 
beiim'  of  tin-  ( 'reator,  and  is  thus  an  <(V-'./////i  be</inning. 
This  then  is  a  passage  by  its'-lf  and  distinct  from  all 
others,  and  must  be  interpreted  in  accordance  with  the 


UKEATION 


CUKATIUX 


ficd ;  for  as  to  anything  further,  true  science  confesses 
itself  ignorant.  And.  indeed,  it  \vould  be  well,  no  less 
for  the.  reputation  of  science  than  for  the  interests  of 
revelation,  that  such  consideration  wore  always  mani 
fested  as  to  the  limits  between  the  known  and  the  in 
scrutable  ;  and  that  men  of  learning  did  not  impose 
upon  themselves  and  others  by  the  use  of  such  terms 
as  " natural  development,"  or  "creation  by  law,"  which, 
if  not  used  in  an  atheistic  sense,  and  if  they  have  any 
meaning  at  all,  are  merely  a  confession  of,  or  a  pitiable 
attempt  to  conceal,  ignorance  on  a,  subject  with  regard 
to  which  such  an  admission  would  be  no  reproach,  as  it 
concerns  matters  which  must  ever  remain  inscrutable 
to  man.  But  with  these  speculations  we  have  at  pre-  i 
sent  nothing  to  do,  for  they  concern  more  immediately 
the  apologist  of  natural  religion,  than  the  expositor  of 
the  biblical  creation. 

III.    Tin  Place  of  Creation  in  tin  I'.lhk. — Those  who 
would   resolve  the   ^Mosaic  narrative   of   creation    into 
poetry  and  fables,  or  would  otherwise  set  aside  its  state 
ments,  because  a  part  merely  of  "a  record  of  older  and 
imperfect  dispensations  adapted  to  the  ideas  and  capa 
cities  of  a  peculiar  people  and  a  grossly  ignorant  age'' 
U!adfii  Powell,  Tuiry  of  Worlds,  p.  :i"M,  cannot  have  deeply, 
if  at  all,  reflected  on  the  fundamental  place  which  the  ! 
doctrines  here  taught  hold  in  the  Bible,  or  on  the  char-  ! 
acter  for  truth  and  consistency  which  must  belong  to 
the  imperfect  equally  with  the  perfect  dispensation,  if  ! 
the  God  of  truth  be  the  author  of  both.     This  narra-  ; 
live,   however,   occupies   no   such   isolated   and   unim 
portant  place  as  many  would  assign  to  it ;  and  its  very 
position  in  the  front  of  the  Uible  precisely  indicates  the  ! 
relation  of  the   doctrine  therein  taught  to  all  revealed 
truth;   for  in  every  sense  of  the  term,  creation  is  the 
first  revelation  of  God. 

Here,  however,  it  is  of  more  importance  to  notice 
the  relation  of  the  first  two  chapters  of  Genesis  to  one 
another,  because  they  are  not  unfrequently  represented 
as  containing  two  distinct  and  partly  contradictory 
narratives  of  creation. 

The  first  chapter,  with  the  first  three  verses  of  the 
second,  forms  the  narrative  of  creation  properly  so 
called  a  continuous  and  entire  epitome  of  creation  in 
all  its  extent,  and  from  the  period  when  God  summoned 
the  universe  into  being  down  to  the  time  when,  having 
introduced  man  upon  the  earth,  he  ceased  from  the 
work  of  creation,  pronouncing  it  to  be  all  very  good, 
and  solemnized  and  sanctified  the  sabbath-day,  the  rest 
of  the  Creator  when  his  great  work  was  done.  The 
first  narrative  of  the  creation  which  has  ever  been  ad 
mired  for  the  sublimity  of  its  style,  and  the  felicity  of  its 
arrangement,  is  in  one  point  of  view  complete  in  itself; 
but  in  respect  to  the  purpose  which  secured  it  a  place 
in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  it  is  defective.  It,  indeed,  inti 
mates  distinctly  the  high  place  occupied  by  man  in  the 
creation,  but  more  copious  information  was  needed  in 
order  fully  to  explain  his  character  and  condition,  and 
the  particular  constitution  under  which  it  pleased  the 
Author  of  his  being  to  place  him  ;  and  hence  the  sup 
plementary  narrative  which  follows.  The  first  then  is 
a  narrative  of  creation  in  all  its  parts  ;  the  second  is  a 
filling  up  or  expansion  of  one  of  those  parts,  but  so 
closely  related  to  the  first,  that  the  reader,  from  the 
intimations  therein  contained,  is  led  to  anticipate  such 
particulars,  while  on  the  other  hand  they  are  obviously 
required  by  the  history  which  follows. 

Any  apparent  contradictions  between  the  first  and  the 


supplementary  narrative  are  due  entirely  to  the  diver 
sity  of  their  aims,  and  consequently  of  their  arrange 
ment.  In  the  first  the  order  of  time  is  strictly  adhered 
to;  but  in  the  second  this  is  subordinated  to  a  group 
ing  together  of  facts  and  .statements,  all  of  which  are 
more  or  less  related  to  man's  creation  and  the  provision, 
physical,  moral,  and  social,  made  in  his  behalf. 

It  is  necessary  then  to  advert  to  the  relation  of  the 
first  two  chapters  of  Genesis,  inasmuch  as  the  supple 
mentary  statements  of  the  second  are  frequently  too 
much  overlooked  in  discussions  of  this  kind,  a  circum 
stance  which  operates  unfavourably  on  any  judgment 
that  may  be  formed  of  the  character  of  the  biblical 
creation,  because'  it  is  thereby  presented  more  in  a  phy 
sical  or  scientific  relation,  giving  rise  perhaps  to  the 
assumption  that  such  information  was  nnneeded,  than 
in  the  dee])  moral  and  religious  aspect  which  the  special 
account  of  man's  location  on  the  earth  confers  upon.  it. 
The  second  narrative  will  also  be  found  serviceable  in 
the  exposition  of  various  terms  and  statements  of  the 
first,  particularly  in  showing  that  Scripture  itself  re 
quires  that  the  days  of  creation  be  taken  in  a  wider 
sense  than  that  usually  assumed. 

IV.  Thf  Tinir  »f  Ci'Kiii'iii. — Not  more  clearly  are 
the  summers  and  winters  which  have  passed  over  the 
head  of  man  indicated  by  the  altered  features  and 
the  furrowed  countenance,  than  is  the  hoar  antiquity 
of  the  earth  by  the  traces  which  time  has  imprinted 
upon  it,  but  here  the  measure  is  not  by  seasons  or  even 
centuries,  but  by  unknown  and  incalculable  periods. 
Little  more  is  needed  in  this  place  than  simply  to  state 
the  proposition — its  evidences  are  so  numerous,  as  \\ell 
in  the  department  of  astronomy  as  of  geology,  and  so 
familiar  to  all  who  have  given  any  attention  to  the 
subject,  and  at  the  same  time  so  irresistible,  that  it 
may  be  regarded  as  a  first  principle  of  science.  The 
astronomer  calculates  from  the  known  velocity  of  light 
that  some  of  the  stars  reflected  in  his  space-piercing 
speculum,  must  have  occupied  their  places  in  the 
heav«  us  untold  ago.;  ere  the  light  by  which  they  are 
now  revealed  could  have  reached  the  earth.  The  geo 
logist  again,  carrying  his  researches  downward  into  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  sees  creations  superimposed  upon 
creations  in  their  now  rocky  sepulchres  in  a  slow  ascend 
ing  series;  and  each  of  which  must,  in  their  origin,  pro 
gress,  and  decay,  have  occupied  periods  of  which  he  \\  ill 
not  attempt  the  calculation,  but  which  nevertheless  he 
does  not  hesitate  to  denote  by  myriaax  and  similar  ex 
pressions  indicative  of  a  duration  well  fitted  to  over 
whelm  the  mind,  hut  for  the  refuge  afforded  by  the 
consideration  that  there  was  still  an  eternity  beyond 
the  first  creating  act  of  the  everlasting  God. 

The  time  when  creation  began  and  during  which  it 
continued  being  thus  seen  on  indisputable  evidence  to 
be  so  inconceivably  remote  and  immense,  the  conclu 
sion  is  immediately  felt  to  clash  rudely  with  what  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  the  teaching  of  Scrip 
ture  on  the  subject  of  creation,  when  the  earth  was 
conceived  of  as  not  six  days  older  than  its  first  human 
inhabitant.  No  wonder  then  that  men's  minds  were 
agitated  on  this  subject,  and  that  they  hesitated  to  listen 
to  the  claims  of  a  new  philosophy  which  called  upon 
them  summarily  to  abandon  their  cherished  traditional 
belief.  Happily  a  better  understanding  at  length  pre 
vails,  and  even  this  question  of  time  has  not  the  for- 
j  midable  aspect  it  once  possessed.  With  regard  indeed 
I  to  the  date  of  creation,  the  controversy  may  be  said  to 


CREATION 


309 


CREATION 


be  almost  settled  by  the  admission  that  Scripture  gives 
no  intimation  whatever  upon  the  subject.  Neither  in 
Genesis  nor  in  any  other  passage  is  any  determined 
period  specified  as  that  of  the  first  creating  act ;  the 
expression,  "in  the  beginning,"  with  which  the  volume 
<if  inspiration  opens,  leaving  it  altogether  undefined. 
It  intimates  only  that  the  Creator,  at  some  point  in  the 
flow  of  past  duration,  called  into  being  things  which 
previously  had  no  existence.  It  expressly  teaches,  how 
ever,  that  the  world  is  not  eternal,  that  it  had  a  com 
mencement,  but  fixes  no  limit  to  its  au'e.  So  far  is 
Scripture  from  limiting  the  past  duration  of  the  earth, 
that  on  the  contrary  there  are  many  intimations  of  its 
high  antiquity.  "  Of  old  hast  tliou  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  earth/'  IN.  di.  I'.'..  ''The  Ftord  possessed  me  in 
the  beginning  of  his  way,  before  his  works  of  old," 
Pr.viii.ii'.  And  ill  particular  1's.  xr.,  entitled  "A  praver 
of  Moses  the  man  of  ( !od,"  seems  to  assign  an  antii|iiitv 
to  creation  exceeded  only  by  tin  .-tcrnity  of  the  Crea 
tor.  " Before  the  mountains  were  brought  forth,  or  ever 
thou  hadst  formed  the  earth  and  the  world,  even  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting;  thoii  art  Cod,"  vur.  i,  where 
there  seen  is  also  a  distinction  between  the  a-e  of  the 
mountains,  or  of  the  earth  generally,  and  that  of  ^-^ 
\t<l«h  the  lal'ltnl,!,  world. 

It     is    the    time    occupied,    however,   in    the  proi.  e-s  of 

creation.  as  indicated  by  science,  that  presents  the 
greatest  apparent  contradiction  to  the  biblical  testi 
moiiy.  Hut  it  is  of  importance  to  premise  the  fact 
to  lie  afterwards  more  fully  considered  that  while 
geology  demonstrate-  that  creation  mu-t  have  lieell 
protracted  through  immense  and  immeasurable  eras,  it 
yet  as  unccjuivocally  shows  that  it-  elo-in^  act.  the 
introduction  of  man  upon  the  earth,  was  at  a  com 
paratively  recent  period.  This  ,,f  itself  goes  far  to 
liarmoni/e  the  two  testimonies.  There  are  other  points 
of  accordance  to  be  afterwards  stated,  but  this  is  per 
haps  the  most  valuable.  The  ditliculty  nevertheless 
remains,  that  the  narrative  of  (Genesis  assign-  six  davs 
to  the  work,  while  a  passage  in  the  decalogue  is  even 
more  express  -''In  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and 
earth,  the  sea.  and  all  that  in  them  is,"  Kx  \\  11 

To  obviate  this  difficulty,  various  schemes  of  recon 
ciliation  have  been  proposed.  The  theory  which  fora 
time  obtained  most,  currency  was  that  which  limited 
tlie  Mosaic  narrative  to  the  existing  creation,  the  intro 
duction  of  the  present  orders  of  plants  and  animals, 
with  man  at  their  head,  a  process  which  occupied  -ix 
natural  days;  thus  taking  no  account  of  the  extinct 
creations  or  the  vast  periods  which  the\'  disclose,  and 
for  which  room  was  found  prior  to  that  chaotic  state 
described  in  ver.  ~2,  and  after  the  period  marked  as  the 
/III/I'HIII'HI/.  The  chaos  was  thus  the  total,  or  according 
to  smother  modification  of  the  theory,  the  partial  wreck 
of  the  previous  creation  disclosed  by  geology,  but  of 
which  Scripture  takes  no  cognizance. 

I'ut  of  this  scheme  of  reconciliation  it  is  enough  to 
remark  that  while  in  all  its  modifications,  more  parti 
cularly  the  latest,  it  offers  considerable  violence  to  the 
tenor  of  the  original  narrative,  breaking  up  its  con 
tinuity,  and  in  various  other  respects  putting  a  forced 
construction  on  some  of  its  expressions,  and  still  more 
to  the  language  of  the  decalogue:  it  is  also  openly  at 
variance  with  the  testimony  of  the  rocks.  Oeology 
shows  unequivocally  that  between  the  system  of  orga 
nized  beings  to  which  man  belongs,  and  the  ages  im 
mediately  preceding,  there  is  no  such  break  as  that 
VOL.  l'. 


supposed.  "  It  is  a  great  fact,  now  fully  established 
in  the  course  of  geological  discovery,  that  between  the 
plants  which  in  the  present  time  cover  the  earth,  and 
the  animals  which  inhabit  it.  and  the  animals  and 
plants  of  the  later  extinct  creations,  there  occurred  no 
break  or  blank,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  many  of  the 
existing  organisms  were  contemporary  during  the  morn 
ing  of  their  being  with  many  of  the  extinct  ones  during 
the  evening  of  theirs.  We  know  further  that  not  a 
few  of  the  shells  which  now  live  on  our  coast,  sind 
several  of  even  the  wild  animals  which  continue  to 
survive  amid  our  tracts  of  hill  and  forest,  were  in  ex 
istence  many  ages  ere  the  human  age  began"  (Millar, 
Testimony  of  the  Rocks,  i>.  lilt.  Indeed,  the  whole  evi 
dence  of  geology  is  against  this  scheme  (see  the  ar 
ticle  CilAosi.  In  these  circumstances  it  is  unhesi 
tatingly  abandoned  by  all  who  have  given  careful 
attention  to  the  subjt  et.  for  some  other  more  adequate 
to  the  necessities  of  the  case;  and  that  we  take  to 
lie  the  assumption  that  the  days  of  creation  are  not 
simple,  natural  days,  but  that  they  symbolical! v  repre 
sent  undetermined  periods. 

It  is  not  a  little  favourable  to  this  view  to  find  that 
i!  was  in  some  decree  entertained  long  In 'fore  the  diffi 
culties  of  geology  were  felt,  and  its  exigencies  and  de 
mands  on  time  could  possibly  bias  the  judgment  of 
the  biblical  expositor.  As  early  as  the  time  of  the 
fathers  this  view  extensively  prevailed  :  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  writings  of  I'asil  the  Oivat,  Oiv^orv  of 
Nyssa,  Augustine,  Ambrose,  and  others.  Augustine's 
words  are:  "  Oui  dies  cujtismodi  sint,  suit  perdifHcile 
tiobis  ant  etiam  impossible  est  cogitare,  qiianto  ma^is 
dicere"  ii)i>civ  [!••;, xi  c.t;  while  Ambrose  considers  the 
way  in  which  the  first,  or  rather  the  am  dav.  as  ln- 
n-marks,  is  spoken  of,  as  ••  prophetic!  pnerogath  a  scr 
llloliis"  ill,  \  .i-':u-r .  in,  ii.  I,  1  \.  These  notions,  whether  well 
or  ill  founded,  mu-t  certainly  have  originated  in  con 
siderations  connected  with  the  narrative  itself:  and 
they  are  at  least  not  open  to  the  objections  which,  with 
some  sln,\v  of  reason,  may  be  brought  against  the  mo 
dern  expositor,  of  having  his  exegesis  influenced  by 
extraneous  forces  objections  however  invalid  in  them 
selves  yet  exciting  prejudice,  and  which  it  is  well  to 
have  removed  in  this  satisfactory  wav. 

The  scriptural  evidence  for  warranting  the  exten 
sion  of  the  days  of  creation  beyond  the  limit  of  ordi 
nary  ur  natural  days,  and  for  taking  them  in  a  figura 
tive  or  symbolical  sense,  may  be  stated  thus:  - 

1.  The  term  </<///  is  frequently  used  figuratively,  per 
haps  in  all  laii'_ruaues.  and  symbolically  in  the  I'.ible, 
to  denote  a  much  larger  measure  of  time.  Kxamples 
of  its  figurative  use  in  the  Mo-aic  writings  are: 
"The  Lord  shall  Cover  him  all  the  day  Ion--.  !>,•  xxiii.  li; 
and.  "As  thy  days  so  shall  thy  strength  be."  •,,.,-.  2;,. 
Other  instances  of  this  usage  are  the  expressions,  "  the 
day  of  Jehovah,"  Is.  ii.  ii.  the  appointed  time  for  the 
manifestation  of  his  power;  and.  "the  day  of  salva 
tion,"  2  Co.  vi.  2.  Of  course  the  mention  of  i i-< iiinij  and 
•Moriiiit;/  falls  in  quite  naturally  with  this  interpreta 
tion,  and  is  nowise  opposed  to  it,  as  sometimes  erro 
neously  deemed.  Kor  an  example  of  this  figurative 
application  of  the  terms  see  <  !<•.  xlix.  ^7.  Examples 
of  the  symbolical  use  of  the  word  <!"i/,  by  which  it  is 
made  the  representative  of  a  higher  period,  are  also 
frequent  in  the  prophetic  writings,  particularly  those 
of  Daniel:  on  the  principle  no  doubt  that  for  the  time 
;  being,  divine  Wisdom  saw  it,  meet  not  to  determine 

47 


CREATION 


more  definitely  the  periods  thus  indicated — a  principle 
applicable  it  might  be  shown  to  the  revelation  of  f>nat 
time  ii.«  less  than  future,  especially  in  such  a  ease  as 
the  |  present. 

But  with  >ut  determining  whether  the  days  are  to  be 
under -tood  in  a  liu'nrative  or  symliolic  sense,  for  either 
supposition  sufficiently  answers  the  requirements  of 
the  case,  it  may  be  remarked  that  in  the  narrative  of 
the  creation  itself,  and  within  the  compass  of  a  single 
verse,  the  word  </<(//  is  used  in  two  senses:  the  period 
during  which  light  prevails,  and  the  periods  of  creation, 
whatever  these  may  be:  while  it  is  further  to  be  ob 
served  that  not  until  the  adjustment  of  the  celestial 
luminaries  on  the  fourth,  did  there  exist  measurer,  ot 
time,  and  accordingly  there  was  nothing  to  indicate 
the  duration  of  the  first  three  days  in  the  ordinary 
acceptation  of  the  term.  Of  the  duration  of  these 
earlier  davs  at  least  nothing  is  or  could  be  determined: 
the  onlv  tiling  noticed  is  the  order  of  succession,  as 
each  day  followed  the  other,  but  separated  by  an  eren- 
ii/i/,  denoting  probably  an  intermission  of  creating 
energies  :  and  during  which  it  may  be  supposed  there 
occurred  the  gradual  extinctions  of  the  first  civateil 
forms.  Indeed  it  is  enough  to  remark  that  those  were 
(jod's  days,  measured  only  by  him  with  whom  ''a 
thousand  years  arc  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past, 
and  as  a  watch  in  the  night/'  l's.  xc.  I. 

•2,  But  not  only  docs  it  appear  from  the  general 
usa;.;v  of  Scripture,  and  from  considerations  connected 
with  this  narrative  itself,  that  the  days  of  creation  need 
not  necessarily  be  limited  to  days  of  twenty-four  hours, 
there  are  other  considerations  proving  that  they  must  be 
taken  in  an  extended  sense.  The  first  that  deserves 
notice  is  the  work  assigned  to  the  third  day,  consisting 
of  two  distinct  acts:  gathering  together  the  waters,  so  as 
to  lav  bare  a  portion  of  the  earth's  surface;  and  then 
clothing  this  dry  land  with  vegetation.  Excluding 
entirely  for  the  present  all  ideas  of  second  causes, 
through  which  it  may  be  conceived  were  produced  the 
inequalities  on  the  earth's  surface  to  which  the  relative 
distribution  of  land  and  water  is  due.  and  supposing  it 
the  result  altogether  of  a  miraculous  agency,  there 
must,  on  the  supposition  that  it  was  a  sudden  act,  or 
one  limited  to  twelve  or  even  many  times  twenty-four 
hours,  be  such  an  accumulation  of  miracles  involving 
such  a  suspension  of  all  the  previous  laws  of  nature  as 
is  utterly  perplexing  to  the  mind.  There  must  have 
been  the  application  of  forces  not  only  sufficient  to 
elevate  the  great  mountain  masses,  and  then  suddenly 
to  restore  the  equilibrium  of  the  immense  body  of 
water  so  violently  put  in  motion,  there  must  also  have 
been  a  supernatural  process  to  dry  the  soil  for  the 
reception  of  vegetable  life.  These  results  may  be  con 
ceivable  as  the  effects  of  Omnipotence,  but  the  pro 
cesses  are  not  easily  reconciled  with  the  analogy  of  the 
divine  working  as  indicated  in  Scripture,  nor  even  with 
the  spirit  of  this  very  narrative,  which  although  it  does 
not  specify,  yet  certainly  does  not  exclude  the  applica 
tion  of  second  causes,  as  appears  from  the  inspired 
commentary  of  the  writer  of  Psalm  civ.,  where  distinct 
reference  is  made,  ver.  \  to  the  convulsions  and  up 
heavals  through  which  a  separation  was  effected  be 
tween  the  land  and  water. 

The  difficulty  now  stated  is  not  of  recent  origin,  nor 
owinu'  to  any  conflict  between  geology  and  the  biblical 
creation  :  it  was  felt  by  the  older  expositors;  and  even 
by  the  rabbinical  writers,  who  in  order  to  enlarge  the 


time  of  those  stupendous  operations,  referred,  by  some 
forced  philological  rule,  their  commencement  to  the 
second  day  (sou  Orotins,  c'ritici  Sacri),  but  without  any 
advantage  really  resulting  fr.om  such  an  infinitesimal 
addition  of  time. 

Another  circumstance  of  the  same  character  as  to  its 
demands  on  time,  is  the  exercise  assigned  to  Adam  of 
bestowing  names  upon  the  animal  creation,  and  which 
must  have  been  begun  and  finished  on  the  sixth  day, 
r  more  strictly  in  the  interval  which  elapsed  between 
his  own  creation,  which  had  been  preceded  on  the 
same  day  by  that  of  the  animals,  and  the  creation  of 
Kve.  which  was  also  comprised  in  the  work  of  the  sixth 
dav.  This  is  even  a  stronger  case  than  the  preceding. 
Inasmuch  as  it  cannot  be  disposed  of  by  a  reference  tip 
the  miraculous.  God  can  effect  his  works  instantane- 
ouslv,  but  man  requires  time  for  his  exercises  and 
operations:  so  that  whatever  may  be  assumed  as  to  the 
capacities  and  intuitional  apprehensions  of  unfallen  man. 
of  the  exercise  to  which  he  was  here  called,  however 
limited  may  have  been  its  extent  as  regards  the  number 
of  species  to  be  reviewed  ami  named,  or  whatever  may 
have  been  its  intended  purpose,  it  is  difficult  to  con 
ceive  how  it  could  lie  completed  within  the  space  of 
a  few  hours,  which  is  all  that  can  be  assumed  if  the 
sixth  day  on  which  all  those  events  occurred  was  simply 
a  natural  day. 

If  there  are  thus  in  the  narrative  itself  circumstances 
demanding  an  extension  of  the  days  beyond  the  usual 
acceptation,  is  there  anything  to  indicate  them  as  in 
any  way  peculiar,  and  the  full  force  of  which  could 
be  seen  only  when  in  due  time  their  meaning  came 
to  be  thus  apprehended  '.  Besides  the  peculiarity  already 
adverted  to,  of  days  before  the  existence  of  that  ar 
rangement  by  which  days  are  now  alone  constituted. 
there  are  special  characteristics  attached  to  the  first 
and  seventh  days,  the  initial  and  concluding  terms  of 
the  series.  The  day  which  witnessed  the  beginning  of 
creation  is  designated  by  the  cardinal  one,  and  not  by  the 
ordinal  Jirst:  "It  was  evening,  it  was  morning,  inn 
day."  This  peculiarity,  so  unusual  in  the  language, 
arrested  the  attention  of  .Tosephus  (Antiq.  i.  1,1),  Philo 
(Do  Opif.  Jlunili,  sect.  '/),  and  several  of  the  Christian 
fathers,  and  has  been  variously  explained.  It  will  be 
found  however,  from  a  careful  examination  of  the  use  of 
this  Hebrew  numeral,  that  the  only  admissible  conclu 
sion  is,  that  it  must  be  here  taken  in  its  not  unusual 
sense  of  designating  by  way  of  pre-eminence  something 
rare  or  remarkable,  see  K/.C.  \i\.  :<;  c.i.  vi.  9;  Da.  viii.  3;  and  so 
intended  to  indicate  that  the  evening  and  the  morning 
spoken  of  belonged  not  to  an  ordinary,  but  to  a  pecu 
liar  day:  in  fact,  to  a  period  of  indefinite  duration. 
This  conclusion  is  not  a  little  strengthened  by  the  re 
currence  of  the  same  remarkable  expression  "one  day" 
in  one  other  passage  of  Scripture,  and  in  a  connection 
which  leaves  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  designation  of  a 
period — the  millennium,  as  some  suppose,  Zee.  xiv.  r, 
'•There  shall  be  one  (fa;/  (it  is  known  to  Jehovah) 
when  it  shall  not  be  day  and  night ;  for  at  the  even 
ing  time  there  shall  be  light.''  The  day  here  an 
nounced  is  altogether  peculiar:  the  only  one  of  its 
kind  which  shall  dawn  upon  humanity  :  its  peculiarity 
will  consist  in  the  absence  of  the  usual  alternations 
of  day  and  night,  of  course  in  a  moral  sense.  Now  if 
prophecy  which  scans  the  far  distant  future  has  a  day 
peculiarly  its  own,  is  there  anything  incredible  in  the 
supposition  that  creation  may  have  also  its  peculiar 


CREATION 


CREATION 


day,  seeing  that  its  days  nearly  all  terminated  long  ere 
man  existed  or  his  history  began,  and  must  accordingly 
in  this  instance,  no  less  than  in  the  other,  be  a  day 
"'  known  to  Jehovah," and  by  implication  to  him  alone? 
History  unquestionably  i.s  not  to  be  interpreted  as 
prophecy,  for  the  language  and  symbolism  in  the  two 
eases  are  distinct,  but  God's  own  record  of  his  creating 
processes  differs  from  all  other  history,  and  if  in  its 
character  it  may  differ  so  also  in  its  chronology.  This 
distinction  effectually  disposes  of  an  inconsistency 
sometimes  charged  upon  the  Scripture  interpreter  of 
dropping  this  peculiar  use  of  the  word  (lit//  at  the  close 
of  the  narrative  of  creation,  and  not  carrying  it  for 
ward  into  his  exposition  of  the  subsequent  history, 
which  it  ought  to  be  seen  was  written  upon  different 
principles,  as  the  events  it  records  occurred  under  widely 
different  conditions. 

]>ut  still  more  noticeable  is  the  manner  in  which  the 
seventh  day  is  described  in  the  hi.-torv  of  the  civatii  n. 
If  anywhere  in  Scripture  there  is  intimation  that  the 
days  of  creation  exceeded  in  duration  man's  brief  duv<. 
there  is  certaintly  such  in  tin-  passage  which  de-cribes 
the  sabbatic  rest  of  the  ('reator  when  his  great  work 
was  finished.  Go.  11.2,3.  From  the  references  elsewhere 
in  Scripture  to  this  rest  as  the  uivat  end  of  the  creation 
and  the  consummation  of  the  creature's  happiness  in 
and  with  I  '•<»{  — "  Requies  I  Vi  ivquii-m  si-'iiiticat  eorum 
qtli  requicscllllt  ill  i>eo,"  a-  A  ll^'u-t  ill','  (I  >e  Civ.  IK-i,  xi.  M 

remarked  long  ago  sufficient  light  i.s  thrown  upon  its 
nature  and  consequent  duration  to  prevent  us  conceiv 
ing  of  it  as  commensurate  with  man's  presentshoit  and 
troubled  sabbath.  The  latter  is  but  a  faint  and  inade 
quate  type  of  the  rest  that  reinaiiietli  for  the  people  of 
( 'od,  ii,.-.  iv.  :i,  and  into  which  the  I  'reator  himself  entered 
\\  hen  In-  ceasi  d  t'n  ,111  adding  to  the  mere  material  cre 
ation,  in  order  to  earrv  on  the  moral  and  spiritua' 
government  of  the  world,  a  prop,  r  subject  bein--  f,,und 
in  man,  created  in  ( !od's  o\\  n  imag".  and  the  restora 
tion  of  whom  from  the  ruins  of  the  fall,  is  in  reality  "a 
neu  creation/'  2 Co.  v.  ir,  raising  man  to  a  higher  platform 
of  Jit'e  than  that  on  which  the  first  or  mate  rial  creation 
placed  him. 

Lt  fully  accords  with  this  vic\\  t"  find  that  with  iv- 
sjiect  to  the  sevi  nth-day  the  invariable  formula  in  the 
other  cases.  "  It  was  evening,  it  was  morning,"  i-  m-re 
wanting.  It  could  not  be  employed,  because  God's  sab 
hath  extends  over  the  whole  present  order  of  tilings,  and 
has  not  yet  come  to  a  close.  Cod  rested  from  the  work 
of  creation  :  ami  neither  reason  nor  revelation  yives 
any  hint  that  that  work  has  ever  been  resumed. 

Now,  if  such  be  Cod's  sabbath-day,  the  seventh,  or 
close  of  the  creating  week,  analogy,  and  every  principle 
of  sound  interpretation,  require  that  the  week  itself, 
and  the  days  of  which  it  was  composed,  be  thus  in 
definitely  extended,  and  regarded  as  God's  week  and 
working  days,  and  in  no  sense  commensurate  with  those 
of  man.  .Man's  days  are  only  a  derivation  and  symbol 
of  those  archetypal  days  ;  the  only  thing  which  bears 
any  comparison  with  them  is  the  ((HI/,  or  course  of 
Christ's  working  upon  the  earth,  of  which  he  himself 
said,  "I  must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me, 
while  it  is  day :  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can 

work,"  .Tn.  ix.4. 

There  is  no  weight  whatever  in  the  objection  that 
this  view  makes  void  the  law  of  the  sabbath,  for  "it  is 
not  the  absolute  length  of  the  days  of  creation,  but 
their  number  and  order  that  constitutes  the  essential 


is  alike,  but  in  the  one  it  is,  as  was  suitable  to  the  sub 
ject  of  the  law,  upon  a  very  minute  scale.  \Vhile  it 
was  chiefly  man,  as  is  plain  from  the  sabbatic  institu 
tion,  irrespective  of  other  considerations,  that  those 
consecutive  but  long  prospective  operations  regarded, 
it  is  no  less  an  evidence  of  wisdom  and  goodness,  that 
when  they  were  revealed  so  as  to  constitute  a  founda 
tion  for  the  sabbath,  God  chose  for  denoting  them 
that  division  of  time  which  most  readily  presents  itself 
to  the  human  apprehension,  instead  of  perplexing  the 
mind  with  the  actual  notation  of  ayes  upon  ayes  which 
a  moiv  advanced  state  of  knowledge  would  discover 
and  also  more  fully  comprehend.  \Si-c  un  this,  Miii,-r's  Fout- 

;,rinU  i.f  the  Civ;Uur,  ed.  !M;i,  l>.  :',"••.} 

V.  Tin  Order  of  Creation.  The  deductions  of  science 
touching  the  order  in  which  tiie  course  of  creation  pro 
ceeded  are  in  remarkable  harmony  with  the  statements 
of  Scripture. 

1.  The  tirst  point  worthy  of  lloti  e  is  that  the  Mosaic 
narrative  intimates  that  ''the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
\\hich  is  the  common  Hebrew  designation  of  the  n.a 
tcrial  universe,  had  a  contemporaneous  m-iyin:  they  an: 
not  merely  the  effects  of  a  common  cause,  but  are  in 
fact  of  one  and  the  same-  act.  Other  passages  of  Scrip 
ture  i  '!>-<  rve  the  same  connect!'  'ii.  and  the  same  relation 
of  time,  see  Ts.  cii.  25.  Indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  yrcat  ob 
jects  of  Scripture  to  teach  the  close  re!;'ti,  .n-hip  between 
all  the  parts  of  creation  as  the  productions  of  tin-  same 
divine  Mind.  All  the  orbs  of  space,  \\hetherseen  by 
the  eye  or  disclosed  only  by  the  telescope,  \\eiv  created 
simultaneously  with  our  own  planet.  The  \\ork  as 
signed  to  the  fourth  day  in  no  \\ay  conflicts  with  this 
.-tatcmelit,  as  will  be  shown  below.  The  relation  thus 
declared  by  revelation  i.s  fully  corroborated  h\  thi-testi- 
nionv  ot  sen  nee.  \\hieh  di-tinctiv  shows  that  Mich  is 
tlie  connection  of  tin-  part-,  that  if  not  created  at  the 
same  time  tin  A'  must  at  least  have  had  eoi.tempo- 
raneously  impressed  upon  them  their  present  form  and 
motions. 

'_'.  The  next  staye  iii  \\iiich  the  work  of  creation  is 
presented  exhibits  the  ••earth"  for  it  is  with  it  only 
that  the  narrative  has  chicHv  to  do  -  as  "without  form 
and  void."  entirely  desolate  and  de-tituti-  of  inhabitants, 
shrouded  in  th'-  prim' -\al  darkness,  and  wrapped  up  in 
a  universal  ocean.  There  \\as  no  lib-,  \egetable  or 
animal;  even  the  first  conditions  of  life  were  wanting. 
Light,  was  the  next  product  of  creative  Omnipotence; 
and  to  this  succeeded  the  atmospheric  arrangement, 
the  formation  of  the  "firmament,"  or  rather,  according 
to  the  Hebrew — the  forme)'  term  involving  a  fiction  of 
the  Greek  philosophy  the  (.I-/,HH.-«  ,  the  canopy  of  sky 
overhead,  and  which  supports  the  clouds  or  "  the  waters 
above  the  heavens."  (^«  J-'IKMAMKNT.I  Here,  however, 
must  be  noticed  the  distinct  ion  made  in  Hebrew  between 
liijlit  in  itself,  and  the  bodies  into  which  it  is  collected 
or  from  which  it  is  emitted  the  terms  being  distinct; 
thus  intimating,  when  viewed  in  connection  with  the 
notice  of  the  creation  of  light  on  the  first  day,  and  its 
concentration  into  the  heavenly  orbs  not  until  the  fourth, 
the  fact,  only  recently  recognised  by  science,  that  there 
is  no  necessary  connection  between  light  and  those 
luminaries.  This,  if  known  to  the  objectors,  should 
certainly  silence  that  shallow  criticism  and  philosophy 
which  finds  a  notable  instance  of  ignorance  of  the 
laws  of  nature  displayed  by  this  narrative  when  it 


CREATION 


CREATION 


makes  vegetation  to  precede  the  sun.  The  planetary 
IK ulios  created  and  endued  with  inotiun  round  their  own 
centres,  and  in  an  ovbitual  path,  were  no  doubt,  like 
the  earth  itself,  undergoing  preparation  for  their  ap 
pointed  services,  although  of  this  the  narrative  taki  s  no 
notice,  save  only  that  on  the  fourth  day  the  light,  per 
haps  previously  diffused  through  space,  was  collected 
into  those  central  orlis.  around  which  their  dependent 
systems  had  from  the  first  revolved,  although  now  in  a 
new  relation. 

In  all  these  particulars,  the  testimony  of  science  is 
exceedingly  distinct,  and  in  complete  harmony  with  the 
statements  of  Scripture.  Jt  tells  that  light  is  not 
merely  the  first  condition  of  life,  hut  also  of  inorganic 
form.  In  the  process  of  crystallization  its  power  is 
particularly  marked,  and  in  all  the  molecular  arrange 
ments  of  the  mineral  masses  which  so  largely  constitute 
the  verv  framework  of  the  earth —its  rocks  and  moun 
tains.  Indeed,  it  may  he  said,  the  absence  of  this  uni 
versal  agent  would  restore  again  the  old  chaotic  state 
of  things.  How  strikingly  harmonious  with  the  de 
ductions  of  science,  to  find  that  in  the  Bible  the  iirst 
place  is  assigned  to  its  creation!  The  same  maybe 
said  also  with  respect  to  the  atmospheric  arrangements 
which  succeeded  the  creation  of  light.  Without  the 
existence  of  the  atmosphere,  .-o  wisely  tempered  for  the 
support  of  life,  and  so  adapted  for  its  other  important 
offices  in  the  economy  of  nature,  there  could  lie  no  life 
even  in  the  lowest  form,  and  no  enjoyment:  no  sound 
even  could  issue  from  the  wide  wastes  of  earth,  and  110 
light  could  be  diffused  over  its  surface.  Therefore  was 
it  created  next  in  order  to  light :  and  therefore  its  place 
so  precise  and  appropriate  in  the  Mosaic  narrative  of 
the  creation. 

3.  But  the  course  of  creation  proceeds.  The  arrange 
ment  of  the  earth's  surface  was  the  next  thing  effected. 
The  universal  ocean  was  on  the  third  day  brought  within 
limits,  and  the  dry  land  made  to  emerge  from  its  previous 
watt  TV  covering.  How  this  was  effected  Scripture  does 
not  say;  but  here  it  is  that  the  domain  of  science  first 
properly  begins.  At  this  stage  of  the  creating  processes 
commenced  the  action  of  those  mighty  and  long- con 
tinued  forces,  the  evidences  of  which  are  seen,  every 
where  in  the  dislocated  crust  of  the  earth,  and  which 
caused  the  dry  land  to  appear:  first  probably  in  the 
form  of  rocky  islets  gradually  raising  their  heads  above 
the  surrounding  water,  growing  in  extent,  and  becom 
ing  more  and  more  connected,  until  what  was  a,t  first 
groups  of  rockv  points  attained  the  character  of  conti 
nents.  There  may  not  be  sufficient  evidence  to  connect 
the  primary  formation  of  the  geologist  with  the  first  dry 
land,  for  at  these  great  depths  of  creation  the  light  is 
still  verv  obscure  ;  but  according  to  the  Scripture  nar 
rative,  no  sooner  is  the  dry  land  snatched  from  the  deep 
than  it  is  clothed  with  vegetation — the  first  and  lowest 
form  of  life.  The  work  of  the  fourth  day  was  that 
arrangement  of  the  heavenly  bodies  which  constituted 
them  luminaries — not  their  creation  or  motions — for 
that  was  the  work  of  the  beginning,  or  at  least  of  the 
first  day. 

This  was  followed  by  the  creative  mandate  of  the 
fifth  dav,  which  replenished  the  waters  with  its  various 
forms  of  animal  life,  and  the  air  also  with  its  winged 
tenants ;  but  as  the  priority  of  vegetable  life  and  its 
separation  from  the  animal  creation  by  the  interven 
tion  of  a  whole  day  or  period  are  points  on  which 
geology,  it  may  be  thought,  pronounces  a  contrary 


judgment,   some   further  remarks  must  be  made  upon 
the  subject. 

Till  very  recently  geologists  were  unable  to  find 
traces  of  a  primeval  vegetation  of  so  old  a  date  as  the 
animal  remains  of  a  low  type  tf  life  certainly,  which 
occurred  extensively  in  the  lower  strata.  ]S"ow,  how 
ever,  tin:  further  progress  of  the  science  furnishes  evi 
dence  of  vegetable  life  as  early  as  any  animal  existence. 
"So  far  as  yet  known  plants  and  animals  appear  to- 
gether"  (Miller,  T^unxmy  ,,fthe  K.  «.ks,p.  17).  Without  at- 
ta.ching  anv  weight  to  the  position  thus  latterly  assigned 
to  the  plant,  or  to  the  probability  to  which  it  gives 
rise,  that  further  discovery  may  detect  a  vegetable  crea 
tion  long  prior  to  animal  life,,  it  will  be  enough  if  the 
absence  of  vegetable  remains  from  the  lower  strata  can 
be  shown  not  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  a 
flora  on  the  earth;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  can 
from  independent  testimony  be  shown  that  the  place  of 
ihe  plant  in  the  creation  must  ha\e  been  such  as  is  an 
nounced  in  Genesis.  As  to  the  first  of  these  points,  let 
it  be  observed  that  as  the  stratified  rocks  were  formed 
at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  and  often  at  great  depths, 
terrestrial  plants  can  he  expected  to  occur  only  rarely: 
while  the  raritv  of  marine  plants  is  accounted  for  by 
the  fact  that  they  are  mostly  natant,  or  confined  to 
rocky  shores;  while  further,  the  cellular  structure  of  the 
earlier  plants  was  very  unfavourable  to  their  preservation, 
the  contrary  being  the  case  with  the  early  forms  of 
1  animal  life.  As  to  the  other  point,  this  general  con- 
j  sideratioii  need  only  be  urged,  that  vegetation  is  the 
1  ultimate  support  of  animal  life,  and  therefore  must  have 
preceded  it.  (Sec  Professor  Drain.  Science  and  the  llible,  BibUuUi. 
Sac.  Jan.  !<•."><>,  p.  117.) 

4.  I'ut  if,  on  the  question  now  considered,  science 
refuses  to  pronounce  a  judgment,  her  utterances  are  full 
and  explicit  regarding  the  succession  of  the  subsequent 
creating  acts.  Animal  life  began  in  the  waters.  The 
work  of  the  fifth  day  perfected  that  of  the  second,  which 
consisted  in  the  partial  adjustment  of  the  waters  by 
the  .-'. i pel-imposed  atmosphere  ;  and  as  these  two  ele 
ments  were,  through  the  intervening  arrangements,  pre 
pared  for  the  reception  of  life,  they  are  duly  peopled 
with  their  respective  tenants — the  waters  with  "the 
moving  creature  that  hath  life" — the  ray//V///  innltqilji- 
iii'i  or  .-tn-iirmin!!  creatures,  as  they  are  characteristically 
termed  in  the  Hebrew,  and  the  air  with  the  "winged 
creatures,''  or  birds. 

It  was  not  until  the  next  day  of  creation,  however, 
that  the  dry  land  was  peopled  with  animals  properly 
its  own — the  mammiferous  quadrupeds:  a  far  higher  fc  inn 
of  life  than  anything  that  preceded.  This  day  too 
witnessed  the  introduction  of  man — a  being  differing 
entirely  from  all  the  preceding  creations,  and  divinely 
constituted  their  .sovereign. 

As  regards  the  particulars  now  stated,  the  order  of 
Genesis  is  strictly  the  order  of  geology ;  here  there  is 
no  uncertain  or  discordant  note.  There  is  not  only 
a  harmony  in  the  general  testimony  that  the  successive 
changes  through  which  the  earth  has  passed  have  been 
improvements  in  its  condition  and  capabilities  as  a 
habitable  world,  but  also  in  the  specific  evidence  as  to 
the  order  in  which  its  various  inhabitants  have  been 
introduced.  According  to  the  testimony  of  science,  no 
less  than  of  Scripture,  the  fish  preceded  the  reptile  and 
the  bird,  and  these  again  preceded  the  mammiferous 
quadruped,  while  it  again  preceded  man  (Miller,  Footprints 
of  the  Creator,  p.  2S3).  The  two  records  iii  fact  here  run 


CREATION 


CUEATTOX 


parallel;  there  is  no  conflict,  not  even  an  apparent  con 
tradiction.  Excepting  the  question  of  time  there  is  no 
appearance  of  contradiction  from  the  first  announce 
ment  of  the  Creator's  work  down  to  the  close,  when 
everything  was  found  to  lie  very  good  ;  and  if  this  ques 
tion  can  be  settled  in  a  way  which  shall  accord  with 
the  facts  of  science,  and  without  violence  to  the  language 
of  revelation,  the  accordance  will  be  .such  as  must  satisfy 
every  mind  that  the  information  communicated  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  not  the  result  of  man's  reason 
ings  or  imaginings,  but  must  have  come  directly  from 
God.  Still  more  marked  is  the  harmony  of  the  two 
records  with  respect  to  man's  creation— his  place  in  the 
course  as  well  as  in  the  economy  of  nature,  the  only 
point  which  remains  to  be  considered. 

VI.  M<i.n'.<  I'lui'c  in  L'r< ntimt.  -The  manner  in  which 
the  account  of  man's  creation  is  introduced,  and  the 
space  which  it  occupies  in  the  record,  bespeak  for  him 
at  once  a  place  peculiar  and  apart  from  ail  preceding 
creatures.  The  distinguishing  dignity  bestow,  d  on 
man  hv  hi.-  creation  in  th>-  iinau'  of  <  lod,  with  his  con 
sequent  relation  to  the  Creator  and  Killer  "f  the  world, 
raise  questions  of  the  highest  po.--ible  concern,  but  as 
these  more  properly  belong  to  another  department,  it  is 
only  in  its  physical  aspect  that  the  subject  falls  to  lie 
considered  here. 

1.  M'tK  th<  K ml  i  if  Creation.  As  reason  and  revela 
tion  unite  in  te>tii\inu  that  creative  energy  upon  the 
earth  proceeded  on  the  principle  of  pro.jiv-s.  so  also 
they  unite  in  tin.-  affirmation  that  it  was  consummated 
in  man.  This  progression  is  seen  to  have  been  dhinelv 
predetermined,  and  man's  place  in  it  is  the  termination 
of  a  process  which  had  been  -oin-oii  -ince  the  dawn  of 
creation  i  M't  '<>-h,  Typiml  i-'iinii.-.,  \> .  .M >.">>,  the  \vrv  tir>t  or 
ganization  bein^  as  it  \\en-  a  prophecy  of  the  last.  In 
remarkable  accordance  with  this  analogy  presented  in 
nature  is  the  language  of  the  psalmist  :  "  I  will  prai.-e 
thee  ;  for  1  am  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made  :  mar 
vellous  are  thy  \\orks  :  and  that  inv  soul  kimweth  ri_dit 
well.  My  suh-taneo  was  not  hid  from  thee.  \\hen  I 
\\as  made  in  secret,  and  curiously  wrought  in  the  lowest 
parts  nf  the  earth.  Thine  eves  did  see  my  substance, 
yet  being  imperfect;  and  in  thy  book  all  my  members 
were  written,  which  in  continuance  were  fashioned, 
when  as  yet  then-  wa-  none  of  them."  Man  i>  the 
perfection  and  summary  of  all  preceding  or_'jni/ation. 
Beyond  this,  according  to  the  di\ine  predetermination, 
creation  cannot  reach;  no  succeeding  dynasty  on  the 
earth  can  supersede  the  human  race. 

•2.  Man's  Creation  limited  to  a  Miir/h  f'uir.  Where 
or  in  what  numbers  the  various  species  preceding  the 
creation  of  man,  whether  vegetable  or  animal,  were  in 
troduced,  Scripture  affirms  nothing.  If  in  these  cases 
science  can  show  that  there  were  various  centres  of 
creation,  the  fact  may  be  readily  accepted  as  one  to 
which  revelation  offers  not  the  slightest  opposition.  It 
is  quite  different,  however,  with  the  theories  which 
would  deny  a  common  origin  to  the  human  race,  for 
upon  this  point  the  language  of  Scripture  is  explicit. 
The  account  of  man's  creation  in  Genesis,  with  the 
derivation  of  the  whole  human  race,  however  widely 
diversified,  from  one  ancestral  pair,  is  a  truth  repeatedly 
reaffirmed  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  indeed 
constitutes  one  of  the  first  principles  of  Christianity, 
being,  if  not  the  very  foundation,  yet  an  essential  ele 
ment  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  Do.  xxxii.s;  Mat. 

xix.  4;    Ac.  xvii.  liO;   Uo.  v.  1 1,  111. 


No  doubt  numerous  appearances  in  natural  iiistory 
are  strongly  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the 
human  species,  and  several  distinguished  writers  have 
boldly  challenged  its  correctness.  15  ut  with  every  dis 
position  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  opponents  to  strain 
to  the  utmost  every  fact  and  phenomenon  in  natural 
and  civil  Iiistory  which  in  any  way  favour  their  own 
conclusions,  the  falsity  of  the  doctrine  has  never  been 
established.  The  common  origin  of  mankind  has  been 
questioned,  but  not  disproved.  And  until  such  is  the 
erase,  no  valid  objection  can  lie  against  the  biblical 
statement  on  the  subject.  Indeed,  it  mav  be  added 
that  the  probabilities  against  such  a  conclusion  are 
increasing  with  the  advance  of  science,  and  that  the 
difficulties  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  be  in 
superable  are  being  gradually  lessened,  and  the  pro 
blem  is  thus  .-o  far  simplified  that  the  unity  of  mankind 
can  now  scarcely  be  maintained  to  involve  an  improba 
bility,  in  this,  as  in  other  respect-,  the  conclusion 
is  evidently  tending  to  the  establishment  of  the  principle, 
that  "common  ideas  underlie  the  whole  system  of  the 
universe,  declaring  a  unity  of  nature  parallel  witli  the 
unity  of  the  infinite  Author."  is^c  Dana,  Thoughts  mi 

:-l>ciies,  Hili'.i'ith.  Sac.  (ii-t.  l-.'.r,  j..  -,V,.I 

1 1  may  indeed  lie  difficult  to  show  how  the  many  and 
marked  differences  \\hich  characterize  different  families 
of  mankind  could  have  arisen,  and  how  they  have 
become  so  intensely  fixed  as  they  prove  to  be;  yet  it 
will  be  more  difficult  to  explain  the  close  affinities, 
physical,  intelli-ctual.  and  moral,  \\hich  link  together 
all  the  tribes  of  mankind,  if  a  common  origin  be  denied 
to  them.  "  If  in  the  case  of  man,"  asks  I'.adcii  l'o\\el|. 
"they  have  occurred  as  transitional  varieties,  how 
conn.-  it  that  they  have  become  >o  inveterately  perma 
nent'  And  it  those  changes  have  all  occurred  \\ithin 
the,  lapse  of  a  fi  w  thousand  years  of  the  received  chro 
nology,  it  cannot  with  any  reason  be  denied  that  similar 
changes  mi_dit  occur  am  on--  inferior  animals,  and  become 
just  as  permanent.  And  if  so,  changes  to  an  indt  finitely 
_n  ater  extent  miuht  occur  in  indefinite  lapse  of  time. 
I  f  these  changes  take  place  by  the  gradual  operation  of 
natural  c,lu>es.  it  would  be  preposterous  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  equal  or  greater  changes  by  equally  natural 
causes,  in  other  species,  in  equal  or  greater  periods  of 
time.  The  advocates  of  the  fixity  of  species  would 
argue  that  the  single  spot  on  a  butterfly's  wing,  \\hich 
constitute-  a  species,  never  has  changed,  and  never 
can  change  \\ithout  a  miracle;  and  yet  the  vast  dif 
ferences  bet  \\ei-n  a  European  and  a  Ne^ro  or  Austra 
lian  are  mere  modifications  of  one  parent  stock  by 
natural  causes  in  the  lapse  of  a  few  thousand  years!  " 

This  reasoning:-  is  not  so  triumphant  as  its  author 
seems  obviously  to  entertain.  It  reduces  the  contro 
versy  entirely  to  a  question  of  natural  Iiistory;  takes 
no  account  whatever  of  moral  considerations,  or  the 
disparity  between  man  and  all  the  lower  animals,  giving 
rise  in  thi'  on. •  case  to  causes  different,  not  only  in  degree 
but  in  kind,  from  those  which  could  possibly  operate  in 
the  other.  It  is  admitted  bv  naturalists  (1'ickeriug,  Races 
<if Man,  Lund.  ed.  i>.  L'-HI,  that  the  diversity  of  races  has 
greatly  contributed  to  the  dispersion  of  man  over  the 
earth,  and  designed,  as  Scripture  testifies  he  was,  for 
this  universal  diffusion,  <;e.  i.  •>,  he  was  also,  no  doubt, 
fitted  for  inhabiting  all  climes  and  countries,  a  wide 
and  diversified  range  of  existence.  So  that  thus,  even 
physically  viewed,  man  differs  from  all  other  creatures  ; 
the  nearest  approach  to  him  in  this  respect  being  his 


CREATION 


constant  and  faithful  attendant  tin:  i !<>'_',  which  is  as 
noted  for  its  varieties  as  man  himself.  The  question 
is,  however,  of  too  wide  a  compass  to  lie.  adequately 
discussed  hei-e. 

J!ut  admitting  that  natural  causes,  however  long  they 
may  have  operated,  cannot  adequately  explain  the  pre 
sent  appearances,  there  is  no  alternative,  if  we  exi  hide 
the  development  theory  that  men  grew  up  in  more  or 
less  favoured  circumstances  from  the  next  lower  animals, 
Init  to  admit  supernatural  causes,  or,  in  other  words, 
direct  divine  interpositions.  The  opponents  of  specific 
unity  refer  the  diversities  to  distinct  acts  of  creation. 
But  is  this  necessary ;  or  is  it  philosophical  to  call  in 
the  aid  of  a  greater  cause,  when  it  cannot  be  proved 
that  a  less  m:iv  not  sutlice  •  If  recourse  must  be  had 
to  supernatural  causes,  which  we  are  far  indeed  from 
denying,  it  is  more  reasonable  to  conclude  that  the 
Creator  originally  implanted  certain  predispositions  to 
be  manifested  in  the  progress  of  the  race,  or  that  he 
introduced  at  a  subsequent  period  changes  to  facilitate; 
the  dispersion  of  the  nations,  than  that  by  distinct  acts 
of  creation  he  constituted  the  varieties.  A  very  strong 
presumption  in  favour  of  this  supposition  is  the  gradual 
transition  through  which  the  several  \arieties  of  the 
human  race  are  shaded  oil'  from  one  another,  prevent 
ing  the  naturalist  from  arriving  at  any  definite  con 
clusions  regarding  their  number.  Looking  at  the 
extreme  types  only,  it  may  occasion  considerable  doubt 
whether  any  of  these  could  originate  from  one  another. 
Further  observation,  however,  shows  that  between  these 
extremes,  whether  of  hue  or  anatomical  structure,  there 
are  means  whence  the  transitions  proceed  by  insensible 
gradations.  This  leads  to  the  conclusion  either  that 
the  races  of  man  must  be  indefinitely  multiplied  or  that 
they  were  originally  one.  "There  is,  I  conceive,1' 
says  Dr.  I'iekering,  ''no  middle  ground  between  the 
admission  of  eleven  distinct  species  in  the  human  family 
and  the  reduction  to  one"  (Racesof  Man, p. 315). 

;5.  Man  intr<idii<\<l  into  a  World  already  the  Recite 
of  Death. — No  intimation  of  geology  is  supported  bv 
better  evidence  than  that  which  declares  that  death  had 
been  in  active  operation  on  the  earth  long  before  the 
creation  of  man;  that  whole  creations  had  lived  and 
died;  that  then  as  now,  birth,  growth,  and  dissolution 
succeeded  one  another  in  a  continued  round  ;  and  that, 
as  at  present,  one  part  of  creation  warred  with  and 
preyed  upon  another.  In  the  whole  past  record  of  life 
on  the  earth  there  is  no  indication  of  a  time  w;hen 
death's  ravages  were  unknown,  whether  operating  by 
natural  decay,  or  by  violent  convulsions  and  catastrophes 
of  nature.  Physiology,  moreover,  pronounces  this  to  be 
a  universal  and  necessary  law  of  organized  life,  and  a 
wise  and  benevolent  provision  in  such  a  world  as  ours. 

These  conclusions  have  greatly  disturbed  the  minds 
of  many  who  fancy  they  find  in  them  a  discrepancy 
with  the  sacred  record,  which  connects  death  with  the 
apostasy  of  man.  Such,  however,  have  really  no  ground 
for  alarm,  for  there  is  no  discrepancy  whatever  between 
science  and  Scripture  oil  this  subject.  The  Bible 
certainly  and  most  distinctly  teaches  that  the  death 
winch  man  experiences  came  upon  him  because  of  bis 
transgression,  Ro.  v.  iii;  1  Co.  xv.  21 ;  but  nowhere  does  it 
give  the  least  intimation  that  the  deatli  of  the  inferior 
animals  is  connected  with  that  event,  its  language 
baing.  in  every  instance  where  it  refers  to  death,  limited 
entirely  to  man.  As  regards  its  pi  >\\  vr  over  the  inferior 
creatures  Scripture  gives  no  express  testimony,  yet  its 


existence  may  be  considered  as  tacitly  assumed  in  the 
history  of  creation. 

Hut  although,  as  already  remarked,  death  is  in  the 
present  state  of  being  a  necessary  law  of  all  organized 
life,  whether  it  be  viewed  in  connection  with  the  law 
of  assimilation,  the  proce.-s  by  which  plants  and  ani 
mals  separate  their  appropriate  food  from  all  other  par 
ticles  of  matter,  on  which  depends  their  growth  and 
also  their  decay,  or  witli  the  law  of  the  propagation  of 
the  respective  races,  this  furnishes  no  argument  against 
the  immortality  which,  on  the  testimony  of  Scripture, 
would  have  been  bestowed  on  man  bad  he  obeyed  the 
law  of  his  Creator.  How  this  could  have  been,  it 
would  be  presumptuous  to  dogmatize  ;  and  yet,  to  the 
believer,  it  need  not  occasion  any  serious  difficulty. 
There  might  have  been  some  provision  in  man's  original 
constitution  fitted  to  counteract  all  tendency  to  decav  ; 
while  doubtless  there  would  be  some  divine  interposi 
tion  by  which  from  time  to  time  the  successive  genera 
tions  would  be  removed  without  tasting  death  to  other 
scenes  of  existences.  Something  confirmatory  of  or 
analogous  to  this  has  been  already  presented  in  the 
history  of  mankind  in  the  translations  of  Enoch  and 
Elijah,  and  examples  on  a  far  larger  scale  are  predicted 
for  the  future  at  the  conclusion  of  the  present  dispen 
sation,  i  Co.  xv.  :,i,  :>-i. 

4.  Man's  Creation  a  recent  L'rint.— Geology  shows 
that  man's  creation  is  not  only  the  last  term  of  the 
creative  series,  but  also  that  it  is  a  very  recent  event 
as  compared  with  the  great  periods  which  preceded  and 
the  creations  to  which  they  gave  birth.  Amon'_r  all 
the  facts  of  geology  there  appears  to  be  none  better 
established  than  this.  To  adduce  only  the  testimony 
of  Lyell — "I  need  not  dwell  on  the  proofs  of  the  low 
antiquity  of  our  species,  for  it  is  not  controverted  by 
any  experienced  geologist;  indeed,  the  real  difficulty 
consists  in  tracing  back  the  signs  of  man's  existence  on 
the  earth  to  that  comparatively  modern  period  when 
species,  now  his  contemporaries,  began  greatly  to  pre 
dominate.  If  there  be  a  difference  of  opinion  re^pect- 
ing  the  occurrence  in  certain  deposits  of  the  remains  of 
man  and  his  works,  it  is  always  in  reference  to  strata 
confessedly  of  the  most  modern  order;  and  it  is  never 
pretended  that  our  race  co-existed  with  assemblages  of 
animals  and  plants,  of  which  all,  or  even  a  lar^'e  pro 
portion  of  the  species,  are  extinct"  (Principles  of  Geology, 
sth  0(1.  p.  177,  17!)). 

This  might  have  sufficed  regarding  the  point,  but  for 
the  attempts  to  get  rid  of  this  testimony  because  of  its 
negative  character.  Thus  Baden  Powell — ''The  pre 
valent  belief  in  the  very  recent  origin  of  man,  geolo 
gically  speaking,  depends  wholly  on  negative  evidence. 
And  there  seems  no  reason,  from  any  good  analogy, 
why  human  remains  might  not  be  found  in  deposits 
corresponding  to  periods  immensely  more  remote  than 
commonly  supposed,  when  the  earth  was  in  all  respects 
equally  well  suited  for  human  habitation.  And  if  such 
remains  were  to  occur,  it  is  equally  accordant  with  all 
analogy  to  expect  that  they  might  be  those  of  an  extinct 
and  /<i/rcr  aperies.  The  only  real  distinction  in  the  liis- 
|  tory  of  creation  which  marks  a  supposed  'human  epoch,' 
is  not  the  first  introduction  of  the  animal  man  in  how- 
!  ever  high  a  state  of  organization,  but  the  endowment 
\  of  that  animal  with  the  gift  of  a  moral  and  spiritual 
nature.  It  is  a  perfectly  conceivable  idea  that  a  lower 
species  of  the  human  race  might  have  existed  destitute 
of  this  endowment"  (Unity  of  Worlds,  p.  -1C!,  :u.">). 


CREEPIXC;  Tin  NT; 

On  this  strange  and  utterly  unphilosophical  state- 
ineiit  one  or  two  remarks  must  be  offered.  First,  the  com 
plaint  as  to  tlie  evidence  being  only  negative  is  certainly 
very  unreasonable,  seeing  it  is  the  only  evidence  pos 
sible  or  even  conceivable  in  the  case.  The  assertion  is 
that  man  did  not  exist  on  the  earth  contemporaneously 
with  many  extinct  creations,  and  the  proof  is  that  not 
a  single  trace  of  his  remains  is  discovered  in  connection 
with  theirs.  It  is  the  upholder  of  the  contrary  position 
that  is  bound  to  produce  the  positive  proof  in  tin.-  form 
of  some  human  fossil  of  an  earlier  age.  Again,  the 
fiction  of  a  non-spiritual  man  is  unworthy  of  serious 
consideration— it  is  a  positive  contradiction;  for  how  are 
we  to  conceive  of  a  creature,  whatever  may  be  its  form 
or  organization,  to  be  a  member  of  the  human  race,  if 
destitute  of  a  moral  nature,  the  first  essential  of  man  '. 
The  idea  is  utterly  ridiculous.  It  lias  been  well  asked 
-"Suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  fossil  remains  of 
such  a  being  were  to  be  found,  how  are  we  to  recegni/o 
it!  what  are  the  peculiarities  of  the  skeleton  of  an  animal 
man  .'"  (A.  Tlmi,,M,,i,  K.lin.  X.  Philos.  Jnur.  April,  Isjrt).  Put 
it  is  unnecessary  to  pursue  this  matter  further.  "It 
may  be  safely  stated  that  that  ancient  record  in  which 
man  is  represented  as  the  last-born  of  creation  is  op 
posed  by  no  geologic  fact  :  and  that  if.  according  to 
Chalmers,  'the  Mosaic  writings  do  not  fix  the  antiquity 
of  the  -'lobe,'  they  at  least  <!•>  lix  making  allowance  of 
course  for  the  varying  estimates  of  the  chroii.  .loger 
'  the  antiquity  of  the  human  species'  "  iMin.r.  Testimmo 

of  UK-   i:,,,-k.,  p.    !'",>. 

In  conclusion,  if  it  cannot  yet  be  affirmed  that  a'l 
discrepancies  have-  been  removed  in  the  testimonies  of 
the  two  records,  the  expectation  is  not  unfounded  of  a 
complete  reconciliation  as  the  iv.-ult  of  further  -tudv  of 
tlii'  ".ivat  ((Uestioiis  raised.  The  path  on  which  tin-  in 
terpreter  of  Scripture  has  entered  appears  to  be  the 
right  one.  and  although  his  progress  may  be  slow,  and 
he  may  have  sometimes  to  retrace  steps  inadvertently 
taken,  the  difficulties  and  contradictions  now  encoun 
teivd  will,  in  the  end,  prove  a  positive  gain  to  the  inter- 
pr>  tation.  and  a  proof  of  the  credibility  of  the  I'.ihle. 
Kveu  already  its  opening  narrative  is  placed  in  such  a 
light  as  may  be  said  to  demonstrate  its  divine  origin. 
There  is  so  much  that  modern  science  has  for  the  tir-t 
time  disclosed  regarding  the  earth's  history,  that  the 
idea  of  .Moses  or  any  other  man  previous  to  this  nine 
teenth  century  being  the  author  of  the  biblical  record  is 
altogether  incomprehensible.  Indeed,  the  very  state 
ments  regarding  the  order  of  creation,  which  at  first 
provoked  the  greatest  opposition,  because  opposed  to 
the  usual  and  untaught  conceptions  of  mankind,  now 
actually  prove  some  of  its  strongest  continuations, 
showing,  in  the  clearest  possible  light,  that  none  could 
have  given  such  a  history  of  the  earth,  and  its  succes 
sive  revolutions,  hut  its  Creator  and  Upholder.  ["]>.  M.J 

CREEPING  THING.  This  phrase  is  used  in  holy 
Scripture  to  designate  not  only  reptiles,  properly  so 
called,  but  insects,  worms,  and  even  the  smaller  mam 
malia.  [|>.  H.  (;.j 

CRES'CENS  ((Ir.  K/^O-KTJSK  one  of  Paul's  com 
panions  in  his  bonds  and,  as  is  generally  supposed, 
a  fellow-labourer  in  the  gospel.  He  is  mentioned  only 
once,  in  2  Tim.  iv.  Id,  and  is  spoken  of  as  having  de 
parted  into  (ialatia.  Various  traditions  have  been 
handed  down  respecting  him,  according  to  one  of  which 
he  belonged  to  the  seventy  disciples  of  Christ:  but  they 
are  of  no  authority. 


•>  CRETE 

CRETE,  now  Camlia.  a  large  island  in  the  /Egean 
section  of  the  Mediterranean,  off  the  Peloponnesus. 
The  length  of  the  island  is  given  by  Pliny  at  270  Ro 
man  miles,  but  this  is  much  too  larire:  it  is  only  about 
158  miles  English.  It  is  comparatively  narrow  in 
j  breadth,  varying  from  JS  to  3S  English  miles.  It  is 
broadest  in  the  middle.  The  island  is  very  moun 
tainous,  having  a  continuous  mass  of  high  land  stretch 
ing  along  the  entire  length,  intersected  by  many  deep 
and  fertile  valleys.  Near  the  middle  the  mountain 
peaks  rise  to  the  height  of  7(174  feet,  several  of  which 
belong  to  the  famous  Mount  Ida.  The  greater  part 
(pf  these  mountains  are  clothed  with  forests  of  olive, 
chestnut,  walnut,  and  pine  trees,  oaks  and  cypresses. 
They  contain  a  number  of  remarkable  caverns  and 
-rottos.  including  the  famous  Labyrinth  of  antiquity,  an 
extensive  and  intricate  natural  excavation  at  the  foot 
of  Mount  Ida,  It  was  in  Crete  that  the  scene  was 
laid  of  many  fabrications  in  (,'ivcian  mythology;  in 
particular,  it  was  fabled  to  be  the  birthplace,  as  well 
as  to  possess  the  tomb,  of  the  "father  of  gods  and  men." 
and  in  connection  with  king  Minos  gave  rise  to  a  whole 
series  of  legends  respecting  the  upper  and  nether 
worlds.  In  civil  matters  Crete  was  like  a  world  by 
itself;  it  stood  aloof  from  the  states  of  Creed'  in  their 
great  wars  and  conflicts:  but  being  itself  divided  into 
several  independent  states,  each  \\ith  their  little  capital 
and  senate,  these  often  carried  on  war  with  one  another. 
\\hcn  assailed  from  without,  however,  the  common 
patriotism  rallied  the  people  tog,  ther,  and  all  united 
iu  defence  of  their  mother-country.  This  expression 
itself  ,u?;r/ji's.  mother- country  was  a  ('retail  word. 
In  tlie  course  of  time  it  fell  with  all  the  oilier  .-tates 
and  islands  in  that  part  of  the  world  under  the  sway 
of  Home,  and  together  with  ( 'yrene  fonned  a  Unman 
province.  This  took  place  upwards  of  half  a  century 
before  the  (  hristian  era:  and  from  the  time  of  Augustus 
it  was  a  senatorial  province,  governed  by  a  proconsul. 

The  Cretans  had  a  name  in  ancient  times  for  being 
good  sailors,  for  which  their  insular  situation  furnished 
them  with  peculiar  advantages;  also  for  their  skill  in 
archery,  and  expertm-ss  in  ambushing.  Hence  they 
were  frequently  engaged  as  light-armed  troops  in  the 
employ  of  other  states.  Their  moral  character,  however, 
does  not  a p] pear  to  have  ever  stood  high;  and  the  tes 
timony  of  a  native  Cretan,  as  quoted  by  the  apostle 
Paul.  Tit.  i.  ]L',  places  them  very  low  in  the  scale  of  in 
telligence  and  probity:  "  The  Cretans  are  alway  liars. 
evil  beasts  (vile  brutes),  slow  bellies"  -that  is.  lying, 
grovelling,  la/.v  gormandizers.  This  was  written  in  the 
sixth  century  before  Christ  by  Kpimenides.  a  native  of 
( Inossus  (now  Knossoli)  in  Crete:  but  the  first  part  of  the 
quotation,  KpTJres  dd  t/'fiWcu,  being  also  found  in  Cal- 
limachus  the  Cyrenean,  the  entire  [passage  was  some 
times  attributed  by  mistake  tip  him.  The  first  part  of 
the  description,  indeed,  was  so  frequently  applied  to 
the  Cretans,  that  Kpijrifeti',  tip  act  the  Cretan,  was  re 
garded  as  a  sort  of  synonym  to  iftfi'iSeffOai,  to  play  the 
liar.  The  classics  abound  with  allusions  to  this  charac 
teristic;  as  Ovid,  when  wishing  to  gain  credit  for  what 
he  asserts,  says  that  even  Crete,  though  noted  for  its 
lying  (quamvis  sit  mendax),  could  not  deny  it  (Do  A.  Am. 
i.  air),  or  again,  when  referring  to  Cretan  witnesses, 
he  throws  in  the  sarcastic  remark,  that  Cretans  do  not 
always  lie  (iii.  in);  and  Lucan  deems  it  enough  to  stamp 
the  untrustworthiness  of  Egypt,  to  say  that  she  is  as 
mendacious  as  Crete  (viii.  8r.').  Plato  distinguishes  be- 


CKLS1-TS 


CROSS 


twcen   Laee(hemon   and   Crete,    by  describing  the  one  so   marked    and  general   a   characteristic.      That    they 

as  cultivating  brevity  of  speech,  fipax^oyiav,  and  the  prevailed  to  a  very  considerable  extent,  there  can  be  no 

other,  not  so  much  multiplicity  of  words,  as  multipli-  doubt;  as  the  apostle  himself  had  good  opportunities  for 

city  of  thoughts.  iro\i<voiav  fj.a\\ov  •/}  wo\i'\oyiav  (Log.  i.  judging.      Jt  is  clear  that  he   personally  laboured  for  a 

p.rsu),  a  facility  in  suiting  the  thought  to  the  occasion.  time  on  the  island,  as    he   speaks    of   having  left  Titus 

I fcathen  authors  have  dwell    less   upon  the  oth.-r  ten-  there,  not  to  commence  a  new  work,  but  to  carry  for- 

dencies  of  the  Cretans  referred  to  by  the  apostle,  and  we  ward  what  the   apostle    had    begun,   and  complete  the 

may  hence  naturally  infer  that  they  did  not  form  (mite  organization  of  the  Christian  churches,  Tit.  i. ;,.     He  did 


0  A  N  1)  I  A, 

the  unr.vcnt 

C  PL  E  T  E. 


not  despair  of  the  gospel  even  on  so  corrupt  a  soil;  but 
charged  it  the  more  earnestly  on  believers,  that  the  very 
prevalence-  of  corruption  should  have  the  effect  of 
making  them  the  more  watchful  of  their  behaviour  and 
exemplary  in  their  conduct. 

Mention  is  made  of  Crete  in  the  narrative  of  St. 
hull's  voyage  and  shipwreck.  Contrary  winds  prevent 
ing  the  voyagers  from  continuing  their  direct  course  on 
the  north  side  of  the  island,  they  sailed  southward, 
rounding  Cape  Snlmone,  the  eastern  promontory  of 
Crete,  and  took  shelter  in  the  Fair  Havens,  near  Cape 
.Matala.  Afterwards,  in  endeavouring  to  make  for 
Pho-nice  (now  Port  Lutro),  a  more  secure  and  com 
modious  harbour  farther  west,  they  were  driven  off  the 
coast  b\-  a  violent  storm,  and  passing  under  the  small 
island  of  Clauda  were  carried  to  Malta.  (See  Smith's 
Vuyiuv  iiinl  Shipwreck  "f  St.  Paul.) 

CRIS'PUS.  a  ruler  in  the  .Jewish  synagogue  at  ( 'o- 
rinth,  and  one  of  those  who  were  converted  to  the  faith 
of  ( 'hrist  by  the  ministry  of  Paul,  Ac.  xviii.  s-,  1  Co.  i.  1 1.  As 
he  and  his  household  had  been  baptized  by  the  apostle, 
we  may  suppose  they  were  amonu'  the  earlier  converts. 

CROSS,  CRUCIFY.  The  Creek  word  for  cross. 
crrar/ios.  properly  signified  a  xt«lr,  an  upright  pole,  or 
piece  of  paling,  on  which  anything  might  be  hung,  or 
which  might  be  used  in  impaling  a  piece  of  ground.  P>ut 
a  modification  was  introduced  as  the  dominion  and  usages 
of  Rome  extended  themselves  through  Greek-speaking 
countries.  Even  amongst  the  Romans  the  crux  (from 
which  our  croxx  is  derived)  appears  to  have  been  origi 
nally  an  upright  pole,  and  this  always  remained  the  more 
prominent  part.  l>ut  from  the  time  that  it  began  to  be 


used  as  an  instrument  of  punishment,  a  transverse 
piece  of  wood  was  commonly  added:  not.  however, 
always  even  then.  For  it  would  seem  that  there  were 
more  kinds  of  death  than  one  by  the  cross;  this  being 
sometimes  accomplished  by  transfixing  the  criminal 
with  a  pole,  which  was  run  through  his  back  and  spine, 
and  came  out  at  his  mouth  (adactum  per  medium  ho- 
minem,  (|ui  per  os  emergat,  stipitem.  Seneca,  Ep.  xiv.) 
In  another  place  (Consul.  ad  Marciam,  xx.\  Seneca  men 
tions  three  different  forms:  ''I  see."  says  he,  "three 
crosses,  not  indeed  of  one  sort,  but  fashioned  in  diffe 
rent  ways;  one  sort  suspending  by  the  head  persons 
bent  toward  the  earth,  others  transfixing  them  through 
their  secret  parts,  others  extending  their  arms  on  a 
patibulum."  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that 
the  latter  sort  was  the  more  common,  and  that  about 
the  period  of  the  gospel  age  crucifixion  was  usually  ac 
complished  by  suspending  the  criminal  on  a  cross  piece 
of  wood. 

But  this  does  not  of  itself  determine  the  precise  form 
of  the  cross  :  for  crosses  of  three  different  shapes  were 
known  to  have  been  in  use.  One,  and  that  probably 
the  most  ancient,  was  in  the  form  of  the  letter  T, 
which  as  commonly  written  consisted  simply  of  a  per 
pendicular  line  with  another  laid  across  the  top,  making 
two  right  angles,  T-  Tn  the  earlier  Christian  writers 
this  letter  is  often  referred  to  as  a  symbol  of  the  cross, 
and.  on  account  of  such  a  resemblance,  Lucian.  in  his 
usual  style,  prefers  a  charge  against  the  letter  (Ju.lio. 
Voc.xiO  The  letter  X  represents  another  sort,  which 
has  received  the  name  of  St.  Andrew,  from  a  tradition 
that  on  a  cross  of  this  description  the  apostle  of  that 


cmss 


name  suffered  martyrdom.  But  the  commonest  form, 
it  is  understood,  was  that  in  which  the  upright  piece 
of  wood  was  crossed  by  another  near  the  top,  but  not 
precisely  at  it,  the  upright  pole  running-  above  the 
other,  thus  -|~ — and  so  making  four,  not  merely  two 
right  angles.  It  was  on  a  cross  of  this  form,  accord 
ing  to  the  general  voice  of  tradition,  that  our  Lord 
suffered;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  narratives  of  the 
evangelists  which  determines  this  to  have  I  icon  the 
form  employed,  rather  than  either  of  the  other  two. 
It  is,  however,  the  one  most  commonly  met  with  in 
the  paintings  and  sculptures  that  have  survived  from 
the  earlier  ages. 

Punishment  by  the  cross  was  confined  to  slaves  or  to 
malefactors  of  the  worst  class  ( II..r.  .s.it.  i. .", --L';  Jtiv.  vi.  met. 
When  a  person  was  condemned  to  this  punishment  lie- 
was  usually  stripped  and  -cour_rcd  i  i.iw,  xx\iii.:;r,;  V.a.  M;i\. 
i  r).  Before  being  actually  condemned  '.in-  Lord  had 
been  scourged,  Lu.  xxiii  lt);Jn.xix.  1,  anil  on  this  account, 
probably,  it  was  ..milled  afterwards.  The  criminal 
was  appointed  to  carry  his  cross  to  the  place  of  execu 
tion  (i'lut.  DcTanl.  Dei  Viliil.);  which  was  also  exacted,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  at  the  bauds  of  ( 'hrist.  though  another 
was  afterwards  compelled  to  share  the  burden  with  him. 
I. u.  xxiii.  L'ii.  \Yhcli  the  place  of  doom  was  reached,  tb. 
criminal  was  stripped  nearly  naked,  and  either  bound  or 
nailed  to  the  cross  which  was  then  hoisted  ;uid  set  up.  so 
a-;  to  cause  the  feet  of  the  victim  to  be  three  or  four  feet 
from  the  earth.  1  i  the  nail  in  I,'  wa>  the  liio-t  painful  mode 
in  the-  lii>t  in-tan. -e.  the  other  was  more  so  in  the  end; 
lor  the  sulI'd-iT  was  left  to  die  of  .-he,  i-  exhaustion,  and 
when  simply  bound  with  thongs  it  mi^ht  take  davs  to 
accomplish  tin  process;  tor  u>u:ill\ a  >troi|._.-  |,in  pro 
ject' -d  out  of  the  central  stem,  on  which  the  hod v  of 
the  sufferer  rested.  Instances  are  on  record  of  per 
sons  surviving  on  across  for  nine  days.  Mut  in  our 
Lord  s  case  tin-re  were  circum.-tances  alto-eth-r  pecu 
liar,  which  must  have  -.really  tended  to  shorten  the 
period  of  suffering.  Ignorant  of  these.  J'ilale  indi 
cated  his  surprise  that  the  death  of  Jesus  should  have 
occurred  so  noon,  M;U-.  \>.  11  And  as  there  \\x-re  pecu 
liar  circumstances  tending  to  produce  an  unusually 
speedy  death,  so  there  were  reasons  for  effecting- the 
i-ciiioval  of  th«  body  wiih  the  least  possible  delay. 
1  Lid  the  Romans  been  1,  ft  t,,  themselves  they  mi-lit 
have  allowed  the  body  to  han-  on  tin-  cross  for  day.-: 
hut  by  the  Jewish  law  removal  In  fore  sunset was  im 
perative,  Do.  xxi  •!.,  -'.', ;  ami  the  near  approach  of  the 
Jewish  Sabbath  -  a  Sabbath  also  of  peculiar  solemnity 

rendered  it  especially  needful,  in  our  Lord's  case, 
that  no  time  should  be  lost  in  having  the  body  committed 
to  its  proper  resting-place.  -It  may  be  added,  that 
crucifixion  as  a  capital  punishment  was  abolished  ],\ 
Constantino,  in  coiisei|iicnee  of  the  sacred  associations 
which  the  cross  had  now  gathered  around  it. 

The  singular  importance  attaching  to  the  death  of 
( 'hrist,  according  to  the  scheme  of  salvation  unfolded  in 
the  gospel,  could  not  but  communicate  somewhat  of  its 
own  character  to  the  instrument  on  which  it  was  un 
dergone.  From  being  in  it-elf  the  most  vile  and  repul 
sive  of  objects,  the  cross  has  become  in  the  minds  of 
believers  the  symbol  of  all  that  is  holy  and  precious. 
As  Christ  crucified  is  the  wisdom  of  Cod  and  the  power 
of  God  unto  salvation,  it  was  but  natural  that  those 
who  experienced  the  power  of  this  salvation  should 
glory  in  the  cross,  as  the  instrumental  occasion  by 
which  such  unspeakable  good  had  been  procured.  But 
Vol..  I. 


this  is  a  feeling  that  obviously  needs  to  be  kept  within 
definite  bounds,  and  jealously  guarded,  lest  it  should 
j  grow  into  a  species  of  idolatry,  and  supplant  the  very 
object  it  was  intended  to  honour.  Apart  from  Christ 
himself,  the  cross  remains  what  it  naturally  was,  a  base 
I  and  contemptible  thing,  and  utterly  incapable,  if  viewed 
otherwise  than  as  the  symbol  of  what  he  accomplished 
on  it,  of  imparting  either  life  or  blessing.  The  early 
Christians  contemplated  it  merely  as  such  a  symbol; 
and  hence  it  was  usually  associated  in  their  minds 
with  hopeful  and  joyous,  not  with  gloomy  and  asce 
tic  feelings.  So.  it  is  justly  remarked  by  JMaitland. 
in  his  interesting  work  on  the  catacombs,  "  When  the 
cross  was  employed  as  an  emblem,  as  it  very  often  was, 
it  wore  a  cheerful  aspect.  Pilate  mav  set  a  seal  upon 
the  sepulchre,  and  the  soldiers  may  repeat  their  idle 
tale:  but  the  church  knows  better;  and,  thinking  rather 
of  Christ's  resurrection  than  of  his  death,  she  crowns 
the  cross  with  Mowers."  On  the  early  tomb-stones  of 
the  Christians,  therefore,  the  cross  was  the  emblem  of 
victory  and  hope,  and  they  often  had  the  word  eictri.r 
written  underneath  or  alongside  of  it.  It  was  only  after 
the  morbid  and  ascetic  spirit  of  monkery  had  made  way 
in  the  church  that  the  cross  became  associated  with  a 
-looniy.  self-tormenting  piety:  and  only  when  supersti 
tion  took  the  place  of  true,  spiritual  devotion,  that  the 
li--ure  of  the  cross  came  to  be  used  or  borne  about  as  a 
sacred  charm.  This  List  abuse  bewail  much  earlier 
than  the  other,  for  it  appears  to  have  prevailed  exten- 
-ivelv  ill  the  fourth,  and  to  have  been  not  uncommon 
in  tit'  latter  part  of  the  third  century.  K\eii  then 
people  signed  the  cross  in  token  of  safety,  and  laid 
stress  on  figures  of  it  as  a  preservative  against  both 
.-piritual  and  natural  evil.  This  superstitious  feeling 
was  at  once  e.\piv>.-ed  and  stimulated  by  the  discovery 
of  what  was  held  to  be  the  true  sepulchre  of  < 'hrist, 
and  of  the  real  <TO-S  on  which  he -.uttered.  The  empress 
I  leleiia.  mother  of  Constantino,  about  the  year  A.M.  [W>. 
and  when  she  was  on  the  verge  of  eighty  years  old. 
made  a  pil-rimage  to  the  holy  places,  and  was  rewarded, 
among  other  things,  by  this  notable  discovery.  A 
•  lew.  who  doiibtle-s  understood  from  the  taste  and 
tendencies  of  the  noble  visitant  what  was  likely  to  bring 
the  most  grateful  response,  furnished  the  information 
which  led  to  the  desired  result;  only,  as  three  crosses 
were  found  at  the  spot,  it  was  for  a  time  difficult  to 
a-cei-tain  with  certainty  which  might  be  the  Saviour's. 
Mut  on  the  suggestion  of  Macarius,  P.ishop  of  Jerusa 
lem,  they  were  tested  by  their  power  of  \\orking  mira- 
<•!,-:  and  as  one  only  was  reported  to  possess  this 
i|ualitv,  it  was  accordingly  declared  to  be  the  genuine 
cross  of  Christ.  This,  however,  was  but  the  beginning 
of  wonders:  for,  as  is  well  known,  bits  of  this  real 
cross  soon  began  to  be  distributed  throughout  Chris 
tendom;  and  the  traffic  grew  till  it  was  calculated  the 
whole  mi-lit  have  sufficed  to  build  a  ship  of  war, 
while  the  original  remained  still  undiminished.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  evidences  on  record  of  the 
melancholy  prone-ness  of  the  human  mind  to  idolatry 
and  superstition,  and  shows  how  close  and  vigilant 
a  watch  should  be  set  on  the  workings  of  pious  sen 
timent,  from  the  moment  it  begins  to  decline  into 
a  wrong  direction !  The  subject,  however,  in  this  as 
pect  of  it,  belongs  to  church  history  rather  than  to  that 
of  biblical  literature. 

Figuratively,  rrox.s  is  used  in  Scripture,  in  a  general 
way  for  what  is  painful  and    mortifying  to  the  flesh. 

48 


Our  Lord  kirns-elf  so  uses  it  when  he  says,  "if  any  man 
will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take 
up  his  cross,  and  follow  me,"  Mat.  xvi.  •_'].  And  THK 
CKoss,  byway  of  eminence,  that  namely  of  Christ,  is 
taken  as  an  emhlem  of  the  doctrine  or  religion  with 
which  it  is  so  closely  connected,  1'hi.  iii.  is.  The  enemies 
of  the  cross  of  Chri.-t.  are  such  as  in  their  heart  and  be 
haviour  are  opposed  to  the  spirit  and  design  for  which 
he  suffered  on  the  accursed  tree. 

CROWN.  The  common  Hebrew  word  for  this  is 
al'u-ah  (-- cy>:  it  ^  derived  from  the  root  which  signi 
fies  to  surround,  then  to  encircle  in  a  distinguishing  or 
honorary  manner,  especially  with  chaplets,  diadems,  or 
such  like  things  upon  the  head  ;  so  that  the  atdrdk  in 
the  emphatic  sense  of  crown  was  just  the  capital  cinc 
ture  and  ornament  of  the  person—  in  kings,  the  peculiar 
badge  of  royalty;  in  priests,  of  sacerdotal  dignity 
Chough  in  Scripture  another  term  is  commonly  used 
for  this  -r\r;VC,  iiiitzncji/tct/i):  in  combatants,  of  victory. 

In  ancient  times  such  crowns,  though  called  by  a 
common  name,  would  naturally  differ  according  to  the 


[134.]        Kgyjitian,  Assyrian,  and  other  Crowns. 
1,  Egyptian  Crown  of  the  upper  country.— Wilkinson. 
2  Egyptian  Crown  of  the  limvr  country.— Wilkinson. 
8  K-yptian  Crown  of  the  united  upper  and  lower  countries.— Wilkinson. 
4  Assyrian  Crown  of  a  king  in  Nineveh.— Layard. 

6  Assyrian  Crown  of  Sardanapalus  III.— Layar.I. 
r,    Vssyrian  Crown  of  Sennacherib.— Layard. 

7  Crown  of  TK'rames,  kins,-  .if  Syria.— From  a  tetrndrachma. 
s.  Crown  from  sculpture  at  Persrpolis.— Portrr  s  Travels. 

y,  Corona  civica.— From  coin  of  tlie  emperur  Galba. 

manners  of  the  time  and  the  condition  of  the  person 
ages  who  wore  them.  Even  for  kings,  we  have  no 
reason  to  think  they  bore  anything  like  a  commonly 
recognized  or  stereotyped  form.  Indeed,  a  comparison 
of  the  distinctive  head-dresses  of  the  Egyptian  and 
Assyrian  kings  with  the  more  simple,  though  probably 
more  costly  diadem  of  the  Roman  emperors,  is  suffi 
cient  proof  that  there  was  great  variety  of  form.  Some 
of  them,  it  will  be  observed,  especially  those  of  the 
Assyrian  monarchs,  approach  very  nearly  in  shape  to 
the  priestly  tiara,  and  were  in  fact  nothing  else  than  an 


CRYSTAL 

elevated,  elaborately  wrought,  and  perhaps  gemmed 
turban.  That  they  were  usually  made  of  costly  mate 
rials,  and  were  for  dignity  and  ornament  rather  than 
for  use,  appears  from  the  allusions  to  them  found  in 
ancient  writers.  Even  the  comparatively  petty  king 
of  the  Ammonites  had  a  crown  which  contained  a 
talent  of  gold  and  precious  stones,  which  David  took 
with  the  city  Kabbah,  and  placed  upon  his  own  head, 
•2  Sa.  xii.  :in.  Reference  is  made  in  Ps.  xxi.  o  to  a  crown 
of  pure  gold  as  the  proper  badge  of  a  king,  whose  state 
corresponded  to  his  position;  so  that  in  David's  time 
gold  must  be  understood  to  have  formed  the  chief  mate 
rial  for  the  manufacture  of  royal  crowns ;  but  nothing 
is  indicated  respecting  the  form. 

It  was  a  (irecian  custom  to  crown  with  a  wreath  of 
leaves,  or  a  chaplet  of  flowers,  those  who  came  off  vic 
torious  in  the  public  games.  \Ve  read  of  nothing  cor 
responding  to  this  in  the  Old  Testament;  but  reference 
is  made  to  the  custom  by  St.  Paul  as  one  perfectly 
familiar  to  his  Corinthian  readers  (near  whose  city  some 
of  those  games  were  celebrated),  and  he  draws  the  dis 
tinction  between  such  and  the  ( 'hristian  pri/.e,  by  desig 
nating  the  one  corruptible,  and  the  other  incorruptible, 
1  Co.  ix.  •_':>.  In  reference  also,  partly  to  this  worldly 
custom,  and  partly  to  the  usage  of  kings,  the  final  in 
heritance  of  the  saints  is  represented  as  a  crown,  to 
which  they  are  at  once  born  as  heirs  of  .ulory,  and  to 
which  they  must  fight  their  wny  as  spiritual  combat 
ants-— a  crown  of  righteousness,  -i  Ti.  iv.  s,  because  it  is 
attained  to  only  as  the  final  issue  of  a  life  of  righteous 
ness  :  a  crown  <>f  I  iff,  lie.  ii.  10,  or  a  crown  of  .'/A//1//.  1  IV. 
v.i,  because  a  perennial  life  of  blessedness  and  glory 
shall  be  the  portion  of  those  who  receive  it.  But 
another  and  less  creditable  custom  of  the  ancient  hea 
then  in  respect  to  the  use  of  temporary  crou  us  is  referred 
to,  at  least  once,  in  Old  Testament  scripture  —  the 
custom,  namely,  of  encircling  with  a  coronal  of  leaves 
and  flowers  the  heads  of  those  who  were  engaged  in 
the  mirth  and  revelry  of  public  festivals.  Thus  the 
prophet  Isaiah  apostrophizes  the  drunkards  of  Ephraim, 
as  having  on  them  a  crown  of  pride,  a  glorious  beauty 
of  a  fading  flower,  eh.  xxviii.  i.  And  in  the  apocryphal 
i  book  of  Wisdom  the  reference  is  still  more  distinct — 
"Let  us  fill  ourselves  with  costly  wine  and  ornaments, 
and  let  no  flowers  of  the  spring  pass  by  us:  let  us 
crown  ourselves  with  rose-buds  before  they  are  uttered,'' 
ch.  ii.  7,  *.  Occasionally  allusions  are  made  to  crowns  in  a 
quite  general  way,  as  to  what  is  peculiarly  honourable 
and  glorious  ;  as  when  a  virtuous  wife  is  called  "  a  crown 
to  her  husband,"  I'r.  xii.  4;  when  the  wise  are  said  to  get 
riches,  and  old  men  grandchildren,  for  a  crown,  Pr.  xiv. 
24;  xvii.  (i;  or  when  faithful  ministers  of  the  gospel  have 
their  converts  reckoned  to  them  for  a  crown  of  joy, 
iTh.  ii.  19.  In  such  cases  the  crown  is  simply  regarded 
a-i  the  sign  or  emblem  of  the  state. 

CRYSTAL.     There  is  no  further  peculiarity  in  the 

i  reference  made  to  crystal  in  Scripture,  than  that  in  the 

I  original   Hebrew   two   terms    are   so   rendered,  gal  lull 

CZ""2tf,  an<l  kcrach  (rr$\     These  both  properly  signify 

ice,  the  one  from  the  congelation  that  causes  it,  the  other 

I  from  the  smoothness  that  appears  on  its  surface.     It 

was  an  ancient  opinion,  that  crystal  was  simply  ice  in 

a  harder  state  of  congelation  than  usual ;  and  hence,  not 

merely  the  Hebrew  gabish,  but  the  Greek  A-pi'crraXXcs, 

from  which  OUT  crystal  comes,  signified  equally  clear  ice 

and  rock-crystal,  the  two  being  regarded  as  but  one 


CUBIT  3 

substance.  This  of  course  was  a  mistake,  but  it  accounts 
for  the  common  designation.  Rock-crystal  is  produced 
iu  the  warmer,  as  well  as  in  the  colder  regions  of  the 
earth  ;  and  is  composed  of  the  finest  species  of  quartz. 
It  is  so  pellucid,  that  "clear  as  crystal"  is  a  familiar 
expression  in  Scripture,  Re.  iv.  o;  xxi.  n,  &c.,  as  well  as  in 
ordinary  discourse.  Its  terrible  or  dazzling  brightness, 
when  shone  upon  by  the  light  of  the  sun.  is  referred  to 
in  Eze.  i.  '2'2.  And  from  the  value  set  upon  it,  in  con 
nection  witli  these  qualities,  it  was  ranked  by  the 
ancients  among  the  precious  stones,  and  sometimes 
even  named  with  gold  as  of  like  value.  .T,,I>  xxviii.  17. 

CUBIT.     fi«:  WEIGHTS  AND  MKASI-RKS. 

CUCKOO    (P-».-,   x/utr/tiijJ,).      The   name    of   some 

bird,  mentioned  only  in  the  lists  of  unclean  fowl  in  Le. 
xi.  and  l)e.  xiv.  It  is  impossible  to  say  with  certainty 


what  species  or  even  ^eniis  is  intended.  TlieLXX. 
translate  the  word  by  \d/w,  the  UM|1I.  ;uid  various  con 
jectural  identifications  have  Keen  proposed.  Where 
nothing  certain  can  be  advanced,  the  rendering  of  the 
English  version  is  not  at  all  improbable,  and  is  quite 
as  good  as  any  other.  The  cuckoo  ( <  'uriihix  <\in<>riix)  is 
;i  bird  of  considerable  si/e.  unfit  for  food,  b,  cause  habi 
tually  feeding  on  reptiles  and  large  insects,  common  in 
Palestine,  and  sure  to  attract  popular  notice  from  its 
peculiar  and  well-known  call. 

The  very  word  .</i>ir/,, >,,/,,  especially  if  it  was  pro 
nounced  xlttti'/<n/i/i,  was  a  good  imitation  of  the  dissyl 
labic  voice  of  this  bird:  and  not  improbably  was  so 
intended,  just  as  our  word  rtirk<H>.  variously  repeated 
in  all  European  languages,  and  i/nkm,/,.  which  the  bird 
is  supposed  by  the  Arabs  to  utter.  The  latter  indeed 
call  it  /nr  (I  !i<ik»»l>,  or  Jacob's  bird,  on  this  account. 

The  cuckoo  is  spread  over  the  whole  of  Asia  and 
Africa  a<  well  as  Europe,  migrating  northward  in 
spring,  and  southward  in  autumn.  It  is  said  to  pass 
the  winter  in  Palestine.  Mr.  Strickland  saw  it  at 
Smyrna,  and  Messrs.  Dickson  it  Ross  sent  specimens 
to  the  Zoological  Society  from  Erzeroom.  Buckingham. 
travelling  across  the  mountains  between  Damascus  and 
Sidon  in  April,  heard  the  familiar  call.  loud,  distinct, 
and  clenr.  though  the  ground  was  covered  with  deep 
snow.  It  is  probable  that  the  cuckoo  does  not  breed 
in  Palestine.  |  p.  ji.  (;.] 

CUCUMBER.     The  Talmudists  derive  the  Hebrew 

plural    D'N  £•':?.    from    the   obsolete    root    x»«p,    "to    be 

•••.'•  T'T 

hard,  heavy,  difficult,"  owing  to  the  hardness  and  indi- 
gestibility  of  this  tempting  but  dangerous  fruit  (Gosenius). 
This  was  one  of  the  Egyptian  dainties  which  the  Israel-  ' 
ites  missed  in  the  wilderness.  Xu.  xi.  ,'>,  and  according  to  j 


( TCUMBER 

Hasselquist,  no  country  can  vie  with  Egypt  for  cucum 
bers.  Not  only  does  it  yield  in  abundance  the  common 
species,  Cttcxmit  aatiritis,  but  a  variety  to  which  he 
gives  the  epithet  "  Egyptian  melon,  or  queen  of  the 
cucumbers" — the  C'ucn>n!n  Chute  of  Linmeus.  ''This 
grows  in  the  fertile  earth  round  Cairo,  after  the  in 
undation  of  the  Nile,  and  not  in  any  other  place  in 
Egypt,  nor  does  it  grow  in  any  other  soil.  This 
fruit  is  a  little  watery,  the  flesh  is  almost  of  the  same 
substance  as  the  melons;  it  tastes  somewhat  sweet 
and  cool.  The  grandees  and  Europeans  in  Egypt 
eat  it  as  the  most  pleasant  fruit  they  find,  and  that 
from  which  they  have  least  to  apprehend.  It  is  the 
most  excellent  fruit  of  this  tribe  of  any  yet  known. 
The  princes  in  Europe  may  wish  they  could  get  it  into 
their  gardens,  for  it  is  certainly  worth  a  place  on  their 
tables"  (Travels,  L'».  It  is  likely,  however,  that  it  was 
the  more  common  sort  with  which  the  Hebrew  bonds 
men  were  chiefly  acquainted  ;  and  this  is  so  plentiful. 
that  at  the  present  day  the  cucumber-leaf  is  a  prover 
bial  expression  for  anything  of  frequent  occurrence,  as 
in  the  saying  "  It  is  written  upon  the  cucumber-leaf, 
'  He  who  watches  during  the  ni^'ht,  sleeps  during  the 
day,"  "  /.».  it  is  written  where  the  meanest  people  may 

read   it  (liaivkhar.lt'rt  Arabic  Proverbs,  No.  MI\. 

lint  plentiful  as  cucumbers  were  -often  u'rosving  by 
the  roadside,  or  where  the  neighbourhood  of  a  foun 
tain  supplied  the  mean>  of  irrigation  they  were  still 
private  property,  and  were  not  intended  for  the  use  of 


[  186.  ]       Cucumber— Ciicuntis  aativux. 

every  promiscuous  passenger.  Accordingly,  it  was  not 
unusual  to  set  some  one  to  watch  them,  and,  Is.  i.  R, 
the  lonely  daughter  of  Zion  is  compared  to  a  "lodge  in 
a  garden  of  cucumbers'' — alluding  either  to  the  slight 
shelter  which  screened  the  watchman  from  the  sun, 
or  the  little  stage  or  platform  where  he  maintained 


(TMT.V 


3SO 


err 


CUMIN  (>j22-  illl(l  KVfjuvoi>),iHt}\cC'uminum  ('i/minum 

of  Limreus.  Like  the  anise,  the  coriander,  the  dill, 
and  the  caraway  (Cum in  Carni),  it  is  an  umbelliferous 
plant,  with  seeds  aromatic,  pungent,  and  carminative. 
A  native  of  I']>]HT  Kgypt  and  Ethiopia,  it  is  still  exten 
sively  cultivated  in  Sicily  and  Malta.  Jt  would  appear  | 


to  have  been  a  favourite  herb  among-  the  Hebrews,  and 
as  late  as  last  century  it  retained  a  place  of  some  im 
portance  in  pharmacy.  (Sec  .1.  C.  Khrnianni  Dissertali" 
Mcdica  de  Cu7iiino,  Arguntorati,  1733.)  Its  flavour  is  less 
agreeable  than  the  seeds  of  the  caraway,  to  which  it 
has  almost  entirely  given  place  in  this  country;  but  it 
is  still  used  by  veterinary  snrgt ,-ons,  and  according  to  a 
letter  of  .Mr.  Field  in  the  Tiitu-x,  when  the  oil  of  cumin 
is  rubbed  on  the  hand,  and  held  to  the  nostrils  of  a 
vicious  horse,  it  exerts  such  an  influence  over  the  animal 
that  the  performer  is  enabled  to  proceed  with  his  other 
manipulations  till  he  gains  entire  mastery  over  him. 
When  the  cumin  is  ripe,  its  seeds  are  easily  detached 
from  the  stalk,  as  is  the  case  with  the  coriander,  the 
fennel,  the  caraway,  and  plants  of  the  same  order.  A 
thrashing- sledge,  or  wooden  rollers,  might  be  needed 
to  separate  from  the  ear  the  grains  of  wheat  or  barley  : 
but  for  dill  and  cumin  a  rod  was  thrashing  instrument 
sufficient.  To  this  Isaiah  alludes,  ch.xxviii.i7,  in  that 
parable  where,  from  the  processes  of  the  husbandman, 
he  so  beautifully  illustrates  the  variety  and  congruity  of 
the  divine  dispensations.  The  Pharisees  are  upbraided 
for  that  morbid  scrupulosity  which,  whilst  living  in  the 
neglect  of  the  weightiest  duties,  paid  "tithe  of  mint, 
and  anise,  and  cumin,"  Hat.  xxiii.  •£', ;  and  it  is  a  curious 
coincidence  that,  amongst  the  Greeks,  a  hard  and  pet 
tifogging  punctiliousness  should  have  been  nick-named 
"  cumin- splitting."  In  his  Wasps,  Aristophanes  calls 
a  miserable  haggler  and  hoarder  by  one  of  those  ses 
quipedalian  epithets  which  he  so  delights  in,  KVJJ.LVO- 
TrpiffTo-  KapSa.fi.o-y'kvrjjos,  a  cress-seed-paring  cumin- 
carving  skin-flint.  [•!.  H.] 

CUP.  The  earliest  mention  of  cups  on  record  is  in 
the  dream  of  Pharaoh's  butler,  Go.  xl.  11.  Subsequently 
the  word  is  of  frequent  recurrence  in  the  Bible,  both  in 


its  proper  sense  as  a  material  cup  used  for  drinking  at 
meals  or  at  religious  festivals  and  ceremonies,  and  in 
its  figurative  sense,  in  which  its  applications  are  most 
varied  and  significant.  .In  <ie.  xliv.  f>,  its  use  in  divi 
nation  is  likewise  intimated,  showing  the  great  anti 
quity  of  this  practice  among  oriental  peoples. 

Among  tin;  Kgyptians  the  forms  of  cups  and  vases 
were  very  varied,  the  paintings  upon  the  t  nubs  repre 
senting  many  of  most  elegant  design,  though  others  are 
equally  deficient  in  the  properties  of  form  and  propor 
tion.  The  forms  used  during  the  fourth  and  other  early 
dynasties  (1700  B.C.)  continued  to  be  common  to  a  late 
date.  (I'4;yi>tiaiis  of  Time  of  I'haraohs,  L,m.  !s">7,  ]•  4*.)  There 
are  not  any  representations  of  cups  like  the  head  of  an 
animal  (Nineveh  an-l  its  Palaces,  :M  edit.  i>p  i'i:.,  2lfi).  Many  of 
the  Egyptian  vases,  cups,  and  bowls  were  of  gold  iIK-r«l. 
ii.  l.'>l)  and  silver.  Con.  xiiv.  •>;  CMI>I>.  N'n.  vii.  St.  some  being 
richly  studded  with  precious  stones,  inlaid  with  vitri 
lied  substances  in  brilliant  colours,  and  even  enamelled. 
Pliny  states  that  "  the  Egyptians  paint  their  silver  cups, 
representing  Anubis  upon  them;  the  metal  being  painted 
not  engraved,"  apparently  referring  to  enamel  in  con 
tradistinction  to  the  ordinary  inlaid  work  (Wilkinson). 
The  cup  of  Thothmes  111.  (in  the  LMIVIX-)  is  of  gold 
highly  ornamented;  it  measures  about  7  inches  in 
diameter,  and  has  fish  and  other  devices  chased  upon 
the  bottom,  and  round  the  sides  a  border  of  hiero- 
glvphies  in  relief  punched  upon  it  from  within,  llroii/.e 
vessels  have  been  frequently  found  in  the  tombs,  and  a 
bronze  table  was  discovered  at  Thebes,  on  whi'-h  were 
about  twenty  of  different  forms.  P.ottles.  bowls,  and 
cups  were  likewise  made  of  hard  stone,  such  as  granite, 
porphyry,  basalt,  and  alabaster,  so  called  from  Alabas- 
tron,  a  town  in  Upper  .Egypt,  near  quarries  which  pro- 


[188.]        Egyptian  Cups. 
1.  2.  n.  From  pnintincs  at  Thel.es.— Wilkinson. 
4  Porcelain  Cup.— Wilkinson.  5,  Cup  of  ween  earthenware,  with 

lotus  (lower  painted  in  black.— British  Museum. 

n  C'np  of  coarse  pottery.- Urit.  Bins.  7.  Cup  of  wood.— Brit.  Mas. 

8.  Cup  of  arragonite.— B.  Mus.       y,  Saucer  of  earthenware.— Wilkinson 

duced    this    material.      Those  vases,  in   which  costly 

scented   ointments   were  exported   from    Egypt,    were 

all   made   at   this   town,   whence  the  vase  was   called 

an   <tl,il><i*trn,i,   a   word  erroneously  translated    in    the 

authorized  version  of  the  New  Testament,  Mat  xxvi.  7, 

an   ''alabaster  box,"  instead  of   an   "alabaster  vase." 

The  characteristic  form  of  these  vases,  which  differ  only 

I  in  being  more  or  less  elongated,  is  that  they  are  broad  at 

j  the  base,  gradually  tapering  to  the  neck,  and  usually  with 

little  projections  at  the  sides.    Example  A  (No.  1  89)  is  the 

'  most  common  form  :  B  is  in  the  collection  of  the  Duke  of 

Northumberland,  and  is  still  half  filled  with  ointment 


err 


3X-1 


(TP 


The  small  pieces  shown  over  the  tups  of  the  vases  are 
their  stoppers,  made  also  of  alabaster.  Vases  of  this 
material  and  of  the  same  shapes  an;  common  in  the 
tombs  of  Greece  and  Etruria  ;  one  was  discovered  at 


I  falicarnassus  inscribed  with  the  name  of  Xerxes  in 
hieroglyphics  and  in  cuneiform  characters  (in  Brit  Mus  ) 
All  the  specimens  extant  were  unquestionably  made 
in  Kgypt,  no  other  quarries  of  alabaster  having  been 
known  until  recent  times,  \\heii  the  material  was  dis 
covered  in  Arragon.  in  Spain,  and  is  hence  called  arm 
gonite.  The  cups  used  for  offerings  to  the  gods  were 
of  very  simple  shape,  as  were  many  of  the  drinkiii'_r- 
cups,  some  of  which,  however,  were  adorned  with 
flowers  and  other  devices.  Numerous  cups  and  bowls 
wore  of  earthenware,  and  of  vitrified  pottery,  the  latter 
beiiiLT  often  ornamented  \\ith  various  p.-itti-rns.  some 
having  fish  and  lotus  blossoms  on  the  concave  bottom, 
and  some  were  in  the  form  of  the  lotus  itself  (Wilkin-nni. 

"Besides  vases  and  cups  of  the  precious  metals,  hard 
stones,  and  pottery,  the  Ivj-yptians  had  other  varieties 
in  glass  and  porcelain.  <  .lass  was  one  of  the  earliest 
manufactures  known  in  Kirypt.  A  i_dass  head  has  been 
found  hearing  the  name  nf  a  Pharaoh  of  the  eighteenth 
dynasty,  proving  it  to  be  more  than  :5^oii  years  old, 
and  glass  bottles  are  represented  nil  paintings  of  far 
more  ancient  date  (\viikin-~oiO.  Some  cups,  small  bowls, 
and  bottles  were  formed  of  a  coloured  composition 
which  has  been  called  glass- porcelain  :  it  was  esteemed 
a  recommendation  that  the  colour  should  pass  directly 
through  the  fused  substance,  and  this  peculiarity  was 
sometimes  imitated,  either  to  deceive  the  purchaser  or 
to  supply  a  cheaper  commodity. 

Among  the  Assyrians  the  cups  and  vases  were  even 
more  varied  in  form  and  elegant  in  design  than  amoiv_r 
the  Kgyptians.  as  is  evinced  by  the  numerous  examples 
in  the  British  Museum,  and  by  the  representations  on 
the  sculptures.  The  materials  employed  were  the  same 
-  the  precious  metals,  copper,  bronze,  glass,  and  pottery, 
both  glazed  and  unglazed.  In  one  sculpture  at  Khor- 
sabad  (HoUa,  pi.  ixxvi.),  is  represented  a  large  vase,  that 
evidently  from  its  dimensions  contained  "royal  wine  in 
abundance."  KS.  i  7,  into  which  the  attendant  cup-bearers 
are  dipping  drinking-cnps.  These  cups  terminate  in  the 
head  of  a  lion,  and  it  is  to  be  inferred,  from  the  construc 
tion  of  t'u:  handle  with  a  hinge-like  articulation  to  the 
bowl  (No.  1  flit,  fii;.  -2),  that  they  are  of  metal,  and  probably 
gold.  ( )ther  festal  cups  are  more  like  bowls  in  form  and 
fluted  (Xo.  1JMI,  fig. ,".:  Kini,'and  (Jneen  feasting  in  Garden,  R  M.) 

Iii  other  scenes  from  X'imroud,  the  king  is  drinking  on 
his  return  from  the  chase  (B.  Mus.),  and  is  pouring  out  a 
libation  ( Ibid.)  (  hie  series  represents  him  drinking  in  the 
presence  of  the  gods  of  Assyria,  reminding  us  of  the 
metaphor  in  Ps  xvi.  and  xxiii.:  and  one  chamber  was 


apparently  specially  devoted  to  representations  in  regu 
lar  alternation  of  the  king  with  a  cup  and  the  kinti' 
with  two  arrows,  and  attended  by  divinities  (we  Divi- 
XATIUN).  Many  cups  of  the  form  of  those  seen  in  the 
hand  of  the  king  wen;  found  by  I  Bayard  in  the  ruins  of 
Nimroud,  and  are  now  exhibited  in  L;'lass  cases  in  the 
middle  of  the  Assyrian  gallery  in  the  British  Museum. 
They  are  made  of  bron/.e,  are  of  exipiisite  workman 
ship,  and  are  embossed  in  separate  compartments  with 
numerous  figures,  representing  men  and  animals.  One 
of  the  most  frequently  repeated  figures  is  that  so  com 
moil  in  Egyptian  sculptures,  bearing  reference  to  time, 
or  cycles,  or  periods.  Other  cups  are  embossed  with 
the  Assyrian  winged  animals;  some  have  nodules  of 
silver,  and  others  again  have  small  garnets  -et  into  the 
bnni/e  at  certain  interlacing*  of  the  ornament.  They 
are  all  of  beaten  work.  Nu  viii.  I;  K\.  x\xviii.  17  _.',  in 
which  art  the  ancients  had  attained  great  skill  and  per 
fection,  and  appear  to  be  of  the  iiatme  of  those  "vessels 
of  fine  copper"  spoken  of  by  K/ra,  i  h.  viii.  -J7,  as  "precious 
as  gold."  There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt,  from  the  char 
acter  of  the  decoration,  that  these  are  cups  for  divining 
a  practice  common  to  Syria  and  Kgypt as  early  as  the 
time  of  the  patriarch  Jos, -ph.  The  question.  "  Is  not 
this  it  in  which  m\  lord  drinketh,  and  whereby  indeed 
he  divineth  '"  Oc  \liv  :,,  would  lose  half  its  force  if  the 
custom  had  been  unknown  to  the  sons  of  .Jacob.  Mr. 
I.avard  lias  also  deposited  in  the  TJritish  M  useum  several 
drinking-cnps  of  like  form  covered  with  Hebrew  char 
act. TS.  Tin  \  are  of  much  more  recent  date,  having 


1    I.ion-hi-.icl  Cnp—  Sculptinv.  Kh.ir*.-<li:ul.     M"lt:i 

'2   l.ion-li.  ;id  Cup  with  liiiinllr  —  Khnrsiibuil  — B.itt 

:'..  Cup— Sculpt iirr,  Khi.rsul.wl.-  H..UII. 

4,  Cup  (if  r.-.l  jK.ttcry— Nimrnuil.— Lnyard. 

fi,  I'nint.  ,1  cup  fn.ni  KunimVs.     Layiinl. 

n.  7.  l!ron/e  Ciij.s~Niiiir.iu. I.  -l;riti.-h  Museum. 


belonged  to  Jews  who  lived  in  the  cities  of  Mesopo 
tamia,  where  the  same  superstitions  exist  even  to  the 
present  day.  I  >rinking-cups.  both  of  brass  ami  silver, 
and  of  precisely  the  same  shape,  are  still  in  common 
use  all  over  the  Kast.  They  are  generally  decorated 
with  some  Arabic  sentence  bearing  a  mystic  sense.  Jn 
Persia  there  is  a  tradition  that  there  is  a  cup  called 
"Jami  Jemshid."  the  cup  of  Jemshid,  an  ancient  king 
of  that  country,  in  which  could  be  seen  the  whole  world 
and  all  the  tilings  which  were  doing  in  it.  The  same 
tradition  asserts  that  this  cup,  filled  with  the  elixir  of 
immortality,  was  discovered  in  digging  the  foundations 
of  Persepolis.  The  Persian  poets  ascribe  to  this  cup 
the  prosperity  of  their  ancient  inonarchs  (NMneveli  ami  its 
Palaces,  M  edit.  p.  .'Miri,  .w).  [The  Assyrian  divining  cups 
referred  to  above  are  called  I'xiwls  in  the  British  Mu 
seum,  and  figures  of  some  of  them  are  given  under  tin- 
article  BOWL. — ED.] 


CURSE 


CUSH 


In  a  figurative  sense-  the  word  cu 
a  man's  lot  <»r  portion,  Ps.  .\i.  ii;  xvi.  5 
is  called  a  golden  cup.  possihly  in  allusion  to  her  super 
stitious  rites,  and  because  of  her  sensuality,  luxury,  ami 
afiluence.  Je.  li.  7.  The  "nip  of  devils."  as  opposed  to 
the  ''cup  of  Cod."  symbolized  idolatry.  It  Mgnili.  s 
afflictions,  Ps.  Ixxv.  is;  Is.  li.  17,  22;  Jc.  XXV.  K>  ;  xlix.  1:!;  II.  7; 
l.;\.  iv.  21  ;  Kze.  xxiii.  :il-:::;-,  IliJ).  U  Hi;  Ue.  xiv.  KI:  xvi.  Hi ;  and 
sufferings.  Mat.  xx.  :;:.';  xxvi.  :«i;  Lu.  xxii. -U:  Jn.  xviii  11;  Hob. 
ii.  St.  The  eup  of  salvation  and  thanksgiving  to  tile- 
Lord.  Ps.  cxvi.  i;i.  Tile  "cu])  of  blessing,"  derived  from 
the  practice  of  the  Jews  in  their  thank-oiferiugs  when, 
at  the  feast  of  the  remnants  of  the  sacrifices,  the  master 
of  the  feast  pronounced  blessing's  over  a  cup  of  wine, 
and  then  gave  each  of  the  guests  in  turn  to  drink, 
I  Ch.  xvi.  2-4  Our  Lord  is  supposed  to  allude  to  this 
custom  in  the  institution  of  the  eup.  Lu.  xui.  17:  1  Co.  x.  in. 

[.,.   B.J 

CURSE.       NM    AXATHKMA. 

CTJSH.  1.  The  eldest  son  of  Ham.  He  was  latin  r 
of  six  sons,  the  most  noted  of  whom  was  X'imrod,  Go. 
X.G-S;  ICh  1.8- 10. 

2.  A  Benjamite  at  the  court  of  Saul,  whose  calumnia- 


i'teii  used  for  the  most  northern  point  of  Egypt,  and  Syene  the  most 
.6.  Babylon  i  southern  place  of  importance  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egyptians, 
i.  p.  174).  This  is  further  confirmed  by  the  various  pas 
sages  where  Cush  and  Egypt  occur  together,  as  Is.  xx. 
:.!-;">,  1  's.  Ixviii.  32  [31 1,  and  those*where  mention  is  made  of 
the  connection  and  confederacy  subsisting  between  their 
inhabitants,  K/-.O.  xxx.  1;  Jt.  xlvi. v, !);  Na.  iii.  !i.  Cushites  came 
out  of  Egypt  with  Shishak  against  Jerusalem,  iH'h.  xii. :(. 
Cush  also  occurs  in  connection  with  Egypt  and  the 
Sabeans.  2«joc  (.-<•<  6(7 ////).  Is.  xh-.  it,  different  from  the 

inhabitants  of  N2'i'  (••</'(6(7).  a  people  of  Arabia,  so  fr 


;).  a  peopl. 

quently  mentioned  in  Scripture.  The  Seba  here  re 
ferred  to  was  quite  a  distinct  country,  probably  Meroe 
in  Upper  Egypt:  it  was  inhabited  by  a  descendant 
of  dish.  Go.x"r.  In  Je.  xiii.  23  the  black  colour  of 
the  Cushites  is  so  noticed  that  it  must  have  evidently 
differed  greatly  from  that  of  the  Jews,  a  remark  not  at  all 
applicable  to  an  Arabian  people,  \\hile  very  suitable  to 
negroes. 

But  if  it  was  unquestionably  an  extreme  view  of 
Boehart.  who  found  dish  only  in  Arabia,  the  view 
advanced  bvShultess.  ( iesenins.  Bunsen,  and  others,  who 


tion  of  David  gave  occasion  to  the  inditing  of  Ps.  vii..      admit  only  an  African  Ciish,  is  no  less  so.  and  it  is  only  by 


wherein  the  psalmist  protests  his  innocence  of  those 
charges.  As  no  such  individual,  however,  is  mentioned 
in  the  historical  notices  of  that  period,  man}'  expositors 
conclude  that  the  name  dish,  which  in  its  </c/iti/c  form 
C't(*ht,  Jo.  xiii.  L'::,  signifies  /;<<»</'  or  black  man.  is  a  sym 
bolical  designation  of  the  dark  malice  of  the  enemy. 


jfi'ering  violence  to  various  passages  of  Scripture  that  it 

can  be  maintained.  That  several  localities  should  he 
called  by  the  same  name  is  explicable  from  the  frequent 
migrations  of  the  early  nations,  who  would  give  their 
own  names  successively  to  the  various  regions  into  which 
they  removed.  That  Mesopotamia  was  the  original 


whom  the  Jewish  writers,  with  the  exception  of  Alien-  seat  of  a  portion  at  least  of  the  Cushites  is  plain  from 
ezra,  take  to  be  Saul  himself.  So  also  several  modern  the  statement  relative  to  Nimrod,  whose  empire  em- 
expositors,  as  Vatable,  Tarnov,  Glass  (Phiioi.  Sac.  lib.  iv.:i,M,  braced  portions  both  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria.  GO.  x.  s-i-j: 
Burk  (Gnomon  Psalinovuni,  i.  p.  .".i),  and  Heng>tenberg.  It  and  that  either  there  orin  Arabia  there  was  another  ( 'ush 
is  thought,  moreover,  that  there  is  a  play  on  the  name  appears  from  several  passages,  which  can  be  explained 

inly  on  such  an  assumption.      The  arguments  in  favour 
if  an  Arabian  Cush  are  briefly  these  — 1.  It  is  mentioned 


Kish,   the   father   of  Saul.     These    suppositions  havi 

however,  little  to  support  them.      What  chiefly  opposi. 

the   application    to    Saul   is  the  fact,    as    llosonmuller     in  connection  with  Midian,  a  country  on  the  east  of  the 

remarks,  that  Cush  appears  in  the  character  of  a  calum-      lied  Sea  :   "  I  saw  the  tents  of  Cushan  in  affliction :  the 


niator  more  than  of  a  persecutor.      J'feili'er  (Dub.  Ve 


curtains  of  the  land  of   Midian  did  tremble,"  Ilab. 


Opera,  i.  p.  297)  takes  it  to  be  Shimei,  2  Sa.  xvi.  5.  Abeiie/ra  Tt  is  almost  universally  allowed  that  Cushan  is  but 
and  Drusius,  with  more  probability,  suppose  that  it  must  another  form  of  Cush;  for  there  is  no  foundation  whatever 
have  been  the  proper  name  of  a  person  otherwise  un-  for  connecting  it  as  is  sometimes  done  (Kitto's  Cyc.  Bib.  Lit. 
known.  [i>.  M.  i.  ] 

CUSH,   a  country  frequently  mentioned  in  the  Old     Jv 

apparently  with  such  latitude  of  meaning 

jrmination  a  question  of  considerable  dif 
ficulty  in  biblical  geography.     It  derived  its  name  most 


with  Cushan-  Rishathaim  king  of  Mesopotamia, 

i.  lo.      Delitzscll  (Dor  Prophet  Habakuk,  Luip.  IM::,I>.  i:.!0, 

Testament,  but  apparently  with  such  latitude  of  meaning  who  admits  only  the  African  dish,  holds  that  its  meii- 
as  makes  its  determination  a  question  of  considerable  dif-  tioii  along  with  Midian  is  intended  to  show  how  places 

so  far  removed  from  each  other  were  equally  affected 

probably  from  dish,  the  son  of  Ham.  Most  versions,  by  the  theophany  :  but  this  is  exceedingly  strained,  and 
ancient  and  modern,  including  the  English,  which  re-  at  variance  with  the  parallelism  of  the  passage.  ~2.  The 
tains  the  Hebrew  name  only  in  Is.  xi.  11.  render  it  wife  of  Moses  is  called  a  "Cushitess"  in  Xu.  xii.  L 
Ethiopia  ;  itself  a  term  of  varied  signification  in  ancient  If  this  be  Zipporah,  the  daughter  of  the  priest  of  Midian, 
writers,  who.  following  its  Greek  etymology  aWu—w\f/.  there  is  thus  indubitable  evidence  of  the  connection 
applied  it  to  all  sun-burned,  dark-complexioned  races,  between  Cush  and  Midian.  This  can  be  set  aside  only 


especially  those  above  Egypt.   Herodotus  (Hi.  94; 


by  supposing  that  the  reference  is  to  a  second  marriage 


extending  it  to  Asiatic  nations.  So  much,  however,  is  of  Moses,  and  this  again  is  maintained  on  the  ground 
settled,  that  Cush  in  various  passages  can  be  no  other  that  the  objections  of  Aaron  and  Miriam  against  their 
than  the  country  in  Africa  south  of  Egypt,  Ethiopia,  brother  were  utterly  incongruous  if  applied  to  a  marriage 
corresponding  to  the  modern  regions  of  Nubia  and  which  had  subsisted  for  more  than  forty  years.  But 
Northern  Abyssinia:  for  the  view  of  Boehart.  who  admitting  that  it  is  a  second  marriage  which  is  thus  re- 
held  that  in  every  instance  it  was  some  country  in  ferred  to,  the  case  is  not  materially  altered,  for  still 
Arabia  that  was  meant  is  now  universally  abandoned.  Cush  must  be  sought  near  the  place  of  Israels  encamp- 
That  Cush  adjoined  Egypt  appears  from  Eze.  xxix.  Id,  ment,  as  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  Moses  would  go  to 
where  Egypt's  desolation  is  announced  as  extending 


•from  the  tower  of  Svene  unto  the  border  of  Cush"  argument  is  the  mention  of  Arabians  as  contiguous  to 
(E.  V.i,  or  rather  "from  Migdol  to  Syene  and  (or  mid  i  the  Cushites.  Thus:  "Moreover  the  Lord  stirred  up 
to  the  border  of  Cush"  Ul»vornick,  llit/.iKh  Migdol  being 


Ethiopia  to  fetch  a  wife.  3.  But  perhaps  a  stronger 
gument  is  the  mention  of  Arabians  as  contiguous  to 
e  Cushites.  Thus:  "Moreover  the  Lord  stirred  up 
ainst  Jehoram  the  spirit  of  the  Philistines,  and  of  the 


CUSH.  3 

Arabians  who  are  near  (-f-^y,  al-yad,  at  the  hand  or  tidt 

of)  the  Cushites,"  aCh.xxi  1C,  which  can  hardly  apply, 
as  Delit/.sch  maintains,  to  countries  separated  by  the 
Arabian  Unit'. 

Other  arguments  adduced  by  Michaelis  iSj.icilegium 
Geognq.h.  iK-br.  i.  p.  iw)  in  favour  of  the  Arabian  Cush 
are  not  decisive,  and  the  passages  on  which  he  relies 
apply  with  greater  probability  to  the  African  Cush. 
Thus,  Sennacherib  wlieii  threatening  Judea  hastens 
back  to  the  defence  of  Assyria,  on  a  report  that  Tir- 
hajtah  kinir  of  Cush  was  about  to  attack  him.  -2  Ki.xix.  ii; 
Is.  xxxdi.  »;  from  which  Alichaelis  infers  that  if  Tirliakali 
was  king  of  Ethi<  ipia  lie  could  only  reach  Assyria  through 
Palestine,  and  so  could  not  take  the  Assyrians  in  the 
ivar,  as  the  withdrawal  of  Sennacherib  seems  to  implv. 
On  this  it  is  enough  to  observe,  that  as  the  Egyptians 
are  found  at  Carchemish  «u  the  Euphrates,  .-cu.  \.\\v.  1:0, 
\\itllout  having  passed  through  1'alestinc,  the  same  mav 
have  been  the  case  with  their  neighbours  and  allies 
the  Ethiopians.  That  Tirhakah  wa>  kin--. if  Ethiopia 
is  placed  beyond  doubt  from  tlie  records  on  tin-  walls 
of  temples  in  that  country.  El  I'.erkel  tformerlv  Na- 
pata)  was  liis  Ethiopian  capital,  where  his  name  and 
monuments  are  found.  Indeed,  his  sucecs.-ful  opposition 
to  the  Assyrian  power  is  recorded  on  a  temple  at 
.Medeenet  Haboo.  where  are  the  figure  and  name  of 
this  king,  and  the  numb. T of  captive*  he  took  (Wilkinson, 
Ano.  K.nyiiti.-ins,  i.  \<.  11").  The  otlier  instance,  from  '_!  ('h. 
xiv.  '.»,  is  equally  unsatisfactory,  Zerah  the  Cushite 
with  an  immense  host  penetrates  as  far  as  .Man  r-hah, 
but  wlicn  discomlited  before  Asa  the\  take  tlie  mad 
to  (Ji.-r.-ir,  in  the  south  of  i'alestinc,  wliicli  would  brinu 
them  to  Ethiopia  through  E-vpt.  That  this  \vas  an 
Ethiojiian  force  is  confirmed  liy  a  .-iibseijui  lit  notice. 
ach.  xvi.  s,  that  it  included  the  Lubim.  supposed  to  denote 
the  people,  of  Fitva  in  Africa. 

With  regard  to  several  notices  ,,f  (  'u^h  it  is  impossible 
to  determine  whether  they  apply  to  the  African  or  to  the 
Asiatic  ( 'ush.  In  Zep.  iii.  1  u.  Is.  xviii.  1 ,  •_',  mention  is 
made  of  the  "  rivers  .f  ( 'ush,"  and  in  the  latter  pa.-.-au''  :of  a 
land  beyond  thi-iii  which  ''sendcth  ambassadors  bv  the 
si  a,  in  vessels  of  papyrus  on  tlie  face  of  the  water.-;" 
and  in  E/e.  xxx. '.i  it  is  declared  that  "  messengers  shall 
go  forth  from  tlie  Lord  in  ships  to  make  the  careless 
Cushites  afraid,"  all  which  imply  a  well -watered  countrv, 
and  a  maritime  region,  or  at  lea-t  one  of  easy  access 
from  the  sea.  The  latter  characteristic  corresponds 
equally  well  with  the  physical  character  of  Arabia  and  of 
Ethiopia;  the  eastern  coast  of  the  latter,  washed  by  the 
Indian  Ocean  and  the  Ked  Sea,  is  much  indented,  and 
contained  some  good  harbours,  but  then  neither  of  the 
two  countries  was  noted  for  its  rivers,  unless  we  suppose 
the  reference  is  to  the  Nile  and  its  branches.  Some 
authors,  however,  not  satisfied  with  this,  suppose  another 
Cush  in  the  region  of  Susiana,  bounded  on  the  smith  by 
the  Persian  (Julf  and  on  the  west  and  south-west  by 
tlie  Tigris.  It  is  still  called  ( 'husistan,  and  is  indeed  a 
country  abounding  in  rivers.  The  same  place  is  thought 
to  be  mentioned  in  -2  Ki.  xvii.  _M  as  Cutha,  and  this 
again  is  supposed  to  be  the  Chaldean  form  of  Cush,  by 
the  substitution  of  the  Hebrew  letter  tan  for  shin,  as 
in  the  name  Allmr  for  Atlmr.  In  support  of  this  view- 
it  is  further  maintained  that  otherwise  the  notice  of 
Cush,  in  the  geography  of  Eden,  GO.  ii.  i:;,  is  utterly  in 
explicable.  Still  the  evidence  is  too  weak  to  warrant 
the  supposition,  for  the  geographical  notices  of  Eden 


CUTTINGS  IN  THE  FLESH 

are  themselves  so  intricate  as  to  forbid  their  application 
to  any  hypothesis  regarding  other  disputed  localities. 

[D.M.I 

CUTH'AH,  a  province  in  the  Assyrian  empire,  from 
which  Shalmaneser  transported  colonists  to  occupy  the 
land  in  Samaria  left  vacant  by  the  exiled  Israelites, 
•1  Ki.  xvii.  24,  :in.  The  precise  region  so  designated  is 
altogether  unknown.  But  from  the  admixture  of  this 
people  among  the  new  Samaritan  population,  the  term 
Cuthite  was  applied  by  the  rabbinical  Jews,  in  the 
Chaldee  and  Talmud,  to  the  Samaritans  generally,  and 
words  peculiar  to  the  Samaritans  are  called  Cuthian 

CUTTINGS  IN  THE  FLESH.  Among  the  charges 
brought  against  the  Israelites  was  one,  and  so  important 
that  it  is  recorded  three  times,  forbidding  them  to  make 
cuttings  in  their  flesh  for  the  dead.  "  Ye  shall  not  make 
any  cuttings  in  your  flesh  for  the  dead,  nor  print  any 
mark  upon  you  :  I  am  the  Lord,"  Lo.xix.28.  Again,  in 
respect  particularly  of  the  priests:  ••They  shall  not 
make  haldne.-s  upon  their  head,  neither  shall  they  shave 
otl  the  corner  of  their  beard,  nor  make  any  cuttings  in 
their  flesh."  Le.xxi  :..  And  more  fully:  "Ye  are  the 
children  of  the  Lord  your  Cod:  \v  shall  not  cut  your 
selves,  nor  make  any  baldness  between  your  eves/ny 
tit  <  1 1, 'nl."  DC.  \iv.  1,2  — TV:*?  (/ami  ti/  (determining  the  mean- 

'•  T 

in.;  of  »->;s  i/(o«yw/i  in  Le.  xix.  :>.\  showing  it  to  be 

an    ellipsis    for    ,-•;     v^s    (/Urn jJn.ih   ulith).     ^Vatcr,  Cmu- 

nioutar.  ii.  j..  211.)  Then  is  added  a  reason  of  the  prohibi 
tion  :  "  For  thou  art  an  holy  people  unto  the  Lord  thy 
Ood.  and  the  Lord  hath  chosen  thee  to  be  a  peculiar 
people  unto  himself,  above  all  the  nations  that  are  upon 
the  earth." 

Aiiioi!^-  ancient  nations  it  was  customary  to  ^iv,. 
cxpn  ssion  i«  -rid',  especially  for  the  dead,  in  the  most 
] passionate  form:  rending  the  garments,  plucking  out 
the  hair  of  the  head  and  heard,  and  even  lacerating  the 
pel-son  were  ordinary  accompaniments.  This  was  Un 
ease  not  only  \\  ith  the  passionate  and  excitable  orientals; 
but  al>o  among  the  nations  of  the  north  and  the  west, 
as  the  Scythians  (Herodotus,  iv.  71),  ami  also  the  Creeks 
and  Romans  (Ovid,  First  Eleg.iii.  3;  Tibullus,Eleg.  I  i.  1).  The 
same  custom  prevails  in  the  Last  to  the  present  day. 
.Mrs.  Po>tans,  in  her  ll<  <;,ll<  ,•!'«,  „*  ,,f  (/,,•  /•;,!.-</  (j,,uni.  ••( 
>  ic.  Lit.  .July.iM-,  IP.  in?),  remarks  :  "  In  all  mourning  cere 
monies  in  the  East,  that  are  conducted  with  any  pomp, 
it  is  cu.-toinary  to  hire  persons  to  disfigure  themselves 
and  make'  loud  lamentation.  At  the  Mahometan 
ceremonies  of  the  Mohurrum  not  only  do  bands  of 
women  in  green  dresses  follow  the  bier  of  Iloossein  and 
Hassan,  beating  their  breasts  and  tearing  their  hair, 
but  fakirs  and  mad  enthusiasts  dance  around  it,  cutting 
themselves  with  knives,  and  running  skewers  through 
their  tongues.  Some  Moslem  servants  in  our  employ 
ment  at  Mandavie,  to  whom  we  had  given  leave  to 
attend  Mohurrum,  returned  so  much  wounded  as  to  be 
incapable  of  service  for  some  time,  so  fiercely  had  they 
made  cuttings  in  their  'flesh  for  the  dead."' 

Indeed,  notwithstanding  the  express  charge  to  the 
contrary,  this  practice  prevailed  extensively  among  the 
Jews  themselves  during  the  decline  of  the  monarchy,  as 
appears  from  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah.  In  announcing 
the  impending  calamities,  the  prophet,  cli.  xvi.  c,  describes 
their  extent  and  severity  by  declaring  that  in  the  uni 
versal  sorrow,  the  usual  tokens  of  individual  grief  should 
be  forgotten :  •'  Both  the  great  and  the  small  shall  die 


CYMI'.ALS 


CYPRESS 


iu  the  land:  they  shall  not  he  buried,  neither  shall  men 
lament  for  them,  nor  cut  themselves,  nor  make  them 
selves  hald  for  them/'  This  laceration  of  the  person 
was  also  a  sign  of  great  sorrow  in  general.  In  •)  e.  xli.  ;"> 
mention  is  made  of  eighty  pilgrims  going  up  to  .leru- 
salem  after  the  saek  of  the  city  l>y  the  Chaldeans;  and 
in  such  a  plight  as  indicated  deej>  mourning  for  the 
destruction  of  the  place  whither  thc\  had  been  wont  to 
U'o  up  to  \vorshi]>.  "  having  their  lieards  shaven,  and 
their  clothes  rent,  and  having  cut  themselves.  '  In  eh. 
xlvii.  •"»  1'hilistia  is  represented  as  a  female  who  has 
torn  her  hair  and  cut  her  Hcsh  in  token  of  grief  for 
some  awful  catastrophe;  so  also  eh.  xlviii.  '11.  with  re 
gard  to  the  lamentation  which  would  result  from  the 
desolation  of  Moab — the  cutting  of  the  flesh  being  ac 
companied,  as  appears  from  Is.  xv.  '1,  by  baldness  of 
the  head  and  cutting  off  the  beard. 

Tracing  these  practices  to  the  idea  of  thereby  pro 
pitiating  the  manes  of  the  deceased,  and  connecting 
them  with  similar  rites  in  the  worship  of  Moloch  and 
I'>aal,  1  Ki.  xviii.  -js,  some  writers  upon  this  subject  regard 
the  primary  object  of  the  prohibition  in  the  Hebrew  law 
to  lie  the  removal  of  all  occasion  and  appearance  of 
idolatrous  worship.  This  connection  is  however  exceed 
ingly  doubtful,  for  as  Le  Clerc  well  remarks,  "alia  eniiii 
ratio  est  funeris,  alia  sacriiicii  (Oiinn.ii>  I.e.  six.  2*).  The 
practice  so  far  as  regards  religion  undoubtedly  origin-  ! 
ated  in  false  apprehensions  of  the  character  of  the  deity, 
and  was  an  attempt  to  propitiate  his  favour;  while  as 
an  indication  of  sorrow  for  the  dead,  it  may  have  sprung 
onlv  from  the  obscurity  which  shrouded  a  future  state, 
while  the  prohibition  may  have  been  intended  as  an 
admonition  to  the  Israelite  of  his  relation  to  (lod.  as 
one  not  limited  to  this  present  life,  or  one  which  could 
be  interrupted  by  death,  and  of  the  superior  knowledge  ', 
which  he  enjoyed  in  respect  to  a  future  state  over  the 
heathen,  ami  so  calling  for  the  avoidance  of  a  practice 
which  ill  accorded  with  such  convictions  (sec  Willet,  Hcxapla  ; 
ou  Leviticus,  Loud.  1031,  p.  4";).  Even  Spencer  admits  as 
much  Ueu  DC  Lug.  Heb.  ii.  12,  sec.  ~2).  It  lends  some  confir 
mation  to  this  view  that  the  Koinaii  laws  of  the  Twelve 
Tables  contained  injunctions  as  to  moderating  grief  at 
funerals,  and  in  particular  forbade  laceration  of  the  flesh 
for  the  dead  (Corp.  Jur.  Civ.  v.  p.  66,67,  ed.Godofredus,  1683),  a 
prohibition  supposed  to  be  connected  with  the  strong 
hopes  which  the  'Romans  cherished  of  a  future  though 
natural  life.  The  Hebrew  law  may  thus  correspond  j 
to  the  apostolic  admonition:  "I  would  not  have  you  \ 
ignorant,  brethren,  concerning  them  which  are  asleep, 
that  ye  sorrow  not  even  as  others  which  have  no  hope,'' 
ITU.  iv.  13;  and  if  so,  it  has  an  important  bearing  on  the 
question  how  far  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  and 
a  resurrection  is  revealed  in  the  Pentateuch.  (See  further, 
Macdonald's  Introd.  to  the  Pentateuch,  p.  113,  114  Edin.  ISO!.) 

[D.M.] 

CYMBALS.     Set  MUSICAL  INSTRUMENTS. 

CYPRESS  (un-iS,  berush],  a  well-known  tree.     One 


The  KvirdpLffffos  of  the  above  passage  is  not  improbably 
the  •Vi;<ii2  of  1  Ki.  v.  8;  i's.  civ.  1  7;  Eze.  xxvii.  ~>-  xxxi.  !S, 

and  other  passages,  translated  "fir- tree/'  It  is  abun 
dantly  native  on  Lebanon,  and  was  prized  by  the 
ancients  next  to  the  cedar. 

The  Uupressiisseiiipcrrirenx,  well  described  by  London 
as  "aflame-shaped,  tapering,  cone-like  tree,  with  up 
right  branches  growing  clo.se  to  the  trunk,  and  resem 
bling  in  general  appearance  the  Lombard  y  poplar/'  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  and  impressive  members  of  the 
great  coniferous  order.  With  its  dark  evergreen  foliage, 


"  He  was  as  the.  morning-star  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud, 
And  as  the  1110011  at  the  full : 
As  the  flower  of  roses  in  the  spring  of  the  year ; 
As  lilies  by  the  rivers  of  waters  ; 

As  the  branches  of  the  frankincense-tree  in  the  time  of  summer; 
As  a,  fair  olive  tree  budding  forth  fruit ; 
And  as  a  cypress-tree  which  groweth  up  to  the  clouds. 


and  with  its  strict  spirv  growth,  ail  pointing  towards 
heaven,  it  seems  as  if  designed  on  purpose  for  the 
cemetery,  and  at  once  a  mourner  and  a  monument. 
Accordingly,  throughout  Syria  and  Turkey,  where  it 
attains  a  height  of  tin  feet,  its  tall  form  may  be  con 
stantly  recognized  standing  sentinel  over  the  tombs: 

"  Dark  tree  !  still  sad  when  others'  grief  is  fled. 
The  only  constant  mourner  of  the  dead." 

For  similar  purposes  it  is  now  familiar  amongst  our 
selves  ;  although  its  sad  supremacy  is  likely  soon  to  be 
divided  with  the  new  species  lately  discovered  in  China, 
and  which  combines  the  solemnity  of  the  cvpivss  with 
the  tender  grace  of  the  weeping  willow — the  C.funebris, 
of  which  Mr.  Fortune  gives  a  graphic  description,  and  a 
figure,  in  his  Wanderings  in  t'/iinti  (vol.ii.r>. 4i'). 

The  fine-grained,  fragrant  wood,  with  its  beautiful 
red  colour,  was  highly  prized  from  the  earliest  period, 
and  was  justly  famed  for  its  durability.  The  Egyptians 
made  of  it  cases  for  their  mummies,  and  the  Roman 
pontiffs  are  still,  we  believe,  consigned  to  cypress 
coffins;  and,  as  a  proof  of  its  comparative  indestructi 
bility,  it  is  said  that  when  the  cypress  doors  of  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome,  which  had  lasted  from  the  days  of 
( 'onstantine,  were  eleven  centuries  afterwards  removed 
by  Pope  Eugene  IV.,  in  order  to  be  replaced  with  gates 
of  brass,  they  were  still  perfectly  sound.  From  the 
similarity  of  the  name,  it  has  been  very  generally  sup 
posed  that  the  gopher- wood  from  which  Noah's  ark  was 
constructed  was  cypress,  and  we  are  not  aware  of  any 
topographical  consideration  which  should  render  this 
opinion  improbable  ;  whilst  the  durability  of  the  timber 


CYPRUS 


CYPRUS 


is  in  favour  of  the  supposition,  when  we  remember  the 
length  of  time  that  the  ark  was  in  building.       [.i.  H.j 

CY'PRUS.  a  large  island  in  the  Mediterranean,  off 
the  coast  of  Phoenicia  and  Cilicia.  lying  south- west  and 
north-east.  The  island  is  of  very  irregular  shape,  and 
toward  the  north-east  stretches  out  into  a  Ion;.'  narrow 
peninsula.  Jts  extreme  length  is  about  14S  English 
miles,  and  for  two- thirds  of  the  length  it  is  about  4n 
broad.  The  mountain  range  of  Olympus  occupies  the 
main  bodv  of  the  island,  and  in  some  of  the  higher 
points  re. idles  to  the  height  of  7i.ll.iu  feet.  The  scenery 


in  many  parts  is  ho  id  and  rugged;  there  are  abrupt 
eminences  and  lofty  woodlands,  but  these  often  inter 
changing  with  fertile  fields  and  deep  picturesque  val 
leys.  The  mountains  contain  copper,  gold,  and  silver. 
and  a  considerable  variety  of  the  precious  stones.  Ac 
cordingly  the  Phomicans.  the  great  miners  and  traders 
of  remote  antiquity,  soon  found  out  its  value,  and  to 
a  considerable  extent  colonized  it.  Jts  earlier  inhabi 
tants  were  of  Phoenician  origin;  but  the  (_•  reeks  in 
process  of  time  estal>li>hed  cities  in  it,  and  ultimately 
became  its  chief  and  rulinu  population.  The  principal 


cities  were  Salamis,  ( 'itium  mow  LarnakaK  and  Papln>> 
uiow  BaffiO.  all  near  tile  sea-coast:  but  there  were  many 
others  of  some  note.  In  its  political  relations  tht  island 
passed  through  mucli  the  same  fortunes  that  befell  the 
part  of  Asia,  to  which  it  is  adjacent.  I'nder  . \masis  it 
was  in  subjection  to  KLfvpt:  but  from  the  time  "f  Cant- 
byses  it  became  a  portion  of  the  Persian  empire.  It 
once  and  again  revolted  against  the  IVr-ian  yoke,  lint 
was  each  time  reduced  to  subjection.  With  the  lall  of 
the  Persian  power  it  passed  over  to  the  sway  of  Alex 
ander,  and  furnished  him  with  1'Ju  ships  for  the  siege  "f 
Tyre.  After  various  other  changes  of  dominion  it  was 
taken  possession  of  by  Home,  in  a  manner  far  from 
creditable  to  the  imperial  city;  and  before  the  Christian 
era,  was  turned  into  a  senatorial  province  governed  by 
pro] ira_-tors,  with  the  title  of  proconsul.  When  the 
empire  was  divided.  ( 'yprus  was  attached  to  the  Byzan 
tine  or  eastern  section.  The  crusaders  conquered  it  in 
11!H  under  Richard  F..  and  held  possession  of  it  for 
about  three  centuries.  P>ut  in  1473  the  republic  of 
Vrenice  acquired  it,  and  it  remained  under  their  sway 
till  l/i71.  when  it  was  finalls'  subjugated  to  the  Turkish 
yoke  by  Selim  1  F. 

Cyprus  was  one  of  the  earliest  fields  of  missionary 
enterprise  out  of  Palestine.  This  partly  arose  from  the 
scattering  abroad  that  took  place  on  the  death  of 

VOL.  1. 


Sti  plu-n.  A.'  xi.  i1.',  and  -till  more  from  Cyprus  having 
been  the  birth-place  < if  I'arnabas.  who  naturally  desired 
to  carry  to  hU  native  re-ion  the  tidings  of  that  salva 
tion  which  he  had  him>df  received.  The  general  po 
pulation  of  tlie  Uland  must  have  presented  anything 
l.ut  a  hopeful  field  for  the  speedy  triumph  of  the  cross, 
as  they  were  not  only  sunk  like  other  heathen  in 
abominable  idolatry,  but  were  more  peculiarly  devoted 
to  a  species  of  worship  which  everywhere  told  most 
disastrously  upon  the  manners  of  the  people.  This  was 
the  wor-hip  of  Venus,  or  rather  the  Syrian  Astarte;  for 
the  worship  partook  essentially  of  the  oriental  character, 
and  wanted  much  of  the  grace  and  refinement  which 
the  (Jreeks  threw  around  even  their  corrupter  supersti 
tions.  Tin-  Venus-wur.-hip  of  ( 'yprus  was  fearfully  licen 
tious,  and  had  respect  mainly  to  the  generative  powers 
of  nature.  Sensual  indulgence,  therefore,  flourished 
under  the  patronage  of  religion,  and  of  necessity 
pressed  like  a  night-mare  upon  all  the  higher  feelings 
and  aspirations  of  the  soul.  Still,  however,  Barnabas 
did  not  despair:  he  hoped  against  hope,  the  more  so 
as  there  appears  to  have  been  a  number  of  Jews  in  the 
island,  who  stood  free  at  least  from  the  grosser  forms  of 
pollution  around  them.  IFe  accordingly  sailed  straight 
for  Cyprus,  when  lie  and  Paul  were  sent  forth  by  the 
church  at  Antioch,  A<\  xiii.  The  particulars  of  their 

49 


cYRKMrs 


iui-isii)ii  in  regard  t<>  Cyprus  arc  not  given,  except  in 
regard  to  tin.'  proconsul  of  the  island.  Sergius  I'aulus. 
\vlii)  sought  an  interview  with  them  at  Baphos,  where 
lie  was  residing.  This  circumstance  alone  implied  con 
siderable  success;  as  it  is  no  way  probable  that  a  man 
in  the  station  and  with  the  prepossessions  of  Sergius 
would  have  paid  any  heed  to  such  ambassadors  of  the. 
cross,  unless  their  mission  had  already  caused  some 
stir.  In  dealing  with  him  their  chief  obstruction  arose 
from  the  subtle  and  perverse  attempts  of  a  depraved 
Jew,  Bar-jesus.  one  of  that  class,  at  this  time  1111 
happily  numerous,  who  for  purposes  of  gain  gave  them 
selves  to  the  cultivation  of  magical  arts,  by  \\hiei, 
they  played  upon  the  credulity  and  fears  of  the  hea 
then.  This  man  so  resisted  the  work  of  the  Lord  as 
to  drawdown  upon  him  the  solemn  rebuke  of  I'aul. 
and  also  through  his  word  a  judicial  visitation  of  blind 
ness:  which  so  impressed  the  mind  of  the  governor, 
that  he  became  obedient  to  the  faith.  The  island  was 
subsequently  visited  by  Barnabas,  in  companv  with 
John  Mark,  after  the  painful  separation  between  him 
and  Paul.  Ac.xv.39;  and  the  go.-pel,  we  may  reasonably 
suppose,  from  that  time  began  to  take  root,  and  spread 
through  Cyprus  the  blessings  of  salvation.  The  great 
majority  of  the  people  are  still  professed  Christians, 
but  with  all  the  ignorance,  credulity,  and  superstition 
that  usually  distinguish  the  members  of  the  ('reek 
church. 

CYRE'NE,  OK  CYUE'NVK  (Gr.  Kvp^r,,  modern  | 
name  C.'uren).  the  chief  citv  of  a  district  in  the  north 
of  Africa,  called  Cvrenaiea.  also  the  1. \bian  iVnta- 
polis.  from  its  comprising  live  principal  towns.  The 
district  lay  between  Egypt  and  Carthage,  having  the  I 
former  on  the  east  and  the  latter  on  the  west.  Libya  [ 
was  the  African  name  of  the  t'Tritor\  in  which  Cvreiie 
was  situated:  and  on  the  African  side  it  stood  nearly 
right  over  against  the  (Jrecian  Peloponnesus,  with 
Crete  lying  between.  Cyrene  was  in  ancient  times  the  ' 
most  important  (-J-reeU  possession  in  Africa.  It  Mas 
founded  bv  (Jreek  colonists,  who  were  Dorians,  under 
the  direction  of  Battus,  about  (!:jli  years  before  the 
Christian  era.  The  site  was  well  chosen,  beiny1  in  one  of 
the  most  attractive  and  fertile  districts  of  North  Africa. 
Kven  still,  says  a  recent  explorer.  •'  the  hills  in  the 
neighbourhood  abound  with  beautiful  scenes.  Some  of 
them  exceed  in  richness  of  vegetation,  and  eipial  in 
grandeur,  anything  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  Apen 
nines"  (Hamilton's  Wanderings  in  Xorth  Africa,  p.  "M.  It 
would  seem  that  the  old  Hellenic  colonists  cultivated 
friendly  relations  with  the  native  Libyans,  and  to  a 
much  greater  extent  than  usual  became  intermingled 
with  them  by  marriage  relationships  (Herod,  iv.  IN;-IMII. 
The  constitution  of  the  state  was  framed  somewhat 
after  the  model  of  Sparta,  and  took  the  shape  of  a 
limited  monarchy:  for  several  generations  the  supreme 
power  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  family  of  Battus. 
But  ultimately  the  entire  district  became  an  appendage 
of  Egypt,  and  along  with  this  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Home  considerably  before  the  Christian  era  (K.c.  7">). 

Cyrene,  when  in  the  height  of  its  prosperity,  carried 
on  an  extensive  commerce  with  <!rcece  and  Kgypt: 
and  it  has  even  left  its  marks  on  the  history  of  Hellenic 
literature.  Aristippus,  a  native  of  the  place,  was  the 
founder  of  a  philosophic  sect;  and  Callimachus  the  poet. 
and  Carneades,  the  founder  of  the  new  academy  at 
Athens,  were  both  by  birth  Cyrenians.  Such  incidental 
facts  indicate  great  literary  as  well  as  commercial  ac 


tivity;  and  we  need  not  therefore  be  surprised  to  find, 
either  that  numbers  of  Jews  were  located  there,  or  that 
they  belonged  to  the  more  active  and  enterprising  portion 
of  their  countrymen.  Accordingly,  Strabo  express] v 
mentions  Jews  as  forming  a  considerable  part  of  the 
population  (Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  ~);  and,  for  so  distant  a  settle 
ment,  they  occupy  a  rather  prominent  place  in  Xew 
Testament  scripture.  The  Simeon  who  bore  our  Lord's 
cross  was  of  Cyrene.  Lu.  xxiii.  a;.  They  had  a  synagogue 
of  their  own  at  Jerusalem,  AT.  ii.  10;  vi.  <i,  some  of  the 
members  of  which  took  an  active  part  against  Stephen; 
others,  however,  embraced  the  doctrine  which  Stephen 
had  tauu'ht.  and  on  being  dispersed  by  the  persecution 
which  arose,  at  his  death,  they  went  back  to  their  native 
region  publishing  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom,  Ac.  xi.  ao. 
Lucius  also,  a  native  of  Cvreiie.  is  mentioned  in  Ac. 
xiii.  1.  as  one  of  the  prophets  and  teachers  in  the 
church  at  Antioch.  We  need  not  wonder,  therefore. 
that  the  country  at  an  early  period  was  brought  under 
Christian  influence  .  and  Cyrenc  was  doubtless  one  of 
the  main  centres  from  which  the  light  of  the  gospel 
ditl'uscd  itself  so  early,  and  with  such  wonderful  success. 
throughout  Libya  and  the  neighbouring  regions  of 
North  Africa. 

Extensive  ruins  have  been  found  on  the  site  anciently 
occupied  by  ( 'yn  ne.  and  they  have  recently  been  made 
the  subject  of  more  careful  research.  Some  account  was 
given  of  them  by  Delia  Cella,  who  visited  the  ruins  in 
l'S'Jl-22;  bv  Captain  Beechy,  in  1828;  and  still  more 
recently  by  Hamilton,  in  the  work  already  referred 
to.  Various  of  the  remains,  chiefly  statues  of  (Grecian 
mould,  and  somewhat  mutilat--d,  have  been  deposited 
in  the  British  Museum.  The  most  striking  remains, 
however,  are  the  tombs,  which  are  hewn  out  of  the 
solid  rock,  and  have  thus  survived  the  destruction 
which  has  overtaken  the  city.  Tombs  of  this  descrip 
tion  were  not  in  accordance  \\ith  (Jreek  usau'o,  and 
they  are  justly  regarded  as  an  indication  of  the  in 
fluence  possessed  in  Cyrene  of  the  native  population  of 
the  district,  and  bespeak  a  certain  affinity  between  the 
cast  of  thought  prevalent  there,  and  that  which  con 
structed  the  magnificent  tombs  and  pyramids  of  Kgvpt. 

CYRE'NITJS  ((Jr.  K.vprji>ios:  it  is  properly  a  Latin 
name,  and  should  be  written  Quirinus  or  Qnirinius). 
The  only  person  referred  to  in  Scripture  of  this  name 
is  the  one  mentioned  in  Lu.  ii.  2.  in  connection  with 
the  taxing  or  enrolment  which  brought  Joseph  and 
Mary  to  Bethlehem  at  the  time  of  Christ's  birth.  The 
statement  has  given  rise  to  much  disputation,  and  to 
various  modes  of  solution,  with  the  view  of  meeting  the 
historical  difficulties  with  which  it  is  connected.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Cyreiiius  referred  to — whose 
full  and  proper  name  was  Publius  Sulpitius  (Quirinus — 
was  procurator  or  ifovernor  of  Syria  subsequent  to 
the  birth  of  Christ,  and  who  about  ten  years  after  the 
real,  or  six  years  after  the  vulgar  era,  began  to  take  up 
a  census  of  the  whole  population  with  a  view  to  taxing. 
This  event  is  referred  to  in  Ac',  v.  37,  and  at  various 
places  in  Josephns.  as  one  that  led  to  very  considerable 
disturbances  among  the  people.  So  far  as  it.  therefore, 
is  concerned,  there  is  no  room  for  any  difference  of 
opinion.  But  is  that  the  event  to  which  St.  Luke  points 
in  the  statement  before  us?  So.  many  in  present  as 
well  as  former  times,  have  maintained.  The  evangelist, 
they  imagine,  confounded  the  time  of  the  Saviour's  birth 
with  that  of  the  census  of  Cyrenius  ;  or,  as  is  now  more 
commonly  alleged,  he  confounded  some  special  inission 


Jl 


CY HEX ITS 


intrusted  to  Cyrenius  involving  some  enrolment  of  the 
population,  with  the  work  of  the  regular  census  which 
he  took  up  some  years  afterwards,  when  he  had  ac 
tually  become  president  of  Syria.  There  may  have 
been,  it  is  thought,  an  order  issued  for  certain  statisti 
cal  returns  some  years  previous  to  the  census,  and 
Cyrenius  may  have  been  sent  into  Syria  to  execute  the 
work  in  that  part  of  the  empire.  In  which  case  the 
mistake  of  Luke  would  simply  have  consisted  in  saying, 
that  the  enrolment  was  made  while  Cyrenius  presided 
over  Syria,  he  having  been  at  the  time  only  a  special 
commissioner,  acting  under  the  regular  presidents  or 
governors  (so  Meyer).  Or,  on  the  ground  of  this  special 
though  subsidiary  agency,  he  may  have  been  regarded 
as  rider  or  •rjycfj.wi'  of  Syria  (so  Ik-zu,  Gr.itius,  Uo'.ur, 
CreihiCT,  Robinson,  ic. )  Another  view,  advocate  1  by 
many  distinguished  writers,  proceeds  on  the  ground 
of  TT/juiTi),  Jii'*f.  being  here  put  for  the  comparative: 
''This  enrolling  was  mad"  /jcfon  .'/'•('  Cvivnius  was 
governor  of  Syria."  (Lardnor,  Thohu-k,  &c.)  And  a  still 
further  modification  of  meaning  in  connection  uitli  the 
Trp^'-n;  has  been  adopted  by  Calvin.  \Vctstein.  .Mack. 
Uofmann,  ami  others,  according  to  which  it  is  takt  n 
adverbially,  thu~:  •'This  same  enrolling  was  first  mad. 
.or.  was  first  carried  into  etl'ecti  when  Cvr.-nius  Was 
governor  of  Syria."  The  decree  for  it  had  been  issued 
before,  and  certain  steps  in  connection  witli  it  hail  been 
taken,  but  the  actual  execution,  at  li  ast  as  regards  tin- 
tax  ing,  only  took  effect  when  Cyrenius  became  president 
of  Svria. 

( )f  these  di lie-rent  modes  of  understanding  the  passage 
of  the  evangelist,  none  is  quite  natural,  and  some  are 
plainly  inconsistent  with  the  historical  accuracy,  not 
to  say  inspiration,  of  the  writer.  In  so  plain  and  simple 
a  narrative,  it  is  against  probability  to  suppose  that  a 
superlative  should  have  been  put  for  a  comparative  in 
the  way  indicated  by  on.-  class  of  interpreters  that  the 
evangelist  should  have  said  "  fir-t  of  his  presiding." 
instead  of  •'  before  that  he  presided:"  and  the  examples 
brought  in  support  of  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  strictly 
parallel.  \or.  if  the  mission  of  Cyrenius  at  the  time 
referred  to  had  been  of  the  special  and  -ul.ordinate 
kind  understood  by  another  class,  could  he  with  pro 
priety  have  been  represented  as  at  the  time  presiding 
over  Syria;  for  it  is  one-  thing  to  speak  of  a  person 
being  a  ruler  in  a  country,  and  as  such  having  some 
special  work  to  do  in  it.  and  another  to  say  that  such 
a  thing  was  d»nc  while  he  had  the  presidency  or 
government  of  it.  This  naturally  implies  that  he  was 
at  the' time  its  presiding;-  and  governing  heat  I  ;  which 
Cyrenius  could  not  have  been  in  respect  to  Svria,  it"  he 
had  simply  been  commissioned  to  take  up  some  statis 
tical  returns  concerning  its  population.  It  is  possible, 
however,  according  to  the  last  form  of  opinion  indi 
cated  above,  that  an  enrolment  with  a  view  to  taxing, 
or  a  general  census  of  some  sort,  may  have  been 
ordered  at  the  time  of  Christ's  birth,  ami,  after  having 
proceeded  a  certain  length,  may  have  been  somehow 
arrested  in  .Judea,  and  only  at  last  carried  out  when 
the  government  of  Syria  came  into  the  hands  of  Cyre 
nius.  This  is  perfectly  conceivable;  and  the  view  sug 
gested  by  it  is  no  further  liable  to  objection,  than  that 
it  requires  somewhat  too  much  to  be  supplied  to  make 
the  statement  properly  intelligible.  If  the  decree  for 
the  enrolment  was  actually  issued  at  the  birth  of 
Christ,  and  had  the  effect  of  bringing  Joseph  and  Mary 
to  Bethlehem,  it  would  have  been  a  rather  brief  and 


|  enigmatical  mode   of  announcing  the  future    progress 
and  result  of  the  matter  to  say.  that  the  enrolment  was 

•  first  made  when  Cyrenius  was  governor  of  Syria if  so 

be  that  his  government  only  commenced  after  a  lapse 
of  ten  years  from  the  birth  of  Jesus. 

While  therefore  we  might  say  of  this  mode  of  repre 
senting  the  matter,  that  grammatically  it  is  not  unten 
able  (for  numeral  adjectives,  such  as  rrpd-ros.  'in  the 
nominative  are  often  used  adverbially,  qualifying  the 
verb  that  follows  rather  than  the  noun  with  \\hich 
they  agree),  and  that  the  historical  circumstances  might 
also  have  been  in  substantial  accordance  with  the 
view  it  takes:  yet  it  is  not  alb  Aether  satisfactory. 
And  if  one  is  to  go  by  what  may  be  called  the  fair  and 
natural  impression  which  the  words  are  fitted  to 
convey,  we  shall  be  disposed  to  infer  that  at  the  time 
of  our  Lord's  birth  th.  re  was  a  decree  ,,f  enrolment 
actually  carried  into  effect  in  Judea  :  that  at  the  time 
Cyrenius  was  the  highest  and  most  direct  representa 
tive  of  the  Roman  power  in  Syria  ;  and  that  the  enrol 
ment  in  question  was  a  first  one,  as  contradistinguished 
from  something  of  a  similar  description  that  subse 
quently  took  place.  The  question  then  is,  whether 
any  historical  support  can  be  found  for  these  positions, 
and  especially  for  the  position  that  Cyi\  nius  had  to  do 
with  the  government  of  Syria  about  the  actual  period  of 
our  Lord's  birth,  as  well  as  afterwards,  at  an  interval 
of  about  ten  years.  Now.  this  latter  point,  on  which 
so  much  lianas  for  the  minute  accuracy  of  St.  Luke. 
has  lately  received  a  very  remarkable  elucidation,  ami 
evidence  apparently  conclusive  has  been  adduced  to 
show  that  Cyrenius  was  twice  in  command  of  the  pro 
vince  of  Syria:  and  on  the  first  occasion  much  about 
'.In-  period  indicated  by  the  evangelist.  In  a  work  on 
Roman  antiquities  by  A.  W.  Zunipt  (Commcntationes 
l-'.l.iu'rii'liic.-ij  ;i<l  AntninitnU-s  i:..ni:in,i-,  P'-i-lim-iiU'sl,  there  is  a 
chapter  on  the  presidents  of  Syria  trt-m  Ca-sar  Augus 
tus  to  Titus  Ve-pasian:  and  in  the  course  of  his  histo 
rical  investigations  the  author  necessarily  comes  across 
the  statement  of  St.  Luke  n-j-ardin--  Cyrenius,  \\hich 
he  prop,  rly  regards  as  entitled  to  consideration  in  a 
simply  historical  respect  the  more  so.  as  there  are 
confirmatory  statements  of  a  similar  kind  in  some  ,,f 
the  fathers  (Euseb.  Hist.  Keel,  i  5;  Iren.  FUurcs.  ii.  22,0;  Tert 
Adv.  Jud.  », ic  I  In  these  places  reft  rence  is  made  to  the 
fact  of  a  general  census  being  taken  at  the  period  of 
(  hrist  s  birth,  and  also  to  Cvrenius  as  being  governor 
of  Syria  at  the  time.  Zumpt  therefore  concludes 
that  there  is  /n-i/mi  j'ni-ii  Around  for  holding  such  to 
have  been  the  ca.se.  and  proceeds  to  consider,  whether 
th.-re  be  any  notices  in  Roman  history  relating  to  the 
peri, id  \\hichare  capable  of  thrown)'.:  li^ht  upon  the 
subject.  The  first,  and  the  leading  passage  he  refers 
to  is  one  in  Tacitus  (Aun;il.  iii.  IM,  noticing  the  death  of 
Cyrenius  in  A.M.  lil,  in  \\hich  it  is  stated  of  this  Cyre 
nius.  that  he  was  a  man  of  comparatively  humble 
origin,  born  at  i.anuvium:  that  in  the  army  he  had 
provt  d  himself  to  be  a  person  fit  for  conducting  affairs 
that  called  for  stringent  and  active  measures;  that  under 
Augustus  he  had  obtained  the  consulship;  that  by  ami  by, 
for  having  reduced  the  fortresses  of  the  Homonadenses 
throughout  Cilicia,  he  had  obtained  triumphal  badges, 
and  had  been  appointed  rc'tor  to  Cains  Ca-sar  (grand 
son  of  Augustus),  on  the  latter  obtaining  the  govern 
ment  of  Armenia,  in  whose  company,  while  at  Rhodes, 
and  before  actually  entering  on  the  administration  of 
Armenia,  ho  had  paid  court  to  Tiberius,  who  was  at 


cYRL'Xirs 


•3  80 


the  time  sojourning  there.  l>y  comparing  tliis  \vitli 
various  other  statements  in  Tacitus  and  contemporary 
notices  from  other  quarters,  it  is  found  that  the  Ho 
monadenses  here  referred  to  as  having  been  subdued 
by  Cyrenius,  and  on  account  of  whose  subjugation  he 
obtained  triumphal  badges,  were  the  rough  and  free- 
booting  highbinders  in  the  uplands  of  Cilieia:  and  both 
from  the  force  necosary  to  overcome  them,  and  trom 
the  honours,  awarded  to  him  in  consequence,  it  is 
plain  that  Cyrenius  must  have  had  a  legion  at  his 
command,  and  in  connection  with  that  a  province. 
What,  then,  constituted  the  province!  Cilieia  by  itself 
was  far  too  small  to  form  a  province  worthy  of  being 
assigned  to  a  man  (.if  c"'i>ui:ir  rank,  with  a  legion 
under  him:  there  must  have  been  coupled  with  it  some 
neighbouring  region,  which,  from  its  extent  of  territory 
and  relative  situation,  admitted  of  being  conveniently 
associated  with  Cilieia,  for  the  purpose  of  being  placed 
under  one  jurisdiction.  And  it  so  happens  that  Syria, 
the  region  on  the  east  of  Cilieia,  is  the  only  one  that 
can  be  thought  of.  For  1'rocon^ular  Asia  was  too 
remote  from  the  Homonadenses,  and  was  besides  in  a 
subjugated  state  some  time  before  this,  and  made  a 
senatorial  province:  nor.  for  the  same  reasons,  could  it 
lie  LUthynia  and  l.'oiitus.  Oalatia  adjoined  the  Cilician 
territory;  but  the  governor  of  it  had  no  legion  assigned 
him,  and  it  is  also  known  to  have  been  usually  assigned 
to  one  of  the  rank  merely  of  pnetor.  It  is  stated  by 
Dio  (liii.  V2),  that  Augustus  in  the  twenty- seventh  year 
of  his  reign  surrendered  to  the  senate  all  the  thoroughly 
reduced  and  quiet  provinces,  the  only  districts  lie  re 
served  to  himself  in  connection  with  Asia  Minor  were 
Cilieia  and  Cyprus.  T>ut  in  B.C.  '2'2  Cyprus  was  also 
granted  to  the  senate  (I tin.  liv.  n.  So  that  Syria  alone 
remains  as  a  region  that  could  he  conveniently  joined 
to  Cilieia,  to  make  out  a  sufficient  province  for  a  man 
of  consular  rank,  and  having  command  of  a  legion. 

There  are  other  collateral  notices  which  confirm  the 
result  thus  obtained  from  the  passage  of  Tacitus.  For 
it  appears,  that  both  some  years  before  tin-  birth  of 
Christ  and  some  years  after.  Syria  and  Cilicia  belonged 
to  one  province.  Cneivis  Piso  was  governor  of  Syria  in 
B.C.  17,  and  when  obliged  to  levy  troops  against  (-rer- 
manicus,  he  sent  an  order  for  supplies  to  the  Cilician 
reLCuli  or  chiefs  (T:iu.  Ann.  ii.  ro,  TS),  which  there  is  no  pro 
bability  they  would  have  complied  with,  unless  he  had 
had  a  right  to  demand  what  lie  sought.  Besides,  Piso 
himself  was  afterwards  accused  by  Tiberius  of  seeking 
to  possess  the  province  of  which  he  had  the  command  : 
and  the  evidence  of  this  was,  that  he  was  reported  to 
have  sei/.ed  the  fortress  of  (Vlenderis.  a  fortress  in 
Cilicia  (Ann.  ii.  MI,  iii.  i'j,  i-O.  Vitellius  also,  when  pre 
sident  of  Syria,  about  A.C.  !3(i.  sent  troops  to  subdue  the 
(.'litre,  who  were  a  people  of  Cilieia  (Ann.  vi.  41).  So 
that  there  is  ample  evidence  of  Cilicia  having  been 
coupled  with  Syria,  about  the  period  of  the  Christian 
era,  under  one  provincial  administi'ation. 

Supposing  then,  as  we  are  plainly  warranted  to  hold, 
that  Cyrenius  was  one  of  those  who  had  the  presidency 
of  the  two  regions  conjoined  into  a  single  province,  what 
precisely  was  the  period  of  his  holding  it,  as  indicated 
by  Tacitus  in  the  passage  noticed  above  \  Tt  must  have 
been  at  the  time  he  was  rector  to  Cains  C;esar  ;  for  it 
was  the  proximity  of  his  province  to  that  of  Armenia, 
obtained  by  Caius,  which  specially  fitted  him  for  doing 
the  part  of  rector  to  the  young  prince.  In  this  capacity 
he  visited  Egypt  with  Cains,  and  some  other  places, 


but  did  not  accompany  him  to  Armenia;  for  before 
Cains  went  thither,  .M .  Lollius  had  been  appointed 
rector,  and  Cyrenius  (it  would  seem)  had  gone  to  Rome 
at  the  request  of  the  emperor  to  be  married  to  Lepida, 
a  lady  of  high  rank,  who  had"  been  destined  for  Lucius 
C;esar,  the  brother  of  Cains.  But  Lucius  died  in  A.n.  '2; 
and  connecting  this  period  with  the  time  during  which 
the  married  life  of  Cvrenins  lasted  (twenty-one  years  1, 
and  with  the  period  itself  of  Cyrenius' s  death,  which 
was  before  the  close  of  A.n.  '21,  it  is  evident  that  the 
marriage  must  have  taken  place  close  upon  the  deatli 
of  Lucius.  It  was  about  the  same  time,  or  very  shortly 
before  it.  in  the  year  A.U.  1,  that  Cains  Cjcsar,  after 
being  made  consul,  set  out  for  Armenia,  accompanied 
by  Lollius  as  rector;  and  consequently  in  that  year 
also  it  must  have  been,  or  perhaps  the  latter  part  of 
the  year  lie  fore  it,  that  ( 'yrenins  quitted  his  post  in  the 
East,  and  was  succeeded  by  Lollius.  Several  notices 
mention  Lollins  in  his  capacity  as  rector  to  Caius.  and 
the  part  he  took  with  him  in  Armenia  (Suet.  Tib.  Cics. 
12,  i:i -,  VoHuius,  ii.  102);  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  Cvn:- 
nius  was  with  him  after  lie  actually  entered  on  his 
office.  Ik-fore  the,  close  of  the  year  A. D.  ].  therefore, 
Cyrenius  had  held  the  governorship  of  Syria  and  again 
quitted  it  he  had  Mihdued  the  Homonadenses  in  the 
Cilician  part  of  the  province,  a  work  so  difficult  and 
meritorious  that  he  obtained  triumphal  badges  on  ac 
count  of  it --he  had  afterwards  for  a  time  held,  alonu 
with  his  province,  the  office  of  rector  to  Cains  Ca-sar 
on  his  way  to  Armenia  :  and  for  all  this  it  is  impossible 
to  a-sign  a  period  of  less  than  about  four  years.  He 
must  have  entered  on  his  presidency  about  four  yeais 
before  the  Christian  era  :  and  that  is  precisely  the  term 
by  which  the  real  birth  of  Christ  seems  most  probably 
to  differ  from  the  vulgar  era.  Hence  the  conclusion 
is,  that  Cyrenius  actually  did  hold  the  presidency  of 
Syria  about  the  time  of  Christ's  birth:  and  as  Luke 
was  himself  a  native  (as  is  supposed)  of  Antioch,  the 
chief  town  of  Syria,  it  was  quite  natural  that  he  should 
by  some  brief  notice  indicate  the  governor  of  the  pro 
vince  at  that  important  crisis.  The  proof  of  all  this 
mav  be  seen  at  length  in  the  work  of  Zumpt  above  re 
ferred  to.  or  more  briefly  in  Fail-Kuril's  Hermeneutical 
Manual,  p.  -1(51,  seq. 

Tt  has  been  usual  fur  those  who  look  simply  to  the 
accounts  of  .iosephus,  to  ascribe  the  presidency  of  Syria 
at  the  birth  of  Christ  either  to  Satnrninus  or  Yarns, 
according  as  they  have  placed  the  period  of  his  birth 
earlier  or  later.  Josephns  certainly  speaks  of  Varus  a> 
bcin'41  governor  at  the  period  of  Herod's  death  (Ant.  xvii. 
:'.:;'.  which  in  all  probability  took  place  shortly  after 
the  birth  of  Christ.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Satnrninus  immediately  preceded  Varus.  The  suc 
cession,  however,  as  fixed  by  Zumpt  from  other  sources, 
stands  thus  (the  dates  are  those  of  the  common  era): — 
C.  Sent  ins  Satnrninns  obtained  the  province  in  B.C.  !': 
P.  Quinctilius  Varus.  B.C.  <j  :  P.  Sulpitius  Quirinius, 
B.C.  4;  M.  Lollius,  B.C.  1;  C.  Marcius  Censorinus,  A.D.  3: 
1  L.  Volusius  Saturninus,  A.D.  4;  P.  Sul.  Quirinius  (the 
second  time),  A.I),  o,  &c.  It  is  quite  possible  that, 
after  Cyrenius  entered  on  his  province,  and  in  the 
western  parts  of  it,  among  the  ravines  and  fastnesses  of 
C'ilicia,  was  subduing  the  Homonadenses,  Varus  may 
have  continued  for  some  time  in  the  government  of  the 
eastern  parts  ;  and  hence  as  the  person  still  exercising  in 
fact  the  powers  of  government  in  those  parts,  Joseplms 
|  may  be  guilty  of  no  historical  inaccuracy  in  the  mention 


<'YRUS 


CYRUS 


he  makes  of  Varus  after  the  death  of  Herod.  Engaged 
as  Cyrenius  was  elsewhere,  either  Varus  or  some  other 
person  must  for  a  time  have  had  the  command  of  the 
troops  in  the  district  bordering  on  Judea. 

In  regard  to  the  d,Troypa.<pri,  or  registering  itself,  which 
is  associated  by  the  evangelist  with  the  governorship  of 
Cyrenius  over  Syria,  in  the  absence  of  definite  informa 
tion,  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  certainty.  It  is  spoken 
<  >f  in  language  that  seems  to  denote  a  strict  universality 
as  far  as  regards  the  Roman  empire :  the  decree  went 
forth  from  C;esar  Augustus,  that  all  the  world — iraffav 
r-i-fv  olKov^tvrjv  -should  be  enrolled  or  registered.  Ex 
pressions  of  this  sort  are,  no  doubt,  sometimes  used  of 
a  definite  locality  more  immediately  in  the  eye  of  the 
writer  ;  but  as  the  subject  of  discourse  is  a  decree  of  the 
Roman  emperor,  it  seems  scarcely  competent  to  under 
stand  the  sphere  it  was  to  embrace,  when  so  described, 
as  less  extensive  than  the  dominions  over  which  his 
authority  prevailed.  The  decree  therefore  was  fur  the 
Roman  world,  and  for  -ludea  anil  tin-  country  around, 
merely  as  a  part  of  that  great  whole.  J'.ut  possibly 
enough  the  decree  may  not  have  been  issued  at  one  and 
the  same  time  for  all:  though  a  general  order,  it  mav 
have  been,  and  in<»t  proliai.lv  was  appointed  t"  he 
earned  into  ell'eet  piecemeal.  The  evangelist  indicates 
only  two  tilings  regarding  it  -its  general  character,  and 
the  mode  and  time  in  which  it  was  brought  into  ope 
ration  in  Palestine.  Nor  in  this  doe.-  he  >ay  thai 
Cyrenius  had  any  charge  ,,t'  it  there  :  hut  simply  that 
lli.'  time  when  it  wa->  earned  into  etl'ect  was  that  in 
which  lie  held  the  presidency  of  Syria.  The  decree,  it 
is  not  improbable,  was  connected  with  some  vvn,  ral 
-urvey  of  the  empire.  I  Miring  the  rei^n  of  Augustus, 
a  geometrical  survey  of  the  empire  appears  to  have 
been  taken:  for  it  is  incidentally  referred  to  by  several 
writers  on  rural  affairs  in  particular  hv  l-'roiitinu> 
(Do Colons  i  i,  uho  -peal-^  .  >f  the  measurements  made  of  all 
landmarks  and  boundaries  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  and 
even  mentions  the  name  of  the  survt  \-i,r  I'albus,  who 
set,  down  in  books  all  the  measurements  of  cities  and 
provinces  throughout  the  empire  <  II,  i!;inn..ny, 

for  vai  Yet.  what  is  re 

markable,  no  hi>torian  has  expressly  noticed  the  fact. 
There  has  been  noticed,  however,  a  /»•<  i-/<irtum  i>ii/>crii 
('Inc.  Ann.  i  11  ;  Suet.  AUR.  c.  1"2;  Diu,  Ivi.  ::::).  which  it  took 
many  years  to  complete,  and  which  mu.-t  have  be. n 
based  mi  very  extcii.-ive  return-  as  to  the  population  of 
the  empire  and  its  resources.  The  decree  noticed  by 
the  evangelist  Luke  had  very  probably  to  do  with  thi- 
oliject,  at  least  it  seems  to  have  difi'ered  fn>ni  the  census 
subsequently  taken  by  Cyrenius  throughout  Syria:  for 
the  one  had  respect  to  the  persons  and  families  (1f  the 
people  (indicated  by  their  repairing  to  their  several 
cities),  and  the  other  to  their  means  and  resources;  on 
which  account  Cyrenius  is  expressly  called  an  appraiser  '. 
of  their  substance  (Joseph.  Ant.  xviii.  0.  Whether  viewed 
therefore  in  respect  to  the  presidency  of  Cyrenius,  or 
to  the  political  measure  represented  as  having  been 
carried  into  effect  during  it  in  Palestine,  there  is  nothing 
in  contemporaneous  history  to  invalidate,  and  not  a  j 
little  to  confirm,  the  accuracy  of  the  sacred  historian. 

CY'RUS  (("Jr.  Kvpos,  Ileb.  ',»-c,  /-om-/<),  the  name  in  j 

Persian  for  sun,  and  so  precisely  corresponding  with 
the  Egyptian  Phrah  or  Pharaoh.  In  Scripture  it  occurs 
only  as  the  name  of  the  Persian  king  who  overthrew 
the  kingdom  of  the  Babylonians,  and  issued  the  decree 


for  the  return  of  the  exiled  Jews  to  their  native  land, 

'2  Ch.  xxxvi.  2-J,  '2?,  ;    Y.t.r.  i.  1  ;    Is.  xliv.  li-i;  xlv.  ]  ;    Da.  v.  31;  vi.  2S. 

The  history  of  Cyrus  was  from  an  early  period  in 
volved  in  fable  and  romance,  and  it  has  become  im 
possible  to  separate  accurately  between  the  false  and 
the  true.  Even  Herodotus,  who  flourished  only  about 
a  century  after  the  time  of  Cyrus,  and  who  was  him 
self  by  no  means  disposed  to  question  very  closely  the 
reports  that  were  furnished  him  of  distinguished  per 
sonages,  yet  speaks  distinctly  of  the  embellishments 
that  had  been  thrown  around  the  history  of  Cyrus  by 
those  who  sought  to  render  the  name  of  the  hero  great 
and  venerable.  He  already  found  it  necessary  to  choose 
between  different  stories,  and  only  professes  to  give  the 
narrative  he  received  from  those  who  seemed  desirous 
of  adhering  to  the  simple  truth  (i.  w>).  Ctesias,  a  Greek 
physician,  v.ho  lived  for  seventeen  years  at  the  Persian 
court  in  the  reign  of  Darius  Xothus  (P..C.  410-400), 
though  about  half  a  century  later  than  Herodotus,  vet 
had  opportunitio  for  ascertaining  the  truth  respecting 
the  affairs  of  Persia,  such  as  Herodotus  could  not  have 
enjoyed:  and  he  professed  to  have  drawn  his  history  of 
them  from  the  Persian  archives  th'-ms-lves.  Pmt  it 
is  impo.-Mble  to  sav  how  far  in  such  a  life  as  that  of 
Cyrus  even  these  were  to  be  depended  upon;  the  pro 
bability  is,  that  they  were  far  from  presenting  an  un 
varnished  tale.  I'M  sides,  the  history  itself  of  Ctesias 
has  been  ln>t :  and  nearly  all  we  know  of  that  part  of 
it  which  relates  to  the  times  of  Cyrus  is  contained  in 
the  extracts  preserved  from  it  by  Photius.  In  various 
things,  however,  he  dilfers  widely  from  Herodotus;  and 
so  again  does  Xenophon,  whose  t'l/ropacdda  cannot  be 
regarded  as  anything,  and  indeed  scarcely  profes.-e> 
t<i  In  anything,  but  a  historical  romance.  There  must 
unquestionably  ha\e  been  something  very  peculiar  and 
extraordinary  in  the  life  and  career  of  Cyrus  to  have 
given  rise  to  this  fabulous  tendency  ;  and  one  can  easily 
conceive  teat  wii-n  once  fairly  begun  the  tendency 
would  grow,  and  the  materials  it  had  to  work  upon 
would  accumulate,  as  the  fam  •  of  the  conqueror  of 
Babylon  and  the  founder  of  the  Persian  empire  be 
came  more  exteii.-iyi  ly  diffused.  The  further  from  his 
ag  ,  the  more  difficult  would  the  task  of  discrimination 
become.  Elements  of  truth  there  may  have  been  in 
the  other  accounts,  which  are  altogether  omitted  in 
Herodotus;  but  upon  the  whole,  his  account  is  now 
u-vM-Tallv  supposed  to  approach  t!ie  nearest  to  the  truth 
of  any  that  have  come  down  to  modern  times. 

The  exact  date  of  the  birth  of  Cyrus  is  not  known  ; 
but  the  accession  of  his  grandfather  Astyages  to  the 
Median  throne  is  ascribed  t"  B.r.  /il'4.  Mandane,  the 
daughter  of  Astyages  and  mother  of  Cyrus,  was  given 
in  marriage  to  a  Persian  of  the  name  of  Cambyses.  So 
far  tin-  accounts  of  Herodotus  and  Xenophon  agree  ; 
but  they  differ  entirely  in  regard  to  the  relation  of 
Cyrus  to  Astyagcs.  According  to  Herodotus,  the  old 
king  was  resolved  to  destroy  the  life  of  the  infant  as 
soon  as  it  was  born,  on  account  of  an  unpropitious 
dream  he  had  prior  to  the  birth  ;  and  with  this  view  he 
got  Mandane  beside  him,  during  the  period  of  her  preg 
nancy,  and  committed  the  child,  at  the  moment  of  its 
birth,  to  his  favourite  Harpagus,  to  have  it  secretly  de 
spatched.  Harpagus  gave  it  to  a  herdsman  of  Astyages, 
whose  wife  happening  at  the  time  to  give  birth  to  a 
still-born  child,  the  latter  was  exposed,  and  the  infant 
Cyrus  substituted  in  its  room.  The  child  grew  and 
became  distinguished  for  king- like  qualities,  which 


CYRUS 


CYRUS 


betrayed  his  origin;  ;m<[  Astyages,  incensed  at  the  deceit 
that  had  been  practised  upon  him  by  Harpagus,  took 
the  cruel  revenue  of  inviting  him  to  a  banquet,  at  which 
the  flush  of  his  own  sou  was  served  up  to  him  in  a  dish. 
Ifarpagus,  however,  in  turn  took  />/.s  revenue:  for,  when 
( 'yrus  had  reached  manhood,  he  was  incited  by  llarpagus 
to  aim  at  the  overthrow  of  Astvages,  whose  U  raimy  had 
made  him  odious  to  his  people,  and  a  'party  among  the 
Medes  was  at  the  same  time  organized  to  support  the 
pretensions  of  the  young  Persian.  The  plan  succeeded; 
('yrus  at  the  head  of  the  Persians  ruvoltod  against 
AsUau'es.  and  in  the  conflict  that  ensued  victory  de 
clared  oil  their  side  ;  Astyagcs  was  deposed,  and  with 
him  the  .Median  dynasty  terminated.  What  followed 
was  strictly  the  Persian  dominion,  though  from  the 
connection  of  Cyrus  through  his  mother  with  the 
.Median  race,  and  from  the  Medes  readily  accepting 
him  as  kinu',  the  empire  lie  founded  is  usually  su  It  d 
that  of  the  Medo- Persian.  Xenophon  represents  Cyrus 
as  occupying  quite  another  position  toward  Astyages. 
lie  was  brought  up  at  the  court  of  his  grandfather,  was 
treated  with  the  greatest  kindness  and  respect,  served 
in  the  Median  army  under  his  uncle  Cyaxares,  son  and 
successor  to  Astyages,  and,  merely  as  the  general  and 
deputy  of  his  uncle,  conducted  the  war  against  the 
Babylonians  and  took  the  city.  The  fabulous  nature 
of  this  account,  however,  appears  from  another,  and 
more  strictly  historical  part  of  Xenophon's  writings; 
for,  in  his  Aita'tutts  u>.  iii.  4,7,  n>\  he  refers  to  the  trans 
ference  of  empire  from  the  Medes  to  the  Persians,  and 
represents  it  as  the  result  of  a  civil  war.  Thu  account 
of  Herodotus,  therefore,  must  be  viewed  as  the  more 
correct;  although  it  is  perfectly  possible,  that  either 
Astyages  himself,  or  one  of  his  sons,  may  have  been 
for  a  time  associated  with  Cyrus  in  the  empire,  with 
the  view  of  conciliating  the  Mei  les  to  the  change.  Cyrus, 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  became,  when  a  com 
parative  youth,  and  by  force  of  arms,  the  real  head  of 
the  kingdom;  but — as  even  Herodotus  reports  him  to 
have  treated  Astyages  with  kindness  after  the  conquest 
—policy  may  have  dictated  the  association  of  Astyages 
with  him  in  the  empire,  or  possibly  Cyaxares,  the  son 
of  Astyages,  mentioned  in  the  erroneous  account  of 
Xeni  >pli< in.  These  internal  relations  of  the  royal  house, 
at  the  time  of  Cyrus's  acce.-^ion  to  power,  can  only  be 
spoken  of  problematically;  recent  investigations  con 
nected  with  the  Assyrian  and  Chaldean  remains  have 
as  yet  thrown  no  fresh  light  on  them  ;  and  the  un 
certainty  which  has  hitherto  rested  on  the  matter  is 
likely  still  to  prevail.  That  Cyrus  became  king  of 
Persia,  or  supreme  head  of  the  Mcdo-  Persian  empire, 
admits  of  no  doubt ;  that  he  also,  as  leader  of  the  Medo- 
Persian  forces,  successfully  coped  with  the  Chaldean 
power,  and  made  himself  master  of  Babylon  itself,  by 
diverting  the  course  of  the  river,  and  entering  by  its 
then  deserted  channel  into  the  heart  of  the  city,  while 
the  people  were  engaged  in  a  festive  celebration,  is 
likewise  sufficiently  authenticated.  These  arc  the  two 
main  facts  in  the  history  of  Cyrus,  which  are  pro- sup 
posed  regarding  him  in  Scripture,  and  to  which  very 
explicit  reference  was  made  in  Isaiah,  even  before  they 
actually  occurred.  (His  earlier  victories  over  Creesus 
and  the  Lydians  are  not  alluded  to.)  The  point  which 
in  this  connection  chiefly  causes  difficulty,  is  the  state 
ment  in  Da.  v.  31,  which  affirms  that  ''Darius  the 
Median  took  the  kingdom  (viz.  of  Babylon\  being 
about  threescore  and  two  years  old;''  and  in  ch.  vi., 


which  speaks  of  Darius  as  the  king,  after  the  Median 
conquest,  and  represents  Daniel  as  prospering  under 
him,  and  afterwards  under  (.'yrus  the  Persian.  The 
most  common  mode  of  explicating  this  part  of  the 
sacred  history  has  been  by  'adopting  the  account  of 
Xenophon  in  preference  to  that  of  Herodotus,  and 
supposing  that  Daniel's  Darius  the  Mede  was  the 
Cyaxares  of  Xenophon,  the  uncle  of  Cyrus.  An 
ancient  opinion,  however,  identified  him  with  Astyages; 
an  opinion  espoused  by  Syneellus,  and  apparently 
favoured  by  Da.  ix.  1,  where  Darius  is  called  the  son 
of  Ahasuerus  or  Ahashverosh.  This  is  but  another 
form  of  the  name  Cyaxares  (as  appears  alone  from  Tobit 
xiv.  I/)),  and  Astyages  was  the  son  of  Cyaxares. 
hi  that  case,  Astyages  may  be  regarded,  not  as  the 
proper  name  of  the  old  king,  hut  as  a  name  of  honour, 
which,  indeed,  there  is  some  reason  for  supposing  at 
any  rate  ;  since  it  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  .1 /- 
dahak,  "the  biting  snake,"  which  was  long  borne  as  a 
title  by  the  old  Scythic  kings  of  the  country  (Uawlinsou's 
Herodotus,!,  p.  417,iu>teg.)  The  personal  name  of  the  last 
Median  king,  whom  Cyrus  succeeded,  may  still  have 
been  Darius.  The  chief  objection  to  this  explanation 
is  a  chronological  one;  for  the  fall  of  Babylon  is  fixed 
by  the  most  cai'eful  inquirers  to  tho  year  B.C.  538  ;  ami 
if  the  person  designated  Darius  the  Mede  was  the  same 
with  Astyages,  and  then  only  in  his  G2d  year,  lie  must 
have  been  born  in  the  year  B.C.  (100,  which  is  only  about 
seven  years  before  the  date  usually  assigned  for  the  as 
cension  of  Astyages  to  the  throne,  and  is  also  at  variance 
with  a  fact  stated  by  Herodotus,  that  he  was  married 
in  his  father's  lifetime  (i.  rO.  But  the  dates  and  trans 
actions  of  the  Median  history  are  not  very  certainly 
known;  and  it  is  possible  that  if  we  had  the  means  of 
more  thoroughly  and  minutely  understanding  them, 
the  apparent  inconsistence  now  adverted  to  might  dis 
appear.  We  must  either  suppose  this,  or  conclude  with 
Mr.  Rawlinson  that  "there  are  scarcely  sufficient 
gn  muds  for  determining  whether  Darius  Modus  of 
Daniel  is  identical  with  any  monarch  known  to  us  in 
profane  history,  or  is  a  persona  ire  of  whose  existence 
there  remains  no  other  record  "  (iierod.  i.  p.  4i>). 

The  explanation  given  in  Smith's  Dictionary  of  '</•«/• 
and  Rornaii  Biography,  inclines  also  to  the  identifica 
tion  of  Darius  the  Mede  with  Astyages.  After  stating 
that  the  Scripture  notices  do  not  really  accord  with  the 
representations  of  Xenophon.  and  that  his  account  is 
entitled  to  no  credit,  the  writer  proceeds  to  state  ' '  that 
a  much  more  probable  explanation  is,  that  Darius  was 
a  noble  Median,  who  held  the  sovereignty  as  the  viceroy 
of  Cyrus,  until  the  latter  found  it  convenient  to  fix  his 
court  at  Habylon  ;  and  there  are  some  indications,  on 
which  a  conjecture  might  lie  founded,  that  this  viceroy 
was  Astyages.  It  is  quite  natural  that  the  year  in 
which  Cyrus  began  to  reign  in  person  at  Babylon  should 
be  reckoned  (as  it  is  by  the  Hebrew  writers)  the  first 
year  of  his  reign  over  the  whole  empire.  This  view  is 
confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  in  the  prophecies  of  the  de 
struction  of  Babylon,  it  is  Cyrus,  and  not  any  Median 
king,  that  is  spoken  of."  (But  see  under  DARIUS.) 

The  procedure  of  Cyrus  in  reference  to  the  Jews, 
after  he  took  charge  of  affairs  at  Babylon,  is  highly 
honourable  to  him,  and  in  itself  not  unnatural.  From 
the  position  of  Daniel  lie  could  not  remain  long  un 
acquainted  with  the  case  of  the  Jews,  and,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt,  also  would  be  informed  of  the  things 
noted  in  their  Scriptures  which  he  had  been  instru- 


CYRCS 

mental  in  fulfilling.     Such  information  must  alone  have 
rendered  him  favourably  disposed  toward  them  ;   and 
the   comparatively  pure    form   of   monotheism,    under 
which  he   had   been  reared   in   Persia,  must  have  still 
further  disposed  him  to  look  with  favour  <m  those  who 
stood  aloof  from  the  idolatries  of  Babylon — the  rather  so. 
if  (as  there  is  reason  to  be 
lieve)  the  reformation  effected 
by  Zoroaster  in  the  popular 
creed,  and  the  recall  of   the 
Persian  people   by  him  to  a 
purer  worship,  was  coincident 
with  the  reign  of  Cyrus.     The 
divine     unity    being    already 
received   by  him  as  a  funda 
mental  principle,  and  the  sun. 
or  fire    generally,    being    re 
garded   only  as   a   svmbo]    of 
Cod.  he   might   with   perfect 
propriety  say,  as  he  is  repre 
sented   to   have   said    in    the 
decree    he   issued    respecting 
the  .lews,   "The   Lord  Cod  of 
heaven  hath  given  me  all  the 
kingdoms  of   the  earth."  \;-.. 

K/.r.  i  L'.  Hut  that  hv  opened  hi>  mind  to  the  instructions 
of  Daniel  and  hi>  fellows  respecting  ( Jod's  people,  and 
from  these  received  his  more  special  light,  there  can  be 
little  doubt.  And  hence,  b  .th  fn,ni  his  readiness  in 
listening  to  divine  counsel,  and  the  important  part  lie 
acted  in  accomplishing  the  divine  will,  he  is  called  hv 
anticipation  in  Is.  xlv.  1,  "(lie  Lord's  anointed."  for 
though  without  the  external  form,  he  had  the  realitv 
of  a  divine  unction.  <|iialii\  in<_:  him  for  important  .-ervice 
in  connection  with  the  kingdom  of  Cod.  It  U  on  thi> 
account,  and  not  simply  because  he  \va.-  a  kinu.  that 
sucli  language  is  us.-d  concerning  him. 

After  the  conquest   of    Mabylon.  Cyrus,  according   to 
I  lerodotiH.   engaged  in  a   war  with  the   .Ma-sa^ela.   a 


DAGOS 

|  people  beyond  the  Araxes,  and  there  lost  his  life. 
|  Ctesias  represents  him  as  falling  in  battle  with  a  nation 
i  called  Derbiees.  who  were  assisted  by  the  Indians. 
|  According  to  Xenophon  lie  died  quietly  on  his  bed,  and 
.  after  the  manner  of  a  sage,  holding  serious  discourse 
i  with  those  about  him.  The  prohabilitv  is  that  he  fell 


in  battle,  as  nothing  but  truth  could  have  given  currency 
to  a  report  of  ihat  description,  after  so  splendid  a 
career.  ills  tomb  \va~  at  Pasargada.  the  palace  near 
Persepulis,  built  on  the  spot  where  lie  defeated  the 
Mcdc-.  A  description  is  uhenof  (lie  tomb  in  Arrian 
C~i.'2'.>):  it.  was  a  neat  quadrangular  edifice,  with  a  low 
door,  leading  into  a  little  chamber,  in  \\hich  lav  a 
golden  sarcophagus,  containing  the  bodv  of  Cyrus. 
'I'll  tomb  boi-c  this  inscription.  "Oman.  IamC\rus 
who  gave  the  empire  to  the  Persians,  and  was  lord  of 
all  Asia;  therefore  grudge  me  not  my  sepulchre."  It 
i-  _•  n.  r.-dK  supposed  to  have  perished,  but  Sir  I,'.  K. 
I'orter  ha-  >oiiL;!it  to  id.  ntify  it  with  an  extant  building 

(V,,l    i     p     I!-.. 


1). 


DABE'RATH,  written  also  DAHAKKH.  in  the  S,.pt. 
±a.pipu0  and  ^'i-i.ld.  a  town  on  the  bo7-ders  of  Issachar 
and  Zehulon,  ,i,,s  xix  \->.  xxi.2B;  irh  vi  :•_•.  It  was  one  of 
the  cities  assigned  to  the  Levitcs  ;  and  is  understood  to 
LHJ  the  same  with  the  Da  Lira  of  Ku>ehir,s  and  .lerome. 
which  they  connect  with  .Mount  Tabor  in  the  region  of 
Dioca'sarea.  K'obinsoii  supposes  the  name  to  he  still 
preserved  in  Deburieh.  "asnuill  and  unimportant  village, 
lying  on  the  side  of  a  lodge  of  rocks  just  at  the  l>ase  of 
Tabor"  (vol.  iii.  p.2io).  The  ruins  of  a  Christian  church 
are  still  visible. 

DA'GON,  a  god  of  the  Philistines,  with  an  im 
portant  temple  dedicated  to  him  at  Caxa,  and  another 
likewise  at  Ashdod  or  Azotus.  Ju.  xvi  21,±;;  i  Sa.  v.  -j-r;  icu. 
x.  10;  i  M;U-.  x.  -.'i;  xi.  -».  Also  a  god  of  tin.-  Assyrians,  wor 
shipped  under  the  name  of  Oannes  (Hcrossus  in  Cory's 
Kragniunts,  p.  •>•>,  £i,  M,  :il  ;  Assyrian  Sculptures  in  the  British 
Museum;  Ii,,ttas  giv-it  work,  pi.  xxxii  )  The  passage  in 
Sanconiatho  tc:..ry,  p.  M),  which  derives  Dagon  from 


cltii/an  (•;-)  com.  '•  because  \\ii<  ilt  ity  was  the  discoverer 

of  corn  and  husbandry."  ha^  given  rise  to  much  discus 
sion  amoTi--  the  learned  I  li.vlmrt,  Ilierox.  i;  Ht.-yiT,  A<l<!it.  ;l,l 

Solilun.p  »;>);  but  as  the  same  authority  also  affirms  that 
after  Dagon  had  found  out  bread,  corn,  and  the  plough, 
he  was  called  /r //.<  Arotriu*,  it  would  follow  that  the 
Dagon  to  \\li.ini  the  temples  were  dedicated  was  a  dis 
tinct  deity  from  the  Dagon  or  Zeus  Arotrius.  the  god 
of  agriculture.  Thederivation  from  «-j  (</"'/),  .//.<//,  and 
•i  ant  m- linn),  ii/nl  DAC-ON  FISH-GOD,  is  on  the  other 
hand  much  more  conclusive  and  accordant  with  the 
principles  of  formation,  ami  with  the  root  ^^^  (ilur/n]t), 

^  r 

which  signifies  In  mult ,'/,///,  t,,  /,r  inrrcn.-mf  for  nothing 
can  be  more  prolific  than  a  fish,  hence  a  symbolic  form 
compounded  of  the  human  intelligence— man,  and  of 
the  properties  of  the  inhabitant  of  the  sea— -a  fish,  would 
be  a  most  significant  idol  for  a  commercial  and  maritime 
people  like  the  Phicnicians.  It  seems  plain  indeed, 


DAG  OX 


from  the  description  given  in  Scripture  itself.  1  ^a.  v.  -I, 
that  the  form  of  Dagon  was  of  this  sort — human  only 
in  the  upper  part,  but  in  the  lower  dili'erent.  and  so 
peculiar  as  to  present  what  was  properly  distinctive  of 
the  idol.  The  \\ords  strictly  rendered  stand  thus. 
• '  When  they  arose  early  on  the  morrow  morning,  behold 
Dagon  \vas  fallen  upon  his  faee  to  the  ground  before 
the  ark  of  the  Lord;  and  the  h^id  of  Dagon  and  both 
the  palms  of  his  hands  were  cut  off  on  the  threshold, 
only  Dagon  was  left  on  him"  that,  namely,  which 
properly  made  him  the  idol  he  was,  and  which  gave 
him  the  characteristic  fish-like  appearance.  The  Assyrian 
sculptures  also  place  before  our  eyes  an  actual  repre 
sentation  of  the  Dagon  of  the  Philistines,  which  exactly 
corresponds  with  the  description  in  question:  and  like 
wise  a  representation  of  the  Dagon  of  the  Assyrians,  ac 
cording  in  all  particulars  with  the  account  of  P>erossus. 
The  sculpture  from  Khorsabad  (Botta,  j.l.  xxxii  -xxxv.),  re 
presents  the  building  of  a  port  or  making  of  a  road 
from  the  coast  up  to  some  important  maritime  city, 
situated  upon  an  extremely  steep  and  rocky  eminence; 
and  large  pieces  of  tim 
ber  for  the  work  are 
being  brought  by  nu 
merous  ships  and  boats. 
The  prow  of  the  vessels 
terminates  in  the  head 
of  a  horse,  the  emblem 
of  the  Phoenicians  and 
the  Carthaginians,  and 
the  stern  in  the  tail  <  if  a 
fish.  That  the  wood  is 
brought  some  distance- 
by  sea  is  intimated  by 
its  having  to  pass  two 

considerable  places,   one   built   on   a   projecting  piece 
of  land,  a  rocky  promontory  or  perhaps  island,  which 
may  represent  insular  Tyre,  whose  king  in  the  time 
of      Solomon      supplied 
all  the  cedar  and  fir  for 
building  the  house  of  the 

Lord,  IKi.v.  fi-10;  Ezr.  iii.  7; 

and  the  second  fort,  built 
on  the  coast,  possibly 
Sidon. 

A  mong  a  great  variety 
of  marine  animals,  in 
cluding  the  shell- fish  of 
the  Tyrian  dye,  the  As 
syrian  combination  of 
man,  bull,  and  eagle,  is 
seen  walking  with  stately 
gait,  and  the  divinity  of 
the  Philistines,  Dagon, 
half  man  half  fish,  is 
likewise  accompanying 
the  expedition  and  en 
couraging  the  men.  A 
bull  with  eagle's  wings, 
but  not  the  head  of  a 

man,  is  seen  sporting  in    ,, 

J.        [195.  J      Dagon  of  the  Assyrians, 
the  waves,    in  none  01  the  bas-relief  from  Ximrouil.— Brit.  .U 

castellated  buildings  are 

any  signs  of  hostility,  and  we  are  farther  assured  of  the 
pacific  character  of  the  operations  by  the  presence  of  the 
divinity  of  the  coast,  and  of  the  Assyrian  symbolic 
figures,  uniting  in  countenancing  and  aiding  some  pro- 


;  l.i  i.  j     Dagon  of  the  Philistines, 
bas-relii-t  from  Ivliur-abiul.— lioii 


ject,  probably  of  defence,  executed  by  the  natives  of 
the  coast.  (For  a  further  account  of  this  subject,  see  Mr.  S.  Sharpe. 
in  Nineveh  and  its  Palaces,  .'id  ed,  p.  WJ.)  The  sculpture  found 

at  Nimroud,  and  now  in  the  liritish  Museum,  represents 
the  figure  of  a  divinity  wearing  a  short  fringed  tunic, 
long  furred  robe,  bracelets,  armlets,  and  two  daggers. 
In  his  left  hand  he  carries  a  richly  decorated  bag,  and 
his  right  hand  is  upraised  in  the  act  of  presenting  a  pine 
cone.  f!is  beard  is  elaborately  curled,  and  on  his  head 
is  an  egg-.-hapod  cap.  with  three  horns  and  the  ears  of 
a  bull  ;  covering  the  back  of  this  cap  is  the  head  of  a 
fish,  while  the  body  of  the  fish  falls  over  his  shoulders 
and  continues  down  his  back  :  the  whole  figure  in  short 

;  as  described  by  Berossus — "  In  the  first  year  there  ap 
peared  from  that  part  of  the  Erythrean  Sea  which 

:  borders  upon  Babylonia,  an  animal  destitute  of  (endowed 
with,  Bry  )  reason,  by  name  <  lannes,  whose  whole  body 

'  (according  to  the  account  of  Apollodorus)  was  that  of  a 
fish:  that  under  the  fish's  head  he  had  another  1  icad , 
with  feet  also  below,  similar  to  those  of  a  man.  sub 
joined  to  the  fish's  tail.  His  voice  too.  and  languag--. 
was  articulate  and  human  :  and  a  representation  of  him 
is  preserved  even  to  this  day."  In  Miss  Fanny  Cor- 

i  beaux' admirable  papers  on  "The  Rephaim,"'  she  has 
some  ingenious  speculations  to  prove  that  the  Chaldean 
Oamies,  the  Philistine  Dagon,  and  the  Mizraimite  On 
are  identical  (see  The  Uephaim,  and  tlu-ir  Connection  with  Egyp 
tian  History,  Journ.  Sacred  Literature,  vol.  iii.  Xo.  5,  new  series). 

The  temple  of  Dagon  at  Gaza  was  pulled  down  by 
Samson,  Ju.xvi.  2.".  When  the  Israelites  were  defeated 

|  at  Eben-ezer,  the  Philistines  took  the  ark  of  God  and 

!  deposited  it  in  the  temple  of  Dagon  at  Ashdod,  ISa. 
iv.  10, 11;  v.  1,2.  After  the  death  of  Saul  at  Gilboa,  the 
Philistines  cut  off'  his  head  and  fastened  it  up  in  the 
temple  of  Dagon,  iSa.xxxl.  4,8;  ich.  x.  1,4,0, 10.  The  temple 
of  Dagon  at  Ashdod  was  burned  by  Jonathan,  the 

:  brother  of  Judas  Maccabeus,  about  B.C.  148.  i  Mac.  x.  M. 
There  was  a  city  in  Judah  called  Beth-dagon,  Jos.  \v.  n, 
and  another  on  the  frontiers  of  Asher,  Jos.  xix.  27. 

[See  further  on  Daaou,  Atergatis-Derceto  iu  Z>iW.  ,SiV.  ii.; 
T.ucian,  l)c  Deo  Syr.;  Moutfaucon's  Ani'mvile  ExpU'ji'ee,  i.  4."j; 
Suldcn  l>t  DI'IS  St/iif.  ii.  ;;;  Calmet,  /•"-•»</.  cxlv.  and  plates.] 

[J.  B.  ! 

It  is  not  unimportant  to  notice  -as  confirmatory  of 
the  view  just  given  of  Dagon  worship — that  deities  of 
the  same  description  were  worshipped  along  the  Syrian 
coast;  in  particular  I  )<  recta,  the  female  deity  of  Ash- 
keloii,  of  which  Diodorus  testifies,  that  she  had  the  face 
of  a  woman,  but  the  rest  of  the  body  was  in  the  form 
of  a  fish  (di'Tt]  d£  TO  /uec  TTpoffUTrov  £'x«  ywcttKos,  TO  oe 
a\\o  ffu/ut-a.  TTO.V  i'x#!'os.  ii.  4).  Indeed,  as  Creuzer  re 
marks,  the  word  Daf/on,  fromc/«,'/,  fish,  is  "the  root  from 
which  the  fish-women  Derceto  and  Atergatis  must  have 
been  derived.  The  latter,  which  assumes  so  many 
forms,  Atergatis.  Atargatis,  Adargatis,  Argatis,  Ara- 
this.  Argata.  is  as  to  its  derivation  compounded  of 
dddir  (•VHK),  (P'eat,  glorious,  and  dag,  fish,  and  conse 
quently  designates  the  great,  the  divine  fish.  Ihe 
other  name,  Derceto  (Aep/ceTci)  is  only  an  abbreviated 
form,  and  has  arisen  from  the  dropping  of  the  prefor- 
inative  syllable  ;  for  there  still  always  remains  the  root- 
svllable  dag,  deg.  and  gad,  ged,  the  essential  one  in 
the  desigation  of  the  fish-deity"  (Symbolik,  ii.  sec.  12).  The 
worship  of  deities  under  this  unnatural  and  fantastic 
form  probably  had  its  first  rise  (as  is  also  indicated  by 
the  learned  writer  just  quoted)  in  the  traditions  respect- 


DALMANUTHA 


303 


DAMASCUS 


ing  the  prevalence  of  the  waters  in  primeval  times,     neighbourhood  is  comparatively  flat  on  every  side,  ex 
terminating  in  those   of  the  general  deluge;  in  conse-     cept  the  north  ;  and  there  the  range  of  hills  is  peculiarly 


quence  of  which  the  marine  powers  of  nature  seemed 
to  issue  in,  and  give  birth  to,  the  dry  land  and  its  pro 
ductions,  with  man  at  their  head.  So  that  a  fish  form, 
culminating  in  a  male  or  female  head,  might,  according  to 
the  crude  and  idolatrous  notions  of  the  ancient  Syrians, 
be  a  suitable  representation  of  the  deity  to  which  they 
owed  their  place  and  being  on  the  Syrian  coast. — ED. 

DALMANUTHA;  what  in  Mar.  viii.  1C)  are  called 
"  the  parts  of  Dalmanutha,"  appear  in  Mat.  xv.  .''>!( 
under  the  name  of  the  ''coasts  of  Magdala."  Dal 
manutha  was  probably  a  village  on  the  western  shore 
of  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth,  either  the  same  with  Mag 
dala,  or  in  the  same  neighbourhood.  But  no  certain 
information  has  reached  us  regarding  either. 

DALMA'TIA,  anciently  a   part  of   lllyrk-um.   but 


mentioned  separately  in  -J  Ti.  iv.  10  as  the  region  for  ;  two  precipitous 
which  Titus  had  left   Paul,    while   the   latter   was   at     the  road  winds 


bare  and  sterile.  Little  vegetation  is  to  be  seen  save 
in  the  mountain  streams,  and  particularly  in  the  valley 
of  the  Barada,  which,  however,  becomes  peculiarly  deep 
and  narrow  for  a  considerable  space  before  it  issues  from 
a  gorge  in  the  mountains,  about  two  miles  to  the  north 
west  of  the  city.  ''  One  of  the  impressions,'1  says  Stanley 
(Sinai  and  Pal.  p.  410),  "  left  by  the  East  is  the  connection 
between  verdure  and  running  water.  But  never-  not 
even  in  the  close  juxta-position  of  the  Nile  valley  and 
the  sands  of  Africa—  have  I  seen  so  wonderful  a 
witness  to  this  life-giving  power  as  the  view  on  which 
we  are  now  entering.  The  further  we  advance  the 
c<  mtrast  becomes  more  and  more  f  orcil  )le  ;  the  mountains 
more  bare,  the  green  of  the  river  bed  more  deep  and 
rich.  At  last  a  cleft  opens  in  the  rocky  hills  between 


dills  :  up  the  side  of  one  of  these  cliffs 
on  the  summit  of  the  cliff  there  stands 


a  ruined  chapel.  Through  the  arches  of  that  chapel, 
from  the  very  edge  of  the  mountain-range,  you  look 
down  on  the  plain  of  Damascus.  !t  is  here  seen  in  its 
widest  ami  fullest  perfection,  with  the  visible  explan 
ation  of  its  great  and  enduring  charms.  The  river 
with  its  green  banks  is  seen  at  the  bottom,  rushing 
through  the  cleft ;  it  bursts  forth,  and  as  if  in  a  moment 
scatters  over  the  plain,  through  a  circle  of  ;>0  miles, 
the  same  verdure  which  had  hitherto  been  confined  to 
it-  single  channel.  Far  ami  wide  in  front  extends  the 


AND   LAKES  OF   DAMASCUS. 

..-.-• 


Rome.     It  lay  on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Adriatic  Sea, 
and  stretched  towards  Macedonia. 

DAM'ARIS,  the  name  of  an  Athenian  female,  who 
along  with  Dioiiysius  the  Aivopa^ite,  is  honourably 
mentioned  as  having  listened  to  the  preaching  of  St. 
Paul,  and  formed  part  of  the  infant  church  which  he 
founded  at  Athens.  Nothing  further  is  known  of  her. 

DAMAS'CUS  [Heb.  DammCsek,  modern  name  ,,-/,- 
Mt<(nt],  certainly  one  of  tbe  most  ancient  cities  of  tin- 
world,  the  capital  formerly  of  the  kingdom  of  Syria,  and 
still  the  seat  of  a 
pashalic,  as  well  as 
an  important  mart 
of  commerce.  It  is 
situated  at  the  foot 
of  the  most  south 
easterly  range  of 
Anti- Libanus.  which 
in  that  region  varies 
from  t;il()  to  SIMI  feet, 
but  near  Damascus 
rises  to  I.'.IHI  feet 
above  the  extensive 
plain  with  which 
Damascus  is  con 
nected,  while  the 
plain  itself  is  about 
2-!<Hl  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.  An 
hundred  more  may  be 
added  for  the  site  of 
the  city,  making  fully 
^300  ;  whence  it  has 
the  advantage  of  a 
temperate  climate 
and  cooling  breezes. 
It  lies  in  the  directii  >n 
of  north- east  from 

the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  from  which  it  is  distant  about  2f>  i  level  plain,  its  horizon  bare,  its  lines  of  surrounding 
hours'  or  three  ordinary  days'  journey,  and  as  many  [  hills  bare,  all  bare  far  away  on  the  road  to  Palmyra 
more  are  required  to  complete  the  distance  to  Jerusalem,  and  Bagdad.  In  tbe  midst  of  tins  vast  plain  lies  at 
The  site  of  Damascus  combines  so  many  advantages  in  your  feet  the  vast  lake  or  island  of  dee])  verdure,  wal- 
respect  to  beauty  and  fertility,  as  well  as  geographical  nuts  and  apricots  waving  above,  corn  and  grass  below; 
position,  that  a  city  could  scarcely  ever  have  been  and  in  the  midst  of  this  mass  of  foliage  rises,  striking 
wanting  to  it.  It  forms  a  convenient  halting- place  and  j  out  its  white  arms  of  streets  hither  and  thither,  and  its 
entiepot  between  the  northern  and  southern  regions  of  :  white  minarets  above  the  trees  which  embosom  them, 
that  part  of  Asia  :  and  a  more  desirable  locality  for  the  the  city  of  Damascus." 
purpose  cannot  well  be  conceived.  The  scenery  in  the  The  river  Barada  here  spoken  of  is  understood  to 

VOL.  I  50 


DAMASCUS 


DAMASCUS 


have  been  tho  Abana  of  the  ancient  Syrians,  called 
also  Clirysorrhoas  by  the  Greeks.  Its  course,  after 
leaving'  the  mountain- range  out  of  which  it  rises,  is 
along  the  north  wall  of  Damascus,  thence  proceeding 
eastwards  through  the  plain,  till  it  empties  itself  hy  one 
branch  into  the  lake  el-Kiblijeh.  and  by  another  into  a 
lake  a  little  farther  north,  esh-Shurkijeh.  On  passing  the 
citv.  however,  as  many  as  nine  or  ten  liranchesaru  derived 
from  it  for  supply  to  the  houses  and  gardens,  as  also 
to  iVi-d  canaU  in  diflcrent  directions  through  the  plain. 
But  notwithstanding  such  draughts,  it  retains  a  con- 
-iderable  volume  of  water,  and  preserves  the  appearance 
of  ;i  tine  clear  stream.  The  1'harpar.  anciently  spoken 
of  as  also  a  river  of  Damascus.  ^Ki.  v.  IL-,  could  scarcely 
!>e  any  other  than  the  A'waj,  which  rises  in  Mount 
IFermon,  and  flows  through  the  more  southerly  parts 
of  the  plain  in  which  Damascus  is  situated,  till  it 
reaches  the  hike  Hijaneh.  It  could  therefore  only  be 
called  a  river  of  Damascus,  by  Damascus  being  identi- 
lied  with  the  kingdom  of  which  it  was  the  capital,  or 
at  least  with  the  extensive  plain  in  which  it  formed 
the  chief  point  of  interest.  The  distance  of  Damascus 
from  the  two  lakes  into  which  the  Barada  falls  is  about 
•JO  miles,  or  (j  hours  :  to  the  other  hike  the  distance  is 
a  little  more. 

In  regard  to  the  city  itself,  there  is  nothing  now  at 
least  (whatever  there  may  have  been  in  remoter  times) 
which  is  fitted  to  awaken,  much  admiration  in  the  minds 
of  European  travellers,  except  the  copious  supply  of 
water,  and  the  pleasant  gardens,  orchards  and  baths, 
which  it  is  thereby  enabled  to  possess.  This,  however. 
has  its  accompanying  evils  and  disadvantages;  for  the 
number  of  reservoirs  and  fountains  scattered  through 
out  the  courts,  and  <  if  ten  even  introduced  into  the 
parlours,  of  houses,  favours  the  production  of  mosquitos 
in  the  later  part  of  summer  and  autumn,  renders  the 
lower  apartments  in  houses  damp,  also  cold  in  winter, 
and  is  the  source  of  a  good  deal  of  ague  and  rheumatism, 
It.  has  led  too,  to  the  very  general  practice,  especially 
among  the  females,  though  not  confined  to  them,  of 
walking  upon  high  clogs  or  pattens.  Of  the  streets 
there  are  only  a  few  that  produce  a  favourable  impres 
sion ;  the  greater  part  are  narrow,  crooked,  and  dirty. 
The  principal  street  is  also  one  of  the  straightest.  and 
is  regarded  by  the  Christian  population  as  ''the  street 
which  is  called  Straight,"  mentioned  in  Ac.  ix.  11  as 
that  in  which  Paul  took  up  his  abode  shortly  after  his 
conversion.  It  runs  right  through  the  city  nearly  in 
the  direction  of  from  east  to  west,  and  is  about  a  mile 
in  length.  That  it  is  not  by  any  means  what  it  once 
was  seems  certain,  d  unparing  the  past  with  the  present, 
Mr.  Porter  says,  ''In  the  Roman  age.  and  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Mahometan  conquest,  a  noble  street  ex 
tended  in  a  straight  line  from  this  gate  (the  east,  llu'i- 
Flmrkii)  westward  through  the  city.  It  was  divided  by- 
Corinthian  colonnades  into  three  avenues,  opposite  and 
corresponding  to  the  three  portals.  I  have  at  various 
times  traced  the  remains  of  these  colonnades  over 
about  one-third  of  their  whole  length.  Wherever  ex 
cavations  are  made  in  the  line,  bases  of  columns  are 
found,  and  fragments  of  shafts  lying  prostrate  under 
accumulated  rubbish.  The  street  was  like  those  still 
seen  in  Palmyra  and  Jerash ;  but  unfortunately  the 
devastations  of  war,  and  the  vandalism  of  Arab  and 
Turkish  rulers,  have  destroyed  almost  every  remnant  of 
its  former  grandeur"'  (Handbook,  p.  477).  This  street  is 
chiefly  remarkable  now  for  the  busy  scene  it  usually 


presents  of  persons  coming  and  going  in  the  interests 
of  trade  and  commerce.  The  houses  in  this  street,  as 
we'll  as  others,  are  commonly  built  with  a  framework 
of  timber,  rilled  in  with  the  clayey  soil  of  the  plain, 
the  better  sort  having  a  few  dourses  of  stone  at  the 
bottom.  Externally  they  have  a  shabby  appearance  : 
but  those  of  the  wealthier  inhabitants  arc  highly  de- 
,  corated  inside,  and  are  of  course  richly  provided  be 
hind  with  fountains  and  shrubs. 

Among  the  more  noticeable  public  buildings,  though 
none  are  very  remarkable,  is  the  eastern  gate  already 
mentioned,  which  exhibits  some  remains  of  Itomaii 
architecture — the  castle,  which  is  situated  in  the  north 
west  quarter  of  the  city,  and  in  its  foundations  dat«  s 
from  the  1  toman  period,  a  large  and  imposing  structure 
viewed  from  without,  but  little  more  than  a  shell — and 
above  all  the  great  Mosque  of  the  Ommiades,  which  is 
understood  to  have  been  originally  a  heathen  temple. 
|  and  afterwards  the  church  of  St.  John  tho  Baptist.  It 
I  occupies  a  quadrangle  of  li>:)  yards  by  loS:  is  of  various 
styles  of  architecture:  is  divided  into  nave  and  aisles 
by  Corinthian  pillars,  has  a  floor  of  tesselated  marble, 
and  three  minarets.  There  are  many  smaller  mosques 
throughout  the  city, upwards  of  eighty  it  is  said,  the  domes 
and  minarets  of  which  are  among  the  chief  architectural 
1  ornaments  of  the  city.  The  ba/.aars  are  of  great 
variety  and  extent:  a  particular  quarter  of  the  city  is 
assigned  to  them,  and  they  are  separated  according  to 
their  respective  wares  and  trades.  They  usually  take 
the  form  of  covered  arcades,  with  a  row  of  narrow  shops 
on  each  side.  The  commerce  connected  with  Damascus 
I  consists  to  a  considerable  extent  in  goods  brought  from 
the  East,  especially  from  Bagdad,  and  from  European 
countries  through  Beirut.  But  the  manufactures  of 
the  place  are  also  of  some  variety  and  importance,  its 
once  famous  sword-blades,  indeed,  exist  no  more  :  and 
the  fabrics  named  <I>ii/i<i*/,:-i  from  the  city,  though  still 
made  there,  have  lost  their  ancient  renown,  and  are 
surpassed  by  those  of  European  production.  About 
4000  looms,  however,  are  said  to  be  employed  for  stuffs 
of  mixed  silk  and  cotton;  for  cotton  alone  about  400. 
til-old  and  silver  thread  is  manufactured  pretty  largely, 
horse  and  camel  gear,  perfumes  and  delicate.  <  >ils.  soap,  &c. 
The  population  of  Damascus,  with  its  suburbs,  is 
estimated  at  1">H,OUO.  Of  these  nearly  130,000  are 
Moslems  ;  while  there  are  about  15,000  Christians,  and 
from  ;"JOU(i  to  GOIHI  Jews.  The  ( 'hristians  are  subdivided 
into  the  various  sects  of  Greeks,  Greek-Catholics,  Syrian- 
Catholics,  Maronites,  c\:c.,  the  two  first  divisions,  how 
ever,  constituting  by  much  the  greater  number.  The 
Christian  and  Jewish  populations  have  each  a  quarter 
of  the  city  assigned  to  them — both  in  the  eastern  part, 
but  the  former  more  to  the  north,  the  latter  to  the  south. 
llintory. — The  notices  that  occur  in  Scripture  of  Da 
mascus  reach  back  to  the  time  of  Abraham  ;  the  steward 
of  his  house,  whom  at  one  time  he  expected  to  become 
j  his  heir,  was  Eliezer  of  Damascus,  Gc.  xv.  2 ;  and  as 
'  another  place,  Hobah,  had  its  locality  indicated  from 
I  its  relation  to  Damascus,  the  latter  must  even  then 
have  been  a  city  of  some  note,  Gc.  xiv.  is.  Its  origin, 
however,  is  lost  in  antiquity,  and  that  it  was  built  by 
Uz.  the  son  of  Aram,  and  great-grandson  of  Xoah,  ac 
cording  to  Jewish  tradition,  cannot  be  received  with 
any  confidence.  How  it  flourished,  or  through  what 
changes  it  passed  during  the  generations  that  followed 
the  time  of  Abraham,  we  know  not.  After  the  lapse 
of  well-nigh  a  thousand  years,  it  appears  as  an  important 


DANCE 


DANCE 


tion,  the  second  syllable  in  the  name  of  the  river  Jor 
dan  was  drived  from  this  town,     (^te  JORDAN.) 

DAJNCE.  The  term  used  for  this  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  ^S'STO,  machol)  is  derived  from  a  root  which 

T 

signifies  to  move  or  leap  in  a  circle,  to  twist  or  turn 
round,  and  most  naturally  indicated  that  kind  of  ring 
or  chorus  dancing,  which  appears  to  have  come  very 
early  into  practice  on  joyous  occasions,  and  in  eastern 
countries  still  retains  its  place.  That  the  rcrb  signifies 
to  dance  after  this  manner,  in  such  passages  us  Ju. 
xxi.  21,  '2-j;  1  Sa.  xviii.  5;  2  Sa.  vi.  ItJ,  admits  <>f  no 
reasonable  doubt.  .But  some  prefer  taking  the  IKHI/I 
(macho/)  in  the  sense  of  a 
musical  instrument  — proba 
bly  a  kind  of  pipe:  and  the 
Arabic  version  sometimes 
renders  it  by  a  word  that  im 
ports  a  sort  of  drum.  Hut 
the  ancient  translation  of  the 
Septuagint  gives  the  st  nse 
of  dance  (^o^os),  all'l  the 
highest  modern  authorities 
(such  as  Gesenins  and  l-'ursti 
take  the  same  view.  In  all 
the  passages  where  our  Eng 
lish  Bibles  speak  of  persons 
giving  vent  to  their  joyous 
feelillLTS  ill  dances,  thev  have 
the  support  liotli  of  the  most 
ancient  interpreters  and  of 
the  most  competent  scholarship  of  the  present  day. 

The  earliest  notice  we  have  of  the  dance  in  Scrip 
ture  presents  it  as  an  accompaniment  to  sacred  song,  and 
this  among  the  Hebrew-  appears  to  have  In-,  n  always 
its  chief  employment.  The  lyrical  productions  which 
sought  to  express  tile  more  livelv  and  molting  moods 
of  the  soul,  were  found,  especially  <>n  occasions  of  pro 
found  and  general  interest,  to  be  insiiliieient  of  them 
selves  to  represent  the  strong  excitation  and  rapid 
movements  that  were  experienced  uithin  :  the  How  of 
words  must  be  aided  by  appropriate  sounds  and  actions 

by  music  and  dance.  So  it  was  on  the  exciting  oc 
casion  of  the  deliverance  of  Israel  at  the  b'ed  Sea. 
when  the  triumphal  ode  which  celebrated  the  deliver 
ance  was  sillier  with  music  and  dancing:  Miriam  taking 
the  lead,  and  followed  by  others  of  th>-  I-raelitish 
women,  Kx  xv.  ^i.  In  like  manner,  at  the  memorable 
slaughter  of  the  Philistines  which  was  inaugurated  by 
David's  personal  victory  over  Goliath  of  Gath,  the 
women  we  are  told  came  out  of  all  the  cities  of  Israel, 
singing  and  dancing,  answering  one  another  and  say 
ing,  Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands  and  David  his  ten 
thousands,  i  sa .  xviii.  c.,  7.  David  himself  at  a  later  period 
danced  before  the  ark  of  the  Lord,  when  it  was  carried 
into  Jerusalem  —danced  and  played  on  instruments  of 
music  with  such  warmth  and  energy  as  to  incur  the 
reproach  of  M  ichal,  for  acting,  as  she  thought,  in  a 
manner  unbecoming  his  royal  dignity.  ^  sa.  vi.  .'>,  iti.  The 
usual  practice,  it  would  appear,  in  Israel  was  to  allow 
the  dancing  on  j<  >y<  >ns  oceasii  >ns  to  be  performed  by  bands 
or  choruses  of  women:  they  are  very  commonly  named  , 
as  the  only  parties  that  engaged  in  it :  and  this,  no 
doubt,  would  tend  to  aggravate  in  Michal's  eyes  the 
apparent  indecorum  of  David  on  the  occasion  referred 
to:  he  would  seem  to  be  doing  in  the  excess  of  his  reli 
gious  joy  what  it  was  hardly  proper  for  a  man,  to  say  ] 


nothing  of  a  king,  to  perform.  The  kind  of  dance 
that  was  usual  on  such  occasions  (indicated  as  already 
noticed  by  the  etymology  of  the  name)  may  be  gathered 
from  what  is  still  common  among  the  Arabians.  ''The 
dance  of  the  Arabs  resembles  in  some  respects  that  of 
the  Albanians,  and  those  who  perform  it  are  scarcely 
less  vehement  in  their  gestures,  or  less  extravagant  in 
their  excitement,  than  those  wild  mountaineers.  They 
form  a  circle,  holding  one  another  by  the  hand,  and 
moving  slowly  round  at  first,  go  through  a  shuffling 
step  with  their  feet,  twisting  their  bodies  into  various 
attitudes.  As  the  music  cpuickens  their  movements 
are  more  active:  they  stamp  with  their  feet,  yell  their 


war-crv.  and  jump  as  they  lunrv  round  the  musicians. 
Tin-  motions  of  the  women  are  not  without  grace,"  i\.c. 
i  i.e.  wil's  Nineveh  nixl  it.,  Kcmaius  i  ]. .  1 1:1).  On  strictly  reli 
gious  ,,r  serious  occasions,  there  would  of  course  be 
soini-  niodilic.itioii  of  this  energetic  action,  and  on  all 
occasions  \\heiv  femalc<  alone  were  the  performers. 
What  still  prevails  in  the  Hast  is  probably  not  materi 
ally  different  from  what  uas  usual  in  the  time  of 
David  or  even  of  Miriam.  "The  great  lady  still  leads 
tin-  dance,  and  is  followed  by  a  troop  of  young  girls. 
\\lio  imitate  her  steps,  and  if  she  sinus  make  up  the 
chorus.  The  tunes  are  extremely  uav  and  lively,  yet 
with  something  in  them  wonderfully  soft.  The  steps 
are  varied  according  to  the  pleasure  of  her  that  leads 
the  dance,  but  always  in  exact  time"  d/i.h  M.  Wm-ticy 

i's  Loiters). 

I'nless  the  case  of  Jephthah's  daughter  be  regarded 
as  an  exception,  \\lien  she  went  out  to  meet  him  on  his 
return  from  victory  with  timbrels  and  dances,  Ju.\i.:M, 
there  is  no  mention  amoiiu1  the  ancient  Israelites  of 
dancing  but  in  connection  with  sacred  songs  and  reli 
gious  solemnities.  It  may  have  been  practised  at  other 
times:  must  probably  indeed  was  so  by  the  more  fashion 
able  and  worldly  portion  of  the  people;  but  no  record  exists 
of  it.  And  as  the  jealous  manners  of  tin;  East  admit  of 
little  comparatively  of  five  intercommunion  between 
the  sexes,  so  the  practice  of  what  is  called  promiscuous 
dancing  dancing  performed  conjointly  by  men  and 
women — appears  to  have  been  nearly,  if  not  altogether 
unknown.  It  was  regarded  as  peculiarly  a  female 
mode  of  expressing  joy  or  affording  entertainment: 
and  on  those  occasions  when  both  sexes  did  take  part 
in  the  performance,  they  seem  to  have  occupied  separate 
places.  Such  we  learn  from  Jewish  authorities  was 
the  case  in  that  feast  which  was  more  than  any  other 
celebrated  with  demonstrations  of  joy — the  feast  of 


DANIEL 


DANIEL 


Maimonides   (us  i  the  greater  victory.     By  connecting  Nebuchadnezzar's 

evening  of  the  coming    against  Jerusalem,    therefore,  with  the    third 

first  good  day  they   prepared  in  the   sanctuary  a  place  year  of  Jehoiakim,  we  must  suppose  that  the  period 

for  the  women  above,  and  for  the   men  beneath,  that  of  its  f<>iitineti<-em<-nt  is  given  (compare  Jonah  i.  :j,  where 

they  might  not  be  together;  and  they  began  to  rejoice  the  same  expression  is  used  of  a  aettiiir/  out),  while  in 

at  the  end   of  the  first  good   day.      They  struck    up  the  reality  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  deportation  of 

pipe,  and  played  on  harps,  and  psalteries,  and  cymbals;  a   portion    of    its    inhabitants   to    Babylon,   was  a  year 

and  everyone  with  instruments  of  music  which  had  skill  later.      Two  other  deportations  followed  after  this;  one 

to  play  with  his  hand:  and  he  that  could  sing,  sail",  with  in  the  reign  of  Jeconiah,  after  an  interval  of  eight  years; 

his  mouth.     And  they  skipped,  and  clapped  hands,  and  and  the  final  one  on  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  ten 


leaped,  and  danced,  every  man   as    he   could,  and   sang 

songs  and  hvmns.      And  it  was  not  the  common  people 

that  did  this,  or  whoso  would;   but  th 

of     Israel,     the     heads    of    the     sessions 

elders.  \e.      these    were    they  that   leaped,  and  danced. 


years  later  still,  in  the  time  of  Zedekiah. 

According  to  the  common   chronology  it  was  in  the 

great  wise  men  year  if.C.  (ioi.j  or  b'i>7  that   Daniel   and  his   companions 

and   .-\  iiedrioiis,  were  transported  to  Babvlon.     I  lis  own  age  at  the  period 
is  not  given;   but    there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  was 

and  played,  and  rejoiced  in   the  sanctuary,  in  the  days  in  comparative  boyhood,  having  been  selected,  along  with 

of  the  feast  of  booths."    Of  professional  dancer.-,  such  as  some  other  of  the  Lsraeliush  captives,  for  their  comely 

are  known  to  have  been  in  request  among  the  rich  and  appearance,  good  parts,  and  liberal  education,  that  they 

luxurious  families  of  Koine,  there  is  no  trace  in  Israel-  might  be  instructed  in  Chaldean  learning,  and  become 

itish  history;  and  the  daughter  of  Herodias  is  tin:  only  ,  qualified  for  standing  before  the  king  and  serving  him 

one  in  a  family  of  distinction,  even  in  the  later  periods  in  matters  of  state.     It  is  not  expressly  said  that  Daniel 

of    the    history,    who   is   reported   to  have  excelled   in  himself  was  of  the  seed  royal  of  Judah;  but  as  the  cap- 

the  practice  as  an  accomplishment.     That  in  her.  too.  tivesof  this  first  period  would  seem  to  have  been  chiefly 

it  was  something  quite  unusual  might  naturally  be  in-  of  the  nature  of  hostages,  and  as  particular  mention  is 

ferred  from  the  extravagant  offer  of  recompense  it  called  made  of  the  princes  ami  the  kind's  seed  among  them, 

forth  from  Herod,  Ji,u.  vi  22,23.  ,  there  can  be  little  doubt   that    Daniel  belonged,  if  not 

Dancing  is  occasionally  used  in  a  figurative  sense  as  to  a  family  of  princely  rank,  at    least   to   one  of  some 

an  emphatic  term  for  joy  or  gladness,  as  in  Ps.  xx\.  11.  consideration    and    influence    in    Judah.      In   common 

"  Thou  hast  turned  for  me  my  mourning  into  dancing."  with  his  three  companions,  who  were  selected  fora  three 

But  the  figure  is   so   natural,    that   it   can   occasion  no  years'  training.    Daniel  received  a  new  name,   that  of 

embarrassment  t<>  the  simplest  reader  of  Scripture.  Belteshazzar,  which  meant  jirince  or  favourite  of  Bel : 

DANIEL  [(.j'ml't!  ,/('(/'/'.  i.e.  one  who  delivers  judg-  as  if  he  was  n,,\y  given  over  and  consecrated  to  the  god 
merits  in  the  name  of  (Jod).  a  name  first  borne  by  one  of  Babylon.  So  doubtless  he  would  have  been  if  he 
of  David's  sons,  afterwards  also  by  a  Levite  of  the  had  followed  the  course  which  the  king  of  Babvlon  had 
race  of  Ithamar,  1  Ch.  iii.  i;  Ezr.  viii.  2;  but  the  person  with  destined  for  him;  but  another  spirit  moved  in  the 
whom  the  name  is  chiefly  associated,  and  the  only  one-  breast  of  the  Jewish  captive,  and  rendered  the  I'Janie], 
that  bore  it  who  held  a  prominent  place  in  Scripture  not  the  Belteshazzar,  the  proper  index  to  his  public 
history,  is  the  well-known  prophet  and  counsellor  in  career.  It  was  the  spirit  of  the  Jewish  theocracy. 
Chaldea.  The  story  of  bis  life,  as  well  as  the  charac-  wakened  into  fresh  life  in  his  bosom  and  that  of  his  noble 
ter  of  his  prophecies,  are  in  various  respects  peculiar  ;  companions,  by  what  might  have  served  in  less  thought- 
and  to  be  properly  understood  and  vindicated  they  re-  ful  and  elevated  minds  to  extinguish  it.  He  did  not 
quire  to  be  viewed  in  connection  with  his  actual  posi-  disdain  by  reason  of  it  to  submit  to  the  training  ap- 
tion,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  kingdom  of  (iod  pointed  for  him,  and  to  apply  himself  to  the  study  of 
generally  at  the  time.  These  mutually  throw  light  on  the  heathen  lore,  in  which  the  king  desired  his  pro- 
each  other;  and  it  is  mainly  from  viewing  them  too  much  liciency.  This  he  well  understood  might  be  serviceable 
apart,  that  objections  have  been  raised  both  against  the  to  him,  as  increasing  the  materials  of  his  skill  and  cul- 
credibility  of  Daniel's  life,  and  the  genuineness  of  cer-  tivation;  and  in  such  departments  of  knowledge  and 
tain  portions  of  his  writings.  •  art  he  had  before  him  the  eminent  examples  of  Moses 

I.    We  glance  fii'st  briefly  at  the  leading  events  of  and  Joseph.      But  in  the  matter  of  food — as  the  law  of 

his  lift:  as  recorded  in  his  book — the  only  source  of  in-  (*od  had  given  definite  prescriptions  respecting  what 
formation  we  possess  respecting  the  details  of  his  his-  '  might  and  might    not   be  partaken  of  —  prescriptions 

tory.     We  there  learn  that  he  was  among  the  captives  that  were   sure  in  some  respects  to  be  violated  in  the 

who  were  carried  to  Babylon  on  the  Jirtt   occasion  of  preparation  of  every  heathen,    especially  every  royal, 

Nebuchadnezzar's  hostile  invasion  of   Palestine,  ch.  i  i  banquet — Daniel   made   conscience  of  abiding  by  the 

This  statement  gives  rise  to  some  difficulty,  from  its  divine  requirement,  and  refused  to  go  beyond  the  simple 

placing  the  assault   so  early  as  the  third  year  of  Je-  but  lawful  fare  of  a  vegetable  diet.    The  remonstrances 

hoiakim's  reign;  in  that  year  it  is  said  Nebuchadnezzar  of  the  overseer  could  not  shake  him  from  his  purpose: 
came  to  Jerusalem  and  besieged  it;  while  in  Je.  xxv.  1,  ;  and  approving  himself,  as  he  did,  superior  to  the  hea- 

the  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim  is  identified  with  the  first  then  youths  of  his  standing   in   wisdom   and  learning, 

of  Nebuchadnezzar.      It  is  also  in  this  fourth  year  that  the  experiment  which  he  requested  leave  to  make  in  re- 
the  battle  of  Carchemish  is  usually  placed,   in  which  ',  spect  to  his  food  was  granted  to  him.    The  result  proved 

Nebuchadnezzar    humbled    the  power   of    Egypt,   and  entirely    satisfactory;    he    was  found    to  have  gained 

became  master  of  the  countries  in   Asia  over   which  rather  than  lost  in  personal  appearance  by  his  adherence 

the    Egyptian  sway    had   for  some   time   previous  ex-  to   the  dictates   of   conscience,  which,  in   the   circum- 

tended.     Nor  can  the  attack  and  conquest  of  Jerusa-  stances,  could  not  be  regarded  otherwise  than  as  an  in- 

lem  by   Nebuchadnezzar   be  well    placed   before   that  dicatioii  of  the  favour  of  Heaven, 

event;  in  all  probability  it  did  not  precede  but  followed  Having  stood  so  well  the  trial   of  the  three  years" 


DANIEL 


3!)  9 


DANIEL 


course  of  preparation,  Daniel  was  received  among  the 
learned  men — the  magi — attached  to  the  court  of  Ne 
buchadnezzar.  And  apparently  not  long  after — for  the 
matter  is  assigned  to  the  second  year  of  Nebuchadnez 
zar's  reign,  ch.  ii.  i,  that  is,  after  he  came  to  the  full 
possession  of  the  kingdom,  which  was  not  (according  to 
the  usual  computation)  till  about  two  years  after  the 
subjugation  of  Jehoiakim — at  that  early  period  of  his 
connection  with  the  fraternity  of  Chaldean  saues,  an 
event  occurred  which  at  (nice  lifted  Daniel  to  the 
highest  place  among  the  trusty  friends  and  advisers  of 
the  king  of  Babylon.  The  thing  of  itself  originated  in 
caprice  and  folly,  but  it  was  overruled  by  God  to  ex 
hibit  in  the  most  convincing  manner  the  insight  which 
Daniel  was  privileged  to  gain  into  the  divine  secrets. 
Nebuchadnezzar  had  been  visited  by  a  dream  which 
troubled  him,  and  having  meanwhile  lost  hold  of  the 
dream  itself,  he  demanded  from  the  cla.-s  to  which 
Daniel  belonged,  both  the  recovery  of  the  dream  and 
its  interpretation:  not  only  demanded  this,  but  en 
forced  his  demand  by  the  threat  of  instant  death,  if 
they  failed  to  satisfy  his  desire.  They  did  fail,  how- 
ever,  all  excepting  Daniel.  who  alter  earnest  supplica 
tion  to  God,  along  witli  his  pious  companions,  had  tin- 
dream  and  its  interpretation  revealed  to  him  from 
above.  The  ett'ect  of  this  singular  interposition  in  be 
half  of  Daniel  and  his  companions  was,  that  through 
them  Nebuchadnezzar  came  to  some  knowledge  of  tin- 
true  God  whom  th'-v  worshipped;  while  Daniel  was  at 
once  raised  to  one  of  the  highest  places  of  trust  in  the 
kingdom,  and  his  companians  also  shared  in  his  ele 
vation. 

A  considerable  period  elapsed,  din-inn'  which  m>  ii.ci 
dent  in  Daniel's  personal  history  is  recorded,  but  which, 
in  respect  to  his  companions,   was   distinguished  bv  the 
remarkable  circumstance  of   their  deli\  erance  from  tin- 
fiery  furnace,  ch.  iii.     This  second  and   still  more  won 
derful  interposition  of  Heaven  in  behalf  of  the   Hebrew 
captives  must  have   greatly   added    to    tin-    impression 
already  produced  of  the  living  power  and   presence  of 
Jehovah;  and  the  more  so.  as  the    iron  will   of  N'-hu- 
chadnezzar  himself,  not  less  than  the  honour  of  his  u'< M|-. 
had    been    prostrated    before    the    superior    glorv   that 
manifested  itself  in  them.       It  seemed,   indeed,  as   if   at 
the  close  of  the  transacts  'ii  the  I  '.abylonian  m<  march  bad 
become    an    intelligent    and   reverent    believer    in    the 
most    high    God.      But   though   some    sacred   influence 
may   have   remained   upon   his    spirit,    the    sequel   too 
clearly  proved  that  In-  was  not  properly  weaned  either 
from  his  idols  or  from    his    own   over-weening  pride. 
For  another — and  the  only  other--  occasion  in  eonnee 
tion  with  this  monarch,  which  was  rendered  subservi'  nt 
to  the  establishment  of  Daniel's  character  and  position.  < 
was    one    also    which    betrayed   the    still    unsanctilied 
spirit  of  Nebuchadnezzar.      It  was  the  dream  he  had  — 
probably  at  no  great   distance  from   the   close  of  his  | 
reign — respecting  a  lofty  and  umbrageous  tree,  giving  I 
shelter  for  a  time  to  all  the  beasts  and  fowls  of  heaven, 
but  by  and   by  cut  down   by  a  decree  from  the  upper 
sanctuary,  and  left  with  nothing  but  the  stump  in  the 
earth,  till  seven  times  had  passed  over  it.      This  dream,  . 
after  a  fresh  failure  on  the   part   of  the  wise  men  of 
Babylon,  Daniel  interpreted  of  the  present  position  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  himself,  and  the  judgment  that  was 
impending  over  him  for  his  heaven-daring  pride.     It 
was  a  trying  thing  for  Daniel  to  be  the  bearer  of  such  j 
an    interpretation;    and    we    cannot    but    admire    the 


mingled  fidelity  and  tenderness  which  appeared  in  his 
mode  of  communicating  it.  This  could  not  but  soften 
the  mind  of  isebuchadnezzar  at  the  time:  and  the  view 
disclosed  respecting  the  approaching  future  was  so 
remarkably  verified  in  providence,  that  it  led  to  the 
issuing  of  a  general  proclamation  by  Nebuchadnezzar, 
which  at  once  extolled  Daniel  as  superior  to  all  men  in 
spiritual  wisdom,  and  magnified  the  name  of  God  as 
alone  possessing  the  kingdom,  the  power,  and  the  glory 
among  men. 

It  would  appear  that  after  the  time  of  Nebuchad 
nezzar  Daniel's  merits  had  fallen  into  neglect:  for  in 
the  next  emergency  with  which  his  name  is  associated 
—  that  of  Belshazzar's  feast,  with  the  direful  tragedy 
in  which  it  closed — he  was  brought  to  remembrance  by 
the  queen,  as  now  a  comparatively  unknown  Jewish 
captive,  but  one  who  had  acquired  celebrity  in  the  davs 
of  Nebuchadnezzar,  for  the  supernatural  wisdom  and  dis 
cernment  that  were  found  in  him.  and  had  been  raised 
to  the  highest  place  among  the  wise  men  of  the  time. 
The  I'.- -Isha/zar  here  mentioned  is  called  the  son  of 
Nebuchadnezzar:  but  as  this  word  is  often  used  for 
any  near  descendant,  as  well  as  for  the  immediate  off 
spring  of  a  person,  it  is  quite  possible,  and  has  indeed 
been  generally  supposed,  that  the  Belshazzar  of  Daniel 
\va-  tin-  grandson  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  corresponds 
with  the  Nalioned  of  Bero^us.  (>'.  <  NEBUCHADNEZZAR.) 
The  materials  are  still  too  defective  for  enabling  us  to 
pronounce  with  certainty  on  the  names  of  those  who 
succeeded  each  other  in  the  old  Babylonian  dvnastv. 
and  their  relations  to  each  other.  lint  tin-re  can  he  no 
doubt  that  tin-  n-i'jniiiL:  klnu'.  at  the  time  when  the  cit  v 
was  taken  bv  tin-  Medo-Persian  armv.  was  distin- 
guished  tor  luxurious  living,  rather  than  for  warlike 
prowess,  and  that  the  city  was  even  surprised  by  its 
captors  when  dissolved  in  revelry  and  mirth.  The 
story  in  Daniel  coiitirms  this  account:  and  superadds 
the  intelligence,  that  the  scene  of  the  roval  banquet 
was  suddenly  disturbed  by  the  appearance  of  a  hand 
wrhiiiLT  certain  words  upon  the  wall,  which  lie  alone 
was  found  able  to  read  ai.d  interpret.  The  meaning  lie 
drew  from  the  hand-writinu'  imported  the  immediate 
overthrow  of  tin-  Babylonian  empire  by  the  .Medesand 
IVr-ians;  and  in  announcing  tin-  fearful  import  of  the 
vision.  lu-  took  occa-ioii  to  connect  the  impending 
doom  with  the  sins  that  led  to  it.  and  declared  the  in 
sult  which  was  that  \vrv  evening  -ivcn  to  the  God  of 
heaven,  by  tlie  profane  use  of  tin  vessi  Is  of  his  sanc 
tuary  to  purposes  of  festive  entertainment,  to  be  the 
tillinir  up  of  tin-  measure  of  Babylon's  iniquity.  So 
that,  putting  all  together  through  this  Daniel — this 
(Jdd-jiidging  man.  first  the  mystic  lore  uf  Babylon, 
then  its  lordly  magnitici-nce  and  pride,  and  now  finally 
its  very  existence  as  an  independent  empire,  was  judged 
and  brought  to  nought,  that  the  word  and  kingdom  of 
God  might  stand. 

The  change  of  dynasty  in  Chaldea  however  did 
not  relieve  Daniel  from  the  molestation  of  adversaries, 
or  secure  for  him  the  undisturbed  possession  of  the 
honour  and  influence  he  had  won.  The  very  distinc 
tion  he  had  acquired,  and  which  appears  to  have  been 
fully  accorded  to  him  by  the  Medo- Persian  conqueror, 
for  the  king  ''thought  to  set  him  over  the  whole 
realm."  proved  a  source  of  danger,  as  it  provoked  the 
envy  of  the  heathen  governors  over  whom  he  was 
exalted.  They  therefore  concerted  a  plan  for  his 
overthrow,  by  getting  it  enacted  that  no  one  for  a 


DA.XIUL 


DANIEL 


period  of  thirty  days  should  ask  a,  petition  of  any  one 
except  of  tile  king.  On  the  ground  of  this  foolish  and 
arbitrary  statute  Daniel  was  accused  of  high  treason, 
because  lie  continued  as  before  in  prayer  to  God,  and 
was  condemned  to  be  cast  into  the  den  of  lions.  The 
king  found  his  mistake,  when he  perceived  the  advantage 
that  was  taken  of  his  enactment:  but  to  maintain  in 
violate  the  lixed  character  of  the  Medo- Persian  legisla 
tion,  which  was  pressed  by  the  adversaries  of  Daniel, 
lie  allowed  the  judgment  to  proceed — hoping  that  de 
liverance  might  somehow  come  to  Daniel  from  a  higher 
source.  Nor  was  he  disappointed.  The  faithful  ser 
vant  of  Jehovah  irn.t  miraculously  preserved  from  the 
mouths  of  the  lions;  lie  came  up  a^ain  unscathed;  while 
those  who  had  sought  his  destruction,  when  the  judg 
ment  they  extorted  against  him  was  meted  out  to  them 
selves,  fell  a  prey  to  the  ferocity  of  the  lions  the  mo 
ment  they  were  cast  into  the  den.  Thus,  under  the 
new  dynasty,  as  under  the  old, this  chosen  representative 
of  the  cause  of  Heaven  continued  to  ,y'«<A/tj  ihe  heathen, 
and  to  present  a  living  exhibition  of  the  invincible 
might  and  glory  of  Jehos'ah. 

The  only  other  action  in  which  we  find  him  engaged, 
was  one  that  evinced,  not  merely  his  strong  theocratic 
spirit,  but  along  with  that  his  fervent  and  humble 
piety,  which  now  enabled  him  to  prevail  directly  with 
(Jod,  as  formerly  he  had  prevailed  with  men.  It  was 
near  the  close  of  his  long  and  honoured  life,  when  find 
ing  that  the  period  had  drawn  nigh  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  God's  purpose  to  recover  the  dispersions  of 
his  people,  and  be  favourable  again  to  his  land,  he 
poured  out  his  heart  before  God  in  confession,  supplica 
tion,  and  thanksgiving ;  and,  in  answer,  obtained  the 
remarkable  prophecy  of  the  seventy  weeks,  which  were 
to  terminate  in  the  events  of  Messiah's  work  and 
kingdom,  ch.  ix.  This  is  represented  as  having  hap 
pened  in  the  first  year  of  Darius,  about  the  year 
Ji.c.  53(5,  which,  on  the  supposition  that  Daniel  was  only 
fourteen  years  old  when  he  went  into  exile,  would  make 
him  now  in  his  eighty-fifth  year.  He  still  lived  a  few 
years  after  that;  for  the  vision  commencing  with  ch.  x. 
is  referred  to  the  third  year  of  Cyrus  ;  so  that  he  must 
have  reached  the  verge  of  ninety  before  his  course  on 
earth  was  brought  to  a  close.  (For  the  references  made 
in  certain  parts  to  NEBUCHADNEZZAR,  CYRUS,  and 
DARIUS,  see  the  articles  at  these  words.) 

The  other  events  that  fill  up  the  recorded  life  of  Daniel 
consist  of  the  series  of  apocalyptic  visions  he  received. 
The  first  of  these  is  assigned  to  the  first  year  of  Bel- 
shazzar's  reign,  ch.  vii. — the  vision  of  the  four  successive 
kingdoms,  represented  by  so  many  wild  beasts,  fol 
lowed  by  a  fifth  under  the  image  of  one  like  a  Son  of 
man;  the  second,  which  represented,  under  the  images 
of  a  ram  and  a  he-goat,  the  fortunes  of  the  Meclo- 
Persiaii  and  Grecian  monarchies,  with  the  bearing  of 
the  latter  on  the  affairs  of  the  covenant- people,  is  placed 
in  the  third  year  of  Belshaz/ar's  reign,  ch.  viii.;  and  the 
last — omitting  the  vision  of  the  seventy  weeks  already 
noticed,  ch.  ix. — is  connected  with  the  third  year  of 
Cyrus,  and  goes  into  many  detailed  representations 
concerning  the  operations  of  the  earthly  kingdoms 
with  which  Israel  after  the  restoration  was  to  be 
brought  into  contact,  pointing  at  the  close  to  the  final 
issues  of  the  divine  administration,  and  the  consumma 
tion  of  all  things,  ch.  x.-xii.  Specific  reference  will  be 
made  to  these  visions  in  what  follows ;  and  it  is  unne 
cessary  to  characterize  them  further  at  present. 


As  regards  the  personal  history  of  Daniel,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  add,  that  while  he  lived  to  see  the 
proclamation  issued  for  the  return  of  his  countrymen  to 
their  native  land,  and  hail  his  heart  intently  set  on  its 
accomplishment,  he  did  not  hfmself  take  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  given  to  exchange  his  heathen  abode  for 
a  home  on  Israelitish  ground.  His  extreme  age  would 
doubtless  form  a  sufficient  reason  for  his  remaining 
where  he  was — coupled,  it  may  be,  with  the  considera 
tion  that  during  the  short  remainder  of  his  earthly  life  he 
might  be  of  more  service  to  the  infant  colony  at  the  seat 
of  worldly  j tower,  than  if  he  should  go  to  take  part  with 
them  in  the  struggles  of  their  new  position,  for  which  also 
his  advanced  age  well-nigh  disqualified  him.  It  is 
probable  that  he  died  in  Susa,  where  he  received  his  latest 
visions;  and  that  this  was  the  general  tradition  amono- 
the  Jews  in  the  East  appears  from  the  monument  which 
was  erected  to  him  there,  and  which  Benjamin  of  Tudela 
reports  to  have  seen,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth 
century,  standing  in  front  of  one  of  the  Jewish  syna 
gogues.  But  other  reports  fix;  on  Babylon  as  the  place 
of  his  death  and  burial. 

II.  It  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  history  of  deeds 
and  revelations  which  partakes  so  much  of  the  pecu 
liar  and  the  marvellous,  as  that  now  surveyed,  should 
escape  the  attacks  of  modern  rationalistic  criticism,  as 
well  as  of  the  infidelity  which  is  opposed  to  every 
thing  supernatural  and  divine.  A  great  many  minor 
objections  have  been  brought  into  the  field— more, 
however,  for  the  purpose  of  affording  a  cover  to  con 
sciences  which  are  somewhat  unwilling  to  rest  their 
disbelief  on  simply  infidel  grounds;  but  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  the  head  and  front  of  the 
offence  taken  at  the  histt  >ry  and  the  writings  of  Daniel  lie 
in  the  extent  to  which  they  exhibit  the  supernatural 
element,  first  in  action,  and  then  in  prophecy.  Now. 
this  ground  of  exception  should  vanish,  with  those  at  least 
who  are  believers  in  revelation,  if  it  can  be  shown  that 
the  affairs  of  God's  kingdom  were  at  the  time  in  such 
a  position  as  to  call  for  peculiar  interpositions  from 
above,  and  that  those  exhibited  in  the  book  of  Daniel 
are  precisely  of  the  kind  which  the  circumstances  of 
the  period  and  the  analogy  of  the  divine  dealings  might 
warrant  us  to  expect.  This,  we  think,  is  what  can 
easily  be  made  appear. 

The  era  of  the  Babylonish  exile,  coupled  as  it  was 
with  the  present  downfall  of  the  throne  of  David,  and 
the  scattering  of  the  Lord's  people  by  a  heathen  power, 
was  obviously  a  very  singular  one  in  the  history  of  the 
divine  dispensations,  and  if  not  met  by  extraordinary 
manifestations  of  the  power  and  faithfulness  of  God, 
must  have  proved  most  disastrous  to  the  interests  of 
truth  and  righteousness.  Something  corresponding  to 
it  appeared  at  an  earlier  period— though  in  a  compara 
tively  nascent  form  —when  (he  children  of  the  covenant, 
as  represented  by  the  person  and  family  of  Jacob, 
were  ready  to  sink  under  an  accumulation  of  evils 
the  most  hopeful  scion  of  the  family  being  sold  as  a 
captive  into  a  foreign  land,  where  he  was  for  a  time 
treated  with  cruel  injustice,  and  by  and  by  the  family 
itself  involved  in  the  struggles  of  a  severe  and  long- 
continued  famine.  It  seemed  for  a  season  as  if,  in 
stead  of  being  destined  to  benefit  the  world  by  the 
overflow  of  blessing  secured  in  covenant  to  them,  they 
were  to  be  overborne  by  the  troubles  and  calamities  which 
were  pressing  in  upon  them  from  the  world.  But  God 
could  not  allow  matters  to  proceed  thus;  he  must  viii- 


DAXIEL 


DANIEL 


dicate  his  own  cause;  and  he  did  so  by  the  supernatural 
insight  which  he  imparted  to  Joseph,  and  which, 
coupled  with  the  other  eminent  gifts  he  possessed,  and 
the  remarkable  direction  given  to  events  in  providence, 
turned  the  depression  of  Jacob's  family  into  the  occa 
sion  of  their  more  marked  and  blessed  enlargement. 
It  was  so  again  at  the  period  of  the  exodus  ;  superna 
tural  endowments,  miraculous  interpositions  suited  to 
the  occasion,  became  indispensable  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  the  divine  purposes.  Now,  if  we  should  draw 
any  distinction  betwixt  these  periods  in  the  earlier  his 
tory  of  Israel  and  that  of  the  Babylonish  exile,  as  to 
the  call  for  special  interpositions  on  the  part  of  Heaven, 
it  is  plainly  to  this  last  that  the  preference  is  due.  For 
after  having  for  a  series  of  a^es  identified  himself  with 
the  covenant  -  people  in  Canaan,  and  set  up  amongst 
them  a  throne  and  kingdom  to  which  he  had  solemnly 
promised  the  heritage  of  the  world,  the  Lord  now.  mi 
account  of  their  incorrigible  obstinacv  in  transgression. 
east  their  glory  in  the  dust,  and  gave  them  as  a  help 
less  prey  into  the  hands  of  the  gigantic  worldly  power 
which,  in  the  person  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  seemed  to  spurn 
all  limits  to  its  dominion.  If  there  had  reallv  been  no 
limits  -  if,  for  absolute  want  of  power  in  the  religion  of 
the  covenant-people  and  their  divinely  instituted  king 
dom,  they  had  been  broken  and  scattered  under  the 
sceptre  of  a  heathen  monarch  then  the  pou.r  of  the 
world  had  proved  mightier  than  the  truth  and  faith 
fulness  of  (iod.  This  could  not  possibly  b.-  tin-  case: 
nor  could  it  even  appear  for  any  lenirth  of  time  to  be  so, 
without  the  most  unhappy  results  both  in  respoet  to  tin- 
representatives  of  the  worldly  power  and  to  the  faith 
ftd  remnant  of  the  covenant people.  How  \\.resuch 
results  to  be  prevented?  No  otherwise  that  we  eau 
conceive  than  by  fresh  interpositions  of  divine  power. 
exerted  in  behalf  and  through  the  instnunentalitv  of 
that  faithful  remnant,  such  as  miirlit  compel  the  kiiiL,r 
of  Babylon  and  his  minions  to  see  that  in  them  t>  \\ 
and  politically  impotent  though  they  were — there  slum 
bered  a  might  and  a  skill,  before  which  their  conquerors 
must  own  themselves  vanquished.  The  war  between 
God  and  the  world  would  thus  be  carried  into  the 
enemy's  camp,  and  the  weak  things  of  Cod  made  to 
confound  what  is  strongest  in  man;  or.  in  other  words, 
the  hi  if  ha'  elements  of  power  which  belonged  to  God's 
people  would  be  made  to  shame  and  overpower  the 
loirer,  which  are  all  that  the  world  in  the  v.-rv  noontide 
of  its  glory  can  bring  into  plav. 

Now,  the  wonders  exhibited  in  the  history  of  Daniel, 
and  recorded  in  his  book,  are  precisely  of  the  kind  that 
were  needed  in  the  circumstances,  in  order  to  produce 
the  effect  here  supposed.  This  has  been  well  stated  by 
Keil :  ''The  miracles  are  wrought  for  Daniel's  sake 
and  his  companions;  they  tend  to  Daniel's  glory.  The 
reason  of  this  is  to  be  sought  in  the  position  which 
Daniel  was  called  to  occupy;  since  at  a  time  when  God 
could  not  manifest  his  glory  in  his  people  as  a  bodv, 
he  had,  on  the  one  hand,  to  represent  that  people  in  his 
own  person  before  the  king  of  Babylon,  who  deemed 
himself  almighty;  and.  on  the  other  hand,  to  represent 
before  the  heathen,  and  at  the  supreme  court  of  the 
world's  heathen  monarchy,  the  theocracy  which  ex-  ] 
ternally  had  fallen  a  prey  to  the  power  of  the  Chal 
deans,  as  well  as  to  strive  by  his  presence  for  the  pre 
servation  of  God's  people,  and  their  return  to  their  own 
land.  It  was  necessary  [not  only  that  there  should  be 
miracles,  but]  that  the  miracles  should  assume  a  power- 

VOL.  I. 


ful  and  imposing  character,  in  order  to  make  a  due  im 
pression  on  the  powerful  representatives  of  heathenism; 
and  that  they  served  this  purpose  is  shown  by  the  ter 
mination  of  the  exile,  and  especially  by  the  edict  of 
Cyrus,  which  does  not  limit  itself  to  a  bare  permission 
for  the  Jews  to  return  to  their  own  country,  but  ex 
pressly  ascribes  honour  to  the  God  of  Israel,  as  the  God 
of  heaven,  and  commands  the  building  of  his  temple" 
^Kinleitung  in  dus  Altc  Testament,  p.  4.V,i). 

Considered  in  this  point  of  view  the  question  respect 
ing  the  supernatural  events  and  revelations  recorded 
in  the  hook  of  Daniel  resolves  itself  into  another  - 
whether  the  cause  of  the  old  covenant  really  was  the 
cause  of  God,  and  as  such  was  to  be  preserved  from 
falling  under  the  power  of  the  world  .'  If  it  was  to  be 
saved  from  the  general  wreck  which  overtook  the  ex 
isting  relations  and  interests  of  the  period,  nothing 
could  have  accomplished  the  purpose  but  some  such 
singular  interpositions  as  are  here  reported  to  have 
taken  place  in  its  behalf;  and  that  it  did  survive  when 
all  around  perished  -  nay,  sprung  into  fresh  energy  of 
life  and  action  from  what  seemed  the  very  yrave  of  its 
existence,  can  no  otherwise  be  accounted  for  than  by 
the  fact  of  such  interpositions;  the  extraordinary  result 
is  the  outstanding  and  incontrovertible  si^n  of  the  ex 
traordinary  means  employed  to  bring  it  about.  For  even 
if  we  could  suppose  that  the  writings  of  the  other  pro 
phets,  in  particular  those  of  Isaiah,  might  have  contri 
buted,  on  being  made  known  to  Cyrus,  to  bring  about  the 
result,  there  must  still  have  been  found  some  one  like 
I'aniel,  who  possessed  the  requisite  consideration  and 
influence  to  communicate  that  knowledge,  and  induce 
the  eoiKMieror  of  Babylon  to  act  upon  it.  This,  in  the 
circumstances,  could  be  no  easy  matter.  And  if  extraor 
dinary  providences  may  have  been  required  to  produce 
the  individual  needed  for  the  occasion,  they  were  cer 
tainly  not  less  n  quired  to  sustain  the  faith  and  re 
animate  the  hearts  of  the  scattered  members  of  the 
covenant,  so  as  to  keep  them  from  total  apostasy,  and 
dispose  them  when  the  time  came  to  undertake  the  re 
suscitation  of  their  polity.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
how  this  should  have  taken  place,  without  the  clearest 
signs  going  before  of  the  special  interposition  of  God  in 
behalf  of  the  a  Hairs  of  the  covenant,  and  the  palpable 
ascendency  of  his  cause  above  the  powers  of  heathendom. 
And  that  Daniel  was  the  person  through  whose  tran 
scendent  worth  and  living  agency  the  miraculous  in- 
tervention  of  Heaven  displayed  itself,  not  only  the  tes 
timony  of  his  own  hook,  but  the  references  made  to 
him  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  afford  convincing  evidence. 
In  two  places  he  refers  to  Daniel — first,  at  ch.  xiv. 
14-20,  as  along  with  Noah  and  .Job  an  illustrious  ex 
ample  of  piety  and  worth  in  the  midst  of  surrounding 
degeneracy,  though  without  being  able  to  deliver  others 
by  it ;  and  at  eh.  xxviii.  :i,  as  the  beau-ideal  of  wisdom, 
which  Tyrus  in  his  extravagant  self-elation  thought  it 
possible  to  surpass.  The  earliest  of  these  notices  oc 
curs  in  prophecies  delivered  probably  about  fourteen 
years  after  Daniel's  removal  to  Babylon — ten  after  his 
interpretation  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  dream,  which  laid 
the  foundation  of  all  his  greatness  ;  and  the  other  came 
five  years  later  still,  when  his  excellence  and  fame  must 
have  been  known  far  and  wide.  There  is  no  ground, 
therefore,  for  regarding  the  allusions  in  Ezekiel  other 
wise  than  as  of  a  strictly  historical  kind ;  and  they 
could  only  have  l>een  made  on  the  supposition  of  Daniel's 
character  and  fame  having  been  fully  established. 

51 


DANIEL 


402 


DANIEL 


P>ut  Daniel  as  there  represented  was  a  typo,  as  well 
as  an  eminent  saint  and  a  ehoseii  vessel  for  divine  cum-  I 
munieations.  He  was,  in  the  true  sense,  a  represents-  | 
tive  man;  his  personal  history  imaged  the  course  which 
his  predictions  indicated  as  destined  for  the  church  of 
God  ;  it  prefigured  a  rise  from  the  lowest  depression,  and  , 
through  a  long,  arduous,  often-renewed  conflict  witJi 
tlie  powers  of  evil  in  the  world,  to  the  highest  place  of 
authority,  to  tin.'  mastery  of  the  world  itself.  The  ex 
hibition  of  this,  chequered,  lint  ultimately  triumphant 
course,  forms  the  great  burden  of  the  peculiar  revela 
tions  that  came  through  him:  and  they  were  giv  'U 
f.rtli—  not  as  in  the  prophets  strictly  so  called,  with  a 
directly  hortative  aim,  and  with  respect  to  the  imme 
diate  wants  of  the  church— but  as  from  his  own  politi 
cal  position,  standing  on  the  world's  watch-tower, 
where  he  was  conversant  with  its  higher  movements,  and 
from  whence,  with  an  eye  illuminated  by  the  Spirit  of 
G-od.  he  could  descry  throughout  future  time  the  mani 
fold  evolutions  of  its  successive  monarchies,  till  they 
weie  h'uallv  displaced  by  the  kingdom  of  God.  There 
was  thus  a  perfect  congniity  between  his  calling  as  a 
man  and  his  revelations  as  a  seer,  .Hi.-  sphere  of  life 
brought  him  into  contact  with  the  affairs  of  empire; 
and  the  Spirit  gave  him  an  insight  into  such  affairs, 
both  as  regards  the  world  and  the  church,  for  the  ages 
to  como.  His  book,  therefore,  in  its  distinctive  char 
acter  and  its  graud  scope,  may  be  designated  the  Apo 
calypse  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  the  .Revelation  of  St. 
John  is  that  of  the  New. 

The  prospective  circumstances  of  the  Lord's  people 
now  peculiarly  called  for  such  an  apocalyptic  insight 
into  the  future.  The  exile  formed  a  new  era  in  their 
condition,  and  was  the  commencement  of  a  state  essen 
tially  different  from  what  had  previously  existed. 
They  were  never  to  be  altogether  gathered  again  from 
their  dispersions  among  the  nations:  and  henceforward, 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  assume  a  more  diffusive 
character.  As  a  consequence  of  this  new  phase  of 
things,  prophecy  as  an  abiding  gift  and  ordinance  in  the 
sacred  community  was  presently  to  cease.  Even  with  the 
remnant  who  found  their  way  back  to  Judea,  and  main 
tained  a  political  organization  till  the  times  of  reforma 
tion,  there  was  to  be  no  aid  from  the  living  voice  of  pro 
phecy,  except  at  the  outset  of  their  career.  And  a  long 
dark  period  of  comparative  feebleness  and  adversity 
was  to  intervene,  during  which,  with  curtailed  privi 
leges  and  a  defective  political  organization,  the  people 
of  God  should  have  to  maintain  a  struggle  with  heavy 
trials  and  discouragements,  sometimes  even  with  the 
most  fierce  and  determined  assaults  on  their  very  ex 
istence  as  the  covenant-people  of  Jehovah.  The  seventy 
years  of  exile  (so  it  was  revealed  to  Daniel)  were  to  be 
succeeded  by  seventy  prophetic  weeks,  weeks  of  years, 
before  the  great  hope  of  the  nation  was  to  be  realized, 
and  as  well  previous  to  that  event,  as  in  connection 
with  it,  troubles  and  desolations  were  appointed.  If 
there  was  any  period,  as  Calvin  has  said,  when  God 
might  seem  to  have  been  asleep  in  the  heavens,  it  was 
during  the  period  that  elapsed  between  the  close  of  the 
Babylonish  exile  and  the  advent  of  Christ.  And  it 
could  not  but  prove  the  more  trying  to  the  Lord's 
people,  as  the  writings  of  the  prophets  abounded  with 
so  manv  glowing  representations  of  the  glorious  future 
that  awaited  them.  There  was  therefore  a  peculiar 
need,  ere  the  period  actually  commenced,  for  those  apo 
calyptic  visions,  which  opened  up  the  vista  of  the  future 


in  a  way  that  had  not  been  done  before — which  at 
once  announced  the  happy  and  triumphant  issue,  and 
portrayed  the  dangers  and  conflicts  through  which  it 
had  to  be  reached.  Even  the  particularity  of  the  de 
lineations,  which  have  respect  to  the  nearer  future,  ch. 
viii.  xi.,  and  which  from  the  earliest  times  has  been  an  oc 
casion  of  offence,  finds  its  explanation  in  the  great  want  of 
the  period— the  want  of  a  clear  light  to  guide  believers 
in  the  midst  of  the  gloom  that  enveloped  them  ;  and  in 
so  far  as  it  differs  from  other  prophecies  of  a  like  kind 
—  such  as  1  Ki.  xiii.  2;  Is.  vii.  8;  xiii.,  &c. — differs  only 
in  degree,  and  much  also  as  the  character  of  the  re 
spective  periods  themselves  differed. 

One  may  still  further  note  the  congruity.  not  merely 
of  the  revelations  as  a  whole  to  the  circumstances  and 
prospects  of  the  covenant  people,  but  also  of  the  form 
and  manner  of  their  communication  to  the  respective- 
positions  of  the  parties  interested.  It  was  Daniel 
alone,  indeed,  through  whom  all  the  revelations  came, 
but  the  first  apocalyptic  outline  was  given  to  Nebu 
chadnezzar,  the  representative  of  the  world's  monarchies, 
though  he  had  to  wait  ou  a  higher  wisdom  for  skill  to 
decipher  its  import.  And  hence,  as  given  to  one  who 
was  conversant  merely  with  the  outward  form  and 
aspect  of  things,  that  vision  contemplates  the  several 
kingdoms  in  their  external  nature  and  relationship's, 
i-li  ii.,  while  the  next  vision.  cH.  vii ,  which  stretches  over 
the  same  field,  and  exhibits  substantially  the  same 
general  outline,  penetrates  into  the  interior  of  the  ob 
jects  contemplated,  and  reveals  their  hidden  character. 
For  such  a  vision  Daniel's  spiritual  discernment  sup 
plied  the  proper  receptivity,  and  therefore  it  was  re 
served  for  him:  and  even  to  him  was  only  communi 
cated  after  he  had  been  in  a  measure  specially  prepared 
for  it  by  the  earlier  and  less  profound  communication. 

1  It  was  now  also  that  the  rise,  operations,  and  downfall 
of  the  Old  Testament  antichrist  were  fitly  disclosed. 

'•  ch.  vii.  in- 27,  since  they  concerned  the  internal,  even  more 

[  than  they  did  the   external,  affairs  of  God's  kingdom. 

I  And  to  assure  the  hearts  of  the  true  children  of  the  cove 
nant  still  further — to  satisfy  them  that,  however  severe 
and  terrible  the  conflict  should  be  while  it  lasted,  it 

j  was  only  to  be  a  temporary  cloud  darkening  their  spi 
ritual  horizon — some  more  detailed  visions  were  after 
wards  given  to  the  prophet,  ch.  viii.  xi.  xii.  These  dis 
closed  the  various  workings  and  evolutions  of  the  earthly 
kingdoms  that  bordered  on  the  "glorious  land"  and  its 
people,  and  brought  out  the  shifting,  uncertain,  transient 
condition  of  the  former  in  striking  contrast  with  the 
sure  mercies  that  were  destined  for  the  latter. 

TlJE  AUTHENTICITY    OF    THE    BOOK    OF    DANIEL,  with 

the  credibility  of  its  contents,  has  been  by  anticipation 
vindicated  from  the  attacks  which  have  been  both  re 
cently  and  in  former  times  urged  against  it,  by  the 
preceding  remarks,  which  have  had  it  for  their  object 
to  unfold  the  real  nature  and  bearing  of  the  things  re 
corded  in  the  book.  For  its  authentic  and  credible 
character,  to  a  large  extent,  rests  on  the  kind  of  won 
ders,  and  the  form  of  the  revelations,  which  it  describes; 
and  the  peculiarities  attaching  to  them  being  sufficiently 
j  accounted  for  by  the  present  and  prospective  circum- 
j  stances  of  the  covenant-people,  the  objections  fall  of 
themselves.  A  class  of  objections  raised  out  of  the 
historical  personages  mentioned  in  the  book — Nebu 
chadnezzar,  Belshazzar,  Darius,  Cyrus — may  also  be 
passed  over  in  silence  here,  as  they  will  be  found 
I  noticed,  and  their  groundlessness  shown,  in  connection 


DANIEL 


403 


DAXIEL 


with  the  individual  names.  And,  on  the  other  side, 
there  fall  to  be  added  to  what  has  been  already  advanced 
in  support  of  the  genuineness  and  canonical  value  of 

the  book,  the  following  important  considerations : 

(1.)  Its  place  in  the  Jewish  canon.  That  it  existed 
there  from  the  period  of  the  completion  of  the  Old 
Testament  canon,  admits  of  no  reasonable  doubt.  The 
only  ground  for  difference  of  opinion  is  as  to  the  reason 
of  its  having  been  assigned  by  the  Jewish  authorities 
to  another  than  the  prophetical  portion  of  ( )ld  Testa 
ment  scripture;  they  have  placed  it  in  the  Hagiographa, 
between  Esther  and  Nehemiah.  So  far,  however,  from 
militating  against  the  full  authority  of  the  book,  or  in 
ferring,  as  was  once  supposed,  some  sort  of  slight  upon 
Daniel,  it  rather  points,  as  Havernick  has  justlv 
stated,  in  the  contrary  direction  (Commcntar,  p.  On),  for 
it  implies  that  the  position  "  must  have  been  as 
signed  to  the  prophet  deliberately.  Were  the  book  an 
interpolated  one,  it  would  doubtless  have  been  smuggled 
into  the  collection  of  the  prophets."  The  position  is  to 
be  accounted  for  partly  from  Daniel  having  had  simply 
the  prophetic  gift  without  the  prophetic  office,  and  partly 
from  his  being  regarded  as  the  historian--  prospective  as 
well  as  retrospective  -of  an  important  period  in  the 
divine  dispensations. 

C2  >The  reference  made  to  the  book  in  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees,  as  already  extant  and  familiarlv  known  to 
the  covenant- people,  is  also  important.  (See  especially 

i  M:ic.  i.  .VI;  ii.  .311,  On;  omip.  with  Da.  ix.  LV  ) 

('•I.)  So,  too.  and  still  moiv,  its  recognition  bv  our  Lord 
and  his  apostles,  and  that  not  only  as  forming-  part  of  the 
Jewish  Scriptures,  which  were  collectively  stamped  as  the 
oracles  of  (Jod,  but  as  containin<_r  explicit  predictions  of 
things  yet  to  come.  Our  Lord,  in  Mat.  xxiv.  -2~>.  point,  d 
emphatically  to  the  "abomination  otMes, ,lati..n  ~p,  ,hen  of 
by  Daniel  the  prophet,"  words  which  at  once  designate 
him  as  a  divinely-inspired  man,  and  as  the  bearer  of  an 
announcement  which,  at  the  time  referred  to,  was  goinq 
to  find  its  verification.  Christ's  familiar  appro), ru 
tion  also  of  the  title  "Son  of  man."  is  based  on  the 
prophecy  in  Da.  vii.,  and  the  expressions  in  Mat.  x.xiv. 
o<>.  xxvi.  (M,  evidently  point  to  the  same  prophetic 
word.  In  St.  Paul's  writings,  1  Co.  vi.  -J  is  founded 
upon  Da.  vii.  22,  and  2  Th.  ii.  '3.  I  on  I»u.  vii.  2."i,  xi. 
3<i  :  while,  in  the  Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  then-  is  a 
pervading  use  of  the  language  and  the  symbols  of  our 
prophet.  Allusions  are  still  further  made  to  portions  Of 
the  book  in  Lu.  i.  ID  and  He.  xi.  :«.  Indeed,  there  ar 
few  books  of  the  Old  Testament  that  have  exercised  so 
marked  and  decided  an  influence  over  the  New,  or  have 
there  received  an  acknowledgment  so  explicit  and  full. 
(4.:  The  language,  partly  Hebrew  ami  partly  Chaldee 
or  Aramaic,  and  both  precisely  those  of  the  period  to 
which  the  book  belongs,  is  a  strong  confirmation  of  its 
genuine  and  truthful  character.  It  is  somewhat  diffi 
cult  to  assign  a  satisfactory  reason  for  the  alternating 
manner  in  which  the  two  dialects  are  employed  ;  first 
Hebrew  to  ch.  ii.  4,  then  Aramaic  to  the  end  of 
ch.  vii.,  and  again  Hebrew  to  the  close  of  the  book. 
We  cannot  say  that  the  historical  portions  were  given 
in  Aramaic  as  the  vernacular,  and  the  more  strictly 
prophetical  in  the  more  sacred  dialect,  for  the  second 
and  the  seventh  chapters  are  both  in  the  fullest  sense 
prophetical.  Xor  will  it  altogether  do  to  say  with 
Auberlen  (ch.  ii.  sect  i).  that  the  Aramaic  was  used  in 
ch.  ii.-vii.  because  in  these  portions  the  development  of 
the  worldly  powers  is  represented  from  a  world-histori- 


'  col  point  of  view,  for  in  ch.  vii.,  at  least,  the  mode  of 
contemplation  is  no  more  of  that  description  than  in 
i  the  remaining  chapters.  It  would  seem,  as  Hengsten- 
|  berg,  after  Bleek  and  Do  Wette.  has  remarked,  that  the 
change  was  commenced  at  ch.  ii.  4,  simply  from  the 
Chaldean  wise  men  being  there  introduced, 'and  speak 
ing  in  that  dialect;  that  from  the  author's  familiarity 
with  it  he  continued  for  a  time  to  employ  it,  since, 
from  the  acquaintance  with  it  possessed  by  his  contem 
poraries,  it  was  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  he 
wrote  in  Aramaic  or  in  Hebrew.  But  however  this  may 
be,  we  can  understand  how  Daniel,  to  whom  both  He 
brew  anil  Aramaic  were  familiar,  might  at  different 
times  have  employed  both:  while  we  cannot  understand, 
or  even  conceive,  how  any  imitator,  in  the  age  of  the 
Maccabees  or  later,  should  have  so  interchanged  these 
dialects.  If  the  author  had  really  belonged  to  so  re 
mote  an  age.  neither  the  Hebrew  nor  the  Aramaic  of 
this  book  (which  is  the  same  with  that  of  Ezra  and 
Xehcmiah)  wotdd  have  been  natural  to  him  :  he  would 
rather,  in  all  probability,  have  written  in  Greek;  and 
at  all  events,  if  he  had  attempted  the  older  languages  of 
the  country,  he  would  never  have  thought  of  employing 
them  in  the  manner  that  we  find  practised  here. 

(;1.)  There  is.  finally,  displayed  throughout  the  book  u 
correct  ac.juaiiitamv  with  the  manners  and  usages  of 
the  time,  such  as  could  only  be  obtained  by  a  person 
actually  living  amid  the  affairs,  and  at  the  period,  of 
which  it  treats.  These,  in  many  respects,  differed  from 
what  prevailed  in  the  times  that  followed;  and  though 
various  attempts  have  been  made  i  .  prove  the  author 
at  lault  in  some  of  them,  they  have  all  signally  failed. 
KYeeiit  discoveries  iii  the  department  of  Assyrian  an- 
ti<|uitics.  as  well  as  the  notices  of  ancient  writers,  con- 
iinn,  in  all  important  points,  the  allusions  in  Daniel. 

[The  literature  MM  >),«•  l,,,..k  uf  DaMiel  is  pretty  extensive,  both 
in  this  count  r\  and  on  th.-  ( 'onlim-nt.  K-^id,.  t  in-  investigations 
into  his  life  and  writing.-,  to  be  lound  in  commentaries  on  the 
(>ld  Testament -.such  as  those  of  Jur..me,  Theodoret,  Cahin, 
Melancthon.  Cai.,v.  Are.— many  separate  works  have  appeared 
in  ivivnt  tim.-s:  among  which  the  most  important  are  lleiig- 
stenberg's  Aulhuttit  e/is  l>n,u<l.  translated  into  Knglish,  and 
along  with  his  similar  w,,rk  on  Xechariah  and  the  prophecies  of 
Balaam,  forming  one  uf  Clark's  foreign  volumes;  llavernick's 
,/..s  H,n-l<  lh,,ic,!:  still  more  recently,  and 

forming  an  important  contribution  to  some  portions  of  the  book, 
Anberlen's  U  Ojteltl>anu><fJ<,ha»,iu,<t'c., 

of  which  a  translation  has  also  been  published  by  the  .Messrs. 
(lark;  the  portion  of  lleng-t.-nb,  T,',  r/,,  ;,/„/,,,,„  'which  treats 
..fell,  ix.,  llMfmann's  1C,  ;.-,•,,,,„..,,  ,,,„/  /.',/,. //,<„,/,  anil  Keil's 
Kiiildlti.iifi,  in  the  parts  which  treat  of  this  book,  are  well  deserv 
ing  of  consultation  ;  as  als,.  the  Kj/mfiti'iii  ../'  A'"O.v,  which  has 
been  tran.-laied  by  the  late  Dr.  K.  Henderson.  Of  works  by 
English  and  American  authors,  the  following  among  others 
deserve  consultation  :  .b'o/.crc/  ini  tin:  &:  <•</((//  M '"/.-.<  uf  Dunid  ; 
the  <'nm,;,(r,liii-iin(f  Mo*  x  M  (/<«,•/,  and  />io-;ic.«(the  latter  a  highly 
creditable  production,  and  on  most  parts  of  the  book  affording 
a  very  useful  help,  where  also  will  be  found  a  pretty  full  account 
of  the  literature  connected  with  the  subject).  Jlost  also  of  the 
later  works  on  prophecy,  such  as  Newton's,  Davidson's,  Nolan's, 
Fairbairn's.  treat  at  some  length  of  the  predictions  in  Daniel. — 
In  the  Septuagint  translation  and  that  of  Theodotion,  various 
unwarranted  additions  are  made  to  the  look  of  Daniel;  one 
inserted  at  ch.  iii.  '.'-I,  the  pr.iyerof  Azariah,  itc. ;  then  atcli.  iii.  ,"i2, 
the  song  of  the  three  children  ;  the  history  of  Susanna,  forming 
ch.  xiii.;  and  the  narrative  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  ch.  xiv. 
These  form  no  part  of  the  Hebrew  text,  and  in  the  English  Bible 
are  printed  separately  as  parts  of  the  Apocrypha.  They  were 
expressly  excepted  against  by  Jerome,  and  though  admitted 
into  his  translation,  were  marked  by  an  obelus,  as  belonging  to 
a  different  category  from  the  writings  of  Daniel.  They  are  liable 
to  all  the  objections  which  have  been  urged  against  the  Apocry 
pha,  and  which  need  not  now  be  re|  eated.  There  are  also 
specific  errors  in  them,  such  as  calling  Daniel  a  priest,  and  the 
affirmation  that  serpents  were  worshipped  at  Babylon.] 


DARTTJfi 


4(1-! 


DARKNESS 


DARIUS  is   tlu-  C.reek  form  of   \vhat    in    Hebrew 

reads  Ihirjai-ifh,  •£* >-\ •*  ;   and   this  again  is  now  under- 
'•"    ;  T 

stood  to  be  a  Hebraistic  modification  of  the  /><;/•/<  n?.-7<  or 
Parii>/*Ji  which  lias  been  found  in  a  IVrsepolitan  in 
scription.  I>'i.ra.  in  modern  Persian,  means  /••/•(7.  and 
this,  either  with  the  formative  termination  tJt .  or  with 
an  abbreviation  of  /•.-•/(. <//.  kiiiir.  made  the  name  Dar- 
heush.  which  the  Hebrews  pronounced  Daryavesh.  and 
the  Greeks  Dareius  or  Darius.  Adhering  to  the  Greek 
form  of  the  name,  which  is  most  familiar  to  modern  ears. 
Darius  appears  in  Scripture  as  the  name  of  three  kings. 
1.  PARK'S.  The  first  person  of  this  name,  is  the  one 
mentioned  in  Da.  v.  :U ;  vi.  1  :  ix.  1,  where  he  is  called 
"Darius the  Median."  "son  of  Ahasuerus*  Ahashverosh). 
of  the  seed  of  the  Medes."  and  is  represented  as  having 
taken  the  kingdom  of  Babylon,  or  lieing  "  made  king 
over  the  realm  of  the  Chaldeans."  This,  it  has  often 
been  averted,  is  eontrarv  to  faet,  as  Cyru.~  was  the 
conqueror  of  Babylon,  and  theh'rst  Darius  who  reigned 
over  the  Medo-  Persian  empire  was  Darius  Hystaspes, 
who  succeeded  Cambyses.  the  son  of  Cyrus.  It  is  true 
that  the  Greek  historians  so  represent  the  matter.  Ac 
cording  to  Hero. lotus  and  Ctesias.  the  line  of  Median 
kin^s  closed  with  A^tyauvs.  and  the  empire  was  trans 
ferred  to  the  Persian  Cyrus:  so  also  Piodorus  Sic.. 
Strabo.  Polytvnus.  Xenophon.  however,  ascribes  to  As- 
tyas'es  a  son.  whom  he  calls  Cyaxares:  a  name  which 
has  been  shown  by  Scaliger  i  Do  Einen.l.  Temp.  1.  vi.)  and 
Yitringa  (Obs.  Sac.  ii.  p.  3">>  to  be  identical  with  Ahash 
verosh.  the  Greek  Xerxes.  And  as  those  Medo-Persian 
names  were  all  of  the  nature  of  titles,  it  is  supposed  by 
the  authors  referred  to.  and  many  others,  that  the  Da 
rius  of  Daniel  was  the  Cyaxares  of  Xenophon.  This 
view  is  confirmed  by 
the  testimony  of  .lo- 
sephus.  who  calls 
Darius  the  son  of 
Astyages.  but  adds 
that  he  was  known  to 
the  Greeks  by  another 
name  i  An-:<i  x.  11'.  And 
under  the  word  M(;-;,v. 
a  gold  coin.  Suidas 

has  the  explanation  that  it  was  "so  named,  not  from 
Darius  the  father  of  Xerxes,  but  from  another  and  more 
ancient  kin^:"  which  again  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  of 
this  coin  being  mentioned  in  the  books  of  Chronicles. 
Ezra,  and  Xehemiah.  The  chief  difficulty  in  this  ex 
planation  arises  from  the  different  parts  assigned  to  the 
son  of  Astyages  in  Xenophon  and  Daniel  respectively: 
in  the  former.  Cyaxares  has  nothing  to  do  personailv 
with  the  conquest  and  government  of  Babylon,  while 
in  Daniel  Darius  is  represented  as  both  getting  posses 
sion  of  Babylon  and  living  for  some  time  in  it.  On 
this  account  the  supposition  has  lately  been  made  (Smith's 
Diet,  of  Ancient  History  and  Mythology^  that  the  Darius  of 

Daniel  wa*  probably  the  first  governor  of  Babylon 
under  Cyrus,  and  that  he  is  viewed  as  the  actual  sove 
reign  till  Cyrus  himself  found  it  practicable  to  take 
charge  of  the  kingdom.  But  this  view  seems  to  create 
as  many  difficulties  as  it  solves,  and  cannot  be  regarded 
as  satisfactory.  In  particular,  it  leaves  unexplained 
those  passages,  both  in  Scripture  and  in  profane 
authors,  which  ascribe  the  overthrow  of  the  Chaldean 
power  to  the  Medes  in  combination  with  the  Persians. 
and  indeed  sometimes  to  the  former  even  more  promi- 


Golden  Pari:.-  Brit.  Mus. 


neiitlv  than  the  latter.  (Da.  v.  2;>;  Is.  xiii.  i:;  Je  1.  li.;  Joseph. 
Ant.  x.  11,  4;  also  a  passage  in  Abydenus,  quoted  from  Xugasthenes, 
and  referred  to  by  liertlioldt  in  his  excursus  upon  this  subject.) 

And  if  Darius  had  been  merely  a  viceroy,  appointed  by 
Cyrus  for  a  time,  we  cannot  understand  whv  his  rei<jn 
should  have  been  spoken  of  as  an  independent  thing,  and 
lasting  till  that  of  Cyrus  the  Persian.  In  short,  there 
seems  as  yet  no  satisfactory  unravelling  of  this  part  of 
ancient  history  ;  and  as  matters  stand,  we  must  simply 
hold  that  there  is  evidence  to  believe  in  the  existence 
of  a  Median  monarch  at  the  time  of  the  capture  of 
Babylon  teallied  Darius  in  Daniel',  but  one  who  seems 
to  have  occupied  little  more  than  a  nominal  place,  and 
that  the  real  power  was  in  the  hands  of  Cyrus. 

2.  DARK'S.     The  second  person  spoken  of  in  Scrip 
ture  under  the  name  of  Darius.  Ezr.  iv.-vii.:  Hag.  i.  i:  Zee. 
i.  i.  there  can  be  no  doubt   is  the  well-known  Darius 
Hystasp.-s  of  history,  who  succeeded  the  usurper  Smerdis 
in  K.C.  ,V_'l.      lie  c-irried  into  execution   the  decree  of 
Cyrus  regarding  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  at  Jeru 
salem,  and   the  re- establishment   of  the  Jews  in  their 
ancient  territory. 

3.  D.um's.      He  is  named.  Ne.  xii  i-.'.  as  the  king  up  to 
whose  time  the  succession  of  the  priests  was  registered. 
The  probability  is  that  this  was  the  Darius  Xothus  of 
the  Greeks,  who  ascended  the  throne  B.C.  423  —that  is. 
only  a  few  years  after  Xehemiah's  time:  but  some  un 
derstand  by  it  Darius  Codoinannus.     (A-:  JADDUA.' 

DARKNESS,  in  the  plujfi^.i.l  sense,  is  on  three  oc 
casions  very  specially  noted  in  Scripture.  The  first  is 
at  the  period  of  the  creation,  when  darkness,  it  is  said. 
"  was  on  the  face  of  the  deep:"  the  dispelling  of  which, 
by  the  introduction  of  liuht.  was  the  commencement  of 
that  generative  process  by  which  order,  and  life,  and 
beauty  were  brought  out  of  the  primeval  chaos.  (><'•; 
CREATION,  i  The  second  relates  to  the  period  of  Israel's 
deliverance  from  the  land  of  Egypt —a  visitation  of 
peculiar  darkne.-s.  "darkness  that  might  be  felt."  being 
one  of  the  plagues  that  were  found  necessary  to  break 
the  iron  will  of  Pharaoh,  and  induce  him  to  let  the 
people  go.  ($((  Pi.Ar,rK>  of  EGYPT. i  The  third  oc 
casion  was  the  awful  moment  of  our  Lord's  crucifixion, 
during  which  St.  Matthew  relates  that  "from  the 
sixth  hour  there  was  darkness  over  all  the  land  unto  the 
ninth  hour."  ch.  xxvii.  4.V  It  is  rightly  rendered  "  over  all 
the  /«. W;"  for  though  some,  chiefly  ancient  writers,  have 
insisted  on  adhering  to  the  more  general  import  of  the 
original  (67ri  traffav  riji'  -,?}''1-  "  over  all  the  earth."  and 
have  sought  out  certain  notices  which  seem  to  favour 
their  opinion,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  other 
view  is  the  correct  one.  It  was  onlv  in  the  land  of 
Judea.  where  the  tragedy  of  the  crucifixion  was  pro 
ceeding,  and  where  alone  any  sense  of  its  enormity,  or 
even  any  knowledge  of  its  existence,  might  be  found. 
that  the  exhibition  of  a  prevailing  darkness  could  carry 
an  intelligible  significance.  The  world  at  large  had 
not  a<  yet  come  into  contact  with  the  person  and  the 
claims  of  Jesus :  and  beyond  the  theatre  of  his  earthly 
ministry  the  darkness  attending  his  crucifixion  would 
have  l>een  as  little  in  place  as  the  miraculous  attesta 
tions  that  heralded  his  birth,  or  the  earthquake  that 
opened  the  graves  of  many  at  his  resurrection.  It  is, 
therefore,  a  mistaken  zeal  which  prompted  the  inquiry 
after  a  universal  darkness  in  connection  with  the  death 
of  Christ.  But  how  that  local  darkness,  which  over 
spread  the  land  of  Judea,  was  produced,  is  a  point  on 
which  no  information  has  been  given,  and  on  which  it 


DATES 


is  needless  to  speculate.  The  fact  of  its  having  !>een  at 
the  time  of  full  moon,  and  when  consequently  the  moon 
could  not  come  between  the  earth  and  the  sun.  puts  the 
supposition  of  an  eclipse  out  of  the  question.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that,  as  the  divine  purpose  required  at 
the  time  a  supernatural  darkness  in  attestation  of  the 
appalling  nature  of  the  work  which  was  in  progress,  so, 
by  some  means  or  another,  a  peculiar  obscuration  of 
the  sun's  rays  was  effected  sufficient  to  strike  an  awe 
into  the  minds  of  thoughtful  observers. 

As  a  symbol  of  spiritual  truths  and  ideas,  darkness 
has  a  somewhat  varied  application  in  Scripture,  founded 
on  the  different  properties  and  effects  of  the  natural 
phenomenon.  With  reference  to  the  obscurity  in  which 
darkness  wraps  the  objects  of  nature  to  one's  view,  it 
is  often  used  as  an  emblem  of  spiritual  blindiie-s.  of 
total  <>r  comparative  ignorance  of  the  things  of  <  Jod's 
kinirdom.  as  when  it  is  said,  "darkness  covers  the 
earth,  and  gross  darkness  the  people."  N  IK  2;  "the 
darkness  is  past,  and  the  true  light  shiiieth."  i  .in  ii  -; 
"the  light  shineth  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness  com 
prehended  it  not,"  ,iu.  i  ;.,  \c.  With  respect,  au'ain.  to 
the  gloom  in  which  things  are  enveloped  when  covered 
with  darkness,  this  naturally  becomes  significant  of 
sorrow  and  distress;  hence,  "the  day  of  darkness"  is 
an  expression  for  the  season  of  .-ore  trouble  and  calam 
ity,  .luol  ii.  '2:  Is  viii.  -.'2:  ix.  1  ;  xiii.  in,  \o.;  and  "outer  dark 
ness  "  is  the  term  used  by  our  Lord  to  indicate  the 
blank  despair  and  unrelieved  wretchedness  of  hell.  M.n. 
viii.  12;  xxii.  1:1  Still  again,  as  darkness  afford-  aeon, 
venicnt  pretext  and  covering  for  the  performance  of 
deeds  which  shun  the  light  of  day.  so  "the  works  of 
darkness "  is  employed  to  de-ignate  the  more  tla_rrant 
exhibitions  uf  unrighteousness,  i:,.  \  n  Finally,  from 
the  awe  which  intense  darkness  produces  upon  tli 
mind,  the  sense  of  profound  and  solemn  my.-terv 
which  it  awakens  respectinir  the  scenes  and  openui"i,- 
around  us,  it  appropriately  images  the  (iodhead  in  it- 
more  mysterious  and  awe-inspiring  manifestations;  so 
(oid  is  represented  as  dwelling  in  the  thick  darkness, 
and  having  clouds  and  darkness  round  al'.mt  him,  i  Ki. 

Mii  12:  I's  xcvii.  2;  while,  ill  respect  ti 
character  and  the  everHowing  rieht 
he  is  also  said  to  be  light,  and  to  ha 
ness  at  all.  1  .In.  i. :, 

DATES,     ,s,  I'.U.M-TIUX 

DATH  AN  \Monninfi  tn  «  fonntai 
in  tiie  tribe  of  Reuben,  who  took  part  with  Korah  in 
his  rebellion  against  the  authority  of  Moses  and  Aaron. 
t-S'ic  KORAH. i 

DAUGHTER  i.-  used  in  Scripture,  like  SON.  with 
some  latitude.  Even  when  referring  to  natural  relation 
ships  it  is  not  confined  to  those  of  the  first  degree,  does 
not  simply  indicate  the  immediate  female  offspring  of 
anv  one.  but  includes  also  the  more  distant  relatives 
and  descendants  :  such  as  daughter-in-law,  niece,  and 
sometimes  even  sister,  Uu.  iii.i?;  GO.  xxxh.  17.  More  gene 
rally  still  it  is  used  of  the  female  branch  of  a  line,  or 
the  female  portion  of  a  community,  as  in  the  expres 
sions,  "the  daughters  of  Moab,"  "the  daughters  of 
the  Philistines,"  "the  daughters  of  Aaron,''  Xu.  xxv.  i; 
2  Sa  i.  20 ;  Lu.  i.  .5.  Then,  as  cities  were  very  commonly 
personified  as  women,  they  naturally  had  the  designa 
tion  given  to  them  of  daughters  of  the  country  to  which 
they  belonged— as  the  daughter  of  Zion,  the  daughter 
of  Jerusalem,  or,  as  some  prefer  putting  it,  the  daugh- 
ter-Zion.  the  daughter-Jerusalem,  taking  the  particu- 


the  purity  of  his 

of    his  LToodne-s, 

u  in  him  no  dark- 


lar  city  as  in  apposition  with  the  term  dan.;//iti>;  which 
indicates  its  relation  to  the  country,  ^soe  Hengstenberg  on 
Ps.  ix.  I4.i  If,  according  to  the  other  method,  we  take 
Zion.  Jerusalem,  as  the  mother  that  has  the  daughter, 
then  by  daughter  must  be  understood  the  people  who 
inhabit  the  city— its  living  progeny.  H  seems  upon  the 
whole  better,  and  more  in  accordance  with  the  oriental 
style  of  thought,  to  regard  the  city  itself  as  the  daugh 
ter:  the  offspring  of  the  country  as  the  scat  of  art 
and  active  occupation,  much  as  the  branches  of  a  tree 
are  also  called  its  daughters,  because  springing  from  it 
and  sustained  by  it— for  example  in  CJe.  xlix.  '2'2.  ''a 
fruitful  Ixmgh,  whose  daughters  (branches')  run  over  the 
wall."  And  finally,  as  a  person  may  be  regarded  in 
some  sense  as  the  product  of  the  time  or  period  that 
ha-  passed  over  his  head,  so  the  daughter  or  the  son  of 
so  many  years  is  a  Hebraistic  mode  of  indicating  the 
a<_re  to  which  one  has  attained:  thus  Sarah  is  desig 
nated  in  the  original  "a  daughter  of  ninety  years," 
(ie.  xv;i  i: 

DAVID  [Morcii],  one  of  the  most  renowned  names 
in  sacred  history,  and  one  that  has  perhaps  more  in 
teresting  and  endearing  associations  connected  with  it 
than  any  other  in  Old  Testament  times.  David  was 
indeed,  as  I'.ayle  long  a-'o  remarked,  "one  of  the 
greatest  men  in  the  world"  although  I'.ayle  himself, 
in  his  article  on  the  life  of  David,  certainly  did  what 
lie  could  to  diminish  the  greatness,  bv  presenting  in  as 
odious  a  light  as  possible  the  sins  and  infirmities  that 
marred  the  perfection  ,,f  David's  character. 

K<irlii  'i/i  .  I  >a\  id  uas  the  son  of  Jes-e  of  IVthlehem, 
the  youngest  of  eight  soils,  i  s.-i  xu  n.  The  precise 
period  of  his  birth  cannot  be  a-ccrtaiiied:  but  supposing 
him  to  have  been  fifteen  or  .-ixte.  n  vars  old  at  the  time 
Samuel  \\a-  sent  to  anoint  him  king  (which  cannot  be 
far  from  the  mark  I,  his  birth  mav  be  as-igned  to  H.I.. 

Ios4    ,,r    in-;,,      of    l,:.,   l,,,yh i   nothing  whatever  is 

recorded;  but  as  his  father  was  the  lineal  descendant  of 
Boa/.,  the  grandson  of  that  "n.ighty  man  of  wealth." 
we  may  reasonably  infer  that  the  family  was  in  good 
circumstance.-,  and  that  the  earlier  year-  of  David  were 
spent  in  east.'  and  comfort.  It  makes  nothing  against 
this  that  on  the  first  occa-ion  of  his  appearing  on  the 
stage  .if  sacred  history,  he  had  to  be  brought  from 
tending  his  father's  flocks;  for  according  to  the  simple 
manners  (.f  those  times,  the  sons  of  even  wealthy  fami 
lies  took  part  in  such  employments;  Boaz  himself 
shared  in  the  labours  of  the  harvest-field.  In  that 
particular  line  of  employment  also,  to  which,  whether 
from  personal  inclination  or  from  respect  to  parental 
authority,  David  gave  the  early  flower  of  his  life,  we 
cannot  but  perceive  an  important  means  of  trainin<_' 
and  preparation  for  his  future  career.  He  thus  became 
acquainted  \vith  the  solitudes  of  nature  ;  knew  what  it 
was  to  make  his  home  in  gloomy  caverns  and  desert 
wilds;  and  while,  in  the  ordinary  tenor  of  life,  finding 
ample  opportunity  for  silent  thought  and  heavenward 
musings,  he  was  not  without  scope  for  active  energy 
and  stirring  adventure,  in  climbing,  as  he  must  oft  have 
done,  the  rocky  heights  or  deep  ravines  with  which  the 
pastoral  districts  in  the  south  of  Judah  abound,  and 
in  defending  his  flocks  from  the  assaults  of  the  l>easts 
of  prey  that  occasionally  issued  from  the  wilderness. 
David  himself  at  a  later  period  mentions  two  encounters 
of  this  description,  in  one  of  which  a  bear,  and  in  another 
a  lion,  fell  under  his  hand,  i  Sa.  xvii.  :i:>.  In  a  further 
respect,  too,  there  was  a  fitness  in  the  scenery  and  the  oc- 


DAVID 


400 


DAVID 


eupation;  for  though  the  country  in  that  part  of  Pales 
tine  presents  no  grand  or  very  fascinating  aspects,  yet 
in  its  elevated,  open,  undulating  character  —its  bare 
hills  varied  with  fertile  fields  and  vine  or  olive  clad 
slopes — with  the  vast  desert  stretching  away  to  the 
south,  air!  on  the  east  the  ever- memorable  region  of  the 
cities  of  the  plain,  and  the  mountain  ridges  of  Aloab 
lying  beyond — in  a  pastoral  country  like  this,  David's 
youthful  mind  had  enough  to  kindle  its  love  of  nature, 
and  fill  it  with  many  profound  and  interesting  associa 
tions.  Neither  the  scenes  it  presented,  nor  the  employ 
ments  it  called  him  to  engage  in,  could  be  lost  on  one 
in  whose  soul  breathed  the  spirit  of  sacred  song. 

The  purpose  of  God  to  reject  Saul  and  his  family 
from  the  throne  of  the  kingdom,  brought  David  at  once 
from  the  depths  of  obscurity  to  a  prominent  place  in 
Israelitish  history.  We  only  know  of  him  as  Jesse's 
son,  when  we  hear  of  his  distinction  by  divine  appoint 
ment,  and  solemn  consecration  to  the  highest  office  in 
the  commonwealth.  Saul  had  been  chosen  because  the 
desire  of  all  Israel  was  toward  him ;  but  the  divine 
sovereignty  manifested  itself  so  peculiarly  in  the  case 
of  David,  that  no  one  suspected — not  even  the  prophet 
employed  on  the  occasion,  nor  the  members  of  Jesse's 
family — thut  the  election  was  to  fall  on  him.  One 
after  another  of  Jesse's  sons  was  made  to  pass  before 
Samuel,  but  with  no  other  result  than  of  giving  him  to 
understand  that  still  the  object  of  the  Lord's  choice 
was  not  there ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  prophet  had 
asked  whether  there  were  not  a  son  still  remain 
ing,  that  the  real  object  of  search  came  into  view. 
This  was  David,  who  at  the  time  was  in  the  fields 
tending  his  father's  flocks  ;  but  on  being  sent  for  and 
appearing,  the  divine  voice  whispered  in  the  ear  of 
Samuel,  This  is  he ;  "  and  Samuel  took  the  horn  of  oil  and 
anointed  him  in  the  midst  of  his  brethren.''  i  Sa.  xvii.  i;;. 
It  was  emphatically  the  Lord's  doing ;  no  man.  if  left 
to  his  own  imaginings,  would  have  thought  of  choosing 
this  youthful  shepherd  to  the  high  but  hazardous 
position  of  becoming  the  rival  and  successor  of  the 
house  of  Saul.  Yet  there  was  something  in  his  ap 
pearance,  it  would  seein,  which,  voung  and  inex 
perienced  as  he  was,  gave  promise  that  the  choice 
might  one  day  find  its  full  vindication ;  for  he  was  of 
winning  aspect  and  goodly  to  look  upon.  Nature  had 
already  in  the  youth  given  assurance  of  a  man :  but 
greatly  more  than  nature  even  in  her  highest  gifts  and 
endowments  was  needed  for  the  lofty  undertaking  de 
volved  on  the  son  of  Jesse.  Chosen  to  do  the  part  of  a 
man  after  God's  own  heart,  and  to  found  a  kingdom  in 
which  God's  mind  and  will  were  to  be  carried  out, 
in  opposition  to  the  rebellious  strivings  and  headstrong- 
violence  of  man,  he  must  be  in  an  especial  manner  a 
vessel  of  grace ;  and  so,  what  was  symbolized  by  the 
anointing  presently  took  effect,  and  "  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  came  upon  David  from  that  day  forward." 
Spiritual  endowments  were  conferred  upon  him  cor 
responding  to  the  high  place  and  calling  he  had  re 
ceived. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  specific  object  of  the 
anointing  was  to  set  apart  David  as  the  future  pos 
sessor  of  the  throne,  and  that  Samuel  was  perfectly 
cognizant  of  its  full  import ;  for  the  word  that  came 
to  him  was,  that  he  should  go  to  the  house  of  Jesse  in 
order  to  anoint  one  of  his  sons  to  be  king ;  and  pre 
cisely  on  this  ground  Samuel  at  first  expressed  his  un 
willingness  to  execute  the  commission,  lest  Saul  should 


hear  of  it,  and  kill  him,  is^xvi.  1,2.  It  does  not 
appear,  however,  that  the  prophet  gave  any  distinct 
explanation  of  the  matter  to  the  family  of  Jesse.  The 
transaction  appears  rather  to  have  been  done  as  a  kind 
of  mystery;  and  it  seems  probable  from  the  narrative, 
that  while  the  family  of  Jesse  witnessed  the  anointing 
of  its  youngest  member,  they  were  left  to  gather  from 
the  result  what  was  its  ultimate  aim.  The  whole, 
possibly,  they  could  gather  from  it  in  the  meantime, 
was  that  David  was  set  apart  for  some  special  service 
to  God.  and  was  to  be  furnished  for  his  mission  witli 
appropriate  gifts.  How  much  more  David  himself 
knew  we  cannot  tell:  the  prophet  may  have  communi 
cated  to  him  privately  a  further  disclosure  of  the  divine 
purpose,  which  we  cannot  doubt  David  himself  would 
be  anxious  to  obtain.  .But  whether  he  got  this  at 
the  time  or  not,  he  must  have  perceived,  from  the  very 
nature  of  his  position,  that  it  was  only  gradually  the 
purpose  of  God  concerning  him  could  reach  its  des 
tined  aim ;  and  that  the  high  sphere  he  was  called  to 
occupy  nmst  be  won  by  high  service  previously  ren 
dered.  We  are  not  on  these  accounts,  with  some  (Ewaid, 

Gescli.  dcs  Volkes  Is.  ii.  p.  ">i;i ;   Kiscnlolir,  Das  Voik  Is.  i    p.   19'j'l, 

to  bring  into  suspicion  the  historical  verity  of  the  out 
ward  anointing,  as  if  it  were  but  a  symbolical  represen 
tation,  under  the  guise  of  history,  of  David's  internal 
call  to  the  destiny  that  was  before  him.  In  a  case  like 
David's  the  internal  call  must  have  had  an  external 
occasion  on  which  to  ground  itself ;  and  as  the  end  to 
be  readied  was  not  merely  a  position  of  honour  or  in 
fluence  in  God's  kingdom,  hut  a  divine  office,  to  which 
consecration  by  oil  through  the  hands  of  a  competent 
party  had  already  become  the  recognized  seal,  nothing 
short  of  this  could  have  satisfied  and  sustained  the 
mind  of  David  in  the  desperate  struggle  that  lay  before 
him.  Besides,  incidental  notices  which  occur  in  later 
parts  of  the  history  show  that  others,  even  in  the 
opposite  interest,  had  become  cognizant  of  David's  ap 
pointment  to  the  kingdom,  as  if  some  decisive  act  on 
the  part  of  God  concerning  it  had  come  to  their  know 
ledge.  Saul  himself,  in  one  of  his  melting  moods,  de 
clared  his  belief  that  David  should  surely  be  king, 
and  that  the  kingdom  of  Israel  should  be  established 
in  his  hand ;  and  Jonathan  had  virtually  confessed  as 
much  some  time  before,  i  Sa.  xx.  15;  \\i\-.  20.  At  the 
close  of  the  struggle,  when  the  tribes  of  Israel  came  to 
Hebron  to  acknowledge  David  as  king,  and  have  him 
publicly  consecrated,  they  came  with  the  testimony 
that  the  Lord  had  called  him  to  feed  his  people,  and 
be  the  captain  over  Israel,  2Sa.  v.  2.  Abner  also,  some 
what  earlier,  puts  it  even  more  strongly;  for  he  speaks 
of  the  Lord  having  sworn  to  David  concerning  the 
kingdom — apparently  pointing  to  some  notable  and 
overt  procedure  regarding  it,  2  Sa.  in.  o.  In  short,  com 
paring  one  part  of  the  history  with  another,  we  cannot 
dispense  with  the  historical  reality  of  David's  consecra 
tion  by  Samuel ;  this  was  the  fundamental  ground  at 
once  of  his  own  hopes  and  aspirations,  and  of  the  gene 
ral  recognition  of  his  claim ;  and  the  fresh  anointing 
that  took  place  at  Hebron  can  only  be  regarded  as  the 
national  response  to  what  had  been  long  previously  and 
as  in  a  mystery  transacted  at  Bethlehem. 

From  his  anointing  to  tJte  beginning  of  his  reign. — 
The  new  calling  and  endowments  of  David  presently 
began  to  discover  themselves — but  at  first  only  within 
the  comparatively  humble  sphere  of  private  life. 
Higher  things,  however,  than  the  tending  of  the  flocks 


now  at  times  engaged  his  attention;  for  when  mentioned, 
as  he  next  is,  in  connection  with  Saul's  spiritual  malady, 
we  find  him  commended  by  one  of  the  royal  attendants 
as  one  whom  he  knew  to  be  "cunning-  in  playing,  and 
a  mighty  valiant  man,  and  a  man  of  war,  ami  prudent 
in  discourse;"  he  added  also,  "comely  in  person,  and 
the  .Lord  is  with  him."  This  docs  not  necessarily  imply 
that  David  had  already  taken  part  in  warlike  expeditions, 
and  distinguished  himself  on  the  field  of  battle,  for 


DAVID 

The  more  probable  view  of  the  matter  is.  that  the  dif 
ficulty  arises  from  the  brief  and  somewhat  fragmentary 
character  of  this  part  of  the  sacred  memoir.  The  ac 
count  of  the  affair  with  Goliath,  contained  in  ch.  xvii., 
has  all  the  appearance  of  a  separate  and  independent 
piece  at  first— probably  written  for  the  purpose  of  bein"1 
handed  about,  as  an  authentic  and  full  narrative  of  a 
most  memorable  transaction,  and  inserted  by  the  his 
torian  just  as  it  stood.  Hence,  in  this  portion  of  the 


which  up  to  the  period  in  question  he  could  have  had  j  narrative  a  fresh  statement  of  David's  family  relation- 
little  or  no  opportunity.  But  it  indicate.-  that  God.  |  ships  is  given,  vor.  12-15,  as  if  nothing  had  been  said  about 
who  had  called  David  to  a  higher  sphere  of  life,  had  them  before.  Vet  even  here  a  pre-existing  connection 
also  prompted  his  mind  to  the  employments  and  pin-suits  is  implied  between  David  and  Said,  in  the  passiii"-  inti- 
which  were  to  fit  him  for  reaching  and  filling  it  aright,  mation  that  "  David  went  and  returned  from  Saul  to 
His  poetical  .spirit  and  fine  taste,  which  were  after-  feed  his  father's  sheep  at  Bethlehem.' 
wards  to  be  turned  to  such  noble  account,  had  been 
seeking  improvement,  and  meet  exercise,  by  the  use  of 
the  harp;  already,  perhaps,  wedding  sweet  inii-ie  to 
immortal  verse.  And  a-  in  tho-,-  comparatively  rude 

and  disjointed  times  emim-no-  in  public  life  required  as     brief  sojourn  at  Saul' 
an  indispensable  condition  skill  and  bravery  in  war,  he     incut  as  harper,  to  IK 
also  applied  his  energies  in  this   direction,  and  becalm 
expert  above  his   fellow.-    in    the  handling  of   military 


connection    had    been   speedily    broken    up,    probably 
by    the    report    of    warlike     preparations    on    the    part 
of  the  Philistines  summoiiin--  the  king  to  active  duty; 
and    havid    had    been    too   much    occupied    during    his 
urt   with  his   artistic  employ- 
ie  much   known   in   any  other 

line.      Tor  his  nomination  tip  be  one  of  Saul's  armour- 
bearers  imports  little  as  to  any   peculiar  intimacy  with 


weapons,  and  remarkable  for  the  heroic  bearing  \\hii  h     S,ud.     .loab,    we   1,  arn.    bad    no  fewer   than  eighteen 
bespoke    the  capacity    for    their    Miitable   employment,     armour  bearers.  as:i.  xviii.  15;   and    it  is   likely    Saul    had 
Then,  doubtless,  as  lie  was  under  ( iod's  special  training. 
opportunities  of  a  certain  kind  were  from  time  to  time 
afforded  him,  both  for  the  display   of  his  ui'ts.  and  for 
his  acquiring  the  confidence  in   them    whii.li   it  was  cs- 


sential  he  should  p 


a  still  un-ater  number.  The  name  was  prohahlv  given 
to  David  at  first  very  much  as  a  kind  of  court-distinc 
tion;  without  involving  anything  like  the  necessity  of 
personal  attendant  in  \\arlikeoperatioiis.  such  as  those 
Of  such  a  kind,  particularly,  uhieh  were  required  to  meet  the  Philistines.  David 


original  occupation,  in  order  to  allow  his  elder  brethren 
to  join  the  army  of  Israel.  lie  mijit  the  rather  do  so. 
as  he  must  ha\e  perceived  that  it  could  not  be  in  the 


was  the  occurrence  respecting  the  lion  and  the  bear,  to  therefore    returned     to    Bethlehem,    and 
which  reference  ha>  already  been  made,  and  the  report 
of  which  could  not  fail  to  >pivad  to  some  distance.      But 
we  may  be  sure  there  were   others    al>o  of  a  like  kind. 

calculated  to  deepen  the  impression,  though   no  special  capacity  of  a  common   soldier   he  was   to   find   the  road 

notice  is  taken  of  them  in  the  brief  narrative  of  his  early  to  eminence  op.  n.  d  for  him.      But  vet.  after  what  had 

life.      And  it  was  perfectly   natural,  that   \\hen   an  oc-  already  happened,  there  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  some 

casioii  was  presented  at  the  court  of  Saul  for  the  use  of  kindlings  of  desire  and  hope  in  his  bosom,  perhaps  some 

some  of  his  peculiar  gifts,  there  should  have  ken  one  moving   impulses   of   the  Spirit,   instinctively  drawing 

at  hand  who  in  the  providence  of  God  was  able  to  testify  him  toward  the  field   of  conflict,   as  soon  as 'the  camps 

if  Israel  and  the  Philistines  had  come  to  be  pitched  in 


hostile   array    against   each    other.      When 


to  their  existence  and  bring  them  into  notice. 

The  occasion,  we  are  told,  led  to  David's  introduc 
tion  to  the  presence  of  Saul,  and  his  employment  for  a  thither,  the  fitting  occasion  presented  iir-elf  in  the  proud 
time  around  his  person.  When  Saul  heard  of  David's  and  insol.  nt  defiance  that  was  hurled  by  Goliath  of 
skill  as  a  bar] per.  he  sent  a  request  to  Jesse  that  he  Gath  against  the  host  of  Israel.  He  saw' with  shame 
would  cause  David  to  repair  to  him;  and  Jesse,  not  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  quailing  before  the  heathen 
only  complied  with  the  request,  but  him>clf  also  went,  champion;  and  felt  constrained  by  the  Spirit  of  God 


carrying  some  presents  for  the  roval  household. 


to    accept    the    challenge,    and    wipe   ofi'  the    reproach. 


object,  too.  contemplated  by  the  proposal,  we  are  in-  Already  the  zeal  of  the  Lord's  house  consumed  him  ; 
formed,  was  gained  :  David's  music  quieted  the  morbid  and  in  spite  of  fears  suggested  by  the  timid,  and  taunts 
and  gloomy  workings  of  Saul's  bosom,  so  that  he  "loved  thrown  out  even  by  his  own  brethren,  lie  went  forth 
David  greatly,"  and  he  asked  and  obtained  permission  to  grapple  in  mortal  conflict  with  him  who  defied  tin 
horn  Jesse  to  let  the  young  stranger  continue  with  him.  armies  of  the  living  God.  There  was  no  faltering  in 
It  is  even  said  he  made  David  his  armour-bearer.  But  his  step  :  hi.s  heart  was  strong  with  heroic  confidence 
this  must  have  lasted  for  but  a  short  season;  and  it  is  (  for  the  occasion;  but  it  was  confidence  in  the  might 
even  difficult  to  account  for  what  follows,  on  the  sup-  j  and  faithfulness  of  God,  rather  than  in  the  skill  and 
position  of  David  having  stood  for  any  period  of  time  in  prowess  of  his  own  arm.  and  a  confidence  that  could 
the  presence  of  Saul,  and  been  much  about  him  as  armour-  throw  itself  back  for  support  on  earlier  experiences  of 
bearer.  For  when  David,  in  the  next  scene  described,  |  the  divine  interposition.  Nor  was  it  now  misplaced; 
stepped  forth  and  accepted  the  challenge  of  the  Philistine,  ;  the  giant  adversary  fell  under  the  God-empowered 
there  was  an  apparent  ignorance  respecting  him  on  the  j  shepherd  of  Bethlehem :  and  catching  the  spirit  of  this 
part  of  Saul  and  those  about  him,  which  it  is  not  quite  youthful  hero,  the  hitherto  abashed  forces  of  Israel 
easy  to  understand.  Various  efforts  have  been  made  !  rose  as  one  man,  and  put  the  embattled  host  of  the 
to  get  rid  of  the  seeming  anomaly — some  by  transposing  !  Philistines  to  rout. 

portions  of  the  text,  others  by  altogether  omitting  por-  j  The  impression  produced  by  this  action  was  immense; 
tions,  on  the  ground  of  their  being  later  interpolations,  !  not  merely  the  thinu  done,  but  the  spirit  and  manner 
&c.  —  but  without  producing  any  satisfactory  result,  of  doing  it,  rose  far  above  the  sphere  of  ordinary  life. 


DAVID 


408 


DAVID 


It  was  as  it'  a  higher  being  had  suddenly  alighted  upon 
the  scene,  and  made  a  new  era  to  emerge  in  the  affairs 
of  Israel.  No  wonder  that  men's  minds  were  astounded, 
and  that  even  such  as  were  not  entire  strangers  to 
David  began  to  ask  who  lie  was.  It  is  in  this  way  we 
would  account  for  the  interrogation  of  Saul.  ''Whose 
son  is  this  stripling  ' "  It  docs  not  necessarily  imply 
that  he  was  totally  unacquainted  with  David  ;  possibly 
enough  he  recognized  in  him  the  stripling  harper,  who 
had  been  for  sonic  time  in  his  own  employment;  but  now 
the  youth  had  sprung  into  such  higher  being  so  noble 
a  heroism  breathed  in  his  words  and  behaviour,  that  the 
little  Saul  had  known  of  him  seemed  by  no  means  ade 
quate  to  account  for  what  now  appeared  ;  and  he  could 
not  but  think  that  the  youth  who  could  speak  and  act 
thus  must  have  had  some  peculiar  training.  1 1  was  quite 
natural  in  the  circumstances :  and  another  peculiarity 
in  the  narrative — one  which  has  often  been  the  occasion 
of  difficulty,  or  of  formal  objection,  that,  namely,  of  \ 
David's  beinu-  said  to  have  taken  the  head  of  Goliath 
to  Jerusalem  -may  find  its  explanation  in  the  original 
design  of  the  narrative,  already  adverted  to.  For  if  it  | 
was  intended  to  present  a  sort  of  rounded  and  complete 
view  of  David's  history  in  reference  to  this  important  \ 
transaction,  which,  in  a  sense,  laid  the  foundation  of  ' 
his  future  greatness,  the  ultimate  destination  of  the  head 
of  Goliath  might  fitly  enough  have  been  noticed  at  the  i 
close  of  the  narrative,  although  it  was  not  till  a  con 
siderable  time  afterwards  that  the  circumstance  actually 
occurred.  At  the  same  time  there  is  nothing  in  the 
known  relations  of  the  period  to  have  prevented  its 
being  done  immediately  ;  for  the  scene  of  conflict  was 
at  no  great  distance  from  Jerusalem :  and  though  the 
fortress  of  Zion  was  not  taken  till  David  became 
acknowledged  king,  the  city  of  Jerusalem  was  from  an 
early  time  occupied  in  part  by  the  Israelites.  Ju.  i.  ->\. 

The  greatness  of  David's  success  in  this  remarkable 
conflict  proved  the  occasion  of  unexpected  trouble ;  for 
the  ascription  of  higher  praise  to  him  than  to  Saul  in 
the  songs  with  which  the  women  greeted  the  con 
querors —  "Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands,  arid  David 
his  ten  thousands" — roused  the  morbid  jealousy  of  Saul. 
and  prompted  the  question  respecting  David,  "  What 
can  he  have  more  but  the  kingdom  ? "'  Such  a  thought 
would  probably  never  have  crossed  his  mind,  but  for  . 
the  solemn  announcement  made  to  him  some  time  before  | 
by  Samuel,  that  the  Lord  had  rejected  him  from  being- 
king,  and  had  given  the  kingdom  to  a  neighbour  of  his 
that  was  better  than  he,  i  Sa.  xv.  28.  Thence  it  became  j 
impossible  to  shut  his  eyes  to  the  probable  result  that  \ 
seemed  heaving  in  prospect,  and  thinking  of  David 
as  the  neighbour  destined  to  occupy  his  throne.  He 
eyed  him,  therefore,  from  that  day  forward.  Vet  the 
secret  conviction  that  the  hand  of  God  was  in  the 
matter — the  excellence  also  which  shone  forth  in  David, 
his  winning  manners,  and  prudent  behaviour,  which 
were  equal  to  his  prowess  in  war,  rendered  it  advisable 
for  Saul  in  the  meantime  to  suppress  his  feelings,  and 
proceed  by  stratagem  rather  than  by  open  violence. 
But  he  could  not  control  himself ;  and  in  the  part  he 
actually  played,  stratagem  and  violence,  deceit  and 
cruelty,  alternated  with  each  other.  Even  in  the  first 
deliberate  attempt  against  the  life  of  David  there  was 
something  apparently  of  both ;  for  the  evil  spirit,  it  is 
said,  came  upon  Saul,  and  he  prophesied  (i.e.  assumed 
somewhat  of  the  frenzied  air  and  excited  manner  of 
a  prophet),  and  availed  himself  of  this  extraordinary 


state  and  humour  of  the  moment  to  strike  at  David 
with  his  javelin.  David,  however,  was  on  his  guard, 
and  the  blow  missed  its  aim,  i  Sa.  xviii.  10,11.  It  would 
appear  that  something  of  a  like  kind  was  tried  a  second 
time,  for  it  is  stated  that  David  avoided  out  of  Saul's 
presence  twice  ;  so  that  a  feeling  of  awe  seemed  to 
spring  up  in  the  mind  of  Saul  respecting  David,  as  to 
ward  one  under  the  special  protection  of  Heaven,  and 
visibly  partaking  of  the  divine  blessing.  He  would 
therefore  resort  to  other  and  more  covert  methods : 
give  him  command  of  a  troop  of  soldiers,  that  he  might 
be  exposed  to  the  perils  of  war  ;  send  him  on  an  expe 
dition  against  the  Philistines,  in  the  hope  of  having  him 
slain  by  their  hands ;  even  wed  him  to  his  daughter, 
on  condition  of  his  producing  an  hundred  foreskins  of 
the  Philistines,  hoping  that  he  should  lose  his  life  in 
the  attempt  to  make  it  good.  But  all  in  vain  as  re 
garded  the  great  object  of  Saul's  ambition  :  David  pros 
pered  whithersoever  he  went,  rose  higher  and  higher 
in  the  general  esteem,  and  was  not  only  married  to 
Michal,  Saul's  daughter,  but  greatly  loved  by  her,  and 
by  Jonathan  her  brother.  These  members  of  the  royal 
family  did  what  they  could  to  appease  the  brooding 
jealousy  and  dislike  of  their  father.  David  himself  at 
intervals  still  tried  the  charmed  influence  of  his  harp  : 
and  Jonathan  put  not  his  honour  merely,  but  his  very 
life  in  jeopardy,  that  he  might  secure  for  David  upright 
and  honourable  treatment  at  the  hands  of  his  father — 
but  with  no  beneficial  result.  The  reprobate  spirit  of 
Saul  became  more  and  more  settled  in  its  antipathy  to 
the  purpose  of  God  regarding  the  son  of  Jesse ;  and  it 
became  at  last  evident  that  nothing  remained  for  David 
but  Might.  Even  this  he  effected  with  difficulty,  and 
only  under  cover  of  a  stratagem  practised  by  his  wife, 
by  means  of  an  image  personating  him  in  the  bed,  and 
by  feigning  him  to  be  sick. 

Then  began  one  of  the  most  marvellous  series  of 
trials  and  persecutions,  of  vengeful  malice  and  resolute 
prosecution  of  evil,  on  the  one  side,  and,  on  the  other, 
of  noble  endurance,  elastic  energy  of  spirit,  fertility  of 
resources,  and  wonderful  escapes,  coupled  with  mani 
fold  reversions  of  good,  to  be  found  in  the  records 
of  history.  In  threading  his  perilous  way  through 
this  dark  and  chequered  part  of  his  career,  it  is  impos 
sible  to  say  that  David  always  kept  the  right  course, 
and  that  he  never  resorted  to  improper  means  to  secure 
his  safety  or  advance  his  interest.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  his  faith  sometimes  failed,  and  that  a  mis 
taken  expediency  and  virtual  falsehood  occasionally 
took  the  place  of  open  and  manly  reliance  on  better 
resources.  Of  such  a  kind,  in  particular,  were  his  false 
pretence  to  Ahimelech  at  Nob,  that  he  was  in  urgent 
haste  upon  the  king's  business,  which  incidentally  led 
to  a  most  disastrous  result,  i  Sa.  xxi. ;  his  repairing  for 
protection  to  the  king  of  Gath,  and  feigning  himself 
mad  to  escape  the  danger  in  which  he  found  himself 
involved,  eli.  xxi. ;  his  subsequent  return  to  the  same 
quarter,  after  many  narrow  escapes  from  the  hand  of 
Saul,  and  carrying  with  him  now  a  well- disciplined 
force,  with  which  he  professed  to  be  doing  service  to 
Achish,  while  in  reality  he  was  taking  the  advantages 
his  situation  afforded  to  fight  against  the  enemies  of 
his  country,  cli.  xxvii.  These  were  undoubtedly  marked 
and  obvious  failures  in  the  history  of  David,  blemishes 
that  mar  the  perfection  of  his  character,  from  the  con 
sequences  of  which  he  needed  once  arid  again  to  be 
rescued  by  the  special  interposition  of  God.  But  it 


DAVID 


400 


DAVID 


should  be  remembered,  on  the  other  side,  that  the  cir 
cumstances  in  which  David  was  placed  were  of  a  sin 
gularly  harassing  and  vexatious  description.  He  was, 
in  the  most  emphatic  sense,  a  persecuted  man  ;  for  his 
troubles  came  upon  him,  not  from  any  malice  harboured 
in  his  besom,  or  wickedness  found  in  his  hand,  but  on 
account  of  his  pre-eminent  valour  and  worth,  and  these 
as  the  signs  of  a  calling  from  Heaven,  which  he  durst 
not  quit  if  he  would.  The  adversary,  too.  with  whom 
lit-  had  to  struggle,  whatever  lie  might  originally  have 
been,  was  now  in  a  most  relentless  and  savage  humour  : 
a  man  who  sought  to  strengthen  himself  by  his  wicked 
ness,  J's.  lii.  ?;  and  so  resolutely  bent  on  extinguishing 
the  cause  of  David,  that  no  deceit,  tergiversation,  or 
vindictive  violence  was  deemed  unsuitable  to  his  pur 
pose.  Experience  shows  how  rarely  even  mature 
Christian  men  can,  in  similar  circumstances,  and  for 
any  length  of  time,  preserve  their  equanimity,  and  re 
frain  from  meeting  one-  form  of  evil  by  resorting  to 
another.  Hut  how  much  moiv  must  it  have  been  so  in 
the  case  of  a  solitary  individual  like  David!  and  he  a 
mere  stripling  at  the  commencement  of  the  troubles, 
little  more  than  turned  of  twenty!  one,  moreover,  who 
lived  under  a  far  less  clear  and  perfect  dispensation 
than  the  ( 'hristian  '  Kven  with  such  odds  against  him, 
he  did  for  a  time  bear  the  provocations  and  assaults 
aimed  at  him  with  a  fortitude  and  a  meekness  of  wis 
dom  but  rarely  exemplified.  And  if  afterwards,  when 
hunted  like  an  outlaw  from  place  to  place,  and,  amid 
the  general  terror  ami  suspicion  that  prevailed,  scarcely 
knowing  whom  to  trust,  or  whither  to  betake  himself, 
he  should  sometimes  have  stumbled  in  his  course,  this 
ouu'ht  rather  to  mo\,-  ,,ur  pity  than  excite  our  a.-tonish- 
ment  or  draw  forth  our  censure.  David  himself  v\as 
by  no  means  insensible  of  his  failings.  He  ever,  indeed, 
asserted  his  innocence  in  respect  to  the  charges  brought 
against  him  by  Saul;  and  protested,  that  so  far  from 
seeking  after  mischief,  he  had  often  returned  evil  with 
good,  and  was  suHvring  for  his  very  righteousness,  i  s;i. 
xxiv.  xx\i.;  I's.  vii.  xvii.  lii.  jtc.  l!ut  this  was  perfectly 
compatible  with  a  sense  of  shortcoming  or  sin  in  other 
parts  of  his  procedure.  How  readily,  for  example,  did 
he  take  blame  to  himself  on  hearing  of  the  results  that 
incidentally  grew  out  of  the  deceit  he  had  practised  at 
Nob — the  slaughter  of  the  priests— exclaiming  in  bit 
terness  of  soul  to  Abiathar,  "  I  have  occasioned  the 
death  of  all  the  persons  of  thy  father's  house!"  l  Sa. 
xxii.  •>•>.  So  again,  in  the  affair  with  Nabal.  what  con 
sciousness  of  error  betrays  itself  in  the  benediction  he 
pronounced  on  Abigail  for  arresting  him  in  his  rash 
purpose  to  shed  blood !  "Blessed  be  the  Lord  (MX!  of 
Israel,  which  sent  thee  this  day  to  meet  me;  and 
blessed  be  thy  advice,  and  blessed  be  thou,  which  hast 
kept  me  this  day  from  shedding  blood,  and  from  aveng 
ing  myself  with  mine  own  hand,"  cli.  xxv.  :r>,;u.  And 
still  again,  in  I's.  xxxiv.,  composed  011  the  occasion  of 
his  escape  from  the  miserable  plight  in  which  he  found 
himself  at  the  court  of  Achish,  though  he  does  not 
expressly  confess  to  the  error  of  his  course,  he  yet  vir 
tually  does  so,  by  ascribing  his  deliverance  entirely  to 
the  loving-kindness  of  Clod,  in  no  respect  to  his  own 
crooked  policy  -  nay,  solemnly  warns  all  who  would  look 
for  mercy  and  blessing  from  Heaven,  to  keep  their 
tongue  from  evil  and  their  lips  from  speaking  guile. 
The  truth  now  burst  fully  on  his  view,  that  while  present 
safety,  or  at  least  ultimate  deliverance,  was  sure  to  all 
God's  people,  it  was  only  to  be  obtained  through  humble 
VOL.  I. 


j  reliance  on  God's  name,  and  steadfast  adherence  to  the 

•  way  of  his  commandments.  Indeed,  the  very  inditing 
of  this,  and  many  more  spiritual  songs,  during  the  period 
of  these  Sauline  persecutions -songs  so  remarkable  for 
the  healthfulncss  of  their  tone,  so  fervent  in  their 
breathings  after  God,  so  fraught  with  the  dewy  fresh 
ness  of  a  youthful  piety---  is  itself  a  conclusive  proof  of 
the  habitual  uprightness  of  David's  course — a  palpable 
evidence  that  they  could  be  only  <>i'<'<txi<nia/  aberrations 

:  into  which  he  fell,  while  still  in  its  settled  frame  his 
soul  continued  right  with  God. 

Froin  /U'K  </,<»•<  iiaiiin  of  (In  thrum  t<>  /<!*  (/rent  6<rr/'- 
•t/xlnii/.  The  third  stage  of  David's  career  commences 
with  the  fall  of  his  great  adversary,  which  opened  tin- 
way  to  his  possession  of  the  throne.  The  change  was 
instantaneous  in  one  respect,  though  only  gradual  in 
another.  The  defeat  of  Israel  on  Gilhoa.  which  proved 
fatal  to  Saul  and  Jonathan,  relieved  David  of  all  fear 
of  further  persecution:  the  strength  of  the  rival  inte 
rest  was  gone;  and  the  two  parties  had  virtually 
changed  places.  On  David's  part,  however,  there  was 
need  for  all  the  discretion  and  practical  sagacity  of 
which  he  had  previously  shown  himself  to  he  so  emi 
nently  possessed.  For  his  connection  latterly  with  the 
Philistine  territory  could  not  fail  to  have  involved  him 
in  a  certain  degree  of  suspicion,  which  the  adherents  of 
the  house  of  Said  would  gladly  take  advantage  of  to 
his  prejudice;  and  the  very  misfortunes  which  had 
In-fallen  that  house  itself  would  not  unnaturally  create- 
in  the  bosoms  of  manv  a  recoil  in  its  favour.  Moved 

'  partly  perhaps  by  this  chivalrous  feeling,  Abner,  tin- 
captain  of  Saul's  host,  had  resolved  to  stand  by  the 
cause  of  his  late  master,  and  '.;ave  to  Ishbosheth  the 
benefit  of  his  military  talents  and  experience.  It  was 
evidently  proper,  therefore,  that  David  should  leave  no 
room  to  doubt  how  he  felt  in  such  a  crisis  of  his  coun 
try's  affairs  as  had  now  arisen,  and  show  where  his 
sympathies  really  lay.  Hence,  at  the  very  outset, 
the  summary  judgment  he  caused  to  IK-  inflicted  on  the 
selfish  and  sordid  Amalekite,  who  by  his  own  confes 
sion  had  given  the  finishing  stroke  to  Saul's  life,  and 
then  hurried  oft' to  David  with  his  crown  as  an  offering, 
which  he  had  a  right  to  present,  and  which  David  could 
not  but  thankfully  accept  at  his  hands.  Hence,  also, 
the  friendly  greeting  he  sent  to  the  men  of  .labesh- 
Gilead,  who  had  jeoparded  their  lives  to  give  to  the 
bodies  of  Saul  and  Jonathan  an  honourable  burial. 
And.  more  than  all.  the  song  he  indited  on  their  mourn 
ful  fate — so  touching  in  its  allusions,  so  free  and  full  in 

j  its  gush  of  tender  and  patriotic  feeling,  that  no  one 
who  heard  it  could  doubt  the  generous  affection  that 

j  glowed  in  his  bosom,  or  fail  to  perceive  how  truly  his 

!  heart  beat  for  the  honour  and  wellbeing  of  his  country. 
As  the  knowledge  of  such  things  spread,  the  impression 
in  David's  favour  must  have  grown,  and  the  minds  of 
the  people  have  been  turned  toward  him,  as  the  only 
man  fitted  to  rally  the  scattered  forces  and  repair  the 
shattered  condition  of  Israel. 

It  need  not  therefore  surprise  us  to  learn,  that  the 
men  of  Judah  presently  came  and  anointed  David  as 
their  king,  2  Sa.  ii.  4.  He  had  previously,  in  obedience 
to  the  divine  direction,  left  Ziklag  and  taken  up  his 
abode  at  Hebron.  But  even  before  this,  and  also  before 
the  catastrophe  at  Gilboa,  the  way  was  preparing  for 
David's  ascendency,  and  many  accessions  were  made  to 
his  party.  In  1  (.'h.  xii.  we  have  a  long  list  of  persons, 
many  of  them  designated  mighty  men  of  war,  who 

52 


DAVID 


-MO 


DAYTD 


went  over  to  David  from  the  different  tribes  of  Israel 
— not  only  from  Judah,  but  also  from  Gad,  Manasseh, 
and  not  a  few  even  of  Saul's  "brethren  of  Benja 
min'' — so  that,  as  it  is  said,  "there  came  to  David 
to  help  him  day  by  day,  until  there  was  a  great  host, 
like  the  host  of  ("-rod."  It  would  seem  that  the  signs 
of  Saul's  perdition  had  become  so  palpable,  and  the 
yoke  of  his  arbitrary  and  jealous  administration  so  op 
pressive,  that  the  result  was  anticipated  by  a  consider 
able  number  of  the  more  clear-sighted  and  valiant  men, 
who  turned  away  from  Saul  as  the  destroyer,  and  bcij-aii 
to  look  to  David  as  the  hope  of  their  country.  So  that 
by  the  time  David  left  Ziklag  for  Hebron  lie  had,  one 
might  say,  the  state  and  equipment  of  a  king:  and  the 
large  spoil  which  he  had  been  enabled  to  distribute.: 

amoii"-  the  cities   in  the  south  of  Judah,  after  his  de- 

, 

feat  of  the  Amalekites.  at  once  evinced  the  strength  of  : 
his  host    and  the  liberality   of    his    heart  toward    his 
brethren  of  his  own  tribe. 

David  was  still  only  thirty  years  of  age.    -i  Sn.  v  -i. — a  • 
comparative  youth,  though  already  old  in  a  varied  and 
hard-earned  experience.      It  was  now  simply  a  question  , 
of  time   with  him   as   to  the  possession  of  the   entire 
kingdom;  for  it  soon  became  manifest  that  Ishboshetli 
was  altogether  unfit  to  guide  at  such  a  crisis  the  reins 
of  government.      There   were,  however,  a  good  many 
skirmishes  between  his  forces  under  Aimer,  and  those  of  , 
David  under  Joab:  in  one  of  which  Asahel,  the  brother 
of  Joab,  fell  a  sacrifice  to  his  own  rashness  by  the  hand 
of  Aimer.     A  quarrel  by  and  by  ensued  between  Abner 
and  Ishboshetli,  on  a  ground  far  from  creditable  to  the  ' 
former;  and  Abner  immediately  entered  into  negotia 
tions  with  David.    What  were  the  terms  of  their  agree 
ment  we  are  not  told,  excepting  that  David  made  the 
restoration  to   him   of  Michal,  Saul's  daughter,  an  in 
dispensable  preliminary.      The  reasons  for  this  doubtless 
were,  that  Michal,  in  the  first  instance,  was  his  lawful 
wife,  and  had  been  unrighteously  taken  from  him  and 
given  to  another  man  (of  the  name  of  Phaltiel) ;  that  it 
would  have  been  unbecoming  in  him,  a  manifest  viola 
tion  of  order  and  decorum,  to  have  sitten  on  the  throne  , 
of  Israel,  while  his  proper  wife  remained  in  the  possession 
of  one  of  his  subjects  ;  and  that  the  resumption  in  this 
respect  of  his  own,  was  fitted  to  tell  with  a  conciliatory 
effect    on    the    adherents  of  Saul's   house.       To    place 
Phaltiel' s  attachment  to  Michal  in  opposition  to  such 
grounds,   and  represent  David's  conduct  in  the  matter  : 
as   selfish  and  hard,    is  to   subordinate   the    claims  of 
reason  and  principle  to  mere  natural  feeling. 

This  part  of  the  conditions  was  speedily  fulfilled  by 
Abner,  Phaltiel  weeping,  it  is  said,  at  the  separation  of 
Michal  from  him,  but  offering  no  resistance.  The 
further  connection  of  David  with  Abner  was  violently 
interrupted  by  Joab,  who  seeking  to  be  revenged  for 
the  death  of  his  brother  Asahel,  and  not  improbably  also 
actuated  by  some  feeling  of  jealousy  in  regard  to  the 
place  likely  to  be  occupied  by  Aimer,  under  the  guise 
of  a  friendly  interview  with  Abner  took  occasion  to 
slay  him.  David  was  affected  with  deep  sorrow  at  this 
calamity,  which  both  in  itself,  and  from  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  perpetrated,  was  fitted  to  tell  most  un 
favourably  on  his  interest.  He  therefore  publicly 
bewailed  what  had  happened,  celebrated  the  memory 
of  Abner  as  that  of  a  prince  in  Israel,  and  strongly 
reprobated  the  conduct  of  Joab,  though  he  durst  not 
proceed  further  against  him.  There  was  no  necessity 
for  any  such  restraint  in  regard  to  the  perpetrators  of 


another  crime — the  two  men  wlu>  laid  violent  hands  on 
Ishboshetli,  and  brought  his  head  to  David:  these  he 
ordered  to  be  instantly  put  to  death.  But  now  the 
path  was  clear  for  the  reunion  of  all  the  tribes  under 
the  sway  of  David;  by  the  providence  of  God,  and  by 
his  own  inherent  fitness  for  the  work,  he  stood  in  a 
manner  alone;  and  so  the  whole  commonwealth  of  Israel 
came  by  their  representatives  to  Hebron  and  anointed 
him  their  king,  -_'Sa.  v.  i,  PC<I.  This  was  the  third  and 
final  anointing  1  )avid  received.  The  precise  date  of  it  is 
not  given,  but  it  must  have  been  near  the  close  of  the 
seven  years  during  which  David  is  said  to  have  reigned 
at  Hebron;  since  it  was  clear  he  could  not  for  any  length 
of  time  have  continued  the  seat  of  his  government 
there  after  being  made  the  head  of  the  whole  nation. 
Accordingly,  the  first  thing  we  hear  of  his  movements 
after  his  elevation  to  the  full  sovereignty,  respects  the 
conquest  of  the  stronghold  of  Zion,  which  till  then 
had  been  held  by  the  Jebusites,  and  the  selection  of 
Jerusalem  as  the  capital  of  his  kingdom.  The  situa 
tion  had  many  natural  advantages  for  such  a  purpose, 
and  it  was  so  carefully  fortified  by  David,  that  it  be 
came  a  place  of  great  strength. 

The  prosperity  of  David  however,  in  one  direction, 
naturally  gave  rise  to  opposition  and  assault  in  another. 
It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  Philistines  in  particular, 
with  whom  David  had  been  so  closely  connected,  would 
resent  his  elevation  to  the  throne,  and  would  endeavour 
to  establish  over  him  the  ascendency  they  had  latterly 
acquired  over  the  house  of  Saul.  Accordingly,  they 
came  up  in  full  array  against  him  once,  and  even  a 
second  time:  but  in  each  case  were  completely  defeated, 
2  Sa.  v.  17-i'i.  At  a  later  period  the  Philistines  appeared 
again  among  the  assailants  of  David,  but  not,  it  would 
seem,  by  themselves ;  they  acted  in  concert  with  the 
other  surrounding  nations — the  Moabites.  Ammonites, 
Syrians,  and  Edomites — who  together  involved  David 
in  a  series  of  arduous  struggles,  and  sometimes  in  great 
apparent  danger;  but  with  the  help  of  God  he  proved 
triumphant  overall.  2Sa.  vi.  viii.;  comp.  with  Ps.  lx.  Ixxxiii.  cviii. 
So  that  the  kingdom  received  through  his  instrumen 
tality  both  a  firm  consolidation  and  a  wonderful  en 
largement:  Israel  was  united  at  home  into  one  compact 
body,  and  it  held  a  political  sway  over  the  tribes  that 
lay  around  them  from  Egypt  to  the  Euphrates.  But 
David  knew  his  mission  too  well  to  suppose  that  a  poli 
tical  ascendency,  or  a  national  resuscitation,  was  all  he 
had  to  accomplish.  The  religious,  not  less  than  the 
political,  state  of  his  people  called  for  a  reforming  energy. 
There  were  disorders  of  old  standing,  such  especially  as 
had  come  in  about  the  time  of  Eli's  death,  and  which 
must  have  been  aggravated  by  the  ungodliness  that 
characterized  the  party  and  later  proceedings  of  Saul. 
David  therefore  addressed  himself  in  earnest  to  the 
task  of  bringing  the  public  service  of  God  into  a  proper 
organization,  and  infusing  new  life  into  its  ministra 
tions.  This  lay  fully  within  the  scope  of  his  calling,  as 
the  earthly  head  of  the  theocracy ;  for  as  such  it  be 
longed  to  him  to  rule  in  the  name  of  God,  and  take 
order  to  have  all  that  pertained  to  the  divine  will  and 
glory  efficiently  carried  out.  And  as  the  tabernacle 
was  still  in  a  mutilated  condition,  the  ark  of  the  cove 
nant  having  never  been  restored  since  it  was  captured 
by  the  Philistines  and  deposited  at  Kirjath-jearim,  his 
first  object  was  to  have  this  brought  back  and  set  in 
its  proper  place.  That  place  now,  he  was  given  to 
understand,  was  Jerusalem — where  was  to  be  the 


DAYJD 


411 


DAVID 


centre  of  the  kingdom  in  a  religious  as  well  as  a  civil 
respect ;  and  the  covering  under  which  it  was  to  be 
put  was  a  tent  specially  provided  for  it,  doubtless  after 
the  pattern  of  the  old  one,  and  so  provided,  we  may 
naturally  suppose,  by  divine  direction.  The  proba 
bility  is,  that  the  original  tent  was  by  this  time  in  a 
decayed  and  shattered  condition — unfit  for  being  trans 
ferred  to  a  city  like  Jerusalem,  and  set  down  there 
in  the  midst  of  new  and  ornate  buildings.  It  was 
therefore  left  standing  at  Giheon,  -j  Ch.  i.  ;!,  while  a  new 
one  formed  after  its  likeness  was  pitched  in  Jerusalem: 
whither  also  were  carried  the  brazen  altar,  together 
probably  with  the  rest  of  the  more  important  utensils. 
A  day  was  then  set  apart  for  1 'ringing  up  the  ark  to 
its  appointed  place  in  this  tabernacle  ;  but  from  want  of 
due  preparation,  and  a  certain  degree  of  irreverence 
shown  by  Uzzah  in  laying  hold  of  the  ark,  the  judgment 
of  the  Lord  broke  forth,  and  awe-struck  by  the  visita 
tion  of  Heaven  upon  Uz/.ah,  it  was  left  for  a  time  in 
the  house  of  Obed-edom.  which  was  nigh  at  hand. 
But  only  for  a  time ;  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  ark 
into  Jerusalem  was  again  resumed,  and  accomplished 
also  amid  great  demonstrations  of  joy  and  gladness. 
In  these  David  himself  took  so  active  a  part,  that  he 
was  reproached  by  Michal  for  behaving  in  an  uukinglike 
manner.  His  hilarity,  however,  was  the  result  of  reli 
gious  feeling,  the  exuberance  of  spiritual  joy,  which 
it  was  more  his  glory  to  exhibit  on  such  an  occasion. 
than  would  have  been  cold  and  stately  decorum,  such 
as  Michal  desiderated.  It  is  to  that  occasion  al-o. 
as  is  generally  believed,  \\e  owe  one  of  the  tine-t  of 
David's  sacred  lyrics  I'salm  xxiv.  equally  remark 
able  for  the  depth  of  its  spiritual  meaning  and  for 
the  hallowed  fire  that  idows  in  its  moving  strains. 
But  this  was  only  one  of  many  compositions  of  a  like 
nature,  which  David  through  the  Spirit  prepared  for 
raising  the  hearts  and  animating  the  devotions  of  the 
covenant-people.  They  now  reaped  in  this  respect  also 
the  fruit  of  David's  bygone  troubles.  For,  as  has  been 
justly  said.  "  it  was  the  cross  which  first  brought 
David's  poetical  gift  into  full  development.  His  first 
psalms  were  composed  during  the  time  of  the  perse 
cutions  from  Saul,  and  the  old  savin-;,  '  where  would 
have  been  David's  psalms,  if  he  had  not  been  per 
cnted  ?'  has  its  foundation  in  truth"  (Ilcngsteiii>cr 
the  Psalms,  Append,  sect.  '_'). 

Besides  the  psahnodic  poetry  which  David  produced 
in  such  abundance  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  lie 
also  paid  much  attention  to  the  cultivation  of  sacred 
music,  in  which  he  was  himself  so  gre:it  a  master. 
Certain  Levitical  families  were  set  specially  apart  for 
the  purpose  of  conducting  the  music  of  the  temple, 
with  their  heads  and  leaders  Asaph,  Heinan,  and  Je- 
duthun,  irh.  xxv.  No  fewer  than  4000  out  of  the  38,000 
Levites  existing  in  David's  time  were  employed  in  this 
department  of  service;  some,  however,  being  stationed 
at  Gibeon  beside  the  old  tent,  while  the  rest  served  at 
the  new  one  in  Jerusalem.  Ultimately,  of  course,  the 
temple  absorbed  the  whole.  For  the  purpose  of  secur 
ing  an  orderly  and  efficient  administration  in  other 
parts  of  the  sacred  ritual,  the  priests  also  were  divided 
into  families,  forming  twenty-four  courses,  which  con 
tinued  to  apostolic  times,  i  cii.  xxiv.  Some  of  the  ar 
rangements  were,  we  may  suppose,  introduced  gradu 
ally,  and  certain  alterations  would  naturally  be  made 
after  the  erection  of  the  temple.  But  to  David  belongs 
the  honour  of  initiating  this  higher  and  more  perfect 


celebration  of  the  Old  Testament  worship,  and  of  ac 
companying  it  with  such  spiritual  songs  as  gave  living 
expression  to  its  great  truths  and  principles. 

David's  zeal  for  the  house  of  liod  did  not  even  rest 
with  these  strivings  fora  more  lively  and  befitting  per 
formance  of  the  tabernacle  service  :  he  sought  to  have 
the  very  fashion  of  it  changed,  by  raising  tiie  tabernacle 
itself  into  a  magnificent  temple.  He  thought  it  un 
seemly  that  the  ark  of  (iod  should  continue  within 
curtains,  while  he  was  himself  dwelling  in  an  house  of 
cellar.  •>  S:i.  \ii.j.  CHI,  and  do  all  that  is  in  thine  heart, 
said  Nathan  the  prop! let.  when  lu  lirst  heard  the  pro 
posal:  but  he  afterwards  received  a  special  revelation 
from  t!od,  instructing  him  to  express  the  divine  appro 
val  of  David's  purpose,  but  reserving  the  execution  of 
it  to  the  peaceful  times  of  David's  successor;  and  in 
consideration  of  Davids  faithfulness  and  zeal,  assuring 
him  of  a  perpetuity  of  his  kingdom,  yea.  indicating  in 
no  doubtful  terms,  that  from  his  loins,  and  as  the  ulti 
mate  inheritor  of  hi>  throne,  should  come  the  glorious 
Saviour  and  Head  of  redeemed  humanity,  -j  sa.  vii.  r.'-ir. 
This  great  promise  forms  the  basis  of  all  the  Messianic 
psalms,  in  which  its  import  is  more  distinctly  unfolded 

such  as  1's.  ii.  xvi.  \\ii.  xlv.  ex.  &c.  It  forms  the 
climax  of  David'*  heritage  of  -.lory,  as  the  period  when 
it  came  was  that  also  of  the  culmination  of  his  spiritual 
life:  he  had  now  done  his  noblest  works  for  (!od,  and 
in  return  he  received  the  highe-4  tokens  of  the  divine 
satisfaction.  Would  that  he  had  but  known  how  to 
stand  where  lie  had  attained,  and  to  drink  with  meekness 
of  wisdom  the  cup  of  bliss  which  was  made  to  run  over! 

P.Ut  the  result  proved  otherwise;  David  could  not 
alade  iii  this  fulness  of  honour.  There  had  heui  a  root 
of  bitterness  in  his  domestic  condition  -  tolerated  in  him 
a>  in  oth'  r>  from  the  imperfection  of  the  times,  but  by 
no  means  accordant  \\ith  the  scriptural  ideal  of  a  holy 
life  and  from  it-  very  nature  apt  to  -row  and  become 
a  snare  to  the  soul.  We  refer  to  his  polygamy,  wife 
after  wife  having  been  added  to  his  household  as  he 
rose  to  consideration  and  inlbieiice  in  the  world:  beside 
Michal,  fir.->t  taken  from  him  and  again  restored,  Ahi- 
noani  and  Abigail,  whom  he  successively  married  in  the 
\\ilderness,  then  at  Hebron  the  daughter  of  Talmai 
king  of  Geshur,  Abital,  F.glah.  And  now,  in  the  noon 
tide  of  his  prosperity,  as  if  these  could  not  suffice  to 
minister  to  his  fleshly  desire,  and  having  espied  in  a 
moment  of  weakness  the  beautiful  wife  of  Uriah,  he 
took  her  to  his  lied,  while  her  husband  was  fighting  at 
a  distance  in  the  service  of  the  king.  A  most  mourn 
ful  defection  of  itself  in  such  a  man'  but  fearfully  ag 
gravated  by  the  series  of  iniquities  that  followed  in 
its  train  —the  base  attempts,  first  by  cozening,  then  by 
intoxicating  drink,  to  hoodwink  Uriah  in  regard  to  the 
dishonour  that  had  been  done  to  him — and,  when  these 
failed,  the  still  baser  device  practised  through  Joab  of 
sending  him  to  a  post  of  danger,  and  treating  him  so 
as  to  insure  his  falling  by  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 
One's  soul  trembles,  on  reading  the  history,  at  the 
amazing  depth  it  discloses  of  deceitfulness  and  de 
pravity  in  the  human  heart — even  in  a  heart  that  has 
passed  through  a  most  peculiar  training  and  risen 
high  in  the  divine  life.  So  blind  and  senseless  in  spiri 
tual  things  had  David  become,  that  nothing  but  the 
message  of  God  by  Nathan,  with  the  piercing  applica 
tion,  "  Thou  art  the  man,"  availed  to  rouse  him  from  his 
false  security,  and  bring  him  to  a  sense  of  the  enormity 
of  his  procedure.  But  when  once  properly  aroused  all 


DAVID 


412 


his  better  feelings  revived,  and  if  the  guilt  of  true  be 
lievers  seldom  reaches  a  height  like  his,  as  rarely  per 
haps  do  they  attain  to  his  measure  in  depth  and  pun 
gency  of  penitential  grief.  The  evidence  of  this  sur 
vives,  not  merely  in  the  historical  record  of  his  tears, 
and  supplications,  and  fasting,  2  Sa.  xii.  in,  so<|.,  but  also, 
and  still  more,  in  those  penitential  psalms  in  which 
he  has  depicted  "  the  soul's  deepest  hell  of  agony,"  and 
provided  tor  all  time  forms  of  devotion  for  those  who 
are  wrestling  with  the  fears  of  guilt  and  condemnation. 
Indeed,  viewed  in  respect  to  his  peculiar  calling  as 
the  sweet  Psalmist  of  Israel,  David  could  not  have 
served  either  his  own  or  future  generations  of  the 
people  of  God  as  he  has  done,  unless  he  had  grappled 
with  convictions  of  guilt  in  their  more  appalling  forms, 
and  felt  all  God's  waves  and  billows  passing  over  him. 
For  though — to  use  the  language  of  another — "  we 
neither  excuse  his  acts  of  wickedness,  nor  impute  them 
to  the  temptation  of  God,  who  cannot  be  tempted  of 
evil,  neither  tempteth  any  man,  yet  by  his  loss  the 
church  hath  gained;  out  of  the  evil  of  his  ways  much 
H'ood  hath  been  made  to  arise  ;  and  if  he  had  not 
passed  through  every  valley  of  humiliation,  and  stumbled 
upon  the  dark  mountains,  we  should  not  have  had  a 
language  for  the  souls  of  the  penitent,  or  an  expression 
for  the  dark  troubles  which  compass  the  soul  that  fcareth 
to  be  deserted  by  its  God"  (Irving,  Preface  to  Home  on  the 
Psalms) . 

Even  that  does  not  comprise  the  whole  of  the 
church's  gain.  As  new  views  were  now  disclosed  to 
David's  soul  of  the  unspeakable  depth  and  bitterness  of 
sin,  so  he  was  prepared  for  relishing  in  his  own  behalf, 
and  in  a  measure  presenting  to  others,  a  new  and 
deeper  revelation  of  the  future  King  that  was  to  spring 
from  his  loins,  and  to  bring  the  kingdom  to  its  destined 
completeness.  He  already  knew  that  the  right  to  reign 
over  the  house  of  God  was  to  be  linked  in  perpetual 
union  with  his  line ;  that  blessing  in  the  higher  sense 
was  not  to  be  attainable  among  men,  except  as  the 
fruit  of  the  covenant  made  with  him.  But  alas !  how 
deeply  must  he  now  have  felt  that  he  was  himself  in 
capable  of  imparting  that  blessing !  Outward  triumphs 
he  had  been  enabled  to  accomplish  for  the  theocracy; 
his  administrative  gifts  had  secured  for  it  a  more  com 
pact  organization,  and  by  his  spiritual  songs  and  ener 
getic  agency  he  had  most  materially  contributed  to  pour 
fresh  life  into  its  institutions  and  services.  But  what 
were  all  these  in  comparison  with  the  good  that  was 
still  needed  to  reach  the  destined  result !  In  the  great 
controversy  that  sin  raises  between  man  and  God,  David 
found  himself  like  one  sinking  amid  deep  waters ;  his 
bowels  melted  as  wax  before  the  fire  ;  and  from  these 
depths  of  distress  the  cry  arose  in  his  bosom  for  one  who 
should  be  able  to  grapple  effectually  with  the  mighty  evil, 
and  bring  deliverance  from  its  power.  It  was,  we  have 
reason  to  believe,  when  thus  exercised,  that  the  eye  of 
David  began  to  be  opened  by  the  Spirit  on  the  prospect  of 
a  sin-bearing  and  suffering  Messiah.  It  was  no  longer 
one  who  should  merely  conquer  and  rule,  that  could  satisfy 
his  desire— one  that  should  subdue  the  nations  under 
him  and  dash  their  rebel  chiefs  in  pieces  like  a  potter's 
vessel;  but  one  who  should  be  a  priest  upon  the  throne, 
vea,  and  a  priest  on  his  way  to  it  making  reconciliation 
for  iniquity,  and  by  the  agonies  of  a  mysterious  but 
triumphant  wrestling  unto  death,  slaying  the  evil  in 
its  very  root,  Ps.  xxii.  xl.  ex.  Such  was  the  longing  that 
now  arose,  the  hope  that  now  formed  itself  in  David's 


bosom;  and  if  it  dawned  upon  him  through  the  troubled 
gloom  of  painful  experiences — if  even  with  much  crying 
and  tears  he  attained  to  some  knowledge  of  this  mys 
tery  of  godliness,  it  was  surely  a  blessed  compensation 
to  his  sorrow,  and  a  wonderful  exhibition  of  divine 
grace,  thus  to  connect  the  evil  with  the  good,  and 
make  the  deep  agitations  and  earnest  strivings  occa 
sioned  by  sin  point  the  way  so  distinctly  to  the  coming 
light  and  peace  of  the  world.  No  common  subject  and 
vessel  of  grace  must  he  have  been,  whose  history  in  its 
darker  aspects  could  have  been  made  instinct  with  such 
life  and  hope  to  the  church  of  God. 

The  seas/jn  of  punishment,  Absalom's  revolt. —  The 
important  spiritual  ends  to  which  David's  great  back 
sliding  was  overruled  by  God,  did  not  prevent  its 
being  the  occasion  of  heavy  and  in  some  sense  irre 
medial )le  evils  in  David's  condition.  And  it  is  from 
this  sad  event  that  another,  and  in  some  respects  the 
most  trying  and  afflictive  stage  of  his  history,  is  to 
be  dated.  The  prophet  Nathan  gave  clear  intimation 
to  him,  at  the  outset,  that  while  God  pardoned  his  sin 
— to  the  extent,  that  is,  of  not  subjecting  him  to  the 
legal  penalty  of  death  which  was  due  to  it— yet  there 
should  be  in  the  coming  events  of  providence  palpable 
visitations  of  the  divine  displeasure  on  account  of  it. 
and  that  his  iniquity  should  come  back  upon  him  in 
troubles  and  calamities  that  should  overwhelm  him 
with  confusion.  It  was  the  glory  of  David  in  his 
better  conditions  to  be  a  type  of  the  kingdom  over 
which  he  was  placed ;  the  men  of  his  own  generation 
and  of  future  times  were  to  see  imaged  in  him  the 
inseparable  connection  that  existed  in  God's  ordina 
tion  between  the  humble,  spiritual.  God-fearing  dis 
position  which  it  required,  and  the  rich  inheritance  of 
blessing  and  honour  which  it  promised.  And  when 
now.  after  having  been  so  remarkably  owned  by  God. 
and  peculiarly  identified  with  his  cause,  he  turned  from 
his  duty  of  service  by  flagrantly  violating  some  of  the 
plainest  commandments  of  Heaven,  not  only  he,  but 
all  future  successors  of  the  throne,  must  see  in  God's 
subsequent  dealings  toward  him,  how  infallibly  a  de 
parture  from  righteousness  involved  a  curtailment  of 
blessing,  and  how  in  proportion  as  sin  might  be  com 
mitted  the  rod  of  chastisement  should  certainly  be  ap 
plied.  Because  he  had  given  great  occasion  to  the 
enemies  of  the  Lord  to  blaspheme,  both  the  child  born 
of  Bathsheba  must  die,  and  other  calamities,  worse 
even  than  family  bereavement,  must  be  looked  for. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  very  particularly  the 
!  successive  stages  in  this  latter  and  somewhat  melan 
choly  part  of  David's  career ;  more  especially  as  most 
of  them  will  be  found  noticed  in  connection  with  the 
names  of  individuals  who  shared  at  different  points  in 
the  transactions.  But  there  came  first,  with  mournful 
resemblance  to  the  father's  sin,  the  unnatural  love  of 
Amnon  to  his  sister  Tamar,  ending  in  the  violation 
of  her  chastity;  then  the  murder  of  Amnon  by  Absa 
lom,  followed  by  Absalom's  flight  to  Geshur.  By  and 
by  came,  after  his  recall  from  exile,  the  revolt  of  Ab 
salom  himself,  who  carried  his  disrespect  to  his  father, 
and  his  own  personal  ambition,  to  their  utmost  height, 
by  conspiring  at  once  against  David's  life  and  for  the 
possession  of  the  throne.  So  skilfully  had  the  plot 
been  laid,  and  so  grievously  shaken  were  the  founda 
tions  of  David's  authority  at  the  time,  that  he  was  ob 
liged  to  seek  refuge  in  flight:  having  the  sadness  of  his 
condition  embittered  by  the  twofold  sting,  that  it  was 


DAVID 


413 


DAVID 


his  own  sun  who  sought  his  life,  and  his  own  sin  that 
was  finding-  its  retribution  in  the  unnatural  crime.  It 
was  undoubtedly  this  latter  thought  that  made  him 
at  first  so  distrustful  of  his  resources,  and  throughout 
the  conflict  that  ensued  rendered  him  subject  to  a 
weakness  and  vacillation,  of  which  we  rind  compara 
tively  few  traces  in  the  earlier  and  brighter  parts  of  his 
history.  The  remembrance  of  his  grievous  backsliding, 
as  the  real  cause  of  the  troubles  that  had  come  upon 
im.  seems  to  have  hung  like  a  cloud  between  his  soul 


a7id    the    countenance    of    God;    so  that,   with   all  hi.- 
efforts  to  regain  confidence  and  assured  hope,  fears  ami 
misgivings  constantly  returned   upon  him,  and  lie  was     sav 
doubtful  how  long  the  cloud  mi^ht  be  allowed  to  con 
tinue,  or  how   far  the  rebuke  lui^lit  proceed.      He  did. 


made  with  their  fathers.  The  bearing  of  this  transac 
tion  on  the  relation  of  the  Gibeonites  to  Israel  and  the 
moral  government  of  Jehovah,  will  be  considered  in 
its  proper  place.  (&cc  GIBEOMTKS.)  lUit  in  respect  to 
David,  "it  has  been  suspected  (so  the  accusation  runs) 
that  the  whole  was  contrived  by  the  revenge  of  the 
priesthood  for  the  barbarous  massacre  perpetrated  by 
Saul  on  the  priestly  city  of  Nob  :  and  that  David  the 
more  readily  acquiesced,  since  it  was  desirable  for  the 
peace  of  his  successors  that  the  house  of  Saul  should  be 


exterminated.  IJoth  suspicions  are  too  probable  to  be 
easily  set  aside"  (I'.  W.  NUWUKUI).  We  should  rather 
_uite  easily,  were  there  nothing  of  an  unbelieving 
and  envious  spirit  bent  on  blackening  the  characters  of 
those  who  have  played  a  distinguished  part  in  sacred 


however,  by  degrees  attain  to  some  measure  of  repose.  !  history,  and  where  facts  fail  for  the  purpose,  drawing 
by  throwing  himself  back  on  the  covenant  faithfulness  '  on  imagination.  There  is  not  the  shadow  of  evidence 
ot  God,  and  reflecting  that  however  he  might  have  \  that  David  had  a  sinister  end  in  view  in  the  part  he 


stumbled  in  his  course,  still  with  him  was  tin;  truth 
and  righteousness  of  God.  while  those  who  were  against 
him  plainly  made  vanity  and  lies  their  refuge,  r>.  iii.  k. 
Nor  was  his  confidence  misplaced.  Tl 
interposed  in  his  behalf,  and  gave  to  his  armies  suc 
cess  in  the  day  of  battle:  although  to  him  the  joy  of 
victory  was  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  anguish 
he  experienced  from  the  death  of  Absalom.  (>'«  An 
SAI.OM,  AiiiTHui-HKL.  <ve. )  He  afterwards  recovered 


i  the 

lie  wrote  that  stirring  and  sublime  song  which  is  given 
in  '_'  Sa.  xxii..  and  which  with  certain  alterations  forms 
1'salm  xviii.,  celebrating  the  Lord's  g buss  in  de 
livering  him  from  all  his  enemies.  The  first  part  refers 
more  especially  to  the  troubles  of  his  early  life,  and 
the  second  to  those  of  the  later. 

The  procedure  of  David,  partly  during  the  peri. id  of 
this  great  rebellion,  and  partly  after  its  termination, 
toward  the  family  of  Saul,  has  often  been  made  the 
subject  of  severe  remark.  It  is  admitted  that  the  kimi 
had  shown  great  kindness  to  Mephibosheth  the  son  of 
Jonathan  ;  but  he  is  charged  with  ultimately  treating 
him  in  an  unkind  manner,  when  allowing  Ziba  to  retain 
half  the  inheritance  that  belonged  to  Mephibosheth, 
after  having  improperly  obtained  possession  of  it  by 
carrying  a  slanderous  report  of  his  master,  •_'  Sa.  xix.LM,se<i 
In  this  charge  it  is  assumed  that  Mephibosheth's  ac 
count  of  the  matter  was  altogether  correct,  and  that  the 
king  had  no  ground  whatever  of  complaint  against  him. 
lint  we  are  by  no  means  sure  of  that:  and  indeed  the 
natural  impression  of  the  narrative  evidently  points  in 
another  direction.  ''The  whole  speech  of  Mcphibo- 
sheth,"  says  Eisenlohr,  "  Ijetrays  a  bad  conscience,  and 
his  guilt,  which  could  not  bear  a  close  investigation, 
is  but  too  manifest"  (i.  p.  LIKJ).  Had  Ziba  acted  the  ut 
terly  false  and  selfish  part  that  is  here  represented,  it 
is  extremely  improbable  that  David  would  have  allowed 
him  to  be  so  great  a  gainer  by  his  treachery;  the  pro 
bability  rather  is,  that  neither  the  servant  nor  the 
master  had  acted  precisely  as  they  should  have  done, 
and  that  such  a  division  as  that  proposed  by  David  was 
the  readiest  and  most  expedient  way  of  bringing  the 
matter  to  a  conclusion.  It  was  a  display  of  clemency 
to  both  to  deal  with  it  as  David  actually  did.  Another, 
and  still  heavier  charge  has  lieen  brought  against 
David,  in  regard  to  the  slaughter  of  seven  sons  of 
Saul  to  appease  the  anger  of  the  Gibeonites  on  account 
of  the  nearly  total  extermination  of  them  by  Saul  and 
his  bloody  house,  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  oath 


took  in  the  transaction.  He  merely  interposed  to 
rescue  the  family  of  Jonathan  from  any  share  in  the 
retribution:  and  afteruanls  showed  marked  kindness 
Lord  a-_rain  to  Ki/pah.  the  mother  of  two  of  the  sons  that  were 
slain,  for  the  maternal  affection  she  exhibited  toward 
the  remains  of  the  deceased.  As  far  as  appears,  David 
no  further  interfered,  than  to  give  certain  proofs  of  his 
consideration  anil  regard.  And  manifestly  the  interest 
of  Saul's  house  was  now  too  much  reduced  to  excite 
jealousy  or  dread  in  the  mind  of  David. 

'/'/,.  runcfiidiiif/  Klat/(  "f  David'*  /,i'.<lui-i/.  -  This 
reach.-  from  tin-  close  of  Absalom's  rebellion  to  his  own 
decease,  and  appears  to  have  been,  for  the  most  part, 
passed  in  peace  and  quietness;  but  it  was  marked  by 
one  serious  defection,  which  in\..l\ed  the  land  in  a  sore 
and  perilous  visitation.  The  defection  in  this  case  was 
by  no  means  of  so  flagrant  and  palpable  a  nature  as 
that  of  which  David  had  previously  been  guilty,  nor 
wa>  it  so  exclusively  connected  with  his  own  personal 
l>ehaviour.  It  would  seem  that,  after  the  overthrow  of 
Absalom's  faction,  matters  went  on  so  smoothly,  and 
the  kingdom  in  David's  hands  assumed  so  firm  and 
-ettlcd  an  appearance,  that  a  feeling  of  proud  secu 
rity  began  to  spring  up  in  his  own  mind,  and  generally 
in  the  minds  of  the  people.  The  enemies,  internal  and 
external,  had  one  after  another  been  driven  from  the 
field;  the  administration  of  David  had  only  become 
stronger  from  the  unsuccessful  efforts  that  had  l>een 
made  to  subvert  it ;  immense  resources  of  every  kind 
were  now  at  command — what  could  they  have  any 
longer  to  fear  .'  Who  might  henceforth  venture  to  pro 
voke  the  hostility  of  so  formidable  a  power '.  Such 
seems  to  have  been  the  spirit  in  which  David  said  to 
Joah,  "(Jo  and  number  Israel  and  Judah.''  In  him, 
doubtless,  the  carnal,  self-reliant  spirit  had  its  culmina 
tion,  as  the  kingdom  with  its  plenitude  of  resources  and 
its  well-ordered  government  was  more  peculiarly  his. 
But  it  is  plain  that  the  people  shared  with  their  king- 
in  the  improper  feeling;  and  hence  it  is  said  that  "the 
anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against  Israel,"  2  Sa. 
xxiv.  i — not  against  David  simply,  but  against  Israel  at 
large  ;  ''  and  (to  render  the  cause  of  the  anger  manifest), 
He  moved  David  against  them  to  say,  Go  and  number 
Israel  and  Judah."  David  here  acted  simply  as  the 
head  and  representative  of  the  entire  community,  and 
gave  distinct  form  and  expression  to  what  was  working 
in  many  bosoms.  The  Lord  moved  him  to  take  the 
step  in  question — so  it  is  said  in  2  Samuel;  but  in 
1  Ch.  xxi.  1,  the  motion  is  ascribed  to  Satan:  "Satan 


DAVID 


DAVID 


stood  up  against  Israel,  and  provoked  David  to  number 
Israel."  The  purpose,  in  its  sinful  character  and  ten 
dency,  was  really  of  Satan,  since  God  tempteth  no  man 
to  evil ;  but  Satan  could  only  act  a  subordinate  and  in 
strumental  part:  and  that  the  evil  took  this  precise 
form  rather  than  any  other,  was  not  of  Satan,  but  of 
(Kid;  the  ends  of  the  divine  government  required  that 
it  should  take  this  particular  direction.  So  that  the 
action  might  indifferently  be  ascribed  to  Satan  or  to 
God,  according  to  the  point  of  view  from  which  it  was 
contemplated.  Hut  that  the  object  aimed  at  in  the 
numbering  of  the  people  had  anything  to  do,  as  some  have 
imagined,  with  the  establishment  of  a  military  despo 
tism,  or  with  a  scheme  of  foreign  conquest,  is  an  en 
tirely  groundless  hypothesis,  and  in  palpable  contrariety 
with  what  is  said  of  the  people's  participation  in  the 
guilt,  as  well  as  with  the  advanced  age  of  the  king. 
There  was,  no  doubt,  a  large  military  force  in  David's 
reign — which,  however,  seems  rather  to  have  been  a  sort 
of  militia,  than  a  standing  army ;  for  it  is  said  they 
served  by  monthly  courses,  24,000  each  month,  i  Ch. 
xxvii.  And  with  such  an  extent  of  conquered  territory, 
and  so  many  tributary  nations  to  keep  in  cheek,  a 
smaller  force  could  scarcely  have  sufficed  for  the  peace 
and  safety  of  the  kingdom. 

To  return  to  the  act  of  numbering:  it  is  somewhat 
singular  that  Joab  should  have  possessed  a  spirit  of 
discernment  superior  to  his  master's,  and  should  have 
sought  to  divert  David  from  his  purpose.  The  captains 
of  the  army  generally  are  represented  as  having  been 
against  it,  2  sa.  xxiv.  3,  4,  which  renders  it  probable  that 
the  opposition  proceeded  from  politic,  rather  than  reli 
gious,  considerations.  They  possibly  thought  that  so 
formal  a  mustering  of  the  forces  of  the  kingdom  would 
give  rise  to  the  idea,  that  a  military  conscription  was 
going  to  be  called  for  in  some  new  form ;  or  it  might 
seem  fitted  in  their  view  to  awaken  a  spirit  of  jealousy 
toward  the  officers  of  the  host  who  were  charged  with 
the  investigation.  But  whatever  might  be  the  grounds 
on  which  they  endeavoured  to  withstand  the  proposal, 
the  resistance  was  in  vain.  David  would  take  no  re 
fusal  ;  but  no  sooner  was  the  work  done,  than  he  saw 
reason  to  repent  of  his  folly.  For.  presently  after  the 
sum  of  the  people  was  rendered  by  Joab,  the  king's 
heart  smote  him  with  convictions  of  guilt,  and  the  pro 
phet  Gad  brought  him  the  choice  of  three  fearful  cala 
mities — seven  years'  famine,  three  months'  pursuit  be 
fore  his  enemies,  or  three  days'  pestilence  in  the  land. 
Whichever  of  these  forms  it  might  assume,  the  judg 
ment,  it  is  easy  to  see,  was  fitly  adapted  to  the  sin  it 
was  intended  to  chastise  ;  for  none  of  them  could  hap 
pen  without  laying  in  the  dust  the  feeling  of  fancied 
security,  and  producing  a  salutary  conviction  of  feeble 
ness  and  danger.  Pestilence  was  the  calamity  actually 
sent,  as  David  had  intrcated  to  be  left  in  the  Lord's 
hands,  rather  than  allowed  to  fall  into  those  of  man. 
And  when  no  fewer  than  70,000  had  perished  under  the 
judgment,  and  the  plague  was  beginning  to  break  forth 
also  in  Jerusalem,  David  besought  the  Lord  to  accept 
of  his  life  as  an  offering,  that  others  less  guilty  might 
be  spared  :  "  Lo,  I  have  sinned,  and  I  have  done  wick 
edly  ;  but  these  sheep,  what  have  they  done  ?  Let 
thine  hand,  I  pray  thee,  be  against  me,  and  against  my 
father's  house."  This  cry  of  humble,  self-sacrificing 
love,  was  heard  in  the  sanctuary  above.  At  the  thrash 
ing-floor  of  Araunah  the  Jebusite,  the  destroying  angel 
was  arrested  in  his  course ;  and  for  a  memorial  of  the 


transaction,  David  reared  an  aitar,  and  offered  burnt- 
sacrifices  to  the  Lord,  which  were  consumed  by  fire 
from  heaven,  1  cii.  xxi.  -jo.  He  even  bought  the  ground 
for  the  site  of  the  future  temple,  and  said,  "  This  is  the 
house  of  the  Lord,  and  this  is  the  altar  of  the  burnt- 
offering  for  Israel,"  i  Ch.  xxii.  i.  For  the  Lord  had  there 
not  only  pardoned  the  sin  of  David  and  his  people,  but 
had  given  the  more  peculiar  token  of  his  presence  to 
accept  the  person  and  worship  of  his  people.  David 
therefore  recognized  this  as  the  sign  of  a  divine  selec 
tion  of  the  place  for  the  future  sanctuary ;  and  in  anti 
cipation  of  the  erection  of  the  temple  on  the  spot,  he 
composed  Ps.  xxx.,  which  at  once  commemorates  his 
own  sin,  and  the  Lord's  dealings  of  judgment  and 
mercy.  He  had  vainly  conceived  that  he  had  made 
his  mountain  to  stand  strong  (so  he  explains  the  mat 
ter  in  this  psalm)  ;  but  in  a  moment  he  was  brought 
clown  as  to  the  depths  of  hell,  and  only  by  the  goodness 
of  God  had  his  sorrow  again  turned  into  joy.  All  is  of 
God — let  Israel  henceforth  worship  on  the  spot  which 
bears  such  emphatic  testimony  to  this  great  truth,  and, 
by  acting  on  it,  inherit  the  blessing. 

After  this  few  events  occurred  in  David's  history  of  a 
public  nature.  The  subject  that  seems  chiefly  t<  >  have  en 
grossed  his  attention  was  the  prospective  erection  of 
the  temple — for  which,  though  restrained  from  building 
it,  he  made  large  and  costly  preparations.  The  quan 
tity  of  gold  and  silver,  of  precious  and  useful  materials 
of  all  sorts,  which  he  had  amassed  for  the  purpose,  was 
quite  enormous ;  but  it  is  not  possible  to  give  with  any 
accuracy  its  value  in  modern  computation.  The  spirit, 
too,  in  which  he  gave  all,  as  only  a  dutiful  return  to 
the  Lord  of  a  portion  of  what  had  been  received  from 
him,  was  truly  admirable  ;  and  so  also  was  the  warm 
and  earnest  manner  in  which  he  pressed  the  more 
w-ealthy  of  the  people  to  imitate  his  example,  i  Ch.  xxix 
Never  was  a  finer  exemplification  given  of  the  means 
and  influence  of  high  place  consecrated  to  the  service 
of  God ;  nor,  when  given,  has  it  ever  met  with  a  more 
general  and  hearty  response.  David's  soul  was  re 
freshed  with  what  he  witnessed,  and  breathed  out  a  fer 
vent  prayer  that  the  Lord  would  keep  it  for  ever  in  the 
imagination  of  the  thoughts  of  the  heart  of  his  people  ; 
that  they,  as  well  as  Solomon  his  son,  might  keep  God's 
statutes,  and  build  the  house  for  which  so  large  pro 
vision  had  been  made.  On  the  same  occasion  Solomon 
was  anointed  king,  to  remove  all  doubt  as  to  the  suc 
cession,  and  to  prevent  any  further  attempts  like  that 
shortly  before  made  by  Adonijah  to  disturb  the  peace 
of  the  kingdom.  (Sec  ADONIJAH.)  To  Solomon  also 
David  delivered  the  pattern,  which  he  had  drawn  of 
the  future  house,  and  of  its  furniture,  which  the  Lord, 
he  said,  made  him  to  understand  in  writing  by  his  hand 
upon  him,  ch.  xxviii.  19 ;  so  that  the  primary  and  funda 
mental  part  in  the  whole  matter  was  performed  by 
David  ;  Solomon's  part  was  merely  to  carry  into  execu 
tion  the  counsel  and  plan  of  his  father. 

The  faith  and  holiness  of  David  were  probably  never 
more  true  and  steadfast  in  their  exercise  than  in  this 
closing  period  of  his  history.  His  bodily  frame  had 
sunk  into  what  might  almost  be  called  premature  lan 
guor  and  inaction  (for  he  was  little  more  than  seventy 
when  he  died)  ;  so  that  his  attendants  deemed  it  proper 
to  resort  to  the  peculiar  and  somewhat  questionable 
device  of  providing  a  young  woman  (Abishag)  to  couch 
beside  him,  for  the  purpose  of  infusing  a  portion  of  her 
own  warmth  into  his  system.  The  tried,  energetic, 


DAVID 


DAY 


and  laborious  life  he  had  led  might  naturally  bring  on 
this  extreme  bodily  languor.  But  the  powers  of  his 
mind  seemed  still  to  retain  much  of  their  vigour,  and 
when  roused  into  action,  as  they  were  at  intervals  in 
making  his  final  disposition  and  arrangements,  they 
shone  forth  with  their  wonted  lustre,  and  were  directed 
to  the  noblest  ends.  His  great  object  evidently  was, 
when  drawing  near  the  termination  of  his  course,  to 
leave  upon  the  mind  of  Solomon  and  those  about  him 
a  deep  impression  of  the  truth  of  Cod,  and  (.if  the  infi 
nite  importance  of  having  its  eternal  principles  of  rec 
titude  carried  out  in  the  administration  of  the  kingdom. 
His  addresses  to  Solomon  all  bore  upon  this  point,  and 
in  what  are  called  his  last  words  —that  is.  his  la.-t  regu 
lar  composition — he  gave  clear  and  solemn  expression 
to  it,  made  it  emphatically  his  dying  testimony.  When 
exactly  rendered,  they  run  thus  :  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
spake  by  me,  and  his  word  was  on  my  tongue.  The  ( i... I 
of  Israel  said.  The  Rock  of  Israel  spake  to  me,  The 
ruler  over  men.  righteous  !  ruler,  the  fear  of  Cod!  (as 
if  the  one  were  identified  with  the  othen.  And  as 
the  light  of  morning  fheis|.  when  the  sun  risetli :  a 
morning  without  clouds— from  the  bright  shiniii'_r.  from 
the  rain  there  is  grass  out  of  the  earth!  For  is  not 
my  house  thus  with  Cod  f  for  an  everlasting  covenant 
has  he  made  with  me.  well  ordered  in  all  things  and 
sure.  For  it  [or  lie]  is  all  my  salvation  and  all  de 
light:  for  does  he  not  make  it  to  grow  ?  And  wicked 
ness  is  like  thorns — they  shall  all  be  driven  away;  for 
no  one  will  take  them  into  his  hand:  and  if  any  one 
touch  them,  he  is  filled  with  iron,  and  the  staff  of  a 
spear;  and  they  shall  be  utterly  consumed  with  lire 
where  they  dwell."  2  Sa.  xxiii.  :i-7.  The  sentences  want 
the  How  of  earlier  times:  the  several  utterances  follow 
each  other  somewhat  abruptly  ;  but  all  the  more,  p.  r- 
liaps.  they  give  vivid  expres.-ion  to  the  thought  whieh 
held  possession  of  David's  soul,  and  which  he  would 
transmit  to  his  latest  posterity  that  the  ruli  r  in  ( •n<\'> 
kingdom  must  be  wholly  set  for  the  interests  of  right 
eousness;  and  that  for  the  very  purpose  of  securing 
this  was  (oid's  covenant  established  with  his  house  for 
ever.  In  its  full  sense  the  word  could  only  find  its 
realization  in  Him.  who  was  to  be  at  once  the  oHsprrng  ! 
of  David  and  the  Son  of  the  Highest.  I'.tit  for  that  very 
reason  -as  the  kingdom  in  its  provisional  state  was  to 
foreshadow  and  prepare  for  the  higher  one  in  prospect, 
the  loft}'  ideal  of  righteous  government  thus  indicated 
with  his  dying  breath  by  the  psalmist,  should  have 
been  constantly  kept  in  view  by  every  one  of  his  suc 
cessors  on  the  throne,  and  as  far  as  possible  realized.  ' 
In  the  spirit  of  prophecy  David  foresaw  the  ideal  should 
one  day  become  the  actual— Cod's  faithfulness  to  his 
covenant  would  secure  it;  and  all  true  members  of  the 
covenant  were  called  by  his  latest  breath  to  strive 
towards  its  accomplishment. 

Among     David's    last    words    and    charges    certain 
things  occur,  whieh  have  been  thought  by  some  to  be 
at  variance  with  these  higher  sentiments  and  aims.     In 
particular,    exception  has    been   taken   to   the   charge 
given  to  Solomon  to  bring  Shimei  to  account  for  the  j 
shameful  part  he  had  acted  in  the  day  of  David's  cala-  | 
mity,  and  to  mete  to  Joab  the  retribution  that  was  due  i 
for  the  innocent  blood  he  had  shed,  in  treacherously  I 
slaying  Abner  and  Amasa.     To  ascribe  this,  however,  I 
to  a  vindictive  spirit,  and  regard  it  as  indicative  of  a  j 
want  of  honourable  feeling,  would  be  to  place  it  in  op-  i 
position  to  the  whole  tenor  of  David's  life,  which  was  ; 


distinguished  for  nothing  more  than  its  forgiving,  gene 
rous,  and  disinterested  spirit.  And  it  is  against  all 
probability  to  suppose  that  the  immediate  prospect  of 
death,  which  is  wont  to  soften  even  wild  and  vengeful 
dispositions,  should  have  stimulated  David's  habitual 
mildness  into  ferocity.  The  explanation  is  to  be  sought 
in  a  quite  different  view  of  the  matter.  ''Beyond  all 
reasonable  doubt,  it  was  regard  to  high  public  duty 
that  moved  David  to  hand  over  Joab  to  capital  punish 
ment,  and  commit  Shimei  to  the  vigilance  of  his  suc 
cessor.  The  conscience  of  the  monarch  was  burdened. 
As  the  highest  magistrate  of  tlie  kingdom,  he  felt  that 
he  had  not  vindicated  the  authority  of  Cod's  law  in  the 
ease  of  Joab.  Joab  was  an  unpunished  murderer. 
Shimei  had  in  him  the  spirit  of  a  rebel  and  a  traitor. 
If  David  had  been  under  the  influence  of  a  personal 
feeling,  he  would  have  despatched  both  of  them  long 
before.  His  personal  feeling  was  all  the  other  way. 
The  thought  of  their  punishment  was  horrible  to  him  : 
he  could  not  bear  to  speak  of  it  :  but  the  sense  of  pub 
lic  duty  was  too  strong  to  be  overborne  always" 
(lilaiUic'x  David,  p.  IL':I).  Mesides.  there  were  political  con 
siderations  whieh  trammelled  David,  and  rendered  the 
execution  of  justice  in  such  cases  next  to  impossible: 
but  these  expired  with  himself,  and  it  was  ri:,dit  that 
the  law  of  the  kingdom  should  now  have  free  course, 
and  take  effect  without  respect  of  persons. 

"  And    David  died   in   a   g 1  old  age,  full   of  days, 

riches,  and  honour:"  in  many  respects  the  most  re 
markable  man  who  appeared  in  ancient  times  as  a, 
ruler  over  men.  eclipsed  only  by  that  more  than  mortal 
King,  who  wields  the  destinies  of  Cod's  everlasting 
kingdom.  Mo>t  truly  did  lie  serve  his  generation  ae- 
cordinu  to  the  will  of  Cod;  nay.  all  generations  that 
have  since  arisen  have  had  reason  to  call  him  blessed. 
And  while,  a.-  ju>tly  remarked  by  another  (  Kiseiilohr). 
worldly  monarch-;  so  commonly  aim  at  the  oppression 
of  their  people,  or  ha\c  the  nature  of  their  dominion 
marked  only  by  external  displays  of  power,  and  a  giorv 
that  quickly  vanishes  out  of  siidit,  it  was  the  distin 
guished  honour  of  David,  alon^-  with  his  ennobling  pro 
perties,  and  by  means  of  them,  to  give  a  permanent 
elevation  to  the  entire  state  and  prospects  of  his  people, 
to  set  them  free  from  the  bonds  under  which  they  natu 
rally  lay.  and  plant  amono;  them  the  seeds  of  future 
life  and  fruitfulness.  I!y  what  he  was.  and  what  he 
did,  he  became  the  root  of  all  the  higher  developments 
and  expectations  that  afterwards  disclosed  themselves 
in  the  kino'dom  of  ( Jod. 

[The  works  of  Kwald.  <;,.«•!< Mt.  .to  t'ollcf*  [arad,  vol.  ii.,  and 
of  Ki.-enlohr,  I)"*  I"..//-  Ix,-<i,l,  vol.  i.,  in  those  portions  of  them 
which  relate  to  the  life  of  David,  may  be  consulted  with  profit  ; 
although  in  w  hat  respects  tlie  historical  correctness  of  some 
parts  of  the  text,  and  some  of  the  more  jieeuliar  points  in  the 
history,  they  are  far  fioin  being  safe  guides.  The  treatises  of 
Delaney,  and  Chandler  on  the  life  of  David,  are  still  deserving 
of  being  consulted  ;  and  a  sensible,  judicious,  well-toned  volume 
on  the  subject,  by  the  Rev.  \V.  G.  Blaikie,  Dn.cld,  Kin;/  of  lani'l. 
1S56,  will  be  found  useful.  Many  of  the  leading  features  of 
David's  character  and  history  are  also  admirably  touched  on  in 
Hengstenberg's  and  Delit/sch's  Works  on  the  1'salms.  And  for 
some  of  the  differences  in  respect  to  numbers  (for  example,  the 
I/tree  years  of  pestilence  in  1  C'h.  xxi.  1'J,  and  seven  in  2  Sa. 
xxiv.  l.'i),  and  other  minute  points  in  the  account  of  Chronicles, 
as  compared  with  that  of  the  books  of  Samuel,  tee  at  CHRON 
ICLES.] 

DAVID,  CITY  OF.     fee  JERUSALEM. 

DAY.  one  of  the  commonest  divisions  of  time,  and  the 
earliest  on  record,  being  that  so  frequently  introduced 
into  the  history  of  the  creation,  Ge.  i.  As  there  used,  it 


DAY 


410 


marks  an  entire  revolution  of  time,  as  of  natural  day  and         The  Sabbath -was  the  only  day  among  the  Hebrew 


night;  not  day  as  distinguished  from  night,  but  day  and 
night  together :  "The  evening  and  the  morning  were 
the  first  day."  And  it  is  remarkable  that  the  evening 
takes  precedence  of  the  morning,  as  if  the  reckoning 
hail  been  made  from  sunset  to  sunset,  not  from  sunrise 
to  sunrise.  Such,  in  process  of  time,  undoubtedly, 


came  to  be  the  Jewish  mode  of  reckoning 


1  From 


even  unto  even  shall  ye  celebrate  your  sabbath,"  was 
the  order  prescribed  in  the  law,  Lu.  xxiii.  :J2 ;  and  so  in 
regard  to  the  paschal  feast,  which  was  appointed  to 
commence  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month,  or  im 
mediately  after  sunset  on  the  fourteenth,  Ex.  xii.  IS. 
The  same  rule  obtained  in  regard  to  other  days.  Nor 


which  had  a  distinct  name,  the  rest  being  designated 
simply  as  first,  second,  and  so  on.  In  later  times  the 
sixth-day,  from  its  immediate  relation  to  the  Sabbath, 
was  sometimes  denominated  the  paraskene,  or  prepara 
tion.  (Xee  under  PREPARATION.) 

Day  is  often  used  by  the  sacred  writers  in  a  general 
sense,  for  a  definite  period  of  time — an  era  or  season, 
when  something  remarkable  has  taken  place,  or  is  des 
tined  to  do  so,  Ge  ii.4;  Is.  xxii.  .i;  Joclii.  2,  &c.  And  it  ac 
corded  with  Hebrew  usage  to  designate  by  the  term 
i/a//  or  ni'jlit  what  probably  formed  only  apart  of  these: 
thus  by  three  days  and  three  nights  might  be  under 
stood  only  a  portion  of  three.  Mat.  xii.  40;  xxvii.  <;3, 61,  comp. 


was  it  I >y  any  means  confined  to  the  Jews ;  the  Pine-  ;  with  iKi. xii.  r>,i.'.     As   it   is   also  by   day  that  the  more 


nicians.  Numidians,  and  other  nations  of  the  East,  are  \  active  portion  of  man's  life  is  spent,  so  day  is  used  to 
said  to  have  followed  the  same  custom,  if  it  was  not  express  the  whole  term  of  life  considered  as  a  season  of 
indeed  the  custom  generally  followed  in  remote  an- 


active  labour.  .In.  ix.  i 


tiquity.     The  ancient  (Germans,  says  Tacitus,    "com-  \       DEACON,  DEACONESS,  the  English  form  of  the 


pute  not  the  number  of  days,  but  of  nights;  the  night 
appears  to  draw  on  the  day/'  ch.xi.  And  Caesar  says, 
in  like  manner,  of  the  Gauls,  ''They  measure  time, 
not  by  the  number  of  days,  but  of  nights;  and  accord 
ingly,  observe  their  birthdays,  and  the  beginnings  of 
months  and  years,  so  as  to  make  the  day  follow  the 
night  "  (Rcll.  Gal.  vi.  is).  Of  this  a  memorial  still  exists  in 
our  "seven- night,"  "fortnight,"  to  express  the  period 
of  seven  and  fourteen  days  respectively. 

Jn  the  earlier  periods  of  Old  Testament  history  no 
further  divisions  of  the  natural  day  appear  than  those 
of  morning,  noon-day,  and  evening.  Go.  i.  :>;  xliii.  1C.  The 
night,  in  like  manner,  appears  under  a  threefold 
division  of  first,  middle,  and  morning  watches,  La.  ii.  i;>; 
,Tti.  vii.  Hi;  Ex.  xiv.  '21.  The  mention  of  hours  first  occurs  in 
the  time  of  the  Babylonish  captivity,  L>a.  iii.  G;  v.  r>.  It 
would  appear  that  the  Babylonians  were  among  the  first 
to  adopt  the  division  of  twelve  equal  parts  for  the  day, 
as  Herodotus  testifies  that  the  Greeks  derived  this 
custom  from  the  Babylonians  (ii.  wS).  The  Hebrews 
also  adopted  it ;  and  in  New  Testament  scripture  we 
often  read  of  the  third,  the  sixth,  the  ninth  hours  of 
the  day,  which  were  the  more  marked  divisions  of  the 
twelve.  The  night  was  divided  into  the  same  number 
of  parts.  But  from  the  variations  in  sunrise  and  sun 
set,  this  division,  which  had  these  natural  phenomena 
for  its  two  terminations,  could  never  attain  to  exactness, 
and  was  therefore  unsuited  to  nations  that  had  reached 
a  high  degree  of  civilization.  Such  nations  accordingly 
fell  upon  the  plan  of  adopting  midnight  as  the  fixed 
point,  from  which  the  whole  diurnal  revolution  might 
be  reckoned,  divided  into  twice  twelve,  or  twenty-four 
hours.  And  this  division  is  now  followed  by  all  Euro 
pean  nations,  and  in  a  great  part  of  the  civilized  world. 
In  many  countries  of  the  East,  however,  the  old  mode 
of  reckoning  from  sunrise  to  sunset  still  continues. 

With  the  exception  of  one  passage,  Jn.xi.9,  which 
expressly  mentions  the  twelve  hours  of  the  day,  we 
never  meet  in  New  Testament  scripture  with  the  men 
tion  of  any  particular  hours,  excepting  the  third,  the 
sixth,  and  the  ninth,  which  correspond  respectively  to 
our  ninth,  twelfth,  and  third.  The  ninth  and  third  were 
regular  hours  of  worship  at  the  temple,  Ac  ii.  15;  iii.  i,  the 
times  for  the  morning  and  the  evening  sacrifice.  Other 
terms  of  a  less  definite  kind  are  occasionally  used  as 
notes  of  time — such  as  cock- crowing,  late,  early,  mid 
night  ;  but  these  have  much  the  same  import  in  all 
languages,  and  need  no  particular  explanation. 


( Jreek  SIOLKOVOS,  which  is  used  sometimes  more  generally 
>f  any  one  performing  ministerial  service,  of  whatever 
sort,  and  sometimes  more  specially  of  one  filling  the 
office  of  the  diaconate  in  a  Christian  church.  In  the 
more  general  sense  the  term  is  applied  to  persons  en 
gaged  in  discharging  the  higher,  as  well  as  the  lower 
kinds  of  service— to  the  apostles,  and  even  to  our  Lord 
himself.  In  Ro.  xv.  8  Christ  is  called  "a  minister 
(literally  a  deacon)  of  the  circumcision."  And  once 
and  again  the  apostle  Paul  designates  himself  and  his 
fellow-labourers  in  the  gospel  the  Lord's  deacons,  Kp. 
iii.  7;  2 Co.  vi.  4;  Col.  i.  i  But  from  an  early  period  the 
word  was  appropriated  as  the  distinctive  appellation  of 
a  class  of  officers  in  the  church— a  class  that  appears 
to  have  existed  nearly  from  the  commencement  in  all 
the  more  considerable  churches,  and  probably  also  in 
many  of  inferior  dimensions.  When  Paul  wrote  to  the 
church  at  Philippi,  he  addressed  his  epistle  "to  the 
bishops  and  deacons,"  as  the  recognized  and  official  re 
presentatives  of  the  body.  In  his  epistle  to  the  Romans 
he  incidentally  mentions  the  name  of  a  deaconess  of 
the  church  at  Cenchrea,  eh.  xvi.  i,  implying  that  there 
were  in  that  part  of  Greece  even  females  who  exercised 
a  diaconate :  and  if  these,  certainly  also  males.  Ami 
in  writing  Timothy  as  to  the  manner  in  which  he  should 
execute  the  special  commission  given  him  in  respect 
to  the  church  at  Ephesus,  he  not  only  points  to  the 
existence  of  deacons,  but  describes  at  some  length  the 
qualifications  and  behaviour  by  which  they  ought  to  be 
distinguished,  i  Ti.  iii.  8,  scq. 

The  earliest  notice  that  exists  in  regard  to  the  ap 
pointment  of  deacons  is  that  of  which  an  account  is 
given  in  Acts  vi.  The  circumstance  that  gave  rise 
to  their  appointment  determines  also  the  nature  of 
their  office.  While  the  church  at  Jerusalem  was  in 
the  freshness  of  its  youthful  zeal,  and  abounding  in 
charitable  ministrations,  certain  of  the  Grecians,  or 
converted  Hellenists,  complained  that  their  widows 
were  comparatively  overlooked.  It  was  a  natural  con 
sequence  of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  society,  and  of  the 
apostles,  who  were  its  official  heads,  having  more  to  do 
than  they  could  properly  overtake.  On  the  presenta 
tion  of  this  complaint,  therefore,  they  began  to  see  the 
necessity  of  a  subdivision  of  office,  with  a  correspond 
ing  distribution  of  work.  The  higher  function  belonged 
specially  to  them  of  ministering  the  Word  of  God,  and 
founding  by  spiritual  labours  the  church  of  Christ  in 
the  earth.  To  this  they  must  devote  themselves  :  and 


DEACON 


DKACOX 


they  could  not  leave  it,  as  they  said,  "to  serve  (SiaKovew) 
tables."  They  therefore  exhorted  the  people  to  look 
out  from  their  own  number  seven  men  who  might  be 
set  over  this  business — men  '•  of  honest  report,  and  full 
of  the  Holy  Ghost."  The  advice  was  followed,  and 
saveii  accordingly  were  chosen,  whom  the  apostles 
ordained  to  the  office  of  ministering  or  diaconizing 
in  what  lay  below  the  province  of  those  who  had  to 
attend  to  the  ministry  of  the  word  and  prayer.  Their 
special  business  obviouslv  was  to  look  after  the  distri 
bution  of  the  alms  of  the  church,  and  to  see  that  none, 
especially  of  such  as  were  not  natives  of  Jerusalem, 
were  neglected. 

It  has  been  argued  by  some,  in  particular  by  Arch 
bishop  Whately  (Kingdom  r<(  Christ  i,  and  bishop  Hinds 
(History  of  the  First  Contury),  that  as  these  seven  were  ap 
pointed  fur  the  purpose  of  superintending  the  ministra 
tion  to  (irecian  widows,  tin-re  must  have  been  an 
earlier  designation  of  persons  t<>  the  diaconate.  who  bad 
a  general  charge  of  the  distributions,  especially  as  the 
apostles  treated  it  as  a  tiling  which  did  not  properlv 
belong  to  them  ;  and  that  those  now  chosen  were  onlv 
added  to  the  existing'  number,  to  prevent  any  further 
complaints  ()f  partiality.  Hut  this  view  is  not  acqui 
esced  in  by  these  who  have  most  carefully  investigated 
the  apostolic  age ;  nor  does  it  seem  borne  out  bv  the 
recorded  circumstances.  Tlie  church  at  Jerusalem  oidv 
gradually  acquired  a  complete  and  regular  organization. 
For  a  time  the  constant  presence  of  the  apostles,  and 
the  all-pervading  brotln  rl\  feeling  among  the  members 
of  the  community,  would  appear  t<>  render  unnecessary 
official  service  of  a  subordinate  kind.  As  they  had 
their  goods  to  a  large  extent  in  common,  so  tlie  di-tri- 
bution  would  take  place  in  a  great  decree  also  in  com 
mon,  the  apostles  allowing  it  to  proceed,  ratlier  tliau 
actively  interfering  with  it.  But  when  tin-  want  of  a 
more  complete  organization  was  found  to  have  led  to  an 
irregular  and  partial  action,  the  course  of  wisdom  mani 
festly  was  to  have  a  class  of  officers  to  look  specially 
after  the  matter  :  and  as  it  was  the  foreign  converts 
who  in  such  a  case  were  mo>t  apt  to  be  overlooked,  so 
the  persons  actually  appointed  \\cre  probably,  for  the 
most  part,  of  that  class.  There  is  no  reason,  however, 
for  supposing  that  they  all  were.  Philip,  in  particular, 
seems  to  have  been  a  native  of  Palestine,  and  so,  it  is 
possible,  were  some  of  the  others,  though  their  names 
were  Grecian.  But  as  it  was  chiefly  those  from  a  dis 
tance  who.  as  we  have  said,  were  likelv  to  be  neglected, 
so  prudence  would  readily  dictate  tlie  selection  of  deacc  >ns 
in  much  greater  proportion  from  the  foreign  than  from 
the  native  membership. 

The  title  of  deacons  is  not  actually  applied  to  the 
persons  thus  appointed  ;  although  in  being  appointed, 
as  it  is  said,  SiaKovetv  rpair^ficus,  to  .trri'r  or  Mtnixtt-r 
at  ttiJili-*,  they  are  virtually  so  called.  All  ancient 
ecclesiastical  writers  regard  tlie  occasion  of  their 
appointment  as  that  of  the  institution  of  the  order 
of  deacons.  Not.  however,  of  that  as  it  came  by  and 
by  to  exist,  constituting  a  lower  order  of  clergy. 
Chrysostom  and  others  expressly  distinguish  in  this 
respect  between  the  original  diaconate  and  the  ecclesi 
astical  diaconate  of  subsequent  times  ;  and  so  do  all  the 
more  recent  and  unbiassed  church  historians  (Xeander, 

Giesler.Rotlic;  also  of  commentators,  liaumgartoii,  Alfonl,  Hackett, 
Alexander).  The  institution,  as  recorded  in  the  Acts, 
appears  to  have  contemplated  nothing  further  than  the 
remedying  of  a  present  disorder,  and  by  a  fixed  arrange- 
VOL.  T. 


ment  providing  against  a  recurrence  of  tlie  evil.  It 
had  consequently  to  do  simply  with  the  proper  manage 
ment  of  the  alms  of  the  church  and  the  oversight  of 
the  poor.  And  so.  in  the  office  as  originally  set  up  in 
the  other  churches,  and  recognized  by  the  apostle  Paul, 
not  a  word  is  dropped  of  any  higher  work  having  been 
assigned  these  deacons  than  what  belonged  to  the 
primitive  seven ;  it  is  with  tlie  jm'uniurii  or  material 
interests  of  the  congregation  that  they  are  associated, 
not  with  superintending  and  ruling  in  spiritual  matters, 
iTi.  iii.  At  the  same  time  one  can  ea>ilv  understand 
how  closely,  at  certain  points,  the  one  department  of 
duty  would  press  upon  the  other,  and  how  readily  the 
respective  limits  of  each  might,  to  some  extent,  be 
crossed.  Having  charge  of  the  alms  and  offerings  of 
the  church,  the  deacons  would  naturally  come  to  take 
the  management  of  the  agapa*  or  love-feast-,  also  of 
what  was  required  for  the  administration  of  the  Lord's 
supper:  and  it  was  but  a  step  farther,  which  in  many 
cases  could  not  fail  to  be  soon  taken,  to  distribute 
through  their  hands  the  elements  of  the  supper  to  the 
members  of  the  church,  and.  in  connection  therewith, 
to  exercise  some  supervision  over  the  members  them 
selves.  Hence,  in  the  account  given  by  Justin  Martyr 

(about  A.D.  1  1 t  the  celebration  of  the  eucharist,  the 

deacons  are  represented  as  distributing  to  those  present 
tlie  bread  and  wine,  and  also  conveying  portions  to  the 
absent  (Apul.  sect. (>.•>, c;V  In  the  larger  communities  the 
work  of  the  deaconship  might  thus  bv  degrees  encroach 
upon  the  province  of  the  eldership,  and  include  in  its 
operations  a  certain  amount  of  spiritual  superintendence 
and  pa-t»r,d  agency:  while,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the 
smaller  communities,  where  there  wan  no  need  for  tlie 
same  subdivision  of  labour,  the  pn-sbvterate  might 
th'-nisel\,<  undertake  \\liat  deacons  wen-  instituted  to 
discharge. 

Vi'-wed  in  respect  to  the  constitution  of  tlie  church, 
the  institution  of  the  deaconship  exhibits  a  develop 
ment:  yet  one  that  was  the  result  of  circumstances, 
and  afforded  a  pattern  of  what  might  lawfully  and 
properly  !»•  adopted  by  Christian  communities,  rather 
than  a  direeiion.  t..  which  they  mu-t  in  all  circum- 
stances  lie  conformed.  The  original  occasion,  and  the 
fact  of  the  institution  of  deacons,  showed  (as  remarked 
by  Baumgarten)  that  the  apostolic  office  was  not  an 
adequate  organization  for  the  whole  church.  The 
weaknesses  of  human  nature  beginning,  as  they  soon  did. 
to  discover  themselves  among  tlie  members  of  the  com 
munity,  called  for  tlie  institution  of  a  subordinate  office, 
to  work  to  the  hand  of  those  who  filled  the  higher;  and 
in  yielding  to  this  call  the  apostles  gave  the  weight  of 
their  authority  and  example,  not  merelv  to  the  institu 
tion  of  this  particular  office,  but  also  to  a  wise  accom 
modation  to  circumstances  in  the  direction  and  manage 
ment  of  the  affairs  of  the  church.  The  high  qualifica 
tions  they  set  fortli  for  those  whom  they  deemed  eligible 
to  the  office  of  deacon,  disclosed  to  all  future  times  the 
place  due  to  the  more  spiritual  elements  of  character 
in  constituting  a  title  to  official  appointments  within 
the  church:  and  the  mode  of  appointment,  recognizing 
alike  the  privilege  of  the  ordinary  members  to  choose, 
and  their  own  authority  to  sanction  the  choice  and 
ordain  to  the  office,  afforded  at  tlie  outset  a  happv  ex 
emplification  of  the  manner  in  which  the  rights  of  all 
should  be  respected.  In  process  of  time,  and  no  doubt 
arising  from  another  felt  necessity,  elders  were  ap 
pointed  in  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  for  the  purpose, 

53 


DEAD   SEA 


in  all  probability,  of  taking  the  regular  charge  of  tin; 
community,  after  the  apostles  began  to  be  much  re 
quired  elsewhere,  Ac.  xv.4.  And  of  the  seven  who  were 
first  chosen  to  fill  the  office  of  deacon,  two  at  least 
(Stephen  and  Philip)  partook  so  largely  of  the  copious 
outpouring  of  grace  then  conferred  on  the  church, 
that  they  entered  with  great  success  on  the  work  of 
evangelists.  This,  however,  must  be  carefully  dis 
tinguished  from  what  properly  belonged  to  them  as 
deacons;  it  came  to  them  from  the  special  endow 
ments  and  impulse  of  the  Spirit. 

The  mention  of  Phcebe  as  a  dt-ucuii-cxx  in  the  church 
at  Cenchrca,  R<>.  xvi.  1,  implies,  as  already  noticed,  the 
existence  of  a  female  deaeonship  in  apostolic  times.  It 
would  be  rash  to  infer,  however,  from  such  a  casual 
mention,  that  appointments  of  this  sort  were  general 
in  the  church  ;  and  from  no  recognition  of  the  office 
being  found  in  the  pastoral  epistles,  and  no  historical 
record  anywhere  of  its  origination,  we  may  justly  con 
clude  that  nothing  essential  depended  on  it,  and  that  it 
was  to  be  regarded  as  only  of  occasional  or  temporary 
moment.  (Some  have  thought  that  the  prescriptions 
regarding  widows  in  1  Ti.  v.  9,  have  reference  to  dea 
conesses ;  but  this  is  not  by  any  means  certain.)  In 
the  cities  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  where  women 
lived  very  much  apart,  and  could  rarely  be  had  access 
to  except  by  members  of  their  own  sex,  deaconesses 
might  be  for  a  time  almost  essential  to  the  well-being 
and  progress  of  the  church.  P>ut  in  Koine,  and  the 
'West,  greater  liberty  was  enjoyed  by  the  female  portion 
of  society  in  their  intercourse  with  the  world,  and  the 
service  of  deaconesses  would  be  less  urgently  required. 
That  they  did  very  commonly  exist  in  the  larger 
churches,  during  the  earlier  centuries,  the  records  of 
ecclesiastical  history  leave  110  room  to  doubt,  though 
no  general  rule  seems  to  have  been  adopted  regarding 
them;  and  in  process  of  time  the  institution  of  nunneries 
turned  into  a  distinct  and  artificial  channel  nearly  all 
that  was  available  of  separate  female  service. 
DEAD  SEA.  tee  SALT  SKA. 

DEATH  may  be  denned  the  termination  of  lift: ;  an 
event  of  different  and  unequal  import,  according  to  the 
nature  and  value  of  the  life  which  it  terminates  and 
destroys.  To  this  issue,  life  of  every  kind  below  the 
sun — vegetable,  animal,  human — is  alike  subject.  In 
so  far  as  it  is  connected  with  organization,  this  to 
our  habits  of  thought  appears,  not  indeed  a  necessary, 
but  yet  a  natural  consequence  of  the  conditions  of  its 
existence.  The  material  frames  which  are  the  seat  and 
instruments  of  life,  of  volatile  elements,  and  of  fragile 
structure,  seem  not  made  to  wear  and  last  for  aye; 
and  in  fact  are  constituted  under  a  twofold  law- -the 
one  determining  their  growth  and  development  to  an 
appointed  maximum  or  maturity  of  life  ;  the  other, 
when  this  has  been  reached,  inducing  a  process  of 
decay,  which,  in  the  time  appointed,  issues  in  exhaus 
tion  of  the  vital  functions,  and  decomposition  and  dis 
appearance  of  the  vital  form. 

Beyond  question,  it  had  been  possible  for  God,  if 
such  had  been  his  pleasure,  to  have  made  all  creatures 
under  a  law  of  life.  Scripture  assures  us,  that  man  at 
least  was  at  first  placed  conditionally  under  this  law. 
There  is,  however,  decisive  evidence  that,  from  the  be 
ginning,  all  other  terrestrial  life  was  constituted  under 
the  law  of  death.  Besides  the  indications  already  re 
ferred  to,  of  a  limited  and  transient  existence  to  plants 
and  animals  generally,  the  reproductive  and  assimilat- 


S  DEATH 

ing  organs  and  powers  common  .to  all  living  creatures, 
and  the  destructive  organs,  instincts,  and  habits  of  birds 
and  beasts  of  prey,  unmistakably  contemplate,  as  they 
provide  for,  a  system  or  constitution  of  things  in  which 
death  should  reign.      It  was  long  and  generally  held, 
indeed,  that  this  law  in  the  natural  economy  supervened 
upon  the  introduction  of  sin.      .Hut   this  idea,    which 
Scripture  does  nowhere  assert  or   sanction,  is  hard  to 
be   reconciled   with   the    conclusion    which    physiology 
and  anatomy  have  deduced  from  the  deadly  and  diges 
tive  organs  and  powers  of  the  animal  frame,  with  the 
same  certainty  that  any  final  cause  is  inferred  from  any 
of  the  works  of  God.     And  it  must  be  regarded  as  con 
clusively  refuted  by  the   discoveries  of  geology,  which 
demonstrate  the  prevalence  of  death  in  ages  long  ante 
rior  to  the  creation  of  man,  or,  so  far  as  is  known,  the 
existence  of  sin.      The  earth's  strata  are  now  found  to 
be  full  of  the  buried  and  embalmed  remains  of  extinct 
life.      Entire  creations  appear  to  have  been  destroyed 
in  so   many    successive  great   catastrophes  ;  and   it  is 
made  evident   by  the  state   in   which   many   of   these 
fossils  are  found,  that  then,  as  now,  life  was  sustained 
bv  death.      Nor  can  it  well  be  doubted  that  this  state 
of  things  obtained  even  in  the  days  of  man's  primeval 
innocence.     If  we  try,  we  shall  find  ourselves  baffled  in 
the  attempt  to  conceive  how,  even  then,  death  could  be 
strange   or  unknown.     Must   not  the  revolving  year 
have  been  marked  by  the  opening  and  the  fall  of  the 
earth's    foliage — the    ripening,    and  consumption,   and 
decay  of  the  earth's  fruits?     Could   our  first  parents 
drink  of  the  rivers  of  paradise,  or  tread  its   verdant 
surface,  or  keep  and  dress  its  trees  and  plants,  without— 
in    every  draught,    at    every  step,    by  every   stroke  — 
quenching  or  cutting  down  myriads  of  animalcular  or 
insect,  as  well  as  vegetable  life?     Although  the  flesh 
of  animals  was  not  yet  given  to  man  for  food,  is  it  sup- 
posable  that  the  laws  of  animal  life  itself  were  all  the 
while  in  abeyance— its  instincts  restrained,  its  powers 
unused,   its  appropriate  pleasure  withheld  or  denied  ! 
We  know  that,  from  the  day  of  man's  creation,  he  had 
given  to  him  the  idea  of  death.     It  was  set  before  him 
as  the   just  desert   and   consequence   of  disobedience. 
And  whence  should  he  have  derived  his  conception  of 
the  import  of  the  threatened  evil,  so  readily  as  from 
death's  visible  dominion  over  the  fowls  of  the  heaven 
and  the  beasts  of  the  field  ?     It  may  be  thought  that 
this  fact,  if  it  were  so,  must  have   shaded  and  sullied 
the  light  and   bliss    of    paradise.     Yet    with    distinct 
knowledge  and  just  confidence  in   the  divine  wisdom 
and  goodness,  why  might  it  not  as  well  consist  with 
the   happiness  of   unfallen  man,   as   shall  the  greater 
death  which  sin  has  introduced,  and  will  perpetuate  in 
the  moral   universe,    with  the  perfect   blessedness  of 
God's  unfallen  and   redeemed  family  in  the  paradise 
above  • 

As  incident  to  creatures  of  mere  instinct  or  animal 
nature,  there  can  be  nothing  judicial  or  of  the  nature 
of  punishment  in  their  ordination  to  death.  "Whether 
it  may  have  been  ordained  by  anticipation,  or  in  keep 
ing  with  the  moral  and  legal  relation  of  man,  as  to 
exist  in  a  state  of  sin,  and  under  a  dispensation  of  judg 
ment,  we  are  not  warranted  to  pronounce.  It  is,  how 
ever,  beyond  question  that,  from  this  cause,  and  for 
man's  sake,  a  curse  has  been  brought  upon  the  ground, 
and  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain 
together  until  now.  Still  man  himself  is  by  this  means 
the  greatest  sufferer ;  and  so  far  as  it  affects  the  other 


DEATH                                        UO  DEATH 

creatures,  it  can  be  only  a  physical  evil,  equally  without  '  and  immortality.      \\Y  kno\v  that,  even  as  now  consti- 

moral  cause  or  penal  effect,  of   which  by  their  nature  tuted.   the  life    of    these    frail   bodies   in    antediluvian 

they  are  unsusceptible.      Ho\v  this  appointment  is  to  ages  was  prolonged  to  the  veru'o  of  a  millennium.     And 

be  reconciled  with  the  benevolence  of  the  Creator  is  a  why  should  it  be  thought  impossible  for  (Jod,  if  so  it 

hard  question,  which  no  light  yet  given  to  man  enables  had  pleased  him,  to  endue  them  with  the   powers,   or 

him  fully  to  resolve.      So  far,   however,  it  may  relieve  provide  for  them  the  means  of  repairing  the  wear  and 

the  mystery,  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  enjoyments  of  waste  of  life,  so  as  to  preserve  their  powers  and  sensi- 

the  inferior  creatures  greatly  exceed  their  sufferings —  bilities   in   unabated    vigour    and   freshness,    •'even  to 

that    death   is    but   little,  if  at   all,  the   object   of    their  length  of  days  for  ever  and  ever.'" 

fear,  or  much  even  a  cause  of  pain  to  them.      Dr.  Liv-  ,       This.  Scripture  informs  us,  was  in  the  beginning  pro- 

ingstone's  experience,  when  seized  by  a  lion,  strikingly  \isioiiallv  ordained.      The  threatening  of  death  against 

confirms   this.      "The   shock."   he   says,    •'produced   a  the   breach   of   the   covenant,    is   riuhtlv  understood    to 

stupor  similar  to  that  which  seems  to  be  felt  by  a  mouse  imply  the  promise  of  deathless  and  incorruptible   life, 

after  the   first   shake   of   the  cat.      It   caused   a   sort  of  so   Ion--   as   the   covenant    should  stand.      And   the  tree 

dreaminess  in   which   there  was  no  sense  of  pain  nor  of  life  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  if  ii"t  by  its  physical 

feeling  of  terror,  though  quite  conscious  of  all  that  was  virtue  the  means  of  life's  perpetual  and  perfect  renova- 

happening.      It  was  what  patients  partially  under  the  tion,    was    certainly  the  sacramental   pledge  of    (iod's 

influence  of  chloroform  describe,  who  see  all  the  opera-  purpose  to  preserve  it  inviolate  while  man  was  steadfast 

tion,  but  feel  not  the  knife.      This  peculiar  state  is  pro-  in  the  covenant.      And  now  that  death   reigns  over  all, 

bably  produced  in  all  animals   killed  by  the  carnivone,  the  appointment  is  referred  neither  to  phvsical  necessitv 

and  if  so,   is  a   merciful   provision   by   our   benevolent  nor  to  arbitrary  will,  nor.  as  some  have  ur^ed,  to  its 

Creator  for  lessening  the  pain  of  death"  (Trav«ls,i>.  I'-')  suhservienc\     to     a     partiallv    beneficent    economy    in 

That  the  sum  of  animal  enjoyment  quenched  in  death  nature,  by  \\  Inch  the  aggregate  of  sentient  happiness  in 

is  largely  compensated  by  the  law  of  increase  and  sue-  creation  is  increase. 1;  hut  to  a  judicial  decree  announced 

ces.-ion,  which  both  perpetuates  life,  and  preserves  it  in  from  the  he-inning   bv  (iod.  as  jud^e,  against   man  as 

the  vigour  of  its  powers  and  the  freshness  of  its  joys,  i*  a  transgressor  of  his  law. 

certain:   and    al.-o      as   bearing   upon    the    phvsical   and  Thu>  runs  the  tenor  of   the  covenant   or   constitution 

moral  condition  of  man.  to  whose  IH  half,  as  chief  in  this  und.-r  which  life      man's  lite      uas  original!  v  oivcn  and 

lower  world,  all    arrangements   and   disposals   affecting  held.   "Thou  shah  not  eat  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge 

the  lower   forms  of   lit',,  \\ei\-   subordinated-  that    tin  ir  of  -ood  and  evil,  for  in  the  da\  •  tlnni  eatcst  thereof  them 

subjection   to  death  has    both   enlarged    immensely  the  shah    surely   die.''      And    in    terms   equally   explicit,  to 

extent  of  his   physical  resources,  and   multiplied  mani-  the  transgression  of  the  law  is  the  entrance  and  reign  of 

told  the  means  of  his  moral  development  and  discipline,  death  overman  ascribed  :   "  I  lv  one  man  sin  entered  into 

But  man   himself  is   involvid  in   the   common  doom,  the  world,  and  death  by  sin.  and  so   death  passed  upon 

Lt  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once  to  die.      Tin-  appoint-  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned."      I,.  I  it  be  observed 

ment  is  felt  by  us  of  nearer  concern,  and  is  shrouded  in  that  this  declares   the   cause   of   death    as  it  reigns  over 

deeper  mystery.      Whatever  theory  be  held  with  regard  all  men  only.       it  affirms  nothing   respecting  the  cause 

to  the  constitution   of  our  nature,  all   are   agreed  as   to  of  death  as  it  ivi^ns  over  other   orders  of   creatures,    in 

its  high  pre-eminence  alto  ve  all  other  forms  of  terrestrial  the  present  or  in  preceding  stages  of  the  world's  exist- 

"  (  Mid  made  man  in  his  own  imajv,  after  his  ,,wn  ence.      Whether,  in  any  way,  they  mav  have  been  con 

likeness,  and  set  him  over  the  works  of  his  hands."      It  stituted  under  a  law  of  death  bv  anticipation,  and  as  in 

surely    is   not   the   imagination   of  a   vain    conceit,  but  keeping  with   a  state  of   things  in   which   death   should 

rather  the  suggestion  of  a  due  reverence  of  divine  \\is-  rei^n  over  man,  we  do  not  venture  to  pronounce.    That, 

doin.  which  would  anticipate  exemption  from  death  as  indirectly  and   as   a    consequence  of   their   relation   to 

the'  distinction  and  pri\  ile-x-  of  a  creature  whom  he  has  man  as  a  sinner  av.ain.-t  ( iod,  their  sufferings  have  been 

crowned  with  glory  and    honour.       He   -uards   and   de-  increased,  and  their  lives  shortened,  it  is   impossible   to 

fends   man's   life   by  the   severest   sanctions   of   his   law  doubt  or  deny  .       Hut    if,  in   this   view,  sin  be  the   occa- 

against  the  hand   of   violence;   and    can   it    be  thou-lit  sion  of  their  death,  it  cannot  be  the  cause  of  it.      They 

that,  but  tor  some  special   cause,  his   own   hand   would  are  incapable  of  sin.  and   cannot  die    judicially  for   sin. 

ever  have  been  stretched   out   against    it   to  destroy  it  ',  The.   contrary   opinion    which    Ion-;   and   generally   pre- 

The  reigning  fact,  man's  death,  seems  to  confute  these  vailed,    that  the   creatures   were    immortal   until    man 

reasonings,  and  almost  resistlessly  forces  upon   us  the  sinned,   has   as   little   to   justify  it   in    Scripture   as   in 

conclusion,  that  death  is  a  physical  necessity,  or  a  uni-  science.     I  >cath,  it  is  there  said,  is  the  law  of  their  being, 

versal  law,  extending  to  all  material  organizations,  how-  And  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Scripture  is,  not  that  they 

ever  otherwise  psychologically  distinguished  or  divinely  die  because  man  has  sinned,  but  that  man,  because  he 

allied.     And  this  ..pinion  has  generally  obtained  among  lias  sinned,  has  forfeited  his  original  and  high  distinc- 

men  of    pantheistic   and   materialistic  views  in   philo-  tion,  and  has  become  "like  the  beasts  that  perish." 

sophy,  and  of  Pelagian  and  Socinian  views  in  theology.  I        It  is  unnecessary  here  to  multiply  Scripture  proofs  of 

But    surely   it   is   impossible,    consistently   with  God's  this  awful  and  humbling  truth.      Every  one  is  familiar 

omnipotency,    to  allege    the    necessity  or  the   power  of  with    the    frequent    and    equivalent    testimonies,    that 

this  law,  as  existing  in  despite  of  his  pleasure  and  pur-  death  is    "the   fruit,"    '•  the  wages,"    the    "end,"'    and 

pose,  to  constitute  our  nature  under  a  law  of  life.     It  consummation  of  sin.      And  the  circumstances  which 

is  more  than  probable  that  the  other  orders  of  creatures  attend  and  induce  it  impressively   connect  it   with  sin 

who  dwell  in  life  immortal  in  the  heavenly  places  are  as  its  cause. 

not  all  spirit,    or    without  their  own  mode  and   form  ;        How,  if  not  through  guilty  forfeiture,  should  the  life 

of  organized  existence.      We  are  assured  that  the  bodies  of  man   have   been  abbreviated    in   its   term,  so  much 

of  the  risen  saints  shall   be  clothed   with  incorruption  more  than  that  of  many  of  the  inferior  creatures,  and 


DKATH 


iL'O 


DKATH 


in  so  many  instances  still  further  shortened  ly  disease  and  its  substance,  however  changed,  is  never  lost;  much 
and  by  calamity  \  To  how  great  extent  is  it  consumed  more  may  it  be  presumed  shall  the  spirit  survive.  Not 
by  the  fire  of  evil  passion— smitten  by  the  stroke  of  ,  indeed  that  spirit  more  than  body  is  immortal  inde- 
vengeful  violence — taken  away  by  the  arm  of  judicial  pendently  of  Clod's  will.  But  that  seeing  he  preserves 
authority  • — in  all  these  eases  sin  visibly  working  death,  our  inferior  part,  he  will  much  more  preserve  the  higher 
And  while  embittered  and  burdened  by  manifold  pain  t  and  more  kindred  product  of  his  creative  power.  The 
and  sorrows,  how  irresistibly  does  conscience  within  effects  of  death  upon  the  body  itself  are  matter  of  conv 
disquict  and  alarm  us,  by  the  conviction  of  guilt  and  inon  observation.  Immediately  it  makes  it  power- 
tin-  terror  of  righteous  judgment  I  less  and  insensate  as  the  clod  of  the  vallev,  quickly 
But  now,  what  is  death! — or  what  does  it  import  as  j  turning  its  comeliness  into  corruption,  and  finally  re- 
an  appointed  doom!  To  answer  this  question  rightly  .  duces  its  form  and  structure  into  shapeless  dust.  The 
we  require  to  ascertain  the  true  constitution  of  our  effect  of  bodily  death  on  the  spirit  of  the  man  where 
nature.  Obviously  death  must  be  very  different  in  the  j  nature  is  thus  divided,  it  may  be  mere  difficult  to  esti- 
view  of  the  materialist,  who  regards  man  as  only  a  mate.  This  may  depend  in  part  on  the  value  of 


higher  species  of  animal,  whose  mental  and  moral  dis 
tinctions    are    the   mere   result    of    a    higher    physical 


the  earthly  portion  he  has  lost,  and  partly  on  the  future 
portion  on  which  lie  has  entered  ;   but  it  cannot  be  ill- 


organization  ;   and  in  the  judgment  of  those  who  con-  |  different  either  to  the  child  of  sorrow,  or  to  the  suhjVc'.. 


sider  man  as  the  possessor  of  a  soul  distinct  from  th 
body,  the  subject  and  seat  of  a  higher  nature.  If  the 
body  be  the  whole  of  man,  death  is  the  end  of  his  con 
scious  existence.  If  he  consist  of  body  and  spirit,  this 


>f  grace,  more  than  to  the  heir  of  this  world,  whom  Vj 
has  stripped  of  his  whole  inheritance  of  good.  While 
we  look  on  the  deserted  and  impassive  corpse,  and  say 
''It  is  all  over  with  him  now,"  the  disembodied  spirit 


event  may  prove  but  his  birthday  into  another  and  must  still  find  itself  the  subject  of  a  maimed  and  imper- 
more  important  state  of  being.  Now,  this  point,  which  j  feet  nature.  For  the  effect  of  death  upon  the  spirit  is 
till  the  present  hour  has  pr<  >ved  too  hard  for  man  himself  necessarily  different  from  the  effect  of  it  upon  the  body, 
to  demonstrate,  Scripture  decides  conclusively  for  all  Consciousness  belongs  to  its  nature,  and  must  endure 
who  will  receive  its  testimony.  Man  is  both  body  and  while  it  has  being.  Its  proper  life  lies  in  the  harmony 
spirit:  the  first  placing  him  in  communication  with  and  subjection  of  its  powers  and  dispositions  to  the 
this  outward  world,  the  second  allying  him  to  God  and  '  nature  and  will  of  Cod  ;  its  death  in  contrariety  and 
his  spiritual  creation.  The  record  of  his  primeval  state  '  enmity  to  Him.  This  involves  the  disruption  of  a  holy 
exhibits  the  reality  and  effect  of  this  complex  being.  ]  dutiful  relation  to  the  Father  of  spirits —and  by  ine- 
While  his  earthly  paradise  yielded  its  riches  and  ;  vitable  consequence,  a  deprivation  of  those  fruits  of  his 
pleasures  to  every  sense  and  sensibility  of  his  animal  !  love  and  favour  on  which  life  and  blessedness  depend, 
nature,  his  higher  life  found  its  appropriate  and  pre-  "  Your  sins  have  separated  between  you  and  God.'' 
eminent  occupation  and  delight  in  the  service  and  com-  j  This  is  emphatically  the  bitterness  of  death.  As  it 


munion  of  the   ''  Father  of  his  spirit." 


affects  the   body,   it  terminates   all    happy  connection 


These  views,  as  they  magnify  the  life  which  God  gave  with  the    external   world  ;    as  it  affects  the   spirit,    it 

us,  must  be   felt  to  complicate  the  nature  and  effects  |  excludes  from  all    joy  in    God.     Though    now,    while 

of  death.      How  then  does  it  affect  us?     Does  it  reach  |  its  effects  ar"  incomplete,    it  is  neither  altogether  un- 

the  whole  man,  body  and  spirit !     If  so,  how  are  they  '  feared  nor  unfelt,  yet  the  engrossments  of  earthly  life 

severally   and  together  affected   by  it!     And  in  what  meanwhile  lessen  our  sense   and   apprehension  of  the 

order,   and  by   what  process,    does  it  consummate  its  magnitude  of  the  evil.     Not  till   the  body   is  cut  off 

from  its  earthly  portion,  and  the  spirit  cast  out  from 

the  entire  man  and  to  every  its    portion   in    Clod,    shall    its   awful   import    be   fully 


work  ? 

1.    Death  extends   fr 

part  of  his  nature.     Against  It  i>iii<e/f  the  threatening  wa; 
directed,  "  In  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof   THOU  shalt 


known. 


It  may  tend  further  to  clear  this  subject,  to  notice 


die."  Beyond  doubt  the  outward  man  perisheth,  and  ;  briefly  the  order  and  process  through  which  the  work 
surely  the  inner  man,  the  subject  of  that  sin  of  which  '  of  death  is  consummated.  Though  incurred  instan- 
the  body  is  but  the  instrument,  cannot  have  escaped  the  taneously  on  the  act  of  transgression,  its  effects  follow  by 


force  of  the  dread   sentence.      God's  Word  assures  us 


successive  stages,  and  at  several  and  more  or  less  dis- 


that  the  soul  that  sinneth  shall  die.  Nay,  it  speaks  of  '  tant  intervals.  As  caused  by  sin.  the  spiritual  man,  as 
men  as  already  dead,  who  yet  live  in  the  body — dead  i  the  proper  subject  and  source  of  the  evil,  first  feels  its 
therefore  spiritually.  On  the  other  hand,  it  speaks  of  power.  Its  very  touch  intercepts  all  happy  intercourse 
men  now  alive  through  grace,  who  shall  never  die.  j  with  a  holy  God.  This  was  felt  and  seen  on  the  day  that 
while  yet  the  graves  are  ready  for  them.  Men  who  |  Adam  sinned.  His  fear  and  flight  at  the  voice  of  the 
walk  after  the  course  of  the  world,  and  live  in  pleasure,  Lord  God  in  the  garden  was  the  unmistakable  symptom 
are  pronounced  "dead  in  sin'1- -dead  while  they  live.  ,  of  a  soul  already  dead  in  sin,  which  could  not,  dared 
And  while  whoso  loveth  his  brother  has  "passed  from  ,  not,  live  with  God:  while  his  expulsion  in  displeasure 
death  unto  life,"  he  that  hateth  his  brother  "abideth  from  the  symbols  of  God's  presence,  marked  no  less 
in  death."  These  scriptures,  while  they  distinguish  |  clearly  that  God  had  ceased  to  live  with  him.  Thus 
between  bodily  and  spiritual  death,  represent  both  as  <  was  executed  to  the  letter  the  word  which  God  had 
included  in  the  sentence,  and  threatened  and  executed  i  spoken,  "  In  the  day  thou  eatest  thou  shalt  surely  die.'' 
against  the  sinner.  But  the  work  of  death  thus  begun  does  not  stop  here. 

2.  To  what  effect  then  does  death  exert  its  power  j  The  disruption  of  the  creature's  relation  to  God,  it  may 
upon  the  body  and  the  spirit  severally  and  together •  ;  well  be  conceived,  must  introduce  disorder  into  all  the 
It  is  not  unimportant  to  observe,  that  this  is  not  ex-  •  relations  and  interests  of  its  being ;  nor  unless  with  a 
tinction  of  existence,  or  annihilation  either  of  the  one  view  to  some  ulterior  design  of  signal  judgment  or  of 
or  the  other.  For  a  time  the  body  retains  its  form,  more  signal  mercy,  might  its  full  development  and 


DEATH 


DEBORAH 


consummation  be  long  delayed.  But  in  subserviency  to 
this  end  does  man  live  on,  in  the  body  for  a  season, 
though,  as  to  God,  "  he  is  dead  while  he  liveth."  Vet 
it  is  but  for  a  little  time.  Whatever  be  the  result  of 
this  day  of  forbearance,  the  work  of  death  goes  on — 
the  body  is  dead  because  of  sin.  There  is  no  discharge 
from  this  decree,  and  no  exception  to  it.  The  body 
returns  to  the  dust  whence  it  was  taken.  This  is 
another  crisis  which  awaits  every  individual  man  in 
his  own  time.  As  distinguished  from  spiritual,  it  is 
called  temporal  death,  as  superadding  exclusion  from 
the  things  of  earth  and  time,  to  the  loss  of  all  happy 
interest  in  God.  There  remains  but  one  further  stai^t 
ere  it  reach  its  complete  and  final  issue,  both  in  the 
individual  and  the  race.  When  the  designs  of  the  divine 
administration  in  our  world  are  finished,  the  bodies  of 
all  who  sleep  in  dust  shall  be  re-organized.  There 
shall  be  a  resurrection  of  the  just  and  of  the  unjust. 
While  the  just,  by  faith  through  grace,  shall  be  raised 
to  life  incorruptible  and  glorious,  the  unjust,  impeni 
tent  and  unbelieving,  shall  awake  to  the  resurrection  of 
damnation.  The  whole  man  shall  go  awav  from  the 
glory  and  joy  of  God's  presence  into  everlasting  punish 
ment.  This  is  the  second  death. 

From  the  Word  of  God,  which  thus  sets  forth  the 
terror  and  duration  of  the  death  which  entered  and 
reigns  over  man  through  sin,  we  receive  the  glad 
tidings  of  life  —  eternal  life,  given  back  to  sinners 
through  grace.  Christ,  the  Lord  from  heaven,  having 
borne  and  exhausted  in  his  own  b<>d\-  on  the  tree, 
the  curse  of  the  first  covenant  incurred  by  the  sin  of 
Adam,  is  constituted  to  his  church  and  people  tin- 
Redeemer  from  death  and  the  Author  of  rternal 
life.  It  is  an  anxious  question  how  may  these-  tidiiiu- 
consist  with  the  continued  reign  of  death  over  tin- 
bodies  of  men,  alike  over  men  of  Christian  faith 
and  character,  as  surely,  as  shortly,  as  painfully,  as 
humblingly,  as  over  the  unbeliever  and  the  ungodly' 
Shall  we  hold  that  while  it  retains  indiscriminately  the 
same  repulsive  and  appalling  aspect  to  all,  its  nature  to 
the  Christian  is  nevertheless  changed  from  a  foe  to  a 
friend,  and  as  some  speak,  a  favour  —a  Ijenefit  —the  fruit 
of  God's  fatherly  love.  This  it  will  be  equally  hard  to 
reconcile  with  Scripture  testimony  or  human  feeling. 
It  is  indeed  said,  that  to  the  Christian  "to  die  is  gain,  ' 
but  plainly  this  is  not  meant  of  what  it  is,  but  of  what 
it  does.  It  is  ever  spoken  of  as  the  fruit  and  desert  of 
sin,  ami  as  an  enemy — ''the  last  enemy."  in  Chris 
tians  as  in  others.  "  the  body  is  dead  because  of  sin.'' 
But  if  so,  where  is  the  efficacy,  or  what  the  proof  of  the 
efficacy,  of  the  Redeemer's  deatli '<  If  still  his  people 
die  for  sin,  has  not  Christ  died  in  vain  :  and  is  not  the 
hope  of  his  people  vain?  God  forbid!  Had  it  been 
the  declared  intent  or  the  promised  effect  of  the  inter 
position  of  Christ,  to  arrest  the  sentence  against  sin,  or 
to  prevent  its  full  execution  upon  the  sinner,  this  uni 
versal  mortality  might  have  been  alleged  as  a  practical 
evidence  of  the  entire  failure  of  his  design.  But  Scrip 
ture  and  experience  concur  to  show  us,  that  the  purpose 
of  Christ's  interposition  was  not  to  prevent  or  arrest 
the  work  of  death  in  progress,  but  to  undo  and  reverse 
the  completed  ruin.  It  is  to  lie  observed,  that  notwith 
standing  the  redemption  by  Christ,  every  child  of 
Adam,  in  soul  and  body  alike,  inherits  this  sad  entail. 
The  heirs  of  the  Christian  salvation,  like  others,  are 
born  in  spiritual  death  and  abide  in  it,  many  of  them 
often  for  a  lesser  or  longer  period  of  their  time  in  the 


flesh.  The  redemption  of  the  cross  docs  not  cut  off 
nor  remove  from  them  the  entail  from  the  broken 
covenant,  until  in  a  day  of  grace  they  believe  and  live 
anew  by  his  quickening  Spirit.  On  the  same  principle 
we  may  presume  it  asserts  its  dominion  over  the  body 
as  over  the  spirit.  Thus  first,  under  the  power  and 
in  vindication  of  the  first  and  broken  covenant,  sin 
reigns  unto  death  over  the  whole  man,  and  next  "  grace 
reigns  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life  by  .Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.''  This  completed  triumph  however 
is  reached,  like  death's  conquests,  by  successive  stages, 
and  at  several  and  distant  epochs.  First,  in  the  day 
of  regeneration,  on  the  return  of  Clod's  Spirit,  when  life 
begins  anew,  where  death  first  began  its  work,  in  the 
soul.  From  thenceforward,  though  still  bound  to  a 
b»dy  of  death  and  sin,  the  man  is  quickened  and  made 
alive  from  the  death  of  MIL  Again,  in  the  dav  of 
dissolution,  when  the  body  returns  to  its  dust,  he  is 
set  free  from  the  encumbrance  of  mortal  flesh,  and  in 
the  spirit  reaches  the  blessed  state  of  just  men  made 
perfect.  And  finally,  in  the  day  of  the  resurrection  of 
all  the  dead,  when  Christ  shall  come  the  second  time,  to 
reap  the  matured  trophies  of  his  first  advent,  "death 
shall  lie  swallowed  up  in  victory."  The  bodies  of  his 
saints  raised  incorruptible,  and  re- united  to  their  spirits 

glorious  in  his  image shall  enter  upon  their  inherit 
ance  of  endless  life.  [j.  ik-.J 

DEB'IR  [.<>•«<•/,,  hence  a). plied  by  Solomon  as  the 
distinctive  name  of  the  most  holy  place  in  the  temple, 
l  Ki.  vi.  1.1,  iii;  vi.  \  so  .],  the  name  of  a  town  in  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  a  few  miles  to  the  west  of  Hebron.  This  was 
a  later  name,  for  In-fore  the  conquest  of  Canaan  it  had 
been  called  Kirjath-sepher,  which  means  /><i<>/c-cif>/, 
.in-  \v  i.-.;.[u  i.  11,  and  also  Kirjath-sanna,  Jos.  xv.  49,  which, 
according  to  Bochart.  signifies  i-iti/  <,f  In,'-  or  instruc 
tion.  These  were  probably  but  different  forms  of  sub 
stantially  one  designation  ;  and  I)chir,  in  the  sense  of 
oracle  or  authoritative  utterance,  dc  >es  n<  it  very  materially 
differ  in  meaning.  Some  would  make  it  still  nearer, 
taking  Debir  in  the  sense  of  tilings  written,  arranged 
in  a  row;  but  this  seems  unnatural  (Kc-il  on  J.ishm, 
ch.  xv.  1.1).  The  place  is  never  mentioned  in  the  history 
of  subsequent  times  ;  but  it  must  have  been  a  town  of 
considerable  importance  and  strength  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest;  as  its  siege  and  capture  by  Joshua  is  par 
ticularly  described,  Jos.  x.  ::•%  '.'»,  and  having  been  re 
taken  by  the  Canaanites,  Caleb  promised  his  daughter 
Achsah  to  the  person  who  should  succeed  in  again 
subduing  it.  The  prize  was  gained  by  Othniel,  the 
nephew  of  Caleb,  ch.  xv.io.  We  may  suppose,  from  the 
name,  that  in  former  times  it  had  been  a  seat  of  learn 
ing  of  some  sort;  and  possibly  this  might  form  one 
reason  for  afterwards  making  it  a  priestly  city,  ch.  xxi.  1.1. 
Another  town  of  the  same  name  is  mentioned  in  con 
nection  with  the  inheritance  of  Gad,  Jos  xiii.2i>. 

DEB'ORAH  [her}.  1.  Hebekah's  nurse;  of  whom 
explicit  mention  is  made  only  in  connection  with  her 
death.  She  died  after  Jacob's  return  to  the  land  of 
Canaan,  and  was  buried  under  an  oak  near  Bethel,  GC 

xxxv.  8. 

2.  DKIJOKAH.  By  much  the  most  distinguished  per 
son,  who  bore  this  name,  was  one  of  the  public  characters 
raised  up  during  the  period  of  the  judges  in  seasons  of 
trouble  and  emergency.  The  tribe  she  belonged  to  is 
not  distinctly  mentioned,  though  it  is  usually,  and  with 
the  greatest  appearance  of  probability,  supposed  to  be 
Ephraim.  She  is  called  a  prophetess,  and  is  said  to  have 


•12J 


DEBT 


judged  Israel,  .in.  v.i,  taking  her  seat  under  ;i  palm-tree, 
wliich  c;uue  to  hoar  her  name,  in  Mount  Ephraini, 
between  Kamah  and  Bethel.  Thither  the  people  resorted 
for  counsel  during  the  oppression  of  the  land  l>v  -labm. 
The  very  circumstance  of  a  woman  appearing  to  take 
such  a  part  was  a  sign  of  the  degeneracy  of  the  times, 
and  the  prevailing  want  of  faith  among  the  covenant- 
people.  Deborah  In-rself  ivtVnvd  to  this  in  the  rebuke 
she  conveyed  to  Barak  for  his  faint-heartedness  in  the 
cause  of  (»od.  eh.  v.  <i ;  and  an'ain.  more  generally,  near 
the  commencement  of  her  song 

••  In  the  days  of  .Sh-iingar.  the  son  nt'  Aiuth. 
In  the  days  of  Jael  the  ways  were  deserted, 
And  highway  travellers  wenl   In  rrouked  by  paths: 
Leaders  failed  in  Israel — they  failed, 
Until  that  1  Deborah  arose— 
Arose  as  a  mother  for  Israel."---  1  >,•  Wctte  s  Translation.) 

Even  she,  however,  with  all  the  influence  which  her 
prophetical  gifts  conferred  on  her,  had  the  greatest  dif 
ficulty  in  rousing  the  people  to  make  common  cause 
against  the  enemy;  and  it  appears  from  different  parts 
of  her  song  (especially  ver.  u>,i7,  L':;)  that  portions  of  the  tribes 
refused  the  mo>t  urgent  solicitations  to  venture  into 
the  conflict.  A  comparatively  small  number  of  men, 
chiefly  of  the  tribes  of  Zebuluii  and  Naphtali,  with  some 
also  from  Ephrairn  and  Issachar,  under  the  command 
of  liarak.  amounting  only  to  ten  thousand,  actually 
assembled,  and  pitched  on  Mount  Tabor.  Thither 
Sisera,  the  captain  of  Jabin's  army,  with  an  immense 
host,  and  no  fewer  than  nine  hundred  chariots  of  war, 
drew  his  forces,  and  encamped  in  the  plain  below. 
Notwithstanding  the  disparity  of  numbers,  however, 
at  the  word  of  Deborah,  the  small  but  select  company 
of  I'.arak  rushed  down  upon  the  enemy,  and  put  the 
whole  multitude  to  flight.  In  this  hostile  encounter, 
it  would  appear,  from  certain  allusions  in  the  song,  that 
the  force  of  Barak  was  signally  aided  by  interpositions 
of  Providence.  Deborah  compares  the  day  to  that  of 
the  Lord's  appearance  on  Mount  Sinai,  when  the 
heavens  dropped  and  the  earth  melted  :  speaks  also  of  a 
fighting  from  heaven,  of  the  stars  fighting  in  their 
courses,  and  of  the  river  Kishon  sweeping  a\\ay  the 
adversaries,  ver.  4,  20,  21.  The  language  is  no  doubt 
general,  and  in  form  highly  poetical;  but  it  certainly 
conveys  the  idea  of  something  like  a  violent  storm, 
probably  of  thunder  and  rain,  occurring  at  the  time, 
and  receiving  a  direction,  that  tended  materially  to  co 
operate  with  the  attack  of  Barak  in  discomfiting  the 
enemy.  The  result  was  a  complete  deliverance  from 
the  thraldom  wliich  had  for  many  years  oppressed  the 
land  ;  and  while  Deborah  in  her  song  of  praise  does  not 
overlook  the  human  instruments  that  took  part  in  the 
struggle,  she  is  careful  to  ascribe  the  real  cause  and 
glory  of  the  achievement  to  Uod.  The  song,  considered 
simply  as  a  poetical  composition,  undoubtedlv  possesses 
high  merit.  As  it  is  one  of  the  oldest  lyrics  in  exist 
ence,  so  for  some  of  the  higher  qualities  of  that  species 
of  poesy — for  dramatic  life  and  action,  for  pictorial 
skill  in  the  employment  of  a  few  graphic  strokes,  for 
glow  of  feeling,  boldness  and  energy  of  expression, 
torrent-like  rapidity  of  thought  and  utterance — it  has 
rarely  been  surpassed,  and,  as  a  female  production, 
perhaps  seldom  equalled.  Exception  has  been  taken  to 
it  in  a  spiritual  point  of  view,  on  account  of  the  un 
qualified  praise  it  pronounces  on  the  conduct  of  Jael, 
and  the  revengeful  spirit  it  seems  to  breathe  against  the 
enemies  of  Israel.  But  in  such  judgments  the  peculiar 


circumstances  of  the  times  are  ioo  much  overlooked  : 
and  it  is  silently  implied  not  only  that  the  same  princi 
ples  are  to  be  maintained  at  all  times  by  the  people  of 
(MM!,  but  that  they  must  also  receive  nearly  the  same 
mode  of  manifestation.  But  this  were  to  make  the 
present  the  standard  and  measure  of  the  past,  to  make 
the  manhood  condition  of  the  church  give  the  law  to 
its  comparative  childhood.  (See,  however,  under  JAEL.  ) 
[The  song  of  Deborah  has  been  treated  at  considerable  length 
by  various  German  writers,  especially  by  Herder  in  his  Gti.^t  d'f 
Ebraischtn  POIKU  ;  also  in  his  l.>jt-  r.s1  on  t/te  Study  of  Tlitbloyy  ; 
by  Kenriek  in  a  separate  publication  ;  by  Yon  Gumpach  in  his 
Altiixt.  Studies — to  which  the  critieal  student  may  refer.  Stieh 
writers,  however,  are  not  the  best  guides  in  respect  to  the 
theological  bearing  of  the  song.  | 

DEBT.  In  the  legislation  of  Moses  the  treatment 
of  debt  is  remarkably  just  and  equitable,  and  contrasts 
favourably  with  what  prevailed  among  many  nations  of 
antiquity.  From  the  general  distribution  of  property, 
indeed,  among  the  members  of  the  Hebrew  common 
wealth,  the  precautions  taken  to  secure  the  perpetuation 
of  inheritances,  and  the  discouragements  laid  on  com 
mercial  enterprise,  there  was  comparatively  little  tempta 
tion  to  the  incurring  of  debt  among  the  Israelites  ;  in 

1  the  great  majority  of  cases,  if  incurred,  it  must  have 
been  the  result  of  culpable  folly  and  extravagance.  It 
was  proper,  therefore,  that  penalties  to  some  extent 
should  be  imposed  to  check  the  tendency  where  it 
might  flagrantly  discover  itself.  The  first,  and  the  only 
one  that  in  ordinary  circumstances  would  require  to  be 
brought  into  play,  was  the  forfeiture  of  the  paternal 
inheritance  till  the  year  of  jubilee.  But  this  might 
sometimes  not  be  sufficient ;  it  might  be  necessary  for 
the  debtor  himself  to  go  along  with  his  inheritance,  in 
order  to  yield  a  sum  adequate  to  meet  his  obligations— 
to  sell  his  services  for  a  season,  as  well  as  his  property; 
and  this  was  the  furthest  claim  that  the  law  authorized: 
"  If  thy  brother  that  dwelleth  by  thee  be  waxen  poor, 
and  be  sold  unto  thee,  thou  shalt  not  compel  him  to 
serve  as  a  bond-servant ;  but  as  an  hired  servant,  as  a 
sojourner  shall  he  be  with  thee,  and  he  shall  serve 
thee  unto  the  year  of  jubilee  ;  and  then  he  shall  depart 
from  thee,  both  he  and  his  children  with  him,  and  shall 

'  return  unto  his  own  family,  and  unto  the  possession  of 
his  fathers  shall  he  return,"  Le.  xxv.  30-41.  In  reality, 
this  species  of  slavery  was  only  a  going-  into  service  for 
a  term  of  years,  that  the  creditor  might  reap  the  benefit, 
and  was  very  far  from  reducing  the  debtor  to  a  place 
among  the  goods  and  chattels  of  another.  The  credi 
tor  was  not  empowered  to  imprison  his  debtor,  or  visit 
him  with  any  corporal  infliction;  nor  could  practical 
hardship  and  injustice  be  enforced,  except  l>\  a  viola 
tion  of  the  statutes  of  the  kingdom.  No  doubt,  there 
were  violations  of  that  nature  in  the  times  of  public 
backsliding  and  degeneracy;  but  these  are  not  to  be 
ranked  with  severities  sanctioned  by  law,  and  which 
were  not  unknown  in  other  countries.  In  Rome  the 
creditor  could  subject  the  debtor  to  very  harsh  treat 
ment,  and  in  certain  cases  could  press  even  capital 
punishment.  The  right  of  incarcerating  debtors  in 
Egypt  had  proceeded  so  far  before  the  time  of  Sesostris, 
that  he  is  said  to  have  interfered  for  their  deliverance 
<J>iod.  i.  ,14).  A  law  was  ultimately  enacted  prohibiting 
the  seizure  of  a  debtor's  person ;  but  by  another  law 
the  creditor  was  entitled  to  possession  of  the  family 
tomb,  so  that  the  debtor  lost  the  right  of  interring  any 
member  of  his  family  so  long  as  the  debt  remained  un 
paid  (Wilkinson,  ii.  p.  61 ).  The  absence  of  any  similar 


DECALOGUE 

enactments  iu  the  legislation  of  Moses  may  justly  be 
regarded  as  a  proof  of  its  comparatively  mild  spirit, 
and  still  higher  proof  was  to  be  found  in  the  many  wise 
provisions  it  contained  for  securing  a  well-conditioned 
people,  and  checking  the  evils  that  lead  to  the  accumu 
lation  of  debt.  (>Ye  under  UsruY  and  SEKVITUUK.) 

DECALOGUE  ((Jr.  5era,\cr,os)  the  term  commonly 
applied  by  the  Greek  fathers  to  designate  the  ten  com 
mandments,  or  tut  ii-»rdf,  as  it  always  is  in  the  origi 
nal  (Sept.  61  SfKa  \6yoL}.  and  now  commonly  employed 
in  theological  language  for  the  same  purpose.  It  does 
not  actually  occur  in  Scripture:  but  as  it  is  the  most 
fitting  collective  designation  of  the  ten  commandments, 
we  shall  present  under  it  the  explanations  that  seem 
needful  to  be  given  respecting  the  form  and  substance 
of  this  remarkable  piece  of  divine  legislation. 

1.  Its  economical  iin]iortu»rt  Krst  demands  notice.   The 
giving  of  it  marks  an  era  in  the  history  of  ( Jod's  dispen 
sations.    Of  the  whole  l;i\v  this  was  both  the  first  portion 
to  be  communicated,  and  the  basis  uf  all  that  followed. 
Various  things  attested  this  superiority.    It  was  spoken 
directly  by  the    Lord  himself     not  communicated,   like 
other  parts  of  the  old   economy,  tlirough  the  ministra 
tion  of   .Moses— ami    f-pok'-n   amid  the  most  impiv>MVe 
signs  i if  his  glorious  presence  and  majesty.    Not  only  were 
the  ten  commandments   thus  spoken   by  God,  but  the 
further  mark  of  relative  importance  was  put  upon  them, 
of  being  written  on  tables  of  stone — written  by  the  very 
linger  of   God.      They     were    thus    elevated    to   a    place 
above  all  the  statutes   ami   ordinances   that  wt-re   made 
known  through  the  mediator  of  the  old  covenant:  and 

the  place  then  U'ivell  them  they  Were  alr-o  destined  to 
hold  in  the  future;  for  the  rocky  tablets  on  which  they 
were  engraved  undoubtedly  imaged  an  u/>i<(iti</  validity 
and  importance.  It  was  an  emblem  of  relative  perpe 
tuity.  The  very  number  of  words,  or  utterances,  in 
which  they  were  comprised,  tin,  bespoke  the  same 
thing;  for  in  the  significancy  that  in  ancient  time-,  was 
ascribed  to  certain  numbers,  ten  was  universally  re 
garded  as  tile  symbol  of  completeness  (Spcuccr  <lc  I,<x 
Hub.  I.  iii.;  Diilir,  synibu!ik,  vol.  i  [..  17:,).  And  in  accordance 
with  all  this,  as  also  in  further  confirmation  of  it.  the 
position  in  the  tabernacle  assigned  to  the  tables  which 
contained  the  decalogue,  bespoke  their  singular  im 
portance:  they  were  placed  at  the  centre  of  the  whole 
religion  and  polity  of  Israel — in  the  ark  of  the  covenant, 
that  stood  between  the  cherubim  in  the  most  holy 
place,  under  the  throne  of  God.  They  were  emphati 
cally  "the  tables  of  the  covenant;  the  law  which  war- 
embodied  in  them  was  itself  termed  "  the  covenant," 
Ue.  iv.  in  ;  ix.  ii;  Kx.  .\xv.  21,  ic. ;  and  simply  from  being  the 
depository  of  them  the  ark  bore  the  name  of  the  "  ark 
of  the  covenant."  In  the  revelation  of  law.  therefore, 
the  decalogue  stands  comparatively  alone ;  it  has  a 
place  ami  character  peculiarly  its  own,  and  while  it  had 
a  close  and  pervading  relation  to  other  parts  of  the 
Mosaic  economy— had  a  close  relation  also  to  the  prior 
covenant  of  promise,  which  it  distinctly  recognized  and 
embodied  in  its  very  form  (for  all  which  see  under 
LAW),  there  must  have  belonged  to  it  a  depth  and  ful 
ness  of  meaning,  such  as  no  other  piece  of  legislation 
possessed,  and  entitling  it  to  the  pre-eminent  distinction 
it  occupied.  This  on  examination  will  be  found  to  be 
the  case;  but  there  is  a  preliminary  point  that  requires 
first  to  be  briefly  noticed. 

2.  There   /«(.«   been    //inn    tn    the    decaloi/uc   a   (hm/i/e 
record,    first   in   Ex.  xx.  '2-17.   again   in   De.   v.   (J-21; 


DECALOGUE 

and  there  are  certain  differences  between  the  two  forms, 
which  have  been  taken  advantage  of  by  rationalistic- 
interpreters,  sometimes  for  the  purpose  of  disparaging 
the  historical  correctness  of  either  form,  and  sometimes 
as  a  conclusive  argument  against  the  doctrine  of  plenary 
inspiration.  The  differences  are  of  three  kinds:  (1.)  Sim 
ply  verbal,  consisting  in  the  insertion  or  omission  of  the 
Hebrew  letter  i,  which  signifies  «W;  in  Kxodusit  is  only 

omitted  once  where  it  is  found  in  Deuteronomy,  namely, 
between  r/i'ttmi  imtcn  and  an//  ///r//<>-x,  in  the  second 
commandment;  but  in  Deuteronomy  it  occurs  altogether 
."•/r  times  where  it  is  wanting  in  Kxodus  :  and  of  these, 
/"/'/•  are  at  the  commencement  of  the  last  four  com 
mandments,  which  are  severally  introduced  \\ith  an 
niitl,  joining  -them  to  what  precedes.  cl.\  Differences 
in  form,  where  still  the  sense  remains  essentially  the 
same:  under  the  fourth  commandment,  it  is  in  Kxodus 
"nor  thy  cattle,  while  in  Deuteronomy  it  is  "nor 
thine  o.\.  nor  thine  as*,  nor  any  of  thy  cattle"-  a  mere 
amplification  of  the  former  \\\  one  or  two  leading  par 
ticulars:  and  in  the  tenth  commandment,  as  given  in 
Kxodus,  "  thy  neighbour's  house"  conies  first,  while  in 
Deuteronomy  it  is  "thy  neighbour's  wife;"  and  here 
al-o  after  "thy  neighbour's  house."  is  added  "his  field" 
-another  slight  amplification.  ('.\.\  Differences  in  respect 
to  matter:  these  are'  altogether  four.  The  fourth  com 
mandment  is  introduced  in  Kxodus  with  >•<  nil  in/ii  r.  in 
Deuteronomy  with  /•«/,.-  the  reason  also  assigned  for 
it<  observance  in  Kxodus  is  derived  from  God's  original 
act  and  procedure  at  creation,  while  in  Deuteronomy 
this  is  omitted,  anil  the  deliverance  of  Israel  from  the 
land  of  Kgvpt  is  put  in  its  stead:  in  Deuteronomy  the 
fifth  commandment  runs,  "  Honour  thy  father  and  thy 
mother.  «x  tin  l.<,i-il  tin  <,,,<!  :•::,„,„, ,„(/«/  fine,"  the 
latter  words  having  no  place  in  Kxodus:  and  in  the 
tenth  commandment,  instead  of  "  Thou  shall  not  fnret 
thy  neighbour's  wife."  it  stands  in  Deuteronomy  "Thou 
shall  not  (it/tin  thy  neighbour's  wife" — (littering  only, 
however,  in  this,  that  the  one  (covet)  fixes  attention 
more  upon  the  improper  desire'  to  possess,  and  the  other 
upon  the  improper  desire1  itself. 

It  is  obvious  that  these  differences  leave  the  main 
body  or  substance  of  the  decalogue,  as  a  revelation  of 
law.  entirely  untouched;  not  one  of  them  affects  the 
import  and  bearing  of  a  single  precept;  nor,  if  viewed 
in  their  historical  relation,  can  they  be  regarded  as 
involving  in  any  doubt  or  uncertainty  the  verbal  accu 
racy  of  the  form  presented  in  Kxodus.  \\'e  have  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  words  there  recorded  are 
precisely  those  which  were  uttered  from  Sinai,  and 
written  upon  the  tables  of  stone.  In  Deuteronomy 
.Moses  gives  a  revised  account  of  the  transactions,  using 
I  throughout  certain  freedoms,  as  speaking  in  a  hortative 
manner,  and  from  a  •more  distant  point  of  view;  and, 
while  he  repeats  the  commandments  as  those  which  the 
Lord  had  spoken  from  the  midst  of  the  fire  and 
written  on  tables  of  stone.  Do.  v.  '2-2,  he  yet  shows  in  his 
very  mode  of  doing  it,  that  he  did  not  aim  at  an 
exact  reproduction  of  the  past,  but  wished  to  preserve 
to  some  extent  the  form  of  a  free  rehearsal.  This 
especially  appears  in  the  addition  to  the  fifth  com 
mandment,  ''as  the  Lord  thy  God  commanded  thee," 
which  distinctly  pointed  back  to  a  prior  original,  and 
even  recognized  that  as  the  permanently  existing  form. 
The  introducing  also  of  so  many  of  the  later  commands 
with  the  copulative  am/,  tends  to  the  same  result;  as 


DECALOGUE 


121 


DECALOGUE 


it  is  precisely  what  would   lie  natural  in  a  rehearsal, 
though  not  in   the  original  announcements,  and  came  j 
from  combining  with  the  legislative  something  of  the 
narrative   style.      Such  being  plainly  the  character  of 
this  later  edition,  its  other  and  more  noticeable  devia 
tions—the  occasional  amplifications  admitted  into  it. 
the  substitution  of  desire  for  caret,   with  respect  to  a 
neighbour's  wife,  in  the  tenth  command:  and  of  the  de 
liverance  of  Israel  from  Egypt,  for  the  divine  order  of  . 
procedure  at  the  creation,  in  the  fourth — fall  to  be  re-  | 
garded  as  slightly  varied  and  explanatory  statements,  j 
which  it  was  perfectly  competent  for  the  authorized  me 
diator  of  the  covenant  to  introduce,  and  which,  in  nature 
and  design,  clo  not  materially  differ  from  the  alterations 
sometimes  made  by  inspired  writers  of  the  New  Testa 
ment  on  the  passages  they  quote  from  the  Old(sce  Fairbairn's 

Hermcn.  Manual,  p.  351,  seq.)       They  are  not  without  use  in 

an  exegetical  respect;  anil  in  the  present  case  have  also  a 
distinct  historical  value,  from  the  important  evidence 
they  yield  in  favour  of  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  Deu 
teronomy  ;  since  it  is  inconceivable  that  any  later 
author,  "fictitiously  personating  Moses,  would  have 
ventured  on  making  such  alterations  on  what  had  been 
so  expressly  ascribed  by  Moses  to  God  himself,  and 
which  seemed  to  bear  on  it  such  peculiar  marks  of 
sacredness  and  inviolability.  ^liuvernick's  Introduction  to 
the  Pentatuuch,  sect.  25. ) 

It  follows  from  these  remarks,  that  any  view  formed 
of  the   decalogue   as  a  whole,  or  of  any  of  its  parts, 
which  rests  upon  the  differences  in  the  later  as  com 
pared  with  the  earlier  form,  and  gives  the  preference  to 
the  later,  must  be  rejected;  it  inverts  the  proper  order 
and  relation  of  things.     Of  such  a  nature  is  the  view- 
that  is  sometimes  propounded  respecting  the  fourth  com 
mandment,  where  the  reason  urged  in  Deuteronomy  for 
its  faithful  observance  by  the  Israelites— their  signal 
deliverance  from  the  land  of  Egypt— is  made  to  super 
sede  the  more  general  ground  on  which  the  institution 
is  based  in  Exodus  ;  and  the  sabbatical  ordinance  is  con 
sequently  exhibited  as  a  distinctively  Jewish  solemnity. 
Even  were  this  to  be  taken  as  the  only  reason  assigned, 
the  argument  founded  on  it  would  not  be  valid ;  for 
the  fifth  commandment  also  is  enforced  by  a  strictly 
Israelitish  promise,  while  no  one  is  foolish  enough  to 
maintain,  that  the  matter  of  the  command  is  thereby  con 
tracted  into  a  merely  Israelitish  obligation.     In  all  ages 
of  the  church  special  reasons,  arising  out  of  present  acts 
of  mercy  or  of  judgment,  may  be,  and  often  have  been, 
employed  to  enforce  general  and  permanently  binding 
duties.     In  the  case  now  more  immediately  in  hand, 
the  special  could  never   be  intended  to  interfere  with 
the  earlier  and  more  general ;  it  could  only  have  been 
thrown  in  as  an  incidental  and  subsidiary  consideration: 
both,  because  the  deliverance  of  Israel  from  Egypt  could 
not,  like  the  argument  from  creation  in  Exodus,  be  ad 
duced  as  an  adequate  reason  for  formally  grounding  an 
institution  like  the  Sabbath,  and  also  because  the  account 
in  Deuteronomy  professes  to  be  no  more  than  a  rehearsal 
of  what  had  elsewhere  obtained  its  primal  record.     It 
is  not  there,  therefore,  but  in  Exodus,  that  we  are  to 
look  for  the  more  fundamental  representation.     God's 
delivering  Israel  from  Egypt  might  well  induce  them  to 
practise  the  mercy  involved  in  the  Sabbath  as  an  existing 
institution  ;   but  the  procedure  of  God  in  creating  the 
world  in  six  days  and  resting  on  the  seventh,  was  what 
orir/inated  the  sabbatical  order,  and  fixed  it  in  the  very 
constitution  of  things. 


Another  and  equally  groundless  application  has  been 
made  of  the  precedence  given  in  Deuteronomy  to  the 
ii-ife  of  one's  neighbour,  as  if,  by  placing  this  before  his 
house  (which  stands  first  in  Exodus),  a  kind  of  separate 
place  were  secured  for  her,  and  to  covet  the  wife  were 
a  different  thing  in  principle  from  coveting  house  and 
possessions:  thus  the  prohibition  to  covet  falls  into  two 
commands.     So,  for  example,  Kurtz,   in  his  Jfistory  of 
the  Old  C'orenaiit;  although,  in  stating  the  opposite  view, 
he  presents  what  may  justly  be  regarded  as  a  conclusive 
argument  against  it:    "The  command.    Thou  shalt  not 
covet,  it  is  said,  however  manifold  may  be  the  objects 
of  covetous  desire,  is  still  essentially  one.    This  is  raised 
to  undoubted  certainty  by  the  circumstance,  that  in 
Exodus  the  house,    while  in  Deuteronomy  the  wife,   is 
named  first.      If  there  were  indeed  two  commands,  the 
n  in  th  according  to  Exodus  wTould  be,    '  Thou  shalt  not 
covet   thy  neighbour's  house,'  but   according  to   Deu 
teronomy,  '  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbour's  wife.' 
This,  however,  would  be  an  absolute  inexplicable  contra 
riety;  whereas,  if  all  the  objects  of  covetous  desire  were 
brought  into  one  command,  the  transposition  would  be 
quite    trivial    and   insignificant,    in   no    respect    more 
noticeable  than  the  other  differences  which  appear  in 
the  free  reproduction  of  the  commandments  in  Deu 
teronomy"    (ii.  sect.  47,3).      Kurtz  admits   the   truth  of 
this — if  the  relation  of  the  account  in  Deuteronomy 
to  that  of  Exodus  were  as  we  have  supposed;  but  re 
fusing  to  concede  this,  and  conceiving  that  the  position 
of  the  wife  in  Deuteronomy  may  be  the  original  one, 
that  the  form    in    Exodus  may    have    arisen    from    a 
corruption  in  the  text    -that  the  twofold  introduction  of 
tJtou  sha/t  not  caret,  applied  to  wife  and  goods  respec 
tively,  renders  it  in  fact  a  double  precept  (as  if  the 
second  command  might  not  for  a  like  reason  be  split 
into  two1) — and  that  by  so  splitting  it  we  most  readily 
f-et  a  division  of  the  whole  commandments  into  the 
sacred  three  and  seven— three  for  the  first,  and  seven 
for  the  second  table ;   on  these  grounds,  which  are  en 
tirely  hypothetical  and  fanciful,  Kurtz  adheres  to  the 
Romish  view,   which  finds  two  precepts  of  the  law  in 
the  command  against  coveting.     The  alleged  grounds 
cannot  weigh  much  with  those  who  take  the  records 
of  Scripture  as  they  stand,   and  in  their  treatment  of 
these  accustom  themselves  to  look  at  things  in  their 
broad   and   natural  aspect,    instead   of  straining   after 
minute  and  refined  considerations. 

3.  Discarding,  then,  such  disturbing  notions  regard 
ing  the  matter  of  the  ten  commandments,  and  holding 
these  to  have  been  pronounced  and  engraven  on  the 
tables  as  recorded  in  Ex.  xx.,  we  have  to  note  the 
distinctive  peculiarities  and  excellencies  that  charac 
terize  them  as  a  revelation  of  God's  will,  or  a  com 
prehensive  summary  of  man's  duty.  There  are  certain 
points  concerning  them  on  which  a  diversity  of  opinion 
exists,  and  particularly  as  to  the  distribution  of  the  com 
mands  into  two  tables:  but  there  are  great  and  impor 
tant  features  about  which  little  or  no  room  for  contro 
versy  may  exist.  (1.)  One  of  the  most  prominent  of 
these  is  the  intensely  and  predominantly  moral  tone  of 
the  revelation.  It  speaks  throughout,  not  of  formal  dis 
tinctions  or  external  services,  but  of  fundamental  prin 
ciples,  holy  feelings,  essential  relationships,  and  the 
pure,  reverent,  upright,  or  merciful  behaviour,  by  which 
they  should  be  honoured  and  maintained.  Even  the 
comparative  externalism  of  the  fourth  command  ap 
pears  but  as  a  provision  for  securing  a  moral  aim— 


DECALOGUE 


participation  for  each  individual  in  the  sacred  rest  and 
blessing  of  God.  and  seasonable  repose  for  his  depen 
dants   and   cattle.      At  such  a  time — in  an  a^e  when 
religion  was  everywhere  running  out  into   shows  anil 
ceremonies — under  an  economy  also  which  itself  partook 
so  largely  of  the  outward  and  symbolical  —it  surely  was 
a  remarkable,    as   well  as  ennobling  peculiarity,   that 
this  central  revelation  of  truth  and   duty  should  have 
stood   so    much    aloof    from    the    circumstantials,  and 
brought  men's  hearts  so  directly  into  contact  with  the 
realities  of  things.      c2.)  A  second,  and  equally  conspi 
cuous  point,  is  the  relative  place  given  to  the  thinys 
which  concern  men's  obligations  toward  God.  and  those 
which   concern   their   obligations  toward    their  fellow- 
men.      If  it  may  be  matter  of  dispute  how  many  of  the 
specific  ten  belong  to  the  one  class,  and   how    many   tip 
the  other,  it  is  certain — palpable  to  every  eye  --that  the 
claims  of  God   go   first,  and   gradually   meive  into  the 
claims  that  lie  upon  one  member  of   the  human  family 
to  another.      To    be   ri^ht  with  God      it    was    thus    \ir 
tually  proclaimed     is  the  first,   the  urand  tiling:   yea, 
and    that   which,    when   properly    attained,   is   the    best 
security  for  keeping  right  witli  one's  fellowmen.      KV 
ligion.  as  consisting  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God. 
is  the  root  of   social  worth  ;   and    fidelity   to   the    higher 
relationships  is  the  ground   and   animatin'_r  principle  of 
obedience  in  the  low.  r.      Hence  also  it  is  in  connection 
with  those  commands  \\hich  more  or  less  directly  affect 
our  relation  to  God.  that   reasons    arc   assigned  tor   tin- 
observance   of  them   iin  the  first  the  reason  eu-n    takes 
precedence  of  the  command':  while  in  those  that  expli 
citly  relate  to  our  neighbour   there    is    the  naked  utter 
ance  of  the  precept :   as  if.  s\  hen  the   former   was   con: 
plied  with,  the  latter  could  require  no  separate  enforce 
ment.      Josephus  already  drew  attention  to   this  as  one 
of   the  characteristic  excellences  of  the  constitution  set 
up  by  the  hand  of  .Moses,  who  did  not  (says  he)  "make 
religion  a  part  of  virtue,  but    saw   and  ordained   other 
virtues  to  be  parts  of  religion"  lApi-n,  ii.  i:i;  and  it  is  in 
the  decalogue  that  this  distinctive  feature  has  its  most 
palpable  and  striking  embodiment.   ('•'>.>  Another  remark 
able  feature  in  this  moral   code   is  the  admirable   order 
and   arrangement    of   its   several   parts.       It    does  not 
merely  present  a  summary  of  human  obligation  toward 
God  anil  man.   but  presents   it   in  such   a  form  as  itself 
bespeaks  the  impress  of  a  divine  hand.      Thus  in  regard 
to  the  objects   contemplated  in   the  different   precepts, 
they  begin  at  the  most  vital  point,  and  gradually  recede 
to   what  less  closely  and  directly  touches  the  person  or 
interest   of    the   individual:    God      in    his    being,  in   his 
worship,  in  his  name,  in  his  day.   in  his  earthly  repre 
sentatives  :    then   one's   neighbour   -in    his    life,    in   his 
dearest   possession   (his  second-self,   as  it  were),   in  his 
common  property,  in  his  general  standing  and  position 
(all  that  may  lie  affected  by  false  testimony  regarding 
him),  in  his  place  in  one's  good- will  and  affection.    Then,   : 
in  regard  UP  the   subjects   of   the  obligations  imposed, 
everything  belonging  to  them  as  rational   beings  is  in 
each    department  of    duty    laid    under   contribution— 
heart,  speech,   and   behaviour;   yet   in  different   order.    | 
as  might  best  suit  the  different  relations.      The  moment  I 
one's  relation   to   the  true  God  -the  spiritual,  the  all- 
seeing,   the  omnipresent— comes  into  view,  it  is  of  ne 
cessity  the  heart  that  is  primarily  concerned  :  he  must 
have  the  proper  place  in  its  regard  and  homage,  other 
wise  nothing  in  a  manner  is  granted:  the  work  of  obe 
dience  is  never  so  much  as  begun.      Here,   therefore, 
VOL.  I. 


the  decalogue  takes  its  commencement,  in  the  demand 
of  God  to    be   acknowledged  as  alone  entitled   to   the 
|  homage  of  his  creatures:  no  other  must  be  set  up  before 
him— not  even  in  the  imaginations  of  the  heart,  for  he 
is  also  there,  nay  there  specially  and  peculiarly.      That 
the  heart  is  more  immediately  in    view,  is   still   more 
evident  from  the  prohibition  given  in  the  next  command 
against  graven  images;    implying,  that   if  he   was  pro 
perly  eyed  at  all.  it  must  be  in  the  region  of  the  inner 
man— in    the    spiritual    regard    that   was   proper  to  a 
spiritual  being,  of  whom  no  visible   representation  was 
admissible.      Then,  as  here  we  have  the  consecration  of 
the  heart   to  God.  so   in    what   follows   there   is   a  like 
consecration  demanded  of  the  speech  \\.\n_-  third*,  and  the 
conduct  (the  fourth,  and  to  some  extent  also  the  tifth). 
If  now  we  turn  to  the  other   class  of  relations,  while 
the  heart   of  love   is   equally  necessary  to  yield   a  full 
and   j proper  satisfaction  to   their  claims,  it  is  not  so  in 
dispensable  as  regards  the   overt  acts  of  duty,  or  the 
personal  interest  of  one's  neighbour.      He  may  be  the 
object   not  of   hostile  or  injurious,  but  of  dutiful  and 
benignant   treatment,  though   the  heart   is  not  toward 
him  as  it  should  be:  and  here,  accordingly,  the  order  i- 
of  the  inverse   kind     deed  (in   the   sixth,  seventh,   and 
eighth  >,  speech  (the  ninth),  and  the  heart  (the  tenth  V 
P>i:t  if  \\e  regard  the  tifth  as  occupying  a  kind,  of  inter 
mediate  position  between  the  divine  and  the  human — 
parents  being  somewhat  in  the  room  of  God,   and  yet 
the  objects  of  only  a  human  affection    -then  the  honour 
enjoined  toward  them   may  be   said    to  include   all   the 
three,      heart,  speech,  and  behaviour  arc   alike  involved 
in  it.       I'.ut  as  regards  the  precepts  more  distinctly  and 
obviously  relating   to   one's    neighbour,  the   order  is  as 
exhibited  above;  from  the  behaviour  to  the  speech,  then 
from  the  .-peech    to   the   heart.      Thus,    "the    end   cor 
responds  with  the  beginning:   the  heart  is  distinguished 
as  the  alpha  and  the  omega,  as  that  from  which  every 
thing  proceeds,  and  to  which  everything  tends"    (Heng- 
stc-:iV»ci-g).      And    with    the    spirituality    of    the    law   so 
clearly  stamped  on  the  very  form  of  the  decalogue     a 
law.  toe.,  that  as  proceeding   from  a  spiritual  and   holy 
<  iod.  must  necessarily  have  partaken  of  his  own  charac 
ter     it  seems  almost  inexplicable  how  divines  can   be 
found   (as  they   sometimes    still  are)  speaking  of  it  as 
demanding     only    an     external     and    ci\il    obedience. 
(4.)  One  further  peculiarity  concerning  it  deserves  to  be 
noted     namely,    its    predominantly     negative     aspect. 
That  it  was  not  simply  the  prohibition  of  overt  acts  of 
evil    which    the   decalogue   aimed   at,    but  that  every 
"  thou  shalt  not"  implied   a    counter  "  thon   shalt,"  is 
manifest  from  the  heart  being,  as   has   been   stated,  so 
distinctly    rei|uired.   and   also  from  some  of  the  com 
mands  taking  the  positive   form   (the  fourth  and  fifth). 
At  the  same  time  it  cannot  lie  without  a  meaning  that 
they  were  made  to  run  so  much  in  the  prohibitory  style. 
It  doubtless   arose  from   the  depravity  of  the  human 
heart,  which  needs  on  every  hand  to  be  restrained  and 
checked  in  its  tendencies  to  sin.     The  more  immediate 
reason   of    the   law    being    given    was,    because  of  the 
abounding  of  transgression,  (;a.  iii  i;  and  the  prohibitory 
form  into   which   its   commands    were  chiefly  thrown, 
testifies  that  the   bent  of  men's   spirits  is   toward  the 
evil  and  not  toward  the  good.      SP  that  the  decalogue, 
in  its   very  form,    is  a  standing   testimony  against  the 
sinfulness  of  man,  as  well  as  for  the  holiness  of  God. 

4.    Tin-  j>i-(-r!xe  dlxti-i/ni/iini  »f  tin    <'<niiin<ind.t   lit    lie 
decafof/ue  icit/t  reference  t<>  «////  nu-rc/i/  immerifal  di ci 
te 


DECALOGUE 


420 


DECALOGUE 


xioit,    is   seen   to   !K'   a  matter   of   comparatively   little 
moment  when  the  decalogue  itself  is  rightly  understood. 
Stress  is  undoubtedly  laid  upon  the  number  ten.  as  that 
in  which  the  whole   were  comprised  ;  and   the   fact  is 
also  once  and  again  stated,  that  they  were  written  upon 
two  tables.      But  it  is  nowhere  indicated   how  many 
•  >f   the    commands   were   written    upon   one  table  and 
how    many    upon    another.       For    anything    said    in 
Scripture  itself,  the  two  may  have  been  chosen  simply 
because,  from  the  size  of  the  ark  in  which  they  were  to 
be  deposited,  one  might  not  have  been  sufficient  for  the 
purpose,  and  more  than  two  would   have  been  unne 
cessary,      fn   New   Testament   scripture    we    find    the 
import  of   the  ten  comprised  under  two  fundamental 
precept*,    called   respectively  the   first  and  the  second 
commandments :  the  one  requiring  the  supreme  love 
of  God,   and  the  other  the  love  of  one's  neighbour  as 
one's  self.  Mat.  xxii.  37-:;o.     But  though  the  ground  of  this 
division  exists  in  the  very  nature  of  the  moral  law.  and 
the  precise  words  embodying  it  are  found  in  different 
places  of  the  Pentateuch,  so  that  it  could  not  be  un 
known  to  the  ancient  Israelites,  it  is  not  said,  either 
in    Old    or  New    Testament  scripture,    how  many    of 
the  ten  precepts  of  the  law  are  embraced  in  the  first 
and  great  commandment  of  love,  and  how  many  in  the 
second.     Nothing  therefore  depends,  for  any  scriptural 
principle   connected  with  the  subject,    on  the   precise 
division  adopted  ;  and  if  the  several  precepts  were  but 
fairly  dealt  with  and  fully  exhibited,  no  concern  need  be 
felt  about  their  formal  classification.     In  reality,  how 
ever,  there  have  been  considerable  diversities  of  opinion 
in  the  matter,  and  not  merely  certain  schools  of  inter 
pretation,  but  entire  communities  have  shown  a  dispo 
sition  to  take   up   here  a  distinctive  ground  regarding 
it.     There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  what  was  the  earliest, 
and  what  also  must   ever  be  regarded  as  the  simplest 
view.     Both   Philo  and  Josephus  expressly  state,  and 
in  doing  so  doubtless  indicate  the  prevailing  belief  of 
their  time,  that  the  decalogue  fell  into   two  halves,  in 
correspondence  with  the  two  tables,  and  that  five  were 
written  upon  the  one   table   and  five  upon  the  other. 
In  his  treatise  on   the   decalogue  Philo   calls  the  fifth 
commandment  (Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  &c.) 
the  concluding  one  of  the  first  table,  and  also  represents 
it  as  having  had  its  place  on  the  confines  of  the  two 
tables,  because  of  the  parental  relationship  appearing  to 
partake  partly  of  the  divine  and  partly  of  the  human. 
Josephus  is  equally  explicit  both  as  to  the  division  into 
the  two  fives,  and  also  as  to  the  first  five  terminating 
with  the  command  to  honour  father  and  mother  (Antiq 
iii.  c.  fi,  sect.  oV     "The    first    commandment,''    he    says. 
"  teaches  us  that  there  is  but  one  God,  and  that  we  ought 
to  worship  him  only ;  the   second  commands  us  not  to 
make  the  image  of  any  living  creature,  to  worship  it; 
the  third,  that  we  must  not  swear  by  God  in  a  false 
matter:  the  fourth,  that  we  must  keep  the  seventh  day 
by  resting  from  all  sorts  of  work  ;  the  fifth,   that  we 
must  honour  our  parents  :  the   sixth,  that  we  must  ab 
stain  from  murder;  the  seventh,  that  we  must  not  commit 
adultery;  the    eighth,  that   we   must  not  be  guilty  of 
theft;  the  ninth,  that  we  must  not  bear  false  witness; 
the  tenth,  that  we  must  not  admit  the   desire  of  that 
which  is  another's." 

This  arrangement,  so  far  as  regards  the  ten  consti 
tuent  parts  of  the  decalogue,  has  also  the  suffrage  of 
many  of  the  most  intelligent  and  learned  of  the  fathers. 
Origen.  in  his  eighth  homily  on  Genesis,  not  only 


adopts  it,  but  reasons  for  it,  in  preference  to  another 
mode  which  was  beginning  to  find  advocates,  and  which 
would  throw  the  first  and  second  command  into  one; 
he  rejected  this  because  he  could  not  in  that  case  get 
the  number  ten  complete:  either,  therefore,  not  knowing 
of  the  attempt  to  accomplish  this  by  dividing  the  prohi 
bition  against  lust  into  two,  or  not  deeming  it  deserving 
of  notice.  Jerome  (on  Ep.  vi.  2),  follows  the  same  order: 
also  the  author  of  the  commentary  on  Ephesians  in 
Ambrose's  works  ;  Gregory  Nazianzen,  in  his  poem  on 
the  decalogue :  and  it  became  the  prevalent  one  in 
the  Greek  church,  as  in  later  times  among  the  churches 
of  the  Reformation,  excepting  the  Lutheran. 

Augustine  adopted  a  different  mode  of  enumeration, 
which  has  received  the  sanction   of   Rome,  and  is  also 
adhered  to  by  most  Lutheran  divines.     According  to  it 
the  first  and  second  commands,  in  the  explanation  just 
o-iven,  are  thrown   into  one.  on  the  ground  that  they 
both  relate  to  the  worship  of  God  ;  and  the  prohibition 
against  coveting  is  split  into  two.  from  its  being  said 
to  be  one  thing  to  covet  a  man's  wife,  and  another  to 
covet   his  house    or    possessions.      But    obviously  the 
chief  reason  was  to  find  in  the  first  part  of  the  deca 
logue,   the  more  distinctively  religious   part,   a  refer 
ence  to  the  Trinity.     After  referring  to  the  other  view, 
Augustine  said,  it  appeared  to  him  more  congruous  to 
divide  the  whole  into  three  and  seven.  "  inasmuch  as 
to  those  who  diligently  look  into  the  matter,  the  precepts 
which  relate  to   God*  seem  to   insinuate  the  Trinity" 
(Qucest.  in  Ex.  71).     But  this  respect  to  the  Trinity  in  a 
moral  code  would  be  out  of  place ;   and  though  both 
three  and  seven  were  occasionally  employed  as  sacred 
numbers  in   Scripture,    yet  one   can   see  no   adequate 
reason   for  such   a  division    in    the    decalogue,    which 
from  the  very  nature  and  form  of  its  contents  points  to 
a  perfectly  simple  twofold  division.     Besides,  the  com 
mand  to   acknowledge  but  one  God  did  not  of  itself 
exclude  the  possibility  of  worshipping  him  by  images  ; 
the  one  has  respect  to  the  object  of  worship,  the  other 
to  its  manner— two  distinct  things :  while   coveting  is 
essentially  one,  whatever  its  precise  object.     To  make 
the  coveting  of  a  man's  wife   different  in  kind  from 
coveting  his  house  or  field,  would  be  to  take  it  out  of 
the  category  of  coveting,  and  place  it  in  that  of  sensual 
indulgence  (the  seventh).    This  arrangement,  therefore, 
is  greatly  inferior  in  naturalness  and  logical  order  to 
the  one  previously  mentioned ;   and  practically  it  has 
proved  an  unhappy  one ;  as  it  has   served  in  Roman 
Catholic  countries  to  throw  quite  into  the  back -ground 
the  prohibition  against  idol- worship. 

A  mode  of  enumeration  current  among  the  Jews, 
and  indeed  adopted  in  the  Talmud,  so  far  coincides 
with  the  Augustinian  view,  that  it  combines  the  first 
and  second  "commands  into  one :  but  differs  in  Bother 
respects.  The  first  command,  according  to  it,  is  the 
declaration.  "I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  who  brought 
thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage"— which,  however,  is  no  command,  as  Origen 
lono-  ago  remarked,  but  is  simply  the  revelation  of  the 
Being  who  proclaims  the  commands,  and.  as  such,  lays 
the  ground  of  all  the  obligations  imposed,  more  espe 
cially  of  that  imposed  in  the  first  command  imme 
diately  following— to  take  him.  and  him  alone,  for 
God. 

There  still  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among  the  Re 
formed,  who  agree  with  Philo.  Josephus,  Origen,  &c., 
as  to  the  mode  of  making  up  the  ten  commands,  in 


DEGAPOL1S 

regard  to  the  division  into  two  tables;  many,  with  Calvin, 
referring  four  to  the  first  and  six  to  the  second;  while 
others,  following  Philo  and  Josephus.  assign  five  to  the 
one  and  five  to  the  other.  This  last  is  undoubtedly  the 
simplest  arrangement,  and  is  justified  by  the  considera 
tion  that  parents  are  viewed  as  Clod's  earthly  represen 
tatives,  toward  whom  the  young  must  first  "show  piety," 
as  the  lx;st  preparative  for  their  ultimately  fearing  God. 
Lilt,  as  already  remarked,  the  command  can  only  in  part 
be  referred  to  the  first  table  :  it  has  a  certain  affinity  also 
with  the  second;  and  while  formally  it  should  perhaps 
be  associated  with  divine  obligations,  it  practically  links 
itself  to  human  interests  and  social  duties. 

For  the  place  occupied  by  the  decalogue  in  the 
divine  dispensations,  the  relation  it  held  to  the  cere 
monial  institutions  of  the  <  >ld  Testament,  its  diang'-d 
position  under  the  -opel.  and  other  collateral  topics, 
see  LAW. 

DECAPOLIS,  the  Greek  ai  OeKO.  TTO\(^,  t/u  hn 
ritii*,  thrown  into  one  \\ord,  and  applied  as  a  proper 
name  to  a  region  or  district  lying  to  the  north  and 
north-east  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  It  is  occasional! v 
mentioned  in  the  gospels  as  a  district,  from  which 
people-  came  to  wait  on  our  Lord's  ministry,  or  which 
he  himself  visited  :  but  without  any  specific  account  of 
the  territory  it  embrace -d.  or  the  cities  whence  it  derivi'd 
its  name,  .Mat.  iv.  •_•,-,;  M.ir.  v.  -j.i;  vii.31.  That  it  belonged  to 
the  part  of  Syria  mentioned  above  is  evident  from  the 
last  passage  referred  t.>.  \\heiv  it  i<  -aid  that  Jesus, 
"departing  from  the  coasts  of  Tyre  ami  Si. Ion.  came  to 
the  Sea  of  Galilee,  through  the  mid.-t  of  the  coast:)  of 
Decapolis."  It  is  sometimes  .-pokeii  of  as  IK  le.n.nnu  to 
Galilee,  but  only  one  of  the  cities  included  in  the  ten 
lay  within  the  bounds  of  Galilee'  p  roper  iSc\  thopolis). 
Tile  list  of  Pliny  is  the'  followiii'j- :  Dama-e-us,  Phila 
delphia  Uhc  Kabbatli  of  De.  iii.  11),  Kaphana.  Scvtho- 
polis  \tlie  Bethshan  of  1  Sa.  xxxi.  In,,  Gadara  (in  Per.  a, 
Miir.v.  n,  Hippos.  Dios,  Telia.  Gerasa  (GadanO,  and 
Ganatha.  I'liny  admits  that  there  was  some  eliversitv 
in  regard  to  the  cities  actually  a.-si^ned  to  the  district 
(in  quo  lion  oinnes  eadem  observant,  Nat.  His.  \.  n;):  and 
Josephus  certainly  must  have  understood  the  matter 
otherwise,  as  lie  designates  Scythe ipolis  tin.-  greatest 
city  in  the-  Decapolis  (Wars,  iii  \  7),  which  he  e-uiild  not 
have  clone',  if,  according  to  his  reckoning.  Dama.se'us 
had  be'longe-d  to  it.  Kusebius  seeini  to  have'  re-^ardeel 
it  as  a  section  of  I'erea,  since  he  descrilies  it  as  that 
part  of  I'erea  whicli  lies  about  Hippos,  Pella,  and 
Gadara  (Onomath.)  Tlie  probability  is  that  the  preci.se 
cities  to  se>me  extent  diflered  at  one  period  as  compared 
with  another.  They  seem  to  have  been  associated 
together,  not  in  a  civil,  but  in  a  comnuTcial  league-, 
with  the  view  of  promoting  the  interests  of  the  Greek 
population  resielent  in  them;  and  it  may  have  been 
fouml  expedient  at  times  to  drop  a  particular  city  from 
the  number,  anel  assume  another  in  its  stead.  The 
eliversitv  that  appears  in  the  ancient  enumerations 
would  thus  be  quite  naturally  explained. 

DE'DAN  occurs  as  the  name  of  two  different  indi 
viduals  mentiemed  in  Scripture — the  earliest,  a  son  of 
Raamah,  and  grandson  of  Gush.  Ou.  x.  7;  and  the  other, 
one  of  the  sons  of  Jokshan,  and  grandson  of  Abraham 
by  Keturah,  Gc.  xxv. :;.  Nothing  is  said  of  the  particular 
localities  respectively  occupied  by  the  families  or  pos 
terity  of  these  two  persons;  only,  as  Jokshan,  the 
father  of  the  Abrahamic  Dedan,  was  sent  away  bv 
Abraham,  along  with  the  other  sons  of  Keturah,  "east- 


''  DKDK'ATIOX 

ward,  unto  the  tast  country."  it  may  lie  presumed, 
that  if  the  family  grew  into  a  distinct  tribe,  it  would  be 
found  somewhere  in  that  direction.  Such  in  realitv 
was  the  case.  In  the  burden  of  Arabia,  as  depicted  bv 
Isaiah,  ch.  \xi.  i;;,  special  mention  is  made  of  the  travel 
ling  companies  of  Jlcdanim;  from  which  we  mav  infer 
that  they  formed  one  of  the  many  Arabian  tribe-!,  and 
that  they  were  much  given  to  the  caravan  or  inland 
trade  of  the  East.  1  n  like  manner  the  prophet  Jeremiah 
associates  them  witli  the  Kdomites.  and  represents  the 
calamity  which  was  ivadv  to  befall  the  seed  of  Ksaii, 
as  fraught  with  danger  to  the  inhabitant-  of  Dedan: 
they  are  admonished  to  take  .special  precautions,  lest 
it  might  involve  them  also  in  ruin.  ch.  xlix.S;  and  in 
ch.  xxv.  '2-1  lie  connects  Dedan  with  Tema  and  Bu/.. 
two  other  Arabian  tribe's.  The  allusions  in  Fxekiel  are 
entirely  similar,  both  as  to  the  region  they  occupied. 
ch. xxv.  13,  and  the  manners  thev  followed:  for  tliev  ap 
pear  amoiii_r  the  trailers  who  ministered  to  the  extensive 
merchandise  of  Tyre,  along  \\itli  those  of  Sheha  and 
Tarshish,  ch.  xxvii.  l.vj«;  xx.wiii.  i:;.  These  are  all  the 
maires  to  be  found  in  Scripture  respecting  the  Dedan- 
ites;  and  there  can  be  iittl.  doubt  that  they  are  to  he 
understood  of  the  people  who  sprung  from  Jokshan, 
the  sou  of  Abraham  by  Kcturah:  MIHV  they  were 
found  in  the  quarter  to  which  the  father  of  that  Dedan 
migrated,  and  appear  al-o  in  a  certain  allinitv  with 
tribes  whicli  belonged  to  the  same  original  stein. 

Of  the  other  Dedan  we  know  absolutely  nothing  but 
his  parentage;  and  it  is  quite  arbitrarv  to  MI]  pose 
with  some  i  ins),  that  the  genealogies  given 

of  tlie  two  Dedans  were  hut  ditl.T'-nt  traditions  of  the 
origin  and  descent  of  the  one  tribe.  It  has  been  sup- 
po-ed.  chiefly  from  a  place  Dadan  bein^  kno\\  n  to  have 

st 1    near   the  l'.-r-ian  Gulf,    that    the   descendants  of 

the  C'ushite  Dedan  had  probably  settled  tin-re,  and 
'ji\  en  tin  ir  name  to  the  place.  Put  this  is  quite  doubtful: 
and  it  is  more  in  accordance  with  the  actual  truth  to 
:-av  that  no  certain  information  exists  upon  the  subject. 

DEDICATION.  FEAST  OF.  A  special  service  of 
coii-ccratioii.  either  in  setting  apart  anything  that  \\a* 
to  be  devoted  to  a  sacred  use,  or  In  cleansing  a  sacred 
thing  from  some  pollution,  that  had  rendered  it  unfit 
for  its  proper  destination,  was  called  a  t/«/ir<tfion. 
Thus,  the  t:d  ernacle  was  dedicated  when,  witli  certain 
rites  of  purification,  it  was  actually  set  apart  for  divine 
service,  Kx.xl  ;  and  in  like  manner  tlie  temple,  when  by 
solemn  invocation  and  sacrificial  offerings  it  was  opened 
bv  Solomon  and  the  ministering  priests,  iKiviii.  lint 
what  among  tlie  later  .lews  was  called  emphatically  the 
dedication,  and  in  commemoration  of  which  a  stated 
observance  or  feast  was  kept  up,  was  the  fresh  conse 
cration  of  the  temple  after  it  had  been  profaned  by  the 
foul  abominations  of  Antiochus  Kpiphanes.  as  recorded 
in  1  Mac.  iv.  .VJ-.V.i.  The  event  it  commemorated  took 
place  H.c.  I'M:  and  tlie  feast  itself  is  once  mentioned  in 
tlie  history  of  our  Lord's  earthly  ministry.  Speaking 
of  his  discourses  with  the  .lews  em  a  certain  occasion, 
St.  John  states  "  it  was  at  Jeru?alem  the  feast  of  tho 
dedication,  and  it  was  winter,"  ch.  x.  L"J  The  feast  fell 
in  tlie  ninth  month  of  the  Jewish  year,  which  nearly 
coincided  with  our  December,  on  the  loth  of  the  month. 
Josephus  expressly  notices  the  observance  of  this  feast 
in  honour  of  tlie  .Maccabean  dedication  as  practised  in 
his  day;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  was 
the  feast  referred  to  bv  the  evangelist.  Tlie  celebra 
tion  of  it.  however,  was  not  confined  to  Jerusalem,  but 


428 


DKLl'GK 


was  also  kept  up  in  other  places.  They  called  i<;  "lights,'' 
Josephus  says  (Antiq.  \ii.  7,71,  because,  as  he  supposed, 
their  liberty  had  been  restored  to  them  beyond  their 
hopes.  The  feast  was  observed  tor  eight  days,  and  the 
modern  Jews  have  turned  it  into  lights,  in  the  literal 
sense;  for  "  on  the  first  night  they  light  one  light  in 
the  synagogue,  on  the  second  night  two,  on  the  third 
night  three,  adding  one  every  niglit  till  the  last  night, 
when  they  light  up  eight.  These  lamps  are  to  he 
lighted  with  oil  of  olive  in  commemoration  of  the  miracle 
[that,  namely,  which  they  fable  to  have  been  wrought 
at  the  dedication,  when,  they  say.  God  miraculously  ' 
caused  a  small  portion  of  oil,  sufficient  only  for  one 
night,  to  burn  for  eight  nights,  till  a  fresh  supply  could 
be  obtained]:  but  where  oil  of  olive  cannot  be  procured 
they  burn  with  wax.  Tt  requires  no  suspension  of  any 
business  or  labour,  and  beside  the  lighting  of  the  lamps, 
and  a  few  additions  to  their  ordinary  prayers  and  daily 
lessons,  is  chiefly  distinguished  by  their  feasting  and 
jollity"  (Allen's  Modern  Judaism,  l>.  tlli). 

DEEP.     See  ABYSS. 

DEER.     .S'e<  FALLOW-DEKK. 

DEGREES,    PSALMS    OF,    much    the    same    as 
"  pilgrimage- songs ;"  but  see  under  PSALMS. 

DELI'LAH  [the  il I'nnj.iii'i  or  /itni/iiiK/thi;/  one],  a 
Philistine  woman,  who  resided  in  the  valley  of  Sorek, 
and  gained  the  affections  of  Samson.  It  is  not  said 
that  he  took  her  to  wife,  but  merely  that  he  loved  her, 
and  had  frequent  and  familiar  intercourse  with  her. 
The  impression  left  upon  the  mind  by  the  narrative  of 
this  portion  of  Samson's  life  is  that  she  was  a  person  of 
loose  character,  and  that  his  connection  with  her  was 
of  an  improper  kind.  Indeed,  this  seems  evident  alone 
from  the  account  which  the  lords  of  the  Philistines 
sought  to  make  of  her  influence  over  Samson.  When 
it  became  known  how  he  frequented  her  house,  they 
endeavoured  by  bribes  to  obtain  through  her  the  sccivt 
of  her  lover's  marvellous  strength— which  it  is  scarcely 
conceivable  they  should  have  done,  if  she  had  been 
known  to  be  of  good  reputation,  and  had  stood  to  him 
in  the  relation  of  a  proper  spouse.  But  they  found  in 
Delilah  the  fit  instrument  for  their  purpose.  She  loved 
their  bribes  greatly  better  than  the  honour,  or  even  than 
the  life,  of  Samson,  and  by  dint  of  cajolery  and  perse 
verance  she  wrested  from  him  the  fatal  secret,  by  dis 
closing  which  he  soon  found  he  had  delivered  up  his 
strength  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  and  instead  of 
their  terror,  had  rendered  himself'  their  sport  and  tool. 
She  is  therefore  to  be  regarded  as  an  example,  not  of  a 
deceitful  and  treacherous  wife,  or  even  of  a  lover,  in 
the  ordinary  sense,  proving  false  to  her  plighted  faith, 
but  rather  of  a  wily  and  profligate  seducer,  in  whom 
no  confidence  should  have  been  placed,  and  who  seeks 
to  captivate  only  that  she  may  lure  and  destroy.  \S« 
under  SAMSOX.I 

DELUGE.  The  word  used  in  the  English  Bible  for 
the  great  catastrophe  which  destroyed  the  old  world 
isjlood;  but  as  this  term  is  applied  also  to  other  and 
comparatively  common  events,  the  word  deluge  has 
now  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  more  appropriate  and 
fitting  designation  of  the  great  event  under  considera 
tion.  Accordingly,  with  this  word  we  shall  connect 
the  discussion  of  the  general  deluge—  so  far  as  such  a 
discussion  is  admissible  in  a  work  like  the  present. 

There  are  many  references  in  Scripture  to  the  sub 
ject,  as  one  of  the  more  important  and  prominent  facts 
in  the  world's  history,  fraught  with  lessons  of  instruc 


tion  for  all   times;    but  the   historical  account  of  the 
event  is  comprised  in  Genesis,  cb.  vi.— vui.     Tu   this  ac 
count  attention   is   first   very   pointedly  drawn    to  the 
cause  of  the   catastrophe,    while  it   was  still  only  an 
event  in  prospect ;  it  was  because   "  the  wickedness  of 
man  was  groat  in   the  earth,"   insomuch   that  it  even 
"repented  the  Lord  that  lie  had  made  man  on  the  earth. 
And  the   Lord   said.  J  will   destroy  man   whom  [  have 
created  from  the  face  of  the  earth."  &<•.      And  again, 
when  announcing  to  Noah  both  the  purpose  of  destruc 
tion,  and  the  preparation  to  be  made  against  it,  "God 
said.  The  end  of  all  flesh   is  come  before   me;  for  the 
earth  is  filled  with  violence  through  them;  and  behold 
T   will  destroy   them    with   the   earth.      Make  thee  an 
ark  of  gopher-wood."  iVc.      So   that  the   coining  deluge 
was  announced  in  the  strongest  terms  as  a  judgment 
on  the  incorrigible  wickedness  of  man,  which  under  the 
benignant  constitution  of  the  antediluvian   world  had 
\  reached  a  height  altogether  subversive  of  the  great  end 
of  God  in  the   creation   of   mankind,    and   of   the   real 
well-being  of  the  world  itself.      Then,  in  regard  to  the 
!  extent  of  the  calamity,  it  is  said,   "  Behold  I  do  bring 
a  flood  of  waters   upon   the   earth   to   destroy   all  flesh, 
wherein  is  the  breath  of  life,   from   under  heaven  ;  and 
everything  that  is  in  the  earth  shall  die.      But  with  theo 
I  will  establish  my  covenant.    ....      And  of  every 
living  thinu' of   all  flesh,  two  of  every  sort   shalt  thou 
bring  into  the   ark,    to   keep  them    alive    with  thee." 
Fowls  after  their  kind  are  specified,  cattle,  and  even 
j  every  creeping  thing  of  the  earth — a  male  and  female 
'  of  each;  and  in  the  case  of  clean   creatures,  those  em 
ployed  for  purposes  of  worship,  the  two  we-e  afterwards 
increased   to   seven.      And  when  the  final   order    was 
given  to  take  them  into  the  ark,  it  was  said,    •'  I  will 
cause  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth  forty  days  and  forty 
nights  :  and  every  living  substance  that  1  have  made 
will  I  destroy  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth."      Beside 
these  torn  nts  of  rain  from   above,  like  the  opening  of 
heaven's    windows,   it    is    afterwards   stated    that    the 
fountains  of  the  great  deep   were   broken  up,  that  in 
consequence  the  waters  prevailed  exceedingly  upon  the 
earth,  ''covering  all  the  high  hills  that  were  under  the 
whole  heaven"   to  the  depth  of  fifteen   cubits  and  up 
ward  ;  that  all  flesh  died  upon  the  earth  of  man.  beast, 
fowl,  and  creeping  thing  ;   Noah   only  remained  alive, 
and  those  that  were  with  him  in  the  ark.      At  the  end 
of  150  days,  we  are  further  told,  the  waters  abated  ;  in 
the  seventh  month,  on  the  seventeenth  day.  they  had 
so   far   decreased   a<   to  admit   of   the   ark    resting  on 
Mount  Ararat :  then,  after  waiting  for  a  while.  Noah 
sent  forth  a  raven,  which  did  not  return,  but  went  to 
and  fro  till  the  waters  were  dried  up  from  off  the  earth, 
that  is.  it  found,  though  with  difficulty,   the  means  of 
subsistence  away  from  the   ark.     A  dove  afterwards 
sent  forth  speedily  returned,   indicating  that  the  earth 
was  not   yet   ripe  for  her  gentler  nature.      A   second 
trial  with   the   dove   issued  in   her  return  with  a  fresh 
olive-leaf  in  her  mouth,  bespeaking  the  existence  both 
of  dry  land  and  of  returning  vegetation.    A  subsequent 
trial  with  the  dove,  after  an  additional  interval,  when 
she  no  longer  returned,  convinced  Noah  that  the  ground 
had  become  well-nigh  ready  for  man  and  beast,  so  that 
ere  long  the  entire  inmates  of  the  ark  left  their  tem 
porary  abode,  to  occupy  the  renovated  earth.   The  whole 
period  they  were  in  the  ark  was  a  year  and  ten  days  — 
from  the  1 7th  day  of  the  2d  month  of  Noah's  (500th  year, 
to  the  i!7th  dav  of  the  '2d  month  of  the  following  year. 


DKLI'UK 


Such  briefly  is  the  .Mosaic  account  of  the  deluge:  \ 
and  the  difficulties  to  which  it  gives  rise  have  respect  i 
mainly  to  two  points-  -the  apparent  universality  ascribed  j 
to  it,  and  the  equally  apparent  inadequacy  of  the  means  I 
indicated,  whether  for  effecting  a  universal  delude,  or 
for  preserving  during-  an  entire  twelvemonth  a  com 
plete  representation,  after  the  manner  described,  of  the  ! 
entire  animate  creation  upon  earth.  The  first  question 
then  which  naturally  calls  for  consideration,  is  ii-hcf/icr 
the  account  if  rat/I;/  to  be  midtrttood  nf  an  (ihtoltttt 
itnircrsa/i/i/,  or  of  a  simp/;/  relative  one?  Cndoubtedly, 
if  read  from  the  present  advanced  stage  of  the  world's 
history,  it  would  be  impossible  to  understand  the  lan 
guage  otherwise  than  of  an  absolute  universality:  for 
now.  that  every  region  of  the  world  is  known,  and 
known  to  be  more  or  less  occupied  by  man  and  beast, 
it  must  have  been  in  the  strictest  sense  a  world 
embracing  catastrophe,  which  could  be  de.  cribed  as 
enveloping  in  a  watery  shroud  ever\  hill  under  the  whole 
heaven,  and  destroying  every  living  thing  that  moved 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  I!ut  here  it  must  be  remem 
bered,  the  sacred  narrative  dates  from  the  comparative 
infancy  of  the  world,  when  but  a  limited  portion  of  it 
was  peopled  or  known;  and  it  is  always  one  of  the  most 
natural,  as  well  as  most  fertile  sources  of  error,  respect 
ing  the  interpretation  of  such  earlv  records,  that  one  i,- 
apt  to  overlook  the  change  of  circumstances,  and  con 
template  what  is  written  from  a  modern  point  of  view. 
Hence  the  embarrassments  so  often  felt,  and  the  mis- 
judgments  sometimes  uctuallv  pronounced,  respecting 
those  parts  of  Scripture  which  speak  of  the  movemeins 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  in  lan^ua^e  suited  to  the  u/,,,11- 
nnt,  but  at  variance,  as  has  now  been  ascertained,  with 
the  rail  phenomena.  In  such  cases  it  is  forgotten  that 
the  Bible  was  not  intended  to  teach  the  truth*  of  phv 
sical  science,  or  point  the  way  to  discoveries  in  the 
merely  natural  sphere.  Of  things  in  these  depart 
ments  of  knowledge  it  uses  the  language  of  common 
life.  And  so.  whatever  in  the  scriptural  account  of 
the  deluge  touches  on  geographical  limits  or  matters 
strictly  physical,  ought  to  be  taken  with  the  qualifica 
tions  inseparable  from  the  bounded  hori/->n  of  men's 
views  and  relations  at  the  time.  If  population  had 
not  yet  spread  very  far  from  the  original  centre  of  the 
human  family,  nor  covered  more  than  a  few  regions  of 
the  earth,  as  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  (»ce  on  ANTE 
DILUVIAN  WOULD),  what  would  lie  an  aJixoluh  univer 
sality,  so  far  as  the  human  race  was  concerned,  might 
in  other  respects  be  nothing  more  than  a  rdatirc  uni 
versality — if  the  transactions  are  simply  viewed  and 
recorded  in  their  bearing  on  the  condition  and  interests 
of  mankind. 

.Now,  that  they  were  so  considered  is  evident  from 
the  whole  tone  and  purport  of  the  narrative.  It  is  the 
moral  aspect  of  the  matter  which  the  sacred  historian 
keeps  prominently  in  view;  he  presents  it  in  no  other 
aspect  than  as  Cod's  judgment  on  the  doomed  and  im 
penitent  race  of  transgressors,  who  had  filled  the  earth 
with  corruption  and  violence.  And  just  as  in  the  first 
transgression,  so  here  the  living  creaturehood  of  the 
earth  are  represented  as  suffering  in  the  catastrophe, 
simply  from  their  connection  with  the  rational  beings 
to  whom  they  stood  in  a  relation  of  subservience.  It  ! 
was  consequently  the  earth  as  the  field  of  human  occu 
pancy —  the  earth  in  so  far  as  it  had  become  the  theatre 
of  men's  moral  agency,  and  the  witness  of  their  crimes 
—which  was  in  the  eye  of  the  sacred  writer.  And 


whether  the  catastrophe  of  which  he  wrote  actually 
reached  farther  or  not.  the  circumstances  of  the  case 
did  not  absolutely  require  that  it  should  do  so:  the  de 
mands  of  scriptural  interpretation  would  be  met  if  it 
embraced  all  within  the  sphere  which  man  had  yet 
made  his  own;  for  on  that  alone  was  the  mind  of  the 
sacred  penman  concentrated. 

In  confirmation  of  this  as  a  perfectly  warrantable 
view  of  the  matter,  we  can  appeal  to  other  passages  of 
Scripture,  in  which  expressions,  equal]  v  universal  in  their 
literal  import,  must  still,  from  the  very  nature  of  things. 
have  been  meant  only  of  a  limited  universality-— em 
bracing  the  whole,  but  still  no  more  than  the  whole, 
of  the  totality  lying  within  the  aim  and  scope  of  the 
writer.  Tims  in  the  Pentateuch  itself,  speaking  of  the 
great  famine  in  the  days  of  .Joseph,  it  is  said,  "tin- 
dearth  was  in  all  lands,"  and  "  all  countries  came  into 
Kgypt  to  buy  corn."  <;o.  ,\li.  ;>i, :,;.  So  again  in  regard  to 
Israel,  when  on  the  eve  of  entering  the  land  of  Canaan, 
"  This  day  will  1  begin  to  put  the  dread  of  thce,  and 
the  fear  of  thee.  upon  the  nations  that  are  under  the 
whole  heaven,  who  shall  report  of  thee.  and  shall 
tremble."  l>o.  ii.  -i:>.  "  The  fame  of  David,"  it  is  said  in 
later  history.  "  went  forth  into  all  lands;"  and  of  David's 
son.  "all  the  earth  sought  to  Solomon  to  hear  his 
wisdom,"  i  r!i.  xiv.  17;  i  KI.  \.  -Ji.  Turning  to  New 
Testament  scripture,  we  find  the  apostle  Paul  intimat 
ing  to  the  Romans,  that  "their  faith  was  spoken  of 
throughout  the  whole  world."  and  informing  the  Colos- 
sians.  that  "  the  (,'ospel  which  they  heard  was  preached 
to  every  creature  which  is  under  heaven,"  i:<>  i. 8;Col.i  2.;. 
Such  mode-  nf  exprosion  indeed  are  common  in  all 
writings  which  arc  addressed  to  the  popular  understand 
ing:  and  they  create  no  difficulty  so  long  as  people 
place  themselves  in  the  position  of  the  writer,  and  think 
of  the  kiwi  of  universality  present  to  his  mind  at  the 
time.  Nothing  more  is  necessary  in  respect  to  the  ac 
count  of  the  deluge,  to  render  its  terms  compatible 
with  a  limited  universality,  coextensive  with  the  bounds 
of  the  human  family,  yet  possibly  reaching  to  no  great 
distance  beyond. 

Accordingly,  there  were  not  wanting  theological 
writers,  who,  long  before  any  geological  fact,  or  well-as 
certained  fact  of  any  sort  in  physical  science,  had  ap 
peared  to  shake  men's  faith  in  a  strictly  universal  deluge, 
actually  put  the  interpretation  now  suggested  as  com 
petent  upon  the  narrative  of  the  deluge.  Thus  Poole, 
who  flourished  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  says  in  his  Si/nojixia  on  Ce.  vii.  19:  •'  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  entire  globe  of  the  earth  was  covered 
with  water.  Where  was  the  need  of  overwhelming 
those  regions  in  which  there  were  no  human  beings1 
It  would  be  highly  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  man 
kind  had  so  increased  before  the  deluge,  as  to  have 
penetrated  to  all  the  corners  of  the  earth.  It  is  indeed 
not  probable  that  they  had  extended  beyond  the  limits 
of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia.  It  woidd  be  absurd  to 
affirm  that  the  effects  of  the  punishment  inflicted  upon 
men  alone  applied  to  places  in  which  there  were  no 
men."  Whence  he  concludes,  that  "  if  not  so  much 
as  the  hundredth  part  of  the  globe  was  overspread  with 
water,  still  the  deluge  would  be  universal,  because  the 
extirpation  took  effect  upon  all  the  part  of  the  world 
which  was  inhabited."  In  like  manner  Stillingfleet,  a 
writer  of  the  same  period,  in  his  Ori;/ii>cs  &tcrct',  (b.  iii. 
c.  4)  states,  that  "he  cannot  see  any  urgent  necessity 
from  the  Scripture  to  assert  that  the  flood  did  spread 


DELUGE 


43d 


DELUGE 


over  all  the  surface  of  the  earth.  The  flood  was 
universal  as  to  mankind ;  hut  from  thence  follows  no 
necessity  at  all  of  asserting  the  universality  of  it  as  to 
the  glohe  of  the  earth,  unless  it  he  sufficiently  proved 
that  the  whole  earth  was  peopled  hefore  the  Hood  - 
which  1  despair  of  ever  seeing  proved."  Indeed,  this 
view  dates  much  further  hack  than  the  compara 
tively  recent  time  when  these  authors  lived;  for  while 
Bishop  Patrick  himself  took  the  other  and  commoner 
view,  we  find  him  thus  noting  in  his  commentary  on 
Ge.  vii.  19:  ''There  were  those  anciently  (i.e.  in  the 
earlier  ages),  and  they  have  their  successors  now,  who 
imagined  the  flood  was  not  universal — d\V  ev  w  ol  rure 
dvdpwTTOL  wKOi'v — but  only  there  where  men  then  dwelt; 
as  the  author  of  the  Questioner  ad  Orthodoxos  tells  us, 
Quest.  3-1."  It  is  certain,  therefore,  that  this  is  not  a 
question  between  scientific  naturalists  on  the  one  side, 
and  men  of  simple  faith  in  Scripture  on  the  other. 
Apart  from  the  cultivation  or  the  discoveries  of  science, 
we  have  two  classes  of  interpreter*  of  Scripture,  one 
of  which  find  no  reason  to  believe  in  more  than  a 
restricted  universality,  while  the  other  press  the  lan 
guage  to  its  furthest  possible  extent— take  it,  not  as 
descriptive  of  God's  judgment  upon  the  earth,  in  so  far 
merely  as  it  was  occupied  by  men,  but  with  reference  to 
the  globe  at  large,  and  to  an  event  in  its  natural  his 
tory.  Which  of  the  two  modes  of  interpretation  is 
to  be  followed  ?  Surely,  in  such  a  case,  if  science  has 
any  clear  and  determinate  light  to  throw  upon  the 
subject,  it  has  a  right  to  be  heard  ;  and  it  would  be 
equally  foolish  to  reject  its  testimony  here,  as  in  the 
parallel  line  of  physical  astronomy. 

Now,  in  making  our  appeal  to  science,  there  is  no 
need  for  venturing  upon  hypothetical  ground,  or 
travelling  into  regions  which  can  yield  at  most  but  a 
problematical  or  doubtful  testimony.  Such,  for  example, 
is  the  difficulty  of  accounting,  on  scientific  principles, 
for  such  a  mass  of  water  as  might  have  been  sufficient 
for  enveloping  the  entire  globe  to  the  depth  specified  in 
the  sacred  narrative.  If  the  relative  proportions  of  sea 
and  dry  land  were  precisely  then  as  they  are  now — if 
the  mountains  all  stood  at  the  same  elevation — and  if 
no  other  resources  than  such  as  are  now  known  to 
naturalists  were  accessible  for  giving  the  requisite  direc 
tion  to  the  waters  of  the  earth,  and  furnishing  them  in 
the  proper  abundance  —then  the  conclusion  might  be 
safely  enough  drawn  that  the  deluge  could  not  be  ab 
solutely  universal.  But  it  is  impossible  to  say  for 
certain  what  differences  in  those  respects  may  have 
existed  at  the  period  of  the  deluge,  as  compared  with 
more  recent  times  ;  and  such  changes  are  known  to  have 
taken  place  within  the  periods  of  scientific  research, 
as  will  at  least  leave  room  for  the  supposition,  that 
possibly  there  may  have  been  natural  causes  adequate  to 
account  for  the  submergence  of  all  that  was  then  dry 
land.  The  same  substantially  may  be  said  in  regard  to 
the  skill  and  resources  requisite  to  construct  a  vessel 
capable  of  bearing  any  considerable  burden,  to  fit  it  as 
a  suitable  habitation  for  multitudes  of  living  creatures, 
and  keep  them  all  alive  and  afloat  upon  the  waters  for 
months  together.  Here,  again,  our  information  is  too 
limited  to  admit  of  very  definite  results  being  arrived 
at,  being  too  little  acquainted  with  the  position  of 
matters  in  the  antediluvian  world,  and  the  superna 
tural  aid  that  may  have  been  communicated  to  Noah 
for  the  occasion. 

But  in  regard  now  more  particularly  to  this  second 


point — t/ie  capacity  nf  the  ark  for  the  preservation  and 
snjiport  <>f  animal  life — it  is  one  upon  which  our  present 
knowledge  enables  us  to  speak  with  entire  confidence, 
and  in  decisive  rejection  of  the  idea  of  a  strictly  universal 
deluge.      We  know  from  the  description  of  the  sacred 
historian  pretty  nearly  what  were  the  dimensions  of  the 
ark,  and  we  now  also  know  near  enough  for  all  practi 
cal  purposes  the  number  of  distinct  species  of  animals, 
fowls,  and  creeping  things  upon  the  earth ;   and  by  no 
conceivable  possibility  could  the  ark  be  made  to  receive 
the  whole  of  these  by  twos  and  sevens,  after  the  man 
ner  specified  in  the  text,  and  provide  food  for  all  suffi 
cient  to  outlast  a  twelvemonth.     The  measurements  of 
the   ark   are  given  in  cubits,  which  as  anciently  em 
ployed  were  of   somewhat   variable   length,   though  in 
the  earliest  times  it  is   most  likely  the  natural  cubit 
that  was  commonly  in  use — the  distance  from  the  elbow 
to  the  point  of  the  middle  finger — and  which  usually 
amounts  to  about  eighteen  inches.     But  allowing  that 
the  larger  measure  of  twenty-one  inches  should  be  un 
derstood — as  is   contended  for  by  Ealeigh,  Shuckford, 
;  Hales,  Kitto,  &c. — we  shall  have  for  the  length  of  the 
ark  547  feet,  by  91  feet  in  breadth.     It  was  made  of 
',  three  stories,  so  that  the  area  yielded  by  these  numbers 
must  be  trebled  to  give  the  entire  capacity  of  the  struc- 
•  ture ;   but  it   still  does  not  quite  amount  to   150,000 
square  feet ;  and,    as  Hugh  Miller   remarks    by  way 
!  of    comparison,    must    have    "  fallen    short    by    about 
:  28,000  square  feet  of  a  single  gallery  (the  northern)  of 
the   Crystal  Palace    of    1851."      Could   such  a   space 
contain,  even  for  a  month,  to  say  nothing  of  a  year. 
!  pairs  of  every  distinct  species  of  the  animate  creation  ! 
By  the   writers  above  referred  to,   and  many  others, 
I  laborious  calculations  are  entered  into  to  show  that  the 
i  area  of  the  ark  could  meet  the  demands  of  the  problem 
in    its  utmost   extent ;    but    such   calculations   always 
proceed  upon  an  immensely  inadequate  estimate  of  the 
numbers  of  extant  species  of  living  creatures.     It  is 
astonishing  how  these  have  grown  upon  our  hands,  as 
naturalists  have  pursued  their  investigations  into  diffe 
rent  regions  of  the  world.     Ealeigh  thought  it  enough 
to  "seek  room  for  eighty-nine  distinct  species  of  beasts, 
or,   lest  any    should    be    omitted,    for    one    hundred." 
These   had    to  be  multiplied    by   two.    and   allowance 
made  for  the  sevens  of  the  clean  animals,  so  that  there 
might  be  280  in  all;  "and  all  these  280  beasts  might  he 
kept  in  one  story  or  room  of  the  ark,  in  their  several 
cabins;  their  meat  in  a  second;  the  birds  and  their  pro 
vision  in  a  third,  with  a  space  to  spare  for  Xoah  and 
his  family,  and  all  their  necessaries."     Such  was  the 
easy  mode  of  stowage  for  the  living  creaturehood  of  the 
earth,  and  its  necessary  food,  which  presented  itself  to 
Sir  Walter  Ealeigh.     But  the  progress  of  science  has 
made  it  infinitely  harder  w-ork  for  his  successors  in  this 
line  of  calculations.     Buffoii  by  his  more  extensive  re 
searches  in  natural  history  reckoned  double  the  number 
of  quadrupeds  that   Ealeigh    thought  it  necessary  to 
make  allowance  for ;    but   so   far  was  even  he  beneath 
the  reality,  that  instead   of   200,    there  are  known  to 
exist  upon  the  earth  1658  species  of  animals.     Such  is 
the  number  given,  for  example,  in  Johnstons  Physical 
Atlas  of  1856;  and  later   editions    will  probably   add 
somewhat  to  those  already  ascertained.     But  supposing 
these  to  be  the  whole,  they  could  not  yield  less,  when 
taken  by  twos  and  by  sevens,  than  about  4000  animals — 
for  so  greatly  have  the  species  of  ox,  deer,  sheep,   and 
o-oat  increased  (the  clean  animals  which  w^ere  to  be  pre- 


DELUGE 

served  by  sevens),  that  upwards  of  loilo  individuals 
of  that  class  alone  would  need  to  be  reckoned.  And 
then  to  these  have  to  lie  added  somewhere  about  <5oiiO 
species  of  birds,  not  far  from  ]  000  reptiles  which  can 
not  live  under  earth,  and  of  insects  some  hundreds  of 
thousands.  When  such  myriads  of  living  creatures  as 
these  come  into  our  reckoning,  it  is  clear  as  day.  that  no 
single  structure  could  contain  accommodation  for  them 
all,  with  means  of  support  for  an  entire  year—  not 
though  it  were  many  times  the  size  of  Noah's  ark. 
Nor  is  it  simply,  we  must  remember,  the  lodiring-room 
and  sustenance  required  for  so  many  creatures,  that 
has  in  such  a  case  to  be  thought  of.  but  the  personal 
attendance  in  the  ark  necessary  to  minister  to  all 
their  daily  supplies  of  food,  and  keep  everything  in 
proper  order.  In  this  respect  we  have  but  the  services 
of  eight  persons  to  take  into  account,  and  what  these 
could  avail  even  for  a  tithe  of  the  number  specified 
above,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 

There  are  other  considerations  of  a  scientific  kind 
which  come  in  aid  of  the  conclusion  we  are  obliged 
thus  to  arrive  at.  One  of  these  is.  the  geographical 
distribution  of  animals  in  accordance  with  the  native 
temperaments  ami  habits  of  each.  In  proportion  as 
new  regions  of  the  world  have  been  laid  open  to  our 
view,  they  have  brought  us  acquainted  with  fresh 
species  of  creatures  nnt  found  elsewhere  ;  these  are  to 
all  appearance  indigenous  and  peculiar  to  their  respec 
tive  localities,  and  many  of  them  are  incapable  of  living 
for  any  length  of  time  in  a  climate  materially  ditli-ivnt 
from  that  \\hich  nature  has  assigned  them.  They 
could  not.  without  violence  to  their  respective  oojisti- 
tutions,  have  been  kept  alive  in  one  region:  nor  could 
they,  if  anyhow  brought  and  kept  together,  bv  anv 
conceivable  expedients  be  transported  to  their  distinctive 
localities.  Indeed  it  appears  that  throughout  the  whole 
history  of  animated  being,  the  different  regions  of  the 
earth  have  had,  to  a  considerable  extent,  their  peculiar 
forms  of  organized  existence.  "The  sloths  and  arma- 
dilloes  of  South  America  had  their  gigantic  predeces 
sors  in  the  enormous  megatherium  and  mvlodoii,  and 
the  strongly  -  armed  glyptodon  :  the  kangaroos  and 
wombats  of  Australia  had  their  extinct  predecessors  in 
a  kangaroo  nearly  twice  the  si/.e  of  the  largest  living 
species,  and  in  so  huge  a  wombat  that  its  bones  have 
been  mistaken  for  those  of  the  hippopotamus;  and  the 
ornithic  inhabitants  of  New  Zealand  had  their  prede 
cessors  in  monstrous  birds,  such  as  the  dinornis,  the 
aptornis,  and  the  palapterix  wingless  creatures  like 
the  ostrich,  that  stood  from  six  to  twelve  feet  in  height. 
In  these  several  regions  two  i/citirtttimm  of  species  of 
the  genera  peculiar  to  them  have  existed— the  recent 
generation,  by  whose  descendants  they  are  still  inha 
bited,  and  the  extinct  generation,  whose  remains  we 
find  blocked  up  in  their  soils  and  caves.  Jiut  how  are 
such  facts  reconcilable  with  the  hypothesis  of  a  uni 
versal  deluge  !"  ( Miller's  Testimony  of  the  Rocks,  p.  :m. ) 

Other  considerations  point  to  the  same  result:  the 
natural  impossibility,  for  example,  of  obtaining  or  lav 
ing  up  flesh  for  the  support  of  carnivorous  animals  and 
birds;  the  certain  destruction  that  must  have  ensued  to 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  seeds  and  plants  of  the 
earth,  if  they  had  been  so  long  under  water;  and  to 
fresh-water  fish,  if  in  all  regions  of  the  globe  the  sea 
had  totally  and  for  months  together  overspread  the  dry 
land;  but  it  is  needless  here  to  go  farther  into  detail. 
The  facts  already  mentioned  render  the  notion  of  a 


DELUGE 

universal  deluge,  in  the  literal  sense,  at  variance  with 
the  light  of  reason:  and  of  the  two  competing  interpreta 
tions,  we  are.  in  a  manner,  compelled  to  decide  in  favour 
of  that   which  does  not  place   the   sacred   narrative  in 
antagonism  to  the   results  of   modern   science.      What 
precise  area  of  the  earth's  surface  might  lie  covered  by 
the  waters  of  the  deluge,  or  by  what  particular  agencies 
these  waters  might  have  been  let  loose  for  their  work  of 
destruction,   it   may    be   impossible   to   determine  with 
.  any  certainty;  since  attempts  in  that  direction  must  be 
in  a  great  degree  conjectural,  and  can  never  yield  more 
,  than  a  partial  degree  of  satisfaction.      L-t  it  be  enough 
I  to  adhere  to  the  u'eneral  facts— which  we  believe  to  be 
'  all  that  are  necessarily  involved  in  the  scriptural   nar 
rative — that  somewhere  alxmt  two  thousand  years  before 
the  rhristian  era  the  inhabited  portion  of  the  world  was 
totally  submerged   in   water— that   the   whole  existing 
race  of  mankind   perished   in  the  catastrophe,  with  the 
I  exception  of  Noah  and  his  family,  who  were  preserved 
in  an  immense  vessel  that  he  had  been  instructed  before 
hand  to  prepare— and   that    along   with  them  also  were 
preserved  specimens   of   the    living  creatures  belonging 
to  the  region,  sufficient  to  propagate  the  several  species 
in  the  new  world,  and  minister  to   the  wants  of  those 
1  who  by  God's  mercy  escaped    the   general   destruction. 
Thus  understood,  there  is   not   only  nothing  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  delude  to  render  it  justly  liable  to  suspicion, 
but  there  is  much  also  to  commend  it  to  our  reasonable 

belief. 

I.  It  ;.-•  a, it  ,,f,/,,,.i,i/  l,ii  an,/  kiioti-,,  /,/,,  ,/,,/innu  in  (In- 
/>/<//. <<<•<!/  It !*(<»•>/  <if  fniiditiini  ,if  tin  irm-lil,  but,  analogi 
cally  at  least,  derives  from  some  of  them  a  measure  of 
continuation.  Had  it  been  capable  of  proof  that  the 
crust  o)  the  earth  exhibits  no  appearance  of  having 
evi  r  been  subject  to  the  operation  of  violent  agencies, 
or  the  overflowing  of  mi-hty  waters,  there  might  have 
been  some  -round  tor  questioning  the  scriptural  ac 
count  of  the  deluge.  Hut  the  reverse  is  known  to  be 
the  case.  There  are  undoubted  indications  of  both 
kinds  of  action  —  appearances  in  the  earth's  strata 
which  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  most  power 
ful  forces  from  beneath  having  wrought  upwards  with 
disturbing  violence-  -alluvial  deposits  near  the  surface 
which  betoken  the  action  of  great  Hoods  sweeping 
over  the'  land  in  some  of  these  also  the  remains  of 
animals  belon-iiiu-  to  still  existing  or  nearly  allied 
species.  Such  things,  if  not  immediately  connected 
with  the  Noachian  delude,  at  least  bear  evidence 
to  the  same  kind  of  agencies  which  served  instrumen 
tal  ly  to  bring  it  about,  and  of  results  not  unlike  to  those 
in  which  it  issued. 

At  one  time  certainly  it  was  thought  that  the  physi 
cal  history  of  the  world  was  capable  of  yielding  a  more 
direct  and  specific  testimony  to  the  scriptural  account 
of  the  deluge.  Tt  was  supposed  by  not  a  few  culti 
vators  of  natural  science  that  the  organic  remains 
which  are  found  in  the  rocks  of  later  formation  were 
those  of  animals  and  plants  that  belonged  to  the  ante 
diluvian  world,  and  had  been  entombed  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth  by  the  catastrophe  which  terminated  that 
pristine  order  of  things.  In  Dr.  Hales'  Chrui>(il(tf/t/,fi>v 
instance,  all  such  appearances,  and  along  with  them  the 
disruptions  of  the  earth  into  islands  and  continents, 
lofty  mountains,  rugged  precipices,  and  deep  ravines, 
are  all  thrown  together  as  clear  proofs  of  the  univer 
sality  of  the  deluge,  and  even  of  its  general  progress 
from  north  to  south  (v.,1.  i.  p.  :{•.';,,  scq.)  This  phase  of 


JJELUOK 


DELUGE 


opinion,  however,  could  only  prevail  in  the  infancy  of  !  and  that  it  grounded  itt  no  great  distance  from  the 
geological  science,  or  rather  before  geology  had  attained  '•  same  spot;  that  the  waters  rose  upon  the  earth  bv 
to  the  condition  <>f  a  science,  and  when  a  few  isolated  degrees;  that  the  flood  exhibited  no  violent  impetuosity, 
appearances  were  hastily  assumed  as  the  basis  of  some  !  displacing  neither  the  soil,  nor  the  vegetable  tribes 
precocious  theory.  As  soon  as  the  appearances  came  which  it  supported,  nor  rendering  the  ground  unfit  for 
to  be  subjected  to  close  investigation,  it  was  perceived  the  cultivation  of  the  vine.  With  this  conviction  in  inv 
that  those  organic  remains  represented  very  different  mind,"  he  adds,  "  I  am  not  prepared  to  witness  in 
periods,  and  periods  not  only  distinctly  marked  as  :  nature  any  remaining  mur/cx  of  the  catastrophe  :  and  f 
earlier  and  later,  but  also  as  so  remote  in  point  of  find  my  respect  for  the  authority  of  revelation  height- 
time  that  the  most  recent  of  them  must  be  held  to  ened.  when  f  see  on  the  present  surface  no  memorials 


have  been  antecedent  to  the  creation  of  man  and  tin 
existing  constitution  of  the  world.  The  opinion  referred 
to.  therefore,  has  now  to  be  numbered  among  the  things 
that  were. 


of  the  event." 

At  the  same  time,  if  the  remains  existing  on  the 
earth's  surface  at  lord  no  direct  or  specific  proof  of  the 
deluge,  they  still  bear  a  collateral,  and  by  no  means  1111- 


The  same  fate  has  subsequently  befallen  another  idea,  important  testimony  to  its  credibility.      For  though,  as 

which  had  more  to  countenance  it  in  the  actual  appear-  Buckland  has  stated  in  his  />'/•/<///(•/'•«/<  /•   Treat  ite,  "  we 

ances  of  things,  and  for  a  time  received  the  suffrage  of  have  not  yet  found    (nor  perhaps  are  likely  to  find)  the 

men  of  science,    it  is  that  which  ascribed  the  formation  certain  traces  of  any  great  diluviau  catastrophe,  which 

of  diluvium  or  drift  found  in  many  parts  of  the  earth  to  we  can  affirm  to  be  within  the  human  period,  we  can 

the  Noachian  deluge.    This  diluvium,  lying  near  the  sur-  at  least  show  that   paroxysms  of  internal  energy,  ac- 
faee  of  the  earth,  and  composed  of  various  materials-—  ,  companied  by  the  elevation  of   mountain   chains,   and 

sand,  pebbles,  fragments  of  rocks,  organic  remains — and.  followed  by  mighty  waters  desolating  whole  regions  of 

often  laid  as  if  it  had  been  drifted  into  its  present  position  the  earth,  were  a  part   of  the  mechanism   of  nature, 

by  the  action  of  a  mass  of  waters  flowing  in  a  particular  Now.  what  has  happened   again   and  again,  from  the 

direction,  was  at  first  not  unnaturally  connected  with  most  ancient  up   to   the   most  modern   periods  in  the 

the  deluge.     The  AW /</«/«•  UlluvlatuK  of  Dr.  Buckland,  natural  history  of  the  earth,  may  have  happened  once 

published,  in   182o,  had   for  one   of   its  specific  objects  during    the    four    thousand    years   that  man  has  been 

the    establishment    of   this    conclusion;  and    1'rofessor  living  on  its  surface.    So  that  all  anterior  improbability 

Sedgwick   gave   his   support   to   the   same  view  of  the  is  taken  away  from  the  fact  of  a  deluge  such  as  that  of 

subject.      l>ut  again  more  careful  investigations  proved  Noah."     This  is  the  fair  and  legitimate  use  to  make  of 

the   idea  to    be  destitute  of  any  just  foundation.      So  the   evidences   that  appear   in   the    earth's   strata  and 

Professor  Sedgwick   admitted   in    a  speech   before  the  surface    of    previous     cataclysms    and    diluvial    catas- 

Geological   Society  so  far   back   as    1>S;51.      He  held   it  trophes.      They   conclusively  establish   the  occurrence 

then  to  be  "conclusively  established,  that  the  vast  masses  of  facts  that  belong  to  the  same  order  as  the  Noachian 

of  diluvial  gravel  scattered  almost  over  the  surface  of  deluge,  and   are   perfectly    valid   against   such  shallow 

the  earth  do  not  belong  to  one  violent  and  transitory  reasoning  as  that  of    Voltaire,  who,  to  yx-t  rid  at  any 


period.      It   was.  indeed,  a   most    unwarranted 


hi-     cost  of  the  Bible  account  of   a   deluge,  denied  the  ex- 


ontemporaneitv  of    all     istence  of  anything 
even    take   refuse 


if  a  like  nature  in  the  past  —  could 
n   the   wild    imagination   that   the 


soil  of  the  earth  might  possibly  produce  fossils.      Such 


sion,    when    we    assumed  the 

the    superficial    gravels    on    the    earth.       We  saw  the 
clearest   traces   of   alluvial  action,    and   we  had  in  our 

sacred   histories   the  record   of  a  general  deluge.     On  |  an  unreasoning  extreme  of  infidelity  was  well  replied  to 

this  double  testimony  it  was  that  we  gave  a  unity  to  a  by  Goethe,  long  before   Buckland  directed  his  mind  to 

vast   succession   of   phenomena,    not  one  of  which  we  the   subject.       Speaking    of    Voltaire    in    his    Autobiu- 

perfectly    comprehended,    and  under  the    name    <tiln-  i/w/i/it/,  he  says.  "  When  I  now  learned,  that  to  weaken 

i-iitnt  classed  them  all  together."      Dr.  Buckland.  in  his  :  the  tradition  of  a  deluge,   he  had   denied  all  petrified 

Bridgeicater  Treatise,  made  substantially  the  same  ac-  shells,    and   only   admitted   them   as   /«.</<.<  naturiv,  he 

knowledgmeiit,  and   admitted   that  the  phenomena  in  entirely  lost  my  confidence;  for  my  own  eyes  had  on 

question  appeared  to  have  proceeded  from  "geological  the  Basehberg  plainly  enough  shown  me,  that  I  stood 

revolutions   produced  by  violent   eruptions    of    water,  on  the  bottom  of  an  old  dried- up  sea,  among  the  f.-rMr/<t 

rather    than    the    comparatively    ti-anquil    inundation  of  its  ancient  inhabitants.      These  mountains  had  cer- 

described  in  the  inspired  narrative."      In   short,  it  ap-  tainly   been    covered    with    waves — whether  before  or 

pears  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt,  from  the  compo-  during  the  deluge  did   not  concern  me:  it  was  enough 

nent  elements  of  those  drift  accumulations,   and  other  ,  that  the  valley   of   the    ivhine  had   been   a  monstrous 

characteristic  marks,  that  they  point  to  a  period  much  !  lake — a  bay  extending  beyond  the  reach  of  eyesight: 

anterior  to  the  deluge  of  Noah,  and  indicate  an  agency  '  out  of  this  I  was  not  to  be  talked." 

greatly  more  violent  and  protracted   than   it  is  repre  Nor  is  the  analogical  argument  altogether  confined 

sented  to  have   been.     The   crust  and  surface  of  the  to  these  convulsive  movements  anterior  to  the  human 

earth  exhibit  no  clearly  ascertained  and  indelible  traces  period  ;  there  have  been  also,  in  the  times  posterior  to 

of  the  Noachian  deluge;  nor,  in  truth,  should  such  ever  it,  partial  changes,    oscillations  as  to  natural  level  in 

have   been  looked  for.     This  was  calmly  maintained,  portions    of   the    earth's    surface,    with    corresponding 

even  when  the  current  of  scientific  belief  ran  strong  in  alterations  between  sea  and  land,  of  a  kind  probably 

the  contrary  direction,  by  a  man  who  was  equally  dis-  not  unlike  to  what  happened  at   the   deluge,   though 

tinguished  for  his  philosophic  mind  and  his  simple  faith  greatly  inferior  in  compass  and  degree.      On  the  coast 

in   divine   truth — Dr.    John   Fleming.      In   Jumeiioiix  'l  of  Chili  the  effect  of  two  earthquakes  in  1822  and  18:5,1 

PhilosopkicalJournal,  182(5,  he  wrote  thus:  "  From  the  j  was  such,  that  over  an  area  of   100,000    square  miles 

simple  narrative  of  Moses,  it  appears  that  the  ark  had  !  the  coast  has  been  raised  in  one   part  two  feet  above 

not  drifted  far  from  the  spot  where  it  was  first  lifted  up,  high- water  mark,  and  in   another  to  the  same  extent 


433 


DELUGE 


depressed.  In  the  Bay  of  Baite,  near  Naples,  there  that  the  temple  at  Dendera  was  consecrated  to  the 
exist  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  temple,  that  of  Jupiter  Roman  emperor  Tiberius.  "The  temple  of  Esne, 
Serapis,  with  several  columns  standing  nearly  erect.  ;  whose  construction  was  placed  as  far  back  as  3000 
For  a  time  these  must  have  been  submerged  in  the  sea  years  before  the  Christian  era.  has  a  column,  whose  in- 
by  the  subsidence  of  the  land,  as  appears  from  certain  scription  gives  it  the  date  of  the  tenth  year  of  the 
holes  pierced  in  them  by  a  class  of  perforating  bivalves,  emperor  Antoninus.  There  is  still  more  decisive  proof, 
which  live  only  in  the  sea  ;  while  again,  by  a  subse-  that  these  zodiacs  have  no  reference  either  to  the  pre- 
qnent,  and  as  must  be  supposed,  very  gradual  elevation  cession  of  the  equinoxes,  or  a  change  of  the  solstices, 
of  the  ground,  they  have  been  raised  and  now  stand  A  mummy  cloth  brought  from  E-_vpt  has  a  very  legible 
above  the  sea-level.  Who  can  tell  how  far  causes  of  a  ( Ireek  inscription  respecting  a  young  man  who  died  in 
like  nature  may  have  operated  in  the  region  which  we  the  nineteenth  year  of  the  rei»-n  of  Trajan.  The  cloth 
have  reason  to  believe  was  the  more  peculiar  scene  of  has  also  a  zodiac  painted  on  it,  marked  in  a  similar 
the  deluge,  and  contributed  to  its  accomplishment'  manner  to  that  of  Dendera,  and  therefore  was,  in  all 
The  depression  to  a  certain  depth  of  the  tracts  occupied  probability,  a  mere  astrological  composition  respecting 
by  the  human  family  below  the  Caspian,  or  any  other  the  individual  whose  body  was  wrapped  up  in  it.  The 
adjacent  sea.  would  have  all  the  appearance,  and  the  zodiacs  in  the  temples  are  probably  astrological  for- 
effect  also,  of  opening  up  the  fountains  of  the  great  mulffi  respecting  the  dedication  of  the  building,  or  the 
deep.  And  if,  within  or  near  that  particular  region,  nativity  of  the  emperor  in  whose  rei^n  it  was  eon- 
there  are  "vast  plains,  white  with  salt,  and  charged  structed"  <  In-  So.uler,  in  Kind's  i  ii-.,i,  ^y, ,,.  r,-;>. 
with  sea-shells,  showing  that  the  Caspian  Sea  w  as  at  no  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  more  zealous  of  those  who 
distant  period  greatly  more  extensive  than  it  is  now"  have  given  themselves  to  Kgvptologieal  studies  still 
(Testimony  ofthe  Rucks,  p.  :j|.-,i,  it  cannot  be  deemed  impr.>-  persuade  themselves  that  they  have,  in  the  remains  of 
bable,  that  when  a  great  work  of  judgment  had  to  be 
executed,  and  a  lesson  of  moral  discipline  administered  mvatlv 
to  all  coming  ages,  the  chief  means  .if  execui  iii'_f  it  it  is  ab 
might  have  been  found  in  brinuiiiu  into  plav  such  ele 
ments  and  operations  as  are  known  to  have  been  at 
work  in  other  times  and  places.  So  that,  if  no  tangi 
ble,  conclusive  evidence  of  the  N'oacluan  deluge  can  whose  mind  was  substantially  expressed 
be  appealed  to  in  the  physical  historv  of  the  earth 
there  is  not  only  nothing  to  discredit  it,  but  not  a  little 
in  various  respects  to  commend  it  to  our  belief. 

II.  Passing  from  the  /jit !/.<!<•></  to  the  j,i./ it /',-<(/  or  the 
national  history  of  the  world,  \\  ..•  tind  no'liin--  to  mili 
tate  against  the  scriptural  account  of  the  deluge, 
nothing  at  least  that  can  stand  the  test  of  an  impar 
tial  and  rigid  examination.  The  world  contains  ],,, 

authentic  records,  or  extant  monuments,  that  earry  up  political  history  of  the  world  against  the  Mosaic  account 

the  evidence  of  human  agency  and  civilization  to  a  period  of  the  deluge,  whether   written   or  monumental,  there 

too  remote  for  such  a  catastrophe  as  that  of  the    Xoa-  are  the  amplest    tr<nlitiunal   t<^ti,,xjnies  in   its  favour, 

chian  deluge.     The  more  important  nations  of  antiquity  These  are.  from  the  remoteness  of  the  event,  the  only 

did  undoubtedly  lay   claim  to  a  continued   existence,  kind  of  direct  collateral  evidence  that  the  case  properly 

which,  had  it  been  real,  would  have  been  incompatible  admits  of.      ft  was  one  of    Hume's   objections  against 

with  such  a  general  wreck  of  human  life  and  interests  the  historical  verity  of  the  Pentateuch  in  general"  that 


Kgvptian  architecture,  the  surviving  witnesses  of  times 
nore  remote  than  the  era  of  the  deluge.  But 
true  that  tin-  data  on  which  their  conclusions 
<t  are,  to  a  lar^e  extent,  conjectural:  that  the  view 
net  concurred  in  by  Wilkinson,  and  many  of  the 
re  learned  and  judicious  investigators  of  the  subject. 

the  words 

of  the  great  clironolo-vr  Ideler:  "The  historv  of 
ancient  i-  •_ \  pt  is  a  lah\  rinth.  of  which  chronoln-v  ha- 
In-4  the  thread."  Indeed,  the  view  mav  be  said  to  carry 
its  own  refutation  along  with  it,  as  it  would  assert  for 
Egypt  a  high  position  of  art  and  ci\  ili/ation,  when  all 
the  world  besides  was  either  unpeopled.  »r  sunk  in  ab 
solute  barbarism. 

III.    But  while  there  are  no  historical  evidences  in  the 


as  is  represented  to  have  then  occurred.      But  all 
tensions  of  this  nature   have  given  way  before  tl 
vancing  light  of  careful  research  and  scientili 


it  was  not  corroborated  by  any  concurring   testimony. 
But  how  could  it?     There  is   no  written  testimony  ex- 
know-     taut,   apart  from  what  is   found   in  the    Jiible   (which 


ledge.  The  old  Indian,  Chinese,  Egyptian,  and  other  contains  the  primeval  records  of  the  human  race),  that 
such  like  claims  to  an  incredible  antiquity  are  now  un-  ,  comes  within  centuries  of  the  time  to  which  even  the 
versally  assigned  to  the  region  of  fable:  and  the  astro-  ,  latest  accounts  in  the  Pentateuch  refer.  There  is  here, 
nomical  tables  derived  from  the  East,  which  were  so  |  therefore,  no  room  for  com-tn-rln'/  testimonies,  though, 
artfully  framed  as  to  deceive  such  men  as  Bailly  and  ;  in  respect  to  such  an  event  as  the  deluge,  at  once  pos- 
Playfair,  have  been  found  to  possess  no  higher  autho-  '  sessing  a  world- wide  interest,  and  fitted  to  leave  most 
rity  than  cunning  forgeries.  (SocNarcs1  Hampton  Lectures )  '  memorable  impressions  on  the  minds  of  men,  there  was 
Even  later  and  less  suspicious-looking  proofs  of  national  abundant  room  for  testimonies  of  a  traditional  nature, 
longevity,  which  have  been  paraded  by  opponents  of  And  these  accordingly  we  have;  and  have  in  such 
the  P.ible,  have  on  closer  examination  been  found  false  fulness  and  variety  that  there  is  scarcely  a  nation  or 
witnesses  in  regard  to  the  point  under  consideration.  ,  tribe  of  historical  significance  in  any  part  of  the  world 
It  is  not  long  since  that  the  zodiacs  found  inscribed  on  j  which  has  not  transmitted  an  account  of  a  general 
the  temples  of  Esiie  and  Dendera,  in  Upper  Egypt,  had  a  ;  deluge,  in  which  the  whole  human  race  perished,  ex- 
kind  of  fabulous  age  ascribed  to  them,  reaching  to  thou-  |  cepting  a  mere  remnant  saved  in  a  vessel,  or  by  some 
sands  of  years,  not  only  before  the  deluge,  but  before  \  other  means  of  escape  available  only  to  themselves, 
the  creation  of  man,  according  to  the  Old  Testament  |  Sir  William  Jones,  in  his  Asiatic  Researches,  with  refer- 


chronology.  The  deciphering  however  of  the  Greek 
portions  of  the  inscriptions,  and  the  partial  interpreta 
tion  of  the  hieroglypics,  have  dissipated  these  golden 


ence  to  the  event  in  this  general  aspect  of  it,  calls  it 
"  a  fact,  which  is  admitted  as  true  by  every  nation  to 
whose  literature  we  have  access,  and  particularly  by 


dreams  of  a  hoar  antiquity,      it  has  been  ascertained     the  ancient  Hindoos,  who  have  allotted  an  entire  Pur- 


Vot,.  T. 


55 


DELUGE 


DELUGE 


ana  to  tlic  detail  of  that  event,  which  they  relate,  as 
usual,  in  symbols  ami  allegories.'"  "It  is  no  longer 
probable  only/'  hr  au'ain  says.  "  hut  absolutely  certain, 
tliat  tile  whole  raee  of  mankind  proceeded  from  Iran 
(the  district  of  At-ia  to  which  Ararat  belongs),  as  from 
a  centre,  whence  they  migrated  at  first  in  threi; 
LiTeat  colonies;  and  that  those  three1  branches  givvv 
from  a  common  stock,  which  had  heeii  miraculously 
preserved  in  a  general  convulsion  and  inundation  of 
this  globe."  To  the  like  etf'-ct  Mitford,  in  his  Jlistorif 
of  Greece :—"  The  tradition  of  all  nations,  and  appear 
ances  in  every  country,  hear  witness  scarcely  less  ex 
plicit  than  the  writings  of  Moses  to  that  general  flood, 
which  nearly  destroyed  the  whole  human  race;  and 
those  aNest  Creek  authors,  who  have  attempted  to 
trace  the  history  of  mankind  to  its  source,  all  refer  to 
s.icli  an  event  for  the  beginning  of  the  present  system 
of  things  on  earth."  To  these  may  be  added  the  later 
testimony  of  a  French  writer,  one  rather  of  the  infidel 
than  the  believing  school.  M.  Hone,  whose  words  have 
been  quoted  by  .Hitchcock:  "I  shall  be  vexed  to  be 
thought  stupid  enough  to  deny  that  an  inundation  or 
catastrophe  has  taken  place  in  the  world,  or  rather  in 
the  region  inhabited  by  the  antediluvians.  To  me  this 
seems  to  be  as  really  a  fact  in  historv  as  the  reiini  of 
CiL-sar  at  Rome." 

It  was  only  what  miidit  be  expected,  in  regard  to  an 
event  which  took  place  before  the  human  familv  separ 
ated  into  distinct  nationalities,  that  the  traditions 
preserved  of  it  would  maintain  11107-0  or  less  of  a  general 
agreement,  but  that  they  would  also  lie  tinged  to  some 
extent  with  the  peculiar  and  distinctive  features  of 
different  places  and  regions.  This  is  precisely  what  has 
happened,  although  perhaps  there  is  more  reason  to 
wonder  at  the  marked  agreements  with  the  .Mosaic 
narrative,  than  at  the  various  national  diversities.  The 
traditions  of  the  ancient  Asiatic  nations  are  in  this  case 
the  most  important,  because  they  were  the  earliest  to  be 
put  on  record,  and  were  also  the  accredited  accounts 
of  the  descendants  of  those  who  settled  nearest  to  the 
catastrophe.  They  have  been  so  often  given,  that  it  is 
needless  to  do  more  than  briefly  mention  them.  The 
Chaldean-  tradition,  reported  by  tterosus,  and  found  in 
Josephus  (Ap.  i.  no,  asserts  the  fact  of  a  general  deluge, 
and  the  preservation  of  only  a  few  persons  in  an  ark. 
which  rested  on  the  mountains  of  Armenia.  The  .lx- 
.<</)•!  an,  preserved  by  Eusebius  in  the  words  of  Abydenus 
(Evang.  Pi-iep.  c.  ix.),  is  somewhat  more  specific,  as  it 
designates  a  single  man.  named  Sisisthrus  (otherwise 
called  Xisanthrus),  who  being  divinely  forewarned, 
sailed  in  a  vessel  into  Armenia,  and  presently  all  things 
became  involved  in  a  fearful  inundation  :  by  and  by 
he  sent  out  from  his  vessel  several  birds  in  succession. 
which  from  the  prevalence  of  the  waters  constantly  re 
turned  back  stained  with  mud,  till  after  the  third  trial 
they  returned  no  more  ;  and  then  lie  was  himself  taken 
to  the  celestial  region,  while  the  vessel  and  its  contents 
rested  in  Armenia.  Polyhistor.  as  quoted  by  Cyril 
(Adv.  Julianuiii),  adds  to  the  account  that  Sisuthrus  had 
in  his  vessel  birds,  reptiles,  and  beasts  of  burden.  The 
Indian  account,  as  given  by  Sir  William  Jones  (Asiatic 
Researches,  ii.  iir,),  represents  the  sun-born  monarch. 
Satyavatra,  as  immediately  before  the  deluge  addressed 
by  the  God  Vishnu,  in  the  form  of  a  fish,  in  the  follow 
ing  terms  :  "  In  seven  days  all  creatures  that  have  of 
fended  me  shall  be  destroyed  by  a  deluge  ;  hut  thou 
shalt  be  preserved  in  a  capacious  vessel  miraculously  I 


formed.  Take  therefore-  all  kinds  of  medicinal  herbs 
and  esculent  grains  for  food,  and,  together  with  the 
seven  holy  men,  your  respective  wives,  and  pairs  of  all 
animals,  enter  the  ark  without  fear."  lie  did  so,  and 
was  thereby  saved,  along  with  his  company,  from  the 
n'ciicral  destruction,  in  a  large  vessel  that  came  floating 
toward  him  on  the  rising  waters.  The  traditions  of 
K'jjljit  upon  the  subject  have  not  come  down  to  us  in 
any  detailed  form,  but  are  referred  to  by  Josephus(Ant.i.S). 
and  Plato  also,  in  his  Tinni-ua,  has  taken  some  notice 
of  them.  The  Urn/,'  traditions  respecting  the  delude 
of  Deucalion  differ  somewhat  in  different  writers,  but 
the  current  belief  was,  no  doubt,  given  with  substantial 
correctness  by  Ovid.  A  later  form  appears  in  the 
treatise  Di-  l>«i  ^i/rni.  ascribed  to  Lucian.  According 
to  it  the  antediluvians  were  a  wicked  brood,  men  of 
violence,  regardless  of  oaths  and  of  the  rights  of  hospi 
tality,  without  mercy  one  toward  another:  on  which 
account  they  were  doomed  to  destruction.  "For  this 
purpose."  he  goes  on  to  say.  "there  was  a  mighty 
eruption  of  water  from  the  earth,  attended  with  heavy 
showers  from  above  :  so  that  the  rivers  swelled  and  the 
sea  overflowed,  till  the  whole  earth  was  covered  with  a 
flood,  and  all  flesh  drowned.  Deucalion  alone  was  pre 
served,  to  people  the  world.  This  mercy  was  shown 
him  on  account  of  his  justice  and  piety.  His  preserva 
tion  wa>  effected  thus:  he  put  all  his  family,  both  his 
sons  and  their  wives,  into  a  vast  ark  which  he  had 
provided,  and  he  then  went  into  it  himself.  At  the 
same  time  animals  of  every  species — hoars,  horses,  lions, 
serpents — whatever  lived  upon  the  face  of  the  earth, 
followed  him  by  pairs-  -all  which  he  received  into  the 
ark.  and  experienced  no  evil  from  them." 

This  account,  which  has  been  frequently  produced 
among  the  heathen  traditions  of  the  deluge,  and  still 
also  by  Miller  (Testimony  of  tlie  Rocks,  \<.  :NI),  betrays,  we 
may  say.  its  own  posthumous  origin.  It  is  far  too 
close  an  imitation  of  the  scriptural  account,  and  in 
particular  too  ethical  in  its  tone,  to  be  a  really  heathen 
account.  It  belongs  to  that  sub-apostolic  age.  which 
witnessed  in  so  many  respects  a  commingling  of  the 
heathen  with  the  Christian  elements,  and  must,  in  its 
existing  form,  lie  regarded  as  a  fabrication.  The  work 
from  which  it  is  taken  is  no  longer  reckoned  among  the 
genuine  productions  of  Lucian  ;  but  even  if  it  were,  as 
Luc-ian  was  acquainted  with  the  sacred  hooks,  the  real 
character  of  the  narrative  would  not  be  thereby  altered. 
It  should  cease  therefore  to  lie  mentioned  in  this  con 
nection.  Nor  should  any  use  be  made  (as  is  still  done 
both  by  Kitto  and  Miller)  of  the  A /iiii/iaaji  medal, 
which  exhibits  the  name  of  Xoe  inscribed  on  a  floating 
chest,  within  which  a  man  and  woman  appear  seated, 
and  to  which  a  bird  on  the  wing  is  seen  bearing  a 
branch.  This  likewise  betrays  its  origin;  it  belongs  to 
later  times,  and  is  too  clear  a  specimen  of  what  was 
then  very  common  in  Phrvgia  and  its  neighbourhood — 
an  indiscriminate  use  of  heathen  and  biblical  sources, 
and  a  consequent  mixing  up  of  the  opinions  proper  to 
each,  as  if  there  were  no  material  difference  between 
them.  It  is  but  another  form  of  what  gave  birth  to 
the  later  Sybilline  oracles,  and  the  Gnostic  philosophy 
of  the  first  centuries.  Tradition  has  its  spurious  pro 
ductions  as  well  as  history ;  and  in  a  case  like  the 
present,  where  the  legitimate  evidence  is  so  full,  there 
is  the  less  need  for  calling  in  the  aid  of  what  is  unable 
to  stand  the  test  of  a  rigid  examination. 

Beside  the  older   Greek   and  Asiatic  traditions  of  a 


DET.UGE 


43.". 


DEMONS 


deluge,  traces  of  the  same  event  have  been  found  where 
they  might  least  have  been  expected,  among  the  tribes 
and  races  of  the  New  World,  and  even  among  the 
islanders  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  traditions  here  also 
vary,  though  the  substance  remains  in  all  much  the 
same.  The  Indians  of  the  North  American  lakes  tell 
of  their  forefather,  with  his  family,  and  pairs  of  the 
living  creatures,  being  preserved  on  a  raft,  which  lie 
had  been  warned  to  build,  while  all  others  were  drowned. 
Those  on  Terra  Firma,  in  the  opposite  direction,  believe 
that  when  the  deluge  came,  one  man  with  his  wifi  and 
children  escaped  in  a  canoe.  The  Mexicans  had  tra 
ditions  and  also  pictorial  representations  of  the  event. 
in  which  one  man  and  his  wife  escaped  in  the  hollow 
trunk  of  a  leaf-producing  tree,  while  the  water-goddess 
(Matalcuoje)  appeared  pouring  torrents  of  water  upon 
them,  and  overwhelming  others  around  them. 

Even  ainoii'_<-  the  most  scattt-red  and  savage  tribes  mi 
the  Orinoco.  Humboldt  found  the  tradition  of  a  deluge 
common  to  them  all— -the  Tamanacs,  the  Maypmvs. 
the  Indians  of  the  l!io  Krcvato—  hut  each  giving  their 
own  distinctive  colour  to  the  storv.  The  traditions, 
he  savs,  ''are  like  the  relics  of  a  vast  shipwreck."  and 
as  such  "  are  highly  interesting  in  the  philosophical 
study  of  our  own  species In  the  great  conti 
nents,  as  in  the  smallest  islands  of  the  Pacific,  it  is 
always  on  the  loftiest  and  nearest  mountain  that  the 
remains  of  the  human  race  have  lieeii  saved  ;  and  this 
event  appears  the  more  recent  in  proportion  as  tin- 
nations  are  uncultivated,  and  as  the  knowledge  thev 
have  of  their  own  existence  has  no  vcrv  remote  date. 
This,  we  have  no  doubt,  presents  the  true  rationale  of 
the  suliject,  as  to  the  diversity  that  appear^  in  tin-  ac 
counts.  Tlu-  diversity,  whether  anion^  the  traditions 
of  the  Old  or  those  of  the  New  World,  did  not  arise 
from  an  actual  difference  in  the  events,  but  from  the 
one  great  event,  of  which  they  all  spake,  assuming 
such  distinctive  shapes  and  forms  as  were  '.riven  t"  it 
bv  the  respective  position  and  circumstances  of  each. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  there  is  as  much  confirma 
tory  evidence  of  this  great  event  as  could  well  be 
expected.  In  vindication  of  the  Mosaic  narrative  we 
are  entitled  to  say.  Here  is  a  fact  which  in  some  form 
has  impressed  itself  on  the  historical  or  traditional  re 
miniscences  of  all  nations  :  which  is  also  not  without 
analogical  corroboration  from  physical  appearances  in 
the  world's  condition;  and  whether  we  can  solve  the 
incidental  difficulties  connected  with  it  or  not.  we  should 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  strongest  evidence  if  we  were  to 
bring  into  doubt  the  reality  of  the  event.  However 
little  the  scriptural  narrative  of  it  may  enable  us  to 
answer  all  queries,  or  even  to  silence  all  objections  that 
may  be  raised  on  the  subject,  it  yet  presents  what,  as 
far  as  it  goes,  is  by  much  the  most  rational  and  satis 
factory  account  of  the  matter,  and — what  is  of  special 
moment  — the  on  ///  one  that  renders  an  adequate  reason  , 
for  such  a  fearful  catastrophe  befalling  the  habitable  j 
world.  For  here,  as  generally  in  the  historical  ac 
counts  of  Old  Testament  scripture,  the  moral  element, 
by  having  the  chief  prominence  assigned  to  it,  dis 
tinguishes  what  is  written  from  the  traditionary  ac 
counts  of  heathen  antiquity.  In  these  accounts  the 
physical  alone  is  brought  distinctly  into  view  ;  our  at 
tention  is  drawn  merely  to  the  singular  natural  phe 
nomena,  and  to  the  remarkable  incidents  of  clanger  or 
deliverance  connected  with  them.  Tint  in  the  simple 
narrative  of  Moses,  all  takes  its  rise  in  the  moral — on 


man's  part,  in  the  inveterate  corruption  which  had  raged 
among  the  antediluvian  race,  and  defied  all  remedial 
efforts  of  an  ordinary  kind— and  on  God's  part,  in  the 
righteousness  which  could  no  longer  allow  the  audacity 
of  sin  to  proceed,  but  must  substitute  for  abused  mercy 
the  severe  inflictions  of  judgment.  Jt  is  this  which 
.Scripture  makes  prominent,  leaving  other  points  in 
comparative  obscurity  :  and  the  same  prominence  must 
be  given  to  it  still,  if  the  sacred  narrative  shall  he  either 
rightly  understood  or  properlv  used. 

DE'MAS.  a  professed  disciple  and  a  friend  of  St.  Paul 
—  twice  mentioned  in  his  later  epistles,  as  sending,  along 
with  others,  salutations  to  brethren  at  a  distance,  Col. 
iv.  H:  I'hik-. -Jl;  but  in  his  last  epistle  presented  under 
the  mournful  aspect  of  one  who.  through  love  of  a 
present  world,  had  forsaken  the  apostle.  -2  Ti.  iv.  in.  It 
miu'ht  be  but  a  temporary  falling  from  his  steadfastness; 
but  no  later  notice  of  his  career  has  survived  to  correct 
the  unfavourable  impression  which  this  naturally  pro 
duces.  Inde<  d.  the  tradition  of  subsequent  times  classes 
him  anion-  the  apostates  from  the  faith  (Ki'ii'h.  ll;cr.  :>M; 
but  this  probably  arose  from  a  too  rigid  interpretation 
of  the  words  of  the  apostle. 

DEMETRIUS,  a  Creek  term,  denoting  a  /•(*/<//•//  of 
1 1<  n,i  ti.r.  or  Ceres,  of  frequent  use  amoiii;'  the  Greeks, 
but  in  New  Ttstaineiit  scripture  occurring  only  twice. 
1.  Tin-  first  person  of  the  name  mentioned  is  the  silver 
smith  at  Kphesns.  whose  chief  employment  was  the 
making  of  r-ilver  shrines  for  1  liana  most  probably 
>ilvt-r  models  of  the  temple,  or  of  its  innermost  chamber, 
with  the  image  then-  deposited  of  the  great  goddess. 
The  prospect  of  IOMIILT  this  trade  by  the  conversions 
that  were  '_roing  on  to  the  faith  of  the  gospel,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  Paul,  gave  rise  to  a  mighty 
commotion,  which  was  headed  by  J)emctrius.  and  which 
for  a  time  placed  the  apostle  in  jeopardy,  Ac.  v.\  :  2Co.  i. 
i>'"  Ki'Hi'.srs.i  2.  The  other  1  )emetrius  was  a  disciple 
commended  by  the  apostle  John,  as  being  \\ell  reported 
of  by  all  men,  and  by  the  truth  itself-  that  is.  possess- 
iii'.T  a  character  so  purely  and  transparently  Christian, 
that  it  mi^ht  be  said  to  carry  its  o\\n  testimony  along 
\\ith  it.  ::.!n  li'.  His  place  of  residence  is  not  stated; 
but  if  not  at  Kphesus,  it  must  have  been  at  some  place 
in  that  part  of  Asia  Minor. 

DEMONS.  Tlu-se  are  ,-pokrn  of  in  all  Scripture,  from 
the  Pentateuch  to  the  Apocalypse;  and  under  this  or 
some  equivalent  name,  they  hold  the  most  prominent 
place  in  the  mythology  of  all  heathen  nations,  both 
ancient  and  modern.  "  The  gods  of  the  heathen,'  says 
the  psalmist.  ''  are  demons."  I'.s.  xcv.  r.,  Sept.  Trans.  And 
St.  Paul  at  once  authenticates  this  translation,  and  con 
firms  the  truth  it  declares,  when  he  applies  it  to  the 
heathen  of  his  time,  saying.  "The  things  which  the 
Gentiles  sacrifice,  they  sacrifice  to  demons  and  not  to 
God,"  i  Co  x  -JIP.  The  heathen  themselves  give  the  same 
account  of  their  religious  beliefs  and  their  sacrificial 
rites.  The  demon  (6  Sa.iu.wi>)  is  the  object  of  their  wor 
ship,  SeiffiSaifJiovia.  de-scribes  their  worship  itself,  and 
5eiffi5ai/ji.ui>,  the  worshipper.  Thus,  Favorinus,  a  philo 
sopher  of  Adrian's  time,  who  at  different  periods  of  his 
life  resided  in  Pome  and  Greece,  and  the  Lesser  Asia, 
describes  the  religion  of  these  nations  indifferently  as 
6  06§os  OeoP  77  SaifJiovwv,  the  fear  of  God  or  of  demons. 
Xenophon,  intending  to  commend  the  piety  of  Agesi- 
laus,  king  of  Sparta,  says  atei  dfKnSaifj.ui'  fy,  he  was 
ever  a  worshipper  of  demons.  Festus,  governor  of 
Judea,  as  having  no  other  idea  of  religion  in  Gentile  or 


DEMONS 

,Tc\v,  pronounces  the  accusation  of  the;  Jews  against 
Paul  a  question  of  their  own  demon- worship,  ire  pi  rrjs 
iotas  dei<riocu/J.oi'ias.  So  also,  the  men  of  Athens,  on 
hearing  Paul  pi-each  Jesus  and  the  resurrection,  con 
cluded  that  he  was  a  setter  forth  of  strange  or  foreign 
demons;  and  Paul  in  his  turn,  certainly  without  inten 
tion  to  compliment  their  piety,  as  Dr.  Campbell  seems 
to  suppose,  yet  as  certainly  without  thought  of  saying 
what  they  could  repel'  as  false  or  resent  as  offensive, 
states  it  as  his  observation  of  them  that  they  weiv 
8ei<n.8ai[j,ovfiTTepovs,  not,  as  in  the  English  Bible,  "too 
superstitious"  (which  is  opposed  both  to  the  etymolo 
gical  and  the  historical  import),  but  addicted  more  than 
others  to  clem.  >ii-  worship.  On  this  point  it  is  only  further 
necessary  to  add,  that  Scripture  ascribes  the  same 
thing  to  the  Israelites,  in  their  frequent  apostasies  from 
Jehovah  their  God.  "  They  sacrificed  to  demons  and 
not  to  God,  to  gods  whom  they  knew  not;  to  new  gods, 
that  came  newly  up;  whom  their  fathers  feared  not,'' 

De.  xxxii.  17;  Le.  xvii.  7;  Pi.  cvi.  37. 

P>ut  now  who  or  what  \\ere  these  t.h-iii»ii*  whom  the 
world  worshipped  ?     The  question  is  not  without  diffi 
culty,  since  belonging  to  the  spiritual  and  unseen  world, 
they  are  not  immediately  objects  of  our  knowledge,  and 
the  speculations  of  curious  and  inquiring,  and  the  im 
postures  of  wicked  and  designing  men,  practising  on 
the  credulity  of  the  ignorant  or  the  imagination  of  the 
fearful,  have  had  much  to  do  in  creating  and  upholding 
every  theory  or  system  of  demonology  which  has  pre 
vailed.     They  are  therefore  in  the  main,  as  Scripture 
styles  tin-in,  "a  work  of  errors,"  and  exhibit  a  ma-s  of 
beliefs  or  opinions  alike  contradictory  and  absurd,  and 
which  it  were  as  idle  as  it  is  impossible  to  attempt  to 
distinguish  or  harmonize.     Being,    as    we  have  seen, 
objects  of  worship,  demons  must  have  been  believed  to 
be,  in  some  sense  or  after  some  sort,  fit  rim >.  Indeed  with 
the  Greek,  the  TO  S-aoc,  the  divine,  and  TO  oaifj.ovi.ov,  the 
demonish  or  demonian,   were  synonymous  terms ;  and 
oi  &eot,  the  gods,  and  61  oa.ifj.ovfs,  the  demons,  suggested 
the  same  beings.     With  the  philosophers  the  name  of 
demon  (as  from  Sa^jjiuv.  knowing),  is  used  as  the  generic 
name  of  intelligent  or  spiritual  natures.     Thus  Plato 
styles  the  maker  of  the  world,  Toi>  [neyiffTov  oa.ifj.ova.. 
the  greatest    demon  (Plato,  Cratylus,  L'.V.I)  ;    while   in   the 
same  dialogue,  Socrates  is  made  to  say,    "  every  wise 
man  that  is  a  good  man,  is  a  demon,  and  rightly  called 
a  demon,  whether  he  be  alive  or  dead."    But  these  men, 
as  is  also  intimated  in  the  same  place,  did  not  in  this 
speak  their  own  sentiments,  but  rather  sought  to  ac 
commodate  their  language  to  the  belief  or  feelings  of  the 
vulgar ;  these,  it  may  be  presumed,  were  greatly  less 
elevated  and  refined.     For  the  most  part  demons  were 
believed  to  hold  an  intermediate  place  between  celestial 
gods  and   men,    and  to  act  as  mediators,   negotiating 
those  affairs  which  it  was  deemed  beneath  the  majesty 
of  the  greater  gods  to  transact  immediately  with  mor 
tals.     This  is  in  substance  the  philosophy  of  the  later 
Platonists,    Apuleius    and    Plotinus,    011    this   subject. 
The  first   of  these   authors,    as  quoted  by  Augustine, 
who  treats  of  demons,  with  great  learning,  in  his  City 
of  God,  has  thus   described  them:   "  In  kind  they  are 
animal,  in  disposition  passionate,  in  mind  rational,  in 
body  aerial,  in  duration  eternal,  having  the  first  three 
in  common  with  us,  the  fourth  peculiar  to  themselves, 
and  the  fifth  common  to  them  with  the  gods  "  (Augustine, 
Civ.  Dei, lib.  viii.  cap.  xvi.)     This,  too,  may  be  regarded  as  the 
popular  creed,  rather  than  his  own,  and  according  to  it, 


(i  DEMONS 

demons  are  not  distinguished  frsm  deceased  and  disem 
bodied  men.     Indeed,  immortality  seems  to  have  been 
regarded  as  the  only  distinction  between  gods  and  men. 
•'What  are  men1?"  it  is  asked  in  a  dialogue  of  Lucian. 
The  answer  is,  ''mortal  gods,''  S-ein  ^-i>-rjroi.     And  again, 
' '  What  are  gods  ?"  ''immortal  men."  (ivOpuiroi  aOdvaroi. 
On  these  and  similar  grounds,  it  has  been  contended 
in  modern  times,  that  demons,  in  the  idea  of  the  heathen, 
were  only  ''  human  ghosts."  and  also,  were  believed  to 
be  good   and   beneficent  in   their  nature  and  agency. 
(Sykes'  Inquiry;   and  Fanner  on  Demoniacs.)       It   might    not 
be  worth  while  to  advert  to  their  views,  but  for  the  use 
to  which  they  have  applied  them,   of  discrediting  the 
Scripture  doctrine  of  demons.     Like  other  errors,  they 
are  true  in  part.     Many   who  were  worshipped  as  de 
mons  had    been  men  —princes,   heroes,   or   sages,    who 
were  deified  or  regarded   as  demons  after  death.      The 
learned  Joseph  Mede,  in  treating  of  the  identity  of  the 
saint-worship  of  Rome  papal  with  the  demon-worship 
of   Rome   pagan,    shows  that  ' '  they  were  the  souls  of 
worthv  men  deiiied  after  death.''   But  he  adds,  that  some 
were   of  higher  degree,  which  had   no   beginning,  nor 
were  ever  imprisoned  in  mortal  bodies  (Works,  p.  031).    It 
is  more  likely,  that  instead  of  constituting  by  themselves 
a  peculiar  or  distinct  order,  they  should  be  supposed,  on 
their  deification,  to  have  been  assumed  into  the  fellow 
ship  of  a  higher,  viz.  a  divine  order  of  beings   already 
existing.     And  this   Farmer  himself  admits  was,   to  a 
I  large  extent,  the  view  of  heathen  philosophers  and  of 
:  Christian  fathers.  That  all  demons  were  good  and  worthy 
men  who  in  their  deified  state  used   their  power  only 
for  good  to  their  human  kindred   on  earth,   is  not  less 
contrary  to  all  evidence.     As  the  ideal  representations 
of  certain  attributes  and  powers,  of  which  men  saw  or  felt 
the  manifestation  and  effect,  while  the  subjects  or  causes 
of  them  were  invisible  or  unknown,  how  could  they  be 
otherwise  conceived   of  than   both   as   good  and  evil? 
Sykes  says  that  Hesiod  pronounces  all  the  demons  of  the 
:  golden  age  to  be   good.     But  he  is  forced  to  say  also, 
that  TIS  Ka\-6s  8a.ifJ.wi>,  a  certain  evil  demon,  is  as  old  as 
i  Homer,      indeed,  Divinity  itself,    TO  $eiov.    is    repre- 
•  sented  by  Herodotus  and  Aristotle  as   tpdovepbv   T€  /ecu 
'  rapax^Ses,  spiteful  and  envious  of  the  happiness  of  men 
I  (Her.  i.  :u.)  -,  Apuleius  (in  Aug.  Civ.  Dei)  represents  demons 
i  as  subject  to  human  vices,  and  "  osores  hominum,"  haters 
of  men ;  and  Porphyry,  a  virulent  enemy  of  Christianity, 
!  says  that  many  of  them  are  wicked  and  mischievous  in 
the  highest  degree.      ''  They  commonly  dwell  and  roam 
in  places  nearest  the  earth,  in  order  to  satisfy  their  lusts; 
there  is  no  crime  of  which  they  are  not  capable;  they 
do  their  utmost  to  keep  us  from  the  knowledge  of  the 
gods,  and  induce  us  to  serve  themselves ;  they  assume 
the  form  of  the  great  gods  to  seduce  men;  they  make  it 
their  business  to  inflame  their  lusts,  and  set  up  them 
selves  as  great  gods."    And  it  may  be  asked  here,  how, 
'  if  regarded  only  as  good,  and  dispensers  of  good,  can  it 
be  accounted  for,  that  over  ancient  and  modern  heathen 
dom  men  have  ever  sought  the  aid  of  the  real  or  pre 
tended  exorcist  to  rid   them  of  the   presence  of  their 
I  alleged  benefactors  ? 

It  is  true,  certainly,  that  from  the  mass  of  incoherent 
contradictions  which  are  spoken  about  demons  by  the 
heathen,  one  may  prove  almost  anything  to  have  had 
a  place  in  their  beliefs.  The  philosophers,  it  may  be 
allowed,  had  no  faith  in  demoniacal  existences;  what 
they  spoke  or  wrote  of  them  was  in  concession  to  popu 
lar  prejudice;  and  others  believed  anything  or  every- 


I     I 


DEMONS 


437 


DEMONS 


thing  which  fraud  might  invent,  or  fear  might  fancy. 
But,  it  is  no  logical  consequence  from  this,  as  some 
have  insisted,  that  demons  are  merely  imaginary  ex 
istences,  and  that  nothing  is  true,  or  known  to  be  true, 
of  them.  The  argument  might  with  equal  reason  be 
alleged,  to  sanction  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no 
God,  for  all  worthy  ideas  of  his  personality  and  attri 
butes  were  overlaid  and  lost  amid  the  dreams  of  pan 
theism,  the  follies  of  polytheism,  and  the  negations  of 
atheism.  This  were  certainly  too  summary  a  process 
by  which  to  reach  so  grave  a  result.  We  may  for 
these  reasons  most  warrantably  conclude  that  any 
reliable  information  on  these  subjects,  and  indeed  on 
every  other  relating  to  the  world  of  spirits,  has  been  lost, 
and  in  absence  of  revelation,  could  not  be  recovered. 
But.  it  might  be  maintained  with  some  show  of  reason, 
that  beliefs  and  practices  which  have  spread  so  wide, 
and  survived  so  lono-,  had  sonic  beginning  in  truth — 
in  some  nuclei  of  primitive  revelation,  around  which 
human  deception,  practisiii'_r  mi  human  weaknes-.  had 
gathered  those  superstitious  accretions  under  which  the 
truth  had  been  buried.  Some  traces  of  this  Scripture 
truth,  strangely  confused  and  perverted,  may  be  dis 
covered  among  these  superstitious  beliefs,  dale  (Court 
of  the  Gentiles!  refers  the  origin  of  the  supposed  mediatory 
function  of  demons  to  the  constitution  of  the  Son  as 
mediator  between  ( 1 ml  and  man:  and  though  the  common 
idea  of  their  original,  as  the  souls  of  men  deceased,  be 
different  from  that  of  t'.ie  demons  of  Scripture,  they 
closely  resemble  them  in  the  ideas  entertained  of  their 
spiteful  and  envious  nature,  and  their  \\icked  and 
malignant  influence. 

For  authoritative  information  on  all  that  relates  to 
their  nature  and  origin,  their  sphere  and  auvncy.  we 
must,  in  disregard  alike  of  the  ancient  heathen  and 
the  modern  rationalist,  depend  on  the  Word  of  (Jod. 
And  thore.  while  their  existence  is  frequently  affirmed, 
we  find  their  divinity  in  any  proper  sense  denied,  and 
the  worship  of  them  condemned  and  disallowed.  They 
are  spoken  of  as  distinct  from  man  and  from  God.  as 
spiritual  beings,  so  created  original! v,  but  now  fallen 
from  their  first  estate,  leagued  in  revolt  against  God. 
and  using  their  power,  under  his  control,  both  to 
corrupt  and  to  seduce,  to  oppress  and  to  destroy  man. 
That  there  is  one  ficin;/  to  whom  this  description  ap 
plies,  the  authors  before  referred  to,  acknowledge,  or 
at  least  have  not  deemed  it  prudent  to  deny.  But  they 
refuse  to  admit  that  demons  are  of  the  same  order,  or 
have  any  existence  save  in  the  superstitious  imagina 
tions  of  men.  "There  is,"  says  Lardner,  ''but  one 
devil;"  and  Dr.  Campbell,  who  shows  strong  rationalis 
tic  leanings  on  this  subject,  says  nothing  can  be  clearer 
from  Scripture,  than  that,  though  demons  are  innumer 
able,  there  is  but  onedevilintheuniver.se  (Gospels,  i.  23:.). 
Now,  every  student  of  the  Greek  Testament  knows, 
that  as  often  as  the  name  devils  (plural)  is  applied  in 
our  version  to  spiritual  beings,  the  original  is  not 
SitigoXoi.  but  oaifj-oves,  not  strictly  devils  but  demons. 
So  far  it  is  not  possible  to  vindicate  our  version,  but 
neither  is  it  easy  to  justify  the  inference  which  is  so 
dogmatically  made  from  the  original.  Confessedly,  the 
old  serpent,  the  devil,  and  Satan  are  synonymous, 
Re.  xx.  2,  at  least  they  variously  describe  the  same  being: 
as  Satan,  he  is  the  adversary — as  devil,  he  is  the  venge 
ful  accuser — as  the  old  serpent,  he  is  the  subtle  tempter, 
the  8ai/j.wi>.  Then  under  the  names  of  Satan  and  Beel 
zebub  he  is  called  the  prince  of  demons,  Mat.  xii.  24;  Mar. 


iii.  23,  a  title  which  our  Lord  concedes  to  him.  And  if 
this  do  not  absolutely  decide  that,  while  the  name  of 
devil  is  peculiar  to  him,  he  shares  the  common  nature 
of  demons — seeing  he  is  styled  also  the  prince  and  god 
c  if  this  world  and  the  mcii  of  it  —it  must  be  admitted 
to  afford  a  strong  presumption  that  it  is  so.  There  are 

|  angels,  partners  of  his  fall ;  there  are  demons,  vassals 
of  his  kingdom.  It  may  be  these  are  distinct.  Is  it 
not  more  probable  that  they  are  the  same  in  nature 
with  one  another,  and  also  the  same  with  their  prince  ? 
(1.)  Our  view  is  confirmed  by  the  general  testi 
mony  of  Scripture,  both  respecting  the  devil  and  de 
mons.  If  distinguished  by  these  names  respectively, 
they  are  on  the  other  hand  identified  in  general  nature 
by  the  common  name  of  spirits  or  spiritual  beings. 
Thus  the  devil,  the  prince  and  god  of  this  world,  is 
called  ••  the  spirit  who  worketh  in  the  children  of  disobe 
dience,"  i''.[<.  i\.  i.  And  demons  and  spirits  are  frequently 
used  as  convertible  terms  in  many  places  of  the  New 
Testament  scripture.-.  Lu.  x.  17,  20  ;  Mar  ix.  •_''i-20  ;  vii.  2.1,  20. 
That  in  these  cas.  s  the  term  is  applied  personally,  does 
not  admit  of  doubt.  The  powers,  properties,  and 
actions  ot  living  personal  agent.-  are  there  ascribed  to 
dt  inons,  nut  less  than  to  the  devil,  and  utterly  baffle 
the-  theory  which  regards  them  as  mere  creations  of 
fancy.  Tims  it  is  said  of  demons,  that  "  they  believe 
and  tremble,"  Ja.  n  in.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  Sykes 
disposes  of  this  scripture :  "It  was.  1  suppose,  from 
this  text  that  the  fathers  said  those  tilings  concerning 
devils  which  occur  so  frequently  in  their  writings. 
Now  admitting  that  the  devil  and  his  angels  (demons 
then  are  his  angels!'  dread  God,  the  most  that  will 
follow  is  that  here  5at,u6i>ia..  is  applied  to  evil  spirits, 
and  it  will  be  granted  that  they  have  reason  to  tremble, 
lint  does  it  follow  that.  In -cause  in  this  one  place,  but/j.bi'ia 
.-lenities  c!c  vils.  that  evil  spirits  do.  or  are  allowed  to  pos 
sess  men  and  torment  them  with  disease's  :"  The  question 
for  the  present  is.  not  whether  they  torment  men,  but 
simply  what  their  nature  is:  and  it  is  enough  for  us  to 
accept  the  admission  that  SaifMdvia  does  here  signify 
devils  or  evil  spirits.  This  it  is  the  scope  of  Dr.  Sykes' 
inquiry  to  disprove.  And  indeed,  he  has  no  sooner 
made1  the  fatal  admission,  than,  fain  to  retract  it,  he  says, 
"  It  may  after  all  be  interpreted  of  departed  human 
spirit-."  which  he  labours  to  show  are,  like  idols,  nothing 
in  the  world,  but,  for  the  occasion,  must  be  thought 
;uter  all  to  be  capable,  in  the  apostle's  account,  both  of 
faith  and  fear. 

c_'.  i  Besides  ha\  ing  in  common  a  spiritual  nature,  the 
devil  and  demons  have  a  common  character.  The  devil 
is  bv  eminence  ' '  the  evil  one,"  the  impersonation  of  wick 
edness,  ''a  liar  and  a  murderer  from  the  beginning."  De 
mons,  again,  are  evil  spirits,  unclean  spirits,  lying  spirits. 
spirits  of  wickedness  (Trvfvfj.aTiKa  TTJS  Trovrjpias).  Kp.vi.i2j 
and  some  are  said  to  be  "more  wicked  spirits"  than 
others,  Mat  xii.  i:>,  as  if  there  was  exhibited  among  them 
every  form  and  degree  of  evil. 

(3.)  They  are  leagued  together  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  same  bad  cause.  The  devil  is  Satan,  the  adversary 
of  God  and  man:  "he  deceiveth  the  whole  world," 
''he  goeth  about  seeking  whom  he  may  destroy." 
Demons  are  called  "spirits  of  error,"  "seducing  spirits," 
i  Ti.  iv.  i,  which  oppress  and  torment  men,  Mat.  xv.  21, 

!  and  moreover  in  everyway   seek  their  hurt  and  ruin, 
Re.  xxi.  ifi;  xviii.  2,  .'i.     If  it  be  objected  that  their  alleged 

;  influence    is    not    sensibly    perceived,     the    argument 
holds  equally  against  the   agency  of  the  one  devil,  as 


DEMONS 

against  that  of  the  many  demons:  nay,  equally  against 
the  presence  and  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  ns. 
For,  as  Tertullian  says,  "  neither  is  discovered  in  the  act  j 
of  working,  which  is  suporseusilile,  lint  only  in  the  effects 
of  their  work  ;"  and  if  any  will  olijoct,  with  Sykes,  that 
their  alleged  activity  in  going  up  and  down  the  earth  in 
prosecution  of  their  evil  work,  is  contradictory  to  the 
statement  that  the  angels  which  kept  not  their  first 
estate  are  reserved  in  chains  to  the  judgment  of  the  great 
day,  it  may  lie  answered  that  before  this  argument  can 
have  force,  one  would  require  to  know  what  is  the  length 
of  their  chain. 

(4.)  Finally,  both  are  spoken  of  as  involved  in  the 
same  dread  doom:  for  the  devil  and  his  angels  tli<' 
everlasting  fire  is  prepared.  So,  demons  are  said  to 
tremble  as.  in  apprehension  of  coming  wrath,  they  de 
precate  being  sent  into  the  abyss,  the  abode  of  dark 
ness ;  and  their  ejection  by  the  word  of  Christ  and 
his  apostles  is  hailed  as  a  conquest  over  Satan  and 
a  forerunner  of  his  fall.  Dr.  Campbell  says  that  the 
utmost  that  can  be  deduced  from  all  these  things  is, 
"'  that  demons  are  malignant  as  well  as  the  devil,  en- 
Lrauvd  in  the  same  bad  cause,  and  perhaps  of  the  num 
ber  of  those  called  his  angels  and  made  to  serve  as  his 
instruments."  Hut  he  adds,  "  this  is  no  evidence  that 
thev  are  the  same."  If  not  absolute  proof  of  their 
generic  identity,  it  is  certainly  decisive  evidence  of 
that  near  and  strong  affinity  which  may  perhaps  still 
leave  room  for  some  difference  or  inequality  of  original 
rank  between  them.  Perhaps  the  words  of  Jesus, 
spoken  with  reference  to  the  spirit  or  demon  which  his 
disciples  cotdd  not  cast  out,  La.  ix.  :;;>,  42 ;  Mat.  xvii.  IT,  is 
"this  kind,"'  or  race  "cannot  come  forth  but  hy 
prayer,"  &c.,  may  countenance  the  idea  that  there  are 
diverse  kinds  of  them,  as  other  scriptures,  R...  via.  :;r ;  Ej.. 
vi.  12,  &c.,  seem  to  intimate  that  among  angelic  natures 
there  are  gradations  in  order  and  influence.  But  at  all 
events,  seeing  both  have  real  personal  and  spiritual 
being,  both  are  wicked  and  impure  and  lying  spirits,  both 
co- operating  in  the  same  work,  as  the  tempters,  and 
seducers,  and  tormentors  of  mankind,  and  both  destined 
to  fall  before  the  power  and  suffer  the  vengeance  of 
Christ,  who  came  to  destroy  the  devil  and  his  works — 
their  identity  seems  to  be  determined,  in  so  far  at  least 
as  their  power  and  agency  bear  on  the  method  of  God's 
moral  government,  and  its  subjects  are  liable  to  be 
affected  by  them. 

We  may,  however,  briefly  refer,  in  conclusion,  to  the 
words  of  the  apostle  before  quoted,  that  the  gods  of  the  ; 
heathen  are  demons.  In  what  sense  is  this  to  be  under 
stood,  and  how  in  its  proper  sense  does  it  bear  on  the 
point  now  under  consideration?  Let  it  be  admitted, 
as  Farmer  and  others  contend,  that  demons  are  to  be 
considered  as  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  how  then  can  it 
be  said,  but  with  limited  and  partial  truth,  that  these 
were  the  gods  of  the  heathen  !  They  shared  their  wor 
ship,  but  did  by  no  means  monopolize  it ;  they  wor 
shipped  also  the  sun,  and  moon,  and  stars,  and  almost 
every  object  in  nature,  animate  and  inanimate.  And 
with  whatever  defective  ideas  of  the  divine  nature  and 
attributes,  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  worshipping  the 
work  of  their  own  hands,  they  professed  through  them 
to  honour  the  one  true  Go.d.  This  was  the  professed 
object  of  Jeroboam's  institution,  as  seen  in  2  Ch.  xi.  15. 
And  yet,  notwithstanding,  it  is  said  that  these  priests 
were  ordained,  and  this  worship  prepared  for  devils 
or  demons.  The  worshippers  intended  it  for  the 


8  DEMONIACS 

worship  of  (!od  God  himself  adjudged  it  to  be  for 
the  service  of  demons.  How  should  this  bo ']  If  demons, 
like  idols,  be  nothing,  as  some  hold,  they  could  not 
worship  them  in  fact;  if  sometimes  worshipped  under 
the  imagination  that  they  were  departed  human  spirits, 
they  did  not  in  these  cases  worship  them  even  in  fancy; 
and  it  onlv  remains  that  they  served  them,  in  effect, 
under  the  influence  and  in  the  service  of  that  arch- 
deceiver  and  his  deceitful  allies,  who  turns  all  false 
worship,  whether  to  the  dead  or  to  the  living,  to  his 
own  wicked  and  malignant  ends  of  delusion  and  de 
struction. 

The  doctrine  of  demons  claims  the  .submission  of  our 
faith  in  homage  to  the  authority  of  Scripture.  Its  re 
velations  on  the  subject  are  confessedly  scanty  and 
obscure,  and  much  variety  of  opinion  may  obtain 
respecting  their  precise  meaning  and  amount.  But  to 
set  down  all  that  is  said  of  demons,  as  many  do,  for 
old  wives'  fables,  a  figment  of  Gentile  superstition,  which 
Scripture,  in  imitation  of  the  heathen  sages,  has  endorsed 
and  perpetuated  in  concession  to  popular  belief,  is  seri 
ously  to  impugn  the  authority  of  Scripture.  After  all, 
what  difficulties  attach  to  this  subject  which  should 
urge  upon  us  this  issue  ''.  It  may  easily  be  shown  that  all 
that  is  taught  concerning  them  is  in  harmony  with 
rational  theism.  Why  should  we  doubt  the  existence  of 
other  ordersof  intelligent  and  moral  beings  besides  man  .' 
It  were  surely  a  narrow  mind  that  would  claim  for  him 
a  monopoly  of  the  rational  creation.  But  if  other  such 
orders  exist,  can  we,  in  the  face  of  our  own  character 
and  condition,  hold  it  incredible,  that  among  them  also 
some  should  be  fallen,  and  depraved,  and  miserable  as  we 
are  '.  We  are  naturally  fain  to  think  of  these  evils  as 
limited  and  local,  but  in  truth  the  great  mystery  lies  less 
in  their  extent,  than  in  their  existence,  at  all,  in  the 
universe  of  God.  That,  possessing  this  evil  nature,  they 
should  act  in  accordance  with  it,  and  use  their  power  as 
they  have  opportunity  to  spread  the  infection  of  their 
malice  and  wickedness,  is  just  what  is  seen  in  ''evil 
men,  and  seducers,  who  wax  worse  and  worse,  deceiving 
and  being  deceived."  It  may  be  thought  that,  as  belong 
ing  to  another  sphere  of  being,  they  have  no  access  to  us. 
and  can  have  no  influence  upon  us.  But,  may  it  not  be, 
that  the  moral  as  well  as  the  natural  universe  throughout 
is  connected  by  common  laws  and  common  interests  ': 
Are  not  angels  sent  forth  from  God's  presence  to  minister 
on  earth  to  the  heirs  of  salvation ;  is  not  the  Spirit 
which  God  gives  his  people  seen  and  known  by  his 
life-niving  and  blessed  fruits  in  them  ;  and  are  not.  in 
like  manner,  the  devil  and  his  demon  agency  discovered 
in  the  strong  delusions  and  grievous  oppressions  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  men  have  suffered,  and  do  suffer, 
from  their  power?  [/•  He.] 

DEMONIACS  is  the  name  given  to  men  subject  to 
the  power  of  demons  or  evil  spirits.  These  are  spoken 
of  as  entering  into,  dwelling  in.  and  possessing  men ; 
taking,  seizing,  using  their  bodily  organs  and  their 
mental  powers  at  their  will,  ami  subjecting  them  to 
almost  every  kind  or  form  of  bodily  and  mental  malady 
which  flesh  is  heir  to.  Thus,  of  the  cases  we  read  of 
in  the  gospels,  one  has  a  demon  and  is  blind,  his  blind 
ness  being  an  effect  of  the  demon's  power;  and  so, 
another  is  dumb,  another  both  deaf  and  dumb,  another 
is  bowed  down  or  drawn  together,  and  can  in  no  way 
lift  up  herself,  another  is  epileptic,  and  so  on,  showing 
their  power  over  the  senses  and  the  whole  body. 
Again  we  read  of  others  who  were  frenzied,  Mar.  v.  1-15; 


DEMONIACS 


DEMONIACS 


of  others  who  were  hypochondriac,  Mar.  vii.  s->;  and  of 
some  who  were  fatuous  or  imbecile,  Mar.  ix.  u-i:-,  show 
ing  further  that  mind  as  well  as  bodv,  and  in  nuuiv 
instances  mind  and  body  both,  were  subject  to  this 
demoniac  tyranny.  And  again,  we  read  of  other  cases 
in  which  they  seem  to  have  inflamed  the  malignant  and 
unclean  passions  of  their  victims.  a.s  in  the  man  who 
abode  among  the  tombs,  the  man  in  the  synagogue 
at  Capernaum.  Mar.  i.  :M,  and  Mary  Magdalen,  out  of 
whom  went  seven  demons.  But  however  this  lie,  the 
cases  before  referred  to,  sufficiently  evince  that  they 
had  power  to  subjugate  the  sensory  and  imagination 
and  reason  of  men.  and  to  be,  if  not  directly  their 
tempters  and  corrupters,  their  grievous  tornienters  and 
oppressors. 

Such  briefly  lias  been  generally  received  as  the  sub 
stance-  of  the  Scripture  testimony  respecting  the  de 
moniacs  who  are  so  prominent  in  the  gospel  history. 
1-Jut  in  these-  latter  days  SOUR-  profess  to  have  di> 
covered  that  it  is  altogether  a  mistake:  and  hold, 
though  without  prejudice,  as  they  profess,  either  to  the 
reality  of  the  evil  which  the  demoni/.ed  arc  said  to  have 
endured,  or  to  the  marvellous  mercy  which  they  arc  said 
to  have  experienced,  that  the  agency  of  demons  in  their 
sufferings  is  a  groundless  and  superstitious  belief.  .Mede 
appears  to  have  led  the  way  in  this  direction  (W'n-k;-,  p.  -j-i 
He  was  followed  by  Lardner  and  Sykes  and  Fanner, 
men  of  the  Soeinian  school.  A>  Lardner  dogmatically 
pronounces  that  "  there  is  but  one  devil,"  M>  Fanner 
pronounces  with  equal  confidence  that  "  there  never 
was  a  demoniac  among  men. "  meaning  by  this  term, 
what  is  generally  understood  by  it.  one  who  was  iv.-dlv 
possessed  anil  acted  on  by  a  demon.  I'.ut  the  confidence 
of  this  assertion  is  by  no  means  Itorne  out  by  equal 
strength  of  evidence.  The  subject  is  confessedly  ob 
scure  and  difficult.  Demons  cannot  be  perceived  by 
sense;  their  influence,  whatever  it  be  in  effect,  is  not  di-- 
tinguishable  in  its  exercise  from  the  operation  of  natural 
causes.  And  it  will  be  admitted  that  the  information 
which  Scripture  has  inveii  us  respecting  their  nature  and 
agency  is  not  so  full  as  to  enable  us  to  explain  the 
difficulties,  or  remove  the  objections,  psychological  and 
moral,  which  it  is  so  easy  to  find  or  make  in  coimec 
tion  with  this,  as  with  most  other  subjects.  This  how 
ever  does  not  warrant  the  summary  and  scornful  repu 
diation  of  a  series  of  recorded  facts,  of  which,  as  most 
men  have  understood  the  Scripture,  it  not  only  fully 
details  the  phenomena,  but  constantly  assumes  and  ex 
pressly  assigns  and  declares  the  cause. 

The  explanation  now  proposed  to  be  given  of  tin- 
case  of  demoniacs  is,  that  "  they  are  none  other  than 
such  as  we  call  madmen  and  lunatics.  Madmen 
not  ri  itwrfii  or  of  simple  dotage,  but  by  influence  of 
melancholia  or  mania,  from  which  they  imagine,  speak, 
and  do  things  that  are  most  absurd,  and  contrary  to  all 
reason,  sense,  and  use  of  men  ;  the  difference  between 
these  being,  that  melancholy  is  attended  with  fear, 
sadness,  silence,  retiredness,  and  the  like  symptoms; 
mania  with  rage,  raving  and  frenzy,  and  actions  suit 
able."  (See  Mode's  Works,  p.  2'J;  Sykes'  Inquiry,  p.  31);  and  Far 
mer's  Essay,  sect,  vi.)  These  forms  and  kinds  of  natural 
disease,  they  allege,  cover  and  account  for  all  the  facts 
and  phenomena  which  in  the  demonized,  so  called, 
have  been  generally  ascribed  to  the  agency  of  de 
mons;  this  being,  as  Mede  expresses  it,  "a  mistake 
caused  by  the  disguise  of  another  name  and  notion 
than  we  conceive  them  by,"  they  having  been  called 


demoniacs,  as  others  have  been  called  lunatics,  though 
demons  had  no  more  influence  upon  the  one,  than  the 
moon  had  upon  the  other. 

Let  us  examine  whether  this  theory  is  borne  out  by 
Scripture.  The  proof  text  which  Mede  lays  as  the  ground 
and  pillar  of  this  theory  is  Jn.  x.  '2(i.  which  records  the 
blasphemous  words  of  the  Jews  regarding  .lesus,  "'  He 
hath  a  devil,  and  is  mad."  ''The  latter  word  being" 
(as  he  holds)  "an  explication  of  the  former."  Try  this 
interpretation  upon  Mar.  iii.  '2'J.  where  the  same  impu 
tation  is  cast  upon  him.  by  substituting  the  one  of 
these  equivalent  expressions  for  the  other,  and  see  how- 
it  will  stand:  "  lie  hath  Beelzebub,  and  by  the  prince 
of  the  demons  castcth  he  out  demons.  '  Did  the  Jews 
here  mean  to  repeat  that  he  was  mad,  and  to  ascribe 
his  miiaclcs  to  his  madness;  do  they  not,  in  both 
instances,  expressly  refer  the  madness  and  the  miracle- 
working,  as  effects,  to  the  distinct  cause  of  demoniacal 
agency  ' 

In  the  first  notice  of  demoniacs  which  occurs  in  the 
gospel  history,  they  arc  named  as  a  distinct  class  of 
suffering  men:  "They  brought  to  him  all  sick  people 
that  were  taken  with  divers  diseases  and  torments,  and 
tli'iti  ir/ui'/i  ifi /•/  /infxt .<x( il  ii'tt/i  demons  (3a.L/j.oi>i£o/j.(i>oi's}, 
and  those  that  \\eiv  lunatics,  and  those  that  had  the 
palsy,  and  he  healed  them."  Mat.  iv.  24.  Here  the  de- 
nioai/.ed  and  tin.-  lunatic,  who  on  the  rationalistic  theory 
are  identified,  are  e\piv-slv  distinguished.  We  find  a 
case,  already  referred  to,  in  which  the  demoni/ed  is 
also  said  to  have  been  lunatic,  Mat.  \\ii.i.~i;  and  another, 
in  which  he  i>  said  to  have  been  maniac-;  and  it  is  pro 
bable  that  Mich  ea.-es  \\eiv  frequent.  j!ut  the  right 
inference  from  this  is.  not  that  all  lunatics  or  maniacs 
were  demonized,  or  that  they  only  were  demonized  who 
were  subject  to  madness  in  some  form;  but  that  this 
was  one  only  of  many  forms  in  which  demons  used  their 
power  over  men.  So  far  from  hein^  restricted  to  mad 
ness,  as  Mede  and  others  a>~ert.  it  is  evident  that  the 
effects  ascrilH.-d  to  demon  influence  include  almost 
every  form  of  disease,  bodily  and  mental.  Thus,  of  those 
who  were  possessed,  some  were  blind,  deaf,  dumb. 
1  lowed  down,  i^c.,  without  being,  so  far  as  is  known, 
mentally  disordered.  Blindness  and  deafness  could  be 
no  cifect  of  madness  or  melancholy.  Dumbness,  or 

in Iv  sullen  silence  at  least,  miuht  possibly  proceed 

from  this  cau-e,  but  in  the  case  recorded  it  is  expressly 
ascribed  to  organic  obstruction,  Mar.  vii.:i:t-:{5.  And  for 
aught  that  appears,  the  daughter  of  Abraham  in  the 
synagogue,  though  the  subject  of  an  afflicted  body,  was 
the  possessor  of  a  sound  mind,  and  we  may  hope  of  a 
devout  heart. 

Rut  while,  in  these  outward  respects,  demoniacs  were 
assimilated  to  other  sufferers,  they  are  uniformly  spoken 
of  as  specifically  distinct.  Thus,  it  is  said  of  our  Lord's 
miracles,  that  he  cured  many  of  their  infirmities  and 
plagues,  and  of  evil  spirits,  Lu.  vii  ii;  viii.  •>.  So  likewise, 
in  his  commission  to  the  twelve  disciples,  it  is  said  lie 
gave  them  power  and  authority  over  all  demons,  and 
to  cure  all  manner  of  sickness,  and  all  manner  of 
disease,  Lu.  ix.  i;  Mat.  x.  !->-.  and  so,  in  his  commission  to 
the  seventy,  comp  Lu.  x.  nwith  ver.  i:--jo;  and  again,  after 
his  resurrection,  in  his  promise  concerning  his  apostles, 
Mar.  xvi.  17;  and,  in  their  discharge  of  their  commission, 
they  are  said  to  have  exercised  their  twofold  gift  over 
these  different  forms  of  evil,  Mar.  vi.  i:i. 

The  precise  nature  and  amount  of  the  distinction 
thus  marked  between  demoniacs  and  other  sufferers 


DEMONIACS 


we    may    not    be    able    altogether    to    ascertain,    but 
some  particulars   admit  of  being  specified.     The  first 
and    most    obvious    distinction    is    in    thu    producing 
cause.      We  are  now  entitled  to  say  that  the  passage 
which  Mede  adduces  to  disprove  the  agency  of  demons 
in  these  maladies  is,  so  far  as  Jewish  opinion   goes,  an 
express    confirmation  of  it.      "  He    hath  a  demon" 
that  is  the  agent;   "lie  is  mad"— this  is  the  effect 
though  but  one  effect  of  many  of  the  demon's  presence 
and    working:  and    this  active   cause    is  not  once  but 
constantly  distinguished  from  the  malady  under  which 
the  demoniac  suffers.      Demons,  as  shown   before  (see 
preceding    article),    are    identified     with    evil    spirits. 
^Compare  Mat.  xii.  22,  20 ;  Lu.  viii.  2,  (i,  159  ;  -Mar.  v.i.  21,  :iO  ;  Mat.  xv. 
21.2S;  Lu.  ix.  :!7, 4:i;  Mar.  ix.  H,2H:   Lu.  xiii.  KI,  u).      They  are 
not  therefore  to  be  confounded  with  dead  men.  wr  with 
their  ghosts  -  an   idea   which   Sykes  and   Farmer  per 
sistently    connect   with  everything    that    is    said   con 
cerning"  them  ;  for  whatever  might  be  the  thoughts  or 
sayino-s  of   the  heathen  about  demons,  or  of  Jews,  like 
Josephus  or  Justin  Martyr,  whose  views  were  assimil 
ated  to  those  of  the  heathen,  this  notion  lias  no  coun 
tenance   from   Scripture,    and   is   not   known   to   have 
prevailed  among  the  J  ewish  people.      Demons  are  there 
spoken  of  as  personal,  conscious,  powerful,  responsible 
agents,  who  perceive  and   understand,    who  hate  and 
rage,  who  speak  and  act.  and  tremble.    Our  Lord  always 
deals  with  them  as  such.    Not  only  does  he  rebuke  them, 
as  he  is  said  to  rebuke  the  fever,  or  the  winds  and  waves 
—which  might  be  supposed  to  be  in  figure  ;  but,  what 
cannot  be  thus  accounted  for.  he  interrogates  them  as 
distinct  from  the  possessed,  and  they  reply  to  him  through 
the  organs  of  their  victims  ;— he  commands  or  restrains 
them  also,  as  he   sees   occasion,   and  they  obey  him. 
"What  is  t/ii/  name;"  he  asks;  and  the  unclean   spirit 
answers,  "  My  name  is  Legion,  for  we  are  many  ;   and 
he,    and   all  the  demons,   besought  him,"   &c.     There 
hath  fallen   prostrate    at   his  feet    a    deaf    and    dumb 
child,   and    Jesus  rebukes  the  spirit,    saying,    "Thou 
deaf  and  dumb  spirit,  I  charge  thee  come  out  of  him, 
and  enter  no  more  into  him.''     Again,  meeting  from 
the  tombs  the  wretched  maniac  whom  no  man  could 
tame,  Jesus,  distinguishing  between  the  man  and  the 
author  or  cause  of  his  terrible  malady,  commands  him, 
"Come  out  of  the  man,  thou  unr/ccui  spirit."     In  all 
this,  and  much  more  to  the  same  effect,  our  Lord  does 
surely  distinguish  this  one  species  of  man's  maladie 
from  the  rest,  and  ascribes  the  difference  to  the  agency 
of  intelligent  and  moral  existences. 

This  is  further  confirmed  by  the  effects  which 
often  accompanied  their  presence  in  the  possessed. 
The  first  is  the  knowledge  the  demoniacs  had  of 
Jesus.  We  do  not  pry  into  the  processes  by 
which  demons  seized  upon  and  appropriated  the 
sensory  of  their  victims.  We  have  learned  nothing 
from  the  philosophizing  of  others  on  this  subject,  and 
do  not  profess  to  be  able  to  throw  any  light  upon  it 
ourselves.  But  whatever  mystery  be  in  the  process, 
it  cannot  be  questioned  that  in  some  way  these  de 
moniacs  were  in  possession  of  knowledge  not  accessible 
to  man.  They  knew  Jesus  to  be  the  Christ,  Mar.  i.  34. 
Thus,  the  demoniac  in  the  synagogue  exclaimed  of 
Jesus,  "I  know  thee  who  thou  art,  the  holy  One  of 
God:"  and  the  G-adarene  demoniac  in  like  manner 
cried.  "  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou 
Son  of  the  most  high  God?"  It  may  be  said  indeed 
that  Christ's  name  was  spread  abroad,  and  that  his 


0  DEMONIACS 

works  had  already  made  him  known.  But  his  nature 
as  the  Son  of  God  was  not  yet  dreamed  of.  His  char 
acter  as  the  holy  One  of  God  was  not  acknowledged. 
His  office  as  the  Christ  was  but  guessed  at.  Much  of 
this  was  spoken  early  in  our  Lord's  ministry,  Mar.  i.  :;2-:u. 
At  a  much  later  period  the  people  at  large  were  still 
in  profoundest  ignorance  and  error  concerning  him. 
••  Whom  do  men  say  that  I  am?''  he  asked  his  disciples 
long  afterwards,  and  the  answer  was,  "John  the  Bap 
tist,  but  some  say  Elias,  and  others  one  of  the  pro 
phets,"  Mar.  viii.  2%  2:1.  Even  those  who  besought  him 
for  his  mercy,  cried  after  him.  as  "the  Son  of  David," 
Mat.  xv.  21;  Mar.  x.  47,  4\  Obviously  then  the  demoniacs 
had  some  avenue  to  knowledge  respecting  his  person  as 
the  Son  of  God.  and  of  his  office  as  the  Christ,  which 
others  had  not.  It  were  preposterous  to  ascribe  this 
to  madness,  which  if  it  surprisingly  revive  and  recall 
forgotten  knowledge,  certainly  can  impart  none.  Jn- 
leed.  Scripture  refers  it  to  the  indwelling  demon, 
who  may  be  reasonably  presumed  to  have  derived  it 
from  Satan  their  prince,  who,  in  his  encounter  with 
Jesus  in  the  wilderness,  had  discovered  him  to  bo  the 
Son  of  God. 

Another  specialty  to    be    noticed,   which   manifests 
the  supernatural  cause  of  this  malady,  is  the  invariable 
.lislike    and    dread    which    the    possessed    had    of    our 
Lord.      It  was  true  of  the  demoniacs,  as  of  the  demons. 
that   they  did    "  believe  and  tremble."     They  do  not 
appear  ever  to  have  come  to  .lesus  of  their  own  accord, 
but,  with  one  exception,  to  have  been  brought  to  him 
by  others.    In  that  exceptional  case,  as  in  all  the  others. 
their  antipathy  and  terror  seem  to  have  been  extreme. 
"  What   have    I  to  do  with  thee,   Jesus,   thou  Son  of 
the  most  high  God!     I  adjure  thee  by  God  that  thou 
torment  me  not."    "  Let  us  alone,  what  have  we  to  do 
with  thee,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  '-.  art  thou  come  to  destroy 
us?     I  know  thee  who  thou  art,  the  holy  One  of  God." 
This  infatuated  sympathy  with  their  oppressors,   and 
their  no  less  infatuated  antipathy  to  and  avoidance  of 
their  Deliverer,  is  something  more  and  something  worse 
than  madness.     It  bespeaks  the  fascination  of  a  fiendish 
power  roused  to  its  utmost  against  its  destroyer.     It  is 
indeed  argued  that  as   all   this  was  expressed  by  the 
organs  of  "men,  it  is  arbitrary  to  ascribe  it  to  any  other 
agency.     But  men  under  mere  natural  influences  could 
hardly  be  the  subjects  of  these  dispositions,  and  could 
not  possibly  be  possessed  of  this  supernatural  knowledge. 
That  the  demoniacs  so  felt   and  spake,  is  accounted 
for  by  the  peculiarity  of  their  condition,  as  subject  to 
!  their  oppressors,  and  subdued  into  sympathy  with  them 
1  in  their  views  and  designs. 

Further,  we  find  that  Jesus  has  represented  the  cast 
ing  out  of  demons  as  a  necessary  part  of  his  own  work. 
Very  emphatically  he  sends  this  message  to  Herod,  "  I 
must  cast  out  demons  and  do  cures  to-day  and  to 
morrow,"  Lu.xii.32.  He  argues  from  his  performance 
of  this  work  to  the  truth  of  his  mission,  and  the  advent 
of  God's  reign:  "If  I  by  the  finger  of  God  cast 
out  demons,  then  the  kingdom  of  God  is  come  unto 
I  you,"  Mat.  xii.  28.  And  over  their  ejection  by  his  dis 
ciples  in  his  name,  he  rejoiced  in  spirit,  as  the  beginning 
and  earnest  of  the  downfall  of  Satan's  power,  saying, 
•'I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from  heaven."1 


i  This  identification  of  satanic  and  demoniac  interests  is 
confirmed  by  Peter's  description  of  our  Lord's  woiks,  as  "  heal 
ing  them  that  were  oppressed  with  the  devil,"  Acts  x.  4b. 


DEMONIACS 


441 


DEMON  I  ATS 


How  tliou  .shall  all  this  ho  accounted  for,  if  demo 
niacs  were  madmen  of  whatever  sort?  It  has  been 
said  that  Jesus  takes  no  side  in  this  question  ;  that 
without  participating  the  people's  belief,  he  accom 
modated  his  language  to  it ;  and  that  as  the  error 
did  not  affect  the  end  of  his  mission,  he  was  not  called 
upon  to  involve  himself  in  disputes  with  them  by 
opposing  himself  to  their  prejudices.  But  how  dis 
honouring  were  all  this  to  our  Lord;  as  if.  like 
the  ancients,  he  practised  the  doctrine  of  reserve,  or. 
like  the  moderns,  allowed  himself  to  use  words  in 
a  non-natural  .sense,  in  order  "  to  avoid  disputes." 
.But  it  is  untrue  in  every  particular.  Can  he  be 
said  to  have  taken  no  side,  who  so  solemnly  declared 
that  h<.-  cast  out  demons  by  the  finger  and  by  the 
Spirit  of  God?  Or  can  he  be  said  to  have  with 
held  or  disguised  the  truth,  to  humour  the  people  or 
avoid  offence,  whose  teaching  throughout  was  in  con 
tradiction  of  the  false  opinions  and  in  reproof  of  the 
evil  habits  of  men:  and  who,  on  this  subjeet  in  par 
ticular,  had  oiilv  to  repudiate  the  views  held  bv  the 
people,  in  order  to  silence  their  blasphemies  and  remove 
their  offence.  How,  for  example,  vshen  accused  of 
having  a  demon  and  again,  of  casting  out  demons  by  the 
prince  of  demons  —how  uould  he  have  so  effectually  vin 
dicated  himself,  and  dissipated  the  false  and  supersti- 
tious  beliefs  of  the  .Jews,  as  bv  declaring  opeidv  and  in 
terms  that  there  was  no  (lemon  in  the  east.-  at  all  that 
neither  did  demoniacs.  so  called,  sutler  from  their 
malice,  nor  were  demons  east  out  by  his  power  '  It 
is  worths  of  remark  further  on  this  head,  that  our 
Lord  held  this  lanmiaue  respecting  the  evidence  and 
agency  of  demons,  not  to  the  people  onlv.  but  also,  from 
first  to  last,  to  his  disciples.  On  sending  them  on  his 
service,  he  gave  them  power  and  authority  over  all  de 
mons  ;  and  they  on  their  return,  as  sharing  the  common 
belief,  report  that  even  the  demons  were  subject  to  them 
through  his  name.  Now,  it  was  given  to  them  to  know 
the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom;  why  they  should  have 
been  kept  and  left  in  it,  there  could  be  no  reason,  even 
if  others  had  been  for  a  time  kept  in  ignorance  and  error 
on  this  matter.  For  though  it  is  sometimes  professed 
that  ''this  did  not  affect  his  mission,  seeing  it  was  no 
more  his  business  to  correct  men's  mistakes  in  psychology 
and  medicine,  than  in  astronomy, "  yet  these  men.  when 
it  suits  them,  hold  a  very  different  language.  These 
beliefs,  which  our  Lord  is  here  allowed  to  have  counte 
minced,  or  at  least  not  to  have  repudiated.  Farmer 
denounces  as  "  in  many  respects  of  greatest  prejudice 
to  Christianity,  and  affecting  the  foundation  on  which 
the  gospel  is  built"  (Kss.iy,  ehup.  iii.  2:i>, ot  scq.);  a  state 
ment  which  we  of  course  do  not  admit,  but  which,  as 
liable  to  be  made,  it  is  all  the  more  incredible  that  our 
Lord  should  not  have  expressly  condemned  the  errors 
that  have  led  to  it. 


Fanner  chooses  to  refer  this  language  to  our  Lord's  cure  of 
the  diseased  in  general,  saying  that  ''all  the  diseased  were 
spoken  of  liy  the  Jews  as  oppressed  by  an  evil  spirit,  but  not  as 
posses-ed  by  demons — of  such  there  is  no  mention  ! "  (p.  44).  But 
why  should  the  apostle,  in  speaking  to  Gentiles  (Acts  x.  48),  be 
supposed  to  speak  according  to  Jewish  opinions,  which  Fanner 
regarded  aa  blasphemous? — for  such  he  pronounces  the  opinion 
that  the  devil  has  the  power  of  disease.  Is  it  not  everyway 
more  likely  that  the  apostle  intended  to  connect  the  oppressions 
upon  men,  ascribed  to  demons  or  evil  spirits  indiscriminately, 
with  that  malignant  and  tyrannical  dynasty,  xK-ra.l'j\,«.<r"ii,o- 
iiivmi;  i,™  rev  ^ty.^o\n-j,  of  which  Scripture  everywhere  repre 
sents  the  devil  as  the  prince  and  head?(l.u.  x.  7--'0;  Mar.iv.14,  hi). 

VOL.  I. 


Various  objections  are  made  against  the  doctrine  of 
demoniacal  possession  —  some  on  particular,  others 
on  general  grounds.  Thus.  (1.)  the  case  of  the 
Gadarene.  for  example,  is  said  in  its  details  to  be 
strange  and  incredible.  It  is  acknowledged  that  there 
are  difficulties,  both  psychological  and  moral.  But 
they  are  obviously  referrible  to  the  imperfect  knowledge 
we  have  of  the  relations  between  the  spiritual  and 
material  systems;  and  besides,  they  apph-  in  great  part 
equally  to  the  transaction,  whether  as  caused  by  demons 
or  by  mere  physical  agency.  This  holds  at  least  of  the 
destruction  of  the  swine,  and  of  our  Lord's  permission 
given,  or  rather,  as  it  must  have  been,  if  demons  were 
not  concerned,  his  own  active  agency  put  forth  to 
effect  it.  Also,  their  deprecation  of  his  command 
to  uo  out  into  the  deep,  or  the  abyss,  (is  rrjv  &3vacrov. 
has  no  conceivable  meaning  on  the  theory  of  natural 
insanity,  while  it  is  in  agreement  with  the  threatened 
doom  of  demons,  lie.  x\. :'.;,  with  which  it  may  be  supposed 
they  were  acquainted,  and  if  so,  miirht  well  fear  and 
deprecate. 

r_'.i  An  objection  of  a  more  specious  form  is  alleged 
against  the  possible  truth  of  demoniac  power  over  men, 
as  undermining  the  evidence  of  miracles  in  o-eneral,  and 
of  all  miraculous  cures  in  particular.  If  demons  can 
inflict  disease,  it  is  the  interposition  of  a  power  sub 
versive  of  the  system  of  nature:  how  can  miracles  indi 
cate  the  immediate  hand  of  God?  But  the  answer  is 
not  difficult.  They  do  not  mark  the  immediate  hand  of 
God  they  mark  a  supernatural  power,  but  what  or 
whence  thi»  po\\er  is.  it  requires  something  more  to  de 
termine.  In  all  these  cases  there  was  not  only  a  con 
tra  ~t  in  the  work  of  demons  and  the  work  of  Christ 
the  out  malignant,  the  other  beneficent;  but  there  was, 
moreover,  a  contest  and  a  triumph,  exhibiting  the 
power  of  demons  as  subject,  and  the  power  of  Christ  as 
supreme.  The  few  instances  in  which  miracles  were 
hurtful,  as  in  the  blighting  of  the  fig-tree  and  the 
blinding  of  Flymas,  were  accompanied  with  circum 
stances  which  readily  distinguish  them  in  the  con 
sciences  of  men  as  the  righteous  infliction  of  divine 
judgment. 

(3.)  It  is  stated,  as  a  serious  difficulty,  that  the  pheno 
mena  and  facts  ascribed  in  Scripture  to  demoniacal 
possession,  should  have  been  confined  to  the  Jewish 
people,  and  also  to  the  time  of  our  Lord's  sojourn 
among  men;  and  still  more,  that  notwithstanding  all 
this,  the  .lews  do  not  seem  to  have  looked  upon  it  as 
anything  strange,  nor  has  it  been  taken  notice  of  in  the 
history  of  other  people.  On  these  grounds,  Mede 
(Works,  ?*,  in)  and  Svkes  (Preface  to  inquiry)  openly  re 
pudiate  the  ''story  of  the  gospel''  as  it  has  been  gene 
rally  understood.  In  reply  we  say  that  this  must 
stand  on  its  own  evidence,  nor  may  its  express  and 
positive  testimony  be  affected  by  negations  like  these. 
Besides,  it  is  far  from  certain  that  any  part  of  these 
allegations  are  well  founded.  If  it  be  meant  that 
heathen  nations  had  not  the  same  theory  of  demons  as 
the  gospel  history  reveals,  this  is  admitted.  But  if  it  is 
said  that  they  had  no  belief,  and  among  them  was  no 
mention  of  demoniac  influence,  it  is  so  far  from  true, 
that  Menander  states  it  as  the  common  belief  that 
"A  demon  besets  every  man'  -a.Tra.vTi  Salfj.ui>  didpl 
TrepiiVrarai.  The  vv/j.(f>6\T]irroL,  the  irvBtavei,  among 
the  Greeks,  the  /urratrc  and  cern'ti  among  the  Latins, 
all  denote  so  many  kinds  of  demoniacs.  That  Scripture 
is  silent  on  the  subject  previous  to  our  Lord's  time,  can 

56 


DEMONIACS 


442 


DEMONIACS 


(.nlv  IK:  aiiiniii-d    l>y  men  who  persist  in  putting-  mean 
ings    on    we  mis    and    statements    different    from    their 
obvious  import.      We  read  there  of   "  lying  spirits      in! 
prophets,  2<_'h.  xviii.  21,22;  of  "  seducing  spirits  '  hikings, 
2  Cli.  xxviii.  20;  of   "the  unclean  spirit  in  the  land,'    or 
amonu'  the  people,  Zee.  xiii.  2;  and  of  evil  spirits,  produc 
ing  the  like  physical  and   moral  debasement  in  then- 
victims,    which  is  seen    in   the   gospel    demoniacs,  Ju. 
ix.  2:;;  1  Sa.  xvi.  14-2;;.      No    doubt   these    are    attempted 
to   be   explained   away.      Jn   the   case  of  Saul,  for  ex 
ample,  it  is  held  sufficient  to  exclude  anything  super 
natural,    that    an    evil    spirit    often    signifies    an    evil 
temper  or  disposition,   and  does  not  necessarily  mean 
anything  else  here.      Admitting  this,    and  that  if  the 
case  had   stood  alone,    we  might   have  so  received  it, 
does  not  the  antithesis  between  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
departing  from  Saul,  and  the  evil  spirit  entering  into 
him,  mark  a  succession  of  agencies  rather  than  of  dis 
positions  *     At  any  rate,   seeing  the  producing  power 
bears  the  same  name,  and  its  agency  produces  the  like 
effects  in  him  as  in  the  New  Testament  demoniacs,  is 
not  the  conclusion  at  least  probable  that  the  cases  are 
specifically  the  same  {     This   is  enough  to  show   that 
demoniac   possession    existed   before  our  Lord's  time. 
His  words  distinctly  imply  that  it  should  continue  after 
him  also.      When  he  promises  to   give  power  to   his 
disciples  to  cast  out  demons,    Mar.  xvi.,  as   himself  had 
done,  it  is   certain   there  should   be  demons  in  men, 
against  whom  this  power  should  be  employed.     Accord 
ingly,  in  the  execution  of  their  mission,   as  we   read. 
Ac.  xvi.  ic-is-;  xix.  12,  his  apostles  met  with  men  possessed 
by  evil  spirits,  and  cast  them  out  in  the  name  of  Jesus. 
The  history  of  the  first  ages  of  the  church  is  full  of  the 
memorials    of    abounding   demoniacs,    which,    though 
blended  with  a  world  of  delusion  and   imposture,  it  is 
not  easy  wholly  to  discredit,  in  face  of  the  express  and 
solemn  testimony  of    the  Christian  fathers  generally. 
In  our  own  time  the  evil  and  the  remedy  are  alike 
ignored.     To  a  great  extent,  the  being  and  agency  of 
the  "one  devil,"    "the  spirit  who  now  worketh  in  the 
children  of  disobedience,"  is  disregarded  and  forgotten 
also.     May  not    the  disregard  of    the  one  as  well    as 
of  the  other  proceed  from   the  same  cause — the  pre 
valence   of    the   spirit  of  unbelief,   which  leads    us  to 
look  for  a  natural  cause  of   all  spiritual  phenomena, 
whether   good    or   evil  \      There    still    are    undeniably 
many  phases  of  human  character  and  experience,  which 
suggest  the  question  whether  they  be  not  an  effect  of 
demoniac  influence  —  a  suggestion  which  it   is  much 
easier    to   deny    or    deride    than    to    confute.     At    all 
events,  Scripture   affirms  that  this  power  shall  be  at 
work  in  the  last  days,  reproducing  the  like  effects  in 
men,  Re.  xvi.  14;  xviii.  2. 

It  is  certain,  then,  that  the  power  of  demons  was 
not  restricted  to  our  Lord's  time,  and  to  the  Lord's 
people.  It  is  not  altogether  certain  that  it  was  even 
more  prevalent  then  and  there,  than  in  other  times  and 
places.  That  more  attention  should  have  been  then  drawn 
to  it,  may  be  accounted  for  in  another  way.  So  long- 
as  the  evil  was  hopelessly  beyond  remedy,  little  would 
be  said  of  it,  more  than  of  any  other  endemic  visitation. 
But  when  the  remedy  was  found — not  only  alleged  but 
proved  in  the  experience  of  many,  and  in  the  sight  of 
all — it  became  naturally  the  wonder  of  the  time.  In 
our  Lord's  day  exorcists  swarmed,  both  among  Jews 
and  Gentiles,  who  practised  their  art  by  mystical  in 
cantations  and  with  doubtful  efficacy.  But  when 


He    with    authority    commanded    the   unclean    spirits 
and  they  obeyed,    what  wonder  men  should  exclaim, 
"What  a  word  is  this!"  and  that  the  evil  itself  should 
acquire,  though  not  a  greater  prevalence,  yet  a  greater 
prominence   in  the   public  eye.     Or  if  the   fact   were 
otherwise,    and  the   victims   of  the   spiritual  tyranny, 
besides   being  more   conspicuous,    were   also   more  nu 
merous    and    more    oppressed    than    before    or    since, 
why  need   this   be   deemed   either   improbable   or   un 
worthy  !      Other    forms    of    affliction    have    had    their 
day  and  place  as  well  as  this.     If  the  fact  were,  as 
seems  likely,  that  about  these  times  men  were  more 
addicted    than    ordinary    to    sorcery    and    divination, 
Ac.xix.  is,2i,  might  not  this,  according  to  the  rules  of 
divine  judgment,  have  provoked  this  special  visitation? 
Or,  can  it  be  thought  unnatural,  that  with  the  know 
ledge  that  their  time  was  short,  the  evil  spirits  should 
then,  so   far  as  permitted,  have  thus  put  forth  their 
malice  and  activity  to  the  uttermost '-.  Re.  xii.  2.     And  as 
regarded  our  Lord  and  the  ends  of  his  mission,  what 
was  so  fitted  to  confirm  his  claims,  and  to  illustrate  his 
work  in  the  eye  of  a  sense -bound  people,  as  the  op 
portunity  thus   afforded  for  the   manifestation   of  his 
power  over  the  enemy  ?     The  demoniacs  recovered  by 
his  word  to  a  sound  body  and  a  right  mind,  were  more 
convincing  trophies  of  his  power,  and  more  palpable 
representatives  of  his  work,   than   were   his  own  dis 
ciples,  in  whom  the  effect  of  his  influence  was  chiefly 
inward  and  spiritual.      Hence,   as   we  have   seen,   he 
once  and  again  refers  to  his  casting  out  of  demons, 
not  simply  like  his  other  miracles,  as  the  proof  of  his 
divine  mission  in  general,  but  as  special  evidence  of 
his  work  and    errand,    as   manifested  to    destroy   the 
works  of   the  devil,    and   to  establish  his  own  king 
dom    of  grace.     We  may    therefore    treat    with    con 
tempt    Farmer's    sarcasm    on    this   subject,    that    this 
view  turns  the  era  of  our  Lord's  advent  into  one  of 
more  grievous  oppression  to  men.     If  the  oppression 
were  greater,  it  had  its  judicial  cause  in  the  sins  of 
men,  while  our  Lord's  immediate  agency  was  all  directed 
to  restrain  and  lessen  it;  and  the  rest,  if  aught  remain,, 
is  to  be  explained  on  the  same  principles  which  deter 
mine  the  unequal  or  varying  distribution  of  all  other 
evils.     But  the  reasons  of  this  dispensation  lie   to  a 
great  extent  beyond  our  reach,  and  we  presume  not  to 
pronounce  with  confidence  in  regard  to  them.     Some, 
as  Trench,  would  connect  them  with  the  punishment 
!  or  rebuke  of  sin,  and  this  may  be  admitted  of  it  in  the 
o-eiieral,   as  of  every  other  form  of  human  suffering. 
But  we  are  not  warranted  to  ascribe  these  more  than 
other  afflictions  to  any  special  sin  or  sinfulness  in  the 
individual  sufferers,  La.  xiii.  i-:;.     The  case  of  the  lunatic, 
whom  the  spirit  had  taken  "from  a  child,"  seems  to 
forbid  us  to  put  this  construction  upon  them.     We  may 
not  doubt,  however,  that  like  all  God's  ways  of  dealing 
with  men,  it  was  meant  to   serve  the  great  ends  of 
moral  discipline.     Although  it  might  appear,  like  in 
sanity,  so  to  overbear  the  reason,  and  conscience,  and 
will,  as  to  suspend  responsibility,  it  can  be  readily  under 
stood  to  have  formed  the  most  important  exercise  of 
the  principles  and  dispositions  of  all  with  whom  those 
"vexed   with  the   devil''   were   related  in   social  and 
family  bonds,  as  in  the  beautiful  and  blessed  example 
of  the  woman  of  Canaan  and  her  daughter.     And  in 
whatsoever  way,    or  to  whatever  effect,   all  affliction, 
including  insanity  itself,  subserves  the  great  moral  pur 
pose  of  human  life,   the  same   end  might    be  equally 


DEXARIU.S 


443 


DEUTERONOMY 


accomplished  by  the  worst  and  most  violent  assaults  of  ] 
the  demon's  power.  [J.  He.] 

DENA'RIUS,  ten  asses,  rendered  in  the  English 
Bible,  though  rather  unhappily,  a  penny.  Taking  into 
account  the  difference  in  the  value  of  money  in  the 
gospel  age  as  compared  with  present  times,  a  ski II in;/ 
would  have  been  the  nearer  equivalent — although  in 
reality  its  metallic  worth  from  about  the  time  of  Au 
gustus  was  only  sevenpence  halfpenny.  Before  that 
time  it  had  been  worth  a  penny  more.  But  as  it  was 
the  full  day's  wage  for  a  labouring  man,  Mat.  xx.  2,  and 
a  soldier  got  even  somewhat  less,  it  must  ordinarily 
have  commanded  a  larger  supply  of  the  necessaries  of 
life,  not  only  than  our  penny,  but  even  than  our  shilling. 
Some  have  supposed  that  the  reduction  in  the  weight 
and  value  of  the  denarius  above  noticed  did  not  take 
place  till  the  time  of  Xcro;  but  this  seems  doubtful. 


From  the  allusion  in  .Mat.  x\ii.  P.'  it  is  plain  that  the 
coin  then  bore  the  im.-e.re  and  superscription  of  the 
emperor:  in  earlier  times  the  symbols  of  the  republic 
were  impressed  on  it.  i>«  I'KNNY.) 

DEPUTY  is  the  term  used  in  the  F.n-lish  P.ihle  for 
procon.tn/  (dr.  avOuiraros},  tin'  highest  local  <_rovi-nior  in 

those  provinces  which  were  in  the  hands  of  tin-  Unman 

1 

senate,  Ac.  x:ii.  r,  fco.      It  is  once  used  in  the  plural,    \>-  : 
xix.  :;s,   in  the  speech    of   the    town-clerk  ,,f    Kphesiis:; 
"There  arc  deputies,  let  them  implead  one  another"  - 
by  which  is  not  to  be  understood,  with  some,  advocates, 
or  persons  to  conduct  the  causes,  but  proconsuls  to  de 
liver  judgment.      Not  that  there   were   more   than  OIK 
such  in  that  part  of  Asia:  hut  the  work  generally  of 
such  is  referred  to,   or   perhaps  the   assessors  in  judg 
ment  are  included. 

DER'BE.  a  city  of  Lvcaonia,  in  Asia  Minor,  and 
manifestly  not  far  from  Lystra.  witli  which  it  is  some 
times  associated,  Ac.  xiv.  i; ,  xvi.  i.  Paul  and  Barnabas 
found  protection  there  when  driven  from  lconium,and 
it  was  the  town  of  Cains,  one  of  the  Christian  delegates 
to  Jerusalem,  Ac.  x\.  1.  But  the  exact  site  is  unknown. 
Commonly  it  is  placed  south  of  Lystra:  but  this  it 
could  scarcely  be,  if,  as  Strabo  states,  it  was  almost 
within  Cappadocia  (xii.  \>.  ;,i;:»K  Three  different  sites 
have  been  suggested  by  modern  travellers;  one  of  them 
on  the  lake  Ak  Go  I,  which  Wieseler  adopts.  But  there 
is  as  yet  no  certainty.  (S'ec  LYSTRA.) 

DESERT  is  scarcely  distinguished  in  ordinary  lan 
guage  from  tci/dcrnf.-w,  although  the  latter  may  be  re 
garded  as  the  stronger  term,  importing  either  a  more 
extensive  or  a  more  intensive  form  of  the  drought  and 
desolation  involved  in  the  idea.  In  the  English  Bible, 
however,  the  terms  are  used  indiscriminately,  and 
sometimes  the  one,  sometimes  the  other,  is  given  as  the 
rendering  of  niidhar  (n2ll)i  which  is  the  word  most 

commonly  employed  in  the  original.  The  word  is 
derived  from  a  root  that  signifies  to  lead  to  pasture 
(dabar),  and  hence  the  primary  meaning  of  midlar  is 


pasture- land,  a  tract  fit  for  the  feeding  of  flocks.  This 
in  the  East  is  very  commonly  an  extensive  plain  or 
steppe,  which,  during  the  drought  and  heat  of  summer, 
becomes  utterly  parched  and  bare  ;  so  that  the  transi 
tion  from  pasture- land  to  desert  was.  in  such  regions, 
quite  easy  and  natural.  That  the  word  comprehends 
both  the  meanings  now  mentioned— the  former  as  well 
as  the  latter — may  be  perceived  even  by  an  English 
reader  from  such  passages  as  Ps.  Ixv.  13,  ''They  drop 
upon  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness"  (mid/jar);  and 
Joel  ii.  2'2,  "The  pastures  of  the  wilderness  do  spring." 
In  other  passages  the  desert  is  spoken  of  as  rejoicing, 
and  again  as  being  dried  up.  is.  xlii.  ii;  Joeli.  n>.  But 
in  many,  and  indeed  the  greater  number  of  passages, 
the  idea  of  sterility  is  the  prominent  one,  especially 
where  what  was  emphatically  the  desert  or  wilderness, 
the  ijrcat  wilderness,  is  spoken  of,  Co.  xiv.o;x\i.7;  Do.  xi. 
21,  io.  And  the  term  is  used  in  comparisons  with  ex 
clusive  reference  to  thU  import:  a-in.Je.  ii.  Ml,  "Have 
I  been  a  wilderness  to  Israel  '"  lios.  ii.  3,  '•  Make  her 
as  a  wildi  mess,  and  set  hi  r  like  a  dry  land." 

Another  term  in  the  original,  arahali  (r:y\y^,  is  also 

rendered  by  desert  or  wilderness.  This,  too,  primarily 
meant  jilniii,  but  not  plain  in  the  sense  of  pasture, 
rather  that  of  hollow  or  level  ground,  and  specially 
the  level  into  which  the  valley  of  the  .Jordan  runs 
near  Jericho,  an  immense  plain  extending  all  the  way 
to  the  lod  Sea.  This  was  the  aru>mli,  of  which  the 
word  is  very  often  specifically  used  (Do.  i.  1;  ii. 8;  Jos. xii  l: 
hence  also  ''sea  of  the  urn/nih  or  desert,"  l>o.  iv.  ):',  viz. 
the  I  >cad  Sea.  ,\e.i  I'.ut  the  word  also  signifies  desert 
generally,  as  in  Is.  \\xiii.  Ji;  ,le.  1.  1  li.  &e.;  for  the 
.••aim-  reason  as  in  the  former  case.  In -cause  plains  in 
such  countries  as  Arabia  and  Palestine  are  sure  to 
become  for  a  considerable  part  of  the  \e;ir  arid  heaths-, 
and  also  because  what  neiit  more  peculiarly  by  the 
name  of  the  <D-<I/HI/I  was  of  a  singularly  bare  and 
sterile  character. 

DEUTERONOMY,  THE  BOOK  OF.  1.  Xatnc 
a, at  Contents. — The  fifth  and  concludin--  book  of  the 
Pentateuch  is  in  Hebrew  named  from  tin  words  with 
which  it  opens,  ana  ^n  nW  (K/fth  kaddevarim),  "these 
are  tin-  words:"  but  by  the  LXX.  At VTfpoi'Ofj.LOf,  "the 
second,"  or  rather,  "the  repeated  law,"  to  which  cor 
responds  the  rabbinical  name  »i  w*C  (.l/ithtich),  or  more 

fully.  -TF-  r:rc(-1/'.-'/"''/'  ffitttvraJi) ,  ••repetition,"  or 

•'repetition  of  the  law."  The  bonk  consists  principally 
of  a  series  of  discourses  addressed  by  Moses  to  Israel, 
when  they  had  reached  the  confines  of  the  Promised 
'Land,  Do.  i.  i-.v 

Amid  various  divisions  that  might  be  taken  of  the 
discourses,  we  present  the  following: — 

1.  Four  parting  addresses  of  Moses  to  the  assembled 
Israelites  in  the  plains  of  Moab,  ch.  i.-xxx.,  vi/,. — 

(1.)  An  address,  wherein  he  recapitulates  the  history 
of  the  wanderings  through  the  wilderness,  as  an  en 
couragement  for  obedience  to  the  law.  and  a  warning 
against  apostasy,  ch.  i.-iv.  4o.  To  this  is  added  a  notice 
of  the  three  cities  of  refuge  which  Moses  had  set  apart 
on  the  east  side  of  Jordan,  and  of  Israel's  possessions 
there,  ch.iv.  41-40. 

(2.)  A  second  address,  wherein  he  notices  the  giving 
of  the  law,  and  adds  many  earnest  and  paternal  exhor 
tations  to  obedience,  ch.  v.-viii. 


DEUTERONOMY 


41 


DKl'TKUONOMY 


(3.)  In  the  third  discourse  he  introduces  various 
modifications  and  more  specific  directions  with  respect 
to  several  previous  ordinances  and  enactments,  and 
some  altogether  new,  cli.  i\.-xx\i. 

(4.)  In  the  last  he  lays  down  the  advantages  as  \sell 
as  the  duty  of  observing  the  law,  by  presenting  to  the 
people  the  blessing  and  tin-  curse,  preparatory  to  their 
renewing  the  covenant  with  Jehovah,  ch.xxvii.-xxx. 

2.  Then  follows   a.   notice   of   the   committal  of   the 
book  of  the  law  to  the  keeping  of  the  priests,  with  the 
lawgiver's  charge  to  them,  and  his  song,  ch.  xxxi.— xxxii.  47; 
to  which  are  added-— 

3.  Three  appendices :    (1.)   Announcement  t<>   Muses 
of  his  approaching   death,  ch.  xxxii.  48-52 ;  ('2.)   his  bless 
ing  on   the   tribes   of   Israel,  ch.  xxxiii.;  and   (o.)   an  ac 
count  of  his  death,  ch.  xxxiv. 

Deuteronomy  is  thus  seen  to  be  a  recapitulation  both 
of  the  history  and  the  laws  of  the  middle  books  of  the 
Pentateuch,  in  the  form  of  paternal  exhortations,  rather 
than  with  legislative  authority,  urging  a  willing  and 
unicserved  obedience  to  all  the  precepts  and  command 
ments  of  Jehovah,  and  a  faithful  adherence  to  his  cove 
nant.  A  circumstance  which  must  have  greatly  added 
to  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion  was  the  full  conscious 
ness  of  the  speaker,  that  his  own,  death  must  precede 
the  enterprise  to  which,  in  the  first  instance,  he  en 
couraged  his  hearers,  viz.  their  taking  possession  of 
the  land,  ch.  iii.  27-iv.  -.'2.  He,  in  fact,  contemplated  his 
own  departure  as  an  event  near  at  hand,  ch.  xxxi.  2,  an 
anticipation  which  the  close  of  the  narrative  shows  to 
have  been  speedily  realized.  The  admonitions  now 
addressed  to  Israel  took  generally  a  twofold  direction: 
First,  a  warning  against  idolatry,  ch.  iv.  11-411;  xvii.  2-"; 
and  secondly,  against  a  spirit  of  self -righteousness, 
ch. ix.  1-21 — dispositions  to  which,  as  their  subsequent 
history  but  too  plainly  shows,  the  Israelites  as  a  people 
were  most  prone.  This  twofold  character  of  his  parting 
exhortations  accordingly  furnishes  a  clear  proof  how 
intimately  the  lawgiver  was  acquainted  with  the 
peculiar  predispositions  of  his  people,  ch.  xxxi.  20- 2n,  and  an 
indication  of  the  prophetic  spirit  with  which  he  spoke. 

II.  Its  Relation  to  the  j>rercdinf/  liookn. — The  con 
nection  between  Deuteronomy  and  the  other  books  of 
the  Pentateuch  is  very  apparent.  The  contents,  his 
torical  and  legislative,  of  the  three  books  which  im 
mediately  precede  it  are  recognized  throughout,  and  in 
fact  constitute  its  great  theme.  Yet  there  are  impor 
tant  variations  and  additions,  from  which  rationalists 
and  others  take  occasion  to  deny  the  identity  of  its 
authorship  with  that  of  the  other  books,  even  when 
they  agree  that  these  could  not  have  been  the  produc 
tions  of  Moses.  The  additions  and  variations  found  in 
Deuteronomy,  so  far,  however,  from  constituting  con 
tradictions  in  respect  of  the  earlier  books,  or  in  any 
way  yielding  support  to  the  conclusions  of  the  "  docu 
ment  "  criticism,  admit  of  satisfactory  explanation  from 
the  special  and  distinct  aim  of  the  author,  as  apparent 
from  the  work  itself,  and  from  the  altered  position  of 
Israel  at  the  time  of  its  composition  at  the  close  of  their 
wilderness  life. 

1 .  Variations,  of  which  there  are  numerous  instances, 
in  respect  to  the  order  and  the  fulness  of  historical  mat 
ters,  can  be  accounted  for  from  the  hortatory  style,  and 
the  object  of  the  writer  when  recording  his  discourses. 
The  circumstances  were  such  as  called  only  for  a  general 
reference  to  some  transactions,  the  character  and  rela 
tions  of  which  might  be  safely  assumed  as  already  well 


'  known  to  the  parties  addressed^  and  so  admitted  of  the 
classing  together  of  incidents  having  a  common  character, 

i  without   much   regard    to    strict    chronological   order. 

'  Thus  the  rebellions  of  Israel  against  Jehovah  atTaberah, 
Massah,  and  Kibroth-hattaavah,  are  mentioned  in  con 
nection  with  the  idolatry  at  Sinai,  ch.  ix.22,  &c.,  but  with 
out  in  the  least  warranting  the  conclusion  that  the 
author  considered  these  events  as  nearly  contempo 
raneous,  or  as  following  in  the  order  in  which  they  are 
here  enumerated.  But  even  in  instances  of  this  kind 
the  departure  from  the  chronological  order  is  often  more 
apparent  than  real.  It  is  objected,  for  example,  that 
the  command  to  remove  the  encampment  precedes  the 
appointment  of  the  captains,  ch.  i.  t;-i.-,.  De  Wette  says 
verses  6-8  are  put  too  early;  and  this  appointment  of 
captains,  it  is  also  alleged,  the  writer  of  Deuteronomy 
confounded,  ver.  i<>,  with  the  institution  of  the  seventy 
elders.  Xu.  xi.  But  the  order  for  the  removal  of  the  camp 
audits  fulfilment  are  clearly  distinguished  ;  and  not  less 
so  are  the  appointments  of  the  captains  and  the  judges, 
both  of  which  took  place  prior  to  the  departure  from 

i  Sinai.  Kx  xviii.  Sometimes,  indeed,  variations  of  this  kind 
serve  to  throw  light  on  particulars  incidentally  touched 

!  on  in  the  more  specific  accounts  of  the  preceding  books. 
Thus  the  command,  De.  ii.  i<>,:;r,  not  to  distress  the  Am 
monites,  but  to  pass  by  their  border,  so  far  from  con 
tradicting  the  notice  that  ''tlie  l/onltr  of  the  children 
of  Ammon  was  strong,"  Nu.xxi.  24,  rather  explains  this 
peculiar  reference.  The  separation  of  the  Lcvites  to 
their  sacred  offices  at  first  sight  would  seem  to  be  trans 
ferred  to  a  time  subsequent  to  the  death  of  Aaron, 
ch.  x.  v;  but  a  closer  investigation  at  once  removes  such  a 
misapprehension.  The  expression  ''at  that  time''  refers 
to  the  time  when  Moses  deposited  the  tables  of  the  law 
in  the  ark.  ver.  .1.  The  reference  to  the  time  of  the 

|  abode  at  Sinai  pervades  the  whole  section,  and  is  only 

departed  from  parenthetically  as  regards  Aaron's  death. 

The  additions  of  an  historical  nature  consist  partly 

in  the   greater  prominence   which  the   writer  gives  to 

matter*  which  in  the  earlier  books  were  omitted  as  self- 

I  evident,  and  partly  in  the  appending  of  particulars, 
which,  while  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  the  writer, 
exhibit  the  most  minute  acquaintance  with  the  Mosaic 
times  and  history  (Keil,  Einleitung,  p.  ill).  Additions  of 
the  first  kind  are  the  command  to  break  up  from  Horeb, 
Uo.  i.  «,  7,  cDinp.  with  Nu.  x.  11 ;  the  notice  '•  Ye  abode  in 
Kadesh  many  days/'  ch.  i.  41; ;  the  repentance  of  Israel, 
ch.  i.  4:>,  of  which  no  mention  is  made  in  Nu.  xiv. ;  Moses' 
intercession  for  Aaron,  ch.  ix.  20,  of  which  there  is  no 
notice  in  Ex.  xxxii. -xxxiii.  Additions  of  the  second 
kind  are:  the  command  not  to  distress  the  Moabites,  or 

:  wage  war  with  them.  ch.  ii  »,  i*;  not  to  meddle  with  the 
Edomites,  but  when  passing  through  their  territories  to 
purchase  bread  and  water,  ch.  ii.  4-8;  the  historical  notices 
of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Mount  Seir,  and  of  the 

!  countries  at  the  Mosaic  period  in  possession  of  the 
Moabites  and  Ammonites,  ch.  ii.  10-12,  20-23;  notice  of  the 
sixty  fortified  cities  in  Bashan,  ch.  iii.  4,  &c.;  the  different 
names  of  Hermon,  ch.  iii.  9;  more  specific  details  of  the 
attack  of  the  Amalekites,  ch.  xxv.  17,18,  than  in  the  narra 
tive  in  Ex.  xvii.  8. 

The  more  important  variations  and  additions  belong, 
however,  to  the  legislative  sections.     Some  particulars 

|  of  this  character  are  entirely  new — as  the  appointment 
of  the  three  trans- Jordanic  cities  of  refuge,  oh.  iv.  41-43, 
directions  concerning  which  had  been  given  in  Nu. 
xxxv.  14,  while  the  command  to  set  apart  three  cities 


DErTEROXOMY 


-Uo 


DEUTEROXOMY 


on  the  other  side  is  only  repeated,  De.  xix.9.  So  also 
the  law  as  to  the  appointed  place  of  public  worship, 
whither  all  sacrifices,  offerings,  and  tithes  must  be 
brought,  eh.  xii.  '\sc.,  with  the  repeal  of  the  law  which 
required  that  animals  destined  for  food  should  be 
slaughtered  nowhere  but  at  the  sanctuary.  Le  xvii.  3,&c.; 
laws  with  respect  to  the  tithes  appointed  for  sacrificial 
seasons,  De.  xii.  n,K;  xxvi.  12;  xiv.  22,  false  prophets,  enticers 
of  the  people  to  idolatry,  and  such  as  might  be  so  en 
ticed,  ch. xii.;  on  regal  functions,  ch.  xvii.  it;  the  functions 
and  authority  of  the  prophetic  order,  ch.  xviii.  i:,,&e.;  on 
war  and  military  service,  ch.  xx.;  on  the  mode  nf  expia 
ting  murder,  the  perpetrator  of  which  was  unknown  ; 
on  female  captives  of  war  ;  the  right  of  a  first-born  s.  >n  ; 
the  punishment  of  disobedient  and  obstinate  si  ins,  and 
the  hanging  or  exposure  of  the  bodies  of  criminals  after 
execution,  ch.  xxi.  ;  on  unchastity  and  the  rape  of  a 
virgin,  eli.  xxii.  i:;,\c. ;  on  divorce,  eh.  x\iv.  i,i,- ;  various 
minor  laws,  ch.  xxii.  /i.ic ,  \xiii.  xxv. ;  the  form  of  thanks 
giving  to  be  used  on  presenting  tin-  first-fruits  and 
tithes,  th  xxvi.  While  in  general  the  laws  of  tlic  pre 
ceding  books  are  only  partially  repeated  and  pres.-t-d 
anew,  there  are  some,  a.-  for  instance  that  iv_;ardin<_f 
Hebrew  slaves,  Do.  xv.  12,  xc,  c<nii|>.  with  K\  \xi.  2,j;e  ,  which 
an'  extended,  i  For  certain  variations  in  the  la\vof  the 
tun  commandments  in  l>eiit.  v.  tj-^1.  as  compared  witli 
Ex.  xx.  1-17,  see  under  l>i:>  AI.IM.I'K.  i 

Xoiie  of  these  variations  and  additions,  whether  his 
torical  or  legislative,  is.  however,  of  a  kind  to  warrant 
the  assertions  of  1  >e  \V.-tl>-  (Kinleitung,  KCV  l.'^i,  that 
''the  Mosaic  history  seems  to  be  more  remote  from  the 
author  of  this  book  than  it  would  be  from  one  who 
wrote  down  an  historical  narrative',"  and  that  "the 
laws  are  new,  not  only  in  iv>peet  to  the  time  in  which 
they  are  alleged  to  have  been  given,  but  in  respect  to 
their  more  modern  character."  On  the  eontrarv.  the 
particulars  just  referred  to  afford  the  clearest  evidence 
of  personal  acquaintance  with  all  the  facts  of  the 
Mosaic  history,  and  of  an  authority  to  make  such  ad 
ditions  to  and  modifications  in  the  Mosaic  laws  as  the 
altered  circumstances  required.  The  references  which 
1  >e  Wettc  detects  in  the>e  laws  to  later  times  and  in 
stitutions  originate  either  in  his  misinterpretation  of 
the  passage,  as  when  lie  discovers  in  ch.  xii..  xvi.  1-7 
an  allusion  to  the  temple  at  .Jerusalem,  or  in  his  dog 
matic  preconceptions  with  re-peel  to  the  unreality  of 
prophecy,  on  which  ground  he  objects  to  ch.  xvii.  14-.IO; 
xviii.  U-±2. 

'2.  The  legislation  of  Deuteronomy  as  related  to  that 
of  the  earlier  books  requires  some  additional  consideia 
tion.  As  the  historical  notices  of  this  Jiook  pre-suppose 
the  transactions  detailed  at  length  in  the  preceding 
history,  so  also  its  legal  institutions  give  evidence  of 
prior  enactments.  The  Israelites  are  here  introduced  as 
already  in  the  possession  of  laws  and  ordinances  of  a 
civil  and  religious  character.  That  God  through  Moses 
had  given  them  special  commandments  at  Sinai  in 
regard  to  the  various  matters  of  duty,  ch.  i.  is,  is  the 
fundamental  idea  i  if  the  whole  of  these  Mosaic  discourses. 
But  it  is  of  importance  to  notice  the  particular  aspect 
in  which  the  law  is  here  presented.  As  remarked  by 
Hiivemick,  "instead  of  the  letter  with  its  legal  obliga 
tion  adverse  to  all  development,  which  finds  in  itself 
the  ground  of  its  higher  necessity,  reflection  upon  the 
law  here  prevails,  and  even  the  letter  is  in  this  way 
brought  home  more  to  the  heart"  (EinleitunR,  sec.  133). 
To  love  God  is  in  particular  represented  as  the  end  and 


fulfilment  of  the  law,  ch.  vi. ;,;  x.  rj.  This,  as  an  element 
recognized  even  in  the  decalogue  itself,  where  it  is  made 
the  true  ground  of  obedience,  Ex.  xx.  c,  assumes  in  Deu 
teronomy  its  right  place.  In  other  particulars  also 
there  is  a  marked  prominence  given  to  the  spirit  of  the 
law  as  contrasted  with  the  mere  letter — a  circumstance 
which  has  caused  this  book  to  be  quoted  more  largely 
by  the  prophets  than  any  other  portion  of  the  Penta 
teuch.  The  prophetic  discourses  of  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel  in  particular  are  formed  verv  much  upon  the 
model  of  the  addresses  and  exhortations  of  Moses  to 
Israel  in  the  plains  of  Moab.  So  great  indeed  is  the 
resemblance  between  Deuteronomy  and  the  writings  of 
.Jeremiah,  that  it  has  furnished  grounds  to  the  impugners 
of  its  genuineness  to  ascribe  its  composition  to  that  pro 
phet.  Further,  as  shown  under  the  preceding  head, 
various  laws  contained  in  the  former  books  are  partly 
repeated  and  enforced  anew,  partly  modified,  restricted, 
or  enlarged,  and  even  repealed  altogether,  with  the 
view  of  suiting  them  to  the  ehaiiue  in  Israel's  circum 
stances,  and  the  new  aspect  of  afi'airs  arising  from  the 
approaching  settlement  of  the  people  in  their  new 
homes,  and  the  cessation  of  a  migratory  life  with  its 
encampments.  Compare' for  instance  De.  xv.  17  with 
E.\.  xxi.  7.  and  I  >e.  xii.  with  Le.  xvii.  These  modifi 
cations  entirely  accord  with  the  spirit  and  object  of  the 
law  ;  but  while  they  are  a  very  strong  proof  of  the 
credibility  of  the  whole  history  of  the  Pentateuch,  and 
particularly  of  the  truthfulness  of  the  wilderness  sojourn, 
they  are  such  as  required  the  authority  of  the  lawgiver 
himself:  for  there  is  a  strict  prohibition  in  the  book 

itself  against  addinir  t '   taking   avvav    from   the  law, 

I'll .  iv.  '_';  \ni.  1.  No  subsequent  writer  of  Scripture  as 
sumes  the  authority  of  making  such  modifications  in 
the  law  as  i>  done  by  the  writer  of  Deuteronomy.  Still 
this  is  not  a  new  legislation,  or  even  a  continuation, 
strictly  speaking.  ,,f  the  preceding;  it  is  the  Sinaitic 
legislation  enforced  anew,  and  where  necessary  adapted 
to  the  changes  which  had  emeruvil  at  the  close  of  the 
forty  years'  wandering. 

III.     Itf    Prophetic  Announcements.    -The  prophetic 
character  of  Deuteronomy  is  distinctly  marked.     Moses 
was  fully  conscious  of  his  own  prophetic  standing;  for 
he  designates  himself  as  a  /n-n/i/n  t.  and  the  representa 
tive  of  the    --peat  1'rophet   that   should   in   due  time  be 
raised  up  to  complete  his  work,    rh.  xviii  i.vm.     Indeed, 
the  prophetic  endowments  of  the  speaker  arc  apparent 
throughout    his   discourses,    which    show    much    fuller 
reference-;  to  the  future    than   any  other  portion  of  the 
Pentateuch.    The  intimations  regarding  Israel's  future, 
with  which  the  book  of  Leviticus  closed,  are  here  more 
:  largely   developed,    comp .  De.  xxviii.  with  Le .  xxvi.      In   both 
!  these  passages  expression  is  given  to  the  twofold  aspect 
j  of  Israel's    future,  which  presented   itself  to  the  eye  of 
I  the  seer,    and   the  precise  character  of   which  was,  as 
,  they  were  distinctly  warned,  dependent  on  their  relation 
'  to  the  law.     The  description  of  the  curse,  the  conse 
quence  of  disobedience,   is  much  more  copious  in  De. 
!  xxviii.  15-69  than  in  the  closing  address  on  the  Sinaitic 
legislation     a  circumstance  probably  owing  to  the  dis 
coveries  made  in  the  interval  of  Israel's  proneness  to 
j  apostasy.    However  this  may  l>e,  it  is  evident  to  the  seer 
that  all  these  threatenings  and  admonitions  shall  prove 
ineffectual  for  securing  obedience,  and   that  the  result 
will  be  a  dispersion  of  his  people  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  ver.  36,3";  and  at  a  subsequent  period,  after  a 
restoration  from  dispersion  and  exile,  their  subjection 


DEUTERONOMY 


44*3 


DEUTERONOMY 


to  a  close  and  severe  siege  within  their  spates  by  a 
nation  brought  "from  far,  from  the  end  of  the  earth," 
ver.  49-57,  followed  again  by  their  being  "plucked  from 
off  the  land  "  given  them  for  a  possession,  and  their 
dispersion,  among  all  people,  ver.  03,  ci.  Yet  in  the 
midst  of  all  these  threatened  calamities,  the  continued 
existence  of  Israel  is  not  only  assumed,  but  is  thus 
prophetically  secured  ;  and  in  the  preservation  of  the 
people  is  involved  the  possibility  of  the  removal  of  the 
curse  itself,  by  a  new  constitution  opposed  to  the 
character  of  the  law,  or  in  some  way  satisfying  its  re 
quirements;  ;  for  though  the  curses  of  the  law  on  the 
disobedient  cannot  cease  of  themselves,  but  remain 
'•forever,"  ver.  40,  yet  they  may  be  removed  by  some 
countervailing  power.  The  concluding  intimation  of 
this  solemn  exhortation,  "And  the  Lord  shall  bring 
thee  into  Egypt  again  with  ships,  by  the  way  whereof 
I  spake  unto  thee,  Thou  shalt  see  it  no  more  again," 
ver.  08,  is  of  similar  import  with  the  sentence  passed 
upon  man  after  the  fall,  condemning  him  to  return  to 
the  dust  out  of  which  he  was  taken.  Ge.  iii.  19.  This  re 
turn  to  Egypt  was  an  intimation  of  the  cessation  and 
destruction  of  the  development  and  the  history  of  Israel 
as  a  nation,  which  commenced  with  their  redemption 
from  Egypt,  sec  DC.  xvii.  10,  and  has  no  reference  whatever 
to  any  literal  return  to  that  land  (sec  Baumgarten,  Theolog. 
C'omm.  ii.  52:)). 

These  predictions  by  the  lawgiver  of  the  future  of 
his  nation,  so  remarkably  verified,  as  all  must  admit, 
in  their  history,  are  continued  in  ch.  xxx.  and  xxxii., 
accompanied  with  the  assurance  that  when  in  their 
state  of  dispersion  they  return  to  the  Lord,  lie  "  will 
return  to  his  captivity"  (r\^^  3V£;>  Shuv  ShevHth),  as 


Hengstenberg  (Authentic,  i.  101-100)  renders  it,  and  will 
gather  them.  ch.  xxx.  1-3,  perfecting  their  salvation  by 
changing  their  disposition,  ver.  c,  10.  There  is  here 
plainly  expressed  what  was  hitherto  only  a  matter  of 
inference  from  the  fact  of  the  purposed  preservation  of 
this  people.  The  prophet  further  discerns  in  the  bless 
ings  awaiting  Israel  the  accomplishment  of  a  purpose  of 
old,  shadowed  forth  in  the  partition  of  the  countries  of 
the  earth  among  the  sons  of  Adam  —  an  arrangement 
which  had  a  special  reference  to  the  Israeli  tish  people, 
Do.  xxxii.  8.  Finally,  the  conclusion  of  Moses'  prophetic 
song  may  be  regarded  as  a  summary  of  the  whole  law 
and  prophecy  :  "  Rejoice,  O  ye  nations  with  his  people; 
for  he  (Jehovah)  will  avenge  the  blood  of  his  servants. 
and  will  render  vengeance  to  his  adversaries,  and  will 
be  merciful  to  his  land  and  his  people,"  xxxii.  43.  This, 
which  was,  in  a  manner,  the  dying  testimony  of  the 
lawgiver,  is  adduced  by  St.  Paul,  Ho.  xv.  10,  as  a  proof  of 
the  participation  of  the  Gentiles  in  the  blessings  of  the 
covenant-people,  and  an  interest  in  all  that  affects  their 
prosperity.  Such  a  testimony,  while  corresponding 
with  the  promises  made  to  the  patriarchs,  and  with 
what  had  been  proclaimed  respecting  the  purposes  of 
the  theocracy,  Ex.  xix.  o,  evinced  the  unity  of  spirit  which 
characterizes  the  Pentateuch,  and  is  the  more  import 
ant,  as  concluding  the  Mosaic  legislation,  and  proving 
that,  in  the  estimate  of  the  lawgiver  himself,  it  had  not 
that  exclusive  character  which  a  mere  external  ac 
quaintance  with  it  is  sometimes  ready  to  assume. 

But  while  Deuteronomy  thus  distinctly  points  to  the 
future,  it  supplies  proofs  of  the  fulfilment  of  earlier 
prophecies.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  notice  of  "the 
terebinths  of  Moreh,"  ch.  xi.  30,  to  which  Moses  points  as 


the  termination  of  Israel's  journeyings,  there  is  a  re 
markable,  because  tacit,  reference  to  Ge.  xii.  G,  from  a 
comparison  with  which  it  appears  that  at  length  Israel 
will  be  conducted  to  the  very  place  where  Abraham 
first  set  himself  down  in  Canaan  ;  thus  intimating  also 
that  the  time  of  wandering  and  banishment  foretold  to 
the  patriarch,  Go.  xv.  13-10,  as  appointed  for  his  posterity, 
was  now  exhausted. 

IV.  its  Genuineness  and  Credibility. —  Deuteronomy 
furnishes  less  room  than  any  other  book  of  the  Penta 
teuch  for  the  application  of  that  criticism  which,  under 
the  name  of  the  "document"  or  "fragment  hypo 
thesis"  (.sec  GENESIS),  would  reduce  the  Mosaic  writ 
ings  to  a  congeries  of  the  works  of  different  authors  and 
ages.  Even  the  most  sceptical  of  these  critics  allow 
that,  with  the  exception  of  some  unimportant  interpo 
lations,  as  they  term  them — (according  to  De  Wette, 
ch.  iv.  41-4:5,  x.  G-9,  xxxii.  xxxiii.) — Deuteronomy  is 
the  production  of  one  author ;  while  not  a  few,  as 
Delitzsch,  Davidson,  and  others,  who  strenuously  dis 
pute  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  other  books  of  the 
Pentateuch,  admit  that  Moses  may  have  written  this 
book.  Indeed,  so  plainly  and  repeatedly  does  the  work 
itself  set  forth  its  Mosaic  authorship,  ch.  i.  5 ;  xvii.  is ; 
xxviii.  5S;  xxix.  19,20,27,  with  the  exception  of  course  of  the 
section  which  records  the  lawgiver's  death,  or  as  Heng 
stenberg  supposes,  all  after  ch.  xxxi.  23,  which,  although 
part  of  it  was  written  by  Moses,  as  the  song,  ch.  xxxii., 
and  probably  the  blessing  on  the  tribes,  xxxiii.,  seems  to 
have  been  appended  by  the  continuator — that  it  must 
be  so  received,  or  its  testimony  both  on  this  and  all 
other  matters  rejected  altogether,  for  in  such  a  case  as 
this  the  question  of  the  authenticity  of  the  work  is  com 
pletely  involved  in  that  of  its  genuineness.  These 
direct  testimonies  respecting  the  author  are  fully  borne 
out  by  the  character  of  the  composition,  which  manifests 
throughout,  as  Moses  Stuart  remarks,  after  Eichhorn 
and  Herder,  "the  earnest  outpourings  and  admonitions 
of  a  heart  which  felt  the  deepest  interest  in  the  well- 
fare  of  the  Jewish  nation,  and  which  realized  that  it 
must  soon  bid  farewell  to  them"  (O.  T.  Cauon,  p.  40,  Lond. 
1S410.  The  modifications  of  the  earlier  laws  could,  as 
already  remarked,  have  proceeded  only  from  the  hand 
of  Moses  himself,  and  in  these  again  are  indisputable 
proofs  of  the  authenticity  of  the  work,  but  particularly 
in  the  fact  that  it  was  committed  to  the  keeping  of 
the  priests  as  a  sacred  deposit  of  the  nation,  with  an 
injunction  that  it  should  be  publicly  read  at  their 
solemn  convocations,  ch.  xxxi.  9-13. 

Even  some  of  the  contradictions  and  anachronisms 
which  the  opponents  of  the  genuineness  allege  with  re 
spect  to  this  book,  furnish,  when  carefully  examined, 
important  testimony  in  favour  of  its  Mosaic  authorship, 
as  also  and  more  especially  of  its  historical  credibility. 
It  has  been  already,  shown  how  some  additions  to,  and 
variations  from,  the  accounts  of  the  preceding  books — 
which,  by  De  Wette  and  others,  are  designated  contra 
dictions — serve  to  supplement,  and  so  to  clear  up,  state 
ments  presenting  some  obscurity  in  the  earlier  books. 
The  same  is  also  found  to  be  the  case  in  various  other 
instances.  Thus,  with  respect  to  the  mission  of  the 
spies,  which  proved  such  a  source  of  temptation  to 
Israel,  manifesting  indeed  in  its  conception  the 
greatest  distrust  in  their  divine  leader,  it  appears 
from  ch.  i.  22  that  the  proposal  originated  with  the 
people  themselves,  while  in  Nu.  xiii.  2  the  thing,  as 
may  at  first  appear  very  strange,  is  stated  to  have  been 


DEUTERONOMY  U7 

commanded  by  Jehovah.     There  is,  however,  not  only  j  arbitrary  must  1 
no   contradiction    between  the    two    statements ;   but,     sinus  are  deduced 


DEUTERONOMY 

the  grounds  from  whic 


on  the  contrary,  the  one  obviates  a  difficulty  which, 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  proposal,  is  presented 
by  the  other.  The  proposition  proceeded  from  the 
people  ;  in  their  unbelief  they  brought  upon  themselves 
this  temptation:  but  without  Jehovah's  consent  Moses 
would  not  have  acceded  to  it.  This  was  given,  and 
moreover  Jehovah  specified  what  persons  should  be  sent. 
Nu.  xiii.  i,  L>,  but  of  this  Deuteronomy  makes  no  mention. 
Further,  the  promise  to  the  Israelites  of  the  land  «.f 


other  books  of  the 
acquiesced    in    by 


Thus,  according  to  Stahelin.  the  author  of  Deutero 
nomy  is  the  Jehovist  writer  of  the 
Pentateuch — a  view  at  one  time 
Bleek,  who  afterwards,  however,  adopted  so  far  the 
theory  of  De  Wette,  that  he  held  with  that  critic  that 
he  was  a  distinct  person,  though  they  still  differed  a.? 
to  the  date  of  the  composition  —  Bleek  (Kinleit.  p.  :«>•_>, 
Berlin,  iv;n)  assigning  it  to  the  interval  between  Heze- 
kiah  and  Josiah,  while  De  Wette  placed  it  in  the  reign 


£5ihon,  De.  ii.  24,  is  represented  as  being  at  variance  with     of    the  latter,   having    abandoned   his   earlier  opinion. 
Nu.  xxi.  21,  which  states  that  Moses  requested  a  peace-   |  which  brought  it  down  to  the  period  of  the  exile.    Ewald. 
able  passage  through  his  territories.      But  ;i<  Ilen<j-teii-     a^ain.   holds  Deuteronomy  to    be   the   work 
berg  observes,  "the  notion  of  a  contradiction  is  foundei: 
on   the   assumption   that   the    embassy   could    have   n 


other  object  than  to  induce  Sihoii  to  y-rant  the  request. 


Deuteronomy  to  be  the  work  of  a  Jew 
living  in  K^'ypt  during  the  latter  half  of  the  reign  of 
Manasseh  (<,rschk-Me.  i.  p.  171 )  a  view  in  which,  so  far 
as  ivgards  the  date,  hi-  is  followed  b\-  Uichmand,  on 
De.  ii.  30,  whereas  it  was  intended  to  atl'ord  him  an  op-  grounds  which  Bleek  considers  altogether  untenable, 
portunity  of  manifesting  that  hostile  determination.  Othere.  as  Von  Bohkn,  Gesenius,  and  Hartman,  would, 
which  was  to  effect  his  ruin."  Again,  as  regards  the  as  already  remarked,  assign  the  authorship  to  the  pro- 
circumstance  that  throughout  Deuteronomy,  except  phet  Jeremiah, 
only  in  ch.  xx.xiii.  2,  where  Sinai  occurs,  the  place  of 
the  giving  of  the  law  is  called  Moreh,  whereas  in  the 
three  preceding  books  Sinai  is  the  usual  designation, 
Horeb  being  used  only  in  Ex.  iii.  1:  iv.  ^^:  xvii.  ti; 


xviii.  5:  xxxiii.  6.  it  is  to  1> 


served   that 


Not  less  contradictory  and  mutually  subversive  arc 
the  views  as  to  tht-  sources  to  which  these  critics  would 
assign  certain  portions  of  the  work.  Thus,  to  take 
only  one  instance,  the  hlcssin<_:  of  Moses  (ch.  xxxiii.), 
which  Tuch  regards  as  proceeding  from  the  Klohist, 


is    followed    by    De    Wette       is    held 

iriginated  in   the   time  of  I'/./iah. 


the  general  name  of  the  mountain   range  of  that  dis-  f  the  oldest  writer  of  the  Pentateuch  (Die  Gout-sis,  p.  650) — 

trict,  as  appears  from    Kx.  xvii.  ti.  according  to  which     a  view  in  which  h 

Rephidim  was  situated  in    Hoivb.  while  Sinai,  on   the     bv  Bleek   to   have 

other  hand,  was  the  name  of  tl 

which  the  law   was   given    (KubiiiM.n,  Biblical  lU-^.uvh 

cd.  vol    i.  p.  li",  .v.'l).      '1'he  latter  name  accord in-lv  w 


articular  peak  fr»m  though  he  formerlv  considered  it  as  the  composition  of 
Moses  himself.  Jt  is  the  same  also  with  respect  to 
other  pas>aL,<vs:  but  this  must  suliice;  nor  is  it  necessary 


appear  most  prominent  in  connection  with  the  giving  to  examine  the  arguments  (some  of  which  have  been 
of  the  law,  and  while  the  Israelites  continued  in  the  already  adverted  to)  adduced  in  support  of  th<-se  con- 
neighbourhood  of  that  scene,  disappearing  however  in  flicting  and  even  fluctuating  conclusions,  all  of  which 
the  general  and  well-known  name  Hoivb  when  they  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the  entire  character  and 
receded  from  the  locality:  and  when  especially,  in  tin- 
book  of  Deuteronomy,  the  Sinaitic  legislation  is  con 
trasted  with  that  "in  the  land  of  Moab,"  be  i.  i,;  xxviii  2fi 
This  view  is  further  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  previous 
to  the  Israelites'  arrival  at  Sinai.  Kx.  xix.  i,-j,  Iloreh  onlv 


is   used  —  indeed,    thus   viewed,    these    peculiarities   are 


bearinir  of  the  work  itself,  and  to  its  testimony  regard 
ing  its  origin,  and  which  is  here  more  direct  and  ex 
plicit  than  in  any  of  the  other  portions  of  the  Mosaic 
writings. 

\.    //.<  t'lironolor/if.     Tlie   period   of  time  comprised 
in  Deuteronom     is  not  stated   in   the   book    itself.      It 


examples   of  those   underlined  coincidences  \\liich    so     can  however  be  approximately  determined  from  ch.  i. 

largely  distinguish  the  sacred  narratives,  and  afford  '•'>,  4.  conip.  with  Jos.  iv.  Hi;  v.  in.  According  to  the 

first  of  these  passages,  .Moses  began  the  discourses  which 
constitute  Deuteronomy  on  t}\f  jir,</  </<///  of  the  <  Ii  rcnt/t 
ni'iiitli  of  the  fin-tilth  ii<  Hi-  of  the  wanderings.  Accord 
ing  to  Jos.  v.  In  the  Israelites  under  Joshua  encamped 
in  (iiliral.  and  kept  the  passover  on  the  fourteenth  day 
of  the, /nv<f  month  of  the  following  year,  having  four 
davs  previously,  or  on  the  tinth.  crossed  the  Jordan, 


some  of  the  most  indubitable  tokens  of  their  truthful 
ness.  Further,  the  apparent  contradiction  between 
Nu.  xxxii.  '.'>(>  and  verse  21*  is  explained  by  a  reference 
to  De.  iii.  12,  13,  and  Jos.  xiii.  2!»-:Jl.  And  finally. 
with  respect  to  the  number  of  cities  assigned  to  a 
province  of  Bashan  in  De.  iii.  4,  comp.  1  Ki.  iv.  i.-j— a 
statement  which  modern  sceptics  receive  with  incredn- 


lity,  a  recent  explorer  remarks:   "Though  the  country  ,  Jos.  iv.  ty.      Before  this  three  days  had   been  occupied  in 
is  waste,  and  almost  deserted,  its  cities  with  their  walls     preparations,  and  in  waiting  for  the  return  of  the  spies, 


ch  ill;  ii  -2-2 — a  circumstance  which  brings  the  encamp 
ment  at  Shittim.  ch.  ii.  i,  to  the  seventh  day  of  the  same 
month.  Now,  as  the  Israelites  mourned  for  Moses 
thirty  days  in  the  plains  of  Moab,  LK-.  xxxiv.  ,\  this  would 
assign  his  death  to  the  sere  nth  day  of  the  twelfth  month 


(Carp/'jV,  Intru 


p.    Ill,    I.ip: 


and  gates,  crumbling  but  not  fallen,  still  remain,  the 
living  monuments  of  its  former  greatness,  and  the  irre 
sistible  proofs  of  the  minute  accuracy  and  truthfulness 

of  God's  Word"  (J.  L.  Porter,  Jour.  Sac.  Lit.  July,  Is.Vt.p.  2RlV 

Leaving,  however,  these  alleged  contradictions,  which 
a  pretender  would  certainly  not  have  allowed  to  escape 
him,  and  referring  to  the  article  PENTATEUCH  for  a  fuller 
examination  of  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  as  well 
of  this  as  of  the  other  books  of  that  great  work,  it  may  Ije 
well,  before  concluding  this  section,  to  indicate  briefly 
some  of  the  views  as  to  the  author  and  age  of  Deutero 
nomy  held  by  those  critics  who  deny  that  it  is  the  pro 
duction  of  Moses.  A  simple  statement  of  facts  will  at 
once  show  how  contradictory  these  views  are,  and  how  .  Critici  Sam,  vol.  i.  pars  -2;  Altins,'.  .1.,  Ctmiuienturiv 


[/(.«  Litd-ctui-c.  —  tii  addition  to  worka  on  Deuteronomy  com 
prised  in  expositions  of  the  whole  Pentateuch,  the  following  are 
separate  treatises  on  thin  book  or  parts  thereof:  Luther,  Deuter- 
oiiniiiion  Mi'Sf.  (j:  FJir«i  caftiii^lnni  cum  annntationibus,  Witteb. 
1524;  Calvin,  Sermnns  Ujion  Veuteronomie,  with  a  /n-efoce  of  thu 
Minute i-x  of  tin-  Chanh  nt  Gtnei-a,  translated  by  A.  Golding, 
Loud.  15S3;  Lorinus  (Soc.  Jes.),  t'oininenturii  in  Deutermiomion, 
'ones  in  Df/'t.  ca/).  .rriii.  tl  xtqusnt'w 


1-i.sT;  Holtius,  Deutei-O 
Coiii  iM-ntti.i-ii  a.d  ca,d^', 
.\f,i.t,:t  erklUrt,  l.<-i|i.  Is 
Berlin,  is.y.).  j 

DEVIL.     Tliis  i 


«.'  <•(';».  xix.  11,  Opera,  i.  p.  I'-'L,  Ain^t. 
ittitiiH  ill  nut,  -at  tun,  I,ugd.  17G8;  Vitnii.ua, 
,  J/,,,v,'.s  Hiirlmga!,  17:i);  Graf,  Du'  XKJHI 
;  Srlnilt/.  />".<  JJeutemnnmiwn  erllai-t, 

|i>.  M.| 

tin;  proper  English  equivalent  for 
the  Greek  StdSoXos,  when  applied  to  the  great  adversary 
of  God  and  man;  indeed,  it  is  that  word  itself  in  an 
English  form;  hut  neither  is  the  Greek  term  always 
so  applied,  nor  is  the  English  term  altogether  appro 
priated  to  it:  it  is  employed  as  the  rendering  of  other 
expressions  in  the  original,  which  an:  not  quite  equi 
valent.  In  its  primary  meaning  the  Greek  word  signi 
fies  I'titiuiiniutoi-  or  /«/*<•  «<r/'x<r;  and  so  it  is  sometimes 
used  in  New  Testament  scripture  of  persons  who  are 
given  to  evil-speaking  or  slanderous  discourse.  Thus. 
in  1  Tim.  iii.  11,  it  is  enjoined  respecting  the  wives  of 
deacons  that  they  ''be  grave,  not  slanderers"  (5ict£o\oi's): 
and  to  the  like  effect  in  Tit.  ii.  :!;  '2  Tim.  iii.  3.  The 
transference  of  this  epithet  to  one  who,  ill  the  world  of 
spirits,  is  the  chief  adversary  of  all  good,  so  as  to  de 
signate  him  emphatically  tin-  dtril.  arose  quite  naturally 
from  the  part  acted  by  this  malignant  spirit  toward  the 
people  of  God  as  their  accuser,  always  suspecting  evil 
against  them,  and  often  distinctly  charging  it.  Job  i.  7, 
12;  Zee.  iii.  1,  2;  Rev.  xii.  !),  Id.  Oil  this  account  the  Hebrew 
epithet  Xatuii,  the  <idre)4x«>-//,  had  been  applied  to  him 
as  a  proper  name,  and  this  the  Greek  translators  ren 
dered  by  8idgo\os,  di-r!l.  It  is  derived,  like  most  epi 
thets  which  become  proper  names,  from  a  prominent 
characteristic;  and,  if  respect  be  had  to  its  appellative 
import,  it  requires  to  be  supplemented  by  others  in  order 
to  bring  out  the  full  idea  of  Satan's  character  and  rela 
tion  to  the  people  of  God.  For  he  is  their  tempter  as 
well  as  their  accuser,  and  bears  also  the  name  of  Apoll- 
yoii,  the  destroyer.  But  as  Satan,  or  devil,  expresses 
generally  the  antagonistic,  malicious,  and  thoroughly 
perverse  nature  of  this  evil  spirit,  it  has  become  his 
usual  and  received  designation. 

In  New  Testament  scripture  it  appears  often  as  the 
designation  of  other  personalities  than  the  one  arch- 
spirit  of  evil  now  referred  to;  for  we  read  of  persons 
being  possessed  of  devils,  in  one  instance  even  of  a 
legion  of  devils  being  in  one  unhappy  victim,  Mut.viii.2K; 
Mar.  v.  9,  &c.  But  ill  such  cases  the  word  used  in  the 
original  is  different:  it  is  demon,  which,  among  the 
Greeks,  was  a  word  of  indifferent  meaning;  that  is,  it 
denoted  higher  spiritual  existences  generally,  good  as 
well  as  bad,  though,  by  the  sacred  writers,  it  is  used 
only  of  the  bad  —  the  subordinates  of  the  great  spirit  of 
evil,  and  his  active  coadjutors  in  the  work  of  mischief. 
(See  under  DEMONS  and  DEMONIACS.)  In  one  pas 
sage,  child  or  sou  of  the  dertl  is  applied  to  a  human 
being  as  a  strong  expression,  indicating  the  extent  to 
which  he  had  surrendered  himself  to  the  power  of  evil, 
and  the  tortuous  courses  to  which  he  had  consequently 
betaken,  Ac.  xiii.  10.  And  in  still  another  passage  the 
term  itself,  5id§o\os,  derll,  is  applied  by  our  Lord  to 
the  traitor,  "Have  not  I  chosen  you  twelve,  and  one 
of  you  is  a  devil  T  Some  (among  others  Dr.  Camp 
bell)  have  objected  to  the  expression  here  "a  devil,'' 
on  the  ground  more  especially  that,  as  the  term  in  its 
appropriation  to  the  aich-  rebel,  always  denotes  one  in 
dividual,  it  is  not  agreeable  to  scriptural  usage  to  say 
«  devil,  there  being  strictly  but  one  to  whom  the  desig 
nation  applies  as  a  proper  name,  and  so  they  would 
regard  the  word,  when  applied  to  Judas,  as  an  epithet, 
translating  thus  —  one  of  you  is  an  accuser,  or  malicious 


informer.  But  this  gives  a  tame  and  inadequate  sense, 
and  it  also  overlooks  the  peculiar  usage  of  this  evan 
gelist.  It  is  the  tendency  of  John,  more  than  of  the 
other  evangelists,  to  see  the  invisible  imaged  in  the 
visible,  in  particular  to  connect  human  actors  and  in 
struments  with  potencies  of  a  supernatural  kind.  In 
his  gospel  Christ  himself  is  spoken  of  as  being  in  the 
Father,  and  the  Father  in  him:  believers  also  are  in 
( 'hrist.  and  Christ  in  them.  So.  on  the  other  side,  the 
unbelieving  Jews  are  of  their  father,  the  devil;  they  do 
liis  works:  and  when  Judas  was  on  the  eve  of  consum 
mating  the  great  deed  of  apostasy,  Satan  is  represented 
as  entering  into  him,  ch.  xiii.  27.  Therefore,  to  apply  to 
Judas  the  distinctive  name  of  the  great  apostate  and 
adversary,  and  to  say  "he  is  a  devil,"  was  only  to  give 
a  somewhat  more  distinct  and  pointed  expression  to 
the  close  relationship,  the  virtual  identity  between  the 
seen  and  the  unseen  actor  in  the  drama.  The  one  was 
in  the  little  company  of  Christ's  disciples  what  the  other 
is  in  the  rational  creation  of  God.  .And  if  Scripture 
can  say  of  such  an  one.  He  is  a  god  -  though  there  be 
but  one  who  properly  bears  the  name — why  may  it  not, 
in  certain  circumstances,  say  of  another,  He  is  a  devil? 
The  figurative  element  that  is  in  such  a  mode  of  expres 
sion  can  mislead  no  thoughtful  reader  of  the  Bible. 

These,  however,  are  but  occasional  free  applications 
of  a  term  which,  in  the  ordinary  language  of  Scrip 
ture,  denotes  a  being  who,  in  some  .sense,  stands  alone, 
having  many  indeed  associated  with  him  in  evil,  but 
none  equal  to  him  in  rank  or  power.  Hence  we  read 
of  "the  devil  and  his  angels,"  Mat.  xxv.  41,  standing  in 
a  sort  of  rivalry  and  antagonism  to  "  God  and  the 
angels;"  so  that,  as  God  presides  over  the  spirits  of 
light,  there  is  a  world  of  darkness,  the  powers  of  which 
are  presided  over  by  the  devil,  as  "  the  prince  of  dark 
ness.''  From  the  influence  he  exerts  over  mankind, 
and  the  interest  he  has  acquired  in  things  here  below, 
he  is  styled  "the  god  of  this  world,"  the  "prince  of 
the  power  of  the  air,"  "  the  ruler  of  the  darkness  of 
this  world,"  &e.,  and  from  the  part  he  acted  at  the 
beginning,  "  the  old  serpent."  The  existence  of  such  a 
being,  and  of  such  an  empire  of  evil,  in  the  universe  of 
an  infinitely  good  and  powerful  God,  is  undoubtedly  a 

I  profound  mystery,  and  raises  questions  of  various  kinds, 
which  the  human  intellect  is  altogether  incompetent  to 

;  solve.     That  it  is  a  doctrine  of  Scripture   no  one  can 

;  deny,  except  by  a  method  of  interpretation  which  might 
be  applied  to  explain  away  the  most  specific  revelations 
of  divine  truth.  And  if,  on  account  of  the  difficulties 
in  which  the  subject  is  involved  to  our  finite  compre 
hension,  we  begin  to  suspend  our  belief  regarding  it, 
where  shall  we  stop  ?  Shall  we  not,  on  the  same  ground, 
withhold  our  belief  from  what  is  written  of  the  nature 

i  of  God  himself,  of  the  incarnation  and  work  of  his  Son, 
of  both  the  origin  and  the  extinction  of  evil  in  his  king 
dom  ?  Such  things  are  all  inwrapt  in  mystery  to  our 
view,  though  intelligible  and  plain  enough  as  regards 
their  relation  to  us,  and  their  bearing  at  once  on  our 
present  condition  and  our  coming  destinies.  How  the 
devil  should  have  become  what  he  now  is — how  he 
should  be  allowed  to  prosecute  his  aims  to  the  extent, 
and  with  the  measure  of  success  which  seem  to  be  ac 
corded  to  him  or  what  can  be  the  prompting  impulse 
to  such  unwearied  activity  in  evil,  in  a  mind  capable  of 
so  much  intelligence,  and  conscious  of  so  much  misery 
— are  matters  too  high  for  us  to  understand.  With  its 

\  usual  reserve  in  respect  to  things  that  belong  rather  to 


DKVTI 


44!) 


the  region  of  speculation  than  of  practice.  Scripture 
furnishes  us  with  no  definite  insight  into  them,  and  by 
its  very  silence  inculcates  upon  all  in  respect  to  them 
the  humility  and  meekness  of  wisdom.  But  there  are 
points  of  practical  moment  which  it  does  teach,  and 
which  it  is  well  for  all  sound  believers  rightly  to  ap 
prehend  and  believe. 

The  first  of  these  has  respect  to  the  derivation  of  this 
antagonistic  spirit  of  evil,  which,  according  to  Scripture, 
had  its  commencement  in  time,  and  arose  from  a  culp 
able  perversion  of  the  good.  The  doctrine  of  Scripture 
here  differs  essentially  from  the  Maniehean  principle 
of  an  independent,  self-subsisting  spirit  of  evil — a  prin 
ciple  which,  from  comparatively  early  times,  insinuated 
itself  into  the  philosophy  •  if  the  Kast.  (Jod  alone  is 
represented  in  the  JJible  as  possessed  of  al»<>Iute  exist 
ence;  he  is  the  one  1  AM:  and  all  besides  that  belongs 
to  the  universe  of  being  is  the  offspring  of  his  hand; 
it  is  of  the  things  that  have  been  created  and  made 
by  him.  J!ut  as  he  is  not  more  absolutely  existent 
than  purely  and  essentially  ^ood.  whatever  proceeded 
from  his  hands  necessarily  partook,  in  its  original  state, 
of  his  own  blessed  nature:  in  its  proper  place,  and  for 
the  ends  of  its  creation,  it  was  good.  Such,  beyond 
all  question,  is  the  teaching  of  Scripture;  and  eonse- 
(jiientlv  the  devil  and  his  associates  were  not  originally 
what  they  now  are:  they  have  become  such  by  the  w  il 
fill  abuse  and  depravation  of  what  their  I'lvator  eon 
ferred  on  them.  The  precise  occasion  and  mode  of  this 
departure  into  evil.  a>  already  noticed,  is  nowhere  in 
dicated  in  Scripture;  and  the  fact  itself  is  implied  rather 
than  distinctiv  asserted  in  those  parts  of  Scripture 
which  compose  the  <  >ld  Testament.  We  infer  it  from 
the  character  there  ascribed  to  (iod.  as  in  himself  alto 
gether  good,  and  from  the  relation  which  Satan  alwav- 
appears  to  occupy  toward  him  as  that  of  a  limited  and 
dependent  creature,  who  therefore  must  have  derived 
his  being  from  (  lod.  but  could  not  l>v  possibilitv  derive 
the  malice  and  guile  by  which  it  is  now  perverted;  this 
lie  could  onlv  have  of  himself.  What  we  can  thus 
infer,  however,  from  Old  Testament  scripture,  is  ex 
plicitly  taught  in  the  New.  Tin  n  Satan  and  his 
angels  are  declared  to  be  fallen  spirits,  suffering  under 
the  just  condemnation  of  (Jod.  and  reserved  to  a  yet 
further  execution  of  judgment.  The  everlasting  fire, 
in  which  the  wicked  generally  are  to  have  their  final 
doom,  is  that  which  has  lieen  primarily  prepared  for 
the  devil  and  his  angels— prepared  for  them  as  the 
leaders  of  apostasy:  and  thev  are  hence  deseril>ed  as 
''the  angels  that  kept  not  their  first  estate,  but  left  their 
own  habitation;''  or,  as  it  is  again  said,  "the  angels 
who  sinned,"  and  who  in  consequence  were  "cast 
down  to  hell,  anil  delivered  unto  chains  of  darkness,  to 
be  reserved  unto  judgment,"  Mat.  xxv.  41;-J  I'e  ii.  -i;  Juduii. 
How  this  sinning  should  have  come  about  we  are  not 
told,  for  there  is  no  foundation  for  the  opinion  of  some 
that  it  only  took  shape  in  the  temptation  presented  to 
our  first  parents.  On  the  contrary,  the  part  acted  by 
the  head  of  the  rebel  host  on  that  occasion,  since  he 
proved  himself  even  then  to  be  a  liar  and  a  murderer, 
Jn.  viii.  44,  is  proof,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  angelic 
fall  must  have  been  prior  to  the  human.  Yet  the  pri 
ority,  in  all  probability,  was  not  great,  if  the  crea 
tion  of  angels  belongs  to  the  same  era  with  that  of 
man.  We  cannot  say  for  certain  that  it  was,  nor  on 
the  relative  period  of  their  transgression  have  we  any- 
clear  analogy  to  guide  us:  onlv,  from  all  we  are  able  to 
VOL.  I. 


know  of  the  original  condition  of  angelic  beings,  and 
what  was  likely  to  be  the  effect  of  that  upon  their 
spirits,  we  can  more  easily  conceive  of  their  having 
fallen  under  the  power  of  sin  near  the  commencement 
of  their  career,  than  after  they  had  long  lived  in  the 
fellowship  and  enjoyment  of  (Jod. 

Another  point,  on  which  the  information  of  Scripture 
bears  unequivocal  testimony,  is  the  limited  and  subor 
dinate  nature  of  the  devil's  agency.  As  he  has  no  in 
dependent  existence,  so  he  lias  no  sovereign  dominion: 
his  sphere  of  operations  is  on  ev<  ry  hand  bounded,  in 
subordination  to  the  purposes  of  the  divine  government; 
he  can  work  only  where  (Jod  permits  him.  and  in 
such  ways  as  can  be  made  subservient  to  the  accom 
plishment  of  the  purposes  of  Heaven.  Hence,  in  the 
parabolical  representation  of  the  book  of  Job.  ch.i.,  the 
limits  are  prescribed  within  which  the  adversary  is 
allowed  to  work ---a  definite  course  is  marked  out  to 
him.  Hence,  also,  the  things  done  through  his  instru 
mentality  are  also  ascribed  to  ( Jod.  as  in  the  numbering 
of  Israel  by  1  >avid,  which,  originating  in  a  spirit  of  proud 
self-reliance,  was  directly  prompted  by  Satan,  and  yet 
had  its  ordination  of  God,  2  Sa.  xxiv.  ij  i  <  h  \\i  i;or.  in 
the  ease  of  Paul's  thorn  in  the  flesh,  which  was  at  once 
(onl's  check  upon  his  vanity,  and  the  messenger  of 
Satan  to  buffet  him,  •..' Co  xii  :.  Whatever  temptations, 
therefore,  believers  may  on  this  account  be  exposed  to. 
they  can  be  subject  to  no  violence:  a  restraint  is  laid 
upon  the  movements  of  the  adversary,  and  if  they  resist 
him  he  must  (lee  from  them. 

In  respect  again  to  the  mode  of  that  pernicious 
agency  which  is  carried  on  by  the  devil  and  his  angels, 
it  falls  in.  like  that  of  angelic  agency  generally,  with 
the  operation  of  second  causes.  It  is  onlv  by  giving  a 
higher  poteiice  to  these,  not  by  anv  direct  or  separate 
action,  that  the  power  of  the  wicked  one  makes  itself 
felt.  That  potence  may  sometimes,  as  in  the  posses 
sions  of  the  gospel  a'_:e.  asMime  the  appearance  of  some 
thing  like  miraculous  power,  yet  it  is  always  within  the 
line  of  the  moral  and  physical  laws  which  are  estab 
lished  in  the  world.  It  can  somehow  intensify  the  evil 
which  the  natural  operation  of  these  might  be  fitted 
to  effect,  but  it  has  no  power  to  bring  into  play  any 
thing  absolutely  new.  Kven  that  moral  hardening, 
or  blind  impetuosity  in  the  way  to  destruction,  which 
comes  from  Satan's  entering  (as  it  is  saidl  into  men.  or 
-•ainin-  a  sort  of  personal  ma*t«Ty  over  them,  always 
appears  as  the  result  of  a  previous  course  of  wickedness, 
and  shows  itself  in  lint  a  more  thorough  abandonment 
to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  the  mind.  Examples  of 
this  are  to  be  found  in  Saul  under  the  Old  Testament, 
and  under  the  New  in  Judas,  Ananias  and  Sapphira, 
and  the  subjects  of  Antichrist.  In  its  worst  forms, 
therefore,  it  is  always  to  be  regarded  as  the  punishment 
of  antecedent  guilt  and  perversity;  and  it  in  no  respect 
interferes  with  the  responsibility,  or  lessens  the  guilt,  oi 
those  who  yield  to  it. 

Finally,  little  as  we  know  otherwise  respecting  the 
nature  and  condition  of  the  devil  and  his  angels,  we 
can  yet,  with  perfect  confidence,  predicate  of  them 
utter  depravity  and  intense  misery.  Their  character 
and  aims  are  in  direct  opposition  to  those  of  (Jod;  as 
the  kingdom  of  the  one  rises,  that  of  the  other  falls;  and 
so,  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil  was  the  very 
purpose  for  which  the  Son  of  (iod  was  manifested. 
i  .in.  iii.  s.  Whatever  tends,  therefore,  to  injure  and 
destroy;  falsehood,  deceit,  guile,  malice,  hatred  of  the 

57 


PK\V 


DIADEM 


good,  restless  and  insatiate  striving  after  dominion  — 
these  are  the  elements  of  satanic  thought  and  influence, 
missing  often,  by  the  very  fulness  and  complexity  of 
evil  they  embody,  the  ends  they  aim  at,  because  neces 
sarily  involving  an  incompetency  to  enter  into  the 
views  and  feelings  of  those  who  love  and  follow  what 
is  good.  In  the  case  of  such  they  ever  miscalculate  the 
forces  they  have  to  contend  against,  and  hence  appeal- 
often  acting  a  part  of  maddest  folly,  or  blindly  sub 
serving  the  interests  they  seek  to  overthrow.  As  the 
result  of  such  depraved  aims  and  such  bootless  working, 
devils  are  necessarily  miserable.  "Torn  loose,"  to  use 
the  words  of  Twesten.  "  fr.'iii  the  universal  centre  of 
life,  without  being  able  to  find  it  in  themselves — by  the 
feeling  of  inward  void  ever  driven  to  the  outward  world, 
and  yet  in  irreconcilable  hostility  to  it  and  themselves 
—  eternally  shunning  and  never  escaping  the  presence 
of  God  -  always  endeavouring  to  destroy,  and  always 
compelled  to  promote  his  purposes — instead  of  joy  in 
the  beatific  vision  of  the  divine  glory,  having  a  never- 
satisfied  longing  for  an  end  they  never  reach — instead  of 
hope,  the  unending  oscillation  between  fear  and  de 
spair — instead  of  love,  an  impotent  hatred  of  God,  their 
fellows,  and  themselves — can  the  fearful  condemnation 
of  the  last  judgment,  the  thrusting  down  into  the  bot 
tomless  pit  <>f  destruction,  Ko  xx.  10,  add  anything  to  the 
anguish  of  such  a  condition,  excepting  that  they  shall 
there  see  the  kingdom  of  God  for  ever  delivered  from 
their  assaults,  their  vain  presumption  that  they  can 
destroy  or  impede  it  scattered  to  the  winds,  leaving  to 
them  only  the  ever-gnawing  despair  of  an  inward  rage,  i 
which  cannot  spend  itself  on  anything  without,  and  is 
therefore  for  ever  undeceived  as  to  its  impotence?" 

The  subject,  even  within  such  limits  as  are  cognizable 
by  our  minds,  has  much  in  it  that  is  dark  and  mourn-  | 
ful.  But  there  is  much  also  of  the  same  in  the  condi 
tion  and  history  of  wicked  men.  The  blindness  and 
perversity  that  is  seen  to  grow  upon  them,  even  amid 
circumstances  fitted  to  operate  beneficially  upon  their 
minds,  the  moral  impotence  and  incapacity  that  ulti 
mately  settles  upon  them  in  regard  to  the  pure  and 
good,  the  present  evil  and  misery  they  are  permitted  to 
bring  upon  others,  and  the  destiny  of  irrecoverable  ruin  ' 
to  which  they  are  themselves  manifestly  hastening, 
are,  one  and  all,  subjects  deeply  mysterious  and  inex 
pressibly  sad.  The  difference  betwixt  them,  and  those 
which  concern  the  devil  and  his  angels,  is  one  only  of 
degree,  not  of  kind;  and  what  we  see  and  know  of  the 
one  may  serve  as  a  stepping-stone  to  help  our  believing 
conceptions  respecting  the  other.  The  unbelief  which 
staggers  at  the  higher  line  of  revelations  will  never 
stop  without  also  infringing  seriously  upon  the  lower; 
and  it  will  invariably  be  found  that  the  deniers  of  j 
satanic  existence  and  agency  but  partially  receive  what 
is  written  of  the  depths  of  human  depravity  and  the 
woes  of  human  perdition. 

DEW.  The  allusions  of  Scripture  to  this  natural 
production  are  of  considerable  frequence  and  variety: 
but  referring,  as  they  do,  to  what  is  generally  known 
and  understood,  they  hardly  require  the  aid  of  explana 
tory  remark.  When  God  says  of  the  goodness  he  had 
in  store  for  his  repenting  people,  "  1  will  be  as  the  dew 
unto  Israel,''  Ho.  \iv. .«.,  or  when  Job  said  of  the  days  of 
his  prosperity,  "The  dew  lay  all  night  on  my  branch," 
Job  xxix.  10,  every  one  perceives  that  it  is  the  refreshing 
and  fructifying  property  of  dew  which  is  the  ground  of 
the  comparison.  "The  dew  of  his  youth.'  which  is 


said  to  rest  on  the  Messiah  in  Ps.  ex.  3,  is  evidently, 
in  other  words,  the  freshness,  as  of  youthful  energy,  or 
of  life's  buoyant  and  hopeful  morn.  In  other  pas 
sages  respect  is  had  to  the  gentle  and  benign  manner 
in  which  it  diffuses  itself,  the  more  perceptible  and  the 
more  grateful  that  it  comes  to  allay  the  heats  and  repair 
the  waste  of  a  parching  day.  as  when  Moses  represents 
his  speech  "distilling  like  the  dew,''  Do.  xxxii.  L>,  and 
the  Lord  himself  is  compared,  on  account  of  his  gra 
cious  manifestations,  to  "  a  cloud  of  dew  in  the  heat 
of  harvest,"  is.  xviii.  4;  so  also  the  benign  influence  of 
brotherly  love  is  likened  to  "the  dew  of  Hermon,  [the 
dew]  that  descends  upon  the  mountains  of  Zion," 
Ps.  cxxNiii.  .'i.  In  still  other  passages  reference  is  made 
to  its  chilling  effect  011  the  bodily  frame  when  exposed 
after  a  hot  day  to  its  infrigidating  power  —  "My  head  is 
filled  with  dew,  and  my  locks  with  the  drops  of  the 
night,"  fa.  v.  2;  "they  shall  wet  thee  with  the  dew  nf 
heaven,"  Da.  iv.  •>:•,.  Viewed  simply  in  respect  to  its 
natural  effects  011  the  herbage  of  the  ground,  the  falls 
of  dew,  especially  in  early  summer,  and  again  in  autumn, 
when  they  chiefly  prevail,  were  of  great  service  in  such 
a  country  as  Palestine,  where  periodical  seasons  of  rain 
are  succeeded  by  a  hot  sun  and  continuous  drought. 
Hence  to  have  the  heavens  stayed  from  dew,  iKi.  xvii.  i; 
Hag.  i.  10,  must  have  been  a  serious  calamity;  and  for  a 
mountain  to  be  cut  off  from  supplies  of  this  species  of 
moisture,  as  David  poetically  besought  in  regard  to 
Gilboa,  2  Sa.  i.  21,  was  virtually  to  be  consigned  to  barren 
ness  and  sterility. 

DIADEM,  as  used  in  Scripture,  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  have  the  distinctive  meaning  which  has  been  assigned 
to  it  as  the  more  peculiar  badge  of  absolute  power  or 
imperial  dignity.  It  occurs  only  in  four  passages,  and 
as  the  rendering  of  words  which  might  equally  have  been 

translated  fillet,    mitre,   tiara,  or  t  urban    (syjy   r2:V":)- 

i  .  T      vvv  .  ' 

Derived  from  the  root  which  signifies  to  roll  together 
or  around,  it  was  applied  by  way  of  eminence  to  the 
ornate  drapery  or  wrappings  about  the  head  custo 
mary  in  the  East,  in  particular  to  the  costly  tiaras  of 
fashionable  women,  Is.  Ui.  2:1,  the  turbaned  cap  of  the 
high-priest,  and  the  costly  head-bands  of  sovereigns. 
Speaking  of  the  insignia  of  royalty,  which  by  a  divine 
judgment  were  to  be  taken  from  the  representative  of 
David's  house,  Ezekiel  says,  "  Eemove  the  diadem, 
take  off  the  crown,"  Ezc.xxi.2fi  —  not  the  diadem,  there 
fore,  in  the  more  peculiar  oriental  sense,  since  it  is 
coupled  with  crown;  and  the  two  are  not  likely  to  have 
been  worn  together.  Isaiah  speaks  of  converted  Israel 
being  as  a  diadem  of  royalty  —  an  ornate  head-  band,  such 
as  might  befit  kings  —  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  ch.lxii.3. 
In  a  similar  poetic  style  Job  speaks  of  his  judgment 
having  been  to  him  "as  a  robe  and  a  diadem"  —  like 
comely  attire  for  the  body  and  the  head.  And  again 
in  Is.  xxviii.  5,  Jehovah  is  represented,  on  account  of 
the  peculiar  manifestations  of  favour  and  blessing  he 
was  going  to  bestow  on  his  people,  as  serving  to  them 
for  "a  crown  of  glory,  and  a  diadem  of  beauty  "- 
throwing  around  them,  as  it  were,  the  rich  and  costly 
attire  of  a  king.  These  are  all  the  passages  in  which 
the  expression  is  to  be  met  with  in  the  English  Bible, 
and  in  the  last  the  word  in  the  original  is  different. 
u°r  is  it  elsewhere  used  of  distinctively  royal 


apparel.     So  far  as  the  testimony  of  Scripture  is  con 
cerned.  it  must  remain  doubtful  whether  the  kings  of 


DIAL 


451 


DIAMOND 


Judah  or  Israel  were  wont  to  exchange  the  diadem 
with  the  crown  as  emblematic  of  royalty,  or  whether 
the  terms  referred  to  were  not  employed  somewhat 
generally  of  the  highly  adorned  and  often  richly 
gemmed  head-dresses,  which  were  worn  by  persons  in 
positions  of  honour,  and  more  especially  by  kings  and 
priests. 

It  is  proper  to  add,  however,  that  the  diadem, 
strictly  so  called,  rather  than  the  crown,  was  the  more 
peculiar  badge  of  absolute  sovereigns  in  eastern  coun 
tries.  It  usually  consisted  of  a  band  or  fillet,  about  two 
inches  broad,  tied  behind;  made  of  silk,  and  inlaid  with 
gold  and  gems  of  the  rarer  kinds.  The  earlier  emperors 
of  Rome  did  not  venture  to  wear  it,  on  account  of  its  offen- 
siveness  to  the  Roman  people;  their  principal  distinction 
was  the  imperial  or  military  robe  of  purple;  but  Diocle 
tian,  in  whose  hands  the  imitation  of  eastern  manners 
became  more  decided,  assumed  also  the  diadem.  ''It 


was  no  mure."  says  (Jihhon.  •'  than  a  broad  white  fillet 
set  with  pearls,  which  encircled  the  emperor's  head." 
l>ut  other  things  corresponded  ;  for  "  the  sumptuous 
robes  of  Diocletian  and  his  successors  were  of  silk  and 
gold,  and  even  their  shoes  were  studded  with  the  most 
precious  gems." 

DIAL.  This  word  occurs  only  mice  in  our  English 
Bibles,  and  it  is  matter  of  some  doubt  whether  even  that 
once  is  not  too  much.  It  is  in  the  account  given  of  the 
miraculous  sign  which  was  granted  to  Hezekiah  regard 
ing  his  recovery  from  an  apparently  hopeless  disease, 
when  the  sun's  shadow,  it  is  said,  went  ''ten  degrees 
backward,  by  which  it  had  gone  down  in  the  dial  of 
Ahaz,''  -2  Ki.  xx.  n.  The  word  here  rendered  tllnf 
(niSyc)  is  the  same  that  is  translated  diyrcix  in  the 

earlier  part  of  the  verse;  and  its  usual  meaning  is 
beyond  doubt  dcjncs  or  xtc/).*.  But  what  precisely 
were  the  degrees  or  steps  of  Ahaz.  it  is  impossible  with 
any  exactness  to  determine.  That  they  must  have  been 
somehow  adapted  for  marking,  by  the  incidence  of  a 
shadow,  the  progression  of  Ihe  sun's  daily  course,  is 
evident  from  the  connection ;  but  not  less  evident,  that 
as  the  shadow  might  be  made  to  exhibit  either  a  pro 
gress  or  a  regress  of  ten  degrees,  the  instrument  could 
not  have  been  constructed  after  the  fashion  of  an 
ordinary  dial  for  indicating  the  twelve  hours  of  the 


day.  The  more  ancient  authorities — the  Septuagint 
and  Syriac  translators,  also  Josephus  (Ant.  x.  11,1)  — 
understood  it  of  certain  steps  of  a  stair  connected  with 
the  palace  of  Ahaz,  which  it  is  easy  to  conceive,  might 
be  so  constructed  as,  by  means  of  the  shadow  of  an 
obelisk  or  some  other  object,  to  represent  the  successive 
divisions  of  the  day  in  hours,  half  hours,  and  perhaps 
still  smaller  portions.  It  is  possible,  however,  that 
there  may  have  been  an  instrument  or  structure  with 
a  proper  dial-plate,  to  which  the  name  dxjrecs  was 
applied ;  and  it  is  again  supposed  by  some,  that  an 
obelisk- like  pillar  might  have  served  the  purpose,  set 
up  in  an  open  elevated  place,  with  encircling  steps  on 
which  the  shadow  fell  (Knobd).  Various  other  con 
jectures  have  been  made  in  regard  to  the  form,  but 
they  are  attended  with  no  certainty.  Nor  has  any 
thing  been  discovered  among  the  monuments  of  Egypt 
or  Assyria  to  guide  to  more  definite  conclusions;  no 
dials  of  any  sort  have  been  found.  It  is  known,  how 
ever,  that  the  Chaldeans  had  a  sun-dial  so  early  as 
the  year  ,">  in  H.C.,  which  is  called  the  hemicycle,  and  is 
ascribed  to  the  astronomer  Ucrosus.  It  was  of  a  very 
simple  construction,  consisting  of  a  concave  hemisphere, 
shaped  like  tin-  vault  of  heaven,  divided  into  twelve 
parts,  on  which,  by  means  of  a  globule  in  the  centre, 
the  sun's  daily  progress  was  marked  under  so  many 
divisions  or  hours.  Herodotus  informs  us  that  the  "  pole 
(TroXos),  and  the  sun-dial  (^vilifji.uv),  and  the  division  of 
the  day  into  twelve  parts,  were  learned  from  the  Baby 
lonians  by  the  Greeks"  (h  loM  ;  and  by  the  /<«/r  is  there 
supposed  to  be  meant  the  concave  dial,  which  lias  just 
been  referred  to.  So  that  as  inventions  of  this  descrip 
tion  appear  to  have  originated  with  the  Babylonians, 
and  are  known  to  have  existed  at  a  period  not  very  re 
mote  from  the  time  of  Ahaz,  it  is  quite  conceivable 
that  this  king,  who  was  only  too  fond  of  lion-owing  in 
other  things  from  his  heathen  neighbours  to  the  north, 
and  keeping  up  a  connection  with  them,  2Ki.  xvi.  7-12, 
may  have  derived  from  that  quarter  some  instrument, 
for  which  the  Hebrews  had  no  other  name  than  the 
general  one  of  degrees  or  steps,  from  its  marking  the 
successive  stages  of  the  sun's  diurnal  course. 

In  regard  to  the  sign  performed  upon  the  instru 
ment  in  question,  there  can  be  no  doubt  it  was  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term  miraculous;  only  by  being  so 
could  it  have  served  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  given. 
But  as  the  representation  is  made  in  popular  language, 
and  according  to  the  apparent  phenomena,  we  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  there  was  any  change  in  the  real 
motion  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  the  shadow  was  made 
to  move  backwards  ten  degrees,  as  if  the  sun  itself 
had  so  far  retrograded  ;  but  the  effect  was  no  doubt 
produced  by  some  divine  operation  of  a  merely  local 
nature;  since  the  effect  could  not  otherwise  have  been 
confined  to  a  particular  instrument  or  structure  belong 
ing  to  the  palace  in  Jerusalem. 

DIAMOND,    sometimes    aifumant,     Hebrew    -vcitf 

•  T 

(nhamir't,  Jo.  xvii.  i ;  K/.e  iii.  11 ;  Zee.  vii.  i^,  the  hardest  and  the 
most  precious  of  all  gems.  In  the  English  Bible  it 
occurs  also  at  Ex.  xxviii.  18,  among  the  precious  stones 
composing  the  sacred  breastplate  of  the  high-priest; 
but  the  word  is  there  different  in  the  original  (i/ahalim), 
and  by  the  Septuagint  and  Josephus  is  regarded  as  the 
onyx.  It  is  not  at  all  likely  that  there  should  have 
been  two  terms  quite  disconnected  and  unlike  to  express 
one  gem;  and  if,  as  is  generally  agreed,  s/iamir  was  the 


DJANA 

name  for  diamond,  then  this  gem  could  not  have  had  a 
place  in  the  sac-rod  breastplate.  It  was  probably  not 
known  to  the  Israelites  at  the  period  of  tin;  exodus,  or 
if  known,  they  may  not  have  been  acquainted  with  the 
art  of  polishing  it.  which  was  difficult  of  acquirement  j 
on  account  of  its  extreme-  hardness.  Jn  those  passages 
cited  above,  which  do  make  mention  of  the  diamond, 
it  is  simply  this  quality  of  hardness  that  is  made  ac 
count  of:  tin-  prophet  K/ekiel  >peaks  of  making  his 
forehead  like  a  diamond  (or  adamant  >,  to  conn 
the  opposition  he  had  to  meet  with;  and  Israel,  as 
represented  by  the  other  two  prophets,  hardened  their 
hearts  in  sin.  so  as  to  become  miimpressible  like  the 
diamond.  Pliny  describes  the  gem  as  of  >uch  inde 
scribable  hardness,  that  it  was  proof  against  all  heat 
(duritia  inenarrabilis,  simulque  ignium  victrix  natural. 
Modern  art  has  somewhat  modified  this  representation; 
for  while  it  remains  the  hardest  of  minerals,  so  far 
from  being  superior  to  any  power  of  heat,  there  is  a 
process  by  which  a  heat  can  be  raised  so  intense  as 
totally  to  consume  it.  When  subjected  to  such  a  process 
it  turns  out  to  be  a  composition  of  pure  carbon.  Its 
peculiar  worth  arises  from  its  hardness  and  transpa 
rency;  and  when  found  in  great  perfection  and  con 
siderable  bulk,  it  rises  to  almost  fabulous  value.  A 
single  diamond  has  been  sold  for  £l;"i<UHH),  and  others 
of  much  higher  worth  are  known  to  exist  in  particular 
one  set  in  the  sword  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  weigh 
ing  779  carats,  and  another,  immensely  greater  still, 
belonging  to  the  King  of  Portugal,  weighing  as  much 
as  1080  carats.  But,  as  already  noticed,  the  hardness 
alone  of  the  mineral  is  noticed  in  Scripture. 
DIANA.  See  EPHESI-S. 

DIBLA'IM  [tn-o  red-ex],  the  name  of  the  father  of 
one  of  the  women  Hosea  was  instructed  in  vision  to 
take  to  wife,  Il<>.  1.3.  (See  HOSEA.) 

DIBON,  a  town  on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Arnon. 
originally  belonging  to  Moab,  Jos.  xiii.  17.  It  was  rebuilt 
by  the  tribe  of  Gad,  and  hence  was  called  Dibon-Gad, 
Nu.  xxxii.  33 ;  xxxiii.  45.  In  later  times  it  reverted  to  the 
Moabites,  and  is  mentioned  among  the  Moabitish 
cities  against  whom  the  divine  judgments  are  pro 
nounced  ;  Isaiah  calls  it  Dimon,  Is.  xv.  9 ;  Je.  xlviii.  18, 22, 
A  place  named  Diban  has  been  discovered  by  modern 
travellers  in  the  same  region,  and  is  supposed  to  be 
the  representative  of  the  ancient  city.  The  ruins  are 
of  some  extent. — There  was  another  Dibon  in  the 
tribe  of  Juclah,  Ne.  xi.  2,-,;  but  nothing  is  known  of  it. 

DIDRAC'HMA.  two  drachmas,  or  a  half  shekel, 
the  customary  contribution  to  the  tabernacle  or  tem 
ple  ;  but  see  under  TRIBUTE. 

DID'YMUS  (Aior/j-os),  a  surname  of  the  apostle 
Thomas,  and  meaning  tic  in.  If  translated,  as  it  might 
have  been,  the  designation  would  be  "Thomas  the 
twin." 

DI'MON.     See  DIBOX. 

DINAH  [judyed  or  acquitted],  the  daughter  of 
.Jacob  by  Leah.  Her  history  is  a  kind  of  brief  tragedy. 
When  her  father  s  tent  was  pitched  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  Shechem,  shortly  after  his  return  from  Mesopo 
tamia,  she  went  out,  as  it  is  said,  to  see  the  daughters 
of  the  land,  Go.  xxxiv.  1,  that  is,  mingled  with  them  in 
free  and  familiar  intercourse.  Considering. the  disso 
luteness  of  manners  which  prevailed  at  the  time,  tins 
was  a  wrong  course  for  her  to  pursue,  and  wrong  also 
for  her  parents  to  allow.  The  consequence  was,  that 
she  fell  a  victim  to  the  seductive  arts  of  the  place,  and 


DIONYS1US 

was  deflowered  by  Shechem  the  son  of  Hamor.      It  is 
said,  however,  that  he  sincerely  loved  her,  and  some  time- 
after  his  misconduct  made  proposals  of  marriage  to  her 
father.   This,  it  would  appear,  was  not  done  till  the  sons 
of  Jacob  had  been   brought  from  the  field,  where  they 
were  at  the  time  pasturing  their  flocks,  and  were  con 
sulting  with  their  father  how  the  dishonour  was  to  be 
met.      They   were    all    full    of    grief    and  indignation, 
because  ''folly  had  been  wrought  in  Israel;"  yet  on  the 
proposal  of  marriage  being  formally  made  on  the  part 
of  Shechem  by  his  father,  they  agreed  to  it  -  but  only 
on   condition  that   the    Shechemites  should   circumcise 
themselves  and  become  one  people  with  the  family  of 
Jacob.      The  Ilivite  party  submitted  to  this  condition 
— so  sensible  were  they  of  the  wrong  that  had  been 
done,  and  so  afraid  of  the  consequences  to  which  it  might 
lead.      But  there  was  a  want  of  mutual  sincerity  in  the 
matter:   worldly  policy  prevailed  both  in  the  proposal 
of  marriage  on  the  one  side,  and  the   acceding  to  it  on 
the  other.      "Jacob's  sons  (we  are  told)  answered  de 
ceitfully  "—that  is,  probably,  the  two  of  them  who  took 
the  leading  part  in  the  negotiations— Simeon  andLevi, 
two  of  Dinah's  full  brothers.      And  when  the  men  of 
the  place  were  labouring  under  the  disability  caused  by 
the  act  of  circumcision,   these  brethren  in   deceit  and 
cruelty  took  an   unmanly  advantage  of  their  position, 
and  cut  them  all  oft'  with  the  edge  of  the  sword.    Jacob 
had  no  sympathy  with  his  sons  in  this  foul  deed,  and 
both  at  the  time,  and  on  his  death-bed,  expressed  his 
strong  disapprobation  of  it.     But  undoubtedly  consider 
able  blame  must  be  attributed  to  Jacob  for  the  state 
into  which  he  had  allowed  his  family  at  the  time  to 
fall :  it  was  evidently  a  period  of  remissness  and  back 
sliding  ;  and  he  seems  himself  to  have  neglected  to  pay- 
to    God   the  vow  he   had  originally   made   at   Bethel. 
Hence,  immediately  after  the  mournful  transactions  con 
nected  with  Dinah's  fall,  the  Lord  appeared  to  him,  and 
directed  him  to  go  to  Bethel  and  renew  his  covenant - 
enu-agemeiit  with  God.     He   took  this  as  an  admoni 
tion,  and  called  upon  his  family  to  put  away  from  them 
the  strange  gods  they  had  brought  in  amongst  them, 
and  to  purify  themselves,   Ge.  xxxv.  1-3.     The  evil  thus 
proved   the   occasion   of    a  revived  earnestness    and  a 
temporary  reformation  in  the  family. 

DINNER,  at  least  what  was  commonly  called  such 
anioni:  the  orientals  and  the  ancients  generally,  was 
an  early  meal,  and  corresponded  nearly  to  our  break - 
I  fast  or"  lunch.  It  was  usually  taken  about  eleven. 
j  The  Greek  word  for  it  (apwrov)  comes  from  a  root  that 
:  signifies  early,  and  by  its  very  etymology  denoted  the 
early  meal.  Their  chief  meal  was  the  Mirvov  or  supper, 
which  was  taken  late  in  the  day,  when  the  ordinary 
labours  being  over,  families  and  neighbours  could 
leisurely  assemble  to  partake  of  a  friendly  meal.  Some 
times,  however,  the  word  is  employed  of  a  large  and 
formal  entertainment :  as  at  Mat.  xxii.  4,  where  in  a 
parabolical  representation  the  kingdom  of  God  is  likened 
to  the  marriage- dinner  of  a  king's  son ;  and,  in  another 
passage,  Lu.  xiv.  12,  the  alternative  of  dinner  or  supper 
is  put  in  respect  to  a  feast.  This  usage  may  be  re 
garded  as  somewhat  exceptional ;  and,  having  respect 
to  the  common  manners 'of  the  East,  it  is  with  the 
supper  that  the  idea  of  a  feast  is  most  fitly  associated, 
and  under  which  the  customs  connected  with  formal 
entertainments  may  be  best  treated.  (See  SUPPER."* 

DIONYS'IUS,  designated  the  Areopagite,  that  is, 
j  member  of  the  supreme   court  of   the  Areopagus,   is 


DIOTREPHES  4 

mentioned  as?  one  of  the  few  converts  from  heathenism 
in  Athens  who  clave  to  the  apostle  Paul.  Sacred 
history  contains  no  further  notice  of  him;  but  ecclesias 
tical  tradition,  in  proportion  to  the  scantiness  of  the 
materials,  has  made  itself  busy  with  his  memory.  It 
has  reported  him  as  an  Athenian,  who  was  distinguished 
fur  his  literary  attainments — one,  who  tir.-t  studied  at 
Athens,  then  at  Heliopolis  in  Egypt;  who,  when  in 
Egypt,  beheld  the  eclipse  of  the  sun  which  is  supposed 
to  have  coincided  with  the  darkness  that  took  place  at 
the  crucifixion;  and  who  afterwards,  (.11  retiring  to 
Athens  and  formally  embracing  Christianity,  was  made 
first  bishop  of  the  church  at  Athens.  Of  course,  he 
had  also  to  suffer  martyrdom — for  tradition  would 
scarcely  allow  any  early  bishop  to  die  a  natural  death. 
-But  all  this  must  be  placed  to  the  account  of  uncer 
tain  rumour,  and  is  of  too  late  origin  to  be  deserving 
of  any  serious  credit.  Th.-iv  are  certain  writings  that 
were  composed  in  his  name,  probably  in  the  fifth  cen 
tury  :  these  are  now  universally  acknowledged  to  be 
spurious,  and  eall  for  no  particular  notice  In  re. 

DIOTREPHES,  a  name  ,,f  heathen  origin,  mean 
ing  Jove-nourished,  but  occurring  in  the  third  epistle  of 
St.  -John,  as  the  name  of  a  per.-on  in  one  of  the  churches 
of  Asia  Elinor,  who  professed  (.'hristianitv.  but  was  of 
an  ambitious  spirit,  and  even  set  himself  up  against 
apostolic  authority.  "lie  lovcllt  to  ha\e  the  pre 
eminence,  and  receiveth  us  not,"  saith  the  apostle: 
"and  not  content  therewith,  neither  doth  he  hiniselt 
receive  the  brethren,  and  forbiddeth  them  that  would, 
and  casteth  them  out  of  the  church."  We  hear  nothing 
more  of  him  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  tin-  denunciation 
which  the  apostle  pronounced  against  him,  or  the  appli 
cation  of  the  stringent  measures  he  threatened  to  use. 
put  an  end  to  his  malicious  attempt  to  create  a  party 
in  the  church  he  belonged  to. 

DISCERNING  OF  SPIRITS  is  mentioned  m  1  Co. 
xii.  In  as  one  of  the  supernatural  gifts  which  wciv 
conferred  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  apostolic  times.  It 
seems  to  have  beenasortof  spiritual  intuition,  enabling 
its  possessors,  as  with  the  eye  of  Heaven,  to  read  the 
character  of  those  who  professed  to  have  divine  revela 
tions,  and  determine  whether  thev  were  of  God  or  not. 
We  see  the  exercise  of  this  gift,  as  directed  to  what  was 
evil,  in  the  penetrating  insight  of  the  apostle  Peter 
respecting  the  case  first  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira.  then 
of  Simon  Magus,  and  the  oracular  decision  pronounced 
by  him  upon  their  state  and  behaviour.  It  was  specially 
needed  at  a  time  when  the  Christian  church  was  be 
ginning  to  take  root  in  the  world,  and  when,  amid  the 
spiritual  hearings  and  excitements  that  prevailed,  the 
false  was  sure  to  intermingle  with  the  true.  But  as 
matters  grew  into  regular  and  settled  order,  a  power  of 
this  description  would  naturally  come  to  be  withdrawn, 
as  no  longer  needed  to  carry  on  the  affairs  of  the  church; 
the  spirits  could  be  tried  by  the  ordinary  tests  of  doc 
trine  and  character,  without  any  supernatural  endow 
ments  of  grace;  and  so  discerning  of  spirits  soon  ceased 
to  be  mentioned  as  a  special  gift,  while  false  teachers 
were  kept  in  check  by  the  discipline  of  the  church. 

DISCIPLE,  is  one  who  has  learned  of  another,  has 
imbibed  his  views,  and  follows  his  guidance.  It  is  of 
course  applicable  to  all  true  believers,  but  it  is  often 
applied  by  way  of  eminence  to  the  twelve  who  con 
stantly  waited  upon  the  instructions  of  Christ,  and  after 
his  departure  were  the  representatives  of  his  mind  to 
the  world — nearly  synonymous,  therefore,  with  apostle. 


•>'•>  DIVINATION 

DISEASES;  such  as  were  frequent  among  the  Jews, 
j  or  any  way  peculiar  to  them—  leprosy,  for  example. 
I  pestilence,  palsy,  \"c. — will  be  found  noticed  under  their 
proper  heads;  and  the  general  subject,  as  viewed  in 
Scripture,  is  no  further  remarkable,  than  that  all  man 
ner  of  disease  is  regarded  there  as  the  visitation  of 
God  on  account  of  sin.  It  is  only  after  sin  had  en 
tered,  that  sickness,  in  its  ditlcrent  forms  of  disease, 
and  its  natural  issue  death,  obtained  a  footing  in  the 
earth.  When  the  Redeemer  comes  to  rectify  the  evil, 
he  makes  himself  known  as  the  bearer  of  our  diseases, 
not  less  than  the  remover  of  our  guilt,  Mat.  viii.ir.  And 
when  the  final  results  of  his  salvation  are  brought  in, 
as  Mn  shall  have  been  for  ever  purged  away,  so  disease 
of  every  form  shall  disappear:  "The  inhabitants  shall 
not  say.  I  am  sick,  the  people  shall  be  forgiven  their 
iniquity."  K  \x\iii.  •_•». 
DISPERSIONS.  »<  C.vi-nviTY. 
DIVINATION.  DIVINER.  In  the  ordinary  ac 
ceptation  of  the  terms,  divination  differs  from  prophecy, 
in  that  the  one  is  a  human  device,  while  the  other  is  a 
divine  gift  ;  the  one  an  unwarranted  prying  into  the 
future  by  means  of  magical  arts,  superstitious  incanta 
tions,  or  natural  signs,  arbitrarily  interpreted;  the 
other  a  partially  disclosed  insight  into  the  future,  by 
the  sup.  rnatural  aid  of  Him  who  sees  the  end  from  the 
beginning.  Amonu  the  heathen,  who  were  destitute 
of  the  true  know-ledge  of  God.  and  had  no  authorized 
interpreters  of  his  will,  the  distinction  TIOW  drawn  was 
necessarily  unknown:  divination  and  prophecy  differed 
only  as  the  particular  from  the  general;  and  the  diviner, 
though  in  a  somewhat  inferior  line,  and  \\itli  less  of 
certainty  in  his  prognostications,  was  also  a  prophet. 
Hence  the  work  of  Cicero,  which  treats  uvu;  rally  of 
men  s  insight  into  the  future,  and  the  real  or  pretended 
means  of  attaining  it.  is  entitled  Ik  I >iriii<itt<>itr.  He 
onlv  so  far  distinguishes  as  to  divide  between  those  who 
Bought  to  get  this  insight  into  the  future  by  artful 
methods,  such  as  omens  and  auguries,  and  those  who 
were  thought  to  obtain  presentiments  of  the  future  in 
a  more  natural  way,  through  a  certain  excitation  of 
mind,  or  by  means  of  presaging  dreams.  But  in  Scrip 
ture  language  the  diviners  were  /«/.«•  prophets,  and 
divination  was  allied  to  witchcraft  and  idolatry,  I)c.  xviii. 
in,  1*  ;  .Ji'S.  xiii.  :.'•_';  JCT.  xxvii  !i,  lice.  The  word  most  com 
monly  used  for  divination,  /•i,-r//i  (cr^),  and  the  corre 
sponding  verb  l.ii.-<ri,,i  (originally  to  divide,  to  apportion 
lots*,  are  used  of  false  prophets  and  soothsayers,  as  in 
the  passages  just  referred  to;  of  necromancers,  who  pro 
fessed  to  evoke  the  dead,  1  Sa.  xxviii.  <•;  of  heathen  augurs 
and  enchanters,  i  sa.  vi.  -2,  -i  Ki  xvii.  i:;  y.w  x.  •_';  of  making 
prognostications  by  means  of  arrows,  inspection  of 
entrails,  &c.,  Kxu.  xxi.  M.  Another  word  (nuchash,  vt'ni) 

-   T 

is  occasionally  used,  though  only  in  two  or  three  pas 
sages,  Gc  xliv.  l.'i;  1  Ki.  XX.  3.'i;  Xu.  xxiii.  L'.'i;  xxiv.  1;  and  alwavs 

with  reference  merely  to  auguries,  or  to  the  arts  and 
incantations  by  which  they  were  usually  taken.  But 
beside  these  more  general  terms,  various  others  of  a 
specific  kind  are  used,  having  reference  to  particu 
lar  modes  of  divination,  such  as  charmers,  enchanters, 
witches,  wizards,  &c.  We  shall  briefly  glance  at  the 
different  kinds,  taking  them  in  historical  order. 

1.  The  earliest  mention  of  the  practice  of  divination 
was  that  by  the  cup.  To  magnify  the  value  of  Joseph's 
silver  cup.  and  aggravate  the  guilt  of  purloining  it, 
Joseph's  steward  was  ordered  to  say  to  the  sons  of 


DIVINATION 


454 


DIVINATION 


Jacob,  "Is  nut  this  it  in  which  my  lord  drinketh,  and 
whereby  indeed  he  diviiieth  !"  Ge.  xliv.  4.     The  charge, 
we  know,  was  a  feigned  one,  made  for  the  purposr  ut 
trying  what  was  in  the  hearts  of  the  men  toward  Ben 
jamin,  and  the  special  aggravation  in  the  charge,  as  to 
the  cup  being  applied  to  purposes  of  divination,  we  may 
reasonably   suppose  was  of  the  same  character.      The 
high  religious   position   maintained   by  Joseph  in   the 
most  critical  periods  of  his  career,  renders  it  every  way 
improbable  that  he  should  in  a  matter  of  this  sort  have 
identified  himself  with  the  corruptions  of  heathenism. 
But   the  allusion  made  in  his  name   (though  under  a 
feigned  pretext)  to  divination  by  the  cup.  as  an  existing 
and  well-known  practice,  shows  how  early  it  must  have 
got  a  footing  in  Egypt.     Nothing  is  indicated  there, 
however,  or  in  any  other  part  of  Scripture,  as  to  the 
mode  in  which  the  cup  was  used  for  the  purpose  in 
question.     It  is  reported  that  the  cup — the  cup  as  used  | 
for  sacred  purposes — was  a  symbol  of  the  Nile,  which 
was  called   "the  cup  of  Egypt;''  and  by  the  varying 
aspects  of  its  contents,  it  was  thought  to  mirror  the  ' 
forms  of   all   things  (Iliivernick,  Introd.  to  Pont,  on  Ge.  xliv.  1, 
and  authorities  there  cited).      But   the  discovery  of  cups  or  \ 
bowls  among  the  Babylonian  ruins  with  supposed  magi 
cal  inscriptions  in  them  (xcc  under  BOWLS),  has  led  to  the 
supposition  that  this  possibly  may  have  been  the  mode 
also  in  Egypt  of  divining  by  them.     It  is  certain  that 
cups  or  bowls  are  frequently  used  still  in  various  parts 
of  the   East  in   cases   of  dangerous    maladies,   which, 
having  charms  written  inside  by  magicians,  and  water 
afterwards  put  into  them,    this   water  is   expected  to 
work  as  a  cure  (Layard's  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p  Mi).      Such 
a  practice,  however,  differs  somewhat  from  the  art  of 
divination.      But  as  to  the  fact  of  divining  by  cups  in 
ancient  Egypt,  there  can  be  no  doubt.     It  is  mentioned 
by  lambliehus  in  his  book  on  Egyptian  mysteries  (p.  iii. 
sect.  14).     And  that  the  superstition  descended  to  com 
paratively  modern  times,  appears  from  a  circumstance 
recorded  in  Norden's  travels  (published  in  1  75t>) .    When 
he  and  his  party  were  at  Derri,  on  the  confines  between 
Egypt  and  Nubia,  and  in  circumstances  of  great  danger, 
they  sent  a  threatening  message  to  a  malicious   and 
powerful   Arab.      He   replied,    "  1    know  what  sort   of 
people  you  are.      /  ft  are  consulted  my  <'i'p,  and  have 
found  by  it  that  you  are  the  people  of  whom  one  of  our 
prophets  has  said,  that  Franks  should  come  in  disguise, 
and  spy  out  the  land;  that  they  would  afterwards  bring 
a  great  number  of  their  countrymen,  conquer  the  land, 
and  exterminate  all"  (llavmer's  Observations,  vol.  iv.  p.  4<>4). 
Adam  Clarke,  in  his  note  on  the  passage,  supposes  that 
the  Arab  referred  to  the  famous  divining  cup  of  Jem- 
sheed,  celebrated  in  eastern  romances  as  a  mirror  that 
represented  the  whole  world,  and  all  that  was  passing 
in  it.     Whether  he  may  have  done  so  or  not,  the  evid 
ence  his  speech  affords  of  the  ancient  custom  of  cup- 
divination  is  equally  manifest. 

2.  Under  the  names  of  sorcerers,  wizards,  witches, 
classes  of  persons  are  mentioned  in  the  Pentateuch, 
who,  from  the  import  of  their  names,  may  be  presumed 
to  have  dealt  in  divinations;  but  their  profession  only, 
not  the  particular  methods  of  carrying  it  on,  is  inti 
mated.  The  sorcerers  in  Ex.  vii.  11  should  perhaps 
rather  have  been  designated  enchanters,  as  the  word  is, 

indeed,  rendered  in  De.  xviii.  10 — mekasheph  (n^bc), 

1  ••  T  : 

one  who  uses  incantations,  whether  with  the  design  of 
creating  a  delusion  respecting  the  present,  or  begetting 


false  expectations  of  the  futury.  It  is  the  same  word. 
only  with  a  female  termination,  which  is  translated 
it  itch  in  Ex.  xxii.  18,  denoting  a  character  so  offensive 
to  sound  religion  and  morality,  that  none  professing  it 
were  to  be  suffered  to  live.  The  wizards  in  Le.  xix.  31 : 
xx.  6;  De.  xviii.  11,  &c. — yiddconi  ('jyT),  from  the  root 

to  know,  hence  the  knowing  ones  by  way  of  eminence,  the 
wise  beyond  others — were  those  who  professed  to  see  into 
the  coming  issues  of  providence,  and  to  have  the  power, 
probably  bv  certain  forms  of  incantation,  to  reveal  the 
secrets  of  Heaven.  But  for  anything  that  either  this  or 
the  other  names  import,  the  parties  spoken  of  might 
resort  in  turn  to  any  of  the  modes  by  which  diviners 
sought  to  obtain  credit  for  their  supernatural  insight. 

3.  The  name  last  noticed  is  very  commonly  coupled 
with  another,  which  does  point  to  a  specific  mode  of 
trying  to  elicit  the  secrets  of  Providence — having,  or 
consulting  with,  familiar  spirits — obotft  (phiO,  as  such 
pei-sons  are  called  in  Le.  xix.  31.     But  this  seems  to  be 
an  elliptical  expression  for  those  who  had  an  <>b ;  and 
the  characters  ill  question  are  more  fully  described  in  Le. 
xx.  27,  as  those  who,  "  whether  man  or  woman,  had  olt  in 
them  " — i.e.  a  spirit  of  python  or  divination.     The  witch 
of  Endor  belonged  to  this  class;  she  is  called  a  "mistress 
of  oli"  (so  the  word  literally  is  in  1  Sa.  xxviii.  7);  and 
Said  asked  her  to  divine  to  him  by  the  oh — in  the  Eng. 
Bible,  "by  the  familiar  spirit."    It  seems  to  have  been 
but  another  mode  of  designating  a  necromancer,  one 
who    professed    to    have    familiar    converse    with    the 
souls  of  the  dead,  and  to  derive  thence  information  not 
'  accessible  to  others  respecting  the  designs  of  Providence 
and  the  issues  of  life.      The  responses  that  were  given 
to  the  questions  which  such  necromancers  undertook  to 
answer,   were    pronounced  as    from  the  bloodless  and 
ghastly  frame  of  an  apparition,  and  hence  were  usually 
uttered  in  a  shrill,  squeakish  voice.     This  is  alluded  to 
by  Isaiah,  when,  speaking  of  Jerusalem  in  her  coming 
state  of  prostration  and  ruin,  he  represents  her  speech 
as  like  "the  voice  of  an  oh  out  of  the  earth"  (ch.  xxix.  4) 
— the  voice  of  one  more  dead  than  alive,  peeping  or 
chirping.     The  necromantic  art  naturally  grew,  in  the 
hands   of   designing   and   fraudulent   men,    out   of  the 
superstitious  notions  prevalent  among  the  heathen  re- 
•  specting  the  spirits  or  manes  of  the  departed.     These 
were   supposed  to  enter  on  a  semi- deified   state  after 
I  death,  and  in  that  state  to  keep  up  an  occasional  con- 
!  iiection  with  certain  places  and  persons  on  earth,  espe- 
\  cially  the  spots  where  their  ashes  reposed,  and  the  per 
sons  who  paid  them  peculiar  honour  and  regard.     It 
i  was  only  what  might  be  expected,  that  crafty  persons 
would  work  upon  this  superstitious  belief,  and  turn  it 
to  purposes  of  fraud  and  imposture.      How  readily  both 
the  belief,  and  the  delusive  practices  associated  with  it, 
obtained    a  footing    among    the    covenant-people,    the 
many  prohibitions  given  respecting  them  in  the  Pen 
tateuch  sufficiently  manifest;    and    the    references    to 
them,  in  the  later  historical  books  and  the  prophetical 
writings,  show  that  they  still  held  their  ground,  though 
solemnly  denounced  and  forbidden,  to  the  very  close  of 
the  Old'  Testament   canon.     But   they  were  far  from 
ceasing  then,  or  with  the  ancient  economy  itself ;  for 
the  rise  of    saint    and  relic  worship   in  the  Christian 
church  again  laid  the  foundation  of  a  fresh  develop 
ment  of  the  necromantic  art,  which  in  process  of  time 
furnished  materials  for  some  of  the  darkest  and  most 
discreditable  chapters  in  modern  history. 


DIVINATION 


-to.") 


DIVINATION 


4.  Apparently  another  and  distinct  class  of  diviners 
is  indicated  by  a  word,  which,  in  the  English  Bible,  is 
usually  rendered  observers  of  tinxs,  Le.  xK.  -26;  Do.  xviii.  UP, 
11;  2Ki.  xxi.  (i;  '2  Cli.  xxxiii.  (3;  but  ill  Is.  ii.  0;  Ivii.  '.',;  Jo.  xxvii.  II;  Mi. 

v.  1-2,  soothsayers  or  sorcerer*.     The  word    is  nitonenitn 
(D'Jjc)j  and  is  of  uncertain  etymology  —  some  connect 


in     it  with 


thers  with  <</ 


Hence,  a  considerable  variety  of  meanings  have  been 
attached  to  it,  though  all  are  agreed  that  it  denotes 
persons  addicted  to  some  sort  of  divination.  The  con 
nection  alone  puts  this  beyond  a  doubt.  In  the  Pen 
tateuch,  the  Vulgate  had  rendered  the  word  i>/i*in-iit</ 
if  reams,  and  in  the  three  prophetical  passages,  by 
takiii'j  utiijurles  in'  diriititttoiix.  Our  translators  sub 
stantially  followed  it  in  the  latter,  but  adopted  in  the 
liistorical  passages  the  explanation  of  some  of  the  rab 
bins  —  obserfiit;/,  or  observers  nftiiittx.  It  was  applied 
to  such  as  said.  To-day  it  is  auspicious  to  set  out,  to 
morrow  to  make  merchandise;  thus  observing  times 
and  appointing  seasons.  No  doubt  soothsaying  has 
often,  in  ancient  as  well  as  modern  times,  taken  this 
direction;  but  whether  it  is  indicated  in  the  form  of 
expression  now  under  consideration  must  remain  alto 
gether  doubtful.  And  if  possible  still  more  doubtful 
is  the  reference,  which  some  pi-tvei'.v  in  it  to  the  evil 
eye.  This  would  ally  it  to  spells  and  fascinations: 
and  the  remark  of  (  leseiiius.  in  his  Tli>.<.,  seems  to  be 
well  grounded,  that  the  Word  relates  to  divining  and 
soothsaying,  rather  than  to  these.  It  may  have  had 
respect  to  observations  taken  from  the  appearances  and 
motions  of  the  clouds,  but  just  as  probably  (as  (',<•«  -nin- 
supposes)  to  the  occult  and  ma^ic  arts  by  which  sooth 
sayers  often  pretended  to  divine  the  approaching  future. 
5.  Belomantla,  or  divining  by  means  of  arrows,  is 
expressly  mentioned  as  a  mode  of  divination,  in  use  at 
least  among  the  Chaldeans.  The  king  of  L'.abylon, 
says  Ezekiel,  di.  xxi.  _>i,  "stood  at  the  parting,  at  the 
head  of  the  two  ways,  to  use  divination  ;  he  shakes  the 
arrows,"  Jkc.  The  action  is  represented  as  proceeding 
at  the  moment;  the  king  with  his  war-  equipment  is  on 
his  way  southward,  and  when  he  reacln  s  the  point 
where  the  roads  diverge,  the  one  toward  Kabbah  of 
Ammon,  the  other  toward  Jerusalem,  he  pauses  for  a 
little,  to  inquire  by  augury  in  which  of  the  two  direc 
tions  fortune  was  awaiting  him.  Three  several  forms 
of  divination  are  brought  into  play,  and  of  these  the 
first  is  by  means  of  some  action  with  arrows,  no  further 
described  here  than  with  respect  to  the  shaking  of 
them,  which  seems  to  have  formed  a  prominent  part  of 
the  ceremony.  Jerome,  in  his  comment  on  the  pas 
sage,  says  of  it,  that  what  the  king  did  was  "to  put  a 
certain  number  of  arrows  into  a  quiver,  each  having  a 
particular  name  inscribed  on  it,  and  then  mixed  them 
together,  that  he  might  see  whose  arrow  should  come 
out,  and  which  city  he  should  first  attack.  And  this 
(he  adds)  the  Greeks  call  belomantia  or  rabdomantla." 
The  account  is  probably  correct,  and,  at  all  events,  no 
researches  of  later  times  have  added  anything  to  it. 
Pictures  have  been  found  on  the  Assyrian  tablets,  which 
are  supposed  to  represent  the  king  in  a  divining  cham 
ber,  with  arrows  as  well  as  other  instruments  of  divina 
tion  in  his  presence;  but  this  is  by  no  means  certain 
(Bonomi's  Nineveh,  p.  aia-aos).  Some  authorities,  however, 
speak  of  sacred  arrows  being  kept  at  Mecca,  and  used 


]  by  the  Arabs  for  similar  purposes,  though  contrary  to 
|  the  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  Koran,  (see  Preface  by  Sale.) 

6.  In  addition  to  the  arrows,  the  king  of  Babylon  is 
described  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  in  the  passage  referred 

i  to  above,  as  also  consulting  or  inquiring  at  the  terapJtim 

— for  so  the  word  is,  and  not  generally  idols,  as  in  the 

i  English  Bible.     For  these,  see  under  TKHAPHIM.     It  is 

j  enough  to  say  at  present,  that  they  appear  to  have  been 

a  kind  of  household   idols  used  for  helps  to  devotion, 

j  and  for  direction  in  perplexities;  and.  far  from  being 

j  confined   to   heathen    worshippers,    traces   of   them    are 

found  among  the  covenant-people,  both  in  earlier  and 

later  times,  tie.  xx\i.  Hi;  Jn.  xvii.  ,'.;  iSa.  xv.  -2:i;  H<>.  iii.  1;  Ziv.  x.  2. 

7.  Forming  prognostications  from  the  inspection  of 
entrails,  and   in  particular  of   the  livers  of  newly-slain 
animals,    may  also   be    noticed,    although   there   is   no 
evidence  of  its  having   been  practised  among  the  Jews. 
The  only  instance  that  occurs  of  it  in  Scripture  is  found 

.  in  the  pa— a^e  of  E/.i  kiel  already  referred  to,  where  the 
king  of  P.abylon  completes  his  series  of  auguries  by 
in>pectinur  the  liver.  No  more  in  this  case  than  in  the 
employment  of  the  arrows,  is  any  indication  given  as 
to  the  mode  adopted  for  reading  out  of  the  liver  the 
>igns  of  coniin-  -ood  ,,]•  evil.  But  we  know  from  other 
sources,  that  it  was  by  applying  certain  rules  to  the 
colour  and  appearances  presented  by  the  liver;  and 
according  to  the  data  furnished  by  these,  favourable  or 
adverse  results  were  anticipated. 

In  addition  to  the  preceding  special  forms  of  divina 
tion,  there  were  others  of  a  more  general  kind,  which 
it  is  enough  to  mention;  consulting  oracles,  not  un 
known  among  the  Israelites  in  the  more  corrupt  periods 
of  their  history.  liKi.  i.  2;  seeking  to  false  prophets  or 
dreamers  (.«»  um/ir  DUKAMS);  listening  to  the  prognos 
tications  of  star-ga/.ers  or  astrologers.  In  later  times 
this  last  class  had  a  -Teat  name,  and  were  frequently 
r.sorted  to,  not  only  in  their  native  seat  in  Chaldea, 
but  in  many  other  countries  also,  over  which  they 
spread  themselves  in  quest  of  gain.  The  superstitious 
at  Home  are  represented  by  Juvenal  as  hunting  gene 
rally  after  fortune-tellers,  but  preferring  Chaldean  as 
trologers  to  all  other  professors  of  the  art:  "Chaldaei 
M'd  major  erit  fiducia;  quiquid  dixerit  astrologus,  cre 
dent  a  fonte  relatum  Hamnionis "  (Greater  confidence 

,  will  be  placed  in  the  Chaldeans;  whatever  an  astrologer 
utters,  they  will  believe  to  proceed  from  the  oracle  of 
Amniont.  And,  notwithstanding  the  strong  and  fre 
quent  denunciation  in  the  law  and  the  prophets  of  all 

:  sorts  of  divination,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  in  the 

!  times  prior  and  subsequent  to  the  gospel  era,  the  baser 
part  of  the  Jewish  people  wero  grievously  addicted  to 
the  arts  of  soothsaying  and  magic.  Evidences  of  this 
are  not  wanting  in  New  Testament  scripture,  Ac.  xiii  0; 
xix.  is;  and  the  sarcastic  allusions  of  Juvenal  furnish 
additional  and  striking  illustrations  (iii.  n;  vi.  543,ie.)  It 

i  could  only  be,  however,  the  more  depraved  and  repro 
bate  portion  of  the  Jews  who  gave  themselves  to  such 
arts;  the  men  of  enlightened  minds  and  good  conscience 
must  have  stood  entirely  aloof  from  them,  and  even 
decried  them  as  of  demoniacal  character  and  origin. 
A  good  example  of  the  anti-divining  spirit  of  this  better 
portion  is  given,  out  of  Hecatieus,  by  Josephus,  in  the 
case  of  a  man  who  put  to  shame  the  pretensions  of  a 
soothsayer,  by  shooting  with  his  arrow  the  bird,  on 
which  the  soothsayer  was  beginning  to  announce  his 
auguries  respecting  the  good  or  ill  fortune  of  the  journey 
which  the  Jew  and  his  party  were  pursuing.  "  How," 


DIVOKCK 


4.")  I) 


DIVORCE 


said  the  sagacious  Jew.  "could  that  poor  wretched 
creature  pretend  to  foreshow  us  our  fortune,  that  knew 
nothing  of  its  own?  If  it  could  have  foretold  good  or 
evil  to  come,  it  would  not  have  come:  to  this  place,  hut 
would  have  been  afraid  lest  Mosallam  the  Jew  would 
shoot  at  it  and  kill  it "  (Out.  Ap.  i.  ^). 

We  cannot  wonder  at  the  stringent  laws  enacted  in 
Scripture  against  divination,  and  its  repudiation  in 
every  form.  In  its  vei-v  nature  it  implies  distrust  in 
the  providence  of  God.  and  a  desire  to  obtain  know 
ledge  unsuited  to  one's  circumstances  in  life— know 
ledge,  which  might  partly  enable  some  to  get  undue 
advantages  over  others,  and  partly  divert  the  move 
ments  of  Providence  out  of  their  proper  channels. 
Such  knowledge  is  wisely  withheld;  it  cannot  be  ob 
tained  by  legitimate  means:  and,  as  a  necessary  cnnse 
quence,  the  attempt  to  impart  it  must  always  proceed 
on  false  grounds;  it  is  a  pretension  based  on  hypocrisy 
and  deceit.  Diviners,  therefore,  is  but  another  word 
for  deceivers;  and  dupes  of  fraud  and  imposture  must 
be  all  who  listen  to  their  divinations.  Hence  the  art 
so  readily  allied  itself  to  idolatry;  rejected  by  the  true 
religion,  it  became  a  fitting  accompaniment  ami  hand 
maid  of  the  faKe  ;  and  lias  ever  shown  the  same  ten 
dency  to  hang  on  the  progress  of  a  corrupt  Christianity. 
that  it  did  to  associate  itself  with  the  corruptions  of 
Judaism. 

DIVORCE.  I'.y  this  is  understood  a  legal  separa 
tion  between  man  and  wife,  by  menus  of  a  formal  pro 
cess  of  some  sort,  on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  The 
subject  is  very  hrieflv  treated  in  Scripture  <beinir  then 
regarded  as  an  abnormal  thing,  a  deviation  from  recti 
tude,  which  should  have  no  place  among  those  who 
know  (lod);  but  the  treatment  being  somewhat  diverse 
in  the  New  as  compared  with  the  Old  Testament  scrip 
tures,  has  given  rise  to  some-  difference  of  opinion 
among  commentators,  and  even  to  charges  of  incon- 
sistence  in  respect  to  the  pure  morality  of  the  Bible. 
Down  to  the  period  of  the  .Mosaic  legislation  there  is 
no  authoritative  prescription  on  the  married  relation 
beyond  that  connected  with  its  original  institution,  in 
which  there  was  the  distinct  recognition  of  one  man 
and  one  woman,  as  constituting  the  parties  proper  to  be 
united  together,  and  then  the  enunciation  of  the  great 
principle,  that  by  the  union  they  became,  out  of  two 
persons,  one  flesh,  one  complex  humanity ;  so  that,  in 
order  to  its  establishment,  a  man  should  need  to  leave 
father  and  mother,  and  cleave  to  his  wife.  Go.  ii.  24.  As 
the  sacred  history  proceeds  it  notes  occasional  devia 
tions  from  this  divinely  established  order,  and  obviously 
with  the  view  of  marking  them  as  improper  deviations, 
which  could  not  fail  to  bring  along  with  them,  as  a 
just  rebuke  from  Heaven,  various  social  and  domestic 

evils,    Gc.  iv.  IO-L'4:  xvi..'(;  xvii.  1-21;  xxvi.  :S4;  xxix.  24,  «c.,  but  it 

was  simply  in  the  way  of  adding  (on  the  part  of  the 
husband)  fresh  matrimonial  connections  to  the  primary 
and  proper  one.  not  by  repudiating  such  as  already 
existed.  It  was  impossible,  however,  long  to  keep  the 
one  form  of  evil  apart  from  the  other  ;  the  matrimonial 
bond  was  necessarily  weakened  by  polygamy,  which, 
in  proportion  as  it  prevailed,  obscured  the  fundamental 
principle  of  marriage  constituting  two  of  different  sexes 
into  one  flesh,  and  gave  to  the  female  member  the 
aspect,  not  of  the  other  half,  or  converse  side  of  the 
male,  but  of  his  property,  which  he  might  multiply  at 
his  pleasure  or  convenience,  or  again  diminish.  In 
such  a  state  of  things  the  relation  of  the  wife  naturally 


sunk  very  much  to  the  position  of  a  concubine,  and 
according  to  the  facility  practised  in  forming  the  con 
nection  a  like  facility  in  dissolving  it  was  sure  to  creep 
in.  Hence,  in  the  only  part  of  the  Mosaic  legislation 
which  distinctly  refers  to  the  subject  of  divorce,  it  is 
plainly  enough  implied  that  the  practice  was  already 
a  prevailing  one,  such  as  might  confidently  be  expected 
to  arise  among  the  covenant- people,  and  could  only  be 
restrained  within  certain  limits,  but  could  not  be 
totally  pi-evented.  The  lawgiver  might  do  something 
to  check  an  extreme  license  or  arbitrary  freakishness 
in  the  matter;  he  could  not  venture  on  altogether 
cancelling  the  supposed  right.  The  prescription  is  as 
follows  :  "  "When  a  man  hath  taken  a  wife,  and  married 
her.  and  it  come  to  pass,  that  she  find  no  favour  in  his 
eves,  because  he  hath  found  some  uncleanness  in  her 
(literally,  a  matter  of  nakedness);  then  let  him  write 
her  a  bill  of  divorcement  (literally,  a  deed  of  cutting 
off  or  separation),  and  give  it  in  her  hand,  and  send 
her  out  of  his  house.  And  when  she  is  departed  out 
of  his  house,  she  may  go  and  be  another  man's  [wife]. 
And  if  the  latter  husband  hate  her.  and  write  her  a 
bill  of  divorcement,  and  giveth  it  in  her  hand,  and 
sendeth  her  out  of  his  house:  or  if  the  latter  husband 
die.  which  took  her  to  be  his  wife,  her  former  husband, 
which  sent  her  away,  may  not  take  her  again  to  be  hi- 
wife.  after  that  she  is  defiled;  for  that  is  abomination 
before  the  Lord  :  and  thou  shalt  not  eause  the  land  to 
sin.  which  the  Lord  thy  Ood  giveth  thee  for  an  in 
heritance,''  De.  xxiv.  1-1. 

This  piece  of  ancient  legislation,  which  probably  was 
found  definite  enough  at  the  time,  has  proved  some 
what  ambiguous,  as  regards  the  proper  grounds  of 
divorce,  from  the  different  meanings  that  have  come  to 
be  attached  to  the  phrase  "  found  some  uncleanness  in 
her*'  —  strictly,  matter  of  nakedness  or  shame.  In 
later  times,  it  is  well  known,  two  very  different  inter 
pretations  among  the  Jews  prevailed  regarding  it— a 
more  stringent  one  maintained  by  the  school  of  Sham- 
mai.  and  one  of  great  laxity  patronized  by  the  school 
of  Hillel.  The  former  held  the  uncleanness  meant  in 
the  law  to  be  that  simply  of  adultery;  and  many,  not 
formally  belonging  to  the  school  of  Shammai,  allowed 
this  in  regard  to  a  first  wife,  but  not  in  regard  to  those 
which  a  man  might  take  over  and  above.  Indeed,  the 
views  of  such  were  founded  less  upon  the  passage  in 
Deuteronomy,  than  upon  what  is  said  in  Mai.  ii.  1  ft 
respecting  the  wife  of  one's  youth,  by  which  they 
understood  the  first  wife.  But  the  school  of  Hillel 
allowed  the  slightest  occasions  of  offence  to  come  within 
.  the  scope  of  the  law  of  divorce.  They  even  said.  "If 
I  the  wife  cook  her  husband's  food  badly  by  over-salting 
or  over-roasting  it.  she  is  to  be  put  away."  Yea.  "If 
'  by  any  stroke  from  the  hand  of  (lod  she  become  dumb 
or  sottish."  &C.  (Lightfoot  and  Witstoin  at  M;it.  v.  ,'ii').  Both 
schools,  apparently,  went  to  an  extreme  in  opposite 
directions  respecting  the  real  import  of  the  expression 
of  Moses.  That  more  than  unfaithfulness  to  the  mar 
riage-vow  must  have  been  comprehended  in  the  matter 
I  of  nakedness  or  shame,  which  a  man  might  find  in  his 
wife,  is  evident  from  what  our  Lord  said  concerning  it. 
!  when,  being  interrogated  by  the  Pharisees  upon  the 
subject,  he  admitted  that  a  certain  liberty  of  divorce 
was  granted  by  Moses  on  account  of  the  hardness  of 
the  people's  hearts  —  a  liberty,  therefore,  extending 
I  beyond  occasions  of  actual  infidelity,  because  this  was 
sanctioned  bv  our  Lord  himself  as  a  legitimate  ground 


DIVORCE 


DIVORCE 


of  divorce,  Mat.  xix.  8,  :>.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to 
understand  by  the  phrase  in  question  something  beside 
actual  adultery — something  perhaps  tending  in  that 
direction,  something  fitted  to  raise  not  unreasonable 
jealousy  or  disgust  in  the  mind  of  the  husband,  and  de 
stroy  the  prospect  of  true  conjugal  a!  lection  and  har 
mony  between  him  and  his  wife.  (Still,  a  good  deal 
was  left  to  the  discretion,  and  it  might  be  the  foolish 
caprice,  of  the  husband ;  and  so  far  from  justifying  it, 
on  abstract  principles  of  rectitude,  our  Lord  rather 
admitted  its  imperfection,  and  threw  upon  the  defective 
moral  condition  of  the  people  the  blame  of  a  legislation 
so  unsatisfactory  in  itself,  and  so  evidently  liable  to 
abuse.  Cut  was  not  this  to  bend  the  moral  to  the 
merely  conventional ?  Was  it  n»t  to  make  the  prescrip- 
tioiis  of  God's  will  dependent,  in  a  measure,  on  the  state 
and  inclinations  of  men.'  ('an  we  justlv  sav.  that  lie. 
who  conceded  such  an  accommodation  to  the  will  of 
man,  was  guided  by  the  inspiration  <>f  Heaven  f 

In  reply  to  such  questions,  it  should,  in  the  first  in 
stance,  be  borne  in  mind  what  precis* -lv  was  the  point 
at  issue.  ]t  was  not,  as  the  Pharisees  put  it  to  our 
Lord,  whether  they  ],;l,l  by  the  law  of  Moses  a  right 
or  liberty  to  give  at  pleasure  a  bill  of  divorce,  and  put 
away  a  wife.  It  was  a  tolerance,  rather  than  a  right. 
Moses  did  not  command,  he  meivlv  sull'ercd  them  (as 
Jesus  said)  to  put  away  their  wives:  and  commanded, 
if  they  did  so,  that  they  should  give  a  regularly  executed 
deed  of  separation  :  he  interposed  this  obstacle  against 
the  impetuosity  <>f  temper,  or  the  lawlessness  of  capri 
cious  feeling  in  the  matter  only  lie  carried  it  no 
further;  for  all  besides  he  threw  the.  responsibility  on 
the  parties  immediately  concerned.  It  is  clear,  how 
ever,  that  the  enforced  writing  of  a  bill  of  divorce  was 
of  the  nature  of  an  obstacle  interposed.  It  obliged  the 
man  to  u'o  somewhat  leisurely  about  the  bu-iness  ;  to 
bring  his  procedure  into  the  court  of  reason,  if  not  of 
conscience;  to  make  others  cognizant  of  his  intentions, 
and  of  the  grounds  on  which  he  \\a-  prm  ceding:  and  to 
take  his  fellowmen  to  witness  in  roped  to  the  course 
lit;  had  deemed  it  proper  to  adopt.  So  far  as  it  went, 
this  was  plainly  a  judicial  restraint  in  the  riuht  .direc 
tion,  and  could  scarcely  fail  to  work  upon  thoughtful 
minds  an  impression  of  the  sol'-mnitv  of  the  marriauv- 
relationship,  and  a  conviction  that  onlv  grave  faults 
should  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  its  claims.  That 
the  matter  was  not  carried  further  arose  from  the  pro 
visional  nature  of  the  old  dispensation,  and  the  lower 
level,  as  to  spiritual  attainments,  on  which  its  members 
stood,  as  compared  with  gospel  times.  A  greater  decree 
of  stringency  in  the  legal  code  might  but  have  led  to 
an  aggravation  of  the  evil,  especially  to  harsher  treat 
ment  of  the  female  sex — to  looser  behaviour  with  them 
as  unmarried,  or  when  married,  to  the  infliction  of 
more  frequent  acts  of  violence  to  get  rid  of  them.  So 
that  the  limited  restriction"  imposed  by  the  law,  and 
the  consequently  defective  morale  it  tolerated,  virtually 
resolves  itself  into  the  larger  question,  which  respects 
the  imperfect  nature  generally  of  the  old  economy. 
Being  confessedly  of  such  a  nature,  the  discipline  sanc 
tioned  and  enforced  by  law  necessarily  corresponded  in 
character.  Both  were  marred  with  imperfections  when 
brought  into  comparison  with  the  higher  order  of  tilings 
introduced  by  the  gospel  ;  as  this  again,  doubtless, 
bears  in  many  respects  imperfections  in  form,  and 
faults  in  administration,  which  shall  have  no  place  in 
the  future  kingdom  of  glory.  But  that  no  one  in  former 

VOL.  I. 


times  might  think  himself  entitled  to  take  advantage 
of  what  appeared  legally  imperfect  in  the  prescriptions 
laid  down  respecting  the  marriage  relationship,  the 
proper  ideal  was  set  up  before  all  in  the  record  of  its 
original  institution.  They  saw  there,  if  they  had  but  a 
mind  to  look  for  it,  what  God  from  the  lirst  designed 
and  aimed  at  by  the  institution;  and  were  distinctly 
taught  to  regard  everything  at  variance  with  the  life- 
union  of  a  married  pair,  as  a  declension  from  the  ri-ht 
path,  a  violation  of  the  happy  order  and  constitution 
appointed  by  God.  Thus,  properly  considered,  the  dif 
ference  between  the  old  and  the  new  here  is  substantially 
what  it  is  in  other  tilings  — a  difference  in  decree  onlv. 
not  in  kind.  Both  pointed  attention  to  one  and  the 
same  standard  of  matrimonial  unity,  as  the  beau-ideal 
that  should  be  maintained  ;  the  superiority  on  the  part 
of  the  gospel  merely  consist  sin  pressing  a  dost  r  practical 
conformity  to  the  standard,  and.  as  a  matter  of  course, 
disowning  all  grounds  of  divorce  but  such  as  involve  an 
actual  violation  of  the  marriage- vow. 

The  L'omish  church  has  sought  to  carrv  the  n 
sta-v  further  on  the  side  of  Christianity.  Coiivcrtin;;1 
the  marriage- ceremony,  as  celebrated  between  baptizid 
parties,  into  a  sacrament  of  the  church,  it  .-tamps  the 
union  thereby  formed  as  indissoluble,  even  after  the 
proved  adultery  of  one  of  the  parties — unless  severed 
by  special  dispensation  through  the  proper  ecclesiastical 
authorities.  This  is  an  apparent  rigour,  which  is  well 
kiio\\n  to  have  led.  in  practice,  to  the  un  atest  laxit  v, 
and  to  a  disgraceful  prostitution  of  the  authority  of  the 
church  in  the  interest  of  the  rich  and  powerful.  As 
regards  scriptural  grounds,  it  rests  chiefly  on  the  diirnitv 
attributed  t<>  (  hristian  marriage  as  being  an  emblem  of 
the  union — the  perpetual  union  hetueen  (. 'hri.-t  and 
his  church.  KI>  v.  23-32,  and  on  the  omission  of  any  excep 
tion,  even  of  fornication,  as  a  valid  ground  for  the  dis 
solution  of  the  union,  in  the  report  Lri\cn  of  our  Lord's 
words  in  Mar.  x.  ;V-lli;  where  it  is  simply  stated,  in 
explanation  of  the  original  design  of  marriage  as  insti 
tuted  at  the  beginning,  that  the  parties  are  no  more 
twain,  but  one  flesh,  an;  not  to  be  put  asunder  by  man, 
since-  they  have  been  joined  by  God,  and  that  \\hoso- 
e\  er  puts  away  his  wife  and  marries  another  commits 
adultery  against  her.  In  such  passages,  however,  there 
is  nothing  to  ju.-tify  the  views  of  the  lloinanist-.  The 
passages  make  no  distinction  between  marriage  as  cele 
brated  between  parties  within,  and  parties  without,  the 
p:de  of  the  (  hri-tian  church  :  it  is  uniformly  treated  in 
Scripture  as  an  ordinance  of  a  natural  kind,  instituted 
not  only  before  the  existence  of  the  (hristian  church, 
but  before  the  introduction  either  of  sin  or  of  grace  into 
the  world  ;  and  what  it  is  declared  to  be  for  the  (.'hris 
tian  is  expressly  based  on  what  it  was  for  primeval 
man.  The  union  it  establishes  should  indeed  be  held 
indissoluble  for  life  by  the  contracting  parties — on  ( lod's 
part  it  is  meant  to  be  so  ;  but  as  facts  are  stronger  than 
words,  practice  more  than  profession,  so  the  adulterous 
connection  of  either  with  a  third  party  must  be  taken 
for  a  virtual  dissolution  of  the  marriage-bond — a  matter- 
of-fact  separation  from  the  proper  spouse  by  becoming 
one  flesh  with  another.  So  the  matter  is  distinctly  ex 
plained  by  the  apostle,  i  Co.  vi.  ir>,  io;  and  once  and  again 
our  Lord,  in  delivering  his  mind  upon  the  subject,  ex 
pressly  allows  adultery  in  either  of  the  parties  to  be  a 
valid  ground  of  divorce,  Mat.  v.  "2;  xix.  t).  To  understand 
by  this  divorce  separation  merely  from  bed  and  board, 
is  entirely  arbitrary  ;  a  separation  of  that  sort  was  quite 

58 


I/J.S 


unknown  alike  to  . I  (.-wish  law  and  practice.  The  omis 
sion  of  the  exception  in  question  in  Mar.  x.  ii-1'2,  as  also 
inLu.  xvi.  IS.  is  to  be  explained  from  the  obviously  abbre 
viated  form  of  the  .statements  there  made,  coupled  with 
the  consideration,  that  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
marriage  union  it  might  lie  understood  of  itself,  that 
an  adulterous  connection  was  a  virtual  rending  of  it 
asunder.  The  spouse  who  voluntarily  becomes  one 
flesh  with  a  third  party  cannot,  in  any  proper  sense, 
remain  one  flesh  with  the  party  espoused  in  the  con 
jugal  bond  ;  and  in  reason  as  well  as  law,  it  must  bo 
competent  for  the  one  who  has  been  renounced  and  in 
jured  by  the  sinful  act  to  take  whatever  steps  ma}'  be 
needed  for  the  formal  dissolution  of  the  union,  t'om- 
pc/(  tit,  yet  not  necessary  ;  for  the  execution  of  a  divorce 
in  the  circumstances  supposed  is  conceded  by  our  Lord 
as  a  right,  but  by  no  means  enjoined  as  a  duty.  In 
many  cases  the  right  may,  and  perhaps  ought  to,  be 
waived. 

DODA'NIM  are  mentioned  as  the  descendants  of 
the  fourth  son  of  Javan,  Ce.  x.  4.  Their  future  settle 
ment  has  not  been  definitely  ascertained.  As  the 
letters  d  and  ?•  were  frequently  interchanged,  traces 
of  the  name  have  been  supposed  by  some  to  be  found  in 
the  river  Rhodanus;  by  some  again  in  Rhodes;  and  some 
also  have  thought  of  Dodona  in  Epirus.  There  is  no 
certainty;  but  the  probability  is  that  the  tribe  took  a 
western  direction,  and  formed  part  of  the  stock  out  of 
which  the  Greek  races  sprung. 

DO'DO  [belonrjinr/  to  lore  or  friendship}.  1.  A  man 
of  Bethlehem,  father  of  one  of  David's  thirty  captains. 
2.  Another,  called  Dodo  the  Ahohite,  father  of  Elea- 
zar,  who  was  the  second  of  three  mighty  men  of  David, 
2Sa.  xxiii.  n,  it.  3.  A  man  of  Issachar,  and  forefather  of 
Tola  the  judge,  Ju.  x.  i. 

DO'EG  [fearful],  an  Edomite  herdsman  of  Saul,  who 
has  acquired  a  bad  notoriety  from  the  part  he  acted  in 
respect  to  Ahimelech  and  the  priests  of  Nob.  When 
David  in  his  hasty  escape  from  Saul  presented  himself 
there,  and  obtained  from  Ahimelech,  under  false  pre 
tences,  the  showbread  and  Goliath's  sword,  Doeg  was 
present — "  detained,"  it  is  said,  "before  the  Lord/'  1  isa. 
xxi  7.  The  expression  is  peculiar,  and  it  is  matter  of 
doubt  what  sort  of  detention  it  might  be  that  kept 
such  a  man  there.  The  word  properly  means  shut  >//> 
or  hindered,  but  as  there  could  be  nothing  like  forcible 
restraint  or  imprisonment  at  such  a  place  as  the  taber 
nacle,  the  expression  must  be  understood  in  the  milder 
sense  of  detained,  on  account  of  some  vow  or  religious 
service  he  had  to  perform.  Having  seen,  while  thus 
detained,  the  reception  which  David  met  with  from 
Ahimelech.  he  was  able,  and  apparently  as  willing  as 
able,  to  minister  to  the  morbid  jealousy  of  Saul,  by 
giving  information  of  the  circumstances.  And  when 
Saul,  acting  upon  this  specific  information,  charged 
Ahimelech  and  the  priests  of  Nob  with  being  accom 
plices  in  David's  rebellion,  and  ordered  their  summary 
execution,  while  the  members  of  his  body-guard  with  a 
feeling  of  sacred  awe  shrunk  from  putting  the  horrible 
decree  in  force,  Doeg  with  heart}1  good- will  supplied 
their  lack  of  service.  At  Saul's  order,  "he  turned  and 
fell  upon  the  priests,  and  slew  on  that  day  fourscore 
and  five  persons  that  did  wear  a  linen  ephod."  That 
he  was  known  to  be  quite  capable  of  such  truculent 
service  to  his  master,  is  evident  from  the  exclamation 
of  David,  when  he  heard  of  what  had  taken  place,  ' '  I 
knew  it,"  said  he,  "  that  day,  when  Doec;  the  Edomite 


was  there."'  The  stress  laid  each  time  that  his  name  is 
mentioned  on  his  being  an  Edomite,  shows  that  he  was 
regarded  as  still  retaining  the  Edomite  spirit  of  envious 
and  bitter  spite,  even  though  he  outwardly  conformed 
to  the  customs  and  service  of  Israel.  There  is  no  reason, 
however,  for  supposing  that  he  took  generally  an  active 
part  in  the  persecution  against  David,  or  held  more 
than  a  subordinate  place  in  the  reign  of  Saul.  And 
I'salm  lii.,  which  was  composed  by  David  in  reference 
to  the  occasion  of  Doeg's  informing  Saul  of  what  hap 
pened  at  Nob,  must  be  understood  as  speaking  of  Saul 
rather  than  Doeg,  under  the  mighty  hero  who  devised 
mischief,  loved  lies,  arid  strengthened  himself  in  his 
wickedness.  Saul  was  the  real  prompter  of  the  evil, 
and  it  is  of  him  especially  the  psalmist  thinks  when 
thus  writing.  Although  he  doubtless  regarded  Doeg 
as  the  fitting  accomplice  of  such  a  man,  it  still  was 
Saul's  spirit  and  Saul's  cause  which  were  chiefly  char 
acterized  and  denounced. 

DOG  (3^2,   l-clc'i).     Frequent  allusions  to  the.   dog 

occur  in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  from  which  we  gather 
that,  though  it  was  domesticated  in  very  early  times, 
and  employed,  as  now,  in  the  care  of  flocks,  Job  xxx.  1, 
and  as  the  guardian  of  the  house,  is.  h-i.  i<>,  n,  it  was 
generally  held  in  little  estimation,  its  uncleanness.  cla 
mour,  voracity,  and  blood-thirstiness,  being  the  points 
of  its  character  most  prominently  noticed,  so  that 
"dog"  became  a  term  of  contempt,  involving  an  in 
tensity  of  abhorrence  which  an  European  who  has  not 
travelled  can  scarcely  apprehend,  but  which  he  finds 
still  attached  to  it  with  unabated  force  in  the  East. 

The  condition  of  things  in  which  the  dog  was  the 
humble  friend  and  servant  of  man,  recognized  by  Job 
when  he  speaks  of  the  dogs  of  his  flock,  existed  in 
Egypt  at  a  period  coeval  with  or  anterior  to  the  exo 
dus.  We  still  see  depicted  on  the  monuments  nume 
rous  graphic  representations  of  dogs  of  various  breeds, 


Assyrian  Hunting  Dogs.— Assyrian  Sculpture.  Erit.  Mus. 

several  of  which  can  with  ease  be  identified  with  those 
of  present  times.  Some  of  these  are  hounds  similar  to 
our  harrier  or  fox-hound,  evidently  of  cultivated  breed 
and  high  blood;  and  these  are  repeatedly  depicted  as 
engaged  in  the  chase,  sometimes  pursuing  the  herds  of 
antelopes  and  other  game,  sometimes  led  in  leash,  as 
the  hunter  carries  home  his  quarry.  Grayhounds  were 
also  used  in  coursing,  of  form  much  purer  and  more 
resembling  our  own  than  those  which  are  now  used  for 
the  chase  in  Arabia  Petriea.  Besides  these  there  are 
several  races  of  curs,  and  one  curiously  like  our  turn 
spit,  with  very  short  legs. 

The  Israelites,  however,  appear  to  have  carried  little 
of  this  kindly  association  of  the  dog  with  man  into 
Canaan.  The  allusion  to  "  the  price  of  a  dog,"  De.  xxiii.  IP, 


45!) 


in  the  law  —  Solomon's  preference  of  a  living  dog  to  a 
dead  lion,  EC.  ix.  4  (this,  however,  may  mean,  not  that  the 
living  dog  is  more  valuable  to  man,  but  that  lie  is  better 
in  himself  and  for  himself  —  there  is  more  power  in  him, 
or  lie  is  better  ofi'J  —  and  the  prophet  Isaiah's  comparison 
of  the  vile  rulers  of  Israel  to  dumb  and  greedy  dogs, 
Is.  ivi.  10,  11  —  are  few  and  remote  examples  of  appreciation 
of  this  animal's  value.  The  esteem  in  which  it  was 
held  appears  to  have  been  much  the  same  as  that  which 
attaches  to  it  in  the  same  country  to  this  day.  The 
Moslems  do  use  dogs  in  hunting,  and  the  express  words 
of  Mahomet  permit  them  to  eat  without  scruple  the 
prey  which  the  hounds  have  killed,  provided  that  they 
had  not  devoured  any  portion  of  it  (sue  Kx.  xxii.  :n».  Tin- 
words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  to  the  Syrophenician  woman. 
and  her  answer,  Mat.  xv.  LID,  -j;,  certainly  implv  a  domes 
tication  and  domieiliation  of  dogs;  but  simple  toler 
ation  of  their  presence  is  all  that  can  lie  gathered.  The  v 
lived  on  what  they  could  i:et.  Among  tin/  Moors  of 
North  Africa  a  similar  position  of  the  dog  is  occasion- 
ally  seen.  They  ''grant  him,  indeed,  a  corner  of  their 
tent,  but  this  is  all;  they  never  caress  him,  never  tlirmc 
him  anything  tn  tut"  \l'uiix-i's  n.irbury,  i.  :;.">;;). 

For  the  most  part,  however,  the  do-;  is  ownerless  in 
1  1n-  Fast.  1  nhabiting  every  town  in  vast  numbers,  thcv 
constitute  a  separate  and  independent  conunnnitv, 
tolerating  man  and  tolerated  by  him  to  a  certain  ex 
tent,  but  ever  ready  to  assert  their  prescriptive  rights, 
and  to  ih  fend  them  in  concert;  living  in  the  street-, 
they  quarter  the  towns  among  themselves.  and  main 
tain  with  jealous  pertinacity  the  rights  of  residence. 
A  dog  intruding  into  a  street  to  which  lie  dors  not  be 
long,  except  for  the  purpose  of  joining  his  fellows  against 
a  common  enemy,  would  be  instantly  attaeked  and 
driven  back  by  the  united  force  of  the  do^s  whose  region 
he  had  invaded. 

As  these  street  don's  have  no  masters,  thev  are  com 
pelled  to  prowl  about  for  their  sustenance,  feeding  on 
carrion,  and  even  on  the  dead  bodies  from  the  burvinir- 
places.  Byron's  vivid  but  horrid  picture  of  the  do^s 
at  tin.'  siege  of  (  'orinth  is  drawn  from  the  life:  - 


The  fate  of.Tczebel  might  be  repeated  on  any  day 
beneath  the  walls  of  any  oriental  citv.  "They  found 
no  more  of  her  than  the  skull  and  the  feet,  and  the 
palms  of  her  hands.  And  he  said,  This  is  the  word  of 
the  Lord  which  he  spake  by  his  servant  Elijah  the 
Tishbite,  saying.  In  the  portion  of  Jezreel  shall  dogs 
eat  the  flesh  of  Jezebel."  \>  Ki.  ix.  ;!.">,  30.  Bruce  witnessed 
a  scene  somewhat  similar  to  this  at  (iondar.  "The 
bodies  of  those  killed  by  the  sword  were  hewn  to  pieces 
and  scattered  about  the  streets,  being  denied  burial.  T 
was  miserable,  and  almost  driven  to  despair,  at  seeing 
my  hunting  dogs,  twice  let  loose  by  the  carelessness  of 
my  servants,  bringing  into  the  courtyard  the  heads  and 
arms  of  slaughtered  men,  and  which  I  could  no  way 
prevent  but  by  the  destruction  of  the  dogs  themselves  " 
vTravels,  iv.  H). 

During  the  night,  which  is  the  season  of  their  activ 
ity,  the  dogs  howl  around  the  towns  and  in  the  streets 
in  the  most  dismal  manner.  This  hideous  noise  is 
generally  heard  with  aversion,  but  in  the  East  this 
feeling  amounts  to  positive  horror,  for,  common  as  it  is, 
it  is  popularly  believed  to  be  ominous  of  death.  In  the 


Parascha  Bo  it  is  written:  "Our  rabbins  of  blessed 
memory  have  said,  that  when  the  dogs  do  howl  then 
cometh  the  angel  of  death  into  the  city;  and  1  have 
seen  it  written  by  one  of  the  disciples  of  Rabbi  Judah 
the  just,  that  upon  a  time  a  dog  did  howl,  and  clapped 
his  tail  between  his  legs,  and  went  aside  for  fear  of  the 
angel  of  death;  but  somebody  coming  and  kicking  the 
dog  to  the  place  from  which  he  had  fled,  the  doy  pre 
sently  died."  What  part  the  kicking  mav  have  plaved 
in  the  dog's  death,  the  writer  does  not  seem  to  have 
inquired.  The  prevalence  of  the  animal  habit,  and 
the  revulsion  with  which  it  is  heard,  bring  to  remem 
brance  David's  words  when  the  assassins  of  Said  watched 
his  house  to  kill  him  —"Thev  return  at  evening:  they 
make  a  noise  like  a  dog,  and  go  round  about  the  city. 
Let  them  wander  up  and  down  for  meat,  and  grudge  if 
they  be  not  satisfied."  IV  lix  <•,  1 1,  ],'.. 


[203.]        Kastcrn  Street  e.r  ISa/aav  Dog.     Luborde'a  Syria. 

in  1  's.  \\ii..  in  which  "the  Spirit  of  Christ  which 
was  in"  David,  ''testified  beforehand  tin-  sufiei-in^s  of 
Christ  and  the  <_'lory  that  should  follow."  allusions  to 
the  ferocity  of  the  dog  occur.  "  For  dogs  have  com 
passed  me;"  "deliver  my  darling  from  the  power  of 
the  do-:."  vur.  in, '-'"•  A  passage  in  Denoji  will  illustrate 
this:  "  It  was  eleven  at  night  when  1  came  on  shore, 
and  I  was  half  a  league  from  my  quarters.  I  was 
obliged  to  ,_;o  through  a  city  taken  only  that  morning 
by  storm,  and  in  which  1  did  not  know  a  street.  No 
reward  could  induce  a  man  to  quit  his  boat  and  accom 
pany  me.  I  undertook  the  journey  alone,  and  went 
over  the  burying- ground  in  spite  of  the  HKUUX,  as  I  was 
best  acquainted  witli  this  mad.  At  the  first  habita 
tions  of  the  living  I  was  attacked  by  whole  troops  of 
furious  do^'s.  who  made  their  attacks  from  the  doors, 
from  the  streets,  and  the  roofs;  and  the  barkini;-  re 
sounded  from  house  to  house,  from  one  family  to  an 
other.  1  soon,  however,  observed  that  the  war  declared 
against  me  was  not  grounded  on  any  coalition,  for  as 
soon  as  I  had  quitted  the  territory  of  the  attackers  they 
were  driven  away  by  the  others,  who  received  me  on 
their  frontiers.  The  darkness  was  only  lightened  by 
the  stars,  and  by  the  constant  glimmer  of  the  nights  in 
this  climate.  Not  to  lose  this  advantage,  to  avoid  the 
barking  of  the  dogs,  and  to  take  a  road  which  I  knew 
could  not  lead  me  astray,  I  left  the  streets,  and  resolved 
to  go  along  the  beach;  but  walls  and  timber-yards, 
which  extended  to  the  sea,  blocked  up  the  way.  After 
having  waded  through  the  water  to  escape  from  the 
dogs,  and  climbed  over  the  walls  where  the  sea  was  too 
deej),  exhausted  by  anxiety  and  fatigue,  and  quite  wet, 
I  reached  one  of  our  sentinels  about  midnight,  in  the 
conviction  that  the  dog  is  the  most  dreadful  among  the 
Egyptian  plagues"  (Travels  in  Egypt,  32). 


4i»0 


Although,  by  the  Mosaic  law,  no  greater  degree  of 
urn-leanness  was  ascribed  to  the  dog  than  to  any  other 
animal  whose  flesh  might  not  be  eaten,  since  it  was 
not  expressed  by  name  at  all,  yet  conventionally  it 
seems,  conjointly  with  the  swine,  of  which  tin-  same 
may  be  predicated,  to  have  concentrated  in  itself  the 
sense  of  abomination  among  thc.Fe\vs.  The  camel,  the 
horse,  and  the  ass  were  ceremonially  unclean  in  the 
very  same  degree,  yet  no  revulsion  of  feeling  accom 
panied  the  presence  of  these  animals.  So  it  is  with  the 
Moslems  still.  The  touch  <  if  the  camel  and  of  the  IK  >rse 
involves  no  defilement,  but  so  hateful  is  the  contact  of 
the  dog  that  the  animals  have  become  perfectly  aware 
that  it  would  in  no  wise  be  tolerated.  "  They  know- 
that  they  are  not  to  come  in  contact  with  the  clothes 
of  persons  in  the  street,  and  the  careful  attention  with  \ 
which  they  avoid  doing  this,  even  in  the  most  crowded 
streets,  is  truly  admirable.  Through  this  mutual  j 
avoidance  the  defiling  contact  occurs  too  rarely  to  occa 
sion  much  annoyance  to  the  inhabitants  from  the  abound- 
in-'  presence  in  their  streets  of  animals  which  they  con 
sider  unclean"  (Kitto's  I'hys.  Hist.  Pales,  ccclvi.)  [['.  H.  G.] 

DOOR.     &(  -HOUSE. 

DOOR-KEEPER  is  once-  mentioned  in  our  English 
Bibles  as  an  humble  officer  connected  with  the  house 
of  God:  "  I  would  rather  be  a  door-keeper  in  the  house 
of  my  God,  than  dwell,  in  tents  of  wickedness,"  Ps. 
ixxxiv.  10.  Mr.  Roberts,  in  his  Oridttri/  Illustrations  <>f 
Scripture,  in  proof  that  this  could  not  be  the  correct 
meaning  of  the  original,  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that 
in  ancient  temples  the  door-keepers  usually  were  per 
sons  of  great  honour  and  dignity,  and  that  the  office 
could  not  convey  the  idea  of  that  humble  and  lowly 
attitude  which  the  psalmist  seemed  to  have  in  view. 
The  correct  translation  is  certainly  somewhat  different; 
it  is,  "  I  would  rather  lie  at  the  threshold  in  the  house 
of  my  God,''  rather  take  the  attitude  of  a  Lazarus  at  the 
door  of  the  rich  man — in  other  words,  occupy  the  meanest 
place  in  the  divine  kingdom,  than  have  a  dwelling  in 
the  tents  of  wickedness;  so  that  the  post  or  office  of 
door-keeper,  in  the  modern  sense,  does  not  strictly  come 
into  consideration  here. 

DOR  [habitation],  an  ancient  town  on  the  Mediter 
ranean,  one  of  the  royal  cities  of  the  ancient  Canaanites, 
Jos.  xi.  2,  and  a  part  of  the  heritage  assigned  to  Manasseh, 
Jos.  xvii.  11.  It  was  situated,  according  to  Jerome,  about 
nine  miles  to  the  north  of  Cte.sarea,  on  the  road  to  Tyre. 
Josephus  refers  to  it  under  the  name  Dora  (Ant.  xvii. 
i.  4).  A  place  still  exists  about  the  same  spot  bearing 
the  name  Tortura,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  modern 
representative  of  the  ancient  town.  It  is  a  poor  village, 
containing  about  four  or  five  hundred  inhabitants. 

DOR'CAS.     .S'ee  TABITHA. 

DO'THAN  \lir<j  v:iHs\,  Greek  Awflofyi,  the  name  of 
a  region  not  very  exactly  defined,  but  lying  some 
where  on  the  north  of  Samaria,  not  far  from  Shechem, 
and  in  the  line  of  the  caravan- track  from  Northern 
Syria  to  Egypt.  It  was  there  that  the  sons  of  Jacob 
were  depasturing  their  flocks  when  Joseph  was  sent  to 
visit  them;  and  the  well-pit,  into  which  he  was  put 
before  they  sold  him  to  the  Ishmaelites,  was  probably 
one  of  those  from  which  the  district  derived  its  name, 
Gc.  xxxvii.  17.  It  was  there  also,  at  a  much  later  time, 
that  the  Syrians  were  smitten  with  blindness  at  the  word 
of  Elisha.  2Ki.vi.  13. 

DOVE    (nj'v.  yonah;    wepiarepa).      Two   species   of 


Columba  find  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  Levitical  law 
— the  turtle-dove  (sec  TURTLE),  and  the  pigeon.  Both 
of  these  were  appointed  to  be  offered  in  the  burnt-offer 
ing,  Le.  i.  14,  the  trespass- offering,  vcv.  7,  and  the  sin- 
offering,  di.xii.  o,  &c.  These  (or  a  choice  of  them)  were 
the  alternative  permitted  to  those  worshippers  who 
weiv  so  poor  as  to  be  unable  to  present  a  more  costly 
sacrifice;  and  it  is  one  proof  of  the  humiliation  of  our 
adorable  Lord,  that  his  incarnation  was  in  circumstances 
of  poverty  so  great  that  his  mother,  unable  to  afford  a 
lamb  at  her  purification,  was  compelled  to  avail  herself 
of  this  substitute.  To  meet  the  constant  occurrence 
of  similar  cases,  the  flexible  righteousness  of  the  scribes 
— flexible  in  everything  in  which  the  honour  of  God 
and  not  their  own  was  concerned — had  permitted  the 
sellers  of  doves  to  hold  their  market  in  the  temple:  a 
profanation  which  educed  the  holy  indignation  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  and  his  consuming  zeal  for  his  Father';; 
house.  Jit.  ii.  13-ir. 

The  dove  is  the  divine  symbol  of  peace.  When  the 
waves  of  the  flood  had  thoroughly  done  their  work  of 
judgment  upon  sin,  the  dove  with  an  olive-leaf  plucked 
off  was  the  announcer  of  a  cleansed  world  and  a  new 
dispensation,  Gu.  viii.  n;  and  when  the  waters  of  Jordan. 
had  flowed  over  Israel  confessing  sin.  and  over  Jesus. 
the  Holy  Ghost  descending  upon  him  in  bodily  shape 
like  a  dove,  and  abiding  upon  him,  Lu.  iii.  22,  was  the 
sign  of  God's  satisfaction  in  the  work  of  his  beloved 
Son,  who  was  come  to  be  our  peace,  putting  away  sin 

!  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself. 

It  is  observable  that,  like  as  the  lamb,  which  repre- 

1  sents  the  Lord  Jesus,  is  endowed  with  what  may  be 

I  termed  moral  qualities,  as  meekness,  harmlessness,  and 
spotlessness,  which  fit  it  to  be  a  symbol  of  him  who  was 
''meek  and  lowly,"  "holy,  harmless,  undefiled,  and 
separate  from  sinners,"  so  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  is  the 
Spirit  of  grace  and  the  comforter,  is  represented  by  a 
bird  of  remarkable  gentleness,  tenderness,  purity,  and 

!  love.  The  dove  is  the  frequent  and  favourite  emblem 
of  the  bride  in  the  Song  of  Songs,  and  the  praise. 
"Thou  hast  dove's  eyes,"  will  be  appreciated  by  every 
one  who  has  marked  the  gentle  expression,  the  soft. 

I  full,  liquid  beauty  of  the  eye  of  the  dove.  Tin;  voice 
of  the  dove  has  a  tender,  mournful  cadence— which, 
heard  in  solitude  and  sadness,  cannot  fail  to  be  heard 

I  with  sympathy — as  if  it  were  the  expression  of  real 
sorrow.  "  We  mourn  sore  like  doves."  is.  lix.  11;  E/e. 
vii.  1C;  Na.  ii.  7. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  particular  species  so  often 
mentioned  under  the  title  of  dove  or  pigeon  is  the  one 
which  is  known  to  us  by  the  same  appellations,  the 
rock-dove  (Co/iimbu  iivla).  It  is  recognized  both  in  its 
wild  and  domesticated  state.  The  bride,  in  the  Song 
of  Songs,  ch.  ii.  14,  is  addressed  as,  "  My  dove,  that  art 
in  the  clefts  of  the  rock;"  and  the  prophet  Jeremiah 
exhorts  the  dwellers  in  Moab  to  "dwell  in  the  rock, 
like  the  dove  that  maketh  her  nest  in  the  sides  of  the 
hole's  mouth,"  ch.  xlviii.  28.  These  are  the  habits  of  the 
wild  dove,  which  is  found  nestling  in  the  clefts  and 
holes  of  the  inaccessible  seaward  precipices  that  gird 
our  islands.  In  the  rocks  and  promontories  of  the 
west  of  England  and  Wales,  of  the  Hebrides,  of  the 
Orkneys  and  Shetlands,  this  pretty  dove  is  numer 
ous,  breeding  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  and  in  the 
i  sides  of  the  caverns  the  mouths  of  which  are  open  to 
the  sea.  In  the  east  of  the  Mediterranean,  wherever 
the  coast  is  rocky,  the  rock- dove  abounds,  and  mani- 


DOVE 


401 


DOVE 


fests  the  same  habits;  as  also  in  the  isles  of  Greece,  the 
cliffs  of  the  Tyrian  coast,  the  bold  headland  of  Carmel. 
and  the  abrupt  precipices,  hollowed  in  a  thousand  caves, 
that  stretch  on  either  side  of  Joppa. 

But   from  immemorial   and  pre-historical  antiquity 


1 20-1.  ]        Dove— CoZwm!/<t  Z<Yi<i.--<;oul<r.s  I!ird 

the  dove  has  been  maintained  by  the  orientals  in  the 
domesticated  condition,  and  ha-;  been  used  f,,r  the  con 
veyance  of  letters,  the  sender  taking  advantage  of  tlie 
known  habit  of  the  bird  to  fly  in  a  direct  line  to  its 
home  from  incredible  distances,  and  with  u'lvat  rapidity. 
It  is  tin  record  that  a  curner-piLreon  will  carry  a  letter 
from  r.abyloii  to  Aleppo,  an  ordinary  thirty  days'  jour 
ney,  in  forty-eight  hours.  In  Europe  it  has  been  known 
to  accomplish  a  flight  of  .'luO  miles  in  little  more  than 
two  hours.  "The  carrier-bird-  are  represented  in 
Egyptian  bas-reliefs,  where  priests  are  shown  letting 
them  fly  on  a  message." 

The  prophet  Isaiah  alludes  to  the  numbers  and  rapid 
flight  of  these  birds  to  their  cotes,  in  describing  tlie 
final  restoration  of  Israel  after  their  long  exile:  "Who  ! 
are  these  that  fly  as  a  cloud,  and  as  the  doves  to  their 
windows?'1  ch.  Ix.  8.  Morier  illustrates  this  comparison 
from  what  he  observed  in  Persia.  "  In  the  environs  of 
the  city,  t'>  the  westward,  ne.tr  the  Xainderood.  are 
many  pigeon-houses,  erected  at  a  distance  from  habita 
tions,  for  the  soli.'  purpose  of  collecting  pigeons'  dung  ' 
formanure.  They  are  long  round  towers,  rather  broader 
at  the  bottom  than  the-  top.  and  crowned  by  cunical 
spiracles,  through  which  the  pigeons  descend.  Their 
interior  resembles  a  honey-comb,  pierced  with  a  thou 
sand  holes,  each  of  which  forms  a  snug  retreat  for  a 
nest.  iMoro  care  appears  to  have  been  bestowed  upon 
their  outside  than  upon  that  of  the  generality  of  the 
dwelling-houses,  for  they  are  pointed  and  ornamented. 
The  extraordinary  flights  of  pigeons  which  I  have  seen 
alight  upon  one  of  these  buildings  afford,  perhaps,  a 
good  illustration  of  that  passage  in  Is.  Ix.  8.  Their 
great  numbers,  and  the  compactness  of  their  mass, 
literally  look  like  a  cloud  at  a  distance,  and  obscure  ' 
the  sun  in  their  passage''  (Seo.oad  Journey  through  Persia,  140).  | 

DOVE'S  DUNG,  occurring  in  2  Ki.  vi.  2,  has  caused 
some  trouble  to  commentators.  The  intensity  of  the 
famine  during  the  siege  of  Samaria  by  Benhadad  is 
thus  described — "Behold,  they  besieged  it  until  an 
ass's  head  was  sold  for  fourscore  pieces  of  silver, 
and  the  fourth  part  of  a  cab  of  doves'  dttny  for  five 
pieces  of  silver."  Two  or  three  interpretations  are 
given  of  the  phrase.  Some  have  supposed  that  the 
actual  excrement  of  the  bird  was  eaten,  or  that  it  was 
used  for  fuel,  or  that  salt  was  extracted  from  it.  The 


latter  two  suppositions  are  irrelevant  to  the  famine;  the 
first  is  simply  absurd.  Others,  receiving,  with  the  rab 
binical  writers,  the  same  sense  of  the  word,  explain  it 
by  the  value  set  upon  this  substance  as  manure.  Thus, 
Porter  and  Morier  both  assure  us  it  is  used  in  Persia. 
According  to  the  latter,  "  the  dung  of  pigeons  is  the 
dearest  manure  that  the  Persians  use;  and  as  they 
apply  it  almost  entirely  for  the  rearing  of  melons,  it  is 
probably  on  that  account  that  the  melons  of  Ispahan 
are  so  much  finer  than  those  of  other  cities.  The  revenue 
of  a  pigeon-house  is  about  a  hundred  tomauns  pel- 
annum"  (Second Journey,  141.)  Porter  says  "tiro  hundred 
tomauns  "  (Travels,  i.  4.11.) 

Now.  though  the  orientals  consume  an  enormous 
quantity  of  these  fruits,  the  doves'  dung  in  the  text 
could  hardly  have  been  used  thus.  The  want  of  food 
was  imminent,  and  we  cannot  conceive  either  of  doves 
being  still  kept  in  the  city  to  yield  manure  (for  surely 
if  they  were  there,  they  would  have  been  themselves 
eaten),  or  of  people  coolly  setting  to  work  to  cultivate 
melons,  as  if  they  had  plenty  of  time  before  them. 

Another  supposition  has  been  that  the  craw  of  the 
pigeon,  filled  with  macerated  and  partly  digested  grain 
or  pulse,  is  intended.  This  is  plausible:  for  the  birds 
might  easily  have  flown  over  the  investing  army,  and 
fed  daily  in  the  country  beyond,  returning  to  their 
homes  in  the  besieged  city,  But  the  same  objection 
lies  against  this  supposition.  "Whatever  tame  pigeons 
had  been  in  the  city,  must  have  been  killed  lonu'  before 
the  famine  r<  ached  its  utmost  extremity:  nor  would 
any  fortunate  possessor  of  such  birds  have  allowed  them 
to  fly  at  liberty  through  a  starving  garrison.  .Moivo\(  r. 


as  the  quantity  mentioned  was  an  English  pint  (the  cab 
being  about  half  a  gallon),  a  number  of  doves  must 
have  been  killed  to  furnish  this  amount  of  half-digested 
food,  which  would  imply  plenty  rather  than  scarcity. 
Whence  came  the  doves  '  This  interpretation,  there 
fore,  is  manifestly  untenable. 

It  has,  however,  been  shown  from  certain  ancient  au 
thorities,  that  there  was  some  inferior  kind  of  grain  or 
pulse,  called,  perhaps  in  contempt,  or  perhaps  from  some 
fancied  resemblance  in  form  or  colour,  "doves'  dung." 
Bochart  identifies  this  with  the  seeds  of  the  chick-vetch, 
great  quantities  of  which  are  dried,  parched,  and  stored 
in  magazines  at  Cairo  and  Damascus,  for  use  on  long 
journeys.  If  this  is  correct,  we  may  well  understand 
how  secret  stores  of  this  poor  grain  may  have  been 


turned  to  advantage  in  the  famine.  Limueus,  and 
Sprengel  following'  him,  have  idontitied  the  <Ji'nitl«xjn- 
ftii/i  umbellatum,  or  common  star- of- Bethlehem,  as  the 
doves'  dung  of  Scripture.  The  latter  says — "  Among 
the  Hebrews  there  was  a  ]ilant  called  doves'  dung  on 
account  of  the  colour  of  the  flowers — white  mixed  with 
greenish,  a  mixture  which  is  observed  in  the  dung  of 
many  herbivorous  birds.  For  this  is  the  Ornithoyaium 
uniljtllatii.iii  which  occurs  throughout  the  East,  and  has 
eatable  bulbs,  though  they  are  sought  for  only  by  the 
poor"  (In  Diuseor.  ii.  171).  1  f  it  be  objected  that  the  be 
sieged  could  not  get  out  into  the  fields  to  search  for 
these  roots,  we  might  remind  the  objector  that  in  many 
oriental  cities  there  is  a  large  portion  of  the  land  not 
built  upon,  sometimes  amounting  to  one-fourth,  or  even 
one-third  of  the  entire  area  inclosed,  but  forming  fields 
and  gardens.  In  these  spots,  in  the  angles  of  the 
walls  and  under  the  fences,  a  supply  of  such  roots  might 
still  reward  the  unwearied  search  of  a  starving  popu 
lation. 

The  name  of  the  prophet  Jonah  is  identical  with  that 
of  the  dove.  \v.  n.  c.] 

DOWRY,  in  its  general  acceptation,  is  the  money 
which  is  settled,  or  given,  in  connection  with  a  marriage 
contract,  on  behalf  of  one  of  the  parties.  According  to 
the  customs  of  modern  civilized  communities  the  dowry 
is  settled  upon  the  female,  and  is  given  or  promised  by 
her  father,  or  contracting  spouse.  But  in  Old  Testa 
ment  scripture,  and  in  the  usage  generally  of  the  East, 
the  dowry  is  what  the  husband  pays  to  the  father  in 
order  to  obtain  his  daughter  for  wife — a  sort  of  purchase- 
money,  which  he  gives  in  lieu  of  her.  Thus  Jacob 
gave  his  seven  years'  service  as  dowry  for  his  wife ; 
Shechem  offered  to  give  to  the  family  of  Jacob  "never 
so  much  dowry  and  gift/'  if  he  might  be  permitted  to 
retain  Dinah  as  his  wife;  and  David,  in  like  manner, 
instead  of  dowry,  was  allowed  to  win  his  title  to  Saul's 
daughter  by  an  hundred  foreskins  of  the  Philistines. 
See  also  Ho.  iii.  2,  where  the  common  practice  in  this 
respect  is  taken  for  granted,  as  the  basis  of  the  pro 
phetic  representation.  The  practice  undoubtedly  in 
dicated  an  imperfect  civilization,  and  never  can  exist 
where  woman  occupies  the  place  she  does  in  European 
society. 

DRAGON  (rojn,  tannoth,  D»3P,  ta/tnim,  ^jn,  tan 
nin;  SpaKuv).  These  words  seem  always  to  have 
reference  to  some  animal  of  serpentine  character  and 
large  size,  an  object  of  mystic  terror,  inhabiting  deso 
late  places,  and  having  also  aquatic  habits.  Perhaps 
no  known  species  of  animal  could  be  named  to  which 
all  the  characters  attributed  to  the  scriptural  »n  belong. 

'  T 

The  word  in  its  various  forms  was  probably  used  with 
a  certain  measure  of  vagueness,  especially  when  the 
creature  alluded  to  is  presented  to  us  as  an  element 
in  a  general  description,  or  as  a  symbol  of  some  other 
being,  human  or  spiritual. 

In  the  former  of  these  categories  may  be  included  all 
such  passages  as  those  in  which  Babylon,  IB.  xiii.,  Idu- 
mea,  Is.  xxxiv.  is,  Jerusalem,  Jo.  ix.,  Hazor,  Jc.  xlix.  :«,  Xe., 
are  described  as  "a  habitation  of  dragons;''  and  such  as 
employ  the  word  as  a  simile  of  desolation,  as  Job  xxx. 
29 ;  Je.  xiv.  C ;  Mi.  i.  8,  kc.  In  the  latter  sense  we 
find  it  as  the  symbol  of  Pharaoh,  Eze.  xxix.  3 ;  xxxii.  L>; 
Ps.  ixxiv.  13;  is.  li.  9;  and  apparently  of  Satan,  as  the  master 
spirit  of  Rome,  in  Is.  xxvii.  1  ;  Re.  xii.  ct  scq.  passim, 
and  in  his  own  personality  in  Re.  xx.  2. 


DRAGON 

It  is  in  these  images  that  W£  shall  find  whatever  of 
zoological  incongruity  attaches  to  the  appellation  dra- 
yuii.  In  some  of  the  passages  wherein  the  word  is  used 
to  represent  the  Egyptian  despot,  a  huge  monster,  with 
feet  and  scales,  inhabiting  the  Nile,  is  depicted,  which 
can  leave  us  in  no  doubt  that  the  crocodile  is  intended 
In  those  in  which  Satan  is  represented,  the  word  used 
is  interchangeable  with  mrpDif,  anil  a  form  decidedly 
ophidian,  though  with  mystic  adjuncts,  is  presented  to 
the  mind.  The  fondness  of  serpents — some  of  which 
are  fatally  venomous  ("  the  poison  of  dragons,"  De.  xxxii 
33) — for  ruined  and  desolate  places  will  account  for  the 
employment  of  the  image  in  the  first-named  sense.  The 
ruins  of  ancient  cities  swarm  with  venomous  snakes  to 
such  a  degree  that  it  is  necessary  to  use  the  utmost 
caution  in  exploring  them. 

Sometimes  an  actual  creature  is  intended  by  the 
word,  as  when  the  rod  of  Moses  and  those  of  the  magi 
cians  were  changed  into  serpents  (faintiniiu).  As  these 
must  have  been  of  no  more  than  a  few  feet  in  length, 
they  may  afford  us  some  light  by  which  to  judge  of  the 
more  indefinite  use  of  the  word.  Perhaps  it  has  been 
too  hastily  assumed  that  great  constricting  serpents,  as 
the  pythons,  are  always  intended.  The  drayons  of 
ruined  cities  are  in  general  of  comparatively  small  size; 
the  pythons  do  not.  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  frequent 
such  situations,  nor  are  any  species  now  found  in 
Western  Asia  or  North  Africa.  Abundant  evidence, 
however,  exists,  that  great  constricting  serpents  were 
familiar  to  the  ancients.  Figures  of  such,  of  enormous 
size,  are  depicted  on  the  Egyptian  monuments.  The 
picture  so  elegantly  drawn  by  Theocritus  (Idyll.  xxiv.K 
of  the  serpents  which  were  strangled  by  the  infant 
Hercules,  and  the  well-known  story  of  Laocoon.  un 
doubtedly  refer  to  reptiles  of  this  nature.  Moreover, 
in  sober  narrative,  Aristotle  tells  (\-iii.-2s)  of  serpents  of 
monstrous  size  on  the  coast  of  Libya,  and  relates  that 
certain  voyagers  were  pursued  by  some  of  them  so  large 
that  their  weight  overset  one  of  the  galleys.  And  the 
Roman  historians  (Val.  Max.i.8,8,  io,&c.)  have  perpetuated, 
not  without  admiration,  the  memory  of  a  serpent  slain 
by  Regulus  near  Carthage,  the  skin  of  which,  pre 
served  at  Rome  till  the  Niunantine  war,  measured,  on 
the  authority  of  the  writers  themselves  who  declare 
that  they  had  seen  it,  1 20  feet.  Perhaps  the  length 
was  exaggerated,  and  the  skin  was  doubtless  much 
stretched;  but  after  making  every  allowance,  we  can 
not  refuse  assent  to  the  fact  that  a  serpent  of  enormous 
size  had  been  so  exhibited.  Diodorus  Siculus  mentions 
a  serpent  which  was  captured,  not  without  loss  of  human 
life,  in  Egypt,  and  which  was  taken  to  Alexandria; 
it  measured  30  cubits,  or  about  45  feet  in  length.  And 
Suetonius  says  that  one  was  exhibited  in  front  of  the 
Comitium  at  Rome  which  was  50  cubits,  or  75  feet  in 
length  (in  Octav  43~>.  Colonel  Hamilton  Smith  refers 
(Cyclop.  Bib.  Lit.  art.  Dragon)  to  the  skeleton  of  a  serpent 
above  100  feet  in  length,  found  recently  in  India,  but 
gives  no  other  particulars,  which,  considering  the  great 
interest  of  the  subject,  is  remarkable. 

The  word  vjp  (tannin)  is  occasionally  rendered  wliale 

in  the  English  Bible,  as  in  Ge.  i.  21  and  Job  vii.  12. 
On  one  occasion,  La.  iv.  3,  our  translators  have  given 
sea-monsters  in  the  text,  and  put  sea-cah-cs,  as  an  op 
tional  rendering,  in  the  margin.  As  in  this  last  passage 
the  animals  are  said  to  "draw  out  the  breast  and  give 
suck  to  their  young  ones,"  the  usual  signification  of 


DREAMS 


DREAMS 


serpent,  or  crocodile,  or  any  other  reptile,  is  perfectly 
inapplicable,  since  none  of  these  suckle  their  young. 
The  rendering  "whale  "may  probably  be  the  correct 
one  here,  either  signifying  some  one  of  the  huge  cetacea 
which  occasionally  penetrate  both  the  Mediterranean 
and  Red  Sea,  or  that  species  of  dugong  (Halichore), 
one  of  the  aquatic  pachydermata,  called  cow-whales, 
which  inhabits  the  latter  gulf.  Several  of  the  passages 
in  which  the  word  has  received  its  more  ordinary  render-  ! 
ing,  have  more  or  less  obvious  allusion  to  the  sea  as  ' 
the  habitat  of  the  monster  in  question;  and  when  .Jere 
miah,  personating  Jerusalem.  Je.  li.  ^4,  says  of  the  king 
of  Babylon,  ''He  hath  swallowed  me  up  like  a  dragon. 
.  .  .  he  hath  cast  me  out,''  there  may  be  a  reference  to  the 
swallowing  and  regurgitation  of  .Jonah  by  the  "great 
fish."  The  snuffing  up  of  the  wind.  Jo.  xiv.  ti,  and  the 
wailing  of  dragons,  Mi.  i.  -,  an:  inexplicable  as  referring' 
to  any  of  the  animals  we  have  mentioned.  [p.  H.  G.J 

DREAMS.  Considered  simplv  as  natural  pheno 
mena,  dreams  have  much  the  same  character  ascribed 
to  them  in  Scripture  that  they  are  wont  to  bear  in 
common  discourse.  Airy  and  capricious  in  their  move 
ments,  coming  and  ^n[\\^  without  any  control  of  the 
will  or  reason,  and  as  in  wild  and  freakish  humour  con 
found  in--  together  the  true  and  the  false,  the  real  and 
the  fictitious,  they  are  the  natural  antithesis  of  what 
is  solid  and  lasting  th>-  lit  emblems  of  ;i  frothy,  un 
stable,  fleeting  existence.  Hence  the  wicked  are  spoken 
of  as  flying  away  like  a  dream.  .T..I.XV  \  disappearing 
after  a  short  season  like  an  unsubstantial  fabric:  or.  as 
it  is  again,  they  an.1  as  a  dream  when  one  awaketh.  no 
sooner  searched  for  than  gone,  i's.  Ixxiii.  20.  To  have 
multitudes  of  dreams  is  represented  as  having  also  to 
do  with  vanities.  Ec.v.r;  and  to  scare  one  with  dreams 
is  all  one  with  conjuring  up  and  attempting  to  fri-htcii 
one  with  imaginary  fears  and  unreal  dangers.  J.,t)vii.  n 

One  can  easily  understand,  however,  that  the  state 
of  mind  which  gives  rise  to  the  phenomena  of  dream 
ing  might  with  peculiar  facility  be  rendered  subservient 
to  the  purpose  of  divine  communications.  For.  it  has 
this  in  common  with  states  of  rapt  thought  or  spiritual 
elevation,  that  through  the  perfeet  repose  of  the  bodily 
senses  direct  intercourse  with  (he  external  world  is 
suspended;  the  soul  is  withdrawn  within  itself,  and  is 
susceptible  only  of  the  influences  whieh  ati'eet  th>  inner 
organs  of  thought  and  emotional  feeling.  Such  influ 
ences  may  come — in  all  ordinary  cases  of  dreaming 
they  do  come  —  from  the  play  of  nervous  excitation. 
stirring  into  exercise  the  memory,  the  fancy,  and  the 
affections  ;  and  so  to  a  large  extent  they  take  the  hue  of 
the  natural  temper  and  the  experience  of  every -day  life. 
But  they  may  also  come  from  a  higher  source — from 
the  Father  of  spirits,  seeking  to  convey  impressions  of  , 
his  mind  and  will  to  men.  Then,  the  two  points  in 
which  dreams  differ  most  characteristically  from  one's  ' 
waking  thoughts— their  ideal  character,  and  their  in 
dependence  of  the  will  of  him  that  is  conscious  of  them  ! 
—  are  points  of  assimilation  between  the  subject  of  ' 
dreams  and  the  recipient  of  a  divine  communication: 
both  alike  may  be  said  to  be  borne  out  of  themselves, 
and  to  have  thoughts  presented  to  their  minds,  or  visions 
spread  before  their  mental  eye,  which  they  have  not 
themselves  bidden  into  existence,  and  are  incapable  of 
controlling.  There  is  thus  a  certain  natural  affinity 
between  the  state  and  operations  of  the  soul  in  dream 
ing,  and  its  state  and  operations  when  acted  on  by  the 
impulse  of  a  higher  power,  so  as  to  be  made  to  hear  the 


words  and  see  the  vision  of  the  Almighty.  Hence, 
we  may  account  for  the  readiness  which  has  ever  ap 
peared  among  men  to  ascribe  their  dreams  to  God, 
whenever  these  have  been  of  a  more  remarkable  char 
acter  than  usual,  and  have  left  a  deep  impression  upon 
their  minds.  It  has  seemed  to  them,  in  such  cases. 
as  if  they  had  been  in  the  hands  of  a  supernatural 
agency,  bringing  them  into  immediate  contact  with 
things  lying  beyond  the  reach  of  human  discernment, 
and  most  commonly  causing  events  of  weal  or  woe  to 
cast  their  shadows  before.  In  ancient  heathendom  the 
traces  of  this  belief  were  both  of  early  origin  and 
widely  diffused.  That  a  dream  also  is  of  Jove,  appears 
in  Homer  as  an  accredited  maxim  Ucu  -)ap  r  6i>ap  tK 
Atos  lariv,  n.  i.  IB)  ;  and  Juvenal,  speaking  (though  ironi 
cally)  of  the  religious  devotee,  represents  nocturnal 
revelations  as  the  proper  complement  and  reward  of  the 
devotion  -  "  Kit  animam  et  nieiitem.  cum  qua  Pi  nocte 
loquailtur"  |vi.  ,-,,;i.  See  WVstcin  on  Mat.  i.  L>'>. ) 

But  what  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  in  heathendom 
only  imagined,  was  often  found  to  he  a  reality  where 
the  knowledge  of  God  prevailed.  Among  the  "divers 
manners"  in  which  from  ancient  times  God  made  known 
his  mind  to  men,  dreams  had  a  recognized  place,  and 
played  frequently  an  important  part.  It  is  remarkable 
of  them,  however,  that  they  were  not  confined  to  pro 
phets  strictly  so  called,. but  were  occasionally  given  to 
persons  who  came  only  into  incidental  contact  with  the 
covenant  people:  and  sometimes  were  so  given,  that 
not  so  much  the  dream  itself,  as  the  capacity  of  inter 
preting  the  dream,  was  what  bespoke  the  intervention 
of  Heaven,  and  the  possession  of  a  supernatural  insight. 
<)n  this  account  the  Jewish  doctors  \\ere  wont  to 
distinguish  hctwet  n  heaven-sent  dreams  and  prophe 
tical  visions,  and  even  between  one  kind  of  dreams 
and  another,  calling  some  ''true"  dreams  only,  and 
others  " prophetical"  dreams.  So  Maimoiiides  in  his 
Mui-i  .\\r.  p.  ii.  c.  41,  "When  it  is  said  in  holy  Writ 
that  God  came  to  such  a  man  in  a  dn  am  of  the  ni-lit. 
that  cannot  lie  called  a  prophecy,  nor  such  a  man  a 
prophet;  for  the  meaning  is  no  more  than  this,  that 
some  admonition  or  instruction  was  given  by  God  to 
such  a  man,  and  that  it  was  in  a  dream."  Of  this  sort 
were  reckoned  the  dreams  given  to  Abimelceh,  Laban, 
Pharaoh,  Nebuchadnezzar,  which  were  either  of  a  sim 
ply  admonitory  nature,  or  required  the  aid  of  a  strictly 
inspired  man  to  turn  them  to  account,  and  render  them 
predictions  of  the  approaching  future.  How-  early,  and 
how  commonly  also,  in  regard  to  such  dreams  the 
belief  had  established  itself,  that  they  wen.-  of  divine 
origin  and  of  prophetical  import,  appears  both  from  the 
reverent  regard  paid  to  them,  when  they  were  dis 
tinctly  understood,  as  in  the  cases  of  Abimelech  and 
Laban,  Ue.  xx.-i;  xxxi.  '.'4;  and  from  the  ancient  practice, 
carried  on  apparently  by  a  professional  class,  of  inter 
preting  dreams.  "When  Pharaoh  awoke  from  the  dream 
respecting  the  fat  and  the  lean  kine,  the  plump  and 
the  thin  ears  of  corn,  and  was  pressed  with  anxiety 
about  its  meaning,  he  sent  for  the  magicians  and  wise 
men  of  Egypt,  as  if  he  had  a  right  to  expect  from  them 
a  solution  of  the  mystery  that  would  relieve  him  of  his 
trouble,  Go.  xli  s.  The  same  thing,  indeed,  had  sub- 
stantiallv  come  out  previously  in  the  case  of  the  chief 
butler  and  the  chief  baker  of  Pharaoh,  who,  after  having 
had  their  respective  dreams,  bewailed  their  condition, 
that  they  were  where  they  could  have  no  access  to  an 
interpreter  of  dreams.  Go.  xl.  s.  So  that  even  at  that 


DREAMS 


404: 


DRESS 


early  period  the  interpretation  of  dreams  must  have 
existed  in  Egypt  as  a  kind  of  recognized  profession; 
and  in  later  times  the  oneirocritics  (as  they  were  called), 
interpreters  of  dreams,  formed  a  sort  of  regular  guild 
among  the  learned  of  Kgypt,  or  certain  of  those  culti 
vated  the  art  as  a  distinct  department  of  their  mystic 
lore  (Warburton's  Legation  of  Moses,  b.  4,  s.  4).  And  that  it 
was  not  otherwise  at  Babylon  is  evident  from  the  im 
perative  demand  mn.de  by  Nebuchadnezzar  of  the  wise 
men  of  his  court  to  interpret  his  dreams,  and  even  com 
municate  to  him  the  matter  of  his  dreams,  Da.  ii.  5,  (i ; 
iv.  ~.  How  vain  the  art  was  in  such  hands,  and  how 
utterly  inefl'octive  it  proved  in  real  emergencies,  the 
Lord  took  occasion  to  show  by  means  of  the  transac 
tions  which  occurred  in  the  histories  of  Joseph  and 
Daniel. 

But  that  dreams  of  the  higher  class — dreams  of  a 
strictly  prophetical  character,  and  given  to  prophetical 
men — were  among  the  regular  modes  of  divine  revela 
tion  in  ancient  times,  appears  alone  from  what  may  be 
regarded  as  the  fundamental  passage  regarding  prophe 
tical  agency  in  Israel,  Nu.xii.fi.  In  that  passage  the 
Lord  intimated,  that  he  would  raise  up  prophets, 
through  whom  he  would  make  direct  communications 
of  his  will,  and  that  when  he  did  so  he  would  "make 
himself  known  to  them  in  a  vision,  and  speak  to  them 
in  a  dream."  Here  also  the  Jewish  doctors  were  wont 
to  distinguish,  and  to  assert  for  the  mode  of  revelation 
by  vision  a  higher  place  than  belonged  to  the  dream. 
But  there  seems  no  proper  ground  for  the  distinction, 
more  especially  for  saying,  that  the  one  (vision)  usually 
seized  the  prophet  while  he  was  awake,  but  that  he  was 
susceptible  of  the  other  only  when  asleep.  In  reality 
they  seem  to  have  been  generally  combined  together 
— as  in  the  case  of  Jacob  on  the  plains  of  Bethel, 
when  in  a  sleep  that  was  ennobled,  if  any  other  was, 
with  prophetic  elevation,  he  at  once  saw  the  vision 
and  in  a  dream  heard  the  words  of  God.  The  dream, 
it  is  to  be  understood,  as  well  as  the  vision,  in  all 
cases  of  real  intercourse  with  Heaven,  had  marked 
peculiarities,  which  stamped  it  upon,  the  prophet's 
own  mind  as  the  effect  of  a  strictly  divine  agency. 
And  the  Jewish  writers  seem  to  have  judged  rightly 
in  supposing,  that  while  the  imaginative  faculty  was  set 
forth  as  a  stage,  on  which  certain  appearances  and 
images  were  represented  to  the  understandings  of  the 
prophets,  as  they  are  in  ordinary  dreams,  yet  in  divine 
dreams  the  understanding  was  always  kept  awake,  and 
strongly  acted  on  by  God  in  the  midst  of  those  appari 
tions,  that  it  might  discern  the  intelligible  mysteries  in 
them  (Smith  of  Cambridge's  Discourse  on  Frophccy,  c.  2) .  In 
this  undoubtedly  was  implied  an  ecstatic  elevation  of 
spirit — the  being,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  in  a  trance 
— and  a  remarkable  distinctness  in  the  objects  pre 
sented  to  the  internal  eye  and  ear  of  the  prophet,  such 
as  other  men  had  not,  nor  the  prophet  himself  in  his 
ordinary  state.  Yet  it  was  an  imperfect  mode  of  reve 
lation,  and  was  accompanied  with  a  measure  of  dark 
ness  in  regard  to  the  substance  of  the  divine  communica 
tions,  which  was  wanting  in  the  highest  mode  of  reve 
lation.  In  this  respect  it  is  expressly  distinguished 
from  that  given  to  Moses  in  the  Old  Testament,  with 
whom  God  spake  not  by  dream  or  vision,  but  face  to 
face,  Nu.  xii.7.  And  in  New  Testament  times  (with  one 
exception  in  the  case  of  Peter,  Ac.  x.,  one  in  Paul's, 
2  Co,  xii.  1,  and  again  in  the  Apocalyptic  communica 
tions  of  John)  the  mode  of  revelation  by  dream  or 


vision  was  superseded  by  the  open  and  direct  announce 
ments  of  our  Lord  and  his  apostolic  delegates.  When 
it  was  spoken  by  Joel  of  these  times,  that  then,  through 
the  copious  outpouring  of  God's  Spirit,  even  "young 
men  should  see  visions,  and  old  men  should  dream 
dreams,"  it  is  to  be  understood  as  uttered  from  the 
Old  Testament  point  of  view,  when  such  were  the  dis 
tinctive  modes  of  the  Spirit's  more  peculiar  working 
among  men:  and  hence  it  is  applied  by  the  apostle 
Peter  to  the  manifestations  of  spiritual  agency  on  the 
dav  of  Pentecost,  when  there  were  indeed  marvellous 
displays  of  the  Spirit's  power,  such  as  amply  realized 
the  prophetic  anticipation,  and  not  the  less,  rather  all 
the  more,  that  they  were  without  the  ancient  accom 
paniments  of  vision  or  dream.  The  men  of  God  now 
became  directly  conversant  with  divine  realities,  and 
in  their  waking  state  could  both  receive  and  give  forth 
their  impressions  of  them. 

It  only  remains  to  notice,  that  during  the  periods 
when  revelation  by  dream  or  vision  was  the  ordinary 
mode  of  conveying  special  communications  to  men, 
there  were  not  wanting  counterfeit  appearances  of  this 
description,  occasionally  intermingling  with,  and  claim 
ing  to  possess,  the  character  of  the  true.  Such  espe 
cially  was  the  case  amid  the  troubles  and  excitements 
that  prevailed  toward  the  close  of  the  theocracy  in  its 
regal  form.  "  I  have  heard,"  says  Jeremiah,  ch.  xxiii  2.">, 
"'  what  the  prophets  said  that  prophesy  lies  in  my 
i  name,  I  have  dreamed,  I  have  dreamed" — implying, 
in  the  very  form  of  their  announcement,  what  was  the 
usual  mode  of  receiving  prophetic  revelations,  but 
betraying  at  the  same  time  the  hypocritical  or  deluded 
spirit  under  which  they  laboured.  To  the  like  effect 
also  he  speaks  in  other  passages — Jc.  xxix.  2s ;  xxvii.  9 ; 
xxxii.  i;  also  Eze.  xiii.  2-7,  where  false  visions,  rather  than 
false  dreams,  are  ascribed  to  them.  These  lying  pre- 
;  tences  doubtless  began  in  hypocrisy,  but  maintained, 
I  as  they  were,  in  the  face  of  so  much  danger,  and  with 
such  strange  persistence,  it  would  seem  that  the  per 
sons  making  claim  to  them  had  become  to  a  large  ex 
tent  the  victims  of  their  own  delusions. 

DRESS.  The  notices  we  have  of  the  clothing  of  the 
covenant- people,  whether  in  Old  or  New  Testament 
times,  are  chiefly  of  an  incidental  kind,  and  could  not 
of  themselves  suffice  for  anything  like  a  minute  or 
even  definite  description  of  them.  But  in  Palestine, 
and  in  eastern  countries  generally,  the  dress  of  the 
people,  like  their  common  usages,  continues  from  age 
to  age  with  little  change;  foreign  immigrants  or  in 
vaders,  such  as  the  Turks,  have  brought  along  with 
them  a  certain  amount  of  foreign  costume ;  but  the 
people  who  may  be  regarded  as  the  more  proper  re 
presentatives  of  the  region  appear  to  have  preserved, 
with  no  material  deviation,  the  kinds  and  modes  of 
apparel  which  were  in  use  thousands  of  years  ago.  In 
giving  a  brief  outline  of  the  information  that  is  acces 
sible  upon  the  subject,  we  shall  treat  first  of  the  kinds 
of  garments  worn,  and  then  of  the  materials  and  arts 
employed  in  the  fabrication  of  them. 

I.  In  regard  to  the  garments  themselves,  those  worn 
on  the  person  were  formerly,  as  they  still  are,  of  a  loose 
and  flowing  description.  Hence,  they  did  not  admit 
of  that  sharp  and  easily  recognized  distinction  between 
male  and  female  attire,  which  prevails  in  the  civilized 
countries  of  the  West.  There  still  were,  however, 
characteristic  differences,  which  the  law,  for  obvious 
reasons  of  propriety  and  decorum,  ordered  to  be  main- 


J'RES,- 


1»1?ESS 


taincd:  ';  The  woman  shall  not  wear  that  which  per-  an  ordinary  shirt  or  night-gown  than  any  other  garment 
taineth  unto  ;i  man.  neither  shall  a  man  put  on  a  we  are  accustomed  to  wear.  And  when  our  Lord,  on 
woman's  garment :  f»r  all  that  do  so  are  abomination  first  sending  out  his  disciples,  told  them  not  to  take 

two  tunics  with  them.  Mat.  x.  m,  it  came  much  to  the 
same  thing  as  saying,  in  plain  English,  that  they  should 
take  I  nit  one  shirt  witli  them.  This  article  of  dress  was 


most    probably   very    similar    to    one 


at    the    present   day,    and    shown    in    the    illnstratioi 


to  the  Lord,"  DC  xxii.  :,.     The  difference  appeared  chiefly  No.  L'ntj.  i\*  i  having  a  girdle  round  his  waist,  and  iu?.  u 

in  the  use  of  veils  by  the  women,  and  the  attire  generally  liein^  without  one.      But  it  atlorded  so  jiartial  a  cover  - 

of  the  head,  together  witli  articles  of  oriianu-nt    wliieli  ing.  that   persons  who  had   nothing  besides  upon   them 

were  reckoned  proper  for  the  one  sex.  but  not  for  the  were  not  unusually  spoken  of  as  stripped  or  naked.   Thus 

other,      .l.i   There    was.    iir-l   of    all.    and    eomiiion    to  Saul,  it  is  said,  stripped  ott' his  clothes,  and  prophesied. 

both    sexes,    the    covering    by    way    of    eminence      ihe  and  lav  down  naked.  I  S:\  \i\  -j|;    and   as  this  was   done 

under-garment.    which   protected    the    body  from    utter  in  some  sort  of  imitation  of  the  prophets,  it  is  scarce!  v 

nudity.      It  was  named   in    Meh.   but., mil,  <r:PT>.  from  possible  to  understand  it  of  anything  but  such  a  partial 

an  obsolete  root  to   ,•„,-,,•.  and    in    (ireek    VIT^-K    Mi,/.-  ll»lllvssil"-  as  Wl'  ll:uv  ^i'l"  —  '      with  nothing  left  but 

The  rendering  of  coat*,  winch  is  that  commonh  adopted  «'hat  wtw  'Vl'""v<l  ''>'  ^'Hsiderations  of  decency.      And 

for  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  (Jrcek  terms  in  the  Knglish  V.'e  **?"                   s   "l";t  .ll"  «>PP<'««1   '"  «•«  '•  cases  as 
Scriptures,    is    h'tt 


knees  or  under,  and   with  sleeves  to' the  elbow,  some-      ''V  t'"'  *u"°  ":l""''  ltut  lllore  usuall.v  ljorc  tllf'  '•!'itl'«--t 
;imes  even  to  the  wrists,     li  came  nearer,  tlieivfore.  to  .   '""    'S'>>>:K      ll»w  wa"  »  l""«--r»n.l  lonyerw.rt  of  tunic. 


reaching  to  near  the  ankles,  but  without  sleeves.  It  ing  the  sleeveless  meil,  the  women  having  a  veil,  pro- 
was  worn  by  women,  also  by  the  priests,  Ex.  xxviii.  ;ji,  bably  the  mitpahath.  over  the  former  article  of  dress. 
and  by  persons  in  the  higher  ranks  of  life.  1  Sa.  xv.  27  ;  In  the  second  illustration  (No.  _!OM  from  same  bas- 
xviii.  4;  Job  i.2d.  It  is  commonly  rendered  munth-  or  relief,  there  are  other  Jewish  captives  having  very 
robe  in  the  English  version.  The  meil  appears  to  be  short  garments,  perhaps  intended  to  represent  the 
indicated  in  the  engraving  No.  2<»7,  from  an  Assyrian  ;  kutoneth,  but  confined  round  the  waist  by  a  broad 
bas-relief  in  the  British  .Museum,  from  Kouyunjik.  girdle  with  a  fringed  end;  or  else  it  is  to  show  the 
showing  Sennacherib  before  the  town  of  Lachish  :  the  kutoneth  and  drawers  worn  under  it.  The  turban-like 
figures  are  intended  for  Jewish  captives,  the  men  wear-  head-dresses  of  these  figures  are  verv  remarkable  :  and 
Voi.  I.  59 


DKF.SS 


KSS 


sometimes  drawing  their  cloak  or  mantle  over  their 
heads,  which  agrees  better  with  the  other  form.  •_' s'a 
xv.  :tn;  i  Ki.  xix.  i:;.  And  so  also  does  the  circumstance 
that  the  poor  are  known  to  have  used  it  as  a  blanket 
bv  niuht.  Hence  the  merciful  prescription  in  Ex. 
x\ii.  'Jt!,  ''If  thou  at  all  take  thy  neighbour's  raiment 

'    /    .  '.  c  ,1      .  .'      i  i   fi       ,,;     ,/    ;  (xti.lntali}  to  1  >ledge.  thou  shalt  deliver  it  unto  him  bv 

version,  the  i,ua.Tioi>  oi    the  (.reeks,  and   tin-  xalninlt  \ 

.,  ,      ••lit  (i      i  that  the  sun  goeth  down  :  tor  that  is  his  covering  only; 

r.    as   it   more   commonly    is.    m intuit,    ot    the  |  .  . 

it  is  his  raiment  tor  his  skin;   wherein  shall  lie  sleep' 


similarly  dressed  men  occur  in  another  ! us- relief,  where 
several  riles  of  men  are  employed  in  dragging  a  colossal 
sculpture,  a  human  -headed  hull,  to  its  destined  site;  and 
these  doubtless  are  meant  f<>v  .lewish  captives  working 
under  their  Assyrian  conqueror.-.  (.'',.)  Then  there  was 
the  iiKlntU.  properly  so  called.  frequently  termed  fliiulc  in 
our 


Hebrews.     Tin- 


cloth. 


It  is  apparently  the  same  sort  of  garment  which  is  oc- 
casionallv  called  mif/iiii«il/i  (r.nst£C>.  which  1'uth.  for 

example,  had  about  her  when  she  lay  down  on  the 
barn-Hoi  rr  of  Boa/:,  ami  which  was  so  spacious  and  firm 
of  texture  that  it  could  contain  six  measures  of  barley, 
I'.mli  iii.  i.-..  Though  called  a  veil  in  our  version,  it  was 
manifestly  a  sort  of  blanket  or  sheet,  which  during  the 
dav  had  been  laid  over  the  head  and  shoulders,  and  at 


a  sort  of  large  blanket  or  plaid,  which  is  now.  and 
probably  was  also  in  former  times,  thrown  around  the 
shoulders  so  as  to  leave  the  right  arm  free  the  one  end 
of  the  garment  being  put  a  little  over  the  left  shoulder. 
whence  it  is  taken  behind  under  the  ri.uht  arm,  and 
after  being  drawn  across  the  chest,  is  thrown  again 
over  the  left  side,  and  hang--  down  behind.  The  figures 
in  woodcut  No.  2o!-»,  representing  two  Syrians  and 
an  Ktryptian  gentleman,  show  the  article  and  the  mode 


of  wearing  it.  The  modern  Bedouins  (No.  210)  use 
instead  of  this  a  sort  of  square  cloak,  with  an  opening 
in  front,  and  slits  in  the  sides  to  let  out  the  arms  :  but 
it  may  be  doubted  if  this  form  of  the  garment  was  in 
use  among  the  covenant-people.  For  we  read  of  their 


night  was  probably  thrown  as  a  covering  around  the 
I  >i  TSOII.  This  large  veil  is  well  illustrated  by  <  me  worn  by 
Kgyptian  women  at  the  present  day.  called  tlie  milayeJt, 
as  the  annexed  figure  shows  (Xo.  211):  and  the  simi 
larity  of  this  to  the  veil  indicated  in  the  Assyrian  sculp 
ture  already  referred  to,  is  very  striking—  although  it  is 
necessary  to  make  some  allowance  for  the  archaic  style 

j  of  the  sculpture.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  properly 
a  different  garment,  but  the  same  in  a  more  expanded 

i  and  imposing  form,  which  was  called  mltntlt  (literally. 

i  wide  or  expanded)  the  name  given  to  Elijah's  mantle, 
i  Ki  xix.  i.-i,  id;  -2  Ki.  ii.  r:,  and  to  the  Babylonish  garment 
which  attracted  the  eovetou.-ness  of  Achan,  Jus.  vii.  21. 
That  the  name  could  be  applied  to  two  pieces  of  raiment 
so  different  in  point  of  quality,  shows  that  it  had  refer 
ence  to  the  form  and  use  of  the  article,  not  to  the  kind 
of  cloth  from  which  it  was  prepared;  and  the  deriva 
tion  of  the  word  clearly  points  to  the  amplitude  of  the 
article  as  its  distinguishing  characteristic.  (4.)  The 
loose  and  cumbersome  nature  of  these  garments,  es 
pecially  of  the  longer  tunic  or  iiic'il.  naturally  led  to  the 
use  of  another  article— the  girdle  or  belt  around  the 
waist,  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  the  gar 
ments  close  to  the  person,  and  tucking  them  up  when 

•  one  was  going  about  any  active  employment.      To  put 

j  on  one's  girdle,  or  gird  one's  self  up.  was  simply  to 
prepare  for  action,  as  to  undo  it  was  to  give  way  to 
repose.  Tt  was  also,  however,  used  as  a  convenient 


DREss 


DKKSS 


sword    \\-a; 

pended  from  a  belt  passing- 
over  the  right  .-houlder,  and 
the  weapon  hung  071  the  left 
side  in  a  nearly  horizontal 
position,  as  in  the  figure  from 
an  Assyrian  bas-relief  in  th.- 
JJritish  Museum  1X0.  212i. 
The  incident  described  ii! 
2  Sa.  xx.  \  could  thus  easilv 
have  occurred,  from  the  sword 
having  somehow  been  put 
out  of  its  slightlv  pendent 
position. 

These    w.-re    th"    pnn, -i]  i. d 
and    ordinary   parts   of  dress 
worn  upon  the  person  by  the  Israelitish  i 
things  bi-sides,  such   as   drawers   and   an 


garments  was  regarded 
ing,  Joel  ii   i:!. 

In  addition  to  the  more  essential  and  common  dresses 
already  mentioned,  a  givat  many  articles  arc  known  to 
have  been  used  of  an  ornamental  kind,  chiefly  hv 
women  of  gay  and  luxurious  manners.  The  fullest  ami 
most  elaborate  specification  of  these  on  record  is  that 
given  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  in  eh.  iii.  1^-2:!,  when 
speaking  of  the  sad  reverse  that  was  going  to  befall  them, 
and  the  desolation  and  sorrow  that  were  soon  to  take 
the  place  of  all  their  finery.  There  is  some  doubt  about 
the  precise  meaning  of  some  of  the  words  employed  in 
the  description,  and  little  comparative! v  can  now  be 
kiK.wn  of  the  exact  shape  and  form  of  .several  of  the 
tilings  mentioned :  but  we  shall  give  the  description 
itself,  a.-.-ompanied  \\ith  the  explanations  that  are  now 
commonly  adopt. -d  respecting  them.  "  In  that  dav 
tli.-  Lord  will  take  away  the  bravery  of  their  tinkling 
ornaments  about  their  f.-et  (ankle- bands),  and  the  cauls 
(caps  of  net- work),  and  the  round  tires  like  the  moon 


bee7i  commonly  worn  in  ancient  times,  as  tin  \  are  now. 
\  arious  figurative  modes  of  expression  were  derived  from 
those  articles  of  dress  by  the  sacr,  d  writ.-rs.  but  from 
none  so  much  as  from  the  girdle.  With  reference  to 
its  use  in  fitting  the  body  tor  acti\e  service,  we  have. 
i"  1  IV.  i.  1;>>.  the  exhortation  to  ••  ,_jr<l  ll](  t},,.  ],,j,^ 
of  our  mind."  It.-  adhesive  property,  not  on!v  itself 
cleaving  to  the  person,  but  bringing  the  other  garments 
also  into  closer  contact  \\ith  it,  supplies  the  pn.ph.-t 
Jeremiah  with  an  image  of  the  hindin--  attachment  or' 
the  converted  Israel  to  Cod  :  ••  As  the  girdle  cleaveth 
to  the  loins  of  a  man.  so  hav.-  I  caused  to  eleave  unto 
me  the  whole  house  of  Israel,"  di.  xiii  n  And  not  \,  r 


leiidants).  and  the  bracelets  (for  the  arm  or  neck),  and 

'3 


the  mulilers  (veils);  th.-  boim.-ts  isoine  sort  of  h.-ad- 
dn-ss,,  and  the  ornanieiits  of  th"  legs  (some  sort  of 
ankle-chains  for  th.  purpos".  it  is  supposed,  ..f  i-egulat- 


to  th,-  coming  Messiah     he  said,    "And  righteousness     ,,,-dIe,  and   houses,   receptacles  of  the   breath   or  soul, 
-the    girdle   of    his    loins,    and   faithfulness    the     probably  smelling-boxes),  and   the  ear-rings  (amulets)  ; 
d.  :,     meaning  that  these  qualities     the  rings  and  th.-  nose- jewels  ;   the  changeable  suits  of 
kind    of    controlling    and    binding     appaiel    (holiday- dresses),    and    the    mantles,    and   the 

\\inipl.s,  ;m,|  th,-  ej-isj, ing  pins  (or,  more  probably, 
robes  and  pur-.es>;  the  glasses  and  the  fin,- linen  (tunics 
made  ,,f  such',  and  the  hoods  iturbansi,  and  the  veils." 
'I'he  cauls,  or  caps  of  n.-twork,  in  the  accompanying 

i.  f   in    the    IJritish 
uirpists  welcoming 


influence  over  all  his  purposes  and  actions  which  th, 
girdle  has  in  respect  to  the  bodily  attire.  The  com 
pleteness  of  the  covering  afforded  bv  the  nte'il  or  .,ut.-r 
garment  is  referred  to  by  the  same  prophet,  when  he 
speaks  ,,f  the  Lord  clothing  himself  with  zeal  as  \\ith 

a  cloak,  ch.  lix.  17,  having  his  being,  as  it  were,  all  en-  Museum,  representing  singers  ; 
wrapped  in  this  fiery  element.  In  another  aspect  of 
the  same  thing,  it  is  taken  as  a  symbol  of  the  cover 
ing  or  pretexts  which  t7-.uisgress.irs  seek  to  obtain 
from,  the  charge  of  sin,  such  as,  "  having  no  cloak 
for  their  sin."  or  "using  liberty  for  a"  cloak  of 
maliciousness,"  Jn.  xv.  22;  i  PC.  ii.  10.  "  I'.ut  as  the  nwl 
formed  the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  attire-,  and 
in  persons  of  quality  was  doubtless  made  of  fine 
material  and  variously  ornamented,  so  it  is  some 
times  employed  as  the  peculiar  emblem  of  what  is 
graceful  and  becoming  in  appearance:  as  when  Job 
speaks  of  his  judgment  being  like  a  robe  (a  mc'ih 
and  a  diadem,  and  the  Messiah  himself  is  propheti 
cally  represented  as  being  covered  with  a  robe  of 
righteousness,  Job  xxix  n;  is.  ixi.  K>.  Kven  in  later  times 
it  would  appear  that  significance  was  attached  to  th.- 
amplitude  of  this  outer  garment,  since  the  scribes  are  ,  Sennacherib  on  his  retuni  from  conquest,  l-'ig.  i  has  the 
charged  by  our  Lord  with  loving  to  walk  in  long  robes,  hair  curiously  arranged,  but  perhaps  not  in  a  caul. 
Ln.  xx.  41  i,  manifestly  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  before  There-  is  also  in  the  IJritish  Museum  a  real  cap  of  net- 
men  a  majestic  and  imposing  appearance.  Tt  was  this  work  for  the  hair,  from  Thebes,  the  meshes  of  which 


DRESS 


10  tf 


DRESS 


are   very  tine.      The  ••round  tires  like  the  moon,"  pro-     and  worked   by  the  mother  and  her  daughters, 
bably  similar  to  an  article  of  head-dress  of  the  modern     woodcut  Xo.  217.  representing  two  female  we? 
Egyptians,    the    cktnnaraJi,   or   moon   (represented    by  |  work,  is  taken  from  the   Egyptian  monument; 
No.  -Jit),  and  made  of  thin  plates  of  cold.      The  head 
bands  exhibited  \  N  o.  ~2\.~>).  are  all,  excepting  one,  from 
Kgyptiau    paintings,    and    probably   indicate    jewelled 
dresses  for  the  head  :  ns.  i  is  the  head-band  of  the  queen 
of  Sardanapalus  III,,  from  a  bas-relief  found  at  Kou- 
\imjik.      In   tlie  group  ef  necklaces  (No.  -Jlfii,  dp  .'  re 


The 
vers  at 
,  The 


presents  the  necklace  of  Sardanapalus  III.,  from  the 
lias-relief  just  referred  to.  and  appears  there  hanging 
to  the  couch,  on  which  the  monarch  sits,  while  feast 
ing  with  his  queen.  The  necklaces  at  3  are  also  from 
the  Assyrian  sculptures.  But  those  under  1  are 
Egyptian,  and  are  fine  examples  of  goldsmiths'  work: 


they  belong  to  an  early  period,  and  are  now  in  the 
l'riti>h  Museum.  The  beads  are  of  gold,  and  the  pen 
dants  are  richly  enamelled. 

The  common  attire  for  the  feet  was  sandals,  not 
shoos  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term;  but  as  this 
was  connected  with  customs  and  allusions  peculiar  to 
itself,  we  reserve  it  for  separate  consideration  under 
SANDALS.  Many  of  the  other  articles  also,  incidentally 
noticed,  such  as  rings,  nose-jewels,  amulets,  veils. 
fringes  or  girdles,  will  be  found  treated  separately  under 
their  own  names. 

II.  In  regard  now  to  the  preparation  of  the  different 
articles  of  clothing,  with  the  mode  and  materials  em 
ployed  in  their  manufacture,  it  is  clear  from  various 
allusions  in  Scripture  that  the  matter  was  very  much 
in  the  hands  of  females.  Tins  was  inevitable  from  the 
Israelites  being  chiefly  an  agricultural  and  pastoral 
people,  on  which  account  arts  and  manufactures  of  a 
public  description  were  scarcely  known,  and  their  place, 
so  far  as  domestic  fabrics  were  concerned,  was  chiefly 
supplied  by  the  skill  and  industry  of  the  women.  The 
spinning  of  the  yarn  was  one  of  their  principal  employ 
ments,  so  that  the  prudent  housewife  is  celebrated  for 
taking  hold  of  the  distaff,  and  laving  her  hands  to  the 
spindle,  iv.  xxxi.  in.  The  weaving,  too.  in  all  probability 
was  chiefly  conducted  by  females,  as  in  early  times  it 
was  among  the  Greeks,  and  still  is  among  the  Arabs, 
with  whom,  to  use  the  words  of  Burckhardt,  "  the  loom 
is  placed  before  the  harem  or  women's  apartment, 


garments  being  of  a  kind  that  required  little  skill  in 
-ha j  'in1.:'.  the\  would  naturally  be  fashioned  and  sewed 
I  >V  the  female  domestics  of  each  dwelling.  For  work 
manship  of  the  higher  kinds,  such  as  Mas  required  for 
the  more  ornamental  dresses  and  articles  of  embroidery, 
regularly  trained  and  skilled  craftsmen  must  have  been 
required  -  -to  which  class  belonged,  at  the  period  of  the 
exodus,  "Bezaleel  and  Aholiab,  and  others  with  them, 
of  whom  it,  is  said  that  the  Lord  •'  had  filled  them  with 
wisdom  (.if  heart,  to  work  all  manner  of  work  of  the 
engraver,  and  of  the  cunning  workman,  and  of  the  em 
broiderer,  in  blue,  and  in  purple,  in  scarlet,  and  in  fine 
linen,  and  of  the  weaver,"  Ex.  xxxv.  ?,:,.  It  is  probable 
that  after  the  children  of  Israel  were  settled  in  Canaan 
the  greater  part  of  the  articles  which  they  got  of  tin  > 
liner  and  more  ornate;  description,  were  purchased  from 
the  travelling  merchants,  who  carried  on  the  inland 
trade  between  Palestine  and  the  rich  manufacturing  or 
importing  districts  of  Egypt,  Babylon,  Tyre,  and  Sidon. 
The  Babylonish  garment  found  by  Achan  at  the  plunder 
of  Jericho  is  a  proof  how  early  this  trade  had  extended 
itself  through  the  region  afterwards  occupied  by  the 
Israelites.  (>',<  EMBUOIDKKY.) 

As  to  the  making  of  the  garments,  there  are  only  two 
specifications  given  in  Scripture,  leaving  it  to  be  in 
ferred  that  in  other  respects  the  people  might  conform 
to  the  customs  prevalent  around  them.  One  of  these 
was  that  they  were  not  to  wear  a  garment  of  divers 
sorts,  of  woollen  and  linen  together,  De.  xxii.  11.  This  in 
struction  comes  in  along  with  some  others,  forbidding 
similar  unnatural  combinations  sowing  a  vineyard 
with  diverse  seeds,  ploughing  with  an  ox  and  an  ass 
toevther.  The  object  aimed  at  was  undoubtedly  of  a 
moral  kind,  because  defilement  is  mentioned  as  the 
consequence  of  using  such  intermixtures  ;  and  the  direc 
tion  must  therefore  proceed  on  the  same  principle  as 
that  on  which  the  regulations  about  food  were  based — 
the  principle  of  making  the  outward  and  ordinary 
transactions  of  life  serve  as  the  reflex  of  what  they  were 
called  to  be  and  do  in  the  things  of  God.  The  Jehovah 
whom  Israel  was  pledged  in  covenant  to  serve  was  the 
God  of  nature  as  well  as  of  holiness ;  he  had  appointed 
certain  distinctions  in  the  one,  and  these  he  would 
have  to  be  observed,  not  only  on  their  own  account, 
but  also  because  they  were  fitted  to  remind  his  people 
of  like  distinctions  in  the  other,  which  it  was  their 
special  calling  as  his  people  to  preserve.  And  so,  the 
wearinf  of  garments  free  from  the  mixing  of  diverse 


DRESS 


Hi!) 


DUST 


kinds,  perpetually  admonished  them  that  their  God  was 
the  God  of  order-— of  order  even  in  the  lower  concerns 
of  the  material  world,  and  how  much  more  in  the  all- 
important  interests  of  truth  and  righteousness '.  Here, 
above  all,  they  must  keep  to  the  eternal  landmarks 
which  he  has  fixed.  Of  course  the  prohibition,  like  all 
others  of  a  like  kind,  ceased  with  the  introduction  of  a 
state  of  thing's  which  no  longer  required  such  imperfect 
modes  of  instruction  and  discipline.  The  other  specifica 
tion  had  respjct  to  the  putting  of  fringes  of  blue  upon 
the  four  wings  or  corners  of  their  raiment,  >"u.  xv.  i>; 
Do.  x\h.  1.'.  The  j >articular  part  of  the  raiment  on  which 
these  blue  fringes  were  to  be  lixed  is  not  stated  :  but 
as  they  were  intended  to  catch  the  eye  of  the  wearer, 
they  must  have  been  put  upon  the  nii'il  or  the  .-•//;</(///. 
the  outer  tunic  or  the  mantle  most  naturallv.  indeed, 
upon  the  latter,  which  was  also  thi-  only  one  that  had 
four  distinct  corners.  And  the  object  of  this,  like  the 
former  peculiarity,  was  entirely  moral  :  it  was  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  a  sacred  monitor,  that  when  they  looked 
upon  the  sky-blue  on  their  garments  they  mi-ht  lift 
their  souls  heavenwards,  "and  remember  all  the  com 
mandments  of  the  Lord  and  do  them,  and  miuht  not 
seek  after  their  own  heart  and  their  o\\n  eyes."  I 
may  seem  to  us  a  very  artificial  niodr  of  ( •••n\vvii!_; -.-udi 
an  ;idm  mition:  but  itwould  appeal-quite  otherwise  to  the 
covenant-people,  who  were  taught  bvthe  whole  character 
of  their  institutions  to  see  the  spiritual  and  heavenly 
imaged  in  the  earthly  relations  they  filled,  and  the 
carnal  services  required  at  their  hand-.  >•  •  KiiiNciES. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  large  proportion  of  the 
garments  anciently  worn  by  the  descendants  of  Abra 
ham  were  of  woollen  material.  as  still  i-  the  case  with 
the  mass  of  the  people  in  and  around  Pale-tine.  The 
familiar  allusion  of  our  Lord  in  his  parable  re-peeling  the 
old  garment  and  the  new  patch,  the  one  not  fitly  auTeeini:' 
with  the  oilier,  and  certain  als  >  to  make  the  rent  worse, 
is  alone  a  proof  of  this.  For  he  speaks  of  a  garment 
generally  ;  and  yet,  what  lie  says  strictlv  holds  onlv  of 
woollen  garments  -  -the  old  threadbare  and  thin,  the 
new  unfulled,  and  ready,  when  exposed  to  the  atmo 
sphere,  to  contract  and  tear  the  feebler  portions  n-  \t 
it.  t'otton  and  linen  however  were  also  in  use.  if,  a- 
is  now  generally  supposed,  what  was  called  *ln.</i  or 
l>il**,  and  is  always  rendered  limn  in  our  version,  eom 
prised  cotton  as  well.  In  this  article  great  skill  was 
displayed  from  very  early  times  in  regard  to  the  line- 
ness  of  the  fabric  and  the  workmanship;  and  in  this  re 
spect  alone  abundance  of  scope  would  be  atlbrded  for 
those  who  sought  to  distinguish  themselves  by  the  ex- 
pensivcness  of  their  attire.  The  richness  and  variety 
of  the  colours  employed,  to  which  reference  is  often 
made  in  Scripture,  art!  >rded  other  opportunities  for  gaiety 
and  expense.  Hence,  in  our  Lord's  graphic  portraiture 
of  the  rich  and  luxurious  worldling,  we  find  both  these 
marks  of  superiority  in  dress  distinctly  indicated  — 
"clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,"  Lu.  \\\.  ]ii;  and  the 
coat  of  many  colours  which  .Jacob  gave  to  his  son 
Joseph  shows  how  early  the  taste  in  this  direction  had 
begun  to  manifest  itself.  Along  with  the  fineness  of 
the  quality,  and  the  richness  of  the  colours  employed, 
there  was  also  from  early  times  a  disposition  to  indulge 
in  varieties  of  .<tniUx  of  apparel,  as  appears  alone  from 
the  five  changes  of  raiment  which  Joseph  gave  to  his 
brother  Benjamin,  <;e.  xlv.  •_'•_'.  In  after  times  indications 
frequently  discover  themselves  of  the  same  tendency, 
Ju.  v.  3";  xiv.  i:;;  'JKi.  v.  .' ;  and  the  richer  families  seem  to 


It  is  quite  uncertain  how  far  the  ancient  Israelites 
were  acquainted  with  silk  as  an  article  of  dress,  or,  if 
they  were,  when  it  was  introduced.  The  word  is  oc 
casionally  used  in  our  Lnglish  Bibles,  but  the  corres 
ponding  word  in  the  original  is  not  always  the  same, 
nor  is  it  certain  whether  the  terms  were  applied  to  what 
is  strictly  called  silk,  or  to  a  soft  and  tine  texture  of 
linen  or  cotton  stuti's.  i>'tc  SILK.) 

DRINK,  STRONG.     ,s  c  undt  r  W  i  .N  E. 

DROMEDARY,     .s,  CAMEL. 

DRUSILLA.  the  youngest  daughter  of  that  Herod 
who  is  mentioned  in  Acts  xii.  She  was  celebrated  for 
her  beauty,  but  was  of  loose  character,  having  been 
married  to  the  king  of  L'mcsa  <A/.izus>,  and  after 
wards  abandoned  him  in  order  to  live  with  the  procu 
rator  Felix.  Ac  xxiv.  -21  She  bore  a  son  to  this  worth 
less  paramour,  who  wa<  named  Agrippa.  and  both 
mother  and  son  perished  in  an  eruption  of  .Mount  Vesu 
vius,  which  took  place  in  the  day-  of  Titus  (,'iesar  (Jos 
Ant  x\  7.:.') 

DUKE,  a  title  applied  in  Ge.  \\x\i.  to  the  heads  or 

•    3  of  the  ditieivnt  families  of   the  Kdomites.      The 

word    in   the    original   (r^-tf,   <il/"{//i,  IcmUr,   from    the 

root  io  inn/  or  i/anlt  i  (.xactlv  corresponds  to  our  ilnke 
in  its  primary  import,  \\hidi  is  from  the  Latin  du.r, 
hadfr,  and  this  again  from  <lu<-<i,  I  /nut.  This  primary 
import,  however,  has  been  verv  much  lost  si<_;ht  of,  in 
consequence  of  the  application  of  the  term  to  the  highest 
ela-s  of  our  llobiiity;  ;ind  it  had  been  better  if  tile 

simple  rendering  of  /((((/<  r  or  r/titffuht  had  been  adopted 
for  the  head.-  of  the  Kdoiuite  families. 

DULCIMER.     ,sv,  »>K/cr  MUSICAL  LXSTRVMKNJS. 

DU'MAH  |>Yi«iT].  1.  '1'he  name  of  I  shim-id's 
sixth  son,  Go  x.xv  11,  and  probably  on  this  account  the 
name  al.-o  oi  a  di.-trict,  with  its  inhabitants,  in  the  con 
fines  of  Syria  and  Arabia.  The  Arabs  still  call  a  place 
in  that  re-ion  \,\  ;.!,,•  name  of  I  >umali-d-Jendel.  /.(.the 
/••••/•/  I 'umah.  A-  an  inhabited  district  it  is  the  sub 
ject  of  a  very  enigmatical  prophecy  in  Jsaiah,  di.  x.\i. 
11,  r.',  and  is  there  viewed  in  connection  with  Scir. ---• 
2.  There  v.a-  aiiotlif  r  Dumali,  a  town  belonging  to  the. 
tril(e  of  Juclah.  .i<>-  xv.  .vj,  but  of  which  nothing  is  known 
except  that  it  is  placed  by  Kuscbius  at  the  distance  of 
17  miles  from  Lleutheropolis,  in  Daromas. 

DURA,  a  Babylonian  plain,  in  which  Nebuchadnez 
zar  set  up  his  golden  image,  and  assembled  people  from 
the  greatest  distances  to  worship  it,  l)u  iii.  No  certain 
traces  have  been  found  of  its  precise  locality,  but  it  is 
with  probability  supposed  to  have  been  either  the  plain 
in  which  Babylon  itself  stood,  or  some  other  at  no  great 
distance  from  it. 

DUST  is  often  used  figuratively  in  Scripture  as  an 
image  of  what  is  low,  mean,  and  impure.  Hence 
Abraham  calls  himself  but  "dust  and  ashes,"  Ge.  xvlii.  27; 
and  the  prevailing'  custom  in  the  East  from  the  earli 
est  times  has  been,  in  seasons  of  grief  and  distress,  to 
sit  down  in  the  dust,  and  even  to  cover  the  person  with 
it.  Many  allusions  to  this  custom  appear  in  Scripture. 
(>'(•'•  ninli  r  MofKXiNcJ  Throwing  dust  on  one  has  also 
in  all  ages  been  a  mode  of  showing  indignation  and 
contempt;  thus  Shimei,  amoiiL;  other  acts  of  outrage 
ous  behaviour,  cast  dust  at  David,  and  the  Jews,  when 
enraged  at  Paul,  threw  dust  in  the  air.  i  S:i.  xvi.  r.>;  Acts 


•(I 


is  not  ;m  action  of  contempt,  hut  of  solemn  witness- 
bearing;,  in  respect  to  the  treatment  that  [»-o\ oked  it. 
implying  tlint  tin.-  person  who  did  so  regarded  those  to 
ward  whom  it  was  done  as  heinous  offenders,  and  re 
fusing,  as  it  were,  to  carry  a\\ay  the  very  dust  of  their 
ground,  hut  lea. viii^-  it  hehind  a-  a  testimony  av.ain.-t 
them,  Mur.  vi  H. 

Dust,  as  a  merely  natural  |>hoiiomeuon,  often  plays  a 
|i:ul  in  the  Kast  to  which  the  inhabitants  of  cooler  and 
moister  climes  are  comparative  strangers.  It  was  one 
of  the  threatening*  uttered  by  .Moses  in  respect  to  the 
contemplated  apostasy  and  rebelliousness  of  the  people, 
"The  Lord  shall  make  the  rain  of  thy  land  powder  and 
dust:  from  heaven  shall  it  come  down  upon  theo,  till 
thou  be  destroyed."  lie.  xxviii.  -_'t.  The  deserts  which 
lie  partlv  within  the  territory  of  .ludea  and  partly  in 
its  vicinity,  contain  an  accumulation  of  dust  or  Hue 
sand,  which,  when  agitated  and  raised  by  the  wind, 
sometimes  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  cloud,  and  is  fraught 
with  annoyance  and  danger.  In  >easons  of  drought 
it.  is  capable  of  spreading  sterility  and  desolation  to  a 
degree  that  could  scarcely  be  imagined;  and  in  its  more 
violent  forms  it  involves  those  who  come  within  its 
sweep  in  an  atmosphere  of  suffocation.  The  crusaders 
occasional!  v  suffered  considerably  from  this  cause,  as  i- 
reported  by  their  ancient  historian  Vinisauf,  quoted  hy 
Harmer  (Observations,  iii.  4.»  "Journeying,  they  were 
thrown  into  great  perturbation  by  the  air's  being  thick 
ened  with  dust,  as  well  as  by  the  heat  of  the  season." 
It  is  rather,  however,  beyond  the  confine.-  of  Palestine. 


and  in  the  more  strictly  desert  regions,  that  this  evil 
reaches  its  most  formidable  height.  Travellers  in  these 
regions  have  frequently  'jiven  accounts  of  them,  of 
which  the  following  from  Buckingham  may  be  taken 
as  a  specimen  Tin:  morning,  he  savs.  had  been 
Hue,  but  the  "  light  airs  from  the  south  soon  increased 
into  a  gale:  the  sun  became  obscure;  and  as  everv  hour 
lirought  us  into  a  looser  sand,  it  flew  around  us  in  such 
whirlwinds  with  the  sudden  ^usts  that  blew,  that  it 
was  impossible  to  proceed.  We  halted  therefore  for 
an  hour,  and  took  shelter  under  the.  lee  of  our  beasts, 
who  were  themselves  so  terrified  as  to  need  fastening 
by  the  knees,  and  uttered  in  their  wailing.-;  but  a  mel 
ancholy  symphony.  I  know  not."  he  continues.  '•  whether 
it  was  the  novelty  of  the  situation  that  gave  it  addi 
tional  horrors,  or  whether  the  habit  of  magnifying  evils 
to  which  we  are  unaccustomed,  had  increased  its  effect, 
but  certain  it  is.  that  fifty  gales  of  wind  at  sea  appear 
to  me  more1  ea<v  to  be  encountered  than  one  amongst 
the  sands.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  desolation  more 
complete;  we  could  see  neither  sun,  earth,  nor  sky;  the 
plain  at  ten  paces'  distance  was  absolute!}'  imperceptible; 
our  beasts,  as  well  as  ourselves,  were  so  covered  as  to 
render  breathing  very  difficult:  they  hid  their  faces  in 
the  ground,  and  we  could  only  uncover  our  own  for  a 

|  moment  to  behold  this  chaos  of  mid-day  darkness,  and 
wait  impatiently  for  its  abatement."  Such  scenes,  how 
ever,  as  we  have  said,  belong  rather  to  other  regions  of 
the  East  than  to  Palestine;  it  is  too  variegated  by  hill 
and  dale,  and  too  limited  in  extent,  even  in  the  portions 
that  may  he  called  desert,  to  admit  of  dust-storms  of  ,-o 

I  severe  and  protracted  a  kind.. 


E. 


EAGLE    <-!•»;,   nethe 

The  magnificent  birds  of  prey  included  under  this 
generic  title  are  spread  over  the  whole  world.  Several 
species  occur  in  Palestine  and  the  surrounding  regions, 
as  the  imperial  eagle  (.l<//"'/r<  /  m /></•/<// i*),  the  golden 
eagle  (.1.  rJn-i/xtietox),  the  spotted  eagle  (.1.  nt/rin),  and 
probably  the  white-tailed  eagle  (//.  (illiicilla).  Perhaps 
the  term,  as  is  often  the  case,  may  lie  understood 
generic-ally,  without  any  minute  discrimination  of  spe 
cies;  and  certainly  in  one  passage  where  the  ncxlnr  is 
mentioned,  a  vulture,  and  not  an  eagle,  is  intended. 
'•  Make  tliee  bald.  .  .  .  enlarge  thy  baldness  as  the 
nether,"  ML  i.  n;.  No  true  eagle  is  bald,  whereas  this  is 
a  conspicuous  characteristic  of  all  the  Yulturida.1,  and 
x/icrid/fi/  of  the  griffon-vulture  (  \'ullur  fn/rnx).  which 
has  much  of  the  aspect  and  habits  of  the  eagles. 

Both  the  imperial  and  golden  eagles  are  sufficiently 
common  in  Western  Asia:  and  as  these  are  both  noble 
birds,  of  commanding  si/e  and  power,  with  habits  al 
most  quite  identical,  we  shall  take  for  granted  that 
both  of  these  species  are  included  in  the  iicxher. 

Many  points  in  the  history  and  economy  of  the  eagle 
are  used  allusively  in  holy  Scripture.  It  was  forbidden 
as  food,  in  common  with  other  carnivorous  fowls,  Le.  xi. 
13;  DC.  xiv.  i-j.  A  Hue  description,  embracing  in  few 


words  the  leading  characters  of  the  tribe,  occurs  in  Je 
hovah's  appeal  to  .Job,  eh.  xxxix.  '>~-'M:  "  Doth  the  eagle 
/>n>» ii f  i^i  at  thy  command,  and  //«V/,T  /«•>•  next  mi  Itif/h  > 
She  dii-iilcth  and  ahideth  ""  the  ruck,  upon  the  craf/  of 
tin  /'or/-,  and  tin.-  strong  place.  From  thence  she  xeckctli 
tin  /)/•<//,  and  her  eyes  liilm/il  'ifur  i >n'.  Her  young  ones 
also  x/tt'l,'  a j>  blnnil,  and  where  the  x/nin  are.  t/n  n  ix  x/ic." 
The  overbearing  power  and  fierce  rapacity  of  this 
bird  make  it  a  fit  emblem  of  those  scourges  of  mankind 
called  --"Teat"  conquerors;  and  hence  the  eagle  has 
been  the  favourite  standard  of  nations  in  all  a '.res;  wit 
ness  Uussia,  Prussia.  Austria.  France,  and  the  United 
States  in  our  own  time.  In  that  wondrously  minute 
prophecy,  wherein  Moses  depicts  the  history  of  Israel 
through  thousands  of  years,  DC  \xviii.,  the  .Roman  in 
vasion  and  siege  are  alluded  to  under  their  national 
emblem  a  ''nation  from  tile  end  of  the  earth,  as  the 
eagle  nieth."  The  ( 'haldean  armies  are  repeatedly  com 
pared  to  the  eagle  for  their  swiftness  and  rapacious 

cruelty,  Jo.  iv.  i:;;  xlviii.  40;  xlix.  ^>;  La.  iv.  l!i;  Ho.  i.  .S;  Hah.  i.  s; 
and  the  kings  of  Babylon  ami  of  Egypt  are  both,  in 
the  same  parable,  likened  to  "great  eagles,  with  great 
wings,  long- winged,  full  of  feathers."'  Eze.  xvii.  ,-t,  r. 

The  rock-dwelling  habits  of  the  Edomites  are  finely 
compared  to  those  of  the  eagle,  which  "maketh  her 
nest  (in  high,"  Jo.  xlix.  Hi;  ob  I;  and  they  are  reminded 


KAGLK 


47! 


that  the  impregnable  and  inaccessible  heights  to  \vhii-h 
they  resort  will  be  no  defence  against  .Jehovah,  thou'jh 
they  set  their  nest  among  the  stars. 

The  words  used  by  the  Lord  .Jesus.  "  Wheresoever  tilt- 
carcase  is.  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered  together," 
Mat.  x\iv.  ^-,  iii-.,  liave  been  by  some  eonnnentators  re- 
f erred  to  the  vulture,  on  the  assumed  ground  that  tin- 
eagle  never  feeds  on  carrion,  but  confines  itself  to  that 
jirey  wliidi  it  lias  killed  l,v  its  own  prowess.  This. 


liowever.  is  a  mistake;  in i  such  chivalrous  feeling  exists 
in  either  ea<_rle  or  linn:  both  will  feed  i'jiiominiouslv  on 
a  bodv  found  dead.  Anv  "I  mir  readers  may  see  in 
the  zoological  gardens  that  tin-  habit  imputed  is  at  leas; 
not  invariable.  A^n',!,!  ttifitm-lntti.  "i  India,  was  '-hot 
l.y  Col.  Sykes  at  the  carcase  of  a  ti'jvr:  and  .1.  m/His, 
of  South  Africa,  is  ••  fivi|ii( -ntlv  one  of  the  first  birds 
that  aj)proaches  a  dead  animal. 

Some  miraculous  power  has  ln-en  attributed  to  this 
iiird  of  becoming  young  .again  Medea-like  when  .i|.|. 
founded  on  -ucli  passages  as  these  "  Thv  youth  is  re 
newed  like  the  eagle's."  l'-  ,•  ,  ;,;  •• 'I'hey  ihat  wait  upon 
the  Lord  shall  ivne\\  their  strength.  .  'hey  -hall 

mount  up  with  win_r<  a-  eagles."  I ..  xl  ::i  lint  these 
cannot  be  understood  otherwise  than  as  poetical  idln- 
sions.  founded  donl.tless  ,,,1  the  great  loii^vvitv  of  this 
bird,  and  its  power,  in  common  witli  other  birds,  of 
moulting  its  plumage  periodically.  An  eagle  that  died 
at  Vienna  had  been  kept  in  eaptivit  v  upwards  of  a  bun 
dred  years. 

The  eagle  lias  a  vast  power  of  wiii'_r.  tlie  whole 
structure  beiii^  adapted  for  strong  and  rapid  Might.  It 
soars  to  an  immense  height  in  the  air.  remains  on  the 
wing  with  unwearied  energy,  and  swoops  on  its  piw 
like  the  falling  of  a  thunderbolt. 

In  most  countries  the  eagle's  acnteness  of  sight  has 
become  proverbial.  "  Her  eyes  behold  afar  oft'."  Mr. 
Yarrell  observes  that  '•  the  power  of  vision  in  birds  is 
very  extraordinary,  ami  in  none  is  it  more  conspicuous 
than  in  the  eagles."  "Their  destination,  elevating 
themselves,  as  they  do.  into  the  highest  regions,  and 
the  power  required  of  perceiving  objects  at  very  dif 
ferent  distances,  and  in  various  directions,  as  well  as 
the  rapidity  of  their  flight,  seem  to  render  such  a  pro 
vision  necessary."  "  It  lias  been  stated  that  probably, 
in  the  whole  range  of  anatomical  structure,  no  more 
perfect  or  more  conclusive  proofs  of  design  could  be 
adduced,  than  are  to  be  found  in  the  numerous  and 


beautiful  modifications  in  the  form  of  various  parts  of 

the  eyes  of  different  animals,  destined  to  exercise  vision 

(  in  media  of  various  degrees  of  transparency  as  well  as 

|  density."      The  eyes  of  birds  are  much  larger  in  propor- 

'  tion  than  those    of    quadrupeds,  and  exhibit   also   two 

I  other  peculiarities,  one  of  which     a  kind  of  hoop  of  bony 

plates —appears  to  be  intended  to  compress  in  various 

degrees  the  lens  of  the  eye.  and  thus  adapt  it  for  siid.it 

at  various  distances;   the  proportions  of  the  lens  itself 

are  made  ancillary  to  the  same  requirements. 

l!ut  the  most  interesting  allusions  to  the  ea^le  in 
holy  Writ  are  those  in  which  Jehovah  sets  forth  his 
paternal  care  and  tenderness  over  Israel.  "  I  bare  you 
on  eagles'  wings,  and  brought  you  unto  myself,"  Kx.xix  i 
"As  an  eaide  stirreth  up  her  nest,  tluttereth  over  her 
young,  spivadeth  abroad  her  wings,  taketh  them,  hear- 
eth  them  (.11  her  wings:  so  the  Lout)  alone  did  lead  him. 
and  there  was  no  strange  god  with  him,"  IK-  x.xxii.  ]•_' 
•»f  the  fact  that  the  raptorial  birds  do  thus  support 
their  \omi'_r  in  their  first  essays  at  flight,  the  writer  of 
this  article  takes  the  liberty  of  quoting  some  evidence 
from  one  of  his  own  works  on  natural  history.  The 
bird  alluded  to  is  the  red-tailed  liiixxard.  which  is  very 
closely  allied  to  tlie  eagles.  "  I  have  never  met  with  the 
nest  of  this  hawk,  but  a  young  friend,  very  conversant 
with  natural  history  (and  who  was  not  at  all  likely  to 
have  ever  heard  of  those  texts,  or  of  the  popular 
notions  on  the  subject],  informs  me  that  he  knew  of 
one  near  the  top  of  an  immense  cotton-tree.  .  .  .  At 
length  lie  witnessed  the  emergence  of  u\o  yoiinu'  ones. 
and  their  first  essav  at  flight.  He  assured  me  he  dis 
tinctly  saw-  the  parent  bird,  after  the  first  young  one 
had  flown  a  little  way.  and  was  beginning  to  flutter 
downward  he  saw  the  mother,  for  the  mother  surely 
it  was  tlv  beneath  it.  and  present  her  back  and  wings 
for  it-  support.  He  cannot  say  that  the  young  actually 
rested  on  or  even  touched  the  parent;  perhaps  its  con 
fidence  returned  on  seeing  support  so  near,  so  that  it 
managed  to  reach  a  dry  tree,  when  the  other  little  one. 
invited  by  the  parent,  tried  its  infant  v,  ings  in  like 
manner"  lUinls  nrJ:im:ik-a,  )>.  Mb  jr.  ll.o.j 

EAR.  as  a  verb,  and  KAKINO.  as  a  noun,  though  now 
obsolete  terms,  have  been  retained  in  a  few  passages  in 
the  authori/ed  version  of  Scripture.  Go  xlv  ii:  K\  \\xiv.  L'U 
Dr.  xxi  1:1-  \xx.-J!  They  were  from  tlie  Anglo-Saxon 
ri-idii.  to  i>l<nnjh:  so  that  to  say.  there  should  be  "neither 
eariii',:-  nor  harvest."  was  much  the  same  as  to  say,  there 
should  In-  neither  SOWIIIL;  nor  reaping.  \\hat  is  now 
called  ni-ii/i/i  /Hint,  appears  to  have  been  anciently 
termed  «n-<tl,h  html  that  is.  land  subject  to  the 
plough.  Saxon  and  Latin,  however,  come  here  into 
close  affinity,  since  iii'nrr  is  to  plough  in  Latin,  and 
rii-ii/iilix  also  occurs  for  land  subject  to  the  plough:  so 
that  the  word  might  be  derived  either  from  the  Latin 
or  the  Saxon. 

EARNEST,  like  the  preceding,  while  derived  from 
an  Anglo-Saxon  word.  i/i-n-tin.  to  run.  to  /jttrxiK ,  stands 
in  .-lose  affinity  with  a  word  of  Hebrew  origin.  '^y\y, 

('•v.  dppapui':  Lat.  <i,-,-li«ln>.  coiitr.  «rr1«i  :  Fr.  arrcx  ; 
Knu.  ni i-li x  or  «ii-ii<xt.  The  expression,  to  give  or  pay 
inriiix/,  "  seems  to  be  merely  to  give  or  pay  as  a  pledge 
or  proof  of  being  in  earnest  of  seriously  intending  to 
fulfil  or  perform  the  bargain  or  promise;  to  put  down  a 
!  gage  or  payment  beforehand"  ^Richardson).  It  is  used 
thus  by  the  apostle  Paul  of  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  believers,  in  '2  (.'or.  i.  '2'2  :  in  v.  .">.  he  employs  the 


!:AIM;TX<; 


expression,  "the  earnest  of  the  Spirit;"  and  m 
in  Ep.  i.  It.  the  sealing  with  the  Spirit  is  de 
"tile  e.iniest  uf  our  inheritance."  The  expres 
dicates  that  the  indwelling  grace  and  workin 
Spirit  is  a  fulfilment  in  part  of  the  promise,  wh 
tains  the  assurance  to  believers  of  an  eternal 
ef  all  life  and  blessing.  Tt  is  the  beginning 
\vhieh  is  to  lie  perfected  iu  glory,  and  so  brings 
the  assurance  that  all  shall  in  due  time  lie  mad' 
EAR-RING.  This  word  is  somewhat  too 
for  the  eoiTcspoiidiii'_  term  in  the  Hebrew.  c-: 

.Derived  from  a  root  which  signifies   to   pit  tve 
it  denotes  properly  a  pendent  rin^.  sucli  as 
have  been  wont   to  wear  alike  from   the   nose 
ear   (by  moans  of  a  hole  iiored  through  the  par 


sometimes  also  .suspended  from  the  forehead,  so  us  to 
fall  down  upon  tlie  face.  The  servant  of  Abraham 
presented  Rebekah  with  an  article  of  this  sort;  he  is 
said,  in  our  English  Bible,  to  have  put  "an  ear-rin^ 
upon  her  face."  Ge.  xxiv.  47,  \vhichmust  obviously  have 
been  either  a  m>se-je\vel  or  a  ring  to  be  hung  from  her 
forehead,  otherwise  it  could  with  no  propriety  have 
been  represented  as  put  upon  her  face.  That  rings 
were  quite  commonly  worn,  however,  in  those  earlv 
times,  as  ear-rings  in  the  -tricter  sense,  is  evident  from 
what  is  recorded  of  the  family  of  Jacob,  who  are  said. 
among  other  articles  more  or  less  connected  with  idola 
try,  to  have  given  him  "the  earrings  which  were  in 


[220.]    Modern  I'.gyptian  N'osu  rings,  half  the  real  size.-  .From  Lane. 

their  ears."  Ge.  x\xv.  \.  At  a  later  period  in  the  early 
portion  of  the  wilderness-sojourn,  they  are  again  con 
nected  with  the  ears  of  the  wearers.  K\.  xxxii.  -2.  Occa 
sionally  another  term  i-  employed  (<~**y.  c////i.  which 

appears  to  have  indicated  the  same  kind  of  articles, 
only  with  a  more  distinct  reference  to  the  circular  form 


1  No;..  1,  '2,  -1,  :ire  Egyptian  ear-rings  of  gold,  l.ron/.e,  iron,  iu., 
from  actual  specimens  in  the  Biiti.-h  Museum.  No.  3.  an 
Egyptian  ear  ring,  from  Wilkinson.  X0.j.  5,  0,  7.  Assyrian  ear 
rings,  frcmi  Botta's  Nineve.  Xos.  8.  !',  Assyrian  ear-rings,  from 
the  N'inoveh  sculptures  in  the  British  Museum. 


in  which  they  were  usually  cast.  it  was  the  very 
general  custom  among  ancient  oriental  nations  for 
such  ornaments  to  he  worn  liv  men  as  well  as  women, 
and  the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  monuments  furnish 
not  a  few  examples  of  this  description.  But  there  is 
nothing  in  the  notices  of  Old  or  .New  Testament  scrip 
ture  to  indicate'  that  such  a  practice  prevailed  anionu 
the  Hebrews.  Indeed,  the  passage  in  .Iu.  viii.  '24. 
which  so  expressly  connects  the  wearing  of  golden  ear 
rings  on  tlie  part  of  men  with  the  manners  of  the 
Ishmaelites.  seems  not  doubtfully  to  imply  that  the 
practice  was  at  least  unusual,  if  it  existed  at  all  amon^ 
tin  male  portion  of  the  covenant-people.  Kings  are 
never  distinctly  associated  with  any  but  females.  With 
these,  however,  they  are  sometimes  associated  in  a 
manner  which  bespeaks  them  to  have  been  occasional!} 
used,  not  for  ornament  merely,  but  for  purposes  of 
superstition  and  idolatry.  i>Vf  c/K/o1  AMU.KT.I 

EARTH.     This  js    the  common  equivalent   in  the 
English  Bible  to  the  Heh.  ercfz  (y-\S'K  and  to  the  Creek 

'/•?]:  and  as  these  words  signify  hiinl ,  as  well  as  <:artli  — 
a  specific  territory  of  the  globe,  as  well  as  its  entire 
compass  it  is  necessary  to  look  at  the  connection,  to 
see  whether  the  won  I  is  to  be  taken  in  the  more  re 
stricted  or  the  larger  sense.  Generally  speakm-.  our 
translators  have  observed  the  distinction:  but  thev  have 
not  been  quite  uniform  in  their  renderings,  and  in  a  few 
passages  they  have  used  earth,  where  undoubtedly  land 
had  been  the  fitting  term.  Thus  in  .Ja.  v.  1  ,".  referring 
to  the  drought  in  the  time  of  Elias.  it  is  said.  "  it  rained 
not  o/i  flu  fin-ili  by  the  space  of  three  years  and  six 
months:"  while  iu  Lu.  iv.  •_>/;.  with  reference  to  the 
same  event,  we  read,  "the  heaven  was  .--hut  up  three 
years  and  six  months,  when  great  famine  was  through 
out  «//  ///(  ldinl."  As  the  drought  in  question  came 
specially  .is  a  judgment  upon  the  land  of  Israel,  the 
more  general  term  should  have  been  avoided.  Our 
translator.-:  have  fallen  into  the  same  ineoiisistence  in 
rendering  two  passages  respecting  our  Lord's  crucifixion, 
in  which  the  original  almost  exactly  accords.  fn  Mat. 
xxvii.  45.  we  read,  "and  there  was  darkness  over  all 
the  land  unto  the  ninth  hour:"  hut  in  Lu.  xxiii.  44. 
"and  there  was  darkness  overall  the  earth  until  the 
ninth  hour."  It  should  undoubtedly  have  been  the 
same  in  both  eases;  and  as  there  is  no  historical  ground 
for  supposing  that  the  darkness  was  more  than  local, 
it  had  been  better  if  in  each  case  "all  the  land"  had 
been  the  rendering  adopted.  Indeed,  in  old  English. 
t.iirt/i  seems  to  have  been  occasionally  interchanged 
with  land,  as  an  equivalent:  thus  Ladv  Capulct  is  made 
to  say  of  her  daughter  Juliet.  "She  is  the  hopeful  ladv 

of  my  earth'"  (  Koinoo  anil  Juliet,  art  i.  scene  liV  Alld.ftV/r  C/t 
firn  is  the  old  French  term  for  IK  //vw.  In  such  ex 
pressions,  however,  as  "all  the  earth  came,"  or  "all 
the  earth  heard."  even  though  nothing  more  than  a 
limited  universality  could  be  intended,  it  is  best  to 
retain  the  expression  in  its  most  general  form;  for  in 
such  popular  forms  of  speech  every  one  instinctively 
supplies  the  necessary  limitation.  [ADAM,  CREATION.] 
EARTHQUAKE,  a  tremulous  motion  or  shaking 
of  the  earth,  caused  by  volcanic  agency,  or  the  violent 
action  of  subterraneous  heat  and  vapours.  Whether  such 
commotions  can  be  precisely  identified  with  volcanic 
agency  or  not.  it  is  certain  that  they  have  occurred  most 
frequently  in  those  regions  of  the  earth  where  that 
agencv  either  still  is.  or  in  former  times  has  been,  in  most 


EARTHQUAKK 

active  operation.      That   Palestine    has    been    subject  :  but  which  spent  its  violence  about  half  way  between 
both  to  volcanic  agency,  and  to  the  occasional  occur-      Beyrout    and   Jerusalem,    \vhere   whole    villages   were 
rence  of  earthquakes,  admits  of  no  doubt,      "The  vol-     turned  into  heaps  of  rubbish;  and  still  anotheAn  1837 
canic    phenomena    of  Palestine/'  says  Stanley  (P.  r.-D,     in  which  no  fewer  than  thirty-six  towns  and  villages 
"open  a  question  of  which  the  data  are.  in  a  scientific     suffered  partial  or  complete  destruction,  and  in  Safed 
point  of  view,  too  imperfect  to  be  discussed  ;  but  there     alone,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  centre  of  the'  c-ih- 
is  enough  in  the  history  and  literature  of  the  people  to     mity.  upwards   of  Sum)  pt.TSons   are  reported  to  have 
show,  that  there  was  an  agency  of  this  kind  at  work,     perished.       There    can    be    no    doubt    therefore     from 
The   valley  of  the  Jordan,  both  in  its  desolation  and     known  facts  in  the  physical   historv  of  Palestine    that 
vegetation,  was  one  continued   portent:   and  from  its     it   has   been  repeatedly  subject   to '  the   phenomena  of 
crevices  ramified  even  into   the  interior  of  Judea  the     earthquakes;  and  it  is"oiilv  what  mi-lit  have  been'  ex- 
startling  appearances,  if  not  of  the  volcano,  at  least  of     pected,    that  there  should'  be,   besidJ  occasional  refer- 
the  earthquake."     He  goes  on  to  state,  that  the  writ-     enees  in  the  language   of  Scripture  to   events'  of  that 
ings  of  the  psalmists  and  prophets  abound  with  indiea-      description,  distinct  notices  of  their  actual  occurrence 
tions  of  the  feelings  produced  by  such  phenomena:  such     at  certain  periods  in  the  history  of  the  past      In  reality 
as   the  following:    "He   looketh  ,,u  the  earth,  and   it     however,  there  are  not  many  notices  of  this  sort.     Only 
trembleth;"    "He   toucheth  the   mountains,   and   they     one  stands  prominently  out  in  Old  Testament  historv— 
smoke;"    "The  mountains  quake  at  him,  and  the  hills     (/„:  rart/K/mikc,  as  it   Is  called    by  way  of  eminence' by 
melt,  and  the  earth  is  burned  at  his  presence;"    "  The     the   prophet   Amos,   ch.  i.  i      Ho"  announces  his  vision 
earth  shall  reel  to  and  fro.  like  a  drunkard,  and   shall     as  bavin-  been  -ranted  to  him   "two  years  before  the 
be  removed  like  a  cottage."      Volney,   in  his   Trarel*,     earthquake,"  implying  this  to  have  been  a  most  memo- 
had  long  ago  drawn  attention   to  this  character  of  the     ruble  visitation,  a  kind  of  epoch  in  historv       The  same 
country.      "The  south  of  Syria,"  he  had  said   (v,,l.  i.  p.     also  appears  from  the  allusion  made  to  it   bv  the  later 
'that   is,    the  hollow  through   which  tile  .Jordan     prophet  Zechariah,  who  seeks  to  impress  the  minds  ,,f 
flows,   is  a  country  of  volcanoes;   the  bituminous  and     hnpenitent  sinner  with  the  dread  of  comin"  vengeance 
sulphureous   sources  ,,f  the  lake  Asphaltitis,   the   lava,      by  telling  them,  that   "they  should   flee  like  as  they 
the  pumice-stone  thrown  upon  its  banks,  and  the  hot     II,  d  from  before  the  earthquake  in  the  .lav-,  of  Tx/.i-ih 
baths  of  Tabaria.  demonstrate  that  this  valley  has  U  en     kin-  of  Judah,"  ch  xiv.  ft.      It  is  rather  singular  that  no 
the  seat  of  a  subterraneous   tire,  which  is  not   yet  ex-     notice   should   have   been  taken  of  it  in  the   history  of 
tmgmshed.      A  nd  a  recent  Cerman  traveller,  Russeger,      ('//iah's  reign.     Josephus  has  endeavoured  to  supply 
quoted  m  Smith'*    Dlcttnnaru   of  Annctit   G'cof/rap/,,/,     the  deficiency,  but  in  a  manner  which  forbids  our  re- 
under  "Palestine,"  thus  writes:    "  li  w  in  the  northern     posing   any  confidence  in  his  accuracy.      He  says  tint 
part  of  this  country  alone,  that  volcanic  formations  are     the  eartlupiake  "shook  the  -round,  so  that  a  rent  was 
found  in  considerable  quantities.      Nevertheless,  much     made    in  the   temple,  and    the  rays  of   the   sun   shone 
of  the  land  in  which  volcanic  rocks  are  not  found,  bears     throii-h  it,  which,  fnilin-  upon  the  king's   face    struck 
evident  marks  of  frequent  volcanic  action    -such  as  hot     him   with   the   leprosy"  (AM!  iv  i,.  n      The  account  in 
springs,  the  crater-like  depressions  (such  as  the  basin      '2  Ch.  xxvi.  10,  of   the  leprosy  of  L'zziali    ascribes  it  to 
of  Tiberias,  and  that  of  the  Dead  Sea,  with  its  basaltic     the  direct  interposition  of  Heaven    as  a  di'vine  judgment 
rocksi,   the   frequent   and    visible   disturbances   of    the     on  his  presumption  for  persisting  in  his  purpose  to  per- 
strata  of  the  normal  rocks,  the  numerous  crevices,  and     flirm  a  strictly   priestly  act— the  orTerin-  of   incense 
especially  the  frequent  and  violent  earthquakes.     The      jt  js  incredible,  that  if  this  infliction  had  been  instru- 
hne  of  earthquakes  in  Syria  includes  Hebron,  Jernsa-     mentally  connected   with  the  earthquake    the  history 
lem,   Nabhls,   Tiberias,  Safed.    l!aalb,,k.    Aleppo,  from     should  have  been  entirely  silent  upon  the'subject      Of 
thence  takes  a  direction  from  south,  west  to  north-east,      the  extent  of   that  earthquake    therefore    which  took 
follows  the  direction  ,,f  the  central  chain  of  Syria,  runs     place  iu  the  latter  part  ,,f  Uriah's  reum    of  the  precise 
parallel  to  that  of  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  ha,  its      localities  affected   by  it.   or  of   the  desolations  it   may 
termination  northwards  in  the  vulcanic  country  on  the     have  produced     of  anything,  in  short,  but  the  .--eneral 
slope  of  Taurus,  and  southwards  in  the  mountain-land     alarm   and   consternation   occasioned    by  it    we   know 
of  Arabia  Petraea."  absolute! v  nothing. 

_  Many  similar  testimonies  are  given  by  Dr.  Kitto  in  Not  uncommonly  the  appearances  that  presented 
is  Physical  History  »/  Palestine  (ch.  iv.),  where  also  themselves  to  Klijah  at  Horeb.  when  first  a  -reat  and 
may  be  seen  a  detailed  account  of  the  earthquakes  stron-  win.!  rent  the  mountain,  and  brake  in  pieces 
that  are  known  to  have  visited  Palestine,  about  and  ,  the  rocks  before  the  Lord,  then  an  earthquake  then  a 
since  the  Christian  era.  The  more  remarkable  are  the  \  fire,  ami  finally  a  still  small  voice  1  Ki  MX  are  classed 
following:  one  mentioned  by  Josephust  Ant.  xvi.  7;  Wars,  '  nmoni:  the  phenomena  of  ordinary  earthquakes-  but 
i.  14),  which  occurred  in  B.C.  81,  and  which  is  said  to  the  natural  impression  produced  by  the  narrative  rather 
have  shaken  the  whole  land  of  Judea,  destroying  many  favours  the  idea  that  the  whole  scene  was  of  a  special 
thousands  of  persons;  another,  described  by  William  of  and  supernatural  description.  In  New  Testament 
Tyre,  in  A.n.  1170,  which  laid  several  cities  on  the  coast  scripture  mention  is  made  of  two  earthquakes— one 
m  rums,  but  does  not  appear  to  have  penetrated  far  in  connection  with  the  last  stage  of  our  Lord's  earthly 
into  Palestine;  another,  in  17.09,  mentioned  by  Volney,  history,  and  another  with  the  imprisonment  of  Paul 
which  is  said  to  have  caused  great  damage,  and  de-  \  and  Silas  at  Philippi.  The  former  of  these  is  by  St. 
stroyed  in  Baalbek  alone  20,000  persons;  another,  in  i  Matthew  first  connected  with  the  death  of  Christ,"  and 
spread  much  devastation  around  the  lake  then  again  with  the  resurrection:  aeeordiii-  to' him 


of  Galilee,  and  which  was  ascertained  by  two  mission 
aries  (Mr.  Caiman  and  Mr.  Thompson)  to  have  been 


there  was  what  he  calls  a  <mo>t6r,  or  shaking,  in  both 
cases,  Mat.  xxvii.  iii-Ki;  xxviii.  2.    P>ut  it  may  well  be  doubted 


-..  u-'j.'v.i.Tiii.  „.        jjuuiu  iiit.li  \    well   Uc  QOUDucCl 

VOL"  *       6  °f  5°°  "lile'S  hl  1Ungth  hy  9°  'n  broa<Ith'      whether,  in  either  case,  it  was  an  earthquake  in  the 

60 


474 

ordinary  sense  that  is  meant;  it  would  rather  seem  to  :  EAST  WIND  is  in  Scripture  frequently  referred  to 

he  some  special  :uid  supernatural  operation  of  God,  in  ns  a  wind  of  considerable  strength,  and  also  of  a  peen- 

attestation  of  the  marvellous  work  that  was  in  progress,  liarly  dry,   parching,   and  blighting  nature.     In  Pha- 

producini' a  tremulous  motion  in  the  immediate  locality,  i-aoh's  dream  the  thin  ears  of  corn  are  represented  as 


and  in  connection  therewith  a  sensible  consternation  in 
the  minds  of  the  immediate  actors.  if  it  had  been  an 
earthquake  in  the  ordinary  sense,  we  can  scarcely  sup 
pose  it  would  have  been  unnoticed  by  the  oilier  evan 
gelists.  And  this  view  is  confirmed  by  its  being  in  the 


being  blasted  by  an  east  wind,  as,  in  a  later  age,  Jonah's 
gourd  was  withered  and  himself  scorched  by  ''a  vehe 
ment  east  wind,''  Gu.xii.c-,  Jonah  iv.  s ;  and  often  in  the 
prophets,  when  a  blighting  desolation  is  spoken  of,  it  is 
associated  with  the  east  wind,  either  as  the  instrumental 


second  case  connected  with  the  angel's  descent:   "  There     cause  or  as  a  lively  image  of  the  evil,  KXO.  xvii.  H>;  xix.  12; 
was  a  u'reat  shaking,  or  earthquake,  for  the  angel  of     Ho.  xiii.  i:>;  liab.  i.  c.i,  \o.     This  arose  from  the  fact,  that  in 
the  Lord  descended,  '  o>ini 
out    of    place   wilh   some 


.  i  Sa.  xiv.  i:>.     So  that  it  seems     Egypt,  Palestine,  and  the  lands  of  the  Bible  generally, 
to    regard    the    supernatural     the  east   wind,  or  a  wind  with  more  or  less  in  it  of  an 

obscuration  of  the  sun  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion     eastern  direction,  blows  over  burning  deserts,  and  con- 
as  caused  by  the  commotion  of  the  earthquake  (KiUu's     sequently  is  destitute  of  the  moisture  which  is  necessary 
Cyclopedia,  uvt.  Earthquake).       And    both   that    particular     to  promote  vegetation.      In  Egypt  it  is  rather  a  south- 
earthquake,  and  the  one  that  occurred  at  Philippi,  are     east  than  an  east  wind,  which  is  commonly  found  most 
probably  to  be  regarded  as  somewhat  exceptional  pheno-     injurious  to  health  and  fruitt'ulness  ;    but  this  also  is 
mena,  wrought  for  a  specific  purpose,  and  consequently     familiarly  called  an  east  wind,  and  it  often  increases  to 
very  limited  as  t<>  their  sphere  of  action.      In  short,  it     great    violence.      Tkert.  a  German   writer,    quoted    by 
does  not  appear  from  any  notices  of  Scripture  that  the      1  lengstenberg  in  his  £</>//>>  and  tin-  Books  of  Moses,  thus 
phenomena  of  earthquakes,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the     sums  up  the  accounts  of  modern  travellers  on  the  sub- 
term,  played  more  than  a  very  occasional  and  subordiii-      ject:  ''.In  the  spring  the  south  wind  oftentimes  springs 
ate  juirt  in  the  scenes  and  transactions  of  sacred  history,      up  towards  the  south-east,  increasing  to  a  whirlwind. 
EAST,   as   the   designation  of   a  certain  quarter   or     The  heat  then  seems  insupportable,  although  the  ther- 
region  of  the  earth,  is  used  somewhat  loosely  in  Scrip-      mometer  does  not  always  rise  very  high.      As  long  ns 
ture.      It   denoted   not   only   the   countries   which   lay     the  south-east  wind  continues,  doors  and  windows  are 
directly  cast  of  Palestine,  but  those  also  which  stretched     closed,  but  the  fine  dust  penetrates  everywhere:  every- 
toward  the  north  and  east     Armenia,  Assyria.  Baby-      thing  dries  up;  wooden  vessels   warp  and  crack.      The 
Ionia,   Parthia.  as  well  as  the  territories  of  Moab.  Am-  !  thermometer  rises  suddenly  from  1G-200  up  to  30-36°, 
mon,    and    Arabia    Deserta.       When     Jacob    reached     and  even  38°  of  Reaumur.    This  wind  works  destruction 
Mesopotamia,  he  is  said  to  have  come   "  into  the  laud     upon  everything.      The  urass  withers,  so  that  it  entirely 
of  the  children  of  the  east."  <;,-.  xxix.  i,  although  it  lay     perishes    if   this  wind    blows    long."       it    is   stated   by 
very  nearly  due  north  from    Palestine.      The  magi,  or     another  traveller.  Wansleb.  quoted  by  the  same  autho- 
wis'e  men  "from  the  east,  who  came  to  hail  the  infant     rity.  and  with  special  reference  to  the  strong  east  wind 
Saviour,  were  in  all  probability  from  Chaldea;  and  if     employed  on  the  occasion  of  the  passage  of  the  Israel- 
not   Chaldeans,    we   can    scarcely  think    of    any  other     ites  through  the  Red  Sea,  which  took  place  shortly  after 
countries  than  Persia  and  Parthia,  for  in  these  regions     Easter:  "From  Easter  to  Pentecost  is  the  most  stormy 
the  magi  formed  the  learned  and  priestly  caste.      l'.:i-      part  of  the  year,  for  the  wind  commonly  blows  during 
laam,  who  belonged   to  .Mesopotamia,  says  that  he  had     this  time  from  the   Ued   Sea.  from  the  east."     There 
been  brought   "out  of  Aram,  out  of  the  mountains  of     is  nothing,  therefore,  in  the  scriptural  allusions  to  this 
the  east,"  Xu.xxiii.7.      Again,  the  Midianites  and  Ama-      wind,  which  is  not   fully  borne  out   by  the  reports  of 
lekites,  whose  land  lay  directly  to  the  east  of  Palestine,      modern  travellers  ;   alike  by  sea  and  by  land  it  is  now, 
are  called   "the  children  of  'the  east."  Ju.  vi.  :i ;  vul.  i<>.     as  it  has  ever  been,  an  unwelcome  visitant,  and  carries 
It    was   one   of   the   charges   brought   against  ancient     along  with  it  many  disagreeable  effects. 
Israel,  that  they  were  replenished  fr«  >m  the  east— mean-         E'BAL  A  ND  GERIZ'IM,  the  names  of  two  hills  which, 
ino-,  that  they  were  much  given  to  the  astrological  and     from  the  peculiar  distinction  conferred  on  them,  as  the 
magic  arts,   which  miyht   be   said   to  have   their   seat  ,  scenes    respectively  from  which  the  blessing    and  _the 
among  the  Chaldeans;  and  hence,  it  is  added,  partly  by     curse  were  to  be  pronounced  on  Israel,  bave^  acquired 
way  of  explanation,  that  they  were   '•  soothsayers  like     a  kind  of  singular  interest.     Moses  declared  before  his 
the- Philistines,"  ls.ii.6.     In  the  varied  use  and  applica-     death  that  he  had  set  before  Israel  a  blessing  and  a 
tion  of  the  term,  therefore,  it  is  necessary  to  consider     curse  -a  blessing,  if  they  obeyed  God's  commandments 
the  connection  in  which  it  stands,  in  order  to  obtain  i  —a  curse,  if  they  disobeyed;  and  he  charged  them  to 
any  distinct  idea  of  the  region  more  particularly  indi-     put  the  blessing,  after  they  got  possession  of  Canaan, 
cated  by  it.  !  «P"n  ^Jovmt  Gerizim,  and  the  curse  upon  Mount  Ebal, 

EASTER,  the  name  properly  of  a  Christian  festival,  "Are  they  not,"  he  added,  "on  the  other  side  Jor- 
but  used  once  in  the  authorized  version,  though  im-  dan,  by  the  way  where  the  sun  goeth  down,  in  the  land 
properly,  to  designate  the  Jewish  passover.  Ac.  xii.  4.  of  the  Canaanites,  which  dwell  in  the  champaign  over 
The  words  should  be.  "intending  after  the  Passover,"  against  Gilgal,  beside  the  plains  of  Moreh?"  De.  xi 
not  "after  Easter;"  for  it  is  the  Jewish  observance  This  description  of  the  locality  of  the  two  mounts  is 
alone  that  was  in  question.  :  certainly  somewhat  indefinite;  and  different  views  have 

EAST  SEA  is  an  epithet  used  in  two  passages,  Joel  |  been,  and  still  arc,  taken  of  the  precise  hills  indicated 
ii.  20;  K/e.  xlvii.  i>,  of  the  Dead  Sea,  because  it  lay  on  the  '  by  them;  but  we  have  the  testimony  of  a  uniform  tradi- 
eastern  side  of  the  Holy  Land.  The  Mediterranean  |  tion,  that  they  are  the  two  hills  which  form  the  oppo- 
Sea,  because  lying  in  the  opposite  direction,  was  on  a  site  sides  of  the  valley  wherein  lay  the  ancient  Shechem 
like'  account  called  the  WKST  SKA,  or  the  sea  on  the  j  or  Sichem,  supplanted  by  the  modern  Nablous.  Many 
west  border.  Xu.xxxiv.  c;  Jos.  xv.  12,  &c.  descriptions  have  been  given  of  the  two  elevations, 


EBAL   AND   GERIZ1M 


EI'.AL   AM)   GERIZIM 


slightly  differing  in  the  views  presented  of  their  respec 
tive  natures,  but  chiefly,  it  would  appear,  from  the 
descriptions  being  given  from  different  points  of  view. 
Robinson,  who  surveyed  them  a  little  to  the  west,  from 
the  village  of  Xablous  itself,  says  of  them:  ''Mounts 
C4erizim  and  Ebal  rise  in  steep,  rocky  precipices,  imme 
diately  from  the  valley  on  each  side,  apparently  some 
800  feet  in  height.  The  sides  of  both  these  mountains 


as  here  seen  (namely,  from  Nahlous).  were,  to  our  eyes, 
etmally  naked  and  sterile,  although  some  travellers  have 
chosen  to  describe  Gerizim  as  fertile,  and  confine  the 
sterility  to  Ebal.  The  only  exception  in  favour  of  the 
former,  as  far  as  we  could  perceive,  is  a  small  ravine 
coming  down  opposite  to  the  west  end  of  the  town, 
which  indeed  is  full  of  fountains  and  trees;  in  other 
respects,  both  mountains,  as  here  seen,  are  desolate, 


except  that  a  few  olive-trees  an-  scattered  up, ,11  them  " 
(Researches,  lii  p.  %).  A  late  traveller  (Dr.  Hnrhanan,  in  his 
Notes  of  .1  Clerical  Furl,, ugh  spent  cliictly  in  the  H..]v  Land,  p.  ;)-jH, 
so  far  differs  from  this  view,  that  he  says,  on  approach 
ing  the  mountains  from  the  east,  where  alone  the  spe 
cific  heights  are  found,  to  which  the  names  of  Ebal  and 
Gerizim  were  given,  "the  contrast  between  them  is 
obvious  and  strong.  Ebal  is  much  steeper,  more  desti 
tute  of  soil,  and  altogether  greatly  more  rocky  and 
barren  than  Geri/.im.  whose  sides  are  more  sloping,  and 
clothed  with  a  much  richer  and  more  abundant  vegeta 
tion."  He  therefore;  thinks  that  the  two  mounts  were 
considerately  chosen  tin;  one  as  the  scene  of  blessing, 
and  the  other  as  that  of  cursing,  since  there  is  some 
thing  in  the  very  aspect  of  ( ieri/iiii  that  tends  to  suggest 
the  idea  of  blessing,  and  of  cursing  in  that  of  Ebal. 
The  same,  indeed,  substantially  had  been  said  long  ago 
by  Maundrell:  "Though  neither  of  the  mountains  has 
much  to  boast  of  as  to  their  pleasantness,  yet,  as  one 
passes  between  them,  Geri/.im  seems  to  discover  a  some 
what  more  verdant,  fruitful  aspect  than  Ebal.'' 

Admitting  this,  however,  something  further  must 
evidently  be  taken  into  account,  in  order  to  explain 
why  these  two  mountains  should  have  been  chosen  for 
such  a  purpose;  why,  of  all  the  mountains  in  Canaan, 
these  should  have  been  selected  as  the  scene  of  so  re 
markable  and  solemn  a  transaction.  If  We  can  so  far 
distinguish  between  the  two,  as  to  be  able  to  say,  that 
the  one,  from  its  more  sterile  and  rugged  aspect,  was 
the  fitter  for  being  associated  with  the  curse,  and  the 
other,  as  the  milder  and  more  genial  in  appearance,  for 
having  the  blessing  pronounced  011  it :  we  still  need 
some  additional  reason  to  account  for  these  mountains 
being  so  definitely  fixed  on  as  the  scenes  respectively 
of  blessing  ami  cursing,  while  many  others  in  Palestine 
might  (so  far  as  natural  appearance  is  concerned*  have 


in  D'Kstournifl. 


equally  served  the  purpo>e.  The  region  of  Shechem, 
in  which  the  mountains  stood,  had  this  advantage  above 
most  others,  that  they  \\viv  \<  ry  nearly  in  the  centre 
of  the  land.  lint  besides  that,  it  was  hallowed  by  sonic 
of  the  most  >acrcd  recollections  connected  with  the  his 
tory  of  their  patriarchal  fathers.  "The  place  of  She 
chem  tas  it  is  called)  in  the  plain  of  Moreh,"  was  the 
first  spot  in  the  land  of  Canaan  at  which  Abraham 
rested,  and  where,  after  receiving  a  fresh  revelation 
from  heaven,  "lie  built  an  altar  unto  tin;  Lord,  who 
appeared  unto  him,"  Go.  xii.  I;,T.  It  was  before  Shechem. 
also,  which  was  no  longer  designated  a  )>/<icr,  but  a  cili/, 
that  .Jacob,  on  his  return  from  Mesopotamia,  took  up 
his  abode,  and  "bought  a  parcel  of  a  field,  where  he 
had  spread  his  tent,  at  the  hand  of  the  children  of 
Hamor.  the  father  of  Shechem,"  GO.  \x.\iii.  in.  There, 
too,  did  he  erect  his  first  altar  to  God.  and  "called  it 
El-EIohe- Israel."  It  is  possible,  as  Stanley  suggests, 
that  there  may  have  been  other  associations  of  a  sacred 
nature  connected  with  this  locality;  and  in  particular, 
that  it,  and  not  Jerusalem,  may  have  been  "the  scene 
of  Abraham's  encounter  with  Melchizedek.  and  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac"  (Sinai ami  Palestine,  p.  L':>).  But  whether 
this  may  have  been  the  case  or  not,  we  have  enough  in 
those  other  scriptural  transactions  which  are  expressly 
identified  with  this  region,  to  account  for  the  selection 
of  its  two  most  prominent  mountain-peaks,  whence  to 
read  forth,  in  the  hearing  of  assembled  Israel,  the  bless 
ing  and  the  curse,  as  recorded  by  the  pen  of  Moses. 
When  assembled  there,  the  people  stood,  not  onlv  in 
the  centre  of  the  whole  laud,  but  on  ground  that  had 
been  hallowed  in  former  times  by  solemn  communica 
tions  between  heaven  and  earth,  and  where  in  spirit 
they  were  again  brought  into  contact  with  their  godly 
ancestors;  and  no  spot  could  be  conceived  better  fitted 
for  their  hearing  with  solemnized  minds  the  words 


EBKl) 


47 


ECCLESIASTEH 


which  were  intended  on  the  one  side  to  encourage  their 
obedience,  and  on  the  other  to  warn  them  of  the  fear 
ful  consequences  of  unfaithfulness  to  their  covenant 
obligations.  (>•'«'  SHKCHEII.) 

Of  the  two  mountains,  (ieri/.im  is  not  only  the  more 
pleasant  and  fertile  in  its  aspect,  but  also  rises  to  a 
higher  elevation,  though  the  difference  in  height  is  not 
verv  great.  The  remains  still  exist  of  the  road  by 
which  the  people  used  t«>  ascend  to  the  temple  which 
the  Samaritans  built  on  the  top  of  it,  in  rivalry  of  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem.  There  arc  also  the  remains  of  ! 
an  ancient  fortress,  which  stood  on  the  table-land  of 
the  summit:  but  nothing  particular  is  known  concern 
ing  it. 

E'BED  [flare,  scrr«i>t\,  the  father  of  Caal.  who 
headed  the  conspiracy  of  the  Shechemites  against  Abi 
melech,  Ju..:x.  •-'('>.  He  appears  to  have  been  a  descendant 
of  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  land,  and  hence  did 
not  belong  to  any  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  (See  CiAAL.l 

E'BED  -  MELECH  [/•//>//'*  slio.-c  or  acrntiit],  an 
Ethiopian  eunuch  in  the  employment  of  Zedekiah  king 
of  Judah.  \Ve  know  of  him  simply  in  relation  to 
Jeremiah,  to  whom  he  showed  much  kindness  in  a 
time  of  sore  affliction,  and  whoso  life  he  even  saved 
from  destruction.  His  righteousness  was  recompensed 
to  him  again;  for  he  obtained  a  special  promise  of  pro 
tection  and  safety,  amid  the  destruction  which  was  to 
be  brought  upon  Jerusalem  by  the  king  of  Babylon, 
Jo.  xxxviii.  7,  seq .;  xxxix. 

E'BEN-E'ZEL  [xtnncofi/ipartnrc],  a  memorial  stone 
mentioned  in  ]  Sa.  xx.  lit  ;  or  possibly  a  stone  of  direc-  ', 
tion  indicating  two  diverse  routes. 

E'BEN-E'ZER  [ttmie  nf  In  ///].  a  memorial  stone  set 
np  by  Samuel  between  Mizpeh  and  Shen,  in  commemo 
ration  of  a  signal  deliverance  obtained  from  the  oppres 
sion  of  the  Philistines.  The  precise  locality  is  not 
known,  nor  even  the  sites  of  the  two  places  between 
which  it  was  erected.  On  setting  it  up  Samuel  used 
the  explanatory  words,  "  Hitherto  hath  the  Lord 
helped  us,"  i  Sa.  vii.  .>n 

E'BER,  the  great-grandson  of  Shem,  and  one  of  the 
ancestors  of  Abraham.  (&ec  HEBREWS.) 

EBONY  (c'i^n,  tSevos^,  is  only  once  mentioned  in 

•  :  T 

the  Bible  :  "The  men  of  Dedan  were  thy  merchants; 

they  lirought  thee  for  a  present  horns  of  ivory  and 
ebony,"  Eze.  xxvii.  i,->;  nor  can  there  be  any  contrast 
more  complete  than  white  ivory  and  black  ebony, 
although  the  one  is  derived  from  the  animal  kingdom 
and  the  other  from  the  vegetable.  Indeed,  with  its 
great  density  and  stony  hardness,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  some  of  the  earlier  writers  doubted  whether  it 
were  a  vegetable  production  at  all ;  and  Pausanias 
states  that  he  had  it  on  good  authority  that  in  its 
origin  it  is  entirely  subterranean  !  "  I  have  been,  told 
by  a  man  of  Cyprus,  wonderfully  well  informed  regard 
ing  medicinal  plants,  that  ebony  yields  neither  leaves 
nor  fruit,  nor  indeed  has  it  any  stem  above  ground.  It 
is  merely  a  root  buried  in  the  soil,  which  the  Ethio 
pians  dig  out,  some  of  whom  are  very  skilful  in  detect 
ing  its  localities."  To  this  darksome  derivation  Southey 
alludes  in  his  description  of  Shedad's  palace : — 
"  The  Ethiop,  keen  of  scent, 
Detects  the  ebony, 

That  ilcep  inearth'd,  and  hating  light, 
A  leafless  tree,  and  barren  of  all  fruit, 
With  darkness  feeds  its  boughs  of  raven  grain." 

We  need  not   say  that   Pausanias  was    misinformed. 


True  ebony,  the  wood   with  which  the   ancients  were 

acquainted,  is  obtained  from  one  or  other  of  the  species 

of  Diospvros,  most  of  which — for  example,  I},  ebenaster, 

f>.  melanoxylon,    I).  Jtiujlei — are   natives  of  the   East 

Indies:   so  that  Virgil  is  still  substantially  correct:  — 

"  Divisff  arboribus  patri;e:  sola  India  nigrum 

Fert  ebenum." — C/to/v/.  ii.  110. 

One  of  the  noblest  species  is  the  I),  rctieulata  of  Ceylon. 
"The  densely  black  portion  occupies  the  centre  of  the 
tree;  and  in  order  to  reach  it,  the  whiter  wood  that 
surrounds  it  is  carefully  cut  away."  But,  even  when 
thus  reduced,  logs  two  feet  in  diameter,  and  in  length 
from  ten  to  fifteen  feet,  are  conveyed  to  the  coast 
(Sir  J.E.  Tennent's  Ceylon,  vol.  i.  117;  h.  491).  With  the  fact 
that  the  dark  portion,  is  the  interior  of  the  trunk,  the 
Arabs  were  so  far  acquainted,  that  Sir  J.  K.  Tennent 
quotes  a  passage  from  Albyrouni,  in  which  ebony  is 
called  •'  the  black  marrow  of  a  tree,  divested  of  its 
outer  integuments."  The  wood  of  the  D.  r/rf/in!ana,  a 
lofty  tree  frequent  in  the  southern  states  of  America, 
is  white. 

Mahogany  and  many  other  competitors  have  gone 
far  to  displace  ebony  from  the  pre-eminence  which  it 
enjoyed  in  the  cabinet  work  of  the  ancients.  Not 
only  was  it  imported  to  Tyre  by  "  the  men  of  Dedan," 
as  mentioned  by  Ezekiel,  but  Pliny  records  how  it 
was  carried  in  Pompey's  triumphal  procession  as  one 
of  the  spoils  of  victory  in  the  war  with  Mithridates. 
In  his  description  of  the  abode  of  Somnus,  Ovid  appro 
priately  specifies  the  ebony  couch  :— 

''At  inedio  torus  est,  el.eiui  suMimis  in  atra, 
Plumeus,  unicolor,  pullo  velamine  tectus. 
Quo  cubat  ipse  dens,  membris  languore  solutis." 

Mltl'in.   xi.  010. 

If  not  exactly  '"'ebon  thrones,"  it  is  by  no  means  un 
usual  to  find  in  ancient  houses  of  our  own  land  ebony 
chairs,  ebony  bedsteads,  and  ebony  cabinets,  elaborately 
carved  and  inlaid.  [-J.  H.] 

ECCLESIAS'TES  [,->rip  n;r;  LXX.  'Iv^Xijo-iaoTT;*; 

Till".  Ecclesiastes,  qui  ab  Hebrews  Coheleth  appellatur ; 
Targum,  The  words  of  the  prophecy  which  Koheleth, 
i.e.  Solomon,  son  of  David,  king  in  Jerusalem,  prophe 
sied  ;  Syriac,  The  book  of  Koheleth,  i.e.  Solomon,  son  of 
David,  king  of  Israel.] 

In  treating  of  this  unique  portion  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment  scriptures,  we  shall   arrange  our  remarks  under 
the  following  heads  : — 
I.  Title. 
II.  Age  and  Authorship. 

III.  Subject-matter. 

IV.  Form  and  Arrangement. 
V.  Canonical  Authority. 

I.  Title. — The  Hebrew  title  is  translated  with  suf 
ficient  accuracy  in  our  English  version,  "The  words  of 
the  Preacher,  the  son  of  David,  king  of  (or  rather,  in) 
Jerusalem."  The  only  difficulty  arises  from  the  use  of  the 
Heb  word  Koheleth,  freely  rendered  The  Preacher,  which 
is  found  only  in  this  book,  though  the  root  (kalial)  from 
which  it  comes  is  met  with  frequently,  and  has  a 
definite  and  well-ascertained  signification.  It  is  as  a 
noun  that  this  root  appears  in  its  simplest  form,  the 
verbal  root  not  being  in  use  in  what  is  called  by  Heb. 
grammarians  the  kal  conjugation.  From  this  noun 
ktilitll,  ansemb/y,  ^KK\ija-ia,  is  derived  the  verb  hikhil 
(Snpn),  t°  assemble,  and  the  participle  kohel,  assembling; 
just  as  from  -o^,  word,  are  derived  the  verb  -\2^,  to 


ECCLESIASTES 


477 


ECCLESIASTES 


the  same  usage  in  the  wor 
No.  vii.  ;>7.  The  last  example, 
rnCBn>  m  l"-zr-  "•  •>'>,  and  als 
and  Xe.  vii.  ;"!*,  are  names 


speak,    and   the  participle  nh^i   speaking.     The   form 

knhel,  however,  is  not  in  use  in  the  masculine  gender, 
and  its  feminine,  fojhclvtJi,  appears  only  in  this  book, 
where  it  is  evidently  used  as  a  proper  name.  Still  its 
signification  is  not  doubtful.  It  denotes  one  who  con 
vokes,  and,  as  a  fitting  consequence,  addresses,  an 
assembly;  and  the  feminine  form,  undtr  which  the 
noun  appears,  may  be  explained  in  one  or  other  of  two 
ways  —  either  by  supposing  icisdoin  to  be  understood 
(rSnb  —  -  nSnb  nc^r^  rr.  i.  .M,  or  bv  appealing  to  the 

:•  :•  '  i  :••         T~T 

common  usage  of  designating  an  individual  occupying 
a  post  of  honour,  by  a  name  descriptive  of  the  functions 
he  discharges  or  the  dignity  he  enjoys.  Uf  this  usage 
we  have  several  examples  in  the  Semitic  languages. 
Thus,  in  Arabic,  fhnlijih,  which  is  properly  a 
feminine  abstract  noun,  denoting  succession,  is  em 
ployed  emphatically  as  the  title  of  the  successors  of 
Mohammed.  And  in  Hebrew  \\e  have  examples  of 
rrZ>  !/oi'ernor,  and  pncp, 
£2,  which  is  written  also 
D"D;J.~I  rH2E>  in  Ezr.  ii.  i>7, 
f  individuals,  and  there 
fore  quite  parallel  to  pSnpj  al*o  employed  to  designate 

an  individual.  This  latter  explanation  appears  to  he 
the  preferable  one;  especially  on  comparing  such  pas 
sages  as  EC.  xii.  I),  where  it  is  said  that  Koheleth  was 
wise,  and  taught  the  people  knowledge,  a  form  of 
expression  which  would  scarcely  have  been  employed, 
were  kaheUth  only  another  name  for  wisdom  itself. 

Who  then  is  the  individual  designated  bv  the  name 
Koheleth  in  this  passage,  and  throughout  the  book  ' 
It  is  agreed  on  all  sides  that  Solomon  is  meant.  ThN 
is  evident,  not  only  from  ch.  i.  1-1  '2,  wheie  we  are  in 
formed  that  Koheleth  was  the  son  of  David,  king  over 
Israel,  in  Jerusalem,  but  fiom  the  whole  account  which 
he  gives  of  himself,  and  of  his  pursuits  and  experiences, 
cr-mp.  ch.  i.  Ill,  ii.  4,&e,  xii.  U  with  1  Ki.  iv  L".KU;  x  ::,  23,  i?.  It  is 

possible  that  in  the  name  Koheleth,  by  which  Solomon 
is  here  designated,  there  is  a  reference  to  the  occasion 
on  which  he  assembled  (Srnn)  the  whole  congregation 

(Snp)  °f  Israel  for  the  dedication  of  the  temple,    i  K\ 

T  'T 

viii.  1,11,  --'2,  •:,:>;  or.  it  may  be.  to  the  daily  assembling  of 
his  servants,  and  of  strangers  from  distant  parts,  around 
his  throne,  to  listen  to  the  wisdom  •which  flowed  from 
his  lips,  iKi.  x.  i,fi,s,2i. 

IT.  A'jc  and  Authorship.  —  But  though  it  is  certain 
that  this  book  contains  what  professes  to  lie  a  record  of 
the  experience  and  reflections  of  king  Solomon,  it  is  by 
no  means  so  certain  that  Solomon  himself  was  the 
author  of  the  book.  Indeed,  Hebrew  scholars,  of  every 
variety  of  theological  opinion,  are  now  almost  at  one 
in  assigning  to  it  a  place  among  the  very  latest  books 
of  Scripture.1  This  critical  conclusion  rests  on  various 
grounds;  but  the  principal  ground  is  the  language  and 
style  of  composition,  which  is  distinguished  in  a  very 
marked  manner  from  that  of  Proverbs,  or  any  of  the 
books  of  Scripture  which  belong  to  the  age  of  Solomon. 
This  is  a  point,  indeed,  on  which  we  should  he  very 
careful  not  to  come  to  a  hasty  conclusion.  The  occur- 

1  We  are  scarcely  prepared,  liowx-ver,  to  ?ay  with  Hengstenberg. 
that  "the  church  thuvJL'l  t<dv  fliantf.  in  itself  far  having  left 
rationalism  to  make  good  the  truth  as  to  the  composition  of  this 
book."  —  Hengst.  on  Kccles.  p.  S,  Clark's  Translation. 


rence  of  Chaldee  words  and  forms  in  any  Hebrew  docu 
ment  is  by  no  means  a  certain  and  invariable  indica 
tion  of  lateness  of  composition.  We  must  be  careful 
to  distinguish  archaisms  and  words  and  forms  peculiar 
to  the  poetic  style,  from  Chaldeisms  of  the  later  period. 
Moreover,  the  Hebrew  writings  which  have  been  trans 
mitted  to  us  being  so  few  in  number,  it  is  of  course 
much  more  difficult  decisively  to  determine  the  period 
to  which  any  of  these  writings  belongs  by  the  peculiar 
form  of  language  which  it  presents,  than  it  would  have 
been  had  thtre  been  preserved  to  vis  a  larger  number  of 
documents  of  different  ages  to  assist  us  in  forming  our 
decision.  Still,  from  the  materials  within  our  reach, 
scanty  though  they  are,  we  may  draw  a  conclusion  as 
to  the  age  of  tin-  book  of  Keelesiastes,  perhaps  not 
altogether  certain,  nevertheless  bearing  with  it  a  high 
degree  of  probability.  For  it  needs  but  a  cursory 
survey  of  the  book  to  convince  us  that  in  language 
and  style  it  not  only  differs  widely  from  the  writings 
of  the  aL'e  of  Solomon,  but  bears  a  very  marked  resem 
blance  to  the  latent  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  It 
is  impossible  to  impart  to  any  one  ignorant  of  the 
Hebrew  language  a  complete  view  of  the  evidence  on 
which  tin'  state URiit  ji^t  made  is  based;  still,  as  the 
.-latement  is  one  \\liieli  comes  into  collision  with  com 
mon  opinion  and  traditional  belief,  and  has  never 
received  from  our  theologians  the  attention  which  it 
deserves,  it  may  not  be  improper,  without  skiing  into 
too  minute  detail,  to  specify  some  particulars  of  the 
evidence.  1.  One  class  of  words  employed  by  the 
writer  of  Eccle<ia<te-  we  lind  rurthl  employed  in  the 

e:irli>  i-  I k-  of  scripture,  frequently  in  the  later,  i.e.  in 

those  written  during  or  after  the  I'.abylonish  captivity. 
r£]lUS,  S/Ullat  (yfr'g),  /it  ruin/,  EC.  ii.19;  v.  18;  vi.  2;  viii.  9,  is 

found  elsewhere  only  in  Nehemiah  and  Esthe-r.  The 
derived  noun  •'»£'-•,;•'  (*hilt<">n ),  ruli.  e-h.  v.ii.  l,  -,  is  found 

only  in  the  Clialdee  of  Daniel;  but  u<rc;  ^hulllt).  rx/n; 

appears  once  in  the  earlier  Scriptures,  Gc.  xlii.  0.      I'nder 

this   head    may    also    be    mentioned   r'2vC    (malchuth), 

:~ 

Un'jdom,    ch.iv.  11,   rare   in    the    earlier  Scriptures,    hut 

found  above   fortv  times   in   Esther  and    Daniel;  and 

'.  me  (midlnen,  province,  ch.  ii  *;  v.  r,  which  appears  also 

in  Esther,  Daniel,  E/ia,  Nehemiah,  Lamentations, 
Ezckicl.  and  likewise'  in  1  Ki.  xx.  14-1!',  where  ''princes 
of  the  provinces"  are  mentioned  among  the  officers  of 
:  king  Ahali  ;  but  in  none  of  the  earlier  Scriptures.  'L  A 
second  class  includes  those  words  which  are  i)rrcr 
found  in  any  Hebrew  writing  of  earlier  date  than 
the  Babylonish  captivity,  but  arc  found  in  the  later 
books; — as  -^  (-'man),  set  time,  ch.  in.  l  (=-jy>jr:), 

which  we  meet  with  in   Hebrew  only  in  No.  ii.  (1  and 

Es.  ix.  27,  .51 ;  but  in  the  biblical  Chaldee  and  in  the 

!  Targums  frequently;  CJPQ  (pithf/iim),  sentence,  ch.viu.  n 

T  :  • 

(E.V.).  which  appears  in  Hebrew  only  in  Es.  i.  20; 
but  in  Chaldee  frequently.  (If  this  word  be,  as  is 
commonly  supposed,  of  Persian  origin,  its  appearance 
only  in  the  later  Jewish  writings  is  at  once  accounted 
for,  Kudiger's  Additions  to  Geseniu»'  Thesaurus.)  JpC}  ch. 
x.  20,  a  derivation  of  y-p,  to  know,  found  only  in  2  Ch. 
and  Daniel,  and  also  in  ( 'hahlee ;  and  the  particles 
1"?t*>  '/•  ch.vi.fi,  and  733,  then,  f>o,  ch.  viii.  KI,  found  in  no 

earlier  Hebrew  book  than  Esther.  From  the  fore 
going  enumeration  it  appears  that  the  hook  of  Ee- 


ECCLES1ASTES 


•J7S 


ECCLESIASTES 


elesiastes  resembles  the  book  of  Esther  in  sonic  of 
the  most  distinctive  peculiarities  of  its  language. 
o.  A  third  class  embraces  those  words  which  are  not, 
found  even  in  the  Hebrew  writings  of  the  latest  period, 
but  only  in  the  Chaldee  of  Daniel  and  Ezra,  or  in  the 


Targums,  as  »«pjv 


nn,  i>rojit),    which  is  used  nine 


times  in  Ecelesiastes,  never  in  any  other  scriptural  writ 
ing,  but  frequently  in  tlie  Targums,  under  the  slightly 
modified  form  (i/  nth  ran);  so  also  133  (k'hhdr],  alr«/<l<i, 

long  ayo,v,  hich  recurs  eight  times  in  this  book  ;  pjr\,  takan, 

i-li.  i.  i">;  vii.  i:i;  xii.  o,  found  also  in  Chaldee,  Da.  iv.  33,  &c.; 
j-v,^  (ruth),  dixii'i',  recurring  five  times,  and  also  in  the 

Chaldee  portions  of  Ezra;  :Vj;-i,  eh.  i.  IT,  &c.  •  >  yy,  ch.  i.  1:1,  &c. 
vc«|j,  tli.  x.  s.  i.  Other  peculiarities,  such  as  the  fre 

quent  use  of  the  participle,  the  rare  appearance  of  the 
van  consecutive,  the  various  uses  of  the  relative  par 
ticle,  concur  with  the  characteristics  already  noted,  in 
affixing  to  the  language  and  style  of  this  book  the 
stamp  of  that  transition  period  when  the  Hebivn  lan 
guage,  soon  nbnut  to  give  place  to  the  Chaldee,  had 
already  lost  its  ancient  purity,  and  become  debased  by 
the  absorption  of  many  Chaldee  elements. 

But  does  not  the  book  itself  claim  to  be  the  produc 
tion  of  the  son  of  David,  king  over  Israel,  in  Jerusalem  t 
And  do  we  not,  by  assigning  it  to  a  later  age,  virtually 
charge  its  author,  whoever  he  was,  with  appearing 
under  false  colours,  and  resorting  to  unworthy  means 
to  attract  attention,  and  add  authority  to  the  senti 
ments  which  he  expresses  t  To  some  it  has  appeared 
so.  The  learned  Witsius  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that 
the  author  of  Eeclesiastes,  if  not  Solomon,  must  have 
been  the  greatest  liar  who  ever  lived  (omnium  mortal- 
ium  mendacissimus).  And  even  recent  writers  on  this 
book  have  expressed  themselves  in  language  scarcely 
less  emphatic.  Yet  it  has  been  by  no  means  uncom 
mon  for  public  teachers,  without  any  fraudulent  inten 
tion,  to  present  the  truths  and  lessons  they  were 
anxious  to  inculcate,  not  in  their  own  name,  but  in  the 
name  of  some  venerated  sage  of  earlier  times  ;  in  order 
that  by  this  voluntary  retirement  of  the  author  to  the 
back  ground,  all  personal  and  local  associations  might 
be  kept  out  of  view,  and  attention  fixed  not  upon  the 
writer,  but  upon  the  written  words.  Thus  we  may 
suppose,  without  attributing  to  the  writer  of  Eeclesi 
astes  any  unworthy  motive,  that,  for  a  time,  in  order 
to  give  more  weighty  utterance  to  his  thoughts,  he 
identifies  himself  inspirit  with  Solomon,  whose  wisdom 
and  manifold  experiences  had  long  been  proverbial,  he 
sees,  as  it  were,  with  his  eyes,  and  speaks  in  his  name. 
The  book  is  not  historical,  but  poetical.  It  does  not 
contain  a  statement  of  facts,  or  alleged  facts,  the  truth 
or  falsehood  of  which  must  be  determined  by  the  au 
thority  on  which  the  statement  is  made  ;  it  is  occupied 
with  high  and  difficult  questions  relating  to  the  divine 
providence  and  the  destiny  of  man,  which  cannot  be 
solved  by  an  appeal  to  any  human  authority,  however 
venerable.  And  if  the  author  speaks  in  the  name  of 
Solomon,  it  is  not  that  the  statements  to  which  he 
gives  expression  may,  by  that  means,  meet  with  more 
unhesitating  and  unquestioned  acceptance,  but  because 
of  the  very  large  and  peculiar  experience  which  rendered 
Solomon  the  fittest  expositor  of  the  theme  he  had 
chosen. 

However,  strictly  speaking,   it  is   not  the  fact  that 


the  writer  assumes  the  name  of  Solomon.  The  name 
Solomon  is  not  found  in  any  part  of  the  treatise. 
Instead  of  it,  the  designation  Koheleth  is  uniformly 
employed.  And  this  change  of  name  has  been  sup 
posed  to  contain  an  intimation  that  it  is  not  the  actual 
historical  Solomon  who  speaks;1  for,  on  the  common 
hypothesis  that  the  book  was  written  by  Solomon,  and 
contains  the  penitent  confessions  of  his  old  age,  there 
does  not  appear  to  be  any  good  reason,  but  rather  the 
contrary,  for  the  record  of  such  confessions  being  given 
to  the  world  under  an  assumed  name.  It  is  an  ideal 
ized  Salomon  who  speaks.  Or,  as  some  have  chosen 
to  represent  it,  it  is  the  spirit  of  Solomon,  which  now, 
freed  from  the  chains  of  the  flesh,  and  recalling  all  he 
had  seen  and  felt  "in  the  days  of  his  vanity,"  ch.  vii  i:., 
now  come  to  an  end,  pours  forth,  for  the  instruction  of 
mankind,  the  lessons  of  wisdom,  gathered  from  the 
review  of  a  life  of  such  manifold  and  diverse  ex 
periences. 

Possibly,  the  results  of  criticism  admit  of  being  re 
conciled  with  the  testimony  of  tradition  oil  the  ground 
of  a  middle  hypothesis  :  viz.  that,  though  the  treatise- 
is  the  production  of  a  later  writer,  the  text  with  which 
it  begins  and  ends,  '•Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity," 
was  a  real  saying  of  king  Solomon,  handed  down  by 
tradition.  This  view  is  suggested  by  the  form  of  ex 
pression  "vanity  of  vanities,  said  Koheleth,"  in  which 
the  writer  seems  to  appeal  to  a  well-known  saying  of 
Koheleth,  on  which  he  may  found  his  discourse.  No 
writer  of  Scripture  ever  speaks  thus  in  his  own  name. 

It  is  well,  however,  that  the  book  may  be  understood, 
and  made  practically  useful,  even  though  the  ques 
tions  of  its  age  and  authorship  are  not  determined  to 
the  satisfaction  of  all.  There  is  no  ground  for  the  as 
sertion  that  "the  book  is  vnlntcUiyiblc  except  on  the 
historical  presupposition  that  the  people  of  Cod  were 
in  a  very  miserable  condition  at  the  time  of  its  com 
position"2  (Hengst.  p.  4.5,  Clark's  Transl.);  Still  less  for  the 
statement  that  "there  runs  through  the  entire  book 
the  conviction  that  a  terrible  catastrophe  was  shortly 
to  befall  the  Persian  empire  "  (ibid.  \>.  10).  We  must  con 
fess  to  a  feeling  of  profound  astonishment  at  the  con 
fidence  with  which  such  statements  as  the  last  are  made 
by  some  of  the  German  writers.  But  this  introduces 
another  branch  of  our  subject. 

III.  Theme. — The  theme  of  the  book  is  stated  at  the 
commencement,  Vanity  of  vanities,  saith  Koheleth,  all 
inranifij:  what  jirofit  hath  a  man  of  all  his  labour 
which  he  taketh  under  the  sun  1  and  again,  towards  the 
close,  ch.  xii.  8,  Vanity  of  rantticx,  all  is  ranity.  The 
utterance  of  a  spirit,  we  are  read}',  at  first  glance,  to 
exclaim,  sunk  in  the  abyss  of  despair.  Yet  looking 
into  the  treatise  more  narrowly,  we  find  that  we  have 
misapprehended  its  true  character — that  a  principal 
aim  of  its  author  is  evidently  to  inculcate  contentment 
and  _>i  quiet  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  which  God 
has  bestowed — that  throughout  the  whole  are  scattered 
precepts  and  exhortations  which  are  by  no  means  in 
harmony  with  the  dark  meaning  we  have  attached  to 
the  opening  words,  ch.  vii.  9, 14;  ix.  7-10;  xt.  l,&c. — and  that 
the  conclusion  in  which  the  author  gives  us  the  results 


1  "  The  very  name,  which  is  strictly  an  impersonal  one,  shows 
that  the  person  to  whom  it  is  applied,  belongs  to  the  region  of 
poetry,  not  to  that  of  reality."— Hengst.  (Clark's  Transl.)  p.  44. 

-  At  the  same  time  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  ch.  iv.  1-3  could 
have  been  written  in  the  reign  of  Solomon,  still  less  by  Solomon 
himself. 


ECCLESIASTES 


KCCLESIASTES 


of  his  inquiries  is  in  perfect  consistency  with  the  hope 
ful  teaching  of  the  other  Scriptures,  ch.  xii.  13-14.  Taking 
a  superficial  survey  of  the  book,  we  are  not  surprised  •. 
that  some  difficulty  should  have  been  felt  even  in  early  , 
times  in  admitting  it  to  be  of  canonical  authority,  see 
ing  that  some  of  the  leading  statements  it  contains 
appear  to  be  at  variance  with  one  another,  and  with  ' 
the  other  recognized  Scriptures.  But  these  difficulties 
in  a  great  measure  disappear  on  a  closer  examination. 
Vanity  of  canities!  i.e.  utter  emptiness  and  vanity, 
Ps.  xxxix.ii,  12;  Jobvii.  i«,  (ill  in  ra/>iti/.'  It  is  evident  that 
the  author  has  in  his  mind  limitations,  to  which,  in  the 
intensity  of  his  feeling,  he  cannot  give  expression.  He 
is  assuredly  not  thinking  <>f  God,  or  of  God's  work, 
when  he  exclaims  all  is  \anitv.  We  must  therefore 
endeavour  to  ascertain  the  range  of  observation  which 
lay  under  his  eye  when  he  gave  utterance  to  that 
despairing  cry.  And  this  \ve  are  enabled  to  do  by  an 
attentive  study  of  the  words  which  immediately  follow, 
ch.  i.3,  every  oneof  which  deserves  to  be  carefully  weighed. 
\Yhat  i>r«jit,  what  real  and  permanent  advantage,  to 
mail,  C"INS-  This  word  ••man,"  ctN  uiot  vi;«NK  is  found 

T  T  T  T  T 

no  fewer  than  forty-seven  times  in  this  short  treatise; 
and  the  reason  is,  that  it  is  the  term  which  most  ac 
curately  represents  the  aspect  in  which  man  is  viewed 
bv  the  writer,  denoting",  as  it  does.  man.  as  man,  in  his 
frailty  and  mortality,  con,).,  oh.  \i  in. 

It  is  not  of  man  redeemed,  of  ( iod's  people  of  Israel, 
that  the  author  writes.  This  special  relation  is  kept 
out  of  view,  and  the  general  n  lation  of  man  to  (  lod  is 
that  which  is  prominent  throughout.  Hence  there  i- 
no  mention  of  Israel;  the  name  indeed  occurs  once, 
ch.  i.u,  but  altogether  in  a  worldly  and  not  in  a  spiritual 
sense. 

Corresponding  to  the  vie\\  of  ninn  on  which  the 
treatise  is  based,  is  the  view  of  liml  which  it  presents. 
It  is  well  known  that  in  Scripture  the  Divine  Being  is 
spoken  of  under  various  names,  according  to  the  aspect 
of  his  nature  and  character  which  is  at  the  time 
present  to  the  mind  of  the  writer.  Of  these,  the  two 
most  frequently  in  use  are  Elohim  and  .lehovah  the 
former,  the  more  general,  and  large  in  its  import,  and 
denoting  (iod  as  God,  in  the  fulness  of  his  infinite  and 
adorable  perfections  ;  the  latter,  the  more  special  and 
definite,  and  presenting  the  everlasting  (iod  in  intimate 
union  with  his  redeemed  people.  The  former  name, 
accordingly,  denoting  (iod  as  (.iod.  corresponds  to  Q-JS, 
which  denotes  man  as  man,  and  is  the  only  name  of 
God  which  appears  in  this  treatise.  The  name  Je 
hovah,  so  frequent  in  the  prophetic  writings,  is  not 
met  with  once  here.  And  this  constant  use  of  the  cor 
relatives  God  and  Man,  and  careful  avoidance  of  the 
names  Jehovah  and  Israel,  throws  much  light  upon  the 
nature  of  the  treatise,  and  determines  the  point  of  view 
from  which  the  great  questions  which  form  the  subject 
of  inquiry  are  regarded. 

In  all  /tiit  la/ioiir,  or  in  rttu.rn  for  all  Jiln  Inbour,  ^22 

"iS-J?-     Here  we  meet  with  another  characteristic  term, 

T-; 

Scj?>  dmiil,  which,   with  its  cognates,   recurs  no  fewer 

TT 

than  thirty- six  times,  and  the  exact  meaning  of  which  it 
is  therefore  necessary  to  ascertain  and  carry  along  with 
us.  It  properly  signifies  fatiguing  toil,  which  no  one 
would  voluntarily  submit  to  without  the  prospect  of 
some  resulting  advantage.  In  eh.  iv.  0  it  is  opposed  to 
rest,  and  in  ch.  iv.  8  it  is  followed  and  explained  bv 


the  words  "bereaving  the  soul  of  good. "  It  is  impor 
tant  to  remark  that  throughout  the  treatise  the 
'•  fatiguing  toil "  of  man  is  contrasted  with  the  work 
of  God  (c'ri^sn  rvi*VE^  ^ne  mind  of  the  writer  is 


anxiously  directed  to  the  contemplation  of  these  two 
works.  The  one.  the  work  of  (iod,  he  attempts  to  trace 
in  its  manifoldness  and  onward  progress ;  but  he  finds 
his  powers  quite  unequal  to  the  task.  "No  man  can 
find  out  the  work  that  (iod  maketh  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end,"  ch.  iii.  n.  Vet  what  he  does  discover  of  it 
serves  to  awaken  awe  and  admiration.  He  describes 
it  as  irresistible,  no  power  being  able  to  stoji  or  retard 
its  onward  progress,  eh.  vii.  i:t ;  as  altogether  excellent, 
ch.  iii.  11;  complete  and  everlasting,  •'nothing  can  be 
put  to  it.  nor  anything  taken  from  it,"  ch.  iii  1 1.  With 
this  most  perfect  work  of  God  he  contrasts  the  work  of 
man.  The  one  j^-es  silently  and  irresistibly  on  with 
out  any  effort  on  the  part  of  the  great  Worker.  The 
other  is  a  toilsome  and  fatiguing  work  ;  weak  man  puts 
forth  upon  it  all  his  strength;  yet  with  what  result.' 
l)oes  his  labour  issue  in  the  acquisition  of  any  real  and 
permanent  good  '  So  far  from  this,  he  finds  to  his 
bitter  disappointment  that  he  has  wearied  himself  in 
vain,  and.  as  he  sinks  exhausted,  lie  is  compelled  to 
cry  out.  "  Vanity  of  vanities!  all  is  vanitv." 

Now.  bv  attending  to  this  contrast,  which  is  con 
>tantly  present  to  the  mind  of  the  writer,  between 
the  "  work  of  man"  and  the  "'work  of  God,"  very  great 
light  is  tin-own  upon  the  design  and  scope  of  the  entire 
treatise.  Wo  discover  at  once  what  is  the  AM.,  to  which 
the  stain])  of  vanity  and  emptiness  is  affixed.  It  in- 
/•l//il<x(  i'<  rii  inirk  of  iiinn  ((•/< /'(•/(  //»•  undertakes  UK  man, 
null  n'liii'li  tlocn  not  harmunizt  ami  jit  in  </•///<  t/it  /rns/V 
tilili  ('•<)/•/•  <>f  (t'oil.  .Man's  work  necessarily  issues  in 
vanity  and  disappointment  in  all  cases  in  which  it  is 
not  subordinated  to,  and  made  to  form  part  of,  God's 
work.  When  man's  work  comes  into  collision  with 
God's  work,  it  is  inevitably  dashed  to  pieces.  And  it 
is  because  man,  partly  from  ignorance  and  partly  from 
subjection  to  the  sinful  tendencies  of  his  nature,  does 
not  usually  work  along  with  but  against,  though  not 
always  consciously  against,  God,  that  his  most  anxious 
toil  issues  in  the  attainment  of  no  permanent  good.  But 
what  then  '.  J  >oes  the  sacred  writer  stop  here?  By  no 
means.  There  is  a  jioxttire  as  well  as  a  negative  element 
in  his  teaching.  His  view  of  the  contrasted  works  of  God 
and  man  not  only  discloses  the  source  of  man's  failures 
and  disappointments,  but  likewise  suggests  the  course 
which  man  must  take  in  order  that  failure  may  as  far 
as  possible  be  avoided  and  success  attained.  He  must 
renounce  the  independency  to  which  he  aspires,  and  be 
content  to  subordinate  his  own  work  to  God's  work. 
Ife  must  litconif  a  God-fearing  man :  that  is  the  neces 
sary  condition  of  the  attainment  of  permanent  good. 
"Fear  God  and  keep  his  commandments;''  all  labour, 
disjoined  from  the  fear  of  God,  is  utter  vanity,  and 
however  successful  it  may  for  a  time  appear,  will  be 
seen  to  be  vanity  in  the  end  :  "for  (iod  will  bring  every 
work  into  judgment,  with  every  secret  thing,  whether 
it  be  good  or  bad.' 

In  the  fear  of  God  which  the  sacred  writer  thus  in 
culcates,  there  is  an  active  and  a  passive  element.  The 
work  of  (iod  is  partly  known,  partly  unknown.  Hence 
the  duty  of  the  God-fearing  man  is  twofold :  active  con 
currence  in  (iod's  work  so  far  as  known  and  under 
stood  ;  jxiticnt  acquiescence  ami  cheerful  contentment 


ECCLESIASTE3 


-isn 


ECCLESIASTIC 


under  all  God's  arrangements,  even  the  darkest  and 
most  mysterious.  The  value  of  the  latter  of  these  two 
elements  is  most  largely  insisted  tin  throughout  the 
treatise,  and  constitutes  one  of  its  must  marked  char 
acteristics,  cli.  ii.  21;  iii.  12,  13,  22;  V.  17  (18);  viii.  ]:,;  ix.  7.  The 
language  employed  by  the  sacred  writer  in  these 
passages  has  bei'ii  often  misunderstood;  and  was  in 
very  earlv  times  the  occasion  of  doubt  being  expressed 
as  to  the  canonical  authority  of  the  book.1  '•  That  a 
man  eat  and  drink  and  enjoy  good  in  his  labour,"  this 
is  surely  strange  language,  it  has  been  said,  for  a  sacred 
writer  to  make  use  of  in  conveying  his  idea  of  happi 
ness,  and  certainly  it  sounds  not  unlike  the  language 
of  the  sensualist  who  says,  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for 
to-morrow  we  die."  But  two  things  may  be  very  like 
and  yet  be  essentially  different,  even  opposite  in  their 
nature.  The  same  language,  spoken  by  two  different 
persons,  may  have  two  different  im-aiiings.  An  advice 
may  be  very  excellent  when  addressed  to  om;  class  of 
persons,  -which  it  would  be  most  imprudent,  nay,  highly 
culpable  to  address  to  another  elass  :  according  to  the 
proverb,  "  what  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison."  With  regard  to  the  language  just  quoted, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  "to  eat  and  to  drink,"  or 
as  it  is  given  in  ch.  ix.  7,  "  to  eat  bread  and  to  drink 
wine,"  means  "to  feast."  Compare  Ex.  xxxii.  5.  (J, 
"The  people  sat  down  to  eat  and  to  drink  :"  1  sa.  xxx.  Hi; 
i  Ki.  i.  2.V;  Jo.  xvi.  s.  It  is  opposed  to  fasting,  Is.  xxii.  13  ; 
Zee.  vii.  G.  It  is  conjoined  with  c'n?:'w'.  rejoicing,  to  de 

scribe  the  happy  state  of  the  people  of  Israel  under  the 
government  of  Solomon:  "  Judah  and  Israel  were 
many  as  the  sand  which  is  by  the  sea  in  multitude, 
intin</  din/  il  i-iiil.-iii'j.  and  making  merry."  1  Ki.  k.  20. 
Moreover,  as  feasting  frequently  formed  part  of  the 
religious  services  of  the  Israelites,  as  of  other  ancient 
nations,  we  find  the  expression  "eating  and  drinking" 
employed  to  describe  not  worldly  joy  merely,  but  also 
joy  in  God  :  '•  Go  your  way,  eat  the  fat  and  drink  the 
sweet,  .....  for  this  day  is  holy  unto  the  Lord,  neither 
be  ye  sorry,  for  the  joy  of  the  Lord  is  your  strength," 
Xe.  viii.  in-12.  It  is  also  most  important  to  notice  that 
the  same  phrase,  "  to  eat  and  to  drink,"  is  employed  to 
describe  the  opposite  of  a  rapacious,  covetous  spirit  and 
conduct:  "  Did  not  thy  father  cat  and  drink-,  and  do 
judgment  and  justice,  thin  it  u-as  icdl  with  him  (V?  3^  75?)? 

But  thine  eyes  and  heart  are  not  but  for  thy  coretous- 
ness  (vs),  and  to  shed  innocent  blood,"  Je.  xxii.  15. 


From  these  passages  it  is  clear  that  there  is  an  '•  eating 
and  drinking"  which  is  quite  consistent  with  piety, 
and  which  a  sacred  writer  may  commend  without  for 
feiting  his  sacred  character.  It  is  not  the  feast  of  indo 
lence  which  is  commended  ;  for  the  attentive  reader 
will  observe  that  in  all  the  passages  above  quoted  in 
which  happiness  is  associated  with  eating  and  drinking, 
labour  also  is  introduced  as  a  necessary  element.  Still 
less  is  it  the  feast  of  impiety  and  sensuality;  for  it  is 
associated  throughout  with  well-doing  and  the  fear  of 
God.  Labour  and  the  fear  of  God  are  pre-supposed.  It 
is  the  feast  of  quiet  contentment,  of  sober  enjoyment; 
the  opposite  at  once  of  a  life  of  indolence,  and  of  a  life 

1  The  rendering  of  ch.  ii.  24,  in  our  version,  is  evidently  in 
correct.  The  sacred  writer  does  not  say,  "There  is  nothing 
bitter  for  a  man  tli.au  that  he  eat  and  drink,"  etc.,  but  that  man 
cannot  enjoy  good  unless  he  is  able  to  eat,  <tc.  He  describes 
this  as  an  essential  element  of  happiness,  but  does  not  say  that 
it  is  the  highest  and  most  essential. 


of  covetousness  and  grasping  ambition  :  it  is  a  life  such 
as  that  which  St.  Paul  commends  when  he  says,  "  Be 
careful  for  notliing,  but  in  everything  by  prayer  and 
supplication  with  thanksgiving,  let  your  requests  be 
made  known  unto  God.  And  the  peace  of  God  which 
passeth  all  understanding,  shall  keep  your  hearts  and 
minds  through  Christ  Jesus,"  Phi.  iv.  0,7.  Comp.  Mat.  \l.  24-34. 
That  this  passive  element  of  the  fear  of  God  should 
so  predominate  throughout  the  book,  seems  to  mark  it 
out  as  the  production  of  one  of  those  dark  periods  in 
the  history  of  the  church,  when  patient  submission 
under  persecution,  and  contentment  amid  privations, 
were  the  duties  most  necessary  to  be  inculcated  and 
practised. 

There  is  vet  one  other  expression  in  ch.  i.  -j,  which 
must  not  be  overlooked,  as  it  is  one  which  will  help  us 
still  further  in  coming  to  a  right  decision  as  to  the 
true  character  and  design  of  the  whole  treatise.  I  refer 
to  the  words,  "  under  t/ie  sun,''  which  recur  no  fewer 
than  thirty  times,  chiefly  in  the  earlier  chapters.  In 
eh.  i.  13,  we  also  find  "  under  the  7/eare//*."  The  mean 
ing  of  both  expressions  is  the  same,  viz.  ///  the.  land  of 
the  liriii'/.  "  lender  the  sun,"  is  quite  equivalent  to 
"  among  those  who  see  the  sun,"  ch.  vii.  il;  xi.  7;  xii.  2,  i.e. 
]  among  the  living,  ch.  ii.  3,17.  Compare  De.  xxv.  19,  and 
other  passages,  in  which  we  meet  with  the  phrase,  "to 
destroy  from  under  heaven,"  i.e.  from  among  the  living. 
In  these  words  "under  the  sun,"  there  is  therefore 
implied  a  reference  to  the  condition  of  man  after  life's 
'  close,  when  he  has  ceased  to  see  the  sun  and  has  gone 
into  darkness.  The  question  with  which  this  treatise 
:  commences,  thus  bears  a  close  resemblance  to  that  of 
'.  our  Lord:  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  tin- 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul '."  Compare'  also  the; 
parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  thought  of  death  is 
that  which  presses  most  heavily  upon  the  mind  of  the 
writer  of  this  book.  It  is  death  which  more  than  any- 
|  thing  else  stamps  "vanity"  upon  all  sublunary  things. 
"One  generation  goeth  and  another  cometh,"  ch.  i.  4. 
1  Through  the  fear  of  death  man  is  all  his  lifetime  sub- 
i  ject  to  bondage.  It  is  a  thunder- cloud  which  throws 
its  dark  shadow  over  the  whole  of  his  earthly  existence. 
Man  lives  but  to  die,  and,  which  is  worse,  over  death 
he  has  no  control,  ch.  viii.  s.  He  is  the  creature  of  an 
irresistible  and  inflexible  law;  in  this  not  differing  from 
the  brutes,  ch.  iii.  in;  nay,  not  differing  from  the  material 
world  in  which  he  dwells,  ch.i.  .'>-:.  It  seems  to  he  with 
man  just  as  with  the  rising  and  setting  sun,  the  winds, 
the  streams  :  constant  flow,  ceaseless  motion,  yet  ever 
returning  to  the  same  point  again  :  "  all  things  continue 
as  they  were  since  the  beginning  of  creation."  Millions 
i  of  toiling,  scheming,  restless  men,  live  and  die  and  are 
forgotten,  followed  by  others  who  live,  labour,  die,  and 
are  forgotten,  just  as  those  who  have  gone  before. 
Despite  all  this  unceasing  labour  there  is  nothing  new, 
ch.i. o-ii;  the  old  is  ever  reproduced;  so  that  human 
affairs  seem  to  revolve  in  an  endless  round,  and  man, 
with  all  his  high  thoughts  of  himself,  is  but  the  creature 
of  an  all-governing  law,  which  he  is  powerless  to  resist. 
Now,  in  all  this  there  is,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
an  implied  contrast  between  the  labour  of  man  and  the 
work  of  God  (oTiS^n  rvtfyc)-  Despite  all  man's  labour, 

there  is  nothing  new:  it  is  the  prerogative  of  God  to 
create  a  new  thing.  And  all  hope  for  man  lies  in  the 
promise  of  God  that  he  will  put  forth  this  reserved 


ECCLESIASTES 


481 


ECCLESIASTES 


power.  "  Remember  ye  not  the  former  things,  neither 
consider  the  tilings  of  old  ;  behold !  I  trill  do  a  new 
thl  ii< i"  Is.  .\iiii.  I*,  in.  He  has  promised  to  make  with  man 
«  new  rofdiKiit,  Je.  xxxi.  :u  ;  to  give  to  him  a  ncir  ntune, 
Is.  Ixii.  •>•  to  jiut  within  him  a  ncir  heart,  Eze.xi.  19;  xviii.  3i; 
even  to  create  new  hturtns  and  a  new  earth,  so  glorious 
that  the  former  shall  not  be  remembered  nor  come  to 
mind,  Is.  Ixv.  17.  There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  some  such 
radical  change  in  man  and  man's  condition  as  is  de 
scribed  in  these  passages,  that  the  Preacher  has  in  view 
when  he  says.  "  There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun." 
And  thus  we  are  again  led  to  that  which  is  the  conclu 
sion  of  the  whole  matter,  "  Fear  God  ;  remember  God 
thy  CREATOR,"  ch.  xii.  1, 13  :  He  alone  can  give  thee  a 
new  heart,  a  new  life,  delivering  thee  from  the  bondage 
of  sin  and  from  the  dread  of  death. 

So  again,  where  it  is  said,  "  tin  n  /.-,-  mi  n  nifni'iniin-r 
»f  former  ifi-iierdtiniix,''  ch.  i.  ll  (••n27,  nunti, ,•!,!/).  there 

is  also  an  implied  contrast.  For,  however  it  mav  be 
with  man,  with  (md  the  righteous  is  had  in  continual 
remembrance  lo^iy  "Cl^  >,  1's.  cxii.  ii.  I3y  one  of  the 
prophets.  He  is  described  as  causing  to  be  written 
before  him  a  hnuk  of  rfiiinn^raiti-t  ^'"pST  12D*  *'<"'  them 
that  fi'nr  tli  L'n-1/,  and  that  think  upon  his  name,  Mai. 
iii.  ii;.1  And  thus,  the  conclusion  again  returns.  ''  Fear 
(J<jd,  and  keep  his  commandments:"  though  with  man 
thou  hast  no  memorial,  thoti  shall  have  a  memorial 
with  God;  for  "he  shall  bring  into  judgment  e\ ,  rv 
work,  witli  everv  secret  tiling,  whether  it  lie  urood  or 
bad." 

It  is,  however,  an  exaggeration  of  the  truth  to  ailirm, 
as  some  have  done,  that  the  main  design  of  the  treatise 
is  to  establish  the  doctrines  of  the  soul's  immortality 
and  of  a  future  judgment.  In  this,  as  in  the  other 
Old  Testament  books,  we  find  the  doctrine  of  immor 
tality  still  in  the  germ.  In  eh.  iii.  'Jl,  indeed,  it  is 
either  expressly  affirmed  or  implied  that  there  is  a 
difference  between  the  destiny  of  the  spirit  of  man  and 
the  spirit  of  the  brute.  In  ch.  xii.  7,  it  is  said  that  the 
"spirit  of  man  returns  to  God  who  gave  it.''  This 
of  course  points  back  to  Ge.  ii.  ~,  where  we  are  taught 
that  God  formed  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground, 
and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life 
lD»sn  nCtt?';>,  ;U1'1  he  became  a  n>n  V2}.  The  Preacher 
teaches  us  that  at  death  God  takes  back  to  himself  the 
spirit  which  he  gave,  but  this  he  says  of  all  men  alike, 
and  it  is  evident  he  has  as  yet  no  joy  in  anticipating 
this  return  to  God,  for  he  immediately  adds.  "  Vanity 
of  vanities,  all  is  vanity,"  ch.  xii.  s.  We  hear  from  him 
no  such  utterance  as  that  of  Paul  —  ''to  depart  and  be 
with  Christ  is  far  better:''  for  as  yet  life  and  immor 
tality  have  not  been  brought  to  light.  The  silent  gloom 
of  death  has  not  yet  been  broken  by  the  voice  of  the 
Son  of  God.  Compare  ch.  ix.  .'j,  li,  Id. 

It  is  only  in  its  germ  that  immortality  is  here  re 
vealed.  Its  germ  is  faith  and  the  fear  of  God.  This 
is  the  scriptural  order;  the  fear  of  God  first,  then 
eternal  life.  It  is  an  error  to  reverse  this  order,  and 
make  the  revelation  of  eternal  life  the  foundation  of  the 
fear  of  God.  The  Old  Testament  saints,  therefore, 
amid  all  their  darkness,  had  firmly  in  their  grasp  that 
which  is  the  root  of  immortality — faith,  union  with 


1  It  has  been  remarked,  that  between  Mulachi  and  Koclesiaa- 
tos  there  are  not  a  few  points  of  contact 
VOL.  I. 


God.  In  this  how  different  from  the  heathen  poets  and 
philosophers  !  The  latter  talk  far  more  about  the  future 
life  of  the  soul  than  the  former;  yet  they  know  nothing 
of  the  true  immortality,  because  they  have  not  its 
foundation  —the  knowledge  of  God,  union  with  God. 
Compare  ilivt.  xxii.  :U,:ii'. 

The  fear  of  God  is  therefore  to  bo  regarded  as  the 
positive  element  in  the  teaching  of  Ecclesiastes,  rather 
than  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  Vet  the  latter, 
though  not  so  prominent  as  some  would  represent  it. 
is  by  no  means  kept  altogether  out  of  view.  For  the 
fear  of  God  rests  in  great  part  upon  the  conviction 
that  God  is  righteous,  and  that  God's  righteousness 
must  sooner  or  later  be  manifested;  and  from  such  a 
conviction  the  doctrine  of  a  future  retribution  cannot 

lollLT  be  dissociated,   ch.  iii.  17  ;  xii.  l.'i,  1  I. 

1  V.  /•'.-;•;;(  innl  A  rran;/i  mi  nt.-  Ecclesiastes  stands 
alone  anum^  the  Hebrew  writings.  Tin- books  to  which 
it  bears  the  closest  relationship  are  Proverbs  and  Job: 
but  in  form  it  is  distinguished  in  a  very  marked  man 
ner  from  both  of  these,  as  well  as  from  the  other  scrip 
tural  books.  It  contains  not  a  few  proverbs,  but  it  is 
not  a  collection  of  proverbs:  it  is  a  continuous  compo 
sition,  having  one  theme  from  beginning  to  end.  It  is, 
moreover,  a  book  of  argument,  appealing  not  to  autho 
rity  but  to  reason  and  experience.  It  contains  no 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  like  the  writings  of  the  prophets: 
the  author  takes  lower  ground,  he  makes  no  claim  to 
prophetic  powers;  he  reasons  with  men  on  their  own 
level,  and  builds  his  argument  on  what  lies  under  the 
observation  of  every  one.  The  book  is  also  remarkable 
for  the  copious  induction  of  particulars  by  which  the 
general  theme  is  illustrated  and  the  final  conclusion 
established.  It  is  the  production  of  a  philosophic  ob- 
s.-rver  and  iva<oner,  rather  than  of  one  endowed  with 
prophetic  intuition  and  enthusiasm,  ch.  i  i,",,  &o.  And 
the  whole  course,  of  observation  and  reasoning  by  which 
the  author  is  led  on  to  the  conviction  in  which  his  mind 
ultimately  rests,  is  laid  bare  before  us.  He  makes  his 
readers  his  confidants:  he  does  not  conceal  the  difficul 
ties  he  had  felt  and  the  doubts  that  had  risen  in  his 
mind:  he  even  sometimes  takes  up  what  might  be 
considered  a  sceptical  position,  giving  free  utterance  to 
thoughts  which  some  might  have  thought  it  more  pru 
dent  to  suppress,  in  order  to  show  us  how  he  found  his 
way  out  of  darkness  into  the  light  of  faith.  In  some 
of  these  particulars  Ecclesiastes  bears  a  striking  resem 
blance  to  .Job.  as  well  as  in  its  general  theme:  yet  in 
style  of  composition  scarcely  any  two  books  can  be 
more;  dissimilar,  the  one  being  as  plain  and  homely 
(though  not  less  forcible  on  that  account)  as  the  other 
is  singularly  elevated  in  thought  and  language. 

With  respect  to  arrangement  of  materials  and  train 
of  thought  and  argument,  we  cannot  of  course  expect 
in  a  treatise  of  eastern  origin,  written  between  two  and 
three  thousand  years  ago,  the  same  regularity  and 
logical  sequence  as  would  be  demanded  in  any  similar 
production  of  the  modern  European  mind.  It  is  amis- 
take,  therefore,  to  map  out  Ecclesiastes  into  chapters 
and  sections,  as  has  frequently  been  done.  At  the 
same  time  there  is  an  obvious  advance,  and  a  marked 
distinction  between  the  close  of  the  treatise  and  the 
commencement.  There  is  an  introduction,  in  which 
the  theme  is  announced  and  the  problem  stated,  ch  i. 
i-ii;  and  there  is  a  conclusion,  in  which  the  result  of 
the  argument  is  most  distinctly  enunciated,  ch.  xii.  8-1 1. 
The  intermediate  chapters,  i  iL'-xii.  r,  form  the  body  of 

61 


ECCLESIASTES 

the  treatise,  in  which  by  reflection,  by  argument,  by   a 
large  induction  of  particulars,  the  way  is  prepared  for 
the  solution,    so   far   as  a  solution   is   possible,   of  the 
problem  stated  at  the   commencement.      This  principal 
portion  of  the  treatise  has  been  variously  divided  ;  re 
cently  several  writers  of   reputation  have  concurred   in 
recommending  the  following  fourfold  division: 
A.         i.  1-2  -ii.  2<>. 
I',,      iii.     I— v.  K»  (2('M. 
< '.      vi.     1  -  viii.  }'>. 
I),    viii.  lt>  -  xii.  8. 

The  first  of  these  divisions  (A,  ch.  i.  12  --ii.  2(>)  is  very 
distinctly    marked    off  from   the   others;   but   between 
I>,  ('-.  and  I)  the  lines  of  separation  are  not  very  clearly 
traceable,  unless  we  are  to  regard   the  recurrence  of  a 
leading  thought  as  evidence  sufficient  that  the  argu 
ment  has  advanced  another  stage,  and  come  to  a  pause. 
The  primury  division  therefore  is  twofold:  — 
K.     i.  12    -ii.  2t>. 
3.  iii.     1    -xii.  8. 

In  the  former  the  experience  of  Solomon  predomi 
nates;  the  author,  if  not  Solomon  himself,  maintains 
throughout  the  assumed  character  of  the  wise  and  splen 
did  king  of  Israel:  in  the  latter  this  assumed  character 
is  almost  entirely  dropped,  and  the  author  appeals  to 
the  common  experience  of  mankind.  In  the  former 
the  picture  is  dark  in  every  part ;  vanity  of  vanities  is 
stamped  on  every  line:  in  the  latter  the  darkness  of  the 
picture  begins  to  be  relieved  by  streaks  of  light,  becoming 
gradually  more  and  more  distinct  and  cheering.  In  the 
former  the  vanity  of  man's  labour  is  the  theme  through 
out:  in  the  latter  the  work  of  God,  who  hath  made  every 
thing  beautiful  in  its  season,  and  the  peace  arising  from 
the  fear  of  God,  are  ever  more  and  more  largely  dwelt 
on.  In  the  second  division  (3.  ch.  iii.  1 — xii.  8), 
viewed  by  itself,  there  is  also  a  perceptible  advance. 
The  writer  commences  with  a  striking  description  of 
the  U'urk  of  (VW,  as  distinguished  from  the  labour  of 
man,  '•  To  every  thing  there  is  a  season,"  &c.  ch.  iii.  1 
In  the  system  of  divine  providence  each  event  has  it* 
place,  its  time,  its  cause,  its  consequences,  all  definitely 
arranged.  Notwithstanding  the  infinite  multiplicity  of 
its  parts,  the  work  of  God  is  one,  and  well  ordered; 
and  it  is  irresistible.  If,  therefore,  man's  work  stand* 
in  the  way  of  God's,  there  is  but  one  possible  result 
— man's  work  must  perish.  Hence  the  unprofitableness 
and  vanity  of  man's  work  as  man,  ch.  iii. '.).  Man  cannot 
follow  the  intricate  windings  of  providence,  ch.  iii.  11,  so  a? 
to  adapt  to  them  his  own  petty  plans ;  neither  is  it  pos 
sible  for  him,  do  what  he  may,  to  rule  the  course  oi 
events  so  as  to  command  success  independently  of  God, 
ch.  iii.  14.  The  only  resource  is  in  faith,  and  the  feai 
of  God,  ch.  iii.  14. 

The  greater  part  of  this,  which  is  by  far  the  largest 
division  of  the  book,  ch.  iii.  1— xii.  s,  is  but  an  unfolding  ol 
the  roll  and  record  of  human  labours,  on  each  and  allol 
which  the  Preacher  stamps  "  vanity  of  vanities."'  Bui 
as  he  advances,  and  at  ever  shortening  intervals,  the 


1  Compare  with  this  the  recent  testimony  of  one,  whose  singu 
lar  abilities,  large  experience,  and  venerable  years,  entitle  hin 
to  be  listened  to  with  most  respectful  deference: — "Inullcmi 
pursuits,  in  our  whole  existence,  an  instinctive  sense  attends  us 
that  we  are  unsatisfied.  The  want  of  something  permanent  evei 
haunts  us.  Whatever  exertions  we  have  made,  whatever  sue 
cess  had,  whatever  gratification  received,  only  makes  us  feel  how 
hollow  it  all  is,  how  much  we  desire  that  which  endures." — 
Lord  Brougham,  Opening  Address  as  President  of  Social  Sei 
Association,  ISiJl. 


ECCLESIASIES 

Ireary  catalogue  of  vanities  is  interrupted,  and  the 
.'readier  gives  utterance  to  some  cheering  certainty, 
>n  which  his  soul  may  rest  as  on  a  firm  foundation 
as,  "  ( !od  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  its  season," 
:li.  iii.  11;  "God  shall  judge  the  righteous  and  the  wicked," 
:h.  iii.  17;  "In  the  multitude  of  dreams,  &c.,  but  fear  tliou 
iod,"ch.v.  7;  "  ( Jod  made  man  upright/'ch.vii.  •><>;  "Though 
i  sinner  do  evil  an.  hundred  times  and  his  days  be  pro- 
.( iii^ed,  yet  surely  I  know  that  it  shall  be  well  with 
;hem  that  fear  (tod,"  ch.  viii.  12);  or  to  some  sentiment  or 
admonition  naturally  arising  from  the  course  of  reflec 
tion  he  is  pursuing.  These  last  are  too  numerous  to 
specify;  they  embrace  those  portions  of  the  book  which 
bear  the  closest  resemblance  to  the  book  of  Proverbs, 
as  ch.  iv.  (>,  9-12;  v.  ],  &c.  The  duty,  to  the  com 
mendation  of  which,  as  already  remarked,  the  Preacher 
most  frequently  reverts,  as  one  specially  seasonable  in 
the  troublous  times  in  which  probably  he  lived,  is  that 
of  contentment,  quiet  acquiescence  in  the  decrees  and 
cheerful  enjoyment  of  the  gifts  of  God,  ch.  m.  i2,22;v.is;viii. 
ir> ;  ix.  7-Ki.  The  practical  aim  of  the  treatise  is  most  fully 
and  unambiguously  brought  out  towards  the  close,  ch.xi 
1— xii.r,  from  which  it  plainly  appears  that  the  author  is 
not,  as  some  have  imagined,  a  gloomy  misanthrope,  who 
looks  on  everything  with  a  jaundiced  eye;  but  a  believer 
in  God,  who  strives  even  when  his  spirit  is  most  sad  and 
overwhelmed,  to  behold  everything  in  the  light  of  God, 
and  seeks  to  lead  men  to  the  true  good  by  leading  them 
to  a  life  of  faith  in  God.  "  Remember  THY  CKKATOI;  in 
the  davs  of  thy  youth."  The  treatise  concludes  with  a 
special  appeal  to  the  young  to  make  choice  of  that  true 
peace  which  flows  from  piety  and  the  fear  of  God,  and 
not  allow  themselves  to  be  deluded  by  the  glitter  of 
worldly  joys,  ch.  xi.  !>—  xii.  2;  an  appeal  enforced  by  the 
striking  picture  of  old  age  feeble  and  tremulous,  by 
which  the  record  of  the  vanity  of  human  labour  is  so 
fittingly  closed. 

V.  Canonical  Authority. — The  doubts  on  this  sub 
ject,  which  occasionally  even  in  early  times  found  ex 
pression  within  the  synagogue  and  the  church,  were 
never  aide  to  shake  the  dominant  sentiment  and  belief, 
that  the  author  of  Kcclesiastes  was  one  of  the  favoured 
few  who  wrote  "as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost."  And  the  authoritative  decision  of  the  church- 
teachers  is  amply  confirmed  by  the  internal  character 
of  the  book.  Nowhere  even  in  the  sacred  Scriptures  is 
the  vanity  of  all  sublunary  things  depicted  so  overpower- 
ingly.  The  utterances  of  the  book,  indeed,  by  their 
boldness  often  startle  and  surprise.  The  tongue  of 
scepticism  appears  to  be  allowed  an  excess  of  license. 
But  this  is  no  indication  of  the  absence  of  inspiration  ; 
rather  the  reverse.  Shrinking  timidity  and  smooth 
propriety  characterize  the  words  of  man;  but  the  words 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  are  ever  characterized  by  bold  and 
fearless  honesty.  Who  does  not  feel  that  the  absence 
of  Ecclesiastes  from  the  Old  Testament  would  create  a 
blank  which  no  skill  of  man  could  fill  up  I  Moreover, 
in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament,  we  frequently 
catch  the  echo  of  Ecclesiastes.  And  no  wonder.  For 
no  teaching  could  form  a  more  fitting  preparation  for 
the  full  revelation  of  the  world  to  come  than  the  teach 
ing  of  this  book,  in  which  the  vanity  of  the  world  that 
now  is  is  so  impressively  displayed.  Mat.v  3,4  (Ec.  vii.  2;- 
Mat.  vi.  7  (Ec.  v.  '.'l-JIat.  vi.  19,  20,24-34;  xi.  Ill ;  Mar.  viii.  30  ;  Lu.  xii. 
20  (Ec.  vi.  2)-Jn.  iii.  8  (Ec  xi.  rO-Jn.  ix.  4  (Eo.  ix.  lo)-Roin.  x.  2, 
ICo.i.  20;  2  Co.  v.  10;  Col.iv.fi  ,(Kc.  x.  12)-1  Ti.  iv.  3,4  ;  vi.fi,  17;  Un. 
ii.  17  ;  Ja  i.  Ill  (Ec.  iv.  17  ;  v.  1.  [v.  1,  2]). 


ECCLESIASTICCS 


483 


EDEX 


[In  the  critical  study  of  Ecclesiastic,  as  indeed  of  most  of  the 
Hebrew  writings,  t'ne  most  valuable  iiiil  is  derived  from  the 
Hebrew  Concordance.  Of  the  numerous  commentaries  on  Eo- 
clesiastes,  a  most  elaborate  account  is  given  by  Mr.  (iinsburg 
(Koli'l-lli,  <>i-  l/i'-  K'«>k  uf  Ecclesiatttf,  Translated,  .(•<-.,  //,/ (V,r/V 
tinit  1).  (iKttln'i-ij,  isiil).  To  tlie  English  student,  the  Messrs. 
Clark  have  rendered  the  Commentary  of  Hengstenberg  easily 
accessible.  The  Expositions  of  Hulden,  No\es,  and  Moses  Stuart, 
are  held  in  estimation.  Practical  Lectures  nil  Ecclesiastes  are 
numerous;  such  as  the  volumes  of  the  late  Dr.  Wardlaw,  and 
more  recently  those  of  Dr.  Buchanan  and  Mr.  Bridges.] 

LD.  H.w.J 

ECCLE3IAS  TICUS,  one  of  the  books  which  com- 
pose  the  Apocrypha,  has  often  lieen  ascribed  to  Solomon, 
and  Ity  many  Koman  Catholic  authorities  is  called  the 
fifth  book  of  Solomon,  Imt  without  any  foundation.  The 
fifth  council  of  Cartilage  unfortunately  gave  the  first 
wrong  derision  on  this  point,  and  Koine  can  hence  j 
claim  for  it  a  certain  amount  of  patristic  authority. 
That  the  I  look  may  embody  many  wise  savings,  which 
obtained  currency  from  the  time  of  Solomon,  and 
which  may  therefore,  in  a  ijualitied  sense,  be  ascribed 
to  him,  no  one  will  doubt.  Hut  as  the  book  itself  con 
tains  indubitable  evidence  of  being  the  production  of  a 
later  age  (tor  example,  refers  to  the  captivity,  cli.  xhii. 
-I,  i'.i,  and  professes,  in  the  preface,  to  lie  nothing  more 
than  the  collected  wisdom  of  a  learned  scribe  who  lived 
subsequent  to  the  times  of  the  law  and  the  prophets 
there  is  no  ground  whatever  for  assuring  it  a  higher 
origin,  or  investing  it  with  a  strictly  canonical  author 
ity.  It  professes,  in  its  existiii""  form,  to  bea(in-ck 
translation,  by.lesus  the  son  of  Sinu-h.  of  a  Hebrew  pro  : 
duction  left  by  his  grandfather,  also  a  Jesus,  son  of  ' 
Sirach.  \\'hat  authority  should  be  attached  to  such  a 
.statement  it  is  difficult  to  say;  it  is  recei\ed  by  many  and 
disputed  by  some;  certainly  nothing  has  ever  been  sc-en 
by  any  public  authorities  of  a  Hebrew  original,  and  in 
the  (I reek  form  alone  is  it  knosvn  to  the  church.  The 
.lesus  who  presented  it  to  the  public  is  supposed  to  have 
lived  ill  the  second  century  before  Christ,  and  to  have 
issued  this  work  about  i;.c.  1  :iu.  Though  an  uninspired 
production,  and  therefore  not  entitled  to  a  place  in  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  undoubtedly  by 
much  the  best  of  its  class.  (Sir  A  I'licuvrilA.) 

E'DEN  [/./(. <x<//r  or  <lili':/tt>}.  the  original  residence 
of  the  first  human  pair.  It  also  bears,  in  all  modern 
European  languages,  the  name  of  Paradise,  from  tin- 
translations  given  by  the  Septuaurint  and  Vulgate  to 
*5  (,'/«">>  ,'/<"'</<".  This,  in  tlie  Septuagint,  is  Trapdoao-os, 
in  the  Latin.  /ifir</</ix/i.<,  or  in  Englisli,  )mrti<liw.  In 
stead  of  (bill  being  said  to  plant  a  garden  in  Eden, 
according  to  the  Septuagint  it  is,  he  planted  a  paradise 
in  Eden;  and  the  Vulgate,  by  giving  the  sense  of  Eden, 
makes  it  a  paradise  of  pleasure  (jMtradixiix  rolii/rfatix). 
Paradise,  however,  is  simply  another  and  later  Hebrew- 
term  for  i/nrdni.  and  occurs  in  three  passages  of  the 
Old  Testament,  Cant.  iv.  I.'i;  EC.  ii.  ">,  where  it  is  ren 
dered  <>rc/mi-t/,  and  Xa.  ii.  \  in  which  fon.tt  has  been 
adopted  as  the  equivalent.  The  word  is  properly  jitinli-x, 
and  is  supposed  to  have  been  imported  into  the  Hebrew 
from  the  Armenian  or  Persian.  Like  I/<HI,  it  denotes 
garden  in  the  wider  sense —a  large  inclosure  or  park, 
planted  with  trees  for  use  and  ornament,  and  so  ap 
proaching  more  nearly  to  the  nature  of  an  orchard  than 
to  that  of  a  forest. 

The  account  given  in  Genesis  of  the  garden  of  Eden 
is  not  such  as  to  enable  us  to  identify  its  place  with 
any  existing  locality.  "  And  the  Lord  (iod  planted  a 


garden  eastward  in  Edeii:  and  there  he  put  tlie  man  he 
had  formed.  And  out  of  the  ground  made  the  Lord 
(Jod  to  grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight, 
and  good  for  food;  the  tree  of  life  also  in  the  midst  of 
the  garden,  and  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  uood  and 
evil.  And  a  river  went  out  of  Eden  to  water  the  gar 
den;  and  from  thence  it  was  parted,  and  became  into 
four  heads.  The  name  of  the  first  is  1'ison;  it  is  that 
which  compasseth  the  whole  land  of  Havilah,  where 
there  is  gold;  and  the  gold  of  that  land  is  good;  there  is 
bdellium  (/n<{<>hi<-/t),  and  the  onvx-stoiie  (.</«>hitn/'i.  And 
the  name  of  the  second  river  is  (iihon.  It  is  the  same 
that  compasseth  the  whole  land  of  Ethiopia  (Cn.i/i). 
And  the  name  of  the  third  river  is  Hiddckcl;  it  is  that 
which  goeth  toward  the  east  of  o>r  rather  eastward  to) 
Assyria.  And  the  fourth  river  is  the  Euphrates 
(P/irut),'*  tie.  ii.  s-n.  Some  parts  of  this  description 
seem  to  be  intelligible  enough  to  those  who  know  only 
tlie  post-diluvian  world,  and  this  has  led  many  eminent 
scholars  into  the  belief  that  the  whole,  by  dint  of  learned 
inquiry,  or  etymological  and  geographical  explanations, 
could  be  made  fully  out.  There  can  lie  no  doubt  that 
the  river  called  1'lirat  in  tlie  original  is  tlie  same  with 
the  Euphrates,  and  that  Hiddckcl  appears  elsewhere  to 
be  applied  ill  Scripture  to  the  river  Tigris.  Da.  \.  ,"..  As 
syria  also  is  a  well-known  region,  and  has  tin-  Tigris 
as  one  of  its  great  rivers.  P>ut  what  precisely  is  the 
land  of  Cush  or  Ethiopia  a  term  that  is  known  to  be 
variously  used  in  Scripture  '  What  or  \\hciv  is  the 
land  of  Havilah.'  or  the  rivers  Pison  and  (lihon'<  Of 
these  we  have  no  certain  information  whatever:  and 
after  centuries  of  research  and  speculation  \\  e  are  not 
one  whit  farther  advanced,  nor  have  inquiries  been  able 
In  dime  nearer  t»  an  agreement,  than  when  the  matter 
was  first  broached.  Even  if  we  could,  with  some  mea 
sure  of  certainty,  learn  what  particular  countries  and 
rivers  were  here  meant  by  the  names  of  llavilah,  Cush, 
Pison,  (iihon,  it  would  help  us  very  little  to  a  satisfac 
tory  conclusion,  for  the  statement  in  respect  to  tin;  site 
of  the  garden  of  Eden  plainly  is.  not  only  that  it  was 
somehow  connected  with  four  rivers,  but  that  these 
four  rivers  had  their  origin  in  the  garden,  flowed  through 
the  garden  as  an  undivided  copious  stream,  and  after 
wards  fell  into  the  fourfold  division  mentioned  under 
the  names  Pison,  (iilion,  Hiddekel,  and  Euphrates. 
This  seems  the  clear  meaning  of  the  words;  and  to  ex 
plain  them,  as  Bochart  and  others  have  done,  by  sup 
posing  that  the  river  was  one  indeed,  while  passing 
through  the  region  which  formed  the  garden,  but 
that  the  four  heads,  or  principal  divisions,  consisted 
of  two  (the  Tigris  and  Euphrates),  flowing  into  it  and 
coalescing  as  they  entered  the  territory  of  Eden,  and 
again,  after  leaving  it,  dividing  into  two,  and  form 
ing  the  main  streams  by  which  the  river  reached  the 
Caspian  Sea,  is  entirely  arbitrary.  The  river,  it  is 
expressly  said,  ir<  at  nut  <>f  /.'</<•//,  had  its  source  there, 
and  frniii  tltutn  that  is,  on  its  leaving  Eden  it 
Ijccame  parted  into  four  heads  or  leading  divisions. 
Now,  nothing  can  lie  more  certain  than  that  there  is 
no  region  in  the  known  habitable  world  in  which 
these  conditions  meet.  And  on  the  supposition  that 
tlie  statement  is  of  a  strictly  historical  nature  (which 
we  have  no  reason  to  doubt),  there  is  room  for  but 
one  conclusion,  namely,  that  the  description,  whether 
written  immediately  by  the  pen  of  Moses,  or  handed 
down  to  him  from  primeval  times,  has  respect  to  a  state 
of  things  which,  to  a  considerable  extent,  was  broken 


4S4 


up  and  changed  by  the  deluge.  It  is  impossible  that, 
after  such  a  catastrophe,  the  outward  aspect  of  the 
world  could  have  remained  altogether  what  it  formerly 
was;  and  it  is  nut  improbable  that,  in  the  regions  over 
which  it  more  especially  prevailed,  alterations  took 
place  in  the  relative  heights  of  districts,  and  conse 
quently  in  the  direction  of  rivers.  Indeed,  to  eleva- 


character,  may  probably  be  in  great  part  ascribed. 
J fence,  while  the  general  features  of  the  region  may 
have  continued  after  the  flood  much  as  before,  and 
some  of  the  names  of  rivers  and  districts  that  had 
prevailed  in  the  old  world  would  naturally  be  retained 
in  the  new,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  precise 
position  of  matters  in  the  original  garden  of  Eden 
should  be  found  any  longer  to  exist. 

The  circumstance  that  the  description  does  not  suit 
any  actual  locality  in  the  post-diluvian  world,  and  that 
some  of  the  names  employed — J'ison,  Gihon,  Havilah 
—  are  left  altogether  indefinite  in  the  records  of  Old 
Testament  history,  render  it  probable  that  the  account 
was  simply  adopted  by  Moses  as  one  of  the  accredited 
memorials  of  an  earlier  age.  It  is  hardly  to  Le  sup 
posed  that,  if  for  the  first  time  communicated  to  the 
world  by  the  handwriting  of  Moses,  there  should  have 
been  110  indication  of  the  change  of  circumstances  which 
hindered  the  applicability  of  the  description  to  any 
known  locality.  This  is  the  more  probable,  as  in 
other  parts  of  the  Mosaic  writings,  in  which  reference 
is  made  to  things  of  the  olden  time,  explanations  are  , 
often  thrown  in  to  make  the  historical  statements  pro 
perly  intelligible;  for  example,  Ge.  xiv.  8;  xxviii.  19; 
De.  ii.  10-12,  20-23.  We  are  therefore  inclined  to 
regard  the  description  of  paradise  in  the  second  chapter 
of  Genesis  as  a  primeval  record,  in  form  as  well  as  in 
substance,  and  on  this  account  especially  incapable  of 
being  identified  with  any  particular  region  with  which 
we  have  the  means  of  making  ourselves  acquainted;  for 
the  relative  position  and  external  aspect  of  things  had 
become  too  much  changed  by  the  action  of  the  deluge 
to  admit  of  it. 

Delitzsch,  one  of  the  latest  and  ablest  commentators 
on  Genesis,  differs  in  respect  to  this  view  of  the  record, 
lie  thinks  that,  according  to  the  author's  mode  of 
contemplation,  "paradise  had.  when  he  wrote,  been 
obliterated  from  the  earth;  and  this  he  certainly  did  not 
conceive  of  without  a  violent  disturbance  in  the  rela 
tion  of  the  rivers  to  the  land  of  Eden."  But  he  en 
tirely  concurs  (as  does  also  Richers.  Die  Schopfungs  rara- 
dieses  und  Sundfluthgeschichte,  p.  2-JO,  scq. )  ill  the  view  we 
have  given  of  the  subject  itself.  "  It  is  impossible."  he 
says,  "to  reconcile  the  geographical  statements  of  the 
author,  regarding  the  rivers  of  paradise,  with  our 
knowledge  of  the  present  form  of  the  earth's  surface, 
in  a  satisfactory  manner."  He  then  refers  to  the  ex 
planatory  schemes  of  various  writers,  in  particular  of 
Von  Raumer,  Buttmaim,  and  Bertheau,  which,  how 
ever,  he  admits,  yield  no  certain  result,  and  expresses 
his  belief  in  the  probability  of  changes  having  taken 
place  in  the  relative  altitudes  of  districts  and  the  courses 
of  rivers  in  that  part  of  the  world.  "  It  is  there 
fore  unnecessary,"  he  concludes,  "in  order  to  establish 
the  geographical  statements  of  the  sacred  writer,  that 
we  should  be  able  still  to  point  to  four  distinct  streams 
(the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  among  them),  proceeding 
from  a  single  source,  which  is  plainly  impossible.  The 


original  oneness  of  the  four  streams  is.  in  the  sense  of 
the  author,  as  certainly  at  an"  end  as  that  paradise  is 
lost."  He  adds — "  J'ison,  Gihon,  Tigris,  and  Euphrates, 
are  only  the  remains  of  those  four  streams  into  which 
the  paradise-river  originally  divided  itself,  and  which 
bore  the  blessings  of  paradise  into  all  the  world."  But 
tliis  is  advancing  somewhat  into  the  regions  of  fancy, 
as  it  still  remains  matter  of  doubtful  speculation  what 
existing  rivers  are  to  be  identified  with,  or  approach 
nearest  to,  1'ison  and  Gihon. 

Baumgarten,  in  his  Tkeoloyical  Comment".!'//  on  the 
Pentateuch,  had  already  propounded  substantially  the 
same  view  of  the  subject  as  has  now  been  given,  with 
no  further  difference  than  that  he  makes  it  somewhat 
more  specific.  While  he  regards  the  deluge  as  having 
necessarily  disfigured  and  changed  to  a  considerable 
extent  the  earth's  surface,  he  still  thinks  a  general 
similarity  remained;  and  we  may  hence  conceive  "that 
from  the  region  of  Armenia  a  river  flowed,  and  then 
divided  itself  into  four  branches,  of  which  the  two 
eastern  corresponded  to  the  rivers  afterwards  deno 
minated  [and  why  not  also  denominated  in  primeval 
times?]  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris;  and  the  two 
western  had  their  course  through  Arabia,  which,  by  a 
subsequent  elevation,  rose  somewhat  above  the  original 
river-bed."  That  he  is  right  in  indicating  Armenia  as 
the  region  within  which  lay  the  site  of  the  garden  of 
Eden,  is  highly  probable  from  the  notices  themselves 
we  have  upon  the  subject,  and  also  from  the  general 
current  of  tradition,  which  pointed  to  that  quarter  as 
the  original  seat  of  the  human  family. 

Those  who  wish  to  see  a  detailed  account  of  the  dif 
ferent  schemes  that  have  been  framed  to  explain  the 
narrative  in  Genesis  in  conformity  with  existing  geo 
graphical  knowledge,  may  consult  Mori  n't  .D  insert,  df 
J'l/i'f/ilin.  Tt-i'nx.  in  JliH'/HD'ti  Opp.  ;MarcTcii  Hist.  Parad. 
lilustrata;  Schulthess,rfas  Puradies;  Faber^s  A  rchteoloyy; 
or  Roseiimiiller's  Hiftlicul  Geography,  vol.  i.,  as  given  in 
('lark's  Ili/i/ii-al  Cabinet,  No.  xi.  p.  40-S>7.  The  dif 
ficulties  connected  with  a  real  geographical  solution 
have  given  rise  in  Germany  to  several  mythical  explan 
ations,  in  which  the  biblical  narrative  of  the  garden  of 
luleii  is  treated  much  as  modern  scholars  treat  the 
ancient  classical  tradition  of  the  gardens  of  the  Hes- 
perides.  Some  account  is  given  of  these  arbitrary 
schemes  in  Winer's  Heal.  Worterbuch ,  article  "Eden,"  to 
which  we  simply  refer,  as  we  deem  them  of  110  value 
in  respect  to  the  object  for  which  they  are  more  im 
mediately  produced. 

In  respect  to  the  garden  itself,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  it  is  presented  to  our  view  as  the  region  of  complete 
earthly  satisfaction  —of  life  in  its  immortal  freshness 
and  beauty.  It  was  the  earth's  centre,  as  the  habitation 
of  rational  and  perfect  humanity — the  seat  of  that  do 
minion  which  was  given  to  man  as  the  deputy  and  image 
of  God,  and  from  which  he  was  gradually — had  he 
stood  in  his  original  position — to  extend  his  sway,  and 
the  blessings  of  his  ample  heritage,  over  the  other  regions 
of  the  habitable  globe.  There,  as  our  great  poet  has 
sung  in  immortal  verse,  nature  concentrated  her  whole 
wealth,  so  as  to  make — 

"  A  heaven  on  earth, 
A  happy  rural  seat  of  various  view  ; 
Groves,  whose  rich  trees  wept  odorous  gums  ami  1  aim  : 
Others,  whose  fruit,  burnished  with  golden  rind, 
Hung  amiable — Hesperian  fables  true — 
If  true,  here  only,  and  of  delicious  taste. 


EDOM. 


EGYPT 


Betwixt  them  lawns,  or  level  downs,  and  Hocks 
Grazing  the  tender  herb,  were  interposed. 
The  birds  their  quire  apply  ;  airs,  vernal  airs, 
Breathing  the  smell  of  field  and  grove,  attune 
The  trembling  leaves,  while  universal  Pan 
Knit  with  the  graces  and  the  hours  in  dancj, 
Led  on  eternal  spring. " — Ptirtnlite  Luft,  iv. 

Happy,  indeed,  if  it  could  liut  have  continued,  and 
Adam,  faithful  to  his  trust,  had  preserved  for  himself 
and  hi.s  offspring  such  a  dowrv  of  life  and  Messing. 
Mut  here,  as  in  everything  that  concerns  the  more 
peculiar  glorv  of  God.  the  moral  was  made  to  rule  the 
natural:  and  as  our  first  parents  failed  to  aliide  in  the 
holy  obedience  on  which  the  whole  was  suspended,  it 
fell  from  their  grasp,  and  thenceforth  stood  related  to 
them  and  their  posterity  as  a  forfeited  inheritance. 
]>ut  the  spiritual,  aspects  of  the  matter  are  discussed 
elsewhere.  (N<  ADAM.) 

E'DOM  [i-itlina.f],  airtme  given,  from  a  characteristic 
incident  in  his  life,  to  the  clder-liurn  »f  Isaac's  sons, 
and  afterwards  to  his  land  and  people,  tie.  \xv.  ;;n.  (>'<( 
Es.u',  InrMKA.) 

ED'REI  \*f }•<„>;/].  the  name  of  a  fortified  city:  and 
indeed,  1.  First  and  chiefly  of  the  capital  of  the  an 
cient  P.atanca,  and  if  not  the  capital,  at  least  one  of 
the  chief  cities,  of  the  still  more  ancient  kingdom  of 
Mashan,  Xu.  xxi. :;::;  IK.-,  i.  4;iii.  in;.J<,s.  xii.  4.  It  is  onlv  men 
tioned  in  Scripture  as  the  place  at,  or  near  which.  Ou- 

the  king  of  Mashan  resided,  and  in  the  neighbour!) 1  of 

which  the  Israelites  completely  routed  his  forces:  after 
which,  of  course,  it  became  part  of  the  Israelitisli  terri 
tory,  and  was  included  in  the  portion  assigned  to  the 
half- tribe  of  Manasseh.  Its  precUe  position,  however. 
is  still  a  matter  of  some  uncertainty.  In  the  <>i> tnnn*- 
ti'-ini  of  Kusehius  it  hears  the  name  of  Adraa,  and  is 
placed  at  the  distance  of  :_>;">  Roman  miles  from  Mosra. 
and  li  from  Astaroth.  In  modern  times  it  has  com 
monly  been  identified  with  I  )er"a.  but  Mr.  1'orter  (Hand 
book  <.f  Syria  and  ['ak'stiiif,  ji.  r.X'i  prefers  tile  ruins  of  a 

place  some  miles  farther  south,  hearhiLr  the  name  of 
Kdr'a.  Moth  sites  are  in  the  Hauran.  in  that  division 
of  it  which  is  called  the  Lejah  :  and  whichever  of  the 
two  is  adopted,  the  position  of  the  place  must  have  been 
very  nearly  straight  east  from  the  southern  extremitv 
of  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  and  at  a  distance  of  from  2'} 
to  .'30  miles.  The  ruins  at  both  the  sites  are  prettv 
extensive,  covering  a  space  of  nearly  three  miles  in 
circumference,  and  possessing  much  of  the  same  charac 
ter.  They  are  of  the  Greek  order,  and  belong  to  (  'hris- 
tian  times.  The  chief  reason  why  Mr.  Porter  prefers 
the  site  of  the  modern  Edr'a  to  that  of  thuKuicient  Edrei 
is  its  stronger  position,  being  situated  on  a  rocky  pro 
montory,  which  rises  from  -Jo  to  :jn  feet  above  the  sur 
rounding  plain,  and  being  inaccessible  except  through 
narrow  defiles  and  precipitous  rocks.  Some  Arab 
families  still  occupy  the  few  houses  which  remain. 

2.  Another  Edrei  belonged  to  the  tril>e  of  Naph- 
tali,  Jos.  xix.:;7;  but  nothing  certain  is  known  of  it. 

EG'LAH  [ti'-ifcr],  one  of  David's  wives,  the  last 
mentioned  in  two  lists,  and  the  mother  of  one  .son, 
Ithream,  •>  sa.  in.  f> ;  i  ch.  iii.  :!.  Each  time  the  name  is 
given  with  the  emphatic  addition  ''his  wife,"  which 
has  led  some  to  suppose  that  Eglah  might  be  but 
another  name  of  Michal,  David's  original  and  proper 
wife.  But  this  is  not  likely. 

EG'LAIM,  Is.  xv.  x,  probably  the  same  as  EN-EGLAIM 
(which  sec). 


EG'LON  [><//;„,,].  A  king  of  Moab,  who,  after 
the  disasters  that  had  befallen  the  Moabite  race  under 
the  hand  of  Moses,  rallied  its  scattered  forces,  and 
made  severe  reprisals  upon  the  Israelites.  In  connec 
tion  with  the  Amalekitcs  and  Ammonites,  he  brought 
the  people  on  the  further  side  of  .Jordan  into  subjec 
tion,  and  even  carried  his  conquests  into  the  interior 
of  the  land  of  Canaan,  so  far  at  least  as  to  o-0t  posses 
sion  of  Jericho,  and  to  make  it  one  of  his  head-quar 
ters,  Ju.  iii  i.i.  It  was  probably  in  that  city  that  he  was 
slain  by  Ehud:  but  while  the  sacred  record  relates 
various  particulars  regarding  the  manner  of  his  death, 
it  does  not  distinctly  mention  the  place  where  the  blow 
was  struck.  Kglon  held  the  eastern  portion  of  the 
Israelites  in  bondage  for  eighteen  years. 

EG  EON,  the  name  also  of  an  ancient  chv  in  Canaan, 
whose  king.  Debir,  formed  one  of  the  live  Aniorite 
kings  that  laid  siege  to  Giheon.  and  were  overthrown 
by  .Joshua,  Jos.  x.3.  The  city  itself  was  taken  I  iv  Joshua, 
and  all  its  inhabitants  destroved,  .Jos.  x.  :).'>.  Its  site  is 
still  matter  of  dispute  ([{<ibins.ui,  Researches,  ii.  ,'i!U  ;  i'orter, 
IIan.lt>.,.  .k,  p  •_.:_•> 

E'GYPT  (Greek,  Afyi'TTros:  Hebrew,  .17 /,r  or  .!//*- 
flint,  from  tin-  son  of  Ham:  in  the  language  of  the 
country  in  hieroglyphic-,  ('/n/n  or  Chcnii  - 

which  signifies  the  lil«,-k  JB_  l,i,nl ;  and  bv  the 
Arabs  of  the  present  day,  ^  _  Mi.tr);  a  country  in 
the  north-eastern  part  of  Jk  ®  Africa,  latitude  at 
Assouan,  •_'}  »!',  and  at  Mourlos,  '.',\  :ki"  N.;  longitude 
at  . \kabah-cl-Solouni,  i>,r,  Iv;  and  river  Kl  Arish,  :M  '  K. ; 
and  hounded  on  the  north  by  the  Mediterranean  Sea.,  on 
the  ea.-t  by  the  Isthmus  of  Sue/ and  the  Ked  Sea,  on  the 
south  by  Nubia,  and  on  the  west  bv  the  Libyan  Desert. 
The  great c.-t  breadth  of  Kgvpt  is  about  li/id  miles,  com 
prehending  the,  Creator  Oasis,  the  Lesser  ( )asis,  and  the 
Oa.-is  of  Ammon;  but  inhabited  Kgvpt  is  confined  to 
the  valley  of  the  Nile,  which  in  the  widest  part  docs 
not  exceed  Ml  miles,  while  for  its  general  length  the 
width  is  only  from  1(1  to  1  ">  miles,  decreasing  at  the 
southern  boundary  to  1'  miles.  Throughout  the  entire 
length  of  tile  country  run  two  ranges  of  lofty  moun 
tains,  the  Arabian  Hills  on  the  east,  and  the  Libvan 
on  the  west,  and  through  the  centre  of  the  valley 
thus  formed  runs  the  Nile,  called  in  the  translation  of 
the  I'.ible  the  great  river  of  Egypt,  for  the  name 
does  not  appear,  though  it  occurs  in  the  original 
text.  Of  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  all  that  we  know  is 
that,  about  7'  south  of  Assouan,  three  rivers  unite  to 
form  the  waters  of  the  Nile  1st,  the  White  river, 
flowing  from  snowy  mountains  south  of  the  equator; 
•2(1.  the  .Mine  river,  rising  in  Abyssinia;  and  :5d,  the 
Taca/ze  or  Abara.  the  Astaboras  of  Strabo,  the  eastern 
source.  From  the  cataracts  at  Assouan,  the  Nile  flows 
northward  through  Upper  Egypt,  until  it  reaches  lat. 
H<r  ].V,  where  it  divides  into  two  main  streams,  the 
Heracleotic  (now  the  Rosetta)  mouth  to  the  west;  and 
the  Phatnitic  (now  tlie  Damietta)  mouth  to  the  east, 
the  other  five  mouths  which  formerly  existed  being 
now  silted  up.  These  two  streams,  conjoined  with  a 
third  springing  a  little  higher  up,  inclose  that  portion 
of  land  known  as  the  Delta,  from  its  resemblance  to 
the  Greek  letter  A,  and  which  owes  its  existence  to  the 
deposits  of  alluvial  matter  brought  down  the  stream. 
The  Nile  has  no  tides,  but  a  current  at  the  rate  of  two 
an<l  a  half  or  three  miles  an  hour  constantly  running 
towards  the  sea,  and  the  stream  is  always  deep  enough 
for  navigation.  The  water  is  usually  of  a  blue  colour, 


EGYPT 


48  G 


EGYPT 


but  it  becomes  a  reddish  brown  during  the  overflow:  it 
is  esteemed  highly  salubrious.  The  most  remarkable 
phenomenon  connected  with  the  river  is  its  annual 
regular  increase,  arising  from  the  periodical  rains  which 
fall  within  the  tropics.  As  rain  rarely  falls  in  Egypt, 
the  prosperity  of  the  country  entirely  depends  upon  this 
overflowing  of  the  river,  for  on  the  subsiding  of  the 
water  the  land  is  found  to  be  covered  with  a  brown 
slimy  deposit,  which  so  fertilizes  the  otherwise  barren 
soil  that  it  produces  two  crops  a  year,  while  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  inundation  there  is  no  cultivation  whatso 
ever.  The  Nile  begins  to  rise  in  J  une,  and  continues  to 
increase  until  September,  overflowing  the  low  lands  along 
its  course,  the  waters  being  conveyed  by  canals  where 
natural  channels  fail.  The  Delta  then  looks  like  an 
immense  marsh  interspersed  with  islands,  villages, 
towns,  and  plantations,  just  above  the  level  of  the 
water.  The  water  remains  stationary  for  a  few  days, 
when  it  gradually  begins  to  subside,  until  about  the 
end  of  October  the  land  is  left  dry  again.  The  seed 
is  then  sown,  and  an  artificial  irrigation  is  continued 
in  two  different  ways,  viz.  by  means  of  the  water- 
wheel,  or  by  the  instrument  called  edtaduiif.  The 
first  consists  of  a  horizontal  wheel  turned  by  one  or  two 
oxen,  which  sets  in  motion  a  vertical  drum,  over  which 
is  slung  a  chaplet  of  earthen  jars,  which  scoop  up  the 
water  and  bring  it  to  a  trough  on  a  level  with  the  drum. 
Into  this  trough  each  jar  empties  itself  in  succession. 
and  the  water  is  conducted  by  an  inclined  channel  into 
the  plantation,  which  had  been  previously  divided  into 
compartments  of  one  or  two  yards  square,  by  raising 
the  mould  into  walls  or  ridges  of  five  or  six  inches  in 
height.  Into  these  compartments  the  cultivator  forms 
an  entrance  for  the  water,  by  depressing  a  little  space 
in  the  ridge  or  wall  with  the  sole  of  his  foot ;  and 
this  overlooking  of  the  channels  of  irrigation,  and  ad 
justment  of  the  openings  from  one  compartment  to  the 
other  with  the  foot,  is  continued  till  the  cultivator  is 
assured  by  the  growth  of  the  plants  that  each  compart 
ment  is  daily  and  duly  supplied  with  its  proper  quantity 
of  water.  To  this  peculiarity  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil  of  Egypt,  whether  for  corn  or  other  production, 
allusion  is  made  in  Do.  xi.  10. 

The  second  means  of  raising  water,  namely,  the 
shadouf,  consists  of  a  leathern  bucket  slung  at  one  end 
of  a  pole,  which  has  a  weight  at  the  other,  a  contriv 
ance  by  which  the  cultivator  is  enabled  to  scoop  up 
the  water  considerably  below  his  feet,  and  raise  it  with 
comparative  ease  to  the  mouth  of  a  channel  on  a  level 
with  his  breast.  This  last  mode  of  raising  water  is  de 
picted  on  the  walls  of  the  ancient  tombs  of  Egypt,  and 
also  in  the  sculptures  from  Nineveh,  by  which  we  learn 
that  the  "hanging  gardens,"  or  those  plantations  on 
the  artificial  mounds  of  that  celebrated  city,  were  irri 
gated.  The  land  is  soon  covered  with  green  crops, 
which  last  till  February,  and  the  harvest  is  in  March. 
An  elevation  of  the  river  of  16  cubits,  or  about  26  feet, 
is  essential  to  secure  the  prosperity  of  the  country;  and 
as  that  elevation  subsides,  the  chaplet  of  buckets  is 
lengthened,  or  the  number  of  shadoufs  are  increased. 
Should  the  Nile  rise  above  this  height,  it  does  great 
damage,  and  involves  the  population  in  distress ;  while 
if  it  should  not  attain  the  ordinary  height,  there  is 
deficiency  of  crops  and  famine  ;  but  so  regular  are  the 
operations  of  nature  that,  with  rare  exceptions,  the  in 
undations  are  nearly  uniform.  The  rate  of  the  deposit 
of  mud  is  supposed  to  be  about  6  inches  in  a  century 


Ancient  Egypt  was  divided  into  three  parts — 1st,  the 
Thebaid,  and  '2<\,  the  Heptanomos,  which  together  were 
called  Upper  Egypt — 3d,  the  Delta,  or  Lower  Egypt, 
where  the  Nile  divides  and  reached  the  Mediterranean 
by  eight  natural  and  two  false  mouths  :  these  were,  be 
ginning  on  the  west,  the  Caiiopic,  the  Heracleotic,  the 
Bolbitine,  the  Sebennytic,  the  Pineptimo  false  mouth, 
the  Diolcos  false  mouth,  the  Phatnitic,  the  Mendesian 
(Mmzelah),  the  Tanitic  (Mocs),  and  the  Pelusiac  mouth. 
Egypt  was  also  divided  into  forty-nine  provinces  or 
nomes,  each  with  a  chief  city;  but  these  were  not 
always  the  same,  nor  had  they  always  the  same  bouii- 
laries,  as  the  country  round  a  great  city  was  occa 
sionally  called  its  nome. 

Climate. — The  atmosphere  in  Egypt  is  extremely 
clear  and  dry,  the  temperature  regular  and  exceedingly 
hot,  though  the  heat  is  tempered  during  the  daytime 
for  nine  months  of  the  year  by  the  strong  wind  which 
blows  from  the  north,  and  which  enables  vessels  to 
ascend  the  river  against  the  stream.  The  winter  months 
are  the  most  delightful  part  of  the  year,  the  air  being- 
cool  and  balmy,  and  the  ground  covered  with  verdure; 
later,  the  ground  becomes  parched  and  dry;  and  in  May 
the  suffocating  khamseen,  or  simoom,  begins  to  blow 
into  the  valley  from  the  desert  plains  on  each  side  of  ifc, 
raising  clouds  of  fine  sand,  and  causing  various  diseases, 
until  the  rising  of  the  river  again  comes  to  bless  the 
land.  It  rains  but  rarely,  except  near  the  seashore. 
At  Memphis  the  rain  falls  perhaps  three  or  four  times 
in  the  course  of  a  year,  and  in  Upper  Egypt  only  once 
or  twice,  if  at  all;  but  at  night  the  dews  are  heavy  and 
the  air  cool  and  refreshing:  showers  of  hail  sometimes 
reach  the  borders  of  Egypt,  but  the  formation  of  ice  is 
very  uncommon.  Earthquakes  are  occasionally  felt, 
and  thunder  and  lightning  are  neither  frequent  nor 
violent.  Egypt  is  not  remarkably  healthy,  as  in  addi 
tion  to  visitations  of  plague  and  cholera,  ophthalmia, 
diarrhoea,  dysentery,  and  boils  are  very  prevalent. 

Gcoloyy  and  Mimralwpj. — The  hilly  region  which 
separates  Egypt  from  Nubia  is  composed  of  granitic 
rocks,  which  terminate  at  Assouan  (Syene),  and  extend 
up  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea  to  near  the  Gulf  of  Suez. 
The  Arabian  and  Libyan  hills  are  both  composed  of 
cretaceous  strata,  the  predominant  rock  being  lime 
stone.  This  sandstone  extends  from  Assouan  to  Esne, 
about  85  miles,  where  it  is  coveied  by  a  limestone  of 
the  upper  chalk  series.  From  thence  for  13(1  miles  the 
valley  is  bounded  with  a  tertiary  nummulite  limestone. 
Over  a  great  extent  of  Egypt  the  rocks  are  covered 
with  moving  sands,  and  in  the  lands  bordering  on  the 
Nile  by  the  alluvium  deposited  during  the  inundations, 
and  which  consists  of  an  argillaceous  earth  or  loam, 
more  or  less  mixed  with  sand  and  quartzose  sand.  The 
sedimentary  deposit  has  no  traces  of  stratification. 
The  minerals  used  in  buildings,  sculpture,  vases,  &c., 
were  found  in  the  rock  formations  of  the  country. 
Granite,  syenite,  and  basalt  were  obtained  from  Assouan, 
sandstone  from  Silsilis,  alabaster  from  Tel-el- Amarna, 
limestone  from  Beni-hassan  and  from  Toora,  breccia 
from  the  Cosseir  Rood,  porphyry  from  the  quarries 
of  Gebel-Dohan,  emeralds  from  the  mines  of  Gebel- 
Zftbara,  gold  from  the  mines  in  Upper  Egypt,  and 
iron  from  the  desert  plains  of  Nubia,  natron  from  the 
lakes  in  the  Oasis  of  Ammon,  hence  called  sal-ammoniac. 
Bitumen,  salt,  and  sulphur  are  also  among  the  other 
minerals  of  Egypt. 

Botany. — It  would  appear  that,   anciently  as  now, 


4S7 


EGYPT 


Egypt  did  not  produce  timber;  the  only  trees,  be.sides 
the  palm  mid  tamarisk,  being  the  sycamore,  fig.  and 
acacia  or  gum-arabic  tree,  which  last  does  not  attain  to 
any  size  north  of  Wady  Haifa.  The  papyrus  plant, 
once  so  important,  is  now  nowhere  to  be  found  in  the 
country.  Of  it  was  manufactured  a  paper,  which  was 
supplied  to  all  the  ancient  world.  .Boats,  baskets, 
cords,  and  shoes  were  also  made  of  it.  The  disappear 
ance  of  this  important  plant  seems  to  have  been  pro 
phetically  announced  in  Ts.  xix.  7.  Besides  the 
lotus  or  water- lily  of  the  Nile.  I'^ypt  has  always  been 
celebrated  for  its  production  of  corn,  barley,  a  great 
variety  of  the  bean  class,  leeks.  Lrarlic,  onions,  rlax.  and 
for  plants  of  the  cucumber  tribe,  as  we  learn  from  the 
sculptures  and  from  several  passages  in  holy  Writ,  and 
they  are  still  abundant  as  ever.  To  the  products  of 
ancient  times  have  been  added  the  su<_rur-eane.  cotton 
plant,  indigo,  and  tobacco.  Wine  was  abundantlv  pro 
duced  in  Kuypt,  and  the  sculptures  bear  ample  testimony 
to  the  extent  to  which  the  ancient  Egyptians  indulged 
in  intoxicating  draughts. 

X<nili)f/>/.  —  Kgyptian  oxen  were  celebrated  in  the 
ancient  world.  The  camel  was  introduced  by  the 
Ptolemies:  horses  and  asses  abounded.  The  girdle  is 
found  on  the  southern  borders;  the  hv;ena.  jackal,  ich 
neumon,  and  jerboa  are  common;  and  the  hippopotamus 
and  crocodile  formerly  reached  the  I)elta.  but  they  an- 
now  seldom  seen  below  Lycopolis  (A".</«,»O.  Water- fowl 
were  plentiful,  and  were  anciently  prepared  and  salted 
like  the  tish  of  the  .Nile,  as  we  learn  from  the  sculptures. 
and  must  have  been  a  <_;rcat  source  of  wealth;  repre 
sentations  are  found  of  such  birds  as  the  ostrich,  tin- 
vulture,  tin'  hawk,  the  heron,  &e.  The  crocodile, 
serpents,  the  asp.  and  other  reptiles  are  common.  The 
Nile  abounds  in  tish,  and  the  trionvx  or  soft  tort<>i>e 
is  not  unfrequeiit.  Among  the  countless  insects  are 
the  sacred  beetle  (Si-m-nliim*  *m-ir),  the  locust,  and 
mosquito.  The  ibis,  formerly  so  common,  is  now  ex 
tinct.  Many  of  the  animals,  birds,  and  reptiles  were 
held  sacred  by  the  people;  whoever  killed  a  sacred 
animal,  an  ibis,  or  a  hawk,  was  put  to  death.  If  a  cat 
died  a  natural  death,  every  person  in  the  house  shaved 
his  eyebrows:  if  a  dog  died,  the  whole  body  and  the 
head  were  shaved.  The  cats  were  buried  at  Buhastis  - 
the  dogs  in  the  vaults  of  their  own  cities;  field-mice 
and  hawks  at  I!uto;  the  ibis  at  Hermopolis;  and  other 
animals  where  they  were  found  lying.  Of  all  animals 
the  sacred  calf  Apis  was  the  most  revered.  The  chief 
temple  of  this  god  was  at  Memphis.  The  females  beinur 
sacred  to  Isis  were  thrown  into  the  Nile,  which  was 
considered  sacred,  and  the  males  were  buried  at  Sakkara, 
where  their  tombs  have  lately  been  discovered  by  V, . 
Marietta. 

Ret!r/ioH.—The  two  main  principles  on  which  the 
religion  of  Egypt  was  based  appear  to  have  been  the 
existence  of  an  omnipotent  Being,  whose  various  attri 
butes  being  deified,  formed  a  series  of  divinities;  and 
the  deification  of  the  sun  and  moon.  Not  only  was 
every  attribute  of  the  Divinity  made  into  a  separate 
deity,  but  imaginary  gods  were  invented  to  assume 
some  office  relating  either  to  the  duties  or  future  state 
of  mankind.  Kven  the  imaginary  genii  of  the  nonies. 
cities,  or  rivers,  were  worshipped  as  gods,  and  each 
month  and  day  were  consecrated  to  a  deity  (Hrr».i 
ii.  82).  Each  divinity  formed  a  triad  with  a  wife  and 
sister,  and  a  son.  The  great  triads  were  composed  of 
the  principal  divinities,  the  first  two  members  being 


frequently  of  equal  rank,  and  the  third  subordinate,  as 
in  the  case  of  Osiris,  Isis.  and  Horus,  or  Amun,  Maut, 
and  Khonso.  Other  triads  are  formed  of  deities  of  an 
I  inferior  class;  and  occasionally  a  sort  of  triad  was  com 
posed  of  two  deities  a7id  the  king.  While  the  worship 
of  some  of  the  triads  was  peculiar  to  particular  places, 
the  worship  of  others  was  universal -that  of  Osiris, 
Isis,  and  Horus,  for  example,  having  prevailed  all  over 
Egypt.  The  eight  great  gods  of  the  first  order  are 
stated  to  be  Neph.  Amun- lie.  Pthah,  Khem.  Sate. 
Maut.  Bubastis  ('.).  Neith.  The  most  important  of  those 
of  the  second  order  are  lie  (the  smO.  Atmoo,  Thoth  (the 
moon).  Athor,  Amunta,  Maudoo.  Seb.  Netpe,  Ranno. 
The  Kgvptians  believed  in  an  author  of  evil,  who  was 
called  Typhon:  and  the  antagonism  of  good  and  evil  is 
>hown  by  the  opposition  of  the  solar  gods  and  the  dra 
gon  Apophis,  and  the  hostility  between  Osiris  and 
Typhon.  The  Egyptians  believed  in  the  transmigra 
tion  of  souls,  and  in  the  existence  of  a  future  state,  in 
which  mankind  would  be  rewarded  or  punished  accord 
ing  to  their  actions  while  on  earth.  There  is  also  a 
distinct  allusion  to  a  resuscitation  of  the  body,  as  we 
gather  from  the  many  representations  of  the  soul 
returning  to  animate  it.  and  likewise  a  curious  picture 
bearing  a  strong  allusion  to  the  resurrection,  and  the 
two  natures  of  man,  the  earthy  and  the  spiritual. 
(Triple-  Mummy  Case  uf  Arocri-ro,  by  Sharpo  and  Hnnnmi.) 
( 'opious  details  and  illustrations  of  the  religion  of  the 
Egyptians  will  be  found  in  .lablonski's  I'ditt/mni,  Wil 
kinson's  Am'.  /;//////.,  \c. :  and  for  the  impurities  con 
nected  with  it,  see  article  ( '.\I.F-W<  Hisil  1 11. 

Hifinni.  The  K-jvptians  are  the  earliest  people 
known  to  us  as  a  nation.  When  Abraham  entered  the 
Delta  from  Canaan,  they  had  been  loiiu'  enjoying  the 
advantages  of  a  settled  government  and  established 
laws.  They  had  already  built  cities,  practised  agricul 
ture,  and  parcelled  out  their  valley  into  farms.  They 
reverenced  a  landmark  as  a  god.  while  their  neighbours 
knew  of  no  property  but  herds  and  moveables.  They 
had  invented  hieroglyphics,  and  improved  them  into 
syllabic  writing,  and  almost  into  an  alphabet.  They 
had  invented  records,  ;uid  wrote  their  kings'  names  and 
actions  on  the  massive  temples  which  they  raised.  As 
we  have  no  means  authentic  of  counting  the  ages  din 
ing  which  this  civilization  was  progressing,  we  shall 
overlook  those  years  when  the  gods  were  said  to  have 
reigned  on  the  earth,  and  the  times  of  Menes,  the 
fabulous  founder  of  the  monarchy,  and  regard  history 
as  beginning  with  the  earliest  remaining  records,  namely, 
the  temple  at  Karnak  and  the  obelisk  at  lleliopolis, 
both  raised  by  Osirtisen  I.  of  Thebes;  the  great  pyra 
mids  built  by  Suphis  and  Seiisuphis,  kin^s  of  Memphis; 
with  the  tablets  in  the  copper  mines  near  Sinai,  which 
record  the  conquest  of  that  country  by  Suphis,  and 
prove  that  those  mines  had  been  already  worked  by  the 
Egyptians.  Such,  then,  was  the  state  of  Egypt  in  the 
time  of  Abraham,  about  KlOo  or  ]  7<|()  H.C'.  The  country 
was  divided  into  several  little  kingdoms,  whose  boun 
daries  cannot  now  be  exactly  known.  Jn  the  valley  to 
the  south  of  Silsilis  was  the  kingdom  of  Klephantine; 
next  was  the  kingdom  of  Thebes,  which  perhaps  in 
cluded  all  the  valley  to  the  east  of  the  Nile,  for  it  had 
a  port  at  yEnum  on  the  lied  Sea,  and  thus  traded 
with  Arabia.  On  the  west  of  the  river  was  the  king 
dom  of  This  or  Abydos,  which  had  some  trade  with 
the  (Ireat  Oasis  and  the  kingdom  of  Heracleopolis. 
Embracing  the  western  half  of  the  Delta  was  the 


EGYPT 

kingdom  of  Memphis,  which  in  the  reign  of  Suphis 
had  been  strong  enough  to  conquer  Thebes  and  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai.  In  the  east  of  the  Delta  were  the 
kingdoms  of  l.ubastis  and  Tunis. 

It  was  in  the  time  of  these  petty  monarchies  that  the 
Chaldean  and  Phumiciaii  herdsmen  were  moving  west 
ward  and  settling  quietly  in  the  Delta,  till   after  a  few 
gene-rations  they  took   possession  of  si. me  of   the   cities 
and  levied  a  tribute  from   the  Kgyptians.      Their  sove 
reigns,  called   the    Hyksos   or  shepherd-kings,  dwelt  at 
Abaris  —probably  the  city  afterwards  called  Holiopolis 
—  iind  they  held   their  ground  in  Egypt  for  about  six 
reigns.      The  tyranny  of  the  Ilyksos  led  the  states  of 
Egypt  to   unite    against    them;  and    Amasis,    king  of 
Thebes,  making  common  cause  with  the  kings  of  the 
other  parts    of    Egypt,    the   hateful   Pluxmicians   were 
defeated  and  driven  from  the  country,  probably  about 
1  I. "ill  B.C.,  and  200  years  after  the  reign  of  Osirtisen  I. 
With  Amasis  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Hyksos  began 
the  reigns  of  those  great  Theban  kings,  whose  temples, 
and  statues,  and    obelisks,  and  tombs,   have  for  more 
than  3000  years  made  the  valley  of  the  Nile  a  place  of 
interest.     The  kings  of  the  other  parts  of  Egypt  sank 
to  the  rank  of  sovereign  priests.     Anumothph  I.  gained 
Ethiopia  by  marriage.     Thothmosis  1 1 .  added  Memphis 
to  his  dominions  by  his  marriage  with  Queen  Nitocris, 
the   builder   of   the   third  pyramid.      Thothmosis   IV. 
built  the  temple  between  the  fore  paws  of  the  great 
Sphinx.  Amunothph  III.  set  up  his  two  gigantic  statues 
in  the  plain  of  Thebes,  one  of  which  uttered  its  musical 
notes   every   morning   at   sunrise.      Oimenepththah   I. 
added  to  the  temples  of  Thebes  and  of  Abydos.      Ra 
meses  II.  (Sesostris)  covered  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  and 
the  coasts  of  the  Red   Sea,  with  his  temples,  obelisks, 
and  statues.      He  was  successful  against  the  neighbour 
ing  Arabs,  and  marched  through  Palestine  to  the  shores 
of°the  Black  Sea.      Rameses  III.  still  further  adorned 
Thebes  with  his  architecture.     It  was  at  the  beginning 
of  this  period,  before  Memphis  was  united  to  Thebes, 
that  the  Israelites  settled  in  the  Delta,  and  that  Joseph, 
as  chief  minister  of  the  king  of  Memphis,  changed  the 
laws  of  Lower  Egypt.     It  was  after  Thebes  and  Mem 
phis  were   united,    when   Joseph's    services  had    been 
forgotten,  that  Moses  led  his  countrymen  out  of  Egypt 
to  escape  the  tyranny  of  their  masters.     The  wealth  of 
the  Egyptians  at  this  time  was  proverbial,  and  the  still 
existing  monuments  of   their  magnificence  prove  the 
high  civilization  of  the  country.     The  Jewish  nation 
was  weak  and   struggling  with  difficulties  before  the 
reign  of  David;  the  history  of  Greece  begins  with  the 
Trojan  war;  but  before  the  time  of  David  and  the  Tro 
jan  war,  the   power  and  glory  of  Thebes   had  passed 
away.     Upper  Egypt  sank  under  the  rising  power  of 
the  Delta.     Theban  prosperity  had  lasted  for  about  500 
years. 

I,. c.  990.— On  the  fall  of  Thebes,  Shishank  of  Bubas- 
tis,  the  conqueror  of  Rehoboam,  governed  all  Egypt, 
and  recorded  011  the  walls  of  the  great  Theban  temple 
his  victories  over  the  Jews.  After  his  death  Egypt 
was  torn  to  pieces  by  civil  wars,  and  Zerah  king  of 
Ethiopia  was  able  to  march  through  the  whole  length 
of  the  land.  Eor  a  few  reigns  the  kingdom  was  go 
verned  by  kings  of  Taiiis.  Then  the  kings  of  Ethiopia 
ruled  in  Thebes,  and  led  the  armies  of  Egypt  to  aid  the 
Israelites  against  their  Assyrian  oppressors.  This  un 
settled  state  of  affairs  lasted  nearly  300  years,  during 
which,  as  the  prophet  Isaiah  had  foretold,  Egyptians 


$  EGYPT 

fought  against  Kgyptians,  every  one  against  his  brother 
and  against  his  neighbour;  city  against  city,  and  king 
dom    against    kingdom.     The  city   of    Sais    at    length 
obtained   the   mastery   by   the   aid    of    the   number  of 
Greeks  that  had  settled  there,  and  of  the  skill  in  arms 
of  the  Greek  mercenaries  whom  the  kings  of  Sais  took 
into  their  pay.     The  kings  of  Sais  were  more  despotic 
than  the  kings  of  Thebes,  but  under  their  rule  Egypt 
again    enjoyed    a    high    degree    of    prosperity.       They 
struggled   with  the   Babylonians   for  the  dominion   of 
Judea--   Psammotichus  conquered   Ethiopia  —  Necho 
began  the  canal  from  the  Nile  to  the  Red   Sea.      His 
sailors  circumnavigated   Africa;  he  conquered  Jerusa 
lem;  and  when  the  ChalJees  afterwards  drove  back  the 
Egyptian  army,  the  remnant  of  Judah,  with  the  prophet 
Jeremiah,  retreated  into  Egypt,  to  seek  a  refuge  with 
king  Hophra.     The  colony  of   Greeks  at  Xaueratis,  a 
little    below   Sais,   now    became   of   importance.       The 
Greek    philosophers,    Thales     and    Solon,    visited    the 
country.      Hecatoeus   of   Miletus   went  up  as   high   as 
Thebes,  and   Pythagoras  dwelt  many  years  among  the 
priests.    Rut  Egyptian  greatness  rested  on  a  weak  foun 
dation:  jealousy  increased  between  the  native  soldiers 
and  the  Greek  mercenaries;  the  armies  had  to  encoun 
ter  the  powerful  and  ambitious  monarchies  of  Asia, 
and,   as    foretold    especially   by   E/ekiel,    ch.  xxix.  xxx., 
were  put  to  the  worse.      Cyrus  reconquered  the  island 
of  Cyprus,   and  finally  Cambyses  overran  Egypt   and 
reduced    it    to  the    rank   of    a   Persian    province,  B.C. 
523.      During  200  years  Egypt  suffered  severely  under 
'•  its  Persian  rulers,  or  else  from  its  own  struggles  for 
freedom.      Cambyses  plundered  the  tombs  and  temples, 
broke  the  statues,  and  scourged   the   priests.      Darius 
governed    more    mildly  by  native    satraps  ;    but    after 
his  defeat  at  Marathon,  the  Egyptians  rose  and  made 
themselves    independent    for  a  brief    period.       After 
wards,  when  Baetria  rebelled  against  Artaxerxes.  they 
again   rose   and    made    Iiiarus   and   Amyrtajus    kings. 
Then  for  a  few  years  Hellanicus  and  Herodotus,  and 
other  inquiring  Greeks,  were  able  to  enter  the  country. 
and    study    the    customs    of    this    remarkable    people. 
When   the    Egyptians   were   again   conquered,    Darius 
Nothns  attempted  to  alter  the  religion  of  the  country  : 
but  when  the  civil  war  broke  out  between  Artaxerxes 
Mnemon  and   the   younger  Cyrus,  the    Egyptians  re 
belled  a  third  time  against  the  Persians,  and  with  the 
help  of  the  Greeks,  were  again  an  independent  mon 
archy.      Plato  and  Eudoxus  then  visited  the  country. 
The 'fourth  conquest  by  the  Persians  was  the  last,  and 
Egypt  was   governed   by  a  Persian   satrap  till   Persia 
itself  was  conquered  by  Alexander  the  Great,  B.C.  332. 
When  Alexander's  army  occupied  Memphis,  the  nume 
rous  Greeks  who  had   settled  in  Lower  Egypt  found 
themselves  the  ruling  class.     Egypt  became  at  oiice^a 
Greek  kingdom,  and  Alexander  showed  his  wisdom  in 
the  re-ulations  by  which  he  guarded  the  prejudices  and 
religion  of  the  Egyptians,  who  were  henceforth  to  be 
treated  as  inferiors,  and  forbidden  to  carry  arms.     He 
founded    Alexandria   as   the   Greek    capital.     On    his 
death,  his  lieutenant  Ptolemy  made  himself  king  of 
Egypt,  being  the  first   of  a  race  of  monarchs  who  go 
verned  for  300  years,   and  made  it  the  second   chief 
kingdom  in  the  world,  till  it  sunk  under  its  own  luxu 
ries0  and  vices   and  the  rising  power  of   Rome.     The 
Ptolemies  founded  a  large  public  library  and  a  museum 
of  learned  men.     Under  their  patronage,   Theocritus, 
Callimachus,  Lycophron,  and  Apollonius  Rhodius  wrote 


EGYPT 


48(J 


EGYPT 


their  poems;  Euclid  composed  his  Elements  of  Geometry;  |  translated  into  Coptic.  On  the  division  of  the  .Roman 
Apollonius  of  Perga  invented  conic  sections:  Hippar-  ,  empire.  A.D.  337,  Egypt  fell  to  the  lot  of  Constan- 
chus  made  a  catalogue  of  the  stars;  Eratosthenes  mea-  tinople.  On  the  rise  of  the  Arian  controversy  the 
sured  the  si/.e  of  the  earth;  the  Bible  was  translated  Egyptians  belonged  to  the  Athanasian  party,  'while 
into  Greek:  sweral  of  tho  Apocryphal  books  were  the  Greeks  of  Alexandria  were  chiefly  Arians.  Hence 
written:  Homer  was  edited;  anatomy  was  studied,  a  new-  cause  of  weakness  to  the  government  under 
Poetry  soon  sunk  under  the  despotism,  and  the  writers  Theodosius,  Paganism  and  Arianism  were  forbidden 
were  then  content  to  clothe  science  in  verse.  Aratus  by  law  the  library  was  burned  by  the  Athanasians 
wrote  an  astronomical  poem;  Manetho  an  astrological  ;  and  the  last  traces  of  science  retreated  from  Alexandria 
poem;  Xicander  a  medical  poem;  and  afterwards.  '  " 
Dionysius  a  geographical  poem.  I'mler  these  Alexan 
drian  kings  the  native  Egyptians  still  continued  build 
ing  their  grand  and  massive  temples,  nearly  in  the  style 
of  those  built  by  the  kings  of  Thebes  and  Sais.  The 
temples  in  the  island  of  Philip,  in  the  Oreat  Oasis,  at 
Latopolis,  at  Ombos,  at  llelidera.  and  at  Thebes,  prove 
that  the  Ptolemies  had  not  wholly  crushed  the  /eal  and 


energy  of   the  Egyptians.      An  Egyptian  phalanx   had 
been  formed,  armed  and  disciplined  like  the.  Greeks. 
These  soldiers  rebelled  unsuccessfully  against  Epiphanes 
and  then  Thebes  rebelled  against  Soter  II.,  but  was  s 
crushed   that  it  never  again  held  rank   among   cities. 


lint  while  the  Alexandrians  were  keeping 
Egyptians,  they  were  themselves  sinking  under  the 
Romans.  Epiphanes  asked  for  Roman  help;  his  two 
sons  appealed  to  the  senate  to  settle  their  quarrels  and 
guard  the  kingdom  from  Syrian  invasion.  Alexander 
II.  was  placed  on  the  throne  by  the  Romans,  and 
Auletes  went  to  Rome  to  a.-k  for  help  against  his  sub 
jects.  Lastly,  the  beautiful  Cleopatra,  the  disgrace  of 
her  country  and  the  firebrand  of  the  republic,  main 
tained  her  power  by  surrendering  her  person,  first  to 
Julius  Osar.  and  then  to  Mark  Antony.  On  the 
defeat  of  Mark  Antony  by  Augustus.  B.C.  3d,  Egypt 
became  a  province  of  Rome,  and  was  governed  by  the 
emperors  with  jealous  suspicion.  It  was  still  a.  (Week 
state,  and  Alexandria  was  the  chief  seat  of  Greek 
learning  and  science.  Its  library,  which  had  been 
burned  by  Ca>sar's  soldiers,  had  been  replaced  by  that 
from  Pergamus.  The  Egyptians  yet  continued  "build 
ing  temples  and  covering  them  with  hieroglyphics  as  of 
old;  but  on  the  spread  of  Christianity,  the  old  super 
stitions  lost  their  sway;  the  animals  were  no  longer 
worshipped:  and  we  hud  few  hieroglyphical  inscriptions 
after  the  reign  of  Commodus.  Now  arose  in  Alexan 
dria  the  Christian  catechetical  school,  which  produced 
Clemens  and  Origen.  The  sects  of  Gnostics  united 
astrology  and  magic  with  religion.  The  school  of 
Alexandrian  Platonics  produced  Plotinus  and  Proclus. 


•fore  ignorance  and  bigotry.      The  country  sunk  year 
by  year  in  civilization,  in  population,  and   in  strength; 
and  when  the  Arabs,  animated  by  religion  and  with  all 
the   vigour  of   a  new   people,    burst   forth   upon    their 
neighbours.  Egypt   was  conquered   by  the  followers  of 
Mahomet.  A.I).  o|n,  six  hundred  years  after  it  had  been 
conquered   by  the    Romans.      80 
true  has   proved    the   prediction 
of    Ezekiel.    that    Egypt   should 
be  a  base  kingdom,  ch.  xxix  11. 

Tli"  population  of  Egypt  must 
have  been  very  large  in  the  ear 
liest  times.      It  has  been  placed 
at  7.ddd.dd(i  under  the  Pharaohs 
at     7.">dd,ddd     (exclusive     of 
Alexandria)  in  the  time  of  Xero 
\  oluey     e-ave     the     number 
2,300,000      IW-rinu-'s  report  on 
Egypt    at    :'..2dd.d()d.      At    the 
present  time  it  is  above  3.d(>d,000 
population  of  Cairo,  3iin,dOO. 
Arc/titd-tni'i  tinil  Si'ii/iitm-i*. 
The  monuments   \\e  have  left  to 
us  in   E'_rypt  are  of  two  periods  - 
those   built    in  the  times  of  the 
Pharaohs,  and  those  built  during 
the  rule  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
kings  of  the  country.     Although 
the  temples  of   the  two   periods 
nsiderably   in    plan   and    in   other   particulars; 
yet  sound  reason  for  believing  that  those  built 


•in  •  •  i  ii* 


I'laiK.f  th 


ditt'el 

there 

under  the  ( Jr 
designs,  as  th 


_ 


•eks  and  I  tomans  were  constructed  after 
•y  ct  rtainly  occupy  the  sites,  of  Pharaonic 
temples  still  more  ancient  than 
any  now  existing:  that  they  were, 
in  fact,  mere  restorations  of 
temples  built  by  the  earlier 
Pharaohs. 

The  leading  features  of  the 
now  existing  temples  of  the  time 
of  the  Pharaohs  are  these  :  First, 
a  gateway  or  pylon,  flanked  by 
two  truncated  pyramids,  shown 
in  elevation  Xo.  222,  and  marked 
«  and  hi,  on  the  plan  Xo.  223. 
These  occupy  the  entire  width  of 
the  building,  and  form  the  en 
trance  to  a  square  court  c,  stir- 
rounded  by  a  portico  supported 
by  a  double  or  single  row  of 
columns.  Crossing  this  court  c, 
the  visitor  passes  through  a 
second  pylon  into  the  inner 
court  (I,  which  was  likewise  sur 
rounded  by  a  portico  supported 
r  by  piers,  against  which  were 


n.«.-j.       v^iun^j      n\     \_ , /muni.-!    \n     i./ y     IMCJ 

Monasteries  were  built  all  over  Egypt;  Christian  monks  '  figures  of  the  king   (Xo.'  224).      Beyond   this  second 
took  the  place  of  the  pagan  hermits,  and  the  Bible  was  |  court,  it  would  appear,  the  public  were  not  admitted, 

62 


KGYFT 


!'. 


for  the  spaces  between  the  front  row  of  columns  or 
piers  facing  the  gateway,  are  occupied  by  a  dwarf 
wall,  which  effectually  barred  entrance  excepting  at 
either  nnr  or  Ihne  points  where  t'n-re  were  gates. 
Tliis  inner  court  d  led  immediately  into  the  largest 
chamber  of  the  temple  e,  called  the  "Hall  of  Columns" 
(No.  22")),  the  roof  of  which  was  always  supported 


[225.]    Hall  of  Columns  in  the  Memnonium    Time  of  the  Pharaoh; 


by  columns,  representing  a  grove  of  papyrus.  The 
centre  avenue  was  higher  than  the  rest  of  the  hall, 
and  consisted  usually  of  twelve  columns,  the  capitals 
being  imitated  from  the  full-blown  expanded  papyrus 
(No.  228);  while  the  columns  which  sustained  the  lower 
roof  were  in  the  form  of  a  bud  of  the  same  plant 
(Xo.  22<>).  To  the  Hall  of  Columns  succeeded  a  series 
of  smaller  chambers,  the  roofs  of  which  were  generally 
supported  by  six  or  four  columns,  imitating  the  bud 
of  the  papyrus,  either  as  a  single  plant,  or  as  several 
bound  together  (No.  227);  or  else  by  square  piers,  or 
columns  with  eight,  twelve,  or  sixteen  faces  (No.  229). 
These  apartments  frequently  surrounded  a  dark  chamber 
— the  most  sacred  in  the  temple— the  holy  of  holies. 
Whether  the  roof  of  the  portico  which  surrounded  the 
court  was  supported  by  piers  or  columns,  the  structural 
arrangements  were  always  precisely  the  same.  There 


[226.]  [227.1  [228.] 

Nos.  2i5  and  228,  from  the  Memnonium,  Thebes.      Xo.  227,  from 
a  granite  column  in  the  British  Museum. 

was  first  the  pier  or  column,  ordinarily  made  of  several 
pieces  of  stone  solidly  united  by  mortar  and  wooden 
cramps;  then  came  the  architrave  or  frieze,  of  one  block, 
stretching  from  column  to  column ;  and  lastly,  the 
blocks  forming  the  cornice,  concealing  the  ends  of  the 


l>  EGY1T 

roof  stones  which  rested  upon-the  architnue  (No.  23"). 
The  bulk  of  the  column,  in  proportion  to  the  weight  it 
had  to  sustain,  was  extremely  ample;  and  the  pressure 
being  always  perpendicular,  these  ancient  structures 
have  come  down  to  us  with  their  roofs  sound,  while 
arched  buildings  of  much  less  antiquity  have  been 
entirely  ruined  by  the  lateral  pressure  which  that  mode 
of  construction  exerts  on  the  walls. 

The  Egyptian  gate  was  peculiarly  simple,  with  its 
undisguised  lintel  and  door-posts,  all  so  vividly  re 
minding  us  of  the  memorable  night  on  which  so  many 
door  posts  and  lintels  in  Egypt  were  marked  with  the 
blood  of  the  passover.  Kx.  xii.  7.  The  lintel  was  always 
of  one  stone,  and  the  door-posts  also  were  very  fre 
quently  of  only  one  block,  while  each  of  the  three 
portions  had  its  appropriate  decoration.  In  the  smaller 
doorways,  where  no  cavetto  and  torus  were  super- 
adiled,  the  lintel  bore  the  winged  globe  or  protecting 
divinity  of  entrances,  and  was  besides  decorated  with 
the  names  of  the  divinities  to  whom  the  temple  was 
dedicated,  and  of  the  Pharaoh  who  built  it.  The  door 
posts  also  bore  the  name  and  title  of  the  builder. 
In  the  larger  gates,  such 
as  the  propylon  of  Luxor, 
the  globe  was  sculptured 
in  the  cavetto,  and  the 
posts  with  figures  of  the 
king  making  offerings  to 
the  different  divinities. 

The  surface  of  each 
architectural  feature  was 
engraved  with  its  parti 
cular  ornament  appropri 
ately  coloured.  In  the 
carctto  of  the  cornice  it 
was  customary  to  place 
the  name  and  titles  of  the 
Pharaoh  or  king,  with  the  other  significant  decorations 
peculiar  to  that  member  of  the  entablature.  The  next 
member,  the  torus  or  bead,  had  its  special  decoration; 
and  the  architrave  stone  was  likewise  symbolically 
ornamented  with  the  names  of  the  divinities  to  whom 
the  temple  was  dedicated,  and  of  the  sovereign  in 
whose  time  it  was  built.  The  abacus  of  the  column 
was  invariably  decorated  with  the  royal  titles.  The 
capitals  were  painted  in  accordance 
with  the  intention  of  the  form ;  if, 
for  instance,  the  expanded  papyrus 
(No.  223),  the  leaves  of  the  calyx 
would  be  yellow,  and  the  filaments 
green.  Beneath  were  five  horizontal 
divisions,  which  probably  represented 
the  blue  and  white  bands  with  which 
the  columns  of  the  primitive  temples 
were  adorned  on  festive  occasions. 
To  these  succeeded  a  representation 
of  the  king  offering  gifts  to  the  gods 
of  the  temple;  and  lastly,  the  yellow 

and  red  lines  at  the  base  of  the  shaft 

[229.1  signified  the  brown  leaves  that  en- 

From  Beni  Hnssau.  velOpe  the  base  of  the  stalk  of  the 
natural  plant.  A  further  intimation 
of  the  origin  of  this  order  of  Egyptian  column  is  the 
presence  of  three  ridges  extending  up  the  shaft  to  the 
bands  of  the  neck  of  the  capital,  by  which  the  tri 
angular  form  of  the  stalk  of  the  plant  was  intended 
to  be  signified  (see  sections  at  No.  228). 


[23u.]    Diagram  showing  Construc 
tion  of  Koof  of  Portico. 


EGYP 


4!  11 


EC:  VPT 


Xo.  231  represents  a  restoration  of  the  propylon  or  i  eellent  preservation,  though  the  lower  portion  is  buried 
jate  of  the  temple  of   Luxor,    a    ruin    \vhifh   is  in  ex-      in  the  accumulated  i-ubbish  of  the  moilern   village.      Jn 


storation  of  the  I'ropy'iMii  nr  (late  of  the  Temple  of  Luxor. 


the  illustration  the  rubbish  is  removed  from  the  base  of 
the  towers,  and  al>o  from  the  sphinxes  of  the  LTivat 
avenue,  which  extends 
from  the  front  of  this 
temple  to  the  side  entrance 
of  the  temple  of  Karnak. 
\Ve  know  from  represen 
tations  upon  the  wall- 
that  flag -stall's  were  in 
serted  into  those  grooves, 
which  are  invariably  found 
in  all  the  towers  of  the 
propyla  that  flank  the 
entrances  to  the  temples 
of  Kgypt  of  whatever  pe 
riod.  Over  these  grooves 
are  holes  and  small  cham 
bers,  in  which  were  con 
trivances  for  affixing  these 
staffs  to  the  towers.  On 
each  side  of  the  gate  is 
seated  a  colossal  statue  of 
the  Pharaoh  who  built 
this  entrance  to  the  tem 
ple,  and  in  front  of  each 
tower  is  a  similar  statue. 
In  no  instance  does  a  statue  of  a  king  occur  except 
by  the  side  of  a  gate.  Ue.  xviii.  1,  •_';  and  xxii  17 


[233.J        Side-elevation  of  Ptolemaic  Temple  at  Edfou. 

The  foregoing  is  a  general  description  of  the  ordinary 
form  of  the  temples  of  the  age  of  the  Pharaohs,  but 


there  an-  no  two  specimens  now  remaining  which  agree 
in  all  particulars. 

The  temples  built  during  the  reigns  of  the  Greek  and 
lloman  kind's  may  be  thus  described  iNos.  '2->'2,  23)!): 
First,  the  propvlon,  with  its 
truncated  pyramidal  towers, 
which  were  .-»nn  times  adorned 
with  narrow  flags  on  tall  poles; 
thfii  a  court  surrounded  on 
three  sidt  s  with  a  colonnade. 
At  the  extremity  of  the  court, 
and  facing  the  gateway,  was 
an  elevated  portico  of  six 
columns  in  line,  and  three  or 
four  deep.  The  uninitiated 
obviously  were  not  permitted 
to  enter  bevond  the  court,  for 
the  first  row  of  columns  of 
the  portico  are  invariably 
joined  by  a  dwarf  wall,  the 
onlv  opening  being  between 
the;  centre  intercolumniation, 
to  which  were  attached  the 
valves  of  the  gate.  To  the 
portico  succeeded  a  series  of 
small  chambers,  the  roofs  of 

which  were  supported  by  four  or  by  two  columns. 
The  centre  chambers  were  lighted  by  small  square 
openings  in  the  roof,  and  those  at  the  side  by  small 
openings  in  the  walls;  but  in  no  example  is  there  that 
kind  of  clere- story  perforated  with  large  openings,  that 
occurs  in  the  Hall  of  Columns  of  the  Pharaonic  tem 
ples.  Jiesides  the  foregoing  characteristics,  there  is 
an  elaborate  form  of  capital,  representing  the  papyrus 
in  three  stages  of  growth,  in  one  capital  (No.  235),  or 
sometimes  a  collection  of  lotus  flowers  (Xo.  234),  or 
the  full-blown  papyrus  alone  (Xo.  228) ;  but  in  no  in 
stance  do  we  find  the  pier  with  the  attached  figure 
(Xo.  224),  nor  the  single  bud  of  the  papyrus  (Xo.  220), 


KGYPT 


nor  th;it  form  of  column  which  represents  several  buds  In  addition  to  the  foregoing  special  characteristics,  are 
of  the  plant  joined  together  (No.  ±27).  'J'he  palm-tree  certain  conventionalities  of  colour  worth  noting.  The 
capital  (No.  2:5ti).  however,  belongs  to  both  periods.  |  Egyptians  are  represented  with  red  and  yellow  eom- 
Another  distinguishing  feature  of  the  .Ptolemaic  plexions,  red  ochre  for  the  men  and  yellow  fur  the 
temple^  is,  that  the  masonry  i>  even  more  perfect  women.  The  hair  of  the  king  is  frequently  painted 
than  that  of  the  time  of  the  Pharaohs,  if  we  except  blue,  but  that  of  ordinary  men  Mack.  In  represent! n<r 
the  pyramids  and  the  granite  temples  of  Lower  Egypt.  |  the  various  nations  with  whom  they  had  intercourse': 

they  seem  to  have  endeavoured  to  imitate  the  com 
plexions  peculiar  to  each.  Amun  K-i,  the  chief  divi- 
,  nity  of  Thebes,  is  always  painted  blue,  and  he  is  further 
distinguished  by  two  high  feathers  which  he  wears  in 
his  cap.  The  inferior  divinities  are  not  uncommonly 
of  the  complexions  of  mortals.  The  sky  ur  heavens 
arc  invariably  indicated  by  a  strip  of  blue  comin- 
downwards  at  the  lower  side  of  each  extremitv  (No. 
2H7),  and  occasionally  having  upon  it  a  row  of  five- 
pointed  stars.  Water,  seas,  and  rivers  are  represented 


The  temples  of  the  Koman  period  are  usually  in 
ferior  in  extent  to  the  Ptolemaic  buildings  ;  they 
are  also  remarkable  for  a  yet  more  elaborate,  form 
of  capital,  more  salient  and  curvilinear  forms  in  the 
sculpture  and  architectural  decorations,  ami  a.  still  more 
perfect  masonry.  Granite  seems  rarely  to  have  been 
employed  for  architectural  purposes  in  any  part  of 
Egypt  excepting  the  Delta.  In  the  Thebaid  it  was 
used  chiefly  for  sculpture,  the  ordinary  building  material 
being  the  limestone  of  the  district,  or  the  tine  sand 
stone  of  the  quarries  of  Silsilis. 

The  most  usual  kind  of  mural  sculpture,  and  entirely 
peculiar  to  the  Egyptians,  seems  to  have  been  designed 
to  endure  to  the  latest  time.  The  outline  of  the 
object  intended  to  he  represented  is  cut  into  the 
smooth  surface  of  the  wall,  while  at  the  same  time 
the  minor  forms  and  rotundity  are  represented  within 
the  incised  outline.  P.y  this  contrivance  the  general 
outline  is  the  last  part  to  suffer  injury,  for  to  ol (literate 
it  the  whole  surface  of  the  wall  must  first  be  destroyed. 
Sometimes  the  outline  is  excessively  deep,  at  others  the 
surface  of  the  figures  is  altogether  much  lower  than  the 
general  surface  of  the  wall,  and  in  others  the  outline  is 
but  slightly  incised  with  a  corresponding  flatness  within. 
The  Egyptians  rarely  practised  the  true  basso-relievo. 
but  wherever  they  did  so  the  sculpture  is  almost  invari 
ably  in  very  low  relief.  The  back  view  of  the  human 
figure  is  never  represented  in  the  bas-reliefs  excepting 
in  the  case  of  an  enemy,  and  then  rarely  :  the  figure 
is  generally  represented  in  profile,  and  there  are 
but  few  attempts  at  delineating  the  front  view  of  the 
foot  or  of  the  face;  however,  whether  the  face  be  repre 
sented  in  front  or  side  view,  a  profile  eye  is  never  found. 
The  figures  of  the  king  in  battle-pieces,  and  of  the 
landed  proprietor  in  domestic  scenes,  are  always  on  a 
much  larger  scale  than  the  other  actors  in  the  piece, 
from  whence  we  may  infer  that  superior  size  typified 
persons  of  sovereign  power,  men  of  renown,  or  of 
official  or  domestic  importance.  In  Egyptian  sculp 
ture  the  erect  figure  in  the  round  invariably  has  the 
left  leg  advanced,  as  if  about  to  march  ;  another  pecu 
liarity  of  the  round  figures  is  that  the  limbs  are  never 
entirely  detached  from  the  body  of  the  stone,  the  por 
tion  of  the  work  thus  left  being  always  painted  white. 


[237.]        Conventional  representation  of  the  sky  or  hravens. 

by  a  scries  of  zig-zag  lines  of  a  blue  or  green  colour. 
.Mountains  have  a  yellow  colour,  with  red  spots  upon 
it.  (For  the  peculiar  manners  and  customs  illu-trated  by 
the  monuments,  see  Eo<>i>,  P.EAKD,  linn  KS,  CHARIOTS, 
MUSICAL  INSTRUMENTS,  SHKPJIKKDS,  WEAVINC.  ^c.) 

Arts  and  Manufactures. — 'J'he  civilization  and  cus 
toms  of  the  Egyptians  at  the  time  of  the  erection  of  the 
pyramids  (littered  in  no  important  points  from  those  of 
their  descendants.  The  masonry  of  the  passages  in  the 
great  pyramid  has  not  been  surpassed  at  any  age; 
while  the  pile  is  so  accurately  placed  north  and  south, 
that  the  variation  of  the  compass  may  be  ascertained 
from  the  direction  of  its  sides.  More  than  2U(i()  KC. 
the  Egyptians  had  duodecimal  as  well  as  decimal  num 
bers;  weights  and  measures  adjusted  to  a  pound  of 
1  4t>0  grains.  The  geographical  division  of  the  country; 
the  division  of  the  year  into  twelve  months  of  thirty 
days,  the  year  being  divided  into  three  periods  of  four 
months  each — the  period  of  inundation,  the  period  of 
vegetation,  and  the  period  of  harvest:  ornaments  of 
gold  and  silver;  musical  instruments;  and  with  the  ex 
ception  of  horses  and  chariots,  the  paintings  represent 
the  usual  industrial  pursuits  of  after  times.  The  statues 
i  of  the  most  ancient  times  were  worked  to  a  fixed  canon. 
Bronze  statues  cast  from  moulds  and  having  a  core  of 
earth  were  first  made  in  Egypt  and  introduced  thence 
into  Greece  by  Rhcesus.  Painting  in  tempera  appeared  at 
the  same  age,  but  encaustic  not  till  the  Greek  and  lloman 
periods.  Their  musical  instruments  were  harps,  lyres, 
guitars,  drums,  tambourines,  clappers,  double  and  single 
pipes,  flutes,  cymbals,  the  sistrum,  and  a  few  others 
of  less  common  occurrence.  Their  amusements  were 
various,  including  dancing  of  almeh,  juggling,  tumbling, 
mummery,  ball,  draughts,  dice,  mora.  single  -  stick. 
quarter-staff,  wrestling,  bull- fights,  &c.  (Ancient  Egypt. 
vol.  i.  p.  18!)- I'll.)  Iii  mechanical  arts,  the  carpenter,  boat- 
builder,  potter,  leather- cutter,  glass-blower,  and  others, 
are  frequently  represented  ;  and  we  see  the  blow-pipe,* 
bellows,  and  syphons ;  the  press,  balance,  lever ;  the 
saw,  the  adze,  the  chisel,  the  forceps,  the  syringe,  har 
poon,  razors  ;  we  have  also  glazed  pottery,  the  potter's- 
wheel,  and  the  kiln;  and  dated  specimen  of  glass  of  the 
time  of  Thothmes  III.,  1445  B.C.  In  metallurgy,  gold- 
beating,  damascening,  engraving,  casting,  inlaying, 


EGYPT 


40.°, 


EHTI) 


wire-drawing,  and  other  processes.  Tin  and  zinc,  as 
well  as  iron  ami  steel,  are  either  proved  by  discoveries 
or  inferred  from  the  monuments.  In  agriculture,  are 
the  plough,  hoe,  sickle,  and  oilier  implements.  In 
warfare,  shields,  cuirasses  of  quilted  leather,  helmets, 
spears,  clubs,  maces,  daggers,  bows,  battle  axes,  pole- 
axes,  hatchets,  and  falchions:  for  sieges  the  testudo, 
ladders,  torches,  and  lanterns.  The  processes  of  grow 
ing  and  preparing  flax,  and  making  into  thread,  string. 
ropes,  and  cloth,  as  well  as  the  looms  employed,  are  all 
depicted.  -Mats  and  baskets  were  beautifullv  made 
either  of  the  lialfeh  grass  or  palm-leaves,  or  of  the 
outer  rind  of  the  papyrus  plant,  the  pith  of  which  was 
used  in  making  paper.  ( 'oth'ns  or  wooden  sarcophagi 
were  chiefly  of  sycamore  deal  or  cedar,  covered  with 
stucco  and  richly  painted.  The  ordinary  boats  of  the 
Nile  were  of  planks  of  the  acacia,  and  had  two  rudders 
or  large  oars,  and  the  sail  of  cloth  frequently  painted 
or  worked  in  coloured  patterns.  .Many  of  the  vessels  of 
burden  were  of  great  si/.e.  The  boats  made  of  papyrus 
were  mostly  punts  for  fishing,  or  for  gliding  through  tin- 
canals  of  the  I>elta.  Implements  for  painting,  ladles, 
bells,  crucibles,  and  surgical  instruments  have  all  been 
found,  and  arc  preserved  in  various  museums.  The  com 
merce  of  the  Egyptians  with  neighbouring  nations  en 
riched  the  country  with  slaves,  cattle,  ycnis,  metals, 
rare  animals,  and  objects  of  curiosity.  Tlie  E<_r\  ptian^ 
expended  enormous  wealth  on  the  tombs  and  furniture 
of  the  dead,  and  the  paintings  acquaint  us  fully  with 
the  ceremonies  followed  from  the  embalming  to  the  final 
judgment. 

///(•/•».'/////<///'•.•.•.  -The  inscribed  -labof  black  basalt  now 
in  the  British  Museum,  and  known  as  the  Kosetta  .Stone. 
was  accidentally  discovered  by  the  French  among  the 
ruins  of  Fort  St.  .lulieii.  near  the  Kosetta  mouth  of  the 
Nile,  and  handed  over  to  the  English  according  to  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  of  Alexandria.  This  stone  furnished 
the  clue  to  the  knowledge  of  hieroglyphics  which  we  at 
present  possess.  Prior  to  its  discovery,  the  only  helps  to 
our  study  of  hieroglyphics  were  a  treatise  of  little  value 
by  Horapollo,  a  few  lines  by  ( 'ha-rcinon.  and  a  few  more 
by  Clemens.  The  hieroglyphieal  writing  went  out  of  use 
on  the  spread  of  Christianity,  and  the  very  language 
itself,  the  Coptic,  became  a  dead  language,  so  that  after 
a  time  the  Bible  and  services  of  the  church  were  written 
with  a  translation,  that  they  might  be  understood  in 
Arabic  by  the  vulgar,  while  read  in  ('optic  by  the 
priest.  The  Kosetta  Stone  contains  an  inscription  in 
three  characters.  One  is  in  hieroglyphics  :  a  second  in 
what  we  now  call  enchorial  or  common  Egyptian  letters: 
and  the  third  in  Greek.  This  last  could,  of  course.  In- 
read.  It  is  a  decree  by  the  priests  in  honour  of  Pto 
lemy  Epiphanes;  and  it  ends  with  the  important  informa 
tion  that  it  was  to  be  written  in  three  characters.  The 
Greek  was  clearly  seen  to  l>e  a  translation,  by  which 
the  other  two  inscriptions  might  be  understood.  It  is 
to  the  sagacity  of  Dr.  Thomas  Young,  and  through  his 
comparison  of  the  several  inscriptions  on  the  Kosetta 
Stone,  that  we  owe  our  first  knowledge  of  this  mode  of 
writing.  He  determined  the  meaning  of  all  the  sen 
tences,  of  many  of  the  words,  and  of  several  of  the 
letters.  This  knowledge  was  enlarged  and  corrected 
by  Champollion,  Mr.  Salt.  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson,  Mr. 
Sharpe,  Mr.  Birch,  and  other  students  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  who  have  made  further  additions:  and  the  result  is 
some  definite  information  belonging  to  the  three  sciences 
of  history,  mythology,  and  language.  In  hist<  >ry  we  have 


obtained  a  pretty  correct  series  of  the  kings'  names: 
and  dates  approaching  the  truth  have  been  assigned  to 
the  existing  works  of  art.  In  mythology  we  have  learned 
the  names  of  the  gods,  the  ages  in  which  some  rose  into 
importance  and  others  fell,  the  groups  into  which  they 
were  arranged,  many  of  their  attributes,  and  their  union 
of  several  characters  in  one  person.  In  the  department 
of  language  we  have  learned  the  origin  of  writing  and 
the  system  pursued  (SharpcN  K.L'y|,tian  Hioroglyi'hijs,  l^ill. 
The  language  of  Egypt,  as  it  was  spoken  in  the  first 
centuries  of  our  era.  is  preserved  in  the  Co] 'tic  Bible, 
the  lives  of  some  Egyptian  saints,  and  a  few  other 
books.  By  these,  since  the  discovery  of  the  phonetic 
value  of  so  many  of  the  hieroglyphics  on  the  walls  of  the 
temples,  and  of  the  hieratic  writings  of  the  papyri,  it 
has  been  abundantly  proved  that  the  Coptic  is  the  legi 
timate  descendant  of  the  language  of  the  Pharaohs. 
All  that  is  wanted  for  the  more  complete  decipher 
ment  of  these  ancient  texts  is  a  larger  collection  of 
('optic  words  than  the  known  works  in  that  language 
supply:  and  a  larger  and  more  accurate  collection  of 
copies  of  the  texts  furni>hed  by  the  monuments  in  a 
form  convenient  for  study.  It  is  not  our  province  to 
enter  into  an  analysis  of  the  language  of  the  hierogly 
phics,  and  therefore  it  will  be  sufficient  to  remark  that 
there  appears  to  be  but  a  slight  affinity  between  the  He 
brew  and  the  hieroglyphics,  except  in  the  grammatical 
-tructurc  of  the  language,  and  the  pronouns,  which 
are  identical  with  those  of  the  Hebrew  and  the  connate 
dialect- 
lit  is  ini)«.-.-il.|r  tn  riHinirrati-  here  more  than  a  few  of  the 
u.>rk>  u  liii-h  HUH  i-xi-t  mi  tho  lii>tnrv,  ;uiti(|iiitii's,  anil  iiiaiinris 
i.f  K-v],t.  AIIII.HX  tin-  im.*t  valuable  ami  a.r.-ssil,k-  for  bil.liral 
i-tinU-iits,  arc  Sir  ,1.  Wilkinson's  Minniu-x  ti ml  C'm>tnmi  <;''  flu 
•  /•:.i,/rl, .'„.<,  with  uliirh  may  IK-  .•oiiI,],.-,i  l.am-'s  .)/.'</,,„ 
l-:<i;i,.tw,,*,  ami  Mix  Po,.l,.'s  £/.»;/ ,W,",rum«,,  in  K;i,ift ;  Jli-iigsti-n- 
I'L-r/s  /;;/."/•'  "'"'  ""  li'vk»  t>f  M<n»»;  /><•«-,•/'/,/;««  ./•  f  K,i://,ti.  ; 

Rossellini,    J/«»K ti   <'•//'   tyi'ilt,,;    Kenrick's   Aneimt    A';;///./ ,• 

lirn^'-li,  //;.-•/..;,•,  •!' l-:,,,,rt,  :  Sharp..-'*  !!,.->.  K'l.i/i't ;  also  two  aide 
arlirU-s  in   A',.r,,r.  Hi'ihin.  on  Kfiypt  ami  Hieroglyphics.  ]       (.1.  it.] 

EHUD  [etymological  import  unknown],  one  of  the 
persons  who  was  raised  up  to  deliver  Israel  in  the  time 
of  the  judges,  and  to  vindicate  their  cause.  He  was 
of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  and  the  son  of  Gera.  While 
he  was  evidently  a  man  of  valour,  and  had  doubtless 
at  heart  the  best  interests  of  his  people,  the  mode  he 
took  to  accomplish  the  object  be  had  in  view  was  cer 
tainly  liable  to  reprehension,  and  allowance  requires  to 
be  made  for  the  circumstances  of  the  time.  It  had  too 
much  the  character  of  meeting  the  adversary  with  his 
own  weapons.  Ehud  went  at  the  head  of  a  deputation 
which  had  been  sent  to  offer  a  pit-sent,  or  possibly  to 
pay  a  tribute  under  that  form,  from  the  portions  of 
Canaan  that  had  fallen  under  the  sway  of  Eglon.  And 
after  the  gift  had  been  presented,  and  the  company  of 
deputies  had  got  as  far  as  what  is  called  the  quarries 
on  their  way  back.  Ehud  returned,  and  on  the  pro 
fessed  ground  of  having  some  important  message  to 
deliver  to  Eglon.  was  allowed  to  enter  with  him  into  a 
private  chamber,  where  he  suddenly  stabbed  him. 
His  being  left-handed  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  more 
easily  accomplishing  his  purpose,  as  the  action  of  his 
hand  was  not  perceived  by  the  adversary,  till  too  late 
to  save  himself  from  the  stroke.  And  Ehud  having 
taken  the  precaution  of  locking  the  door  behind  him, 
found  time  to  make  his  escape  before  any  alarm  was 
raised  regarding  the  deed  he  had  committed.  He 
hurried  on  to  acquaint  his  countrymen  with  the  fact : 
and  having  blown  the  trumpet  in  Mount  Ephraim.  be 


I-:KRON 


4-1)4 


ELATH 


assembled  a  band  of  valiant  men.  \vli<>  fell  upon  the 
Moabites  before  they  had  time  to  recover  from  their 
consternation,  and  broke  their  yoke  from  the  neck  of 
Israel.  Undoubtedly  that  yoke  had  been  unrighteously 
imposed,  and  the  Israelites  were  at  liberty  to  resort  to 
all  lawful  means  to  obtain  deliverance  from  its  burden. 
At  the  same  time,  it  behoved  them  to  remember  that  it 
had  come  upon  them  as  a  chastisement  from  God  for 
their  MIIS.  and  that,  in  the  very  payment  of  an  offering 
or  tribute,  they  made  a  formal  acknowledgment  of  their 
actual  subjection  to  the  supremacy  of  -Moab.  How 
ever  justly  then -fort-  Kulou  may  have  fallen  under  the 
fatal  stroke  of  Ehud,  one  cannot  justify,  on  abstract 
principles  of  righteousness,  the  inflicting  of  such  a 
-trok,  under  a  profession  of  friendship  and  by  an 
artifice  of  deceit.  But  in  saying  this  we  do  not  im 
pugn  the  reality  of  his  faith,  or  the  honesty  of  his  zeal 
in  the  cause  of  God. 

EK'RON  [apparently  from-ipy,  to  rwit  or  j,/itrk  nti, 

Sept.  '\KKtipuv.  Accarnn],  one  of  the  five  chief  cities 
of  the  Philistines.  In  common  with  the  other  cities 
it  was  assigned  to  tlu  tribe  of  ,!udah.  .!••>.  xiii.  \:,  •.  but 
afterwards  it  appears  among  the  cities  of  Dan,  .Tus.  xix.  43, 
which  may  perhaps  be  explained  from  its  having  been 
a  border  city,  Jos.  xv.  n,  so  that  it  might  have  been  ap 
propriated  by  either  tribe  that  could  gain  possession  of 
it.  According  to  .Tu.  i.  IS,  it  was  actually  taken  at  an 
early  period  by  Judah ;  but  it  must  soon  again  have 
reverted  into  the  hands  of  its  original  occupants; 
for  in  the  first  book  of  Samuel,  and  also  in  the  later 
Scriptures,  it  always  appears  as  a  strictly  Philistine 
city,  1  Sa.  v.;  Am.  i.  N;  /cji.  ii.  I ;  Zee.  ix  ~>.  It  stood  upon  the 

north -east  boundary  of  Philistia.  and  hence  came 
into  nearest  contact  with  tin  occupied  portion  of  the. 
Israelitish  territory.  From  this  alone  one  may  infer 
it  to  have  been  a  place  of  considerable  strength;  since. 
while  in  so  exposed  a  situation,  it  could  .still  maintain 
its  ground  against  the  tide  of  Israelitish  conquest  for 
so  many  generations.  Its  site  is  now  occupied  by  a 
small  village  of  unhurned  bricks,  and  one  may  also  say 
its  name  still  survives;  as  Aim.  the  name  of  the  latter, 
is  evidently  but  another  form  of  the  ancient  Ekron. 

(Robir,Mju\  UuM'uivlies,  iii.  p.  24.) 

EL,  one  of  the  Hebrew  names  for  God,  and  often 
found  in  composition  as  part  of  the  appropriate  names 
given  to  persons  and  objects.  (>Vc  GOD.) 

E'LAH  [terebinth],  a  common  name,  Ge.  xxxvi.  i ;  i  Ki. 
iv.18;  1CU.  iv.  i.'i;  but  chiefly  known  as  the  name  of  Ba- 
asha's  son  and  successor  on  the  throne  of  Israel.  He 
was  cut  off  in  the  second  year  of  his  reign  by  Ziniri, 
"  the  captain  of  half  his  chariots."  in  the  midst  of  a 
drunken  revel.  With  him  the  line  of  P>aasha  became 
extinct,  i  Ki.  xvi.  s-14. 

E'LAH,  the  name  of  a  valley  which  formed  the 
scene  of  David's  memorable  conflict  with  the  giant 
Goliath,  iSa.  xvii.  i!) — most  probably  so  named  from  the 
terebinth- trees  which  grew  in  it.  It  is  described  as 
lying  "  between  Shochoh  and  Azekah  :"  but  there  is 
some  doubt  as  to  the  exact  position  of  these  places, 
and  authorities  consequently  differ  as  to  the  locality  of 
the  valley  of  Elah.  P>ut  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Robinson 
is  now  generally  followed,  who  identifies  it  with  the 
Wad  n  at  Snn,t,  or  Valley  of  Acacias,  which  lies  about 
11  miles  south-west  from  Jerusalem,  on  the  way  toward 
Gaza.  The  largest  terebinth  he  saw  in  Palestine  stood 
in  the  vicinity  of  this  valley.  (Researches,  vol.  iii.  p.  3'>o.) 


E'LAM,  EL'YMAIS,  a  province  of  the  ancient  Persian 
and  Babylonian  empires,  and  understood  to  be  the  samo 
with  the  region  called  Susiana  by  the  Greek  geogra 
phers,  having  Susa  for  its  capital.  In  Scripture,  how 
ever,  it  occurs  first  as  the  name  of  one  of  Shem's  sons, 
the  head  doubtless  of  a  distinct  tribe,  CJc.  x.  22 ;  and  by 
the  time  of  Abraham,  (Jhedoiiaomer  the  king  of  Elam 
appears  in  connection  with  the  king  of  Shinar  or 
Babylonia,  as  taking  part  in  the  descent  that  was 
made  upon  the  cities  of  the  plain,  Ge.  xiv.  1.  By  the 
prophets  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  Elam  is  associated  with 
Media,  much  as  elsewhere  Persia  is,  Is.  xxi.  2;Je.  xxv.  2;>; 
and  in  the  latest  writings  of  the  Old  Testament  the 
Elamites  rank  among  the  nations  of  the  Persian  empire. 
Kn:  iv.  9.  By  Daniel  also  Susa  is  placed  in  the  province 
of  Elam  on  the  banks  of  the  I'lai  or  Euheus,  and 
Elam  itself  included  as  one  of  the  divisions  of  the  Baby 
lonian  empire,  Da.  viii.  2.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that 
strictly  speaking  Elam  was  no  more  than  a  province, 
though  an  extensive  province,  of  Persia:  but  from  the 
Elamites  having  been  among  the  original  inhabitants 
of  that  part  of  the  world,  and  having  for  a  considerable 
time  maintained  an  independent  position.  Elam  came 
!  to  be  not  infrequently  employed  as  a  name  for  the 
i  whole  of  Persia.  Hence,  not  only  do  we  find  mention 
I  made  of  a  king  of  Elam  so  early  as  the  time  of  Abra 
ham,  but  Elam  is  represented  by  Ezekiel  as  among 
the  nations  that  had  been  the  terror  of  the  world, 
Kzc.  xxxii.  21;  and.  like  the  Persians  generally,  its  people 
are  spoken  of  as  excelling  in  the  use  of  the  quiver  and 
bow.  Is.  xxii.  ii:  .Tu.  xlix. 35.  Elamites  are  mentioned  among 
the  representatives  of  the  different  nations  that  heard 
the  word  of  God  in  their  own  tongues  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost;  but  this  must  lie  understood  of  Jews  re 
siding  in  that  part  of  the  world,  and  speaking  the 
Elamitic  dialect,  Ac.  ii.!..  (Sec  PKHSIA.) 

E'LAM,  the  name.  1.  of  a  Levite.  a  Korhite.  who  in 
the  time  of  David  had  a  subordinate  charge  about  the 
house  of  God.  1  Cli.  xxv. .'i;  2.  of  a  chief  man  of  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin,  1  Ch.  viii.  24;  3.  of  some  person,  otherwi.-e 
unknown,  who  gave  his  name  to  a  large  party  who 
accompanied  Zerubbabel  from  Babylon,  Kzr.  ii.  r;  4.  of 
apparently  another  person,  called  "  the  other  Elam," 
from  whom  a  company  of  precisely  the  same  number, 
1254,  derived  their  designation,  Kzr.  ii.  31  -,  Xu.  vii.  34 ;  5. 
of  a  priest  who  took  part  with  Xehemiah  at  the  dedi 
cation  of  the  second  temple. 

ELA'SAH.  sometimes  also  in  English  Bible  ELEA- 
SAH,  but  the  same  in  the  original  [God-made]  :  1.  a 
man  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  son  of  Helez,  i  Ch.  ii.  30;  2. 
a  man  of  the  family  of  Saul,  by  the  line  of  Jonathan, 
i  Ch.  viii.  37;  ix.  43;  3.  one  of  the  family  of  Pashur. 
who  had  married  a  Gentile  wife,  Ezr.  x.  22;  4.  a  son  of 
Shaphan,  who,  along  with  another  person,  earned  a 
letter  from  Zedekiah  king  of  Judah  to  the  king  of 
Babylon,  and  took  charge  also  of  Jeremiah's  letter  to 
the  captives  in  Babylon.  Jo.  xxix.  3. 

E'LATH.  the  name  of  an  Idumean  city.  The  He 
brew  is  ris^.  which  seems  to  have  been  variously  sup 
plied  with  vowels,  and  to  have  assumed  a  diversity  of 
forms;  commonly  Elath,  but  sometimes  also  Eloth;  in 
Jerome  it  is  Ailath,  in  the  Sept.  'AtXa^,  in  Josephus 
'  Ai\avri,  and  the  Greeks  and  Romans  called  it  Elana. 
It  is  written  Elath  in  Scripture,  with  one  exception, 
which  has  Eloth,  iKi.  ix.20.  The  place  stood  on  the 
shore  of  the  Red  Sea,  not  very  far  from  Ezion-geber. 
as  stated  in  the  passage  last  referred  to.  and  appears  to 


EL- BETH-EL 


41)5 


ELDERS 


have  been  the  older  and  better  known  place,  as  Ezioii-  :  who  had  been  appointed  under  Moses  to  assist  in  the 
geber  is  there  designated  from  it  "Ezion-geber,  which  is     administration   of   justice  among    the    people.     He 
beside  Elath."     Being  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  im 


portant  seaports  on  the  north  side  of  the  Elamitic 
Gulf,  Elath  naturally  became  an  object  for  the  parties 
who  strove  for  the  ascendency  in  that  part  of  the  world, 
especially  for  those  who  applied  themselves  to  the  in 
terests  of  commerce.  It  was  only  from  the  time  of 
Solomon  that  the  Israelites  turned  their  attention  in 
that  direction  ;  and  accordingly,  while  Elath  was  un 
doubtedly  brought  into  subjection  by  David,  and  gar 
risoned  with  Israelitish  forces,  like  other  cities  in 
Edom,  no  special  mention  is  made  of  it  till  we  reach 
the  age  of  Solomon,  and  hear  of  his  commercial  prepa 
rations  and  enterprises  on  the  Red  Sea.  Subsequently 
the  Edomites  revolted  from  under  the  power  of  Judah, 
inJoram's  time,  and  chose  a  king  of  their  own,  2Ki. 
when  Elath  was  no  doubt  withdrawn  from  the 


mentioned  along  with  Medad,  another  elder,  as  having 
on  a  particular  occasion  received  the  gift  of  prophecy, 
which  came  upon  them  in  the  camp,  while  Closes  and 
the  rest  of  the  elders  were  assembled  around  the  door  of 
the  tabernacle.  The  spirit  of  prophecy  was  upon  them 
all;  and  the  simple  peculiarity  in  the  case  of  Eldad 
and  IMedad  was,  that  they  did  not  lose  their  ?Jiare  in 
the  gift,  though  they  abode  in  the  camp,  but  they 
prophesied  there.  It  appeared,  however,  an  irregu 
larity  to  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun.  and  seems  to  have 
suggested  the  idea  that  they  were  using  the  gift  with  a 
view  to  their  own  aggrandisement.  lie  therefore  en 
treated  Moses  to  forbid  them.  Rut  Moses  nobly 
replied.  "Knviest  thou  for  my  sake?  Would  God 
that  all  the  Lord's  people  were  prophets,  and  that  the 


of  Judah.      It  was  again,  however,  recovered  by  1',/iah       Uml  Wmil<l  1>Ut  hi>s  Sl'irit  "l"m  them»"  x 

ELDERS  [Iir 


2K\.  xiv.  22,  but  afterwards  wa 

king  of  Damascus  and    bv  the   kinu1  of  Assyria.    -2  Ki 


casonay 


oth 


mans,  and  became  the   seat  of   a  Christian   bisho 


th 


age  of  the  ]>arty  spoken  of:  as  when  Joseph  is 
said  to  have  gone  up  to  bury  his  father  "with 
the  servants  of  Pharaoh,  the  elders  of  his  house, 
and  all  the  elders  of  the  land  of  Etrvpt,"  Ue.  1.7;  or 
when  Timothy  is  instructed  to  "rebuke  not  an 
elder  (i.e.  a  man  in  advanced  life,  an  elderly 
person ».  but  entreat  him  as  a  father,  and  the 
younger  men  as  brethren/'  1  Ti.  v.  1.  Hut  most 
commonly  the  word  is  used  in  an  official  sense, 
to  designate  individuals  invested  with  a  certain 
degree  of  authority,  the  recognized  heads  and 
rulers  of  the  community  to  which  they  belonged. 
The  name  was  doubtless  appropriated  originally 
to  this  use.  because,  from  the  patriarchal  manners 
of  the  ancient  people  of  God,  the  persons  raised 
to  such  official  prominence  commonly  were  those 
of  riper  age  and  experience.  It  would  seem  that 
even  in  Egypt  a  kind  of  government  was  main 
tained  among  them  by  means  of  such  a  body;  for 
on  first  receiving  his  commission  Moses  is  instruc 
ted  to  go  and  intimate  its  purport  to  the  elders  of 

nahop  o  Elath  was  present  at  the  council  of  Chalee-  his  people,  and  these  as  a  known  and  recognized  class 
don  in  A.U.  451,  and  also  at  that  of  Constantinople  in  he  is  said  to  have  actually  assembled,  and  to  have  made 
536.  Jerome  and  Theodoret  both  speak  of  it  as  a  them  acquainted  with  the  message  and  instructions  he 


Akabah,  entrance  to  the  Fortress.— Laborde,  Arabic  POtrcc 


place  of    considerable   trade,    whence    ships    sailed    to     had  received,  Ex.iii.  ie;i 
India.     In  later  times  it  fell  under  the  sway  of  the     selection  made  from  tl 
Mahometans,  and  like  many  other  cities   in  the   East 


At  later  periods  we  find  a 
lese  elders  for  special   purposes; 
as  when  Moses  was  called  up  to  Mount  Sinai  to  con 


verse  with  God,  seventy  of  the  elders  were  appointed 
to  -.MI  so  far  with  him,  and  were  privileged  to  have  a  near 

iv.;  and  again,  on  the 
the  people,    Moses  was 


view  of  the  divine  glory,    E\ 
if   a   tumult 


was  taken,  and  again  lost,  by  the  Crusaders.    Abulfeda 

speaks  of  it  as  in  his  day  (A.D.  ISOii)  :l  deserted  place, 

with  little  more  than  a  fortress,  which  was  held  by  a 

governor  from  Egypt.     'Akabah  now  occupies  the  site     occasion   ,    _   ,,_,_,    H 

of  Elath.  And  such,  says  Robinson,  "as  Elath  was  in  ordered  to  gather  together  "  seventy  men  of  the  elders 
ic  days  of  Abulfeda  is  'Akabah  now.  Mounds  of  ,  of  Israel,  whom  he  knew  to  be  the  elders  of  the  people, 

rubbish  alone  mark  the  site  of  the  town  ;  while  a  for-  and  officers  over  them/1  N,i.  xi.  Hi— evidently  indicating 
ess,  occupied  by  a  governor  and  a  small  garrison  under  their  known  official  position.  1 1  was  upon  these  elders" 

the  pasha  of  Egypt,  serves  to  keep  the  neighbouring  as  the  official  heads  and  representatives  of  the  people, 
:s  of  the  desert  in  awe,  and  to  minister  to  the  that  the  .Spirit  of  prophecy  at  that  time  rested— for  the 

wants  and  protection  of  the  annual  Egyptian  Haj."  occasion  they  were  made  to  share  in  the  distinguishing 

honour  of  Moses.  And  as  in  the  legislation  of  Moses 
certain  things  were  committed  to  the  charge  of  the  elders 
of  each  particular  city,  De.  xix.  12  ;  xxi.  :i,iu.,  it  was  clearly 
implied,  that  the  people,  on  their  settlement  in  the 
land  of  Canaan,  were  expected  to  appoint  persons  in 
the  several  districts,  who,  under  the  name  of  elders, 
should  look  after  the  administration  of  justice  and  the 


EL-BETH-EL  [God  of  Ikthtl,  or  Uod  of  house  of 
God],  the  name  subsequently  given  by  Jacob  to  the 
place  where  God  appeared  to  him  when  he  fled  from 
his  brother  Esau ;  but  the  common  name  still  was 
simply  Bethel,  Ge.  xxxv.  7, 15. 

EL'DAD  [loved  of  God],  one  of  the  seventy  elders 


KLDKRS 


-tin; 


KLDKKS 


execution  of  tlii'  divine  regulations.  Hence,  in  the 
history  we  read  of  transactions  occasionally  taking 
plaoe  which  were  managed  by,  or  in  the  presence  of, 
the  elders  of  particular  cities,  JDS.  xx.  -4 ;  .in.  viii.  n>;  iiu.  iv. 
•_',  ir.  In  tin'  I'sahns  also,  and  the  prophets,  tin-  ciders 
are  frequently  spoken  of  as  a  distinct  class,  hearing  an 
ollicial  eliaraeter,  and  occupying  to  some  extent  a  sepa 
rate  position,  IN.  fvii.  .'!•_> ;  La.  ii.  Hi;  K/.v.  xiv.  1  ;  xx  l,Ac.  So  that 
then;  is  reason  to  believe,  the  local  govermuent  by 
elders,  as  it  was  originally  recognized  in  the  constitu 
tion  brought  in  l>y  Moses,  so  it  never  wholly  fell  into 
abeyance  throughout  all  the  changes  that  eii-ued, 
down  to  the  period  of  the  Babylonish  exile. 

After  the  return  from  that  exile,  it  is  well  known 
the  oltice  of  the  eldership,  instead  of  losing  ground,  rose 
into  higher  significance  and  fuller  organization.  The 
synagogal  institution,  whether  it  then  for  the  first  time 
came  into  existence,  or  received  only  a  fresh  impulse 
and  expansion,  undoubtedly  at  no  distant  period  became 
widely  diffused,  and  attained  to  an  important  place  in 
the  Jewish  discipline  and  worship.  Bv  and  by  every 
town  and  even  village  had  its  synagogue;  while  in  the 
larger  cities  synagogues  existed  in  considerable  numbers. 
But  withe-very  synagogue  then-  wa>  connected  a  govern 
ment  of  elders,  win  varied  in  number  according  to  the 
population  attached  to  it,  but  who  always  had  the 
chief  management  of  its  concerns,  and  the  power  of 
exercising  discipline  upon  its  members.  The  rulers  of 
the  >ynau"u'ue.  and  the  elders  of  the  people,  of  whom 
we  so  constantly  read  in  the  (Jospels,  were  substan 
tially  one;  and  the  highest  council  of  the  nation  in  the 
gospel  age,  the  Sanhedrim,  was  composed  of  a  certain 
number  of  those  elders,  along  with  a  priest  from  each 
of  the  twenty-four  courses  into  which  the  whole  priest 
hood  was  divided.  From  the  very  nature  of  things, 
ruling  was  the  chief  part  of  the  duty  connected  with 
the  office  of  elder  among  the  Jews,  but  it  also  involved 
a  certain  measure  of  teaching;  as  the  ruling  necessarily 
carried  along  with  it  a  knowledge  and  application  of 
the  law  of  (4od.  (See  SYXAGOGUK.) 

( Considering  that  Christianity  sprang  out  of  Judaism, 
and  that  the  first  Christian  communities  were  composed 
entirely,  or  in  great  part,  of  converts  from  the  Jewish 
faith,  it  was  natural  that  the  governing  body  in  the 
new  should  be  fashioned  after  the  model  of  that  of  the 
old.  The  apostles,  who  in  an  official  respect  stood  at 
the  head  of  the  church  of  the  New  Testament,  were 
not  attached  to  any  particular  portion  of  it;  they  were 
Christ's  authorized  ambassadors  generally  to  found 
churches  in  different  parts  of  the  world;  and  in  doing 
so  it  was  manifestly  the  part  of  wisdom  to  avail  them 
selves,  as  far  as  they  well  could,  of  the  kind  of  organi 
zation  that  the  providence  and  Spirit  of  (!od  had  fur 
nished  to  their  hand.  Cases  might,  and  doubtless 
sometimes  did  occur,  in  which  a  whole  synagogue,  or 
decidedly  the  major  part  of  it,  went  over  to  the  faith 
of  Christ;  and  then,  as  a  Jewish  synagogue  was  turned 
into  a  Christian  church,  the  elders  and  ministers  of  the 
one  would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  continue  to  hold  the 
same  relative  position  in  the  other :  hence,  presently, 
we  find  elders  associated  with  every  Christian  com 
munity.  It  was  some  time  before  they  came  into 
formal  existence  in  Jerusalem,  as  the  presence  of  the 
apostles  there  at  the  first  rendered  them  for  a  time  less 
necessary;  but  even  there  they  are  not  long  in  making 
their  appearance  as  a  recognized  class.  The  pecuniary 
support  raised  at  Antioch  in  behalf  of  the  poor  saints 


in  Judea,  is  sent  to  th-  elders  at  Jerusalem  by  the 
hands  of  Barnabas  and  Paul,  Ac.  xi.  »);  and  in  the  dis 
cussion  and  settlement  of  the  question  respecting  cir 
cumcision,  it  is  "the  apostles  and  elders"  who  are 
expressly  said  to  have  come  together  to  consider  the 
matter,  Ac.  xv.  ii.  Elsewhere,  the  appointment  of  elders 
as  the  presiding  body,  appears  to  have  been  coeval  with 
the  very  formation  of  the  Christian  communities.  In 
even  his  first  missionary  tour  Paul  ordained  elders  in 
every  church,  Ac.  xiv.  23;  and  in  his  letter  to  Titus  re 
specting  the  organization  of  matters  in  Crete,  the  most 
prominent  instruction  given  him  is,  that  he  should 
ordain  elders  in  every  citv.  Tit.  i.  .v  That  these  were 
the  highest  officers  in  the  communities  over  which  they 
were  placed,  is  evident  from  their  being  alone  men 
tioned.  But  in  Titus  the  Jewish  term  elder  is  exchanged 
with  the  (hvek  term  (Virr^oros.  orerscer  or  lii.</i'>/,.  Tii 
i.  ~i,  7;  as  it  is  also  in  St.  Paul's  address  to  the  elders  of 
Kphesus — those  being  designated  elders  in  one  ver.-e. 
who  are  addressed  as  bishops  or  overseers  in  another, 
Ac.  xx.  17,  i's.  In  like  manner,  in  the  first  epistle  to 
Timothy,  while  bishop  is  used  a>  the  prevailing  desig 
nation,  elder  is  also  employed  to  denote  the  higher 
functionaries  of  the  church,  1  Ti.  iii.  1,  -l;  v.  17,  id.  Ib-nce 
also,  in  the  Apocalypse,  where  the  entire  church,  the  old 
and  the  new  together,  is  represented  by  a  competent 
number  of  official  heads,  the  representation  takes  the 
form  of  four  and  twenty  elders,  Ro.  iv.  4;  and  as  the 
church  appears  there  in  a  reigning  and  triumphant 
state,  sharing  with  Christ  in  his  judicial  authority  and 
all-subduing  power,  the  elders  who  represent  her  are 
seen  sitting  on  thrones,  and  having  crowns  of  gold  on 
their  heads. 

A  distinction  is  made  by  St.  Paul  between  elders 
who  simply  rule,  and  elders  who,  beside  ruling,  labour 
in  word  and  doctrine,  1  Ti.  \.  17 ;  and  it  has  been  ques 
tioned  whether  this  is  to  be  understood  of  a  difference 
in  the  original  destination,  or  of  one  that  existed  merely 
as  matter  of  fact.  The  words  themselves  cannot  fairly 
be  regarded  as  decisive  either  way.  It  may  reasonably 
be  supposed,  that  in  the  circumstances  of  the  primitive 
church,  when  considerable  difficulty  must  have  been 
experienced  in  getting  persons  properly  qualified  for 
the  work  of  teaching,  distinctions  of  the  kind  referred 
to  would  not  be  very  sharply  drawn;  and  that  it  would 
often  be  left  to  the  determination  of  experience,  whether 
some  appointed  to  the  eldership  should  confine  them 
selves  to  ruling,  or  should  take  part  also  in  teaching. 
But  as  11  o  blame  is  imputed  to  such  as  merely  ruled, 
nay,  as  special  honour  is  claimed  for  them,  if  only  they 
ruled  well:  it  is  clear  that  the  apostle  recognized  the 
propriety  of  a  ruling  eldership  apart  from  teaching  as 
an  actual  institution ;  while  he  asserted  a  title  to 
higher  consideration  for  those  in  the  eldership  who 
combined  the  two  kinds  of  service  together.  On  this 
subject  no  further  light  is  given  in  the  notices  of  the 
Xew  Testament;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  that  the  distinction  between  simply  ruling  and 
ruling  along  with  teaching,  soon  developed  itself  in  the 
church  as  one  of  real  practical  importance;  that  a  single 
individual  of  more  eminent  gifts  in  each  Christian  com 
munity,  came  to  be  constituted  its  presiding  presbyter 
or  bishop,  and  to  be  more  especially  charged  with  the 
oversight  of  its  members  and  the  conducting  of  its  pub 
lic  assemblies.  In  process  of  time  still  further  develop 
ments  took  place,  but  these  belong  to  the  province  of 
church  history  rather  than  to  that  of  biblical  literature. 


ELEALEH 


497 


ELECT 


ELEA'LEH  [<io<l  <j,>cx  ><j>],  a  town  of  the  Moabites, 
which,  after  the  conquest  of  the  country  by  the  Israel 
ites,  was  assigned  to  the  tribe  of  Reuben,  Nu.  xxxii.  3,  ar. 
The  children  of  Reuben  are  said  in  the  passage  referred 


last  is  the  theological  sense,  and  the  only  one  which 
here  calls  for  explanation  or  defence.  The  subject  is 
doubtless  one  that  belongs  to  the  deep  things  of  God, 
and  therefore  the  clearest  possible  statement  of  it 


to  to  have  rebuilt  it,  along  with  certain  other  cities  in  must  leave  an  impenetrable  veil  resting  on  some  por- 

the  district.      But  in  process  of  time  it  appears  t  >  have  tions  of  the  theme,  and  afford   room   for  that  exelama- 

reverted  to  its  original  owners,  as  in  some  of  the  pro-  tion   of   Paul,  "O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the 

pliets  it  is  named  among  cities  of  Moab  which  were  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God;   how  unsearchable  are 

doomed  to  desolation,   Is.  xv.  4;  xvi.  <j ;  Je.  xlviii.  ;n.       It  i-  his  judgments,  and  his  ways  past  finding  out!"      It  is 


commonly  named  along  with  Heshbon,  as  if  the  two 
stood  near  each  other;  and  accordingly  travellers  have 
discovered  the  ruins  of  a  place  not  far  from  Heshbon, 
which  the  Arabs  call  El-Aal.  The  ruins  are  on  an 
elevated  situation;  and  if  the  ancient  city  stood  there, 
it  must  have  commanded  the  whole  of  an  extensive 
plain. 

ELEA'SA.     .^  EI.ASA. 

ELEAZAR  [n-hnm  <,',d  I.  !,,*].  appears  to  have  been 


therefore  much  to  be  lamented  that  to  the  difficulties 
which  belong  to  the  subject  itself,  there  should  so  very 
often  have  been  superadded  difficulties  of  another  kind, 
springing  from  a  misconception  of  what  the  doctrine 
really  is.  or  from  bold  and  injudicious  statements  of  it. 
\\  hen  we  look  into  sacred  Scripture,  we  are  struck  with 
the  fact,  that  the  doctrine  is  almost  uniformly  presented 
in  some  practical  connection,  and  in  such  a  way  that 
the  verv  statement  of  it  contains  an  answer  to  the 


a  very  common  name  among  the  covenant-people,  and     more  common  and  plausible  objections. 

was  borne  by  several   persons  mentioned  in  sacred  his-          St,it,  un  nt  <>f  tin-   ilm-trim.      As 

tory.     1.  The  most  distinguished,  as  well  as  the  earliest     ture.    election   has  respect   to  /•<  /•.- 

of  these,  was   the  son  of  Aaron,  who,  after  his   father,     u'uished   from  election  of   mitiun.t 

became   the  head   of  the  tribe   of   Levi,  and   succeeded 

him    in    the    high- priesthood,    Kx  vi  23-2o;  Nil.  x.\  3.1,  seq. 

Nadab  and  Abilm  appear  to  have  been  the  two  eldest 

sous  of  Aaron,  as   they  stand   first  in  the   genealogy  of     mini 

Aaron's  house,  as  given  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  Exodus. 

Eleazar  was  the  next  eldest,  and  on  their  death  stepped 

into   the   room   of    the   first-born.      Of    Elea/.ar  him-elf 

very  little  is  said   in  the  history,  except   with  reference 

to   his   official   position   and  duties.      He  seems  to  have 

maintained  a  g 1  understanding  both  with  .Moses  and 

with  Joshua.  On  the  solemn  and  affecting  occasion. 
when  his  father  Aaron  w«  nt  up  to  Mount  lb>r  to  ,|i,.. 
Klea/.ar  was  ordered  to  accompany  him,  and  the  priestlv 


presented  in  Scrip- 
>nx.  as  contradistin- 
>r  communities,  and 

also  from  election  merely  of  rlnini'-tcr,  <'.;/.  of  such  as 
shall  believe  and  obey,  I.n.  \  L"I  ;  I'hi.  iv.  :i ;  Ju.  vi.  :;r,  4n. 
According  to  these  passages  the  elect  are  a  definite 
r  of  persons,  said  to  lie  given  to  the  Son  by  the 
Father,  and  to  have  their  verv  names  recorded  in  heaven. 
This  election  to  eternal  life  is  an  election  of  persons 
out  of  a  race  universally  u'uiltv  and  condemned,  none 
of  whom  have  therefore  any  claim  whatever  on  the 
divine  favour,  r><>  iii.  ii>,  whence,  fairly  considered,  it  is 
not  liable  to  any  charge  of  injustice  on  the  part  of  God. 
Kurt  her.  t  hi.- '  1<  ere.  • .  if  elect i.  in.  like  all  the  divine  decrees, 
is  eternal  and  immutable.  In  point  of  fact  God  i/m-x 


e  a  certain  number  of  the  human  family;  and  it  is 
robes  that  had  been  so  loni;'  worn  b\  the  father  him-  against  all  right  views  of  God  to  suppose,  that  he  should 
self,  now  ready  to  be  offered,  were,  before  the  fatal  have  acted  without  a  plan  or  purpose  so  to  do;  and  as 
moment  arrived,  taken  by  .Moses  from  off  him.  and  i  little  can  we  suppose  that  having  once  formed  such  a 
placed  upon  the  person  of  his  son.  Xn.  xx.  •.'(;-•>.  The  plan  he  should  ever  change  it.  Hence  believers  are 
hi^h-priesthood  continued  h>nur  in  his  Hue,  and  seems,  said  in  Scripture  to  be  "  chosen  before  the  foundation 


indeed,  generally  to  have  been  tilled  b' 
For  a  short   period     though  we  havt 


of  that  line. 
information 


how  it  came  about  -the  offspring  of  Ithamar  attained 
to  the  highest  place,  in  the  person  of  Eli  and  his  im 
mediate  successors;  but  it  presently  again  reverted  to 
the  older  branch:  Zadok  was  of  Elea/.ar's  line.  When  he 
died,  he  was  buried  in  "the  hill  of  Phinehas"  his  son. 
Jos.  xiv.  1. 

2.  EI.KA/AK,  who   was  appointed   to  take  charge  of 
the  ark  while  it  remained  in  the  house  of  Abinadab. 
1  Sa.  vii.  l. 

3.  El.F.A/.AR.    One  of    David's  heroes   also    bore  this 
name — one.    it  is  said,   "of  the  three  mighties."      He 
valiantly  withstood   the    Philistines  in   a   great   emer- 


of  the  world,"  and  their  salvation  is  "  according  to  his 
own  purpose  and  grace,  which  was  given  in  Christ 
Jesus  before  the  World  began,"  Kp.  i.  4;  2  Ti.  i. '.I.  Their 
election  has  its  source  in  free  grace  and  love.  It  is 
''according  to  the  good  pleasure  of  his  will,"  and  not 
for  anything  'j-ood  in  the  creature  whatever,  Kp  i  i,\  K<>. 
ix.  11,  iv;  xi.  .">.  It  includes  all  the  means  and  constituent 
parts  of  salvation,  as  well  as  salvation  itself  in  the 
sense  of  the  ultimate  and  crowning  gift  of  eternal  life. 
We  arc  not  "Chosen  to  salvation"  iritlimit  faith  and 
holiness,  but  ''  t/ir<>n>//t  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and 
belief  of  the  truth."  liTh.  ii  13;  Kp.  i.  I  Moreover,  elec 
tion  does  not  proceed  on  the  redemption  of  Christ  as 
the  ground  or  cause  of  it.  but  includes  that  redemption 


gency,  and  drove  them  back  :  also  along  with  two  others     as  the  y'rand  means  through  which  the  purpose  to  save 
broke  through  the  host  of  the  Philistines,  at  the  hazard  ,  is  accomplished.      Hence  we  are  said  to  be  ''chosen  in 


of  life,    to   fetch   David  a  draught   of  water  from  tin 
well  of  Bethlehem,  i  cii  xi.  n-is;  asa.  xxiii. !i. 

4.  EI.KA/.AR.  Various  persons  of  the  same  name  are 
also  mentioned  in  later  Jewish  history,  l  cii.  xxiii.  -_>i ; 
xxiv.  2S;  N\v  \ii.  1'J;  Kzr.  viii.  .33;  1  Mac.  ii.  ;">;  vi.  43,  soq. 

ELECT,  ELECTION.  The  terms  are  variously 
used  in  Scripture.  They  denote  designation  of  persons 
to  office,  Ac.  ix.  i;> ;  .In.  vi.  rii;  i  s.i.  x  21;  of  people  or  nations 
to  the  enjoyment  of  peculiar  privileges,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Jews,  De.  vii.  ii-s  ;  is.  ixv.  <>-•><> ;  and  finally,  of  a  defi 
nite  number  of  persons  to  eternal  life.  u'Th.  ii  1:1  This 

Vor.  i. 


Him."  Such  we  believe  to  be  the  election  of  Scrip 
ture,  and  by  the  mere  statement  of  it,  most,  if  not  all 
the  false  theories  on  the  subject,  as  well  as  the  more 
common  and  imposing  objections,  are  at  once  met  and 
refuted. 

A)i<t/tj'/i<'iif  ronztclcratinnx.  These,  before  proceeding 
further,  it  may  not  be  unnecessary  to  advert  to;  for 
analogy,  even  when  it  does  not  convince,  is  well  fitted 
to  silence,  and  prompt  to  more  careful  inquiry.  In  many 
cases  it  will  pave  the  way  for  a  more  ready  reception  of, 
and  more  devout  acquiescence  in,  what  was  erroneously 

63 


ELECT 


108 


ELECT 


supposed  to  bo  :i  severe  and  repulsive  dogma.      Now, 
the  principle  involved   in  the  doctrine  of   election,  as 
above  given,  and  its  attendant  difficulties,  are  not  con 
fined  to  the  region  of  Scripture  or  revelation,  but  meet 
us  everywhere,   so  that   if   any  will   war   against  this 
point  of  Scripture  doctrine,  he  must  carry  that  war  into 
other  regions  also;  yea,  wage  it  in  every  province  of  the 
divine  administration.      In  God's   ordinary  providence 
how  diversely  does  he  deal  with  men,  and  in  how  many 
wavs   does    his    preconceived    plan    and    purpose  affect 
their  history  in   t/ii.t  life!      They   are   far  from  being 
placed  by  God  on  a  footing   of   equality   in  this  world. 
One  is  born  in  rani;  and  opulence;  another  in  obscurity 
and  poverty.      One  is  born  in  a  Christian  family,  amid 
all  the  healthful  influences  that  surround  it;  another  in 
an  infidel  home,  exposed  to  the  pestilential  atmosphere 
that  belongs  to  it  from  the  beginning  of  his  existence. 
One  is  endowed  with  great  physical  strength  ;   another 
pines  under  sickness,  and  drags  along  to  the  grave  a 
weak  and  weary  frame,  the  prey  of  constitutional  mala 
dies,  which  embitter  life  and  bring  on  premature  decay 
and  death.   Some,  like  Newton  and  Bacon,  are  endowed 
with   extraordinary   mental  gifts,  and  are  thus  marked 
out  and  equipped  by  God  for  distinction  in  the  world; 
others  are  but  slenderly  endowed  with  intellectual  gifts, 
or  are  denied  them  entirely.      And  so  throughout  the 
numberless  diversities  of  gifts  and  social  condition  which 
prevail  in  the  world.     It  is  manifestly  God  that  makes 
to  differ ;  and  the  true  source  of  the  difference  is  to  be 
found  in  his  scheme  of  providential  government.      If, 
therefore,  we  perceive  the  state  and  destiny  of  men  in 
this   life   to  be   so   largely   influenced   by  the   plan   or 
purpose  of  God,  why  should  we  hesitate  in  recognizing 
the  operation  of  the  same  principle  in  regard  to  their 
future  state  and  destiny?     Should  we  not  rather  expect 
to  find  here,  as  elsewhere,  a  close  and  beautiful  ana 
logy  between  the  economy  of  grace  and  the  constitution 
of  nature  and  providence?     If,  on  the  other  hand,  an 
election  of  grace  independent  of  the  will  or  merit  of 
man  had  not  been  found  in  the   Bible,  would  not  our 
minds  have  been  justly  stumbled  at  the  difference  in 
the  mode  of  the  divine  operation  in  the  constitution  of 
nature  and  that  of  grace  ;  or  would  we  not  have  missed 
that  unity  of  plan   which   shows    that  it  is  one  God 
who  works  in  the  one  sphere  and  in  the  other? 

Nor  is  it  only  when  we  thus  contemplate  what  may  be 
called  the  more  direct  or  immediate  agency  of  God  in 
his  providence  that  this  principle  meets  us.  We  find 
it  again  in  the  influence  which  the  plans  and  purposes 
of  men,  altogether  irrespective  of  any  volition  of  ours, 
exercises  over  us.  The  purpose  of  the  head  of  a 
family  to  reside  in  a  certain  country  or  locality;  his 
preference  of  one  school  or  college  to  another,  or  of  one 
church  or  minister  to  another,  may,  so  to  speak,  be  the 
turning  point  in  the  future  fortunes  of  his  family. 
"  The  parent's  plan,"  says  Albert  Barnes,  in  his  intro 
ductory  essay  to  Butler's  Analoiji/,  "  may  fix  the  very 
college  where  he  shall  study,  the  companions  he  shall 
choose,  the  law-office  or  the  seminary  where  he  shall 
prepare  for  professional  life,  and  finally  everything 
which  may  establish  his  son  in  the  world.  So  the  plan 
of  the  infidel  is  successful  in  corrupting  thousands  of 
the  young;  the  purpose  of  Howard  secured  the  welfare 
of  thousands  of  prisoners;  the  determination  of  Wash 
ington  resulted  in  the  independence  of  his  country. 
In  all  these  and  ten  thousand  other  cases  there  is  a 
plan  formed  by  other  beings  in  respect  of  ux,  which 


finally  enters  as  a  controlling  element  into  our  des 
tiny"  (p.  47). 

Scriptural  (irt/unu'nt. — In  advancing  to  this,  we  pro 
ceed  from  presumption  to  proof.  But  if  fully  gone  into, 
this  would  necessarily  involve  the  particular  examina 
tion  of  a  considerable  number  of  passages,  and  require 
more  space  than  can  here  be  given  to  it.  \\  e  shall 
therefore  simply  subjoin  the  following  list  of  texts, 
which  in  their  plain  and  natural  import  express  the 
doctrine,  and  are  those  on  which  it  is  more  especially 
rested  by  theologians,  Mat.  x.\.  zt ;  xxiv.  ii2-il ;  .In.  xvii.  -J4 ; 

Ac.  xiii.  4S  ;  Ho.  viii.  L's-IJO;  ix.  ±! ;  xi.;  Kp.  i.  4,  5  ;  1  Th.  i.  4  ;  v.  I) , 
•2  Th.  ii.  13  ;  2  Ti.  i.  !> ;  ii.  10  ;  1  PC.  i.  •_' ;  •>  1'c.  i.  10.  Their  general 
meaning  will  be  sufficiently  brought  out  by  a  reference 
to  the  counter- theories  of  exposition. 

Counter- theories. — The  first  theory  by  which  it  is 
attempted  to  set  aside  the  obvious  interpretation  of 
these  passages,  is  that  which  admits  an  election  merely 
to  outward  gospel  privileges.  As  the  Jews,  it  is 
asserted,  were  elected  to  certain  national  and  special 
privileges,  and  to  the  inheritance  of  the  land  of  Canaan, 
the  New  Testament  election  must  be  interpreted  in  the 
light  of  that  fact,  and  applied  to  the  enjoyment  of  the 
external  privileges  of  the  gospel.  That  the  ancient 
Jewish  people  were  the  subjects  of  such  an  election 
as  that  now  specified  we  have  already  admitted.  "The 
Lord  chose  them  to  be  a  special  people  unto  himself 
above  all  the  people  that  are  on  the  face  of  the  earth," 
and  his  "elect"  did  "inherit"  the  land.  But  the  con 
clusion  that  is  drawn  from  this  treatment  of  the  Jewish 
people  to  the  prejudice  of  the  personal  election  of  the 
people  of  God  to  eternal  life  by  no  means  follows. 
I'.oth  elections  may  be  true.  Because  a  national  elec 
tion  is  asserted  in  the  Scriptures,  it  is  surely  strange 
logic  to  affirm  there  can  be  no  election  of  particular 
persons.  It  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  theory  per 
haps  to  say,  that  there  is  scarcely  one  of  the  above  pas 
sages  which  can  be  interpreted  by  it :  and  our  Lord 
has  expressly  asserted  that  "many  are  called"  under 
the  external  privilege  of  gospel  ministration,  "but  few 
are  chosen."  Christians  are  said  to  be  "predestinated 
to  the  adoption  of  children,''1  to  be  "chosen  to  salvation 
through  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and  belief  of  the 
truth,"  to  be  "  ordained  unto  tttnud  ///'<?;"  all  which  is 
very  different  from  being  elected  merely  to  a  gospel 
state  and  the  external  privileges  belonging  to  it. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  moreover,  that  this  interpreta 
tion  proceeds  on  a  want  of  understanding  of  the  typical 
relation  between  the  elect  or  covenant-people  of  old, 
and  the  church  of  true  believers  under  the  gospel.  No 
one  can  fail  to  perceive  the  folly  of  keeping  both  the 
type  and  antitype  here  on  the  same  level  of  external 
privilege.  The  type  of  course  deals  with  the  external 
and  temporal;  the  antitype  with  the  spiritual  and  in 
visible.  But  this  theory,  in  violation  of  the  plainest 
rules  of  typical  interpretation,  detains  the  antitype 
on  the  same  platform  with  the  type,  and  makes  what 
was  outward  in  the  one  equally  outward  in  the  other. 
Hence,  to  adopt  the  application  already  made  by 
another,  "the  election  of  the  Jewish  people,  as  a 
nation,  to  outward  privileges  and  a  temporal  inherit 
ance,  was  rather  a  reason  why  election  in  the  Christian 
sense  must  go  further  and  deeper.  For  the  proper 
counterpart,  under  the  gospel,  to  those  external  rela 
tions  of  Judaism,  is  the  gift  of  grace  and  the  heirship 
of  glory — the  lower  in  the  one  case  shadowing  the 
higher  in  the  other — the  outward  and  temporal  repre- 


senting  the  spiritual  anil  eternal.  Even  M 'Knight, 
who  cannot  certainly  lie  charged  with  any  excess  of  the 
spiritual  element  in  his  interpretations,  perceived  the 
necessity  of  making,  as  he  expresses  it,  '  the  natural 
seed  the  type  of  the  spiritual,  and  the  temporal  blessings 
the  emblems  of  the  eternal.'  Hence  he  justly  regards 
the  outward  professing  church  in  the  one  case,  with  its 
election  to  the  earthly  Canaan,  as  answering  in  tin- 
other  to  the  invisible  church,  consisting  of  believers  of 
all  nations,  who.  partaking  the  nature  of  God  by  faith 
and  holiness,  are  truly  the  sons  of  God,  and  have  the 
inheritance  of  his  blessing"  (Fairbairn's  Typology,  p.  102} . 
To  the  same  effect  substantially  it  is  said  by  Mr.  Litton. 
in  his  book  on  the  C/mrrJ/  of  <_'hr!*t  (p.  i!M)  — "  Eternal 
rewards  did  not  belong  to  the  Jewish  nation  as  such, 
but  to  the  pious  members  of  it.  The  corresponding  fact 
under  the  Christian  economy  is  not  national,  but  indi 
vidual  election;  and  election,  not  merely  to  external 
connection  with  a  visible  church,  or  access  to  the  means 
of  grace  (what  is  to  prevent  any  heathen  from  placing 
himself  under  the  preaching  of  the  Word  '),  but  to  the 
effectual  grace  of  the  Holv  Spirit  renewing  the  heart. 
Election  to  the  mere  possibility,  apart  from  the  actual 
foretaste  of  salvation,  is  an  idea  unknown  to  the  New 
Testament  scriptures.  Living,  sanctifying  union  is 
everywhere  pre-supposed  in  those  who  are  called  the 
elect  of  God,  as  when  St.  Paul  connects  election  and 
calling  directly  with  justification,  with  the  foretaste  of 
glory,  with  adoption,  &c." 

Besides  all  this,  the  theory  in  cjuestion  relieves  us 
from  none  of  the  difficulties  that  surround  our  subject. 
For  in  point  of  principle  when-  is  the  difference  bctueeii 
election  to  personal  salvation  and  eternal  life,  and  elec 
tion  to  the  "privileges  of  a  gospel  condition?"  If  this 
last  be  essential,  as  all  admit,  to  the  ultimate  enjoyment 
of  eternal  life,  surely  the  great  difficulty  still  presses,  viz. 
-why  some  are  thus  favoured,  while  others  are  not? 
why  a  state  of  things  out  of  which  ultimate;  salvation 
until  result,  and  out  of  which  alone  it  run  result,  is 
granted  to  some  and  denied  to  others'  Thus,  while 
violence  is  done  to  Scripture,  the  mystery  is  left  very 
much  as  it  was.  The  truth  is  obscured  or  lost,  but  the 
error,  however  plausible,  leaves  all  our  perplexities  as 
it  found  them.  The  loss  on  the  one  side  is  v\  ithout  any 
compensating  gain  on  the  other. 

Thtorii  of  deft  ion  of  r/itir<ii-t<rx.  Another  theory  of 
the  subject  is  that  of  an  election  of  rlmrurti  >•*.  as  con 
tradistinguished  from  /nr.toii.t;  i.(.  ant-lection  of  such 
as  believe  and  obey,  or  such  as  God  foresees  shall 
believe  and  obey.  A  very  few  sentences  will  suffice  to 
show  that  this  kind  of  election  has  noplace  in  the  Word 
of  God,  and  is  moreover  inconsistent  with  much  that 
has  an  important  place  there.  Faith  and  obedience 
are  never  set  forth  in  Scripture  as  the  ground  of  the 
decree  of  election,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  are  them 
selves  included  in  it  and  secured  by  it.  We  are  elected 
not  bcrante  we  believe  and  obey,  but  to  believe  and 
obey.  The  faith  and  obedience,  and  all  the  worth  and 
work  of  man,  are  the  effect  of  election,  and  not  its 
cause,  2  Tli.  ii.  13  ;  i  PC.  i.  •_'.  It  is,  moreover,  a  grave 
objection  to  this  theory  that  it  gives  the  glory  of  salva 
tion  to  the  creature  rather  than  to  the  Creator;  that  it 
gives  man  whereof  to  boast,  and  runs  directly  in  the 
face  of  Paul's  irresistible  argument  in  Ko.  xi.,  where  he 
declares  that  "election  "is  entirely  "of  grace,"  and 
argues,  "  if  by  grace,  then  it  is  no  more  of  works; 
otherwise  grace  is  no  more  grace.  But  if  it  be  of  works,  j 


then  is  it  no  more  of  grace,  otherwise  work  is  no  more 
work."  Xor  is  this  view  of  election  less  inconsistent 
with  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the  covenant  of  grace, 
under  which  Christ  has  a  people  given  him  of  the 
Father  in  consequence  of  his  obedience  unto  death. 
Is.  liii.  in;  .in.  vi.  >-  in.  For  it  leaves  the  matter  altogether 
uncertain  whether  there  shall  be  any  such  people.  It 
leaves  it  dependent,  that  is  to  say.  on  the  will  and 
works  of  man,  and  brings  in  the  divine  purpose  onlv  as 
based  upon  these!  Surely  it  is  more  philosophical,  as 
well  as  more  scriptural,  to  place  the  divine  purpose  first 
in  order,  ami  represent  //  as  involving  and  securing  all 
the  means  of  its  accomplishment. 

Tin-  relation  »f  t/,r  tnljcct  to  (/„  illrlin  /,<•//(  rtl, „,.-,. 
We  can  only  glance  at  this.  But  it  surely  were  dero- 
'j-atorv  to  God's  wisdom  to  suppose  that  in  any  region 
of  his  working  he  works  without  a  previous  plan  or 
purj lose,  or  to  suppose  that  the  salvation  of  his  people 
is  the  onlv  work  which  lie  accomplishes  without  such 
plan.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  whatever  view  may  be 
taken  of  election,  a  certain  number  of  the  human  race 
only  are  saved,  and  it  is  a  manifest  absurdity  to  sup 
pose  that  God  has  saved  them  without  having  deter 
mined  so  to  do. 

Again,  the  divine  foreknowledge  necessarily  implies 
that  the  events  foreknown  entered  into  a  purpose  or 
plan.  A  contingent  or  uncertain  event  cannot  be  fore 
known.  "  There  must. "  says  Edwards,  "be  a  certainty 
in  things  themselves  before  they  are  certainly  known, 
or  (which  is  the  same  thing)  known  to  be  certain." 
And  what  is  it  that  makes  them  thus  certain  but  the 
divine  purpose  or  decree?  The  application  of  this  to 

tile  doctrine  of  election  is  t hvious  to  lie  stated.       If 

(lod  knew  from  eternity  who  should  be  saved,  it  must 
have  been  because  of  bis  eternal  decree  to  save  them. 
This  argument  we  know  is  sometimes  met  by  boldly 
denying  the  divine  foreknowledge  of  the  acts  of  moral 
agents.  This,  it  is  said,  is  no  more  derogatory  to  God 
than  to  say  that  there  are  things  which  even  Omni 
potence  cannot  achieve.  But  these  things  are  such  as 
involve  a  contradiction  in  their  very  statement,  as  that 
"God  cannot  inclose  a  triangle  within  two  straight 
lines,  and  cannot  make  two  parallel  lines  meet,  and 
cannot  make  twice  two  ecpial  five.  These  are  mani 
festly  inherent  impossibilities,  and  imply  no  defect  of 
] tower  on  the  part  of  God.  We  cannot  conceive  them 
to  lie  done.  I  Jut  it  is  not  so  in  regard  to  a  knowledge 
of  future  moral  acts.  It  is  conceivable.  There  is 
nothing  in  their  nature  which  renders  them  inherently 
unknowable:  and  ignorance  of  them  implies  a  defect  of 
knowledge  inconsistent  with  our  idea  of  an  omniscient 
God"  (HiMi.itliucu  S:u-r:i,  April,  lMi-_').  Others  admit  fore 
knowledge,  but  deny  that  it  is  associated  necessarily 
with  decree.  God  foreknows,  they  say.  the  actions  of 
free  agents,  but  we  cannot  tell,  and  need  not  inquire 
how.  This  is  not  the  place,  however,  for  a  more  ex 
tended  discussion  of  these  points.  (>Vf  FoKKKXOW- 
LKIX;K  and  PREDESTINATION.) 

As  to  the  doctrine  being,  as  has  sometimes  been 
alleged,  a  "purely  speculative  dogma,  barren  of  all 
practical  results,  exercising  no  influence  on  our  conduct 
whatever,  and  consequently  not  to  be  taught  as  a 
revealed  truth,  '  we  simply  ask,  Is  it  nothing  to  have  a 
settled  conviction  that  the  entire  glory  of  our  salvation, 
from  first  to  last,  belongs  to  God  •  Is  such  a  convic 
tion  barren  ?  Is  it  not  fitted  to  awaken  gratitude  and 
love?  And  are  not  these  the  great  moral  forces  by 


KL-ELOHE-LSRAEL 


ELL 


which  obedience  to  God  is  secured  :ind  maintained? 
I'ndoubtedly,  too,  that  profound  humility  and  .sense  of 
human  littleness,  which  spring  from  a  just  contempla 
tion  of  this  doctrine,  are  no  mean  practical  results,  and 
are  at  the  same  time  causes,  in  their  turn,  of  the  highest 
forms  of  devotedness  to  God  which  the  church  or  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  [u.  i-'.j 

EL-ELO'HE-ISRAEL  [InxlGwl  -//  7.s/w/J,  a  com 
pound   epithet  applied   liy  Jacoh  to   the  altar  which   he 


erected  to  God  on  his  return  to  the  land 


before  Goliath,  in  order  to  mnke  the  statement  corre 
spond  with  the  supposed  facts  of  the  case,  and  with  a 
sort  of  parallel  statement  in  1  Ch.  xx.  ;>.  Jn  this  latter 
passage  we  read,  that  "Elhanan,  son  of  Jair.  slew 
Lahmi,  the  brother  of  (ioliath  the  Cittite,  the  start'  of 
whose  spear,"  &c.  Again,  we  find  an  "  Elhanan,  son 
of  Dodo  of  Bethlehem,"  among  the  thirty  distinguished 
heroes  of  David's  time,  2  .Sa.  xxiii.  21.  Some,  among 
others  Gesenius,  suppose  this  Elhanan.  the  son  of  Dodo, 


>f  Canaan,  !  to  be  the  same  with  the  Elhanan  previously  mentioned 
at  ch.  xxi.  1<),  and  that  Jaare-oregim  there  is  a  corrup 
tion.  As  the  name  of  a  man  it  certainly  looks  suspicious; 


and   shortly  after  he  had   received   the  name  of  Israel, 
(ie.xxxiii.2u.     The  El  at  the  beginning  designates  (Jod 

as  the  strong  and  mighty  one,  who  can  do  whatever  though  to  substitute  Dodo  for  it  can  only  rank  as  a 
seems  good  to  him,  and  who,  in  the  recent  experience  conjectural  emendation.  It  is  quite  improbable,  how- 
of  Jacob,  had  peculiarly  manifested  his  power  in  over-  ever,  that  there  should  have  been  two  renowned  heroes 
coming  the  deep-rooted  enmity  of  Esau,  and  thereby  of  Bethlehem  in  David's  time  both  of  the  name  of 
averting  the  most  alarming  evil  which  Jacob  had  ever  :  Elhanan;  and  we  must  suppose  that  either  Jaare-oregim 
been  called  to  encounter.  In  memory  of  this  signal  is  a  corruption  of  the  text,  or  that  the  father,  Dodo, 
deliverance,  and  of  the  goodness  of  Cod  he  had  expe-  \  had  two  names.  Then,  as  regards  the  giant  killed  by 
rienced  in  connection  with  it,  Jacob  imposed  the  signi-  '  this  Elhanan  in  single  combat,  as  it  seems  quite  clear, 


ficant    name  of  El-Elohe- Israel    on  the    altar  he   had 
erected,  tj.d.  To  the  Mighty  One,  the  Cod  of  Israel. 

ELEMENTS,  in  the  primary  sense  of  the  term,  are 
the  component  parts  of  the  physical  universe;  and  these, 
according  to  the  ancients,  are  fire,  air,  earth,  and  water. 
In  this  sense  the  term  is  used  in  the  last  chapter 
of  2  Peter,  where,  in  reference  to  the  final  close  of 
things,  it  is  said,  that  "the  elements  shall  melt  with 
fervent  heat."  All  shall  be,  as  it  were,  resolved  again 
into  its  first  principles.  The  term  is  also  used  figura 
tively  of  the  more  elementary  parts  of  religion.  Thus, 
in  He.  v.  12,  it  is  stated  as  a  matter  of  reproach  against 
the  Jewish  believers,  that  they  had  need  ''to  be  taught 
again  which  be  the  first  principles  (or  elements,  OTOIX«CI) 
of  the  oracles  of  God  " — the  things  which  are  properly 
for  beginners — the  rudiments  of  the  system.  It  is  also 
applied  to  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  in  contra 
distinction  to  the  New:  in  former  times  believers  were 
"in  bondage  to  the  elements  of  the  world,"  Ga.  iv.  C; 
or.  as  it  is  again  put,  though  the  word  is  the  same  in 
the  original,  they  were  under  "the  rudiments  of  the 
world,"  from  which  believers  are  now  delivered  by  the 
grace  of  Christ,  Col.  ii.  20.  In  both  passages  the  apostle 
means  to  designate  the  religion  of  the  old  covenant  as 
of  a  more  elementary  and  imperfect  kind  than  that  of 
the  gospel.  It  was  adapted  to  the  state  of  those  who, 
as  to  spiritual  things,  were  in  comparative  childhood, 


from  the  notices  both  in  Samuel  and  in  Chronicles, 
that  the  action  took  place  not  only  after  David  became 
king,  but  in  the  latter  half  of  his  reign,  we  must  either 
suppose  that  there  was  a  second  Goliath  of  Cath,  who 
was  conquered  by  Elhanan,  as  the  former  one  had  been 
by  David,  or  that,  according  to  the  text  in  Chronicles, 
the  reading  in  Samuel  should  be,  not  Goliath,  but  "the 
brother  of  (ioliath."  Distinguished  scholars  are  found 
on  both  sides,  and  nothing  decisive  can  be  urged  for 
either. 
E'LI  [Heb.  >l^y,  probably  ascension,  height],  a  priest  and 

judge  in  Israel;  in  the  latter  respect,  the  immediate  pre 
decessor  of  Samuel.  We  learn  from  the  genealogical 
tables,  especially  that  given  in  1  Ch.  xxiv.  3,  seq.,  that  Eli 
and  his  family  were  of  the  line  of  Ithamar,  the  younger 
of  the  two  sons  of  Aaron.  This  line,  however,  was  the 
smaller  and  less  influential,  as  well  as  younger  of  the 
two,  for  when  examination  was  made  in  David's  time 
into  the  affairs  of  the  priesthood,  with  a  view  to  the 
proper  distribution  of  its  families  and  offices,  it  was 
found  that  there  were  sixteen  heads  of  distinct  families 
in  Eleazar's  line,  and  only  eight  in  that  of  Ithamar. 
It  seems,  therefore,  somewhat  strange  that  the  head  of 
a  family  in  that  younger  and  weaker  line  should  so 
early  have  attained  to  the  high- priesthood.  No  ex 
planation  is  given  of  it  in  the  history;  we  are  simply 


dealing,   as  it  did,   so  much  in   symbol,   and   with  the     told  that  toward  the  close  of  the  period  of  the  judges, 


forms  rather  than  the  realities  of  things.     All  the  fuii- 


Eli  was  tic  priest  in  the  more  peculiar  sense — that  is, 


dameiital  ideas  and  principles  of  the  gospel  were  there  the  high-priest,   i  Sa.  i.     He  was  probably  the  first  in 

— only  they  were  exhibited  by  means  of  carnal  ordi-  that  line  who  held  the  office,  and  may  have  been  ele- 

nances,  which,  from  their  very  nature,  were  incapable  vated  to  it  mainly  on  account  of  the  qualities  which 

of  yielding  more  than  an  inadequate  manifestation  of  fitted   him  for  discharging  the  duties  of  a  judge.      In 

the  truth.     And  now  that  the  truth  itself  had  appeared  j  this  latter  respect  he  was  had  in  high  reputation,  and 

in  its  reality  and  fulness,  to  revert  to  the  old  and  cling  judged    Israel,    it  is  said,  forty  years,  i  Sa.  iv.  is.     The 

to  it  with  passionate  fondness,  but  too  clearly  showed  '  more  distinctive  honours  of  the  priesthood  did  not  con- 


that  the  gospel  of  Christ  was  but  imperfectly  appre 
hended. 

ELHA'NAN  [God-cmlnml.].  It  is  generally  agreed 
that  some  corruption  has  crept  into  the  text  of  Scrip 
ture  in  connection  with  this  name,  though  critics  differ 


tinue  long  in  his  family,  for  in  Zadok  the  elder  line 
again  rose  to  the  ascendant,  and  apparently  retained  it 
to  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament  history.  In  regard 
to  Eli  himself,  his  character  is  presented  to  us  as  one 
of  mingled  excellences  and  weaknesses.  Personally, 


as  to  the  precise  nature  of  it.  and  how  the  correction  j  he  appears  to  have   been  a   man  of   unaffected  piety 
ought  to  be  made.      In  2  Sa.  xxi.  19  it  is  said,  among     and  genuine  worth.      This  is  evident  from  the  general 


the  exploits  of  David's  heroes,  that  "Elhanan.  the  son 
of  Jaare-oregim,  a  Bethlehemite,  slew  Goliath  the 
Gittite,  the  staff  of  whose  spear  was  like  a  weaver's 


recognition  of  his  title  to  the  place  of  a  judge  in  Israel, 
and  also  from  the  deep  concern  he  manifested  in  his  old 
age  for  the  ark  of  God,  trembling  for  it  in  the  first 


3eam."     The  authorized  version  inserts  "brother  of"  |  instance,  and  then,  when  he  heard  of  its  surrender  into 


EL1AB  •: 

the  hands  of  the  enemy,  falling  paralvzed  from  tne 
chair  on  which  he  sat,  and  breaking  his  neck.  In  such 
things  we  plainly  see  the  man  of  God,  profoundly  moved 
by  whatever  touches  the  glory  of  his  name  and  the 
interests  of  his  kingdom.  But  this  earnest  and  high- 
toned  piety  was  conjoined  with  a  melancholy  and  most 
culpable  slackness  in  the  management  of  his  own  family, 
practises  being  systematically  carried  on  by  his  two 
sons,  Hoplini  and  Phinehas,  within  the  very  precincts 
of  the  sanctuary,  which  ought  to  have  been  instantly, 
and  with  the  firmest  determination,  repressed.  Instead 
of  exercising  this  severe  but  salutary  discipline,  Eli 
contented  himself  with  administering  a  gentle  reproof 
to  his  sons;  told  them  it  was  no  good  report  he  heard 
of  them;  and  reminded  them  of  the  aggravation  their 
sins  derived  from  the  sacred  province  within  which  the 
evil  was  done.  "  Ye  make  the  Lord's  people  to  trans 
gress;  if  one  man  sin  against  another,  the  judire  shall 
judge  him;  hut  if  a  man  sin  against  the  Lord,  who  shall 
entreat  for  him;"  1  xi  ii.  2:i,seq.  But  that  was  all:  the 
sensual  and  depraved  sons  were  still  permitted  to  retain 
their  office,  and  they  pursued  in  it.  as  before,  their 
course  of  iniquity.  Even  after  the  most  solemn  reproofs 
and  warnings  had  been  administered  to  Eli.  first  by  a 
man  of  God  (whose  name  is  concealed),  and  then  through 
a  vision  and  dream  communicated  to  the  child  Samuel, 
he  appears  to  have  taken  no  effective  measures  against 
the  evil.  Xo  doubt  the  languor  and  feebleness  incident 
to  his  advanced  age  may  partly  account  for  his  soft  and 
apathetic  behaviour;  hut  it  was  not  sufficient  to  excuse 
him,  since,  if  he  felt  inadequate  to  the  task  of  reform 
ing  what  was  amiss,  he  should  have  resigned  his  office 
into  tlie  hands  of  one  more  capable  of  administeriiii:  it 
aright.  Accordingly,  the  long-threatened  judgment  of 
God  at  last  burst  like  a  storm  on  him  and  his  family. 
Tlie  Philistines  marched  up  in  battle  array  against  the 
land,  and,  amid  the  disasters  that  ensued,  both  Kli 
himself,  and  his  two  profligate  sons,  fell  victims  to  the 
wrath  of  Heaven. 

Eli  was  ninety-eight  years  old  when  he  died,  and  his 
eyes  wen'  dim  that  he  could  not  see.  1  Sa.  iv.  16;  too 
old  and  feeble,  doubtless,  for  the  responsible  position  he 
occupied.  And  in  this  alone  his  case  forms  a  warning 
to  the  servants  of  God  in  future  times:  showing,  as  it 
so  palpably  did,  that  to  cling  to  office  when  the  natural 
decay  and  infirmities  of  life  incapacitate  one  for  its 
proper  and  efficient  discharge,  is  itself  a  serious  failing 
of  duty.  But  most  of  all  does  his  case  provide  a  testi 
mony  and  a  warninir  against  tlie  undue  relaxation  of 
parental  discipline  and  authority.  To  allow  sin  to  pro 
ceed  unchecked,  or  remain  unpunished  in  the  family, 
is  in  any  case  an  unwise  as  well  as  unrighteous  pro 
cedure — a  cruelty  to  the  children,  not  less  than  an 
unfaithfulness  to  God.  But  when  such  procedure  comes 
to  be  practised  by  one  holding  a  high  and  responsible 
office  in  the  household  of  faith,  the  evil  is  immensely 
aggravated,  since  those  who  should  be  lights  and  en- 
samples  to  others  thereby  become  ringleaders  in  corrup 
tion.  It  was  expressly  on  this  account  that  judgment 
fell  so  heavily  on  the  house  of  Eli. 

ELI'AB   [Heb.    DN.,sN,    (,;,<[  f,,r  father].      1.    A 

T     •  V 

leader  of  the  tribe  of  Zebulun.  Xu.  i.  :>;  2.  a  Reubenite, 
an  ancestor  of  Dathan  and  Abiram,  Nu.  xxvi.  s,  <i;  3.  an 
ancestor  of  Samuel  the  prophet,  i  ch.  -i.  21 ;  4.  and,  to 
say  nothing  of  one  or  two  others,  of  whom  no  more  than 
the  names  are  known,  i  Ch.  xii.  :>;  xvi.  ;,,  David's  eldest 


ELIEZER 

[  brother,  i  sa.  xvii.  ]::,•>.  Even  of  him  we  know  nothing, 
except  that  he  seems  to  have  looked  with  a  kind  of 
envious  eye  toward  David,  and  sought  rather  to  check 
than  to  encourage  him  in  his  enterprise  against  Goliath. 

ELIA'DA  [tc/iom  <,<_,<(  cans for].  1.  A  son  of  David; 
the  last  but  one  born  to  him  in  .Jerusalem.  2  Sa.  v.  ir,  • 
1  ch.  iii.  8.  In  another  passage  the  name  is  changed  into 
Beeliada  (ii-/u>m  Haul  cun*  for),  iCh.xiv.~-  an  import 
ant  and  somewhat  melancholy  change,  but  why  adopted 
is  unknown.  2.  The  father  of  Re/on  tlie  Syrian,  i  Ki. 
xi.  2:;.  3.  A  Bcnjamite,  a  mighty  man  of  war,  who  led 
an  immense  force  from  his  tribe  to  assist  Jehoshaphat 
in  his  wars,  •>  ch.  xvii  17. 

ELIAH'BA  [//•//,„„  <;<>,!  /,/,/,.<,  i.e.  keeps  in  safety 
amid  perils].  One  of  David's  thirty  heroes.  2  Sa.  xxiii.  32. 

ELIA'KIM  [.xW  or<(/V""'"'«/  (>}l  God].  1.  An  officer 
in  the  household  of  Hezekiah.  and  a  man  apparently 
of  faith  and  probity,  as  he  was  one  of  the  commissioners 
sent  by  the  king  to  treat  with  the  messengers  of  Sen 
nacherib.  2  Ki.  xviii  is,  scq ,  and  is  also  referred  to  with 
honour  by  Isaiah  as  a  kind  of  typical  servant  of  God,  ch. 
x\ii.  iii. 

2.  KUAKIM.    A  king  of  .ludah.  son  and  successor  of 
.losiah,    whom    Pliaraoli-Xechoh    made   king    after   the 
death  of  his  father.     Pharaoh,  at  the  same  time,  changed 
his  name  to  Jehoiakim,  which  simply  substitutes  the  .//', 
contraction  for  .Jehovah,  for  l-'.l ,  God,  and  means  fit  In/ 
./•/MI ,;ih.      As  it  is  by  this  latter  name  that  he  is  chiefly 
kn.'un  in  history,  the  reader  is  referred  to  it  for  a  notice 
of  the  facts  of  his  ivi-n. 

3.  KUAKIM.    A  priest  in  the  days  of  Xeheniiah.  \\lio 
took    part   in    the   dedication  of    the   new  wall  of  .Jeru 
salem.   No  xii.  41. 

4.  KI.IAKIM.  Tile  original  name  of  the  kini:  of  .hidah. 
who  is  better  known  by  that  of  Zedekiah. 

EL1AM  [< tod's jwnple].  1.  Tlie  father  of  P.athsheba, 
but  called  Ammiel  in  Chronicles,  2  Sa.  xi  :;.  2.  Son  of 
Ahithophel.andoneof  David's  thirty  warriors. -j  Sa  xxiii  ;j4. 

ELI  AS.     ,S<   KU.IAH. 

ELIA'SHIB  \,rhoM  (,;„/  m/«m/j.  1.  A  priest  in 
David  s  time,  and  one  of  the  governors  of  the  sanctuary, 
i  Ch  xxiv.  in.  2.  A  high-priest  in  the  time  of  Xeheniiah, 
wlio  had  also  formed  some  alliance  with  Toliiali  tlie 
Ammonite,  and  given  him  a  chamber  in  the  temj ill- 
courts,  for  which  the  wrath  of  Xeheniiah  was  called 
forth.  Nc.  iii.  1,20;  xiii.  4,  7.  3.  Various  others  of  this 
name  are  mentioned,  Kzr.  x.  24,  27,  .'ir.. 

ELI'EL  [tcltose  strenr/th  ix<ioil\.  A  common  name 
among  the  Hebrews,  but  nothing  of  any  note  is  pre 
served  of  any  one  bearing  it,  1  Ch.  viii.  L>U;  xi.  4«;  xii.  H;  xv. 
H,  11;  2  Ch.  xx xi  l.'i. 

ELIE'ZER  [irhoni  <io,l  Ar/y^-J;  substantially  the  same 
with  EI.KA/.AH.  though  the  names  are  not  interchanged 
in  Scripture.  1.  ELIK/KR  first  appears  as  the  name  of 
one  in  the  household  of  Abraham;  he  is  called  Eliezer 
of  Damascus,  (ie.  xv.  :,.  It  has  been  supposed  by  some, 
from  the  expression  rendered  ''steward  of  my  house," 
being  literally  "son  of  possession  of  my  house,"  that 
he  was  probably  a  relative  of  Abraham,  and  his  heir- 
at-law.  This,  it  is  thought,  receives  confirmation  from 
what  follows,  in  which  Abraham  says.  "  Lo !  one  born 
in  my  house  (literally  and  properly,  the  son  of  my 
house)  is  mine  heir,"  as  if  pointing  to  a  relative  in  his 
family.  Undoubtedly  there  appears  to  have  been  some 
bond  between  Abraham  and  this  man  superior  to  that 
of  an  ordinary  servant,  but  we  want  the  means  of 
determining  what  it  actually  was.  As  Scripture  is 


ELIIIT 


ELIJAH 


altogether  silent  (if  any  blood  relationship,  or  of  any 
branch  of  Abraham's  kindred  being  about  Damascus, 
the  probability  rather  is  that  Eliezer,  though  he  may 
also  have  been  a  distant  relative,  was  something  like 
an  adopted  son  of  Abraham,  and  that  as  such  the 
main  part  of  Abraham's  possessions  should  have  fallen 
to  him  if  Abraham  himself  died  childless. 

2.  ELIK/KK.  The  second  son  of  Moses  and  Zipporah, 
to  whom  Moses  gave  the  name  Eliezer  as  a  memorial 
of  the  help  granted  to  him  by  God,  Kx.  xviii.  4. 

3.  ELIEZER.     Various  persons,    besides  those  above 
noticed,  bore  this  name,  but  none  of  them  rose  to  any 
distinction,  excepting  a  prophet,  the  son  of  Dodavah, 
who    rebuked    Jehoshaphat     because    of    his    wicked 
alliance  with  Ahaziah,  king  of  Israel,  2  ch.  xx.  37;  1  Ch. 
vii.  S;  xv.  21;  xxvii.  10;  Kzr.  viii.  10;  x   is,  -a,  at. 

EL'IHU  [u-hotc  God  is  He}.  1.  One  of  the  interlo 
cutors  in  the  book  of  Job.  He  stands  in  some  sense 
apart  from  the  three  friends  of  Job,  betwixt  whom  and 
himself  the  chief  part  of  the  dialogue  was  carried  on; 
and  without  any  previous  notice  even  of  his  presence, 
we  are  told  at  a  certain  point  that  •'  wrath  was  kindled 
in  Elihu  the  son  of  Barachel  the  Buzite,  of  the  kindred 
of  Ham,''  Job  xxxii.  2.  The  designation  of  the  Buzite  has 
been  thought  to  indicate  his  relationship  to  Buz,  one  of 
the  sons  of  Nahor  by  Milcah,  Go.  xxii.  21.  This  is  cer 
tainly  possible,  but  the  description  is  of  too  brief  and 
general  a  kind  to  warrant  any  definite  conclusions  of 
such  a  nature.  Elihu  represents  himself  as  by  much 
the  youngest  person  in  the  party,  and  it  may  have  been 
on  that  account  that  his  name  was  omitted  at  the  out 
set;  he  may  have  been  regarded  as  a  kind  of  minister 
or  attendant  of  the  three  friends,  rather  than  one  of 
themselves.  He  tells  us  that  his  youth  kept  him  silent 
so  long  as  the  more  aged  men  had  anything  to  say;  and 
when  at  last  he  does  open  his  mouth,  he  enters  into  a 
formal  apology  and  defence  of  himself  for  presuming  to 
speak  in  such  presence.  What  he  said,  however,  came 
nearer  to  the  point  than  many  things  which  had  been 
uttered  by  those  who  preceded  him;  and  in  token  of 
his  comparative  superiority,  he  is  not  included  with  the 
three  friends  in  the  sacrifices  and  intercessions  that 
were  to  be  presented  by  Job  in  their  behalf,  Job  xlii.  7-9. 
(See  JOB.) 

2.  ELIHU.   A.  forefather  of  Samuel  the  prophet,  the 
son  of  Toliu,  1  Sa.  i.  t.      In  1  Ch.  vi.  34,  however,  Eliel 
is  the  name  that  stands  in  the  same  position — Eliel  the 
son  of  Toah ;    probably  mere   accidental  or  linguistic 
variations. 

3.  ELIHU.     A    Korhite    Levite,    one   of   the    door 
keepers  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  in  the  time  of  David, 
and  of  the  family  of  Obed-edom,  i  Ch.  xxvi.  7. 

4.  ELIHU.    Also  one  of  the  captains  of  thousands 
who,  from  the  tribe  of  Manasseh,  followed  David  to 
Ziklag  before  the  battle  of  Gilboa,  i  Ch.  xii.  20. 

ELIJAH  (Heb.  n<Sx  and  ^Stf,  Elialm,  God- J all, 
T ...  i — 

i.e.  God-Jehomh),  in  the  Septuagint  and  the  New 
Testament  ELIAS — a  great  Israelitish  prophet.  On 
his  first  appearance  he  is  simply  denominated  "Elijah 
the  Tishbite,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Gilead,"  i  Ki.  xvii.  i. 
This  has  been  commonly  understood  to  represent  him 
as  a  native  of  some  Israelitish  town  called  Thisbe 
or  Tisbe;  and  so  undoubtedly  the  ancients  understood 
it,  only  some  of  them  appear  to  have  placed  Thisbe, 
not  in  Gilead,  but  in  Galilee.  Tobit  speaks  of  himself 
as  a  "captive  from  Thisbe,  which  is  at  the  right  hand 


of  that  city  which  is  called,  properly  Ncphthali,  in 
Galilee  above  Aser "  (i.  2).  But  Josephus  says  of 
Elijah  that  he  was  of  "  a  town  Thesbone,  in  the  country 
of  Ciilead  "  (e'/c  TroXews  &(ff[3<l>v7]s  TTJS  FaXaaStrtooj  -^uipas, 
Ant.  viii.  1,3,2).  It  must  be  admitted  that  nothing  certain 
is  known  of  either  of  these  places;  and  though  the 
opinion  has  generally  prevailed  that  a  Thisbe  in  Galilee 
was  the  birth-place  of  Elijah,  it  cannot  be  said  t, •>  rest 
on  any  valid  authority.  Several  continental  writers 
have  not  only  disparaged  this  opinion,  but  have  gone 
to  the  extreme  of  holding  that  he  was  not  a  native  of 
Palestine  at  all;  that  he  was  not  even  of  the  stock  of 
Israel,  but  a  native  probably  of  some  place  in  Arabia, 
and  a  mere  resident,  by  which  they  understand  a  tem 
porary  resident,  or  sojourner  in  the  land  of  Gilead  (Ktil 

on  1  Ki.  xvii.,  and  the  authorities  there  cited).        This    appears 

a  very  improbable  view,  and  destitute  of  any  proper 
support  in  the  notices  of  Scripture.  Whether  there 
might  be  such  a  place  as  Tishbe  in  Gilead  or  not,  still, 
when  Elijah  is  made  known  as  "  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Gilead,"  the  natural  import  of  the  expression  unques 
tionably  is,  that  he  belonged  to  that  section  of  Israel 
who  inhabited  the  extensive  district  on  the  farther  side 
of  Jordan,  known  by  the  name  of  Gilead.  Even  thus 
interpreted  the  designation  is  somewhat  vague ;  for 
anything  it  tells  us,  Elijah  may  have  had  his  residence 
in  the  territories  of  Reuben,  of  Gad,  or  Manasseh ;  he 
may  have  been  himself  a  member  of  one  of  those  tribes, 
or  he  may  have  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Levi,  possibly 
even  to  the  narrower  circle  of  the  Aaronic  priesthood. 
Such  points  are  left  altogether  indeterminate;  and  were 
so  probably  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  more  markedly 
prominent  his  distinctive  character  and  calling — that 
he  might  be  known  and  thought  of  simply  as  t/ic  f/reat 
prophet  reformer.  In  this  light  alone  is  he  presented 
to  our  view  in  the  sacred  history.  His  whole  mission 
and  striving  were  embodied  in  his  name.  His  one 
grand  object  was  to  awaken  Israel  to  the  conviction 
that  Jehovah,  Jehovah  alone  is  God.  Hence  it  is  im 
portant,  for  bringing  out  the  precise  import  and  bearing 
of  his  utterances,  to  keep  up  the  name  JEHOVAH 
wherever  it  occurs  in  the  original. 

The  period  of  Israelitish  history  at  which  Elijah 
appeared  was  one  that  emphatically  called  for  the 
living  exhibition  of  this  great  truth.  It  was  the  period 
of  Ahab's  apostasy,  when,  through  the  influence  and 
example  of  his  wife  Jezebel,  he  formally  introduced  the 
worship  of  other  gods  into  Israel.  In  the  language  of 
the  sacred  historian,  "it  seemed  a  light  thing  for  him 
to  walk  in  the  sins  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat;  and 
he  took  to  wife  Jezebel,  the  daughter  of  Ethbaal,  king 
of  the  Zidonians,  and  went  and  served  Baal,  and  wor 
shipped  him.  And  he  reared  up  an  altar  for  Baal  in 
the  house  of  Baal,  which  he  had  built  in  Samaria,"  &c., 
i  Ki.  xvi.  31.  In  other  words,  he  did  not  rest,  like  his 
predecessors,  with  the  corrupt  worship  of  Jehovah 
under  the  symbol  of  a  calf,  but  brought  in  the  worship 
of  the  Tyrian  Baal,  with  its  usual  accompaniment  of 
the  Asherah  pollutions — the  rites  of  the  Syrian  Venus. 
It  may  readily  be  conceived  that,  to  reconcile  the  people 
to  so  fundamental  a  change,  sophistical  arts  of  various 
kinds  would  need  to  be  resorted  to;  and  it  would  seem, 
from  several  indications  in  the  history — in  particular 
from  the  interchange  that  was  kept  up  between  the 
names  of  Jehovah  and  Baal,  Ho.  ii.  10,  and  from  the 
terms  in  which  Elijah  put  the  question  for  decision  on 
Mount  Carmel,  i  Ki.  xviii.  21 — that  pains  were  taken  to 


ELIJAH 


-503 


ELIJAH 


mediate  between  the  rival  services,  and  to  make  it 
appear  that  there  was  no  essential  difference  between 
Jehovah  and  Baal.  Elijah  was  raised  up  for  the  more 
immediate  purpose  of  dissipating  these  vain  sophistica 
tions,  and  showing,  by  terrible  things  in  righteousness, 
that  there  was  a  real  and  irreconcileable  difference  be 
tween  the  rival  deities — that  Jehovah  was  the  one  living 
and  true  God,  and  Baal  but  a  dumb  and  senseless  idol. 
Hence  he  enters  on  the  work  assigned  him  as  the  spe 
cial  servant  or  messenger  of  Jehovah,  and  in  his  name 
announces  absolutely  wiiat  shall  come  to  pass,  confident 
that  there  is  no  power  in  heaven  or  earth  capable  of 
reversing  the  word.  "And  Elijah  said  untoAhah,  As  ; 
.Jehovah  (Jud  of  Jsrad  liveth,  before  whom  i  stand,  ' 
there  shall  not  be  dew  nor  rain  these  years,  but  accord 
ing  to  inv  word,"  i  Ki  xvii.  i.  l>v  the  introduction  of 
the  worship  of  Baal,  Ahab  had  in  a  manner  displaced 
Jehovah  from  his  acknowledged  supremacy  in  Israel, 
and  the  prophet,  as  his  accredited  representative,  so 
lemnly  protests  against  the  impiety,  proclaims  Jehovah 
still  to  be  the  God  of  Israel,  and  vindicates  the  claim 
by  shutting  up  heaven  for  a  time  over  the  territory 
of  Israel. 

Jn  his  mode  of  doing  this,  it  will  be  observed,  Elijah 
assumed  the  attitude  of  a  priest  or  Levite,  whose  special 
business  it  was  "to  stand  before  the  Lord  to  mini-ter 
unto  him,"  DC  x.  ,s.  This  does  not  prove  that  lie  in 
reality  was  so  though,  as  lias  been  already  intimated, 
lie  may  have  been  but  it  shows  the  kind  of  priestly 
position  which  the  prophets  deemed  it  necessary  to  take 
up  in  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  on  account  of  the  dislocated 
state  into  which  matters  had  been  brought.  They 
assumed  no  such  position  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah, 
where  the  theocratic  constitution,  \\itli  its  Aaroiiic 
priesthood,  continued  in  a  measure  to  subsist.  But  in 
Israel,  especially  during  the  reign  of  Ahab,  when  the 
very  foundations  were  out  of  course,  and  there  was 
neither  king  nor  priest  to  do  the  part  assigned  them 
by  the  theocracy,  the  prophetic  agency  required  to 
rise;  with  the  occasion,  and,  as  under  a  special  commis 
sion  from  above,  had  both  to  make  known  God's  will 
and  to  do  before  him  priestly  service. 

After  the  utterance  of  a  word,  by  which  the  genial 
influences  of  heaven  were  to  be  laid  under  arrest  for  a 
series  of  years,  it  obviously  became  necessary  that  a 
hiding-place  should  !*•  provided  fur  Klijah,  that  he 
might  escape  as  well  from  the  violence  of  those  in  high 
places,  as  from  the  importunities  of  others,  who  might 
endeavour  to  prevail  upon  his  pity.  Such  a  hiding- 
place  was  found  for  him  to  the  east — probably  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  -  beside  the  brook 
( 'herith,  that  flowed  into  tile  Jordan.  (>Vr  C'HKKITII.) 
There  he  not  only  found  water  from  the  brook,  but 
also  supplies  of  bread  and  flesh,  morning  and  evening, 
ministered  at  God's  command  by  ravens.  This  mode 
of  furnishing  the  prophet  with  food  has  appeared  too 
marvellous  for  many  commentators,  and  various  devices 
have  been  resorted  to  in  order  to  lighten  the  difficulty. 
By  some  the  whim  (ravens)  was  changed  into  an /it in 
(Arabians);  by  others  it  was  understood  to  indicate  the 
inhabitants  of  the  city  Orbo,  or  the  rock  Oreb  ;  and 
others  still  again,  by  ascribing  to  it  an  altogether  un 
supported  meaning,  have  substituted  merchants  for 
ravens.  These  explanations  may  be  summarily  dis 
missed  as  at  once  grammatically  untenable,  and  un 
satisfactory  in  the  sense  yielded  by  them  ;  for  how 
unlikely  was  it  that  such  parties  should  carry  any 


supplies  of  food  to  Elijah  so  circumstanced?  especially 
that  they  should  do  so  morning  and  evening  !  Nor  is 
the  solution  of  Miehaelis  much  better,  that  the  retreat 
of  Elijah  lay  near  to  a  great  raven-haunt,  and  that  he 
took  advantage  of  the  young  hares,  wild  fowl.  &c., 
which  those  voracious  creatures  brought  within  his 
reach.  Provisions  of  this  sort  could  never  be  turned 
into  "bread  and  flesh  in  the  morning,  ami  bread  and 
flesh  in  the  evening'."  The  words  plainly  express  a 
supernatural  employment  of  the  ravens  for  the  pur 
pose — wonderful,  indeed,  as  everything  supernatural 
is,  but  surely  not  more  wonderful  than  the  infliction  at 
Elijah's  word  of  the  long-continued  drought  which  oc 
casioned  it,  or  the  fetching  down,  at  a  later  stage  of  the 
prophet's  history,  of  two  successive  streams  of  tire  to 
consume  the  forces  sent  against  him.  Any  birds  might 
have  served  the  purpose  in  question,  but  the  ravenous 
nature  of  those  actually  employed  undoubtedly  height 
ened  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  transaction  of  the 
overruling  power  and  providence  of  God. 

The  brook  t'herith,  however,  in  course  of  time  dried 
up,  and  another  place  of  refuge  had  to  be  provided  for 
the  prophet.  This  was  found  in  a  most  unlikely  quarter, 
in  the  house  of  a  widow  a  poor  widow,  as  she  proved 
to  be,  with  an  only  son  -  and  she,  not  in  the  land  of 
Israel,  but  at  Xarcphath,  in  the  territory  of  Zidon  — 
the  native  region  of  the  infamous  Jc/.ebel,  1  Ki.  xvii.  !>. 
Notwithstanding  the  Lord  tells  Elijah  that  he  has 
commanded  this  widow  to  sustain  him  ;  and  being 
perfectly  assured  that  God's  word  could  not  fail,  he 
proceeded  without  delay  to  prove  it.  P>rought  by 
divine  direction  to  the  place,  and  to  the  woman,  he 
found  her  near  the  uate  of  tin:  city  gathering  a  few 
sticks  to  prepare  her  last  meal,  that  she  and  her  son 
might  thereafter  die.  In  the  unswerving  confidence  of 
faith  In- bills  her  go  and  hake  the  bread  as  she  intended, 
but  in  the  first  instance  to  bring  a  portion  of  it  with  a 
little  water  to  him  demanding  such  faith  from  her  as 
he  himself  exercised  toward  God.  And  he  added,  as 
the  ground  both  of  her  belief  and  of  bis  own  demand, 
"  For  thus  saith  Jehovah  God  of  Israel,  the  barrel  of 
meal  shall  not  waste,  neither  shall  the  cruse  of  oil  fail, 
till  the  day  that  Jehovah  sendeth  rain  on  the.  earth." 
Strange  as  the  whole  must  have  seemed,  the  Zidoniaii 
widow  made  no  scruple  about  complying  with  the  word 
spoken;  and  in  accordance  with  the  assurance  given 
her,  the  miraculous  supply  of  meal  and  oil  continued 
as  long  as  it  was  needed.  She  was  blessed  because  she 
believed;  and  from  her  believing  conduct,  with  its 
present  recompense  of  good,  the  heart  of  the  prophet 
also  could  not  fail  to  draw  encouragement  and  strength. 
But  her  faith  was  by  and  by  put  to  a  fresh  trial,  and 
in  that  trial  discovered  a  certain  measure  of  imperfec 
tion  in  respect  to  spiritual  insight  or  desire.  Un  the 
ocasion  of  a  severe  illness  befalling  her  son,  which  soon 
reached  a  fatal  termination,  she  said  to  Elijah  in  what 
appears  a  somewhat  petulant  tone,  "  What  have  1  to 
do  with  thee,  O  thou  man  of  God  (  Art  thou  come  unto 
me  to  call  my  sin  t<  >  remembrance,  and  to  slay  my  soil  ?" 
A  proper  feeling  probably  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  ad 
dress.  The  devout  and  holy  life  of  Elijah  had  enlight 
ened  her  conscience,  and  impressed  her  with  convic 
tions  of  hin,  such  as  she  had  not  previously  known. 
Possibly  also  she  may  have  felt  that  she  had  profited 
less  than  she  ought  to  have  done  by  the  residence  of 
such  a  man  in  her  house,  and  may,  in  consequence, 
have  become  more  liable  to  chastisement.  So  far,  the 


ELIJAH 


feelings  working  in  her  bosom  may  have  been  reason 
able  and  proper;  but  they  still  hardly  account  for  the 
peculiar  form  of  her  address  to  the  prophet.  This 
seems  to  imply  that  she  looked  upon  him  as,  in  a 
sense,  the  occasion  of  her  calamity,  and  that  it  had 
been  better  for  her  not  to  have  known  him,  than  to 
have  become  the  subject  of  such  a  discipline.  A\  hat 
might  be  wrong  in  it,  however,  was  graciously  over 
looked  ;  as  matters  stood,  the  calamity  proved  a  heavy 
trial  to  Elijah  as  well  as  to  the  widow  ;  and  with  holy 
freedom  and  earnestness  he  laid  it  before  the  Lord. 
"He  cried  unto  Jehovah  and  said,  0  Jehovah  my  God, 
hast  thou  also  brought  evil  upon  the  widow  with  whom 
I  sojourn,  by  slaying  her  son!"  The  cry  was  heard; 
and  after  stretching  himself  three  times  upon  the  child 
— thereby  presenting,  as  it  were,  a  channel  of  com 
munication  for  the  divine  power  to  pass  into  the  lifeless 
body — and  crying,  while  he  did  so,  "O  Jehovah  my 
God,  I  pray  thee,  let  this  child's  soul  come  into  him 
again" — the  child  began  to  breathe  again,  and  was 
presently  delivered  alive  to  his  mother.  On  receiving 
him,  she  said,  "  Now  by  this  I  know  that  thou  art  a 
man  of  God,  and  that  the  word  of  Jehovah  in  thy 
mouth  is  truth  ; "  that  is,  she  knew  it  now  in  a  manner 
she  had  not  done  before;  the  truth  burst  upon  her  mind 
with  a  power  which  had  all  the  freshness  of  novelty. 

It  was  in  the  third  year,  as  it  would  seem,  of  Elijah's 
sojourn  with  the  widow  of  Zarephath,  that  the  word  of 
the  Lord  came  to  him,  announcing  the  near  prospect  of 
rain,  and  bidding  him  go  and  show  himself  to  Ahab, 
i  Ki.  xviii.  i.  Home  would  understand  the  expression  "  in 
the  third  year"  from  the  commencement  of  the  drought, 
but  this  would  restrict  too  much  the  whole  period  ;  as 
in  two  passages  of  the  New  Testament,  Lu.  iv.  -i:>;  Ja.  \.  17, 
the  drought  is  expressly  said  to  have  lasted  three  years 
and  a  half.  If,  as  is  probable,  Elijah  spent  nearly  one 
year  beside  the  brook  Cherith,  it  would  leave  two 
years  and  some  months  for  his  residence  at  Zarephath, 
and  hence  he  might  be  said  to  leave  it  in  the  third 
year.  When  going  forth  on  this  new  and  more  active 
part  of  his  mission,  he  was  met  with  a  striking  evidence 
of  the  extent  to  which  the  famine  prevailed  in  Samaria; 
having  fallen  in  with  Obadiah,  the  chamberlain  of 
Ahab,  on  a  search  throughout  the  land  for  fountains 
and  brooks  of  wTater,  that  all  the  cattle  might  not 
perish.  The  prophet  was  recognized  by  Obadiah,  and 
was  treated  by  him  with  respectful  obeisance.  But  on 
being  charged  to  go  and  tell  his  master  Ahab,  that 
Elijah  was  there,  he  began  to  imagine  that  the  prophet 
had  some  design  upon  his  life,  and  asked  if  Elijah  did 
not  know  how  he  feared  God,  and  hid  so  many  as  fifty 
prophets  in  a  cave,  and  fed  them  with  bread  and  water, 
to  protect  them  from  the  fury  of  Jezebel?  He  also 
mentioned,  as  the  ground  of  his  apprehensions  in  the 
present  case,  that  the  most  rigorous  search  had  been 
made  for  Elijah  throughout  the  land  of  Israel  and  the 
neighbouring  kingdoms,  evidently  for  the  purpose  of 
laying  violent  hands  on  him  ;  and  he  could  not  suppose 
that  Elijah  would  now  expose  himself  to  the  risk  of 
meeting  Ahab,  in  the  defenceless  state  in  which  he 
appeared.  In  this,  however,  he  was  mistaken,  and 
having  been  solemnly  assured  of  Elijah's  determination 
to  show  himself  to  Ahab,  he  went  to  his  master  with 
the  tidings.  On  meeting  Elijah  the  king  addressed 
him  with  the  reproachful  charge,  "Art  thou  he  that 
troubleth  Israel  ? "  but  was  answered  with  the  indig 
nant  reply.  ''  I  have  not  troubled  Israel,  but  thou  and 


thy  father's  house,  in  that  ye  have  forsaken  the  com 
mandments  of  Jehovah,  and  thou  hast  followed 
Baalim."  And  he  added  a  request — for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  the  controversy  to  an  issue,  and  ascertaining 
where  the  source  of  the  evil  actually  lay — that  Ahab 
would  cause  Israel  to  assemble  on  Carmel,  to  witness 
between  him  on  the  one  side,  and  the  prophets  of 
Baal  and  Asherah  on  the  other.  (The  latter  arc 
called  in  the  authorized  version  prophets  of  the  t/rurcx-- 
improperly,  see  under  ASHTAKOTH.)  Of  these  prophets 
there  are  said  to  have  been  450  of  the  former  class,  and 
400  of  the  latter;  and  the  latter,  the  prophets  of  Ash- 
erah.  it  is  stated,  ate  at  the  queen's  table  ;  meaning 
probably  that  they  were  maintained  at  her  expense, 
as  being  the  servants  of  her  own  Syrian  goddess.  Xo 
mention  is  made  of  them  in  the  memorable  transactions 
that  presently  took  place  on  Carmel ;  so  that  they  must 
either  have  declined  the  contest,  or  it  must  have  been 
deemed  prudent  to  withhold  them  from  being  present 
on  the  occasion.  But  the  450  prophets  of  Baal  ap 
peared,  and  along  with  them  Ahab  himself,  and  a  vast 
multitude  of  the  people.  All  Israel,  in  a  sense,  were 
there  to  be  spectators  of  the  contest. 

If  looked  at  in  an  external  point  of  view,  never  did 
combatants  seem  more  unequally  matched.  In  the 
interest  of  Baal  there  stood  the  450  prophets,  with  the 
king,  and  doubtless  many  also  of  the  leading  men  in 
the  kingdom,  at  their  back  ;  while  Elijah  alone  ventured 
openly  to  espouse  the  cause  of  Jehovah.  When  he 
put  the  question  to  the  assembled  people,  ' '  How  long- 
halt  ye  between  two  opinions?  If  Jehovah  be  God, 
follow  him ;  but  if  Baal,  follow  him,"  there  was  no  re 
sponse  ;  "the  people  answered  him  not  a  word."  They 
were  not  prepared  to  take  up  and  avow  the  position, 
that  there  was  such  a  distinction  between  Jehovah  and 
Baal,  as  rendered  their  claims  of  service  properly 
antagonistic,  and  necessitated  a  choice  between  the 
two.  The  matter  must,  therefore,  be  submitted  to  a 
palpable  and  decisive  test.  Let  each  party  take  an 
offering,  cut  it  in  pieces,  lay  it  on  wood  as  ready  to  be 
consumed  in  sacrifice  ;  and  let  the  one  who  answers  by 
fire  be  the  God.  This  proposal  at  once  commended 
itself  to  the  people.  It  would  do  so,  we  may  conceive, 
the  more  readily,  because  it  was  by  fire  that  Jehovah 
had  revealed  himself  to  their  fathers,  when  the  Levitical 
service  was  originally  set  up,  Le.  ix.  21;  and  also  because, 
if  it  gave  any  advantage  to  either  party,  this  manifestly 
lay  on  the  side  of  the  numerous  retinue  that  represented 
the  interest  of  Baal.  Elijah  even  conceded  to  them  a 
further  advantage,  in  allowing  them  the  right,  on  ac 
count  of  their  number,  to  kill  their  victim  first,  and  so 
o-iving  them  the  opportunity  of  obtaining  a  prior  decision 
in  their  behalf,  if  it  was  in  the  power  of  their  god  to 
bestow  it.  In  such  circumstances  it  was  impossible  for 
them  to  decline  the  trial.  They  prepared  their  bullock 
and  dressed  it,  but  put  no  fire  under,  and  with  earnest 
importunity  began  to  cry,  O  Baal,  hear  us.  So  they 
continued,  it  is  said,  from  morning  until  noon,  when 
Elijah  in  mockery  bade  them  cry  aloud,  in  case  their 
god  might  be  asleep,  or  engaged  in  some  busy  and 
interesting  occupation,  from  which  he  needed  to  be 
somewhat  forcibly  recalled.  Then  they  redoubled  their 
vehemence,  and,  after  the  manner  of  the  Syrian  devotees, 
cut  themselves  with  knives  and  lancets,  till  the  blood 
gushed  out. 

[Movers,  in  his  work  on  the  Phrenicians,  thus 
describes,  from  ancient  authors,  the  processions  which 


ELIJAH 


ELIJAH 


\\vre  wont  to  lie  made  by  the  worshippers  of  the  Syrian 
goddess:  "A  discordant  howling  opens  the  scene.  Then 
they  fly  wildly  through  one  another,  with  the  head 
sunk  down  to  the  ground,  but  turning  round  in  circles, 
so  that  the  loose-flowing  hair  drags  through  the  mire  ; 
thereupon  they  first  bite  themselves  on  the  arms,  and  at 
last  cut  themselves  with  two-edged  swords,  which  they 
are  wont  to  carry.  Then  begins  a  new  scene:  one  of 
them  who  surpasses  all  the  rest  in  frenzy  begins  to  pro 
phesy  with  sighs  and  groans,  openly  accuses  himself  of 
liis  past  sins,  which  lie  now  wishes  to  punish  b\-  the 
mortifying  of  the  flesh,  takes  the  knotted  whip,  which 
the  <jalli  are  wont  to  bear,  lashes  his  back,  cuts  himself 
with  swords,  until  the  blood  trickles  down  from  his 
mangled  body,  '  i.  1>.<M-',  qu'ite.l  by  K<_-il  .m  1  Ki.  xviii.  L'li-Si.] 

But  all  was  to  no  purpose ;  "there  was  no  voice, 
nor  any  to  answer,  nor  any  that  regarded."  Then, 
about  the  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice  itliat  is,  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  >,  Klijah  stepped  forward 
to  do  It  ix  part  —  repaired  an  altar  that  had  fallen  down, 
with  twelve  stones,  corresponding  to  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel — the  ideal  number  <>f  the  covenant- people, 
whose  (!od  Jehovah  was — and,  having  arranged  his 
bullock  and  the  wood,  caused  a  trench  to  be  duy  around, 
and  barrels  of  water  to  be  poured  on  the  altar,  till  not 
only  tlie  wood  was  thoroughly  wetted,  but  the  trench 
also  was  tilled  with  the  overflow.  Then  with  sublime 
simplicity  he  came  near  and  said,  "Jehovah,  (Jodof 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  of  Israel,  let  it  be  known  this  day, 
that  THnc  ;irt(iod  in  Israel,  and  that  I  am  thy  servant, 
and  that  1  have  done  all  these  things  at  thy  word. 
Hear  me,  O  Lord,  hear  me,  that  this  people  may  know- 
that  thou  Jehovah  art  <  !od,  and  that  thou  hast  turned 
their  heart  back  again."  No  sooner  had  he  spoken, 
than  the  fire  fell  from  heaven  and  consumed  the  sacri 
fice,  and  even  licked  up  the  water  that  was  in  the  trench. 
The  effect  was  electrifying  ;  the  people  in  one  mass  fell 
on  their  faces,  and  shouted,  "Jehovah,  he  is  the  (Jod. 
Jehovah,  he  is  the  (!od." 

Klijah,  however,  was  not  content  to  let  the  matter 
rest  there;  he  called  upon  the  people  instantly  to  carry 
out  their  convictions  of  truth,  by  enforcing  the  penalty 
of  the  law  upon  those  who  had  been  labouring  to  sub 
vert  its  fundamental  principles.  "Take  tin-  prophets 
of  Baal,"  said  lie;  ''  let  not  one  of  them  escape.  '  The 
advice  was  promptly  followed  ;  for  the  whole  4;">0  were 
brought  down  to  the  brook  Kishon  and  slain  there. 
The  treatment  has  often  been  characterized  as  harsh, 
but  unjustly,  when  contemplated,  as  it  ought  to  be, 
from  the  Old  Testament  point  of  view.  The  common 
wealth  of  Israel  being  a  theocracy,  in  which  all  was 
professedly  held  of  Jehovah  as  its  one  living  and  su 
preme  head,  idolatry  was  therefore  condemned  as 
treason  :  the  promoter  of  idolatrous  worship,  or  the 
false  prophet,  who  spake  in  the  name  of  another  god 
than  Jehovah,  was  to  be  summarily  put  to  death, 
Ue.  xiii.  xviii  ;  so  that  Elijah  and  the  people  now  only  did 
what  Ahab  as  the  visible  head  of  the  commonwealth 
should  already  have  done.  If  Ahab  himself  had  fallen 
in  the  carnage  as  the  active  abettor  of  Baal-worship, 
it  would  have  been  no  breach  of  constitutional  principle. 

The  crisis  seemed  now  past;  the  decision  of  assembled 
Israel  had  been  given,  and  Jehovah  was  once  more 
publicly  acknowledged  as  the  one  living  and  true  God. 
"  The  heavens  heard  the  earth,"  and  forthwith  began 
to  temper  their  fiery  glow.  "  (Jet  thee  up,"  exclaimed 
Klijah,  deserving  the  change.  "  eat  and  drink,  for  there 

Vor,.  I. 


'  is  a  sound  of  abundance  of  rain."  The  prophet  him- 
1  self  went  up  to  Carmel  to  pray,  and  look  for  the 
refreshing  shower.  Ja.  v.  17 ;  and  the  moment  the  little 
cloud  was  discerned  in  the  horizon,  though  not  bigger 
than  a  man's  hand,  he  hasted  back  to  Ahab  to  tell 
him  to  speed  forward  his  journey,  while  himself,  as  if 
inspired  with  the  energy  of  a  new  life,  girt  up  his  loins, 
and  ran  before  Ahab  to  the  entrance  of  Jezreel — a 
distance  of  about  fifteen  miles — amid  torrents  of  rain. 
It  was  a  day  of  triumph  to  the  noble-hearted  prophet, 
and  he  probably  thought  that  the  victory  was  now 
finally  won  —that  his  person  would  be  as  safe,  and  his 
name  as  honoured  at  Jezreel  as  in  any  other  part  of 
the  land! 

But  his  ardent  hopes  in  this  respect  soon  met  with  a 
mortifying  reverse.  So  far  from  being  humbled  and 
subdued  by  tli''  news  of  the  terrible  scene  on  Carmel, 
Je/.ebel  seemed  only  roused  into  greater  fury,  and  sent 
a  message  to  Elijah,  accompanied  with  an  oath,  that 
by  to  morrow  she  would  have  him  made  like  one  of  the 
slain  prophets.  If  she  really  wished  to  kill  Elijah,  she 
betrayed  a  foolish  impetuosity  of  temper  in  sending 
such  a  message.  But  it  is  possible,  after  what  had 
happened,  that  she  scarcely  desired  to  have  the  oppor 
tunity  of  putting  her  own  threat  in  execution;  and  she 
may  have  uttered  it  more  for  the  purpose  of  ridding 
Jezreel  of  his  presence,  than  of  committing  herself  to 
th"  destruction  of  his  life.  Anyhow,  the  determina 
tion  avowed  \va^.  in  the  circumstances,  indicative  of  a 
most  impious  and  hardened  state  of  mind.  It  appalled 
for  the  moment  the  lion-hearted  prophet;  his  courage 
sank  at  the  tidings  ;  and  he  arose  and  went  for  his  life, 
taking  his  servant  with  him  as  far  as  Beersheba,  but 
himself  pressing  on  a  whole  day's  journey  into  the 
wilderness.  There  he  found  a  juniper-tree  under  which 
he  sat  down,  and  requested  for  himself  that  he  might 
•  lie.  "  It  is  enough,"  lie  said,  "now,  Jehovah,  take 
awav  my  life;  for  I  am  not  better  than  my  fathers,"  i  Ki. 
xix.  i  It  was  the  language  of  fainting  and  despondency: 
he  had  done  his  best:  mighty  forces  had  been  operating 
through  his  hand,  and  lie  had  been  enabled  to  do  great 
!  things  by  them:  but  it  was  a  hopeless  struggle;  the  throne 
of  iniquity  still  held  its  place  ;  he  was  no  more  able  to 
prevail  than  his  fathers  ;  why  should  his  life  any  longer 
be  prolonged  .'  Such,  apparently,  was  the  feeling  that 
wrought  in  his  bosom  -not  altogether  to  be  justified, 
but.  at  the  same  time,  so  natural  in  the  circumstances, 
j  so  difficult  to  be  repressed,  that  his  case  called  for  pity 
and  support,  rather  than  rebuke.  And  he  got  what  he 
'  needed  ;  for  his  work  was  by  no  means  done  yet,  as  he 
'  had  too  hastily  supposed.  He  was  first  thrown  into  a 
J  profound  sleep,  and  when  he  awoke  he  found  at  his 
side,  brought  by  an  angel's  hand,  a  cake  baken  on  the 
:  coals,  and  a  cruse  of  water.  Of  these  he  partook  and 
refreshed  himself,  and  again  laid  himself  down  to  rest. 
But  he  was  admonished  a  second  time  by  the  angel  to 
arise  and  eat.  as  a  great  journey  was  before  him;  and 
in  the  strength  of  the  food  then  received,  it  is  said,  he 
went  forty  days  and  forty  nights.  A  supernatural  re- 
1  suit,  doubtless!  for  no  merely  natural  supply  of  food 
;  could  have  sustained  his  animal  frame  for  such  a  length 
of  time  ;  but  this  does  not  hinder,  that  the  natural  in 
the  present  case,  as  in  so  many  others,  formed  the 
ground  on  which  the  supernatural  raised  itself,  and  that 
a  certain  measure  of  the  one  might  be  required  for  the 
fitting  development  of  the  other. 

The  support  of  the  bodily  frame  in  undecayed  fresh- 

64 


KLI.TAH 


ELIJAH 


ness  for  forty  days,  and  that  in  connection  with  ;i  so 
journ  in  I  lon-1),  whither  Elijah  was  now  borne  by  tho 
Spirit  of  God,  plainly  brings  this  prophet  into  a  cer 
tain  relationship  to  Closes.  Tho  wonder  of  Moses,  as 
a  man  capable  of  dwelling  on  the  mount  of  God,  and 
holding  a  face-to-face  communion  with  Heaven,  again 
in  a  measure  repeats  itself.  There  is  a  manifest  resem 
blance,  though  with  a  difference  suited  to  the  altered 
circumstances  of  the  time;  and  so  in  what  follows.  At 
llorcb  the  prophet  takes  up  his  abode  in  a  cave; 
and  when  there  the  \\ord  of  Jehovah  came  to  him 
sayiiur,  "What  doest  tlion  here,  Elijah?"  To  which 
he  replied  in  a  somewhat  querulous  and  disaffected 
tone,  "  I  have  been  very  jealous  for  .Jehovah,  God  of 
hosts:  for  tho  children  of  Israel  have  forsaken  thy 
covenant,  thrown  down  thine  altars,  and  slain  thy 
prophets  with  tho  sword;  and  1,  I  only,  am  left,  and 
they  seek  my  life  to  take  it  away."  The  state  of  feel 
ing  was  much  akin  to  that  of  Moses,  when,  descending 
from  the  mount,  he  found  the  people  wholly  given  to 
idolatry,  and  in  the  vehemence  of  a  righteous  indigna 
tion  broke  the  tables  of  the  law,  and  called  upon  every 
man  to  unshcuth  his  sword  against  his  fellow.  This 
severe  and  stormy  mood  soon  passed  away,  and  lie  pre 
sently  became  the  earnest  intercessor  of  his  people. 
Elijah,  too,  subsequently  came  into  a  like  tender  and 
more  subdued  frame,  but  it  was  the  other  which  held 
possession  of  his  soul  at  the  cave  in  Morel).  He  spake 
as  if  he  had  been  more  jealous  for  the  interest  of  God, 
than  God  had  been  for  it  himself;  as  if  when  so  many 
altars  had  been  tin-own  down,  so  many  prophets  slain, 
and  an  all  but  universal  apostasy  prevailed,  it  was  just 
matter  of  complaint  that  no  greater  judgments  from 
Heaven  had  been  inflicted  on  the  evil-doers,  and  no 
more  adequate  help  given  to  second  his  endeavours. 
To  correct  his  judgment  in  this  respect,  and  bring  him 
to  a  better  mind,  he  has  presented  to  his  view  a  series 
of  symbols,  in  which  the  Lord  appeared  as  the  direct 
agent.  First,  a  great  and  strong  wind  rent  the  moun 
tains,  and  brake  in  pieces  the  rocks  before  the  Lord; 
then  an  earthquake ;  and  after  the  earthquake  a  fire. 
It  is  said  that  Jehovah  was  not  in  any  of  these — mean 
ing,  not  that  they  were  caused  otherwise  than  by  his 
immediate  working,  or  were  not  symbols  of  certain 
operations  of  his  hand,  but  that  at  this  particular  time 
he  did  not  reveal  himself  in  one  or  other  of  these  to 
Elijah.  They  were  rather  the  symbols  of  that  vehe 
ment  and  angry  frame  of  mind,  which  prevailed  in  the 
prophet  himself,  than  of  any  feeling  or  purpose  now 
cherished  in  the  heart  of  God.  But  after  them  all 
there  came  a  still  small  voice,  a  soft  and  gentle  breath 
ing,  as  it  were,  which  when  the  prophet  heard,  he 
wrapped  his  face  in  his  mantle  and  went  to  the  mouth 
of  the  cave,  where  he  heard  the  voice  of  Jehovah  again 
asking  him  what  he  was  doing  there.  Jehovah  would 
now  manifest  himself,  not  in  the  terrific  emblems  of 
power,  such  as  were  fitted  to  appal  and  terrify  men's 
minds,  but  in  the  still  small  voice,  which  might  win  its 
way  into  their  better  feelings,  and  with  quiet  energy 
prompt  and  persuade  them  to  wiser  counsels.  This 
was  the  kind  of  agency  which  the  Lord  would  now 
have  Elijah  to  understand  still  remained  to  be  plied 
in  Israel :  Enough,  it  virtually  said,  of  overawing  dis 
plays  from  the  secret  place  of  thunder ;  gentler  and 
more  persuasive  measures  must  now  be  pursued;  nor 
lias  the  effect  produced  by  the  former  been  in  vain,  it 
has  thrown  the  way  open  for  more  peaceful  action. 


Such  was  the  main  purport  of  the  instruction  con 
veyed  on  this  occasion  to  Elijah.  It  was  followed  up 
however  by  certain  communications  of  a  more  explicit 
kind.  In  these  lie  was  directed  to  return,  not  precisely 
to  the  land  of  Israel,  but  to  the  wilderness  of  Damas 
cus,  where  he  might  find  a  comparatively  safe  retreat; 
and  thereafter — not  perhaps  immediately,  but  as  oppor 
tunity  might  oiler,  or  the  course  of  -Providence  might 
open  the  way,  to  anoint  Hazael  king  over  Syria,  Jehu 
king  over  Israel,  and  Elisha  to  be  prophet  in  his  own 
room.  He  was  also  informed,  that  in  connection  with 
these  appointments  there  were  to  be  severe  visitations 
of  judgment ;  some  were  to  be  slain  by  Hazael,  some 
by  Jehu,  and  some  still  again  at  the  instance  of  Elisha. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  given  to  understand,  that 
matters  were  n<>t  HO  bad  in  Israel  as  lie  had  imagined, 
and  that  beside  himself,  there  remained  7<l<>0  who  bad 
not  yet  bowed  the  knee,  or  by  kissing  done  obeisance 
to  the  image  of  Baal.  There  was,  therefore,  room  for 
fresh  operations,  and  some  ground  to  hope  that  a  revived 
interest  might  yet  be  awakened  in  the  worship  and 
service  of  .Jehovah.  Elijah  was  doubtless  cheered  to 
learn  that  such  was  the  ease,  and  set  forth,  we  may 
well  conceive,  with  a  lightened  heart  on  his  new  com 
mission.  The  first  part  of  it  that  he  was  enabled  to 
execute  is  what  was  mentioned  last  in  the  divine  com 
nmnication — the  calling  of  Elisha  to  succeed  him  in 
the  prophetical  office.  This,  it  would  appear  from  the 
narrative,  took  place  very  shortly  after  his  return  to 
the  Syrian  region,  probably  when  on  his  way  to  the 
wilderness  of  Damascus;  for  it  is  mentioned  in  imme 
diate  succession  to  what  took  place  at  Horeb,  and 
Abel-meholah,  where  Elisha  resided,  lay  in  the  valley 
of  the  Jordan,  not  far  from  the  route  of  Elijah  toward 
the  place  of  his  immediate  sojourn. 

We  hear  nothing  of  the  operations  of  these  servants 
of  God  in  the  wilderness  of  Damascus,  nor  are  we  told 
how  long  they  sojourned  there.  A  war  with  Syria 
meanwhile  sprung  up,  in  which  Ahab  and  Israel  came 
off  victorious,  i  Ki.  xx.  The  success  could  scarcely  fail 
to  inflame  the  pride  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  and  was 
probably  among  the  causes  that  contributed  to  the 
atrocious  procedure,  which  issued  in  the  deliberate 
murder  of  Naboth,  and  the  appropriation  of  his  vine 
yard.  It  was  this  wicked  conduct  which  again  drew 
Elijah  from  his  lurking-place.  In  obedience  to  the 
word  of  the  Lord  he  went  to  meet  Ahab,  when  he  came 
to  take  possession  of  his  ill-gotten  property;  and  as  if 
an  apparition  had  suddenly  presented  itself  before  him, 
the  guilty  monarch  exclaimed,  "  Hast  thou  found  me, 
O  mine  enemy?"  "I  have  found  thee,"  was  the  prompt 
reply;  and  then  followed  a  terrible  denunciation  of  the 
iniquity  that  had  been  committed,  and  of  the  sweeping 
desolation  and  ruin  that  were  destined  to  befall  Ahab 
and  his  house.  In  respect  to  Ahab  himself  the  threat 
ening  took  effect  without  any  further  intervention 
on  Elijah's  part,  and  in  connection  with  a  fresh  Syrian 
war,  which  cost  the  king  of  Israel  his  life.  We  first 
meet  with  our  prophet  again  in  the  time  of  his  succes 
sor  Ahaziah,  who  in  the  second  year  of  his  reign  fell 
through  a  lattice  in  his  upper  chamber,  and  presently 
after  sent  messengers  to  inquire  of  Baal-zebub  the  god 
of  Ekron,  whether  lie  should  recover  of  his  disease. 
Elijah  was  admonished  by  the  word  of  the  Lord  to  go 
and  meet  them,  and  to  ask,  whether  it  was  because 
there  was  no  God  in  Israel  that  they  went  to  inquire 
of  the  god  of  Ekron,  2  Ki.  i.  n.  This  reproachful  inter- 


ELIJAH 


507 


ELIJAH 


rogation  was  accompanied  with  a  solemn  message  in  the 
name  of  Jehovah,  that  the  king  should  not  come  down 
from  the  hod  on  which  lie  was  laid,  but  should  surely 
die.  The  messengers,  on  receiving  such  a  message, 
naturally  turned  back  ;  and  then  ensued  a  memorable 
scene  in  Elijah's  history.  The  enraged  monarch  de 
spatched  a  company  of  fifty  soldiers  to  apprehend 
him;  and  when  these  through  their  captain  delivered 
to  him  the  message,  "Thou  man  of  God,  the  king  hath 
said,  Come  down,''  they  were  greeted  by  the  stern 
reply,  "if  1  be  a  man  of  God,  then  let  fire  come  down 
from  heaven,  and  consume  thee  and  thy  fifty.  '  Pre 
sently,  fire  did  come  down  and  consume  them.  The 
same  scene  was  enacted  over  again  with  another  fifty; 
and  only  when  the  captain  of  the  third  implored  that 
liis  life  and  the  life  of  his  men  mi-lit  be  spared,  did 
Elijah,  at  the  divine  suggestion,  -o  down  and  present 
himself  before  the  king.  IJut  it  was  only  to  repeat 
ane\v,  beside  the  lied  of  the  now  humbled  monarch,  the 
same  awful  words  which  he  had  uri-inally  addressed 
to  the  persons  commissioned  to  inquire  at  Ekron. 

The  conduct  of  Elijah  on  this  occasion  has  often 
been  objected  to  as  harsh  and  intemperate.  I  Jut  if  it 
actually  had  been  so,  the  charge  would  not  so  much  lie 
against  the  prophet,  as  against  God,  who  formally 
sanctioned  the  procedure  of  his  servant  by  sending  the 
tire  from  heaven  that  had  been  sought.  It  were  folly, 
ill  such  a  case,  to  restrict  the  charge  of  blame  t<>  the 
conduct  of  the  inferior  agent  in  the  transaction.  Hut 

what  i m  could  then-  be  in  such  a  case  for  any  charge 

of  undue  severity  '.  After  the  m»^t  e\!  ra.'rdinary  visi 
tations  of  providence,  and  thivatenings  of  coining  judg 
ment  still  more  appalling,  the  Israclitish  court  continued 
wedded  as  much  as  ever  to  its  idolatry  prictically 
defving  Heaven  to  its  face.  Therefore,  instead  of  de 
nouncing  it  as  liarsh,  that  some  of  the  more  active  parti 
cipators  in  the  roval  measures  were  killed,  one  should 
rather  speak  of  the  forbearance  and  mercy  which  suffered 
any  <>f  them  to  escape;  for  by  the  constitution  under 
which  they  lived,  all  had  become  liable  to  utter  exci 
sion.  It  is  true,  that  our  Lord  condemned  two  of  his 
disci] iles  for  seeking  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  on  a 
village  of  the  Samaritans,  after  the  manner  of  Elias, 
I,u.  i\. ;,.-,.  Uiit  the  circumstances  wen-  by  no  means 
parallel.  Jesus  had  not  manifested  himself  to  the  Sa 
maritans  as  Jehovah  hail  done  through  Elijah  to  the 
Israelites;  nor  was  his  life  exposed  at  all  to  such  peril 
by  the  conduct  of  the  Samaritans,  as  that  which  hung 
around  Elijah  at  the  time  of  his  evoking  tire  from 
heaven.  1  Jesides,  the  old  things  were  now  passing  away; 
and  the  executions  of  corporeal  evil  and  temporal  judg 
ment,  which  guarded  the  ancient  economy,  would  have 
been  entirely  out  of  place,  if  brought  into  connection 
with  a  state  of  things  essentially  different. 

It  comes  plainly  enough  out  in  some  of  the  notices 
relating  to  the  immediately  preceding  transactions,  and 
also  in  other  incidental  notices  of  the  same  period, 
that  considerable  progress  had  l)ecn  made  to  the  better 
in  Israel  since  the  destruction  of  the  false  prophets  at 
I'armol,  and  that  the  true  prophetical  agency  had 
become  both  freer  in  its  scope,  and  more  active  in  its 
movements.  Elijah  himself  was  allowed  without  mo 
lestation  to  meet  Ahab  on  the  vineyard  of  Naboth, 
and  proclaim  the  Lord's  message.  Even  in  his  trans 
actions  with  Ahaziah.  it  was  rather  the  nature  of  the 
word  spoken,  than  the  fact  of  his  going  at  large  and 
engaging  in  prophetical  work,  which  provoked  the 


wrath  of  the  king.  Then,  in  Ahab's  first  Syrian  war 
we  read  of  one  of  the  sons  of  the  prophets  meeting 
him,  and  freely  administering  to  him  a  rebuke.  iKi.  xx. 
3.">,  seq.  Also  in  the  second  Syrian  war,  in  which  Ahab 
lost  his  life,  the  prophet  Micaiah  appeared  openly  before 
Ahab,  and  delivered  his  mind  upon  the  subject  -  with 
the  king's  displeasure,  no  doubt,  yet  as  one  who  was 
ill  the  habit  of  declaring  boldly  the  Lord's  counsel. 
Such  things  indicated  a  mighty  advance  since  the  time 
that  Elijah  complained  of  all  the  Lord's  prophets  but 
himself  having  been  slain,  ami  of  his  having  had  to  flee 
for  his  own  life.  It  is  evident,  that  during  the  interval 
there  had  been  great  prophetical  activity  on  the  part  of 
Elijah  and  his  fellow-labourer  Elisha;  and  that  their 
ip.net,  peaceful  ministrations,  imaged  in  the  still  small 
voice  at  Horeb,  had  accomplished  far  more  than  the 
giant  energy  and  convulsive  action  that  preceded  it. 
Hence  also  in  the  next  and  closing  scene  of  Elijah's 
historv,  that  of  his  translation  to  glory,  wo  find  sons  of 
the  prophets  in  considerable  numbers  (fifty  men  <>j 
xtr<  ii'ltlt  among  them  are  expressly  mentioned),  moving 
around  tin-  set-lie  :  and  of  tln-se,  some  appear  to  have 
had  their  settled  abode  even  in  P.ethcl.  one  of  the  chief 
seats  of  idolatry,  2Ki.  ii.  :i,  Hi.  The  schools  of  the  pro- 
ph'-ts  had  now  a-ain  manifestly  been  revived,  and, 
with  divisions  of  their  members  located  in  diverse 
] 'laces,  they  were  kept  in  regular  organization  and 
etfieient  working  bv  the  great  prophet,  whom  they  all 
acknowledged  as  their  earthly  head. 

IJut  at  len-lh  the  time  set  by  <  '«»\  came  for  removing 
this  head  to  a  higher  sphere.  The  purpose  had  been 
communicated  to  himself,  and  the  mode  also,  in  so  far 
as  it  was  to  be  bv  a  whirlwind,  that  lie  should  be  carried 
up  from  the  earth.  It  had  been  ivvealed  at  the  wimc 
time  to  Elisha;  so  that  he  would  mi  no  aeeount  leave 
his  master  tin  nigh  the  latter  n  peat  dly  sou-lit  to  be 
left  alone,  that  his  departure  mi-lit  take  plaee  in  the 
privacy  which  wa-  nio.-t  eon -•t-nial  to  h:>  oun  feelings. 
The  two  started  from  Gilgal,  then  they  went  to  Uethel, 
from  this  they  came  back  to  Jericho;  and  as  Elijah 
said  the  Lord  had  sent  him  to  these  places,  the  pro 
bability  is.  that  he  wished  to  give  some  parting  counsel 
to  the  prophetical  institutions  ther-.  Leaving  Jericho 
they  came  to  the  Jordan  and.  as  if  the  spirit  of  a  higher 
sphere  had  already  can-lit  hold  of  Elijah,  lie  took  his 
mantle  and  .-mote  the  waters,  so  that  they  parted 
asunder,  and  made  a  pa-a-e  for  the  two  to  pass  over. 
When  on  the  further  side  he  asked  Elisha  if  tin-re  was 
anything  he  could  do  for  him  before  he  was  taken 
away  from  him;  on  which  Elisha  said,  "  Let  a  double 
portion.  1  pray  thee,  of  thy  spirit  be  on  me"  literally, 
let  there  be  a  mouthful  or  ration  of  two  (Q.y^  «g) 
with  thy  spirit  to  me.  The  expression  is  peculiar,  and 
is  the  same  that  is  used  in  Do.  xxi.  17,  i"  respect  to 
the  inheritance  of  the  first-born,  who,  simply  as  the 
first-born,  was  to  have  a  double  portion,  or  the  ration 
of  two  among  his  brethren.  It  was  this  which  Elisha 
sought — not,  as  many  commentators  have  supposed, 
and  as  Krunimacher  in  his  /.'///'"'<  :lls"  maintains,  a 
gift  of  the  spirit  of  prophecy  twice  as  large  as  Elijah 
himself  possessed.  This  carries  improbability  on  the 
very  face  of  it :  for  with  what  propriety  could  a  man 
be  asked  to  leave  as  an  inheritance  to  another  double 
of  what  he  himself  possessed!  Nor  did  Elisha  get  any 
such  superlative  endowment;  his  position  as  a  prophet 
was  altogether  of  a  dependent  and  secondary  nature 


KLI.JAH 


508 


K  I,  I.I  AH 


as  compared  with  Elijah's;  and  the  attempts  that  liavo 
been  made  to  invert  tlie  relation  of  the  one  to  the 
other,  proceed  upon  arbitrary  and  superficial  considera 
tions,  (rt'c.  EusH.O  Mot  less  arbitrary  is  the  view  of 
Ewald,  that  the  request  of  Klisha  must  IK:  understood 
as  indicating'  a  wish  for  two-thirds  onlv  of  Elijah's  spirit 
((.iuschichtu,  hi  p.oiir) — a  view  that  requires  no  refutation. 
The  proper  explanation  is,  that  Elisha  here  regarded 
Elijah  as  the  head  of  a  great  spiritual  household,  which 
included  himself  as  the  first-born  and  all  who  had  since 
been  added  to  the  fraternity  under  the  name  of  ''tin- 
sons  of  the  prophets;"  and  what  he  now  sought  was. 
that  he  might  be  constituted  Elijah's  heir  in  the  spiri 
tual  vineyard,  by  getting  the  first-born's  double  portion, 
and  therewith  authority  to  continue  the  work.  Elijah 
gave  answer  to  the  request,  by  saying  it  was  an  hard 
thing  he  had  sought;  meaning  that  as  circumstances  then 
stood — with  so  much  done  on  the  part  of  God  to  bring 
things  to  a  better  footing  in  Israel,  and  so  little  actually 
accomplished — it  was  more  than  could  justly  be  ex 
pected,  that  God  should  continue  the  gifts  of  grace 
for  prosecuting  the  work  in  the  manner  anticipated 
by  Elisha.  Nevertheless,  it  was  added,  if  Elisha  saw 
his  spiritual  father  at  the  moment  of  his  ascension,  it 
would  be  a  sign  that  his  request  should  be  granted. 
And  he  did  so;  for  while  they  thus  talked  together, 
there  appeared  a  chariot  of  fire,  and  horses  of  fire,  which 
parted  between  them,  and  carried  Elijah  in  a  whirlwind 
to  heaven.  Elisha  looked  on  with  saddening  astonish 
ment,  and  exclaimed,  ''  My  father,  my  father,  the 
chariot  of  Israel,  and  the  horsemen  thereof" — as  if  with 
Elijah's  departure  not  only  he  had  been  deprived  of  a 
venerated  parent,  but  Israel  also  had  lost  the  chief 
means  of  its  defence  and  glory.  The  prophet's  mantle, 
however,  had  fallen  while  he  ascended ;  and  with  this, 
the  symbol  of  the  continuation  of  his  office.  Elisha  re 
turned  to  Jordan,  and  smote  the  waters  as  Elijah  him 
self  had  previously  done.  These  immediately  parted 
asunder,  showing  that  Jehovah,  who  had  been  so  won 
derfully  with  Elijah,  was  now  in  like  manner  with 
Elisha,  and  giving  to  the  sons  of  the  prophets,  who 
stood  to  view  at  Jericho,  undoubted  evidence  of  the 
fact,  that  "  the  spirit  of  Elijah  rested  on  Elisha.'' 

Thus  gloriously  ended  the  career  of  trial  and  conflict 
pursued  by  Elijah.  Why  it  shxmld  have  had  such  a 
termination — why  he  alone  of  all  the  prophets  who 
spake  and  witnessed  for  the  truth  of  God  during  the 
continuance  of  the  old  covenant,  should  have  been 
taken  to  heaven  without  tasting  of  death,  must  remain 
for  us  in  a  great  degree  involved  in  mystery.  We  can 
without  difficulty  perceive  in  it  a  certain  assimilation 
to  the  exit  of  Moses — first  of  all,  in  the  locality,  the 
scene  of  both  being  in  some  part  of  the  mountainous 
region  over  against  Jericho;  and  then  in  the  extraordi 
nary  circumstances  connected  with  the  departure  of 
each;  for  though  Moses  actually  died,  yet  the  death 
took  place,  it  would  seem,  in  the  immediate  presence 
of  the  Lord,  and  by  a  higher  than  an  earthly  ministry 
was  his  body  committed  to  its  proper  resting-place 
(Dc.  xxxiv.  o,  r;  Jude'j);  it  was  a  death  which  most  nearly 
resembled  a  translation  to  glory.  That  it  was  some 
thing  more  in  Elijah's  case — that  he  should  have  passed 
into  heaven  by  an  actual  and  visible  translation,  must 
be  mainly  accounted  for  by  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  the  time,  viewed  in  connection  with  his  special 
agency  as  a  prophet.  His  work  had  been  one  of  mercy 
and  judgment — of  judgment,  indeed,  more  prominently 


than  mercy,  but  still  judgment  of  a  merely  provisional 
kind,  and  intended  ever  to  return  again  to  mercy. 
The  aim  and  object  of  his  striving  was  to  have  Israel 
raised  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  covenant- blessings,  and 
that  by  a  return  on  their  part  to  the  true  covenant- 
standing,  secured  for  them  in  the  constitution  brought 
in  by  Moses.  He  looked  no  higher  than  this;  it  formed 
no  part  of  his  mission  to  give  fresh  revelations  to  Israel 
of  God's  purposes  of  grace,  or  point  their  expectations 
to  another  covenant,  founded  on  better  promises;  his 
object  was  gained  if  his  countrymen  could  but  be 
brought  to  stand  on  the  foundation  laid  by  Moses,  and 
thereby  escape  the  doom  that  was  threatening  to  avenge 
their  apostasy.  In  this,  however,  as  he  comparatively 
failed — for  the  revival  effected  by  his  supernatural  and 
energetic  striving  was  partial  and  incomplete — there 
\\.-is  granted  at  the  close  the  sign  of  his  miraculous 
translation  in  a  whirlwind  and  chariot  of  fire — a  sign 
for  those  who  received  his  testimony  and  trod  in  his 
footsteps,  of  Heaven's  acceptance  of  his  work;  and  for 
those  who  had  rejected  the  counsel  of  (rod  against  them 
selves,  a  sign  of  that  coming  whirlwind  of  wrath  and 
fiery  indignation,  which  was  sure  one  day  to  vindicate 
the  insulted  truth  and  majesty  of  Heaven. 

It  is  also  from  Elijah's  peculiar  position  and  striving 
as  a  prophet,  that  we  are  to  explain  his  appearance, 
along  with  Moses,  on  the  mount  of  transfiguration,  to 
do  homage  to  the  Son  of  man.  This  did  not  arise,  as 
is  very  commonly  represented,  from  his  being  the  great 
est  of  the  prophets,  and  as  such,  appropriately  taken  to 
personate  the  whole  prophetical  order;  for  in  the  higher 
department  of  prophetical  agency,  especially  in  its  rela 
tion  to  the  appearance  and  kingdom  of  Christ,  he  was 
far  outshone  by  Isaiah  and  several  of  the  later  prophets. 
It  was  his  relation  to  Moses  rather  than  to  Christ,  which 
fitted  Elijah  for  taking  the  place  he  did  on  the  mount 
of  transfiguration.  The  peculiar  testimony  to  be  there 
given  to  Jesus  was  that  of  the  old  to  the  new — of  the 
old  as  then  ready  to  vanish  away,  in  order  that  the  new 
might  come  in  with  its  plenitude  of  grace  and  truth. 
And  the  proper  representatives  of  the  old  were  Moses, 
its  mediator,  and  Elijah,  its  strenuous  advocate  and 
reformer — the  giant  wrestler,  who  hazarded  his  life 
and  spent  his  noblest  endeavours  to  drive  back  its  cor- 
rupters,  and  preserve  for  posterity  its  heritage  of 
blessing.  When  these,  therefore,  appeared  to  do  hom 
age  to  Jesus,  and  then  retired  before  his  surpassing 
glory,  in  obedience  to  the  word,  "This  is  my  beloved 
Son,  hear  him."  it  virtually  proclaimed  that  all  was 
now  to  become  new,  and  that  even  the  best  and  great 
est  in  the  past  was  not  to  be  compared  with  what  was 
going  to  be  established  through  Jesus  for  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

In  another  connection,  but  still  with  reference  to  his 
peculiar  calling  and  work  as  the  prophet- reformer,  the 
name  of  Elijah  occurs  in  the  transactions  of  gospel  his 
tory.  It  had  been  foretold  by  Malachi  that  the  Lord 
would  send  Elijah  the  prophet  before  the  great  and 
dreadful  day  of  the  Lord,  that  he  might  turn  the  heart  of 
\  the  children  to  the  fathers,  and  the  heart  of  the  fathers  to 
|  the  children,  ch.  iv.  5;  that  is,  might  do  an  Elijah- work 
of  reformation — bring  back  degenerate  children  to  the 
state  of  their  pious  ancestors,  so  that  parent  and  son 
might  have,  as  it  were,  a  common  standing,  and  be  of 
one  mind  in  respect  to  the  service  of  God.  Partly  in 
interpretation  of  this  prophecy,  and  partly  to  indicate 
how  it  was  to  meet  with  its  fulfilment,  the  angel 


ELIJAH  •>' 

Gabrk-l.  in  announcing  the  birth  of  John  the  Baptist, 
.saiil,  '•  Many  of  the  children  of  Israel  shall  ho  turn  to 
the  Lor.l  their  God;  and  he  shall  go  before  him  in  the 
spirit  and  power  of  Elias,  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the 
fathers  to  the  children,  and  the  disobedient  t.>  the  wis 
dom  of  the  just;  to  make  ready  a  people  prepared  for 
the  Lord."  Lu.  i.  11,  17.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Jews  generally  of  our  Lord's  time  expected  a  re-appear 
ance  of  the  literal  Elijah:  in  that  respect  falling  much 
into  the  same  error  as  they  did  in  the  carnal  views 
they  formed  of  the  person  and  kingdom  of  .Messiah. 
He  who  came  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias  was  the 
Elias  for  gospel  times,  precisely  as  he  who  came  to  save  ! 
and  reign  over  God's  heritage  was  the  1  >avid  promised  i 
to  be  raised  up.  and  to  bring  in  a  better  era  for  the  , 
Israel  of  (rod,  K/e.  xxxiv.  :.'4.  Hence  our  Lord,  in  the  j 
later  stages  of  his  ministry,  tir.-t  told  his  disciples  that, 
if  they  would  receive  it.  John  was  "the  Elias  which 
was  for  to  come."  and  then  that  in  him  "  Elias  had 
indeed  come,  though  they  knew  him  not.  and  did  t  . 
him  whatsoever  they  listed."  M.a.  xi.  11;  xvii  \-2  Elijah. 
in  slmrt.  from  tlie  work  he  did.  and  the  place  he  occu 
pied  in  Isra'-litish  history,  became,  like  Abraham. 
Israel,  or  David,  a  representative  man,  and  his  name 
was  used,  like  theirs,  in  the  ideal  language  of  pro 
phecy,  to  indieat.-  the  recurrence  of  something  similar 
in  kind,  though  differing  in  form,  from  what  had  mani 
fested  itself  in  him. 

It  is  probably  in  the  same  way  that  an  explanation 
is  to  be   found    of    a   somewhat    peeuliar    notice    ^i\eii 
respecting  a  letter  or  writing  of    Elijah  in  '_'  Ch.,  which 
has     occasioned     much     pi  rplexitv    to    commentator-. 
Speaking  of  the  times  of  Jehoram,  the  unworthy  son  of 
Jehoshaphat.  kini:  of  Judah,  the  sacred  historian  says 
-"  And  there  came  a  writing  to  him  from  Elijah  the 
prophet,  savin--,  Thus  saitli  the  Lord  God  of  David  thy 
father,   Because  thon   hast   not   walked    in  the    ways  of 
Jehoshaphat  thy  father,  nor  in  the   ways  of   Asi,  kin-_r 
of  Judah,  but  hast  walked  in   the   way  of  the   kings  of 
Israel,   and   hast   madi    Judah   and   tlie   inhabitants   of 
Jerusalem  to  u'o  a  whoring,  like  to  the  whoredoms  of 
the  house  of   Ahab,  and  also  hast  slain  thy  brethren  of 
thy    father's    house,    which    were    better    than    thyself; 
behold,  with  a  great   plagu-    will    the    Lord    smit"  thy 
people,  and    thv  children,  and    thy    wives,  and    all    thy 
e-oods:    and  thou  shalt  have  great  sickness  by  disease  of 
thv  bowels,  until  thy  bowels  fall  by  reason  of  the  sick 
ness  day  by  dav."  ch.  xxi   lu'-i:>      There  can   be  no  doubt 
that    Elijah's   translation   took    place   in    the   reign   of 
Jehoshaphat,  and  a  considerable  time   before  Jehoram 
came  to  the   possession  of  the   throne;  hence  various 
suppositions  have  been  made  to  account  for  this  writing. 
Josephus  appears  to  have  regarded  it  as  a  letter  sent 
from  the  glorified  Elijah  (Ant.  ix.;>,  -2),  and  <  Jrotius  took 
the  same  view  of  it.      It  has  been  more  commonly  sup 
posed  that  it  was  either  written  by  anticipation  before 
Elijah  left  the  world,  or  that,  by  some  verbal  mistake, 
Elijah's  name  has  been  substituted  for  Elisha's.     Both 
suppositions  are  arbitrary,  and  have  no  proper  founda 
tion  to  rest  upon.      It  is  more  probable  that,  as  Elijah 
had  been  known  as  the  head  of  that  kind  of  prophetical 
agency  from  which  words  or  writings  of  such  a  descrip 
tion  proceeded;  that  as  the  spirit  of  Elijah  rested  upon 
Elisha  to  carry  forward  what  still  remained  of  the  work 
to  be  done;  and  that  as  certain  things  expressly  com 
mitted  to  Elijah,  in  particular  the  anointing  of  Hazael 
over  Syria  and  Jehu  over  Israel,    had    to   be  left  to 


ELISABETH 

Eiisha;  so  this  writing,  which  breathed  so  peculiarly 
the  spirit  and  manner  of  Elijah,  though  not  actually 
indited  by  him,  is  associated  with  his  name.  It  pro 
ceeded  from  tlie  Elijah- school  of  prophecy,  of  which  he 
still  was  regarded  as  tlie  ideal  head  ^ee  licng^tenberg's 
Cliristol"gy,  at  Mai.  iv.  ;,). 

ELIM  [xti-miy  ti-t<.<].  the  name  of  the  second  station 
of  the  Israelites  after  crossing  the  Red  Sea,  K\.  xv.  -11. 
it  was  distinguished  for  its  copious  fountains  and  luxu 
riant  trees,  having  had  twelve  springs  of  water  and 
seventy  palms  growing  at  their  side.  Authorities  still 
differ  as  to  tlie  precise  spot  where  this  delightful  en 
campment  is  to  be  sought.  It  must  have  been,  says 
Stanley,  in  one  of  three  wadvs,  "  GhuiTmdel,  I'seit,  or 
Taiyibeh"  (p.  :>:».  Both  he  and  Robinson  are  inclined 
to  give  the  preference  to  the  first  of  the  three,  and 
Stanley  thinks  that  both  possibly  may  have  been  in 
cluded,  as  they  are  much  of  the  same  character,  and  lie 
comparatively  near  to  one  another.  The  water  seemed 
less  plentiful  than  of  old;  but  here  are  first  "the  wild 
palms  successors  of  the  'threescore  and  ten.'  Not 
like  those  of  Kgypt  or  of  pictures  but  either  dwarf  -that 
is.  trunklc.-s  -or  else  with  savage  hairy  trunks  and 
branches,  all  dishevelled,  Th-n  there  are  tin-  feathery 
tamarisks  here  a-siiming  gnarled  boughs  and  hoary 
heads,  worthy  of  their  venerable  situation,  on  whose 
leaves  is  found  what  the  Arab-;  call  manna.  Thirdly, 
there  is  the  wild  acacia,  tlie  same  as  we  had  often  seen 
in  Egvpt.  but  this  also  tangled  |.y  its  desert  growth 
into  a  thicket  "  (Si  u,K-y,  p.  r,M. 

ELIMELECH  [>//., .«  (iod  ',.<  kn,</},  a  BctlnVhemitc. 
tiie  husband  of  Naomi,  by  whom  lie  had  two  sons, 
.Mahlou  and  (,'hilion.  In  a  season  of  scarcity,  which 
appears  to  have  happened  some  time  in  the  latter  part 
.if  the  period  of  the  judges,  the  whole  family  passed 
over  into  the  land  of  Moab.  \\here  both  the  father  ami 
the  two  sons  died.  Nothing  further  is  told  of  them:  but 
the  future  fortunes  of  Naomi,  and  her  daughter-in-law 
Kuth.  are  interestingly  detailed  in  the  book  of  Ruth. 

ELIOE'NAI  [tmmrd*  Jtlmrnh  my  cyt»,  i.e.  are 
turii'd.]  1.  The  head  of  a  family  in  Benjamin,  1  rh. 
vii  -  2.  The  head  of  a  family  in  Simeon,  1  Cl..  iv.  :;ii. 
3.  A  Korhit"  L.  vile,  one  of  the  door-keepers  in  the 
house  of  (iod.  l  <:h  xxvi  :>.  4.  A  priest  of  the  sons  of 
I'ashur,  a  contemporary  of  E/.ra,  and  one  of  those  who 
married  strange  wives,  K/r.  >.  22.  5.  An  Israelite  of  the 
son-;  of  /attu,  who  had  also  married  a  strange  woman, 
Kzr  x.  -;  Ne  vii  13 

ELIPH'ALET,  or  ELll'H'ELET  \(i,,,l  f,,r  mif*!;/]. 
1.  A  son  of  David,  the  last  born  to  him  in  Jerusalem, 
•_•  Si.  v  n;.  2.  One  of  David's  thirty  heroes,  L'  Ka.  xxiii.  :;i. 
3.  A  r.eiijamite,  and  two  companions  of  Ezra,  l  ch.  viii. 
:;:i;  K/r.  viii  13,  x.  33. 

EL'IPHAZ  [<'!.,<!  /or  *t>;  ,/.'///>].  1.  <  >ne  of  the  sons 
..f  Esau,  the  father  of  Teman,  Ce.  xxxvi.  m.  2.  Une  of 
the  three  friends  of  Job;  the  chief,  indeed,  of  the  three. 
He  is  simply  described  as  "  Eliphaz  the  Temanite,'' 
j.,1,  ii  n,  and  he  must  consequently  be  regarded  as  a 
representative  of  the  family  descended  from  the  preced 
ing  Eliphaz.  The  most  prominent  part  of  the  discussions 
which  took  place  between  Job  and  his  friends  is  ascribed 
to  Eliphaz,  but  to  obtain  a  proper  view  of  its  tenor  the 
whole  must  be  taken  in  connection.  (See  JoiO 

ELIPH'ELET.     See  EUI-HAI.KT. 

ELIS'ABETH  [Hm  swears  %  <;<*l].  The  Greek- 
form  of  Elisheba,  Ex.  vi .23,  but  in  the  English  Bible 
occurs  only  as  the  name  of  the  wife  of  Zacharias  and 


EIJSHA 


510 


ELISHA 


mother  i if  John  the  Baptist.  She  was,  like  her  hus 
band,  of  the  family  of  Aaron.  The  only  description 
given  of  her  character  is  in  connection  -with  that 


.f  her 


husband;  both  are  said  to  have  been  "righteous  before 
(!od,  walking  in  all  the  commandments  and  ordinances 
of  the  Lord  blameless,"  Lu.  i.  r>.  Her  history  is  insepar 
ably  intwined  with  that  of  her  husband.  (>vf  ZACHAHIAS.) 
ELI'SHA  [trod  for  sal i-atioti'],  in  tint  Ne \v  Testament, 
KLISKI:S,  son  of  Shaphat,  and  a  native  of  Abel-Meliolah, 
which  lay  near  the  Jordan,  and  belonged  to  the  tribe  of 


Issachar,  1  Ki.  xix.  Hi;  Ju. 


When  at  Iloreb  Elijah 


was  expressly  directed  to  anoint  this  man  prophet  in 
his  room.  The  direction  implied  designation  to  an 
office,  for  such  only  as  were  set  apart  to  a  sacred  oflice 
were  anointed,  and  it  was  an  act  more  peculiarly 
appropriated  to  kings  and  priests.  The  act  itself  was 
symbolical  of  the  Spirit's  grace,  as  qualifying  for  the 
discharge  of  the  office;  and  since  prophecy  in  the  true 


During  the  continuance  of  the  period  of  their  joint 
action,  Elisha  occupied  but  "n  subordinate  place;  he 
"ministered  to  Elijah;"  and  when  Elijah  was  going  to 
be  taken  up,  it  was  represented  by  the  sons  of  the  pro 
phets  as  the  "taking  away  of  his  master  from  his 
head,"  -2  Ki.  ii.:i  —literally, /row  onr  his  fund.  He  had 
hitherto  stood,  as  it  were,  at  Elisha's  head,  counselling, 
directing,  ordering,  as  the  Spirit  prompted  him;  but 
now  he  was  to  be  lifted  up  over  it — removed  to  a  higher 
sphere.  The  relation,  as  of  greater  and  less,  father 
and  son,  continued  to  hold  in  respect  to  the  propheti 
cal  agency  of  each  after  the  translation  of  Elijah;  and 
the  request  of  Elisha  to  obtain  a  double  portion  of  his 
master's  spirit,  which  was  granted,  referred,  as  stated 
in  a  previous  article  (.see  Eu.J.uO,  to  the  higher  position 
henceforth  to  be  occupied  by  Elisha,  as  compared,  not 
with  what  Elijah  had  been,  but  with  what  any  in  the 
schools  of  the  prophets  were  to  be;  Elisha,  as  the  first 
born,  with  a  doul  ile  share  in  the  spiritual  inheritance, 
was  to  stand  in  the  room  of  Elijah  and  be  the  head 
over  the  brethren. 

It  may,  however,  be  admitted,  as  no  way  inconsis 
tent  with  this  relative  inferiority,  that  there  was  a  cer 
tain  advance  intended  by  the  ministry  of  Elisha;  the 
work  begun  by  Elijah  was  not  only  to  lie  continued, 
but  also  carried  forward.  The  name  of  the  successor 
might  be  said  to  indicate  this;  for  in  the  name  of  both 
prophets  the  distinctive  striving  of  each  had  its  expres 
sion.  To  establish  the  truth  that  Jehovah  alone  was 
the  KI  or  Cod  whom  the  Israelites  ought  to  worship, 
was  the  great  object  of  Elijah's  activity,  and  from  this, 
as  from  a  position  already  won,  it  was  Elisha's  more 
especial  calling  to  manifest  that,  if  but  rightly  acknow 
ledged  as  the  El,  Jehovah  should  also  prove  the  salva 
tion  of  his  people.  Hence,  while  the  agency  of  the 
latter  prophet  was  altogether  of  a  less  elevated,  more 
quiet,  and  subdued  description  than  that  of  Elijah's, 
it  cvrtainly  partook  more  of  beneficent  working,  and 
was  more  palpably  distinguished  by  the  bestowal  of 
blessing.  With  this  indeed  it  commenced;  for  imme 
diately  after  he  had  assumed  the  part  of  Elijah's  suc 
cessor,  and  in  the  parting  asunder  of  the  waters  of  the 
Jordan,  while  he  smote  them  with  Elijah's  mantle,  had 
received  the  seal  of  Heaven  on  his  commission — the 
people  of  Jericho  sought  and  obtained  thn  nigh  him  an 
important  boon.  Having  tarried  there  for  a  little,  they 
came  and  said  to  him,  ' '  Behold,  I  pray  thee,  the  situa 
tion  of  the  city  is  pleasant,  but  the  water  is  naught, 
and  the  ground  barren."  This  can  scarcely  be  under 
action  too  of  Elisha  in  his  new  calling  destroys  its  fitness  stood  to  refer  to  the  only,  or  even  to  the  chief,  source  of 
for  such  a  purpose,  as  one  pair  out  of  the  twelve  he  '.  the  water  that  supplied  the  inhabitants  of  Jericho,  for 
presently  killed  and  made  a  feast  with  them— a  parting  j  it  had  been  from  early  times  a  nourishing  city;  ami 


whether  they  received  any  outward  consecration  or  not. 
(See  ANOIXTIXU.)  In  the  case  even  of  Elisha,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  anointing  involved  an  appli 
cation  of  oil,  for  in  the  narrative  of  the  transaction  we 
read  only  of  Elijah  throwing  his  mantle  over  him, 
which  was  plainly  meant  on  the  one  side,  and  under 
stood  011  the  other,  to  be  a  call  to  the  prophetical  office. 
It  may,  however,  have  been  succeeded  by  a  special  act 
of  consecration,  both  here  and  in  the  case  of  such  as 
had  a  distinct  sphere  of  prophetical  agency  to  fill,  but 
we  want  materials  for  determining  how  far,  or  with 
what  particular  forms  of  the  prophetical  calling,  actual 
anointing  was  connected. 

That  Elisha  was  in  circumstances  of  external  com 
fort  is  evident  from  his  being  found  by  Elijah  ploughing 
with  twelve  yoke  of  oxen,  himself  personally  engaged 
with  the  twelfth,  i  Ki.  xix.  i:».  Hengstenberg  (ivnt.  i.  p. 
I44;£ng.  trans,  p.  is  l)  sees  in  the  twelve  a  symbolical 
reference  to  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  and  in  the  cir 
cumstance  an  indication  that  Elisha  was  to  be  a  pro 
phet,  not  for  the  ten  tribes  alone,  but  for  the  whole 
covenant-people.  If  the  number  twelve  had  been 
employed  by  him  in  an  action  formally  connected  with 
his  entrance  on  the  prophetical  office,  or  with  the  public 
discharge  of  its  duties,  we  could  have  seen  the  force  of 
this  application  of  the  historical  notice;  but  occurring, 
as  it  does,  in  connection  with  Elisha's  earlier  and  com 
mon  occupations,  it  appears  to  seek  for  a  symbolism 
where  none  could  naturally  be  thought  of.  The  first 


entertainment  on  taking  leave  of  his  former  associates 
and  quitting  his  old  employment,  that  he  might  hence- 


having  been  designated  the  city  of  palm-trees  from  the 
abundance  of  these  in  the  neighbourhood,  there  must 


forth  give  himself  to  the  ministry  of  a  higher  service.        have  been  fertility,  as  well  as  barrenness,  in  the  adjoin- 
How  long  Elisha  companied  with  Elijah,  and  assisted     ing  territory.     But  at  the  time  in  question  the  defect 
him  in  the  revival  of  the  schools  of  the  prophets,  and     as  to  water,  and  the  evil  effects  flowing  from  it,  must 


the  other  forms  of  prophetical  agency  which  occupied 
the  latter  years  of  Elijah's  career,  is  not  absolutely 
certain,  but  according  to  the  common  reckoning  it  fills 
a  space  of  ten  or  twelve  years.  Eroni  the  public  events 
that  are  known  to  have  taken  place  in  the  interval  it 
could  not  well  have  been  less.  Even  the  state  of  com 
parative  fulness  and  efficiency  to  which  the  prophetical 
associations  had  been  raised,  and  their  distribution 
throughout  the  land,  must  have  required  the  active 
co-operation  of  the  two  men  for  a  variety  of  years. 


have  been  conspicuous,  otherwise  neither  would  the 
people  have  asked,  nor  would  Elisha  have  undertaken 
to  work,  a  miraculous  change  to  the  better.  The  mode 
of  his  doing  this  by  salt  may  seem  strange,  since  the 
intermixture  of  saline  matter  in  springs  spoils  instead 
of  improving  the  quality  of  the  water,  but  it  is  to  be 
explained  by  the  symbolical  use  of  salt  in  things  spiri 
tual  and  divine.  Being  in  respect  to  substances  of  a 
fleshly  kind  the  great  preservative  of  nature,  it  became 
an  emblem  of  what  is  pure  and  incorruptible— of  life 


ELISHA 


511 


ELISHA 


itself  in  a  state  of  incorruption,  or  of  the  means  which 
minister  to  its  support  and  comfort.  (-See  SALT.)  Its 
application  therefore,  on  the  present  occasion,  to  the 
waters  of  an  unsavoury  spring,  simply  denoted  that  the 
healing  power  of  the  Lord  was  applied  to  them,  so  as  to 
render  them  capable  of  ministering  to  the  refreshment 
and  healthfulness  of  life.  How  actually  the  change 
was  effected  we  cannot  tell;  but  one  can  easily  conceive 
that,  as  the  unwholesome  ingredient  must  have  been 
contracted  by  the  waters  passing  through  some  beds 
of  rock  or  earth  that  furnished  it,  so,  by  turning  the 
subterraneous  currents  in  another  direction,  they  may 
have  either  avoided  the  pollution  or  again  become 
purged  from  it.  This  is  at  least  one  perfectly  conceiv 
able  mode  of  accomplishing  a  permanent  change,  and 
one  which,  while  requiring  a  miraculous  interposition 
at  first,  might  afterwards  proceed  in  harmony  with  the 
ordinary  powers  and  properties  of  nature. 

The  next  recorded  act  of  Elisha  was  uf  a  different 
kind,  and  was  doubtless  intended  to  show  that,  what 
ever  diversity  of  gifts  or  operations  mi<_rht  belong  to 
him  as  compared  with  his  great  predecessor,  he  also 
stood  officially  connected  with  the  authority  and  the 
honour  of  Heaven.  It  took  place  when  on  a  visit  to 
Bethel,  which  had  been,  since  Jeroboam's  time,  one  of 
the  great  seats  of  corruption,  but  which  had  latterlv 
enjoyed  the  privilege  of  having  one  of  the  schools  of  the 
prophets  established  within  its  gates.  On  approaching 
it  certain  ''little  children,''  as  they  are  called  in  the 
English  version,  though  it  should  rather  be  "  yonnu' 
lads,"  mocked  Elisha  and  called  him  b\-  the  contemp 
tuous  epithet  of  tid/il  h«i<l.  To  be  actually  bald  on  the 
back  part  of  the  head  was  reckoned  a  blemish  anioii^ 
the  Israelites  as  well  as  among  the  Romans,  and  hence 
the  priests  were  forbidden  to  shave  themselves  bald. 
IM.  xxi.  •>;  Is.  iii.  17,  'Jl.  It  must  be  understood  that  tile 
epithet,  whether  literally  applicable  to  Elisha  <>r  not, 
was  used  in  a  slighting  manner  toward  him,  not  simply 
as  a  man,  but  as  ;i  prophet  of  the  Lord,  and  used  by 
persons  who,  though  younir,  were  still  sufficiently  grown 
to  be  the  proper  subjects  of  moral  treatment;  for  no 
otherwise  could  he  have  turned  round  as  he  did  and 
cursed  them  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  In  treating  him 
with  contempt  they  contemned  the  Lord,  and  at  the 
same  time  ridiculed  the  attempts  at  reformation  which 
lie  and  the  sons  of  the  prophets  had  been  making  at 
Bethel.  Therefore  in  the  Lord's  name  he  pronounced 
on  them  an  anathema,  which  so  far  took  present  effect 
that  they  were  attacked  by  two  she-bears  out  of  the 
wood,  which  tare  forty-two  of  them.  It  is  not  said 
that  they  were  actually  killed.  This  fate  may  indeed 
have  befallen  some  of  the  party,  but  is  by  110  means 
probable  in  regard  to  the  greater  number. 

A  more  public  occasion  soon  called  for  the  exercise 
of  Elisha' s  prophetical  gifts.  Moab  had  rebelled  against 
Israel  after  the  death  of  Ahab,  and  Ahaziah,  the  son 
and  immediate  successor  of  Ahab,  had,  it  would  seem, 
been  able  to  do  nothing  during  his  brief  reign  to  regain 
the  lost  dominion.  But  Jehoram,  the  next  son,  who 
presently  succeeded  to  the  throne,  set  about  prepara 
tions  for  war;  and  the  more  effectually  to  secure  his 
purpose,  he  entered  into  an  offensive  alliance  with 
Jehoshaphat  the  king  of  Judah,  and  also  with  the 
reigning  king  of  Edom.  Jehoshaphat  was  no  doubt 
tempted  to  join  in  the  alliance,  from  his  territories  hav 
ing  been  attacked  by  the  king  of  Moab,  who  had  stirred 
up  (though  with  loss  only  to  himself  and  his  allies)  a 


!  somewhat  formidable  conspiracy  against  him,  '<  cu.  .\x. 
The  army  of  the  three  kings,  in  executing  their  pro 
jected  campaign  against  Moab,  came  into  a  valley 
where  they  expected  to  find  water;  but  experiencing 
disappointment,  the  fear  became  prevalent  that  the 
whole  should  fall  a  helpless  prey  into  the  hands  of  the 
adversary.  In  this  extremity  Jehoshaphat  bewail  to 
ask  if  there  was  no  prophet  of  Jehovah  to  be  had,  at 
whom  the}-  might  make  inquiry.  He  was  informed 
that  Elisha  was  there;  and  on  going  down  to  him  witli 
Jehoram  the  king  of  Israel,  the  prophet  immediately 
broke  out  in  an  expostulation  with  the  latter,  and  said, 
"  What  have  1  to  do  with  thee  /  (iet  thee  to  the  pro 
phets  of  thy  father  and  of  thy  mother."  Jehoshaphat 
however  interposed,  and  referred  the  present  difficulties 
to  the  counsel  of  Jehovah,  as  if  he  had  brought  together 
the  confederate  forces  for  the  purpose  only  of  consign 
ing  them  to  destruction.  '•  Nay,"  he  said,  don't  sjnjak 
of  merely  repairing  to  those  false  prophets,  '•  for  Jeho 
vah  hath  called  these  three  kin^s  together  to  deliver 
them  into  the  hand  of  Moab."  (hi  this  Klisha  repressed 
his  indignation,  and  consented,  for  the  sake  of  Jehosha 
phat,  but  on  this  account  alone,  to  inquire  of  the  Lord. 
1'ivparatory  to  his  doing  so,  he  asked  for  a  minstrel, 
that  his  disturbed  and  ruffled  spirit  might  be  soothed, 
and  might  rise  into  that  equable  and  placid  frame, 
without  which  it  was  not  in  a  fit  state  for  receiving  the 
more  special  communications  from  above.  He  ere  long 
reached  the  proper  state,  and  obtained  from  the  Lord  a 
message,  calling  upon  them  to  fill  the  valley  with 
trenches,  to  hold  the  water  which  the  Lord  was  going 
to  provide  for  them,  and  also  assuring  them  that  the 
Lord  would  deliver  the  Moabites  into  their  hand.  The 
event  proved  as  the  prophet  had  announced,  for  in  the 
course  of  the  following  night  the  trenches  were  filled 
with  water,  though  no  rain  had  fallen  in  the  immediate 

I  neighbourhood;  and  the  Moabites,  seeing  from  a  dis 
tance  the  fiery  glitter  of  the  sun  on  the  water,  and 
mistaking  it  for  blood,  which  they  supposed  the  con 
federate  forces  had  shed  in  mutual  slaughter,  hastened 
forward  to  the  prey,  and  thereby  exposed  themselves 
to  an  attack  which  ended  in  their  complete  discom 
fiture. 

This   gracious    interposition    in   a  time    of    peculiar 

I  urgency  and  peril  was  fitted  to  leave  a  favourable  im- 

1  pression  upon  the  mind  of  Jehoram;  and  so  it  appears  to 
have  done.  He^stood  in  a  very  different  relation  to 
Elisha  from  that  which  his  father  had  maintained  to 
ward  Elijah;  and  though  he  did  not  cease  to  follow 
the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  and  appears  in  many  respects  to 
have  profited  little  by  the  judgments  that  had  been 
executed  upon  transgression  in  Israel,  vet  he  kept  aloof 

j  from  the  more  offensive  rites  of  Baal,  and  the  grosser 
corruptions  practised  by  his  parents.  After  the  deli 
verance  on  the  plains  of  Moab,  Elisha  seems  commonly 
to  have  been  treated  by  him  with  marked  respect,  as 
appears  from  the  other  incidental  notices  given  of  the 
miracles  wrought  by  his  hand.  These  notices  are  not 
arranged  in  perfect  chronological  order;  for  they  seem 
to  proceed  on  the  principle  of  relating  first  the  acts 
done  in  behalf  of  individuals,  and  then  those  which  con 
cerned  the  king  and  people  of  Israel.  If  one  admits 
the  miraculous  element  in  the  acts  referred  to,  as  called 
for  by  the  adverse  circumstances  of  the  time,  needed 
to  revive  the  languishing  faith  of  the  people,  and  if 
possible  arrest  the  work  of  judgment,  none  of  them 
will  occasion  any  peculiar  difficulty,  and,  as  a  whole, 


EL  [SKA 


ELISHA 


they  afford  a  remarkable  exhibition  of  the  forbearance 
ami  merciful  consideration  of  (!o<l. 

The  first  of  the  instances  recorded  has  respect  to  a 
poor  woman,  a  widow  of  one  of  the  sons  of  the  pro 
phets,  who  came  crying  to  Klisba  for  help,  because  she 
had  fallen  into  debt,  and  the  creditor  was  ready  to 
take  her  two  sons  for  bondmen  in  payment.  The  law 
authorized  this,  limiting  however  the  period  of  service 
to  the  year  of  jubilee,  LU.  x.\v.  :w ;  but  in  her  circum 
stances  the  enforcement  of  the  law  even  for  a  limited 
period  could  not  but  be  felt  as  a  grievous  calamity. 
To  Elisha  also  it  appeared  a  ca«e  warranting  the  divine 
interposition  ;  and  in  the  mode  of  administering  relief  iie 
took  what  she  actually  had  as  the  ground  and  occasion 
of  providing  what  besides  she  required  to  obtain.  Finding 
she  still  had  a  pot  of  oil,  lie  told  her  to  go  and  borrow 
vessels  from  her  neighbours  and  pour  out  as  much  as 
would  How.  She  did  so,  and  found  that  the  oil  con 
tinued  to  stream  forth  till  every  vessel  was  filled.  Herself 
astonished  at  the  result,  she  went  and  told  the  prophet; 
and  was  directed  by  him  to  sell  what  was  needed  to 
discharge  the  debt  and  apply  the  remainder  to  her 
own  use. 

The  more  direct  object  of  the  next  wonder  wrought 
by  Elisha  was  also  a  woman,  but  one  in  affluent,  not 
in  depressed  circumstances.  She  belonged  to  the  pious 
remnant  that  still  survived  in  different  parts  of  the 
land  of  Israel,  dwelling  at  Sliunem  in  the  tribe  of 
Issachar.  This  place  lay  on  the  route  from  Gil  gal  to 
Carmel,  which  was  frequently  travelled  by  Elisha;  and 
the  pious  Shuiiammite,  not  only  on  a  certain  occasion 
pressed  him  to  go  in  and  take  some  refreshment,  but 
obtained  the  consent  of  her  husband  to  have  a  little 
chamber  added  to  one  of  the  sides  of  the  house,  for  the 
purpose  of  affording  a  convenient  lodging- room  for 
Elisha  as  often  as  he  might  pass  that  way.  He  gladly 
availed  himself,  it  would  seem,  of  the  pleasant  wel 
come  it  offered,  as  he  could  not  but  be  refreshed  in 
spirit  with  the  indications  which  there  from  time  to 
time  met  him  of  an  humble  and  loving  faith.  He 
wished,  therefore,  to  give  some  mark  of  his  grateful 
feeling  to  the  woman;  and,  finding  that  she  sought 
for  herself  and  her  husband  no  boon  of  a  worldly  kind, 
that  she  was  content  with  her  place  and  condition  in 
life,  but  being  reminded  by  Gehazi  that  she  had  no 
child,  he  made  promise  to  her  that  she  should  next 
year  embrace  a  son.  The  promise  was  fulfilled:  at  the 
proper  time  she  became  the  mother  of  a  son.  And  the 
child  grew,  and  doubtless  gathered  around  him  many 
fond  hopes  and  tender  affections — till  one  day,  when 
with  his  father  on  the  harvest-field  he  was  visited  by  a 
stroke  of  the  sun,  or  some  similar  affection,  and  began 
to  cry  in  agony,  "My  head,  my  head;"  he  was  carried 
home  and  in  a  few  hours  expired  in  his  mother's  arms. 
If  the  child  had  come  to  this  Shunammite  woman  in  an 
ordinary  manner,  she  would  probably  have  felt  that 
she  had  no  reason  to  look  for  any  singular  interposi 
tion,  and  that,  however  sore  the  visitation,  she  must 
bow  her  heart,  like  other  bereaved  mothers  in  Israel, 
to  the  hand  of  her  heavenly  Father.  But  coming,  as 
this  child  had  done,  in  the  form  of  an  unsought  and 
special  boon,  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  believe 
that  it  was  to  be  thus  hopelessly  wrenched  from  her 
grasp ;  her  faith  rose  with  the  occasion,  strengthened 
probably  and  encouraged  by  the  knowledge  of  what  had 
been  done  through  Elijah  to  the  widow's  son  at  Zare- 
phath.  Therefore  she  ordered  the  servant  instantly  to 


saddle  an  ass,  and  repaired  without  delay  to  the  prophet 
at  Carmel,  where  she  knew  ha  was  at  the  time  sojourn 
ing.  The  interview  that  took  place  between  them  is 
given  only  in  fragments,  but  it  came  out  that  the 
child  was,  if  not  absolutely  gone,  on  the  very  eve  of 
being  so.  and  that  nothing  would  satisfy  the  mother, 
but  that  ElLsha  should  go  with  her,  and  exercise  his 
supernatural  gifts  in  her  behalf.  The  moment  he 
heard  of  it  he  despatched  Gehazi,  with  instructions  to 
lose  no  time  by  the  way,  and  when  he  reached  the 
place,  to  lay  Elisha1  s  staff  on  the  face  of  the  child,  ap 
pareiitly  in  the  hope  that  this  might  be  sufficient  for 
its  revival,  and  probably  under  the  impression  that  the 
child  was  in  a  swoon,  rather  than  actually  dead.  But 
the  matter  turned  out  to  be  of  a  more  serious  descrip 
tion  ;  for  no  response  came  from  the  application  of  the 
prophet's  staff  by  the  hand  of  Gehazi,  and  he  hastened 
back  to  meet  his  master  with  the  tidings  that  the 
child  had  not  awaked.  When  Elisha  was  come  to 
the  house,  it  is  mentioned  as  matter  of  surprise,  that 
"behold,  the  child  was  dead  and  laid  upon  his  bed;'' 
as  if  it  was  only  now  he  saw  the  full  extent  of  the; 
calamity.  Hence,  he  no  longer  thought  of  any  secon 
dary  applications  by  means  of  his  staff,  but  addressed 
himself  in  earnest  prayer  to  God,  and  then,  after  the 
example  of  Elijah,  he  stretched  himself  upon  the  child, 
that  the  divine  virtue  in  the  one  might  by  such  per 
sonal  contact  pass  the  more  readily  into  the  other. 
The  Lord  responded  to  the  faith  and  prayer  of  his 
servant,  and  after  a  second  stretching  on  the  child, 
life  in  its  full  vigour  again  returned,  and  the  boy  was 
delivered  safe  and  sound  to  its  mother. 

The  prevalence  of  a  general  dearth  gave  occasion  to 
another,  though  somewhat  less  remarkable,  operation  of 
the  healing  power  possessed  by  Elisha.  The  sons  of  the 
prophets  at  Gilgal  had  difficulty  in  obtaining  supplies 
of  food ;  and  in  gathering  for  a  common  repast  there 
was  brought,  among  other  productions  of  the  field, 
what  is  called  in  the  English  version  "a  wild  vine," 
on  which  grew  "wild  gourds,"  that  were  shred  into 
the  pot  of  herbs,  and  when  tasted,  told  with  such  an 
effect  on  the  company,  that  they  cried  out,  "There  is 
death  in  the  pot."  It  is  not  agreed  among  commenta 
tors  what  the  production  here  referred  to  might  be;  it 
could  not  properly  be  a  wild  vine,  but  must  rather 
have  been  some  plant  having  wild  runners  similar  to 
the  wild  vine,  since  it  yielded  nyss,  pakkdoth — which 

some  take  to  be  wild  cucumbers  (Genesius,  Winer,  &c.),  and 
others  coloquintida  (Michaelis,  Oedmann,  Keif).  Both  of 
these  indeed  belong  to  the  general  family  of  cucum 
bers,  and  bear  fruit  that  is  of  a  caustic  bitter  taste, 
and  in  its  effects  far  from  wholesome.  It  matters 
little,  therefore,  which  of  the  two  it  might  be,  as  indeed 
we  want  the  means  for  properly  deciding;  but  by  throw 
ing  in  a  quantity  of  meal,  as  the  symbol  perhaps, 
rather  than  the  cause,  of  a  wholesome  and  nutritive  diet, 
an  effect  was  produced  of  a  counteractive  nature — the 
pottage  was  found  to  be  divested  of  its  noxious  qua 
lities. 

It  was  probably  about  the  same  time,  and  in  connec 
tion  with  the  same  dearth,  that  a  supernatural  effect 
was  produced,  not  by  undoing  an  evil  in  articles  of  food, 
but  by  greatly  extending  their  sustaining  virtue.  A 
person  came  from  Baal-shalisha  bringing  bread  of  the 
first-fruits,  and  some  full  ears  of  corn — the  first-fruits 
of  harvest.  Offerings  of  this  description  properly  be- 


ELISHA 


KLISHA 


longed  to  the-  priests  and  Levites,   r,e.  xviii.i-<i;  and  that  i  Israelitish  maid  had  spoken  of,  the  king  of  Israel  must 


they  should  have  been  given  to  the  sons  of  the  pro 
phets,  was  a  proof  of  the  peculiar  place  they  had  come 
to  occupy  in  Israel,  and  how  the  God-fearing  in  the 
land  tendered  to  them  what  they  refused  to  the  priests 
of  the  calves.  The  offering  actually  brought,  however, 
on  the  present  occasion,  was  a  very  inadequate  supply 
for  the  large  company  that  were  in  want  of  provisions; 
insomuch  that  the  servant  scrupled  about  obeying  the  !  cover  a  man  of  his  leprosy  !"  -_>Ki 


command  of  Elisha  to  set  it  before  them.  "What,"' 
said  he,  ''should  1  set  this  before  an  hundred  men  !" 
He  was  again  ordered  to  do  so,  with  the  assurance 
that  they  should  not  only  all  eat,  but  have  somewhat 
also  to  leave.  How  the  scanty  provision  was  made 
sufficient  whether  by  some  secret  enlargement  of  tlie 
cakes  of  bread,  or  by  rendering  the  little  that  existed 
of  these  supernaturally  efficacious  in  relieving  the 
hunger  of  those  who  partook  c,f  them  we  are  nut  in 
formed.  The  prophet  merely  announced  the  result, 
and  left  it  to  the  (iod  whose  will  be  had  intimated  in 
the  matter,  to  effect  it  in  whatever  manner  he  pleased. 
The  action  itself,  as  well  as  the  one  that  immediately 
preceded  it,  was  intended  to  show  the  special  interest 
which  the  Lord  took  in  the  prophetical  institutions  of 
the  time,  and  to  strengthen  the  faith  of  tho^-e  who 


be  perfectly  cognizant  of  his  existence,  and  able  also  to 
command  his  services.  Jehoram,  however,  viewed  the 
matter  differently,  and  from  the  seeming  extravagance 
and  unreasonableness  of  the  request,  he  rent  his  clothes, 
and  called  his  nobles  to  witness  how  l)ent  the  kiny  of  Syria 
manifestly  was  on  having  a  quarrel  with  him.  "  Am  I 
God,"  said  he,  "that  this  man  doth  send  to  me,  to  re- 

I'ndoubtedly  in 
.•fore  the  king  of 


the  form  in  which  the  matter 

Israel,  there  was  what  might  not  unnaturally  he  re 
garded  as  the  indication  of  an  unreasonable  and  quar 
relsome  humour;  but  if  Jehoram  had  been  as  familiar 
as  he  should  have  been  with  the  life  and  labours  of 
Klisha.  he  would  have  been  less  astounded  and  per 
plexed  than  he  really  was  with  the  request  of  J'eiiha- 
dad;  and  the  knowledge  that  seemed  to  prevail  in  Syria 
of  the  wonderful  things  that  had  been  proceeding 
in  Israel,  was  certainly  meant  to  be  a  rebuke  in  pro 
vidence  for  the  comparative  ignorance  that  still  reigned 
in  Samaria.  Heathen  at.  a  distance,  it  seemed,  knew 
more  of  God's  working  in  Israel,  than  the  very  heads 
of  the  Israelitish  people.  And  on  this  account  Klisha. 
when  he  heard  of  the  king's  perplexity  and  distress. 


th 


|  sent  to  him  a   mes>a-v    of    expostulation,    "  \Vhenf., i 

belonged  to  them   for  the   arduous  and  trying  work    in     hast  thoii  rent  thv  clotl 
which  they  Were  eiiLfaLTed.     Tl 
taken  of   another  transaction 
on  record  which  immediately  eon 
prophets  -  the  recovery  of    an   ax 
and  which  accidentally  fell    into 
by  causing  it  miraculously  to  ri-t 


also  to  be 
additional  one 
L'erns  the  sons  of  the 
a  they  had  born. wed. 
i  pool  in  tin-  Jordan, 
to  the  sufaee.  ^  Ki.  vi. 
1-7.  The  axe  might  possibly  have  been  recovered  ill 
some  other  way:  or.  if  that  had  been  impracticable,  tin- 
cost  of  such  an  instrument  could  not  have  been  so 
large  but  that  funds  might  have  been  obtained  to  re 
place  it  by  another:  but  the  loss  was  repaired  by  a 
special  interposition  of  divine  power  and  goodness,  for 
the  purpose  of  assuring  and  sustaining  tin-  hearts  of 
men  struggling  with  great  trials  and  temptations. 

The  fame  of  such  wonderful  deeds  spread  as  they 
were-  over  a  variety  of  years,  and  exhibited  in  different 
parts  of  the  country — could  not  fail  to  be  widely  diffused. 
In  process  of  time,  and  by  one  of  those  remarkable 
turns  in  providence  which  sometimes  lead  to  very  sin 
gular  and  unexpected  results,  it  reached  the  court  of 
the  king  of  Syria.  In  one  of  their  hostile  excursions 
into  the  land  of  Israel  the  Syrian  forces  had  carried  off 
among  the  captives  a  little-  maid,  who  came  to  have  a 
place  in  the  household  of  Xaaman,  the  great  Syrian 
general:  she  became  a  waiting-maid  to  his  wife.  The 
report  of  Klisha' s  wonderful  deeds  was  well  known  to 
her,  perhaps  she  had  even  been  an  eye-witness  of  one 
or  more  of  them  ;  and  when  her  master  fell  under  the 


Let  him  come  now  to  me, 

and  he  shall  know  that  there  is  a  prophet  in  Israel." 
He  accordingly  came,  and  was  mad,-  to  know  that 
there  was  both  a  God  and  a  prophet  in  Israel;  but 
it  was  in  a  way  so  different  from  what  Xaaman 
had  expt  i-ted,  that  he  nearly  threw  up  the  matter  in 
disdain,  and  returned  as  he  came  to  his  native  land. 
The  account  of  the  transaction  be],  m^s  rather  to  the 
hi>tory  of  Naaman  than  of  Klisha:  but  the  quiet 
reserve  practiced  by  the  prophet,  and  the  order  for 
N'aaman  to  go  and  bathe  seven  times  in  Jordan  (at 
which  >o  much  olli-nce  Mas  taken)  were  most  wisely 
chosen  for  the  main  purpo>e  in  view  :  for  they  were  ad 
mirably  fitted  to  impress  upon  the  mind  of  Xaaman  the 
great  and  salutary  truth,  that  there  was  an  essential 
difference  between  the  (iod  of  Israel  and  the  idols  of 
heathendom,  and  between  the  prophet  of  that  God  and 
a  Syrian  magician.  The  effect  intended  im*  wrought, 
and  a  testimony  was  yielded  to  the  truth  by  this  Syrian 
uvneral.  which  we  ne\i-r  hear  of  beiii'j  paid  by  the  king 
of  l<rae]  or  any  of  his  captains. 

This  action  with  Naaman  had  brought  Klisha  into  a 
certain  connection  with  Jehoram  the  king  of  Israel,  the 
latter  having  been  rescued  through  his  miraculous 
agency  from  an  embarrassing  position,  and  incidentally 
contributed  to  the  bestowing  of  an  important  favour 
on  his  most  formidable  rival  and  adversary,  the  king 
of  Syria.  Another  series  of  transactions  followed,  all 
r  less  supernatural,  in  which  still  further  and 


loathsome  disease  of  the  leprosy,  and  knowing  that  more  direct  services  were  rendered  by  the  prophet  to 
greater  things  than  recovery  from  such  a  disease  had  ]  Jehoram.  They  were  occasioned  by  the  wars  that  con- 
been  accomplished  by  the  hand  of  Klisha,  she  said  one  j  tinned  to  be  waged  between  Syria  and  Israel.  The 
day  to  her  mistress,  "  Would  God,  my  lord  were  with  softening  effect  which  the  healing  of  Xaaman  may  for 
the  prophet  that  is  in  Samaria;  for  he  would  recover  him  |  a  time  have'  produced,  does  not  appear  to  have  lasted 
of  his  leprosy."  The  word,  though  dropped  from  the  lips  ;  long:  Uenhadad  was  intensely  warlike  in  disposition, 
of  a  little  captive,  was  like  the  breaking  forth  of  light  and  seems  to  have  been  incapable  of  reigning  without 
from  the  midst  of  profound  gloom  ;  the  tidings  came  to  engaging  in  military  exploits.  In  those  which  he 
the  ear  of  the  king,  and  he  instantly  despatched  Naaman  j  directed  against  Israel,  he  was  to  a  great  extent  coun- 
with  costly  presents,  and  a  letter  to  Jehoram  the  king  terworked  by  the  vigilance  and  supernatural  insight  of 
of  Israel,  requesting  that  he  would  cause  him  to  be  j  Elisha,  which  enabled  him  to  advise  the  king  of  Israel 
healed  of  his  leprosy.  J'.enhadad  had  never  apparently  j  of  movements,  that  by  being  anticipated  were  defeated 
doubted  that  if  there  was  such  a  person  in  Samaria  as  the  (  of  their  aim.  lienhadad  at  first  suspected  his  own  ser- 


VOL.  I. 


65 


ELISHA 


:>[  l 


ELISHA 


vants  of  betraying  him;  lint  being  informed  of  tho  pecu 
liar  service  rendered  to  his  adversary  by  Elisha,  lie 
resolved  OIL  seizing  the  person  of  the  prophet,  and  sent 
a  great  host  to  surprise  him  in  J)othuu.  The  servant 
of  Klisha,  stood  aghast  at  the  formidable  array;  hut 
Klisha  himself  retained  liis  composure,  and  assured  his 
servant  that  there  were  trit/t  them  more  than  were 
a'/(t!nxt  thrm.  In  confirmation  of  this  lie  prayed  to 
tile  Lord  to  open  his  eyes;  and  \\hen  they  were  opened 
he  saw  the  mountain  full  of  chariots  of  lire  and  horses 
of  tire  visible  impersonations  to  the-  spiritual  eye  of 
the  might  and  protection  of  .Jehovah  around  Elisha. 
The  prophet  further  prayed  that  the  Syrian  host  might 
l>e  smitten  with  hlindness  not  apparently  with  the  ac 
tual  loss  of  corporeal  vision,  hut  a  kind  of  bewilderment, 
which  prevented  them  from  knowing  where  they  really 
were,  and  led  them  to  surrender  themselves  implicitly 
to  his  guidance.  lie  conducted  them  into  the  midst  of 
Samaria,  where  their  eyes  were  again  opened,  and 
they  found  themselves  at  the  mercy  of  their  enemies, 
.lehoram  would  have  instantly  fallen  upon  them,  and 
asked  Elisha  if  he  would  smite;  but  Klisha  magnani 
mously  repudiated  the  proposal,  and  ordered  bread  and 
water  to  lie  set  before  them;  after  which  they  were 
dismissed  to  their  master.  If  Henhadad  had  been  in 
any  degree  conscious  of  the  more  noble  and  generous 
impulses  of  nature,  he  would  have  abated  his  hostility 
on  hearing  of  such  mercy  and  forbearance  toward  his 
troops,  or  perhaps  have  altogetht-71  ceased  from  so  un 
equal  a  contest.  1'ut  warlike  ambition  seemed  his 
only  motive,  brute  force:  tin;  only  power  he  could  esti 
mate  or  wield  ;  and  so  the  partial  defeats  he  had  sus 
tained  but  served  to  stimulate  his  rage,  and  led  him  to 
gather  all  his  strength  and  implements  of  war  for  a 
desperate  assault  on  Samaria,  He  succeeded  in  driving 
matters  to  a  fearful  extremity;  so  that  extravagant 
prices  came  to  be  paid  for  things  which  in  ordinary 
circumstances  would  have  been  totally  rejected  as 
articles  of  diet,  ^Ki.  vi.^r,  and  some  were  even  beginning 
to  resort  to  the  dreadful  expedient  of  feeding  on  human 
flesh.  This  forced  itself  on  the  notice  of  the  king  one 
day  as  he  passed  along  the  wall,  when  a  woman  cried 
out  to  him  against  her  neighbour,  because  after  having 
agreed  to  kill  and  eat  each  other's  sons,  the  one  whose 
turn  came  second  resiled  from  the  agreement,  and 
would  not  suffer  her  son  to  be  destroyed.  On  hearing 
this  sad  story,  the  king  rent  his  clothes,  from  which  it 
was  perceived  that  he  wore  sackcloth  upon  his  flesh, 
and  was  laying  to  heart  more  than  had  been  suspected 
the  miseries  and  distresses  of  his  people. 

If  we  had  been  simply  told  that  Jehoram  thus  clad 
himself  in  sackcloth  and  rent  his  clothes,  we  should 
have  concluded  favourably  in  regard  to  his  penitent 
state  of  mind;  but  the  notice  in  that  respect  is  followed 
up  by  a  stern  and  vehement  denunciation  against 
Klisha,  in  which  the  king  said.  "(Jod  do  so  and  more 
also  to  me,  if  the  head  of  Elisha  the  son  of  Shaphat, 
shall  stand  on  him  this  day."  It  does  not  appear  from 
the  narrative  why  Jehonun  should  have  so  directly 
connected  Klisha's  name  with  the  extremities  endured, 
and  should  have  vowed  such  summary  vengeance  against 
him.  From  the  circumstance  one  of  two  suppositions 
is  forced  upon  us — either  Elisha  had  spoken  of  the 
assault  of  Beiihadad  as  a  divine  judgment  for  the  still 
prevailing  sins,  and  thus  came  to  be  wrongfully  iden 
tified  with  the  evil;  or  he  had  advised  Jehoram  to  reject 
the  terms  offered  bv  lienhadad.  and  was  now  denounced 


by  the  king  as  one  that  had  given  wicked  counsel.  It 
is  possible,  even,  that  both  suppositions  may  to  some 
extent  have  come  into  play.  Hut  however  it  may  have 
been  in  that  respect,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
resolution  of  the  king  to  execute  death  oil  Elisha  indi 
cated  a  still  unsanetih'ed  and  rebellious  mind.  It  ap 
pears,  however,  to  have  been  rather  the  sudden  out 
burst  of  imgovcrned  passion,  than  the  expression  of  a 
deliberately  formed  purpose.  For,  after  havinir  de 
spatched  a  messenger  to  take  the  life  of  Elisha  -whose 
approach  was  descried  by  the  prophet,  and  the  door  of 
the  house  barred  against  him-  the  king  himself  (his 
iiiuxti  /',  as  he  is  called,  eh.  vi.  :;_)  followed  close  behind 
him;  and  it  seems  to  be  to  this  master,  not  to  the  mes 
senger,  nor  even  to  Elisha,  that  the  words  should  be 
ascribed  at  the  close  of  ch.  vi.,  "  Behold,  this  evil  is  of 
the  Lord,  what  should  I  wait  for  the  Lord  anv  longer'" 
'/.'/.  1  now  admit  that  the  Lord's  hand  is  in  this  cala 
mity;  it  is  needless  for  me  to  contend  any  longer  against 
it;  let  me  surrender  at  discretion.  If  this  be  the  cor 
rect  view  of  the  matter,  then  the1  king's  heart  must 
have  relented  immediately7  after  he  gave  the  order  for 
Elisha's  death;  and  he  deemed  it  better  to  go  himself, 
and  make  proposals  of  a  capitulation  to  the  enemy. 
Hence,  seeing  the  king  in  this  softened  mood,  brought 
down  to  acknowledge  the  Lord's  hand  in  the  calamities 
experienced,  and  his  own  incapacity  to  struggle  any 
longer  against  the  evil,  the  prophet,  in  the  Lord's 
name,  gave  intimation  of  an  almost  instantaneous  de 
liverance.  "Then  Klisha  said,  Hear  ye  the  word  of 
Jehovah;  thus  saith  Jehovah,  To-morrow,  about  this 
time,  shall  a  measure  of  line  flour  lie  sold  for  a  shekel, 
and  two  measures  of  barley  for  a  shekel,  in  the  gate  of 
Samaria."  ch.  vii.  i.  It  seemed  absolutely  incredible; 
insomuch  that  a  lord  present,  on  whose  hand  the  king 
leaned,  asked  if  it  were  possible  by  opening  the  win 
dows  of  heaven  to  make  such  a  thing  to  be.  It  came 
to  pass,  however,  precisely  as  Klisha  predicted;  for  the 
Lord  caused  the  Syrians  to  hear  a  sound  as  of  approach 
ing  chariots  and  horses,  on  account  of  which  they  took 
fright  and  fled  by  night,  and  left  all  their  baggage  and 
provisions  behind  them;  so  that  the  people  in  Samaria 
passed  at  once  from  the  horrors  of  famine  to  the  pos 
session  of  plenty. 

The  mixture  of  judgment  and  mercy  on  this  occasion 
was  so  very  singular,  that  it  should  have  produced  a 
deep  and  lasting  impression  upon  Jehoram  and  his 
people:  and.  coupled  with  other  things  that  had  Ljone 
before,  should  have  led  them  to  renounce  all  their 
abominations  for  the  pure  worship  and  service  of  .Jeho 
vah.  It  failed,  however,  in  doing  that;  the  old  sins  and 
pollutions  were  never  thoroughly  abolished.  Elisha, 
as  a  man  of  ("iod,  certainly  rose  in  public  estimation: 
even  the  king  came  to  regard  him  with  profound  re 
spect,  and  is  presented  on  one  occasion  as  inquiring  at 
(k'ha/.i  into  all  the  great  things  he  had  done,  ch.  vih.  4  ; 
but  there  was  110  sincere  turning  to  the  Lord,  or  general 
reformation  of  abuse's.  Judgment,  therefore,  still  hung 
like  a  dark  cloud  on  the  horizon;  and  the  prophet,  who 
had  been  the  instrument  of  giving  so  many  wonderful 
proofs  of  the  divine  forbearance  and  mercy,  had  to 
close  his  more  public  career  by  calling  into  exercise  the 
rod  of  divine  vengeance.  For  this  two  special  instru 
ments  were  to  be  employed — Hazael  in  Syria,  and  Jehu 
in  Israel;  who  had  been  long  before,  indeed,  indicated 
by  the  Lord  to  Elijah  at  Horeb,  i  Ki.  xix.  ir.,  Hi;  but  the 
measure  of  severity  was  delayed  till  measures  of  a 


KLISHA 


KLISI1A 


gentler  kind  had  been  plied,  and  found  insufficient.  At  deatli  to  be  at  hand,  wept  over  his  face,  and  said,  "O 
last,  however,  Elisha  moved  to  ward  Damascus;  and  when  my  father,  my  father,  the  chariot  of  Israel,  and  the 
his  arrival  there  was  made  known  to  Beiihadad.  who  horsemen  thereof.''  oh.  xiii.  H  -  the  very  words  of  Klisha 


lay  sick  at  the  time,  the  latter  sent  Hazael  to  inquire 
whether  he  should  recover.  Elisha  replied,  he  might 
certainlv  recover  (that  is,  so  far  as  the  disease  itself  was 
concerned,  there  was  nothing  deadly  in  it — for  there 
is  no  proper  ground  for  making  the  text,  as  certain 
critics  would  have  it  ivad,  as  if  a  tint  were  omitted); 
hut  he  added,  how  the  Lord  had  showed  him  that  he 
should  surclv  die.  though  nothing  was  said  as  to  the 


at  the  departure  of  Klijah,  and  probably  in.Joash  the 


f  Clod   was   like  losing  the  riirht  arm   of   th 


and  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to  Elisha.  a  transaction 


want  of    purpose  t< 


precise  mode    in   which   the   death  should    be    brought  i  The   dving  prophet   first    bade  Joash   take   a   bow   and 

about,    and    certainlv  no  warrant    issued   to  lla/.ael  to  arrow,  and  then,  placing  his  own  hand  on  the  hands  of 

lav   violent   hands   on   his   master.      That   the   prophet,  the  kin-',  told  him  to  shoot,  and  on  his  doing  so,  cried, 

however,  believed   him  to  be  perfectlv  capable  of  doing  '  "The   arrow  of  Jehovah's   deliverance,  and    the  arrow 

this,  and  of   forcing  for  himself  a  wav  to  the  throne,  is  of   deliverance    from   Svria:    for    thon   shalt  smite   the 

evident  from  the  atrocities  which  he  presently  and  with  Svrians    in   Aphek.    till    thou    have  consumed    them." 

tears  announced    Ha/.a,-l  should   be  the   instrument  of  This  was  properly  the  prophet's  act,  and  his  word  of 

inflicting  on  the  people  of   Israel,  and   which   he  also  interpretation  going  along  with  it.      But  then,  to  see 

declared    were   to   be   the   consequence   of    ila/.ael'.s   be-  |  how  far  Joash  entered    into    its    import,   and    was    pre- 

eomiii"'   kill''  over  Svria.       lla/ael   indi"'nantlv   reuudi-   I  pared    to   carrv    it   out,   he   requested    him    to   take    the 

i  i 

ated  the  thought  of  his  being  capable  of  committing  |  arrows  and  smite;  and,  after  smiting  or  shooting  thrice, 
such  atrocities;  but  the  result  proved  the  certaintv  of  lie  staved.  The  kinu'  could  not  but  know  the  view 
the  divine-  foresight  regarding  him,  rather  than  the  :  \vith  which  the  action  was  required  to  be  done:  so  that 
correctness  of  his  own  self-knowledge.  And  it  was  ;  the  number  of  times  he  smote  might  fairly  lie  regarded 
probablv  owing  to  the  unscrupulous  character  of  the  as  the  measure  of  his  faith  and  x.eal  in  the  matter.  The 
man,  and  the  unprincipled  course  of  procedure  he  was  prophet  was  ii-pl  ased  with  its  smallness.  and  told 
going  to  adopt,  that,  instead  of  being  formallv  anointed  Joa-h  he  should  but  smite  the  Syrians  thrice,  and 
to  the  throne  of  Svria  (as  was  originallv  indicated),  the  should  conse^uentl  v  fail  to  get  the  full  measure  of  suc- 
fact  alone  of  his  attaining  to  its  possession  was  an-  cess  which  the  divine  "oodiiess  had  broiijht  within 
noimced  to  him.  \\  ith  Jehu  it  was  otherwise;  a  more  his  reach.  I'roin  his  own  unfaithfulness  the  promise 
formal  appointment  to  the  otliee  in  his  case  was  jud-,  ,1  held  out  should  be  but  partially  fulfilled.  It  was  Kli- 
propcr.  Accordingly,  Klisha  called  to  him  one  of  the  slia's  last  \M>rd  ;  "he  died,  and  they  buried  him." 
sons  of  the  prophets,  and  uivin^  him  a  ho\  of  oil.  told  ,-;,.  xiij.-jn  but  where  we  are  not  told.  It  is  mentioned, 
him  to  -o  to  Itamoth-gilead,  where  a  considerable  part  ho\\ever,  that  shortly  after,  while  some  w  t  re  employed 
of  the  army  then  lay,  and  there  to  anoint  Jehu  king  in  burying  another  person  in  the  neighbourhood,  they 
over  Israel.  The  work  was  pr.iinptlv  done,  and  a  espied  at  a  little  distance  a  band  of  .Moabites,  and  in 
charge  at  the  same  time  given  to  Jehu  to  smite-  the  their  hurry  they  thrust  the  corpse  they  bore  into  the 
house  of  Ahab.  and  aveii-v  the  blood  of  all  the  pro-  tomb  of  Klisha.  which,  on  touching  the  bones  of  Klisha. 
phets  and  the  servants  of  the  Lord  at  the  hand  of  Jeze-  for  the  moment  revived  and  stood  erect.  It  was.  in 
bel,  eh.  .\.  MM.  I ii  the  fulfilment  of  this  terrible  mission  all  probability,  with  the  sons  of  the  prophets  that  this 
the  whole  of  Ahaii's  wicked  house  perished,  and  aloii^  happened;  and  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  sign  primarily 
with  them  a  uivat  multitude  of  priests  and  servants  to  them,  and  through  them  to  others,  that  the  Cod  of 
of  Baal,  whom  Jehu  can-lit  with  subtiltv,  and  slauji-  Klisha  still  lived,  and  was  ready  to  do  wonders  as  here- 
tered  in  one  mass.  The  fact  of  Mich  a  sacrifice  of  Baal-  :  t  of,  ire  furl:!-  people,  if  they  would  but  seek  and  trust 
worshippers  bein^  still  possible,  showed  how  far  the  in  him. 

evil  was   from  lieiii'4'  eradicated,  and    how   much  of   the  Klisha  had   properly  no  successor.      Several  prophets 

external  respect  that  was  latterly  paid  by  the  king  and  followed  him  in  the  kingdom  of  Israel  Jonah,  llosea, 
people  of  Samaria  to  the  Kurd's  prophet,  was  but  a  Amos  but  he  was  the  last  great  representative  of  that 
constrained  homage  the  oKspring  of  t'ear  rather  than  tvpe  of  prophetical  agency  to  which  he  belonged. 
of  faith  and  love.  It  proved  the  necessity  of  the  milder  .Miraculous  working  henceforth  ceased,  having  been 
prophet  ending  his  more  public  course  as  his  stern  pre-  plied  as  long  as  the  order  of  the  divine  administration 
decessor  began,  bv  bringing  the  severitv  of  Cod  to  bear  '  would  admit,  and  plied  comparatively  in  vain.  It  was 
upon  the  deep-rooted  corruptions  and  incorrigible  by  word,  rather  than  by  deed,  that  Cod  still  wrought 
wickedness  that  prevailed.  <  for  a  time  amoiiLC  that  section  of  his  ancient  people. 

Klisha  lived  a  considerable  time  after  this;  for  he  through  the  instrumentality  of  prophets.  He  gave  a 
did  not  die  till  the  reign  of  Joash.  the  grandson  of  somewhat  fuller  insight  into  his  own  purposes  of  judg- 
Jehu.  Jehu  n-igned  twenty-eight  years;  Jehoaha/,,  meiit  and  mercy,  and  the  bearing  these  were  destined 
his  immediate  successor,  seventeen  -makiiiLT  together  !  to  have  on  the  tribes  of  Israel.  This  was  in  truth  the 
a  period  of  forty-five  years.  During  the  whole  of  this  higher  species  of  prophetical  ministration;  but,  from 
time  we  hear  nothing  of  Klisha;  and  it  is  only  when  the  false  political  position  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  it 
we  reach  the  reign  of  Joash  that  we  have  a  notice  of  could  not  be  so  much  exercised  there,  as  in  connection 
his  last  sickness  and  death.  He  must  by  that  time  ]  with  the  kingdom  of  Judah.  In  a  great  degree,  there- 
have  arrived  at  a  very  advanced  age,  and  probably  ''  fore,  Klijah  and  his  successor  Klisha  may  be  said  t< 


had  for  years  previous  been  in  a  state  of  feebleness  and 
decay.  Hearing  of  his  illness,  Joash  came  down  to  see 
him  (Ihe  precise  place  is  not  given),  and  perceiving 


have  stood  alone  in  the  kingdom  of  Israel:  alike  in  tile 
general  nature  and  aspect  of  their  work,  though  each 
with  his  own  characteristic  peculiarities,  and  each  suited 


ELiSHAil 


510 


EMBALMING 


to  his  propel-  time  and  sphere.  So  that  here  also  wisdom 
was  justified  of  her  children. 

ELI'SHAH,  the  name  of  one  of  the  sons  of  Javan, 
Go.  x.  4,  from  whom  it  is  supposed  ''the  isles  of  Elisha" 
took  their  designation,  which  trafficked  with  Tyre  in 
fabrics  of  purple  and  scarlet,  Eze.  xxvii.  r.  Elis  is  very 
commonly  identified  with  it,  which  may  have  been 
peopled  by  tin-  descendants  of  Elishah.  Others  under 
stand  by  it  the  /Eolians.  But  there  is  no  certainty. 

ELISHA'MA  \_«-ln,llt  God  hears.]  I.  A  prince  in 
Ephraim,  Xu.  i.  10.  2.  A  son  of  David,  born  to  him  in 
Jerusalem,  2Sa.  v.  10.  3.  A  descendant  of  Judah,  1  Ch. 
u.  21;  2Ki.  xxv.  2;>.  4.  A  priest  in  the  time  of  Jehosha- 
phat,  2  Ch.  xvii.  IS. 

ELISH'APHAT  [,,-hum  G»d  >(/,</<•*],  a  captain  of 
hundreds  in  the  time  and  service  of  Jehoiada  the  priest, 
•2  Ch.  xxiii.  1. 

ELISHE'BA  [n-Jto  ximu-*  hi/  Gcnl],  the  daughter  of 
Amminadab,  of  the  tribe  of  .ludah,  and  tlie  wife  of 
Aaron,  Kx.  vi.  23;  Xu.  i.  7.  So  that  the  descendants  of 
Aaron  were  closely  allied  to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  though 
they  actually  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Levi. 

ELIZ'APH AN  '[//•/'""'  <""'  /"'"H-  I-  A  Levite, 
and  head  of  the  family  of  the  Kohathites,  when  the 
census  was  taken  in  the  wilderness,  Xu.  iii.  30.  2.  A 
leading  person  of  the  tribe  of  Zebulnn.  who  took  part 
in  the  distribution  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  Xu.  xxxiv.  25. 

ELKA'NAH  [«•!,,, m  God  ,,rovidcd\.  1.  One  of  the 
sons  of  Korah,  Kx.  vi.  21.  The  family  of  Korali  did  not 
perish  with  himself,  Xu.  x\vi.  n.  2.  Several  other  de 
scendants  of  Korah  bore  this  name,  1  Ch.  vi.  20,  27,34;  ix.  1C,; 
xii.  (i;  but  the  only  one  known  to  history  was  the  father 
of  Samuel;  and  of  him  we  know  nothing  more  than  that 
he  lived  at  Ilamathaim-Zophim  in  Mount  Ephraim,  had 
two  wives — Hannah  and  Peninnah,  and  by  the  former 
became  the  father  of  Samuel  the  prophet,  i  sa.  i.  ii. 

EL'KOSHITE,  applied  as  a  designation  to  the  pro 
phet  Nahum,  di.  i.  i,  and  apparently  describing  him  as 
a  native  of  Elkosh.  There  was  a  place  of  that  name 
in  Assyria,  near  Mosul;  and  some  have  contended  for  I 
this  as  at  once  the  birth-place  and  the  grave  of  the  pro 
phet.  The  modern  Jews  are  of  this  opinion.  But  it 
is  not  generally  acquiesced  in.  The  more  probable 
opinion  is,  that  Elkosh  was  a  town  in  some  part  of 
Palestine.  Jerome,  in  his  comment  on  the  prophet, 
assigns  it  to  Galilee,  and  says  it  was  pointed  out  to 
himself.  .No  further  reliance,  however,  can  be  placed 
on  this  testimony,  than  as  affording  evidence  of  the 
prevailing  belief  in  Jerome's  time  of  the  region  where 
the  Elkosh  of  Nahum  was  to  be  sought.  (Sec.  NAHUM.) 

ELLA'SAR,  the  country  and  kingdom  of  Arioeh, 
one  of  the  four  kings  who  invaded  Canaan  in  the  days 
of  Abraham,  GO.  xiv.  i.  Nothing  certain  is  known  of  it; 
but  being  associated  with  Elam  and  Shinar,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  indicated  an  Asiatic  region,  some 
where  in  the  same  neighbourhood.  It  is  very  com 
monly  identified  with  THELASSAR. 

ELM,  the  translation  given  us  in  Hos.  iv.  13  of 
alah  (nsx\  which  everywhere  else  is  rendered  oak 

T  •• 

(which  see). 

ELNA'THAN  [>/<o//i  <;<,d  f/l(n].  I.  Maternal 
grandfather  of  Jehoiachin,  and  probably  the  same  with 
the  son  of  Achbor,  who  lived  in  Jehoiakim's  time, 
2 Ki.  xxiv.  *;  je.  xxvi.  22.  2.  Certain  Levites  in  Ezra's  time, 

Kzr.  viii.  }(\. 

ELO'HIM,  God,  or  <jods.     Sec  GOD. 


ELON  [(»//•].  1.  A  Zebulonite,  who  judged  Israel 
ten  years,  .Tu.  xii.  11;  but  of  the.  distinctive  character  of 
his  administration,  or  how  he  attained  to  the  authority 
implied  in  it,  Scripture  is  entirely  silent.  2.  A  Hittite 
chief,  the  father  of  one  of  Esau's  wives,  Ge.  xxvi.  3;.  3. 
One  of  the  wives  of  Zebulun,  Go.  xlvi.  11. 

E'LON.  a  border  town  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  whose 
site  has  not  been  identified,  Ju.~.  xix.  43. 

ELOTH.     See  ELATH. 

EL'PAAL  \H-IHM  rcn-nrd  is  God],  the  founder  of  a 
family  amoiiuf  the  Benjamites,  i  Ch.  viii.  12,  is. 

ELUL,  the  sixth  Hebrew  month.     See  MOXTH. 

EL'YMAS,  a  derivative  of  the  Arabic  ("dim,  irixe, 
and  hence  corresponding  to  6  /j.dyos,  the  emphatically 
wise  man,  the  man  skilled  in  mystic  lore,  the  magician. 
So  it  is  explained  in  Ac.  xiii.  8,  where  it  is  applied  to 
Bar-jesus,  a  magician  of  the  lower  caste,  who  by  his 
arts  withstood  the  apostle  Paul,  and  sought  to  turn 
awav  the  proconsul  from  the  faith. 

ELYMEANS.     S<e  ELAM. 

EL'ZAPHAN,  a  contraction  of  EUZAPHAX. 

EMBALMING  the  dead  appears  to  have  had  its 
origin  in  Kgypt.  and  comes  into  consideration  here 
only  as  having  been  practised  upon  the  bodies  of  some 
of  the  covenant-people  during  their  sojourn  in  that 
country.  We  have  no  specific  notice  of  its  having 
been  employed  in  ;my  ease  but  that  of  Jacob,  their 
common  father,  ami  Joseph— although  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  like  practice  was  followed  with  the 
whole  of  the  twelve  patriarchs,  whose  bodies  are  re 
ported  to  have  been  carried  into  Canaan,  and  buried 
in  the  field  Jacob  bought  of  Shechem,  Ac.  vii.  i«.  The 
simple  fact  of  Joseph's  embalming  is  mentioned,  Go.  1.  2fl; 
but  of  Jacob  it  is  said  with  more  particularity,  that 
"Joseph  commanded  his  servants  the  physicians  to 
embalm  his  father;  and  forty  days  were  fulfilled  for 
him ;  for  so  are  fulfilled  the  days  of  those  who  are 
embalmed;  and  the  Egyptians  mourned  for  him  three 
score  and  ten  days,"  GO.  l.  2,:;.  There  are  several  things 
remarkable  in  this  statement;  and  the  first  is,  the  men 
tion  it  makes  of  physicians  as  being  in  the  service  of 
Joseph,  and  having  it  as  a  part  of  their  proper  employ 
ment  to  look  after  the  embalming  of  the  dead.  We 
know  of  no  other  country  of  antiquity  in  which  such  a 
state  of  things  existed;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  its 
existence  at  a  very  remote  period  in  Egypt.  Herodo 
tus  expressly  testifies  of  the  Egypt  of  his  dav.  that 
there  "  every  distinct  distemper  lias  its  own  physician, 
who  confines  himself  to  the  study  and  cure  of  that 
alone:  so  that  all  places  arc  crowded  with  physicians." 
Hence,  as  Warburton  has  remarked  (Div.  Leg.  b.  iv.  3),  a 
body  of  these  domestics,  however  extravagant  it  might 
appear  now,  even  in  a  minister  of  state,  was  unavoid 
able  then,  when  each  distemper  had  its  proper  physi 
cian.  So  great  a  name  had  the  Egyptian  physicians, 
that  both  Cyrus  and  Darius  are  reported  by  Herodotus 
to  have  had  them  always  in  their  service  (iii.  l,  120). 

Tiidei-standing  this,  however,  it  may  still  appear 
somewhat  strange,  that  the  physicians  should  have  had 
to  do  with  the  embalming  of  the  dead,  as  well  as  with 
the  cure  of  the  living  body.  The  physicians  in  tho 
two  cases,  however,  would  not  be  of  the  same  class: 
The  subdivision  generally  that  was  made  of  the  medical 
art  in  Egypt  would  certainly  lead  to  the  appropriation 
of  the  process  of  embalming  by  a  separate  class  of  prac 
titioners;  and  as  the  process  required  both  a  knowledge 
of  the  human  frame,  and  an  application  of  proper  niedi- 


EMBALMING 


51; 


EMBALMING 


caments  to  its  several  parts,  the  persons  who  pursued 
this  employment  might  quite  naturally  be  called  by 
the  general  name  of  physicians.  But  the  probability  j 
is,  that  at  the  early  period  of  Jacob's  death,  the  sub-  I 
division  referred  to  had  scarcely  if  at  all  been  cstab-  : 
lished.  and  that  the  process  of  embalming  was  under 
the  direction  of  the  ordinary  physicians.  Ultimately, 
the  embalmers  became  a  distinct  and  regularly  organ-  ' 
ized  class,  with  their  own  separate  departments  of  the  ' 
work.  But  as.  according  to  1'liny  (xix.  M,  certain  ex 
aminations  took  place  during  the  process,  which  enabled 
them  to  study  the  disease  of  which  the  deceased  had 
died,  they  must  still  either  themselves  have  been  pro 
ficients  in  the  medical  art,  or  have  been  under  the 
direction  of  those  \vlio  were  such. 

In  regard  to  the  process  of  embalming  itself,  accord 
ing  to  the  accounts  both  of  Herodotus  and  Diodorus, 
there  weie  three  different  forms  of  it,  varying  in  regard 
to  the  extent  of  the  operations  performed,  and  tin-  n  l;i- 
tive  expenditure  incurred.  When  the  highest  ~cale 
was  chosen  by  the  relatives  of  the  deceased,  the  em 
balmers  commenced  by  extracting  the  brain  through 
the  nostrils  by  means  of  a  curved  iron  probe,  after 
which  they  poured  in  certain  drags.  For  the  purpose, 
in  like  manner,  of  extracting  the  intestines,  they  made 
an  incision  in  the  side  with  a  sharp  Ethiopian  stone: 


the  bowels  became  dissolved,  and  ran  out  along  with 


the  od.     JNatron  and  spices  were  then  applied  to  the 


Iv.     This  process  cost  about  twenty-two  mime  (£60). 


and  having  thus  drawn  them  out.  the  intestine^  weiv 
properly  cleansed,  then  enveloped  in  spices  of  different 
sorts,  and  at  last  deposited  in  vases  uiot  thrown  into 
the  river,  as  Porphyry  and  Plutarch  relate) .  The  cavity 
of  the  belly  was  tilled  with  powder  of  pure  myrrh, 
cassia,  and  other  fragrant  substances.  After  these 

processes  were    finished,    the    body   was    salted,    hein>4 

kept  in  natron,  Diodorus  says,  for  upwards  of  thirty 
days  U.  nit,  but  Herodotus  for  seventy  (ii.  Mi).  I'.v 
the  seventy  days  of  Herodotus,  it  is  now  generally 
agreed,  is  to  be  understood  the  \\hole  period  of 
mourning,  or  the  time  during  which  the  body  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  embalmers  :  while  the  thirty  and 
upwards  of  I  >iodorns  relate  only  to  the  period  during 
which  the  application  of  spices  was  made  to  the 
body,  which,  in  the  stricter  sense,  constituted  the 
embalming.  This  view  perfectly  accords  with  the 
account  of  Moses,  which  assigns  forty  days  to  the 
embalming,  and  seventy  to  the  entire  period  of 
mourning.  When  the  embalming  was  completed, 
the  body  was  washed,  wrapped  up  in  bands  of  fine 
linen,  wlm-h,  on  the  interior,  were  plastered  with 
gum,  and  which  sometimes  extended  to  the  enor 
mous  length  of  fnilil  yards.  After  all  this,  the  body 
was  delivered  over  to  the  relatives,  who  placed  it  in  a 
stone  or  wooden  cofKn. 

Such  was  the  nature  of  the  higher  and  more  expen 
sive  style  of  embalming,  which,  according  to  Diodorus, 
cost  a  talent  of  silver  (  t'J/iiM;  and  it  was,  no  doubt,  the 
form  of  it  applied  to  .Jacob's  body,  and  the  bodies  of 
the  other  patriarchs  in  Kgvpt.  Tim  second  style  left 
the  intestines  in  the  body,  but  by  injecting  a  strong 
oil  of  cedar,  and  letting  it  remain  for  a  certain  time, 


Bv  a  third  mode,  \\liiclicost  comparatively  little,  and 
was  adopted  by  the  poor,  the  body  was  merely  cleansed 
by  an  injection  of  .•;///•;»"".  and  salted  for  the  same 
period  as  in  the  other  cases. 

Wilkinson  (Ancient  KKyptians  v.  ]>.  -I.Mi,  so|.)  states  that 
from  an  examination  of  the  mummies,  the  gradations, 
as  to  elaboration  and  expense,  must  have  been  much 
more  varied  than  the  above  account  from  ancient 
writers  would  lead  one  to  Mippose.  and  also,  that  the 
iii'-ision  into  the  side  for  the  purpose  of  extracting  the 
bowels,  was  not  always  confined  to  those  of  tin;  first 
class,  hut  that  some  of  a  comparatively  inferior  class 
appear  to  have  been  subjected  to  that  species  of  opera 
tion.  It  would  seem,  too,  that  the  features  of  the 
fare,  as  well  as  the  other  parts  of  the  body,  \\eiv 
covered  o\er  with  the  bandage,  and  that  it  was  only 
tliroii.jh  this,  and  latterly  through  the  collin.  \\hich 
(•"inmonly  took  the  form  of  the  fei.tun  s,  that  these 


c  add  be  recognized.  The  innermost  cofi in  or  covering, 
the  same  writer  tells  us  (p.  177),  of  the  first  quality  of 
mummies,  was  a  ctirtntifti/i:  a  pasteboard  case,  damped, 
and  fitted  exactly  to  the  shape  of  the  body.  It  was 
then  taken  of!' again,  and  made  to  retain  that  shape  till 
dry,  when  it  was  again  applied  to  the  bandaged  body, 
and  sewed  up  at  the  back.  After  this  it  was  painted 
and  ornamented  with  figures  and  numerous  objects, 
the  face  also  made  to  imitate  that  of  the  deceased,  and 
frequently  gilded. 


EMBROIDERY 


518 


EMBROIDERY 


The  reasons  which  may  have  led  the  Egyptians  to 

resort  to  all  this  care  for  tile  preservation  of  the  dead 
body,  have  never  I  icon  conclusively  ascertained.  Several 
have  been  as-^ned,  which  are  altogether  conjectural 
and  improbable.  Witli  the  greatest  appearance  of  pro- 
hability  it  has  bucu  ascribed  to  a  distinctive  aspect  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  soul's  transmigration  current  in  Kgypt. 
"There  is  reason,"  says  Sir  (!.  Wilkinson,  "to  believe 
that  the  Kgvptians  preserved  the  body  in  order  to  keep  it 
in  a  tit  state  to  receive  the  sold  which  once  inhabited  it, 
after  tin;  lapse  of  a  certain  number  of  years;  and  the 
various  occupations  followed  by  the  Egyptians  duriiiLC 
the  lifetime  of  the  deceased,  which  were  represented  in 
the  sculptures,  as  well  as  his  arms,  the  implements  he 
used,  or  whatever  was  most  precious  to  him,  which 
were  deposited  in  the  tomb  with  his  eoltin,  might  be 
intended  for  his  benefit  at  the  time  of  this  reunion-  - 
which  at  the  least  possible  period  was  fixed  at  3000 
years."  What  chiefly  serves  to  throw  some  doubt 
upon  this  solution  of  the  problem,  is  the  fact  of  the 
process  of  embalming  having  been  applied  also  to  cer 
tain  animals;  so  that  possibly  after  all,  as  the  same 
author  suggests,  it  may  have  been  mainly  attributable 
to  a  feeling  of  ivsprct  for  the  dead. 

EMBROIDERY.  This  word  does  not  occur  in  the 
English  IVole;  but  we  have  the  verb  embroider  once 
used,  KX.  xxviii  ;«»;  and  unliroiikrer  twice,  Ex.  xxxv.  :ir>; 
xxxviii.  23;  so  that,  if  these  passages  are  correctly  ren 
dered,  the  Israelites  must  have  known  the  art  of  em 
broidery.  In  several  passages  also  an  equivalent  ex 
pression  is  nsed — needle-work — and  nsed  so  as  to  imply, 
that  not  plain  sewing,  but  ornamental  work,  was  evi- 
dentlv  meant,  Kx.  xxvi.:;i;;.Tu.  v.30;Ps.  xlv.n.ic.  In  all  the 
passages  the  Hebrew  word  is  the  same — rokcm  (co'i) 

for  the  artificer,  and  rikmaJt  (ncpi)  I(l1'  the  workman 
ship  produced.  Another  word  frequently  used  in  con 
nection  with  it,  and  so  much  of  the  same  general  im 
port  that  there  is  some  difficulty  in  distinguishing 
exactly  between  them,  is  choxlti'tj  (3 £71),  f"1"  which  the 
rendering  in  the  English  Bible  is  '''cunning  workman." 
The  explanation  of  the  rabbins  is,  that  the  work  of  the 
rokem  was  embroidery  or  needle-work,  hence  appearing 
only  on  one  side,  perhaps  sewed  on  to  the  cloth;  while 
the  work  of  the  cltnxlnl>  was  textile,  a  sort  of  tapestry, 
presenting  a  face  on  each  side.  Gesenius  (Thus.)  con 
curs  in  this  view,  and  thinks,  that  while  the  embroidery 
of  flowers  and  figures  was  of  two  sorts — the  one  woven, 
the  other  performed  by  the  needle—  the  latter  sort  is 
the  one  to  be  understood  as  that  done  by  the  rokcm, 
and  the  other  by  the  rJntxhch.  Whether  this  distribu 
tion  may  be  admitted  or  not,  and  there  is  still  room 
perhaps  for  dispute,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt, 
that  embroidery  of  both  sorts  was  practised  among  the 
Israelites  in  pretty  remote  antiquity,  though  that  done 
by  the  loom  was  probably  both  the  more  ancient  and 
the  more  common.  It  was  in  Egypt  that  they  first 
learned  the  art;  and,  whether  in  connection  with  the 
bond-service  they  had  to  perform  there,  or  of  their  own 
choice,  certain  families,  it  would  appear,  at  the  time  of 
the  exodus,  had  risen  to  distinction  in  the  arts  of 
weaving  and  embroidery;  some,  especially,  in  the  tribes 
of  Judah  and  Dan.  Ex.  xxxv.  :;<>-:)-,;  i  Ch.  iv.  21.  These  were 
exhorted  to  turn  their  acquired  skill  in  this  department 
of  handicraft  to  a,  sacred  use,  and  to  prepare  ornamented 
fabrics,  in  tapestry  and  needle-work,  variegated  also 


with  diverse  colours,  for  the  curtains  of  the  tabernacle 
and  the  robes  of  the  priesthood! 

The  notices  of  Egyptian  history,  confirmed  by  the 
monumental  remains,  give  reason  for  believing  that  at 
a  comparatively  early  period  they  had  made  wonderful 
attainments  in  this  line.  For  example,  a  corslet  is 
mentioned  by  Herodotus  as  having  been  presented  by 
Ainasis,  king  of  Egypt,  to  the  Lacedemonians,  which 
was  of  linen,  each  thread  composed  of  3GO  finer  threads, 
and  ornamented  with  numerous  figures  of  animals, 
worked  in  gold  and  cotton,  Herod.  Hi.  47.  This  was 
many  centuries  indeed  after  the  exodus;  but  its  testi 
mony  reaches  back  to  a  much  earlier  time,  as  such  a 
beautiful  and  elaborate  piece  of  workmanship  could  not 
have  been  produced  without  ages  of  study  and  applica 
tion  to  the  art.  Wilkinson  savs,  "Many  of  the  Egyp 
tian  stuff's  presented  various  patterns  worked  in  colours 
by  the  loom,  independent  of  those  produced  by  the  dye 
ing  or  printing  process,  and  so  richly  composed  that 
they  vied  with  cloths  embroidered  by  the  needle;.  The 
art  <>f  embroidery,"  he  adds,  "was  commonly  practised 
ill  Egypt"'  (iii.  li'M  —  referring  in  proof,  however,  simply 
to  passages  in  Scripture,  and  taking  them  in  the  sense 
put  upon  them  in  the  authorized  version,  sanctioned 
(as  we  have  seen)  by  Gesenius  and  the  rabbins.  The 
authority  of  Pliny  has  sometimes  been  appealed  to 
against  such  early  employment  of  the  needle  in  em 
broidering;  for  lie  says  that  the  Phrygians  (of  com 
paratively  late  origin  as  a  people)  were  the  inventors 
of  needle  embroideries,  which  were  thence  called 
phrygiones  (xxxiii.  3).  But  how  little  dependence  can 
be  placed  on  Pliny's  authority  in  such  a  case  may  be 
inferred  from  another  thing  he  states  in  the  same  con 
nection,  viz. —  that  Attains  of  Per^amus,  a  great  enrou- 
rager  of  the  arts,  was  the  first  who  invented  the  weaving 
of  cloth  with  a  gold  thread,  while  a  finely  wrought  spe 
cimen  of  such  weaving  is  mentioned  by  Herodotus  in 
the  fact  just  noticed  respecting  the  Kgyptian  corslet  of 
Ainasis,  fully  300  years  before  the  time  of  Attalus  (the 
one  having  lived  in  the  sixth  and  the  other  only  in  the 


[i-12.1       Egyptian  embroidered  dresses.  -Champollion,  Monuments 

di'  I'K-ypte. 

second  and  third  before  Christ).  In  No.  242,  an  illus 
tration  is  given  from  Champollion  of  the  Egyptian 
embroidered  dresses.  They  are  all  evidently  the  pro 
duction  of  the  loom,  and  exhibit  patterns  of  the  kind 
called  by  the  Latins  srittidtita — diamond  or  lozenge- 
shaped,  chequered.  We  also  give  (Xo.  243)  an  en 
graving  of  the  dress  of  a  lady,  in  which  the  embroidery 
is  of  a  more  varied  and  ornate  character  than  usual. 

In  regard  to  the  Assyrian  region,  with  its  centres  of 
trade  as  well  as  dominion  in  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  we 
have  now  also  the  undoubted  evidence  of  their  having 
cultivated  with  great  success,  even  in  early  times,  the 
art  of  producing  embroidered  as  well  as  richly  coloured 
clothing.  The  Babylonians  certainly  were  most  noted 


EMBROIDERY 


519 


urs;  and  the  Babylonish  Etarment  which  attracted 


results,  ,],,-,  vii  ui,  was  in  all  probability  of  that  di-scrip 
tion.  Its  beauty  must  have  been  of  a  kind  that  was 
fitted  to  da/./.le  and  catch  the  eve.  I'.ut  it  is  scarceU 
to  be  supposed  that  an  art  \\hichtlourished  at  Nineveh 
should  have  been  unknown  in  tin-  not  very  distant 
Babylon;  and  we  are  now  in  possession  of  specimens  of 
beautifully-embroidered  dresses  from  the  remains  of 
Nineveh.  That  seen  in  cut  No.  ~1 1 1  is  the  upper  portion 


[L1!1,.]        Kmbroid/ivil  dress  of  Sardanapalua  II  I. --Assyrian 
Si-uli.tui-rs.  l;riti.-li  Musruni. 

of  the  dress  of  Sardanapalus  I  I  1.  —  evidently  a  highly 
ornamented  piece  of  workmanship;  and  if  in  its  main 
parts  the  production  of  the  loom,  there  are  individual 
ornaments  which  have  all  the  appearance  of  having  been 
superadded  by  the  needle,  or  done  apart  and  then  sewed 
on.  1'eside  the  star-like  ornaments  covering  the  body 
of  the  dress,  the  sleeves  and  neck  of  the  dress  have 
broad  borders  of  narrow  fillets,  with  buds  and  blossoms 
of  lotus-flowers,  circles,  and  a  peculiar  zigzag  pattern 


alternating.  As  given  here,  the  dress  appears  as  worn 
by  the  lung  in  a  warlike  attitude  riding  in  a  chariot; 
but  in  a  sculpture  of  the  same  king  in  the  British 
.Museum,  where  he  appears  feasting  with  his  queen, 
lie  is  seen  in  much  the  same  costume.  The  other  illus 
tration,  from  the  same  i[iutrter.  also  presents  one  attired 
in  a  verv  ornate  dress,  covered  with  various  vet  rc<_ru- 


larly  alternatiii'.r  figures,  and  tastefully  fringed  down  the 
side.  It  has  al.-o  a  broad  border  of  embroidered 
work,  consir-tinu"  of  a  patti  rn  of  l<.tus  and  honeysuckle 
ilowei-s,  or  i.f  symbolical  figures.  The  person  wearing 
the  dress  is  uncertain  ;  but  bein_;  found  amon^  the 
sculptures  of  NiiuAch,  the  fabric  represented  is  of 
unquestionable  antiquity.  The  specimens  before  us 
clearly  show  that  embroidery  as  practised  among  tin- 
Assyrians  was  of  a  more  elaborate  character,  and  in 
its  patterns  much  rieher.  than  any  we  are  acquainted 
with  from  lv.-\  pt. 

How  far  the  Israelites  miu'ht  cultivate  such  arts  after 
they  were  settled  in  ( 'anaan,  \\e  have  no  means  of  pro- 
perl  v  ascertain ii i 'j'.  I'.ut  as  their  general  habits  were  such 
as  grew  out  of  the  possession  and  cultivation  of  land,  the 
probability  is  that  they  knew  little  or  nothing  practi 
cally  of  at  least  the  hi-hcr  kinds  of  this  skilled  handi 
craft.  They  would  perceive  it  to  be  hopeless  to  compete 
\\ith  their  more  artistic  and  commercial  neighbours, 
whether  in  Assyria  or  in  Ku'vpl:  and  to  the  marts  of 
these  neighbours  they  would  naturally  repair  when  they 
sought  the  materials  of  finely  woven  and  curiously 
figured  or  richly  coloured  garments.  Hence,  in  K/ckiel's 
enumeration  of  the  manifold  traffic  of  Tyre,  while  fur 
nishings  of  I'l-oidered  work  are  twice  mentioned,  in 
neither  case  are  they  associated  with  the  people  of 
Israel,  but  merely  \\ith  the  old  centres  of  such  produc 
tions-  Egypt  and  Assyria:  the  latter,  however,  coupled 
with  some  related  cities.  KXI-.  xxvii.  r,  'j:!,  -'I.  The  pecu 
liarity  too  is  noticed  in  regard  to  Egypt,  of  extending 
this  taste  for  ornamental  work  to  sails,  which  we  know 
from  other  sources  to  have  been  their  custom  (Wilkinson, 
iii  '.'in). 

EMERALD  is  the  equivalent  in  the  English  version 
for  mijitk  Crtt;1),  one  of  the  gems  in  the  high- priest's 


EMERODS 


ENCAMPMENT 


breastplate,  and  one  also  of  the  articles  of  Tyre's  exten 
sive  traffic,  Ex.  xxviii.  i.s;  K/.u.  xxvii.  Hi.  But  there  is  no 
certainty  that  this  was  the  gem  actually  meant.  Jose- 
phus  ami  the  Septuagint  understood  by  it  the  avOpa'c, 
tin1  (•.•irlniiicle  or  Indian  ruby — a  gem  of  a  fiery  red 
colour.  The  emerald,  on  the  contrary, 'is  of  a  bright 
green,  and  was  well  known  to  the  ancients.  Gesenius 
expresses  himself  as  unaMe  to  define  an\  thing  ivspect- 
ing  the  precise  import  of  the  original. 

EMERODS,  understood  to  have  l.een  some  sort  of 
tumours  with  which  the  Lord  visited  the  Philistines,  on 
account  of  their  indignity  toward  the  ark  of  the  cove 
nant,  i  S;i.  v.  ii.  Such,  undoubtedly,  was  the  ancient 
Jewish  opinion;  and  modern  conjectures  on  the  subject 
deserve  no  attention. 

E'MIM,  a  race  of  people  distinguished  for  then- 
gigantic  stature  and  warlike  propensities,  who  originally 
occupied  a  portion  of  the  territory  to  the  east  of  Jordan, 
which  afterwards  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Moabites: 
they  were  in  existence  so  early  as  the  time  of  Abraham, 
oe.  xiv. ;,;  i>e.  ii.  in.  (Nte  GIANTS.) 

EMMAN'UEL.     ,SVc  TM MANUEL. 

EMMA'US,  the  name  of  a  place/distant  from  Jeru 
salem  about  »>()  stadia  or  7.1  Konuui  miles.  It  is  men 
tioned  only  once,  and  in  connection  with  the  interview 
held  by  our  Lord  and  two  of  the  disciples  on  the  day 
of  the  resurrection,  Lu.  xxiv.  1:1.  But  nothing  is  said  as 
to  the  direction  in  which  it  lay,  nor  for  what  purpose 
the  two  disciples  were  journeying  toward  it.  That 
there  was  a  place  of  that  name,  and  at  the  distance  of 
(JO  stadia  from  Jerusalem,  is  also  noticed  incidentally 
by  Josephus  (Wars.vii.  o,  y).  The  monks  identified  it  with 
El  Kubeibeh,  but  without  any  valid  ground;  and  not 
withstanding  that  it  lies  at  too  great  a  distance,  Jerome 
and  Eusebius  mistook  it  for  the  Emmaus,  called  also 
Nicopolis,  which  stood  half-way  between  Jerusalem  and 
Ramleh,  on  the  Philistine  border,  but  which  is  20  Ro 
man  miles  from  Jerusalem -—  a  proof  at  how  early  a 
period  all  certain  trace  was  lost  of  the  Emmaus  of  St. 
Luke.  Kobinson  has  attempted  to  revive  this  view 
(Researches,  iii.  C">,  60). 

EM'MOR.     #•(•  HAMOR. 

EN,  or  AIN,  the  Hebrew  term  for  fountain,  and 
occurring  frequently  in  compound  names.  The  word 
also  signifies  ajc,  and  when  applied  to  springs  of  water, 
was  doubtless  meant  to  denote  these  as  the  open,  living 
eyes  of  the  landscape.  (See  AIN.) 

ENCAMPMENT.  The  word  corresponding  to  this 
in  Hebrew,  maliaiuh  (n:nc),  is  from  a  root  that  sig 
nifies  to  sit  down,  to  pitch  a  tent,  and  is  hence  applied 
to  any  band  or  company  presenting  a  regular  and 
settled  aspect — for  example,  to  a  nomade  party  at  rest, 
Ge.  xxxii.  21,  or  even  to  angelic  bands,  as  seen  by  Jacob, 
who  therefore  called  the  name  of  the  place  where  such 
appeared  to  him  Mahanaim,  Ge.  xxxii.  2.  But  in  by  far 
the  most  frequent  use  of  the  term  it  denotes  the  en 
campment  of  Israel  as  a  body,  or  of  its  armed  host  when 
assembled  for  military  purposes.  Our  word  camp,  which 
is  the  rendering  usually  adopted  in  the  English  Bible, 
corresponds  to  it  in  all  those  cases  where  the  host  as 
sembled  was  a  strictly  military  one,  but  is  stretched 
beyond  its  usual  meaning  when  applied  to  the  encamp 
ments  of  the  congregated  host  of  Israel.  Yet  it  is  of 
these  latter  alone  that  we  have  any  detailed  account  in 
Scripture;  of  military  encampments  nothing  but  inci 
dental  and  partial  notices  are  given.  During  the 


sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  when  the  entire  people  had 
to  be  kept  for  many  years  together  within  a  compara 
tively  narrow  space,  it  was  necessary,  for  the  sake  of 
order  and  propriety  as  well  as  safety,  that  the  several 
tribes  and  families  should  have  their  respective  positions 
assigned  them,  and  that  as  little  as  possible  should  lie 
left  to  personal  rivalry  or  individual  caprice.  As  the 
tabernacle  of  the  Lord,  with  its  consecrated  ministry 
and  instruments  of  service,  formed  incomparably  the 
most  important  part  of  the  whole  establishment,  so 
th>'se  had  fitly  appropriated  to  them  the  central  place. 
The  tabernacle  itself  opened  toward  the  east,  not  with 
out  reference  probably  to  the  east  as  the  quarter  of  sun- 
rising,  the  region  whence  light  perpetually  breaks  in 
upon  the  brooding  darkness  of  the  world;  and  hence 
the  east  naturally  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  position 
of  highest  honour—  those  who  occupied  the  first  rank, 
both  in  the  narrower  and  the  wider  circle,  were  sta 
tioned  on  the  east.  Such  was  the  position  of  Aaron 
and  the  priests  (including  also  Moses)  in  the  narrower 
circle — after  whom  were  the  Kohathites  on  the  south, 
the  Gershonites  on  the  west,  and  the  Merarites  on  the 
north,  the  other  stem-divisions  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  Nu. 
iii.  Outside  this  interior  circle,  at  a  considerable  dis 
tance  from  the  tabernacle,  but  still  looking  toward  it, 
and  having  it  in  front  (for  they  were  to  be  all  round 
about  it)  lay  the  other  tribes  in  order:  Kirst,  on  tin- 
east  Judah,  having  associated  with  him  .Issachar  and 
Zebuluii;  on  the  south  Reuben,  with  his  associates 
Simeon  and  Gad;  on  the  west  Ephraim,  with  his  as 
sociates  Manasseh  and  Benjamin;  on  the  north  Dan. 
with  his  associates  Asher  and  Naphtali,  Nu.  ii.  No- 
thingis  said  as  to  the  relative  positions  of  the  three  tribes 
which  severally  occupied  these  four  sides,  as  to  nearness 
to  the  tabernacle,  or  juxtaposition  to  the  division  com 
ing  next  in  order.  But  the  probability  is,  that  as  the 
particular  tribe  under  which  the  other  two  were  ranged, 
was  to  form  the  kind  of  advanced  guard  in  marching, 
it  would  also,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  have  the  place 
of  priority,  both  with  reference  to  the  tabernacle  and  to 
the  line  of  inarch.  Everything  of  this  sort,  however, 
must  be  in  great  measure  conjectural :  as  is  also  the 
very  common  idea  that  the  camp  as  a  whole  took  the 
form  of  a  square.  It  may  possibly  have  done  so  ;  but 
there  is  nothing  in  the  descriptions  given  which  dis 
tinctly  implies  that,  and  the  oval  or  circular  form  may 
just  as  readily  be  assigned  to  it.  The  more  probable 
supposition  is,  that  the  actual  positions  would  varv 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  locality  on  which  the 
encampments  were  made;  as  this  must  usually  have  had 
a  regulating  influence  on  the  subordinate  arrangements. 
(For  the  specific  charge  in  respect  to  the  furniture  of 
the  tabernacle,  and  its  distribution  among  the  families 
of  Kohath,  Gershon,  and  Merari,  see  under  the  several 
names.) 

In  its  ordinary  and  habitual  state,  the  encampment 
of  the  children  of  Israel,  being  that  of  the  Lord's  host, 
and  with  the  Lord  himself  symbolically  resident  among 
them,  was  ordered  not  merely,  nor  even  most  directly 
and  prominently,  with  a  view  to  the  preservation  of 
health,  but  for  the  sake  of  keeping  up  the  impression 
of  that  sanctity,  which  it  most  especially  behoved  the 
people  in  all  their  relations  to  cherish  and  manifest. 
.Some  of  the  things  prescribed  were  undoubtedly  of  a 
healthful  tendency,  such  as  the  order  to  bury  the  dead 
outside  the  camp,  Le.  x.  4;  and  the  carrying  out  thither 
all  the  refuse  connected  with  sacrifice,  and  whatever 


ENCHANTMENTS 

was  fitted  to  create  offensive  effluvia  and  odious  un- 
cleanness.  Le.  vi.  n  ;  DC.  xxiii.  1-2,  r.',.  But  it  is  the  incon 
gruity  of  such  things,  in  their  symbolical  and  moral 
aspect,  with  the  character  of  a  region  which  ought  in 
all  respects  to  have  reflected  the  purity  and  incorruption 
of  Jehovah,  which  is  assigned  as  the  reason  for  the 
prescriptions  in  question.  De  xxiii.  14.  Hence  not  the 
dead  merely  had  to  be  carried  out  of  the  camp,  but 
even  those  who  had  come  in  contact  with  the  dead,  or 
had  incidentally  touched  a  dead  bone,  must  for  a  time 
also  take  their  place  outside,  till  they  had  undergone 
the  requisite  purifications,  Xu.  v.  L' ;  xxxi.  1:1.  Jn  like 
manner  those  who  were  afflicted  with  any  issue,  and 
persons  smitten  by  the  leprosy,  were  obliged  to  remove 
out  of  the  cam]),  not  from  there  being  anything  infec 
tious  in  such  disorders  (for  they  were  not  properly  of 
that  nature),  nor  from  regard  to  the  general  healthful- 
ness  of  the  congregation,  hut  because  of  the  ilrri/onoit 
which  they  (symbolically)  imparted  to  a  region  wherein 
nothing  that  defiled  should  have  been  found.  Nu.  v.  :i; 
Le.  xiii.  4i>.  (!od  w;is  to  be  known  by  his  people,  and 
again  made-  known  through  them,  as  emphatically  the 
Living  One,  who  could  have  no  fellowship  with  death, 
which  is  the  expression  of  his  curse,  or  \\itli  the  things 
which  miirht  more  peculiarly  be  regarded  as  its  si^ns 
and  forerunners.  He  must  bo  km.wn  also  and  mani 
fested  as  the  .Holy  One,  who  cannot  look  on  sin  but 
with  abhorrence,  and  in  whose  presence  nothing  should 
be  permitted  that  bore  on  it  the  impress  or  imauv  of 
corruption.  And  on  these  accounts  especially  it  was 
necessary  that  the  occasions  and  sources  of  defilement 
referred  to  should  be  excluded  from  the  >ph«  re  which 
was  hallowed  by  his  own  habitation,  and  the  habitation- 
of  the  people  on  whom  he  had  put  his  name.  1X1, 
under  C'I.KAN,  HKIFKK  d.'KDt.  Is>i  K.  Ln-ucisv.  &c.) 

The  burninu<-  of  the  carcase  of  certain  kinds  of  MII- 
offering  -those,  namely,  for  the  high-priest  <>r  for  the 
whole  congregation— without  the  camp.  I.e.  iv.  r_>,  21 ;  HO. 
xiii.  u,  had  its  reason  in  considerations  essentially  dif 
ferent,  connected  with  the  ritual  of  sacrifice.  (XVc 
Six-oKFKUiNc.)  And  it  was  by  nn  means,  as  very  often 
stated,  because  of  some  special  defilement  attaching,  or 
supposed  to  attach,  to  offerings  of  that  description. 

In  regard  to  the  military  encampments  of  Israel  in 
later  times,  as  already  intimated,  we  are  without  anv 
definite  information.  Formed  merely  for  the  occasion. 
and  as  circumstances  might  admit,  they  could  scarcely 
lie  brought  under  very  precise  or  stringent  re-ula 
tions.  They  were  pitched,  as  appears  from  the  history. 
in  any  suitable  or  convenient  situation  that  presented 
itself — sometimes  on  a  height,  Ju.  vii.  i>;  l  S;i.  xiii.  2;  some 
times  in  a  valley,  l  s:i.  xvii.  :i;  and  no  doubt  very 
frequently  beside  some  copious  spring  or  running  stream, 
without  easy  access  to  which  no  force  could  have  lout; 
subsisted  in  so  hot  a  clime.  Ju.  vii.  i;  i  sa.  xxix.  l  :  x\x.  <>. 
That  some  sort  of  entrenchments  or  external  defences 
would  be  thrown  around  the  extremities  of  the  camp, 
when  it  was  expected  to  lie  located  for  a  considerable 
time  in  one  place,  or  was  in  danger  of  a  hostile  attack,  j 
may  be  inferred  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  also  ' 
from  certain  incidental  notices,  l  Sa.  xvii.  20  ;  xxvi.  ,1,  :. 
But  on  these  and  other  points  connected  with  camping  , 
operations  in  Israel,  our  information  is  extremely 
scanty,  and  nothing  of  any  moment  depends  on  them 
for  the  elucidation  of  the  historical  portions  of  Old 
Testament  scripture. 

ENCHANTMENTS.     Xee  DIVINATION. 
VOL.  I 


EX-GEDT 

EN'DOR  [fountain  of  Dor  or  /<„««•],  a  town  of 
Manasseh,  though  within  the  territory  of  Issachar,  and 
situated  at  a  short  distance  from  Mount  Tabor,  on  the 
j  south,  Jos.  xvii.  11.  It  is  chiefly  memorable  as  the  place 
where  Saul  in  his  distress  went  to  consult  the  female 
necromancer,  immediately  before  the  disastrous  battle 
of  Gilhoa:  but  is  also  mentioned  in  connection  with  the 
victory  of  Barak  and  Deborah  over  Sisera,  i  SA.  xxviii.  7; 
I's.  Ixxxi.i  n>.  It  existed  as  a  considerable  village  in  the 
.  time  of  Kusebius  and  Jerome,  but  has  long  since  dis 
appeared. 

EN-EGLA'IM  [fountain  of  tu-o  <-a !<•(*],  a  town  in 
Moab,  supposed  to  have  been  toward  the  north  of  the 
Dead  Sea — site  not  known.  K/o.  xhii.  10. 

EN-GAN'NIM  [fountain  of  ,iarden*\.  The  name 
of  several  places  in  Palestine.  1.  A  town  of  Judah,  of 
which  nothing  is  known,  Jos.  \\.-.\\.  2.  A  town  in  Issa 
char.  appropriated  to  the  Levites.  Jos  xix.  •_>!,  generally 
supposed  to  be  perpetuated  in  the  modern  Jeiiin.  which 
lies  about  fifteen  miles  south  of  Mount  Tabor,  and 
which  ^-till  has  a  tine  stream  of  pure  water  running 
throu'jh  it,  and  excellent  gardens  in  its  neighbourhood. 
3.  And  a  town  of  the  same  name  is  mentioned  by 
Jerome  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  near  Gerasa. 

EN-GE'DI  [fountain  »/  the  Mil].  A  place  on  the 
western  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  about  midway 
between  its  north  and  south  extremities.  Its  earlier 
name  was  1 1  A/A/ON-TAMAH,  <;^  xiv  7-,  •_'  ch.  x\.  •_>,  which 
means  the  "  felling  of  palm-trees."  and  doubtless  arose 
fromtheiiunibef.it  Midi  trees  which  on  some  particular 
occasion  had  been  cut  down  in  its  neighbourhood.  It 
was  quite  natural,  when  the  place  ceased  to  be  so 
peculiarly  di.-tinguished  by  it-  palms,  that  another 
name  should  be  Mib.-tituted  for  the  original  designation; 
and  as  it  st 1  near  a  remarkably  copious  and  spark 
ling  spring  of  water,  the  report  of  the  \\ild  goats  on  the 
Mirroundiii'_r  cliffs,  none  was  more  natural  than  En- 
gedi.  This  is  still  preserved  in  'A  in  Jiddy,  tin-  name 
given  to  the  spot  by  the  modern  Arabs.  The  spring, 
says  Robinson,  "bursts  forth  upon  a  sort  of  narrow 
terrace  or  shelf  of  the  mountain  (which  overhangs  the 
laket.  still  more  than  KlH  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
-ea.  The  stream  rushes  down  the  steep  descent  of  the 
mountain  below,  and  its  course  is  hidden  by  a  luxuriant 
thicket  of  trees  and  shrubs  belonging  to  a  more  southern 
clime.  Among  these  he  mentions  particularly  the 
semr.  the  thorny  nubk  ilote-tree)  of  Eyypt,  the  oesher, 
and  a  tree  the  Aral  is  called  fustak.  but  not  a  palm  was 
to  be  seen,  though  the  place  had  once  been  famous  for 
trees  of  that  order.  Nor  is  there  now  anv  town  or 
village  near  the  fountain,  but  there  are  the  evident 
remains  of  one.  Descending  by  the  thicket,  which 
clothes  the  tianks  of  the  stream.  Dr.  Kobinson  says  - 
"The  whole  of  the  descent  was  apparently  once  ter 
raced  for  tillage  and  gardens;  and  on  the  right,  near 
the  foot,  are  the  ruins  of  a  town  exhibiting  nothing  of 
particular  interest.  Few  of  the  stones  appear  to  have 
been  hewn"  ( lU-searclies,  iii.  p.  »i!i,  sc'«|.). 

Such  is  all  that  now  appears  of  the  ancient  En-gedi, 
which  was  a  place  of  some  note  even  when  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  were  cities  of  the  plain,  and  the  gardens  of 
which  were  so  famous  at  a  later  period  as  to  have  been 
thought  deserving  of  celebration  in  sacred  song,  Ca. 
i.  11.  It  gave  its  name  to  the  wilderness  toward  the 
south  and  west,  which  was  one  of  the  favourite  haunts 
of  David,  i  s.i.  xxiv.  i.  The  deep  ravines  and  caverns 
with  which  the  district  abounds  peculiarly  fitted  it  for 

66 


ENGINES  OF  \\A\i 


serving  as  a  hiding-place  to  David  and  liis  men,  when 
pursued  by  the  hot  rage  and  vengeful  malice  of  Saul. 
Caverns  are  still  found  there  which  have  side- recesses 
that  are  capable  of  holding  in  the  closest  secresy  hun 
dreds  of  men:  and  from  clitt's.  separated  by  intervening 
gulfs,  men  to  this  day  hold  such  converse  with  each 
other,  as  David  did  with  Abner  in  the  ancient  times. 
1  S;i.  xxvi.  11.  Speaking  of  \\liat  occurred  in  this  same 
region,  a  recent  traveller  writes  "  As  \\v  were  riding 
(.•autiously  along  the  face  of  the  hill,  our  attention  was 
suddenly  arrested  by  the  voice  of  a  shepherd,  who  \va.> 
evidently  calling  to  some  one  whom  we  could  not  see. 
hut  whose  answer  we  distinctly  heard.  The  dialogue 
went  on.  Another  and  another  sentence  was  slowly 
and  sonorously  uttered  by  the  shepherd  near  us,  and  as 
often  the  response  was  distinctly  given.  At  length, 
guided  by  the  sound,  we  descried  far  up  the  confront 
ing  hill,  the  source  of  the  second  voice  in  the  person  of 
another  shepherd,  and  learned  from  our  Arab  attend 
ants  that  they  were  talking  to  each  other  about  their 
flocks.  ISetweoii  these  two  men  was  tlie  deep  crevasse 
formed  by  the  valley  of  the  Kidron.  walled  in  by  loftv 
precipices  which  no  human  foot  could  scale.  It  would 
probably  have  taken  a  full  hour  for  one.  even  as  Meet 
and  as  strong- winded  as  an  Asahel,  to  pass  from  the 
standing- place  of  the  one  speaker  to  that  of  the  other, 
and  yet  they  were  exchanging  words  with  perfect  ease" 
^Dr.  Buchanan's  Clerical  Furlough,  p.  •2'}~). 

In  times  considerably  later  still  than  those  of  Saul 
and  David,  the  primary  hermits  of  I'.llestine.  the  Es- 
senes,  had  their  chief  seat  at  En-gedi;  and  at  no  great 
distance  from  it  stood  the  earliest  Christian  monastery 
of  Palestine—- that  of  Alar-Saba.  I'.ut  no  mention  is 
made  of  it  in  the  hi-tory  of  the  crusades.  Only  in 
recent  times  has  attention  been  a^ain  drawn  to  the 
place  and  its  remarkable  spring. 

ENGINES  OF  WAR.     AW-  FOKTIFICATION. 

EN-HAD'DAH  [.•.•»•;/>  fountain].  A  town  on  the 
border  of  Issachar.  which  has  never  been  identified. 
Jos.  xix.  21. 

EN-HAKKO'RE  [fountain  of  tin-  crier].  A  name 
given  by  Samson  to  a  place  where  a  spring  burst  forth 
in  answer  to  his  cry,  Ju.  \v.  i'.i. 

EN-HA'ZOR  [fountain  of  tJtc  rUluye].  A  fenced 
city  in  Naphtali,  but  site  unknown,  Jos.  xix.  ?j. 

ENMISHTAT.  Another  name  for  KAUKSII.  Gc. 
xiv.  7  ( which  see). 

E'NOCH  [dedicated]  occurs  first  as  the  name  given 
to  Cain's  eldest  son,  Ge.  iv.  17,  but  it  is  elderly  associated 
with  the  son  of  Jared.  He  was  the  seventh  in  the 
chosen  line  from  Adam,  and  his  history  is  thus  briefly 
recorded  by  the  sacred  writer  — "  And  Knoch  lived  sixty 
and  five  years  and  begat  Methuselah:  and  Knoch  walked 
with  God,  after  he  begat  Methuselah,  three  hundred 
years,  and  begat  sons  and  daughters:  and  all  the  days 
of  Enoch  were  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  years;  and 
Enoch  walked  with  God.  and  he  was  not.  for  God  took 
him,"  Ge.  v.  '22-'24.  The  expression  used  to  characterize 
the  life  of  Enoch,  "he  walked  with  God,''  indicates  the 
closest  fellowship,  and  is  applied  only  to  another  son  of 
Adam,  and  lie  also  an  antediluvian  patriarch— Noah, 
Ge.  vi.  9.  Later  saints  are  often  spoken  of  as  "walking 
before  God/'  or  "  walking  in  the  ways  of  the  Lord," 
but  never  explicitly  as  walking  with  himself.  It  is 
properly  a  paradisiacal  expression,  and  points  to  that 
state  of  primeval  blessedness  and  purity  when  man 
could  look  unabashed  on  the  appearance  of  God.  and 


hear  his  Creator's  voice  as  he  walked  amid  the  trees  of 
the  garden.  -Not  that  Enoch  actually  attained  to  the 
same  intimate  communion  with  heaven,  but  he  nearly 
approached  it;  and  as  already  in  a  sense  with  God,  so 
God  took  him:  it  is  not  said  w/ierc.  but  the  natural 
inference  is,  to  the  more  immediate  presence  of  God  — 
to  where  the  communion  Enoch  sought  after  and 
delighted  in  might  be  more  fully  enjoyed  and  more 
uninterruptedly  maintained.  Such  a  taking  could,  not 
be  a  passing  by  death  into  another  world,  for  it  is 
expressly  contradistinguished  from  the  case  of  all  the 
other  believing  patriarchs,  who.  after  enjoying  God's 
favour  during  an  extended  life,  finished  it  by  dying. 
Enoch,  on  the  contrary,  was  taken  by  God  as  a  living 
saint;  he  "was  translated,  that  he  should  not  see  death.  ' 
and  this  expressly  because,  in  hi>  walk  with  God.  he 
had  already  obtained  "the  testimony  that  he  pleased 
God,"  lie.  xi.  :,.  Various  ends  were  doubtless  to  be 
accomplished  by  this  suspension  of  death  in  the  ease  of 
Enoch.  Taking  place,  as  it  did.  in  the  comparative 
infancy  of  the  world,  when  all  revelation  was  embodied 
in  the  facts  of  history,  it  taught,  by  means  of  a  pal 
pable  proof,  the  important  truth  that  while,  by  reason 
of  sili.  God  has  subjected  mankind  to  the  law  of  mor 
tality,  he  has  not  hound  himself  in  every  case  to  execute 
the  law.  that  unbroken  continuity  of  life  may  be  occa 
sionally  granted  as  the  reward  of  distinguished  grace. 
It  set,  too.  in  the  most  emphatic  manner,  the  seal  of 
Heaven's  confirmation  and  approval  upon  the  faith 
Enoch  had  exhibited,  and  the  kind  of  life  lie  had  main 
tained.  And  finally,  viewed  in  connection  with  the 
growing  wickedness  of  the  world,  against  which  Enoch 
had  by  his  life  protested,  and  the  coming  judgment  of 
which  lie  had  prophetically  announced,  it  proclaimed, 
as  with  a  voice  from  heaven,  the  greatness  of  the  evil 
that  was  proceeding  amongst  men.  and  the  tearfulness 
of  the  gathering  storm  that  was  preparing  to  break 

'  forth  on  the  world.  It  was  already,  in  God's  judgment, 
better  to  be  taken  from  the  world  than  to  be  continued 
in  it  as  matters  then  stood,  and  still  more  as  they 
threatened  to  become.  Such  considerations  lighten  the 
mystery  of  Enoch's  translation,  though  they  cannot  be 
said  altogether  to  dispel  it. 

No  notice  is  taken  in  the  history  of  any  prophecy  of 
Enoch;  the  only  record  that  is  found  of  it  in  Scripture 
is  in  one  of  the  latest  books  of  the  New  Testament — 
the  epistle  of  Jude.  There,  speaking  of  the  evil  char 
acters  that  were  rising  up  in  his  day,  and  in  their 
depravity  and  wickedness  assimilating  themselves  to 
those  of  antediluvian  times,  St.  Jude  says,  "  Enoch, 
also,  the  seventh  from  Adam,  prophesied  of  these,  say 
ing.  I'.ehold.  the  Lord  cometh  with  ten  thousand  of  his 
saints,  to  execute  judgment  upon  all,  and  to  convince 
all  that  are  ungodly  among  them  of  all  their  ungodly 
deeds  that  they  have  ungodly  committed,  and  of  all 
their  hard  speeches  which  ungodly  sinners  have  spoken 
against  him."  It  has  been  a  question  where  this  pro- 

|  phecy  was  obtained,  or  how  it  was  preserved?  Had 
it  been  handed  down  by  tradition?  Or  did  it  exist 
in  some  ancient,  though  uninspired,  apocryphal  pro 
duction  {  It  is  one  of  the  questions  connected  with 
the  history  of  the  remote  past,  which  cannot  be  quite 
satisfactorily  answered.  The  words  substantially  exist 
in  a  writing  of  some  antiquity  which  goes  by  the  name 
of  the  Book  of  Enoch,  and  professes  to  have  proceeded 
from  that  holy  patriarch,  but  which  is  certainly  apo- 

!  cryphal  in  character.     A  passage  occurs  in  this  book, 


EPAPHRODITUS 


ch.  ii.,  which  so  nearly  resembles  the  one  found  in  the 
epistle  of  Judo  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  the 
two  writers  had  not  a  common  authority  before  them, 
the  one  must  have  borrowed  from  the  other.  It  runs 
thus  — "  Behold,  he  [the  Lord]  cometh  with  ten  thousand 
of  his  saints,  to  execute  judgment  upon  them,  and 
destroy  the  wicked,  and  reprove  all  the  carnal  for  every 
thing  which  the  sinful  and  ungodly  Lave  done,  and 
committed  against  him.''  It  <»•  possible  that  some  com 
mon  authority  containing  the  words  was  in  the  hands  of 
both — a  writing  of  much  higher  antiquity  than  either 
the  epistle  of  Jude  or  the  Look  of  Enoch  —in  which  the 
prophecy  of  that  patriarch,  though  omitted  in  the 
genealogical  abstract  of  Genesis,  had  found  a  veritable 
record.  It  is  also  possible  that,  however  the  knowledge 
of  the  prophecy  may  have  been  preserved,  Jude  did  not 
borrow  from  the  Book  of  Enoch,  but  rather  that  the 
author  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  may  have  borrowed  from 
Jude.  For  whether  this  author  \\  us  u  Christian  or 
not,  there  is  good  reason  in  the  book  itself  to  believe 
that  the  author  was  at  least  acquainted  with  the  char 
acter  ami  pretensions  of  Christ,  and  spake  of  the  .Mes 
siah  in  a  way  which  no  [-imply  Jewish  writings  of  the 
apostolic  or  immediately  subsequent  ages  ever  did. 
This  view  has  been  well  exhibited  by  .Moses  Stuart  in 
his  Commentary  on  tin  Aji<"-a/i//>.<e  vvol.  i.  sue.  ii).  It  is 
not,  however,  concurred  in  by  the  two  chief  editors  of 
the  Hook  of  Enoch,  vi/..  1  >r.  Laurence  in  this  country, 
and  A.  G.  Hoffman  on  the  Continent.  These  writers 
both  contend  for  the  priority  of  the  Hook  of  Enoch  to 
that  i.f  the  epistle  of  Jude.  as  is  done  also  by  J  >r.  S. 
Davidson  (,-ivt.  Kuoch,  Kiu..'s  rycl.,]^ .ii:i>,  and  by  several 
late  German  writers.  lint  I'rof.  Volkmar  of  Zurich 
has  lately  (Zuitsdirirt  1 1  or  Duuts.-ln.-n  M<>rg.jul.  (iusL-lUchall,  f..r 
l^ini  urged  strong  reasons  for  ascribing  it  to  the  period  of 
the  Jewish  impostor  liarehocliba-,  whose  sedition  t»ok 
place  about  A.D.  \:',\i.  with  whom  Alt'ord  concurs.  The 

first  writer  who  refers  to  tile  1 k  by  name  is  Tertul- 

lian.  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century:  in  In-mens 
and  Justin  .Martyr  there  are  apparent  allusions  to 
some  things  in  it.  Then-  is  no  real  evidence  of  it- 
existence  prior  to  the  Christian  era:  and  that  St.  Jude 
derived  from  it  the  prophecy  of  Enoch  U  an  assertion 
which  is  quite  incapable  of  proof.  i.sV»  .Inn::  also  the 
fin,,/.-  nf  A',,,,,-/,  (/,,  /',-.r/"M'V  Dr.  Laurence,  third  ed. 
IS.'IS:  /><!*  /!<"'/<  /A,/...-//  in~v»ll*tii,idi<ier  rebwtziinu 
mit  fortlaiifemkm  Commentar,  \c..  von  Andr.  <  '•.  HoH'- 
mann,  1S:>:{  and  ls:.!>.) 

E'NOCH  was  also  the  name  of  a  .-on  of  Midiuii,  and 
of  the  eldest  son  of  Reuben,  (ic  \xv.  i;  \hi.  <i. 

E'NON,  or  J-:\()N  [*,,rill;>*\.  A  place  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Jordan,  near  Salim.  not  far  also  from  Beth- 
shean  and  Shechem.  where  John  for  a  time  baptized, 
Jn.  iii.  •£':,  and  probably  so  called  from  the  copious  streams 
it  possessed.  (>Vr  SALIM.) 

EN  RO  GEL  [fountain  of  font},  called  by  the  rabbins 
Puffer*  fountain,  because  fullers  who  trod  the  cloth 
with  their  feet  used  to  frequent  this  fountain.  The 
name  first  occurs  in  the  description  given  in  Joshua  of 
the  boundary  line  between  the  territories  of  Benjamin 
and  Juduh.  Starting  from  the  north-west  border  of 
the  Dead  Sea.  this  line  went  up  through  the  mountains 
of  En-Shemesh,  thence  to  En-rogel,  and  up  the  valley 
of  Hinnom.  on  the  south  side  of  the  Jebusites,  ch.  xv.  r. 
It  is  again  noticed  in  connection  with  the  rebellion  of 
Absalom,  as  the  place  adjacent  to  the  city  where  Jona 
than  and  Ahimaaz  waited  to  hear  tidings  of  what  passed 


within,  2  Sa.  xviii.  M,  i:  ;  also  as  the  place  near  which 
Adonijah,  when  going  to  have  himself  proclaimed  king, 
assembled  his  friends  and  made  a  feast,  described  by 
Josephus  as  being  "  without  the  city,  at  the  fountain 
which  is  iu  the  king's  garden  (1  Ki.  i.  !';  .IMS.  Am.  vii.  11,  -M. 
The  situation  of  En-rogel  is  thus  plainly  enough  fixed  to 
be  in  the  precincts  of  Jerusalem,  and  somewhere  about 
the  southern  extremity  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom.  And 
there  precisely  is  the  site  of  what  is  now  called  by  the 
Franks  the  well  of  Xehemiah.  and  by  the  native-  that 
of  Job  (  /!ii'-A'i/t*t>>}.  Robinson  describes  it  as  "  a  deep 
well  situated  just  below  the  junction,  if  the  valley  of 
Hinnom  with  that  of  Jehoshaphat.  The  small  oblong- 
plain  there  formed  is  covered  with  an  olive-grove,  and 
with  the  traces  of  former  gardens  extending  down  the 
valley  from  the  present  gardens  of  Siloam.  Indeed  this 
•w  hole  spot  is  the  prettiest  and  most  fertile  around 
Jerusalem.  The  well  is  very  deep,  of  an  irregular 
quadrilateral  lorm,  walled  up  \\ith  large  squared  stones, 
terminating  above  in  an  arch  on  one-  side,  and  appar 
ently  of  great  antiquity.  There  is  a  small  rude  build 
ing  over  it,  furnished  with  one  or  two  large  troughs  or 
reservoirs  of  stone,  which  are  kept  partially  filled  for 
the  convenience  of  the  people.  The  well  measures  125 
feet  in  depth,  ."in  feet  of  which  was  now  full  of  water. 
The  water  is  s\vect,  but  not  very  cold,  and  is  at  the 
present  day  drawn  up  by  the  hand"  (  Researches,  i.  .1:10). 
In  winter  it  is  u-uallv  full,  and  sometimes  overflows. 


lay  on  the  border  between  J  udah  and  Benjamin,  and 
apparently  between  Adummim  and  En-rogel,  Jos.  xv.  7. 
It  is  usually  identified  with  .1  /;/-//•/»'/,  a  spring  lying 
on  the-  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  about  a  mile 
from  Bethany. 

ENSIGN.'     .SH   BANNKR. 

EPAE'NETUS.  a  (  'hristian,  residing  at  Rome  when 
the  cpistli-  to  the  Romans  was  written,  and  designated 
by  the  apostle  "the  first-  fruits  of  Asia,"  ,-h  xvi..->  —  for  so 
the  best  authorities  have  it.  and  not,  as  in  the  received 
text,  "first-fruits  of  Achuia.  '  We  may  hold  it  for  cer 
tain.  therefore,  that  Epaeiietns  belonged  to  some  part 
of  Asia  Minor,  the  first  in  that  part  to  embrace  the 
gospel  on  the  testimony  of  1'aul;  but  the  precise  place 
where  his  conversion  took  place  is  not  more  nearly 
defined. 

EPAPHRAS.  probably  a  member  and  original 
oIKee-bearer  in  the  church  of  (  'oloss;e.  mentioned  by  the 
apostle  Paul  in  his  epistle  to  the  C'olossians  as  "his  dear 
fellow-servant  and  a  faithful  minister  of  Christ,"  one 
also  that  laboured  in  prayer  for  them  even  when  with 
the  apostle  in  Rome,  i-ii.i.  7;h.  r_>.  He  is  again  mentioned 
in  the  epistle  to  Philemon,  and  is  there  characterized 
by  the  apostle  as  his  "fellow-prisoner  in  Christ  Jesus," 
VL-I-.  L'.i.  On  what  special  grounds  he  suffered  imprison 
ment  is  left  altogether  unnoticed:  it  may  have  been 
simply  from  his  connection  with  St.  Paul,  but  may  also 
have  been  on  the  score  of  his  own  active  exertions  in 
behalf  of  the  propagation  of  the  gospel. 

EPAPHRODITUS,  an  officer  in  the  church  at 
Philip]  >i.  and  the  messenger  whom  the  church  deputed 
to  go  to  Rome  with  certain  contributions  to  the  apostle 
Paul  for  his  support  during  the  time  of  his  imprison 
ment.  While  fulfilling  this  ministry  he  was  seized 
with  a  dangerous  illness,  which  for  a  time  awakened 
the  deepest  concern  in  the  apostle's  mind.  But  he  was 
again  restored,  and  bore,  with  him,  on  his  return  to 
Philippi,  the  precious  epistle  which  the  apostle  addressed 


EPIIAU 


EPHESIANS 


to  that  church.  That  Epaphroditus  was  a  person  of 
high  Christian  worth,  and  of  singular  self-denial  in  the 
labours  of  the  gospel,  is  evident  from  the  epithets  Paul 
applies  to  him,  and  the  whole  tone  and  current  of  his 
remarks  regarding  him,  Phi.  ii.  .'.">,  >u<i  ;  iv.  iv 

E'PHAH,  a  dry  measure  comainiuL;'  aimut  seven 
u'ailnns  and  a  half,  or  nearly  a  lmslu-1.  (» <  M  H.\M'I;K>.  i 

E'PHAH.  1.  A  grandson  of  Abraham,  whose  pos 
terity  settled  in  Arabia,  and  bore  the  name  of  their 
progenitor,  Ge.  xxv.  4;  is.  l.v  c>.  2.  A  concubine  of  Caleb, 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  1  c'H.  ii.  w.  A  male  of  the  house 
of  .ludah,  son  of  Jahdai,  1  t'h.  ii.  17. 

EPHES-DAM'MIM  [cessation  of  Uood],  a  place  in 
the  tribe  of  .ludah,  no  further  defined  than  that  it  lay 
between  Shochoh  and  Azekah,  i  s;i.  xvii.  i  —  the  place  of 
the  Philistine  encampment  at  the  time  when  the  en 
counter  took  place  between  (Joliath  and  David.  Jt 
occurs  again  und<;r  the  abbreviated  form  of  Pas-dam- 
mim,  i  ch.  xi.  j:j.  (Ntc  ELAH,  VAI.LKV  OF.) 

EPHESIANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE.  One  of  the 
epistles  written  by  .St.  Paul  during  his  captivity  at  Koine 
(or  at  C';esarea),  to  the  flourishing  church  founded  by 
himself  in  the  commercial  metropolis  of  Asia  Minor. 
The  others  are  the  epistles  to  the  Colossians,  to  the 
Philippians,  and  to  Philemon. 

(nni(iniYK»*. — If  the  question  is  to  lie  decided  by  the 
unanimous  testimony  of  Christian  antiquity,  no  doubt 
can  be  entertained  as  to  the  authorship  of  this  epistle. 
Reminiscences  of  it  occur  in  the  Pastor  of  Hernias 
(Similit.  0,13  ;  Mand.  iii.  io,  i),  and  ill  the  epistle  of  Polycarp 
(ce.  1,12) ;  and  when  Ignatius,  writing  to  the  Ephesians, 
addresses  them  as  "  co-religionists  of  Paul,  the  martyred 
and  the  blessed,  who  throughout  the  epistle  makes  men 
tion  of  you  in  Christ  Jesus"  (Ad  Ephus.  c.  12),  the  allusion 
to  our  epistle  is  manifest.  Irenams  (A.U.  170)  is  the  first 
writer  who  expressly  names  Paul  as  the  author: — ".As 
the  blessed  Paul,"  he  writes,  "says  in  the  epistle  to 
the  Ephesians.  '  since  we  are  members  of  his  body,  of 
his  flesh,  and  of  his  bones, '  Ep.v.  so"  (Adv.  Hreres.l.v.c  2,8.3). 
And  again,  in  the  same  work  (1.  v.  c.  14,  s.  3),  "As  Paul  tells 
the  Ephesians,  '  In  whom  we  have  redemption  through 
his  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  sins,'  Ep.  i  ~ \  and  again  to 
the  same,  '  You  who  were  sometime  far  off  have  been 
made  nigh  by  the  blood  of  Christ ;'  and  again,  '  Abol 
ishing  in  his  flesh  the  enmity,  the  law  of  command 
ments  in  ordinances,' eh.  ii.  ii-i,>."  After  this  date,  the 
epistle  becomes  subject  of  frequent  allusion : — it  will 
be  sufficient  to  cite  Tertulliaii  and  Origen.  the  former 
of  whom  (Adv.  Marc-ion,  1.  v.  c-.  n)  says,  "  I  pass  over  the 
other  epistle,  which  we  hold  to  have  been  written  to 
the  Ephesians,  but  the  heretics  to  the  Laodiceans;" 
while  the  latter  cites  Ep.  i.  4,  with  the  observation, 
''  Thus  the  apostle  in  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  uses 
the  same  language"  (Do  rdneip.  1.  iii.) 

Notwithstanding  this  absence  of  doubt  on  the  part 
of  ancient  writers,  the  modern  critical  school  of  Ger 
many  has  included  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  in  the 
number  of  those  whose  genuineness  is  open  to  suspi 
cion.  Schleiermacher  led  the  way  in  calling  in  ques 
tion  the  received  opinion,  and  he  has  been  followed  by 
De  Wette  and  Baur.  The  objections  of  the  Tubingen 
theologian  are  chiefly  philosophical ;  he  thinks  that 
certain  Gnostic  ideas  and  expressions  betray  a  later 
age :  but  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  follow  this  writer 
into  the  regions  of  unreasoning  scepticism  which  seem 
his  natural  element.  In  fact  Baur  considers  the  epis 
tles  to  the  Romans,  Corinthians,  and  Galatians,  to  be 


the  only  alleged  writings  of  St.  Paul  whose  genuine 
ness  is  certain.  De  Wette' s  exceptions  are  of  a  more 
specific  character,  and  may  deserve  a  passing  notice; 
the  English  reader  will  hardly  think  that  they  deserve 
more.  They  are  principally  three  in  number; — first, 
De  Wette  finds  in  the  epistle  "a  good  deal  both  in 
the  language  and  the  ideas  that  is  inconsistent  with  a 
Pauline  origin."  \\  ith  respect  to  the  former,  it  is 
now  established  as  a  rule  of  sound  criticism  that  no 
argument  can  be.  drawn  from  the  employment  of 
words  not  used  elsewhere  by  a  writer  (ct7ra£  \ey6/j,eva), 
unless  they  are  manifestly  inconsistent  either  with  the 
waiter's  style  as  gathered  from  his  other  works,  or  with 
the  dialect  of  the  age  to  which  he  belongs.  So  far,  in 
the  present  instance,  from  their  appearance  exciting 
suspicion,  the  scanty  number  of  St.  Paul's  epistles,  com 
pared  with  the  intellectual  ailiuenee  of  the  writer  and 
the  variety  of  subjects  upon  which  he  treats,  renders  it 
quite  natural  that  in  each  of  these  compositions  some 
such  words  should  be  found  ;  as  indeed  is  the  case. 
And  De  Wette  has  not  attempted  to  prove  that  those 
occurring  in  this  epistle  (such  as  eyapiTUffev,  ch.  i.  C, 
and  e^iffx^fftjTf,  ch.  iii.  IK),  are  in  themselves  expressions 
which  the  apostle  would  not  be  likely  to  use.  Under 
the  head  of  "ideas  foreign  to  the  apostle"  De  Wette 
specifies  the  ' '  demonology "  of  ch.  ii.  ~2,  and  especially 
ch.  vi.  1'J;  the  expressions.  "  foundation  of  the  apostles 
and  prophets,"  ch.  ii.  20,  ''  holy  apostles,"  ch.  iii.  5,  and 
''mv  knowledge  in  the  mystery  of  Christ,"  ch.  iii.  4, 
as  inconsistent  with  a  proper  spirit  of  humility;  the 
"allegorical  application"  of  Ps.  Ixviii.  IS  in  ch.  iv.  8; 
the  "allegory"'  of  the  marriage  bond  as  illustrative  of 
the  union  betwixt  Christ  and  the  church,  ch.  v.  23-32; 
the  "harshness"  of  such  admonitions  as  "  Let  him  that 
stole  steal  no  more,"  ch.  iv.  2's  and  "  Be  not  drunk  with 
wine."  ch.  v.  i*;  with  other  instances  of  similar  charac 
ter.  Objections  resting  merely  upon  the  individual 
taste  or  private  impressions  of  the  objector  it  is  impos 
sible  and  needless  to  refute  ;  and  of  this  description  are 
those  just  mentioned.  To  the  "ideas"  excepted  against, 
corresponding  or  analogous  ones  may  be  found  in  the 
other  writings  of  St.  Paul ;  and  if  such  could  not  be 
found,  it  would,  as  Olshausen  justly  remarks  (vol.iv.  p.  127), 
be  simply  a  case  of  singular  conceptions  (awa£  voou- 
/j-eva),  which  in  themselves  have  110  greater  weight 
tha.n  singular  words  (a?ra£  \fy6/j.eva^ .  The  second 
ground  of  doubt  in  De  Wette's  mind  is  the  alleged 
"verbosity"'  of  the  epistle,  coupled  with  ''great  po 
verty  of  thought."  In  this  common  readers  are  not 
likely  to  concur  with  him.  The  fulness  of  the  sentences 
and  the  complexity  of  the  construction  have  indeed  from 
the  liist  been  subject  of  remark  with  commentators; 
but  this  oratorical  swell  of  composition,  and  these  gram 
matical  difficulties,  proceed,  as  in  the  parallel  case  of 
Thucydides.  from  the  conglomeration,  not  the  poverty, 
of  thought ;  the  writer  seeming  to  labour  under  the 
vastness  of  his  conceptions,  and  heaping  idea  upon  idea 
in  his  attempt  to  describe  the  blessings  of  the  gospel. 
Thirdly,  it  is  alleged  that  this  epistle  "  presents  nothing 
peculiar,"  and  is  little  more  than  "  a  diffuse  expansion 
of  that  to  the  Colossians."  That,  as  compared  with 
most  of  the  other  epistles  of  Paul,  the  epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  is  remarkable  for  the  absence  of  local  allu 
sion  or  polemical  discussion  is  true;  and  the  reason  of 
this  peculiarity  will  demand  our  attention  in  the  proper 
place.  But  the  peculiarity  itself  imparts  an  air  of  ori 
ginality  to  the  epistle.  Specific  errors  introduced  by 


EPHESIAN.S  •"> 

heretical  teachers  occupy  a  large  portion  of  the  epistle 
to  the  Colossians;  of  such  errors  that  to  the  Ephesians 
contains  no  trace.  Yet  since  spurious  compositions 
are  usually  composed  with  a  polemical  view,  and  as 
sume  the  authority  of  an  apostolic  name  in  order  to 
crush  opponents,  it  is  incredible  that  any  individual,  or 
party,  should  have  taken  the  trouble  to  elaborate  so 
perfect  an  imitation  of  St.  Paul's  style  with,  as  far  as 
appears,  no  ulterior  purpose  of  gaining  a  controversial 
advantage.  Moreover,  a  careful  examination  of  tin- 
contents  of  both  epistles  proves  that,  though  theiv 
exists  a  general  resemblance  between  them,  rusilv 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  of  their  having  been  written 
nearly  at  the  same  time,  the  epi.-tle  to  the  Ephosiaiis  is 
pervaded  by  a  course  of  thought  of  its  own.  and  even 
in  the  parallel  passages  contains  important  additions. 
Harless,  in  the  introduction  to  his  valuable  commen 
tary,  has  abundantly  shown  this.  The  leading  topic, 
he  observes,  of  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  the  glory 
of  the  i>i:rit<m  of  Christ,  in  whom  believers  are  com 
plete,  and  need  no  supplementary  additions  cither 
from  Jewish  ritualism  or  (Jennie  philosophy  ;  while 
the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  enlarges  rather  upon  the 
great  /'('V.s  of  redemption  in  the  electing,  rcdeemim:, 
and  sanctifying  grace  of  ( Jnd.  The  same  commentator 
exhibits  in  parallel  columns  the  corresponding  pas 
sages  of  cither  epistle,  an  inspection  of  which  will 
convince  the  reader  that  the  one  is  no  mere  repetition 
ot  the  other:  <.;/.  the  important  passages  re>peetiir_r 
the  symbolical  nature  of  marriage,  and  the  Christian 
armour,  in  our  epistle  have  nothing  corresponding  in 
the  other,  nor  are  they  such  as  \\ould  be  likely  to  occur 
to  a  forger.  Finally,  I)e  Wetle's  arguments  tend  to 
destroy  ea''h  other;  the  greater  the  number  of  dwaf^ 
\eyou(i'a,  or  unusual  ideas,  which  he  discovers  in  the 
epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  the  le.-s  probable,  of  course, 
it  is  that  it  is  a  mere  imitation  of  that  to  the  Color,- 
sians. 

Tlif  /x-rtiHi.i  f<>  ii-/i,,,n  it  ii;i.<  ,/,/</,, .<.-•,  (/.  l'poii  this 
subject  a  well-known  controversy  exists.  lloth  on 
internal  and  external  grounds  critics  have  been  led  to 
question  the  correctness  of  the  common  tradition  that 
this  epistle  was  addressed  specially  to  the  Kphc.-ians. 
With  the  single  exception  of  tiie  allusion  to  the  writer's 
captivity,  ch.  iii.  i,  it  contains  nothing  of  a  personal  or  of  a 
local  character.  Now  when  we  recollect  the  length  of 
time  which  St.  Paul  spent  at  Ephesus.  the  great  suc 
cess  of  his  preaching  in  that  city,  and  the  trials  and 
dangers  which  he  there  underwent,  it  seems  strange 
that  he  should  not  take  occa.-ion  to  remind  those  to 
whom  he  wrote  of  what  had  passed  before  their  eyes, 
as  he  does  in  the  epistles  to  the  Thessalonians.  To 
this  must  lie  added  that  expressions  occur  in  the 
epistle  which,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  imply  that  the 
writer  was  not  personally  acquainted  with  his  corre 
spondents.  Such  are,  "wherefore  I  also,  after  I  heard 
of  your  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus,"  <s;c.,  ch.  i.  i.i;  ''since 
ye  heard  of  the  dispensation  of  the  grace  of  (Jod,  which 
is  given  me  to  you  ward.''  ch  iii.  L';  "  as  1  wrote  afore  in 
few  words,  whereby  when  ye  read  ye  may  understand 
my  knowledge  in  the  mystery  of  Christ,"  ch.  iii.  4.  ^Did 
the  Ephesians  then  need  a  written  epistle  to  acquaint 
them  with  St.  Paul's  knowledge  of  the  gospel?)  So 
strongly  was  the  discrepancy  between  the  inscription 
and  the  contents  of  the  epistle  felt  by  some  ancient 
writers,  that  the  totally  groundless  supposition  was 
advanced,  that  it  was  written  by  St.  Paul  before  his 


EPIIESiANS 


'  h'rst  visit  to  Ephesus    \syn.  Scrip.  Sa>-.  in  the  Works  of  Atlia- 
nasuis). 

The  doubts  thus  suggested  by  the  structure  of  our 
i  epistle  might  be  dismissed,  or  regarded  as  of  little  im 
portance,  were  the  external  testimony  wholly  without  a 
Haw.  This  however  is  not  the  case.  The  Cod.  B 
(the  Vatican  Ms.)  relegates  the  words  "at  Ephesus," 
di.  i.  i,  to  the  margin,  though  it  must  be  added  that 
they  are  from  the  same  hand  as  the  rest  of  the  MS.: 
and  Cod.  o'7  omits  them,  though  only  t.f  ciiir>til<tti\n)e. 
These  circumstances  might  be  thought  of  little  weight, 
did  not  passages  occur  in  some  of  the  early  fathers 
which  prove  that  in  some  of  the  MSS.  which  tliey 
inspected.  the  words  in  question  were  not  found.  Mar- 
cion,  it  appears  from  a  passage  in  Tertullian  iA.lv.  Mar.  v. 
11), considered  the  epistle  as  addressed  to  the  Laodiceans; 
and  though  the  African  father  charges  his  opponent 
with  systematic  depravation  of  the  sacred  text,  it  does 
not  appear  what  dogmatical  advantage  the  latter  could 
have  gained  by  the  mere  substitution  of  Laodieca  for 
Ephesus:  it  is  more  probable  that  he  actually  possessed 
MSS.  in  which,  to  say  the  least,  the  words  "at  Ephe- 
sus"  \\eiv  omitted.  That  in  the  fourth  century  such 
MSS.  e\i-.ud  is  placed  beyond  doubt  by  an  observation 
of  I',a>il  the  (uvat,  who.  in  his  controversy  with  Euno- 
mins  (vol.  i.  p.  -J.".!,  Gamier),  founds  a  dogmatical  argument 
upon  the  absence  of  the  words  aforesaid:  —Christians, 
lie  says,  are  i:i  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  called  "the 
saints  \\hich  are  '  (rots  d-,iois  rois  orcrt  KO.I  Triffroi'i  iv 
X/HOTU;  ]i)'T<»:\  i.e.  who  derive  substantial  existence 
from  their  union  with  <  'hri>t  the  eternally  existing  Son: 
"  for  so.  '  lie  continues,  "  the  ancients  have  handed  it 
down  to  us.  and  we  ourselves  ha\e  thus  found  it  in 
the  ancient,  MSS." 

I:  h;'-~  been  rein. irked,  finally.  a>  singular  circum 
stances,  that  the  name  of  Timothy,  which  is  joined  with 
that  of  the  apostle  in  the  greeting  to  tin-  Colossians, 
di.  i.  i,  does  not  occur  in  the  corresponding  passage  in 
the  epistle  before  us.  and  that  it  contains  no  salutations 
to  individuals  at  the  close. 

Various  hyj)othesew  have  accordingly  been  framed 
respecting  the  original  destination  of  the  epistle,  (if 
these  that  which  regards  it  as  the  "  epistle  from  Laodicea" 
mentioned  in  Col.  iv.  1'i  (( Irot.  Hammond,  Mill, 
\Vet.-tein.  and  othersi.  is  encumbered  with  insuperable 
difficulties.  With  the  exception  of  the  two  MSS.  above 
mentioned,  all  our  existing  ones  have  the  words  "at 
Ephesus,"  and  ecclesiastical  tradition  is  equally  unani 
mous  to  the  etl'ect  that  the  epistle  was  addressed  to  the 
Ephesians,  for  even  Basil  entertains  no  doubt  upon  this 
point:  how  could  the  real  destination  have  been  so 
completely  lost  sight  of?  or  is  it  likely  that  it  was  pre 
served  by  the  heretic  Marcion  alone  and  his  followers' 
Nor  does  this  hypothesis  lessen  the  difficulty  arising 
from  the  perfectly  general  character  of  the  epistle.  St. 
Paul,  as  appears  from  Col.  ii.  1;  iv.  l;i,  felt  a  deep  in 
terest  in  the  Laodicean  church;  he  must  have  gained 
an  accurate  knowledge  of  its  state  from  Epaphras, 
Col.  iv.  i:i;  that  no  allusion  therefore  to  local  circum 
stances  should  occur  in  an  epistle  to  that  church  is 
nearly  as  strange  as  that  none  should  be  found  in  one 
addressed  to  the  Ephesians.  The  apostle's  direction, 
moreover,  to  the  C'olossians,  to  "  salute  the  brethren 
which  are  in  Laodicea,"  Col.  iv.  i.i,  seems  incompatible 
with  the  notion  of  his  having  written  an  epistle  to  the 
latter  at  the  same  time,  or  nearly  so  ;  for  why  should 
he  not  have  saluted  them  with  his  own  pen  '•  We  must 


EPHESIA^S 


EPHESIANS 


conclude  then  that  "the  epistle  from  Laodicca"  was 
one  of  the  many  that  doubtless  St.  Paul  wrote  during 
his  ministry,  but  which  were  not  intended  to  form  part 
of  the  canon,  and  therefore  were  permitted  to  sink  out 
of  sight.  ^See  the  remarks  on  the  lost  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  in  the  article  on  the  EPISTLES  TO  COR 
INTHIANS.) 

More  plausible  is  the  theory  first  suggested  by  Usher, 
that  our  epistle  was  a  circular  addressed  to  the  churches 
of  Asia  Minor,  but  to  none  of  them  in  particular.  The 
proposers  of  it  rely  mainly  upon  the  fact  of  some 
ancient  MS(S.  having  omitted  the  words  "at  Ephesus," 
and  suppose  that  a  gap  was  purposely  left  by  the 
apostle  after  the  words  rois  Sv<n,  to  be  iilled  up  either 
by  himself  or  Tychicus,  according  as  each  church  re 
ceived  a  copy.  Or  it  is  conceived  that  some  copies 
were  provided  with  names  of  places,  while  others, 
without  such  specification,  were  given  to  Tychicus,  to 
be  distributed  at  his  discretion  (Ilcmscn,  Paul  us,  p.  on"). 
But  the  solution  is  too  ingenious  to  be  substantial.  If 
the  epistle  was  to  be  merely  encyclical,  how  can  we 
suppose  the  author  to  have  intended  to  alter  its  char 
acter  by  the  insertion  of  particular  names  \  or  yiveii 
Tychicus  permission  to  do  so  '!  Or  how  can  we  suppose 
that  the  apostle  would  have  extolled  the  faith  anil  love 
of  his  readers,  ch.  i.  i;>,  without  knowing-  who  the  parti 
cular  readers  would  be  i  or  affirm  that  he  had  "hoard" 
of  them,  ch.  i.  15,  without  having  in  his  mind  a  specific 
society  of  believers  ?  Moreover,  it  is  against  the  analogy 
of  the  other  epistles  of  St.  Paul,  that  the  word  8v<ri 
should  stand  without  the  name  of  a  place  or  a  province 
following  it. 

Nothing  remains  but,  deferring  to  ancient  tradition 
and  to  the  reading  of  existing  MSS.,  to  admit  the  cor 
rectness  of  the  common  designation  of  this  epistle.  At 
the  same  time,  there  can  be  no  question  of  its  encyclical 
character.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  most  pro 
bable  hypothesis  is  that  the  epistle  was  indeed  inscribed 
to  the  Ephesians,  but  that  it  was  intended  for  a  larger 
circle  of  readers,  and  therefore  purposely  contained 
nothing  but  what  was  common  and  interesting  to  all. 
What  this  larger  circle  consisted  of,  whether  the  sister 
churches  of  Laodicea,  Ilierapolis,  and  Colossa;,  or  the 
smaller  bodies  of  Christians  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  Ephesus,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but  the  latter  seems 
the  more  probable  supposition.  And  thus  Beza's  obser 
vation,  quoted  by  Harless  (Einlcit.  p.  55),  "  Suspicor  11011 
tarn  ad  Ephesios  ipsos  proprie  missain  epistolam  quam 
Ephesum,  ut  ad  cseteras  ecclesias  Asiaticas  transmittere- 
tur,"  may — if  we  somewhat  limit  the  meaning  of  the 
word  Asiaticas,  /.  e.  to  the  daughter  communities  which 
had  sprung-  up  around  Ephesus  itself — conduct  us  to  the 
right  solution.  At  all  events,  the  consentient  tradi 
tion  of  the  church  must  outweigh  internal  difficulties. 
These  latter,  too,  have  been  somewhat  exaggerated. 
About  six  years  had  elapsed  since  St.  Paul's  sojourn 
at  Ephesus ;  time  enough  to  bring  about  considerable 
changes  both  in  the  number  of  those  to  whom  he  had 
been  personally  known,  and  in  the  extension  of  the 
church  beyond  the  limits  of  the  city.  It  might  well  be 
therefore,  or  the  apostle  might  not  unnaturally  suppose 
it  to  be  so,  that  many  of  the  existing  Christian  com 
munity  were  strangers  to  him  personally,  under  which 
impression  he  might  be  induced  to  use  the  expres-  j 
sions  which  have  appeared  somewhat  strange,  ch.  i.  i.'» ;  ' 
iii.  2, 4.  As  regards  the  omitted  salutations  at  the 
end,  it  is  by  no  means  the  universal  practice  of  St.  Paul 


to  append  such  to  his  epistles,  "as  will  be  seen  from  the 
instances  of  the  epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  Thessalo- 
nians.  The  absence  of  Timothy's  name  at  the  com 
mencement  of  the  epistle  may  be  accounted  for  either 
by  his  not  having,  at  the  time  it  was  written,  anv 
special  connection  with  its  circle  of  readers,  or  by  his 
absence  from  liome  on  a  temporary  mission. 

Time  tmd  place  ofuritinf/. — The  remarks  which,  under 
this  head,  have  been  made  upon  the  epistle  to  the 
Colossians  (see  article),  belong  equally  to  that  to  the 
Ephesians,  since  the  two  epistles  were  manifestly  writ 
ten  from  the  same  place,  and  within  a  short  time  of 
each  other.  The  arguments  adduced  for  preferring  the 
imprisonment  at  Pome,  Ac.  xxviii.  30,  to  that  at  Cesarea, 
Ac.  xxiv.  27,  as  the  period  during  which  both  epistles, 
together  with  those  to  the  Philippians  and  to  Phile 
mon,  were  written,  it  is  unnecessary  to  repeat :  for 
them  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  article  just  mentioned. 
The  question  which  of  the  epistles  was  prior  in  point 
of  time  has  been,  happily  set  at  rest  by  Harless,  who, 
in  his  commentary  upon  ch.  vi.  21,  "But  that  ye  also 
may  know  my  affairs/'  &c.,  has  shown  that  this  ex 
pression  can  only  be  explained  by  a  reference  to  C'ol. 
iv.  7,  "All  my  state  shall  Tychicus  declare  unto  you  ;" 
"But  that  ye  also  [ye  Ephesians  as  well  as  the  Colos- 
siaiis]  may  know  my  affairs,  &c.,  Tychicus,  a  beloved 
brother,  &c.,  shall  make  known  unto  you  all  things;" 
whence  it  follows  that  our  epistle  was  written  after,  but 
very  shortly  after,  that  to  the  Colossians.  The  most 
probable  date  for  both  is  A.D.  62. 

Contents. — The  topics  upon  which  the  apostle  en 
larges  prove  at  a  glance  that  the  epistle  was  primarily 
intended  for  Christians  of  heathen  origin,  yet  so  as  to 
lead  believing  Jews  to  an  insight  into  the  spiritual 
meaning  of  the  Mosaic  polity  and  ordinances.  It  con 
sists  of  two  main  divisions — one  dogmatical,  ch.  i.-iii., 
the  other  practical,  ch.  iv.-vi. 

The  apostle  commences  his  doctrinal  exposition  with 
an  enumeration  of  the  spiritual  blessings — election  from 
all  eternity  in  Christ,  redemption  through  his  blood, 
and  adoption  into  the  family  of  God  confirmed  by  the 
sealing  of  the  Spirit — which  the  gospel  reveals  for  man's 
acceptance,  ch.  i.  3-14.  Passing  then  to  the  case  of  his 
readers,  he  thanks  God  for  their  Christian  fruitfulness, 
and  prays  for  their  growth  in  spiritual  understanding 
and  experience  of  the  quickening  power  of  Christ's 
Spirit,  ch.  i.  i5-2;s.  By  way  of  enhancing  the  mercies 
they  had  received,  he  proceeds  to  point  out  the  deplor 
able  state  in  which  they,  in  common  with  all  men,  were 
by  nature,  ch.  ii.  1-3 ;  a  state  from  which  nothing  but  the 
unmerited  grace  of  God  could  have  delivered  them,  ch. 
ii  4-10.  They  were  formerly  outside  the  circle  of  God's 
covenanted  mercies,  and  lived  without  hope :  now  in 
Christ  Jesus  Jew  and  Gentile  enjoyed  the  same  privi 
leges  ;  the  distinctions  of  the  theocracy  had  given  place 
to  the  unity  of  the  Spirit ;  while  that  temporary  struc 
ture  itself  had  merged  in  its  antitype,  the  spiritual 
temple  composed  of  living  stones,  built  upon  the  foun 
dation  of  the  doctrine  taught  by  apostles  and  prophets, 
"Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone," 
ch.  ii.  11-22.  To  him  (the  apostle)  had  the  special  com 
mission  been  assigned  of  announcing  the  admission  of 
the  Gentiles  to  every  blessing  of  the  promised  salvation; 
let  not  then  his  present  bonds  discourage  them,  while 
he,  for  his  part,  would  fervently  supplicate  God  to 
strengthen  and  deepen  the  work  of  grace  begun  in  their 
hearts,  ch.  iii. 


KPHESTS 


KPIIKSCS 


The  practical  portion  nf  the  epistle  opens  with  an 
admonition  to  Christian  unity,  grounded  upon  the  great 
common  facts  of  the  Christian  life.  ch.  iv.  i-n.  and  the 
divine  intention  that  the  existing  multiplicity  of 
spiritual  gifts  should  nevertheless  minister  to  the  edifi 
cation,  of  the  one  indivisible  Kody  of  which  Christ  is  the 
head,  eh  iv.  7- Hi.  The  moral  duties  of  the  Second  table 
follow,  with  a  special  reference  to  the  gross  neglect  of 
them  which  marked  their  heathen  state,  di.  iv.  17— v.  LM. 
(."poll  the  social  relations  the  apostle  speaks  at  length, 
especially  upon  that  of  the  married  state,  and,  l>v  an 
application  of  it  hitherto  unthought  of  (u.t'ffTr>piovt,  he 
emjiloys  it  to  shadow  forth  the  union  between  Christ 
and  the  church,  eh.  v.-Ji-aj;  n.  i-in.  After  an  animated  de 
scription  of  the  ( 'liri.-tian  warfare,  in  which  the  weapons, 
defensive  and  offensive,  then  in  use  serve  to  illustrate 
the  various  gracc>  of  the  (  'hristian  character,  ch.  vi.  in- -jr., 
the  apostle  refers  them  f»r  niniv  minute  information 
respecting  himself  and  his  work  to  Tvchicus,  the  bearer 
of  the  epistle,  and  concludes  with  the  ciist"lnarv  apos- 
tolic  salutation,  ch.  vi.  in-_<i. 

[Like  tin:  other  epistles  from  Home,  tlutt  t.,  the  Kphe:-iaiis 
lias  not  I  .run  nvi|iirntlv  c.ininiente.l  upon.  IVrhaps  the  dilli- 
cultien  of  construction  and  thought  wliich  it  contain.-  liavc  l.rrn 
nniimtinu'.  l>e  Wette's  conin.chtary  is  not  u]p  to  l,is  u.-u.il 
level.  The  l.est  eontril.ut ii.n  from  Ceninm  is  the  work  of 
Harless  (Krlanu'cn).  a  second  edition  of  \\hieh  lias  appeared. 
The  coiniueiit  iry  of  Alfi.nl  (  '/'/«.  (;,;,h  T(sta>,,e:,t.  vol.  i,i.  ];i 
vington'sl,  aN(,  the  separate  commentaries  of  Kllicott.  Ka.lic, 
and  Hodge,  are  well  knoun.j  [r.  \  i  . 

EPHESUS.  'I'he  principal  city  of  the  Ionian  con 
federacy,  on  the  western  coa.-t  of  Asia  .Minor,  nearly 
opposite  the  island  of  Samos.  I'.esides  the  name  bv 
which  it  is  best  known.it  bore  successively  tliose  .it' 
Samorna,  '1'rachea,  Ortygia,  and  I'telea.  Its  origin 
reaches  back  to  a  remote  antii|uitv.  until  it  lx.-c<iin<s 
lost  in  ley-end.  P.y  some  writers  the  Ama/rins  are 
said  to  have  been  its  founders,  at  which  time  it  was 
called  Smyrna.  According  to  Stral.o  (xiv.  p.  nini  the 
first  inhabitants  were  the  Leleoes  and  ( 'arians.  who 
were  driven  out  by  the  Ionian  colony  led  by  Andro- 
cllis,  son  of  (  'odnis  Uee  Cramer's  Asia  Minor,  i.  p.  ;ii;.;i.  I  n  the 

New  Testament  it  is  remarkable  as  one  of  the  principal 
scenes  of  St  Paul's  labours,  and  as  occupying  a  con 
spicuous  place  among  (he  churches  mentioned  in  the 
Apocalypse,  Ku.  i.  ii;ii  i. 

Xitmttiiiii.  -  Two  large  rivers,  the  Hermus  and  the 
Mseander,  flowing  from  east  to  west,  intersect  the  ceil 
tral  portion  of  Asia  .Minor.  The  space  thus  inclosed 
contains  two  mountain  ranges,  following  the  direction 
of  the  rivers,  Tmoius  on  the  north,  and  .Messogis  on  the 
south,  at  an  average  distance  from  each  otlier  of  about 
thirty  miles.  I'.etween  these  ranges  lies  the  basin  of  a 
third  smaller  river,  the  Cayster,  which,  after  watering 
an  elevated  region  called  the  Caystrian  Meadows. 
passes  through  a  gorge  formed  by  the  hills  ( ialesus  and 
Pactyas,  enters  an  alluvial  plain  of  about  five  miles  in 
breadth,  of  which  the  sea  is  the  western  boundary. 
Kphesus  was  situated  in  this  plain,  on  the  south  side  of 
the  Cayster. 

The  city  stood  partly  upon  the  level  ground,  and 
partly  upon  gentle  eminences,  of  which  the  most  im 
portant  were  Prion  or  Pion  and  Coressus,  the  former 
lying  to  the  north-east  and  the  latter  to  the  south  of 
the  plain.  The  ancient  town  seems  to  have  been  con 
fined  to  the  northern  slope  of  Coressus,  for  Herodotus 
(i  2G\  tells  us  that  on  the  invasion  of  Croesus  (B.C.  560) 
the  Ephesians  placed  themselves  under  the  protection 


of  Diana,  by  fastening  a  rope  from  their  walls  to  her 
temple,  which  at  that  time  was  seven  stadia  distant, 
and  lay  nearer  the  sea.  or  rather  the  sacred  port  called 
Panormus.  which  was  connected  with  the  sea  by  means 
of  a  canal,  and  which  is  now  tilled  up  (  sue  l-'alkener's  Plan 
oi'  Kphesus  i.  Jn  the  lapse  of  time  the  inhabitants  ad 
vanced  farther  into  the  plain,  and  built  around  the 
temple,  and  in  this  manner  a  new  town  sprang  up, 
which  subsisted  until  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Creat 
(Strabo,  xiv.  p  til"). 

After  the  time  of  Alexander  Kphesus  fell  under  the 
ride  of  Lysimachus  (B.C.  'JM  i.  who  surrounded  the 
city  with  a  wall  surmounting  the  ridge  of  Coressus.  and 
inclosino  that  of  Prion.  the  remains  of  which  still  exist. 
'I'he  port  i  if  Kphesus  was  called  Panormus.  and  the  site 
is  still  marked  by  a  swamp  formed  by  the  alluvial  de 
posit  of  the  ri\er  Cayster  (Hamilton's  Asia  Minor,  ii.  -.'(i). 
i-'rom  an  early  period  it  seems  to  have  laboured  under 
disadvantages  from  this  source,  and  Attains  Philadel 
phia.  who  succeeded  to  the  rule  of  Ly.-imachus  and  his 
successors,  endeavoured  by  narrowing  the  entrance  to 
remedy  the  evil  ;  but  his  measures  being  injudiciously 

planned  tailed  of  success.  Such,  however,  were  the 
natural  advantages  of  the  site,  that  Kphcsus  rapidly 
grew  in  commercial  importance,  and  in  the  time  of 


Augustus  it   was   the   chief 
side  the  Tauru>.       1  leiv   the 
landed    on    their    progress    t 
and    by    this   route    the   tra 
passi  d  into  the    int<  rior.      ( 
Kphesus  with  the  l 
f-'^'f],  Ac  xiv  1  1.       <  > 


mporium  of  Asia  on  this 
Ifonian  (irocoiisuls  usually 
their   (  a-t<  rn    provinces: 
;•    from    (  ! recce  and    Italy 
nvenieiit   roads  c-oiniected 
remote   districts  \ra   ufwrepixa 
through  the  j.asses  of  Tmoius 


to  Sard  is.  and  thence  to  the  north-east  parts  of  Asia; 
and  another  to  the  south  passed  through  the  Maone- 
sian  territory,  and  after  taking  Colo-sa-  and  leoliium 
in  it<  way  tiir.iii-h  tin-  vallev  nf  the  Ma-ander.  opened 
a  communication  w  ith  Syria  and  the  Kuphrates.  Other 
roads  ran  aloiij-  the  sea  coast,  on  the  north  to  Lcbedos, 
Teos.  and  Smyrna,  and  on  the'  south  to  Miletus  (see 
Kicppcrt's  Hellas,  xix.i  A  district  covered  with  pillcgToVes, 
called  (  (rtygia.  skirted  the  shore  to  the  south  of  the 
( 'ayster:  and  in  the  plain  to  the  north  of  that  river  were 
several  lakes,  still  existing,  called  Selinusia.  These 
lakes  abounded  with  excellent  fish. 

Jlixtoril.  The  history  of  Kphesus  presents  little  that 
is  remarkable.  I'.eing  founded  by  Androclus  the  legi 
timate  son  of  ( 'ndriis,  it  enjoyed  a  pre-eminence  over 
the  other  members  of  the  Ionian  confederacy,  and  was 
denominated  the  royal  city  of  Ionia.  The  climate  and 
country  \\hieh  the  colonists  from  Attica  had  selected 
as  their  future  abode  surpassed,  according  to  Herodo 
tus  (i.  ir.'i,  all  others  in  beauty  and  fertility:  and  had 
the  martial  spirit  of  the  lonians  corresponded  to  their 
natural  advantages,  they  might  have  grown  into  a 
powerful  independent  nation.  The  softness  however 
of  the  climate,  and  the  ease  with  which  the  necessaries 
of  life  could  be  procurer  1,  transformed  the  hardy  inha 
bitants  of  the  rugged  Attica  into  an  indolent  and 
voluptuous  race:  hence  they  fell  successively  under 
the  power  of  the  Lydians  (B.C.  fiu'O)  and  the  Persians 
(B.C.  ;jf>7):  and  though  the  revolt  of  Histheus  and 
Aristagoras  against  the  Persian  power  was  for  a  time 
successful,  the  contest  at  length  terminated  in  favour 
of  the  latter  (Herod.  vi.7-±:).  The  defeat  of  the  Persians 
by  the  Greeks  gave  a  temporary  liberty  to  the  Ionian 
cities;  but  the  battle  of  Mycale  transferred  the  virtual 
dominion  of  the  country  to  Athens.  During  the  Pelo- 


EPHESUS 

poiinesian  war  they  paid   tribute  indifferently  to  either 
party,    and   the  treaty  of   Antalcidas   (B.C.   387)  once 
more  restored  them  to  their  old  masters  the  Persians. 
They  beheld  with  indifference  the  exploits  of  Alexander 
and  the  disputes  of  his  captains  ;  and  resigned  them 
selves  without    a    struggle    to    successive    conquerors. 
Ephesus  was  included  in  the  dominions  of  Lysimachus; 
but  after  the   defeat  of  Aiitiochus   (B.C.  1!)0),   it  was 
given  by  the  Romans  to  the  kings  of  Pergamum.     In 
the  year  B.C.  129  the  Romans  formed  their  province  of 
Asia.     The  fickle  Ephesiaiis  took  part  with  Mithrida- 
tes  against  the  Romans,  and  massacred  the  garrison : 
they  had  reason  to  he  grateful  for  the  unusual  clemency 
of  L.  Cornelius  Sulla,  who  merely  inflicted  heavy  fines 
upon  the  inhabitants.     Thenceforward  the  city  formed 
part  of  the  Roman  empire.      Towards  the   end  of  the  j 
eleventh  century  Ephesus  experienced  the  same  fate  as 
Smyrna;  and  after  a  brief  occupation  by  the  Greeks  it 
surrendered  in  1308  to  Sultan  Saysan,  who,  to  prevent  j 
future  insurrections,  removed  most  of  the  inhabitants  ; 
to  Tyriaaun,  where  they  were  massacred.     It  is  sup 
posed  that  the  modern   Turkish  village  Aiasaluk   (by 
some  thought  to  be   a  corruption  of  6  ayios  ^eo\oyos, 
the  designation  of  the  beloved  apostle)  marks  the  site 
of  the  ancient  city;  but  the  recent  researches  of  Mr. 
Falkener  place  it  more  to  the  south-west,  in  the  valley 
between  Mounts  Prion  and  Coressus. 

Municipal  government. — Asia  was  a  proconsular  pro 
vince,  under  the  rule  of  an  avdviraros  (translated  in  Ac. 
xix.  38  a  "  deputy."  The  plural  is  in  this  passage 
probably  used  for  the  singular).  The  proconsul  was 
accustomed  to  make  a  circuit  of  the  chief  towns  of  his 
province,  for  the  purpose  of  holding  assizes  in  each.  It 
so  happened  that  at  the  time  of  Demetrius'  tumult  the 
assizes  were  being  held  at  Ephesus  (dyopaio/.  Hyovrai, 
Ac.  xix.  ss).  The  city  seems  to  have  enjoyed  munici 
pal  government  under  the  rule  of  a  yepovffia  or  (3ov\rj, 
i.e.  a  senate,  and  a  S^os,  or  popular  assembly.  It  was 
the  latter  that,  at  the  instigation  of  Demetrius,  assem 
bled  so  tumultuously  in  the  theatre.  The  ypa^arfvs, 
or  "town- clerk,"  of  whom  mention  is  made  on  that 
occasion,  was  an  officer  of  considerable  dignity,  to  whose 


"247.]        Reverse  of  a  Coin  of 


[24G.]       Brass  of  Ephesus,  with  the  name  of  the  Scribe  or  Town- 
clerk.— Ill  the  Collection  of  the  Bibliotkeque  flu  Roi. 


custody  the  public  records  were  committed,  and  whose 
duty  it  was  to  open  and  read  state  letters,  and  to  take 
notes  of  what  passed  in  the  assembly.  The  asiarchs, 
likewise  mentioned  in  Ac.  xix.  31,  were  not  local 
magistrates,  but  presidents  of  the  games  instituted  in 
honour  of  Diana  (the  Artemisia),  which  were  celebrated 
in  the  month  of  May.  They  were  officers  chosen 
annually  from  that  part  of  the  province  of  which  Ephe 
sus  was  the  metropolis,  from  the  wealthiest  citizens, 
and  they  had  the  charge  of  the  religious  spectacles,  the 
expenses  of  which  they  bore.  To  these  annual  games 
the  population  from  all  parts  of  Ionia  flocked,  with 
their  wives  and  children.  Wordsworth  (on  Ac.  xix.  31) 
observes  that  it  is  a  remarkable  circumstance,  as  illus 
trative  of  the  influence  which  St.  Paul  had  gained  at  j 


EPHESUS 

Ephesus,  that  some  of  these  asiarchs   sent  a  friendly 
caution  to  the  apostle  riot  to  trust  himself  to  the  enraged 
multitude  in  the  theatre.      On  the  coins  of  Ephesus  the 
ypaim/J.aTevs,       avOviraro's, 
and 'A<ria/>xa<>  frequently 
appear.    (See  Akerman,  Num. 
111.  p.  47- '..->.) 

Arts  uiid  sciences. — In 
an  intellectual  point  of 
view.  Ephesus  has  but  few- 
claims  to  consideration. 
The  two  great  painters, 
Apelles  and  Parrhasius, 
were  natives  of  this  city; 
and  among  philosophers 
there  occur  the  names  of 
Heraelitus,  surnamed  the 
Obscure,  and  Hermodo- 

rus,  from  whom  the  Romans  borrowed  a  part  of 
their  code.  Antiquity  makes  mention  of  the  poet 
Hipponax,  the  geographer  Artemidorus,  and  Lychnus, 
an  orator  and  historian.  Ephesus,  however,  was  one 
of  the  principal  seats  of  those  occult  sciences  of  which 
Asia  Minor,  and  especially  Phrygia  in  after  times,  was 
the  fruitful  parent.  The  E</>eW  ypd^ara,  supposed  to 
have  been  incantations  written  on  pieces  of  parchment 
and  worn  as  amulets,  are  frequently  mentioned  by 
ancient  authors.  To  what  an  extent  these  pursuits 
always  the  characteristic  of  a  depraved  age,  prevailed 
at  Ephesus,  may  be  gathered  from  Ac.  xix.  19;  from 
which  also  we  learn  the  fictitious  value  at  which  the 
books  containing  the  principles  of  the  magical  art  were 
estimated.  The  first  effect  of  a  reception  of  the  gospel 
was  the  renunciation  of  all  such  forbidden  practices. 

Religion.—  The  religion  of  Ephesus  centres  in  the 
worship  of  "the  great  goddess  Diana."  The  worship 
of  Artemis,  or  Diana,  as  practised  at  Ephesus,  was 
evidently  of  eastern,  and  not  of  Greek  origin.  Greek 
polytheism  never  would  have  conceived  a  representa 
tion  of  the  goddess,  "the 
image  that  fell  from  heaven," 
such  as  was  enshrined  in  the 
temple  at  Ephesus.  In 
stead  of  the  superb  Diana 
of  the  chase,  this  idol  con 
sisted  of  an  image  of  wood, 
sometimes,  as  in  the  statue 
in  the  museum  of  Naples, 
with  handsome  features ;  it 
had  many  breasts,  and  was 
in  shape  like  a  mummy,  ter 
minating  in  a  point  which 

rested  upon,  a  rude  block,  and  covered  with  mystic 
symbols.  Upon  the  head  was  a  mural  crown,  and 
each  hand  held  a  bar  of  metal.  (See  Ak.  Num.  111.  p.  49.) 
The  whole  was  evidently  symbolical  of  the  productive 
powers  of  nature.  Like  the  old  statue  of  Minerva 
Polias  in  the  Acropolis,  the  Ephesian  image  was  an 
object  of  profound  veneration. 

This  image  was  lodged  in  the  most  magnificent 
temple  of  the  ancient  world.  According  to  Pliny 
(H.  N.  xvi.  79),  the  temple  of  the  Ephesian  Diana  was 
burned  and  rebuilt  no  less  than  seven  times,  the  struc 
ture  which  he  describes  being  the  eighth.  But  since 
the  three  last  temples  occupied  the  same  foundations, 
at  the  head  of  the  Sacred  Port,  it  is  probable  that  the 
injury  occasioned  by  the  latter  conflagrations  was  but 


[248.]  _..  . 
dallion  of  Claudius  and  Agrip- 
pina,  with  figure  of  Diana  of 
Ephesus. 


EPHESUS 


531 


EPIIESI'S 


.some  with  Roman  letters.  Farther  on  the  side  of  the  j  (p.  a?),  "with  some  mud  cottages  untenanted,  are  all 
same  mountain  are  the  vestiges  of  the  theatre.  This  that  remains  of  the  great  city  of  the  Ephesians.  Even 
building,  the  largest  one  of  its  kind  ever  constructed,  |  the  sea  has  retired  from  the' scene  of  desolation,  and  a 
measured  in  diameter  (JijU  feet,  and  could  accommodate  pestilential  morass,  covered  with  mud  and  rushes  h-i's 
;•}(!,  7UU  spectators.  The  seats  and  the  ruins  of  the  succeeded  to  the  waters  which  brought  ships  laden  with 
front  are  removed,  but  the  pedestals  and  bases  of  the  merchandise  from  every  country." 

columns  which  once  supported  the  portico  still  stretch  !  I  nt,;idti,-ti<,n  «f  ll<>  //,«/„/  «f '/;'///« .-•//.<.--  It  was  in  the 
along  the  hillside.  Proceeding  still  in  the  same  dircc-  course  of  his  second  missionary  circuit  that  Paul  first 
tion,  the  traveller  arrives  at  a  narrow  valley  formed  visited  Kphesus.  After  his  'lengthened  sojourn  at 
by  Mounts  Prion  and  Coressus  ;  and  here  on  the  slope  Corinth,  on  his  way  to  Antiodi.  1. estopped  at  Kphesus 
of  Pi-ion  broken  columns  and  piece.-  of  mail,!,-  indicate  and.  as  was  his  \\ont,  commenced  teaclmi"-  in  the 


the  site  of  an  odeum  or  music  hall.  This,  which  wa 
not  a  large  structure,  is  stripped  of  the  seats  and  naked 
Hcyond  the  odeum,  the  remains  of  a  large  edifice,  on 


of   the 


" 


Jewi.-h  synagogue.  He  appears  to  have  experienced  a 
more  than  usually  favourable  reception  from  his  coun 
trymen,  for  they  requested  him  to  prolong  his  ,-tav:  a 


the   portico  of    the  theatre   lies  a   vacant   quadrangular  '  of    Pentecost,  he  was  compelled   to  decline,  promishi" 


space,   with   many   bases   of   columns  and    marble   frag-      h,,\\cvcr,   to    return  should   h 

ments   scattered   along   the   edges      here    probably   wa> 

the  Agora  Civilis.  or   forum,  round   which  were  placed      inenced  hi- third  missionary  journey,  and  after  travers- 

the  courts   of  law  and  other   public   buildings.      To  the     ing  the  interior  part.-  of  A-ia  M  inor  (ru  dvuripiKo.  fJ.(/n]) 

south  of  this  Agora  li'-s  a  mass  of  ruins,  which  Falkeiicr     in  th 

conjectures  to  belong  to  the  Agora  Venalis,  or  market-      once 

place  of  the  city.      A  gymnasium  appears  to  have  been 

attached  to  each  of  the  principal  public  buildings:    the 

remains  of   the  largest,  long  mistaken   for  those  of  the 

temple,    lie  at   the  head  of  the   inner  or  city   port,    an 


once  more  arris  cd  at  Kphesus,  Ac.  xix.  i.  The  first 
thin-  that  engaged  hi-  attention  was  the  reception  of 
certain  of  John's  disciples  into  the  church.  These 
diseiplcs  of  the  Paptist.  \\lio  seem  to  have  admitted  tin; 
claim  of  Jesus  to  be  the  .Messiah,  but  were  satisfied 


.asin    of    water    formerly    connected    with    the  with  "  the  baptism  of   water  unto  repentance,"  formed 

Panormus  by  the  stream  Selinus.  but  now  a  marsh.   The  a  considerable  body  at  that  time,  and  were  only  gradu- 

be.st-preserved   portion  of   the  ancient  city  is  the  boun-  ally    absorbed    in    the    Christian    community.       About 

dary  wall   of    Kysimachus.    which   maybe  traced   from  twelve  of  them  on  this  occasion  encountered  "Paul,  who, 


behind    the    stadium,    over    the    valley   and    along    the 
heights  of  Coressus,  alm,,-t  p,-rf.-,-t    until  it  ceases  at  a 


liseoverini:  that  they  were  wholly  i-n.n-ant  of  tl... 
trine   of    the    Holy  S].ii-it.  and    that  the   cause  of   tl 


formed    by  the  abrupt   termination   of  one   of     ignorance   was   that   they  had 


• 


only,   administered    to   them    th,-  Chri-tian   rite,   \\hich 
was   toll,, wed   by  the  imposition  of  his  hands,  and   its 


the  roots  of   the   mountain,    on  which   stands   a   si|uan 
tower,  which  tradition  assigns  as  the  prison  ,  ,f  St.  Paul 

The  quarries  on  .Mount  Prion,  whence  the  white  marble  usual  accompaniment,  the  miraculous  gifts  of  the  apos- 
used  in  the  construction  of  the  public  buildings  was  tolic  age.  The  attention  both  of  Jews  and  Centiles 
extracted,  still  exhibit  chipping*  and  marks  of  the  tools,  must  have  been  attracted  by  this  occurrence,  and  for 
(Chandler,  i.  c.  3o.  Compare  Falkener's  1'lans  of  Ephesus.)  three  months  Paul  was  p.-rmitted  to  preach  Christ 
The  site  of  the  great  temple  of  Diana  was  for  a  long  openly  in  the  synagogue,  as  it  should  seem  with  con- 
time  a  matter  of  controversy.  "To  our  great  regret,"  sidcrable  success.  At  length  the  fanatical  spirit  of  the 
says  Chandler,  "  we  searched  for  the  site  of  this  fabric  unbeiie\  iii'_r  Jews  tluvw  such  obstacles  in  his  way  that 
to  as  little  purpose  as  the  travellers  that  have  preceded  he  was  compelled  to  withdraw  from  them,  and  forming 
us"  (Chandler,  i.  c.  xxxviii.)  Arundell  (Visit  t,,  the  Seven  the  disci],!,--  info  a  separat'- community,  transferred  hirt 
Churehusnf  AsiaMiii'.r,  i'.  -,<>)  suggests  that  the  entire  re-  labours  to  a  building  belonging  to  one  Tvrannus.  For 
mains  of  the  temple  are  buried  under  the  accumulation  two  years  he  taught  here  unmolested,  and  since  Kphesus 
of  soil  brought  down  by  the  Cay-ter  ;  an  opinion  com  was  the  great  place  of  resort  to  strangers  from  all  parts 
batted  by  Hamilton  (Asia  Miu,,r,  ii.  i>.  LM).  who  justly  mves  of  Asia,  the  gospel  became  known  throughout  the  pro- 
against  it  the  facts  that  other  ruins  remain  unbnried.  vince,  Ac.  xix.  1<>.  Remarkable  manifestations  of  mira- 
and  that  the  soil  in  the  vicinity  is  but  little  above  the  culous  power  accompanied  the  apostle's  preaching;  even 
level  of  the  sea.  The  latter  traveller  considers  the1  articles  of  dress  which  had  been  in  contact  with  his  per- 
massive  ruins  near  the  western  extremity  of  the  town,  '  son  proved  efficacious  to  heal  diseases  and  expel  evil 
overlooking  the  swamp,  to  indicate  the  site:  but  Mr.  ,  spirits.  The  celebrity  of  tliese  miracles  induced  certain 
Falkener  has  adduced  weighty  arguments  for  regard  i  n  ,_r 


these  as  the  remains  of  a  gymnasium.  lie  places  the 
temple  at  the  head  of  the  Port  Panormus,  a  situation 
which  on  the  whole  accords  best  with  the  statements  of 
ancient  writers,  who  speak  of  it  as  nearly  a  mile  distant 
from  the  city,  between  two  rivers  flowing  from  different 
parts,  but  both  bearing  the  name  of  Selinus.  In 
Kalkener's  plan,  both  streams  are  represented,  the  upper 


Jewish  exorcists,  who,  like  modern  fortune-tellers, 
travelled  from  place  to  place  exercising  their  pretended 
art,  to  make  use  of  the  sacred  name  of  Jesus  in  cases 
of  demoniacal  possession,  expecting  that  results  similar 
to  those  which  followed  from  the  apostle's  invocation  of 
it  would  ensue:  but  they  met  with  a  signal  discomfi 
ture.  The  unhappy  subject  upon  whom  they  made  the 
experiment,  endued  with  supernatural  strength,  as- 


one  flowing  from  the  Cayster  into  a  marsh  on  the  north-      saulted  them  with  such  violence  that  they  were  glad  to 
west  of  the  city,  the  lower  connecting  the  city  port  and  !  escape  out  of  the  house  where  the  scene  took   place, 


the  Panormus.  The  question,  however,  can  hardly  be 
considered  as  definitively  settled.  (See  Falkeuer's  plan.) 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  desolation  of  the  place.  "A 
few  unintelligible  heaps  of  stones,"  writes  Mr.  Arundell 


naked  and  wounded,"  Ac.  xix.  10.  As  might  be  ex 
pected,  this  produced  a  great  sensation:  the  professors 
of  magic  and  astrology,  among  whom,  curious  to  say, 
there  were  some  believers,  Ac.  xix.  is,  felt  themselves  in 


KPHESl'S 


presence  of  a  superior  power;  and  stricken  with  remorse,  ing  '  him.  He  could  call  God  fo  witness  that  he  was 
publicly  confessed  their  guilt,  and  gave  the  best  evi-  free  from  the  blood  of  all  men,  having  both  in  doctrine 
deuce  of  their  sincerity  by  committing  the  volumes  and  practice  set  them  an  example  of  holy  faithfulness, 
containing  their  occult  lore,  valued  at  /io.niio  pieces  of  They  had  need  to  bear  his  counsels  in  mind,  for  after 
silver,  to  the  flames.  And  now  the  -rowing  influence  his  departure  heresiarchs  would  make  their  appearance, 
of  the  gospel  began  to  excite  opposition  from  a  differ-  "drawing  away  disciples  after  them."  Let  them  espe- 
ent  quarter,  and  the  storm,  which  doubtless  had  been  dally  watch  against  the  sin  of  covetousness,  and 
lon<r  o-athering,  at  length  burst.  Christianity,  not  less  •  remember  that  though,  as  a  preacher  of  the  gospel,  he 
than  Judaism,  is  the  stern  foe  of  idol-worship  under  could  claim  a  maintenance  from  the  church,  his  own 
every  form;  and  it  could  not  be  extensively  embraced  '  hands  had  ministered  to  his  wants  and  to  those  of  his 
without  proportionally  diminishing  the  number  of  the  associates.  He  then  commended  them  to  God  in 
votaries  of  heathen  u'ods.  Christ  or  i  liana,  one  must  prayer,  and  amidst  the  tears  of  the  whole  company,  he 
prevail,  to  the  destruction  of  the  other.  The  ancient  embarked  in  the  ship  which  waited  upon  him,  and  pro- 
superstition  did  not  yield  without  a  severe  struggle:  in  ceeded  on  his  voyage.  Ac.  .\x.  17-.>. 

the  first  instance,  however,  the  opposition  arose  from  i  According  to  a  widely  spread,  and  apparently  well 
interested  motives.  Demetrius,  a  silversmith,  who  i  grounded,  tradition,  the  apostle  John,  after  the  capti- 
employed  a  number  of  operatives  in  the  manufacture  of  !  vity  or  death  of  Paul,  took  up  his  abode  at  Ephesus, 
the  silver  shrines  before  mentioned,  began  to  feel,  in  the  ;  from  which  as  a  centre  he  exercised  an  apostolic  superin- 
dimiimtion  of  his  profits,  the  effect  of  the  new  religion,  j  tendence  over  the  surrounding  churches  (r<isduT60iSiei7rej' 
Summoning  his  workmen  together,  he  first  explained  ^/c/cX^o-ias,  Euseb.  iii.  23).  It  is  added  that  he  was  buried 
how  the  preaching  of  Paul  was  injuriously  affecting  there,  beside  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,  from  whom,  in 
their  temporal  interests,  and  then  artfully  appealing  obedience  to  his  Lord's  dying  command,  he  was  never 
to  their  national  pride,  expatiated  upon  the  contempt  separated.  Jn.  xix.  -i;.  Among  the  seven  churches  of 
into  which  the  worship  of  their  patron  goddess  was  likely  the  Apocalypse,  that  of  Ephesus  is  mentioned  in  terms 
to  be  brought.  It  needed  only  this  spark  to  ignite  the  of  general  commendation,  though  the  severity  of  the 


divine  inspection  already  marked  a  departure  from  the 
purity  and  zeal  of  an  earlier  time,  Re.  ii.  1-1;. 


has  been  frequently  visited,  ami  its  ruins  de 


train.      The  workmen   sallied  forth,  and  filled  the  city 

with   the    well-known    cry,    "Great   is    Diana    of    the 

Ephesians."      The   contagion  spread :    the    whole  city 

was  in  an   uproar:   a  tumultuous  assemblage   crowded     The  descriptions  of  Chandler,  Hamilton,  Leake,  and  Arundell, 

.    ,  '   ,  r          i          """.  i  i  will   be   found   in   the   volumes   of   those  authors   respectively. 

into  the  theatre  ;  the  presence  of  a  Jew  (Alexander)  ™J  ^J  ^  ^  ^^  ^  upon  ^  ^.^  \a  ^  >f 
who  wished  to  address  the  people,  increased  their  rage,  Ml.  Falkener  (Day  &  Son,  London,  l,si.;-J),  who  spent  a  fortni-U 
and  for  two  hours  a  cry  of  frantic  voices  shouting,  upon  the  spot,  and  whose  researches,  if  not  in  all  points  satisfac- 
"  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,"  rent  the  air.  At  tory,  may  be  said  to  have  superseded  those  of  his  predecessors.  ] 
length  the  town- clerk  for  the  time  being,  a  man  of  j  [E.  A.  L.J 

judgment  and  courage,  succeeded  in  gaining  a  hearing.  I  EPHOD,  part  of  the  high  -  priest's  dress.  (.SVc 
He  reminded  his  audience  that  no  one  could  dispute  PRIESTHOOD,  DRESS  OF.) 

their  intense  veneration  for  Diana,  and  that  in  point  of  EPH'RAIM  [frnlffiil],  the  name  of  Joseph's  second 
fact  neither  Paul  nor  his  companions  had  directly  spoken  son;  for  God,  said  he,  "  hath  caused  me  to  lie  fruitful 
against  the  popular  idol— a  remarkable  testimony  to  in  the  land  of  my  affliction,"  Ge.  xli.  5-J.  The  name 
the  admirable  discretion  with  which  the  apostle  pursued  i  proved  to  have  a  significance  for  the  future,  as  well  as 
his  labours.  If  Demetrius  or  his  followers  had  any  for  the  past;  for  in  a  double  sense  fruitfulness  was 
complaint  to  make,  it  so  happened  that  the  pro- consular  !  granted  to  this  son  of  Joseph.  He  was,  first  of  all, 
assizes  were  then  being  held  ;  let  an  information  be  along  with  his  elder  brother  Manasseh,  adopted  into 
lodged  in  due  form.  They  had  better  disperse  as  :  the  family  of  Jacob,  and  placed  on  a  footing  with 
speedily  as  possible,  for  the  Roman  government,  always  .Jacob's  own  sons  as  the  head  of  a  tribal  section  of  the 
suspicious  of  breaches  of  the  peace,  was  not  unlikely  to  covenant- people.  Of  both  these  sons  of  Joseph  the 
investigate  the  cause  of  the  tumult,  and  to  visit  it,  if  aged  patriardi  said,  when  in  his  last  sickness  they 
proved  groundless,  severely.  Reason  prevailed,  and  the  were  presented  to  him  by  their  father,  "  They  are  mine; 
town  became  quiet.  The  apostle,  who  had  desired  to  as  Reuben  and  Simeon  they  shall  l)e  mine."  But 
confront  the  danger  in  person,  but  had  been  dissuaded  besides  being  elevated  to  this  position  of  patriarchal 
from  doing  so  by  the  disciples,  now  seized  the  oppor-  :  headship,  Ephraim  had  prophetically  assigned  to  him 
tunity  of  carrying  out  his  previously  formed  purpose,  a  higher  place  even  than  his  brother;  the  younger  here, 
and  bidding  farewell  to  the  brethren,  took  his  departure  as  in  Jacob's  own  case,  was  preferred  before  the  elder, 
for  Macedonia.  As  far  as  appears  from  the  inspired  When  the  two  were  placed  before  Jacob  for  his  last 
record,  Paul  never  visited  Ephesus  again.  That  he  blessing,  the  elder  on  the  right  hand,  and  the  younger 
had  intended  to  do  so  may  be  gathered  from  Ac.  xx.  !  on  the  left,  lie  guided  his  hands  wittingly,  it  is  said, 
16  ;  but  the  journey  through  Macedonia  had  Jjeen  so  '  crossing  them,  so  as  to  place  his  right  hand  on  the  head 
prolonged  that,  if  he  was  to  accomplish  his  purpose  of  of  Ephraim,  and  the  left  on  the  head  of  Manasseh. 
being  at  Jerusalem  at  the  approaching  feast  of  Perite-  Joseph  thought  that  in  the  dimness  of  his  vision  Jacob 
cost,  it  was  necessary  to  forego  the  intention.  Passing  !  had  mistaken  the  one  for  the  other,  and  sought  to  cor- 
therefore  by  Ephesus,  on  his  voyage  down  the  coast  of  rcct  him.  But  Jacob  refused,  and  said,  "  I  know  it, 
Asia  Minor,  he  stopped  at  Miletus,  and  from  thence  my  son,  I  know  it;  he  also  shall  become  a  people,  and 
summoned  the  elders  of  the  Ephesiaii  church  to  a  fare-  he  also  shall  be  great;  but  truly  his  younger  brother 
well  conference.  He  reminded  them  of  the  trials  and  shall  be  greater  than  he,  and  his  seed  shall  become  a 
the  labours  which  he  had  undergone  during  his  residence  multitude  of  nations''  (peoples),  Ge.  xlviii. 
amongst  them,  and  foretold  impending  dangers  of  a  Of  Ephraim  as  an  individual  we  know  nothing  more  ; 
still  more  formidable  kind,  "bonds  and  afflictions  abid-  but  the  history  of  the  covenant-people  remarkably 


EPHRAIM  i 

confirms  the  view  thus  given  at  the  outset  of  his  tribal 
ascendency — though  not  without  such  occasional  varia 
tions  as  might  seem  to  bring  it  for  a  time  into  doubt. 
At  the  period  of  the  exodus  Ephraim  numbered  40,500 
men  capable  of  bearing  arms,  while  Manasseh  had 
only  32,^nii.  But  at  the  close  of  the  wilderness- 
sojourn  the  proportions  were  reversed:  Kphraim  then 
mustered  but  '.j'l,:>uu,  while  Manasseh  had  risen  to 
;VJ,70d;  the  one  having  decreased  bv  S"0l.(.  while  the 
other  gained  upwards  of  S'UMMI.  This  argues  ill  for  the 
spirit  and  behaviour  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  during  that 
trying  period,  as  it  must  have  been  their  singular 
share  in  the  judgments  sent  to  chastise  iniquity  which 
reduced  them  so  low.  At  the  time  of  the  conquest  of 
Canaan  they  Were  the  smallest  of  the  tribes  excepting 
Simeon.  Vet  even  then  nothing  was  abated  of  the 
high  anticipations  formed  of  the  future  greatness  of 
Ephraim;  for  in  the  blessing  of  Muses  upon  the  tribe-, 
pronounced  immediately  before  the  conquest,  while 
Manasseh  is  coupled  with  Ephraim  as  together  destined 

to   share    in  the   rich  heritage   of  g I    settled   on  the 

house  of  Joseph,  it  still  is  with  a  marked  indication  ,,f 
superiority  on  the  part  <>f  Ephraim.  After  enumerat 
ing  all  the  precious  things  which  were  in  store  for 
them — those  of  the  heaven  above  and  the  earth  be 
neath,  of  the  sun  and  moon,  of  the  everlasting  hills 
and  the  mighty  deep— it  is  added.  "  His  glory  is  like 
the  firstling  of  his  bullock,  and  his  horns  are  like  the 
horns  of  unicorns:  with  them  lit-  shall  push  the  people 
together  to  the  ends  of  the  earth:  and  they  are  the  ten 
thousands  of  Ephraim,  and  they  are  the  thousands  of 
Manasseh,"  DC.  \\\iii  17. 

Ephraim  as  a  tribe  showed  no  lack  of  faith  in  the.-e 
prognostications  of  its  relative  -Teatnes>;  indeed,  the 
predominant  sin  of  the  members  of  the  tribe  lav  in 
building  too  confidently  on  the  prospects  of  material 
power  and  prosperity  before  them,  as  if  these  were  to 
lie  realized  apart  from  any  moral  qualities  cultivated 
among  themselves,  and,  as  if  by  a  kind  of  hereditary 
right,  they  might  claim  a  certain  superiority  over  their 
brethren.  The  history  of  the  tribe,  therefore,  is  marked 
fully  as  much  by  its  overweening  pride,  its  offensive 
arrogance,  and  disappointed  ambition,  as  by  the  great 
ness  of  its  achievements  and  the  fertility  of  its  resources. 
At  the  very  Hrst  they  got  a  degree  of  consideration 
beyond  what  their  numbers  might  have  warranted 
them  to  expect  from  Joshua,  the  commander  of  the 
entire  host,  having  been  of  their  number.  P.ut  even 
he  failed  to  satisfy  their  ambition;  for  after  their  inher 
itance  had  been  assigned  them,  which  possessed  several 
mountain-ridges  covered  with  forests,  they  came  to 
him  (apparently  in  company  with  the  half  tribe  of 
Manasseh),  and  said,  "Why  hast  thou  given  me  hut 
one  lot  and  one  portion  to  inherit,  seeing  I  am  a  great 
people,  forasmuch  as  the  Lord  has  blessed  me  hitherto'!'' 
They  had  been  able,  it  would  seem,  to  get  possession 
of  little  more  than  the  hill  portion  of  their  territory, 
while  the  rich  plains  of  the  district  remained  still  in 
the  hands  of  the  C'anaanites.  Joshua,  therefore,  told 
them  that  they  should  set  about  the  conquest  of  the 
whole.  He  answered  them,  "saying,  Thou  art  a  great 
people,  and  hast  great  power:  thou  shalt  not  have  one 
lot  only;  but  the  mountain  shall  be  thine;  for  it  is  a 
wood  (or  forest),  and  thou  shalt  cut  it  down:  and  the 
outgoings  of  it  shall  be  thine  :  for  thou  shalt  drive  out 
the  Canaanites,  though  they  have  iron  chariots,  and 
though  they  be  strong,"  Jos.  xvii.  11-1^.  What  he  meant 


EPHRAIM 

to  tell  them  was,  that  in  having  got  possession  of  the 
mountainous  parts  of  their  territory,  they  had  obtained 
a  secure  and  strong  position,  from  which,  if  but  rightly 
used  by  the  clearing  away  of  the  forests,  and  issuing  in 
well-concerted  sallies  against  the  adversaries,  would 
form  a  vantage  ground  from  which  to  subdue  the 
whole  surrounding  country.  So  it  proved  in  reality; 
the  mountains  of  Kphraim  continued  for  many  a  day 
to  lie  the  stronghold  and  rallying  place  of  the  people 
against  the  common  enemy.  Ehud,  the  P.enjamite, 
when  he  sought  to  rouse  his  countrymen  against  Moab, 
"  blew  a  trumpet  in  the  mountain  of  Ephraim,  and  the 
children  of  Israel  went  down  with  him  from  the  mount,'' 
and  utterly  discomfited  Moab.  ,lu.  iii.  -.7.  Deborah, 
who  next  acted  as  a  judge,  established  her  seat  in 
Mount  Kphraim.  between  Ramah  and  Bethel,  Ju.iv.ii; 
and  \\ithin  that  hilly  region  the  army  was  mustered 
with  which  Barak  sallied  forth  and  defeated  the  host  of 
Sisera.  Tola,  at  a  later  period,  judged  Israel  in  the 
same  region:  and  Samuel,  though  of  Levite  parentage, 
was  both  in  the  place  of  his  birth,  and  in  his  settled 
residence,  an  Ephraimite,  .in  \.i;  i  s;l  i  ••, 

Dunn--  that  earlier  period  of  Israelitish  history  the 
i-eli'/ioiis  distinction  of  Kphraim  kept  pace  with  his 
political  a-ceiidency.  Shiloh,  which  at  the  period  of 
the  conquest,  was  chosen  for  the  seat  of  the  tabernacle, 
was  within  the  bounds  of  this  tribe:  chosen  apparently 
more  from  its  central  situation,  and  perhaps  from  the 
security  connected  with  the  mountains  of  Kphraim, 
than  from  beauty  of  situation  or  associations  nf  a  more 
sacred  kind.  But  for  nearly  four  hundred  years  it 
continued  to  be  the  religious  centre  of  the  coveiiant- 
people.  \\heretheymet  to  celebrate  the  stated  feasts 

and  perform  their  vows  to  the  Lord.  The  privilege, 
however,  appears  to  have  been  little  prized  by  the 
Kphraimites.  who  were  rather  prone  to  be  proud  of  the 
distinction,  than  disposed  to  turn  to  proper  account  the 
spiritual  advantages  it  atlbrded.  Shiloh  itself  became 
a  place  notorious  for  its  shameless  depravity  and  cor 
ruption,  and  could  not  fail  to  spread  a  contaminating 
influence  to  the  surrounding  country.  The  natural 
fertility  also  of  the  region  (when  it  came  fully  into  the 
possession  of  the  tribe),  comprehending  the  fine  plain  of 
Ksdraelon,  and  some  of  the  most  select  portions  of 
Palestine,  tended  to  foster  the  carnal  spirit  of  the 
people,  and  ^ave  rapid  development  to  the  worst 
features  of  their  character.  The  result  was  that  "(Jod 
refused  the  tabernacle  of  Joseph,  and  chose  not  the 
tribe  of  Ephraim;  but  chose  the  tribe  of  Judith,  and  the 
Mount  Zion  which  he  loved,"  l*s.  ixxviii.  117,1;*.  ( 'lear  as 
the  indications  were,  that  this  selection  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  and  the  sanctuary  of  /ion,  was  the  determined 
purpose  of  the  Lord,  it  seems  never  to  have  been  pro 
perly  acquiesced  in  by  the  house  of  Joseph,  and  in 
particular  by  the  tribe  of  Ephraim.  The  haughty 
spirit  of  the  people  could  not  brook  the  personal  rejec 
tion  implied  in  the  proceeding,  and  the  consequent 
elevation  of  a  rival  tribe  to  the  distinction  so  long  held 
by  them.  That  spirit  had  even  broken  out  in  jealous 
humours  and  contentious  strivings  against  the  kindred 
tribe  of  Manasseh,  when  this  tribe  rose  to  a  temporary 
supremacy  under  the  prowess  first  of  (Jideon,  and 
again  of  Jephthah,  .In.  viii.  i,  soq.;  xii.  i,  w>\.;  much  more 
may  we  conceive  it  to  have  chafed  under  the  growing, 
and  at  length  somewhat  oppressive  dominion  of  the 
house  of  David.  Jeroboam,  who  headed  the  opposition 
that  arose  against  that  house  in  the  time  of  Kehoboam, 


EPHUAIM 


EPISTLES 


was  himself  ;ui  Ephrathite,  wlio  had  been  raised  by 
Solomon  to  lie  "  ruler  over  all  the  charge  (or  revenues) 
of  the  house  of  Joseph,"  1  Ki.  xi.  20-2*.  And  we  can 
liave  no  doubt,  that  what  gave  such  force  to  his  future 
opposition,  and  tended  most  materially  to  perpetuate 
the  discord  it  occasioned,  was  the  opportunity  thereby 
presented  of  evoking  the  old  spirit  of  rivalry  and  inor 
dinate  self-elation,  which  had  rooted  itself  in  the  tribe 
of  Ephraim,  and  to  some  extent  pervaded  the  whole 
house  of  Joseph.  It  would  now  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  the  establishment  of  an  independent 
kingdom,  which  unfortunately  came  to  be  settled  oil 
principles  that  rendered  it,  not  only  a  blunder  in 
government,  but  an  apostasy  in  religion.  Ephraim' s 
envy  toward  Judah  grew  into  rebellion  against  God, 
bringing  in  its  train  manifold  disorders  in  the  moral 
and  spiritual,  as  well  as  the  political  spheres  ;  and  as  the 
final  upshot  the  curse  of  Heaven  came  down,  smiting 
the  "  crown  of  the  pride  of  Ephraim,"  turning  his  "fat 
valleys"  into  desolation,  and  scattering  the  thousands 
in  which  he  trusted  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Instead 
of  making  good  the  ascendency  it  coveted,  the  tribe 
lost  even  the  secondary  place  which  would  readily  have 
been  accorded  to  it. 

EPH'RAIM,  WOOD  OR  FOREST  OF.  Mention 
has  been  made  in  the  preceding  article  both  of  the 
mountains  of  Ephraim,  and  the  forests  upon  them. 
But  what  bears  in  Scripture  the  name  of  the  Wood  of 
£j)hratm,  a  place  rendered  memorable  from  being  the 
scene  of  Absalom's  defeat  and  death,  2  Sa.  xviii.  ii,  must 
have  been  in  a  quite  different  region,  on  the  east  of 
Jordan,  and  not  far  from  Mahanaim.  David  and  his 
party  are  expressly  said  to  have  crossed  the  Jordan,  to 
have  pitched  in  the  land  of  Gilead,  and  made  Ma 
hanaim  their  head  -  quarters,  2Sa.  xvii24,  26;  xviii.  3.  In 
that  neighbourhood,  therefore,  must  the  field  of  battle 
have  been,  and  consequently  the  wood  in  which  Absa 
lom  met  his  death.  Why  a  wood  in  that  direction 
should  have  obtained  the  name  of  Ephraim  is  a  matter 
of  uncertainty.  The  idea  has  been  suggested  that  it 
may  have  arisen  from  the  slaughter  of  the  Ephraimites 
by  Jephthah,  which  took  place  somewhere  in  that 
direction.  (Stanley,  p.  3211) ;  a  not  improbable  conjecture, 
but  incapable  of  being  sustained  by  any  historical 
evidence. 

EPH'RAIM,  by  or  beside  which  Absalom  had  his 
sheep- shearing,  and  one  may  naturally  suppose  his 
sheep- pastures,  2  Sa.  xiii.  23,  must  have  been  some  place 
at  no  great  distance  from  Jerusalem:  otherwise  an 
invitation  to  David  and  all  the  royal  family  to  go  and 
attend  the  sheep-shearing  feast  must  have  appeared 
either  supremely  ridiculous,  or  justly  fitted  to  excite 
suspicion.  Nothing  certain  however  is  known  about  it: 
but  it  has  been,  with  some  probability,  supposed  to  be 
the  same  with  that  Ephraim  to  which  our  Lord  with 
drew  when  threatened  with  violence  by  the  Jews,  after 
the  resurrection  of  Lazarus,  Jn.  \i.  51.  And  this  again  has 
been  supposed  to  be  the  same  with  the  ancient  Ophrah 
of  Benjamin,  iSa.  xiii.  17 — a  place  about  twenty  miles 
north  from  Jerusalem,  and  perched  on  a  conical  hill. 
It  goes  now  by  the  name  of  et  TaiyibcJi  (Robinson, 
i.  444 ;  Stanley,  p.  an).  On  the  east,  between,  it  and  the 
Jordan,  lay  the  upper  part  of  the  Wilderness  of  Judah; 
and  hence  the  evangelist  John  speaks  of  it  being  in  "a 
country  near  to  the  wilderness."  This  is  what  seems 
to  have  been  called  in  earlier  times  the  Wilderness  of 
Bethaven,  Jos.  xviii.  12. 


EPH'RALN,  2  Ch.  xiii.  19  (for  so  it  should  be 
read,  not  El'HKAlM,  as  it  is  in  some  English  Bibles), 
according  to  the  Keri,  or  marginal  reading,  Ei'UKox, 
a  town  said  to  have  been  taken  by  Abijah  from  Jero 
boam,  and  mentioned  along  with  Bethel  and  Jeshanah. 
It  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  but  another  form  of  the 
Ephraim  last  mentioned. 

EPHRA'TAH  [fruitful  field].  1.  The  ancient 
name  of  Bethlehem;  for  the  sake  of  emphasis  and  dis 
tinctness  of  meaning  both  are  coupled  together  by  the 
prophet  Micah,  di.v.  2.  (.St'cBlTHLEHEM.)  2.  The  name  of 
the  second  wife  of  Caleb,  and  mother  of  Hur,  ]  Ch.  ii.  in. 

EPH'ROlSr  \]>do,K,/in<i  to  a  «<//_].  The  son  of  Zohar, 
a  Hittite,  the  owner  of  the  field  at  Mamre  which  Abra 
ham  bought  for  a  burying-ground,  (Je.  xxiii.  s.  Josephus 
calls  him  Ephraim. 

EPICUREANS.     Sec  PHILOSOPHY. 

EPISTLES.  The  term  that  has  been  employed  to 
designate  a  large  portion  of  the  writings  of  the  New  Tes 
tament — including  twenty-one  out  of  the  twenty-seven 
separate  productions  of  which  it  is  composed.  Two 
even  out  of  the  few  not  included  in  this  designation  also 
bear  somewhat  of  the  form  of  epistolary  writings  ;  for 
both  the  Gospel  of  Luke  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
are  prefaced  by  an  epistle  to  Theophilus,  a  personal 
friend  of  the  evangelist.  But  as  the  epistolary  part  is 
confined  to  the  preface,  and  the  body  of  the  two  pro 
ductions  is  altogether  historical,  they  are  wisely  sepa 
rated  from  the  epistles  strictly  so  called.  Of  these 
epistles  fourteen  (if  we  include  Hebrews)  were  indited 
by  the  apostle  Paul;  three  by  the  apostle  John;  two  by 
Peter;  one  by  James;  and  one  by  Jude.  The  epistles 
of  Paul  are  distinguished  from  the  others  as  being  ad 
dressed  to  particular  individuals  or  churches;  while  the 
rest  have  received  the  name  of  r/ctteral  or  catholic 
epistles.  The  division  does  not  strictly  hold ;  for  the 
second  and  third  of  John  had  each  a  specific  destina 
tion;  and  the  first  epistle  of  Peter,  which  was  addressed 
to  the  Jewish  Christian  communities  of  Asia  Minor, 
is  even  less  obviously  general  in  its  character  than 
the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  has  respect  to  the 
state  and  prospects  of  Jewish  Christians,  without  speci 
fication  as  to  local  residence.  But  though  not  strictly 
accurate,  the  division  has  a  sufficient  basis  to  rest  upon 
for  general  reference;  for  the  first  epistle  of  Peter,  and 
the  second  and  third  of  John,  while  formally  addressed 
to  particular  persons,  have  little  in  them  that  is  pro 
perly  local  and  personal. 

The  several  epistles  are  treated  under  their  respec 
tive  heads ;  so  that  any  remarks  here  on  their  indi 
vidual  character  would  be  out  of  place.  Viewing  them, 
however,  collectively,  it  may  justly  be  regarded  as  a 
striking  proof  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  goodness,  in 
so  ordering  the  affairs  of  the  early  church,  that  the  last 
revelation  of  God  should  have  been  made  to  assume  so 
much  this  interesting  and  instructive  form.  This  is 
important  even  in  its  bearing  011  the  external  relations 
of  Christianity;  for  as  it  is  itself  based  on  the  facts  of 
history,  so  the  unfolding  of  its  truths  and  obligations 
in  a  permanent  shape  to  the  church,  thus  became 
entwined  with  the  historical  characters  and  circum 
stances  of  the  time,  and  so  provided  a  manifold  evi 
dence  and  sure  guarantee  of  the  reality  of  the  things 
believed  and  taught.  But  it  is  still  more  important, 
from  the  influence  it  is  fitted  to  have  upon  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  believers.  The  freedom  of  epistolary 
writinf — the  room  it  affords  for  the  intermingling  of 


ER 


ESAU 


personal  fueling  and  affection  with  the  varied  exhibition 
of  Christian  doctrine— the  freshness,  the  point,  the 
fulness  of  instruction,  consolation,  and  comfort,  which 
the  actual  circumstances  of  the  sacred  penmen  natu 
rally  imparted  to  their  epistolary  communications — all 
contribute  to  invest  tile  epistles  of  the  New  Testament 
with  a  charm,  and  endow  them  with  a  value,  which 
they  could  never  have  possessed  if  thrown  into  a  more 
abstract  and  didactic  form.  Thus,  finally,  writings  so 
originating  and  so  constructed  suited  best  the  character 
of  Christianity  as  a  grand  historical  development:  for 
we  thus  see  how  the  seed  of  the  gospel  took  rout  in  the 
world,  and  how  the  mode  of  its  distribution  by  tin- 
ambassadors  of  Christ,  and  the  fruits  it  bore  among  men, 
acted  and  reacted  on  each  other.  The  epistles  of  the 
New  Testament  are  in  this  respect  the  fitting  com 
plement  of  its  historical  books,  that  together  they  form 
the  life- portraiture  of  the  gradual  and  progressive  evo 
lution  of  Christian  faith,  worship.  ;uid  polity. 

ER  \,rat<'hn-\.  1.  The  eldest  son  of  Judali.  who.  for 
his  extreme  wickedness,  was  visited  with  condign  pun 
ishment,  Go.  xxxviii.  :;-r.  2.  A  descendant  of  Slielali. 
another  son  of  Judah,  i  Ch.  iv.  ji. 

ERAS'TUS,  the  chamberlain  of  the  city  of  Corinth, 
and  one  of  St.  Paul's  converts  there,  llo.  \\i.  ±j.  The 
office  lu:  held  was  one  of  <_Teat  dignity  and  importance; 
so  that  the  conversion  of  such  a  man  to  the  faith  of  the 
gospel  was  itself  a  proof  of  the  wonderful  success  of 
tile  apostle's  labours  in  that  city.  Fra>tus  not  only 
received  the  gospel,  but  became  one  of  its  most  devoted 
adherents;  he  is  mentioned  as.  aloiiLT  with  Timothy. 
ministering  to  Paul,  and  accompanying  him  in  some  of 

hi.S  visits  to  other  places.  Ar  xix.'22  The  last  notice  we 
have  of  him  represents  him  as  abiding  at  <  'orinth,  which 
probably  continued  to  be  his  settled  home,  uTi  iv.  i'n. 

E'RECH.  a  city  in  the  land  of  Shinar,  and  so  ancient 
as  to  be  connected  with  the  name  of  Nimr<»|,  Go.  \  PI. 
Y>\  .lerome  and  the  Targumists  this  place  was  identified 
with  Edessa,  in  the  north-west  of  .Mesopotamia:  but 
recent  inquiry  has  taken  a  different  direction.  Colonel 
Taylor,  formerly  P>ritish  resident  at  I.au'dad,  "who 
devoted  great  skill  and  distinguished  abilities  to  the 
geography  of  the  liahy Ionian  region,  satisfied  himself 
that  the  place  formerly  called  Orchm  by  the  (ireeks, 
and  now  known  as  \Verka,  is  the  true:  site  of  the  ancient 
city.  Werka  is  situated  on  the  Euphrates,  S'J  miles 
south,  43  east  from  Pabyloii,  and  is  celebrated  for  its 
immense'  mounds,  which  are  believed  to  be  the  ruins  of 
Ereeh"  (Hon. .mi's  Nineveh,  p.  In). 

ESAIAS.     See  ISAIAH. 

ESARHAD'DON,  a  king  of  Assyria,  son  and  suc 
cessor  of  Sennacherib,  the  same  probably  with  the:  Sar- 
gon  of  Isaiah,  and,  as  is  supposed,  with  the'  Sardana- 
palus  of  profane  history,  •>  Ki.  xix.  :j: ;  is  xx  1.  (Net- 
ASSYRIA.) 

E'SAU,  E'DOM,  the  first-born  of  Rein-kali's  twin- 
children.  The  account  given  of  his  birth  is,  "  Anel  the 
first  came  out  red,  all  over  like  a  hairy  garment,  and 
they  called  his  name  Esau,"  Go.  xxv.  -j:,.  From  the 
special  attention  drawn  to  his  hairy  appearance,  one: 
would  suppose  that  the  name  Esau  (v#y),  or  Esav,  was 

intended  to  give:  expression  to  that  quality.  Anel  so 
many  learned  me-ii  in  recent,  as  well  as  former  times, 
have  held,  though  they  are  obliged  to  resort  to  the 
Arabic  fe>r  the  etymological  explanation;  a  worel  very 
similar  in  Arabic,  signifying  //«/>//.  The  older  Hebrew 


commentators,  however,  derived  it  from  the-  verb  n\SV, 
to  make,  and  explained  the1  word  as  signifying  "made." 
"complete,"  ••full-grown"-  -viewing  the  hair  as  an  in 
dication  of  premature  manly  vigour.  P>ut  the  .lews  eif 
the  present  day  seem  more  disposeel  to  fall  in  with  the- 
other  derivation  U'"f  example,  Haphall  iii  looei).  The  unusual 
covering  of  hair,  which  not  only  elistinguished  Esau  as 
a  child,  hut  kept  pace  with  his  gnnvth,  and  in  mature' 
life  gave  his  skin  a  kind  of  goat-like  appearance  <Ge. 
xxvii.  PI),  was  undoubtedly  nu-ant  to  be1  indicative  of  the' 
man;  it  was  a  natural  si^n,  ceieval  with  his  very  birth, 
by  which  his  puivnts  might  descry  the  future'  man  as 
one'  in  whom  the  animal,  should  greatly  preponderate' 
over  the  moral  and  spiritual,  qualities  eif  nature  a 
e'haractiT  of  rough,  self-wille'd,  and  untanie'd  energy. 
From  the  word  designating  his  hairy  aspect,  Men-  (-iv«\y), 

it  is  not  improbable1,  that  the  mountain-range',  whie-li 
became'  the  possession  of  his  elesevnelants,  was  e'alled 
.Mount  ><.'/-,  though  it  is  also  possible-  that  the  rough, 
wooded  appearance-  of  the  mountain  it.M-lf  may  have 
been  the  occasion  of  the  name. 

It  was  not  long  till  F>au  Liave  proof  of  tin-  charae' 
te-ri-aic  te-ndi  ncics  whie'h  wen-  so  ivinarkablv  to  distin 
guish  him  from  his  In-other:  "The  boys  -jivw.  and  Esau 
was  a  e-iinnin^  hunter,  a  man  of  the-  tield  "  "of  a 
roving  and  restless  disjrositioii,  whom  the  fulne-ss  of 
animal  spirits,  as  Abarban.l  justly  re-marks,  impelled 
to  seek  exe-iteme-nt  in  change  of  scene  and  ha/.ardous 
pursuits"  tKaphall).  One:  would  have-  thought  this  was 
not  tin-  di.-position  m-  th.-  manner  of  life  that  would 
have  most  comm'-nded  itself  to  the-  peaceful,  contem 
plative-,  and  <  Mid-tVariiiL:-  Isaac;  they  were  certainly 
\ei-y  diltereiit  from  his  own.  and.  if  viewed  by  them- 
s,lves.  would  prol  ial  )1  V  ha\  e  <  ice-as'ioned  di-satisfactioli 
rather  than  delight.  Uut  Isaac  in  his  ol.l  age  appears 
to  have-  fallen  into  a  kind  of  soft  and  luxurious  repose1, 
and  Esau  kne-w  how  to  minister  to  this  infirmity  of  his 
age-d  parent  by  supplying  him  with  delicate-  and  savonrv 
food.  He-  therefore  loved  Esau,  it  is  said  loved  him  in 
comparison  of  Jacob  ''because  he-  did  eat  of  his  veni 
son."  NN  hat.  however,  Isaac  had  as  an  infirmity  of  his 
latter  days,  be-loiiged  to  Esau  as  a  pivdominant  charac 
teristic:  animal  pleasure,  sensual  enjoyment,  were  with 
him  the  very  cream  of  life;  he  neither  knew  nor  cared 
for  anything  better.  His  brother  Jacob  perceived  this, 
and  certainly  took  an  ungenerous  advantage  of  it.  On 
returning  one  day  from  the  field  faint  and  hungry 
Esau  found  Jacob  busy  with  a  mess  of  pottage'  a  sort 
of  dish  prepaivd  by  boiling,  and  of  much  about  the' 
consistence  of  grue-1.  It  is  made-  of  various  kinds  of 
grain,  which  are-  first  beate-n  in  a  mortar.  In  the 
present  ease  this  was  lentiles,  or  small  beans,  whie-h, 
Robinson  tells  us,  are  common  in  F.uvpt  and  Syria, 
under  the  name  of  '<«lux.  He  adds  that  he  found 
them  "very  palatable,  and  could  we'll  conceive,  that  to 
a  weary  hunter,  faint  with  hunger,  they  might  be 
quite:  a  dainty  "  ( Researches,  i.  p.  -jit;).  They  were  certainly 
esteemed  such  by  Esau  ;  and  he  said  with  eager  desire 
"  Let  me  taste  of  that  red  "—<//.-•/<,  understood,  pottage 
made  of  lentiles  having  a  reteldish  colour— but  Esau 
used  no  more  words  than  were  absolutely  necessary, 
feir  he'  was  faint,  as  he  himself  added,  and  on  this  ac 
count  was  impatient  to  be  satisfied.  Jacob  then  urged 
that  he:  would  sell  him  his  birthright-- he:  elid  neit  say 
for  what  consideration,  but  it  was  plainly  with  respect 
to  the  pottage,  then  in  the  power  eif  his  hand  to  give 


ESAF 


r,30 


ESAU 


or  within >ltl.  This  was  so  small  a  boon  compared  with 
what  ho  sought  that  it  sunns  strange  at  first  sight  how 
Jacob  should  have  thought  of  proposing  such  an  offer. 
I  hit  it  is  this  very  discrepance  between  the  price  and 
the  purchase,  which,  as  proposed  by  .Jacob,  discovers 
the  insight  he  had  obtained  into  Ksau's  character,  and, 
as  accepted  b\-  Esau,  shows  the  predominance  that 
sense  with  him  had  acquired  over  faith,  the  present 
over  the  future.  Esau  said,  "  Lo,  I  am  at  the  point 
to  die,  and  what  profit  shall  this  birthright  do  for  me  !"' 
He  felt  as  if  his  very  life  depended  oil  the  dish,  as  if 
he  should  presently  die  did  he  not  get  refreshment,  and 
he  might  therefore  throw  the  prospective  advantages  of 
his  birthright  to  the  winds.  This  seems  plainly  the 
meaning,  and  not,  as  some  Jewish  and  also  Christian 
authorities  would  put  it,  "I  am  ever  exposed  to  death 
from  my  precarious  mode  of  life,  and  must  soon  die 
anyhow,  so  that  I  need  not  set  so  much  by  this  birth 
right."  Such  a  line  of  thought  was  quite  alien  to 
Esau's  character,  and  implied  too  reflective  a  cast  of 
mind.  He  looked  simply  to  what  was  before  him, 
cared  for  nothing  but  the  removing  of  a  present  trouble 
and  the  enjoying  of  a  pleasant  entertainment.  So 
much  was  this  his  temper,  that  Jacob  could  not  be 
satisfied  with  his  mere  word,  but  insisted  on  having 
also  his  oath.  "Swear  to  me,"  he  said,  "this  day; 
and  he  sware  to  him ;  and  he  sold  his  birthright  unto 
Jacob.  Then  Jacob  gave  Esau  bread  and  pottage  of 
lentiles ;  and  he  did  eat  and  drink,  and  rose  up  and 
went  his  way :  thus  Esau  despised  his  birthright." 

Whatever  may  have  been  included  in  the  birthright 
here  spoken  of,  the  despite  shown  toward  it  by  Esau 
was  evidently  meant  to  be  characterized  as  the  evidence 
of  a  light  and  reckless  spirit,  which  brooked  only  of 
present  things  and  corporeal  delights.  So  it  is  inter 
preted  by  the  author  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
who  warns  the  churches  against  harbouring  profane 
persons  like  Esau,  who  for  one  morsel  of  meat  sold  his 
birthright,  lie.  xii.  ifi.  And  the  same  thing  appears  from 
the  proverbial  use  to  which  the  incident  came  to  be 
applied  in  the  current  language  of  the  East.  "  When 
a  man,"  says  Roberts  in  his  Illustration*  of  Si'ri/jfure, 
"has  sold  his  fields  or  his  gardens  for  an  insignificant 
sum,  the  people  say,  '  The  fellow  has  sold  his  land  for 
pottage.'  Does  a  father  give  his  daughter  to  a  low 
caste  man,  it  is  observed,  'He  has  given  her  for  pot 
tage.'  Does  a  person  by  base  means  seek  for  some 
paltry  enjoyment,  it  is  said,  '  For  one  leaf  (leaf-f ul)  of 
pottage  he  will  do  nine  days'  work.'  Has  a  learned 
man  stooped  to  anything  which  was  not  expected  from 
him,  it  is  said,  '  The  learned  man  has  fallen  into  the 
pottage  pot.'  "  The  very  name  given  to  Esau— the 
nickname,  as  it  must  be  reckoned — on  account  of  the 
part  he  acted  in  this  memorable  transaction,  is  also  a 
conclusive  proof  of  the  light  in  which  it  was  regarded 
by  the  ancients.  "  Therefore  was  his  name  called 
Edom  " — cdom  being  the  Hebrew-  for  red,  which  as 
embodied  in  the  pottage  he  so  emphatically  pronounced 
and  so  earnestly  desired.  It  was  fixed  on  him,  Men 
delssohn  justly  notes,  "  as  a  term  of  reproach  for  his 
folly  and  sensuality."  And  because  it  was  of  such  a 
nature,  the  designation  Edom  was  applied  chiefly  to 
his  posterity  and  land,  while  Esau  was  still  regarded 
and  used  as  his  proper  name. 

In  respect  to  the  birthright  itself,  and  what  the  two 
brothers  conceived  to  be  involved  in  it,  it  is  impossible 
to  speak  very  definitely.  In  the  earlier  history  of  the 


'  covenant-people  nothing  specific  is  connected  with  it, 
but  the  double  portion  in  the  father's  inheritance,  Do. 
xxi.  17.  And  in  respect  to  Jacob's  own  family  it  is  testi 
fied  that  his  eldest  son  Reuben  for  his  incontinence 
lost  the  birthright,  which  was  given  to  the  sons  of 

|  Joseph,  iCli.v.  i  ;  that  is,  the  double  portion  in  the  in 
heritance  of  Israel,  which  is  here  resolved  into  the 
birthright,  was  on  spiritual  grounds  taken  from  the 

'  eldest,  and  given  to  a  younger  son.  Ihit  while  this  is 
all  that  seems  to  have  been  specifically  connected  with 
the  birthright  in  patriarchal  times,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  it  would  be  associated,  especially  in  Jacob's  mind, 
with  the  more  distinctive  covenant-blessing.  He  who 
had  the  birthright  would  naturally  be  regarded  as 
stepping  more  peculiarly  into  the  room  of  Isaac,  and 
standing  in  a  closer  relationship  to  the  higher  designs 
and  purposes  of  God.  So  that  to  despise  a  birthright 
which  linked  its  possessor  in  some  special  manner  to 
interests  and  prospects  of  so  lofty  a  nature,  was  a 
manifest  indication  of  a  profane  and  grovelling  dis 
position. 

The  brief  notices  that  are  given  of  Esau's  subsequent 
history  only  serve  to  confirm  the  impression  which  this 
first  recorded  act  gives  of  his  character.  At  the  age  of 
forty  lie  took  to  him  wives  of  the  daughters  of  Canaan, 
"which  were  a  grief  of  mind  to  Isaac  and  Rebecca,"' 

;  Ge.  xxvi.  :'A, :);'.;  ill  this  again  showing  his  disregard  of  the 
higher  considerations  which  should  have  been  upper 
most  in  a  child  of  the  covenant,  and  seeking  only  the 
gratification  of  his  own  carnal  propensities.  Such 
things  should  have  awakened  his  father  Isaac  to  the 
conviction  that  the  more  special  blessing  of  the  cove 
nant  could  not  be  destined  for  Esau,  and  should  have 
enabled  him  to  read  aright  the  oracle  that  had  been 
pronounced  respecting  him  before  his  birth,  that  "the 
elder  should  serve  the  younger."  But  Isaac  was  him 
self  blinded  and  misled  by  a  carnal  partiality,  and  so 
he  fell  into  the  grievous  error  of  resolving  to  bestow  on 
Esau  the  distinctive  blessing — to  assign  him  the  higher 
place  and  destination  that  belonged  to  the  person  who 
stood  first  in  the  household  of  faith.  The  providence 
of  God  defeated  the  purpose,  and  brought  Isaac  him 
self  to  see  that  he  had  been  culpably  blind  to  the  inti 
mations  of  God's  will  in  the  matter.  It  was  forced  on 
him  indeed,  by  a  course  of  procedure  that,  from  its  foul 
deceit,  must  have  greatly  aggravated  the  pain  of  the 
discovery.  But  of  the  fact  itself,  that  he  had  purposed  to 
bestow  the  peculiar  blessing  upon  one  who,  by  his  whole 
life  and  behaviour,  had  clearly  shown  that  he  was  not 
the  proper  subject  of  it,  Isaac  could  not  entertain  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt,  and  therefore  the  blessing  pro 
nounced  unwittingly  upon  Jacob  was  irrevocably  settled 
as  his  proper  inheritance.  Esau  found  no  place  for 
repentance  (i.e.  for  producing  a  change  in  his  father's 
mind),  though  he  sought  it  carefully  with  tears ;  his 
own  measure  in  divine  things  was  now  meted  back  to 
him,  lie.  xii.  17. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  Esau  should  have  felt  irri 
tated  at  the  part  acted  by  Jacob  in  the  matter  of  the 
blessing,  but  he  should,  like  his  father  Isaac,  have  seen 
the  hand  of  God  in  the  turn  things  took ;  and  know 
ing  that  there  is  no  unrighteousness  in  God,  he  should 
have  charged  upon  himself  whatever  grieved  him  in  the 
actual  result.  Instead  of  this,  however,  he  gave  way 
to  the  bitterness  of  wounded  pride,  and  vowed  venge 
ance  against  the  brother  who  had  supplanted  him,  by 
determining,  after  their  father's  death,  to  take  away  his 


KSAT 


KSSEN  KS 


life.  This  led  t<>  the  exile  of  Jacob  to  Mesopotamia. 
and  his  abode  there  for  upwards  of  twenty  years.  Still, 
at  the  close  of  that  long  period  Esau's  revenue  con 
tinued  as  strong  as  ever:  and  when  lie  heard  of  his 
brother's  approach  to  the  family  home  he  sallied  forth 
with  an  armed  band  of  4!|U  men,  manifestly  for  the 
purpose  of  falling  upon  him  and  destroying  him.  But 
the  earnest  prayer  of  Jacob,  followed  as  it  was  bv  the 
tokens  of  love  to  his  brother,  which  he  sent  on  before 
in  drove  after  drove  of  flocks  and  herds,  fairly  over 
came  the  lion-hearted  Esau;  his  rough  hut  impulsive 
and  impressible  nature  melted  to  tenderness  under  such 
touching  manifestations  of  a  brother's  regard:  and  bv 
the  grace  of  (lod  the  two  men  met  now  again  as  in 
their  youth  they  had  often  m«-t  in  their  father's  t--nt: 
they  fell  on  each  other's  neck  and  terminated  their  Ion- 
quarrel  in  the  embrace  of  bmtherlv  alii  ction,  Ge.  xxxiii. 

The  reconciliation  then  etlect, •<!  appears  to  have  been 
lasting  so  far  as  the  two  brothers  personally  were  con 
cerned.  They  are  only  once  a'_f:iin  im  ntioned  as  in 
actual  intercourse,  namely,  on  the  occasion  of  their 
father's  death.  l>aae  lingereil  on  till  lie  reached  the 
extreme  age  of  l>u  years,  "and  his  sons  K~au  and 
Jacob  buried  him."  themselves  at  the  time  ab,,nt  1  L'o 
years  old.  (ie  xxxv.  :".).  Before  this,  however,  though  it- 
occurs  latc-r  in  the  history.  Ksaii  liad  withdrawn  to 
some  distance  from  the  district,  \\hieh  was  occupied  bv 
Jacob  after  his  return  from  I'adan-  Aram:  "lie  v.ent 
into  the  country  from  the  face  of  his  brother  Jacob,  for 
their  riches  were  more  than  that  they  mi-lit  dwell 
together;  and  t!ie  land  wherein  tliev  \\  - 
could  not  bear  them  because  of  their  cattle."  c 
<;,  7.  The  country  to  which  Esau,  with  his  immense 
family  and  (locks  retired,  was  the  tract  of  Mount  Seir, 
from  which  they  gradually  dispo-sess.-d  the  thinlv  scat 
tered  population  th:it  preceded  them  in  its  occupancy. 
and  which  they  continued  to  hold  for  manv  generations. 
It  was  a  region  entirely  suited  to  the  nomade  and 
roving  character  of  the  race.  But  in  regard  to  the  rela 
tionship  between  them  and  the  seed  of  Israel,  the  remote 
descendants  of  Esau  proved  less  pliant  or  geii.-roiis 
than  their  progenitor;  fur  from  the  time  tha;  l-'-aol 
left  the  land  of  Egypt,  when  the  two  families  a^ain 
came  into  contact,  the  posterity  of  J.>au  -eemed  to  re 
member  only  the  old  quarrel  between  the  respective  heads 
of  the  races,  and  to  forget  the  hrotlicrlv  reconciliation. 
A  spirit  of  keenest  rivalry  and  spite  eharacieri/.ed  their 
procedure  toward  Israel;  through  many  a  bloody  con 
flict  they  strove  to  regain  the  ascendency  which  the 
decree  of  Heaven  had  destined  in  the  other  direction: 
and  in  the  times  of  Israel's  backsliding  and  weakness, 
they  showed  themselves  ever  ready,  according  to  the 
prophetic  word  of  Isaac,  "to  break  his  yoke  from  oft' 
their  neck."  and  to  drive  the  evil  to  the  uttermost. 
.But  it  was  a  fruitless  struggle;  the  purpose  of  Heaven 
stood  fast ;  the  dominion  remained  with  the  house  of 
Jacob;  and  in  the  course  of  the  Maccabean  wars  the 
children  of  Ksau  finally  lost  their  independent  existence. 
and  became  substantially  merged  in  the  house  of  Israel. 
The  decree  of  Heaven,  as  we  have  said,  had  so  fixed  it; 
but  that  decree  did  not  realize  itself  arbitrarily;  the 
preference  for  Israel  and  his  seed  was  no  senseless 
favouritism;  from  the  first  the  qualities  were  there 
which  inevitably  carried  along  with  them  the  superio 
rity  in  might  and  blessing ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  Esau's  carnalism,  sensuality,  godlessness,  the  destiny 
of  his  race  was  already  indicated. 

VOL.  1. 


ESDRAE'LON.     &•<  JKZUKEI.. 

ES'DRAS.     >u  EZRA. 

E'SEK  [tti'ift  ].  the  name  given  bv  Isaac's  men  to  a 
well,  dug  by  them,  which  the  men  of  Gerar  strove  to 
obtain,  i.u.  xxvi.  -j.i. 

ESH-BA'AL    [/,'</«/',•    man],    the    name    of    Saul's 

youngest  son,  according  to  the  list  given    in  1  Ch.  \  Hi. 

(  '.'>'•$;  ix.  ;!!'.      It  is  another  form    of    Jshbosheth.    which 

1  means  mnn  <>f  x/«inic.      Beshcth   or  Bosheth   is  used  for 

an  idol,  as   a   tiling   that  causes    shame,    is  xliii.  i:  ;  xli\- 

|U 

ESH'COL  [,-/W</-].  An  Amorite  chief,  brother  of 
Mamre.  who  stood  on  friendly  terms  with  Abraham, 
and  accompanied  him  in  his  warlike  expedition  u-ain>t 
( 'liedorlaoiner  and  his  confederate  kind's.  Co.  xiv.  1:1.  -Ji. 

ESHCOL.  VALLEY  OF.  A  valley  or  wady  in  the 
-outh  of  (  aiiaan.  and  the  neighbourhood  of  Hebron, 
•so  called  from  the  rich  cluster  of  grapes  which  the 
fsraelitish  spies  carried  away  from  it.  Nu.xiii  ^i.  .But  as 
the  name  existed  in  the  neighbourhood  so  early  as  the 
time  of  Abraham,  it  is  probable  that  the'  same  reason 
which  led  the  Israelites  to  api>lv  lo  the  valley  such  a 
designation,  had  operated  al>o  aninii1^  the  original 
possessors  of  the  soil.  It  is  to  this  day  full  of  vine- 
vards.  and  the  grapes  produced  in  it  retain  their  an 
cient  character.  They  are  the  finest  and  largest  in  the 
country  < 1;.  ; •  :,-  .  i's  llosc  ivhes.i  :;i7l. 

ESHTA'OL  |]irobably  a  rett-tut],  a  town,  along  with 
1  /orali,  allotted  to  Pan  out  of  the  territory  of  Judah. 
Jos.  xv.  33.  It  \\as  on  the  borders  of  the  Philistine 
count  rv.  and  was  placed  hv  F.usebins  and  Jerome  be- 
tween  A/otus  and  A-kelon.  [t  has  long  since  vanished; 
but  it  was  anciently  noted  as  the  place  where  Samson 
spent  his  youth,  and  the  bur\  in-' -place  of  Manoah  his 
father,  ,Ii;  \;.ii.  •_•". ;  xvi.31,&c, 

ESHTE'MOH1',W» //'•.;  read  also  KSHTEMOA. 
a  citv  in  the  hill-country  of  Judah.  .T-s.  xv.  ~,o.  It  was 
included  among  the  towns  to  which  David  sent  pre 
sents,  and  must  therefore  have  been  a  place  frequented 
by  him.  i  S;i.  xxx.  ^.  Robinson  has  identified  it  with  a 
village.  Scmn'a,  about  seven  miles  south  of  Hebron 
ii.  ::in.  In  1  I'll.  iv.  17  it  ;>  connected  with  a  person, 
l~hb;di,  as  its  father  or  founder. 

ESSENES  [etymology  nnkiiown].  The  name  of  a 
Jt  wish  sect  that  arose  nearly  ^nii  years  liefore  the 
( 'hristian  t-ra.  Thou-h  they  are  never  noticed  in  the 
writings  of  t.he  New  Tc^tann  nt.  yet  it  is  necessary 
to  present  some  account  of  them  lie  re,  as  their  views 
and  practices  are  constantly  referred  to  by  writers 
who  treat  of  th>-  commencement  ,,f  Christianity  anil 
tlie  character  of  the  gospel  a^e.  Some  have  even 
-one  M.I  far  as  to  identify  John  the  .Baptist  with  the 
party,  although  the  idea  in  without  any  real  founda 
tion,  and  is  likely  to  meet  with  few  advocates  in  the 
present  day. 

The  information  that  has  come  down  to  us  upon 
this  peculiar  sect  is  of  a  somewhat  fragmentary  charac 
ter,  and  not  perfectly  consistent  with  itself.  What  is 
stated  respecting  the  party  by  one  writer  does  not  en 
tirely  harmoni/.e  with  what  is  stated  by  another.  Pliny, 
indeed,  one  of  those  writers,  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  be  very  minutely  acquainted  with  the  fraternity,  and 
accordingly  his  brief  account  of  their  peculiarities  must 
be  taken  with  some  qualification.  Speaking  of  the 
Dead  Sea  he  takes  occasion  to  say,  "  On  its  western 
shore  dwell  the  Essenes,  at  a  sufficient  distance  to 
i.-scape  what  is  noxious  in  its  vapours.  They  are  a 

68 


ESREXES 


ESS  EXES 


selves.  The  passage  of  J'hilo,  in  which  he  represents 
them  as  not  sacrificing  animals,  but  deeming  it  incum- 
associating  only  with  palm-  '  bent  to  present  their  minds  as  holy  offerings  (01)  fiDct /cara- 
re  replenished  bv  fresh  acces-  Ovovres  ccAX'  iepoirpeire'is  TCIS  eavruv  Siavoias  KaraaKevd- 
jetj'  d^iovvTfs.  Quod  ii/iinls  j>ro!>n$  liber,  §  12),  must 
either  have  proceeded  on  a  mistake,  or,  as  Xeander 
thinks  (Hist.  i.  p.  0(0,  merely  imports  that  they  laid  the 


solitary  class,  and  indeed  the  most  wonderful  people  in 
the  world —without  wives,  abstaining  from  sexual  inter 
course,    without  money, 
trees.      Their  numbers  : 

sions  daily,  many  repairing  to  their  settlements  whom 
the  reverses  of  fortune  have  rendered  weary  of  life, 
and  inclined  to  their  manners.  Thus  it  comes  to  pass, 

what  might  seem  incredible,  that  a  community  in  which  chief  stress  upon  the  spiritual  element  in  sacred  wor- 

110  one  is  born,  yet  continues  to  subsist  for  centuries"  ship— accounted    the    outward    service    nothing    apart 

(Nat.  Hist.  I.  v.  c.  1M.     Comparing  this  with  the  fuller  ac-  from  the  preparation  and  service  of  the  heart.     They 

count  of  Jo<ophus.  we  find  that  what  is  said  respecting  still  therefore  offered  the  legal  sacrifices,  but  not  after 

marriage  held  oulv  of  a  portion,  not  of   the  whole  of  the   legal   manner — not   in   the  place   which  God  had 

the  Essenes;  the  stricter  part  alone  abstained  from  it.  chosen;   from  this  they  stood  aloof  on  account  of  the 

He  says  expressly  that  there  was  an  order  among  them  defilement  which  they  conceived  it  to  be  ever  contract- 

vvho  "  agreed  with  the   rest  as  to  their  way  of  living,  ing  from   the   multitude  of    impure  worshippers    who 

and  customs  and  laws,  but  differed   from   them  in  the  trod  its  courts.      They  deemed  it  better,  more  in  ac- 

point  of  marriage/'      They  did  so.  he  adds,  because  to  cordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  Mosaic  legislation,  to 

abjure  marriage  were  to  cut  off'  the  principal  part  of  remain  by  themselves,  and  sacrifice  within  the  holier 
human  life,  and,  if  all  were  to  follow  the  same  course,  ;  sanctuary  of  their  own  dwellings.  How.  indeed,  could 

the  whole  race  of  mankind   should  fail"  (Wars  ii.  8.  i:s).  the  stricter  Essenes  mingle   in  the   common  crowd  of 

The  practice  of  celibacy  was  so   alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  temple-worshippers,  when  they  looked  upon  even 

the  Hebrew  polity,  that  it  is  matter  of  surprise  any  the  juniors  in  their    own    select    fraternity   as  so  far 

party,  or  even  section,  of  a  party,  should  have  arisen  beneath  them,  that  if  they  accidentally  came  into  con- 
within  its  pale  who  embraced  that  form  of  asceticism,  .  tact  with  these,  they  thought  it  needful  to  wash  them- 
and  constituted  it  a  special  ground  of  merit.  It  plainly  :  selves,  as  if  they  had  been  denied  by  the  touch  of  a 


foreigner  {   (Jos.  "Wars,  ii.  8.  In). 

But  while  thus    in    one  direction  spurning  the  re- 


indicated  the  influence  of  a  foreign  teaching  upon  their 
mind,  commingling  with  that  of  Moses,  and  leading 
them  to  entertain  ideas  of  perfection  which  found  |  straints  of  ceremonialism,  and  in  many  of  their  regula- 
no  countenance  in  the  law  and  the  prophet*.  That  \  tions  freely  chalking  out  a  path  for  themselves,  the 
influence,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  was  derived  from  the  Essenes  in  other  things  belonged  to  the  straitest  sect  of 
oriental  philosophy,  which  with  its  fundamental  doc-  ceremonialists.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  liberty  of 
trine  respecting  the  inherent  evil  of  matter,  led  men,  I  the  gospel,  nor  had  ever  penetrated  through  the  shell 
wherever  its  spirit  prevailed,  to  aspire  after  an  ethereal  |  into  the  spirit  of  the  Mosaic  legislation.  They  adhered , 
virtue  by  working  themselves  free  from  corporeal  affec-  ;  for  example,  so  rigidly  to  the  letter  of  the  law  of  the 
tions,  rising  above  the  lawful  wants  of  nature,  and  the  Sabbath,  that  they  would  kindle  no  fire,  nor  allow  any 
ordinary  relations  of  life.  Hence,  in  their  religious  food  to  be  prepared  on  it ;  they  would  never  partake  of 
belief,  the  body  was  regarded  as  the  prison-house,  '  victuals  except  such  as  had  been  cooked  by  the  hands 
rather  than  the  temple  and  instrument  of  the  soul  (Jos.  of  their  own  fraternity  ;  nay,  counted  it  such  a  pollution 
Wars,  ii.  8.  ii).  to  do  so.  that  death  was  to  be  preferred  instead;  they 

This  spirit,  however,  though  it  had  its  share  in  religiously  abstained  from  spitting,  especially  on  the  right 
moulding  the  views  and  practices  of  the  Essenic  f rater-  ']  side;  they  betook  to  corporeal  ablutions  whenever  they 
nity,  was  kept  in  check  by  another— their  reverence  '  happened  to  receive  the  touch  of  an  uncircumcised 
for  the  teaching  of  Moses.  He  was  their  paramount  person,  or  even  (as  has  just  been  stated)  of  one  belong- 
authority;  "what  they  most  of  all  honoured,''  says  ing  to  an  inferior  grade  in  their  own  party:  such  slaves 
Joseplms,  "after  God  himself,  is  the  name  of  their  were  they  to  form,  and  so  much  did  externalism  encir- 


legislator,  whom  if  any  one  blaspheme,  he  is  pun 
ished  capitally."  Yet,  like  mystics  generally,  they 
used  great  freedoms  with  the  prescriptions  of  the  autho- 


cle  and  overlay  their  mysticism  ! 

There   were,   however,  amid  all  these  peculiarities, 
traits  of  excellence   in   the  Essenes  as  a  body,   which 


rity  they  professed  so  rigidly  to  follow;  and,  if  viewed  !  honourably  distinguished  them  from  the  mass  of  their 
with  respect  to  the  letter  of'  the  command,  their  mode     countrymen,  and  must  have  greatly  tended  to  win  for 


of  life  seemed  to  be  as  remarkable  for  its  disregard  of 
some  of  the  institutions  of  Moses,  as  for  its  compliance 
with  others.  Their  system  was  a  compound  of  the 
mystic  and  ceremonial  elements,  jumbled  together  in  a 
manner  that  appears  arbitrary  and  inexplicable.  If  any 
part  of  the  Mosaic  legislation  might  be  regarded  as 
more  explicit  and  binding  than  another,  it  is  what  it 
enjoins  respecting  attendance  at  the  stated  feasts  and 
the  presentation  of  sacrifices  at  the  temple.  Yet  the 
Essenes  took  no  part  in  these.  They  sent  offerings  to 
the  temple,  for  the  purpose  probably  of  discharging 


them  the  esteem  and  admiration  of  thoughtful  minds. 
Xotwithstanding  their  formal  separation  from  the 
temple,  they  were  most  regular  and  frequent  in  their 
exercises  of  devotion;  every  day  was  begun  before  sun 
rise  with  prayer  and  praise;  every  meal  was  hallowed 
with  grace  before  and  after  meat;  and  so  religiously 
did  they  adhere  to  the  truth,  that  they  disallowed  the 
use  of  oaths ;  "  for  they  say,  that  he  who  cannot  be 
believed  without  swearing  by  God.  is  already  con 
demned."  They  were  also  distinguished  for  their  tem 
perance  in  food,  having  only  one  dish  set  before  them 


their  stated  and  hereditary  obligations  as  Jews,  but  j  at  each  meal:  for  their  habits  of  industry,  spending  the 
not.  as  Josephus  expressly  states  (Ant.  xviii.i.r,.),  "for  the  ,  hours  of  the  day  (except  in  so  far  as^  required  for  devo- 
presentation  of  sacrifices,  because  they  have  (i.e.  think  ,  tion.  bathings,  and  refreshment)  in  some  kinds  of 
they  have)  purer  lustrations  of  their  own:  on  which  ac-  handicraft  and  labour:  for  their  unselfish  and  brotherly 
count  (he  adds)  they  are  excluded  from  the  common  spirit,  having  all  things  in  common,  and  making  it  a 
court  of  the  temple,  but  offer  their  sacrifices  them-  i  part  of  their  stated  employment  to  relieve  the  wants  of 


ESTHER.   BOOK  OF 


ESTHER.   BOOK  OF 


the  distressed.  They  were  not  only  lovers  of  peace, 
but  were  on  principle  opposed  to  war.  and  abstained 
from  any  of  the  arts  that  ministered  to  its  use.  Great 
strictness  was  observed  in  admitting  members.  The 
applicant  was  obliged  to  live  one  whole  year  outside 
the  community,  but  practising  its  rules,  and  receiving 
as  badges,  an  axe,  an  apron,  and  a  white  garment.  On 
the  finishing  of  one  year  well,  he  was  permitted  to  share 
in  the  ablutions,  but  not  iu  the  common  repasts  and 
meals.  And  after  another  probation  of  two  years,  he 
was  admitted  as  a  full  member,  and  being  so  was  taken 
solemnly  bound  to  exercise  piety  toward  ('mil,  to 
observe  justice  toward  men,  to  hate  the  wicked  and. 
a.ssist  the  righteous,  himself  to  injure  no  one,  to  speak 
the  truth,  avoid  theft  and  robbery,  and  keep  the 
rules  and  secrets  of  the  society.  Jf  anv  of  their  mem 
bers  fell  into  flagrant  sin.  they  Were  expelled  from  the 
community,  and  sometimes  were  allowed  to  perish  f Mi- 
want,  or,  if  received  back,  it  was  onl\  when  they  were 
sutt'erinu'  the  last  extremities  of  hunger.  By  their  •_• 
ral  spirit  and  behaviour,  they  certainly  were  witne-M •> 
against  many  of  the  more  crying  iniquities  and  corrup 
tions  of  the  time;  but  they  had  neither  depth  of  dis 
cernment  nor  largeness  of  view  to  work  out  anything 
like  a  thorough  practical  reformation,  or  brimr  in  a 
spiritual  religion. 

Their  numbers  have  been  variously  estimated.  I  loth 
Philo  and  Josephus  speak  of  four  thousand  i.f  them 
being  in  Syria  and  Palestine:  hut  this  number  seems 
only  to  include  the  stricter  portion  of  the  sect.  Ennedi 
appears  to  have  been  the  centre  of  their  settlements;  but 
they  were  also  scattered  thror.Ji  some  of  the  more  desert 
parts  of  Palestine,  and  occasionally  appi-.uvd  in  it~  < 
For  the  most  part,  however,  they  wer-  to  be  found 
in  solitudes:  and  by  the  very  nature  of  their  asceticism 
they  were  excluded  from  the  haunts  and  intercom- 
ordinary  society.  This  sutticiently  explains  the  absence 
of  all  notice  of  them  in  New  Testament  scripture:  and 
it  shows,  at  the  same  time,  how  far  the  spirit,  not 
only  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  even  of  John  the  Baptist, 
was  removed  from  that  of  the  Essenes.  In  his  disre 
gard  of  the  world,  his  stern  discipline,  his  simple  man 
ners,  his  severe  denunciation  of  the  corruptions  i.f  the 
times,  John  might  be  said  to  have  something  in  com 
mon  with  them.  But  m  his  insight  into  the  mind 
of  God,  his  elevation  al>ove  the  letter  of  a  riifid  cen  - 
monialism,  his  free  and  energetic  working  upon  the 
masses  around  him.  he  stood  on  a  greatly  higher  level 
than  the  Essenes,  and  belonged  indeed  to  an  entirely 
different  school— the  school  of  men  who  receive  their 
teaching  direct  from  heaven. 

Some  of  the  Essenes,  it  is  understood,  embraced 
Christianity:  and  the  Ossenes  mentioned  by  Epiphanius 
(H;ur.  six.)  was  probably  but  another  form  of  Essenes 

ESTHER,  BOOK  OF.  This  is  the  shortest  of  the 
historical  books  in  the  Old  Testament,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  book  of  Ruth,  from  which  however  it  differs, 
as  having  reference  to  more  than  a  mere  family  history, 
being,  in  truth,  the  account  of  the  preservation  of  the 
whole  Jewish  nation  from  destruction. 

The  fi'cue  of  the  principal  transactions  is  "Shushaii 
the  palace,"  namely,  the  royal  city  <>f  Susa;  the  date,  is 
the  reign  of  Ahasuerus,  king  of  Persia.  Without  en 
croaching  upon  the  article  AHASI'EHI.'.S  unduly,  it  is 
necessary  to  speak  of  the  different  opinions  which  have 
prevailed  as  to  the  individual  monarch  designated  by 
this  name.  A  very  wide  difference  of  opinion  has 


existed;  but  now  the  probability  is  admitted,  almost  if 
not  absolutely  with  unanimity,  to  be  that  either  Ar- 
taxerxes  Longimamis,  who  reigned  from  ji.c.  4(1 1  to 
H.C.  4'_)1.  or  his  father  Xerxes,  who  reigned  from  B.C. 
JS/t  to  B.C.  -10-1,  must  be  the  person  meant.  The 
chronology  of  our  English  Bible  indeed  adopts  the 
opinion  that  he  is  the  father  of  Xerxes.  Darius  I.,  \vho 
ascended  the  throne  in  n.c.  TIL' I.  But  Darius  lias  in 
Scripture  a  well-established  name  of  his  own;  and  to 
apply  the  title  Ahasiicrus  to  him  is  only  to  bring  eon- 
fusion  into  the  history;  whereas  the  Hebrew  form  of 
the  name  Ahasliverosh  answers  to  the  form  in  the  old 
Persian  inseriptinns  \\hieh  has  been  deciphered  by 
modern  scholars,  and  identitied  with  the  name  which 
the  Creeks  softened  into  Xerxes;  of  whieh,  a^ain,  it  is 
no  viol. -nt  supposition  to  regard  Artaxcrxes  as  a  mo 
dification  MI-  amplification.  Those  who  make  Darius 
to  be  this  kiiii;-  Ahasueru-i  consider  his  favour  for  the 
Jew  s  MII  aconmt  of  his  \\  ';I',.  Esili.T  to  lie  the  explanation 
of  his  friendly  intern  Truce  in  the  matters  of  the  Jews, 
as  related  in  the  book  of  E/ra.  But  precisely  the 
same  Use  may  be  made  ,.f  the  friendly  interference  of 
Artaxerxes  iiu  Hibivn.  Artach.-haslita),  as  related  in 
the  seventh  ehapt'  r  of  that  hook,  who  is  identified  with 
Artaxerxes  Longimamis  by  most  critics,  though  by 
some  identified  \\ith  Xerxes;  so  that  we  should  be. 
bruins-lit  baek  to  the  very  1  wo  moiiaivhs.  one  or  other 
of  \\iiMm  lias  be. -11  generally,  and  by  almost  all  import 
ant  authorities,  esteemed  the  Ahasuerus  of  Esther. 
i  '•  -ibly  the  c-liroiiology  of  our  English  Bible  may  seem 
to  suit  best  with  the  statement,  K.  ii.  ,-,-r,  '•  lu  Shushaii 
the  palace  there-  was  a  certain  Jew  \\ho-e  name  was 
Mordi-cai.  the  sou  of  J.tii-.  the  son  of  Shimei,  the  son 
ot  Ixish.a  (I*  iijamit'-,  who  had  been  carried  away  from 
Jerusalem,  with  the  captivity  which  had  been  carried 
away  with  Jeeniiiah  king  of  .1  udah,  whom  Xebuchad- 
lR/./ar  the  king  of  Babylon  hail  carried  away.  And 
he  brought  up  lladassah.  that  is,  E-tln  r,  his  uncle's 
daughter."  -leconiah's  captivity  took  place  about  H.C. 
.y.'li  or  f>'.»7:  and  if  .Mordecai  was  then  carried  captive, 
the  earliest  (late  which  can  be  assigned  is  the  most 
natural.  But  the  language  is  ambiguous  according  to 
the  Hebrew  idiom,  quite  as  much  as  the  English,  and 
may  lie  understood  to  assert  either  that  .Mordecai.  or 
that  his  gnat- grandfather,  was  the  person  carried 
away:  and  otlu  r  cases  of  analogous  ambiguity  occur  in 
Scripture.  Hence  no  weight  is  to  be  givuii  to  this 
passage  as  if  it  determined  the  chronology. 

.Modern  critics  have  in  general  inclined  to  think  that 
Xerxes  was  the  Ahasuerus  of  this  book:  and  such  emi 
nent  men  of  the  la-t  and  the  present  generation  as 
Jahn,  (iesenius.  Winer,  Havernick,  Baumgarten,  and 
Keil,  are  witnesses  to  the  agreement  in  this  point  of 
different  schools  (.f  thinking.  There  is  much  in  the 
character  of  the  monarch  described  in  Creeian  his 
tory  which  tallies  well  with  the  description  in  this 
book  of  Ahasuerus,  as  vain,  imperious,  sensual,  cruel, 
thoughtless,  and  under  the  influence  of  favourites,  yet 
not  incapable  of  feelings  of  compunction  and  sympathy 
for  his  subjects,  whom  he  had  been  the  instrument  of 
oppressing  or  otherwise  injuring.  The  notices  of  time, 
such  as  they  are,  may  also  be  easily  adjusted  to  the 
known  course  of  events  in  Xerxes'  reign.  The  most 
memorable  event  in  it  was  his  expedition  into  Greece, 
with  an  armament  of  such  magnitude  that  the  details 
presented  by  historians  would  be  rejected  as  incredible 
but  for  the  overwhelming  strength  of  evidence  in  their 


ESTHER,   BOOK  OF  ;> 

favour.  This  expedition  is  plainly  indicated  in  the 
prophecies  of  Daniel,  ch.  xi.  L>.  And  though  it  is  not 
spoken  of  directly  in  this  book — whose  narrative  is 
strictly  confined  to  the  one  great  subject  of  which  it 
treats — yet  the  enormous  feastings  "  to  all  his  princes 
and  his  servants,  the  power  of  Persia  and  Media,  the 
nobles  and  princes  of  the  provinces,  being  before  him; 
when  he  showed  the  riches  of  his  glorious  kingdom, 
and  the  honour  of  his  excellent  majesty,''  during  an 
entire  half  year,  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  ch.  i.  3, 4, 
would  be  the  natural  prelude  to  his  vast  expedition,  as 
it  would  be  in  exact  conformity  with  the  account  which 
Herodotus  gives  of  feasting  during  the  course  of  it. 
Again,  Vashti  the  queen  was  divorced  at  this  time;  but 
Esther  was  not  made  queen  till  the  tenth  month  of  the 
seventh  year  of  his  reign,  ch.ii.u;.  This  delay  might 
surprise  us,  did  we  not  know  that  during  a  great  deal 
of  the  intermediate  period  Xerxes  had  been  absent  on 
the  Grecian  expedition,  on  returning  from  which,  we 
also  know  that  he  plunged  into  every  excess  of  volup 
tuousness,  on  purpose  to  bury  his  disgrace  in  oblivion. 
Moreover,  the  attempt  has  been  often  made  since  the 
time  of  Scaliger,  to  identify  Esther  with  his  queen 
Amestris,  on  account  of  a  certain  similarity  of  the 
names,  and  also  on  account  of  a  presumed  similarity 
of  characters.  But  we  reject  the  imagination  that 
Esther  was  cruel  and  vindictive,  as  Amestris  notori 
ously  was;  and  since  the  characters  are  so  opposite,  the 
likeness  of  the  names  is  not  evidence  on  which  to  rest. 
And,  moreover,  the  supposed  identity  is  negatived  by 
the  express  testimony  of  common  history,  that  the 
father  of  Amestris  was  Otanes,  a  Persian,  not  a  Jew; 
and  that  she  was  married  to  Xerxes  so  long  before  the 
Grecian  expedition,  as  to  have  a  son  by  that  time  of 
marriageable  age,  and  therefore  born  years  before 
Xerxes  ascended  the  throne. 

While  the  prevailing  opinion  is  thus  in  favour  of 
Xerxes,  even  without  straining  the  evidence  by  such 
weak  arguments  as  the  name  of  his  wife,  there  are  still 
critics  of  good  authority  who  prefer  to  believe  that  the 
monarch  in  this  book  is  Artaxerxes.  They  have  cer 
tainly  the  advantage  of  early  tradition  011  their  side, 
namely,  the  authority  of  the  Septuagint,  and  of  the 
writer  or  writers  of  the  apocryphal  additions  to  the 
book,  and  of  Josephus. 

The  aye  in  tr/iich  thi*  book  <c«s  written  would  be  de 
termined  more  easily  if  we  had  the  least  trace  of  the 
authorship.  But  this  we  have  not.  The  only  testi 
mony  of  a  very  direct  kind  oil  either  of  these  points, 
is  at  the  end  of  the  apocryphal  edition,  that  it  was 
brought  into  Egypt  by  Dositheus  in  the  fourth  year  of 
Ptolemy  (generally  supposed  to  lie  Philometer)  and  Cleo 
patra,  or  about  B.C.  105.  But  we  do  not  know  how 
much  credit  is  to  lie  attached  to  declarations  in  these 
concluding  notices;  nor,  granting  the  accuracy  of  this 
one,  does  it  appear  to  apply  to  our  canonical  book  of 
Esther;  nor  yet,  though  it  should  apply  to  that,  would 
it  point  to  anything  more  than  the  date  of  the  Greek 
translation.  Some  writers  indeed  have  inferred  that 
110  other  than  Mordecai  was  the  author,  and  in  proof 
of  this  have  appealed  to  the  language  of  the  book  itself, 
di.  ix.  at,  23, 32;  while  others  have  alleged  that  a  con 
nected  reading  of  this  passage  furnishes  internal  evi 
dence  that  Mordecai  was  not  the  author.  For  this 
latter  assertion  we  see  no  warrant  whatever;  but  we 
also  maintain  that  the  other  is  at  least  not  decisively 
supported  by  the  verses  quoted.  The  Talmud  asserts 


0  ESTHER,   BOOK  OF 

that  Ezekiel,  the  twelve  (minor)  prophets,  Daniel,  and 
Esther,  were  written  by  the  men  of  the  great  syna 
gogue.  But  if  we  are  to  attach  any  weight  to  this 
testimony,  as  we  are  willing  to  do,  it  is  difficult  to  take 
the  words  in  any  other  sense  than  that  for  which  Haver- 
nick  contends,  that  these  men  "wrote  it"  into  the 
canon.  And  as  the  last  of  these,  Simon  the  Just,  was 
high-priest  about  B.C.  310-291,  this  tradition  would 
imply  that  at  the  very  latest  it  was  received  into  the 
canon  by  that  time,  but  without  giving  even  a  hint 
how  much  earlier,  far  less  a  hint  of  its  date  of  composi 
tion.  There  would  be  little  advantage  gained  by  de 
tailing  the  conflicting  statements  of  the  Christian  fathers 
and  the  Jews  of  the  middle  ages. 

As  for  iiLteraal  evidence,  this   is   a  very  uncertain 
guide.     On  the  strength  of  it  Jalm  asserts  that  the 
book  must  have  been  written  before  the  fall  of  the 
Persian  monarchy,  B.C.   330,   and  probably  soon  after 
the  facts  which  it  records.     De  Wette,  again,  assigns 
it  to  the  period  of  the  Greek  monarchy  in  Syria,  which 
was  not  founded  till  B.C.  312,  and  continued  till  about 
half  a  century  before  the  birth  of  Christ.     There  can 
be  110  question   that  the  writer  either  actually  lived 
during  the  Persian  monarchy,  or  else,  if  he  lived  later, 
had  made  that  period  the  subject  of  very  careful  study; 
for  the  most  microscopic  investigation  has  resulted  in 
the  assured  conviction  of  his  intimate  knowledge  and 
accurate  description  of  Persian  life,  both  in  its  domestic 
features  and  in  its  political  aspects.     In  choosing  be 
tween  these  two  opinions,  again,  it  is  undeniably  simpler 
to  suppose  that  he  lived  in  the  period  which  he  has  de 
scribed  with  such  accuracy,  especially  as  he  has  referred 
to  the  registers  or  chronicles  of  the  kings  of  Media 
and  Persia  in  such  a  manner,  ch.  x.  •>,  as  implies  that 
they  were  well  known  and  commonly  accessible  to  his 
!  readers,  which  they  were  less  likely  to  be  after  the  Per 
sian  monarchy  had  been  overthrown  by  that  of  Alex- 
\  ander   and  his   successors.     There   are  only  two   con- 
j  siderations  which  seem  to  have  any  weight  in  favour  of 
'  a  later  age,  though  neither  of  them  is  really  of  import 
ance.     The  one  is  connected  with  the  language,  as  it 
is  said  to  bear  the  marks  of  a  period  of  greater  corrup 
tion  and  decay  than  that  in  which  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
were  written.     To  this  the  simple  reply  is,  that  there 
has  been  a  great  deal  of  rashness  displayed  in  drawing 
inferences  with  much  confidence  from  such  extremely 
narrow  premises;  but  that  a  candid  examination  gives 
evidence  of  a  style  of  language  not  seriously  differing 
!  from   that  of  these  two  books.     In  some  respects  we 

1  might  say  that  it  is  purer  and    better;  in  others,  in 
which  it  is  worse,  this  deterioration  might  be  a  proof, 
not  that  the  writer  lived  in  a  later  age,  but  that  lie 
lived  among  the  Persians,  whose  language  belonged  to 

:  a  totally  different  class  from  the  Shemitic,  which  in 
cludes  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Chaldee,  as  these  ap 
pear  mingled  in  Ezra  and  Daniel.  The  other  considera 
tion  is,  that  Persian  customs  are  explained,  as  a  writer 
might  be  expected  to  explain  them,  not  while  they 
were  in  use,  but  after  they  had  passed  away  and  become 
forgotten.  Yet  the  instances  of  this  are  few  and  un 
certain,  namely,  ch.  i.  i;viii.o,  about  the  king  reigning 
from  India  to  Ethiopia  over  a  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
provinces,  no  very  great  explanation,  and  necessary 
perhaps  to  distinguish  this  Ahasuerus  from  another  and 
earlier  one,  the  father  of  "  Darius  the  Median,"  with 
whom,  in  spite  of  this  distinctive  characteristic,  he  has 
been  confounded;  and,  ch.  i.13,14,  "Then  the  king  said 


ESTHER,  HOOK  OF 


ESTHER,  P.OOK  OF 


to  the  wise  men  which  knew  the  times  (fur  so  was  the 
king's  manner  towards  all  that  knew  time  and  judg 
ment;  and  the  next  unto  him  was  Carshena.  &c.,  the 
seven  princes  of  Persia  and  Media,  which  saw  the  king's 
face,  and  which  sat  the  first  in  the  kingdom);"  words 
that  are  chiefly  descriptive  of  a  habit  of  this  individual 
king,  and  which,  in  so  far  as  they  speak  of  the  seven 
princes  who  saw  the  king's  face,  certainly  do  not  speak 
of  this  in  order  to  explain  a  fact  that  was  familiarly 
known  to  everybody.  Should  the  traces  of  explanation 
prove  even  more  distinct  than  they  seem  to  be,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  natural  this  wmdd  be  in  a  writer  who 
composed  his  book  for  the  use  of  the  covenant-people 
scattered  throughout  regions  in  the  remotest  parts  »f 
the  Persian  empire,  and  even  beyond  its  limits. 

There  have  been  objections  made  to  the  cu/wnirttf 
authority  of  this  book,  but  without  substantial  iva-on. 
Modern  critics,  at  leu.-t  in  Cermanv.  m:iy  h.ive  been 
influenced  by  some;  depreciatory  remarks  of  Luther. 
But  some  of  these  are  incorrectly  quoted  or  misunder 
stood,  as  has  been  shown  by  Hare:  and  in  iv.-pect  of 
one  passage,  when1  lie  seems  to  sav  that  it  is  more 
worthy  of  being  excluded  from  tin-  eaiion  than  the  two 
(apocryphal)  books  of  Esdras,  .ludith,  Susannah,  and 
the  Dragon,  -ranting  that  this  cannot  In-  explained,  ue 
should  >till  liavi-  to  say  that  it  deserved  no  more  de 
ference  than  the  ra>h  depreciation  of  the  epi-tlf  of 
•  lames  to  which  at  another  tim<'  h.-  gave  ntti-rane.'. 
(If  ancient  authority  for  it-  exclusion  from  the  canon. 
there  is  nothing  worthy  of  notice.  The  fa  a  of  its  not 
being  mentioned  by  th<-  Ji-v.  i.-h  \\rit'-r  I'hilo,  \\ould  be 
an  equally  strong  argument  a-aii^t  ei'_rlit  or  nine  oth>T 
books  of  the  ( )M  Testament:  and  an  ar_imn -nt  from 
the  silence  of  tin.1  New  Testament  admits  of  a  r-imi- 
lar  re]ilv.  Tin -re  is  not  a  .-liadow  of  pi- .of  that  it  was 
aliM;iit  from  the  canon  a'-Lnowli-d^vd  bv  the  .!<  wi>h 
church  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  and  accepted  bv  him 
and  his  apostles.  Tile  only  early  Christian  writer 
whose  silence  might  cast  a  doubt  on  its  reception  bv 
the  church,  is  Melit".  P.i-hop  of  Sard!-,  A.H.  17",  in 
whose  list  it  does  not  uevur.  P.ut  there  are  -rounds 
for  thinking  that,  under  the  nam>'  of  Kxra.  he  included 
our  three  books  of  Ezra,  Xeheiniali.  and  Iv-lhcr.  Th«' 
fact  ill  reference  to  the  Jews  is,  that  thi-y  oteelll  this 

liook  of  LVthcr  next  to  th>'  law  of  Muso,  on  account  of 
the  description  which  it  ^ives  of  the  signal  vengeance 
taken  on  their  enemies,  and  the  favour  which  was 
lavished  on  Monlecai  and  E-tln-r.  and  through  them 
on  the  whole  people  of  the  .lews.  They  could  not 
entertain  the  notion  that  this  unexampled  train  of 
events  could  be  ascribed  to  anything  else-  than  the 
special  providence  of  Cod  watching  over  his  own  people 
according  to  his  promises,  and  making  men  feel  that 
those  who  touched  tkon  touched  the  apple  of  his  eye. 
comp.  Is.  vL13;lxv.  S;  Jo.  xxx.  10,  ll;Zcc.  ii.  8,'J;  and  those  who 
will  not  receive  such  a  doctrine  are  driven,  like  De 
\\ette,  especially  in  his  earlier  writings,  Bleek,  Ewald, 
and  some  others,  to  take  refuge  in  an  assertion  from 
which  others  of  a  kindred  sceptical  tendency  have 
shrunk,  to  assert  that  the  book  is  a  fictitious  narrative. 
J>ut  this  is  a  monstrous  supposition,  since  the  great 
event,  and  that  which  chiefly  might  occasion  difficulty, 
is  abundantly  confirmed  by  the  observance  of  the  feast 
of  Purim,  with  especial  honour,  by  all  Jews  throughout 
the  world.  It  would  be  an  unparalleled  event  if  this 
feast  originated  in  and  rested  on  a  mere  fable,  all  the 
more  so  as  it  is  well  known  that  serious  difficulties 


were  felt  and  expressed  by  many  Jews  at  the  introduc 
tion  of  a  feast  which  was  unknown  to  the  law  of  their 
fathers ;  these  scruples  can  have  been  overborne  bv 
nothing  less  than  the  marvellous  nature  of  the  deliver 
ance  experienced.  And  we  know  from  '2  Mae.  xv.  3o', 
that  ''the  day  of  Monlecai''  was  already  a  feast 
observed  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month  Adar, 
in  the  time  of  Judas  Maccabeus:  and  we  may  con 
trast  the  early  form  and  lasting  hold  which  this  feast 
of  Purim  has  had  upon  the  Jewish  people,  with  the 
entire  oblivion  of  the  festival  in  memory  of  the  death 
of  Xicanor  on  the  previous  day.  though  so  holy  and 
;  so  popular  a  hero  of  the  faith  as  Judas  Maccabeus 
]  established  it  by  a  common  decree  of  the  people  who 
j  supported  him.  N<>  other  instance  can  be  produced 
of  a  sacred  f<  ast  bcini;-  established  among  the  Jews 
posterior  to  the  au'o  of  Moses,  when  they  conquered 
the  land  of  ('anaan;  and  it  is  inconceivable  how  this 
could  have  been  universally  received  by  them  after 
their  dispersion,  unless  there  had  been  a  felt  unques 
tionable  divine  authority  for  its  institution.  Kwald's 
supposition,  that  it  cam-1  instead  of  the  passover,  is 
as  arbitrary  and  un-uppoiti'd  as  many  of  his  other 
hypotheses. 

The  objections  that  have  bet-n  felt  by  some  minds  to 
the  canonical  authority  of  the  book  have  had  their  rise 
in  either  its  matt' r  or  it-  form.  As  for  the  mutter, 
some  have  spoken  of  the  importance  attached  to  such 
outward  things  as  the  refusal  of  Mordecai  to  bow  and  do 
reverence  to  Hainan,  and  the  thive  days'  tasting  before 
K.-ther  would  u'o  into  the  piv-ence  of  the  king:  but 
objections  of  this  kind  are  surely  too  trilling  to  deserve 
refutation.  <  >th<  rs.  with  much  more  reason,  have 
1  spoken  of  the  I'l lin.-ss  of  the  decree  for  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  enemies  of  the  Je\\s.  consummated  as,  this 
was  in  tin-  di-.-uh  "f  7."','1""  persons,  and  accompanied 
by  the  public  haniimu  of  Hainan's  ten  sons  upon  their 
t'athi-r's  Callows.  It  is  not  necessary  to  attempt  a 
vindication  of  all  this,  any  more  than  of  some  cruel 
actions  of  David  in  his  wars,  and  other  things  recorded 
in  Scripture  without  any  comment,  and  which  are  by 
no  means  to  be  justified  on  account  of  the  holiness 
n-ally  belonging  to  those  who  acted  so:  rather  we 
iii!i;'ht  draw  an  argument  from  this  in  regard  to  the 
truthfulnc.->  of  the  Word  of  Cod  in  the  pictures  which 
it  '_'ivcs  of  his  best  saints.  Nuvi  rtheless  we  are  to 
judn'e  these  men  leniently  while  as  vet  there  had  ap 
peared  no  living  embodiment  of  the  law  of  Cod;  our 
circumstances  are  very  different  from  theirs,  seeing 
that  we  have  the  record  of  the  life  of  our  Lord.  Par 
ticularly  we  know  that  the  Persian  punishments  were 
fearfully  strict  and  sanguinary,  and  we  need  not  doubt 
that  the  Jews  suffered  from  the  habits  of  the  age  in 
which  they  lived.  Yet,  as  we  read  the  history  of  this 
seemingly  merciless  slaughter,  we  must  take  into  ac 
count  the  great  self-restraint  (for  there  was  nothing 
externally  to  restrain  them)  which  prevented  the  Jews 
from  laying  their  hands  on  any  of  the  spoil :  the  frightful 
provocation  under  which  they  acted,  when  for  months 
the  same  fate  had  been  hanging  over  themselves  with 
out  the  slightest  cause,  except  the  refusal  of  Mordecai 
to  bow  to  Hainan;  the  hereditary  hatred  between  two 
races,  connected  with  the  curse  of  God  which  doomed 
the  Amalekites  to  destruction,  on  the  supposition  that 
Hainan  the  Agagite  was  of  the  blood-royal  of  that 
nation,  a  supposition  which  has  strong  probability  in 
its  favour,  and  nothing  whatever  against  it ;  the  absurd 


ESTHER.    IJOOK  OF 

and  clunky  arrangements  of  the  Persian  jurisprudence, 
which  plunged  the  empire  into  something  like  a  state 
of  civil  war,  while  "the  city  Shu^han  was  perplexed,"  \ 
in  order  that  the  king  might  have  a  resemblance  to  the  i 
divine  perfections,  "  without  variableness  or  shadow  of 
turning,"  instead  of  simply  repealing  the  foolish  ediet ; 
and  the  distinct  statement  that  the  Jews  acted  wholly 
on  the  defensive,  which  is  emphatically  declared  both  in 
the  decree  and  in  the  history  of  the  actual  event,  eh.  viii. 
n;i\.  2,iii.  Even  the  hanging  of  Hainan's  sons  is  pro- 
bablv  to  be  explained,  as  in  one  or  two  parallel  cases, 
by  tiie  consideration  that  they  were  partners  in  their 
father's  guilt :  and  this  view  is  confirmed  hy  the  fact 
that  the  gallows  was  prepared  for  Mordecai  at  the  in 
stigation  of  Hainan's  wife,  and  ''all  his  friends"  as 
sembled  at  his  house,  ch.  v.  1 1. 

In  respect  of  the  fund  of  the  book,  it  is  impo>sible  to 
conceal  or   overlook  its  peculiarity,    inasmuch   as   the 
name  of  (iod  never  occurs  in  it.  nor  any  express  refer 
ence  to  anything  supernatural.      Vet  there  are  parallels 
to  it  in  other  books  of  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testa 
ment,    iiamelv,    the    Song   of    Solomon   and   the    third 
epistle  of  John.     The  peculiarity  here  consists  in  the 
extreme  prominence  which  is  given  to  the  facts  of  the 
history,   fully  charged   as   these   are   with  evidence  of 
God's  overruling  special  providence  toward  his  church 
and  people,  while  not  one  statement  is  made  in  all  this 
respecting  his  presence   and   working.       We  need  not 
pledge  ourselves  to  any  explanation  of  the  phenomenon, 
which  is  startling  to  most  readers,  whatever  theory  of 
the  object  of  the  book   be  adopted  by  them  ;  whether 
to  give  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the  feast  of  Purhn, 
or    to    demonstrate    the     special     Providence     which 
watched    over    the    Jewish    people.       Some    have    ex 
plained  the  matter   as  if  this  book   were   very  much 
an  extract  from    ''the   book  of  the  Chronicles  of  the 
kings  of    Media  and   Persia,"   to  which  express  refer 
ence   is   made.    ch.  x.2;    and  it  is  said  that    the  argu 
ment  for  God's  gracious   guidance  and   defence  of  his 
church  is  thus  presented  in  the  most  emphatic  form, 
when  it  comes  out  of  the  mouth  of  unbelievers,  or  men 
at  least  ignorant  of  him.     Others  prefer  to  say  that  the 
writer,    though    an    Israelite    and    a    believer,    well 
acquainted  with  God's  character  and  promises,  did  not 
wish  to   set  forth  the  occurrences  "in  a  point  of  view 
which  would  have  seemed  strange  to  his  contempor 
aries,   and  foreign  to  the   subject   itself,   inasmuch  as 
Jehovah,  the  God  of   Israel,  had  not  revealed  himself 
among  the  people."     There  is  no  ground  for  positively 
rejecting  this  as  unsatisfactory,   though    Dr.  Davidson 
has  done  so  :  for  the  theocracy  was  now  past  and  gone, 
in  that  outward  shape  which  had  made  the  kingdom  of 
Israel  a  wonder  to   the   world,  but   in  its  essence  and 
inward   spirit  it   remained   as  much   as  ever :  and  by 
such  events  as  those  recorded  in  this  book  of    Esther  it 
was  silently  forcing  itself  on  the  attention  of  all  nations, 
and    calling    them  to  notice  the  fulfilment  of    Nebu 
chadnezzar's  dream  of  the  little  stone  which  broke  the 
image.    Certainly  the  difficulties  are  increased  consider 
ably  if  we  transfer  the  date  of  composition  to  a  later 
period,  under  the  Greek  kings  of  Syria,  as  Dr.  Davidson 
is  disposed  to  do  ;  for  the  outward  opposition  of  Judaism 
to  everything  Grecian  became  more  and  more  strongly 
marked,  and  found  means  continually  to  give  articulate 
expression  to  itself.     Accordingly,   in  the  apocryphal 
additions  to  the  book  of  Esther,  which   are  preserved 
in  the  Septuagint,  the  name  of  God  occurs  frequently; 


ESTHER 

and  it  is  inserted  several  times  in  that  translation  of 
the  genuine  book;  it  is  so  at  least  twice  or  thrice  where 
it  might  seem  to  us  very  appropriate.  Thus,  c\>.  ii.  20, 
Mordecai' s  charge  to  Esther  includes  this,  "  to  fear  God 
and  keep  his  commandements."  In  ch.  iv.  8  he  bids 
her  c;dl  on  the  Lord  as  well  as  speak  unto  the  king. 
And  in  ch.  vi.  13  Zeresh  tells  her  husband  why  he 
must  fall  before  Mordecai,  "'because  the  living  God  is 
with  him."  Also,  Hainan  is  transformed  into  a  Mace 
donian,  and  it  is  alleged  that  his  purpose  was  to  transfer 
the  sovereignty  to  the  Macedonians  from  the  Persians 
who  were  favourable  to  the  Jews.  But  these  apo 
cryphal  additions  certainly  have  conclusive  internal 
evidence  against  them:  and  they  are  destitute  of  ex 
ternal  authority,  for  the  Septuagint  version  of  the  book 
is  plainly  careless  in  many  passages.  These  additions 
are  chiefly  a  dream  of  Mordec:ii  with  which  the  book 
opens,  and  at  the  end  an  explanation  of  this  dream  as 
applying  to  himself  and  Hainan:  the  two  edicts  of  the 
king,  first  for  the  destruction  of  the  Jews,  and  next 
for  their  deliverance  ;  the  prayer  of  Mordecai,  and  that 
of  Esther:  and  the  account  of  the  appearance  and 
conduct  of  Esther,  when  she  first  came  into  the  presence 
of  the  king.  The  Council  of  Trent  however  has  pro 
nounced  all  these  to  be  of  canonical  authority. 

[  A  f;iir  arrangement  of  the  materials  connected  with  the  dis 
cussions  <in  this  book  is  given  in   Keil's  Inti-nduftioii  to  the  Old 
Testament.     A  view  from  the  sceptical  side  is  given  in  the  In 
troductions  of  HeWette  and  Block.     Two  learned  works  have 
been  published  in  the  present  century  whose  very  object  has 
been  to  searcli   out  everything  connected  with  the  assaults  on 
the  historical  truth  of  the  book,  and  to  defend  it  against  them  ; 
I  (.ne  by  Kelle,    yindicice  J^tk,  r«,  (Frib.  1820);  and  another  by 
Biuungarten,  /'•:  l-'idt  Libii   Etthew  (Halle,  IS:;:').     Expositions 
of  the  book  have  repeatedly  been   published:  ii"iie  better,  on 
1  account  of  comprehensiveness,  brevity,  and  rariness,  than  that 
;  of  the  late  Dr.  M'C'rie.]  [<••  c.  M.  D.  ] 

ESTHER,  the  queen  of  Aha>uerus.  whose  history  is 
;  given  in  the  book  which  bears  her  name.  Referring 
for  other  matters  to  the  preceding  article,  it  is  enouiih 
here  to  mention  the  leading  actions  of  her  life,  as  exhi 
bited  in  that  history.  She  was  a  Jewess,  of  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin,  of  that  part  of  the  captivity  which  had 
been  carried  away  bv  Nebuchadnezzar  along  with  king 
Jeconiah  :  but  plainly  she  herself  was  born  in  captivity; 
and  probably  her  family  was  one  of  those  which  prefer 
red  to  remain  in  their  adopted  country,  as  we  find  her 
at  Shushaii  the  royal  citv  of  the  Persians.  Here  she 
lived  under  the  care  of  Mordecai,  her  father's  nephew, 
who  had  taken  her  under  his  protection  and  training 
when  she  was  an  orphan.  At  that  time  her  name  was 
1  Hadassah,  which  signifies  a  myrtle:  but  on  some  occa 
sion  unknown  to  us  she  received  that  name  which 
alone  is  familiar  to  us.  Esther,  a  Persian  word  accord- 
ding  to  Gesenius,  of  the  same  form  and  meaning  as  the 
Greek 'Ao-rrjp  and  the  English  star.  In  this  view  he 
says  he  is  supported  bv  the  second  Targum  on  Esther: 
and  perhaps  the  name  in  Persic  indicated  good  fortune, 
as  Venus  did  in  Greek,  and  it  might  be  given  to  her  in 
consequence  of  her  aspiring  to  the  throne  or  her  success 
in  the  competition.  The  divorce  of  queen  Vashti,  and 
the  gathering  of  the  most  beautiful  maidens  throughout 
the  empire,  were  the  two  prominent  events  which  led  to 
her  elevation :  and  whatever  disgust  ami  reprobation 
may  be  felt  or  expressed  in  reference  to  these  so  far  as 
the  king  was  concerned  in  them,  Esther  has  no  blame 
chargeable  upon  her.  Far  from  this,  it  would  seem 
that  she  was  passive  in  the  whole  matter,  and  that  all 
around  her  were  delighted  with  her  on  account  of  her 


ETAM 


ETHIOPIA 


simplicity  and  superiority  to  artificial  advantages.    Her  \       E'THAM,    one  of  the   early  stations  mentioned  in 

character  also  makes  another  good  impression  on  us,  on  the  sojourning  Of  the  wilderness,  and  from  which  a 

account  of  the  respectful  attention  which  she  continued  portion  of  the  wilderness  derived  its  mine    Nu  xvxiii  Q  s 

to  give  to  Mordecai,  just  as  she  had  obeyed  him  during  It  could  be  at  no  -reat  distance  from  the  Red' Sea-  but 

her  earlier  years  spent  in  a  humbler  station.     In  the  its  exact  site  is  unknown. 

absence  of  anything  to  the  contrary,  we  are  entitled  to  ETHAN   [iicnnnial,  romstant]    the  name  of  a  per 

argue  from  this  that  his  training  had  been   solid,  wise,  son  to  whom  Ps.  Ixxxix.  is  ascribed       He   is   called  in 

and  godly:  and  our  favourable  opinion  is  confirmed  by  the  title  to  the  psalm  "  Ethan  the  Eziahite  "      \nd  the 

the  readiness  with  which  she  exposed  herself  on  behalf  ,  immediately  preceding  psalm,  of  which  Ps   Ixxxix  may 

of  her  people,  though  at  the  peril  of  her  life.      Eor  she  be  regarded  as  the  complement,  is  designated  a  Maschil 

did  not  run   this   risk   in   a   fool-hardy  spirit,  but  only  of  Heman  the    Ezrahite.      Heman   is  often   mentioned 

careful  deliberation  and  conviction  that  she  might  in  connection  with  the  psalms,  and  the  sacred  music  of 

'  >m  for  this  very  service  at  such  the   temple,  but    Ethan's    name   only    occurs   here.      It 


have  come  to  the  kin 

a  crisis;  and    she   actually   ventured   on  it,    only   after     occurs,  however,    in  a    very   honourable    connection  at 

1  Ki.  iv.  31.  where,  speaking  of  Solomon's  pre-eminent 
wisdom,  it  is  said,  that  "he  was  wiser  than  all  men; 
than  Ethan  the  Ezrahite,  and  Heman,  an.l  Chalcol,  and 
Danla.  the  sons  of  Mahol."  p,ut  the  same  names, 
with  only  an  insignificant  variation  in  the  case  of  one  of 
them,  are  found  elsewhi  re.  and  coupled  apparently, 
\\ith  a  ditleivnt  par.  ntage.  In  1  Ch.  ii.  »;,  Ethan,  ami 
Heman.  and  Caleol.  and  Dara  are  called  the  sons  of 

..served   in   her  conduct   towards  the   royal  favourite     Zerah,  the  grandson  of  Judah.     We  know  for  certain  of 

Hainan,  whom  she  must  have  hated  and  despised,  and 
yet  dreaded,  hut  to  whom  she  showed  the  utm 


preparing  herself  by  three  days'  fasting  on  her  own  pait 
and  that  of  her  maidens,  while  a  similar  course  of  hu 
miliation  on  her  behalf  was  undergone  by  .Mordecai 
and  all  tin;  Jews  assembled  in  Shiishan.  Her  patriotic 
feelings  continued  until  her  object  was  fully  accom 
plished,  when,  at  a  later  time,  she  fell  down  at  the  king's 
teet,  and  besought  him  with  t«  ars  to  put  away  the 
mischief  of  Hainan.  Other  ^ood  qualities  are  to  ho 


Heman.  that  he  hdoiiged  to  the  Kohathite  branch  of 
the  Levites,  i  cii  vi.  33;  and  Ethan  also  is  expressly 
said  to  have  l>e<  n  a  Levite  of  the  family  of  the  JMera- 
litis-  "-'I'  vi.  n.  The  probability  is.  that  these  Levites 
were  associated  as  citizens  with  the  house  of  X.-rah,  or 
reason  of  the  eunuchs,  without  asking  ,„•  dwelt  in  it  as  sojourn,  rs.  Levites  in  this 


st  pru 
dent  forbearance,  until  such  time  as  he  himself  dis 
covered  his  worthlessness  to  the  king:  and  in  the  mo 
desty  with  which  she  reported  Moniecai's  service  in  frus- 


obtaining  any  reward  for  her  cousin's  servce 
other   hand,    there    is   a    certain    vindictiveiu-ss    whieh 
shocks  us  in   a  woman,   as   we  read   of  h.  i- asking  the 
king  to   hang   the   dead    bodies   of   Hainan's   sons    m.,m 


•*  way  \\civ  not 

On  the  ;  unfrequently  assigned  to  the  tril>e  or  family   wherein 
they  iv 


still  more,  her  asking  that  the  .lews  in  Shu 

be  permitted  to  carry  on  the  civil  war  for  a 

when   f.oo    of   their   enemies   had    fall,  n  the  first  day. 

The  article  on  the   book    of   Esther,  however,   presents 

some  considerations  fitted   to  modify  our  unfavourable 


estimate.  The  last  circumstance  related  of  her  is. 
that  she  co-opera  ted  with  Mordecai  in  writing  to  her 
people  the  history  of  these  transactions,  and  interpos 
ing  her  authority  to  confirm  the  resolution  which  the 
Jews  had  imposed  upon  themselves  to  keep  tile  feast 
of  Purim.  |,;.  ( •_  M_  ,,  | 

E'TAM  [,,ta«  ofruceHousliatt*].  LA  town  or  village     .M,-n:.iid,-r. 
of  Judah,  apparently  not  very  far  from  IVthlehem,   in         ETHIO'PIA  [H 
connection  with  which  it   is  mentioned  as  a  place  that      Is.  xi.  n,  the  H 
was   built   or  repaired   by    Rehoboam,    2  Ch.  xi  fi;  cornpar 


d;  as  Samuel's  father  is  called  an  Ephraimite. 
and  a  priest  in  the  book  of  Judges  is  said  to  have  been 
of  the  family  of  Judah,  i  s:l  i.  i  ;  .,-„  Xviii.  r.  Ethan  the 
Ezrahite  is  all  one  with  Ethan  of  the  house  or  family 
Hcngstuii.Coin.onl'),.  Ixxxviii.  I nt  1-0,1.1  Though 
of  this  Ethan  in  sacred  Scripture,  yet  that 
his  name  should  be  connected  with  such  a  Psalm  as 
the  Ixxxixth.  and  especially  that  it  should  ha\e  been 
thought  worthy  of  characterizing  Solomon's  wisdom  as 


greater  than  his,  are  dear  proofs  of  his  distinguished 
excellence  as  a  man,  and  of  the  superior  gifts  which  dis 
tinguished  him. 

ETHBAAL  [,nth  I!,,,,!,;.,,  having  Baal  for  guide 
and  protector],  the  father  of  Jezebel,  and  king  of  the 
Sidonians.  Probably  the  same  with  the  Eithobalus  of 


tli  only  one  exception, 
irew  word  <  '//.-,•//,  when  used  of  a  country, 
n   rendered  in  the    English  liible  AY/<»y;/V;  and 


.     Joseplms  represents  it  as  a  favourite  resort  ,  the  rendering  undoubtedlv  should   have  been   uniform- 
of  Solomon  as  well  as   Rehoboam,  and  states  that  the     if  Ethiopia  was  commonly  preferred,  as  it  is  that  of  the- 
former  used  often  to  take  a  morning  drive  to  it,  that  he     ancient  versions,  it  should  have  been  so  always       Hut 
also  adorned  it  with  fountains  and  gardens  (Antviii.  7. :;).  {  £W«  having  been  once  employed,  the  question'has  been 
•  bins    have  a  tradition,    that   water  was  even  j  discussed  under  that  term,  what  is  its  proper  applica- 
brought  from  it  by  aqueducts  to  Jerusalem;  but  this  can  i  tion  ?  whether  then;  is  an  Asiatic,  as  well  as  an  African 
scarcely  be  reckoned  sufficient  testimony.      Williams,  i  country,  that  goes  by  that  name  in  Scripture '<  and  tilt- 
however,  m  hia//o/V  City  (vol.  H.  p.  so.,),  fully  accredits     decision    there  given   was.  with  the  great   majority  of 
it,  and  also  states  that  the  old  name  is  still  perpetuated     biblical    critics,    in   the   affirmative.       It    is   admitted 
which  is  on  the  way  to  Hebron  from     however,  that  in  by  much  the  greater  number  of  cases 
lem,  and   that  there  are  still  connected   with  it     the  Ethiopia  of  Scripture  is  that  also  of  the  Greeks  and 
and  most  luxuriant  gardens  to  be  met  with  !  Romans,  namely,  the  country  that  stretches  southwards 

,  above  the  cataracts  of  the  Nile,  comprising  the  modern 

;  to  which  Samson  on  one  occasion     Nubia,  Senaar,  and  Northern  Abyssinia.  The  word  is  too 
withdrew,   Ju.  x^   s,  n,  though  often  connected  with  the     frequently  coupled  with  Egypt  to  admit  of  any  reason- 
Mam   above  noticed,  is  quite    uncertain   as  to  its  lo-  !  able  doubt  of  this;  it  sometimes  even  appears  in  such 
i  «  Modern  research  has  failed  as  yet   to  obtain     close  conjunction  with  Egypt   that  one  mi-ht  almost 

think  the  one  name  was  interchanged  with  the  other  or 


KTFIIOPIA  *> 

at  least  that  the  relation*  and  interests  of  the  two  were 
inseparably  connected  together,  Is.  xx.  :;,  r>;  xlhi.  :'.;  K/e. 
xxx.  I.  The  Ethiopia  in  question  included  the  river- 
island  Meroe,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  regions  in 
that  part  of  Africa,  to  which,  according  to  the  tradi 
tions  of  the  Egyptian  priesthood,  the  most  ancient 
states  of  Egypt  owed  their  foundation,  and  tin:  monu 
mental  remains  of  which  have  excited  the  curiosity  and 
wonder  of  modern  travellers.  It  has  even  for  some 
time  been  a  question  with  antiquarians  whether  civili 
zation  ascended  from  Egypt  to  Meroe,  and  Ethiopia  in 
general,  or  did  not  descend  from  this  higher  region  to 
the  valley  of  the  Nile.  Latterly,  the  course  of  investi- 


-;  ETHIOPIA 

gation  has  put  this  question  'to  rest,  but  so  as  at  the 
same  time  to  establish,  in  conformity  with  the  occa 
sional  notices  and  allusions  of  Scripture,  that  Ethiopia 
stood  in  very  close  connection  with  Egypt  in  its  history 
as  well  a;s  its  geographical  position.  "  We  have/'  says 
lleeren  (Ethiopians,  cli.  ii.),  "historical  evidence  that 
rulers  of  Meroe  were  at  certain  periods  likewise  rulers 
of  Egypt,  at  least  of  Upper  Egypt;  and.  on  the  other 
hand,  that  many  of  the  Pharaohs  extended  their  do 
minion  over  Ethiopia.''  His  conclusion  from  this,  and 
from  the  character  of  the  monuments,  is,  that  it  was 
rather  the  occasional  dominion  and  policy  of  the  Pharaohs 
which  left  its  impress  on  Ethiopia,  than  the  civilization 


of  Ethiopia  which  became  the  parent  of  art  and  science 
in  Egypt.  Such  also  is  the  judgment  of  Wilkinson, 
who  may  be  said  to  give  the  general  opinion  of 
the  most  competent  inquirers,  when  he  affirms  not 
Ethiopia,  but  the  Theba'id.  or  Upper  Egypt,  to  have 
been  the  parent  of  Egyptian  science,  which  was  peopled 
and  cultivated  when  the  greater  part  of  Lower  Egypt 
was  a  marsh ;  and  also  when  he  says  that  the  word 
Ethiopia,  as  used  by  ancient  authors,  appears  to  have 
been  intended  to  designate  the  Theba'id,  or  that  the 
one  was  confounded  by  them  with  the  other.  "The 
expression  of  Pliny,"  he  adds,  "  'Ethiopia  was  evidently 
renowned  and  powerful,  even  to  the  time  of  the  Trojan 
war,  and  extended  its  empire  over  Syria '  (ch.  vi.  x>), 
though  he  is  speaking  of  Ethiopia  proper,  can  only 
have  been  borrowed  from  a  tradition  relating  to  the 
Theba'id,  since  the  Diospolite  (Theban)  monarchs  ruled 
and  received  tribute  from  Ethiopia,  and  actually  did 
extend  their  dominion  over  Syria,  which  the  Ethiopians 
could  not  have  done  without  first  obtaining  possession 
of  Egypt,  and  that  too  at  a  period  when  the  Pharaohs 
were  in  the  zenith  of  their  power.  Nor  is  the  assertion 
of  the  prophet  Nahum,  that  Ethiopia  and  Egypt  were 
the  strength  of  Xo.  less  remarkable — No,  or  as  the 
Hebrew  gives  it,  Na- Arnum.  being  the  name  of  Thebes  " 
(Ancient  Egyptians,  i.  p.  5,  ll). 

The  connection  which  thus  appears  to  have  existed, 
both  in  respect  to  position  and  government,  between 
Upper  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  sufficiently  accounts  for 
the  close  relationship  in  which  they  are  sometimes 


represented  in  Scripture  as  standing  to  each  other.  Jt 
also  explains,  what  might  otherwise  have  appeared 
strange  or  incredible,  how  kings  of  Ethiopia,  of  a  more 
adventurous  and  warlike  turn,  should  have  penetrated 
into  Syria,  and  even  come  into  contact  with  the  affairs 
of  the  covenant-people.  Two  occasions  of  this  sort  are 
mentioned  in  Scripture,  one  in  the  reign  of  Asa  (about 
955  B.C.),  when  Zerali  the  Ethiopian  came  against  him 
with  a  mighty  host,  and  was  defeated  and  driven  back 
at  Mareshah,  in  the  extreme  south  of  Palestine,  where 
it  lies  nearest  to  Egypt:  and  another  in  the  time  of 
Hezekiah,  when  Tirhakah,  or  Tirhaco.  having  come 
forth  to  war  against  Sennacherib  king  of  Assyria, 
helped  to  divert  the  attention  of  the  Assyrian  monarch 
from  the  little  kingdom  of  Judah,  and  even  gained,  it 
is  supposed,  some  advantages  over  him.  (See  TIR 
HAKAH.)  These  Ethiopian  incursions  in  the  Syrian 
direction  are  to  be  understood  of  Upper  Egypt  and 
Ethiopia  combined,  and  of  periods  when  probably 
Upper  and  Lower  Egypt  were  presided  over  by  distinct 
rulers;  and  it  is  hence  thought  to  be  accounted  for  that 
the  name  of  Tirhakah  is  found  on  the  walls  only  of  a 
Theban  temple  (Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians,  i.  p.  14flV  Not 
a  few  also  of  the  monuments  in  Ethiopia  are  ascribed 
to  him,  so  that  his  connection  with  both  regions  may 
be  regarded  as  certain. 

Almost  the  only  other  allusions  made  in  Scripture  to 
Ethiopia  have  respect  to  the  natural  characteristics  of 
the  country,  and  the  commerce  in  which  its  people 
engaged.  The  prophet  Isaiah,  for  example,  refers  to 

•   j 


ETHIOPIA  •> 

its  well- watered  condition;  he  speaks  of  "  the  waters  of 
Ethiopia"  as  familiarly  known  to  people  at  a  distance, 
eh.  xviii.  i;  and  the  slightest  glance  at  the  map  will  show 
how  justly  it  was  so  characterized,  that  part  of  it 
especially  which  composed  the  ancient  Me.roe,  and 


Jeremiah,  "(.'an  th 
opian    change    his 


which  was  surrounded  by  the  branches  of  the  Nile, 
while  the  district  farther  south  was  intersected  by 
several  tributaries.  That  the  climate  was  hot.  and  the 
country  inhabited  by  a  population  of  dark  colour,  is 
implied  by  the  allusion  of 
Ethi- 
skin?" 

cli.  xiii.  -.:,  a  tact  which  re 
ceives  ample  confirmation 
from  other  sources,  and  in 
particular  by  the  represen 
tations  on  the  monuments. 
Thus  the  Ethiopian  figures 
in  No.  -J."):!,  distinctly  ex 
hibit  the  African  or  negro 
east  of  features,  and  that 
in  No.  L'.Vl  also  the  colour. 
It  was,  too,  a  characteris 
tic  mode,  we  art:  told  by 
Wilkinson,  of  represent 
ing  Ethiopians  and  other  blacks  by  showing  them 
with  a  tail  projecting  from  the  girdle,  and  their  chiefs 
decked  with  ostrich  feathers,  clad  in  garments  of  fine 
linen,  with  highly  ornamented  ".in lies,  and  a  leopard's 
skin  occasionally  thrown  over  the  shoulder.  Further, 
that  Ethiopia  was  a  country  which  carried  on  a 
valuable  and  extensive  commerce,  is  implied  in  the 
promise  given  in  Is.  xlv.  14  ''The  merchandise  of 
Ethiopia  shall  come  to  thee."  Abundant  evidence 
exists  of  this,  and  of  the  articles  traded  in  being 
chiefly  of  tilt:  more  precious  commodities.  Thus, 
among  the  parties  which  appeared  in  the  stately  pro 
cession  that  took  place  at  the  accession  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphia  to  the  throne,  we  are  told  of  a  "host  of 
Ethiopians  armed  with  lances,  out:  band  of  which  bore 
GMO  elephants'  teeth,  another  201X1  pieces  of  ebony,  and 
another  sixty  vessels  of  gold,  silver,  and  gold  dust" 
(Atliun.  p.  L'oo).  Herodotus  also  (iii.  ii-i)  speaks  of  Ethiopia, 
notwithstanding  its  being  the  most  distant  region  of 
the  earth,  bringing  forth  plenty  of  gold,  and  ivory,  and 
ebony,  and  various  other  kinds  of  wood.  Frankincense, 
and  spices  of  several  kinds,  then:  is  also  reason  to  believe, 
formed  part  of  the  Ethiopian  merchandise,  the  nomade 
tribes  in  the  interior  bringing  these,  and  the  other 
VOL.  1. 


articles  mentioned,  to  Meroe.  which  was  the  centre  of 
the  whole  Ethiopian  trade,  and  in  which  alone  the 
merchants,  properly  speaking,  had  their  abode  (lleeren, 
Ethiopians,  cli.  iii.)  After  collecting  the  various  notices 
to  be  found  in  ancient  writers  on  the  subject,  and  com 
paring  them  with  the  accounts  of  later  times,  the  author 
just  referred  to  thus  sums  up-  "  It  appears,  therefore, 
that  the  districts  of  Cherri  and  Shendy.  that  is,  of  the 
ancient  Meroe,  was,  and  still  continues  to  be,  the  place 
where  the  caravans  are  formed  which  trade  between 
Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  or  the  point  at  which  they  touch 
in  passing  to  and  fro.  But  a  commercial  connection 
beini;-  established  between  E^ypt  and  Meroe,  it  scarcely 
needs  to  be  mentioned  that  the  trade  of  the  latter  must 
necessarily  have  stretched  much  farther  into  the  south 
of  Africa.  Meroe  was  the  emporium  where  the  pro 
duce  of  the  distant  southern  lands  was  collected  to 
gether  in  order  to  be  transported,  either  on  the  Nile 
or  by  caravans,  into  North  Africa.  The  great  end 
of  this  commerce  was  the  rich  gold  countries,  much 
farther  to  the  south.''  A  trade  of  this  sort  could  not 
fail  to  briim'  alon^  with  it  many  of  the  arts  and  ad 
vantages  of  civil i/.ed  life:  and  among  other  things  of 
this  description  we  find  the  early  and  extensive  use 
of  writing  ascribed  to  the  Ethiopians  ( lti'»i.  i.  p.  in;), 
namely,  hieroglyphic  or  picture  writing,  the  invention 
of  which  has  even  been  ascribed  to  them,  but  this  pro 
bably  from  confounding,  as  in  other  respects,  Ethiopia 
with  the  Thehaid. 

EUNICE,  the  mother  of  Timothy,  and  a  pious 
Jewess,  though  married  to  an  uncircumcised  (I reck. 
She  became  a  believer  in  ( 'hrist.  and  is  spoken  of  with 
commendation  as  a  faithful  monitor  and  uiiide  to  her 
son.  L'Ti.  i.  .">. 

EUNUCH,  the  English  form  of  the  Creek  fiVof^os. 
which  simply  means  Iml  l.« /n  i\  Eunuchs  therefore, 
in  the  strict  and  proper  sense,  were  the  persons  who 
had  charge  of  the  bed  chambers  in  palaces  and  lamer 
houses.  But  as  the  jealous  and  dissolute  temperament 
of  the  East  required  this  charge  to  be  iu  the  hands  of 
persons  who  had  been  deprived  of  their  virility,  the 
word  i  ni/nr/,  naturally  came  in  common  usage  to  denote 
persons  generally  of  that  "  artificial  sex."  P.ut  as  it  was 
not  unusual  in  eastern  countries  for  eunuchs  to  rise  to 
high  consideration  and  influence  about  the  court,  to 
become  confidential  advisers  of  their  royal  masters  or 
mistresses,  so  the  word  appears  to  have  been  occasion 
ally  employed  to  denote  persons  in  such  a  position, 
without  indicating  anything  as  to  their  proper  man 
hood.  Thus  Potiphar  to  whom  .Joseph  was  sold,  is 
designated  ''a  eunuch  of  Pharaoh's  captain  (translated 
<>!>/<•<  i- h\  the  English  version)  of  the  guard."  ot..  xxxvii. 
:;«;  while,  from  what  is  afterwards  stated,  there  can  l>e 
no  doubt  that  he  was  a  married  man.  It  is  hence 
quite  possible  that  bv  the  name  eunuch  in  Ac.  viii.  '27, 
applied  to  one  "of  great  authority  under  Candace 
queen  of  the  Ethiopians,''  should,  as  many  suppose, 
lie  understood  simplv  a  person  hi'_:h  in  the  confidence 
and  employment  of  the  queen  ;  and  it  had,  perhaps, 
Iteell  better  if  the  word  had  been  rendered  cltambtrluin, 
so  as  to  indicate  nothing  definite  respecting  virility. 
Eunuchs  in  the  stricter  sense  were  frequently  employed 
in  later  times  about  the  kings  of  Israel  and  .Judah, 
but  they  were  probably  of  foreign  birth,  iKi.  xx  !i ;  -2  Ki. 
ix.  :{•-';  Jc.  xxxvhi.  r,&e.  The  term  is  employed  figuratively  bv 
our  Lord  in  Mat.  xix.  1:2,  with  reference  to  the  power, 
whether  possessed  as  a  natural  disposition,  or  acquired 

69 


EUODTAS 


EUPHRATES 


as  a  property  of  grace,  of  maintaining  ;ui  attitude-  of 
indifference  toward  the  solicitations  of  fleshly  desire. 

EUO'DIAS  [youd  or  iiroxperous  ?'.'<n/],  the  name  of  a 
female  member  of  the  church  at  Philippi,  mentioned 
with  commendation  by  St.  Paul  as  one  who  had 
"laboured  much  with  him  in  the  u'ospel,"  I'hi.  iv.  2. 

EUPHRATES  [Hub.  ms,  Froth,  Greek  EI^/JCITT/J, 

modern  name  Fraf],  a  well-known  river  in  Western 
Asia,  both  in  volume  of  water  and  in  commercial  import 
ance,  surpassing  all  others  in  that  part  of  the  world. 
The  name  occurs  first  in  Ge.  ii.  14,  as  that  of  one  of 
the  four  rivers  which  had  their  common  origin  in  Eden; 
but  as  this  notice  has  respect  to  the  primeval  earth, 
which  subsequently  underwent  considerable  change  by 
the  action  of  the  deluge,  nothing  very  definite  can  bo 
inferred  from  it  respecting  the  Euphrates  of  postdilu 
vian  times.  (Sec  EDEN.)  The  river  in  this  latter 
respect  finds  its  earliest  notice  in  the  promise  made  to 
Abraham,  which  assured  him  of  an  inheritance  for  his 
seed,  that  should  reach  from  Canaan  to  Euphrates, 
Gc.  xv.  is  And  in  the  same  connection  it  frequently 
occurs  again.  (See  CANAAN.)  But  the  references  to  it 
in  Scripture  are  greatly  more  numerous  than  might  be 
supposed,  if  one  were  to  judge  by  the  simple  occurrence 
of  the  name;  for  it  is  not  unfrequently  styled  merely 
"the  river"  by  way  of  eminence,  or  "  the  great  river," 
being  so  much  the  largest  with  which  the  Israelites 
were  acquainted,  that  in  certain  connections  it  was 
indicated  with  sufficient  definiteness  by  such  a  general 
designation,  Kzr.  iv.  in,  in;  Ts.  Ixxii.  *;  Ixxx.  ii;  Is.  viii.  7;  xi. 
15,  &c.  In  the  prophetical  writings  particularly  it  is  often 
thus  named,  whether  the  reference  be  to  it  in  its  simply 
natural  aspect,  or  as  employed  in  a  symbolical  sense. 

The  river  itself,  though  confined  throughout  to  Asia 
tic  soil,  yet  in  the  earlier  part  of  its  course  takes  so 
much  of  a  westerly  direction,  and  approaches  so  near 
to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  that  it  served  from 
remote  times  an  important  purpose  in  connecting  the 
commerce  of  Asia  with  that  of  Europe.  Its  entire 
course  is  about  1780  miles,  calculating  from  the  most 
easterly  of  its  two  sources.  These  both  lie  in  the 
mountains  of  Armenia — the  one  in  the  Anti-Taurus, 
25  miles  north-east  from  Erzeroum,  which  alone  at 
first  bears  the  name  of  Erat,  the  other,  called  Murad 
Chai,  more  easterly  and  also  more  remote,  in  the  range 
called  Ala  Tagh,  not  far  from  Ararat.  These  streams 
unite,  after  receiving  various  smaller  tributaries,  at  a 
ferry  called  Kebban-Maden,  which  is  270  miles  from 
the  one  source,  and  400  from  the  other.  The  united 
streams  now  form  a  considerable  river,  and  it  is  only 
here  that  the  Euphrates  properly  begins.  A  little  below 
the  point  of  junction  it  measures  120  yards  wide  and  is 
very  deep:  the  direction  it  takes  is  about  south-west, 
or  sometimes  "W.S.W.;  but  as  it  has  to  force  its  way 
through  mountain  chains  and  rugged  passes,  it  has 
many  windings  in  its  course,  and  not  a  few  rapids.  It 
only  becomes  properly  navigable  at  Sumei'sat  (the  an 
cient  Samosata),  and  continues  to  be  so  till  it  reaches 
the  Persian  Gulf,  a  distance  of  very  nearly  1200  miles. 
After  passing  what  is  called  the  Zeugma  of  Sume'isat  it 
changes  from  a  south-west  into  a  south  direction;  by 
and  by  it  turns  a  little  to  the  east  of  south,  and  when 
nearly  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Orontes,  distant  at 
this  point  only  133  miles  from  the  Mediterranean,  it 
finally  quits  the  direction  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
makes  in  a  north-easterly  course  for  the  Persian  Gulf. 


At  the  ancient  Carchemish,  or  Circcsium,  it  is  joined 
by  a  large  tributary,  the  Khabflr,  the  ancient  Chaboras 
(or  Chebar),  where  it  comes  to  possess  an  average 
breadth  of  400  yards,  and  an  ordinary  depth  of  18  feet. 
After  reaching  Werdi,  a  distance  of  75  i  miles  by 
the  course  of  the  river,  it  contracts  into  a  width  of 
about  350  yards;  and  farther  down  still,  about  70  miles 
in  a  direct  line,  though  twice  as  much  by  the  river,  at 
the  island  of  Iladisfdi,  it  becomes  only  300  yards, 
and  has  a  depth  of  still  only  18  feet.  By  the  time  it 
reaches  the  site  of  ancient  Babylon  it  has  decreased  to 

i  200  yards,  with  a  depth  of  15  feet:  and  at  old  Lamlum. 
50  miles  in  a  straight  line  lower  still,  it  measures  only 

i  120  yards  wide,  and  12  feet  in  depth.  Below  this  it 
divides  into  two  brandies,  and  appears  for  a  time  as  if 
it  were  to  be  lost  amid  the  marshes  it  forms,  and  the 
canals  that  are  tnken  from  it  for  purposes  of  irrigation; 
but  the  main  stream  again  collects  its  resources,  and 
about  4<)  miles  below  Lamlum  increases  to  200  yards 

1  in  breadth,  which  by  and  by  become  250;  and  when, 
lower  still,  the  river  is  joined  by  the  Tigris,  the  united 
stream  swells  out  to  near  half  a  mile  in  width;  and 
at  40  miles  above  where  it  empties  itself  into  the  Per 
sian  Gulf  it  has  become  1200  yards  broad  and  30  feet 
deep.  The  remarkable  circumstance  of  so  great  a 
diminution  in  the  stream  of  the  Euphrates  from  a  con 
siderable  space  above  the  site  of  ancient  Babylon  till 
near  its  junction  with  the  Tigris,  was  not  unnoticed  by 
ancient  writers;  but  we  owe  our  most  exact  knowledge 
of  it,  and  of  the  course  of  the  river  generally,  to  modern 
research,  and  in  particular  to  the  accurate  details 

j  given  by  Col.  Chesney,  in  his  Expedition  for  the  Surrey 
i  if  flit  Hirer*  /:'/'///'/•"'(.•.•  <nnl  7V'/;v'x,  ]S5i),  from  which 

'  the 'preceding  outline  lias  been  taken.  The  explanation 
of  the  decrease  of  volume  arises  from  the  comparatively 
flat  and  arid  nature  of  the  country  which  it  for  a 
time  traverses.  During  that  part  of  its  course  the 
river  receives  no  tributaries  worth  naming,  and  is  sub 
ject  to  a  constant  drain  from  evaporation,  and  still 
more  from  the  swamps  and  canals  it  has  to  feed.  The 
tendency  in  this  direction  is  greatly  increased  by  the 
negligence  of  the  Turkish  government,  which  has 
allowed  the  embankments  to  fall  into  decay;  and  in  the 
existing  state  of  matters  it  is  doubtful  if  even  tl)3 
smallest  steamer,  that  might  be  available  for  purposes 
of  commerce,  could  make  its  way  through  the  marshes 
which  extend  for  20U  miles  above  its  confluence  with 
the  Tigris.  (Laynrd's  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  p.  475.) 

The  river  is  subject  to  periodical  floods,  which  chiefly 
proceed  from  the  melting  of  the  snows  on  the  moun 
tains  aloni;-  the  upper  part  of  its  course.  The  rise  usu 
ally  commences  about  the  beginning  of  March,  and 
reaches  its  height  toward  the  end  of  May.  For  thirty 
or  forty  days  the  flood  is  deep  and  rapid;  after  which 
it  gradually  subsides,  till  in  the  months  of  September 
and  October  its  waters  are  about  their  lowest.  There 
is  an  occasional  increase  subsequently  from  the  rains 
that  fall  at  the  close  of  autumn  and  during  the  winter 
months;  but  no  regular  floods.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  in  the  more  flourishing  periods  of  the  Assyrian 
and  Babylonian  empires,  advantage  was  taken  of  the 
periodical  rise,  in  order  to  feed  canals,  and  thereby 
fertilize  the  country.  Mechanical  appliances  for  this 
purpose  are  among  the  works  ascribed  to  Nebuchad 
nezzar;  but  no  specific  information  concerning  them  has 
reached  us.  And  it  may  perhaps  be  doubted  if  for 
any  length  of  time  the  course  of  the  river  between 


EUPHRATES 


547 


EUPtOCLYDOX 


Babylon  and  the  junction  with  the  Tigris  was  kept  in 
a  properly  navigable  state.  Herodotus  has  given  us  a 
description  from  his  own  observation  of  the  kind  of 
navigation  that  was  carried  on  in  the  parts  above  the 
great  city.  -V  sort  of  boats,  he  tells  us  (i  Hit),  were 
used  by  the  people,  of  a  circular  form,  made  of  com 
paratively  slender  materials  —the  ribs  consisting  of  , 
willows,  the  external  covering  of  hides  of  leather,  and  | 
there  was  an  internal  lining  of  reeds.  In  these  frail 
barks,  some  of  them,  however,  carrying  a  burden  of 
f)00u  talents  worth  of  goods,  they  sailed  with  their 
merchandise  as  far  as  Babylon,  always  carrying  an  ass 
with  them,  and  the  larger  boats,  more  than  one.  for  the 
purpose  of  conveying  back  the  hides  of  which  the  boats 
were  made.  These  were  stripped  olf  at  Babylon,  and 
the  willows  and  reeds  that  funned  the  remaininu'  part 
of  the  materials  were  parted  asunder,  and  sold  fur  what 
they  would  bring.  This  was  done  as  the  cheapest  and 
readiest  way  of  getting  home;  since  they  found  it  im 
possible1  to  sail  up  to  Armenia  against  the  stream.  It 
was  certainly  a  verv  simple  stvle  of  navigation;  but 
probably  it  is  to  be  understood,  nut  of  the  entire  traffic 
on  the  Euphrates  above  Babylon,  but  only  of  that  which 
was  connected  with  the  higher  and  more  distant  regions. 
It  is  certain,  from  other  ancient  notice-:,  that  a  traffic 
was  conveyed  up  as  well  as  down,  from  the  Persian 
(iulf  to  Babylon,  whence  the  city  received  a  constant 
supply  of  Arabian  and  Indian  productions;  and  we  have 
the  testimony  of  Strabo,  that  of  these  productions  a 
surplus  portion  was  regularly  conveyed  by  the  river 
from  Babylon  as  far  as  Thapsaeus,  nearly  -(no  miles  up, 
whence  the  goods  were  distributed  over  the  surround 
ing  countries.  This  renders  it  probable  that  the  trans 
mission  of  merchandise  upwards  from  the  IVrsian  (Iulf 
to  Babylon  was.  in  part  at  least,  conducted  on  the 
river,  though  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  caravans 
were  also  employed  (suu  Ilecrc-n's  Auricut  linliy'.niiiims,  eh.  ii. 
mill  the  auUioritius  there  citc.l).  On  the  whole,  therefore, 
and  considered  in  a  commercial  respect  as  well  as  with 
a  regard  to  its  uses  in  agriculture,  the  Euphrates  mani 
festly  stood  somewhat  in  the  same  relation  to  Babylon 
and  the  surrounding  region  that  the  Nile  did  to  Egypt; 
it  was  the  source,  to  a  large  extent,  of  its  prosperity, 
and  the  most  important  element  of  its  greatness. 

It  is  on  this  relation  that  the  vi/iii/><>/ir,i/  use  of  the 
Euphrates  in  Scripture  proceeds,  and  by  keeping  it  in 
view  the  several  passages  will  be  found  to  admit  of  an 
easy  explanation.  Contributing  so  materially  to  the 
resources  and  wealth  of  Babylon,  the  river  was  natu 
rally  taken  for  an  emblem  or  representative  of  the  city 
itself,  and  of  the  empire  of  which  it  was  the  capital. 
In  this  respect  a  striking  application  is  made  of  it  by 
the  prophet  Isaiah,  eh.  viii.  r>-s — where  the  little  kingdom 
of  Judah,  with  its  circumscribed  territory  and  its  few 
earthly  resources,  on  the  one  hand,  is  seen  imaged  in 
the  tinv  brook  of  Shiloah;  while,  on  the  other,  the  rising 
power  of  Babylon  is  spoken  of  under  the  emblem  of 
"the  waters  of  the  river,  strong  and  many,  even  the 
king  of  Assyria  and  all  his  glory."  And  he  goes  on  to 
expose  the  folly  of  Israel's  trusting  in  this  foreign 
power,  on  account  of  its  material  greatness,  by  declar 
ing  that  in  consequence  of  this  mistaken  trust,  and  in 
chastisement  of  it,  the  mighty  stream  would,  as  it 
were,  desert  its  proper  channel,  and  turn  its  waters  in 
a  sweeping  and  desolating  flood  over  the  holy  land. 
In  like  manner  the  symbolical  action  of  Jeremiah,  ch. 
xiii  4,  going  to  hide  his  girdle  in  a  cavern  by  the  river 


Euphrates,  points  to  the  evil  that  was  destined  to  come 
upon  the  covenant-people  from  the  power  which  had 
its  representation  in  that  river.  But  when  Babylon's 
own  doom  comes  to  be  the  theme  of  prophetic  discourse, 
then  quite  naturally,  and  by  a  simple  reversing  of  the 
figure,  the  waters  of  the  river  are  spoken  of  as  suffering 
under  a  perpetual  drought,  and  being  even  dried  up, 
Je.  1.  :'o;  Xue.  x.  ii;  so  also,  K  xix.  ">,  of  the  Nile;  but  one 
should  no  more  think,  in  this  case-,  of  a  decay  of  the 
natural  stream,  than  in  the  other  of  its  overflow;  in 
both  cases  alike  it  is  the  kiii'/dom  tnti(;n<l  l>;/  the  riccr, 
which  is  really  the  subject  of  discourse.  In  the  book 
of  lievelation,  where  Babylon  is  employed  as  a  sym 
bolical  designation  of  the  corrupt  system  which  stands 
opposed  to  the  pure  church  and  kingdom  of  Christ,  the 
Euphrates  also  conies  into  view  as  an  emblematic  re 
presentative  of  the  powers  or  agencies  from  which  the 
mystery  of  iniquity  should  derive  its  principal  support, 
and  which  are  there  explained  to  mean  "  peoples  and 
multitudes,  and  nations,  and  tongues,"  He.  xui.  i:.;  so 
that  to  make  account,  in  such  a  connection,  of  the 
literal  Euphrates,  or  of  the  countries  which  it  waters, 
\\ere  as  much  beside  the  purpose  as  it  would  lie  to 
understand  by  Bahvlon  the  ancient  city  ami  kingdom 
which  bore  the  name.  For.  in  interpreting  such  lan 
guage,  a  due  regard  to  the  relations  of  things,  and  a  con 
sistent  use  of  the  terms  employed,  is  indispensable  to 
our  arriving  at  a  satisfactory  result.  Hence,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  literal  Bab\  Ion,  the  i/ri/ui;/  up  of  the  w«t<-rs 
of  the  Euphrates  signified,  in  prophetical  language,  the 
diminution  or  failure  of  the  city's  resources  ;  the  same 
expression,  when  applied  to  modern  relations,  lie.xvi.  IL', 
can  be  understood  of  nothing  but  a  similar  diminution 
or  failure  of  the  support  which  mystical  Babylon  was 
to  derive  from  the  nations  and  kingdoms  of  the  earth. 

Considered  simply  in  its  natural  relation  to  1'alestine, 
the  river  Euphrates  had  no  other  significance  than  that 
of  the  extreme  boundary  of  territorial  dominion  on  the 
north-iast.  It  was  mentioned,  as  already  noticed,  in 
that  connection  in  the  promise  to  Abraham:  was  re 
peated  in  J  >e.  i.  7:  Jos.  i.  1;  possessions  to  that  extent 
are  reported  to  have  been  actually  held  by  the  tribe  of 
IJeulien,  namely,  from  Gilead  onwards  to  Euphrates, 
l  I'll,  v  !>;  and  to  the  same  extent  both  David  and  Solomon 
appear  to  have  claimed  dominion,  •>  sa.  viii.  :i-s;  iKi.  iv. 'ji; 
•K  h.  i\.  •.'(!.  But  the  claim  was  manifestly  of  a  much 
looser  kind  than  that  by  which  they  held  the  land  of 
( 'anaau;  it  was  a  claim  of  superiority  merely  over  petty 
states  or  wandering  tribes,  which  were  too  small  and 
divided  to  form  properly  independent  kingdoms,  not  of 
tribal  occupation,  which  for  the  higher  ends  of  the 
theocracy  would  have  been  a  loss  rather  than  a  gain. 
A  right  of  pasturage  through  the  vast  desert  lands,  or 
an  annual  tribute  from  subject  tribes,  was  all  that  was 
sought:  and  the  land  of  the  covenant,  strictly  so  called, 
was  still  that  which  was  comprised  within  the  bounds 
of  Canaan  and  the  conquered  regions  to  the  east  of 
Jordan.  (S,  <  ( '.\.v\.\X.) 

EUROC'LYDON.  a  tempestuous  wind,  anciently- 
well  known  in  the  /Egean  Sea,  and  the  occasion  of 
the  disastrous  voyage  and  shipwreck  of  the  vessel  in 
which  Paul  sailed,  Ac.  xxvii.  14.  The  term  is  made 
up  of  the  two  words  which  signify  cnxt  and  leave;  so 
that,  as  applied  to  a  wind,  it  must  have  been  in  the 
active  sense  of  an  tuxt-imrcr,  a  wind  that  raises  such 
waves  as  come  from  the  east.  One,  however,  of  the 
more  ancient  jMSS.,  viz.  the  Alexandrian,  read  EvpaKV- 


EUTYCHUK 


548 


EVAXGELLST 


\wv,  and  tin:  Vulgate  has  the  corresponding  Latin  term 
Euroaqiiilo  undeod  the  .second  part  of  the  word  is 
Latin),  that  is,  north-caxt;  and  though  this  is  not  ad- 
mitteil  into  the  text  by  the  best  critical  authorities,  it 
is  preferred  hy  some  writers  on  the  subject  (smith, 
Voyage  and  Shipwreck  of  Paul,  App.)  It  was  thought  that 
another  MS.,  viz.  15,  had  the  same  reading;  hut  this 
is  now  ascertained  to  he  a  mistake,  it  has  Eurakudon 
(EvpaKvdwv).  The  writer  just  referred  to  has  demon 
strated  that  the  particular  wind  which  then  blew  must 
have  been  from  a  little  to  the  north  of  north-east ;  so 
that  it  might  fitly  have  been  designated  a  north-easier. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  wind  had  been  simply  a 
north-east  one,  we  should  hardly  have  expected  the 


their  work  they  would  naturally  approach  nearer  to 
missionaries  than  to  stated  labourers  in  a  particular 
place,  or  overseers  of  a  fixed  congregation :  they  would 
find  their  more  specific  employment  in  spreading  abroad 
the  good  news  of  the  kingdom.  In  short,  the  evan 
gelist  might,  be  regarded  as  the  poineer  of  the  apostle, 
who  was  to  plant  the  church  in  any  locality,  or  of  the 
settled  pastor,  who  was  to  preside  over  and  feed  it.  And 
this  is  borne  out  by  the  application  made  of  the  term  to 
particular  individuals.  Philip,  one  of  the  original  seven 
at  Jerusalem,,  who  were  appointed  to  fill  the  office  of 
deacon,  is  the  first  who  is  called  an  evangelist ;  and 
he  appears  to  have  derived  the  name  from  his  won 
derful  fitness  for  proclaiming  in  an  impressive  and 


peculiar  expression,  "a  tempestuous  wind,  which  is  convincing  manner  the  great  truths  of  redemption — 
called  north-east;"  especially  as  it  is  known  that  typho-  first  in  Samaria,  and  then  in  other  and  more  distant 
nic  or  tempestuous  winds  from  the  east  generally,  and  places,  Ac.  viii.;  xxi.  s.  Timothy,  in  like  manner,  and 
from  the  smith,  as  well  as  north-east,  agitated  the  Titus,  had  much  of  the  same  kind  of  work  to  do,  and 
Mediterranean,  as  they  still  do  (sec  examples  in  \Yetstciu).  j  are  commonly  called  evangelists,  only  they  stood  in 
It  is  best,  therefore,  to  retain  the  common  reading,  and  a  somewhat  closer  connection  with  the  apostolate;  and 
to  suppose  that  the  term  Euroclydon  was  a  local  or  the  one  at  Ephesus,  the  other  in  Crete,  had  to  do, 

as  regards  the  execution  of  that  commission,  the  part 
of  apostolical  delegates.  This,  however,  was  still  doing 
what  the  apostle  called  the  w-ork  of  an  evangelist,, 
•JTi.  iv.  5;  and  both  the  two  in  their  ordinary  ministra- 
asleep  while  Paul  continued  his  discourse  far  into  the  tions  appear  to  have  been  his  assistants  and  fellow- 


corrupt  designation  used  by  persons  navigating  the 
,'Egean,  but  not  recognized  by  classical  writers  as  a 
proper  Greek  word. 

EU'TYCHUS,  a  young  disciple  at  Troas,  who  fell 


night,  and  having  fallen  over  into  the  pavement  below, 
"  was  taken  up  dead."  There  seems  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  actual  death,  and  not  a  mere  swoon,  befell 
him;  and  Paul  consequently  did  with  him,  as  in  certain 
cases  of  death  had  been  done  by  Elijah  and  Elisha  of 


labourers  in  the  general  dissemination  of  the  gospel. 
Luke,  Silas,  Mark,  Apollos,  and  several  others,  are  to 
be  assigned  to  the  same  class.  S<  >  that,  from  the  various 
notices  which  occur  respecting  the  evangelists,  the  de 
scription  of  Schaff  (Apostolic Church,  i.  p.  2n2)  may  be  taken 


old,  fell  upon  him,  to  see  if  the  Lord  through  this  in-  I  as  substantially  correct :  "They  were  not  congregational 
strumentality  would  restore  the  suspended  animation.  '  officers,  nor  stationed  like  the  presbyters  and  later 
The  desired  result  was  attained,  and  the  apostle  re-  bishops  at  particular  posts,  but  travelled  about  freely 


stored  the  young  man  alive  to  his  friends,   A 


wherever  their  services    were  needed.      The  apostles 


That  some  degree  of  blame  attached  to  the  latter  for  '  employed  them  as  messengers  for  various  purposes  to 
having  gone  to  sleep  under  such  preaching  as  Paul's  all  points  of  their  vast  field;  sending  them,  now  fur 
must  "have  been,  there  can  be  little  doubt.  At  the  :  the  further  propagation  of  the  gospel,  now  to  carry 
same  time,  the  length  of  the  service,  and  the  lateness  letters,  now  to  visit,  inspect,  and  strengthen  congre- 


of  the  hour,  to  say  nothing  of  other  possible  contingen 
cies,  afforded  some  excuse.  And  the  granting  of  a  spe 
cial  exercise  of  power  for  his  restoration  to  life  would 
come  as  a  merciful  interposition  to  Paul  himself  and 
the  church  at  Troas,  as  well  as  to  the  sufferer. 

EVANGELIST,   the    English   form    of   the  Greek 


gations  already  established;  so  that  the  evangelist  also, 
like  the  apostles  themselves,  served  as  living  bonds  of 
union,  and  promoters  of  fraternal  harmony,  among  the 
different  sections  of  the  church.  In  short,  they  were 
in  some  sense  the  vicegerents  [or  poineers]  of  the 
apostles,  acting  under  their  direction  and  by  their 


€vayye\iffTris,  which  means  bearer  of  ylad  tidinys,  a  •  authority." 
messenf/cr  of  good.  In  a  general  sense  the  term  might  ;  From  the  general  nature  of  the  function  of  an  evan- 
bc  applied  to  any  one  who  made  proclamation  of  the  ]  gelist,  one  can  easily  understand  why  the  name  should 
mercy  and  grace  of  God,  especially  as  unfolded  in  the  '  have  been  peculiarly  appropriated  to  the  four  inspired 
person  and  work  of  Christ — therefore  pre-eminently  to  writers 
Christ  himself,  and  to  the  apostles  whom  he  commis 
sioned  to  preach  his  truth  and  establish  his  kingdom. 
But  in  reality  it  came  to  be  employed  as  the  designation 


if  a  distinctive  class  in  the  early  church,  as  in  the  fol 
lowing  enumeration  of  St.  Paul:  "And  he  (i.e.  Christ) 
gave  some,  apostles;  and  some,  prophets;  and  some, 
evangelists;  and  some,  pastors  and  teachers,"  Ep.  iv.  n. 
It  is  nowhere  stated  what  was  the  exact  province  of 
an  evangelist,  or  wherein  precisely  his  calling  and  office 
differed  from  those,  for  example,  of  a  pastor  or  a 
teacher.  We  are  left  to  infer  them  from  the  nature  of 
the  word,  and  from  the  instances  to  which  it  is  applied. 
The  word  itself  implies,  that  those  who  bore  it  as  a 
term  of  office,  must  have  had  to  do  especially  with  the 
facts  of  redemption,  with  the  announcement  of  things 
already  accomplished  or  provided,  and  capable  of  being 
made  known  as  tidings  of  good  to  men.  Hence,  in 


f  the  gospel  history.  These  were  for  the 
church  of  all  times  the  publishers  of  the  facts  which 
constituted  the  ground  and  basis  of  blessing  to  the 
people  of  God.  In  that  respect  they  all  did  the  part 
if  evangelists,  although  only  two  of  them  stood  in  the 


rank  indicated  by  the  name,  and  the  other  two  occu 
pied  the  higher  position  of  apostles.  But  the  work 
itself  of  an  evangelist,  and  the  relation  which  it  held 
to  the  apostolate,  rendered  it  quite  fitting,  that  one  or 
more  of  those  called  to  it  should  be  endowed  with 
supernatural  gifts  for  preparing  an  inspired  record  of 
the  great  facts  of  gospel  history.  This  higher  part  of 
their  work,  however,  might  with  equal  propriety  be 
assigned  to  the  prophetical  office;  since  the  gifts  which 
qualified  them  to  narrate  aright  those  all- important 
facts,  so  as  to  render  their  record  an  infallible  and 
trustworthy  guide  to  the  church,  were  essentially  the 
same  with  those  of  a  prophet.  In  doing  it  the  evan- 


EVE  5 

geliats  acted  as  divinely  taught  and  authorized  revealers 
of  the  mind  of  Cod;  and  in  the  statement  of  St.  Paul 
respecting  the  New  Testament  church,  that  it  is  ''limit 
upon  the  foundation  of  apostles  and  prophets,"  Ep.  ii.  :><>, 
tliis  prophetical  agency  of  the  evangelists  is  undoubtedly 
to  be  included. 

EVE.     ,sve  ADAM. 

EVENING.     See  DAY. 

EVENINGS.  The  phrase  between  the  two  crcninq* 
is  a  peculiar  expression  in  the  Pentateuch,  used  chiefly 
with  reference  to  the  slaying  <>f  the  paschal  lamb, 
although  it  is  given  only  on  the  margin  of  the  English 
Bible.  The  lamb  was  to  be  killed  between  the  two 
evenings,  Ex.  xiii.  «;  NU  ix.  :>.-,  \\viii  4.  From  an  earlv 
period  it  has  been  a  question,  between  what  points  these 
two  evenings  were  to  be  made  to  lie.  The  C'araite 
.Jews,  with  whom  also  Abenezra  agrees,  and  the  Sama 
ritans,  held  it  to  be  the  interval  between  the  sun's 
setting  ami  the  entrance  of  total  darkness;  i.e.  between 
about  six  o'clock  and  seven  or  half-past  seven,  by  our 
reckoning.  But  the  Pharisees  of  the  apostolic  au'e 
(Jos.  Wars,  vi.  y.  :u,  and  the  Talmud  ists,  understood  the 
lirst  evening  to  hit  when  the  sun  be^an  visil.lv  to  de 
cline,  and  the  second  when  he  actually  sunk  under  the 
horizon— or  from  about  three  in  the  afternoon  till  six. 
or  a  little  after  it,  in  the  evening.  The  former  ex 
planation  certainly  seems  to  be  the  more  natural  of  the 
two.  and  most  in  accordance  with  the  intimations  of 
Scripture  upon  the  subject.  For  the  expression  //c- 
tim-n  the  tn-i.i  in  niiii/.-i  is  once  and  airain  interchanged 
with  that  of  in  the  crniini/,  K\.  \\i.  \t.  i:;;  n,-  Xvi.  i  -.  and 
in  ]>e.  xvi.  tl  an  explanatory  clause  is  added,  "in 
the  evening  as  soon  as  tin-  sun  --oes  down."  It  would 
seem,  therefore,  that  the  general  notification  of  time 
was  in  the  tniiiii;/,  and  the  more  specific  one  in  the 
evening  /ntn-uii  if*  urtiinl  f<>,,ini<  in'uiiiiit  /»/  tin  *ini  </<, ,',/,/ 
dnirn  iiiid  its  termination  l,i/ tin  <  nti-unn  nf  ni>//if.  This 
view  also  is  confirmed  by  the  consideration  of  Israel's 
position  ut  the  first  institution  of  the  passover ;  for, 
situated  as  they  \vere.  they  could  scarcely  have  ^oiie 
about  the  service  till  the  sun  had  either  actually  set. 
or  was  on  the  point  of  doing  so.  But  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  Pharisaical  view  prevailed  in  apos 
tolic  times:  and  it  may  be  held  for  certain  that  tin: 
current  practice  was  in  this,  as  in  other  thin_'<  respecting 
the  .Jewish  feasts,  followed  by  our  ly.nl  and  his  dis 
ciples.  The  precise  meaning,  therefore,  of  tin-  original 
phrase  determines  nothing  as  to  the  exact  time  of  their 
last  passover. 

EVIL-MER'ODACH  [etymology  unknown,  but 
Merodach  was  the  name  of  a  Babylonian  deity],  the 
son  and  successor  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  kiii'_r  of  P>abv- 
lon.  On  his  accession  he  released  the  captive  kiii'_f  of 
.Judali.  Jehoiachin,  treated  him  with  marked  respect, 
and  set  his  throne  above  the  thrones  of  the  other  sub 
jugated  monarehs.  -i  Ki.  xxv.  -27  ;  Je  lii.  :;i-:!i.  The  fact  alone 
is  recorded,  and  we  have  no  reliable  account  of  the  mo 
tives  that  may  have  induced  the  king  of  Babylon  to 
make  such  a  distinction  in  his  favour.  A  Jewish  tradi 
tion  ascribes  it  to  a  prison-acquaintanceship  acquired 
with  Jehoiachin,  when  Evil- Merodach  was  put  in  con 
finement  by  his  father,  on  recovery  from  the  temporary 
insanity  which  came  upon  him.  He  took  offence  at 
something  that  had  been  done  by  his  son  in  the  admin 
istration  of  affairs  during  Nebuchadnezzar's  incapacity, 
and  threw  him  into  Jehoiachin's  ward.  The  tradition, 
though  noticed  by  Jerome  (on  Is.  xiv.  L".I),  had  probably 


EXODUS 

no  other  origin  than  a  desire  to  provide  some  explana 
tion  of  the  fact  respecting  the  favour  shown  to  the 
captive  king  of  Judah.  But  whatever  may  have  been 
the  immediate  human  occasion  of  it.  when  viewed  in 
respect  to  God,  it  was  certainly  to  be  regarded  as  an 
indication  of  that  mercy  and  loving-kindness  toward 
his  covenant-people  which  had  not  altogether  failed, 
and  a  premonitory  sign  of  that  coming  enlargement 
which  was  still  in  reserve  for  them. 

EXODUS.  THE.  That  providence  which,  by  a 
remarkable  combination  of  causes  variously  operating, 
now  on  ;l  nomad  family  in  Canaan,  and  again  through 
the  slumbers  of  an  Kirvptian  monarch,  is  seen  at  the 
close  of  Genesis  conducting  the  Hebrews  to  Kgypt, 
appears  at  the  opening  of  the  history  of  Exodus  no 
less  clearly  preparing  for  their  restoration  to  the  land 
of  their  fathers'  sojourning.  This  restoration  had  been 
a  subject  of  promise  as  early  as  the  time  of  Abraham, 
<;e  xv.  ii,  subsequently  and  more  expressly  renewed  to 
Jacob  at  Beersheha.  on  his  way  to  Kgypt,  Cod  giving 
him  this  assurance.  "  Ivur  not  to  o-(>  down  into  Kgvpt, 
for  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation.  I  will  e-o  down 
with  thee  into  Egypt,  and  1  will  also  surely  brim;  thee 
up  again,"  <;.•.  \1  i. :;,  I.  In  the  full  hope  of  this  promise, 
Jacob  and  his  son  Joseph  died  in  the  land  of  Kgvpt,  the 
latter  in  particular  taking  an  oath  of  his  brethren  that 
on  their  departure  hence  they  should  carry  up  with 
them  his  bones.  <;r  !.  ;.'.-,. 

The  first  part  of  the  promise  made  to  Jacob  had. 
even  prior  to  the  birth  of  .Moses,  fully  eighty  years 
before  the  exoilus,  been  receiving  such  a  remarkable  ful 
filment  as  to  arrest  the  attention  of  the  !•]<_;•  yptian  govern 
ment,  which  was  naturally  alarmed  at  the  great  increase 
of  this  alien  population  \\  it  bin  their  dominions.  Hence 
the  various  but  ineffectual  means  resorted  to  for  re 
pressing  this  rapid  L.To\vth,  Ex.  i. 12, 17.  The  edict  which 
directed  that  the  Hebrew  male  infants  should  be  cast 
into  the  river  must  have  been  issued  shortly  before 
the  birth  of  Moses,  as  there  is  no  reference  to  any 
trouble  (.11  this  account  at  the  birth  of  Aaron,  who  was 
three  years  older  than  Moses,  F.x.  vii.  r,  and  it  was  pro 
bably  of  short  duration.  However,  this  tyrannical  decree 
was  not  without  its  fruits,  wen.'  it  only  for  the  training 
which  it  was  instrumental  in  securing  for  Israel's 
future  leader;  while  at  the  same  time  it  served,  with  the 
other  severe  trials  to  which  the  people  were  exposed,  to 
wean  them  from  their  attachment  to  the  land  of  their 
sojourning.  How  much  this  was  needed  appears  from 
their  subsequent  history,  particularly  their  murmurings 
in  the  wilderness;  and  indeed  the  hold  which  it  is  thus 
seen  Egypt  had  on  their  affections,  owing  partly  to  the 
facilities  with  which  their  animal  wants  were  there  sup 
plied,  Nn.  xi.  .">,  fully  accords  with  what  is  still  witnessed 
among  such  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  desert  as  are  led  to 
settle  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  (Robinson,  Biblical  Researches, 
-Meil.  vol.i.  p.  ,vO.  Moses,  when  he  first  tried  to  arouse  his 
brethren  to  a  sense  of  their  high  destiny,  found  them 
quite  unprepared  for  his  friendly  overtures,  and  a 
further  period  of  trial  was  necessary  for  the  discipline 
not  only  of  the  people,  but  of  the  deliverer  himself. 
However,  the  time  did  at  length  arrive  for  the  fulfilling 
of  the  divine  promises,  but  it  found  the  destined  leader 
of  Israel  more  reluctant,  than  he  had  previously  shown 
himself  eager,  to  engage  in  this  enterprise,  though  now 
expressly  summoned  to  it  by  Cod.  The  change  which 
in  the  interval  had  come  over  the  spirit  and  aspirations 
of  Moses  admits  of  easy  explanation,  and  is  itself  an 


EXODUS 


550 


KXODU.S 


important  confirmation  of  the  truthfulness  of  this  por 
tion  of  the  history.  He  however,  after  mucli  natural, 
but,  from  tho  extent  to  \\hieh  it  was  carried,  sinful 
opposition,  Ex.  iv.  n,  undertook  the  duty  committed  to 
him,  and  leaving  the  Arabian  desert,  long  the  scene 
of  his  solitary,  again  to  become  that  of  his  public,  life 
and  labours  as  ihe  leader  of  his  people,  he  returned  to 
Egypt,  accompanied  by  his  brother  Aaron,  who  by 
divine  appointment  met  him  on  tho  \va,y,  Ex.  iv.  27. 

Moses  first  made  known  his  mission  as  directed  to 
the  ciders,  or  representatives  of  Israel  according  to  the 
patriarchal  form  of  government  still  subsisting  among 
them,  and  having  shown  the  Kit/its  which  accredited  his 
divine  commission,  he  found  a  favourable  reception — 
'•the  people  believed,''  Kx  iv.  29-31.  The  brothers,  for 
Aaron  was  associated  throughout  as  "the  prophet'  or 
spokesman  of  Moses,  next  addressed  themselves  to  Pha- 
raoh,  and  although  the  request  was  at  first  of  the  most 
moderate  kind,  being  only  leave  for  a  journey  of  three 
days  into  the  wilderness  to  sacrifice  to  the  God  of  the 
Hebrews,  it  need  excite  no  surprise  that  it  was  peremp 
torily  refused,  and  only  led  to  the  imposition  of  addi 
tional  burdens  upon  the  enslaved  people.  The  appear 
ance  of  these  commissioners  of  ,J  ehovah,  it  mayreadily be 
supposed,  was  not  such  as  to  inspire  with  feelings  other 
than  of  contempt  a  haughty  Egyptian  ruler,  particu 
larly  one  of  the  character  represented  in  this  history; 
while  their  request,  moreover,  if  at  all  deemed  worthy 
of  a  moment's  consideration,  may  have  been  thought 
to  cover  some  ulterior  design;  just  as  a  former  Pharaoh 
feared  the  contingency  of  the  Israelites  leaving  Egypt, 
Ex.  i.  10.  At  all  events  the  labour  of  these  bondsmen 
was  of  too  great  value  to  the  crown  to  make  Pharaoh 
favourably  disposed  to  any  proposals  which  involved  its 
intermission.  Hence  the  reply,  defiant  alike  of  Moses 
and  Aaron,  and  of  Him  whose  representatives  they  pro 
fessed  to  be — "Who  is  Jehovah,  that  I  should  obey  his 
voice  to  let  Israel  go-  I  know  not  Jehovah,  neither 
will  1  let  Israel  go,"  E\.  v.  2. 

And  now  commenced  that  series  of  wonders  by  which 
Moses  extorted  a  reluctant  assent  from  Pharaoh  to  de 
mands,  which  in  the  course  of  the  negotiations  were 
presented  in  their  utmost  extent,  having  ceased  to  be, 
what  they  were  at  the  outset,  a  conditional  request  for 
a  journey  into  the  wilderness  for  the  purpose  of  sacri 
ficing.  The  object  of  Moses  was  now  most  explicitly 
declared  to  be  the  absolute  manumission  of  the  people 
from  bondage,  and  their  departure  out  of  the  land.  It 
is  of  importance  to  bear  in  view  this  change  in  the  re 
lation  of  affairs,  as  a  great  complaint  is  sometimes  made 
by  parties  unfriendly  to  the  Bible,  that  Moses  in  his 
first  request  to  Pharaoh  practised  a  deception,  and  that 
in  leaving  Egypt  with  the  Israelites  as  he  did,  he  was 
guilty  of  a  breach  of  faith.  There  is,  however,  nothing 
in  the  history  of  these  transactions  to  warrant  such 
charges.  Pharaoh's  refusal  to  entertain  the  first  pro 
posal  led  to  its  being  withdrawn.  It  answered  the 
only  purpose  therein  contemplated — the  manifestation 
of  the  man  with  whom  Moses  had  to  deal.  It  was 
made,  too,  with  a  pre- intimation  to  Moses  that  it  would 
be  rejected  by  Pharaoh,  Ex.  iii.  19,  who  should  however 
in  the  end  be  brought  to  an  absolute  submission.  In 
deed  this  change  in  the  position  of  affairs  was  fully 
understood  by  Pharaoh  himself  and  his  people,  Ex.  xii. 
3i-y:j;  though  afterwards  "the  heart  of  Pharaoh  and  of 
his  servants  was  turned  against  the  Israelites,"  a  cir 
cumstance  which  led  to  the  pursuit  of  the  fugitives 


with  a  view  to  their  reduction,  Ex.  xiv.  ;~>,  to  their  former 
state  of  slavery. 

In  estimating  the  character  of  those  powers  which 
Moses  employed  in  enforcing  his  demands,  and  which 
ultimately  overcame  the  various  obstacles  which,  as 
might  easily  be  shown,  an  undertaking  of  this  kind 
necessarily  presented,  it  would  be  well  to  ask  bow  the 
case  really  stands  when  the  miraculous  character  of  the 
Mosaic  acts  is  called  in  question?  Keduce  the  authen 
ticity  of  the  Pentateuch  to  the  lowest  degree,  still  the 
fact  of  the  exodus  remains,  and  along  with  it  a  period 
of  sojourning  in  the  wilderness  previous  to  the  entrance 
into  Canaan,  and  other  facts  which  are  so  impressed  on 
the  language,  institutions,  and  in  short  the  whole 
public  and  private  life  of  the  Israelites,  that  they  can 
only  be  denied  by  rejecting  all  historical  evidence,  and 
the  question,  is,  How  was  this  deliverance  effected  ? 
The  account  given  in  the  Pentateuch  is  at  least  simple 
and  consistent.  No  doubt,  it  introduces  a  divine  agency; 
but  deny  such,  and  in  vain  is  a  cause  sought  for  ade 
quate  to  the  results  produced.  A  shepherd  long  exiled 
in  Midian  presents  himself  at  the  Pharaoiiic  court,  with 
out  armies  or  alliances,  and  yet  at  length  he  overcomes 
the  obstinacy  of  the  most  obdurate  of  monarchs.  The 
pastoral  staff  which  he  carries  in  his  hand  must  cer 
tainly  have  been  made  "  the  rod  of  God"  when  it  is 
capable  of  working  such  wonders.  I  Jut,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  may  be  objected,  if  Moses  was  really  armed 
with  such  power,  why  brook  those  repeated  refusals  and 
delays,  and  what  need  of  ten  plagues,  when  one  stroke 
of  the  Almighty  would  have  sufficiently  answered  the 
purpose  by  overcoming  all  opposition?  Objections  of 
this  kind  have  their  origin  in  ignorance  or  miscon 
ception  of  tho  purposes  which  this  controversy  with 
Pharaoh  was  designed  to  serve  in  the  scheme  of  divine 
revelation. 

Had  the  deliverance  of  Israel,  considered  in  itself, 
been  the  only  object  contemplated  in  the  mission  of 
Moses,  it  might  have  been  summarily  effected  through 
divine  interposition.  But  the  great  object  aimed  at,  as 
repeatedly  stated  in  the  narrative  itself,  was  the  revela 
tion  of  Jehovah  both  to  friends  and  to  foes — to  the  Israel- 
ites  and  to  the  Egyptians— though  in  different  aspects. 
To  the  former  it  was  declared:  "  Ye  shall  know  that  I 

!  am  Jehovah  your  God,  who  bringeth  you  out  from 
under  the  burdens  of  the  Egyptians,"  Ex.  vi.  7 ;  and  with 
respect  to  the  latter  it  was  said,  "The  Egyptians  shall 
know  that  I  am  Jehovah,  when  I  stretch  forth  mine 
hand  upon  Egypt,  and  bring  out  the  children  of  Israel 
from  among  them,"  Ex.  vii.  5.  Pharaoh's  refusal  of 
Moses'  request  was  accompanied,  as  already  remarked, 
with  a  defiance  of  Jehovah.  He  knew  and  reverenced 
his  country's  gods,  but  he  knew  not  or  cared  for  the 

'  God  of  the  Hebrews — "  AVho  is  Jehovah,  that  I  should 
obey  his  voice  ?"  Accordingly,  Pharaoh,  011  witnessing 

\  the  first  sign  which  Moses  was  directed  to  perform  in 
his  presence  in  answer  to  this  question,  called  in  "the 
wise  men  and  the  sorcerers  of  Egypt."  These  repre 
sentatives  of  the  powers  of  heathenism  imitated  to  a 

1  certain  extent  not  only  the  sign  but  also  the  first  two 
plagues.  At  the  third,  however,  their  power  failed; 

1  they  acknowledged  themselves  foiled,  and  at  length 
were  forced  to  relinquish  the  contest,  Ex.  viii.  is.i'.i ,  ix.  n. 
This  was  an  important  point  achieved,  though  it  had 
little  effect  as  yet  upon  Pharaoh.  But  even  as  it  was, 
the  power  put  forth  in  opposition  to  Moses  had  been 

1  exercised  only  in  aggravating  the  evils  brought  upon 


EXODUS 


KXUDl'S 


the  land :  fur  their  removal  or  mitigation  the  magi 
cians  were  altogether  powerless.  Any  relief  obtained 
\vas  avowed  by  the  monarch  himself  to  be  from  Je 
hovah  through  the  intercession  of  Moses,  Ex.  viii.  b — an 
avowal  which  went  on  increasing,  and  accompanied 
with  various  though  frequently  retracted  concessions 
by  Pharaoh,  as  the  inflictions  grew  in  severity  or  were 
temporarily  intermitted.  The  plague  of  frogs  induced 
Pharaoh  to  implore  through  Muses  the  aid  of  Jehovah, 
Kx.  viii.  s;  the  fourth  plague — the  Hies-  -extorted  a  per 
mission  for  Israel  to  sacrifice  in  Egypt,  and  then, 
though  afterwards  revoked,  to  proceed  a  short  distance 
thence,  Kx.  viii.  L'.'I, -J*.  The  hail  -  storm  -—  the  seventh 
plague — drew  forth  the  confession:  "1  have  sinned 
this  time:  Jehovah  is  righteous,  and  I  and  my  people 
are  wicked,''  Kx.  i\.  L'7  ;  and  again,  under  the  eighth 
visitation,  "  I  have  sinned  against  Jehovah  vour  God, 
and  against  you,"  Kx.  x  ir. ;  the  announcement  of 
this  plague  having  drawn  forth  a  permission  for  the 
adult  males  to  go  away  to  sacrifice,  K\.  x  ll;  \\hile 
the  ninth  plague  secured  a  further  permission  for  the 
whole  of  the  people  to  go,  provided  their  Hocks  and 
herds  were  left  behind,  Kx.x.-Jl — conditions,  however, 
to  which  Moses  refused  to  accede.  And  now  followed 
a  judgment  which  brought  matters  to  a  crisis,  and  led 
even  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Israelites,  K\.  xii.  ;;i-;;;j. 
Although  the  result  was  only  a  temporary  and  forced 
submission  on  the  part  of  Pharaoh,  the  effects  on  the 
Egyptians  were  otherwise:  some  of  them  practically 
acknowledged  the  power  of  Jehovah,  for  on  the  an 
nouncement  of  the  hail-storm  a  number  took  advan 
tage  of  the  warning  to  house  their  s« -rvants  and  cattle; 
and  afterwards,  on  the  announcement  of  the  locusts,  the 
very  courtiers  urged  the  king  to  submit  in  thi>  now 
evidently  unequal  contest,  K\.x.7. 

The  impression  thus  made  upon  the  Egyptians  is 
further  discernible  in  the  notice  "And  the  Lord  gave 
the  people  favour  in  the  sight  of  the  Egyptians.  .More 
over,  the  man  Moses  was  very  great  in  the  land  of 
Egypt,  in  the  si<_dit  of  Pharaoh's  servants,  and  in  the 
sight  of  the  people,"  Ex.  xi.  3.  This,  coupled  with  the 
an  x  let  v  felt  for  the  Israelite's'  speedy  departure.  Kx.  xii.:i:i, 
fully  explains  the  readiness  with  which,  on  reque.^t.  the 
latter  were  furnished  with  raiment  and  other  articles 
of  value.  Kx.  xii.  :>:>,  :;ij.  This  transaction  has  been  placed 
in  an  unfavourable  light  by  the  unfortunate  rendering 
of  SXw;  (xlt'i'ih,  and  its  hiphil  form  *-xr,~:  </"'*/<'//),  by 

-    T 

'•  borrowing"  and  "  lending"  respectively,  the  latter 
after  the  EXX..  Kal  txp'nffa.v  aiVo?s,  and  \  ulg.  "  ut 
commodareiit  eis,"  Kx.  xii.. 'id;  whereas  the  simple  mean 
ing  is,  in  the  one  case  "to  ask"  or  "request"  (sec  Ps.  ii.  s), 
and  in  the  other,  "to  cause  or  induce  to  ask,"  that  is, 
to  comply  with  the  request,  or  to  give  freely  and  gladly; 
as  when  Hannah  dedicates  the  infant  Samuel  to  the 
Lord,  i  Sa.  i.  •>,  where  the  same  term  is  also  improperly 
rendered  "  lent."  It  was  not  surely  for  the  mere  pur 
pose  of  enriching  the  Israelites,  and  by  any  means 
however  questionable,  that  an  arrangement  so  impor 
tant  that  it  is  three  times  noticed  in  this  record,  and  was 
also  pre-iiitimatcd  in  the  patriarchal  history,  was  had 
recourse  to,  but  rather  for  the  elucidation  of  the  prin 
ciple  exemplified  in  the  exodus  itself,  and  in  all  the 
acts  which  conduced  to  it.  What  now  occurred  in 
Egypt  was  a  type  of  all  the  future  contests  of  Israel 
with  heathenism:  "And  they  shall  spoil  those  that 
spoiled  them,  and  rob  them  that  robbed  them,  saith  the 
Lord  God,"  K/.u.  xxxix.  in.  Sec  iil.su  Xcc.  xiv.  11. 


The  effect  on  the  Israelites  themselves  of  these  inter 
positions  "  designed   to   vindicate  the  personality  and 
holiness    of    God,  as    well   as    the    distinctness    of  his 
;  chosen  people"  (Hardwick,  Christ  and  other  Masters,  pt.  iv.  j>.  <iM, 
|  appears   in   their  response   to   Moses'    sony-   of  deliver 
ance:    '•  1  will  sing  unto  Jehovah,  for  he  hath  triumphed 

gloriously .Jehovah  is  my  strength  and  song,  and 

he  is  become  my  salvation:  he  is  my  God,  ami  I  will 
prepare  him  an  habitation;  my  father's  God,  and  I  will 
exalt  him,"  Kx.  xv.  i,->.  The  divine  purpose  intimated  to 
Israel  at  the  outset  of  these  proceedings- -"  Ye  shall 
know  that  1  am  Jehovah  your  God,"  Kx.vi.7-  is  here 
seen  to  be  realized;  Jehovah  is  acknowledged  to  be 
Israel's  (iod  and  the  God  of  their  fathers,  to  \\hom 
ho\\ever  he  was  known  rather  as  El.  SHADDAI,  the  Al 
mighty,  than  as  JKHOVAH,  the  deep  import  of  which  /n/,/n 
was  not  fully  cinitjin  fmnluf  by  them,  Kx.  vi. ;:,  although 
in  common  use.  It  is  \\orthv  however  of  note,  that 
prior  to  the  exodus  the  name  Jehovah  entered  into  the 
composition  of  proper  names,  as  in  the  case  of  Jochebed, 
the  mother  of  Moses,  Kx.  vi.  i-',  and  Uilhiah,  a  daughter 
of  Pharaoh,  who  married  Me  red  of  the  tribe  of  Judah. 
icii.iv.i-.  This  last  instance  is  remarkable,  the  assump 
tion  of  this  peculiarly  Hebrew  name  must  have  been  on 
her  marriage  with  the  Israelite,  and  if  so,  here  is  an 
Egyptian  Kuth  declaring  ''Thy  people  shall  be  my 
people,  and  thy  God  my  God."  (Scv  Kurt/.Ufschiclitedes 
AlU-n  Htmdcs,  ii.  i<.:\-2.) 

Having  this  definite  object—  the  revelation  of  Jeho 
vah  the  plagues  inflicted  on  the  Egyptians  will  be 
found  in  striking  correspondence  with  its  specific  aim. 
They  \\ere  not  mere  prodigies  or  arbitrary  displays  of 
power,  but  were  directed  to  the  promotion  of  particular 
truths  and  the  sub\er.-ion  of  the  opposite  errors.  In 
particular  they  are  found  to  bear  a  special  relation  to 
E'j'vpt  in  respect  both  to  the  physical  characteristics  of 
that  land,  and  to  the  kind  of  idolatrous  worship  there' 
practised  -two  things  more  or  less  related  in  all  forms 
of  heathenism. 

The  connection  of  the  Mosaic  plagues  with  certain 
physical  characteristics  and  phenomena  of  Egypt  did  not 
e.-cape  the  notice  of  some  of  the  English  deistical  writers 
of  the  last  century  and  others,  who  at  once  fancied  that 
this  circumstance  sufficiently  disposed  of  everything 
miraculous  in  their  character.  They  maintained  that 
the  biblical  narrative'  was  only  an  exaggerated  account 
of  events  fiv'|iiently  witnessed  in  Egypt,  though  on  this 
particular  occasion  some  of  them,  it  might  be  admitted, 
may  have  been  of  more  than  usual  force.  These  views, 
it  is  thought  by  many,  have,  received  further  confirma 
tion  from  the  more  intimate  acquaintance  formed  by 
recent  researches  with  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs.  It 
admits  indeed  of  no  question  that  there  is,  in  various 
points,  a  close  connection  between  the  physical  charac 
teristics  of  Kgvpt  and  the  visitations  which,  as  recorded 
in  the  Mosaic  narrative,  preceded  the  exodus;  and  this 
connection  has  an  importance,  were  it  only  as  a  testi 
mony  to  the  minute  acquaintance  of  the  author  of  the 
'  Pentateuch  with  the  land  which  forms  the  scene  of  his 
history,  in  the  events  of  which  he  presents  himself  as 
personally  participating.  P.ut  with  respect  to  the  ration 
alistic  argument  deduced  from  this  connection  of  the 
natural  with  the  supernatural,  let  it  lie  noticed,  as 
remarked  by  Hengstenberg.  that  "the  xiijicnitittirtd 
,  presents  generally  in  the  Scriptures  no  violent  opposi- 
'  tioii  to  the  natural,  but  rather  unites  in  a  friendly 
alliance  with  it,"  and  that  there  were  besides,  in  the 


EXODUS 


EXODUS 


nature  of  the  present  controversy,  special  reasons  why  ! 
the  natural  basis  should   he   brought  prominently  into 
view.     The  object  to  which,  as  already  remarked,  all 
these  occurrences  were   directed,  was  the   revelation  of  j 

Jehovah    as    Clod,  not    merely   of    the   oppressed    and 

*  ii 

despised   Hebrews,  but  also  as  God  over  Pharaoh  and 

over  Kgypt — "Jehovah  in  the  midst  of  the  earth," 
Kx.viii.  2L',  ami  over  all  its  lands,  vor.  i-..  ''  N\  ell-grounded 
proof  of  this  could  not  have  been  produced  by  bringing 
suddenly  upon  Kuvpt  a  succession  of  strange  terrors. 
From  these  it  would  only  have  followed  that  Jehovah 
had  received  a  momentary  and  external  power  over 
Egypt.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  events  which  annually 
returned  were  placed  under  the  immediate  control  of 
Jehovah,  it  would  be  appropriately  shown  that  he  was 
God  in  the  midst  of  the  land,  and  the  doom  of  the  false 
gods  which  had  been  placed  in  his  stead  would  go  forth, 
and  they  would  be  entirely  driven  out  of  the  jurisdic-  ' 
tion  which  was  considered  as  belonging  to  them" 
(Ilengstenberg,  Egypt  and  tlio  I!o..ks  of  Moses,  p.  1C,  Kdiu.  1M:>). 
To  these  concessions  of  Ilengstenberg  as  to  the  extent 
of  the  natural  in  the  plagues  of  the  exodus,  exception 
will  not  be  taken  by  the  objectors  just  adverted  to, 
and  in  the  case  as  thus  presented  their  objections  at 
least  are  fully  disposed  of,  while  enough  still  remains 
to  evince  the  miraculous  character  of  the  transactions. 

HrngstenbiTg,  indeed,  and  also  Osburn  (Israel  in 
Egypt,  I'd  edit.  Loud,  isjii),  extend  this  natural  basis  to 
an  unwarrantable  degree;  for  in  order  to  find  in  the 
phenomena  of  Egypt  something  corresponding  to  the 
several  plagues,  they  protract  the  time  over  which  these  j 
events  extended  to  a  length  not  supported  by  any  state 
ment  in  the  history.  But  however  this  may  be,  the 
supernatural  is  distinctly  visible  throughout.  It  is  not 
at  all  a  question  of  degrees  or  of  fortunate  concurrences. 
Had  there  been  anything  of  this  kind,  it  certainly  would 
not  have  been  lost  on  Pharaoh  or  on  his  advisers,  whose 
interests  it  would  have  been,  equally  at  least  with  the 
most  sceptical  of  modern  times,  to  resort  for  an  explana 
tion,  if  possible,  to  second  causes.  The  great  distin 
guishing  fact  however  was,  that  these  visitations  were 
under  the  control  so  far  of  Moses,  the  avowed  messen 
ger  of  Jehovah,  that  they  followed  upon  his  announce 
ment,  and  were  removed  at  his  request;  and  further, 
that  a  line  of  demarcation  was  drawn  between  the 
Israelites  in  the  district  of  Goshen  and  the  Egyptians, 
and  this  more  particularly  in  the  case  of  so  remarkable 
a  phenomenon  as  the  three  days'  darkness.  Let  the 
foundation  in  nature  for  this  plague  be  as  the  writers 
last  named,  though  with  great  improbability,  maintain, 
the  cJiamsht,  or  hot  wind  of  the  desert,  or  whatever  else 
it  may,  entire  immunity  from  its  effects  by  the  Israelites 
in  the  immediate  neighbourhood,  or.  in  other  words, 
thick  darkness  overshadowing  Kgypt,  with  light  shining 
upon  the  Israelitish  dwellings,  is  a  phenomenon  in 
explicable  on  any  principles  of  meteorology  or  other 
science.  (See  Hawks'  Monuments  of  Egypt,  p.  -'o(i, X.  York,  18.1 1.) 

The  nature  of  these  plagues  is  still  further  illustrated, 
and  their  adaptation  to  the  object  they  were  designed 
to  accomplish,  when  they  are  viewed  in  relation  to  the 
various  forms  of  Egyptian  idolatry.  Although  this 
matter  has  been  pushed  to  an  extravagant  length  by 
Bryant  (Observations  on  tlie  Plagues  inflicted  upon  tlie  Egyp 
tians,  -_'d  ctl.  Loud,  isio),  there  is  undoubtedly  much  truth 
in  his  theory.  His  error  lies  chiefly  in  the  specification 
of  the  several  deities  against  which  the  plagues  were 
directed.  It  is  expressly  stated  that  the  controversy  was 


with  the  gods  of  Egypt.  "  Against  all  the  gods  of  Egypt 
1  will  execute  judgment:  1  am  Jehovah,"  EM.  .\i(.  u;  and 
the  way  in  which  it  was  decided  is  strikingly  testi 
fied,  apart  from  other  considerations,  in  the  impression 
which  the  events  of  the  exodus  produced  on  the  priest  of 
Midiaii.  "Now  know  1  that  Jehovah  is  greater  than 
all  gods:  for  in  the  thing  wherein  they  dealt  proudly  he 
was  above  them."  Ex.  xviii.  n.  But  it  is  not  only  this 
general  bearing  of  the  plagues  that  is  apparent;  the 
specific  application  of  several  of  them  at  least  can  be 
distinctly  discerned.  The  object  of  tlie  first  two — the 
changing  of  the  Nile  water  into  blood  and  the  produc 
tion  of  frogs  by  the  river  — is  exceedingly  significant. 
The  Nile  was  to  the  Egyptians  a  special  object  of 
regard,  and  even  of  worship.  Being  almost  the  only  pot 
able  water  in  Kgypt,  and  besides  being  of  a  most  plea 
sant  description,  the  intimation,  ''the  Egyptians  shall 
loathe  to  drink  of  the  water  of  the  river,"  Ex.  vii.  is,  had 
a  peculiar  force.  The  worship  of  the  Nile  reached  bark 
to  the  earliest  period.  The  monuments  show  the  kings 
presenting  oblations  and  paving  divine  honours  to  the 
river.  A  reference  to  this  worship  is  contained  in  the 
directions  given  to  Moses  to  meet  Pharaoh  as  lie  went 
out  in  the  morning  to  the  water,  Ex.  vii.  i:>;  viii.  i>o.  The 
message  of  Jehovah  was  thus  brought  before  him  as  he 
was  preparing  to  bring  his  daily  offerings  to  his  false 
u'ods.  In  the  second  plague  again,  which  was  closely 
connected  with  the  first,  tlie  river,  which  was  looked 
on  by  the  Egyptians  as  the  source  of  all  their  bless 
ings,  was  converted  into  a  fruitful  parent  of  the  most 
loathsome  creatures:  and  never  was  the  impotency  of 
their  goddess  Heki.  whose  office  it  was  to  drive  away 
the  frogs,  which  were  exceedingly  annoying  even  in 
ordinary  years  (Osburn,  Israel  in  Egypt,  p.  2cu),  more  ap 
parent  than  on  this  occasion,  when  her  interposition 
was  more  than  ever  required.  Of  the  other  plagues  it 
need  only  be  remarked  that  they  were  productive  c  if  much 
personal  suffering  to  the  Egyptians,  and  of  destruction 
to  their  property — against  which  calamities  they  were 
accustomed  to  confide  in  the  protection  of  one  or  other  of 
their  innumerable  deities.  As  Jehovah  had  manifested 
his  absolute  power  over  the  river,  the  land,  and  the 
elements,  he  in  due  time  laid  his  commands  upon  the 
sun,  "  the  father- god  of  the  whole  mythology,  the  dread 
protector  of  the  oldest  and  most  venerated  of  the  cities 
of  Egypt"  (Osburn,  p.  2uo),  and  discharged  it  from  shining 
for  three  days  upon  the  land.  This  completed  the  pre 
liminaries  to  the  last  great  event  —the  death  of  the' 
first-born — a  judgment  in  which  all  the  preceding  inflic 
tions  culminated. 

Enriched  with  the  spoil  of  their  oppressors,  now  glad 
to  be  rid  of  them  011  any  terms,  1's.  cv.  ;ss,  the  Israelites 
commenced  their  journey  under  the  special  protection 
and  guidance  of  God,  the  historian  particularly  noticing 
the  circumstance  of  Moses  taking  the  bones  of  Joseph 
with  him,  Ex.  xiii.  111,  which  thus  served  throughout  their 
wanderings  as  an  additional  pledge  of  their  being  put 
into  possession  of  the  land  through  the  promises,  in  the 
faith  of  which  Joseph  gave  such  instructions  concerning 
the  disposal  of  his  bones.  The  direct  road  to  Palestine 
would  have  led  the  Israelites  through  the  territories  of 
the  Philistines;  but  their  divine  Guide,  in  order  to  spare 
them  the  perils  of  war,  for  which  they  were  at  this  time 
utterly  unprepared,  "  led  them  about  the  way  of  tlie 
wilderness  of  the  Red  Sea,"  ver.  ir,  18.  The  geography 
of  the  exodus  is  too  complicated  and  extensive  a  sub 
ject  to  be  considered  here.  It  may  be  necessary  how- 


EXODTS 


EXODUS,   BOOK  OF 


ever  to  remark,  that  notwithstanding  the  distinct 
specification  of  localities,  which  at  the  time  must 
doubtless  have  been  amply  sufficient  to  identify  their 
position,  and  which  even  now,  in  the  estimate  of  such 
as  are  acquainted  with  the  region,  are  indubitable 
proofs  of  the  accuracy  of  the  narrative,  the  line  of 
march  cannot  be  determined  with  any  certaintv.  This 
arises  in  part  from  the  absence  of  any  definite  informa 
tion  regarding  the  situation  of  Goslien,  where  the 
Israelites  dwelt,  or  of  Rameses.  whence  thev  took  their 
departure,  Ex.  xii.  :IT,  and  partly  from  the  want  of  any 
note  of  the  time  occupied  on  their  journev,  when 
Pharaoh  overtook  them  encamped  by  the  Red  Sea.  It 
is  of  the  more  importance  to  advert  to  the  absence  of 
any  indications  of  time  in  connection  with  this  part  of 
the  journey,  as  Robinson  (Biblical  Ku:,c;»rehL's,  i.  :,i),  assum 
ing  that  "three  days  is  the  longest  interval  which  the 
language  of  the  narrative  allow*,"  makes  this  an  argu 
ment  in  support  of  his  hypothesis  as  to  the  direction  of 
the  journey,  and  consequently  as  to  the  locality  of  the 
passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  Into  the  minute  consideration 
of  this  latter  much-agitated  question,  it  is  unnecessary 
to  enter.  There  are  not.  in  fact,  sufficient  materials  to 
settle  it  one  way  or  another.  That  the  Israelites  crossed 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sue/,  is  the  view  held  by  |;(1. 
binson  (nib.  i>es.  i.  ->\-;,'.rt,  but  he  has  found  an  alilo 
opponent  in  Wilson  (Lands  of  the  liil.lo,  i.  ]>.  H'.i-HVi,  K.lin. 
IMD.  Hut  indeed  the  question  would  have  been  of 
little  importance,  save  for  the  attempts  of  some  writers  to 
divert  it  to  the  purpose  of  redu<'iii'_r  the  miracle  as  much 
as  possible  to  a  natural  level,  by  eliminating  such  diffi 
culties  of  the  case  as  necessitated  recourse  to  other  than 
second  causes,  as  the  agency  of  the  wind  and  an  ebb 
tide.  These  considerations  unquestionably  have  a  -feat 
influence  in  recommending  the  neighbourhood  of  Sue/. 
as  the  scene  of  tin-  passage,  rather  than  any  more 
southern  point,  where  the  greater  depths  of  the  sea  did 
not  so  easily  admit  of  their  being  dried  up  by  natund. 
causes.  Should  the  passage  however  really  have  taken 
place  at  Suez,  the  locality  mv.st  have  undergone  great 
geological  changes  since  that  remarkable  occurrence. 
for  at  present  the  lied  Sea  at  this  point  does  not  at 
all  conform  to  the  conditions  of  the  case  as  laid  down 
in  the  history.  Robinson  indeed  allows  that  anciently  ' 
this  arm  of  the  gulf  was  both  wider  and  deeper:  but 
when  a  width  and  depth  are  found  which  will  corre 
spond  with  the  biblical  narrative,  the  question  may  bo 
regarded  as  settled  so  far  as  concerns  the  miraculous 
character  of  the  transaction. 

The  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  by  the  Israelites,  with 
the  destruction  of  their  pursuers,  completed  the  victor  v 
of  Jehovah,  which  was  celebrated  in  .Moses'  song  of 
thanksgiving  and  triumph,  Kx.  xv.  The  more  immediate 
result  with  respect  to  the  Israelites  themselves  was, 
that  •'  Israel  saw  that  great  work  which  the  Lord  did 
upon  the  Egyptians,  and  the  people  feared  the  Lord, 
and  believed  the  Lord  and  his  servant  Moses,"  EX.  xiv.  31. 
It  was  not,  as  already  observed,  to  secure  any  mere 
secular  deliverance  or  political  privileges  for  the  en 
thralled  seed  of  Abraham,  that  Jehovah  engaged  in 
that  struggle  -with  Pharaoh,  the  conclusion  of  which  is 
here  recorded.  Its  object  was  more  in  accordance  with 
the  nature  of  the  covenant  in  which  it  was  first  an 
nounced,  Ge.  xv.  14,  and  of  the  whole  volume  in  which  it 
is  recorded,  Ex.  :x.  n;;  R,,.  ix.  i:.  Nor  was  it  with  Pharaoh 
in  his  individual  capacity,  or  yet  as  simply  ruler  of 
Egypt,  hut  rather  as  the  representative  of  the  world- 


power,  or  heathenism,  that  this  controversy  was  waged, 
and  for  the  express  purpose  of  morally  and  spiritually 
emancipating  the  covenant-  people  from  that  heathenism 
into  which  they  had  so  deeply  sunk  in  the  land  of  their 
sojourning.  The  form  which  the  controversy  assumed 
was  determined  by  the  circumstances  of  that  particular 
epoch  in  the  evolution  of  the  divine  scheme.  But 
while  it  had  thus  a  special  aspect  as  regards  the  time 
and  the  conditions  then  present,  it  had  still  an  aspect 
to  the  future:  and  so  it  was  that  the  last  of  this  -feat 
1  and  significant  series  of  plagues  -the  death  of  the  iirst- 
.  born  of  the  Egyptians-  led  to  the  institution  of  the 
passover  and  the  dedication  of  the  first-born  of  the 
1  Israelites,  as  representing  the  whole  community,  to  the 
Lord  their  Redeemer,  Xu.  iii.  1:1.  [n.  M.| 

EXODUS,  THE  BOOK  OF.  1.  Name  a,,,!  Con- 
/V/^v-  The  second  1  .....  k  of  the  Pentateuch  is  in  He 
brew  named  as  usual  from  its  first  terms,  jYv;;;'  n^W 

(IiW;Y/e  Mi-  mot  /i),  or  simply  rv":y;  (*hu,n>th)  "And 
these  are  the  names."  or  "  Names:"  but  by  the  LXX. 
.  K£oSos,  or  (I,  jHtrtni-i  .  vi/.  from  Kgypt,  because  of  the 
principal  event  with  which  it  is  occupied,  and  which 
constituted  the  very  birth  of  the  Israelitish  nation  as 
the  chosen  covenant-  people  of  Jehovah. 

The  contents  of  Exodus,  though  not  embracing  such 
a  variety  of  incidents  as  (lenesis,  are  of  a  more  diver 
sified  character,  being  not  merely  historical,  but  also 
and  in  a  greater  part  legislative,  or  concerned  with 
instructions  havim:  all  the  authority  of  law.  for  the 
erection  and  arrangements  of  the  Levitieal  tabernacle 
or  sanctnary--the  visible  centre  of  the  theocratic  life. 
'I'll''  subject-matter  arranged  according  to  historical 
order  forms  three  divisions,  marked  by  the  change  of 
scene  in  and  from  Kuvpt  through  the  Arabian  desert 
to  .Mount  Sinai. 

1.  The  condition  of  Israel  in  Kgypt.  and  the  prepara 
tions  for  their  departure  thence,  di.  i.-xii.  ?,\>  ;  viz.  The 
rapid  increase  of  Jacob's  descendants  gave  occasion  to 
their  oppression  by  the  Egyptian  government,  ch.  i.;  the 
birth  and  remarkable  preservation  of  Moses,  ch.  ii.  i-i<>; 
his  flight  to  and  settlement  in  Arabia,  ch.  ii.  n-22  ;  his 
divine  commission  to  liberate  his  brethren,  ch.  iii.-iv.  2\ 
his  journey  to  Kgypt.  and  the  infliction  of  the  first  nine 
plagues,  ch.  iv.  29-x.  29;  preparation  for  t  lie  exodus;  insti 
tution  of  the  passover,  and  the  conclusion  of  the  plagues, 
oli.  xi.-xii.  :iii. 

'2.  Israel's  march  from  Rameses  to  Mount  Sinai, 
ch.  xii.  :;7-xix.  •_'  ;  vi/.  The  exodus,  ch.  xii.  :;r-  12  ;  specific 
directions  regarding  the  passover  and  the  coirsccration 
of  the  Israelitish  first-  born  to  Jehovah,  oh.  xii.  -m-xiii.  Hi; 
the  line  of  march:  the  pursuit  by  the  Egyptians  and 
their  destruction,  ch.  xiii.  ir-xiv.;  Moses'  song  of  thanks 
giving  for  deliverance  from  the  Egyptians,  ch.  xv  1-21; 
continuation  of  the  journey  from  the  lied  Sea  to  Sinai, 
ch.  xv.  22—  xix.  L'. 

3.  Israel's  abode  in  the  desert,  and  the  promulgation 
of  the  Sinaitic  law,  ch.  xix.  3-xl.;  viz.  Preparations  for 
the  establishment  of  the  theocratic  covenant  by  the 
designation  of  Israel  to  be  a  peculiar  possession  of  Je 
hovah  and  a  kingdom  of  priests,  ch.  xix.  3-2.1;  promulga 
tion  of  the  moral  law,  ch  xx  :  other  fundamental  ordi 
nances  chiefly  of  a  judicial  character,  ch.  xxi.-xxiii  ; 
ratification  of  the  covenant,,  xxiv.  i-ii;  directions  for  the 
construction  of  a  sanctuary  on  Moses  receiving  the 
tallies  of  the  law,  ch.  xxiv.  12-xxxi.  is;  Israel's  apostasy  and 
their  restoration  to  divine  favour  through  Moses'  intei  - 

70 


EXODUS,    HOOK  OF  i 

cession,   cH.  xx.xii.-xxxiv.;  the  people's   offerings   for  and 
the  (•(.instruction  of  the  sanctuary,  ch.  .\xxv.-.\l. 

JI.  Ri-Iat'unt  (//  the  llitiori/  to  that  of  <;,,te*i*. — The 
close  literary  connection  between  the  books  of  Genesis 
and  Exodus  is  clearly  marked  by  the  Hebrew  conjunc 
tive  particle  i  (run),  "and,"  with  which  the  latter 
begins,  and  still  more  by  the  recapitulation  of  the 
names  of  Jacob's  sons  who  accompanied  him  to  Egypt, 
abridged  from  the  fuller  account  in  Gc.  xlvi.  6-17. 
Mill  the  book  of  Exodus  is  not  a  continuation  in  strict 
chronological  sequence-  of  the  preceding  history;  for  a 
\ery  considerable  interval  is  passed  over  in  silence, 
saving  only  the  remark  :  "And  the  children  of  Israel 
were  fruitful  and  increased  abundantly,  and  multiplied, 
and  waxed  exceeding  mighty:  and  the  land  was  tilled 
with  them,''  Kx.  i.  7.  The  pretermission  of  all  that  con 
cerned  Israel  during  this  period  and  their  intercourse 
with  the  Egyptians,  instead  of  being  an  indication,  as 
rationalists  allege.  .,f  the  fragmentary  character  of  the 
Pentateuch,  only  shows  the  sacred  purpose  of  the  his 
tory,  and  that  in  the  plan  of  the  writer,  considerations 
of  a  merely  political  interest  were  entirely  subordinate 
to  the  divine  intentions  already  partially  \mfolded  in 
Genesis,  and  to  be  still  further  developed  in  the  course 
of  the  present  narrative,  regarding  the  national  consti 
tution  of  the  seed  of  Abraham.  The  importance  of 
the  solitary  remark  introduced  relative  to  the  extraor 
dinary  increase  of  the  Israelites,  arises  from  its  being 
viewed  as  the  first  step  towards  the  realization  of  the 
promises  made  to  Abraham  of  a  numerous  progeny  and 
of  territorial  possessions  for  his  seed.  tie.  xiii.  15-17.  The 
observation  was  also  necessary  as  explanatory  of  the 
oppressive  measures  resorted  to  by  the  Egyptian  mon 
arch  for  checking  Israel's  rapid  increase,  but  which,  by 
a  remarkable  providence,  secured  a  fitting  education 
for  the  future  deliverer  and  lawgiver  of  this  oppressed 
people,  Ex.  ii.  ln;comp.  Ac.  vii.  •_'!,  ±J. 

The  formal  diversity  of  the  subject,  arising  from  the 
gradual  and  at  this  stage  distinctly  marked  evolution 
of  the  divine  purposes  concerning  Israel,  gives  to  the 
book  of  Exodus  a  distinct  character  from  Gem-sis.  The 
deliverance  from  Egypt  was  the  commencement  of 
Israel's  political  existence,  and  this  constituted  the  first 
important  epoch  in  the  history  of  Abraham's  seed  as 
distinct  from  that  of  the  individual  patriarchs,  and  the 
merely  personal  and  family  relation.  In  the  history  of 
Jacob  the  individual  had  as  regards  the  promises  been 
developed  into  the  family.  There  was  no  longer  that 
excision  from  the  stem  of  blessing  so  noticeable  hitherto 
in  the  case  of  the  immediate  offspring  both  of  Abraham 
and  Isaac.  And  the  family  again  in  time  grew  into 
a  population  in  Egypt  possessed  of  some  measure  of 
independence  and  self-government,  as  appears  from  the 
mention,  even  after  their  sorest  oppression,  of  "elders" 
of  Israel,  Ex.  iii.  in;  iv.  •><>;  the  heads  and  representatives 
of  tribes  and  families.  While  then  the  history  of 
Genesis  is  chiefly  personal  history  or  biographic  sketcln  -s, 
that  of  Exodus,  on  the  contrary,  is  almost  entirely  of  a 
public  or  national  character,  the  only  exception  being 
with  regard  to  the  deliverer  himself,  whom  God  so 
remarkably  raised  up  and  endowed  for  the  work  in 
trusted  to  him;  but  even  his  personal  history  is  intro 
duced  only  so  far  as  it  served  to  illustrate  that  provi 
dence  which  watched  over  Israel,  Ex.  ii.  1-22;  iii.  i.  The 
genealogy,  too,  of  Moses  and  Aaron  is  subsequently 
introduced,  ch.  vi.  ir>-2fi;  and  inasmuch  as  the  brothers 
belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Levi,  the  third  son  of  Jacob, 


'I  EXODUS,   HOOK  OF 

this  is  preceded  by  a  succinct  genealogy  of  the  two 
elder  sons,  Reuben  and  Simeon,  ver.  11,15.  This  genea 
logy  of  .Moses  and  Aaron  had,  however,  chiefly  in  view 
the  prospective  establishment  of  the  priesthood  in  the 
family  of  the  latter. 

The  circumstance  adverted  to,  however,  gives  to  the 
book  of  Exodus  seemingly  a  more  exclusive  character 
as  occupied  with  the  interests  of  one  community,  and 
with  external  matters  of  a  social  and  political  character 
which  many  deem  unworthy  of  divine  revelation. 
Objections  of  this  kind  overlook  the  special  points  of 
relation  between  this  book  and  Genesis;  one  in  parti 
cular  of  which  is,  that  its  history  is  a  record  of  the 
accomplishment  to  a  certain  extent  of  the  promises 
and  predictions  contained  in  Genesis.  This  has  been 
already  noticed  with  respect  to  the  opening  statement 
of  Exodus  as  to  the  multiplication  of  the  people  in 
Egypt;  but  the  same  principle  may  be  seen  to  pervade 
the  whole  book,  giving  a  particular  form  or  complexion 
as  well  to  its  legislative  enactments  as  to  its  historical 
narration.  I'M  sides  the  intimations  to  Abraham  of  a 
numerous  posterity,  it  was  announced  to  him  that  they 
should  be  afflicted  in  a  strange  country,  whence  tliev 
should  be  delivered  in  the  fourth  generation  with  great 
substance — the  effect  of  a  divine  judgment  upon  their 
oppressors,  Go.  \v.  J:MO.  This  was  realized  at  the  exodus, 
when  "all  the  hosts  of  the  Lord  went  out  from  the 
land  of  Egypt,"  Kx.  xii.  ll;  even  the  very  time  of  the 
deliverance  corresponding,  as  the  historian's  remark 
bears,  to  the  prophetic  announcement.  A  land  also 
had  been  prophetically  assigned  to  the  ransomed 
nation,  and  accordingly  that  part  of  the  history  imme 
diately  following  their  deliverance  from  Egypt  shows 
them  on  their  march  towards  it.  But  the  multiplica 
tion  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  their  deliverance  thence,  and 
their  being  put  into  possession  of  the  Promised  Land, 
were  only  means  to  the  end  expressed  in  the  intimation 
that  they  should  be  blessed  in  themselves  and  prove  a 
blessing  to  others,  GO.  .xii.  -2, 3.  Their  deliverance  from 
Egypt  was  in  order  to  their  entrance  upon  the  service 
of  the  Lord,  Ex.  iv.  i'i;  they  were  his  "hosts,"  ch. xii.  41; 
called  to  some  specific  work  or  warfare  in  connection 
with  the  divine  purposes,  the  nature  of  which  had 
been  already  declared  in  the  call  of  Abraham  and  the 
covenant  made  with  that  patriarch,  and  to  be  more 
fully  intimated  in  the  Sinaitic  covenant, 

Two  conditions  indispensable  to  Israel's  fulfilling  the 
purposes  involved  in  their  calling,  were,  first,  that  as  a 
people  they  should  be  sufficiently  numerous  to  occupy 
the  land  provided  for  them;  and,  secondly,  that  they 
should  be  possessed  of  a  character  fitting  them  for  the 
discharge  of  the  offices  arising  from  this  occupancy. 
For  securing  the  first  of  these  conditions  there  was 
required  time,  during  which  Israel  should  be  kept  in  a 
state  of  isolation  from  the  nations  of  the  earth,  among 
whom,  without  some  extraordinary  protection,  they 
would  certainly  be  lost,  either  by  commingling  or 
through  violence — a  fate  which  Jacob  greatly  feared 
after  the  massacre  of  the  Shechemite,  Ge.  xxxiv.  so. 
Watched  over  however  by  a  divine  providence,  the 
seventy  souls  which  went  down  with  Jacob  into  Egypt 
soon  increased  to  such  a  multitude  as  to  occasion  appre 
hensions  to  the  government  under  which  they  lived; 
the  effect  of  which  was  that  measures  were  resorted  to 
which  served  to  unite  more  strongly  their  family  and 
national  associations,  and  wean  them  from  the  land  of 
their  sojourning,  while  this  numerical  increase  more 


EXODUS,   BOOK  OF  0 

directly  fitted  them  for  taking  possession  of  their  own 
land.  The  multiplication  of  Israel,  and  their  preserva 
tion  as  ji  distinct  and  separate  people,  were  admirably 
secured  by  their  removal  to  Egypt  under  the  circum 
stances  attendant  on  their  migration  thither,  and  by 
their  seclusion  in  the  land  of  Goshen.  The  haughtiness 
which  in  general  distinguished  the  natives  of  Egypt, 
and  particularly  the  contempt  with  which  they  regarded 
foreigners,  especially  those  engaged  like  the  Israelites 
in  pastoral  avocations,  uo.  xlvi.  ;u,  must  have  acted  as  a 
social  hedge  about  the  covenant-people.  So  great  was 
the  estrangement  between  the  Israelites  and  the  Egyp 
tians,  induced  bv  these  and  other  causes,  that  in  two 
distinct  passages  in  the  1'salms.  1's,  l\\xi  .">;  i-xiv.  l,  the 
language  of  Egypt  is  represented,  notwithstanding  their 
ling  residence  in  that  country,  as  unintelligible  to  the 
Israelite's.  I!ut  another  condition  in  this  ease  was  that 
Israel  must  acquire  a  suitable  moral  character.  How 
ever  adapted  Egypt  may  have  been  as  a  nursery  for  the 
multiplication  of  the  si-ed  of  Abraham,  or  tin1  phvsieal 
and  intellectual  growth  of  anv  ordinary  community,  it 
was  unquestionably  a  very  inadequate  school  for  moral 
ami  spiritual  discipline  and  for  advancement  in  theo 
cratic  principles.  So  far  from  supplying  incentives  to 
such  traininu'.  the  very  prosperity  which  attended  the 
earlv  part  of  their  sojourn  in  Egvpt  under  the  protec 
tion  of  Joseph,  mav  have  served  to  make  the  Israelites 
almost  forget  the  I, and  of  Promise,  and  caused  a  con 
tentment  witli  their  condition  which  it  required  severe 

oppression    to    overcome,   while    no    doubt    the    sensuous 

worship  around  them  would  well  nigh  obliterate  the 
faith  and  practice  of  their  pilgrim  fathers.  Hence 
obviously  the  necessity  for  their  subjection  to  the 
coercive  measures  exercised  o\(  r  them,  though  with 
quite  another  view,  bv  the  Egyptian  government,  the 
result  of  which  however  was,  that  thev  were  made  to 
(TV  to  the  Lord  bv  reason  of  their  bondage,  Kx  ii.i':,  and 
rendered  favourably  disposed  to  the  message  brought 
to  them  by  Moses  fr,,ni  the  Lord  Cod  of  their  fathers, 
FA  iii.  i.'ijccimp.  di.  iv. -j.  The  earlier  proffered  interposition 
of  Moses  on  their  In-half  was  found  to  be  premature; 
neither  the  people  nor  their  self-constituted  leader  was 
yet  sufficiently  trained  for  the  service  to  which  thev  were 
respectively  to  be  called.  And  even  when,  after  a  long 
course  of  discipline,  they  left  Egvpt,  there  was  still 
much  needed  for  preparing  the  Israelites  for  their  voca 
tion.  The  wilderness  where  Moses  himself  had  been 
trained  for  his  work,  i-li.  i:i.  1-',  must  furnish  also  to  the 
people  the  discipline  so  inadequately  provided  in  Egypt. 
Accordingly  arrangements  were  made  from  the  very 
first  for  their  temporary  sojourn  there,  eh  ili.  r.';  xiii.  ir; 
while  through  their  obstinacy  and  unbelief  there  was 
subsequently  occasion  for  its  being  greatlv  protracted. 
The  preparation  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness  must  be 
more  however  than  a  merely  negative  one:  and  hence 
the  peculiar  institutions  under  which  thev  were  now  to 
lie  brou^lit. 

The  ends  to  be  answered  by  the  sojourn  of  the  Israel 
ites  in  Egypt  and  in  the  wilderness,  may  thus  be  seen 
to  be  in  fulfilment  of  the  promises  made  to  the  fathers 
— arrangements,  moreover,  betokening  the  nicest  adap 
tation  of  means  to  ends.  Read  with  the  commentary 
furnished  by  the  history  of  Exodus,  the  book  of  Genesis 
acquires  a  new  light:  a  special  providence  is  seen  hold 
ing  all  the  threads  of  primeval  and  patriarchal  life  and 
weaving  them  into  one  grand  tissue.  Even  matters 
which,  at  the  time  of  their  occurrence,  appeared  only 


•J  EXODUS,   ROOK  OF 

as  calamities,  giving  rise  to  such  painful  feelings  as 
once  found  utterance  in  the  complaint  of  .Jacob,  GO.  x'.ii.ao, 
are  seen  to  be  parts  of  a  gracious  administration. 
Jacob  no  doubt,  like  his  sou  -Joseph,  was  brought  to 
discern  this:  but  the  divine  purposes  which  the  latter 
discovered  in  his  own  eventful  experience,  iv.  xlv.  7,  are. 
by  the  further  history  of  Exodus,  placed  in  a  still  more 
striking  light.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  history  of 
Exodus,  when  taken  along  with  the  great  principles 
announced  in  Genesis,  assumes  at  once  its  true  charac 
ter  and  importance.  It  no  longer  appears  confined  to 
the  manumission  of  an  enslaved  people  and  their  forma 
tion  into  a  free  community,  or  to  their  civil  and  other 
temporal  concerns,  but  is  seen  to  embrace  the  spiritual 
interests,  not  simply  of  that  community,  but  of  man 
kind  through  them.  E\vn  more  expressly  than  that  of 
Genesis  is  the  hi-tory  of  Exodus  typical  of  the  future. 

III.  Clutrurttr  ,,f  lit  Lt'ifiglutlmi.  The  purposes  for 
which  Israel  were  set  apart  are  stated  in  Ex.  xix.  l-(i. 
They  were  intended  to  constitute  unto  Clod  "a  peculiar 
treasure  above  («"<  f>forf>'i»n  uniiini/\  all  people."  which 
is  explained  by  their  forming  to  him  "a  kingdom  of 
priests  and  a  Imlv  nation."  A  kingdom  implies  a  king: 
this  must  be  .Jehovah  himself:  for  as  all  the  subjects 
are  priests,  the  king  can  onlv  he  God.  who  assumes 
over  Israel  sovereign  rights  and  duties,  including  the 
supreme  legislation,  the  ordinances  which  govern  the 
community  and  regulate  their  foreign  connections. 
The  object  of  this  arrangement  appears  from  the  nature 
of  the  kingdom  "a  kingdom  of  priests"'  sustaining  a 
mediatorial  relation  between  <  Jod  and  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  as  declared  already  in  the  promises  to  Abraham. 
For  this  .purpose  Israel  is  and  must  lie  "a  holy  nation" 

set  apart  from  the  world  to  God,  who  is  the  absolute 
Holviine.  llolin,  -s  was  a  primary  requisite  in  the 
covenant-people,  I...-.  \i\  i1,  and  t<>  secure  it  was  the  great 
end  of  all  the  theocratic  ordinances  and  arrangements. 
It  is  this  which  imparts  its  peculiar  character  to  the 
Sinaitic  legislation. 

This  legislation,  which  included  civil  as  well  as  reli 
gious  ordinances,  opened  with  the  promulgation  of  the 
moral  law  comprised  in  the  decalogue,  which  was  thus 
made  the  basis  of  Israel's  peculiar  constitution  and 
polity.  This  fact  clearly  intimated  that  thecisil  and 
political  exigencies  of  the  people  were  not  the  only  or 
even  the  chief  object  aimed  at  by  the  theocratic  consti 
tution.  The  Sinaitic  legislation,  though  primarily  in 
tended  to  carry  out  the  external  separation  of  Israel, 
already  to  a  certain  extent  effected  by  the  providential 
arrangements  of  their  history,  and  to  be  further  com 
pleted  bv  their  subsequent  location  in  Canaan,  and  also 
to  secure  their  national  existence  through  the  operation 
of  social  and  civil  ordinances  of  an  equitable  and  con 
servatory  character,  ultimately  aimed  at  their  moral 
and  spiritual  training  as  the  covenant- people,  and  also 
served  to  exhibit  the  truths  implied  in  that  peculiar 
relation  of  a  people  to  Jehovah. 

There  was  this  remarkable  peculiarity  in  the  Mosaic 
legislation,  that  the  religious  enactments  had  a  civil  or 
judicial  sanction,  while  the  civil  bore  also  a  religions 
character.  Transgression  of  a  religious  command  was 
an  oHeiice  against  the  state,  and  contempt  of  a  civil 
ordinance  came  under  the  character  of  sin.  This  arose 
from  the  circumstance-  that  the  proper  Head  of  the 
community  was  God  and  King  in  one  person;  God  re 
vealing  himself  and  acting  as  Israel's  king,  and  the 
1  king  revealing  himself  and  acting  as  God.  This  priu- 


EXODUS.  BOOK  OF 


EXODUS.  BOOK  OF 


ciple,  however  strange  to,  and  indeed  incompatible  with, 
ordinary  legislation,  was  indispensable  to  the  purposes  of 
the  theocracy,  immediately  and  directly  intended  as  it 
was  to  build  up  a  community,  numerous  indeed,  but  of 
recent  growth,  and  which,  instead  of  enjoying  the 
hlc,>.-ings  of  freedom,  had  been  long  subjected  to  all  the 
deteriorating  influences  of  a  crushing  slavery-  -a  com 
munity  that  was  to  be  at  once  peculiarly  blessed  itself, 
and  made  the  channel  of  exercising  a  blessed  influence 
on  mankind.  But  while  the  civil  laws  and  ordinances. 
as  well  as  those  of  a  more  religious  character,  given  to 
Israel,  were  immediately  intended  for  the  condition  of 
things  attendant  on  the  present  wants  of  the  people, 
they  had  still  a  typical  or  spiritual  aspect  and  a  refer 
ence  to  the  future.  Several  of  these  enactments  exhi 
bited  in  practice  great  principles  of  government,  which, 
however  they  may  vary  in  form  according  to  the  pecu 
liar  circumstances  of  a  people,  are  essentially  of  univer 
sal  application  in  promoting  the  great  end  of  God  with 
respect  to  man.  It  is  because  all  these  ordinances 
were  variously  operating  for  the  same  ends,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  draw  a  rigid  distinction  between  what  is 
strictlv  civil  and  the  sacred  or  ceremonial  in  the  Mosaic 
system.  Even  the  properly  moral,  though  essentially 
distinct,  does  not  occupy  a  place  apart  from  and  inde 
pendent  of  the  rest,  (hi  the  contrary ,  the  various  en 
actments  form  one  complex  whole,  having  one  basis — 
the  covenant  into  which  God  entered  with  his  people, 
and  one  object  -  the  realizing  of  the  provisions  of  the 
covenant  ;  and  hence  the  terms  in  which  the  fair  is 
spoken  of  in  the  Xew  Testament,  so  various  and  ap 
parently  contradictory,  but  onlv  so  from  disregarding 
the  aspect  in  which  it  is  viewed. 

These  considerations  serve  to  vindicate  the  large 
space  and  the  great  importance  given,  in  what  purports 
to  be  a  revelation  from  God,  to  matters  of  a  direct  civil 
character,  and  seemingly  to  such  unimportant  details 
as  the  specifications  for  the  structure  and  furnishings 
of  the  tabernacle;  all  of  which  in  other  circumstances, 
and  with  no  ulterior  object  beyond  the  mere  regulation 
of  the  affairs  of  a  community,  might  have  been  left  to 
be  supplied  by  the  ordinary  methods  of  administration, 
without  requiring  to  be  established  under  divine  sanc 
tion.  The  whole  matter,  however,  assumes  a  different 
aspect  when  the  ordinances,  even  the  most  seemingly 
trivial,  are  found  to  be,  like  the  history  in  which  they 
are  inclosed,  fraught  with  great  principles  of  eternal 
truth. 

IV.  Genuineness  and  (.'rcdilitHty, — The  "document- 
hypothesis,"  which  with  the  view  of  disproving  the 
unity,  and  consequently  the  genuineness,  of  the  Penta 
teuch,  has  been  so  largely  applied  to  the  book  of  Genesis, 
is,  on  the  admission  of  these  critics  themselves,  incap 
able  of  producing  such  decided  results  in  the  ca.se  of 
Exodus,  inasmuch  as  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the 
theory — the  interchange  of  the  divine  names — ceases 
to  be  such  after  Ex.  iii.,  when  it  is  alleged  the  name 
Jehovah  was  first  introduced.  However,  from  some 
supposed  diversities  in  the  character  of  the  legislation, 
some  places  indicating  a  priestly  bias,  and  others  more 
the  features  of  the  prophetic  order,  and  from  various 
alleged  contradictions  in  the  narrative,  some  substitute 
is  found  in  support  of  the  disintegrating  criticism. 
Some  particulars,  for  instance,  in  the  account  of  the 
commission  given  to  Moses  for  the  deliverance  of  his 
brethren,  present  to  Knobel — a  quite  recent  writer  on 
this  book — such  discrepancies  as  should  have  led  him 


to  suspect  the  soundness  of  his'own  theory,  rather  than 
refer  them  to  the  contradictory  accounts  of  writers  so 
related  as  his  scheme  assumes.  A  bare  statement  of 
some  of  these  discrepancies  will  show  that  they  have 
no  reality,  and  serve  as  a  sufficient  refutation  of  the 
theory  to  which  they  owe  their  origin.  Thus  it  is  alleged 
that  the  place,  according  to  the  original  narrative,  where 
God  first  appeared  to  Moses  was  Egypt;  God  making 
himself  known  as  Jehovah,  that  being  the  first  intima 
tion  of  the  name,  Kx.  vi.  2.  Another  account,  it  is 
further  alleged,  places  the  scene  at  Horeb,  ch.  iii.L',  God 
appearing  as  the  God  of  the  patriarchs,  \ur.o,  and  de 
claring  his  name  .iehovah.  ver.14;  while  a  third  makes 
Midian  the  scene  of  the  interview,  ch.  iv.  I'.i.  These 
assumptions  require  no  refutation.  It  need  only  be 
remarked  that  the  name  Jehovah  in  ch.  vi.  2  necessarily 
presupposes  the  explanation  given  of  it  in  ch.  iii.  14. 
Further,  Moses'  abode  in  Midian,  and  connection  with 
Jethro,  were  matters.  Knobel  affirms,  quite  unknown 
to  the  older  writer,  while  his  statement  that  Moses 
was  eighty  years  old  when  he  appeared  before  Pharaoh, 
di.  vii.  7,is  declared  irreconcilable  with  the  supplementary 
narrative  which  represents  him  as  a  young  man  at  the 
time  of  his  flight  from  Egypt,  ch.  ii.  n,  and  a  son  by 
Zipporah,  whom  he  married  jirolidlil ij  on  his  arrival  in 
Midian.  is  still  young  when  he  returned  to  E^vpt. 
ch.iv.2t', 25;  xviii.  2.  There  call  be  no  question  that  from 
Moses"  leaving  Egypt  till  his  return  thither  a  consider 
able  time  elapsed.  It  is  stated  in  Ex.  ii.  '2-'>  as  "many 
•  lays/'  and  by  Stephen.  Ac.  vii.. 'in,  as  forty  years.  But  it  is 
not  necessary  to  suppose  that  his  abode  in  Midiaii  ex 
tended  over  the  whole  of  that  period.  The  expression 
i'tf'i  (uayyeshev),  "he  sat  down."  or  settled,  Ex.  ii.  i:., 

may  only  point  to  Midian  as  the  end  of  his  wanderings  ; 
or  if  otherwise,  his  marriage  need  not  have  followed 
immediately  on  his  arrival,  or  there  may  have  been  a, 
considerable  interval  between  the  birth  of  his  two  sons. 
The  silence  indeed  of  this  part  of  the  narrative  regard 
ing  the  birth  of  the  second  son  may  possibly  be  refer- 
rible  to  this  circumstance,  more  probably  indicated 
however  by  the  different  feelings  of  the  father  as  ex 
pressed  in  the  names  Gershom  and  Eliezcr,  ch.  ii.  22; 
.\\iii.4.  The  order  of  these  names  is  perplexing  to  ex 
positors  who  conceive  that  the  first  thoughts  of  the 
fugitive  would  have  been  thankfulness  for  his  safety, 
and  that  only  afterwards  would  spring  up  the  feelings 
of  exile.  But  if  the  name  Eliezer  was  bestowed  in 
connection  with  the  preparation  to  return  to  Egypt, 
and  particularly  with  the  intimation  "all  the  men  are 
dead  which  sought  thy  life,"  ch.iv.  in,  the  whole  is  strik- 
iiif'lv  consistent.  Another  instance  of  the  alleged 

.—    ,  O 

discrepancies  is  that,  according  to  one  account,  Moses' 
reception  from  his  brethren  was  very  discouraging, 
ch.  vi.O;  whereas  the  other  narrative  describes  it  as  quite 
the  reverse,  ch.  iv.  m.  l)e  Wette  calls  this  a  striking 
contradiction  ;  but  it  is  only  such  when  the  intermediate 
section,  ch.v.  19-2:!,  which  shows  the  change  that  in  the 
interval  had  occurred  in  the  prospects  of  the  Israelites, 
is  violently  ejected  from  the  narrative — a  process  fitted 
to  produce  contradictions  in  any  composition. 

The  only  alleged  anachronism  of  importance  in  this 
book  is  the  remark  relative  to  the  continuance  of  the 
manna,  ch.  xvi.  3;.,  which  would  seem  to  extend  it  beyond 
the  time  of  Moses,  particularly  when  compared  with 
Jos.  v.  11,  12,  according  to  which  the  manna  ceased 
not  until  after  the  passage  of  the  Jordan.  But,  as  re- 


EXODUS,   BOOK  01? 


KYET; 


marked  by  Hengstenberg,  it  is  not  of  the  cessation  of 
the  manna  that  the  historian  here  writes,  but  of  its 
continuance.  Besides.  "  forty  years  "  must  be  taken 
as  a  round  number:  for  the  manna,  strictly  speaking, 
lasted  about  one  month  less.  ch.  xvi.  i.  On  the  other 
hand,  so  far  from  furnishing  evidence  of  a  later  date, 
this  and  the  later  bonks  of  the  Pentateuch  exhibit 
even  more  than  (Genesis  the  most  marked  traces  of 
having  been  written  in  the  wilderness  after  the  de 
parture  from  Egypt,  and  by  one  who  was  an  eye-witness 
of,  and  a  chief  agent  in  the  matters  recorded  :  in  other 
words,  no  other  than  the  lawgiver  himself.  (>'«.-  Pi:.\- 
TATEl'CH.)  Further,  there  are  in  these  circumstances, 
as  indicating  a  case  of  contemporaneous  history,  ad 
ditional  evidences  of  the  credibility  of  the  narrative. 
As  in  the  bonk  <>f  ( leiiesis.  there  is  the  same  intimate 
acquaintance  with  Egypt,  where  the  scene  of  the  history 
opens,  and  not  less  so  with  the  Arabian  desert,  to  which 
it  is  afterwards  transferred.  Hut  a  more  direct  testi 
mony  than  the  monuments  of  Kgypt  are  the  Hebrew, 
monuments  themselves,  commemorative  of  the  exodus 
and  its  concomitant-.  These  monuments,  though  not 
of  a  material  character,  were  as  permanent  as.  and  still 
more  expressive  than,  some  of  the  most  solid  structures 
erected  to  commemorate  the  threat  events  in  a  nation's 
history.  The  regular  observance  of  commemorative 
ordinances  by  the  whole  Israelitisli  community,  par 
ticularly  when  conjoined  with  the  oral  instruction  whieh 
parents  were  directed  to  impart  on  such  occasions  to 
their  children,  l>e.  vi.  L'",  \c.  was  pre-eminently  of  this 
description.  <  >f  these  standing  ordinances  the  most 
important  was  unquestionably  the  passover.  instituted 
as  a  memorial  of  the  exodus,  and  the  very  birth  of 
the  nation.  Kx.  x;i . -ji;.  -jr.  There  were  other  commeino-  ' 
rative  ordinances,  but  the  next  perhaps  in  importance 
to  the  passover  was  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  a  me 
morial  of  the  sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  i.e.  xxiii.  rj,  4::. 
Could  any  monuments  better  subserve  the  purpose  con 
templated  than  these  animal  celebrations  and  reunions 
of  tribes  and  families  at  the  national  sanctuary—  the 
centre  of  all  authority,  civil  and  sacred'  Nothing 
indeed  could  have  been  better  adapted  for  the  conser 
vation  of  the  national  unity  and  traditions,  and  for 
perpetuating  the  remembrance  of  the  great  incidents  in 
the  nation's  history. 

V.  Chronology. — The  chief  point  of  difficulty  in  con-  ' 

nection  with  the  notes  of  time  contained  in   this  1 k 

is  the  period  assigned,  Ex.  \ii.  M,  as  that  of  the  sojourn 
of  Israel  in   Egypt;  but  with   regard  to  this,  see   the  \ 
article  CHRONOI.OCY.     The  whole  period  embraced  in  ! 
the  book  itself  can  only  be  approximately  determined.  ! 
On  the  supposition  made  in  the  article  referred  to,  that 
Levi  was  three  years  older  than  Joseph,  he  must  have  ' 
outlived  the  latter  24  years,  Oe.  1.  2.',  -K\,  eomn.  with  Kx.vi.  in,  ' 
and    that    Jochebed    was    4".    at  the    birth   of   Moses, 
and  supposing  she  had  been  born  even  in  the  last  year 
of  her  father  Levi.  the  utmost  limit  between  the  death 
of  Joseph   and   Moses'  birth  would   thus   lie  (59  years.  ;' 
From  the  birth  of  Moses  to  the  departure  from  Egypt 
there  were  SO  years,  with  the  additional  time  spent  in 
treating  with   Pharaoh:   and   from  the   exodus   to  the 
erection  of  the  tabernacle  1  year,  in  all  about  1;"0  years 
as  the  period  comprised  in  this  book. 

[Lilii-titi'.i-f. — In  addition  to  the  works  eiiihracin;,'  the  whole 
or  greater  part  of  the  Pentateuch,  the  following  are  the  inure 
important  on  Kxoihis  : — I.ippoinanus,  Catena  in  Exotlttm  ex 
aticforibus  eccltfia.tticia  (Paris,  !.">((;  Lugcl.  ir,'jT):  Pcrerins 
(Soc.  Jes.),  Di*jfut«tiont*  in  Ejcmlum  (Ingolst.  1(501);  Willet, 


ll>xa,.l«,  or  Si.f/,,1,1.   0-Mimentarie   UJ.OH   Esodu*  (Lund.    100S); 

Rivet,  C;mmc,ita,-ii  i/i -£*«£?«»»,  oi>erai.(Rotterd.  KiOl);  Hartsma, 
us  id  sacrum  lib.-u,,,  lU<,t_l,<.,a  (Franc.  1771);  Bush, 
|  JWt.<t,  Critical  inul  Practical,  on  tl,f  li-ok  of  Radius  (New  York! 

1S41);    Kali^eh.   Historical  ami  Critical  Commentary  on  the  Old 

TfstaiiKht—Ejcuilt'i  (Loud.  lsj'>);  Knulvl,  Dec  llllchn-  AWt-s 
'  u,id  Lti-ilicus  erkliirt  (Leiy.  ISj~;).]  [i>.  M.J 

EXORCISM,  the  formal  ejection  of  evil  spirits  from 
the  subjects  possessed  by  them:  and  the  persons  who 
claimed  or  exercised  the  power  of  doing  so  were  called 
KxnitnsTs.  Among  the  heathen  the  professed  exercise 
of  such  a  power  was  connected  with  incantations  and 
magical  arts  of  various  kinds:  and  it  would  appear  that 

.  among  the  Jews  of  the  apostolic  a^e.  it  was  sometimes 
found  in  a  similar  connection.  The  Jewish  exorcists 
mentioned  in  Ac.  xix.  1:1,  were  evidently  pretenders  of 
that  description-  "  vagabond  Jews."  as  they  are  called, 
"who  took  upon  them  to  call  over  those  who  had 
evil  spirits,  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus"  -trading 
upon  a  profession  they  had.  no  right  to  make,  and.  re- 

,  ccivini;  the  due  reward  of  their  hypocrisy.  Joscphus 
records  instances  of  a  similar  kind,  and  speaks  of  the 
roots  and  names  used  for  expelling  the  evil  spirits  (Ant 
viii.2,5;  Wars.vii  ii,:il.  (  (tiler  cases,  however,  are  noticed, 
in  which  the  power  of  exorcising  seems  to  have  been 
more  legitimately  put  forth,  and  to  have  been  attended 
with  the  desired  result.  When  charged  liv  the  Phari 
sees  \vith  casting  out  devils  bv  P.eel/.ehnb,  our  Lord 
a-ked  them,  by  whom.  then,  did  their  own  sons  cast  them 
out'  Mat.  \ii  -_'7  implying  that  such  a  power,  though 
probably  restrained  within  very  narrow  limits,  and  de 
pendent  on  special  acts  of  fasting  and  prayer,  was  in 
actual  operation.  A  case  is  aNo  mentioned  in  which 
Christ  granted  it  to  a  person,  who,  for  some  reason 
unexplained,  stood  aloof  from  the  company  of  his  dis 
ciples.  I.n.  i\  i;i.  J '.ut  such  were  to  be  regarded  as  some 
what  exceptional  and  peculiar  cases;  and  it  is  only  in 
Christ  himself,  and  his  immediate  disciples,  that  the 
power  discovered  itself  in  its  proper  vigour.  (Ste 

!  (KMOMACS.) 

Ill  process  of  time  ^towards  the  end  of  the  third  cen 
tury)  an  ordi  r  of  exorcists  was  established  in  the 
Christian  church,  which  contributed  materially  to  pro 
mote  the  growth  of  superstition,  and  led  to  much  fraud 
and  imposture.  The  practice  also  of  a  form  of  exor 
cism  was  introduced  into  the  administration  of  baptism, 
on  the  ground,  that  as  every  one  previous  to  baptism 
was  in  bondage  to  the  devil,  so  lie  must  at  baptism  lie 
formally  released  from  the  evil  spirit,  and  be  made  to 
receive  the  good.  The  priest  therefore  was  instructed 
to  breathe  thrice  upon  the  face  of  the  subject  of  baptism, 
and  to  say.  Depart  from  him,  foul  spirit,  and  give  place 
to  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Paraclete.  Then  followed  an 
other  breathing  upon  the  face,  with  the  words.  Receive 
the  Holy  Spirit  through  this  same  breathing  and  the 
blessing  of  ( !od.  The  order  still  stands  so  in  the  Latin 
ritual.  The  Lutherans  adopted  substantially  the  same 
practice,  and  it  continued  for  long  to  be  a  characteristic 
badge  of  the  Lutheran,  as  contradistinguished  from  the 
Calvinistic  or  Reformed  church.  But  eminent  Lutheran 
theologians  began  to  treat  it  as  a  matter  of  indifference, 
and  it  ultimately  fell  into  general  disuse. 

EYES.  OR  EYELIDS.  PAINTINC  OK  THE.  This 
is  an  ancient  oriental  practice,  which  was  known  to 
the  Hebrews,  and  is  occasionally  referred  to  in  Scrip 
ture.  Jezebel  is  spoken  of  as  ''painting  her  eyes" 
(not  face,  as  in  the  English  version)  before  she  pre 
sented  herself  in  public,  '.'Ki.  ix.  :;o;  and  the  painting  of 


EYES 


KZEK1EL 


the  eyes,  or,  as  .Jeremiah  puts  it,  renting  the  eyes  with 
painting,  is  mentioned  among  the  things  by  which 
women  sought  to  win  admiration  of  their  persons,  Jo 
iv.  30;  Eze.  xxiii.  -H  it  is  one  of  those  practices  which, 
however  peculiar  and  confined  to  particular  localities, 
have  yet  succeeded  in  maintaining  through  all  vicissi 
tudes;  their  hold  to  the  present  time.  The  modern 
Egyptian  females  still  retain  the  use  of  dyeing  mate 
rials  for  their  eyes.  Speaking  of  the  general  beauty  of 
their  eyes,  .Mr.  Lane  savs.  "Their  charming  effect  is 
much  heightened  by  the  concealment  of  the  other 
features  (however  pleasing  the 
latter  may  be),  and  is  rendered 
still  more  striking  by  a  practice, 
universal  among  the  females  of 
the  higher  and  middle  classes, 
and  very  common  among  those  [255.1  * 

of    the    lower    orders,    which    is 

blackening  the  edge  of  the  eyelids,  both  above  and 
below  the  eyes,  with  a  black  powder  called  h»lil.  This 
is  a  collyrium,  commonly  composed  of  the  smoke- 
black  which  is  produced  by  burning  a  kind  of  liban— 
an  aromatic  resin— a  species  of  frankincense,  used.  T  am 
told,  in  preference  to  the  better  kind  of  frankincense, 
as  being  cheaper  and  equally  good  for  this  purpose. 


[25tx]        Muk-huahs  and  Mirweds.  -  Lane's  Modern  TCsjjT'tians. 

Kohl  is  also  prepared  of  the  smoke-black  produced  by 
burning  the  shells  of  almonds.  These  two  kinds,  though 
believed  to  be  beneficial  to  the  eyes,  are  used  merely  for 
ornament;  but  there  are  several  kinds  used  for  their 
real  or  supposed  medical  properties:  particularly  the 
powder  of  several  kinds  of  lead-ore;  to  which  are  often 


[257. ]        Ancient  Egyptian  Vessels  for  holding  Kohl,  and 
Instruments  used  in  applying  it. — From  specimens  in  British  Museum. 

added  sarcocolla,  long-pepper,  sugar-candy,  fine  dust  of 
a  Venetian  sequin,  and  sometimes  powdered  pearls. 
Antimony,  it  is  said,  was  formerly  used  for  painting 

*  An  Eye  ornamented  with  Kohl. — Lane's  Modern  Egyptians. 


the  edges  of  the  eyelids.  The  kohl  is  applied  with  a 
small  probe  of  wood,  ivory,  or  silver,  tapering  towards 
the  end  but  blunt :  this  is  moistened  sometimes  with 
rose-water,  then  dipped  in  the  powder,  and  drawn  along 
the  edges  of  the  eyelids  ;  it  is  called  minced,  and  the 
glass  vessel  in  which  the  kohl  is  kept  muk-huah. 

''The  custom  of  thus  ornamenting  the  eyes  prevailed 
among  both  sexes  in  Egypt  in  very  ancient  times:  this 
is  shown  by  the;  sculptures  and  paintings  in  the  temples 
and  tombs  of  this  country:  and  kohl- vessels,  with  the 
probes,  and  even  with  the  remains  of  the  black  powder, 
have  often  been  found  in  the  ancient  tombs. 

•'  But  in  many  cases  the  ancient 
mode  of  ornamenting  with  the  kohl 
was     a    little     different    from    the 
modern,  as  shown  by  the  subjoined 
sketch  ;  .1   have,  however,  seen  this 
ancient  mode  practised  in  the  present 
day   in    the    neighbourhood   of    Cairo,    though   I   only 
remember  to  have  noticed   it  in  two  instances.     The 
same  custom,"   he  adds,  "existed  among  the  ancient 
(Jreek   ladies,  and  among  the  Jewish  women  in  early 
times"    (Modem  K^yptKins,  vol.  i.  ch.  1;  see  also  Wilkinson,  An 
cient  Egyptians,  vol.  iii.  \>.  >.:). 

EZE'KIEL  \<iml  xlndl  ^renr/ilic-ii},  one  of  the  three 
oreator  .lewish  prophets,  and  the  prophet  more  especially 
of  the  captivity.  \Ve  know  nothing  of  him  except  in 
connection  with  his  prophetical  agency  —  the  only 
scriptural  notices  of  his  life,  and  the  only  certain  in 
formation  respecting  it,  which  we  possess,  being  found 
in  the  different  headings  of  his  own  prophecies.  From 
these  we  learn  that  he  was  a  priest,  the  son  of  Buzi, 
and  that  he  entered  on  his  calling  as  a  prophet  by  the 
river  Chebar,  or  Chaboras,  in  the  fifth  year  of  .Jehoia- 
chiii's  captivity,  cli.i.l,  which,  by  comparing  another 
passage,  we  perceive  to  have  been  that  also  of  his  own. 
el),  xxxiii.  21.  Josephus  furnishes  the  additional  testimony 
from  tradition,  that  he  was  a  young  man  at  the  period 
of  his  captivity.  AVhat  his  precise  age  may  have  been, 
however,  cannot  be  certainly  determined  —  unless 
another  date  given  for  the  commencement  of  his  pro 
phetical  career  be  understood  of  his  own  period  of  life. 
He  says  it  was  "in  the  thirtieth  year"  that  the  word 
of  the  Lord  first  came  to  him;  and  if  by  this  were 
meant  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  life,  then  having  been 
already  five  years  a  captive,  his  captivity  must  have 
commenced  when  he  was  twenty-five  years  of  age. 
But  it  has  been  doubted,  and  indeed  by  later  com 
mentators  most  commonly  disbelieved,  that  the  date  in 
question  refers  to  his  age  as  a  man,  on  the  ground, 
more  espociallv.  of  its  being  unusual  for  the  prophets  to 
connect  their  predictions  with  the  time  of  life  at  which 
they  were  uttered,  and  of  the  quite  general  manner 
in  which  the  year  in  question  is  mentioned.  This  last 
reason,  however,  seems  to  apply  equally  to  any  other 
era  that  can  lie  thought  of,  as  is  evident  from  the 
diversity  that  appears  among  commentators  in  regard 
to  the  one  that  should  be  preferred.  Some  would  date 
the  thirty  years  from  the  eighteenth  of  Josiah,  when 
with  the' finding  of  the  book  of  the  law  in  the  temple  a 
kind  of  public  reformation  began ;  so  the  Chahiee, 
Jerome,  Theodoret,  Grotius,  Havernick,  &c.  Others 
would  connect  it  with  the  Nabopolassarian  era,  which 
!  was  coeval  with  the  reign  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  father, 
or  the  Chaldean  dynasty:  so  Pradus,  Scaliger,  Peri- 
*  An  Eve  and  Eyebrow  ornamented  with  Kohl,  as  represented 
in  ancient  Egyptian  paintings. 


EZEKIEL 


55  y 


EZEKIEL 


zonius,  Michaelis.  Rosenmiiller,  Ewald.  But  neither 
of  these  events  stands  out  so  prominently,  or  had  so 
distinct  a  bearing  on  God's  future  communications  to 
his  people,  that  on  the  bare  mention  in  them  of  a  cer 
tain  year  any  one  should  have  thought  of  specifically 
connecting  it  with  the  one  or  the  other.  Nothing 
similar  to  this  can  he  pointed  to  in  any  of  the  other 
prophetical  writings.  And  though  it  be  true  that  it 
was  not  usual  to  mention  the  particular  year  of  a 
prophet's  life  when  he  received  divine  communications, 
yet  it  is  not  quite  unusual  to  connect  them  with  the 
relative  age  of  the  prophet:  as  in  the  case  of  the 
young  child  Samuel,  the  stripling  Daniel,  the  aged 
Hiiieon  and  Anna.  1  Sa.  iii.;  Da.  ii.;  Lu.  11.  :>.».  Jf  Ezekiel, 
therefore,  had  here  indicated  tile  precise  period  of  his 
life  at  which  he  entered  on  his  prophetical  calling,  it 
would  only  have  been  goin_-  a  little  farther  in  the  same 
direction,  than  was  followed  in  other  instances. 

.Besides,  the  case  of  E/ekiel  was  somewhat  peculiar: 
and  in  that  peculiarity  we  may  perhaps  find  an  intel 
ligible  reason  why  he  should  have  notified  the  thirtieth 
year,  as  that  on  which  he  began  to  see  the  visions  of 
(MII!.  Jt  is  as  •'  K/.ekiel  the  priest,"  eli.i.:>,  that  he  re 
ports  himself  to  have  seen  these:  and  as  the  Lcvites, 
so  by  inference  the  priests,  were  wont  to  enter  on 
their  duty  of  service  at  the  temple  in  their  thirtieth 
year.  Now,  as  in  the  absence  of  the  temple  at  Jeru 
salem,  the  Lord  promised  that  he  should  himself  be  a 
sanctuary  to  the  believing  portion  of  the  exiles  mi  the 
banks  of  the  Chebar,  ch.  xi  i>;,  si 
of  his  supernatural  revelations, 
room  of  the  ministering  prie>th< 
they  were  to  seek  the  law  of  the  I 
so,  would  find  God  even  nearer 
should  have  done  amid  the  corruptions  of  the  temple- 
service  at  Jerusalem.  "  It  seems,  therefore,  to  have 
been  the  intention  of  the  prophet,  by  designating 
himself  so  expressly  a  priest,  and  a  priest  that  hail 
reached  his  thirtieth  year,  to  represent  bis  prophetic 
agency  to  his  exiled  countrymen  as  a  kind  of  priestly 
service,  to  which  he  was  divinely  called  at  the  usual 
period  of  life.  And  then  the  opening  vUion,  which 
revealed  a  present  God  enthroned  above  the  cherubim, 
came  as  the  formal  institution  of  that  ideal  temple,  in 
connection  with  which  he  was  to  minister  in  things 
pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  seems  chiefly 
from  overlooking  this  distinctive  character  and  design 
of  Ezekiel's  agency  as  a  prophet,  that  the  difficulty 
respecting  the  thirtieth  year  has  been  experienced. 
The  prophet  wished  to  mark  at  the  outset  the  priestly 
relation  in  which  he  stood  both  to  God  and  to  the 
people.  And  thus  also  the  end  corresponds  with  the 
beginning:  for  it  is  as  a  priest  delineating  the  rise  of 
a  new  and  more  glorious  temple,  that  he  chiefly  un 
folds  the  prospect  of  a  revived  and  flourishing  condition 
to  the  remnant  of  spiritual  \voi shippers  among  whom 
he  laboured''  (Fail-bairn's  Ezekiel,  ]..  LT, ;  see  also  Hengsten- 
berg's  Christology,  iii.  p.  1.) 

It  seems,  then,  everyway  probable,  that  Ezekiel 
was  twenty-five  years  old  when  he  was  carried  captive, 
along  with  Jehoiachin  and  multitudes  of  his  country 
men,  to  the  territory  of  Babylon,  and  that  at  the  age 
of  thirty  he  was  by  the  call  and  revelations  of  God 
raised  from  a  priest  to  a  prophet,  but  a  prophet  that  lie 
might  thereby  do  priestly  service.  How  long  he  con 
tinued  in  the  discharge  of  this  high  service  we  cannot 
precisely  tell ;  but  one  of  his  later  prophecies  is  dated  in 


the  twenty-seventh  year  of  his  captivity,  ch.  xxix.  ir,  which 
presents  him  to  our  view  as  active  in  the  discharge  of 
his  prophetical  function  when  turned  of  fifty.  But 
this  was  probably  not  the  latest  of  his  communications  ; 
several  prophecies,  at  least,  are  given  after  it.  and  pro 
bably  in  part  came  later,  containing  the  messages  of 
comfort  and  consolation  he  had  to  address  to  the 
covenant-people  after  the  desolation  of  Jerusalem. 
Over  how  many  years  these  later  revelations  may  have 
been  spread  we  cannot  tell;  nor  is  the  interval  varied 
by  the  relation  of  any  incidents  in  his  history.  So  that 
the  later  as  well  as  the  earlier  period  of  his  career  is 
alike  shrouded  in  obscurity. 

Far.  removed  as  K/.ekiel  was  from  the  land  of  his 
birth,  and  plying  in  his  new  sphere  of  action  a  kind  of 
independent  agency,  he  yet  stood  in  a  close  relation  to 
the  remnant  that  was  still  left  in.ludca,  and  even  to 
the  prophetical  ministry  exercised  there  by  Jeremiah. 
Portions  of  his  writings  cannot  be  properly  understood 
without  bearing  this  in  mind.  One  of  the  reigning 
delusions  about  the  time  when  K/ekiel  hc^an  his  public 
ministry,  both  at  Jerusalem  and  on  the  banks  of  the 
(iii-bar,  was  that  the  calamities  which  had  come  upon 
the  hoiiseof  David  and  the  people  of  Judah  would  soon 
come  to  an  end,  and  that  not  onlv  would  Jerusalem  be 
spared,  but  that  those  who  had  already  gone  from  it 
into  captivity  should  shortly  be  allowed  to  return.  False 
prophets  encouraged  this  delusion  in  Judea.  and  thev 
did  not  want  their  associates  among  the  exiled  com 
munity  on  the  ('bebar.  .Jeremiah  strove  to  dissipate 
it;  and  in  do'm^  so.  is  particularly  noticed  as  having  sent 
a  letter  to  the  exiles  iii  Babylonia,  iii  which  he  warned 
them  against  believing  the  false  prophets  who  held  out 
tlatterinu'  hope >  of  their  speedy  and  certain  return  to 
.Judea.  assured  them  that  there  should  be  no  return  till 
the  period  iif  seventy  years  had  been  accomplished  in 
their  captivity,  and  exhorted  them  to  submit  them 
selves  to  the  hand  of  G,,<1,  and  to  seek  him  with  all 
their  hearts,  i-h.  xxix.  It  was  in  the  fourth  year  of 
Zedekiah's  reign,  which  coincided  with  that  of  Jehoia- 
chin's  captivity,  that  this  letter  was  sent;  and  so  con 
trary  was  its  tenor  to  the  spirit  of  the  captives  who 
received  it.  that  one  of  them  wrote  back  to  the  high- 
priest  in  Jerusalem,  complaining  in  the  strongest  terms 
of  its  statements,  and  even  that  such  an  one  as  Jeremiah 
should  be  allowed  to  go  at  large,  Jc.  xxix.  L'l-2*.  It  was 
this  state  of  things,  and  these  transactions  in  particular, 
which  formed  the  immediate  occasion  of  E/.ekiel's  call 
to  the  prophetical  ofiiee.  Hence  it  took  place  very 
shortly  after,  in  the  fifth  year  of  the  captivity,  and  the 
record  of  it  commences  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of 
an  interrupted  narrative,  w  ith  the  historical  formula, 
"And  it  came  to  pass,''  ..ve.  *  'n  this  account,  also, 
the  whole  of  the  earlier  part  of  his  prophecies,  to  the 
close  of  ch.  xxiv..  is  predominantly  of  a  severe,  crimina 
tory,  and  threatening  character,  having  for  its  main 
object  the  exposure  of  the  hypocrisies  and  delusions 
which  reigned  alike  in  Jerusalem  and  Ghaldea,  and  the 
announcement  of  the  yet  greater  judgments  and  deso 
lations  which  were  to  be  sent  upon  the  land  of  the 
covenant,  and  through  which  alone  the  path  lay  to  a 
brighter  future. 

In  this  part  of  his  prophetical  writings  and  labours 
Ezekiel  appears  as  an  energetic,  earnest,  spiritually- 
devoted  man,  wrestling  with  the  evils  of  the  time,  and 
more  intent  on  vindicating  the  righteousness  of  God 
than  hopeful  of  meanwhile  prevailing  against  the  tide 


EZEKIKL 


EZKKIEL 


of  human  apostasy.  A  darker  night,  he  well  foresaw, 
must  come  before  the  break  of  a  new  day.  But  such 
a  day  he  also  from  the  first  descried,  and  frequently, 


new  phase  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  More  than  any 
other  individual  lie  may  he  regarded  as  the  founder  of 
the  syiiagogal  worship,  which  so  materially  modified 


throughout  this  gloomier  portion  of  his  writings,  gives  that  of  the  temple,  and  proved  of  incalculable  moment 

distinct  intimation  of  the  good  that  was  in  store  for  the  in  respect  to  the  maintenance  and  propagation  of  the 

covenant-people,   Cm-  example,  oh.  i.  LN;    xi.  l<i,  scq.;  xvii.  •>-l--2\,  true  knowledge  of  God. 

kc.      When  the  worst  actually  came,  and  everything  in  J       The  writings  of  Kxekiel  fall  quite  naturally  into  two 

which  they  trusted  was  at  last  laid  in  ruin,  with  equal  great  divisions,  the  first  being  chiefly  conversant  with 

earnestness   Ezekiel  turned  his   energies  into  the  new  (  sin  and   judgment,    primarily   as  connected    with    the 

direction  in  which  they  were  now  required,  and  by  his  ,  covenant-people,   but   including   also,    in  several  most 

nobly -reliant  faith,  and  life-like  exhibitions  of  the  mercy  characteristic   discourses,   the   state  and  doom   of  the 

and  grace  yet  to  be  revealed,  he  rallied  the   scattered  surrounding  nations,  cli.  i.-xxxii.;  the  second  disclosing 

forces  of  tlie  covenant,  and  mightily  strengthened  them  j  in  a  series  of  revelations  the  purpose  of  mercy,  which 


to  encourage  themselves  in  (iod.      In  both  respects  he 
proved  a  true  Ezekiel,  himself  strengthened  by  G< 


was  yet  destined  to  be  fulfilled  in  behalf  of  the  people 
of  (.iod.  and  the  state  of  ultimate  perfection  to  which 
and  in  turn  strengthening  others;  "  a,  man,"  as  justly  j  the  divine  kingdom  should  be  raised,  ch.  xxxiii.-xKm. 
described  by  Ilengstenberg,  "  who  lifted  up  his  voice  When  looked  into  more  closely,  they  fall  into  various 
like  a  trumpet,  and  declared  to  Israel  their  sins;  whose  smaller  divisions,  which  are  most  naturally  formed  hv 
word  fell  like  a  hammer  upon  all  the  pleasant  dreams  |  the  headings  written  by  the  prophet  himself,  and  indi- 
and  projects  in  which  they  had  indulged,  and  ground  :  eating  the  respective  periods  of  the  successive  revela- 
them  to  powder:  whose  wh»le  appearance  furnished  the  tions.  These  art.-  altogether  eight,  and  they  appear  for 
strongest  proof  that  the  Lord  was  still  among  his  people;  the  most  part  to  have  been  arranged  in  the  order  of 
who  was  himself  a  temple  of  the  Lord,  before  whom  the  time.  The  closing  series,  however,  occupying  the  last 
so-called  temple  at  Jerusalem,  which  was  still  allosved  nine  chapters,  and  embracing  the  vision  of  the  temple, 
to  stand  for  a  season,  sunk  into  its  proper  nonentity —  :  was  in  point  of  time  earlier  than  at  least  one  of  the 
a  spiritual  Samson,  who  grasped  with  his  powerful  arm  I  preceding  revelations — that  recorded  in  ch.  xxix.  17, 
the  pillars  of  the  idol  temple  and  cast  them  to  the  j  seq..  the  former  belonging  to  the  twenty-fifth,  the  latter 
ground — a  strong  gigantic  nature,  tilted  on  that  very  '  to  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  the  captivity:  and  it 
account  to  struggle  successfully  against  the  Babylonish  is  quite  probable  that  the  temple- vision  was  put  last, 
spirit  of  the  age,  which  revelled  in  such  tilings  as  were  ]  both  from  its  own  peculiar  character,  and  as  forming 
strong,  gigantic,  and  grotesque — standing  alone,  yet  ;  by  itself  a  complete  whole,  though  several  of  the  coin- 
equal  to  a  hundred  pupils  from  the  schools  of  the  pro-  munications  placed  before  it  may  actually  have  been 
phets  "  (christology,  iii.  3).  imparted  at  a  later  period. 

The  writings  of  Ezekiel  contain  undoubted  evidence  There  is  a  striking  individuality  in  Ezekiel' s  writings, 
that  his  spiritual  labours  were  not  in  vain.  The  people  the  reflex  of  his  native  cast  of  mind,  as  operated  on  by 
who  had  the  more  immediate  benefit  of  them  were  the  adverse  circumstances  of  the  time,  and  the  high 
indeed  in  a  degenerate  state;  they  are  described  as  a  calling  he  had  to  fulfil.  In  his  case,  as  in  that  of  other 
rebellious  people,  among  whom  lie  should  have  to  dwell  inspired  men,  the  Spirit  of  (iod  did  not  violently  con- 
as  among  thorns  and  scorpions,  ch.  ii.  n,  7;  yet  there  were  trol,  but  graciously  adapted  itself  to  the  mental  peculi- 
better  elements  intermixing  with  the  evil,  and  a  pointed  arities  of  the  prophet,  and  gave  these  such  an  impulse 
contrast  is  even  drf.wn  by  Jeremiah  between  them  and  and  direction  as  was  needed  for  the  work  he  had  to  do. 
those  who  still  remained  in  Jerusalem,  cli.  xxiv.  In  proof  Here  there  were  peculiarities  greater  than  usual,  both 
of  this  the  elders  of  the  community  often  appear  before  ,  in  the  work  to  be  done  and  in  the  man  who  had  to  do  it. 
Ezekiel,  waiting  to  hear  what  communication  he  had  |  He  was  like  one  standing  in  the  midst  of  falling  pillars, 
received  from  the  Lord,  eh.  viii.  i;  x\.  i.  And  by  the  shaking  foundations,  and  ultimately  smoking  ruins,  and 


time  of  the  release  from  Babylon,  which  could  scarcely 
be  more  than  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  after  the  close 
of  his  labours,  and  no  doubt  in  a  good  degree  owing  to 


had  to  summon  all  his  strength  to  prevent  the  evil  from 
reaching  a  hopeless  consummation.  Impression,  there 
fore,  was  what  he  most  of  all  sought  to  produce;  his 


the  character  and  success  of  these,  a  greatly  improved  •  aim  was  to  awaken,  to  arouse,  to  give  life  and  reality 
spirit  discovered  itself  in  the  remnant  that  came  back,  to  the  great  objects  of  faith,  and  clothe  them  to  men's 
and  the  Jews  generally  of  the  dispersion  now  took  a  view,  as  it  were,  with  the  attributes  of  flesh  and  blood, 
marked  rise  in  their  spiritual  position.  From  that  time  To  this  end  the  distinctive  properties  of  his  mind  were 
they  became  less  dependent  upon  the  ceremonialism  of  rendered  by  the  Spirit  of  God  eminently  subservient; 
the  temple  and  its  ritual  services,  and  approached  for  his  vivid  imagination,  his  realistic  nature,  his  en- 
nearer  to  the  condition  of  a  people  worshipping  God  in  thusiastic  temperament,  resolute  and  active  energy, 
spirit.  The  conviction  grew  upon  their  minds  that  God  when  baptized  with  heavenly  fire  and  made  conversant 
could  be  acceptably  served  in  any  land,  and  that  his  •  with  the  visions  of  God,  gave  a  wonderful  force  and 
law  could  be  maintained  in  its  substance  while  many  of  vividness  to  the  things  he  delineated,  and  pressed  on 
its  forms  had  to  fall  into  abeyance.  This  freer  spirit,  .  the  consciences  of  men.  The  ideal  in  his  hands  became 
forming,  as  it  did,  an  internal  development  of  Judaism,  '  like  the  real;  prophecy  took  the  form  of  history;  the 
and  an  important  preparation  for  the  dispensation  of  symbols  of  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God 
the  gospel,  required  the  impulse  and  sanction  of  divinely  ]  seemed  to  merge  into  the  things  themselves.  These 
inspired  men  for  its  commencement.  It  found  such  peculiarities  in  the  writings  of  Ezekiel,  which  only 
partly  in  Daniel  and  his  circle,  who.  in  the  very  midst  of  I  rendered  them  the  more  adapted  to  their  immediate 
heathen  abominations,  adhered  steadfastly  to  the  belief  ,  purpose,  necessarily  give  rise  to  certain  difficulties  of 
and  worship  of  Jehovah;  but  in  Ezekiel,  at  once  a  priest  j  interpretation,  which  led  the  rabbins  to  issue  the  fool- 
and  a  prophet,  it  had  its  more  distinct  institution  as  a  j  ish  prohibition,  that  no  one  should  read  them  till  he 


EZION-C.EBER 

had  passed  his  thirtieth  year,  but  which  undoubted! v 
require  to  be  handled  with  much  care  and  discrimination. 
In  regard  to  commentaries,  one  of  the  earliest,  and 
certainly  the  most  voluminous,  is  that  of  the  two 
Spanish  Jesuits,  Pradus  and  Villalpandus,  150(!,  which 
however,  as  a  commentary,  is  not  complete,  by  much 
the  greater  part  being  occupied  with  interminable  dis 
cussions  in  regard  to  the  measurements  and  construction 
of  the  temple.  Even  in  the  exegetical  part  it  is  chiefly 
valuable  as  a  repertory  of  the  opinions  of  the  fathers 
(who  could  not  find  their  way  to  much  that  is  peculiar 
in  Ezekieh,  and  to  laud  it  still,  as  is  verv  often  done 
in  catalogues,  as  ';  the  best  commentary  on  Ezekiel  that 
was  ever  written,"  is  simply  absurd.  It  is  no  doubt  an 
old  Jesuit  eulogium,  first  pronounced  probablv  two 
centuries  ago  or  more,  which  continues  to  be  repeated 
by  interested  booksellers,  and  such  critics  as  are  more 
conversant  with  catalogues  than  'hooks.  Calvin's  com 
mentary,  though  it  extends  only  to  the  first  twenty 
chapters,  and  is  not  by  any  means  the  happiest  speci 
men  of  his  exegetical  powers,  is  yet  of  more  value, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  than  the  more  laboured  tomes  of  Pra 
dus  and  Villalpandus.  The  commentary  of  Creenhill. 
like  many  of  the  Puritan  expositions,  is  tedious  and 
prolix,  and  is  rather  a  collection  of  common-places  on 
the  prophet  than  a  serviceable  exposition.  Xeweome's 
translation  and  notes  proceed  too  much  on  the  principle 
of  altering  the  text  and  received  meanings  of  words  in 
difficult  passages;  so  also  do  the  productions  of  Ewald 
and  llity.i'_r,  though  on  many  points  they  may  both  be 
consulted  with  advantage.  P,y  much  the  best  foreign 
commentator  on  Ex.eki,-!  is  undoubtedly  Hiivcniick 
(1S-13);  and  the  latest  English  commentaries  are  those 
of  Dr.  E.  Henderson  and  of  J  )r.  Fairhairn  <:!d  ed.  1SG2) 
EZION-GE'BER  [probably,  „  man'*  harl-l.nm],  a 
very  ancient  town  on  the  eastern  arm  of  the  ],Yd  Sea. 
The  Israelites  made  it  one  of  their  halting-places.  Nn 
xxxiii  :;:,;  and  in  much  later  times,  when  Solomon  turned 
his  attention  to  commerce,  it  was  from  that  port  that 
hi;  sent  his  fleet  to  Ophir,  i  Ki.  i\.  L',;.  It  seems  to  have 
remained  fora  considerable  time  in  the  hands  of  tin- 
kings  (,f  Judah.  or  at  least  accessible  to  them,  for  Jeho- 
shaphat  also  used  it  as  a  port.  1  Ki.  xxii.  i::  but  from  his 
improper  alliance  with  the  house  of  Aha!)  he  met  with 
disaster  in  his  commercial  enterprise,  .lo-ephus  states 
that  the  place  afterwards  received  the  name  of  Berenice 
(Ant.  vui.  (i,  41.  No  modern  travellers  have  found  anv 
traces  of  the  city,  and  as  it  lay  near  to  Elath,  some 
have  supposed  that  it  m:iv  have  been  its  seaport. 

EZ'NITE.  THE  [probably  the  fiwnr\.  an  epithet 
given  to  Adino,  one  of  David's  chief  captains,  in  :>  Sa. 
xxiii.  8;  hut  the  passage  is  a  very  obscure  one,  and 
probably  to  some  extent  corrupted.  (See  Ces.  T/,cs. 

E'ZRA.  BOOK  OF.     This  contains  the  account  of 
the   return   of  the  Jews   from  Babylon,  after  that  citv 
had  been  taken  by  Cyrus  king  of  Persia:  and  it  touches 
on    the   difficulties  which  the   people  had   to   encounter 
under  succeeding  Persian  moiiarchs,  until  tin;   temple  : 
was   completely  rebuilt   in   the   sixth   year   of   Darius.  I 
From    this   event    a  sudden    transition    is  made    to  the 
seventh  year  of  king  Artaxerxes.  when  Ezra  the  scribe- 
was  commissioned   by  the  king  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  '< 
and  restore  the  framework  of  the;  Jewish  polity  -an 
undertaking  which  he  accomplished  even  to  the  extent  i 
of  restoring  the  original  Mosaic  law  of  marriage;  and 
the  hook  concludes  with  a  list  of  those  who  put  away  ) 

VOL.  I. 


EZRA.  BOOK  OF 

their  heathen  wives  of  forbidden  nations.  The  belief 
of  the  Jewish  authorities,  without  any  known  exception 
or  hesitation,  was  that  Ezra  himself  composed  the  book 
which  bears  his  name.  And  there  is  no  sufficient 
reason  for  questioning  this  traditionary  belief,  since  it 
is  scarcely  denied  by  any  one  that  Ezra  wrote  a  part, 
nor  is  there  any  evidence  against  the  unity  of  the  com 
position,  or  any  difficulty  which  stands  in  the  way  of 
assigning  it  to  the  age  of  Ezra.  Both  of  these  state 
ments  will  be  more  fully  explained  in  the  course  of  this 
article.  But  the  mn'ti/  and  the  rum/Ji  (t  n, .-«  of  the  book 
have  been  alike  assailed,  on  certain  internal  grounds, 
which  have  not  appeared  satisfactory  to  those  who  are 
accustomed  to  treat  the  Scriptures  with  proper  rever 
ence,  or  even  impartiality.  By  taking  a  view  of  the 
subjects  treated  in  the  book,  we  may  easily  observe  the' 
plan  of  it,  and  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  it  is  one 
whole;  that  is  to  say.  it  is  neither  a  fragment  of  a  larger 
historical  work,  as  some  writers  affirm,  nor  a  collection 
of  unconnected  fragments,  according  to  the  assertion 
of  others.  It  is  not  indeed  a  connected  history,  such 
as  classical  or  modern  historians  might  have  given:  but 
tlu-  same  may  be  said  of  the  history  in  the  Pentateuch, 
the  books  of  Joshua,  Judges,  &e.,  whose  unity  has 
been  denied  for  equally  inadequate  reasons.  But,  like 
them,  it  i..  the  record  of  Cod's  dealing  with  the  Israel 
ites  as  his  church  and  people,  so  that  many  civil  and 
political  details  are  passed  over  in  silence,  while  tin- 
writer  dwells  on  other  point-;  which  might  seem  of  sub 
sidiary  importance  according  to  a  mere  earthly  standard. 

The  course  of  events  recorded  ill  these  tell  chapters  ap 
pears  to  lie  as  follows:  First,  the  decree  of  king  Cyrus, 
putting  an  end  to  the  Babylonish  captivity,  and  in- 
Mructing  the  returning  Israelites  to  rebuild  the  temple 
and  restore  tin-  wor.-hip  of  Jehovah,  cli.  i.  Second, 
the  consequent  proceedings  of  the  people,  cli.  ii.  iii. 
Third,  the  hinderanees  to  which  they  wen.-  exposed  by 
the  jealousy  of  the  Persian  government,  stimulated  as 
this  was  by  the  hatred  of  the  neighbours  of  the  Jews, 
until  Darius  discovered  the  original  decree  of  Cyrus. 
and  confirmed  and  extended  it,  so  that  the  temple  was 
fully  rebuilt,  and  the  worship  restored  according  to  the 
law,  eh.  iv.  v.  vi.  Fourth,  the  mission  of  Ezra,  who  was 
both  a  priest  and  a  scribe,  who  \\as  empowered  by  king 
Artaxerxes  not  only  to  maintain  the  prescribed  worship, 
but.  greatly  more  than  that,  to  restore  the  entire  theo 
cratic  administration,  only  reserving  the  temporal  supre 
macy  of  the  Persian  monarchy,  cli.  vii.  viii.  And,  lastly, 
the  reconstruction  of  this  theocratic  state,  which  Kzra 
effected  so  completely,  that  he  carried  the  people  with 
him  in  remodelling  the  family  relations  by  the  law 
against  intermarriage  with  certain  races,  ch.  i\.  x. 

This  is  a  n, //////,  !<•  narrative  in  itself;  and  there  is  no 
room  for  the  hypothesis  that  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and 
Nehemiah,  taken  together,  form  one  great  historical 
work.  Three  arguments  for  this  hypothesis  arc  of  no 
weight  in  themselves  for  establishing  the  conclusion; 
and  in  so  far  as  they  are  fair  statements  of  fact,  they 
are  willingly  put  forward  by  us  as  circumstances  worthy 
of  consideration  in  themselves,  and  apart  from  the 
illogical  purpose  to  which  they  have  been  applied. 
1.  The  three  books  have  a  large  number  of  words  and 
phrases  in  common,  which  are  not  met  with  at  all,  or 
at  least  frequently,  in  other  parts  of  Scripture.  This 
agrees  well  with  their  composition  at  a  new  epoch  in 
the  history  of  the  Hebrew  nation  and  its  literature,  by 
men  who  had  been  brought  up  in  the  land  of  Assyria 

71 


EZRA,   BOOK  OF 

or  Babylon,  perhaps  brought  up  together  at  the  same 
Persian   court;    Ezra   and  Nehemiah  being  also  most 
intimate   friends  and   fellow-workers.     The   opinion  is 
also    probable    that    the   Chronicles  were  compiled  by 
Kzra,  as   well    as  the    book    to  which  his    own    name 
has  been  given.      '2.  There  is  a  predilection  for  genea 
logical  details  running  through  all  these  books.     This 
seems  to  have  been  characteristic   of  the  age;   and  it 
was  probably  necessary,  considering  the  efforts  to  re 
store   the  old  arrangements  as   to  the  holding  of  pro 
perty,  the  administration  of  government,  and  the  pre 
servation  of  ancient  national  feeling,  all  of  which  objects 
were   likely  to   force   genealogical   questions   upon  the 
notice  of  men.     3.  There  is  a  similar  prominence  given 
to  details  about  the  priests  and  Levites.     This  is  un 
avoidable   in  any  treatment   of   the  people   of  Israel, 
unless   their  character  as   the  church  of  God  is  to   be 
overlooked.       And  especially,   in  whatever  proportion 
there  were  difficulties  felt  as  to  the  revival  of  the  more 
political  aspects  of  the  theocracy,  in  that  same  propor 
tion  must  the  greater  attention  have  been  given  to  its 
ecclesiastical  arrangements.     But  those  who  are  ready 
to  suspect  that  all  these  accounts  are  to  be  treated  by 
the  true  critic  as  if  they  really  formed  one  single  book 
of  history,  shut  their  eyes  to  the  positive  and  unmis-  ! 
takeable  evidences  of   their  existence  in  independent 
integrity.     For,  whereas   the  rash  assertion  has  been 
made    that  Chronicles  and   Ezra  at   first  formed    one 
book,  because  Chronicles  end  with  the  two  verses  with 
which  Ezra  begins;  the  contrary  inference  would  really 
be  more  fairly  deducible   from  the  facts  of  the  case. 
How  else   do  we  account  for  the  words  occurring  in 
both  these  books,  and  in  each  of  them  appropriately, 
so  that  they  cannot  be  awanting  in  either  without  dis 
advantage?     How  should  the  Chronicles  end  with  a 
word  which  is  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  in  Ezra? 
And  how  came  it  that  there  are  variations  of  a  word  or 
two  between  the  passages,  if  we  venture  on  the  hypo 
thetical  allegation  that  some  transcriber  was  so  intent 
upon  his  work  as  to  write  on  under  Chronicles,  from  an 
undivided  copy,  the  sentences  which  he  was  going  to 
put  at  the  head  of  what  he  called  the  book  of  Ezra, 
according  to   the   innovation  which  was  coming  into 
favour  in  his  time  '?     Again,  as  the  commencement  of 
the  book  of  Ezra  is  thus  marked  off  quite  distinctly 
from  the  termination  of  the  books  of  Chronicles,  so  also 
the  termination  of  the  book  of  Ezra  is  distinctly  marked 
by  the  accomplishment  of  his  spiritual  and  moral  re 
forms,    which    were    achieved    when   the    people   had 
' '  made    an  end,"  ch.  x.  17,  of    the  terrible  act  of  self- 
sacrifice   implied  in  their  divorces.       We  might  even 
conjecture  that  there  was   some  revulsion  of  feeling 
after  this  strongest  of  all  possible  acts  in  the  direction 
of  reviving  the  theocracy;  and  that  from  that  time  for 
ward  Ezra  would  have  been  less  suitable  as  the  chief 
instrument  for  carrying  out  the  purposes  of  God.     His 
moral  and  spiritual  worth  was  approved  to  the  utmost; 
but  in  order  to  lead  on  the  people  with  effect,  a  new 
and  popular  agent  was  raised  up  in  the  person  of  Israel's 
great  political  benefactor,  Nehemiah.     And  while  he 
secured  the  co-operation  of  Ezra  in  all  things  belonging 
to  the  domain  of  the  Word  of  God,  No.  viii.,  he  himself, 
in  his  official  capacity  as  civil  governor,  and  with  his 
personal  influence  as  at  once  the  favourite  of  the  king 
and  the  wealthy  friend  of  the  people,  was  designated 
as  the  fitting  person  for  completing  the  work  of  restora 
tion,  by  rebuilding  the  walls  of  the  city,  and  by  actu- 


EZRA,  BOOK  OF 

ally  executing  those  political"  improvements  for  which 
the  pre- requisite  of  liberty  had  been  granted  when 
Ezra  was  sent  to  his  countrymen.  Accordingly,  the 
book  of  Nehemiah  has  a  title  of  its  own,  "The  words 
of  Nehemiah  the  son  of  Hachaliah,"  by  which  its  in 
dependent  character  is  asserted.  And  the  fact  placed 
in  opposition  to  this,  that  the  Jews  reckoned  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  to  be  but  a  single  book,  is  not  to  be  put  on 
an  equality  with  the  testimony  of  the  Scripture  itself, 
especially  as  the  Jews  seem  to  have  thrown  certain  books 
into  one  in  other  cases  besides  this  (the  minor  prophets, 
and  not  improbably  the  two  (.if  Samuel,  the  two  of 
Kings,  the  two  of  Chronicles,  and  Judges  with  liutlO, 
where  the  similarity  of  the  subject  admitted,  so  as  to 
reduce  the  number  of  books  in  their  canon  to  twenty- 
two,  answering  to  the  number  of  letters  in  their  alphabet. 
We  therefore  reject  the  fancied  want  of  completeness, 
as  if  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah  were  three  frag 
ments  of  one  great  historical  work,  though  we  make  110 
secret  of  the  intimate  relation  in  which  they  stand  to 
one  another;  so  intimate,  that  if  any  choose  to  assert 
that  they  might  have  eventually  been  blended  into  one 
by  succeeding  inspired  writers,  had  any  such  arisen,  in 
the  same  way  as  writings  of  earlier  men  of  God  were 
blended  into  the  present  books  of  Kings,  we  shall  not 
quarrel  with  such  a  hypothetical  statement. 

But  we  equally  reject  the  fancy  that  there  is  a  want 
of  unity,  and  that  the  book  is  a  cluster  of  fragments. 
Two  reasons  have  been  alleged  for  this  fancy,  on  ac 
count  of  the  style.  The  one  of  these  is  the  occurrence 
of  two  portions  in  the  Chaldee  language,  ch.  iv.  s-vi.  is 
and  ch.  vii.  12-20.  The  other  is  a  variation  in  the  use  of 
the  first  and  the  third  person  in  speaking  of  Ezra.  The 
first  person  is  used  in  a  long  passage,  ch.  vii  27-ix.  15,  and 
on  the  strength  of  this  fact,  these  verses  are  allowed 
bv  all  to  have  proceeded  from  the  pen  of  Ezra;  whereas 
the  rest  of  the  book  is  attributed  to  other  writers,  be 
cause  the  first  person  is  not  used  in  them  when  speaking 
of  him.  But  though  these  two  facts  are  curious,  they 
have  no  force  to  prove  that  there  were  more  authors 
than  one.  Probably  the  Jewish  language  had  sunk 
into  partial  disuse  and  decay  among  the  captives  at 
Babylon,  and  among  their  descendants  who  remained 
out  of  Palestine  for  eighty  years  more,  until  the  time 
of  Ezra.  He  was  therefore  equally  ready  in  using  the 
Chaldee  spoken  in  the  land  of  his  captivity,  and  the 
Hebrew  of  his  forefathers;  yet  in  that  Hebrew  there 
are  variations  of  spelling  within  the  book  itself,  arguing 
the  decayed  and  unsettled  state  of  the  language.  And 
on  this  account  he  was  all  the  more  likely  to  preserve 
,  the  Chaldee  in  those  portions  in  which  he  embodied 
extracts  from  state  documents,  or  the  very  documents 
themselves,  which  he  found  in  that  language.  This  is 
precisely  the  character  of  the  two  Chaldee  passages; 
and  as  the  second  is  attributed  to  Ezra  by  able  men 
who  are  sceptical  in  their  view  of  the  book  as  a  whole, 
we  may  the  more  positively  assert,  without  listening  to 
petty  reasonings,  that  the  first  of  these  passages  is  also 
his  composition.  Some  indeed  have  alleged  that  this 
first  passage  is  written  by  an  eye-witness  of  the  build 
ing,  probably  a  Jew  who  took  part  in  it,  on  account  of 
the' expression,  ch.  v.  4,  "Then  said  we  unto  them  after 
this  manner,  What  are  the  names  of  the  men  that  make 
this  building?"  But  this  is  a  narrow  basis  on  which  to 
rest  their  opinion.  And  the  peculiarity  of  the  first 
person  "we,"  instead  of  the  third  person  "they,"'  is 
not  unlike  another  case  in  the  same  passage,  ch.  vi.  o, 


KZUA.  BOOK  OF 


EZRA,  BOOK  OF 


"  Now  therefore,  Tutnai,  governor  beyond  the  river, 
Shethar-boznai,  and  thdr  companions,  &e.,  be  ye  far 
from  thence;"  where  we  might  expect,  instead  of  the 
third  person  "their."'  the  second  "your"— a  change 
which  has  actually  been  made  by  our  translators.  If 
we  are  to  have  recourse  to  speculations,  it  would  not 
be  a  violent  supposition  that  either  the  Chaldee  per 
mitted  such  irregularities  of  construction,  or  that  it 
was  a  peculiarity  in  Ezra's  own  style  of  writing,  iu  that 
unsteady  age  of  Hebrew  literature;  and  either  form  of 
this  supposition  would  go  so  far  to  account  for  that 
variation  of  writing,  which  is  the  only  plausible  indi 
cation  of  a  want  of  unity  in  the  book,  namely,  the  use, 
in  one  connection,  of  the  first  person,  and  in  another 
connection  of  the  third  person,  in  speaking  of  Ezra 
himself.  Vet  the  importance  of  this  variation  has  been 
much  exaggerated.  The  first  six  chapters  refer  to  a 
period  before  E/ra's  age.  in  which  lie  could  not  be 
mentioned  at  all.  The  seventh  chapter,  proceeding  in 
the  same  historical  style  as  the  foregoing  chapters, 
names  him  for  the  first  time  in  the  third  person.  I'.ut 
after  the  decree  of  Artaxerxes  has  been  given,  in  full 
form  and  in  the  original  language,  Ezra  returns  to  his 
own  Hebrew,  and  here  betakes  himself  to  the  first  per 
son  in  liis  ascription  of  praise  to  Cod  for  thus  directing 
the  king's  inclinations  and  resolutions.  From  this  time 
lie  preserves  the  first  person,  in  the  passage  admitted 
by  every  one  to  be  his  own  composition,  and  which 
describes  his  own  great  actions,  until  the  tenth  chapter, 
in  which  the  third  person  is  perhaps  intentionally  re 
sumed,  to  indicate  that  it  is  now  less  a  narrative  of  per 
sonal  actings  than  a  history  of  a  national  proceeding, 
in  which  he  merely  took  his  position  alongside  of  others 
who  were  aiming  at  a  great  revival.  Parallel  passages 
have  been  given  from  sacred  writers  who  at  one  time 
narrate  events  and  mention  themselves  in  the  third 
pel-son,  but  who  pass  into  the  use  of  the  first  person,  as 
their  own  feelings  and  actings  become  more  prominent. 
Objection  has  been  indeed  taken  to  some  of  these,  as  if 
the  freeness  of  prophetic  style  could  lie  no  rule  for  a 
prose  work  such  as  this:  but  these  objections,  at  the 
very  utmost,  cannot  destroy  the  value  of  such  parallels 
as  Is.  vii.  l-lij  and  ch.viii.  1,  &c.;  or  .Ie.  xx.  1 -f>  and 
ver.  7,  &c. ;  or  .)e.  xxviii.  1,  \c.,  and  ver.  /»,  &c.  To 
this  argumentation  Keil  properly  adds,  that  the  acknow 
ledged  writing  of  Ezra,  eh.  vii.  '27  -ix.  1/5,  would  be  an 
unmeaning  fragment  unless  preceded  by  something 
such  as  eh.  vii.  1-11,  and  followed  bv  something  such 
as  ch.  x.  Perhaps  we  ought  to  say  that  this  varying 
use  of  the  first  and  third  person,  which  we  find  in 
Daniel,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah,  is  a  usage  which  all  these 
writers  adopted,  following  the  example  of  Moses,  who 
puts  his  own  personality  forward  only  in  the  recapitu 
lations  of  Deuteronomy. 

Of  course  there  is  a  subordinate  question  which  may 
be  discussed  among  those  who  hold  the  unity  of  the 
book  as  proceeding  from  the  pen  of  Ezra,  namely  this, 
whether  or  not  he  made  use  of  previously  existing 
written  documents,  and  wrought  them  up  into  his  own 
book.  This  must  be  supposed  in  the  instance  of  the 
list  of  persons  who  returned  to  Jerusalem  with  Zerub- 
babel,  ch.  ii  ;  a  list  which  we  find  also  in  Nehemiah,  and 
which  he  expressly  declares  to  be  a  register  that  lie 
found  and  incorporated  with  his  own  memoirs,  No.  vii.  5. 
This  is  also  the  case  with  the  edict  of  Artaxerxes,  the 
second  Chaldee  portion,  ch.  vii.  i-.'-2G;  and  with  the  letters 
and  royal  decrees  in  the  first  Chaldee  portion,  ch.  iv.  s- 


vi.  is.  Some  believing  critics  take  this  entire  Chaldee 
section  to  be  a  document  of  the  age  of  Zerubbabel  in- 
:  serted  by  Ezra.  If  so,  we  must  assume  that  he  altered 
it  so  far  to  suit  his  own  purpose,  since  he  inserts  the 
name  of  king  Artaxerxes  after  the  other  kings  who  had 
been  benefactors  to  the  builders  of  the  temple,  ch.  vi.  14, 
though  Artaxerxes  did  not  begin  to  reign  till  fifty  vears 
after  the  temple  was  completed.  But  probably  this 
kings  name  was  here  mentioned  bv  him  so  a.s  to  show 
the  connection  between  the  first  six  chapters  of  the 
book,  which  relate  the  building  of  the  temple  under 
Cyrus  and  Darius,  with  the  continued  and  increasing- 
welfare  of  the  colony  under  Artaxerxes,  at  that  later 
time  to  which  he  passed  immediately  in  the  sleuth 
chapter;  his  own  thanksgiving,  "  Hlessed  be  the  Lord 
(!od  of  our  fathers,  which  hath  put  such  a  thing  as  this 
in  the  king's  heart,  /•<  l»autifii  the  Incise  <>f  the  L«rd 
a-hl<-h  If  ui  ./ov.-Wr/;),''  &c.,  ch.  vii.  27,  is  proof  of  the 
close  connection  which  he  recognized  between  the  policv 
of  this  king  and  that  of  his  predecessors.  And  in  like 
manner,  when  he  says,  ch.  ix.  :>.  "  For  we  were  bondmen, 
yet  our  Cod  bath  not  forsaken  us  in  our  bondage,  but 
hath  extended  mercy  unto  us  in  the  sight  of  the  khi"> 
of  Persia,  to  give  us  a  reviving,  to  set  up  the  house  of 
our  Cod,  and  to  repair  the  desolations  thereof,  unit  to 
</i re  >  ix  «  <i-i(/l  /a  Jin/'t/i  ami  in  J<  /•».<«/<  ///,"  he  seems  to 
allude  to  what  was  still  needful  to  the  fulfilment  of 
Cod's  revealed  purpose  of  mercy,  that  building  of  the 
wall  which  Nehemiah  was  to  effect. 

There  are  one  or  two  differences  of  stvle  alleged  to 
exist  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  chapters,  and 
these  are  cited  as  proofs  of  diflereiit  authorship.  I!ut 
they  are  microscopical;  and  explanations  of  them,  such 
as  they  are,  have  been  presented  :  and  they  are  fully 
counterbalanced  in  the  opinion  of  men  who  appreciate 
this  line  of  argument,  by  other  instances  of  peculiarity 
of  language  running  through  the  entire  book.  Yet  we 
would  appeal  with  more  confidence  to  the  oneness  of 
sentiment  from  first  to  last.  Such  are  the  similarity 
between  the  great  return  of  exiles  at  the  first,  as  given 
in  ch.  i.  ii..  and  the  return  of  the  small  body  under 
Kxra  in  ch.  viii.,  both  in  respect  of  genealogies,  and  in 
the  care  of  the  sacred  vessels,  whose  materials,  weight, 
and  number  are  carefully  specified.  And  the  great 
self-sacrificing  act  of  separation  from  forbidden  wives, 
as  recorded  in  ch.  ix.  x.,  has  its  counterpart  on  a  smaller 
scale,  in  the  anxiety  of  those  who  returned  at  the  first, 
to  keep  the  pure  descent  of  Israel  uninjured  by  the 
contact  with  the  heathen  to  which  they  had  been  sub 
jected,  especially  in  the  case  of  the  priests,  ch.  ii.  ;vj-G3. 

The  chief  reason  for  supposing  that  there  have  been 
different  authors,  has  probably  been  the  fragmentary 
appearance  of  the  history  to  a  superficial  observer. 
The  real  unity  of  historical  plan,  seizing  on  the  epochs 
which  were  of  importance  to  Israel  as  the  church  ol 
Ood.  has  been  already  explained.  And  in  confirmation 
of  this  we  may  see  that  these  two  epochs  are  tacitly 
compared  or  expressly  mentioned  together  in  the  book 

of  Nehemiah,    No.  vii.  73  ;  viii   1  :  with  K/r  ii.  70  :  iii.  1  ;  No.  vii   ;-.; 
xii.  1,2(i,  17. 

The  reckless  assertions  of  some  writers  that  its  com 
position  as  a  whole  must  be  referred  to  a  period  about 
a  century  later  than  Ezra,  or  more,  need  not  be  noticed, 
because  they  have  not  even  a  pretence  of  argument  in 
their  favour.  One  writer,  Zunz,  has  indeed  alleged 
that  there  has  been  some  exaggeration  about  the  sacred 
vessels  said  to  have  been  restored  by  Cyrus;  but  his 


17- 


EZUA,   HOOK   OK  •' 

fellow- unbelievers  have  refused  to  agree  with  him,  am! 
have  defended  the  historical  credibility  of  the  book 
throughout.  Another  critic,  Bertheau,  wees  an  evi 
dence  of  the  composition  of  ch.  vi.  '2'2,  under  the  Greek 
successors  of  Alexander,  because  the  kinir  of  Persia  is 
called  the  king  oi  Asxyria,  an  argument  which  might 
have  been  left  to  its  own  weakness,  even  though  we 
had  been  unable  to  give  the  parallels  "2.  Ki.  xxiii.  'JO,  ! 
La.  v.  (i,  as  Keil  lias  done. 

On  the  contrary,  critics  who  rely  upon  their  inter 
nal  arguments  might  have  seen  evidence  in  favour  of 
its  early  composition,  in  the  fact  that  its  chronology 
is  clear  and  exact;  while  the  accounts  of  Jewish  affairs 
under  the  Persian  monarchy,  as  given  by  Josephus 
from  apocryphal  writers  and  other  sources  unknown 
to  us,  present  extreme  confusion  and  some  palpable 
mistakes.  The  book  begins  with  the  decree  of  Cyrus 
after  he  had  taken  Babylon,  by  which  the  Jess's  were 
sent  home  to  Jerusalem  and  directed  to  rebuild  the 
temple,  li.c.  530.  It  narrates  the  difficulties  and  hind- 
erances  before  this  was  accomplished  in  the  sixth  year 
of  Darius  the  son  of  llystaspes,  about  B.C.  f>ltj.  .It 
passes  in  silence  over  the  rest  of  his  reign,  31  years, 
and  the  whole  of  the  reign  of  Xerxes,  '21  years,  pro 
ceeding  direct  to  the  work  of  Ezra,  who  received  his 
commission  in  the  seventh  year  of  Arta.xer.ves  Loiigima- 
nus,,  L.c.  458-57.  If  the  whole  of  the  events  narrated 
in  the  closing  chapter  took  place  almost  immediately,  as 
is  understood,  we  believe,  by  all  commentators,  then  the 
extreme  length  of  time  embraced  in  the  narrative  is 
not  above  80  years:  and  the  order  is  strictly  chronolo 
gical,  though  it  is  not  continuous,  but  leaves  a  blank 
of  almost  sixty  years. 

Two  exceptions  have  to  be  made  to  these  statements 
in  the  opinion  of  some  writers,  in  which  however  they 
have  not  been  generally  followed.  First,  Jahii  holds 
with  many  of  the  most  competent  judges  that  the 
Ahasuerus  of  the  book  of  Esther  is  Xerxes :  and  more 
over  he  holds  that  it  is  the  same  monarch  who  is  here 
called  Artaxerxes.  He  thinks  that  the  favour  shoss-n 
to  the  Jews  by  Ahasuerus  and  Artaxerxes,  as  related 
in  the  books  of  Esther  and  Ezra,  is  so  peculiar,  that  it 
is  best  to  assume  the  monarch  to  be  the  same  in  both 
cases.  In  confirmation  of  this,  he  points  to  the  facts 
that  it  was  in  the  seventh  year  of  the  king's  reign  that 
Esther  was  brought  into  the  palace  as  queen,  and  that 
in  the  seventh  year  also  Ezra  was  sent  by  the  king  to 
Jerusalem.  But  this  is  a  mere  incidental  resemblance: 
Esther  could  not  have  been  the  cause  of  Ezra  being 
sent  to  Jerusalem  with  the  royal  favour,  since  Esther 
became  queen  in  the  tenth  month,  and  Ezra  had  set 
out  on  the  first  day  of  the /(>•*>•?  month.  And  this  diffi 
culty  is  not  removed,  even  if  we  admit  Jahn's  hypo 
thesis  that  there  is  a  difference  of  six  months  between 
the  two  books  as  to  the  beginning  of  the  year,  in 
spring  and  in  autumn.  Secondly,  whereas  Ahasuerus 
and  Artaxerxes  are  mentioned  as  t\vo  kings  of  1'crsia 
during  whose  reigns  remonstrances  were  made  against 
the  Jews  by  their  neighbours,  Ezr.  iv.  n,  •;  it  has  been  gene 
rally  supposed  that  these  kings  are  Cambyses  and  the 
usurper  Smerdis,  who  came  between  Cyrus  and  Darius, 
so  that  here  we  have  the  explanation  of  the  interrup 
tion  to  the  building  of  the  temple  from  B.C.  536  till 
B.C.  519.  But  Keil  and  others  say  that  this  is  men 
tioned  briefly  in  verse  5  ;  and  that  verses  6  and  7  pro 
ceed  to  mention  similar  cases  of  interruption  and 
calumnious  annoyance  under  the  kings  who  succeeded 


4- 


EZKA 


Darius.  There  is  confirmation  of  this  view  in  the 
letter  to  Artaxerxes,  which  refers  to  the  building  not 
at  all  of  the  temple,  but  of  the  mills  of  the  cif//.  In 
spite  of  the  awkwardness  of  so  long  a  parenthetical  state 
ment,  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  this  arrange 
ment.  And  it  has  the  vast  advantage  of  bringing  the 
nomenclature  of  the  Persian  kings  into  simple  unifor 
mity  throughout  the  books  of  the  Bible;  Ahasuerus 
being  always  Xerxes,  as  these  two  names  are  in  fact 
generally  reckoned  to  be  mere  varieties  of  pronuncia 
tion,  and  Artaxerxes  being  one  and  the  same  person 
throughout  the  book  of  Ezra,  as  also  in  Xehemiah. 
On  this  supposition  the  king  had  been  stirred  up  by 
the  Samaritans  to  forbid  the  building  of  the  city  walls 
at  the  beginning  of  his  reign:  and  yet  in  that  extremity 
there  was  found  (Jod's  opportunity,  as  the  king's  heart 
was  turned,  and  Ezra  was  sent  to  .Jerusalem  with  full 
powers  to  restore  everything  according  to  the  law  of 
Moses;  and  this  within  six  years.  A  table  of  the 
Persian  kings,  with  their  names  in  the  Bible,  is  given 
in  the  article  NKHKM  JAM.  [ft.  c.  M.  n.j 

E'ZRA.  There  are  several  individuals  mentioned  in 
Scripture  who  bear  tins  name  ;  but  only  one  of  them 
has  more  than  a  passing  notice,  the  person  whose  his 
tory  is  presented  in  the  book  which  bears  his  name, 
and  also  partially  in  the  book  of  Xehemiah.  Many 
respectable  writers  suppose  that  he  is  the  Ezra  who 
went  up  with  Zerubbabel,  Nc.  xii.  1;  but  there  are  strong 
reasons  for  rejecting  this  opinion  on  account  of  the 
chronology,  besides  that  person  seems  to  have  been 
dead  in  the  following  generation,  see  vcr.  13.  From 
his  osvn  account,  Kzr.vii.i-i:>,  we  learn  that  he  was  a 
priest,  indeed  descended  from  the  line  of  hiu'h- priests, 
the  nearest  of  his  ancestors  named  in  the  list  being 
Seraiah,  who  is,  almost  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt, 
not  his  own  father,  but  the  father  of  that  high- priest 
who  went  into  captivity  in  the  time  of  Nebuchadnez 
zar.  (Compare  the  genealogy  in  ICh.vi.  4-14.)  Besides  being 
a  priest  in  virtue  of  his  descent,  Ezra  had  devoted  him 
self  to  the  study  of  the  Word  of  (Jod,  and  seems  to 
have  been  much  employed  in  writing  out  copies  of  it 
for  general  use,  so  that  he  is  frequently  designated 
"  the  scribe,''  "  the  scribe  of  the  law  of  the  God  of 
heaven,"  &c.  The  Jewish  traditions  are  full  of  accounts 
of  his  services  to  the  church  in  all  the  departments  of 
sacred  literature  ;  so  much  so,  that  even  the  most  cau 
tious  and  the  most  sceptical  critics  agree  that  he  must 
have  done  important  work  in  preserving  and  circulating 
the  sacred  books,  whether  we  admit  or  not  that  he  was 
concerned  in  closing  the  Old  Testament  canon.  There 
are  two  books  bearing  his  name  (Esdras)  in  the  Apo 
crypha.  The  second  of  these  represents  him  as  a  pro 
phet  who  had  apocalyptic  visions,  but  it  is  universally 
held  to  be  a  very  late  production,  later  than  the  Chris 
tian  era,  and  perhaps  the  work  of  a  professing  Christian. 
The  first  book  of  Esdras  is  chiefly  a  plain  narrative  of 
the  restoration  of  the  temple  and  city  after  its  ruin, 
drawn  from  the  books  of  Ezra  and  Xehemiah,  though 
with  one  long  idle  legend  interpolated.  It  also  begins 
at  an  earlier  point  than  the  canonical  book,  namely  at 
Josiah's  passover. 

It  is  impossible  to  speak  with  any  confidence  of  his 
position  and  proceedings  except  as  these  are  recorded 
in  Scripture.  We  know  that  he  enjoyed  the  favour  of 
king  Artaxerxes  and  his  councillors,  and  that  he  re 
ceived  a  commission,  in  the  seventh  year  of  that 
monarch's  reign,  B.C.  458  or  457,  to  go  up  to  Jerusa- 


EZRA  i 

lem  and  complete  the  work  of  restoration  there,  even 
to   the   extent   of    putting    in    force  the  entire  law  of 
Moses,  including  penalties  upon  the  disobedient,  not  ex 
cepting  capital  punishments.     And  while  of  course  the 
royal  supremacy  was  maintained  in  matters  belonging 
to  the  kingdom,  perfect  freedom  was   granted  to  the 
Jewish  people   to   act  according  to  their  own   law  in 
their  corporate    as    well    as  their  individual  capacity, 
and  the  priests.  Levites,  and  inferior  persons  connected 
with   the   temple  were   exempted   from  every  kind  of 
toll,  tribute,  and  custom.      Uut  we  do  not  know  what 
led    the    king    to    take   such    a   favourable  view   of  the 
case,  nor  how  E/ra  possessed   such  influence  as  to  be 
the  individual  intrusted  with  the   king's  decree,  except 
in    so   far  as   his   own  statement  goes,    that    it   was  a 
request  on  his  part  which  was  conceded  by  the  kinu'.  and 
that  the  concession  was  so  liberal  that  he  could  explain 
it  to   himself  only   by  the   direct   interposition   of  Cod, 
K/r.  vii  c,27.     When  he  hail  been  clothed  with  this  autho 
rity,  it  was  his  object  to  secure  the  co-operation  of  his 
people,    and   he    "gathered   together   chief  men   out  of 
Israel  to  go  up  with"  him.      He  had  greatest  difficulty 
with  the  common  Levites,  whose  office  was  perhaps  too 
bumble,  and  their  means  of  support  too  precarious,  to 
t'-mpt  them  readily  to  abandon  their  settlements  in  the 
East  in  exchange  for  a  share  in  coloni/.ing  Judea;  but 
yet  in  the  end  he  secured  some  of  them  and  of   the   in 
ferior  servants  of  the  temple.      In   order   to   have  the 
gold  and  silver  offerings   for  the   worship  of  Cod   con 
veyed  as  safely  and   becomingly  as  he  could,  he  com 
mitted    them   to    a     body   of   men,    twelve    priests   and 
twelve   Levites,   according   to   a   translation  of  eh.  viii. 
-I,  which   seems   more   accurate  than   that   in   our  ver 
sion,    ''Then    I    separated    twelve   of   the   chief  of  the 
priests,  in  addition  to   Shcivhiah,   llasbabiab,   and   ten 
of  their  brethren  with  them."    (('..IHIMIV  vur.  1-,  ro      And 
this  committee  took  the  exclusive  charm',  and  delivered 
up  the  gifts   to  the   ecclesiastical  authorities  on  their 
arrival  at   Jerusalem.      The  whole   account  bears  testi 
mony   to    the    wisdom,    firmness,    and    faith    of    E/ra: 
especially    this    arrangement,    and   the   touching   state 
ment  that  he  was  ashamed  to  ask  a  guard  from  Un 
king  after  having  told   him  of   the   protecting  care  of 
Cod,   on  account  of  which   the   company   spent  three 
days  in  humbling  themselves  before  Cod  and  seeking  his 
guidance.      It  is  no  wonder  that  a  person  whose  con 
duct  was  so  blameless  and    holy,  and  whose  enter]  irises 
wen;  crowned  with  entire  success,  should   lie   made   the 
confidant   of   the   people  who   feared  Cod  and  trembled 
at  the  disregard  manifested  toward  his  commandments 
by  marriage  with  forbidden  races:  and  that  the  princes 
themselves  should  confess  their  powerlessness,  and  ur^e 
him  to  take  the  lead  in  the  necessary  reforms,   j-;/.r.  ix. 
1  ;  x.  I.      The  remedy  was  very  severe;  but  in  that  crisis 
such  a  decisive  measure  was  probably  necessary,  if  the 


EZRAH1TE 

1  moral  and  spiritual  character  of  the  colony  was  not 
to  be  blighted.  And  the  fact  that  seventeen  priests,  ten 
common  Levites,  and  eighty-six  individuals  of  either 
tribes  put  away  their  wives,  is  evidence  at  once  of  the 
wide-spread  mischief,  and  of  the  spirit  of  revival  by 
which  the  nation  was  animated,  it  was  an  act,  too, 
of  great  importance  for  the  outward  interests  of  the 
colony,  as  it  was  the  first  exercise  of  those  powers  of 
self-government,  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,  and 
within  that  limit  under  the  protection  of  civil  authority, 
K/r.  x.  7,  v,  u;,  which  Artaxerxes  bad  granted  to  them; 
alter  thi-y  had  been  used  in  so  extreme  a  case  as  this, 
a  precedent  was  established  which  could  never  lie  called 
in  question  without  flagrant  injustice. 

\\  hether  this  was  so  peculiar  an  act.  necessarily 
involving  a  certain  amount  eif  odium,  so  that  E/ra 
thought  it  becoming  to  retire-  from  public  life.  e>r 
whether  things  went  so  well  or  so  ill  with  the  colony 
as  to  prevent  bis  active  interference  in  its  affairs,  eir 
whether  be  was  e-alled  away  from  Jerusale'in.  it  is  cer 
tain  that  bis  book  closes  at  this  point,  and  that  we  hear 
no  more  of  him  for  about  thirteen  years.  But  in  the 
book  of  Ne-hemiah,  e-h.  viii.,  we  meet  with  him  once 
more',  associated  with  this  patriot:  E/.ra  the  scribe 
taking  the  charge  of  spiritual  concerns,  as  Nehemiali 
the  governor  did  of  things  temporal,  yet  both  acting 
in  perfect  concert.  As  •'  the  days  of  Nehemiali  the 
governor,  and  of  E/ra  the  priest,  the  scribe,"  are 
mentioned  as  a  marked  period  of  religious  life,  Xo.  xii.  lid, 
it  is  in  the'  highest  degree  probable  that  they  acted 
together  feir  some  time',  so  as  to  leave  a  joint  impress 
upon  the  people.  But  he  is  not  mentioned  any  more 
in  Scripture,  and  the  Jewish  traditions  vary  invcon- 
eilably.  Josephus  relates  that  he  died  soon  after  that 
great  feast  of  tabernacles  at  whie-h  he  officiated  in  read 
ing  the-  law  to  the  a>semhled  people.  Others  represent 
him  as  returnin-j-  to  Babylon  and  dying  there  at  a  very 
advanced  age.  And  a  tomb  bearing  his  name  is  still 
shown  on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris,  about  twenty  miles 
above  its  place  of  meeting  with  the  Euphrates. 

The  work  of  E/ra  on  occasion  of  that  feast  of  taber 
nacles  may  have  given  rise;  to  the  belief  of  the  Jews 
that  be  organized  the  synagogue  service.  Or,  in  a 
preferable  way  of  Linking  at  the  matter,  it  may  be 
considered  an  inspired  voucher  for  the  substantial 
truth  of  what  is  ase-ribed  to  him.  For  even  if  he  did 
not  formally  institute;  th«-  worship  of  the-  synagogue,  at 
the  least  he  left  a  pattern  whie-h  bad  merely  to  lie 
copied  and  to  be  separated  from  accidental  circum- 
stane-e-s.  Here,  accordingly,  we  read  for  the-  first  time; 
of  a  "  pulpit."  and  of  a  body  of  Levites  devoted  to  the 
work  of  "  causing  the  people  to  understand  the  law'' 
and  "the;  reading,"  that  is,  a  body  of  preachers  and 
expositors  of  the  Word  of  (  lod.  [<;.  c.  M.  I»  J 

EZ'RAHITE.     6V<  ETHAN. 


FAITH 


F. 


FACE.     There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  the  use  of  this 
word  in  Scripture,  except  with  reference  to  God.      In 
.ill  languages  it  is  customary  to  apply  the  term  as  de 
noting  the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  human  body, 
and   that   which   is   most  peculiarly   indicative  of   the 
whole  person,  to  what  relatively  holds  somewhat  of  the 
same  place  in  other  objects  :   as  the  "  face  of  a  house,  ' 
"  the  face  of  the  country,"  &o.      There  is  also  the  same  ' 
general  application  of  the  word  in  the  sense  of  favour, 
it  being  natural  for  men  to  turn   away  their  face  from 
those  whom   they  dislike   or   shun,  and  to  direct  it  to 
wards  their  companions  and  friends.       In  that  sense,  it 
is  said  in  1'r.  xix.  (>:  "  Many  will  entreat  the  face  of  the 
prince,''    meaning    thereby   his   favour;     which   is   the 
rendering  adopted  in  the  English  version.      As  applied 
to  Cod  it  is  an  anthropomorphic  expression,  denoting 
either    his    manifested    presence    or    his    experienced 
favour.      In   such  phrases  as   "  seeing   the  face  of  the 
Lord,''  "the  cry  came  before   the  face  of  the    Lord," 
11  the  face  of  the  Lord  is  set  against  them  that  do  evil,  ' 
it  is  evidently  all  one  with  God's  manifested  presence  ; 
God  as  appearing  or  acting  in  any  particular  time  and 
way.      The  manifestations  he  actually  gives  of  himself 
are  very  various,  both   in  kind   and   degree  ;    and,  ac 
cording  as  they  are  more  or  less  full,  so   also  may  the 
effect   of   them  be   represented  to  be  upon  those  who 
witness  them.      No  one  can  see  God's  face  and  live,  it 
was  expressly  said  by  God  himself  to  Moses,  Ex.  xxxm.  .'>>; 
and  yet  Jacob  at  ail  earlier  period  had  declared  of  him 
self,  though   with  a   feeling   of   astonishment,  that   he 
had  seen  God's  face  and  yet  lived,  Ho.  xxxii.  »>.     The  ap 
parent  discrepance  is  to  be  explained  by  the  different 
respects   in  which   the   expression   is   used   in   the  two 
cases.      The  face  of  God,  as  involving  the  full  blaze  of 
his  manifested  glory,  no  mortal  man  can  see  and  live  ; 
the  siu'ht  would  overpower  and  shatter  his  frame.      But 
when  veiled  in  the  attractive  form,  and  appearing  with 
the  softened  radiance    of   the   human  countenance,  for 
the  purpose  of  inspiring  confidence  and  hope,  as  in  the 
case   of  Jacob,   then    not    only   life,   but    revived   and 
quickened  life,  was  the  natural  result. 

It  was  Jacob  who  first  spake  of  God's  face.  He  did 
it  on  the  memorable  occasion  when  he  was  going  to 
meet  his  brother  Esau,  who  had  come  forth  with  an 
armed  band  to  destroy  him,  and  when  in  deep  anxiety 
of  soul  he  cast  himself  upon  the  mercy  and  faithfulness 
of  God.  During  the  agony  of  that  spiritual  conflict 
the  Lord,  or  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  appeared  and 
wrestled  with  him  ;  and  he  called  the  name  of  the  place 
Pen!'!,  God's  face.  Ill  doing  so,  he  no  doubt  had  re 
spect  to  the  manifested  favour,  as  well  as  presence  of 
God;  for  what  had  impressed  his  mind  was  not  simply 
that  the  presence,  but  that  the  ijracious  presence  of 
God  had  been  vouchsafed  to  him.  And  in  another 
series  of  passages  this  idea  of  God's  manifested  grace 
or  favour  is  what  is  chiefly  indicated  :  as  in  the  expres 
sions  "  seek  my  face,"  "lift  on  us  the  light  of  thy  face," 
or  countenance,  &c.  In  all  such  passages  what  is  said 
of  God's  face  may  be  understood  of  his  loving-kindness 
as  actually  sought  after  or  experienced  by  these  who 
believe  in  his  name. 


FAIR  HAVENS  [( !r.  Ka\oi  -VtVesJ,  the  name  of  a 
harbour  in  Crete,  on  the  south  shore,  into  which  the 
vessel  that  carried  I'aul  on  his  way  to  Home  put  in, 
but  which  was  again  abandoned,  as  too  exposed  for 
wintering  in,  Ac.  xxvii.  s-12.  The  name  still  remains  in 
modern  Greek,  AWo*  Limenas;  so  that  there  is  no 
doubt  of  the  particular  place  meant  by  it  (Smith's  Voyage 
and  Ship,  of  Paul,  p.  N>). 

FAITH.  The  peculiar  importance  attached  to  faith 
in  Scripture,  and  its  relative  position  in  Christian  doc 
trine,  become  evident  when  it  is  viewed  as  that  mental 
act  upon  which  the  whole  application  of  redemption, 
on  man's  side,  depends.  The  term  (wiffTis)  properly 
means  TRUST  on  a  personal  Saviour,  as  opposed  to  man's 
native  self-reliance;  and  the  object  of  faith  is  not 
Christ's  doctrine,  nor  his  historic  life  as  a  mere  pattern, 
but  his  glorified  person,  with  whom  the  closest  relation 
is  formed  by  an  act  which  is  simply  receptive,  and 
raising  the  mind  above  the  seen  and  temporal.  That 
this  is  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term  faith,  may  be 
proved  from  the  uniform  usage  of  Scripture.  Some 
have  thought  indeed  that,  in  a  considerable  number  of 
passages,  e.g.  Ga.  i.  23;  1  Ti.  iv.  i;  Jude :',,  it  must  be  taken  in 
an  objective  sense,  denoting  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel. 
The  best  modern  expositors,  however,  take  all  these 
passages  in  the  ordinary  sense,  as  containing  the  idea 
of  trust;  from  which  indeed  we  arc  not  necessitated  to 
depart  in  a  single  instance. 

As  to  the  position  and  importance  of  faith,  it  maybe 
described  as  the  organ  or  means  by  which  redemption 
is  appropriated.  It  thus  presupposes  Christ's  finished 
work,  of  which  it  is  simply  receptive;  and  it  is  so  closely 
connected  with  repentance  that  the  one  is  never  found 
without  the  other,  and  can  never  be  in  exercise  without 
the  other.  The  most  essential  light  in  which  the  sub 
ject  can  be  placed  then  is,  that  faith  is  receptive  and 
saves,  not  as  involving  obedience,  but  as  receiving  a 
gift. 

The  phrase,  "  obedience  of  faith,  '  occurring  in  cer 
tain  passages,  Ro.  i.  r>;  Ac.  vi.  7,  implies  indeed  an  obedieii- 
tial  element  in  the  first  act  of  faith,  or  a  compliance 
with  divine  authority,  even  in  the  reception  of  the  gift; 
for  we  are  not,  with  some,  to  take  the  term  "faith"  in 
these  passages  as  equivalent  to  the  "doctrine"  of  the 
gospel,  nor  to  view  the  obedience  as  that  which  faith 
produces.  But  while  the  gospel  is  a  gift,  there  is  a 
divine  injunction  to  embrace  it,  i  Jn.  iii.  22,  involving  in 
one  and  the  same  act  the  reception  of  a  gift  and  the 
compliance  with  a  divine  command.  While  faith  saves 
then,  not  as  it  contains  an  obediential  element,  but 
simply  as  it  is  receptive,  there  is  an  obedience  of  faith 
even  in  receiving  the  gift  of  righteousness. 

That  faith  is  simply  receptive,  may  be  evinced  by 
all  the  passages  where  it  is  described  in  exercise,  by 
the  prepositions  used  with  the  verb  or  noun  (as  f  TTI  and 
fist,  and  by  the  sensible  representations  under  which  it 
is  set  forth,  such  as  ''a  coming,"  Mat.  xi.  as;  "a  flee 
ing,"  lie.  vi.  18;  "  a  drinking"  of  the  water  of  life,  Jn.  vii.  37. 

We  have  first  to  consider  faith  in  connection  with  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  justification.  To  show  that  every 
thing  is  repudiated  but  faith  alone,  the  apostle  makes 


FAITH 

use  of  various  forms  of  exclusion,  such  as  (1 )  ''freely," 
Ro.iii.24;  c2)  ''without  \vorks,"  Ho. iv. ti;  (o)  "without  the 
deeds  of  the  law/'  R<>.  iii.  :>-;  (4)  "by  Ins  grace,"  Ro.  iii.  LM; 
'•"*'  "''}'  grace  through  faith,'"  Kp.  ii.  s.  Grace  being 
represented  as  the  exclusive  source  of  justification,  and 
the  death  of  Christ  as  its  material  cause,  faith  is  in  this 
matter  merely  instrumental  and  receptive  of  the  righte 
ousness  of  God,  Ko.  ;;;.  L'I.  Xor  has  faith  any  other 
value  beyond  that  of  uniting  us  to  its  object,  that  we 
may  be  justified  IX  him,  <Ja.  ii.  17. 

But  when  the  apostle  Paul  gives  all  prominence  to 
faith  in  justification,  must  he  lie  understood  as  also 
excluding  works  done  after  faith  by  those  who  are  in  a 
state  of  grace  ?  That  these  works  are  all  excluded  from 
the  justification  of  their  persons  is  evident,  because 
they  follow  justification;  because  the  uposile  repudiates 
every  ground  of  glorying,  i:<..  iv.  L';  and  because  their 
justifying  title  is  not  only  bevond  themselves  in  Christ, 
but  admits  no  addition  of  any  kind.  Carrying  out  the 
same  mode  of  exclusion  therefore  as  is  set  forth  in 
Scripture,  it  may  be  affirmed  (1)  that  it  is  faith  that 
justifies,  not  repentance:  c2\  that  it  is  faith,  not  lo\v: 
i:>)  that  it  is  faith,  not  works;  (i>  that  it  is  faith,  not 
holiness  ("<)  that  it  is  faith  merely  as  apprehending 
Christ,  not  a^  a  urace  of  the  Spirit. 

Here  it  is  necessary  to  explain  how  faith  "  is  im 
puted  for,"  or  rather ''unto  righteousness"  if  is,  Ho.  iv.  3; 
<ia.  iii.  ii).  That  this  does  not  result  from  the  intrinsic 
quality  of  faith  is  self-evident.  Just  as  little  can  it 
arise  from  any  acceptation  whereby  an  imperfect  title 
is  accepted  for  a  perfect  one:  a  supposition  which  the 
inflexible  law  and  the  character  of  theJud'jv  forbid. 
What  then  is  imputed  unto  righteousness.!  Gramma 
tically  construing  the  words,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
the  act  of  believing  stands  as  the  nominative  or  subject 
of  the  affirmation.  Hut  then  in  that  connection,  and 
wherever  we  are  said  to  be  justified  by  faith,  it  must 
fie  added  that,  theologically,  faith  stands  by  metonymy 
for  its  object:  that  is,  for  the  Iv.rd  our  Righteousness, 
whom  faith  apprehends,  and  to  whom  it  unites  us. 
Tims  the  party  imputing  is  God,  the  ground  of  the  im 
putation  is  the  obedience  of  Christ,  and  the  end  con 
templated  is  ''unto  (eis)  righteousness."  Faith  then  is 
not  accepted  as  an  imperfect  substitute.  The  gospel 
has  been  widely  corrupted  by  the  supposition  that  in 
this  imputation  the  act  of  faith  is  held  sufficient  for 
righteousness,  and  accounted  to  be  what  it  is  not. 
From  the  explanation  just  given  it  follows  that  the 
common  phrase,  ''the  righteousness  of  Christ  is  im 
puted."  is  the  exact  equivalent  of  that  Scripture  phrase. 

While  it  thus  appears  that  justification  is  by  faith 
without  the  deeds  of  the  law.  Ko.  iii.  is,  and  that  works 
or  moral  character  neither  constitute  qualifications  nor 
pave  the  way  as  preparations,  it  remains  that  we  deter 
mine  the  character  of  justifying  faith.  This  leads  us 
to  explain  the  seeming  discrepancy  between  Paul  and 
James.  Paul  affirms  that  it  justifies  without  works, 
but  presupposes  that  it  is  living  faith.  James,  not 
calling  in  question  the  Pauline  doctrine,  repudiates  a 
dead  faith  as  devoid  of  justifying  efficacy.  The  same 
subject  is  surveyed  by  both,  without  any  contradiction, 
from  a  different  point  of  view.  But  the  truth  in  which 
they  agree  is,  that  faith  is  not  a  dead  assent,  but  the 
act  of  a  quickened  soul,  which  possesses,  like  seed-corn, 
a  germinating  power.  Originated  by  the  Spirit  of  faith, 
-'Co.  iv.  13,  and  overcoming  the  world  by  its  very  action, 
i  Jn.  v  -i,  true  faith  is  always  living:  but  it  justifies 


i  FAITH 

neither  on  account  of  the  life  nor  of  the  fruits  which 
are  associated  with  it.  but  as  it  apprehends  Christ.  It 
must  be  added,  in  reference  to  the  cause  of  faith,  that 
it  is  itself  the  fruit  of  Christ's  mediation,  1'lii.  i.  L'n. 
Hence  it  is  never  represented  as  a  le^al  condition  on 
which  men  are  thrown  back,  and  which  they  are  re 
quired  to  produce  in  their  own  strength,  but  as  yivon 
to  us.  like  every  other  blessing,  by  Christ. 

It  must  be  further  observed,  that  while  the  sacred 
writers  describe  faith  as  a  reliance  on  the  personal 
Redeemer,  they  never  fail  to  bring  prominently  into 
view  that  it  is  accompanied  by  a  fellowship  in  CHRIST'S 
I. IFF.  The  apostle  John  exhibits  this  most  vividly. 
Though  none  of  the  aspects  of  the  subject  can  be  said  to 
be  awantiug  in  any  of  the  apostles,  it  is  John  that  spe 
cially  dwells  <m  the  thought  that  they  who  believe  not 
only  have  fellowship  in  Christ's  life,  but  receive  Him  for 
this  end.  Paul,  in  like  manner,  is  wont  to  pass  from 
a  description  of  justification  by  faith  to  the  new  life 
\\hich  is  given  IN  and  WITH  this  faith,  Ko.  vi.  i-n;Ga.ii.  2fl; 
a  life  unfolding  itself  in  I.OVF  and  mm-:,  and  ever  ad 
vancing  to  larger  measures  of  holiness.  Nay,  Paul  is 
never  content  till  he  makes  it  plain,  that  the  Redeemer 
whom  faith  unbraces  is  himself  the  principle  of  all  this 
new  life  li\ini;-  in  tin.'  disciple  by  faith,  Ga.  ii.2.i. 

Neither  mu.-t  it  be  omitted,  that  the  apostles  exhibit 
faith  as  implying  a  niANci-:  OF  .NATFKF,  and  as  having 
its  root  in  the  contrite  heart,  that  is.  the  opposite,  of 
the  life  of  sin.  As  that  which  constitutes  the  life  of 
sin  is  in  its  deepest  ground  a.  course  (if  self-reliance  and 
self- contentment,  the  language  of  the  sacred  writers 
implies  that  faith  is  in  its  very  nature  a  breaking  with 
this  111".- of  sin— a  renunciation  of  self-reliance  for  an 
objective  propitiation,  as  Paul  usually  puts  it  a  Lmg- 
iiiLT  for  the  divine  or  a  new  dhine  knowledge  different 
from  that  of  nature,  as  John  puts  it  but.  always  in 
volving  a  moral  change. 

It  only  remains  that  We  advert  to  what  has  been 
termed  the  form  of  faith,  which  may  lie  said  to  consist 
in  KNOWI.F.I><;K,  ASSICXT.  and  TRUST.  There  must  be 
necessary  knowledge  to  apprehend  correctly  what  Scrip 
ture  reveals  as  to  the  way  of  salvation,  and  assent, 
whereby  we  accept  as  true  what  is  announced,  hut 
ending  in  a  TKI:ST,  whereby  the  heavy-laden  rest  their 
weary  souls  on  Christ.  It  is  a  reliance  upon  a  person 
with  a  measure  of  confidence,  not  on  a  mere  proposi 
tion,  Kp.  iii.  IJ;  lie  \.  •>•!;  .In.  vi.  :^i. 

Hut  iii  connection  with  the  trust  which  is  the  form 
of  faith,  the  inquiry  arises,  Is  assurance  of  the  essence 
of  faith  in  such  a  sense  that  a  high  degree  of  it  is  in 
separable  from  its  exercise?  This  requires  to  lie  touched 
witli  the  utmost  delicacy  and  caution.  That  a  certain 
measure  of  assurance  goes  along  with  lively  faith  may 
be  affirmed,  but  not  in  every  case  to  the  exclusion  of  ail 
dubiety.  Escaping  from  the  doubting  faith  of  Home, 
the  divines  of  the  Reformation- period  gave  utterance  to 
statements  on  the  subject  of  assurance  stronger  than 
can  well  be  vindicated:  and  many  of  the  confessions  of 
Protestantism  partake  of  a  similar  character.  I!ut  it 
is  always  safer  to  distinguish  between  faith  and  assur 
ance,  and  to  regard  the  latter  as  a  reHex  act,  or  the 
conclusion  of  an  easy  syllogism,  as  follows-.-- He  that 
believes  on  Christ  is  justified  and  saved:  but  I  believe: 
therefore,  I  am  justified  and  saved.  While  care  is 
taken  to  foster  and  not  to  discourage  that  personal 
appropriation  of  salvation  which  forms  such  a  charac 
teristic  lineament  of  the  Protestant  church,  yet  it  is 


FALLOW-DKEi; 


5G8 


FAMINE 


always  perilous  ti>  construct  such  ;i  definition  of  faith 
as  implies  that  its  opposite  consists  in  admitting  a 
(lnul)t  of  our  personal  salvation,  for  by  such  views  the 
faithful  are  perplexed,  and  tile  formalist  made  more, 
secure.  [<:.  s.] 

FALLOW-DEER  [-^r-rr,  yackmoor].     Among  the 

ruminants  permitted  by  the  law  of  Moses  to  be  used 
a-<  food,  DC.  xiv.  ;">,  this  animal  is  mentioned.  Its  name 
occurs  au'ain  in  1  Ki.  iv.  Li:!,  in  the  account  of  the  daily 
consumption  of  food  by  king  Solomon's  household.  Til 
both  cases  it  is  associated  with  deer  or  antelopes;  and 
as  from  the  latter  passage  the  supply  seems  to  have 
been  irregular,  and  therefore  accidental,  we  ai'e  per 
mitted  to  conclude  that  the  animal  in  question  was  not 
kept  in  parks,  but  was  wild,  and  taken  only  by  the 
chase.  The  LXX.  give  us  no  light  on  the  identifica 
tion,  for  the  word  is  absolutely  omitted  by  them  in 
both  passages. 

The  fallow-deer  does  not  now  exist  in  Palestine,  or 
in  any  neighbouring  country,  so  far  as  we  know.  It 
is,  however,  included  in  the  animals  of  Greece,  of 
IVrsia,  and  of  Abyssinia;  and  therefore  may  have  in 
habited  the  wooded  parts  of  Palestine  in  ancient  days. 
It  is  however  difficult  to  suppose  that  Jerusalem  could 
have  received  any  appreciable  amount  of  flesh-meat 
from  such  a  source,  remote  as  it  is  from  a  forest  country. 

In  all  probability  the  word  yackmoor  indicates  some 
species  of  the  antelope  family  —  possibly  the  animal 


1259.1        AiUlax  Antelope— Orj/u;  adila.c. 

known  to  the  ancient  Greeks  under  the  title  of  addax 
(Oryx  addax,  Lieht.),  which  has  been  recognized  as  a 
beast  of  chase  in  the  old  Egyptian  sculptures.  It  is 
widely  spread  over  Central  Africa,  extending  to  the 
borders  of  the  Nile  in  Nubia,  and  is  well  known  to  the 
Arabs,  who  still  distinguish  it  by  its  ancient  name, 
with  the  familiar  prefix  of  Ahou,  or  father— Father 
Addas. 

The  addax  is  a  coarse  and  heavy  antelope,  three  feet 
high  at  the  withers,  with  a  large  clumsy  head,  and 
stout  legs.  The  horns  exist  in  both  sexes,  are  long, 
twisted  outwards,  covered  with  rings  nearly  to  the 
points,  which  are  sharp;  the  tail  is  long  and  tufted. 
The  head  and  neck  are  of  a  deep  reddish  brown  colour, 
with  a  band  of  white  across  the  face;  the  forehead  and 
throat  are  clothed  with  coarse  black  hair,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  body  and  limbs  is  of  a  whitish-gray  hue.  It 
is  one  of  that  group  of  antelopes  in  which  we  may  clearly 
discern  an  approach  to  the  bovine  race.  [p.  H.  ('•.] 


FAMINE  occupies  a  prominent  place  in  Scripture 
among  the  troubles  with  which  at  different  times  God's 
people  have  had  to  contend,  and  the  scourges  which 
he  has  frequently  sent  to  chastise  the  wickedness  and 
corruption  of  the  world.  In  the  history  of  the  patri 
archs  the  equable  stream  of  their  quiet  and  sequestered 
life,  appears  from  time  to  time  interrupted  by  the  re 
currence  of  famine,  Ge.  xii.io;  xxvi.i;  xli.  scq.,  although  in 
none  of  them  is  the  calamity  explicitly  connected  with 
the  state  and  conduct  of  the  patriarchs  themselves. 
We  cannot  doubt,  however,  that  there  was  a  certain 
moral  connection;  and  particularly  in  the  greatest  of 
them  all,  that  which  in  the  first  instance,  and  as  an 
event  still  in  prospect,  was  overruled  to  bring  about  the 
elevation  of  Joseph  in  Egypt,  and  afterwards  became 
the  means  of  humbling  the  brethren  of  Joseph,  and 
reconciling  them  to  him.  At  a  later  period,  when  the. 
children  of  Israel  were  settled  in  the  land  of  Canaan, 
various  famines  are  represented  to  have  come  upon 
them;  one,  for  example,  in  the  days  of  lluth;  another 
of  three  v ears'  continuance  in  the  time  of  David;  another 
as  long,  and  greatly  more  severe,  in  the  reign  of  Ahab. 
&c.;  some  of  which  were  expressly  sent  as  rebukes  for 
abounding  iniquity,  Ru.  i.i;  L'Su.xxi.;  iKi.  xvii.  In  the  pro 
phetical  writings  famine  is  reckoned  among  the  special 
instruments  of  the  Lord  which  he  employed,  as  occasion 
required,  to  chastise  men  for  their  misdeeds,  and  in  this 
connection  is  not  unfrequently  associated  with  sword 
and  pestilence,  Is.li.  10;  Jo.  xiv.  i;> ;  xv.  2;  Kzc.  v.  TJ,  ic. 

It  may  be  said  of  the  ancient  world  generally,  that 
it  Avas  subject  to  periodical  returns  of  dearth,  often 
amounting  in  particular  districts  to  famine,  greatly 
beyond  what  is  usually  experienced  in  modern  times. 
Various  causes  of  a  merely  natural  and  economical 
kind  contributed  to  this,  apart  from  strictly  moral  con 
siderations.  Among  these  causes  may  more  especially 
be  mentioned  the  imperfect  knowledge  of  agriculture 
which  prevailed,  in  consequence  of  which  men  had  few 
resources  to  stimulate,  or  in  unfavourable  seasons 
and  localities  to  aid,  the  productive  powers  of  nature; 
the  defective  means  of  transit,  rendering  it  often  im 
possible  to  relieve  the  wants  of  one  region,  even  when 
plenty  existed  at  no  great  distance  in  another ;  the 
despotic  governments,  which  to  so  great  an  extent 
checked  the  free  development  of  human  energy  and 
skill;  and  the  frequent  wars  and  desolations,  in  a  great 
degree  also  the  result  of  those  despotic  governments, 
which  both  interrupted  the  labours  of  the  field  and 
afterwards  wasted  its  fruits.  Depending,  as  every  re 
turning  harvest  does,  upon  the  meeting  of  many  con 
ditions  iu  the  soil  and  climate,  which  necessarily  vary 
from  season  to  season,  it  was  inevitable  but  that  times 
of  scarcity  should  be  ever  and  anon  occurring  in  par 
ticular  regions  of  the  world  ;  and  from  the  disadvantages 
now  referred  to,  under  which  the  world  in  more  remote 
times  laboured,  it  was  equally  inevitable,  that  such 
times  should  often  aggravate  into  all  the  horrors  of 
famine.  But  when,  in  addition  to  the  natural  and 
economical,  we  take  into  account  also  the  moral  state 
of  the  ancient  world,  and,  in  particular,  the  ever  recur 
ring  backslidings  of  the  covenant- people,  we  can  easily 
understand  how  visitations  of  famine  should  have  been 
as  frequent  as  they  are  represented  to  have  been.  It 
was  one  of  the  promised  blessings  of  the  covenant,  that 
if  the  people  remained  steadfast  to  it,  the  Lord  would 
bless  them  in  their  basket  and  in  their  store — in  other 
words,  would  give  them  fruitful  seasons ;  and  as,  to 


secure  this,  the  constant  vigilance  and  care  of  a  special 
providence  were  needed,  it  was  fitting,  that  when  the 
interests  of  righteousness  called  for  it,  there  should  be 
from  time  to  time  a  partial  suspension  of  the  beneficent 
agency  of  Heaven.  Famines  are  still  among  the  evils 
t  j  which  the  world  is  subject,  although,  from  the  in 
definite  extension  of  the  arable  portion  of  the  globe, 
and  the  ready  command  that  is  now  held  over  the 
means  of  supply  and  communication,  it  is  a  form  of 
evil  which  has  undergone,  and  still  is  undergoing, 
important  modifications. 

FAN  [the  Greek  TTTVOV,  Latin  nudtahritut]:  a  sort  of 
wooden  spade,  with  a  long  handle,  used  in  ancient 
times,  in  Greece  and  the  East  still  used,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  throwing  up  the  corn  in  a  current  of  air,  that 
the  chaff  may  be  separated  from  the  wheat.  The  more 
exact  translation  of  the  original  term  would  undoubt 
edly  In-  "  winnowing-shovel."  i.S<  At;Kicri.Tt;iiK. i 

FARTHING.  Two  words  in  Greek  are  rendered 
J'.irtk iiirj  in  the  English  Bible,  KOOpavrris,  Mat.  v.-.'i;:  u  it- 
xii. -I:.',  and  affffdpiov.  Mat.  x.  i!D;  Lu  xii.  G.  The  latter,  how 
ever,  was  just  tin;  Human  «*,  equal  in  the  gospel  age- 


to  a  farthing  and  three- fourths,  or  I's7;"i  farthing.  The 
other,  the  Latin  quadrant,  was  the  fourth  part  of  this. 
and  consequently  not  quite  equal  to  half  a  farthing  of 
English  nionev.  It  the  relative  difference,  however,  in 
the  value  of  money  is  taken  into  account,  the  one  coin 
may  be  regarded  as  nearlv  equivalent  to  the  other. 
Hut  formally  considered,  the  assarion  came  as  near  the 
farthinu'  as  the  quadrans. 

FAST.  EASTING.  It  is  somewhat  singular,  con 
sidering  the  ceremonial  character  of  the  Jewish  religion, 
and  the  respert  had  in  many  of  its  ordinances  to  food, 
that  it  contained  no  injunction  about  fasting;  nor  does 
the  verb  to  f<i.<t  (2*v*  once  occur  in  the  whole  range  of 
the  Pentateuch.  This  is  a  verv  significant  omission  as 
regards  the  nature  of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  and 
shows,  along  with  other  things  belonging  to  it,  how 
free  it  was  from  the  false  asceticism  and  corporeal  mor 
tifications,  which  from  the  most  remote  periods  had 
established  themselves  in  the  East.  Even  in  the  case 
of  the  Nazarite  vow,  the  only  thing  in  the  old  religion 
that  approached  to  the  character  of  an  ascetic  institu 
tion,  merely  the  use  of  wine  and  things  related  to  it 
fell  under  the  prohibition  of  the  lawgiver  ;  and  the  vow 
itself  was  voluntary;  no  one,  except  in  a  few  peculiar 
cases,  was  obliged  to  take  it.  There  was,  however,  an 
occasion,  recurring  once  a  year,  on  which  the  people 
were  called  to  do  what  came  to  be  regarded  as  equiva 
lent  to  fasting;  so  that  the  occasion  itself  was  in  pro 
cess  of  time  familiarly  designated  tlie  fatt,  Ac.  xxvii.  «i. 
This  was  the  day  of  yearly  atonement,  appointed  to 
take  place  on  the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month,  and 
on  which,  while  the  high  priest  performed  the  obla 
tions  for  himself  and  for  the  people  in  all  their  sins, 
the  people  themselves  were  commanded  to  ''afflict  their 
souls,"  Le.  xvi.'jy.  What  particularly  was  implied  in  this 
afflicting  of  their  souls,  is  not  described — further  than 
VOL.  I. 


that  they  were  "  to  do  no  work  at  all."  and  were  to 
make  it  "a  Sabbath  of  rest;"  and  for  this  special  reason, 
that  "on  that  day  the  priest  should  make  an  atone 
ment  for  them  to  cleanse  them,  that  they  might  be 
clean  from  all  their  sins  before  the  Lord."  Being  a 
day  specially  set  apart  for  calling  sins  to  remembrance, 
it  was  also  a  day  meet  for  afflicting  their  souls  ;  it 
became  them  then  to  cease  from  the  gratification  of 
fleshly  desire,  ''not  doing  their  own  works,  or  finding 
their  own  pleasure,"  and  with  fitting  exercises  of 
humiliation  and  godly  sorrow  to  recall  to  mind  the 
baekslii lings  and  transgressions  with  which  they  had 
dishonoured  the  living  God. 

It  would  be  quite  natural  for  those  who  were  accus 
tomed  to  so  much  that  was  symbolical  in  religion,  to 
embody  the  affliction  they  were  required  to  inflict 
upon  their  souls  in  an  actual  fast.  It  is  certain,  that 
in  the  later  periods  of  the  Jewish  eommonwi  alth  this 
('.•((.-;  practiced;  yet  it  is  not  less  certain,  that  the  prac 
tice  atl'orded  no  indication  of  a  pure  and  proper  ob 
servance;  nay,  the  regard  that  was  had  to  the  corpo 
real  abstinence'  was  sharply  reproved  as  a  hypocritical 
and  shallow  counterfeit.  "Is  it  such  a  fast  that  1 
liau-  chosen*  a  day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  sold.'  Is 
it  to  bow  down  the  head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to  spread 
sackcloth  and  a-dies  under  him?  wilt  thou  call  this  a 
fast,  and  an  acceptable  day  to  the  Lord  '"  Is.  hiii.  ;..  Jt 
was  not  that  such  external  signs  of  penitence  and 
sadness  \\erc  in  themselves  improper,  or  undeserving 
of  divine  recognition,  when  they  really  were  the  sinus 
of  a  corresponding  inward  affection.  The  favourable 
notice  taken  of  them  in  various  cases  of  Old  Testa 
ment  history  i>  proof  enough  to  the  contrary.  But  it 
was  ih-  state  of  sold  itself,  as  indicated  by  the  ab 
stinence  from  food  and  the  clothing  of  sackcloth,  which 
in  such  cases  nut  \\itli  the  approval  of  God;  \\ithout 
that  the  other  would  have  been  hut  a  show  and  a 
mockery:  and  it  was  doubtless  for  the  purpose  of  fixing 
the,  thoughts  of  the  people  more  intently  upon  the 
proper  state  of  mind,  as  the  great  thing  desired,  that 
so  little  was  said,  in  the  original  ordinance  regarding 
the  day  of  atonement,  as  to  what  outward  expressions 
of  a  contrite  and  penitent  spirit  mii/ht  be  suitable  for 
the  occasion.  Had  simply  fasting  been  ordained,  the 
greater  part  would  have  deemed  the  service  duly  per 
formed  by  abstaining  a  certain  time  from  their  ordinary 
refreshments.  Even  as  matters  stood,  this  tendency 
but  too  palpably  discovered  itself,  and  drew  forth  the 
indignant  reproof  of  the  prophet  alreadv  quoted.  Some 
thing  certainly  was  due  to  external  propriety.  A  spare 
diet,  the  absence  of  all  luxuries,  a  marked  reserve  in 
regard  to  every  kind  of  fleshly  pleasure  or  indulgence, 
even  a  partial  abstinence  from  food,  woidd  naturally 
lie  felt  I iv  the  pious  portion  of  the  community  to  be 
proper  accompaniments  of  the  service.  But  serious 
and  heartfelt  sorrow  for  sin,  with  earnest  strivings  to 
be  delivered  from  it,  would  still  be  regarded  as  the 
chief  thing;  as  is  finely  expressed  by  the  prophet:  ''  Is 
not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen?  to  loose  the  bands 
of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let 
the  oppressed  go  free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke? 
Is  it  not  to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that 
thou  bring  the  poor  that  are  cast  out  to  thy  house? 
when  thou  seest  the  naked,  that  thou  cover  him;  and 
that  thou  hide  not  thyself  from  thine  own  flesh?" 

Ba'hr.  therefore,  characterizes  the  day  for  afflicting 
the  soul  with  substantial  correctness  when  he  says  of 


AST 


FAT 


it,  ''It  ought  to  have  been  a  day  of  denial,  of  serious 
ness,  of  humiliation,  and  in  so  far  also  of  repentance. 
But  the  matter  is  carried  to  excess  when,  as  is  not 
unfrequently  done,  the  day  is  represented  as  one  of 
formal  mourning  in  order  to  be  spent  in  fasting.  For, 
according  to  the  view  of  the  Mosaic  religion,  holiness 
and  mourning  are  always  contrasts,  and  the  day  em 
phatically  of  sanctifying  could  not  on  this  account  alone 
wear  formally  the  aspect  of  mourning"  (Symbniik,  ii.  i>. 

074). 

Notwithstanding  the  absence  of  any  prescription  in 
the  law  respecting  fasting.  \ve  have  abundant  evidence 
of  fa-;ts  having  been  observed  from  time  to  time  by  the 
covenant  people  when  anything  called  for  special  humil 
iation  and  grief.  David  fasted  when  he  lay  under  the 
judgment  of  (iod  on  account  of  his  adultery,  and  would 
taste  nothing  till  the  child  was  dead.  2Sa.xii.il;  Ahab 
also  fasted  when  he  heard  the  doom  pronounced  on 
him  by  Elijah  for  the  murder  of  Naboth,  and  got  in 
consequence  a  temporary  suspension  of  its  evils,  i  Ki. 
x\i.  27  ;  and  on  distressing  occasions  the  people  generally, 
in  token  of  their  distress,  voluntarily  fasted  for  a  day, 
and  clothed  themselves  in  mourning  attire,  Ju.  xx.  •>:;,•-''>; 
1  Sa.  vii.  (i ;  2  Ch.  xx.  :s,  &o.  In  the  last  days  of  the  kingdom 
we  read  of  a  whole  series  of  fasts  connected  with 
special  days,  which  had  been  rendered  memorable  and 
mournful  by  the  calamities  suffered  on  them.  They 
are  enumerated  by  the  prophet  Zechariah,  when  point 
ing  to  the  better  times  in  prospect,  which  should  change 
the  sorrow  into  joy:  "Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
The  fast  of  the  fourth  month,  and  the  fast  of  the  fifth, 
and  the  fast  of  the  seventh,  and  the  fast  of  the  tenth, 
shall  be  to  the  house  of  Judah  joy  and  gladness,  and 
cheerful  feasts,"  Zee.  viii.  lit;  that  of  the  fourth  was  in  com 
memoration  of  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchad 
nezzar;  the  fifth  in  commemoration  of  the  burning  of  the 
temple  and  the  chief  houses  in  the  city;  the  seventh 
had  respect  to  the  murder  of  Gedaliah;  and  the  tenth, 
though  the  last  as  to  its  periodical  observance,  appears 
to  have  been  connected  with  the  first  event  in  the 
series — the  laying  siege  to  Jerusalem  by  the  Chaldean. 
army.  Jc.  lii.  <;,  7 ;  xii.  i ;  2  Ki.  xxv.  i,  (v,  &c.  But  these  fasts 
were  only  of  a  temporary  nature,  and  were  probably 
altogether  discontinued  soon  after  the  return  from 
Babylon. 

What  the  Jews  sometimes  called  fasting,  however. 
was  not  a  total  abstinence  from  food,  but  only  a  spare 
diet,  and  a  renunciation  of  everything  like  feasting 
and  jollity.  Thus  Daniel  speaks  of  fasting  or  mourning 
three  whole  weeks,  and  defines  his  behaviour  more  ex 
actly  by  saying  that  he  ate  no  pleasant  bread,  neither 
did  flesh  or  wine  come  into  his  mouth.  Da.  x.  2.  .Judith 
is  represented  in  the  book  that  bears  her  name  as  fasting 
all  the  days  of  her  widowhood,  excepting  on  the  eves 
of  Sabbaths  and  holidays,  ch.  viii.  n.  But  as  the  spirit 
of  ceremonialism  proceeded,  the  rigour  and  frequency  of 
fasting  would  naturally  become  more  marked.  Hence, 
in  the  gospel  age,  the  Pharisees  are  said  to  have 
"  fasted  oft,1'  and  the  living  representative  of  them 
exhibited  in  one  of  our  Lord's  parable's  says  of  himself, 
"  I  fast  twice  in  the  week." 

Our  Lord  gave  no  countenance  to  this  undue  regard 
to  fasting,  and  the  prizing  of  it  as  a  thing  praise 
worthy  in  itself.  He  even  plainly  disparaged  it;  and  in 
consequence  incurred  the  reproach  of  being  less  rigid 
in  his  manners,  more  given  to  eating  and  drinking1, 
than  the  Pharisees,  and  even  his  own  forerunner,  Lu. 


v. :«.  This,  however,  did  not  move  him  from  his  course; 
and  in  the  reply  he  gave  to  the  question  put  to  him  on 
the  subject,  lie  excused  himself  from  imposing  any 
ordinance  of  fasting  on  his  disciples  while  he  was  with 
them,  as  a  thing  altogether  unsuited  to  their  circum 
stances  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  gave  intimation  of 
troubles  and  distresses  which  should  arise  after  his 
departure  from  them,  and  which  would  certainly  cause 
them  to  fast.  In  other  words,  he  would  lay  down  no 
injunction  to  fast,  or  give  it  any  countenance  as  a  prac- 

,  tice  which  was  to  be  observed  for  its  own  sake;  it  was 
to  depend  upon  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  and  to 
be  left,  to  the  feelings  of  those  who  were  in  a  condition 
to  profit  by  it.  So  far  from  encouraging  the  prac 
tice  as  in  itself  a  proof  of  sublime  ascetic  piety,  or 
marking  high  proficiency  in  the  divine  life,  he  denounced 
the  men  who  made  much  of  it  as  hypocrites,  and  ex 
horted  such  as  might  at  any  time  engage  in  it  to  anoint 
their  head  and  wash  their  faces,  so  as  not  to  appear 
unto  men  to  fast.  Mat.  vi.  17 ;  if  practised  at  all,  it  should 

;  be  only  as  a  part  of  personal  godliness,  and  with  a  view 

'  to  the  soul's  improvement  in  the  life  of  faith.  His  own 
example  in  entering  upon  his  high  undertaking  with  a 
period  of  fasting,  although  it  was  certainly  an  extraor 
dinary  occasion,  and  one  during  which  till  near  its  close 
he  was  even  unconscious  of  hunger,  may  yet  be  justly 
taken  as  a  proof,  that  at  special  seasons  and  emergen- 

I  cies  the  total  or  partial  abstinence  from  food  may  be 
practised  with  advantage  by  believers.  But  to  institute 
periodical  times  for  doing  so,  or  to  connect  peculiar 
privileges  and  hopes  with  any  amount  of  simple  absti 
nence,  is  entirely  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel:  nor 
can  it  ever  be  done,  without  the  greatest  danger  of  fos 
tering  the  spirit  of  self-righteousness.  It  may  lie  proper 
to  add.  that  the  passage,  1  c<>.  vii.  :>,  where  fasting  is 
coupled  with  prayer  as  alike  necessary  to  progress  in 
the  divine  life,  has  been  improperly  admitted  into  the 
received  text.  According  to  the  best  authorities  the 
reading  should  be.  "that  ye  may  give  yourselves  to 
prayer."  The  apostles  themselves,  however,  to  some 
extent  kept  up  the  practice  of  occasional  fasting,  to 
which  they  had  been  accustomed,  Ac.  xiii.  2;  xiv.  2:;;  2C". 

xi.  27. 

FAT,  according  to  the  sacrificial  ritual  of  the  Old 
Testament,  stood  in  a  close  relation  to  blood;  both  alike 
were  solemnly  set  apart  to  the  Lord,  and  were  looked 
upon  as  so  peculiarly  his.  that  they  were  prohibited 
from  ordinary  use.  ''  It  shall  be  a  perpetual  statute 
for  your  generations,  throughout  all  your  dwellings, 
that  ye  eat  neither  fat  nor  blood,"  Le.  iii,  17.  What  is 
meant  here  by  fat.  appears  from  the  connection  to  be 
fat  in  a  lumpish  or  separate  state,  not  as  intermingled 
with  the  fleshv  parts  of  the  animal.  For  in  the  pre 
scriptions  going  before  respecting  the  peace  or  thank 
oncrinirs,  it  was  not  absolutely  every  particle  of  fat 
which  required  to  be  burned  on  the  altar,  but  the  fat 
that  covers  the  inwards,  that  in  which  the  kidneys 
are  imbedded,  that  also  upon  the  flanks,  and.  when  the 
offering  was  of  the  flock,  the  entire  rump,  which  is  one- 
mass  of  fat  in  Syrian  sheep.  It  was  the  fat  in  so 
far  as  it  existed  in  a  separate  form,  and  could  be  with 
out  difficulty  taken  from  the  carcase  and  consumed  — 
this  simply  which  was  devoted  to  the  altar,  and  for 
bidden  as  ordinary  food.  The  restriction  did  not  pre 
vent  the  feeding  or  fattening  of  sheep  and  cattle  for 
the  table,  Lu.  xv.  2:>;  i  Ki.  iv.  23 

In  regard  to  the  reason  for  this  appropriation  of  the 


FAT 


FEASTS 


fat  of  slain  victims  to  the  altar,  and  its  prohibition  for 
food,  there  has  been  considerable  diversity  of  opinion. 
A  class  of  writers  would  find  the  ground  of  it  in  simply 
dietary  or  economical  considerations  —as,  that  it  was 
designed  to  discourage  a  mere  fleshly  luxury,  or  to  pre 
vent  indulgence  in  what  may  be  fitted,  in  warm  climates, 
to  cause  indigestion,  to  render  the  blood  cold  and  heavy, 
perhaps  to  nourish  a  tendency  to  cutaneous  diseases 
(Maimonides,  Kitto's  Cyclopedia);  and  Michaelis  thought  it 
was  to  l>e  explained  from  a  desire  to  form  the  taste  of 
the  Hebrews  to  oil  rather  than  to  fat.  and  so  to  induce 
them  to  give  themselves  to  the  cultivation  of  the  olive 
and  other  productions  of  the  Held,  and  proportionately 
abandon  their  old  nomade  habits.  Considerations  like 
these,  however,  partly  conjectural,  and  all  inferior  in 
their  nature,  could  have  nothing  more  than  a  secondary 
place,  if  they  could  even  have  that,  in  the  prescriptions 
of  a  ritual  which  throughout  was  based  on  the  moral 
aspects  and  relations  of  things.  If  it  was  not  primarily 
because  lifnod  is  difficult  of  digestion,  or  because  of  anv 
relation  it  occupies  to  the  food  and  habits  of  mankind, 
that  it  was  consecrated  to  the  altar  and  interdicted 
from  the  table,  the  same  undoubtedly  must  be  held  re 
specting  the  fat,  which  is  classed  along  with  it.  That 
place  was  assigned  to  the  blood,  because  it  v*as  the 
hearer  of  the  life.  U-.  x*;i  .it:  and  as  such  represented 
the  rational  and  spiritual  attributes  of  man's  nature 
the  principle  of  his  higher  life.  I'.ut  next  to  the  blood 
in  that  respect  stood  the  fat.  which  miu'ht  be  called  the 
efflorescence  of  the  animal  life  tin-  MUI'  '  >t  it--  ^ivatot 
healthfulness  and  vigour,  and  lieiicc  usually  clustering 
in  greatest  fulness  around  the  more  inward  and  vital 
parts  of  the  system.  On  this  account  the  term  f<it  was 
commonly  applied  to  everything  that  was  he.-t  and  mo>t 
excellent  of  its  kind.  The  fat  of  the  earth,  the  fat  of  the 
wheat,  of  the  oil  and  the  vine,  even  the  fat  of  the 
mighty,  though  to  our  view  somewhat  peculiar  expres 
sions,  were  familiar  to  the  Hebrews,  as  indicating  the 
choicest  specimens  or  examples  of  the  several  objects 
in  question,  (Ju.  xlv.  !••;  iiu.xxxii.  1 1;  \n.  xviii.  r_';  -i  s:i.  i.  •_••_•.  In 
this,  therefore,  we  have  an  adequate  and  perfectly  natu 
ral  reason  for  the  fat  beini;'  taken  as  "the  food  of  the 
offering  made  by  fire.'1  It  stood  in  a  close  connection 
with  the  life,  and  of  the  eatable;  portion  of  the  animal 
was  the  richest,  the  best.  But  the  best  and  first, 
to  use  the  words  of  Biihr  (Symbolik,  ii.  p.  3*>),  "lie-long  in 
all  cases  to  Jehovah,  and  may  be  said  also  in  a  sense 
to  represent  the  whole,  of  which  it  is  the  best  and  first. 
As  of  all  produce,  the  first  and  best,  representing  the 
entire  harvest-yield,  was  to  be  presented  to  the  Lord, 
so  of  the  sacrificial  victim,  when  it  was  not,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  burnt  offering,  wholly  consumed  upon  the 
altar,  its  first  and  best,  namely  all  its  fat,  must  in  like 
manner  be  burned." 

If  this  fundamental  ground  is  borne  in  mind,  one 
may  easily  know  what  to  make  of  the  old  typical 
explanations  such  as  this,  "the  burning  of  the  fat  to 
the  Lord  typified  the  inexpressible  trouble  of  Christ's 
soul  amidst  the  flames  of  his  Father's  wrath;  and  that 
we  ought  to  devote  ourselves  to  God's  service  with  a 
heart  all  inflamed  with  love:  and  ought  to  have  our 
most  inward  and  beloved  lusts  destroyed  by  the  spirit 
of  judgment  and  of  burning"  (Brown's  Dictionary).  It  is 
impossible,  in  any  case,  that  one  and  the  same  action 
could  typically  represent  things  so  very  diverse  in  their 
nature  as  those  here  strung  together,  and  which  can 
have  nothing  more  than  a  formal  agreement.  But 


since  the  fat  went  along  with  the  blood  as  together  con 
stituting  the  being  and  worth  of  the  living  creature,  so, 
when  transferred  to  the  spiritual  realities  of  the  new 
covenant,  the  burning  of  the  fat  is  undoubtedly  to  be 
explained,  primarily,  of  the  offering  of  what  was  best 
and  loftiest  in  Christ's  pure  humanity,  and  subordi- 
nately  of  what,  through  the  operation  of  his  grace,  may 
lie  so  regarded  in  his  people.  In  him  alone  was  there 
anything  strictly  good  to  offer:  and  what  is  such  in 
them  is  only  from  the  working  of  his  grace  in  their 
experience;  but  this  also  must  be  ottered  as  a  spiritual 
sacrifice  to  the  Lord.  KO.  .xii.  i. 

FAT,  in  the  authorized  version,  is  sometimes  used 
for  VAT  or  WINK-PRKSS  (which  see). 

FATHER,  This  term  is  very  variously  applied  in 
Scripture,  and  occurs  in  modes  of  expression  which  are 

'  not  quite  usual  in  European  languages.  For.  beside 
the  uses  of  it  common  to  all  languages  (1),  of  the  imme 
diate  male  parent:  C->  of  the  more  remote  parents  or 

1  ancestors:  (">  of  one  occupying  somewhat  of  the  position 

,  and  exercising  to  some  extent  the  authority  of  a  father, 
as  Joseph  to  1'haraoh.  (jo  xlv.  8,  or  Xaaman  to  his  ser 
vants,  •_•  Ki.  v.  i::;  it  is  also  extended  |4>  to  all,  who  in 
any  respect  might  be  said  to  originate  or  have  power 
over  any  object  or  persons.  Fur  example,  the  inventor 
of  an  art  vsas  called  its  father,  or  the  father  of  those 

.  \\lio  practised  it:  Juhalwas  "the  father  of  all  such 
as  handle  the  harp  and  oriran,"  and  Jabal  "tile  father 
of  such  as  dwell  in  tents."  cie.  h  20, 21.  So  in  regard  to 
cities,  Salma  is  repri  sented  as  the  father  of  Bethlehem, 

Ilaivph  of   l;eth--ader,   &C.,   I  Ch.  ii.  51;  iv.  14;  ix.  35. 

The  place  and  authority  of  the  father  stood  very 
hiidi  in  patriarchal  times,  and  they  were  substantially 
embi  .died  in  the  legislation  of  .Moses.  While  the  father 
lived  he  continued  to  represent  the  whole  family,  the 
property  \\as  In  Id  in  his  name,  and  all  was  under  his 
superintendence  and  control.  His  power,  however, 
\\as  by  no  means  unlimited  or  arbitrary;  and  if  any 
occasion  arose  for  severe  discipline  or  capital  punish 
ment  in  his  family,  he  was  not  himself  to  inflict  it,  but 
to  bring  the  matter  before  the  constituted  authorities, 
Do.  xxi  1^-L'i.  But  these  authorities  were  charged  to 
repress  all  filial  insubordination,  and  with  summary 
judgment  put  an  end  to  its  more  lawless  outbreaking*. 
(  hi  the  other  hand,  the  father,  as  the  head  of  the  house- 
h  'Id.  had  the  obligation  imposed  upon  him  of  bringing 

!  up  his  children  in  the  fear  of  God,  making  them  well 
acquainted  with  the  precepts  of  his  law,  and  generally 

I  acting  as  their  instructor  and  guide.  DC.  M.  L'H;  Kx.  xii.  2ii,&c. 
So  that,  if  fathers  were,  in  the  first  instance,  faithful 
to  their  trust,  it  could  not  very  frequently  happen  that 
the  severities  in  question  would  need  to  lie  exercised 
upon  the  children. 

For  the  more  peculiar  use  of  the  word  fa'/nr,  in  re 
ference  to  ( lod.  and  the  relations  implied  in  it,  see  under 
A  ISBA,  and  SUNS  OF  Om>. 

FEASTS,  or  sacred  festivals  which  held  an  import 
ant  place  in  the  Jewish  religion-  are  what  alone  re 
quire  to  lie  treated  here  under  the  name  «f  fiiist*.  For 
of  feasts,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  there  was  nothing 
peculiar  to  the  Jews,  or  which  requires  explanation  to 
intelligent  readers  of  the  P.ible.  The  occasions  of 
making  feasts  among  the  Jews  and  other  people  of  the 
East  were  much  the  same  with  those  which  give  rise 
to  them  elsewhere— the  meeting  of  friends,  the  making 
of  public  compacts  or  treaties,  prosperous  events,  mar 
riages,  and  such  like.  Whatever  was  peculiar  in  the 


FEASTS  ;> 

mode  of  conducting  their  entertainments  on  such  occa 
sions,  will  ho  found  noticed  in  connection  with  the 
occasions  themselves.  (S'cc  FOOD,  HOSPITALITY,  DIN- 

NKU,   SUPPER.) 

The  English  term  feaxtx  very  inadequately  expresses 
(in  ;i  religions  respect)  what  is  meant  by  the  corre 
sponding  expressions  in  Hebrew,  and  indeed  is  apt  to 
convey  an  impression  somewhat  at  variance  with  the 
more  fundamental  idea,  There  are  two  words  in  He 
brew  for  which  it  is  used  as  an  equivalent,  and  to  one 
of  them  only  does  it  approximate  in  meaning.  This  is 
hay  Or),  derived  from  the  verb  which  signiiii-s  1" 

T 

dance,  and,  when  applied  to  religious  institutions  or 
services,  indicating  them,  originally  at  least,  as  solem 
nities  accompanied  with  demonstrations  of  joy  and  glad 
ness.  But  this  term  is  scarcely  ever  applied  excepting 
to  two  of  the  stated  solemnities  of  the  old  covenant  - 
the  passovcr  and  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  Ex.  xii.  ii;  i.e. 
xxiii.  3D;  Xu.  xxix.  ]2;  Do.  xvi.  13 — which  were  both  celebrated 
with  rejoicings,  and  rejoicings  that  were  connected  with 
the  participation  of  food  as  an  essential  part  of  the  ser 
vice.  Indeed,  latterly  the  term  appears  to  have  been 
chiefly  appropriated  to  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  which 
the  rabbins  therefore  call  emphatically  the  ha;/,  as 
being  from  its  very  nature  the  one  that  partook  most 
of  the  character  of  a  joyous  feast,  But  the  term  that 
most  fitly  designated,  and  that  alone  actually  compre 
hended  all  the  sacred  feasts,  was  moed  (nyy:)  5  alul 

where  the  stated  solemnities  in  their  proper  nature 
and  entire  compass  are  treated  of,  as  they  are  in 
Le.  xxiii.,  this  is  the  term  that  is  applied  to  them  all: 
they  are  the  moadeem  of  Jehovah;  and  of  the  feast  of 
tabernacles  alone  is  ha;i  used  as  an  interchangeable 
term.  ver.  so.  Now,  moadccm  must  mean  either  n.s- 
sunblies  o?  place*  of  a^cmbhj;  it  is  used  frequently  in 
both  senses;  but  here  it  is,  beyond  doubt,  to  be  under 
stood  in  the  former.  Indeed  the  language  of  the  sacred 
writer  explains  itself:  "And  the  Lord  spake  unto 
Moses,  saying,  The  moadccm  (feasts)  of  Jehovah,  on 
which  ye  shall  call  holy  convocations,  these  are  the 
moadeein."  What  was  meant  by  this  name,  therefore, 
was  the  stated  solemnities  of  the  people — the  occasions 
fixed  by  divine  appointment  for  their  being  called  and 
meeting  together  in  holy  fellowship:  meeting,  that  is, 
for  acts  and  purposes  of  sacred  worship.  //<•/)/  convo 
cations,  or  calling  of  assemblies,  could  have  had  no  other 
object  than  the  celebration  in  some  way  of  divine  wor 
ship,  or  the  promotion  of  the  spiritual  interests  of  the 
community.  Any  other  ends  that  may  have  been 
served  by  them  must  have  been  quite  incidental  and 
subordinate.  And  hence  alone  appears  the  utterly 
groundless  nature  of  the  idea  set  forth  respecting  those 
sacred  festivals,  especially  by  writers  in  Germany,  as  if 
they  had  a  political  and  social  much  more  than  a  reli 
gious  bearing,  and  were  chiefly  valuable  on  account  of 
the  good  fellowship  they  promoted  between  the  differ 
ent  members  of  the  community,  the  opportunities  they 
afforded  for  merchandise,  and  the  hilarity  and  good 
cheer  which  prevailed  at  them  (Herder,  Kbr.  Poesie,  i.  p.  iifi; 

Micliaclis,  Comm.  on  Laws  of  Moses,  art.  19 l).       There   might, 

doubtless,  have  accrued  from  the  three  larger  and  more 
prolonged  feasts  some  advantages  of  the  kind  now  re 
ferred  to;  seeing  that  at  these  the  people  met  from  all 
parts  of  the  land,  and  were  together  for  a  whole  week, 
portions  only  of  which  could  be  spent  in  religious  exer 
cises.  A  communal  and  brotherly  spirit  could  not  fail 


•2  FEASTS 

to  be  fostered  by  such  ever- recurring  assemblages  at 
one  place  and  centre  of  worship.  But  still  they  could 
never  be  regarded  as  the  more  proper  and  direct  object 
of  those  feasts,  any  more  than  of  the  others;  for  all  had 
primarily  a  religious  aim,  and  were  pre-eminently  de 
signed  to  maintain  and  promote  the  people's  fellowship 
with  Cod.  It  was  before  Him.  not  simply  with  one 
another,  that  they  were  to  meet;  not  in  assemblies 
merely,  but  in  /to///  assemblies  that  they  were  to  con 
gregate;  so  that,  as  Bahr  justly  on  this  point  states, 
"it  was  not  politics  and  commerce  that  had  here  to  do, 
but  the  soul  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation — the  foundation 
of  the  religious  and  political  existence  of  Israel,  the 
covenant  with  Jehovah"  (Symbolik,  ii.  p.  r>43). 

Another  thing  is  quite  clear  from  this  characteristic 
definition  of   all   the  monda-m  or  feasts,  and    one  that 
also  meets  a  related  and  too  prevalent  error;  it  is,  that 
the  law  plainly  contemplated  stated  and  regular  meet 
ings  for  worship,  some  of  a  smaller  and  frequently -re 
curring  nature,  as  well  as  others  at  greater  intervals, 
and  attended  with  more  of  the  circumstantials  of  wor 
ship.     For  among  the  sacred  seasons,   which  were  to 
derive   their  common  distinction   from  the  calling  of 
holy  assemblies,  and  at  the  head  of  the  whole,  stood  the 
weekly  Sabbath;   to  which  also   there  were  added,  as 
single  days,  the  new  moon  of  the  seventh  month,  and 
the  tenth  of  that  month,  on  one  and  all  of  which  there 
were  to  be  holy  convocations,  as  well  as  at  the  three 
great  festivals  of  the  Passover,  Pentecost,  and  Taber 
nacles.      It  is  obvious  that  the  holy  assemblies  by  which 
those  other  days — the  individual  Sabbaths — were  to  be 
distinguished,  must  have  been  quite  local:  families  or 
townships  meeting    together  in  their  several  districts, 
and  under  the  guidance  of  the  Levites  or  elders  among 
them,    engaging   in  some    common    acts   of   devotion. 
Nothing  was  prescribed  as  to  the  particular  form  and 
manner:  this  was  left  (as  it  has  been  very  much  in  every 
age  of  the  church)  to  the  direction  of  the  constituted 
authorities,  acting  in  accordance  with  the  great  truths 
and  principles  of  the  law.     In  later  times  the  provision 
was  carried  into  effect  by  the  erection  of  synagogues, 
and  the  organization  of  a  regular  system  of  discipline 
and  worship  connected  with  them.     It  was  a  mode  per 
fectly  authorized  by  the  legislation  respecting  the  stated 
assemblies,  and  might  from  the  first  have  been  adopted: 
but  there  is  no  evidence  that  things  took  so  orderly  and 
systematic   a  shape  in  this  respect  during   the  earlier 
and  brighter  periods  of  the  commonwealth.     This,  how 
ever,  docs  not  invalidate  the  fact,  that  on  all  the  days 
specified  in  the  law  as  Sabbaths,  there  should  have  been, 
and  among  the  better  portions  of  the  community  actu 
ally  were,  holy  assemblies;   and  it  is  only  on  the  sup 
position  of  there  having  been  such,  that  we  can  account 
for  the  allusions  occasionally  made  in  the  writings  of 
|  the  Old  Testament  to  "the  congregations,"  "the  call 
ing  of  assemblies,"  "the  solemn  meetings,"  is.  i.  13;  PS. 
ixxxi.  3,&c.;  and  also  to  the  practice,  as  one  in  common 
use  even  in  the  degenerate  kingdom  of  Israel,  of  the 
i  more  piously  disposed  going  to  attend  the  meetings  of 
the    sons   of  the    prophets  on  Sabbath-days  and  new 
:  moons,  2  Ki.  iv.  23.     There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the 
intention  of   the  lawgiver  in   this  respect  was  never 
wholly  disregarded;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
had  his  intention  been  more  fully  carried  out  in  the 
I  better  days  of  the  commonwealth,  the  seasons  of  de- 
|  generacy  and  backsliding  would  neither  have  been  so 
I  frequent  nor  so  great  as  they  actually  were.     On  this 


FEASTS 


FEASTS 


part  of  the  .subject  see  Meyer,  DC  Temp.  £ac.  et  Fettis 
diebm  Hcb.  p.  ii.  c.  9;  Fairbairn's  Typology,  ii.  p.  4o3, 
sc([. ;  also  George,  Die  alt,  Fcttc  Jed.  p.  101,  202,  where 
the  correct  view  is  maintained,  though  in  the  midst  of 
much  that  is  unsound. 

Keeping  in  view,  then,  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
feasts — or,  as  it  should  rather  be,  the  sacred  seasons 
and  solemnities — of  the  old  covenant,  namely,  that 
they  were  appointed  for  the  special  purpose  of  cultivat 
ing,  by  means  of  religious  meetings  and  appropriate 
acts,  the  holiness  of  the  covenant,  we  shall  take  a  sur 
vey  of  them  individually,  and  in  the  order  in  which 
they  are  presented  in  the  chapter,  Le.  \\iii.,  which  for 
mally  treats  of  them. 

I.  The  Fcaxt  of  th(  Wnk!;/  #-<'//,<(//<. —The  institution 
of  the  weekly  Sabbath  has  so  much  that  was  peculiar 
to  it.  and  stands  connected  with  so  many  (questions  of 
importance  respecting  its  origin,  distinctive  character, 
and  proper  observance,  as  well  as  its  relation  to  Chris 
tian  times,  that   it  will   be   best   treated   as  a  whole  by 
itself.       What   it   had   in   common   with   the   mnndnni 
respected  but  one  part,  though  a  very  important  part, 
of  its  design;  and  even  this,  to  be  properly  understood, 
requires   to   be  viewed   in    connection  with   its   entire 
purport  and  general  bearings.      (>V<>  SMiiiATH.t 

II.  Fmxt  <if  f'lilcavcmd  Bread,  or  tin  Pasmnr.     This 
feast   is  placed   next    in   order  to   the  weekly   Sabbath, 
and  formed  the  first  in   point  of  time  of  all  the  annual 
feasts  —  the    first,    therefore,    of    the    solemnities    that 
usually  went  by  the  name  of  feasts.      1 1  was  iuditferentlv 
called  the  feast  of  the  1'ar-sovcr,  and   the  feast  of    l"n- 
lea vened  P>read  :    but  where  the  object  was  to  mark  the 
distinction  between  the  Passover  as  a  sucriiice.  and  the 
Passover  as  a  feast  following  on  the  sacrifice,  tin;  latter 
was  designated  the   feast  of   unleavened   bread.      Tims, 
in  Ls.1.  xxiii.  f>,  seq.,  "  In  the  fourteenth  dav  of  the  first 
month  at   even  dit.    between   the   two   evenings)  is  the 
Lord's    Passover.      And    on    the    fifteenth    day    of   the 
same  month  is  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread  unto  the 
Lord;  seven  days  ye  must  eat  unleavened  bread.      In 
the  first  day   ve   shall   have   an  holy   convocation:   ye 
shall  do  no  servile    work,"  \e.      The    Passover,    it   \\ill 
lie  observed,  as   a   sacrifice,    was   assigned    to   the   verv 
close  of  the   fourteenth   day — to   the    period    between 
sunset   and    total    darkness,    as    the-    expression   seems 
strictly  to  import:   but,  as  the  later  .lews  understood 
it,  between  about   three   in  the   afternoon   and  sunset. 
(See  under  EVKMN<;S.I      It  was  fixed  so  near  the  do-.,- 
of  that  day  that  the  victim  might  be  readv  to   lie  par 
taken  of  at  the  very  commencement  of  the  next  dav, 
which  took  place  when  night  had  fairly  set  in,  and  so 
might  form  the  initial  and  prominent  part  of  the  paschal 
feast.     This  feast  therefore,  including  the  eating  of  the 
paschal  lamb,  began  at  night,  and  on    what  the  Jews 
reckoned   the   first  hours  of    the   fifteenth   day  of  the 
month. 

The  animal,  which  was  ordained  to  be  at  once  the 
sacrifice  that  preceded,  and  the  food  that  introduced, 
the  observances  of  the  feast,  was  allowed  to  be  chosen 
either  from  the  goats  or  the  sheep.  Custom,  however, 
ultimately  narrowed  it  to  the  latter ;  and  a  lamb  of 
the  flock  came  to  lie  universally  regarded  as  the  proper 
paschal  offering.  It  was  ordained  to  be  a  lamb  of  the 
preceding  year,  and  without  blemish.  It  was  to  be 
slain  as  an  offering  to  the  Lord,  and  was  called  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Lord's  passover,  Ex  xii.  2";  xxxiv.  2.5;  in  the 
last  of  the  two  passages  referred  to,  and  in  a  corre 


sponding  one,  lix.  xxiii.  i",  it  is  called  emphatically  by  the 
Lord,  my  me r(ri ••<_';  according  to  the  ultimate  arrange 
ment  it  was  to  be  slain  at  the  holy  place,  De.  xvi.  f>,  sc<i ; 
its  blood  was  sprinkled  upon  the  altar,  -.'Ch.  xxx.  in,  ir ; 
xxxv.  11,12;  and  it  was  in  consideration  of  its  blood,  as 
substituted  for  the  life  of  the  first-born,  that  the  Lord 
preserved  and  rescued  the  children  of  Israel  from  the 
dominion  of  Egypt.  These  things  conclusively  establish 
its  sacrificial  character,  in  which  light  it  was  tertainlv 
regarded  by  Philo  and  Josephus  :  and  the  apostle  adds 
his  explicit  testimony,  when  he  represents  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  as  the  sacrifice  of  our  Passover,  1  0<>.  v.  7. 
The  scriptural  evidence,  indeed,  is  so  plain  that  one 
can  scarcely  suppose  it  would  ever  have  been  called  in 
question  but  for  some  polemical  interest.  The  first 
who  did  so  were  some  of  the  continental,  chierlv  Lutheran, 
theologians  (Chemnitz,  Gerhard,  Calov.  &c.V  who.  in 
opposition  to  the  Catholic  argument  derived  from  the 
Passover  being  a  perpetually  repeated  sacrifice  as  well 
as  feast,  in  favour  of  the  propiatory  character  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  endeavoured  to  disprove  the  sacrificial 
character  of  the  Passover.  This  was  to  meet  one 
false  position  with  another,  and,  indeed,  for  the  sake 
of  defending  the  purity  of  an  ordinance,  imperilling  the 
doctrine  on  which  it  was  based;  for  to  eliminate  thesucri- 
ticial  element  from  the  great  redemptive  act  of  the  old 
covenant  was  manifestly  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
like  attempt  beinuf  made  in  respect  to  that  of  the  new. 
And  so  it  happened;  the  persons  in  later  times  who 
have  chiefly  called  in  question  the  sacrificial  import  of  the 
I'as.-ov,  r  have  been  the  Soeinians  and  Rationalists,  who 
have  si  Hiuht  theivhv  ti  i  strengthen  their  opposition  to  the 
doctrine  of  (  'lirist's  atonement  (sec  M.mec  .m  the  Atmiemeut, 
note  3.">).  There  is  no  real  weight  in  the  considerations 
u  ru d  to  istablish  the  view  iii  question.  Tliev  consist 
Ha  rely  in  certain  superficial  diltep'iic.-s  between  the 
Passover  and  the  oilier  sacrifices,  but  which  could 
never  be  meant  to  affect  the  >ub>tantial  agreements. 
Even  some  of  the  more  obvious  differences  seem  to 
have  been  connected  only  with  the  first  celebration; 
for  the  original  sprinkling  of  the  blood  on  the  door- 
po~ts  was  afterwards  changed  to  sprinkling  on  the 
altar:  and  the  slaying  at  the  do.  .r  of  each  man's  dwel 
ling  to  slaving  at  the  tabernacle;  and  though  it  is  not 
recorded,  yet  the  probability  is,  that  the  usual  law  re- 
specting  the  fat  of  the  animal  offerings  was  observed 
:<}-<>  here.  As  a  sacrifice  the  Passover  occupied  a 
peculiar  place,  and  in  consequence  had  ordinances  of 
its  own,  which  kept  it  in  some  degree  apart  from  the 
others;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  same 
fundamental  character  belonged  to  it  and  to  them. 

l!y  ordaining  that  the  flesh  of  the  paschal  lamb 
should  be  turned  into  a  meal,  the  same  general  truth 
was  exhibited  which  had  its  representation  in  all 
sacrificial  meals;  it  showed  forth  the  actual  fellowship 
which  the  partakers  of  the  feast  were  admitted  to  hold 
with  God,  as  the  result  of  the  atoning  sacrifice.  That 
which,  in  the  merciful  arrangement  of  (Joel,  shielded 
them  from  destruction,  at  the  same  time  struck  the 
knell  of  their  deliverance;  while  they  were  saved  from 
death,  they  were  also  made  to  enter  on  a  new  life;  in 
visible  attestation  whereof  the  flesh  of  the  victim,  which 
had  been  accepted  in  their  behalf,  was  given  them  as 
the  food  of  their  redeemed  natures,  that  in  the  strength 
of  it,  and  of  the  conscious  enjoyment  of  Clod's  favour 
along  with  it,  they  might  proceed  on  their  course  with 
alacrity  and  joy.  And  the  era  of  the  institution  of  the 


FEASTS  i) 

1'assover  being  thus  like  the  birth-time  of  their  exist 
ence  as  a  ransomed  and  peculiar  people  to  the  Lord, 
the  commemoration  of  it  in  future  time  was  like  a  per 
petual  renewal  of  their  youth.  They  must  he  ever 
repeating  over  again  the  solemnities,  which  brought 
afresh  to  their  view  the  redemptive  act  to  which  they 
owed  their  iialional  existence,  and  the  heritage  of  life 
and  Messing  it  secured  for  them. 

\\  ith  this  great  design  of  the  ordinance,  the  subor 
dinate  arrangements  and  accompanying  provisions 
entirely  accorded.  (1.)  The  season  appointed  for  its 
celebration  was  the  month  Abib — literally,  the  <n.r- 
niuittli.  when  thi'  corn  was  coming  into  the  ear,  and  the 
spring  was  now  giving  promise  of  the  coming  harvest  - 
henceforth  the  first  month  of  the  Jewish  calendar.  As 
their  religious  and  political  existence  took  its  beginning 
with  the  event  therein  commemorated,  so  their  cycle 
of  months  must  then  also  begin  its  annual  course- — 
nature  also  in  its  vernal  freshness  of  life  and  beauty 
beating  in  unison  with  the  occasion.  (•->.)  Of  like  pro 
priety  were  the  actions  with  the  lamb  ;  it  was  to  lie 
roasted  by  fire,  not  boiled,  that  there  might  be  the  least 
possible  waste  of  its  substance;  to  be  presented  entire 
without  a  bone  being  broken,  and  in  all  its  eatable  parts 
consumed — the  company  assembled  around  each  table 
being  appointed  to  be  always  sufficient  to  insure  that 
result : — all  manifestly  designed  to  keep  up  the  re 
presentation  of  a  visible  and  corporate  unity.  Itself 
whole  and  undivided,  the  lamb  was  to  be  partaken  of 
entire  by  individual  households,  and  every  household 
was  to  participate  in  the  common  meal,  that  they 
might,  one  and  all,  realize  their  calling  to  the  same 
divine  fellowship  and  life,  and  might  apprehend  the 
oneness  as  well  as  completeness  of  the  means  by  which 
the  good  was  procured  and  sustained.  Should  anything 
remain  over,  it  must  be  burned,  lest  it  should  corrupt 
or  fall  into  the  rank  of  ordinary  food ;  God's  peculiar 
table,  and  the  peculiar  food  he  provided  for  it,  must  be 
kept  honourably  apart  from  everything  common  or 
unclean.  (3.)  The  attitude  in  which  the  lamb  was  to 
be  eaten — with  loins  girt,  shoes  on  the  feet,  a  start' in 
the  hand — the  attitude  of  persons  in  travelling  attire, 
and  ready  to  set  forth  on  their  course,  had  respect,  ap 
parently,  only  to  the  first  celebration,  and,  like  the 
sprinkling  of  the  blood  on  the  door-posts,  was  discon 
tinued  when  the  feast  was  converted  into  a  permanent 
ordinance.  In  the  gospel  age  the  prevailing  custom 
was  that  of  reclining,  which  the  Pharisees  justified  on 
the  ground  that,  though  a  deviation  from  the  original 
practice,  it  was  a  fitting  sign  of  the  rest  and  enlarge 
ment  which  (Jod  had  given  to  his  people.  This,  there 
fore,  while  most  appropriate  at  the  time,  may  be 
omitted  as  temporary.  (4.)  The  next  provision  re 
garding  it — the  appointment  to  eat  it  with  bitter  herbs 
— might  also  be  assigned  to  the  temporary  class  of  ar 
rangements,  if  we  were  sure  that  it  simply  pointed,  as 
many  commentators  understand  it  to  have  done,  to  the 
hard  bondage  and  affliction  which  the  Israelites  endured 
in  Egypt.  It  may  possibly  have  done  so;  and  the 
opinion  is  so  far  countenanced  by  the  omission  of  any 
reference  to  the  bitter  herbs  in  the  later  passages  of 
the  Pentateuch,  which  treat  of  the  Passover  as  a  stated 
feast.  Yet,  as  the  distress  experienced  in  Egypt,  es 
pecially  that  of  the  closing  scene,  was  no  accidental 
thing,  but  an  inseparable  part  of  the  discipline  through 
which  they  had  to  pass,  the  bitter  herbs  that  symbolized 
it  had,  on  that  very  account,  something  of  abiding  im- 


FEASTS 

port  and  instruction.  They  told  of  the  intermingling 
of  anxiety  and  trouble,  through  which  the  people  had 
the  bands  of  their  captivity  loosed  and  were  raised 
into  the  liberty  and  blessedness  of  life.  It  was  even, 
one  might  say,  through  the  avenue  of  death  that  this 
life  was  entered  on  by  the  covenant- people;  and  the 
bitter  herbs  might  have  been  retained  as  a  significant 
emblem  of  that  attendant  sorrow  or  crucifixion  of 
nature.  (5.)  The  prohibition  of  leavened  bread,  which 
formed  another  and  much  more  prominent  character 
istic  of  the  feast,  there  can  be  no  doubt  was  intended 
to  be  a  perpetual  accompaniment.  The  alternative 
name  of  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread  was  itself  a 
clear  proof  of  this;  and  as  the  disuse  of  leaven  was  not 
limited  to  the  eating  of  the  paschal  lamb,  but  continued 
through  an  entire  week,  it  was  evidently  designed  from 
the  first  to  form  an  essential  characteristic.  Yet  it  too 
had  some  reference  to  the  troubles  and  distresses  of  the 
moment;  for  in  De.  xvi.  3  the  unleavened  bread  is 
called  "bread  of  affliction;"  and  it  is  added  byway  of 
explanation,  "for  thou  earnest  forth  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  in  haste."  That  is,  by  reason  of  the  terrible 
agitation  and  urgency  of  the  moment,  they  had  no 
time  to  prepare  their  customary  leavened  bread,  but 
had  hurriedly  to  make  ready  with  simple  flour  and  water 
what  they  required  for  the  occasion.  This,  however, 
had  respect  simply  to  the  preparation  of  the  bread, 
not  to  its  distinctive  quality,  though  the  latter  was 
plainly  the  chief  thing,  and  is  that  most  specifically 
referred  to  in  the  passages  that  dwell  upon  the  subject. 
Leaven  being  a  piece  of  sour  dough  in  a  state  of  fer 
mentation  (.•<(!  //t/dcr  LEAVEN),  was  fitly  regarded  as  an 
image  of  corruption  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sphere 
of  whatever,  by  its  perverse  nature,  or  vitiating  ten 
dencies,  disturbs  the  peace  of  the  soul,  and  causes  it, 
as  it  were,  to  ferment  with  the  elements  of  impure 
desire  and  disorderly  affection.  Hence,  our  Lord 
warned  his  disciples  to  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  li.it.  xvi.  <> ;  which  is  afterwards 
explained  to  mean  their  corrupt  doctrine  or  teaching ; 
and  the  apostle  identifies  unleavened  bread  with  sincerity 
and  truth,  hence,  by  implication,  makes  leaven  in  its 
symbolical  aspect  synonymous  with  what  is  false  and 
impure,  iCor.  v.  8.  The  command,  therefore,  at  the  feast 
of  the  Passover,  to  put  away  all  leaven  from  their  dwel 
lings,  and  through  one  whole  week,  the  primary  sabbatical 
circle,  to  eat  only  unleavened  bread,  was  in  reality  an 
enforcement  of  the  obligation  to  purity  of  heart  and 
behaviour.  It  taught  the  people,  by  a  perpetually 
recurring  ordinance,  that  the  kind  of  life  for  which 
they  had  been  redeemed,  and  which  they  were  bound, 
not  for  one  brief  season  merely,  but  for  all  coming 
time,  to  lead,  was  such  as  could  be  maintained  in  fellow 
ship  with  (Joel,  and  therefore  free  from  the  sins  and 
abominations,  on  which  he  can  never  look  but  with 
abhorrence.  The  service  was  but  another  form  of  re 
iterating  the  call,  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy,  (fi.) 
Closely  connected  with  this,  and  indeed  only  the 
embodiment  of  one  of  its  more  specific  and  positive  as 
pects,  was  the  presentation  to  the  Lord  of  a  sheaf  of 
barley — an  action  that  was  appointed  to  take  place  on 
the  second  day  of  the  feast,  and  to  be  accompanied  by 
a  burnt- offering,  with  its  appropriate  meat-offering,  Lc. 
xxiii.  IL'-IO — the  burnt-offering  symbolizing  the  dedica 
tion  of  their  persons  to  the  Lord,  and  the  sheaf  of  first- 
fruits  that  of  their  substance.  It  was  not  accidental, 
but  of  set  ptirpose,  that  the  time  of  the  annual  celebra- 


FEASTS 

tion  ot  this  feast,  which  commemorated  God's  act  in 
vindicating  for  himself  the  first-fruits  of  his  people 
Israel,  should  also  have  been  that  at  which  could  be 
annually  gathered  the  first-fruits  of  the  land's  increase. 
The  natural  thus  fitly  corresponded  with  the  spiritual. 
Tlie  presentation  of  the  first  ripe  grain  of  the  season 
was  like  offering  the  whole  crop  to  God.  acknowledg 
ing  it  as  his  gift,  and  receiving  it  as  under  the  signature 
of  his  hand,  to  be  used  in  accordance  with  his  mind  and 
will.  All  thereby  acquired  a  sacred  character:  for  "if 
the  first-fruits  were  holv,  the  lump  was  also  holy." 
The  service  carried,  besides,  a  formal  respect  to  the 
consecration  of  the  first-born  at  the  original  institution 
of  the  Passover,  and  was  therefore  most  appropriately 
connected  with  this  particular  ordinance.  Jn  the 
saving  and  consecration  of  the  first-l».ni,  all  Israel 
were,  in  a  manner,  saved  and  consecrated:  this  the 
people  were  called  every  succeeding  year,  when  they 
sacrificed  and  ate  the  Passover,  to  confess  before  tin- 
Lord,  and,  with  their  barley-sheaf  and  its  accompany 
ing  burnt-offering,  to  yield  themselves  and  their  sub 
stance  anew  to  him,  to  whom  they  owed  whatever  they 
were  and  had. 

Such  were  the  individual  and  more  specific  parts  of 
this  feast,  with  the  meaning  directly  involved  in  them 
for  the  people  of  Israel.  It  remains  however  to  L • 
noticed,  that  to  give  the  whole  period  during  which  the 
feast  was  1  it-Id  a  sacred  impress,  to  stain])  it  and  all  its 
services  as  instituted  for  holy  purposes,  both  the  fiist 
and  the  last  days  of  the  feast  were  to  I,,-  observed  as 
Sabbaths  days  without  work  and  for  holy  convoca 
tions,  u-.  xxiii.  7,  -.  And  throughout  the  period  there 
was  to  he  presented  daily,  in  addition  to  the  >tated 
morning  and  evening  sacrifices,  a  goat  for  a  sin-ottering. 
and  two  bullocks,  one  ram,  and  seven  lambs  for  a  burnt- 
offering,  with  their  respective  meat  and  drink  offerings. 
Nu  xxviii.  it;-i'.-).  These  did  not  convey  any  lessons  dif 
ferent  from  those  taught  in  other  parts  of  the  feast,  but 
they  served  to  bring  distinctly  into  remembrance,  at 
every  stage  of  the  solemnity,  how  much  the  worshippers 
needed  to  be  purged  from  the  defilement  of  sin.  and 
how  they  Were  called  to  '^ive  themselves  to  the  service 
and  glory  of  God. 

In  these  remarks  the  feast  of  the  Passover  has  been 
viewed  merely  as  a  commemorative  and  symbolical 
ordinance  for  Israel;  but  while  it  commemorated  the 
past,  it  also  typically  pointed  to  the  future.  It  did  this 
partly  in  common  with  all  other  divine  acts,  which 
brought  judgment  upon  the  adversary  and  deliverance 
to  God's  people.  For  what  Bacon  said  of  history  in 
general  — "  All  history  is  prophecy"  holds  emphatically 
of  such  portions  of  it.  In  these  God  more  peculiarly 
displayed  his  character  as  the  covenant  God  of  his 
people;  and  that  character  being  unchangeable  in  all  its 
essential  elements,  he  cannot  but  be  inclined  to  repeat 
substantially  for  them  in  the  future  what  he  has  done 
in  the  past.  On  this  ground  the  inspired  writers,  in 
the  Psalms  and  elsewhere,  constantly  endeavour  to  re 
assure  their  hearts  in  times  of  trouble  and  rebuke  by 
throwing  themselves  back  upon  the  redemptive  acts  of 
God  in  former  times,  perceiving  therein  a  pledge  of 
similar  acts,  as  often  as  they  might  be  needed,  in  the  , 
time  to  come.  But  another  and  still  higher  propheti 
cal  element  entered  into  that  singular  work  of  God 
which  had  its  commemoration  in  the  Passover.  For 
the  earthly  relations  then  subsisting,  and  the  manifes 
tations  they  called  forth  on  the  part  of  God,  were  • 


i  •»  FEASTS 

purposely  designed  and  ordered  to  foreshadow  corre 
sponding,  but  immensely  higher  ones  in  the  future 
development  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  as  in  this 
greater  future  all  adverse  power,  though  rising  to  its 
most  desperate  and  malignant  efforts,  was  destined  to 
be  put  down  by  the  triumphant  energy  of  Christ,  that 
the  salvation  of  his  people  might  be  for  ever  secured. 
so  the  redemption  from  the  land  of  Egypt,  with  its 
ever  -  recurring  memorial,  necessarily  contained  the 
germ  and  promise  of  those  better  things  to  come:  the 
Iamb  perpetually  offered  to  commemorate  the  past,  and 
partaken  of  as  the  sacrament  of  a  redemption  already 
accomplished,  spake  to  the  ear  of  faith  of  the  true  Lamb 
of  God  that,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  should  take  away 
the  sins  of  the  world;  and  only  when  it  could  be  said, 
•'Chri.-t  our  passover  has  been  sacrificed  for  us."  did 
the  purpose  of  God,  which  lay  infolded  as  an  embryo  in 
the  paschal  institution,  receive  its  proper  development. 
Hence  the  pregnant  utterance  of  our  Lord  when  sitting 
down  to  the  celebration  of  the  last  Passover.  "With 
desire  I  have  desire,!  to  eat  this  pas.-over  with  you 
before  I  sutli  r:  for  1  say  unto  you.  1  will  not  any  more 
eat  thereof  until  it  be  fulfilled  in  the  kingdom  of  God," 
Lu.  \\ii  i:.,  K!. 

In  tiii-  higher  and  prospective  ivfennce  of  the  pas 
chal  institution,  the  lamb  without  blemish,  \\ith  its 
sprinkled  blond,  pointed  to  the  sinless  Redeemer,  come 
to  sheil  his  blood  fur  many  for  the  remission  of  sins, 
uith  which  blood  applied  to  their  conscience  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  they  are  consecrated  tor  evermore.  Here. 
too.  salvation  from  destruction  is  not  the  only  thing 
aimed  at:  it  is  but  the  means  to  a  further  end  the 
soul's  participation  in  the  undying  life  of  .Jesus,  and 
aci|uireiin-nt  thereby  of  a  personal  fitne.-s  for  the  work 
and  service  of  God.  Tin.-  indispensable  condition  to 
this  end  is  the  In-arty  reception  of  the  Saviour  in  his 
entire  fulness,  as  the  one  bread  of  life  for  the  community 
of  believers,  that  they  may  be  all  one  with  him  as  he 
is  one  with  the  Father:  for  which  reason  not  a  bone  of 
him  was  allowed  to  be  broken  on  the  cross,  that  his 
people  might  have  even  an  external  witness  of  that 
undivid'-il  oneness,  and  might  the  more  readily  discern 
in  tin  history  of  the  crucified  the  realization  of  the 
promise  embodied  in  the  Passover.  It  virtually  declared 
that  a  divided  or  mutilated  Christ  could  only  be  an 
insufficient  Saxiour.  because  necessarily  leaving  evils 
in  the  soul  s  condition  unredressed,  wants  unsatisfied. 
Not  unless  received  in  bis  proper  completeness  can  the 
life  that  is  in  him  be  found  also  in  them.  And  as  this 
life  can  7iever  work  but  unto  holiness,  so  it  will  inevi 
tably  lead  to  the  putting  away  of  the  old  leaven  of  a 
corrupt  nature,  and  walking  in  the  spirit  of  sincerity 
and  truth;  more  certainly  indeed  than  of  old,  for  in 
this  respect  also  all  rises  to  a  higher  place.  As  the 
mercies  of  God  connected  with  the  new  Lamb  of  sacri 
fice  are  unspeakably  greater,  and  the  fellowship  with 
Gnd  int<>  which  it  bring>  his  people  is  closer,  so  the 
obligation  is  correspondingly  stronger  under  which  they 
are  laid  to  yield  themselves  to  God,  and  to  prove,  by 
their  daily  conduct,  what  is  his  good,  and  holy,  and 
acceptable  will. 

111.  Tin-  Fmxt  ,>f  ir<v-/-.s-  P,  ,,te,-Mt. -  -  This  feast,  which 
comes  next  in  order,  stood  in  a  definite  relation  to  the 
feast  of  the  Passover,  or  rather  to  a  particular  part  of 
that  feast — the  presentation  to  the  Lord  of  the  first 
ripe  ears  of  barley.  This  service,  as  already  noticed, 
was  appointed  to  take  place  on  the  second  day  of  the 


FEASTS 


paschal  solemnity,  the  day  after  the  Sabbath,  which  . 
formed  its  commencement,  Lc.xxiii.ir.;  and  from  that  the 
people  WIT.;  to  count  seven  weeks  complete,  a  week  of 
weeks,  at  the  close  of  which,  on  the  day  following,  they 
were  to  hold  another  solemnity,  called  on  that  account 
the  feast  of  weeks.  The  actual  day  of  the  feast  formed 
the  i/t'lld/i  from  the  day  of  presenting  the  barley-sheaf; 
and'  from  the  Creek  word  pentecostc,  fiftieth,  it  came 
to  be  commonly  known  under  the  designation  of  Pente 
cost.  But  the" more  distinctive  name  is  that  of  weeks, 
being  determined  by  the  complete  cycle  of  weeks  which 
intervened  between  it  and  the  second  day  of  the  feast 
of  unleavened  bread,  of  which  it  formed  the  proper 
consummation.  With  reference  to  this  aspect  of  it, 
the  ancient  Jews  gave  it  the  name  of  Atsmtt  (Jos.  iii. 
10,  0,  Asavtl.a),  that  is,  the  closing  or  shutting  up. 

'  Two  other  names,  however,  are   applied  to  the  feast 
in  Scripture.      In  Ex.  xxiii.  10,  where  mention  is  first 
made  of  it,  it  is  called  both  the  feast  of  liarrcnt  and  the 
feast  of  jirst-fniH*;  also  in  Nu.  xxviii.  26,  where  the 
subject  is  treated  of  in  connection  with  the  offerings, 
it  is  simply  called  the  day  of  first- fruits.      It  was  desig 
nated  from  the  harvest,  because  it  was  kept  at  the  close 
of  the  whole  reaping  season,  when  the  wheat  as  well  as 
the  barley  crop  had  been  cut  and  gathered.     The  seven 
weeks  after  the  commencement  of  the  Passover  were 
always  sufficient  for  that  purpose;  they  embraced  the 
entire  circle  of  harvest  operations.     It  very  naturally 
got  the  name  also  of  the  feast  or  day  of  first-fruits, 
because  it  formed   the  occasion  on  which   an   offering 
was  to  be  presented  to  God  of  the  entire  crop,  as  actu 
ally  gathered   and  ready  for  use.     This  was  done  by 
the  high-priest  waving  two  loaves,  made  of  the  best  of 
the  crop,   not   of   barley-meal,   but   of   fine   flour,   and 
baked  in  the  usual  manner  with  leaven;  the  leaven  in 
this  case  not  being  regarded  as  a  separate  ingredient, 
or  in  its  character  as  leaven,  but  being  simply  viewed  as 
an  essential  part  of  the  concrete  result— baked  loaves. 
Nor  were  they  placed  upon  the  altar,  to  which  the  pro 
hibition  about  leaven  strictly  referred,  but  waved  before 
the  Lord  by  the  priest  in  the  name  of  the  congregation. 
15 ut  in  addition  to  this   wave-offering,    as   the   people 
were  enjoined  to  give  ''the  first  of  all  the  fruit  of  the 
land  to  the  Lord,"  DC.  xxvi.2,  since  from  him  the  whole 
had  been  derived,  it  was  ordered  that  at  this  feast  they 
should  bring  an  offering  of  the  first-fruits  of  their  pro 
duce,  each  according  to  his  ability  and  the  purpose  o 
his  heart.     No  definite  amount  or  proportionate  contri 
butioii  was  fixed;  it  was  declared  to  be  "a  tribute  of  £ 
free  will  offering  of  their  hand,  which  they  were  to  giv< 
according  as  the  Lord  their  God  had  blessed  them,' 
De.  xvi.  10°    But  the  offering  itself  was  laid  as  a  matte 
of  obligation  upon   each  man's  conscience;  hence  th 
exhortation  of  Solomon,  "  Honour  the  Lord  with  tin 
substance,  and  with  the  first-fruits  of  all  thine  increase, 
Pr.  iii.  9.     Jewish  writers  relate  that  the  form  of  confes 
sion  and  thanksgiving  found  in  De.  xxvi.  5,  seq.,  wa 
commonly  used  on  the  occasion. 

The  feast  in  later  times  appears  to  have  lasted  f 
some    days ;    probably   was   continued    as  long  as  the 
Passover;  but  in  the  law  mention  is  made  only  of  a 
single  day;  and  in  so  far  as  any  additional  time  may  j 
have    been  spent    at    it,    there   was    no    authoritative  j 
enactment  enjoining  attendance.      But  the  mere  ren 
dering  of  the  first-fruits  from  so  many  families,  accom 
panied  as  it  was  with  an  injunction  to  show  liberality 
to  the   poor,  and   to  give  the  widow,  the  orphan,  the 


FEASTS 

stranger,  as  well  as  their  own  servants,  a  share  in  their 
)ounty,  Uc.  xvi.  10,  would  certainly  require  a  succession 
,>f  days,  though,  as  to  the  exact  number,  determined 
more  "perhaps   by  the  convenience  of  individuals  than 
by  any  statutory  appointment.      The   one  legal  day  of 
the  feast  was  a  Sabbath,  a  day  of  holy  convocations ; 
and    in    addition   to   the    usual    Sabbath-day   services, 
there   were   to   be   ottered    on   it,    precisely   as   at    the 
feast  of  the  Passover,    two  young  bullocks,   one  ram, 
and  seven   lambs   for   a   burnt-offering,  Xu.  xxviii.  «:  —  a 
svmliol   of   their   personal   dedication,    along  with  the 
first-fruits  of   their  yearly  increase,  to  the  Lord.      Tile- 
burnt- offering,  as  originally  prescribed  in  Le.  xxiii.  IS, 
was  one  young  bullock   and  two  rams,  instead  of  two 
bullocks  and  one  ram,  which  is  either  to  be  understood 
as  an  alternative  that  might  at  times  be  preferred,  or, 
s  is  more  probable,  a  later  regulation,  which  was  to  lie 
egarded   as   virtually  superseding  what  had  been  in 
xistence before.     A  kid  of  the  goats  for  a  sin-offering 
also  to  be  slain,  to  make  atonement   for  them— 
ringing  to  remembrance  the  sin  which  cleaved  to  them 
n  all  their  services,  and  which  required  to  be  blotted 
ut,  that  these  services  might  come  up  with  acceptance 
ifore  God. 

This  feast  has  very  commonly  been  considered  as  m- 
ended,  partly  at  least,  to  commemorate  the  giving  of 
he  law.  which  certainly  took  place  very  nearly  at  the 
listance  of  fifty  days  from  the  killing  of  the  Passover, 
ilthough  the  time  cannot  be  determined  to  a  day.     No 
iidicatlon,  however,  occurs  of  this  view  in  Scripture,  nor 
s  any  trace  of  it  to  be  found  in  Philo  or  Josephus. 
Maimoiiides  seems  to  be  the  first  Jewish  writer  who 
gave  expression  to  it— "Festum  septimanarum  est  dies 
die,  quo  Lex  data  fuif  (More  Nov.  iii.  41);  but  Abarbanel 
rejected  it  on  the  ground  that  the  divine  law  had  no 
need  of  the  sanctification  of  a  day  in  order  to  keep  alive 
the  memory  of  its  promulgation  (in  Leg.  fol.  20-.').    It  seems 
chiefly  to  have  been  from  a  supposed  parallel  between 
the  giving  of  the  law  and  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  that 
the  view  has  obtained  such  extensive  currency  among 
Christian  divines.     Whatever  plausibility  however  may 
attach  to  it,  and  whatever  reality  in  the   connection 
between  the  two  events  which  it  couples  together,  the 
view    itself   rests   upon   no   solid   footing.       There   are 
simply  two  points  of  ascertained  and  real  moment  hi 
the   scriptural    account   of   the  feast.      (I.}   First,    its 
reference  to  the  second  day  of  the  Passover,  when  the 
sheaf  of  barley  was  presented  at  the  tabernacle,  the 
former  day  being  the   commencement,  this  latter  day 
the  completion  of  the  harvest  period.      Hence,  all  being 
now    finished    which   concerned   the  garnering  of  the 
year's  provision,  the  special  offering  was  not  of  ripe 
corn,   but   of  loaves,    representing  the  whole   staff  of 
bread.      (2.)  Then,  secondly,  there  was  the  reference  to 
the  intervening  weeks -the  week  of  weeks— a  complete 
revolution  of  time  somehow  peculiarly  connected  with 
God— shut  in  on  each  hand  by  a  holy  Sabbath  and  an 
offering  of  first-fruits,  and  thus  marked  off  as  the  season  of 
the  year  which,  more  than  any  other,  was  distinguished 
for  the  tokens  of  his  presence  and  working.  Why  should 
this  season  in  particular  have  been  so  distinguished? 
Simply  because  it  was  the   reaping  time  of  the  year. 
Canaan  was  in  a  peculiar  sense  God's  land;  the  cove 
nant-people  were  guests  and  sojourners  with  him  upon 
it,  and  it  was  his  part,  so  long  as  they  remained  faith 
ful  in  their  allegiance  to  him,  to  provide  for  their  wants 
and  satisfy  them  with  good  things.     The  harvest  was 


FEASTS 


FEASTS 


more  especially  the  season  for  his  doing  this;  it  was  the 
time  of  his  more  conspicuous  working  in  their  behalf, 
when  he  crowned  the  year  with  his  goodness,  and  laid 
up,  as  it  were,  in  his  storehouses  what  was  required  to 
furnish  them  with  supplies  till  the  return  of  another 
harvest.      It  was  fitting,  therefore,  that  he  should   be 
expressly  owned   and   honoured    both  at   the  beginning 
and  tho  ending  of  the  period  -that  as  the  first  of  the 
ripening  ears  of  corn,  so  the  first  of  the  baked  loaves  of 
bread  should  be  presented  to  him   -and  that  the  people, 
especially  at   the   close,  as    guests   well    cared    for  and 
plentifully  furnished    with   the   comforts  of  life,  should 
come  before  the  Lord  to  praise  him  for  his  mercies,  and 
give  substantial  expression  to  their  gratitude  l.y  contri 
buting  of  the  fruits  of  their  increase   to  those  whom  he 
wished  to  have  regarded  as  the  more  peculiar  objects  of 
his  sympathy. 
It  must  be  obvious  to  any  reflecting  mind  that  such  an 

came  to  be  the  application  of  its  blessings.      Hitherto 
it  was  the  manifestation  of  the  Son  for  men.  now  and 
henceforth  it  was    to   be    the  operation    of  the  Spirit 
within    them  —causing    the   seed    in    men's    hearts    to 
spring  up  and  germinate  and  bring  forth  fruit  unto  life 
everlasting.      They   are   emphatically    the    blessed    who 
thus  receive  of  the  good   things  of  the  kingdom:   and 
how  can  they  be  conscious  of  the  blessedness  without 
inviting  others,  the  spiritually  poor  and  needy,  to  come 
and  rejoice  with  them  ' 
1  V.   /'/„  l-n,,t  ,,f  Tri'iH/Kt*  orXeir  Moon.-  It  was  the 
moon   that  might    be   said    to    rule  the    year  with  the 
Israelites,    and   by  its   successive   changes  and   revolu 
tions  to  determine  all  the  larger  divisions  of  time.      The 
year  was  made  up  of  so  many  moons;  each  month  con 
sisted  of  the  period  ..f  a  single  moon's  revolution:  and 
the  month  was  again  divided   into  four  equal  parts,  or 
weeks,  t..  ;i   nearness  corresponding    with  the   four  suc 
cessive  aspects   of   the   moon.        It  \\as    then  fore   quite 
natural   that  the  new  moons  should  have  some  mark  of 
distinction    connected    with  them    in   the  Jewish  ritual. 
They  were    n..t.  however,   placed   among    the   feasts   or 
the   seasons   appointed  for  Sabbaths  and   holy  convoca 
tions      although    it  would    seem,  from  certain   allusions 
in  Scripture   (is.  i  i:;;  •_•  Ki.  h.  -i:\\  that  it  was  not  unusual 
for  the  in.  .re  /ealons  c,  reinoniali-ts,  or  the  more  piously 
inclined  members  of  the  old  covenant,  to  observe  them 
as  a  kind   of  holidays.      They  ,/-,/•<   s..    tar  distinguished 
in  the  law  from  other  days,  that  the  same  special  ofl'er- 

lessons  of  instruction,  even  in  respect  to  the  sphere  of 
ordinary  life.      Tlun   Cod   still   manifests  his   care   and 
bountifulness   in    providing,    and    by    acts    of   reverent 
homage  and   gifts  of  substantial   beneficence,  he  should 
be  continually  honoured  by  those  who  are  the  partakers 
of  his  bounty.      Even    in  that   lower  sphere,  the   great 
principles  on  which  the  feast  proceeded,  and    \\hi.-hit 
aimed    at    ever   calling    forth    into   living    recognition, 
should    be  acknowledged   and   acted   on   bv  every  hus- 

labouivr  in  the  business  of  life       l!ut  if  \\  .    1....1    to  the 

higher  sphere  of  things  spiritual  and  divine,   which   are 
tlie  only  proper  antitype  ..f  the  other,  then  we  are  re 
minded  by  the  arrangements  of  this  feast,  first  of  Cod's 
peculiar  working  season  in   the  matter..!'  redemption, 
and   then  of  the  relation   between    that  and   the  actual 

assigned    to    the    regular    i,  minium,    NIL  xxviii.  11-15;  and 
they  wei-e  marked  by  the  further  distinction  of  a  blow 
ing   of  trumpets   over  the   burnt  •otlerings,  Nu.  x.  n>;  i-s. 
l\\\i.  ::       These   things   certainly  raised   the   new  moons 
out  of   the  rank  of  ordinary  days,  and   made  them,  one 

time  of  Christ's  personal   ministry  on  earth     from  the 
moment    that    he    appeared    at    the    banks    of   Jordan, 
making    profession    of    his    high   purpose    to    fulfil    all 
righteousness,  till  he    bowed    his  head   on  the  accursed 
tree,  finishing   transgression  and  making  an  end  ..f  sin 
by  the  saerifit  e  of  himself  -  that  was  emphatically  (  iod's 
ripening   and   reaping  time   in   the  \\ork   of  salvation. 
during  which  he  was  bringing  into  act  his  eternal  pur 
pose  of  love,  and  once  for  all   garnered   ;]p  in  his   king 
dom  the  inexhaustible  riches  of  his  grace  and  blessing. 
Of  this  incomparable  harvest  Christ  was  at  once  the 
provider  and   the  provision     the  first   ripe   fruits,  and 
the   meritorious    possessor  of   all    that   was  needed   to 
bring  forth  others  of  a   like  kind.      What,   then,  was 
required   to  complete  the   process,  but  such  a  further 
movement  in  the  divine    economy  as  would  turn  the 
fruits  of  grace  provided  into  the  bread  of  life  received 
and   fed  upon  by  the  souls  of  men?     And   this  was  the 
closing  act,  which  began  to  take  effect  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost;   it  stood  related  to  the  preceding  work  of 
Christ,  as  the  Passover  with  its  first-fruits  of  ripened 
grain  to  the  feast  of  weeks  with  it-  loaves  of  prepared 
food.     The  Spirit   now  descended    with  the  things   of 
Christ  to  show  them  with  power  to  the  souls  of  men. 
The  riches  of  the  purchased   redemption,  existing  yet 
but  as  a  treasure  provided  and  laid  up  by  God  for  them 
that  love  him.  became  an  actual  heritage  of  life  and 
blessing,  rendering  such  as  were  willing  to  partake  of 

only  ..lie  of  them  to  take  rank  with  the   niniii/niii.  as  a 
day  of  sacred  rest  and  holy  convocations:  yet  it  received 
its  more  peculiar  designation  from  what  it  had  in  com 
mon  with  the  other  new  moons,  namely,  the  blowing  of 
trumpets;  it  was  called  the  feast  of  trumpets;  on  which 
account,  we  may  suppose,  the  trumpet-  bio  wing  would 
be   both   continued    longer   and    raised    louder   than   at 
other  new  moon-.      What   belonged   to  the  others  as  a 

(.eristic.      The   day  thus   signali/ed    was  the  fiist  of   the 
seventh  month,  which  fell   somewhere  about  our  Octo- 

at   the  sanctuary,  yet  the  day  was   to  be  observed  as  a 
Sabbath,  and  the  regular  feast-  offerings  were  to  be  pre 
sented  on  it,  Nu.  xxix.  i-ii. 
There   can    be  no  doubt    that   the  sacred    use   of    the 
trumpet  had  its  reason   in  the  loud  and  stirring  noise' 
it    emits.     This    is  described    as  a  'TV,    I..-1.  x\v  n-    the 
rendering  xninn/  in  the    English   P>ible  is  too  feeble  — 
which  was  to  make  itself  heard   throughout   the  whole 
land.     The   references   to    it    in    Scripture   not   unfre- 
quently   indicate   the   same   idea,  '/.v\>.  i.  id;  Is.  Iviii.  i;  lios. 
viii.  i,&c.      And  for  this  reason  the  sound  of  the  trumpet 
was  familiarly  employed  as  an   image  of  the  voice  or 
word   of  Cod.     The  voice  of  God  and  the  voice  of  the 
trumpet   on   Mount  Sinai  were  heard  together  —  first, 
the    trumpet-sound    as    the    symbol,    then    the    living 
reality,  Ex.  xix.  x;  lit.      St.  John   also  speaks   of  having 

tie  benefit  a  kind  of  first-fruits  of  his  creatures.      In  !  heard"  the  voice  of  the  Lord  as  that  of  a  trumpet,  Re.  i. 
a  word,  the  leading  characteristic  of  the  divine  kingdom  j  in;iv.  i;and   the  thrilling  sound  of  the  trumpet  is  once 
•fore  tin 
VOL.  i. 


before  this  was  the  working  out  of  redemption,  now  it  j  and  again  represented   as  the  immediate  harbinger  of 


FEASTS 


578 


FEASTS 


the  Sou  of  Man  when  coining  in  power  and  great  glory,  I 
to  utter  the  almighty  word,  which  shall  quicken  the 
deai I  to  life,  and  bring  to  a  close  the  present  frame  of 
things,  Mat.  xxiv.  :;i;  1  Co.  xv.  5:2;  1  Tli.  iv.  Ki.  It  is  clear, 
therefore,  that  the  blowing  of  the  trumpet  was,  in  cer 
tain  connections,  used  as  a  symbol  of  the  mighty  voice 
of  God,  which,  when  uttered,  none  may  venture  to 
disregard;  and,  subordinately,  of  course,  it  may  have 
been  used  of  any  stirring  agency,  even  on  the  part  of 
man,  such  as  was  fitted  to  call  forth  awakened  energy 
and  spirited  application  to  the  work  and  service  of  God. 
It  was  hence  peculiarly  the  war-note — summoning  the 
people  to  put  forth  their  energies  as  to  a  great  work  of 
God,  and  piercing,  as  it  were,  the  ear  of  Clod  himself 
in  the  heavens,  that  he  might  arise  to  their  help  against 
the  mighty,  >"«•  *.  "•  Such  appears  to  have  been  the 
general  import  of  the  blowing  of  trumpets  at  the  festi 
val  of  that  name  on  the  first  day  of  the  seventh  month. 
That  month  was  distinguished  above  all  the  other 
months  of  the  year  for  the  multitude  of  ordinances  con 
nected  with  it;  it  was  emphatically  the  sacred  month. 
Its  place  as  the  seventh  in  the  Jewish  calendar  marked 
it  out  for  this  distinction  (see  NUMBERS,  SACRED)  ;  it 
bore  on  its  name  the  numerical  impress  of  the  covenant, 
and,  as  such,  was  to  be  hallowed  above  all  the  months 
of  the  year  by  solemnities  which  bespoke  at  once  God's 
singular  goodness  to  his  people,  and  the  people's  special 
interest  in  God.  For,  not  only  was  its  first  day  con 
secrated  to  sacred  rest  and  spiritual  employment,  but 
the  tenth  was  the  great  day  of  yearly  atonement,  the 
one  day  in  the  year  when  the  high-priest  was  permitted 
to  pass  within  the  vail,  and  sprinkle  the  mercy-seat 
with  the  blood  of  sacrifice;  and  then  on  the  fifteenth  of 
the  month  commenced  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  which, 
as  a  fitting  conclusion  to  the  whole  festal  cycle,  called 
the  people  to  rejoice  in  the  goodness  which  the  Lord 
had  given  them  to  experience,  as  contrasted  with  the 
former  periods  of  trial  and  humiliation.  In  perfect  ac 
cordance  with  all  this,  the  feast  of  this  new  moon  is 
called  "a  memorial  of  blowing  of  trumpets,"  or  rather 
a  bringing  to  remembrance,  putting  the  people  in  mind 
of  the  great  things  they  were  to  expect;  yea,  putting 
(rod  himself  in  mind  of  the  great  things  he  had  pro 
mised  to  bestow,  in  connection  with  the  solemnities 
of  that  month — precisely  as  when  they  went  to  war 
against  an  enemy  that  oppressed  them,  they  were 
ordered  to  blow  the  trumpet;  and,  it  is  added,  "Ye 
shall  be  remembered  before  the  Lord  your  God,  and  ye 
shall  be  saved  from  your  enemies,"  Xu.  x.  n. 

The  principle  enshrined  in  all  this  avails  for  New  as 
well  as  for  Old  Testament  times;  the  form  has  passed 
away,  but  the  spirit  remains.     There  are  times  when 
believers  need,  and  when  they  may  warrantably  expect, 
the  larger  gifts  of  grace  than  ordinary,  fuller  experi-  • 
ences  of  life  and  blessing.     Let  them,  as  it  wTere,  blow  ' 
the  trumpet,   if  they  would  obtain  these;    stir  up  all  | 
their  energies  and  desires,  and  put  God  in  mind  of  the 
promises  on  which  he  has  caused  them  to  hope.     Such 
is  for  all  times  the  sure  road  to  success;  since  the  gifts 
of  grace  and  the  actual  capacity  for  serving  and  enjoy 
ing  God  always  exist  in  a  certain  correspondence  with 
the  state  of  awakened   desire  and  spiritual  application 
on  the  part  of  believers. 

V.  The  Feast  of  the  Day  of  Atonement. — The  services 
connected  with  the  day  of  atonement  were  in  them 
selves  so  peculiar,  and  had  such  a  specific  bearing  on 
the  events  of  gospel  history,  that  they  might,  perhaps, 


have  been  considered  with  more  advantage  in  imme 
diate  connection  with  the  tabernacle.  But  as  they 
have  had  their  place  assigned  them  by  the  lawgiver 
himself  in  the  category  of  the  moadeem,  we  shall  ad 
here  to  the  same  order.  The  day  for  their  perform 
ance,  as  already  noticed,  was  the  tenth  of  the  seventh 
month;  a  strict  Sabbath,  on  which  no  servile  work  was 
to  be  done,  but  which  was  to  be  for  holy  convocations, 
and  also — unlike  other  Sabbaths,  which  were  to  be 
days  of  refreshment  and  joy,  No.  viii.  lo;  Is.  Mil.  i:j—  for 
the  people  afflicting  their  souls.  So  rigidly  was  this 
use  and  aspect  of  the  day  to  be  maintained,  that 
whosoever  would  not  on  that  day  afflict  his  soul  was 
to  be  cut  off  from  among  his  people;  he  virtually  re 
nounced  his  right  to  the  standing  and  privileges  of  the 
covenant,  Lo.  xxiii.  29-32.  The  mode  of  afflicting  the  soul 
was  not  more  exactly  defined,  in  order  that  the  people 
might  perceive  something  more  than  a  merely  external 
deprivation  to  be  meant ;  but  undoubtedly  it  was  also 
intended  to  find,  and  for  the  most  part  would  actually 
find,  an  outward  expression  in  the  total  or  comparative 
abstinence  from  food.  (See  FAST.)  The  distinctive 
character  and  design  of  the  day  was  to  bring  sin,  the 
collective  sin  of  the  whole  year,  to  remembrance,  for 
the  purpose  of  being  earnestly  dealt  with  and  atoned; 
and  anything  like  a  light  and  joyous  frame  of  mind  on 
such  an  occasion  was  entirely  unsuitable.  It  is  to  the 
penitent  and  humble  alone  that  God  shows  mercy 
and  grants  forgiveness;  no  one  in  another  mood  had 
reason  to  expect  that  any  sacrifice  he  presented,  even 
on  ordinary  occasions,  would  be  accepted  on  his  behalf; 
and  on  what  was  emphatically  the  day  of  atonements, 
when  the  high-priest  was  to  make  confession  of  all  the 
sins  of  the  community,  and  in  their  behalf  enter  with 
the  blood  of  reconciliation  into  the  most  holy  place, 
if  the  contrite  and  lowly  spirit  was  awanting  in  any  of 
the  members  of  the  community,  it  was  but  too  clear 
that  they  had  really  no  part  or  lot  in  the  matter.  In 
this  general  aspect  of  the  feast,  therefore,  it  presented 
itself  as  an  occasion  and  a  call  of  a  peculiarly  solemn 
kind,  for  the  people  of  the  covenant  returning  through 
the  channel  of  godly  sorrow  and  atonement  for  sin 
into  the  blessed  rest  of  God's  mercy  and  favour,  so  that 
as  partakers  thereof  they  might  rejoice  before  him  and 
run  the  way  of  his  commandments. 

The  more  peculiar  interest  of  the  day,  however,  con 
centrated  itself  in  the  person  and  actions  of  the  high- 
priest;  and  here  we  have  a  very  remarkable  and  signifi 
cant  series  of  operations.  (1.)  The  first  thing  that  re 
quired  to  he  attended  to  was  the  dress  of  the  high- priest. 
After  the  usual  morning  oblations,  at  which,  if  he  per 
sonally  officiated,  he  was  robed  in  the  garments  that 
were  made  for  ornament  and  beauty,  Kx.  xxviii.  1-40,  he 
had  to  strip  himself;  and,  having  washed  his  person,  had 
to  put  on  other  garments  made  of  plain  linen — a  linen 
tunic,  linen  breeches,  a  linen  girdle,  and  the  linen  mitre 
-  --which  are  called  emphatically  "garments  of  holiness," 
and  as  soon  as  the  more  distinctive  service  of  the  day 
was  over,  he  had  again  to  put  them  off,  and  leave  them 
in  the  sanctuary  till  another  occasion,  Le.  xvi.  4, 23.  These 
plain  linen  garments — clean  and  white  as  they  doubt 
less  were — require  no  explanation;  they  were  the  sym 
bols  of  that  holiness  which  became  one  who  would  enter 
the  immediate  presence  of  the  Most  High,  and  mediate 
with  effect  between  him  and  sinful  men,  Re.  vii.  I3;xix.8. 
Hence,  the  high  -  priest's  investment  with  them  was 
preceded  by  the  washing  of  his  person;  he  had  first  to 


FEASTS 


FEASTS 


make  himself  (symbolically)  clean  or  holy,  and  then  '  spective  destinations  in  the  matter  could  not  differ  at 
outwardly  appear  as  such.  ('2.)  When  thus  person-  all  essentially;  the  parts  to  be  performed  by  each  could 
ally  prepared,  he  had  to  provide  himself  with  a  bul-  ,  not  have  been  mutually  independent,  far  less  formally 
lock  for  a  sin-offering,  the  blood  of  which  was  for  antagonistic:  since  it  turned  simply  on  the  castin»-  of 
the  atonement  of  himself  and  his  house;  that  is,  the  the  lot  which  should  be  destined  to  the  one  part '"and 


whole   sacerdotal  family   to    which    he    belonged;  and 


which  to  the  other.      The  two  parts  actually  were 


for  the  Lord,  the  other  for  A/azel.  or  for  a  scape-^oat, 


with  this  blood  he  had  to   make  his  entrance,  for  the 

first  time  on  that  day  within  the  vail,  and  sprinkle  the  as  it  is  rendered  in  our  version.      On  this  expression  a 
mercy-seat,   als •>   in   front  of  it  sprinkle  seven  times.  ''  considerable  diversity  of  opinion  has  been  entertained, 

This  act.  however,  had  to  be  accompanied  with  another  and  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  the  point  separately! 

-perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say,  with  Winer  (>'«-  SCAPE-COAT.)     liut  the  real  import  of  the  trausac- 

and  K-ihr,  preceded  by  another— his  bearing  accuser  ti"ii  connected  with  this  second  goat  is  made  so  plain 

with    incense,    kindled    by  live    coals   taken   from  the  otherwise,  that  nothing  material  can  be  said  to  depend 

brazen  altar,  that  the  cloud  of  incense  might,  as  it  were,  upon  the  precise  term,     (f.)  The  goat  on  which  the 


o   before,   and   cover  the   merc-seat 


th 


sprinkling   was  per 


f     Lord's  lot  fell  was  forthwith  slain  as      sin-offering;  and 

As   it  would     with  its   blood,  as  before  with  that  of  the  bullock,  the 


not  he  quite    easy   to   carry  the   vessel  with   the 

along  with   the   censer  of   Miiokin_j   iueense.  the  proba-      the  third   time)    within   the  vail,  and   sprinkled  it  14)011 
bility   is  that  they  were   two   separate   actions,  effected     and    In-fore    the    mercy-seat;    then,    ivtiiniiii"-   into   the 
uhl 


by  a  double  entrance.  But  whether  that  miidit  be  til- 
case  or  not,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  action  with 
the  incense  took  precedence  of  the  sprinkling,  and 
made  preparation  for  it.  Now,  the  offering  of  incense 
was  simply  an  embodied  prayer.  1's.  rxli.  -j  ;  I. a  i.  :i,  In;  Ke 
v.  s;  and  this  action  indicated  that  the  entrance  of  the 
high- priest  into  the  most  holy  place,  as  the  head  and  re 
presentative  of  a  sinful  community,  was  no  privilege  to 
be  claimed  as  a  riu'ht,  but  one  that  had  to  b,-  sought  b\- 
supplication  from  a  merciful  and  praver-hearing  Cod. 
Kntering,  therefore,  as  a  suppliant,  and  entering  for 
the  purpose  of  sprinkling  the  blood  that  had  been  shed 
for  the  atonement  of  his  personal  and  family  guilt,  the 
high-priest  became  on  this  occasion  an  impre  —  ive  wit 
ness  of  tin;  humiliating  truth,  that  sin  i-  unsp*  akaMv  they  were  here  contemplated  as  ha\  in-- come  up  from 
hateful  in  the  sight  of  Cod,  and  is  only  to  be  remitted  all  quartern  of  the  land,  and  imparted  defilement  to  the 
to  the  prayerful  and  penitent  through  the  r-heddin-  of  several  apartments  and  vessels  of  th.  house,  in  which 
blood.  (:;.i  All  this,  however,  was  but  preliminary  t"  (symbolically)  the  people  were  allowed  to  meet  and 
the  great  act  of  reconciliation,  which  bore  respect  to  dwell  \\ith  Cod.  It  was,  in  another  form,  but  the 
the  worshipping  community  of  Israel.  For  this  purpose  people's  concentrated  guilt;  and  so  the-  blood  that  sancti- 
two  goats  were  selected— which  were  to  be  taken  from  tied  was  the  blood  of  the  one  sin  offeriii"-  that  was  to  be 


sanctuary  or  holy  place,  he  sprinkled  also  there,  and 
au'ain  at  the  altar  of  burnt-offering  in  the  court,  K\.  xxx. 

i";  Lo.  xvi  17.      For    with    that    hi 1   he   had    to  make 

atonement,  not  merely  for  the  congregation  directly, 
but  also  for  "the  holy  place,  because  of  the  unclean- 
ness  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  because  of  their 
transgressions  in  all  their  sins:  and  so  also  for  the 
tabernacle  of  the  congregation  (the  tent  of  meeting) 
that  dwelleth  among-t  them  in  the  midst  of  their  un- 
cleanness."  Not.  of  course,  that  these  things  were  in 
themselves  capable  of  contract  ing  -nil  t:  the  sins  atoned 
for  still -were  the  sins  of  the  congregation;  only,  with 
the  view  of  showing  more  distinctly  their  hatefulness 
in  Cod's  sight,  and  th.-ir  contrariety  to  his 


the  congregation,  as  the  bullock  had  been  from  him 
self,  but  which,  though  two.  were  still  viewed  as  a  for 
mal  unity.  It  was  as  n  nin-nffcrin;i  that  they  were  to 
be  taken,  and  present' •< I  before  the  Lord  at  the  door  of 
the  tabernacle.  Le.  xvi.  f>,  7.  One  complex  act  was  all 
that  had  to  be  symboli/.ed  on  the  occasion,  and  two 
victims  were  chosen  to  do  it,  simply  on  account  of  the 
impossibility  of  giving  otherwise  a  full  representation 


presented  for  the  congregation  of  Israel.  (~>.)  Then 
came  the  action  with  the  other  goat— the  still  unappro 
priated  part  of  the  sin-offering  which  remained  stand 
ing  before  the  tabernacle  or  temple,  while  the  high- 
priest  was  making  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  people 
with  the  blood  of  the  slain  goat.  Laying  his  hands  on 
the  head  of  that  live  goat,  the  priest  had  now  to  con 
fess  over  it  "all  the  iniquities  of  the  children  of  Israel, 


of  what  was  included  in  the  act— the  one  bein--  de-  j  and  all  their  transgressions  in  all  their  sins,  putting 
signed  to  supply  the  means  of  atonement,  and  the  '  them  upon  the  head  of  the  goat,  and  thereafter  send 
other  to  exhibit  its  perfected  result.  If,  however,  the  him  away  by  the  hand  of  a  fit  man  into  the  wilderness, 
two  -'oats  constituted  properly  but  one  offerinu'.  and  an  And  the  goat  (it  is  added)  shall  bear  upon  him  all  their 
offering  which  was  presented  before  the  Lord,  it  is  clear  :  iniquities  into  a  land  not  inhabited;  and  he  shall  let  go 
that  to  him  alone  they  both  really  belonged,  and  that  j  the  goat  into  the  wilderness."  The  iniquities,  it  must 
there  can  be  no  ground  for  dividing  (as  some  have  I  be  remembered,  had  been  all  previously  atoned ;  every- 
erroueously  done)  between  the  two  goats,  as  if  the  one  ',  thing  in  Cod's  house,  up  to  the  very  seat  of  the  divine 
mly  were  for  Cod,  and  the  other  were  for  Satan.  The  Majesty,  which  they  had  polluted,  had  been  again  recon- 


same  conclusion  is  still  further  confirmed  by  the  act  of 
casting  lots  upon  them;  for  this  was  practised  only  in 


ciled;  so  that  when  now  laid  upon  the  head  of  the  live 
goat,  it  must  have  been  as  iniquities  cancelled  in  the 


regard  to  what  was  recognized  as  peculiarly  the  Lord's,  divine  reckoning,  and  destined  to  utter  oblivion.  Hence, 
and  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  his  mind  in  some  respect  no  sooner  were  they  transferred  to  this  goat  than  he  was 
concerning  it.  The  question  to  be  here  determined  was,  !  dismissed  with  them  into  the  wilderness,  bearing  them 
not  whichof  the  two  goats  was  to  be  adjudged  to  the  Lord,  to  a  land  not  inhabited,  where  not  a  bein--  lived  that 
and  which  to  some  other  party;  but  what  respectively 


were  the  parts  to  be  assigned  to  each  of  them,  in  the  com 
plex  act  of  sin-bearing,  which  was  to  be  effected  through 
their  joint  instrumentality.  In  such  a  case  their  re- 


could  call  them  to  remembrance,  or  become  a  witness 
of  their  existence.  It  was,  in  short,  a  symbolical 
action,  indicating  to  the  bodily  eye  the  result  of  the 
atonement  that  had  been  made,  and  rendering  palpable 





FEASTS 


58U 


FEASTS 


to  the  people  the;  comforting  truth,  that  God  hail  in  a 
manner  cast  out  of  his  sight  their  past  transgressions, 
having  accepted  the  atonement.  (In  the  English  ver 
sion  there  is  an  unhappy  rendering  at  the  first  mention 
of  this  live  goat,  which  greatly  obscures  the  meaning 
of  the  transaction.  The  words  there  used  regarding 
the  live  goat  should  run,  "shall  be  presented  alive 
before  the  Lord  to  cover  upon  him,"  or  make  atonement 
for  him,  not  "to  make  an  atonement  n'/t/i  him."  This 
goat  was  the  representative  of  the  people  as  first  to  be 
atoned  for,  and  then  actually  participating  in  the 
atonement — forgiven;  and  the  action  with  him  took 
up  the  history  where  the  death  of  the  other  had  left  it. 
If  the  slain  goat  could  have  been  raised  to  life  again, 
the  continuity  of  the  action  would  have  been  more 
readily  perceived;  but  this  not  being  practicable  except 
by  miracle,  the  action  was  carried  forward  to  its  fitting 
result  by  a  fresh  goat  taking  the  place  of  the  other.) 
(<j.)  The  remaining  parts  of  the  solemnity  may  be  re 
garded  as  the  natural  and  appropriate  winding  up  of 
the  service,  rather  than  anything  strictly  new.  The 
high-priest,  after  dismissing  the  goat,  had  to  disrobe 
himself  of  the  plain  linen  clothes  in  which  the  peculiar 
work  of  the  day  had  been  performed,  and  resume  his 
wonted  attire.  A.t  the  same  time  he  had  to  wash  his 
flesh — a  process  to  be  undergone  at  the  beginning  and 
close  of  all  priestly  ministrations  of  a  more  formal 
kind,  as  a  witness  of  the  pollutions  which  intermingled 
even  with  these.  Then  he  had  to  offer  two  burnt- 
oft'erings,  one  for  himself  and  one  for  the  people;  to 
make  an  atonement,  it  is  said,  for  himself  and  for  the 
people — an  atonement  even  after  the  special  atonement 
which  had  already  been  made  in  the  previous  service. 
It  betokened  the  presence  of  sin  in  the  very  act  of 
getting  sin  taken  away,  and  the  necessity  of  all  throw 
ing  themselves  on  the  mercy  of  God  even  at  the  close 
of  transactions  which  had  brought  them  into  most 
immediate  contact  with  it.  Being,  however,  a  burnt- 
offering,  not  a  sin-offering,  that  was  now  presented,  tliis 
implied,  that  along  with  the  taking  away  of  the  guilt 
that  had  been  contracted,  there  was  the  call  to  a  fresh 
dedication  of  soul  and  body  to  the  service  of  God.  In 
this  case,  of  course,  the  entire  flesh  of  the  victims  was 
consumed  up<  >ii  the  altar ;  but  the  flesh  of  the  sin- 
offerings — the  bullock  for  the  high-priest  and  the  goat 
for  the  congregation — had  to  be  taken,  in  accordance 
with  the  law  regulating  such  cases,  without  the  camp 
or  citv,  and  burned  in  a  clean  place.  This  burning 
arose,  not  from  the  flesh  being  polluted — on  the  con 
trary,  the  flesh  of  all  sin- offerings  was  declared  to  be 
most  holy,  Lo.  vi.  iw-ir  ;  but  here,  where  the  priesthood 
and  congregation  were  alike  concerned,  there  was 
no  one  who  could  with  propriety  eat  of  it;  it  had  there 
fore  to  be  burned,  but  still  as  a  holy  thing  in  a  clean 
place.  Yet  having  had  to  do  with  sin,  the  person  who 
took  charge  of  the  burning  of  the  carcase,  as  also  the 
person  who  was  employed  in  conducting  the  live  goat 
into  the  wilderness,  had  each  to  bathe  his  person,  and 
wash  his  clothes,  before  resuming  his  place  in  the 
congregation. 

Such  was  the  nature  of  the  day  of  yearly  atonement, 
and  such  were  the  services  by  which  it  was  distinguished. 
It  was  the  occasion  above  all  others,  on  which  the  ideas 
of  sin  and  atonement  rose  to  their  highest  potency  in 
the  ritual  of  the  old  covenant,  and  011  which  also,  for 
the  purpose  of  exhibiting  those  ideas  in  their  clearest 
light,  the  distinction  came  most  prominently  out  be 


tween  priest  and  people  —the  idea  of  one  ordained  from 
among  men,  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  near  to  (Jod, 
and  mediating  in  behalf  of  his  fellowmen  in  things 
pertaining  to  sin  and  salvation.  But  these  ideas  after 
all  could  only  be  developed  imperfectly  under  the 
shadowy  and  carnal  forms  of  the  old  covenant ;  in  the 
new  alone  do  they  find  their  proper  realization.  And 
it  is  the  less  needful  to  enlarge  upon  this  view  of  the 
matter,  as  of  all  the  Old  Testament  services  this  is  the 
one  which  lias  received  the  fullest  explanation,  from 
the  pen  of  an  inspired  writer  in  the  New.  In  Heb.  ix. 
and  x.  almost  everything  of  importance  connected  with 
the  matter  has  been  touched  upon,  both  as  regards  the 
correspondences  between  the  new  and  the  old,  and  the 
superiority  of  the  one  over  the  other.  Here  alone,  in 
the  new,  have  we  a  high-priest  who  is  perfectly  fitted, 
from  his  own  inherent  attributes  and  character,  to  enter 
the  holiest;  who  without  sin  of  his  own,  and  conse 
quently  without  any  personal  atonement,  can  make 
intercession  for  the  guilty;  and  who,  by  his  one  spotless, 
infinitely  precious  atonement  in  their  behalf,  has  for 
ever  laid  open  the  way  by  which  they  may  draw  near 
and  find  acceptance  in  his  sight.  The  vail,  therefore, 
which  excluded  a  free  approach  into  the  holiest,  while 
it  admitted  a  single  approach  by  means  of  a  represen 
tative  once  every  year,  was  rent  in  twain  at  the  death 
!  of  Christ,  to  show  that  what  had  been  imperfectly  en 
joyed  before  was  now,  in  a  manner,  made  common  to  the 
people  of  God;  that  in  the  name  of  Christ  all  who  be 
lieved  might  come  with  boldness  to  the  throne  of  grace, 
and  deal  directly  with  God.  But  with  these  differences 
there  are  also  fundamental  agreements,  and  the  palpa 
ble  and  solemn  manner  in  which,  on  the  day  of  atone 
ment,  the  great  truths  were  brought  out,  of  the  reality 
and  evil  desert  of  sin,  of  the  necessity  of  a  mediating 
priest  and  a  prevailing  atonement  to  purge  it  away,  of 
the  complete  and  total  oblivion  into  which  the  evil  is 
cast  when  God's  method  of  reconciliation  has  been 
complied  with,  may  be  contemplated  with  much  profit 
still  by  the  people  of  God.  They  can  thus  behold  the 
things  which  concern  their  relation  to  God  written  as 
upon  tables,  and  get  a  clearer  apprehension  and  more 
realizing  conviction  of  them,  than  could  otherwise  be 
obtained.  It  is  for  that  purpose  partly  that  the  Old 
Testament  pattern  of  the  heavenly  things  is  used  in 
New  Testament  scripture,  and  for  that  purpose  it  may 
still  with  advantage  be  employed. 

VI.  The  Feast  of  Tabernacles. — This  was  the  last  of 
the  divinely  appointed  moadeem  or  sacred  festivals,  under 
the  old  covenant.  It  was  made  to  commence  on  the 
fifteenth  of  the  iseventh  month,  five  days  after  the  day 
of  yearly  atonement:  and,  in  respect  to  continuance, 
was  the  most  protracted  of  all  the  festivals.  The  Pass 
over  was  to  last  for  seven  days;  but  an  eighth  was 
added  in  the  feast  of  tabernacles;  and  in  this  case  also, 
as  at  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread,  the  first  and  the  last 
day  was  to  be  observed  as  a  Sabbath,  a  day  of  holy 
convocation.  In  Le.  xxiii.  34,  it  bears  the  name  of 
the  feast  of  tabernacles,  though  strictly  it  should  be 
'tooths  (sitccoth);  but  in  other  passages  it  has  the  desig 
nation  of  the  feast  of  tnr/athering,  because  it  took  place 
"  in  the  end  of  the  year,  when  they  had  gathered  in 
their  labours  out  of  the  field,"  Ex.  xxiii.  16;  Do.  xvi.  13.  The 
meaning  is,  that  the  entire  circle  of  the  year's  husban 
dry  should  then  have  been  completed,  and  its  produce 
garnered;  not  the  crops  of  the  field  merely  reaped,  but 
the  vintage  also  past,  and  there  remained  only  such 


FEASTS 


FEASTS 


operations  as  might  bo  needed  to  prepare  for  the  coming 
winter.  F<  >r  an  agricultural  population  like  the  Israel 
ites  that  might  justly  be  called  the  end  of  the  year, 
ami  it  must  usually  have  been  also  a  season  of  repose. 


that  long  period  allowed  the  feast  of  tabernacles  to  fall 
into  abeyance,  or  in  celebrating  it  had  made  no  attempt 
to  construct  booths  with  branches  of  trees.  That  the 
feast  was  kept,  and  kept  so  as  to  exercise  an  important 


The  people  would,  therefore,  have  ample  time  for  the     influence  on  the  national  mind,  is  evident  from  the  fact 
celebration  of  the  feast.  of  Jeroboam  having   instituted   a  similar  feast  in  his 

The  other  and  more  common  designation  of  the  feast  ;  kingdom,  only  transferring  the  time  from  the  seventh 
— that  of  booths  or  tabernacles — points  to  the  nature  of  to  the  eighth  month,  i  Ki.  xiU,-j,  ;::(.  lint  the  use  of 
the  feast  itself  and  the  mode  of  its  celebration.  A  ,  branches  in  celebrating  the  feast  had  never  been  so 
booth  is  not  precisely  the  same  as  a  tent  or  tabernacle;  '  marked  and  general.  And  this  might  to  some  extent  be 
but  is  so  far  alike,  that  the  one  as  well  as  the  other  I  accounted  for  from  the  much  smaller  number  attending 
was  a  slim  and  temporary  fabric,  speedily  constructed  the  fiast,  than  would  be  usual  in  the  brighter  periods 
for  the  sake  of  shelter.  It  was  not,  however,  made  of  of  the  commonwealth.  Indeed,  as  the  larger  proportion 


canvas,    but   of   branches  and    leaves    woven    together 
(the  root  being  "ri^,  to  ititcrn'Un  }.     Such  was  the  booth 

nf  .Jonah,  cii.  iv.  .',,  and  such  also  the  sheds  Jacob  made 
for  his  cattle  near  Shechem,  <;«.•.  xxxiii.  17.  Hut  the  ma 
terial  of  the  structure  was  often  not  regarded;  and 
hence  booths  and  tents  are  used  interchangeably  for  the 
dwellings  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness. 
"  Ye  shall  dwell  in  1  tooths."  it  is  said  with  reference  to  this 
feast,  "seven  days;  all  that  are  Israelites  horn  shall  dwell 
in  booths;  that  your  generations  may  know  that  I  made 
the  children  of  Israel  to  dwell  in  booths,  when  I  brou-ht 
them  out  of  the  land  of  Kuvpt,'1  LJ,  xxiii.  I.',  I;;.  In  the 
great  majority  of  passages  referring  to  the  wilderness- 
sojourn,  it  is  tents  that  the  Israelites  are  said  to  have 
dwelt  in  f  .r  i/xruiii.U',  Do.  i.  LT;  Nil.  xu.  I!');  x\iv.  .1  ;  l>e.  xi.  r,, 
&c.  It  was  these  whiell  in  reality  Were  chiefly  used. 
as  being  the  most  easily  procured  and  carried  about 
light  and  manageable,  th>-  propi-r  domiciles  of  a  yet  un 
settled  ami  wandering  population,  and  as  such  forming 


if  those  who  actually  assembled  to  keep  the  feast  were 
necessarily  far  from  their  homes,  and  were  for  the  time 
living  in  public  rather  than  dwelling  in  families,  one 
might  say  that  the  spirit  and  design  of  the  ordinance 
would  have  been  maintained,  if  there  ^  i  re  only  such 
an  erection  of  booths  in  the  more  public  streets  and 
places  of  !_'eneral  n  sort,  as  admitted  of  the  people 
entering  them  occasionally  and  spendim,'  a  portion  of 
each  day  in  them.  With  ordinary  can-  and  pains  there 
could  rarely  have  been  any  difficulty  in  obtaining  a 
supply  of  branches  sufficient  for  such  a  purpose,  and 
even  for  furnishiiii;'  besides  a  number  of  the  families 
residing  in  the  neighbourhood  with  what  miidit  be  re 
quired  for  their  individual  use. 

That  this  booth  or  tent  like  appearance  which  was 
to  characterize  the  feast  had  a  commemorative  bearing, 
admits  of  no  question.  In  the  passage  already  quoted 
from  Leviticus  it  is  stated  as  the  reason  for  their  making 
booths,  that  succeeding  generations  might  know  how 
they  had  been  made  to  dwell  in  booths,  when  the  Lord 


a  natural   contrast  to  fixed  and   stationary   dwellings,      brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.    1 1  was  designed 


This  contrast  is  formally  brought  out  in  the  r  •,-,.  of  th< 
Keehahitcs,  whose  father  charged  them  not  to  build 
houses,  but  to  dwell  in  tents;  and  by  !>.i\id  in  r,  .;peet 
to  the  dwelling-place  of  Cod,  on  the  memorable  occasion 


to  embody  in  a  perpetually  recurring  action  the  histori 
cal  fact  of  the  unsettled,  wandering  life  of  Israel  during 
the  wilderness-sojourn,  that  the  memory  of  it  mi'_dit  be 
ever  fre-h  in  the  minds  of  their  descendants.  .And  in 


when  he  said  to  Nathan  the  prophet,  ''See  now  I  dwell  the  commemoration   of  this  fact,  as  of  facts  generally 

in  an  house  of  cedar,  but  the  ark  of  Cod  dwelleth  within  which  are  embalmed   in   commemorative   ordinances,  it 

curtains,"  that  is  in  a  tent,  2  Sa.  vii.  3;Je  xxxv.r.    There  is  is  to  lie  understood,  that  the  fact  itself  was  of  a  funda- 

a  pointed  reference  also  to  the  same  contrast  in  a  New  mental    character,    containing    the    germ    of     spiritual 

Testament  passage,    in   which   the   apostle   finely  indi-  truths  and  principles  vitally  important  for  every  age  of 

oates  the  superiority  of  that  building  of  God,  the  house  the  church.      Such   undoubtedly  was   the   character  of 

not  made   with   hands,  eternal    in    the  heavens,  which  the   wilderness-sojourn  for  the    Israelites,   though   not 

awaits  the  glorified  believer,  to  the  earthly  house  of  his  precisely  in   the   same   degree  as  the  deliverance  from 

tabernacle,  which  is  to  be  dissolved  in  death,  2  t'<>.  v.  1 —  Egypt  which  \\as  comim  nmrated   in  the  Passover.      It 

the  one  a  frail,  perishable  framework,  falling    to  pieces  was,  however,  of  fundamental  importance  in  this  respect, 

when  it  lias  served  its  purpose,  the  other  a  fixed,   stable,  that  it  formed  in  a  sense   the   connecting  link   between 

everlasting  habitation.  the  house  of  bondage,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  inhcri- 

When    the    Israelites  had   established    themselves  in  tance    of    life    and    blessing,  on   the    other.      The    Lord 

Canaan,  and  grown  into  a  numerous  people,  a  practical  then  in  a  peculiar  manner  came  near  to  reveal  himself 

difficulty  might  be  experienced  as  to  the  proper  celebra-  to  his  people-  pitched  his  tabernacle  in   the  midst  of 

tion  of  this  feast — the  difficulty  of  getting  themselves  them  -communicated   to   them  his  law  and  testimony, 

provided  at  one  central  place  of  meeting  with  branches  and  set  up  the   entire  polity  which  was  to  mould  the 

of  palms  and  other  trees  in  sufficient  abundance  for  the  future  generations  of    Israel,  and  to  lie  consummated 

occasion.      It  is  said,  they  did  so  provide  themselves  in  rather  than  abolished  by  the  incarnation  and  work  of 

the   time    of   Xehemiah,    eh.  via.  ir,:    ''The  people  went  Christ.      Hence,  the  annual  celebration  of  the  feast  of 

forth  and   brought    (i.e.    branches   of    various   sorts   of  tabernacles  was  like  a  perpetual  renewing  of  their  reli- 

trces)  and  made  themselves  booths,  every  one  upon  the  i  gions  youth;  it  was  keeping  in  lively  recollection  the 

roof  of  his  house,  and  in  their  courts,  and  in  the  courts  of  time  of  their  espousals,   and  placing  themselves  anew 
the  house  of  God,  and  in  the  street  of   the  water-gate, 
and   in   the   street    of   the  gate  of   Ephraim."     In  all 
these  places  they  then  made  booths  and  sat  under  them; 
but,  it  is  added,  "since  the  days  of  Joshua  the  son  of 


Nun,    unto  that  day,    the  children  of  Israel  had  not 
done  so."     We  are  not  to  suppose  that  they  had  during 


pi 

amid  the  scenes  and  transactions  which  constituted  the 
formative  period  of  their  history.  On  this  account  also, 
it  doubtless  was  that  the  feast  of  tabernacles  was  the 
time  chosen  for  reading,  every  seventh  year,  the  whole 
law  in  the  hearing  of  the  people,  I)c.  xx-xi.  10-13,  and  not. 
as  some  have  thought  (in  particularBiihr,  Symbolik.ii.  p.  Gfi3), 


FEASTS 


FEASTS 


because  it  was  the  greatest  feast,  or  the  one  most  largely 
frequented.  In  this  respect  the  Passover  certainly  held 
the  foremost  place.  .Hut  it  was  when  sojourning  in  the 
wilderness,  and  dwelling  in  tents,  that  the  covenant 
of  law,  under  which  they  were  to  go  into  thr  land  of 
Canaan  and  take  possession  of  it  for  themselves  and 
their  posterity,  was  formally  given  and  ratified.  So 
that  nothing  could  bo  more  appropriate,  when  re- 
enacting  the  scenes  of  their  religious  youth,  than  being 
called  to  listen  anew  to  that  law,  the  giving  of  which 
formed  so  distinguishing  a  feature  of  the  time.  This 
connection  of  the  law,  however,  with  the  feast  of  taber 
nacles,  affords  a  collateral  proof  of  what  was  already 
established — that  the  feast  of  Pentecost  was  no  com 
memoration  of  the  giving  of  the  law  ;  for  had  it  been, 
the  formal  reading  of  the  law  would  certainlv  have 
been  appointed  for  the  feast  of  Pentecost,  rather  than 
that  of  tabernacles. 

There  was,  therefore,  a  much  closer  connection  be 
tween  the  booth-dwelling  portion  of  Israel's  history 
and  its  future  rest  in  Canaan,  than  is  found  in  contem 
plating  the  one  as  the  mere  transition- period  that  natu 
rally  conducted  to  the  other.  And  it  will  appear  still 
more  so  if  we  look  to  the  personal  training  through 
which  the  Israelites  then  passed,  and  the  discipline 
they  were  made  to  undergo.  If  in  one  respect  it  was 
the  period  of  the  Lord's  manifestation  to  his  people, 
whereby  he  sought  to  make  them  acquainted  with  his 
purposes  of  love  and  his  principles  of  government,  it 
was,  in  another,  the  period  of  their  trial  and  humilia 
tion — in  which,  by  hardships  tempered  with  mercies, 
difficulties,  and  disappointments,  interchanging  with 
wonderful  displays  of  power  and  glory,  the  Lord  brought 
out  the  evil  that  was  in  their  hearts,  and  schooled  them 
into  subjection  to  his  righteous  will.  "Viewed  with 
reference  to  its  prolonged  continuance,  as  the  fort}- 
years'  sojourn,  it  was  emphatically  a  period  of  judg 
ment  and  discipline.  Hence  the  words  of  Moses  at 
the  close  of  it:  "Thou  shalt  remember  all  the  way  by 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  led  thee  these  forty  years  in  the 
wilderness,  to  humble  thee  and  to  prove  thee,  to  know 
what  was  in  thine  heart,  whether  thou  wouldst  keep 
his  commandments  or  not.  And  he  humbled  thee,  and 
suffered  thee  to  hunger,  and  fed  thee  with  manna,  which 
thou  knewest  not,  neither  did  thy  fathers  know,  that  he 
might  make  thee  know  that  man  liveth  not  by  bread 
only,  but  by  every  word  that  proccedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord,"  De.  viii.  2-5.  This  alternating  pro 
cess  of  want  and  supply,  of  great  and  appalling  danger 
ever  ready  to  be  met  by  seasonable,  though  unexpected 
or  extraordinary  relief,  was  the  grand  testing  process 
by  which  the  still  existing  unbelief  and  carnalisni  in 
their  hearts  was  made  manifest,  that  it  might  be  con 
demned  and  purged  out,  and  that  they  might  be  formed, 
as  a  people,  to  that  humble  reliance  on  God's  arm,  and 
single-hearted  devotedness  to  his  fear,  which  alone  could 
prepare  them  for  occupying  and  permanently  retaining 
the  Promised  Land.  It  proved  in  the  issue  greatly  too 
severe  and  searching  for  the  mass  of  the  original  con 
gregation;  in  other  words,  the  evil  in  their  natures  was 
too  deeply  rooted  to  be  effectually  purged  out,  even  by 
such  well-adjusted  and  skilfully  applied  means  of  puri 
fication;  and,  as  the  result,  they  were  judged  incapable 
of  entering  the  land  of  Canaan.  But  for  those  who 
were  allowed  to  enter,  and  their  posterity  to  latest 
generations,  it  was  of  essential  moment  to  have  kept 
alive  upon  their  minds  the  peculiar  training  and  dis 


cipline  of  the  wilderness;  in  order  to  their  habitually 
aiming  at  the  high  moral  condition,  the  living  faith  in 
God,  the  weanedness  of  heart,  the  self-denial,  the  filial 
obedience  to  which  it  was  designed  to  conduct.  In 
this  respect  especially  it  was  their  duty  to  be  ever  con 
necting  the  present  with  the  past  —to  be  treading  over 
again  the  ground  on  which  their  fathers  had  acquired 
their  dear-bought  experience;  since  it  was  only  by 
voluntarily  making  its  discipline  and  results  their  own 
that  they  could  be  warranted  to  look  forward  to  fresh 
seasons  of  prosperity  and  joy.  For  this  purpose  more 
especially  the  feast  was  instituted.  And  while  the  ful 
ness  of  earthly  comfort  amid  which  it  was  held,  bcin^ 
brought  into  contrast  with  their  formerly  poor  and 
wandering  condition,  called  them  to  rejoice,  the  remi 
niscence  of  judgment  and  trial  in  the  desert  taught 
them  to  rejoice  with  trembling-  reminded  them  that 
their  continued  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  and 
the  enjoyment  in  it  of  fruitful  seasons  and  settled 
homes,  depended  on  their  fidelity  to  the  covenant  of 
God  —  warned  them,  that  if  they  turned  back  in  heart 
to  the  manners  of  Egypt,  or  became  lovers  of  pleasure 
more  than  lovers  of  God,  periods  of  trial  and  destitution 
might  again  be  expected.  Hence,  when  such  actually 
came  to  be  the  case — when  the  peculiar  lessons  of  this 
feast  ceased  to  be  regarded — when  Israel  "knew  not 
that  it  was  the  Lord  who  gave  her  corn,  and  wine,  and 
oil,  and  multiplied  her  silver  and  gold,"  it  became  need 
ful  to  send  her  virtually  again  through  the  rouuh  and 
sifting  process  of  her  youth.  "  Therefore  will  I  return, 
and  take  away  my  corn  in  the  time  thereof,  and  my 
wine  in  the  season  thereof;  I  will  also  cause  all  her 
mirth  to  cease,  and  L  will  destroy  her  vines  and  her 
fig-trees;  and  I  will  allure  her,  and  bring  her  into  the 
wilderness,  and  will  speak  comfortably  unto  her;  and  1 
will  give  her  vineyards  from  thence,  and  the  valley  of 
Achor  for  a  door  of  hope,"  &c.,  Ho.  ii.  S-lf.;  coin]..  Eze.  xx. 
It  was  not  that  the  scenes  of  youth  were  literally  to  be 
enacted  over  again;  but  that  the  kind  of  dealing  in 
volved  in  them — the  fleshly  mortifications,  the  enforced 
separation  from  natural  delights,  the  severe  trial  and 
discipline  which  characterized  the  wilderness-sojourn — 
must  be  undergone  anew,  in  order  that  the  spirit  of 
earnest  and  devoted  zeal,  in  which  it  had  issued,  might 
again  become  the  characteristic  of  the  people  of  God. 

The  view  now  given  of  the  nature  and  design  of  the 
feast — grounded,  as  it  manifestly  is,  in  the  representa 
tions  of  Scripture,  and  the  essential  relations  of  things 
— -renders  unnecessary  any  formal  exposure  of  the 
opinion  which  has  been  frequently  maintained,  that  the 
feast  was  chiefly  an  occasion  for  carnal  merriment, 
dancing,  and  revelry.  AVhen  the  people  themselves 
became  carnal,  it  would  110  doubt  partake  much  of  the 
same  character;  but  as  instituted  by  God,  it  was  de 
signed  to  be  otherwise  observed.  The  occasion  was 
certainly  meant  to  be  a  joyous  one.  The  people  were 
commanded  to  rejoice  over  all  the  goodness  and  mercy 
which  the  Lord  had  given  them  to  experience;  but 
their  joy  was  to  be  such  as  could  be  indulged  in  before 
the  Lord,  and  should  have  admitted  nothing  that  might 
interfere  with  their  interest  in  his  favour  and  fellow 
ship.  It  was  apparently  from  this  relation  of  the  feast 
to  a  hallowed  cheerfulness  and  exultation,  that  the 
broad- leaved  palm-tree  was  so  much  used  on  the  occa 
sion.  The  people  were  not  absolutely  shut  up  to 
branches  of  this  tree;  for,  beside  palm-trees,  willows 
are  also  specified  in  the  original  institution,  Lc.  xxiii.  40, 


FEASTS 


583 


FEASTS 


and  at  the  feast  in  Nehemiah's  time,  olive,  myrtle,  and 
pine  are  mentioned,  along  with  the  palm,  as  having 
been  employed.  Hut  as  branches  of  "  goodly  trees  " 
were  required,  the  palm  seems  to  have  been  regarded, 
from  its  peculiarly  rich  foliage,  as  the  fittest  symbol  of 
the  joyful  feelings  which  the  feast  was  intended  to  call 
forth;  and  we  are  not  without  other  instances  in  Scrip 
ture,  which  show  how  readily  the  palm  was  associated 
with  exultant  occasions,  or  seasons  of  rapturous  delight, 
Jii.  xii.  r.';  Ilu.  vii.  !i. 

One  of  tile  most  singular  peculiarities  of  this  feast 
remains  yet  to  be  noticed;  it  consists  in  the  number  of 
victims  to  be  presented  for  burnt-offerings.  There  was 
the  same  sin-offering  as  in  the  other  stated  feasts  a 
single  goat  to  he  ottered  each  day;  but  for  the  burnt- 
offering,  instead  of  one  rum  and  seven  lambs,  there 
were  to  be  two  rains  and  fourteen  lambs  on  each  of  the 
seven  days,  and  instead  of  one  bullock,  thirteen  bullocks 
at  the  commencement,  diminishing  by  one  each  dav. 
till  on  the  seventh  there  were  merely  seven.  The 
eighth  day,  though  in  one  sense  belonging  to  the  ft  a-t, 
might  also  lie  regarded  as  in  some  sort  standing  by  it 
self,  forming  the  closing  solemnity  of  the  whole  fe>ti\al 
season:  and  accordingly  the  special  burnt -offering  on 
that  day  ditfered  very  little  from  that  of  other  festival- 
days,  and  were  entirely  the  same'  as  the  new  moon  and 
the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month--  namely,  one  bul 
lock,  one  ram,  and  sevi-n  lambs,  Vi.  xxix  i_  '•  Tin- 
difficulty  is  to  account  for  the  extraordinary  number 
of  victims  appointed  for  the  seven  days  of  the  feast  of 
tabernacles  double  the  number  of  rains  ami  lambs 
that  were  fixed  for  all  the  other  solemnities,  and  the 
remarkable  peculiarity  in  iv-pect  to  the  bullocks.  ,,f 
beginning  with  such  a  numbiT  as  thirtt-eii  and  ending 
with  seven.  Viewing  the  matter  generally,  one  may 
readily  perceive  a  reason  for  the  larger  number  of  the 
offerings  presented,  in  the  occasion  of  the  feast,  as 
appointed  at  the  close  of  the  ingathering  of  all  the 
fruits  of  the  season,  and  intended  to  call  forth  a  grate 
ful  sense  of  the  Lord's  goodness  in  bestowing  upon  his 
people  the  gifts  of  his  beneficence.  We  make  no  account, 
as  already  intimated,  of  its  being  called  in  a  passage 
often  quoted  from  I'lutarch  (Sympos  i.  I, :.),  "the  great 
est  of  the  Jewish  feasts."  or  of  the  similar  expressions 
applied  to  it  by  I'hilo.  Josephus  (Ant.  vni.  4,  l).  and  the 
rabbins:  for  in  no  proper  sense  could  it  be  called  the 
greatest;  in  depth  of  meaning  and  vital  importance  it  did 
not  equal  either  the  feast  of  the  I'assoVer  or  that  of  the 
day  of  atonement.  Vet,  as  so  specially  connected  with 
the  Lord's  bountifulness  in  giving,  it  might  most  appro 
priately  be  marked  by  a  more  than  common  liberality 
in  the  number  and  value  of  the  offerings,  especially  of 
such  offerings  as  were  from  their  nature  significant  of 
the  surrender  and  dedication  of  the  person  of  the  wor 
shipper.  Hut  why  precisely  double  the  number  of  rams 
and  lambs  on  each  of  the  seven  days,  and  half  the 
number  on  the  eighth;  and,  especially,  why  the  regular 
diminution  in  the  number  of  the  bullocks  from  thirteen 
to  seven,  and.  on  the  last  day,  from  seven  to  one — of 
this  no  adequate  explanation  lias  yet  been  given.  The 
opinions  of  the  rabbins  are  mere  conjectures,  most  of 
them  frivolous  and  absurd,  and  deserve  no  particular 
notice.  To  see  in  it,  with  llalir,  a  reference  to  the 
waning  moon,  is  quite  fanciful;  nor  is  it  less  so,  to 
understand  it,  with  the  majority  of  the  elder  typologists, 
of  the  gradual  ceasing  of  animal  sacrifice;  for  the  sacred 
number  seven  l>eing  reserved  for  the  seventh  dav  of  the 


feast,  together  with  the  usual  feast- offerings  on  the 
eighth  day,  might  as  well  be  conceived  to  point  in  the 
opposite  direction.  Perhaps  nothing  more  was  meant 
by  the  arrangement  than  to  give  an  indication  of  the 
variety,  within  certain  limits,  which  the  sacrificial  sys 
tem  admitted  of  in  the  expression  of  devout  and  grate 
ful  feeling.  It  was  proper,  on  joyful  occasions,  to  let 
the  overflow  of  feeling  appear  in  the  multiplicity  of 
whole  burnt- offerings  brought  to  the  altar;  while  still 
nothing  depended  thereon  for  the  virtue  and  .stability 
of  the  covenant.  The  seven  bullocks,  two  rams,  and 
fourteen  lambs,  on  the  seventh  day  of  the  feast,  or  the 
one  bullock,  one  ram.  and  seven  lambs,  on  the  eighth, 
were  sufficient  to  represent  whatever  was  vital  in  the 
covenant,  or  in  the  people's  connection  with  it;  while 
yet  certain  fuller  embodiments  of  spiritual  feeling  were 
suitable  at  peculiar  times,  and  never  more  than  when 
the  solemnities  of  the  great  dav  of  atonement  were 
frc--hc>t  in  the  recollections  of  the  people.  Whether 
this  view  may  be  held  to  be  satisfactory  or  not,  it  pre 
sents  nothing  at  least  that  is  arbitrary,  or  that  inter 
feres  with  the  ueiieral  principles  of  the  ancient  economy. 
In  addition  to  the  ceremonies  prescribed  in  the  law, 
the  later. Jews  \\viv  wont  to  observe  certain  customs  at 
thi-  feast,  in  particular  the  custom  of  drawing  water 
from  the  well  of  Siloam,  and  pouring  it.  mixed  with 
wine,  from  a  golden  pitcher,  by  the  hands  of  a  priest,  on 
the  altar  at  the  time  of  the  morning  sacrifice.  This  was 
done,  according  to  the  .Jewish  authorities,  on  the  seven 
days  of  the  feast,  but  not  on  the  eighth,  as  has  often 
IM-III  improperly  represented.  They  are  quite,  express 
upon  that  point,  for  they  reckoned  only  the  seven  days 
to  belong  to  the  fea>t  proper;  the  eighth  was  esteemed 
a  kind  of  separate  and  concluding  solemnity  (see  Lighi- 

fo,,t,  II.. r  I  lei.,  in  Kv.  .l,,h.  Mi.  :;-•,  also  Winer,  lle:ihv;;r.  Ljiulihiit.) 
If  therefore  what  is  called  "the  lu>t.  the  great  day  of 
the  fea>t."  in  .In.  vii.  oT,  was  meant  the  eighth  day, 
our  Lord  must  have  taken  occasion,  from  the  itlixi nre  on 
that  day  of  the  customary  libation  on  the  altar,  to  point 
to  himself  as  the  living  fountain  that  alone  could  supply 
\\hat  was  needed  for  the  wants  of  the  soul.  I'.ut  it  is 
more  probable  that  the  seventh  day  is  meant,  as  the 
last  and  great  day  of  the  feast  in  the  ordinary  Jewish 
reckoning;  so  that  the'  water  mixed  with  wine  was 
poured  out  amid  demonstrations  of  gladness  from  the 
people,  shouting  in  the  words  of  Isaiah,  "with  joy  shall 
ye  draw  water  from  the  wells  of  salvation;"  and  our 
Lord,  sei/ing  the  opportunity  to  draw  their  thoughts 
from  the  shadow  to  the  reality,  exclaimed,  "If  any 
man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink;  lie  that 
l)elieveth  on  me,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of 
living  water.'' 

The  hearing  of  the  feast  of  tabernacles  on  the  reali 
ties  of  the  gospel  is  not  difficult  to  lie  perceived,  and 
in  its  leading  features  may  be  indicated  in  compara 
tively  few  words.  The  Israelites  in  their  collective 
position  and  history  typified  the  seed  of  Cod's  elect 
under  the  gospel;  and  therefore,  in  this  feast,  which 
brought  together  the  beginnings  and  endings  of  Cod's 
dealings  with  Israel,  we  have  a  representation  of  the 
spiritual  life,  as  well  in  its  earlier  struggles  as  in  its 
ultimate  triumphs.  We  behold  the  antitype,  first  of 
all.  and  without  imperfection,  in  the  history  of  Him 
who  was  pre-eminently  Cod's  elect,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  —  led  up,  after  an  obscure,  and  for  a  season 
persecuted,  youth,  into  the  wilderness  to  lie  tempted  of 
the  devil  ;  and  when  for  forty  days — a  day  for  a  year 


FEASTS 


F FASTS  OF  CHARITY 


lie  had  withstood  the  nuilico  and  subtlety  of  tlie 
tempter,  ho  cam*.;  forth  with  the  full  assurance  of  vic 
tory  to  accomplish  the  mighty  work  of  man's  redemp 
tion.  In  this  work,  also,  the  beginning  and  the  end 
meet  toother  :  the  one  is  hut  the  just  recompense  and 
full  development  of  the  other.  The  obedience  and 
sufferings  go  before,  and  lay  the  foundation  for  the 
final  i:lory.  Jesus  must  personally  triumph  over  sin 
and  death,  fulfil  ill  all  respects  the  Father's  will,  before 
he  can  receive  a  kingdom  from  tin;  Father,  or  be  pre 
pared  to  wield  the  sceptre  of  its  government,  and  enjoy 
the  riches  of  its  purchased  blessings.  And  so,  to 
render  manifest  and  keep  alive  in  the  minds  of  his 
people  the  connection  between  the  beginning  and  the 
end,  he  ever  links  together  the  cross  and  the  crown— - 
shows  himself  in  the  heavenly  places  as  the  Lamb  that 
was  slain,  and  inherits  there  a  name  that  is  above 
every  name,  because  he  took  on  him  the  form  of  a 
servant,  and  humbled  himself  nnto  the  dust  of  death, 
for  the  salvation  of  men. 

With  a  still  closer  resemblance  to  the  type,  because 
with  a  greater  similarity  of  condition  in  the  persons 
respectively  concerned,  does  the  spiritual  import  of  the 
feast  meet  with  its  realization  in  the  case  of  Christ's 
genuine  followers.  Hence  the  prophet  Zechariah, 
who,  more  than  any  of  the  prophets  (except  Ezekicl), 
delights  in  representing  the  future  under  a  simple 
recurrence  of  the  past,  when  pointing  to  the  result  of 
the  church's  triumph  over  her  enemies,  speaks  of  it  as 
a  going  np  to  Jerusalem  to  keep  the  feast  of  taber 
nacles,  cii.  xiv.  in.  Then,  that  is  to  say,  the  Lord's 
redeemed  people  shall  rejoice  in  the  fulness  of  their 
portion,  and  have  their  experiences  of  bliss  heightened 
and  enhanced  by  the  remembrance  of  past  tribulation 
and  conflict.  For  the  present  they  are  passing 
through  the  wilderness  ;  it  is  their  period  of  trial  and 
probation,  and  by  constant  alternations  of  fear  and 
hope,  of  danger  and  deliverance,  of  difficulties  and 
trials,  they  must  be  prepared  and  ripened  for  their 
final  destiny.  It  is  through  these  that  they  must  be 
kept  habitually  mindful  of  their  own  weakness  and 
insufficiency,  their  proncness  to  be  overcome  of  evil, 
and  the  dependence  necessary  to  be  maintained  on  the 
word  and  promises  of  Cod.  Through  them  also,  aided 
by  the  renewing  grace  of  the  Spirit,  must  the  dross  be 
purged  out  of  their  corrupt  natures,  and  the  old  man 
of  corruption  itself  thrown  off,  and  left,  as  it  were,  to 
perish  in  the  desert,  that  with  the  new  man  of  pure 
and  blessed  life  they  may  take  possession  of  the 
heavenly  Canaan.  Then  shall  the  church  of  the  re 
deemed  hold  with  her  divine  Head  a  perpetual  feast 
of  tabernacles  —living  and  reigning  with  him  in  his 
kingdom  ;  and,  so  far  from  grudging  the  trials  and 
difficulties  of  the  way,  rejoicing  the  more  on  account 
of  them,  because  seeing  in  them  the  needful  course  of 
discipline  for  the  place  and  destiny  of  the  redeemed, 
and  knowing  that  if  there  had  been  no  wilderness 
trials  and  conflicts  on  earth,  there  could  have  been  no 
meetness  for  the  inheritance  (>f  the  saints  in  light. 
The  glorious  company  in  Rev.  vii.  arrayed  in  white 
robes  and  with  palms  in  their  hands — the  collective 
representation  of  a  redeemed  and  triumphant  church 
— are  the  proper  antitypes  of  Israel  keeping  the  feast 
of  tabernacles. 

Beside  the  festivals  now  described,  and  which  alone 
bear  in  Scripture  the  sacred  name  of  moadcem  or  sacred 
feasts,  thei-e  are  two  others  which,  though  not  of 


divine  origin  or  of  religious  obligation,  went  by  the 
same  name,  and  were  commonly  observed  in  the 
gospel  age :  these  wei'e  the  feast  of  Dedication  and  the 
feast  of  Purim.  (Nt'c  DEDICATION  and  Prum.) 

FEASTS  OF  CHARITY  OR  LOVE,  more  com 
monly  called  AGA1VK,  or  LOVF-FEASTS,  differed 
materially  from  the  institutions  designated  FKASTS 
under  the  Old  Testament;  they  were  actual  meals, 
though  partaking  so  far  of  a  religious  character,  that 
they  were  usually  celebrated  in  the  same  place  where 
the  disciples  met  for  worship,  and  in  close  connection 
with  religious  exercises  They  are  mentioned  only 
once  under  that  name  in  New  Testament  scripture; 
viz.  in  Judo  ]  2,  where  in  reference  to  the  false  and 
corrupt  professors  who  were  insinuating  themselves 
into  the  church,  it  is  said,  ''These  are  spots  in  your 
agapax"  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  though  the 
name  is  not  used,  it  is  the  same  sort  of  feasts  that 
are  mentioned  in  1  Co.  xi.,  and  which,  from  being  first 
abused  to  party  purposes,  came  to  be  confounded  with 
the  solemnities  of  the  Lord's  supper.  Indeed,  the 
origin  of  them  must  be  traced  still  higher,  to  that 
outburst  of  Christian  liberality  and  brotherly  affection 
which  manifested  itself  among  the  converts  at  Jerusa 
lem  after  the  dav  of  Pentecost,  and  which  led  to  a 
regular  ministration  of  food  among  the  poorer  brethren, 
as  well  as  frequent  social  meals  among  all,  Ac.  ii.  4:1,  •](>; 
iv.  35;vi  i,&n.  The  churches  generally  in  early  times 
seem  to  have  regarded  the  practice  thus  begun  at  Jerusa 
lem,  as  imposing  a  sort  of  obligation  to  similar  practices 
elsewhere,  at  least  as  presenting  a  pattern  that  it  would 
be  well  to  imitate  ;  and  from  notices  occurring  in  the 
writings  of  the  second  and  third  centuries,  it  would 
seem  that  the  agapie  very  commonly  formed  a  part  of 
the  regular  observances  of  the  Christian  churches. 
They  are  so  described  both  by  Justin  Martyr  about  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  and  by  Tertullian  about 
the  beginning  of  the  third  (Just.  Apol.  ii.;Tert.  .\\w\.  c.  39). 
The  latter  says,  "Our  supper  shows  its  character  by  its 
name,  which  is  the  Greek  word  for  lore.  Whatever 
expense  it  costs,  it  is  gain  to  expend  money  in  the 
cause  of  piety,  since  by  this  refreshment  we  give  aid  to 
all  that  are  poor.  Being  done  as  a  matter  of  religion, 
nothing  foul  or  unbecoming  is  admitted  into  it.  Xo 
one  partakes  till  prayer  has  been  made  to  God;  as  much 
is  eaten  as  is  necessary  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  hunger, 
as  much  is  drunk  as  consists  with  sobriety;  every 
one  remembering  that  through  the  night  also  God  is 
to  be  worshipped,"  &o.  As  the  church  grew,  however, 
in  numbers  and  wealth,  it  became  always  more  difficult 
to  manage  such  fiasts  with  propriety,  and  so  as  not  to 
prevent  them  from  becoming  occasions  of  scandal  rather 
than  of  edification.  Even  Tertullian  in  his  latter  days 
complains  of  a  deviation  from  the  original  purity,  in  the 
custom  which  was  then  creeping  in,  and  was  afterwards 
formally  sanctioned,  of  setting  double  portions  before 
the  rulers  of  the  church  (De  .Tejvm.  C.K).  Distinctions  of 
ranks  generally  came  to  be  observed  at  them;  excesses 
were  not  ^infrequently  committed;  and  the  rich,  by  the 
contributions  they  made  toward  the  object,  sought  to 
gain  the  praise  of  liberality;  so  that  the  agapas  came  by 
degrees  to  be  discountenanced,  and  were  ultimately  for 
bidden  to  be  held  in  churches.  An  order  to  this  effect 
was  issued  by  the  council  of  Laodicea  about  the  middle 
of  the  third  century,  and  by  a  council  at  Carthage  in 
A.D.  391.  They  gradually  fell  into  disuse,  and  are  now 
observed  by  some  only  of  the  smaller  sects. 


FELIX 

FE'LIX,  ANTO'NIUS.  a  freedman  of  the  emperor 
Claudius,  from  whom  he  was  also  called  Claudius  Felix 
(Suidas),  was  governor  of  Judea  at  the  time  of  St.  Paul's 
seizure  and   imprisonment   in  Jerusalem,   Ac.  xxiii.  xxiv. 
The  precise  period  of  his  appointment  to  that  province 
is  involved  in  some  obscurity  (it  was   probably  about 
the  year  A.D.  .v_>),  as  is  also  the  exact  footing  on  which 
he    first    entered    on  the  administration    of    affairs  in 
the  East.      The  accounts  of  Josephus  and  Tacitus  are 
somewhat   discordant.      According  to   the   latter  (Ann. 
xii.  54).     Felix    was    appointed    joint -procurator    alon-r 
with  Ventidius  Cumanus,  the  one  taking  the  region  of 
Judea,  the  other  of  Calilee:   and    both  being  guilty  of 
mal-administration,  connivin--  at  acts  of   robbery 'and 
violence  committed  within  their  respective  boundaries, 
and  enriching  themselves  by  the  spoils  that  were  brought 
to  them  by  the  successful  parties,  they  were  accused  to 
the  emperor,  and   guadratus   was   commissioned   to  in 
vestigate  into  the   matter,  and   act   as   lie  saw  fit.       lie 
condemned    only   Cumanus,  and   elevated    Felix  to   tin- 
seat  of  judgment.      Josephus.  however,  represents  Felix 
as  coming  into  the  Fast  only  after  Cumanus  had  been 
tried.  ,ni  account   of   the   disturbances   which  had   pre 
vailed,  and  deposed  for  his  misconduct:   and  he  speaks 
of  Felix   as    having    been   made    procurator  of   Calilee, 
Samaria,  and    P.-ra-a,   as  well  as  Judea    (Ant.   xx.;  Wars, 
ii.  1-',  M.      The  probability   is.    that  the  account    of  Jose 
phus  approaches  nearest    to    the   truth:    and   it   is   ur 
gent-rally  admitted  that  the    1,'omau   historian  has  also 
erred  in  regard  to  the  wife  of  Felix.    Drusilla.  whom  he 
represents    as    the    .urand  -  daughter    of    Antony    and 
Cleopatra.      This  was  certainly  not  the  case  in  respect 
to  one  Drusilla,  whom    Felix  married:  and  it  is  against 
all  probability  that   he   should    have   had   two   wives   of 
that  name.      In  regard   to  the   character  of  the  man, 
both   historians   present   him  substantially  in  the   same 
light.      Tacitus,  in  his  graphic  style,  says  of  him,  that 
he  "exercised   the  authority  of  a  king  with   the   dispo 
sition  of  a  slave  (servili  ingenio)  in  all  manner  of  crii.-ltv 
and  lust"  (Hist,  v.ii);  and  that  he  thought  he  could  do 
anything  with  impunity,  since  lie  had  the  powerful  in 
fluence  of    his  brother  Pallas    at    court    to   protect   him 
(Ann.  xii.  54).     Josephus  so  far  speaks  well  of  Felix,  that 
he   mentions    his   activity   in    clearing   the   country  of 
robbers  and  plotters  of  sedition,  though  in  such  a  man 
ner  as  to  indicate   the   infliction   of  fearful  barbarities 
(Wars,  ii.  13).       Instances  are   given   of    his   treacherous 
and  cruel   procedure,  which  were   carried  so   far.    espe 
cially  toward   the  Jews   about  Cesarea.  that  at   the  ex 
piry   of   his    office   they  sent  a  deputation   to    Rome   to 
accuse   him    before  the    emperor,    but  the    interest  of 
Pallas  proved  too  powerful  for  them  (Ant.  xx.  8,!>).      One 
of  the   most   infamous   parts   of    his    conduct   was   his 
seduction  of  Drusilla,  the  sister  of  Herod  Agrippa,  who 
had  been  married  to  Azi/.us.   king  of  Emesa,  after  t he- 
latter  with  a  view  to  his  marriage  had  submitted  to  the 
rite  of    circumcision.       Felix,    on   seeing    this  woman, 
became  enamoured  of  her  beauty,   and  by  the  arts  of  a 
Jewish   magician,  of  the  name  of  Simon,  u'ot  her  de 
tached  from  her  husband  and  married  to  himself.    Such 
was  the  man  before  whom  Paul  had  to  plead  his  cause, 
and  with  whom  he  reasoned  of  "righteousness,  tem 
perance,  and  judgment  to  come."      No  wonder  that  the 
judge  trembled  at  the  pleadings  of  his  prisoner;  yet  it 
appears  he  simply  trembled;  his  convictions  on  the  side 
of  rectitude  did  not  carry  him  even  so  far  as  to  induce 
him  to  do  justice  to  the  injured   apostle.      "  He  honed 
VOL.  I. 


FESTUS 

that  money  should  have  been  given  him  of  Paul,  that 
he  might  loose  him" — intent  mainly  on  turning  the 
occasion  into  an  opportunity  of  personal  advantage; 
and  because  his  corrupt  love  of  money  was  not  gratified, 
after  two  years'  dallying,  he  had  the  baseness  to  leave 
Paul  still  bound.  \Ye  know  nothing  more  of  him  than 
that  he  was  recalled  to  Home,  and  succeeded  in  his 
government  by  Festus.  Hut  Josephus  incidentally 
notices  that  Drusilla  and  the  son  she  b.-r,  Felix 
perished  together  in  an  eruption  of  .Mount  Vesuvius 
(Ant.  xx  7,  L'). 

FENCED  CITIES.     Sc,  FORT,  FORTIFICATION-. 

FERRET  [np«N,  mutl-al*].  It  is  impossible  to  sav 
with  c.  rtainty  what  animal  is  intended  by  this  word. 
As  an  appellation  it  occurs  only  in  he.  xi.  oil;  but  the 
same  word  ami  its  root  occur  n  pcatedly  elsewhere,  and 
always  with  th.-  signification  of  crying,  sighing,  or 
groaning.  Some  animal  of  minute  si/,-,  conventionally 
ivek.nied  among  the  "creeping  things."  which  has  the 
habit  of  crying  out,  must  In-  looked  for.  Some  of  the 
creatur.-s  with  \\hich  the  nnokn},  is  associated  seem  to 
be  the  smaller  .Mammalia,  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
this  may  not  be  of  the  same  kind.  The  hXX.  render 
(///<//•<//,  by  ;<i-u\7;,  by  which  the  Creeks  understood 
the  field-mouse.  As  this,  however,  common  as  it  is  in 
Palestine,  may  be  represented  by  a  diU'en-nt  word,  and 
as  our  house-mouse  is  equally  abundant  as  with  us,  and 
is  everywhere  known  by  its  shrill  s^u.-ak,  we  incline  to 
interpret  ,-p;x  by  Mtunluinctticii*,  the  common  house- 
mouse.  |p  ,,  ,.  1 

FESTIVALS.     S<>   FEASTS. 

FESTUS.  POR'TIUS.  the  successor  of  Felix  in  the 
government  of  Judea.  IK-  received  his  appointment 
from  Xero,  probably  about  the  year  A.D.  oil;  and  held 
it  for  a  eomparativi  ly  short  time;  for  he  was  not  lung 
in  the  Fast  till  he  died  In  Xew  Testament  history 
he  is  mentioned  only  in  connection  with  the  case  of  the 
apostle  Paul,  which  was  brought  under  his  notice 
shortly  after  his  arrival  at  Cesarea.  He  was  a  man  of 
superior  character  to  Felix,  and  would  in  all  proba 
bility  have  set  him  at  liberty,  if  he  had  understood  pre 
cisely  what  the  question  at  issue  was,  and  what  were 
the  aims  and  tactics  of  Paul's  opponents.  P,ut  being 
ignorant  of  these,  and  having  proposed,  after  a  brief 
and  partial  hearing  of  the  case,  to  have  the  matter 
transferred  f..r  a  fuller  hearing  t<>  Jerusalem,  Paul,  well 
foreseeing  what  advantage  would  be  taken  of  such 
a  course,  appealed  to  Ca-sar.  This  he  had  a  right  to 
do  as  a  Koman  citizen,  and  Festus  had  no  alternative 
but  to  sustain  the  appeal.  Ac.  xxiv.  -j:;  xxv.  The  only 
further  notice  we  have  of  him  is  in  respect  to  tin- 
visit  paid  him  shortly  after  by  Agrippa  and  liernice: 
during  which  he  took  occasion  to  mention  the  case  i.f 
Paid,  and  finding  it  would  be  agreeable  to  his  distin 
guished  guests,  he  uavc  the  apostle  an  opportunity  of 
declaring  his  case  in  the  audience  of  the  whole  court. 
He  was  himself  astonished  at  what  he  heard  :  but  con 
ceiving  all  to  proceed  from  the  fervours  of  a  heated 
imagination,  aided  by  the  dreamy  speculations  of 
eastern  lore,  he  said  to  Paid.  '"Thou  art  beside  thy 
self:  much  learning  doth  make  thee  mad:"  which  drew 
forth  the  spirited  and  striking  reply,  "  I  am  not  mad. 
most  noble  Festus,  but  speak  forth  the  words  of  truth 
and  soberness." 

Festus  had  also  to  take  part,  as  we   learn  from  Jose 
phus,  in  ridding  the  country  of  the  robbers  that  still 

74 


ini'estc',1  it,  and  in  repressing  the  turbulent  spirit  that 
was  now  beginning  in  various  directions  to  seek  vent 
for  itself.  He  got  into  a  quarrel  with  the  priests  at 
Jerusalem  by  the  construction  of  a  dining-room  in  the 
governor's  house,  which  commanded  a  view  of  the 
courts  of  the  temple,  and  which  was  met  by  the  erec 
tion  of  a  wall  intended  to  intercept  his  view.  The 
matter  was  carried  to  Itome,  and  through  the  influence 
of  Poppoja  was  decided  in  favour  of  the  priests  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xx.  s).  The  impression  left  by  the  few  notices  that 
have  conio  down  to  ns  of  Kestus  is,  that  lie  was  one  of 
the  better  specimens  of  Roman  procurators,  with  Rome's 
characteristic  respect  to  order  and  justice,  but  not 
without  her  now  prevailing  indifference  to  questions 
connected  with  serious  and  earnest  religion.  Matters  of 
this  sort  he  regarded  as  scarcely  worthy  of  his  regard. 

FIG.  In  the  Jussieuaii  arrangement  of  plants,  the 
fig  belongs  to  the  Artocarpacca',  or  the  bread- fruit 
order  ;  and  this  again  is  treated  by  many  as  a  section 
or  tribe  of  the  rrticarece--a  large  and  miscellaneous 
family,  which  would  in  that  case  include  herbs  and 
trees  as  dissimilar  as  the  hop  and  the  nettle,  the  hemp 
and  the  mulberry,  the  nutritious  bread-fruit  and  the 
deadly  upas,  the  insignificant  pellitory  which  scantily 
adorns  the  ruined  wall,  and  the  mighty  banian  cover 
ing  whole  congregations  with  its  impenetrable  shadow. 


The  fig- tree  of  the  Bible  is  the  Fieits  carim  of  Lin- 
nrens,  and  derives  its  trivial  name  from  that  maritime 
province  of  Asia  Minor  which  in  classical  times  was  so 
famous  for  this  fruit,  that  we  find  Ovid  and  Cicero 
speaking  of  "carians"  (rarlrci')  when  they  mean  figs. 
We  ourselves  have  the  same  habit  of  naming  fruits 
after  their  most  famous  localities,  till,  as  not  mi  fre 
quently  happens,  the  noun,  is  merged  in  the  adjective. 
Thus  the  grapes  of  Corinth  have  contracted  into  "cur 
rants,"  and  the  plums  of  Damascus  are  "  damsons " 
(damascenes'). 

Of  eastern  origin,  the  fig  has  been  from  time  imme 
morial  naturalized  over  a.  large  extent  of  Asia,  from 
which  it  has  found  its  way  into  Greece,  Spain,  and 
nearly  all  the  south  of  Europe,  ft  ripens  its  fruit  in 


()  FIG 

many  places  in  our  own  country.  Visitors  to  Brighton 
and  Worthing  are  well  acquainted  with  the  plantation 
of  figs  at  Tarring,  the  goal  of  many  a  juvenile  pilgrim 
age  late  in  August  or  early  in  September.  Till  lately, 
perhaps  down  to  the  present  day,  the  primate  of  Eng 
land  could  sit  under  the  shadow  of  fig-trees  planted  at 
Lambeth  by  Cardinal  Pole  in  1525  ;  and  a  fig-tree  still 
flourishes  at  Christchurch,  in  Oxford,  which  Dr.  Pocock 
brought  from  Aleppo  in  1048. 

The  first  time  that  the  fig-tree  is  mentioned  in  the 
Bible  is  Ge.  iii.  7,  where  we  are  told  that  Adam  and 
Eve  "sewed  fig  leaves  together,  and  made  themselves 
aprons."  These  leaves  Milton  supposes  were  the 
foliage  of  the  banian  or  sacred  fig  of  India  ( Ficnx 
religiosa,  or  F.  Indira],  which  with  wonted  learning 
and  grandeur  he  thus  describes  :  — 

"  There  soon  they  chose 

The  fig-tree,  not  that  kind  for  fruit  renowned, 
Hut  such  as  at  this  day,  to  Indians  known, 
In  Malabar  or  Uuccan  spreads  her  anus. 
Brandling  so  broad  and  long,  that  in  lire  ground 
The  bended  twigs  take  root,  and  daughters  grow 
About  the  mother  tree,  a  pillared  shade, 
High  overarched,  and  echoing  walls  betwceii ; 
There  oft  the  Indian  herdsman,  shunning  heat, 
Shelters  in  cool,  and  tends  his  pasturing  herds, 
At  loop-holes  cut  through  thickest  shade  :  those  leaves 
They  gathered,  broad  as  Amazonian  targe, 
And,  with  what  skill  they  hud,  together  sewed." 

—  I'urudise  Lust,  book  ix. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  should  have 
been  led  to  imagine  that  for  this  purpose  our  first 
parents  employed  the  leaves  of  the  plantain  or  of  the 
banana  (Mima  paradisiaca,  or  M.  sapientum}.  Its 
enormous  leaves,  eight  or  ten  feet  long  and  two  or 
three  feet  broad,  would  not  require  to  be  sewed  to 
gether  ;  and  a  single  leaf,  with  its  strong  refractory 
mid-rib,  is  scai^cely  suitable  for  a  girdle.  Besides,  the 
original  n:NPi  evidently  indicates  some  sort  of  fig;  and, 

however  much  banian  may  sound  like  banana,  there 
is  not  the  slightest  resemblance  between  the  fig  and 
the  Musa. 

With  its  large  and  beautiful  leaf,  and  with  its  free- 
spreading  growth,  the  fig-tree  affords  a  good  shelter 
from  the  shower,  and  a  still  better  shadow  from  the 
heat.  Like  the  linden  in  Germany,  like  the  oak  and 
elm  011  the  village-greens  of  England,  like  the  rowan- 
tree  and  the  "  hour- tree  bush  "(the  "bower- tree"  or 
elder)  at  the  cottage  thresholds  and  farm-house  gables 
of  Scotland,  to  the  inhabitant  of  Palestine  the  fig-tree 
was  the  symbol  of  home,  and  repose,  and  tranquillity. 
"  Judah  and  Israel  dwelt  safely,  every  man  under  his 
vine  and  under  his  fig-tree,  all  the  days  of  Solomon," 
i  Ki.  iv.  25.  "  Nation  shall  not  lift  up  a  sword  against 
nation  :  .  .  .  but  they  shall  sit  every  man  under  his 
vine  and  under  his  fig-tree  ;  and  none  shall  make  them 
afraid,"  Mi.  iv.  3,  4.  Nathanael  was  resting,  perhaps 
meditating  and  praying,  "  under  the  fig-tree,"  when 
he  was  accosted  by  an  unlooked-for  visitant,  and  in 
the  stranger  recognized  "the  Son  of  God,  the  King  of 
Israel." 

What  is  called  the  fruit  of  the  fig-tree,  with  which 
we  are  all  so  familiar,  is  in  the  eye  of  the  botanist  no 
fruit  at  all,  hut  only  an  enlarged  "receptacle,"  which 
bears  on  its  inner  surface  the  real  fruit,  those  number 
less  small  seeds  which  we  find  in  the  interior.  "The 
flowers  of  the  fig-tree  are  never  apparent  to  the  eye, 
but  are  contained  in  those  fruit-like  bodies  produced 


FIG 


587 


in  the  axils  of  the  leaves,  and  it  is  not  till  one  of  these  is  i  Finn,  who  has  resided  in  Palestine  twelve  years,  told 

opened  that  the  flowers  are  visible.     What  is  therefore  me  further  that  the  second  setting  of  the  fig  takes  place 

termed  the  fruit  is  merely  the  receptacle  become  fleshy,  in  March;   frequently  whilst    the  winter  figs  are  still 

and  assuming  the  form  of  a  hollow  body,   bearing  on  upon  the  tree,   and  before  the  tree  is  in  leaf.      These 

its  interior  wall  the  flowers  or  fruit  of  the  fig''  (Hu-.-e's  figs  are  called  bvccvir,  and  are  gathered  at  midsummer. 

Vegetable  Kingdom,  p.  676).  j  The  third  and  last  crop  -  for  the   tig- tree  in  its  native 

This    fleshy    receptacle,    when    ripe,    is    remarkably  land  bears  three  crops  in  the  year — is  in  the  month  of 

sweet  and  luscious,  and  in  the  countries  where  it  comes     August.       The  August  figs — hence  called    rci'mottsi 

to  perfection,   it  is  highly  prized  for  qualities  at  once  are  the  sweetest  and  best.      Those  which  next  succeed 

agreeable  and  nutritious.     Oil  the  authority  of  Cloatius,  are  the  figs  which  remain  over  the  winter  and  do  not 

Macrobius    (Saun-nal.  lib.  ii.  cap.  ic)    enumerates  twenty-  ripen  till  the  following  spring.      A  full-foliated  fiir-tree 

three  varieties  as  known  to  the  Greeks  ;  and,  if  it  were  in  the  spring,  before  the  time  of  crop,  must  then  always 

not  actually  indigenous  in   Palestine,    it  there  found  a  bear  fruit   [in  some  stage  or  other],  so  far  as  it  is  in 

climate    congenial,    and    was    thoroughly    naturalized,  good  condition.      But  if  it  have  not  set  fruit  early  in 

Mo.-es,    describing  the    "good   land,"    speaks    of   it  as  the  spring,  it   will  then    bear  none  during  the  whole 

already    a   land   of    "vines,    and    tig-trees,    and    pome-  year"  (F.  Bremer's  Travels  in  tlie  Iloly  Land,  vol.  i  i>.iai).     Even 

granates,"  De.  viii.  s  ;  and  when  the  spies  returned  from  although  none  of  the  HL:- trees  now  found   near  Jerusa- 

their  exploration,    they    brought   not   only  the  famous  lein   should  yield   winter  tigs,  it   is   surely  not   unlikely 

cluster  of  grapes   from  Eshcol.   but   they  exhibited  also  that   at   that    period   of   high   and    careful   culture,    the 

the  "  pomegranates  and  the  figs,"  Nu.xiii.  2.i.   According  variety  may  have  -rown  mi  Olivet,  which  Miss  Bremer 
to  Lightfoot,  Bethphage  was  so  named  from  its  ''green 
lius,"  and   to  the  present  hour  the  fig  tree  -row-  "here 
and  there''  along  the  road  in  that  same  neighbourhood. 


As    Stanley 


>f     the    New    Testament 


found  three  years  ago  at  the  pools  of  Solomon.  At  all 
events  the  tree,  so  to  .-peak.  y,/-,</'(.-'.W  to  have  fruit; 
for  in  the  case  of  the  tig,  the  so-called  fruit  begins  to 
develope  earlier  than  the  foliage  ;  and  all  the  rather 


.Mount   Olivet. 


is   the   parable  not   sp 


less  and  bare,  this  one  arrested  attention,  and  awakened 


acted,    with    regard    to    the    fig-tree    which,    when   all     expectation  by  tliat  verdure  which  made  it  conspicuous 

others  around    it   were,    as    they  are  still,    bare   at   the 

beginning  of  April,  was  alone  clothed   with  its  broad 

green   leaves,  though  without   the   corresponding   fruit. 

Fig-trees  may  still  lie  seen  overhanging  the  ordinary 

mad  from  Jerusalem  to    iVthany.  -rowin- out  of  the     nearer  inspection,  it  turned  out  a  mere  pretender.      It 

rocks  of  the  solid   •mountain,'  Mat   xxi.  21,  which  might      \\as  neither   a  distinct   and    early  variety,   nor  was  it 

by  the  prayer  of   faith  lie  removed,  and   ca.-t  into  the     even  a  fruitful  specimen  of  the  common   kind.      It  had 

distant  Mediterranean  'sea.'      On  Olivet,  too,  the  brief 

parable    ill  the   great   prophecy    was   spoken,    when   he 

pointed    to   the   bursting   buds   of  spring  in  the   same 

trees  as   they  grew  around   him  :— -'  iltlmld  the  tig-tree      some  time  until   the   regular   fig-harve.-t    l"  the  time  of 

and  all  the  trees  when  they  HOIC  shoot  forth  :  when  his     tigs  was  not  yet,"  Mar.  \i  121.      It  was  a  mere  impostor, 

branch  is  yet  tender,  and   putteth  forth  leaves,  ye 


and    so   the    withering   word    was   spoken,    "  !S'o   man 
d  km. '.v  of  your  own  s>  Ives  that  .-uminer   is  noic  niuh      eat  fruit  of   thee  hen  after  for  ever."      "  Fit  emblem  of 


at    hand,'    Ln.   x\i    2:1,   'M-    Mat.  xxiv.    ;;2"  (Stanley's  Sinai  and 
Palestine,  p.   114). 

Considerable  difficulty  has   been   expressed  as  to  the. 


those  who  make  pretensions  to  which  their  conduct 
does  not  answer.  Kspeeially  had  it  reference  to  the 
Jewish  nation,  who  were  distinguished  from  other 


tig-tree  which  ( 'lirist  cur.' 

ness,     Mat.   xxi.   Hi;    Mar.  xi.   12.         We     have     little     doubt 

that   the  solution   suggested   in   the   foregoing  extract 
is   the   true   explanation,  especially  if   we   connect  witli 


nations,    saw  the  rest   in   such   a   de 
•oiiditioii,    that    lie   did    not    expect    t< 


in  account  of  its  barren-  nations  as  having  Ka\vs,  but  from  which  the  hi 
bandman  in  \ain  looked  for  fruit.  Jesus,  in  lookii 
round 
L-idedly 

it    the    fact    that    there    are    varieties    which    fructify      discover  fruit   141011  them  ;    but  this  one,   the    Israel 
early  in  the  season.      "  There  is  a  kind."  says   Dr.  W.      the   covenants,  was   .-in-led   out   from  the  others,   and 
M.  Thomson,  ••which  bears  a  large   green-coloured   fig 
that    ripens    very    early.       I     have    plucked     them    in 
May  from  trees  on  Lebanon,    l.r>i>  miles  north  of  Jeru 
salem,   and  where  the  trees   are   nearly  a  month  later 


was  distinguished  from  them,  standing  apart.  When 
this  one  had  no  fruit,  it  was  a  worthless  tree — worse 
by  far  than  the  others,  for  with  them  the  time  of  fruit 
wa-  not  yet.  Gentile  nations  would  hereafter,  but  not 
than  in  the  south  of  Palestine:  it  does  not  therefore  at  that  moment,  be  asked  for  fruit."  (W.  H.  J,,hi,stonein 
seem  impossible  but  that  the  same  kind  mii/ltt  have  had  tin.- Christian  Annotator,  vol.  i.  p.  22».) 

ripe  tigs  at  Easter,  in  the  warm,  sheltered  ravines  of  [  Often  a  month  or  six  weeks  before  the  general  crop  is 
Olivet"  (The  Land  and  the  Hook,  part  2,  c-,hap.  24).  This  ;  gathered,  there  will  be  found  on  the  tree  some  samples 
conjecture  is  borne  out  in  the  recent  work  of  Miss  i  of  the  fruit  already  matured,  and  these  "first-ripe 
Ureiner.  Visiting  the  farm  of  Meschullam,  near  Beth-  fi-.-"  were  highly  pri/.ed.  Soft  and  sweet,  and  richly 

purple,  they  came  readily  from  the  stem,  and  were 
deemed  a  special  dainty,  Na.  iii.  12;  Is.  xxviii.  4.  The  fig 
would  not  require  many  weeks  to  ripen.  I  was  told  season  was  J  uly  and  August.  A  portion  of  the  fruit  was 
that  these  are  the  so-called  winter  tigs,  which  are  i  preserved  for  winter  use.  One  method  was  to  pound 
formed  late  in  the  autumn,  remain  on  the  tree  during  |  it  in  a  mortar,  and  make  it  into  rectangular  masses  or 


lehem,   on  March  :>,   her   attention    was    attracted   by 
some  fig-trees,   still  leafless,   but   "full  of  fruit,  which 


winter,   and  ripen  during  the  following  spring,  about 
Easter — this  being  the  first  fig  crop  of  the  year.      Mrs. 


cakes.      In  this  form  it  could  be  kept  for  a  long  period, 
and  was  convenient  as  well  as  acceptable  provender  in 


FH; 


FIRE 


the  soldier's  haversack.  After  the  defeat  of  the  Ama- 
lekites,  when  David's  iiieu  found  an  Egyptian  in  the 
field  exhausted,  "  they  gave  him  a  piece  of  a  cake  of 
figs,  and  two  clusters  of  raisins;  and  when  he  had  eaten, 
Ins  spirit  came  again  to  him,"'  1  Sa.  xxx.  12.  And  "two 
hundred  cakes  of  figs''  svere  part  of  the  present  with 
which  the  prudent  wife  of  the  churlish  Xabal  propi 
tiated  the  son  of  Jesse  at  Carmel,  isa.  x.\v.  is. 

When  Hczekiah  was  sick  unto  death,  Isaiah  the  pro 
phet  said,  "  Let  them  take  a  lump  of  figs,  and  lay  it  for 
a  plaster  upon  the  boil,  and  he  shall  recover,''  Js.xxxviii.  21. 
Possibly  figs  were  already  used  in  Hebrew  surgery 
as  cataplasms;  but  whether  they  were  or  not,  the  cure 
of  the  monarch  was  none  the  less  the  act  of  that  su 
preme  Physician  who  works  his  wonders  through  means 
inadequate,  or  without  any  means  at  all.  The  fig  is 
emollient  and  demulcent,  and  boiled  or  roasted,  and 
then  split  open,  we  believe  that  it  is  still  used  in  the 
minor  surgery  which  has  to  do  with  whitlows  and  gum 
boils,  and  similar  slight  cases  of  suppuration.  [,i.  ii.l 

FIR.  Like  our  own.  words  "fir,"  "pine,"  "cedar," 
which  are  very  loosely  used,  the  likelihood  is  that  the 
Hebrew  berosli  (^ViS)  was  applied  to  various  trees  with 

evergreen  foliage  and  sectile  timber :  for,  as  Gesenius 
says,  the  name  seems  to  come  from  the  idea  of  cutting  up 
into  boards  and  planks,  as  suggested  by  the  obsolete  root 
\£nS  (barash),  to  cut.  Of  such  trees  the  range  of  Lebanon 

supplied  a  great  variety,  and  magnificent  specimens, 
including  the  Scotch  fir,  the  cypress,  and  cedar.  (See 
CEDAR  and  CYPRESS.)  In  2  Sa.  vi.  5,  we  read,  "David 
and  all  the  house  of  Israel  played  before  the  Lord  on 
all  manner  of  instruments  made  of  fir  wood,  even  on 
harps,  and  on  psalteries,"  &c.  In  connection  with  this 
may  be  quoted  a  passage  in  Burriey's  History  of  Music 
(vol.  i.  p.  2:7),  where  it  is  stated  :  "  This  species  of  wood, 
so  soft  in  its  nature  and  sonorous  in  its  effects,  seems 
to  have  been  preferred  by  the  ancients  as  well  as  mo 
derns  to  every  other  kind  for  the  construction  of  musi 
cal  instruments,  particularly  the  bellies  of  them,  on 
which  their  tone  chiefly  depends.  Those  of  the  harp, 
lute,  guitar,  harpsichord,  and  violin,  in  present  use, 
are  constantly  made  of  this  wood."  [.T.  n.J 

FIRE.  Of  fire  as  a  natural  element,  or  as  employed 
in  domestic  operations  and  the  processes  of  art,  there  is 
110  need  for  discoursing  here.  In  these  respects  the 
student  of  Scripture  has  no  difficulty  to  encounter,  or 
any  peculiarity  to  meet.  The  only  thing  respecting 
fire  which  calls  for  explanation  is  its  symbolical  use. 
In  this  we  may  distinguish  a  lower  and  a  higher  sense: 
a  lower,  when  the  reference  is  simply  to  the  burning 
heat  of  the  element,  in  which  respect  any  vehement 
affection,  such  as  anger,  indignation,  shame,  love,  is 
wont  to  be  spoken  of  as  a  fire  in  the  bosom  of  the  indi 
vidual  affected,  i's.  xxxix.  3;  Jo.  xx.  9;  and  a  higher,  which 
is  also  by  much  the  more  common  (.me  in  Scrip 
ture,  when  it  is  regarded  as  imaging  the  more  distinc 
tive  properties  of  the  divine  nature.  In  this  symboli 
cal  use  of  fire  the  reference  is  to  its  powerful,  penetrat 
ing  agency,  and  the  terrible  melting,  seemingly  resist 
less  effects  it  is  capable  of  producing.  So  viewed,  fire 
is  the  chosen  symbol  of  the  holiness  of  God,  which 
manifests  itself  in  a  consuming  hatred  of  sin,  and  can 
endure  nothing  in  its  presence  but  what  is  in  accord 
ance  with  the  pure  and  good.  There  is  a  considerable 
variety  in  the  application  of  the  symbol,  but  the  pas 
sages  are  all  explicable  by  a  reference  to  this  funda 


mental  idea.  God,  for  example,  is  called  "a  consum 
ing'  fire,"  lie.  xii.2ii;  to  dwell  with  him  is  to  dwell  "with 
devouring  fire,"  Is.  xxxiii.  11 ;  as  manifested  even  in  the 
glorified  Redeemer  "his  eyes  are  like  a  flame  of  fire," 
lie.  ii.  is;  his  aspect  when  coming  for  judgment  is  as  if  a 
fire  went  before  him,  or  a  scorching  flame  compassed 
him  about,  I's.  xcvii. :;,  2Th.  i.  8: — in  these,  and  many  simi 
lar  representations  occurring  in  Scripture,  it  is  the  rela 
tion  of  God  to  sin  that  is  more  especially  in  view,  and 
the  searching,  intense,  all-consuming  operation  of  his 
holiness  in  regard  to  it.  They  who  are  themselves 
conformed  to  this  holiness  have  nothing  to  fear  from  it; 
they  can  dwell  amid  its  light  and  glory  as  in  their 
proper  element;  like  Moses,  can  enter  the  flame-en 
wrapping  cloud  of  the  divine  presence,  and  abide  in  it 
unscathed,  though  it  appear  in  the  eyes  of  others  "like 
devouring  fire  on  the  top  of  the  mount,"  Ex.  xxiv.  17,  is. 
Hence,  we  can  easily  explain  why  in  Old  Testament 
times  the  appearance  of  fire,  and  in  particular  the  pillar 
of  fire  (enveloped  in  a  cloud,  as  if  to  shade  and  restrain 
its  excessive  brightness  and  power)  was  taken  as  the 
appropriate  form  of  the  divine  presence  and  glory; 
for  in  those  times  which  were  more  peculiarly  the  times 
of  the  law,  it  was  the  holiness  of  God  which  came  most 
prominently  into  view ;  it  was  this  which  had  in  every 
form  to  be  pressed  most  urgently  upon  the  consciences 
of  men,  as  a  counteractive  to  the  polluting  influences 
of  idolatry,  and  of  essential  moment  to  a  proper  appre 
hension  of  the  covenant.  But  in  the  new,  as  well  as 
in  the  old,  when  the  same  form  of  representation  is 
employed,  it  is  the  same  aspect  of  the  divine  character 
that  is  meant  to  be  exhibited.  Thus,  at  the  commence 
ment  of  the  gospel  era.  when  John  the  Baptist  came 
forth  announcing  the  advent  of  the  Lord,  he  spake  of 
him  as  coming  to  baptize  with  fire  as  well  as  with  the 
Spirit,  not  less  to  burn  up  the  chaff  with  fire  un 
quenchable  than  to  gather  in  the  wheat  into  his  gar 
ner,  Mat.  Hi.  11,12.  The  language  is  substantially  that  of 
an  Old  Testament  prophet,  Mai.  iii.  2 ;  iv.  1 ;  and  it  points, 
not  as  is  often  represented,  to  the  enlightening,  purify 
ing,  love- enkindling  agency  of  Christ,  but  to  the  severe 
and  retributive  effects  of  his  appearance.  He  was  to 
be  set  for  judgment  as  well  as  for  mercy;  for  mercy 
indeed  first,  but  to  those  who  rejected  the  mercy,  and 
hardened  themselves  in  sin,  also  for  judgment.  To  be 
baptized  with  the  Spirit  of  light,  holiness,  and  love,  is 
what  should  ever  follow  on  a  due  submission  to  his 
authority;  but  a  baptism  with  fire — the  fire  of  divine 
wrath  here,  Jn.  iii.  30,  growing  into  fire  unquenchable 
hereafter — should  be  the  inevitable  portion  of  such  as 
set  themselves  in  rebellion  against  him. 

It  is  true  that  fire  in  its  symbolical  use  is  also 
spoken  of  as  purifying — the  emblem  of  a  healing  pro 
cess  effected  upon  the  spiritual  natures  of  persons  in 
covenant  with  God.  We  read,  not  merely  of  fire,  but 
of  refiner's  fire,  and  of  a  spirit  of  burning  purging  away 
the  dross  and  impurity  of  Jerusalem,  Mai.  iii.  2 ;  Is.  iv.  4. 
Still  it  is  a  work  of  severity  and  judgment  that  is  indi 
cated — only  its  sphere  is,  not  the  xinbelieving  and  corrupt 
world,  but  the  mixed  community  of  the  Lord's  people, 
with  many  false  members  to  be  purged  out,  and  the  indi 
vidual  believer  himself  with  an  old  man  of  corruption 
in  his  members  to  be  mortified  and  cast  off.  The  Spirit  of 
holiness  has  a  work  of  judgment  to  execute  also  there; 
and  with  respect  to  that  it  might  doubtless  be  said, 
that  Christ  baptizes  each  one  of  his  people  with  fire. 
I  Jut  in  the  discourse  of  the  Baptist  the  reference  is 


FIIJKIX 


FIRST-BORN 


rather  to  different  classes  of  persons  than  to  diti'erent 
kinds  of  operation  in  the  same  person:  he  {joints  to  the 
partakers  of  grace  on  the  one  side,  and  to  the  children 
of  apostasy  and  perdition  on  the  other.  Xor  is  the 
reference  materially  different  in  the  emblem  of  tongues, 
like  as  of  fire,  which  sat  on  the  apostles  at  Pentecost: 
and  in  the  tire  that  is  said  to  go  out  of  the  mouth  of  the 
symbolical  witnesses  of  the  Apocalypse,  Ac.  ii.  3;  Ho.  xi.5. 
In  both  cases  the  fire  indicated  the  power  of  holiness 
to  be  connected  with  the  ministrations  of  Christ's  chosen 
witnesses;  a  power  that  should,  as  it  were,  burn  up  the 
corruptions  of  the  world,  consume  the  enmity  of  men's 
hearts,  and  prove  resistless  weapons  against  the  power 
and  malice  of  the  adversary. 

FIRKIN,  used  once  in  New  Testament  scripture 
as  a  synonym  fur  the  Greek  u«trei(.*,  Ju.  ii.  C;  hut  the 
latter  measure  differed  very  materially  in  ditlerent 
places;  and  the  term  //;•/•/'/(  is  fitted  t<>  surest  a  very 
exaggerated  estimate  of  quantity  in  the  pa.-sage  referred 

to.       (  >'(•('  ,MKASfHKS.t 

FIRMAMENT,  a  w,,rd  that  comes  to  us  through 
the  Latin,  and  importing  by  its  derivation  something 
of  compact  and  solid  structure.  In  common  use.  how 
ever,  it  has  lost  this  import,  and  merely  driiotcs  the 
sky  over  our  heads  —  the  pure  and  transparent  expanse  of 
ether  which  envelopes  the  globe,  and  *tretche-  from  th.' 
earth's  surface  toward  the  upper  regions  of  space.  This 
is  precisely  what  is  meant  by  the  Hebrew  term  rnkin/i 
'ypib  froni  the  root  to  stretch,  spread  out  or  forth,  beat 

out;  hence  simply  the  <J7>rt/f.<f,  what  is  spread  out  around 

and  over  the  earth.  This  has  to  the  natural  t  ye  some 
what  of  the  appearance  of  a  crystal  arch.  r«  stin^  upon 
the  boundaries  of  the  earth,  and  bearing  aloft  the  \\aterv 
treasures  on  which  the  life  and  fruitfulness  of  nature 
so  materially  depend.  On  the  second  creative  day,  it  is 
said,  God  made  this  liquid  e\]>an>e.  for  the  purpo.-e  of 
dividing  the  waters  on  the  sin-face  of  the  earth  from 
the  waters  above,  or  the  sea  from  the  clouds  that  rise 
out  of  it.  In  so  far  as  material  elements  enter  into  its 
composition,  it  consists  simply  of  the  atmosphere.—  a 
vast  body  of  ether,  compounded  with  infinite  skill  for 
the  numberless  functions  it  has  to  discharge  in  the 
formation  and  dispersion  of  vapours,  the  transmission 
of  li-'ht  and  heat,  the  support  of  animal  and  vegetable 
life,  and  similar  operations  but  in  its  structure  and 
appearance  related  rather  to  the  fluctuating  and  muta 
ble,  than  to  the  more  solid  parts  of  the  material  uni 
verse.  But  as  used  in  the  record  of  creation,  the  rnkluh 
or  firmament  includes  not  merely  the  lower  heavens, 
or  atmospheric  sky,  with  its  clouds  and  vapours,  but 
the  whole  visible  expanse  up  to  the  region  of  the  fixed 
stars.  For.  on  the  fourth  creative  day  it  is  said,  that 
God  made  in  tin  rukitth  sun.  moon,  and  stars,  to 
divide  the  day  from  the  night,  and  to  be  for  signs  and 
seasons.  This,  of  course,  implies  nothing  as  to  the 
structure  and  composition  of  the  immense  area,  as  if 
by  being  comprised  in  one  name  it  were  all  of  the 
same  formation.  The  language  is  adapted  to  the  ap 
parent  aspect  of  things,  and  describes  the  visible  ex 
panse  above,  with  its  orbs  of  light,  simply  in  the  rela 
tion  they  hold  to  the  earth,  and  the  appearance  they 
present  to  a  spectator  on  its  surface.  In  this  respect 
we  have  to  distinguish  a  lower  and  a  higher  firmament, 
just  as  we  do  in  respect  to  a  lower  and  a  higher  heaven. 
A  controversy  has  arisen  respecting  the  sense  attached 
by  the  Hebrew  writers  to  raklalt,  chiefly  on  account  of 


the  ancient  translations  given  of  it,  and  the  poetical 
representations  found  of  the  upper  regions  of  the  visible 
heavens  in  some  parts  of  Scripture.  The  Septuagint 
translation  renders  (jre/sewyiia—  which  occurs  as  well  in 
a  passive  as  an  active  sense  —  what  is  made  firm  or 
solid,  or  what  makes  such,  gives  .-tabilitv  and  support. 
The  Latin  won  I  jirmaiin  ndtni.  which  was  used  as  an 
equivalent,  more  properly  bears  the  latter  signification 
—  a  prop  or  support.  It  has  hence  been  armied,  that 
the  Hebrews  understood  something  solid  by  the  rakiah 
or  firmament,  capable  of  bearing  up  the  waters  which 
accumulate  in  mas>es  above,  and  even  of  having  the 
heavenly  bodies  affixed  to  it  as  to  a  crystalline  pave 
ment.  (S'i  Gcseuius,  Th'js.,  and  many  utlu-r-,.)  And  such 
passages  as  .-peak  of  the  foundations  of  heaven  shaking, 
•jsu.  x\ii.  •-,  of  its  pillars  trembling,  J<>t>  xxv;.  ll,  of  the  win 
dow.-  or  doors  of  heaven  being  opened  to  give  forth 
rain,  or  au'ain  shut.  (;•..  vii.  ll;  IV  ixxviii.  :;;  Ji.il.  iii.  1",  or  of 
the  sky  being  strong  as  a  molten  looking-gla>s,  Job 
xxxvii.  is,  are  adduced  in  proof  of  the  idea.  J'.ut  all 
tlie.se  expressions  are  manifestly  of  a  figurative  nature, 
and  to  hold  them  as  tantamount  to  a  categorical  scien 
tific  deliverance  on  the  nature  of  the  heavenly  expanse, 
seems  alti'iT'-tiu  r  gratuitous.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
that  in  that  same  expanse,  which  the  Hebrews  con- 
trmplated  as  b.-;inii'_f  up  the  waters  that  issue  from  the 
clouds,  tli>-y  also  n  presented  the  birds  as  flying  about, 
hence  usually  railed  "fowls  of  heaven"--  and  what 
room  was  tin-re,  in  -itch  :i  case,  for  material  solidity,  or 
actual  pillars  '  The  language  on  this,  as  on  other 
phy-ieal  >ubjeels,  is  simply  that  suggested  by  the 
natural  a>p<  cts  of  things,  e\,T  varying  as  these  also 
vary.  And  so  far  from  the  place  or  region  of  the  fixed 
star-  heiii'_r  always  regardt  d  a-;  -oniething  solid  and 
er\  -talline.  we  tind  it  .-pokeii  of  sometimes  as  a  curtain 
1  1/<  ri/in/i,  I'sciv  -j),  a  tent,  nav  even  a  thin  veil,  or  fine 
cloth  ('/"/-.  1-  x\.  •»>).  In  short,  we  have  all  the  cha- 
I'acti  ristics  of  a  figurative  and  sensuous  imagery,  and 
not  matter-of-fact  description;  and  it  were  as  absurd 
to  press  the  terms  in  their  literal  import  here,  as  in  the 
similar  expressions,  bars  of  ocean,  doors  of  death,  wings 
of  the  wind  and  sun,  and  such  like.  (>'«.'  HEAVEN.) 

FIRST-BORN.  It  is  the  religious  rather  than  the 
natural  and  civil  liearinu'  of  this  term  that  here  calls 
for  explanation:  the  other  has  already  been  considered 
under  the  article  I  ![  KTHKioilT.  I!y  the  first-born,  in  a 
religious  point  of  view,  seem  to  have  been  meant  the 
first  of  a  mother's  offspring  rather  than  of  a  father's;  for 
on  the  original  occasion  of  the  consecration  of  such  to 
the  Lord  the  order  is  thus  given,  "Sanctify  unto  me 
all  the  first-born,  whatsoever  openeth  the  womb  among 
the  children  of  I.-rael,  both  of  man  and  of  bea.-t:  it  is 
mine.''  F.\.  xiii.-j.  And  au'ain  at  ver.  1  '2,  '"Thou  shalt 
set  apart  unto  the  Lord  all  that  o]»  neth  the  matrix, 
and  every  firstling  that  Cometh  of  a  beast  which 
thou  hast;  the  males  >hall  lie  the  Lord's."  The  histori 
cal  ground  of  this  religious  destination  is  very  distinctly 
stated  in  what  follows,  where  it  is  said,  that  when  the 
posterity  of  the  Israelites  should  inquire  into  the  reason 
of  it,  they  were  to  be  told,  "  that  when  Pharaoh  would 
hardlv  let  us  L;-O,  the  Lord  slew  all  the  first-born  in  the 
land  of  Knvpt,  both  the  first-born  of  man  and  the  first 
born  of  beast;  therefore  I  sacrifice  to  the  Lord  all 
that  openeth  the  matrix,  being  males;  and  all  the  first 
born  of  my  children  1  redeem."  We  have  here  a  three 
fold  act  of  God-  first,  the  infliction  of  death  on  the 
first-born  of  man  and  beast  in  Kgypt;  then  exemption 


FIKST-I'.OUN 


FIRST-BORN 


from  this  judgment  on  the  part  of  Israel  in  consideration 
of  tin:  paschal  sacrifice;  and  finally,  in  commemora 
tion  of  (lie  exemption,  the  consecrating  to  the  Lord  of 
all  the  first-liorn  in  time  to  come.  The  fundamental 
element  on  which  the  whole  proceeds,  is  evidently  the 
representative  character  of  the  iirst-liorn  :  the  first  off 
spring  of  the  producing  parent  stands  for  the  entire 
fruit  of  the  womb,  being  that  in  which  the  whole  takes 
its  beginning:  so  that  the  slaying  of  the  first-liorn  of 
Kgypt  was  virtually  the  slaying  of  all--  it  implied  that 
one  ami  the  same  doom  was  suspended  over  all:  and, 
consequently,  that  the  saving  of  the  first-born  of  Israel 
and  their  subsequent  consecration  to  the  Lord,  was.  in 
regard  to  divine  intention  and  efficacious  virtue,  the 
Kivhi'j;  and  consecration  of  all.  Hence'  Israel  as  a  whole 
was  designated  (-oil's  first-born:  "Thou  shalt  say  unto 
Pharaoh,  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Israel  is  my  son,  my 
first-born  ;  and  I  say  unto  thce,  Let  my  son  go,  that  he 
mav  serve  me;  and  if  thou  refuse  to  let  him  go,  behold 
I  will  slay  thy  son,  thy  first-born,''  Kx.  iv.  ±>,:!:j.  All  I.-rael 
were  in  outward  standing  and  covenant  relationship 
the  Lord's  first-born,  being  the  national  representatives 
and  actual  beginning  of  a  redeemed  church,  to  be 
brought  out  of  every  kindred,  and  tongue,  and  people; 
and,  as  such,  they  were  without  distinction  called  to  be 
a  nation  of  priests,  one  and  all  holiness  to  the  Lord, 
Kx.xix.  i>.  But  for  the  purpose  of  giving  this  great 
truth  a  proper  hold  of  their  minds,  and  perpetually  re 
inforcing  the  principle  on  which  it  was  grounded,  tin- 
Lord  ordained  the  formal  consecration  of  the  first-born, 
from  the  time  that  the  principle  received  its  signal 
illustration  in  the  exemption  of  Israel's  first-born  from 
the  doom  of  Egypt.  These  henceforth  were  to  be  spe 
cially  devoted  to  the  Lord,  in  token  of  the  devotion 
which  all  Israel  were  by  calling  and  privilege  bound  to 
render  to  him. 

In  regard  to  the  practical  application,  of  the  princi 
ple  thus  established  in  the  case  of  the  first-born,  a  cer 
tain  modification  was  afterwards  introduced.  The  first 
born  of  cattle,  and  all  living  creatures  capable  of  being 
offered  to  the  Lord,  were  still  to  be  held  sacred  in  the 
strictest  sense;  they  were  to  be  abstracted  from  a  com 
mon  use,  and  dedicated  to  the  service  of  God;  and  those 
not  fit  for  such  a  destination  were  to  be  redeemed  at 
their  proper  value.  But  in  respect  to  the  first  of 
human  offspring,  whose  special  consecration  undoubt 
edly  pointed  to  a  separation  for  ministerial  service,  the 
tribe  of  Levi  came  to  be  substituted  in  their  place. 
An  express  order  was  given  to  Moses  for  this  substitu 
tion ;  the  Lord  said  to  him,  "Number  all  the  first 
born  of  the  males  of  the  children  of  Israel,  from  a 
month  old  and  upward,  and  take  the  number  of  their 
names.  And  thou  shalt  take  the  Levites  for  me  (I  am 
the  Lord)  instead  of  all  the  first-born  among  the  chil 
dren  of  Israel/'  Xu.  iii.  40,41.  It  was  found  that  there 
were  273  more  of  the  first-born  among  all  the  tribes  than 
of  males  in  the  tribe  of  Levi,  and  these  were  redeemed 
for  the  Lord  by  a  ransom-price  of  five  shekels  apiece. 
The  numbers  of  that  tribe,  therefore,  stepped  into  the 
place  of  the  first-born,  and,  as  the  more  select  represen 
tative  portion  of  the  coven  ant- people,  the  Lord's  pecu 
liar  lot,  they  were  not  only  purified,  but  •'offered  as 
an  offering  before  the  Lord,"  and  appointed  to  "do the 
service  of  the  children,  of  Israel  in  the  congregation, 
and  to  make  an  atonement  for  the  children  of  Israel, 
that  there  might  be  no  plague  among  them,  when  the 
children  of  Israel  draw  near  to  the  sanctuary,"  Nu.  viii. 


111,^1.  In  plain  terms,  the  substitution  of  a  separate 
tribe  for  the  first-born  of  each  family  was  made  for  the 
purpose  of  more  effectually  securing  the  course  of  spe 
cial  service  to  the  Lord,  in  which  the  principle  of  con 
secration  was  to  embody  itself,  and  therebv  present  a 
better  idea  of  the  holiness  which  Israel  as  a  people 
were  called  to  maintain  and  manifest.  But  to  keep 
alive  the  principle  on  which  the  consecration  proceeded, 
and  make  every  family  in  Israel  conscious  of  the  bond 
which  in  this  connected  it  with  the  tribe  of  Le\i,  the 
redemption  money  was  always  to  be  exacted  for  the 
first-born  son,  Nu.  xviii.  i:,;  the  Lord  still  claimed  the 
first  birth  as  peculiarly  his  own,  and  remitted  tin-  spe 
cial  service  at  the  sanctuary,  only  in  consideration  of 
the  selection  he  had  himself  made  of  the  tribe  of  Levi 
for  the  work.  (For  the  numbers  mentioned,  xrc  LEVJ.I 
THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FII;ST-I;OKX.  to  which  believers  in 
Christ  are  represented  as  coming,  the  church  or  assem 
bly  with  whose  names  it  is  their  glory  to  have  their 
own  enrolled,  iio.  xii.  ]>:;,  it  will  be  readily  understood 
from  the  preceding  explanations,  is  but  another  expres 
sion  for  the  church  of  the  redeemed-  -those  \\ho  have 
become  peculiarly  the  Lord's,  and  through  the  blood 
of  the  everlasting  covenant,  applied  to  their  consciences, 
are  consecrated  to  him  for  evermore.  Pre-eminently 
and  emphatically  the  church  of  the  first-born  is  Christ's, 

since  he  is  himself  in  a   sense  altogether  peculiar  the 

^  i 

first-born — not  only  as  being  the  eldest  offspring  of 
Mary,  her  sole  offspring  as  a  virgin,  but  also  as  haviirj. 
by  virtue  of  his  relation  to  Godhead,  in  his  life  and 
death  perfectly  realized  the  idea  of  personal  consecra 
tion  to  the  Father,  and  become  the  li\ing  head  of  the 
whole  family  of  the  redeemed.  The  name,  however, 
maybe  applied  to  the  church,  and  in  the  passage  above 
referred  to  is  applied,  from  respect  to  the  place  assigned 
in  the  old  dispensation  to  the  first-born,  as  the  most 
direct  partakers  of  the  redemption  of  God,  and  in  con 
sequence  the  nearest  to  him  in  privilege,  character,  and 
glory. 

The  epithet  FIRST- BOK\,  however,  is  applied  distinc 
tively  to  Christ ;  once  in  a  quite  general  manner,  and 
without  anything  to  define  more  exactly  the  respect  in 
which  he  was  so  called,  except  as  implying  his  pre 
eminent  greatness,  He.  i.  i; ;  again  with  reference  to  created 
being — '"  He  is  the  first- born  of  all  creation,  for  by  him 
(or  in  him)  were  all  things  created  that  are  in  heaven  and 
that  are  in  earth,''  c'ol.  i.  1G;  and  still  again  with  reference 
to  the  resurrection  from  the  dead — "  He  is  the  first 
born  from  (i.e.  from  among)  the  dead/'  Col.  i  is;  lie.  i.  5. 
The  expression  so  applied  manifestly  denotes  more  than 
simply  priority ;  it  carries  along  with  it  the  idea  of 
origination — a  causal  first,  or  germinal  beginning;  such 
as  involves  the  future  existence  of  an  entire  series  of 
dependent  results.  Thus  he  is  the  First-born  from  the 
dead,  as  lieint;-  himself  the  resurrection  and  the  life, 
in  whom  potentially  the  whole  company  of  the  re 
deemed  were  begotten  to  the  hope  of  a  blessed  resurrec 
tion,  i  Te.  i.  3;  so  that  as  all  Israel  were  at  the  redemp 
tion  from  Egypt  saved  in  the  first-born,  in  like  manner 
all  who  shall  ultimately  attain  to  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead  may  be  said  to  have  risen  in  Christ.  In  like 
manner  he  is  the  First-born  of  the  creation  ;  since  all 
created  being  grows,  as  it  were,  out  of  him.  and  stands 
in  him  as  the  revealer  of  Godhead,  the  direct  agent 
and  administrator  of  its  productive  energies.  Such  ap 
pears  to  be  the  proper  explanation  of  the  term  as  ap- 
I  plied  personally  to  Christ — the  only  one  indeed  that 


FIRST-FLIC  ITS 


591 


FISH 


fully  suits  the  connection  in  the  several  passages ;  and 
that  also  which  quite  naturally  harmonizes  with,  and 
springs  out  of,  the  import  of  the  term  in  its  primary 
historical  application.  The  other  senses  adopted  by 
commentators,  which  it  is  needless  to  enumerate,  are 
more  or  less  fanciful. 

FIRST-FRUITS.  It  was  but  an  extension  of  the 
principle  which  gave  the  impress  of  sacredness  to  the 
first- born  of  men  and  beasts,  t<>  connect  with  Cud  by 
a  like  bond  of  sacredness  the  first  produce  of  the  h'eld. 
These  accordingly  were  claimed  fur  God:  and  that  not 
merely  in  the  general,  but  with  a  considerable  fulness 
and  variety  of  de-tail.  A  sheaf  of  the  first-fruits  of  the 
barley  crop  had  to  be  offered,  in  the  name  of  the  whole 
congregation,  at  the  feast  of  the  passover:  and  in  like 
manner  two  loaves  of  wheatcii  bread  at  the  feast  of 
pentecost.  I.e.  xxiii.  in,  17.  But  Vst  the  people  should 
deem  this  a  sufficient  discharge  of  the  obligation  to  con 
secrate  the  first  fruits  of  their  increase  t<>  th  '  L<>rd.  it 
was  enacted  that  what  was  thus  done  by  the  collective 
congregation  should  be  done  also  by  each  of  its  families, 
out  of  the  yearlv  produce  which  the  Lord  might  Lrive 
them.  The  first  or  best  of  the  oil,  of  the  wine,  ,,f  the 
wheat,  of  the  thrashing-floor  generally,  and  whatsoever 
was  first  ripe  in  corn  and  fruit,  were  expressly  set  apart 
for  ofivrings  to  the  Lord,  and  were  to  be  given  to  the 
priesthood,  as  the  Lord's  familiars  and  representatives, 
for  their  comfortable  maintenance.  Nn.  xv.  i:i--Ji;  xviii.  11-1:;. 
No  specific  quantity  or  proportion  was  fixed  on  us  pro 
per  for  this  offering  of  first  fruits;  that  appears  to  have 
been  left  to  the  Spiritual  feeling  and  ability  of  each  in 
dividual,  and  would  no  doubt  vary  in  amount  accord 
ing  as  the  principles  of  religion  were  in  lively  operation 
or  the  reverse.  A  stimulus  was  thus  furnisht  d  to  y.cal 
and  fidelity  on  the  part  of  tin:  priesthood,  whose  tem 
poral  well  being  and  comfort  were  inseparably  hound  up 
with  the  prosperity  of  the  cause  of  God;  they  could  not 
neglect  their  duty  as  the  guides  and  instructors  of  the 
people,  without  reaping  the  fruit  of  their  unfaithfulness 
in  diminished  supplies  of  first  fruit  oHcriiiLrs.  The  Tab 
mudists,  however,  reduced  this,  like  all  other  things, 
to  definite  rules  and  measures;  they  held  the  sixtieth 
part  the  least  that  could  be  given;  while  a  fortieth  or  a 
thirtieth  was  to  be  regarded  as  the  proof  of  a  willing 
and  liberal  spirit.  In  later  times,  the  first-fruits  were 
often  turned  into  money  by  the  more  distant  .lews,  and 
this  sent  instead  of  them  (Phil..,  ii.  p.  ;,>). 

The  olf'ering  of  first-fruits  was  by  no  means  peculiar 
to  Israel  ;  it  prevailed  among  the  leading  nations  of 
antiquity,  of  which  ample  proofs  may  l>e  found  in 
Spencer  (I)c  Leg.  Hub.  lib.  iii.  c.  :M.  From  the  ({notations 
produced  from  ancient  writers  upon  the  subject,  there 
woidd  seem  to  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  practice 
a  feeling  that  the  first-ripe  portions  were  the  best  of 
the  crop,  and  that  these  belonged  to  the  gods  primarily 
as  a  token  of  gratitude  for  the  year's  produce  in  each 
particular  kind,  and  remotely  as  a  ground  or  security 
for  the  fruitfulness  of  coining  harvests.  Such  a  mode 
of  feeling  and  acting  has  its  root  in  men's  moral  nature; 
it  is  in  accordance  with  the  common  instincts  of  huma 
nity:  and  could  scarcely  fail,  wherever  a  symbolical  and 
ritual  religion  prevailed,  to  find  some  appropriate  form 
of  manifestation.  It  is  needless  therefore  to  speak 
in  such  a  case  of  the  Hebrews  borrowing  from  the 
heathen,  or  the  heathen  from  the  Hebrews.  But  with 
the  Hebrews,  the  principle  on  which  the  offering  of 
first-fruits  proceeded  reached  further  than  elsewhere; 


for  the  offering  was  not  a  mere  nature-gift,  in  acknow 
ledgment  of  the  goodness  of  the  God  of  nature;  it  con 
nected  itself  with  the  holiness  of  God.  As  in  the  case 
of  the  first-born,  it  brought  the  whole  within  the  sphere 
of  religion—  stamped  all  with  a  certain  measure  of 
sacredness;  so  that  it  might  seem  an  impiety  afterwards 
to  apply  any  portion  of  the  produce  to  improper  uses. 
For,  in  the  words  of  the  apostle,  "if  the  tiiv-t-fruits 
were  holy,  the  lump  was  also  holy,"  i;.>.  xi.  iii;  the  entire 
crop  partook  to  some  extent  of  the  character  of  that 
which,  as  the  first  and  best,  was  presented  to  the  Lord. 
Had  this  principle  been  rightly  recogni/.ed  and  carried 
out  in  practice,  it  must  have  exercised  a  most  salutary 
influence  on  the  common  life  and  operations  of  the 
Israelites. 

In  regard  to  the  manner  of  conveying  the  first-fruits, 
and  the  forms  used  in  presenting  them,  the  Talmudists 
give  the  following  account,  though  it  may  justly  be 
taken  with  some  qualifications:  "When  they  carried 
up  the  first-fruits  [which,  it  will  be  understood,  was 
usually  done  at  the  feast  of  tabernacles],  all  the  cities 
that  were  in  a  station  gathered  together  to  the  chief 
city  of  the  station,  to  the  end  they  mi^ht  not  go  up 

alone;    for  it  is  said.    '   In    the  multitude  of    people  is  the 

king's  honour,'  IV  xiv.  a>.  And  they  came  and  lodged 
all  night  in  the  streets  of  the  city,  and  went  not  into 
the  houses  for  fear  of  pollution.  And  in  the  morning 
.  nior  said.  '  Arise,  and  let  us  go  up  to  /ion, 
the  city  of  the  Lord  our  God.'  And  before  them  went 
a  bull  which  had  his  horns  covered  with  gold,  and  an 
olive  uarland  on  his  head,  to  signify  the  first-fruits  of 
the  seven  kinds.  And  a  pipe  struck  up  before  them, 
till  they  came  near  to  Jerusalem:  and  all  the  way  as 
they  went,  they  -anu'.  '1  rejoiced  in  them  that  said 
unto  me.  \Ye  will  ^<>  into  the  hou-e  of  the  Lord.'  &c. 
When  they  \\efe  collie  nigh  to  Jerusalem,  they  sent 

messengers  before  them  to  signify  it:  then  the  captains 
and  governors  went  out  of  Jerusalem  to  meet  them,  &c. 
And  they  went  in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  pipes 
striking  up  before  them,  till  they  came  near  to  the 
mount  of  the  house  (of  GodK  When  they  were  come 
thither,  they  took  every  man  his  basket  on  his  shoulder, 
and  said,  'Hallelujah,  praise  God  in  his  sanctuary,' 
&c.;  and  they  went  thus  and  sang  till  they  came  to  the 
court-yard;  \\hen  they  were  come  thither,  the  Levites 
sang,  Ps.  xxx,  '1  will  exalt  thee.  O  Lord,  for  thoii  hast 
lifted  me  up,"  ,Vc.  The  owner  of  the  basket,  while  it 
was  st'll  upon  his  shoulder,  made  the  declaration  in 
l>c.  xxvi.  3.  sei(.,  ']  profess  this  day  unto  Jehovah 
thy  God,  that  I  am  come  into  the  land  which  Jehovah 
sware  unto  our  fathers  to  give  it  to  us.'  Thin  he  let 
down  the  basket  from  his  shoulder,  and  the  priest  put 
his  hand  under  it.  and  waved  it,  and  he  said,  'A  Syrian 
ready  to  perish  was  my  father,'  &e.:  and  he  left  it  at 
the  altar's  side,  at  the  south-west  horn,  on  the  south 
side  of  the  horn,  and  bowed  himself  down,  and  went  out" 
(Ainsworthmi  Do.  xxvi.  1-M.  This  formal  method  of  going 
about  the  matter  may,  no  doubt,  have  been  occasionally 
practised;  but  it  is  against  all  probability  to  suppose 
that  such  solemn  pomp  and  routine  attended  the  con 
veyance  and  presentation  of  all  first  -fruit  offerings. 
The  diversity  of  circumstances,  and  the  indeterminate- 
ness  of  the  law,  would  naturally  lead  to  a  good  deal  of 
variety. 

FISH,  FISHING   [w,  <la<i:/,  ^,  </«;/,  rj 


i'Oiov,  <i   little  fish,  o^dpiov,  Jiah  conked  or  for 


f.>«/-/)r/].  No  kind  of  fish  is  indicated  specifically  in 
cither  the  Old  or  .New  Testament:  all  tlie  terms  used, 
which  are,  however,  with  the  exception  of  the  lust,  mo 
difications  uf  two.  j^  ((/«//)  :ind  i^Oi's.  being  as  vaviie  us 

T 

the  Knglish  word  liy  which  they  arc  truly  rendered.  Yet 
a  people  like  Israel,  cradled  on  the  hanks  of  the  \ile, 
educated  between  the  forks  of  the  Red  Sea-,  and  snbse- 
i|iieii!ly  located  along  the  Mediterranean  coast,  with 
such  collections  of  fresli  water  as  the  Lakes  of  Merom 
and  Chinnereth  in  their  rear,  could  not  hut  have  had 
their  attention  largely  directed  to  fish  and  fishing.  No 
investigation  of  the  ichthyology  of  Palestine  has,  so  far 
as  we  know.  ITCH  made  l.v  any  competent  naturalist. 
In  the  J>/,,/*;,;,/  inborn  of  Palestine,  Dr.  Kitto  has 
collected  what  information  on  the  subject  his  industry 
had  been  able  to  gather;  but  when  we  >tatc  that  from 
all  sources  not  more  than  about  thirty  kinds  are  attri 
buted  to  the  .Mediterranean  shores,  and  of  these  many 
are  merely  barbarous  names  with  no  clue  to  their  iden 
tification,  it  will  be  seen  how  meagre  was  the  amount 
of  knowledge.  (.'ol.  II.  Smith  has  furnished  to  the 
Ci/<'f'i/ifi'i/ii'  uf  llil, lif«l  Literature  an  able  and  inter 
esting  article  on  the  fishes  known  to  the  Hebrews,  evi 
dently  derived  to  a  considerable  extent  from  personal 
observation.  Jn  this,  the  number  of  species  and  genera 
recognized  is  greatly  augmented,  and  much  information 
concerning  them  is  given. 

I5y  the  law  of  Moses,  all  the  tenants  of  the  waters 
furnished  with  "fins  and  scales"  were  permitted  for 
food,  Le.  xi.  si ;  Do.  xiv.  ii.  This  characterization  would 
loosely  distinguish  fishes  from  the  aquatic  mammalia, 
amphibia,  reptiles,  worms,  and  all  the  vast  host  of 
multiform  invcrtebrata  ;  but  if  it  was  understood  as  a 
test  obvious  to  the  senses,  many  fishes  of  wholesome 
flesh  and  delicate  sapidity,  and  withal  abundant  and 
easily  captured,  would  be  prohibited.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  the  Hebrews  were  allowed  to  taste  the  cod  or 
the  mackerel,  several  kinds  of  which  are  at  certain 
seasons  sufficiently  abundant  on  their  coasts.  Of  sea- 
fish,  their  chief  supplies  would  doubtless  be  from  the  j 
perches,  Percad<c,  gurnards,  Triyladcc,  maigres,  AYvVe- 
nadcc,  sea-breams.  Sparidai;  mackerels,  Xromliridn',  the 
larger  species  of  which  are  generally  covered  in  part 
with  large  scales;  herrings.  C'lnj>ca(/ir.  and  wrasses,  Lu- 
l>rid<c ;  while  of  fresh- water  kinds  the  immense  family 
of  carps,  Cyprinidcc,  the  salmons,  Salmon  Ida',  and  the 
pikes,  £xocida>,  including  that  singular  long -snouted 
fish  the  iiiui'/iti/i'i!*.  which  is  so  abundant  and  so  much 
esteemed  in  the  Nile,  and  which  so  constantly  figures 
in  the  old  Egyptian  representations  of  that  "ancient 
river.'' 

The  Scriptures  afford  us  abundant  evidence  that  fish 
constituted  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  human  food 
from  the  earliest  times.  It  was  a  great  augmentation 
of  one  of  the  plagues  which  Jehovah  inflicted  on  obdu 
rate  Egypt,  that  "he  slew  their  fish,"  Ex.  vii.  is,  21  ;IV 
cv.  29.  Israel  in  the  wilderness  mourned  over  the  loss  ' 
of  their  fish-diet:  "We  remember  the  fish,  which  we  did 
eat  in  Egypt  f reefy,"  Xu.  xi.r>;  and  Moses  asks,  when 
Jehovah  proposes  to  give  them  flesh,  "  Shall  all  the 
fish  of  the  sea  he  gathered  together  for  them  to  suffice 
them?"  Nu.  xi.  22.  Solomon  alludes  to  "fishes  taken 
in  a  net,''  Kc.ix.  12;  in  Nehemiah's  days  the  Tynans 
seem  to  have  regularly  supplied  Jerusalem  and  Judah 
with  fish.  N*e.  xiii.  ic ;  and  one  of  the  gates  of  the  city 
was  named  Fish-gate,  probably  from  the  fish-market 


FISH 

icing  held  at  its  entrance.  The  vast  numbers  of  the 
fishes  of  the  sea  occasionally  afford  comparisons  to  the 
sacred  writers.  When  Jacob  blessed  the  sons  of  Joseph, 
he  prayed  that  they  might  grow  into  a  multitude, 
using  a  word  which  implied  "  multiply  like  fishes,"  <;<;. 
xlviii.  iti.  And,  in  Ezekiel's  prophecy  of  the  healing  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  it  is  promised  that  "there  shall  be  a 

very  great  multitude  of  fish, the  fishers  shall 

stand  upon  it  from  En-gedi  even  unto  En-eglaim:  they 
shall  In.-  a  place  to  spread  forth  nets  ;  their  fish  shall  be 
according  to  their  kinds,  as  the  fish  of  the  Great  [Medi 
terranean]  Sea,  exceeding  many,"  Eze.  xlvii.y,  10. 

In  '•  the  burden  of  Egypt,"  Is.  xix.,  prominence  is 
given  among  the  elements  of  affliction  to  the  cutting  oil' 
of  the  resources  of  the  people  derived  from  the  fisheries; 
and  the  various  devices  employed  are  detailed  with  some 
minuteness:  "The  fishers  also  shall  mourn,  and  all 
they  that  cast  angle  into  the  brooks  shall  lament,  and 
they  that  spread  nets  upon  the  waters  shall  languish. 
Moreover,  they  that  work  in  fine  flax,  and  they  that 
weave  net-works,  shall  lie  confounded.  And  they  shall 
be  broken  in  the  purposes  thereof,  all  that  make  sluices 
and  ponds  for  fish." 

Herodotus,  Diodorus,  and  others,  have  spoken  of  the 
immense  quantities  of  fish  which  were  obtained  from 
the  Nile  and  its  canals,  showing  the  extent  to  which 
the  fisheries  of  Egypt  were  prosecuted,  and  the  im 
portance  which  attached  to  them.  The  royal  profits 
derived  from  the  fishery  of  the  Lake  Moeris  alone,  which 
was  assigned  to  the  queen  of  the  reigning  Pharaoh  for 
the  purchase  of  jewellery,  ornaments,  and  perfumerv, 
amounted  to  a  talent  of  silver  per  day.  or  .170.1100 
per  annum.  Even  now.  according  to  Michaud  (On-. 
de  1'Or.  vi.  V.isc),  the  small  lake  Menzaleh  yields  an  an 
imal  income  of  800  purses,  or  upwards  of  £8000. 

The  amount  of  fish  taken  at  once  was  often  too  great 
to  allow  of  its  consumption  while  fresh.  Hence  it  was 
dried  for  future  use,  by  splitting  and  spreading  the 
bodies  in  the  sun,  sometimes  without  and  sometimes 
witli  salt,  as  we  learn  not  only  from  ancient  writers, 
but  also  from  the  Egyptian  monuments,  which  afford  us 
most  copious  and  clear  records  of  all  the  processes  con 
nected  with  fishing.  Salt-fish  was  much  eaten,  not 
only  in  Lower  Egypt,  but  also  in  the  Thebaid,  as  the 
common  food  of  the  people;  and  it  was  probably  to 
commemorate  the  national  value  of  this  food,  that 
every  householder  was  commanded  by  a  religious  ordi 
nance  to  eat  a  fried  fish  at  his  door  on  a  certain  festi 
val.  The  priests,  however,  who  abstained  from  fish, 
were  permitted  to  burn  theirs,  instead  of  eating  it. 

The  autographic  delineations  of  the  modes  of  fishing 
known  in  ancient  Egypt  are,  as  we  have  said,  very 
ample:  and  prove  that  in  the  infancy  of  human  society, 
as  many  and  as  ingenious  devices  were  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  art  as  are  known  in  our  times.  These 
pictures  beautifully  illustrate  the  biblical  allusions. 

Two  modes  of  angling  occur  repeatedly.  In  one  of 
these  the  peasant  sits  on  his  heels  at  the  brink  of  the 
canal,  holding  a  simple  line  in  both  hands,  without  the 
intervention  of  a  rod,  exactly  as  the  art  is  still  prac 
tised  by  the  fi-Hali  son  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  At  other 
times  the  fisher  wields  a  short  rod  of  one  piece,  with  a 
short  stout  line  of  twisted  or  platted  material,  perhaps 
hair,  and  whisks  out  the  fish  with  a  jerk.  Sometimes 
a  grave  Egyptian  gentleman,  with  much  attention  to 
comfort,  having  had  a  mat  spread  by  the  side  of  a  fish 
pond  in  his  garden,  and  a  handsome  chair  placed  upon 


FISH 


FISH 


it,  seats  himself  for  an  afternoon  sport,  and  wields  his  through  the  left  curved  to  form  a.  groove.  The  spear 
rod  and  line  with  the  patience  and  the  grace  of  that  was  a  slender  rod  some  ten  or  twelve  feet  long,  doubly 
prince  of  anglers,  the  "contemplative  man"  himself.  j  feathered  at  the  summit,  like  a  modern  arrow,  ami 
A  favourite  mode  of  fishing  was  with  the  bident  or  |  carrying  a  double  point,  one  of  which  seems  to  be 
two-tongued  fish-spear.  This  is  frequently  depicted,  lashed  on  beside  the  other,  yet  so  as  to  diverge  a  little; 
It  was  practised  upon  the  Nile,  in  a  flat-bottomed  boat,  ! 
which  was  pushed  among  the  lotus-plants  and  papyrus- 
reeds  that  grew  tall  and  dense  along  either  margin  of 


Kpyptmn  spearing  fish.  -Uosc-llini. 


carrying  fish.-  Kosellini. 


the  river.      The  fisherman    was  often  accompanied  by  UK;    two  points   form  in  uf  about  one-fifth  of   the   entire 

his  family:  a  daughter  steadying  bis  body  us  he  made  length.      IVneath  the  boat  we  generally  see  large  fishes 

his  forceful  lunge  at   the  fish,  and  a  son   carrying  the  of  various  kinds,  among  which  the  deformed  Mni'mi/nia 

prey  already  taken   struni:   by  the  gills  upon  a  cord,  is  generally  conspicuous,  and  a  large  species  of  ZatrMS, 

The   action   of   spearing  the   fisli   is   graphically  ivpre-  which  seems  a  favourite  object  of  pursuit, 
sented,  the  implement  being  shot  from  the  right  hand  More  commonlv  still  the  net  was  ••nmloved;  it  was 


[264.]        Egyptians  fishing  with  the  net.  and  drying  fish  in  the  rigging  of  a  boat.     Wilkinson. 

ordinarily  of  a   lengthened   form,  furnished  with  floats  '  rying  out  the  bight  of  the  net  by  swimming  or  wading, 
along  one  edge,  and  weights  along  the  other,  with  a      and  then  the  two  parties   dragged  it  up  the  bank.      At 

other  times  a  boat  waited  on  the  party,  and  the 
was    east    overboard    as    she   was    rowed 
In  this  case  the  boat  served  as  a  drying 
, 


slack 
alon 

stage ;  for  the  mast  being  supported  by  stays 
from  the  summit  to  the  bow  and  stern,  lines 
we're  fastened  from  one  to  the  other  in  several 
tiers,  on  which  the  split  and  cleaned,  and  pro 
bably  salted  fish,  were  hung  to  dry  (Xo.  2<ilK 
In  the  sculptures  of  Nineveh,  the  Assyrian 
fisherman  is  represented  with  his  rush-basket  on 
his  shoulder,  fishing  with  a  short  line  held  in 
both  hands  without  a  rod  (No.  '21)5). 

It  has  long  been  remarked  that  the  fishes  of 
the  Lake  of  Gennesaret  are  to  a  certain  extent 
identical  with  those  found  in  the  Nile,  and 
otherwise  peculiar  to  it.  Josephus  in  ancient 
times,  and  Hasselquist  in  modern,  have  noticed 
this.  An  enhanced  interest  is  thus  given  to  the 
fish  and  fishing  of  the  Nile,  as  represented  in 
the  Egyptian  paintings,  since  it  was  in  the  midst 

of  fishing  scenes  on  this  lake   that  our  blessed   Lord 

passed  so  much  of  his  ministry. 

75 


[265.]        Assyrian  fishing  in  a  lake.  -  1'as-relief  from  Kouyunjik. 

rope  at  each  end,  answering  to  our  seine.     Sometimes 
this  seems  to  have  been  cast  out  by  hand,  the  men  car- 
VOL.  1. 


FI'IVHES 


094 


FLAGON 


It  was  from  the  fishing  nets  that  he  called  his  earliest 
disciples  to  "become  fishers  of  men,''  Mar.  i.  ir.-L'o;  it  was 
from  a  fishing-boat  that  he  rebuked  the  winds  and  the 
waves,  M;it  viii.  2r>;  it  was  from  a  fishing-boat  that  he 
delivered  his  wondrous  series  of  prophetic  parables  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  Mat.  xiii.;  it  was  to  a  fishing- 
boat  that  he  walked  on  the  sea,  and  from  it  that  Peter 
walked  to  him.  Mat.  xiv.  21-.7.' ;  It  was  with  fish  (doubtless 
dried)  as  well  as  with  bread  that  he  twice  miracu 
lously  fed  the  multitude,  Mat.  xiv.  i<);  xv.30;  it  was  from 
the  mouth  of  a  fish,  taken  with  a  hook,  that  the  tri 
bute-stater  was  paid,  Mat.  xvii.  •>- ;  it  was  "a  piece  of 
broiled  fish"  that  he  ate  before  his  disciples  on  the  day 
that  he  rose  from  the  dead,  Lii.  xxiv.  12,  i:;;  and  yet  again, 
before  he  ascended,  he  filled  their  net  with  "  great  fishes, 
an  hundred  and  fifty  and  three,"  while  he  himself  pre 
pared  a  "  tire  of  coals,  "and  ''laid  fish  thereon, ''on  which 
then  he  and  they  dined,  Jn.  xxi.  1-14. 

The  most  remarkable  mention  of  a  fish  in  the  holy 
Scriptures  is  that  which  occurs  in  connection  with  the 
rebellious  prophet  Jonah.  The  Lord  prepared  "a great 
fish"  to  swallow  him  up,  and  he  remained  "in  the 
belly  of  the  fish"  three  days  and  three  nights,  Jonah  i.  17. 
Mr.  Taylor  has  laboured  with  much  misplaced  inge 
nuity  to  prove  that  there  was  no  miracle  in  the  case; 
that  ^  (<-!((;/)  signifies  a  sli  ip  as  well  as  a  fish,  and  that  the 

T 

prophet  was  picked  up  by  another  vessel,  which  in  due 
course  landed  him.  Why  the  cabin  of  this  second 
ship  should  have  been  to  him  "the  belly  of  hell;"  how 
''the  weeds  were  wrapped  about  his  head,"  and  with 
what  propriety  the  ordinary  landing  of  a  passenger 
could  be  spoken  of  in  the  words  "  The  Lord  spake 
unto  the  fish  (</«'/),  and  it  vomited  out  Jonah  upon  the 
dri/  /«;«/,"  this  weaver  of  spiders'  webs  has  not  in 
formed  us. 

The  Lord  Jesus,  whose  authority  some  will  be  will 
ing  to  accept  as  final,  distinctly  tells  us  that  ''Jonas 
was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly 
(ei>  rrj  KOL\ia  TOV  Kirovs,  Mat.  xii.  1").  This  is  enough  for 
us.  Those  who  reason  that  the  whale's  oesophagus  is 
not  large  enough  to  admit  a  man,  and  therefore  it 
could  not  have  been  a  whale,  as  we  understand  the 
term,  reason  upon  false  premises.  If  the  point  at 
issue  were  the  normal  and  ordinary  habits  of  the  ani 
mal  spoken  of,  the  objection  would  be  valid;  but  the 
whole  transaction  was  professedly  a  miracle,  I.e.  a  con 
trolling  of  the  laws  of  nature  by  Him  who  imposed  and 
sustains  them;  and  therefore,  unless  we  sceptically  re 
ject  the  narrative  altogether,  because  of  its  miraculous 
I'/iiirn.rtcr,  one  part  of  the  miracle  presents  no  .more 
difficulty  than  another.  We  need  not,  however,  limit 
/V-TJTOS  to  the  true  mammalian  whale  :  the  term  may 
have  been  loosely  used  for  any  vast  marine  animal. 

[p.  H.  G.] 

FITCHES.  In  the  authorized  version  of  Isaiah, 
fli.  xxviii.  2.1,  we  read,  "  When  he  hath  made  plain  the 
face  thereof,  doth  he  not  cast  abroad  the  fitches?"  And 
again,  vcr.  27,  "The  fitches  are  beaten  out  with  a  staff." 
The  original  is  nVp  (kctzacK),  which  the  Septuagint 

translates  /Jie\dv0cov.  If  this  rendering  be  correct,  then 
the  kctzach  of  Isaiah  is  the  fennel-flower,  Niyella  saliva, 
a  ranunculaceous  plant  nearly  allied  to  the  hellebores. 
The  whole  family  are  characterized  by  an  acrid  principle, 
known  to  chemistry  as  aconitine,  and  the  deadly  powers 
of  which  are  too  well  illustrated  in  our  common  monks- 


hood,  A  con  If  inn  iinpeJ/nx.  The  seeds  of  the  Nigelln, 
however,  although  pungent,  are  not  pernicious  ;  and 
the  plant  is  extensively  cidtivated  in  the  East  for  their 
sake.  They  are  aromatic  and  carminative,  and  answer 
much  the  same  purpose  as  pepper.  Indeed,  it  is  said  that 
they  are  extensively  employed  in  the  adulteration  of 
this  latter  condiment,  and  in  France  this  "  poor  man's 
pepper"  is  called  poivrette.  From  the  readiness  with 
which  the  ripe  capsules  surrender  their  tiny  black 
coloured  seeds,  no  plant  could  be  more  suitable  for  the 
prophet's  illustration;  as  any  reader  may  satisfy  himself 
by  trying  the  experiment,  in  the  absence  of  the  Nigella, 
on  the  ripened  seed-vessels  of  any  kindred  genus,  such 
as  the  columbine,  the  larkspur,  the  monkshood.  They 
shed  their  contents  so  freely,  that  nothing  could  be 
more  absurd  than  to  use  for  their  thrashing  instru 
ment  a  "cart-wheel"  or  loaded  sledge;  a  slender  rod 
or  staff  would  answer  the  purpose  far  better.  Dr.  F. 
Henderson  translates  by  "  dill ;"  which  is  so  far  con 
gruous  with  the  cummin  of  the  context,  dill  and 
cummin  being  both  plants  of  the  same  order.  But 
from  the  authorities  with  which  he  supports  his  trans 
lation,  it  is  evident  that  he  intended  not  dill,  but 
Nigella.  The  former  has  not,  as  he  supposes,  "a  blue 
poppy-like  flower,"  nor  is  it  the  melanthium  of  the 
ancients. 

Of  the  bread  which  Fzekiel,  ch.  iv.  9,  was  directed  to 
make,  one  ingredient  was  kussemcth  (pI2B3)>  which  in 

the  text  of  the  authorized  version  is  rendered  ''fitches  ;" 
but  the  probabilities  greatly  preponderate  in  favour  of 
the  marginal  translation,  "spelt" — a  cereal  closely- 
allied  to  common  wheat,  and  extensively  cultivated  in 
the  East,  both  in  ancient  times  and  modern.  [j.  H.] 
FLAG.  In  the  English  Bible  the  word  "flag"  oc 
curs  three  times.  In  Exodus,  ch.  ii.  3,  it  is  mentioned  that 
the  mother  of  Moses  deposited  the  ark  of  bulrushes  among 
the  "flags"  beside  the  river;  and  in  proclaiming  the 
divine  sentence  against  Egypt,  Isaiah  says,  ch.  xix.  fi,  "  The 
reeds  and  flags  shall  wither."  In  both  these  instances 
the  Hebrew  word  is  suph  (ppo),  all(l  we  might  be  apt 
to  suppose  that  it  is  some  sort  of  rush  or  sedge,  if  it 
were  not  that  the  Hebrew  name  for  the  lied  Sea  is  the 
Supli  Sea,  pointing  manifestly  to  some  other  sort  of 
vegetation  than  sedges  or  rushes.  Probably  "  water- 
weeds,"  or  some  such  vague  expression,  is  as  near  an 
equivalent  as  we  can  safely  venture  in  a  case  where 
neither  the  context  nor  the  analogies  of  language  do 
much  to  help  us.  The  third  instance  is  Job  viii.  ]  1 , 
"  Can  the  flag  grow  without  water  ?"  where  the  original 
word  is  aclui  (tint*)-  Here  Dr.  Mason  Good  pleads 

T 

hard  for  the  bulrush  (Scirpus  lacustris,  or  S.  f/rossus), 
as  being  a  plant  eminently  dependent  on  water  ;  but 
certainly  some  value  is  to  be  attached  to  the  testimony 
of  Jerome,  who  tells  us  that  the  word  is  not  Hebrew, 
but  Egyptian  ;  and  that  when  he  inquired  at  the 
Egyptians  themselves  what  they  denoted  by  it,  was 
informed  that  they  applied  it  to  marshy  vegetation  in 
general :  ' '  omne  quod  in  palude  virens  nascitur " 
(llieronymus  in  Esai.  xix.)  To  this  large  and  indefinite  Tise 
of  the  word  our  translators  have  adhered  in  Ge.  xli .  2,  1 8, 
where  the  same  word  acini  occurs  in  the  Hebrew,  and 
is  simply  rendered  "  meadow."  [J.  H.] 

FLAGON,  as  used  in  the  English  Bible,  conveys  a 
mistaken  idea  of  the  meaning  of  the  original.  It  stands 
for  the  Heb.  ashiisha  (nttPWtt),  "gMty  enough  rendered 


FLAX 


59.5 


FLAX 


by  the  Sept.  \dyavov,  a  kind  of  thin  cake,  usually 
mingled  with  oil,  but  in  Palestine  more  commonly 
made  of  grapes,  dried  and  pressed  into  a  certain  form. 
They  were  regarded  as  dainties,  and  were  eagerly  par 
taken  of  by  persons  who  had  been  fagged  and  wearied 
with  a  journey.  Instead,  therefore,  of  llai/vns  (with 
the  addition  of  wine  understood)  in  such  passages  as 
'2  Sa.  vi.  1'J;  1  Ch.  xvi.  3;  Ho.  iii.  1;  C'a.  ii.  5,  we 
should  read  grape- cakes  or //?Y.««Z  cakes. 

FLAX.  Few  plants  are  at  mice  so  lovely  and  so 
useful  as  the  slender,  upright  herb,  with  taper  leaves, 
and  large  blue- purple  flowers,  from  which  are  fashioned 
alike  the  coarsest  canvas  and  the  most  ethereal  cam 
bric  or  lawn — the  sail  of  the  ship  and  the  fairy-looking 
scarf  which  can  be  packed  into  a  filbert  shell.  It  was 
of  linen,  in  part  at  least,  that  the  hangings  of  the 
tabernacle  were  constructed,  white,  blue,  and  crimson, 
with  cherubim  inwoven  ;  and  it  was  of  linen  that 
the  vestments  of  Aaron  were  fashioned.  When  arrayed 
in  all  his  glory,  Solomon  could  put  on  nothing  more 
costly  than  the  finest  linen  of  Kgypt  ;  and  describing 
''the  marriage  of  the  Lamb,"  the  seer  of  Patmos  re 
presents  the  bride  as  ''arrayed  in  fine  linen,  clean  and 
white  ;  for  the  fine  linen  is  the  righteousness  of  saints.'1 

As  every  one  knows,  the  tlax  which  is  spun  into 
thread  and  woven  into  linen  cloth  is  obtained  from  a 
plant  largely  cultivated  in  many  parts  of  these  islands, 


[266.1 


but  still  more  abundantly  imported  from  northern 
countries  like  Russia  and  Holland.  The  Linum 
usitatissimum,  as  it  is  appropriately  called,  has  long 
been  cultivated  in  England  :  and  although  probably 
introduced  at  first,  it  now  occurs  in  corn-fields  not 
unfrequently,  and  with  the  appearance  of  a  native 
quite  at  home.  Its  pretty  little  congener,  L.  catltar- 
ticum,  with  its  small  white  flowers  gracefully  drooping, 
is  not  only  indigenous,  but  is  one  of  the  most  plentiful 
of  our  native  flowers,  occurring  in  pastures  every  where. 
Now  that  the  Pliormium  tcnax  of  New  Zealand,  and 
the  hemp  of  Europe  and  India  (C'annabis  satira  and 
(J.  indica)  subserve  many  of  the  same  purposes,  and 
above  all  since  the  cotton  manufacture  has  begun  to 


supply  the  markets  of  the  world,  flax  has  lost  much  of 
its  former  pre-eminence:  but  for  many  fabrics  its  tough 
and  tenacious  fibre  is  still  unequalled  ;  and  in  the  sur 
gical  wards  of  the  hospital,  as  well  as  in  the  pulp-vats 
of  the  paper-mill,  they  have  as  yet  been  unable  to  find 
its  equivalent. 

For  the  culture  of  flax,  "low  grounds,  and  those 
which  have  received  deposits  left  by  the  overflowing  of 
rivers,  are  deemed  the  most  favourable  situations.  To 
this  last  circumstance  it  is  attributed  that  Zealand 
produces  the  finest  flax  grown  in  Holland"  ^Matei-iuls 
uf  Manufactures,  Library  of  Entertaining  KnnwleilgeX  And  to 
this  circumstance  Egypt  must  have  been  indebted  for 
the  superiority  of  her  flax,  so  famous  in  the  ancient 
world,  and  which  gave  to  her  more  elaborate  manu 
factures  the  subtilty  of  the  most  exquisite  muslin,  well 
meriting  the  epithet  "woven  air."  Herodotus  men 
tions,  as  laid  up  in  a  temple  at  Lindus,  in  Rhodes,  a 
linen  corslet  which  had  belonged  to  Amasis  king  of 
Egypt,  each  thread  of  which  was  composed  of  :{(ju 
strands  or  filaments.  In  length  and  in  fineness  of  fibre 
no  country  could  compete  with  the  flax  which  produced 
the  "fine  linen  of  Egypt,"  and  which  made  the  Delta 
"the great  linen  market  of  the  ancient  world''  (KaliscliV 
I'.y  annihilating  this  crop,  the  seventh  plague  inflicted 
a  terrible  calamity.  It  destroyed  what,  next  to  corn, 
formed  the  staple  of  the  country,  and  would  onlv  find 
its  modern  parallel  in  the  visitation  which  should  cut 
oil' a  cotton  harvest  in  America. 

From  a  picture  preserved  at  1'eni  Hassan,  it  would 
seem  that  the  Egyptian  treatment  of  the  flax-plant 
was  essentially  the  same  as  that  which  was  pursued 
till  quite  lately  by  ourselves,  which  even  now  is  only 
Hinditii-d  by  machinery,  and  which  is  thus  described  by 
Pliny: — "The  stalks  are  immersed  in  water  warmed 
by  the  heat  of  the  sun,  and  are  kept  down  by  weights 
placed  upon  them  ;  for  nothing  is  lighter  than  flax. 
The  membrane  or  rind  becoming  loose,  is  a  sign  of 
their  being  sufficiently  macerated.  They  are  then 
taken  out,  and  repeatedly  turned  over  in  the  sun 
until  perfectly  dried  ;  and  afterwards  beaten  by  mal 
lets  on  stone'  slabs.  The  tow  which  is  nearest  the 
rind  is  inferior  to  the  inner  fibres,  and  is  fit  only  for 
the  wicks  of  lamps.  It  is  combed  out  with  iron  honks, 
until  all  the  rind  is  removed.  The  inner  part  is  of  a 
finer  and  whiter  quality.  After  it  is  made  into  yarn, 
it  is  polished  by  striking  it  frequently  on  a  hard  stone, 
moistened  with  water  ;  and  when  woven  into  cloth  it 
is  again  beaten  with  clubs,  being  always  improved  in 
proportion  as  it  is  beaten"  (I'liuy,  xix.  I,  quoted  in  Wilkin 
son's  Ancient  Eaiypti'ins,  iii.  l.'i'.O. 

The  seventh  plague  of  Egypt  fixes  its  own  chrono 
logy.  It  took  place  when  "the  barley  was  in  the  ear 
and  the  flax  was"  in  the  pod,  or  "boiled,"  Ex.  i.x.  :n; 
which  according  to  eastern  travellers  corresponds  with 
the  month  of  February.  In  our  own  country  the  same 
crop  would  not  be  equally  advanced  till  nearly  four 
months  later. 

"The  little  wifie  tfiiTulous  c<mM  tell, 
It  was  ;i  townioiit  ;iulil  when  lint  was  in  the  liell.'' 

In  Scotland  the  bell  or  blossom,  which  is  very  fugitive, 
appears  at  midsummer,  and  is  followed  by  the  pod  or 
"boll"  (=  bowl  or  hall,  the  Dutch  ln>l,  and  (Jerman 
bo/le) — the  name  given  to  the  globular  cartilaginous 
capsule. 

From  the  circumstance  of  Rahab  hiding  the  spies 
"  under  the  stalks  of  flax,  which  she  had  laid  in  order 


FLKA 


59(i 


FLY 


upon  the  roof,''  Jos.  n.  i;,  it  is  evident  tliat  flax  was  cul 
tivated  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jericho  before  the 
Israelites  obtained  possession  of  the  Promised  Land. 
And  there  ean  be  little  doubt  that  the  Jews  would 
maintain  a  tillage  so  essential  to  domestic  industry,  1'r. 
xxxi.  i:;,  although  it  is  not  unlikely  that  superior  sorts 
were  still  imported.  "  Israel  said,  I  will  go  after  my 
lovers,  who  give  me  my  bread  and  my  water,  my  wool 
and  my  flax." 

Describing  the  gentle,  skilful  perseverance  of  Mes 
siah,  says  the  prophet  — 

"A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break, 
And  a  smoking  flax  shall  he  not  quench : 
lie  shall  bring  forth  judgment  unto  truth, 
He  shall  not  fail  nor  be  discouraged, 
Till  he  hath  established  judgment  in  the  earth  : 
And  the  isles  shall  wait  for  his  law." — Isa.  xlii.  ;>,  4. 

In  the  old  tire-kindling  process  there  was  something 
very  interesting  and  exciting,  from  the  red  spark  creep 
ing  round  the  edge  of  the  dingy  rag  to  the  first  feeble 
flickering ;  and  then,  after  many  apparent  extinctions 
and  revivals,  and  much  smouldering,  and  struggling, 
and  smoking,  the  grand  outburst  and  conclusive  igni 
tion,  when  to  the  leeward  of  the  rock  the  shepherd  out 
stretched  his  palms — "Ha,  ha!  I  am  warm  :  I  see  the 
fire ;"  and  the  village  boys  raised  a  shout  to  the  signal 
so  welcome  in  the  wintry  weather.  So,  full  of  patience 
and  far-seeing  purpose,  "the  smoking  flax  he  shall 
not  quench."  He  shall  not  be  discouraged  nor  leave 
off,  till  that  feeble  spark,  that  smoking  flax,  has  after 
many  vicissitudes  blazed  up  a  beacon  on  the  mountain 
tops,  announcing  for  truth  and  righteousness  a  world 
wide  victory.  So  is  it  in  his  dealing  with  individual 
souls ;  and  if  ours  be  the  mind  of  the  Master,  we  shall 
foster  and  cherish  the  "smoking  flax;"  we  shall  hail 
and  encourage  in  others  the  dim  and  precarious  com 
mencement  of  piety. 

To  the  devout  moralizcrs  of  other  times  was  sug 
gested  an  emblem  of  tribulation  in  the  various  processes 
to  which  the  flax-plant  is  subjected :  torn  up  from  its 
native  soil,  tied  in  sheaves,  roasted  in  the  sun,  drawn 
through  the  long  teeth  of  the  rippling  comb,  drowned 
in  water  and  loaded  with  stones ;  once  more  exposed 
to  the  heat,  beaten  with  mallets  or  crushed  in  the 
break,  stretched  on  a  frame  and  belaboured  with  the 
scutching  bat ;  and  to  crown  the  whole,  passed  to  and 
fro  between  the  sharp  points  of  the  heckle  till  all  the 
fibres  are  split  in  sunder:  " linum  injuria  fit  melius, 
Christianus  calamitate."  As  the  venerable  Bede  illus 
trates  Ro.  viii.  28,  "  The  flax  springs  from  the  earth 
green  and  flourishing ;  but  through  much  rough  usage, 
and  with  the  loss  of  all  its  native  sap  and  verdure,  is 
at  last  transfigured  into  raiment  white  as  snow  : — thus 
the  more  that  true  holiness  is  tried  and  afflicted,  the 
more  brightly  does  its  beauty  come  forth."  fj.  H.] 

FLEA  [-£rjnQ,  parosh],  a  well-known  insect,  prover 
bial  for  its  minuteness  and  its  agility.  David  modestly 
represents  himself,  i  Sa.  xxiv.  14,  xxvi.  20,  as  being  as  con 
temptible  and  unworthy  of  the  king's  solicitude  as  a 
flea;  that  it  would  be  as  remunerative  to  hunt  a  flea,  as 
to  come  out  into  the  wilderness  after  him.  Perhaps 
also  there  might  be  a  latent  hint  conveyed,  that  the 
king  would  find  him  as  difficult  to  catch.  There  is  a 
delicacy  in  the  original  -jnx  Vjps,  which  is  preserved  in 

the  LXX.  and  in  the  Vulgate,  but  is  neglected  in  the 
English  version;  "after  whom  dost  thou  pursue?  after 


one  flea!"  All  oriental  travellers  agree  in  denouncing 
the  intolerable  prevalence  of  personal  vermin.  The 
answer  of  the  Arab  sheik  to  the  English  traveller,  who 
in  approaching  Tiberias  hoped  to  escape  their  assaults : 
"The  king  of  the  fleas  holds  his  court  at  Tiberias,"  has 
been  often  remembered  and  often  repeated.  "Fleas," 
says  Kitto,  "  cannot  by  any  means  be  excluded  from 
the  neatest  houses  and  the  most  cleanly  persons.  The 
long  eastern  habit,  affording  shelter  to  them,  is  a  favour 
ite  conveyance,  and  the  streets  and  dusty  bazaars  so 
swarm  with  them,  that  it  is  impossible  to  walk  about 
without  collecting  a  colony.  People  of  condition  some 
times,  for  this  reason,  change  their  dress  on  their  return 
home;  but  persons  in  humbler  circumstances,  who  can 
not  use  this  precaution,  are  tormented  to  an  extent 
which  might  be  beyond  any  powers  of  endurance  but 
those  which  habit  gives.  The  fleas  are  particularly 
partial  to  the  rich  juices  of  Europeans  fresh  from  the 
West,  and  their  presence  never  fails  to  prove  a  great 
attraction  to  their  countless  hosts.  Fleas  make  their 
appearance  in  the  spring,  and  riot  without  stint  until 
the  hot  weather  sets  in,  when  they  lose  their  wonted 
agility,  and  their  numbers  gradually  diminish"  (Phys. 
Hist,  of  Palestine,  ii.  42l).  [p.  H.  (;.] 

FLESH  is  used  in  Scripture  with  a  considerable 
latitude  of  meaning,  and  in  senses  not  found  in  other 
ancient  writings  which  are  independent  of  Scripture; 
yet  so  as  never  altogether  to  lose  a  reference  to  its 
primary  meaning  as  indicative  of  the  corporeal  part  of 
our  natures.  (1.)  It  denotes  generally  the  whole  animal 
creation,  as  being  in  their  visible  shape  and  organism 
composed  of  flesh  and  blood,  Ge.  vi.  13;  vii.  if>.  (2.)  More 
specifically,  but  with  the  same  reference  to  what  con 
stitutes  the  more  cognizable  part  of  man,  it  denotes 
the  rational  creation — the  race  of  mankind,  singly  or 

collectively,   Lu.  iii.  0;  Jn.  xvii.  2;  Mat.  xxiv.  22,  &c.        (3.)    The 

carnal  nature  of  man,  also,  is  called  flesh,  in  respect  to 
the  frailty,  weakness,  proneness  to  vanity  and  corrup 
tion,  which  is  inherent  in  it,  and  which  it  derives  most 
conspicuously  from  the  tendencies  and  imperfections  of 
the  bodily  frame,  Ro.  iv.  i;  Mat.  xvi.  17;  xxvi.  41.  (4.)  With 
an  intensifying  of  this  view  of  the  carnal  nature  of  man, 
the  principle  of  corruption  in  him  sometimes  bears  the 
name  of.  flesh,  from  the  preponderating  sway  that  fleshly 
appetite  has  in  maintaining  and  feeding  it:  so  that  the 
flesh  stands  in  direct  antithesis  to  the  spirit — the  one 
signifying  the  simply  human  and  corrupt,  the  other 
the  divine  and  regenerative  principle  in  the  soul, 
Ro.  viii.  1,  4,  :>;  Gal.  v.  ifi,  17;  vi.  8,  &c.  (5.)  As  the  flesh  is  the 
outward  part  of  man's  nature,  and  forms  in  a  manner 
the  connecting  link  between  him  and  all  that  is  outward 
in  his  condition,  so  flesh  sometimes  stands  for  a  brief 
designation  of  the  merely  external  things  belonging  to 
him,  what  he  is,  or  has,  or  feels  in  respect  to  his  earthly 

state  and  condition,  Jn.  vi.  C3;  1  Co.  i.  26;  vii.  2S;  2  Co.  v.  10. 

FLOCK.     Sec  SHEEP  and  SHEPHERD. 

FLOOD.     See  DELUGE. 

FLUTE.     See  MUSICAL  INSTRUMENTS. 

FLUX,  BLOODY,  an  old  English  term  for  dysen 
tery,  so  used  in  the  authorized  version  at  Ac.  xxviii.  8, 
where  the  Greek  has  SvaevTepiov.  It  got  the  name  of 
bloody  flux  from  being  usually  accompanied  by  a  cer 
tain  discharge  of  blood. 

FLY  [a«OT,  zebub;  a'-iy,  arob].     The  former  of  these 

:  T 

words  occurs  twice;  once  indefinitely,  or  perhaps  having 
a  distinct  reference  to  the  common  house-fly  (Musca 


FLY 


597 


FOOD 


domestica),  "dead  Hies/'  EC.  x.  i;  the  other  to  some  par 
ticular  and  formidable  species,  not  a  native  of  Pales 
tine,  hut  to  he  1  trough t  thither  as  a  special  judgment. 
(See  HORNET.) 

The  common  house-flies  swarm  in  immense  numbers 
in  the  East,  and  though  they  inflict  no  physical  injury. 
yet,  from  their  continual  settling  on  the  face,  they  are 
inexpressibly  annoying.  In  Egypt  the  peasants  are  so 
subject  to  a  virulent  kind  of  ophthalmia,  that  almost 
every  second  person  is  said  to  be  affected  with  it.  and 
multitudes  are  blind  of  either  one  or  both  eves.  The 
complaint  is  greatly  augmented  by  the  constant  pre 
sence  of  the  flies,  which  congregate  around  the  diseased 
eyes,  attracted  by  the  moisture  which  exudes;  and  so  use 
less  is  it  to  drive  them  away,  that  the  miserable  people 
submit  to  the  infliction,  and  little  children  are  seen 
with  their  eyes  margined  with  rows  of  black  flies,  of 
whose  presence  they  appear  unconscious,  though  pre 
senting  a  most  painful  sight  to  Europeans. 

The  "  ointment  of  the  apothecary,"  composed  of  sub 
stances  perhaps  peculiarly  attractive  to  these  impudent 
intruders,  would  be  likely  to  become  choked  up  witli 
their  entangled  bodies,  which  corrupting  would  be  the 
more  offensive  for  their  contrast  with  the  expected 
odour.  Thus  would  little  follies  render  despicable  him 
who  had  a  reputation  for  wisdom.  The  man  is  the 
ointment,  his  reputation  the  perfume,  his  little  folly  tin- 
dead  fly.  his  disgrace  the  stinking  savour. 

The   word    zr/in/i,   fly,  enters   as   an  element  into  the 


The  LXX.  have  in  all  cases  given  77  Kvi>6fj.via,  "the 
dog-fly,"  as  the  equivalent  for  the  Hebrew  phrase;  but 
what  species  the  Greeks  designated  by  this  epithet  we 
do  not  know.  It  is  uncertain  whether  the  fly  was  con 
sidered  to  have  some  unamiable  qualities  of  the  doo-, 
obscene,  unclean,  impudent,  blood- thirst v,  or  whether 
some  fly  was  intended  which  specially  made  the  dog  its 
prey.  The  former  conclusion  is  supported  by  the 
circumstance  that  Kvv&fjivia.  was  a  term  of  opprobrium 
applied  to  an  impudent  meddler  (Iliad,  x  i.  mm.  Rut  the 
ancient  naturalists  describe  it  as  a  sort  of  wliame-flv 
(Ta!i<nin*),  which  might  include  both  senses,  for  this 
genus  is  most  impudently  pertinacious  in  its  assaults. 


spares   neither  man   nor  beast,  gorges  itself  to  bursting 


lame  originally  appropriated  to  an  idol  wor,hipped  at     with  blood,  infusing  an  irritating  venom  at  the  same 


Ekron,  Baa  zebub,  ,  K,  i.  •-•  but,  according  to  the  English  time,  and  occurs,  in  suitable  localities  even  in  our  own 

version  and  \  ulgate,  in  the  time  of  our  Lord  applied  ,-limate.  in  immense  numbers.      If  the 

to  the  prince  of  demons,  interchangeable  with  "Satan."  ,„ 
M;it.  xii.  21,  •>!-,,  -.'7.      This  "lord  of  flies"  corresponds  to  tli 


was   com- 

.•d  of  one  or  more  species  of  T«b«ind<r,  miraculously 
augmented  in  numbers,  and  pivternaturallv  induced  t( 


'    , augmented  in  numbers,  and  pivternaturallv  induced  to 

ZewoTi/twoj  and  the 'H/xurXSf  fiviaypo,  «,f  the  Greeks  penetrate  into  the  houses,  such  a  visitation  would  be 

and  Romans,  as  if  a  defender  from  flies.      The  Greek  ;  ;l  plague  ,,f  no  sli,,ht  inten8ity    even  snpl)osni  ,  tlu.ir 

in  the  New  I  estament  reads  Beel-zebul  (BeeX-fe/Jo«>X>,  blood-thirstiness    and    pertinacitv,    individually    con- 


which  is  said  to  mean  "  Lord  of  dung,"  instead 
"  Lord  <if  flies,"  and  has  been  considered  as  one  of  those 
contemptuous  puns  which  the  Jews  were  in  the  habit 
of  making  by  slight  changes  of  letters.  There  might 
be  a  peculiar  sting  in  this  particular  case,  from  the 
circumstance  that  flies  are  chiefly  bred  in  dunghills, 


pertinacity,    individually 
sidered,  to  he  of  no  higher  standard  than  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  see.  h>    H    (;  1 

FOOD.  The  subject  of  food,  as  treated  of  or  referred 
to  in  Scripture,  calls  for  some  consideration  under 
three  different  aspects;  first,  the  prohibition  laid  upon 
certain  articles  as  of  things  disallowed  for  food;  then, 
the  articles  at  once  allowed  and  commonly  used;  and 


and  many  species  do  greatly  congregate  thither;  lienct 

the  deity  in  question  being  confessedly  a  "lord  of  :  lastly,  the  customs  connected  ~with"their' ''preparation 
flies,  must  <jj.«>  Jart<>  be  a  "dungy  lord.''  One  of  and  use. 

the  names  by  which  "idols"  are  expressed  in  the  Old  1.  As  regards  the  first  point,  prohibitions  of  some 
Testament  is  D'^J,  </tlluli>ii,  which  has  the  closest  kind  may  be  said  to  have  existed  from  the  very  earliest 
affinity  with  S^j,  r/f/f/,  dung.  The  margin  of  the  Kng-  I'1'"'"1  "f  t!lu  world's  history.  The  divine  grant  to 

Adam  and  his  immediate  descendants  of  things  to  be 

hsh  Bible,  indeed,  gives  "dungy  gods,"  as  the  render-  employed  for  food,  comprised  only  the  produce  of  the 
this  word  in  DC.  xxix.  1  7.  (Ste  BEELZEBUL.)  j  garden  ami  the  field,  hut  did  not  extend  to  the  animal 
Having  thus  poured  contempt  on  the  Ekronite  god,  :  creation.  The  words  were.  "Behold,  I  have  <nven  you 
there  was  nothing  unnatural  in  the  Jews  proceeding  every  herb  bearing  seed,  which  is  upon  the  face  of  all 
yet  further— in  the  hatred  of  idolatry  which  succeeded  the  earth:  and  every  tree  in  which  is  the  fruit  of  a  tree 
the  captivity  -to  make  him,  perhaps  considered  the  yielding  seed;  to  you  it  shall  be  for  meat,"  Gc.i. 29.  The 
chief  of  the  pagan  gods,  identical  with  the  devil.  The  subject  is  not  again  referred  to  in  the  brief  records 
Lord  Jesus  certainly  sanctioned  the  application  of  the  which  contain  all  that  we  know  of  antediluvian  history; 
epithet,  Mat.  xii.  •_•:;  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  1  Co.  x.  20,  has  so  that  we  cannot  tell  how  far  the  restriction  may  have 
said  that  "the  things  which  the  Gentiles  sacrifice,  they  j  met  with  general  observance.  No  charge,  however, 


sacrifice  to  demons. 

The  word  arob  is  not  rendered  "fly''  or  "flies" 
directly,  but  is  considered  to  include  the  idea  of  "flies." 
It  occurs  only  in  connection  with  the  fourth  plague 
upon  Egypt,  Ex.  viii.  21-31-,  Ps.  ixxviii.  4.'i;  cv.  31;  our  trans- 


is  brought  against  the  antediluvians  of  having  set  it  at 
nought;  and  the  more  extended  liberty  which  was  in 
troduced  after  the  deluge  has  all  the  appearance  of  a 
free  and  spontaneous  gift,  adapted  to  the  new  order 
and  constitution  of  the  world.  It  was  then  said 


lators  having  rendered  it  in  the  narration  by  "swarms     "Every  moving    thing  that  liveth  shall    be  meat   for 
(of  flies),"  and  in  the  Psalms  by  "  divers  sorts  of  flies."     you;  even  as  the  green  herb  have  I  given  you  all  things. 


FOOD 


598 


FOOD 


l>ut  flesh  with  the  life  thereof,  which  is  the  blood 
thereof,  shall  yo  not  eat,"  Ge.  i.\.  :i,4.  A  distinction, 
previous  to  this,  had  existed  among  animals,  in  respect 
to  clean  and  unclean,  Go.  vii. :.';  hut  it  would  seem  to  have 
had  reference  to  sacriiice,  or  other  uses  to  which  ani 
mals  in  the  earliest  times  were  applied,  not  to  food; 
otherwise,  neither  the  restriction  before,  nor  the  all  but 
unrestricted  liberty  after,  would  be  alto-ether  intelli 
gible.  The  grant  to  Noah  reserves  nothing'  but  the 
blood  of  ilesh;  and  it  reserves  this  because  the  animal 
life  or  soul  is  in  the  blood;  the  blood  is  the  nearest  re 
presentative  and  the  bearer  throughout  the  animal 
organism  of  the  living  principle;  s;>  that  for  man  to 
feed  on  this  seemed  to  be  bringing  the  human  into  too 
close  and  direct  contact  with  the  animal  soul  or  life. 
On  this  account  it  \\as  forbidden,  that  so  the  difference 
between  the  two  might  stand  more  conspicuously  out, 
and  the  reverence  due  to  human  blood  be  more  easily 
preserved.  \Yheii  the  law  entered,  another  reason  was 
supplied  from  the  use  made  of  the  blood  in  sacrifice; 
"  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood,  and  I  have  given 
it  to  you  upon  the  altar  to  make  an  atonement  for  your 
souls:  therefore  I  said  to  the  children  of  Israel,  No  soul 
of  you  shall  eat  blood,"  Le.  xvii.  11, 12.  The  one  reason 
did  not  destroy  the  other,  but  only  superadded  to  it  a 
further  and  more  distinctly  religious  sanction;  and  this 
sanction  obtained  such  a  hold  upon  the  convictions  and 
usages  of  the  covenant-people,  that  in  the  first  Chris 
tian  communities,  where  Jew  and  Gentile  met  together, 
it  was  found  expedient,  for  the  sake  of  brotherly  con 
cord,  to  enjoin  abstinence  from  "things  strangled  and 
from  blood;"  that  is,  from  blood,  either  as  existing 
apart  or  as  diffused  through  the  flesh,  Ac.  xv.  2:>.  As 
the  Mosaic  ritual  has  ceased,  this  prohibition  must  be 
understood  to  have  ceased  along  with  it  —although  even 
now  a  certain  respect  may  not  improperly  be  paid  to 
it,  especially  when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  earlier 
and  more  general  reason  derived  from  the  superiority 
of  the  soul  in  rational  to  that  of  irrational  beings. 
Accordingly,  a  frequent  and  familiar  use  of  animal 
blood  for  food  is  a  characteristic  chiefly  of  savage  life, 
and  is  very  commonly  associated  with  a  disregard  of 
human  blood. 

The  prohibitions  of  a  more  special  kind  introduced 
by  the  legislation  of  Moses,  interdicting  the  use  of  cer 
tain  animals,  fowls,  and  fishes  as  unclean,  and  allowing 
others  as  clean,  has  been  treated  of  elsewhere;  it  formed 
part  of  the  distinctive  instruction  and  moral  discipline 
of  the  law.  (See  CLEAN.)  Even,  however,  of  the  ani 
mals  which  were  accounted  clean,  the  whole  might  not 
be  eaten;  and  besides  the  blood,  the  kidneys  and  the  fat 
covering,  as  well  as  the  fat  generally  connected  with 
the  more  vital  parts,  were  devoted  to  the  altar,  and 
withdrawn  from  common  use,  Lc.  Hi.  !i,  lo,  Ki.  They  too 
were  regarded  as  too  closely  associated  with  the  life  of 
the  animal  to  be  suitable  for  the  purposes  of  man's  ordi 
nary  support.  (-Sec  FAT.) 

II.  The  climate  of  Palestine  and  of  the  neighbouring 
countries  necessarily  exercised  a  considerable  influence 
in  determining  the  articles  which  formed  the  common 
diet  of  the  Israelites.  For  the  greater  part  of  the  year 
the  temperature  was  too  high  to  admit  of  much  animal 
food  being  partaken  of;  for  neither  could  food  of  this 
description  be  kept  in  a  healthy  state  for  any  length  of 
time,  nor  could  men's  bodily  frame  be  usually  in  a  state 
to  possess  much  of  an  appetite  for  it.  The  slaying  and 
eating  that  is  sometimes  spoken  of — the  flesh-pots  of 


Egypt  after  which  the  Israelites  lusted  in  the  wilder 
ness — and  the  luxuriating  in  the  richness  of  fatted 
oxen,  are  to  be  understood  chiefly  of  extraordinary  oc 
casions,  when  sacrificial  feasts  were  held,  when  royal 
repasts  were  given,  or  special  honour  was  intended  to 
be  shown  to  particular  objects  of  regard  and  distinction, 

Go  xviii.  7;  xliii.  Ki ;  Nu.  xi.  4  ;  1  Ki.  i.  0  ;  iv.  L':; ;  Mat.  xxii.  t.  1'roba- 
bly  as  fair  a  representation  of  the  ordinary  articles  of  diet 
as  can  otherwise  be  obtained,  may  be  derived  from  the 
supplies  furnished  by  Barzillai  to  David  on  the  occa 
sion  of  his  withdrawal  from  the  face  of  Absalom  into 
the  land  of  (iilead.  At  such  a  time  ordinary  provisions 
would  naturally  be  presented;  and  they  are  given  thus: 
"  wheat,  and  barley,  and  flour,  and  parched  (corn), 
and  beans,  and  lentiles,  and  parched  (pulse),  and  honey, 
and  butter,  and  sheep,  and  cheese  of  kine."  i'Sa.  xvii  -2*,  -.'n. 
Here  animal  food  forms  a  small  proportion  of  what  was 
contributed,  and  occupies  altogether  a  very  inferior  and 
secondary  place  -the  more  remarkable,  as  the  supplies 
were  furnished  in  a  part  of  the  country  which  partook 
more  of  a  pastoral  than  of  an  agricultural  character. 
It  is  somewhat  strange,  too,  that  neither  eggs  nor  fowls 
are  mentioned  among  the  provisions  then  brought  for 
ward;  nor,  indeed,  have  these  almost  any  place  among 
the  articles  of  diet  in  Old  Testament  history;  the  allu 
sions  to  them  are  of  the  most  occasional  kind,  i  Ki.  iv.  2:;, 
No.  v.  is;  Is.  lix.  5 ;  Lu.  xi.  ii'.  It  would  seem,  as  Harmer  re 
marks  (obs.  i.  p. :;«»),  that  there  were  few  or  no  tame  fowls, 
such  as  we  possess,  kept  by  the  Jews  in  ancient  times; 
and  few  or  no  eggs  eaten,  except  what  might  be  acci 
dentally  met  with  in  the  nests  of  wild-fowl.  They  are 
extremely  common,  the  same  writer  remarks,  in  all 
parts  of  the  East  now;  and  when  presents  of  provisions 
are  made  to  travellers,  or  rulers,  they  are  sure  to  form 
a  principal  part.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however, 
that  anciently,  just  as  in  the  present  day,  corn  of  vari 
ous  kinds  and  the  different  preparations  made  from  it 
— especially  the  flour  of  wheat  and  barley — constituted 
the  staple  of  food  among  the  covenant- people.  Bread 
was  for  them  emphatically  "the  staff  of  life" — bread  of 
barley  flour  for  the  poorer  sort,  and  of  wheaten  flour 
for  those  in  better  circumstances ;  fish,  honey,  cheese, 
butter,  milk,  and  other  such  things,  being  used  along 
with  it  as  a  relish  rather  than  as  substantive  articles  of 
diet.  Hence,  the  barley  sheaf  presented  on  the  second 
day  of  the  passover  feast,  and  the  two  loaves  of  fine  or 
wheaten  flour  offered  seven  weeks  afterwards  at  the 
feast  of  pentecost,  Lc.  xxiii.  10,  17,  formed  a  suitable  re 
presentation,  not  only  of  the  chief  produce  of  the  land, 
but  also  of  the  common  food  of  the  people.  The  few 
allusions  to  the  subject  in  New  Testament  scripture, 
show  that  matters  continued  much  the  same  in  apostolic 
times,  Mat.  xiv.  17;  Ju.  vi.  7,  9.  And  to  this  day  the  Arabs 
"rarely  diminish  their  flocks  by  using  them  for  food, 
but  live  chiefly  upon  bread,  milk,  butter,  dates,  or  what 
they  receive  in  exchange  for  their  wool"  (Shaw,  p.  100) . 
Burckhardt  says  of  them,  "  the  frugality  of  these  Beda- 
win  is  without  example  ;  my  companions  (i.e.  from 
Wady  Mousa  across  the  western  desert),  who  walked  at 
least  five  hours  a  day,  supported  themselves  for  four- 
ant  1- twenty  hours  with  a  piece  of  dry  black  bread  of 
about  a  pound  and  a  half  weight,  without  any  other 
kind  of  nourishment"  (Travels,  p.  43'j). 

Beans,  in  some  parts  of  the  country,  and  for  two  or 
three  months  in  the  year  (beginning  with  March),  perhaps 
came  nearest  to  barley  and  wheat  as  furnishing  mate 
rials  for  food.  Dr.  Shaw  even  says,  that  dishes  of  them 


599 


FOOT 


boiled  and  stewed  with  oil  and  garlic,  are  in  spring  the 
principal  fond  of  persons  of  all  distinctions  (Tvavels,  p.  140). 
But  this  must  be  understood  with  some  limitation;  for 
in  the  district  where  beans  are  most  plentifully  pro 
duced,  the  Hauran,  we  are  informed  by  Burckhardt,  that 
they  are  chiefly  used  as  food  for  cows  and  sheep  (Syria, 
p.  2:i(i);  and  so  far  as  notices  of  Scripture  are  concerned, 
very  partial  use  would  seem  to  have  been  made  of  them. 
However,  many  things  were  doubtless  used  as  at  least 
occasional  articles  of  diet,  which  are  left  unnoticed  in 
Scripture,  simply  from  no  incident  having  occurred  in 
the  narrative  to  draw  attention  to  them.  It  is  from  a 
quite  incidental  allusion  in  the  account  of  .John  the 
Baptist,  that  we  learn  locusts,  and  what  is  called  wild 
honey,  to  have  been  among  the  means  of  food,  on  which 
persons  were  wont  for  a  time  to  subsist,  who  accus 
tomed  themselves,  whether  from  necessity  or  from 
choice,  to  the  meaner  sort  of  fare.  And  had  it  been 
the  object  of  Scripture  to  furnish  us  with  a  full  account 
of  the  dietary  supplies  of  the  Israelites,  we  should  pro 
bably  have  had  to  include  in  the  number,  besides  those 
already  mentioned,  not  only  animals  and  fowl  of  vari 
ous  sorts,  but  also  many  of  the  vegetable  productions 
and  fruits  which  are  cultivated  throughout  Syria  in  the 
present  day  —such  as  pease,  lentiles,  lettuce,  cauliflower, 
garlic,  onions,  rice,  dates,  &c.  A  simply  vegetable 
diet,  however,  was  reckoned  a  poor  one,  Pi-.xv.i7;  Da. 
i.  1.';  and  we  have  no  reason  to  sujijio.se  that  in  the 
better  times  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  anv  more 
than  now,  vegetables  were  in  much  request. 

Among  the  well-conditioned  classes  savoury  dishes 
of  various  kinds  seem  to  have  been  much  relished,  and 
comparatively  speaking  in  pretty  frequent  use.  Refer 
ences  are  found  in  Scripture  to  a  good  many  articl.-s 
employed  as  condiments  in  the  preparation  of  such 
dishes.  Not  only  salt  and  mustard,  which  are  every 
where  to  be  met  with,  but  mint  also,  and  cummin, 
anise,  rue,  almonds,  and  other  kinds  of  nuts,  are  men 
tioned,  Mat.  xxiii.  •!?, ;  Is.  xxviii.  ivie.  So  early  as  the  days 
of  Isaac  spiced  or  savoury  meat  apj>ears  to  have  been 
known,  and  counted  a  delicacy,  Co.  xxvii.  I;  but  we  know 
little  of  its  ingredients,  unless  in  this,  as  in  so  many 
other  things  touching  the  manners  of  the  East,  we  can 
argue  from  the  present  to  the  past. 

III.  This,  however,  has  respect  to  the  last  point  that 
calls  for  consideration — the  preparation  and  use  of  the 
articles  of  diet.  It  would  appear  that  a  sort  of  season 
ing  is  very  common  in  the  preparation  of  food  among 
families  of  some  distinction.  Dr.  Russel,  quoted  by 
Harmer,  represents  the  people  of  Aleppo  as  delighting 
in  dishes  that  were  ''pretty  high-seasoned  with  salt 
and  spices;  many  of  them  made  sour  with  verjuice, 
pomegranate,  or  lemon- juice;  and  onions  and  garlic 
often  complete  the  seasoning.''  This,  however,  has 
respect  only  to  the  richer  classes;  for  the  same  authority 
states  that  the  food  of  the  mass  of  the  people  was  very 
simple  and  plain.  "  Bread,  dibbs  (the  juice  of  grapes 
thickened  to  the  consistence  of  honey),  leban  (coagulated 
sour-milk),  butter,  rice,  and  a  very  little  mutton,  make 
the  chief  of  their  food  in  winter :  as  rice,  bread,  cheese, 
and  fruits  do  in  summer"  (Ilarmer,  ohs.  i.  p.  392, 393).  For 
such  articles  of  food  little  seasoning  or  artificial  pre 
paration  of  whatever  kind  would  be  needed  at  any  time. 
And  when  butcher- meat  is  used  by  people  in  the 
country  parts,  the  cooking  is  usually  still  as  of  old  of 
the  most  simple  and  expeditious  nature.  "  A  sheep 
or  calf  will  be  brought  and  killed  before  you,  thrust  \ 


instanter  into  the  great  caldron,  which  stands  ready  on 
the  tire  to  receive  it;  and.  ere  you  are  aware,  it  will 
re-appear  on  the  great  copper  tray,  with  a  bushel  of 
burgul  (cracked  wheat),  or  a  hill  of  boiled  rice  and 
IC/MII."  Tliu  writer  refers  to  the  notices  contained  in 
the  lives  of  Abraham,  Manoah,  the  witch  of  Endor,  as 
well  as  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son,  for  the  an 
tiquity  of  this  mode  of  proceeding,  ami  adds,  that 
"'among  unsophisticated  Arabs  the  killing  of  a  sheep, 
calf,  or  kid,  in  honour  of  a  visitor,  is  strictly  required 
by  the  laws  of  hospitality,  and  the  neglect  of  it  keenly 
resented"  (TheLaudand  the  Book.p.  ii.  c.  2!l).  This,  it  will 
be  understood,  has  reference  to  guests  of  some  distinc 
tion,  and  such  as  purpose  to  stay  over-night,  or  long 
enough  at  least  to  admit  of  a  regular  meal  being  pre 
pared;  otherwise  the  obligation  is  more  easily  discharged. 
The  meat  l>efore  being  served  uji  is  usually  cut  into 
little  bits,  and  the  company  eat  it  out  of  basons,  with 
out  the  use  of  knives  and  forks.  Very  commonly,  also, 
their  bread,  like  their  butcher-meat,  is  prepared  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  as  occasion  requires;  a  little  meal 
or  flour  being  hastily  kneaded,  and  thrown  into  the 
ashrs  and  coals  of  fire,  which  have  been  kindled  for  the 
purpose.  (>'ct  BKLAD,  BAULKY,  WHEAT,  &c.;  HOSPI 
TALITY.} 

The  subject  of  beverage,  which  is  closely  allied  to 
that  of  food,  is  treated  of  in  connection  with  the  several 
materials  used  for  the  purpose.  (Sc<-  WATKH,  WIXK.) 

FOOL  is  very  commoiil)  used  in  Scripture  with  re 
spect  to  ninru/  more  than  to  luttllci-tunl  deficiencies. 
Tlie  fool  then1,  by  way  of  eminence,  is  the  person  who 
casts  « if}' the  fear  of  (lod,  and  thinks  and  acts  as  if  he 
could  safely  disregard  the  eternal  principles  of  (iod's 
righteousness,  IV  xiv.  l;  xrii.  (!;  Jo.  xvii.  11;  I'r.  xiv.it,  ic.  Yet 
there  are  many  passages,  especially  in  the  book  of 
1'rovcrbs.  in  which  the  term  bears  much  the  same 
meaning  that  it  does  in  ordinary  language,  and  denotes 
one  who  is  rash,  senseless,  or  unreasonable. 

FOOT,  FEET.  There  were,  and  still  are  to  a  con 
siderable  extent  in  the  East,  certain  usages  respecting 
the  feet,  which  are  not  known  among  European  nations; 
and  these  naturally  gave  rise  to  moral  or  figurative  ex 
pressions,  which  can  only  lie  understood  by  a  reference 
to  eastern  manners.  The  common  use  of  sandals, 
which  covered  little  more  than  the  sole  of  the  foot,  and 
of  course  rendered  it  impossible  to  walk  abroad  without 
contracting  dust,  gave  rise  to  the  practice  of  washing 
the  feet  on  entering  the  house,  and  to  strangers,  when 
welcomed  as  guests,  was  considered  a  piece  of  ordinary 
civility.  So  common  was  it  still  in  our  Lord's  time, 
that  he  could  point  to  the  omission  of  it  by  the  Pharisee 
Simon  toward  himself  as  indicative  of  a  certain  want 
of  respect,  Lu.vii.  u;  and  even  when  writing  to  Timothy 
respecting  the  widows  in  Asia  Minor  about  Ephcsus, 
where  eastern  manners  wen1  modified  by  those  of 
Cireece,  St.  Paul  specifies  the  habit  of  washing  the  saints' 
feet,  as  one  of  the  marks  of  a  proper  behaviour  that 
should  not  be  overlooked,  iTi.  iv.  m.  This  practice  in 
ordinary  life  also  naturally  led  to  the  symbolical  rite  of 
washing  the  feet,  which  was  enjoined  upon  the  priests 
before  entering  the  house  of  God  to  perform  sacred  minis 
trations,  Ex.  xx.x.  lit;  it  was  an  emblem  of  moral  purity  or 
uprightness  in  the  acts  of  daily  life ;  and  hence  the 
action  of  our  Lord  in  washing  his  disci  [ties'  feet,  while 
it  served  as  a  proof  of  his  own  condescension  to  them, 
was  a  sign  of  his  desire  that  they  should  abide  free 
from  blemishes  in  outward  behaviour,  Jn.  xiii.  io,seq. 


FORT 


As  the  sandals  were  commonly  put  off  on  entering 
the  house,  ami  the  feet  washed,  so  to  put  ott'  the 
sandals,  or  shoos  (though  sandals  alone  should  he 
named),  naturally  became  an  emblem  of  respectful  and 
devout  behaviour.  Hence  the  word  to  Moses  at  the 
burning  bush,  "Put  ott' thy  shoes  from  ott'  thy  feet, 
for  the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground," 
Ex. iii. 5,  and  the  similar  word  to  .Joshua  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Jericho,  eh.v.  i.~>.  But  the  laying  aside  of 
sandals  might,  with  respect  to  the  common  use  of  these 
for  purposes  of  business  or  travel,  be  indicative  of  some 
thing  quite  different,  and  almost  opposite.  For  it  was, 
iu  that  respect,  a  not  unnatural  and  common  sign  of 
mourning—he  who  was  plunged  in  grief  being  unable 
to  leave  his  house  and  attire  himself  for  the  ordinary 
avocations  of  life.  Hence,  the  prophet  Kxekiel  when 
called  in  vision  to  personate  his  people,  and  with  that 
view  receiving  an  intimation  that  his  wife  should  die, 
but  that  lie  should  refrain  from  the  usual  symbols  of 
mourning,  was  ordered,  among  other  things,  to  put  his 
sandals  on  his  feet,  ch.  xxiv.  17.  (Xec  SANDALS.)  And 
wearing,  as  the  orientals  did,  loose  and  flowing  gar 
ments,  which  fell  upon  the  ground  and  concealed  the 
lower  parts  of  their  body,  when  they  went  to  do  what 
we  technically  express  by  f/oiui/  to  stout,  the  expression 
to  rover  the  fact  became  with  them  a  delicate  mode  of 
indicating  the  same  action,  Ju.  iii.  24;  i  Sa.  x\iv.  :i;  and  the 
n'dtcr  <>f  the  feet  was  a  euphony  for  that  which  the  indi 
vidual  discharged  between  them.  2Ki.  xviii.  27. 

To  put  one's  foot  upon  the  head  or  neck  of  a  con 
quered  foe  was  an  ancient,  though  somewhat  barbarous, 
custom,  marking  the  complete  subjection  of  the  van 
quished  party.  Many  representations  of  this  custom 
appear  among  the  monumental  remains  of  antiquity; 
and  following  the  prevailing  usage  in  this  respect,  we 
find  Joshua  ordering  the  five  kings  of  the  Canaanites, 
who  had  taken  refuge  in  a  cave,  to  be  brought  out, 


[268.] 


Assyrian  king  placing  the  foot  on  the  neck  of  an  enemy. 
Layurd'a  Monuments  of  Nineveh. 


that  his  captains  might  come  one  after  another  and 
put  their  foot  on  the  necks  of  the  prostrate  princes,  Jos. 
x.  24.  Literally  this  usage  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
much  practised  by  the  covenant-people,  but  it  forms 
the  ground  of  many  figurative  representations  in  the 
prophetical  Scriptures,  Ps.  ex.  1;  Is.  lx.  14;  i  Co.  XT.  21;. 

Once  more,  the  feet  being  the  parts  of  the  body  more 
immediately  employed  in  such  services  as  require 
outward  action,  especially  in  executing  an  intrusted 


commission,  or  prosecuting  a  course  of  action  in  obedi 
ence  to  another's  command,  to  have  the  feet  rightly 
directed,  or  kept  straight  and  steadfast  in  the  appointed 
path,  were  natural  and  appropriate  images  for  upright 
ness  and  fidelity  of  behaviour.  They  are  so,  indeed, 
in  all  languages,  but  they  were,  perhaps  more  frequently 
used,  and  in  greater  variety  of  form,  among  the  He 
brews,  than  is  quite  customary  in  modern  times,  PS. 

lxxiii.2;  Is.  Hi.  7;  Iviii.  13;  EC.  v.  l,Ac. 

FORESKIN,  the  prepuce,  or  projecting  part  of  the 
skin  in  the  distinctive  member  of  the  male  sex,  which 
was  cut  off  in  circumcision.  Hence,  as  circumcision 
was  an  ordinance  symbolical  of  purification,  the  fore 
skin  was  an  emblem  of  corruption,  Ue.  x.  iii;  Jo.  iv.  I. 

FOREST,  the   rendering   of  -^y,  (i/aw),   is  used  of 

various  parts  of  Palestine  and  the  neighbourhood,  which 
were  well  wooded,  though  the  woods  rarely  perhaps 
reached  such  an  extent  as  is  now  usually  designated  by 
the  name.  Beside  the  forest  of  Lebanon,  which  at 
one  time  undoubtedly  was  of  great  extent,  we  read  of 
the  forest  of  Hareth,  the  forest  of  Carmel,  the  forest 
of  Arabia ;  but  probably  in  such  cases  the  term  vootl 
would  be  more  appropriate ;  and  this  is  the  rendering- 
adopted  for  the  same  word  in  the  original  in  various 
passages — such  as  Jos.  xvii.  18;  1  Sa.  xiv.  '2i>;  '2  Ki. 
ii.  24,  &c.  It  is  also  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that  in 
remote  times  Palestine  was  undoubtedly  much  more 
extensively  furnished  with  wood  than  it  is  now,  or 
even  than  it  came  to  be  in  the  later  periods  of  the 
Hebrew  commonwealth ;  so  that  tracts  which  had 
originally  been  forests  might  still  retain  the  name, 
though  latterly  they  had  ceased  to  be  so. 

FORNICATION.     This  term  is  often  used  in  Old 

Testament    scripture    as    synonymous    with    adultery, 

especially   in    those    passages    which    represent    under 

this  image  the   unfaithful  and   treacherous  behaviour 

of  the  covenant-people.    The  image  is  a  very  common 

one  in  the  later  prophets,  in  whose  time  the  back- 

slidings  had  become  so  general  and  flagrant,  that  the 

severest  visitations   of  judgment  were    ready  to    be 

inflicted,  Eze  xvi.;  Je.  ii.;  Ho.i.,&c. 

FORT,   FORTIFICATION.     The  science  of  war 
necessarily  exercises  the  ingenuity  of  man  both  upon 
instruments   of  attack   and  means   of  defence ;    and 
these   bear  such  a  relation  to  each  other  that  any 
alterations  and  improvements  in  the  one  necessitate 
corresponding  changes  in  the  other.     The  great  dis 
coveries  of  modern  artillery  being  unknown  in  classical 
and    scriptural    times,    the  means  of    defence  which 
were  then  in  use  would  be  proportionally  simpler. 
And  Scripture  contains  evidence  that  the  rudest  of 
all  contrivances  were  often  resorted  to,  especially  the 
caves,  or  rather  caverns,  which  abounded  in  Palestine, 
and  clefts  of  the  rocks,   Jos.  x.  ic  ;  Ju.  \-i.  2;  xx.  47;  i  Sa. 
xhi.  o,  &c.     In  such  a  cleft  of  the  rock  Samson  dwelt 
for  a  time,   Ju.  xv.  s,  n,  not   so  fitly  rendered   in   our 
version   "the  top  of  the  rock;"  and  in  such  a  cavern 
David    found    shelter  for    himself    and  his   600  men, 
i  Sa.  xxii.  i,&c.     The  600  men  who  remained  of  the  tribe 
of    Benjamin    took  refuge    011  the  rock   Riminon,    or 
more  literally  in  or  at  it,   and  remained   there  four 
months ;  and  not  improbably  they  added  to  the  na 
tural  strength  of  the  place  by  throwing  up  earthworks 
around  them.     At  all  events,  from  the  remotest  period 
of  Israelitish  history  we  read  of  fortification,  implying 
a  higher  degree  of  skill  than  that  which  merely  takes 


FORT  ( 

advantage  of  the  natural  features  of  the  country.  The 
spies  who  were  sent  from  the  wilderness  into  the  land 
of  the  Canaanites  were  to  ascertain  among  other  things 
"  what  cities  they  be  that  they  dwell  in,  whether  in 
tents  or  in  strongholds,"  Nu.  .xiii.  iy ;  and  they  brought 
back  the  report  that  * ;  the  cities  are  great  and  walled 
up  to  heaven,"  De.  i.  -JS.  And  this  was  no  mere  exagger 
ation  of  their  faithless  hearts;  for  Moses  speaks  of  the 
threescore  cities  of  Argob  in  the  kingdom  of  Og,  "all 
these  cities  were  fenced  with  high  walls,  gates,  and 
bars;  besides  unwalled  towns  a  great  many,"  De.  iii. :.. 
Some  of  these  are  standing  at  this  day,  and  have  been 
recently  visited  (,<ec  BA.SHAN);  and  in  their  massive 
construction  they  proclaim  that  they  bear  a  relation 
to  the  oldest  forms  of  fortification,  and  of  building  in 
general,  found  in  widely  separated  regions  of  Asia 
and  Europe,  and  known  by  several  names,  such  as 
Cyclopean  and  Pelasgic.  These,  however,  vary  con 
siderably,  a-cording  as  the  stones  are  wholly  rough  or 
are  partially  cut,  and  as  the  entrances  resemble  the 
nature  of  doors  or  are  little  more  than  gaps;  differences 
owing  partly  no  doubt  to  advancing  skill,  yet  also  partly 
to  the  nature  of  the  materials.  There  are  huge  stones 
in  some  of  the  buildings  of  Palestine,  and  even  at  the 
wall  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  which  have  been  pro 
nounced  to  belong  to  this  Cyclopean  style  of  building. 
Hut  the  Canaanites  of  the  davs  of  Moses  and  Joshua 


"1  ,  /, 

/ 

W/^O'^f,    v-> 


[20'J  '       K-yptians  attacking  a  Forf  on  a  rock.  -Wilkinson. 

were  a  highly  civilized  people,  connected  by  commerce 
with  the  most  advanced  nations  of  the  earth  at  that 
time,  and  specially  connected  with  Egypt  both  by 
vicinity  and  by  the  ties  of  kindred  descent.  It  fs 
therefore  probable  that  their  walled  cities  with  gates 
and  bars  bore  a  resemblance  to  fortifications  shown  on 
Egyptian  monuments,  believed  to  be  of  the  fifteenth 
century  before  Christ.  They  are  of  squared  stone,  or 
squared  timber,  on  the  summit  of  scarped  rocks  with 
VOL.  I. 


battlements,  and  protected  by  wet  ditches  all  around 
them — unless  indeed  wet  ditches  be  a  later  discovery 
in  military  art,  and  those  referred  to  formed  the  natural 
channels  of  a  river  round  a  fortified  island  (Xos.  26!> 
271).  The  same  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Xineveh  re 
mains,  though  the  sculptures  are  of  a  later  date.  But 

i  the  similarity  of  the  style  favours  the  supposition  that 
it  was  widely  diffused,  and  employed  from  an  early 
time  without  very  essential  improvements.  If  so,  we 
may  conclude  that  the  Canaanite  fortifications,  \\  hich 
the  Israelites  sometimes  preserved  and  sometimes 
copied,  were  of  the  same  kind,  with  such  alterations 
as  suited  a  country  differing  from  Egypt  and  Baby 
lonia  in  this,  that  running  water  was  scarce,  while 
hills  were  extremely  numerous.  Thus  Joshua,  eh.xi.  i:s, 
margin,  speaks  of  the  mass  of  cities  that  stood  "on  their 
heap,"  as  it  is  again  in  Je.  xxx.  IS.  or  in  the  mar-in, 
"  little  hill"  (Xo.  2iJ;M. 

We  have  seen  that  tile  "unwalled  towns"  are  placed 
in  opposition    to  the  "walled   cities."  "fenced  cities," 

1  •' defenced  cities,"  ''fortresses,"  "  strongholds,"  as  our 
version  somewhat  loosely  and  indiscriminately  trans 
lates  the  expressions  nv^*:  -\>y  and  rp^i'S  -\>y  t'tr  mi/jt^ir 

tmd'7>-!jct.<nn(Ji\.  "  Fenced  cities"  or  "cities  for  defence" 

are   also  the  translations   of  -,'"v:  -\<y  (ir  m«t:<,r},  and 

T 

relate,!    forms,     literally     perhaps    "  cities    that    could 
stand     a    siege,"    IN.  xxxi.  -Jl   \Ilebrew  L".');  lx.  H  (Hebrew  11); 
•-'  I'h.  viii.  ;, ;  xi.  5  ;  xiv.  r,  (:,  in  the  Hebrew),  and    which,   in   the 
opinion  of  some,    imply    a  higher  degree  of   fortifica 
tion.       In   many    eases  these   fenced   cities    or    strong 
hold-   may   have    been    places   protected,    not   by    ,,«//..,• 
but   by  stockades   of    wood.      Nothing   precise   and   de 
finite    is    to   be  found   in  Scripture   upon  the    subject, 
unless  that  )i«(t:m-  is  once  used,  De.  xx   -Ji>,  of  the  vnmli'ii 
"bulwarks"  to  be   raised   in   sieges.      P.iit    it   has   been 
suggested  by  one  who   has   studied   these  matters  care 
fully  for  him.-elf.  that   stockaded  forts  have  been  found 
extremely  difficult   to   take,  and   that  they  are  used    by 
nations  in  a  semi-civilized   condition,  and  were  not  un 
likely    means    of    defence    in     Palestine.       Among  the 
Israelites  David    is  the  earliest   person  to  whom  fortifi 
cations  are   expressly  attributed   subsequent  to  the  ori 
ginal  settlement   in   the  land:   and  Solomon  continued 
the  work,  to  which  his  wisdom  and  his  love  of  building 
might  the  more  incline  him.      In  the  following  genera 
tion  the  same  is  recorded  of  Jeroboam  and  Kehoboam, 
and  again  of  P.aasha  and  Asa  in   the  next  generation: 
this  being  the  inevitable  consequence'  of  the  separation 
of  the  two  kingdoms.      In  later  times  the  fortification  of 
their  kingdom,  particularly  of  Jerusalem,  was  carried  on 
by  I'/ziah.  Jotham,  Hezekiah,  and  Manassch:  and  after 
the  return  from  Babylon,  the  walls  and  gates  and  bars 
of  the  city  were  set  up  by  Xehemiah  and  his  associates. 
Jerusalem  must  be  regarded  as  the  most  strongly  forti 
fied   place  in   the  country,  both  by  natural  advantages 
and  by  artificial  aid  :   hence,  after  a  siege  of  eighteen 
months,  it  seems  to  have   fallen  into  the  hands  of  Ne 
buchadnezzar  chiefly  through  the  efi'ect  of  famine,  while 
the  strong  quarter  of  Zion  very  probably  held  out  for  a 
month  longer,  -1  Ki.  xxv.  .'i.s-in,  precisely  as  it  had  been 
previously  taken   from   the    Jebusites    by  David   while 
they  were  reckoning   it  to  be   impregnable,  2  Sa.  v.  u-!». 
Perhaps  we  may  infer  that  in  the  kingdom  of  Jtidah 
Lachish    and     Libnah    were    next    to    Jerusalem    in 
strength,  as  these  three  cities  alone  were  successful  in 
resisting  Sennacherib,  •_>  Ki.  xviii.i.n,  1 1;  x;x.  *-.    But  Samaria, 

76 


FORT 


after  a,  siege  of  three  years,  2  Ki.  xviii.  11,  ID.     Compare  the 
threatening*  against  Samaria  and  '/Aim,  Mi.  i.  i-!>;  iii.  12. 
A  fortified  t-)\vii  was  a  town  with  a  wall.      It  mi-lit 


ing  wall  being  so  prominent  a  part  of  the  city,  not  to 
say  that  it  was  almost  indispensable  in  these  times  of 


n infusion   and   violence,   the   expression    "to    build 

sonietinics  happen  that  for  greater   strength  it  had  a  '  city"  often  meant,  in  scriptural  as  well  as  in  classical 
second  wall  on  the  outside,  such  as  Hezekiah  erected,  at  ;  language,  to  build  the  wall,  to  make  a  fortified  place 


|-.'7U.  I        Attack  ami  ik-ft-nce  of  a  city.     IJuttii   Monuuieus  de  Kiniv 


of  that  which  was  already  inhabited  without  fortifica 
tions.  So  we  must  understand  Solomon's  building  the 
two  Bethhorons.  and  similar  buildings  by  his  son,  2Ch. 
viii.  r,-  xi.5-10;  Jeroboam's  building  Shechem  and  Penuel, 
iKi.xii.  •_'.-,;  and  manifestly  Hiel's  building  Jericho  and 
coming  under  the  curse  of  Joshua,  because  the  i/atcs 
of  it  are  especially  mentioned,  1  Ki.  xvi.  34 ;  Jos.  vi.  20,  while 
there  is  no  room  for  doubting  that  Jericho  had  been  a 
habitation  of  men,  and  a  place  of  some  importance 
from  the  days  of  Joshua  downwards,  .Tu.  i.  10;  iii.  13,  &c. 

The  entrances  to  the  city  through  the  walls  were 
protected  by  gates,  which  were  closed  generally  by 
strongly- built  folding  doors,  as  the  plural  "  doors  '  oc 
curs  fn  reference  to  each  gate,  Xe.  iii.  These  doors  had 
locks,  and  massive  liars  attached  to  them  for  the  sake 
of  additional  strength.  The  bars  are  noticed  in  one 
instance  as  being  of  brass,  i  Ki.  iv.  13  ;  and  in  the  case 
of  the  Babylonian  conquers  of  Cyrus,  we  read  of  gates 
of  brass  and  bars  of  iron.  i>.  xiv.  -2.  (&e  GATE.)  This 
description  also  occurs  in  Ps.  cvii.  ll>.  The  buildings 
of  the  gateways  were  probably  structures  of  great 
strength,  the  strongest  points  on  the  walls,  and  con 
taining  one  or  several  chambers  ;  so  that  "to  sit  in  the 
gate"  might  describe  not  only  the  magistrates  in  time 
of  peace,  but  also  the  military  commanders  in  the  pro 
gress  of  victory,  Jo.  xxxix.  3.  By  an  easy  extension 
there  might  be  another  chamber  over  the  gate,  forming 
a  gate-tower  or  a  place  for  a  watchman,  2  Sa.  xviii.  21,33; 
and  for  obvious  reasons  of  convenience,  we  may  believe 
that  the  tower  which  the  watchmen  occupied  was  at  or 
near  the  gate,  even  where  this  is  not  precisely  stated. 
2Ki.  ix.ir.  In  the  Assyrian  sculptures  the  gateway  is 
generally  between  two  towers,  as  in  the  illustrations 
Nos.  270,  272,  and  a  chamber  over  the  gateway  is  in 
dicated  by  windows.  (Sec  GATE.)  The  gateway  itself 


is  simply  an  opening  in  the  wall,  and  not  the  massive 
buildiiiLT  frequent  in  the  castles  of  mediaeval  architecture. 
The  folding  doors  of  the  gate  are  shown  in  No.  272. 
These  must  often  have  been  of  wood,  since  many  bas- 
reliefs  represent  men  setting  them  on  fire.  But  the  idea 
of  a  tower  could  not  be  long  confined  to  the  gate,  though 
it  may  have  originated  so  :  wall-towers  are  seen  in  very 
ancient  representations,  erected  wherever  they  were  of 
use  for  defence.  The  walls  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon 
are  well  known  to  have  been  wonderfully  provided  with 
these  :  and  Scripture  names  several  wall- towers  in  Jeru 
salem—the  tower  of  Hananeel,  that  of  Meah,  and  that 
of  the  furnaces.  "  A  wall-tower''  seems  to  be  the  strict 
and  the  common  meaning  of  the  word  ^jc  (m'ujdah, 

almost  invariably  rendered  ''tower"  in  our  version. 
This  shade  of  meaning  is  often  suggested  by  the  con 
text,  E/.e.  xxvi.  i ;  xxvii.  n ;  and  it  is  evident  in  such  a  verse 
as  2  Ch.  xxvi.  0,  "  Uzziah  built  towers  in  Jerusalem,  at 
the  corner-gate,  and  at  the  valley-gate,  and  at  the 
turning  of  the  wall,  and  fortified  them."  There  is 
another  word,  rV2  (plrtitah),  which  commonly  means 
and  is  correctly  translated  "a  corner,"  but  which  occa 
sionally  must  mean  some  kind  of  fortification.  Accor 
dingly  it  also  is  rendered  "  tower''  in  Zep.  i.  16;  iii.  6. 
and"  "bulwark"  in  2  Ch.  xxvi.  15:  Tzziah  "made  in 
Jerusalem  engines  invented  by  cunning  men,  to  be 
upon  the  towers  and  upon  the  bulwarks,  to  shoot  arrows 
and  great  stones  withal."  Colonel  Hamilton  Smith, 
however  (article  "Fortifications''  in Kitto's Cyclopedia),  rejects 
this  translation  "bulwarks,"  and  describes  the  objects 
!  meant  as  "huge  '  counter-  forts,'  double  buttresses  or 
1  masses  of  solid  stone  and  masonry,  built  in  particular 
parts  to  sustain  the  outer  wall,  and  afford  space  on  the 
summit  to  place  military  engines."  Yet  doubt  is 


FORT 


G03 


FOTJT 


thrown  on  the  correctness  of  this  definition  by  the  cir 
cumstance  that  no  buttresses  are  represented  in  the 
Assyrian  sculptures,  the  strengthening  of  the  walls 
being  effected  by  the  great  number  of  small  towers 
built  into  and  projecting  from  them.  Xor  did  the 
military  engines  of  ancient  times,  which  could  be 
stationed  and  worked  in  these  towers,  require  such 
massive  foundations  to  sustain  them  as  modern  artil 
lery  does.  Another  Hebrew  term  which  once  occurs. 
Is.  liv.  i->,  and  which  is  commonly  understood  to  be  of  the 
same  meaning,  is  pyi'C'i*  (.</<  "/««.•</<  »(/t),  "suns"  i  compare 

T  : 

such  names  as  dc/iii-li'iicx),  though  our  translators  have 
been  misled  by  the  word  "suns"  to  think  of  "windows." 
A  tower,  iii!</dal,  might  also  be  the  citadel,  the 
strongest  part  of  tlie  city,  and  the  place  of  last  resort 
from  the  enemy :  and  in  this  case  it  would  most  pro 
bably  not  be  a  wall-tower.  .In  nearly  all  the  Assyrian 
sculptures,  and  in  several  of  the  Egyptian  paintings, 
there  is  a  central  mass  of  buildings  in  the  citv.  higher 
than  the  rest,  whirli  mav  fairly  be  identified  with 
this  iu!<jdnl  (Xo.  .171).  Such  mav  have  been  the 
tower  of  Pciiuel  which  (iideon  broke  down.  Ju.  viu.  9, 17. 
Such  certainly  was  the  tower  of  Thcbez.  which  Abi- 
melecli  was  attempting  to  burn  when  he  met  his 
death,  .In  ix.  51,52,  and  the  tower  of  Shecheia.  vor.  li:, 
\vlien:  lie  was  successful  in  the  like  enterprise.  In  that 
account  tliere  occurs  another  word,  \vr.  I.;,  I'.',  appa- 
rently  the  more  technical  term  for  a  tower  standing;' 
alone  and  in  an  elevated  position.  r-'iY  d'.'ii^nftln.  "a 

_      •  T 

citadel,  nr  "a  hold."  as  in  our  version,  though  a  less 
distinct  rendering  is  given  in  the  only  other  passage 
where  it  occurs,  i  S:i  xii;  .;,  "  hi_;h  places;"  perhaps  in 


[•-'71.  |        Kyyptian  Fortress  surroundeil  by  water.     Kosellini 


c.rder  to  bring  out  the  contrast  to  the  "pits"  which 
follow  ill  this  list  of  places,  to  which  the  Hebrews 
variously  betook  themselves  for  fear  of  the  Philistines. 
One  other  term  occurs  in  describing  the  fortifica 
tions  of  a  city,  ^n  or  s.-,,  /,/«•///,  which  has  more  diffi 
culty  attaching  to  it  than  any  of  the  others,  as  our 
translators  have  felt,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  varia 
tions  in  their  rendering:  "rampart,"  La.  ii.  * ;  N'a.  iii.  ^  ; 
"  bulwarks,"  is.  xxvi.  i;  "  trench,  or  (nuir>/!n)  "  outmost 
wall,"  2Sa.  xx.  15;  "wall."  or  (//(«/•<//'//)  "ditch."  i  Ki. 
xxi.L'3.  The  meaning,  "a  ditch."  has  the  support  of  a 
few  very  high  authorities,  both  Jewish  and  Christian: 
but  the  great  mass,  including  authorities  equally  high, 
explain  it  to  be  a  smaller  exterior  wall,  vet  with  a  ditch 


connected  with  it,  and  which  along  with  the  vacant  space 
back  to  the  principal  wall,  may  all  have  been  compre 
hended  under  one  name.  Again,  these  exterior  walls 
are  often  represented  to  tis  in  the  Assyrian  sculptures, 
and  they  generally  appear  as  low  and  embattled  walls.1 
Other  fortifications  of  a  similar  kind  might  be  con 
structed  away  from  cities,  to  stand  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  villages  and  render  them  protection,  or  to  stand 
all  alone  for  the  defence  of  a  mountain  pass,  or  a  fron 
tier,  or  the  like,  2  <_'h.  xxvi.  m.  Twice  over,  -j  Ki.  xvii.  ;i; 
xviii.  s,  we  have  the  two  extremes  placed  together,  "from 
the  toi'-o-  <,f  t/u  KMtchimn  to  the /<///'«/  city."  Another 
word  is  found  once  or  twice,  rv:^'*  (/>iruitti/<itft).  trans 
lated  "castles,'"  2Ch.  xxvii.4:  Jotham  "  built  cities  in  the 
mountains  of  Judah,  and  in  the  forests  he  built  castles 
and  towers."  Much  the  same  seems  to  be  meant,  but 
perhaps  with  special  reference  to  the  use  of  such  strong- 
places  for  treasures,  by  David's  "storehouses  in  the 
fields,  in  the  cities,  and  in  the  villages,  and  in  the 
castles,"  i  rh.  xxvii.  L'.-,,  where  "castles'  is  a  solitary  and 
needless  deviation  from  the  usual  rendering  "  towers  " 
Pesides  our  version  at  times  uses  "castle."  lint  also 
and  somewhat  unfortunately  "  palace."  Kze.  xxv.  4,  to 
express  the  Hebrew  -T>J  (tlralit,  which  appears  Lo 

ha\v  been  in  use  anionu'  the  iioniade  tribes  of  Islmiael 
and  Midian.  Ue.  xxv.  Ki;  Nu.  xxxi.  10;  though  curiously 
enough  it  is  once  employed  to  describe  the  cities  of  the 
priests,  l  Cii  vi.  .111  Hebrew  :;•.'}.  The  word  -eve  (ntit:jn/i\, 

is  only  twice  found,  nieanin-  "  watch-tower,"  :ifh.  xx.-Ji; 
Is.  xxi.  *;  but  it  is  extremely  common  as  a  proper  name, 
.Mix.peh,  and  in  the  closely  allied  form  .Mi/pah:  the 
towns  which  bore  this  name  no  doubt  answering  to  the 
description  \\hich  it  conveyed.  Another  proper  name, 
that  of  a  place  of  great  strength  mentioned  by  Joscphns, 
along  with  many  others,  which  were  erected  in  Pales 
tine  in  later  times,  is  Masada,  which  is 
nothing  else  than  the  Hebrew  ~yc  (iiittnufh, 

and    which    along    with    the   feminine    form 
TVV:    (iit?t:nil<i/i<i.    and    two    rare    kindred 

_,  lorms  ihiitzud  and  //</"/:•»/»///,  is  rendered  vari 
ously  ••munition."  "hold,"  "stronghold," 
"fort,"  "fortress;"  whilst  at  times  also  it  is 
the  "lair"  of  a  wild  beast.  Indeed  by  its 
derivation  it  is  simply  the  fastness  or  secure  place  to 
which  either  brut.'  or  man  retires  for  safety  from  the 
pursuers.  The  allusion  to  both  meanings  seems  ap 
parent  in  its  frequent  use  to  describe  the  places, 
whether  artificially  fortified  or  not,  to  which  David 
repaired  for  safety  while  Saul  was  lui/ilin;/  him,  as  he 
expressed  it.  1  Sa.  xxiii  l  i,i!>,2'.i;  1  Cli.  xii.  \lii;  and  perhaps 
this  allusion  is  not  wholly  dropped  when  the  word  is 
applied  to  Zi.m,  i  cii  xi.r,  the  resting-place  of  the  Lion 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  although  our  version  needlessly 
gives  us  there  the  rendering  "castle." 

In  besieging  a  town  the  same  means  seem  to  have 
been  called  into  operation  as  we  read  of  in  classical 
antiquity,  and  as  we  see  illustrated  in  the  Egyptian 
and  Assyrian  monuments  A  line  of  circmnvallation 
was  drawn  to  cut  off  all  communication  between  the 


1  Snine  account  nf  the  dimensions  of  um-ient  walls  and  other 
fortifications  mentioned  in  Scripture  would  lie  interesting,  but 
nothing  can  be  said  with  certainty  ujion  the  subject,  beyond 
what  is  -iven  in  the  accounts  of  Babvlon  and  Nineveh. 


1504 


besieged  eiiy  and  the  rest  of  the   country,    and  this  is 

expressed  by  pcq  (dayc'j),  according  to  some  good  authori- 

'  ••  T 

ties  like  Michaelis  ami  Thenius.  J.Uit  the  greatly  more 
prevalent  opinion  is  that  this  word  means  "a  fort."  or 
collectively  "a  line  of  forts,"  which  rendering  has  the 
support  of  our  version.  Yet  unfortunately  the  same 
word  "fort"  is  employed  to  represent  the  entirely 
different  word  mitfO  (iitft~tir<i/i'>.  is  xxix.  :i;  while  the 

T 

masculine  form  -\<jvc  (nuii.^ir),  is  once  rendered  "bul 
warks."  Tie.  xx.  I'M;  at  other  times  it  is  translated,  proba 
bly  better,  "siege,'  as  "lay  siege  against,"  "besiege,' 
K/o.  iv.  2,:i,ie.;  Mi.  v.  i,  where  it  might  describe  the  draw 
ing  of  that  line  of  circumvallation.  As  the  besiegers 
approached  nearer  the  city  they  threw  up  "a  bank," 
or  "mount,"  or  mound  of  earth.  nSSb  ( .<"•'? /"/').  for 

their  own  protection  as  well  as  for  purposes  of  attack  : 
at  times  this  word  is  rendered  less  well  in  the  margin, 


"  an  engine  of  shot,"  Jo.  xxxii.  24;  K/.e.  xxi.  22  (Hebrew  27). 
In  this  same  verse  are  mentioned  ans  (curtm),  "rams" 

•T 

|  or  "battering  rams,"  favourite   engines  for  making  a 
breach  in  the  walls.      The  engines  of   shot  are  ril':2\£:n 

(hishdi&bonotlt),  •>  Ch.  xxvi.  i:,,  thy  word  in  Hebrew,  like 

our    own    "  engine."   implying  by  its   etymology  "  in- 

!  genious  contrivance."     One  or  other  of  these,  perhaps 

I  both,  may    be  designated   by  E/.ekiel,   ch.  xxvi.  (i,    in    a 

j  rather   obscure   expression,    '•engines   of   war"   in  our 

version,  perhaps  literally  "  the  wiping  out.  or  oblitera- 

i  tion.  by  that  which  he  has  placed  over  against.''      One 

i  other  word,   «^    (l>ni<liin},   once   used    in    the    plural, 

is.  xxiii.  i:;,  "towers,  and  according  to  etymology  mean 
ing  "a  place  for  spying."  must  indicate  some  such  be 
sieging  tower,  though  the  special  nature  of  it,  ns  fixed 
or  moveable.  is  undetermined.  The  classical  writers 
make  us  aware  that  iit/nhnj  and  <'<>uitti'r-minut<i  were 


of  a  City.     Assyrian  Sculptures,  llritisri  Musi 


common  practices  in  ancient  sieges:  and  this  is  the; 
interpretation  of  the  Septuagint  and  Vulgate  in  a  pas 
sage  which  our  translation  more  accurately  leaves  gene 
ral,  Je.li.r.s,  "The  broad  walls  of  F.abylon  shall  be  ut 
terly  broken,"  or  rather,  as  in  the  margin,  "made 
naked"  or  laid  bare. 

The  Assyrian  battering-rams,  as  we  see  from  the 
sculptures,  were  worked  from  shed-like  machines,  of 
wood  or  wicker  work,  on  wheels  :  in  some  instances  two 
rams  are  shown,  one  above  the  other.  Sometimes  the 
machines  have  lofty  towers  attached  to  them  for 
archers  and  sliiigers:  such  a  tower  may  be  intended  by 
this  word  bahiiht.  One  of  the  sculptures  is  particularly 
interesting  on  account  of  its  spirited  representation  of 
the  various  incidents  of  a  siege  (No.  272).  It  shows 
the  besieged  endeavouring  to  check  the  action  of  a 
battering-ram,  by  a  chain  which  they  have  placed  under 
it  with  a  view  to  lifting  it  out  of  its  place,  whilst  the 
besiegers  are  hanging  on  the  ram  by  means  of  long 
hooks,  so  as  to  keep  it  where  they  desire  it  to  be. 
From  the  towers  of  the  city  some  fire  is  being  thrown 
on  the  machines  of  the  enemy;  but  it  is  not  quite 
clear  what  is  meant  to  be  shown  as  burning,  whether 
the  ropes  swinging  the  ram,  or  grapnels.  In  the  bas- 
relief  of  Sennacherib  attacking  the  city  of  Lachish, 
the  besieged  are  hurling  torches  on  the  battering-ram 
machines,  whilst  the  men  who  work  them  are  throwing 
water  from  large  ladles  to  extinguish  the  brands.  It 
is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  rams  are  generally  shown 
as  on  causeways  or  road- ways  (No.  20!t),  apparently 
l.nd  down  for  them,  as  they  end  abruptly  under  the 


machines.  The  Egyptians  again  had  long  spears 
worked  from  testudoes  or  small  sheds,  formed  probablv 
of  a  framework  covered  with  hides,  and  the  action  of 
the  spears  was  analogous  to  that  of  battering-rams. 
Unlike  the  Assyrian  machines,  these  testudoes  were  not 
upon  wheels  (No.  2G'.»). 

In  the  New  Testament  there  is  scarcely  a  reference 
to  fortification,  except  in  our  Lord's  prediction  of  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  Ln.  xix.  4,'i,  •!!,  "  The  days  shall 
come  upon  thee  that  thine  enemies  shall  cast  a  trench 
about  thee,  and  compass  thee  round,  and  keep  thee  in 
on  every  side,  and  shall  lay  thee  even  with  the  ground, 
and  thy  children  within  thee."  compare  ch.  xxi.  20. 

In  .Te.  v.  10  it  is  written,  " :  Take  away  her  Imttlf- 
ments,  for  they  are  not  the  Lord's."  This  however  is 
an  unauthorized  deviation  from  the  proper  meaning  of 
the  word,  which  is  correctly  rendered  in  the  only  other 
two  passages  in  which  it  occurs,  Is.  xviii.  5;  Je.  xlviii.32, 
the  "branches''  or  "plants"  of  a  vine.  [G.C.M.D.] 

FORTUNA'TUS.  a  Roman  name,  but  designating 
a  person,  who  appears  to  have  been  a  member  of  the 
church  at  Corinth,  and  who,  having  visited  Paul  at 
Ephesus.  returned  along  with  Stephanns  and  Achaicus, 
bearing  the  apostle's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
ic'o.  xvi.  ir. 

FOUNTAIN.     &f  WELL. 

FOWL.  In  addition  to  what  has  been  observed,  in 
the  article  COCK,  on  the  question  how7  far  the  early 
Hebrews  were  familiar  with  our  domestic  poultry,  we 
may  adduce  the  occurrence  of  the  word  D*~iS">S  (bar- 


burim)  in  1  Kings  iv.  23.  It  is  rendered  in  our  Eng 
lish  version  "'fatted  fowl  ;"  and  there  seems  no  reason 
to  doubt  the  propriety  of  the  translation.  This,  how 
ever,  implies  domestication;  and  as  the  occasion  of  the 
mention  is  the  daily  supply  of  Solomon's  table,  includ 
ing  his  household,  it  implies  general  and  extensive 
cultivation  of  the  species  intended;  for  a  rare  or 


and  the  copious  evidence  of  the  Egyptian  paintings,  in 
which  are  represented  the  various  processes  connected 
with  the  catching,  keeping,  feeding,  killing,  salting,  cook 
ing,  and  eating  of  geese — ad  abiuidmttiaut.       [r.  H.  oj 
FOX    [^>r   ^litlnh,    dXoLTrvt].       Several  species  of 

the  dog  tribe  {('(Hilda)  are  common  in  Palestine,  and 
it  ha-  been  matter  of  dispute  to  which  of  these  the 
tln'M'  is  to  be  referred.  One  of  these 
is  a  true  fox  (<_'ni:i.-<  itil»ti<-nx.  Cei.fi'.: 
(  '.  ta/ili,  Ham.  Sm.b  very  eloseh 
agreeing  with  our  own.  but  with 
some  unimportant  specific  distinctions. 
Another  is  the  jackal  ((.'.utu-i-i '.-•).  Pe 
tween  these  the  choice  must  lie.  The 
LXX.  uniformly  render  the  word  by 


casual  occurrence  of  any  particular  bird  in  the  market, 
would  not  have  entitled  it  to  a  place  in  such  an  euu- 
meiation.  And  we  cannot  doubt  that  a  domestic 
animal  which  </<»////  appeared  at  the  king's  table  wa< 
no  stranger  on  those  of  his  subjects. 

]f  we  could  be  quite  sure  that  a  bird  of  the  galli 
naceous  order  was  intended  by  the  term  Imrbnr,  wo 
might  with  tolerable  certainty  pronounce  it  the  barn 
door  poultry  ;  f'-r  there  is  no  other  rasnrial  bird  capable 
of  domestication  who<e  claim  approaches  this  in  pro 
bability.  Hut  we  cannot  conceal  the  fact,  that  the 
barburiiii  may  have  been  '/or;  which  certainly  were 
fatted  in  va-t  numbers  by  the  Kgvptians  from  the 
most  remote  antiquity,  and  formed  a  very  important 
article  of  popular  consumption  in  both  the  fresh  and 
salted  state.  Of  this  fact  we  posse-^  historic  testimony: 


An  examination  of  the  various  pas 
sage  s  in  which  the  word  occurs,  which 
:u  are  only  :-ix  in   lunnber,  indicates  an 

animal  either  gregarious  or  sufficiently 
abundant  to  be  taken  in  large  numbers  when  wanted 
("three  hundred  foxes"),  not  too  formidable  to  In- 
handled  by  a  man,  inhabiting  the  vine-country  of  Judea. 
Ju.xv.4;  apt  to  feed  on  grapes  and  spoil  the  clusters, 
c.i.  ii.  i:.;  found  in  ruined  cities.  La.  v.  l-;  No.  iv.  3;  apt  to 
feed  on  human  carcases,  either  on  tile  field  of  battle  or 
dragged  from  the  graves.  l's.  Ixiii.  n,  10.  .Most  of  these 
characters  would  indicate  almost  equally  well  the 
jackal  and  the  fox;  but  some  appear  to  be  distinctive' 
of  the  former.  The  jackal  associates  in  have  packs, 
the  fox  is  solitary:  the  jackal  is  more  noted  for  his 
depredations  in  the  vineyards  than  the  fox,  and  fiv 
i|iients  desolate  cities,  and  violates  graves,  which  we 
have  not  seen  attributed  to  the  fox.  There  is  also 
the  important  point  in  the  identification,  that  the  Arab 
name  xldkul,  or  as  we  spell  \(.}n,'lcid,  is  manifestly  the 


-     ..        v-  X      I:        C   U       1-    C----VJ        , 

'•    "^:    vM^  \'^~[      •-.  \  '  ^M  ;-ij\     vA-A 
^ 


Ifebrew  xln'ml,  slightly  altered.  Some  have  derived  it 
from  an  unused  root  signifying  to  cry  (y^»).  but  the 

-  T 

fox  is  habitually  silent,  whereas  the  nocturnal  cries  of 
tlie  troops  of  jackals  are  proverbial  throughout  the 
Ivist.  ( lesciiius,  liowever,  and  the  better  lexicographers, 
derive  it  from  ^..^  (.</,, mf)  -also  an  unused  root  -to 

dig,  break  through,  or  excavate.  Probably  the  aXu-n-r)? 
of  the  New  Testament  may  be  referred  to  the  same 
animal;  though  nothing  certain  can  lie  predicated.  The 
crafty  rapacity  of  Herod  might  be  represented  by  either, 
and  both  are  dwellers  in  holes.  P>ubse<[iiius  observes 
that  "the  Turks  call  subtle  and  crafty  persons  by  the 
metaphorical  name  of  ciacals  [jackals]." 

^  ith  respect  to  the  device  employed   by  Samson  for 


preserving  got-siv-  Wilkinson. 


avenging  Israel  on  the  Philistines,  .In.  xv  ,  the  abundance 
and  social  habits  of  the  jackal  would  render  the  capture 
of  a  large-  number  no  difficult  matter.  Vohiey  says, 
"The  wolf  and  the  real  fox  are  rare,  but  there  is  a 
prodigious  quantity  of  the  middle  spent  s  named  a/iaraf: 
they  go  in  droves."  And  again,  the  same  traveller 
observes,  "  Shacals  an;  concealed  by  hundreds  in  the 
gardens,  and  among'  ruins  and  tombs."  A  firebrand, 
torch,  or  simple  lamp,  might  then  be  fastened  very 
easily  between  the  tails  of  two.  so  as  not  to  destroy 
the  animals,  and  yet  to  continue  burning  long  enough 
to  allow  them  to  run  some  distance.  The  three  hun 
dred  were  of  course-  distributed  widely  over  the  country 
by  .Samson's  agents  ;  the  terrified  animals  would 
naturally  run  into  the  cover  of  the  corn,  at  the  edge 


KOX 


FRANKINCENSE 


of  which  they  were  set  loose;  the  opposing  wills  of  I  foxes  in  the  deserts."  But  the  most  touching  mention 
the  conjoined  animals  and  the  perpetual  impediment  of  |  of  this  animal  is  that  whereby  the  Lord  Jesus  so  "-ra 
the  corn-stalks  coming  between  them,  would  keep  them  phically  sets  before  us  his  own  deep  humiliation  am1 


in  constant  irritation,  and  make  their  progress  devior^ 


the  corn  being  ripe  and  dry  would  ignite  with  readiness, 
and  the  spreading  fire  would  affright  the  jackals,  and 
preclude  the  possibility  of  their  lying  down,  and  thus 
they  would  probably  be  kept  rushing  hither  and  thither, 
from  field  to  field,  until  they  were  destroyed. 

Absurd  as  some  witlings  have  considered  this  storv. 
the  device  was  familiar  enough  to  the  ancients.  Fn 
the  year  Id7.">  a  brick  was  found  twenty-eight  feet 
below  the  pavement  of  London,  on  which  was  a  bas- 
relief  of  a  man  driving  into  a  field  of  corn  two  foxes 
with  a  torch  fastened  to  their  tails  ( Lelmi.rsCollc-truiea). 
It  is  possible  that  this  may  have  been  intended  to  re 
present  the  incident  in  the  sacred  narrative.  But  the 
1  tomans,  at  the  feast  in  honour  of  Ceres,  the  goddess 
of  corn,  to  whom  they  offered  animals  injurious  to 
cornfields,  were  accustomed  to  turn  into  the  circus 
foxes  with  torches  so  fastened  to  them  as  to  burn 
them  to  death,  in  retaliation  of  the  injuries  done  to 
the  corn  by  foxes  so  furnished. 


Col.  IT.  Smith  thinks  that,  contrary  to  the  received 
opinion,  the  animals  were  not  coupled,  but  that  "each 
fox  had  a  separate  brand;"  for  "it  may  be  questioned 
whether  two  united  would  pull  in  the  same  direction: 
they  would  assuredly  pull  counter  to  each  other." 
But  this,  and  not  the  running  of  each  animal  straight 
to  its  burrow,  was  the  very  result  desired.  Their  drag 
ging  in  various  irregular  directions,  and  the  prevention 
of  their  retirement  to  their  burrows,  would  he  doubtless 
points  distinctly  contemplated  by  the  avenging  Israe 
lite. 

The  other  scriptural  allusions  to  this  animal  may  be 
briefly  noticed.  The  words  of  David  "when  he  was  in 
the  wilderness  of  Judah,"  Ps.  Ixiii.  n,  10,  may  be  said  to 
have  received  their  accomplishment  when  Saul  and  the 
flower  of  his  army,  including  doubtless  many  bitter 
enemies  of  David,  lay  slain  011  the  battle-field  of  Mount 
Cilboa.  The  "  foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that  spoil  the  vines," 
may  refer  to  false  or  worldly  teachers  in  the  Church  of 
Cod,  who  "overthrow  the  faith  of  some/'  insidiously 
teaching  perverse  things.  And  the  more  because  the 
false  and  foolish  prophets  who  "prophesied  out  of  their 
own  hearts,"  are  compared  by  Ezekiel,  oh.  xiii.  t,  to  "the 


poverty.  "  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the 
air  have  nests,  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where 
to  lay  his  head,"  Mat.  via.  *<i;  Lu.  ix.  58.  How  stupen 
dous  was  the  gra.ee  of  the  high  and  lofty  One. 
who.  "though  He  was  rich,  yet  for  our  sa'kes  be 
came  poor,  that  we  through  His  poverty  might  be 
rich!  '  LTo.  viii.n.  And  what  a  lesson  for  us  who 
bear  his  name,  that  we  seek  not  great  tilings  for 
ourselves,  Jo.  xlv. ;,,  in  a  world  where  he  was  rejected 
and  cast  out!  r  i>.  n  ,-;  I 

FRANKINCENSE  [r»iS  (M<>»«/« ),  Lparii]  is  a 

T     : 
resin  which  exudes  spontaneously,  or  is  obtained  by 

incision,  from  several  species  of  MIL-UK ///'a a  "'enus 

belonging    to    the    natural    order   of   Amyridacui-, 
"\~  incense   trees.       /Vox  <<•(///'(/   xcrmln   "-row>   in   a 
height   of    forty   feet,    and    is    found   in   Amboyna 
and  in  mountainous  districts  of  India.      Its  resin, 
known  as  Indian  olibanum,  has  a  balsamic  smell, 
and    burns   with    a   bright  flame   and   fragrant   odour. 
r>.  papyrifera  occur.-  on  the  east  coast  of  Africa,  in 
Abyssinia,  about  ]  OHO  feet  above  the  sea-level,  on  bare 
limestone  rocks,   to  which  the  base  of  the  stem  is  at 
tached  by  a  thick  mass  of  vegetable  substance,  sending 
mots  to  a  prodigious  depth  in  the  rocky  crevices  (Hogg's 
Voi;.  Kingdom,  L'lii).       Its  resin,    the  olibanum   of  Africa 
and  Arabia,  usually  occurs  in  commerce  in   brownish 
masses,  and  in  yellow-tinted  drops  or  "tears"  not  so 
large  as  the   Indian  variety.      This  last  is  still  burned 
in  Hindoo  temples  under  the  names  of  "rhoonda"  and 
"looban"       the    latter    evidently    identical    with    the 


1-76.]        Frankincense—  Eusvellia  serrata. 

Hebrew  "  lebonah ;"  and  it  is  exported  from  Bombay 
in  considerable  quantities  for  the  use  of  Greek  and 
Roman  Catholic  churches. 

The  sacred  incense  of  the  Hebrews  was  compounded 
of  stacte  (or  storax),  galbanum,oiiycha,  and  frankincense, 
in  equal  proportions,  and  mingled  with  salt,  as  the  ori 
ginal  n^CC  (memullach)  imports,  and  as  in  the  margin  of 


FRINGES 


no; 


FRINGES 


;?  !    Frin;;e<l  Dres.s. 
1'shand.'     What 


our  authorized  version  is  rightly  rendered  "salted,"  Ex. 
xsx.  31,  3.5.  This  composition  it  was  unlawful  for  private 
persons  to  imitate.  It  was  reserved  for  the  worship  of 
Jehovah,  and  the  quantity  consumed  on  the  altar 
morning  and  evening  must  have  dif 
fused  a  grateful  atmosphere  around 
the  worshippers.  The  rabbins  used 
to  say  that  the  perfume  was  per 
ceptible  as  far  off  as  Jericho  ;  and 
although  this  is  obviously  exaggera 
tion,  to  the  true  worshipper  it  must 
have  really  been  the  "odour  of 
sanctity,"  and  as  soon  as  lie  came 
within  its  range,  we  can  easily 
imagine  how  on  its  fragrant  and 
mvstical  pinions  his  spirit  felt  as  if 
wafted  towards  heaven.  "Let  my 
prayer  be  set  forth  before  thee  as 
incense,"  says  the  psalmist,  r*.  cxii. -'; 
and  at  the  opening  of  the  seventh 
seal,  in  the  Apocalypse,  i-l>.  uii.  :;,  we 
find  an  angel  standing  at  the  altar, 
having  a  golden  censer  (\if-iavuTiJvt. 
"that  he  should  oti'i  r  it  \\itli  the 
prayers  of  all  saints  upon  tin-  golden 
altar  which  was  before  the  tin-one. 
And  the  smoke  of  tin.1  incense,  which 
came  with  the  prayers  of  the  saints, 
ascended  up  before  (lod  out  of  the  an 
could  represent  in  a  manner  more  encouraging  the  ae- 
ceptableness  to  the  Most  High  of  his  people's  worship  ' 
or  what  could  be  a  more  exquisite  emblem  of  that  higher 
intercession  which  imparts  to  the  praises  ami  prayers  of 
earth  a  charm  and  a  value  not  intrinsic  .'  Frankincense, 
aloii'j;  with  myrrh,  another  precious,  perfume,  was  an 
ingredient  in  the  costly  oblation  which  the  eastern  wor 
shippers  presented  to  the  infant  liedeemer,  lint.  h.  ii: 
and  there  is  one  allusion  in  the  Canticles  which  seems 
to  show  that  frankincense  and  other  resinous  odours, 
although  doubtless  in  a  form  distinct  from  the  sacred 
compound,  were  burned  for  the  honour  and  delight  of 
royaltv.  Espying  the  palanquin  of  Solomon,  with  its 
purple  hangings  and  its  Vscort  of  sixtv  valiant  men, 
the  bride  exclaims, 

"  l.o  !  what  i.s  this,  in  cloud-,  of  Ira-rant  giinis 
That  from  the  wilderness  so  fairly  comes'; 
Already  frankincense  in  columns  ]>ours, 
Ana  all  Aral.ia  hreath.-.-s  from  all  her  stores." 

Sing  iii.  ii  (Mason  <  mud  i. 

I'ut  although  the  primarv  reference  mav  have  been  to 
the  sumptuous  king  of  Israel,  we  are  glad  to  raise  our 
thoughts  to  the  royal  progresses  of  the  true  Prince  of 
peace.  "Jesus  came  from  the  wilderness  of  Judea. 
perfumed  with  myrrh  and  frankincense  and  all  the 
powders  of  the  merchant;  and  when  his  work  was 
finished,  he  entered  his  Father's  mansion  above,  corniiio- 
up  from  the  wilderness  of  earth  fragrant  with  every 
grace  which  it  ever  yielded  ;  for  none  knew  like  him 
how  to  gather  all  its  myrrh  and  all  its  spices"  (MV»iy 
Stuart's  K\IIOS.  of  the  Seng).  [,r.  H.] 

FRINGES  were  commanded  to  be  put  by  the 
children  of  Israel  on  the  borders  of  their  garments 
throughout  their  generations,  Nn.  xv.  ns.  The  word  used 
to  designate  them,  ;vyx  (tzitlizith),  from  the  root  to 

flourish  or  sltinc,  has  been  rendered  KpamrfSa,  fun brlce, 
and  must  denote  something  like  what  we  understand 
by  fringes,  or  rather  pendicles  in  the  shape  of  bobs  or 


tassels.      Fringed  garments,  elaborately  wrought,  were 
'  very  common  among  both  the  ancient   Egyptians  and 
Babylonians,   as   has   been   alreadv  shown   under   EM 
BROIDERY.       No.  277  shows  a   fringed   dress   from   an 


Layard's  Nineveh. 


Kgvptian  painting,  supposed  to  represent  an  Assyrian. 
A  highly  ornamented  Assyrian  dress  is  exhibited  in 
NII.  'J7S.  \\orn  by  a  king,  who  lias  one  hand  on  the 
hilt  of  hU  sword,  and  the  other  supported  by  an 


official  staff.  In  No.  L'7'.1,  we  have  representations  of 
the  Assyrian  fringes  in  detail,  some  from  the  border- 
ings  to  the  tunic,  others  from  the  ample  borders  of  the 
outside  garments.  I'.ut  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
fringes  of  that  description  were  intended  by  the  Jewish 
legislator,  since  they  were  in  such  common  use  that 
they  could  form  no  proper  mark  of  distinction  between 
an  Israelite  and  a  Gentile:  and,  besides,  they  seem  ap 
propriate  to  state-dresses  rather  than  to  ordinary  attire 


I'J.SH. ]    Fringes  of  ancient  Kgyptian  lineu.  -Specimens  in  liiit.  Mus. 

—  while  it  is  plainly  the  latter  which  is  chit  fly  contem 
plated  in  the  prescription  of  Moses.  The  sort  of  fringes 
intended  probably  approached  nearer  to  those  exhibited 
in  No.  2SO.  We  may  the  more  readily  suppose  this, 
as  a  blue  riband  is  enjoined  to  be  put  upon  the  fringe, 
for  the  purpose  probably  of  binding  the  threads  of  the 


FRINGKS 


(JUS 


FROG 


tassel-like  fringes  together,  and  giving  it  a  more  special 
appearance  and  aim. 

The  moral  design  of  this  part  of  Israelitish  dress  is 
declared  to  have  been  that  the  people  might  ''look  upon 
tlie  fringe,  and  remember  all  the  commandments  of  the 
Lord,  and  do  them  ;  that  they  might  not  seek  after 
their  own  heart,  and  after  their  own  eyes,  after  which 
they  used  to  go  awhoring;  but  that  they  might  remem 
ber,  and  do  all  God's  commandments,  and  be  holy  unto 
him."  The  only  question  is,  why  such  a  device  as 
these  fringes  should  have  been  fallen  upon  for  promot 
ing  such  an  end,  or  how  they  were  designed  to  conduce 
towards  it.  "The  many  threads."  says  Ainsworth, 
"  of  the  fringes  on  the  four  skirts  of  their  garment, 
signified  the  many  commandments  of  God  which  they 
should  put  upon  them,  to  be  as  it  \vere  clothed  with 
them,  and  to  walk  in  them:  the  heaven-coloured  riband 
(sky-blue)  taught  them  an  heavenly  affection  to  all  the 
I--iw,  and  an  holy  conversation  ;  and  led  them  spiritually 
to  put  on  the  wedding-garment,  &c.,  that  their  con 
versation  might  be  in  heaven."  Baumgarten  connects 
them  specially  with  the  feet ;  the  fringes  were  to  be 
made  fur  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  eyes  '•from  wanton 
ing  abmad,  and  going  forth  to  commit  adultery  with 
the  powers  of  the  world,  after  the  manner  of  the  na 
tions,  and  that  with  nice  delicacy  they  should  direct 
themselves  upon  the  feet,  and  so  bring  into  remem 
brance  the  law  of  God,  which  prescribed  the  proper  j 
limits  for  all  movements  in  the  hands  and  feet."  This,  j 
however,  seems  to  take  for  granted  that  the  borders  or 
earners  of  the  garments  to  which  the  fringes  were  at 
tached,  were  somehow  suspended  over  the  feet,  which 
does  not  appear  from  the  original  passage  in  Numbers, 
and  is  plainly  discountenanced  by  the  corresponding 
passage  in  Deuteronomy,  where  the  foxr  corners,  or 
wings  of  the  garment,  are  mentioned  as  the  proper 
places  for  the  fringes,  DO.  xxii.  i-.>.  Only  clothing,  or 
garments  generally,  are  connected  with  the  fringe,  but 
no  particular  part  of  dress  individually.  The  expla 
nation  of  Ainsworth  may  be  regarded  as  substantially 
giving  the  true  reason,  excepting  that  no  stress  should 
In:  laid  on  the  number  of  threads  as  indicating  the 
number  of  the  divine  commandments.  The  cord  or 
riband  is  manifestly  spoken  of  as  a  unity:  and  if  several 
threads  were  required  to  form  it,  still  this  is  not  formally 
indicated,  nor  could  the  number  be  such  as  naturally 
to  suggest  the  multiplicity  of  God's  precepts.  In  an 
artificial  badge  of  that  sort  a  certain  measure  of  arbi-  ! 
trariness  was  unavoidable  ;  it  was  enough  if  the  thing 
was  in  its  own  nature  not  unsuitable,  and  was  so  dis 
tinctly  associated  by  the  lawgiver  with  its  main  design 
that  no  one  needed  to  be  in  any  doubt  concerning  it. 

The  later  Jews  turned  the  proscription  into  an  osten 
tatious  display,  and  not  unfrequently  into  a  sort  of 
charm.  Our  Lord  charged  the  Pharisees  of  his  dav 
witli  hypocritically  enlarging  the.  borders  or  fringes  of 
their  garments,  Mat.  xxiii.  5.  And  the  rabbinical  Jews 
have  such  sayings  as  these  respecting  them:  "  Whoso 
diligently  keeps  this  law  of  fringes  is  made  worthy,  and 
shall  see  the  face  of  the  majesty  of  God"  (Baal  Haturim 
on  Xu.  x\0;  "and  when  a  man  is  clothed  with  the 
fringe,  and  goes  out  therewith  to  the  door  of  his  habi 
tation,  he  is  safe,  and  God  rejoiceth,  and  the  destroying 
angel  departeth  from  thence,  and  the  man  shall  be 
delivered  from  all  hurt,"  kc.  (R.  JIe:,arhem  on  <\o.}  The  ! 
Jews  of  the  present  day,  however,  excuse  themselves  i 
from  making  the  prescribed  fringes  on  the  ground  that  i 


they  have  lost  the  secret  of  obtaining  the  proper  dve- 
still  showing  their  excessive  regard  to  the  letter,  and  in 
their  extreme  punctiliousness  about  the  mode  losing 
the  reality  itself.  It  is  said  that  some  of  them  wear, 
instead  of  the  proper  fringe,  a  long  tassel  at  each 
corner,  consisting  of  eight  white  avoollen  threads  knotted 
together;  but  this  does  not  seem  to  be  general. 

FROG  bymty  (tsephan Ica/t),  (Idrpaxos].     The  only 

occasion  in  which  this  animal  is  noticed  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  the  second  plague  upon  Egypt.  "I  will 
smite  all  thy  borders  with  frogs;  and  the  river  shall 
bring  forth  frogs  abundantly,  which  shall  go  up  and 
come  into  thine  house,  and  into  thy  bedchamber,  and 
upon  thy  bed,  and  into  the  house  of  thy  servants,  and 
upon  thy  people,  and  into  thine  ovens,  and  into  thy 
kneading- troughs."  In  fulfilment  of  this  menace,  the 
frogs  came  out  of  the  river  in  numbers  so  immense, 
that  when  they  died,  "they  gathered  them  together 
upon  heaps,  and  the  land  stank,"  Kx.  viii.  2, ::,  11. 

Frogs  exist  in  great  abundance  in  the  Nile.  Three 
or  four  species  have  been  recognized  there,  as  Rana 
picta,  l!.  (*i'(i/t,,tii,  R.  punctata,  all  in  immense  num 
bers;  and  we  believe  also  J£.  tunj/orariu,  our  common 


[281.] 


Frog 


English  frog,  which  is  spread  over  the  whole  northern 
hemisphere.  (Giiutiier  "On  the  Geographical  Distribution  of 
Batrachia,"  Annals  N.  II.  i>.v,O  Which  of  these  species 
constituted  the  plague,  it  is  impossible  to  sav  :  in  all 
probability  all  were  included,  all  having  the  same 
habits,  and  all  living  under  the  same  conditions  of 
existence.  The  miracle  consisted,  not  in  the  making 
of  the  frogs  for  the  occasion,  but  in  the  gathering  of 
them  from  their  ordinary  haunts  in  the  river,  and 
causing  them  to  crowd  and  swarm  where  ordinarily 
they  would  not  have  been  found. 

Ordinarily,  frogs  are  not  to  be  found  in  great  num 
bers,  and  intruding  into  human  habitations,  except  in 
low.  marshy  situations;  and  it  is  well  known  what 
annoyance  and  disgust  is  occasioned  in  such  situations, 
especially  within  the  tropics,  during  the  storms  of  the 
monsoon,  or  at  the  setting  in  of  the  rainy  season,  by 
all  place's  becoming  infested  with  frogs.  But  the 
annoyance  and  horror  connected  with  such  a  visitation 
in  Kgypt,  would  be  aggravated  by  the  manifestly 
supernatural  character  of  the  calamity;  since  frogs 
are  not  usually  found  there  in  large  numbers,  or  so  as 
to  occasion  an}'  trouble.  And  the  evil  would  be  still 
further  increased  by  the  circumstance,  that  the  frog 
was,  for  some  reason  not  certainly  known,  regarded  by 
the  Egyptians  as  a  type  of  Pthah,  their  creative  power 
(Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians,  iv.  p.  351,  soq.) 


FRONT LETS 


GO!) 


FRONTLETS 


In  the  New  Testament,  also,  we  have  but  a  single 
mention  of  the  frog,  viz.  in  the  symbolic  imagery  of  the 
Apocalypse.  Here,  too,  it  is  in  connection  with  one 
of  the  plagues  of  God's  wrath.  "I  saw  three  unclean 
spirits,  like  frogs,  come  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  dragon, 
and  ( nit  of  the  mouth  of  the  beast,  and  out  of  the  mouth 
of  the  false  prophet.  For  they  are  the  spirits  of  devils 
[demons]  working  miracles,  which  go  forth  unto  the 
kings  of  the  earth,  and  of  the  whole  world  [oiKov/j.ei>r)s], 
to  gather  them  to  the  battle  of  that  great  day  of  God 
Almighty."  Ue.  \\i.  13,14.  For  the  interpretation  of  this 
symbol,  we  must  refer  to  the  commentaries  on  the 
Apocalypse,  in  particular  to  Mr.  Elliott's  Jlora:  A{,<>- 
calypticcc,  where  much  curious  matter  may  lie  found 
regarding  the  use  of  the  symbol,  both  in  earlier  and 
later  times.  [p.  n.  (;.] 

FRONTLETS,  in  New  Testament  PHYLACTEKIKS 
((f>u\a.KTripia,  .-'itfc-i/Hard*,  firc.-so-i-ath-i-*).  The  Ik-brew 
word  is  jvsttfe  (totujj/tnth),  probably  li<jamuitx,  and  it 

occurs  only  in  three  passages,  Kx.  xiii.  id;  Do.  vi.  s;xi.  is  - 
each  time  in  the  form  of  a  proverbial  similitude,  "as 
frontlets  between  y<>ur  eyes;"  each  time  also  coupled 
with  a  similar  expression  connected  with  the  hand, 
"as  a  sign  (or  token)  upon  your  band."  In  another 
passage  also,  Ex.  xiii.  n,  we  have  the  same  saying,  with 
the  change  merely  of  a  word;  instead  of  ''as  frontlets," 
it  is  ''as  a  memorial  between  your  eyes."  In  Exodus 
the  expression  is  used  more  immediately  with  reference 
to  the  ordinance  respecting  the  consecration  of  the  first 
born  and  the  passover  solemnity;  but  in  the  two  pas 
sages  of  Deuteronomy  it  bears  respect  to  the  precepts 
and  statutes  of  the  old  covenant  generally.  Of  the 
whole  of  these,  or  of  the  words  in  g.-neral  which  were 
commanded  through  Moses,  it  was  charged  upon  the 
children  of  Israel  that  they  should  "bind  them  f,.r  a 
sign  upon  their  hand,  and  have  them  as  frontlets  be 
tween  their  ryes;"  that  is,  should  keep  them  as  dis 
tinctly  in  view,  and  as  carefully  attend  to  them,  as  if 


[2S2.  ]        I'liylauU-rics  fur  the  lie:nl  and  arm. 
Fnnu  Culmet  ;md  f^.lini. 

they  had  them  legibly  written  on  a  tablet  between 
their  eyes,  and  bound  in  open  characters  upon  their 
hands:  so  that,  wherever  they  looked,  and  whatever 
they  did,  they  could  not  fail  to  have  the  statutes  of 
the  Lord  before  them.  That  this  was  the  meaning  of 
the  expressions  in  question,  and  that  no  actual  written 
memorial  was  intended  to  lie  enjoined  upon  the  Israel 
ites,  is  dear  from  the  nature  of  the  case;  since  no  writ 
ing  to  lie  worn  either  between  the  eyes  or  upon  the 
hand  could,  by  possibility,  have  served  the  purpose  of 
legibly  expressing  all  the  statutes  and  ordinances  of  the 
law.  It  is  clear  also  from  the  alternative  phrases  with 
which  those  in  question  are  associated;  such  as,  "that 
the  Lord's  law  may  lie  in  thy  mouth,"  Kx.  xiii.  o;  "that 
these  words  shall  be  in  thine  heart:"  "that  ve  shall  lay 
VOL  I. 


up  these  my  words  in  your  heart  and  in  your  soul," 
De.  vi.  G;  xi.  18;  in  short,  that  the  inner  and  the  outer  man 
alike— heart,  soul,  eyes,  hands,  mouth— might  be  all,  as 
it  were,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  law,   and  taken 
bound  to  observe  its  precepts.      Such  was  the  evident 
j  meaning  of  this  class  of  injunctions,  and  so  it  was  cer 
tainly  understood  in  ancient  times,  as  may  be  inferred 
alone  from  Pr.  vi.  -Jl,  where  Solomon,  speaking  to  the 
young  of  their  fathers'   commandment  and  the  law  of 
their  mother,  says,  "  Bind  them  continually  upon  thine 
heart,  and  tie  them  upon  thy  neck"— the  real  import 
of  which  is  plain  to  the  most  simple,  and  has  never,  so 
far  as  we  know,  been  misunderstood,  c-o:iip.  alsodi.  iii.  :;;iv.iM. 
-But   the  Jews,   some   time   after   their  return   from 
liabylon    (it    is   not    known   exactly    \vhen\    gave    the 
direction  about  having  the  precepts  of  the  law  as  front 
lets  a  literal  turn,  and  had  portions  of  it  written  out 
and  worn  as  badges  upon  their  peivou.      These  portions 
consisted  of    the   following  passages:    Kx.  xiii.  2-10,  ii-u;; 
l>e.  vi.  ;>-!>;  xi.  i. •;-•_>!;  which  were  written  upon  bits  of  parch 
ment,  and    put   into  a  t-ase  of   leather,  one   for   being 
bound   upon  the  forehead,  and  the  other  upon  the  left 
arm,  inside,   above  the  elbow.      The  arm-case  had  only 
one  cell,  hut   that  for  the  forehead   had  four,  the  texts 
for  it  being  written  on  four  bits  of  parchment,  and  the 
cases    were   hound    by   a    particular    sort   of    thread    or 
thong,  marked  with  small  letters— that  for  the  arm  wind 
ing  in  a  spiral  manner  to  the  middle  finger;  and  the 
other,  after  being   tied  behind   the  head  in  a  knot,  fall 
ing  down  upon  the  chest.      The  two  labels  were  called 
tt/i/iil/!>i,  xitjyiHi-nfiiri'i'x  (according  to  the  common  Jew 
ish  derivation  from  t< /,/ii/ln/i,  prayer*,  as  if  being  espe 
cially  worn   during    prayer;    but  others,   in    particular 
Spencer  (JiuUr  Hi-i,.  iv.  L'.scct.  }\.  would  take  it  in  the  sense 
of  <i<  lit  i. tin. •<  or   /H/'ttiXiit*,  much  the  same  as  totdjihotli 
(deriving  from  ^^,  to  adhere,  or  join  in).     The  latter, 
so   far  as  the  sense   is  concerned,  may  be  regarded  as 
perhaps  the  more  probable  view;  for  there  is  no  proper 
evidence  of  any  peculiar  connection  existing  between 
phylacteries    and    prayers.      They    had    respect    to    tin- 
conduct  rather  than  to  devotion:  and  Maimonides  even 
has  this  deliverance  concerning  them,  "  Let  no  one  pass 
by  the  synagogue  while  prayers  are  being  said  there. 
l'>ut  if  he  has  phylacteries  upon  his  head  he  may  pass 
by.  because  they  show  that  he  is  studious  of  the  law'' 
(l.iglitf.H.t  at  Mat.  xxiii.  ,'•).      The    allusion   to   them    by   our 
Lord.  also,  in  the  passage  of  Matthew  just  referred  to, 
indicates    nothing   as   to   any  special    connection    witli 
prayer,  or  with  superstitious  purposes:  he  simply  points 
to  tlie  pharisaical   practice  of  broadening  the  phylac 
teries  as  a  hypocritical  show  of  extreme  regard  for  the 
law.      So,  too,  Josephus:  "  The  things,"  he  savs,  "which 
exhibit  the  mighty  power  and  benignity  of  God  toward 
us.  are   to   be   borne  about   written    upon  the  head   and 
the  arm.  so  as  to  render  everywhere  manifest  the  good 
will   of  God   in    our   behalf"  (Ant.  iv.  M.      This  seems   to 
have  been  the  original  design  of  tin;  device     in  its  in 
tention  good,  however  om.-  may  be  disposed   to  blame 
the  gross  and   somewhat  childish  manner  of  its  execu 
tion.      The  phylacteries  were  to  serve  as  kind  of  elbow- 
monitors,  calling  upon  the  wearers  and   others  around 
them  to  remomlH.!r  the  special  loving  kindness  of  ( iod  to 
Israel,  and   to  keep  the  statutes  he  had    enjoined   upon 
them  as  their  covenant  <  Jod.      Rut  by  and  by  they  were 
turned  into  instruments  of  religious  vanity  and  display, 
and  abused  to  selfish  purposes  by  those  who  sought,  by 
a  great  profession  of  legal  ritualism,  to  hide  their  defi- 

77 


1-TRLOXG 


cieiicy  of  inward  principle.  Then  they  came  to  lie 
employed  as  charms  or  amulets,  having  a  divine  virtue 
in  them  to  preserve  the  wearer  from  sin  or  from  de 
moniacal  agency;  hence  such  sayings  as  these  concern 
ing  them  in  the  Talmudical  writings:  "  Whosoever  has 
tcpliilim  upon  his  head  ...  is  fortified  against  sin;" 
"they  are  a  bandage  for  cutting  off,"  i.e.  from  various 
kinds  of  danger  or  hostility  (Spencer,  iv .  c.  r>).  And 
Jerome,  cm  Mat.  xxiii.  f>,  speaks  of  them  generally  as 
worn  by  the  Jews  for  guardianship  and  safety  (ob  cus- 
todiam  et  munimentum);  "not  considering  that  they 
were  to  be  borne  in  the  heart,  not  on  the  body."  He 
goes  on  to  remark  that  the  same  thing  substantially 
was  done  by  curtain  superstitious  little  women  among 
the  Christians,  "with  diminutive  gospels,  pieces  of 
wood  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  and  things  of  that  sort, 
showing  a  zeal  for  God,  but  not  according  to  knowledge, 
straining  out  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel."'  So 
strong  is  the  tendency  of  the  human  heart  to  fall  into 
practices  of  superstition,  and,  when  not  rightly  informed 
with  divine  truth,  to  be  ever  treading  over  again  the 
same  round  of  folly! 

The  Caraite  Jews,  who  reject  most  of  the  pharisaical 
usages  and  traditions,  concur  in  the  view  given  above  of 
the  passages  in  the  Pentateuch  respecting  frontlets.  They 
take  the  passages  in  a  figurative,  not  a  literal  sense. 
FUEL.     ,Sct  COAL. 

FULLER.  The  art  of  the  fuller  is  beyond  doubt 
of  great  antiquity  ;  and,  in  respect  to  its  two  leading- 
objects— the  cleansing  and  the  whitening  of  cloth— it 
seems  to  have  reached  at  an  early  period  a  compara 
tive  degree  of  perfection.  Very  scanty  materials. 
however,  exist  for  tracing  its  progress,  or  for  ascer 
taining  exactly,  in  any  particular  age  or  country, 
what  substances  were  employed  in  the  art,  and  what 
methods  were  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  making 
them  effectual.  Only  two  substances  are  mentioned 
in  Scripture — nitre  and  soap,  Jo.  ii.  22.;  Mai.  iii.  2;  the 
former  more  generally  as  connected  with  a  very  strong- 
wash,  the  other  as  distinctively  employed  in  fulling. 
Nitre  was  very  extensively  known  to  the  ancients  for 
its  use  in  this  line.  In  Egypt  it  was  obtained  from 
the  ashes  of  some  plants ;  and  most  likely  the  Israelites 
became  acquainted  with  it  there,  if  they  had  not  pre 
viously  obtained  a  species  of  nitre  from  other  sources. 
It  is  obtained  from  the  urine  of  men  and  animals,  tin- 
alkali  in  which,  after  a  certain  time,  disengages  itself ; 
and  this  was  very  extensively  used  among  the  ancients 
in  place  of  nitre,  producing  at  little  cost  substantially  the 
same  results.  But  an  alkali  was  obtained  from  a  water 
in  Armenia,  and  was  much  employed  for  washing 
purposes.  "The  ancients  made  ointments  of  this 


mineral  alkali  and  oil,  but  not  hard  soap ;  though  by 
these  means  they  approached  nearer  to  the  invention 
than  the  old  Germans  in  their  use  of  wood- ashes ;  for 
dry  solid  soap  can  be  made  with  more  ease  from  the 
mineral  than  the  vegetable  alkali.  I  shall  here  observe 
that  this  alkali  (the  mineral)  wafc  used  for  washing  by 
the  Hebrews,  and  that  it  occurs  in  the  sacred  writings 


[233.J        Egyptian  Fullers  at  work. • -Champollion. 

under  the  name  of  boritli"  (Beckmanu's  Hist,  of  Inventions, 
ii.  p.  07).  The  powerful  cleansing  properties  of  this  borith 
or  soap  are  employed  by  the  prophet  Malaehi  as  a 
figure,  under  which  to  represent  the  prospective  results 
if  Messiah's  appearance,  Mai.  iii.  2;  an  internal  purifica 
tion,  somewhat  corresponding  to  this  external  one, 
should  thereby  be  accomplished  among  men.  The 
shining  whiteness  also  of  the  cloth  that  had  been 
subjected  to  the  purifying  process  is  referred  to  by  St. 
Mark,  when  he  says  of  our  Lord's  garments  on  the 
mount  of  transfiguration,  that  they  became  white,  "so 
as  no  fuller  on  earth  could  whiten  them,"  eh.  ix.  3. 

FULLER'S  FIELD.  Some  well-known  ground, 
in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  twice 
incidentally  referred  to  in  Old  Testament  scripture, 
2  Ki.  xviii.  17;  Is.  vii.  3,  and  each  time  spoken  of  as  con 
nected  with  a  highway,  and  as  near  the  conduit  of 
the  upper  pool.  Its  position  is  not  more  nearly  defined. 
There  was  a  fuller  s  well  (see  EX-ROGEL)  on  the  south 
east  of  the  city,  where,  it  would  seem,  the  fullers  were 
wont  to  carry  on  their  trade.  But  this  lay  down  in  the 
valley  of  Hinnom ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it 
corresponds  to  the  description  given  in  the  passage 
from  Kings,  where  the  ambassadors  of  the  king  of 
Assyria  are  represented  as  "coming  up"  to  that  point, 
and  speaking  from  thence  to  the  people  on  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem.  It  may  have  been  so,  though  nothing  can 
be  positively  affirmed  on  the  subject. 

FURLONG.  The  rendering  in  our  Bibles  of  (rrdSiov, 
or  fifm/iiim.  which  was  the  eighth  of  a  Roman  mile, 
and  equal  to  about  2<>-2  yards  English.  (See  MEASURES.) 


611 


GABRIEL 


G. 


GA'AL  [loathing,  rejection],  the  son  of  one  Ebed, 
who  appears  to  have  resided,  if  not  in  Shechem,  yet  in 
its  immediate  neighbourhood,  and  to  have  been  of 
some  note  there.  Gaal,  his  son,  took  advantage  of  the 
discontent  that  after  a  short  period  began  to  spring  up 
against  Abimelech,  and  emboldened  the  people  to 
throw  off  his  yoke.  He  came  over,  it  is  said,  with  his 
brethren  and  won  the  Shechemites  to  his  confidence;  so 
that  when  at  the  close  of  the  vintage-season  the  people 
held  a  feast  in  the  house  of  their  god  Baal-berith,  and 
became  inflamed  with  wine,  they  cursed  Abimelech, 
and  made  Gaal  their  leader.  The  inhabitants  of  Shechem 
it  is  evident  were  at  the  time  to  a  large  extent  idolaters: 
and  the  majority  of  them  would  seem  to  have  been,  not 
Israelites,  but  descendants  of  the  ancient  Canaanites. 
Hence  Gaal,  who  himself  appears  to  have  been  of  the 
same  stock,  wrought  upon  their  national  feelings,  and 
exhorted  them  to  cast  off  the  authority  of  the  upstart 
Abimelech,  and  fall  back  upon  the  family  of  the  origi 
nal  lord  of  the  place,  "  Hamor,  the  father  of  Shechem," 
Ju.  ix.  28.  In  short,  the  revolt  of  Gaal  seems  to  have 
been  an  attempt  on  a  limited  scale  to  get  rid  of  the 
Israelitish  ascendency,  by  stirring  up  the  old  (.'anaan- 
itish  spirit  of  nationality,  and  for  the  purpose  of  rous 
ing  it  the  more,  pointing  to  the  wrongs  and  oppressions 
that  had  been  practised  bv  the  unscrupulous  son  of 
Gideon.  The  attempt  however  failed;  the  party  of  Gaul 
was  defeated  by  Abimelech,  and  his  retreat  into  She 
chem  was  cut  off  by  Zelml,  the  officer  whom  Abimelech 
had  left  in  charge  of  the  place.  Whither  lie  tied,  or 
what  ultimately  became  of  him,  we  are  not  told;  but 
the  Shechemite  revolt  which  he  had  headed  only  issued 
in  the  destruction  of  the  Oanaanitish  interest  in  the 
place;  for  the  people  themselves  who  adhered  to  Gaal, 
and  the  stronghold  of  their  god,  were  burned  to  ashes, 
Ju.  ix.  44-. Hi. 

GA'ASH  [xfiakiii;/,  earthquake],  a  particular  bill  in 
the  range  of  Mount  Kphraim,  on  the  north  side  of 
which  Joshua  died  and  was  buried.  It  does  not  occur 
again  except  in  connection  with  one  of  David's  valiant 
men,  who  is  said  to  have  been  of  the  brooks  of  (iaash, 
2  Sa.  xxiii.  :irt;  1  Ch.  xi.  :;L>. 

GAB'BATHA,  the  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  term  for 
what  in  Greek  was  called  r6  Xttioffrpwrov,  thr  Pardiunt. 
It  comes  into  notice  as  the  precise  place  in  which,  ac 
cording  to  St.  John,  Pilate  gave  formal  sentence  against 
Jesus,  Jn.  xix.  13.  The  Hebrew  word  docs  not  exactly  cor 
respond  in  import  with  the  Greek,  ami  points  rather  to  the 
raised  or  elevated  character  of  the  place  in  question, 
than  to  the  nature  or  appearance  of  the  floor.  From 
35)  y(t/>,  back,  or  as  some  think  from  r/alaJi,  to  be  high, 
the  term  yabbatka  is  understood  to  have  meant  ridge  or 
deration,  such  as  a  judge  might  ascend  for  the  purpose 
of  hearing  a  cause  or  pronouncing  a  decision.  That  it 
was  of  this  nature  seems  plain  from  the  words  of  the 
evangelist,  "  When  Pilate  therefore  heard  that  saying, 
he  brought  forth  Jesus,  and  sat  down  in  the  judgment- 
seat,  in  a  place  that  is  called  the  Pavement,  but  in  the 
Hebrew  Gabbatha."  It  was  manifestly  close  to  the 
praetorium,  probably  in  front  of  it,  and  from  having  an 


ornamental  or  mosaic  floor  was  called  emphatically 
the  Pavement.  Platforms  with  such  a  pavement  might 
very  naturally  become  common  with  Roman  comman 
ders,  since  Julius  Ca?sar  was  wont  to  carry  about  with 
him  pieces  of  marble  ready  fitted,  that  they  might  be 
laid  down  in  the  proetorium  wherever  he  encamped 
(Suet.  Jul.  Cios.  c.  4C>).  Josephus  does  not  mention  the 
place  before  us  by  name,  but  he  gives  instances  of 
Pilate  and  other  Roman  governors  seating  themselves 
for  judgment  in  public  before  the  praetorium  or  in  the 
market-place  vwar.«,  ii.  0,3;  it,  *). 

GABRIEL  [/Km  o/(<W,  or  (ioil's  mighty  one],  the 
name  assumed  by.  an  angel,  who  was  charged  with 
communicating  important  messages,  first  to  Daniel, 
ch.  viii.  ir>;  ix.  21,  and  then  at  the  commencement  of  the 
gospel  era  to  Zecharias,  the  father  of  John  the  Baptist, 
and  the  Virgin  Mary,  Lu.  i.  io,2fi.  The  chief  peculiarity 
in  the  case  is  that  any  name  should  have  been  assumed 
by  a  messenger  from  the  upper  sanctuary,  when  simply 
coming  to  disclose  the  mind  of  God  to  his  servants  on 
earth,  or  revealing  to  them  things  to  come.  It  arose, 
however,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  as  com 
pared  with  the  nature  of  the  messages  conveyed — the 
one  being  peculiarly  dark  and  depressing,  the  other 
giving  indication  of  tilings  singularly  great  and  won 
derful,  such  as  at  tun/  time  would  have  put  faith  to  the 
stretch,  and  might  almost  have  seemed  to  mock  its  expec 
tations,  when  delivered  in  a  season  of  gloom  and  dis 
couragement.  In  these  circumstances  it  was  well  fitted 
to  reassure  the  heart  of  faith  that  the  messenger  who 
brought  the  tidings  of  coming  good  was  not  only  an 
angel  of  God,  but  an  angel  whose  very  name  bore  im 
pressed  on  it  the  might  and  energy  of  Godhead.  The 
appearance  of  such  an  one  on  the  field  of  action  carried 
with  it  a  pledge  that  higher  forces  than  those  of  nature 
should  now  be  called  into  play,  and  that  nothing  ut 
tered  respecting  God's  purposes  should  be  found  too 
hard  to  be  accomplished.  If  viewed  in  this  light,  which 
is  the  one  the  Scripture  narrative  itself  suggests, 
the  designation  of  the  angel  in  question  by  the  name  of 
Gabriel  receives  a  quite  natural  explanation.  When 
the  visions  recorded  in  Da.  viii.  and  ix.  were  given  to 
Daniel,  everything  was  at  the  lowest  ebb  with  the 
kingdom  of  God;  it  seemed  as  if  worldly  elements  were 
allowed  to  ferment  and  work  at  will  in  the  affairs  of 
men,  and  the  interests  of  the  covenant  were  to  be  lost 
sight  of  amid  the  struggles  and  projects  of  the  great 
earthly  kingdoms  which  were  contending  for  the  mastery. 
How  cheering  at  such  a  time  to  learn  from  the  God- 
empowered  hero  of  the  heavenly  hosts,  that  these  out 
ward  movements  were  but  the  strivings  of  the  potsherds 
of  the  earth,  which  should  soon  come  to  nought,  while 
God's  purpose  to  restore  the  covenant  -  people,  to 
establish  for  ever  the  covenant  itself,  and  through 
Messiah  the  Prince  set  all  on  a  firm  and  immoveable 
footing,  was  definitely  fixed  and  settled !  So,  too,  at 
the  commencement  of  the  gospel  era,  however  general 
the  expectation  was  of  a  coming  deliverance,  as  regards 
the  kind  of  deliverance  that  behoved  to  be  accom- 
|  plished  and  the  means  necessary  to  accomplish  it,  so 
j  far  from  there  being  any  proper  faith  beforehand,  the 


GAD 


012 


G A DAK A 


main  clitliculty  was  to  get  men  to  believe  when  the 
purpose  of  God  was  declared,  and  the  operations  of  hit 
hand  were  before  their  eyes.  "  \Yhereby  shall  1  know 
it '."  was  Zecharias'  ready  question  of  doubt  the  mo 
ment  he  heard  of  the  first,  and  comparatively  one  of 
the  least  wonderful,  steps  in  the  process.  The  affairs 
of  the  sacred  commonwealth  had  been  so  long  depressed, 
it  had  altogether  assumed  so  much  the  aspect  of  a 
tributary  worldly  kingdom,  and  the  interests  of  the 
house  of  David,  in  particular,  had  fallen  into  such 
decrepitude  and  oblivion,  that  the  things  which  the 
purpose  of  God  required  to  be  done,  had  not  so  much 
as  entered  the  minds  of  men  to  conceive.  Most  lit  was 
it,  therefore,  that  they  should  have  their  first  announce 
ment  from  the  lips  of  a  Gabriel,  who,  as  the  represen 
tative  and  bearer  of  God's  might,  could  inspire  confi 
dence  in  the  certainty  of  what  was  to  be  brought  to 
pass.  The  temporary  visitation  of  dumbness  inflicted 
on  Xocharias.  was  a  clear  sign  that  •he  had  at  command 
what  his  name  imported. 

For  the  Jewish  fancies  regarding  Gabriel,  and  the 
other  so-called  archangels,  see  under  AXUKI.S. 

GAD  [(•/•()()/']-   1-  A  s011  °f  Jacob,  born  to  him  by  Zil- 
pah.  the  maid  of  Leah,  and  the  head  of  one  of  the  twelve 
tribes.      Of   Gad   as   an  individual  we  know  nothing, 
except   what   is  written   of   him  in  common  with  the 
other  sons  of  Jacob.      Along  with  them  we  are  to  un 
derstand   that   he   took    part  in  the   transactions  con 
nected  with  the  selling  of  Joseph  into  Egypt,  and  the 
later  transactions  which  led   to   the   settlement  of  the 
whole  family  of  Jacob  in  that  land  of  temporary  pro 
tection  and  support.      At  the  time  of  the  exodus  the 
tribe  numbered  4/).()")0  men  of  twenty  years  old  and  up 
wards;  and  along  with  Reuben  ami  Manasseh  they  had 
large  possosioiis  in  sheep  and  cattle,  which  led  to  their 
ultimate  settlement  in  the  land  of  Gilead,  on  the  east 
of  Jordan.       The  play   upon   the   name  in   the   bless 
ing   pronounced   upon   Gad    by   Jacob:    "Gad.    troops 
shall  cut  in  upon  him.  but  he  shall  cut  the  heel"  ^such 
is    the    literal    rendering    of    Ge.    xlix.    1P\    indicates 
something  of  a  valiant,  resolute,  and  courageous  spirit 
as  characteristic  of  the  tribe— such  as  might  well  pro 
voke   attacks  from   hostile  neighbours,  but  only  to  be 
met  by  determined  resistance,  or  followed  up  with  suc 
cessful  reprisals.     And  the  fuller  blessing  pronounced 
by  Moses  speaks  yet  more  decidedly  in  the  same  strain. 
••'Blessed  be  he  that  enlargeth  Gad:   he  d \velleth  as  a 
lion,  and  teareth  the  arm  with  the  crown  of  the  head. 
&e.      The  meaning  seems  to  be.  that  the  tribe  had  dis 
played    lion-like   courage    ami  energy  in   the   conflicts 
that    had    been    held    with    the    former    possessors    of 
Gilead:   and  now  that  a  large  portion  of  the  conquered 
countrv  was  to  be   occupied   by  this  tribe,  it  bade  fair 
for  maintaining  its  ground,  and  even  enlarging  its  pos 
sessions.      The  members  of  it  required  such  qualities: 
for  their  position  in  the  land  of  Gilead  peculiarly  ex 
posed    them    to    inroads    from    the   wandering  Arabs, 
r.ut  they  kept  their  ground  against  these,  and  it  would 
appear   somewhat   encroached   upon  the   neighbouring 
tribe  of  Manasseh :  for  they  are  mentioned  in  1  I'll.  v.  11 . 
as  having  extended  their  dwellings  as  far  as  Salcah, 
which  had  originally  been  assigned  to  Manasseh,  De.iii. 
10,13.      Beyond    this    general   activity,    however,    and 
pushing  energy,  which  seemed  to  have  characterized  the  j 
tribe  of  Gad,"  nothing  remarkable  is  noticed  respecting  j 
them  in  sacred  history.      The  tribe  furnished  110  judge,  ! 
ruler,  or  prophet,  as  far  as  we  know,  to  take  a  distin- 


!  guished  and  prominent  place  in  the  affairs  of  the  cove- 
!  nant;   and  it   is   but  too  probable  that  their  distance 
from  the  centre  of  worship  operated  unfavourably  on 
the  tone  and  temper  of  their  minds  in  a  religions  point 
of  view. 

2.  GAD  was  the  name  also  of  a  prophet  in  the  time 
of  David,  but  whose  birth-place  and  lineage  are  left 
altogether  unnoticed.  He  is  first  mentioned  in  con 
nection  with  the  persecutions  of  David,  during  which 
he  gave  David  the  advice  to  remove  from  the  hold  of 
Adullam.  and  get  into  the  land  of  Judah,  -2  &\.  \\\i.  :>. 
He  must  therefore  have  been  among  the  first  who 
attached  themselves  to  the  person  and  cause  of  David. 
and  in  all  probability  had  become  acquainted  with 
David  in  the  course  of  those  visits  which  in  early  life 
he  paid  to  Samuel  and  the  schools  of  the  prophets. 
As  Gad's  connection  with  David  began  early,  so  it 
continued  through  life.  He  is  called  "  David's  seer,'' 
as  being  much  about  him.  1  Ch.  xxi.  1>;  and  was  the 
medium  of  the  divine  communication  to  David  in  one 
of  the  latest  public  transactions  of  his  reign,  when 
three  forms  of  chastisement  were  proposed  to  him, 
that  he  might  choose  which  should  be  administered  to 
him  and  his  people  for  their  backsliding,  2  Sa.  xxiv.  H. 
Gad  is  also  mentioned  as  one  of  those  seers  who  wrote 
accounts  of  the  transactions  of  David's  time.  1  Ch.  xxix 
2'.);  but  whether  his  narrative  has  been  engrossed  in  the 
histories  that  have  come  down  to  us  of  that  period,  or 
has  been  altogether  lost,  we  have  not  sufficient  mate 
rials  for  determining. 

GAD'ARA,  GADA HEXES.  Gadara  is  not  ex 
plicitly  mentioned  in  the  gospel  narrative  ;  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  from  it  is  named  the  country  of 
the  Gadarencs.  where  one  of  our  Lord's  most  remark 
able  miracles  was  wrought,  Mar.  v.  1;  Ln.  viii.  2t>;  supposing 
this  to  be  the  correct  reading.  In  the  corresponding 
passage  of  St.  Matthew's  gospel,  cli.  viii.  28,  the  received 
text  has  Gergesenes,  instead  of  Gadarenes ;  but.  as 
four  of  the  older  MSS..  including  the  Vatican  B,  read 
G'aclarcnct,  Tischendorf  and  several  of  the  later  critics 
have  adopted  this  as  the  proper  reading.  The  same 
authorities,  however,  have  substituted  Gerasenes  in 
the  impels  of  Mark  and  Luke,  and  it  is  very  probable 
|  thatTthere  were  from  the  first  two  names  applied  to  the 
•  locality— the  one  more  specific. and  the  other  more 
general.  ^'u  GERA^O  Supposing  the  country  of 
the  Gadarenes  to  be  the  name  given  to  the  region 
in  St.  Matthew's  gospel,  then  Gadara  must  have  been 
the  place  from  which  the  name  was  derived.  Its  posi 
tion  was  to  the  south-east  of  the  lake.  It  was  sixty- 
stadia,  or  n  earl  v  eight  Eomaii  miles,  from  the  town  of 
Tiberias,  and  is  spoken  of  by  Josephus  as  the  capital 
of  the  district  called  Periea  vWars,  iv.  7,  sY  It  stood  on 
an  elevation,  was  well  fortified,  and  is  even  called  by 
IVlybius  the  strongest  city  in  those  parts  (\.  n}. 
After  having  been  destroyed  during  the  wars  which 
the  Jews  had  to  wage  with  the  Syrian  kings,  it  was 
restored  by  Pompey  at  the  suit  of  one  of  his  freedmen, 
Demetrius,  a  native  of  the  place  (Jo*.  Wars,  i.  7, 71);  and 
it  was  added  by  C;esar  Augustus  to  the  dominions  of 
Herod,  along  with  Hippos  and  Samaria,  as  a  special 
token  of  favour  on  account  of  Herod's  loyalty  and 
munificence  (Jos.  Wars,  i.  20,  .tf.  It  was,  however,  a  Gre 
cian  rather  than  a  Jewish  city;  and  after  Herod's 
death  it  was  on  that  account  assigned  to  the  prefecture 
of  Svria.  Yet  that  there  must  have  been  a  consider 
able  "Jewish  population  in  it  is  evident  from  its  having, 


GAIUS 


013 


GALATiA 


at  an  earlier  period,  been  fixed  on  by  Gabinius,  the  Diana.  There'  was  another  Gains,  however,  who  was 
lloman  governor,  as  one  of  the  five  cities  in  which  he  also  a  convert  and  companion  of  Paul  in  travel,  called 
placed  councils  or  sanhedrim  for  the  management  of  Gains  of  Dcrbe,  Ac.  xx.  4.  But  we  know  nothing  fur- 
Jewish  affairs  (Jos.  Ant.  .\iv.  5,  4).  At  the  outbreak  of  ther  of  cither  of  them. 

the  Jewish  war  against  Koine,  it  was  seized  by  the  GALA'TIA,  a  district  of  Asia  .Minor,  bounded  on 
insurgents;  but  -was  recaptured  by  Vespasian  with  the  north  by  Bithynia  and  Paphlagonia,  on  the  east  by- 
terrible  slaughter,  and  the  city  itself,  with  the  sur-  Poirtus,  and  on  the  south  and  west  by  Cappadocia  and 
rounding  villages  reduced  to  ashes  (Wars,  iii.  7,  i).  It  Phrygia.  It  was  traversed  in  its  eastern  portion  by 
appears,  however,  to  have  been  again  rebuilt;  for  in  the  river  Ilalys.  and,  though  hilly,  abounded  in  tracts 
the  early  centuries  it  is  mentioned  as  the  seat  of  a  of  fertile  country.  Originally  a  portion  of  ancient 
Christian  bishop,  who  represented  it  in  the  councils  Phrygia,  it  received  its  name  from  a  detachment  of 
both  of  Nice  and  of  Kphesus.  those  vast  hordes  which,  under  the  conduct  of  Breiimis, 


The  ruins  of  L'ui  AY/.s  are  all  that  now  remain  of  the 
ancient  Gadara.  They  occupy  a  space  of  about  two 
miles  in  circumference,  and  traces  of  fortifications  are 
to  be  seen  all  around.  On  the  northern  side  of  the 
hill  arc  the  remains  of  a  theatre,  the  benches  of  which 
still  appear,  but  the  front  is  gone.  There  are  the 
remains  also  of  a  street  which  had  stretched  through 
the  length  of  the  city,  and  was  lined  by  a  colonnade 
on  each  side,  of  which  the  pavement  exists  in  -j-ood 
preservation,  but  the  columns  are  all  prostrate.  The 
ruins  of  a  cathedral,  chiefly  in  the  Corinthian  style  of 
architecture,  have  been  detected  in  this  street,  and  of 
some  other  public  buildings.  But  "  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  remains  of  Gadara  are  its  tombs,  which  lie  on 
the  east  and  north-east  of  the  hill.  They  are  excavated 
in  the  limestone  rock,  like  those  around  Jerusalem; 
and  consist  of  chambers  of  various  dimensions,  some 
more  than  twenty  feet  square,  and  recesses  for  bodies. 
The  doors  are  all  massive  slabs  of  stone,  a  few  orna 
mented  with  panels,  but  most  of  them  plain.  Some  of 
these  doors  still  remain  in  their  places,  and  can  be 
opened  and  shut  with  case,  considt  rinir  their  threat 
weight.  The  hinge  is  formed  of  a  pail  of  the  stone 
left  projecting  above  and  below,  and  let  into  sockets 
cut  in  the  rock.  The  present  inhabitants  of  I'm  Keis, 
when  it  is  inhabited,  are  all  Troglodites  'dwelling  in 
the  tombs,"  like  the  poor  maniac  of  old;  and  occa 
sionally  they  are  almost  as  dangerous  to  the  solitary 
traveller.  Some  of  those  tombs  we  still  see  beside  the 
city  formed  the  maniac's  habitation  [see,  however,  under 
GKKA.SA,  reasons  for  doubting  the  correctness  of  this 
view];  down  that  hill-side  he  ran  to  meet  the  Saviour, 
who  came  across  the  lake  from  Capernaum.  He  met 
him  at  no  great  distance  from  the  shore.  On  the  side 
of  that  declivity,  by  which  the  plateau  of  Gaulonitis 
breaks  down  into  the  lake,  the  great  herd  of  swine  was 
feeding;  and  down  that  steep  place  they  fled,  and 
perished  in  the  waters.''  (Mun-.-iy's  ]l:itnl-l«,.,k  <,f  Syria  :u,4 
I'alusUnu,  by  I'm-tur.  p  .'i.'n  ) 

III  the  neighbourhood  of  Gadara,  ab  nit  three  miles 
to  the  north,  are  hot  springs,  much  celebrated  in  anti 
quity,  and  commonly  called  the  In  it  springs  of  Amatha, 
but  sometimes  also  of  Gadara.  There  are  altogether 
seven  or  ei-ht  of  them.  As  they  were  much  fre 
quented,  and  reckoned  medicinal,  there  wcie  buildings 


in  the  third  century  before  Christ,  left  their  native 
country  Gaul,  and  spread  themselves  over  the  northern 
parts  of  Italy  and  Greece. 

The  word  I'dXarai,  which  is  the  same  as  KtXrai, 
indicates  the  Celtic  origin  of  these  tribes.  On  their 
arrival  at  Danlania,  disputes  took  place  among  the 
chiefs,  and  a  considerable  body,  after  traversing  Thrace, 
settled  near  Byzantium,  \\hcre  they  became  the 
scourge  of  the  surrounding  country.  Attracted  at 
length  by  the  rich  plains  of  Ilithynia,  and  the  offers  of 
Nicomedes  ].,  the  king  of  that  country,  who  was 
anxious  to  sei  lire  their  assistance  in  the  civil  wars  by 
which  lie  was  harassed,  they  crossed  the  P.osphorus,  and 
at  once  established  themselves  in  Asia  .Minor.  Though 
in  number,  it  is  said,  only  LMMHMi,  such  was  their  ac 
tivity  and  skill  in  war  that  they  speedily  overran  the 
peninsula,  which  they  divided  among  their  three  tribes, 
the  Trocmi,  the  Tobstoboii,  and  the  Tectosages. 
N\  ithoiit  any  fixed  territory  they  supported  themselves 
partly  by  piedatory  excursions  and  partly  by  engaging 
as  mercenaries  in  foreign  wars.  At  length  their  ex 
actions  became  insupportable,  and  the  neighbouring 
kings  took  up  arms  against  tin  in.  The  Tectosages 
first  suffered  a  severe  defeat  at  the  hands  of  Antioehus  I ., 
king  of  Syria,  -who  was  hence  called  >W<  )•,  or  saviour. 
Attains,  king  of  Pcr^amtmi.  gained  a  victory  o\  er  the 
other  two  tribes.  They  still,  however,  remained  the 
terror  of  Asia,  until,  siding  with  Antioehus  at  Mav,- 
in  sia,  tiny  brought  upon  thcnisehes  the  power  of  the 
li'oman  empire.  In  the  year  H.r.  ],M>  the  consul 
Cn.  Manlius,  assisted  by  Kumeiies,  kin^;  of  Pcr^amum, 
inarched  against  them,  and  after  two  sanguinary 
battles  succeeded  in  reducing  them  to  dependence,  and 
confining  them  to  the  district  which  thonceforwai  d 
was  known  by  the  name  of  Galatia.  At  first  they 
were  governed  by  four  tetrarchs,  which  were  after 
wards  reduced  to  one,  in  favour  of  Deiotarus,  the 
friend  and  partisan  of  I'ompey,  whose  fall  he  slumd. 
To  part  of  the  dominions  of  Deiotarus  Amvntas  suc 
ceeded;  and  on  the  death  of  the  latter,  A. p.  'jr.,  the 
Koinans  assumed  the  direct  government  of  Galatia, 
anil  made  it  a  province. 

The  Tectosages  came  fiom  the  count  ry  near  TouloiiKo, 
and  after  the  lapse  of  centuries.  Jerome  (I'ri.i  in  V.\>  <;,il.) 
discovered  an  affinity  between  the  language  of  Galatia 
and  that  spoken  at  Treves.  From  their  admixture, 


erected  near  them  for  the  accommodation  of  visitants,  and 
the  remains  of  which  are  still  to  be  seen.  The  Arabs  however,  with  the  native  population,  the  immigrants 
of  the  present  day  have  strong  faith  in  the  medicinal  became  familiar  with  the  Greek  tongue;  and  hence  the 
virtues  of  the  waters.  j  inhabitants  received  the  name  of  Gallogi-eci.  Ancient 

GAI'US,  an  early  convert,  residing  at  Corinth,  and  writers  make  mention  of  three  principal  towns  in  this 
Paul's  host  thereat  the  time  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  j  district  -  A neyra,  the  metropolis,  \\hich  still  exists 
was  written,  cli.  \vj  L':t ;  but  mentioned  elsewhere  as  a  '"  under  the  name  of  Augur  or  Angorah;  Pessinus,  and 
man  of  Macedonia.  Ac.  ,\ix.  •>'.>,  who  had  gone  with  Paul  Tavium  :  the  two  latter  were  commercially  important. 
from  Greece  to  Asia,  and  was  with  him  at  Kphesus,  Large  numbers  of  Jews  fiequented  the  province  for  the 
when  the  uproar  broke  out  respecting  the  worship  of  purposes  of  trade.  The  Galatians,  as  portrayed  by 


GALATIANS 


GU 


GALATIANJS 


St.  Paul  in  his  epistle  to  them,  seem  to  have  retained 
strong  traces  of  that  impulsive  and  fickle  character 
which  history  ascribes  to  the  Celtic  tribes,  and  which 
is  still  visible  in  the  nations  that  have  sprung  from 

them  (sec  Strabo,  1L1,  500-fl;  Liv.  38. 10,  4i>;  2  Mac.  viii.  20;  Cramer, 
Asia  Minor,  2,  sou.  viii.;  Winer,  Kual-Worterb.  s.v.) 

GALATIANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE.     One  of  the 

lesser,  hut  most  important  epistles  of  the  great  apostle 
of  the  Gentiles,  written  probably  soon  after  his  second 
visit  to  Galatia,  recorded  in  Ac.  xviii.  23. 

Genuineness. — This  epistle  bears  so  unmistakeably 
the  impress  of  the  apostle's  mind  and  style,  and  its 
contents  tally  so  closely,  yet  naturally,  with  the  history 
of  the  book  of  Acts,  that  its  genuineness  has  never 
been  doubted.  It  is  one  of  the  few  which  the  restless 
scepticism  of  German  criticism  has  not  as  yet  ventured 
to  assail;  for  Bruno  Bauer's  attempt  (Bcrliij,  iv,n>,  to 
prove  that  it  is  a  compilation  of  later  times  from  the 
epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Corinthians,  has  received 
the  merited  condemnation  even  of  rationalistic  inter 
preters.  External  testinn  my.  though  IK  >t  in  the  earliest 
age  very  distinct,  is  also,  in  the  absence  of  anything  on 
the  other  side,  decisive.  Apparent  allusions  in  the 
apostolical  fathers  are  the  following: — Clemens  Rom. 
(Ep.  c. 40),  "Christ  gave  his  blood  for  us  by  the  will  of 

God,"  conip.  Ga.  i.  4;  Ignatius  CEp.  ad  Phil.  s.  1),  "  Your 
bishop  did  not  receive  his  ministry  from  himself,  or 
from  man,  but  through  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
of  God  the  Father,  who  raised  him  from  the  dead," 
sceGa.  i.i;  Polycarp  (Ep.  ad  Phil.  c.  12),  "Who  are  about 
to  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  his  Father, 
who  raised  him  from  the  dead,"  comp.  Ga.  i.  1.  Justin 
Martyr,  or  whoever  was  the  author  of  the  Graf.  Gra:<\ 
in  his  works,  quotes  Ga.  iv.  12,  "  Be  ye  as  I  am,  for  I 
(was)  as  you."  With  Irenseus  the  evidence  becomes  ex 
press.  "  Paul  the  apostle,"  that  father  writes  (C.  Ilrcr.  iii. 
c. o.s.6),  "saying,  'for  if  ye  served  them  which  were  no 
gods,  now  knowing  God,  or  rather  known  of  him,1  dis 
tinguishes  false  deities  from  the  true  God,"  Ga.  iv.  8-9. 
So  Clemens  Alex.,  "Wherefore  Paul  to  the  Galatians 
says,  'My  little  children,  of  whom  I  travail  in  birth,'" 
&c.  (Strom.  I.  iii.;  comp.  Ga.  iv.  19.)  After  this  date  the 
references  become  as  numerous  as  they  are  to  other 
portions  of  the  New  Testament. 

Time  and  place  of  writing. — Upon  these  points  dif 
ferent  opinions  have  prevailed.  We  may  dismiss  as 
exploded  the  two  extreme  hypotheses — the  first,  that  of 
Michaelis  and  Koppe.  who  regard  the  epistle  as  among 
the  earliest  of  St.  Paul ;  the  second,  that  of  Schroder 
and  others,  who  rank  it  among  the  latest — the  former 
defending  the  authenticity  of  the  subscription  importing 
that  it  "was  written  from  Rome."  which  the  best 
critics  pronounce  spurious.  The  determination  of  the 
question  partly  depends  upon  the  number  of  visits 
whicli  St.  Paul  may  be  supposed  to  have  paid  to 
Galatia.  The  advocates  of  a  date  earlier  than  A.D.  50 
suppose  that  the  persons  addressed  under  the  name  of 
Galatians  were  not  the  inhabitants  of  Galatia  proper, 
but  of  Lystra  and  Derbe,  Ac.  xiv.  c,  since  among  the 
seven  districts  into  which  Asia  Minor  was  divided  by 
the  Romans  the  name  of  Lycaonia  does  not  occur;  the 
latter  therefore,  with  its  cities  of  Derbe  and  Lystra, 
must  have  been  included  in  the  province  of  Galatia,  as 
indeed  Pliny  (H.X.v.  27),  makes  it  a  part  thereof.  It  is 
urged,  in  addition,  that  while  copious  details  are  given 
in  Ac.  xiv.  respecting  the  founding  of  the  Lycaonian 
churches,  the  first  mention  of  Galatia,  Ac.  xvi.  o,  is 


merely  to  the  effect  that  St.  Paul  passed  through  that 
country.  On  these  grounds  Paulus,  Ulrich  (Stud,  und 
Krit.  is.'i<>),  Bottger,  and  others,  hold  that  under  the 
term  irepix^pov,  "  the  region  round  about,"  Ac.  xiv.  o, 
Galatia  must  be  included  :  and  therefore  they  put  back 
the  composition  of  the  epistle  to  a  date  anterior  to  the 
apostolic  council,  Ac.  xv.  Plausible  as  this  hypothesis 
is,  it  rests  upon  insufficient  grounds.  It  is  certain  that 
Luke  did  not  follow  the  Roman  division  into  provinces 
(which,  moreover,  was  frequently  changed),  because  he 
specially  mentions  Lycaonia,  which  was  no  province, 
and  distinguishes  it  from  Galatia.  And  as  to  the  latter 
point,  no  valid  inferences  can  be  drawn  from  the  com 
parative  silence  of  the  inspired  history  upon  the  details 
of  St.  Paul's  labours  in  particular  places :  his  journey 
to  Crete,  e.f/.  is  nowhere  recorded.  There  seems  there 
fore  no  reason  to  depart  from  the  common  opinion  that 
the  apostle's  first  visit  is  recorded  in  Ac.  xvi.  G;  and 
consequently  the  epistle  must  have  been  written  subse 
quently  to  the  council,  Ac.  xv.,  or  A.D.  50.  With  this, 
too,  the  references  in  the  epistle  itself  best  agree.  The 
visit  to  Jerusalem  alluded  to  in  eh.  ii.  1-10,  is,  on  the 
best  grounds,  supposed  to  be  identical  with  that  of 
Ac.  xv. ;  and  the  apostle  speaks  of  it  as  a  thing  of  the 
past.  The  second  visit  of  St.  Paul  is  mentioned  in 
Ac.  xviii.  23;  and  the  expressions  of  the  epistle  (ch.i. 9; 
iv.  13, 10)  point  also  to  this  as  a  thing  of  the  past.  If 
with  these  data  we  couple  the  plain  inference  from  the 
expression  in  Ga.  i.  6,  OUTCOJ  rax«'w?,  that  no  long  time 
had  elapsed  since  their  conversion,  we  shall  be  led  to 
place  the  writing  of  the  epistle  no  later  than  the  com 
mencement  of  St.  Paul's  prolonged  stay  at  Ephesus, 
Ac.  six.,  or  about  A.D.  55.  From  the  similarity  between 
our  epistle  and  that  to  the  Romans,  it  has  been  supposed 
by  some  (Conybcaro  and  Ilowson,  Stein,  &c.),  to  have  been 
written  at  the  same  time,  viz  at  Corinth,  about  A.D. 
57;  but  for  the  foregoing  reasons  this  is  improbable. 
|  The  order  of  things  then  was  probably  as  follows: — At 
his  first  visit  St.  Paul  experienced  a  most  favourable 
reception  from  the  Galatians,  who  exhibited  a  strong 
,  personal  attachment  to  him,  Ga.  iv.  \?,.  After  his  de 
parture  the  judai/ing  teachers  commenced  their  work; 
and  on  the  apostle's  second  visit  he  found  the  noxious 
influence  taking  effect.  During  his  short  sojourn  he 
endeavoured  by  oral  instruction  to  meet  the  evil;  but 
learning  after  his  departure  to  Ephesus  that  his  converts 
were  again  lapsing  from  the  faith,  under  deep  emotion  of 
mind  he  addressed  this  fervent  epistle  to  them. 

Occasion  of  the  epistle. — This  lies  on  the  surface  of 
it.  Of  all  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul  it  discovers  most 
clearly  the  sentiments  of  that  judaizing  party  which 
with  such  inveterate  hostility  pursued  the  apostle,  and 
endeavoured  to  mar  his  work.  Undeterred  by  the  de 
cisions  of  the  council  of  Jerusalem,  they  traversed  the 
Christian  world,  teaching  not  only  that  the  Mosaic  law 
niiu'ht.  without  prejudice  to  the  gospel,  be  observed  by 
born  .lews,  but  that  in  all  cases  it  was  indispensable  to 
salvation.  St.  Paul  himself,  as  appears  from  Ac.  xxi.  2<J, 
when  among  Jews,  observed  the  legal  ordinances,  but 
only  on  the  ground  of  expediency;  no  sooner  was  it 
attempted  to  impose  them  as  a  yoke  upon  Christians, 
either  of  Jewish  or  Gentile  origin,  than  the  attempt 
met  with  his  determined  opposition,  even  to  the  with 
standing  a  brother  apostle  to  the  face,  Ga.  ii.n.  Natu 
rally  the  Judaizers  regarded  him  as  their  principal 
antagonist,  and  part  of  their  tactics  consisted  in  insinu 
ating  doubts  respecting  the  validity  of  his  apostolic 


GALATIAXS  til:") 

call.  With  these  two  topics,  viz.  the  vindication  of 
the  apostle's  mission,  and  his  exposition  of  the  relation 
between  the  law  and  the  gospel,  the  epistle  is  occupied; 
and  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
it  presupposes,  it  was  evidently  addressed  to  Jewish  as 
well  as  Gentile  believers.  Both  the  general  subject  and 
the  particular  arguments  employed  connect  it  closely 
with  the  epistle  to  the  Romans:  there  is  however  a  dif 
ference  between  the  two.  In  the  epistle  to  the  Romans 
the  relation  between  the  law  and  the  gospel  is  discussed 
in  a  more  abstract  manner,  and  with  a  wider  accepta 
tion  of  the  term  Ian:;  in  that  to  the  Galatians  it  is  the 
Mosaic  law  which  the  writer  has  principally  in  view, 
and  his  remarks  are  of  a  more  polemical  character, 
directed  to  a  single  point  of  error.  It  need  hardly  be 
added  that  the  two  epistles  should  bo  read  together; 
for,  in  truth,  the  one  is  an  inspired  commentary  upon 
the  other,  and  if  we  add  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
no  point  of  this  great  argument  will  be  found  to  remain 
uneluciclated. 

Contents. — The  epistle  naturally  arranges  itself  under 
three  principal  heads: — 1.  A  vindication  of  the  writer's 
apostolical  authority;  L>.  The  discussion  of  the  main 
theme  of  the  epistle:  13.  A  hortatory  conclusion. 

Under  the  first  division,  cli.  i.  ii ,  the  apostle,  after  the 
usual  salutation,  commences  by  expressing  his  surprise 
and  grief  at  the  speedy  defection  of  his  converts  from 
the  faith  in  which  they  had  been  instructed,  and  which 
was  once  for  all  immutably  fixed,  cli.i.  ii-m.  As  regards 
the  doubts  which  had  been  insinuated  respecting  his 
equality  with  the  other  apostles,  he  reminds  them  that, 
upon  his  marvellous  conversion,  he  had  purposely 
avoided  intercourse  with  any  human  teachers.  He  had 
at  once  retired  into  the  wilds  of  Arabia,  where  lie  re 
ceived  directly  from  Christ  the  revelations  necessary  to 
qualify  him  for  his  office.  After  an  interval  of  three 
years,  he  had  indeed  paid  a  short  visit  to  .Jerusalem 
(seoAc  ix.  20),  where  he  compared  notes  with  Peter  and 
•  James;  but  other  of  the  apostles  saw  he  none,  ch.  i.  II-IM. 
Fourteen  years  after  his  conversion  the  question  of  the 
oljligation  of  circumcision  upon  the  Gentile  converts 
drew  him  again  to  Jerusalem.  Ac  xv  ,  where  the  apostles 
were  assembled:  to  them,  however,  he  was  indebted  for 
no  additional  light;  on  the  contrary,  they  acknowledged 
his  independent  mission  to  the  Gentiles,  and  bid  him 
God  speed.  Upon  one  memorable  occasion,  at  Antioch. 
the  very  foremost  of  the  original  twelve,  Peter,  sub 
mitted  to  a  rebuke  which  he  (Paul)  was  compelled  to 
administer  to  him  for  his  tergiversation  upon  the  great 
point  which  had  been  decided  at  the  council  which 
was  the  more  strange  inasmuch  as  to  Peter  especially 
had  been  vouchsafed  a  divine  revelation,  Ac  x.,  to  the 
effect  that  under  the  gospel  no  distinction  was  to  exist 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  ch.  ii.  1-1.1.  The  mention  of 
this  circumstance  gives  the  apostle  an  opportunity  of 
introducing  the  great  theme  which  he  is  about  to  dis 
cuss,  cli.  ii.  14-21, 

Addressing  himself  directly  to  the  Galatians,  he  now, 
in  the  second  part  of  the  epistle,  enters  upon  this  sub 
ject.  Let  them  call  to  memory  their  own  experience. 
Was  it  through  the  law  or  through  faith  in  C'hrist  that 
they  had  received  the  miraculous  gifts  of  the  Spirit! 
The  case  of  Abraham,  the  great  progenitor  of  the  Jew 
ish  people,  might  have  led  them  to  the  truth.  For  at 
what  time  were  the  promises  made  to  Abraham  '<  Loii'T 
before  the  law  was  given  ;  and  it  was  the  patriarch's 
faith  in  those  promises  that  procured  him  acceptance 


GALBANUM 


with  God.  It  is  the  same  faith  which  saves,  and  which 
distinguishes,  all  the  spiritual  descendants  of  Abraham. 
To  be  of  the  law  is  to  lie  under  the  curse;  a  curse  from 
which  Christ  alone  by  his  death  has  relieved  us,  ch.  iii. 
i-if.  The  question  may  be  asked,  Why  then  was  the 
law  promulgated,  seeing  it  could  never  give  life? 
Answer — It  never  was  intended  to  give  life:  it  was 
introduced  between  the  original  promise  to  Abraham 
and  the  coming  of  Christ,  for  special  purposes,  viz.  to 
curb  the  outbreaks  of  a  sinful  nature,  especially  the  sin 
of  idolatry,  and  by  means  of  its  inward  discipline  and 
its  ritual  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  reception  of  C'hrist. 
-Now  that  Christ  has  come,  its  function  has  ceased, 
ch.  iii.  19-2'J.  As  emancipated  by  Christ  from  the  yoke 

i  of  legal  bondage,  let  them  jealously  guard  their  Chris 
tian  liberty,  ch.  iv.  i-in.  Their  present  tendency  to 
legalism,  contrasted  with  their  former  zeal  for  the 
purity  of  the  gospel,  made  him  almost  doubt  whether 

I  they  did  not  need  a  second  regeneration.  They  made 
much  of  the  law;  let  them  listen  to  it.  In  the  history 
of  Sarah  and  Hagar,  CL-.  xxi.—  the  son  of  the  free- woman 
superseding,  as  rightful  heir,  the  son  of  the  bond-woman 
—they  had  a  divinely-intended  illustration  of  the  inferi 
ority  of  the  law  to  the  gospel,  ch.  iv.  n-:;i.  To  sum  up: 
if  they  underwent  circumcision,  as  a  matter  necessary 
to  salvation,  they  would  thereby  openly  dissolve  their 
connection  with  C'hrist  and  the  blessings  of  his  salva 
tion —  in  whom  no  outward  distinctions  are  of  any  avail, 
but  "faith  which  worketh  by  love,"  di.v.  i  IL>. 

This  leads  to  the  third  and  practical  portion  of  the 
epistle,  in  which  the  apostle  admonishes  the  Galatiaus 
against  a  licentious  abuse  of  the  Christian  liberty  which 
was  their  birthright,  If  they  were  really  led  "by  the 
Spirit,  they  would  necessarily  abound  in  the  fruits  of 
the  Spirit,  in  their  two  great  divisions  of  personal  purity 
and  Christian  love.  ch.  v.  r:-L'<;;  vi.i-io.  As  a  proof  of  the 
intense  interest  which  he  felt  in  them,  lie  mentions  the 
unusual  circumstance  that  he  had  written  the  epistle 
with  his  own  baud;  and  concludes  with  a  brief  repetition 
of  the  doctrinal  points  upon  \\hich  he  had  enlarged, 
di.  ii.  n-is. 

(This  epistle  has  been  often  commented  upon.  Luther's  work 
was  one  of  the  main  instruments  of  promoting  the  Reformation; 
and  in  this  point  of  view  it  still  retains  its  value.  He  drew 
much  fiom  Augustine's  commentary,  the  most  valuable  of  tho 
patristic  remains  11)1.111  this  subject.  The  doctrinal  tendencies 
of  the  great  writers  of  the  Kastern  church,  such  as  Chrysostom, 
Theodoret,  Theophylact,  etc.,  render  their  labours  less  valuable. 
Aniuii;;  modem  critical  commentaries  may  be  mentioned— Winer 
(Lips.  is-Jli),  Paulus(Heidel.  IS:;D,  Kiickert  (Leipz.  ls:;:i),  Usteri 
(Xnrirl),  1S::.H),  Olshausen  (Konigsbenr,  1*14),  Meyur  (Oott.  IS'il), 
Alford  (Loud.  Is."),  Kllicott  (Lond.  Is."/.'/]  [K.  A.  i..] 

GALBANUM  [njsS,-  (chdbtnah},  Greek,  xA'W'"?, 

T  :  : '.' 

Ex.  xxx.  :u].  This  was  one  of  the  ingredients  used  in 
compounding  the  sacred  incense.  Of  the  gum  gal- 
banum  of  pharmacy  and  commerce,  two  specimens 
now  lie  before  us — the  one  a  gray  and  dirty  con 
glomerate,  full  of  sand  and  impurities ;  the  other 
evidently  collected  with  care,  and  probably  obtained 
by  tapping  or  scarifying  the  plant  which  yields  it. 
With  its  resinous  fracture,  its  colour  varying  from  a 
transparent  gray  to  white  or  brownish  yellow,  there  is 
not  much  to  distinguish  it  at  first  sight  from  the  crude 
state  of  other  gum-resins  ;  but  a  scent  similar  to  that 
which  we  know  so  well  in  fennel,  angelica,  and  kin 
dred  plants,  at  once  suggests  its  umbelliferous  origin. 
With  the  general  appearance  of  the  plants  belonging  to 
this  immense  natural  order,  and  so  happily  named  from 


GALKED 


Glli 


GALILKK 


the  parasol  pattern  in  which  the  tiny  flowers  are  ur- 
rangeil,  every  one  is  familiar  (see  the  figure,  article 
CUMIN);  Imt  to  vegetable  chemistry  there  is  no  order 
which  at  first  sight  offers  so  many  anomalies  anil  cap 
rices.  The  roots  of  the  parsnip  and  carrot  are  popular 
esculents;  the  root  of  a  species  of  Xartltcx  yields  the 
horrible  drug  assafcetida.  The  juice  of  hemlock,  cow- 
liaue,  and  \vater-dropwort  (t'oiiium,  (.'ir/ifa,  and  (Eniui- 
tkc)  is  deadly  poison  ;  pickled  samphire  and  candied 
angelica  are  regarded  as  delicacies;  the  seeds  of  the 
caraway  and  cumin,  are  extensively  employed  as  condi 
ments;  innumerable  dishes  are  flavoured  or  garnished 
with  parsley;  and  in  Thibet.  J>r.  Falconer  tells  us,  that 
the  young  shoots  of  the  assafoetida  plant  are  devoured 

as  a  dainty  (Mimean  Transactions,  vol.  xx.  p.  2^).  All  these 
and  other  anomalies  are  owing  to  the  presence  or  ab 
sence  in  different  parts  of  the  plant  of  certain  princi 
ples,  such  as  the  alkaline  conia  in  hemlock,  an  aroma 
tic  oil  in  caraway  and  coriander,  and  a  gum-resin,  such 
as  is  found  in  the  stem  of  the  fennel  and  the  roots  of 
the  assafeetida.  Such  a  gum-resin  is  galbanum.  There 
seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  is  an  exudation  from 
the  (ialhuiu/nt  oii/ci/iale  of  Don,  a  plant  which  occurs 
along  the  eastern  coast  of  Africa ;  although  a  gum  not 
unlike  galbanum  is  also  obtained  from  the  Opoidla 
f/albanifera  of  Lindley.  According  to  our  standard  of 
smell,  its  odour  is  by  no  means  agreeable.  But  we  must 
remember  that  it  was  not  used  except  in  combination 
with  other  fragrant  substances ;  and  when  so  used, 
Dioscorides  says  that  it  enhanced  their  efficacy.  (Sec 
Kaliseh  on  Ex.  xxx.  34.)  [.T.  If.  ] 

GAL'EED  [heap  <>f  witucx.-i],  the  name  given  by 
Jacob  to  the  sort  of  cairn,  or  heap  of  stones,  raised  by 
him  and  Laban  on  Mount  Gilead,  in  commemoration 
of  their  brotherly  covenant,  Go.  xxxi.  -IT,  4«. 

GAL'ILEE,  COUNTRY  OF.  The  northernmost 
of  the  three  parts  into  which  the  Holy  Land  was 
divided  in  our  Lord's  time.  Its  name  is  derived  from 
the  Hebrew  word  StL\3  (Gall I),  which  as  a  noun  signi- 

•T 

fies  anything  circular,  such  as  a  ring,  Ks.  i.  «;  t'a.v.  14,  then 
a  circuit  or  region  of  country,  and  specifically  the  region 
indicated  above,  or  some  part  of  it,  Jos.  xx.  ~;  \  Ki.  ix.  ii; 
is.  ix.  1.  The  limits  of  Galilee  varied  at  different  times. 
Its  northern  boundaries  were  the  mountains  of  Hermoii 
and  Lebanon,  where  it  adjoins  Cu;le-Syria  and  "the 
coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidoii."'  On  the  east  it  was  divided 
by  the  Jordan  and  the  lakes  of  Merom  and  Gen- 
nesaret  from  Gaulonitis,  Hippenc,  and  Gadaris,  and 
the  rest  of  the  Batanean  tetrarchy.  Its  southern 
border  ran  from  Scythopolis  (Bethshan*,  through  Ginea, 
Jenin  (Heb.  Engannim,  Jos.  xix.  21,  or  Beth-Gan,  2  Ki. 
ix.  27,  translated  in  Eng.  ver.  yarden-Tiouse)  to  Mount 
Carmel.  On  the  west  it  was  separated  from  the  Medi 
terranean  by  the  narrow  strip  of  the  maritime  plain  of 
Phcenice.  It  occupied  the  ancient  territory  of  the  tribes 
of  Zebulon,  Issachar,  and  Naphtali,  with  the  northern 
settlement  of  Dan ;  and  at  one  time  comprised  part  of 
Asher,  from  Carmel  to  the  Ladder  of  Tyre,  which  was  in 
Roman  times  assigned  to  Phoenicia.  At  one  time  it  was 
divided  into  two  districts,  Upper  and  Lower  Galilee, 
of  which  Josephus  (Hell.  Jn<l.  Hi.  3,  i)  says,  that  "the 
Lower  extends  in  length  from  Tiberias  to  Zabulon, 
having  in  the  maritime  parts  Ptolemais  for  its  neigh 
bour.  Its  breadth  is  from  the  village  called  Xaloth, 
which  lies  in  the  great  plain,  as  far  as  Bersabe  ;  from 
this  also  begins  to  be  taken  the  breadth  of  the  Upper 


Galilee  as  far  as  the  village  Baca,  which  divides  the 
land  of  the  Tyrians  from  it.  Its  length  is  also  from 
Meloth  to  Thella,  a  village  near  to  Jordan."  Upper 
Galilee  was  sometimes  called  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,  on 
account  of  the  mixed  races  by  which  it  was  inhabited  ; 
hence  the  terms  of  the  prophecy  in  Isaiah  ix.  1,  2 
which  are  freely  rendered  by  St.  Matthew,  oh.  iv.  15,10, 
and  applied  to  the  ministry  of  our  Lord,  after  he  went  to 
reside  at  Capernaum — "The  land  of  Zabulon  and  the 
land  of  Nephthalim,  by  the  way  of  the  sea,  beyond 
Jordan,  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles;  the  people  which  sat  in 
darkness  saw  great  light,"  &c.  That  is,  the  inhabi 
tants  of  Upper  Galilee  in  Zebulon  and  Naphtali,  on 
the  shores  of  the  lake,  and  even  those  beyond  Jordan, 
were  illumined  by  the  Light  of  the  world  dwelling  at 
Capernaum.  The  region  above  all  others  charac 
terized  by  its  spiritual  darkness  and  depression  was  the 
first  to  partake  of  the  glory  of  the  new  dispensation. 
The  rabbinists  divide  Galilee  into  three  parts — upper, 
nether,  and  the  valley. 

The  modern  traveller  who  approaches  Galilee  from 
southern  Palestine  by  way  of  Shechem,  descends  from 
the  hills  of  Samaria  upon  the  frontier  town  of  Jenin. 
In  this  neighbourhood  was  probably  the  scene  of  the 
cleansing  of  the  ten  lepers,  Ln.  xvii.  11,  described  as 
taking  place  while  our  Lord  was  travelling  from  Gali 
lee  to  Jerusalem  through  the  midst  (i.e.  the  border 
land)  of  Samaria  and  Galilee.  Dean  Trench  (Notes  on 
the  Miracles,  p.  332)  supposes  that  our  Lord,  avoiding  the 
unfriendly  land  of  the  Samaritans,  was  journeying  due 
eastward  toward  the  Jordan,  having  Galilee  on  his 
left  and  Samaria  (which  is  therefore  first  named)  on 
his  right,  '''and  on  reaching  the  river,  either  passed 
over  it  at  Scythopolis,  where  we  know  there  was  a 
bridge,  recrossiiig  the  river  by  the  fords  near  Jericho, 
or  kept  on  the  western  bank  till  he  reached  that  city, 
where  we  presently  find  him,"  Lu.  xviii.  35. 

From  Jenin  the  road  leads  over  the  undulating  valley 
of  Jezreel,  now  called  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  (xce. 
JEZREEL),  till  towards  its  northern  extremity  the  hill 
country  of  Lower  Galilee  appears  in  full  view.  Tabor 
is  on  the  right,  and  the  traditional  Mount  of  Precipita 
tion  on  the  left.  On  leaving  the  plain,  the  road  defiles 
through  the  mountains  to  Nazareth,  which  is  built  on 
the  steep  slope  of  one  of  the  hills  that  surround  it  on 
all  sides.  From  thence,  between  the  northern  side  of 
Tabor  and  Xefr  Keiina,  one  of  the  supposed  sites  of 
Cana  of  Galilee,  the  way  lies  over  ragged  hills  to  the 
deep  basin  of  the  lake  of  Tiberias.  The  scenery  of 
I  'pper  Galilee  is  bolder  and  at  the  same  time  richer  than 
that  of  southern  Palestine,  and  the  dreariness  as  of  a 
blighted  country  less  conspicuous.  It  is  now  thinly 
populated,  but  abounds  in  forests  of  oaks  and  other 
trees.  Stanley  (Sinai  and  Pulestine.p.  355)  suggests  that  the 
prophecy  of  Jacob,  Ge.  xlix.  21,  should  be  translated, 
Xaphtali  is  a  spreading  terebinth,  he  putteth  out 
o-oodly  boughs ;  and  quotes  Van  de  Velde's  (ii.  4i») 
description  of  the  country  of  Kedesh- Naphtali  as  a 
natural  park  of  oaks  and  terebinths. 

The  Galilean  tribes  are  but  little  mentioned  in  early 
Jewish  history,  and  were  removed  to  Assyria  by  Tiglath- 
Pileser  20  years  before  Ephraim  and  1/50  years  before 
Judah.  Henceforth  the  inhal litants  were  a  mixed  race  of 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  amongst  whom  Strabo  enumerates 
Egyptians,  Arabians,  and  Phreniciaiis.  They  followed 
the  fortunes  of  Juclea  in  its  subjection  to  the  Babylonian, 
Persian,  and  Grecian  empires  successively,  and  after- 


GALILEE 


61' 


GALILEK 


wards  formed  part  of  the  Maccabean  and  Idumean  vegetation.  Lower  down,  the  grass,  which  durin^  the 
monarchies.  Tpon  the  death  of  Herod  the  Great,  !  winter  rains  had  flourished,  was  now  withering  in  tlie 
Galilee  was  assigned  to  Herod  Antipas,  who  continued  sun.  Mat.xiiui;  but  in  the  valleys  and  ravines,  wherever 
to  govern  it  till  his  banishment  in  A.D.  3D,  six  years  !  any  of  the  many  fountains  and  streams  gushed  forth 
after  the  crucifixion.  Its  inhabitants  had  then  the  there  was  verdure  and  cultivation.  Mat.  xiii  8  This 
reputation  of  being  rude  in  speech,  Mat.  xxvi.  73,  and  view  from  the  Nazareth  road  is  one 'of  unusual  beauty 
manners,  independent  in  thought,  and 

warlike  in  disposition.    Having  all'orde i  THK  SKA  OF  »;ALII.I:K  AND  ITS  COASTS. 

a  safe  retreat  to  the  holy  family  on  their 
return    from   Egypt,    Galilee    was   well 
adapted  to  become  the  chief  scene  of  our 
Lord's  ministry,  from  its  freedom  from 
priestly  and  pharisaical  prejudice,  which 
in  Judea   constantly  proved   dangerous 
to  his  person  as  well  as  a  hinderance 
to  his  ministry.      It  was   in  truth   the 
only  part  of  Palestine  in  which  it  was 
at  the  time  practicable  for  him  to  carry 
on   his   supernatural  working,    and    lav 
the  foundations  of  his  kingdom.     Herod 
Antipas   was   succeeded    in    Galilee    bv 
Herod    Agrippa,    the    tctrarch   of    Tra- 
chonitis,  who  received  the  title  of  king, 
and  two  years  later  added  Judea  and 
Samaria     to    his    dominions.       On    his 
death.  Ac.  xii.  i;i,  Galilee  formed   part  of 
the  Roman  province  of  Syria,  and  was 
governed  with   the  rest  of   Palestine  b\ 
a  procurator.     At  that  time  it  was  very 
populous,  and  contained   1*114  cities  and 
towns,  which  together  paid   I'on  talents 
in  tribute  to  the  Roman  empire.      I 'pun 
the    outbreak    of   the   Jewish    rebellion, 
at  the  end  of  Nero's  reign.  Galilee  was 
reduced  by  the  Romans  under  Titus  and 
Vespasian,  about  three  years  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  [c.  T.  M.| 

GALILEE.  SEA  OF.  called  alio  the 
LARK  OF  TIHKKIAS  or  the  L.VKK  MI--GKX- 
M-SAUKT.  Its  Old  Testament  name  is 
the  ''Sea  of  ( 'hinnereth."  from  the  town 
of  C'hinnereth  on  its  banks,  .J.,s.  xix.:i.i,  or 
perhaps  the  town  was  named  from  the 
oval  or  harp-like  shape  of  the  lake — 
Kinnor  being  the  Hebrew  word  for  a 
harp.  The  modern  name  is  P>ahr- 
Tabaryeh.  It  is  the  second  of  the 
three  lakes  into  which  the  Jordan  flows 

(Tacitus,  Hist.  v.ti).  Its  si/.e  is  variously  computed.  Jose-  and  interest.  On  the  opposite  shore  a  range  of  hills 
phus  (Wars.iii.  1,1,1),  gives  its  length  as  14(1  stadia  or  1»>  shuts  in  the  lake  and  seems  to  rise  from  its  ve"rv  waters, 
miles,  and  its  breadth  as  40  sta.lia  or  4  miles  ;•)  furlongs,  whil-t  far  away  to  the  north  can  be  seen  the  snowy 
Dr.  Robinson  states  it  to  be  about  (1H  geographical  or)  heights  of  Hermon.  The  writer  never  saw  the  lake 
13  English  miles  long,  and  5  or  fi  miles  broad.  Its  otherwise  than  calm  and  placid,  or  rippled  by  a  gentle 
depression  below  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean  is  also  breeze;  but  any  one  who  has  witnessed  the  sudden 
the  subject  of  much  dispute.  The  results  of  ban.-  storms  which  agitate  the  Swiss  or  Italian  lakes,  can 
metrical  observations  have  varied  between  S4",  feet  and  well  understand  Dr.  Thompson's  description  of  a  tem- 
(J6G  feet,  but  according  to  the  trigonometrical  survey  pest  on  Gennesaret  (Land  an.Hl.e  Book,  p.  ::?0.  "My  ex- 
of  Lieut.  Symoiids,  11. E..  in  1M1,  its  depression  is  perienee  in  this  region  enables  me  to  sympathize  with 
only  3  IS  feet.  In  this  Van  de  Velde  thinks  there  the  disciples  in  their  long  night's  contest  with  the  wind, 
must  have  been  some  mistake;  and  he  adheres  to  the  I  spent  a  night  in  that  \Vady  Shukaiyif.  some  3  miles 
figures  of  Lieut.  Lynch,  which  give  Of, 3  feet,  as  pro-  up  it  to  the  left  of  us.  The  sun  had  scarcely  set  when 
bably  the  most  accurate  (Memoir,  p.  IBS  m).  The  sur-  ,  the  wind  began  to  rush  down  toward  the  lake,  and  it 
rounding  hills  are  described  as  sometimes  bare  and  continued  all  night  lonu',  with  constantly  increasing 
barren,  sometimes  as  green  and  fertile.  The  writer,  violence,  so  that  when  we  reached  the"  shore  next 
who  first  saw  the  lake  on  the  road  from  Nazareth  to  !  morning,  the  face  of  the  lake  was  like  a  huge  boiling 
Tiberias  in  the  latter  part  of  the  month  of  April,  found  !  caldron.  The  wind  howled  down  every  wady  from 

the  tops  of  the  hills  gray  and   rocky,  and  destitute  of  j  the  north  east  and  east  with  such  fury  that  no  efforts 
VOL.  I.  „„ 


GALILEE 


CIS 


CALL 


of  rowers  could  have  brought  a  boat  to  shore  at  any 
])oiiit  along  that  coast.  ]n  a  wind  like  that,  the  dis 
ciples  -iiii'xt  have  been  driven  tjuite  across  to  Genne- 
saret,  as  we  know  they  were.  To  understand  the 
causes  of  these  sudden  and  violent  tempests,  we  must 
remember  the  lake  lies  low — GOO  feet  lower  than  the 
ocean;  that  the  vast  and  naked  plateaus  of  the  Jaulan 
rise  to  a  great  height,  spreading  backwards  to  the  hills 
of  the  Hauran,  and  upward  to  snowy  llcrmon;  that 
the  water-courses  have  cut  out  profound  ravines  and 
wild  gorges,  converging  to  the  head  of  this  lake,  and 
that  these  act  like  gigantic  funnels  to  draw  down  the 
cold  winds  from  the  mountains.'1  "  .Moreover,  those 
winds  are  not  only  violent,  but  they  come  down  sud 
denly,  and  often  when  the  sky  is  perfectly  clear.  I 
once  went  in  to  swim  near  the  hot  baths,  and  before  I 
was  aware,  a  wind  came  rushing  over  the  cliff's  with 
such  force  that  it  was  with  great  difficulty  1  could 
regain  the  shore."'  The  town  of  Tiberias,  toward  which 
the  Nazareth  road  rapidly  descends,  has  never  recovered 
from  its  destruction  by  an  earthquake  in  1S37.  It  is 
now  surrounded  by  a  dilapidated  wall,  and  consists  of 
a  number  of  miserable  hovels  which  are  scattered  over 
its  former  site.  The  road  along  the  western  shores  of 
the  lake  to  Khan  Minyeh,  is  hallowed  at  every  step 
by  associations  with  our  Lord's  history.  The  country 
is  thinly  populated,  almost  desolate;  the  narrow  strip 
of  level  land  is  covered  with  thickets  of  oleander  and 
other  shrubs.  The  hills  are  broken  by  a  succession  of 
narrow  vallej's  watered  with  innumerable  springs,  and 
cultivated  wherever  a  patch  of  arable  land  is  found. 
The  lake  itself  abounds  in  many  kinds  of  fish,  but 
scarce  a  boat  or  fisherman  is  now  seen  upon  it.  At 
the  village  of  Medjel.  the  ancient  Magdala,  which  is 
situated  on  the  western  shore  of  the  lake,  a  little  to  the 
north  of  Tiberias,  is  an  opening  in  the  hills,  which  recede 
here  from  the  lake,  and  we  come  in  full  view  of  the  fertile 
plain  of  Gennesaret.  A  ccording  to  J  osephus  ( Wars,  iii.  it  >,  *\ 
it  is  30  stadia  or  3|  miles  long,  and  20  stadia  or  nearly 
2i  broad.  It  is  well  watered  by  springs,  of  which  the 
most  noted  is  at  the  north-western  side  of  the  plain, 
and  is  called  the  Hound  Fountain,  from  the  circular 
basin  of  masonry  in  which  it  is  inclosed.  There  is  also 
A  in-el-tiny,  or  the  Spring  of  the  Fig-tree,  near  the 
ruined  Khan  Minyeh,  to  the  north-cast,  where  the 
hills  again  approach  the  lake,  and  form  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  plain.  Among  these  hills  is  a  heap 
of  ruins  identified  by  Dr.  Thomson  with  the  site  of 
Chorazin,  and  on  the  shore  of  the  lake  is  Tdl  Hum, 
where  the  same  traveller  places  Capernaum.  Farther 
to  the  eastward  is  the  confluence  of  the  Jordan,  which 
is  here  easily  fordable,  though  its  lied  is  rocky  and 
uneven.  On  the  left  bank  of  the  stream  is  the  site  of 
Bethsaida  Julias,  the  city  of  Andrew  and  Peter,  ami  in 
its  neighbourhood  is  the  plain  of  Batihah,  the  supposed 
scene  of  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  five  thousand.  The 
country  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  lake  consists  of  steep 
and  barren  hills  rising  almost  immediately  from  the 
water,  intersected  by  narrow  gorges,  the  beds  of  winter 
torrents.  Opposite  Magdala  is  Kersa,  probably  the 
ancient  Gergesa  (see  GERGESENES).  At  the  south-west 
corner  of  the  lake  is  the  outlet  of  the  Jordan  near  Kerak, 
the  ancient  Tarichea.  It  is  thus  described  by  Dr. 
Thomson,  who  is  one  of  the  few  travellers  who  have 
visited  it:  "The  shore  is  covered  with  pebbles  of  flint, 
jasper,  chalcedony,  and  agate,  mixed  with  several  kinds 
of  fresh- water  shells."  "  The  ruins  of  an  ancient  bridge 


partly  choke  up  the  exit  and  narrow  it  to  about  1 00  feet 
in  width  at  low  water,  and  even  there  it  was  not  more 
than  4  feet  deep;  the  current  however  is  very  swift" 

(/i'he  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  Ml). 

The  whole  scenery  of  the  lake  has  a  certain  air  of 
brightness  and  cheerfulness  'unknown  elsewhere  in 
Palestine;  but  the  absence  of  human  life  in  all  this  fer 
tility  of  soil  is  most  remarkable.  Very  different  was 
its  aspect  in  the  days  of  our  Lord's  ministry.  .Its  hills, 
now  bare,  were  then  covered  with  vineyards,  and 
abounded  in  walnut,  fig,  olive,  and  other  trees  (Josc- 
phus,  Wars,  iii.  io,  s).  Like  Como,  its  shores  were  studded 
with  towns  and  villas.  Like  Lucerne,  its  waters  were 
a  great  highway,  and  brought  the  merchandise  of  Da 
mascus  to  the  south  and  the  balm  of  Gilead  to  the 
west.  It  was  also  covered  with  numerous  boats  en 
gaged  in  fishing  or  carrying  passengers  to  and  from  the 
many  villages  on  its  borders.  Tiberias,  newly  built  by 
Herod  the  Great  in  honour  of  the  Tioman  emperor,  was 
the  capital  of  his  luxurious  son  Antipas.  Among  its 
numerous  inhabitants  tin -re  was  ample  scope  for  the 
great  Physician's  labours.  There  were  the  Galilean 
nobleman,  .In.  iv.  in,  the  Gentile  centurion,  Mat.  viii.  r>,  the 
publicans,  Mat. ix. u,  the  women  that  were  sinners,  Lu.  vii.  37, 
the  fishermen  of  the  lake.  Mar.  i.  10,  i: — all  collected  in 
great  numbers  to  witness  his  miracles  and  to  hear  his 
words.  And  while  the  waters  of  the  lake  were  them 
selves  the  scene  of  some  of  those  miracles,  in  particular 
of  the  stilling  the  tempest,  Mat.  viii.  20,  and  the  miracu 
lous  draught  of  fishes,  Jn.  x\i.  C,  so  the  wide  beach  afforded 
room  for  the  multitudes  who  thronged  to  listen,  and 
the  busy  life  of  the  shore  suggested  the  images  of  such 
parables  as  the  Sower,  the  Tares,  the  Mustard-tree,  the 
Draw-net,  Mat.  xiii.  When  we  read  in  Josephus  of  the 
mercenary  disposition  of  the  people  in  those  days,  and 
witness  the  same  feature  in  the  modern  oriental  char- 
;  acter,  from  the  Pasha  on  his  divan  to  the  shepherd  boy 
on  the  hills,  we  shall  see  the  wisdom  with  which  our 
Lord  constantly  aimed  at  its  correction  both  by  his 
example  and  his  teaching.  Again,  the  secluded  region 
of  the  eastern  shore  afforded  him  solitude  and  rest  from 
Iris  labours.  Mar.  vi.  :n,  and  opportunity  for  secret  con 
verse  with  his  heavenly  Father.  ' '  The  lake,  in  this 
double  aspect,  is  thus  a  reflex  of  that  union  of  energy 
and  rest,  of  active  labour  and  of  deep  devotion,  which 
is  the  essence  of  Christianity,  as  it  was  of  the  life  of 
Him  in  whom  that  union  was  first  taught  and  shown  " 

(Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  :',7l}.      Xo    Wonder   that   after 

his  resurrection  he  recalled  his  disciples  to  this  well- 
known  spot,  so  as  to  connect  their  future  labours  at 
Jerusalem  and  throughout  the  world  with  his  own  life 
in  (  olilee,  Jn.  xxi. 

Of  the  towns  on  the  shores  of  the  lake  it  is  unneces 
sary  to  speak  more  particularly  here,  as  they  have  found 
distinct  and  separate  mention  elsewhere.  (Sec  CAPER 
NAUM,  BETHSAIDA,  MAGDALA,  GERGESEXES,  TIBERIAS, 

&C.)  [C.  T.  M.] 

GALL  [m'ne  (merorafi) ,  bitterness],  the  pungent  fluid 

T 

secreted  in  the  gall-bladder  of  animals,  or  the  bile.  It 
is  referred  to  in  Job  somewhat  poetically  as  a  name  for 
the  vital  fluids  about  the  heart  of  the  system,  to  shed 
or  pour  out  which  were  to  prostrate  the  whole  frame, 
<;U.  xvi.  13;  xx.  25.  In  the  case  of  venomous  animals,  this 
fluid  was  anciently,  though  erroneously,  identified  with 
the  poison  (Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  xi.  37);  and  a  reference  to  this 
opinion  is  also  found  in  Job,  xx.  14,  where  "  the  r/aU  of 


GAMES 


GAMES 


salem  the  Grecian  gymnasium,  for  the  express  purpose  I  namely,  that  in  the  Grecian  games  the  most  eminent 


of  training  up  the  Jewish  youth  in  the  fashions  of  the 
heathen,  2  Mac.  iv.  o,  12.  "With  many  of  the  young  men, 
and  even  with  several  of  the  priesthood,  Jason  succeeded 
in  gaining  favour  for  his  new  games.  But  the  pious 


men  in  the  land  came  forward  and  contended  personally 
for  victory,  while  in  Rome  the  most  eminent  men  were 
merely  spectators  of  the  contests  of  their  inferiors 
(Gibbon's  Decline,  eh.  xl.  p.  11).  Diomede  and  Menelaus, 


portion  of  the  nation  regarded  these  proceedings  with  :  Antilochus  and  Ajax  and  Ulysses,  the  kings,  great 
abhorrence.  They  could  not  approve  of  games  cele-  !  warriors,  and  wise  men  of  the  Grecian  states"  deemed 
brated  in  honour  of  false  gods,  and  held  for  the  wicked  it  an  honour  to  contend  for  victory  in  their  countries' 
purpose  of  alienating  their  nation  from  Jehovah,  i!Mac.  ;  games,  and  even  old  Nestor,  the  Homeric  type  of  per- 
iv.  13-17.  Accordingly  the  final  expulsion  of  Syrian  in-  fection  in  the  qualities  of  mind  and  body,  regretted 
fluence  from  Judea,  and  the  triumph  of  the  Maccabean  that  his  years  prevented  him  from  joining  in"the  glorious 
princes,  caused  the  extinction  of  these  pagan  games,  strife  (Iliad,  L.  xxiii.  1. 634) ;  but  "  a  senator,  or  even  a  citizen 
There  was  no  attempt  to  revive  them  until  the  time  of  conscious  of  his  dignity,  would  have  blushed  to  expose 
Herod  the  Great.  A  foreigner  by  descent  and  in  feeling,  his  person  or  his  horses  in  the  circus  of  Rome."  Hence 
Herod  made  little  account  of  the  religious  prepossessions  ;  the  Grecian  games  were  a  far  apter  illustration  than 
of  his  people,  and  introduced  as  far  as  possible  the  ',  the  Roman  of  that  Christian  life  whore  every  one  is 
ways  and  customs  of  heathen  Greece  and  Rome.  He  '  called  on  to  be  both  a  spectator  of  the  efforts  of  others 
built  in  Jerusalem  a  theatre,  and  a  great  amphitheatre  and  a  partaker  in  them  himself. 

in  the  plain,  and  celebrated  in  honour  of  C;esar  every  The  more  celebrated  of  the  Grecian  games  were  foul- 
five  years  games  of  wrestling,  chariot-racing,  the  con-  in  number— viz.  the  Olympic.  Pythian,  Xemean,  and 
tests  of  wild  beasts  with  each  other  and  with  criminals,  '  Isthmian  games.  The  Olympic  games  were  held  in 
in  the  most  costly  manner  (.Tosephus,  Ant.  xv.  via.  D.  These  the  territory  of  the  Pis;eans,  the  Pythian  near  Delphi, 
proceedings  were  deeply  offensive  to  the  religious  feel-  the  Xemean  near  a  village  of  that  name,  and  the  Isth- 
ings  of  the  great  body  of  the  nation.  II 
established  similar  game's  at  Cesarea  (Ant. 
a  subsequent  period  his  grandson,  Herod  .Agrippa, 
established  games  of  the  same  kind  at  Berytus  (Ant. 
xix.  vii.  n). 


The  games  and  theatrical  exhibitions  of  the  heathen 


afterwards  j  mian  near  the  famous  city  of  Corinth.      The  Olympic 
ix.  <;).      At     games    were    by    much    the   most   celebrated,    and    in 
describing  these  we  describe  the  others,  with  certain 
differences  of  no  great  moment.      They  were  celebrated 
only  once  every  five  years,  and   hence  a  period  of  five 


years  was  termed  an  Olympiad,  and  became  a  celebrated 


were  regarded   by  the  early  Christians  with  as  strong     era  among  the   Greeks,    who  reckoned    their  time  by 

disapprobation   as   they  were    by   the  Jews   generally,  |  periods  of  this  length.      In  the  later  periods  ..f  Grecian 

and  for  better  reasons  (.\e;ui<kT".i  Church  Hist.  i.  3(i.'i,  sect,  iii.) 

National  antagonism  to  everything  foreign  as  such  had     for  the  purp 

much  effect  in  producing  Jewish  opposition  to  the  games,     in   the   -ranii 


history  there  were  twelve  presidents  or  judges  chosen, 
_•  of  deciding  who  had  been  the  victors 
celebrated  before  them,  but  until  the 

It  was  as  ministering  in  themselves  and  by  their  atten-  '  fiftieth  <  Mympiad  there  was  but  one  person  who  occupied 

this    most    important    and    responsible    office    (Potter's 


Were  obliged  to 


dant  circumstances  to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  of  the 

eye,  as  producing  almost  of  necessity  a  cruel  temper  in 

the  beholders,  and  running  counter  to  the  moral  feeling,     meet  together  and  to  reside  for  a  period  of  ten  months 

shamefacedness,  and  sobriety  of  the  Christian  charac-  ,  before  the  celebration  of  the  games  (at  a  place  called 

ter,  that  the  public  spectacles  and  games  of  the  heathen  j  '  K\\rivo5iKa.Lov)  in  the  Elean  forum,  in  order  that  they 

were  ranked  among  those  pomps  and  vanities  which  the     should  take  care  that  those  who  would  afterwards  offer 

Christians  were  obliged  to  renounce  by  their  baptismal     themselves  as  competitors  at  the  games  had  duly  per- 

vow.      Even  the  better-minded  among  the  heathen  re-     formed  their  preparatory  exercises,  and  were  instructed 

garded  these  games  with  disapproval.      Pliny  the  consul     in  all  the  laws  of  the  games  by  men  called   from  this 

speaks  with  approval  of  Junius  Mauricius,  who  expressed     office  ''keepers  of  the  laws."     They  were  also,  in  order 

an  earnest  wish  that  they  could  be  abolished  at  Rome  '  to  inspire.-  confidence  in  the  competitors,  obliged  to  take 

(Pliny's  Letters,  iv.  22) :  nor   does   Tacitus   appear  to  treat     an  oath  that  they  would  act  impartially,  would  take  no 

them  with  much  greater  respect  (Hist.  iii.  ixxxiiU     Sevc  ml 

of  them  were  however  in  themselves  of  an  innocent  char-     approved    of   the   contender 

acter;  and  as  these,  and  even  others  which  were  not  of     could  exactly  sec  all  that  tc 


discover  the  reason  why  they  rejected  or 
i.  They  sat  where  they 
ik  place  on  the  part  of  the 

this  kind,  1  Co.  xv.  32,  are  frequently  alluded  to  in  the  competitors,  and  the  crown  of  victory  was  placed  he- 
epistles  of  the  New  Testament,  and  afforded  illustra-  fore  them  until  the  exercises  were  finished,  when  it 
tions  of  the  most  appropriate  kind  of  the  Christian  life,  was  presented  to  whichever  of  the  contenders  they 
it  will  be  of  ad  vantage  to  give  a  brief  view  of  them  before  judged  to  have  deserved  it.  To  preserve  order  in  the 
we  turn  to  the  passages  of  Scripture  which  they  serve  games  there  were  officers  (dXiVat)  appointed  to  correct 

.  such  as  were  unruly.      "Women  were  not  at  first  per- 

The  games  of  ancient  Greece  were  the  most  cele-  '  mitted  to  be  present  at  these  games,  but  this  law  seems 
brated  in  antiquity.  It  was  in  great  measure  after  to  have  become  at  first  neglected,  and  at  length  so  en- 
them  that  the  games  of  other  countries  were  copied,  ',  tirely  laid  aside,  that  women  sometimes  contended  in 
being  sometimes  introduced  into  those  countries  by  !  the  games.  All  persons  who  intended  to  compete  for 
Grecian  colonists,  as  in  Asia  Minor,  and  in  other  cases  !  the  prize  were  obliged  to  repair  for  ten  months  pre- 
imitated  by  foreigners.  Rome  added  to  the  Greek  ex-  !  viously  to  the  public  gymnasium  at  Elis,  where  they 
ample  features  of  cruelty  which  were  unknown  in  the  prepared  themselves  for  the  contest  by  continual  pro- 
original  Grecian  games;  and  there  was  one  feature  of  scribed  exercises,  which  grew  severer  as  the  day  of  de- 
difference  between  the  Grecian  and  Roman  games  i  cision  drew  near.  No  one  was  permitted  to  enter  the 
which  rendered  the  former  a  much  more  fitting  illus-  '  lists  who  had  not  submitted  to  this  preparatory  exercise, 
tration  of  the  Christian  life  than  the  latter  were —  '  nor  was  any  omission  of  it,  for  whatever  reason,  excused. 


GAMES 


GAMES 


kind,  was  required  during-  this  period,  as  well  as  the 
bodily  exercise  in  the  particular  games  in  which  each 
intended  to  compete.  Epictetus  (Encliir.  c.xxxv.,  quoted  in 
Bloomiield's  Greek  Tost,  iu  1  Co.  ix.  IT.)  graphically  <  lescribos  tlie 
temperance  which  such  must  exercise.  He  tolls  us 
that  they  must  behave  orderly;  that  they  must  eat  by 
regimen,  and  not  after  their  o\vu  appetite;  that  they 
must  abstain  wholly  from  high-cooked  meats;  that  they 
must  use  gymnastic  exercises  to  an  extreme,  at  the  fixed 
time,  in  heat  and  cold;  that  they  must  not  drink  cold 
drink  or  wine  on  every  occasion  or  opportunity — that 
they  must,  in  fine,  give  themselves  up  as  to  a  directing 
physician,  and  thus  prepared  enter  on  the  contest. 
Each  competitor  also,  and  his  near  relatives,  were 
obliged  to  take  an  oath  that  they  had  given  no  bribe  to 
their  antagonist,  and  would  not  by  any  sinister  or  un 
lawful  means  endeavour  to  stop  the  fair  and  just  pro 
ceedings  of  the  games.  Xo  criminal  or  impious  person, 
or  even  any  nearly  related  to  such  characters,  was  per 
mitted  to  compete. 

The  exercises  in  use  at  these  games  were  divided  into 
the  Pentathlon  (llevraOXov.  (^>i,i</»<  rt/i/m)  and  the 
Pankratioii  (Ua.yKpa.Tiov).  The  former  consisted  of  the 
five  exercises  of  leaping,  running,  throwing  the  quoit, 
darting,  and  wrestling,  though  instead  of  darting  some 
writers  mention  boxing.  The  pankration  consisted  of 
the  two  exercises  of  wrestling  and  boxing.  Horse- 
racing,  generally  with  chariots  attached,  was  also  usual 
at  the  games.  The  exercise  of  leaping  was  sometimes 
performed  with  weights  upon  the  heads  or  shoulders. 
The  exercise  of  running  (5/>6,uos)  was  in  very  great 
esteem  among  the  ancient  Greeks,  and  was  one  of  the 
first  practised  by  them.  It  was  reckoned  to  be  one  of 
the  most  valuable  qualifications  of  a  warrior  to  be;  able 
to  make  a  rapid  onset  on  his  enemy,  and  to  be  able  to 
retreat  quickly  if  occasion  required.  Homer  constantly 
gives  to  Achilles  the  character  of  "the  swift-footed;" 
and  David,  speaking  of  the  warlike  character  of  Saul 
and  Jonathan,  joins  the  swiftness  of  the  eagle  to  the 


of  brass,  iron,  lead,  or  wood.  It  had  a  hole  in  the 
middle  for  a  leathern  strap  to  swing  it  by.  This  dis 
tinguishes  the  quoit  from  another  similar  instrument 


Discol 


ir  Quoit-thrower.     Marble  in  British  Museum. 


strength  of  the  lion,  2  Sa.  i.  23.  Hence  the  exerci 
running  was  valued  very  highly  in 
Greece,  as  necessary  to  the  perfect 
warrior.  The  course  (ffrdSiov)  was 
one  hundred  and  twenty -five  paces  in 
length,  and  from  this  the  name  (<rr<x- 
OLoSpo^i)  was  given  to  the  runners. 
They  frequently  ran  this  twice,  back 
ward  and  forward.  At  other  times 
they  increased  the  distance  to  be  run, 
and  indeed  this  would  seem  to  have 
varied  according  to  the  supposed 
strength  of  the  runners.  The  longer 
courses  required,  in  addition  to 
agility,  great  strength  and  endurance. 
Sometimes,  in  proof  of  remarkable 
strength,  the  runners  ran  in  armour. 


of 


(croXos),  which  was  a  solid  piece  of  metal,  though  used 
for  the  same  purpose  as  the  quoit  (Liddell's  Greek  Lexicon). 
Others  however  make  the  difference  to  be  that  the 
(//.--•/•os  was  a  spherical  figure,  while  the  so/o.i  was  broad 
(Potter's  Grecian  Antiq.ch.xxi.)  Darting  was  performed  in 
several  ways;  sometimes  with  a  javelin  or  dart  (O.KWV), 
or  other  instrument  of  a  large  size,  which  they  threw 
either  with  the  hand  or  by  the  help  of  a  thong  tied 
round  the  middle  of  it;  sometimes  with  an  arrow  shot 
from  a  bow  or  cast  out  of  a  sling.  Wrestling  (Trd\t), 
fur/,,)  was  at  first  merely  a  trial  of  strength,  in  which 
the  stronger  of  the  two  was  sure  to  prevail,  but  Theseus 
converted  it  into  an  art  by  which  men  of  skill  were 
enabled  to  throw  others  far  superior  to  them  in  bodily 
strength.  The  wrestler  had  to  throw  his  adversary 
either  by  swinging  him  round,  or  tripping  him  up,  and 


286.]      Boxing  with  the  Cestus.—  Panofka  Bilder  des  Antiken  Lebens. 


The  contests  were  generally  most  severe,  and  whoever  :  then  to  keep  him  down.     The  joints  and  limbs  were 
reached  the  goal  first,  even  'by  the  smallest  distance,  was     prepared  for  the  struggle  by  being  well  rubb 


adjudged  the  prize.  As  they  approached  the  goal  the 
efforts  of  the  runners  became  more  earnest.  They  then 
put  forth  the  strength  they  had  husbanded  for  the  final 


suppled  with  oil.  The  victory  was  adjudged  to  him 
who  gave  his  adversary  three  falls  (Potters  Grecian  Anti- 
quitie^  and  Liddell's  Greek  Lexicon).  Boxing  (irvyfJ.aKia, 


I  HI  u   IU1  Uil    tlJU    DUltligKiA     um-j    *i  •     1          1          1  1  1          1 

effort    and  the  anxiety  of  the  spectators  was  raised  to    pvf/ilatus)  was  at  first  practised  with  the  hands 

and  unguarded,  but  in  after  times  they  were  surrounded 


the  highest  pitch  as  the  various  competitors,  every  nerve 
and  muscle  strained,  each  eye  fixed  on  the  goal,  pressed 
on  with  their  utmost  speed.  Throwing  the  quoit  was 
another  of  the  games.  The  quoit  (oiffKos)  was  a  round 


with  thongs  of  leather,  called  ccstus,  which  at  first  were 
short  and  reached  no  higher  than  the  wrist,  but  were 
afterwards  extended  to  the  elbow,  and  even  to  the 


GAMES 


623 


shoulder,  and  these  being  filled  with  plummets  of  lead 
and  iron  added  fearfully  to  the  force  of  the  blow.  In 
order  to  be  able  to  bear  the  blows  thus  inflicted,  the 


We  now  return  to  the  ancient  Grecian  games.    When 
the  day  of  the  actual  contest  arrived,  the  judge  (fipa- 
or  judges  sat  in  the  appointed  place,  the  spec- 


body  required  to  be  fat,  as  well  as  muscular  and  hardy.  |  tators  assembled,  and  the  combatants  came  forward. 


These  were  the  principal  exercises  in  use  in  the  ancient 
games  of  Greece. 

hi  process  of  time,  however,  other  public  games 
were  introduced,  and  here  Rome  led  the  way.  These 
were  characterized  by  features  of  brutality  and  crueltv. 


A  herald  then  called  over  their  names,  recited  to  them 
the  laws  of  the  game,  encouraged  them  to  exert  all 
their  powers,  and  enlarged  upon  the  blessings  of  vic 
tory.  He  then  brought  them  into  the  stadium,  and 
asked  if  any  one  knew  of  any  reason  which  could  pre- 


gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 


unknown  to  the  Grecian  games,  and  altogether  opposed  '  vent  their  contending,  and  took  an  oath  of  themselves 
to  the  merciful  spirit  inculcated  and  engendered  by  the  '  that  they  would  strictly  observe  the  laws  of  the  game. 
One  of  them  was  the  fighting     In  all  the  athletic  exercises  the  combatants  contended 

naked ;  the  chaplets  of  victory  were  openly 
exposed  to  their  view,  to  inflame  them  with 
ardour,  and  the  prodigious  assembly,  brought 
together  from  all  the  parts  of  Greece,  looked 
on  with  eagerness  at  their  contest,  and  ap 
plauded  to  the  skies  those  who  were  victorious. 
When  the  judges  had  passed  their  solemn 
sentence,  a  public  herald  proclaimed  aloud  the 
name  of  the  victor,  and  the  crown  was  placed 
in  his  hands.  Such  as  had  obtained  prizes 
at  any  of  the  games,  but  especially  at  the 
Olympic,  were  held  in  universal  honour.  The 
statues  of  the  conquerors  at  these  latter 
[2S7. )  Fighting  with  wild  beast. -Mazois  Pompeii,  games  were  erected  ill  the  sacred  wood  of 

.hipiter.      Their  return  home  was  celebrated 

of  wild  beasts  with  one  another.  From  every  quarter  |  with  marks  of  the  highest  honour.  They  rode  in  a 
to  which  the  sway  or  the  influence  of  Rome  extended,  i  triumphal  chariot  into  their  city,  not  through  one  of 
the  powerful  and  ferocious  beasts  of  the  forest  and  the  its  gates,  but  through  the  walls'  broken  down  to  <dve 


desert  plain  were  gathered,  and  the  lion  and  the  ti 
the  bear  ami  the  elephant,  contended  together  to  afford 
sport  for  the  multitudes  assembled  hi  the  Roman  am 
phitheatres.  On  other  occasions  these  ferocious  ani 
mals  were  brought  out  to  fight  with  men.  Tin-  latt.-r 
were  generally  persons  who  had  been 
condemned  to  death  for  various 
offences  against  the  laws  of  the  state. 
They  were  brought  into  the  arena, 
and  wild  beasts,  stirred  up  to  mad 
ness  by  the  shouts  and  light  darts  of 
the  spectators,  were  let  loose  upon 
them  to  tear  and  worry  them  to 
death  in  a  shocking  manner.  The 
assembled  crowds  looked  on  with 
savage  delight  as  the  condemned 
criminals  were  forced  upon  the  sta^e, 
or  torn  by  the  claws  of  the  beasts. 
15ut  sometimes  the  men  who  fought 
with  the  wild  beasts  were  men  who, 
induced  by  hire,  or  from  a  ferocity 
of  disposition,  offered  themselves 
voluntarily  to  contend  (Adam's  Roman 
Antiq.)  The  fights  of  the  gladiators 
with  one  another  was  also  a  common 
practice  at  Rome.  It  began  A.r.  490, 
and  increased  to  such  a  fearful  ex 
tent,  that  on  a  single  occasion,  in 


them  entrance,  in  token,  as  Plutarch  says,   that  that 


city  had   no   need   of    walk 
defend    it.         Paint-Ts    and 
celebrate  their  name? 
nate    with    themselve 


whic 
poets 

Nor  did   their  honours  termi- 
The    city    which    had    Lfiven 


had    such   men   to 
were    employed    to 


[288.] 


honour  of  the  triumph  of  the  emperor  Trajan  over  the     them  birth  and  education   ranked  higher  than  before 


Dacians,  ten  thousand  gladiators  fought  for  the  amuse 
ment  of  the  people.  They  were  at  first  composed  of 
captives  or  condemned  malefactors;  but  afterwards,  as 
the  passion  for  blood  grew  stronger,  free-born  citizens, 
men  of  noble  birth,  and  even  women,  fought  after  this 
fashion.  The  spectators  betted  on  their  favourite  gladi 
ators  with  much  the  same  feelings  as  they  betted  on  the 
favourite  horses  which  ran  before  them  in  the  circus. 




on  this  account,  and  their  parents  were  honoured  for 
the  merits  of  their  sons.  The  victories  obtained  at 
the  Olympic  games  form  the  subjects  of  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  odes  of  Pindar.  Such  is  a  brief  account 


*  Gladiator,  from  sepulchral  cippusof  Baton,  a  gladiator  cele 
brated  under  Caracalla. — Winckelimin. 

t  Victorious  Auriga  or  Driver  in  the  Games  of  tho  Circus, 
from  a  statue  in  the  Vatican. — Hope. 


GAMES 

of  those  games,  which  are  frequently  alluded  to  in  the 
epistles  of  the  New  Testament,  and  afforded  some  of 
the  aptest  illustrations  of  the  sufferings  and  the  trial 
of  the  Christian  life.  To  these  we  will  now  turn  our 
attention. 

.It  is  only  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul   that  we  find 
allusions  to  the  games.      This  is  just  what  we  might 
expect.      The   other   writers   of   the   New   Testament, 
with  the  exception  of  Luke,  were  Jews  of  Palestine, 
to  whom  these  games  were  little  if  at  all  known.      Paul 
was  a  man  much  better  acquainted  with  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  world.      Those  whom  he  wrote  to  j 
were  generally  at  least,  if  not  always  as  we  think,  per 
sons  to  whom  the  customs  of  the  games  were  familiar, 
and  who  had  probably  been  cognizant  of  the  prepara 
tions  made  for  them,  and  witnesses  of  their  performance. 
The   inhabitants   of  Greece,   and   Macedon,    and    Asia 
Minor  were   all  acquainted   with  them,  and  any,   the 
very  faintest  allusion  to  them,   would  be  understood. 
It  is  quite  possible,  as  Conybeare  and  Howsoii  suppose 
(Conybearc  and  Howson's  St.  1'aul,  ii.  >•!,  2Wi),    that    St.     Paul 
was  at  Ephesus  when  the  annual  contest  in  honour  of 
Diana  was  being  there  celebrated,  and  at  Corinth  when 
its   world-renowned   games   were   going  on,    Ac.  xix.  31; 
xx.  i«;  xviii.  1.     To  suppose  that  he  was  present  at  these 
o-ames  as  a  voluntary  spectator,  is,  in  our  opinion,  quite 
inconsistent  with  the  apostle's  character.      That  there 
was  much  in  the  games  that  a  man  of  his  good  sense  and 
broad  views  of  things  would  not  condemn,  we  are  quite 
willing  to  admit;  that  there  was  much  there  too  which 
must  have  been  distasteful  to  him,  we  are  equally  sure. 
That  his  using  them  as  an  illustration  true  and  graphic 
of  the  Christian  life,   affords  any  evidence  of  his  ap 
proving  of  them  as  a  whole,  is  scarcely  worth  a  reply. 
Part  of  the  games  at  Ephesus  consisted  in  the  savage 
combats  of  men  with  wild  beasts,  of  which  no  humane 
person,  Christian  or  heathen,  could  approve.      Yet  the 
apostle  uses  this  as  an  illustration  of  his  strife  for  his 
Master  with  men  as  fierce  as  the  wild  animals,  just  as 
readily  as  he  illustrates  the  Christian  life  by  the  blows 
of  the  boxer,  and  the  swiftness  and  endurance  of  the 
runner,   i  Co.  xv.  32.     They   afforded   admirable   illustra 
tions,  felt  and  understood  by  every  one,  and  as  such  he 
used  them.     He  referred  not  to  the  sports  themselves 
either  in  praise  or  blame.     He  could  not  praise  them  as 
a  whole  without  sanctioning  much  that  was  wicked,  and 
untrue,  and  immodest;  he  could  not  condemn  them  in 
the   same  way   without   condemning   much   that    was 
innocent  and  useful.      And  so  he  left  the  question  un 
trammelled,  for  later  times  to  institute  manly  and  re 
creative  games,  which  should  consist  with  the  modesty, 
sobriety,  mercy,  and  temperance  of  the  Christian  char 
acter.      Such  were  not  the  games  of  his  time,  and  he 
therefore  could  not  praise  them;  such  might  lie — useful 
as  well  as  recreative  for  the  youth  of  a  Christian  nation 
— and  we  have  no  word  of  his  to  condemn  such.     Mean 
while  he  used  the  customs  of  his  time  to  illustrate  and 
enforce  that  Christian  life  which  it  was  the  whole  aim 
of  his  own  life  and  labours  to  produce  and  perfect  with 
God's  Spirit  working  with  him.     They  brought  before 
him  and  before  his  readers  great  and  glorious  themes  : 
the  crown  of  unfailing  glory;  the  preparation  for  gain 
ing  it;  the  necessity  for  great,   continued,  and  lawful 
struggle;  the  witnesses  who  look  on  to  encourage;  the 
just,  and  righteous,  and  loving  Judge,  who  crowns  each 
victor  in  that  struggle  in  which  he  himself  by  his  own 
example  taught  them  how  to  be  victorious. 


The  illustrations  of  the  Christian  life  are  drawn  by 
St.  Paul  from  three  only  of  the  games — viz.  from  run 
ning,  boxing,  and  the  fights  of  men  with  wild  beasts 
or  gladiators.  Those  taken  from  running  are  the  most 
frequent,  that  game  being  referred  to  distinctly  in  four 
passages,  in  three  of  which  it  is  largely  used  in  illustra 
tion,  1  Co.  ix.  -21-21;;  Phi.  iii.l-l;  2TL  iv.  7;  Hu.  xii.  1,2.  The  passage 
of  all  others  in  which  the  life  of  the  Christian  is  most 
fully  illustrated  by  the  games  is  the  first  of  these  three, 
and  the  Corinthian  is  the  church  to  which  such  allusion 
is  most  frequently  made,  1  Co.  iv.  9;  ix.  2i-2f>;  xv.  :<t>.  This 
was  natural,  as  the  Jsthmian  games,  the  most  re 
nowned  in  Greece  after  the  Olympian,  were  celebrated 


0.  i        Coin  of  Antoninus  struck  ut  Corinth,  with  Isthmia  on 


in  the  neighbourhood  of  Corinth,  and  as  the  inhabitants 
of  that  city  were  greatly  attached  to  them.  The  apostle 
Paul  had  been  speaking  in  the  context  of  1  Co.  ix. 
24-20  of  his  own  earnest  efforts  to  gain  men  of  every 
class  to  the  gospel  of  his  Master,  and  to  be  partaker 
with  them  of  its  blessing.  This  led  him  to  enlarge  on 
the  nature  of  that  life  which  they  and  he  must  live  if 
they  would  have  this  hope  sure  and  well-grounded  : 
'•Know  ye  not,"  he  says,  "that  they  which  run  in  a 
race  run  all,  but  one  receiveth  the  prize?  So  run  that 
ye  may  obtain.  And  every  man  that  striveth  for  the 
mastery  is  temperate  in  all  things.  Now  they  do  it  to 
obtain  a  corruptible  crown,  but  we  an  incorruptible. 
I  therefore  so  run',  not  as  uncertainly;  so  fight  I,  not 
as  one  that  beateth  the  air;  but  I  keep  under  my  body, 
and  bring  it  into  subjection,  lest  by  any  means  when  1 
have  preached  to  others  I  myself  should  be  a  castaway." 
There  are  here  intermingled  allusions  to  two  exercises, 
running  and  boxing,  but  chiefly  to  the  former:  and  in 
this  beautiful  passage  the  grand  features  of  the  games 
are  seized  by  a  master's  hand,  and  used -at  once  to  illus 
trate  the  real  nature  of  the  life  in  which  he  and  all 
Christians  are  engaged,  and  to  set  forth  by  contrast  the 
infinite  superiority  of  that  which  the  humblest  Christian 
aims  at  and  attains  beyond  that  which  the  noblest  of 
the  heathen  contended  for,  and  in  which  but  few  of  them 
could  possibly  succeed.  In  the  first  verse  the  apostle 
brings  forward  the  distinguishing  features  of  the  day 
of  trial  for  the  runners.  We  have  ''the  race- course" 
(ffrdSiov),  a  number  of  the  swiftest  men  running  (-rrdvTes 
Tptx°wsii>),  the  prize  (ftpa.Sfiov\,  the  one  successful 
runner  (els  5£  Xa^gctw  TO  (3pa§e"ioi>).  In  these  brief 
words  we  see  the  earnest  eager  efforts  of  many,  striving 
with  all  their  power,  using  every  muscle  of  their  body, 
husbanding  their  strength  for  the  final  effort,  all  having 
throughout  the  race  one  object,  the  prize,  in  view,  and 
as  the  result,  one  man  surpassing  his  competitors  it 
might  be  by  but  a  foot-length,  he  coming  forward  amid 
the  shouts  and  plaudits  of  multitudes  to  receive  the 
prize,  while  the  remainder,  though  among  the  swiftest 
and  most  enduring  of  their  country,  turn  baffled  and 
disappointed  away.  They  had  all  run  well,  some  pro- 


GAMES  I) 

bably  to  a  nearness  as  well  as  the  victor;  they  had  all 
probably  deserved  the  prize,  but  there  was  only  one 
prize,  and  by  the  laws  of  the  game  it  had  been  adjudged 
to  another.  The  games  which  Virgil  describes  so 
beautifully  in  the  fifth  book  of  his  ^Encid  were  excep 
tional,  in  which  -'Eneas,  from  the  promptings  of  his 
generosity,  declares  that  every  competitor  shall  receive 
a  prize :  - 

''  Acuipite  h;ec  animi.s,  l:t-ta.sf£ue  uiUvrtito  im-utes ; 
Nemo  1,-x  hoc  nuuiero  niihi  mm  Jonatu.-;  abibit." — ;v.  ,'!0"<. ) 

This  was  not  a  sample  of  the  games  of  Greece.  Ju 
them  many  ran,  while  only  one  received  the  pri/e. 
But  this  was  not  all.  Surrounding  the  Grecian  stadium 
were  multitudes  who  might  and  did  wish  for  the  dis 
tinctions  of  victory,  but  into  who.se  minds  it  never 
entered  to  contend,  because  contention  would  for  them 
be  hopeless.  The  actual  runners  were  as  one  to  a  thou 
sand  \\ho  would  wish  to  wear  a  crown,  but  who  would 
make  no  effort,  because  the  very  hindmost  of  those 
whom  they  saw  defeated  would  have  outr-tripped  them. 
Of  the  runners  one  only  received  a  prize;  of  the  thou 
sands  and  tens  of  thousands  uf  the  Grecian  states  a 
few  only  ran.  Erom  hence  the  apostle  turns  to  draw 
the  Christian  lesson.  Jtis.  "  Sn  run  tim.t  //<•  mm/ ,,/,(«;„." 
I  fere  is  at  once  a  lesson  taught  to  Christians  by  the 
games,  and  an  intimation  how  much  more  blessed  they 
were  than  the  runners  in  them.  "  X«  run  that  ve  mav 
obtain"  is  well  explained,  not  only  by  the  laws  of  the 
games,  but  by  another  text  of  St.  Paul,  of  a  similar 
meaning  and  allusion.  ••  If  a  man  also  strive  for  mas 
teries,  yet  he  is  not  crowned,  except  he  X/V//T  /"//yV///." 
2Ti.  ii.  f>.  There  were  in  the  game.-,  certain  rules  to  be 
observed,  and  whoever  did  not  observe  these  could  not 
be  victorious,  no  matter  what  strength  or  agilitv  lu 
ll  ad  displayed.  So  for  the  h.-av. -nly  prize  then-  are 
certain  rules  laid  down  by  God  which  every  competitor 
mil-it  observe.  If  he  ne-ieet  them,  and  choose  other 
rules,  either  selected  by  himself  or  by  other  men,  be 
cannot  hope  to  succeed.  And  in  this  there  could  be 
no  mistake  or  deceit.  It  was  possible  that  a  runner 
in  the  games  might  break  some  rule  and  yet  win.  He 
might  swear  that  he  had  observed  them,  and  swear 
falsely;  he  might  not  have  performed  the  appointed 
regulations,  and  his  deficiency  might  not  be  observed  In 
human  judges:  but  with  the  divine  Judge  there  could 
be  no  mistake.  While,  however,  there  was  an  analog-, 
there  was  also  a  superiority.  Xo  matter  how  lawfully 
men  had  striven  in  the  games,  onlv  one-  could  be  vic 
torious;  in  the  Christian  life  all  who  strive  lawfullv  are 
sure  of  a  crown.  It  was  as  though  the  herald  at  the 
games  had  proclaimed  to  assembled  Greece,  Here  is  a 
game  at  which  every  one  assembled  may  gain  a  crown, 
and  its  value  shall  be  none  the  less  because  all  shall  be 
victors.  Such  is  the  proclamation  of  the  gospel.  To 
all  it  proposes  its  crown:  So  run,  and  ye  shall  obtain-  - 
not  one  or  two,  or  many,  but  all.  An  additional  feature 
of  great  interest  in  the  game  of  the  runners  is  brought 
before  us  in  I'hi.  iii.  1  I.  The  interest  in  the  game,  both  ! 
on  the  part  of  the  spectators  and  the  runners,  increased 
as  it  progressed.  It  was  not  always  the  foremost  in 
the  beginning  who  was  foremost  at  the  end.  It  might 
be  only  a  sign  of  inexperience  to  put  forth  strength  at 
first,  which  might  have  been  more  properly  kept  for  the 
final  struggle.  It  was  when  a  great  part  of  the  course 
had  been  passed  that  the  runners  would  most  earnestly  ' 
regard  the  prize  before  them,  measure  the  distance  to 

be  run,  calculate  their  own  strength,  and  then  press 
VOL.  I. 


GAMES 

OH  with  all  their  might.  A  similar  thing  to  this  occurs 
in  the  Christian's  life  when  he  is  striving  lawfully. 
As  the  crown  is  approached  he  presses  on  with  fresh 
ardour  to  win  and  wear  it.  So  it  was  with  St.  Paul : 
"  Forgetting  those  things  which  were  behind,  and  reach 
ing  forth  unto  those  things  which  were  before,  he  pressed 
towards  the  mark  (O-KOTTOS)  for  the  prize  (fipageTov)  of 
the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus."  Other  features 
of  interest  in  the  game  of  the  runner  are  brought  out 
iu  2  Ti.  iv.  7,  S.  We  may  imagine  the  joy  and  pride 
of  the  runner  when  he  had  finished  his  course  and  dis 
tanced  every  competitor,  and  secured  beyond  any  mis 
chance  the  crown  of  his  desire.  This  is  beautifully 
lirouglit  out  by  St.  Taul  in  the  passage  referred  to. 
He  was  now  at  the  very  close  of  life.  He  looked  back 
on  years  of  struggle  and  difficulty,  in  which,  through 
the  grace  of  Christ,  he  had  been  more  than  conqueror. 
He  had  now  but  very  little  more  to  xnth  r,  nothing  more 
to  do  iii  an  active  way  for  his  Master.  He  had  but  to 
bear  his  last  testimony  before  the  tyrant,  hear  his  sen 
tence,  and  die  no  hard  thing  for  him  who  in  life  "died 
daily."  i  Co.  xv.  31.  He  felt  as  the  runner  who  had  made 
his  last  effort,  and  who  stood,  panting  it  might  be,  but 
flushed  with  victory  and  elated  with  joy,  before  the 
judge  who  had  not  yet  placed  the  crown  upon  his  brow: 
'•  I  have  fought  a  good  fight.  I  have  finished  my  course 
(rov  iVouoc),  I  have  kept  the  faith;  henceforth  there  is 
laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness,  which  the  Lord, 
the  righteous  Judge,  shall  give  me  at  that  day."  The 
inter\al  between  his  victory  and  his  crowning  at  the 
appearance  of  Christ  seemed  to  him  but  as  the  short 
time  which  elapses  between  the  victory  of  the  runner 
in  the  games  and  his  being  crowned  by  the  jttdue.  We 
have  here  other  features  in  the  Christian  life  illustrated 
by  the  games.  We  saw  that  originally  there  was  but 
one  judge  appointed  to  decide,  but  that  afterwards  the 
number  was  increased  t<>  twelve.  The  change  was 
made-  lest  any  unfair  partiality  should  be  shown  by  the 
judiiv.  which  was  sought  to  be  obviated  by  an  inciva-e 
of  number  a  danger  not  always  (scaped  even  by  this 
change  (IvtUT.s  Gix-cmu  Antiquities,  <-h  xxii  )  The  original 
institution  of  a  single  judge  illustrates  the  Christian 
course,  where  Christ  is  the  judge,  the  one  and  only 
judge,  because-  he  is  "  the  righteous  , I  udge  "  (6  St'/catos 
KJHTJ)^,  in  whose  decision  there  is  no  error  or  partial 
ity,  and  from  which  ccin>e(|iu-ntl v  there  is  no  appeal. 
\\  e  have  also  illustrated  the  interval  which  elapses  in 
the  Christian  course  between  victory  and  crowning. 
There  was  a  period  when  the  runner  in  the  games  was 
<in  tinrrnu-nrd  victor.  It  was  after  he  had  ceased  to 
run,  and  while  the  judges  deliberated  on  his  claims,  ere 
the  crown  was  placed  in  his  hands.  He  was  at  rest, 
all  his  labour  over;  he  was  calm,  for  he  was  assured  of 
victory;  but  he  was  also  expectant  till  the  sign  of  vic 
tory  was  actually  given  him,  the  sentence  passed,  his 
name  proclaimed,  his  crown  given  to  him.  How  beau 
tifully  does  this  illustrate  the  Christian  life!  At  death 
he  ceases  to  strive,  he  is  at  perfect  rest  and  peace,  but 
he  awaits  still  the  closing  scene,  when  the  righteous 
Judge  appears  to  crown  him,  and  all  like  him,  at  the 
great  day  of  his  appearing,  2TL  iv.  s. 

The  apostle  only  makes  one  brief  reference  to  the 
game  of  boxing,  and  that  seems  introduced  merely  to 
add  weight  to  the  illustration  just  used  from  the  game 
of  running,  for  both  illustrations  evidently  point  to  the 
same  thing.  In  1  Co.  ix.  2(>  we  read,  "  1  therefore  so 
run.  not  as  uncertainly:  so  fight  I,  not  as  one  that  beatctlt, 

79 


GAMKS 


GAMKS 


the  air."  The  context,  ;is  well  as  the  verse  itself,  show  | 
us  its  force.  St.  Paul  was  just  comparing,  not  only 
the  superiority  of  the  Christian's  crown  over  that  of 
the  Raines,  ver.  2.1,  Imt  the  fact  that  one  only  couM  win 
in  the  games,  while  all  Christians  might  win  in  their 
course,  ver.  21.  From  this  In:  takes  occasion  to  say  that. 
living  as  the  Christian  should  do  who  looks  for  victory, 
lie  ran  in  such  a  way  as  that  there  was  no  uncertainty 
(d5rj\u.<)  as  to  the  issue;  he  fought  in  such  a  way  as 
could  not  resemble  the  boxer,  who,  striving  as  he  might, 
often  spent  his  strongest  Idows  on  the  air,  and  not  on 
his  antagonist,  and  thus  weakening  -himself  to  no  pur 
pose,  exposed  himself  to  the  danger  of  defeat.  The 
runner  ran  uncertain  of  success;  the  best-aimed  blows 
of  the  boxer,  missing  their  aim  and  falling  on  the  air, 
weakened  him,  and  put  him  in  the  power  of  his  enemy: 
but  the  runnel'  in  the  Christian  life  ran  with  the  assur 
ance  of  victory,  and  the  Christian  combatant  could  not 
spend  his  blows  idlv  or  to  his  own  injury,  as  one  in 
the  games  beating  the  air,  but  every  effort  faithfully 
and  truly  made  would  help  to  success  in  the  great  fight 
in  which  he  was  engaged.  That  St.  Paul  here  speaks 
of  the  blows  of  the  boxer  engaged  in  actual  light,  not 
of  his  private  exercise,  by  himself,  is  evident.  For. 
lirst,  the  blows  here  spoken  of  are  worse  than  useless, 
they  are  a  hinderance  to  success.  The  blows  aimed  at 
an  antagonist  and  missing  him  are  such:  the  blows  in 
private  exercise  are  useful  and  requisite  to  prepare  for 
the  fight.  Again,  it  is  of  the  actual  running  in  the 
course  on  the  dav  of  trial  that  he  is  speaking  through 
out,  and  therefore  it  is  also  of  the  actual  contest  of  the 
pugilists.  \Ve  have  an  admirable  description  of  the 
actual  event  of  a  boxer  striking  only  the  air  and  not 
his  eiiemv,  and  of  its  injurious  effects,  in  Virgil. 
Eiitellus  aims  a  blow  at  Dares,  who  avoids  it,  and  then 
the  poet  tells  us— 

••  Kiitdlus  viivs  in  ventum  utl'udit,  et  ultro 

Ijise  xra\is  irvaviter<]ue  ad  terrain  pondere  vustu 
Conci.lit."— (-I'/i.  v.  -l-liV) 

How  admirably  does  this  feature  of  one  of  the  games 
show  us  as  Christians  our  superiority!  The  best  effort 
of  the  boxer  might  only  endanger  his  success:  every 
true  effort  of  the  Christian  brings  the  final  victory 
more  nearly  within  his  grasp;  there  is  for  him  no  such 
thing  as  idly  beating  the  air. 

The  persecutions  of  ( 'hristians  by  their  enemies,  their 
danger  to  person  and  life  from  this  source,  are  in  three 
passages  of  the  New  Testament  illustrated  by  the  cruel 
game  in  which,  at  Home,  Ephesus,  and  elsewhere,  men 
were  brought  forward  on  the  arena  to  contend  with 
wild  beasts  or  gladiators,  1  Co.  xv.  32  ;  iv.  9;  Ho.  x.  32.  In 
the  two  former  of  these  St.  Paul  refers  to  his  own  per 
secutions,  or  those  of  his  fellow-apostles;  in  the  last  to 
the  case  of  Christians  generally  when  under  grievous 
persecution.  In  the  first  of  these  passages  he  refers  to 
an  incident  of  his  life  at  Ephesus,  in  order  to  show  how 
foolish  it  were  for  him  to  endure  what  he  did  if  he  were 
not  animated  by  the  sure  hope  of  the  resurrection :  "If 
after  the  manner  of  men  I  have  fought  with  beasts  at 
Ephesus,  what  advantageth  it  me  if  the  dead  rise  not?" 
The  reference  here  is  to  what  took  place  at  Ephesus 
during  the  apostle's  stay  there,  as  related  in  Ac.  xix. 
Some  suppose  he  actually  contended  with  wild  beasts, 
as  it  was  no  doubt  usual  for  criminals  and  others  to  do 
at  Ephesus.  This  view  is  untenable.  In  the  first  place 
the  very  phrase  (6ripLO[j.a.x<!u\  and  similar  phrases,  are 
in  constant  use  to  signify  contests  with  men  of  tempers 


as  sax-age  as  wild  beasts.  "  From  Syria  to  Home  I 
fight  with  beasts,"  said  Ignatius  in  his  epistle  to  the 
Romans  (ch.  v.),  meaning  by  the  beasts  the  savage  sol 
diery  by  whom  he  was  led  in  chains;  and  similar  lan 
guage  is  in  frequent  use  in  Scripture,  2Ti.  iv.  IT;  I'hi.  iii.  2; 
l's.  \ii.  2;  .\.\ii.  i:;.  Again,  in  the  history  in  Ac.  xix.,  we 
find  no  occurrence  of  this  kind  related.  Again,  in 
2  Co.  xi.  'Jo-^S,  where  Paul  enters  minutely  into  an 
enumeration  of  his  past  trials,  he  makes  no  mention  of 
anything  like  this.  The  apostle's  right  of  citizenship, 
which  he  always  used  for  his  protection,  would  not 
permit  of  such  a  thing.  And  his  own  qualifying  phrase, 
''speaking  after  the  manner  of  a  man."  seems  to  signify 
his  own  assertion  that  he  used  the  phrase  metaphori 
cally,  borrowing  a  custom  of  men  at  the  games  to  ex 
press  significantly  the  persecution  he  endured  for  Christ. 
We  only  then  require  such  a  scene'  or  scenes  at  Ephe 
sus  as  would  justify  the  application  of  the  term  to 
them,  and  we  have  such  in  Ac.  xix..  and  may  well  sup 
pose  that  the  raging  spirit  then  fully  put  forth  was 
shown  upon  many  of  those  numerous  occasions  when 
Paul  testified  to  the  fierce  idolaters  of  Ephesus  that 
"they  were  no  gods  which  were  made  with  hands," 
vur.  26.  We  have  in  this  chapter  a  scene  fully  described 
which  exceeds  the  savage  scenes  of  the  amphitheatre, 
in  that  it  is  men,  not  brute  beasts,  who  are  the  actors. 
We  have  the  savage  passions  of  the  beasts,  the  stirring 
up  of  these  to  fury  when  their  keepers  thought  fit  to 
do  so.  their  furious  roaring  filling  the  air.  their  fierce 
rushing,  the  varied  cries  of  beasts  of  different  kinds, 
exactly  brought  before  us  in  the  multitude  of  tin:  great 
city,  cruel  by  a  fallen  nature,  and  made  doubly  so  by  a 
false  and  cruel  worship,  roused  from  their  habitations 
by  artful  and  influential  leaders,  stirred  up  to  madness 
by  their  artful  addresses,  rushing  in  fury  with  Paul's 
companions  into  the  theatre  eager  to  destroy  them,  and 
there  in  blind  passion  shouting  out  some  one  thing  some 
another.  These  were  the  wild  beasts  with  whom  Paul 
fought  at  Ephesus.  The  Greek  thcriomach,  the  Latin 
/icxtitiriii.-t,  was  the  apt  resemblance  of  the  undaunted 
apostle  contending  with  the  idolaters  of  Ephesus.  The 
next  reference,  1  Co.  iv.  <>,  represents  the  sad  case  of  the 
apostles  generally  by  a  yet  more  fearful  feature  of  these 
savage  games.  The  combatants  in  the  morning  with 
beasts  had  armour  of  offence  and  defence;  but  those 
who  were  brought  last  in  the  day  upon  the  arena  were 
naked  and  defenceless,  exposed  without  any  defence  to 
their  foes,  and  if  they  chanced  to  escape  one  day  it  was 
only  to  be  reserved  for  the  same  fate  on  another.  How 
forcibly  does  this  illustrate  St.  Paul's  description  of 
himself  and  his  fellow-apostles:  •'  I  think  that  God  hath 
set  forth  us  the  apostles  /(t.<t,  as  appointed  to  death,  for 
we  are  made  a  spectacle  (dtarpov)  unto  the  world,  and 
to  angels,  and  to  men."  The  last  scene  of  the  amphi 
theatre,  where  wretched  men  were  exposed  to  certain 
death  to  satiate  the  cruelty  or  excite  the  pity  of  the 
crowded  seats,  was  required  to  set  forth  the  condition 
of  those  devoted  men  who  stood  the  brunt  of  the  world's 
hatred  and  opposition  to  Christ  in  the  first  age  of  the 
church  (Whitby's  Commentary),  Something  of  a  similar 
kind  in  the  history  of  those  who  are  addressed  in  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews  seems  referred  to  in  ch.  x.  :j2. 

The  universal  temperance,  not  abstinence,  which  was 
required  for  a  long  previous  time  by  those  who  would 
look  for  victory  in  the  games,  is  admirably  used  to 
express  the  temperance  which  is  required  in  the  Chris 
tian  life,  1  Co.  ix.  2.">-2".  Strict  temperance,  and  that 


GAMMADIMS 


life-long,  is  the  Christian  man's  rule,  who  would  with 
a  good  hope  expect  the  heavenly  crown.  It  signifies 
the  restraint  of  one's  inclinations  in  permitted  things  ; 
for  from  sinful  things  he  must  wholly  abstain.  This 
restraint  of  the  inclination,  within  moderate  bounds 
implies  constant  self-denial.  There  is  no  temperance 
where  there  is  no  self- denial.  The  throwing  off  restraint 
is  the  abandonment  of  temperance.  That  which  must 
be  subdued  and  brought  into  subjection,  is  not  merely 
the  craving  of  the  body,  but  also  the  desires  of  the 
mind.  The  body  must  be  the  Christian  man's  servant, 
not  his  master.  He  must  learn  to  rule  its  appetites, 
not  to  be  ruled  by  them.  The  picture  which  classic 
writers  give  us  of  the  preparation — long,  earnest,  self- 
denying  —on  the  part  of  those  who  sought  the  crown  in 
the  games,  exactly  sets  forth  the  corresponding  pre 
paration  which  Christian  men  must  make,  if  they 
would  not  lose  their  hope.  Without  it  they  might 
preach  as  Paul  did.  and  be  cast  awav — judged  un 
worthy  of  a  prize  (d5oKi,uos). 

The  competitor  at  the  games  fought  and  ran  before 
a  grand  and  numerous  assemblage.  From  all  quarters 
the  ardent  and  emulous  inhabitants  assembled  to  look 
upon  those  who  were  to  put  forth  before  them  all  their 
vigour.  Some  of  those  spectators  had  themselves 
been,  or  would  afterwards  be,  competitors  for  victorv. 
Meforo  a  nobler  or  more  spirit-stirring  assembly  none 
could  contend  for  a  human  crown.  This  feature  of 
the  games  is  laid  hold  of  beautifully  in  He.  xii.  1,  •_>. 
In  the  previous  chapter  St.  Paul  had  brought  forward 
in  grand  array  the  heroes  of  faith.  The  Old  Testa 
ment  is  searched  from  its  first  pa-vs  to  its  last  to  fur 
nish  forth  its  best,  its  bravest,  its  most  tried.  \Ve  see 
them  come  forth  one  after  another,  and  take  their 
place  amid  the  grandest  muster-roll  that  lias  ever  been 
put  upon  record.  All  had  been  strug-'lers  for  victory, 
and  all  had  secured  its  crown.  I'.efore  these,  the 
apostle  tells  the  suffering  believers  he  is  writing  to 
that  they  are  contending  for  victory,  and  especially 
before  Him  who  is  the  grand  example  of  faith  and 
patience,  as  he  will  be  the  crowner  ,,f  all  who  exhibit 
faith  and  patience  in  his  cause.  "  Seeing  we  also  are 
compassed  about  with  so  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses 
let  us  lay  aside  everv  weight,  and  the  sin  which  doth 
so  easily  beset  us,  and  let  us  run  witli  patience  the  race 
that  is  set  before  us,  looking  unto  Jesus.''  The  Gre- 
cian  assembly  at  the  Olympic  games  illustrates,  while- 
it  falls  infinitely  short  of,  this  glorious  assembly  of 
saints,  and  martyrs,  and  faithful  men. 

The  difference  of  the  crown  which  men  contended 
for  at  the  games  and  which  the  Christian  contends  for 
could  not  escape  the  apostle's  attention,  and  he  has 
brought  it  forward  in  few  but  striking  words:  "They 
do  it  to  obtain  a  corruptible  crown,  but  we  an  incor 
ruptible,"  1  Co.  ix.  2.v  The  crowns  at  the  games  were 
pleasant  to  the  victors  — 

"  Viridesque  corona: 
Kt  palma:,  pretium  victoribus." — (.7;'/(.  v.  110.) 

but  they  soon  lost  their  freshness  and  faded :  the 
Christian's  crown  is  incorruptible,  and  undefiled,  and 
fadeth  not  away.  [n.  c.] 

GAM'MADIMS,  F.xe.  xxvii.  11,  not,  as  some  have 
supposed,  the  name  of  a  people,  but  an  appellative 
probably  meaning  the  courai/coim  or  duri/i;/. 

GARDEN.  If  what  Solomon  spake  concerning 
"trees,  from  the  cedar  to  the  hyssop,"  was  consigned 
to  writing,  the  work  has  long  since  perished ;  but  it 


GARDEN 

is  impossible  to  read  the  Bible  without  perceiving  that 
the  Hebrews  were  a  people  who  delighted  in  flowers 
and  green  fields,  in  groves  and  plantations,  in  orchards 
and  gardens.  The  two  hundred  and  fifty  botanical 
terms  occurring  in  the  original  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  enough  to  prove  this.  No  collection  of  classical 
authors  of  the  same  extent,  and  not  professedly  treat 
ing  on  husbandry,  could  furnish  so  long  a  list ;  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  all  these  terms  occur  inci 
dentally  in  their  laws,  their  poetry,  their  history. 
Trees  and  flowers  enhanced  the  enjoyment,  or  relieved 
the  gloom,  of  almost  every  scene  in  Jewish  life.  Like 
the  streets  of  modern  Ispahan,  like  many  of  the  towns 
of  America  and  the  Continent,  their  cities  were  some 
times  adorned  and  shaded  by  trees  growing  beside  the 
water-courses,  Kcclus.  xxiv.  i-j,  Vulgate.  Even  in  towns,  the 
vine  was  trained  along  the  walls  of  their  houses,  and 
as  it  clung  to  the  trellis,  or  wound  round  the  balustrade 
of  the  outside  staircase,  it  was  both  a  graceful  and  use 
ful  ornament,  I's.  cxx\iii.:i.  The  courts  of  their  houses 
usually  rejoiced  in  the  shade  of  some  spreading  syca 
more  or  terebinth  ;  and.  except  ni  the  temple,  where 
there  was  a  special  prohibition,  the  areas  of  the  public 
buildings  were  usually  planted.  Gardens,  and  occasion 
ally  the  shelter  of  a  single  tree,  wen:  a  chosen  scene  of 
retirement  and  devotion;  and  it  was  in  such  cool  and 
fragrant  bowers  that  the  rabbles  loved  to  collect  their 
disciples,  and  deal  forth  their  wisdom.  The-  very  rustics 
had  a  taste  for  flowers  :  and.  by  way  of  bringing  spring 
and  autumn  together,  the  grain  newly  heaped  on  the 
thrashing-floor  seems  to  have  been  occasionally  crowned 
with  lilies  or  some  equally  graceful  garland,  c'u.  vii.-j.1 
On  high  occasions,  the  pathways  of  conquerors  and 
distinguished  personages  were  strewn  with  branches 
in  blossom,  or  with  the  leaves  of  the  palm.  To  their 
feasts  a  fresh  charm  was  added  by  beautiful  and  fra 
grant  flowers ;  and  the  apocryphal  Solomon  puts  into 
tin'  mouth  of  his  voluptuary  this  truly  Anacreontic 
ditty:  "Come  on,  let  us  enjoy  the  good  things  that 
are  present.  Let  us  fill  ourselves  with  costly  wine  and 
ointments,  and  let  no  flower  of  the  spring  pass  by  us. 
Let  us  crown  ourselves  with  rosebuds  before  they  be 
withered,"  Wisdom  ii.  i;-*.  Kven  to  the  u'rave  this  pro 
pensity  followed  them.  The  modern  Kgvptians  deck 
the  tombs  of  their  kindred  with  palm  leaves  and  the 
fragrant  <iri<i«iiiin>  :  the  Turks  and  the  Syrians  plant 
cypresses  and  myrtles  in  their  cemeteries.  So  among 
the  .lews  one  mode  of  "garnishing  sepulchres"  seems  to 
have  been  to  plant  or  strew  flowers  upon  them  (Manner's 
Obs.  lt.li  L-d.  vol.  iii.  ]i.  inc.,  111,  11;.';  ll'mlcr's  Oriental  Customs,  vol. 
ii.  p.  •«!;  Brown's  Antiquities  of  the  .Tews,  vol.  ii.  p.  IM').  When 

Abraham  bought  the  field  at  Alachpelah  for  aburying- 
irrouud,  besides  the  cave,  special  mention  is  made  of 
the  tree's  which  surrounded  it;  and  whether  or  not 
interment  in  gardens  was  common,  by  far  the  most 
memorable  of  earth's  sepulchres  was  in  the  garden  of 
a  .Tew. 

I'.ut  who  can  fail  to  recall  that  imagery  from  the 
grove  and  the  garden,  from  the  field  arid  the  forest, 
which  over  sacred  poetry  diffuses  the  glowing  tints  of 

1  It  i.s  right,  however,  to  mention  that  this  passage  is  differ 
ently  understood  by  many.  According  to  some,  the  robe  of  the 
bride,  with  its  amber  or  golden  tint,  and  its  scarf  of  whitu  or 
scarlet,  is  compared  to  a  "sheaf"  (not  "heap")  of  wheat,  with 
white  or  scarlet  lilies  girdle  wise  surrounding  it.  Jlr.  Moody 
Stuart  translates,  "Thy  boddice  is  a  heap  of  wheat,  about  with 
lilies  girdled ;"  and  Dr.  Burrowes  (Philadelphia,  1853),  "aheap 
<jf  wheat  in  a  bed  of  full  blown  lilies." 


GARDKX 


Persian  minstrelsy,  tin:  perfume  of  Arabian  song? 
Not  to  quote  tliu  nobler  ami  well-known  examples 
supplied  by  tliu  Psalms  ami  tin:  Canticles,  the  unin 
spired  authors  of  Palestine  will  bear  out  the  assertion. 
It  is  thus  that  Wisdom  is  described  by  the  son  of 
Sirach  :  ''1  was  exalted  like  a  cedar  in  Lebanon,  and 
as  a .  cypress  upon  the  mountains  of  .Hermon.  .1  was 
erect  like  a  palm  in  Kngedi.  as  a  rose-plant  in  .Jericho, 
like  :i  fair  olive  in  a  pleasant  fit-Id,  and  grew  up  as  a 
plane-tree  by  the  water.  I  gave  a  sweet  smell  like 
cinnamon  and  asphaltus,  and  yielded  a  pleasant  odour 
like  myrrh,  as  galbanum,  and  onyx,  and  the  fragrant 
storax,  as  the  fume  of  frankincense  in  the  tabernacle. 
As  the  fir-tree  I  stretched  out  my  branches,  and  my 
branches  are  the  branches  of  grace.  As  the  vine 
brought  I  forth  pleasant  savour,  and  my  flowers  are 
the  fruit  of  honour  and  riches,"  Wis <l<>i;i  xxiv.  With  still 


greater  beauty  Simon  the  high-priest  is  described  "as 
the  morning-star  in  the  midst  of  the  cloud,  as  the  rain 
bow  among  sunny  clouds,  as  the  flower  of  roses  in  the 
spring  of  the  year,  as  lilies  by  the  rivers  of  waters,  and 
as  the  branches  of  the  frankincense  tree  in  the  time  of 
summer;  as  a  fair  olive-tree  budding  forth  fruit,  as  a 
cypress-tree  which  groweth  up  to  the  clouds,"  Wisdom  i. 
fu  its  better  days  Palestine  was  ''the  garden  of  the 
Lord:  a  land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and 
depths  that  spring  out  of  valleys  and  hills;  aland  of 
wheat  and  barley,  and  vines,  and  fig-trees,  and  pome 
granates  :  a  land  of  oil-olive  and  honey."  For  the 
sins  of  its  people  the  land  mourneth  ;  but  although  its 
vines  are  blighted,  and  many  of  its  fountains  are  dried, 
the  bee  still  murmurs  on  the  cliffs  of  Carmel,  the  olive 
still  matures  its  fruit  in  the  solemn  precincts  of  (leth- 
semane.  The  almond-tree  flourishes  along  the  Jordan, 


as  when  its  silvery  or  amethysthine  pennon,  clear 
against  the  cloudless  sky,  proclaimed  the  approach  of 
spring,  and  invited  forth  to  the  fields  and  villages  the 
youth  of  Judah.  By  the  way-side  grow  sycamores,  as 
when  Zaccheus  climbed  into  one  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  illustrious  stranger ;  and  under  the  terebinth  the 
Bedouin  sets  up  his  tent,  as  when  Abraham  beneath 
the  oak  at  Mamre  received  Iris  angel  visitors.  As 
early  as  the  days  of  Joshua,  Jericho  was  the  city  of 
palm  trees;  with  branches  of  the  palm  the  jubilant 
procession  strewed  the  road  as  they  conducted  the  Son 
of  David  from  Jericho  to  Jerusalem;  and  it  is  only 
in  our  living  day  that  palms  have  disappeared  from 
Jericho.  "The  solitary  relic  of  the  palm-forest,  seen 
as  late  as  1S38.  has  now  disappeared"  (Stanley's Tales- 


tine,  cli.  vii.)  The  pine,  cypress,  and  myrtle  still  cast 
their  shadow,  although  no  feast  of  tabernacles  returns. 
whose  bowers  they  once  adorned.  If  Sharon  has  lost 
its  rose.  Galilee  still  yields  its  lilies,  descendants  of 
those  lovely  flowers  to  which  the  divine  Teacher  pointed 
in  his  sermon,  and  bade  his  disciples  "consider"  them, 
with  a  feeling  which  an  illustrious  naturalist  has  charac 
terized  as  "the  highest  honour  ever  done  to  the  study 

of  plants"  (Sir  J   K.  Smith's  Intr..'l.  to  Botany).      Hasselqnist 

was  charmed  with  the  jasmine  of  Palestine ;  another 
traveller  speaks  with  rapture  of  the  delicious  odour 
which  sprang  at  every  step  of  his  journey  from  Jeru 
salem  to  Jaffa,  when  the  rain  had  revived  the  thyme, 
the  balm,  and  the  rosemary;  and  in  the  glen  of  Leba 
non  where  Canobin  lies  embosomed  (\i{3avov  0u6evros 


GAEDEX 


029 


(JAEDEX 


to  the  F.gvp 


ffi  wTfpvyfuffL,  Musanis),  Maundrell  well  understood 
the  allusion  of  t'a.  iv.  .11  and  Ho.  xiv.  0.  This  valley 
"is  on  both  sides  exceeding  steep  and  high,  clothed 
with  fragrant  greens  from  top  to  bottom,  and  every 
where  refreshed  with  fountains  falling  down  from  the 
rocks  in  pleasant  cascades,  the  ingenious  work  of 
nature  "  (Journey,  May  ;i,  p.  iur).  A  description  with 
which  the  language  of  a  recent  tourist  entirely  tallies : 
' '  Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  delicious  than  the 
odours  of  these  lower  slopes  of  Lebanon.  1  do  not 
know  the  name  of  half  the  trees  and  plants  flowering 
round  the  path,  some  with  pungent  aromatic  perfumes, 
others  luscious,  like  the  orange  blossoms;  and  then 
again  clumps  of  odoriferous  pines,  wild  and  pure,  and 
under  th>-m  growing  the  dwarf  lavender  in  the  crevices 
of  the  rocks  "  (F.  P.  CVl.be,  in  Frier's  Maga/ine,  vol.  o:;,  [..  cr;;). 

Xo  doubt  where  nature  is  most  lavish,  it  is  often 
there  that  man  is  laziest:  nor.  (.-veil  although  the  soil 
were  more  fertile  than  it  is.  and  its  productions  more 
varied,  could  we  safely  infer  the  industrious  habits  of 
a  former  population.  Tin  -e  rest  on  the  testimony  of 
their  own  writers:  and,  whatsoever  may  have  been  their 
skill,  it  is  manifest  from  both  the  Scriptures  and  the 
Talmudists  that  the  Hebrews  had  a  ta-te  for  horti 
culture. 

For  learning  the  art  they  had  good  opportunity  during 
their  sojourn  on  the  banks  of  the  Xile.  To  no  nation 
of  anticjiiity  was  the  garden  so  esscntia 
tians.  At  their  feasts  eae'n  guest 
was  presented  with  a  flower  or  a 
nosegay,  most  usually  a  bud  or 
full-blown  flower  of  their  e.\i|uisite 
lotus;  the  goblet  was  crowded 
with  a  garland  :  the  choicest  deli 
cacies  of  the  table  were  rare  fruits, 
and  the  central  ornament  of  the 
board  was  a  vase  of  flowers  kept 
fresh  in  water  ( Wilkinson's  Manners 
ana  Customs  .,!'  F.'yi'Uans,  v. ;].  ii.  p.  ±£!). 
In  pots  and  vases  flowers  were  dis 
tributed  through  the  apartments, 
and  they  grew  in  the  courts  of  the 
houses.  .Residences  of  the  better 

sort  were  approached  through  an 
avenue  of  trees,  and  the  \illa  was 
not  complete  without  its  garden 
and  orchard.  '' Their  pleasure- 
grounds  were  laid  out  in  what 
used  to  be  called  the  Dutch  style, 
so  fashionable  in  England  last 
century;  the  flower-beds  square 
and  formal  ;  the  raised  terraces 

running  in  straight  lines;  arbours  of  trellis- work  at 
definite  intervals,  covered  with  vines  and  other 
creepers  which  it  is  difficult  to  identify.  Some  of 
the  ponds  are  represented  as  stored  with  fish,  others 
with  water-fowl.  Vegetables  are  depicted  in  great 
variety  and  abundance.  It  is  indeed  impossible  to 
look  at  any  representation  of  an  Egyptian  garden 
without  feeling  some  sympathy  for  the  complaints 
and  murmurinu's  of  the  Israelites  in  the  desert.  'The 
children  of  Israel  wept  again,  and  said,  Who  shall 
give  us  flesh  to  eat'  We  remember  the  fish  which 
we  did  eat  in  Egypt  freely:  the  cucumbers  and  the 
melons,  and  the  leeks  and  the  onions,  and  the  garlic: 
but  now  our  soul  is  dried  away:  there  is  nothing  at  all 
beside  this  manna  before  our  eyes,'  Xu.  xi.  4-0"  (Taylor's 


Monuments  of  F^ypt).  Judging  from  the  paintings  and 
sculptures  brought  to  light  by  Rosellini.  Wilkinson,  and 
recent  explorers,  the  country  mansion  of  an  ancient 
Egyptian  must  have  made  a  near  approach  to  modern 
sumptuousness.  When  J'haraoh  stepped  forth  from  his 
palace  he  found  himself  beneath  an  avenue  of  stately 
[.alms  and  sycamores,  whilst  the  breeze  from  the  river 

I  trembled  through  the  light  foliage  of  the  one.  and 
scarcely  a  ray  of  sunshine  could  penetrate  the  massive 
leaves  of  the  other.  If  he  went  into  his  vineyard  he 

I  might  walk  under  trellises  fn.m  whose  roofs  and  sides 
rich  clusters  depended,  or  through  colonnades  where, 

I  thyrsus-wise,  the  vines  twisted  round  gilded  props  or 
carved  pillars.  Thence  passing  into  the  wilderness  or 
park,  he  ami  his  courtiers  might  try  their  skill  in  archerv 
by  shooting  at  a  target,  or  might  spend  their  arrows 

I  on  the  game  preserved  in  the  thickets:  or,  if  inclined 

i  for  easier  sport,  the  monarch  might  lounge  in  his  barge 
and  angle  for  fish,  whilst  slaves  along  the  shore  towed 
the  pleasure-boat  of  their  luxurious  lord.  Or,  if  he 
pleased,  he  might  ascend  to  the  upper  and  airiest 
apartment  of  his  kiosk,  and  there.  ((nailing  the  juice  of 
his  grandsire's  vintage,  or  the  wine  of  his  own  dates,  lie 
mi-ht  listen  to  the  timbrel  and  harp  of  the  minstrels, 
uhil>t  every  hivaih  of  air  came  laden  with  perfume, 
the  water-foul  shook  their  wings  and  made  rainbows  in 
the  pond,  and  the  gardener's  mischievous  apprentices, 

,  the  monkeys,  played  their  antics  in  the  pomegranates,1 


the  labourers  all  the  while  plying  the  xliadviif.  and 
scooping  up  from  the  river  a  bountiful  i  miration  for 
the  thirsty  plats  and  parterres.  Indeed,  to  the  present 
day  nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  Fgvpt  than  its 
artificial  irrigation  by  means  of  canals,  and  buckets 
hung  upon  levers,  and  water-wheels;  a  feature  in  which 
the  Land  of  Promise  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the 
house  of  bondage.  "  The  land,  whither  thou  goest  in 
to  possess  it,  is  not  as  the  land  of  F.irvpt,  from  whence 
ye  came  out,  where  thou  sowedst  thy  seed,  and  wateredst 
it  with  thy  foot,  as  a  garden  of  herbs:  but  the  land, 
whither  ye  go  to  possess  it,  is  a  land  of  hills  and  valleys, 

'  From  representations  on  the  monuments,  they  soem  to  ha.e 
l.een  employed  to  collect  the  fruit  in  hiyh  lives,  and  sometimes 
hell  .oil  themselves. 


GARDEN 


0.30 


GARDEN 


and  (lriiiki:tli  water  of  tlio  rain  of  heaven.  And  it 
shall  come  to  pass,  if  ye  shall  hearken  diligently  unto 
my  commandments,  which  I  command  you  this  day, 
to  love  the  Lord  your  God,  and  to  serve  him  with  all 
your  heart,  and  with  all  vour  sold,  that  J  will  give  you 


tli 


u:  rain  of   your  Iain 


in  li 


[lie  season 


the  first  rain. 


closure  contains  the  vegetables  which  suit  the  taste  of 
the  people,  and  which  the  climate  allows  to  he  culti 
vated.  Amongst  the  culinary  vegetables  of  the  He 
brews  were  gourds,  cucumbers,  and  melons,  which  in 
sultry  weather  were  delightful  refrigerants,  beside* 
such  aromatic  herbs  and  carminatives  as  mint,  anise, 
rue,  and  coriander:  nor  were  they 
likely  to  omit  the  onion  and  the  garlic. 
4.  Like  most  oriental  nations,  the 
Jews  were  fond  of  perfumes.  Their 
clothing  was  often  scented.  Blind 
Isaac,  "  smelling  the  fragrance  of 
Jacob's  raiment,  blessed  him,  saying, 
Behold,  the  fragrance  of  my  soil  is  as 
the  fragrance  of  a  field  which  the  Lord 
hath  blessed,"  Go.  xxvii.  27.  And  to  the 
king's  daughter  the  psalmist  says, 
''Myrrh,  aloes,  and  cassia  are  all  thy 
garments:  from  the  palaces  [or  cabi 
nets]  of  Armenian  ivory  they  make 

thee  gladsome,"  Ps  xlv  >-,  W;ilf<>r.rs  Trans. 
The  box  of  precious  ointment  poured 
on  the  head  of  a  guest  was  the  mark 
of  a  distinguished  reception;  and,  in 


corn,  and  thy  wine,  and  thine  oil,"  Do.  xi.  IIP,  11,1:;,  14. 

At  a  later  period  of  their  history  the  Jews  sojourned 
for  two  generations  in  Babylonia.  There  they  must 
have  seen  that  wonder  of  the  world 

"Those  airy  gardens,  which  yon  palace  vast 

Spread  round,  and  to  the  morning  airs  hang  forth 

Their  golden  fruits  and  dewy  opening  (lowers; 

While  still  the  low  mists  creep  in  lazy  folds 

O'er  the  house  tops  beneath." — .Milman. 
It  is  possible  that  the  ''hanging  gardens"  of  Baby 
lon  may  have  supplied  some  hints  applicable  to  the 
terrace- culture  so  general  on  the  hills  of  Palestine;  and 
the  reservoir  at  the  summit,  with  the  hydraulic  con 
trivances  for  filling  it,  could  not  escape  the  notice  of  an 
observant  people.  But  whatsoever  practical  use  the 
Jews  may  have  made  of  their  Babylonian  experiences, 
their  sacred  writings  contain  110  admiring  allusions  to 
a  country  which  they  only  recalled  as  the  scene  of  an 
irksome  and  ignominious  exile. 

In  Scripture  we  have  indications  of  various  inclos- 
ures  which  occasionally  bear  the  general  name  of  garden. 

1.  We  read,  Ca.  vi.n,  of  a  "garden  of  nuts,"  which  of 
course  means  a  plantation  of  walnuts   or  almonds,  or 
some   other  nut-bearing   tree.     In   the   same  way  the 
.lews  had  inclosures  dedicated  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
vine  and  the  olive;  so  that  we  continually  read  of  "vine 
yards  "  and    "olive-yards,"   and,  Ca.  iv.  13,  we  find   an 
"orchard  of  pomegranates." 

2.  Then  there  were  orchards  where  trees  of  various 
sorts  were  reared  together.    Says  the  Preacher  "  I  made 
me  orchards,  and  vineyards,  and  I  planted  trees  in  them 
of  all  kinds  of  fruits,"  EC.  ii.  f>.     Amongst  the  fruit-trees 
cultivated   in  the   Holy    Land   were   the   almond,  the 
chestnut,   the  citron,    the  date-palm,   the  fig,  and  the 
pomegranate,  besides  the  vine  and  the  olive.      For  the 
sake  of  a  dense  shade,  however,  the  orchard  sometimes 
contained  trees  more  valued  for  their  foliage  than  their 
fruit,  "trees  of  emptiness,"  like  the  plane,  the  terebinth 
(or  "oak"'),  the  mulberry. 

3.  One  of  the  first  times  that  we  read  of  a  "garden 


circled  the  heads  of  the  banqueters.  We  are  therefore 
prepared  to  find  the  chief  place  occupied  by  odoriferous 
plants  in  the  flower  garden  of  ancient  Palestine.  Thus, 
in  the  impassioned  address  of  the  bride  of  Solomon: — 

•'A  garden  art  tliou.  fillrd  with  matchless  sweets; 
A  garden  walled,  those  matchless  sweets  to  shield; 
A  spring  inclosed,  a  fountaiii  fresh  and  sealed: 
A  paradise  of  plants  where  all  unite, 
Dear  to  the  smell,  the  palate,  or  the  Mght; 
Of  rich  pomegranates  that  at  random  blow; 
Cypress  and  nard,  in  fragrant  gales  that  now; 
Nard,  saffron,  cinnamon,  the  dulcet  airs 
Deep  through  its  canes  the  calamus  prepares; 
The  scented  aloes,  and  each  shruli  that  sl.owers 
Gums  from  its  veins  and  spices  from  its  flowers. 
O  pride  of  gardens!  fount  of  endless  sweets, 
Well-spring  of  all  in  Lebanon  that  meets  !" 

— Song  of  Solomon,  iv.  12-1  "j  (Good's  Translation). 

Solomon's  own  gardens  have  probably  suggested  the 
imagery.  As  he  informs  us  himself,  "1  made  me  great 
works;  I  builded  me  houses:  I  planted  me  vineyards;  I 
made  me  gardens  and  orchards,  and  1  planted  trees  in 
them  of  all  kinds  of  fruits:  I  made  me  pools  of  water 
t<>  water  therewith  the  wood  that  bringeth  forth  trees,"' 
EC.  ii.4-fi.  Of  these  the  traditional  site  near  Bethlehem 
is  certainly  correct.  No  locality  could  in  itself  be  more 
likely  or  more  convenient  for  a  royal  retreat  not  far 
from  the  capital;  and  it  is  fully  confirmed  by  the  names 
which  still  linger,  Wfidy  Urtas,  The  valley  of  the  Garden 
(Hortus  Conclusus  of  the  Romans);  Gebel-el-Fureidis, 
The  hill  of  the  little  Paradise  (TrapaSacros);  besides  "Fig 
Vale,"  "Peach  Hill,"  "Walnut  Walk,"  "Garden  of 
Nuts,"  &c.  Taking  advantage  of  the  water  supplied 
by  the  fountain  of  Etham,  a  Christian  Jew  has  within 
the  last  fourteen  years  converted  a  portion  of  this  terri 
tory  once  more  into  a  fruitful  field.  The  brook,  "  clear 
as  crystal,"  which  creates  its  fertility,  is  thus  described 
by  Miss  Bremer,  who  was  there  in  March,  1S59: 
"  Everything  on  its  banks  seemed  to  rejoice  over  the 
lively  running  water ;  swarms  of  little  gnats,  which 
danced  above  them;  the  rose- red  cyclamens  which  shot 
of  herbs"  is  when  the  unscrupulous  Ahab  coveted  the  •  up  out  of  the  hollows  or  cracks  in  the  stones,  and 
vineyard  of  Naboth,  wishing  to  convert  it  into  a  kit-  bowed  their  lovely  little  heads  as  if  to  reflect  themselves 
chen  garden,  iKi.. \xi.2.  In  every  country  such  an  in-  |  in  the  clear  water;  the  grass  which  grew  so  abundantly 


GARDEN 


031 


GATE 


on  the  banks  as  almost  to  conceal  them.  The  almond- 
trees  were  in  blossom,  and  hundreds  of  little  gold 
finches,  with  red  crests  round  their  beaks,  twittered 
and  warbled  in  the  trees,  although  most  of  them  were 

yet  without  leaves"    (Bremer's  Holy  Land,  vol.  i.  p.  I'.Ki).      At 

the  same  season  a  few  years  previously  (1852)  Van  de 
Velde  expatiates  in  glowing  terms  on  the  scenery  of 
"The  .Song/'  as  reproduced  on  the  very  site  of  Solo 
mon's  pleasure-grounds  —  the  flowers  appearing,  the 
singing  of  birds,  the  pomegranate  budding,  and  then 
"the  getting  up  early  to  the  vineyards,  to  see  if  the 
vine  flourish,  if  the  tender  grape  appear"  (Van  do  Velde' s 
.Syria  and  Palestine,  vol.  ii.  p.  2--).  "  It  is  one  of  the  sweet 
est  valleys  into  which  the  eye  can  look  down;  a  well- 
watered  orchard  covered  with  every  goodly  fruit-tree 
that  Syria  nourishes"  (Ii. mar's  Land  of  Promise,  y<>). 

Owing  to  the  density  of  the  population,  and  the 
wonderful  fertility  of  the  soil  when  duly  watered,  a 
greater  proportion  of  Palestine  was  laid  out  in  gardens 
and  vineyards  than  of  almost  any  land.  This  was 
especially  the  case  in  the  neighbourhood  of  cities.  Ac 
cording  to  Josephus,  the  environs  of  Jerusalem  were 
almost  all  garden  together:  but  from  the  statements  of 
the  rabbies  it  would  appear  that,  except  a  few  planta 
tions  of  roses  which  had  existed  since  the  days  of  the 
prophets,  there  were  n<>  gardens  within  the  walls  (Light- 
loot's  Works,  vol.  x.  p.  v, ;  \i.:;io).  Fur  this  a  sanitary  reason 
is  assigned  in  the  danger  apprehended  from  the  decom 
position  of  vegetable  matter. 

Gardens  were  occasionally  used  as  places  of  sepul 
ture.  Manasseh,  and  Ainon  his  son,  were  not  buried 
in  the  royal  vaults,  but  "  in  the  garden  of  Manassch's 


C-V4  ;        l,o. !;,'(•  in  Carden  at  liutaiha.     Thorrson's  Land  and  liook. 

own  house,  in  the  garden  of  Uzza,"  -2  Ki.  xxi.  1-,  2t;.  And 
"  in  the  place  where  Jesus  was  crucified  there  was  a  gar 
den;  and  in  the  garden  a  new  sepulchre,  wherein  was 
never  man  yet  laid.  There  laid  they  Jesus  therefore, 
because  of  the  Jews'  preparation  day;  for  the  sepulchre 
was  nigh  at  hand,"  Jn.  xi\.  41, 4-2. 

The  existing  gardens  of  the  East  are  not  calculated 
to  give  an  exalted  idea  of  Syrian  husbandry.  They  are 
arranged  with  little  taste  and  kept  with  little  care;  at 
the  same  time  their  productions  are  for  the  greater  part 
identical  with  those  yielded  in  the  palmy  days  of  Pales 
tine.  Like  the  "  garden  of  cucumbers,"  Is.  i.  s,  any 
valuable  plantation  still  needs  a  lodge  for  the  watch 
man  till  once  the  crop  is  secured;  "when  the  shed  is 
forsaken  by  the  keeper,  and  the  poles  fall  down  or  lean 
every  way,  and  the  green  boughs  with  which  it  is 
shaded  are  scattered  by  the  wind,  leaving  only  a  ragged, 
sprawling  wreck"  (Thomson's  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  :iO:'). 
Now  that  her  "country  is  desolate,"  there  could  not  be 


a  more  vivid  emblem  of  the  daughter  of  Zion;  but  the 
amazing  capabilities  of  the  soil,  where  industry  and  ir 
rigation  are  brought  to  bear,  not  only  help  us  to  recall 
the  past,  but  make  it  easy  to  believe  that  when  the  set 
time  is  come  for  the  Lord  to  comfort  Zion,  "  he  will 
make  her  wilderness  like  Eden,  her  desert  like  the 
garden  of  the  Lord,"  Is.  li.  3.  [j.  n.] 

GARLIC  [3 y£;,  xJnim,  Xu.  xi.:,].  Hasselquist  (Travels, 
ir49-r>2),  whilst  mentioning  that  garlic  (A/llnm  tut! rum) 
is  much  used  by  the  modern  Egyptians,  expresses  a 
doubt  whether  it  was  known  to  the  Israelites,  "  as  it  does 
not  grow  in  Egypt,  but  is  brought  thither  from  islands 
in  the  Archipelago."  On  this  point,  however,  the  in 
scription  quoted  by  Herodotus  (b.  ii.  12:.)  may  be  held  as 
conclusive.  He  expressly  mentions  garlic  (ffKopoSa)  as 
one  of  the  articles  of  food  supplied  to  the  builders  of 
the  pyramids  ;  and  with  his  statement  tallies  the  latest 
and  best  authority.  "  Though  garlic  grows  in  Syria, 
that  brought  from  Egypt  is  most  esteemed.  Till  the 
name  'Syrian'  was  tabooed  in  Cairo,  during  the  war, 
those  who  sold  it  in  the  streets  cried,  '  Tom  shamee,' 
•Syrian  garlic  ;'  it  was  then  changed  to  '  Infa  e'  torn,' 
•garlic  is  useful'  "  \(i.  Wilkinson,  note  on  Herod,  ii.  12:,).  Even 
in  the  days  of  the  Israelites,  imported  varieties  may 
have  been  preferred  to  those  of  native  growth;  but 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  pungent  bull)  was  as 
popular  in  the  streets  of  Xoph  and  On,  as  it  is  now  in 
Cairo  and  Damietta.  l>oth  the  common  garlic  (Alliuni 
unfit-inn},  and  its  less  rank  congener,  the  shallot  (A. 
Axcalonicum),  are  well  known  bulbous-rooted  plants; 
along  with  the  hyacinth,  the  squill,  the  star  of  I'eth- 
lehem,  forming  a  tribe  in  the  beautiful  order  of  the  lilies 
(Li//iiri(i).  J'esides  other  medicinal  properties,  garlic 
i-  sai.l  to  haw  a  considerable  effect  in  quickening  the 
circulation,  and  stimulating  the  entire  system,  [j.  H.J 

GATE  [the  common  rendering  of  -\y&,  xhaar,  from 

the  root  to  cut  asunder,  to  divide,  and  meaning  originally 
.ti.i.ture,  aperture,  then  an  tntrann],  the  entrance  into  a 
camp,  a  palace,  a  temple,  &c.,  but  especially  a  city.  It 
first  occurs  in  Ge.  xxii.  1  7,  in  God's  promise  to  Abraham 
that  his  posterity  should  possess  the  gates  of  his  enemies, 
signifying  that  they  should  have  power  or  dominion  over 
them.  The  gate  was  the  place  for  great  assemblies  of 
the  people,  Pr.  i.  21;  for  reading  the  law  and  proclama 
tions,  2  rh.  xxxii.  fi;  No.  viii.  !,.'!;  for  administering  justice, 
Jos.  xx.  4;  Ku .  iv.  1 ;  of  fortification  and  strength  in  war, 
Ju.  v.  s;  Ps.  cxlvii.  \'.',.  The  uate  of  the  town  was  also  a  mar 
ket-place,  -i  Ki.  vii.  i,  apparently  as  now  for  country  pro 
duce.  The  gate  often  signified  the  city,  (;e.  xxii.  IT; 
xxiv.  fiii;  De.  xii.  VI;  Ps.  lxxxvii.2,  or  the  people  of  the  city,  as 
it  was  necessarily  the  most  public  thoroughfare  of  the 
town,  2Sa.  xv.  2,  and  the  chief  place  of  concourse  either 
for  business  or  pleasure,  where  the  people  went  to  learn 
the  news,  Ge.  xix.  l,  and  to  gossip,  ps.  ixix.  1-2 ;  to  prefer 
suits,  or  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  sovereign  or  digni 
tary  at  his  going  out  or  his  coming  in,  Ks.  ii.  1»,  21;  iii.  2. 
The  priests  and  prophets  seem  to  have  delivered  their 
discourses,  admonitions,  and  prophecies  in  the  gates, 
Is.  xxix.  21 ;  Ani.v.  lo;.Ie.  xvii.  l!i,20;  xxvi.10.  Jeremiah, eh.  xxxvi.  10 
mentions  that  the  heads  of  the  people  met  under  the 
new  gate  of  the  temple  on  the  occasion  of  a  disturbance 
amongst  the  people.  Criminals  were  punished  outside 
the  gates,  l  Ki.  xxi.  10,  i:;; Ac.  vii.  ;-,s;iic.  xiii.  12.  The  king  of  Ai 
was  buried  in  the  entrance  of  the  gate,  Jos.  viii.  2:1.  Pashur 
smote  Jeremiah  the  prophet  and  put  him  in  the  stocks 
at  the  high  gate  of  ISenjamin,  Je.  xx.  2.  At  Rome  tho 


GATE 


executions  took  place  outside  the  Porta  Metia  or  Esqui- 
liiui.  The  burial-places,  as  now,  were  beyond  the  gates. 
Crates  of  "death  "  or  "hell"  denoted  the  region  of  the 
departed,  or  the  dominion  which  was  conceivod  to 
belong  to  the  region,  .lull  xxxviii.  17  ;  Fs.  ix.  i:j ;  evii.  Is  ;  Is. 
xxxviii.  Hi;  Mat.  xvi.  1\  Tliu  Mahometans  assign  seven 
gates  to  hell.  To  exalt  the  gate --to  exhibit  vanity, 
FI-.  xvii.  1:1. 

</'((/(.<  nf' i'/'//ts.  as  places  of  security,  were;  fortified, 
and  had  two  valves,  generally  of  wood  or  of  wood 
covered  with  sheets  of  copper  or  iron,  IN.  tvii.  Hi;  Is,  xlv,  2; 
Ac.  xii.  l1'.  There  were  often  also  two  gates,  an  outer 
and  an  inner  one,  and  they  were  further  protected  by 
outworks  or  walls  in  advance  of  the  gates.  The  As 
svrian  sculptures  contain  frequent  representations  of 


sepulchres  near  Bysan  (Bethshan).  They  are  also 
found  in  the  Haouran,  beyond  the  Jordan  and  in  Persia 
(  Burckhardt,  p.  r,S;  Ruins  found  by  Mr.  Cyril  Thornton;  Trans.  Uoy. 
SOL-.  Lit.  May,  Is.V-  i)r.  Wilde's  Narrative,  ii.ai.'i). 

Gates  <>f  irv< id  were  usually  of  two  valves,  and  secured 
by  strong  locks  of  brass,  iron,  or  wood,  Do.  iii.  .">;!  Sa.  xxiii.  7; 
1  Ivi.  iv.  i;j;  iiCli.  viii.  ',;  Jo.  xiv.  -J;  xliv.  ;;i;  1's.  cxlvii.  1.'!;  Xa.  iii.  1.'!. 
Faber  surmises  that  the  wooden  gates  had  wickets  to 
allow  of  passage  without  opening  the  large  gate,  Mat.vii.  \:', 
Some  of  the  passages  in  the  Assyrian  palaces  appear  to 


double  and  even  triple  walls  with  fortified  gates  in  each 
(Botta,  pis.  ->.->, GS, 70, 77,  &c.)  Botta  (pi.  55)  shows  the  fortified 
gate  with  the  ''chamber  over  the  gate,"  2  Sa.  xviii.  21,  ."3, 
the  windows  being  square,  while  the  gates  are  arched. 
That  the  double  valves  of  the  gates  were  of  wood  is  to 
be  inferred  from  the  repeated  representations  of  setting 
tire  to  them  by  the  besiegers.  In  the  walls  of  Babylon 
were  "100  gates  of  solid  brass"  (.-sec  BABYLON).  The 
gates  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Greece  and  Etruria  were 
flanked  by  towers.  '\ 'he  entrances  to  the  temples  of 
Thebes  in  Egypt  (sec  EGYPT  and  Fig.  231),  to  which 
in  all  probability  Homer  alludes  in  the  epithet  "hun 
dred-gated  "  which  he  gives  to  that  city,  were  all 
Hanked  by  towers.  For  the  numerous  gates  of  Jeru 
salem,  see  under  that  heading.  That  the  valves  were 
of  wood  and  burned  with  fire  we  learn  from  Ne.  i.  3. 
Subsequently  the  six  great  gates  were  covered  with  iron 
(Thevenofs  Voyage,  p.  2s:{) .  The  gates  of  cities  were  opened 
at  sunrise  and  closed  at  sunset,  Ne.  vii.  3.  They  were 
closed  during  warfare,  comp. Jos. ii. 5; viii.  14,  and  "thrown 
wide  open  on  festive  occasions,"  Ts.  xxiv.  7,  d. 

Gates,  i.e.  rat  res  of  iron  and  brass,  mentioned  in 
Scripture,  are  conjectured  to  have  been  wood  plated 
with  metal.  The  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  Hcsiod,  Ovid, 
and  Yiruil,  all  speak  of  o-ates  of  iron.  Maundrell  de 
scribes  the  principal  gates  of  the  mosque  at  Damascus 
as  being  in  his  day  covered  with  brass  (p.  r.'fi). 

Gates  of  stone  were,  I,-;,  liv.  12,  most  probably  formed  of 
a  single  slab  turning  on  pivots  inserted  into  sockets 
above  and  below.  The  doors  leading  to  the  tombs 
of  the  kings  near  Jerusalem  were  each  formed  of  a 
single  stone  seven  inches  thick,  sculptured  to  resemble 
four  panels,  and  turning  on  pivots.  Similar  doors  are 
described  by  Dr.  Clarke  in  the  sepulchres  at  Telmessus. 
and  likewise  by  Trby  and  Mangles  (Travels,  p.  302)  in  the 


have  been  closed  by  a  strong  single  valve,  probably  of 
wood,  which  was  fastened  by  a  wooden  lock  like  those 
still  used  in  the  East,  of  which  the  key  is  as  much  as 
a  man  can  conveniently  carry,  and  by  a  bar  which 
moved  into  a  square  hole  in  the  wall.  It  is  to  a  key 
of  this  description  that  the  prophet  probably  alludes, 
•'  And  the  key  of  the  house  of  David  will  I  lay  upon. 
his  shoulder,"  Is.  xxii.  22;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  the 
word  of  the  text  for  key  in  this  passage  of  Scripture, 
the  same  in  use  all  over  the  East 


at  the  present  time,  but  pronounced  muftah.     The  key 
of  an  ordinary  street  door  is  commonly  thirteen  or  four- 


'r. 

. 

a 
i 

- 

J  — 

/ 

^ 

, 

'                               . 

1ET] 

teen  inches  long,  and  the  key  of  the  gate  of  a  public 
building,  or  of  a  street,  or  of  a  quarter  of  a  town,  is 
two  feet  and  more  in  length.  The  key  has  a  certain 
number  of  iron  pegs  at  one  end,  which  correspond  to 
so  many  holes  in  the  wooden  bar  or  bolt  of  the  lock, 
which,  when  the  door  or  gate  is  shut,  cannot  be  opened 
until  the  key  is  inserted,  and  the  impediment  to  the 
drawing  back  of  the  bolt  removed  by  raising  up  so 


GATE 


G33 


many  iron  pins  that  fall  down  into  holes  in  the  bar  or 
bolt  corresponding  to  the  pegs  in  the  key.  The  ancient 
Egyptian  doors  seem  to  have  been  secured  by  similar 
locks.  The  Egyptians  also  sealed  their  doors  with  clay, 
as  we  learn,  from  the  sculptures,  from  tombs  at  Thebes 
actually  so  closed,  and  from  Herodotus  (ii.  121).  Seals 
of  soft  clay  with  a  hole  pierced  in  them,  in  which  were 
the-  remains  of  charred  string,  have  been  found  at 
Khorsabad.  and  were  probably  used  as  a  means  of 
knowing  whether  certain  doors  had  been  opened,  Da.vi.  17, 
according  to  the  present  practice  in  the  East,  where  a 
clay  seal  is  placed  over  the  luck  on  goods  in  khans.  We 
are  in  ignorance  as  to  the  contrivance  of  the  upper 
pivots  of  the  Assyrian  doors,  whether  they  were  in 
serted  into  the  lintel,  or  whether  certain  cupper  rings 
in  the  Jh-itish  Museum  were  not  fixed  into  the  walls 
above  the  slabs  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  the  pivots. 

Portions  of  the  law  were  written  on  the  gates  of 
towns  and  on  the  doors  of  houses.  Do.  vi.  9;  \i.  •><>;  and  a 
similar  practice  is  still  continued  in  the  East,  where  the 
gates  of  both  public  and  private  Mahometan  buildings 
are  inscribed  with  passages  from  the  Koran.  The 
ancient  Romans  also  decorated  their  gates  with  figures 
and  inscriptions  ((ieoix.  in.  2(>). 

The  chief  entrance  to  ancient  Egyptian  houses  was 
sometimes  through  a  porch  of  two  or  more  columns, 
occasionally  with  a  night  of  steps.  Above  or  on  the 
lintel  was  painted  the  name  of  the  owner,  or  a  sentence 


,  A 


|203.] 


Mahometan  Oatuway  at  Siclun,  with  inscription  over  it. 
I.aUirdL--*  Syria. 


of  good  omen,  doubtless  put  up  at  the  dedication  of  the 
house,  a  ceremony  also  in  use  among  the  Jews.  The  door 
was  in  the  centre,  or  at  a  corner  of  the  front,  and  turned 
on  pivots,  and  was  frequently  painted  with  numerous 
devices.  In  order  to  strengthen  the  wall  over  a  door 
way,  a  beam  of  wood  or  stone  was  let  into  it,  and  the 
jambs  weii;  upright  posts  on  which  the  lintel  rested. 
Sometimes  besides  the  framework  and  flat  beams  the 
doorway  had  a  round  log  for  its  lintel.  Over  the  lintel 
was  the  cornice  with  an  overhanging  curve  like  that 
of  the  roof,  generally  with  the  winged  globe  or  other 
significant  decorations,  highly  coloured.  The  stone 
lintel  and  the  floor  behind  the  threshold  of  tombs  and 

temples,  exhibit  the  holes  in  which  the  pivots  turned, 
VOL.  T. 


as  well  as  those  of  the  bolts  and  bars,  and  the  recess 
for  receiving  the  opening  valves.  Some  of  the  bronze 
pins  have  been  discovered  in  the  tombs.  The  folding 
doors  had  bolts  in  the  centre  above  as  well  as  below, 
and  a  bar  was  fixed  across  from  one  wall  to  the  other. 


Gateway  at  Mr.linet  A)K 
es'  Views  on  the  Nile. 


<i<it<t<  «,•;  y>/«0t>j  of  Punishment  and  Fc/tutturc.-  The 
Assyrian  sculptures  again  most  aptly  illustrate  these 
customs,  for  there  are  numerous  examples  of  execution 
by  impalement  outside  the  city  walls  (see  Hotta  and  also 
British  Museum,  No.  4f>),  and  of  burying  outside  the  spates 
(Hotta,  pls.0s,7s,  and  Nineveh  ami  its  INdaees).  That  the  prac 
tice  prevailed  with  the  ancient  Romans,  we  have  the 
evidence  of  the  several  avenues  to  Home,  which  are 
lined  with  the  ruins  of  ancient  sepulchres,  and  of  the 
Street  of  the  Tombs  at  1'ompcii.  That  it  is  still  the 
custom  in  the  East,  we  may  just  refer  to  the  multitude 
of  beautiful  structures  outside  tile  P>ab  e'Nasr,  and 
the  gate  at  the  foot  of  the  citadel  of  Cairo. 

d\ttt.i  as  }i/(tfi-x  of  J  nrifdii'tiuii  <nnl  Judf/mcnt.- 
"  .Judges  and  officers  shalt  tliou  make  thee  in  all  tin- 
gates;  and  they  shall  judge  the  people  with  just  judg 
ment,"  Do.  xvi.  is ;  xvii.  s;  xxi.  Hi;  xxv.  7.  Not  only  the  chief 
judges  hut  the  inferior  magistrates,  1Y.  xxxi.  2:;  ;  l,a.  v.  M  ; 
Je.  xxxvi.  KI,  and  occasionally  kings,  held  courts  in  the 

gates.    1   Ki    xxii.  Hi;  2  Sa.  xix    S;  Je.  xxxviii.  7;  xxxix.  .'!.        The 

judges  sat  on  chairs  at  an  appointed  place  within  or 
under  the  gates,  i  Ki.  xxii.  KI;  2  t'h.  xviii.  (i.  The  sculp 
tures  found  by  P.otta  (|,1.  is)  contain  representations 
of  an  arm-chair  or  seat  of  judgment,  in  which  the 
king  sat  at  the  gate.  .V  high  seat,  called  ktn-x!,  ex 
actly  like  this  excepting  in  the  decorations,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  court-yard  of  all  respectable  houses  in  ( 'aim, 
where  the  master  sits  to  give  judgment  in  domestic 
af  i'airs.  These  seats  are  never  wanting  in  the  court-yard 
of  the  houses  of  sheikhs,  of  heads  of  tribes,  or  of  persons 
in  authority.  The  seat  is  placed  in  some  shady  part  of 
the  court  against  a  wall  or  column,  exactly  as  described 
in  Scripture,  i  Si.  i.n,  and  in  some  houses  it  is  converted 
into  a  high  sofa  continued  the  whole  length  of  one  side 
of  the  court,  1  Sa.  xx.  2.1,  in  which  case  the  master  sits  in 
one  corner.  The  Assyrian  sculptures  also  afford  exam 
ples  of  the  high  seats  without  a  back,  such  as  the  pro 
phet  Eli  "  fell  from  oft'  backwards  by  the  side  of  tin- 
gate, "  i  sa.  iv.  is.  The  ancient  Trojans  assembled  their 
elders  in  the  gates  of  the  town  to  determine  causes 
(Iliad,  i.  108  ;JKn.  i.M'.i).  The  Romans  used  the  PortaCapena 
for  this  purpose  (Juvenal,. Sat.  iii.)  The  custom  of  holding 

80 


GATE 


034 


courts  of  j\istice  in  the  gate  of  the  capital  town  prevails 
throughout  the  East;  the  governor  of  every  city,  town, 
or  village  sits  in  or  near  to  the  gate  to  settle  affairs  of  all 
within  his  jurisdiction.  The  very  title  of  the  Sultan, 


the  Su/j/intc  J'ortc,  is  derived  from  the  Italian  portn,  or 
gate;  and  the  office  of  the  Capugi  Bashi  of  Constan 
tinople  (bashaw  of  the  gate)  must  be  analogous  to  that 
which  Daniel  held  in  Babylon. 


Gateway  of  the  Citadel,  Cain..     Koberts  Sketches  in  Egypt, 


The  first  transaction  on  record  of  a  legal  character 
is  that  of  the  purchase  of  a  field  by  Abraham,  which 
took  place  in  the  gate  of  the  city  of  Hebron,  then 
called  Kirjath-arba,  Ge.  xxiii.  10,18.  Then  the  judgment 
between  Boaz  and  a  relation  of  Naomi's,  Ku.  iv.  i.  That 
this  custom  of  giving  judgment  at  the  gates  of  cities 
and  royal  abodes  wras  universal  in  the  ancient  world 
we  learn  also  from  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  and  (Jreek 
sculptures.  The  metaphorical  language,  "and  thy 
seed  shall  possess  the  gates  of  his  enemies,"  is  de 
rived  from  the  custom  of  the  king  sitting  at  the  u'atc 


of  the  city  or  palace  to  give  audience  or  judgment,  and 
in  obedience  to  which  ancient  custom  the  statues  of 
the  Pharaohs  and  kings  of  Egypt  are  always  placed 
at  the  gates  of  the  temples.  On  Egyptian  monuments, 
l;efore  the  entrance  of  the  mansion  of  the  blessed,  sits 
Harpocrates,  the  type  of  youth  and  new  life,  and  a 
hideous  monster,  the  prototype  of  Cerberus,  sometimes 
called  the  devourer  of  the  wicked  guards  of  the  gates 
of  the  Amenti  or  hades.  In  the  sculptures  on  the 
sarcophagus  in  the  Soane  Museum,  the  weighing  of  the 
deeds  of  mankind,  or  the  place  of  judgment,  is  at  one 


[301.  ]        A  Persian  satrap  dictating  terms  to  Grecian  chiefs  at  the  Gate  of  a  city.     Uas-ivlief  from  Lycian  Monument,  British  Museum. 


of  the  many  gates  of  Amenti,  Tub.  xxxviii.  i;,  which  are 
always  guarded  by  a  great  serpent.  At  Thebes  there 
is  a  bas-relief  representing  the  king  giving  audience 
at  the  door  of  his  tent.  The  Assyrian  sculptures  show 
us  Sennacherib  at  the  door  of  his  tent  giving  judgment 
in  the  case  of  the  Jewish  prisoners  taken  at  Lachi.-h 
(Brit.  Mus.  Xo.  so).  The  gates  and  courts  of  judgment  in 
the  palaces  themselves  are  sufficiently  indicated  by  the 
subjects  represented  on  the  walls.  The  Ionic  trophy 
monument  excavated  at  Xanthus  by  Sir  Charles  Eel- 
lowes  furnishes  a  representation  of  a  Persian  satrap 
sitting  at  the  gate  of  the  city  under  the  shadow  of  an 
umbrella  dictating  terms  to  Greek  ambassadors. 

In  the  Assyrian  palaces  the  gates  were  remarkable 
for  many  significant  illustrations  of  Scripture.  The 
principal  gates  were  guarded  by  six  symbolic  figures, 
compounded  of  the  man,  the  bull,  and  the  eagle,  the 
elaborately  sculptured  wings  being  extended  over  the 
back  of  the  animal.  These  figures  are  built  into  the 


sides  of  the  opening.  We  regard  these  symbolical 
combinations  of  the  human-headed  figure  of  a  bull  with 
eagle's  wings  as  probably  derived  from  traditional 
descriptions  of  the  cherubim,  handed  down  after  the 
deluge  by  the  descendants  of  Noah;  and  to  the  same 
origin  also  may  be  attributed  their  situation  as  guar 
dians  of  the  principal  entrances  of  the  palaces  of  the 
Assyrian  kings.  In  the  Assyrian  palaces  such  com 
pound  figures  are  never  found,  excepting  as  guardians 
of  portals.  Ordinarily  the  entrances  on  each  side  of 
the  central  portal  recede  from  the  general  line  of  the 
facade,  and  are  guarded  on  each  side  of  the  doorway 
by  winged  divinities,  which  turn  their  faces  to  the 
entrance,  and  present  the  pine  cone  to  those  who 
enter,  affording  a  remarkable  similarity  to  Egyptian 
temples.  In  Assyria  he  who  was  privileged  to  enter 
was  met  by  the  divinity  presenting  him  with  the  fir 
cone  ;  and  in  Egypt  the  king  is  represented  receiving 
from  the  divinity  in  the  same  way  the  symbol  which  is 


GATE  ( 

understood  to  signify  life.     Sec-  cast  in  Brit.  MILS,  of 
Pharaoh  Ilameses  IV.,  entering  his  tomb,  at  the  thres 
hold  of  which  he  is  met  by  the  divinity  Horns.    Another 
curious  feature  of  the  entrance  to  Assyrian  palaces   or 
temples  is,  that  the  tile  or  brick  pavement  ceases  at 
the  threshold,  and  their  place  is  supplied  by  a  single 
large   slab  of  gypsum,    the    width  of   the   jamb,   and 
covered  with  a  cuneatic  inscription  divided  into  two 
columns.    Before  the  three  doors  of  the  facade  forming 
the  porch  are  holes  the  size  of  one  of  the  bricks  form 
ing  the  pavement,  from  eleven  to  thirteen  inches  square, 
and  about  fourteen  in  depth.     These  holes  are  lined  with 
tiles  and  have  a  ledge  round  the  inside,  so  that  they 
might  be  covered  by  one  of   the   square   bricks  of  the 
]  lavement  without  betraying  the  existence  of  the  cavity. 
In  these  cavities  Botta  found  small  images  of  baked 
clay  of  frightful  aspect,  sometimes  with  lynx'  head  and 
human  bod}*,  some  with  human  head  and  lion's  bodv, 
and  others  witli  the  upper  part  human  but  terminating 
in  bulls'  legs  and  tails.     As  we  have  no  analogous  con 
trivances  in  the  temples  of  Egypt  and  Greece,  we  can 
only  speculate  on  these  peculiarities   in  the  Assyrian 
structure.      It  may  however  be  surmised,  from  the  con 
stant  recurrence  of  the  emblematic  figures  at  the  en 
trances,  that  this  part  of  tin;  palace  or  temple  in  the 
Assyrian  mind   was  of   the   greatest  importance,   and 
connected   with   the  religious   opinions  of   the  nation. 
Hence  it  was  trebly  guarded  by  divinities,  inscriptions, 
and  hidden  gods  from  the  approach  of  any  subtle  spirit 
or   more   palpable  enemy.      With   respect  to  the  clay 
images,  they  may  be  the   "teraphim,"  a  name  given  to 
certain  images  which  Rachel  had  stolen  from  her  father 
Laban  the  Syrian,  and  "put  them  in  the  camel's  fur 
niture  and  sat  upon  them,''  GO.  x\i.  in,  :m, ." I,  circumstances 
which  favour  the  conclusion  that  the  teraphim,  Laban's 
gods,  were  no  larger  than  these  Assyrian  images.    (See 
TKHAPHIM.)     Another  word  however  is  worthy  of  con 
sideration,  as  it  agrees  with  the   places  in  which  these 
images  were  found.      It  is  the  Arabic  word  tarf,  signi 
fying  a  boundary  or  margin— a  meaning  analogous  to 
doorway,  the  margin  or  boundary  of  a  chamber.    Thus 
both  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  afford  significations  im 
mediately  connected  with  the  gods  teraphim:  and  we  have 
yet  another  illustration  furnished  by  the  modern  Per 
sians,    who    call    their    talismans   "  telifin,"  really   the 
same  word,  the  /  and    r  being   the  same  in  some  lan 
guages,  and  easily  interchanging  in  many.    These  specu 
lations  are  strongly  supported  by  the  existing  charac 
teristics    and    superstitions    of    eastern    nations:    the 
pertinacity  with  which  all  orientals  adhere  to  ancient 
traditions  and  practices;  the  strongly  implanted  preju 
dices  entertained  in  the  court  of  Persia  respecting  the 
going  out  and  coming  in  of  the  shah  to  his  palace,  and 
the  belief  in  unseen  agencies  and  the  influence  of  the 
evil-eye,  which  has  prevailed  in  all    countries,  and  still 
exists  in  some,  especially  in  Asia  and  the  south  of  Europe. 
The  gates  above  described  formed   the  side  of  a  court, 
the  size  and  decoration  of   which   favoured  the  conclu 
sion  that  it  was  a  court  of  reception — the  place  where 
offerings  were  presented  and  where  justice  was  admin 
istered;  the  king's  gate— the   gate   of  judgment— the 
"porch  for  the  throne  where  he  might  judge,  even  the 
porch  of  judgment."  1  Ki.  vii.  r.     In  this  court  were  wont 
to  assemble  the  princes,  governors,  judges,  treasurers, 
counsellors,   sheriffs,    and  all  the  rulers  of  provinces, 
Da.  ill.  •»,  3,  of  Assyria.     When  the  king  gave  audience, 
the  porch  or  seat  of  judgment  was  on  the  south-western 


GATH-RIMMON 


or  shady  side  of  the  court,  and  communicated  im 
mediately  by  the  several  entrances  with  the  interior  of 
the  palace.  It  was  in  a  court  or  a  gate  of  this  kind  in 
the  royal  abode  of  Babylon  that  the  prophet  Daniel 
sat  when  Nebuchadnezzar  had  made  him  the  "Sultan" 
or  ruler  over  the  whole  province  of  Babylon,  Da.  ii.  4s,4<j; 
and  it  was  in  a  similar  court  of  the  king's  house  in 
Shushan  the  palace,  that  Hainan  watched  to  speak 
unto  the  king  to  hang  Mordeeai,  Ks.  vi.  i.  [j.  B.] 

GATH  [n:l,ic-i>rcisg],  one  of  the  five  cities  of  the 
Philistines,  which  were  presided  over  by  so  many 
princes  or  lords,  from  the  time  of  Joshua 'till  a  com 
paratively  late  period,  J,.s.  xiii.  3.  In  Jos.  xi.  22  it  is 
stated  that  Gath  was  one  of  the  cities  in  which,  at  the 
time  of  the  conquest,  there  still  remained  SOUK-  of  the 
ancient  Anakims  or  giants;  and  they  appear  to  have 
perpetuated  the  race  there  till  much  later  times,  as  it 
was  from  Gath  that  the  renowned  Goliath  issued, 
i  sa.  xvii.  4.  Xor  was  he  the  only  representative  in 
David  s  age  of  the  gigantic  race  ;  for  several  more  are 
mentioned,  -2  Sa.  xxi.  UI-L'L';  i  ch.  xxi.  5-8.  To  Gath,  as  one 
of  the  chief  Philistine  cities,  among  others,  the  ark  of 
the  Lord  was  sent  on  being  taken  by  the  Philistines, 
and  the  people  there  also  suffered  under  the  severe 
visitation  of  Heaven,  1  Sa.  v.  8,  9.  During  his  severe 
persecutions  David  sought  and  found  in  it  a  temporary 
refuge,  i  Sa.  xxi.  i<>;  xxvii.  2;  and  he  seems  to  have  won 
certain  of  the  people  there  to  his  side;  for  the  Gittites, 
as  they  are  called,  who  to  the  number  of  (iOO  entered 
into  his  service,  and  stuck  so  closely  by  him,  were 
simply  Gathites.  being  the  men  "who  came  after  him 
from  Gath,"  2Sa.xv.ix.  It  was  probably,  however,  at 
a  later  period,  that  these  in  any  number  attached 
themselves  to  David  ;  and  not  till  he  had,  among  his 
other  successes,  established  his  supremacy  over  Gath 
and  the  land  generally  of  the  Philistines,  2  Sa.  viii.  i; 
1  Ch.  xviii.  i.  It  was  still,  however,  allowed  to  retain 
a  lord  or  king  of  its  own,  though  under  tribute  to  the 
house  of  David,  1  Ki.  ii.  :;n.  During  the  wars  that  suc 
ceeded  the  division  of  the  kingdom,  Gath  passed 
'  through  considerable  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  but  appears 
to  the  last  to  have  been  a  place  of  some  strength  and 
importance,  2  Ki.  \ii.  17;  xiii.  21;  2  Ch.  xxvi.  0;  Am.  vi.  2;  Mi.  i.  10. 
•'We  sought  in  vain,"  says  .Robinson  (Researches,  ii. 
4i'i),  '-for  any  present  trace  of  the  name  of  Gath 
throughout  the  whole  region" — so  completely  has  its 
memorial  perished.  The  precise  site  of  the  ancient 
city  is  unknown.  The  Onomasticon  of  Eusebius  men 
tions  two  Gaths  ;  one  five  miles  from  Eleutheropolis, 
towards  Diospolis;  the  other,  which  he  held  to  be  the 
Gath  whither  the  ark  was  carried,  a  large  village  lx> 
tween  Antipatris  and  Jamnia.  Jerome  in  his  COM.  on, 
MicaJt  (i.  11),  places  it  somewhat  differently,  on  the  bor 
ders  of  Judea,  bet  ween  Eleutheropolis  and  Gaza.  So  that 
j  even  in  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  there 
I  seemed  to  be  no  certain  tradition  on  the  subject.  Por 
ter  woi.ld  identify  the  site  with  the  eminence  Tcll-ca- 
Safich,  about  mid- way  between  the  sites  of  Ekron  and 

Ashdod  (Syria  ami  Palestine,  p.  2.03). 

GATH-HE'PHER  \irhic-prcss  of  the  u: c //],  the  birth 
place  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  2  Ki.  xiv.  LV>,  and  a  town  in 

the  tribe  of  Zebuloii,  Jos.  xix.  13. 

GATH-RIM'MON  [n-fnc-jircKS  of  tic  pnmeyranati], 
a  town  in  the  tribe  of  Dan,  inhabited  by  the  Levites, 
Jos.  xix.  4,  5 ;  xxi.  2 ;  i  ch.  vi.  (i!i.  This  Robinson  supposed  to 
be  the  Gath  which  Eusebius  and  Jerome  placed  at  five 
Roman  miles  north  of  Eleutheropolis  on  the  way  to 


GAZA 


G3<> 


Diospoli.s    (U.  i>.  42i) 
tainty. 


But    here    also    there   is  no   cer 


GA'ZA 


'f,  f»rtijkd\,  one  of  the  five  princely 


cities  of  the  Philistines,  but  which,  unlike  Gath,  has 
withstood  the  desolations  of  many  generations,  and 
continues  to  the  present  time  a  comparatively  thriving 
and  well-peopled  place.  It  may  he  regarded  as  one  of 
the  oldest  cities  in  the  world,  being  mentioned  in  Ge. 
x.  1!)  as  one  of  the  border  towns  of  the  Canaaiiites. 
Like  (  Jatli  it  was  also  one  of  the  seats  of  the  giant  race, 
the  Anakims,  that  were  prior  even  to  the  Canaaiiites, 
Jos.  xi.  21,22.  It  was  included  in  the  lot  of  Judah,  and 
is  said  to  have  been  taken  by  the  tribe,  along  with 
Askelon  and  Ekron,  Ju.i.  IS;  though  it  is  clear  they  did 
not  attempt  to  drive  out  the  original  inhabitants,  nor  in 
terfered  with  the  regular  government,  but  were  content 
with  some  nominal  fealty.  By  and  by  it  became  the 
scene  of  Samson's  mournful  captivity  and  last  triumph, 
Ju.  xvi.  Afterwards  it  had  its  full  share  in  the  varying 
foil  Lines  of  the  Philistine  territory;  and  had  ever  and 


West  entrance  to  Gaza.  —  (Jhesney's  Euphrates  Expedition 


anon  to  endure  sieges  which  frequently  brought  it  to  the 
brink  of  ruin.  ''To  the  Egyptians  it  was  the  key  of 
Palestine,  to  the  Syrians  it  was  the  key  of  Egypt,"  hence 
it  was  the  scene  of  many  a  severe  conflict.  That  it  was 
a  strongly  fortified  place,  as  its  name  imports,  appears 
alone  from  the  resistance  it  made  to  the  arms  of  Alex 
ander.  So  vigorously  was  it  then  defended  by  the  forces 
under  the  command  of  the  eunuch  Batis,  and  of  such  mas 
sive  strength  were  its  walls,  that  the  engineers  of  Alexan 
der's  army  found  themselves  completely  baffled  in  their 
attempts  to  effect  a  breach.  They  were  obliged  to 
erect  an  enormous  mound  250  feet  in  height,  and 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  width,  on  the  south  side  of 
the  town ;  and  even  with  this  advantage,  and  the  use 
also  of  the  engines  that  had  been  employed  at  the  siege  of 
Tyre,  the  besiegers  were  frequently  repulsed,  and  Alex 
ander  himself  sustained  no  slight  bodily  injury.  It  was 
at  last  carried  by  escalade,  and  the  garrison  put  to  the 
sword.  The  town  itself  was  not  destroyed,  but  most 
of  the  inhabitants  that  remained  were  sold  into  slavery, 
and  a  fresli  Arab  population  settled  in  their  stead 
(Arrian,  H.  27).  During  the  Maccabeaii  wars  it  was  taken 
and  retaken  several  times;  on  being  taken  by  Simon  it 
was  strongly  fortified,  and  peopled  by  Jews  in  place  of 
its  former  idolatrous  inhabitants ;  further  on  still  it 


Jamueus,  and  ai  last  was  carried  only  by  treachery, 
kc.  (Josephus.Ant.xiii).  In  the  gospel  age  it  appears  to 
have  been  a  place  of  some  importance;  it  was  among 
the  cities  given  by  Augustus  to  Herod,  as  a  mark  of 
the  imperial  favour;  and  after  his  death  it  was  assigned 
to  the  province  of  Syria.  Though  not  noticed  among 
the  places  visited  by  the  apostles  in  the  early  propaga 
tion  of  the  Christian  faith,  it  is  known  to  have  become 
the  seat  of  a  Christian  church,  the  name  of  whose 
bishop  frequently  appeared  in  the  records  of  the  an 
cient  councils.  I  hit  there  are  evidences  of  idolatry 
having  retained  a  strong  hold  of  the  place  for  centuries 
after  the  Christian  era;  and  as  many  as  eight  heathen 
temples  are  said  to  have  existed  in  it  at  the  beginning 
of  the  fifth  century  (Acta  Sane.  Feb.  Tom.  hi.  p.  (i."5). 

The  present  Arabic  name  of  the  city  is  (ihuzzeh, 
and  its  population  is  estimated  by  llobinsoii  and  by 
Porter  at  about  15,000  inhabitants,  of  whom  only  a 
few  hundreds  profess  to  be  Christians;  the  rest  are -Ma 
hometans.  It  stands  about  three  miles  from  the  sea, 
and  the  farthest  south  of  any  of  the 
towns  on  the  Philistine  coast.  Some 
have  supposed  that  the  ancient  town 
stood  considerably  nearer  to  the 
shore  ;  but  there  is  no  certain  evi 
dence  of  this.  ''Between  the  city 
and  the  shore  are  hills  and  tracts 
of  sand,  on  which  are  scattered  a 
few  trees  and  hedges.  Around  the 
city  011  the  south,  east,  and  north, 
are  numerous  gardens  hedged  with 
prickly  pear,  which  forms  an  im 
penetrable  barrier.  The  soil  of  these 
is  exceedingly  rich  and  productive. 
Apricots  and  mulberries  were  al 
ready  ripe  [21st  May] ;  the  former 
delicious  and  abundant.  Many  palm- 
trees  are  scattered  around  the  city, 
though  they  form  no  grove  as  in 
Egypt;  while  beyond  the  gardens, 
towards  the  north,  lies  the  extensive 
olive-grove  through  \\hich  we  had  passed"'  ^ Robinson, 
vol.  ii.  p.  370).  "The  town  itself,"' says  Porter,  ''looks 


like    a    collection  of   larj. 
placed   near    each    other. 


villages   that    chance   had 
The   nucleus   stands   on   a 


broad- topped  hill,  which  constitutes  a  kind  of  iccst- 
cnd  containing  the  Serai,  the  great  mosque,  the 
government  offices,  and  the  houses  of  the  chief  citi 
zens,  all  stone  buildings,  once  substantial  and  in  repair, 
though  no  one  can  tell  how  long  ago.  Oil  the  south 
east  is  a  large  suburb  more  densely  populated  than 
the  hill ;  on  the  south-west  is  a  smaller  one ;  and  on 
the  north  is  another  still  smaller.  All  these  are  of 
mud  architecture,  differing  in  nothing  from  the  villages 
of  the  surrounding  plain,  except  that  here  and  there 
is  a  large  mosque  and  minaret.  The  present  town  has 
no  gates,  no  fortifications,  no  defences  of  any  kind ; 
and  yet  from  its  position  one  would  think  it  had  more 
need  of  them  than  any  other  place  in  Syria.  It  is  not 
only  a  frontier  town,  but  being  situated  on  the  borders 
of  the  desert  it  is  open  at  any  moment  to  a  Bedawy 
raid.  Yet  it  never  suffers;  and  the  secret  of  its  safety 
is  just  this — the  inhabitants  are  themselves  half  free 
booters  half  receivers,  whom  the  Bedawin  deem  it  more 
politic  to  conciliate  than  to  plunder"  (Hand-book  for  Syria 

and  Palestine,  p.  203). 


stood  a  whole  twelvemonth's  siege  against  Alexander  |       From  what  has  been  stated  respecting  Gaza,  it  will 


GAZER 


GEHAZI 


he  evident  that  the  expression  in  the  message  to  the 
evangelist  Philip,  "  (TO  toward  the  south  unto  the  way 
that  goeth  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Gaza,  which  is 
desert,^  Ac.  via.  20,  must  have  respect  not  to  the  city  itself 
of  Gaza,  but  to  a  part  of  the  way  leading  to  it.  Even 
in  the  present  day  Gaza  could  not  with  propriety  be 
described  as  desert;  and  much  less  could  it  have  been 
so  in  Philip's  time.  Coins  still  exist  of  Gaza  that 
were  struck  in  honour  of  Titus,  Hadrian,  and  some 
following  emperors,  showing  it  to  have  been  a  place  of 
considerable  importance  both  at  and  subsequent  to  the 
gospel  era.  But  that  portion  of  the  road  which  lies 
between  Eleutheropolis  and  Gaza  passes  through  a  re 
gion  which  is  now,  as  it  was  probably  then  also,  with 
out  villages,  and  might  fitly  be  called  desert.  (See  Uobin- 
son,  ii.  p.  'J^ii.  ) 

GA'ZER.     tec  GEZEK. 

GE'BA  [hill],  sometimes  written  GABA,  a  town 
belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  Jos.  xviii.  24;  hence 
called  "Geba  of  Benjamin/'  i  Ki.  xv.  22.  Some  have 
thought  it  the  same  as  Gibeah;  but  this  appears  to  be  a 

mistake,  compare  J..,s.  xviii.  21  with  2-,  aii.l  1  Sa.  xiii.  2,  3.  The 
exact  site  of  Geba  is  not  known,  but  the  notices 
given  of  it  seem  to  point  to  the  extreme  north  of  the 
territory  of  Benjamin  ;  especially  the  expression  "  from 
Geba  to  Beersheba,"  2  Ki.  xxiii.  s,  which  appears  to  tie- 
scribe  tlie  whole  extent  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  from 
north  to  south,  as  the  similar  expression  ''from  Dan 
to  Beersheba''  did  in  respect  to  the  entire  Israelitish 
territory  before  its  division  into  two  distinct  kingdoms. 
In  Ne.  vii.  :$0,  it  is  coupled  witli  Ramah,  in  a  way 
that  appears  to  indicate  the  local  juxtaposition  of  the 
two  places. 

GE'BAL  [mountain]  occurs  only  once  in  Scripture, 
Ps.  Ix  xxiii.  ;,  and  without  any  definite  fixing  of  the  region 
or  locality  marked  by  the  name,  yet  in  such  a  connec 
tion  as  to  show  that  it  must  have  belonged  to  that 
portion  of  Arabia  which  lies  to  the  south  and  east  of 
Palestine.  For  it  is  coupled  with  Moab,  Anmion,  and 
Anialek,  Edom  and  Isbmael,  as  together  joined  in 
conspiracy  against  the  covenant-people.  Now,  there 
is  a  mountainous  district,  immediately  south  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  which  bears  much  the  same  name  still-  — 
Jebal  or  Djebal-  and  which  is  generally  identified  with 
the  Gcbal  of  the  psalmist,  also  witli  the  Gobolitis  of 
Josephus,  and  the  Gebalene  of  the  Romans.  It  was 
simply  a  portion  of  the  range  which  is  generally  de.-ig- 
nated,  as  a  whole,  the  land  or  mountains  of  Edom. 
But  there  must  have  been  some  reason  in  the  circum 
stances  of  the  time,  which  led  the  psalmist  to  assign  it 
a  distinct  place  :  probably  it  was  occupied  by  a  separate 
branch  of  the  Edomite  race,  who  were  verv  forward  in 
showing  their  hostility. 

GE'BER  [man,  in  the  sense  of  the  Latin  rir].  1.  The 
name  of  one  of  the  officers  of  Solomon,  who  were  set 
over  distinct  provinces  for  revenue  or  commissariat 
purposes,  iKi.  iv.  in.  2.  A  Geber  is  also  mentioned  at 
ver.  13  as  the  father  of  another  of  those  officers. 

GEDALI'AH  [made  yrcat  //>/  Jthorali],  occurs  as  the 
name  of  various  persons,  of  whom  otherwise  we  know 
nothing,  EZI-.  x.  i^;  Zup.  i.  i-  i  Ch.  xxv.  3,9;  and  is  of  historical 
moment  simply  as  the  name  of  the  governor  who  was 
appointed  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  to  preside  over  the  affairs  of  the  feeble 
remnant  that  still  survived  in  Judea,  Jc.  xxxviii.;  2  Ki. 
xxv.  22.  As  it  was  the  mind  of  God  that  the  king  of 
Babylon  should,  for  a  time,  have  the  ascendency  over 


the  land  ami  people  of  the  Jews,  so  it  was  in  conformity 
with  his  will  that  those  who  were  left  behind  should 
submit  themselves  to  Gedaliah,  as  Nebuchadnezzar's 
deputy.  The  prophet  Jeremiah,  accordingly,  went  to 
Mizpah  and  put  himself  under  Gedaliah's  protection, 
Jo.  xl.  0;  he  used  his  influence  also  with  the  people  in 
endeavouring  to  persuade  them  to  the  same  peaceful 
course.  But  there  was  a  party  whose  chafed  spirits 
and  blighted  ambition  would  not  suffer  them  to  fall 
in  with  any  arrangement,  which  formally  acknowledged 
the  supremacy  of  the  king  of  Babylon  ;  and  this  party, 
headed  by  Ishmael,  of  the  seed  royal,  who  had  taken 
refuge  for  a  time  among  the  Ammonites,  entered  into 
a  conspiracy  to  slay  Gedaliah.  Information  of  the  plot 
was  secretly  conveyed  to  Gedaliah,  that  he  might  take 
measures  to  have  it  defeated;  but  he  refused  to  give 
credit  to  the  intelligence  ;  and  so,  in  the  midst  of  a 
repast,  was  treacherously  murdered  by  Ishmael  and  his 
associates.  This  was  done  only  about  two  months 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  murderers 
made  their  escape  to  Egvpt. 

GEDER,  GEDE'RAH,  GEDE'ROTH,  GE'DOR, 
all  applied  to  a  city  in  the  territory  of  Judah  ;  but 
whether  they  were  all  different  cities  cannot  be  ascer 
tained.  Nothing  of  historical  interest  is  connected 
with  the  names,  Jo.s.  xii.  i;>;  xv.  »;,  41,  5s  ;  2  rh.  xxviii.  is  ; 
i  I'h.  xii.  7.  The  last  in  the  list,  GEDOK,  is  commonly 
identified  with  a  height  in  the  mountains  of  Judah, 
having  on  it  some  ruins,  and  bearing  the  name  of  Jedilr. 
Gedor  is  thought  from  1  (  'h.  xii.  7,  where  mention 
is  made  of  certain  brethren  of  Said,  P>enjamitcs,  sons 
of  Jeroham  of  Gedor,  to  have  been  also  a  town  of 
Benjamin;  and  the  allusion  made  to  a  Gedor  in  1  Ch. 
iv.  ol',  in  connection  with  the  tribe  of  Simeon,  seems  to 
refer  to  some  place  on  the  boundary  line  between  Judah 
and  ]Vlount  Seir. 

GEHA'ZI  [mUfi/  <>J  rition],  found  only  as  the  name 
of  the  servant  of  Elisha.  2K"i.iv.  12.  He  appears  for  a 
time  to  have  enjoyed  the  entire  confidence  of  his 
master,  and  to  have  acted  in  a  manner  becoming  his 
situation.  It  was  he  who  suggested  the  most  fitting 
mode  of  recompensing  the  kindness  of  the  Shunammite 
woman,  and  the  suggestion  was  adopted,  a  Ki.  iv.  14. 
Some  years  afterwards,  when  the  same  Shunammite 
came  to  Carmel,  to  inform  Elisha  of  what  had  befallen 
her  son,  Gchazi  received  from  the  prophet  his  staff', 
with  instructions  to  go  in  his  name,  and  lay  it  upon 
the  face  of  the  child.  Though  the  method  proved  in 
effectual  to  the  end  in  view,  it  manifestly  betokened  on 
Elisba's  part  entire  confidence  in  the  character  and 
intentions  of  Gehazi.  We  are  therefore  the  more  sur 
prised  to  learn,  in  the  next  notice  which  has  been 
preserved  respecting  him,  that  he  should  have  been 
capable  of  acting  in  the  presumptuous  and  deceitful 
manner  he  did.  It  was  in  regard  to  Naaman,  from 
whom,  on  his  restoration  from  leprosy  by  dipping 
seven  times  in  the  Jordan,  Elisha  steadfastly  refused  to 
accept  of  any  of  the  gifts  he  had  brought  from  Syria. 
Gehazi  thought  this  a  piece  of  false  delicacy  on  the 
part  of  his  master  ;  and  hastened  after  Naaman,  to 
secure  a  portion  of  the  treasures  before  they  were 
entirely  out  of  reach.  He  ought  to  have  understood, 
from  the  determined  rejection  of  Naaman's  offers  by 
Elisha,  that  there  were  important  principles  involved 
in  the  matter,  which  he  should  have  been  careful  on  no 
account,  or  l>y  any  movement  on  his  part,  to  bring  into 
suspicion.  But  so  far  from  this,  he  had  the  audacity  to 


GK11KNNA 


(538 


GENEALOGIES 


go  in  his  master's  name,  and,  as  carrying  a  request  from  ! 
him,  besought  a  little  money  and  apparel,  to  bestow 
upon  two  sons  of  the  prophets,  that  he  pretended  had 
come  to  them  in  want.  The-  device  succeeded  in  its 
immediate  object;  for  he  pot  even  more  than  lie  asked; 
but,  on  returning,  he  was  met  by  the  stern  reproof  of 
Klisha  for  the  improper  course  lie  had  taken,  and  at 
Klisha's  word  had  the  leprosy  of  Naamaii  adjudged  to 
him  as  a  penalty:  ''The  leprosy  of  Naaman  shall  cleave 
inito  thee,  and  unto  thy  seed  for  ever;  and  he  went  out 
from  his  presence  a  leper  as  white  as  snow,"  L' K'i.  v.  L'7. 
In  this  action  may  he  read  the  judgment  of  Heaven 
upon  what  are  called  pious  frauds.  God  needs  no  lie 
or  unrighteousness  of  man  to  carry  forward  his  designs: 
and  bringing  him.  as  it  ever  seeks  to  do,  into  formal 
connection  with  evil,  it  is.  whenever  and  however  prac 
tised,  a  dishonour  to  his  name,  and  must  sooner  or 
later  draw  down  his  righteous  condemnation. 

The  rebuke  inflicted  on  Gehazi,  though  severe,  can 
not  justly  be  reckoned  too  hard  for  the  occasion.  There 
was  a  great  complication  of  wickedness  in  his  conduct. 
He  first  arrogated  to  himself  a  superior  discernment  to 
that  of  the  Lord's  prophet;  then  he  falsely  employed 
the  name  of  that  prophet  for  a  purpose  which  the 
prophet  himself  had  expressly  and  most  emphatically 
repudiated  ;  further,  as  an  excuse  for  aiming  at  such  a 
purpose,  he  invented  a  plea  of  charity,  which  had  no 
existence  hut  in  his  own  imagination;  and  finally,  on 
being  interrogated  by  Elisha  after  his  return,  whither 
he  had  gone,  he  endeavoured  to  disguise  his  procedure 
by  a  lie,  which  was  no  sooner  uttered  than  it  was  de 
tected  by  the  prophet.  Such  accumulated  guilt  obvi 
ously  deserved  some  palpable  token  of  the  divine 
displeasure;  the  more  so,  as  it  tended  to  give  a  covetous 
aspect  to  the  Lord's  servant  at  a  time  when  the  very 
foundations  were  out  of  course,  and  when  the  true 
worshippers  of  God  were  called  to  sit  loose  to  all  earthly 
possessions.  This,  indeed,  is  the  thought  that  is  most 
distinctly  brought  out  in  the  prophet's  denunciation  of 
Gehazi's  conduct,  ver.  ->c> — the  false  impression  it  was 
fitted  to  give  of  Elisha' s  position  and  character.  What 
effect  spiritually  the  judgment  might  have  upon  Ge- 
hazi,  we  are  not  told.  The  only  other  notice  we  have 
of  him  is  in  respect  to  a  conversation  the  king  of  Israel 
held  with  him  concerning  the  wonderful  deeds  of  Klisha, 
2Ki. viii.4.  He  is  there  still  called  "the  servant  of  the 
man  of  God"— -from  which  it  is  supposed  the  relation 
ship  betwixt  him  and  Elisha  continued  to  subsist;  and 
in  that  case,  he  must  have  repented  of  his  sins  and 
got  deliverance  from  the  leprosy.  This  however  is 
doubtful,  as  the  word  of  Klisha,  at  the  infliction  of  the 
malady,  seemed  to  leave  no  prospect  of  relief — although 
there  are  instances  of  cure,  where  the  first  intimation 
of  the  contemplated  issue  apparently  afforded  as  little 
hope  of  recovery,  sec,  in  particular, 2  Ki.  xx.  1.  The  future 
of  Gehazi,  therefore,  must  be  left  as  we  find  it — in  un 
certainty,  both  as  regards  his  spiritual  state  and  his 
bodily  condition. 

GEHEN'NA.     fiee  HULL. 

GEMARI'AH  [perfected  of  Je/iomh],  the  name  ap 
parently  of  two  persons  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah — 1. 
the  one,  the  son  of  Hilkiah,  who,  along  with  Elasah, 
was  sent  by  Zedekiah  on  an  embassy  to  Babylon,  and 
was  intrusted  by  Jeremiah  with  a  letter  to  the  captives 
already  carried  thither,  Je.  xxix.i-3;  2.  the  other,  called 
the  son  of  Shaphan  the  scribe,  and  one  of  the  few  men 
of  influence  who  paid  regard  to  the  word  of  Jeremiah. 


it  was  in  his  chamber  in  the  temple-buildings  that 
Ijaruch  read  the  prophecies  of  J  eremiah  in  the  audience 
of  the  people;  and  he  interceded,  though  in  vain,  to 
prevent  the  burning  of  the  roll  that  contained  them., 
Je.  xxxvi.  io-i!.">.  Nothing  more  is  known  of  him. 

GENEALOGIES;  formed  of  two  Greek  words,  and 
signifying  rare-account*,  or  fami/y-reyisters,  tracing  the 
descent  and  ancestral  relationships  of  particular  tribes 
and  families.  The  Jewish  people,  and  the  line  of  the 
human  family  out  of  which  they  sprung,  from  the  re 
motest  times  paid  special  attention  to  the  pi'cservation 
of  such  registers.  Jt  had  undoubtedly  a  divine  autho 
rization.  The  purpose  of  God  in  respect  to  the  higher 
interests  of  mankind  took  from  the  first  a  specific  family 
direction;  and  it  was  of  importance  that  at  least  the 
more  prominent  links  in  the  successive  generations  of 
those  more  nearly  connected  with  the  development  of 
that  purpose  should  be  preserved  to  future  times.  The 
manifestations  of  the  divine  goodness  were  never  in 
deed  absolutely  confined  to  any  single  branch  of  the 
human  family;  nor,  even  when  they  assumed  most  of  a 
partial  and  restrictive  aspect,  were  members  of  other 
tribes  excluded  from  partaking  in  them — if  only  they 
showed  themselves  ready  to  fall  in  with  the  terms,  on 
which  the  way  was  laid  open  to  the  favour  and  fellow 
ship  of  Heaven.  But  the  imperfections  that  inevitably 
attached,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  world's  history, 
first  to  the  organization  of  human  society,  and  then  to 
the  means  and  agencies  connected  with  the  divine  plan, 
led  by  a  kind  of  necessity  to  the  employment  of  par 
ticular  races,  through  which,  as  the  more  select  channels 
of  working,  the  truth  of  God  should  be  more  especially 
disclosed,  and  the  testimony  for  it  more  faithfully 
maintained.  It  is  the  genealogy  of  mankind  in  its 
bearing  on  this  higher  interest — reaching  from  Adam 
through  the  line  of  Seth  to  Noah,  then  from  Noah 
through  the  line  of  Shem  to  Abraham,  then  again  from 
Abraham  through  the  lines  of  Isaac,  Jacob,  Judah,  and 
David  to  Christ — over  which  the  providence  of  God 
lias  most  carefully  watched,  and  which  it  has  most 
fully  exhibited  in  the  historical  records  of  Scripture. 
In  other  branches  of  the  human  family,  and  especially 
those  more  nearly  related  to  the  one  in  question,  not  a 
few  genealogical  tables  are  also  given  ;  but  they  have 
no  more  than  a  subsidiary  place;  and  the  chief  interest 
and  importance  of  the  genealogical  matter  of  Scripture 
hangs  around  the  great  central  chain  which  connects 
Adam  with  Christ,  and  indeed  with  that  more  select 
portion  of  it  which  stretches  from  the  call  of  Abraham 
to  the  birth  of  the  Son  of  Mary.  Nothing  of  spiritual 
moment  now  depends  upon  any  question,  of  genealogy, 
except  what  lies  along  the  track  of  this  definite  line. 

It  was  different,  however,  under  the  old  covenant. 
From  the  period  of  its  establishment,  the  people  of  God 
were  obliged,  not  as  a  matter  of  family  pride,  or  for  the 
sake  of  a  merely  antiquarian  interest,  but  for  the  deter 
mination  of  important  questions  of  civil  and  religious 
polity,  to  keep  with  the  utmost  care  and  regularity  their 
genealogical  tables.  It  was  these  chiefly  that  preserved 
the  land-marks  between  tribe  and  tribe,  family  and 
family,  and  regulated  the  succession  to  inheritances  of 
laud,  so  as  usually  to  render  unnecessary  the  specific  de 
stination  of  property  or  the  framing  of  wills.  It  was  on 
these,  as  connected  with  the  family  of  Aaron,  that  the 
right  of  any  individual  or  family  turned  to  enter  into  the 
sacred  and  honourable  functions  of  the  priesthood;  and 
when,  as  happened  on  the  return  from  Babylon,  any 


GENEALOGIES 


639 


GENEALOGIES 


persons  claiming'  this  distinction  were  found  unable  to 
produce  the  proper  register  establishing  their  descent 
from  Aaron,  they  were  "removed,  as  polluted,  from 
the  priesthood, "  Ezr.  ii.  G-2.  The  settlement  of  the  king 
dom  in  the  house  of  David,  imposed  of  course  a 
similar  necessity  for  scrupulous  exactness  upon  the 
members  of  that  house,  in  order  to  secure  their  title  to 
any  participation  in  its  honours.  So  that  a  manifold 
and  wide-extending  interest  attached  to  the  keeping  of 
correct  genealogical  registers  among  the  tribes  of 
Israel  from  the  conquest  of  C'aiiaau  to  the  coming  of 
Christ.  And  that  a  corresponding  degree  of  attention 
and  cure  was  applied  to  the  matter  is  certain,  not  only 
from  the  place  given  to  genealogies  in  Scripture,  and 
the  high,  even  undue  account  that  is  said  there  to  have 
been  ultimately  made  of  them,  1  Ti.  i.  4;  but  also  from 
the  testimony  of  Josvphus  as  to  the  state  of  things 
regarding  them  in  his  day.  lie  expressly  affirms,  that 
he  ascertained  his  own  pedigree  from  the  public  re 
gisters  (Life,  l);  and  further  states  in  regard  to  the 
priesthood,  that  most  exact  tables  of  their  descent  and 
family  connections  had  been  kept  from  the  time  of 
their  original  appointment,  and  that  not  in  .Judeaonlv, 
but  in  all  the  places  of  their  sojourn,  the  members  of 
the  priesthood  were  at  the  utmost  pains  to  have  their 
family  registers  kept,  so  as  to  be  above  all  suspicion 
(Contr.  Ap.  i.  7.)  Josephus  mentions  these  things  respect 
ing  the  families  of  the  priesthood,  because  his  o\vn 
priestly  origin,  and  his  immediate  purpose  in  writing, 
led  him  to  refer  more  especially  to  them  ;  but  such  ex 
actness  and  careful  preservation  in  respect  to  the 
priestly  families,  necessarily  implied  a  great  degree  of 
the  same  in  respect  to  the  families  of  the  other  tribes. 
As  the  keeping  of  correct  genealogical  tables  had  a 
national  interest,  so  it  may  be  said  to  have  formed  a 
national  peculiarity. 

A  report  indeed  is  mentioned,  in  a  fragment  of 
Africanus,  preserved  by  Eusebins  (Hist.  Keel.  i.  7),  that 
the  public  registers  had  been  destroyed  by  Herod,  who 
was  conscious  of  the  infelicity  of  his  Idumeaii  origin, 
and  sought  thereby  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  its 
detection.  But  Africanus  himself  seems  to  have  been 
doubtful  of  the  truth  of  this  report;  for  after  noticing 
it,  he  adds  the  qualifying  clause,  "whether  the  matter 
actually  stood  thus  or  not"  (tir  ore  oiVws,  dr  d\\ws 
t'Xfi);  and  Valesius,  the  learned  editor  of  Eusebius, 
in  his  notes  on  the  passage,  justly  rejects  the  story  as 
altogether  at  variance  with  the  known  facts  of  history. 
There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  that  down  to  the 
taking  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Komans,  the  genealogical 
registers  of  the  Jews  were  kept  with  singular  care,  and 
with  sufficient  accuracy  to  determine  all  ordinary 
questions  of  relationship  and  descent;  but  after  that 
event  they  cease  to  be  heard  of.  The  fearful  cata 
strophe  which  finally  destroyed  the  place  and  nation  of 
the  Jews,  also  scattered  their  genealogies  to  the  winds 
— fused  family  and  family,  tribe  and  tribe  together ;  so 
that  it  henceforth  became  impossible  to  tell,  if  there 
tccrc  an  altar,  who  had  a  right  to  minister  at  it;  or  if 
a  throne,  who  stood  in  the  line  of  succession  to  its 
honours.  The  hand  of  God  was  as  visibly  in  this  as  in 
the  general  overthrow  of  the  old  typical  constitution 
of  things  ;  and  if  a  judicial  blindness  were  not  upon  | 
the  minds  of  the  Jews,  they  would  see  in  the  loss  of 
their  genealogies,  and  the  distinctions  therewith  con 
nected,  the  clear  sign  of  the  abolition  of  their  ancient 
polity,  and  the  necessity  of  looking  for  a  fulfilment 


of  their  prophecies  of  a  different  kind  from  what  they 
have  been  expecting. 

The  relation  of  the  Genealoyits  of  Scripture  to  questions 
of  Chronology  is  somewhat  variable,  and  even  where  it 
seems  most  precise  requires  to  be  applied  with  caution. 
That  some  of  the  earlier  lists  have  been  framed  with  a 
reference  to  this  use — those,  for  example,  of  (>e.  v.,  and 
again  of  Ge.  xi.  10-i>0  — there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt; 
for  specifying,  as  they  do,  the  exact  year  of  each  father's 
life  when  the  son  was  born,  through  whom  the  line  of 
descent  was  to  be  transmitted,  they  necessarily  provide 
the  materials  of  a  chronological  reckoning.  But  in  the 
great  mass  of  genealogical  registers  this  is  not  done; 
we  have  merely  a  certain  number  of  generations  given, 
and,  on  the  supposition  of  there  being  no  blanks  in  these, 
for  the  sake  of  brevity  or  any  other  purpose,  we  can 
only  form  an  estimate  of  the  entire  period  by  striking 
an  average  for  the  successive  generations.  We  cannot, 
however,  be  always  sure  that  every  link  in  the  chain  is 
given;  and  a  degree  of  doubt  or  uncertainty  as  to  the 
number,  not  less  than  the  length,  of  the  several  gene 
rations,  must  render  chronological  calculations  founded 
on  such  a  basis  in  many  cases  problematical.  Thus, 
the  register  of  Levi,  in  Ex.  vi.  lb'-^(>.  gives  only 
two  links  between  Levi  and  Moses — Levi,  Kohath, 
Ainram,  Moses — and  it  has  been  frequently  argued  on 
this  ground,  that  the  children  of  I*rael  could  not  have 
been  in  Egypt  at  the  utmost  above  the  half  of  the 
4oO  years  mentioned  in  Ex.  xii.  40,  as  the  term  of  their 
sojourning.  Such  also  is  the  view  taken  of  the  matter 
in  this  work  in  the  article  CHRONOLOGY.  It  is  con 
nected,  however,  as  is  there  admitted,  with  serious 
difficulties;  such,  indeed,  as  appear  almost  insuper 
able,  when  placed  alongside  other  things  connected 
with  the  same  table.  Tiele.  in  his  t'lti-on.  ((ex  Alt.  Te*t. 
([i.  ;«;),  thus  states  them:  •'  According  to  Nu.  iii.  '27,  the 
Kohathites  were  divided  in  Moses'  time  into  four  fami 
lies — Amramites,  Jehezarites,  Hebronites,  and  Ussiel- 
ites,  which  together  composed  8000  men  and  boys 
(women  and  girls  not  being  reckoned).  The  fourth  part, 
or  about  'Jljju  men  and  boys,  would  fall  to  the  Am 
ramites.  Moses  himself  had  only  two  sons.  If,  there 
fore,  Ainram,  the  son  of  Kohath,  the  father  of  the 
Amramites,  were  identical  with  Amram  the  father  of 
Muses,  Moses  must  have  had  21 47  brothers  and  brothers' 
sons.  But  as  this  is  an  impossible  supposition,  it  must 
be  admitted  as  proved  that  Amram  the  son  of  Kohath 
was  not  the  father  of  Moses,  but  that  between  him  and 
his  descendant  of  the  same  name  a  considerable  num 
ber  of  generations  lias  been  dropped  out."  Such,  at 
least,  is  one  solution  of  the  difficulty,  and  one  in  perfect 
accordance  with  other  known  instances  of  abbrevia 
tion,  as  in  the  priestly  register  of  Ezra,  cii.  vii.  l-:,,  com 
pared  witli  l  Ch.  vi.  4-1:1,  there  is  only  one  Azariah  given, 
where  the  other  has  two,  and  several  intervening  gene 
rations  are  dropped  out.  Genealogies  of  this  descrip 
tion  appear  to  have  been  formed,  not  so  much  with 
the  view  of  furnishing  definite  measurements  of  time, 
as  of  noting  the  ramifications  of  tribal  and  family 
relationships,  and  certifying  them  in  a  manner  from 
one  age  to  another.  For  not  this,  but  the  former  was 
the  matter  of  chief  moment,  as  regarded  the  purpose 
and  arrangements  of  the  old  economy  ;  and  to  apply 
such  family  registers  to  the  determination  of  historical 
epochs  in  a  chronological  respect,  especially  if  in  doing 
so  some  violence  has  to  be  done  to  the  facts  recorded 
in  the  history,  is  to  turn  them  to  a  purpose  for  which 


GENEALOGIES 


640 


GENEALOGIES 


they  were  not  immediately  destined,  and  which  they 
nuty  lie  incapable  of  serving.  We  know  for  certain 
that  the  table  noticed  above  in  Ezra  vii.  would  be  mis 
applied  if  so  used;  we  know  also  that  such  would  be 
the  ease  -with  the  table  in  Mat.  i.,  in  which,  though 
divided  into  three  fourteeiis,  the  second  certainly  omits 
three  names  in  order  to  exhibit  the  requisite  number, 
and  the  third  probably  omits  still  more  (as  may  be  in 
ferred  by  a  comparison  with  the  corresponding-  portion 
of  St.  Luke's  table— see  below).  There  is  no  reason 
known  to  us  why  it  may  not  have  been  so  in  other 
instances. 

What  some  have  done  \\ith  the  genealogy  of  Levi  in 
reference  to  the  sojourn  in  Egypt,  has  been  done  by 
others  in  particular  by  Lord  Arthur  Hervey,  in  his 
treatise  (admirable  in  many  respects)  on  the  genealogies 
of  our  Lord  with  that  of  Nachson,  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah.  in  the  book  of  If  nth.  Nachson  was  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  tribe,  in  the  line  of  Pharez,  at  the  time 
of  the  exodus,  and  betwixt  him  and  David  in  the  table 
referred  to,  Ru.  iv.  is,  L':i,  there  are  just  four  intervening 
links — Salmon  (who  married  Rahab),  Boaz,  Obcd, 
Jesse  the  father  of  Uavid.  Supposing  this  to  be  the 
entire  line  of  succession,  and  striking  a  probable  aver 
age  for  each  generation,  the  whole  period  from  the 
settlement  in  Canaan  to  the  commencement  of  David's 
reign  is  computed  at  -2'.>t>  or  :>40  years — scarcely  the  half 
of  the  common  reckoning  from  the  historical  data  in 
the  book  of  .Judges.  The  chronology  of  the  period  is 
undoubtedly  involved  in  some  obscurity,  and  it  is  pos 
sible  that  the  briefer  period  in  question  maybe  as  near 
the  actual  time  as  the  longer.  But  the  genealogy  of 
the  house  of  David  is  a  very  narrow  and  uncertain 
basis  on  which  to  rest  it;  for  here  also  several  names 
may  have  been  omitted — a  supposition  which  appears 
quite  probable  (notwithstanding  what  Lord  A.  Hervey 
says  to  the  contrary),  by  the  much  greater  length  of  the 
genealogies  of  the  house  of  Levi,  which  for  much  about 
the  same  period  exhibit  nearly  double  the  number — 
seven  between  Phinehas  and  Zadok,  and  still  more  by 
the  line  of  Gershom,  i  ch.  vi.  It  seems,  therefore,  rash 
to  press  a  particular  genealogy  as  alone  entitled,  in  such 
a  case,  to  be  regarded;  and  still  more  so,  when  this  of 
necessity  carries  along  with  it  a  disparagement  of  the 
historical  correctness  of  some  of  the  narratives  in 
Judges.  (Sec  JUDGES,  also  JABIX.) 

Besides  the  tendency  to  practise  abbreviation  in  the 
genealogical  lists,  the  peculiar  regard  sometimes  mani 
fested  in  their  construction  to  specific  aims  requires  to 
be  taken  into  account,  in  order  to  guard  against  impro 
per  deductions  from  them.     No  more  is  the  strict?)/ 
historical,  than  the  chronological  element  always  made 
the  ruling  principle  of  their  formation :   for  in  not  a 
fevv  of  them  marked  respect  was  had  to  the  mishpa- 
Jioth   or   family -clans    under    which    the    offspring  of 
each  tribe  ranged  themselves,   and  in   others  a  regard 
to  specific  numbers  exercised  a  determining  influence. 
For  example,   in  the  Levitical   genealogy   already  re-  i 
ferred  to  in  Ex.  vi.,  four  sons  of  Kohath  are  mentioned 
— Amram,  Izhar,  Hebron,  Uzziel;  then  follow  the  sons  i 
of  three  of  these,  while  Hebron  is  dropped  out,  as  if  he  ' 
had   died  without  issue.      But  in  2  Ch.  xxiii.,  we  find  ! 
no  fewyer  than  four  sons  ascribed  to  him;  so  that  it  must  ] 
have  been  from  some  specific  reason — in  all  probability 
because  no    distinct    family    sprung  from   him    as    its 
head— -that  Hebron  has  no  offspring  connected  with  his 
name  in  the  earlier  genealogy.      An  anomaly  of  nearly 


the  reverse  kind  exists  in  the  case  of  his  brother  Izhar; 
for  while  three  sons  are  ascribed  to  him  in  Exodus,  in 
the  table  of  Chronicles  there  is  only  one,  and  he  appa 
rently  different  from  any  of  the  three.  Such  things 
clearly  show  that  it  was  often  not  intended  in  particu 
lar  genealogies  to  give  a  complete  list  of  the  descen 
dants  in  that  line,  nor  perhaps  farther  than  was  re 
quired  to  mark  the  formation  of  distinct  families— 
whence  calculations  as  to  increase  of  population  founded 
on  those  tables,  and  proceeding  on  the  supposition  of 
their  including  all  the  male  offspring,  are  entitled  to  no 
confidence;  they  are  based  on  insufficient  data,  and 
turn  the  genealogical  registers  to  an  account  for  which 
they  were'  not  framed.  And  the  same  doubtless  may 
hold  in  other  directions,  as  when  they  were  constructed 
with  a  specific  regard  to  the  significance  or  convenience 
of  certain  numbers.  A  regard  of  this  sort  plays  a  pro 
minent  part,  as  will  be  more  particularly  noticed  below, 
in  our  Lord's  genealogy  according  to  Matthew,  affect 
ing  it  in  the  way  of  what  seems  to  us  (viewing  the  mat 
ter  in  a  simply  historical  aspect)  arbitrary  omissions 
and  abridgments.  It  does  so  yet  more  peculiarly  in 
the  genealogy  of  Jacob's  family  in  Gen.  xlvi.,  where 
for  the  purpose  of  making  out  the  seven  times  ten — the 
combined  multiple  of  the  symbols  of  sacredness  and 
completeness  --Jacob  is  counted  among  his  own  family 
(reckoned  with  the  sons  of  Leah);  and  two  grandsons 
of  Judah  (Hezron  and  Hanml),  and  all  Benjamin's  ten 
sons,  are  contemplated  as  among  the  original  settlers 
with  Jacob  in  Egypt,  though  neither  the  two  former, 
nor  many  of  the  latter,  could  be  born  till  some  time 
after  the  descent  thither.  The  persons  mentioned,  with 
only  an  exception  or  two,  which  probably  arose  from 
subsequent  changes,  became  heads  of  families  (comp- 
table  in  Nu.  xxvi.);  and  the  settling  down  for  the  Egyp 
tian  sojourn  only  appeared  complete,  when  these  came 
into  existence  and  made  up  the  ideal  number  seventy. 
They  have  therefore  a  place  in  the  genealogy,  which, 
along  with  its  general  historic  aim,  coupled  the  spe 
cific  design  of  preserving  a  memorial  of  the  other  cir 
cumstances  referred  to.  Such  a  regard  to  numbers  and 
family  distinctions  may  appear  to  us  unnatural;  it  may 
seem  to  want  exactness,  or,  as  has  been  recently  alleged, 
to  violate  historical  verity;  but  the  real  question  is, 
whether  it  did  not  exist,  having  certain  ends  to  serve 
for  the  time  then  being  which  might  otherwise  have 
been  lost?  For  if  so.  then  it  is  as  much  our  duty  to 
consider  it,  and  make  reasonable  allowance  for  it,  as  to 
make  account  of  the  idioms  of  language  and  forms  of  ex 
pression  which  are  peculiar  to  the  original  records  of 
Scripture.  It  is  only  through  such  knowledge  and 
consideration  that  we  get  at  the  real  purport  and 
proper  bearing  of  their  contents. 

If  the  principles  now  briefly  indicated  respecting  the 
Old  Testament  genealogies  are  rightly  apprehended 
and  applied,  no  difficulty  need  be  experienced  on  the 
general  subject,  nor  will  hasty  and  groundless  deduc 
tions  be  raised  on  them.  For  the  individual  peculia 
rities  and  occasional  corruptions  found  in  connection 
with  some  of  them,  we  must  refer  to  the  particular 
names  in  connection  with  which  they  occur,  and  to 
the  work  of  Lord  Arthur  Hervey  already  mentioned. 

GENEALOGY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  The  question  of  chief 
moment,  as  regards  the  substance  of  the  genealogies 
in  relation  generally  to  the  interests  of  truth  and 
righteousness,  is  the  bearing  they  have  upon  the  per 
son  of  Jesus  Christ,  whether  in  realitv  he  was,  after  the 


GENEALOGIES 


041 


GENEALOGIES 


flesh,  of  the  house  and  lineage  of  David  <     The  word  miraculous  conception,  he  is  represented  as  going  to  a 
of  prophecy  declared  he  should  be  this  ;  do  the  genea-  ]  •'  virgin  espoused  to  a  man,  whose  name  was  Joseph, 

logies  extant  prove  that  he  actually  was  so?     On  this  of  the  house  of  David,"  Lu.  i.  27.      When  the  same  or 

point  we  have  two  genealogies  to  appeal  to,  preserved  another    angel  is    sent  to  Joseph  to  instruct    him  to 

respectively   by  the  evangelists  Matthew   and   Luke,  consummate  his  marriage   with  .Mary,    he   is  saluted 

and  each  produced  for  the  purpose  of  bearing  evidence  ''Joseph,  thou  son  of  Dm- id,"1  Mat.  i.  20^  and.  still  a<min 

to  the  Davidic  descent  of  our  Lord's  human  nature,  when  the  circumstances  are  narrated  which  led  to  the 

But  this  they  accompany  with  certain  marked  pecu-  confinement  of  Mary  at  Bethlehem,  it  is  said  that  they 

liarities,    and  even   some    startling   difficulties,    which  went  thither  because,  not  she.  but  Joseph,  was  "of  the 

from  an  early  period  have  exercised  the  ingenuity  of  h»u*e  and  lineage  of  /),tr!d,"  Lu.  ii.  i.      On  this  Around 

interpreters,    and   to    unbelievers    have   often   afforded  Augustine    threw    out     the    idea,    that    simply    from 


to 

occasions  of  assault. 

1.   One  of  these  is  common  to  both  genealogies,  and 

consists   in   this,   that  they   both  apparently   give  the 

descent  of  Jesus  through   Joseph,    who   was   only   his 

reputed  father,    not  through  Mary,    who  was  his  sole 

human  parent.     This  has  not  always  been  admitted;     blo,,d-relationship  to  David,  it  w, 

and  a   very  common,   in   itself  plausible   view   of  the     that  Christ   was  the  s 

subject,  and  one  that,  if   it  were  fairly  tenable,  would     reason  that  Joseph  wa 

afford  a  ready  solution  of  several  difficulties,  has  been 

to  regard  the   one  genealogy   (Matthew's)  as   that  of 

our  Lord's  legal  connection  with  the  house  of    David 

through  Joseph,  who   in   the  eye  of   the  law  was  his     spring  of  hi 

father,  and  the  other  (Luke's)  as  that  of  his  real  parent-     thr 

age  and  descent  through  Mary.      But  the  words  of  the  '  are 

latter    evangelist    cannot    by    a    natural    construction 

be  made  to  yield   this  sense.      Their  precise  rendering 

is,  "And  Jesus  himself  was  about  thirty  years  of  a-e, 

when  beginning  (vix.  to  appear  in  public,  or  to  enter 
on  his  mission),  being,  as  was  supposed,  the  son  of 
Joseph,  who  was  the  son  of  Heli,"  \c.  (uiv,  ws  eVo/ut- 

ffro,    fibs  ' luarifi,    roe  'H,\i). 

meaning  of  the  passage  evidently  i-,  that  by  th-  coin 
moil  reckoning  Joseph  was  the  father  of  Jesus,  and 
that  this  Joseph  was  the  son  of  Heli,  and  so  on.  The 
clause  it*  ii-n.i  mi,,/!!,*,!/,  goes  no  farther  than  to  inti 
mate  that  it  was  but  a  reputed  connection,  the  filial 
relationship  of  Jesus  to  Joseph:  it  indicates  nothing  as 
to  there  being  any  other  link  of  connection  with  the 
remoter  progenitor  Heli;  for  the-  Heli  is  manifestly  in 
apposition  with  Joseph;  an  1  what  Joseph  was  to 
Jesus,  Heli  also  must  have  been,  only  a  stairc  farther 


removed.  Had  the  meaning  been,  that  Jesus  was  the 
reputed  son  of  Joseph,  but  in  reality  the  son  of  Heli 
(namely,  his  grandson,  through  Mary  the  daughter  of 
lleli),  the  construction  in  the  original  would  have 
needed  to  be  different.  And  in  further  proof  of  this, 


out     the    idea, 

Joseph's  relation  to  Mary  by  the  marriage-tie,  he  was 
Christ's  father,  Christ  being  born  of  his  wife  in  a 
manner  far  more  intimate  than  if  he  had  been  adopted 
from  another  family.  "  And  on  this  account,"  he  adds, 
"if  anv  one  should  be  able  to  prove  that  Mary  had  no 

competent  to  hold 
u  of  David,  for  the  very  same 
entitled  to  be  called  his  father" 

(De  Consensu  Kvang.  ii  0.  There  is  undoubtedly  an  ele 
ment  of  truth  in  this  view.  Jesus  was  the  fruit  of 
Joseph's  marriage  with  Mary,  not  indeed  as  the  off- 
body,  but  as  God's  special  gift  to  him 
h  his  proper  spouse.  In  every  case,  children 
are  God's  gifts  to  men;  and  if  for  high  reasons  God 
should  dispense  with  the  ordinary  agency  in  I  (ringing 
them  forth,  and  substitute  one  extraordinary  and  mira 
culous,  still  the  relationship  in  its  essential  charac 
teristics  would  not  be  altered  the  offspring  being 
brought  forth  in  the  way  of  God's  appointment,  in  law 
ful  wedlock,  would  still  be  entitled  to  the  proper  filial 

•  plain  and  natural  relationship  to  the  head  of  the  family.  Thus  Jesus  was 
God's  Liift  to  JoM-ph  through  bis  proper  spouse  ;  and 
Jesus  beinu  born  in  a  Davidic  family,  the  son  by  special 
dispensation  of  a  Davidic  person,  he  was  in  the  eye 
both  of  human  and  divine  law  himself  of  the  house  of 
1  >avid.  (Delitzsch.iii  Ku.li;ll.:u-li\/dtscl.rift  for  IV.n,  p.  5sl,seq .) 
Such,  apparently  was  tin-  view  taken  of  the  matter 
by  the  evangelist  Matthew,  perhaps  by  both  the 
evangelists.  But  it  by  no  means  excludes,  it  might 
possibly  rather  imply  and  take  for  granted,  the  rela 
tionship  of  Mary  to  the  house  of  David.  The  .Jews  of 


:  ha<l  the  idea,  that     lineage, 
i  had  any  meaning 

seem   to  have  ima- 

mark  the  relation - 


the  apostolic  age.  we  can  conceive,  might  admit  her 
relationship,  or  make  no  question  about  it;  but  since 
the  wife's  tribal  or  family  connection  was  properly 
determined  by  that  of  her  husband,  they  might  demand 
satisfaction  as  to  Joseph's  right  to  be  reckoned  of  David's 


In  truth.  Mary's  personal  relationship  to  the 
<ame  house  i.t  taken  for  granted  by  the  angel  who  first 
announces  to  her  the  high  destination  of  the  son  she 
was  to  be  honoured  to  bring  forth,  when  he  says, 
"And  the  Lord  God  shall  give  him  the  throne  of  his 
father  David,"  T.u  i.  :;•_'  an  announcement  which  was 
made  before  she  could  know  that  her  betrothal  to  Joseph 
was  to  be  carried  into  effect,  and  while  still  she  alone 
could  be  thought  of  as  supplying  an  earthly  link  of 


none  of  the  ancients  appear  to  hav 
the  words  of  St.  Luke  could  hav 
but  that  given  above;  they  never 
gined  that  the  evangelist  meant  t 
ship  of  Mary,  and  not  of  Joseph,  to  Heli. 

This  therefore  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  pecu 
liarities  in  the  two  tables  ;  while  both  evangelists  record 
the  miraculous  conception  of  Jesus,  and  consequently 
disclaim  the  real  parentage  of  Joseph  ;  vet  when  ex 
hibiting  the  genealogical  connection  of  Jesus  with  the  connection  with  a  particular  family.  It  is  most  pro- 
house  of  David,  they  deem  it  enough  to  present  the  bable  that  h«r  genealogy  coalesced  at  a  comparatively 
lineage  of  Joseph.  How  should  this  have  been  ?  Did  short  distance  back  with  that  of  Joseph— a  circuni- 
Christ's  legal  connection  with  Joseph,  as  the  husband  stance  which,  if  it  existed,  could  scarcely  fail  to  be 
of  Mary,  of  itself  determine  the  question  of  his  rela-  known  generally  at  the  time.  At  all  events,  the  state- 
tionship  to  the  house  of  David,  and  constitute  him  in  ments  made  upon  the  subject  by  the  two  evangelists 
truth  a  member  of  that  house  ?  So  it  may  fairly  seem  seem  to  proceed  upon  the  ground,  that  the  relationship 
to  be  indicated  by  the  prominence  which  is  given  to  the  to  the  house  of  David  belonged  in  common  to  Joseph 
royal  pedigree  of  Joseph.  The  evangelists  not  only  and  Mary. 

content  themselves  with  exhibiting  Joseph's  genealogy;  j       -2.   But  other  peculiarities,  and,   on   the  supposition 
but   when  the  angel  goes    to    Mary  to   announce   the     of    both    evangelists    having    given    the    genealogical 


VOL.  I. 


8! 


GENEALOGIES 


(142 


GUNK  A  LOG  IKS 


descent   of   Joseph,    somewhat    perplexing    difficulties 
attach  to    the    two   tallies.       For   they  differ   even  in 
regard  t<>  one  of  the  nearest  links  of  the  chain  —  the 
father  of   Joseph,  who  appears  as  Heli  in    Luke,  and 
Jacob  in  Matthew.      And  in  the  whole  period  between  ; 
Joseph  and    David  they  have  but  two  or  three;  names  , 
in  common.      This  will   be  more  readily  seen  from  the  j 
following  table,    presenting    this    portion   of    the    two  • 


I.I  KE. 

.    NVri. 


•I.  Rhesa. 

;j.  Joanna. 

0.  Ju.la. 

~.  Semei. 

S.  Mattatliias. 

!i.  Maath. 

I".  Xa"-v. 

11.  Ksil. 

1-J.  Xaum. 

lii.  Amos. 

14.  iliittuthiai. 


lii.  .lamia. 

17.  Mclcln. 

is.  l.,-,\i. 

r.i.  .MaUhat. 

20.  Heli. 

21.  Joseph. 
•2-2.  Jesus. 

Various  schemes  have  been  devised  to  account  for 
this  serious  discrepance,  and  reconcile  it  with  the  truth 
of  things  ;  but  none  was  so  readily  adopted,  or  met 
with  such  general  and  continued  acceptance,  as  that  of 
Africanus,  which  proceeded  on  the  principle  that  the 
table  of  Matthew  indicates  a  stricter  bond  of  relation 
ship  than  that  of  Luke — that  in  announcing  what  son 
each  father  in  succession  begot,  the  former  gives  the 
real  or  natural  descent  ;  while  the  latter,  in  naming 
successively  the  son  of  such  an  one  as  his  father,  in 
cluded  sons  by  adoption  or  relatives  of  the  second  and 
third  degree  :  that,  consequently,  in  the  first  evangelist 
we  have  the  actual  descent  of  Jesus  from  1  >;;vid  ;  in  the 
third,  only  the  legal  succession.  It  is  strange  that 
this  explanation  should  ever  have  appeared  satisfac 
tory,  and  especially  that  it  should  have  so  long  held  its 
place,  since  the  principle  on  which  it  is  based  is  mani 
festly  not  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  the  case. 
The  Jews  made  no  such  distinction  in  their  genealogies 
as  is  implied  in  the  explanation.  It  was  all  one  whether 
these  took  the  form  of  representing  what  son  a  father 
bcgnt.  or  who  stood  in  the  relation  of  father  to  a  son. 
in  both  cases  alike  they  were  wont  to  include  a  more 
distant,  as  well  as  a  nearer  degree  of  affinity.  In  the 
table  itself  of  St.  Matthew,  we  find  no  fewer  than 
three  links  in  the  chain  omitted  :  Joram  is  said  to  have 
begotten  Ozias,  or  T'z/iah,  although  in  reality  he  be 
gat  Ahaziah ;  and  Ahaziah  begat  Jehoash,  and  Jehoash 
begat  Uzziah.  And  instances  are  found  in  the  Old 
Testament  genealogies  of  persons  being  said  to  have 
begotten  whole  races  and  districts  of  people,  merely 
because  these  sprung  from  them.  <;e.  x.  r.\,  14;  1  Ch.  ii.  ;o. 

The  proper  solution  of  the  difficulty  under  considera 
tion  appears  to  be  that  which  \\as  proposed  by  Calvin 
and  some  others  about  his  time,  but  was  first  distinctly 
set  forth  and  vindicated  by  Grotius.  ''  For  myself," 
he  says,  "guided,  if  I  mistake  not,  by  very  clear  and 
not  fanciful  grounds,  I  am  fully  convinced  that  Mat 
thew  has  respect  to  the  legal  succession.  For  he 
recounts  those  who  obtained  the  kingdom  without  the 
intermixture  of  a  private  name.  Then,  he  says, 
Jeconiah  begot  Salathiel.  Rut  it  was  not  doubtfully 


intimated  by  Jeremiah,  under  the  command  of  God. 
that  Jeconiah,  on  account  of  his  sins,  should  die  with 
out  children,  ch.  xxii.  :;n.  Wherefore,  since  Luke  assigns 
Xeri  as  the  father  of  the  same  Salathiel,  a  private 
man,  while  Matthew  gives  Jeconiah,  the  most  obvious 
inference  is,  that  Luke  has  respect  to  the  right  of  con 
sanguinity.  Matthew  to  the  right  of  succession,  and 
especially  the  right  to  the  throne — which  right,  since 
Jeconiah  died  without  issue,  devolved  by  legitimate 
order  upon  Salathiel,  the  head  of  the  family  of  Na 
than  ;  for  among  the  sons  of  David,  Nathan  came 
next  to  Solomon."  On  every  account  this  seems  to  be 
the  natural  and  proper  mode  of  explanation.  It  first 
of  all  presents  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  exhibition  of 
a  second  genealogical  table;  for,  as  we  plainly  have 
the  royal  successions  in  Matthew's  table,  it  could  only 
he,  if  these  did  not  in  some  instances  accord  with  the 
actual  parentage  of  the  line  which  connected  Jesus 
with  David,  that  there  could  have  been  any  tempta 
tion  or  conceivable  reason  for  presenting  another. 
Had  Joseph's  direct  line  of  ancestors  been  all  one  with 
Solomon's  direct  or  Ir^al  successors,  this  had  been 
clearlv  the  natural,  as  well  as  the  most  honourable, 
line  of  descent  :  no  other  h:id  been  needed,  nor  could 
it  scarcely  have  been  thought  of.  But  if  there  were 
certain  breaks  in  the  line,  then  it  came  to  be  of  some 
importance  to  know  how  the  actual  pedigree  ran.  It 
is  also  a  confirmation  of  this  view,  that  immediately 
al'ier  Jeeoniah,  when  it  is  supposed  Solomon's  direct 
line  was  first  broken,  the  two  tables  coincide — the 
names  of  Salathiel  and  Zerububel,  the  two  next  in 
order,  being  found  in  both.  These  would  naturally  be 
brought  in  from  Nathan's  line  to  take  the  place  of 
Solomon's,  which  had  come  to  a  close  in  Jeconiah,  of 
whom  it  was  declared  that  "he  must  be  written  child 
less  ;  for  no  man  of  his  si/ed  should  prosper,  sitting 
upon  the  throne  of  David,  and  ruling  any  more  in 
Judah."  Whether  Jeconiah  might  leave  any  children 
behind  him  or  not,  this  authoritative  utterance  could 
scarcely  be  regarded  otherwise  than  as  a  sentence  of 
exclusion  from  all  right  to  the  honours  of  the  king 
dom  ;  and  Salathiel,  the  eldest  in  the  next  line  of 
descent  from  David,  would  naturally  be  substituted  by 
those  who  had  the  charge  of  the  public  registers. 

It  would  appear  that  after  Zerubabel  there  was  at 
least  another  break  in  the  direct  line  of  descent  :  so 
that  the  tables  again  diverge  till  we  come  to  the  third 
from  Joseph  ;  for  that  the  Matthan  of  Matthew  is  but 
a  variation  of  the  Matthat  of  Luke,  there  can  be  little 
doubt.  Here  the  representative  of  the  lineal  appears 
once  more  to  have  become  also  the  representative  of 
1  he  leu'al  succession.  Then,  on  the  supposition  of 
Matthat  and  Matthan  being  substantially  one,  Jacob, 
the  son  of  Matthan,  and  Heli,  the  son  of  Matthat, 
must  have  been  la-others;  and  if  Jacob,  the  elder,  had 
daughters,  but  no  son,  then  Heli's  son  would  come  to 
be  Jacob's  heir-at-law.  We  have  only  to  suppose 
further,  that  this  son  of  Heli  was  Joseph,  and  that 
Mary  was  a  daughter  of  Jacob,  in  marrying  whom  he 
married  his  own  cousin  ;  and  thus  would  come  more 
readily  to  be  recognized  as  legally  the  next  of  kin  to 
Jacob,  in  order  to  establish  the  perfect  agreement  of  the 
two  accounts.  These  suppositions,  and  the  view  in 
connection  with  which  they  are  advanced,  are  all  quite 
natural ;  and  they  are  borne  out  by  many  examples  of 
a  collateral  kind  in  the  Jewish  genealogies.  See  for 
proof  of  this  the  able  and  learned  investigation  of  the 


GENEALOGIES 


043 


GENERATION 


subject    by   Lord    Arthur    Hervey    (The  Genealogy  of  our 
Lord). 

3.  A  name  exists  in  the  postdiluvian  portion  of  the 
genealogy,  as  presented  by  Luke,   which  is  not  only 
wanting  in  Matthew,  but  is  also  wanting  in  the  list  of 
Genesis,  ch.  x.     The  name  is  that  of  Cainan,  inserted 
in  Luke's  table  between  Sala  and  Arphaxad.      It  is 
quite  uncertain  how  this  second  Cainan  \a  prior  one 
belonging  to  the  antediluvian  period  being  in  all  the 
tables)  should  have  originated.      It  is  wanting  in  the 
Vatican  copy  of  the  Septuagint,   but  is  in  the  other 
extant  copies,   though  omitted   by  the  same  copies  in 
the  corresponding  table  of  1  Chronicles  i.      It  is  want 
ing  also    in    the    Samaritan    Pentateuch,    as    well    as 
the   Hebrew ;    and   seems   to   have  been   unknown   to 
Josephus.      Nor  does   it  appear  to   have   been  in  the 
copies  of  the  Septuagint  used  bv  Theophilus  of   An- 
tioch  in  the  second  century,  by  Africanus  in  the  third, 
or  by  Eusebius  in  the  fourth.      Jerome,   in  his  anno 
tations  on    the   chapter,    takes    no    notice   of    it ;    but 
Augustine  had  it  both  in  his  copy  of  the  Septuagint 
and  his  copy  of  St.  Luke.      There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  name  has  somehow  crept  in  by  mistake  ;   but 
whether  into  the  Septuagint  first,  and  from  that  into 
the  copies  of  Luke,  or  vice  I'ci'&i,  cannot  be  certainly 
determined.     The  greater  probability  is,   that  it  first 
appeared  in  the  Septuagint.      (See  CAIXAX,  and  more 
fully  in  Bochart's  Plmltij.  1.  ii.  c.  13.) 

4.  A   peculiarity  in    Matthew's    table-  its  division 
into  three   fourteens,    is  iu  perfect  accordance  with  a 
very    common    practice    among    the    Jews    respecting 
genealogies.       They  occasionally  resorted   to   artificial 
arrangements  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  memorv. 
Lightfoot  gives  various  instances  in  his  //<;/-.  //(//.  on 
Mat.  i.;  and  we  have  the  following  by  Schoettgen  from 
the  Synopsis  of  Soliar  :    "  From  Abraham  to  Solomon 
there  are  fifteen  generations,  and  at  that  time  the  moon 
was  full;    from  Solomon  to  Zedekiah  there  are  again 
fifteen   generations,   and   at   that   time  the   moon   was 
down,  and  Zedekiah's  eyes  were  put  out."      Arrange 
ments  of  this  sort  would  naturally  lead  to  abbreviations 
of  some  of  the  divisions;  as  here,  in  the  second  portion 
of  Matthew's  table,  three  links,  as  already  noticed,  are 
left  out,  to  restrict  the  number  to  fourteen.      It  is  vcrv 
probable,    also,    that   some  were    omitted    in    the   last 
division  ;  since  for  the  fourteen  of  Matthew,  we  have 
twenty  two  in   Luke.      But  such  omissions  were  con 
stantly  made   in  the  genealogical    tables,   even    when 
there  was  no  such  purpose  to  be  served  by  it ;  and  was 
indeed   rendered  necessary  by  the  inconvenient  length 
to  which  the  tables,  when  kept  in  full,  often  extended. 
It  may  be  added,  that  to  make  out  the  second  fourteen, 
either  David  must  be  counted  again  —made  the  first  of 
the  second,  as  he  had  been  the  last  of  the  first  division  : 
or  after  Josiah  there  must  have  dropped  out  a  name — 
that  of  Jehoiakim.     This  name  is  given  in  a  few  MSS. 
in  the  form  'lua.Kfi/j. ;  and  whether  it  should  be  in  the 
text  or  not,  certainly  Josiah  did  beget  Jehoiakim,  and 
Jehoiakim  Jeconiah:   so  that  if  the  existing  text  is  cor 
rect,  we  have  again  the  intentional  omission  of  a  link 
in  the  chain. 

5.  A  still  further  peculiarity  may  be  noticed  in  the 
table  of  Matthew,  which  may  be  regarded  as  an  ad 
ditional   proof   of   the    respect   had    to    system    in    it- 
construction.      It    is    the    mention   of   certain  female 
names  in  it,  which  are  altogether  five — Tamar,  Rahab, 
Ruth,  Uria's  wife  (Bathseba),  closing  with  Mary,  the 


|  wife  of  Joseph :  all,  it  will  be  observed,  out  of  the 
'  usual  course — abnormal  as  regards  the  production  of  a 
!  chosen  seed,  and  striking  monuments  in  their  respective 
generations  of  the  grace  and  power  of  God.  By  much 
the  most  illustrious  instance  of  this  was  Marv,  chosen, 
though  a  fallen  sinful  woman,  to  be  the  mother  of  that 
holy  One  who  should  be  called  the  Son  of  the  Highest. 
And  as  types  of  the  virgin  mother  in  this  respect — 
types  of  the  more  remarkable  and  significant  kind,  the 
evangelist  brings  into  remembrance,  as  he  passes  along 
the  line  of  preceding  generations,  those  ancestral 
mothers  in  Israel,  who,  from  their  natural  relationship 
or  their  previous  history,  might  justly  be  regarded  as 
wonders  in  Israel,  and  as  such  prognostics  of  the 
amazing  phenomenon  realized  in  the  person  of  the 
A  irgin.  The  consummating  wonder  might  thus  seem 
abated,  as  it  had  in  part  been  anticipated,  by  what  had 
gone  before  it. 

GENERATION.  This  word  is  used  in  at  least 
three  shades  of  meaning  in  Scripture,  which,  however, 
are  all  closely  related,  and  naturallv  grow  out  of  each 
other.  (1.)  The  radical  meaning  is  that  of  the  produc 
tion  of  offspring,  viewed  objectively— offspring  as  pro 
duced,  or  related  to  the  parent.  In  this  sense  it  is  ap 
plied  to  the  offspring  of  an  individual,  or  successions  of 
oilspring  noted  in  a  genealogical  table.  Such  a  table 
was  called  bv  the  Hebrews  tiji/tcr  tolcdoth.  or  Greek 
/JiJXos  yei>(ff€ws,  book  of  generations,  Gc.  v.  i;  xxxvii.  -j; 
-Mat  i.  1,17, ic.,  i.e.  lists  of  successive  lines  of  descent  from 
father  to  son.  c2.)  Then  it  is  used  as  a  mark  of  time 
-the  successive  lines  of  offspring  being  taken  to  repre 
sent  so  many  .stages  in  the  world's  history.  Differing 
as  the  intervals  do  in  this  respect  from  one  stage  to 
another,  generation  could  never  be  intended  to  mark  a 
very  definite  period,  and  it  must  be  understood  with 
some  latitude.  But  people  in  such  cases  readily  come 
to  strike1  a  sort  of  average  in  their  minds;  and  as  so 
many  successive  generations  are  observed  to  fill  up  the 
interval  between  two  or  more  notable  points  of  history, 
so  they  take  generation  to  signify  much  about  that 
space  of  time.  Thus  Herodotus  says,  "  three  genera 
tions  (T/30S  ytftah  of  men  make  an  hundred  years" 
(ii.  142).  The  term  is  commonly  used  more  indefinitely 
in  Scripture,  much  in  the  sense  of  time,  or  successive, 
divisions  of  time,  as  in  Ac.  xv.  '21,  "from  ancient 
generations,"  y.  ,/.  from  times  of  old;  xiv.  in,  "  in  bygone 
generations,'"  '/.  i/.  times  that  have  gone  past;  Lu.  i.2o, 
"to  generations  of  generations,"  <^  d.  to  periods  of 
periods,  or  one  ;ii;e  after  another.  (3.)  Finally,  the 
word  is  sometimes  taken  more  concretely  to  denote  the 
persons  actually  constituting  a  specific  generation,  as 
exponents  of  its  state  or  character.  In  this  sense  our 
Lord  speaks  of  "this  generation,''  or  "an  adulterous 
I  and  sinful  generation,"  "  an  unbelieving  generation," 
i  Mat.  xi.ifi;  xii.3!»;  xvii.  17.  lie  ,  and  the  apostles  of  an  "evil" 
or  "froward  generation,"  Ac  ii.  40;  riii.  ii.  1.1.  In  all  such 
expressions  the  existing  races  are  viewed,  not  in  regard 
to  their  paternity,  or  in  the  light  of  offspring,  nor  as 
filling  up  a  certain  space  of  time,  but  as  possessing  and 
exhibiting  distinctive  marks  of  character ;  they  are 
identified  with  their  age  or  time  as  its  concrete  repre 
sentatives.  In  the  same  sense  our  Lord  speaks  of  the 
children  of  this  world  being  "  in  respect  to  their  own 
generation"  (for  so  the  words  should  be  rendered,  Ln. 
xvi.  s,  eis  TT]V  yevtav  iavrHiv},  wiser  than  the  children  of 
light;  i.e.  in  dealing  with  men  of  their  own  stamp  and 
character,  they  manifest  a  wisdom  which  is  but  rarely 


GENESIS 


CENESIS 


exhibited  l>y  Cod's  people  in  regard  t<>  the  higher  in 
terests,  with  which  they  have  more  especially  to  do. 
It  has  been  maintained  by  some,  in  particular  by  Stier, 
that  in  one  passage -"  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  this 
generation  shall  not  pass  till  all  these  tilings  be  ful 
filled,"  Mat.  xxiv.  .11,  our  Lord  identified  generation  with 
the  Jewish  race;  and  meant  in  the  passage  referred  to 
that  the  Jews  as  a  people  should  not  lie  extinct,  they 
should  still  have  a  separate  and  outstanding  existence, 
when  the  prophetic  outline  given  by  our  Lord  should 
have  readied  its  complete  fulfilment.  Hut  this  is  a 
very  forced  explanation;  and  not  a  single  example  can 
be  produced  of  an  entirely  similar  use  of  the  word. 
Whatever  ditiieulties  mav  hang  around  the  interpn  t;i 
tion  of  that  part  of  Christ's  discourse,  it  is  impossible 
to  understand  by  the  generation  that  was  not  to  pass 
a\vav  anything  but  the  existing  race  of  men  living  at 
the  time  when  the  word  was  spoken. 

GENESIS,  THE  BOOK  OF.  1.  Name  and  <  'on- 
t  ents.  The  first  book  of  the  Hible  is  named  in  the  Hebrew 
canon  r.'w'8-\2>  (ff>'i-t<h!t/i),  "  In  the  beginning,"  from 

the  term  with  which  it  commences  (as  in  like  manner 
the  other  divisions  of  the  Pentateuch  are  denominated 
either  from  their  initial  or  first  specific  words);  and  by 
the  LXX.  Yeveais,  in  the  sense  as  well  and  indeed 
chiefly  of  "origination"  or  "production,''  as  of  its 
more  common  biblical  acceptation,  ''  generation"  or 
"genealogy,"  as  in  Mat.  i.  1.  The  Greek  title  is  exceed 
ingly  appropriate  to  the  contents  of  the  work,  which 
show  it  to  be  truly  a  ;/ciie*i«  as  well  of  the  material 
universe,  Ge.  i.  i,  as  of  man  and  of  all  history;  a  genesis 
too  of  sin  so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  but  not  less  also 
of  salvation  through  a  promised  Redeemer,  ch.  iii.  Hut 
more  particularly  this  book  is  an  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  Hebrew  nation,  the  seed  of  Abraham,  in  their 
character  of  the  divinely  designated  channels  of  re 
demption  to  the  human  race  fallen  in  Adam. 

Genesis  consists  of  two  great  but  closely  connected 
divisions.  The  contents  of  the  first  part  form  a  general 
introduction  to  the  sacred  volume,  but  more  particularly 
to  the  history  which  forms  the  subject  of  the  second 
part.  This  will  appear  from  the  subjoined  synopsis  :  — 

1.  The  history  of  the  creation  and  the  human  race  to 
the  call  of  Abraham,  the  father  of  the   Israelitish  na 
tion,   ch.  i.-xi ,  viz.: — 

A  general  history  of  the  creation,  ch.  i.-ii.  :i;  a  particular 
account  of  the  creation  of  man,  the  provision  made  for 
him,  and  the  law  under  which  he  was  placed,  ch.  ii.  4-2.">, 
man's  violation  of  that  law  ;  the  consequences  of  his 
transgression,  with  the  divine  intimation  of  a  recovery, 
ch.  iii;  commencement  of  the  history  of  fallen  humanity 
in  the  propagation  of  the  race,  which  is  seen  to  consist 
m<  >rally  of  two  classes,  but  without  prejudice  to  the  divine 
promise,  ch.  iv.  This  last  particular  confirmed  by  the 
genealogy  of  Adam  in  the  line  of  Setli  down  to  Xoah, 
ch.  v.,  when  the  corruption  of  mankind  reached  a  degree 
which  called  down  a  judgment  on  the  guilty,  which, 
while  destroying  the  wicked,  saved  a  godly  seed  for  re- 
peopling  the  earth,  ch.  vi.-i.\.;  the  descendants  of  the 
family  thus  saved,  and  their  dispersion  over  the  earth, 
ch.  x.  xi. 

2.  The  history  of  Abraham  (to  which  ch.  xi.  27-32 
is  the  special   introduction)  and  of  the  other  Hebrew 
patriarchs  to  the  death  of  Joseph,   including  notices  of 
Abraham   and    Isaac's    descendants   in    the    collateral 
lines,  ch.  .xii.-l.,  viz.: — 


(Li  History  of  Abraham;  his  call  and  journey  to 
Canaan  accompanied  by  his  kinsman  Lot,  ch.  xii.  1-5 ;  his 
journeyings  in  that  land  and  descent  into  Egypt, 
ch.  xii.  i;-2n  ;  his  return  to  Canaan  and  separation  from 
Lot,  who  removed  towards  Sodom,  ch.xiii.;  invasion  of  the 
land;  Lot  taken  captive,  but  rescued  by  Abraham,  who 
pursued  and  defeated  the  invaders,  ch.  xiv.;  renewal  and 
enlargement  of  the  divine  promises  to  Abraham,  ch.xv.; 
birth  of  Ishmael  by  Hagar,  ch.  xvi.  i-  further  divine 
communications  with  Abraham,  ch.  xvii.  xviii.;  destruc 
tion  of  Sodom  and  deliverance  of  Lot,  with  notice  of 
his  posterity,  ch.  xix.;  further  incidents  in  Abraham's 
history,  ch.  xx.;  birth  of  Isaac  by  Sarah,  ch.  xxi  ;  trial  of 
Abraham  by  the  call  to  sacrifice  Isaac,  ch.  xxii.;  Sarah's 
death.  <-h.  xxiii ;  Isaac's  marriage,  ch.  xxiv.;  Abraham's 
death,  ch.  xxv.  in. 

(2.)  History  of  Isaac,  with  brief  introductory  notice 
of  Ishniat  1  and  his  sons,  ch.  x\v.  r.'-is  ;  birth  of  Isaac's 
two  sons.  Ksau  and  Jacob,  ch.  xxv.  i!i-:!4 ;  Isaac's  sojourn 
in  ( Jerar,  ch.  xxvi.  1-22;  his  return  to  Beersheba  ;  Jacob 
furtively  obtains  the  patriarchal  blessing,  ch.  xxvi.  23- 
xxvii.;  [  Isaac's  death,  xxxv.  t\  •».<]. 

(3.)  Jacob's  history  from  his  departure  for  Mesopo 
tamia;  divine  promises  made  to  him  on  the  journey, 
ch.  xxviii.;  his  arrival  at  Haran,  the  residence  of  his  uncle 
Laban  ;  his  marriages  and  issue,  ch.  xxi.\.-xxx.  21.;  his 
desires  for  home,  and  journey  thither,  ch.  xxx.  2.1-xxxiii.; 
troubles  and  dissensions  in  Jacob's  family,  ch.  xxxiv. 
xxxv.  xxxvii.  i-n.  [This  part  of  the  narrative  interrupted 
by  the  genealogy  of  Ksau,  <h.  xxxvi.] 

(4.)  Joseph's  history,  with  settlement  of  Jacob's 
family  in  Egypt.  Jacob's  affliction  for  his  son  Joseph, 
ch.  xxxvii.  12- 30;  [Jlldah's  incest,  oh.  xxxviii.];  Joseph's 

imprisonment,  ch.  xxxix.-xl.;  his  promotion  at  the  Egyp 
tian  court,  ch.xli.;  the  journeys  of  his  brothers  to  Egypt 
to  purchase  corn,  ch.  xlii.-xlv.;  removal  of  Jacob  and 
family  to,  and  settlement  in  Egypt,  ch.  xlvi.-xh-iii.;  Ja 
cob's  blessing  on  his  sons,  ch.xlix.;  his  death  and  burial; 
and  death  of  Joseph,  ch.  1. 

There  is  another  division  of  Genesis  designated  by  the 
superscriptions,  "These  are  the  generations,'' or  "This 
is  the  book  of  the  generations,"  at  the  head  of  various 
sections.  It  is  not  however  of  the  importance  which 

Kurtz  (Die  Kinheit  dor  Genesis,  p.  ixix.  Berlin,  1MO)  attaches 
to  it :  for  strictly  speaking  there  arc  eleven  such  super 
scriptions,  and  not  ten,  as  lie  maintains — two  of  them 
in  the  genealogy  of  Esau,  ch.  xxxvi.  i,  o;  and  five  only 
have  a  direct  bearing  on  the  plan  of  Genesis.  These 
are  the  generations  of  Adam,  ch.v.-vi.8;  Noah,  ch.  vi.  »- 
ix.  29;  Abraham  included  in  that  of  Terah,  ch.  xi.  27- 
xxv.  11  ;  Isaac,  ch.  xxv.  19-xxxv.,  and  Jacob,  ch.  xxxvii.  1;  for 
upon  these  members  of  the  genealogical  register  the 
whole  history  hinges. 

IT.  Xatitre  and  Importance  of  its  Higtorij. — It  were 
entirely  to  mistake  the  character  of  the  history  of  Genesis, 
or  indeed  of  the  Bible  at  large,  to  view  it  as  having  any 
other  than  a  sacred  purpose.  It  is  in  no  sense  a  civil 
history,  or  record  of  general  revolutions  in  human 
affairs,  or  even  of  intellectual  and  social  progress. 

1  Genesis  opens  with  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the  earth 
and  its  various  inhabitants,  showing  the  preparations 

|  made  for  man,  the  special  subject  of  this  history,  in  his 
moral  and  spiritual  relations.  The  object  of  this  record, 

i  however,  it  is  obvious  was  not  to  teach  science  or  natu 
ral  history,  but  to  point  out  distinctly  the  relation  of 
Creator  and  creature,  the  fundamental  idea  of  all  true 

j  religion    and    worship.      Nor   are    the    delineations  of 


GEXESIS 


645 


G  EXES  IS 


the  progress)  of  human  affairs  given  in  the  imme 
diately  succeeding  portions  of  Genesis  composed  in  the 
spirit  of  mere  secular  history.  There  are  indeed  inci 
dental  notices  of  the  kind  which  constitutes  the  staple 
of  such  compositions:  as  the  origin  of  the  arts  by  the 
Cainites,  the  founding  of  cities  and  empires  by  Ximrod, 
and  particularly  the  wars  of  the  confederate  kings  in 
the  time  of  Abraham:  but  all  these  matters  are  referred 
to  in  a  way  which  plainly  shows  their  entire  subordi 
nation  to  the  sacred  character  of  the  narrative.  The 
whole  history  of  the  Cainites  is  disposed  of  in  the  compass 
of  a  few  verses,  Ge.  iv.  lu-i't1,,  while  the  particulars  there 
noticed  are  adduced  only  as  indicatii  >ns  <  if  the  character  i  if 
this  elder  branch  of  the  human  family,  and  of  the  si  mrces 
whence  they  looked  for  happiness.  The  wars  <>f  the 
kings,  too,  are  noticed  simply  on  account  of  the  part 
Abraham  performed  in  rescuing  his  kinsman  Lot.  and 
of  his  interview  on  this  occasion  with  Meluhizedek. 
l>ut  it  is  from  the  relative  importance  given  to  the 
several  subjects  introduced,  that  the  special  purpose  of 
the  historian  more  fullv  appears.  In  the  narrative  of 
creation,  the  religious  aim  of  the  writer  at  once  ap 
pears  from  the  comparatively  large  space  occupied  with 
the  account  of  man.  whereas  the  most  stupendous 
creations  and  arrangements  of  the  merely  material  uni 
verse  are  despatched  in  a  few  words.  And  not  only  so. 
but  a  supplementary  narrative,  of  nearly  equal  extent 
to  the  first,  is  appropriated  t<>  a  detailed  account  of 
man's  creation  and  original  condition.  Tin  same  also 
appears  from  the  limited  space  devoted  to  the  general 
or  preliminary  history  extending  over  a  period  of  up 
wards  of  two  thousand  r_'i>L!:',i  years,  compared  with  that 
occupied  with  the  biographic  sketches  of  tin;  Hebrew 
patriarchs.  The  simplest  domestic  incidents  in  the 
lives  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are.  in  the  view  of 
the  historian  of  Genesis,  of  greater  moment  than  the 
rise  and  revolutions  of  empires.  lint  even  when  the 
details  are  most  copious,  it  is  the  moral  and  spiritual 
life  of  the  individual  concerned  that  comes  prominently 
into  view.  Jn  the  account,  for  instance,  of  Abraham's 
sojourn  in  Egypt,  where  an  opportunity  was  afforded 
to  the  writer  for  stating  many  interesting  particulars 
regarding  that  country,  only  one  incident  is  recorded, 
because  bearing  on  the  patriarch's  character,  and 
though  not  redounding  to  his  honour,  yet  manifesting 
the  protection  atlordcd  him  by  Cod.  That  tin.-  histo 
rian,  had  it  suited  his  purpose,  could  have  furnished 
particulars  which  a  modern  Egyptologist  would  highly 
prize,  appears  from  the  matters  incidentally  introduced 
in  this  connection.  Such  information,  however,  was 
foreign  to  the  aim  of  this  record  as  a  revelation  of  Cod 
— an  aim  which  is  never  lost  sight  of  or  subordinated 
to  any  other  consideration. 

Xevertheless  with  respect  to  such  foreign  and  subor 
dinate  matters  on  which  it  incidentally  touches  the 
history  of  Genesis  is  of  inestimable  value.  Even  in  a 
secular  point  of  view  there  is  no  record  which  can  be 
brought  into  competition  with  it.  Taking  the  very 
lowest  estimate  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  the  whole 
range  of  ancient  literature  which  could  supply  the  place 
of  this  document  if  lost;  while  it  is  further  to  be  ob 
served  that  if  confidence  cannot  be  reposed  in  its 
authenticity,  no  reliable  information  exists  on  many 
subjects  with  which  it  is  desirable  man  should  be  ac 
quainted,  and  after  which  there  is  indeed  naturally  an 
intense  longing  in  the  human  mind:  as  for  instance  the  ; 
origin  and  the  earliest  history  of  mankind,  a  subject 


which  without  the  information  supplied  in  Genesis 
must  be  involved  in  impenetrable  darkness.  But  this 
is  taking  the  very  lowest  ground:  for  the  matters  ad 
verted  to  and  others  of  a  like  character  are  of  little 
moment  except  when  viewed  in  the  relation  which 
they  occupy  in  this  history,  by  means  of  its  disclosures 
on  the  subject  of  human  redemption.  With  regard  to 
this  point  the  notices  in  Genesis  are  very  full,  showing 
the  necessity  in  which  such  a  remedial  provision  origi 
nated,  and  the  form  in  which  it  was  first  announced, 
and  subsequently  repeated  with  ever-increasing  definite- 
ness,  but  which  even  in  its  obscurest  announcements 
gave  being  to  a  life  of  faith,  various  evidences  and  ex 
amples  of  which  appear  throughout  and  from  the  very 
commencement  of  this  history,  giving  form  and  sub 
stance  to  the  narrative. 

It  is  accordingly  as  a  re\-elation  of  God,  and  of  man 
as  related  to  God  his  Creator  and  'Redeemer,  that  the 
importance  of  Genesis  is  to  be  estimated.  .More  parti 
cularly  this  record  was  intended  to  serve  as  an  intro 
duction  to  the  theocracy,  or  the  peculiar  arrangement 
into  which  God  entered  with  the  Israelitish  people  for 
the  purpose  of  carrying  out  his  covenant  with  Abra 
ham,  the  theocracy  beini;'  a^ain  a  direct  preparation 
for  the  gospel  dispensation.  And  as  the  Old  Testa 
ment  begins  with  a  historical  narrative,  so  also  the 
New,  and  indeed  the  two  volumes  with  a  /fyiXoj  yevf- 
fffws.  -M.it.  i.  l;  and  further,  the  account  of  the  creation  of 
"the  heavens  and  the  earth"  in  the  first  page  of  Genesis 
has  its  counterpart  in  the  notice  of  "  the  new  heavens 
and  new  earth"  with  which  the  Apocalypse  and  the 
canon  of  Scripture  concludes  the  first  creation  having 
for  its  object  the  first  Adam,  the  new  creation  taking 
its  rise  troin  the  second  Adam.  Tins  is  the  i;Teat  prin 
ciple  which  in  ves  coherence  not  only  to  Genesis  but  to 
the  whole  biblical  history. 

The  second  portion  of  Genesis  is  intimately  con 
nected  with  the  first,  which  is  an  introduction  not  so 
much  to  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs  as  to  the  whole  his 
tory  and  contents  of  the  sacred  volume.  Abraham  is 
pre-eminently  the  head  of  a  new  dispensation,  but  his 
appearance  on  the  paifc  of  history  has  nothing  in  it 
abrupt  or  unexpected.  On  the  contrary  the  patriarch 
stands  forth  in  the  closest  relation  to  the  fundamental 
principle  which  directs  this  narrative.  His  descent 
is  clearly  traced  from  Adam,  the  father  of  the  human 
family,  through  Seth,  ''  the  seed  given  in  the  room  of 
Abel."  Ge.  iv.  25,  down  to  Noah,  the  second  father  of 
mankind,  and  thence  in  the  line  of  Shorn,  who.  it  was 
predicted,  should  occupy  a  special  relation  to  Jehovah, 
and  mediately  as  regards  his  brethren,  di.  ix.  21;, -jr.  Ab 
raham's  divine  call  and  consequent  migration  to  Canaan 
form  the  first  practical  step  in  furtherance  of  that  pecu 
liar  mediatorial  arrangement,  the  germs  of  which  ap 
peared  in  the  announcement  of  the  relation  of  Sheni 
and  Japheth,  and  through  which,  as  afterwards  more 
fully  declared  to  Abraham,  mankind  should  ultimately 
be  blessed,  ch.  xii  :t.  In  the  history  of  man,  as  recorded 
in  the  first  portion  of  Genesis,  every  step  in  advance 
showed  only  a  further  divergence  from  the  original 
unity,  moral  and  social,  and  locally  from  the  central 
residences  first  in  Eden,  ch.  iv  Hi,  and  afterwards  in  the 
plain  of  Shinar,  ch.  xi.  u — migrations  and  dispersions  re 
quired  and  contemplated  indeed  in  the  original  consti 
tution,  but  without  the  feelings  of  alienation  which 
subsequently  ensued.  In  the  call  of  Abraham,  how 
ever,  a  new  unity  was  established;  an  individual  was 


GENESIS 


G4G 


GENERIS 


elected  out  of  tin;  mass  for  the  purpose  of  reuniting 
the  scattered  nations  l>y  ne\v  and  indissoluble  bonds. 
Yet  as  if  seemingly  to  defeat  this  purposes  one  branch 
after  another  of  Abraham's  posterity  is  excluded  from 
the  chosen  line:  first  Ishmael,  and  next  Esau:  but  this 
excision  served  in  reality  to  consolidate  to  the  utmost 
the  desin:;!  unity:  for  this  prolongation  of  the  single  ; 
stem  to  the  third  generation  gave  the  required  direc 
tion  to  its  vital  energies,  besides  answering  other  pur 
poses  in  the  divine  economy,  as  showing  that  the  pro 
mised  blessings  were  dependent  not  on  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature'  but  solely  on  divine  grace. 

III.  It*  J'r<>ji/i<fi<'  Character.  -Scripture  history, 
even  in  its  strictest  sense,  and  this  is  pre-eminently 
the  case  with  that  .of  Genesis,  is  not  simply  retrospec 
tive  :  it  has  also  from  its  very  nature  and  aim  a  special 
aspect  to  the  future,  being  largely  imbued  with  pro 
phetic  elements  in  addition  to  predictions  which  are 
more  expressly  such.  It  is  concerned  with  principles 
more  than  with  persons,  and  with  the  latter  only  or 
chiefly  as  illustrating  the  former.  1 1  is  certainly  not  on 
the  ground  of  mere  patriotism  or  any  similar  partiality 
that  the  historian  takes  his  stand;  for  the  biblical 
history  is  a  record  of  the  failings  no  less  truly  than  of  . 
the  heroism  of  the  "father  of  the  faithful "  and  the  other  j 
patriarchs.  It  is  a  revelation  of  God  by  its  being  at  j 
the  same  time  a  revelation  of  man,  who  in  creation  was 
constituted  ''the  image  of  God.''  Thus  too  it  is  that 
while  the  earliest  notices  of  Genesis  are  few  and  frag-  j 
mentary  as  regards  the  history  of  the  times  or  of  indi 
viduals,  more  especially  previous  to  the  Abrahamic  age, 
they  nevertheless  with  all  their  scantiness  afford  com 
paratively  ample  materials  for  elucidating  and  confirm-  ! 
ing  those  truths  which,  whether  deducible  from  its  his 
tory  or  announced  doctrinally,  constituted  the  Bible, 
when  it  contained  no  more  than  the  book  of  Genesis,  a 
suitable  religious  instructor.  How  inconsiderable  an 
element  the  past  or  merely  personal  formed  in  this 
history  appears,  for  instance,  from  the  scanty  notices 
of  Adam  after  the  fall  compared  with  the  particulars 
recorded  of  him  prior  to  that  event,  when  he  sustained 
a  relation  affecting  his  posterity  and  all  future  time. 
80  also  with  regard  to  the  history  of  Cain  and  Abel, 
ch.  iv.,  where  little  more  is  mentioned  than  an  act  of 
worship  and  the  consequences  which  thence  resulted. 
But  as  one  of  the  few  notices  of  Adam,  ch.  iii.  20,  evinced 
his  dependence  on  the  first  prophecy  of  the  gospel,  ch.  iii.  i.>, 
so  the  specific  purpose  of  the  history  of  the  first  two 
brothers  was  to  show  how,  notwithstanding  the  spread  of 
sin  with  the  propagation  of  the  race,  the  divine  idea 
embraced  in  the  promise  of  redemption  through  ' '  the 
seed  of  the  woman"  began  to  be  realized  in  and  through 
humanity,  by  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
in  antagonism  to  the  power  of  evil  which  was  now 
visibly  exercising  an  influence  in  the  world,  ch.  iv.  L>;.,  2ii. 

It  is  this  prophetic  element,  consistently  presented 
from  the  commencement  almost  of  the  biblical  narra 
tive,  and  gradually  developed  through  the  progress  of 
events,  rather  than  the  more  external  or  formal  links 
of  genealogy  and  chronology,  that  imparts  a  living 
unity  not  only  to  Genesis,  but  to  the  entire  volume 
to  which  it  forms  an  introduction.  Through  the  influ 
ence  of  this  principle  too  the  men  of  faith  in  primeval 
times  "called  on  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  ch.  iv  20,  and 
had  their  hopes  directed  to  a  future  which  should  wit 
ness  the  removal  of  the  curse  imposed  on  the  ground 
for  man's  sin,  ch.v.  29;  while,  without  adverting  to  the 


intermediate  examples,  Jacob,  at  the  very  close  of  Gene 
sis,  sustained  in  the  same  way,  with  his  dying  breath 
intimates,  "  I  have  waited  for  thy  salvation,  O  Lord," 
ch.  xlix.  is.  The  entire  series  of  divine  revelations,  as 
well  on  this  as  on  other  points,  was  of  a  progressive 
character,  the  earlier  being  truly  the  germ  of  the  later 
development,  and  however  formally  yet  not  essentially 
different  from  it.  It  is  this  which  gives  to  Genesis  its 
intrinsic  value,  and  secures  for  it  a  permanent  place  in 
the  volume  of  inspiration,  and  in  fact  prevents  any  portion 
of  that  volume  from  ever  becoming  obsolete.  The  truth 
announced  in  the  promise  ''the  seed  of  the  woman  shall 
bruise  the  head  of  the  serpent,"  and  running  like  a 
golden  thread  through  successive  systems  and  dispensa 
tions  till  reduced  to  the  historic  form,  "  When  the 
fulness  of  the  time  was  come,  God  scut  forth  his  Sun, 
ID  ide  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  to  redeem 
them  that  were  under  the  law."  (;a  iv.  4,  r>,  further  gives 
to  the  whole  a  unity  which  palpably  stamps  on  it  a 
divine  signature ;  for  He  only  who  sees  the  end  from 
the  beginning  could  direct  such  various  and  complicated 
adjustments  for  carrying  out  the  purposes  announced 
in  this  history. 

I  V.  It*  Gcinii'iicnf'**  (difl  < 'r((li/>ififi/. —  Reserving  for 
the  article  PKXTATEIVH  the  general  discussion  as  to  the 
unity,  ant:quity,  authorship,  and  credibility  of  that 
portion  of  Scripture  ascribed  to  Closes,  notice  need  be 
here  taken  only  of  such  special  objections  as  apply  to 
Genesis.  These  are  to  the  effect  that  it  bears  traces  <  a 
being  the  production  not  of  one  but  of  several  writers, 
and  of  an  age  long  subsequent  to  that  of  Moses.  Cer 
tain  German  critics,  by  the  application  of  rules  and 
criteria  of  their  own,  pronounce  the  win  >le  Pentateuch, 
but  especially  Genesis,  to  be  an  aggregate  of  heteroge 
neous  fragments,  without  however  being  able  to  agree 
as  to  their  nature  or  the  manner  of  their  combination; 
some  supposing  them  to  be  the  productions  of  two  or  at 
the  most  three  writers,  while  others  with  equal  confidence 
quadruple  even  the  highest  of  these  numbers;  some 
again  assuming  that  the  several  documents  or  frag 
ments  have  been  connected  by  the  merest  accident, 
while  others  discern  in  the  compilation  a  most  skilful 

I  literary  operation.  Hence  the  various  names  "docu 
ment,"  "fragment,"  and  "complement  hypothesis," 

'  used  in  this  disintegrating  criticism.  At  first  this 
theory  was  limited  to  the  book  of  Genesis:  and  while  so 
limited  bv  Yitringa,  who  was  among  the  first  to  raise 
the  question  as  to  the  sources  of  Moses'  information  on 
matters  prior  to  his  own  time,  and  subsequently  by 
Astruc,  who  sought  to  define  the  number  and  character 
of  the  supposed  memoirs,  it  excited  little  interest,  for 
such  a  use  of  earlier  documents  was  perfectly  reconcilable 
with  the  Mosaic  authorship  and  inspired  character  of 
Genesis.  Even  Eichhorn's  scheme,  a  modification  of 
Astruc's.  was  of  a  somewhat  harmless  character,  not 
withstanding  his  doubts  that  the  compiler  of  Genesis 
from  the  two  original  documents  might  have  been 
another  than  Moses,  for  this  did  not  necessarily  follow 
from  the  scheme  itself,  which  was  still  confined  to  the 
pro-Mosaic  period.  Eichhorn,  while  admitting  the  ex- 

|  treme  difficulty  of  separating  documents  so  carefully 
interwoven,  set  himself  to  mark  off  their  respective  por 
tions,  larger  and  smaller,  sometimes  consisting  only  of 
verses  or  even  clauses,  distinguishing  also  the  interpo 
lations  of  the  compiler,  and  even  to  correct  the  errors 
of  the  original  autograph,  due,  as  he  said,  to  the  inad 
vertence  of  the  compiler.  This  arbitrary  emendation  of 


GENESIS 


647 


GENESIS 


the  text,  which,  but  for  the  fact  that  it  wa"s  Scripture 
that  was  subjected  to  such  treatment,  might  be  viewed 
as  critical  pleasantry,  was  carried  to  a  greater  length 
by  Eichhoru's  followers,  as  by  thus  conforming  the  text 
to  the  theory  there  was  an  easy  avoidance  of  all  per 
plexities.  The  separation  of  the  assumed  documents 
was  effected  chiefly  through  the  recurrence  of  the  divine 
names  Elohim  and  Jehovah,  alleged  to  be  characteristic 
of  different  writers.  Subsidiary  tests  were  also  resorted 
to,  and  latterly  to  a  greater  extent  than  when  the 
scheme  was  first  propounded;  but  the  interchange  of 
the  divine  names  has  always  been  its  governing  prin 
ciple,  and  it  is  only  in  the  absence  of  such  that  much 
weight  is  attached  to  other  characteristics  of  style  and 
expression.  In  some  passages  there  is  a  concurrence  of 
these  with  the  divine  name  supposed  to  lie  appropriate  to 
them;  but  even  when,  as  often  happens,  the  revt-r.se  is  the 
case,  it  occasions  no  difficulty  to  the  critics,  as  they  at 
once  assume  that  there  has  been  an  interpolation  from 
the  other  document,  or  that  the  anomaly  is  owing  to 
an  oversight  of  the  compiler.  Hut  even  this  did  not 
suffice;  the  scheme  itself  has  been  subjected  to  modifi 
cations  which  continually  present  it  iu  new  aspects, 
llgen  would  improve  it  by  rejecting  the  interpolations 
of  Eichhorn,  and  assuming  the  existence  of  three  origi 
nal  documents  instead  of  two;  the  result  of  which  was 
that  passages  which,  on  leaving  the  hands  of  Eichhorn, 
had  some  extent  and  uniformity,  were  by  Ilgen's  process 
reduced  to  a  complete  mosaic.  Other  theories  speedily 
followed,  differing  from  the  original  and  from  one  another; 
for  while  llgen  and  Gramberg  were  labouring  to  per 
fect  the  scheme  of  Eichhorn,  but  in  reality  were  milv 
showing  its  untenable  character,  others  were  avewedlv 
setting  about  its  destruction,  with  the  view  of  substi 
tuting  in  its  stead  something  fitted  to  tell  more  power 
fully  against  the  genuineness  of  the  Pentateuch.  Such 
was  the  aim  of  the  ''fragment-hypothesis"  of  V.-iter. 
extended  to  the  whole  Pentateuch,  but  of  so  wild  a 
character  that  it  found  no  reception.  1  >e  \Vette  at 
tempted,  but  unsuccessfully,  to  form  a  compromise  be 
tween  it  and  the  other  scheme.  Meantime  so  effec 
tually  were  these  views  combated  by  I'anke,  Ilcng- 
stenberg,  and  Havernick,  in  works  embracing  the 
whole  Pentateuch,  and  by  Ewald,  Drechsler,  and  more 
recently  Kurtz,  so  far  as  concerned  Cenesis,  that  I>e 
Wette  was  changing  his  ground  witli  almost  every 
successive  edition  of  his  Eiiileitunf/.  To  the  reaction 
thus  occasioned  must  be  further  ascribed  the  ''  com 
plement-hypothesis''  of  Tuch — a  formidable  opponent 
to  the  "  document -hypothesis,"  both  in  its  earlier 
and  later  forms.  Tuch  admits  a  definite  plan  and  in 
ternal  connection  in  Genesis,  and  so  escapes  many  of 
the  objections  to  which  the  other  theories  were  exposed, 
and  which  necessitated  a  constant  change  in  the  posi 
tion  of  their  advocates.  But  there  are  other  objections 
to  which  this  theory  only  gives  additional  force,  and 
which  are  obviated  only  by  expedients  as  forced  and  ; 
arbitrary  as  any  of  Eichhorn's.  It  is  unnecessary  how-  \ 
ever  to  pursue  this  subject  further,  or  attempt  the  refu-  • 
tatioii  of  these  conflicting  theories,  the  newest  forms  of 
which  are  successively  supplanting  the  older.  The  ' 
more  recent  are  those  of  Ewald  and  Hupfeld;  the  for-  j 
mer  so  utterly  extravagant  that  it  has  found  no  advo-  ! 
cate  beyond  its  author,  and  the  other  a  revival  of  the 
scheme  of  Gramberg. 

But  as  a  more  tangible   ground    of  objection  to  the 
genuineness  of  Genesis  is  the  alleged  traces  of  a  post-  j 


Mosaic  age,  these  require  to  be  considered.  A  distinc 
tion,  it  is  obvious,  must  be  made  between  anachronisms 
of  a  subjective  character,  originating  merely  in  do^ma- 
tic  preconceptions,  and  such  as  relate  to  matters  of  fact. 
Thus,  the  rejection  of  prophecy  leads  critics  like  Vater, 
Von  Bohlen,  and  Kalisch,  to  conclude  that  passages  of 
Scripture  declaratory  of  matters  realized  in  the  history 
of  Israel  must  have  been  written  subsequent  to  such 
events.  But  even  as  regards  matters  of  fact,  the  exist 
ence  of  anachronisms  requires  to  be  placed  beyond 
doubt,  before  they  can  have  any  weight  in  such  a  case, 
just  because  of  the  improbability  of  a  writer  who 
wished  his  work  to  pass  as  that  of  an  earlier  age  allow 
ing  such  contradictions.  To  notice,  however,  a  few 
examples:  Hebron,  Go.  xiii.  is;  \\iii. •_',  it  is  alleged  from 
Jos.  xiv.  l;j;  xv.  l:j.  was  not  so  named  until  the  entrance 
into  Canaan,  its  ancient  name  being  Kirjath-Arba, 
Ge.  xxiii.  2.  That  Hebron  was  the  original  name  appears 
from  the  fact  that  on  its  first  mention  it  is  so  desig 
nated.  In  Abraham's  time  it  was  also  called  Mamre, 
ch.  xxiii.  in,  from  an  Aniorite  prince  of  that  name,  eh.  xiii. 
!•<;  xiv.  r.',.  Subsequently,  but  prior  to  the  Mosaic  age, 
the  Anukim  possessed  the  place,  when  it  received  the 
name  of  Kirjath-Arba,  or  the  city  of  Ar'na,  "a  great 
man  among  the  Anakim,"  Jos.  xiv.  ij  The  place  Dan, 
Ge.  xiv.  1 1,  it  is  also  alleged,  received  that  name  only  in 
the  time  of  the  judges  from  the  tribe  of  Dan,  its  origi 
nal  name  being  Laish  or  Lesliem,  Jos.  xix.  47;  Ju.  xviii.  •_".». 
The  localities  however  are  quite  distinct;  the  former  is 
Dan-Jaan  between  Gilead  and  the  country  round  about 
/idon,  2Sn.xxiv.ni,  the  adjunct  Jaan  being  intended  to 
distinguish  it  from  Dan- Laish  in  the  same  neighbour 
hood.  The  explanatory  remarks  added  to  the  names 
of  certain  plaei-s  as  "  Bela,  which  is  /oar,"  Go. xiv. 2,8; 
'' En -inishpat,  which  is  Kadesh,"  ver.  7,  and  some 
others,  tile  opponents  of  the  genuineness  regard  as  in 
dications  of  a  later  age,  not  considering  that  these  ex 
planations  were  required  even  for  the  Mosaic  age.  as 
the  ancient  designations  were  forgotten  or  rarely  used. 
For  proving  them  to  lie  anachronisms  it  must  be  shown 
that  the  new  names  were  unknown  in  the  time  of 
Moses,  though  with  the  exception  of  "the  king's  dale," 
ch.  xiv.  17,  which  does  not  again  occur  till  2  Sa.  xviii.  lij, 
all  the  names  are  referred  to  as  well  known  in  the  books 
of  the  immediately  succeeding  period.  The  notice  that 
"  the  Canaanite  was  then  in  the  land,"  ch.  xii.  fi;xiii.  7, 
is  thought  to  imply  that  the  Canaanites  were  still  in 
possession  of  Palestine,  and  so  could  not  have  been 
written  till  after  th.-ir  expulsion.  lUit  such  is  not  the 
import  of  the  passage.  The  descent  of  the  Canaanites 
from  Ham,  and  their  progress  from  the  south  towards 
Palestine,  had  been  described,  ch.  x.  i.viii,  and  they  are 
now  represented  as  in  possession  of  the  land  to  which 
the  "sons  of  Eber"  were  advancing  from  an  opposite 
point.  Standing  in  connection  witli  the  promise  of  the 
land  to  A  braham,  this  notice  contrasts  the  present 
with  the  promised  future.  The  remark,  "before  there 
reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel,"  ch.xxxvi.  :ii, 
could  not  have  been  made,  it  is  maintained,  until  the 
establishment  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy — an  assump 
tion  which  overlooks  the  relation  of  this  statement  to 
the  promises  to  the  patriarchs  of  a  royal  posterity,  and 
especially  that  in  an  immediately  preceding  passage, 
ch.  xxxv.  11.  It  stands  in  a  relation  similar  to  De.  xvii. 
14,  where  the  erection  of  a  kingdom  is  viewed  as  a 
necessary  step  in  Israel's  development.  This  explana 
tion  will  of  course  not  satisfy  those  who  hold  that  in  a 


GENESIS 


048 


GENTILES 


simple  historical  style  a  statement  having  such  pro 
phetical  reference,  "  is  not  only  preposterous  but  im 
possible"  (Kalisch, Genesis,  p.  col),  but  against  prepossessions 
of  this  kind  there  is  no  arguing. 

To  the  credibility  of  Genesis  there  are  numerous  at 
testations.  Every  department  of  learning  and  research, 
wherever  they  bear  upon  its  contents,  are  favourable 
in  their  testimony.  Even  scientific  discoveries,  which 
for  a  time  were  viewed  as  standing  in  opposition  to 
some  of  its  earliest  statements,  are  now  found  not 
only  to  admit  of  reconciliation  with  a  correct  exposi 
tion  of  the  text,  but  also  to  prove  that  the  writer 
must  have  drawn  his  information  from  a  higher  source 
than  human  reasonings  or  imaginings.  Particularly 
important  is  the  confirmation  which  the  genealogical 
table  in  Ge.  x.  is  daily  receiving  at  the  hands  of  philolo 
gists  and  scientific  explorers:  all  the  linos  of  history  and 
science  converge  to  an  original  unity  of  mankind,  and 
to  the  plains  of  Shiuar  as  the  second  cradle  of  the  race. 
A  striking  characteristic  of  this  table,  compared  with 
the  legends  of  heathenism  respecting  the  origin  of  na 
tions,  is  it  freedom  from  all  mythical  elements.  Every 
thing  rests  on  the  basis  of  ordinary  humanity:  there  is 
nothing  of  gods,  demigods,  or  heroes.  The  founders  of 
nations  have  nothing  in  name  or  character  of  the  con 
fused  mixture  of  divine  and  human  so  prominent  in 
Indian  and  Greek  ethnologies.  And  it  is  no  little  con 
firmation  of  the  truth  of  this  record,  that  besides  the 
testimony  of  modern  ethnology,  heathen  legends  when 
stripped  of  their  embellishments  wonderfully  harmonize 
with  its  statements. 

It  is  however  when  the  biblical  narrative  refers  to 
Egvpt  that  the  most  ample  confirmations  of  its  histori 
cal  accuracy  can  be  produced.  Something,  indeed,  may 
lie  Leathered  from  the  researches  of  Layard.  Rawliusoii, 
and  Loftus  amid  the  ruins  of  Assyria  ami  Babylonia, 
but  it  was  not  till  after  the  Mosaic  age  that  the  great 
empires  on  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  rose  into  import 
ance.  Not  so  however  with  Egypt,  the  birth-place  of 
the  accredited  author  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  whose 
intimate  acquaintance  with  all  that  related  to  that 
country — its  history,  manners  and  laws,  its  productions 
and  physical  peculiarities — while  one  of  the  strongest 
testimonies  in  favour  of  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  work, 
is  no  less  conclusive  with  respect  to  its  credibility. 
Had  space  permitted,  numerous  particulars  might  be 
adduced  fully  bearing  out  this  statement,  but  this  is 
the  less  necessary  because  the  whole  subject  is  fully 
illustrated  in  several  popular  works,  by  Taylor,  Heng- 
stenberg,  Osburn,  and  Hawks.  One  example  only 
need  be  cited,  showing  the  accuracy  of  the  Hebrew 
historian  as  compared  with  such  writers  as  Plutarch 
and  Herodotus.  The  notice  of  the  vine  in  the  account 
of  the  chief  butler's  dream  was  objected  to  because  of 
certain  statements  by  these  writers;  one  to  the  effect 
that  the  Egyptian  kings  were  not  permitted  to  drink 
wine  until  a  period  long  subsequent  to  that  referred  to 
in  Genesis,  and  the  other  that  no  vines  grew  in  Egypt. 
P>ut  an  appeal  to  the  monuments  puts  the  matter  beyond 
dispute,  and  decides  it  in  favour  of  the  author  of  Gen 
esis  (Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians,  ii.  112-158). 

But  it  is  not  upon  this  or  any  other  external  testi 
mony,  however  favourable  to  its  historical  credibility, 
that  the  authority  of  Genesis  or  any  other  portion  of 
Scripture  is  to  be  rested.  This  most  ancient  of  records 
in  particular  carries  in  it  its  own  evidence.  Its  con 
tents,  particularly  its  prophetic  intimations,  whether 


conveyed  by  type  or  in  express  terms,  show  it  to  be  part 
of  one  harmonious  whole,  whose  vast  and  varied  ar 
rangements,  dating  from  "the  beginning,"  and  germi- 
nally  comprehending  all  theology  and  history,  could 
have  been  the  production  only  of  God. 

V.  It*  Chronology. — All  the  more  important  ques 
tions  connected  with  the  chronology  of  Genesis  having 
been  considered  in  the  article  CHRONOLOGY,  they  need 
not  be  introduced  here.  Additional  remarks  on  the 
biblical  date  of  the  human  period,  as  contrasted  with 
the  speculations  of  some  modern  writers  on  the  subject, 
and  with  the  extravagant  claims  to  antiquity  by  several 
heathen  nations,  will  be  found  in  the  article  CREATION, 
where  it  is  shown  that  the  moderation  of  the  Hebrew 
historian  in  this  respect  is  a  strong  testimony  in  favour 
of  his  work. 

[/If!  Lild-H/i'i-i.  I.i'sides  expositions,  embracing  the  whole  or 
greater  p,irt  of  tin:  Pentateuch,  the  following  are  the  more  iiu- 
I  mil  nut  «  orUson  (  n-nesis:  -Luther,  Enarrationesiii  Gf«i««i»!  (Xori- 
l>on;;>',  l"i)4);  Miisculus,  In  <•',  ,,r^i,,<  <•,>,„  uKnlurii  plcnifsiini  (Jla.-il, 
1000);  Calvin,  Commentarius  i,i  G'i,i(.-in  'ed.  Ilengstenberg, 
Berlin,  LSisj;  Mi.-n.vr,  Commentarii  in  (>'•  n'sint  (Geneva;,  Io98); 
Schumann,  G<:nf.*i*  //.6,v<Vi  i.t  Gfii-re  CUM  annotations  j/a'/ntiin 
(Lips.  1S:!'.>);  Von  IJohlen,  l>it  Gnnxix  Inxtnrucli-l-, •i/i.*ch  erlauteii 
(KMiiiu-slnTi,'.  1835);  Tiel-'.  Das  erstt  Il"rlt  .!/. /«'•.<  (Krl.-mg.  I^il.; 
Tuch,  Konii»fiitdr  iibi  r  die  Genesis  (Halle,  1838);  Bush,  Suits  o» 
the  Hook  of  Gditsix  (X.  York,  Is.'W);  Schroder,  J)ax  erste  liuclt 
MIL*,  ausgi  '•.</' (.15erlin,  lS4i>):  IJelitzsch,  Uu:  GI  nesis  ni'.-'j'lfijt  (Leip. 
Ls.VJ,  -Jte  Ausg.  is'.::);  Knobel,  l)i<-  Genesis  erkliirt  (Leip.  Isi2); 
Kalisch.  Historical  ar«7  Critical  Cn-ninientarji  onthe  Old  Testament 
—Gi  arxi*  (I.oiid.  LS5S).]  fii.  M.| 

GENNESARET.     ,SVe  GALILEE  <LAKE  OF). 

GENTILES,  strictly  naflunx  or  /topics,  but  in  He 
brew  phraseology  occupying  relatively  the  same  place 
that  itarharictHii  did  with  the  Greeks,  only  that  the  dis 
tinction  in  the  one  case  had  respect  more  to  religious, 
in  the  other  to  civil  and  political  considerations.  Gen 
tiles  were  all  the  world  beside  the  Jews,  just  as  the  bar 
barians  were  all  the  world  beside  the  Greeks.  What 
rendered  the  Jews,  however,  a  distinct  and  honoured 
class,  was  simply  their  election  of  God  to  the  place  of 
his  peculiar  people,  by  which  they  became  the  recog- 
ui/.ed  depositaries  of  his  truth,  and  the  consecrated 
channels  of  his  working  among  men.  Other  nations 
might  well  enough  surpass  them  in  numbers,  in  extent 
of  territory,  in  height  of  civilization,  or  variety  of  re 
sources;  nothing  was  implied  in  respect  to  such  things; 
but  in  nearness  to  God,  and  those  honours  and  advan 
tages  which  are  the  more  proper  signs  of  his  favour  and 
blessing,  the  Gentiles,  even  in  their  most  advanced 
state,  stood  at  an  immense  distance  from  the  Jews. 
Still,  however,  the  distinction  was  only  relative  and 
temporary.  Believing  Gentiles  in  no  age  were  ex 
cluded  from  sharing  in  the  benefits  conferred  upon  the 
Jews,  when  they  showed  themselves  willing  to  enter 
into  the  bond  of  the  covenant.  And  in  the  very  terms 
of  the  covenant,  as  originally  made  with  Abraham,  and 
ultimately  confirmed  with  Jacob,  it  was  implied  that 
the  distinction  was  only  for  a  time,  that  the  good  it 
more  especially  contemplated  was  for  the  Gentile  as 
well  as  for  the  Jew,  and  that  the  Jew  could  only  fulfil 
his  calling  by  being  made  a  blessing  to  the  Gentile. 
Practically  this  came  to  be  in  a  great  measure  lost  sight 
of,  and  the  relation  between  the  two  parties  was  chiefly 
known  as  one  of  mutual  repugnance  and  antagonism — 
as  if  the  interest  of  the  one  could  only  stand  with  the 
depression  or  downfall  of  the  other.  In  this  misunder 
standing  and  perversion  the  Jews  were,  of  course,  chiefly 
to  blame,  as  they  alone  had  the  means  of  fully  appre 
hending  the  mind  of  God  on  the  subject,  and  giving  due 


GENTILES 


640 


GESHEM 


expression  to  it;  and  their  carnal  folly  and  infatuation 
drew  along  with  it  a  fearful  retribution,  especially  at 
the  last,  when,  refusing  to  do  the  part  it  behoved  them 
to  do  to  the  Gentiles,  the  Jews  as  a  people  were  cast 
off,  and  the  Gentiles  brought  into  their  place.  By  this 
relative  exchange  of  places  the  Gentiles  are  warned  to 
remember  by  what  tenure  they  hold  their  position,  and 
are  also  admonished  to  do  with  all  zeal  and  fidelity  for 
the  Jews  what  the  Jews  have  been  so  severely  punished 
for  refusing  to  do  for  them,  Ro.  xi. 

GENTILES,  COURT  OF  THE.     *f  TKMPLK. 

GENU'BATH  [theft,  if  a  Hebrew  word,  but  possibly 
<>f  Egyptian  origin],  the  name  of  the  son  of  Hadad, 
born  to  him  in  Egypt  of  his  Egyptian  wife,  1  Ki.  xi.L'n. 
The  father  left  Egypt  in  order  to  prosecute  his  hostile 
designs  against  Solomon,  but  nothing  is  known  of  Geiui- 
bath  except  that  he  was  weaned  by  Tahpenes,  the 
queen  of  Egypt,  and  brought  up  in  the  royal  house 
hold ,  as  if  lit;  had  been  a  son  of  J'haraoh. 

GE'RA  [meaning  unknown],  is  ^iven  at  Ge.  xlvi.  '21 
as  one  of  the  sons  of  Benjamin.  In  the  fresh  table  of 
Benjamin's  offspring,  given  at  Xu.  xxvi.  :!S,  seq.,  Gera 
is  not  mentioned,  which  probably  arose  from  the  respect 
there  evidently  had  to  families,  so  that  the  descendants 
of  Gera  would  be  included  among  tin;  IVlaites.  Aicain, 
in  the  table  found  at  1  Cli.  viii.  1-5,  then-  are  two 
Geras,  the  second  being  probably  a  corruption  in  tilt- 
text,  and  both  sons  of  llela,  the  eldest  son  of  P.unjamin. 
It  is  probable  that  Gera  was  actually  the  son  of  Brla. 
and  the  grandson  of  Benjamin,  and  that  in  Genesis  he 
is  reckoned  among  the  sons  of  Benjamin,  as  having 
ultimately  become  the  head  of  a  family  of  that  tribe. 
Others  seem  to  be  mentioned  there  on  the  same  account, 
not  as  being  actually  the  immediate  sons  of  Benjamin. 

GE'RAH,  the  smallest  Hebrew  coin,  the  twentieth 
part  of  a  shekel,  equal  to  about  three  halfpence  of  our 
money.  (,S(r  WEIGHTS.) 

GE'RAR  [probably  place  <>/  sojourn,  A^/^//],  a 
Philistine  town  of  great  antiquity.  It  occurs  in  the 
history  both  of  Abraham  and  of  Isaac,  Gc.  xxi.  xxvi.,  and 
was  even  then  the  seat  of  a  chieftain  or  kiny,  who  bore 
the  name  of  Abimelech.  It  lay  between  Kadesh  and 
Shur,  and  consequently  towards  the  extreme  south 
west  of  the  land  of  Canaan.  This  also  appears  from 
the  proximity  in  which  it  lay  to  Beersheba,  <;c.  xxvi.  2n-±i. 
That  it  was  in  those  early  times  a  more  than  usually 
fertile  region,  or  somehow  had  command  of  resources 
which  were  not  elsewhere  enjoyed  in  the  neighbourhood, 
may  be  inferred  from  its  having  been  resorted  to  both 
by  Abraham  and  Isaac  in  a  time  of  famine.  It  appears 
also  to  have  been  in  existence  in  the  comparatively 
later  periods  of  Israelitish  history,  being  mentioned  in 
the  wars  of  Asa,  -2  Cli.  xiv.  1 i.  I  Hit  it  must  have  rela 
tively  decreased  in  importance,  as  it  never  occurs  again, 
nor  is  it  once  mentioned  in  the  history  of  the  warlike 
operations  that  were  carried  on  betwixt  the  Israelites 
and  the  Philistines  after  the  period  of  the  conquest. 
In  the  Onomasticon  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome  it  is  placed 
25  Roman  miles  to  the  south  of  Eleutheropolis.  Robin 
son  and  most  modern  travellers  speak  of  having  been 
unable  to  find  any  traces  of  it.  But  Mr.  Williams 
(Holy  City,  i  app.  ii;i"),  on  his  way  from  Gaza  to  Khalasa, 
came  in  the  ]\'<i<t//-f]<rjt  to  what  was  called  Joorf-el- 
Gerar,  the  rapid  of  Gcrar,  and  found  near  this  certain 
ruins,  which  he  took  to  be  those  of  the  ancient  Gerar. 
It  may  be  so,  but  the  information  seems  rather  scanty 
for  founding  any  definite  conclusion  upon. 
VOL.  I. 


GER'ASA  is  not  found  in  the  English  Bible,  but,  as 
already  mentioned  under  GADARA,  the  "country  of  the 
Gerasenes,"  is,  according  to  the  probably  correct  read 
ing  in  Mark  and  Luke,  given  as  the  scene  of  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  cures  wrought  by  our  Lord  from 
demoniacal  possessions,  Mar.  v.  i;  LU.  v.  -jo.  There  was  a 
city  of  the  name  of  Gerasa  which  attained  to  consider 
able  note  a  century  or  two  after  the  Christian  era,  and 
of  which  important  remains  still  exist.  It  has  been 
thought  that  the  name  of  this  place  came  in  con 
sequence  to  be  substituted  for  that  of  Gadara,  making 
the  country  of  the  Gerasenes,  instead  of  the  country 
of  the  Gadarenes.  But  this  is  extremely  improbable, 
especially  as  this  Gerasa  lay  altogether  away  from 

the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee 

about  '•}'>  miles  south-east  even  from  its  southern  ex 
tremity.  No  one  in  the  least  acquainted  with  the 
Ideality  could  have  imagined  that  the  country  anywhere 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  lake  could  have  derived  iis 
name  from  that  city.  The  remains  of  a  town,  however, 
have  been  discovered  by  Dr.  Thomson,  the  American 
missionary,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake,  nearly 
opposite  Capernaum,  and  to  which  the  Arabs  give  the 
name  of  Gcrsa  or  Chersa.  and  identify  it  with  the 
ancient  Gergesa.  ''It  is,"  he  says,  "within  a  few 
rods  of  the  shore,  and  an  immense  mountain  rises 
directly  above  it,  in  which  an-  ancient  tombs,  out  of 
which  the  two  men  possessed  of  the  devils  may  have 
issued  to  meet  .Jesus.  The  lake  (he  further  adds1),  is  so 
near  the  base  of  the  mountain,  that  the  swim-,  rushing 
madly  down  it.  could  not  stop,  lint  would  be  hurried 
on  into  the  water  and  drowned"  vriu'  Land  ;uul  the  Ho,,k. 
part  ii.  c.  •-':,).  This  seems  quite  probable:  and  it  is  also 
possible  that  ''the  country  of  the  Gerasenes."  or  Ger- 
geseiies,  may,  as  Dr.  Thomson  thinks,  have  been  the 
original  reading  in  all  the  three  evangelist*,  the  refer 
ence  beinur  to  this  town  Gcrsa  or  Chersa. 

GERGESENES.     Sec  GAIUKA. 

GERIZIM.     See  Ei:.\r,. 

GER'SHOM  [xtr<ni!/fr-t/H>-<].  1.  The  name  Moses 
gave  to  his  elde-4  son,  who  was  born  to  him  in  Midian, 
indicating  how  deeply  the  circumstance  of  his  expulsion 
from  Egypt  and  his  alienation  from  his  brethren  had  gone 
to  his  heart,  Kx.  ii.  22.  Like  his  brother  Elie/er,  Gershom 
became  the  head  of  one  of  the  family  divisions  into 
whieh  the  tribe  of  Lev!  was  distributed;  but  the  honours 
of  the  priesthood  belonged  exclusively  to  the  sons  of 
Aaron.  Nothing  is  recorded  of  Gershom' s  personal 
history. 

2.  GEHSHOM.  A  priest  at  the  period  of  the  return 
from  P.abylon,  and  representative  of  the  family  of 
Phinehas,  I'./.r  viii.  •_>. 

GER'SHON  |>./v>///.s/o«],  the  eldest  son  of  Levi,  who 
was  bom  in  Canaan,  before  the  family  of  Jacob  de 
scended  into  Egypt,  Ge.  xlvi.  ii.  No  reason  is  given  why 
such  a  name  should  have  been  chosen.  In  the  march 
through  the  wilderness  the  Cershonites  hail  the  charge 
assigned  them  of  the  vails  and  curtains  of  the  taber 
nacle,  Xu.  iii.  2."i.  The  descendants  bore  the  name  of 
Gershonites. 

GE'SHEM  [>rt?v«.sv],  the  name  of  an  inveterate 
enemy  of  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah,  called  an 
Arabian,  Xo.  ii.  i!i;  vi.  i  He  took  part  with  Sanballat 
and  Tobiah  in  endeavouring,  first  to  obstruct  the  efforts 
of  Nehemiah  to  repair  the  state  of  Jerusalem,  and  then 
to  plot  against  his  life.  But  in  both  respects  their  de 
signs  were  frustrated. 

82 


GESHUR 


GETHSEMANE 


GE'SHUR  \/»-i(I</r\,  a  place  or  district  first  associ 
ated  with  Arum  or  Syria,  us  among  the  conquests  of 
.lair,  the  son  of  Manasseh.  After  stating  that  he  had 
three  and  twenty  cities  in  the-  land  of  Gilead,  it  is  said, 
.lair  took  "  Geshur  and  Aram,  with  the  towns  of  Jair, 
from  them,  with  Kenath,  and  the  towns  thereof,  three 
score  cities,"'  1  CU.  ii.  •£',.  While  these  places  were  taken, 
thcv  were  held  only  as  suliject  territories,  still  to  a 
great  extent  occupied  by  their  original  inhabitants. 
For  it  is  expressly  stated  in  Jos.  xiii.  1  :'>,  that  notwith 
standing  that  the  land  of  (iilead.  and  the  bonier  of  the 
Geshurites  and  the  Mauchathites,  and  all  Bashan,  had 
been  subdued,  yet  "the  children  of  Israel  expelled  not 
the  Gcshuritcs,  nor  the  Mauchathites;  but  the  Geshur- 
ites  and  the  Maachathites  dwell  among  the  Israelites 
until  this  day."  It  is  plain,  however,  from  these  notices, 
that  Geshur  lay  in  that  portion  of  Syria  which  was 
connected  with  or  adjoined  to  the  land  of  Gilead,  and 
that  the  conquered  but  not  expelled  Geshurites  pro 
bably  dwelt  in  the  rocky  fastnesses  of  Argob.  This 
region  is  supposed  to  be  the  same  with  what  is  now 
called  the  Lejah,  and  is  remarkable  for  its  singularly  wild 
and  rugu'cd  scenery.  lUirckhardt  says,  'cln  the  in 
terior  parts  of  the  Lejah  the  rocks  are  in  many  places 
cleft  asunder,  BO  that  the  whole  hill  appears  shivered, 
and  in  the  act  of  falling  down/'  kc.  And  Porter,  after 
qiii.tinu'  IHirekhardt.  says.  "  No  description  can  approach 
the  reality.  One  cannot  repress  a  shudder  when  he 
finds  himself  in  such  a  den,  surrounded  by  armed 
hordes,  on  whose  faces  the  country  seems  to  have 
stamped  its  own  savage  aspect.  Ibrahim  Pasha,  flushed 
with  victory,  and  maddened  by  the  obstinacy  of  a  hand 
ful  of  Druses,  attempted  to  follow  them  into  this  strong 
hold  ;  but  scarcely  a  soldier  who  entered  returned. 
Every  nook  concealed  an  enemy.  .  •  .  The  Lejah 
has  for  ages  been  a  sanctuary  for  outlaws,  and  not  un- 
frequeiitly  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed"  (Handbook  f.>r  Syria 
mid  Palestine,  p.  504). 

It  was  the  king  of  this  wild  and  rocky  district.  Tal- 
mai  king  of  Gcshur,  whose  daughter  Maachah  was 
taken  by  David  for  one  of  his  wives,  2Sa.  iii. :;.  She 
was  probably  a  person  of  superior  beauty,  as  she  became 
the  mother  of  the  two  handsomest  of  David's  children. 
Absalom  and  Tamar.-  How  David  should  have  thought 
of  getting  a  wife  from  such  a  quarter,  or  what  prior 
link  of  connection  between  him  and  the  king  of  Gcshur 
might  have  led  to  such  a  result,  is  left  unnoticed  in  the 
history.  But  possibly  the  Geshurites,  who  are  men 
tioned  among  the  tribes  against  whom  David  made  in 
cursions  while  he  dwelt  in  Ziklag,  1  Sa.  xxvii.  s,  and  who, 
from  the  name  being  once  found  in  connection  with  the 
Philistines,  Jos.  xiii.  3,  are  generally  supposed  to  have 
been  a  different  tribe  from  the  other,  may  after  all  have 
been  the  same.  The  Geshurites,  very  probably,  from  I 
their  fastnesses  in  Argob  were  wont  to  sally  forth,  like 
the  Amalekites,  in  occasional  r<i!fl*  upon  the  districts 
to  the  south  and  east  of  Palestine,  without  having  any 
settled  habitations  there;  and  David  might  justly  regard 
them  (though  located  at  some  distance),  equally  with 
the  Amalekit-'s  who  are  mentioned  along  with  them, 
as  fair  subjects  for  making  reprisals  upon.  Tn  that 
case  he  would  be  brought  into  close  contact  with  Tahnai. 
first,  indeed,  as  occupying  a  hostile  relation  to  him,  but 
not  unnaturally  afterwards  as  wishing  to  form  with 
him  a  bond  of  alliance.  Amid  the  troubles  and  diffi 
culties  which  encompassed  David's  access  to  the  throne,  j 
a  marriage  into  the  family  of  the  king  of  Geshur  might  | 


seem  to  afford  a  prospect  not  to  be  slighted  of  strength 
ening  his  position.  As  it  ultimately  proved,  this  alli 
ance  became  the  source  of  one  of  his  greatest  dangers, 
in  giving  birth  to  the  fascinating,  but  restless  and  aspir 
ing  Absalom.  Any  temporary  advantage  David  might 
derive  from  being  married  tt>  the  daughter  of  such  a 
king,  was  nothing  compared  with  the  misfortune  of 
having  such  a  son.  And  in  fleeing,  as  Absalom  did, 
after  committing  the  outrage  on  his  brother  Amnon, 
to  the  court  of  his  maternal  grandfather  at  Gcshur, 
L'Sa.  xiii. .-{-,  one  can  easily  understand  how  secure  a  refuge 
he  might  find  there,  while  he  required  to  be  in  conceal 
ment,  but  at  the  same  time  how  unlikely  it  was  his 
ambition  could  remain  long  satisfied  with  its  dreary 
aspect  and  dreadful  seclusion. 

GETHSEM'ANE    [probably    compounded    of    rj, 

jir<x.-<,  NJCVt'j  '"'')  '"V-y</'<  .<.•<],  a  place  where  oil  from  the 
T  :    T 

olives  growing  in  the  neighbourhood  was  wont  to  bo 
made;  but  in  gospel  history  the  place  which  has  been 
rendered  for  ever  sacred  and  memorable  by  the  last 
sufferings  of  our  Lord.  The  descriptions  given  by 
the  evangelists  of  this  spot  are  singularly  brief  and  gene 
ral.  With  St.  Matthew  it  is  merely  "a  place  called 
Gethsemane ;"  so  also  St.  Mark;  in  St.  Luke  it  is 
"he  went,  as  he  was  wont,  to  the  Mount  of  Olives." 
St.  John  is  the  most  specific,  who  says,  ".Jesus  went 
forth  with  his  disciples  over  the  brook  Kedron,  where 
was  a  garden,  into  the  which  he  entered  with  his  dis 
ciples.''  Not  even  here,  however,  is  the  locality  closely 
defined  :  and  putting  all  together,  we  learn  no  more 
from  the  sacred  penmen,  than  that  Gethsemane  was  a 
garden — by  which  is  probably  to  be  understood  a  sort 
of  orchard — on  the  farther  side  of  the  brook  Kedron, 
and  somewhere  about  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
The  traditionary  site — fixed  on.  it  is  supposed,  at  the 
visit  of  Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantine,  in  A.n. 
32(i — places  it  a  very  little  beyond  the  Kedroii  (14.1 
feet),  and  quite  near  to  the  church  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
alleged  to  have  been  built  over  her  tomb.  Maundrell 
describes  it  in  his  day  (](>!»7>  as  "an  even  plot  of 
ground,  not  above  fifty-seven  yards  square,  lying  be 
tween  the  foot  of  mount  Olivet  and  the  brook  Kedron. 
It  is  well  planted  with  olive  trees,  and  those  of  so  old 
a  growth  that  they  are  believed  to  be  the  same  that 
stood  there  in  our  blessed  Saviour's  time,  in  virtue  of 
which  persuasion  the  olives,  and  olive  stones,  and  oil 
which  they  produce  become  an  excellent  commodity  in 
Spain."  That  the  antiquity  of  the  olives  was  so  very- 
great,  Maundrell  could  not  believe,  because  of  what  is 
related  in  Josephus  (Wars,  \:i.  if,),  that  Titus  cut  down 
all  the  trees  within  a  hundred  furlongs  of  Jerusalem, 
to  supply  himself  with  materials  for  prosecuting  the 
sieire.  There  can,  indeed,  be  no  certainty  as  to  the 
precise  age  of  the  trees  ;  but,  it  is  admitted  by  all 
travellers,  that  the  eight  which  still  stand  upon  tin- 
spot  in  question  bear  the  marks  of  a  venerable  anti 
quity — having  gnarled  trunks  and  a  thin  foliage. 
Some  years  aLjo  the  plot  of  ground  was  bought  by  the 
Latin  church  ;  and  having  been  inclosed  by  a  wall, 
the  interior  is  laid  out  in  walks  and  flower-beds  after 
the  fashion  of  a  modern  European  garden — a  kind  of  gar 
nishing  which  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  improvement. 
The  Armenian  or  Greek  church,  however,  denies  that 
this  is  the  actual  site,  and  has  fixed  upon  another  as 
the  proper  one,  at  some  little  distance  to  the  north  of 
it.  It  is  doubtful  if  either  is  the  actual  scene  of  our 


GEZER 


651 


JIANTS 


Lord's  agony.  The  Latin  site,  in  particular,  is  so  near  gigantic  race  whose  heaven- daring  exploits  brought  on 
to  the  city,  and  so  close  upon  the  thoroughfare  which  ',  the  deluge,  as  the  offspring  of  the  unnatural  alliance 
must  have  been  connected  with  the  bridge  and  roads  i  between  the  angelic  and  human  natures ;  so  that  the 


in  tlie  immediate  neighbourhood,  that  it  seems  to  have 
been  incapable  of  affording  the  secresy  indispensable  to 
such  a  scene.  Even  the  Armenian  or  Greek  site  appears 
too  near  for  the  purpose;  am  I  some]  dace  probably  several 


ncpltilim  who  are  said  to  have  existed  in  those  days 
are  only  more  particularly  described  by  what  follows 
respecting  the  alliances  in  question.  This,  however,  is 
an  opinion  pressed  into  the  text,  rather  than  required 


hundred  yards  farther  up  the  vale,  and  to  the  north-  by  the  sense  of  the  words.  \\  hatever  might  be  the 
east  of  the  church  of  St.  -Mary,  is  thought  by  the  more  j  nature  of  the  connections  formed  between  the  sons  of 
judicious  explorers  to  answer  better  to  the  requirements  God  and  the  daughters  of  men  (for  which  see  SONS. 
of  the  evangelical  narrative  (So,  for  example,  Robinson,  >  OF  GOD),  the  heroes  that  sprung  from  them  appear  to 
Thomson,  partly  also  Stanley,  Buchanan,  &c.)  It  is  !  be  distinguished  from  the  nephilim,  who  are  mentioned 
plain,  however,  that  the  materials  are  wanting  for  as  a  class  cognate  to  the  other,  yet  rather  superaddi- 
eiiabling  any  one  to  decide  with  absolute  certainty  upon  tioiial  and  distinct  than  properly  identical.  And  in 
the  precise  spot. 

GE'ZER,  or  GAZER  [<'nt-<>jf  part,  pn. 


or  precipitous],  the  name  of 


f  the  royal  cities  of    gigantic  proportions, 


the  Canaanitt 


Jonging  to  what  afterwards  became  ,  to  a  class  of  pers 


the  territory  of  Kphraim,  and  somewhere  in  its  western     formed   part  of    tin 

border,    Jos.  xvi.  3.      It   was   afterwards  assigned   to   the 

Levites,    although    the    ancient    inhabitants    were    not 

expelled  from  it,  Jus.  x.  :;•:-,  xvi.  in;  Ju.  i.  L':I.       In   process  of 

time  the  Israelites  got  entire  possession  of  it,  and  it  is 

mentioned  among   the  places   which  were   rebuilt  and 

fortified   by  Solomon,   i  Ki.  i\.  i;,,  n;;    but  this   was  only 

after   it   had    been  taken    by    Pharaoh   kin-/  of    lv/ypt, 

and   its  former  occupants  put   to  the  sword.      1'haraoh 

gave  it  as  part  of  his  daughter's  dowry  on  her  marriage 

to  Solomon.      It   is   once'   or  twice  coupled  with   IJeth- 

horon,    in    such   a   way   as  to   indicate  that    the    places 

were    not    far    distant:     but    the    exact    site   of    GeZ'T 

remains  unknown. 

GEZ'RITES,   according  to  the   .Mas,,rite  c< 
and    the    Eiv/lish    text,    but    more    propi-rlv    (i 
were  a  tribe  dwelling  somewhere  in  the  extreme  south 
i  if  the  territory  of  .ludah,  and  mentioned  among  those 
who   suffered   from   the   incursions   of    David,    while   he 
dwelt    in   the    country    of    the    Philistines,    i  S:i.  xxvii.  x. 
Nothing    further    is   known    of    them.       Some    \\mild 
identify    the    name!    with    Gerizim,    but    without    any 
proper  foundation. 

GHOST,  the  Kn/lish  form  of  the  German  r/cixt,  or 
spirit;  seldom  used  now  in  a  religious  sense  except  as 
the  designation  of  the  third  person  in  the  Trinity 

till'    /A////  (ilttitt.        (,S.r    Ilnl.Y    GHOST.) 

GIANTS.  Then- are  two  words  in  ' 
are  rendered  by  this  term  in  Kiiidish  2' 
and  c»X2T  ('''/'/'""<'). 

1.  The  m /, li Hi ni  are  first  mentioned 
diluvial!  period  of  the  world's  history,  and  in  eon 
iiection  with  the  deeds  of  violence  which  were  the 
immediate  precursors  of  the  divine  judgment.  ''The 
nephilim  (giants)  were  in  the  earth  in  those  days;  and 
also  after  that,  when  the  sons  of  God  came  in  unto 
the  daughters  of  men,  and  they  brought  forth  to  them, 
the  same  (became)  the  mighty  men  which  were  from  of 
old,  men  of  renown,"  <;r.  vi.  i.  All  the  ancients  concur 
in  understanding  by  m /,// ilini  here  giants,  although  the 
etymology  of  the  word  is  somewhat  doubtful.  It  is. 


however,  most  commonly  derived  from  the  causal  form 
of  the  verb.  ^-  (,nir/,n/),  (<>f nl/,  hence  to  make  to  fall,  to 

persons  whose  gigantic  strength,  coupled 
with  their  tierce  dispositions,  caused  every  one  to  fall 
before  them.  Those  who  understand  by  the  sons  of  God 
in  the  passage  just  quoted  the  angels  (such  as  in  the  pre 
sent  day  Delitzsch,  Hofmann,  Stier,  Kurtz),  regard  the 


we  have  the  same  word  applied 
\\lio  lived  after  the  deluge,  and 
iriginal  population  of  Palestine. 

The  spies  who  brought  back  an  evil  report  of  the  land 
of  Canaan,  gave  it  as  the  climax  of  the  difficulties  it 
presented  to  their  enterprise.  "  And  there  we  saw 
the  in ji/ii/ini,  suns  uf  Anak,  who  are  of  the  mpltiliin, 
and  we  were  in  our  own  eyes  as  grasshoppers,  and  so 
were  we  in  their  eves,"  Xu.xiii.3a.  To  say  with  some 
of  the  authors  above  referred  to,  that  the  Anakim 
merely  gave  thi  niseKcs  out  to  be  descendants  uf  thuse 
semi  an/elie  semi  human  beings,  \\liu  bore  the  name 
of  mphiliiH  before  the  flood,  and  that  the  Israelitish 
spies  foolishly  accredited  the  pretension,  is  again  to 
press  an  opinion  into  the  text  which  is  rather  sought 
for  than  actually  found  there.  The  whole  that  can  be 
rrection  legitimately  gathered  from  the  words  is,  that  in  the 
mind  and  jud'/inent  of  the  [sraelitish  spies,  sons  of 
Anak  were  of  the  giant  class  denominated  inp/iiliui: 
and  if  this  may  not  in  the  circumstances  be  deemed 
absoluti  K  conclusive  evidence,  it  still  is  the  testimony 
of  some  of  the  leading  members  of  the  communilv  of 
Israel,  and  is  th<'  best  v\  e  are  acquainted  with. 

The  word  in [ili Hint  never  occurs  a/ain  in  Old  Testa- 
mi  nt  scripture  ;  but  the  suns  uf  Anak,  or  the  Anakim, 
with  whom  the  spies  identified  them,  are  occasionally 
iiotie.-d  as  a  tall  and  powerful  race,  dwelling-— though 
uiily  it  would  appear  in  a  few  families  about  Hebron 
and  some  other  places  toward  the  south  of  the  land  of 
Canaan  at  the  period  of  the  coiiqui-st.  He.  ii.  \«,.i;  i\.  -; 
Jos  xi.-'l.  And  the  whole  that  the  testimony  of  Scrip 
ture  amounts  to.  as  regards  giants  in  this  most  distinc 
tive  sense,  and  in  connection  with  this  somewhat 
peculiar  name.  is.  that  they  existed  to  a  certain  extent 
befui-e  the  ll 1.  having  a  share  in  the  flagitious  pro 
ceedings  that  precipitated  the-  deluge;  and  that  they 
a/aiii  appeared,  or  were  held  by  common  report  to  have 
appeared,  in  the  giant  race  of  the  Anakim  (the  lmi</- 
nii'L-iil,  as  the  name  imports),  who  were  found  by  the 
Israelites  in  the  south  of  Canaan,  and  by  them  nearly 
extirpated.  All  else  regarding  them  is  but  supposition 
or  conjecture. 

'2.  The  other  word  identified  with  giants  in  Old  Tes 
tament  scripture,  n />/"«' m,  seems  tu  have  been  urigin- 


the   ante- 


ally  a  proper  name,  and  it  has  even  been  matter  of 
doubt  whether  it  was  ever  used  otherwise.  In  Ge.  xiv.  ;">; 
xv.  '.!<>,  the  Kephaim  are  mentioned  as  a  distinct  race,  or 
tribe,  holding  possessions,  along  with  other  tribes,  in  the 
lane  I  of  Canaan.  At  the  period  of  the  conquest,  ()g 
king  of  llashan  is  said  to  have  remained  alone  (pro 
bably  meaning  to  the  east  of  .Jordan)  of  the  remnant  of 


GIANTS 


UIBKAII 


the  Rcpltalm,  De.  iii.  n;  ami  then,  iu  proof  of  this  connec- 
tiou  with  the  Rephaini,  mention  is  immediately  made 
of  liis  enormous  bedstead,  which  was  nine  cubits  long 
and  four  broad.  The  word  was  hence  very  naturally 
taken  in  a  general  sense  for  ylantx;  and  the  Scptua- 
gint,  though  not,  in  this  passage  of  Deuteronomy,  yet 
in  those  of  Genesis,  and  also  where  the  word  occurs  in 
Joshua,  render  it  by  the  common  word  for  giants 
(yiydvTfi).  But  the  descendants  of  the  Philistine 
giants,  who  are  elsewhere  associated  witli  the  Anakim, 
were  also  called  Uephaim,  -JSa.  .\\i.  I.V-!L';  and  so  also  were 
.some,  probably  of  the  same  stock,  who  dwelt  about 
Mount  Ephraim,  Jus.  xvii.  i:>.  In  these  latter  cases,  the 
word  is  probably  used  much  as  a  general  designation 
for  giants,  yet  not  without  respect  to  their  family  con 
nection  with  au  ancient  race,  from  which  they  inherited 
their  vast  proportions  and  their  martial  prowess.  The 
name  originally  <>f  a  tribe  that  were  peculiarly  distin 
guished  for  such  properties,  the  word  came  in  the 
course  of  time  to  be  applied  to  those  who  were  remark 
able  for  the  properties,  whether  they  were  descended 
from  that  tribe  or  from  some  other  similarly  distin 
guished. 

Beside  the  Anakim  and  Uephaim,  as  originally  dis 
tinct  tribes  or  families  that  were  accounted  giants,  we 
are  told  also  of  two  others  that  belonged  substantially 
to  the  same  class — the  Emim  and  the  Zamzummin, 
De.  ii.  in,  a).  Tallness  and  strength  are  predicated  of 
these  families,  such  as  assimilated  them  to  the  Ana 
kim  ;  so  that  they  were  also  classed  with  the  giant  races. 

Very  little  .specific  information  is  given  us,  either  of 
the  races  that  thus  distinctively  bore  the  name  of 
giants,  or  of  any  individuals  of  their  number.  \Ve 
know  that  they  exceeded  in  .stature  and  in  robustness 
of  frame  the  tribes  or  families  that  dwelt  around  them; 
but  distinctions  of  this  sort  are  always  relative  ;  and 
possibly  the  actual  size  and  bodily  strength  of  the 
giants  of  Scripture  did  not  surpass  what  is  often  found 
in  individuals,  and  even  in  whole  families  in  modern 
times.  Qualities  of  this  description,  it  is  well  known, 
like  others  of  a  merely  physical  nature,  are  capable  of 
being  propagated  from  parent  to  child,  and  even  of 
being  nurtured  by  proper  care  and  precautions  into 
higher  and  higher  degrees  of  eminence.  Arid  in  those 
rude  and  comparatively  unsettled  times,  when  so  much 
depended  upon  personal  strength  and  valour,  and 
might  so  often  proved  itself  to  be  identical  with  right, 
there  was  the  greatest  inducement  for  those  who  pos 
sessed  such  properties  in  any  marked  degree  to  cultivate 
them  to  the  uttermost,  and  render  them  as  far  as  pos 
sible  a  hereditary  distinction.  In  addition  to  the  secu 
rity  furnished  by  the  properties  themselves,  the  very 
name  they  acquired  for  their  possessors  was  itself  a 
defence.  Hut  it  could  only  be  so,  while  the  ruder 
stages  of  society  lasted.  As  art,  and  skill,  and  mental 
resources  of  all  kinds  increase,  mere  animal  strength 
and  corporeal  stature  come  to  be  relatively  of  less 
avail.  And  so,  it  was  only  in  the  infancy  of  the  world 
that  the  simply  giant-races  could  maintain  the  ascend 
ency  ;  and  to  that  period  accordingly  the  traditions 
connected  with  them  properly  belong.  Their  power 
and  prestige  necessarily  gave  way  before  the  advance 
of  knowledge  and  civilization;  and  nothing  could  more 
clearly  show  the  inferiority  of  the  one,  as  compared 
with  the  other,  ground  of  stability  and  might,  than  the 
gradual  decay  and  ultimate  disappearance  of  the  giant 
races  that  anciently  hung  around  the  borders  of 


Canaan,  and  for  a  time  spread  far  and  wide  the  terror 
of  their  name.  The  settlement  even  of  imperfectly 
organized  communities  reduced  them  to  comparative 
insignificance;  and  the  establishment  afterwards  by 
God  of  a  commonwealth  founded  in  truth  and  righteous 
ness,  left  them  ere  long  without  a  name  or  a  possession 
in  the  land. 

GIB'BETHON  [lofhi ,,!,«,  ],  a  town  originally  of  the 
Philistines,  but  afterwards  assigned  to  the  tribe  of 
Dan,  Jo.-i.xix.li.  So  late  as  the  times  of  Nadab  and 
Baasha,  it  still  belonged  to  the  Philistines;  and  it  was 
while  engaged  there  in  a  vigorous  sieu'e,  that  liaasha, 
one  of  Nadab's  officers,  smote  his  master,  and  took 
possession  of  the;  throne,  1  Ki.  xv.  27;  xvi.  15.  Nothing  is 
known  of  its  exact  site. 

GIB'EAH  [I, ill].  1.  Of  the  places  that  bore  this 
name,  the  most  noted  was  called  Gibeah  of  Benjamin, 
sometimes  also  Gibeah  of  Saul,  isa.  \i.  i;  xiii.a.  It  was  the 
birth-place  of  Saul,  and  continued  to  be  his  residence 
after  he  became  king,  i  s;u  x.  L'I;;  xxiii.ni;  xxvi.  1.  It  was 
doubtless  on  this  account  that  it  was  chosen  as  the  scene 
of  that  mournful  tragedy,  in  which  seven  of  Saul's  sons 
were  executed  together,  at  the  suit  of  the  ( iibeoiiites,  for 
wrongs  inflicted  upon  them  by  Saul's  bloody  house,  and 
which  drew  forth  a  singularly  touching  manifestation  of 
maternal  tenderness  on  the  part  of  .Rizpah,  the  mother 
of  two  of  the  victims,  -jsa.  x\i.  Stanley  (i>  ^17)  would 
rather  identify  this  transaction  with  Gibeon,  from  its 
being  said  that  the  seven  men  were  "hung  in  the  hill 
before  the  Lord;"  which  seems  to  indicate  the  imme 
diate  neighbourhood  of  the  tabernacle  then  standing 
at  Gibeon.  But  the  expression  might  be  used  \\itli 
reference  to  the  Lord's  judgment  in  the  matter :  it  was 
done  as  in  his  presence,  because  of  the  respect  it  had 
to  his  manifested  displeasure.  Gibeah  had  been  also  the 
scene  of  tragedies  of  a  still  more  mournful  and  distress 
ing  nature  at  an  earlier  period  —first  in  respect  to  the 
atrocity  perpetrated  upon  the  concubine  of  the  Levite, 
who,  on  his  way  to  Mount  Ephraim,  tarried  there  for 
the  night;  and  then  in  respect  to  the  bloody  and  de 
structive  war  which  ensued  between  Benjamin  and  the 
other  tribes,  Ju.  xix.-xxi.  The  account  of  the  affair 
forms  one  of  the  darkest  spots  in  the  records  of 
Israelitish  history;  and  not  only  Gibeah,  but  the 
whole  tribe  of  Benjamin,  came  by  it  to  the  very  brink 
of  destruction.  By  the  time  of  Saul,  however,  Gibeah 
must  have  again  attained  to  considerable  prosperity 
and  importance. 

The  comparative  nearness  of  Gibeah  to  Jerusalem, 
and  the  notices  respecting  it  in  ancient  writers,  as  well 
as  Scripture,  have  left  little  doubt  as  to  the  precise  hill 
oil  which  it  was  situated,  it  is  now  called  Tuleil-el- 
Fiil,  the  hill  of  the  JJcatif!.  It  is  distinctly  seen  from 
.Jerusalem,  and  lies  nearly  right  north  from  it,  at  the 
distance  of  four  or  five  miles,  on  the  way  to  Baniah 
and  Bethel.  No  remains,  however,  exist  of  the  ancient 
city,  unless  a  confused  heap  of  earth  and  stones  can  be 
called  such.  Even  in  Jerome's  day  the  city  had  be 
come  a  ruin  ;  for  when  giving  a  narrative  of  Paula's 
journey,  and  noticing  that  she  stopped  at  Gabaa,  and 
called  to  mind  its  ancient  crime,  and  the  concubine 
cut  in  pieces,  he  states  that  it  was  then  levelled  to  the 
ground  (EI>.  108,  adEustoc.)  The  hill  is  so  situated  as  to 
command  extensive  views  of  the  surrounding  country, 
especially  in  the  direction  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the 
mountains  on  its  farther  side. 

2.   GIBEAH,    a    town    in    Mount    Ephraim,    where 


GIBEON  6 

the  high-priest  Eleazar,  son  of  Aaron,  was  buried  by 
Phiiiehas  his  son,  Jos.  xxiv.  33.  Our  English  version,  how 
ever,  translates  Gibeah  there,  and  says  Eleazar  ''was 
buried  in  a  hill."  There  was  possibly  no  town  on  it 
at  that  time  ;  but  by  and  by  there  certainly  appears  to 
have  been  a  town  bearing  the  name  ;  and  in  the  Oito- 
iii'ixtifoit.  it  is  set  down  as  at  five  Roman  miles  from 
Gophna,  oil  the  road  to  Shechem.  Dr.  Robinson  sup 
posed  it  to  have  been  in  the  \Vady-el-Jib — a  narrow 
vallev  about  half- way  between  Shechem  and  Jerusalem. 
It  was  probably  the  same  with  what  was  called 
Gibeah  in  the  held,  Ju.  xxiv.  :n. 

3.  GIBEAH.  There  appears  to  have  been  a  town  of 
this  name  in  .hidah,  though  only  mentioned  once,  and 
with  no  indication  of  its  precise  locality,  Jos.  xv.  57.  It 
is  supposed  tn  have  been  the  same  with  the  (labbaatha 
of  Eusebius  and  Jerome,  which  they  place  at  twelve 
miles  on  the  way  to  Eleutheropolis. 

GIB'EON  [/«  rtalnlii'j  (<>  «  /«  >'://>>],  one  of  the  ancient 
royal  cities  of  the  Canaanites;  a  "u'lvat  city  of  the 
Hivites,  \\lio  at  an  early  stage  of  Joshua's  conquests 
entered  into  a  stratagem  to  get  terms  of  peace  tor 
themselves.  Taking  old  clothes  oil  their  persons,  and 
bread  dry  and  mouldy  in  their  bags  they  professed  to 
come  from  a  far  country,  and  having  heard  by  report 
of  the  wonderful  tilings  done  by  Israel,  they  sought  an 
alliance  with  them.  So  craftily  did  the  ( lihcuiiites 
play  their  part,  that  the  chiefs  of  the  congregation  of 
Israel  bad  agreed  to  tile  proposal  In-fore  they  had  any 
suspicion  of  the  artifice  used  on  the  occasion.  it  was 
also  resolved  thai  the  co\  eiianl  entered  into  should  be 
religiously  preserved;  but  that  to  mark  the  sense  enter 
tained  of  the  conduct  of  tin-  (  iibi-uniti  s,  a  perpetual 
service  should  be  laid  upon  them;  they  wen-  to  he 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the  tabernacle 
of  the  Lord  for  ever,  Jos.  ix.  (iibeoii  fell  afterwards  to 

the  lot  of  r.enjamin,  and  st 1  a  little  to  the  west  of 

(iibeab.  about  <  i-_dit  or  ten  miles  from  Jerusalem.  It 
was  also  made  a  Lo\  itical  city:  and  the  tabernacle  was 
transferred  thither  from  Nob  after  the  slaughter  of  the 
priests,  and  remained  for  a  considerable  time,  though 
without  the  ark,  which  was  brought  by  David  to  Jeru 
salem,  and  placed  first  in  a  new  tabernacle,  and  ulti 
mately  in  the  temple,  1  Ch.  xvi.  3!»;  2  Ch.  i.  3, 4.  Solomon, 
at  the  commencement  of  his  ivi'jn,  went  to  (iibeon  and 
sacrificed  a  thousand  burnt-offerings;  where  also  in  a 
dream  by  ni-^lit  he  received  from  (Jod  an  assurance  of 
the  great  wisdom  and  prosperity  that  were  to  be  given 
to  him.  We  have  no  subsequent  notice  of  (iibeon  in 
Israclitish  history;  and  almost  the  only  earlier  one  we 
have,  beside  those  already  mentioned,  is  what  is  stated 
of  the  engagement  by  twelve  chosen  champions  on  each 
side,  between  the  men  of  .David  and  Aimer,  who  all 
fell,  each  by  the  hand  of  his  fellow.  It  was  by  the 
"Pool  of  (iibeon,"  of  which  remains  are-  still  said  to 
appear,  that  the  conflict  took  place,  -1  Sa.  ii. 

Gibeon  was  a  place  of  some  importance  from  its 
being  the  key  to  the  pass  of  Deth-horon;  and  it  probably 
continued  during  all  the  better  times  of  Israelitish  his 
tory  to  be  well  fortified.  It  has  been  identified  with 
the  village  E'-J'ih.  ''This  village  stands  on  the  top  of  a 
little  isolated  hill,  composed  of  horizontal  layers  of 
limestone,  here  and  there  forming  regular  steps,  in 
some  places  steep  and  difficult  of  access,  and  every 
where  capable  of  being  strongly  fortified.  Round  it  is 
spread  out  one  of  the  finest  and  richest  plains  in  cen 
tral  Palestine,  meadow-like  in  its  smoothness  and  ver- 


3  GIBEONITES 

dure,  dotted  near  the  village  with  vineyards  and  olive- 
groves,  and  sending  out  branches  like  the  rays  of  a  star 
fish  among  the  rocky  acclivities  that  encircle  it.  The 
houses  of  El-JV>  are  scattered  irregularly  over  the 
broad  summit  of  the  hill,  whose  sides,  where  not  too 
steep,  are  covered  with  trees  and  terraced  vineyards. 
They  are  almost  all,  in  whole  or  in  part,  ancient,  but 
in  a  sadly  dilapidated  state.  One  massive  building 
still  stands  among  them,  and  was  probably  a  kind  of 
citadel.  The  lower  rooms  are  vaulted,  the  arches  being 
semicircular,  and  of  admirable  workmanship.  On  the 
western  side  of  the  hill,  at  the  foot  of  a  low  elit!',  is  a 
tine  fountain,  springing  up  in  a  cave  excavated  in  the 
rock  so  as  to  form  a,  large  subterranean  reservoir.  Not 
far  below  it,  among  the  venerable  olive-trees,  are  the 
remains  of  an  open  reservoir,  similar  to  the  lar^'c  one  at 
Hebron  ''  (1'oi-UT's  Syria  mul  I'u'.otiiiu,  p.  L'-J'.U 

GIBEONITES,  the  remnants  of  the  ancient  inha 
bitants  of  (iibeon.  have  acquired  an  unhappy  notoriety 
from  an  incidental  notice  recorded  of  them  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  times  of  David.  Saul,  it  is  said,  in  his  zeal 
to  the  children  of  Israel  and  Judah,  had  sought  to  slay 
them,  and  had  put  many  of  them  to  death,  though  ho 
did  not  succeed  in  utterly  destroying  them,  •_'  Sa.  xxi.  ., 
violating,  while  lie  did  so,  the  co\eii:mt  and  oath  given 
to  their  forefathers  at  the  time  of  the  conquest.  It 
was  in  all  probability  in  the  latter  days  of  Saul  that 
this  atrocity  was  perpetrated,  when  being  forsaken  of 
i  iod  and  i^ivcn  up  to  the  morbid  and  tortuous  workings 
of  an  evil  spirit,  his  /.cal  took  the  most  arbitrary  and 
capricious  directions.  And  it  mi^ht  be  partly  on  this 
account  that  the  nijn  of  Saul  was  allowi  d  to  close 
without  anv  special  account  being  taken  , ,f  the  ciime, 
or  any  peculiar  visitation  of  judgment  being  sent  to 
chastise  it.  lint  other  reasons  must  have  led  to  its 
b.ing  called  into  remembrance  and  made  the  ground 
of  a  [irotracted  famine,  as  it  was,  in  the  latter  days  of 
Da\  id's  administration;  this  plainh  implied  that  David's 
house  and  people  needed  to  have  their  attention  solemnly 
called  to  the  matti  r,  and  had  to  ncei\  e  from  it  a  warn 
ing  against  incurring  similar  judgments  in  the  time  to 
come..  Suffering  under  the  rebuke  of  a  three  years' 
famine,  David  inquired  of  the  Lord,  and  found  that  it 
\\  as  "  for  Saul  and  his  bloods  house,  because  he  slew 
the  Gibeoiiites."  On  learning  this.  David  left  it  to  the 
(  Ubcoliites  themselves  to  say  what  they  would  regard 
.-is  a  proper  -at  i- faction;  and  they  d<  manded  that  seven 
sons  of  the  man  \\ho  had  consumed  them,  and  who  hail 
even  meditated  their  complete  extermination,  should 
be  publicly  executed.  David  acceded  to  their  request; 
and  it  is  said  "the  Lord  \\asintrcated  for  the  land," 
vor.  11.  There  is  not  the  slightest  cvidi  nco  for  the 
allegation  \\hich  has  been  soiiu  thins  made  against 
David,  that  he  purposely  c..ntn\cd  or  greedily  fell  in 
with  this  device,  in  order  to  weaken  the  house  of  Saul, 
and  place  it  under  a  darker  stigma.  On  the  contrary, 
David's  conduct  throughout  to  that  house  was  in  the 
highest  degree  generous  and  noble;  and  at  the  very 
time  when  this  fresh  public  calamity  befell  it,  he  took 
occasion  to  have-  the  bones  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  along 
with  the  bones  of  the  seven  now  publicly  hanged, 
gathered  together  and  honourably  buried  in  the  se 
pulchre  of  Kish.  This  was  not  like  the  procedure  of 
a  man  who  had  a  grudge  to  satisfy  against  the  fallen, 
and  secretly  rejoiced  over  their  deeper  prostration. 
Indeed,  David  had  no  longer  any  need  to  be  afraid  of 
the  house  of  Saul;  the  foes  of  his  kingdom  (as  the  re- 


<;i  ELITES 


G-54 


GIDEON 


bellioii  of  Absalom  had  too  clearly  shown)  were  to  bo 
found  nearer  home;  they  were  tho.su  of  lii.s  own  house. 
And  on  this  very  aeeount  both  ho  and  they  required 
to  lie  admonished,  by  every  available  means  of  instruc 
tion,  of  the  righteousness  that  ever  eharaeteri/.es  God's 
administration,  and  which  ought  in  a  measure  to  bo 
found  also  in  that  of  the  earthly  kingdom  which  more 
peculiarly  represented  it.  If  the  latter  failed  ill  this 
respect,  judgment  must  infallibly  come,  and  it  might 
even  go  down  from  OIK.-  generation  to  another  as  a  de 
scending  and  entailed  curse;  for  though  passing  into 
different  bands,  the  kingdom  in  Israel,  as  imaging  the 
character  and  u'overnment  of  God,  was  still  in  a  sense  one. 
It  was  especially  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  these  truths, 
and  by  solemn  transactions  in  history  impressing  them 
deeply  OH  the  mind,  that  the  circumstances  now  referred 
to  we're  appointed  by  (Jod.  All  must  know,  and  in 
particular  the  reigning  house  in  Israel  must  know,  that 
(Jod  required  faithfulness  to  covenant-engagements, 
and  that  if  they  violated  these,  their  own  measure  must 
lie  meted  back  to  them.  This  is  the  general  principle 
and  design  of  what  took  place- --both  in  perfect  unison 
with  the  divine  plan,  and  if  we  knew  the  circumstances 
more  fully,  even  the  details  might  admit  of  a  rea^  .li 
able  explanation. 

GIB'LITES,  who  plainly  belonged  to  the  Phoenician 
territory,  are  understood  to  have  been  the  people  of 
i'yhlus,  a  city  of  the  Phoenicians  between  Tripoli  and 
Berytus.  The  Hebrews  seem  to  have  called  it  Gebal. 
"The  land  of  the  Giblites"  is  coupled  with  ''all  Leba 
non,"'  as  together  belonging  to  the  territory  of  the  Is 
raelites  on  the  northern  side.  And  in  connection  with 
the  shipping  and  merchandise  of  Tyre,  the  prophet 
E/ukiel  mentions  ''the  ancients  of  Gebal,"  as  furnishing 
calkers,  or  perhaps  generally  ship-carpenters,  Kzo.  xxvii. '.!. 
The  Giblitcs  are  not  mentioned  in  immediate  connec 
tion  with  the  affairs  of  Israel;  if  they  did  come  into 
direct  contact  with  these,  it  must  have  been  for  evil 
and  not  for  good.  For  Byblus  was  the  seat  of  the  wor 
ship  of  the  Syrian  Tammuz  or  Adonis — a  worship  which 
certainly  found  its  wav,  among  other  corruptions,  into 
the  later  idolatries  of  the  Jewish  people,  Kze.  viii.  n;  but 
whether  directly  from  Byblus,  or  from  other  parts  of 
Phoenicia,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining. 

GID'EON  [<:iittcr  down,  dexh-oycr;  called  also  from 
an  action  in  his  life,  Jurubbaal,  i.e.  /'aal-xtrt'cci',  one 
who  contends  or  pleads  against  Baal],  the  fifth  in  order 
of  the  men  whom  the  Lord  successively  raised  up  to 
deliver  and  judge  Israel.  Ho  was  the  son  of  Joash, 
the  least,  as  ho  himself  said,  meaning  thereby  perhaps 
the  youngest,  in  his  father's  house,  Ju.  vi.  i.i.  The  house 
was  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh,  and  Joash  himself  with 
his  family  dwelt  at  Ophrah;  but  whether  this  lay  in  the 
territory  of  Manasseh  to  the  east  of  Jordan,  in  the  land 
of  Gilead,  or  in  that  to  the  west,  has  not  been  conclu 
sively  determined.  As,  however,  the  chief  scene  of 
Gideons  great  exploit  with  the  Midianites  was  mani 
festly  on  the  west  of  Jordan,  and  his  future  residence 
also  on  the  same  side,  somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Shechem,  the  probabilities  undoubtedly  are  in  favour 
of  the  supposition  that  both  Ophrah  and  the  family  of 
Gideon  belonged  to  the  western  division  of  Maiiasseh. 
Mount  Gilead,  indeed,  is  named  in  connection  with 
the  movement  of  Gideon  against  Midian,  but  probably 
only  as  the  first  place  of  rendezvous  for  his  army, 
Ju.  vii. :',.  For  the  sake  of  security  he  might  bo  obliged 
to  assemble  the  people  oil  the  mountainous  lands  to  the 


east  of  .Jordan.  Stanley  (Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  342)  and 
others,  without  any  authority  from  MSS.,  would  sub 
stitute  Gilboa  for  Gilead  in  the  passage  referred  to. 
This  is  otherwise  objectionable,  as  one  does  not  see 
how  thousands  from  Asher,  Xaphtali,  about  and  beyond 
Esdraelon,  could  have  been  able  to  meet  on  Gilboa, 
with  the  Midiaiiite  host  lying  between. 

Gideon  appeared  oil  the  theatre  of  alf'airs  in  a  time 
of  general  backsliding,  and  when  great  oppression  was 
exercised  over  Israel  by  the  Midianites.  So  completely 
had  this  warlike  Arabian  race  recovered  from  the  ter 
rible  slaughter  they  sustained  at  the  hand  of  the  Israel 
ites,  shortly  before  the  death  of  .Moses,  Xu.  x.\\i.,  that 
now,  probably  about  ^nu  years  later,  they  had  come 
up  in  prodigious  force  ami  numbers,  so  as  entirely  to 
overpower  the  children  of  Israel.  For  the  better  ac 
complishment  of  their  purpose,  they  had  entered  into  a 
league  with  the  Amalekites  and  other  tribes  of  the 
desert;  and  the  united  bands  at  last  overspread  the  ter 
ritory  of  Canaan  with  hordes  of  cattle  and  multitudes 
of  camels,  to  an  extent  which  threatened  to  consume 
the  whole  produce  of  the  land.  The  people  of  Israel 
fled  wherever  they  could  into  dens,  and  caves,  and 
strongholds;  they  durst  scarcely  venture  into  the  light 
of  day.  even  to  provide  themselves  with  the  means 
necessary  for  their  support;  and  the  valiant  Gideon, 
when  thrashing  wheat  for  his  family,  had  to  carry  on 
his  operations  beside  the  wine-press,  instead  of  on  the 
open  thrashing-floor,  in  order  to  escape  the  notice  of 
the  .Midianites.  Such  was  the  position  and  such  the 
employment  in  which  he  was  found  by  the  angel  of  the 
Lord,  who  appeared  to  him  and  said,  ''.Jehovah  is  with 
thee,  thou  mighty  man  of  valour."  It  was  a  startling' 
address,  and  one  that  seemed  rather  like  a  bitter  irony, 
when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  existing  state  of 
affairs,  than  the  words  of  soberness  and  truth.  There 
fore  Gideon  replied,  "Oh!  my  Lord,  if  Jehovah  be 
with  us,  why  then  is  all  this  befallen  us  (  and  where  be 
all  the  miracles  which  our  fathers  told  us  of,  saying, 
Did  not  Jehovah  bring  us  up  from  Egypt  ?  But  now 
Jehovah  hath  forsaken  us,  and  delivered  us  into  the 
hands  of  the  Midianites/'  The  desponding  tone  of  the 
reply  was  not  unnatural  in  the  circumstances,  and  what 
followed  was  designed  to  reassure  his  mind,  and  brace 
him  with  energy  and  fortitude  for  the  occasion.  Jeho 
vah,  it  is  said — for  instead  of  the  angel  of  Jehovah,  as 
formerly,  it  is  now  Jehovah  himself  —"Jehovah  looked 
upon  him,  and  said,  Go  in  this  thy  might,  and  thon 
shalt  save  Israel  from  the  hand  of  the  Midianites:  have 
not  I  sent  thee'"  Gideon  still  expressed  his  fear  of 
the  result,  mentioning  his  own  comparative  insignifi 
cance,  and  that  of  his  father's  family,  but  was  again 
met  with  a  word  of  encouragement,  "Surely  I  will  be 
with  thee,  and  thou  shalt  smite  the  Midianites  as  one 
man  " 

Gideon's  heart  now  began  to  take  courage;  but  to 
make  him  sure  that  it  really  was  a  divine  messenger 
he  was  dealing  with,  and  that  the  commission  lie  had 
received  was  from  the  Lord,  he  requested  a  sign  from 
heaven;  anil  it  was  given  him  in  connection  with  an 
offering,  which  he  was  allowed  to  present,  of  a  kid  and 
some  unleavened  cakes.  These  the  angel  touched  with 
the  tip  of  his  staff,  and  a  fire  presently  rose  out  of  the  rock 
and  consumed  them.  Immediately  the  angel  himself 
disappeared,  though  not  till  he  had  by  a  word  of  peace 
quieted  the  mind  of  Gideon,  which  had  become  agitated 
by  the  thought  of  having  seen  the  face  of  the  Lord. 


GIDEON 


(555 


GIDEON 


And  no\v,  as  a  preparation  for  the  work  of  deliverance 
to  which  he  was  called,  and  to  make  it  evident  in  whose 
name  and  might  he  was  going  to  undertake  it,  he  pro 
ceeded  to  do  the  part  of  a  practical  reformer  in  his 
father's  house.  The  family  of  Joash  also  had  fallen 
under  the  prevailing  spirit  of  idolatry:  images  of  Baal 
and  Asherah  (improperly  translated  f/n>rc  in  ch.  vi. 
~1~>,  28)  were  standing  on  his  father's  property;  and 
these,  in  obedience  to  a  vision  granted  him  during  the 
ensuing  night,  Gideon  cut  down,  and  in  their  stead 
reared  an  altar  to  Jehovah,  and  offered  uii  it  a  burnt- 
sacrifice.  So  strong  was  the  spirit  of  idolatry  in  his 
father's  household,  and  among  the  people  of  Ophrah 
generally,  that  he  felt  it  necessary  to  accomplish  this 
work  of  reform  and  sacrifice,  with  the  help  of  a  few 
chosen  men,  during  the  dead  of  night:  and  on  the 
morrow,  when  they  knew  who  had  done  it.  they  de 
manded  of  Joash  tlie  life  of  his  son.  Hut  Joash,  who 
had  probably  learned  from  Gideon  the  instruction  on 
which  he  acted,  refused  to  interfere:  he  In  >ldly  challenged 
them  to  take  up  the  cause  of  Baal,  and  even  called 
upon  Baal  to  show  his  p<>\\rr,  if  lie  had  anv,  liv  aveng 
ing  it  himself.  This  seems  to  have  had  the  desired 
effect.  Joash  called  his  son  Jerubbaal  ( I'.aal-stri \ti-i. 
and  was  content  to  leave  it  to  the  decisions  of  Provi 
dence  whether  Gideon  or  Baal  was  to  prevail  in  the 
conflict. 

The  matter  was  not  ion^  in  coming  to  an  issue-.  The 
Midianitcs  and  Anialekites,  in  a  mighty  host,  had 
pitched  in  the  splendid  valley  of  Ksdraclon.  intending, 
no  doubt,  as  heretofore,  to  f,-a>t  themselves  at  plea.-uiv 
(pii  the  fat  of  the  land.  But  ''the  Spirit  of  the  l,.,rd 
came,  on  Gideon,  and  he  blew  the  trumpet  through 
Abie/.er  first,  then  throughout  Manasseh,  Aslier,  and 
Xaphtali  ;  and  presently  thou.-ands  responded  to  the 
call,  and  gathered  themselves  around  him.  Itmiidit 
have  seemed  as  if  this  were  enough,  and  that  lie  niivht 
now  pT'oceed  with  a  dauntless  spirit  to  the  conflict 
with  the  enemy,  lint  the  \\eakness  and  backslidinu'  of 
the  past  still  lingered  in  the  soul  of  (  MI  lei  m.  and  like  an 
ill-omened  apparition,  rose  tip  and  shook  his  resolution 
when  the  moment  for  .action  arrived.  I  (e  au'ain,  there 
fore,  cast  himself  on  the  mercy  of  God,  and  craved,  in 
addition  to  former  assurances,  a  double  MUU  tirst.  that 
dew  might  fall  on  a  fleece  while  the  earth  around  re 
mained  dry.  and  next,  that  the  earth  miuht  lie  wetted 
with  dew  while  none  fell  upon  the  fleece.  Both  siu'ns 
were  granted:  so  that  ( iidemi  ennld  no  longer  doubt  he 
had  the  direction  and  support  of  Heaven  on  his  side. 
But  having  thus  tried  God,  he  had  himself  in  turn  t  > 
be  tried.  Situated  as  Israel  at  the  time  was,  too  much 
appearance  of  preparation  for  the  coming  struuX'le  was 
as  much  to  be  deprecated  and  feared  as  too  litth — 
more,  indeed,  as  regarded  the  spiritual  interests  at 
stake.  ft  was  not  simply  victory  that  they  needed, 
but  such  a  victory  as  would  display  the  ringer  of  Je 
hovah,  and  so  magnify  his  power  in  their  eyes  as  to 
shame  them  out  of  their  false  confidence  in  "Baal. 
Therefore,  since  so  many  had  assembled  around  the 
standard  of  Gideon,  lest  they  should  vaunt  themselves, 
and  imagine  that  their  own  hand  might  achieve  for 
thum  a  victory,  Gideon  was  put  upon  measures  that 
should  reduce  his  effective  force  to  a  very  limited  num 
ber.  He  was  first  of  all  to  proclaim  that  whosoever 
was  of  a  fearful  spirit  should  return:  and  two-thirds  of 
the  numbers  who  had  rallied  around  him  took  advantage 
of  the  liberty  which  this  proclamation  gave  them: 


twenty- two  thousand  left,  and  only  ten  remained,  lint 
even  this  force  appeared  much  too  great,  and  by  another, 
apparently  somewhat  arbitrary  test,  it  was  reduced  from 
thousands  to  hundreds.  Gideon  was  ordered  to  brin" 

G> 

them  down  to  the  water  (what  water  we  are  not  told, 
and  it  is  -vain  to  conjectured  and  to  separate  those  who 
lapped  of  the  water  with  the  tongue,  as  a  dog  lappeth, 
from  those  who  bent  down  on  their  knees  to  drink. 
The  lapping  is  more  particularly  explained  by  the  per 
sons  who  took  that  method  being  said  to  put  their  hand 
to  their  mouth,  ch.vii.i;.  There  wire  only  three  hundred 
of  them  who  did  so:  and  the  Lord  said  to  Gideon,  "By 
the  three  hundred  men  that  lapped  will  1  save  you,  and 
deliver  the  Midianites  into  thine  hand."  It  was  but  a 
slight  circumstance  that  marked  the  difference  between 
them  and  the  others:  but  still  it  indicated  a  specific 
quality:  they  were  the  persons  that  took  the  more,  ex 
peditious  method  of  (|uenchini:  their  thirst,  and  thereby 
u'ave  proof  of  a  ninibleiicss  and  alacritv  which  bespoke 
a  fitness  for  executing  quick  movements  in  attacking 
or  piirsuinu'  an  eiiemv.  This  affords  a  perfectly  suffi 
cient  and  natural  explanation,  and  there  is  no  need  for 
resorting,  as  many  do,  to  peculiar  usages  in  the  Hast, 
and  no  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  manners  of  people 
in  rural  and  highland  districts,  can  need  to  be  told  how 
common  it  is  t',,r  them,  when  v  ishinu  to  get  a  hasty 
refreshment  at  a  running  stream,  to  lift  the  water  to 
their  mouths  in  the  palm  of  their  hand,  instead  of 
leisurely  bending  down,  or  laying  themselves  along  to 
gi  t  a  fuller  draught. 

The  three  hundred  men,  therefore,  were  given  to 
Gideon  as  a  select  band,  with  which  he  was  to  put  to 
flight  the  congregated  fore,-  of  .Midian  and  Amalck. 
The  iv.-t  were  imt  sent  home,  but  kept  in  their  tents, 
to  be  ready  when  occasion  called  for  them.  The  three 
hundred  were  divided  into  three  companies,  and  each, 
in  addition  to  their  swords,  supplied  with  a  trumpet, 
and  an  earthen  pitcher  containing  a  lamp.  The  pitcher 
merely  served  to  conceal  the  lamp,  till  it  was  necessary 
that  this  should  be  exhibited.  It  \v  as  arranged  that  in 
the  dead  of  night  they  were  to  approach  the  enemy  at 
three  different  points,  and  at  one  and  the  same  moment, 
all  following  the  example  set  bv  Gideon  himself,  were 
to  break  their  pitchers,  bold  up  their  lamps  in  the  one 
hand,  and  blow  with  their  trumpets  in  the  other  so  as 
to  create  the  impression  ,,f  their  being  but  the  advance- 
guard  of  an  immense  attacking  force.  The  manoeuvre, 
employed  as  it  was  under  the  divine  sanction,  and  after 
Liraging  visit  paid  to  the  .Midianitish  camp  in 
IT  part  of  t  he  niuht  bv  (  lideon  and  his  servant, 
effect:  the  enemy  were  struck  with  a 
thrown  into  inextricable  confusion, 
erceived  so  many  lights  flashing  on 
so  many  trumpets,  accompanied  by 
"The  sword  of  the  Lord  (Jehovah) 
They  fell  by  the  sword,  not  merely 
of  Gideon  and  his  valiant  little  band,  but  also  of  one 
another,  not  beiii'_r  able  in  the  terror  of  the  moment 
and  the  darkness  of  ni'_dit  to  distinguish  friend  from 
foe.  And  thus  a  dreadful  slaughter  and  discomfiture 
ensued,  which  was  followed  up  on  the  next  and  follow 
ing  days  by  a  general  rising  of  the  people  in  the  sur 
rounding  districts,  who  proved  of  great  service  in  con 
summating  the  triumph,  however  disinclined  they  might 
be  to  face  the  enemy  in  his  strength.  Xo  fewer  than 
1  •_'<">. HOO.  it  is  said,  fell  in  the  conflict,  .In.  viii.  m,  beside 
what  might  afterwards  be  slain  of  the  15,000  that 


GIER-EAOLE 


escaped,  in  tin-  first  instance,  with  Zeba  and  Zalmunna, 
hut  were  overtaken,  and  in  a  subsequent  battle  defeated 
by  Gideon.  "Thus/'  as  the  sacred  historian  remarks, 
"was  .Midian  subdued  before  the  children  of  Israel,  so 
that  they  lifted  uj>  their  heads  no  more,"  Ju.  viii.  -j\  They 
never  regained  sufficient  strength  from  the  disaster  to 

'  ^  ! 

assume  an  attitude  of  hostility  against  Israel;  and  the  ] 
references    made   in    later   writings   to   the  victory  of  ! 

O  <J 

Gideon  point  to  it  as  emphatically  a  day  of  Jehovah's 
right  baud,  in  whii-h  he  completely  prostrated  the 
strength  of  a  most  powerful  enemy.  Is.  ix.  •!;  x.  _i>;  Ilab. 
iii.  7:  IVlxxxiii.  u.  There  were,  however,  certain  abate 
ments  to  the  honours  of  the  day.  The  Kphraimites 
were  displeased  at  not  having  been  called  at  the  first 
hv  Gideon  to  take  part  in  the  enterprise,  and  were 
only  quieted  by  his  according  to  them  the  praise  of 
having  done  more  at  the  end  for  the  common  cause, 
than  lie  did  at  the  beginning,  Ju.  viii.  1-3.  They  should, 
in  truth,  have  needed  no  such  soothing  compliment,  but 
should  rather  in  thoughtful  silence  have  marked  how 
peculiarly  the  hand  of  God  had  ordered  as  svell  the  cir 
cumstances  that  preceded  as  those  that  accompanied  the 
conflict.  The  men  of  Succoth  offended  in  a  different 
way;  they  acted  a  cowardly  part  to  the  last,  and  refused 
to  supplv  Gideon  and  his  party  with  a  few  loaves  of 
bread,  when  faint  with  pursuing  Zeba  and  Zalmunna, 
the  two  kings  of  31idian,  \vho  had  managed  to  escape. 
Succoth  lay  to  the  east  of  .Jordan,  at  no  great  distance 
from  the  border  of  the  Midianitish  territory;  and  the 
men  of  the  place,  no  doubt,  thought  that  in  their  case 
discretion  was  the  better  part  of  valour;  that  it  was 
too  much  to  ask  them  openly  to  befriend  a  pursuing 
force,  so  long  as  such  powerful  neighbours  as  Zeba  and 
Zalmunna  were  still  alive;  nor  would  it  seem  at  all 
likely  to  them  that  much  success  could  attend  Gideon's 
army,  in  their  attempt  to  carry  the  war  into  the  native 
country  of  the  Midianites.  In  this  ease,  however,  as 
so  often  happens  in  great  emergencies,  worldly  wisdom 
proved  a  poor  substitute  for  a  humble  and  reliant  faith; 
and  by  the  chastisement  inflicted  on  the  men  of  Succoth 
on  Gideon's  return,  they  were  taught  a  salutary  lesson, 
which,  it  may  be  hoped,  was  not  without  permanent 
advantage  to  them,  Ju  viii.  i;;-n;. 

The  results  of  the  victory  wrought  by  God  through 
the  instrumentality  of  Gideon  were  not  such,  at  least 
in  a  spiritual  respect,  as  might  have  been  expected. 
External  rest  followed,  and  lasted,  it  is  said,  for  forty 
years,  to  the  close  of  Gideon's  lifetime.  But  the  spirit 
of  idolatry  was  far  from  being  subdued,  and  even  in 
("Jideon's  own  household  sprung  into  efflorescence 
during  that  period  of  outward  peace  and  prosperity, 
(lideon  himself  behaved  nobly,  having  refused  to  take 
the  place  of  supreme  ruler  or  king,  when  requested  by 
the  people;  he  said.  No,  "neither  I  nor  my  son  shall 
rule  over  you;  Jehovah  shall  rule  over  you,"  Ju.  viii.  -23. 
He  would  have  no  personal  recompense  for  the  services 
he  had  rendered  his  people,  except  that  every  one  would 
give  him  the  ear-rings  of  his  prey;  and  even  this,  though 
amounting  to  1700  shekels  weight  of  gold,  he  would  not 
appropriate  to  his  private  use,  but  turned  it  into  the 
form  of  an  ephod— the  more  distinctive  part  of  the 
priest's  attire  — and  placed  it  in  the  town  of  Ophrah. 
He  obviously  meant  it  to  serve  as  a  sacred  memorial  of 
the  Lord's  goodness,  and  to  point  men's  attentions  away 
from  himself,  as  the  mere  instrument,  to  Jehovah,  by 
whose  grace,  and  counsel,  and  might  the  work  of 
deliverance  had  really  been  won.  But  the  gross  spirit 


of  the  times  in  great  measure  defeated  this  object.  The 
golden  ephod  "  became  a  snare  to  Gideon  and  to  his 
house;"  it  was  turned  into  a  sort  of  idol.  Success  had 
also  marred  the  simplicity  of  Gideon's  manners,  and  by 
degrees  introduced  looseness  and  disorder  into  his 
family.  He  took  to  himself  mafty  wives  and  concubines, 
who  brought  him  indeed  a  numerous  offspring,  there 
being  no  fewer  than  seventy  sons;  but  it  inevitably 
brought  also  the  usual  attendants  of  polygamy,  a  brood 
of  domestic  jealousies,  corruptions,  and  miseries.  The 
moral  influence  of  the  family  ceased  apparently  even 
before  Gideon  himself  had  finished  his  career;  for  as 
soon  as  he  was  gone,  the  men  of  his  very  place  and 
neighbourhood  were  ripe  for  a  general  movement  in 
favour  of  idolatry,  and  thev  agreed  together  to  make 
Baal-berith,  that  is,  Baal  of  the  covenant,  their  God, 
Ju.  viii. :;;;.  The  state  of  the  case  seems  to  have  been,  that 
they  concurred  in  setting  up  an  idol  to  worship,  and 
erecting  an  idol  temple;  hence,  in  reference  to  the 
Shecheniites,  we  read  of  the  house  of  their  god  Beritb. 
Ju.  ix.  W.  It  implied  that  the  Israelites  made  a  com 
promise  with  the  surrounding  heathenism;  the  object 
of  their  common  worship  was  to  be  a  Baal,  but  Baal  of 
the  covenant;  not,  therefore,  absolutely  and  formally 
different  from  Jehovah,  but  Jehovah  under  a  special 
name  and  character,  consequently  worshipped  in  a 
manner  that  he  could  not  regard.  Can  we  wonder, 
after  such  a  defection,  that  the  spirit  of  evil  should 
break  out,  as  it  so  soon  did,  with  the  violence  of  a 
whirlwind,  in  Gideon's  house  and  among  the  people  of 
Abiezer?  The  family,  on  which  the  sun  of  divine 
favour  had  for  a  time  shone  so  brightly,  became  in  the 
next  generation  a  plague  and  a  ruin,  itself  receiving 
into  its  bosom  the  vials  of  heaven's  wrath,  and  in  its 
calamitous  course  becoming  the  occasion  of  involving 
multitudes  around  it  in  the  same !  A  most  striking 
proof  in  its  history  both  how  righteousness  exalts,  and 
how  sin  becomes  the  ruin  of  any  people! 

GIER-EAGLE  [Qrr\,racham,Hcrr\,rachama}i].  This 

TT  TT  T 

word  occurs  only  in  the  enumeration  of  birds  prohi 
bited  by  the  law  of  Hoses  as  unclean;  in  the  former  form 
in  Le.  xi.  18,  in  the  latter  in  De.  xiv.  17.  The  LXX. 
have  rendered  it  "swan"  (KVKVOS)  in  the  former  ease, 
and  "hawk"  (ie'pa£)  in  the  latter.  The  Hebrew  word 
ordinarily  signifies  bowels  or  compassii  m,  and  ci  nnnienta- 
tors  have  sought  to  establish  an  identity  with  one  species 
or  another  founded  on  the  distinctive  habits  of  the  bird, 
but  with  little  success.  The  writer  of  the  notes  in  the 
Pictorial  liible  accepts  the  first  meaning  of  the  LXX.; 
Boothroyd  and  Taylor,  in  Cahnet,  will  have  the  king 
fisher  to  be  intended. 

Bruce,  however,  has  sufficiently  shown  that  the  bird 
must  be  the  Egyptian  vulture — XeopJirmi  pcrmoptcrtts, 
which  is  abundant  in  the  East,  and  is  popularly  called 
Pharaoh's  chicken.  But  it  is  also  well  known  by  the 
name  rachamah,  which  is  literally  the  old  Hebrew  ap 
pellation.  The  traveller  just  cited  considers  that  this 
name,  alluding  to  the  signification  mentioned  above, 
commemorates  the  fact  that  this  vulture  was  sacred  to 
fsis,  and  considered  an  emblem  of  parental  affection. 
At  present  the  bird,  though  horribly  filthy  ami  obscene 
in  its  habits,  is  held  in  such  esteem  in  Egypt,  that  a 
penalty  attaches  to  any  one  who  kills  it  near  the  great 
cities.  This  probably  is  only  for  its  usefulness  as  a 
scavenger.  The  NcophTon  enjoys  a  wide  geographical 
range,  since  it  occurs  over  the  whole  of  Asia,  Europe, 


GIHON  637 

and  Africa.  It  ha.s  even  been  taken  in  England  and  in 
Norway.  It  is  rather  a  conspicuous  bird ;  for  the  plum 
age  is  wholly  white,  except  a  band  of  black  across  each 
wing;  the  beak,  naked  face,  legs  and  feet  are  yellow. 


GILEAI) 


The  food.  as  with  other  vultures,  is  mainly  carrii  m:  but 
when  tills  is  scarce,  it  will  prey  upon  snakes,  li/ards. 
and  frog*.  |IMI.  <:.] 

GI'HON  |,./,»/  irnifoor  /.<,,„> -.  f,,rtl,\.  1.  originally 
occurs  as  the  name  of  one  of  the  four  rivers  of  para 
dise,  and  \\hirh  is  described  as  then 'after  compa—inu 
the  whole  land  of  Kthiopia.  (Ju  ii  13.  Various  efforts 
have  been  made  to  identify  it  with  some  known  river  on 
the  present  surface  of  the  globe,  but  with  no  success. 
OVr  KDKN.) 

2.  Gii(n\,  the  name  of  a  fountain  near. Jerusalem,  be 
side  which  Solomon  received  his  anointing  in  the  king 
dom.  IKi.  i  L'.'!,:is.  |>V,  Jr.!;i  SAI.KM  AM)  ITS  K\ V  1  HI  i\>.  I 

GIL'BOA  [ImhMinu  fmmtain},  known  only  as  the 
name  of  a  mountain  riduv,  though  the  etvmolo--v  of 
the  word  seems  to  point  to  some  spring,  remarkable 
for  its  bubbling  waters;  and  it  is  possible  that  from 
some  such  spring  the  mountain  derived  its  name.  And 
there  is  a  laruv  spring  at  the  northern  base  of  what  is 
still  regarded  as  Cilboa.  called 'Ain  .Julfid.  supposed  to 
lie  the  same  with  "the  fountain  of  Je/reel,"  beside 
which  Saul  pitched  with  his  armv  before  the  memor 
able  battle  in  which  he  fell,  i  s.i.  xxix.  1.  Gilboa.  how 
ever,  is  not  so  properly  a  mountain  in  the  ordinarv 
sense  as  a  range  of  hills,  bounding  the  fertile  plain  of 
Ksdraelon  on  the  north  ca-t.  "They  an.-  not  particu 
larly  interesting  in  their  general  contour.  They  rise  to 
no  great  height,  and  present  but  a  small  appearance 
either  of  natural  pasturage  or  culture.  Large  bare 
] latches  and  scarps  of  the  common  cretaceous  rock  of  the 
country  are  more  conspicuous  071  them,  than  any  cloth 
ing  of  verdure  which  they  wear"  (Wilson,  Lands  of  tlio 
Hible,  ii  i>.  So).  What  has  chiefly  invested  Cilboa  with 
interest  is  the  victory  gained  there  over  Saul  bv  the 
Philistines,  and  the  pathetic  lamentation  by  David  over 
Saul  himself  and  his  son  Jonathan.  In  that  lamenta 
tion,  it  will  also  be  observed,  Gilhoa  is  spoken  of,  not 
as  a  single  mountain,  but  as  a  group  or  succession  of 
heights — "mountains  of  Gilhoa;"  and  another  touch  of 
truth  may  be  perceived,  as  Mr.  Stanley  has  remarked, 
in  the  poetical  wish,  that  henceforth  there  might  be 

no  rain   nor   dew  upon   them,  nor  fehls  of  offerings 

suggested  doubtless  by  the  aspect  of  the   "  bare,  bleak, 

and  jagged   ridge,    with   its   one   green  strip  of  table- 
Voi..  I. 


land,  where  probably  the  last  struggle  was  fought — the 
more  bare  and  bleak  from  its  unusual  contrast  with  the 
fertile  plain  from  which  it  springs.'' 

GIL'EAD  [properly,   a  hard,   rockii   rojion,  but  by 
a  slight  change   in  the  punctuation.  (i'u/(«j,   it  might 
signify  h<a/i  of  iritm.«,  the  name  given  by  Jacob  to  the 
j  heap  of  stones  erected  by  him  on  a  memorable  occasion, 
Ge.xxi.  47],  1 .  a  district  east  of  the  Jordan,  which  included 
the  towns  of   Itamoth,  Jazer.  and  Jabesh.     Its  limits 
cannot  be,    and  probably  never  were,   strictly  defined, 
and  the  name  seems  sometimes  to  have  been  applied  to 
the  whole  Transjordanic  country,   \u.  xxxii.  •_•:> ;  Ju.  xx.  1 
Its  mountains  are  to   be   seen   from  nearly  all  the  hills 
and  table-lands  of  western  Palestine,  and  seem  to  form 
an  unbroken  ridge  bounding  the  view  to  the  eastward. 
To  the  pilgrim  at  the  sacred  sites,  and  the  traveller  in 
the  Holy  Land,  they  are   the  limits  of  his  knowledge, 
as  the  -Mediterranean  was  to  the  Jews,  as  the  Atlantic 
was    to  Kurope  in  the  middle   ages,  as  the  Libyan  hills 
are   to   the  voyager  on   the    Nile.      I'.ut  on   approach 
ing    them    the    unbroken    appearance   of    their   outline 
vanishes,  and  when   their  summits   cJuiio  or  :>UOO  feet 
above  the  Jordan   valley)  are  reached,  there  opens  out 
"a  wide  table-land   tossed  about  in  wild  confusion   of 
undulating  downs,    clothed    with    rich   grass    and    with 
magnificent  forests  of  sycamore,  beech,  terebinth,  ilex, 
and  enormous   hi;'- trees.      These   downs   are   broken   by 
three  deep  defiles,  through   which  there    fall   into   the 
Jordan  the  three  rivers  of  the  Jarniuk,  the  Jabbok,  and 
the    Arnon"  ahe   latter   however   is   south  of  the  limits 
j  of    Gilead    as    generally    understood).      "On    the   east 
they  melt  away  into   the    vast    red   plain    which,    by  a 
gradual    descent,    joins    the  level    of    the    plain    of  the 
H  an  ran  and  of  the  Assyrian  di  sen  "  (Stanley,  Sinai  ;iml  1'al. 
p.  ::i  I).   The  whole  of  this  east  country,  being  well  adapted 
for   pasture,  wa<  granted    to   the    Keubenites,  the  Gad- 
it.es.  and  the  half  tribe   of    Mana-seh.   after  it  had  been 
won    from    Sihon    kin^    of   the   Amorites    and    ( )g    the 
kinu' of  IJashan.  Nu.  xxi.  -ji.. :;L'.     Gilead  in  its  proper  sense 
fell  partly  to  the  lot  of  Cad.  partly  to  Manasseh.   Their 
boundary  cannot  be  accurately  laid  down,  further  than 
that  Gad  seems  to   have   dwelt  to   the  south  and   west 
by  the  Jordan  (as  far  north  however  as  the  Sea  of  Chin- 
nereth.  .Ins.  xiii.  L'7).  and  Manasseh  to  the  north  and  east 
as  far  south  as    Mahanaim.      The    forests  and    pastures 
of  Gilead    seem    to    have   kept   alive    in    it>   inhabitants 
that  wild  and  unmade  character  which  was  soon  lost  by 
the  tribes  to  the  west. if  the  Jordan,  while  its  exposure  to 
the  attacks  of  external   enemies    nurtured  their  warlike 
spirit,  and  its  isolation  from  the  rest  of  the  Holy  Land 
kept  them  in   the  background  of  the  history  of  God's 
people.    Atdifferent  times  two  remarkable  men  suddenly 
appeared  from  its  forests:  Jephthah,  the  victorious  cap 
tain,    the  performer  of  his  rash  vow  ;    Elijah  the  Tish- 
bite.  the    bold  reprover  of  Ahab.    the  asserter  of  Cod's 
honour,  the  sole  antagonist  of  Baal's  four  hundred  pro 
phets  on   Mount  Carmel.      The   wildness  of  the- region 
whence  he  came  must  have  had  a  similar  effect  upon,  the 
western  Israelites,  as  had   his   strange   appearance  and 
the  accounts  they  heard  of  his  miraculous  nourishment 
by  ravens,  of  his  raising  the  widow's   son,  and  of  his 
running  before  Ahab's  chariot  from  Carmel  to  Jex.reel. 
In  his  country  too  was    Rainoth.  the   frontier  town,  so 
often  taken  and  retaken  by  the  Syrians,  and  at  last  the 
scene  of  Ahab's  death,  as  foretold  by  the  prophet. 

At  other  times  Cilead  comes  before  us  for  a  moment 
as   it   were    in    the   sacred   history.      It   was    the    scene 

83 


Gf>  8 


df  tlii'  crisis  nf  Jacob's  life,  when,  no  longer  an  outcast  [ 
and  ji  slave,  lie  returned  the  independent  chieftain  <>f  a 
numerous  ami  wealthy  tribe  to  the  land  <>F  his  fathers. 
For  here  on  Mount  (Ulead  he  finally  parted  with 
Lalian.  who  had  Ion-'  deceived  and  oppressed  him.  and  ; 
had  pursued  him  hither  from  Padaii-Aram.  AtMaha- 
naiin  he  overlooked  the  inheritance  of  his  descendants,  | 
and  meditated  on  his  changed  fortunes:  "With  my 
stall' 1  passed  over  this  .Ionian,  and  now  1  am  become 
two  bands."  Here  also  the  angels  of  Cod  met  him. 
sent  no  doubt  as  a  support  in  his  trial,  and  as  an 
earnest  of  the  Almighty's  protection.  At  J'eniel  took 
place  that  mysterious  wrestling  in  prayer,  when  he 
received  his  new  name  of  Israel,  lite  irrextler  of  (fud, 
more  suitable  to  his  altered  prospects  than  Jacob.  //,<• 
ts>ip/>/<tiitn- ;  and  thus  by  converse  with  God,  lie  pre 
pared  for  the  last  trial  of  this  period  of  his  life  the 
dreaded  meeting  with  Ksau.  At  Snccoth,  where  In 
built  him  a  house,  and  made  booths  for  his  cattle,  we 
trace  a.  further  step  in.  his  history— the  transition  from 
the  wandering  to  the  settled  agricultural  life,  Co.  xxxi. 
xxxii.  xxxiii.  On  another  occasion  we  are  brought 
back  to  Cilead  at  the  time  of  David's  sorest  trial, 
when  he  tied  to  Mahanaim  from  Absalom,  who 
was  defeated  and  slain  in  the  neighbouring  forest 
of  Kphraim.  On  two  special  occasions  also  did  the  • 
Traiisjordanic  hills  afford  a  safe  retreat  to  our  Lord 
himself  from  his  labours  and  dangers  in  Galilee  and 
•hidea.  Thither  he  probably  retired  after  his  baptism: 
thither  also  in  the  interval  of  danger  which  immedi 
ately  preceded  the  end  of  his  earthly  course,  .In.  x.  :;:>,  in. 
And  these  too  were  the  mountains  "whither,  in  obe 
dience  to  their  Master's  prophetic  bidding,  the  Chris 
tians  fled  from  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and  found  at 
Telia  a  refuge  from  the  calamities  which  befell  their 
countrymen." 

The  balm  of  Cilead  seems  to  have  been  valued  for 
its  medicinal  properties  from  the  earliest  times.  The 
Midianitish  merchants  to  whom  Joseph  was  sold  were 
passing  through  the  valley  of  Jezreel  on  their  way  from 
Cilead  to  Kgypt,  Go.  xxxvii.  17.  Josephus  often  mentions 
this  balm  or  balsam,  but  generally  as  the  product  of  the 
rich  plain  of  Jericho,  for  example  (Antiq.  xiv.  4):  "Now 
when  Pompey  had  pitched  his  camp  at  Jericho  (where 
the  palm-tree  grows  and  that  balsam  which  is  an  oint 
ment  of  all  the  most  precious,  which  upon  any  incision 
being  made  in  the  wood  with  a  sharp  stone  distils  out 
thence  like  a  juice),  he  marched  in  the  morning  to  Jeru 
salem."  Dr.  Thomson  found  in  the  plain  of  Jericho 
some  thorn-bushes  called  the  zulcuni,  "  which  is  like 
the  crab  apple-tree,  and  bears  a  small  nut,  from  which 
a  kind  of  liquid  balsam  is  made,  and  sold  by  the  monks 
as  halm  of  Gilead  so  famous  in  ancient  times,"  and  he 
supposes  "that  the  balm  which  Jacob  sent  to  Joseph, 
Uo.  xlvii.  11,  and  that  which  Jeremiah,  oh.  via.  -2-2,  refers  to 
for  its  medicinal  qualities,  were  the  same  which  the 
trading  Ishmaelites  were  transporting  to  Egypt,  and 
that  it  was  some  resinous  extract  from  the  forest  trees 
of  Gilead''  (The  Land  and  the  Hook,  p.  -K7Y  [c-  T-  M-l 

2.  G-TLEAi).  A  Gilead  is  mentioned  in  Ju.  vii.  3, 
in  connection  with  the  movements  of  Gideon,  which 
must  have  been  some  place  or  mountain,  not  on  the 
east,  but  on  the  west  of  Jordan,  and  probably  in  the 
territories  of  Xaphtali  or  Zebulun.  Some  have  sup 
posed  that  Gi/rr/d  (lySj)  i*  ;l  corruption  of  the  text  for 
Gilboa.  1)iit  the  MSS.  uive  no  countenance  to  this; 


and  in  the  present  state  of  the  evidence,  the  natural 
supposition  is,  that  a  Gilead  of  some  sort,  though 
otherwise  unknown,  existed  near  the  scene  of  Gideon's 
operations. 

3.  G  ILKA  I).  Two  persons  are  mentioned  as  bearing 
this  name — a  son  of  Machir,  Nu.  xxvi.  •>•.>-,  and  the  father 
of  Jephthah,  Ju.  xi.  i. 

GIL'GAL   [wheel,  r<,lli,,<i\.    1.   The  place,  whether 
town,  or  as  is  more  probable,  open  space,  on  which    Is 
rael   made   their    first  encampment   after   crossing   tin- 
Jordan.  Jos.  iv.  iii.ii.     It  is  simply  described  as  being  "in 
the  east  corner  of  Jericho."      It  is  placed    by  Josephus 
at  the  distance  of  ten  stadia,  or  little  more  than  a  mile 
from  Jericho,  and  about  live  times  as  much  to  the  west 
of  tin!  .Ionian  (Ant.  v.  1,  !,  ID.     It  is  expressly  called  a  hill 
or  rising-ground,  Jos  \-  :;;   and  there,  resting  fora  little, 
the  host  of  Joshua  performed  the  rite  of  circumcision 
and  partook  of  the  passover,  before  they  entered  on  tin- 
work  of  conquest.      It  was  in  regard  to  the  work   of 
circumcision  that  the  place  obtained  its  future  name : 
"And  the  Lord  said  unto  Josluia,  This  day  have  1  rolled 
away  the  reproach  of  Egypt  from  off  you.      Wherefore 
the  name  of  the  place  is  called   Gilgal   unto  this  day." 
.T,.s.  v  !>.      .It  has   been  made  a  question,    why  the  ad 
ministration   of  circumcision    should    have   been   called 
rolling  away  the  reproach  of   Kgypt;  whether  the  re 
proach  had  respect  simply  to  their  previous  nncircum- 
cised    condition,    or    to    their    condition    otherwise,   as 
connected  with  and  indicated  by  the  suspension  of  cir 
cumcision.      The  latter  seems  decidedly  the  preferable 
view.      For,  in  the  first  place,  the  simple  fact  of  circum 
cision   having  ceased    to   be  administered    during    the 
wilderness  sojourn,  could   scarcely  have   been   so   gene 
rally  known  in  Egypt  as  to  become  a  matter  of  reproach 
then;  against  Israel.      The  Egyptians  had  no  means  of 
knowing  whether  it  was  practised  or  not.     Then,  even 
if  it  had  been  known,  one  does  not  see  how  it  should 
have  been,  as  a  mere  fact,  turned  into  a  reproach:   be 
cause  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  Egyptians 
as  a  people  in  anyway  identified  their  national  honour 
with  the  rite,  nor  is  it  certain  that  the  practice  was 
ever  by  any  means  universal,  except  among  the  priest 
hood.      Origen  speaks  of  it  as  confined  to  them  (Hem.  ;>  in 
.lev.),  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  merely  adds  those  who 
sought  admission  to  the  mysteries  (Strom,  i.  p.  :;(>•_',  ed.  Syli..) 
It  is  chiefly  on  a  misunderstanding  of  the  passage  before 
us,    coupled  with  a    general    statement   of    Herodotus 
(ii.  ins)  as  to  the  general  practice  of  circumcision  among 
the  Kgyptians,  that  the  absolute  and  stringent  univer 
sality  of  it  there  has  been  affirmed.      (See,  for  example, 
Wilkinson's  Ancient  Kgyptians,  v.  ."17  ;  Kittu's  Cyclopedia,  art.  Cir 
cumcision.)     r.esides,  if  the  simple  disuse  of  the  ordinance 
had  lain  so  long  upon  Israel  as  a  reproach,  one  must 
say  it  was  very  needlessly  borne,   since  it   could  have 
been  removed  any  time  during  the  forty  years:  almost 
anywhere  they  could  have  halted  long  enough  for  the 
purpose.     In  reality  it  had  been  done  once,  for  when 
the  command  to  circumcise  was  now  given  to  Joshua, 
it  came  as  an  order  to  "circumcise   them  again,   the 
second  time,"  Jos.  v.  2.     The  former  time  would  doubt 
less  be  when  they  lay  encamped  around  Sinai,  so  that 
the  forty  years  of  discontinuance  mentioned  could  not 
be  absolutely  forty;  the  term  is  used  in  a  general  way 
for  the  period  of  the  wilderness  sojourn.     When  leaving 
Sinai  and  marching  toward  Canaan,  the  administration 
of  the  ordinance  required  to  be  suspended  for  a  time, 
on  account  of  the  incessant  movings  to  and  fro.      But 


GILOH  ( 

when,  for  their  want  of  faith  and  frequent  backslidings, 
the  ]  >eoj  ile  were  doomed  to  continue  ill  the  wilderness 
for  nearly  forty  years  longer,  as  this  was  a  suspension 
of  the  covenant  itself,  so  the  ordinance,  which  was  its 
more  peculiar  badge  and  seal,  was  fitly  suspended  too. 
Xot  from  any  external  difficulty  in  practising  it,  but 
as  a  sign  of  their  humbled  and  dishonoured  condition, 
was  it  henceforth  allowed  to  fall  into  abeyance  bv  the 
lawgiver.  Hence  it  is  expressly  connected  here  with 
their  having  disobeyed  God's  voice,  and  losing-  in  con 
sequence  the  fulfilment  of  the  great  promise  of  the 
covenant,  vcr.  t).  This  was  emphatically  the  reproach 
of  Egvpt.  \'r/..  the  reproach  of  having  been  led  out  of 
Egypt  with  high  hopes  of  future  aggrandisement,  which 
had  not  been  realized.  It  was  precisely  such  a  reproach 
which  .Moses  dreaded,  and  which  led  him  on  one 
occasion  to  say.  "Wherefore  should  the  Egvptians 
speak  and  say.  For  mischief  did  he  bring  them  out.  to 
slay  them  in  the  mountains,  and  to  consume  them  from 
the  face  of  the  earth.'"  Kx.  xxxii.  12,  also  Nu.  xiv.  13.  I'.ut 
now  that  they  had  become  again  a  circumcised  p. 
by  the  express  command  of  Cod.  the  p.-irtial  b.-muas 
taken  oft';  they  were  acknowledged  bv  him  as  in  the 
proper  sense  his  covenant-people,  in  who-.-  behalf  he 
was  ready  to  execute  the  Word  on  \\hieh  he  had  caused 
their  fathers  to  hope-.  Thus,  no  longer  should  Egvpt 
have  occasion  to  taunt  them  with  having  been  beguiled 
with  false  expectations  and  promises  lying  unfulfilled. 
The  di  ed  at  Cilgal  terminated  the  period  of  shame,  and 
commenced  a  brighter  era.  (>'<»  ( 'i  IHT.MI  isi.>\.  > 

2.  CII.CAI.,     from    which     Elijah    and     Elisha    went 
down    to    Uethel.    2  Ki.  ii.  2,    was    apparently   a   ditt'erent 
place  from  that  ju-t  noticed;   for.  had   it   been   meant, 
tin;    passage    from    the    one    place    to    the    other    could 
never  have  been  represented  as  a  d.  set  nt.   IVth.l  being 
upwards  of  HHMI   feet  above   the  bank-  of  the  .Jordan. 
There  must  then-fore  have  be.-n  a  Cil-al  somewhere  in 
the   di-triet  of   r.ethel.  and    at  a  higher   elevation   than 
it      of  which  the   remains  are   supposed    to   have   been 
found   in   certain   ruin-,    bearing   the   name  of   ./,'/;,;/,/, 
or  .////'///,/,,  situated  a   few  miles  to  the-  north  of   the 
ancient  I'.ethel  i  llobinson,  iii.  p.  17). 

3.  CM.CAI..  not  far  from  Shechem,  beside  the  plains 
of  Aloivh,  lie.  xi.  >;  j.is.  xii.  2.-J.      This  mav.  however,  ha\.- 
been  the  same  witli  the  immediately  preceding;    but   it 
is    impossible  to  decide   with   c.-rtaintv.      Th>     passage 
in   .Joshua  speaks  of  the   nations   or  peoples  of   Cilgal, 
whose   king  fell   under   the   hand  of  .Joshua;   implving 
that  it  was  a  place  of  some  importance  at   (he  time  of 
the  conquest,  and  formed   a   centre  to  several    tribes  in 
the  neighbourhood. 

GI'LOH,  a  town  situated  somewhere  in  the  hill- 
country  of  Judah,  and  known  simply  as  the  birth-place 
of  Ahithophel,  2Sa.xv.12.  In  .Jos.  Xv.  ',  1  ,  it  is  men 
tioned  along  with  Debir  and  Eshtemoli  ;  but  hitherto 
no  traces  have  been  found  of  it. 

GIRDLE,  an  article  of  dress,  of  much  importance 
in  the  East,  worn  both  by  men  and  women.  Its  general 
nature  and  use,  as  well  as  the  spiritual  applications 
made  of  it  in  Scripture,  have  been  described  under 
DKKSS  It  is  enough  to  indicate  here  a  few  leading 
points.  For  persons  in  plain  attire  the  girdle  was  very 
commonly  of  leather;  but  was  also  not  unfrequently 
made  of  linen,  and  sometimes  highly  ornamented  with 
embroidery,  and  even  with  gold,  silver,  and  precious 
stones.  Of  this  costlier  sort  presents  were  often  made, 
2Sa  xviii.  u.  Jts  chief  use  was  for  binding  up  the  loose 


GLASS 

and  flowing  garments  that  were  worn  alike  by  both 
sexes,  so  as  to  admit  of  their  moving  with  more  free 
dom,  and  addressing  themselves  to  active  employment. 


I  Fence  to  --ird  or  girdle  up  the  loins,  was  a  common 
expression  t'..r  putting  one's  self  in  readiness  for  any 
service  that  mi-Jit  be  required,  l.u  xii..r>;  i  iv.i.13.  Daggers 
were  usually  stuck  in  the  Birdie;  but  the  sword  was 
sometimes  at  least  suspended  b\  a  belt  thrown  over  the 
shoulder,  as  in  woodcut  No.  -jl-J,  p.  \i\~.  Among  other 
incidental  purposes  served  by  the  girdle,  it  \\as  so  folded 
as  frequently  to  supply  the  want  of  a  si-rip  or  purse. 

The  girdle  of  tin-  priests  had  a  name  of  its  own 
(nf>iut/i),  and  was  in  various  respects  peculiar.  (Sn 
|'KII-:.-T>.  (  'LOT  HIM;  OF.) 

GIR'GASHITES,  one  of  the  tribes  who  inhabited 
Canaan  before  the  conquest  of  the  land  under  .Joshua. 
The  name  frequently  oeeiirs.  do.  x.  id;  xv.  21;  I)u.  vii.  ij  .i.is 
iii.  ln,ic.;  but  always  in  connection  with  the  names  of 
other  tnUs;  and  it  is  altogether  doubtful  to  what  dis 
tricts  of  the  land  their  possessions  should  be  assigned. 
They  are  generally  associated  with  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  Hea  of  Galilee  ;  but  it  rests  on  no  soli, I  grounds. 
•  losephu-  intimates  that  nothing  was  known  of  them  in 
his  time  l,ut  the  name  (Ant  i  .;,-_'>. 

GITT1TES,  men  of  Cath.  six  hundred  of  who,,, 
attached  themselves  to  I>avid.  and  became  part  of  his 
bo.ly-guard.  2  Sa.  xv.  is,  w.  It  has  be,  n  supposed  by 
some,  that  th.-y  were  the  six  hundred  men  who  had 
follow. -d  I  (avid  to  (lath.  1  Sa.  xxvii  2  (xc<  Cll  I  KITH  ITKst ; 
but  it  is  rather  against  this  \  iew,  that  Ittai,  who 
appears  to  have  been  their  leader,  is  called  "a  stranger 
and  an  exile,''  vcr.  20.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  how 
ever,  that  if  natives  of  Cath.  they  submitted  to  circum 
cision,  and  became  Israelites  in  faith  and  worship, 
though  they  were  strangers  bv  birth.  Obed-edom  is 
called  a  (Jittite,  2S,i.  vi.  M,  but  as  he  was  a  Levite,  this 
must  have  aris.-n,  either  from  his  having  had  some 
incidental  connection  with  (lath,  or  perhaps  more 
probably  from  his  being  a  native  of  Gatli-rinmion,  a 
Loviticnl  city. 

GIT'TITH,  a  term  occurring  in  the  titles  of  some 
of  the  Psalms,  probably  the  name  of  a  particular  kind 
of  musical  instrument.  (>'<>•  I'SAI.MS.) 

GLASS.  There  remains  no  longer  anv  doubt  as  to 
the  remote  antiquity  of  the  manufacture  of  glass.  It 
was  beyond  all  question  one  of  the  arts  practised  in 
ancient  Egypt;  and  from  the-  paintings  of  lieiii  Hassan, 


GLASS 


executed,  it  is   supposec 


1,  during  the  reign  of  the  first 


0  GLASS 

tributed  with  the  regularity  of  a  studied  design,   but 


era — representation; 

The  subjoined  are  given  by  Wilkinson  (vol.  iii.  p.  vi),  ex 
hibiting  two  sets  of  glass-blowers  ;  and  as  the  glass  at 
the  end  of  the  blow-pipe  was  painted  green,  no  doubt, 
as  Wilkinson  remarks,  can  exist  as  to  the  intention  of 
the  artist. 

There  is  other  evidence,  however,  of  the  antiquity 
of  the  art;  for  images  of  glazed  pottery,  belonging  to 
much  the  same  period,  covered  with  a  vitrified  snb- 


Osirtisen  and  his   immediate  successors     that  is,  from     the  same  hue  and  the  same  devices  pass  in  right  lines 
sixteen  to  fourteen  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  ,  directly  through  the  substance;    so^  that  in  whatever 
have   been  found   of  the   subject,      part  it  is  broken,  or  wherever  a  section  may  chance  to 

be  made  of  it,  the  same  appearance,  the  same  colours, 
and  the  same  device  present  themselves,  without  being 
found  ever  to  deviate  from  the  direction  of  a  straight 
line,  from  the  external  surface  to  the  interior"'  (Ancient 
Egypt,  iii.  p.  l'-»:;). 

The  purposes  to  which  the  manufacture  of  glass  was 
applied  by  the  Egyptians  and  other  ancient  nations 
were  of  considerable  diversity — including,  beside  the 

stance  of  the  same  quality  as  glass,  have  been  discovered     imitations  just  referred  to  of  the  precious  stones,  beads, 
in  the  monuments;  and' beads  and  other  ornaments  of     figures  of  the  gods,  fancy  figures  of  all  sorts,  bottles, 

cups,  vases,  jars,  and  occasionally  even  coffins.  Hut 
it  was  rather  coloured  than  transparent  glass  which 

articles  have  been  exhumed  from  the  ruins  of  Pompeii      was   the  object   of    study  in   the   ancient  manufacture; 
thouuh  the  -lass,  it  is  believed,  had    been  of  inferior     absolute  clearness   or  transparency  seems  to  have  been 

purposes  to  \\hicl 


quality,  and   adapted   to   few  of  th 

it  is  now  applied.      This  may  have  been 


at    Ro 


1305,  306.1        Glass-blowing.'    Wilkinson's  Ancient  Egyptians 


a  quality  very  rarely  attained:  and  the  emperor  Nero 
is  reported  to  have  paid  an  extravagant  price  for  two 
small  drinking  cups  with  handles, 
the  chief  excellence  of  which  con 
sisted  in  their  being  colourless  (Kn- 
cycl.  Brit.  art.  Glass).  Hence  ill  those 
passages,  whether  in  ancient  classi 
cal  writers  or  in  Scripture,  which 
speak  of  tilings  being  clear  or 
shining  as  -la^-s.  the  probability  is, 
that  it  is  either  the  mere  glitter  of 
glass  when  shone  upon  by  the  sun, 
sometimes  perhaps  the  brilliancy  of 
the  colours  emitted  by  it,  or  some 
other  glass-like  substance,  such  as 
rock-crystal,  that  is  meant.  This 
supposition  is  strengthened  by  the 
comparison  in  l!e.  iv.  4,  "a  sea  of 
U'lass  like  unto  crystal"  the  gla^s 
representing  only  the  smooth,  polish 
ed,  glancing  surface,  and  the  crystal 
superadding  the  idea  of  perfect 


and  in  Europe  generally  ;  for  it  was  in  Egypt  and  i  transparency.  Hence,  glass  was  not  applied  in  ancient 
I'hu'iiicia,  and  more  especially  in  Egypt,  that  the  art  times  to  windows:  when  these  were  not,  as  they  corn- 
was  cultivated  in  early  times,  and  brought  in  some  of  !  monly  were  in  the  East,  simply  open  apertures  by  day, 
its  branches  to  a  very  high  degree  of  perfection.  In  ;  with  wooden  doors  placed  on  them  by  night,  a  kind  of 
Egypt  they  had  the  advantage,  not  only  of  an  earlier  j  semi-transparent  stone,  a  sort  of  talc,  called  fiqiin  *j><  <  •'- 
application  to  the  art,  but  also  of  a  peculiar  earth,  larix,  was  generally  used,  and  continued  to  be  so  for 
which  appears  to  have  lieen  necessary  to  the  production  j  centuries  after  the  Christian  era.  Nor  was  glass  in 
of  some  of  the  more  valuable  and  brilliant  kinds  of  ancient  times,  so  far  as  we  know,  ever  applied  to  the 
glass;  hence  a  great  part  of  the  glass  ware  used  at  production  of  mirrors.  These  were  made  of  some  sort 
Koine  about  the  Christian  era  and  subsequently  came  of  metal — the  larger  and  more  expensive  ones  of  silver, 
from  Alexandria;  and  the  emperor  Hadrian  was  pro-  and  those  in  more  common  use  of  what  is  denominated 
sented  by  an  Egyptian  priest  with  some  vases,  which  brass,  though  it  is  understood  to  have  been  a  compound 
were  reckoned  so  fine  that  they  were  produced  only  on  of  copper  and  tin,  not  copper  and  zinc,  which  are  the  real 
grand  occasions  (strabo,!.  xvii.;  VopiscusmVitaSaturnini,c.8).  ingredients  in  brass.  Hence  the  lav er  for  the  tabernacle 
Winkelmaim  has  given  it  as  his  opinion,  that  "the  :  was  made  of  the  looking-glasses  which  had  belonged  to 
ancients  carried  the  art  of  glass-making  to  a  higher  the  pious  women  who  statedly  attended  upon  the  ser- 
degree  of  perfection  than  ourselves;"  and  Wilkinson  vices  of  the  sanctuary,  Ex.  xxxviii.  8.  Hence  also  in  Job 
states  respecting  the  Egyptians,  "Such  was  their  skill  the  sky  is  spoken  of  as  being  spread  out  ''like  a  molten 
in  the  manufacture  of  glass,  and  in  the  mode  of  stain-  looking-glass,"  oh.  xxxvii.  is.  And  in  1  Co.  xiii.  12— 
ing  it  of  various  hues,  that  they  counterfeited  with  sue-  ''for  now  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly  (tv  a.lvLyfj.an, 
cess  the  amethyst  and  other  precious  stones,  and  even  in  a  mystery)  " — though  nothing  is  implied  as  to  the 
arrived  at  an  excellence  in  the  art  which  their  sue-  j  substance  composing  the  glass,  yet  it  seems  best  to 
cessorshave  been  unable  to  retain,  and  which  our  Euro-  !  understand  the  apostle  as  speaking  of  glass  in  the  same 
peaii  workmen,  in  spite  of  their  improvements  in  other  sense  as  where  the  word  is  elsewhere  used,  2  Co.  iii.  is; 
branches  of  this  manufacture,  are  still  unable  to  imitate.  Ja.  i.  an,  &c.,  that  is,  of  glass  in  the  sense  of  mirror,  re- 
For  not  only  do  the  colours  of  some  Egyptian  opaque  fleeting,  though  somewhat  dimly  and  imperfectly  (more 
glass  offer  the  most  varied  devices  on  the  exterior,  dis-  i  so  in  ancient  times  than  now),  the  objects  exhibited  in 


GLASS 


601 


GLORY 


it.  To  the  eye  of  the  spectator  such  objects  appear  to 
be  seen  tlironf/h  the  glass,  on  its  farther  side,  and  with 
a  degree  of  darkness  or  mystery  corresponding  to  the 
imperfection  of  the  instrument  employed.  God's  Word 
is  a  mirror  of  this  sort  in  respect  to  spiritual  and  divine 
things,  in  which  and  through  which,  as  it  were,  the  eye 
of  faith  can  apprehend  them,  yet  imperfectly,  as  in  the 
far  distance  and  amid  a  haze  of  dimness  and  obscurity. 
This  is  the  only  meaning  of  the  passage  that  appears 
to  be  justified  by  the  state  of  ancient  art.  Wetstein 
and  Schottgeii  have  sought  to  establish  another  mean 
ing  bv  such  rabbinical  utterances  as  the  following:  ''All 
the  prophets  saw  through  a  dark  glass,  Moses  through 
a  bright  glass" — which,  if  it  have  reference  to  window- 
glass,  or  any  substance  used  instead,  must  have  con 
templated  a  state  of  things  long  posterior  to  the  gospel 
age.  The  other  interpretation  therefore  must  lie  ac 
quiesced  in  as  the  more  natural  and  certain;  the  rather 
so,  as  in  the  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  the  apostle 
has  again  connected  the  gospel  with  glass  in  the  sense 
of  a  reflecting  mirror. 

GLASS,  or  MIRROR.     >v,  LOOKING-GLASS. 

GLEANING.  The  right  of  the  poor  to  glean  after 
the  reapers  in  harvest  and  in  the  vintage  \vas  one  of 
tile  merciful  provisions  of  the  law  of  Moses,  l.u.  \ix.  11, 10. 
How  it  was  carried  out  by  the  better  part  of  the  cove 
nant-people  is  beautifully  exhibited  in  the  history  of 
Ruth. 

GLEDE  [ntfii  i'(i't/i].  The  name  of  some  unclean  bin! 
prohibited  in  I),.,  xiv.  ]'.',,  the  only  passage  in  which 
the  word  occurs.  In  tin-  parallel  li>t  in  L<  .  \i.,  the 
word  HN'^  ('/'<•'/"  appears  in  similar  connection,  which 

T  T 

our  version  renders  ni.Unrc.  The  great  similarity  be 
tween  the  letters  -\  and  T  renders  it  highly  probable 
that  these  two  forms  represent  one  and  the  same  word. 
At  all  events  the  LXX.  and  the  Vulgate  render  boil, 
by  the  same  term,  the  former  b\  -;c^.  the  vulture,  tin- 
latter  by  inilvtts,  the  kite.  Kach  term  presents  us  with 
a  good  etymology,  runli  expressing  vision,  dmt/i  flight. 
The  vultures  and  the  kites  are  pre-eminent  for  Heetness 
of  wing  and  for  piercing  sight;  and  we  may  be  tolerably 


[307.J        Kite    Milvux  Eyuptius. 

sure  that  one  of  these  genera  is  intended.  Under  these 
circumstances  there  is  no  need  to  change  the  English 
rendering. 

The  kite  (Milriis  r«l<i<irix)  is  spread  over  the  whole 
of  Europe,  Western  Asia,  and  North  Africa.  In  Eng 
land  it  is  much  more  rare  than  formerly,  though  still  a 


well-known   bird.      In  some  districts  it  retains  the  old 
Saxon  name  of  glede,  which  alludes  to  its  smooth  and 
j  gliding  flight.     This,  owing  to  its  great  length  of  wing 
'  and  deeply-forked  tail,  is  performed  with  the   slightest 
'  possible  apparent  exertion.      "Occasionally  it  sails  in 
circles,  with  its  rudder-like  tail  by  its   inclination  go 
verning  the  curve,  then  stops  and    remains  stationary 
for  a  time,  the  tail  expanded  widely,  and.  with  its  long 
wings,   sustaining  its  light    body,  apparently  from  the 
extent  of  surface  the  bird   is   able   to  cover"    (Vim-dl's 
:  British  Birds,  i.  7U1.      Sir   William  Jardine  describes   it  as 
everywhere  a    fine  accessory  to  the  landscape:  one  of 
the   most    harmonious    appendages    of    the    forest — its 
graceful  night   and    sailing   gyrations  heightening   the 
effect  of  some  dark  and  craggy  forest  scene  in  the  Scot 
tish  Highlands,  and   breaking  the  quiet   by  its  sudden 
and  peculiarly  shrill  shriek. 

The  prey  of  the  glede  consists  of  small  quadrupeds, 
birds,  and  reptiles,  and  is  generally  taken  on  the  ground 
by  a  sudden  pounce.  [r.  \\.  <;.'] 

GLORY  is,  perhaps,  more  variously  used  iu  Scrip 
ture  than  in  most  other  writings;  yet  its  scriptural 
meanings  are  not  quite  so  manifold  anil  arbitrary  as  they 
have  sometimes  been  represented.  For  example,  it  has 
been  supposed  that  this  word,  or  its  synonym  in  the 
original,  has  been  occasionally  used  as  a  designation  of 
the  I  i  rii\  the  supposed  seat  of  tile  emotions,  especially 
of  the  more  powerful  emotions  anu'er  and  loye.  This 
meaning  has  been  attributed  to  it  as  used  by  Jacob 
respecting  Simeon  and  Levi:  "'With  them,  mine  honour. 
m'lorv)  be  not  thou  united,"  (Jo.  xlix.  r>;  and  in  some  ex 
pressions  of  the  psalmist,  such  as,  "My  heart  is  glad, 
and  my  i^lory  rejoiceth."  Ps.  \\i.:i.  Others,  in  this  last 
passage,  and  in  I's.  Ivii.  S.  "Awake  up,  my  ylorv:" 
I's.  eviii.  1.  "  I  will  sing  and  give  praise,  even  with  my 
glory,"  have  understood  it  of  the  tongue,  as  the  most 
honourable  member  of  the  body.  But  there  is  no 
ground  for  such  explanations.  Tin-  glory  meant  by 
the  psalmist  is  but  another  word  for  the  heart  or  soul 
the  r-eat  of  intelligence,  and  feeling,  and  will,  and  as 
such  the  n'lorv  of  man  as  a  living  and  rational  creature. 
Indeed,  in  all  the  applications  of  the  word,  one  can 
ea-ilv  trace  the  fundamental  idea  involved  in  it.  Pro 
perly  it  is  the  exercise  and  display  of  what  constitutes 
the  distinctive  excellence  of  the  subject  of  which  it  is 
>]>okeii:  thus,  in  respect  to  God,  his  glory  is  the  mani 
festation  of  his  divine  attributes  and  perfections,  or 
such  a  visible  effulgence  as  indicates  the  possession  and 

presence  of  these.  Kx.  x \\iii.  l\l'.';Jn.  i.  1  t,  ii.  11;  Kx.  xvi.  7,10; 
xl.  34;  1!  Pe.  i.  17,  &c.;  ill  respect  to  mail,  his  glory  is  found 

ill  the  things  which  discover  his  honourable  state  and 
character,  such  as  wisdom,  righteousness,  superiority  t:> 
passion,  or  that  outward  magnificence  which  is  expres 
sive  of  what,  in  the  lower  sphere,  bespeaks  the  high 
position  of  its  possessor.  So  many  examples  occur  of 
such  applications  of  the  word  ///"/'//  in  Scripture,  that 
it  is  needless  to  point  to  individual  cases.  But  it  is 
also,  and  by  a  very  natural  extension,  used  for  the  pro 
perty  or  possession  itself,  which  tends  to  throw  around 
its  subject  a  halo  of  glory,  or  in  some  respect  to  crown 
it  with  honour:  as  when  the  glory  of  man  is  identified 
with  his  soul;  the  glory  of  Lebanon  with  its  trees, 
Is.  lx.  1.3;  the  glory  of  herbs  with  the  beauty  of  their 
flower,  Is.  xl.  fi;  the  glory  of  God  with  his  infinite  per 
fections,  and  especially  with  his  pure  and  unchanging 
righteousness,  is.  iii.  s;  xlii.  *.  In  this  last  sense  God  is 
the  glory  of  his  people.  Jc.  ii.  11;  Zee.  ii.  ".,  because  he  is  the 


GNAT 


GOAT 


living  root  and  spring  of  all  that  distinguishes  them  for 
good;  and  they  arc  his  glory  in  the  other  sense,  Jo.  xiii.  11; 
I\ii.  :;,  inasniueh  as  it  is  through  their  holy  and  blessed 
state,  through  the  wonderful  things  done  for  them  and 
by  them,  that  his  own  glorious  perfections  are  mani 
fested  before  the  eyes  of  men.  There  are  no  applica 
tions  of  the  word  in  Scripture  but  what  may  without 
difficulty  be  reduced  to  the  one  or  tin;  other  of  those 
now  indicated. 

GNAT  [KUVW\J/\,  a  small  two-winged  fly,  only  too 
well  known  iu  all  climates  for  its  venomous  assaults  on 
man  and  beast.  There  arc  many  spccie>,  distinguished 
by  the  generic  name  <  ','/<./•,  but  all  having  a  similar  con 
formation  and  similar  habits.  The  species  found  ill 
foreign  countries  are  generally  known  as  musquitoes; 
but  niiisiiuitoes  and  gnats  are  the  same  thing. 

The  weapon  with  which  the  gnat  makes  its  attack  is 
a  long  and  slender  proboscis, 
which  projects  from  the  mouth 
like  a  very  tine  brittle,  appear 
ing  to  the  naked  eye  quite 
simple,  lender  the  magnifying 
power  of  the  microscope,  how 
ever,  it  is  seen  to  be  a  flexible 
sheath  (/)  inclosing  six  distinct 
pieces,  two  of  which  are  cutting 
blades  or  lancets  (<•/), two  notched 
like  a  saw  with  reverted  teeth 
i/K  a  tubular  canal  (i),  and  the 
central  one  an  excessively  acute 
point  which  is  also  tubular  (</). 
"When  the  attack  is  made,  the 
gnat  brings  the  tip  of  the  organ 
within  its  sheath  to  press  upon 
the  skin,  into  which  it  pre 
sently  enters,  the  sheath  remain 
ing  without  and  bending  into 
.an  angle  as  the  lancets  descend. 
When  the  weapon  has  pene 
trated  to  its  base — a  distance  of 
one-sixth  of  an  inch  or  more 
the  lancets  move  laterally,  and 
thus  cut  the  flesh  on  either 

side,  promoting  the  flow  of  blood  from  the  super 
ficial  vessels;  at  the  same  moment  a  highly  irritative 
iluid  is  poured  into  the  wound,  which  has  the  effect  of 
diluting  the  blood,  and  thus  of  rendering  it  more  capable 
of  flowing  up  the  slender  central  tube  into  the  throat 
of  the  insect.  It  then  .sucks,  if  undisturbed,  till  its 
stomach  is  filled  to  repletion,  leaving  a  painful  tumour 
accompanied  with  an  intolerable  itching.  It  is  the 
female  gnat  alone  which  is  noxious;  the  male,  whose 
proboscis  is  feathered,  has  no  power  of  sucking  blood. 

In  low  fenny  parts  of  our  own  country  the  gnat  is 
an  intolerable  plague;  but  those  who  have  visited  the 
marshy  regions  and  forests  of  other  lands  are  aware 
how  much  more  formidable  are  the  gnats  there.  Dr. 
( 'larke,  travelling  in  the  Crimea,  tells  us  that  the  bodies 
of  himself  and  his  companions,  in  spite  of  gloves,  clothes, 
and  handkerchiefs,  were  rendered  one  entire  wound, 
and  the  consequent  irritation  and  swelling  excited  a 
considerable  degree  of  fever.  In  a  most  sultry  night, 
when  not  a  breath  of  air  was  stirring,  exhausted  by 
fatigue,  pain,  and  heat,  he  sought  shelter  in  his  car 
riage;  and  though  almost  suffocated,  could  not  venture 
to  open  a  window  for  fear  of  the  musquitoes.  .Swarms 
nevertheless  found  their  way  into  his  hiding-place;  and 


in  spite  of  the  handkerchiefs  with  which  he  had  bound 
up  his  head,  filled  his  mouth,  nostrils,  and  ears.  In 
the  midst  of  his  torment  he  succeeded  in  lighting  a 
lamp,  which  was  extinguished  in  a  moment  by  such  a 
prodigious  number  of  these  insects,  that  their  carcases 
actually  filled  the  glass  chimney,  and  formed  a  large 
conical  heap  over  the  burner.  The  noise  they  make  in 
flying  cannot  be  conceived  by  persons  who  have  only 
heard  gnats  in  England.  It  is  to  all  that  hear  it  a 
most  fearful  sound  (Dr.  Clarke's  Travels,  i  jv,).  A  traveller 
in  Morocco  feelingly  complains,  that  notwithstanding 
the  weariness  of  a  journey  of  fifty  miles,  he  Could  take 
no  repose  for  the  terrible  musquitoes,  and  that  his  face 
and  hands  appeared,  from  their  stings,  as  if  he  were 
suffering  from  the  most  virulent  sort  of  small-pox 
(Jackson's  Morocco,  ;,?).  hi  America  the  Indians  are  fain 
to  pass  the  night  buried  in  sand,  the  head  only  exposed, 
which  they  cover,  though  most  ineffectually,  with  a 
handkerchief  ( 1 1  umboldt). 

Nor  are  the  coldest  climates  exempt  from  these 
minute  pests.  In  Lapland  the  prodigious  s\\ arms  are 
compared  to  snow-storms  when  the  flakes  fill  the  air, 
or  to  the  clouds  of  dust  raised  by  the  wind.  The 
miserable  natives  cannot  take  a  mouthful  of  food,  or 
lie  down  to  sleep  in  their  huts,  except  in  an  atmosphere 
of  smoke  that  almost  suffocates  them  as  well  as  the 
musquitoes.  In  the  open  air  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
open  the  mouth  without  inhaling  dozens  of  them,  and 
meats  and  drinks  are  presently  blackened  with  tin- 
alighting  crowds. 

In  Palestine  and  the  surrounding  regions  these  in 
sects  are  sufficiently  numerous  to  be  a  ureat  annoyance 
to  the  inhabitants.  Herodotus  tells  us  that  the  inha 
bitants  of  the  lower  parts  of  Egypt  were  accustomed  to 
obtain  a  certain  degree  of  immunity  from  them  by 
sleeping  under  the  cover  of  a  net  used  for  fishing. 
Much  doubt  has  been  thrown  upon  his  meaning  by 
those  who  could  not  conceive  how  the  coarse  meshes  of 
a  fishing-net  could  keep  off  insects  so  minute.  But 
some  curious  observations  of  Mr.  Spence  made  in  Italy 
go  to  prove  that,  from  whatever  cause,  certain  flies 
will  not  pass  through  a  window  across  which  threads 
are  placed,  though  far  wider  apart  than  the  breadth  of 
their  own  bodies. 

Gnats  were  placed  by  the  law  among  unclean  ani 
mals;  and  hence  the  custom  of  straining  liquors  to  sepa 
rate  from  them  the  bodies  of  such  insects  accidentally 
immersed.  The  Lord  Jesus  alludes,  Mat.  xxiii.  IM,  to  the 
practice,  in  reproving  the  hypocrisy  of  those  who,  zealous 
about  the  minute  punctilios  of  the  law,  neglected  its 
weightier  matters — judgment,  mercy,  and  faith :  ''  Ye 
blind  guides!  which  strain  out  [for  so  it  should  be, 
not  strain  at]  a  gnat,  and  swallow  a  camel.''  They 
would  take  great  pains  to  avoid  transgressions  as 
minute  as  a  gnat,  while  they  could  swallow  without 
scruple  sins  as  vast  as  a  camel.  The  reproof  is  not 
altogether  obsolete  even  in  our  days.  [i\  11.  o.] 

GOAD.     .Sc  AGRICULTURE. 

GOAT  [*,y,  (-,:,  iJipy,  aftn<l,  "V^y,  t-apJur,  •yyto,  .•<«?/•, 

•\tf»W,  fuitsJi ;  KID,  »-)j,  <y«//].  Of  these  terms  attml, 
tzapkir,  and  tn/xh  are  used  to  signify  the  he-goat,  the 
first  being  the  ordinary  appellation,  while  tzupMr  and 
tatxh  are  used  in  the  same  sense  more  rarely  ;  tz  is 
also  an  ordinary  word,  often  rendered  "goat"  in  the 
ireiicral,  but  always  implying  the  she-goat,  as  in  the 
phrase  "a  kid  of  the  yoats,"  or  "an  he-goat  of  the 


GOAT 


6G3 


r/oatx"  (Heb.);  salr  signifies  hair}-,  and  may  be  con 
sidered  a  descriptive  appellation,  like  the  Latin  sonipes 
for  a  horse. 

From  very  remote  antiquity  goats  have  formed  an 
important  part  of  pastoral  wealth  in  the  East.  They 
are  not  mentioned  by  name  in  the  enumeration  of 
Abram's  possessions,  Ge.  xii.ir, ,  nor  in  those  of  Job,  Job 
i  :;;  xiii.  12;  but  perhaps  they  are  included  under  the  generic 
term  of  "  flocks,'"  which  Lot,  Ge.  xiii.  :>,  and,  a  fortiori, 
Abrani  possessed;  and  a  she-goat  formed  part  of  the 
sacrifice  offered  by  Abram  on  the  occasion  of  the  pro 
mise  of  Isaac.  Ge.  x\.  i).  In  the  account  of  the  miracu 
lous  increase  of  .Jacob's  cattle,  Go.  xxxi.  in,  12,  we  find 
mention  of  attudini,  which  though  rendered  in  the 
Knglish  version  r<nn*,  doubtless  means  he-goats,  as 
everywhere  else,  and  as  appears  by  a  comparison  with 
eh.  xxxi.  32,  tt  sc</.,  where  the  parti-coluured  are  goats 
and  the  brown  sheep,  these  being  the  exceptions  to  tin- 
general  rule,  the  t_roats  being  commonly  black  and  the 
sheep  white. 

The  goat  was  used,  together  with  the  sheep  and  the 
ox,  for  those  sacrifices  of  blood  wind:  prefigured  the  otter 
ing  up  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  The  paschal  ''lamb"  mi^lit, 
at  the  pleasure  or  convenience  of  any  father  in 
Israel,  have  been  a  kid  :-  "  Ye  shall  take  it  out  from 
the  sheep,  or  front  the  </f>nt>t,"  Ex.  .\ii.  r>.  The  burnt- 
offering  might  be  "of  the  sheep  or  of  the  goats." 
I.e.  i.  in;  the  peace-offering  might  be  "a  goat,"  7,e 
iii.  12;  the  sin-offering  •'  a  kid  of  the  goats,"  male, 
Le.  iv.  23,  or  female,  \XT.  2-,  and  the  trespass-oflerin^ 
the  same.  ver.  (i.  The  goat  plays  a  prominent  part 
in  that  very  remarkable  ceremony  by  which  tin- 
transfer  of  the  guilt  of  the  believer  to  Christ,  and 
his  bearing  it  away  beyond  the  recognition  of  (iod, 
is  represented-  the  seajie-^oat.  Here  two  goats 
were  taken  from  the  fiock  and  presented  before 
the  Lord:  one  was  then  slain  and  his  blood  car 
ried  within  the  vail;  the  high-priest  then  put  his 
hands  on  the  head  of  the  other  goat  and  confessed 
all  the  iniquities  of  Israel,  ••  jin/tin;/  tin  u>  H/IOH  tin 
licfid  of  tin'  ijnat,"1  which  was  then  sent  away  into 
the  uninhabited  wilderness,  and  there  let  go,  Le  xvi. 

In  the  domestic  economy  of  the  pastoral  peoples  of 
the  Kast  the  goat  has  always  IK 'en  of  great  value.  The 
fiesh  of  the  adult  is  rank  and  unfit  for  food,  but  that  of 
tin;  kid  is  excellent.  It  was  with  "  two  kids  of  the  goats" 
that  Kebekah  made  the  imitative  venison  with  which 
Isaac  was  deceived  —  "savoury  meat  such  as  he  loved," 
<Jo.  xxvii.  <i,u.  In  tin- law  it  was  repeatedly  forbidden  to 
"seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk,"  Ex.  xxiii.  i!>, «c.;  a 
prohibition  the  reason  for  which  has  greatly  puzzled 
commentators.  The  most  likely  reason  that  has  been 
assigned  is,  that  such  a  practice  existed  as  an  idola 
trous  rite.  Cudworth  states  that  in  an  old  Karaite  com 
ment  on  the  Pentateuch,  he  met  with  the  statement 
that  it  was  a  custom  with  the  ancient  idolaters  at  the 
ingathering  of  their  fruits  to  take  a  kid  and  seethe  it 
in  the  milk  of  its  dam,  and  then  to  go  alxuit  and 
sprinkle  with  the  broth  their  trees,  fields,  and  gardens 
in  a  magical  manner,  under  the  impression  that  by  this 
process  they  insured  their  fruitfulness  in  the  ensuing 
year.  Spencer  also  mentions  a  similar  rite  as  in  use 
among  the  Zabians.  It  is  a  remarkable  corroboration 
of  this  view,  which  seems  more  probable  than  any  of  the 
others,  that  this  command  is  first  mentioned,  Ex.  xxix.  i\\ 
in  immediate,  but  otherwise  unintelligible  connection 
with  the  laws  concerning  the  season  of  ingathering, 


|  and  the  bringing  of  the  first-fruits  to  the  house  of  the 
Loru  (Pictorial  Bible  on  Do.  xiv.  2lV 

The  "milk  of  the  fiock"  was  doubtless  largely  de 
rived  from  the  she-goats.  From  a  passage  in  the  Pro 
verbs,  ch.  xxvii.  2(1,2;,  it  would  seem  that  goats'  milk  was 
an  important  source  of  profit,  as  well  as  an  object  of 
domestic  consumption.  "The  lambs  are  for  thy  clothing, 
and  the  goats  are  tin  /trice  of  the  ric/d :  and  thou  shalt 
have  goats'  milk  enough  for  thy  food,  for  the  food  of 
thy  household,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  thy  maidens." 
The  former  of  these  statements  recalls  a  phrase  familiar 

|  to  the  ears  of  those  who  have  travelled  among  the 
peasantry  in  Ireland,  where  the  pig  is  pre-eminently 
the  rfnm<xti<-  animal— "'Tis  he  that  pays  the  rent!" 
And  the  latter  may  receive  illustration  from  the  obser 
vations  of  Dr.  Kitto,  who.  speaking  of  Palestine  and 
tlie  contiguous  countries,  says,  "  From  the  beginning  of 
April  to  September  the  towns  are  supplied  with  milk 
by  large  herds  of  goats,  which  pass  through  the  streets 
every  morning,  and  are  milked  before  the  houses  of  the 
customers.  The  products  from  the  milk  are  furnished 
in  abundance  at  the  same  season.  P.utter  and  cheese 
are,  among  the  nomades  who  principally  supply  the 


towns,  made  of  goats'  and  sheep's  milk,  although  (tows' 
milk  is  also  used  in  the  towns.  It  may  be  had  fresh 
through  the  season,  so  may  kill  male,  which  has  some 
resemblance  to  Devonshire  cream.  And.  above  all, 
there  is  l<  !><  i>  a  Scripture  name  for  the  same  thing  - 
sour  butter-mill;,  which  forms  the  principal  beverage  of 
the  Arabs,  and  is  much  used  in  their  dishes.  Lar^e 
quantities  are  also  consumed  in  the  towns.  While  tin- 
season  lasts  it  makes  up  a  great  part  of  the  food  of  the 
poorer  classes;  it  is  also  served  up  at  all  tables,  either  in 
small  bowls  by  itself,  or  mixed  up  with  salad-herbs,  and 
is  sometimes  poured  over  the  roast  meat  and  ragouts. 
Ldn-n  from  the  milk  of  the  buffalo  is  also  much  esteemed. 
These  things  are  brought  to  the  towns  from  the  villages 
and  the  camps  of  the  wandering  tribes.  The  scriptural 
name  of  Intliih  is  still  applied  to  fresh  milk,  as  that  of 
li-lictl  is  to  sour"  (Kitto's  P:ik".tine,  ii  "MY 

The  skin  of  the  goat  was.  and  is,  used  to  make  the 
bottles  which  are  so  often  alluded  to  in  the  sacred 
Scriptures.  Jfepulsive  as  the  custom  appears  to  our 
tastes,  all  the  oriental  nations,  particularly  such  as  are 
nomade  in  their  habits,  keep  their  water,  milk,  wine, 
and  other  liquids,  in  skin  bottles.  "These  leathern 
bottles  are  made  of  goat-skins.  When  the  animal  is 


COAT 


COAT 


1 


This  Cachmere  breed  has  long  been  celebrated  as  the 
ource  from  which  are  obtained  those  elegant  Indian 
hawls  which  fetch  so  high  a  price  in  Europe.  It 

cut   oil',   and   the   tail,   and  when   it,  is  filled  j  seems  to  be  essentially  the  same  as  that  just  mentioned 

as  the  Syrian  goat,  but  brought  by  careful  culture  to  a 
very  high  state  of  excellence.      It  has  long  silky  hair, 
straight  and  white,  large  hanging  ears,  a7id  clean   slen 
der  limbs.      It  is  not  the  longhair,  however,  which  is 
used  in  the  manufacture,  but  a  delicate  ^ravish  wool, 
which   clothes   the   skin   beneath  the  hair.      In  winter 
this   becomes   more    copious,  yet  not   more   than  three 
ounces  are  obtained  on  an  average  from  each  goat,  and 
this  raw  material  sells,  even  in   Thibet,  as  high  as  five 
shillings   the    pound.      Thence   it   is   earned   on   men's 
backs,  over  the  ridges  of  the   Himalayas,  across  fright 
ful   precipices,  along   narrow   ledges   over  sharp   snow- 
eovered      peaks      climbed      by 
wooden  ladders,  across   rattling 
cane-bridges  over  foaming  tor 
rents,    until    it    arrives,    loaded 
with     extortionate     taxes,      at 
(.'achmeiv,  where  the  shawls  are 
woven.    Thence  they  are  sent  by 
mountain  roads  similarly  beset 
\\itli    dangers    ami    difficulties, 
and  subject  at  every  step  to  ex 
tortionate  tribute,  into  Europe, 
either  through  Turkey  or  over 
the  (V.ucasus  through  UusMa. 

The  long  pendent  ears  of  all 
the  breeds  of  this  species  if  it 
be  entitled  to  such  a  distinction 
— constitute  a  very  remarkable 
eharacter.  In  some  specimens 
if,  is  displayed  to  excess.  Uau- 
wolff  saw  at  Aleppo  some  \\hose 
ears  were  two  feet  long,  which 
so  hung  down  to  the  ground  as 
to  embarrass  the  animal  when 
it  fed.  The  proprietor,  lie  in 
forms  us,  often  cuts  off  one  eai-, 
and  then  the  animal  turns  to 
wards  that  side  in  feeding,  that 
it  may  not  be  annoyed  by  the 
remaining  ear,  which  drags  along 
upon  the  grass.  It  is  doubtless 
to  this  peculiarity  that  Amos- 
himself  a  herdsman  —  alludes  in 
these  words:  "As  the  shepherd 
taketh  out  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Iio7i  two  legs,  or  «  piece  of  mi  / m\"  Am.  Hi.  12. 

A  he-goat  was  the  symbol  of  the  .Macedonian  empire 
in  the  prophetic  vision  of  Daniel,  <:h.  viii.  r> — a  goat  that 
had  a  notable  horn  between  his  eyes.  It  is  interesting 
to  know  that  this  was  the  recognized  symbol  of  their 
nation  by  the  Macedonians  themselves.  Monuments 
are  still  extaiit  hi  which  this  symbol  occurs,  as  one  of 
the  pilasters  of  Persepolis,  where  a  goat  is  depicted  with 


killed,  they  cut  off  its  feet  and  its  head,  and  they  draw 
it  in  this  manner  out  of  the  skin  without  opening  the 
belly.  They  afterwards  sew  up  the  places  where  the 
legs  we 

they  tie  it  about  the  neck.  These  nations  and  the 
country  of  Persia  never  go  a  journey  without  a  small 
leathern  bottle  of  water  hanging  by  their  side  like  a 
scrip.  The  great  leathern  bottles  are  made  of  the  skin 
of  the  he-goat,  and  the  small  ones,  that  serve  instead  of 
a  bottle  of  water  on  the  road,  are  made  of  a  kid's  skin" 
(Clianlin).  These  bottles  are  frequently  r>-nt  when  old  and 
much  used,  and  are  capable  of  being  repaired  by  being 

1)01171(1   Up. 

Coats'  hair  is  enumerated  among  the  articles  contri 
buted  bv  the  Israelites  in  the  wilderness  for  the  con 
struction  of  the  tabernacle,  Ex.  xxxv.  (i.  This  was  spun 
by  the  women,  vui-.  a;,  and  formed 
into  curtains  for  the  covering 
of  the  edifice,  Ex.  xxxvi.  14.  "All 
work  of  goats'  hair"  is  men 
tioned.  Nu.  xxxi.  I'D,  in  such  a 
connection  as  implies  that  the 
raiment,  accoutrements,  or  fur 
niture  of  the  warriors  that  had 
fought  against  Midian  were 
made  of  this  material.  And 
we  read  of  a  "pillow  of  goats" 
hair"  ill  1  tavid's  bed,  l  Sa.  xix.  i:i; 
either  stuffed  with  goats'  hair. 
or  more  probably  the  pillow 
case  (or  what  with  us  would  be 
the  tii'L]  woven  of  the  finer  hair 
of  the  goat. 

There  are  several  breeds  of 
tf(  uits  which  have  been  cultivated 
and  preserved  with  great  care 
from  time  immemorial  in  the 
East,  the  hair  of  which  is  used 
in  the  formation  of  textile 
fabrics.  One  of  the  most  cele 
brated  is  the  Angora  goat, 
whose  hair  is  very  long  and  of  a 
silky  fineness.  The  goat-herds 
of  Asia  Minor  are  said  to  be 
stow  much  labour  on  their 
charge,  frequently  washing  and 
combing  their  fleeces,  which  lose 
their  delicacy  and  degenerate  in 
finother  climate.  Then  there 
is  the  Syrian  goat,  which  Lin- 


Uelief 


f  the  Pilaster*  of 


long,  and  usually  coarse  hair.  This  race  is  generally 
black,  and  the  Bedouins  commonly  make  their  te7its 
of  a  coarse  cloth  woven  from  their  hair.  To  these  the 
bride  in  the  Song  alludes,  when  she  describes  herself 
as  black,  like  the  tents  of  Kedar,  while  the  bridegroom 


gracefully  compares  her  rather  to  the  curtains  of  Solo 
mon.     Eor  the  passage  should  probably  be  thus  read: — 

l},-i'l' . — I  am  black, 
Briil- r/roi»i]. — But  comely 
Br'uJi . — As  the  tents  of  Keilnr. 
Briilttji-ijOiii. — As  the  curtains  of  Solomon. 


e  immense  horn  on  his  forehead,  and  a  Persian  hold 
ing  the  horn,  by  which  is  intended  the  subjection 
of  Macedon  by  Persia  (Xo.  310).  There  are  also 
coins  of  Archelaus  king  of  Macedon  (B.C.  413),  having 
as  their  reverse  a  one-horned  goat  (Xo.  311).  And 
i  there  is  a  gem  in  the  Florentine  collection,  on  which 
If  the  latter  were  woven  of  the  fine  shawl-wool  of  the  j  are  engraved  two  heads  united  at  their  occiputs,  the 
Thibet  or  Cachmere  goat,  it  would  make  the  turn  of  the  :  one  that  of  a  ram,  the  other  that  of  a  one-horned  goat 
comparison  the  more  elegant.  iNo.  312).  By  this  is  expressed  the  union  of  the 


GOAT 


GG5 


GOAT 


Persian  and  Macedonian  kingdoms,  and  Mr.  T.  Combe, 
who  gives  us  the  information,  thinks  that  "it  is  ex 
tremely  probable  that  the  gem  was  engraved  after  the 


[311. 


Coin  of  Archelaus,  king  of  Macedon. 


conquest  of  1'ersia  by  Alexander  the  Great.    (Quoted  in 
Taylor's  Calmct,  art.  "  Macedonia.") 

The  extraordinary  salacity  of  the  he-goat,  and  the 
disgusting  odour  which  is  powerfully  diffused  from  it, 


give  to  this  animal  a  repulsive  character  that  contrasts 
strongly  with  that  of  the  sheep.     We  may  suppose  that 
it  is  on  this  account  that  the  Lord  Jesus  uses  the  svm- 
l«>ls  of  sheep  and  goats   to   represent   respectively  the 
riiditeous  and  the  wicked  in  tin-  solemn  judgment  scene 
described  in  Mat.  xxv.  31— !•!.     There  may  be 
something,  too.   in   the  fiitii-itn.tx  of  the   goat 
which  enters  into  the  emblem,  as  hair  appears 
in  some  cases  a  symbol  of  sin.      In  this  con 
nection  it  may  be  worth  observing,  that  in  the 
ceremony  of  the  scape-goat,  representing  ( 'hrist 
made  sin,  the  term  w!V  is  the  one  used  for 
the  goat— "the  hairy  one  ;"  and  the  same  ex 
pression   is   used    of    Esau's    hairiness    and    of 
Jacob's   personation  of  it.      When   a  goat  is 
mentioned  as  a  x!n- ottering,  it  is  almost    in 
variably  by  the  same  significant  term.      The 
very  same  word  is  translated  "devils"  in  I,e. 
xvii.  7,  and  1  Co.  x.  "20  warrants  the  rendering: 
also  in  2  Ch.  xi.  I',.      Finally,  the  same  term, 
rendered  xali/r.t,  Is.  xiii.  21 ;  xxxiv.  u,  designating 
doleful  forms  inhabiting  desolate  Babylon  and 
Idumea,    may  have   a   deeper   meaning   than 
that  of  goats,    by  which  some   commentators 
would  understand  it.  [>.  n.  o.] 

GOAT,  SCAPE.     ,v,-<?  SCAPE-GOAT. 

GOAT,  WILD  [Dty,  y"dim.  plural].     As 

the  word  in  this  form  occurs  in  connection 
with  lofty  eminences  and  precipitous  rocks,  it  is  pro 
bable  that  the  common  interpretation  is  correct  which 
refers  it  to  the  ibex.  Several  species  have  been 
described  by  naturalists  as  inhabiting  the  different 
mountain- ranges  of  the  East,  all  of  them  so  slightly 
varying  from  the  European  form  (t.'ttpra  Hies)  that 


they  may  possibly  be  but  varieties  of  it,  dependent 
on  climate  and  other  local  peculiarities.  One  of 
these  is  described  by  Burckhardt  as  inhabiting  all  the 
ranges  and  wadys  south  of  the  Arnon,  in  large  herds 
of  forty  or  fifty.  The  people  hold  their  flesh  "in  high 
estimation,  and  make  a  profit  out  of  the  immense 
knotted  horns,  which  they  sell  to  the  merchants  of 
Hebron  and  .Jerusalem,  where  they  are  wrought  into 
handles  for  knives  and  daggers.  Burckhardt  himself 
saw  a  pair  three  feet  in  length.  The  hunters  find  it 
difficult  to  approach  them  within  range,  but  they  suc 
ceed  by  hiding  themselves  among  the  reeds  on  the 
borders  of  the  streams  in  the  valleys,  and  shooting  them 
when  they  resort  thither  in  the  evening  to  drink.  ]t 
is  observable  that  the  same  story  is  rife  there  that  is 
told  of  the  alpine  ibex,  that  the  animal  when  alarmed 
will  throw  itself  from  a  precipice  of  fifty  feet  and  up 
wards  in  height,  alighting  on  the  horns,  the  elasticity  of 
which  preserves  them  from  injury.  Incredible  as  it 
seems,  it  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  wide  prevalence 
of  the  belief  without  foundation,  and  the  observations 
of  uncultivated  people  on  animals  with  which  they  are 
familiar  must  not  be  unhesitatingly  rejected. 

Among  the  Sinai  mountains,  as  we  learn  on  the 
authority  of  the  same  traveller,  the  ibex  appears 
again.  He  supposes  it  to  be  the  same  species,  and 
doubtless  it  is,  especially  as  it  bears  the  same  name 
among  the  Arabs  of  both  regions,  viz.  the  hcdui. 
There  the  chase  is  pursued  in  much  the  same  manner 
and  under  much  the  same  circumstances  as  that  of  the 
chamois  in  the  Alps  and  the  Tyrol.  The  hunters  exercise 
great  vigilance  and  hardihood,  taking  vast  circuits  to  get 
above  their  <|uarry.  and  especially  aiming  to  surprise 
them  at  early  day.  Like  most  mountain  quadrupeds 
that  are  -n"_'ariuus.  they  have  a  leader,  who  acts  as 
sentinel,  and  gives  the- alarm  on  the  occurrence  of  any 
suspicious  sight,  sound,  or  smell,  when  the  whole  nock 


makes  off  for  a  loftier  peak.  Their  numbers  are  said 
to  have  much  decreased  of  late  years;  for  the  Arabs 
report  them  so  abundant  fifty  years  ago,  that  if  a 
stranger  sought  hospitality  at  a  Bedouin's  tent,  and  the 
owner  had  no  sheep  to  kill,  he  would  without  hesita 
tion  take  his  gun  and  go  confidently  to  shoot  a  beden 

84 


GOD 


The  flesh  is  excellent,  with  a  flavour  similar  to  that  of 
our  venison.  Tin-  Bedouins  make  water- bottles  of  their 

skins,  as  of  those  of  the  domestic  goats,  and  rings  of 
their  horns,  which  they  wear  on  their  thumbs.  Dogs 
easily  catch  them  when  surprised  in  the  plains,  but  in 
the  abrupt  precipices  and  chasms  of  the  rocks  the  ibex 
is  said  to  dude  pursuit  by  the  tremendous  leaps  which 
it,  makes. 

It  is  likely  that  this  species  is  identical  with  that 
which  bears  the  name  of  poseng  (Ca/n-nx  ,i  i/iif/rnx),  and 
which  inhabits  all  the  loftier  ranges  which  traverse 
Asia.,  from  the  Taurus  and  Caucasus  to  ( 'hina.  It  is 
very  robust,  and  much  larger  than  any  domestic  goat: 
its  general  colour  iron-gray,  shaded  with  In-own,  with  a 
black  line  down  the  back  and  across  the  withers,  and  a 
white  patch  on  the  crupper.  The  horns  of  the  male 
are  very  large,  compressed,  and  slightly  diverging  a> 
they  arch  over  the  back;  their  front  side  makes  an 
obtuse  edge,  and  is  marked  by  a  series  of  knobs  with 
deep  hollows  between. 

Cuvier  and  other  modern  zoologists  have  supposed  the 
<i<ia;ini.s  to  be  the  parent  stock  of  the  domestic  goat.  If 
this  be  true,  our  translators'  rendering  of  "wild-goats" 
for  o«Stf»  (i/c/ii»}  has  a  peculiar  propriety.  [p.  11.  <;.  ] 

GOD  [from  the  German  <i«tt,  which  is  allied  with 
i/nt,  goodj.  the  common  Knglish  name  for  the  Supreme 
Being,  as  the  sole,  independent,  universal,  and  all- 
perfect  Lord  of  creation.  It  is  used  indifferently  for 
two  words  in  the  Hebrew.  (1.)  The  first  and  least 
comprehensive  of  these  is  EL,  which  has  m'ujlt  or 
xtrcmjth  for  its  root-meaning,  and  was  applied  to  God 
as  emphatically  the  strong  and  mighty  one,  who  can 
do  in  heaven  and  on  earth  what  seems  good  to  him. 
Being  used  for  strength  generally,  and  occasionally  for 
men  and  other  real  or  imaginary  beings,  as  possessed 
or  appearing  to  be  possessed  of  the  quality  of  strength, 
it  is  very  often  coupled  with  some  other  epithets  when 
applied  to  the  true  God,  in  order  more  distinctly  and 
adequately  to  express  his  being  and  Godhead.  Thus 
we  have  A'/-S/i,nhlai,  God  almighty;  KI-KI<>hhn,  God 
of  gods;  Kl-tt<tlt-cl,  God  of  Bethel;  also  God- jealous, 
God  most  high,  &c.  It  is  also  on  account  of  this  very 
general  import  and  use  of  the  word  El,  that  we  find  it 
applied  in  the  original — though  in  such  cases  transla 
tions  commonly  employ  a  paraphrase — to  anything 
singularly  great  or  mighty  of  its  kind.  Thus.  are~~  </, 
cedars  of  God,  such  as  are  peculiarly  strong  and  lofty, 
standing  as  it  were  in  a  relation  of  their  own  to  God 
for  having  planted  or  nourished  them ;  and  in  like 
manner,  "Mountains  of  God,"  "Lion  of  God,''  &c. 
As  a  designation  of  God,  EL  is  more  frequently  used 
in  poetry  than  in  prose — probably  on  account  of  the 
might  implied  in  and  indicated  by  the  term,  rendering 
it  more  congenial  to  the  excitation  and  energy  of  mind 
exhibited  in  poetry.  (2.)  The  more  distinctive  synonym 
for  God  in  Scripture  is  ELOAH  in  the  singular  (n^Stf), 

and  in  the  plural  ELOHIM  (D'hSs)-  Hebrew  philolo 
gists  differ  as  to  the  etymology  of  the  word — whether 
it  should  be  held  to  come  from  a  root  signifying  to  be 
strong  (^N),  or  from  one  signifying  to  fear  (n^)-  Prac 
tically,  the  difference  is  not  material;  as  in  either  case 
the  word  denoted  God,  as  the  great  object  of  homage 
and  awe — in  the  one  case  more  generally,  in  the  other 
with  special  reference  to  his  infinite  power  and  resistless 
might.  What,  however,  is  chiefly  remarkable  is,  that 


the  singular  ELOAH  is  but  rarely  used,  only  indeed  in 
the  rapt  style  of  poetry  ;  while  the  plural  ELOIIIM  was 
the  common  form  of  the  designation  both  in  poetry  and 
prose.  This  usage  of  a  plural  term  has  given  rise  to  a 
good  deal  of  discussion,  and  has  not  unfrequently  been 
connected  with  fanciful  or  superficial  reasons.  .Many 
orthodox  theologians  have  sought  to  find  in  it  an  indi 
cation  of  the  Trinity;  by  others  it  has  been  regarded  as 
what  is  called  the  plural  of  majesty  or  excellence,  the 
common  style  of  earthly  sovereigns ;  and  not  a  few- 
rational  theologians  have  been  able  to  see  nothing  more 
in  it  than  a  remnant  of  polytheism — the  term  having 
been  first,  as  they  supposed,  applied  to  a  plurality  of 
gods,  while  such  were  believed  to  exist,  and  still  re 
tained  after  the  belief  of  one  living  and  true  God  came 
in  their  place.  The  progress  of  investigation,  and  the 
more  thorough  knowledge  that  has  been  obtained  of 
the  language  and  literature  of  the  Bible,  have  tended 
rather  to  discountenance  each  of  these  positions,  and 
to  favour,  if  not  establish,  the  conviction,  that  the 
plural  in  this  case  is  used  in  accordance  with  a  prin 
ciple,  of  which  then:  are  many  other  examples  in  the 
Hebrew,  viz.  for  the  purpose  of  enlarging  and  intensi 
fying  the  idea  expressed  in  the  singular.  It  is  not  to  be 
regarded  (with  Hofmann  and  Ewald)  as  an  ahstraet= 
the  Godhead;  but  (with  ITengstenberg,  Delitzsch,  Keil, 
&c.)  as  the  plural  of  magnitude.  Elohim  designates 
God  as  the  infinitely  great  and  glorious  One,  having  in 
himself  the  fulness  of  divine  perfections,  in  their  mani 
fold  variety  of  powers  and  operations.  As  a  plural,  it 
"'answers  the  same  purpose  which  is  accomplished 
elsewhere  by  an  accumulation  of  the  divine  names  (as 
in  Jos.  xxii.  22;  the  t/irirf  holy  in  Is.  vi.  3,  and  the  /,<//•'/ 
of  lords  in  I)e.  x.  17).  It  awakens  attention  to  the  in 
finite  riches  and  the  inexhaustible  fulness  which  are 
contained  in  the  one  divine  Being;  so  that  if  men 
might  even  imagine  innumerable  gods,  and  invest  them 
with  perfections,  tln.se  should  still  be  all  comprised  in 
the  one  Elohim"  (HCIIKS.  Pent.  i.  i>.  -im,  or  Kng.  Trans,  p.  272— 
where  also,  a  few  pages  before,  various  examples  are 
given  of  the  grammatical  principle  on  which  the  ex 
planation  is  based). 

The  view  of  God.  which  according  to  this  explana 
tion  is  embodied  in  the  word  Elohim,  while  it  cannot 
be  said  to  teach  directly  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  is 
yet  in  perfect  accordance  with  it,  and  presupposes  that 
plenitude  of  life  and  blessing,  and  that  diversity  of 
operations  in  their  distribution,  which  most  fitly  har 
monize  with  the  threefold  personality  of  Godhead.  The 
doctrine  itself  has  its  distinct  enunciation  and  develop 
ment  only  in  the  later  portions  of  Scripture,  and  in 
connection  more  especially  with  the  great  work  of  re 
demption.  But  its  scriptural  exhibition  belongs  rather 
to  what  is  said  of  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  con 
tradistinguished  from  the  Father;  for  personal  attri 
butes  and  actions  being  ascribed  to  them,  there  neces 
sarily  arises  the  doctrinal  conclusion  of  a  threefoldness 
in  the  unity  of  God.  In  Old  Testament  scripture, 
however,  though  there  are  not  wanting  passages,  espe 
cially  in  the  prophetical  writings,  which  more  or  less 
distinctly  indicate  this  doctrine,  it  was  necessary  to 
maintain  a  certain  reserve  in  regard  to  it.  Had  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  been  there  formally  exhibited, 
while  still  the  work  which  was  to  constitute  the  objec 
tive  ground  of  the  representation,  and  give  it  practical 
weight  and  value  to  men's  minds,  lay  under  a  vail,  the 
effect  would  inevitably  have  been  to  encourage  the 


GOP 


tendency  to  polytheism  and  idolatry.  So  many  things 
drew  in  this  direction  in  ancient  times,  that  the  unity 
of  God  required  to  be  guarded  with  the  utmost  jealousy 
among  the  covenant-people,  and  the  most  explicit  as 
well  as  reiterated  declarations  made  respecting  it. 
Hence,  sometimes  when  using  the  plural  word  for  God, 
occasion  is  taken  to  prevent  the  idea  from  entering  that 
it  implied  any  multiplicity  in  the  heathen  sense — as  in 
Pe.  vi.  4,  "Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one 
Lord;"'  or  more  literally  and  much  more  expresslv, 
"  Hear,  O  Israel,  Jehovah  (is)  our  Elohim,  Jehovah 
one;"'  and  again,  ch.  xxxii.  3'.»,  "Behold  now  1.  I  am.  He, 
and  no  Elohim  with  me,"  or  as  it  is  in  Is.  xliv.  6, 
'•  Besides  me  there  is  no  Elohim."' 

The  word  ELOHIM,  however,  as  might  he  expected 
from  its  being  the  common  designation  of  the  (Supreme 
Being,  is  often  applied  to  the  objects  of  heathen  worship, 

not  as  being  actually  divine,  but  as  believed  to  be  such     the  name  occurs  in    Old  Testament  scripture,   is  evi- 
by  their  votaries,   and  in  popular  language  so  called,      d.-ntly  formed  from   .Mai;-..--,  as  a  sort  uf  root  word.    t< 
In  this  case,  however,  the  plural  had  its  common  force; 
the  objects  of  worship  referred  to  were  Klohim.  (>r  j,fnds. 


nature,  and  indeed  is  applied  by  our  Lord  in  the  ex 
tended  use  he  makes  of  the  passage  just  referred  to 
from  Ps.  Ixxxii.,  Jn.  x.  35. 

It  will  be  perceived,  from  what  has  been  said,  that 
the  Hebrew  names  for  God,  whether  EL,  ELOAH.  or 
ELOHIM,  have  a  certain  generalness  about  them.  They 
point  to  God  in  his  superhuman,  uncreated,  essentially 
divine,  and,  as  such,  adorable  essence;  but  do  not 
indicate  what  he  is  in  his  special  relation  to  the  mem 
bers  of  his  covenant.  The  more  peculiar  designation 
of  God  in  this  respect  is  JEHOVAH,  which  throughout 
Old  Testament  scripture  consequently  appears  more 
than  the  others  as  the  strictly  proper  name.  It  is 
therefore  in  connection  with  it,  that  the  being  and 
character  of  God,  as  the  God  of  Revelation,  will  be 
most  fitly  considered. 

GOG.  as  used  by  Ezekiel,  ch.  xxxviii.  xxxix.,  where  alone 


because  they  were  contemplated  as  a  multitude  of  per 
sonalities,  each  being   supposed   to 


his  individual 


characteristics  and  distinct  sphere  of  operations.  But 
that  the  language  employed  was  taken  simply  as  eiir- 
reiit  coin,  ;uid  implied  nothing  as  to  their  proper  exist- 


designate  the  prince,  or  ideal   head,  and  representative 
of  Mau'o--.      Go^  is  described  as  of  the  land  of  Ma»'oi:', 


and  also  prince  of  Rosh,  Mesech,  and  Tubal.    Magog  has 
a  historical  existence,  being  mentioned  among  the  sons 


•f  Japheth,  Ge.  x.  -j  ;  and  .so  also  are  Tubal  and  Mesech. 
These,  however,  like  the  other  names  in  tile  genealogical 
tables  of  Ge.  x.  xi.,  were  the  names,  not  simplv  of 
ence,  was  obvious  from  the  whole  teaching  of  Scripture,  '  individuals,  possibly  in  some  cases  not  of  individuals 
and  is  often  made  the  subject  of  express  declarations;  '  at  all,  but  of  peoples  and  lands.  By  Magog,  therefore, 
as  when  the  idols  of  the  nations  are  called  gods,  that  :  must  be  understood  some  distinct  race°of' Japheth's 
yet  are  no  gods,  Jo.  xvi.  20; 2 Ch.xiii.  9,  or  the  gods  that  have  j  posterity  inhabiting  a  territory  that  also  bore  their 
not  made  the  heavens,  .Jo.  x.  ll;  or  when  thev  are  de 
scribed  as  vanities,  while  Jehovah  is  the  living  and  the 
true  God,  De.xxxii/21;  Jonahii.  *;Ac.  xiv.  15;Do.  v. -Jti.ic.  lie- 
side  this  merely  popular  application  of  the  term  Klohim, 
in  the  sense  of  gods,  there  is  also  an  occasional  use  of 


name;  and  K/ekiel,  when  making  use  of  the  name  in 
one  of  his  characteristic  prophetical  delineations,  fonn« 
out  of  it  another  name  to  designate  one  that  might 
represent  Magog's  power  and  interests.  Ma^og  itself 
i-;  the  name  of  a  very  indefinite  region  of  people. 
N'either  in  K/ekiel  nor  elsewhere  are  any  precise 
landmarks  given  respecting  it;  and  the  other  names 
coupled  with  it,  I  Josh,  Meseeh,  and  Tubal.  are  scarcely 

aid  of  man,  "  Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than     sufficient  to   relieve   us   of    the    uncertainty.     Mesech 
to  uant  a  little  of)  the  Kl,,him:"  and   in  1's.  xevii.      and  'I'ubal  are  understood  to  have  been  the  same  with 

the  Moschi  and  Tibaivni  of  the  Greeks— tribes  that 
inhabited  regions  in  the  district  of  Caucasus.  Rosh 


it  in  Scripture,  according  to  which  it  includes  what  in 
appearance  or  character  has  in  it  something  of  the 
superhuman,  the  divine,  as  in  1's.  viii.  ti,  where  it  is 


7,  "  Worship  him,  all  ye  Klohim."  In  these  passages 
the  angels  have  very  commonly  been  understood  as  the 
beings  more  particularly  intended;  and  such  was  the 
rendering  adopted  by  the  Septuagint,  which  has  also 
been  very  commonly  followed  in  other  versions.  The 
term  may  certainly  be  regarded  as  including  the  angels. 


which  some  would  identify  with  the  Asiatic  Russians, 
and  which  Bochart  has  shown  was  sometimes  applied 
to  theTauri  d'hak^.  iii.  1:11,  must  have  designated  a  land 
people,  somewhere  in  the  same  quarter.  And 
Go.,'  ,,('  !•;/.,  Kiel.  \\ho  is  represented  as 


and  perhaps  more  esjiecially  pointing  to  them-  though      then-fore    tl 

it  should  rather  be  regarded  as  indicating  whatever  has  '  standing  at  the  head  of  the  whole,  must    be  viewed  ;., 

most  in  it  of  a  divine-like  nature  and  dignity,  and   the     in  some  sense  the  head  of  those  tribes  in  the  hi"h  and 


angels  only  as  being  the  purest  reflections  known  to  us 
of  the  divine   essence. 


nnewhat  outlandish  regions  in  the  north-west  of  Asia. 


In  some  passages  it  is  even  That  the  use  made  of  Gog  and  the  tribes  in  question 
applied  to  those  who  have  only  that  limited  approxima  is  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  an  ideal  delineation  a 
tion  to  the  divine,  which  consists  in  bearing  a  portion  prophecy  of  what  might  be  expected  one  day  to  arise 
of  God's  delegated  authority -the  rulers  and  judges  \  of  evil  to  the  cause  and  people  of  God,  from  quarters 
of  Israel,  Kx.  xxii.!.,-.--.  In  allusion  to  this  it  is  said  in  '  and  influences  that  should  hold  much  the  same  relative 
Ps.  Ixxxii.  1,  "  Klohim  (God)  judgeth  among  the  Elo-  position  toward  them  in  the  future,  which  was  done  by 
him"  (gods)— the  supreme  judge  exercises  judgment  in 
the  midst  of  subordinate  ones,  in  order  to  secure  that 
their  judgment  be  in  accordance  with  the  great  prin 
ciples  of  his  righteousness;  and  to  show  that  the  per 
sons  more  immediately  addressed  were  called  gods  only 
in  this  inferior  sense,  and  were  also  unworthy  of  the 
designation,  it  is  added  in  ver.  <>,  7,  "I  have  said  ye  are 
gods,  but  ye  shall  die  like  men,  and  fall  like  one  of  the 
princes."  Hence  also,  as  all  true  Israelites  were  called 


the  rude  and  distant  tribes  in  question-  seems  clear 
from  the  whole  character  of  the  delineation  itself. 
But  it  would  take  too  long  to  investigate  the  subject 
here  (see  Fairhairn's  Kzokiel,  Conmi.  on  xxxviii.  xxxix). 

St.  John  in  the  Apocalypse  has  made  use  of  this 
portion  of  Ezekiel's  prophecies  in  /</x  prospective  out 
line  of  the  church's  future,  c-li.  xx.  s-ni;  and  the  manner 
in  which  he  has  done  so,  confirms  the  view  given  above 
if  its  being  an  ideal  representation  that  was  originally 


sons  of  God,  the  term  might  be  applied  in  a  qualified  j  meant  by  Gog  and  Magog.      For  instead  of  (Jog  out  of 
sense  to  them,  as  havine  in  them  something  of  a  divine  j  Magog— the  one  the  prince,  and  the  other  the  land  or 


CO LAX  6 1 

people — the  apocalyptic  form  of  the  imago  makes  (Jog 
and  Magog  alike  persons,  leaders  of  a  great  assault  :  a 
diversity  in  form,  with  an  agreement  in  substance, 
which  was  doubtless  intended  to  help  us  to  a  right 
understanding  of  the  true  nature  of  the  representation. 

GO'LAN  |/.<v7(J,  the  name  of  a  Levitical  town  of 
some  importance,  in  that  part  of  the  territory  of 
Manasseh  which  lay  to  the  east  of  Jordan,  in  the 
country  of  Bashan,  JJe.  iv.  i;i;  Jos.  xx.  *;  icii.  vi.  ri.  No 
event  of  a  public  nature  is  connected  with  it  in  sacred 
history  ;  but  from  it  in  later  times  the  province 
Gaulonitis  derived  its  name.  The  name  is  still  pre 
served  in  the  Arabic  Julan,  or  Joulan,  which  is  applied 
still  by  the  natives  to  that  particular  district.  The  in 
surrectionist  Judas,  who  is  mentioned  by  Gamaliel,  Ac. 
v.."7,  is  supposed  to  have  been  from  this  district,  as  he  is 
called  by  Josephus  a  Gaulonite  (Ant.  xviii.  1,  iV  Shortly 
after,  however,  in  the  same  chapter,  Josephus  also  calls 
him  a  Galilean.  Possibly  the  one  epithet  denoted  the 
place  of  his  birth,  and  the  other  that  from  which  he 
drew  the  main  part  of  his  retainers. 

GOLD  comes  into  very  early  notice  in  Scripture  as 
one  of  the  representatives  of  wealth,  and  among  the 
precious  metals,  the  chief  material  of  which  ornaments 
of  dress  were  made,  it  appears  to  have  been  known 
and  prized  in  primeval  times,  as  the  land  of  Havilah, 
round  which  one  of  the  rivers  of  paradise  flowed,  is 
said  to  have  been  distinguished  for  the  excellent  quality 
of  its  gold.  Abraham  is  recorded  to  have  been  rich  in 
gold,  as  well  as  silver  and  cattle,  Ge.  xiii.  2;  xxiv.  3i;  and 
golden  ear-rings  and  bracelets  were  among  the  presents 
which  he  sent  by  his  servant,  when  commissioned  to 
go  in  search  of  a  wife  for  Isaac.  Such  facts  show  con 
clusively  how  very  early  gold  came  to  be  esteemed 
among  the  most  valuable  commodities  a  man  could 
have,  and  how  soon  it  was  turned  to  use  in  the  fine 
arts. 

In  subsequent  times  frequent  mention  is  made  of  the 
employment  of  gold  among  the  Israelites,  and  those 
with  whom  they  were  brought  into  contact ;  but  there 
is  nothing  peculiar  in  the  notices,  or  that  calls  for  any 
special  remark,  unless  it  be  the  large  quantities  in 
which  at  certain  periods  it  is  said  to  have  existed,  and 
the  profuseness  with  which  it  appears  to  have  been 
applied.  Eor  example,  in  the  construction  of  the  taber 
nacle  twenty-nine  talents  of  gold  are  said  to  have  been 
expended.  But  this  is  as  nothing  compared  with  what 
was  provided  for  the  temple,  David  himself  having 
prepared  and  offered  toward  its  erection  3000  talents 
of  gold,  and  the  principal  men  of  his  kingdom  5000 
more,  i  Ch.  xxix.  4,  7.  The  exact  worth,  or  even  weight, 
indicated  by  these  numbers  cannot  be  determined  with 
any  certainty ;  for  the  word  talent  was  used  in  different 
countries,  and  in  different  ages  of  the  same  country, 
for  weights  very  widely  dissimilar.  As  used  in  Homer, 
the  talent  was  unquestionably  of  much  smaller  weight 
than  the  later  talent,  which  consisted  of  sixty  mime, 
equal  to  about  eighty-two  pounds  avoirdupois  ;  and 
even  at  a  much  later  period  traces  of  the  same  small 
talent  have  been  found  in  Greek  writers  (Smith's  Diet. 

of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiq.  "Pondera").      There  is  reason  to 

believe,  that  the  Babylonian  system  of  weights,  or  some 
other  ancient  oriental  system,  exercised  an  important 
influence  on  the  later  Grecian  mode  of  reckoning ;  and 
it  is  extremely  probable  that  it  did  so  likewise  on  that 
of  the  later  Hebrew  ;  in  both  cases  alike  rendering  the 
talent  much  larger  than  it  had  been  originally.  (Sec 


8  COLD 

WEIGHTS.)  This  supposition  is  favoured  by  the  con 
sideration,  in  regard  to  the  tabernacle,  that  there  appears 
to  have  been  no  adequate  reason,  scarcely  indeed  room, 
for  the  employment  about  it  of  so  many  as  twenty-nine 
talents  of  gold,  if  these  talents  weighed  each  eighty-two 
pounds.  By  much  the  greater  proportion  of  what  was 
used  went  to  the  construction  of  thin  plates  for  cover 
ing  the  boards  of  the  tabernacle  and  some  parts  of  the 
furniture;  and  from  the  extreme  ductility  of  gold,  it  is 
well  known  that  a  comparatively  small  quantity  goes 
a  long  way  in.  this  employment.  It  is  impossible,  there 
fore,  to  say,  with  any  approach  to  certainty,  what  pre 
cise  quantities  of  gold  may  be  indicated  by  the  talents 
specified  in  the  days  of  Moses,  or  even  of  David.  But 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  both  periods  the  propor 
tion  employed  of  this  metal  was  relatively  great,  and 
especially  that  in  the  times  of  David  and  Solomon  it 
existed  in  extraordinary  profusion  ;  so  that,  as  it  is 
said  in  particular  respecting  Solomon's  time,  "gold 
was  nothing  accounted  of,"  iKi.  x.  i!i. 

It  is  right  to  notice,  however,  that  this  singular 
abundance  of  gold  in  early  times  was  not  confined  to 
Palestine  and  the  covenant-people;  it  comes  out  also 
in  the  history  of  other  Asiatic  nations.  Heereii  has 
drawn  attention  to  this  as  one  of  the  peculiarities  con 
nected  with  ancient  Asia,  and  as  raising  a  question, 
which  is  not  quite  easily  solved  as  to  the  quarters 
whence  such  immense  stores  of  this  precious  metal 
may  have  been  derived.  While  various  mountains  in 
Western  and  Northern  Asia  are  known  to  have  yielded 
gold,  he  thinks  that  the  immense  supply  of  it  which 
appears  to  have  existed  in  so  many  countries  of  Central 
Asia,  can  only  be  adequately  accounted  for  by  the  com 
merce  that  was  kept  up  with  the  gold-producing  regions 
of  Africa,  as  well  as  those  of  the  south  and  east  of 
Asia,  in  particular  of  India.  But  as  to  its  plentiful- 
ness  there  can  be  no  doubt.  "  It  has  been  the  constant 
taste,"  he  says,  "of  the  Asiatics  to  employ  their  gold, 
not  so  much  in  coinage,  as  in  ornaments  of  every  sort, 
and  embroidery.  The  thrones  of  their  princes,  the 
furniture  of  their  palaces,  and  especially  all  that  belongs 
to  the  service  of  the  royal  table,  from  the  time  of  Solo 
mon  to  the  present  day,  have  been  fashioned  of  massive 
gold;  their  weapons  have  been  also  thus  decorated,  and 
dresses  or  carpets,  embroidered  with  gold,  have  been 
at  all  times  among  the  most  valued  commodities  of  the 
East.  This  splendour  was  not  a  prerogative  confined 
to  the  Persian  monarchs  alone,  as  if  they  bought  up 
the  gold  in  every  part  of  their  dominions  to  dazzle  the 
eyes  of  their  subjects.  The  same  practice  prevailed 
through  all  the  gradations  of  that  system  of  despo 
tism.  The  satraps  were  comparatively  as  wealthy  as 
their  master,  and  their  inferior  officers  again  in  the  like 
proportion.  We  meet  also  with  occasional  instances 
of  private  individuals  possessed  of  immense  wealth ; 
and,  according  to  Herodotus,  even  a  pastoral  nation  of 
Eastern  Asia  (the  Massagetse)  had  most  of  its  utensils 
of  gold"  (Historical  Researches,  i.  p.2(j).  It  may  be  added,  ill 
further  proof  of  this,  and  in  illustration  also  of  the  dispo 
sition  to  devote  large  quantities  of  gold  to  sacred  uses, 
that  in  the  temple  of  Belus  at  Babylon,  there  is  reported 
to  have  been  found  a  single  statue  of  Belus,  with  a  throne 
and  table,  which  together  weighed  800  talents  of  gold, 
and  in  the  temple  at  large  gold  to  the  amount  of  more 
than  7000  talents.  These  talents  undoubtedly  were  ac 
cording  to  the  large  Babylonian  standard. 

In  regard  to   the   spiritual  senses  that  have   been 


GOLGOTHA 


GOSHEN 


attached  to  gold,  as  used  in  sacred  architecture,  see 
TABERNACLE. 

GOL'GOTHA  [Heb.  nSllSa,  'Jtilyolcth,  but  in  Chaldee 

yulyalta,  a  skull]  occurs  in  2  Ki.  ix.  25,  where  it  is 
said  of  Jezebel,  '"'they  found  no  more  of  her  than  the 
skull."  The  only  other  passages  where  the  word  occurs, 
are  those  in  the  evangelists  which  describe  the  scene  of 
our  Lord's  crucifixion.  "  When  they  were  come  unto 
a  place  called  Golgotha,  that  is  to  say,  A  place  of  a 
skull,"  Mat.  xxvii.  33.  St.  Luke  uses  the  corresponding 
Greek  word  krunion,  for  which  the  Latin  cah-ar'm,  or 
Calvary,  has  been  substituted  in  modern  versions  ;  and 
St.  John  says  Christ  "bearing  his  cross  went  forth  ink) 
a  place  called  of  a  skull  (upaviov),  which  is  called  in  the 
Hebrew  Golgotha/1  ch.  xix.  ir.  In  that  place,  where- 
ever  it  was,  the  evangelists  all  testify  our  Lord  was 
crucified,  and  also  that  he  was  buried;  for  in  the  same 
place  where  he  was  crucified  the  garden  lay  wherein 
was  the  new  tomb,  to  which  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
committed  the  dead  body.  The  question  as  to  the  site 
of  Golgotha,  therefore,  virtually  resolves  itself  into  that 
which  has  been  raised  respecting  the  Holy  Sepulchre; 
and  it  will  be  found  discussed  under  JERUSALEM,  in 
that  part  which  treats  of  the  sepulchre.  It  will  bo  ob 
served,  however,  that  no  indication  is  given  by  the 
evangelists  of  Golgotha  or  Calvary  being  a  mount;  it 
is  simply  spoken  of  as  a  place,  and  a  place  that  had  a 
garden  in  it.  The  idea  of  a  mount  is  supposed  to  have 
arisen  from  the  mention  of  a  rock,  as  that  on  which  the 
church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  was  built.  No  trace  of 
a  mount  connected  with  the  crucifixion  is  found  in  any 
writer  down  to  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  though 
the  term  rock  is  occasionally  used.  Afterwards  the 
pilgrims  appear  to  have  given  currency  to  the  notion, 
and  it  ultimately  became  common.  (Sec  Uobin«'ii,  Re 
searches,  vol.  ii.  p.  17.) 

GOLI'ATH,  the  name  <>f  the  giant  whose  defeat 
and  death  threw  such  glory  around  the  youthful  career 
of  David.  He  is  known  only  as  connected  with  tliat 
memorable  occasion.  (Sie  DAVID,  GIANT.) 

GO'MER  [<;„,!/>!(  I i'<,n\.  1.  Asoii  of  Japheth,  most  pro 
bably  the  eldest,  as  his  name  stands  first  in  the  geiieali  >gy, 
tic.  x.  i',  and  thereafter  the  designation  of  a  people  sprung 
from  him  as  their  common  head.  Like  Magog,  Kosh, 
Mesech,  and  Tubal,  they  appear  in  the  description  of 
Ezekiel  among  the  tribes  of  the  remote  and  barbarous 
North,  ch.  xxxviii.  o.  They  are  commonly  understood  to 
be  the  same  as  the  Cimmcrii,  who  inhabited  the  Tauric 
Chersonese,  and  the  region  near  the  Don  and  Danube. 
From  that  region  as  their  proper  seat  they  made  many 
incursions  into  the  more  genial  climes  of  the  South, 
especially  into  Asia  Minor,  ^lerod.  i.  ii,  if,,  u«,  &c.;ik>ehart, 
Phaleg.x.3.) 

2.  GOMER  is  also  the  name  applied  to  the  liarlot 
whom  Hosea  in  his  vision  is  represented  as  taking  for 
a  wife,  ch.  i.  3.  The  name  was  probably  intended  to 
indicate  her  consummate  wickedness,  as  one  that  had 
completed  her  course  of  transgressions.  She  is  riot  to 
be  understood  as  a  real  wife  of  the  prophet;  the 
transactions  connected  with  her  took  place  in  vision. 
(-S'ee  HOSEA.) 

GOMOR  RHA.  one  of  the  four  cities  in  the  plain 
of  Sodom  that  were  destroyed  by  the  judgment  of 
Heaven,  and  whose  site  is  now  understood  to  be  occu 
pied  by  the  waters  of  the  Salt  or  Dead  Sea.  (See  SALT 
SEA,  SODOM.) 


GO'PHER.  The  wood  of  which  the  ark  was  con 
structed,  Ge.  vi.  14,  and  regarding  which  there  have  been 
many  conjectures.  (.S'te  CYPRESS.)  [j.  H.] 

GOSHEN  [etymology  unknown].  1.  A  district  or 
province  in  Egypt,  which  was  assigned,  at  Joseph's 
intercession,  to  the  family  of  Jacob,  when  they  came  to 
sojourn  in  Egypt,  and  in  which  they  grew  till  they 
became  a  large  people,  Ge.  xlv.  io;  xlvi.  2s.  That  this  was 
also  the  region  in  which  they  continued  to  the  period 
of  their  departure,  appears  from  several  notices  im 
mediately  preceding  this  event,  in  which  Goshcn  is 
expressly  mentioned  as  still  the  place  of  their  abode, 
lix  viii.  L'L';  ix.  -.'6.  The  district  itself  is  nowhere  circum 
stantially  described,  or  even  definitely  indicated  in 
Scripture;  but  a  variety  of  particulars  combine  to  point 
to  the  tract  of  land  which  lies  along  what  was  called 
the  Pelusiac  arm  of  the  Nile,  forming  the  north- eastern 
part  of  the  Delta,  and  that  part  of  the  country  which 
lay  nearest  to  Palestine.  With  this  correspond  several 
of  the  notices  respecting  it,  in  which  it  appears  as  a 
kind  of  border-land,  which  those  coming  from  Canaan 
to  Egypt  must  first  reach;  for,  when  Jacob  was  on  his 
journey  to  Egypt,  Judah  was  sent  on  before  him  as  far 
as  Goshen,  ami  Joseph  goes  up  from  his  usual  place  of 
residence  to  Goshen,  to  meet  his  father,  Ge.  xlvi.  :>s,  »o. 
It  is  also  represented,  in  conformity  with  this  position, 
at  the  last  great  struggle,  as  comparatively  near  to 
Palestine,  by  the  route  that  lay  through  the  land  of  the 
Philistines,  Ex.  xiii.  17.  Then,  while  the  Israelites  do 
not  appear  to  have  had  any  considerable  settlements 
on  the  farther  side  of  the  Nile,  yet  it  is  clear  they  were 
in  a  position  that  admitted  of  ready  access  to  it :  it  was 
on  the  river  (whether  the  main  stream,  or  one  of  the 
branches)  that  the  infant  Moses  was  exposed:  in  con 
nection  with  it  also  that  several  of  the  miracles  wrought 
by  Moses  were  performed;  and  the  fish  of  \\hich  they 
had  been  wont  to  partake,  and  the  modes  of  irrigation 
with  which  they  were  familiar,  bespoke  a  residence 
somewhere  in  its  neighbourhood,  Kx.  ii.  f>;  vii.  l!>;  viii.  f,,  Nu. 
xi.  5;  DC.  xi.in.  Again,  while  such  notices  implied  that 
the  locality  occupied  by  the  Israelites  was  within  reach 
of  the  main  stream,  or  some  one  of  the  branches  of  the 
Nile,  when  it  is  said  that  the  land  was  suited  to  them 
as  a  company  of  shepherds,  implying  access  to  extensive 
pasture- grounds,  Ge.  xlvi.  31-34,  that  three  days  were  suf 
ficient  for  their  going  into  the  wilderness  to  keep  a 
feast  to  the  Lord,  Kx.v.  3,  that  at  the  time  of  their  de 
parture  two  or  three  days  march  actually  carried  them 
to  tin-  Red  Sea,  Kx.  xiii.  14,  *>;  Nu.  xxxiii.  (i,  there  seems  no 
room  to  doubt  that  the  parts  of  the  Nile  and  of  Egypt 
most  nearly  adjoining  Arabia  must  have  been  those 
with  which  they  were  associated.  Accordingly,  the 
Septuagint  translators  expressly  call  it  "Goshen  of 
Arabia"  (Yefftv' Apafiias,  Go.  xlv.  10) — as  also  Pliny  desig 
nates  the  district  stretching  along  the  east  side  of  the 
Pelusiac  branch  of  the  Nile,  "  the  Arabic  iiomc " 
(v.  it)  The  district  of  Goshen  is  so  far  indicated  by  these 
various  particulars  that  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  as  to  its  general  position — though  it  is  impossible 
to  define  with  any  exactness  its  proper  boundaries  ; 
and  of  the  two  cities  mentioned  in  connection  with  it — 
Pithom  and  Rarneses,  Ex.  i.n,  the  site  of  neither  is  cer 
tainly  known,  while  still  there  is  sufficient  ground  for 
holding  them  to  have  stood  between  the  Nile  and  the 
Red  Sea.  It  was  from  Rameses,  as  their  common 
rendezvous,  that  the  Israelites  set  out  on  their  final 
departure  from  the  land  of  their  sojourn,  Ex.  xii.  3";  and 


GOSHEN 


(JOSH  EX 


as  their  second  encampment  brought  them  to  the  edge 
of  the  wilderness.  Nu.  xxxiii.c,  it  must  have  been  one  of 
the  border-cities,  at  no  great  distance  from  the  northern 
extremity  of  the  lied  Sea;  according  to  Dr.  Koliinson, 
from  thirty  to  thirty- five  miles. 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  suppose  that  during 
the  whole  period  of  the  sojourn  in  Egypt,  the  Israelites 
continued  to  dwell  altogether  within  the  same  region: 
as  they  multiplied  in  number,  and  in  process  of  time 
began  to  devote  themselves  to  other  occupations,  they 
would  naturally  extend  their  settlements,  and,  at 
various  points,  become  more  intermingled  with  the 
population  of  Egypt.  It  is  quite  possible  that  certain 
of  their  number  crossed  the  Pelusiac  arm  of  the  Nile, 
and  acquired  dwellings  or  possessions  in  the  tract  Ivinu 
between  it  and  the  Tanitic  (Robinson, Res. i.  p.  70;  Uenysuu- 
lieiv,  Kgypt  and  licoks  of  iiosi->,  p.  -i:.,  TIMHS.)  Particular  fami 
lies  may  have  also  shot  out  in  other  directions;  and  in 
this  way  would  naturally  arise  that  freer  intercourse 
between  them  and  the  families  of  Egypt,  which  ap 
pears  to  be  implied  in  some  of  the  later  notices,  Kx.  xi.  -2; 
xii.  i-2- -23.  Still,  what  we  have  indicated  above  as  the 
It'.nd  of  (ioshen,  the  district  in  which  the  original 
r-ettlers  from  Canaan  were  assigned  a  home,  continued 
to  the  last  the  head- quarters  of  the  co venant- people  ; 
and  in  this,  or  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  the  great 
body  of  them  would  assuredly  be  found,  when  the 
movements  fairly  commenced  which  were  directed 
toward  their  escape.  (joshen,  it  would  seem,  was 
remarkably  suited  to  their  position  in  Egypt,  whether 
viewed  in  respect  to  its  original,  or  to  its  future  and 
more  mature  state.  There  are  several  wadys  belonging 
to  the  district,  which  furnish  excellent  pasture-lands, 
so  that  there  are  still  more  flocks  and  herds  to  be  seen 
in  it  than  in  any  other  part  of  Egypt;  and,  as  already 
mentioned,  its  vicinity  to  the  Arabian  peninsula  afforded 
opportunities  for  the  Israelitish  shepherds  conducting 
their  flocks  at  fitting  times  to  the  wadys  of  the  desert. 
At  the  present  day  this  is  still  done  to  a  considerable 
extent  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  same  district  (Robinson, 
i.  P.  .111,  77.)  But — as  by  and  by  the  descendents  of  the 
shepherd  patriarchs  began  in  good  measure  to  drop — 
were  obliged  by  the  very  rapidity  of  their  increase  to 
drop — their  nomadic  habits,  and  betake  to  the  culture 
of  the  soil,  and  the  other  employments  of  social  life, 
(Joshen  had  capabilities  enough  to  call  forth  their  ener 
gies.  Although  the  expression  applied  to  it  by  Pharai  >h, 
Oe.  xlvii.  <i,  "the  best  of  the  land,"  should  possibly  be 
taken  in  a  relative  rather  than  an  absolute  sense,  it 
must  yet  be  understood  to  designate  the  region  as  every 
way  adapted  to  an  enterprising  and  progressive  people. 
Even  still  it  is  considered  the  best  province  of  Egypt. 
bearing  the  name  of  esh-Shurkiyeh,  and  yields  the 
largest  revenue  (Robinson,  i.  p.  7*).  This  arises  chiefly 
from  its  being  well  intersected  by  canals,  and  so  level 
that  large  portions  of  it  are  regularly  overflowed  by  the 
Nile.  Certain  tracts  are  even  represented  as  fertile ; 
and  a  large  plain  or  wady  (Tumilat),  which  divides  the 
district  into  two  halves  —a  northern  and  a  southern — 
in  particular  is  well  adapted  for  cultivation.  And 
such  doubtless  was  the  character  of  the  region  in  a 
much  higher  degree  in  the  earlier  and  more  flourishing  j 
periods  of  Israelitish  history;  for  by  the  misrule  and 
negligence  of  later  times,  there  have  come  to  be  in  many 
parts  large  accumulations  of  sand  and  extensive  bogs, 
where  probably  there  once  were  fertile  fields  and  a 
thriving  population.  Even  now  JJobinson  tells  us 


"  there  are  so  many  villages  deserted,  that  another 
million  might  be  sustained  in  the  district,  and  the  soil 
is  capable  of  higher  tillage  to  an  indefinite  extent."  It 
may  therefore  with  confidence  be  concluded,  that  the 
nature  and  situation  of  the  district  are  in  perfect  ac 
cordance  with  the  relation-  in  which  it  stood  to  the 
offspring  of  .Jacob,  and  that  all  the  notices  in  the  Pen 
tateuch  respecting  it  are  perfectly  consistent  both  with 
each  other,  and  with  what  is  otherwise  known  of  the 
locality. 

The  relation  of  (.Joshen  to  the  common  residence  of  the 
kings  of  Egypt  is  nowhere  distinctly  stated.  It  is  impliei  1, 
both  in  the  earlier  and  in  the  later  accounts,  that  the 
distance  was  not  very  great  between  the  royal  seat  and 
the  chief  settlements  of  the  Hebrews;  more  especially 
in  the  later  accounts,  which  represent  Moses  as  for  a 
considerable  time,  and  amid  a  great  variety  of  transac 
tions,  mediating  without  apparent  difficulty  or  long 
delay  between  Pharaoh  on  the  one  hand  and  the  head.- 
of  the  covenant  people  on  the  other.  It  is  to  be  remem 
bered,  however,  that  the  narrative  is  extremely  brief, 
and  the  actual  circumstances  may  have  been  such  as  to 
require  at  several  points  both  greater  time  and  more 
complicated  agencies  than  have  found  any  explicit 
record  from  the  pen  of  the  sacred  historian.  From  the 
field  of  Zoan  being  mentioned  in  connection  with  the 
wonders  of  Moses,  i's.  l.xxviii.  r>,  i:;,  some  have  supposed 
that  the  town  of  that  name,  situated  in  the  Tanitic 
nome,  must  have  been  the  capital  of  Pharaoh  at  the 
time.  Bochart  and  Hcngstenberg.  among  others,  have 
advocated  this  view,  and  said  nearly  all  that  is  possible 
for  it,  but  they  have  not  been  able  to  establish  the 
point  altogether  satisfactorily;  and  it  is  quite  probable 
that  Zoan,  in  the  passage  referred  to,  is  used  in  a 
general  sense,  as  a  kind  of  representative  city  in  the 
land  of  Egypt  for  the  land  itself  (see  Kurtz,  History  of  Old 
Cov.  sect.  41).  Knowing  so  little  of  the  political  circum 
stances  of  Egypt  at  the  time  of  Israel's  connection  with 
it,  we  want  the  materials  for  determining  with  any 
certainty  the  precise  city  in  which  either  Joseph  ruled 
with  one  Pharaoh,  or  Moses  negotiated  with  another. 
On  such  a  subject  conjectures  may  be  hazarded,  and  dis 
putes  renewed  ever  so  frequently. 

In  regard  als'>  to  the  final  connection  of  the  Israelites 
with  the  land  of  Goshen — their  mode  of  assembling- 
together  when  the  crisis  actually  came,  and  the  measures 
of  all  sorts  adopted  for  conducting  so  vast  a  company, 
in  face  of  the  most  formidable  obstacles  both  in  front  and 
behind — it  must  ever  be  possible  for  men  of  inquisitive 
and  captious  spirits  to  start  questions  of  doubt  and 
difficulty,  which  the  briefness  of  the  sacred  narrative 
provides  no  materials  for  properly  solving.  Such  ques 
tions  have  of  late  particularly  been  pressed ;  but  they 
are  essentially  unfair,  since  they  proceed  mainly  upon 
our  ignorance  <  >f  the  minuter  circumstances  and  details  of 
the  transactions.  It  is  asked  how  could  such  multitudes, 
including  so  many  women  and  children,  be  brought  to 
gether  and  carried  simultaneously  over  trackless  deserts' 
How  could  provisions  necessary  for  their  sustenance 
tie  obtained,  or  provender  sufficient  for  all  their  sheep 
and  cattle?  Doubtless  such  things  were  well  thought 
of  beforehand,  and  all  needful  precautions  taken.  The 
man  who  could  conduct  such  a  warfare  with  the  king 
of  Egypt,  and  was  himself  skilled  in  all  the  learning  and 
wisdom  of  the  country,  would  not  leave  matters  un- 
cared  for  which  even  to  common  prudence  and  fore 
sight  plainly  called  for  special  attention.  It  is  to  be 


GOSPEL 


'1 


GOSPEL 


remembered  also,  that  while  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
as  well  as  from  what  appears  in  the  narrative,  the  great 
body  of  full-grown  men  must  have  been  kept  pretty 
close  together,  and  marched  in  order,  there  was  not  the 
same  necessity  for  this  being  done  with  the  other  mem 
bers  of  the  company  ;  and  the  greater  part  of  the  flocks 
and  herds  were  in  all  probability  distributed  at  some 
distance  among  the  wadys  which  adjoined  Goshen  and 
stretched  into  the  desert.  On  such  points  the  sacred 
history  gives  no  specific  information,  but  leaves  it  to  be 
understood  that  everything  was  done  which  prudence 
might  dictate,  or  the  circumstances  of  the  ca>e  require. 
And  on  this  understanding  the  accounts  of  what  took 
place  ought  in  all  fairness  to  be  perused. 

2.  GOSHEX.  The  name  occurs  altogether  three 
times  in  the  book  of  Joshua — twice  as  the  designation 
of  a  district,  "  the  land  of  Goslien,"  di.  x.  11  :  xi  iti;  and 
once  as  a  city,  eh.  xv.  .11,  among  the  places  and  towns 
conquered  by  the  Israelites,  and  within  the  tribe  of 
Judah.  The  city  is  connected  with  the  hill-country  of 
that  tribe,  and  the  land  of  (Jo-ben  is  simply  mentioned 
as  being  in  the  south  country;  but  whether  the  two 
stood  related  to  each  other  as  town  and  country,  or 
were  in  separate  localities,  is  not  known.  The  proba 
bility  certainly  is,  that  they  were  so  related,  as  it  is  by 
no  HUMUS  likely  that  there  should  have  been  two 
(iosheiis  entirely  distinct  yet  both  within  the  territory, 
and  apparently  the  more  southerly  portion  of  the  ter 
ritory,  of  Judah.  l>ut  modern  research  has  found  no 
trace  of  a  Goshen  in  that  region. 

GOSPEL,  GOSPELS.  The  Greek  word  for  \\liich 
gospel  has  been  used  as  the  equivalent  is  (i'a~,y(\ioi', 
which  in  earlier  Greek  signified  a  present  ^iven  to  any 
one  for  bringing  good  tidings,  or  a  sacrifice  oH'i-red  in 
thanksgiving  for  such  tidings  having  conn. — the  u'ods,  in 
the  latter  case,  being  regarded  as  the  senders  of  them. 
Hut  in  later  Greek  it  was  used  for  tin  i/nml  t!it!n>/it 
themselves,  and  in  the  Sept.  it  is  the  common  rendering 

forrnVw'a1'"--'/'"''"''*.  "./".'//»/  i,)ixx,t!/i.     In  the  XewTes- 
T         : 

tament  it  denotes  primarily  the  u'lad  tidings  respecting 
Messiah  and  his  kingdom;  this  was  emphatically  tin- 
!/<,x/til  (Saxon,  '/oil*  -x/x  //,  i.r.  good  teaching  or  tidings); 
and  by  and  by  the  word  came  to  be  applied  to  the 
scheme  of  grace  and  truth  which  the  glad  tidings  em 
bodied.  It  was  hence,  according  to  another  and  still 
later  application,  quite  naturally  employed  as  a  common 
title  or  heading  for  the  historical  accounts  which  re 
cord  the  great  facts  that  constitute  the  ground  and 
basis  of  Christianity.  For  these  i/najnf  was  a  more 
appropriate  name  than  ni<>,x><rx  (a.iroiJLv^^ovfVfj.a.ra\ 
which  Justin  Martyr  designates  them,  or  liir.<  (/Jioi),  a 
term  also  occasionally  employed  in  ancient  times;  since 
they  do  not  profess  to  be.  nor  should  they  be  regarded 
as  either  complete  personal  reminiscences,  or  full  life- 
histories  of  Jesus,  but  rather  the  records  of  such  things 
as  the  individual  writers  were  led,  through  the  Spirit,  to 
select  out  of  the  manifold  variety  that  belonged  to  his 
marvellous  history.  They  have  been  called  the  gospel 
according  t<>  (Kara)  the  respective  writer  of  each — 
according  to  Matthew,  Mark.  &c.  The  relation  thus 
indicated  between  the  evangelist  and  the  production 
that  bears  his  name  is  not  very  definite  and  precise;  but 
it  cannot  be  understood  in  the  loose  sense  adopted  in  for 
mer  times  byFaustus  the  Manichean,  and  more  recently 
by  some  rationalists,  as  if  only  the  main  substance  of 
each  narrative  were  t>  be  associated  with  the  particular 


writer,  while,  in  its  existing  form,  it  may  have  received 
not  a  few  later  additions.  This  cannot  be  allowed. 
The  gospel  according  to  such  an  one,  to  Matthew  for 
example,  must  mean  the  gospel  as  done  by  his  hand, 
or  exhibited  after  his  mode  of  narration.  So  that 
the  gospel  according  to  Matthew  does  not  essentially 
differ  from  the  gospel  of  Matthew.  ]>ut  the  former 
mode  of  expressing  the  relationship  is  the  more  befitting, 
since  as  a  gospel  the  narrative  could  be  called  his  only 
in  a  qualified  sense;  he  was  but.  as  it  were,  the  sorter 
of  the  materials  composing  it.  in  no  proper  sense  the 
author  of  them. 

Very  early  notices  are  found  of  these  gospels,  and 
of  these  alone,  as  authentic.  There  were  certain  heretics 
who  refused  to  own  more  than  one  of  them,  and  are 
said  to  have  mutilated  even  that.  There  were  also 
various  other  writings  which  assumed  the  name  of 
gospels,  and  which  are  known  to  have  existed,  some 
in  the  third,  and  others  in  the  next  and  following  cen 
turies.  ]!ut  the  church  never  recogni/ed  more  than 
four  canonical  or  authentic  gospels;  and  from  the  be 
ginning  of  the  second  century  onwards,  we  have  un 
doubted  evidence  of  the  recognition  of  these.  Tla 
opponents  and  corruptt-rs  of  Christianity  themselves 
have  borne  incidental  but  important  testimony  on  this 
jiniiit:  for  in  the  controversies  they  raised,  the  gospels 
\\vre  brought  into  notice  as  well-known  and  accredited 
documents.  C'elsus  not  only  refers  generally  to  the 
narratives  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  but  speaks  of  them 
as  three  or  four,  makes  quotations  from  them,  tries  to 
find  discrepancies  in  them:  from  which  we  can  easily  per 
ceive  that  it  was  our  present  gospels  he  had  in  his  hands 
(I/xrUncr's  Works,  viii.  ji  !>,  scq  )  Then,  in  regard  to  the 
heretic.-,  it  i-  di-tiiictly  reported  by  llippolvtus  of  one 
«f  the  earlie.-t  of  tin  in,  Basilides,  who  lived  toward 
the  he^inninu'  »f  the  second  century,  that  he  admitted 
"  the  facts  of  our  Saviour's  life,  as  these  are  written 
iu  the  gospels"  (lln-r .  vii.  •_>:),  {Hitting,  however,  a  mys 
tical  explanation  on  them.  Of  Valentinus.  it  is  affirmed 
by  Tertullian  (IK-  i'rn's,-rip  H^ivt.),  that  he  accepted  "the 
whole  instrument,"  meaning  thereby  the  entire  letter 
of  New  Testament  scripture;  and  in  the  quotations 
given  from  his  writings  by  Hippolytus  and  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  there  are  undoubted  references  to 
all  the  gospels  except  Mark's,  as  well  as  to  many  of 
the  epistles  of  the  New  Testament.  The  case  of  Tatian 
is  still  more  striking;  for  after  having  become  a  hearer 
and  disci]. le  of  Justin  Martyr  at  Koine,  he  departed  in 
a  measure  from  sound  doctrine,  imbibing  some  of  the 
notions  of  Mareion,  and  placing  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  sect  called  Encratites;  but  still  he  kept  to  a  certain 
historical  belief  in  Christianity,  and  composed  his  I)iu- 
fixxin'("i>,  which  was  a  kind  of  harmony  or  combination 
of  the  four  gospels,  and  which  Kusebius  testifies  was 
partially  current  in  his  day  (Keel.  Hist.  iv.  L'!i ;  see  also 
Norti  in  on  the  d'cn  nine  in  xx  unit  A  uthenticity  of  (lie  d'oxpclx, 
v,.i.  ii.,  where  the  evidence  yielded  by  the  early  heretics 
for  the  gospels  is  well  brought  out  and  exhibited.) 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  the  present 
gospels  existed  as  far  back  as  our  historical  records 
can  carry  us,  and  existed  as  authoritative  documents 
respecting  the  Christian  faith.  1'ut  it  is  important  to 
note,  that  while  the  external  testimony  is  clear  and 
conclusive  thus  far,  it  is  perfectly  silent  as  to  the  r/enexlg, 
or  distinct  origin  of  these  gospels,  and  their  relation 
one  to  another.  They  seem  to  have  been  viewed  as  so 
many  original  and  independent  sources,  each  one  as  much 


GOSPEL 


GOSPEL 


so  as  the  others.  The  critical  spirit  of  modern  times  has 
refused  to  halt  at  this  point;  it  has  sought  to  go  farther, 
and  to  get  at.  so  to  speak,  the  genealogy  of  the  several 
gospels,  with  their  different,  degrees  of  relatii  mship  to  eacli 
other.  But  this  has  proved  a  somewhat  impractical  Jo 
task.  The  subject  has  consequently  licen  turned  into 
a  great  variety  of  shapes  and  forms.  Each  of  the 
four  gospels  lias  in  turn  been  assumed,  by  different 
critics,  to  be  the  first,  out  of  which  the  others  suc 
cessively  arose;  and  the  theory  ha-;  once  and  again  been 
propounded  of  some  prior,  more  strictly  original  gospel, 
no  longer  extant,  which  formed  the  common  ba<is  of 
them  all.  As  a  proof  how  differently  critics  judge  upon 
such  points,  and  how  readily  the  most  conflicting 
opinions  meet  with  abettors,  it  may  simply  be  noticed 
in  respect  to  the  first  three  gospels,  that  in  recent 
times  the  gospel  of  .Mark  has  most  commonly  been 
considered  the  fundamental  one.  from  which  the  gos 
pels  of  Matthew  and  Luke  were  constructed  by  the 
help  of  additional  matter:  but  so  far  from  according 
with  this  view,  De  Wette  held  it  to  bo  certain,  that 
Mark  drew  his  materials  almost  entirely  from  Mat 
thew  and  Luke,  and  that  his  gospel  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  sort  of  connecting  bond  between  the  two.  The 
whole  may  justly  be  characterized  as  a  piece  of  rash 
and  profitless  speculation.  The  proper  materials  are 
wanting  for  such  an  inquiry;  nor  can  it  well  be  prose 
cuted,  without  countenancing,  or  appearing  to  counte 
nance,  the  idea  of  there  being  something  legendary  in 
one  or  more  of  the  gospels.  Let  it  only  be  granted, 
that  the  several  writers  were  either  themselves  eye  and 
ear  witnesses  of  what  they  record,  or  conversant  with 
those  who  had  been  so,  and  that  they  received  special 
grace  and  guidance  from  the  Holy  Spirit  to  give  a 
faithful  account  of  the  things  brought  within  their 
cognizance,  and  there  will  be  found  nothing,  either  in 
the  coincidences  or  the  diversities  of  the  several  gos 
pels,  to  hinder  their  being  ranked  as  original  and  in 
dependent,  as  well  as,  in  the  highest  sense,  trustworthy 
sources.  It  is  only  by  ignoring  one  or  other  of  these 
necessary  elements,  that  an  air  of  plausibility  and  im 
portance  conies  to  be  thrown  around  the  speculative 
inquiries  that  have  been  referred  to. 

The  stream  of  ancient  tradition,  and  the  indications 
of  early  belief,  are  in  favour  of  the  present  order  of 
the  gospels,  as  having  its  foundation  in  nature,  and 
one  that  ought  to  be  maintained.  In  the  old  Latin 
and  Gothic  versions,  indeed,  the  gospels  of  Matthew 
and  John  stand  first,  then  those  of  Mark  and  Luke. 
The  same  order  is  observed  in  one  of  the  older  MSS. 
the  Codex  Cantabrigiensis.  But  these  are  the  chief 
exceptions  to  the  usual  order :  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  they  sprung  out  of  a  regard  to  the  apostoli 
cal  position  of  Matthew  and  John,  which,  it  was 
thought,  entitled  their  writings  to  a  certain  precedence 
over  others  of  the  same  class.  But  this  consideration 
was  not  generally  deemed  sufficient  to  alter  an  existing 
order ;  and  rightly.  For,  as  the  writings  themselves 
were  historical,  it  was  fit  that  the  historical  element 
should  determine  the  order  which  they  were  to  occupy 
in  the  canon.  All  ancient  testimonies  concur  in  re 
presenting  the  gospel  of  Matthew  as  the  earliest  in  its 
appearance,  and  that  of  John  as  the  latest.  Hence 
they  had  respectively  the  first  and  the  last  places  in 
the  collection  assigned  them;  and  it  is  but  natural  to 
infer,  that  the  position  of  Mark's  gospel  as  the  second, 
and  of  Luke's  as  the  third,  in  like  manner  rested  on  a 


i  in 

I/' 


chronological  basis.  But  in  that  case  the  two  gospels 
which  were  written,  not  by  apostles  but  by  evangelists, 
must  have  been  issued  during  the  lifetime  of  apostles; 
and  standing,  as  they  do,  in  the  centre  with  an  aposto 
lic  writing  on  either  side  of  them,  they  carry  along  with 
them  the  judgment  of  the  ancient  church,  as  being  not 
only  of  the  same  age,  but  also  parallel  in  authority  and 
importance  with  the  others. 

In  regard  to  the  rcusoiis  that  nuuj  he  axzlijntd  fur  tltix 
fourfold  iiniiihcr  of  the  rjnspclx,  there  has  been  consider 
able  diversity  of  opinion,  but  witli  the  more  thoughtful 
and  serious  class  of  interpreters  a  visible  progress  to 
wards  similarity  of  view.  In  ancient  times  there  were 
not  wanting  indications  of  a  right  feeling  upon  the 
subject,  though  it  too  commonly  threw  itself  into  fan 
ciful  and  even  fantastic  forms.  The  early  fathers  ap 
pear  to  have  felt  that  there  was  a,  unitv  amidst  the 
diversity,  and  that  in  the  four  evangelists  we  have 
rather  a  fourfold  gospel  than  four  entirely  distinct  gos 
pels.  The  name  of  T-.uayytXi.oi'.  or  JZvayye\iKov,  was 
not  unfrequently  applied  to  the  joint  collection.  Ire- 
iiseus  called  this  collection  by  the  significant  appellation 
of  evayye\iov  rerpd/iLopfiov,  the  four-formed  gospel  (litres 
iii.  11);  and  the  somewhat  similar  epithet  of  reTpdyuvov, 
our-cornered,  is  applied  by  Origen.  The  expressions 
obviously  point  to  a  fourfold  aspect  supposed  to  lie  in 
the  still  substantially  one  and  harmonious  exhibition 
they  contain  of  the  life  and  character  of  .Jesus.  That 
in  particular  of  Ireiueus  seems  to  point  to  such  a  unity 
in  diversity,  or  diversity  in  unity,  as  belonged  to  the 
cherubic  forms  in  Ezckiel's  description  of  them,  eh.  i.  in, 
and  indicates,  even  at  that  early  period,  a  di.-position  to 
contemplate  the  different  evangelists  as  somehow  re 
lated  to  the  cherubim.  For  anything  we  know,  this 
father  was  the  first  who  pointed  the  thoughts  of  the 
church  in  that  direction:  but  in  doing  so  he  struck  a 
chord  which  vibrated  afterwards  in  many  bosoms,  and 
which  in  process  of  time  allied  itself  to  some  of  the  best 
poetry  of  the  middle  ages.  Both  the  fathers  them 
selves,  however,  and  the  poetical  writers  of  later  times, 
while  they  delighted  to  think  of  the  evangelists  under 
tlie  likeness  of  the  cherubic  forms,  differed  to  some  ex 
tent  in  their  modes  of  exhibiting  the  resemblance.  The 
distribution  most  commonly  made  was  not  that  of 
Irenreus,  who  assigns  the  lion  to  John  and  the  eagle  to 
Mark,  but  that  of  Jerome  who  connects  John  with  the 
eagle  and  Mark  with  the  lion,  as  also  the  man  with 
Matthew  and  the  calf  with  Luke.  Ambrose.  Gre.orv 
the  Great,  and  indeed  the  majority  of  patristic  and 
mediaeval  writers,  followed  the  same  order,  though 
occasionally  other  collocations  are  met  with,  as  when 
Athanasius  couples  the  calf  with  Mark,  the  lion  with 
Luke,  and  the  eau'lo  with  John:  and  Augustine  again 
presents  some  further  variation.  But  the  connection 
itself  was  manifestly  fanciful,  and  it  is  needless  to  trace 
its  exhibition  further,  as  it  naturally  assumed  different 
shapes  in  the  hands  of  different  writers.  Some  of  the 
better  specimens  of  the  poetry  referred  to  may  be  seen 
in  Trench's  Sacred  Latin  Pnetnj. 

This,  however,  was  not  the  only  direction  which  the 
early  speculations  on  the  fourfold  gospel  took.  The 
|  number  was  considered  with  reference  sometimes  to  the 
four  rivers  of  paradise;  sometimes  to  the  four  cardinal 
virtues;  sometimes,  again,  the  reason  was  sought  in  the 
fact  that  the  revelation  contained  in  them  consists  of 
four  parts — doctrine,  precepts,  threatenings,  and  pro 
mises;  or  because  the  world  has  four  quarters,  and  the 


GOSPEL  (3 

gospel  is  destined  to  be  of  world-wide  extent.  (See 
Suicer,  Thesaurus,  art.  ~Evayye\ioi>.)  Yet  with  all  that 
there  is  of  an  arbitrary  or  fanciful  nature  in  such  com 
parative  representations,  one  cannot  but  perceive  in 
them  a  sound  feeling  at  bottom,  breathing  desire  and 
prompting  inquiry  after  the  true  reason,  however  far  it 
might  yet  be  to  seek.  One  is  even  conscious  of  a  nearer 
approximation  to  the  truth  than  in  the  spirit  which 
dictated  the  following  statement  of  Michaelis,  "That 
the  number  of  our  present  gospels  amounts  to  precisely 
four,  we  can  ascribe  to  no  other  cause  than  mere  acci 
dent;"  or  even  in  the  more  guarded  deliverance  of  his 
annotator,  Marsh,  "To  ask  why  the  number  of  authen 
tic  Greek  gospels  was  precisely  four,  and  not  either 
three  or  five,  is  as  absurd  as  it  would  be  to  ask,  why 
Cicero  wrote  precisely  nine  epistles  to  Lentulus,  and 
not  either  eight  or  ten." 

Such  statements  obviously  proceed  upon  a  simply  ex 
ternal  view  of  the  matter.  The  facts  of  the  gospel  age 
are  contemplated  as  among  the  ordinary  events  of  his 
tory,  requiring,  indeed,  certain  witnesses  to  attest  them, 


1 5  GOSPEL 

doctrine  transmitted  in  an  authentic  form  to  after 
ages,  said,  "Had  he,  in  whom  the  divine  and  the 
human  were  combined  in  unbroken  harmony,  intended 
to  do  this  himself,  he  could  not  but  have  given  to  the 
church  the  perfect  contents  of  his  doctrine  in  a  perfect 
form.  Well  was  it,  however,  for  the  course  of  develop 
ment  which  God  intended  for  his  kingdom,  that  what 
could  be  done  was  not  done.  The  truth  of  God  was 
not  to  be  presented  in  a  fixed  and  absolute  form,  but 
in  manifold  and  peculiar  representations,  designed  to 
complete  each  other,  and  which,  bearing  the  stamp  at 
once  of  God's  inspiration  and  man's  imperfection,  were 
to  be  developed  by  the  activity  of  free  minds,  in  free 
and  lively  appropriation  of  what  God  had  given  by  his 
Spirit."  Holding,  however,  this  general  reason  for  a 
fourfold  exhibition  of  the  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus, 
and  this  general  view  of  the  gospels  to  each  other, 
Olshausen  admits  that  it  is  not  quite  easy  to  estimate 
with  precision  the  distinctive  character,  and  indicate 
the  relative  place,  of  each  of  the  gospels.  To  a  certain 
extent  there  is  no  great  difficulty;  especially  as  regards 


and  a  few  writers  of   competent  ability  and  sufficient     the  first  and  the  last  of  the  gospels.      It  is  plain  that 
information  to  compose  authentic  notices  of  them  for     St.  Matthew  in  his  narrative   seeks  more  to  meet  th 


future  generations  ;  but  how  many  these  might  be,  or 
how  long,  depended  entirely  upon  the  circumstances  of 
the  time,  and  was  in  itself  a  matter  of  comparatively 
little  moment,  if  only  a  veritable  and  well-attested  record 
was  provided.  Undoubtedly  there  is  an  element  of 
great  importance  even  in  this  external  aspect  of  the 
question.  Christianity  was  to  have  a  historical  basis, 
and  it  could  not  dispense  with  a  competent  historical 
attestation.  And  in  this  point  of  view,  if  we  could  not 
affirm  that  precisely  four  separate  records  were  proper 
and  ncce 


difficulty  in  p 
ceiving  the  wisdom  or  moral  propriety  of  providing 
such  a  number  -combining,  as  it  does,  adequacy  with 
out  needless  redundancy;  securing  a  becoming  variety 
of  independent  accounts,  and  yet  no  wearisome  same 
ness  and  iteration  of  details.  Contemplating  the  sub 
ject  from  the  simply  historical  point  of  view,  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  more  would  have  been  unneces 
sary,  and  fewer  barely  sufficient. 

Vet  it  is  true  of  this,  as  of  every  other  part  of  the 
divine  procedure,  that  we  never  can  see  the  full  meaning 
or  reason  of  it  so  long  as  it  is  considered  only  in  its 
external  aspects  and  relations.  There  is  here  also  an 
inner  region,  which  requires  to  be  looked  into,  though  it 


Judaistie  tendency,  and  St.  John  the  Gnostic;  that  the 
one  also  exhibits  more  of  the  human  and  familiar  aspect 
of  Christ's  character,  the  other  more  of  his  divine  and 
lofty  nature.  The  peculiarities  are  less  marked  in  the 
case  of  the  other  two  evangelists,  and  it  is  chiefly  with 
respect  to  them  that  the  difficulty  of  a  full  and  sharply 
drawn  series  of  distinctions  presents  itself.  All  that 
occurred  to  Olshausen  was,  that  they  both  seemed  to  be 
characterized  by  the  pagano- Christian  element — Mark 
exhibiting  it  more  in  the  Roman,  Luke  more  in  the 
Greek  form  ;  a  view  which  is  manifestly  too  vague  and 
indefinite  to  lie  quite  satisfactory  as  to  either  of  them. 
It  points,  however,  in  the  proper  direction. 

The  vein  of  thought  thus  opened  by  Olshausen  was  not 
long  in  being  worked  at  by  others;  and  instead  of  the 
previous  neglect,  there  is  some  danger  of  the  opposite 
extreme  l>eing  run  into,  and  of  too  much  account  being 
made  of  the  differences  in  tendency  and  aim  among  the 
several  evangelists.  As  an  example  of  excess  in  this 
direction  — though  only  one  out  of  several  that  might 
be  named— we  may  point  to  the  l-\>u.r  WitncMcs  of  LJa 
Costa;  in  which,  while  there  is  not  wanting  acuteness 
of  observation  and  pains-taking  diligence,  there  is  ap 
parent  also  a  considerable  straining,  occasionally  even 


has  only  of  late  become  the  subject  of  wisely-directed  somewhat  of  a  sorting  of  the  materials,  with  the  view 
inquiry.  Olshausen,  perhaps,  lias  the  merit  of  first  of  bringing -clearly  and  prominently  out  the  influence 
setting  investigation  here  upon  the  right  track.  In  supposed  to  be  exercised  on  the  several  gospel  narra- 
the  introduction  to  his  Commentary  on  the  (ioxptU  he  lives  by  the  position  and  circumstances  of  the  respective 
remarks,  "The  life  of  Christ  afforded  such  an  abundance  writers.  Almost  everything  wherein  any  of  the  narra- 
of  sacred  phenomena,  and  his  discourses  breathed  forth  tives  differs  from  the  others,  is  laid  to  the  account  of 
so  rich  a  stream  of  life  through  the  circle  of  his  disci-  the  individual's  condition  or  history— Matthew  inserts 
pies,  that  single  individuals  were  unable  fully  to  com-  this  or  omits  that,  because  he  had  been  a  publican,  Mark 
prehend  the  exceeding  greatness  of  his  person.  In  him  because  he  had  been  the  disciple  of  Peter,  Luke  because 
was  revealed  what  far  exceeded  the  comprehension  of  he  had  been  a  physician,  and  so  on.  Such  things  would 
any  individual  man;  and  hence  it  required  many  minds,  no  doubt  have  their  influence,  but  it  could  only  show 
who,  as  it  were,  mirror-like,  received  the  rays  that  itself  in  a  very  occasional  and  subsidiary  manner.  We 
proceeded  from  him,  the  sun  of  his  own  spiritual  world,  must  rise  higher,  and,  witli  Mr.  Westcott,  in  his  excel- 
and  who  again  presented  the  same  image  in  various  lent  little  work,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Gospels, 
forms  of  refraction.  Conceptions  of  so  diversified  a  must  discern  in  each  of  the  evangelists  "  the  type  of  one 
character  of  our  Lord  in  his  divine-human  ministry,  mighty  section  of  mankind,"  severally  giving,  in  accord- 
are  contained  in  these  four  gospels,  that  when  combined  ance  with  that  type,  a  true  image  of  the  life  of  Christ, 
they  form  a  complete  picture  of  Christ."  In  like  man-  yet,  on  that  very  account,  not  a  complete  one— an 
ner  Neander,  in  his  Life  of  Christ  (sec.  63),  speaking  of  image  more  peculiarly  suited  to  the  class  of  persons, 
the  means  necessary  to  be  employed  for  having  his  or  the  conditions  of  life,  represented  by  the  particular 

85 


COSPEL 


U74 


GOSPEL 


type.      For  if,  to  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Wcstcott,  ' :  if  lie 
is  indeed  our  Pattern,  as  well  as  our  Redeemer — if  we 
must  reali/.e  the  variety  of  his  manhood  for  the  direction 
of  our  energies,  as  well  as  the  truthfulness  of  his  Deity 
for  the  assurance  of  our  faith,  it  must  be  by  comparing 
the  distinct  outlines  of  his  life,  taken  from  the  diffe 
rent  centres  of  human  thought  and  feeling.      For  it  i 
is  with   the  spiritual  as    with    the  natural  vision— the  i 
truest  image  is  presented  to  the  mind,   not  by  the  ab-  | 
solute  coincidence  of   several   impressions,  but  by  the  j 
harmonious  combination  of  their  diversities'  (p.  !!«>). 

In  the  present  case,  of  course,  the  diversities  can  lie  | 
only  relative;   they  must   lie  within  a   limited    range; 
for  in  each  of  the  evangelical  narratives  the  historical  ! 
truth  had  to  be  kept:   and  there  could   be  no  further 
scope  for  diversity  than   what   mi.u'ht   be  found  in  the 
selection  of  the  incidents  to  be  recorded,  and  what  may  • 
be  called  their  historical  setting  in  the  narrative.      Here, 
however,    there    was  room    for    the   play  of  individual  , 
peculiarities  in  the  writers,  such  as  might  leave  a  cor-  j 
responding  impress  on  their  productions.      In  the  first 
and  last  of  the  evangelists,    as  already  noticed,  these 
are  so  palpable  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  miss  them 
—St.    Matthew   everywhere    discovering    a   respect  to 
the  .Jewish  mode  of  thought  and  feeling,  having  an  eye 
ahvavs  intent  upon  the   promises  made  to  the  fathers, 
and  bringing  forward  such  traits  in  the  character,  and 
such  incidents  in  the  life,  of  Jesus,  as  clearly  bespoke  him 
to  be  the  Messiah  of  prophecy     St.  John,  with  not  less 
distinctness,  indulging  the  contemplative  cast  of  mind, 
which  delights   in   retiring   into   its   own  chambers  of 
imagery,  and  meditating  with  holy  wonder  on  the  reve 
lations   made    through    the    incarnation    and  work    of 
Christ,  respecting  the  mysteries  of  the   divine  nature, 
and  the  movements  of  .Heaven's  mind  and  will  in  behalf 
of  a  sinful  and  perishing  w  >rld.     In  the  gospel  of  Mark, 
however,  something  approaching  to  the  reverse  of  this 
appears— all  is  instinct  with  the  action  and  energy  of 
life  ;  he  plunges  at  once  into  the  middle  of  affairs;  and 
throughout  shows  a  disposition  to  depict  scenes  of  busy 
labour,  and  record  miracles  of  healing,  rather  than  give 
varied  and  prolonged  accounts  of  teaching;   so  that  the 
active  and  energetic  spirit,  the  tendency  which  delights 
to  embody  thought  in  work,  and  make  life  a  business, 
has  its  tvpe  and  representation  in  this  evangelist.    And. 
finally,  in  Luke  there  everywhere  appears  the  subjective 
temperament — a  disposition  to  exhibit  the  traits  and  cir 
cumstances  which  are  more  peculiarly  fitted  to  touch 
the  heart,  and  consequently  to  keep  Jesus  in  view  pre 
eminently  as  the  Saviour,  whose   object  ever  was  to 
heal,  to  restore,  to  win  back  the  lost — the  balm  and  the 
hope  of  mankind.     These  are  all  broad,  easily  marked 
characteristics;  which  have  their  representation  in  every 
a'_;v,  this  more  conspicuously  in  one  class,  that  in  an 
other.    And  though  it  were  certainly  foolish  and  unwar 
rantable  to  ascribe  the  whole,  ov  even  the  leading  con 
tents  of  each  gospel,  to  that  which  more  peculiarly  dis 
tinguished  the  writer,  yet  as  this  distinguishing  ele 
ment  could  not  fail  to  impart  its  appropriate  colouring 
to  the  several  narratives,  it  cannot  but  be  right  to  mark 
the  points  wherein  it  appears  ;  the  more  especially  as 
they  will  be  found  to  yield,  when  duly  taken  into  ac 
count,   a  ready  explanation,   not  only  of  the  general 
differences,  but  also  of  many  of  the  seeming  discrepan 
cies  which  the  gospels  present  one  toward  another. 

The  failure  to  take  duly  into  account  the  distinctive 
peculiarities  and  aims  of  the  several  evangelists  has  had 


an  injurious  influence  on  two  very  different  classes 
of  writers,  and  at  the  hands  of  both  has  seriously  ob 
structed  the  proper  understanding  and  adjustment  of 
their  contents.  The  one  class  are  those  who  look  too 
exclusively  to  the  divine  element  at  work  in  the  pro 
duction  of  the  gospels  to  give  sufficient  scope  to  the 
human,  and  who  seem  to  think  it  an  infringement  on 
the  doctrine  of  inspiration  to  account  for  any  diversity 
in  the  narratives  by  referring  to  peculiarities  in  the 
position  and  tendencies  of  the  writers.  But  this  pro 
ceeds  upon  a  mistaken  view  of  the  subject,  as  much  as 
when  the  development  and  exhibition  of  our  Lord's 
humanity  is  treated  as  at  variance  with  his  true  and 
proper  divinity.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Spirit's 
agencv.  as  well  in  his  higher  as  in  his  more  common 
operations  upon  the  souls  of  men,  to  adapt  himself  to 
their  several  idiosyncrasies —not  violently  to  control  or 
suppress  their  diverse  susceptibilities  and  habits  of 
thought,  but  rather  to  bring  these  under  the  sway  of 
his  all-pervading  influence,  and  render  them  subser 
vient  to  his  design.  The  natural  must  have  its  play  in 
inspiration  as  well  as  the  supernatural;  and  hence  the 
freedom,  the  simplicity,  the  marked  individualities, 
which  characterize  the  sacred  writers,  and  which  throw 
around  their  writings  the  charm  of  an  attractive  and 
pleasing  variety.  But  if  one  class  of  interpreters 
have  erred  by  overlooking  this  element  for  the  sake  of 
the  divine,  there  is  another  who  have  more  grievously 
erred  by  at  once  disparaging  the  divine,  and  misappre 
hending  the  human,  in  the  composition  of  the  gospels. 
The  semi-infidel,  rationalistic  spirit  of  this  class  leads 
them  to  jud^e  of  all  by  a  merely  human  standard;  and, 
as  if  each  evangelist  must  have  had  precisely  the  same 
end  in  view,  and  must  have  used  precisely  the  same 
materials  for  reaching  it.  if  lie  happened  to  be  ac 
quainted  with  them:  they  therefore  conclude,  that  in  so 
far  as  one  'differs  from  another,  or  is  less  full  and  expli 
cit  in  its  information,  the  defective  knowledge  or  par 
tial  misapprehension  of  the  writer  affords  the  only  ex 
planation.  It  is  on  this  false  principle  that  most  of 
the  recent  attacks  on  the  credibility  of  certain  portions 
of  the  gospels  is  based,  and  that  their  consistency  has 
been  impugned.  The  groundlessness  of  them  will  be 
seen  in  proportion  as  an  insight  is  obtained  into  the 
real  position  and  design  of  the  evangelists,  and  suffi 
cient  regard  is  paid  to  what  distinguished  them  from 
each  other,  as  well  as  what  belonged  to  them  in  com 
mon.  When  this  is  understood,  it  will  be  perceived 
that  their  knowledge  of  the  gospel  events  was  not  to  he 
measured  by  what  they  have  recorded,  and  that  their 
several  bents  of  mind,  and  the  somewhat  different 
points  of  view  from  which  they  wrote,  naturally  gave 
rise  to  certain  diversities  in  the  form  of  their  respec 
tive  narratives. 

For  the  truthfulness  of  the  accounts  in  the  gospels 
the  following  works  in  particular  may  be  consulted  with 
advantage  : — Lardner's  Credibility,  Paley's  Evidences, 
Young's  Christ  of  History,  Isaac  Taylor's  Restoration 
of  Ilelicf;  and  in  German,  Tholuck's  Glaubwurdiglcdt 
der  ErangcUscltCii  Gesrhic/tte,  and  Ebrard's  Wissen- 
.sv/«7  ftlirhe  Kritik  dcr  Eranr/cL  Gesch.  The  works  written 
specially  with  a  view  to  the  exhibition  of  the  harmony 
of  the  evangelists  are  very  various,  and  form  indeed 
an  extensive  body  of  literature.  It  commences  with 
Augustine's  De  Consensu  Emnrielistarum,  and  is  still 
receiving  continual  accessions.  Indeed  the  greater  part 
of  the  more  recent  commentaries  on  the  gospels  may 


GOSPEL 


aorm> 


also  be  regarded  as  in  a  sense  harmonies;  but  among 
works  specially  devoted  to  the  harmonizing  of  the 
evangelical  narratives,  may  be  noticed  Greswell's  Dis 
sertations  upon  the  Principles  of  a  Harmony  of  the 
Gospels,  four  vols.,  elaborate,  learned,  and  careful  in  in 
vestigation,  but  often  defective  in  penetration  and  judg 
ment;  Robinson's  Harmony  with  Xotes;  Westcott's  1 '  n- 
troduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Gospels,  the  last  particu 
larly  valuable  for  its  brief  but  clear  and  lucid  enuncia 
tion  of  principles  bearing  on  the  subject,  and  the  man 
ner  in  which  it  meets  many  plausible  objections.  In 
German  may  be  mentioned  those  of  De  Wette  and 
Liicke  (1818),  Clausen  (18-29),  Reichel  (184U).  Tin- 
Harmonies  of  Macknight,  Xevvcome,  Lightfoot,  are 
now  to  a  large  extent  superseded,  though  they  may 
occasionally  be  consulted  with  advantage:  and  the  same 
may  be  said  of  some  of  the  still  older  Harmonies.  Those. 
however,  of  Calvin,  Osiander.  Chemnitz,  Gerhard,  still 
have  their  value  as  commentaries,  apart  from  anything 
peculiar  to  them  as  attempts  at  presenting  in  chronolo 
gical  order  the  materials  of  gospel  history,  in  which 
respect  they  are  more  or  less  defective.  The  works  of 
Calvin  and  Gerhard  especially  are  deserving  of  perusal. 
Latterly,  it  may  be  added,  it  is  to  the  three  first  gospels 
that  synoptical  arrangements  have  usually  been  con 
fined,  and  the  name  of  ftt/noptira/ (rnxpelx  has  hence  come 
to  be  commonly  applied  to  them— the  Gospel  of  John 
having  so  much  peculiar  to  itself,  so  little  in  common 
with  the  others,  that  it  is  most  fitly  taken  apart. 

APOCRYPHAL  or  SITHIUCS  GOSPKI.S.  It  is  not  ne 
cessary  here  to  do  more  almost  than  mention  the 
names  of  some  of  these  productions,  which  belong  to 
church  history,  rather  than  to  the  literature  of  the 
Bible.  To  this  class  we  can  scarcely  assign  what  was 
called  by  Jerome  and  others  the  <i<>*i>il  ni-<;,r</in>/  tn  tin 
//(///•(  c-.s  ,•  for  this,  it  would  appear,  was  substantially 
the  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  the  Hebrew  or  Aramaic 
language,  and  with  certain  interpolations  of  a  later 
and  manifestly  fabulous  kind.  (.Vt  nn<l,r  MAVIHIW.  i 
The  Protevanyeltum  of  Jdintu,  *>r  (I'OXJK/  <,f  tin  Infnncii. 
which  professes  to  giye  a  detailed  account  of  the  birth 
of  Christ,  the  journey  to  Bethlehem,  iVc.,  with  many  ridi 
culous  stories  respecting  the  midwife,  the  standing  still 
of  the  clouds,  birds,  and  other  things,  at  the  birth,  is 
one  of  the  oldest  of  the  spurious  gospels;  it  is  suppo^i  .1 
to  have  appeared  near  tin;  close  of  the  second  century, 
as  references  are  made  to  it  by  Tertulliau  and  Origen. 
The  History  of  the  Virgin  Mar//  is  a  similar  production, 
which  appeared  about  the  same  time,  and  is  commonly 
ascribed  to  the  same  author  —one  Lucian,  or  Leucius, 
a  scholar  of  Marcion,  though  not  in  all  respects  a  fol 
lower.  Then  there  are  the  (i'i>.</,<-l  a<'mr<l ii«j  t»  /'</,/•, 
which  was  presented  to  Serapion,  bishop  of  Antioch 
from  19(1  to  '211,  by  some  people  in  Cilicia.  and  which 
he  judged  to  be  no  writing  of  the  apostle,  but  a  spurious 
and  partly  erroneous  production,  in  the  interest  of  the 
Docetie,  therefore  rejected;  the  tloxpel  of  Thomax  the 
Israelite,  supposed  also  to  be  of  Gnostic  origin,  and 
containing  many  fabulous  things  respecting  the  infancy 
of  Jesus;  the  Jfistori/  of  Joseph  the  Carpenter,  probably 
an  Arabic  or  Egyptian  production,  in  both  of  which 
languages  it  exists,  and  still  held  in  esteem  among  the 
Copts;  the  (juapel  of  Nicodemus,  containing  detailed 
and  fabulous  accounts  of  Christ's  trial,  and  his  subse 
quent  descent  into  hell,  supposed  to  be  a  fabrication  of 
the  fifth  or  sixth  centuries.  The  whole  of  these  spurious 
productions,  along  with  several  others  of  a  like  kind, 


with  ample  proofs  of  their  spurious  character,  and 
many  points  of  information  respecting  them,  will  be 
found  in  the  Codex  Apocrt/phus  Xovi  Testamenti  of 
Fabricius,  two  vols.  An  English  translation  of  them  by 
Hone  has  been  published  in  a  cheap  form. 

GOURD.     On  leaving  Xineveh  we  read  that  Jonah 
"  went  and  sat  on  the  east  side  of  the  city,  and  there 
made  him  a  booth,  and  sat  under  it  in  the  shadow 
And  the  Lord  God  prepared  a  gourd  (Vvp'p,  kikai/on), 

and  made  it  come  up  over  Jonah,  that  it  might  be  a 
shadow  over  his  head,"  Junah  iv. :,,  i;.  This  kikayon  the 
Septuagint  renders  /coXo/ciV^?;,  with  which  agrees  the 
authorized  version  ''gourd."  Nor  could  any  plant  be 
more  suitable  for  the  purpose.  •'  It  is  very  commonly 
used  for  trailing  over  temporary  arbours.  It  grows 
with  extraordinary  rapidity.  In  a  few  days  after  it 
has  fairly  begun  to  rtdi,  the  whole  arbour  is  covered. 
It  forms  a  shade  absolutely  impenetrable  to  the  sun's 
rays  even  at  noonday.  It  flourishes  best  in  the  very 
hottest  part  of  summer.  And  lastly,  when  injured  or 
cut,  it  withers  away  with  equal  rapidity"  (Thomson's 
Land  and  the  Hook,  cli.  vi.) 

At  the  same  time  it  is  only  right  to  mention  that 
since  the  days  of  Jerome  a  very  different  plant  has 
been  generally  accepted  as  the  kikaijon  of  Jonah.  That 
father  says.  "  It  is  the  same  as  in  the  Svriac  and  Punic 
is  called  il-lca-iiit:  a  shrub  of  upright  growth,  with 
broad  leaves  like  a  \iiie,  and  yielding  a  dense  shadow. 
It  springs  up  so  rapidly  that  in  the  space  of  a  few  days 
wheue  you  saw  a  tender  herb  you  will  be  looking  up  to 
a  little  trite;  intra  paucos  dies  quam  herham  videras. 
arbusculam  suspicis  "  (Hierunym.  iu  Juiiam,  cap.  iv.)  The 
keroa  of  Jerome  is  sufficiently  ascertained  to  be  the 
castor-oil  plant,  or  Iticiixix  c<nnniitn!f,  which  in  every 
respect  coriv.-ponds  with  the  above  description.  Kimchi 
mentions  that  it  was  planted  at  the  doors  of  houses  for 
the  sake  of  its  grateful  shadow.  It  is  also  a  curious 
confirmation  of  Jerome's  theory  that  the  Egyptians 
called  the  plant  /•/'/•/,  a  name  almost  identical  with  the 
Hebrew  klkniinn;  and  "the  modern  .lews  of  London 
n.-e  castor-oil  by  the  name  of  oil  of  /•//•  for  their  Sab 
bath  lamps,  it  being  one  of  the  fine  kinds  of  oil  their 
traditions  allow  them  to  burn  on  these  occasions" 
(Calculi's  Srriptuiv  Ilri-i.a!,  ]>  i-:!.)  With  allusion  to  the 
beautiful  palmated  leaves,  resembling  a  hand  with  the 
fingers  outspread,  the  Jiii-innx  has  long  been  known  by 
the  name  "  I'alma  Christi,"  which  is  the  alternative 
rendering  on  the  margins  of  our  Knglish  Bible.  It 
grows  in  Palestine.  Among  other  trees  in  the  valley 
of  the  Jordan,  near  Jericho,  it  is  mentioned  by  J  )r. 
Robinson  as  "of  large  size  and  haying  the  character  of 
a  perennial  tree"  (Biblical  Researches,  vol.  i.  p.  KM.) 

\Vild  (i»nr</x. —  During  a  time  of  dearth  one  of  the 
sons  of  the  prophets  at  Gilgal  went  out  to  gather 
''herbs,"  or  such  vegetables  as  could  be  found  in  the 
fields.  He  found  a  "  wild  vine,"  or  creeping  plant  with 
tendrils,  "and  gathered  thereof  wild  gourds  (nSyp£> 

pftki/oth)  his  lap  full,  and  came  and  shred  them  into  the 
pot  of  pottage;  for  they  knew  them  not."  But  such 
was  the  taste  of  the  soup  or  pottage  that  they  exclaimed 
to  Elisha,  ''()  thou  man  of  God,  there  is  death  in  the 
pot;"  and  it  was  not  till  he  had  cast  in  some  meal  that 
it  became  fit  for  use,  -2  Ki.  iv.  :iv-ii. 

One  of  the  kindest  gifts  of  the  Creator  to  the  warmer 
regions  of  the  world  is  the  cucurbitaceous  tribe  of 


plants.  Even  in  our  own  temperate  climate  the  melon 
and  cucumber  are  prized,  and  "  shred  into  the  pot,"  or 
boiled  entire  ;  the  pumpkin  and  vegetable  marrow  are 
largely  used  for  culinary  purposes.  But  we  can  have 
little  conception  of  the  important  part  performed  in  the 
torrid  and  sub-torrid  zones  bv  that  wide-spread  and 
most  miscellaneous  family,  which,  in  bottles  of  various 
fantastic  shapes,  hoards  up  the  precious  moisture  and 
keeps  it  cool  in  sandy  wastes  and  burning  deserts. 
Grateful,  however,  as  is  the  juicy  pulp  of  many  species, 
the  root  of  nearly  all  the  perennial  varieties  contains  a 
bitter  acrid  principle;  and  in  such  examples  as  the  colo- 
cynth  and  the  squirting  cucumber,  this  bitter  element 
ascends  and  is  found  freely  developed  in  the  pulpy  fruit. 


Indeed  it  may  be  questioned  if  traces  of  it  are  not  found 
in  the  most  prized  and  popular  sorts;  for,  when  too  freely 
used,  colocynthine  indications  are  apt  to  follow,  and 
sometimes  common  melons  and  cucumbers  are  so  full 
of  this  bitter  ingredient  as  to  be  quite  uneatable.  In 
his  account  of  the  melon  of  the  Kalahari  Desert,  Dr. 
Livingstone  says:  "In  years  when  more  than  the  usual 
quantity  of  rain  falls,  vast  tracts  of  the  country  are 
literally  covered  with  these  melons  (Ciiciimlt  *•<///<•;••). 
Then  animals  of  every  sort  and  name,  including  man, 
rejoice  in  the  rich  supply.  The  elephantine  lord  of  the 
forest  revels  in  this  fruit,  and  so  do  the  different  species 
of  rhinoceros,  although  naturally  so  diverse  in  their 
choice  of  pasture.  The  various  kinds  of  antelope  feed 
on  them  with  equal  avidity;  and  lions,  hyaenas,  jackals, 
and  mice,  all  seem  to  know  and  appreciate  the  common 
blessing.  These  melons  are  not.  however,  all  of  them 
eatable;  some  are  sweet,  and  others  are  so  bitter  that 
the  whole  are  named  by  the  boers  '  the  bitter  water 
melon.'  The  natives  select  them  by  striking  one  melon 
after  another  with  a  hatchet,  and  applying  the  tongue 
to  the  gashes.  They  thus  readily  distinguish  between 
the  bitter  and  sweet.  The  bitter  are  deleterious,  but 
the  sweet  are  quite  wholesome.  This  peculiarity  of  one 
species  of  plants  bearing  both  sweet  and  bitter  fruits 
occurs  also  in  a  red  eatable  cucumber  often  met  with 
in  the  country.  It  is  about  four  inches  long,  and  about 
an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter.  It  is  of  a  bright  scarlet 
colour  when  ripe.  Many  are  bitter,  others  quite  sweet. 


(J  GOZAN 

Kven  melons  in  a  garden  may  be  made  bitter  by  a  few 
bitter  kengwe  ((J.  caffcr}  in  the  vicinity.  The  bees 
convey  the  pollen  from  one  to  the  other ''  (Livingstone's 

South  Africa,  ch.  ii.) 

No  doul.it  it  was  some  harmless  gourd,  egg-plant, 
melon,  or  cucumber,  which  the-purveyor  for  the  college 
at  Gilgal  intended  to  gather;  but  unwittingly  he  brought 
home  a  lapful  oi  pakfioth.  Whether  these  were  squirt 
ing  cucumbers  or  colocynths,  the  intense  bitterness 
would  make  it  impossible  to  proceed  with  the  pottage, 
and  must  at  once  have  suggested  the  idea  of  poison: 
''There  is  death  in  the  pot." 

We  have  sometimes  been  inclined  to  fancy  that  the 
gourds  in  this  instance  belonged  to  an  edible  species,  in 
which  the  bitter  principle  this  time  happened  to  be  pre 
sent.  The  specific  name,  however,  is  in  favour  of  some 
distinct  and  separate  plant,  which  an  inexperienced 
collector  had  confounded  with  some  well-known  and 
wholesome  esculent;  just  as  amongst  ourselves  puff-balls 
and  poisonous  fungi  are  often  mistaken  for  mushrooms. 
An  etymologist  would  give  his  verdict  in  favour  of  the 
squirting  cucumber  (l-^-liiiliiim  (ir//-cxtf),  deriving pakfinfh 
from  ypg  (jut/.-a),  "to  split,  or  burst."  This  plant  is 

'-  T 

of  plentiful  occurrence  in  Palestine.  The  fruit  is  not 
unlike  a  small  cucumber,  covered  with  hairs.  It  is 
from  an  inch  to  two  inches  long,  and  when  ripe  pro 
jects  its  juice  and  seeds  with  considerable  force  through 
an  opening  at  the  base.  The  juice  yields  the  principle 
known  to  pharmacy  as  e/atcriitm,  bitter  and  poisonous, 
and  such  an  active  purgative,  that,  according  to  Dr. 
Thompson,  it  acts  in  doses  of  less  than  j'jth  of  a  grain  ! 
But  considering  its  propensity  to  part  with  all  its  con 
tents  when  handled,  we  do  not  think  that  even  a  novice 
would  be  so  apt  to  bring  home  the  squirting  cucumber 
as  the  fruit  of  the  t'lfntl/ns  colocynthis,  or  colocynth. 
Like  the  former,  it  is  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  with 
its  globular  fruit  and  smooth  yellow  rind,  so  closely 
resembling  an  orange,  it  has  a  plausible  and  prepossess 
ing  appearance;  but  its  flavour  will  be  sufficiently  ap 
preciated  when  we  add  that  it  yields  the  colocynthin  of 
medicine. 

Of  many  plants  the  unwholesome  qualities  may  be 
lessened  or  destroyed  by  boiling,  or  by  treating  them 
with  acids  which  neutralize  their  noxious  ingredients. 
Thus  it  is  stated  that  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  the 
colocynth  is  eaten,  being  rendered  innocuous  when 
properly  pickled  (Burnett's  riantre  Utiliores,  No.  2G).  But 
the  means  taken  by  ELisha  had  no  natural  fitness  to 
counteract  any  poisonous  properties,  and  the  result 
can  only  be  regarded  as  miraculous.  In  the  same  way 
there  are  some  plants  of  rapid  growth;  but  neither  the 
"  Palma  Christi "  nor  any  gourd  could  have  sprouted 
with  such  amazing  swiftness  as  in  a  few  hours  to  extend 
a  canopy  over  Jonah,  or  cover  his  booth  with  a  leafy 
awning,  except  at  the  express  command  of  Him  who 
sa.id  in  the  beginning.  "Let  the  earth  bring  forth  the 
herb  yielding  seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  yielding  fruit  after 
his  kind;  and  it  was  so."  [j.  H.] 

GOZ'AN,  generally  believed  to  be  a  river  of  Media, 
j  to  the  banks    of   which    the    captive    Israelites    were 
j  transported  first  by  Tiglath-Pileser,  and  afterwards  by 
Shalmaneser,  i  Ch.  v.  20 ;  2Ki.  xvii.  c.     This  river  has  lately 
been  identified  by  Major  Rennel,  with  the  Kizzil  Ozan, 
or  the  Golden  Hiver  of  Media    (Geography  of  Herodotus, 
sec.  is).     It  rises  in  Kurdistan,  a  few  miles  to  the  south 
west  of  Sennah,  and  after  joining  with  some  other  streams 


GRACE 


GRASS 


merges  into  the  Sifecd  Rood  or  White  River,  and  falls 
into  the  Caspian  Sea.  Some,  however,  and  among 
these  Gesenius,  understand  by  Gozan  a  district  of  Me 
sopotamia,  and  instead  of  reading,  as  at  2  Ki.  xvii.  G, 
"  and  placed  them  in  Halah,  and  in  Habor  by  the  river 
of  Gozan/'  substitute,  ''and  placed  them  in  Halah,  and 
in  Habor,  a  river  of  Gozan."  But  the  passage  in 
Chronicles,  where  Hera  comes  between  Habor  and 
Gozan  seems  to  favour  the  other  view.  Also  Halah,  a 
province,  going  before  Habor,  seems  to  imply  that  both 
are  provinces;  since  one  could  hardly  speak  in  close 
succession  of  putting  them  in  a  province  and  //;  a  river! 
as  if  the  same  thing  were  meant  in  the  two  cases. 

GRACE.  This  is  the  usual  rendering  of  the  Greek 
Xapts  in  New  Testament  scripture,  tin  nigh  sometimes 
favour,  or  good- will  toward  persons  that  appear  fit  ob 
jects  of  it,  Lu.  ii.  411, 52;  Ac.  ii.  47;  and  favour  rendered  back 
for  favour  received,  ijmtitudt,  thanksylrlnr/s,  Lu.  vi.  :>,-2; 
xvii.  9;  1  Ti.  i.  12,  ic,  are  the  translations  adopted.  P>ut 
both  the  original  term,  and  the  corresponding  English 
word  '/race,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  is  employed 
to  express  the  free  undeserved  mercy  and  favour  <>f 
God  to  sinful  men  through  .Jesus  Christ,  as  opposed  to 
all  demands  of  law  and  claims  of  merit.  The  gospel  is 
hence  peculiarly  the  revelation  of  God's  grace:  Christ 
himself  is  made  known  as  full  of  grace:  yrace  came  by 
him  as  the  law  had  come  by  Moses;  and  in  the  saluta 
tions  of  his  apostles  to  the  churches  and  individuals 
who  owned  their  authority,  grace  ever  took  the  prece 
dence,  .In.  i.  14, 17;  III..  i.  r,  ic.  Hence,  salvation  is  repre 
sented  as  being  altogether  of  grace- — "  bv  i^race  ye  are 
saved,"  Ej>  ii  s  ;  G;I.  v.  i  -and  believers  now  are  not  under 
the  law.  but  under  grace,  Ko.  vi.ii;  that  is,  not  formally 
placed  under  tin;  enactments  and  covenant  of  law.  but 
under  the  rich  and  plenteous  provisions  of  grace.  As 
their  state  of  peace  and  privilege  here,  so  their  final 
blessedness  and  glory  hereafter,  is  ascribed  to  tile  praise 
of  divine  grace,  Ep.  i.  <;.  It  was  a  verv  natural  exten 
sion  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  to  apply  it,  as  is  some 
times  done,  to  the  re  Hex  acts  and  operations  of  the  grace 
manifested  from  God  to  the  sinner — to  the  exercised 
love,  beneficence,  spiritual  joy,  &e.,  which  are  at  once 
the  fruit  and  the  evidence  of  imparted  grace,  1  Co.  xvi.  :i; 
•2  Co.  viii.  4,  fi;  I'hile.  7.  Considered,  however,  in  what  is 
undoubtedly  its  main  aspect  as  a  quality  in  the  divine 
administration — it  cannot  properly  be  discussed  apart, 
but  must  be  viewed,  in  order  to  be  understood  aright. 
in  connection  with  the  diverse  purposes  and  acts  which 
most  peculiarly  exemplify  it,  such  as  the  atonement  of 
Christ,  election,  &e. 

GRANARY.     ,SVr  ACIIKTLTI-KK. 

GRAPE.     .sVt-  VI.NK. 

GRASS.     -»<yn  (rJiazir).  IKI.  xvm. -,;  job  xi.  i:>;  PS.  xxvii  2: 

•  T 

civ.  11,  ic.;  sv^i  ((h'.-iJtiti,  the  first  shoots  or  tender  spires,  j 

the  soft  young  herbage.  De  xxxii.  2;  2  Sa.  xxiii.  4;  Job  vi.  ,-,; 
Pr.  xxvii.  2:>;  typs  (lekexh),  the  grass  which  grows  up  after 

mowing,  in  some  places  still  called  "aftermath,"  or 
''fog,"  and  in  Xew  England  called  ''rowen,"  Am.  vii.  i: 
wf'w'n  (cfiashasli),  dry  grass;  grass  which  has  withered 

as  it  grew,  for  "  hay  "  was  not  made  in  Palestine.  Is.  v.  24; 
xxxiii.  11,  A.  V.,  "stubble:"  in  the  Xew  Testament  xvpT°s, 

Mat.  vi.  30,  ic. 

As  in  Mat.  vi.  30.  where  a  lily  is  called  "the  grass  of 
the  field,"  it  is  evident  that,  like  the  Latin  "gramen," 
and  the  English  "grass,"  the  Hebrew  equivalent  had 


a  very  extensive  range,  and  was  not  restricted  to  the 
"grasses"  (tiraminea')  of  the  botanist.  These  are  them 
selves  a  very  ample  order,  ranging  from  diminutive 
plants  like  our  own  mouse-ear  barley,  to  the  bamboo 
which  shoots  up  to  a  height  of  fifty  or  sixty  feet  in  an 
Indian  jungle:  and  including  productions  as  various  as 
the  Arundo  duiiax  of  Southern  Europe,  which  furnishes 
the  fisherman  with  his  rod  and  the  weaver  with  his 
"reed."  the  cereals  which  supply  to  all  mankind  the 
staff  of  life,  and  the  sugar-cane  which  on  the  table  of 
the  humblest  artizan  in  Europe  or  America  places 
luxuries  unknown  to  a  Roman  emperor. 

Hut  when  we  speak  of  grass  we  are  usually  thinking 
of  the  narrow  blades,  so  thickset  and  tender,  which  form 
the  sward  on  a  meadow  or  the  matchless  turf  on  an 
English  lawn.  Or  if  we  are  thinking  of  a  separate 
plant,  it  is  a  hollow  glossy  stem  rising  up  from  the 
midst  of  these  spiry  blades,  and  throwing  out  similar 
leaves  from  its  joints,  till  it  ends  in  blossoming  spike- 
lets,  loose  or  more  compact,  which,  when  the  flowering 
time  is  over,  show  the  taper  corn-like  seeds  inclosed  in 
tile  chaffy  glumes,  and  which  we  distine  as  food  for 
tile  cattle,  even  as  we  reserve  the  fruit  of  the  Cereal 
grasses  as  food  for  ourselves.  The  fescues,  darnels, 
and  poas,  which  clothe  the  meadows  and  build  up  the 
hay-ricks  at  home  are  pigmies,  however,  when  com 
pared  with  the  gra*s  ''  which  grows  for  the  cattle"  of 
other  lands;  with  the  "  tussac,"  for  instance,  whose 
enormous  tufts  form  an  inexhaustible  supply  to  the 
herds  both  amphibious  and  terrestrial  of  the  Falkland 
Isles,  and  the  beautiful  pampas-grass,  under  which  the 
huntsman  can  ride  and  see  high  overhead  its  "plume 
of  silvery  feathers." 

The  imperfect  enumeration  which  we  possess  of 
u'l-asses  native  to  Palestine  is  of  less  importance,  as  the 
scriptural  allusions  may  very  well  he  understood  with 
out  our  being  able  to  identify  the  species.  The  psal 
mist  wishes,  1's.  cxxix.  c,,  that  the  haters  of  Zion  may  be 
"as  the  grass  upon  the'  house-tops,  which  withereth 
afore  it  groweth  up;"  or,  as  it  should  he  rendered,  "be 
fore  it  is  plucked  up"  (See  Hcngsteiiberg,  Walfurd,  &c.),  and 
Isaiah,  oh.  x.\\vii.  27,  speaks  of  vanquished  populations 
":is  the  grass  of  the  field,  as  the  grass  on  the  house 
tops,  blasted  before  it  be  grown  up."  On  the  flat 
roofs  at  the  present  day  any  one  may  see  grass  which 
has  sprung  up  in  the  rainy  season,  withered  away 
by  the  first  weeks  of  sunshine.  "When  I  first  came 
to  reside  in  Jerusalem,"  says  !  >r.  Thomson,  "my  house 
was  connected  with  an  ancient  church,  the  roof  of 
which  was  covered  witli  a  thick  coat  of  grass.  This 
being  in  the  way  of  a  man  employed  to  repair  my 
house,  he  actually  set  fire  to  it  and  burned  it  off;  and 
I  have  seen  others  do  the  same  thing  without  the  slight 
est  hesitation.  Nor  is  there  any  danger:  for  it  would 
require  a  large  expense  for  fuel  sufficient  to  hum  the 
present  city  of  Jerusalem"  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  pt.  iv. 
f.  44).  Indeed  nearer  home  we  may  often  see  grass  and 
even  oats  springing  up  on  the  roof  of  a  thatched  cottage, 
and  a  goat  peradvcnture  nibbling  the  herbage  afore  it 
is  withered.  The  dew  "distilling"  on  the  grass,  and 
the  rain  descending  on  the  mown  grass,  or  rather  on 
the  grass  which  has  been  close- browsed  by  the  cattle, 
furnish  the  sacred  poetry  with  a  frequent  and  exquisite 

image,  De.  xxxii.  2;  Ps.  Ixxii.  0;Pr.  xix.  12;Mi.  v.  7;  and  still  more 
frequently  does  that  emblem  recur  in  which  our  fleeting 
generations  are  compared  to  the  grass  "  which  in  the 
morning  groweth  up.  and  which  in  the  evening  is  cut 


GRASSHOPPER 

down  ;uid  withereth,"  IN.  xc.  (i;  xxxvii.  2;  xcii.  7;cii.  11;  ciii.  1~>; 
Is.  xl.fi;  Ja.  i.  Hi;  1  IV  i.  21.  [.I.  li.J 

GRASSHOPPER    [-a-iN.    «,-Mi,    3Sa,    <M,    Djn, 

v  :  -  T  T 

ch'ai/ub].  Tin.-  first  of  these  terms  properly  signifies 
the  migratory  locust  (Gri/llus  /;i///ra^/v»xi.  whose  irre 
gular  visitations  often  produce  s\ieli  utter  devastation. 
(Sec  LocrsT.)  The  second  occurs  'nut  twice,  vi/..  in 
Am.  vii.  ].  "The  Lord  Cod  ....  formed  grasshop 
pers  in  the  beginning  of  the  shooting  up  of  the  latter 
growth:"  and  in  Xa.  iii.  17.  where  the  construction  is  j 
peculiar,  «;jV;  3'^,  (:/'>/,  t/obai,  locust  of  loc.mttx),  perhaps  | 

T 

a  repetition  of  intensity,  as  our  translators  appear  to 
have  taken  it.  for  they  render  the  phrase  "i/reat  grass 
hoppers." 

The  former  of  these  two  passages  alludes  to  the 
voracity  of  the  </"''.  as  "  eating  the  grass  of  the  land," 
so  as  to  "make  an  end"  of  it.  a  character  so  common 
to  the  (irijll'iiln  ,  that  it  does  not  help  us  to  identify  the 
species.  The  latter  gives  us  the  additional  particulars 
of  "camping  in  the  hedges  in  the1  cold  day.  and  fleeing 
away  when  the  sun  ariseth."  This  also  is  general. 
for  sluggish  repose  during  cold  weather,  and  activity 
under  the  stimulus  of  a  hot  sun,  is  common  not  merely 
to  the  grasshopper  tribe,  but  to  most  insects.  \\  e  do 
not  think  more  than  this  is  intended  in  the  allusion: 
but  it  has  been  supposed  that  the  locust  in  its  different 
stage*  is  here  deM-rihed.  "  'I'he  locust  lays  her  eggs 

....   HIH/IC    tic    slf/fcr   »f  a,    busl   <>r  Ifdi/c 

They  are  protected  by  their  situation  from  the  cold  of 
winter,  and  are  hatched  early  in  spring  by  the  heat  of 
the  sun.  Consequently,  in  the  places  which  have  berii 
visited  by  the  plague  of  locusts,  the  hedges  and  ridges 
swarm  with  the  young  ones  about  the  middle  of  April. 
....  At  last,  when  the  sun  has  waxed  warm  about 
the  end  of  .June,  they  acquire  their  perfect  condition 
by  the  development  of  their  wings,  and  'flee  away.'" 

(Pict.  Bible,  in  loco. ) 

The  word  c/ini/ufi  is  equally  indefinite  as  to  species, 
though  no  doubt  exists  as  to  its  designating  some  one 
or  other  of  the  numerous  kinds  of  (r',-////iilii-.  The  LXX. 
always  render  it  by  the  generic  term  dupis,  and  the 
Vulgate  by  lucusfa.  In  three  of  the  five  passages  in 
which  the  word  occurs,  minuteness  is  the  prominent 
idea  intended  :  "  We  were  in  our  own  sight  as  r/rass- 
hop/icrx."  .\u.  xiii.33;  "The  grasshopper  shall  be  a  bur 
den,"  EC.  xii.  .',-,  "  The  inhabitants  thereof  are  as  t/rnxs- 
liujtjifrs,''  Is.  xl.  22.  In  2  Ch.  vii.  13,  the  same  insects, 
here  rendered  in  the  English  version  locusts,  are  depicted 
as  a  plague  commanded  "to  devour  the  land ;"  while 
in  the  remaining  example  of  the  word  we  have  merely 
a  generic  mention — "the  tjrasskopper  after  his  kind," 
Lu.  xi.  22.  There  is  no  real  distinction  between  grass 
hoppers  and  locusts,  several  of  the  small  species  so 
familiar  to  us  in  our  English  meadows  being  true 
locusts,  such  as  G.  stridulus,  G.flavipes,  which  have  the 
very  same  generic  characters  as  G.  mif/ratf>r!i>s,  G. 
teyyptius,  &c.  The  rendering  of  the  word  clitf/ab  by 
grasshopper  is  therefore  unexceptionable,  expressing 
some  undetermined  species  of  Gri/lliix,  with  the  same 
voracious  habits  as  the  migratory  locusts,  but  of  small 

o  J 

size.  There  are  doubtless  many  such  species  found  in 
Palestine  and  the  neighbouring  countries,  as  in  all 
temperate  and  warm  regions. 

The  mouth  of  a  r/ri/llux  is  a  curious  piece  of  mechan 
ism.  It  consists  of  nine  distinct  organs — an  upper  lip, 
two  mandibles,  two  lower  jaws,  and  two  pairs  of  jointed 


GRECIANS 

organs  called  palpi,  which  are  probably  the  seat  of 
some  peculiar  sense.  The  lip  is  a  cleft  plate,  and  folds 
down  from  above,  while  the  mandibles  and  jaws  work 
from  right  to  left ;  the  former  are  very  strong  horny 
plates,  curved  and  notched  at  their  meeting  faces,  and 
admirably  fitted  for  their  assigned  office  of  biting  down 
vegetable  substances.  [p.  H.  i;.] 

GREAVES.     See  ARMOUR. 

GRECIANS.  1 1  K  L  L KX  1 STS  [ '  KXXijwcrrai].  There 
is  much  division  of  opinion  as  to  who  the  parties  called 
in  the  New  Testament  Grecians  are.  They  are  contra 
distinguished  from  those  called  Hebrews,  Ac.  vi.  i;  and 
the  difference  usually  supposed  to  exist  between  them 
is  that  the  Grecians  or  Hellenists  were  the  Grecian 
.lews,  or  those  who  spoke  Greek  as  their  ordinary  lan 
guage  and  used  the  Septuagint  version;  while  the  He 
brews  were  those  Jews  who  spoke  the  Hebrew  or  Syro- 
Chaldaic  language  and  used  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
(Alfc.nl  in  Ac.  vi.  i).  To  this  view  is  generally  added  that 
the  Hellenists  lived  out  of  Palestine,  and  the  Hebrews  in 
Palestine  (WahPsCMavis.;  Dr.  Davidson's  lutrod  i.  p.  t.'i).  Fabri- 
cius  gives  us  no  fewer  than  seven  opinions  on  this 
question  (liib.  (;r;uc.  iv.  MI:!).  The  first  is  that  the  Hellen 
ists  mean  the  Gentiles;  the  second,  that  they  were  Jews 
who  adhered  to  the  IJoinans.  or  lived  in  their  pay;  the 
third,  that  they  are  not  significant  of  nation  or  language 
alone,  but  also  of  faction  or  party;  the  fourth,  that  they 
are  Jews  of  the  second  dispersion  living  in  the  Grecian 
provinces;  the  fifth,  that  they  are  Jews  living  out  of 
Palestine,  ignorant  of  Hebrew,  and  speaking  the  lan 
guage  of  the  land  they  lived  in;  the  sixth,  that  they 
were  proselytes  from  the  Greeks;  the  seventh,  that  they 
were  Jews  living  out  of  Judea,  and  speaking  the  Greek 
tongue.  To  these  opinions  Mr.  Roberts  has  added 
another,  that  the  term  is  not  significant  at  all  of  a  dif 
ference  as  to  language  or  country,  hut  that  the  Hellen 
ists  and  Hebrews  formed  two  parties  among  the  Jews 
both  at  home  and  abroad,  who  differed  from  each  other 
in  religious  principle,  the  Hellenists  being  distinguished 
by  a  liberal  spirit,  while  the  Hebrews  were  the  rigid 
adherents  to  Judaism  (Discussions  on  the  Gospels,  p.  i.  c.  v.) 
A.  brief  view  of  the  passages  where  these  terms  occur 
will  bring  us  to  a  satisfactory  view  as  to  who  the 
Hellenists  really  were.  We  will  first  attend  to  the 
term  "  Hebrews." 

The  infant  church  of  Jerusalem  was  composed  of 
Hebrews  and  Hellenists.  Ac.  vi.  i.  Of  these  the  Hebrews 
were  the  most  influential  and  powerful,  and  we  may 
therefore  suppose  that  the  Hebrews  were  far  more 
numerous  in  Jerusalem  than  the  Hellenists.  Again. 
we  gather  from  'J  Co.  xi.  -J-J.  and  Phi.  iii.  ">,  that  He 
brews  signified  a  smaller  section  of  the  Jewish  people 
than  Israelite  did:  the  latter  phrase  probably  embraced 
all  the  natural  descendants  of  Jacob,  the  former  a 
portion  of  them  only.  Again,  we  gather  from  Phi. 
iii.  />,  that  Hebrews  was  not  a  term  distinctive  of  a 
peculiar  school  of  Jewish  theology,  of  the  school  of  rigid 
Judaism  as  distinguished  from  a  more  liberal  school, 
for  when  Paul  would  indicate  that  he  had  belonged  to 
this  rigid  school  of  Judaism,  he  adds  that,  "as  touch 
ing  the  law  he  was  a  Pharisee,"  an  intimation  wholly 
superfluous,  if  by  Hebrews  were  meant  the  rigid  school 
of  Jewish  opinion.  Again,  we  gather  from  the  fact 
that  Paul  was  a  Hebrew,  that  the  phrase  has  no  refer 
ence  to  birth;  Paul  was  born  in  the  foreign  city  of 
Tarsus,  and  yet  he  was  a  Hebrew;  he  was  educated  at 
Jerusalem,  but  he  was  born  abroad,  Ac.  xxii.  3.  Once 


GRECIANS 


679 


GREECE 


more,  from  Paul's  being  a  Hebrew  we  gather  that  the 
phrase  is  not  distinctive  of  language,  for  Paul  was 
equally  acquainted  with  Greek  and  Hebrew;  and  be 
sides  the  knowledge  of  both  these  languages  was  com 
mon  in  Jerusalem  (see  GREECE)  .  We  gather  accordingly 
from  these  passages  that  Hebrews  in  St.  Paul's  time 
meant  those  Jews  who,  whether  born  at  home  or 
abroad,  had  received  their  education  and  training  in 
the  schools  of  Juclea,  and  especially  in  Jerusalem.  The 
phrase  was  distinctive,  not  of  nation,  or  language,  or 
opinion,  but  of  the  place  of  education.  On  this  view 
few  foreign  Jews  would  be  Hebrews,  while  most  of  the 
homeborn  Jews  would  be  designated  by  the  term. 

We  now  turn  to  the  Hellenists.  As  contradistin 
guished  from  Hebrews,  these  would  signify  such  Jews 
as,  whether  born  in  Palestine  or  not,  had  received  their 
education  and  religious  training  in  foreign  lands.  On 
this  view  most  of  the  Jews  horn  abroad  would  be 
Hellenists,  while  few  of  the  homeborn  Jews  would  lie 
included  in  the  term.  We  will  find  the  notices  of  Scrip 
ture  to  agree  with  this  view.  The  infant  church  of 
Jerusalem  was  composed  of  Hebrews  and  Hellenists. 
Ac.  vi.i.  While  the  Hellenists  were  the  weaker  and  less 
numerous  party,  they  were  at  the  same  time  by  no  means 
without  influence,  and  seem  to  have  constituted  a  strong 
minority  in  the  church.  According  to  our  view  these 
were  Jews  who  had  received  a  foreign  education,  and 
of  such  we  learn  from  Ac.  ii.  />.  that  there  were  great 
numbers  then  dwelling  at  Jerusalem,  men  who  had 
remained  up  to  the  time  of  manhood  in  some  foreign 
land,  the  knowledge  of  whose  tongue  they  brought  with 
them,  but  who  had  for  some  reason  come  afterwards  to 
live  in  Jerusalem.  \Ve  further  gather  from  Ac.  ii. 
(i,  41,  that  many  of  these  foreign  educated  Jews  were 
converted  to  Christianity,  and  thus  formed  that  power 
ful  minority  whose  murmurs  against  the  yet  stronger 
Hebrews  we  read  of  in  Ac.  vi.  1.  We  learn  somewhat 
more  about  the  Hellenists  in  Ac.  ix.  29.  It  was  with 
them  that  Paul  came  chiefly  into  controversy  on  his 
first  visit  to  Jerusalem.  They  were  here  evidently  a 
powerful  body,  for  it  was  to  guard  Paul's  life  from 
them  that  he  was  sent  away  on  this  occasion  from  Jeru 
salem,  ver.  :;n.  They  seem  also  to  have  prided  them 
selves  on  their  powers  of  reasoning,  and  as  clever  dis 
putants  to  have  stood  forth  as  the  best  champions  of 
Judaism,  and  were  probably  those  same  men  who, 
Ac.  vi.  o,  had  before  disputed  with  Stephen,  and  brought 
about  his  death,  and  on  which  occasion  Paul  had  him 
self  sided  with  them,  Ac.  vii.  iio.  This  wovdd  make  them 
more  eager  against  the  convert,  and  would  also  dispose 
him  to  meet  them.  It  accords  also  with  the  view  that 
the  Hellenists  were  foreign  educated  Jews,  of  whom 
great  numbers  resided  at  Jerusalem.  We  find  only 
one  other  mention  of  the  Hellenists  in  the  New  Testa 
ment,  not  however  at  Jerusalem,  but  at  Antioch, 
Ac.  xi.  20.  The  passage  presents  two  readings,  one 
having  'E\\r/viffTds,  the  other  "E\\rjvas.  The  external 
evidence  is  chiefly  in  favour  of  the  former  (Bloomfleld's 
Gr.  Test,  in  loco) ;  and  the  internal  evidence  appears  to  us 
also  to  lead  to  the  same  conclusion.  In  ver.  19  we  are 
told  that  they  who  were  scattered  on  Stephen's  death 
came  to  Phenice,  and  Cyprus,  and  Ant  lock,  preaching 
to  none  but  the  Jew*  onti/;  ver.  20  describes  particularly 
the  preaching  of  some  of  these  just  spoken  of  at  Antioch; 
as  they  preached  to  none  at  Antioch  but  Jews  only,  the 
reading  of  ver.  20  must  be  'EXX^wcrrds.  Their  mention 
here  then  shows  us  that  Hellenists  is  an  equivalent  term, 


or  very  nearly  so,  for  Jews  ('lovdaioi)  rltcclliny  in  the 
foreign  city  of  Antioch;  the  Jews  of  ver.  19  being  the 
Hellenists  of  ver.  20.  While  we  have  no  doubt  as  to 
the  proper  reading  of  this  verse,  it  is  right  to  add  that 
scholars  of  the  highest  name  prefer  the  reading  "EXA??- 
vas  (Bengel,  Griesbach,  Theile  et  R.  Stier,  Lachmann, 
Scholz,  Tischendorf).  They  rest  their  preference  partly 
on  a  certain  amount  of  external  evidence,  which,  how 
ever,  they  allow  to  be  inferior  to  that  for  the  other  read 
ing,  but  chiefly  on  a  contrast  between  vers.  19  and  20, 
which  is  said  to  be  indicated  by  the  use  of  the  particle 
oe  at  the  beginning  of  the  latter  verse.  P>ut  while  this 
particle  is  commonly  used  in  an  adversative  sense,  it 
also  frequently  serves  merely  to  pass  from  one  thing  to 
another,  and  by  an  easy  transition  to  denote  something 
like  the  connection  of  cause  and  effect.  It  is  thus  we 
understand  it  here.  Having  in  ver.  1!>  mentioned  in 
general  terms  the  preaching  of  all  those  who  were  scat 
tered  from  Jerusalem  on  Stephen's  persecution,  the  his 
torian  seems  here  to  take  up  what  some  of  them  did  in 
following  out  the  common  course  of  proceeding.  If, 
however,  any  are  disposed  to  think  that  the  particle  5^ 
indicates  a  contrast  between  what  was  done  by  those 
spoken  of  in  ver.  19  and  those  spoken  of  in  ver.  20, 
it  bears  with  this  sense  most  powerfully  in  favour 
of  believing  Greeks  being  meant,  and  not  Jewish 
Christians.  t"-c'-] 

GREECE    ['EAAds.    Heb.    p.,   Juni,,].     Greece  is 

sometimes  described  as  a  country  containing  the  four 
provinces  of  Macedonia,  Epirus,  Achaia  or  Hellas,  and 
Peloponnesus,  but  more  commonly  the  two  latter 
alone  are  understood  to  be  comprised  in  it.  We  will 
consider  it  as  composed  of  Hellas  and  Peloponnesus, 
though  there  seems  to  be  no  question  but  that  the  four 
provinces  were  originally  inhabited  by  people  of  similar 
language  and  origin,  and  whose  religion  and  manners 
were  alike.  Except  upon  its  northern  boundary  it  is 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  sea.  which  intersects  it 
in  every  direction,  and  naturally  gives  to  its  population 
>eafarinur  habits.  It  is  also  a  very  mountainous  coun 
try,  abounding  in  eminences  of  great  height,  which 
branch  out  and  intersect  the  land  from  its  northern  to 
its  southern  extremity,  and  form  the  natural  limits  of 
many  of  the  provinces  into  which  it  is  divided.  At  the 
isthmus  of  Corinth  it  is  separated  into  its  two  great 
divisions,  of  which  the  northern  was  called  Griecia 
entra  Peloponnesum,  and  the  southern  the  Peloponne 
sus,  now  called  the  Morca.  The  mountain  and  sea 
are  thus  the  grand  natural  characteristics  of  Greece, 
and  had  a  very  considerable  influence  on  the  character  of 
its  inhabitants,  as  is  evidenced  in  the  religion,  poetry, 
history,  and  manners  of  the  people.  The  country  has 
been  always  famous  for  the  temperature  of  its  climate, 
the  salubrity  of  its  air,  and  the  fertility  of  its  soil. 

Of  the  history  of  Greece  before  the  first  recorded 
Olympiad,  B.C.  770,  little  that  can  be  depended  on  is 
known.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  from  very  remote 
periods  of  antiquity,  long  prior  to  this  date,  the  country 
liad  been  inhabited,  but  facts  are  so  intermingled  with 
legend  and  fable  in  the  traditions  which  have  come  down 
to  us  of  these  ancient  times,  that  it  is  impossible  with 
certainty  to  distinguish  the  false  from  the  true  (History 
of  Greece  by  G.  Grote,  preface  to  vol.  i. )  The  periods  at  which 
some  of  the  noted  settlements  are  said  in  profane 
writers  to  have  been  made  in  Greece  are  of  a  very  re 
mote  date.  The  reign  of  Inachus,  who  is  supposed  to 


GREECE 


have  foimderl  Argos,  some  place  B.C.  1980  (Apollodur.  ii.  i). 
^Egialeus  is  thought  to  have  founded  Sicyon  B.C.  2089, 
and  Uranus  to  have  settled  in  Greece  B.C.  2042  (Tcwns- 
end's  Manual  of  Dates).  These  are  periods  of  very  remote 
antiquity,  while  they  presuppose  still  earlier  settlements 
of  the  country  by  tribes  whose  names  are  wholly  lost, 
and  they  derive  very  considerable  confirmation  from  a 
chapter  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  which  gives  us  in  a  few 
verses  more  trustworthy  information  about  the  early 
distribution  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  than  we  derive 
from  any  other  sources.  It  is  from  .la  van,  Gu.  .\.->,  one 
of  ill.'  sons  of  Japheth,  that  the  Hebrew  name  of 
Greece  is  derived,  is.  l\vi  ID.  This  Javan  had  four  sons. 
Elisha,  Tarshish,  Kittini,  and  Dodanim,  and  bv  these 
we  are  told  that  '•  the  isles  of  tin1  Gentiles  \\ere  divided 
in  their  lands."  GO.  x.  •!,.">•  By  the  Hebrew  word  for  '"isles" 
(a^N)  "//'//i)  is  meant  not  merely  what  \se  call  islands,  but 
also  those  Kinds  Iving  to  the  westward  of  Judea  which 
were  reached  by  sea  from  tliat  country  (Gesenius,  Fuerst, 
Collycrs,  Sacred  Interpreter,  i.  I  in).  This  description  spe 
cially  points  out  Greece,  the  first  great  land  reached  by 
sea  from  the  coasts  of  Asia  after  penetrating  through 
the  archipelago  of  islands  studding  the  yEgeaii  Sea. 
This  western  migration  of  the  grandsons  of  Xoah  with 
their  families  is  further  fixed  by  the  circumstances 
related  in  Ge.  xi.  1—8,  .is  having  taken  place  subse 
quently  to  th-j  building  of  Babel  and  the  confusion  of 
languages.  The  building  of  Babel  is  usually  placed 
from  about  B.C.  2230  to  B.C.  2247,  which  agrees  quite 
sufficiently  with  the  early  dates  claimed  for  the  first 
settlements  in  Greece.  Henceforward  we  meet  with  no 
reference,  even  of  a  general  kind,  to  Greece  in  the  Bible, 
until  we  find  special  allusions  to  it  by  name  in  the  pro 
phets,  as  a  slave-holding  country  intimately  connected 
by  commerce  with  Tyre,  as  destined  after  its  conquest 
by  Alexander  to  form  the  third  of  the  four  great 
monarchies  of  the  ancient  world,  and  as  foreordained 
to  receive  from  Jerusalem  the  blessedness  of  the  new 
covenant  which  God  was  to  establish  with  the  Gentiles. 

Ezo.  xxvii.  l.'J;  Da.  viii.  •_'! ;  Is.  Ixvi.  111. 

The  earliest  accounts  of  the  inhabitants  of  Greece 
represent  them  in  a  very  barbarous  state,  little  if  at 
all  superior  to  the  condition  of  those  whom  we  call 
savages  at  the  present  day.  The  usual  causes  produced 
this  great  degeneracy  from  the  civilization  which  they 
left  behind  them  in  the  part  of  Asia  from  which  they 
migrated.  Being,  as  the  early  settlers  in  most  coun 
tries  are,  of  a  wild  and  adventurous  character,  cut  off 
by  the  sea  from  any  frequent  communication  with  the 
old  country,  thrown  upon  a  land  which  at  first  afforded 
abundance  of  food  to  the  hunter  with  little  necessity  for 
application  to  the  laborious  life  of  the  husbandman, 
with  a  religion  even  then  corrupted  from  the  pure  theism 
of  Noah,  it  was  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  men 
who  aided  in  the  building  of  Babel,  and  who  partook  of 
the  civilization  of  the  world  at  the  period  subsequent  to 
the  flood,  degenerated  into  the  wild  hunters,  who  for 
got  the  arts  of  husbandry,  and  where  hunting  failed 
had  recourse  to  the  berries  of  the  woods  for  their  food. 
When  their  numbers  increased  they  would  encroach 
upon  each  other's  hunting  grounds,  and  hence  tribal 
wars,  such  as  we  read  of  among  the  North  American 
Indians,  would  be  the  chronic  state  of  the  rude  inhabi 
tants  of  primitive  Greece. 

The  East  from  which  they  originally  came  restored 
civilization  to  the  degenerate  inhabitants  of  Greece. 


From  Asia  Minor,  Phoenicia,  and  Egypt,  come  laws 
and  letters,  and  with  them  the  forms  of  idolatrous 
worship  into  which  the  learned  priesthood  of  these  lands 
had  perverted  the  monotheism  of  Noah.  \Ve  now  find 
great  names  arising,  and  preserved  in  the  legendary 
history  of  Greece,  in  connection  with  whom  it  is  im 
possible  not  to  suppose  that  along  with  an  admixture  of 
fable  there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  truth  related. 
The  Egyptian  Inachus  founds  the  kingdom  of  Argos, 
about  B.C.  1856  (Apollo'lor.  ii.3).  From  the  same  coun 
try  Cecrops  leads  a  colony,  B.C.  1550,  settles  in  a  barren 
promontory,  where  he  builds  a  city,  called  at  first  Cecro- 
pia  after  him,  but  since  known  by  the  world- renowned 
name  of  Athenze  or  Athens,  from  the  Egyptian  goddess 
Xeith.  At  a  later  period  from  the  same  land  comes 
Danaus,  who  expels  the  royal  house  of  Argos,  and  gives 
his  name  to  the  inhabitants  of  southern  Greece.  About 
B.C.  1550,  the  Phoenician  Cadmus,  in  consequence  as  is 
supposed  of  political  troubles  in  Palestine,  occupied 
Boeotia,  founded  the  celebrated  city  of  Thebes,  and 
gave  to  Greece  those  letters  which  the  genius  of  her 
sons  was  afterwards  to  make  so  renowned.  And  the 
Phrygian  Pelops,  about  B.C.  12S3,  became  monarch  of 
the  southern  half  of  Greece,  thence  called  after  him 
the  Peloponnesus.  Amid  the  mist  of  legend  and  fable 
stand  out  these  great  names,  some  of  the  few  historic 
stand-points  in  times  when  almost  all  is  shadowy  and 
fleeting,  while  all  alike,  legend,  and  fable,  and  history, 
have  been  depicted  by  the  master -hand  of  limner. 
During  this  period  of  mingled  legend  and  history 
Greece  would  appear  to  have  begun  to  exercise  a  foreign 
influence.  The  expedition  of  the  Argonauts  about  i;.c. 
1263,  and  the  siege  of  Troy  about  B.C.  1193,  for  both 
of  which  there  would  appear  to  be  historical  founda 
tion,  attest  this.  During  these  early  periods  the  Greeks 
exchanged  monarchical  for  republican  forms  of  govern 
ment.  With  the  first  recorded  Olympiad,  B.C.  770, 
the  period  of  real  Grecian  history,  as  distinguished 
from  legend,  begins.  From  this  time  until  the  end 
of  that  generation  of  men  who  accompanied  Alexan 
der  to  the  Persian  war,  I.e.  until  B.C.  300,  is  the 
period  during  with  Greece  occupies  a  great  leading 
position  as  a  political  power.  Its  history  during  this 
period  has  been  well  divided  by  Mr.  Grote  into  six 
departments,  the  first  of  which  may  be  looked  as  ;>. 
period  of  preparation  for  the  five  following,  which  ex 
haust  the  free  life  of  collective  Hellas. 

1.  Period  from  776  B.C.  to  560  B.C.,  the  accession  of 
Peisistratus  at  Athens  and  of  Croesus  in  Lydia. 

2.  From  the  accession  of  Peisistratus  and  Croesus  to 
the  repulse  of  Xerxes  from  Greece. 

3.  From  the  repulse  of  Xerxes   to  the  close  of  the 
Peloponnesian  war  and  overthrow  of  Athens. 

4.  From  the  close  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  to  the 
battle  of  Leuktra. 

5.  From  the  battle  of  Leuktra  to  that  of  Chceronea. 

6.  From  the  battle  of  Chceronea  to   the  end  of  the 
generation  of  Alexander.  (Grote's  History  of  Greece,  preface. ) 

It  is  to  this  period  that  we  find  the  greater  number  of 
the  references  to  Greece  in  the  Hebrew  prophets  to  refer. 
The  first  historical  notice  of  Greece,  as  the  earliest 
mention  of  its  settlement,  is  made  in  Scripture.  The 
prophet  Joel,  about  B.C.  800,  speaks  of  Greece  as  a 
great  slave-mart,  to  which  the  Tyrian  merchants 
brought  their  captives  from  Judah  and  Jerusalem  for 
sale,  Joel  iii.  6.  This  was  the  earliest  introduction  of  the 
Jews  to  a  people  with  whom,  and  with  whose  customs 


GREECE 


G81 


GREECE 


and  language,  they  were  afterwards  to  be  intimately 
connected  through  the  conquest  of  Alexander  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Grecian  empire  in  Asia.  We  thus 
find  Greece  distinguished  at  its  earliest  historic  period 
as  a  great  slave- holding  country.  The  reference  to 
Greece  in  Ezekiel,  somewhat  over  one  hundred  years 
later  than  that  in  Joel,  brings  forward  Greece,  in  con 
junction  with  other  countries,  as  a  trading  country 


light  the  influence  of  Greece  upon  the  Christian  reli 
gion  was  of  the  most  important  kind.  The  Babylonian 
empire  rose,  conquered,  and  fell,  and  left  no  impress 
upon  the  human  mind :  the  Persian  empire  was  much 
the  same:  the  Grecian  in  turn  rose,  conquered,  and  fell 
but  her  living  spirit  survived  the  overthrow  of  the 
political  body,  and,  as  though  freed  from  an  encum 
brance,  worked  more  effectually  when  under  the  do- 


changing   the    merchandise   of    Tyre   for   slaves   and  j  minion  of  Rome  upon  the  human  intellect  than  she  had 
brazen  vessels,    Eze.xxvii.i3.     In  Joel   we   saw   Greece     .lone  when  at  the  zenith  of  her  power.     Judaism  was 


purchasing  Jewish  slaves  from  Tyre :  in  Ezekiel  we 
find  Greece  bringing  in  her  own  ships  to  Tyre  slaves 
and  brazen  vessels,  and  receiving  instead  the  merchan- 


meant  for  one  nation,  and  the  language  which  preserved 
its  history  and  laws  was  confined  to  that  nation,  and 
died  out  even  among  them:  the  gospel  was  meant  for 


dise  of  Tyre.  Greek  slaves  were  highly  prized  in  the  !  all  nations,  it  consequently  required  a  universal  Ian- 
East  (Bocliart.Gcogr.  s.xc.  parti,  lib.  iii.c.. •!,!>.  ir.>);  and  refer-  t  guage,  and  such  a  language  Greece  nursed  and  gave 
ence  may  perhaps  here  be  made  to  the  workmanship  ;  to  the  world. 

of  brass  for  which  Corinth  afterwards  at  least  was  so  !  The  influence  which  had  this  most  important  effect 
famous  (Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  b.  xxxiv.  c.  :!;  Journal  of  Sacred  utera-  upon  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  was  secured  by  Greece 
ture,  Jan.  IM;-_M,.  L'.-.II).  The  reference  in  Daniel  to  ( '.  recce  chiefly  in  these  three  ways,  viz.-  the  progress  of  her 
VJi.  During  the  reign  of  ;  arms,  the  diffusion  of  her  colonies,  and  the  power  of  her 
literature.  The  three  combined  to  stamp  Grecian  in 
tellect  and  the  Grecian  language  upon  the  human  race. 


is    prophetic,    Da.  vi 
Belshazzar  king  of  Babylon  h 


sees  his  famous  vision 


of  the  four  great  ancient  monarchies,  of  which  the  first,  or 
Babylonian,  was  then  verging  to  its  close.  Four  beasts 
represent  the  four  kingdoms,  of  which  the  four  winged 
leopard  represents  Greece.  In  another  dream  he  sees 
a  fuller  vision  of  the  second  and  third  of  these  kingdoms 
engaged  in  the  deadly  struggle  which  resulted  in  the 
overthrow  of  the  Persian  monarchy  by  the  Grecian 
Alexander:  in  this  a  he-goat  represents  Greece.  The 


representations    in 
descriptive  of  the  ri: 


•th   these  dreams  are   admirably 
if  the  Grecian  empire.     The  four- 


winged  leopard,  the  great  he- goat  from  the  West  that 
touched  not  the  ground,  and  ran  upon  the  rani  in  the 
fury  of  his  might,  marvellously  represent  that  wonder 
ful  power,  which  under  the  fierce  young  Macedonian 
with  the  rapid  flight  of  the  bird,  the  ferocity  of  the 
leopard,  and  the  strength  of  tin-  horned  goat,  rushed 
from  Europe  upon  the  East,  and  within  the  short  space 
of  six  years  subdued  the  Medes  and  Persians,  oveiran 


The  Persian  invasion  and  its  repulse  first  raised  Gi 
into  prominent  political  notice.  The  battles  of  Mara 
thon,  ThennopyLe.  Salamis,  and  Plat;ea.  spread  through 
out  the  Ea.-t  the  knowledge  that  a  western  state  was 
able  to  compete  successfully  in  arms  with  the  masters 
of  Asia.  A  century  and  a  half  elapses,  and  the 
same  men  of  Greece  who  had  repelled  Xerxes  from 
Europe  cross  the  Hellespont  into  the  heart  of  Persia; 
at  Granicus,  Issus,  and  Arbela,  overthrow  its  armies, 
and  pass  onward  still  in  the  flush  of  conquest  to  the 
Indus.  The  Grecian  empire  in  Asia  is  founded,  and 
secures  for  Greece  the  influence  which  successful  anns 
always  procure  for  those  who  wield  them.  The  politi 
cal  wisdom  of  the  conquerors  seems  to  have  been  as 
jjreat  as  their  discipline  and  courage  in  arms.  No 
stronger  ] .roof  can  be  given  of  this  than  the  fact  that 
during  the  twenty  years  of  war  which  ensued  amonj. 


Babylon  and  Egypt,  carried  its  victorious  arms  to  the  ,  the  generals  of  Alexander  after  his  death— when,  in  the 

confines   of   India,    and  only  ceased   to  conquer  when  language   of    Daniel,   the  great  horn  was   broken,   and 

then' was  no  enemy  left  to  subdue.      It  was  indeed   a  four  lesser  horns   sprung   up  in   its  room— no  attempt 
prophecy  worthy  to  be  shown   to  Alexander,  as  .lose- 
jilius   tells   us  that  it  was  (Ai.t.  xi.  vii 


..-,».  The  political 
liistory  of  ( Ireece  from  this  period  ceases  to  be  of  much 
interest.  We  next  find  Pome  with  her  usual  policy 
siding  with  Greece  in  her  efforts  to  throw  off  the  yoke 
of  Macedon:  delivering  the  power  which  invoked  her 
assistance  from  the  Macedonian  yoke,  only  to  bring  her 
under  her  own;  until  H.c.  1  1<I  Greece  is  declared  a  pro 
viiice  of  the  all-embracing  Roman  empire,  under  the 
name  of  Achaia,  and  from  thenceforward  ceases  to  ex 
ercise  any  independent  political  action. 

The  influence  of  Greece  upon  the  religious  destinies 
of  the  human  race  was  of  the  most  important  kind.  It 
exercised  this  influence  chiefly  in  two  ways:  first,  in 
stirring  up  the  human  mind  from  barbarous  stagnation 
and  brutal  ignorance,  and  disciplining  and  exercising 
the  mental  powers;  secondly,  in  providing  a  language 
more  capable  of  giving  expression  to  thought  than  any 
other  tongue  of  man,  spreading  this  language  over 
the  surface  of  the  civilized  earth,  and  even  into  barba 
rous  lands,  affording  thus  a  channel  for  the  labours  of 
the  first  Christian  missionaries,  a  mode  of  communica 
tion  between  the  scattered  Christian  churches,  a  depo 
sitory  for  the  inspired  writings  which  were  to  be  for  all 


was  made  by  the  conquered    nations   to  throw  off  tlu 


time  the  rule  of  faith  to  the  Christian  world. 
VOL.  I. 


In  th 


(  Irecian  yoke.     They  acquiesced  in  it,  as  though  it  had 
been  a  power  established  from  ancient  times. 

The  colonies  of  Greece  were  another  means  by  which 
she  spread  her  influence  and  language  very  wide.  The 
overcrowding  of  a  narrow  country  by  an  increasing 
population,  political  troubles  at  home,  the  spirit  of  enter 
prise,  and  the  facilities  created  by  nautical  pursuits 
and  the  commercial  habit,  made  Greece  a  great  coloniz 
ing  country  for  centuries  before  it  was  known  as  a  mili 
tary  power  of  a  first  class.  And  the  habits  of  the 
country  made  Grecian  colonization  to  ho  of  a  peculiar 
kind,  and  of  a  kind  which  secured  for  the  mother 
country  a  permanent  influence.  The1  ( (reeks  seldom 
went  far  inland  with  their  colonies.  Islands,  or  the 
sea  coasts  of  continents,  were  the  localities  which  they 
chiefly  selected.  Keeping  up  by  this  means  through 
their  shipping  a  constant  intercourse  with  each  other 
and  with  Greece,  they  preserved  a  unity  though  scat 
tered  which  vastly  increased  their  influence,  and  they 
preserved  their  language  very  much  in  the  same  condi 
tion  in  which  they  brought  it  from  Greece.  Sicily  is 
said  to  have  been  colonized  from  Greece  so  early  as 
B.C.  P2H3:  somewhat  later  we  have  the  /Eolians  colo 
nizing  the  coasts  of  Asia  from  the  Propontis  to  the 

86 


GREECE 


082 


GREECE 


river  Hermus :  about  B.C.  804  \ve  have  Attica  sending 
her  surplus  population  to  Chios  and  Samos,  and  the 
coasts  of  Asia  south  of  the  Hermus,  and  founding  great 
eities  such  as  Ephesus  and  Miletus:  \ve  have  the 
Dorians  and  other  Grecian  people  at  various  times 
coloni/.ing  Caria,  and  Rhodes,  the  northern  shores  of 
the  /Egcan,  the  great  island  of  Cyprus,  Cyrene,  and 
other  great  towns  in  Africa,  and  the  greater  part  of 
the  coast  of  Italy:  and  in  B.C.  332  Alexander  founded 
the  city  of  Alexandria,  which  proved,  as  he  anticipated 
it  would,  the  commercial  capital  of  the  world. 

Hut  it  was  by  her  literature  that  Greece  exercised  her 
chief  influence  upon  the  human  mind.  Receiving  at 
first  her  own  recovered  civilization  and  letters  from  the 
Hast,  she  matured  and  gave  to  the  world  a  language  of 
unequalled  power,  and  a  literature  which  has  to  this 
day  charmed  the  imagination  and  exercised  the  intel 
lect  of  the  most  cultivated  nations  of  the  earth.  With 
far  greater  truth  than  can  be  said  of  any  other  lan 
guage,  ancient  or  modern,  the  ({reek  may  be  said  to 
have  been  in  the  days  of  the  apostles  a  universal  lan 
guage  (Gibbons  Decliuu,  ch.  ii.)  From  the  Adriatic  to  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Nile  men  spoke  and  thought  in  the 
Grecian  tongue.  Asia  was  covered  with  Grecian  cities, 
and  where  the  armies  of  Alexander  had  marched  there 
they  brought  and  left  the  knowledge  of  their  majestic 
tongue.  Throughout  the  Roman  empire,  while  the 
Latin  tongue  was  maintained  in  the  administration  of 
civil  and  military  government,  Greek  was  the  natural 
idiom  of  science  and  letters.  In  Rome  itself,  the  chief 
seat  of  the  Latin  tongue,  the  senate  resounded  with 
Greek  debates  (Val.  Max.  lib.  ii.  cap.  ii.  3),  and  Roman  sati 
rists  complain  that  the  Greek  is  more  used  than  the 
Latin  tongue  (juv.  Sat.vi.  is<>).  Even  among  the  barba 
rous  Gauls,  unsubdued  by  Rome,  Grecian  letters  had 
found  their  way  (Ciesarde  Bell.  Gall.  lib.  i.  2i»;  vi.  it):  and  the 
Macedonian  speech  was  heard  among  the  Indians  and 
Persians  (Seneca, Consol.  ad  Helviam.  cap.  vi.)  When  St.  Paul 
writes  epistles  for  the  information  and  edification  of 
the  Christian  churches,  it  is  in  this  tongue  he  writes. 
Every  one  would  look  for  Greek  in  his  letters  to  the 
cities  of  Corinth  and  Thessalonica,  where  it  was  their 
native  tongue  ;  but  it  is  in  the  same  language  that  he 
writes  to  Rome,  Ephesus,  and  Galatia.  In  this  tongue 
Mark  writes  his  Roman  gospel,  and  Peter  addresses  the 
churches  scattered  throughout  Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappa- 
docia,  Asia,  and  Bithynia,  1  re.  i.  1;  and  James  communi 
cates  with  the  twelve  tribes  scattered  abroad,  Ja.  i.  i. 
Among  the  foreign  Jews  of  the  Roman  empire  there 
can  be  little  if  any  question  that  Greek  was  the  spoken 
language.  They  consulted  the  oracles  of  God  in  the 
Septuagint  version.  How  far  the  Greek  language  was 
used  among  the  Jews  in  Palestine  is  still  a  question 
among  learned  men  (Fairbairn's  Hermeneutical  Manual,  part  i. 
sect,  i.;  Discussions  on  Gospels,  Rev.  A.  Roberts,  ch.  iii.  &c.)  Dif 
ferent  opinions  are  held  and  ably  maintained,  with  much 
show  of  evidence  for  each;  but  that  the  Grecian  language 
was  cultivated  to  a  very  considerable  extent  among 
them  is  denied  by  no  competent  scholar.  Some  think 
that  throughout  Judea  scarcely  any  language  was  heard 
except  the  Grecian  (Vossius,  DeSybbellinisOraculis,  cap.  xvi.; 
Diodati,  D.  Do  Christo  Gnece  loquente  Exercitatio).  Some  think 
that  throughout  the  country  both  Hebrew  (the  Aramaic) 
and  Greek  were  well  understood  and  spoken  by  all  classes 
of  the  people,  the  first  being  that  preferred  in  familiar  in 
tercourse,  while  the  latter  was  the  language  of  literature, 
of  instruction,  and  of  public  life  (Rev.  A.  Roberts,  Discourses 


on  the  Gospels).  Others  again  hold  that  Hebrew  was  still 
the  prevailing,  most  generally  used,  and  best-loved 
language  of  the  people  of  Palestine,  formed  the  staple 
of  their  vernacular  tongue,  while  the  knowledge  of 
Greek  was  chiefly  confined  to  the  higher  and  more 
educated  classes  (Dr.  Fairbairu's  Ilermeneutical  Manual,  part  i. 
sect,  i.)  The  opinion  we  are  inclined  to  adopt  is  this: 
we  would  say  that  Hebrew  was  well  understood,  com 
monly  used,  and  most  loved  in  Jerusalem  and  its  neigh 
bourhood,  while  the  knowledge  of  Greek  was  there  also 
generally  spread  :  while  on  the  other  hand  Greek  was 
probably  the  prevailing  language  among  all  classes  in 
Samaria  and  Galilee,  and  Hebrew  less  generally  under 
stood  and  spoken.  There  are  obvious  causes  for  the  dis 
tinction  here  suggested.  Jerusalem  was  the  head-quar 
ters  of  Judaism,  where  men  would  cling  most  strongly  to 
its  distinctive  language  :  it  was  besides  as  a  rule  peopled 
by  inhabitants  of  unmixed  Jewish  descent.  On  the 
other  hand  Samaria  was  peopled  chiefly  from  districts 
wholly  unacquainted  with  the  Hebrew  language,  2Ki. 
xvii.  24,  and  ever  prone  to  adopt  foreign  and  Grecian  cus 
toms  in  preference  to  those  of  the  Jews.  Galilee  too 
was  on  everv  side  surrounded  and  penetrated  by  a  (Jen- 
tile  and  Greek-speaking  population,  from  which  Judea 
was  in  a  great  measure  free,  and  which  would  almost 
inevitably  during  a  long  course  of  centuries  make  the 
prevailing  Greek  tongue  familiar  to  all  classes. 

That  Hebrew  was  commonly  spoken  at  Jerusalem  is 
certain.  The  Galilean  Peter,  or,  as  some  think,  the 
writer  of  Acts,  calls  it  "their  proper  tongue,"  Ac.  i.  i<>; 
when  Paul  addresses  an  audience  at  Jerusalem  he  gains 
the  more  attention  because  he  speaks  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue,  Ac.  xxii.  2 ;  and  in  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus, 
the  negotiations  between  the  Romans  and  besieged  are 
carried  on  through  an  interpreter  (Josephus,  Jewish  Wars,  vi. 
ii.  i,  5,&c.;  vi.  vi.  2),  and  the  language  in  general  used  among 
the  besieged  seems  to  have  been  the  Hebrew  (Josephus, 
Jewish  Wars,  v.  vi.  3;  v.  ix.  2;  vi.  ii.  l).  On  the  other  hand  ail 

audience  at  Jerusalem  was  capable  of  understanding 
Greek,  for  that  addressed  by  Paul  in  Hebrew  had  ex 
pected  to  be  addressed  in  Greek,  Ac.  xxii.  2.  But  while 
Hebrew  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  prevailing  lan 
guage  at  Jerusalem,  Greek  may,  we  think,  be  allowed 
to  have  been  much  more  the  prevailing  tongue  in 
Samaria  and  Galilee.  It  is  now  generally  allowed  that 
the  acquaintance  of  the  apostles  with  the  Greek  tongue 
was  not  the  effect  of  miracle  but  was  acquired  in  the 
usual  way.  We  have  four  of  them,  Peter,  James,  John, 
and  Jude,  writing  in  Greek  in  such  a  way  as  shows 
their  perfect  familiarity  with  the  language.  The  only 
natural  inference  is  that  they  had  learned  it  as  we  all 
learn  our  native  tongue  by  hearing  it  generally  spoken 
around  them.  But  these  apostles  were  Galileans,  and 
men  in  a  humble  rank  of  life,  and  from  this  it  would 
appear  that  Greek  was  commonly  spoken  by  the  hum 
bler  classes  in  Galilee.  With  this  view  of  the  ordinary 
language  of  the  people  of  Galilee,  and  with  the  fact  that 
a  very  large  proportion  of  our  Lord's  hearers,  when 
he  delivered  in  Galilee  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  were 
either  Galileans,  or  belonged  to  cities  and  districts  which 
spoke  Greek  and  did  not  speak  Hebrew,  Mat.  iv.  2.->, 
we  have  little  reason  to  doubt  but  that  this  famous 
sermon  was  spoken  in  the  Greek  tongue.  Spoken  in 
Galilee,  and  with  of  course  Galileans  forming  the  majority 
of  his  hearers,  if  it  were  spoken  in  Greek  it  argues  a 
familiar  acquaintance  with  Greek  on  the  part  of  the 
Galileans.  Again,  while  we  have  seen  in  Josephus'  nar- 


GREECE  G 

rative  of  the  Jewish  war  strong  evidence  that  Hebrew 
was  the  prevailing  language  at  Jerusalem,  and  that  gene 
rally  spoken,  this,  so  far  as  we  know,  does  not  appear 
from  his  account  of  the  war  when  it  was  waged  in  Galilee 
(Josephus,  Jewish  Wars,  iii.  vii.  33,35 ;  iii.  ix.  s  ;  iv.  i.  f>,  8  ;  iv.  ii.  2,3,5). 
Upon  tliese  various  occasions  we  are  not  told  of  the 
Galileans  using  the  Hebrew  language,  or  negotiating 
with  the  Romans  through  an  interpreter,  as  we  rind 
repeatedly  stated  when  the  scene  of  the  war  changes  to 


a  GREECE 

all  the  divisions  into  which  mankind  could  be  distin 
guished,  he  only  adds  the  barbarian  and  Scythian  to 
the  Jew  and  the  Greek,  tvi.  iii.  11.  ]u  his  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  he  makes  the  threefold  division  of  mankind 
to  be  Jews,  Greeks  and  believers,  i  Co.  x.  32  in  the  original; 
while  elsewhere  he  makes  the  Jew  and  the  Greek  to 
embrace  absolutely  men  over  the  whole  face  of  the 


The  influence  of  Greece  upon  the  propagation  of  the 


the  Greek.      We  thus  find  tin 
upon  the  human  mind  in  her 
tolic  age  a  common  tongue, 
used  than  any  other  then  or  s 
In  this  Greek  tongue  men 
the  world  works  which  are  to 
branch  of  literature,  and  whi< 
effect  in  rousing,  disciplining 
ties  of  the    human  mind.      ( 
overthrow.  was  the  school  of 
subtle  power  which  penetrate 
and  sent  through  it  the  puls 
enumerate  in  poetry  and  the  di 
Homer,  Alc;eus,  Sappho,  ,  Es< 
Sophocles,  Aristophanes;  in 
rodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Xei 
names  of    Lycurgus  and    So] 
I  socrates,  Demosthenes,    and 
those  of  Pythagoras,  Socrates 
have  mentioned   the  names  <> 
ercised  an  incalculable   influc 
in  their  own  and  in  every  sue 
words  of  Grote,  overshot  tin 
the    teachers    of    posterity, 
owe    the    perfection    and    pr< 
tongue,  just  as  we  owe  the  p( 
of  our  English  language  to  ou 
to  our  translation  of  the  I'.ibK 
speare.      Whoever   wishes  to 
which  various  Greek  writers  1 
tory,   will  find   an   account  of 
Aj.iMi,,  i,.  i.  c.  22,  &e.) 
So  widely  prevailing   in    tin 
cian  influence  and  the  Givci: 
ill  the  Xew  Testament  beeonn 
to  "  Gentiles"  in   the   Old  Te> 
prophet  divided  mankind   intc 
the  Christian  apostle  divided  i 
The  name  Gnvk  is  given  n»t 
the  Grecian  cities  of  Macedon 
to  the  whole  of  mankind  as  dis 
and  sometimes  to  civilized  in; 
barbarians.    Thus,  all  the  dwe 
Asia)  are  divided  into  the   t\\ 
Greeks,  Ac.  xix.  in;  xx.  i*-2i.     T! 
among  whom  the  scattered  Je\\ 
land  are  all  called  Greeks  by  th 
ginal.     Greeks  are  used  as  syiK 
Greek  translation  of  the  wide 

D"ia  C.l"int\   Ac.  xiv.  1,2;  xviii.  .),  fi. 

guage  mankind  is  divided  into 
barbarians,  Ro.  i.  i-t  (see  Lid.lull,  G 
and  Jews   are  said  to  compos- 
preached  up  to  the  time  when  1 
Romans,  Iio.  HO;  ii.  11,10.     Win 

wide  influence  of  Greece 
giving  to  men  in  the  apos- 
>ne  far  more  universally 
ince. 
of  Grecian  birth  gave  to 
this  day  models  in  every 
h  had  the  most  powerful 
and  maturing  the  facul- 
•  recce,   after  its   political 
the  human  intellect  :   the 
d  a  stagnant  inert  ma-;s, 
•  of  thought.      When   \\e 
ama  the  names  of  Hesiod, 
hylus,  Pindar,  Euripides, 
listory,  the  names  of  He- 
ophon;  in  legislation,  the 
Hi  :    in   oratory,   those  of 
.•Eschines;  in  philosophy, 
Plato,  and  Aristotle;  we 
men  whose  works   exer- 
nce  on  the  human  mind 
•ceding  time,  who.  in  the 

^'i  um_,  m.iin,iii   juuKi    i  or    uie    L,ospei  mat  lllnu- 
ence  was  of  an  indirect  rather  than  of  a  direct  kind. 
The  idolatrous  yet  beautiful  system  of  Grecian  mytho 
logy,  and  even  its  philosophy,  did  not  of  themselves  create 
a  disposition  to  receive  the  doctrines  of  the  gospel.     St. 
Paul  complains  that  the  preaching  of  the  cross  was  to 
the  Greeks  foolishness,  as  it  was  to  the  Jews  a  .stumbling- 
block,  l  Co.  i.  23;  and  it  required  the  grace  and  power  of 
God  accompanying  the  preaching  of  his  word  to  over 
come  the  one  as  well  as  the  other.  1  Co.  i.  -.M.      Put  in  an 
indirect   way  the  influence   of  Greece   upon  the  world 

!  produced  under  Gods  providence  results  of  the  most 
important  kind  on  the  success  of  the  gospel.      We  have 
already  referred   to  its  influence  in  quickening  the   in 
tellectual  faculties  of  the  human  mind,  and  taking  awav 
the  dull,  dead,  uninquiring  disposition  which  is   one   of 
the  characteristics   of  barbarism,   and  which  oilers  an 
inert  opposition  of  the   strongest    kind  to  the  reception 
of  truth.      The  value   of  this  may  be  estimated   by  the 
fact  that,  while  the  gospel  had  indeed  its  triumph  among 
barliarous  people,  i;,,.  i  n,  it  was  among  the  more  eivili/.ed 
communities  that  it  had  its  greatest  victories-  in  cities, 
rather   than    in    the   rural    districts,    Ac.  xiv.  1  ;  \vii.  -1,12; 
xviii    i.      Put  it  was  more  than  all  in  its  providing  a  uni 
versal  medium  of  communication  through  at  least  the 
li'oman    world    that    Greece   exercised    an   incalculable 
influence  on  the   propagation   of    the   gospel.      The   old 
theory  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  Ac.  ii   l,  being  for  the  pur 
pose  of  enabling  the  apostles  to  preach  to  men  of  various 
languages  is  now  very  much  given  up  by  the  most  ortho 
dox-  commentators  (Conyl.<j:iruan<l  Hou-smi,  i.  17n  ;  Alexan.luron 
tln-Art>,i.  ]..  15;  Air..r.l  (.n  Arts  ii.  1-1).       The  places  when,'  We 

read  chiefly  of  the  gift  of  tongues  were  such  as  it  was 
least  required  in  fur  tltix  jun'/nntc,  Acts  ii.  i-i;  x.  -n;  ;  xix.  o  ; 
1  Co.  xiv.       In  none  of   these  places  are  we  told   that   the 
miraculous  Lrift  of  tongues  was  for  the  purpose  of  in 
structing  the  hearers,  but  that  it  was  a  sign   attesting 
the    truth   of    the   gospel.      In    some  cases  at  least  the 
speakers    with   tongues   did  not  understand    what   they 
said,  i  CV  xiv.  13,  in.      The   truth   seems   to  be  that   God, 
who  prefers  ordinary  methods  to  miracle,  where  miracle 
is  not  required  —though  where   it   is  required  he  works 
it  witli  a  lavish  hand  —  had  in  the  spread  of  the  Greek 
tongue  provided  the  necessary  vehicle  for  the  propaga 
tion  of  the  gospel.      Grecian  colonization,  victories,  and 
literature,  provided   this  required   medium,  as   Roman 
authority  and  law  had   provided  a  great  field  through 
which  the  gospel  took  its  free  course.      Accordingly,  we 
find  our  Lord  selecting  as  his  apostles  men  whose  use 
of  the  Greek   language   proves   it  to   have  been  their 
mother  tongue,  acquired  according  to  the  natural  laws 
of  lingual   acquisition    (Neander,  Planting,  &c.  of  the  Church, 
l».  10,  English  edition').     From  Greek-speaking  Galilee  the 
first  Christian  missionaries  are  chosen.      And  so  we  find 
through  the  book  of  Acts,  and  from  the  epistles,  that 
wherever  these  men  and  others  like  them  went,  they 
found  a  Greek-speaking  population,  to  whom  in  Greek 

iv    own   age,  and  became 
To   their  works    too    we 
servation    of    the    Greek 
rfection  and  preservation 
r  great  writers,  above  all 
and  the  works  of  Shak- 
see   some  of   the   notices 
ave  taken  of  Jewish  his- 
them  in  Josephus  (c.,nt. 

apostles'  days  was  Gre- 
u   language,  that  Greeks 
•s  equivalent  or  almost  so 
tament.     As  the  .Jewish 
>   Jews  and   Gentiles,   so 
t  into  Jews  and  Greeks, 
nily  to  the  inhabitants  of 
>r  Aehaia,  but  sometimes 
tinguished  from  the.  Few, 
in  as  distinguished  from 
lers  in  Asia  (Proconsular 
o  divisions  of  Jews  and 
le  multitudinous  nations 
•s  were  dispersed  in  every 
C  Jews,  .In.  vii.  35  in  the  ori- 
mymous  with  tOvuv,  the 
embracing  Hebrew  term 
In  the  matter  of  lan- 

wo  divisions,  Greeks  and 

r.  Lex.  on  p/zepa.™;}  .    Greeks 
e  all  to  whom  Paul  had 
e  wrote  his  epistle  to  the 
•n  Paul  would  enumerate 

GREYHOUND 


fiS4 


HABAKKUK 


they  preached  the  gospel,  and  to  whom  in  Greek  they 
addressed  those  letters  which  were  for  their  instruction, 
Ac.  xiv.  l;  xvii.  1;  xviii.  4;  xix.  17;  the  epistles  generally.  The 
empires  of  the  world  unconsciously  perform  their  part 


prehead  elegance  and  swiftness  of  motion  in  the  idea  of 
"going  well."  The  phrase  used  may  have  a  double  re 
ference;  first,  to  the  slenderness  of  the  lumbar  region,-; 
jf  the  body,  as  if  tightly  braced-in,  a  description  which 


bringing  about  God's  will.  Babylon  and  Persia  is  not  very  applicable  to  a  horse,  but  is  remarkably 
.ioth  did  theirs  before  Greece,  Is.  x.  0,7,  but  Greece  per-  true  of  the  dog  in  question;  and  secondly,  by  a  meta- 
fonned  a  far  more  important  part.  It  is  no  wonder  phor,  to  the  custom  of  girding  up  the  loins  when  men 

•  ,  i  •    i  •  ,  1  1 1  f\          A  .         C    j.1     . 


then  that  before  it  arose  on  the  political  theatre  it  oc-  would  move  with  rapidity,  and  so  to  the  fleetiiess  of  the 
cupied  a  prominent  place  in  the  predicted  plans  of  God,  greyhound,  as  if  it  had  girded  up  its  loins  to  run.  The 
l-  ixvi  ID-  Da  viii.  (vai ;  Zoo.  ix.  i:i.  Its  part  was  to  raise  smooth-haired  greyhound  of  England  is  unequalled  for 


lie  Grecian  tongue  the  gospel  of  Christ  did  not  prevail  dogs  from  Southern  India.  It  is  certain  that  hounds 
i  the  apostolic  ive.  Beyond  the  Roman  empire,  with  slender  loins  have  been  used  in  the  chase  in  Persia, 
hrou"h  which  we  have  seen  that  the  ( Jrecian  language  Arabia,  and  Egypt,  from  very  ancient  times;  and  among 


was  known,  the  gospel  did  not  take  vigorous  root,  the  Egyptian  paintings  lately  disentombed,  there  are 
Doubtless  many  of  the  upostlos  and  others  went  out-  ,  representations  of  dogs  used  in  coursing,  and  led  in 
side  of  the  Roman  empire  and  preached  and  won  souls  leash,  which  might  have  been  drawn  from  our  English 
to  Christ:  traces  of  their  work  remain  to  this  day  greyhound.  The  thin  nose,  the  small  ears,  the  length 
in  India  and  elsewhere  :  but  they  did  not  overthrow  j  of  body,  the  girt  loins,  the  very  curve  of  the  tail,  and 
heathenism  in  those  regions:  it  remained  and  re-  the  gait,  are  admirably  represented,  and  are  the  exact 
mains  unshaken.  It  was  in  the  world  subject  to  counterpart  of  our  own  elegant  breed.  [P.  H.  c.J 

Grecian    influence    that    the    gospel    found    its    early!       GRIND.      ,Scr  MILL. 

triumph  [H.  C.]  GROVE,    what  is    commonly    understood    by   this, 

GREYHOUND  [o';rCTm>  -'"••-'>  "Wthnaiml    This  :  when  used   in  connection  with   religion,  is   a   wood  <,f 

!  more  or  less  extent  set  apart  for  purposes  of  false  wor- 

pbrase,  which  occurs  only  in  one  passage,  I'r.  x:  .  :;i,  ^^  and  mogt  comm(,lllv  abused  to  practices  of  the 
signifies  "girt  in  the  loins,"  and  there  is  some  uncer-  \  foulest  kmd.  But  the  word  rendered  thus  in  our  Eng- 
tainty  as  to  what  is  specifically  intended  by  it.  The  '  ^  j^bles  should  rather  have  been  retained  in  its 


Knglish  version  gives  in  the  margin  not  only  the  literal 


untranslated  form,  ASHEKAH  or  ASHTAROTH;  for  it  is 


rendering,   but  the   alternative   of   "a  horse,"   as    the     the  name  of  the  Syrian  Astarte  or  Venus,  the  female 
meaning.   To  this  Bochart,  Gesenius,  and  others,  assent.  ]  companion  of  Baal,  with  whom  it  is  commonly  asso- 

The  LXX.  give  "a  cock  strutting  around  his  hens."          elated.     The  precise  sense  of   various  passages  in  the 

The  only  attribute  in  the  text  is  that  which  is  pre-  :  Old    Testament    scripture    has    by   this    mistake  been 

dicated  of  this  in  common  with  three  other  objects—     somewhat  lost  to  the  English  reader.  (See  ASHTAROTH.) 


dignity  or  comeliness  in  action.  "  There  be  three 
things  which  <jo  -mil,  yea,  four  are  comely  in  going: 
a  lion,  ...  a  greyhound,  an  he-goat  also,  and  a  king, 
against  whom  there  is  no  rising  up." 

We  do  not  see  why  ''a  greyhound"  may  not  be  as 


What,  however,  is  sometimes  rendered  plain  in  our 
English  version  should  rather 'be  yrocc,  or  more  pro 
perly  perhaps  oaks;  thus  at  Ge.  xiii.  18,  Abraham 
dwelt  among  the  oaks  of  Mamre — also  eh.  xiv.  13; 
xviii.  1.  But  trees  of  that  sort  were  for  shelter  merely, 


good  a  rendering  as  any;  particularly  if  we  may  com-  [  and  not  for  purposes  of  worship. 


H 


HABAK'KUK  [from  the  verb  pan,  hdbak,to  embrace, 

'      -T 

through  reduplication  of  the  verbal  form,  which  inten 
sifies  the  meaning;  so  that  Habakkuk,  as  the  name  of 
a  man,  will  signify,  according  as  it  is  taken,  actively 
or  passively,  either  the  cordial  emuracer,  or  the  cordi 
ally  embraced  one],  the  name  of  a  distinguished  Hebrew 
prophet.  Luther  took  the  name  in  the  active  sense, 
and  applied  it  to  the  labours  and  writings  of  the  man, 
thus:  "  Habakkuk  had  a  proper  name  for  his  office;  for 
it  signifies  a  man  of  heart,  one  who  is  hearty  toward 
another  and  takes  him  into  his  arms.  This  is  what  he 
docs  in  his  prophecy;  he  comforts  his  people  and  lifts 
them  up.  as  one  would  do  with  a  weeping  child  or  man, 
bidding  him  be  quiet  and  content,  because,  please  God, 


it  would  yet  be  better  with  him.''  Such,  certainly,  was 
the  general  aim  of  his  prophecy  as  regards  the  people 
of  God;  it  held  out  the  prospect  of  returning  favour 
and  blessing,  after  floods  of  judgment  had  spent  their 
fury  in  vindication  of  the  cause  of  righteousness. 

No  personal  trait  or  historical  notice  has  been  pre 
served  of  Habakkuk  in  any  canonical  book  of  Scripture; 
and  the  tradition  which  is  found  at  the  close  of  the 
apocryphal  story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon— which  repre 
sents  him  as  caught  away  by  an  angel  and  transported 
to  Babylon,  that  he  might  relieve  the  hunger  of  Daniel 
when  shut  up  in  the  lions'  den,  with  the  food  that  had 
been  prepared  for  some  reapers  in  Judea—  is  so  evi 
dently  an  invention  of  later  times,  that  110  account  can 
be  made  of  it.  If  available  for  anything,  it  can  only 


HABAKKUK 


HABAKKUK 


be  as  a  traditional  evidence  that  Habakkuk  was  a  con 
temporary  of  Daniel;  but  for  this  purpose  it  is  scarcely 
needed,  as  there  are  other  tilings  of  a  more  reliable 
kind  which  yield  the  same  result.  1.  The  first  thing 
that  deserves  notice,  in  endeavouring  to  find  one's  way 
to  the  personal  position  and  characteristics  of  the  man, 
is  the  designation  he  gives  of  himself  at  the  commence 
ment  of  his  book;  he  is  there  styled  "  Habakkuk  the 
prophet."  This  designation  is  applied  only  to  those 
who  were  in  habitual  possession  of  prophetical  gifts, 
and  held  as  their  chief  distinction  the  prophetical  office. 
As  persons  so  endowed  and  called  most  commonly  be 
longed  to  the  Levitical  order,  this  circumstance  alone 
renders  it  probable  that  he  was  by  birth  a  Levite. 
2.  The  subscription  appended  to  the  lyrical  prophecy 
contained  in  the  third  chapter  of  his  book,  strengthens 
the  conviction  thus  produced  of  his  Levitical  origin;  it 
is  dedicated  "  to  the  chief  singer — i.e.  the  leader  of  the 
temple  music — on  (namely,  to  be  sung  on  or  with)  my 
stringed  instruments."  This  indicates  him  as  one  who 
had  personally  to  do  with  the  temple- service;  who,  with 
his  own  harpsichord  or  stringed  instrument,  meant  to 
accompany  the  song  which,  through  the  Spirit,  he  had 
indited  for  the  use  of  the  temple  worshippers.  As  such, 
however,  he  must  have  been  a  Levite,  if  not  also  a 
priest;  for  all  that  pertained  to  the  singing  of  the  temple 
was  in  their  hands;  and  the  leading  members  of  that 
sacred  band,  Asaph,  Heman,  and  Jeduthun,  from  the 
first  took  rank  with  and  were  called  prophets,  1  Ch.  xxv. 
!-.">.  The  .supposition  of  hi.s  belonging  to  this  class  i-s 
further  borne  out  by  the  strongly  lyrical  character  of 
his  book,  in  which  respect  it  approaches  nearer  to  the 
Psalms  of  David  than  any  other  of  the  prophetical 
writings.  It  is  but  natural  to  conceive,  that  in  this 
case,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  habitual  occupation  of 
the  writer  was  allowed  to  give  its  distinctive  impress 
to  the  utterances  which  he  was  inspired  to  give  forth 
to  the  people  of  God.  3.  Finally,  in  regard  to  the 
period  to  which  his  writings  should  be  assigned,  there 
are  indications  in  the  writings  themselves,  and  their 
relative  place  in  the  sacred  canon,  which  clearly  point 
to  a  time  somewhat,  yet  not  very  long,  anterior  to  the 
era  of  the  Babylonish  exile.  Thus,  in  the  first  chapter 
of  his  predictions,  he  announces  the  Chaldean  invasion 
as  a  thing  still  future,  and  a  thing  so  portentous  in  its 
nature,  so  fearful  in  its  character  and  results,  that  men 
would  not  believe  it  till  it  had  actually  taken  place, 
ch.  i.  -r>.  The  Chaldean  power,  it  would  seem,  was  already 
known  as  one  of  rising  energy,  yet  scarcely  known  a.s 
capable  of  inflicting  such  terrible  disasters  as  those 
which  might  now  be  expected;  and  the  time,  therefore, 
may  naturally  be  supposed  to  have  been  prior  to  the 
battle  of  Charchemish,  in  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim's 
reign,  when  by  the  overthrow  of  the  army  of  Egypt  the 
Chaldeans  rose  at  once  to  the  visible  mastery  of  the 
world.  From  that  period  the  Chaldean  power  developed 
itself  with  terrible  energy  and  force,  and  men  soon 
ceased  to  wonder  at  any  devastation  accomplished  by 
it.  Vet,  in  this  case,  the  devastation  could  not  be 
placed  many  years  subsequent  to  the  prediction;  for, 
speaking  to  the  men  of  his  own  generation,  the  prophet 
says,  "I  will  work  a  work  in  your  days."  He  might 
have  spoken  thus  any  time  during  the  latter  half  of 
Josiah' s  reign,  but  we  cannot  well  transfer  the  words 
to  an  earlier  period.  It  is  quite  probable,  however, 
that  he  did  speak  so  early,  and  not,  as  many  of  the 
later  critics  suppose,  in  the  days  of  Jehoiakim,  and 


while  the  Chaldean  army  was  actually  on  its  way  to 
Jerusalem.  For,  Zephaniah,  whose  writings  stand 
next  in  order  to  Habakkuk' s,  and  who  also  announced 
the  same  coming  desolations,  is  expressly  declared  to 
have  prophesied  in  the  days  of  Josiah,  Zep.  i.  i;  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  compilers  of 
the  canon,  who,  living  near  the  times  of  the  sacred 
writers,  had  access  to  information  regarding  them  that 
is  no  longer  available,  were  chiefly  guided  by  chrono 
logical  considerations  in  fixing  the  order  of  the  minor 
prophets.  If,  then,  Zephaniah  prophesied  in  the  days 
t)f  Josiah,  it  is  every  way  probable  that  Habakkuk, 
whose  writings  were  placed  immediately  before  those 
)f  Zephaniah,  also  prophesied  during  the  same  reign. 
And  this  is  still  further  confirmed  by  two  remarkably 
coinciding  passages  in  the  two  prophets,  Ilab.  ii.  L'O;  Zep.  i.  7; 
hich  appear  to  indicate  that  the  one  prophet  stood  to 
the  other  in  a  relation  of  dependence.  But  from  the 
character  both  of  the  two  prophets  and  of  the  two  pas 
sages,  this  is  greatly  more  likely  to  have  been  the  case 
with  Zephaniah  toward  Habakkuk,  than  with  Habak 
kuk  toward  Zephaniah  (see  Dolitzsch's  Dor  Prophet  Ilab.  p.  vii.) 
There  are  also  apparent  references  in  Jeremiah  to  some 
passages  in  Habakkuk— comp.  Je.  li.  5S  with  Ilab.  ii.  13,  and 
Jc.  xxii.  13  with  Ilab.  ii.  ii! — which  seem  to  point  in  the  same 
direction.  We  have  therefore  good  reason  to  believe 
that  Habakkuk  prophesied,  and  that  his  writings  were 
known  to  other  men  of  Cod,  in  the  days  of  Josiah. 
But  it  could  only  have  been  in  the  latter  portion  of 
those  days,  when  the  time  of  the  great  catastrophe  was 
not  very  remote;  and  also  when  the  temple  service, 
through  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  had  been  so  far 
restored,  and  the  cause  of  (!od  generally  had  so  far 
again  risen  to  the  ascendant,  that  a  fresh  lyrical  song 
like  that  of  Habakkuk  could  be  fitly  destined  for  the 
sanctuary.  If,  then,  we  should  date  his  prophetic 
agency  from  the  last  ten  years  of  Josiah' s  reign — that 
is,  from  15. c.  620,  or  fifteen  years  before  the  first  cap 
ture  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  thirty  or  so 
before  its  total  prostration — we  shall  not  probably  be  far 
from  the  mark.  \Ve  can  scarcely  suppose  him  to  have 
begun  to  prophesy  earlier,  but  it  may  possibly  have 
been  a  little  later. 

The  inscription  which  Habakkuk  put  upon  his  pro 
phecies  is  somewhat  peculiar;  he  designates  them  "the 
burden  (iiuixau)  which  he  did  see."  The  learned  are- 
still  divided  as  to  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term 
//<<<.<«(,  viz.  whether  it  means  simply  a  divine  word, 
which  the  prophet  was  to  take  up  and  bear  to  others, 
a  message  from  Heaven  with  which  he  was  charged  on 
their  account,  or  specifically  a  word  of  judgment,  heavy 
tii  lings  that  he  received  to  deliver  to  them.  The  pre 
ponderance  of  modern  authorities  is  in  favour  of  the 
former  opinion,  though  Hengstenberg  still  adheres  to 
the  latter;  ami  he  so  far  has  the  usage  on  his  side,  that 
if  not  in  all,  certainly  in  by  much  the  greater  number 
of  instances  in  which  the  word  occurs,  it  characterizes 
prophecies  that  are  of  a  predominantly  severe  and 
tlireatening  character.  In  every  word  of  God  that  is 
actually  termed  a  burden,  threatenings  and  judgments 
occupy  a  conspicuous  place.  But  still,  as  these  are,  in 
many  of  the  cases,  intermingled  with  announcements 
of  coming  good,  it  appears  somewhat  arbitrary  to  re 
strict  the  word  altogether  to  the  minatory  aspect  of 
God's  dealings.  A  prophetic  word  of  grave  and  solemn 
import  to  the  parties  concerned,  seeins  to  l>e  as  much 
as  the  usage  would  warrant  us  to  understand  by  the 


HABAKKUK  6 

term.  -And  that  word  the  prophet  Habakkuk  reports 
himself  to  have  seen,  as  some  of  the  other  prophets 
also  have  done,  Is.  xiii.  1;  Am.  i.  l;  Mi.  i.  1;  that  is,  it  pre 
sented  itself  in  the  first  instance  to  his  soul  as  an  objec 
tive  communication  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  he 
had  hut  to  apprehend  with  the  eye  of  his  inner  man, 
and  faithfully  report  for  the  good  of  others.  Not, 
however,  that  lie  was  simply  a  passive  instrument  in 
the  matter;  the  whole  tone  and  character  of  his  writ 
ings  show  him  to  have  been  intensely  alive  and  in 
terested  in  what  passed  before  the  eye  of  his  mind;  but 
it  was  still  not  his  own  cogitations  he  had  to  do  with; 
it  was  the  mind  of  God  shedding  itself  like  a  heavenly 
light  within  him,  and  giving  him  clear  discernment  of 
the  things  that  were  going  to  develope  themselves  in 
the  providence  of  God. 

The  leading  subject  of  his  prophecy  has  been  differ 
ently  apprehended  by  commentators,  according  to  the 
point  of  view  from  which  they  have  contemplated  it; 
some  regarding  it  as  mainly  a  revelation  of  the  mind 
of  God  concerning  the  Chaldean  power;  while  others 
(like  Calvin)  take  the  Jews  to  be  the  chief  theme,  and 
the  stability  of  God's  interest  in  connection  with  them. 
Viewing  the  book  simply  as  a  composition,  and  with 
reference  to  the  relative  place  occupied  by  the  topics 
presented  in  it,  one  might  justly  say,  with  Delit/sch, 
that  the  prediction  respecting  the  Chaldean  kingdom 
as  the  great  worldly  power  forms  the  centre  around 
which  the  other  parts  of  the  book  are  grouped,  toward 
which  all  the  rays  as  it  were  converge.  The  invasion 
of  Judea  in  that  case,  described  in  eh.  i.  5-11,  is  but 
as  the  antechamber  to  the  building,  which  consists  in 
a  delineation  of  the  God- defying  character  of  the  Chal 
dean,  monarchy,  and  the  consequent  certainty  of  its  over 
throw;  and  in  the  announcement  of  this  was  the  special 
comfort  provided  for  the  people  of  God.  It  is  scarcely 
possible,  however,  to  avoid  feeling  that  the  primary  and 
more  fundamental  point  to  the  prophet's  mind  lay 
deeper  than  this.  The  book  is  profoundly  moral  in  its 
character  and  tone.  What  lies  nearest  to  the  heart  of 
the  prophet  is  the  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness; 
and  how,  amid  the  formidable  appearances  that  were 
against  it,  this  was  to  be  maintained  and  vindicated. 
In  his  immediate  neighbourhood,  and  among  those  who 
should  have  stood  as  one  man  for  the  interests  of  right 
eousness,  he  saw  disorders  and  iniquities  proceeding, 
such  as  manifestly  cried  to  Heaven  for  vengeance. 
That  vengeance  he  also  saw  coming;  but,  strange  to 
think,  travelling  in  the  march  of  a  power  itself  more 
godless  and  corrupt  than  the  people  it  came  to  chastise. 
Could  such  a  power  really  prosper  ?  Could  the  interest 
or  even  the  faithfulness  and  consistence  of  a  righteous 
God  stand  with  the  continued  success  and  imperious 
ascendency  of  a  dominion  which  so  lawlessly  trampled 
on  everything  human  and  divine  ?  Impossible !  such 
an  instrument  of  judgment  must  itself  be  judged;  the 
great  worldly  power  is  only  raised  up  for  a  time  as  a 
thrashing  instrument  in  the  hand  of  God;  and  when 
its  work  is  done  it  shall  be  shattered  to  pieces,  as  it 
had  shattered  those  that  were  opposed  to  it.  But  the 
truth  and  faithfulness  of  God  have  another  foundation; 
rooted  in  his  own  eternal  nature  they  stand  fast  to  all 
generations  for  as  many  as  humbly  trust  in  his  name; 
and  as  in  the  past,  so  in  the  future,  he  will  never  cease 
to  manifest  his  glorious  perfections  in  their  behalf,  till 
every  hostile  power  has  been  destroyed,  and  the  whole 
earth  is  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  his  glory.  Blessed, 


;<>  HABAKKUK 

then,  are  they  who,  in  all  circumstances,  confide  in  his 
word,  and  commit  themselves  to  his  keeping  —  alone 
blessed.  Such  is  the  train  of  thought  and  feeling  that 
runs  through  this  prophet;  and  if,  on  surveying  it,  we 
may  say  that  the  character  and  doom  of  the  Chaldean 
power  has  formally  the  largest  place  in  his  writings,  we 
must  also  say  that  underneath  all  lies  the  prophet's 
regard  for  the  truth  of  God,  and  his  people's  relation 
thereto;  and  mainly  with  a  view  to  this  was  the  other 
and  more  external  phase  of  the  divine  dealings  ex 
hibited. 

Viewed  in  respect  to  form,  the  chief  peculiarity  in 
the  writings  of  Habakkuk  is  found  in  the  lyrical  effu 
sion  contained  in  ch.  iii.,  and  on  which  much  diversity 
of  opinion  has  prevailed.  It  is  also  in  the  interpreta 
tion  of  that  portion  that  the  chief  difficulty  for  the 
expositor  lies.  Without  going  into  any  detail  on  the 
matter,  which  would  here  be  out  of  place,  we  shall 
state  briefly  and  in  the  general  what  appears  to  be  the 
correct  view,  which  is  that  also  that  has  been  ably  set 
forth  and  vindicated  by  Delitzsch  in  his  work  on  this 
prophet.  This  prayer-song,  destined  by  the  prophet 
for  the  spiritual  enlightenment  and  quickening  of  the 
covenant-people,  forms  the  devotional  echo  and  resump 
tion  of  the  previous  portions  of  his  book.  In.  the  use  of 
it  the  worshipper  was  to  be  understood  as  entering  into 
the  revelations  already  unfolded,  and  giving  vent  to 
his  feelings  before  God  with  the  liveliness  and  energy 
appropriate  to  sacred  song.  In  the  subject  itself  there 
was  much  to  excite  the  spirit,  and  stir  it  with  alternate 
movements  of  fear  and  hope;  and  this  perhaps  is  the 
reason  why  the  piece  is  entitled  upon  Shiyionoth  (from 
!TJtt?>  shay  ah,  to  u-ander  to  and  fro),  pointing  to  the  raised 

T  T 

or  tumultuous  character  of  the  production,  its  quick  and 
rapid  transitions  of  feeling,  as  of  a  soul  deeply  moved 
and  agitated  by  the  thoughts  that  were  passing  through 
the  mind.  And  then,  as  regards  the  substance  of  the 
representation,  while  from  the  connection  and  design 
of  the  song  we  must  suppose  the  prophet  to  have  had 
his  eye  throughout  upon  the  future — a  supposition  fully 
borne  out  by  an  analysis  of  the  several  parts — it  is 
chiefly  thrown,  as  in  some  of  the  psalms,  for  example 
Ps.  Ixxvii.,  into  the  form  and  imagery  of  the  past.  ' '  The 
prophet  borrows  from  God's  wonders  of  old,  and  the 
representations  given  of  them,  the  traits  and  colours  of 
his  delineation  respecting  a  corresponding  future,  justly 
regarding  the  one  as  the  type  of  the  other;  for  the  work 
of  judgment  he  delineates  was  one  that  should  unite 
in  itself  all  the  elements  of  dreadful  majesty  and  re 
deeming  power  that  had  ever  appeared  in  God's  earlier 
judicial  manifestations  for  his  people,  a  deliverance  that 
should  even  eclipse  the  typical  deliverance  from  Egypt. 
This  close  pre-established  connection  between  the  past 
and  the  promised  future,  is  the  reason  why  the  prophet 
makes  Teman  and  the  mountains  of  Paran  the  starting- 
point  of  the  theophany,  and  represents  the  tribes  on 
both  sides  of  the  Red  Sea  as  thrown  into  terror  and 
confusion,  precisely  as  the  harpers  in  Re.  xv.  3  are 
represented  as  singing  the  song  of  Moses  and  the 
Lamb"  (Delitzsch, p.  139).  In  short,  for  the  assurance 
of  his  faith  and  hope,  and  for  the  more  vivid  realization 
of  what  was  to  take  place,  the  prophet  sees  God  tra 
versing  anew,  as  it  were,  the  old  paths,  and  doing  over 
again  his  mighty  deeds;  so  that  his  people  should  cer 
tainly  be  able  to  rejoice  in  him  still,  and  know  him  as 
the  God  of  their  salvation.  Such  indeed  is  the  usual 


HABERGEON 


687 


HADES 


style  of  prophecy,  which  ever  strives  to  picture  the 
future  under  the  relations  and  imagery  of  the  past — 
only,  the  demands  of  lyrical  poetry,  when  the  prophecy 
takes  this  shape,  naturally  give  to  the  production  a 
bolder  and  more  life-like  appearance. 

The  style  of  the  prophet  Habakkuk  has  always  been 
regarded  as  peculiarly  distinguished  for  its  purity, 
terseness,  and  force.  Lowth  characterizes  his  ode  as 
among  the  finest  specimens  of  the  purest  He-brew 
poetry;  and  it  ranks  also  with  the  best  for  loftiness  of 
sentiment,  vivacity  of  description,  and  appropriateness 
of  imagery.  Though  only  two  passages  from  his  writ 
ings  are  distinctly  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament,  yet 
one  of  these  is  quoted  with  special  emphasis  and  some 
frequency;  it  is  the  pregnant  utterance  in  cli.  ii.  4,  "The 
just  shall  live  by  his  faith,"  which  contains  the  germ  of 
the  entire  gospel,  Ro.  i.  17;  G;i.  iii.  ii;  lie.  x.  :ix  The  other  is 
in  ch.  i.  r>,  and  is  quoted  by  Paul  in  one  of  his  warning 
addresses  to  his  unbelieving  countrymen,  Ac.  xiii.  •!<>,  41. 

Beside  the  general  commentaries  on  the  minor  pro 
phets,  the  best  help  for  the  critical  study  of  this  pro 
phet  is  the  commentary  of  Delit/.sch  already  referred 
t<>,  which  biblical  students,  who  are  acquainted  with 
German,  will  find  pervaded  by  the  accurate  scholarship, 
the  profound  thought,  and  generally  sound  discrimina 
tion  which  characterize  the  writings  of  the  author. 

HABERGEON.     &e  AK.M..I 'i;. 

HA'BOR.     >V,  CHI:I;\K. 

HACH'ILAH,  tlu-  hill  and  wood  of.  is  mention,,! 
amoiiu'  the  lurking-places  of  I'avid,  i  s:i.  \\iii.  i:>;  \\\i.  i-;;. 
It  must  have  been  near  Ziph,  but  the  precise  hill  can 
not  be  determined;  and  no  remains  have  been  found 
either  of  the  name  or  of  the  wood. 

HACHMONITE,  a  derivative  of  Haehm-n,  tho 
founder  of  a  family,  some  members  of  wliirh  have  been 
mentioned  as  men  of  note;  but  nothing  is  known  of  tin- 
founder  himself,  1  C'h.  xi.  11;  xxvii  :;•_'. 

HA'DAD,  of  uncertain  etymology,  but  of  early 
use  as  a  proper  name.  1.  A  sou  of  Islmiael,  in  the 
first  genealogy  given  of  his  race,  bore  the  name  of 
lladar,  <ie.  xxv.  i:>,  but  which  is  elsewhere  read  Hadad, 
icii.i.iiii.  And  in  the  genealogy  of  Ksau's  descendants, 
Hadad  was  the  name'  of  one  of  the  early  kings  who 
reigned  over  the  Edomites  before  there  was  a  king  in 
Israel,  (ie.  xxxvi.  :;;>. 

2.  H.\I).\I>,  one  so  called  of  the  Edomite  race,  is 
mentioned  as  among  the  enemies  of  Solomon,  i  Ki. 
xi.  11.  He  belonged  to  the  sced-roval  :  and  when  a 
mere  child  had  escaped  from  the  terrible  slaughter 
inflicted  by  the  army  of  J>avid  under  .loab,  by  being 
carried  into  Egypt.  He  was  there  treated  with  much 
respect  by  the  existing  king,  and  was  ultimately  mar 
ried  to  the  sister  of  Tahpanhes  the  queen.  On  hearing 
of  the  death  of  David,  he  requested  and  obtained 
leave  of  Pharaoh  to  return  to  his  own  country,  doubt 
less  with  the  view  of  making  an  effort  to  regain  for  his 
family  and  kindred  the  ascendency  which  they  had  lost. 
And  though  we  have  no  particular  account  of  his 
operations,  yet  from  being  mentioned  in  particular  as 
an  adversary  to  king  Solomon,  and  one  whom  the  Lord 
stirred  up  against  him,  it  is  clear  that  he  must  have 
been  a  person  of  considerable  energy,  and  that  under 
him  the  scattered  forces  of  Edom  must  have  rallied  so 
far  as  to  prove  a  dangerous  rival  to  Israel.  Express 
mention  is  also  made,  when  noticing  another  adversary 
of  Solomon,  of  ''the  mischief  which  Hadad  did,"  vur.  .'.•>, 
though  the  details  are  nowhere  u'iveii. 


3.  HADAD.  This  is  understood  to  have  been  the  name 
of  a  Syrian  deity,  or  probably  one  of  the  names  of  tho 
tutelary  gods  of  Syria,  though  rarely  mentioned  under 
that  name.  It  is  understood  to  be  this  name  which 
appears  in  the  latinized  form  of  Adodus  ^Maci\>b.  Sat.  i. 
23).  In  Scripture  it  is  found  only  as  a  component  ele 
ment  in  some  proper  names,  such  as  Hadad-ezer,  Ben- 
hadad,  Hadad-  Rinunon. 

HA'DAD-E'ZER  [//it<1<i<l  f.,r  aJnIj>n-].  also  written 
HAUAK-EZER,  a  Syrian  king,  whose  capital  was  Zobah, 
and  one  of  the  most  active  and  formidable  of  the  foreign 
enemies  of  David.  The  wars  he  had  to  wage  with  this 
king  called  forth  in  a  peculiar  manner  both  the  faith  and 
the  heroic  energy  of  David,  as  appears  particularly  from 
Ps.  lx.,  which  was  composed  in  reference  to  them,  and 
also  from  the  numbers  that  are  reported  to  have  fallen 
on  the  held  of  battle.  Three  deadly  conflicts  are  particu 
larly  mentioned  between  them.  -.'Sa.  viii.  ;j,  r> ;  x.  i>,  in  each 
of  which  David  was  successful  ;  and  the  last  was  so 
decisive,  that  the  other  kings  who  had  joined  with 
Hadad-ezer  fell  off' from  him,  and  entered  into  terms  of 
peace  with  Israel. 

HA'DAD-RIM'MON,  the  names  of  two  Syrian 
deities,  combined  together  so  as  to  form  the  designation 
of  a  particular  place  or  district  in  Palestine.  In  Scrip 
ture  it  is  referred  to  onlv  once,  and  that  in  a  propheti 
cal  passage  making  allusion  to  the  death  of  .losiah, 
Zee.  xii.  11,  not  in  the  historical  book  which  records  the 
death  itself.  Speaking  of  a  future  moiirniiiL;'  the  pro 
phet  says,  it  should  be  like  "the  mourning  of  Hadad- 
Rimmoii  in  the  valley  of  Me^iddon"  the  mourning, 
naiuelv.  which  took  place  there  at  the  death  of  the 
good  king  .Josiali.  Jerome  speaks  of  it  as  a  city,  and 
says  it  afterwards  went  by  the  name  of  Maximiailopolis, 
and  was  in  the  valley  of  .le/.reel,  but  gives  no  further 
information  about  it  (I'mnm.  in  loo.).  Modern  research 
has  failed  to  obtain  any  certain  tract'  of  the  spot;  nor 
is  anything  known  as  to  the  way  in  which  it  came  to 
acquire  a  name  of  such  marked  Syrian  origin. 

HA'DAR.     See  HA  DAD. 

HADAR-EZER.     ,S<  HADAD-K/KU. 

HADES.  Although  this  word  has  never  been  pro- 
p'-rlv  naturalized  in  English,  and  does  not  occur  either 
as  a  general  or  a  proper  name  in  the  English  Bible,  it 
is  necessary  to  assume  its  existence  in  a  work  which 
aims  at  embracing  the  full  circle-  of  Bible  terms  and 
ideas.  The  word  lull,  which  is  always  used  as  its 
equivalent  in  the  scriptures  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  frequently  also  in  those  of  the  Old,  no  longer  con 
veys  the  exact  meaning  of  the  original.  It  is  now  only 
employed  as  denoting  tho  place  of  final  torment,  and 
precisely  corresponds  to  the  Greek  term  yifvva,  for 
which  it  is  also  used  in  our  English  Bible.  For  hnilix 
we  have  still  no  proper  equivalent;  and  in  order  to  get 
a  correct  view  of  the  reality  indicated  by  the  name, 
we  are  obliged  to  retain  the  name  itself. 

HADES  [(Jr.  *\i3r)s,  derived,  according  to  the  best 
established  and  most  generally  received  etymology,  from 
privative  a  and  iQflv,  hence  often  written  cuO??s],  means 
strictly  what  lit  out  of  si'//<t,  or  possibly,  if  applied  to  a 
person,  irhdt  ji/it*  out  of  x!i//tf.  In  earlier  (Jreek  this 
last  was,  if  not  its  only,  at  least  its  prevailing  applica 
tion;  in  Homer  it  occurs  only  as  the  personal  designation 
of  Pluto,  the  lord  of  the  invisible  world,  and  who  was 
probably  so  designated- -not  from  being  himself  invisi 
ble,  for  that  belonged  to  him  in  common  with  the 
heathen  gods  generally — but  from  his  power  to  render 


HADES  (><s 

mortals  invisililo — the  invisible  -  making  deity.  The  | 
Greeks,  however,  in  process  of  time  abandoned  this 
use  of  hades,  and  when  the  Greek  Scriptures  were 
written  the  word  was  scarcely  ever  applied  except  to 
the  place  of  the  departed.  In  the  Greek  version  of  the 
Old  Testament  it  is  the  common  rendering  for  theHeb. 
xhenl;  though  in  the  form  there  often  appears  a  remnant 
of  the  original  personal  application;  for  example  in  Ge. 
xxxvii.  134,  "  I.  will  go  down  to  my  son,"  eis  aioov,  i.e. 
into  the  abodes  or  house  of  hades  (do/novs  or  olKov  being 
understood).  This  elliptical  form  was  common  both  in 
the  classics  and  in  Scripture,  even  after  hades  was 
never  thought  of  but  as  a  region  or  place  of  abode. 

The  .appropriation  of  hades  by  the  Greek  interpreters 
as  an  equivalent  for  sheol,  may  undoubtedly  be  taken 
as  evidence  that  there  was  a  substantial  agreement  in 
the  ideas  conveyed  by  the  two  terms  as  currently  under 
stood  by  the  Greeks  and  Hebrews  respectively— a  sub 
stantial,  but  not  an  entire  agreement;  for  in  this,  as 
well  as  in  other  terms  which  related  to  subjects  hearing 
on  things  spiritual  and  divine,  the  different  religions  of 
Jew  and  Gentile  necessarily  exercised  a  modifying  in 
fluence  ;  so  that  even  when  the  same  term  was  em 
ployed,  and  with  reference  generally  to  the  same  thing, 
shades  of  difference  could  not  but  exist  in  respect  to 
the  ideas  understood  to  lie  indicated  by  them.  Two 
or  three  points  stand  prominently  out  in  the  views 
entertained  by  the  ancients  respecting  hades: — first, 
that  it  was  the  common  receptacle  of  departed  spirits, 
of  good  as  well  as  bad  ;  second,  that  it  was  divided 
into  two  compartments,  the  one  containing  an  Elysium 
of  bliss  for  the  good,  the  other  a  Tart;  irus  of  sorrow  and 
punishment  for  the  wicked;  and,  thirdly,  that  in  respect 
to  its  locality  it  lay  under  ground,  in  the  mid-regions  of 
the  earth.  So  far  as  these  points  are  concerned,  there 
is  no  material  difference  between  the  Greek  hades  and 
the  Hebrew  sheol.  This,  too,  was  viewed  as  the  com 
mon  receptacle  of  the  departed :  patriarchs  and  right 
eous  men  spake  of  going  into  it  at  their  decease,  and 
the  most  ungodly  and  worthless  characters  are  repre 
sented  as  filming  in  it  their  proper  home,  Ge.  xlii.  38;  Vs. 

cxxxix.  8  ;  Ho.  xiii.  14;  Is.  xiv.,&c.      A  twofold  division  also  in 

the  state  of  the  departed,  corresponding  to  the  different 
positions  they  occupied,  and  the  courses  they  pursued, 
on  earth,  is  clearly  implied  in  the  revelations  of  Scrip 
ture  on  the  subject,  though  with  the  Hebrews  less 
prominently  exhibited,  and  without  any  of  the  fantas 
tic  and  puerile  inventions  of  heathen  mythology.  Yet 
the  fact  of  a  real  distinction  in  the  state  of  the  departed, 
corresponding  to  their  spiritual  conditions  on  earth,  is 
in  various  passages  not  obscurely  indicated.  Divine 
retribution  is  represented  as  pursuing  the  wicked  after 
they  have  left  this  world  —pursuing  them  even  into  the 
lowest  realms  of  sheol,  Do.  xxxii.  21' ;  Am.  ix.  2 ;  and  the 
bitterest  shame  and  humiliation  are  described  as  await 
ing  there  the  most  prosperous  of  this  world's  inhabi 
tants,  if  they  have  abused  their  prosperity  to  the  dis 
honour  of  God  and  the  injury  of  their  fellowinen,  Ts. 
xlix.  14;  Is.  xiv.  On  the  other  hand,  the  righteous  had 
hope  in  his  death ;  he  could  rest  assured,  that  in  the 
viewless  regions  of  sheol,  as  well  as  amid  the  changing 
vicissitudes  of  earth,  the  right  hand  of  God  would 
sustain  him,  even  there  he  would  enter  into  peace, 
walking  still,  as  it  were,  in  his  uprightness,  iv.  xiv.  32;  Fs. 
cxxxix.  8 ;  Is.  ivii.  2.  And  that  sheol,  like  hades,  was  con 
ceived  of  as  a  lower  region  in  comparison  of  the  pre 
sent  world,  is  so  manifest  from  the  whole  language 


<S  HADES 

of  Scripture  on  the  subject,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to 
point  to  particular  examples;  in  respect  to  the  good  as 
well  as  the  bad,  the  passage  into  sheol  was  contem 
plated  as  a  descent;  and  the  name  was  sometimes  used 
as  a  synonym  for  the  very  lowest  depths,  DC.  xxxii.  22 ; 
Job  xi.  7-9.  This  is  not,  however,  to  lie  understood 
as  affirming  anything  of  the  actual  locality  of  disem 
bodied  spirits;  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  lan 
guage  here,  as  in  other  cases,  was  derived  from  the 
mere  appearances  of  things;  and  as  the  body  at  death 
was  committed  to  the  lower  parts  of  the  earth,  so  the 
soul  was  conceived  of  as  also  going  downwards.  But 
that  this  was  not  designed  to  mark  the  local  boundaries 
of  the  region  of  departed  spirits,  may  certainly  be 
inferred  from  other  expressions  used  regarding  them — 
as  that  God  took  them  to  himself;  or  that  he  would 
give  them  to  see  the  path  of  life;  that  he  would  make 
them  dwell  in  his  house  for  ever;  or,  more  generally 
still,  that  the  spirit  of  a  man  goeth  upwards,  Go.  v.  2>; 
IV  xvi.  11 ;  xxiii.  <i;  Kc.  iii.  21 ;  xii.  7.  During  the  old  dis 
pensations  there  was  still  no  express  revelation  from 
heaven  respecting  the  precise  condition  or  external 
relationships  of  departed  spirits  ;  the  time  had  not  j-et 
come  for  such  specific  intimations;  and  the  language 
employed  was  consequently  of  a  somewhat  vague 
and  vacillating  nature,  such  as  spontaneously  arose 
from  common  feelings  and  impressions.  For  the  same 
reason,  the  ideas  entertained  even  by  God's  people  upon 
the  subject  were  predominantly  sombre  and  gloomy. 
Sheol  wore  no  inviting  aspect  to  their  view,  no  more 
than  hades  to  the  superstitious  heathen;  the  very  men 
who  believed  that  God  would  accompany  them  thither 
and  keep  them  from  evil,  contemplated  the  state  as  one 
of  darkness  and  silence,  and  shrunk  from  it  with 
instinctive  horror,  or  gave  hearty  thanks  when  they 
found  themselves  for  a  time  delivered  from  it,  IV  vi.  :, ; 
xxx.  3,n ;  Job  iii.  13,  scq.;  Is.  xxxviii.  i*.  The  reason  was  that 
they  had  only  general  assurances,  but  no  specific  light 
on  the  subject;  and  their  comfort  rather  lay  in  over 
leaping  the  gulf  of  sheol,  and  fixing  their  thoughts  on 
the  better  resurrection,  sometime  to  come,  than  in  any 
thing  they  could  definitely  promise  themselves  between 
death  and  the  resurrection-morn. 

For  in  this  lay  one  important  point  of  difference 
between  the  Jewish  and  the  heathen  hades,  originated 
by  the  diverse  spirit  of  the  two  religions,  that  to  the 
believing  Hebrew  alone  the  sojourn  in  sheol  appeared 
that  only  of  a  temporary  and  intermediate  existence. 
The  poor  heathen  had  no  prospect  beyond  its  shadowy 
realms:  its  bars  for  him  were  eternal;  and  the  idea 
of  a  resurrection  was  utterly  strange  alike  to  his 
religion  and  his  philosophy.  But  it  was  in  connection 
with  the  prospect  of  a  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
that  all  hope  formed  itself  in  the  breasts  of  the  true 
people  of  God.  As  this  alone  could  effect  the  rever 
sion  of  the  evil  brought  in  by  sin,  and  really  destroy  the 
destroyer,  so  nothing  less  was  announced  in  that  first 
promise  which  gave  assurance  of  the  crushing  of  the 
tempter;  and  if.  as  to  its  nature,  but  dimly  appre 
hended  by  the  eye  of  faith,  it  still  necessarily  formed, 
as  to  the  reality,  the  great  object  of  desire  and  expec 
tation.  Hence,  it  is  said  of  the  patriarchs,  that  they 
looked  for  a  better  country,  which  is  an  heavenly;  and 
of  those  who  in  later  times  resisted  unto  blood  for  the 
truth  of  God,  that  they  did  it  to  obtain  a  better  resur 
rection,  He.  xi.  16,35.  Hence  too  the  spirit  of  prophecy 
confidently  proclaimed  the  arrival  of  a  time,  when  the 


HADES 


689 


HADES 


dead  should  arise  and  sing,  when  sheol  itself  should  be 
destroyed,  and  many  of  its  inmates  be  brought  forth  to 
the  possession  of  everlasting  life,  is.  xxvi.  19 ;  Ho.  xiii.  14 ; 
Da.  xii.2.  And  yet  again  in  apostolic  times,  St.  Paul 
represents  this  as  emphatically  the  promise  made  by 
God  to  the  fathers,  to  the  realization  of  which  his 
countrymen  as  with  one  heart  were  hoping  to  come, 
Ac.  xxvi.  -  •,  and  Josephus,  in  like  manner,  testifies  of  all 


by  the  sufferer.  Still,  he  was  represented  as  sharing 
no  common  fate  with  the  other;  but  as  occupying  a  re 
gion  shut  off  from  all  intercommunion  with  that  assigned 
to  the  wicked,  and  so  far  from  being  held  in  a  sort  of 
dungeon- confinement,  reposing  in  Abraham's  bosom,  in 
an  abode  where  angels  visit.  And  with  this  also  agrees 
what  our  Lord  said  of  his  own  temporary  sojourn 
among  the  dead,  when  on  the  eve  of  his  departing 


but  the  small  Sadducean  faction  of  them,  that  they  j  thither— "  To-day,"  said  he,  in  his  reply  to  the  prayer 

of  the  penitent  malefactor,  "  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in 
paradise,''    Lu.  xxiii.  43.     But  paradise  was  the   proper 

.„• TIT  111 


believed  in  a  resurrection  to  honour  and  blessing  for 
those  who  had  lived  righteously  in  this  life  (Ant.  xviii.  i,:j). 


This  hope  necessarily  cast  a  gleam  of  light  across  the  ,  region  of  life  and  blessing,  not  of  gloom  and  forgetful- 
darkness  of  hades  for  the  Israelite,  which  was  altogether  ness  ;  originally  it  was  the  home  and  heritage  of  man 
unknown  to  the  Greek.  And  closely  connected  with  as  created  in  the  image  of  God ;  and  when  Christ  now 
it  was  another  difference  also  of  considerable  moment,  named  the  place  whither  he  was  going  with  a  redeemed 
viz.  that  the  Hebrew  sheol  was  not,  like  the  Gentile  sinner— paradise,  it  bespoke  that  already  there  was  an 
hades,  viewed  as  an  altogether  separate  and  indepen-  undoing  of  the  evil  of  sin,  that  for  all  who  are  Christ's 
dent  region,  withdrawn  from  the  primal  fountain  of  there  is  an  actual  recovery  immediately  after  death, 
life,  and  subject  to  another  dominion  than  the  world  of  and  as  regards  the  bettor  part  of  their  natures,  of  what 
sense  and  time.  Pluto  was  ever  regarded  by  the  was  lost  by  the  disobedience  and  ruin  of  the  fall. 
heathen  as  the  rival  of  the  king  of  earth  and  heaven  : 
the  two  domains  were  essentially  antagonistic.  But  to 
the  more  enlightened  Hebrew  there  was  but  one  Lord 
of  the  living  and  the  dead;  the  chambers  of  sheol  were 
as  much  open  to  his  eye  and  subject  to  his  control  as 
the  bodies  and  habitations  of  men  on  earth  :  so  that  to 
go  into  the  realms  of  the  deceased  was  but  to  pass  from  indeed  gone  to  hades,  but  only  could  not  be  allowed 


But  was  not  Christ  himself  in  hades  <  Did  not  the 
apostle  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  apply  to  him 
the  words  of  David  in  I's.  xvi.,  in  which  it  was  said, 
''Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in  hades,  neither  wilt 
thou  sutler  thine  Holy  One  to  see  corruption,"  and 
argue  apparently,  that  the  soul  of  Christ  must  have 


one  department  t 
swav  of  Jehovah. 


another  of  the  same  all-embracin 


to  continue  there.      Even  so,  however,  it  would  but  con 
cern  the  application  of  a  name;  for  if  the  language  of 


Such  was  the  general  state  of  belief  and  expectation  the  apostle  must  be  understood  as  implying  that  our 
regarding  hades  or  sheol  in  Old  Testament  times.  With  Lord's  soul  was  in  hades  between  death  and  the  resur- 
the  introduction  of  the  gospel  a  new  light  breaks  in,  '  reetion,  it  still  was  hades  as  having  a  paradise  within 
which  shoots  its  rays  also  through  the  realms  of  the  !  its  bosom  :  so  that  knowing  from  his  own  lips  what 
departed,  and  relieves  the  gloom  in  which  thev  had 
still  appeared  shrouded  to  the  view  of  the  faithful.  The 
term  hades,  however,  is  of  comparatively  rare  occur 


rence  in  New  Testament  scripture  ;  in  our  Lori 
discourses  it  is  found  only  thrice,  and  on  two  of  th 


>rt  of  a  receptacle  it  afforded  to  the  disembodied  spirit 
of  .Jesus,  we  need  cart-  little  about  the  mere  name  by 
which,  in  a  general  way,  it  might  be  designated.  But 


the  apostle  Peter,  it  must  be  remembered,  does  not  call 
it  hades;    he  merely  quotes  an  Old  Testament  passage, 


casions  it  is  used  in  a  somewhat  rhetorical  manner,  by  in  which  hades  is  mentioned,  as  a  passage  that  had  its 
way  of  contrast  to  the  region  of  life  and  blessing.  1 1  e  verification  in  Christ;  and  the  language  of  course  in  this, 
said  of  Capernaum,  that  from  being  exalted  unto  heaven  as  in  other  prophetical  passages,  was  spoken  from  an  Old 
it  should  be  brought  down  to  hades,  Mat.  xi.  i>:i —that  is,  Testament  point  of  view,  and  must  be  read  in  the  light 
plainly,  from  the  highest  point  of  fancied  or  of  real  ele-  which  the  revelations  of  the  gospel  have  cast  over  the 
vation  to  the  lowest  abasement.  Of  that  spiritual  king-  state  and  prospects  of  the  soul.  We  may  even,  liow- 
dom  also,  or  church,  which  he  was  going  to  establish  on  ever,  go  farther;  for  the  psalmist  himself  doe's  not 
earth,  he  affirmed  that  "the  gates  of  hades  should  not  strictly  affirm  the  soul  of  the  Holy  One  to  have  gone  to 
prevail  against  it,"  Mat.  xvi.  1N  which  is  all  one  with  hades;  his  words  precisely  rendered  are,  "Thou  wilt 
saying  that  it  should  lie  perpetual.  Hades  is  contem-  '  not  leave  (or  abandon)  my  soul  to  hades"  -that  is,  give 
plated  as  a  kind  of  realm  or  kingdom,  accustomed,  like  it  up  as  a  prey  to  the  power  or  domain  of  the  nether 
earthly  kingdoms  in  the  East,  to  hold  its  council-  world.  It  is  rather  a  negative' than  a  positive  assertion 
chamber  at  the  gates;  and  whatever  measures  might  regarding  our  Lord's  connection  with  hades,  that  is  con- 
be  there  taken,  whatever  plots  devised,  they  should  never  tained  in  the  passage;  and  nothing  can  fairly  be  argued 
succeed  in  overturning  the  foundations  of  Christ's  from  it  as  to  the  local  habitation  or  actual  state  of  his 
kingdom,  or  effectually  marring  its  interests.  In  both  ,  disembodied  spirit. 

these  ^  passages  hades  is  placed  by  our  Lord  in  an  an-  |  The  only  other  passages  in  the  New  Testament  in 
tagomstic  relation  to  his  cause  among  men,  although,  :  which  mention  is  made  of  hades  are  in  Revelation : 
from  the  manner  in  which  the  word  is  employed,  no  '  oh.  i.  IN,  where  the  glorified  Redeemer  declares  that  he 
very  definite  conclusions  could  be  drawn  from  them  as  has  the  keys  of  death  and  of  hades;  eh.vi.s,  where  death 
to  the  nature  and  position  of  hades  itself.  But  in  ,  is  symbolized  as  a  rider,  smiting  all  around  him  with 
another  passage— the  only  one  in  which  any  indication  |  weapons  of  destruction,  and  hades  following  to  receive 
is  given  by  our  Lord  of  the  state  of  its  inhabitants— it  :  the  souls  of  the  slain;  ch.  xx.  1.1, 14,  where  death  and  hades 
is  most  distinctly  and  closely  associated  with  the  doom  j  are  both  represented  as  giving  up  the  dead  that  were 
and  misery  of  the  lost :  "  In  hades,"  it  is  said  of  the  in  them,  and  afterwards  as  being  themselves  cast  into  the 


rich  man  in  the  parable,  "he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  being 
in  torments."  The  soul  of  Lazarus  is,  no  doubt,  also 
represented  as  being  so  far  within  the  bounds  of  the 
same  region,  that  he  could  be  descried  and  spoken  with 

1T^.,        T  * 


lake  of  fire,  which  is  the  second  death.  In  every  one  of 
these  passages  hades  stands  in  a  dark  and  forbidding 
connection  with  death — very  unlike  that  association 
with  paradise  and  Abraham's  bosom,  in  which  our 

87 


HADORAM 


GOO 


HAGAR 


Lord  exhibited  the  receptacle  of  his  own  and  his  people's 
souls  to  the  eye  of  faith  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  in  one 
of  them  it  is  expressly  as  an  ally  of  death  in  the  execu 
tion  of  judgment  that  hades  is  represented,  while  in 
another  it  appears  as  an  accursed  thing,  consigned  to 
the  lake  of  fin;.  In  short,  it  seems  as  if  in  the  progress 
of  God's  dispensations  a  separation  had  come  to  be 
made  between  elements  that  originally  were  mingled 
together — as  if,  from  the  time  that  ( 'hrist  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  li^ht,  the  distinction  in  the  next 
\\orld  as  well  as  this  %\as  broadened  between  the  saved 
and  the  lost — so  that  hades  was  henceforth  appropriated, 
both  in  the  name  and  in  the  reality,  to  those  who  were 
to  be  reserved  in  darkness  and  misery  to  the  judgment  of 
the  great  day:  and  other  names,  with  other  and  brighter 
ideas,  were  employed  to  designate  the  intermediate  rest 
ing-place  of  the  redeemed.  It  was  meet  that  it  should 
be  so;  for  by  the  personal  work  and  mediation  of  Christ 
the  whole  church  of  God  rose  to  a  higher  condition;  old 
things  passed  away,  all  things  became  new;  and  it 
is  but  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  change  in  some 
degree  extended  to  the  occupants  of  the  intermediate 
state  —the  saved  becoming  more  enlarged  in  the  posses 
sion  of  bliss  and  glory,  the  lost  nnnv  sunk  in  anguish 
and  despair. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  the  scriptural  representa 
tion  on  the  subject,  one  must  not  only  condemn  the 
['allies  that  sprunir  up  amid  the  dark  ages  about  the 
limbus  or  antechamber  of  hell,  and  the  purgatorial  fires, 
through  which  it  was  supposed  even  redeemed  souls 
had  to  complete  their  ripening  for  glory;  but  also  reject 
the  form  in  which  the  church  has  embodied  its  belief 
respecting  the  personal  history  of  Christ,  when  it 
said,  "  descended  into  hell."  This,  it  is  well  known, 
was  a  Liter  addition  to  what  has  been  called  the  apos 
tles'  creed,  made  when  the  church  was  far  on  its  way 
to  the  gloom  and  superstition  of  the  dark  ages.  And 
though  the  words  are  capable  of  a  rational  and  scriptu 
ral  explanation,  yet  they  do  not  present  the  place 
and  character  of  our  Lord's  existence  in  the  interme 
diate  state,  as  these  are  exhibited  by  himself;  they 
suggest  something  painful,  rather  than,  as  it  should  be. 
blessed  and  triumphant;  and,  if  taken  in  their  natural 
sense,  they  would  rob  believers  of  that  sure  hope  of  an 
immediate  transition  into  mansions  of  glory,  which,  as 
his  followers  and  participants  of  his  risen  life,  it  is  their 
privilege  to  entertain. 

HADO'RAM.  1.  A  descendant,  or  more  probably 
the  name  of  a  race  of  descendants  from  Eber  by  his  son 
Joktan,  Go.  x.  27.  They  have  been  supposed  to  be  the 
same  with  the  Adramitre,  or  Atramita?,  who  had  their 
settlements  in  the  south  of  Arabia  (Gesen.  Thes.;  Bochart, 
L'hai.  ii.r).  2.  The  name  given  in  1  Ch.  xviii.  10  to  the 
son  of  Toi  king  of  Hamath,  who  was  sent  as  ambas 
sador  from  his  father  to  congratulate  David  on  his 
victory  over  Hadar-ezer ;  he  elsewhere  bears  the  name 
of  .Joram.  2  Sa.  viii.  10,  which  however  has  an  Israelitish 
aspect.  3.  An  alternative  name  of  one  of  the  officers 
of  Rehoboam,  who  was  over  the  administration  of 
taxes,  and  lost  his  life  on  the  occasion  of  the  general 
revolt.  His  other  name  was  Adoniram  or  Adoram, 

•2  Sa.  xx.  24  ;  2  Ch.  X.  IS. 

HAD'RACH  [etymology  uncertain],  occurs  only  as  a 
proper  name  in  the  heading  of  one  of  Zechariah's  enig 
matical  prophecies,  which  stands  thus,  "The  burden  of 
the  word  of  the  Lord  on  the  land  of  Hadrach,  and  Da 
mascus  is  its  rest,"  cli.  ix.  1.  It  used  to  be  regarded  as 


the  name  of  a  city  and  region  not  very  remote  from 
Damascus,  chiefly  on  the  authority  of  R.  Jose,  quoted  by 
Jarchi,  and  of  Joseph  Abbassi,  given  and  supported  by 
J.  D.  Micha;lis.  But  Hengstenberg,  in  his  remarks 
upon  the  passage  in  his  Christology,  has  shown  that 
these  persons  confounded  Hadrach  with  an  Adraa  in 
the  Syrian  desert,  which  is  the  same  with  the  ancient 
Edrei.  There  is  no  historical  notice  of  either  a  land  or  a 
city  going  by  the  name  of  Hadrach  (Tnn):  al'd  it  is 


against  all  probability,  as  well  as  prophetical  usage,  that 
a  strictly  proper  name  should  have  been  employed  to 
designate  the  subject  of  a  prophecy  which  was  other 
wise  unknown.  But  it  was  by  no  means  unusual  to 
adopt  symbolical  names  of  regions  on  which  the  word 
of  prophecy  was  to  fall;  as,  in  Isaiah  Jerusalem  is  de 
signated  "Ariel,"  and  "the  valley  of  vision;"  Babylon 
the  "  desert  of  the  sea,"  is.  xxix.  i ;  xxii.  i ;  xxi.  i ;  in  Je 
remiah  also  Babylon  is  prophesied  against  under  the 
name  of  Sheshach,  and  in  Ezekiel  Jerusalem  and  Samaria 
under  the  names  of  Aholah  and  Aholibah,  Je.  li.  41 ;  Eze. 
xxiii.4.  So  here  Zechariah,  when  going  to  describe  the 
future  overthrow  of  the  Persian  empire,  especially  in 
those  provinces  of  its  domain  which  lay  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Judea,  most  probably  called  it  by  the  sym 
bolical  name  of  Hadrach — which  is  composed  of  -jp, 

T 

sharp,  then  strong,  energetic,  and  'rp,  soft,  then  infirm, 

weak;  so  as  to  form  the  enigmatical  title  of  strony-ifeak — 
strong  in  one  respect,  but  weak  in  another ;  to  present 
appearance,  of  indomitable  power  and  energy,  but  in  the 
purpose  of  God  destined  to  become  a  helpless  prey  in 
the  hand  of  a  mighty  adversary.  The  prophecy  bad  its 
fulfilment  in  the  conquests  of  Alexander  the  Great. 
Such,  briefly,  is  the  view  of  Hengstenberg.  which  seems 
on  the  whole  the  most  probable;  but  it  cannot  be  re 
garded  as  certain.  Gesenius  concurs  with  Hengsten 
berg  as  far  as  regards  the  view  of  the  Jewish  commen 
tators,  but  for  the  rest  is  disposed  to  follow  Bleek,  who 
takes  Hadrach  to  be  the  name  of  a  king  of  Damascus. 
HA'GAR  [most  probably  flight,  supposed  to  be  de 
rived  from  a  root  unused  in  Hebrew,  signifying  to  flee. 
but  existing  in  Arabic,  whence  the  well-known  Maho- 
!  metan  era  Heyira,  the  flight],  the  name  of  Sarah's 
1  bondmaid,  and  the  mother  of  Ishmael.  Of  her  earlier 
\  history  we  are  simply  told  that  she  was  an  Egyptian  by 
i  birth,  Ge.  xvi.  3 ;  and,  as  Abraham  had  spent  some  time 
I  in  Egypt  shortly  after  his  first  appearance  in  the  land 
of  Canaan,  the  probability  is,  that  Hagar  was  then 
i  received  into  his  household,  and  was  taken  with  him 
when  he  returned  to  the  land  of  Canaan.  That  she 
must  have  stood  high  in  the  estimation  of  her  mistress 
is  evident  from  the  proposal  of  Sarah,  when  she  judged 
herself  to  be  hopelessly  barren,  that  Abraham  should 
go  in  to  Hagar,  and  thereby  obtain  the  long  looked  for 
seed.  The  impropriety  of  this  proposal,  and  of  Abra 
ham's  acceding  to  it,  has  been  already  noticed  in  con 
nection  with  Abraham.  Apart  from  all  other  evils,  it 
bad  the  effect  of  putting  Hagar  out  of  her  proper  place; 
when  she  found  herself  to  be  with  child  her  mistress 
was  despised  in  her  eyes  ;  and  this  insubordination  on 
the  part  of  the  maid  awoke  a  spirit  of  indignation  and 
severity  in  the  bosom  of  her  mistress,  which  was  carried 
so  far  on  the  one  side,  and  so  hotly  met  on  the  other, 
that  Hagar  at  last  fled  from  the  tent.  From  this  flight 
perhaps  she  got  the  name  of  Hagar,  which  afterwards 
adhered  to  her.  On  leaving  the  tent  of  Abraham  she 


HAGAR 


G91 


HAG  A  RITES 


not  unnaturally  took  the  direction  of  Egypt,  and  was 
found  by  the  angel  of  the  Lord  beside  a  well  in  the 
wilderness  of  Shur,  wliich  lies  between  the  south  of 
Palestine  and  Egypt.  There  she  was  kindly  remonstrated 
with  by  the  heavenly  messenger  respecting  her  conduct, 
and  being  expressly  directed  to  return  to  the  household 
of  Abraham  and  become  subject  to  Sarah,  she  complied 
with  the  injunction.  Such  a  compliance  must  have 
been  anything  but  agreeable  to  the  natural  feelings  of 
Hagar ;  and  her  readiness  in  yielding  it  is  so  far  an 
indication  of  something  good,  at  least  of  a  natural 
kind,  being  found  in  her.  From  what  afterwards 
happened,  we  can  scarcely  entertain  the  supposition 
that  it  was  more. 

The  specific  reason  assigned  by  the  angel  for  Hagar' s 
return  to  the  household  of  Abraham,  had  respect  to  the 
son  she  was  to  bring  forth  to  Abraham ;  and  will  be 
more  particularly  considered  under  Ishmael.  The  Lord 
manifestly  did  not  wisli  that  the  child  of  the  father  of 
the  faithful,  even  though  born  after  the  flesh,  should 
be  born  and  reared  elsewhere-  than  in  Abraham's  family; 
and  doubtless  respect  was  also  had  to  the  lessons  that 
were  to  lie  supplied,  and  the  warnings  that  were  to  be 
administered,  through  the  facts  of  this  child's  subse 
quent  history.  When  Hagar  heard,  however,  that 
she  was  to  give  birth  to  a  son.  that  this  son  was  to  be 
the  head  of  a  numerous  offspring,  which  should  main 
tain  its  ground  against  all  dangers  and  assaults,  and 
be  a  sort  of  natural  wonder  in  the  world,  she  could  not 
but  feel  cheered  in  spirit,  and  be  encouraged  to  take 
well  whatever  might  lie  immediately  before  her.  She 
gave  unmistakeable  evidence  of  this  state  of  mind  in 
the  names  she  invented  on  the  occasion.  She  called 
the  name  of  the  Lord  that  spake  to  her  Attdh-El-roi, 
Thou-God-of-the-seeing;  and  adds  bv  wav  of  explana 
tion.  "  Have  I  not  also  here  seen  him  that  seeth  me  '.' ' 
What  struck  her  was  the  fact,  that  in  that  lonely  un 
frequented  region  the  eye  of  the  All-seeing  had  been 
taking  cogni/.ance  of  her,  helpless  and  forsaken  as 
she  seemed.  Then,  in  further  memorial  of  the  same, 
she  called  the  well  liur-laliai-rni.  Well  of  the  Living 
(Jne  that  sees  me.  If  put  more  generally  it  would  be. 
Well  of  the  ever-living  and  present  Cod.  Hagar  was 
therefore  no  heathen;  she  had  learned  enough  in  Abra 
ham's  family  to  know  that  there  was  hut  one  living 
and  true  God;  and  her  belief  in  this  fundamental  truth 
could  not  but  be  confirmed,  as  it  was  called  forth,  by 
the  manifestation  that  was  now  given  her  of  the  all- 
seeing  eyo  and  gracious  providence  of  Jehovah.  Thus 
cheered  and  comforted,  she  returned  to  the  tents  of 
Abraham,  and  in  due  time  gave  birth  to  Ishmael. 

We  hear  no  more  of  her  till  the  memorable  occasion 
of  Isaac's  weaning,  when,  amid  the  general  hilarity  of 
Abraham's  house,  and  the  exuberant  joy  of  his  aged 
spouse,  a  malignant  scorn  was  seen  lowering  on  the 
face  of  Ishmael,  which  again  drew  forth  the  ire  of 
Sarah,  and  led  to  a  new  scene  in  the  household.  Ish 
mael  must  by  this  time  have  been  fifteen  or  sixteen 
years  old;  for  he  was  thirteen  when  he  was  circumcised, 
and  all  that  pertained  to  the  conception,  the  birth,  and 
the  weaning  of  Isaac  had  yet  to  take  place.  Ishmael, 
therefore,  was  no  longer  a  mere  child,  but  a  grown 
youth,  and  Sarah  not  unfairly  conceived  that  his  de 
meanour  on  the  occasion  referred  to  but  too  clearly  in 
dicated  the  spirit  he  was  of — a  spirit  utterly  opposed 
to  the  claims  of  Isaac,  as  the  free-born,  heaven-sent 
child;  and  she  insisted  on  Ishmael  and  his  mother  beinc 


cast  forth,  that  the  inheritance  might  be  left  to  Isaac, 
Ge.  xxi.  10.  It  seemed  a  somewhat  harsh  expedient,  and 
is  said  to  have  been  grievous  to  the  paternal  heart  of 
Abraham.  But  the  right  principle  was  on  Sarah's 
side,  and  the  word  of  God  gave  its  sanction  to  what  she 
had  demanded  :  Hagar  and  Ishmael  must  be  externally 
separated  from  the  chosen  seed,  as  they  had  already 
separated  themselves  by  their  internal  feelings.  While, 
however,  the  casting  forth  was  necessary,  one  cannot 
but  feel  as  if  there  was  an  undue  degree  of  haste  and 
rigour  in  the  manner  of  carrying  it  into  execution. 
For  it  would  seem  that  all  the  provisions  in  meat  and 
drink  which  were  given  to  the  two  exiles  was  what 
could  be  laid  on  the  back  of  Hagar,  Ge.  xxi.  n.  But 
possibly  the  meaning  is,  that  this  was  merelv  what  was 
furnished  for  an  immediate  supply,  while  in  addition  a 
certain  portion  in  nocks  and  herds  was  also  divided  to 
them.  Abraham,  we  are  told,  gave  portions  of  this  sort 
to  the  later  sons  he  hail  by  Keturah,  GU.  x\\.  i;,  and  from 
Ishmael  afterwards  appearing  at  the  burial  of  Abraham, 
and  along  with  Isaac  committing  him  to  the  tomb,  Go. 
xxv.  !>,it  may  certainly  be  inferred,  that  Ishmael  continued 
to  occupy  a  still  higher  place  in  the  regards  of  the  father 
than  those  other  sons,  and  got  even  a  larger  portion 
from  his  hand.  The  rapid  rise  also  of  Ishmael's  family 
to  power  and  influence  is  a  further  proof  of  the  same; 
so  that  the  scantiness  of  provisions  furnished  to  Hatjar 
and  Ishmael  may  be  more  apparent  than  real,  and  the 
difficulties  that  beset  them  may  have  been  such  only 
as  attend  desert-life  at  the  outset,  before  the  proper 
haunts  for  refreshment  and  pasturage  are  known. 

But  however  this  may  have  been,  Hagar  with  her 
son  had  very  nearly  perished  for  thirst,  in  their  first 
wanderings  through  the  wilderness  of  .ludca.  Hagar 
had  even  given  up  all  for  lost,  and  had  caused  her  son 
to  lie  down  under  a  shrub  of  the  desert,  while  she  her 
self  withdrew  to  some  distance,  that  she  might  lie 
spared  the  pain  of  seeing  him  die.  But  she  was  again 
mercifully  visited  from  above;  the  Lord  saw  the  afflic 
tion,  and  opened  her  eyes  to  perceive  a  well  in  the 
neighbourhood,  at  the  same  time  giving  her  a  fresh 
assurance  that  her  son  should  live  and  become  the 
father  of  a  great  people.  Such  certainly  proved  to  be 
the  case;  and  the  only  further  notice  we  have  of 
Hagar  in  connection  with  it  is,  that  she  by  and  by 
went  and  took  a  wife  for  her  son  from  Eurpt.  This 
did  not  augur  well  for  the  spiritual  character  of  the 
future  progeny;  but  it  belongs  rather  to  the  history  of 
Ishmael  than  of  Hagar.  So  far  as  she  herself  is  con 
cerned,  there  is  no  appearance  of  her  having  ever 
become  a  true  follower  of  Abraham,  a  child  of  faith  in 
the  sense  that  he  and  Sarah  were  ;  but  as  regards  the 
more  conspicuous  and  blameworthy  actions  of  her  life,  it 
is  meet  to  confess,  that  considering  all  the  circum 
stances,  she  appears  as  one  somewhat  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning — an  object  of  pity  more  than  of 
condemnation. 

HAG'ARITES,  or  HAG'AREXES,  a  wandering 
Arab  tribe,  who  seem  to  have  had  their  usual  haunts  to 
the  east  of  Jordan,  near  the  territories  of  the  covenant- 
people  ;  for  they  are  mentioned  as  having  in  the  days 
of  Saul  come  into  collision  with  the  tribe  of  Reuben, 
and  fallen  by  their  hand.  They  appear  however  to 
have,  in  some  degree,  recovered;  for  at  a  later  period, 
probably  in  the  time  of  Jehoshaphat,  they  are  named 
along  with  the  ]VIoabites  and  various  other  Arabian 
tribes,  among  the  enemies  who  entered  into  a  formida- 


HAGGAI 


HAGGAI 


hie  conspiracy  against  Judah,  J's.  ixxxiii.  a.  Nothing 
further  is  heard  or  known  of  them.  Some  have  sup 
posed  them  to  have  derived  their  name  from  the  mother 
of  Ishmael;  which  is  not  very  probable,  considering 
that  Ishmael  was  her  only  son,  and  that  he  was  regarded 
as  tlie  real  founder  of  the  race  that  sprung  from  Abra 
ham's  connection  with  Hagar. 

HAG'GAI  \fc*tive,  from  he;/,  a  festival],  one  of  the 
later  minor  prophets,  and  the  first  in  order  of  the  three 
who  flourished  after  the  return  from  Mabylon.  The 
short  book  of  Haggai  throws  no  light  on  the  personal 
liistorv  of  its  writer  :  and  authentic  Jewish  history  is 
equally  silent.  .Rabbinical  tradition  represents  him  as 
having  been  born  in  ]>abylon,  and  having  joined  the 
first  band  of  exiles  who,  on  the  issue  of  the  decree  of 
Cvrus,  B.i'.  i>oG,  returned  to  their  old  possessions.  It 
also  asserts  him  to  have  been  buried  among  the  priests 
at  Jerusalem,  in  which  ease  he  must  have  belonged  to 
the  family  of  Aaron.  The  traditionary  accounts,  so 
far,  mav  be  regarded  as  perfectly  credible,  though  they 
cannot  be  pronounced  certain;  but  further  notices  from 
the  same  source  respecting  Haggai  deserve  no  particular 
notice. 

The  book  of  Haggai  consists  of  four  distinct  prophe 
tical  addresses — two  in  the  first,  and  two  in  the  second 
chapter;  and  the  dates  of  each  are  given  with  remark 
able  precision.  The  first  address  was  delivered  in  the 
second  year  of  Darius  (i.e.  B.C.  520),  in  the  sixth 
month,  and  on  the  first  day  of  the  month,  therefore  on 
the  feast  of  the  new  moon,  ch.  i.  1-11.  The  second, 
which  was  a  mere  assurance  of  the  Lord's  gracious 
presence  and  blessing,  now-  that  the  people  gave  them 
selves  to  the  Lord's  work,  was  only  twenty- four  days 
later.  The  third  belongs  to  the  twenty- first  day  of  the 
seventh  month,  ch.  ii.  i-y;  and  the  last,  consisting  of  two 
parts,  has  for  its  date  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  ninth 
month .  So  that  the  whole  pr<  iphetical  agency  of  Haggai, 
so  far  as  it  has  found  a  record  in  the  book  that  bears 
his  name,  was  limited  to  the  short  space  of  between 
three  and  four  months.  And  it  has  respect  throughout 
to  one  theme — the  building  of  the  second  temple ; 
although,  with  the  comprehensive  eye  of  the  true  pro 
phet,  it  glances  at  various  other  points  in  the  present 
and  the  future,  which  stood  in  a  moral  relation  to  the 
work  more  immediately  in  hand. 

The  time  of  Haggai's  appearance  as  a  prophet  dates 
about  sixteen  years  after  the  edict  of  Cyrus.  The  small 
remnant  had  returned  to  Jerusalem,  and  had  also,  with 
mingled  feelings  of  joy  and  sadness,  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  new  temple,  Ezr.  iii.  10-13.  Hut  they  were  imt 
permitted  to  proceed  far  with  their  undertaking  till 
they  began  to  experience  the  keen  jealousy  and  bitter 
opposition  of  their  neighbours,  the  Samaritans.  Had 
Cyrus  himself  lived,  the  hinderances  thus  thrown  in 
their  way  would  have  been  easily  overborne;  but  he 
lost  his  life  not  many  years  afterwards;  and  the  un 
settled  state  in  which  the  affairs  of  the  Persian  empire 
continued  during  the  periods  of  Cambyses  and  Smerdis 
the  Magian.  gave  the  adversaries  of  the  Jews  an 
advantage  of  which  they  did  not  fail  to  avail  them 
selves.  Accordingly,  the  work  was  first  impeded  in  its 
progress,  then  absolutely  arrested,  until  after  the  acces 
sion  of  Darius,  when  the  administration  of  the  empire 
began  to  assume  a  more  settled  and  orderly  form.  And 
led  through  the  Spirit  to  perceive  that  the  time  had 
now  come  for  more  determinate  action  in  regard  to  the 
building  of  the  Lord's  house,  the  prophet  Haggai  came 


forth  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  to  stir  up  the  people  to 
the  work.  His  first  word,  however,  was  one  rather  of 
rein-oof  than  of  encouragement;  it  charges  upon  the 
people's  lukewarmness  and  love  of  fleshly  indulgence  the 
cessation  that  had  taken  place  in  the  work,  and  points 
to  the  manifest  judgments  of  the  Lord  upon  them  as 
clear  signs  of  his  displeasure  at  their  conduct,  ch.i.  3-11. 
We  are  not  from  this  to  suppose  that  he  attributed 
nothing  to  the  envious  opposition  of  the  Samaritans, 
but  merely  that  this  of  itself  was  not  enough;  that  the 
people  latterly  had  rather  been  taking  excuse  from  it 
to  prosecute  their  own  interests,  than  absolutely  hin 
dered  from  minding  God's,  and  had  become  quite  con 
tent  to  let  tlie  walls  of  the  Lord's  house  lie  in  their 
unfinished  and  forlorn  state.  For  the  external  work, 
therefore,  to  which  they  were  now  called,  there  was 
needed  a  preparatory  one  of  repentance  and  spiritual 
devotedness.  To  this  Haggai  first  earnestly  called  them : 
and  the  moment  he  saw  that  the  call  had  begun  to  be 
responded  to,  he  cheered  their  hearts  with  the  assurance 
that  the  Lord  was  with  them,  ch.  i.is. 

lint  it  was  soon  found  that  a  depressed  state  of  feel 
ing  hung  upon  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  greatly 
discouraged  them  in  the  prosecution  of  their  work. 
The  contrast  in  external  appearance  between  the  house 
they  were  now  building,  and  the  magnificent  structure 
that  had  been  reared  by  Solomon,  disposed  them — 
especially  those  of  them  who  had  seen  the  former  one 
— to  regard  that  which  was  now  proceeding  as  coin 
parativcly  poor  and  insignificant.  And  it  was  not 
merely  the  inferiority  in  outward  glory  which,  in  that 
case,  would  naturally  trouble  them,  but  the  apparent 
failure  of  the  divine  predictions  which  had  been  uttered 
before  or  during  the  Babylonish  exile,  and  which  made 
promise  even  of  a  more  glorious  temple  in  the  future 
than  had  existed  in  the  past,  Is.  l.\.;  K-/.C.  xl.  scq.  Could 
they,  then,  be  really  doing  the  Lord's  work,  while 
engaged  in  raising  so  inadequate  a  structure  ?  Could 
the  Lord  himself  actually  be  with  them  '-.  Should  they 
not  rather  wait  for  better  times,  when  they  might  be 
able  to  set  about  the  work  in  a  worthier  manner  and 
with  clearer  evidences  of  the  Lord's  favour  and  protec 
tion  ?  It  was  to  meet  this  state  of  feeling,  quite  natu 
ral  in  the  circumstances,  that  the  next  message  of 
Haggai  was  addressed;  it  gave  the  builders  of  the  Lord's 
house  the  special  comfort  which  they  needed,  ch.  ii.  1-9. 
They  were  not,  he  assured  them,  like  men  left  to  their 
own  resources;  the  Lord  was  with  them;  "  the  \vord 
that  I  established  with  you  when  ye  came  out  of 
Kgvpt,  and  my  Spirit  abode  in  the  midst  of  you. 
Fear  not "  (so  the  words  should  be  rendered).  The 
|  meaning  is,  that  the  word  the  Lord  spake  to  them  when 
they  came  out  of  Egypt,  and  when  his  Spirit  wrought 
so  marvellously  for  their  good,  he  repeated  now;  in 
both  cases  alike  his  message  was,  "Fear  not,"  comp. 
Ex.  xx.  20.  Many  changes,  it  is  true,  were  to  take  place; 
all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  were  to  be  shaken;  but 
so  far  from  interfering  with  that  which  constituted  the 
real  glory  of  their  temple  and  nation,  the  things  des 
tined  to  take  place  would  rather  tend  to  promote  it; 
for  the  world  with  its  wealth  and  honour  would  yet 
come  to  pay  homage  to  them,  and  there — in  connection 
with  that  very  house — would  the  Lord  give  peace  and 
blessing  to  the  world.  The  promise  is  a  most  compre 
hensive  one;  it  stretches  from  the  day  of  the  prophet 
onwards  through  all  coining  time,  but  reaches  its  cul 
mination  in  the  establishment  of  the  Messiah's  king- 


HAGIOGRAPHA 


HAIR 


dom,  and  the  voluntary  surrender  of  the  kingdoms  of  ' 
the   earth  to  his  power  and    authority.     It  does  not  J 
speak  directly  of  the  person  of  Christ,  as  has  been  very  | 
commonly  supposed  from  the  mistranslation  of  ver.  (i: 
"The   desire   of    all  nations   shall  come" — as  if   this  j 
pointed  to  the  general  and  longing  expectation  of  Mes 
siah,  which  prevailed  before  his  advent.    There  no  doubt 
was  a  certain  measure  of  that;  but  the  passage  cannot 
properly  indicate    it ;    for    the   word    rendered   desire, 
rncn  (t'kemdath) ,  really  means  beaut!/,  and  is  here  coupled 

with  a  verb  in  the  plural,  which  clearly  shows  it  to  be 
used  as  a  collective  noun,  equivalent  to  ''the  beautiful 
or  glorious  things"  of  the  heathen.  The  passage  is  sub 
stantially  parallel  to  Is.  Ix.  D-13,  and  tells  of  a  coming 
exaltation  of  the  divine  kingdom  (which  had  its  centre 
in  the  temple  and  was  represented  by  it)  above  all  that 
had  gone  before  (seellengstenberg'sCliristology  on  the  passage, 
also  Moore's  Ilaggai,  ZecLariah,  and  JIalachi,  p.  7.~>). 

The  subject  of  this  portion  of  Haggai's  prophecy 
is  resumed  in  the  two  last  verses  of  his  book,  with  a 
special  reference  to  Zerubbabel,  and  for  the  purpose  of 
showing,  that  little  and  despised  as  the  ruling  power  in 
Judah  was,  yet  because  it  was  a  power  under  the  pro 
tection,  and  connected  with  the  covenant-faithfulness, 
of  Jehovah,  a  distinction  should  be  made  between  it 
and  the  powers  of  the  heathen.  The  former  would  be 
kept  by  God  as  a  sort  of  signet-ring,  an  emblem  of  per 
petual  care  and  fidelity;  while  the  others  should  be  all 
shaken  to  their  base,  and  ultimately  overthrown. 

The  message  in  ch.  ii.  10-111  is  to  some  extent  a  re 
sumption  of  that  contained  in  the  first  chapter.  It 
warned  the  people  that  mere  outward  advantages  and 
formal  oblations  could  not  secure  for  them  the  blessing 
of  heaven;  if  their  persons  were  not  accepted,  and  their 
hearts  were  unfaithful  to  God,  the  flesh  of  holy  oilerin^ 
could  impart  n<>  purity;  everything  they  touched  would 
be  denied;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  if  themselves  in  a 
state  of  sincere  and  hearty  surrender  to  the  Lord's 
work,  the  blessing  of  the  righteous  man — "  whatsoever 
lie  doetli  shall  prosper" — should  become  theirs. 

There   is   nothing   very  remarkable    in  the  style   of  . 
Ilaggai.     His  addresses  approach  nearer  to  prose  than 
most  of  the  prophetical  writings;  and,  speaking  as  he  ] 
did  to  a  people  in  depressed  circumstances,  and  com 
passed  about  with  fears  and  misgivings,  he  is  particu 
larly  frequent  in  the  use  of  the  formula,  "Thus  sailh 
the    Lord."     He  sought  thereby   to  recall  them   fnuu 
human  hopes  and  calculations  to  implicit  confidence  in 
the  word  and  purpose  of  Jehovah.      Jn  a  few  sentences, 
where  he  points  more  distinctly  to  the  better  future, 
which  he  saw  to  be  in  prospect,  his  language  rises  to  a  j 
higher  strain,  and  in  fervour  and  energy  assumes  some-  , 
what  of  a  poetic  impress.     But  the  passages  are  too 
lirief  to  admit  of  being  formed  into  a  distinctive  class,     j 

HAGIO'GRAPHA  [sacred  it-ritiiif/x],  is  a  name 
sometimes  applied  to  a  portion  of  Scripture.  It  com 
prehends  all  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Hebrew  Bible, 
except  those  included  in  the  Law  and  the  Prophets. 
Among  the  Prophets,  however,  the  rabbinical  Jews 
class  a  number  of  the  historical  books — Joshua,  Judges, 
the  two  books  of  Samuel,  and  the  two  of  Kings.  These 
were  regarded  as  the  productions  of  the  earlier  pro 
phets,  and  the  later  ones  were  those  of  the  prophets 
distinctively  so  called.  So  that  the  Hagiographa, 
according  to  this  division,  would  consist  of  Job,  Psalms. 
Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles,  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and 


Xehemiah;  Esther  and  the  book  of  Daniel  were  also 
assigned  to  it.  P>ut  the  division  was  so  manifestly 
arbitrary,  that  it  was  never  accepted  as  a  proper  one 
by  the  church.  In  the  Xew  Testament  all  the  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  go  by  the  name  of  the  n'ritiuqs 
or  scriptures  (corresponding  to  the  /ccttibim  among  the 
Jews),  or  the  sacred  scriptures;  and  a  division  so  far  is 
recognized  in  certain  passages,  that  they  are  spoken  of 
under  the  names  of  the  law  and  the  prophets:  and  once, 
'•Moses,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms,"  i.u.  xxiv.  41. 
(-S'ee'ScEiPTURES.1 

HA'I.  another  form  of  what  is  more  commonly 
written  Al,  Go.  xii.  ;>;  xiii.  3.  ($ec  Al.) 

HAIR.  There  is  nothing,  in  which  the  usages  of 
different  countries,  and  even  of  the  same  country  at 
one  period  as  compared  with  another,  have  exhibited 
more  variety  and  caprice,  than  in  respect  to  the  culti 
vation  or  neglect  of  the  hair.  Of  the  more  ancient 
nations,  the  Egyptians  appear  to  have  been  the  most 
uniform  in  their  habits  regarding  it,  and,  in  some  re 
spects  also,  the  most  peculiar.  We  learn  from  Hero 
dotus  (ii.  36;  iii.  12),  that  they  let  the  hair  of  their  head  and 
beard  grow  only  when  they  were  in  mourning,  and  that 
they  shaved  it  at  other  times.  Even  in  the  case  of 
young  children  they  were  wont  to  shave  the  head, 
leaving  oiilv  a  few  locks  on  the  front,  sides,  and  back. 


''So  particular  were  they,"  says  "Wilkinson,  "on  this 
point,  tliat  to  have  neglected  it  was  a  subject  of  re 
proach  and  ridicule;  and  whenever  they  intended  to 
convey  the  idea  of  a  man  of  low  condition,  or  a  slovenly 
person,  the  artists  represented  him  with  a  beard" 
(Ancient  Egyptians,  iii.  p.  o:>~).  Slaves  also,  when  brought 
from  foreign  countries,  having  beards  on  them  at  their 
arrival,  "were  obliged  to  conform  to  the  cleanly  habits 
of  their  masters;  their  beards  and  heads  were  shaved: 
and  they  adopted  a  close  cap."  This  universal  practice, 
among  the  Egyptians  explains  the  incidental  notice  in 
the  life  of  Joseph,  that  before  going  in  before  Pharaoh 
he  shaved  himself,  Go.  xli.  M;  in  most  other  places  he 
would  have  combed  his  hair,  and  trimmed  his  beard, 
but  on  no  account  have  shaved  it.  The  practice  was 
carried  there  to  such  a  length,  probably  from  the  ten 
dency  of  the  climate  to  generate  the  fleas  and  other 
vermin  which  nestle  in  the  hair;  and  hence  also  the 
priests,  who  were  to  be  the  highest  embodiments  of 
cleanliness,  were  wont  to  shave  their  whole  bodies  every 
third  day  (Ilcrod.  ii.  37>.  It  is  singular,  however,  and 
seems  to  indicate  that  notions  of  cleanliness  did  not 
alone  regulate  the  practice,  that  the  women  still  wore 
their  natural  hair,  long  and  plaited,  often  reaching 
down  in  the  form  of  strings  to  the  bottom  of  the 
shoulder-blades.  Manv  of  the  female  mummies  have 


UAH! 


094 


HAM 


iair  thus    plaited,  and  in   good 


been    found    with   tin 
preservation. 

The  precisely  opposite  practice,  as  regards  men, 
would  seem  to  have  prevailed  among  the  ancient  As 
syrians,  and  indeed  among  the  Asiatics  ifenenilly.  In 
the  Assyrian  sculptures  the  hail- 
always  appears  long,  combed 
closely  down  upon  the  head,  and 
shedding  itself  in  a  mass  of  curls 
oil  the  shoulders.  "  The  beard 
also  was  allowed  to  grow  to  it- 
full  length,  and,  descending  low 
011  the  breast,  was  divided  into 
two  or  three  rows  of  curls.  The 
moustache  was  also  carefully 
trimmed  and  curled  at  the  ends" 
(Layard's  Nineveh,  ii.  i>.  .".27).  Hero 
dotus  likewise  testifies  that  the  Babylonians  wore  their 
hair  long  (i.  i »,••).  The  very  long  hair,  however,  that 
appears  in  the  figures  on  the  monuments  is  supposed  to 
have  been  partly  false,  a  sort  of  head-dress  to  add  to 
the  effect  of  the  natural  hair. 

Among  the  ancient  Greeks  the  general  practice  was 
to  wear  the  hair  long;  hence  the  epithet  so  often  occur 
ring  in  Homer  of  "well-combed  Greeks;"  and  the  say 
ing,  which  passed  current  among  the  people,  that  hair 
was  the  cheapest  of  ornaments.  But  the  practice 


:li.  ]  Assyiian  manner 
E  wearinp  the  hair.— From 
•nlpture  in  Brit.  Mus. 


[317. 1        Grecian  manner  n£  wearing  the  hair.  — Hope's  Costumes. 

varied.  While  the  Spartans  in  earlier  times  wore  the 
hair  long,  and  men  as  well  as  women  were  wont  to  have 
it  tied  in  a  knot  over  the  crown  of  the  head,  at  a  later 
period  they  were  accustomed  to  wear  it  short.  Among 
the  Athenians  also  it  is  understood  the  later  practice 
varied  somewhat  from  the  earlier,  though  the  informa 
tion  is  less  specific.  The  Romans  passed  through  simi 
lar  changes;  in  more  ancient  times  the  hair  of  the  head 
and  beard  was  allowed  to  grow;  but  about  three  cen 
turies  before  the  Christian  era  barbers  began  to  be  in 
troduced,  and  men  usually  wore  the  hair  short.  Shav 
ing  also  was  customary;  and  a  long  beard  was  regarded 
as  a  mark  of  slovenliness.  An  instance  even  occurs  of 
a  man,  M.  Livius,  who  had  been  banished  for  a  time, 
being  ordered  by  the  censors  to  have  his  beard  shaved 
before  he  entered  the  senate  (Liv.  xxvii.  34).  [See  wood 
cut  No.  201,  under  DIADEM,  for  further  illustrations  of 
ancient  modes  of  wearing  the  hair.J 

This  later  practice  must  have  been  quite  general  in 
the  gospel  age,  so  far  as  the  head  is  concerned,  among 
the  countries  which  witnessed  the  labours  of  the  apostle 
Paul;  since  in  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  he  re 
fers  to  it  as  an  acknowledged  and  nearly  universal  fact. 
"Doth  not  even  nature  itself  teach  you,'' he  asked, 
"that  if  a  man  have  long  hair,  it  is  a  shame  to  him? 
But  if  a  woman  have  long  hair,  it  is  a  glory  to  her;  for 
her  hair  is  given  her  for  a  covering,"  i  Co.  xi.  i-t,  1.3.  The 
only  person  among  the  more  ancient  Israelites,  who  is 
expressly  mentioned  as  having  done  in  ordinary  life 


|  what  is  here  designated  a  shame,  is  Absalom;  but  the 
manner  in  which  the  sacred  historian  notices  the  extra 
vagant  regard  he  paid  to  the  cultivation  of  his  hair,  not 
obscurely  intimates  that  it  was  esteemed  a  piece  of 
foppish  effeminacy,  2  S:i.  xiv.  'if,.  Both  in  earlier  and  later 
.  times  the  common  practice  among  them  was  to  wear 
the  hair  short — a  sort  of  medium  between  the  extreme 
of  shaven  pates  and  lengthened  tresses,  K/.e.  xiiv.  211.  And 
this  seems  also  to  be  what  is  meant  by  the  order  not  to 
round  the  corners  of  their  heads,  nor  mar  or  corrupt  the 
corners  of  their  beards,  in  Le.  xix  27;  not  wholly  to  crop 
off'  the  one,  nor  to  shave  the  other,  but  to  preserve  both 
in  moderation.  But  an  exception  was  made  in  the  case 
of  the  Nazarites,  who,  in  connection  with  their  parti 
cular  vow,  and  as  the  special  badge  of  their  consecra 
tion,  were  bound  to  let  their  hair  grow  (sec  NAZAKITE). 
This  very  exception,  however,  for  a  specific  religious 
purpose,  was  an  indirect  proof  of  the  contrary  practiee 
being  generally  followed;  the  long  hair  would  otherwise 
have  been  no  distinction.  But  while  short  hair  upon 
the  head  was  reckoned  proper  for  a  man,  baldness  was 
by  no  means  relished  -less  so,  perhaps,  then  than  in 
western  countries  now,  because  of  the  general  custom 
of  wearing  artificial  coverings  on  the  head,  and  perhaps 
also  because  of  baldness  being  one  of  the  symptoms  of 
cutaneous  disease,  in  particular  of  leprosy.  Job  is  even 
represented  as  having  shaved  his  head,  to  make  himself 
bald,  in  the  day  of  his  calamity,  ch  i.  20;  probably  more, 
however,  as  a  symbol  of  desolation,  than  as  an  ordinary 
badge  of  mourning;  for  it  is  in  that  respect  that  baldness 
is  commonly  spoken  of  in  Scripture,  Is.  iii.  21;  xv.  2,  ie. 
The  call  in  Je.  vii.  29  to  cut  off  the  hair — "Cut  < iff'  thine 
hair,  O  Jerusalem,  and  cast  it  away;  and  take  up  a 
lamentation  011  high  places" — is  addressed  to  Jerusalem 
under  the  symbol  of  a  woman,  and  indicates  nothing  as 
to  the  usual  practice  of  men  in  times  of  trouble  and 
distress.  In  their  case,  we  may  rather  suppose,  the 
custom  would  be  to  let  the  hair  grow  in  the  season  of 
mourning  and  to  neglect  the  person.  But  the  practice 
would  naturally  differ  with  the  occasion,  and  with  the 
feelings  of  the  individual. 

HA'LAH,  the  name  of  a  Median  city  or  district,  to 
which  some  of  the  captive  Israelites  were  transported 
by  the  king  of  Assyria,  when  the  ten  tribes  fell  under 
the  heathen  power.  Nothing  certain  is  known  of  it: 
and  a  considerable  diversity  of  opinion  has  prevailed 
among  commentators  as  to  the  precise  locality  where  it 
should  be  sought.  From  the  passage  in  2  Ki.  xvii.  7. 
it  would  seem  to  have  been  somewhere  on  the  river 
Gozan,  or  Kizzil-ozzan,  as  it  is  now  generally  called, 
and  consequently  beyond  the  bounds  of  Babylonia. 

HA'LAK  [smooth],  the  name  given  to  the  mountain 
which  formed  the  southern  extremity  of  Joshua's  con 
quests,  Jos. xi.  17;  xii.  7.  Instead  of  "the  mount  Halak,'' 
in  the  passages  referred  to,  it  might  be  read  "the  smooth 
mount,"  which  goeth  up  to  Seir.  No  mention  occurs 
elsewhere  of  a  mountain  of  this  name. 

HAL'LELU'JAH,  the  same  as  ALLELVJAH  (which 
see). 

HAM  [hot],  one  of  the  three   sons  of  Noah,  from 

whom  the  earth  after  the  deluge  was  peopled.     He  is 

first  mentioned  between  the  other  two — Shem,  Ham, 

I  ami  Japheth,  Go.  v.  32.     But  afterwards  he  is  expressly 

|  designated  the  younger  son  of  Noah,  Go.  ix.  24 — the  same 

j  word  in  the  original  that  is  applied  to  David  among  the 

i  sons  of  Jesse,  i  Sa.  xvi.  n — which  seems  to  imply  that 

he  was  the  youngest  of  the  family,  being  the  younger 


HAMAN 


G95 


HAMATH 


relatively  to  the  other  two.  He  had  four  sons — Cush, 
Mizraim,  Phut,  and  Canaan.  The  three  first  travelled 
southwards,  and  from  them  chiefly  sprang  the  tribes 
that  peopled  the  African  continent,  as  Canaan  became 
the  father  of  the  tribes  that  principally  occupied  the 
territory  of  Phoenicia  and  Palestine.  (See  under  the 
several  names.)  Of  Ham  himself  we  know  notliing 
excepting  the  unfortunate  circumstance  connected  with 
his  father's  too  free  indulgence  in  wine,  in  respect  to 
which  lie  acted  so  unbecoming  a  part,  and  which  is 
treated  of  elsewhere.  (Sec  XOAH  and  CANAAN.) 

Ham  is  also  used  as  a  designation  of  Egypt,  most 
likely  on  account  of  its  population  having  sprung  from 
a  son  of  Ham,  Ps.  ixxviii.  sijcvi.  'it;  and  the  name  Ainmon, 
by  which  the  chief  god  of  the  northern  Africans  was 
often  called  and  worshipped,  probably  derives  its  origin 
from  the  same  source.  Plutarch,  in  his  treatise  DC 
Iside  ct  Os.,  takes  notice  of  this  name  of  Egypt,  writing 
it  Xy/mia  (in  modern  Coptic  it  is  L'hcnii},  and  says  it 
was  derived  from  a  word  signifying  lilack,  for  which  he 
finds  a  reason  in  the  appearance  of  the  country.  We 
cannot  place  much  dependence  upon  his  etymology,  as 
in  this  department  the  Greeks  were  extremely  fanciful. 
I'ut  the  fact  of  the  ancient  and  general  application  of 
this  name  to  Egypt  is  beyond  dispute. 

HA'MAN  [etymology  uncertain],  a  person  of  high 
rank  in  the  kingdom  of  Persia,  and  for  a  time  jninie 
minister  of  the  king  who  espoused  Esther.  The  cir 
cumstances  connected  with  the  history  of  this  remark 
able  and  unhappy  man  have  been  noticed  in  the  article 
on  Esther;  they  form  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
examples  on  record  of  the  unreasonable  lengths  to  which 
a  principle  of  personal  ambition  may  carry  one — the 
frightful  crimes  it  may  lead  him  to  commit,  in  order  to 
reach  the  end  he  aims  at — ami  the  overwhelming  retri 
bution  in  providence  it  may  bring  down  upon  his  own 
head.  He  is  called  in  Esther  Hainan  the  Agagite, 
which  the  Jews  have  from  early  times  regarded  as  sub 
stantially  one  with  Hainan  the  Amalekite  (Joseph.  xU;). 
This,  if  it  were  certain,  would  afford  a  natural  enough 
explanation  of  what  otherwise  looks  like  a  species  of 
insanity — the  determination  011  the  part  of  Hainan  to 
extinguish  a  whole  race  in  revenge  for  the  stiff  and 
unyielding  firmness  of  a  single  individual.  The  Ama- 
lekites  were  from  early  times  among  the  most  implac 
able  enemies  of  the  Jews,  and  had  been  all  but  extir 
pated  by  the  superior  might  and  warlike  prowess  of 
their  rivals.  One  can  readily  suppose  that  a  deep  spirit 
of  revenge  would  lurk  in  the  bosoms  of  the  scattered 
members  of  the  Amalekite  race  which  survived;  and 
that  any  one  of  them,  having  what  might  seem  a  just 
occasion  and  a  fit  opportunity,  would  eagerly  snatch  at 
it  to  secure  the  long  wished  for  triumph.  Tt  is  quite 
possible  also,  that  Haman  may  have  belonged  to  this 
Amalekite  race,  and  by  some  of  those  curious  evolutions 
of  fortune,  which  are  not  unusual  in  arbitrary  states, 
where  the  greatest  changes  often  turn  on  the  whimsical 
freaks  of  a  moment,  may  have  been  elevated  to  the 
highest  place  of  power  at  the  Persian  court.  The  ex 
treme  jealousy  he  evinced  in  regard  to  the  marks  paid 
him  of  outward  homage  and  respect,  so  far  confirms  this, 
that  he  appears  to  indicate  a  want  of  native  nobility  of 
rank ;  it  l>espeaks  the  temper  of  one  who  had  sprung 
from  comparatively  low  degree,  and  who  could  not 
afford  to  suffer  any  derogation  from  the  customary 
forms  of  regard.  Yet  with  so  many  tilings  in  favour 
of  this  supposition,  one  cannot  hold  it  to  be  more  than 


probable,  if  even  probability  is  not  too  much  to  affirm 
respecting  it.  For  there  is  no  other  passage  in  Old 
Testament  scripture  in  which  Agagite  is  put  for  Ama 
lekite;  and  as  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  name 
Agag  had  much  the  same  origin  and  use  among  the 
Amalekites  that  Pharaoh  had  among  the  Egyptians, 
and  Abimelech  among  the  Philistines  (sec  AGAG),  it 
would  have  been  strange  and  unnatural  for  any  of  the 
Amalekite  race  to  have  turned  it  into  a  family  designa 
tion.  Xo  doubt  there  are  caprices  in  names  as  well  as 
other  things;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  a  use  not  in 
itself  natural  or  likely  may  have  been  made  of  this  par 
ticular  epithet.  But  in  the  circumstances  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  that  the  fact  of  Hainan's  Amalekite  de 
scent  is  somewhat  problematical;  and  if  advanced  at  all. 
it  should  only  be  as  an  ancient  opinion,  which  has  cer 
tain  probabilities  on  its  side,  and  which,  if  true,  would 
afford  a  ready  explanation  of  some  of  the  circumstances. 
HA'MATH  [fortification,  citadcf],  an  ancient  city 
and  province  of  Syria,  in  existence  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest  of  Canaan,  Nu.  xiii.  21,  and  in  later  times  of 
such  importance  that  it  is  called  "  Hamath  the  Great," 
Am.  vi.  2.  The  city  was  situated  on  the  Onmtes,  at  the 
northern  extremity  of  the  Lebanon  range,  about  7C> 
miles  north-east  of  Tripoli,  and  81  south  from  Aleppo. 
Not  Hamath  itself,  but  rather  the  "  entering  in  of 
Hamath,"  is  often  mentioned  as  the  boundary  on  the 
north  of  the  dominion  of  Israel,  N'u.  xxxiv.  8;  Jos.  xiii.  r>,  &c. 
There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  point  in 
dicated  by  this  expression.  Kobinson  (Supi.i.  lies.  p.  r,(;s) 
would  place  it  on  the  western  approach  to  Hamath, 
consequently  farther  off  from  Palestine  than  Hamath 
itself.  But  this  seems  improbable,  and  is  not  concurred 
in  by  Van  de  Velde,  Stanley,  and  others.  The  enter 
ing  in  to  Hamath  is  more  naturally  understood  as  given 
from  the  Palestinian  point  of  view,  therefore  on  the 
south  of  the  land  of  Hamath,  probably  about  Itiblah 
i as  Van  de  \Ylde  thinks),  a  place  about  :>o  miles  beyond 
Baalbec,  and  a  place  where  the  two  Lebanon  ranges 
terminate,  opening  on  the  wide  plain,  which  belonged 
to  Hamath.  This  appears  the  remotest  point  to  which 
the  spies  could  possibly  extend  their  personal  inquiries, 
Nu.  xiii.  21,  and  seems  most  naturally  to  accord  with  the 
general  conditions  of  the  geographical  problem.  In 
David's  time  Hamath  appears  to  have  formed  the  seat 
of  an  independent  kingdom;  for  Toi  the  king  of  Hamath 
is  mentioned  among  those  who  entered  into  friendly  re 
lations  with  David,  2Sn.  viii.d,  sL-q.  In  the  age  of  Solomon 
it  appears  to  have  formed  part  of  the  extensive  dominion 
of  Israel,  as  he  is  spoken  of  as  having  built  store-cities 
in  it,  2Oi.  viii.  4 ;  and  long  afterwards  the  second  Jeroboam 
is  said  to  have  conquered  it,  2Ki.  xiv.  2<*.  Along  with  the 
whole  of  that  part  of  Syria,  it  fell  shortly  afterwards 
under  the  sway  of  the  king  of  Assyria,  Js.  xxxvii.  12,  and 
then  under  that  of  the  king  of  Babylon.  After  the 
period  of  the  Alexandrian  conquest  it  bore  the  name  of 
Epiphania  ( 'Eirufxiveia.);  but  the  old  name  has  again 
supplanted  this,  and  among  the  native  population 
the  latter  probably  never  took  root.  Hamath  has  be 
come  one  of  the  larger  cities  of  the  Turkish  empire,  and 
is  supposed  to  contain  about  30,000  inhabitants,  of 
which  2500  belong  to  the  Greek  church.  The  modern 
town  is  "  built  in  the  narrow  valley  of  the  Orontes,  and 
on  both  sides  of  the  river,  whose  banks  are  fringed  with 
poplars.  Eour  bridges  span  the  river;  and  a  number 
of  huge  wheels,  turned  by  the  current,  raise  the  water 
into  aqueducts,  which  convey  it  to  the  houses  and 


HA MM ATM 


HANI) 


mosques  of  the  town.  There  are  no  antiquities  iu  it. 
The  mound  on  which  the  castle  stood  is  in  the  midst 
of  the  town;  hut  the  castle  itself,  materials  and  all,  has 
completely  disappeared.  The  houses  are  built  in  the 


oyage  tn  Orient. 


Damascus  style,  of  sun- dried  bricks  and  wood.     Though  ! 
plain  and  poor  enough  externally,  some  of  them  have 
splendid  interiors.     The  city  carries  on  a  considerable 
trade  with  the  Bedawin"  (Porter,  in  Man  ay's  Handbook). 

HAM'MATH;  the  same  word,  with  a  different  ac 
centuation,  appears  as  the  name  of  a  city  belonging  to 
the  tribe  of  Xaphtali,  and  apparently  near  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  Jos.  xi\-.  :r>.  It  was  probably  the  same  with  the 
HAMMOTH-.DOK,  a  Levite  city  in  the  tribe  of  Xaphtali, 
Jos.  xxi.  32.  But  nothing  particular  is  known  respecting  it. 

HA'MOR  [hc-ass],  the  father  of  Shechem,  and  head 
of  the  Hivite  tribe,  that  held  possession  of  the  fertile 
district  of  Shechem  at  the  time  of  Jacob's  return  from 
Mesopotamia.  Nothing  is  recorded  of  him  personally, 
except  the  judicious  and  prudent  part  he  took  in  endea 
vouring  to  avert  the  evil  consequences  of  his  son's  rash 
and  sinful  behaviour  in  respect  to  Dinah,  rendered  un 
availing  by  the  still  greater  rashness  and  iniquity  of 
Simeon  and  Levi,  to  which  Hamor  and  many  of  his 
tribe  fell  victims.  But  the  name  of  Hamor  was  long 
kept  up  in  connection  with  the  tribe,  and  generations 
afterwards  was  even  used  as  a  sort  of  watchword  with 
the  Hivite  remnant,  when  rising  in  revolt  against  the 
dominant  Israelites,  Ju.  ix.  28;  Jos.  xxiv.  32.  In  the  reference 
made  to  the  transaction  by  Stephen,  the  name  is  given 
in  the  Greek  form,  EMMOR,  Ac.  vii.  10. 

HAMU'TAL  [relatire  of  the  deic],  the  daughter  of 
Jeremiah  of  Libnah,  who  became  the  wife  of  Josiah 
king  of  Judah,  and  mother  of  Jehoahaz  and  Zedekiah. 
If  one  may  judge  from  the  history  of  her  sons,  her 
character  and  influence  were  of  a  very  different  descrip 
tion  from  what  her  name  might  seem  to  import. 

HAN'AMEEL  [etymology  unknown],  the  name  of 
an  uncle  of  the  prophet  Jeremiah.  In  token  of  the 
certainty  with  which  a  return  from  Babylon  might  be 
counted  on,  he  is  represented  in  one  of  the  prophecies 
of  Jeremiah,  ch.  xxxii.  o,  seq.,  as  coming  to  sell  his  inheri 
tance  to  his  nephew,  who  buys  it,  and  pays  the  money- 
according  to  the  regular  forms  in  such  cases,  in  the 
assured  confidence  that  he  or  his  posterity  should  one 
day  possess  it.  The  transaction  has  sometimes  been 
referred  to  as  a  proof  that  the  original  law,  forbidding 
the  alienation  of  the  inheritance  of  the  Levites,  Le.  xxv.  34, 


had  by  that  time  fallen  into  abeyance.  The  law,  how- 
overs  seems  to  point  to  such  an  alienation  as  would 
transfer  the  property  of  a  Levite  to  the  family  of  one 
belonging  to  another  tribe,  not  to  the  interchange  of 
property  between  one  Levite  and 
another.  But  the  transaction  in 
the  present  case,  though,  like  other 
things  done  in  prophetical  vision, 
described  as  an  actual  occurrence, 
seems  to  have  taken  place  in  the 
spiritual  sphere  alone ;  the  whole 
chapter  relates  what  came  to  Jere 
miah  by  the  word  of  the  Lord;  and 
that  part  which  consists  in  action, 
as  well  as  that  which  delivers  a 
message  in  words,  is  most  fitly  un 
derstood  of  the  spiritual  agency 
of  the  prophet.  The  transaction 
therefore  is  not  to  be  classed  among 
the  occurrences  of  every-day  lift-. 
(See  PROPHECY.) 

HANA'NI  [favourable,  r/rari- 
ui/i\.  1.  The  name  of  one  of  the 
sons  of  Heman,  and  consequently 
one  of  the  persons  separated  for  the  service  of  song  in 
the  temple,  1  Cii.  xxv.  4.  2.  A  prophet  who  came  before 
Asa,  king  of  Judah,  with  a  word  of  reproof  and 
threatening,  because  of  his  having  relied  unduly  on 
the  king  of  Syria,  for  which  the  king  improperly  threw 
him  into  prison,  2Ch.xvi.  ~.  3.  A  brother  of  Nehemiah. 
who  first  brought  him  word  of  the  depressed  state  of 
matters  in  Jerusalem,  and  afterwards  took  part  with 
him  in  the  charge  and  government  of  the  city,  Xe.  i.  2;  vii.  2. 
HANANI'AH  [the  ylft  or  favour  of  Jehovah}.  1. 
One  of  Heman's  sons,  and  head  of  one  of  the  twenty- 
four  courses  into  which  the  singers  were  divided  by 
David,  i  Ch.  xxv.  4, 23.  2.  A  captain  in  the  army  of 
U/ziah,  2Ch.  xxvi.  11.  3.  A  prince  in  the  time  of  Jere 
miah,  and  father  of  a  Zedekiah,  Je.  xxxvi.  12.  4.  A  false 
prophet  from  Gibeon,  who  also  lived  in  the  time  of 
Jeremiah,  and  delivered  counter-messages  to  those 
uttered  by  that  prophet.  He  was  denounced  by  Jere 
miah  as  an  impostor,  and  his  judicial  death  predicted, 
Je.  xxviii.  5.  The  original  and  proper  name  of  one  of 
the  three  Hebrew  youths,  who  acted  so  noble  a  part  at 
Babylon,  better  known  by  the  Chaldean  name  of  Shad- 
rach,  Da.  i.  6.  Many  others  bore  the  name,  of  whom 
nothing  particular  is  known,  Je.  xxxvii.  13;  i  Ch.  viii.  24;  i  Ch. 

lii.  19;  Ezr.  x.  2S,  Ne.  xii.  12;  vii.  5,  &c. 

HAND.  With  one  exception,  there  is  nothing  very 
peculiar  in  the  reference  made  to  the  hand  in  Scripture. 
Being  the  member  of  the  body  which  is  chiefly  em 
ployed  in  doing  active  service,  it  is  used  in  Scripture, 
as  well  as  other  writings,  in  a  great  variety  of  applica 
tions,  founded  upon  and  suggested  by  this  natural  em 
ployment :  such  as  "the  strength  of  his  hand"  for  the 
possession  of  power  generally,  "the  cunning  or  skill  of 
the  hand"  for  any  natural  accomplishment,  "putting 
things  into  one's  hand"  for  committing  them  to  one's 
oversight  and  control,  &c.  The  right  hand  being  also, 
for  the  most  part,  the  organ  most  used,  and  in  conse 
quence  most  skilled,  in  the  execution  of  work,  a  variety 
of  figurative  applications  quite  naturally  arise  out  of 
this  fact,  having  respect  to  the  right  hand  as  the  more, 
to  the  left  as  the  less,  honourable  and  efficient  of  the 
two;  hence  such  expressions  as  "Let  not  thy  left  hand 
know  what  thy  right  hand  cloeth,"  "  a  wise  man's  heart 


HAND 


HANGING 


is  at  his  right  hand,  but  a  fool's  heart  is  at  his  left 
hand/'  "sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  power."  "the 
man  of  thy  right  hand/'  <kc.  Such  forms  of  expression 
are  so  common  in  all  languages,  and  at  all  times,  that 
they  require  no  special  explanation  :  nature  itself  fur 
nishes  a  ready  interpretation  of  them  even  to  the  most 
unlearned. 

IMPOSITION  OF  THE  HAND,  or  OF  THE  HANDS,  how 
ever,  forms  a  sort  of  exception  to  this  general  similarity; 
it  may  be  regarded  as  a  strictly  scriptural  usage —  though 
it  no  doubt  also  had  its  foundation  in  nature,  and  may 
to  some  extent  have  been  used  in  some  of  the  nature- 
religions  of  antiquity.  '  It  occurs  at  a  very  early  period 
in  Scripture  as  a  patriarchal  usage,  appropriate  and 
becoming,  perhaps,  rather  than  strictly  religious. 
Jacob  laid  his  hands  upon  the  heads  of  Joseph's  chil 
dren,  when  going  to  bestow  upon  them  his  peculiar 
blessing,  Ge.  xlviii.  11,  precisely  as  in  later  times  our 
Lord  laid  his  hands  on  the  little  children  when  they 
were  presented  to  him  fur  /tin  blessing,  M.it.  MX.  i:>.  In 
like  manner,  and  with  a  nearer  approach  to  a  religious 
service,  Moses  was  instructed,  before  his  departure,  to 
lay  his  hand  upon  Joshua:  and  the  reason  of  the  action 
is  at  the  same  time  given  :  "  Take  thee  Joshua  the  sun 
of  Nun,  a  man  in  whom  is  the  Spirit,  and  lay  thine 

hand   upon  him And  thou  shalt  put  some  of 

thine  honour  upon  him,  that  all  the  congregation  of  the 
children  of  Israel  may  be  obedient/'  Nu.  xxvii.  i^-jii.  And 
so  atrain,  after  the  death  of  Moses,  it  is  said,  "And 
Joshua,,  the  sun  of  Nun,  was  full  uf  tin.-  spirit  <>f  wis 
dom;  for  Moses  had  laid  his  hands  upon  him,"  He.  xxxiv.  n. 
So  that  there  was  a  conveyance  in  the  matter  of  gifts 
from  one  who  had  to  one  who  had  not;  and  thr  laying 
on  of  the  hand  of  him  who  imparted  was  tin-  symbol  of 
the  conveyance  -  the  hand  being  the  usual  instrument 
of  communication  from  one  to  another  in  what  pertains 
to  giving  and  receiving.  So  also  in  regard  to  uuilt : 
the  people  who  heard  the  blasphemy  of  the  son  of  the 
Israelitish  woman  in  the  wilderness  had  to  lay  their 
hands  on  his  head — to  signify  that  the  n'uilt,  which 
through  him  had  been  brought  into  the  congregation, 
was  solemnly  transferred  to  him  to  whom  it  properly 
belonged.  In  this  sense,  undoubtedly,  the  action  was 
used  in  the  gospel  age  in  connection  with  the  bestowal 
of  the  supernatural  gifts,  or  the  miraculous  effects  of 
the  Holy  Spirit :  the  apostles  laid  their  hands  on  sick 
folks,  and  healed  them.  Mut.  ix.  IN  M;ir  \i  '>,&.*:,  and  at 
times  also  they  laid  their  hands  on  the  baptized,  that 
they  might  receive  the  special  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  Ac  viii. 
i.vi*;  xix  (V  It  was  a  quite  natural  extension  of  the 
same  practice,  to  apply  it  to  those  who  were  set  apart 
to  sacred  office  in  the  church — the  men  already  pos 
sessed  of  delegated  power  and  authority  in  the  church 
thereby  proceeding,  like  Moses  in  respect  to  Joshua,  to 
put  some  of  their  own  honour  upon  those  who  were 
raised  to  a  share  in  the  same  responsible  and  dignified 
position.  Ac.  xvii.  3;  iTi.iv.it.  Not  that  the  mere  act 
could  confer  it;  but  it  was  employed  as  a  fit  and 
appropriate  symbol  to  denote  their  full  and  formal 
consent  to  the  bestowal  of  the  gift.  and.  beinif  accom 
panied  by  prayer  to  Him,  who  alone  could  reallv 
bestow  it.  illicit  ordinarily  be  regarded  as  a  sitrn 
that  the  communication  had  actually  taken  place. 
On  this  account  the  action  has  been  retained  in  most 
communions  as  a  becoming  -service  in  the  ordination 
of  qualified  persons  to  the  ministry.  And  in  those 

churches  which  retain  confirmation  as  a  distinct  ser- 
Voi.  1. 


vice,  imposition  of  hands  is  also  retained  as  an  appro 
priate  part  of  the  service. 

In  Old  Testament  times  the  imposition  of  hands 
formed  an  essential  part  of  the  ritual  of  animal  sacri 
fice.  It  is  expressly  mentioned  in  respect  to  all  the 

kinds  of  offering  by  blood,  Le  i.  4;  in.  i;  k.  4-u,;  xvi  •_'! with 

the  exception  alone  of  the  trespass-offering;  and  it  was 
doubtless  omitted  in  regard  to  it  on  account  of  the  af 
finity  between  it  and  the  sin-offering,  as  it  would  be 
readily  understood  that  the  prescription  on  this  point 
established  for  the  one  would  equally  apply  to  the 
other.  The  Jewish  authorities  held  it  as  a  fixed  prin 
ciple  that  "in  all  sacrifices,  whether  offered  by  express 
enactment,  or  of  free-will,  the  offerer  had  to  lay  his 
hands  on  the  victim  while  still  alive,  with  the  excep 
tion  only  of  the  first-fruits,  tithes,  and  the  paschal 
lamb"  (M.iim.  line.  Kovlianoth.:) )  It  was  the  formal  act. 
by  which  the  offerer  identified  himself  with  his  victim, 
transferring,  as  it  were,  from  himself  to  the  victim  the 
qualities  or  feelings  in  which  that  victim  was  to  re 
present  him,  and  be  his  substitute  on  the  altar  of  God. 
In  respect  to  the  one  great  annual  sin-offering  it  is  thus 
explained.  "Aaron  shall  lay  both  his  hands  upon  the 
head  of  the  live-goat,  and  confess  over  him  all  the  ini 
quities  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  all  their  transgres 
sions  in  all  their  sins,  f.nftin;/  t/i<i/i  ///,nn  tlic  Itcud  uf 
tin  ;/<i(tf,"  1,0.  xvi  L-]  Here  plainly  the  one  thing  eon- 
v,  veil  by  the  hands  of  the  offering  high-priest  to  the 
u'oat  wa-  the  collective  guilt  of  the  people — that  guilt, 
however,  as  already  atoned  for  by  the  slain  goat,  the 
other  part  of  the  offering,  and  now  to  be  borne  away 
into  everlasting  forgetfulness  by  the  li\e  uoat,  as  <_rraci- 
ously  forgiven  by  God.  In  all  sin  ami  trespass  offer 
ings,  which  expressly  brought  to  remembrance  the 
transgressions  of  the  offerer,  and  had  for  their  object 
th.  atonement  of  his  guilt,  this  guilt  was  undoubtedly 
the  thing  transferred  by  the  action  of  the  laying  on  of 
hands;  it  was  the  sad  burden  of  the  worshipper,  which 
he  sought  to  have  removed  from  himself,  and  laid  upon 
the  victim,  which  by  divine  appointment  was  to  bear  for 
'him  its  appointed  doom.  And  in  all  offerings  of  blood 
there  must  have  been  something  of  this  transference  of 
vjiilt:  for  the  blood,  which  bore  in  it  the  life  of  the 
animal,  had  in  every  case  this  significance:  it  was  given 
to  make  atonement  for  sin;  and  in  all  approaches  to 
God  the  worshipper  could  only  come  with  acceptance, 
it'  h,  came  with  confession  of  sin,  and  reiving  on  the 
presentation  of  sacrificial  blood  as  the  appointed  medium 
of  forgiveness  Hut  in  the  burnt- offerings,  and  in  the 
peace  or  thank  offerings,  as  there  were  other  feelings 
expressed  on  the  part  of  the  worshipper,  so  there  were 
other  things  symbolically  transferred  to  his  victim  by 
the  imposition  of  hands,  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
sacrifice  presented,  and  the  occasion  that  called  it  forth. 
In  every  case  the  rite  is  lo  be  viewed  as  retaining  it-; 
native  import,  as  the  act  of  a  symbolical  transference  of 
that  in  the  offerer,  for  which  he  brought  his  victim, 
and  in  respect  to  which  lie  wished  it  to  be  taken  as  his 
representative  before  God. 

HA'NES.  a  city  of  middle  Kgvpt,  situated  on  an 
island,  on  the  west  of  the  Nile.  It  is  commonly  under 
stood  to  be  the  place  called  by  the  Greeks  Heracle- 
opolis,  and  is  said  to  have  been  formerly  a  royal  city. 
It  is  mentioned  only  in  Is.  xxx.  4. 

HANGING  was  a  judicial  form  of  treatment  prac 
tised  from  early  times  amontr  the  Jews,  but  not  explicitly 
enjoined.  In  the  first  notice  that  occurs  of  it.  the  only 

88 


HANGING 


GO.s 


JT  ANN  All 


notice  taken  of  it  in  the  law,  it  is  introduced  rather  for 
the  purpose  of  setting  a  limit  to  the  term  of  suspension, 
than  appointing  it  as  a  mode  of  execution.  ''  If  a  man 
have  committed  a  sin  worthy  of  death,  and  lie  be  to  be 
put  to  death,  and  thou  hang  him  on  a  tree,  his  body 
shall  not  remain  all  night  upon,  the  tree,  but  thou  shalt 
in  any  wise  bury  him  that  day;"  and  this  for  the 
special  reason,  "  that  the  land  might  not  be  defiled," 
Do.  xxi.ii:.',-':!.  The  restriction  manifestly  has  respect  to 
the  treatment  of  the  dead,  rather  than  the  punishment 
of  the  living;  as  the  touch  of  the  dead  defiled,  and  a 
special  defilement  could  not  but  be  regarded  as  attach 
ing  to  the  dead  body  of  a  criminal,  hung  up  before 
heaven  and  earth  as  an  accursed  thing;  so,  if  exposed 
thus  at  all  it  should  be  fmt  for  a  brief  space;  the  pollut 
ing  spectacle  should  be  removed  and  buried  out  of 
sight  before  the  close  of  day.  And  this  renders  it  pro 
bable  that  death  was  actually  inflicted  before  the  hang 
ing  took  place;  as  in  the  passage  quoted  above,  the 
"putting  to  death"  seems  to  go  before  the  "hanging 
011  a  tree;"  and  in  the  case 
of  the  kings  who  were  van 
quished  by  Joshua,  and 
brought  forth  for  execution 
from  the  cave  in  which  they 
had  taken  refuge,  it  is  said 
that  Joshua  first  smote  and 
slew  them,  and  then  hanged 
them  on  a  tree  till  even,  ,Io^. 
x.  2f>.  Such  seems  to  have 
been  always  the  case  when 
hanging  was  resorted  to ; 
death  by  the  sword,  or  by 
stoning,  was  first  inflicted, 
and  as  a  mark  of  pxiblic  re 
probation  the  corpse,  in  cer 
tain  cases,  was  exposed  to 
open  shame  and  ignominy, 
precisely  as,  in  later  times, 
it  was  the  custom  for  state 
criminals  to  be  first  beheaded, 
then  quartered,  and  the  seve 
ral  quarters  sent  to  different 
places  for  public  exposure, 
woodcut,  from  the  Assyrian  sculptures,  it  will  be  ob 
served,  that  the  persons  are  in  a  position  which  be 
speaks  their  death  to  have  taken  place  before  the 
suspension,  and  so  confirms  what  has  been  said  as  to 
the  usual  practice  in  ancient  times. 

HAXGING,  or  HANGINGS,  is  also  very  commonly 
used  in  the  English  Bible  for  curtains  or  coverings  of 
the  tabernacle,  Ex.xxvi.Sfi.&c.  It  is  proper  to  note,  how 
ever,  that  two  words  are  used  in  the  original  for  what 
in  the  English  Bible  is  called  hanging  and  hanging*. 
The  hanging  or  curtain  for  the  door  of  the  tabernacle, 
also  for  the  door  of  the  outer  court,  is  simply  the  cover 
ing —  what  conceals  or  hides  from  public  view — "-lyo, 

'  TT 

masak  (from  the  root  to  coi'cr).  But  the  hangings  or 
curtains  which  surrounded  and  inclosed  the  court  of 
the  tabernacle  are  denoted  by  a  word  of  uncertain 
etymology  in  this  sense,  and  used  only  in  the  plural — 
C-y^p,  kclaim.  The  sense  is  so  plain,  that  we  are  for 
tunately  not  dependent  on  the  etymology  for  under 
standing  it.  A  different  word  from  both  of  these 
denotes  the  veil  which  separated  the  holy  from  the 
most  holy  place.  (See  TABERNACLE.) 


In    the    accompanying 


HAN'NAH  [grace,  favour],  an  honoured  name  in 
the  roll  of  Israeli tish  female  worthies,  the  name  of  one 
who  in  the  highest  and  happiest  sense  was  a  mother  in 
Israel.  Hannah  was  unfortunately  not  the  only, 
though  she  was  the  favourite,  wife  of  Elkanah,  a  Levite 
of  Ramathaim-zophim;  anjl  at  her  first  entrance  on  the 
staire  of  sacred  history,  she  appears  as  an  object  of  pity, 
much  more  than  of  congratulation — a  victim  of  the 
evils  of  polygamy.  Peninnah,  her  rival  in  the  house 
hold,  though  she  shared  less  of  the  affection  of  the 
husband,  had  the  marked  advantage  of  being  a  mother 
of  children,  and  ungenerously  used  it  by  taunting 
Hannah  with  her  barrenness.  To  such  a  height  did 
this  bitter  provocation  grow,  that  Hannah  lost  all 
pleasure  even  in  the  festive  solemnities  which  the 
family  went  yearly  to  hold  before  the  Lord;  instead  of 
rejoicing  on  such  occasions,  she  wept,  and  would  not 
be  comforted.  This,  of  course,  she  might  have  done 
without  any  principle  of  grace,  or  feeling  of  genuine 
devotion.  The  vexation  might  have  begun  and  ended 
with  the  frettings  of  disappointed  ambition  or  wounded 
pride.  But  the  current  of  grief  in  her  bosom  took  a 
loftier  direction.  It  drove  Hannah  to  close  and  earnest 
dealing  with  God  ;  and  giving  vent  on  one  occasion  to 
the  desires  and  feelings  which  animated  her  bosom,  she 
prayed  before  the  tabernacle  in  so  excited  a  manner 
that  Eli  took  her  for  a  person  under  the  influence  of 
drink,  and  addressed  her  in  the  language  of  reproof. 
This,  however,  he  turned  into  a  blessing,  when  he 
heard  from  her  own  lips  how  the  matter  really  stood. 
But  it  is  not  merely  the  fact  that  Hannah  prayed,  and, 
as  she  said,  "poured  out  her  soul  before  the  Lord," 
which  indicates  the  depth  and  earnestness  of  Hannah's 
piety;  it  is  rather  the  scope  and  object  of  her  prayer. 
"She  vowed  a  vow,  and  said,  O  Lord  of  hosts,  if  thou 
wilt  indeed  look  on  the  affliction  of  thine  handmaid, 
and  remember  me,  and  not  forget  thine  handmaid,  but 
wilt  give  unto  thine  handmaid  a  man  child,  then  I  will 
give  him  unto  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  his  life,  and 
there  shall  no  razor  come  upon  his  head,"  i  Sa.  i.  11. 
That  is,  she  would  devote  him  to  the  Lord's  service, 
and  from  his  very  birth-place  him  under  the  restraints 
and  obligations  of  the  Nazarite  vow.  Hannah  not 
only  wished  to  be  a  mother  of  children,  but  sought  the 
honour  of  giving  birth  to  a  seed,  though  it  should  be 
but  a  single  individual,  who  might  be  a  chosen  vessel 
in  the  Lord's  hands  for  reviving  his  cause,  and  ad 
vancing  the  interests  of  righteousness.  This  she  could 
hardly  have  done  in  so  peculiar  a  manner,  namely,  by 
destining  her  child  from  his  birth  to  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Nazarite  vow,  without  having  previously  had  much 
at  heart  the  existing  state  of  religion,  and  perceiving 
the  need  of  some  extraordinary  instrument  to  turn 
again  the  prevailing  tide  of  evil.  The  directions  laid 
down  in  the  law  respecting  the  Kazarite  vow  proceed 
on  the  supposition  of  its  being  of  a  free-will  nature. 
It  was  in  all  ordinary  circumstances  to  be  left  to  the 
promptings  of  the  religious  impulse  in  any  individual, 
whether  he  would  undertake  it,  or  for  what  length 
of  time  he  would  impose  it  on  himself;  and  only  a 
peculiar  and  disorganized  state  of  things  could  have 
justified  the  destination  of  any  one  to  it  as  the  per 
petual  rule  of  his  life.  There  had  been  such  a  state  of 
things  some  time  prior  to  the  period  of  Hannah's  life, 
when  an  angel  from  heaven  gave  promise  to  the  wife 
of  Manoah  (hitherto  also  without  offspring)  of  a  child 
who  from  his  birth  should  be  placed  under  the  Nazarite 


HANNAH 


ordinance,  as  one  destined  to  peculiar  service  for 
heaven;  and  the  destination  had  its  accomplishment  in 
the  singular,  but  somewhat  erratic  and  mournful, 
career  of  Samson.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  that  the 
history  of  that  remarkable  man — which  was  still  fresh 
in  the  recollections  of  all,  and  of  the  close  of  which 
many  still  living  had  been  eye-witnesses — had  made  a 
deep  impression  on  the  mind  of  Hannah;  and  probably 
from  a  conviction  that  the  work  for  which  he  had 
been  raised  up  was  but  partly  accomplished — that  his 
mission  had  in  great  part  failed,  and  failed  much  be 
cause  he  had  received  so  little  of  sympathy  and  support 
from  the  people — Hannah  sought  from  the  Lord  an 
other  Nazarite  who  mi<rht  resume  the  work;  and  from 
his  official  connection  with  the  house  of  God,  might 
even  prosecute  it  in  a  higher  and  more  hopeful  manner. 

Such  appears  to  have  been  the  spirit  that  animated 
this  pious  woman,  and  the  objects  on  which  she  had 
set  her  heart.  \\'e  need  not,  therefore,  lie  surprised 
that  the  Lord  heard  her  petition,  and  '.rave  her  the 
means  of  performing  her  vow.  Jn  due  time  a  sun  was 
born,  whom  she  named  Samuel  (ai/cid  <>f  <i<id),  in  per 
petual  remembrance  of  tin;  manner  in  which  she  had 
obtained  him;  and  in  further  acknowledgment  of  the 
same,  and  in  pious  celebration  <>f  the  feelings  and  prin 
ciples  evoked  by  the  occasion,  when  she  returned  to 
the  tabernacle,  bringing  with  her  the  child  she  had 
received,  and  now  uave  back  to  the  Lord,  she  poured 
forth  her  heart  in  that  sung  of  thanksgiving  of  which 
the  people  of  God  have  served  themselves  on  many  an 
occasion  of  joyfuhiess;  and  of  which  we  hear,  in  a 
manner,  the  prolonged  echoes  in  that  corresponding 
strain  of  thanksgiving  which  was  uttered  bv  the  Virgin 
Mary  in  anticipation  of  the  birth  of  .Jesus.  Hannah's 
song  was  such  an  effusion  as  could  only  have  tonic 
from  one  who  had  a  right  to  regard  herself  as  a  si<_rn 
and  wonder  to  Israel  -  one,  in  whose  condition  and 
prospects  were  supernaturally  exhibited  the  urn -at  prin 
ciples  of  the  divine  government,  which  it  was  the  part 
of  God's  administration  to  lie  ever  unfoldinir.  hut  which 
were  to  have  their  grandest  development  in  the  history 
and  kingdom  of  Christ.  She  sees  these  principles-  the 
principles  especially  of  favour,  bles-iiii:1.  and  prosperity 
to  the  humbly  pious;  of  rejection,  opposition,  and 
discomfiture  to  the  ungodly  proud-  not  only  most 
>trikiiiL;-]y  exemplified  in  her  own  case,  but  like  a  sacred 
thread  running  through  the  history  of  Cod's  dispensa 
tions,  and  at  last  rising  to  their  final  triumph  in  the 
full  and  glorious  establishment  of  Messiah's  kingdom: 
''The  adversaries  < if  the  Lord  shall  be  broken  to  pieces; 
out  of  heaven  shall  he  thunder  upon  them:  the  Lord 
shall  judge  the  ends  of  the  earth;  and  he  shall  give 
strength  unto  his  king,  and  exalt  the  horn  of  his 
Anointed  (Messiah)." 

It  was,  of  course,  the  Spirit  of   the   Lord  which  en 
abled   Hannah  to  take  such  a  comprehensive  view  of 
things,  and  speak   in  a  tone  so  lofty  and  authoritative 
from   the   present   to   the    future.       She   spoke   as   the  ' 
Spirit  gave  her  utterance — a  prophetess  in  word,  as  in  ' 
the  circumstances  of  her  condition  she  was  a  type  and 
witness  to    Fsrael.      Uoth  in   speech  and  in  action  she 
became  the  beginning  and  the  herald  of  a  new  phase  of 
the  divine  kingdom.      She  stood  at  the  threshold  of  a 
general  revival,  of   which  her  Nazarite  son  became  the 
leader,  and  which  was  afterwards  carried  forward  by  ! 
David  and  his  fellow- workers — a  revival  which  in  its 
immediate  results  raised  Israel  to  the  highest  pinnacle  ! 


they  were  destined  to  reach  under  the  old  covenant, 
and  in  its  remoter  and  higher  issues,  found  its  culmina 
tion  in  the  work  and  kingdom  of  Christ.  Such  was 
the  long  and  glorious  train  of  good  that  sprung  from 
the  humble  prayer  and  piety  of  Hannah;  and  through 
which  she.  though  dead,  still  speaks  to  the  believing 
people  of  God;  and  speaks  especially  to  persons  in 
lowly  rank  anil  with  straitened  opportunities,  who,  if  hut 
strong  in  faith  like  her,  and  fervent  in  spirit,  may  help 
forward,  or  even  originate,  movements  which  shall  dif 
fuse  blessings  that  extend  to  other  ages  than  their  own 
HAN'UN  [<jracious\,  occurs  as  a  Jewish  proper 
'  name,  but  of  persons  respecting  whom  little  is  known, 
,  Nu.  iii,  13, 30.  It  is  chiefly  thought  of  as  the  name  of  an 
Ammonite  king,  who  insulted  the  messengers  of  David, 
and  provoked  a  war  which  ended  in  the  almost  total 
annihilation  of  the  Ammonites  as  a  separate  people. 
David,  with  all  apparent  sincerity  and  good  feeling, 
sent,  on  the  death  of  Nahash,  the  father  of  Hanun,  an 
•  embassy  of  condolence,  specially  on  the  ground  that  he 
had  himself  been  kindly  dealt  with  in  his  distress  by 
Nahash.  I'.ut  David  was  now  viewed  as  a  formidable 
rival  to  the  Ammonite  power,  and  his  messengers  were 
looked  upon  as  spies;  so  that,  instead  of  being  received 
with  respect,  they  were  sent  back  with  their  garments 
cut  away  from  the  middle,  and  their  beards  half  shaved. 
Tliis  insult  was  resented  by  David  and  his  people;  and 
though  the  war  which  ensued  proved  long,  and  in  some 
respects  humiliating  to  Israel,  it  ended  in  the  complete 
subjugation  of  the  Ammonite  power,  L'SU.  x.xi. 

HA  RA  [mountainous],  the  name  of  a  place  or  region, 
probably  a  mountainous  region  in  the  Assyrian  em 
pire,  to  which  portions  of  the  ten  tribes  were  carried, 
I  I'll.  v.  •_'<;.  The  name  nearly  corresponds  with  the  ancient 
Grecian  name  of  Media,  which  was  Aria:  and  the 
people  were  called  Arii.  lint  in  Scripture  itself  the 
name  occurs  but  once,  and  without  any  definite  land 
marks. 

HA'RAN  \iii<in,ititiit((r].  a  brother  of  Abraham,  and 
father  of  Lot,  Milcah,  and  Iscah,  Go.  xi.'.'r, '-".»;  of  whom 
nothing  more  is  known. 

HAR'AN,  but  more  properly  CIIAHAN  [Gr.  \o.ppo.v, 
Latin  CIIAKK.K],  was  a  place  and  district  of  Mesopo 
tamia,  at  which  for  a  certain  time  Abraham  settled 
along  with  his  father  Terah;  where  also  Tenth  died, 
<':c.  \i.  :;i,.vj.  In  future  times  it  rose  to  some  importance 
as  a  place  of  merchandise  and  strength:  and  is  hence 
specially  mentioned  among  the  conquests  of  the  king  of 
Assyria.  L' Ki.  \vi.  rj;  as  also  among  the  places  with  which 
Tyre  carried  on  her  extensive  traffic,  K/e  \xvii  L':!.  It 
seems  afterwards  to  have  sunk  into  decay,  and  has 
shared  the  fate  of  most  ancient  cities  in  that  region. 
HARE  fna:-iS,  (U-xc'ic///].  No  doubt  exists  as  to  the 

propriety  of  this  identification.  The  LXX.  render  the 
Hebrew  by  oacrt'Troi's,  "the  hairy  foot,"  the  significant 
term  by  which  the  Greeks  designated  the  hare;  and  the 
modern  Arabs  still  call  the  animal  by  the  name  arneh. 
The  word  occurs  only  in  the  enumeration  of  animals 
clean  and  unclean,  Lo.  .\i  ;  Do.  xiv  ;  arid  the  hare  is  classed 
in  the  latter  category,  "because  he  cheweth  the  cud, 
but  divideth  not  the  hoof."  This  character  of  dividing 
the  hoof  had  been  already  more  particularly  defined  in 
ver.  3;  "whatsoever  parteth  the  hoof  and  is  cloven- 
footed:"  and  this,  with  the  chewing  of  the  cud,  indi 
cates  the  modern  order  Puminantia.  The  hare  has 
indeed  a  divided  foot,  but  not  a  cloven  hoof,  and  there- 


"11(1 


HARLOT 


lore  is  lacking  in  out-  essential  character  of  ceremonial 
cleanness.  The  other  attribute  of  chewing  the  end  d< >es 
not  belong  to  it  eitlier,  ill  tile  sense  in  which  it  is  pos 
sessed  hv  ;i  true  ruminant;  there  is  no  regurgitatioii  of 
food  already  swallowed  for  the  pui-pose  of  a  more  com 
plete  mastication:  and  there  is  no  division  of  the  stomach 


from  a  t<>iiil>  at  Thebes, 


into  compartments  a  structure  which  invariably  accom 
panies  the  habit  of  rumination. 

Yet  modern  science,  which  has  established  this,  can 
not  be  allowed  to  have  convicted  the  inspired  legislator 
of  mistake;.  It  is  obvious  that  the  hare  does  ill  repose 
chew  over  and  over  the  food  which  it  lias  some  time 
taken:  and  this  action  lias  alwavs  been  popularly  con 
sidered  a  chewing  of  the  cud.  Even  our  poet  C'owper. 
a  careful  notieer  of  natural  phenomena,  who  has  re 
corded  his  observations  on  the  three  hares  which  he 
had  domesticated,  affirms  that  they  "'chewed  the  cud 
all  day  till  evening."  The  cheeks  of  the  Jlm/t  ,///W  are 
for  the  most  part  capable  of  forming  pouches  for  the 
retention  of  food,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree;  the  hare 
and  the  rabbit,  though  not  possessing  this  peculiarity 
to  the  same  extent  as  some  other  genera  of  the  order, 
yet  retain  the  cropped  food  within  the  hollows  of  the 
cheeks,  and  masticate  it  at  leisure;  so  that  the  operation 
is  a  real  re- chewing. 

It  is  observable  that  manv  of  the  oriental,  nations 
consider  the  hare's  flesh  as  unwholesome;  and  it  lias 
been  prohibited  by  some,  as  our  British  ancestors,  who 
regarded  not  the  authority  of  the  law  of  Moses.  The 
Mahometan  doctors  have  pronounced  it  abominable, 
though  so  far  from  being  forbidden  in  the  Koran,  its 
use  may  be  justified  by  the  example  of  the  Prophet 
himself.  Notwithstanding  this,  however,  the  Arabs, 
the  Kurds.  theEelautsof  1'ersia.  and  other  semi- barbar 
ous  Moslem  tribes,  eat  it  with  avidity,  though  the 
meat  is  flabby  and  insipid.  Russell  thus  describes  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  cooked  by  thi-  Medouins :  — "  A 
hole  dug  in  the  ground  is  furnished  with  such  dry 
brushwood  as  the  desert  affords,  and  upon  this,  when 
thoroughly  kindled,  the  hare  is  laid  without  anv  pre 
paration,  or  even  removing  the  flue  or  entrails.  When 
the  fire  has  ceased  blazing,  the  earth  that  had  been  dug 
and  laid  round  the  edges,  being  now  thoroughly  heated, 
is  raked  over  the  hare,  which  is  thus  left  covered  up 
until  sufficiently  roasted.  Its  own  gravy  with  a  little 
salt  composes  the  sauce,  and  the  dish  is  said  by  those 
who  have  eaten  it  to  be  excellent." 


The  common  hare  of  Palestine  is  a  different  species 
from  any  of  those  proper  to  Europe.  It  is  of  about 
the  same  size  as  our  hare,  with  the  fur  buff-coloured  or 
yellowish-gray.  There  is  also  a  second  species,  abund 
ant  in  the  desert,  smaller  and  darker  in  hue.  The 
;  former  of  these  is  the  Lcjutit  .-<?/i'/'.r.''ii.s  of  zoologists;  the 
latter  the  //.  xliifiittrii.i.  One  of  them  is  frequently  de 
picted  in  tin1  paintings  of  the  ancient  Egyptians;  they 
coursed  it  with  greyhounds  as  \\e  do,  and  sometimes 
captured  it  alive  and  kept  it  in  cages.-  \[\  H.  <;.J 

HA'RETH,  FOREST  OF,  one  of  David's  haunts. 
1  Su.  x-xii.:,,  but  quite  unknown  as  to  its  precise  locality, 
further  than  that  it  was  in  the  land  of  .Judah. 

HARLOT.  This  word  and  another,  "whore,"  seem 
to  be  used  indiscriminately  by  our  translators  to  de 
note  a  woman  who  leads  a  licentious  life.  The  object 
of  such  a  person  is  usually  mercenary,  i-'./.c.  \\i. ::::,. ;;u  and 
this  is  implied  in.  the  etymology  of  the  word  "whore," 
as  well  as  of  the  word  Tiopvrj,  which  with  its  connected 
i  terms  is  used  in  the  original  Greek.  The  noun  coin- 
m only  rendered  '•fornication"  must,  however,  be  taken, 
occasionally  at  least,  in  a  wider  sense,  as  including  any 
act  of  licentiousness,  in  the  married  as  well  as  in  the  un 
married,  and  this  even  though  it  should  not  be  carried 
i. ut  into  a  habit  of  life.  Thus  in  .Matthew  v.  32,  "  I 
say  unto  you,  that  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife, 
saving  for  the  cause  of  fornication,  causeth  her  to  com 
mit  adult" TV."  A  t  other  times  it  is  restricted  to  its 
proper  meaning,  as  distinguished  from  adultery,  lie. 
xiii.  i;  and  so  in  seseral  catalogues  of  sins. 

In  Hebrew  the  word  which  occurs  much  most  gene 
rally  in  the  Old  Testament  is  -jvj  (~onaft)  -a  term  in 

T 

its  very  nature  thoroughly  comprehensive;  for  it  is  the 
feminine  participle  of  the  verb  which  is  in  common  use 
to  express  licentious  acting  011  the  part  of  either  men 
or  women,  married  or  unmarried;  as  indeed  it  is  used 
to  docribe  the  misconduct  of  a  person  occupying  the 
unsatisfactory  position  of  a  concubine  or  secondary 
wife,  Ju.  xix.  •>..  In  the  book  of  Proverb's,  whose  treat 
ment  of  practical,  moral,  and  religious  topics  leads  to 
frequent  mention  of  licentiousness,  besides  occasional 
expressions,  there  are  two  other  descriptive  words 
which  are  so  much  used,  that  they  may  be  regarded  as 
appropriated  to  become  equivalent  to  r.nna/i  -namely, 
,-p7  (-.Ufa//)  and  -:i-c:  (nocrtyah),  very  well  translated 

TT  T  -:T 

"'stranger,"  or  '"'strange  woman."  There  is.  however, 
some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  circumstances  in 
which  such  a  name  was  given  to  harlots.  The  simplest 
account  seems  to  be,  that  it  refers  to  a  man  leaving  his 
own  rightful  wife  for  another,  who  ought  to  be  strange 
to  him.  "Let  them  be  only  thine  own,  and  not 
strangers  with  thee.  Let  thy  fountain  be  blessed,  and 
rejoice  with  the  wife  of  thy  youth And  why- 
wilt  thou,  my  son.  be  ravished  with  a  strange  woman, 
and  embrace  the  bosom  of  a  stranger?"  Pr.  v.  ir,  is,  20. 
Yet  a  different  explanation  has  been  sought  in  the  fact, 
that  the  law  of  (Jod  in  the  seventh  commandment  for 
bade  everything  unchaste,  of  course  the  act  of  fornica 
tion,  and  emphatically  the  habit  of  it  as  a  livelihood. 
But  as  this  evil  is  sure  to  appear  wherever  fallen 
human  nature  is  left  to  work  its  will  in  society,  and  as 
advancing  civilization,  and  the  growth  of  large  centres 
of  manufacture  and  commerce  have  commonly  devel 
oped  and  fostered  it,  it  is  likely  enough  that  the  earliest 
and  most  frequent  offenders  were  "strange  women," 
in  the  sense  of  foreigners,  like  the  Midianite  women  in 


HARLOT  701 

the  days  of  Moses,  Xu.  xxv.  Certainly  nocriyafi  is  used 
many  a  time  of  a  woman  from  a  foreign  country  taken 
in  marriage  —  a  sin  on  the  part  of  the  Israelite  man 
who  married  her,  but  not  in  any  sense  an  immoral  act 
on  the  part  of  the  woman.  (See  the  case  of  Solomon, 
iKj.xi.  i,b;  and  often  in  Ezr.  ix.,  Xe.  xiii.).  There  are 
eases  in  which  there  may  be  difficulty  in  determining 
the  import  of  the  phrase;  but  our  translators  have 
certainly  gone  too  far.  when  after  rightly  relating  that 
Jephthah's  mother  was  a  harlot,  Ju.  xi,  i,  they  make  las 
brothers  justify  their  act  of  disinheriting  him  by  say 
ing,  "for  thou  art  the  son  of  a  xtramje  a'uiaan.'  The 
words  assert  no  more  than  that  he  was  the  sou  of 
"another  woman,"  or  ''another  wife,"  as  they  are 
translated,  i  Ch.  ii.  20.  Josephus,  indeed,  steers  a  sort  of 
middle  course;  says  nothing  of  her  bad  character,  but 
calls  Jephthah  a  foreigner  in  reference  to  his  mother, 
(Anti<i.  v.  7,M.  Mut  we  do  not  know  the  reason  of  his 
making  the  one  assertion,  more  than  of  his  withholding 
the  other. 

Another  word,  however,  occurs  in  tin;  Hebrew  of  the 
Old  Testament,  which  had  better  have  been  kept  more 
carefully  apart  than  it  has  been  hv  our  translators. 

rvc'lp    ('/'d/ifx/tali),    which   occurs    in    three   passage* 
T..i. 

(;o  xxxviii  21,  22;  j)e  xxiii.  17;  H<I-  .  iv.  ii  This  is  the  feminine 
of  the  adjective;  '/<«//«  ,-7<.  also  occurring''  repeatedly, 
Uo  xxiii.  17;  1  Ki  xiv.  21;  xv.  1L';  xxii  JO;  L'Ki.  xxiii.  7;  J<.1>  xxxvi.  1!: 
and  the  word  means  "set  apart  to  a  sacred  purpose." 
according  to  tlie  infamous  rites  in  use  among  the 
votaries  of  certain  deities  worshipped  in  Canaan  and 
neighbouring  countries.  Allusion  lias  already  been 
made  to  this  licentious  worship  of  Maal-lVor  by  the 
Midianites.  The  passages  just  quoted  from  the  books 
of  Kings  show  with  what  difficulty  it  was  kept  down 
in  the  little-  kingdom  of  .ludah,  after  the  melancholy 
disruption  of  the  people;  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  matters  were  \\orse  in  the  kingdom  of  the 
ten  tribes,  on  account  of  their  weaker  Imld  of  the 
religion  of  their  forefathers,  and  their  mingling  readily 
with  heathenism.  The  same  horrible  mingling  of  vice 
with  a  worship  of  their  gods,  seems  to  have  been  set 
up  among  the  Samaritan  colonists  who  took  the  place 
of  the  ten  tribes.  At  least,  this  is  the  commonest 
and  simplest  way  of  interpreting  '_>  Ki.  xvii.  :>H,  that 
"the1  men  of  Mahylon  made  Suecoth-benoth;"  that  is. 
booths  of  or  for  daughters.  And  the  meaning  is  not 
essentially  altered,  if  this  be  taken  to  be  the  name  of 
an  idol;  for  it  would  be  a  name  taken  from  the  wor 
ship.  Herodotus  (i.  iii'it  informs  us  of  one  abominable 
form  of  this  worship  at  Mabvlon.  tScu  also  in  the  Apo 


HAKOSHETH 


s,  DC  xxiii  is  follows  up  the  prohibi 
tion  of  sacred  harlots  by  another  -  ''Thou  shalt  not 
bring  the  hire  of  a  whore  ....  into  the  house  of  the 
Lord  thy  God  for  any  vow;"  forbidding  anv  attempt 
to  hallow  a  part  of  a  common  harlot's  Drains  Airain, 
it  is  said,  Lc.  xix.  2<i,  "Do  not  prostitute,''  or  rather,  as 
in  the  margin,  ''profane  thy  daughter,  to  cause  her  to 
be  a  whore,  lest  the  land  fall  to  whoredom,  and  the 
land  become  full  of  wickedness."  The  law  was  en 
forced  by  a  special  sanction  in  the  autrravated  case  of  a 
priest's  daughter:  "if  she  profane  herself  by  playing 
the  whore,  she  profanetli  her  father;  she  shall  be  burnt 
with  fire,"  Lc.  xxi  ;i.  This  was  tin;  very  punishment 
which  Judah  assigned  to  his  daughter-in-law,  when  she 
had  gone  astray,  Go.  xxxviii.  iM.  Two  Creek  Jewish  writers 


of  the  apostolic  age  go  further  in  their  account  of  the 
laws  of  Moses  on  this  subject,  but  without  any  ground 
in  the  Bible,  or  anywhere  else,  so  far  as  the  learned 
Selden  knew  irxor  Hebraic:!,  i.  ii;  Hi.  r>}-  Josephus,  who 
makes  marriage  forbidden  to  a  harlot  ^Antiq.  iv.  8,  23); 
and  Philo,  who  says  that  all  whoredom  was  punished 
with  stoning.  Jt  is  perhaps  not  safe  even  to  infer  that 
the  sons  of  harlots  were  disinherited,  on  account  of  the 
case  of  Jephthah.  oSee  above.) 

That  the  laws  against  whoredom  ami  harlots  were 
not  fully  carried  out  need  occasion  no  surprise.  In 
Solomon's  days  we  read  of  two  such  women,  who  lived 
together,  coming  before  him  with  a  case  for  judgment, 
i  Ri  in.  u;-2-;  and  the  commonness  of  the  evil  is  indicated 
by  his  descriptions  in  the  book  of  Proverbs.  In  later 
times  the  degeneracy  was  probably  greater,  as  has 
been  already  stated  in  reference  to  the  sacred  harlots. 
\\  e  read,  Mi.  i.  7,  of  fearful  judgments  upon  Samaria, 
"  for  she  gathered  it  of  the  hire  of  a  harlot,  and  they 
shall  return  to  the  hire  of  a  harlot."  So  it  is  said  of 
king  Jehoram  in  .Judah,  2  Cb.  xxi.  11,  13.  that  "lit  made 
hiu'h  places  in  the  mountains  of  Judah,  and  caused  the 
inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  to  commit  fornication,  and 
compelled  Judah  thereto,"  causing  them  "to  go  a 
whoring,  like  to  the  whoredoms  of  the  house  of  Ahab." 
There  might  be  something  urged  in  these  passages  for 
the  view  that  it  was  spiritual  whoredom;  and  there  is 
absolute  certainty  that  the  spiritual  and  the  natural 
were  otteii  combine,!,  as  in  Ho.  iv.  10-M.  lint  we 
should  not  make  this  the  oritrin  of  the  frequent  expres 
sion,  LToing  a  whoring  after  other  gods,  and  the  like. 
which  are  found  in  the  law  of  Moses.  K\  xxxiv.  i:.,  n,-. 
l.c  \v  ,;  1  1..  •.  \x.\i  I'':  which  is  taken  up  in  the  I'salms 
Ixxiii.  27,  and  often  in  the  writings  of  the  1'rophets;  and 
which  is  resumed  in  the  New  Totaiinnt,  especially 
in  the  symbolic  laiejua-e  of  tin-  book  of  1,'evelation. 
It  is  rather  the  counterpart  of  the  doctrine  that  the 
Lord  and  his  church  are  bound  together  b\  the  tie  of 
marriage,  which  is  sometimes  represented  as  actually 
present,  and  sometimes  as  future.  I  tit  already  made 
certain  by  espousals.  Unfaithfulness  jp  the  duties 
which  this  relation  involves  is  therefore  naturally  re 
presented  b\  the  words  which  express  tin'  same  unfaith 
fulness  in  the  tarthly  relation. 

"  The  attire  of  a  harlot."  I'r.  \ii.  in,  is  not  an  expression 
which  proves  that  this  class  of  persons  had  a  particular 
dress  assigned  to  tin  'in:  it  may  indicate  nothing  more  than 
that  her  style  of  dress  was  wanting  in  modesty.  Neither 
is  it  safe  to  connect  the  wearing  of  a  vail  to  cover  the 
face  with  this  way  of  livinif,  on  account  of  what  is  said 
of  Tamar.  <;.•  xx\\hi  11,1.1  [<.;.  c.  M.  D  ] 

HARNESS  in  its  older  meaning  signified  armour. 
and  in  that  sense  is  used  in  the  only  passage  in  which 
it  occurs  in  the  English  Bible.  2  Ki.  \x.  n  Hut  it  is 
there  inserted  by  the  translators  to  make  the  sense 
more  explicit:  and  there  is  nothing  corresponding  to  it 
in  the  original. 

HA'ROD  [f«n\  fcrnir],  the  name  of  a  spring  and 
stream  in  the  valley  of  Jezreel.  beside  which  Gideon's 
army  pitched,  Ju  \ii  i.  Xothin<_''  further  is  known  of 
it,  nor  is  it  certain  where  precisely  the  fountain  lay. 

HARO'SHETH.  with  the  additional  epithet  OF  THE 
CKNTII.KS.  is  mentioned  only  in  connection  with  Sisera, 
the  captain  of  the  host  of  Jabin,  king  of  Canaan.  Ju.  iv. 
2,13,  Hi.  It  must  have  been  some  town  on  the  northern 
limits  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  called  Harosheth  of 
the  Gentiles.  much  as  Galilee  was  afterwards  called 


HART 


Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,  because  situated  on  the  border 
territory,  and  having  a  certain  intermingling  of  the 
Gentile  races  in  its  population.  Jt  is  never  mentioned 
in  the  later  history.  l-s'<r  J.UJIN.) 

HARP.       -SV'C  MrsiCAL  INSTRUMENTS. 

HARROW.     ,S'ee  AGRICULTURE. 

HART    [>»,    uiinl;    HIND,    -^x,    «>tf /<</<,    r^x, 

ui/clcth].  With  the  exception  of  one  or  two  places  of 
different  construction,  the  LXX.  reiidi-r  the  whole  of 
the  passages  in  whicli  the  above  words  occur  by  i'\ar/>os; 
thus  agreeing  with  our  English  translators.  It  is 
scarcrly  necessary  to  remark  that  hart  is  the  old  Kng- 
lisli  name  for  the  male  of  the  red-deer  or  stag  (Cernia 
itajihii-t'i,  and  hind  is  the  female.  The  allusions  in  the 
sacred  Word  afford  us  some  help  in  identifying  if  not 
the  species,  at  least  the  genus  intended.  A  wild  <mad- 
ruped,  of  the  ruminant  order,  with  palatable  flesh, 

1  Ki.  iv.  •2:};  et  i>as>itii;  swift  and  graceful  in  motion,  Ca.  ii.  <.>, 
addicted  to  leaping.  Is.  xxxv.  6,  resorting  to  mountains, 
Ca.  viii.  ll,  and  to  the  level  pastures,  ch.  iii.  '>,  sure-footed, 

2  Sa.  xxii.  31;  llab.  iii.  1'.),  bringing  forth  its   young  in  secret 
or  inaccessible  places.  Job \xxix.  1,  proverbially  impatient 
of  drought,  I's.  xlii.  1;  Jo.  xiv. .'.;  La.  i  ii,  monogamous  and  con 
stant  in  affection,  1'r.  v.  iii;  such  a  creature  is  indicated 
by  the    Hebrew    words;    and    there    can    be    but    two 
families,  the  UapradcE  or  antelopes,  and  the  Cirrii/u  or 
deer,  in  which  we  may  search  for  it.      Though  most  of 
the  characters  just  enumerated   are   common   to  both 
families,    yet    there    are    some    which    indicate    a    deer 
rather  than  an  antelope,  especially  the  last-named,   if 
we  rightly  understand   the  allusion  to  include  not  only 
the    /{.inltitt.-™   of   the   female  in   the   estimation   of   the 
male,  but  also  and  principally  her  sini/lciiCM — that  she 
is  nut1  and  not  manii.     This  would  exclude  the  Cujirada1, 
all    of  which  we  believe   are   polygamous;   whereas  the 
stag  (and  perhaps  all  the  deer  tribe)  is  strictly  mono 
gamous.      Col.    Hamilton   Smith,    whose    authority  on 
such  a  subject  is  very  high,   decides  in  favour  of  the 
.stag.      In    opposition   to    the    opinion    of   Sir  Gardner 
Wilkinson,  that   a  species  of   oryx  is  intended,  he   re 
marks  that   "an  Ethiopian  species  could  not  well  be 
meant  where  the  clean  animals  fit  for  the  food  of  He 
brews   are   indicated,    nor   where    allusion   is   made   to 
suffering  from  thirst,  and   to  high  and  rocky  places  as 
the  refuge  of  females,  or  of  both,  since  all    the  species 
of  oryx  inhabit  the  open  plains,  and  are  not  remarkable 
for  their  desire  of  drinking;  nor  can  either  of  these  pro 
pensities  be  properly  ascribed  to  the  true  antelopes  or 
gazellse  of  Arabia  and  Syria,  all  being  residents  of  the 
plain  and  the  desert;  like  the  oryges,  often  seen  at  im 
mense  distances  from  water,  and  unwilling  to  venture 
into  forests,  where  their  velocity  of  flight  and  delicacy 
of   structure   impede   and    destroy    them.      Taking   the 
older  interpretation,  and  reviewing  all  the  texts  where 
hart  and  hind  are  mentioned,  we  find  none  where  these 
objections  truly  apply.      Animals  of  the  stag  kind  pre 
fer  the  security  of  forests,  are  always  most  robust  in 
rocky  mountain   covers,  and   seek  water  with  consider 
able  anxiety;  for  of  all  the  light-footed  ruminants,  they 
alone  protrude  the  tongue  when  hard  pressed  in  the 
chase.      Now.   comparing  these  qualities  with  several 
texts,  we  find  them  perfectly  appropriate  to  the  species 
of  these  genera  (those  of  the  Ccrvidce)  alone ''  (Cycl.  nib!. 
Lit.  art.  "Ail"). 

It  has  been  assumed  that  no  species  of  deer  inhabits 
Egypt,  Arabia,  or  Syria,  and  that  therefore  we  are  pre 


cluded  from  this  identification.  But  even  if  this  were 
proved,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  like  privation 
existed  in  ancient  times;  for  how  could  we  have  known, 
in  the  absence  of  testimony  to  the  fact,  that  wolves  and 
bears  once  inhabited  England,  and  lions  Greece  .'  Now 
decisive  testimony  is  extant  that  some  kind  of  deer  was 
one  of  the  beasts  of  chase  among  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
for  it  is  depicted  in  their  hunting  scenes,  though  not 
commonly.  Again,  both  the  stag  and  the  fallow-deer 
appear  on  the  slabs  recently  exhumed  from  the  ruins 
of  Nineveh. 

It  is  not  correct,  however,  to  say  that  no  species  of 
drr/is  is  found  at  this  day  in  North  Africa  or  South 
western  Asia.  A  true  stag  (L'crvvs  tiarbartix}  is  spread 
over  the  whole  Mediterranean  region  of  Africa,  from 
Morocco  to  the -.Red  Sea.  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson  was 
informed  that  it  is  found  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Natron  lakes  west  of  the  Nile;  and  Col.  II.  Smith  men 
tions,  on  the  authority  <  if  a  friend — an  eye-witness—  that 
it  has  been  seen  in  the  desert  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  on 
the  route  from  Cairo  to  Damascus.  This  of  course  is 
conclusive;  but  it  may  be  added  that  a  deer —doubtless 
this  same  species  is  well  known  to  the  Arabs  by  file 
name  of  ijial  (conf.  ^x),  and  that  it  is  asserted  by 

T  ~ 

them  to  feed  oil  fish.  The  common  European  stag  has 
been  abundant  from  the  most  ancient  times  in  Greece, 
and  appears  to  be  spread  over  the  Taurus  and  Caucasus 
ranges.  Ainsworth  mentions  it  in  the  Tigris  valley, 
together  with  the  fallow-deer:  and  Hasse.lquist  —  too 
good  a  naturalist  to  be  easily  mistaken — asserts  that  he 
saw  this  latter  in  the  woods  of  Mount  Tabor.  Col.  H. 
Smith,  however,  considers  the  stag  of  the  Caucasus  to 
be  a  distinct  species;  the  maral  of  the  Tartars,  and  the 
gewazeii  of  the  Armenians,  a  race  of  superior  size  to 
ours,  with  a  copious  mane,  and  wanting  the  bisantler, 
or  second  branch  of  the  horn.  ''We  believe  this 
species,  '  he  adds.  '•  to  be  the  soegur  of  Asiatic  Turkey, 
and  mara  of  the  Arabs,  and  therefore  residing  on  the 
borders  of  the  mountain  forests  of  Syria  and  Palestine. 
One  or  both  of  these  species  [viz.  this  and  the  I3arbary 
stag]  were  dedicated  to  the  local  b»na  dea  on  Mount 
Libanus  a  presumptive  proof  that  deer  were  found  in 
the  vicinity"  (Cycl.  Bihl.  Lit.  art.  "Ail"). 

Some  of  the  scriptural  allusions  to  this  animal  we 
may  further  consider.  The  security  of  the  hind's  foot 
ing  in  lofty  and  craggy  places  is  used  to  express  the 
believer's  safety  in  trial,  and  especially  in  that  peculiar 
spiritual  danger  which  springs  out  of  conspicuous  exal 
tation.  In  that  elegant  psalm,  which  a  master  in  criti 
cism  has  pronounced  one  of  the  most  beautiful  specimens 
of  Hebrew  elegy.  David's  longing  after  restored  com 
munion  with  God  in  his  appointed  ordinances,  during 
his  persecution  by  Saul,  is  compared  to  the  panting  of 
the  thirsty  hart  for  the  water-brooks.  The  grace  and 
beauty  of  the  young  hart  (literally  "the  fawn  of  harts"), 
and  the  swiftness  of  its  motion,  are  attributes  which 
the  church  in  the  Song  of  Songs  uses  to  express  her 
admiration  of  her  divine  Bridegroom  and  her  longing 
for  his  speedy  return. 

The  phrase  -irv\i;H   rS*N)    aijclctlt,   hasltachar,   which 

occurs  in  the  title  of  Ps.  xxii.,  literally  signifies  "  the 
hind  of  the  morning,"  as  rendered  in  the  margin  of  our 
English  version.  Much  uncertainty  has  been  expressed 
as  to  what  may  be  the  purport  of  such  a  phrase,  and  its 
connection  with  this  psalm.  When  we  consider  the 


HARVEST  i 

prophetic  character  of  this  utterance  of  David — that  it 
presents  the  blessed  Lord  Jesus  in  his  deepest  darkness, 
under  the  wrath  of  God,  surrounded  on  every  side  by 
devils  and  men  animated  with  bitter  hatred — like  the 
hunted  deer  in  the  toils — and  that  this  darkness  and 
distress  suddenly,  vor.  22,  etseij..,  break  into  light  and  joy 
— the  morning  of  resurrection  flashing  upon  the  night 
of  the  cross — we  think  there  cannot  be  much  ground 
for  doubting  the  application  of  the  allusion.  Like  the 
patriarch  Joseph,  a  type  of  Himself— "  the  archers 
sorely  grieved  him,  and  shot  at  him,  and  hated  him." 
He  was,  as  Cowper  says, 

''  One,  who  had  himself 

Been  hurt  by  tli"  archers.     In  his  side  lie  bore. 
And  in  his  hands  and  feet  the  cruel  scars," 

—  Task',  book  iii.  [i:  n.  <;.] 

HARVEST.     $cc  AGRICULTURE. 

HASHABI'AH  [regarded  by  Jehovah],  a  very  fre 
quent  name  among  the  Levites,  although  none  bearing 
it  came  to  be  of  note,  1  Ch.  vi.  !."> ;  ix.  14 ;  \\vii.  17  ;  K/r.  viii.  iu; 

Xu.  x.  11,  sc. 

HA'tTRAuN  [the  cavcnud],  Greek  'Ai^awrts,  a  tract 
of  country  to  the  cast  of  Jordan,  stretching  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  Damascus  southward  as  far  as  the 
Jabbok.  It  is  mentioned  only  in  Eze.  xlvii.  It),  1,\  as  a 
border-territory,  in  connection  with  Damascus  on  the 
one  hand  and  Gilead  on  the  other.  It  is  supposed  to 
have  been  greatly  enlarged  under  the  Romans,  so  as  to 
include  a  much  more  extensive  district  than  originally 
bore  the  name.  It  is  now,  and  from  ancient  times  has 
been,  divided  into  three  provinces,  one  only  of  which, 
and  that  by  much  the  best,  was  probably  the  Hauran 
of  E/ekiel.  This  is  called  Kn-nukrah.  the  Plain,  an 
extensive  level  tract,  stretching  through  the  whole 
length  of  the  entire  district,  and  possessing  a  peculiarly 
rich  and  fertile  soil.  It  still  is  the  granary  of  Damas 
cus,  notwithstanding  that  hordes  of  wandering  Arabs 
are  ever  and  anon  scouring  it,  and  cultivation  is  in  a 
most  backward  state.  ''The  Haflran,"  says  Lord 
Lindsey,  ''is  an  immense  plain,  very  rich  and  fertile, 
sometimes  slightly  undulating,  sometimes  flat  as  a  pan 
cake,  with  here  and  there  (if  you  will  excuse  another 
culinary  simile)  low  rounded  hills,  like  dumplings,  con 
spicuous  from  a  great  distance,  and  excellent  land 
marks.  The  plain  is  covered  iu  every  direction  with 
Roman  towns,  built  of  black  basalt,  some  nf  them 
mere  heaps  of  rubbish,  others  still  almost  perfect.  tin- 
Arab  villagers  dwelling  under  the  same  stone  roofs, 
and  entering  by  the  same  stone  doors,  as  the  old  I  Jo- 
mans — stone  doors  and  xtoiic  roofs,  owing  to  the  want  of 
timber  in  the  Hauran,  winch  obliged  the  colonists  to 
employ  the  more  durable  material.  .  .  .  Most  of  tin- 
chief  towns  of  Auranitis  exhibit  traces  of  the  archi 
tectural  magnificence  of  Rome.,  so  freely  lavished  on 
her  remotest  colonies ;  but  what  most  struck  me  here 
was  the  consideration  evinced,  and  the  pains  taken, 
even  during  the  last  ages  of  her  decay,  to  promote  the 
real  welfare  and  comfort  of  her  people.  There  is  scarce 
a  village  without  its  tank  -its  bridge;  plain,  solid 
structures,  so  substantially  built,  that  they  are  still 
almost  invariably  as  good  as  new"  (Letters,  p.  2;»U. 

As  the  Hauran,  in  the  stricter  sense,  belongs  to  the 
country  which  went  by  the  name  of  Bashan,  some  notice 
of  its  present  as  contrasted  with  its  ancient  condition, 
will  be  found  under  that  article.  It  may  be  mentioned, 
however,  that  while  Lord  Lindsey,  in  the  preceding 
extract,  characterizes  the  buildings  as  Roman,  and  other 


);>  HAURAN 

authorities  give  a  general  confirmation  of  the  statement, 
some  have  been  noticed  of  a  different  character.  Mr. 
Cyril  C.  Graham,  who  explored  the  district,  especially 
its  extremely  southern  parts,  in  1SJ7,  speaks  of  a  town, 
at  a  little  distance  from  Kureiyeh,  with  the  name  of 
Um-er-Ruman,  with  ruinous  houses  but  fine  tombs, 
where  the  style  of  building  was  not  Roman,  but  ap 
proached  nearer  to  that  exhibited  in  the  ruins  of  Pal 
myra  (Jour.  Royal  Geol.  Society  for  1S5?,  p.  254).  In  another 
place,  near  Bozrah,  called  Ed-Deir,  he  found  certain 
square  towers  also  not  unlike  those  in  Palmyra,  and  in 
many  of  the  houses  were  simple  crosses  cut  in  the  dark 
stone  (p.  2,-,i>).  One  of  the  most  striking  descriptions  he 
gives  is  that  of  Um-el-Jemal  (mother  of  camels),  a  few 
miles  straight  south  from  Bozrah,  and  which  he  sup 
poses  to  be  the  same  as  the  Betli-Ganml  (house  of 
camels)  of  Scripture,  Ju.  \lviii.  2;;.  It  had  the  appearance 
of  an  enormous  city,  standing  alone  in  the  desert,  and  one 
of  the  most  perfect  cities  Mr.  Graham  saw  in  the  region. 
It  was  surrounded  by  a  high  rectangular  wall,  inclosing 
a  space  nearly  as  large  as  the  wall  of  Jerusalem.  Many 
of  the  streets  were  paved;  there  were  large  public  build 
ings,  private  dwelling-houses,  with  three  rooms  on  the. 
ground-floor,  and  two  on  the  first  story,  which  was 
reached  by  a  stair  outside:  the  doors,  as  usual,  were 
of  stone,  and  some  of  them  folding-doors.  Kvery  street 
was  traversed,  many  of  the  houses  carefully  inspected, 
but  not  a  creature  was  to  be  seen,  not  a  sound  heard; 
it  seemed  like  a  city  of  the  dead,  or  like  an  enchanted 
palace  in  the  Arabian  A'/v/^x.  where  the  population  of 
a  whole  city  had  been  petrified  for  a  centurv  ip.  2,'idt. 
The  general  style  of  architecture  Mr.  Graham  conceived 
to  be  indicative  of  a  period  long  subsequent  to  the 
ancient  kingdom  of  Ba-dian,  which  was  overthrown  by 
tin-  Israelites,  as  indeed  the  frequent  impressions  of  the 
cror-s  bear  evidi  nee  of  Christian  times  for  at  least  many 
of  the  erections.  Amid  the  uncertainty,  however,  that 
prevails  on  particular  points,  and  the  terrible  desolation 
that  reigns  \sh<  re  once  a  thriving  population  had  its 
home,  one  thing  impressed  itself  deeply  on  the  tra 
vellers  mind-  the  strong  confirmation  lent  by  such 
scenes  to  the  truth  of  Scripture.  "  Before  the  present 
century  little  was  known  (so  Mr.  Graham  concludes 
his  narrative)  of  these  countries;  but  now  each  few 
years  some  researches  bring  to  light  more  and  more 
facts  connected  with  the  early  history  of  the  places 
with  which  we  are-  so  much  concerned  in  Holy  Writ. 
And  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  every  certain  extension 
of  our  knowledge  in  this  respect  will  afford  us  additional 
conviction  of  the  scrupulous  accuracy  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures." 

The  inhabitants  of  this  district  are  chiefly  Muslenis, 
who  in  manners  and  dress  resemble  the  Bedawin,  but 
there  is  a  sprinkling  also  of  professed  Christians,  and 
latterly  of  the  Druses  (Murray's  Handbook,  p.  l<«).  The 
other  two  divisions  of  the  Hauran  are  called  Kl-Lejah 
and  El-Jehel,  the  former  being  a  rocky  plain  lying  on 
the  north-west  of  the  Hauran  proper,  and  the  other  a 
mountainous  district  between  the  plain  of  Hauran  and 
the  eastern  desert.  The  Lejah  is  inhabited  by  a  very 
lawless  class  of  Bedawin,  who  continually  issue  forth 
from  their  rocky  fastnesses  on  predatory  excursions, 
and  attack,  plunder,  or  destroy  as  it  suits  their  purpose. 
They  have  had  the  same  character  from  a  very  remote 
period.  The  region  is  filled  with  deserted  towns  and 
villages  which  the  Arabs  leave  unoccupied.  The  other 
division.  El-jebel,  the  Mountain,  is  also  of  a  rocky 


ilAVILAIF 


'04 


HA/AEL 


character,  but  with  fertile  spots  interspersed.  The 
scenery  is  in  many  parts  beautiful,  and  lien:  also  are  ex 
tensive  ruins,  sonic  of  which  bespeak  great  wealth  and 
splendour,  although  thev  are  altogether  unknown  to 
liistorv.  Tile  Druses  are  now  almost  the  exclusive 
occupants  of  the  district. 

HAVJ'LAH  appears  iirst  as  the  name  of  a  region  in 
the  primeval  earth,  distinguished  for  its  possession  of 
u'old  and  precious  stones,  also  compassed  hy  the  river  ' 
I'ison.  (Jo  ii.  11,11';  then  as  the  name  of  a  grandson  of 
!  lam  hy  his  eldest  son  Cush  :  also  of  a  son  of  Kher  hy 
•  loktan,  (.;<.-.  \.  7,  ±>;  each  of  whom,  probably  gave  their 
n, line  to.  or  were  themselves  called  from,  a  region  oc 
cupied  hy  their  offspring,  the  one  in  Ethiopia,  the  other 
in  Arabia:  liii.dlv.  as  the  name  of  a.  tract  or  place  in 
the  way  between  Canaan  and  Egypt  on  the  lino  of 
Shnr,  i  sa.  xv.  r,  which  is  also  mentioneil  in  connection 
with  the  history  of  the  Ishmaelites,  C.L-.  \\\.  1-.  It  is 
impossilile  that  all  these  applications  of  the  word  can  he 
understood  of  one  and  the  same  place:  even  in  tin-  post 
diluvian  times  there  must  have  been  at  least  two  places 
known  1>\-  the  name  one  at  no  great  distance  from  the 
laud  of  Canaan,  and  another  in  the  southern  parts  of 
Arabia,  or  the  parts  of  Africa  over  against  it.  Many 
conjectures  have  been  made  as  to  the  precise-  localities  of 
each  but  nothing  very  definite  or  certain  has  been  ob 
tained.  Niebuhr  found  in  Yemen  alone  two  districts 
bearing  the  name  of  Ilanlau.  which  is  probably  but  a 
modification  of  Havilah.  In  regard  to  the  antediluvian 
Havilah  it  ha-s  been  already  stated  under  Eden,  that  '. 
nothing  certain  can  he  known.  But  the  probability  is 
that  it  lay  more  towards  India  than  Arabia. 

HA'VOTH-JA'IR  [that  is.  Urlny-places,  village*  <>f 
Jair],  the  name  given  to  a  certain  number  of  little 
towns  in  the  land  of  Cilea-1,  the  possession  of  Jair,  a 
descendant  of  Manasseh.  They  formed  a  portion  of 
the  country  of  Bashan,  and  were  hence  called  in  one 
place.  BASHAX-HAVOTH-JAIR,  i>e.  in.  14.  The  accounts 
referring  to  them  are  involved  in  some  obscurity,  but 
are  quite  explicable  when  the  facts  respecting  .lair  are 
correctly  given.  (Sc<  J.YIH.  ) 

HAWK  [••;,  net.:].  This  is  mentioned  among  other 
birds  of  prey  as  unclean  in  Le.  xi.  lo;  l)e.  xiv.  l.!>.  It 
also  occurs  in  the  book  of  Job,  in  that  majestic  utter 
ance  in  which  Jehovah  challenges  the  strength,  skill, 
and  knowledge  of  his  servant,  ch.  xx\i.\.  L'II,  "  Doth  the 
hawk  fly  by  thy  wisdom,  and  stretch  her  wings  toward 
the  south.'"  The  migratory  instinct  is  here  alluded  to. 
which  must  be  added  to  the  other  characters  implied, 
in  order  to  identify  the  species  meant. 

The  LXX.  render  the  word  (the  passage  in  De.  xiv. 
is  corrupt)  by  lepa^,  the  Greek  name  for  the  sparrow- 
hawk  (Fti/i-n  iti.-ni.-;.  Linn.i;  and  nisus  itself,  by  which 
the  species  was  known  to  ihe  Romans,  is  probably  de 
rived  from  y«  (nit:).  This  small  but  courageous  falcon, 

so  familiar  to  us,  is  spread  over  the  whole  of  Kurope. 
and  ranges  011  all  sides  of  the  Mediterranean.  Mr. 
Strickland,  an  accomplished  ornithologist,  saw  it  at 
Smyrna,  and  the  Zoological  Society  have  received  speci 
mens  from  Krzeroum.  It  extends  throughout  central 
and  southern  Asia,  and  occurs  even  in  Japan. 

Our  information  on  the  natural  history  of  Palestine 
is  so  meagre,  that  we  do  not  know  from  recent  obser 
vation  whether  the  sparrow-hawk  is  migratory  or  not 
in  those  regions.  Prince  Bonaparte,  who  snvs  that  it 
is  common  about  .Rome,  informs  us  that  it  is  migratory 


then1.      Our  own    ornithologists  write  as  if   it  were   a 
permanent  resident  in  these  islands. 

The  sparrow-hawk  is  a  bold  and  destructive  depre 
dator;  the  female  especially,  which  is  much  stouter  and 
more  powerful  than  the  male.  She  can  easily  kill  a 
partridge  or  pigi  on.  and  has-been  seen  to  swoop  down 


nj ion  the  poultry-yard,  seize  a  chicken,  and  bear  it 
away.  It  has  been  occasionally  used  in  falconry,  and 
maybe  one  of  the  seven  species  enumerated  by  Dr. 
Kussell  as  employed  for  hawking  around  Aleppo  and 
I  >amascus.  [  r.  H.  <;.] 

HAZA'EL  \r!.*!o-,i  of  (,'oJ].  first  the  general  of  the 
forces  of  Penhadad  king  of  Syria,  then  his  murderer  and 
successor.  He  appears  to  have  been  a  man  of  great  mili 
tary  skill  and  resolute  spirit,  but  of  lawless  ambition  and 
unscrupulous  character.  Without  any  previous  notice 
of  him.  or  any  reason  assigned  for  the  elevation  he  was 
destined  to  occupy,  his  name  was  mentioned  to  Elijah 
at  Horeb,  as  that  of  the  person  he  was  to  anoint  king  over 
Syria,  i  Ki.  xix.  i:>;  but,  from  what  afterwards  occurred, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  main  reason  of  the  ap 
pointment  was,  that  from  his  determined  and  ferocious 
character,  he  might  act  the  part  of  a  severer  scourge  to 
Israel  than  Benhadad  had  done.  The  wars  of  Pen 
hadad  with  Allah  had  meanwhile  ended  in  his  own 
humiliation  and  the  defeat  of  his  projects  against  Israel: 
but  this  was  no  ground.  Klijah  was  given  to  understand, 
for  supposing  danger  to  have  ceased  in  the  Syrian 
direction:  a  more  formidable  adversary  than  Benhadad 
was  in  store  to  be  placed  upon  the  tin-one,  whom  in  due 
season  (Jod  would  use  as  his  rod  of  correction.  The 
purpose,  however,  though  announced  then,  was  kept 
for  a  time  in  suspense  :  there  were  relentings  on  the 
part  of  A  hah  and  his  impious  wife,  and  the  forbearance 
of  God  allowed  the  actual  elevation  of  Hazael  to  the 
throne  to  remain  in  abeyance  for  years  to  come.  The 
prophet,  doubtless,  understood  that  such  was  the  mind 
of  Cod.  as  no  step  appears  to  have  been  taken  by  him 
to  promote  Hazael  to  the  throne.  The  matter  seems 
to  have  been  committed  by  Elijah  to  his  successor 
Elisha,  as  was  that  also  of  the  appointment  of  Jehu  to 
the  throne  of  Israel;  and  when  Elisha  afterwards  came 
into  contact  with  Hazael.  he  simply  intimated  to  him 
his  destination  to  occupy  the  throne  of  Syria.  Ben 
hadad  in  his  illness  had  sent  him  to  inquire  at  the  pro- 


HAZARMAVEH 


HEAVEN 


phet,  whether  he  should  recover  of  the  disease  under  ' 
which  he  laboured;  and  after  stating  that  he  might, 
indeed,  recover  of  that  (i.e.  that  there  was  nothing 
fatal  in  the  trouble  itself),  Elisha  added,  that  he  should 
still  certainly  die,  and  that  Hazael  should  be  king  over 
Syria.  Even  then  this  was  but  incidentally  brought 
out,  the  prophet  neither  told  Hazael  how  Benhadad 
was  to  die,  nor  gave  him  any  commission  to  usurp  the 
throne.  But  setting  his  face  earnestly  upon  that  of 
Hazael,  as  if  some  serious  and  affecting  matter  was 
weighing  upon  his  soul,  he  at  last  burst  into  tears:  and 
on  being  asked  by  Hazael  why  he  wept,  Elisha  said, 
"  Because  I  know  the  evil  that  thou  wilt  do  unto  the 
children  of  Israel:  their  strongholds  wilt  thou  set  on  fire, 
and  their  young  men  wilt  thou  slay  with  the  sw<>rd, 
and  wilt  dash  their  children,  and  rip  up  their  women 
with  child,"  2  Ki.  viii.  1.'.  The  answer  of  Hazael  bespoke 
the  absence  at  the  time  of  all  such  atrocious  purposes 
on  his  part — his  astonishment,  indeed,  that  he  should 
be  thought  capable  of  harbouring  them,  for  he  asked  if 
he  was  a  dog  that  he  should  do  such  a  thing—  but.  at 
the  same  time,  he  betrayed  his  ignorance  of  self,  and 
of  the  corrupting  influence  which  unfavourable  circum-  . 
stances  were  going  to  produce  upon  his  heart.  He 
had  no  sooner  left  the  prophet  than  lie  entered  on 
his  downward  career,  first  traitorously  putting  an  end 
to  his  master's  life,  and  then  seizing  on  the  throne 
of  Syria.  And  as  we  read  that  by  and  by  bloody 
wars  with  Israel  followed,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
laid  waste  extensive  districts,  and  wrested  from  the 
hand  of  Jehoaliax  many  cities,  we  cannot  doubt  that 
the  atrocities  foretold  by  Klish.i  were  to  the  letter  exe 
cuted  by  the  forces  of  Hazael,  -J.  Ki.  x.  :;-,:;<;  \ii  17,  i«;xi:i  :: 
He  failed,  however,  to  consolidate  his  empire:  and  the 
cities  he  had  won  from  Israel  were  a^ikin  recovered 
from  his  son,  the  second  Benhadad.  by  Joash  and  Jere- 
boam  II.,  •_' Ki.  xiii.  L'J;  \iv.  2-.  So  fruitless  did  his  ambi 
tion  and  cruelty  prove  for  his  family  and  kingdom. 

HAZARMA'VEH  [court  »f  death],  the  third  son 
of  Joktan,  who  gave  his  name  to  a  people  and  province 
of  Arabia.  It  still  subsists  with  little  variation  in  the 
Arabic  Hadramawt,  which  lies  to  the  east  of  Yemen. 

HAZER'OTH.  the  third  station  of  the  Israelites 
after  leaving  Sinai  on  their  route  toward  ('anaan,  and 
supposed  to  be  the  same  with  'Ain  Hudhera,  Xu.  xi.  ;;:,. 
They  rested  there  for  some  days;  and  their  sojourn  at 
it  was  marked  by  the  unhappy  revolt  of  .Miriam  and 
Aaron  against  the  authority  of  Moses,  which  led  to 
the  infliction  of  leprosy  on  Miriam  for  a  week. 

HA  ZEZON-TA  MAR.     >',,  EXGEDI. 

HA'ZOR  [the  iiirlf,.-sfd,fnircd,  or  fnftidvtl],  a  town. 
which  lay  within  the  bounds  of  the  tribe  of  Naph- 
tali,  Jos.  xix.ofl,  but  which  occupied  relatively  a  much 
higher  place  under  the  old  masters  of  Canaan  than  it 
ever  did  under  the  Israelites.  At  the  time  of  the  con 
quest  it  was  the  capital  of  a  king  or  chieftain  (Jahinl, 
who  headed  one  of  the  strongest  combinations  of  the 
native  forces  with  which  Joshua  had  to  contend.  The 
multitudes  that  assembled  under  his  leadership  are 
said  to  have  been  "like  the  sand  that  is  upon  the  sea 
shore,  with  horses  and  chariots  very  many."  It  is 
said  also,  that  they  pitched  together  at  the  waters  of 
Merom,  Jos.  xi.  1-5.  These  waters  of  Merom  are  what 
now  goes  by  the  name  of  the  Lake  Hulah ;  and  some 
where  in  its  neighbourhood  Hazor  is  understood  to  have 
been  placed.  But  the  exact  site  has  not  been  ascer 
tained.  After  defeating  those  assembled  forces  Joshua 

VOL.  I. 


returned  and  smote  Hazor,  and  burned  it  with  fire. 
It  partially  recovered  however  from  this  disaster;  for 
in  the  time  of  the  judges  we  find  another  Jabin,  called 
king  of  Canaan,  "' who  reigned  at  Hazor,'' Ju.  iv.  2,  and 
who,  like  his  predecessor,  headed  a  most  formidable 
combination  of  the  heathen  princes,  and  drew  together 
an  immense  force,  that  for  a  time  appalled  the  people 
of  Israel.  But  he  was  defeated  by  the  efforts  of  Debo 
rah  and  Barak.  Hazor  is  mentioned  at  a  later  period 
as  one  of  the  cities  which  Solomon  fortified,  \  Ki.  ix.  i:>, 
and  still  later  as  one  of  the  larger  places  taken  by 
the  king  of  Assyria,  -2  Ki.  xv.  2<>.  Its  position  on  the 
northern  borders  of  Palestine  naturally  rendered  it  a 
place  of  some  importance,  as  well  for  the  possessors 
of  Canaan,  as  for  those  who  had  designs  of  conquest 
respecting  it. 

HEART.  In  the  language  of  Scripture  this  word  is 
used  somewhat  more  generally  than  it  is  in  the  present 
day:  it  often  indicates  the  intellectual,  as  svell  as  the 
moral  and  emotional  part  of  our  natures:  precisely  as.  on 
the  other  side,  the  mind  (i'oPs)  comprehends  the  seat 
of  feelinir  as  well  as  of  thought.  I'ndoubtedly  the  most 
common  use  of  the  term  has  reference  to  the  will  and  the 
affections  ;  yet  not  to  these  exclusively,  since  we  read 
of  persons  ''understanding  in  their  heart,"  haying  "  the 
eyes  of  their  heart  opened."  or  inversely  having  their 

''  foolish    hearts  darkened,"  Mat.  xiu.  \:>;  E\>.  i.  1>,  iiccurdini; 

to  tin.-  r<iiToit  text,  Ho.  1.21,4:0.  It  always  is,  of  course,  the 
intellectual  part  of  one's  nature  of  which  the  apprehen 
sion  of  truth  is  to  lie  predicated  :  it  is  with  the  under 
standing  that  the  truth  lias  directly  to  do,  either  for 
discernment  and  acceptance,  or  for  misconception  and 
rejection.  But  the  capacity  of  knowing  and  apprehend 
ing  alw;i\s  depends  materially  upon  the  state  of  the 
heart:  and,  written  as  the  Bible  is,  not  in  philosophical, 
but  in  popular  language,  the  reference  it  makes  to  the 
heart  in  connection  with  the  understanding  or  the  not 
undi  rstanding  of  divine  truth,  conveys  the  important 
and  salutary  lesson,  that  in  this  department  of  things 
the  moral  to  a  large  extent  rules  the  intellectual.  Jn 
all  moral  questions  these  necessarily  act  and  react  on 
each  other:  but  in  those  matters  which  are  more  directly 
spiritual,  and  affect  the  souls  relation  to  ( !od,  it  is 
emphatically  the  case,  that  as  the  state  of  the  heart  is, 
so  will  be  the  thoughts  and  apprehensions  of  tin;  mind. 

HEATHEN.     ,s,  GENTILES. 

HEAVEN.  This  word  is  employed  to  describe  the 
upper  and  nobler  region  of  Cod's  universe,  in  contrast 
with  the  earth,  the  lower  portion  assigned  to  men  for 
their  habitation.  And  >ince  tin;  earth  or  ground  is  the 
abode  of  sinful  man,  and  has  been  subjected  to  a  curse 
on  account  of  him.  Go.iii.lT,  the  same  contrast  gives 
prominence  to  heaven  as  the  holy  place  where  Cod 
shows  himself  to  his  holy  creatures,  \\here  there  is  no 
more  curse,  and  where  nothing  enters  that  defiles  or 
works  abomination  or  makes  a  lie,  Ho.  xxi.  27  ;  xxii.  3,  4. 
The  name  "heaven  "  in  our  own  language  has  been  ex 
plained,  according  to  its  c  tvmology,  that  which  is  hearcd 
or  lifted  up;  and  a  similar  origin  has  been  assigned  to 
the  Creek  'Ovpavos.  Cramix,  and  the  Hebrew  D»c%tf 

(shamaim),  by  which  it  is  represented  in  the  original 
Scriptures.  This  explanation  is  confirmed  by  the  fre 
quent  use  of  ''height"  or  "heights,"  in  either  the 
singular  or  the  plural;  the  Hebrew  o'-pe  (iitarom),  some- 

T 

times  rendered  "the  heights/'  sometimes  "on  high," 

Job  xvi.   Ill;  xxxi.  2;  Ps.  xciii.  4;  c\lviii.  1;  Is.  xxiv.    IS,  ic.,    else- 

89 


FIE  A  VEX 


HEAVEX 


where  not  so  well  "high  places,"  Job  x.\v.  •>,  ''above," 
Ps.  xviii.  Hi ;  and  similarly  the  Greek  vtj/os,  Lu.  i.  78 ;  xxiv.  i:i; 
v\f/i)\d,  Ho.  i.  n ;  as  also  vif/iffTa,  "the  highest  places," 
Mat.  xxi  9,  .io. 

This  somewhat  indefinite  word  is  used  in  varii  >us  senses, 
or  perhaps  rather  in  one  sense  with  various  applications 
more  or  less  indefinite  and  remote  from  us  who  make 
them.  \Ve  may  apply  it  to  the  /•/'.-•////(  heavens  over 
our  head;  or  again,  to  the  ini-txiljlv  and  more  glorious 
heavens,  of  which  the  former  mav  he  regarded  as  the 
mere  fringe  or  exterior  nearest  to  ourselves.  The  visible 
heavens  themselves  stretch  awav  into  the  unknown, 
depths  of  space,  in  which  are  the  sun.  moon,  and  stars. 
GO.  i.  16,  ir,  ic.;  but  equally*  they  may  be  taken  to  be  the 
atmosphere  at  any  distance,  even  the  most  insignificant 
from  the  surface  of  the  globe.  Thus  we  read  of  the 
birds  or  fowls  of  heaven,  occasionally  expressed  "the 
fowls  of  the  d!r"  in  the  authorized  version.  GO.  i  2i>;  Lu. 
vi:i.  :.,ive.  So  also  we  read  of  tli''  rain  and  the  hail  of  hea 
ven,  Do.  xi.  11;  Re.  xvi.  21,  the  dew  of  heaven.  Ge.  xxvii.  23,  the 
hoar-frost  of  heaven.  Jobxxxviii.  2:1,  and  many  a  time  the 
clouds  of  heaven.  Thus  also  it  is  applied  to  the  entire 
surface  of  the  atmosphere,  "  I  will  make  ;/<>tir  lunrcn 
as  iron."  I.e.  xxvi.  19.  "  The  fountain  of  Jacob  shall  be 
upon  a  land  of  com  and  wine  :  also  7t/.->  heavens  shall 
drop  down  dew."'  Do.  xxxiii.  2*.  And  sometimes  our 
translators  have  rendered  this  by  the  word  'Sky,"  as. 
"  the  sky  is  red,"  Mut.  xvi.  2, ::.  From  this  comes  natu 
rally  the  phrase  "under  heaven,''  or  more  emphatically 
''under  the  whole  heaven,"  to  denote  the  surface  of  our 
n'lolie.  This  is  also  expressed  more  graphically  in.  other 
phrases  which  involve  something  metaphorical :  "from 
the  one  side  of  heaven  unto  the  other,"  Do.  iv.  32;  "from 
one  end  of  heaven  to  the  other,"  Mat.  xxiv.  ::i,  (varied 
into  "from  the  uttermost  part  of  earth  to  the  utter 
most  part  of  heaven,"  Mar.  xi'i.  27),  "  the  four  //mirti  rx 
of  heaven,"  Jc.  xlix.  :;r>;  whereas  at  other  times  it  is  "the 
circuit  of  heaven,"  .Toll  xxH  1 1.  These  heavens  are  besides 
compared  to  a  tent  which  God  has  pitched,  "who 
stretchest  out  the  heavens  like  a  curtain,"  Ps.  civ.  2;  Is. 
xl.  22.  By  a  similar  yet  somewhat  bolder  metaphor  they 
are  compared  to  a  solid  building,  with  foundations  and 
pillars  on  which  they  rest,  2  Sa.  x\ii.  s  ;  Job  xxvi.  n,  with  a 
gate  for  entrance,  Go.  xxviii.  17,  and  with  windows  which 
are  opened  for  pouring  out  the  rain,  tie.  vii.  n  ;  viii.  2  ;  is. 
xxiv.  is.  This  last  representation  has  its  metaphorical 
character  confirmed  by  its  occurrence  in  such  passages 
as  ~2  Ki.  vii.  2;  Mai.  iii.  10.  Yet  all  these  descriptions 
are  literally  understood  by  many  interpreters,  in  spite 
of  the  inconsistencies  to  which  their  opinion  unavoid 
ably  conducts :  and  they  have  some  support  from  the 
Septuagint  and  Vulgate,  which  have  rendered  ypn 

•T 

(raqia),  Gou.  i.  r>,  "firmament;"  though  a  translation  in 
the  margin  of  our  Bible,  "  expansion,"  or  expanse,  is 
unobjectionable  in  every  point  of  view,  and  etymologi- 
cally  is  preferable.  A  favourite  passage  with  some  of 
these  writers,  whose  object  seems  to  be  to  fasten  a 
charge  upon  the  Word  of  God.  that  it  authoritatively 
teaches  the  crude  notions  which  the  ancient  Hebrews 
may  have  entertained,  is  Is.  xxxiv.  4,  where  they  shelter 
themselves  under  tin;  authority  of  the  excellent  Vitringa, 
whose  bad  taste  in  this  instance  has  led  him  to  explain 
the  imagery  as  if  the  stars  of  heaven  were  conceived  of 
as  resembling  wax  candles  set  in  the  vault  of  heaven. 
Another  text  is  Job  xxxvii.  18,  "Hast  thou  with  him 
spread  out  [the  verb  from  which  firmament  or  expanse 


is  derived]  the  sky,  which  is  strong  and  as  a  molten 
looking-glass?"  But  the  word  here  and  in  other  pas 
sages  rendered  "sky"  is  very  difficult  when  we  come 
to  determine  its  precise  meaning;  though  the  balance 
of  authority  and  probability  inclines  us  to  identify  it 
with  the  light  clouds  in  the- highest  elevation  at  which 
we  see  them  :  and  the  whole  verse  is  manifestly,  whether 
we  look  at  it  by  itself  or  along  with  the  context,  a  highly 
poetical  figure.  Those  who  insist  upon  a  prosaic  inter 
pretation  may  proceed  to  inform  us  what  are  "the  bottle* 
of  heaven,"  which  are  named  in  ch.  x.xxviii.  37.  And 
having  satisfied  themselves  that  the  Bible  pronounces 
heaven  to  be  at  once  a  circle  and  a  figure  with  four 
corners  which  rests  on  pillars,  they  may  perhaps  find 
mathematical  data  for  determining  the  ratio  of  its  height 
to  its  superficial  extent  in  the  familiar  passage,  PS.  (iii.  11, 
12,  "For  as  the  heaven  is  high  above  the  earth,  so  gn -at 
is  his  mercy  toward  them  that  fear  him.  As  far  as  the 
east  is  from  the  west,  so  far  hath  he  removed  our  trans 
gressions  from  us." 

The  indefiniteness  of  the  application  of  this  word 
In iinn  or  heavens  is  not  improbably  indicated  by  the 
frequent  use  of  the  plural  in  English,  as  also  often  in 
the  original  where  this  does  not  appear  in  our  transla 
tion.  .In  the  New  Testament  this  plural  does  not  seem 
to  occur  in  the  writings  of  John,  whereas  it  is  extremely 
common  in  Matthew,  who  clings  very  closely  to  the 
thought  and  diction  of  the  Old  Testament:  in  Hebrew 
it  is  always  plural.  This  explanation,  the  indefinite  or 
infinite  spaces  included  under  the  notion  of  heaven,  is 
also  given  by  many  eminent  scholars  in  reference  to  tin- 
phrase  "the  heavens  of  heavens,"  P.,.  ixviii. '.>,'.>,;  cxlviii.  4.  .V 
simpler  and  probably  more  satisfactory  explanation  is. 
"the  highest  heavens,"  the  heavens  jinr  c.ffi  Hi  nee,  and 
in  the  highest  and  most  emphatic  sense,  analogous  to 
other  Hebrew  phrases,  "the  song  of  songs,"  •'  the 
holy  of  holies."  This  also  agrees  better  with  the 
fuller  phrase,  "the  heaven  and  the  heaven  of  heavens," 
Do.  x.  1 1,  &o  ;  and  with  the  language  of  Paul,  2  Co.  xii.  2, 
that  he  was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven,  as  it  were 
into  heaven  in  the  superlative  degree,  or  into  that 
heaven  which  is  the  abode  of  the  blessed,  after  having 
passed  through  two  1> >wer  regions,  that  of  the  atmosphere 
and  that  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  to  both  of  which  also  the 
name  of  heaven  is  applied.  There  is  certainly  nothing 
to  warrant  our  explaining  this  third  heaven  in  accord 
ance  with  a  Jewish  notion  of  seven  heavens,  a  notion  it 
may  be  of  unknown  antiquity,  but  which  at  any  rate 
is  not  discovered  in  Scripture,  or  even  in  the  Apocry 
pha,  as  Ecclesiastieiis  xvi.  18  does  not  go  beyond  the 
language  of  Scripture  when  it  speaks  of  the  heavens 
and  the  heaven  of  heavens  of  God.  Some  succession  of 
heavens  up  to  the  highest  point,  though  without  im 
plying  anything  more  than  this  third  heaven,  is  favoured 
by  three  other  texts.  It  is  said,  He.  iv.  14,  that  we  have 
agreat  high-priest  "  that  is  passed  into  the  heavens,"but 
more  correctly  "  that  has  passed  fhrour/h  the  heavens." 
Again,  He.  \ii.  20,  our  glorified  high-priest  is  said  to  have 
been  "made  higher  than  the  heavens."  And  similarly. 
FP  iv.  10,  he  has  "ascended  up/«"  above  all  heavens," 
or  "  all  the  heavens."  In  this  epistle  there  also  occurs 
five  times  the  peculiar  phrase  ^a  lirovpavia,  "  the 
heavenly,"  or  possibly  "the  super- celestial,"  cii.  i.  3,  20 ; 
ii.  0;  iii.  id;  vi.  12,  in  our  version  always  "the  heavenly 
[places]"  (though  once  in  the  margin  "heavenly 
[things] ",  except  in  the  last,  where  it  is  "high  places," 
probably  on  account  of  the  difficulty  about  finding 


HE A VEX 


HEAVEN 


spiritual  wickedness  in  heavenly  places,  which  is  how 
ever  mentioned  in  the  margin. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  language  of 
Scripture  as  of  common  life,  heaven  and  earth  are  em 
ployed  as  terms  which  exclude  one  another,  but  which 
taken  together  constitute  the  universe  of  God.  Thus, 
Ge.  i.  1,  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and 
the  earth."  Compare  the  same  usage  in  Ge.  ii.  1;  Mat. 
v.  IS;  1  Co.  viii.  5;  He.  xii.  20,  ic.  In  accordance 
with  this  is  Melehizedek's  title,  "  the  Most  High  God, 
possessor  of  heaven  and  earth/'  Ge.  xiv.  in,  20,  22;  and  our 
Saviour's,  "  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,''  Mat.  xi.  2.5.  At  times  again  one  or  other  or 
both  of  these  terms  must  be  taken  in  a  somewhat 
modified  extent,  when  the  descriptii  >u  runs  thus.  ' '  heaven 
and  earth,''  or  more  accurately,  "the  heaven  and  the 
earth,  the  sea,  and  all  that  in  them  is,"  LA.  xx.  U;  or, 
"the  heaven  and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the 
earth  and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the  sea  and 
the  things  which  are  therein,"  Re.  x.o;  and  vet  again  dif 
ferently,  "the  heaven  and  the  earth  and  the  sea  and  the 
fountains  of  waters,"  lie.  xiv.  r.  Vet  another  variation, 
perhaps  like  our  own  ''heaven  and  earth  and  hell, "occurs 
in  1'hi.  ii.  10,  "that  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee 
should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and  things  in  earth, 
and  things  under  the  earth."  But  the  original  simple 
distribution  of  all  things  under  the  phrase  "  heaven  and 
earth,"  is  by  far  the  commonest  in  Scripture;  and  as  it 
appears  at  the  commencement  of  time,  so  it  reappears 
at  the  close.  The  psalmist,  1's  cii.  2.>27,  tells  how  tin  y 
shall  pass  away,  while  Jehovah  shall  remain  and  his 
servants  before  him.  And  Isaiah,  oh.  ixv.  i:;  ixvi.  L'2,  an 
nounces  the  creation  of  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth, 
which  shall  abide  for  ever  and  cau>e  the  former  crea 
tion  to  bo  forgotten.  In  the  Xew  Testament  the  an 
nouncement  is  made  more  clearly,  that  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  which  are  now  are  reserved  unto  tire,  while 
there  is  the  promise  of  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth, 
wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,  •_'  IV.  in.  ~,  \'-',\  He.  xxi  l. 
And  again,  He.  xii.  2o-2N  takes  up  the  prophecy  in 
Haggai,  "  Yet  once  more  1  shake  not  the  earth  only  but 
also  heaven,''  and  expounds  that  "the  things  which 
are  made"  are  to  be  removed,  inasmuch  as  they  are 
"tilings  which  are  shaken,"  in  order  that  those  "things 
which  cannot  lie  shaken."  or  which  are  not  shaken, 
"may  remain,"  constituting  "a  kingdom  which  cannot 
be  moved,"  or  shaken,  which  we  receive.  Tn  whatever 
sense  this  be  taken,  more  or  less  metaphorically,  it  in 
cludes  the  perfecting  in  glory  of  that  state  of  grace 
which  has  already  commenced  on  earth.  Thus  .John  the 
Baptist  preached,  saying,  "  Repent,  for  the  k!it;/d<»ii  <>f 
heaven  is  at  hand;"  and  this  message  was  also  the  com 
mencement  of  our  Lord's  preaching  ;  and  the  first  of 
the  beatitudes  in  his  sermon  on  the  mount  was, 
"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  king 
dom  of  heaven."  Mat.  ni.  2  ;  iv.  \i ;  v.  :i  This  expression  is 
peculiar  to  Matthew,  for  the  parallel  passages  of  the 
other  gospels  have  instead  of  it  "  the  kingdom  of  God.'' 
Yet  it  is  not  an  expression  (we  do  not  speak  of  the  idm, 
which  pervades  the  theocracy)  borrowed  from  the  Old 
Testament,  with  which  Matthew  has  a  peculiarly  close 
connection;  unless  the  germ  of  it  may  possibly  be  found 
in  the  promise  to  Israel,  "that  your  days  may  be  multi 
plied,  and  the  days  of  your  children,  in  the  land  which 
the  Lord  sware  unto  your  fathers  to  give  them,  as  the 
days  of  heaven  upon  the  earth/'  Do  xi.  21,  compared  with 
i's.  Ixxxix.  29,  "  His  seed  also  will  I  make  to  endure  for 


ever,  and  his  throne  as  the  days  of  heaven."  The  idta- 
j  being  especially  prominent  in  the  visions  of  the  book 
of  Daniel,  it  is  also  possible  to  find  the  origin  of  the 
expression  in  his  assurance  to  Nebuchadnezzar  that  his 
kingdom  should  be  sure  to  him  after  he  had  come  to 
know  "  that  the  heavens  do  rule,"  Da.  iv.  -_'c.  Probably 
with  reference  to  the  expression  which  is  common  in 
Matthew,  yet  referring  not  to  the  present  commence 
ment  but  to  the  completion  in  the  future.  Paul  declares 
his  confidence,  ''  And  the  Lord  shall  deliver  me  from 
every  evil  work,  and  will  preserve  me  unto  his  heavenly 
kingdom,"  2  Ti.  iv.  is.  (>'«  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.) 

As  for  descriptions  of  heaven,  in  its  stricte.-t  and 
highest  sense,  as  something  more  than  the  atmosphere 
or  the  region  of  the  stars,  it  cannot  be  said  that  Scrip 
ture  withholds  these  or  gives  them  sparingly.  Never 
theless,  in  spite  of  the  dreams  of  enthusiasts,  and  the 
wordy  statements  which  have  been  made  by  those 
who  have  attempted  to  say  more  upon  the  subject  than 
Scripture  warrants,  it  must  be  admitted  that  our  con 
ceptions  are  extremely  vague  and  indistinct,  and  that 
we  are  almo.-t  at  once  involved  in  ditiicultv  when  we 
attempt  to  expand  and  illustrate  the  inspired  language. 
This  has  often  been  noticed  as  one  of  the  great  con 
trasts  between  the  religion  of  the  I'.ible  and  all  the 
religions  which  men  have  invented,  that  they  are  full 
of  minute,  trivial,  unworthy,  and  manifestly  false  ac 
counts  of  the  heavenly  state,  while  nothing  of  the  sort 
can  lie  alleged  of  the  representations  in  Scripture 
upon  the  subject.  Two  characteristics  of  its  descrip 
tions  may  be  noticed  by  any  careful  reader.  l-'i>-*t, 
They  are  very  much  in  i/<i/<<-< .  For  instance,  "the 
children  of  this  world/'  or  age,  "  marry  and  are  given 
in  marriage:  but  they  which  shall  be  accounted  worthy 
to  obtain  that  world,  and  the  resurrection  from  the 
dead,  neither  marry  nor  an1  given  in  marriage;  neither 
can  they  die  anv  more,"  Lu.xx.  :;i-.'iti.  "  And  God  shall 
wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes:  and,  there  shall  be 
no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall 
tin  re  be  any  more  pain:  for  the  former  things  an; 
passed  away.  .  .  .  And  there  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into 
it  anything  that  detileth.  .  .  .  Ami  there  shall  he  no 
more  curse.  .  .  .  And  there  shall  be  no  night  there, 
and  they  need  no  candle,  neither  light  of  the  sun," 
i;<  xxi  1,27;  x xii.  3,o.  These  descriptions,  like  many  of 
the  descriptions  of  God  himself,  rather  suggest  than 
directly  assert  ;  that  is,  they  mention  limitations  and 
defects  which  are  familiar  to  us  at  present,  and  assert 
that  these  shall  have  no  existence  in  heaven.  Ki-otid/i/, 
The  descriptions  are  very  niuchti'jiirath'e,  and  it  is  out 
of  our  power  to  represent  these  heavenly  things  except 
in  this  figurative  language.  The  figurative  language  is 
often  fi/ni/niiii'ii/,  in  the  narrowest  theological  sense; 
that  is  to  say,  it  sends  us  back  either  to  the  descriptions 
of  the  unfallen  world  in  which  Adam  was  placed  at 
first,  or  to  those  of  tin.-  Jewish  worship  in  the  tabernacle 
and  the  temple.  <  hi  the  one  hand  it  receives  the  name 
of  paradise,  and  it  has  the  tree  of  life  and  the  river  of 
the  water  of  life,  Lu.  x\iii.  -i:; ;  2  Co.  xii.  4  ;  He.  ii.  7  ;  xxii.  1-3. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  Jerusalem  \\hich  is  above, 
;  the  new  Jerusalem,  the  holy  city,  the  true  tabernacle 
and  temple,  Ga.  iv.  21; ;  lie.  xxi  2;  xv.  i,,  in:  One  passage 
indeed,  lie  \i;i.  !-<;,  seems  to  point  to  something  in  heaven 
that  is  really  and  substantially  of  the  nature  of  a  temple; 
as  if  this  were  either  the  very  model  and  pattern  which 
Moses  had  shown  to  him  in  Mount  Sinai,  as  that  which 
the  sanctuary  of  Israel  was  to  resemble,  or  else  as  if 


HKAVEX 


7US 


HEBER 


this  heavenly  temple  were  tlie  great  original,  of  which 
he  saw  a  model  or  copy.  In  like  manner  the  argument 
in  the  following  chapter  contains  this  sentence  of  com 
parison  between  animal  sacrifices  and  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ.  "  It  was  therefore  necessary  that  the  patterns 
of  things  in  the  heavens  should  be  purified  with  these, 
but  the  1<i-arc a  III  t/ttiu/s  thc/iine/nx  with  better  sacrifices 
than  these.  For  Christ  is  not  entered  into  thr  h»/y  p/ai'ts 
made  fit/i  h<in(/.<,  which  arc  the  injure*  <>f  tin-  true,  lint 
into  In  ii rt  n  ittf.lf,  now  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  God 
fur  us."  lie.  ix.  -I'.;,  21.  The  language  of  these  two  chapters 
suggests  that  heaven  as  a  whole  is  the  temple  on  hi^h. 
A  similar  impression  will  v'i'ubublv  bo  left  witli  any 
careful  reader  of  Re.  iv  v.  And  so  at  other  times  in 
the  symbols  of  that  book.  In  eh.  vi.  0,  when  the  fifth 
seal  was  opened.  John  saw  «/«/</•  the  a'tur  the  souls  of 
them  that  were  slain  for  the  word  of  God  and  for  the 
testimony  which  they  held.  The  language  in  ch.  vii. 
1.")  suggests  that  the  occupations  of  the  redeemed  and 
glorified  is  a  jirii. -v///  .-•(/•/•/ci  in  tin  presence  "j  tin  liirim 
Majtxlji  upon  the  throne,  as  of  old  it  was  upon  the 
•Jewish  mercy  -  seat.  And,  ch.  viii.  .",  John  saw  how 
"another  angel  came  and  stood  at  the  altar  having  a 
golden  censer,  and  there  was  given  unto  him  much 
incensi  that  he  should  otter  it  with  the  prayers  of  all 
saints  upon  fhe  f/oldcn  altar  which  >ms  lit  fore  the 
1h  rime."  In  none  of  these  passages  is  there  even  a  hint 
of  a  line  which  circumscribed  this  sanctuary:  and  the 
natural  inference  is  that  all  heaven  is  included  in  it, 
with  which  might  be  compared  the  language  of  Kzokicl. 
ch.  xliii. r.\  ''This  is  the  la\v  of  the  house;  upon  the  top  of 
the  mountain,  the  whole  limit  thereof  round  about  shall 
be  most  holy,"  or  ''a  holy  of  holies."  And  in  fact  John 
bears  express  testimony  in  his  final  vision  that  this  was 
the  case,  Kc.  xxi.  22,  "And  I  saw  no  temple  therein: 
for  the  Lord  Cod  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the 
temple  of  it."  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  two  or  three 
texts  in  the  course  of  the  prophecy  which  do  specify 
some  one  place  as  properly  "the  temple  in  heaven,"  and 
distinguish  this  from  heaven  in  its  full  extent,  Kc.  xi.  19; 
xiv.  17  ;  xv.  :>,  \ 

The  solution  of  this  difficult}',  as  of  many  others, 
may  be  impossible,  owing  to  our  present  imperfect  un 
derstanding  of  the  symbolical  language.  But,  in  con 
clusion,  we  must  express  our  strong  dissent  from  the 
views  of  those  who  press  the  symbolical  as  a  proof 
that  there  is  nothing  literal,  and  so  dwell  upon  the 
truth  as  to  the  moral  character  being  the  thing  of  pre 
eminent  importance,  as  to  draw  from  it  the  one-sided 
inference  that  heaven  is  merely  a  state  and  not  a  place. 
Our  conceptions  of  that  place  may  be  very  crude  and 
erroneous:  but  a  place  there  must  be.  For,  (1.)  There 
must  be  a  place  where  Cod  is  present  in  an  especial 
sense,  where  he  manifests  himself  as  ruling,  judging, 
and  above  all,  communicating  grace  and  glory.  "The 
heaven,  even  the  heavens,  are  the  Lord's ;  but  the 
earth  hath  he  given  to  the  children  of  men,"  r.s.  cxv. 
Ki.  He  is  therefore  called,  not  only  "our  heavenly 
Father,"  but  more  unmistakably  "our  Father  which 
is  in  heaven."  At  times  he  is  styled  "the  God  of 
heaven,"  Ge.  xxiv.  r  ;  Jonah  i.  n,  repeatedly  in  Ezra  and 
Xeheiniah  and  Daniel,  and  also  Be.  xi.  13;  xvi.  11.  In 
heaven  he  sits  upon  his  throne  and  rules,  Ts.  ii.  4;  xi.  4; 
Is.  ixvi.  1 ;  Mat.  v.  34;  Re.  iv.  &c.;  from  which  he  looks  down 
oil  men,  De.  xxvi.  15  ;  Ps.  xiv.  2  ;  cii.  19  ;  ciii.  19.  He  dwells 
on  hin'h  in  his  holy  habitation.  Is.  xxxiii.  .">,  17;  ivii.  !.">.  "  The 
l.i ml  shall  roar  from  on  high,  and  utter  his  voice 


from  his  holy  habitation,"  Jc.  xxv.  no.  "The  Cod  of 
Jeshurun  rideth  upon  the  heaven  in  thy  help,  and  in  his 
excellency  on  the  sky,"  Do.  xxxiii.  20.  In  heaven,  his 
habitation,  or  oil  high,  he  hears  prayer,  1  Ki.  viii.  :;<i,  &c.; 
Is.  iviii.  4.  From  heaven  he  rained  fire  and  brimstone 
upon  Sodom;  and  from  hea\«en  also  he  rained  bread  for 
his  people  in  the  wilderness.  From  heaven  he  called 
to  his  servants  upon  earth,  Ge.  xxii.  11;  and  from  heaven 
he  sent  his  Son  to  seek  us  and  die  for  us.  Jn.  iii.  si ;  vi. 
ss,  &c. ;  as  he  has  been  ever  sending  down  from  heaven 
his  Holy  Spirit,  Mat.  iii.  !(!;  1  Pe.  i.  12;  Ac.  ii.33  (2.)  There 
must  be  a  place  where  the  glorified  body  of  the  Saviour 
now  is.  that  heaven  which  "must  receive  him  until  the 
times  of  restitution  of  all  things,"  Ac.  iii.  21.  Uptothat 
heaven  he  is  repeatedly  said  to  have  ascended,  and 
there  he  who  is  man  as  well  as  Cod  now  is  at  the  right 
hand  of  God;  and  where  he  is,  there  must  also  his 
servants  be,  Jn.xii.  20.  Heaven  is  a  place  to  which 
Elijah  was  translated,  soul  and  body  together,  2  Ki.  ii. 
i,  n.  And  there  all  Christ's  people  are  to  be  along  with 
him,  1  Tli.  iv.  17;  as  he  expressly  taught  his  disciples  that 
he  was  going  away  to  prepare  a  place  for  them,  to 
which  in  due  time  he  would  conduct  them,  Jn.  xiv.  2-4; 
He.  \i. 20.  Iii  that  place  their  treasure  is  laid  up  by 
them.  Mat.  v.  12;  vi.  20,  and  there  an  eternal  inheritance 
is  reserved  for  them,  i  Pe.  i.  i ;  2  Co.  v.  i.  (3.)  There  must 
be  some  place  where  are  to  be  found  assembled  "  the 
angels  which  are  in  heaven,''  Mat.  vi.  1";  xviii.  IM;  Kp.  i.  in ; 
lie.  xii.  22,  and  from  which  they  are  sent  down  to  this 
world,  Lu.  xxii.  i:;,  and  to  which  they  return  when  they 
have  executed  their  commission,  LU.  ii.  i3-i:>.  In  this 
last  passage  they  receive  the  name  "a  multitude  of 
the  hcarcn/'/  huff,''  which  is  plainly  connected  with, 
and  yet  different  from,  "  the  host  of  heaven,"  Ac. 
vii.  42;  for  the  latter  expression  denotes  the  stars,  while 
the  former  has  respect  to  the  angels;  in  the  one  the 
inanimate,  in  the  other  the  animated  hosts  are  indi 
cated  by  which  the  heavenly  regions  are  occupied. 
A  similar  comprehensive  expression  is  very  frequent 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  leads  to  the  designation  of 
Jehovah,  the  Cod  of  heaven,  as  "Cod  of  hosts," 
just  as  in  Xew  Testament  prophecy  the  Son  of  God  is 
represented  in  the  open  heaven  riding  forth  to  victory, 
and  followed  by  the  armies  which  are  in  heaven, 

lie.  xix.11,14.  [(";.  C.  Ji.  I).] 

HE'BER,    or   EBER  fay—lci/fntd],   the    name    of 

several  individuals  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament. 

1.  The  patriarch  Eber,  Gc.  x.  24,  2:. ;  xi.  14- in,  the  father 
of    Peleg,    and   ancestor   of   Abraham.       2.   A    prie>t. 
Xe.  xii.  20.      3.  A   Gadite,  i  Ch.  v.  13.      4,  5.    Two   Ben- 
jamites,    i  Ch.  viii.  12, 22.      But  the   names  of  '2,  3,  4,  5 
are  doubtful,  the   LXX.   giving  'Aped  as  the  name  of 

2,  and  'ft/3ij5  as  the  name  of  the  other  three.      It  is 
not  certain,  therefore,    that  the  name  Eber  (-oy)  was 

borne  by  any  except  the  patriarch  L  (See  further 
under  HEBREW.)  [l>.  H.  w.J 

HE'BER  [^3r.  once  nsr,  Xu.  xxvi.  ^society,  company], 

also  the  name  of  several  individuals.  1.  A  grandson 
of  Asher,  Ge.  xlvi.  17 ;  Xu.  xxvi.  45,  (LXX.  Xo/3.V>,  ~Soj3ep}. 
2.  A  Jew,  ich.iv.is,  (LXX.'A/3e>).  3.  A  Benjamite, 
i  ch.  viii.  17,  (LXX.  'Afidp}.  But  the  best  known  is 
4.  Heber  the  Kenite,  Ju.iv.11,17;  v.  24  (LXX.  Xa/3ep), 
the  husband  of  Jael,  immortalized  in  the  song  of 
Deborah.  (See  JAEL.)  [».  H.  w.] 


HEBREW 


HEBREW 


HEBREW,  HEBREWS,  nay,  nnay.  The  follow 
ing  are  the  points  of  distinction  between  the  names 
Hebrew  and  Israelite  :  — 

1.  Hebrew  is  a  name  of  wider  import,  at  least  in  its 
earlier  use.     Every  Israelite  was  a  Hebrew,  but  every 
Hebrew  was  not  an  Israelite.    This  is  evident  from  the 
very  first  passage  in  which  the  word  is  met  with,   Go. 
xiv.  13,  where  Abram  the  Hebrew  is  mentioned  along 
with  Mamre  the  Amorite,  and  also  from  Ge.  xxxix.  14; 
xl.  1/5;  xli.  12,  where  Joseph  is  spoken  of  as  a  Hebrew, 
and  the  land  of  Palestine  is  called  the  land  of  the  He 
brews.      From  these  passages  we   naturally  conclude 
that  the  Hebrew  element  in  the  population  of  Pales-  ; 
tine   could    not    have   been   confined  to  the  family  of  | 
Jacob.     Also,  in  Ge.  x.  21,  Shem  is  called  the  "father  | 
of  all  the  children  of  Eber"  or  Hebrews;  and  in  Xu.  xxiv. 
21,  it  is  not  probable  that  by  Eber,  which  is  mentioned  1 
along  with  Asshur,   the   children   of   Israel,   and  they  I 
alone,  are  meant.      But  after  the  conquest  of  Palestine 
by  the  Israelites  the  name  Hebrew  was  no  longer  used 
with   its   original  latitude,   and  Israelite  and   Hebrew 
became   synonymous,    though  not   by  any  means  cm- 
ployed  interchangeably  by  the  sacred  writers.      For 

2.  AVhen  the  name  Hebrew  is  used  in  preference  to 
Israelite,  there  is  always  a  reference  to  the  foreign  re 
lations  of  Israel.      It  is  used  (I.)  by  foreigners,  Kx.  i.  1C;  ! 
ii.  C;  i  S:t.  iv.  c,9;  xiv  !!,«:•.;  or  (2.)  by  Israelites  when  ad 
dressing    foreigners.   K\.  ii.  ~  ;  iii.  1<s,  &e.  ;  Jou;ih  i.  !)  ;    or    (o.) 
when  Israelites  are  opposed  to  foreign  nations,  GO  xliii. ::.; 
Ex.  ii.  ll;xxi.  2;  De.  xv.  12;  Jc.  xxxiv.  9, 14.   (See  Gesenius,  Thes.) 
The  only  exceptional  passage  is  1  Sa.  xiii.  •>.  "  And  Said 
blew  the  trumpet  throughout  all  the  land   sayinir.   Let 
the  Hebrews  hear'' — in   which,   however,  and    also   in 
ver.  7,  it  is  possible  we  ought  to  read  Q»-\ay  instead  of 
D'^ay-      Even   if   the   exception    be   allowed,    it   cannot 

affect  the  conclusion  to  which  all  the  other  pas>a-v- 
point,  viz.  that  Hebrew  was  the  international  designa 
tion,  /ni-fii/.  the  local  and  domestic  name,  the  family 
name,  if  we  may  so  speak,  surrounded  with  all  tin.' 
sacredness  of  home  associations,  and  thus  capable  of 
having  attached  to  it  a  spiritual  import,  which  never  was 
and  never  could  be  associated  with  the  name  Ilebnn-. 
Quite  in  harmony  with  this  conclusion  is  the  fact  that  the 
(•reek  and  Roman  writers  seem  to  have'  known  nothing 
of  the  name  Israelite;  //<///v  c-  and  ./<  n'  arc  the  names 
they  employed.  (Cesciiins,  [lebviiisdie  Spraclic,  sect.:.,  I.)  I'',  Veil 

in  the  Old  Testament  the  name  Hebrew  is  compara 
tively  rare,  being  found  only  thirty -two  times.  In 
what  we  call  the  Hebrew  poetry  the  word  Hebrew  never 
occurs.  No  Hebrew  prophet  ever  prophesies  of  the 
Hebrews.'  In  the  Hebrew  history  also  the  name  He 
brew  is  not  met  with  after  the  accession  of  David. 
It  is  found  more  frequently  in  Genesis  and  Exodus 
than  in  all  the  other  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  Hebrew  is  the  name  which 
linked  the  descendants  of  Jacob  with  the  nations: 
Israel  the  name  which  separated  them  from  the  nations. 
We  cannot  wonder  that  after  the  legislation  of  Sinai 
the  former  name  should  fall  almost  entirely  into  dis 
use.  In  later  times,  toward  the  commencement  of  our 
era,  the  use  of  the  name  Hebrew,  as  an  ancient  and 
venerable  name,  was  revived.  C'oini>;ire  Ac.  \i.  i  •,  2  Co  \i.  22 ; 

Thi.  iii.  5. 


As  to  the  origin  of  the  name,  there  is  great  diversity 
of  opinion,  (i.)  By  some  it  has  been  regarded  as  a 
patronymic  from  Eber  or  Heber  (nay),  just  as  nan 
from  nan,  Nu.  xxvi.  45,  and  though  we  can  assign  no 
reason  why  the  descendants  of  Jacob  should  bear  the 
name  of  Eber  rather  than  that  of  any  other  of  their 
patriarchal  ancestors,  yet  the  close  connection  of  -\yy  i-^, 

sons  of  Eber,  Ge.  x.  21,  with  -\ay>  Eber.   in  ver.  '24,   '25, 

of  the  same  chapter,  and  the  use  of  Eber  as  a  national 
name  in  Xu.  xxiv.  24,  give  to  this  opinion  a  certain 
measure  of  probability.  (2.}  By  others  it  lias  been  re 
garded  as  an  appellative  from  n^y,  beyond,  denoting 

either  '' <ui  immigrant  from  beyond,"1  i.e.  an  immigrant 
into  Canaan  from  beyond  the  river  Euphrates,  wcZi'c/ja 
transenphratensis,  (rcxc/i.  T/ux.  (compare  Jos.  xxiv.  2, 

he [/oitd  the  rim;  nn.!n  "»ay£>  your  fathers  du'dt  of  old) , 

T  T  -      v  .  - : 

or  an  cmifjrant  bfi/mnl  or  across  the  Euphrates  west 
ward  from  Mesopotamia.  Those  'uho  hold  this  view 
appeal  to  a  similar  use  of  21J5,  bcfure,  to  denote  the 

east,  and  compare  cnp  •:£  with  -\yy  -;2,  Ue.  x.  21.     The 


derivation  of 


nay 


from 


also  is  supported  by  the 
analogy  of  »pipn  from  r>PP,  under."  In  the  Chaldee 
portion  of  the  tiook  of  E/ra.  nn,ni  ">ay-  beyond  the 

river,  occurs  frequently  as  a  geographical  designation 
of  the  region  wot  if  the  Euphrates,  E/I-.  iv.  in,  11,20,  &<;., 
that  region  lieing  bti/ond  the  river  with  reference  to 
the  seat  of  empire  in  the  east;  and  the  Samaritan 
antagonists  of  the  .lews  designate  themselves  "  the 
nun  In  i/inie/  tin  rirci;"1  no  doubt  with  reference  to  their 
compatriots  in  Babylon,  Klam,  and  the  other  eastern 
regions  from  whence  they  had  been  transpla.nted  into 
Samaria,  K/,r.  iv.  in,  n.  For  the  same  reason  the 
Hebrews  may  have  been  so  called  with  reference 
to  the  cradle  of  their  race  east  of  the  Euphrates. 
It  is  not  necessary,  on  this  hypothesis,  to  suppose 
that  the  name  Hebrew  originated  with  the  C'a- 
naanites.  The  name  may  have  been  assumed  by  the 
Hebrews  themselves,  while  there  remained  with  them 
a  vivid  consciousness  that  they  were  strangers  in  a 
strange  land,  and  that  beyond  the  Euphrates  lay  the 
land  to  which  they  were  bound  by  the  strongest  ties 
•--the  land  of  their  fathers  and  their  kindred,  (Jo.  xii.  1, 
xxiv.  4 ;  xx\hi.  2.  This  view  is  favoured  by  the  LXX., 
in  which  nayn  D"QN  ut  *'1'-  xiy-  !•'>  i*  rendered  'Afipdfj, 

6  TTf/xxr-^s,  Abraham  who  had  rrnxxiJ  the  river,  and  the 
objections  of  its  antagonists,  such  as  that  nay,  bei/ond, 

is  nowhere  =  nnjn  nay,  bei/<>nd  th<_  rlrn;  do  not  ap 
pear  of  sufficient  importance  to  outweigh  the  evidence 
in  its  favour. 

If  required  to  make  choice  between  the  two  opinions 
just  stated,  our  decision  would  be  given  in  favour  of 
the  latter.  But  it  does  not  appear  by  any  means  cer 
tain  that  the  two  opinions  are  incompatible,  and  that 
the  adoption  of  the  one  involves  the  rejection  of  the 
other.  The  name  Eber,  like  Peleg,  and  many  other 
of  the  early  patriarchal  names,  may  have  been  prophetic, 
and  may  include  a  pre  -intimation  of  the  migratory 
tendencies  and  life  of  his  posterity.  fn.  u.  w  ] 


IlEHRKW    LANGUAGE 


10 


HEBREW   LANGUAGE 


HEBREW  LANGUAGE,  the  language  of  the 
Hebrew  people,  and  of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures, 
with  the  exception  of  the  few  chapters  written  inChaldee. 
(Xec  C'HAT.DEE  LANGUAGE.)  In  the  Bible  this  language 
is  nowhere  designated  liy  the  name  lldirev:;  lint  this  is 
not  surprising  when  we  consider  how  rarely  that  name 
is  employed  to  designate  the  nation.  (>'«•  HKHKKW.)  In 
Is.  xix.  18,  it  is  called  the  lunguaf/e  of  C'<nnuui,  as  distin 
guished  from  that  of  Kgypt,  and  in  2  Ki.  xviii.  '2*>,  -S, 
it  is  called  the  Jen'ish  lanyuayc,  jvi>irv>  :IS  distinguished 

from  the  Aramean.  It  is  in  the  introduction  to  the 
hook  of  Ecclesiasticus  that  we  find  the  earliest  mention 
of  a  Hebrew  language  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  language  there  so  named  is  the  language  which 
we  call  Hebrew,  and  not  the  Chaldee  or  Syro-Chaldee, 
which,  having  superseded  the  ancient  language  of  the 
Hebrew  people,  was  therefore  ("died  the  Hebrew  lan 
guage —  the  name  which  it  bears  in  the  New  Testa 
ment.1 

But,  passing  from  the  name,  let  us  procei  d  to  examine 
the  language  itself,  which,  by  whatever  name  known  in 
ancient  times,  has  come  down  to  us  hallowed  by  the 
most  sacred  and  venerable  associations  the  language 
of  a  people  who,  in  the  words  of  M.  .Renan,  alone  of 
all  eastern  nations  were  privileged  to  write  for  the 
entire  world. 

The  Hebrew  language  belongs  to  the  class  of  lan 
guages  called  Semitic  or  Shemitic — so  called  because 
spoken  chiefly  by  nations  enumerated  in  Scripture 
among  the  descendants  of  Shcm.  The  Sanscrit,  Per 
sian,  Greek,  Latin,  with  the  Germanic  and  Celtic  lan 
guages,  are  the  principal  members  of  another  large  class 
or  group  of  languages,  to  which  have  been,  affixed  the 
various  names  of  Japhetic,  Indo-European,  Indo-Ger- 
manic,  and  Aryan.  This  latter  class  embraces  most  of 
the  languages  of  Europe,  including  of  course  our  own. 
The  student,  therefore,  who  besides  mastering  his  own 
language,  has  passed  through  a  course  of  Greek,  Latin, 
French,  and  German,  (and  few  of  our  students,  except 
with  a  professional  view,  extend  their  linguistic  studies 
farther),  has  not  after  all  his  labour  got  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  same  class  of  languages  to  which  his  mother 
tongue  belongs,  and  of  which  it  forms  one  of  the  most  im 
portant  members.  But  when  he  passes  to  the  study  of 
the  Hebrew  language  he  enters  a  new  field,  he  observes 
new  phenomena,  he  traces  the  operation  of  new  laws. 

The  name  Semitic,  when  employed  to  designate  a 
class  of  languages,  has  sometimes  been  taken  in  a  more 
large,  sometimes  in  a  more  restricted  sense.  Bunsen, 
in  his  Philosophy  of  I'nirersal  History,  includes  under 
the  head  Semi  t  ism  the  ancient  Egyptian — the  language 
of  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions — and  its  descendant,  the 
Coptic.  And  it  is  true  that  between  these  languages 
and  those  which  are  universally  recognized  as  belong 
ing  to  the  Semitic  class,  there  are  some  very  strik 
ing  correspondences,  especially  in  the  pronouns ;  but 
these  correspondences,  though  quite  sufficient  to  estab 
lish  the  fact  of  a  connection  at  some  remote  period 
between  the  Egyptian  and  the  Hebrew,  Svriac,  and 
Arabic,  are  not  sufficient  to  justify  the  philologist  in 
at  once  ranking  all  these  languages  as  members  of  the 
same  class.  There,  is  another  language  which  has  a 
much  better  claim  to  take  rank  as  a  member  of  the 


1  A  similar  confusion  of  names  is  fount!  in  tlio  appendix  to 
the  LXX.  translation  of  Job,  iu  which  tlie  Hebrew  is  called 

Svriac. 


Semitic  family,  but  of  which  our  knowledge  is  as  yet 
so  imperfect  that  we  cannot  assign  to  it  a  definite 
position  in  relation  to  the  other  members  of  that  family; 
1  mean  the  language  of  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
inscriptions,  in  the  decipherment  of  which  Rawlinson 
and  his  coadjutors  have  laboured  with  singular  success. 
As  tin:  result  of  their  labours,  we  may  now  regard  it  as 
an  ascertained  fact  that  the  Assyrians  spoke  a  language 
much  more  closely  allied  to  the  Semitic  than  to  any 
other  family  of  languages  ;  yet  not  so  closely  related  to 
the  recognized  members  of  the  Semitic  family  as  these 
are  to  one  another.  In  the  meantime  we  await  the  pro 
gress  of  discovery,  in  the  expectation  that  at  no  distant 
period  the  Assyrian  will  take  its  place  among  the  Semitic 
huimia.'t  >,  and  that  thus  a  new  and  copious  source  of 
illustration  will  be  opened  to  the  student  of  Hebrew. 

Excluding,  therefore,  these  languages  and  some  other,-, 
with  regard  to  which  our  information  is  still  more 
scanty,  we  include  under  the  head  i>'on!ti<'  three  closely 
related  groups  of  languages,  whose  original  seat  lay- 
in  south-western  Asia,  from  which  they  spread  out  in 
various  directions.-  These  are  1.  The  Aramcrtn,  or 
north-eastern  group,  including  the  C'/"t/di<  ami  ,v///vV/c; 
•2.  The  Arabic  or  southern ;  '•',.  The  middle  group,  in 
cluding  the  Hcbrcv:  and  Phoenician  or  Canaanitisli. 
The  ^ii'iiinr'/l/iii  holds  an  intermediate  place  between 
the  Aramean  and  Hebrew;  the  J;'t/< /<,],/'<•,  b(  tweeli  the 
Hebrew  and  Arabic,  though  more  closely  related  to  the 
latter. 

I.  Characteristics  «/ 1/«  N /;(///<•  L<I.H</I/<I<I<  *.  and  in 
l>artirnlar  of  the  Hebrew. —  The  characteristics  of  a  lan 
guage  or  class  of  languages  must  be  sought  for  in  one 
or  other  of  three  directions  :  1.  In  the  laws  which  re 
gulate  its  xotuiilx.  1.  In  the  laws  which  regulate  the 
formation  of  runts  and  vonls.  3.  In  the  laws  which  re 
gulate  the  structure  of  sen  ten  res. 

1.  With  respect  to  sounds,  the  chief  characteristics 
of  the  Semitic  languages  are  the  four  following: — 

(1.)  The  predominance  of  yiiffiiral  sounds.  The 
Hebrew  has  four  or  (we  may  say)  five  guttural  sounds, 
rising  from  the  slender  and  scarcely  perceptible  throat- 
breathing  represented  by  the  first  letter  of  the  alphabet 
(N)  to  the  strong  rough  f/Jiain  and  rhcth.  To  these  i\e 
must  add  the  Semitic  "R.  which  partakes  largely  of  the 
guttural  character.  And  these  sounds  \\ere  not  spar 
ingly  employed  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were  in  more 
frequent  use  than  any  other  class  of  letters.  In  the 
Hebrew  dictionary  the  four  gutturals  occupy  consider 
ably  more  than  a  fourth  part  of  the  whole  volume;  the 
remaining  eighteen  letters  occupying  considerably  less 
than  three-fourths.  This  predominance  of  guttural 
sounds  must  have  given  a  very  marked  character  to  the 
ancient  Hebrew,  as  it  does  still  to  the  modern  Arabic. 

('2.)  The  use  of  the  very  strong  letters  teth,  tscielt', 
kfi/i/i,  which  may  be  represented  by  ft,  ss,  (or  ts\  kk  ;  in 
pronouncing  which  the  organ  is  more  compressed  and 
the  sound  given  forth  with  greater  vehemence.  These 
letters,  especially  the  two  last,  are  also  in  frequent  use. 

When  the  Greeks  borrowed  their  alphabet  from  the 
Phoenicians  they  softened  or  dropped  these  strong  letters 
(12  being  softened  into  6,  and  y  p  being  dropped  except 
as  marks  of  number),  and  changed  the  guttural  letters 
into  the  vowels  a,  e,  77,  o. 

(3.)  The  Semitic  languages  do  not  admit,  like  the 
Indo  European,  of  an  accumulation  or  grouping  of 

2  "  All  the  original  population  of  Xorth  Africa  appears  to  have 
been  a  race  of  the  Semitic  stock."— Earth,  Tnti'ds,  i.  224,  3SO. 


HEBREW   LANGUAGE 


711 


HEBREW    LANGUAGE 


consonants  around  a  single  vowel  sound.  In  such 
words  as  craft,  crush,  grind,  strong,  stretch,  we  find 
four,  five,  and  six  consonants  clustering  around  a 
single  vowel.  The  Semitic  languages  reject  such 
groupings,  usually  interposing  a  vowel  sound  more  or 
less  distinct  after  each  consonant.1  It  is  only  at  the 
end  of  a  word  that  two  consonants  may  stand  together 
without  any  intermediate  vowel  sound  ;2  and  even  in 
that  case  various  expedients  are  employed  to  dispense 
with  a  combination  which  is  evidently  not  in  accord 
ance  with  the  genius  of  the  language. 

(4.)  The  vowels,  though  thus  copiously  introduced, 
are  nevertheless  kept  in  strict  subordination  to  the 
consonants ;  so  much  so  that  it  is  only  in  rare  and  ex 
ceptional  cases  that  any  word  or  syllable  begins  with  a 
vowel.  Tn  Hebrew  we  have  no  .such  syllables  as  ah, 
«'/,  ad,  in  which  the  initial  sound  is  a  pure  \owel;  but 
only  ha,  .'/«,  d<t.*  If  Sir  H.  Rawlinsoii  is  correct,  it 
would  appear  that  the  Assyrian  language  differed  from 
the  other  Semitic  languages  in  this  particular.  In  his 
syllabic  alphabet  a  considerable  number  of  the  syllables 
begin  with  a  vowel. 

If  we  endeavour  to  calculate  the  effect  of  the  forego 
ing  peculiarities  on  the  character  of  the  language,  we 
cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  Semitic  languages 
are  of  a  more  primitive  type  than  the  European-— much 
lessmatured.  polished,  compacted  -  the  natural  utterance 
of  a  mind  vehement  and  passionate,  impulsive  rather 
than  calmly  deliberative. 

2.  With  respect  to  root*  and  words,  the  Semitic 
languages  arc  distinguished  in  a  very  marked  manner:  i 

(].}  A'//  tin  three-letter  rout.  This  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  characteristics  of  these  languages,  a^  it 
does  not  appear  that  there  is  any  language  not  bclono-- 
ing  to  this  class  in  the  formation  of  whoso  roots  the 
same  law  has  been  at  work.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
ascertain  the  origin  of  this  singular  phenomenon.  It 
may  possibly  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  equivalent  for  the 
compound  roots  of  other  languages  (which  an-  altogether 
wanting  in  the  Semitic);  an  original  tt<-n-/( //<  r  root 
being  enlarged  and  expanded  into  a  greater  or  less 
number  of  three-letter  roots,  for  the  purpose  of  Diving 
expression  to  the  various  modifications  and  shades  of 
the  primitive  root  idea.  The  attempt  has  indeed  been  ' 
made,  and  with  no  small  measure  of  success,  to  point 
out  and  specify  the  two-letter  roots  from  which  the 

existing    three- letter   l ts   have    been    derived;    but   it 

has  been  properly  remarked  that  such  an  inve>ti'_ration  ! 
carries  us  unite  away  from  the  Semitic  province.  When 
wi:  reach  the  two-letter  root  we  have  left  behind  us  the 
Semitic  languages  altogether,  and  drawn  forth  a  new- 
language,  which  might  be  regarded,  did  we  not  know 
that  the  most  ancient  is  not  always  the  most  simple,  as 
the  one  primeval  language  of  mankind. 

("2.)  The  consideration  of  the  Hebrew  three-letter 
root,  and  its  possible  growth  out  of  a  more  original  two- 
letter  root,  leads  on  to  the  notice  of  another  prominent 
feature  of  the  Semitic  languages — viz.  the  further  r/roi/i/i 
and  erpunxion  nf  //,c  three-letter  root  Itself  into  a  variety 
of  v:hat  are  called  conjugational  forms,  c.r/,ressin;/  ii<- 

1  In  this  respect   theie  is  a  gradation  in  the  different  Semitic  J 
languages;   the   Arabic   being   richest    in   vowels,    the   Avamean 
poorest,  and  the  Hebrew  and  Kthiopic  holding  a  middle  place.— 
Dillmann's  EHiinjiic  lire nunnr,  p.  [>">. 

-  The  exception  W,/<///i,,i,  tn-fi,  is  only  apparent. 

3  Words  and  syllables,  however,  of  which  the  initial  letter  is 
j*,  may  be  said  virtually  to  begin  with  a  vowel,  the  sound  of  N 
being  scarce  perceptible  by  our  ears. 


tensity,  reflexireness,  causation,  &c.  A  similar  formation 
may  be  traced  in  all  languages;  in  some  non- Semitic 
languages,  as  the  Turkish,  it  is  very  largely  and  regularly 

developed  (.Max  Muller,  Lectures  on  Science  of  Language,  318, &c.). 

In  English  we  have  examples  in  such  verbs  as  sit  and 
set,  lie  and  lay,  set  being  the  causative  of  sit,  lay  of  lie; 
or  we  may  say  sit  is  the  reflective  of  set,  and  lie  of  lay. 
So  in  Latin  sedo  and  s(d(o,  jacio  and  jaceo,  &c.,  in 
which  latter  root  the  conjugational  formation  is  still 
farther  developed  into  jacto  and  jactito.  But  what 
in  these  languages  is  fragmentary  and  occasional,  in 
Hebrew  and  the  cognate  languages  is  carried  out  and 
expanded  with  fulness  and  regularity,  and  consequently 
occupies  a  large  space  in  the  Semitic  grammar.  The 
conjugations  are  of  three  sorts  (a)  Those  expressing 
intensity,  repetition,  kc.,  which  are  usually  distinguished 
by  some  change  fif/tiit  the  root  ;  (M  those  expressing 
reflex-Irenes?,  causation,  &c.,  which  are  usually  distin 
guished  by  some  addition  to  the  loot;  (c)  the  j^assires, 
distinguished  by  the  presence  of  the  u  or  o  sound  in  the 
first  syllable. 

('•'>.}  Another  prominent  distinction  of  the  Semitic 
languages  is,  tie  >  stint  ti>  which  mod  location*  of  the 
runt  idni  are  i  ml  tent*  d.  nut  by  additions  to  the  root,  hut 
by  changes  fttliin  the  root.  ''The  Semitic  roots,"  says 
I'opp  (Comparative  Cranmiar  of  the  Indo-Kuivpcan  Tongues,  i. 
wi,  "  on  account  of  their  construction  possess  the 
most  surprising  capacity  for  indicating  the  secondary 
ideas  of  grammar  by  the  mere  internal  moulding  of  the 
root,  while  the  Sanscrit  roots  at  the  first  grammatical 
movement  are  compelled  to  assume  external  additions." 
These  internal  changes  are  principally  of  two  sorts:  - 

(a)  YOII-I  I  ehan'us.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in 
the  Semitic  languages  than  the  significance  of  their 
vowel  sounds;  the  sharp  a  sound,  formed  by  opening 
the  mouth  wide,  being  associated  as  a  symbol  with  the 
idea  of  activity,  while  the  <  and  <>  sounds  are  the  sym 
bols  of  rest  and  passiveness.  In  the  Arabic  verb  this 
characteristic  is  very  marked  ;  many  of  the  roots  ap 
pearing  under  three  forms,  each  having  a  different 
vowel,  and  the  signification  being  modified  in  accord 
ance  with  the  nature  of  that  vowel.  The  same  law- 
appears  in  the  formation  of  the  passives.  Thus  kateda 

pass,  kutelu. 

(/,)  L>onl,i;,i</  of  consonants,  usually  of  the  middle 
letter  of  the  root.  By  means  of  this  most  simple  and 
natural  device,  the  Semitic  languages  express  i/itms/ty 
or  r<  /iffition  of  action:  and  also  sue  h  quail  ties  as  prompt 
to  repeated  action,  as  ri'jhteons,  nui-cif/d,  ,vc.  By  com 
paring  this  usage  with  the  expression  of  the  correspond 
ing  ideas  in  our  own  language',  we  observe  at  once  the 
difference  in  the  genius  of  the  two  languages.  Wesnv 
merciful,  sinful,  i.e.  full  of  mercy,  full  of  sin.  Not  so 
the  Semitic.  What  we  express  formally  by  means  of  an 
added  root,  the  Semitic  indicates  by  a  sign,  by  simply 
layinof  additional  stress  on  one  of  the  root  letters. 
And  thus  au'ain  the  observation  made  under  the  head 
sound  recurs,  viz.  that  in  the  formation  of  the  Semitic 
languages  the  dominant  influence  was  that  of  instinctive 
feeling,  passion,  imagination — the  hand  of  nature  ap 
pearing  everywhere,  the  voice  of  nature  heard  in  every 
utterance:  in  this  how  widely  separated  from  the  arti 
ficial  and  highly  organized  languages  of  the  Indo-Euro 
pean  family.4 


JIKBREW   LANGUAGE  7 

(4.)  Thu  influence  of  the  imagination  on  the  struc 
ture  of  tho  bemitic  languages  is  further  disclosed  in  the 
riev;  which  they  jtre.ient  of  nature  and  of  time.  To  these 
languages  a  neuter  gender  is  unknown.  All  nature 
viewed  by  the  Semitic  eye  appears  instinct  with  life. 
The  heavens  declare  (jloiVs  glory ;  the  earth  shoiceth  his 
handiwork.  Tin  treis  of  the  Jiild  clap  their  hands  anil 
xi ni/Jorjoi/.  This,  though  the  impassioned  utterance 
of  tile  Ilelirew  poet,  expresses  a  common  national  feel 
ing,  which  finds  embodiment  even  in  the  structure 
of  the  national  language.  Of  inanimate  nature  the 
Hebrew  knows  nothing:  he  sees  life  everywhere.  His 
language  therefore  rejects  the  neuter  gender,  and 
classes  all  objects,  even  those  which  we  regard  as  in 
animate,  as  masculine  or  feminine,  according  as  they 
appear  to  his  imagination  to  be  endowed  with  male  or 
female  attributes. 

And  as  his  imagination  thus  endowed  the  lower 
forms  of  nature  with  living  properties;  so  on  the  other 
hand,  under  the  same  influence,  he  clothed  with  mate 
rial  and  sensible  form  the  abstract,  the  spiritual,  even 
the  divine.  In  Hebrew  the  abstract  is  constantly  ex 
pressed  by  the  concrete — the  mental  quality  by  the 
bodily  member  which  was  regarded  as  its  fittest  repre 
sentative.  Tims  hand  or  arm  stands  for  stren;/fh  ;  ritf 
(aph],  nostril,  means  also  <tn;/er;  the  shilling  of  the  face 
stands  for  favour  and  accejitance,  the  faUinr/  of  the  face 
for  displeasure.  So  also  to  sat/  often  means  to  think; 
to  speak  with  one  mouth  stands  for  to  l>c  <>f  thesame sen 
timent.  The  verb  to  ijo  is  employed  to  describe  mental 
as  well  as  bodily  progress.  One's  course  of  life  is  his 
«•«//,  the  patlt  of  his  feet. 

And  not  only  in  its  description  of  nature,  but  also  in 
its  mode  of  indicating  time,  do  we  observe  the  same 
predominant  influence.  The  Semitic  tense  system, 
especially  as  it  appears  in  Hebrew,  is  extremely  simple 
arid  primitive.  It  is  not  threefold  like  ours,  distribut 
ing  time  into  past,  present,  and  future,  but  twofold. 
The  two  so-called  tenses  or  rather  states  of  the  verb 
correspond  to  the  division  of  nouns  into  abstract  and 
concrete.  The  verbal  idea  is  conceived  of  either  in  its  re 
alization  or  in  its  non-realization,  whether  actual  or  ideal. 
That  which  lies  before  the  mind  as  realized,  whether  in 
the  actual  past,  present,  or  future,  the  Hebrew  describes 
by  means  of  the  so-called  preterite  tense;  that  which  he 
conceives  of  as  yet  to  be  realized  or  in  process  of  reali 
zation,  whether  in  the  actual  past,  present,  or  future,  he 
describes  by  means  of  the  so-called  future  tense.  Hence 
the  use  of  the  future  in  certain  combinations  as  a  histori 
cal  tense,  and  of  the  so-called  preterite  in  certain  combi 
nations  as  a  prophetic  tense.  Into  the  details  of  the 
tense  usages  which  branch  out  from  this  primitive  idea 
we  cannot  now  enter.  It  is  in  the  structural  laws  of 
the  I  febrew  language  that  its  influence  is  most  strongly 
marked :  in  the  Aramean  it  is  almost  lost.1 

(5.)  The  influence  of  the  imagination  upon  the  struc 
ture  of  the  Semitic  languages  may  also  be  traced  in  the 
absence  of  not  a  few  grammatical  forms  wliicli  we  find  in, 
other  languages.  Much  that  is  definitely  expressed  in 
more  highly  developed  languages,  is  left  in  the  Semitic 
languages,  and  especially  in  the  Hebrew,  to  be  caught 
up  by  the  hearer  or  reader.  In  this  respect  there  is  an 

1  Kwald,  Lfhi-lw-h,  sect.  1:U  «.  Tliis  subject  was  discussed  by 
the  present  writer  in  the  Journal  t>f  Xaa'ii.1  Literature  for  Oct. 
1S-19.  To  the  general  principles  of  that  ai'tiele  he  still  adheres, 
though  the  experience  of  fourteen  years  lias  necessarily  suggested 
not  a  few  modifications  in  the  details. 


HEUHEW   LANGUAGE 

analogy  between  the  language  itself  and  the  mode  in 
which  it  was  originally  represented  in  writing.  Of  the 
language  as  written,  the  vowel  sounds  formed  no  part. 
The  reader  must  supply  these  mentally  as  he  goes  along. 
So  with  the  language  itself.  It  has  not  a  separate  and 
distinct  expression  for  every  shade  and  turn  of  thought. 
Much  is  left  to  be  filled  in  by  the  hearer  or  the  reader; 
and  this  usually  without  occasioning  any  serious  incon 
venience  or  difficulty.  The  Semitic  languages,  how 
ever,  do  not  all  stand  on  the  same  level  in  this  respect. 
In  the  Syriac,  and  still  more  in  the  Arabic,  the  expres 
sion  of  thought  is  usually  more  complete  and  precise 
than  in  Hebrew,  though  often  for  that  very  reason  less 
animated  and  impressive.  A  principal  defect  in  these 
languages,  and  especially  in  tin-  Hebrew,  is  the  fewness 
of  the  particles.  And  also  the  extreme  simplicity  of 
the  verbal  formation  does  occasion  to  the  European 
student  difficulties  which  can  lie  surmounted  only  by  a 
very  careful  study  of  the  principles  by  which  the  verb- 
usau'es  are  'governed. 

In  this  respect  the  Hebrew  occupies  a  middle  posi 
tion  between  those  languages  which  consist  almost 
entirely  of  roots  with  a  very  scanty  grammatical  de 
velopment,  and  the  Indo-European  class  of  lan^uau'es 
in  which  the  attempt  is  made  to  give  definite  expres 
sion  even  to  the  most  delicate  shades  of  thought.  The 
Greek,  says  Paul,  seeks  after  wisdom:  he  reasons,  com 
pares,  analyzes.  The  Jew  requires  a  sign— something  to 
strike  the  imagination  and  carry  conviction  to  the  heart 
at  once  without  any  formal  and  lengthened  argument. 
The  Greek  language,  therefore,  in  its  most  perfect 
form,  was  the  offspring  of  reason  and  taste  :  the  Hebrew 
of  imagination  and  intuition.  The  Shemites  have 
been  the  quarriers  whose  great  rough  blocks  the  Japheth- 
ites  have  cut  and  polished  and  fitted  one  to  another. 
The  former,  therefore,  are  the  teachers  of  the  world  in 
religion,  the  latter  in  philosophy.  This  peculiar  char 
acter  of  the  Semitic  mind  is  very  strongly  impressed 
upon  the  language. 

A  national  language  being  an  embodiment  and  pic 
ture  of  the  national  mind,  there  is  thus  thrown  around 
the  otherwise  laborious  and  uninteresting  study  of 
grammar,  even  in  its  earliest  stages,  an  attractive 
power  and  value  which  would  not  otherwise  belong  to 
it.  It  was  the  same  mind  that  found  expression  in  the 
Hebrew  language,  which  gave  birth,  under  the  influ 
ence  of  divine  inspiration,  to  the  sublime  revelations  of 
the  Old  Testament  scriptures.  And  it  would  be  easy  to 
trace  an  analogy  between  these  revelations  and  the 
language  in  which  they  have  been  conveyed  to  us.  It 
is  curious  to  find  that  even  the  divinest  thoughts  and 
names  of  the  Old  Testament  connect  themselves  with 
questions  in  Hebrew  grammar.  Thus,  when  we  inves 
tigate  the  nature  and  use  of  the  Hebrew  plural,  and 
discover  from  a  multitude  of  examples  that  it  is  em 
ployed  not  only  to  denote  plural  it;/,  but  likewise  extension 
whether  in  space  or  time,  as  in  the  Hebrew  words  for 
life,  youth,  old  age,  &c.,  and  also  whatever  bulks 
largely  before  the  mind,  we  are  unwittingly  led  on  to 
one  of  the  most  important  questions  in  the  criticism  of 
the  Old  Testament,  viz.  the  origin  of  the  plural  form  of 
the  divine  name  Q»nsN  (Elohim},  in  our  version  rendered 
(rod.  Or,  again,  when  we  study  the  difficult  question 
of  the  tenses,  and  endeavour  to  determine  the  exact 
import  and  force  of  each,  wre  speedily  discover  that  the 
grammatical  investigation  we  are  pursuing  is  one  of 
unspeakable  moment,  for  it  involves  the  right  appre- 


HEBREW  LANGUAGE 


HEBREW  LANGUAGE 


hension  of  that  most  sacred  name  of  God,  which  the 
Jew  still  refuses  to  take  upon  his  lips,  the  four- 
letter  name  rvns  Juhrrh  or  Jfh/irah.  This,  however, 
is  a  topic  which  we  cannot  pursue  further:  it  is  sufficient 
to  have  noticed  it. 

•  >.  In  the  syntax  and  general  structure  of  the  Semitic 
languages  and  writings  we  trace  the  operation  of  the 
same  principles,  the  same  tendencies  of  mind  which 
manifest  themselves  in  the  structure  of  word*.  In  this 
respect  the  Hebrew  language  exhibits  a  more  simple 
and  primitive  type  than  any  of  the  sister-tongues. 
The  simplicity  of  the  Hebrew  composition  is  very 
obvious  even  to  the  reader  of  the  English  Bible,  or  to 
the  scholar  who  compares  the  Greek  Testament,  the 
style  of  which  is  formed  on  the  model  of  the  Old  Tes 
tament,  with  the  classical  Greek  writers.  \Ye  observe 
at  once  that  there  is  no  such  tiling  as  the  building  up 
of  a  lengthened  period,  consisting  of  several  propositions 
duly  subordinated  and  compacted  so  as  to  form  a  har 
monious  anil  impressive  whole.  Hebrew  composition 
consists  rather  of  a  succession  of  co-ordinate  proposi 
tions,  each  of  which  is  for  the  moment  uppermost  in 
the  view  of  the  speaker  or  writer,  until  it  is  super 
seded  by  that  which  follows.  This  results  at  once  from 
the  character  of  the  Semitic  mind,  which  was  more 
remarkable  for  rapid  movements  and  vivid  glances 
than  for  large  anil  comprehensive  irrasp.  Such  a  mind 
would  yive  forth  it>  thoughts  in  ;i  rapid  succession  of 
independent  utterances  rather  than  in  sustained  and 
elaborated  composition.  It  is  a  consequence  of  the 
same  mental  peculiarity  that  the  highest  poetrv  of  the 
Semitic  nations  is  lyrical. 

The  Hebrew  composition  is  also  ext.remelv  /,ic/n,-ia/ 
in  its  character  not  the  poetry  only  but  also  the  pm-e. 
In  the  history  the  past  is  not  described;  it  is  painted. 
It  is  not  the  ear  that  hears  ;  it  is  rather  the  eye  that 
sees.  The  course  of  events  is  made  to  pass  before  ,1,,. 
eye;  the  transactions  are  all  acted  over  auain.  The 
past  is  not  a  fixed  landscape  but  amoving  panorama. 
The  rcad.-T  of  the  English  I'.ible  must  have  remarked 
the  constant  use  of  the'  word  In  linlil :  which  indicates 
that  the  writer  is  himself,  and  wishes  to  make  hi- 
reader  also,  a  spectator  of  the  transact  ions  lie  describes. 
The  use  of  the  tenses  in  the  Hebrew  historical  writings 
is  specially  remarkable.  To  the  youiiLf  student  of 
Hebrew  tile  constant  use  of  the  future  tense  in  the 
description  of  the  past  appears  perhaps  the  most  strik 
ing  peculiarity  of  the  language.  But  tin-  singular 
phenomenon  admits  of  an  easy  explanation.  It  was 
because  the  Hebrew  viewed  and  described  the  transac 
tions  of  the  past,  not  as  all  past  and  done,  but  as  in 
actual  process  and  progress  of  evolvement.  that  he 
makes  such  frequent  use  of  the  so-called  future.  In 
imagination  lie  quits  his  own  point  of  time,  and  lives 
over  the  past.  With  his  reader  lie  sails  down  the 
stream  of  time,  and  traces  with  open  eye  the  winding  , 
course  of  history.  It  is  impossible  to  reproduce  in  ' 
English  this  peculiarity  of  the  Hebrew  Bible. 

Further,  in  writing  even  of  the  commonest  actions, 
as  that  one   ireut,  spoke,  situ;    &e.,   the   Hebrew  is  not  I 
usually   satisfied    with   the    simple  statement  that  the  I 
thing  was  done,  he  must   describe  also  the  process  of  ' 
doing.      We  are  so  familiar  with  the  style  of  our  Eng 
lish  Bibles  that  we  do  not  at  once  perceive  the  pictorial 
character  of  such  expressions  as  these,  recurring  in  every 
page: — he  arose  and  went — he  opated  his  lips  and  spake 

— he  put  forth  his  hand  and  took--  lie  lifted  up  his  eyes 
VOL.  I. 


and  sa>c— he  /if led  up  his  voice  and  tccjtt.  But  what  we 
do  not  consciously  perceive  we  often  unconsciously  feel; 
and  doubtless  it  is  this  painting  of  events  which  is  the 
source  of  part  at  least  of  the  charm  with  which  the 
Scripture  narrative  is  invested  to  all  pure  and  simple 
minds. 

The  same  effect  is  also  produced  by  the  si/mbo/ical 
u-aji  of  represtntiit;/  tiu-nfal  state*  and  prorcstcx  which 
distinguishes  the  Hebrew  writers.  Such  expressions  as 
tit  l,cud  or  iitc/inc  the  ear  for  '-to  hear  attentively."  to 
at nf<  n  the  neck  for  ''to  be  stubborn  and  rebellious."  to 
uiicorir  the  ear  for  ''to  reveal."  are  infrequent  use. 
Even  the  acts  of  the  Divine  Mind  are  depicted  in  a 
similar  way.  And  in  the  study  especially  of  the  Old 
Testament  we  must  keep  this  carefully  in  view,  lest  we 
should  err  by  giving  to  a  symbolical  expression  a  literal 
interpretation.  Thus  when  we  read.  Kx.  xxxiii.  n,  that 
"the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  face  to  face  as  a  man 
speaketh  unto  his  friend."  we  must  remember  that  it 
was  a  Jlebiew  who  wrote  these  words,  one  who  was 
accustomed  to  di  pict  to  him-elf  and  others  the  spiritual 

!  under  material  symbols,  and  thus  we  Miall  be  guarded 
against  irreverently  attaching  to  them  a  meaninu'  which 
they  were  never  intended  to  bear.  I'ut  though  such 
modes  of  expression  are  open  to  misapprehension  by  us 
whose  minds  are  formed  in  so  very  different  a  mould, 

i  nevertheless,  when  rightly  understood,  they  have  the 
etl'ect  of  giving  us  a  more  clear  and  vivid  impression  of 
the  spiritual  ideas  which  they  embody,  than  could  be 
conveyed  to  us  by  any  other  mode  of  representation  or 
expression. 

The  simplicity  and  naturalness  of  the  lan-ua^e 
further  appears  in  the  prominence  which  is  constantly 
given  to  the  word  or  words  embodying  the  leading  idea 
in  a  sentence  or  period.  Thus  the  noun  stands  before 
the  adjective,  the  predicate  stands  before  the  subject, 
unless  the  latter  be  specially  emphatic,  in  which  ease 
it.  is  not  only  put  first,  but  may  stand  by  itself  as  a 
nominative  absolute  without  any  syntactical  connection 
\\  ith  the  rest  of  the  senteiiC'  . 

The  constant  use  of  the  o?'«//o  dine/ a  is  also  to  be  spe 
cially  noted,  as  an  indication  of  the  primitive  character 
of  the  language.  The  Hebrew  historian  does  not  usually 
inform  us  that  such  and  such  a  person  said  such  and 
such  things:  he  actually  as  it  were  produces  the  parties 
and  makes  them  speak  for  themselves.  And  to  this 
device  (if  it  may  lie  so  called)  the  l>ible  history  owes 
much  of  its  freshness  and  power  of  exciting  and  sus 
taining  the  interest  of  its  readers.  No  other  history 
could  be  so  often  read  without  losinir  its  power  to  inte 
rest  and  charm. 

Lastly,  in  a  primitive  lanv;ua<_Ce,  formed  under  the 
predominating  influence  of  imagination  ami  emotion, 
we  may  expect  to  meet  with  many  elliptical  expressions 
and  also  with  many  redundancies.  Not  a  little  which  wo 
think  it  necessary  formally  to  express  in  words,  the 
Hebrew  allowed  to  be  gathered  from  the  context;  and, 
conversely,  the  Hebrew  gave  expression  to  not  a  little 
which  we  omit.  For  example,  nothing  is  more  com 
mon  in  Hebrew  than  the  omission  of  the  verb  to  be  in 
its  various  forms;  and  on  the  other  hand  a  very  striking 
characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  stvle  is  the  constant  use  of 

the  forms  »,-pi  .Tni  (i'u;/'/it,  i-'hai/a),  and  if  came  to  pass — 

• :  -     TT  : 

and,  if  shall  come  to  pass,  which,  in  translating  into  Eng 
lish,  may  be  altogether  omitted  without  any  serious  loss. 
In  the  Hebrew  prose  also  we  often  meet  with  traces  of 

90 


MEP.RKW    LAXGTAGE 


'14 


H E B  R E W   L  AXG U AG E 


that  echoing  of  thought  and  expression  which  torn  is 
one  of  the  principal  characteristics  of  the  poetic  style; 
as  in  Go.  vi.  22,  "And  Xoah  did  according  to  all  that 
<  rod  commanded  him  —so  did  hcf  and  similar  passages, 
in  which  we  seem  to  have  two  different  forms  of  record- 
in.;  the  same  fact  combined  into  one,  thus: 

Ami  Noah  diil  aiTonlin;,'  to  all  that  God  I'onnnaiiik'd  him; 

Aironlin;,'  to  all  that  the  Lord  commanded  him,  so  did  lie. 

II.    //txtiirir  <.)f  the    Hebrew  LUIXJIKVIC.  -  1'n.der   this 
head  are  embraced  three  important  topics,  which  \ve 
must  rapidly  glance  at:    1.   Tin.'  origin  of  the  language; 
•2.   The    nature   and    eiK-cts   of    the   various    influences 
which  modified  the   form  of  the  language,  so  long  as  it  | 
contiiuu.'d  a  living  language;  and,  •'>.   The  date  at  which  | 
it  ceased  to  he  a  living  language. 

1.  <)ri</iii  i >f  the  Hibrcn-  LII.IIIJIIIKJC.  —  The  primeval 
seat  of  the  Hehrew  language,  so  far  as  can  1m  gathered 
from  extant  historical  noticos,  was  Palestine.  Those 
notices  carry  us  back  to  the  age  of  Abraham,  but  no 
farther.  Whether  Hebrew  was  the  language  of  para 
dise,  as  the  older  critics  and  theologians  fondly  imagined, 
is  a  question  for  the  solution  of  which  we  have  no  his 
torical  data.  It  is  true  that  the  names.  Ada/ii,  f;'re, 
Abel,  &c.,  receive  explanation  from  the  Hebrew;  but 
the  argument  formerly  founded  on  this  circumstance, 
and  confidently  relied  on,  is  now  generally  allowed  to 
be  by  no  means  conclusive.  These  names  are  in  fact 
picture  names;  their  meaning  forms  an  important  part 
of  the  story  ;  and  whether  they  were  real  names  of 
ancient  personages,  or  Hebrew  equivalents  for  the  real 
names,  we  have  no  means  of  certainly  determining. 
The  Hebrew  may  have  been  the  primeval  language; 
but  there  is  no  decisive  historical  evidence  that  it  was. 

So  far  as  history  informs  us,  Palestine  was  the  earliest 
seat  of  the  Hebrew  language.  And,  what  is  somewhat 
surprising,  when  we  do  first  meet  with  it,  it  is  not 
confined  to  the  families  of  the  patriarchs,  but  appears 
to  be  the  common  language  of  the  numerous  tribes 
by  whom  Palestine  was  then  occupied.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  a  language  substantially  the  same  as  the 
Hebrew  was  the  language  of  Canaan  in  the  days  of  the 
patriarchs.  The  immigrants  from  beyond  the  Eu 
phrates,  and  the  tribes  among  whom  they  sojourned, 
and  with  whom  they  maintained  frequent  intercourse, 
spoke  the  same  language.  This  fact  at  once  sn^ests 
an  important  question  for  solution,  viz.  Was  Hebrew 
the  language  of  Abraham  previous  to  his  entrance  into 
Canaan?  or  did  Abraham,  after  his  entrance  into 
Canaan,  acquire  and  transmit  to  his  descendants  the 
language  of  his  adopted  country?  This  is  a  question 
to  which  it  is  impossible  at  present  to  give  a  decisive 
reply,  in  consequence  of  our  ignorance  of  the  earlier 
history  of  the  Phoenician  and  Canaanitish  tribes,  and 
the  relations  subsisting  between  them  and  the  Semitic 
nations  to  whom  by  their  language  they  were  so  closely 
allied.  Still  we  must  confess  that  the  balance  of  pro 
bability  appears  to  ns  to  incline  to  the  latter  alterna 
tive.  The  evidence  is  scanty,  but  not  without  weight. 
(1.)  In  De.  xxvi.  f»,  Abraham  is  called  a  Syrian  or 
Aramean  (»E-\K):  from  which  we  naturally  conclude 

that  Svriac  was  his  mother-tongue,  especially  when 
we  find  ('!.),  from  Go.  xxxi.  47.  that  Syriac  or  Chaldee 
was  the  language  spoken  by  Laban,  the  grandson  of 
Xahor,  Abraham's  brother.  Moreover,  it  has  been 
remarked  (3.),  that  in  Is.  xix.  IS,  the  Hebrew  is  actually 
called  the  laiu/mnjc  of  Ctni'tait:  and  (4.)  that  the  lan 


guage  itself  furnishes  internal  evidence  of  its  Palestinian 
origin  in  the  word  Q»  (i/aii>),  s<a,  which  means  also  the 

T 

west,  and  has  this  meaning  in  the  very  earliest  docu 
ments.  And  (~j.)  finally,  Jewish  tradition,  whatever 
weight  may  be  attached  to  jt,  points  to  the  same  con 
clusion.  (Gesenius,  Gesuliichtc,  sect.  vi.  4). 

If  we  inquire  further,  how  it  was  that  the  Canaanites, 
of  the  race  of  Ham,  spoke  a  language  so  closely  allied 
to  the  languages  spoken  by  the  principal  members  of 
the  Semitic  family  of  nations,  we  shall  soon  discover 
that  the  solution  of  this  difficulty  is  impossible  with 
our  present  means  of  information:  it  lies  beyond  the 
historic  period.  It  may  be  that  long  before  the  migra 
tion  of  Abraham,  a  Semitic  race  occupied  Palestine; 
and  that,  as  Abraham  adopted  the  language  of  the 
( 'aii.'ianites,  so  the  Canaanites  themselves  had  in  like 
manner  adopted  the  language  of  that  earlier  race,  whom 
they  gradually  dispossessed,  and  eventually  extirpated 
or  absorbed.  However  this  may  be,  leaving  specula 
tion  for  fact,  is  it  not  possible  to  discover  a  wise  pur 
pose  in  the  selection  of  the  language  of  Tyro  and  Sidon 
—  the  great  commercial  cities  of  antiquity — as  the 
language  in  which  was  to  be  embodied  the  most  won 
derful  revelation  of  Himself  and  of  his  law  which  God 
made  to  the  ancient  world.'  When  we  remember  the 
constant  intercourse  which  was  maintained  by  the 
Phoenicians  with  the  most  distant  regions  both  of  the 
East  and  of  the  "West,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the 
sacred  books  of  the  Hebrews,  written  in  a  language 
almost  identical  with  the  Phoenician,  must  have  exer 
cised  a  more  important  influence  on  the  Gentile  world 
than  is  usually  acknowledged. 

Of  course  the  Canaanitish  language,  when  adopted 
by  the  Hebrews,  did  not  remain  unchanged.  Having 
become  the  instrument  of  the  Hebrew  mind,  and  being 
employed  in  the  expression  of  new  and  very  peculiar 
ideas,  it  must  have  been  modified  considerably  thereby. 
How  far,  may  possibly  be  yet  ascertained,  should  acci 
dent  or  the  successful  zeal  of  some  explorer  bring  to 
light  the  more  ancient  monuments  of  the  Phoenician 
nation,  which  may  still  have  survived  the  entombment 
of  centuries. 

2.  Influences  modifijiny  the  form  of  the  Hebrew  Lan- 
c/uar/c,  and  the  st;//e  of  the  Hebrew  icrithir/s.  These 
influences  are  (1.)  Time,  (2.)  Place,  (3.)  the  Individual 
peculiarities  of  the  Hebrev  trritcrx,  and  (4.)  the  charac 
ter  and  subject-matter  of  tJuir  compositions.  It  is  only 
the  first  two  of  these  that  fall  to  be  considered  in  the 
present  article. 

(l.t  Time.—  The  extant  classical  Hebrew  writings 
embrace  a  period  of  more  than  a  thousand  years  from 
the  era  of  Moses  to  the  date  of  the  composition  of  the 
books  of  Chronicles,  which  stand  last  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible.  And  we  naturally  expect  that  the  language  of 
the  earliest  books  should  differ  considerably  from  that 
of  the  later.  Nay,  we  might  probably  expect  to  be 
able  to  trace  a  gradual  change  in  the  form  of  the  lan 
guage,  becoming  more  and  more  decided  as  century 
followed  century,  and  new  influences  were  brought  to 
bear  upon  it.  This  expectation,  however,  is  not  realized. 
There  is  indeed  to  be  observed  a  very  decided  difference 
in  language  and  style  between  the  earliest  and  the  very 
latest  Hebrew  writings;  but  this  difference  was  the 
result,  not  of  a  gradual  process  of  change  extending 
over  centuries,  but  of  a  very  sudden  and  rapid  revolu 
tion.  Hence  the  extant  Hebrew  writings,  when 


HEBREW   LANGUAGE 


"15 


HEBEENV   LANGUAGE 


classified  with  respect  to  language,  have  usually  been 
arranged  in  two  great  divisions1 — the  former  including 
those  of  a  date  earlier  than  the  Babylonish  captivity, 
the  latter  including  those  of  a  subsequent  date.  In 
passing  from  the  book  of  Genesis  to  the  books  of  Samuel 
and  Kings,  we  do  not  mark  any  very  striking  difference 
in  the  language.  Doubtless  there  is  a  difference  ;  but 
not  such  a  difference  as  we  might  expect  to  find  in 
writings  separated  from  one  another  in  date  by  so  con 
siderable  a  period;  not  such  a  difference  as  we  do  actually 
find  when  we  take  up  an  English  author  of  the  seven 
teenth  centurv,  or  even  later,  and  compare  his  language 
with  the  English  of  our  own  day.  Here  then  is  a  verv 
remarkable  phenomenon  which  requires  explanation. 
Now  this  explanation  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  rejection 
of  the  traditional  belief  jfltto  the  age  and  authorship  "f 
the  Pentateuch.  Even  those  critics  who  endeavour  to 
bring  down  the  Pentateuch  as  a  whole  to  a  compara 
tively  late  date,  allow  that  a  portion  at  least  of  its 
contents  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  au'e  of  Moses  (Kwai.i, 
Lchrtmdi,  sect.  -J,  c\:  and  thus,  unlr.-s  it  can  be  shown 
that  this  most  ancient  portion  bears  in  its  language 
and  stylo  the  stamp  (.if  high  antiquity,  and  is  dis 
tinguished  in  a  very  marked  manner  from  the  other 
portions  of  the  Pentateuch  (which  has  not  been  shown), 
the  phenomenon  still  remains  unexplained.  But  in 
deed  the  phenomenon  is  by  no  means  unexampled. 
It  does  not  stand  alone.  It  is  said,  for  example, 
that  the  Chinese  language  displays  the  same  tenacity 
and  aversion  to  change  still  more  decidedly  ;  the 
books  of  tin:  great  teacher  Confucius  bun^  written 
in  language  not  essentially  different  from  that  of  his 
commentators  fifteen  hundred  years  later.  So,  \\  e  are 
informed  by  a  writer  of  the  fifteenth  century,  that  the 
Greeks,  at  least  the  more  cultivated  class,  even  in  his 
day  spoke  the  language  of  Aristophanes  and  Euripides, 
maintaining  the  ancient  standard  of  elegance  and 
purity  «:ibb.>i,,  viii.  ]<«;).  Or  to  take  another  example 
more  closely  related  to  the  Hebrew,  it  is  well  known 
that  the  written  Arabic  of  the  present  day  does  not 
differ  greatly  from  that  of  the  first  centuries  after 
Mohammed.  In  each  of  the  ca-es  just  mentioned,  it 
is  probable  that  the  language'  was  as  it  were  stereo 
typed  by  becoming  tin'  lanirua '_;•••  of  hooks  held  in  high 
est  esteem  and  reverence,  diligently  studied  by  the 
learned,  frequently  committed  t»  memory,  and  adopted 
as  a  model  of  style  by  succeeding  writers.-  Now.  may 
not  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Mosaic  age  have  had  a 
similar  influence  on  the  written  Hebrew  of  the  follow 
ing  ages,  which  continued  undisturbed  till  the  captivity, 
or  even  later?  We  know  how  greatly  the  translations 
of  the  Bible  into  English  and  German  have  affected 
the  language  and  literature  of  England  and  Germany 
ever  since  they  were  given  to  the  world.  But  among 
a  people  like  the  ancient  Hebrews,  living  to  a  certain 
extent  apart  from  other  nations,  with  a  literature  of  no 
great  extent,  and  a  learned  class  specially  engaged  in  the 
study  and  transcription  of  the  sacred  writings,  we  may 
well  suppose  that  the  influence  of  these  writings  upon  the 


1  The  threefold  division  of  some  recent  writers  has  not  been 
established. 

2  A  young  friend  (now  a  missionary  iu  China)  informs  me 
that  he  has  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  his  Chinese  pupils 
to  understand  how  it  happens  that  some  words  used,  in  the 
authorized   version   of  the    Bible   have   become   obsolete ;   the 
imitation  and  reproduction  of  the  ancient  language  being  re 
garded  as  one  of  the  principal  beauties  of  Chinese  composition. 


!  form  of   the  national  language  must  have  been  much 
more  decided  and  permanent.     The  learned  men  would 
i  naturally  adopt  in  their  compositions  the  language  of 
the  books  which  had  been  their  study  from  youth,  and 
;  large   portions   of   which  they  were   probably   able  to 
|  repeat  from  memory.     Thus  the  language  of  these  old 
!  books,    though  it   might  differ  in   some  respects  from 
that  spoken  by  the  common  people,   would   naturally 
become  the  language  of  the  learned  and  of  books,  espe 
cially  of  books  on  sacred  subjects,  such  as  have  alone 
come  down   to  us  from  ancient    Israel.      I    shall   only 
!  further  observe,  that,  in  explanation  of  the  fact  under 
discussion,  appeal  has  also   been  made   («)  to  the  per 
manence  of    eastern  customs  :    and    (/>)   to  the  simple 
structure  of   the  Hebrew  language,    which  rendered   it 
less  liable  to  change  than  other  more  largely  developed 
languages.      It  has  also  been   remarked  that  some  of 
the  peculiarities  of  the  early  writings  may  be  concealed 
from  view  by  the  uniformity  of  the  system  of  punctua 
tion    adopted   and   applied    to    the    Scriptures    by    the 
Hebrew  grammarians. 

The  writings  which  belong  to  the  second  age     that 

i  subsequent  to  the  Babylonish  captivity — differ  verv  eon- 

i          .  „ 

sidernbly  from  those  which  belong  to  the  first;  the 
influence  of  the  Chaldee  language,  acquired  by  the 
.Jewish  exiles  in  the  land  of  their  captivity,  having 
gradually  corrupted  the  national  tongue.  The  historical 
books  belonging  to  this  age  are  the  books  of  Chronicles, 
E/.ra.  Neheiniali,  and  E.-ther.  In  the  prophets  who 
prophesied  during  and  after  the  captivity,  with  the 
exception  of  Daniel,  the  Chaldee  impress  is  by  no 
means  so  stroivj'  as  we  might  anticipate,  they  having 
evidently  formed  their  style  on  that  of  the  older  pro 
phets.  It  is  important,  houever,  to  obser\e,  that  the 
proeiice  of  what  appeals  to  lie  a  Chaldeism,  is  not 
always  tin:  indication  of  a  later  aire.  Chaldce  words 
and  forms  occasionally  appear  even  in  the  most  ancient 
Hebrew  compositions,  especially  the  poetical;  the  poet 
delighting  in  archaic  and  rare  words,  and  substituting 
the>e  f.,r  the  more  usual  and  commonplace.  But  be 
tween  the  Chaldaic  archaisms  and  the  Chaldeisms  of 
tin.1  later  Scriptures  there  is  this  marked  distinction, 
that  tile  former  are  only  occasional,  and  lie  scnttend 
on  the'  surface  ;  the  latter  are  frequent,  and  give  a 
peculiar  colour  and  character  to  the  whole  language. 

A  still  more  corrupt  form  of  the  language  appear-;  in 
the  Mishna  and  other  later  .Jewish  writings,  in  which 
the  foreign  (-lenient  is  much  more  decided  and  pro 
minent. 

('2.)  J'/ni-t.  ruder  this  head  is  embraced  the  quo 
tion  as  to  the  existence  of  different  dialects  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew.  Was  the  Hebrew  language,  as  spoken  by 
1  the  several  tribes  of  Israel,  of  uniform  mould  and  char 
acter?  or  did  it  branch  out  into  various  dialects  corre 
sponding  to  the  leading  divisions  of  the  nation*  In 
attempting  to  answer  this  question,  there  is  no  direct 
historical  testimony  of  which  we  can  avail  ourselves. 
From  No.  xiii.  23,  24,  we  learn  nothing  more  than 
that  the  language  of  Ashdod  differed  from  that  of  the 
Jews  after  their  return  from  captivity,  which  is  only 
what  we  might  have  anticipated.  And  the  notices  in 
Ju.  xii.  6  and  xviii.  8,  which  are  more  to  the  purpose, 
refer  rather  to  a  difference  in  pronunciation  than  in 
the  form  of  the  language.  Notwithstanding,  it  seems 
prima  facie  probable,  (a)  that  the  language  of  the  trans- 
jordanic  tribes  was  in  course  of  time  modified  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  by  the  close  contact  of  these 


HEBUKW  LANOUAGK 


HEBREW  LANGUAGE 


tribes  with  the  Syrians  of  the  north  and  the  Arab 
tribes  of  the  great  eastern  desert;  and  (//)  that  a  similar 
dialectic  difference  would  he  gradually  developed  in 
the  language  of  Kphraim  and  the  other  northern  tribes 
to  the  west  of  the  Jordan,  especially  after  the  political 
separation,  of  these  tribes  from  the  tribe  of  Judah  and 
the  family  of  David.  Possibly  in  the  Jewish  language 
of  2  Ki.  xviii.  2S,  we  may  discover  the  trace  of  some 
such  difference  of  dialect;  as  we  can  scarcely  suppose 
the  name  Jewish  to  have  been  introduced  in  the  very 
brief  period  which  intervened  between  the  taking  of 
Samaria  and  the  transaction  in  the  record  of  which  it 
occurs;  and,  if  in  use  het'ore  the  taking  of  Samaria  arid 
the  captivity  of  the  ten  tribes,  it  must  have  been  re 
stricted  to  the  form  of  the  Hebrew  language  prevailing 
in  Judea,  which,  being  thus  distinguished  in  name  from 
the  language  of  the  northern  tribes,  was  probably  dis 
tinguished  in  other  respects  also.  It  is  not  improbable  | 
that  some  of  the  linguistic  peculiarities  of  the  separate  ! 
books  of  Scripture  are  to  be  accounted  for  on  this  hypo 
thesis. 

3.  When  the  Hebrew  Language  ceased  to  be  a  living 
lan'/uur/e.  — The  Jewish  tradition  is  to  the  etfect  that  the 
Hebrew  language  ceased  to  be  spoken  by  the  body  of 
the  people  during  their  captivity  in  Babylon ;  and  this  is 
the  opinion  of  many  Christian  scholars  also.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Hebrew  was  never  spoken  in 
•its  purity  after  the  return  from  captivity;  but  that  it 
ceased  altogether  to  be  the  language  of  the  people  after 
that  period,  and  was  retained  only  as  the  language  of 
books  and  of  the  learned,  lias  not  been  established. 
The  principal  evidence  relied  on  by  those  who  hold  this 
opinion  is  derived  from  Ne.  viii.  8:  "So  they  read  in 
the  book,  in  the  law  of  God,  distinctly,  and  gave  the 
sense,  and  caused  them  to  understand  the  reading." 
Distinctly,  v^'S3?2  (m'phorash),  i.e.  says  Hengstenberg, 

T    : 

'•'  with  the  addition  of  a  translation  "  ((ienuinene.s.s  of  Daniel, 
cli.  iii.sect.  6).  But  though  this  gloss  has  some  support  in 
Jewish  tradition,  it  is  at  variance  both  with  Hebrew 
and  with  Chaldee  usage.  £;S;)tt  (m'phorash),  means  made 

T    : 

clear  or  distinct,  as  is  evident  from  Nu.  xv.  34  (the  mean 
ing  of  viH5C>  wpharesh,  in  Ezr.  iv.  18  is  disputed);  and 

••  T  : 

'«lH2Q  IXlp'l  (ruj/ikru  trfphorash),  can  scarcely  be  other- 

T    : 

wise  rendered  than  "they  read  distinctly"  (sec  the  Lexi 
cons  of  Cocceiiis,  Gesonius,  and  Flirst;  Buxtovf  and  Gussctius  rendei- 
by  explanate,  explicate.)  This,  indeed,  is  evident  from  the 
context;  for  if  we  should  render  with  Hengstenberg, 
"  they  read  with  the  addition  of  ei  translation,"  to  what 
purpose  the  clause  which  follows,  "and  gave  the  sense,'' 
&c.?  At  the  same  time,  though  this  passage  does  not 
furnish  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  that  in  the  time  of 
Nehemiah  Hebrew  had  ceased  to  be  the  language  of 
everyday  life,  it  does  seem  to  point  to  the  conclusion 
that  at  that  time  it  had  considerably  degenerated  from 
its  ancient  purity,  so  that  the  common  people  had  some 
difficulty  in  understanding  the  language  of  their  ancient 
sacred  books.  Still  we  believe  that  the  Hebrew  element 
predominated,  and  instead  of  describing,  with  Walton 
(Prologom.  iii.  sect.  24),  the  language  of  the  Jews  on  their 
return  from  exile  as  "  Chaldee  with  a  certain  admixture 
of  Hebrew,'1''  we  should  rather  describe  it  as  Hebrew 
with  a  large  admixture  of  Chaldee.  Only  on  this  hypo 
thesis  does  it  appear  possible  satisfactorily  to  account 
for  the  fact  that  Hebrew  continued  even  after  this 
period  to  be  the  language  of  prophets  and  preachers, 


historians  and  poets,  whilst  there  is  no  trace  of  any 
similar  use  of  the  Chaldee  among  the  Jews  of  Palestine 
(couip.  also  Ne.  xiii.  21). 

At  what  time  Chaldee  became  the  dominant  element 
in  the  national  language  it  is  impossible  to  determine. 
All  political  influences  favoured  its  ascendency;  and 
with  these  concurred  the  influence  of  that  lar»'e  portion 
of  the  nation  still  resident  in  the  East,  and  maintaining 
constant  intercourse  with  a  Chaldee- speaking  popula 
tion.  To  these  influences  we  cannot  wonder  that  the 
Hebrew,  notwithstanding  the  sacred  associations  con 
nected  with  it,  by  and  by  succumbed.  On  the  coins  of 
the  Maccabees,  indeed,  the  ancient  language  still  ap 
pears;  but  we  cannot  conclude  from  this  circumstance 
that  it  maintained  its  position  as  a  living  language  down 

to  the  Maccabeail  period  (Ren*n,  Laugues  Semitiques,  p.  l.'Jr). 
The  fragments  of  the  popular  language  which  we  find 
in  the  New  Testament  are  all  Aramean;  and  ever  since 
the  Hebrew  has  been  preserved  and  cultivated  as  the 
language  of  the  learned  and  of  books,  and  not  of  common 
life.  On  the  history  of  the  post- biblical  Hebrew  we  do 
not  now  enter. 

III.  Of  the  Written  Jlebrew. — The  Semitic  nations 
have  been  the  teachers  of  the  world  in  religion;  by  the, 
invention  of  the  alphabet  they  may  likewise  lay  claim 
to  the  honour  of  having  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
world's  literature. 

The  Semitic  alphabet,  as  is  well  known,  has  110  signs 
for  the  pure  vowel  sounds.  All  the  letters  are  conson 
ants;  some,  however,  are  si)  weak  as  easily  to  pass  into 
vowels,  and  these  letters  we  accordingly  find  in  use, 
especially  in  the  later  Scriptures,  as  vowel  marks. 

Two  interesting  questions  here  present  themselves : 
1 .  As  to  the  age  and  origin  of  the  characters  or  letters 
which  appear  in  all  extant  Hebrew  MSS.  and  in  our 
printed  Hebrew  Bibles;  and  2.  As  to  the  origin  and 
authority  of  the  punctuation  by  which  the  vowel  sounds 
are  indicated. 

1 .  On  the  former  of  these  questions  there  are  two 
conclusions  which  may  be  relied  on  as  certain:  (1.)  That 
the  present  square  characters  were  not  in  use  among 
the  Jews  previous  to  the  Babylonish  captivity.  The 
Jewish  tradition  is  that  they  were  introduced  or  reintro- 

duced    by    Ezra    (Gesonius,  Gescliichte,  p.  150;  Lightfoot,  Ilono 

Hebraicse,  Mat.  v.  is).  (2.)  That  the  square  characters  have 
been  in  use  since  the  beginning  of  our  era  (llupfeld  in 
Stud,  und  Kilt,  for  1830,  p.  2ss).  But  between  these  t\vo 
limits  several  centuries  intervene;  is  it  not  possible  to 
approximate  more  closely  to  the  date  of  their  introduc 
tion  ?  The  only  fact  to  which  appeal  can  be  made  with 
this  view  is  this — that  on  the  coins  of  the  Maccabees 
the  square  characters  do  not  appear;  but  whether  we 
are  entitled  to  conclude  from  this  that  these  characters 
had  not  then  come  into  use  in  Judea  is  very  doubtful 
(Gesenius,  Geschiehte,  sect,  xliii.  3).  The  probability  is  that 
the  introduction  of  these  characters,  caUed  by  the  Jew 
ish  doctors  Assyrian,  and  generally  admitted  to  be  of 
Aramean  origin,  had  some  connection  with  the  intro 
duction  of  the  Aramean  language,  and  that  the  change 
from  the  ancient  written  characters,  like  that  from  the 
ancient  language,  was  not  accomplished  at  once,  but 
gradually.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  intensity  of  national 
feeling  awakened  during  the  Maccabean  struggle,  there 
was  a  reaction  in  favour  of  the  ancient  language  and 
writing. 

The  characters  in  use  before  the  Babylonish  exile 
have  been  preserved  by  the  Samaritans  even  to  the 


HEBREWS  71' 

present  day  without  material  change  (Gesenius,  Momini. 
Phoen.  sect.  Ii.  1;  comp.  on  this  subject  also  Kopp,  Bilder  und  Schrif- 
ten,  ii.  sect.  Hi.>-lG7;  Ewald,  Lehrbuch,  sect.  Ixxvii.;  Gesenius,  Ge- 
schichte  der  Hebriiischen  Sprache  und  Schrift,  sect.  41-43;  Winer, 
Reahvurterbuch,  ii.  420-424). 

2.  Ats  to  the  oi'ii/in  and  authority  of  the  punctuation, 
the  controversy  which  raged  so  fiercely  in  the  seven 
teenth  century  may  be  said  now  to  have  ceased:  and 
the  views  of  Ludovicus  Cappellus,  from  the  adoption 
of  which  the  Buxtorfs  anticipated  the  most  dangerous 
consequences  (pessimas  et  periculosas  consequential, 
now  meet  with  almost  universal  acquiescence.  The 
two  following  conclusions  may  now  be  regarded  as 
established:  (1.)  That  the  present  punctuation  eliel  not 
form  an  original  part  e>f  the  inspired  record,  but  was 
introduced  by  the  Jewish  doctors  long  after  that  reconl 
had  been  closed,  feir  the  purpose  of  preserving,  so  far 
as  possible,  the  true  pronunciation  of  the  lan^uacv:  anel 
Cl.}  That  thej  present  pointed  te-xt,  notwithstanding  its 
comparative  recency,  presents  us  with  the  closest  pos 
sible  approximation  te>  the-  language  which  the  sac-re-. 1 
writers  actually  used.  it  would  be  tedious  to  LIO  over 
the  evidence  by  which  these  positions  are-  established. 
Those  who  wish  to  do  so  will  find  the  fullest  informa 
tion  in  the  great  work  of  Ludovicus  Cappellus,  entitle. 1 
Arrui/uiH  J'mirtatloiii*  Hi  n  l,il,i,,i.  with  the  reply  of  tin' 
yoiniLrer  Buxtorf:  compare  also  HuptVld  in  the  N/W/. /( 
nuil  KritiL-tii  for  l.v.u,  p.  .",4:1.  ,v,-.  Keeping  these'  con 
clusions  in  view  in  inte-rpivtin-_r  the-  Ib-bt-e-w  Scriptures, 
we  shall  be  careful  neither  on  the  one  hand  to  ne^l.-et 
the  traditional  text,  nor  on  the'  other  hainl  servilely  to 
adhere  to  it.  when  a  c-han-jv  of  the-  points  would  irive  a 
better  sense  to  any  passage-. 

[The  aids  to  the  study  of  the  ll.-l.i-.-w  language  and  Seri] 
are    numc'i-eius.      The   principal    an',    r'urst's   ''-/,.-.,, -,i. ,,„-._  \\lii.-h 
em-lit,  tu  lie-  in  the  hands  eil   e\c-|-y  student;   ( i.-Mtniu-1    TlieSKi'.rtU 
Lu,i/,'."  //t6,-u.<!,  completed  In  Uodiger,  and  also  his 
and    GcfckkM.    c/.<-  It,lj,-aitv1un    S,,r,,rl.,    >',.,/   .-,-/,, -,>V.       The    best 
I  lelirew  -raniinar  is  Kwald's,  mie  "f  tlie-  .-ai-li.-i-  editions  .if  \vhi.-li 
I,:,     '..-en  translated  liy  Dr.  Niche. 1-mi.     On  th.-  Semitic-  lair/ua-.-i-s 
in    general.     I!"II.-IM.     //-•/..•     ',,   ,     nl,     ,'    > 
Laniiais  .<<•>//.'•.  ,•-..-•,  aud  Walton's  /'-....,-.... c.j         I  ii.  H.  w.j 

HEBREWS.  EPISTLE  TO  THE.  One  ,,f  th.- 
1'iii-j-i-st  ami  most  didactic  compositions  of  'n<  das-  in 
tlie  Xew  Testament:  and  in  these  respects  most  rese-m- 
bl ing  the  epistle  to  the  Roman-.  We  commence  with 
some'  observations  upon  its 

C.VNON'K-ITV.         "That    the'    epi-tle     to     tile      Hebrews." 

writes  Bleek.  in  the  learned  ami  ireiierally  camlid  intro 
duction  to  his  ('niniiifiititri/.  "if  it  be-  the'  production  of 
the  apostle  Paul,  possesses  canonical  authority  admits 
of  no  doubt,"  (p.  i:;;).  And  he-  proceeds  in  the  attempt 
to  prove  that  in  the  ancient  church  it  was  only  wlieiv 
St.  Paul  was  regarded  as  the  author  that  the  canon 
icity  of  the  epistle  was  acknowledged.  The  learned 
commentator  appears  to  us  to  be'  wholly  mistaken  in 
this  view,  and  to  have  confounded  twe>  distinct  ques 
tions,  the  authorship  and  the  inspiration  of  the  epistle. 
An  intfiirtd  writing  necessarily,  in  e>ur  opinion,  forms 
part  of  the  canon,  so  that  inspiration  and  canonicity 
may  be  considered  synonymous  terms:  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  every  epistle  of  an  apostle  was  written 
under  the  influence  of  inspiration.  Can  we  suppose 
that  St.  Paul,  in  the  course  eif  his  long  and  active 
ministry,  wrote  only  the  femrteen  which  have  been 
preserved  in  the  canonical  Scriptures?  What  luus 
become  of  the  rest,  c.;/.  the  lost  epistle  to  the  Corin 
thians,  of  which  he  himself  makes  mention  ?  i  Co.  v.  9 ; 


HKP.KKWS 


for  it  is  most  difficult  to  interpret  the  passage  other 
wise  than  as  an  allusion  to  one  of  his  epistles  no 
longer  extant.  Can  wo  suppose  that  if  all  the  writ 
ings  of  the  apostles  were  also  necessarily  inspired  ones, 
the  divine  Ruler  of  the  church  would  have  per 
mitted  such  an  irreparable  loss  as  must  actual! v  have 
taken  place  '.  The  question  is  a  difficult  one,  for  no 
doubt  it  might  be  maintained  that  the  lost  inspired  writ 
ings  contained  nothing  further,  nothing  more  necessary, 
i  than  those  which  have  been  preserved  :  but  to  us  it  has 
!  always  appeared  the  preferable  supposition  that,  while 
the  great  mass  of  the  apostolic  compositions  (and  the 
same  holds  good  of  those  of  the  fellow- helpers  of  the 
apostles,  Luke.  .Mark,  ,<cc.)  were  not  directly  dictated 
by  the  Spirit  of  God.  and  therefore  were  permitted  to 
fall  into  oblivion,  these  chosen  organs  of  the  Spirit 
at  ''crt'.i!/i  time,-*,  and  upon  <;-i-tn'ni  xnl>jn-tf,  did  receive 
a  special  commission  to  write;  that  they  were  conscious 
of  the  supernatural  impulse,  and  able  to  distinguish  it 
from  their  ordinary  teaehiii'_r:  and  that  what  they  t/tu.-* 
wrote  has,  liy  the  superintending  providence  of  (lod. 
been  so  preserved  that  no  portion  of  it  has  been  lc 
The-  same  hold-  u'ood  of  their  oral  teaching, 
they  a/tciii/*,  when  thev  spoke,  nuclei-  that  spe 
spiratioii  which  our  Lord  promises,  jn.  xvi.  i:; 
which  thev  unquestionably  enjoyed  at,  certain  times, 
perhaps  upon  all  important  occasions!  The  question 
has  never  yet  been  suthcientlv  ventilated  in  connection 
with  that  of  the-  formation  of  the'  canon  of  Scripture: 
but  if  the  above  supposition  be  thought  well-grounded, 
it  remove's  many  of  the  difficulties  which  have-  been 
rai<e -d  upon  tin-  scantiness  of  the  evidence  as  to  the 

authorship  of  certain    1 ks    of  Scriptun'.      It   is   well 

known  that  in  respect  to  several  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  this  i-  \ery  doubtful:  and  to  this  day  it  re 
mains,  mid  unless  fresh  evidence  turns  up,  it  must  over 
remain,  a  question  whether  Si.  Paul  wrote  the  epistle 
to  the  Hebrews.  But  the  question  becomes  compara 
tively  immaterial  if  it  be  true  that  even  if  ho  was  the 
author,  this  alone  would  not  establish  its  canonicity; 
while,  on  the'  other  band,  the  doubts  which  exist  upon 
this  point  in  no  respect  de-tract  from  its  authority,  if 
only  it  is  capable  of  proof  that  from  the  first  it  was  on 
th>-  whole'  received  by  the'  church  as  an  inspired  com 
position.  Tin'  consequences  of  tin-  other  view,  which 
makes  canonicity  depend  upon  authorship,  are  seen  in 
the  theories  of  inspiration  wliieh  even  the  more  ortho 
dox  divines  of  (o-rmany.  who  for  the  most  part  adopt 
this  view,  such  as  Hleek  and  Tholuck  (in  their  com 
mentaries  upon  our  epistle),  and  Twesten  in  his  I ><></- 
/ixifl/c,  are  led  to  propound  :  or  rather  their  theories  of 
the  relative  value  of  particular  books;  the  writings  of 
Luke  and  Mark.  r.;/..  and  the  epistle'  to  the  Hebrews, 
being  supposed  of  a  lower  grade;  of  inspiration,  because 
the  authors  were  not,  or  it  is  uncertain  whether  they 
were,  apostles. 

In  our  view,  the  human  authorship,  though  an  impor 
tant,  is  not  the  decisive,  consideration  in  this  matter. 
We  believe  that  such  of  their  own  writings,  or  e>f  the 
writings  of  their  fellow- labourers,  as  were  inspired  by 
the  Spirit  of  (Joel,  and  so  were  intended  te>  be  e>f  pre- 
inanent  use  and  authority  in  the  church,  i.e.  to  form  the 
canon,  were  during  the  apostles'  lifetime  authenticated 
by  them,  arid  delivered  to  the  custody  of  the  church. 
And  thus  that  ecclesiastical  tradition  is,  and  always 
must  be,  the  first  moving  cause  towards  our  reception 
of  the  canon  as  it  stands.  Authorship,  or  internal 


HEBREWS 


718 


HEBREWS 


evidence,  important  as  either  is,  can  never  form  the 
primary  basis  ol'  our  faith.  Into  what  rash  conclusions 
Luther  was  led  by  the  contrary  hypothesis  is  known  to 
all. 

If  these  observations  are  well  founded,  very  much  of 
what  even  the  best  German  commentators  are  wont  to 
urge  upon  tin.'  iufi  rim-  position  of  the  epistle  to  the  lie- 
brews,  as  compared  with  the  undoubted  compositions  of 
St.  .I'aul,  becomes  irrelevant.  "Wo  do  not  subordinate 
the  gospels  of  St.  Mark  or  St.  Luke  to  those  of  St.  Mat 
thew  or  St.  John  because'  the  writer*  of  the  former 
Wi  re  not  apostles:  we  need  not  place  the  epistle  to  the 
Jlebrews  below  that  to  the  Komans  tiicrcly  because  the 
author  was  Luke  or  Apollos,  should  either  supposition 
prove  to  be  the  true  one.  The  Holy  Spirit  did  not 
confine  himself  to  apostles  in  selecting  the  organs  of  his 
special  inspiration. 

How  then  stands  the  evidence  of  antiquity  as  regards 
the  simple  question  of  the  canonical  authority  of  the 
epistle?  We  are  not  disposed  to  insist  upon  a  supposed 
.•illusion  in  2  Pe.  iii.  l.j.  in  which  the  writer  speaks  of 
the  approaching  day  of  the  Lord,  to  a  corresponding 
passaire  in  He.  x.  -I.");  and  to  draw  the  inference  which 
many  have  done  that  this  latter  must  be  the  epistle  in 
which  "our  beloved  brother  Paul  wrote"  concerning 
these  things.  Were  this  beyond  doubt,  it  would  of 
course  go  far  towards  establishing  not  only  the  author 
ship  but  the  canonicity  of  the  epistle.  Cut  the  allusion 
seems  too  vague  to  warrant  the  conclusion.  The  epis 
tles  to  the  Thessaloniaus  possess,  in  our  opinion,  a  prior 
claim  to  be  thought  those  which  St.  Peter  had  in  view. 
"We  pass  therefore  out  of  Scripture  into  the  field  of  un 
inspired  history.  And  here  fortunately  there  meets  us 
in  the  first  century  a  witness  of  unquestioned  authen 
ticity — Clement  of  liome — probably  the  "  fellow-la- 
bourer"  of  whom  St.  I'aul  makes  mention  in  Phi.  iv.  '.}. 
Clement's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  the  latest 
date  assigned  to  which  is  A.I).  (>(},  is  one  of  the  most 
valuable  and  important  relics  of  that  age;  at  one  time 
it  possessed  almost  canonical  estimation.  Now  there 
is  no  writing  of  the  canon  which,  in  thought  and  ex 
pression,  ('lenient  has  so  entirely  incorporated  in  his 
own  epistle  as  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  This  was 
subject  of  remark  in  ancient  times.  "  Clement,"  writes 
Eusebius  (E.  H.  iii.  38),  ''transfers  into  his  first  epistle 
many  of  the  ideas  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews;  and 
even  adopts  several  of  its  expressions."  In  Bleek's  or 
Stuart's  Commentary  parallel  tables  are  given  which 
amply  bear  out  the  historian's  observation.  It  is  true 
that  he  does  not  quote  the  epistle  as  a  work  of  St.  Paul's; 
it  is  not  his  custom  to  name  the  writers  of  the  books 
from  which  he  quotes.  His  epistle  is  full  of  citations 
from  St.  Paul's  epistles;  yet  he  only  once  alludes  to  him 
by  name,  viz.  in  connection  with  a  passage  from  1  Co. 
i.  12.  Now  the  question  is  not  whether  Clement  be 
lieved  the  writer  of  the  epistle  to  have  been  Paul, 
though  even  upon  this  point  it  is  not  without  weight 
that  he  cites  it  exactly  as  he  does  the  other  epistles  of 
the  apostle ;  but  whether  he  would  have  so  largely 
adapted  it  to  his  own  uses  if  he  had  not  regarded  it  as 
an  inspired  composition.  There  is  no  fact  more  re 
markable  than  the  abstinence  of  the  early  Christian 
writers  from  the  use  of  the  (Christian)  Apocryphal 
writings :  even  those  books  the  apostolical  origin  of 
which,  for  whatever  reason,  they  doubted,  are  seldom 
quoted  by  them;  as,  in  reference  to  our  epistle,  may  be 
been  in  the  instance  of  Tertullian  and  other  writers  of 


the  Latin  church.  Speaking  of  the  epistle  of  St.  James, 
Eusebius  (ii.  2;;),  after  mentioning  that  by  some  it  was 
thought  spurious,  adds,  "not  many,  at  least,  of  the 
ancients  quote  it;''  the  fact  being,  in  his  opinion,  evi 
dence  of  the  suspicion  which  they  entertained  respect 
ing  it.  If  so  ancient  and  conspicuous  a  writer  as 
( lenient  intersperses  his  principal  remaining  work  with 
copious  reminiscences  of  our  epistle,  in  what  light  must 
he  have  regarded  it '  We  may  go  further,  and  argue 
witli  Hug  (Einlc'it.  ii.  s.  479),  that  since  Clement  writes 
in  the  name  of  the  Roman  church,  he  furnishes  indirect 
proof  of  the  estimation  in  which,  at  thai  earl  if  pi  rim/, 
the  epistle  was  held  by  that  important  Christian  com 
munity. 

Allusions  to  our  epistle  are  faintly  traceable  in  the 
apostolical  fathers,  more  distinctly  in  Justin  Martyr; 
while  Ireiueus,  from  whatever  reason,  hardly  ever  cites 
it.1  Eleek  insists  much  upon  a  passage,  preserved  by 
Photius,  of  Stephanus  Gobaras,  a  tritheist  writer  of  the 
sixth  century,  in  which  both  Irenanis  and  Hippolytus 
are  said  to  have  held  that  the  epistle  is  not  one  of  Paul's; 
but  that  they  held  it  not  to  be  part  of  Scripture,  the 
point  now  before  us,  remains  to  be  proved. 

Throughout  the  whole  Eastern  church  the  epistle  was 
received  as  canonical.  It  is  found  in  the  Peshito  ver 
sion,  and  even  in  the  old  Latin  (A.I).  171'),  though  pro 
bably  in  the  latter  it  was  inserted  as  an  epistle  of  Bar 
nabas,  from  the  doubts  entertained  respecting  its  author. 
All  the  great  writers  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  com 
mencing  with  its  founder,  Pantaaius,  and  comprising 
the  distinguished  names  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus, 
Origen,  Dionysius,  and  Alexander,  place  it  upon  the 
same  level  as  the  other  writings  of  the  inspired  volume. 
Some  of  them,  indeed,  among  whom  Origeii  is  the  prin 
cipal,  take  notice  of  the  dilliculties  which  the  Pauline 
authorship  involves:  thus,  in  a  well-known  passage, 
[»•' -served  by  Eusebius  (E.  11.  vi.  •_>.->),  Origen  observes  that 
while  the  matter  of  the  epistle  is  in  every  respect  worthy 
of  the  apostle  Paul,  the  style  differs  from  that  of  his 
acknowledged  epistles;  whence  he  infers  that  po-sihly 
the  ideas  belong  to  Paul,  but  that  some  friend  or  fellow- 
labourer,  such  as  Clement  01  Luke,  actually  composed 
it.  Still  there  is  not  a  hint  of  its  inferiority,  on  that 
account,  to  the  other  books  of  Scripture.  Jn  all  the 
catalogues  of  the  Alexandrian  writers  the  epistle  occu 
pies  a  place. 

Eusebius,  our  principal  authority  upon  questions  of 
this  kind,  speaks  of  the  "fourteen  epistles  of  Paid  as 
well  known  to  all"  (E.  Il.iii. :;):  though  at  the  same  time 
he  mentions  the  scruples  which  individuals  (rise's)  en 
tertained  respecting  the  canonicity  of  that  to  the 
Hebrews,  on  account  of  the  hesitation  of  the  liomish 
church  to  admit  it.  For  himself  he  does  not  share  in 
these  doubts;  holding  it,  as  he  does,  to  be  ail  undoubted 
work  of  the  apostle.  Thenceforward  in  the  Eastern 
church  the  question  was  regarded  as  settled. 

The  result  of  the  whole  is  that  throughout  the  East, 
including  Egypt,  a  firm,  historical  tradition  existed 
from  the  first  in  favour  of  the  canonicity  of  the  epistle; 
though  here  and  there  particular  persons  seem  to  have 
called  it  in  question.  When,  however,  we  turn  to  the 
West,  a  very  different  state  of  things  is  found  to  pre 
vail.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  for  a  considerable  period 
the  Western  church  does  not  appear  to  have  shared  the 
conviction  of  the  Eastern.  The  chain  of  tradition  so 


1  According  to  Eusebius  (v.  20),  Ireii;eus  did  quote  the  epistle 
in  ii  work  now  lost,  entitled  /2/,3X;ov  2(«Aj{£«v  iiafoqav. 


HEBREWS 


710 


HEBREWS 


clearly  t'as  we  have  seen)  commenced  by  Clement,  was, 
for  some  reason  not  very  apparent,  interrupted  for 
.several  centuries.  Various  hypotheses  have  been  pro-  ' 
posed  to  account  for  the  fact;  but  none  of  them  very 
satisfactory.  The  most  plausible  is  that  of  AVetstein. 
afterwards  reasoned  out  with  great  acuteness  by  Hug. 
that  it  was  the  opposition  of  the  Roman  church  to  the  : 
Montaiiists  and  their  followers  the  Xovatians  that  first 
led  the  writers  of  that  communion  to  depreciate  the  au 
thority  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  These  sectaries, 
it  appears,  eagerly  availed  themselves  of  the  jiassage. 
Heb.  vi.  4-G,  in  support  of  their  severe  treatment  of 
the  lapsed.  Their  opponents,  unable  to  refute  their 
interpretation  of  the  jiassage.  adopted,  it  is  conceived, 
the  hazardous  expedient  of  undermining  the  canmiicity 
of  the  book  in  which  it  occurs.  Put  however  ingeni 
ous  this  theory  may  be,  it  is  hardly  credible  that  such 
an  extreme  measure  as  throwing  doubts  upon  an  ac 
knowledged  book  of  Scripture,  would  for  any  purpose 
be  resorted  to  by  the  writers  of  an  orthodox  com 
munion.  Jn  the  absence  of  any  better  solution,  we 
may  suppose  that,  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
the  intercourse  between  the  Latin  churches  and  tho-e 
of  the  East  becoming  more  or  less  interrupted,  the  tra 
ditions  .if  the  latter  passed  out  of  the  recollection  of 
the  former,  or  had  some  difficulty  in  propagating  them 
selves  beyond  their  original  seat.  How\.-r  it  may  be 
accounted  for,  the  fact  remains.  We  ha\e  already 
seen  that  Iivn.'eu-.  in  none  of  his  extant  remains, 
cites  our  epistle.  Tertullian  (A.I).  _ls>  may  be  regarded 
as  the  representative  of  ecclesiastical  opinion  in  Pro 
consular  Africa.  He  only  once  i  p,-.  I'u.i.  r.-jn)  alludes  to 
the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  then  cites  it  as  a  sub 
ordinate  authority,  is  r«l/n/<t<in/i't.  That  he  ascribes 
it  to  P.arnaba-  as  its  author  is  of  less  moment.  As  an 
additional  proof  of  his  opinion  resj>eetin'_r  it.  we  may 
remark  that,  charuinu'  the  heretic  Mareioii  with  reducing 
the  number  of  St.  Paul's  epistles  to  ten.  he  mentions 
the  three  pastoral  epistles  among  the  excluded  ones,  j 
but  not  the  ejii.-tle  to  the  Hebrews  (Adv.  Marc.  \  2o).  ! 
Towards  the  close  of  the  second  century,  Cains,  a 
Umnaii  piv-byter.  in  controversy  with  the  Montani-t 
I'm, -his.  admitted  only  thirteen  of  St.  Paul's  ojn-tle- 
( Kuscb.  vi.  t!0)  The  Muratori  fragment  of  about  tin- 
same  date  also  makes  the  number  thirteen,  adilinu'  two 
spurious  epistles  —one  to  the  Laodicean-,  the  other  to 
the  Alexandrians.  Neither  does  Cyprian  nor  N'ova- 
tian  (of  the  African  church  t  cite  the  epi-tle;  thouji 
the  jiassage  already  alluded  to.  H,-.  vi.  i-ii,  ottered  a 
temptation  to  them  to  do  so;  seeming,  as  it  does,  to 
favour  their  peculiar  sentiments  resjiectiiiu'  the  lapsed. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  writers  who  lived  a  century  ' 
later,  such  as  Phobadius,  a  Gallic:  bishop:  /eno,  bishop 
of  Verona;  Optatus;  and  tlie  author  of  the  commentary 
on  St.  "Paul's  epistles  inserted  in  the  works  of  Ambrose'. 
About  this  time  however,  i.e.  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century,  the  epistle  begins  to  recover  credit  with 
the  Latin  writers.  Hilary  (A. P.  -JUS),  Ambrose. 
Philastrius,  Gaudentius.  and  others,  cite  it  as  Scrijv 
ture.  The  Latin  church  seems  to  have  been  led  finally 
to  abandon  its  scruples  by  the  weighty  authority  of  its 
great  leaders,  Jerome  and  Augustine.  The  former,  in 
his  epistle  to  Dardanus,  thus  expresses  himself:  "This  j 
must  be  said  to  our  communion"  (the  Latins),  "that  ' 
the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  received  as  an  epistle  of 
St.  Paul,  not  only  by  the  churches  of  the  East,  but  by 
all  the  Greek  writers,  though  most  think  it  the  work 


of  Clement  or  Barnabas"  (in  its  actual  composition 
Jerome  must  mean;  vet  even  in  this  sense  it  is  difficult 
to  explain  the  term  i>h  rt'/itc  which  he  uses.)  "Further 
more,  Unit  it  if<  (/'  IK'*  i'ii/i.-n-i/>i(i/i'i'  n'ho  t/ie  author  icaf, 
siiicc  the  l>f«>k  i.<  (/'/////  /•(«</"  (as  Scripture)  "  iii  tlif 
c/<»/'iA(.s.  But  if  the  Latins  do  not  reckon  it  among 
the  canonical  Scriptures,  the  Creeks  on  the  other  hand 
reject  the  Apocalypse'  of  St.  John.  We  nevertheless 
receive  both, /O//OUVH// «uf  umdn-n  i'nxf<>in,  /n>t  the  UK- 
thorltii  of  the  >.>lil  H'ritir*.  who  cite  both  as  canonical 
books. "  Accordingly,  he  makes  frequent  use  of  it. 
Augustine  follows  in  the  steps  of  Jerome.  In  a  well- 
known  jiassage  (  PC  Uuc.  Christian,  ii.  12, 1:0  he  enumerates 
the  canonical  books,  and  among  those  of  the  New 
Testament  reckons  fcnrtnn  epistles  of  St.  Paul.  The 
fifth  Carthaginian  synod  \\.ii.  -HIM,  at  which  Augustine 
was  pn  sent,  in  its  canon  formally  adopts  this  number, 
and  thenceforward  there  seems  to  have  been  no  dif 
ference  of  opinion  upon  the  subject.  How  far  the 
decision  of  this  svimd  mav  have  influenced  the  Uoman 
church  is  uncertain:  but  in  an  epi-tle  of  innocent  I. 

(A.I),    -I"-"'!     to     ExMlperillS.     bi-hojl    i  if    Tolollse.     fourteen 

epistles  are  ascribed  to  St.  Paid:  from  \\hieh  it  may 
be  inferred  that  either  the  conclusions  of  tin-  African 

synods,  or  the  authority  of  Jen had   materially  in- 

tiu'-nced  opinion  in  the  metropolis  of  Christendom. 
Traces  of  the  old  doubts  are  found  as  late  as  the  seventh 
century,  but  after  that  time  they  disappear. 

The  ([Uestioii,  thus  -et  at  rest,  slumbered  until  the 
dawn  of  the  Information,  when  a  Uomish  theologian, 
(  'ardinal  ( 'a  jet  an.  was  the  lirst.  to  revive  it.  He  not  only 
disputed  the  received  opinion  as  to  the  authorship  of  the 
epi>tle.  but  pronounced  it  unworthy  of  an  apostle;  so 
that,  he  was  not  unreasonably  charged  with  disparag 
ing  its  canonieitv.  I  n  the  former,  but  not  in  the  latter, 
particular  lie  was  followed  bv  Erasmus.  All  discus 
sion  however  nil  the  part  of  Uomish  theologians  was 
speedily  cut  short  by  the  decisions  of  the  Council  of 
Trent,  which  inserts  the  epi.-tle  among  tlie  canonical 
books  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  Lutheran  churche-.  or  at  least  writers,  for  a 
considerable  time  seem  to  have  been  influenced  by  the 
ureat  Ut •former's  precipitate  conclusions  respecting  the 
canon  of  Scripture.  in  his  edition  of  the  New  Testa 
ment  Luther  divided  tlie  books  into  two  classes,  "tlie 
-•c •inline  principal  book-,"  and  those  "of  inferior 
authority."  The  latter  ela.-s  comprised  the  epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  tho-e  of  James  and  .hide,  and  the  Apo- 
calyp>e  :  these  t  hen-fore  he  placed  after  the  rest.  Some 
of  the  writer-  of  this  communion,  such  as  ( 'hemnitz  and 
Schroder,  go  so  far  as  to  call  these  books  "apocry 
phal,"  in  the  same  sense  in  which  Jerome  speaks  of 
the  corresponding  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  fit 
"for  example  of  life,"  but  not  for  the  "establishing  of 
doctrine."  About  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
turv  this  mode  of  speaking  begins  to  be  discouraged. 
The  great  John  Gerhard  (Hi-Jo)  disapproves  of  the  term 
apocryphal,  as  applied  to  these  books;  and  properly 
observes  that  the  doubts  of  the  early  church  related 
rather  to  the  human  composer  uuictor  secondarius)  than 
to  their  canonical  authority:  and  that  with  the  same 
justice  the  book  of  Judges,  the  author  of  which  is  un 
known,  might  be  termed  apocryphal.  He  therefore, 
for  his  part,  prefers  the  title  Deuteroeanonici  —a  word, 
we  cannot  but  think,  of  ill  sound  (suuhisKxcg.  Art.  <loScrij>. 
Sao.)  We  see  no  middle  position  between  a  book's  being 
canonical  or  not  being  so.  He  did  not  succeed  in  estab- 


HEBREWS 


HEBREWS 


lishing  tins  theological  term;  and  before  the  close  of  the 
century,  nil  our  present  books  came  to  be  received  by 
the  Lutheran  church  as  of  equal  authority. 

In  tin-  reformed  branch  of  the  Protestant  community 
the  same  decision  was  arrived,  at  much  earlier.  "  \\  hat 
avails  it."  writes  P.eza  (N.  T.  p. :;:;.">),  "to  dispute  concern- 
i  in;'  the  name  of  the  author,  which  lie  himself  wished 
concealed  '•  Let  it  suffice  that  the  epistle  \vas  truly 
dictated  by  the  .Holy  Sjiirit." 

\\'e    mav    say.    then,    that    at    present    all    Christian 

• 

churches  ai-e  unanimous  in  their  reception  of  our  epistle  i 
into  the  canon.     The  controversies  of  modern  times 
lia\e  turned  not  so  much  upon  the  canonieity  as  the 
authorship  of  the  epistle:   the  next  point  which  comes 
to  be  considered. 

AUTiioK.-jilii'.  This,  as  has  been  already  intimated, 
is  not,  in  our  view,  a  point  of  equal  importance  with  the 
former.  Still  it  is  one  of  great  interest,  and  according 
as  it  is  decided  it  lends  a  strong  confirmation,  or  the 
reverse,  to  the  conclusions  just  established.  Bv  far  the 
largest  part  of  modern  Introductions  is  taken  up  with 
its  discussion;  the  questions  of  canonieity  and  author 
ship  being  for  the  most  part  confounded.  The  evidence 
to  be  considered  is  partly  external,  and  partly  internal. 

L.ttn-niil  cr'nd.iK'i'. — The  case  may  be  thus  stated:  all 
ancient  writers  v\ho  ascribe  the  epistle  to  St.  ,1'aul  hold 
it  to  be  canonical:  but  not  all  who  place  it  among  the 
acknowledged  books  of  Scripture  deem  it  a  work  of  the 
apostle,  or,  at  any  rate,  his  own  composition.  Clement 
of  Home,  as  we  have  seen,  though  evidently  ranking  it 
with  the  other  epistles  of  Paul,  nowhere  expressly 
names  him  as  the  author.  \Ve  revert  then  to  the  Alex 
andrian  church.  Pantsenus,  A.D.  180,  Clement,  and 
Origeii  entertain  110  doubt  of  Paul's  being  directly  or 
remote! v  the  author;  nevertheless  each  of  these  fathers, 
particularly  the  last  named,  notices,  as  differing  from 
St.  Paul's  manner,  the  anonymous  character  of  the 
epistle  and  its  style.  The  solution  of  Panta:nus  is,  that 
Paul  does  not  describe  himself  as  an  apostle  to  the 
Hebrews,  partly  out  of  reverence  to  our  Lord,  the  true 
''minister  of  the  circumcision.1'  and  partly  because  pro 
perly  he  was  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles;  that  of  (-'lenient, 
that  the  epistle  was  originally  written  in  Hebrew,  and 
afterwards  translated  by  Luke,  whence  the  similarity 
between  its  style  and  that  of  the  book  of  Acts.  Clement 
further  argues  that  Paul  did  not  affix  his  name  to  it, 
because,  being  obnoxious  to  the  Hebrews,  it  might  have 
prevented  their  perusal  of  it  (Euscb.  vi.  c.  it).  Origeii 
speaks  more  fully.  His  opinion  is  that  the  language  of 
the  epistle  belongs  to  some  one  expounding  the  apostle's 
sentiments.  "If  any  church  therefore  hold  it  to  lie  a 
production  of  Paul,  let  it  on  this  account  receive  com 
mendation;  for  not  without  reason  have  the  ancients 
handed  it  down  as  an  epistle  of  Paul.  Who  the  amanu 
ensis  (6  ypd\j/as)  was,  God  knows;  some  say  Luke, 
others  Clement"  (Eusob.  E.  II.  vi.  2.3).  The  important 
question  here  is,  Are  these  explanatory  suggestions  of 
the  nature  of  a  defence  against  a  tradition  or  a  party 
which  denied  the  Pauline  authorship  ?  Do  they  imply 
an  historical  line  of  testimony  on  that  side  of  the  ques 
tion  ]  Such,  in  fact,  is  the  use  made  of  them  by  Eich- 
horn,  Bertholdt,  and  even  the  more  impartial  Bleek. 
These  critics  infer  from  the  observations  of  Origen,  &c., 
that,  at  that  time  at  least,  there  was  a  body  of  opinion 
in  the  Alexandrian  church  adverse  to  the  received  tra 
dition.  In  our  opinion  they  have  signally  failed  in  their 
inference.  It  seems  very  evident  that  one  and  all  of 


these  ancient  writers  are  merely  stating  difficulties  sug 
gested  to  their  own  minds  by  the  peculiarities  of  the 
epistle — difficulties  very  probably  shared  by  many  of 
their  contemporaries — while,  at  the  same  time,  they 
felt  that  they  could  not  contend  against  the  authentic 
tradition  of  the  churches.  They  entertain  their  private 
conjectures  in  attempting  to  account  for  these  pecu 
liarities;  but  they  let  fall  no  hint  of  an  adverse  tradition. 
On  the  contrary.  Origen  expressly  admits  that  "the 
ancients"  handed  down  the  epistle  as  one  of  Paul's — 
referring,  not  surely,  as  llleek  would  have  it,  to  Clement 
or  PanUenus,  the  contemporaries  of  his  youth,  but  to 
writers  or  authorities  of  much  earlier  date.  As  Origen 
was  born  A.D.  .1  ,v"i.  his  '•ancients"  must  have  been  the 
contemporaries  or  immediate  successors  of  the  a  post  leu. 
After  Origcn,  the  Alexandrian  church  exhibits  no  dif 
ference  of  opinion  upon  this  point. 

Of  the  other  branches  of  the  Kastern  church  the 
extant  testimony  is  more  scanty,  until  we  arrive  at 
Kusobius.  Lardner,  however,  discovers  a  probable 
allusion  to  He.  xii.  1  in  Methodius  (A.I).  •JHU),  Bishop 
of  Olympus,  in  Lycia,  involving  also  the  apostolic 
authorship  of  the  epistle.  And  an  explicit  testimony 
to  this  effect  exists  in  the  address  of  the  svnod  assem 
bled  at  Antioch  to  Paul  of  Samosata.  in  which  He.  xi. 
'2(J  is  quoted  as  from  the  same  hand  as  1  Co.  x.  4  (Mansi 
Collect.  Council,  t.  i.  p.  Ki.'j>).  Of  Eusebius  we  have  already 
spoken.  From  the  remarks  occurring  in  various  parts 
of  his  works  we  gather  that,  even  in  the  East,  there  were 
persons  (not  churches  or  parties)  who  doubted  whether 
the  epistle  be  Paul's,  and  who,  in  support  of  their  hesi 
tation,  appealed  to  the  Roman  church;  but  that  his 
own  opinion  was  decisive,  in  favour  of  the  common  tra 
dition :  "fourteen  epistles  are  clearly  and  certainly 
Paul's"'  (}.  iii.  c.  :i.)  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  those  who 
entertained  doubts  upon  the  point  were  compelled  to 
fortify  themselves  by  the  judgment  of  the  Roman  church, 
evidently  in  the  lack  of  an  orkntal  tradition  in  their 
favour.  Writers  subsequent  to  Eusebius  need  not  be 
quoted;  they  all  ascribe  the  epistle  to  Paul. 

In  the  Western  church  the  temporary  rejection 
of  the  epistle  from  the  canon  necessarily  involved  a 
denial  of  its  apostolic  origin.  Irenoeus,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  said  by  Gobar  to  have  declared  the  epistle  not 
to  be  one  of  Paul's;  and  it  is  very  probable  that  the 
unfavourable  judgment  of  this  influential  father  was 
the  primary  source  of  the  doubts  entertained  for  a  long 
time  by  the  Latins.  Tertullian  ascribed  the  epistle  to 
Barnabas.  Jerome  and  Augustine  transplanted  the 
eastern  tradition  to  the  West;  and  there,  too,  it  even 
tually  took  firm  root. 

Upon  a  review  of  the  whole,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  external  evidence  vastly  preponderates  in 
favour  of  the  Pauline  authorship.  On  the  one  hand 
we  have  the  almost  unanimous  testimony  of  the  Eastern 
churches,  who  must  lie  supposed  the  best  authority 
upon  the  subject:  on  the  other  we  have  the  dissent 
of  churches  remote  from  those  to  which  the  epistle  was 
originally  addressed — dissent  which  seems  to  have  had 
no  solid,  i.e.  historical  basis,  and  which,  in  fact,  pre 
vailed  but  for  a  time.  The  German  critics  for  the  most 
part  appear  to  us  to  have  greatly  understated  the  force 
of  the  historical  evidence. 

Internal  evidence. — Under  this  head  the  difficulties 
are  unquestionably  greater,  anil  the  questions  that 
arise  more  numerous. 

So  far  as  the  epistle   itself   betrays  its  author,   the 


HEBREWS  / 

evidence  on  either  side  is  nearly  balanced.  The  closing 
verses  agree  well  with  the  supposition  that  St.  Paul 
wrote  the  epistle  at  the  close  of  his  first  captivity  at 
Rome.  The  author  seems  deprived  of  liberty,  ch.  xiii.  in; 
he  hopes  to  be  speedily  restored  to  it;  he  mentions 
Timothy  as  his  companion  and  (apparently)  sometime 
fellow- prisoner ;  he  sends  salutations  from  "them  of 

Italy,"  ver.  2:;,  24.  (Compare  I'll.  ii.  l;»,2i;  I'liile.  22.)  Whether 
with  .some  we  take  the  word  aTro\(\v/ji€i>ov,  ver.  2.;,  to 
signify  "sent  on  a  journey."  or  with  the  majority  of 
critics,  "freed  from  captivity,"  is  immaterial:  either 
event  may  have  happened  to  Timothy.  That  no  men 
tion  is  found  in  the  book  of  Acts  of  such  a  captivity  of 
Timothy  does  not  prove  that  it  may  not  have  occurred. 
To  whom  but  the  great  apostle  do  these  various  cir 
cumstances  point  •  No  one  else  so  likely  meets  us  in 
the  inspired  history.  Is  it  probabli-.  we  may  also  ask. 
that  during  St.  Paul's  lifetime  Timothy  would  be  found 
in  such  close  connection  with  any  other  ap".-tolic 
teacher!  The  improbability  of  this  latter  circumstance 
has  led  Bertholdt  to  the  ungrounded  hypothesis  that 
the  Timothy  here  mentioned  must  be  a  different  person 
from  the  well-known  fellow-labourer  of  the  apostle. 
With  respect  to  the  expression  in  ver.  24,  oi  airo  rv;s 
IraXias,  modern  criticism  has  reversed  the  opinion  of 
tin-  elder  interpreters  that  it  may  be  a  periphrasis  for 

01  'IraXoi:  and  certainly  tin/  more  probable  meaning  is. 
fugitives  or  travellers  from    Italy,  which  would  imply 
that   tlif  \\nti-r  \sas  at   the   time   not  in  that   country: 
still  the  explanation  of    llu^r  and  Storr  is  quite  tenable 

"persons  from  various  parts  of  Italy  then  present  at 
Kome." 

On  the  other  hand,  from  early  times  ch.  ii.  '•'<  has 
been  a  stumbling- block  in  the  way  of  those  who  suppose 
Paul  to  have  been  the  author.  Nothing  is  more  charac 
teristic  of  the  apostle  than  his  references  to  the  direct 
revelation  of  Christ  as  the  source  of  his  mission  and  his 
( 'hristian  knowledge  (seciu.  i.  i,  ii,Ki;2Co.  ii.  ;-•):  yet  here  the 
writer  seems  to  imply  that  he  had  been  instructed  at 
second-hand  "by  those  who  heard"  the  Lord.  Eutha- 
lius.  Theophylaet,  and  (Ecumenius  in  ancient  times, 
Luther  and  Calvin  in  more  modern,  have—  especially 
the  two  reformers — considered  this  as  almost  decisive 
against  the  claims  of  Paul.  Still,  it  may  be  replied, 
that  under  the  term  "  u>"  the  writer  does  not  intend  to 
include  himself  or  not  necessarily  so:  but  employs 
the  rhetorical  figure  dvaKoivuvts  (consociation),  as  in 
the  passages:  "knowing  the  time,  that  now  it  is  high 
time  for  us  to  awake  out  of  sleep,"  u...  xiii.  11,  "neither 
let  us  commit  fornication,  as  some  of  them  committed," 

2  Co.  x.  s;  having  in   his  eye  rather  those  to  whom  he 
writes  than  himself. 

The  wiitiiiH.ittx  of  the  epistle  are  entirely  such  as  we 
should  expect  from  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  This 
is  conceded  by  the  strongest  opponents  of  the  Pauline 
authorship.  Origen  pronounces  the  vorjfj.aTa  (thoughts) 
to  be  those  of  Paul,  whatever  peculiarities  he  discovers 
in  the  style.  The  following  are  some  of  the  points  of 
resemblance  in  the  matter  of  doctrine  between  the 
acknowledged  epistles  of  Paul  and  that  to  the  Hebrews: 

1.  The  representation  of  Christ  as  the  image  (t-iK<ai>)  of 
God,  and  the  actual  agent  in  the  creation  and  uphold 
ing   of    the    universe,    He.  i.  2,  3;    comp.  Col.  i.  ir,-17;  2 Co.  if.  4. 

2.  The  humiliation  of  Christ,  and  his  consequent  exalta 
tion,  He.  ii.  4-9;  comp.  Phi.  ii.s,;i.     o.  Christ  has  abolished 
death  and  its  consequences,  He.  ii.  11,  i:,;  comp  i  Co.  xv.  20, 54. 
4.  The  death  of  Christ  is  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  for  the 

Vol.  I. 


HEBREWS 

sins  of  the  world,  and  this  sacrifice  is  not  to  be  repeated, 
lie.  ix.  20, 28;  comp.  Ilo.  vi.  o,  10.  5.  Christ  is  the  one  medi 
ator  between  Cod  and  man— -our  great  "  High- priest," 

;  He.  ix.  x.;  conip.  Ep.ii.  is;  ito.  \iii.  :ii.     (j.  Christ  reigns  at  the 

J  right  hand  of  Cod,  until  all  his  enemies  be  subdued, 
lie.  x.  12,  iu;  comp.  i  c<>.  xv.2j.  7.  He  will  come  again  to 

I  judgment.  He.  x. 27, 28;  comp.  2 Co.  v.  10;  ITh.  iv.  10-18.  8.  The 
relation  of  the  old  to  the  new  dispensation  is  that  of 
body  to  spirit,  shadow  to  substance,  lie.  vii.  l.j-1'j;  ix.  y-14; 
viiL 8-13;  comp.  Ga.  iii.  24-20;  iv.  i-o.  St.  The  old  dispensation 
having  fulfilled  its  purpose,  awaits  its  abolition,  He.  viii. 

j  i:i;  coinp.  2  Co.  iii.  i:;.  Here  certainly  is  a  most  remarkable 
coincidence  of  favourite  topics,  and  such  as  exists  in 
its  integrity  between  no  other  writers  of  the  New 
Testament.  At  the  same  time,  it  must  not  be  con 
cealed  that  some  points  upon  which  St.  Paul  is  wont 

\  to  enlarge  are  not  found  in  our  epistle;  such  are  the 
resurrection  of  Christ,  with  its  place  and  import  in  the 
Christian  scheme,  and  the  free  admission  of  the  Gen- 

j  tiles  to  the  privileges  of   the  gospel.      Others  are  pre- 

'  sented  under  a  somewhat  different  aspect:  e.;>.  the 
idea  of  the  Mediator  as  a  high-priest  is  peculiar  to  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  the  "faith"  of  the  latter 
seems  to  have  a  more  extended  signification  than  is 
usual  with  St.  Paul,  sec  He.  xi.  Still  these  discrepancies 
weigh  but  little  against  the  far  more  numerous  points  of 
agreement  above  mentioned. 

Language  and  style.  — These  were  the  original  ground 
of  the  doubts  entertained  by  some  of  the  early  fathers; 
and  to  this  day  they  undoubtedly  present  the  most  for 
midable  difficulties  to  the  biblical  student.  Origen  was 
the  first  to  remark  how  much  purer  the  Greek  of  our 
epistle  is  than  that  of  the  rest  of  the  New  Testament: 
the  only  portion,  indeed,  which  admits  of  comparison 
with  it  is  the  latter  half  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
At  the  same  time  it  can  make  no  pretension  to  classi 
cal  purity.  Hebraisms,  both  in  single  words  and  in 
grammatical  construction,  occur  in  sufficient  numbers 
to  prove  that  the  author  was  a  Jew:  but  not  HO  fre 
quently  as  to  lead  us  to  reverse  the  judgment  of  Origen. 
As  regards  a.ira.%  Xty6fj.eva  which  some  writers,  such  as 
Schulz  and  Seyffarth,  have  collected  in  abundance  from 
the  epistle,  we  are  disposed  to  assign  little  weight  to 
them:  what  can  it  prove  if  against  Seyft'arth's  118  I 
unusual  words  occurring  in  the  Hebrews,  Stuart  pro 
duces  2:50  from  the  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians!  j 
Mechanical  comparisons  of  this  kind  are  foreign  from 
the  spirit  of  philosophic  criticism;  and  Blcek  shows 
his  discernment  in  adducing  only  six  peculiar  phrases 
(Introduction,  p.  ;«:!).  Before  we  can  estimate  the  im 
portance  of  aira£  \tyofjnva.  (peculiar  egressions),  we 
must  examine  whether  a  great  part  of  them  be  not 
owing  to  aTraj*  voovfj.fva  (peculiar  thoughts).  The  un 
usual  expressions,  undoubtedly  to  be  found  in  the 
epistle,  are  to  be  explained  by  the  style  which  the 
writer  adopts,  viz.  the  rhetorical:  and  here  lies  the  real 
difficulty.  If  the  epistle  be  one  of  Paul's,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  is  the  only  one  in  which  he  lias 
adopted  this  style,  with  its  peculiarities;  a  dialectic 
tone  pervades  all  his  others.  The  rhetorical  character 
of  the  epistle  appears  in  the  choice  of  dignified  and 
poetical  expressions,  as  opKui^ocria,  ai/j.a.T(Kxvffia;  in  the 
harmonious  flow  of  the  sentences ;  in  the  freer  use  of 
the  Greek  particle;  and  in  the  grammatical  finish  of  the 
sentences,  whereas  in  St.  Paul's  epistles  anacolutha 
(breaks  in  the  sequence)  are  very  frequent. 

In  addition  to  the  general  character  of  the  style  of 

91 


UK  15  HEWS 


HK15UKWS 


this  epistle,  critic-is  have  remarked  minor  peculiarities 
which  seem  to  distinguish  it  from  those  of  St.  Paul. 
As  the  result  of  a  minute  investigation  1  Sleek  discovers 
that  whereas  Paul,  in  his  citations  from  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  does  not  hesitate  to  abandon  the  LXX.  version 
where  it  docs  not  correctly  represent  the  sense  of  the 
Hebrew,  the  writer  of  the  epistle  before  us  adheres 
most  closely  to  that  version,  even  where  it  is  manifestly 
incorrect;  of  which  the  most  notable  example,  perhaps, 
is  the  citation  in  eh.  x.  l-~>  from  1's.  \L  where,  in 
stead  of  "mine  ears  hast  thou  opened,"1  the  writer  fol 
lows  tin-  Greek,  "a  body  hast  thou  prepared  me." 
lileek  remarks  also  that  Paul  in  quoting  tin:  LXX. 
usually  follows  the  readings  of  the  Vatican  M.S., 
whereas  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  those  of  the 
Cod.  Alex,  seem  to  have  been  familiar  to  the  writer. 
There  is  a  difference  too  in  the  mode  in  which  the  two 
writers  introduce  their  quotations;  St.  Paul  commonly 
prefacing  them  with  the  formulas,  "as  it  is  written,"  or 
"as  the  Scripture  saith,"  or  ''  as  David  says,"  while  in 
our  epistle  the  aactor  priniarittx.  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  for 
the  most  part  introduced  as  speaking.  (Seech,  i.  ii-^;iv.  4, 
7;x.30). 

Thus,  then,  the  matter  stands.  Whatever  ecclesias 
tical  tradition  (the  period  of  the  Roman  scepticism  cx- 
eepted)  exists  upon  the  subject  is  in  favour  of  the 
.Pauline  authorship:  while  internal  evidence  seems  to 
militate  against  that  hypothesis.  Which  of  the-  two 
deserves  the  preference.'  For  our  part,  we  cannot 
hesitate  in  permitting  the  former  to  outweigh  the 
latter,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  very  difficulties  which 
the  style,  phraseology,  &C.,  of  the  epistle  present,  en 
hance  the  force  of  the  external  testimony:  for  nothing, 
surely,  but  a  well-known  and  thoroughly  authentic 
tradition  could  have  maintained  itself  against  these 
difficulties.  The  aspect  of  things  is  this:  the  historical 
evidence  contends  against,  and  finally  overcomes,  the 
doubts  suggested  by  a  critical  examination  of  the 
epistle.  The  German  critics  seem  to  us  far  from  giving 
due  weight  to  this  consideration.  It  remains  to  ask 
whether  the  acknowledged  discrepancies  from  Paul's 
usual  manner  which  the  structure  of  the  epistle  ex 
hibits  admit  of  explanation.  Not  perhaps  of  a  satis 
factory  one.  At  least  that  of  Hug — that  Paul,  not 
being  the  founder  of  the  churches  to  whom  the  epistle 
is  addressed,  could  not  adopt  so  familiar  a  tone  as  he 
does  in  his  other  epistles;  arid  that  the  subject,  more 
over,  being  of  a  particularly  elevated  nature,  demanded 
a  corresponding  dignity  of  style — will  hardly  be  thought 
so.  The  same  might  be  said  of  the  epistle  to  the  Ro 
mans,  yet  it  presents  all  the  well-known  features  of  the 
apostle's  style.  Nor  does  it  appear  why  Paul,  when 
writing  to  Christians  of  Palestine,  should  have  been 
more  solicitous  about  the  graces  of  composition  than 
when  he  wrote  to  the  polished  Corinthians.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  we  consider  the  marvellous  versati 
lity  with  which,  in  other  respects,  he  could  "  become  all 
things  to  all  men,"  and  the  mastery  which  he  possesses 
over  the  resources  of  the  Greek  language  such  as  it  is 
found  in  the  common  dialect  of  the  time,  it  is  quite 
within  the  range  of  possibility  that  he  may,  for  some 
reason  unknown  to  us,  have  for  once  clothed  his  ideas 
in  a  style  different  from  that  which  he  usually  adopts. 
St.  Paul's  speeches  in  the  book  of  Acts,  especially  that 
before  Festus  and  Agrippa,  are  not  in  language  quite 
such  as  we  should  expect  from  him,  Instances  are  not 
uiifrequeiit  in  which  writers  have  successfully  composed 


in  a  style  not  natural  to  them.  Cicero's  book  /Jc  <  nHciis 
presents  a  great  contrast  to  his  Tusculans,  or  his 
Orations:  and  who  could  suppose  that  the  author  of  the 
treatise  on  the  Sublime  ojid  /Icuutifut  was  the  same 
that  [loured  forth  the  Reflections  on  the  French  licrolu- 
tioit? 

Thus  much  may  at  least  be  affirmed;  that  if  St.  Paul 
be  not  the  author,  it  must  ever  remain  a  problem  who 
was.  None  of  the  theories  that  have  been  broached 
u  I  ion  the  subject  can  boast  of  traditionary  support. 
.liver  since  Semler  (17o';>)  questioned  the  Pauline  au 
thorship,  the  continental  critics  have  been  exercising 
their  ingenuity  on  the  same  side,  and  the  result  is  an 
abundant  harvest  of  involuntary  candidates  for  the 
honour.  Clemens  IJomanus,  Titus,  Luke,  .Mark,  Silva- 
nus,  L'arnabas.  Aquila,  and  Apollos.  have  their  respec 
tive  advocates;  the  last  mentioned,  originally  suggested 
by  Luther,  seems  at  present  to  be  the  favourite.  ISleek 
and  Tholuck  argue  strongly  in  his  behalf.  IJarnabas 
may  boast  the  sole  authority  of  Tertullian;  but  the 
author  of  the  epistle  which  goes  under  his  name  could 
by  no  possibility  have  produced  a  work  like  that  to  the 
Hebrews.  Apollos.  from  his  birth,  culture,  and  biblical 
knowledge,  Ac.  xviii.  2),  may  be  supposed  capable  of  such 
an  effort:  but  his  claims  rest  upon  pure  conjecture:  not 
a  particle  of  ancient  testimony  can  be  adduced  in  his 
favour. 

Upon  the  whole,  it  is  a  case  in  which  probabilities 
must  decide,  for  certainty  is  unattainable.  We  hold 
that  much  more  may  be  said  in  favour  of  the  Pauline 
authorship  and  less  against  it  than  is  the  case  with  any 
of  the  other  hypotheses:  and  we  acquiesce  in  Origen's 
judgment,  that  ';not  without  reason  the  epistle  has 
been  handed  down  as  one  of  Paul's." 

Tilt  I'EKSOXS  TO  WHOM  THE  EPISTLE  WAS  ADDKLSSI'D. 

— That  this  book  of  the  New  Testament  is  really  an 
epistle,  and  not,  as  some  have  imagined,  a  treatise,  is  suf- 
ficientlv  evident  from  the  personal  allusions  at  the  close, 
which  point  to  a  specific  circle  of  readers.  Who  these 
were  seems  very  plain.  The  whole  structure  of  the  epistle 
shows  that  it  was  addressed  to  Christians  of  Jewish 
descent;  and,  moreover,  to  those  of  a  certain  locality; 
not,  like  the  epistles  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  James,  to  the 
nation  at  large.  Now  the  intimate  acquaintance  with, 
and  strong  attachment  to,  the  Levitical  ritual  which  the 
epistle  throughout  supposes,  indicate  Jewish  believers 
who  lived  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  temple: 
we  infer  therefore  that  it  was  addressed  to  the  Christian 
congregations  of  Jerusalem.  To  the  same  conclusion 
we  are  led  by  the  inscription  TT/WS  'EjBpaiovs,  which  may 
possibly  be  from  the  author's  hand.  For  though  this 
term  muy  signify  merely  descent,  as  in  the  passage, 
"Are  they  Hebrews?  So  am  I,"  2  Co.  ii.  22,  yet  in  the 
apostolic  age  it  is  more  frequently  found  as  a  descrip 
tion  of  the  Jews  of  Palestine,  as  distinguished  from 
those  who  resided  in  other  countries  ('EAA^wcrTcu,  i.e. 
those  who  spoke  Greek,  whereas  the  'E/3/jcitoi  spoke 
Aramaic).  It  is  remarkable  too  that  throughout  the 
epistle  no  allusion  occurs  to  the  admission  of  heathens 
to  the  church,  no  directions  how  the  Jewish  believers 
were  to  conduct  themselves  towards  their  uncircum- 
cised  brethren.  These  are  topics  which  in  writing  to  a 
Mixed  church  St.  Paul,  or  any  one  who  had  imbibed  his 
sentiments,  could  hardly  have  failed  to  introduce:  their 
absence  must  be  accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that 
the  original  readers  comprised  110  Christians  of  heathen 
descent. 


HEBREWS 


HEBREWS 


The  opinion  of  the  early  church,  a*  expressed  by 
Clement,  Eusebius,  Jerome,  and  Theodoret,  is  decisive 
in  favour  of  the  above  conclusion  :  and  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  do  more  than  mention  the  others  that  have 
been  advanced.  J.  C.  Schmidt  maintained  that  the 
epistle  was  addressed  to  Jewish  believers  of  Alexandria; 
Stoj-r,  that  it  was  intended  for  those  of  Calatia:  Mace 
donia  in  like  manner,  Asia  Minor,  and  Spain,  have 
had  their  respective  advocates.  But  no  show  of  proba 
bility  attaches  to  any  of  these  suppositions. 

ORIGINAL  LANGUAGK. —  In  order  to  account  f.  >r  the 
difference  of  style  between  our  epistle  and  the  acknow 
ledged  ones  of  St.  Paul,  several  ancient  writers,  hold 
ing  that  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  apostle,  supposed 
that  it  was  originally  written  in  Aramaic  and  then 
translated  into  Creek.  But  no  hi.-torical  tradition 
exists  in  favour  of  this  opinion,  and  it  is  contradicted 
by  the  whole  structure  of  the  epistle.  The  comparative 
purity  of  the  Creek:  the  periodic  style,  so  foreign  from 
the  Hebrew  and  its  dialects:  the  use  of  Creek  expres 
sions  which  can  only  be  rendered  in  Hebrew  by  a  peri- 
phrasis:  the  frequent  paronomasia,  di.  vi  >•;  xiii.U;  and  the 
constant  use  of  the  LXX  version  all  prove  that  our 
present  text  is  the  original  one.  No  trace  of  aiiv  other 
exists.  Ff  it  be  asked.  Why  should  an  epistle  intended 

for  the  JeWS   of    Palestine  be  composed    ill  <  il'eek  Illld  Hot 

in  tln-ir  native  tongue!  \v,  reply,  in  the  first  place, 
that  Creek  was  probably  more  extensively  understood 
and  spoken  in  Judea  than  i-  commonly  supposed.  The 
Uoiuau  procurator  transacted  public  business  in  this 
language:  and  it  \va-  spoken  l.v  the  vast  multitudes 
who  thronged  Jerusalem  at  the  feasts  of  pa>snver  and 
pentccost.  Tlie  people  .  j-/,i  ••/,</  t hat  I'aul  would  have 
addressed  them  in  Creek,  and  were  surprised  into 
silence  by  his  use  of  the  Aramaic.  Ac.  \\ii  L'  \\'e  may 
add  that  the  extensive  use  of  the  L\\".  even  in  Pales 
tine  must  have  familiarixcd  the  native  Jews  \\itlithe 
lanu'ua^e  in  which  that  version  i>  written.  And  in  the 
next  place,  the  same  reason  exists  for  our  epi-tle  beiii'_; 
written  in  Creek  as  for  any  other  book  of  the  New 
Testament;  viz.  that  Creek  was  at  that  time  (he  cur 
rent  lan-uaue  of  the  world.  Tlioluck  argues  that  if 
Paul  were  t.he  author,  he  would  have  addressed  his 
countrvmeii  in  their  own  tongue  :  he  forgets  tlia.t  the 
epistle  was  for  the  benefit  of  tile  church  at  la  IV.  and 

to  be  a  KT?]u.a  f's  dd,  even  unto  tile  end  of  time. 

TlMK    AND     PI.ACF.    OF    WiHTlNcl.       The     epistle     itself 

enables  us  to  place  a  limit  In  n<>inl  which  it  cannot  be 
supposed  to  have  been  written.  The  temple,  and  the 
temple  services,  are  manifestly  in  existence:  the  epistle 
therefore  must  have  been  composed  before  A.I).  7°.  the 
year  of  the  final  destruction  of  the  city.  If  it  be  ad 
mitted  to  be  a  production  of  St.  I'aul,  the  passages  at 
the  close  agree  best  with  the  supposition  that  it  was 
written  bv  the  apostle  during,  or  shortly  after  the  close 
of.  his  first  captivity  at  Rome:  if  the  latter,  from  some 
place  in  Italy.  The  particular  place  remains  an  un 
solved  problem  :  and  this  whether  Paul  or  A  polios  In- 
considered  the  author. 

CONTENTS.  This  epistle  is  hortatory  rather  than  argu 
mentative  in  character:  and  though  dogmatical  as  well 
as  practical,  the  doctrinal  portion,  important  as  it  is,  is 
so  intermingled  with  the  practical,  that  wo  cannot,  as 
in  most  of  St.  1 'aid's  epistles,  distinctly  separate  the 
two.  The  readers  are  supposed  to  be  wavering  in  their 
allegiance  to  Christ:  doubtful  whether  to  go  forward  in 
the  path  pointed  out  to  them,  or  to  retrace  their  steps 


to  the  '-'beggarly  elements"  of  Judaism.  The  general 
scope  therefore  of  the  epistle  is  to  prove  that  the  gospel 
not  only  contains  all  that  was  valuable  in  the  ancient 
religion,  but  supplies  what  was  wanting  in  it.  and  con 
fers  infinitely  greater  spiritual  blessings.  The  writer 
commences  with  a  contrast  between  Christ  the  mediator 
of  the  new  covenant,  and  those  created  beings  (Moses 
and  the  angels^  who  assisted  at  the  promulgation  of  the 
old.  Christ  is  the  eternal  Son,  the  Creator  of  ''the 
worlds."  whose  throne  is  everlasting,  to  whom  even  the 
angels  are  commanded  to  bow  the  knee:  whereas  these 
exalted  beings,  however  glorious,  are  but  ••ministering 
spirits."  obeying  their  Master's  will,  eh.  i.  Yet  this 
divine  person  became,  in  one  sense,  lower  than  the 
angels,  by  taking  our  nature  upon  him  with  all  its  in 
nocent  infirmities;  a  humiliation  necessary  to  the  fulfil 
ment  of  the  divine  purpose  and  the  welfare  of  the  church. 
But  in  proportion  to  the  dignity  of  the  Saviour  and  the 
greatness  of  his  salvation,  will  be  the  guilt  of  those  who 
reject  him.  di.  ii.  iii  1.  -'.  As  regards  Moses,  his  relation 
to  ( 'hrist  was  that  of  a  servant  to  the  son  of  the  house: 
in  every  respect  an  inferior  one.  cli.  iii.  :M>.  Let  them 
th.-refore  hold  fa-t  their  profession,  ami  take  warning 
from  the  example  of  tin  ir  forefathers,  who.  ivfii-iii--  to 
follow  the  command  of  Cod,  forfeited  the  earthly  rest 
\\liieli  lie  had  promised  them,  and  peri.died  in  the  wil 
derness.  ,-ii  iii  T  i'i  This  temporal  rest  was  l,ut  the 
figure  of  a  future  and  eternal  one.  to  which  the  people 
,  f  Cod  look  forward,  and  to  which,  if  I  hey  be  not  want 
ing  to  themselves,  they  may  attain  through  the  merits 
and  intercession  of  their  ureat  II  i^h- priest,  who.  though 
passed  into  the  heaven-,  retains  a  fellow-feeling  for  their 
infirmities,  and  will  supply  -race  for  every  emergency. 


The    Write)'    hence    take- 

topic  of  the  epistle,  thopri< 

With    tile    .lewMl     prie-tlloo 

serving  that  the  -acerdotal 
is   necessarily  discharged 
tin1  consciousness  of  their 


iccasion  to  pass  to  the  main 
•sthood  of  <  'hrist  as  compared 
1.  lie  commences  with  ob- 
office  conies  from  above,  and 
iv  men.  as  those  who.  from 
own  infirmities,  can  sympa 


thize  with  the  imperfi  ctions  of  the  worshippers.  Both 
conditions  were  fulfilled  in  Chri-t.  who.  in  our  nature. 
became  experimentally  acquainted  with  .-uit'eriii^.  and 
who.  by  the  express  appointment  of  Cod.  was  consti 
tuted  an  hi-'h-priest  after  the  order  or  manner  of  Mel- 
chi/edek.  i-ii  v  i-i"  Considering  the  time  that  had 
elapsed  since  their  conversion,  they  ought  to  have 
advanced  from  the  dements  to  t.he  deeper  doctrines  of 
their  religion:  let  them  beware  of  provoking  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  depart  from  them.  and.  in  firm  reliance  upon 
the  immutable  promise  of  Cod.  press  forward  in  the 
way  of  life,  di.  vi.  After  this  digression  the  writer 
returns  to  the  subject  lie  bad  opened.  <  'hrist  was  made 
an  high-priest  after  the  manner  of  Melchi/.edek.  He  is 
superior  therefore  to  the  Jewish  priests,  first,  inasmuch 
as  Abraham,  and  through  him  Levi,  paid  tithes  to  Mel- 
chi/edek.  thereby  acknowledging  his  superiority;  and 
secondly,  inasmuch  as  our  Lord's  priesthood  is  of  eter 
nal  duration,  as  contrasted  with  the  constant  succession 
of  the  Levitical  priests  a  circumstance  prefigured  by 
the  absence  (.f  genealogical  records  relating  to  the  family 
of  Melchizedek.  The  inferiority  of  the  Jewish  priest 
hood  carries  with  it  that  of  the  whole  dispensation: 
which,  according  to  the  famous  prophecy,  .lu.  xxxi.  :ii-::4. 
was  intended,  in  due  time,  to  give  place  to  a  better  and 
'  eternal  covenant,  ch.  vii.  viii.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  Levi- 
i  tical  ritual  and  sacrifices  we  have  a  typical  reprcsenta- 


HKBUON 


72  -t 


HEBRON 


tion  of  the  atoning  work  of  Clrrist;  still  it  was  but  a  ' 
typical  one,  and  in  itself  wholly  inadequate  to  the  pro 
posed  end.  ( 'hrist  is  the  substance,  of  which  it  was  the 
shadow;  the  most  holy  place  of  the  earthly  tabernacle 
has  uiveii  place  to  heaven  itself,  the  blood  of  bulls  and 
goats  to  that  of  Christ,  the  annual  entrance  of  a  human 
mediator  to  the  perpetual  appearance  before  ( !od  of  the 
divine  .Mediator,  "ever  living  "to  plead  the  merits  of 
his  sacrifice  and  to  second  our  prayers.  As  a  conse 
quence  of  this  fulfilment  of  the  type,  the  sacrifice  of 
('hrist  can  never,  and  does  not  need  to,  be  repeated, 
eh.  ix.,x.  1-17.  The  epistle  concludes  with  various  horta 
tory  remarks.  After  a  solemn  warning  against  the 
danger  and  the  consequences  of  apostasy,  ch.  x.  ui-.'iii,  the 
writer  encourages  his  readers  by  the  exam] ties  of  a 
number  of  famous  Old  Testament  characters,  who,  in 
their  several  ways,  furnish  signal  illustrations  of  the 
nature  and  effica.cy  of  faith;  and  bids  them,  amidst 
their  present  sufferings,  which  all  Christians  must  ex 
pect,  and  which  are  intended  for  their  benefit,  look  off 
this,  earthly  scene  to  their  exalted  Saviour,  who  himself 
only  reached  the  crown  through  the  cross,  cli.xi.  xii.  The 
last  chapter  is  occupied  with  the  inculcation  of  parti 
cular  moral  duties  and  some  personal  allusions,  eh.  xiii. 

C'uii'iiieiifdrica,  cfv. — Tin;  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  has,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  attracted  to  itself  a  large  share  of  the  atten 
tion  of  commentators.  Chrysostom  has  expounded  it  with  the 
good  sense  and  piety  for  -which  his  homilies  are  conspicuous. 
The  same,  though  not  to  the  same  extent,  may  be  said  of  the 
commentary  of  Theodoret,  and  the  Catena1  of  Theophylact  a,nd 
O'Vumenius.  Of  the  Romish  expositors  the  host  are  Krasmns 
(his  doctrinal  inditferentism  exeepted),  Cornelius  a  l.apide,  and 
Calmet — none  of  them,  however,  of  great  philological  value.  In 
the  reformed  branch  of  the  Protestant  church  the  principal 
names  ave  Calvin,  IJeza,  Piscator,  to  which  may  be  added  the 
divines  of  Holland  and  France,  such  as  "De  Dieu,  Heinsius,  and 
the  two  Capelli.  The  commentaries  of  most  of  these  a  re  com 
prised  in  the  Critici  Si'.c/'i.  Cocceius  and  his  school  expounded 
the  epistle  with  a  particular  view  to  their  system  of  typology. 
The  Armiuians  can  boast  of  Grotius,  Clericus,  and  \Vetstcin — 
the  last  valuable  for  his  classical  citations.  Michaelis  (1717) 
may  be  s;iid  to  lead  the  van  of  the  more  modern  continental 
criticism.  He  was  followed  by  Carpzovius  and  Schmidt.  The 
first  important  contribution  of  this  period  was  the  work  of  Schulz 
(ISIS),  which,  in  spite  of  its  erroneous  dogmatical  tendencies, 
materially  promoted  the  grammatical  exposition  of  the  epistle. 
The  same  may  bo  said  of  IJGhmes'  commentary  (IS'Jo).  Tholuck 
has  written  upon  our  epistle  (ls:!G)  with  the  piety,  though  with 
the  looseness  of  doctrinal  statement,  which  are  characteristic,  of 
that  commentator.  The  most  comprehensive  and  seholarlike 
exposition  of  the  epistle  is  unquestionably  that  of  Bleek;  un 
happily  what  has  just  been  said  of  Tholuck  applies  still  more 
strongly  to  this  learned  and  conscientious  writer.  Two  com- 
7iieutaries  have  recently  appeared  in  Germany,  one  by  Ebrard, 
forming  one  of  Clark's  Foreign  Theological  Series,  the  other  by 
Delitzsch.  The  latter  is  of  great  value,  especially  for  the  insight 
it  exhibits  into  the  connection  between  the  Old  and  Xew  Tes 
taments,  its  interpretation  of  the  passages  from  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  and  the  able  manner  in  which  it  meets  the  theories  of 
the  atonement,  which  have  been  recently  ventilated  in  German}'. 

In  English  we  have  few  commentaries  equal  to  the  wants  of 
the  age.  The  great  work  of  Owen  will  always  remain  a  store 
house  of  doctrinal  and  experimental  divinity;  but  in  a  philo 
logical  point  of  view  it  is  inadequate.  Hammond  is  of  little 
value.  The  work  of  Stuart  displays  diligence  and  learning;  but, 
like  the  other  commentaries  of  the  same  writer,  it  is  deficient  in 
accuracy  and  refinement  of  tact.  (Witness  his  translation  of 
^ToKv/jLicu;  xoit  Tot.urgoTu;,  "  often  and  in  various  ways."  It 
should  have  been,  "by  sections,"  i.e.  a  little  at  a  time,  intimat 
ing  the  jirnf/i-fssii-f  nature  of  re  \vlat,ion:  and  ''in  divers  manners," 
i.e.  by  type,  prophecy,  &c.)  [K.  A.  t..] 

HE'BRON.     An  ancient  city  of  southern  Palestine. 
Its  original  name  was   KIR.IATH-ARBA,  or  the  city  of  \ 
Arba,  Jos.  xv.  i.i;  and  it  is  now  called  El  KhaUl,  or  "the 
friend.''      It  is  situated  in  the  hill  country  of  .Tndea. 
about   twenty  miles  south  of  Jerusalem,   and  is  2800 


feet  above  the  Mediterranean.  It  is  commonly  reckoned 
one  of  the  oldest  of  cities,  being  built  seven  years  before 
Zoan  in  Egypt,  Nu.  xiii.  22.  .The  modern  town,  which 
occupies  nearly  the  same  site  as  the  ancient,  is  on  the 
slope  of  a  hill  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  plain  of  Mamre. 
Perhaps  the  best  view  of  it  is  obtained  by  the  traveller 
who  approaches  it  from  the  southern  desert.  After 
several  days'  journey,  in  which  the  parched  wilderness 
of  1'etra  is  gradually  exchanged  for  wild  encampments 
of  r.edouins,  with  their  flocks  of  goats;  and  these  again 
for  scattered  corn-fields  interspersed  with  thickets  and 
stunted  trees;  one  more  of  the  lon'_r  succession  of  undu 
lating  hills  is  climbed,  and  before  the  eyes  is  the  wide 
valley  rich  with  trees,  and  fields,  and  vineyards,  and 
beyond  is  the  white  and  straggling  city  stretched  out 
along  the  dark  gray  mountain  side.  Piehind  it  is  the 
road  to  I'ethlehem,  Jerusalem,  and  the  heart  of  the 
country.  The  position  of  Hebron  in  the  journey  from 
the  desert  into  Palestine  is  very  similar  to  the  place  it 
occupies  in  the  world's  religious  history.  It  greets  the 
traveller  on  the  confines  of  the  inhabited  country,  just 
as  its  name  meets  the  student  at  the  outset  of  historic 
times.  For  a  while  fill  our  interest  and  attention  are 
centred  upon  the  borne  of  Abraham — the  sojourner  in 
a  strange  land — the  first  to  whom  a  special  revelation 
was  given  -the  first  with  whom  a  special  covenant 
was  made.  Once  more  the  page  of  sacred  history 
dwells  upon  it,  when  the  rejected  dynasty  of  Saul  was 
passing  away,  and  David,  the  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  sets  up  his  kingdom  there.  And  as  Hebron 
and  its  neighbourhood  gives  the  traveller  but  a 
sorry  foretaste  of  the  interest  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
beauty  of  Galilee,  so  its  name  fades  away  from  scrip 
ture  history,  as  it  is  not  mentioned  by  the  prophets, 
and  does  not  appear  to  have  been  even  once  visited  by 
our  blessed  Lord.  There  remain,  however,  to  be 
mentioned  two  occasions — both  of  them  in  early  times 
and  of  lesser  importance — on  which  its  name  occurs  in 
the  Bible.  At  the  settlement  of  the  Israelites  in  the 
Land  of  Promise,  the  territory  of  Hebron  fell  to  Caleb, 
who  drove  out  thence  the  Auakim,  Jos.  xv.  13,  M,  and  it 
became  a  city  of  refuge,  Jos  xx.  r,  and  was  assigned  to 
the  Levites,  Jos.  xxi.  n.  Absalom  first  set  up  his  stand 
ard  of  revolt  at  Hebron,  and  his  position  here  seems  to 
have  been  so  strong,  that  David  was  at  once  compelled 
to  flee  from  Jerusalem.  At  the  present  day  the  streets 
are  narrow,  irregular,  and  ill-paved,  and  the  houses  are 
white-washed,  and  covered  with  flat  or  domed  roofs. 
The  bazaars  are  small,  and  are  covered  over  as  in  most 
eastern  cities.  The  most  conspicuous  object  is  the 
mosque  of  El  Haran,  built  over  the  cave  of  Machpelah. 
the  burying  place  of  Abraham's  family.  It  is  200  feet 
long,  150  wide,  and  f>0  high,  and  is  surrounded  by  a 
colonnade  of  square  pilasters  forty -eight  in  number.  It 
is  guarded  by  Moslem  fanaticism  from  the  "infidel" 
gaze  of  Jew  and  Christian,  with  even  greater  jealousy 
than  the  mosque  of  Omar  at  Jerusalem.  In  conse 
quence,  for  000  years  no  European  has  been  admitted 
to  its  precincts,  except  an  Italian  who  entered  in 
disguise,  and  All  Bey,  a  Spanish  renegade.  But  M. 
Pierotti,  as  engineer  to  the  pasha  of  Jerusalem,  has 
lately  had  an  opportunity  of  leisurely  examining  the 
building;  and  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1802  the 
Prince  of  Wales  and  his  suite  were  allowed  to  visit 
the  interior,  of  which  a  description  is  given  in  the 
subjoined  extracts  from  App.  ii.  to  Dr.  Stanley's 
ftf.ctnrcs  on  the  Jewish  Church,  part  i. 


HEIEEi;  i 

end  of  improving  the  occasion,  for  the  [mrpo.se  of  keep 
ing  up  a  lively  sense  of  sin  in  the  conscience,  and  en 
gaging  men's  efforts  against  all  that  might  lead  them 
into  transgression.  One  might  say  it  was  a  ritual 
purification  from  a,  ceremonial  defilement,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  conveying  instruction  regarding  what  constituted 
a  real  defilement,  anil  the  necessity  of  purification 
from  it.  Hence,  all  the  explanations,  which  go  on  the 
supposition  of  the  ideas  respecting  sin  and  purification 
being  here  presented  in  a  peculiarly  intense  and  ag 
gravated  form,  must  be  vie  wed  as  somewhat  strained  and 
unnatural.  The  circumstances  and  occasion  of  the  ordi 
nance  manifestly  point  in  the  opposite  direction  :  they 
would  lead  us  to  expect  some  marked  inferiority  in 
the  outward  appliances  of  the  service,  as  having 
directly  to  do  with  only  a  corporeal  defilement  and  a 
ceremonial  cleansing.  Such  we  find  was  actually  the 
case.  The  victim  ordered  to  lie  employed  for  the 
occasion  was  a  female  a  heifer;  while  all  tin1  greater 
offerings  for  the  sins  of  the  people  consisted  of  males. 
Then,  of  this  particular  ottering  no  part  came  upon 
the  altar;  even  the  blood  was  not  presented  there,  but 
was  only  sprinkled  before  the  tabernacle,  and  sprinkled, 
not  by  the  high- priest,  but  by  the  son  of  the  high-priest. 
Further,  while  the  carcase  was  to  be  burned  without 
the  camp,  no  special  charge  was  yivcn  in  respect,  to 
its  being  done  upon  a  clean  place,  and  it  was  to  be 
burned  entire,  with  the  skin,  and  even  the  dung  about 
it.  In  regard  to  the  red  colour  of  the.  victim  great 
diversity  of  opinion  has  existed,  and  still  continues 
to  do  so.  The  elder  typologists  usuallv  sought  to 
explain  this  by  a  reference  to  the  blood  of  ('hrisl, 
and  liahr  would  understand  it  of  blood  generally  — 
blood  as  the  bearer  and  symbol  ot  life.  Hut  the 
question  naturally  arises.  Why  such  a  special  reference 

either    to    life-blood   generally    or    to   the   life-bl I   of 

Christ  in  this  ordinance,  which  has  so  mam  palpable 
marks  of  inferiority  about  it.'  Wliv  not  much  rather 
such  a  reference  to  the  fundamental  principles  of 
atonement  in  the  great  sin  and  burnt  ollerings.  where 
it  miu'lit  more  readily  have  been  looked  for  ;  We  miss 
it  where  atonement  in  the  stricter  sense  is  concerned, 
and  would  find  it  only  here  where  everything  assumes 
a  lower  and  looser  form.  If  the  colour  were  to  In 
viewed  as  having  reference  to  life  -  in(<  nxin  /ifi_,  as 
Delitzseh  puts  it  (Cum.  Hub.  p.  :«>.-,)—  it  should  be  simply 
as  pointing  by  way  of  contrast  to  death,  from  the  pol 
lution  of  which  the  rite  was  intended  to  deliver.  Suit 
is  understood  by  several  writers,  who  bring  the  colour 
into  connection  with  the  other  qualities  required  in  the 
heifer;  viz.  that  it  should  be  perfect  or  maimless, 
without  blemish,  and  unaccustomed  to  the  yoke — all 
indicative  of  life,  and  life  in  its  freshest  and  purest 
form.  Such  (anilities  might  certainly  be  regarded  as 
expressive  of  this  idea;  they  naturally  pointed  in  that 
direction;  but  the  connection  between  the  colour  and 
life  ( red  =  blood  =  life)  is  scarcely  of  the  same  kind, 
and,  as  Baumgarteii  remarks  (purt  ii.p  :;:J4),  looks  rather 
abstract  and  far-fetched.  Possibly  it  may  have  been 
viewed  merely  as  the  earth-colour  (cdo/n,  red,  whence 
man  as  in  his  fleshly  form  got  the  name  Adam),  and  so 
may  have  had  special  respect  to  the  flesh,  as  that 
which  in  this  ordinance  was  the  more  immediate  subject 
of  purification.  Thus  understood,  it  would  fitly  accord 
with  the  other  points  ;  and  so  also  does  the  portion  of 
the  whole  set  apart  for  the  act  of  personal  purification, 
which  was  not  the  blood  but  the  ashes.  The  blood 


•  i  HEIFER 

was  sprinkled  before  the  tabernacle  (m  later  times 
before  the  temple)  to  indicate  that  it  had  in  some 
way  to  do  with  atonement;  but  the  ashes  alone  were 
brought  into  direct  contact  with  the  person  labouring 
under  the  ceremonial  defilement.  These  ashes  had  first 
to  be  mixed  with  living  or  fresh  water;  which  beyond  all 
doubt  was  a  symbol  of  pure  and  blessed  life.  Viewed 
naturally,  the  ashes  of  course  rather  formed  a  defiling 
than  a  purifying  intermixture — as  the  blood  also  did  in 
those  cases  in  which  it  was  applied  to  the  person  of  the 
worshipper:  and  it  is  foolish  to  speak,  as  some  have  done, 
of  their  being  employed  along  with  the  water  as  a  sort  of 
wash.  Scripture  knows  nothing  of  such  a  natural  use  of 
ashes;  and,  as  we  have  here  to  do  with  a  sacrifice,  though 
a  sacrifice  of  an  inferior  kind,  it  is  simply  from  being  the 
ashes  of  a  slain  victim  that  they  arc  to  lie  understood 
as  deriving  the  purifying  virtue  that  attached  to  them. 
Suu  Nil.  xi\.  17.  The  circumstance,  it  maybe  added,  of 
both  the  officiating  priest  anil  the  person  who  gathered 
the  ashes  being  rendered  unclean  till  the  evening, 
arose  not  from  there  being  unclean  ness  about  the  heifer, 
but  merely  because  tile  whole  action  with  it  had  nspeet 
to  a  state  of  defilement  and  its  means  of  purification. 

:;.  In  regard,  finally,  to  the  manner  in  which  this 
medium  of  purification  was  to  be  applied,  the  following- 
directions  were  given:  the  ashes  were  to  be  gathered 
together  and  kept  in  a  clean  place;  then,  from  time  to 
time,  as  persons  becalm-  unclean  by  contact  with  the 
dead,  a  portion  of  the  ashes  was  to  be  taken,  mixed 
with  running  water,  and  sprinkled  on  the  unclean, 
iir.-t  on  the  third,  and  again  on  the  seventh  day;  thi.- 
sprinkling  was  to  be  done  with  a  bunch  of  hyssop  in 
the  hand  of  a  clean  person  (not  necessarily  a  priest, 
another  note  of  inferiority  in  the  rite);  and  then,  after 
washing  his  clothes  and  bathing  hi>  person,  the  subject 
of  the  ordinance  became  clean  on  the  seventh  day  at 
even.  Why  hyssop  was  appointed  to  be  used  in  this 
application  of  the  material  of  cleansing,  and  hyssop, 
cedar  wood,  and  a  hit  of  scarlet  thrown  into  the  fire 
that  turned  the  carcass  of  the  heifer  into  ashes,  cannot 
be  very  certainly  determined.  The  hyssop,  it  would 
appear,  w  as  supposed  b\  the  ancients  to  possess  some 
sort  of  abstergent  properties,  and  its  employment  on 
this  occasion  has  often  been  associated  with  that  idea; 
but  this  must  be  held  doubtful  as  regards  the  particu 
lar  plant  in  question  (,su-  HY.SS.UI-I,  and  also  as  re 
gards  its  specific  use  in  the  administration  of  the  rite. 
And  why  scarlet  should  have  been  so  employed,  and  a 
bit  of  cedar,  no  reasons  quite  satisfactory  have  been 
discovered,  but  the  more  common  opinion  now  is,  that 
both  were  taken  as  emblems  of  life— cedar  from  its 
durability,  and  scarlet  as  being  the  blood  or  life  colour. 
[It  could  not  have  been  the  lofty  cedar  of  Lebanon 
that  was  meant;  for  wood  of  that  description  could  not 
have  been  had  in  the  desert  where  the  ordinance  was 
first  instituted;  some  smaller  species  of  tree,  probably  a 
taller  sort  of  juniper,  must  have  been  meant.]  The 
general  design,  however,  of  the  sprinkling  was  plain 
enough;  it  was  to  impart  to  the  body  of  the  defiled 
person  the  virtue  of  an  appropriate  cleansing  medium; 
so  that  whatever  of  purity  was  in  the  one,  passed  over  in 
a  manner  upon  the  other.  And  thus  at  the  end  of  a  week 
of  separation  he  who  had  been  excluded  from  free  inter 
course  with  the  living,  on  account  of  his  commerce  with 
the  dead,  was  again  restored  to  the  privileges  of  (Jod'.s 
acknowledged  children. 

The  service  of  sj  irinkling  hai  1  alsi  >  tc  >  be  perf  i  mned  upon 


HEIR 


HELL 


the  tout  (or  house)  of  the  defiled,  and  the  utensils  and 
articles  of  furniture  in  it,  as  having-  all  shared  in  the 
ceremonial  defilement  of  the  owner,  Nu.  xix.  i^.  But  it 
was  only  of  course  from  being  popularly  viewed  as  in 
a  sense  identified  with  him;  he  alone  was  still  the 
proper  subject  either  of  the  defilement  or  of  the  purifica 
tion.  And  the  chief  bearing  of  the  service  in  Christian 
times  has  been  thus  indicated  by  an  inspired  writer: 
"  If  the  ashes  of  an  heifer  sprinkling  the  unclean,  sanc 
tified  to  the  purifying  of  the  flesh,  how  much  more 
.shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the  eternal 
Spirit  offered  himself  \\itliout  spot  to  God,  purge  your 
consciences  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God  f 
lie.  ix.  i:i,  M.  Here,  the  design  of  the  ordinance  is  ex 
pressly  limited  to  the  sanctifying  of  the  flesh;  (not. 
however,  that  all  the  ordinances  of  the  law,  as  is  very 
often  represented,  were  equally  outward  in  their  bear 
ing  and  effects);  and  the  conclusion  drawn  is,  from  the 
less  to  the  greater  :  if  a  corporeal  defilement  could  be 
purged  by  such  materials  of  cleansing,  how  much  more 
the  guilty  conscience  by  the  infinite  preciousiiess  and 
efficacy  of  the  blood  of  Christ !  The  ever- recurring- 
promptitude  and  confidence  with  which  throughout 
the  families  and  generations  of  Israel  the  one  kind  of 
purification  was  effected,  ought  to  be  viewed  as  a 
blessed  pledge  and  assurance  that  the  other  and  higher 
shall  without  fail  be  accomplished  in  the  case  of  every 
one  who,  under  a  sense  of  sin,  makes  earnest  applica 
tion  to  the  blood  of  the  Lamb ! 

HEIR.     See  INHERITANCE. 

HEL'BON  [fat],  a  city,  mentioned  only  by  Ezekiel, 
and  mentioned  as  one  of  the  places  which  supplied  Tyre 
with  articles  of  merchandise,  "  the  wine  of  Helbon  and 
white  wool,"  oh.  xxvii.  is.  Its  wine  was  renowned  at  a 
much  later  period  than  that  of  Ezekiel,  for  Strabo 
notices  it  among-  the  luxuries  of  the  kings  of  Persia, 
that  they  required  to  have  Chalyboiiiaii  wine  from 
Syria  (1.  xv.)  The  same  fact  is  also  reported  by  A  then. - 
ZEUS  (Sympos.  i.22).  Until  recently  this  place  was  sup 
posed  to  be  the  same  with  the  Greek  Chalybon  and  the 
modern  Aleppo.  But  recent  investigation  has  led  to 
another,  and  apparently  more  correct  view.  The  Hel- 
boii  of  Ezekiel  is  celebrated  for  its  wine,  and  is  also  in 
the  prophet  immediately  connected  with  Damascus ; 
but,  as  Robinson  justly  states,  "  Aleppo  produces  no 
wine  of  any  reputation,  nor  is  Damascus  the  natural 
channel  of  commerce  between  Aleppo  and  Tyre'1  (Suppl. 
Researches,  p.  4r:i).  He  therefore  thinks  the  missionaries 
are  right  in  fixing-  on  a  place  that  still  bears  the  name 
of  Helbon. —  a  valley  about  three  and  a  half  hours  dis 
tant  011  the  north  from  Damascus.  Of  this  swreet 
vallev  Porter  says,  "  It  is  a  winding  glen  through  a 
gravelly  torrent-bed,  shut  in  by  the  mountains  that 
rise  in  steep  white  acclivities  1000  feet  or  more,  here 
and  there  crowned  with  cliffs,  that  look  in  the  distance 
like  Gothic  castles.  The  banks  of  the  winter  torrent 
are  lined  with  vineyards,  fig-trees,  pomegranates,  and  a 
few  walnuts,  whose  dark-green  foliage  contrasts  well 
with  the  snowy  limestone.  The  terraced  vineyards 
run  away  tip  the  mountain  sides,  clinging  to  spots 
where  one  would  think  no  human  foot  could  rest.  .  .  . 
Its  trade  with  the  shepherd  Bedawin  made,  and  still 
makes,  it  a  wool  depot,  and  this  article  also  it  supplied 
in  the  markets  of  Tyre.  The  wine  of  Helbon  was 
another  of  its  exports.  Here  is  that  wine- producing 
Helbon.  The  Koran  lays  a  veto  on  the  manufacture, 
but  the  grapes  are  as  famous  as  ever,  and  the  '  infidels ' 


of  Damascus  still  make   their  best  wine   from  them" 

(Murray's  Handbook,  i>.  l'.'<0. 

HE'LI,  the  immediate  predecessor  of  Joseph  the 
husband  of  Mary,  in  the  genealogy  of  St.  Luke,  and 
most  likely  his  father.  (#te  GENEALOGIES.) 

HELL.  In  the  article  HADES  it  was  stated  that 
in  the  English  Bible  the  word  licit  is  given  as  the 
translation  both  of  hades  and  ychcnna  (yttwa),  but 
that  it  ought  now  to  be  retained  as  the  equivalent  only 
of  the  latter.  Originally,  indeed,  our  hell  corresponded 
more  exactly  to  hades,  being  derived  from  the  Saxon 
/aid//,  to  cover,  and  signifying  merely  the  covered,  or 
invisible  place — the  habitation  of  those  who  have  gone 
from  this  visible  terrestrial  region  to  the  world  of  spirits. 
But  it  has  been  so  long  appropriated  in  common  usage 
to  the  place  of  future  punishment  for  the  wicked,  that 
its  earlier  meaning  has  been  lost  sight  of.  The  distinc 
tive  term  for  this  place  in  Scripture  is  f/cJtCit)ia.  Hut 
ijehcitna  is  not  properly  a  Greek  word,  nor  does  it  ever 
occur  in  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament; 
it  is  simply  the  abbreviated  form  of  two  Hebrew  terms 
>jc-hinnuiii  (D3,TN*:>),  the  valley  of  Hinuoni,  or,  as  it  is 

also  put,  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom.  The  origin 
of  the  name  is  lost  in  a  remote  antiquity,  and  it  occurs 
in  Joshua  as  already  in  current  use,  Jos.  xv.  s.  But  only 
in  the  later  times  of  the  Jewish  commonwealth  did 
the  name  acquire  a  sinister  meaning.  The  valley  lay 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  J  erusalem,  and  was  indee<  1 
but  a  continuation  of  the  lengthened  valley  of  Je- 
hoshaphat — forming  that  portion  of  it  which  lay  on 
the  south  of  Jerusalem,  and  became  the  chief  burying- 
ground  of  the  inhabitants.  What  chiefly,  however, 
gave  it  a  name  of  infamy  was  the  use  made  of  it  by 
Manasseh,  as  the  place  in  which  he  caused  his  children 
to  pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch,  2  Ch.  xxxiii.  o.  Josiah 
afterwards,  among  his  reforming  measures,  defiled  the 
place  "that  no  man  might  make  his  son  or  his  daughter 
to  pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch,"  2 Ki.xxiii.io.  The 
exact  spot  where  this  desecration  took  place  was  callei  I 
Tophct,  supposed  to  be  derived  from  the  sounding  of 
the  drums  (toph  meaning  drum),  which  had  been  em 
ployed  to  drown  the  cries  of  the  sacrificed  children. 
And  the  prophets,  in  denouncing  the  judgments  of 
Heaven  upon  the  wickedness  of  the  people,  declared 
that  this  Tophet,  or  valley  of  Hinnom,  would  be  turned 
into  a  valley  of  slaughter,  where  the  carcases  of  the 
slain  should  be  laid,  and  where  the  fire  of  God's  wrath 
should  consume  them,  is.  xxx.xj;  ixvi.  24;  Je.  vii.  :>2.  Hav 
ing  thus  associated  with  it  the  consummation  of  man's 
wickedness  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  consummation  of 
God's  judgments  on  the  other,  it  became  the  appro 
priate  earthly  type  of  the  place  of  eternal  misery — the 
place  where  the  fire  of  God's  wrath  should  for  ever 
burn  against  those  who  had  left  this  world  in  a  state  of 
final  impenitency.  In  course  of  time  also  the  name 
passed  into  current  use  as  the  common  designation  of 
this  place  of  torment.  (See  Wetstein  on  Mat.  v.  22, 
where  many  quotations  are  given  from  Jewish  writings). 
Our  Lord  simply  adopted  on  this  point  the  current 
i  language  of  the  time,  and  gave  also  the  sanction  of  his 
I  authority  to  the  leading  ideas  involved  in  it.  Gehenna, 
or  hell,  is  with  him  the  place  of  final  torment,  and  of 
torment  especially  as  represented  by  the  action  of  con 
suming  fire ;  in  several  places  he  uses  the  complex 
phrase,  "  hell  of  fire,"  Mat.  v.  22;  xviii.  io;  and  in  some  also 
he  adds  the  fearfully  descriptive  clause,  "Where  the 


HELLENISTS  < 

fire  is  not  quenched;''  or  thus,  "into  hell,  into  the  fire 
unquenchable,"  Mar.  ix.  4;:,  -is.  In  at  least  one  of  the 
passages,  though  in  more,  according  to  the  received 
text,  there  is  the  additional  element  of  "  their  worm 
dieth  not ; ''  but  the  prevailing  form  of  representation, 
botli  among  Jewish  authorities  and  in  the  Xe\v  Testa 
ment,  is  that  of  penal,  unquenchable  tire.  Hence,  the 
frequent  representation  in  the  Apocalypse,  of  "the  lake 
of  fire,  burning  with  brimstone/'  Re.  xix.  io;  xx.  in,  kc.;  and 
also  the  figurative  use  of  gehenna  in  J;i.  iii.  ti.  the  only 
passage  of  the  New  Testament,  save  in  our  Lord's  dis- 
courses,  where  the  word  occurs,  and  where  the  unruly 
tongue  is  spoken  of  as  being  ''set  on  lire  of  hell"-  tl,-- 
fiery  element  being  in  this  case  regarded  not  as  an  in 
strument  of  torture,  but  a-=  the  ever  active  and  turbu-  | 
lent  source  of  mischief.  l-'iiv  therefore,  it  would  seem,  j 
in  its  connection  with  lull.  is  t»  be  regarded  as  ar. 
emblem  rather  than  as  a  reality;  the  various  applies 
tions  made  of  it,  and  its  connection  witli  a  Lrnawii:_' 
worm,  as  well  as  with  brimstone,  seem  to  show  tha* 
we  have  here,  as  indeed  gem-rally  in  thing's  pertai: 
to  eternity,  not  tin1  very  i"im.  but  only  an  expressive 
emblem  of  the  reality. 

Thi/ re  will  be  no  more  an  actual  lire,  in  hell,  or  burn 
ing  brimstone,  or  a  •jnawin'j;  worm,  than  in  heaven  there 
will  be  thrones  of  '-.'old.  amaranthine  crowns,  rivers  of 
pleasure,  or  ivpa-is  ,.f  material  «-n  jovnieiit.  I'lit  in 
either  case,  tin.-  m»-t  correct  and  living  idea  \\-,-  c:ui 
now  get  of  the  ivaliu  is  by  conceiving  of  it  under  those 
signi:icaiit  emblems.  Let  the  immediate  sources  of 
pain  be  what  they  m-iy.  the  representations  <_q\vn  in 
Scripture  leave  no  room  to  doubt  that  tin-re  is  a  place 
for  the  finally  impenitent,  \\ln-iv  pain  shall  for  ever 
urge  them — pain  not  less  intense  and  awful,  than  if  the 
unhappy  victims  \\viv  cast  into  a  lake  ,,f  lire,  ,.r  h;.,l  n 
worm  perpetually  gnawing  at  the  vitals  of  tln-ir  ln-iirj-. 
And  it'  anything  could  add  to  the  certainty  and  horror  of 
such  a  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment,  it  would  be  the 
circumstance  that  the  strongest  announcements  respect 
ing  it  came  directly  from  the  lips  of  the  merciful  1,V 
deeiner,  and  from  the  pen  of  his  most  'jviitle  and  loving 
disciple.  Nothing  but  the  stern  realities  of  truth 
could  have  drawn  such  revelations  of  the  comin'_r  eter 
nity  from  hearts  so  liable  to  be  touched  with  the  finer 
feelings  and  su.-ci -ptibilities  of  nature.  Love  itself 
love  in  its  lii-'lie-t  exercise  could  here  do  n-> thin- 
more  than  forewarn  of  the  coming  evil,  and  provide  the 
way  of  escape  from  it. 

HELLENISTS.     .<?«  ORF.CIAX.S. 

HELMET.     £«:  ARMOI-R. 

HELPS  \(lr.  a.vTi\-i']-j/tis\.  the  designation  employed 
for  a  class  of  official  ministrations  in  the  primitive 
church,  1C' i.  xii  -2s;  but  the  precise  nature  of  which  is 
nowhere  particularly  described,  and  has  been  most 
variously  understood.  It  has  been  supposed  to  mean 
prophetical  gifts;  the  gift  of  interpreting  tongues;' 
offices  of  service  by  way  of  baptizing  such  as  had  been 
converted  by  the  apostles,  and  going  where  they  could  ' 
not  come;  diaconal  ministrations  towards  the  sick,  ,<cc. 
— according  to  the  fancy  of  individual  writers.  It  is  ' 
surely  better  to  leave  undetermined  what  Scripture 
itself  has  not  exactly  defined.  The  natural  import  of 
the  word  seems  to  point  to  some  sort  of  subsidiary  ser 
vices  that  were  performed  by  persons  who  were  not 
deemed  qualified  for  the  higher  and  more  directly 
spiritual  offices  of  the  church;  but  what  these  might  be 

cannot  now  with  any  certainty  be  determined. 
VOL.  I. 


HERMOGENES 

HE'MAN,  a  Levite,  of  the  family  of  the  Kohathites, 
the  grandson  of  Samuel,  and  sou  of  Joel,  1  Ch.  vi.  a.1!,  34. 
And  it  appears  to  have  been  not  another,  but  the 
same  person  who  is  elsewhere  called  an  Ezrahite,  and 
reckoned  of  the  family  of  Xerah,  the  son  of  Judah, 
ICh.  ii.  4,i!;  1\>.  Ixxxviii.  title.  (See  Hen.-teuberg  there.)  It  was 
not  unusual  for  Levites  to  connect  themselves  with 
particular  families  of  the  other  tribes,  with  whom  they 
lived  as  strangers  and  sojourners;  so  that  they  were 
associated  with  two  tribes,  though  in  different  respects. 
Thus  Elkanah,  Samuel's  father,  was  called  an  Ephra- 
thite,  because  lie  had  resided  <>n  Mount  Kphraim, 
i-.  i.  1;  and  the  person  who  acted  as  priest  to  .Mieah, 
is  described  as  "of  the  family  of  .ludah,"  a  Pethlehcm- 
i'  .  but  still  a  Levite.  Ju.  xvii.7.  In  much  the  same 
way.  probably,  lleman  was  associated  with  the  family 
of  Xerah.  which  belonged  to  .ludah:  while  by  birth  and 

d  -so  nt  he  was  of  the  tril f  I.evi.       He  was  appointed 

by  l>avid  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  sacred  IIIUMC;  and 
\\as  even  classed  with  those  \\ho  Were  endowed  with 
supernatural  u'it'ls.  It  was  the  -lory  of  Solomon  that 
he  was  wiser  than  lleman  and  some  others  of  kindred 
spirit:  and  in  David's  time  lleman  was  designated 
"the  kind's  seer  in  tin-  words  of  Cod,"  i  cii.  xv.  r;,J7; 

XVi    12;  xxv.  :,;  1  Ki    iv  31.       •  ^"     Kl  HAM .) 

HEMLOCK.  •»\»n  "•--/<>.     Hu.v.4.     .Sff  GALL. 

HEX.     Sfl  (\>C-K. 

HEPHZI'BAH  [/,,//  ./,/;.,•/,/  in  J,er].  is  found  once  as 
tin-  name  of  a  real  person,  the  \\ife  of  lle/ekiah,  and 
niother  of  Manasseli.  L' Id  xxi.l;  and  is  poetically  em 
ployed  by  l-aiahas  a  tit  and  appropriate  designation  of 
the  people  of  Cod  in  tl:i  ir  [>rospective  state  of  holiness, 
Is.  Kii  I. 

HERESY,  as  used  in  the  New  Testament,  has  a 
somewhat  different  meaning  from  what  it  conveys  in 
ordinary  language.  It  indicates  the  existence  and 
manifestation  of  partv  spirit,  as  appearing  in  the  setting 
up  of  a  separate  interest,  and  taking  a  course  in  ivli- 
'_i'i"iis  matters  contrary  in  >"ine  respects  to  what  was 
efeneraily  approved;  not,  as  now.  the  belief  and  main 
tenance  of  -Mime  error  in  doctrine.  This  latter  mean 
ing  of  the  term  arose  some  generations  after  the  gospel 
era.  when  doctrinal  errors  did  usually  become  the  occa 
sion  of  a  divided  interest  in  the  Christian  church.  ]>ut 
in  tin;  apostolic  aife  the  merely  factions  divisions  in  the 
church  of  Corinth  were  styled  heresies.  iC'o.xi.19;  and 
St.  Paul  hiiii-i  If  was  regarded  bv  his  countrymen  as 
worshipping  (  Jod  in  a  way  they  called  heresy;  because 
connected  \\ith  a  seel  or  partv  which  stood  apart  from 
the  .le\\i-h  community,  and  had  a  religious  position  of 
its  own,  AC.  xxiv.  n. 

HER'MAS.  a  Christian  al  Rome,  mentioned  in 
(he  epistle  to  the  church  there,  and  saluted,  i:.>.  xvi.  n. 
No  other  notice  occurs  of  him  in  Scripture:  but  he 
was  very  commonly  supposed  in  ancient  times  to  be 
the  author  of  the  work  known  as  "The  Shepherd  of 
Hernias."  It  is,  however,  a  mere  tradition,  and  is 
now  '.generally  abandoned.  The  work  belongs  un 
doubtedly  to  a  later  »?<>. 

HERMO'GENES,  mentioned  alouo- with  1'hygellus, 
in  the  second  epistle  to  Timothy,  as  having  forsaken 
Paul  in  his  last  trials  at  Pome,  L'Ti.i  i.v  Put  no  ex 
planation  is  given  of  his  reason  for  so  doini;':  whether 
it  might  be  the  embracing  of  false  doctrine,  or  an  undue 
regard  to  his  own  temporal  interest.  Early  tradition 
associated  him  with  magicians;  but  no  reliance  can  he 
placed  upon  any  accounts  of  that  nature. 

92 


HERMON 


NKKODTAN    FAMILY 


HER'MON  [properly,  none  of  mountain,  jirojccthi;/ 
mountain  /mik;  Ges.  Thes.],  the  southernmost  and  high 
est  mountain  of  Antilibanus.  It  formed  the  north 
eastern  border  of  the  Promised  Land,  Do.  iii.  s.  Heside 
the  common  name  HERMON",  Jos.  xi.  17;  xiii  ;",&c,  it  is  also 
called  in  Scripture  Siox  («j«^,  xii/oii,  Do.  iv.  -is,  quite 
different  from  the  Sion  of  Jerusalem,  ?^v,  t:.!;/o'n'i,  the 
exalted  or  /oft//;  and  among  the  Amorites  it  appears 
to  have  borne  the  name  of  XltCtiir,  Do.  iii.  (J;  Eze.  xxvii. .'; 
while  the  Sidonians  called  it  Sirion,  Rs.  xxix.  c.;  both  of 
which  words  signify  a  lireaxtji/ate,  and  probably  refer 
to  the  snow  on  its  broad  summit  shining  in  the  sun; 
but  in  1  Ch.  v.  23,  and  Ca.  iv.  8.  Mount  Hermon  and 
Senir  seem  to  be  spoken  of  as  distinct  mountains.  In 
modern  times  it  is  called  Jcbcl-exh-Shcikh,  which  is 
sometimes  explained  as  the  "mountain  of  the  old  man," 
from  the  likeness  of  its  white  summit  to  a  hoary  head, 
but  far  more  probably  signifies  the  "chief  of  moun 
tains."  Another  Arabic  name  is  Jebel-etli-Thaly,  or  the 
"mountain  of  snow."  Van  de  Velde  (S.  and  v.  i.  I2f>), 
suggests  that  this  variety  of  names  is  explained  by  the 
fact  that  "  it  is  not  a  conical  mountain  like  Tabor,  with 
one  high  summit  and  a  base  distinctly  marked;  but  a 
whole  cluster  of  mountains,  many  days'  journey  in  cir 
cumference,  with  a  broad  ridge  of  summits,  the  highest 
in  the  Holy  Land."  These  summits  are  three  in  num 
ber,  of  nearly  equal  height,  and  at  equal  distances  from 
each  other,  not  situated  in  a  straight  line  as  they  appear 
from  some  points  of  view,  but  at  the  angles  of  an  equi 
lateral  trianoie.  One  of  them  is  occupied  by  the  ruins 
of  an  ancient  temple,  probably  that  mentioned  by  Je 
rome  (Onomastieon,  vide  Hermon),  which  probably  gave  rise 
to  the  name  Baal  Hermon,  by  which  the  mountain  is 
called  in  Ju.  iii.  3;  1  Ch.  v.  23. 

Hermon  is  a  conspicuous  object  from  all  parts  of  the 
Holy  Land.  Its  hoary  top  may  plainly  be  seen  from 
the  mountains  of  Samaria,  from  the  maritime  plain  of 
Tyre,  from  the  valley  of  Esdraeloii,  from  the  summit 
of  Tabor,  and  even  from  the  depths  of  the  valley  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  Its  summit  as  most  commonly  seen  has 
the  form  of  a  massive  truncated  cone,  and  until  late  in 
the  summer  is  entirely  covered  with  snow,  which  then 
melts  on  the  exposed  portions  of  the  mountain,  and 
remains  only  in  the  gorges  and  ravines,  giving  the 
appearance  of  radiant  stripes,  or  of  the  thin  white  locks 
of  an  old  man  (Robinson,  B.  R.  iii  344).  Hermon  was  the 
limit  of  the  geographical  ideas  of  the  Israelites  to  the 
north,  as  the  great  desert  was  to  the  south,  the  Medi 
terranean  to  the  west,  and  the  Euphrates  to  the  east. 
It  is  mentioned  in  three  passages  of  the  Psalms,  all  of 
which  are  worthy  of  notice. 

1.  "Therefore  will  1  remember  thee  from  the  land 
of  Jordan,  and  of  the  Hermonites  from  the  hill  Mizar, '' 
Ps.xlii.  (i.  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  read  "Hermans'' 
(ride  Gesenius, Hob.  Lex.1),  which  is  generally  understood  to 
refer  to  the  three  peaks  mentioned  above.  Heiigsten 
berg,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Pta/mx,  considers  the 
plural  to  have  been  used,  because  the  mountain  was 
taken  as  the  representative  of  its  species;  and  so  the 
word  was  intended  to  include  all  the  mountains  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Jordan.  But  this  appears  some 
what  fanciful,  as  the  explanation  given  above,  and 
suggested  by  the  appearance  of  the  mountain  itself,  is 
quite  natural,  and  satisfies  all  the  conditions  of  the  pas 
sage.  The  last  clause  has  been  mistranslated  in  the 
Vulgate  (Hermoiim  a  montc  modica),  followed  by  the 


English  prayer-book  version,  "the  little  hill  of  Hermon." 
and  in  consequence  the  name  of  little  Hermon  has  been 
given  by  monks  and  travellers  to  a  hill  on  the  plain  of 
Esdraeloii  near  Me  unit  Tabor,  called  Jehd-el-Duln/,  so 
as  the  better  to  agree  with  Ps.  Ixxxix.  12.  (<S'ee  JEZREEL.) 

2.  "The   north    and    the    south    thou   hast    created 
them,  Tabor  and  Hermon  shall  rejoice  in  thy  name," 
PS.  Ixxxix.  12.      Mr.  Porter  (Smith's  Diet,  oi'the  Bible)  suppose* 
that  Hermon  here  stands  for  the  north;  and  if  this  be 
the  case,  Tabor  and  Hermon  would   correspond  in  the 
poetical  antithesis  to  south  and  north.      Hut  it  is  far 
more  probable  that  Tabor  and  Hermon  are  put  for  west 
and  east  in  this  passage,  the  one  being  the  great  moun 
tain  of  Eastern  Palestine,  and  the  other  the  most  noted 
and  conspicuous  hill  west  of  the  .Ionian. 

3.  "A.s  the  dew  of  Hermon    that  descended  upon 
the  mountains  of  Zion, "  PS.  cxxxlii.  n.      The  abundance 
of  the  dews  of  Hermon,  arising  from  its  perpetual  snows, 
cannot  fail  to  be  noticed  by  any  one  who  visits  its  neigh 
bourhood.      The  closing  words   of  this  passage,    "for 
there  the  Lord  promised  his  blessing,  even  life  for  ever 
more,''  together  with  the  fact  that  this  psalm  is  a  song 
of  degrees,  forbids  the  supposition  that  Zion    is  to  be 
understood   of   any  other   place   than   the  well-known 
mount  of  that  name  in  Jerusalem,  and  is  to  be  identified 
with  the  name  sometimes  applied  to  Hermon  itself  or 
one  of  its  peaks.     It  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a  poeti 
cal  allusion  to  the  mighty  influence  of  Hermon  in  pro 
moting  the  formation  of  dew;  so  that  as  the  oil  poured 
011  Aaron's  head,  flowed  to  the  extreme  borders  of  his 
garments,  the  cool  breezes  and  refreshing  mists  of  snowv 
Hermon  might  be  said  in  blissful  times  to  reach  even 
to  the  seat  and  centre  of  the  kingdom.     So  Olshausen, 
"  The  refreshing  dew  of  Zion  is  derived  by  the  Psalmist 
from  the  cool  mountain  which  bounds  the  land  on  tljfc 
north."     This  seems  more  natural  and  simple  than  the 
view  of  Heiigstenberg,  who  would  understand  by  Her 
mon'' s  dew  such  as  was  of  peculiarly  fine  quality — dew 
of  the  best  and  most  refreshing  nature;  so  that  as  the 
goodness  of  the  oil  was  heightened  by  the  dignity  of 
the  person  who  was  anointed  with  it,  the  dew  of  Zion 
was  ennobled  by  being  associated  with  the  name  of  the 
hill  that  was  most  remarkable  for  its  production.     It 
would  be  to  the  inhabitants  of  Zion  as  if  they  shared 
in  the  copious  dews  of  Hermon. 

The  height  of  Hermon  is  variously  estimated.  Van 
de  Velde  (s  and  r.  i.  p.  120)  states  that  the  survey  of  Major 
Scott  and  Kobe  in  1S40  gives  a  height  of  9376  feet. 
Stanley  reckons  it  at  10,000  feet;  while  Dr.  Kitto  (Cyclo 
pedia  of  Bib.  Lit.)  calculates  that  it  cannot  be  less  than 
12,000  feet — 11.000  feet  being  the  level  of  perpetual 
snow  in  that  latitude.  [('.  T.  M.] 

HERODIAN  FAMILY.  This  remarkable  family, 
whose  different  members  occupied  a  prominent  place, 
and  often  had  a  leading  share,  in  the  direction  of 
affairs  in  and  around  Judea  during  all  the  period 
embraced  in  the  gospel  age,  were  of  Idumsean  origin. 
The  immediate  father  of  the  family  was  Antipater. 
whom  Josephus  distinctly  asserts  to  have  been  an 
Idunueaii,  although  at  a  later  period  Xicolaus  of 
Damascus,  an  historical  writer  of  those  times,  repre 
sented  him  as  of  the  stock  of  those  Jews  who  returned 
from  the  Babylonish  exile.  This,  we  are  assured  by 
Josephus.  was  clone  merely  to  gratify  Herod,  the  son  of 
that  Antipater.  after  certain  revolutions  of  fortune  had 
raised  him  to  the  chief  power  in  Judca  (Ant.  xiv.  i.  3). 
The  assertion,  however,  could  not  even  have  been  made 


HEROBIAX   FAMILY 


•31 


HERODIAX   FAMILY 


with  any  appearance  of  truth,  unles-s  Antipater  had 
been  himself  circumcised,  and  along  with  his  family 
had  conformed  to  the  religious  customs  of  the  Jews. 
This  undoubtedly  they  had  done.  They  were  not  of 
the  seed  of  Israel,  and  if  called  Jews,  it  was  only  from 
their  having  embraced  the  Jewish  religion — as  indeed 
the  Idumae.ms  generally  had  sometime  previously  been 
compelled  to  do.  The  Antij  >ater  above  mentioned  was  an 
intriguing,  active,  and  powerful  man;  and  in  no  proper 
sense  what  Josephus  at  his  death  represents  him,  a  man 
of  piety  anil  justice  (Ant.  xiv.  11,  n.  He  lirst  succeeded 
in  raising  himself  to  the  virtual  supremacy  of  Idum;ea. 
and  then,  by  skilfully  fomenting  the  divisions  that 
existed  between  the  hiu'h-priest  Hyrcanus,  and  his 
brother  Aristobulus,  and  playing  upon  the  weakii'  :-  <>t 
the  softer  brother  Hyrcanus,  he  came  al-"  to  acquire 
the  virtual  ascendency  in  Judea:  tin.' nominal  authority 
was  left  with  Hyrcanus.  but  the  real  powi-r  was  in  tlie 
hands  of  Antipater:  and  from  Julius  t  'a-sar  he  at  length 
obtained  the  procuratorship  of  Judea.  Shortly  after 
this  he  made  bis  eldest  son  Phasael  i^overiior  of  Jeru 
salem:  and  the  second.  Herod,  whose  .-upcrior  energy 
and  great  success  in  life  ultimately  gave  to  the  family 
its  historical  name,  had  committed  to  him  the  govern 
ment  of  ( ialilee. 

1.  HKKOD  THI:  (  ;I:KAT.  Herod  was  but  a  young  man 
when  he  entered  on  bis  command  Jo.-ephu-  pays 
only  fifteen  years  old,  but  that  is  certainlv  a  mistake, 
as  by  a  comparison  of  other  dates  in  Josephus.  lie 
must  have  Keen  above  twuiitv ;  even  so,  however,  lie 
was  a  young  man  for  bavin.;'  so  responsible  a  position 
intrusted  to  him:  but  in  a  civil  and  mili'arv  ivspeet  }[•• 
pro\ed  ([iiite  equal  to  the  occasion.  Such  vigour  and 
alacrity  \vere  displayed  liy  him  in  clearing  the  district 
of  robbers,  and  reducing  it  t"  quictii'->s  and  order, 
that  he  soon  became  an  ol.ji-et  of  popular  eii'Iiu-ia-m  : 
so  much  so.  indeed,  that  the  jealou-y  of  tin-  i  injj 
party  in  Jeru-al'  m  wa-  roused  UL':;in-t  him.  and  they 
listeneil  to  th>-  complaints  that  wen-  lodged  in  respect 
t<>  his  proceedings  by  certain  interested  parties.  I  b-rod 
was  summoned  to  appear  before  the  Saiiheiirim,  \\liich 
lie  readily  did:  hut  on  the  advice  of  his  father  took  \\ith 
him  a  firm  bofl\-  ••.•uard  of  x.ldier.-.  sum  'iinded  by  whom, 
and  himself  gorgeously  clad  in  purple,  he  presented 
himself  before  his  judges.  This  bad  th>-  desired  effect: 
the  members  of  the  council  \\vre  too  t'n'_ht(  n<  d  to  con 
deinn  such  a  culprit:  and  Hyrcanus  also  had  received  a 
communication  from  Sextns  < 'a.-sar,  president  of  Syria, 
demanding  the  acquittal  of  Herod.  The  trial 
ingly  was  allowed  to  pass  olt'  without  any  sentence 
being  pronounced:  and  presently  after  Herod  had  his 
power  considerably  enlarged  by  receiving  from  Sextus 
the  command  of  dele-Syria.  He  was  now  bent  on 
revenging  himself  against  the  party  in  Jerusalem  who 
had  brought  him  to  trial,  but  was  dissuaded  by  bis 
father  and  his  elder  brother  Phasael.  The  civil  troubles 
that  ensued  connected  with  the  death  of  Cu'sar.  the 
defeat  of  the  conspirators,  and  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
Augustus,  brought  only  increase  of  strength  and  power 
to  Herod:  he  most  skilfully  played  his  part  through 
them  all,  and  contrived  to  secure  his  influence  with  the 
ruling  party.  He  first  gained  the  favour  of  (Jassius, 
who  came  to  Syria  for  a  time,  by  the  readiness  with 
which  he  raised  from  his  province  the  contribution  laid 
upon  it;  then,  after  defeating  the  party  of  one  Malichus, 
who  had  poisoned  Antipater,  the  father  of  Herod,  and 
whom  Herod  caused  to  be  assassinated,  he  made  court 


to  Antony,  who  for  a  time  held  the  ascendant  in  the 
East,  and  he  and  his  brother  Phasacl  were  made  joint 
tetrarchs  or  governors  of  Jndca.  It  was  not  long  after 
this,  however,  that  the  greatest  reverse  in  Herod's  life 
and  career  befell  him;  for  the  Parthians,  under  Pacorus, 
taking  advantage  of  the  troubled  ftate  of  the  times, 
and  of  the  dissatisfaction  caused  by  the  large  exactions 
of  the  Romans,  made  themselves  masters  of  the  greater 
part  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor:  and  Antigonus,  sou  of 
Aristobulus.  and  nephew  of  Hyrcanus,  threw  himself 
into  their  hands  in  order  to  gain  possession  of  the 
supreme  power  in  Judea.  Hyrcanus  and  Phasael  fell 
a  prey  to  this  formidable  coalition:  they  were  both 
carried  captive  by  the  Parthians:  in  consequence  of 
which  Phasael  committed  suicide:  and  Herod  only 
escaped  by  lii^ht,  in  tin'  course  of  which  he  was  re 
duced  to  >uch  straits,  that  he  loo  would  have  killed  him 
self  had  it  not  bc'-n  for  the  earnest  entreaties  of  those 
I  about  him.  After  defending  himself  for  some  time  in  the 
fortress  of  .Ma.-sada.  on  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and 
having  tried  in  vain  to  inten  -t  in  his  behalf  Malehus, 
the  Arabian  kin^r  of  IVtra.  he  found  his  way  to  K-vpt, 
and  thence  to  Koine.  Therein'  arrived  at  what  Mas 
for  him  the  fortunate  juncture,  \\hen  Antony  and  ( >e- 
tavianus  ( 'a-sar  liad  entered  into  a  reconciliation:  and 
the  former,  remembering  the  pa-t  services  of  Herod, 
I  and  also  expecting'  from  him  valuable  aid  in  the  enter- 
i  prise  h  •  was  going  to  undertake  against  the  Parthians, 
warmly  espoused  bis  cause,  and  obtained  a  decree  of 
the  senate  in  his  favour,  constituting  him  kinu  of  Judea. 
In  conformity  with  this  arrangement  Antiuoinis  \\as 
ordered  to  be  sent  to  1,'onie:  and  IK  rod.  fearing  the 
elleet  of  his  personal  representations,  prevailed  upon 
;  Antony  liy  secret  '.ii'ts  of  money  to  uvt  Anti_onus  put 
to  d.  ath.  With  him  expired  the  race  of  the  A.-monean 
prince-,  u  ho  bad  .-o  loiiu'  combined  the  temporal  and 
prie.-tly  rule  in  Judea,  and  who.  by  worldly  ambition 
and  an  unscrupulous  policy,  lost  the  power  which  thev 
had  at  lirst  acquired  bv  sacred  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
Heaven. 

I:  was  about  the  year  r.e.  |u.  that  Herod  succeeded 
!  in  obtaining  this  hi^h  dignity.  His  movements  were 
!  as  rapid  as  his  success  was  wonderful.  He  was  alto 
gether  but  -even  days  in  Koine,  and  returned  king  to 
Syria  only  three  months  after  he  had  been  obliged  to 
Hi  e  from  Jerusalem  for  his  life.  Hi-  first  business  was 
to  assemble  an  army,  which  he  did  ehieHv  in  (ialilee, 
tlu-  scene  of  his  former  triumphs,  where  he  anain  carried 
all  before  him.  and  in  other  parts  of  the  country  obtained 
successes  over  his  adversaries.  Jerusalem,  however, 
held  out  firmly  against  him,  the  members  of  the  San 
hedrim  and  tin.'  people  generally  being  much  in  the 
Asinoiiean  interest.  Hut  ultimately,  by  the  aid  of  the 
Koinan  forces,  under  Sosius,  the  lieutenant  of  Antony. 
the  city  was  taken,  and  dreadful  ravages  were  com 
mitted  by  the  soldiery.  A  capital  so  gained  would 
have  required  to  be  ruled  with  singular  clemency  and 
discretion,  if  its  sovereign  was  to  gain  the  affection  and 
good-will  of  its  people:  but  Herod's  policy  was  of  a  dif 
ferent  kind:  he  sought  rather  to  inspire  terror  than  to 
conciliate  affection:  and  along  with  many  others  of  the 
leading  citizens  who  had  taken  part  against  him,  the 
whole  of  the  Sanhedrim  excepting  two  were  put  to 
death.  By  these  executions  Herod  not  only  got  rid  of 
formidable  enemies,  but  obtained  possession  of  immense 
treasure,  with  which  he  contributed  largely  to  the  re 
sources  of  Antony,  and  secured  still  further  his  friend- 


IIKPvODlAN    FAMILY 


HKKOBIAX   FAMILY 


ship.  This  ho  found  himself  still  in  a  condition  to  need; 
for.  discountenancing  as  he  did  all  claims  even  to  the 
priesthood  on  the  part  of  the  Asmonean  line,  he  rai.-ed 
tip  foes  in  his  own  household,  .lie  was  now  married  to 
Mariamne,  the  grand- daughter  of  Hyreaims:  ami  her 
mother,  Alexandra,  displeased  at  the  slight  ]>ut  upon 
her  kindred,  entered  into  intrigues  against  him.  In  con- 
.-(.•  [Hence  of  these  he  was  induced  to  remove  the  pi-r>nn 
he  had  made  high-priest,  and  substitute  Aristobulus, 
the  son  of  Alexandra.  But  tliis  person  becoming  too 
popular  for  Herod,  he  had  him  secretly  assassinated, 
and  not  without  difficulty  was  hi1  able  to  avert  the 
effect  of  Alexandra's  representations  against  him  to 
Cleopatra,  who  warmlv  espoused  the  cause  of  the  As- 
moneans.  But  Herod  had  proved  too  valuable  an  ally 
to  Antony  t<>  lie  lightly  -acriticed,  and.  through  Antony 
even  Cleopatra  was  won  over  to  his  .-id". 

The  scene,  h  iwt;ver.  presently  shitted,  and  Herod's 
steady  adherence  to  the  cause  of  Antony  now  proved 
the  source  of  his  greatest  danger.  "When  hostilities 
broke  out  between  Antony  and  Augustus,  Herod  at 
once  prepared  to  join  the  army  of  his  former  friend, 
and  raised  forces  on  purpose;  but  he  was  ordered  by 
Antony  to  go  in  the  first  instance  against  Malclms  of 
Arabia,  who  had  refused  to  pay  Cleopatra  the  tribute 
laid  upon  him.  This  saved  Herod  from  any  actual  share 
in  the  conflict  that  ensued  between  the  two  great  rivals; 
for  his  operations  in  Arabia  extended  over  nearly  two 
years,  and  by  that  time  the  decisive  battle  of  Actium 
had  rendered  Augustus  virtu, d  master  of  the  i.'mnaii 
world.  It  was  a  critical  moment  for  Herod;  for  though 
he  had  been  prevented  from  taking  part  in  the  conllict, 
his  warm  attachment  to  Antony  was  well  known,  and 
he  had  but  too  much  reason  to  expect  that  he  should 
have  to  share  in  his  patron's  reverse  of  fortune.  J'.nt 
here  again  the  sagacity  and  address  of  Herod  proved 
equal  to  the  occasion.  He  resolved  on  going  to  see 
Augustus  at  Rhodes:  where  his  appearance  partook  of  a 
prudent  mixture  of  humility  and  boldness;  for  he  laid 
aside  his  diadem,  as  having  lost  in  a  manner  his  right 
to  wear  it;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  openly  avowed  his 
attachment  to  Antony,  confessed  how,  though  he  had 
not  joined  him  on  the  field  of  battle,  he  had  furnished 
him  with  money  and  corn,  and  supported  him  to  the 
uttermost;  now,  however,  since  fortune  had  finally  de 
cided  against  Antony,  and  he  had  refused  the  prudent 
counsel  he  had  himself  tendered  him  respecting  Cleo 
patra.  Herod  artfully  begged  the  emperor  to  perceive 
in  his  connection  with  Antony  how  steadfast  and  faith 
ful  he  was  to  his  friends,  and  what  Augustus  might 
henceforth  expect  from  him  if  he  should  deem  him 
worthy  of  his  favour.  This  bold  stroke  of  policy  ac 
complished  its  end;  Augustus  was  charmed  with  Herod's 
frankness  of  behaviour,  at  once  restored  to  him  the 
kingdom,  and  sent  him  back  to  Judea  with  greater 
honour  and  assurance  than  ever  (Jos.  Ant.  xv.  oV  A  short 
time  afterwards,  when  Augustus  returned  from  Iv_<ypt, 
leaving  the  whole  country  subject  to  him,  and  Antony 
and  Cleopatra  both  dead,  he  was  most  magnificently 
entertained  by  Herod,  who  also  distributed  large  dona 
tions  among  the  principal  attendants  of  the  emperor. 
The  result  was  that  a  considerable  addition  was  made 
to  the  territory  of  Herod;  he  received  Gadara,  Hippos, 
Samaria,  with  various  possessions  along  the  Philistine 
coast. 

But  these  external  acquisitions  were  accompanied 
with  sad  internal  discords  in  hie  family,  which  led  to 


atrocious  crimes  and  almost  insupportable  misery.  He 
had  already  made  away  with  Hyrcantis,  his  wife's 
grandfather,  whom  the  Partisans  released  and  allowed 
to  return  to  Jerusalem.  Partly  in  consequence  of  this, 
and  of  other  indignities  to  her  kindred,  his  wife  Mari 
amne,  whom  he  passionately  loved,  became  cold  in  her 
affections,  and  somewhat  insolent  in  her  behaviour 
towards  him:  and  by  certain  persons  about  him,  among 
whom  were  his  sister  .Salome,  and  also  her  own  mother 
Alexandra,  she  was  accused  of  infidelity  to  his  bed,  and 
of  even  harbouring  designs  against  his  life.  In  a  fren/.y 
of  rage  he  had  her  condemned  and  executed:  yet  no 
sooner  was  the  deed  done  than  he  most  bitterly  repented 
of  it,  and,  like  a  person  distracted,  was  often  heard  to 
call  upon  Mariamne,  and  sometimes  also  ordered  the 
servants  to  call  for  her,  as  if  she  were  still  alive.  Ills 
bodily  health  suffered  at  the  same  time,  and  he  fell 
at  last  into  a  distemper  from  which  the  physicians 
scarcely  expected  him  to  recover.  Other  persons  in 
his  household  shared  the  fate  of  Mariamne,  includ 
ing  her  ni"iher  Alexandra,  who  had  indeed  played 
a  treacherous  and  deceitful  part.  Costobarus,  also, 
the  husband  of  his  sister  Salome,  and  others,  whose 
conduct  had  been  such  a.s  to  raise  suspicions  of  un 
faithfulness,  suffered  death  during  this  gloomy  period 
of  Herod's  career.  By  and  by,  however,  he  rose  above 
these  domestic  and  civil  disturbances,  married  another 
Mariamne.  the  beautiful  daughter  of  (.me  Simon,  whom 
he  previously  raised  to  the  high- priesthood,  and  launched 
forth  on  a  great  variety  of  magnificent  architectural 
operations.  In  some  of  these  he  took  occasion  to  ex 
hibit  his  attachment  to  Rome  and  its  imperial  head,  so 
as  to  outrun  the  sympathies  of  his  subjects,  and  even 
to  outrage  his  profession  as  an  adherent  of  the  ,ie\\i.-h 
faith.  For,  not  only  did  he  rebuild  the  city  of  Samaria, 
which  had  been  destroyed  during  the  previous  wars, 
and  called  it  by  the  name  of  Sebaste,  in  honour  of 
Augustus,  and  for  the  same  reason  designated  the  mag 
nificent  city  which  he  reared  on  the  site  of  the  village 
and  tower  of  Straton,  Ctesarea:  but  at  I'aneas  he  built 
a  beautiful  temple  of  white  marble,  and  dedicated  it 
expressly  to  Augustus.  In  further  imitation  of  the 
!  toman  style  and  manners,  he  built  at  Jerusalem  itself 
a  theatre,  and  an  amphitheatre  in  the  plain,  emblazoned 
with  the  trophies  he  had  won,  and  instituted  games  in 
honour  of  Caasar,  to  be  celebrated  every  fifth  year,  with 
prizes  for  the  successful  combatants  sufficient  to  draw 
competitors  even  from  distant  lands.  Cladiatorial 
shows  were  not  wanting;  and  strangers,  we  are  told, 
"were  greatly  delighted  and  surprised  at  the  vastness 
of  the  expenses  incurred,  and  the  great  dangers  that 
were  seen"  (Jos.  xv.  8,l).  Hub  Jews  who  had  some  re 
gard  to  the  religion  and  customs  of  their  forefathers, 
viewed  matters  differently;  such  open  imitation  of 
heathenish  practices,  and  courtly  adulation  of  Romish 
supremacy,  was  in  their  view  nothing  less  than  undis 
guised  impiety,  and  a  shameful  sacrifice  of  national 
honour.  Deep  murmurs  of  dissatisfaction  consequently 
arose,  and  a  conspiracy  was  even  formed  by  ten  men 
to  take  away  Herod's  life  while  he  should  be  in  the 
theatre;  but  being  discovered  by  a  spy,  the  conspirators 
were  all  put  to  death,  though  so  little  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  people,  that  the  spy  was  afterwards  fallen  upon 
in  a  tumult  and  torn  to  pieces.  But  this  only  led  to 
fresh  tortures  and  executions;  and  then  came  the  erec 
tion  of  the  fortress  Antonia,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  temple,  and  similar  fortifications  in  other  parts  of 


HEROJJIAX   FAMILY 


HEPvODIAN    FAMILY 


his  dominions,  by  which  Herod  expected  to  keep  the 
turbulent  temper  of  the  people  in  check,  and  through 
terror  compensate  for  what  he  had  lost  in  respect  and 
affection  by  his  arbitrary,  ambitious,  and  heathenizing 
procedure. 

Herod,  however,  was  too  sagacious  and  politic  a 
man  to  trust  altogether  for  the  maintenance  of  his 
authority  and  the  continuance  of  his  government  to 
military  preparations  or  works  of  mere  outward  show 
and  splendour.  In  various  ways  lie  tried  to  conciliate 
the  people,  and  by  substantial  acts  of  beneficence  to 
establish  a  claim  on  their  gratitude  and  affection.  He 
did  this  on  a  larju'e  scale  during  the  prevalence  of  a 
severe  famine  which  occurred  in  the  thirteenth  yei  r  of 
his  reign,  and  which  spread  o\vr  i'ale.-fine  and  the 
surrounding  countries  the  ni">t  appalling  calamities. 
Herod  in  this  great  emergency  spent  all  his  available 
resources,  and  even  parted  with  manvnt'  his  most  v-du- 
able  treasures  of  art.  in  order  to  obtain  supplies  of  corn 
from  Fgvpt  :  and  to  such  an  extent  did  lie  thereby 
relieve  the  immediate  \v:ints  nf  the  people,  uii'l  provide 
the  seed-corn  necessary  for  the  coining  season,  that  his 
fame  as  a  beniunant  ruler  spread  far  abroad,  and  the 
tide  of  feeling  at  home  he'_ran  to  turn  miu'htilv  in  his 
favour.  In  certain  cases  also  lie  remitted  the  taxis 
that  were  due.  when  temporary  circumstances  made 
tli>-  payment  hard.  lie  was  at  pains  be.-ides,  by  ample 
donations  and  other  substantial  benefits,  to  attach  the 
local  governors  to  his  side;  and  often  commanded  ad 
miration  for  his  talents  by  the  eloquent  orations  h, 
made  in  the  ditlereiit  cities  }\,-  vi-ited.  I'.ut  more, 
perhaps,  than  by  such  things  did  he  win  upon  the  re 
spect  of  the  strictly  .lewi.-h  part  of  his  subjects,  ami 
undo  the  erl'-ct  of  many  foul  and  atrocious  deeds,  bv 
his  expensive  and  magnificent  reconstruction  .if  the 
temple  buildings.  This  great  work  was  formally  com 
menced  by  one  account  of  Josephus  in  the  eighteenth 
year  of  Heroil's  re'un  (Ant.  xv  11,0,  by  another  in  the 
fifteenth  i\\":ir-.i  -.'i.n.  and  was  inaugurated  bv  a  speech 
from  him,  in  which  he  sol  t'orlh  the  many  bein-lits  he 
had  already  conferred  upon  the  nation,  the  incompar 
able  dignity  and  spl'-n.lom-  'his  ivi^n  hail  conferred 
upon  it.  and  the  inniien -e  advantages  lie  enjo\-e(|  for 
the  vast  and  pious  undertaking  he  was  now  entering 
up  m  from  the  amicable  relations  in  which  he  stood 
with  the  Roman  emperor,  an  1  the  larjo  revenues  i,e 
]iossess((l.  He  prai-'-d  their  ancestors  for  d"iir:  \\  hat 
they  actually  accomplished  in  their  untowaril  circum 
stances;  it  was  not  tlnir  fault,  but  the  e'ubarass 
ment  of  the  times  in  which  thev  lived,  that  rendered 
their  work  imperfect:  but  since  the  temple  built  bv 
them  fell  short  of  Solomon's  sixty  cubits  in  height,  and 
was  otherwise  inferior  to  the  ancient  model,  he  declared 
it  to  bo  his  purpose  now  to  make  the  buildings  as 
complete  as  possible,  and  thereby  render  a  thankful 
return  to  ( ;od  for  the  blessings  he  had  received  from 
him  (.Ins.  Ant.  xv.  11,1).  Thousands  of  people  were  em 
ployed  by  Herod  in  this  great  work,  and  in  ei-ht  years 
the  cloisters  and  walls,  which  formed  the  outer  temple 
buildings,  were  finished,  and  the  temple  itself  in  a  year 
and  a  half  more — in  all,  therefore,  nine  and  a  half  years 
(Ant.  xv.  11,  (',}.  It  would  seem,  however,  that  certain  minor 
things  remained  still  to  be  done  ;  for  Josephus  speaks  of 
building  operations  going  on  about  the  temple  long- 
after  this  period,  and  of  the  whole  being  finished  only 
in  the  time  of  Herod  Agrippa  (Ant.  xx.  9,  r];  as  the  Jews 
also  in  St.  John's  gospel  spoke  of  the  building  having  been 


carried  on  for  forty-six  years,  ju.  ii.  i?j.  But  the  greater 
part  of  these  more  protracted  operations  most  probably 
consisted  of  repairs  rendered  necessary  by  the  damages 
from  time  to  time  inHicted  bv  the  wars  and' outbreaks 
which  occurred.  And  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  what  properly  constituted  Herod's  work  of  re 
modelling  the  tern] ile  was  completed  in  the  nine  and  a 
half  years  specified  above,  when,  as  at  the  completion 
of  Solomon's  temple,  many  sacrifices  were  offered,  and 
great  rejoicings  held. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  costly  reconstruc 
tion  and  enlargement  of  the  temple-buildings  was  a 
dexterous  stroke  of  policy  on  Herod's  part,  and  went 
far  to  silence  the  opposition  and  overcome  the  dislike 
which  were  entertained  toward  him  by  a  large  portion 
of  his  Jewish  subjects.  Hut  it  is  impossible  to  give  it 
a  higher  character,  and  to  view  it  in  the  liu'ht  in  which 
he  especially  wished  it  to  be  contemplated,  as  "a  work 
of  the  greatest  piety  and  excellence."  Herod  was  too 
indiscriminate  in  his  liberality,  and  unscrupulous  in  his 
behaviour,  to  possess  the  disposition,  or  even  the  belief 
necessary  to  fit  him  for  doing  a  really  pious  action. 


\kennan. 


The  man  who  could  build  a  temple  for  the  Samaritans  in 
Sebaste.  and  at  1'aneas  for  Augustus;  who  could  erect 
what  .lo-.-phus  calls  "  the  greatest  and  most  illustrious 
of  ail  his  works"-  the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Rhodes, 
\\liieh  had  been  consumed  by  tire;  who  could  come  for 
ward  before  tin:  world  as  tin-  great  restorer  of  the 
Olympic  games  tin  many  ways  so  intimately  associated 
with  heathenism*,  and  bv  the  largeness  of  his  donations 
for  their  support,  obtain  for  himself  the  honour  of  presi 
dent  for  life  (.Jos.  Aiit.  xv.  v  ;  '•',>>•  xvi..r),  .'!;  Wars,  i.  21,  ll,  ILM  - 
Mich  a  man  could  have  had  no  real  faith  in  Jehovah,  as 
the  one  living  ( !od.  nor  any  proper  regard  to  the  institu 
tions  and  laws  of  .Moses.  It  is  deal',  however,  he  was 
not  an  avaricious  per-on  :  the  enormous  .-urns  hi,'  laid 
out  on  the  public  objects  referred  to  may  well  vindicate 
him  from  any  suspicion  of  that  sort:  the  wonder  rather 
is  how  he  i  oidd  have  ao|uind  tic  means  of  exhibiting 
such  an  expensive  and  extravagant  liberality  a<  he  dis 
played.  For.  besides  the  temples  and  public  buildings 
lie  reared,  many  entire  cities  were  the  creation  of  his 
cenius  and  resources— Csesarea,  Antipatris,  Sebaste  (or 
Samaria)  almost  made  new.  &c.:  public  buildings  of  an 
ornamental  and  useful  kind  raised  at  his  expense  in 
Damascus,  Tripoli,  1'tolemais.  Tyre.  Sidon.  Askelon,and 
other  places:  a  large  open  space  in  Antioeh.  twenty  fur- 
loners  in  length,  paved  with  polished  marble,  and  decor 
ated  with  a  commodious  cloister;  and  to  say  nothing  of 
other  undertakings,  the  splendid  entertainments  given 
by  him,  together  with  the  costly  presents  and  ample  con 
tributions  he  rendered  to  Caesar  and  Agrippa,  on  the 
occasion  of  visits  received  from  them  and  paid  to  them 
(Jos.  Ant.  xv.  9;  xvi.  2;  Wars.i.  21) — all  bespeaking  the  posses 
sion  of  immense  resources,  as  well  as  a  perfect  readiness 
to  part  with  them  for  the  gratification  of  his  desires  and 


HMliODLAX    FAMILY 


11  El JOJJi AN    FAMILY 


once  to  his  unrivalled  beneficence  and  his  atrocious  cruel  - 
tics.  was  imdoiibtedlv.  :is  justly  remarked  by  Josephus 
(\\\L  xvi.  ;>,  0,  his  inordinate  ambition.  This  led  him  to 
grudge  nothiii';1  which  promised  to  bring  liim  present 
honour  or  kilure  renown:  to  carrv  out  such  reforms 
and  nndcrtakmus  at  home.,  as  mi^ht  dispose  his  sub 
jects  to  associate  with  his  name  their  highest  national 
glorv,  and,  like  another  Solomon,  create  a  favourable 
impression  of  it  in  foreign  lands.  But  it  also  led  him 
to  commit  many  haivh  deeds  and  perpetrate  almost 
unheard-of  crimes:  for  as  his  enormous  expenditure  re 
quired  more  than  the  legitimate  revenues  of  his  do-  j 
minion  to  support  it,  so  he  readily  availed  himself  of  ! 
the  mo^t  arbitrary  and  cruel  expedients  to  replenish 
them,  and  in  his  extreme  jealousy  to  maintain  the  rights 
of  his  prerogative,  no  life  was  too  clear,  no  person  too 
sacred,  to  be  sacrificed. 

Some  of  the  worst  of  these  barbarous  and  unnatural 
crimes,  which  have  left  an  indelible  stain  on  the 
memory  of  this  unhappy  man,  were  committed  near  the 
close  (if  his  career,  and  reveal  the  comparative  worth- 
lessness  of  his  public  benefactions  and  external  magni- 
ficence  to  secure  even  the  commonest  re.-poct  and  ali'cc- 
tioii  from  tho-M'  about  him.  His  household  was  rent 
with  internal  factions — wife  against  wife,  and  child 
against  child,  miserably  plotting  each  other's  overthrow, 
and  alternately  striving  to  awaken  the  king's  jealousy, 
r;nd  provoke  him  to  deeds  of  violence.  .Mention  has 
hitherto  been  made  of  only  two  wives,  because  the.>e 
played  a  more  conspicuous  part  than  the  rest:  but 
he  had  no  fewer  than  ten,  and,  with  the  exception  of 
two,  his  own  nieces,  he  appears  to  have  had  children  by 
all  of  them.  Beside  the  two  nieces,  there  were  Itoris. 
the  mother  of  Antipater;  Mariamne,  daughter  of  Alex 
andra,  the  mother  of  Aristobulus  and  Alexander,  also 
of  two  daughters:  Mariamne.  daughter  of  Simon,  the 
mother  of  Herod  Philip  :  Malthace,  a  Samaritan,  the 
mother  of  Arehelaus.  Herod  Aiitipas,  and  a  daughter: 
Cleopatra  of  Jerusalem,  the  mother  of  Philip  of  It  urea, 
and  of  another  son  who  bore  the  general  name  of  Herod; 
Pallas,  the  mother  of  a  son  called  after  Herod's  elder 
brother  Phasael ;  Phssdra.  and  Elpis,  each  of  them  the 
mother  of  a  daughter,  the  former  of  Roxana,  the 
latter  of  Salome.  The  antagonistic  interests  of  so  many 
divers  sections  in  Herod's  family  gave  rise  to  factions 
which  embittered  his  latter  days;  criminations  and  recri 
minations  of  the  most  odious  nature  were  brought  by  one 
against  another:  and  after  fruitless,  or  at  most  but  par 
tially  successful,  efforts  at  reconciliation,  three  of  the 
sons  (Antipater,  Aristobulus.  and  Alexander)  were  put 
to  death  at  the  instigation  of  their  father.  Many  others 
suffered  in  connection  with  these  family  feuds:  a  sedition 
also  broke  out  at  Jerusalem  in  the  midst  of  them,  with 
the  avowed  design  of  tearing  down  the  eagle  that  had 
been  fixed  over  the  gate  of  the  temple,  which  was 
mercilessly  chastised  by  the  infliction  of  many  deaths; 
and  to  crown  all,  a  severe  and  fatal  disease  seized  his 
stomach  and  bowels,  which  seemed  only  to  render  his 
temper  the  more  intractable,  the  nearer  it  brought  him 
to  his  latter  end.  In  the  gloom  and  misery  which  en 
veloped  him  he  once  attempted  to  kill  himself,  and 
often  acted  more  like  a  madman  than  one  in  a  sound 
mind  —bewailing  his  condition,  especially  on  account  of 
the  joy  that  lie  knew  many  would  experience  at  his 
death;  yet  ^ till,  with  his  passion  unabated  for  the  pagean 


try  df  show  and  magnificence,  giving  orders  for  the  per 
formance  of  the  grandest  obsequies  at  his  funeral.  I  le 
died  only  four  days  after  lie  had  signed  the  warrant  for 
the  execution  of  his  son  Antipater.  Thus  lived  and 
died  the  man  whom  the  world  styled  Herod  the  Great. 

The  only  incident  recorded  of  Herod  in  New  Tes 
tament  scripture  is  the  memorable  transaction  which 
meets  us  at  the  threshold  of  the  evangelical  narrative, 
regarding  the  attempt  made  on  the  life  of  the  infant 
Jesus,  by  the  slaughter  of  the  male  children  of  Bethle 
hem.  The  incident  is  not  noticed  by  Josephus,  whe 
ther  from  not  deeming  it  wurthv  of  aiiv  special  men 
tion  in  such  a  life,  or,  as  is  not  less  probable,  in  pur 
suance  of  that  studied  reserve  which  he  maintained  in 
respect  to  the  history  and  claims  of  Jesus.  But  no 
one  can  fail  to  perceive  the  perfect  accordance,  in  point 
of  character,  of  the  part  played  by  Herod  in  the  account 
of  the  evangelist,  with  what  appears  in  the  preceding 
outline  of  his  career :  the  trouble  occasioned  to  him 
and  those  about  him  by  the  announcement  of  a  king 
beiii-  born  to  the  .lews,  apart  from  the  dynasty  which 
Herod  laboured  hard  to  establish ;  the  craft  and  h\- 
pocrisy  with  which  he  sought  for  his  own  purposes 
to  get  acquainted  with  the  secret  communicated  to  the 
magi;  the  determination  manifested  to  get  rid,  at  what 
ever  cost,  of  this  new  object  of  jealousy,  and  the  actual 
accomplishment  of  it  (as  he  supposed)  by  an  order  of 
inexpressible  cruelty :  all  of  them  traits  which  find  but 
too  many  exemplifications  in  the  history  of  Herod,  and 
not  unfrequentlv  in  deeds  of  atrocity,  compared  with 
which  the  murder  of  a  few  children  in  Bethlehem  might 
well  have  seemed  of  small  account.  In  itself,  how 
ever,  and  in  tin;  reckoning  of  Heaven,  it  was  the  foulest 
deed  in  his  whole  career:  for  it  was  a  blow  aimed  at  the 
verv  liTc  and  hope  of  the  world,  and  gives  Herod  a 
place  in  the  foremost  rank  of  the  enemies  and  persecu 
tors  of  the  church  of  God.  He  thus  became  for  the 
time  being  the  representative  of  that  worldly  power, 
which  in  its  natural  state  has  ever  been  the  chief  in 
strument  of  Satan  in  withstanding  the  truth  and 
damaging  its  interests;  and  so,  instead  of  being  the 
great  friend  and  patron  of  the  Jewish  people,  he  stands 
on  the  same  line  with  the  Pharaohs,  the  Nebuchad- 
nczzars.  the  Antiochuses  of  former  times.  Here  also, 
having  to  do  with  the  counsel  of  God,  his  craft  and  vio 
lence  proved  of  no  avail:  and  while  the  bloody  deed  was 
committed  which  raised  the  wail  of  disconsolate  grief 
among  the  mothers  of  Bethlehem,  the  overruling  pro 
vidence  of  God  had  secured  for  the  Son  of  Mary  a 
hiding-place  of  safety  in  another  land,  Mat.  ii.  KJ-IS. 

This  consummating  act  of  impiety  must  have  fallen 
out  very  near  the  close  of  Herod's  life,  and  fitly  coalesces 
with  the  other  enormities  which  then  so  rapidly  suc 
ceeded  each  other.  Even  assigning  the  murder  of  the 
children  at  Bethlehem  to  the  last  half  year  of  Herod's 
life,  it  would  still  throw  his  death  about  four  years 
before  the  vulgar  era  of  Christ's  birth.  But  there  arc 
good  grounds  for  holding  that  to  be  the  actual  period 
of  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  consequently  for  also  hold 
ing  its  coincidence  with  the  closing  days  of  Herod's 
reign.  (See  CHRIST.)  The  period,  however,  is  involved 
in  considerable  obscurity  as  to  the  precise  dates  and 
order  of  events ;  and  the  accounts  of  Josephus  in 
respect  to  it  are  so  partial,  or  confused,  that  it  is  im 
possible  to  make  them  altogether  agree  with  what  we 
have  reason  to  believe  on  profane  as  well  as  inspired 
testimony.  (£ee  CYRENIUS.) 


HKRODIAX    FAMILY  7 

2.  AKCHF.LAL'S.  This  was  the  first  of  three  sons,  among 
whom  Herod  by  his  will  apportioned  his  dominions 
— subject  of  course  to  the  confirmation  of  Augustus. 
These  sons  were  Archelaus,  Philip,  and  He-rod  Anti- 
pas.  Great  disturbances  presently,  however,  arose  both 
among  the  members  of  Herod's  family,  and  among  the 
Jews  generally,  who  now  gave  open  vent  to  their 
dislike  to  the  Herodian  interest,  and  wi.-hcd  to  rid 
themselves  of  its  continuance.  But  the  Roman  gover 
nors  of  Syria  suppressed  these,  and  matters  were  kept 
from  going  to  extremities  till  the  decision  of  Au 
gustus  should  be  known.  He  substantially  continued 
the  testament  of  Herod;  and  Archelaus.  with  the  title 
of  ethnareh,  received  the  one  half  of  his  father's  do 
minions  -Judea,  Samaria,  and  Idumea.  with  the  cities 
of  .Joppa  and  C;esarea,  yielding  together  a  revenue  of 
'JiK.i  talents;  Philip  was  made  ti-tran-h  of  Trachonitis 
and  Iturea;  ami  llerod  Antipas  of  Galilee  and  l\-r.-ea. 

Archelaus  was  accused  by  a  deputation  of  Jew-, 
who  went  to  Rome  on  purpose,  brtoiv  lie  actuailv 
entered  on  the  government;  and  especially  on  account 
of  the  deatll  of  :}tmu  per.-ons.  who  were  killed  at  Jeru 
salem  bv  his  orders,  amid  the  disturbances  that  endued 
OH  Herod's  d.-ath.  lint,  their  objections  were  for  the 
time  overruled;  and  with  ordinary  discretion  he  might 
have  continued  to  i-njoy  hi-;  limited  sovereignly  during 


tile  rest  of  liis  life.  I'.ut  lie  paid  no  iv-ard  to  the  feel 
ings  and  convictions  of  his  people-:  consulted  chietly  his 
own  plea~uve  and  convenience,  which  led  him  often 
into  acts  of  petty  t yrannv:  and  lie  gave  great  oU'ence 
to  tho  sentiments  of  the  more  religious  jioi-tion  «\  the 
.le\\s.  by  marrying  the  widow  of  his  deceased  brother 
Alexander,  though  -he  h:id  borne  three  children  by  her 
former  hnsbtuul.  l-'iv-h  accusations  wen-  in  conse 
quence  brought  against  him  befon-  the  emperor,  who 
sent  for  him,  and  banished  him  to  Vienna,  after  a  reign 
of  ten  year-;  Hi-  dominion-  were  added  to  the  pro 
vince  of  Syria.  The  knowledge  of  the  ijturarfrr  of 
Archelaus  m-iv  doubtless  have  tended,  along  with  the 
fact  of  Judea  being  included  in  his  particular  territorv. 
to  dispose  Joseph  the  more  readily  to  rethv  with  the 
infant  Jesus  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  dominion.  M:,t 
ii.  '_'•_'  It  is  the  fact  alone,  however,  which  is  noticed 
in  the  history. 

3.  HKHOD  ANTII-AS  the  only  son  of  Her,,,],  be.-ide 
Arehelaus,  who  is  mentioned  in  Xew  Testament  scrip 
ture,  appears  as  tetrareh  of  Galilee  and  Penea  at  the 
commencement,  and  during'  the  continuance  of  our 
Lord's  personal  ministry.  I.u.  iii.  i,,[cc.  The  part  he  acted 
in  respect  to  the  work  and  kingdom  of  God  did  not 
materially  differ  from  that  of  his  father  Herod.  He 
stood  to  the  new  L'Has.  John  the  Baptist,  much  in  the 
same  relation  that  Aliab  had  done  to  the  first:  and  if 
he  did  not  actively  interfere  with  the  operations  of 
Christ,  it  was  obviously  from  no  want  of  will,  nor  even 
ultimately  from  any  want  of  intention.  I,a  xiii.  31;  but 
the  providence  of  God  restrained  him.  His  connection 
with  Herodias,  who  was  first  his  own  niece,  the  daugh 
ter  of  Aristobulus.  then  the  wife  of  his  half-brother 


*  HERODIAN    .FAMILY 

Philip.  Mat  xiv. ::,  was  the  immediate  occasion  of  his 
coming  into  collision  with  the  Baptist,  and  ultimately 
giving  sentence  against  his  life.  He  had  been  pre 
viously  married  to  a  daughter  of  Aretas  the  Arabian  ; 
but  on  going  to  Rome  after  his  father's  death,  to  press 
!  his  interests  as  against  Archelaus.  he  met  in  with 
j  Herodias.  and  became  so  enamoured  of  her,  that  on  his 
|  return  to  Palestine  he  got  her  to  divorce  her  husband, 
I  and  become  his  wife  :  lie  also  agreeing  to  divorce  the 
daughter  of  Aretas.  This  was  entirely  contrary,  on 
both  sides,  to  the  law  of  Moses;  and  it  became  a  source 
of  incalculable  mischief  to  Herod.  It  first  of  all  in 
volved  him  in  a  \\  ar  with  Aretas,  who  sought  to  revenue 
the  injured  honour  of  his  daughter:  and  \\hose  destruc 
tive  progress  was  only  arrested  by  the  interference  of 
the  Romans  whom  Herod  called  to  hi.-  aid.  Then. 
Ion--  afterwards,  when  reproved  by  John  the  Baptist 
on  account  of  his  aduit<-rous  connection  with  Herodias, 
it  led  him  to  take  il,e  nnri<_ditoous  step  of  casting  John 
into  prison;  and  ultimately,  on  the  solicitation  of 
H'l-odia-  through  her  daughter,  of  beheading  him. 
Jo-ephu-;  notices  tlie  fact  of  Herod's  wicked  treatment 
of  John  (Ant.  xviii.  ;,,:>).  but  evidently  misplaces  it;  as 
lie  -peaks  ,,f  the  people  regal-din-;  the  losses  sustained 
by  Herod  in  the  war  with  Aretas  as  a  divine  judg 
ment  upon  him  for  his  conduct  toward  John;  while 
in  reality  the  los-  must  have  been  very  considerably 

prior   to   the  cri And   finally,   at   the  instigation 

of  llerodias  lie  set  out  to  Koine,  about  A.D.  :'>N\  shortly 
after  the  accession  of  ( 'aligula.  for  the-  purpose  of 
soliciting  the  title  of  kin-,  which  he  learned  had 
:  recently  been  conferred  on  his  nephew  Airnppa.  Hut, 
in.-tead  of  succeeding  in  his  suit,  be  was  (and  chiefly 
through  the  intrigues  and  influence  of  Ai:rippa>  de 
prived  of  }\\>  dominions,  and  \\as  banished  first  to 
Lyons,  atterwards  to  Spain,  where  he  died;  his  do 
minions  being  added  to  those  already  coiiferre<l  011 
Agrippa.  Tims,  through  his  guilty  connection  with 
llerodias,  llerod  Antipas  was  at  once  b,  travel  1  into 
the  LM'eate-t  crimes,  and  entangled  in  the  heaviest  mis 
fortunes  of  his  life.  1'Vom  the  account  of  Josephus, 
he  appeai-s  to  have  b  en  chietly  a  man  of  pleasure;  and 
was  hurried  into  evil,  more  from  the  luxurious  courses 
he  pursued,  and  the  bad  companionships  he  formed, 
than  from  deliberate  and  settled  malice;  and  this  also 
is  the  impression  conveyed  by  what  is  recorded  of  him 
in  the  evangelists.  In  Mar.  vi.  12  he  is  called 
"king  Herod."  as  also  in  Mat.  ii.  ~2'2  Archelaus  is 
-poken  of  as  1-1 1'lniiii/  {.iaai\n''( t>;  but  the  words  must 
!»•  taken  in  the  looser  sense  of  ruler  and  ruling:  since 
neither  of  them  had  properly  the  title  of  king;  the  pre 
cise  official  designation  of  Archelaus  being  (f/ninrr/i, 
and  of  Antipas  t,  tmn-l . 

4.  Ili-:uon  1'mi.iP.  the  son  of  Herod  by  Mariamne, 
the  daughter  of  the  high-priest  Simon.  He  is  simply 
called  Herod  by  Josephus  (as  are  also  occasionally 
some  of  the  other  sons  of  Herodi;  but.  in  perfect  ac 
cordance  with  Scripture,  he  is  reported  by  the  historian 
to  have  been  married  to  Herodias,  the  daughter  of 
Aristobulus.  and  afterwards  deserted  by  her,  that  she 
might  marry  his  half- brother.  Herod  Antipas  (Antiq. 
xvii.  I,L':  xviii.  ">,  i).  In  New  Testament  scripture  he  goes 
by  the  name  of  Philip.  Mat.  \i\-  3.  We  learn  from  Jose 
phus,  that  this  son  of  Herod  the  Great  had  originally 
been  in  the  testament  of  his  father,  but  that  on  account 
of  certain  intrigues  of  his  mother  Mariamne,  which 
were  discovered  by  Herod  before  his  death,  his  name 


1JEROD1AX    FAMILY 


HERODIAN    FAMILY 


was  latterly  erased  from  the  document ;  he  was  to  have 
had  the  share  originally  destined  for  Antipater  (Jos.Wurs, 
i.  :;o,  r).  The  loss  of  possessions  which  thus  befell  him 
would,  no  douht,  he  among  the  considerations  which 
induced  the  amhitious-  Herodias  to  forsake  him  for  his 
more  fortunate  brother. 

5.  HKKOD   PHILIP,  the  son  of   Herod  by  ( ,'Ieopatra. 
He  had  been  brought  up  at  Rome,  and.  while  still  there. 
was,  at  tlie  instigation  of  Antipater,  charged  with  dis 
affection  to  his  father  \.L,s.  Ant.  XV-M.  I,.T;  ch.-t.  sect.  :;K      I'-nl 
on    examination    the   charges   gave   way.    and    by   his 
father's  testament  he  \\as  left  the  tetrarchy  of  Gaulon- 
itis,  Traehonitis.  and  Pancas  (\vii.\i).      Tliis  tetrarchv. 
which  was  confirmed   to  him  by  the   emperor,  he  held 
for  the  long  period  of  thirty-seven  years  i\vi,i.  i,<;).      It 
is  simply  as  the  possessor  of  it  that  he  is  mentioned  in 
New  Testament  scripture,  Lu.  iii.  i.     lie  appears,  how 
ever,  to   have  been  a  lover  of  moderation  and   peace, 
resided  almost  constantly  in  the  region  allotted  to  him, 
and   in   his   administration    was   distinguished   for   the 
exercise  of  justice,      lie  was,  so  far  as  can  be  judged, 
the  best  of  the  sons  of  Herod. 

6.  HKROD  AGIUPPA  I.  was  the  grandson  of  Herod 
by  Aristobulus — one  of  the  sons  who  was  barbarously 
murdered  by  Herod   in  his  latter  days.      Agrippa  had 
been  brought   up  at  Rome,  where  he  lived  for  many 
years  with  his   mother   Berenice.      He  became,   when 
there,   the   intimate  companion  of  the  .young  princes, 
nephews  of  Tiberius,  especially  with  Drusus.      But  this 
led  him    into   extravagant   habits,    and    involved  him 
in  debt,  on  account  of  which  he  was  obliged  to  flee 
for  a  time  from    Homo.       By  and    by,   however,   his 
necessities  again  led   him  back  thither ;    and    having 
found   persons  able  and  disposed  to  assist  him  in  his 
pecuniary  difficulties,  he  was  again  received  into  favour 
by  Tiberius,  and  was  much  with  his  grand-nephew  and 
successor  Cains.      But  having  incautiously  given  utter 
ance  to  some  disparaging  words,  which  were  reported 
to  the  emperor  by  his  own  freedman  Eutychus,  he  was 
thrown   into  prison,   and   remained  there   in    jeopardy 
of  life  till  the   emperor's  death,  which  however  hap 
pened   not  very  long  after.      Presently  he  was  set  at 
liberty  by  Caius,  better  known  by  the  name  of  Cali 
gula,   who   succeeded   Tiberius ;  he   was  also   invested 
with  the  title  of   king,  and  received  for  his  dominion 
the  province  of  Abilene  and  the  tetrarchy  that  had 
belonged  to  his  uncle  Philip.     The  provinces  of  Gali 
lee  and  Perasa.  not  long  after,  also  fell  to  him,  on  the 
rejection  of  the  suit  of  Herod  Aiitipas,  and  his  decree 
of  banishment.     Agrippa  in  his  difficulties  had  received 
substantial  kindness  from  his  uncle  Antipas.  who  even 
for  a  time  supported   him  :    but   they  had   quarrelled, 
and  Agrippa  now  ungenerously  used  the  influence  he 
had  at  court  to  defeat  the  wishes  and  supplant   the 
interest  of  his  uncle.      Another  turn  of  good  fortune 
befell  Agrippa  at  a  later  period ;   for  being  at  Home 
when  Caligula  terminated  his  wretched  career,  he  was 
of  considerable  service  to   Claudius  in  aiding  him  to 
get  possession  of  the  government,  and  he  was  rewarded 
by  the  annexation  of  Judca  and  Samaria  to  his  do 
minions.     This  was  in  A.D.  41,  four  years  after  he  had 
obtained  his  enlargement  from  Caligula;  so  that  from 
this  time    his  sway  extended    over   all  the  provinces 
which    had    originally    belonged    to    his    grandfather 
Herod  the  Great.      He  was  the  most  affable  and  popu 
lar  ruler  of  the  Herodian   family ;    and  though  in  his 
views  and  manners  more  a  Roman  than  a  Jew,  vet  he 


paid  respect  to  the  feelings  of  his  countrymen,  and 
was  held  in  high  esteem  both  in  Judea  and  the  sur 
rounding  countries.  It  was  'on  his  personal  entreaty, 
and  not  without  hazard  to  his  own  interest  and  life, 
that  Caligula  desisted  from  his  mad  attempt  to  have 
his  statue  placed  in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  which 
set  all  Judea  in  an  uproar  (.Jos.  Ant.  xviii.  *,  r).  But  his 
;  love  of  popularity  betrayed  him  into  the  crime  of  por- 
!  scenting  the  followers  of  Jesus.  At  the  instigation  of 
the  more  higotted  .lews,  he  put  James  to  death:  and 
'  seeing  how  this  pleased  the  people,  and  added  to  his 
popularity  with  the  multitude,  he  proceeded  also  to  lay 
hands  on  Peter,  Ac.xii.  1-3.  But  the  Lord  graciously  in 
terposed  for  the  protection  of  his  infant  church.  Peter 
was  miraculously  delivered  out  of  prison;  and  short.lv 
after  Herod  himself,  in  the  midst  of  the  games  that 
were  bring  celebrated  in  honour  of  Ca->ar,  when  re 
ceiving  the  acclamations  of  the  people,  and  lauded  as  a 
god  for  his  surpassing  grandeur  and  eloquence,  was 
stricken  with  a  mortal  disease,  of  which  he  died  in  a 
few  days.  The  evangelist  ascribes  this  attack  to  the 
angel  of  the  Lord,  Ac.  xii.  i';,  telling  us  it  befell  him  be 
cause  he  gave  not  God  the  glory;  and  even  the  account 
in  Josephus  has  all  the  appearance  of  a  special  inter 
position  from  Heaven,  and  was  by  Herod  himself  viewed 
as  a  judgment  for  the  impiety  that  had  been  proceed 
ing.  When  seized  with  prostrating  weakness  and 
agonizing  pain,  he  said  to  the  people:  "I  whom  you 
call  a  god  am  ordt  red  presently  to  depart  this  life: 
Providence  thus  instantly  reproving  the  lying'  words 
you  just  now  addressed  to  me;  and  I,  who  was  by  you 
called  immortal,  am  immediately  to  be  hurried  awav 
by  death''  (Ant.  xix.  S, ^).  He  died  in  A.D.  44,  after  he 
had  reigned  three  years  over  all  Judea,  and  in  the 
fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  generally  called 
Agrippa  the  Great. 

7.  HEROD  ACKIPPA  II.  was  the  son  of  the  pre 
ceding,  consequently  great-grandson  of  the  first  Herod. 
He  was,  like  his  father,  educated  at  Rome,  and  was 
had  in  favour  by  Claudius.  Uut  he  was  only  seventeen 
years  old  at  his  father's  death — too  young  to  bo  in 
vested  with  the  government  of  his  father's  dominions, 
which  were  again  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  Roman 
province.  Four  years  afterwards  his  uncle,  Herod  of 
Chalcis,  died  (A.D.  4S),  and  the  little  province  of  Chalcis 
was  conferred  011  Agrippa,  with  the  right  of  super 
intending  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  and  appointing  the 
high-priest.  But  about  four  years  afterwards  he 
received,  instead  of  Chalcis,  along  with  the  title  of 
king,  the  tetrarchies  which  had  formerly  been  held 
by  Lysanias  and  Herod  Philip.  Portions  of  Galileo 
and  Penea  were  afterwards  added  by  Xero,  A.D.  55. 


[325.]        Coin  of  Herod  Agrippa  II.-  British  Museum. 

It  was  about  five  years  after  this,  that,  on  the  occasion 
of  his  coming  to  Ctesarea  with  his  sister  Berenice,  the 
apostle  had  an  opportunity  of  pleading  his  cause  before 
him,  Ac.  ,\xv.  xxvi.  He  was  by  no  means  so  popular  as 
his  father,  although  he  spent  considerable  sums  of 
money  in  adorning  Jerusalem.  He  acted  capriciously 


HERODIANS 


in  his  appointments  to  the  office  of  high- priest,  and  in 


various  other  respects  gave   offence  to  the  feehn 


from  the  great  rebellion  against  the  Romans:  and  when 
it  actually  broke  out.  he  took  part  with  tin-  imperial 
forces.  After  the  captuiv  of  Jerusalem,  lie  went  with 
his  sister  -Berenice  an  1  resided  at  Rome,  where  he 
died,  in  the  third  year  of  Trajan's  reign  and  the  s.-ventieth 
of  his  own  life.  He-  was  the  last  of  the  race  <  >f  Herod 
known  to  history  a  race  certainly  remarkable,  for  its 
mental  vigour,  daring  exploit--,  and  rare  alternation-  of 
for;  line,  hut  throughout  godless,  unprincipled,  licen 
tious,  and  profane. 

HERO'DIANS  formed  a  party  among  the  Jews  of 
the  api  stolie  a'_re,  and  a  part}  very  keenly  opposed  to 
the  claims  of  Je-u>;  hut  of  \\hich  no  e\p licit  informa 
tion  is  given  liy  any  of  the  evangelists.  Several  li\  po 
theses  have  consequently  been  propounded  iv.-p.  . 
them:  which.  houever.  it  is  needless  to  recount.  The 
naiu<-  clearlv  bespeaks  tlu-ir  origin  and  leading  aim. 
They  were  undoubtedly  the  adherents  of  the  IK-mdian 
interest,  and  whether  possessing  or  not  any  reeogui/.e.l 
connection  with  the  government  of  Hero.],  weiv  at 
least  pledged  to  support  it.  and  watchfully  "b-ervaiit 
of  evervthin1-;  that  might  seem  to  interfere  with  its 
rights.  This  is  enough  to  account  f,,r  the  ji-irt  tiny 
are  represented  as  acting  in  the  ._.•,  ,-pel  hi.-tory:  sine,-, 
from  the  current  belief  respecting  ( 'hrist's  aspirations 
towards  tli--  throne  of  .ludea.  they  would  naturally  infer 
the  contrariety  of  his  interest  to  that  of  the  llei-o.li;in 
fainilv.  Hence  their  opposition,  in  so  far  as  it  comes  into 
view,  took  tlie  form  of  a  determination  to  have  Jesu- 
hand,  d  over  to  the  temporal  power  for  summary  justie  . 
It  was  so  even  on  the  first  of  the  t\\ ca-i.>ns  tliat  men 
tion  is  made  of  them,  when,  niVr  ha\  inir  witnessed  some 
miracles  performed  by  our  Lord  on  the  Sahhath,  and 
heard  his  views  upon  the  subject,  tin-  1'harisee-.  it  is  said, 
'•went  forth,  and  straightway  took  counsel  with  the 
TIerodians  against  him,  h  >w  they  mi_rht  destroy  him.' 
Mar.  iii.  0;  that  is,  the  professedly  religious  joined  hands 
with  the  adherents  of  the  civic  or  ruling  partv.  to  l;r 
violent  hands  on  Jesus  as  a  person  dangerous  to  the 
commonwealth.  There  was  the  same  coalition,  with 
the  same  object,  near  the  close  of  his  career,  Mat.  xxii.  n;; 
-Mar.  .\ii.  13;  and  the  fuller  exposition  of  the  matter 
in  St.  Luke's  gospel  make-!  the  nature  and  objects  of 
the  llerodians  quite  plain  :  for  they  are  manifestly 
the  party  more  especially  referred  to  in  eh.  xx.  2<i. 
••  Who  watched  him,  and  sent  forth  spies,  which  should 
feign  themselves  just  men,  that  they  might  take  hold 
of  his  words,  that  so  they  might  deliver  him  unto  the 
power  and  authority  of  the  governor."  It  was  quite 
in  accordance  with  the  Herodians  to  act  the  part  of 
spies  in  the  interest  of  the  ruling  powers;  and  it  would 
matter  nothing,  whether  the  governor  (i.e.  the  Roman 

VOL.  I. 


governor  of  Judeaior  llero.l  \Antipasof  Oalilec)  might 
he  the  authority  before  whom  the  accusation  was  to  he 
lodged:  for  the  Herodians,  while  deriving  their  name 
from  Herod's  family,  must  also  have  been  staunch 
supporters  of  1  toman  supremacy,  on  which  that  of  the 
He-rods  rested.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  from  the 
fact  of  some  of  them  being  found  ready  to  do  the  part 
of  spies,  that  the  \\hole  party  were  such,  or  that  spy 
ing  in  the  interest  of  government  was  their  common 
employment.  They  mi^lit  naturally  enough  have  been 
the  proper  partv  to  furnish  spies  for  an  occasion,  with 
out  following  the  bu-ine.-s  proper  to  such  as  their 
ordinary  calling. 

HERODIAS.  .laughter  of  Aristobulus.  the  son  of 
Herod  the  Creat.  and  the  wife  iir.-l  of  1  h  rod  I'hilip, 
the  son  of  llcrod  hv  the  second  .'Manamne,  then,  after 
her  improper  divorce  from  him,  of  Herod  Antipas. 
(>V(  1 1  i.i;>  ID  A  vn  [>AsO 

HERO'DIOX.  the  name  of  an  early  Christian- a 
kinsman  of  the  apostle  1'ar.l.  and  at  tin-  time  he  wrote 
ii is  epistle  to  the  l; 01  nans,  a  resident  at  Koine.  1;...  xvi.  ll. 
Tradition  reports  him  to  have  afterwards  become  a 
bi-hop.  hut  of  this  there  is  no  proper  evidence. 

HERON  [r,t:tt.  »„«/'/>«/>].  One  of  those  appella 
tions  el'  \\iiicli  we  have  little  clue  to  the  specilic  meaii- 
iii'_;'.  !i  is  found  but  twice;  and  the  two  occurrences 
are  b:it  the  i-edup'ieation  of  one.  and  here  merely  as  a 
name.  It  is.  however,  in  the  enumeration  of  unclean 
animal.-  in  Le.  \i.  and  DC.  xiv..  and  in  such  company 
that  \\e  gather  it  to  lie  a  bird,  probably  ,,f  the  order 
i, rail",  hein-  placed  between  the  stork  and  the  gal- 
Tlie  lexicographer-  derive  the  word  from  B«N 

'-T 

"to   snort,     al\va\s   rendered  "to   lie  angry  ;" 


gol.U-n  1'4,'ret    Anita 


Th 


but  little  help  is  thus  given  to  the  x.oologist. 
LXX.  translate  the  word  in  both  passages  by  xapa.5pios 
(<'},«rmlr!i>!}.  the  Creek  name  for  some  bird  (not  neces 
sarily  a  plover),  to  which  genus  Liniia-us  appropriated 
it)  of  a  yellow  colour,  remarkable  for  its  voracity,  and 
frequenting  quagmires  or  beds  of  mountain  torrents 
(%a/5ti5pa>. 

All  these  indications  warrant  the  rendering  of  our 
English  version.  The  herons  are  wading-hirds,  pecu 
liarly  irritable,  remarkable  for  their  voracity,  frequent- 

93 


IIKSIIBON 


738 


I1KZEKIAH 


ing  marshes  and  oozy  rivers,  and  spread  over  the  regions 
of  the  Kast.  Most  of  the  species  enumerated  in  our 
native  ornithology  have  lieen  recognized  in  tin-  vicinity 
of  Palestine,  and  \veniay  includeall  these,  under  tlie  term 
in  question — "the  anaphah  </ft<  r  ///'x  /•///</.  '  \\it.h 
respect  to  the  xapaSptos  of  the  LXX.  it  is  observable 
that  one  of  the  commonest  species  in  Asia  is  Ardca 
)'i/x.--«'((  -a  verv  rare  bird  with  us,  which  is  beautifully 
adonied  with  plumage  partly  white  and  partly  of  a  rich 
oraii'.:e- vellow.  while  the  beak,  legs,  and  all  the  naked 
parts  of  the  skin  are  yellow.  Its  height  is  about 
17  inches.  This  is  the  r<(W/<'  "i-  cow-heron  so  abun 
dant  in  India.  Sever.il  kinds  of  heron,  one  of  which 
from  its  form  would  serve  will  enough  to  represent  this 
little  golden  egret,  are  commonly  depicted  on  those 
Egyptian  paintings  in  which  the  subject — a  favourite 
one  is  the  fowling  and  fishing  among  the  paper-reeds 
of  the  Nile.  [P.  H.  G.] 

HESH'BON,  a  city  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  from 
which  it  was  about  tweiitv  miles  distant,  and  stood  be 
tween  the  brooks  .labliok  and  Arnon.  It  seems  to 
have  been  the  capital  of  Sihon.  as  he  is  called  the  king 
of  lleshbon,  as  well  as  king  of  the  Amorites,  Xu.  xxi.  20, 
soq.  It  was  afterwards  made  a  Levitical  city,  and  is 
mentioned  in  connection  both  with  the  tribe  of  Reuben, 
and  with  that  of  Gad,  Jos.  xxi.  3:1;  Xu.  xxxii  37;  icu.  vi.  81. 
It  appears,  however,  to  have  again  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  Moabites,  as  it  is  repeatedly  mentioned  by 
the  prophets  in  their  denunciations  against  the  land  of 
Moab,  Is.  xv  4;.Jc.  xlviii.  2.  In  later  times  the  ?«Iaceabees 
held  it  under  their  sway  (Jos.  Ant.  Mil.  i.%  i);  and  the 
ruins  of  lleshbon  have  been  identified  as  those  of  the 
ancient  city  by  modern  travellers.  The  ruins  lie  on 
the  summit  of  a  hill  •which  commands  an  extensive 
prospect.  They  are  more  than  a  mile  in  circuit,  but 
are  themselves  uninteresting,  and  contain  not  one 
entire  building.  Among  the  heaps  of  rubbish.  ho\\  ever, 
''there  are  many  cisterns;  and  towards  the  south,  a 
few  minutes  from  the  base  of  the  hill,  is  a  large  ancient 
reservoir,  which  may  call  to  mind  the  passage  in  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  '  Thine  eyes  are  like  the  fishpools  in 
ITcshbon,  by  the  gate  of  Beth- rabbin,'  "  oh.  vii.  4  (Porter, in 

Murray's  Handbook,  p.  29S). 

HETH.     S,-e  HITTITKS. 

HEZEKI'AH  [properly  Hizl-jah,  or,  as  it  is  some 
times  put,  JeliezeJci-jah,  i.e.  Jehocah  strengthens,  or,  in 
the  other  form,  Jehovah  will  strengthen],  a  happy  name, 
and  not  less  appropriate  than  happy  for  the  distinguished 
kin^  of  Judah  who  bore  it.  The  probability  is,  indeed, 
that  it  was  the  name,  not  originally  imposed,  but  sub 
sequently  assumed  by  its  possessor.  For  the  father  of 
Hezekiah  was  the  wicked  and  idolatrous  Ahaz,  who 
was  so  far  from,  looking  to  Jehovah  for  strength,  that 
in  spite  of  the  earnest  remonstrances  and  solemn  threat- 
cniugs  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  he  made  his  kingdom 
tributary  to  the  king  of  Assyria,  in  order  to  secure 
adequate  protection  and  support.  But  however  that 
may  be,  Hezekiah,  who  was  twenty -five  years  old  when 
lie  came  to  the  throne  of  Judah,  soon  gave  evidence 
that  he  was  of  an  entirely  different  spirit  from  his  father; 
for  he  immediately  entered  on  an  extensive  and  thorough 
reformation.  Image- worship  had  been  in  various  forms 
introduced;  and  all  the  instruments  of  it  he  brake  in 
pieces  and  utterly  destroyed — not  excepting  even  the 
brazen  serpent  of  the  wilderness,  which  had  hitherto 
been  kept  as  a  sacred  relic  and  memorial  of  the  Lord's 
gracious  working  in  former  times,  but  which  had  latterly 


l_ : 


been  abused  to  purposes  of  superstition.  This  also  in 
his  laudable  zeal  against  image- worship  Hezekiah  broke 
in  pi.  ii  s.  calling  it  Xehushtan  (i.e.  a  bit  of  brass — that 
and  no  more),  and  deeming  it  better  that  they  should 
altogether  want  such  an  interesting  monument  of  past 
mercy,  than  let  it  remain  as  a  snare  to  men's  souls.  In 
like  manner  the  high  places  were  removed,  which  to  a 
considerable  extent  had  been  allowed  to  take  the  place 
of  the  temple,  and  served  greatlv  to  aid  the  prevailing 
tendency  t"  a  corrupt  and  mutilated  worship.  The 
priest:-  and  Levites  also  were  strictly  charged  to  have 
the  dilapidated  things  about  the  temple  repaired,  the 
missing  vessels  restored,  and  all  the  abominations  or 
unlawful  and  defiling  things  removed,  so  that  it  might 
be  consecrated  anew  for  the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah. 
And  when  all  that  was  required  for  this  had  been  ac 
complished,  a  great  solemnity  was  kept,  in  which  the 
assembled  people,  with  lle/ekiah  and  the  rulers  at  their 
head,  presented  sin-offerings  for  the  expiation  of  past 
guilt,  and  hecatombs  of  thank-offerings  for  the  mercv 
and  loving-kindness  of  (!od  in  deal'mi;-  with  them  other 
wise  than  their  iniquities  and  backsliding*  had  deserved, 
2  Ki.  xviii.;  2  ch.  xxix.  Shortly  after  this  the  king  ordered 
vast  preparations  to  be  made  for  celebrating  the  feast 
of  the  passover — which  in  the  better  times  of  the  He 
brew  commonwealth  was  always  regarded  as  empha- 
tieallv  th<:  feast  of  the  covenant — and  sent  invitations 
•  to  the  true-hearted  members  of  the  covenant  in  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  and  elsewhere,  entreating  them  to 
come  and  hold  the  feast  with  them  in  Jerusalem.  The 
invitation  was  accepted  by  great  multitudes  out  of  the 
different  tribes,  by  more,  it  would  appear,  than  had 
time  or  opportunity  to  sanctify  themselves  according 
:  to  the  law;  so  that  Hezekiah  presented  special  prayer 
|  for  such  of  them  as  were  in  this  position,  that  their 
offerings  might  be  accepted,  though  they  had  not  purified 
themselves  according  to  the  preparation  of  the  sanc 
tuary.  But  so  general  and  hearty  was  the  zeal  mani 
fested  on  the  occasion,  that  the  seven  days  of  the  feast 
seemed  too  short  for  the  purpose,  so  that  the  assembled 
multitude  agreed  to  hold  an  additional  seven  days  of 
sacred  fellowship  and  religious  employment.  And 
generously  responding  to  this  re-awakt -ned  spirit  of  de 
votion  o)i  the  part  of  the  people,  Hezekiah  and  his 
princes  furnished  them  with  an  ample  supply  of  victims 
— the  one  giving  1000  bullocks  and  7uOO  sheep,  the 
others  1000  bullocks  and  10,000  sheep,  2Ch.  xxx. 

Not  long  after  these  joyous  proceedings,  and  the 
carrying  out  of  the  general  reforms  that  were  necessary 
to  consolidate  the  better  state  of  things,  a  portentous 
evil  rose  on  the  political  horizon,  which  caused  the 
hearts  alike  of  king  and  of  people  to  tremble  for  fear. 
This  was  the  threatening  approach  of  the  host  of  Sen 
nacherib,  king  of  Assyria.  Hezekiah,  among  his  other 
reforms,  had  broken  off  the  servitude  to  A  ssyria,  which 
his  father  Ahaz  consented  to,  considering  more  perhaps 
the  original  character  of  the  servitude  than  the  existing 
relations  it  had  been  the  occasion  of  establishing  be 
tween  the  two  countries.  "He  rebelled,"  it  is  said, 
"  against  the  king  of  Assyria  and  served  him  not,'' 
2  Ki.  xviii.  - — language  implying  that  a  formal  homage 
had  been  wont  to  be  rendered  to  the  Assyrian  power, 
and  a  regular  acknowledgment  given  of  it  by  the  pay 
ment  of  a  stipulated  tribute,  which  was  now  withdrawn. 
Sennacherib  does  not  appear  to  have  taken  any  imme 
diate  steps  to  avenge  the  affront,  but  kept  it  in  reserve, 
as  a  dispute  requiring  to  be  settled  along  with  a  more 


HEZEKIAH 


HEZEKIAII 


serious  quarrel  which  h:id  arisen  between  him  and  the 
king  of  Israel.  It  was  in  the  third  year  of  Hezekiah's 
reign  that  matters  came  to  a  kind  of  extremity  between 
Israel  and  Assyria;  and  in  the  fourth  year  the  army  of 
Assyria  laid  siege  to  .Samaria,  with  the  view  of  reducing 
the  entire  country  to  subjection.  The  place  was  taken 
three  years  afterwards,  and  the  mass  of  the  people 
carried  captive  to  other  lands.  It  would  even  seem 
that  the  king  of  Assyria  did  not  for  a  considerable  time 
after  this  success  press  his  claims  against  Judah.  pro 
bably  from  being  too  much  occupied  with  other  affairs, 
and  deeming  the  little  kingdom  of  Judiili  within  his 
reach  at  any  time.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
reason,  it  was  not  till  eight  years  later,  not  till  the  four 
teenth  year  of  Hezekiah's  reign,  that  he  made  a  formal 
assault  upon  the  kingdom  of  .luduh;  but  when  he  did 
so,  it  was  with  the  evident  determination  of  doing  with 
the  house  and  people  of  Judah  as  he  had  already  done 
with  those  of  Israel;  "He  came  up  against  all  the  fenced 
cities  of  Judah  and  took  them,"  :'  iCi.  xviii  i:;.  It  has  been 
often  stated,  especially  by  German  writers,  that  in  this 
emergency.  '•].'  rather  while  it  wa;  only  in  prospect, 
Hezekiah  had  formed  an  alliance  with  E^vpt.  I'.ut 
there  is  no  proper  historical  ground  for  the  assertion, 
and  it  is  at  variance  with  all  we  know  of  Hezekiah's 
character.  It  is  true  that  R.ihshakeh  taunted  him 
with  having  trusted  in  Egypt,  which  he  compared  to  a 
bruised  reed,  -2  Ki.  xviii.  -ji;  but  he  throws  out  so  many 
foolish  and  extravagant  assertions  in  his  speech,  that  in 
the  utter  silence  of  the  historian  himself  upon  the  sub 
ject,  the  statement  is  entitled  to  little  regard.  He/.e- 
kiah,  however,  whether  from  the  terrible  rapidity  and 
success  of  the  Assyrian  invasion,  or  from  not  feeling 
quite  assured  respecting  the  justice  of  his  own  position, 
did  tremble  and  give  uay;  and  he  M-nt  an  embassy  to 
the  king  of  Assyria,  when  encamped  at  Laehi  -h.  sav 
ing,  "I  have  offended;  return  from  me;  that  which 
thou  puttest  on  me  I  will  bear."  A  heavy  tax  was 
immediately  imposed  of  lino  talents  of  silver  and  :jn  of 
gold,  which  obliged  lle/.ekiah  to  ransack  the  treasures 
of  the  Lord's  house  as  well  as  of  his  own  to  make  it 
good;  even  the  gold  which  overlaid  the  doors  and  pillars 
of  the  temple  had  to  be  parted  with  for  the  occasion. 

The  account  given  of  this  first  expedition  of  Senna 
cherib  against  He/.ekiah,  as  found  upon  the  Nineveh 
tablets,  according  to  the  interpretation  of  Col.  Kawlin- 
son,  reads  thus:  "And  because  He/.ekiah  king  of  Judah 
would  not  submit  to  my  yoke.  I  came  up  against  him, 
and  by  force  of  arms  and  by  the  mi^ht  of  mv  power,  I 
took  forty-six  of  his  strong  fenced  cities;  and  of  the 
smaller  towns  which  were  scattered  about.  I  took  and 
plundered  a  countless  number.  .  .  .  And  Hezekiah 
himself  I  shut  up  in  Jerusalem  his  capital  city,  like  a 
bird  in  a  cage,  building  towers  round  the  city  to  hem 
him  in,  and  raising  banks  of  earth  against  the  gates,  so 
as  to  prevent  escape.  .  .  .  Then  upon  this  Hezekiah 
there  fell  the  fear  of  the  power  of  my  arms,  and  he  sent 
out  to  me  the  chiefs  and  the  ciders  of  Jerusalem  with 
30  talents  of  gold  and  SOU  talents  of  silver,  anil  divers 
treasures,  a  rich  and  immense  booty.  .  .  .  All  these 
things  were  brought  to  me  at  Nineveh,  the  seat  of  my 
government,  Hezekiah  having  sent  them  by  way  of 
tribute,  and  as  a  token  of  his  submission  to  my  power '' 
(Rawlinson's  Bamptou  Lecture,  p.  112).  Another  reading  of 
this  piece  of  ancient  sculpture  may  be  seen  in  Layard's 
Xinereh  and  Bab>/Ion.  p.  143,  by  Dr.  Hincks,  differing 
to  some  extent  with  the  above,  yet  coinciding  with  it  in 


;  the  main.     Should  the  general  drift  only  have  been 
arrived   at,  this  document,   so   wonderfully  recovered, 
must  be  regarded  as   a   striking   confirmation   of   the 
I  leading  facts  in  the  Bible  narrative. 

But  the  only  effect  of  Hezekiah's  compliance  with 
the  demands  of  Sennacherib  was  to  shift  the  quarrel 
from  a  lower  to  a  higher  ground.  The  Assyrian  king- 
returned  again,  and  required  an  unconditional  sur 
render,  that  he  might  transport  the  king  and  people  of 
Judah  to  another  region,  as  he  had  done  with  Israel 
and  other  nations.  The  demand  was  made  in  the  most 
offensive  tone  and  with  proud  defiance,  not  only  of  the 
p»wer  and  resources  of  Hezekiah,  but  even  of  the  might 
of  Jehovah,  in  whom  Hezekiah  professed  to  trust.  It 
was  this  very  audacity,  however,  which  roused  the 
spirit  and  strengthened  the  heart  of  the  king  of  Judah. 
He  now  saw  that  the  contest  was  more  properly  God's 
than  his.  and  that  the  time  had  come  for  God  himself 
to  work. 

It  was,  no  doubt,  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
matters  to  this  issue  that  the  Lord  had  caused  the  more 
pacific  and  temporizing  course  of  He/ekiah  to  fail, 
and  hardened  the  heart  of  Sennacherib  now,  as  he  had 
done  that  ot  Pharaoh  in  former  times,  to  urge  demands 
that  directly  \\arred  with  the  honour  and  purposes  of 
Heaven.  It  was  to  furnish  an  occasion  before  the 
world  for  humbling  the  gods  <>(  Assyria,  and  staining 
the  glory  of  her  strength,  in  the  very  noontide  of  her 
prosperity,  that  so  the  name  of  Jehovah  might  be  most 
highly  exalted,  and  his  cause  rendered  triumphant  over 
all  opposition.  Hezekiah  perceived  at  once  the  .great 
ness  of  tlie  crisis,  and  the  need  of  special  interposition 
and  succour  from  Heaven;  but  conscious  of  his  own 
weakness,  and  of  the  mighty  interests  at  stake,  lie  first 
humbled  himself  before  the  Lord — piing  in  rent  gar 
ments  and  in  >acke]oih  to  the  temple  to  pray-  then 
sent  to  Isaiah  the  prophet,  that  he  also  might  spread 
the  case  before  the  Lord,  if  haply  lie  mi-ht  obtain  a 
message  of  comfort.  With  these  exercises  of  faith 
toward  God  he  did  not  neglect  suitable  precautions  of 
an  inferior  kind:  for  he  had  repaired  the  walls  of  .Jer 
usalem  where  they  were  broken,  fortified  them  witli 
towers,  built  at  certain  places  a  second  wall  without, 
Leathered  all  available  forces  ami  weapons  of  \var,  and 
stopped  the  fountains  of  waters  which  were  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  city,  that  the  besieging  army 
mi'_rht  not  reap  the  benefit  of  them.  He  thus  did  what 
lay  within  the  reach  and  compass  of  his  hand,  but  he- 
did  not  trust  to  it:  lie  knew  that  of  itself  it  could  avail 
little  before  the  power  and  resources  of  Assyria;  hence, 
his  res. n-t  in  sackcloth  to  the  temple,  and  his  suppliant 
message  to  the  prophet.  But  the  two  together,  the 
prayer  and  the  pains,  were  enough.  He  forthwith  re 
ceived  from  Isaiah  the  gladdening  message,  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  Be  not  afraid  of  the  words  which  thou 
hast  heard,  with  which  tin.-  servants  of  the  king  of  As 
syria  have  blasphemed  me.  lie-hold.  I  will  send  a  blast 
upon  him.  and  he  shall  hear  a  rumour,  and  shall  return 
to  his  own  land;  and  I  will  cause  him  to  fall  by  the  sword 
in  his  own  land."  And  now  He/.ekiah's  faith  rose  to 
the  possession  of  an  assured  confidence,  and  the  exer 
cise  of  a  noble-  courage.  ''  He  set  captains  of  war  over 
the  people,  and  gathered  them  together  into  the  street 
of  the  gate  of  the  city,  and  spake  comfortably  to  them, 
saying,  Be  strong  and  courageous;  be  not  afraid  nor 
dismayed  for  the  king  of  Assyria,  nor  for  all  the  multi 
tude  that  is  with  him.  for  there  be  more  with  us  than 


KZKKIAH 


'40 


HEZEKIAH 


with  him.      With  him  is  an  arm  of  flesh;  but  with  us  is  message  came  to  him),  that  Hezekiah  not  unnaturally 
the  Lord  our  Cod.  to  help  us.  and  to  fight  our  battles,"  asked  for  a  sign  to  confirm  his   faith   as   to  the  result. 
2Ch.xxxii.C-S;  -Ki  x'ix.0,7.     The  result  was  in  perfect  ac-  ,  This  also  was  granted,  and  the  particular  sign  chosen 
eordance  with  these  anticipations  of  faith  and  hope;  for,  l  was  the  receding  of  the  sun's  shadow  ten  degrees  on  the 
after  that  Sennacherib  had   taken    Lachish,  and  moved  dial  of  Ahaz.     (>Vr  DIAL.)     This  of  course  could  only 
his    forces    to     Lilmah,    nigh    to    Jerusalem,    troubles  have  happened  by  a  miraculous  interposition;  yet  there 
beo-un  to   fall  upon    him.       II.'    first   hears   a    rumour  of  is  no  need  for  carrying  it  farther  than  to  the  local  effect 
Tirhakah,  king  of  Ethiopia,  having  prepared  a  mighty  :  required  to  be  produced.      We  have  no  reason  to  sup- 
host  to  come  against  him;  and  it  appears  from    Hero-  pose  that  any  change  took  place  in  the  general  economy 
dotus  (ii.in)  that  his  army  did  actually     and  most  pro-  of  nature;   a  brief  and  partial  direction  of  the  sun's 
bablv  a   little   after   this     sustain   a  severe  reverse  in  rays  out  of  their  natural  inclination  on  that  particular 
lv<-\pt.      Then,    after   sending   another,   and  still  more  dial  was  all  that  was  required  for  the  occasion,  and  we 
insolent  message  to  1  le/.ekiah,  which  only  drew  forth  a  may  reasonably  conclude  all  that  was  actually  produced. 
more  intense  cry  for  help  from  the  king  of  Judah,  and  a  Hezekiah  signalized    his  recovery   from    threatened 
fresh  word  of  consolation  and  exulting  hope:  from  the  death  by  the  composition  of  a  sacred  hymn,  which  has 
prophet  Isaiah,  the  bhist  of  a  terrible   plague  from  the  been  preserved,  not  in  the   historical  books,  but  among 
Lord  laid  the  flower  of  his  immense  host  in  the  dust;  so  .  the  writings  of  Isaiah,   cli.  xxxviii.  11-20.      It  is  written  in 
many  as  18.^,00:)   perishing  in  one  night.      Thereafter,  the  lyrical  style  of  many  of  the  psalms  of  David,  and 
broken  in  spirit  and  crippled  in  resources,  he  returned  was  perhaps  not  included  in  the  book  of  Psalms,  chiefly 
in  ha^te  to  his   own  land;   where  shortly  after,   when  '  on  account  of  the  strictly  personal  character  it  bears, 
engaged  in  an  act  of  worship,    h-   was  slain   by  two  of  The  writer  does  not  identify  himself  with  the  believing 
Ids' sons.                                                                                      I  people  of  God  generally,   as    David  and  his   followers 
Thus  wonderfully  were  llezekiah   and  his  people  de-  commonly  did,  but  has  respect  simply  to  his  own  case; 
livered.      But  the-  moment  of  victory  proved  in  another  and    the    song    was    hence   naturally   regarded   as  ap- 
respect  to  be  the  season  of  peril;  and  now  that  strength  propriate  rather  to  the  individual  writer  than  to  the 
had  been   found   for  the   birth,  it   seemed  as  if  in  the  community.      As  a  composition   it   is   full  of   life  and 
very  act  of  accomplishing  it  there  was  to  be  a  relapse  spirit;    but  in  its  views  respecting  the  darkness  and 
into  the   arms   of    death.      It   must    have   been    about  silence  of  sJicof  is  somewhat  stronger  than  was  usual 
this  very  time  that   Hezekiah  fell  sick,  so   sick  that  he  with   the   inspired   writers   of    the  same   period.     The 
was  told  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  he  might  set  his  house  portions  of  Isaiah's  writings,  for  example,  which  touch 
in  order,  for  he  should  die  and  not  live,  •-'  Ki.  xx.  i.      The  on  the  dead,  are  enlivened  by  an  animation  and  a  hope 
sacred  narrative  merely  states  that  in  those  days  it  took  respecting  the  future,  of  which  no  trace  exists  in  this 
place;  viz.  about  the  time  of  the  failure  of  Sennacherib's  brief  expression  of  Hezekiah's  feelings.      But  this  by  no 
expedition,  either  when  it  had  failed,  or  was  on  the  eve  means  proves  that  he  looked  upon  death  as  a  state  of 
of  doino- so.     The  dates  given  also  lead  to  this  result,  total  oblivion  and  final  abandonment :   it  merely  implies 
For  that  expedition  took  place  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  that  at  the  moment  of  his  distress  he  thought  only  of 
Hezekiah's  reign,  and  fifteen  years  being  added  to  his  the  natural  evil  that  there   was   in   death,  and  of   tin- 
life  after  the  sickness,  making  twenty-nine,  the  length  termination  it  should  necessarily  bring  to  all  his  ac- 
of  his  entire  reign,  it  is  clear  that  the  time  of  sickness  tivities  in  respect  to  the  service  of  God  on  earth, 
must  have  been"  very  nearly  coeval  with  the  period  of  :       The  deliverances  wrought  for  Hezekiah  personally, 
deliverance.    Possibly  the  great  effort  and  excitement  of  and  through  him  for  the  people  of  Judah,  threw  a  hah. 
the  occasion  had  proved  too  much  for  Hezekiah's  frame,  of  sacred  glory  around  the  latter  half  of  his  reign,  which 
and,  as  not  unusually  happens  in  such  cases,  a  feverish  attracted  many  eyes  even  from  distant  lands.      But  on 
attack  ensued,  which  prostrated  his  strength.    Or.  what  this  account  it  proved   a   source  of  spiritual   danger, 
is  fully  as  probable,  the  pestilence  which  .slew  so  many  People  flocked  to  his  capital;  presents  were  sent  to  him: 
thousands  in  the  army  of  Sennacherib,  also  produced  honour  and  riches  attended  him.  and  "  he  was  magnified 
certain  ravages  in  the'camp  of  Israel,  and  reached  the  '  in  the  sight  of  all  nations,"  2Ch.xxxii.23.      It  is  rather 
very  possessor  of  the  tin-one     to  let  the  people  of  the  therefore  to  be  regretted  than   wondered   at   that  his 
covenant  see  how  much  it  behoved  them  to  rejoice  with  heart  should  have  been  lifted  up,  as  we  are  told  by  the 
trembling,  and  how  easily  the  same  power  which  swept  writer  of  the  book  of  Chronicles,   and  that  in  this  ^  he 
their  enemies  to  the  dust  could  also  make   an  end  of  failed  to  render  to  God  as  it  had  been  done  to  him. 
them.      Anyhow,   Hezekiah   was   suddenly  brought  to  ;  The  state  of  his  heart   was  brought  out   by  the  visit 
the  brink  of   the   grave;  he   laboured   under  a  disease  and    presents    he    received    from    the    messengers    of 


that  was  in  its  own  nature  deadly;  yet  in  answer  to 


Merodach-Baladin,    the    king    of    Babylon,    who    was 


his  earnest  cry,  and  out  of  regard  to  the  interests  of  aiming  at  the  establishment  of  a  dynasty  and  kingdom 
righteousness,'  the  Lord  again  graciously  interposed  in  :  that  should  supplant  those  of  Assyria.  It  was  ^natural 
his  behalf,  and.  as  already  noticed,  fifteen  years  were  for  such  a  person  to  seek  the  friendship  and  alliance  of 
added  to  his  life.  This  message  of  comfort  he  also  .  Hezekiah,  after  he  had  become  known  as  the  special 
received  through  the  ministration  of  Isaiah,  and  partly  j  favourite  of  a  higher  power,  and  the  unconquered  defier 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  prophet  was  the  of  Assyrian  might  and  prowess.  And  the  king  of  Judah 
recovery  effected.  At  his  instance  a  preparation  of  figs  ought  doubtless  to  have  politely  received,  and  treated 
was  applied  to  the  boil  (as  it  is  called),  rather  perhaps  I  with  civility,  the  representatives  of  the  court  of  Baby- 
to  the  plague-spot:  and  the  king  presently  began  to  '  Ion,  when  coming,  at  such  a  time,  to  congratulate  him 
recover.  ""  hi*  recovery,  and  offer  some  substantial  tokens  of 

The  assurance  of  recovery  came  so  close  after  the  j  their  master's  good-will.  But  he  plainly  went  beyond 
announcement  of  his  approaching  death  (for  Isaiah  had  '  this  point  of  proper  and  becoming  respect,  and  lost  the 
not  left  the  precincts  of  the  palace  be-fore  the  second  \  reserve  which  it  behoved  him  as  the  possessor  of  the 


HEZEKIAH 


HIERAPOLTS 


throne  of  David  to  maintain  towards  a  heathen  power,  <  justly  be  regarded  as  a  token  of  the  divine  forbearance 
when  he  received  them  to  his  more  intimate  fellowship,  to  postpone  it  till  the  close  of  Hezekiah's  own  reign. 
and  showed  them  all  the  treasures  of  his  house  and  the  ,  On  the  whole,  therefore,  considering  in  what  sort 
glory  of  his  kingdom.  This  was  the  exhibition  of  a  of  times  Hezekiah  appeared,  and  with  what  kind  of 
vain- glorious  pride,  and  it  met  with  a  significant  rebuke,  elements  he  was  surrounded,  we  can  have  no  hesitation 
For  the  prophet  Isaiah  sent  to  inquire  what  those  in  assigning  him  a  high  place  among  the  worthies  of  the 
messengers  from  Babvlon  had  seen;  and  on  being  told  old  covenant — the  verv  highest  place  (as  is  expressly 
that  they  had  seen  everything,  that  nothing  whatever  asserted  for  him  in  Scripture)  among  the  kings  of 
had  been  concealed  from  them,  lie  announced  the  Judah — although  by  no  means  attaining  to  the  measure 
startling  fact  that  the  time  was  coming  (though  not  in 
Hezekiah's  own  days)  when  the  whole  should  lie  carried 
captive  to  Babylon,  and  even  his  offspring  should  serve 
there  as  eunuchs  to  a  foreign  lord.  As  much  as  to  say. 
Such  is  what  you  are  to  expect  from  drawing  close  the 
bonds  of  intimacy  with  the  king  of  Babylon:  the  path 
you  have  entered  on  lias  this  humiliation  for  it  -  destined 
result.  On  hearing  the  message  Hezekiah  -jave  evi 
dence  of  his  meek  resignation,  bin  scarcely,  one  is  apt 
to  think,  of  patriotic  feeling  suited  to  the  occasion,  by 
saving,  "(iool  is  the  word  of  the  Lord  which  tliou 
hast  spoken  is  it  not  so.  if  peace  and  truth  be  in  my 
days!"  He  seemed  to  feel  that  his  expiv-.-ion  of  con 
tent  required  a  certain  apology  or  explanation:  but 
even  when  this  was  given  it  seems  barely  sufficient: 
it  looks  as  if  he  were  somewhat  too  much  alive  to 
personal  repose,  too  little  concerned  about  the  peace 
anil  prosperitv  of  the  times  and  persons  who  were  to 
come  after  him.  Imt  possibly  it  was  less  a  regard  to 
what  concerned  him-elf.  more  of  an  in-iidit  into  (lie 
real  stale  and  tendency  of  things,  which  led  Hezekiah 
to  .-peak  thus.  His  own  observation  could 
have  failed  to  convince  him  and.  it'  it  had. 
have-  learned  from  his  acquaint 
ance  with  the  mind  and  writings 
of  Isaiah  that  the  spiritual  and 
moral  evils,  whieh  lie  hail  la 
boured  to  reform,  had  struck 
their  mots  far  too  deeply  into 
the  state  of  .Iewi-h  society  to 
lie  thoroughly  amended  by  any 
ordiuarv  method-  :  and  that. 
with  all  the  apparent  interest, 

and  the  real  amount  of  g I  his 

measures  hud  effected,  there 
were  still  many  disorders  of  a 
private  and  social  kind  umvcti- 
fied,  and  defections  from  the 
spirit  and  principles  of  tin-  in 
stitutions  of  Moses  unchecked. 
The  writings  of  Isaiah,  and  still 
more,  the  general  return  to  the 
abominations  of  idolatry  that 
took  place  immediately  after 
the  decease  of  Hezekiah.  leave 
no  room  to  doubt  that  such 
actually  was  the  case.  Even 

one  of  tlie  leading  men  at  Hezekiah's  court— Shebna 
the  scribe,  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  affairs 
connected  with  the  assault  of  Sennacherib,  ->K\.  xvi-i  37 
—is  denounced  by  Isaiah  as  a  man  utterly  worthless  ] 


of  l>avid.  who  reigned  over  the  collective  house  of 
.Tudah  and  Israel.  He  had  a  great  work  to  do.  and 
had  the  gifts  fitting  him  for  its  performance,  in  parti 
cular,  a  simple  zeal  for  (iod's  glory,  a  strong  faith 
in  (lod's  word,  and  a  stead v  unflinching  determina 
tion  t<>  hazard  all  for  the  interests  of  tin-  divine  king 
dom.  Such  a  man  was  precise! v  the  kin;.;  suited  to 
the  emergency  of  the  times;  and  around  him.  as  a 
true  pillar  and  defender  of  the  faith,  gathered  all  those 
who  still  had  some  good  thing  in  their  hearts  toward 
the  ( lod  of  Israel:  while  through  him  the-  covenunt- 
I'lessing  again  descended  in  rich  efl'usiou.  and  the 
Lord  showed  what  "Treat  tilings  he  was  -till  ivadv  to 
dn  in  behalf  of  them  that  feared  him. 

HIDDEKEL.  mic  of  theriversof  Eden,  said  to  have 
gone  towards  Assyria.  (No  Kr>iv> 

HI'EL  [(,:,il  finth],  a  Bethelite,  who  is  particularly 
mentioned  in  connection  \\  ith  the  rebuilding  of  .b -rich <>. 
>>'«  .1  r.Kieno.) 

HIERAP'OLIS  |.-v«'/v,/  .•;,,/).  the  name  of  a  city  in 
I'hrvgia,  about  five  miles   north  of    I, 
on  a  height    between  the  rivers    L\cii- 


•sf&"**>tf** 


Petrified  Cascii'U-s 


and   Laodieea,  as  alike  blessed  with  the  pastoral  labours 
of   the    faithful    Kpaphras.    Col.  iv.  12,  13.       It    was    the 
site  of  an   early  church.       It    had    the   name   of    Iliera- 
iveii   to  it  remotely,  perhaps,  on  account  of  the 
•ul   springs    which    it    possessed,    and    which   from 
to  indicate  a  jiecu- 

IUs  scarcely  therefore  ascribing  too  much  of  discern-  liar  connection  with  the  Deity,  but  more  immediately 
ment  and  prophetic  insight  to  Hezekiah,  to  suppose  from  its  being  the  chief  seat  of  the  worship  of  the 
that  he  was  so  cognizant  of  the  evil  still  lurking  among  Syrian  goddess  A  start.-.  Baiubyee  was  tlie  original 
them,  as  to  perceive  that  the  day  of  vengeance  was  name,  and  that  which  the  natives  still  gave  to  it,  after 
postponed  merely,  not  abandoned;  and  that  it  might  the  other  had  become  common  among  authors. 


in  character,  and  doomed  to  be  driven  away  by 

iud»ment  like  a  ball  tossed  with  the  foot,  [s.xxii.15-18      their  healing  virtue  were  supp 

JO  ,  •  •  ,-t         il  T\'A--- 


IIIKKAI'OLIS  7 

rains,  which  are  found  ;it  a  place  no  longer  inhabited, 
and  called  Pambuk-Kalessi,  arc  extensive,  and  show  it 
to  have  been  a  place  of  considerable  si/e  and  splendour. 
The  most  noticeable  tiling  about  the  plaev,  however, 
are  the  stalactites  and  incrustations,  which  were  men 
tioned  by  ancient  writers,  and  an-  also  described  by 
modern  travellers.  In  particular,  there  i-  an  "immense 
t'ro/.en  cascade,  the  surface  wavy,  as  of  water  at  once 
fixed,  or  in  its  headlong  course  suddenly  petrified" 
(Chandler's  Travels).  The  city  lay  on  the  ur<-at  caravan 
road  from  Antioch  to  Seleucia  and  Hai'vlon,  and  be 
came  in  consequence  a  large  emporium.  Otherwise 
it  had  no  particular  advantages,  being  situated  in  the 
centre  of  a  rocky  plain,  and  in  an  isolated  position. 
Its  temple  wa~  plundered  by  Cnesus.  and  was  found  to 


HIGH-PLACES 

contain  such  treasures,  that  several  days  were  required 
to  examine  and  weigh  them.  .  This  temple  and  worship 
retained  its  hold  of  the  people  long  after  the  introduc 
tion  of  Christianity,  and  were  not  finally  abandoned 
till  fully  five  hundred  years  after  the  Christian  era. 
HIG'GAION".  a  title  at  some  of  the  psalms.  ,SVt 

PSALMS. 
HIGH-PLACES  [I Feb.  n;ea,  Ixunotl,},  consecrated 

T 

heights,  often  mentioned  as  places  of  worship  in  ancient 

times,  but,  after  the  giving  of  the  law,  alwavs  regard,  d 
as  to  a  certain  extent  improper  and  at  variance  with 
the  design  of  the  covenant.  In  patriarchal  times,  there 
was  no  limit  or  restriction  as  to  the  places  \\  here  an 
altar  might  be  erected,  and  acceptable  service  presented 


Temple  on  a  hill  surrounded  by  trees,  and  having  an  Altar  in  the  approach  to  it.     A  viaduct,  streams  of  water.  Se.,  are 


to  God;  nor  does  a  uniform  practice  appear  to  have 
been  observed,  although  the  prevailing  tendency  was 
probably  to  repair  to  some  height,  Abraham  seems  to 
have  built  his  first  altar  in  Canaan  on  the  plain  of 
Moreh,  and  his  second  upon  a  height  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  Bethel,  Go.  xii.r.s.  But  that  a  hill,  or  rising 
ground  of  some  description,  was  usually  chosen,  and 
most  readily  associated  itself  with  services,  of  solemn 
worship,  may  be  inferred  even  from  the  command 
given  to  Abraham— the  only  explicit  command  ad 
dressed  to  him,  so  far  as  we  know,  regarding  the  selec 
tion  of  an  appropriate  place  of  worship — to  go  and 
offer  up  his  son  Isaac  on  a  mountain  in  the  land  of 
Moriah.  The  practice  from  the  earliest  times  among  the 
heathen  appears  to  have  been  in  a  similar  direction. 
And  the  same  fee-ling  which  instinctively  led  to  the 
selection  of  a  height  as  the  fittest  place  for  sacrificial  '• 
worship,  also  led  to  the  construction  of  a  platform  of  some 
elevation  on  which  to  present  the  offering.  They  thus 
obtained  a  relative  height  for  the  actual  service,  what-  ! 
ever  might  be  the  nature  of  the  surrounding  area;  and  ! 
hence  most  of  the  original  words  for  altars  or  places  of 
sacrificial  worship  in  the  ancient  tongues,  were  indicative 
of  height.  (>Vt  under  ALTAI:.)  But  the  progress  of 


heathenism  and  idolatry  in  the  world  disposed  men  to 
associate  with  every  select  place  of  worship,  and  its 
consecrated  altar,  a  distinct  object  of  worship,  so  that 
according  to  the  altars  the  gocls  also  were  multiplied  ; 
it  was  found  necessary  to  impose  a  prohibition;  and  in 
the  constitution  set  up  by  the  hand  of  Moses,  as  there 
was  to  be  the  acknowledgment  and  worship  of  but  one 
God,  so  there  wa.s  to  be  but  one  altar  of  sacrifice.  It 
henceforth  became  an  irregularity  to  have  more  altars 
than  one,  although  in  particular  emergencies,  and  in  the 
dislocated  state  of  things  which  ensued  on  the  separa 
tion  of  the  ten  tribes,  when  it  became  practically  im 
possible  to  have  every  act  of  worship  presented  at  the 
one  altar,  a  certain  license  was  permitted.  Thus  we 
find  Samuel  countenancing  a  sacrifice,  first  at  Mizpeh, 
then  at  a  high-place  near  his  settled  residence,  i  Sa  vii. 
9;  ix.  13;  at  a  later  period  at  Bethlehem,  1  Sa.  xvi.  5;  while 
David  performed  sacrifice  on  an  altar  extemporized  for 
the  i  .ccasion  at  the  thrashing-floor  of  Araunah,  i  ch.  x>,i.  2 ; 
and  J'Jijah.  in  like  manner,  hastily  reared  an  altar  on 
Mount  Carmcl  and  offered  sacrifice  before  assembled 
Israel  to  Jehovah,  iKi.  xviii.  3,  etseq.  But  these  were  all 
extraordinary  occasions:  and  the  strong  theocratic  sense 
of  the  persons  directing  the  sacrifice,  together  with  the 


HIGH-1'KIEST  i 

manifest  peculiarity  of  tlie  occasions,  served  to  counter 
act  tlie  tendency  which  the  act  of  itself  might  have 
been  fitted  to  gender.  It  was  one  of  tlie  great  objects 
of  the  religious  striving  of  David  to  have  the  Mosaic 
constitution  so  invigorated,  and  the  sen  ice  at  the  one 
altar  and  tabernacle  brought  to  such  a  state  of  relative 
perfection,  that  both  tlie  occasions  for  separate  altars 
might  be  taken  away,  and  the  desire  for  having  them 
extinguished.  This  aim  appears  to  have  been  in  ^reat 
measure  accomplished  during  his  reign  and  that  of 
Solomon.  But  with  the  falling  asunder  of  die  king 
dom,  and  the  manifold  political  ami  social  disorders 
which  grew  out  of  it,  the  proper  feeling  of  unitv  w;is 
again  interrupted,  and  tlie  habit  of  worshipping  on  hi-li- 
places  by  degrees  crept  in.  My  the  be'te-r  class  of  wor 
shippers,  however,  it  \\as  always  recognized  as  a  dis 
order  and  a  partial  defection  fr. >m  the  li-u'al  standard: 
so  that  where  only  tlie  more  llau'rant  corruptions  WITO 
shunned,  the  sacrificing  on  the  hiuh- places  was  noi."d 
as  a  smaller  evil  that  continued  to  piwail:  and  the  ex 
tent  to  which  He/ekiah's  n-formation  in  matters  of  re 
ligion  was  carried  is  marked  1,\-  the  circumstance,  that 
in  his  time  the  hi^h-plaecs  were  removed  :  that  is.  tin- 
altars  on  them,  and  other  erections  attached  to  these, 
were  pulled  down,  •_>  Ki.  .\viii.  t.  Mut  too  commonly  it 
was  not  merely  an  imperfection  in  tlie  rituali.-tie  ser 
vice,  or  a  corruption  in  the  f,,rni  of  \\nrship,  wliich  the 
irregular  sacritic'ing  on  !i!_h-plaoes  tended  to  foster: 
these  were  the  channels  through  \\hieh  false  objects  of 
worship,  with  thc-ir  kindred  abominations,  Mowed  in: 
and  hence  in  the-  prophets  little-  di-tinetion  is  usuallv 
made-  between  the  high  places  and  tin-  more  formal  acts 
of  idolatnui.-  worship:  all  are  c-la-.-.-d  to.o-tln-r  as  viola 
tions  of  the  lav.-  of  (  .'od.  and  abomination-  that  must  be 
utterly  put  away,  if  the  people  should  ever  be  riuht 
with  ( .'od.  and  enjoy  the  proper  blessing  of  the  covenant, 

Is.  Ivii.   7  ;  JL-.  !i    20;    Kxo.  \vi    2,1,  .'.,-. 

HIGH  PRIEST.     >'..   PRIEST. 

HlLKl'AH  [properly  1 1 1  i.Ki.i.uir,  JthovulCs  por 
tion],  appears  to  have-  been  a  common  name  anion--  the 
•  lews,  but  no  one  bearing  it  rose  to  anv  uTeat  emi 
nence.  It  was  the  naiin-  of  Jeremiah's  father,  of  th" 
hi-'1i-priest  in  the  ivieii  of  .lo.-iah.  and  of  the  father  of 
Kliakim.  uiie  of  He/.ekiah's  chic-f  ministers.  to  who-e 
faithfulness  and  piety  special  promises  were  irive-n.  jc 
i.  1;  2  Ki.  x\ii.;  Is.  xxii.  20,  s(.-q.  Mut  nothing  particular  is 
known  of  the  men  themselv<  s.  except  tin-  hiuh  priest  in 
the1  days  of  Josiah.  and  the  eiivuni-tanees  connect'  d 
with  him  an-  ti-eated  e]se\vln-n-.  (>'<<  .(OSIAH.) 

HIN,  a  Hebrew  liipiid  measure  equal  to  about  ten 
English  pints.  (S<c  MKASCKICS.) 

HIND,     fice  I  TAUT. 

HIN'NOM.     flee   lfi:r.i.. 

HI'RAM,  or  UritAM  [etymology  not  certain,  but 
probably  meaning  the  nn't/f  or//v  lic,r,i~\.  1.  A  king  of 
Tyre,  contemporary  with  David,  who  si-nt  to  congratu 
late  David  on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  and  furnished 
him  afterwards  with  wood  from  Lebanon  and  workmen  ' 
for  the  building  of  his  palace,  2  Sa.  v.  n  ;  i  ci>.  xiv.  1 ;  who 
also  (for  it  seems  to  be  the  same  person,  and  not  a  son 
or  grandson  of  the  former,  as  some  have  supposed) 
maintained  amicable'  relations  with  Solomon,  and  sup 
plied  him  with  wood  and  artificers,  as  lie  had  done  to 
David,  for  the  gigantic  works  carried  on  by  Solomon. 
1  Ki.  v.  1-12;  ix.  n-2<\  The  alliance  between  Solomon  and 
Hiram  was  carried  still  farther  —  farther,  perhaps, 
than  the  spirit  of  the  theocratic  constitution  warranted 


1 1 1 VITES 

—  for  Solomon  also  obtained  from  him  Tyrian  sailors  to 
go  along  with  his  own  servants  in  his  navy,  which 
traded  between  Kzioii- < -'eher  and  Ophir,  1  Ki.  ix.  2<i-2>i. 
A  slight  difference  arose  between  them  on  account  of 
the  villages  which  Solomon  presented  to  Hiram  in  the 
land  of  Galilee,  in  token  of  his  obligations  to  him,  but 
which  Hiram  treated  with  a  sort  of  contempt,  and 
nicknamed  Cabul  it  rash  >.  But  there  appears  to  have 
been  no  settled  misunderstanding  between  the  two 
monarchs,  and  Solomon  doubtless  found  some  other 
nay  of  testifying  his  gratitude  towards  Hiram. 

2.  HIKAM.  A  distinguished  artificer,  who  was  em 
ployed  in  superintending  and  executing  some  of  the 
more  elaborate  workmanship  connected  with  the  temple, 
2Ch.iv.  ii;  i  Ki  vi:  I"  unless  in  those  passa-vs  the  name 
Hiram  he  .-till  that  of  the  kin--,  and  lie  is  said  to  have 
done  what  was  accomplished  by  the  skill  and  energy 
of  one  or  more  of  his  workmen. 

HITT1TES.  the  descendants  of  HKTII,  the  second 
son  c if  (  'anaan.  and  constituting  one  of  the  tribes  that 
po  sessed  the  land  of  Canaan  at  the  time  of  the  con- 
c|Uc-st.  Their  chief  settlements  seem  to  have  been  in 
the  south,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Hebron.  At  a 
period  long  be-fore  the  con<|Uc-t  Abraham  found  them 
there-,  and  bought  of  them  as  the-  lords  of  the  manor 
the  lie-Id  of  .Machpelali  for  a  burying-place.  Uo.  xxiii. 
Later  accounts  -till  represent  them  as  eoninvicd  with 
that  legion,  inhabiting  the  mountains  or  hill  ground 
of  tin-  south  of  ('anaan,  and  a.-  living  in  the  viciuitv  of 
Me-thel.  Xu.  xiii  •_•:':. in.  i  •_•>;  ]  t,  was  probably  from  dwell 
ing  so  long  in  that  portion  of  the  land,  and  achieving  in 
it  .-o  may  wonderful  exploits,  that  Pavid  drew  into  Mich 
intimate  bonds  with  him  one  e>f  the-  tribe  Uriah  the 
Hittite;  who  appears  to  have  been  a  pro-dyte-  to  1  >avid's 
faith,  as  \\e-ll  as  a  ill-voted  adherent  of  his  cause.  Alas! 
that  tin-  love-  ami  /eal  of  tin-  (  I.  nt  ile-  should  have'  met 
with  sei  ungenerous  a  ivpiital!  Only  one  other  indi 
vidual  of  the  tribe  is  mentioned  in  the-  history  of  the 
kingdom,  l  s.i.  xxvi.  ii.  Milt  the  tribe  as  a  whole,  long 
n  tained  a  distinctive  place  and  possessions,  though  pro- 
bably  of  limited  compass.  Kings  of  the-  Hittites  are 
spoken  e.f  even  in  Solomon's  time,  anion^  the-  pmvha-ers 
of  the-  chariots  which  he  brought  out  of  Ke\pt,  i  Ki.  x.  2:-, 
and  even  so  late  as  Joram's  reign  the-  name-  of  king  was 
not  lost  from  among  them.  2  Ki.  \ii.  i;.  It  would  appear 
that  the-  race  .-till  subsisted  after  the  Mabylonish  exile; 
for  Hittites  an>  ine-ntioned  among  the  outlandish  people, 
whose  daughters  the  returned  captives  had  taken  for 
wives,  Kzr.  ix.  i.  They  must  have  existed  then,  however, 
in  ni>-ri-ly  isolated  fragments;  and  from  that  time 
nothing  is  heard  e>f  them  as  a  distinct  and  separate 
tribe  among  the  inhabitants  e>f  ('anaan. 

HI'VITES,  another  of  the-  ancient  ( 'anaanitish  tribes, 

who  Were-  alse>  called   A  vim,  Ge.  x.17;  Kx.  iii    *>;  JDS.  xi.,'i;  xiii 

ii:  ii.  ii  L'.;.  Tin:  passages  in  Joshua  represent  them  as 
dwelling  in  Meiiint  Ibrmon,  from  .Mount  Maal-Her- 
mon  unto  the  entering  in  of  Haniath:  that  is,  on  the  ex 
treme  north,  as  the  Hittites  were  on  the  extreme  south. 
Seealso.ios.  \i.  .1.  They  had  possessions,  however,  farther 
south,  feir  it  was  they  who  from  the  cities  of  Gibeon, 
Kirjath-jearim,  &c..  entered  into  a  stratagem  and  ob 
tained  peace  wiuh  Joshua,  Jos.  ix.  3,  scq,  Solomon  suh- 
jected  them  to  a  regular  tribute  as  lie  did  the  remnants 
of  the  other  nations  wliich  still  survived  in  the  land, 
l  Ki.  ix.  2r).  Their  name  never  occurs  after  Solomon's 
time,  ami  even  in  his  day,  it  is  evident,  that  they  were 
comparatively  few  in  number. 


74-1 


HOLY    GHOST 


HO'BAB,  si  Midianite.  the  son  <.f  Retiel  or  .Kaguel 
the  father-in-law  of  Mor-rs;  si  i  that  llrilmli  must  have 
been  .Moses'  brother-in-law.  I'.ut  the  term  denoting 
father-in-law  is  used  with  some  latitude,  and  the  precise 
relation  is  not  always  <[uite  easily  ascertained.  Jlcrr. 
however,  it  was  probably  what  the  English  expression 
denotes.  (But  see  under  JETHRO  and  i;.\<,ri;i,.)  Hohab 
appears  to  have  visited  the  cam])  of  Israel  during  the 
time  the  people  lay  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sinai,  and 
to  have  accompanied  them  a  short  way  on  the  route 
toward  Canaan,  when  he  proposed  to  return  to  his  own 
place  and  kindred.  But  Moses  pressed  him  t"  go  along 
with  them,  that  they  might  obtain  the  benefit  of  his 
experience  of  the  wilderness-life  :  and  assured  him  that 
"  whatever  fondness  the  Lord  might  do  to  them,  the 
same  they  should  do  to  him,"  Nu.  x.  i;»-:;2.  The  result  is 
not  expressly  recorded;  though  one  might  he  warranted 
to  infer  from  the  mere  silence  of  the  historian  in  such  a 
case,  that  1 1'ohah  remained  with  the  covenant-people. 
P.ut  on  turning  to  ,lu.  i.  It!,  we  learn  quite  incidentally 
that  "the  children  of  the  Keiiite.  Moses'  father-in-law, 
went  up  out  of  the  city  of  palm-trees  with  the  children 
of  .ludah  into  the  wilderness  of  .ludah,  which  licth  in 
the  south  of  Arad:  and  they  went  and  dwelt  among  the 
people."'  The  circumstance  is  noticed,  not  for  the 
pin-pose  of  throwing  light  on  the  earlier  narrative,  hut  as 
connected  with  the  aggressive  operations  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  with  which  the  family  of  llohah  had  come  to  he 
associated,  and  at  the  distance  of  some  fifty  or  sixty 
years  after  the  invitation  had  been  given  them  by  Moses. 
The  later  passage  is  therefore  justly  classed  by  Blunt 
among  those  incidental  notices,  or  undesigned  coinci 
dences,  which  serve  to  confirm  the  authenticity  of  the 
sacred  narrative.  Why  the  family  of  llohah  were 
called  Kcnites,  or  from  Kain,  is  not  certainly  known; 
but  that  it  was  the  offspring  of  Hobab  who  are  desig 
nated  is  beyond  doubt,  both  from  this  passage,  and  from 
the  distinct  reference  again  made  to  them  in  Ju.  iv.  11. 
(See  KKMTES.) 

HOLY  GHOST,  the  common  designation  in  our 
English  Bible  of  the  third  person  in  the  Godhead, 
although  Hot.Y  SPIRIT  is  also  occasionally  used  — the 
original  being  in  both  cases  the  same  (Ti^ef/m  ayiov), 
and  found  sometimes  with,  sometimes  without,  the 
article.  Whenever  the  epithet  lio/i/  is  wanting,  the 
word  Xftrit  is  substituted  for  <,/io.</;  for  example,  "the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord."  but  never  "the  Ghost  of  the  Lord'," 
or  "the  Spirit  said."  but  not  "the  Ghost  said.''  It 
was  necessary  to  avoid  such  expressions  from  the  am 
biguous  meaning  of  the  term  ;/l«>.<t ;  which,  though 
originally  the  same  with  x/iirtt,  has  come  in  common 
discourse  to  he  very  much  appropriated  to  a  supersti 
tious  use— expressing  visionary  existences,  spectres. 
(See  GHOST.)  Notwithstanding  the  change  in  ([iiestion, 
the  expression  HOLY  GHOST  has  retained  its  place 
chiefly  from  association  and  usaire.  and  is  in  fact  em 
ployed  as  a  proper  name.  It  occurs,  however,  only  in 
New  Testament  scripture:  and  indeed  most  probably  for 
the  reason  now  indicated;  because,  being  regarded  by 
our  translators  as  a  proper  name,  and  as  such  the  m»st 
distinctive  name  of  the  third  person  in  the  Godhead, 
they  felt  as  if  it  should  be  reserved  till  that  period  in 
the  divine  dispensations  when  the  threefold  personality 
of  the  Godhead  became  a  matter  of  explicit  revelation. 
Yet  not  only  does  the  expression  "the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord"'  occur  in  a  great  variety  of  passages  of  Old  Testa 
ment  scripture,  but  occasionally  also  we  have  the 


epithet  /n>/i/,  coupled  with  what  might  have  been  ren 
dered  f/Itost  ^nW  rn.ai'/i,  Tri'eruat;  but  our  translators  in 

each  case  render  //o///  Spirit,  l>s.  li.  ]1;  Is.  ixiii.  in,  11. 
Whether  the  inspired  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  had 
obtained  an  insight  into  the  personality  of  the  Spirit  or 
not,  the  language  they  were  led  on  many  occasions  to 
employ  was  such  as  perfectly  accords  with  that  idea, 
and  may  even  be  regarded  as  naturally  fitted  to  suggest 
it.  Even  the  earlier  notices  which  speak  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  moving  upon  the  face  of  the  waters— of  his 
Spirit  striving  or  ceasing  to  strive  with  men.  Ge.  i.2;  \-i. :; 
are  of  that  description;  but  still  more  are  those  of  a 
later  period,  which  represent  this  Spirit  as  coming  upon 
men,  or  being  withdrawn  from  them,  and  as  capable  of 
being  pleased  or  vexed  by  the  conduct  they  pursued, 
ISa.  x.  10;  xvi.  13;  Is.  Ixiii.  10. 

But  it  is  only  in  the  scriptures  of  the   New  Testa 
ment,  and  in  connection  with  the  great  things  there 
unfolded,  that  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  what  may  be  ealkd 
his  personal  relationship  and  economical  agency,  comes 
distinctly  into  view.      It  was  not  till  then  that  the  facts 
of  the  divine  administration  afforded  an  objective  basis 
sufficiently  broad  and  palpable  for  1  ••ringing  this  out  to 
the  popular  apprehension,  and  giving  it  a  place  in  the 
church's  faith  respecting  God.      Hence  the  personality 
and  work  of  the  Spirit,  while  not  doubtfully  indicated 
during   the   earlier  ages  of   the  church,   had  a  vail  of 
mystery  thrown  around  it,  which  was  only  to  drop  off 
as  the  plan  of  salvation  in  Christ  developed  itself.      It 
meets  us.   however,  at  the  very  threshold  of   the  new 
dispensation,  in  the  action  there  ascribed  to  the  Holy 
Ghost  respecting  the  formation  of  a  body  for  our  Lord 
in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin,  Lu.  i.  3i.      It  appears  again  in 
connection  with  the  baptism  of  Christ,  when  the  Spirit 
descended  upon  him,  and  abode  with  him — did  so  even 
in  a  bodily  form,  that  a  personal  agency  might  be  more 
i  easily  recognized,  Jn.  i.  3:3;  Lu.  hi.  •>•>.     Still  more  explicitly 
i  and  fully  is  this  exhibited  in  the  promises  made  by  our 
Lord  to  his  disciples  concerning  the  abiding  presence, 
and  enlightening,   consoling,   sustaining  energy  of  the 
Spirit ;    in  which  what  they  were  to  derive  from  the 
Spirit  was  spoken  of  as  indeed  closely  related  to,  yet 
contradistinguished    from,    what     belonged    either    to 
Christ  himself,  or  to  the  Father.      He  was  to  come  in 
some  sense  in  the  room  of  Christ;  to  supply  the  void 
created  by  Christ's  absence;  nay,  to  do  in  their  experi 
ence  what,  by  the  economical  arrangement  of  the  plan 
!  of  redemption,  Christ  himself  could  not  do  by  means  of 
his  personal  presence;  so  that  it  was  even  expedient  or 
profitable  for  them  that  Christ  should  go  away,  in  order 
that  the  Spirit  might  come,  Jn.xiv.  10,20;  xvi.  M4.     It  is 
'  impossible,  by  any  fair  and  unbiassed  interpretation,  to 
understand  what  in  such  passages  is  said  of  the  Spirit, 
otherwise  than  with  respect  to  personal  relations  and 
actings.     He  is  promised  by  the  Father;   proceeds  out 
of  the  Father;  is  sent  by  the  Father  and  the  Son:  does 
what  the  Son  cannot  directly  do,  yet  what  it  is  essen 
tial  to  the  Son's  mission  to  have  accomplished.     And 
in  proof  at  once  of  the  perfect  harmony  of  the  different 
j persons  of  the  Godhead  in   respect  to  the  scheme  of 
grace,   and  of  the   distinct  parts  and   operations   sus 
tained    by    each    in   carrying    it    into     execution,    we 
have,  at  the  close  of  our  Lord's  work    on  earth,   the 
baptismal  formula  appointed  for  all  times;  indicating, 
along  with  a  threefold  diversity,  an  essential  oneness 
of  purpose  and  action  in  the  matter  of  man's  salvation : 


HOLY  GHOST  7 

"  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,''  Mat.  xxviii.  10. 

The  relation  of  the  Spirit's  work  to  the  Soil's,  as  un 
folded  in  New  Testament  scripture,  may  readily  bo 
inferred  from  the  places  they  respectively  occupy  in  the 
progressive  evolution  of  the  divine  plan.  The  one,  in 
point  of  time,  takes  precedence  of  the  other,  while  with 
out  this  other  to  follow  it  up  and  turn  it  to  practical 
account,  the  former  would  remain  disappointed  of  its 
aim.  Christ's  work  provides  the  materials  of  salvation, 
or  lays  open  the  sources  of  life  and  blessing;  the  Spirit's 
work  applies  what  is  provided  to  the  souls  of  men,  and 
renders  it  effectual  in  their  experience.  Hence,  in  so 
far  as  the  Spirit  works  to  saving  purposes,  "  lie  takes 
of  Christ's  and  shows  it  unto  men,"  .in.  xvi.  i;>.  He  has 
nothing  of  his  own  to  brin^,  for  all  is  already  Christ's  - 
even  all  that  is  the  Father's  and  the  .-.dvation  lie 
effects  consists  simply  and  exclusively  in  making  men 
sincerely  responsive  to  the  call  nf  t'lirist.  and  partici 
pant  cjf  the  benefits  secured  tor  them  bv  his  obedience 
unto  death.  The  Holy  Ghost,  therefor.',  was  not,  and 
could  not  lie  given  (namely,  after  the  way  and  measure 
of  New  Testament  times)  till  Christ  had  finished  hi- 
work  on  earth  and  entered  into  his  glorv,  .In.  vii.  :;n  Hut 
on  the  other  hand,  from  the  time  that  Christ's  glorifica 
tion  commenced,  the  Holv  Ghost  could  not  fail  to  In- 
given;  the  materials  were  now  all  prepared  for  his  peen 
liar  agency:  and  to  have  left  them  without  the  saving 
application  for  \\hich  they  were  intended,  would  ha\e 
been  to  mar  the  -lory  of  (  liri.-t.  It  is  henceforth  tin- 
dispensation  of  the  Spirit,  -jr.,  ii:  M:,  as  contradUtin 
guished  not  only  from  the  ministration  or  covenant  of 
law  in  former  times,  but  also  tV-m  the  personal  mini- 
tratioii  of  Christ  in  the  days  of  his  ilesh.  and  doin--  for 
his  pen] ile  the  work  of  a  ,-crvant.  (  h\  this  account  the 
fathers  sometime-  called  tin-  Acts  of  the  A|i  '-ties  "the 
Gospel  of  tin-  Holy  Gho.-t"  indicating,  even  under  a 
wrong  title,  a  riidit  feeling  as  to  the  relation  of  the 
Spirit's  work  to  (  'hrist's.  He  only  who  has  received 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  and  \\ith  the  baptism  thereof  ha- 
been  born  again  to  God,  has  a  riu'lit  to  a  place  in  the 
household  of  faith.  Ac.  xix.  1-.1;  1  Co  \ii  3,13;  for  he  alone 
kno\v<  spiritually  the  things  of  God.  and  has  the  stand 
ing,  the  life,  the  liberty  of  his  children,  i  Co  11  !_' -i:. 
Ko.  viii.  <i;  i;r.>  iii  17.  The  immediate  relation  of  such  a 
one  to  the  Godhead  is  through  the  Spirit  "lie  lives  in 
the  Spirit,  and  walks  in  the  Spirit:"  he  i-  himself  "an 
habitation  of  God  through  the  Spirit,"' or.  as  it  is  other 
wise  expressed,  "his  bodv  is  the  temple  of  the  Holv 
Ghost."  (in .  v.  L.V.;  F.p .  ii.  i".';  ic,,.  vi.  in.  And  to  the  i»]>eratioii 
of  the  Spirit  in  his  soul  are  to  be  ascribed  all  the  uifts 
and  graces  which  distinguish  his  character  and  adorn 
his  life;  so  that  while  they  are  his  in  possession  and  ' 
exercise,  as  to  efficacious  working  and  moral  worth 
they  are  the  Spirit's,  i  Co  xii.  n;  G.I.  v.  ±i;  rhi.  u  i:j. 

It  is,  however,  to   be  carefully  borne   in   mind,  that 
the  distinction  belonging  in  this  respect  to  New  Testa 
ment  times  is  relative  only  and  not  absolute.      As  prior 
to  the  appearance  of  Christ   his  work  was  anticipated, 
in  the  efficacy  that   was   imputed   through  the  divine 
foreknowledge    to    services    that  were   of    no  intrinsic  ] 
value  in  themselves,  and  the  pardon  that  was  granted  i 
to  believers,  Ro.  iii  2.1;  He.  ix.  hi,  2(>;.\i.  40;  so  also  was  it  with 
the  work  of  the  Spirit.     Wherever  there  was  a  true  i 
believer  there  was  a  work  of  the  Spirit,  though  imper-  : 
fectly    developed    and    carried     on    as    in    a    mystery. 

Neither   was  all  law  in  former  times,  nor  now  is  all 
VOL.  I. 


t;(  HONEY 

Spirit.  The  same  elements  belong  to  both;  but  the 
relations  of  the  two  have  changed  with  the  advance  in 
the  divine  dispensations:  the  law  formerly  occupied  the 
foreground,  the  Spirit  the  background  in  the  believer's 
condition:  while  now  it  is  the  reverse-- the  Spirit  is  in 
the  foreground,  the  law  in  the  background.  I'ut  there 
is  no  contrariety;  for  in  scope  and  character  law  and 
Spirit  are  one  -alike  ••holy.  just,  and  good."  And  the 
i  men  who  were  pre-eminently  the  law's  representatives, 
expounders,  and  advocates  -the  prophets  of  the  old 
dispensation— were  also  the  men  who  were  most  re 
plenished  with  the  Holy  Spirit:  simply  as  moved  and 
guided  by  him  they  saw  the  visions  and  uttered  the 
Words  of  God,  2S;i  xxiii  .2;  Is.lxi  l;K/e.  viii.  ;i;  2  IV  i.  21,  ic,  Jt 
was  they,  too,  \\lio,  conscious  of  the  perfect  harmony 
of  law  and  Spirit,  and  of  the  necessity  of  the  indwelling 
yrace  of  the  one  to  accomplish  the  end  contemplated 
by  the  external  discipline  of  the  other,  joyfully  an 
nounced  a  eoniinu  time  o,heii  the  Spirit  would  be  more 
plentifully  bestowed  than  it  had  hitherto  been,  and  a 
harvest  of  righteousness  reaped  beyond  all  that  past, 
ages  had  witnessed,  I-  xliv  3;  Eze.  xxxvi  27;  Joel  ii.  23. 

|  of  works  devoted  to  the  specific'  theme  of  the  |»-rsoualitv  and 

agenc\  of  the  II. .h   Ghost,   Hare'.-,  .I/.- ,.  '  //,,  r,,,,, /„,-?<;,',  "is  |r,, 

lid  edit.  JiMi;  and    lleoer's   Bampton    Lecture   for    IS15,  on  tho 

'    -  nt'nrt,  r,  are  among  tin- 

late-t  in  this  countn  -  l.eih  imperfect  as  regards  the  fun1  ex 
hiliition  of  the  suliject.  I  he  latter  more  so  than  the  former,  ami 
also  defective  in  it-  theologj  The  work  of  Han-  contains  many 
fine  thonghts,  and  nin.-h  acute  criticism.  'Ih.-  personality  and 
work  of  ih,-  Spirit1  also  fo  m  the  sul.jecl  of  ,.i f  tlie  Congre 
gational  series  of  lectures,  l.\  Mr.  Stowell.  The  Puritan  divines 
have  left  two  separate  treatises  well  deserving  of  consultation-- 
1  .*  much  the  fullest,  tii.-  mosl  comprehensive,  ind. -,-.!.  extant, 
though  great  Ij  defective  in  compactness  and  arrangement,  i-; 
1  '"en's  /',.  //.,/,,  s,,irit, 

occupying  in  its  cntireness  vols.  iii  and  i\  oflioold's  edition 
of  the  works  of  Owen;  and  Coodwin's  '/'  -  II--  '.,'•/,.  //„/,/  t;/lflfl 
in  "urStilfatioii.  A  later  «..rk  from  the  same  elass  of  divines 
i-  Iliin-ion's  >,-  i  Inn  Vin-tr  ,,*  <>///<•  reel  1'dvnitiilltn,  ,<r.,  i,f  il,<: 
/fnlii  Hj.irit  a  series  of  cli-ar,  scriptural,  ai.<l  well  digested  dis 
courses.] 

HOMER,  a  Inrev  H.-bivw  measure,  eijual  to  about 
OHO  Knudish  |.in1s.  (,SV<  M  i:\si  ,;i:s.i 

HONEY.  There  ar.-  no  fewer  than  thr.-e  Hebrew 
wonls  which  have  the  meaning  of  h..nc\  ascribed  to 
them.  That  most  commonly  used,  and  which  seems  to 
be  the  proper  equivalent  to  our  won  I  limn ;/,  is  diltadi, 
i'w^l'.  n^1''!  iu  a  great  variety  of  passage-.  The  two 


used  to  be  regarded  a 
state,  lint  they  mor 
dripping  of  it.  and  are  not  strictly  terms  for  honev,  but 
for  an  action  which  mav  be  ascribed  to  honey  as  well 
as  to  other  things,  though  not  to  it  exclusively.  Thus, 
in  describing  what  Jonathan  did  in  the  wood  on  Mount 
F.phraim.  it  is  said,  "  he  put  forth  the  end  of  the  rod 
that  was  in  his  hand,  and  dipped  it  beya.ra.th  ht.uhlc- 
/>a*/t,"  in  the  honev  dropj)ings.  Throughout  the  ]>as- 
sage  the  tiling  itself  \\hich  Jonathan  tasted  is  called 
ilcliufli ;  but  this  is  represented  as  existing  in  so  plentiful 
a  state  that  it  was  freely  dropping  around  them  (eomp. 
ver.  20.  The  other  word  is  also  uniformly  employed  in 
the  same  way,  I'.-:.  xi\.  io;  Pr.  v.  3;  x\iv.  l",  Ac.);  it  denotes 
the  distilling  property,  or  the  pure  juice  of  honey,  rather 
than  the  article  itself. 

It   still   is  a   question,    however,    what  the   ancient 
Hebrews  actually  included  in  their  term  ihiush ;  whether 

94 


HOI; 


they  always  mean!  I)V  it  that  which  we  now  designate 
IIIHKIJ — namely,  the  [)i'o<luct  uf  bees — or  along  with  this 
comprehended  sonic  other  natural  productions  Inuring 
a  certain  affinity  to  it.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  bee-honey  is  what  in  the  groat  majority  of  in 
stances  is  denoted  by  the  term  ;  and  it  is  well  known 
that  bees,  and  by  consequence  the  product  of  bees. 
existed  iii  considerable  abundance,  and  still  exist,  in 
Palestine  and  other  parts  of  Syria.  There  is  no  need 
for  producing  specific  evidence  upon  this  point.  Hut  it 
is  also  known  that  certain  trees  yield  a  substance  which 
approaches  in  taste  to  honey,  and  has  from  ancient  times 
been  called  by  this  name  -vegetable  honey,  as  it  might 
be  appropriately  designated.  .Josephus,  when  describing 
the  fertility  and  balmy  richness  of  .lericho,  says  that 
"the  better  sort  of  palm-trees,  when  they  are  pressed 
\\i7..  their  fruit  or  dates  I,  yield  an  excellent  kind  of 
honey,  not  much  inferior  in  ssveetness  to  other  honey" 
(Wars,  iv.  i,  3).  i  loney  of  this  description  is  still  in  use 
in  the  Hast.  and.  according  to  Shaw,  it  has  sometimes 
even  more  of  a  luscious  sweetness  than  hue-honey,  and 
is  so  esteemed  as  to  be  made  use  of  by  persons  of  better 
fashion  upon  a  marriage,  at  the  birth  or  circumcision 
of  a  child,  or  any  other  feast  or  good-day  (Travels,]),  in). 
This  superiority  probably  arose  from  a  different  mode 
of  preparation  from  that  which  prevailed  in  earlier 
times.  Another  sort  of  honey  is  also  made  from  grapes, 
and  is  now.  as  it  probably  has  been  from  a  remote 
period,  in  frequent  use.  The  juice  of  grapes  of  the  best 
quality  is  boiled  down  into  a  sort  of  syrup,  which  is 
called  diJi*  (undoubtedly  a  corruption  of  the  llcbreu 
debash),  and  eaten  like  butter  with  bivtd.  I  {obinson  de 
scribes  it  as  approaching  nearer  to  the  taste  of  molasses 
than  honey  proper  (Researches,  ii.  \,.  11^1.  There  is  eyeiisaid 
to  be  a  third  sort  of  yegetable  honey,  which  is  formed  on 
the  leaves  and  twigs  of  certain  trees  in  the  East,  espe 
cially  of  a  tree  called  by  the  Arabs  ghan'af>,  about  the 
size  of  the  olive,  extracted  and  brought  to  the  surface  by 
a  class  of  insects  that  live  <>n  them,  and  industriously 
gathered  by  the  Arabs  (Kittc.'s  Physical  Hist,  of  Palestine,  j> 
I'M'.;  Reaumur,  Mem.  sur  les  Insectes,  iii.  44). 

Such  variety  in  the  productions  which  went,  and  still 
go,  by  the  common  name  of  honey,  must  be  borne  in 
mind,  when  respect  is  had  to  the  use  of  this  term  in 
Scripture.  It  is  probable  that  when  (Jaanaii  is  de 
scribed  as  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  not  one 
sort  merely,  but  all  the  varieties  of  substance  that  bore 
the  name  are  to  be  understood:  bee-honey,  in  the  first 
instance,  which  has  always  been  plentiful  in  the  land, 
and  then  the  other  vegetable  productions  which  resem 
ble  it.  We  have  the  express  testimony  of  two  ancient 
writers  (Uiml.  sic.  xix.  nj;  SuMas  a.Kpi's)  that  the  expression 
ii-'tld-litjiicii  iue\t  aypiov]  was  used  of  a  kind  of  sweet 
gum  that  exuded  from  certain  trees;  probably  the  same 
as  that  mentioned  last  under  the  several  kinds  of  vege 
table  honey;  it  also  bore  the  name  of  Persian  manna. 
It  has  been  thought  likely  that  honey  of  this  descrip 
tion  is  what  is  to  be  understood  by  the  wild-honey  which 
along  with  locusts  formed  the  common  diet  of  the  Baptist. 
Mat.  iii.  4;  since,  if  it  were  bee-honey,  one  does  not  see 
why  it  should  have  been  called  specifically  irild  one 
sort  of  bee-honey,  and  even  one  sort  of  bees  themselves 
that  make  the  honey,  not  being  usually  denominated 
wild,  as  contradistinguished  from  another.  The  de 
scription  is  meant  to  tell  us,  that  as  John  came  in  the 
|  attitude  of  a  preacher  of  repentance,  he  appeared  as  a 
man  holding  a  kind  of  perpetual  fast;  the  food  he  took 

L 


was  such  as  might  be  met  with  in  desert  places  or 
among  the  forests  of  the  country;  and  if  bee-honey 
might  occasionally  be  included  in  this  category,  one  may 
certainly  suppose  it  would  commonly  have  been  some 
thing  of  a  less  luscious  nature,  and  more  readily  acces 
sible.  It  is  possible'  also  that  some  kind  of  vegetable. 
honey  is  meant  in  the  passage  in  1  Sa.,  which  relates 
the  transaction  of  Jonathan  in  the  wood  on  Mount 
Kphraim.  For  it  is  spoken  of  as  being  upon  the  face 
of  the  ground,  as  well  as  dropping  from  the  trees, 
di  xiv.  L'.-I.  L'ii.  It  is  true,  that  the  clefts  of  trees  have 
always  been  favourite  haunts  for  bees,  but  it  is  not 
very  common  for  them  to  build  their  cells  so  loosely 
that  the  honey  is  seen  dropping  in  any  quantities  on  the 
ground.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  determine  ac 
curately  in  each  case  what  precise,  substance  is  meant, 


unless    where    the    c*>nn 
proper  due. 

I  loiiey  was  not  allowi 

nor  mingled   with  any  meat-offering,    Le.  ii.  n 
prohibition  it  was  couplei 
for  substantially  the   sain 


to    aflbr 


to  be  offered  upon  the  altar. 
In  this 

with    leaven,  and   no   doubt 
reason  —  because   both  were 


natural  emblems  of  corruption  :  leaven  as  being  the 
.  fermentation  of  dough,  and  honey  as  from  its  excessive 
lusciousness  naturally  tending  to  sourness,  and  contain 
ing  the  elements  of  it.  It  was  a  fit  emblem  of  the  lusts 
of  the  flesh  and  their  forbidden  gratifications,  which  are 
always  displeasing  in  the  sight  of  God.  But  as  con 
nected  with  the  first-fruits,  in  which  respect  it  was 
viewed  simply  as  a  natural  product  of  the  earth,  honey 
as  well  as  leavened  bread  required  to  be  offered. 

HOOK.     See  FISH. 

HOPH'NI  AND  PHINEHAS.  the  wicked  sons  of  Kli. 
who.  after  resisting  the  admonitions  and  warnings  ad 
dressed  to  them,  perished  under  the  hand  of  the  Philis 
tines.  (Sec  KM.  ) 

HOPH'RA,  one  of  the  last  of  the  Pharaohs,  king  of 
Ku'Vpt.  the  A  pries  of  classical  writers,  who  lived  at  the 
time  that  Zedekiah  reigned  over  Judah.  The  vast 
monarchies,  first  of  .Assyria,  and  now  of  Babylon,  had 
already  come  into  collision  with  Kgvpt  :  and  it  natu 
rally  fell  in  with  the  policy  of  Kgypt  to  countenance 
and  support  any  power  that  was  at  war  with  those 
monarchies.  Hence,  Pharaoh-  Hophra  readily  listened 
to  the  proposals  of  Zedekiah.  when  he  sought  aid  from 
that  quarter  to  withstand  the  power  of  Nebuchadnez 
zar  king  of  Babylon.  But  the  alliance  was  denounced 
by  the  prophets  as  in  its  own  nature  unrighteous,  and 
sure  to  lead  to  disappointment  and  ruin.  Such  very 
soon  proved  to  be  the  case  :  and  after  laying  Jerusa 
lem  prostrate  the  Babylonish  conqueror  turned  his  arms 
against  Kgypt.  and  brought  it  also  under  his  sway. 
The  prophets  of  that  time  foretold  in  the  strongest 
terms  the  overthrow  and  desolation  of  Kgypt.  See  espe 
cially  Jo.  xxxvii.  xliv.;  E/e.  xxix.— xxxii. 

HOR  [inmtHtdiii],  a  mountain  in  Arabia  Petrea,  the 
scene  of  Aaron's  death,  Nu.  xx.is,  and  the  south-eastern 
boundary  of  the  Promised  Land,  Nu.  xxxiv.  rs.  There  is 
scarcely  any  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  the  tradition 
which  identifies  the  mountain  now  called  Gehel  Haronn 
with  the  ancient  Hor.  No  other  spot  of  any  emi 
nence  would  fulfil  the  necessary  conditions — viz.  that 
it  should  be  "by  the  coast  of  the  land  of  Kdom," 
on  the  side  of  Kadesh.  Nn.  xx  2:i,  and  be  one  of  the 
"hills  surrounding  Petra,"  over  against  the  encamp 
ment  of  the  Israelites  in  Wady  Arabah,  so  as  to  coin 
cide  with  Josephus  (Antiv.  4,r):  "And  when  he  came 


HOKKB  741 

to  u  place  which  the  Arabians  esteem  their  metropolis, 
which  was  formerly  called  Arce,  hut  has  now  the  name 
of  Petra,  at  this  place  which  was  encompassed  with 
high  mountains,  Aaron  went  up  one  of  them  in  the 
sight  of  the  whole  army.  Moses  having  before  told  him 
that  he  was  to  die,  for  the  place  was  over  against  them. 
He  put  off'  his  pontifical  garments,  and  delivered  them 
to  Eliazar  his  son,  to  whom  the  high-priesthood  belonged, 
because  he  was  the  elder  brothel':  and  died  while  the 
multitude  looked  upon  him."  (.S'cr  article  AAKUN,  and 
woodcut  there.)  The  summit  of  (iebel  Haroun  is  5oHd 
feet  above  the  Mediterranean,  and  consists  of  two  peaks, 
which  give  it  a  castellated  appearance,  as  seen  from 
Wady  Arabah.  The  higher  and  western  of  these  is 
covered  hv  a  mosipie.  built  over  a  vault  which  is  .-up- 
posed  to  be  the  tomb  of  the  hi'_;h  priest.  The  traveller 
who,  from  the  Hat  rout'  of  this  building,  look,-  over  tin- 
last  prospect  upon  which  Aaron's  eve  rested,  cannot 
tail  to  be  struck  with  the  contrast  between  this  and 
the  last  view  of  his  brother  Moses  from  the  heights  of 
Piso-ah.  Before  the  latter  was  the  rich  plain  of  the 
.Ionian,  well  watered  and  covered  with  waving  palms 
and  rich  cornfields,  with  the  heights  of  Benjamin  IM-- 
yond  :  while  to  the  north  the  rich  mountains  of  (  ;il,-ad 

must  have  assured  him  how  ^ l!v  was  the  promised 

heritage  which  he  would  behold,  but  should  not  enter. 
Aaron,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  last  moments  can  onlv 
have  dwelt  upon  th--  chalk.y  hills  ,,f  Seir.  with  tin- 
sandstone  rucks  .-urronndini:  I'etra  beneath  him.  or 
upon  the  dreary  wastes  of  \Vady  Arabah.  tit  specimens 
of  that  vast  and  howling  \\ildeniess  in  which  hi-  later 
years  had  been  spent;  while  his  eve  in  vain  would 
seek  to  pierce  that  line  of  northern  hills  which  divided 
him  from  the  Promised  Land. 

The  upper  story  of  the  mosque  is  a  plain  and  com 
paratively  modern  building,  thoii-h  it  is  manifest!  v 
constructed  out  of  the  materials  of  a  more  ancient  and 
more  imposing  edifice,  whose  columns  and  fragments 
of  marble  and  granite  may  be  seen  built  in  the  walls 
(Porter,  Handbook, »fSyri;i,i.  37 1  I  n  the  time  of  t  In-  crusades 
there  was  a  monastery  here,  for  Knlcher  of  <  'hart.ivs 
writes,  "  Reperimus  insuper  in  moiitis  apiee  monas- 
turium  ijuod  dicitur  S.  Aaron,  ubi  Movses  et  ip-e  Aaron 

Clllll    Domino  lo(jui  soliti  erailt"  «;<j-t;i  Kram-onmi,  i. n    ll'i'i  ) 

In  the  second  part  of  the  II  intni-m  II n  /•«.-••.</</,/< //.//•/</// 
this  building  is  called  »,-nt»rin,n.  The  cliamber  helou. 
which  appears  to  be  liollowed  out  of  tin-  rock,  if  not  a 
natural  cave,  contains  at  one  end  tin-  supposed  tomb 
itself,  which  is  covered  with  a  pall,  ami  was  former!  v 
inclosed  by  iron  doors.  The  summit  of  Mount  Hor  is 
of  white  chalk,  lower  down  the  mountain  is  of  the  new 
red  sandstone,  often  penetrated  by  longitudinal  strata 
of  red  granite  and  porphyry.  The  ascent  is  not  diffi 
cult,  a  path  having  been  constructed  for  the  use  of 
pilgrims  leading  out  of  the  road  from  I'etra  to  \Vadv 
Arabah.  [,..  T.  M.| 

HO'REB  [3-0,  dry,  dried  HI,].  One  of  tin-  Scrip 
ture  names  for  the  scene  of  the  giving  of  the  law.  it 
is  not  intended  to  discuss  here  whether  the  names 
Horeb  and  Sinai  refer  to  the  same  or  different  places; 
the  elements  for  a  decision  are  accumulating,  and  new 
light  may  he  thrown  on  it  ere  the  article  SINAI  is  written, 
to  which  therefore  the  reader  is  referred.  \Ve  confine 
ourselves  here  to  the  mutual  relation  of  the  two  names. 

Those  critics  who  disintegrate  the  Pentateuch,  and 
assign  it  to  a  variety  of  authors,  are  ready  to  support 


HOREB 

their  view  by  pointing  to  a  variety  of  diction;  and  one 
evidence  of  this  they  find  in  the  use  of  Horeb  through- 

i  out  the  hook  of  Deuteronomy  (except  in  the  song  of 
Moses,  ch.  \\xiii.  L-.  which  they  attribute  to  still  a  different 
writer);  whereas  the  person  whom  they  suppose  to  have 
been  the  original  composer  of  the  first  four  books  uses 
Sinai,  which  is  the  name  always  employed  except  in 
Ex.  iii.  1;  xvii.  (i;  xxxiii.  o';  and  these  passages  thev 
attribute  to  a  supplementary  writer.  This  view  is  still 
strongly  asserted  by  Ewald  ((ieschichu-,  n  .',71,  who  pro 
nounces  Sinai  the  older  name,  therefore  occurring  in 
the  ancient  son^  of  Deborah.  Ju  v.i;  whereas  Horeh  is 
not  discoverable  till  the  time  of  his  fourth  and  fifth 
narrators,  in  whose  aux-  however  it  had  become  (piite 
prevalent.  His  statement  is  a  very  fair  sample  of  the 
precision  and  confidence  with  which  these  critics  speak 
of  matters  as  to  which  there  is  no  evidence  except  their 
own  critical  sagacity,  or  their  imagination,  as  others 
may  he  apt  to  consider  it  who  claim  no  such  peculiar 
insight.  For  while  it  i-  ipiite  possible  that  the  same 
writer  miirht  use  two  names  indiseriuiinatclv  for  the 
same-  place,  as  in  the  ease  of  Bethel  and  I  MX.  Haalah 
and  Kirjath-jearim.  the  Sea  of  (Jalilee  and  the  Lake 
of  Tiberias:  yet  this  last  example  indicates  how  readilv 
two  names  may  conic  to  be  in  use  iinliHereiitlv.  though 
originally  the  one  was  more  definite  than  the  cither. 
Accordingly  (Jeseiiius  suggested  that  Sinai  might  he  the 
more  Lfcneral  name,  ami  Horeb  a  particular  peak  ;  and 
in  this  conjecture  In-  was  followed  bv  llosenmiiller. 

Another  supposition  was  made  by  Heligstellberg 
I IViitateuch,  ii.  p.  oL'5-a27,  translation),  which  has  gained  the 
a-seiit  of  almost  all  the  (u-rman  authorities  since  his 
time,  as  also  of  Robinson  diiMirai  iu--u;u-riu->,  \ni.  i.  \>.  uo, .v.ui, 
apparently  after  having  inclined  to  the  conjecture  of 
<  ieseiiiiis.  1 1  eii  u  -t  (  1 1 1  )eru  agrees  with  (leseiiius  thai, 
tin-  one  name  is  more  <_reneral  than  the  other;  hut  he 
differs  in  this  respect  that  he  makes  Horeb  the  moun 
tain-ridge,  and  Sinai  the  individual  summit  from  which 
the  ten  commandments  were  ^iven.  The  reasons  for 
this  opinion,  as  urued  hv  him  and  bv  others,  may  he 
arranged  under  a  threefold  division:  (1.)  The  name 
Sinai  is  used  at  the  time  that  the  Israelites  were  upon 
the  very  -pot  of  tin-  legislation,  that  is.  from  Kx.  xix.  1  1 
and  onward-,  till  Nu.  iii.  1 :  whereas  it  is  Horeb  that  is 
alvvav.-  used  in  tin-  recapitulation  in  Deuteronomy;  as  a 
writer  clo.-e  beside  a  particular  mountain  would  natu 
rally  single  it  out  when  describing  his  locality,  though 
afterwards,  when  writing  at  a  distance  from  it  and 
taking  a  general  retrospect,  he  miuht  list:  the  more 
comprehensive  name  of  the  entire  mass  of  mountains 
to  which  it  belonged.  The  only  exception  in  Deutero 
nomy  is  that  case  in  the  song  of  Moses  already  alluded 
to.  rh.  xxxiii.  -i,  which  is  universally  admitted  to  be  a 
peculiar  composition  both  by  the  impugners  and  bv  the 
defenders  of  the  Mosaic  authorship.  Wlu-n  we  take- 
in  the  additional  expression,  "the  wilderness  of  Sinai." 
as  denoting  the  place  in  which  the  Israelites  encamped, 
we  have  Sinai  occurring  as  earlv  as  Ex.  xix.  1,  2,  and 
continuing  till  Nu.  x.  li',  where  the  march  from  Sinai 
is  described.  That  particular  spot  would  naturally  take 
its  name  from  the  mountain  peak  beside  it;  whereas  the 
name  "wilderness  of  Horeb''  is  unknown  to  Scripture. 
The  name  Sinai  never  occurs  in  the  Pentateuch  after 
the  departure  from  the  spot  except  in  three  instances. 
Two  of  these,  Nu  x\vi.  iii;  xxxiii  \:>,  refer  expressly  to 

,  events  in  language  already  employed   upon  the  spot. 

I  about  the  census,  and  in  the  list  of  stations  or  encamp- 


HOKEB  <  1 

moots,  and  both  use  that  phrase  "the  wilderness  of  ! 
Sinai,"  which  never  occurs  with  the  name  Horeb;  so 
that  they  are  no  exceptions  in  reality.  The  third, 
Xu.  xxviii.  <;,  is  therefore  the  only  exception,  ''It  is  a 
continual  burnt- offering  which  was  ordained  in  Mount 
Sinai:"  and  this  also  is  explicable  on  the  principle  that 
the  phrase  had  become  so  common  in  the  legislation. 
Once  also  Sinai  occurs  before  the  Israelites  reached  • 
it,  Ex.  xvi.  1,  "the  wilderness  of  Sin,  which  is  between 
Eliin  and  Sinai."  and  here  the  precision  of  this  term  is 
thoroughly  natural.  (2.)  Tiic  name  Horeb  occurs  in 
the  earlier  books  thrice,  all  in  Hxodus,  but  it  is  in  cir 
cumstances  which  best  suit  the  general  or  comprehen 
sive  meaning  v.  Inch  we  attach  to  it.  Closes,  while  act 
ing  ;is  the  shepherd  of  .lethro,  ch .iii.  1,  "came  to  the 
mountain  of  Cod  [even]  to  Horeb."  or  more  literally, 
"came  to  the  mountain  e.f  Cod  Horeb-ward."  Our 
translators  have  identified  the  mountain  of  Cod  with 
Horeb,  an  identification  which  is  at  least  uncertain: 
for  the  original  may  quite  as  naturally  be  interpreted 
that  he  came  to  a  particular  peak  in  that  mass  of 
mountains  which  had  the  name  of  Horeb,  to  the 
sacred  peak  which  is  to  be  sought  in  the  direction  of 
Horeb.  .Particularly  distinct  is  the  second  instance, 
cli.xvii.fi,  "Behold  I  will  stand  before  thee  there  upon 
the  rock  in  Horeb,"  ^c. :  for  this  miraculous  gift  of 
water  took  place  while  the  Israelites  were  encamped 
in  Rephidim,  ver.  1,  the  station  before  the  station  in 
the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  ch.  xix  2.  Probably  the  like 
should,  lie  said  of  the  third  instance,  ch.  xxxiii.  o,  "And 
the  children  of  Israel  stripped  themselves  of  their  orna 
ments  by  the  mount  Horeb,"  retiring  every  family 
apart,  and  every  individual  apart,  as  in  other  cases  of 
humiliation  and  repentance;  and  the  propriety  of  the  use 
of  the  general  rather  than  the  specific  term  is  the  more 
apparent,  if  those  are  right  who  translate  the  peculiar 
Hebrew  phrase  as  exactly  as  they  can,  ''stripped  them 
selves,  &e.  [retiring]  from  Mount  Horeb."  ('•>.)  An 
argument  may  be  drawn  from  the  use  of  the  preposi 
tions  connected  with  these  two  names.  Reverting  to 
Ex.  xvii.  6,  we  find  the  Lord  saying,  "  Behold.  I  will 
stand  t'pon  the  rock  in  Horeb,"  that  is,  upon  the  parti 
cular  spot,  but  in  the  district.  Accordingly  it  is  the 
preposition  in  (in  the  English  version  needlessly  varied 
into  "at"  once  or  twice)  which  is  used  with  Horeb,  not 
only  here,  but  almost  always  where  the  name  occurs  in 
Deuteronomy,  perhaps  always,  except  "from,"  ch.  i.  2, 19. 
The  same  is  true  of  all  the  passages  in  which  Horeb  is 
mentioned  in  later  Scripture,  i  Ki.  viii.  9;  2Ch.  v.  10;  Ps.  cvi.  10; 
Mai.  iv.  4  (Ileb.Bib.  iii.  2ii);  except  1  Ki.  xix.  8,  "unto  Horeb 
the  mount  of  God."  or  better,  "up  to  the  mount  of 
God  Horeb  [ward],"  for  it  is  plainly  an  expression  re 
ferring  to  Ex.  iii.  1,  of  which  we  have  already  spoken. 
With  Sinai,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  connected  seve 
ral  prepositions,  "in,"  and  "from,"  as  in  the  case  of 
Horeb;  also  "to."  but  especially  "upon,"  Ex.  xix.n.is.-.'O; 
xxiv.  10,  which  describes  the  descent  of  the  Lord,  or  the 
resting  of  the  symbol  of  his  presence,  upon  that  indi 
vidual  peak  from  which  the  law  was  given,  whereas  we 
have  no  reason  to  think  that  it  rested  upon  the  whole 
mass  of  mountains  which  are  clustered  together.  The 
same  preposition  "  upon"  is  found  in  the  only  passage 
in  later  Old  Testament  scripture  where  Sinai  occurs 
with  a  preposition,  Xe.  ix.  is.  Indeed,  besides  this  text 
we  find  Sinai  nowhere  but  in  Ju.  v.  5;  Ps.  Ixviii.  S.  17 
vHeb.  Bib.  9,  18),  in  passages  which  indisputably  stand 
in  a  very  close  connection  with  De.  xxxiii.  2. 


IIOEITE 

Xot  much  can  lie  inferred  from  the  usage  of  later  Scrip 
ture  in  regard  to  these  names;  though  from  what  has  been 
mentioned  it  may  be  seen  that  Horeb  is  very  decidedly 
the  predominant  name  in  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament, 
as  it  is  with  one  exception  in  Deuteronomy;  and  proba 
bly  in  both  cases  for  the  same  reason,  that  at  a  distance 
in  Lime  and  place  the  more  general  name  was  on  the  \vlii  >le 
more  natural.  Vet  the  distance  may  become  so  great 
that  the  peculiarities  of  the  two  names  fall  out  of  view, 
and  mere  usage  may  determine  in  favour  of  the  one  or 
the  other  appellation,  now  that  they  have  become  en 
tirely  equivalent.  Certainly  in  the  New  Testament  we 
tind  onlv  Sinai.  Ac.  vii.  :•;".  38;  On.  h.  2-1,  25,  though  reasons 
might  be  perhaps  alleged  for  the  use  of  the  stricter  name: 
for  instance  in  the  first  of  these  that  it  is  "the  wilder 
ness  f>f  Mount  Sinai,"  in  which  connection  we  have 
r-aid  that  Horeb  does  not  occur.  .losephus  seems  also 
to  routine  himself  to  the  name  Sinai.  In  the  Apocry 
pha  we  have  noted  .Judith  v.  14,  "to  the  way  of  Sinai,'' 
or  according  to  another  reading,  "to  the  Mount  Sinai;" 
and  Ecclesiasticus  xlviii.  7.  where  "  in  Sinai"  and  "in 
Horeb"  occur  in  a  poetical  parallelism  :  but  these  de 
termine  nothing.  Perhaps  nothing  can  be  concluded 
from  the  fact  that  Horeb  never  has  the  prefix  "mount," 
except  in  Ex.  xxxiii.  C  ;  whereas  Sinai  always  has  it  in 
both  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  except  in  l-'\. 
xvi.  1,  and  De.  xxxiii.  2.  and  the  passages  depending 
upon  this  one,  Ju.  v.  ;">;  Ps.  Ixviii.  8,  17. 

Once  more,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  etymology 
can  contribute  anything  to  the  settlement  of  the  ques 
tion.  Horeb  certainly  means  "dry,"  or  "dried  up,"  a 
name  very  descriptive  of  the  region.  But  the  meaning 
of  Sinai  is  much  debated.  Ocsenius  suggests  "muddy," 
but  with  hesitation,  and  he  appears  to  have  no  fol 
lowers.  More  probably,  Kiiobel  proposes  "  sharp- 
pointed,"  "toothed,"  or  "notched."  The  old  deriva 
tion  of  Simonis  and  Hiller  understood  ««>g,  Sinai,  t<> 

be  equivalent  to  «-p,  sinyai,   "  the  bush  of  Jehovah," 

with  reference  to  Ex.  iii.  2.  Possibly  as  simple  a  mean 
ing  as  any  would  be  "  bushy,"  or  "  that  which  has  the 
bush."  And  if  so,  the  etymologies  of  the  two  names, 
so  far  as  they  went,  would  favour  the  view  given  of 
their  respective  meanings.  Roediger  (Additions  to  Gcsc- 
ni n.-,  Thesaurus)  makes  it  "  sacred  to  the  God  of  the 
moon." 

Understanding  Horeb  to  be  the  more  general  name, 
there  might  still  be  differences  of  opinion  how  wide  a 
circuit  should  be  included  under  it:  though  the  common 
opinion  seems  to  be  that  there  is  no  necessity  for  taking 
it  wider  than  that  range,  some  three  miles  long  from 
north  to  south,  which  is  called  by  the  modern  Arabs 
Jehel  Tur,  or  Jebel  et-Tur,  sometimes  with  the  addi 
tion  of  Sina.  though  Robinson  says  extremely  rarely. 
A  greater  difficulty  may  be  found  in  determining  which 
one  of  its  peaks  is  the  Sinai  of  Scripture,  supposing 
that  this  is  the  more  definite  name.  But  on  this  point 
we  do  not  enter  here.  [o.  C.  M.  D.] 

HOR'ITE  [Heb.  n'n  from  -or,  Hor  or  Chor,  an 
opening  of  any  sort,  a  cave:  hence  different  from  nv! 
or  ih,  Hor,  a  mountain].  A  Horite  was  properly  what 
the  ancients  called  a  Troglodite,  an  inhabiter  of  caves, 
instead  of  houses;  but  it  appears  to  have  been  specially 
appropriated  to  the  earlier  occupants  of  Mount  Seir.  as 
being  peculiarly  distinguished  for  that  mode  of  life, 
Ge.  xiv.  G.  The  original  inhabitants,  or  Horites  dis- 


HORMAH 


tinctively  so  called,  were  afterwards  dispossessed  by 
the  Edomites,  De.  11.12,  scq.  Xothing  is  known  as  to  the 
origin  of  that  })ri:uitive  race:  but  it  is  probable  that 
they  were  only  partially  dispossessed  by  the  descend 
ants  of  Esau,  and  by  degrees  mingled  themselves  with 
the  other  tribes  that  successively  peopled  that  portion 
of  Arabia,  (tec  IUTM.KA.I 

HOR'MAH  [destruction],  a  place  Ivin^  somewhere 
to  the  south,  or  desert- side  of  the  mountain-range  which 
forms  the  southern  border  of  the  land  of  Canaan.  There, 
when  on  their  first  approach  to  the  land  of  Canaan, 
but  after  the  rebellion  raised  bv  the  spies,  the  Israelites 
suffered  a  defeat  from  the  Canaanites  that  dwelt  upon 
the  hill;  these  ''smote  them,  and  discomfited  them 
even  unto  Hormali,"  NH.  xi\.  i;,.  The  Israelites  had  irone 
up  to  the  mountain  from  the  south,  but  were  driven 
back  with  slaughter.  And  in  the  parallel  pa-sage  of 
l)e.  i.  44.  it  is  said,  with  a  clearer  delinitioii  of  the 
locality,  "The  Amorites.  \\hieli  dwelt  in  tliat  mountain, 
came  out  against  you.  and  chased  you,  as  bees  do,  an 
destroyed  you  in  Seir,  even  unto  Hormah."  So  that 
Hormah  did  not  properly  belong  to  Canaan,  but  lay 
rather  within  the  boundary  of  Seir.  At  a  much  later 
period,  when  the  ehildivn  of  l-i-.-u  1  a-ain  approached 
the  borders  of  Canaan,  though  still  at  a  little  distance 
from  it,  the  same  Amorites  or  Canaanites,  under  Arad. 
made  an  assault  upon  them,  and  took  a  few  of  them  pri 
soners.  Then  l.-rael  mad.'  a  vow,  that  if  the  l.ord 
would  deliver  that  tribe  into  their  hands,  tliev  would 
utterly  destroy,  or  make  an  anathema  of  tin  ir  cities. 
The  Lord  did  so,  it  i-  said,  and  they  culled  die  name 
of  the  place  (i.e.  the  chief  citv)  Hormah.  Nu.  xxi.  1-3. 
A  still  further,  and  at  first  si-'ht.  somewhat  contradic 
tory  notice  occurs  at  a  considcrablv  later  period,  when 
it  is  said,  .In  i.  ir,  "And  Judah  \\eiit  with  Simeon  hi-, 
brother,  and  they  slew  the  Canaanites  that  inhabited 
Zephath,  and  utterly  destroyed  it:  and  the  name  of  the 
city  was  called  Hormah."  The  explanation,  however, 
is  this;  the  city  was  known  to  the  Canaanites  by  the 
name  of  Zephath,  but  from  the  vow  recorded  in  Nu. 
x.xi.  '2,  the  name  stamped  upon  i;  bv  tin.'  Israelites  was 
llormah,  and  by  this  name  it  is  called  pi-ol'-pticallv  in  ' 
the  earlier  notice  at  Nil.  xiv.  -l/i.  In  .lo.-hua'.s  time  it 
was  partially  made  a  Hormah.  or  destruction;  for  the  • 
king  of  llorniali  appears  anion«_  the  li.-t  of  thosi  \\iiom 
he  vanquished.  Jos.xii  11.  lint  the  conquest  was  not  \ 
complete,  and  the  place  .-till  retained,  or  piv.-eiitly  re 
sumed  its  name  of  Zephath.  l!ut  bv  and  bv  the  com 
bined  forces  of  Judah  and  Simeon  completely  fulfilled 
the  vow,  and  turned  Zephath  permanently  into  a 
llormah.  The  assailants  of  the  Pentateuch  have  often 
endeavoured  to  exhibit  these  passages  as  at  variance 
with  each  other;  but  when  rightly  viewed  they  are  per 
fectly  consistent. 

HORN,  being  the  chief  instrument  of  power,  whether 
for  defence  or  attack,  by  many  animals,  became  very 
naturally,  especially  among  a  pastoral  and  agricultural 
people  like  the  Israelites,  a  symbol  of  strength,  or  of  a 
kingdom,  as  containing  the  organized  strength  and  do 
minion  of  a  people.  In  a  great  multitude  of  passages 
this  figurative  use  is  made  of  it,  and  in  a  considerable 
variety  of  ways  -for  example,  De.  xxxiii.  17;  1  Sa.  ii.  1; 
1's.  Ixxv.  ;"),  K>;  ,Je.  xlviii.  ~1~>,  kc.  Expressions,  how 
ever,  that  sound  peculiar  to  modern  ears  occasionally 
occur;  such  as  in  Job  xvi.  1.3,  ''I  have  defiled  niy  horn 
in  the  dust,"  that  is,  have  cast  down  my  might,  and  all 
its  emblems  to  the  ground,  as  utterly  worthless:  and 


still  more  that  in  Is.  v.  1.  where  the  emblematic  vine 
yard  is  described  as  being,  literally,  "  in  a  horn  the 
son  of  oil,"  meaning,  as  given  in  the  English  Bible, 
"a  very  fruitful  hill" — a  strong  place  like  a  hill,  yet 
combining  with  its  strength  peculiar  fruitfulness.  The 
expression  to  lift  up  the  horn  of  any  one,  is  as  much  as 
to  increase  his  power  and  elevate  his  position;  and  an 
horn  of  salvation,  which  Christ  is  called,  Lu.  i  ,  is  as 
much  as  a  salvation  of  strength,  or  a  Saviour,  who  is 
possessed  of  the  might  requisite  for  the  work.  It  has 
not  uncommonly  been  sup 
posed,  that  some  of  the 
head-dresses  of  antiquity 
were  formed  with  horn 
like  projections,  as  symbols 
of  the  majesty  and  power 
claimed  by  the  wearer. 
The  woodcut  No.  ;!;>(>  pre 
sents  t\\o  caps  of  this  de 
scription,  such  as  were 

\\orii  by  the  Assyrian  kings,  ;:iid.  as  far  as  the  Assyrian 
monuments  are  concerned,  only  by  them.  Being  em 
phatically  regal  caps,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable, 
that  the  dignity  of  the  person  was  intended  to  be  repre 
sented  by  them  :  but  it  is  quite  uncertain  whether 
such  dresses  were  known  among  the  covenant  people, 
nor  do  the  figurative  allusions  in  Scripture  to  horns 
render  it  in  the  least  degree  necessary  to  suppose  that 
n  leivii'v  \\;i.-  mad.  to  personal  ornaments  of  that  de 
scription. 

HORNET    f,-y-,v.    tdral,\.        This    appears    to    be 

the  nanii-  ot  some  winged  insect,  but  of  what  species, 
or  even  of  what  order,  is  not  certain.  The  word, 
though  oceurniiu  in  three  passages,  is  in  only  one  con 
nection:  in  Ex.  xxiii.  2S,  and  in  De.  vii.  iin,  Jehovah 
proini.-e-  to  send  the  t:"irnli  before  Israel  upon  the 
nations  of  Canaan,  that  by  its  means  they  might  be 
driven  out  and  the  remnant  destroyed.  And  in  Jos.  xxiv. 
!'_'.  after  the  subjugation  of  the  land,  he  declares  that 
this  had  been  accomplished  with  respect  to  two  kings. 
It  doe:-  not  very  clearly  appear  what  kings  these  were; 
in  the  historical  record  of  the  conquest,  no  such  trans 
action  is  alluded  to.  The  expression  "  the  two  kings 
of  the  Amoritfs,"  -.  nerallv  signifies  Sihon  and  Og, 
who  had  been  destroyed  on  the  cast  of  Jordan;  but  the 
connection  of  tin'  statement  appears  to  imply  that  this 
had  taken  place  after  the  cros.-ing  of  Jordan,  and  more 
over  these  two  kings  are  said  to  have  been  "  drirm  <jut, 
before  Israel."  and  that  "  not  with  their  sword  nor 
with  their  bow;"  whereas  Sihon  and  Og  were  destroyed 
with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  Nu.  xxi. 

The  LXX.  have  rendered  tziruh  in  each  case  by 
cr(/<7;/a'a,  a  nest  or  colony  of  wasps;  and  the  Vulgate, 
which  our  English  version  follows,  uses  the  word  crahro, 
thaf  large  and  formidable  species  of  wasp  which  we 
distinguish  as  the  hoi-net.  Both  species  were  familiar 
to  the  (ireeks;  and  Aristotle,  who  wrote  his  history  of 
animals  about  a  century  before  the  Septuagint  version 
was  made,  sufficiently  distinguishes  them,  alluding  to 
the  wasps  under  the  name  of  dvOpr)va.i.  and  to  the 
hornets  under  that  of  a<prjKes,  and  attributing  to  each 
kind  peculiarities  of  habit  which  enable  us  readily  to 
identify  them.  Without,  however,  determining  actual 
identity  of  species,  it  seems  clear  enough  that  the 
tzlrah  was  a  hyrnenopterous  fly  of  the  family  Vex- 
padrr,  sufficiently  formidable  to  lie  popularly  associated 


\\ith  tin:  European  hornet,  even  if  it  was  not  scientifi 
cally  the  same. 

Our  common  wasp  is  to  many  persons  ;i  constant 
terror,  and  in  seasons  when  it  is  more  than  usually 
abundant  there  are  few  who  can  bear  with  equanimity 
the  invasion  of  their  sitting  rooms,  though  they  inav  not 
have  recourse  to  the  desperate  remedy  of  a  lady  men 
tioned  by  l)r.  Fairfax  U'hil.  Tr:ui~  >,  who  confined  her 
self  to  her  apartment  during  the  entire  season  of  these 
insects  abundance.  The  hoi-net  is  of  course  propor- 
tionally  more  terrible.  The  stinging  h\  menoptera  of 
tropical  and  sub-tropical  countries  are  much  more 
numerous  and  more  virulent,  than  ours.  \Ve  have  seen 
a  deserted  house  in  the  West  Indies  so  tilled  with  the 
nests  of  a  large  species  of  wasp,  suspended  from  every 
ratter  and  cornice,  as  to  render  it  dangerous  to  ^oaloni;- 
the  road  by  which  it  stood.  There  appeared  in  the 
l'iin(.<  newspaper,  so  recently  as  June.  l.bo'.i,  the  ret-on  1 
ot  a  sad  accident  from  th-.-  furious  attack  of  a  swarm 
of  hornets  in  India.  Some  Knglish  gentlemen  were 
engaged  in  surveying  a  part  of  the  river  \erbudda. 
where  numerous  large  hornets'  nests  were  suspended 
in  the  recesses  of  the  cliff's  which  bounded  the  stream. 

As  the  boats  of  these  Europeans  were  passing  up 
the  river,  a  cloud  of  these  insects  overwhelmed  them: 
the  boatmen,  as  well  as  the  two  gentlemen,  jumped 
overboard:  but  Air.  Boddington,  who  swam  and  had 
succeeded  in  clinging  to  a  rock,  was  again  attacked 
and  being  unable  any  longer  to  resist  the  assault: 
of  the  countless  swarms  of  his  infuriated  winded 
toes,  lie  threw  himself  into  the  depths  of  the  water, 
never  to  rise  again.  The  other  gentleman  and  the 
boatmen,  although  \  cry  severely  stung,  escaped  and 
ultimately  recovered. "  The  ferocity  and  success  of  these 
insects'  assaults  upon  man  arc-  thus  illustrated;  but  the 
case  of  the  Canaanites  receives  yet  further  light  from  a 
statement  in  /Elian  (Hist.  Auim.  i\.  •».  He  asserts  that 
the  Phaselites  were  driven  from  their  country  by  the 
attacks  of  hornets  (ff<p'?)Kcs).  Bochart  (IIiero/;oico;>,  Hi.  i;>) 
adduces  proof  that  these  1'haselites  were  a  Phoenician 
people:  and  as  we  may  include  the  Caiiaanite  tribes 
under  the  generic  term  Phoenicians,  the  incident  alluded 
to  by  the  (ireek  naturalist  may  have  been  the  very  one 
recorded  in  the  sacred  text. 

The  hornet,  in  common  with  the  other  social  was} is, 
displays  great  ingenuity  in  the  manufacture  of  its  nest. 
It  is  made  of  a  coarse  gray  paper,  much  like  the  coarsest 
wrapping-paper,  but  less-firm.  This  is  arranged  in  seve 
ral  globose  leaves,  one  over  the  other,  not  unlike  the 
outer  leaves  of  a  cabbage,  the  base  of  which  is  attached 
by  a  small  footstalk  to  the  upper  part  of  the  cavity  in 
which  it  is  inclosed.  Within  this  protecting  case  the 
combs  are  built  in  parallel  rows  of  cells,  exactly  like 
those  of  the  bee,  but  made  of  paper,  and  ranged  hori 
zontally  instead  of  vertically,  and  in  single  series,  the 
entrances  always  being  downwards.  Each  story  is  con 
nected  with  that  above  it  by  a  number  of  pillars  of  the 
common  paper,  thick  and  massive.  These  cells  do  not 
contain  honey,  but  merely  the  eggs,  and  in  due  time, 
the  young,  being  in  fact  nursing  cradles.  The  paper  with 
which  the  hornet  builds  is  formed  either  from  decayed 
wood  or  the  bark  of  trees;  the  fibres  of  which  it 
abrades  by  means  of  its  jaws,  and  kneads  into  a  paste 
with  a  viscid  saliva.  When  a  morsel  as  large  as  a  pea 
is  prepared,  the  insect  flies  to  the  nest  and  spreads  out 
the  mass  in  a  thin  layer  at  the  spot  where  it  is  re 
quired,  moulding  it  into  shape  with  the  jaws  and  feet. 


It  is  soon  dry,  and  forms  real  paper,  coarser  than  that 
of  the  common  wasp.  [P  H  <;  j 

HOR'ONITE.     ,Sc  SANBALLAT. 

HORSE  [D>c>  w.s-J.  If  Central  Asia  was  the  native 
region  of  this  valuable  animal,  as  seems  highly  proba 
ble  both  from  early  historic  notices  and  from  its  exist 
ence  there  in  a  truly  wild  state  to  this  day.  it  would  lie 
known  to  the  Western  Asiatics,  and  probably  used  by 
them,  before  its  introduction  to  the  valley  of  the  Nile. 
It  has  been  often  observed  that  no  allusion  to  the  horse 
occurs  in  the  enumeration  of  the  animal  wealth  which 
Abraham  acquired  in  Egypt,  Ce.  xii.  ic;  but  this  omis 
sion  is  less  conclusive  than  it  appears  at  first  sight, 
since  the  character  of  the  patriarch  as  a  peaceful  emir 
would  of  course  govern  his  acceptance,  if  not  Pharaoh's 
selection,  of  presents,  and  the  horse  seems  for  many  aifes 
to  have  been  exclusively  appropriated  to  the  purposes 
of  war.  The  horse  is  first  recognized  among  the  pos 
sessions  which  the  Egyptians  brought  to  Joseph  to  ex 
change  for  corn  in  the  first  year  of  the  famine,  (ic.  xlvii.  17. 

This  fact  appears  to  weigh  against  the  assumed  exclusively 
military  use  of  the  animal;  as  it  might  be  asked,  what 
would  the  people  do  with  war-horses?  But  those  win. 
brought  horses  might  IK:  soldiers,  and  possibly  it  might 
be  a  part  of  their  service  to  provide  their  own  horses  :l 
or,  these  might  be  horse-breeders,  who  supplied  the 
commissariat  of  Pharaoh  as  a  mercantile  speculation. 
Certainly  horses  could  not  yet  be  very  abundant  in 
Egypt,  for  two  centuries  after  this,  the  whole  force  of 
Pharaoh,  wherewith  he  pursued  Israel,  included  but 
'ii HI  chariots.  Ex.  \i\.  7. 

Our  translation  would  make  it  appear  that  a  force  of 
cavalry  accompanied  Pharaoh  in  this  pursuit  —  "his 
horsemen,"  Ex.  xiv.  d,  &e.  It  is.  however,  a  fact  not  a 
little  remarkable,  that  in  the  copious  delineations  of 
battle-scenes  which  occur  in  the  monuments,  and  which 
must  have  been  coeval  with  these  events,  in  which,  m<  .re- 
over,  everything  that  could  tend  to  aggrandize  the 
1  lower  or  flatter  the  pride  of  Egypt  would  be  introduced, 
there  never  occurs  any  representation  of  Egyptian 
cavalry.  The  armies  are  always  composed  of  troops 
of  infantry  armed  with  the  bow  and  spear,  and  of 
ranks  of  chariots  drawn  by  two  horses.  Both  Dio- 
dorus  and  Herodotus  attribute  cavalry  to  the  early 
Pharaohs;  and  some  eminent  antiquarians,  as  Sir 
Gardner  Wilkinson,  endeavour  to  account  for  the  ab 
sence  of  such  a  force  in  the  pictorial  representations, 
consistently  with  its  existence.  But  Professor  Heng- 
stenberg  has  maintained,  and  not  without  some  degree 
of  probability,  that  the  word  "  horsemen,''  of  the 
above  passage,  should  rather  be  rendered  ''chariot- 
riders.  We  quote  his  words:  "It  is  accordingly 
certain,  that  the  cavalry,  in  the  more  ancient  period  of 
the  Pharaohs,  was  but  little  relied  on.  The  question 
now  is,  what  relation  the  declarations  of  the  passage 
before  us  bear  to  this  result.  Were  the  common  view, 
according  to  which  riding  //it  //ortcs  is  superadded 
with  equal  prominence  to  the  chariot  of  war.  in  our 
passage,  the  right  one,  there  might  arise  strong  suspi 
cion  against  the  credibility  of  the  narrative.  But  a 
more  accurate  examination  shows  that  the  author  does 
not  mention  Egyptian  cavalry  at  all:  that  according  to 
him  the  Egyptian  army  is  composed  only  of  chariots  of 

1  This  is  rendered  more  probable  by  the  fact,  which  we  leuni 
from  Herodotus,  that  the  Egyptian  soldier  instead  of  pay  was 
allowed  twelve  aroune,  or  nine  acres  of  land  free  of  rent  ami 
tribute. 


HORSE 


HOUSE 


war,  and  that  lie  therefore  agrees  in  a  wonderful  man 
ner  witli  the  native  Egyptian  monuments.  And  this 
agreement  is  the  more  minute,  since  the  second  division 
of  the  army  represented  upon  them,  the  infantry,  could 
not.  in  the  circumstances  of  our  narrative,  take  part  in 
the  pursuit.  The  first  and  principal  passage  concerning 
tlie  constituent  parts  of  the  Egyptian  army  which  pur 
sued  the  Israelites,  is  that  in  Ex.  xiv.  t>.  7.  '  And  lie 
made  ready  his  chariot,  and  took  his  people  with  him; 
and  he  took  six  hundred  chosen  chariots,  and  all  the 
chariots  of  Egypt,  and  char  lot -warriors  upon  all  of 
them.'  Here.  Pharaoh's  preparation  for  war  is  fully 
described.  It  consists,  first,  of  chariots,  and  secondly,  of 
chariot-warriors.  Cavalry  are  no  more  mentioned  than 
infantry.  This  passage,  which  is  so  plain,  explains  the 
second  one.  ver.  si,  where  the  arrival  of  this  same  armv 
in  si^'lit  of  the'  Israelite:-  is  plainly  and  graphically  de 
scribed,  in  order  to  place  distinctly  1»  t'oiv  the  reader 
the  impression  which  the  view  made  upon  the  Israelites: 
'  And  the  Egyptians  followed  them  and  overtook  them, 
where  they  were  encamped  by  the  sea.  all  the  r/nirint 
/tin-in:-!  of  Pharaoh,  and  his  /•/</<;•.-•.  and  his  host.'  If 


**Ov 


|.'i:!l.|        <'huiint  hciixc- of   K.-um-sos   Ml     -Ipsiimlnml 

rtdt-rx  here  be  understood  in  the  common  sense  ichariot 
warriors  rather  than  riders  upon  ho]>.--  mi^lit  so  much 
the  sooner  be  mentioned,  since  the  Egyptian  war 
chariot  was  very  small  and  li^ht),  n-hcn-  t/icn  art  tin 
rkariot-icarrior* f  The  [sacn-d|  author  would  not  le-ive 
them  out.  since  it  is  to  his  purpose  to  be  minute,  and 
since  he  evidently  intends  to  accumulate  circumstances 
as  much  as  possible.  Also,  in  ver.  17:  '  I  will  get  me 
honour  upon  Pharaoh,  and  upon  all  his  host,  upon  his 
chariots,  and  upon  his  riders'  the  ridt r.<  auain  corre 
spond  with  the  flHtriot-inirrior*  in  ver.  7.  If  there  were 
then  chariot- warriors  and  riders,  how  strange  that  they 
are  never  spoken  of  together'  In  ver.  -2-',.  '  And  the 
Egyptians  pursued  them,  and  went  in  after  them,  all  the 
horses  of  Pharaoh,  his  chariots  and  his  riders;'  the 
three  constituent  parts  of  the  Egyptian  warlike  prepa 
ration  are  fully  designated.  If  the  r'tdn-x  were  here 
understood  in  the  common  way.  it  would  be  surprising 
that  horses  and  chariots  were  named,  and  that  chariot- 
warriors,  who  are  most  important,  were  left  out. 
Finally,  the  meaning  of  the  passage  in  Ex.  xv.  1, 
'  Horse  and  his  rider  hath  he  thrown  into  the  sea  '  is 


clear  from  ver.  4  of  the  same  chapter,  where  only  the 
overwhelming  of  the  chariots  and  chariot-warriors  is 
spoken  of."  iKgypt  and  Hoses, ch.  iv.)  To  this  latter  obser 
vation  we  may  add.  that  the  word  translated  "his 
rider."  ^H  (rok'lsu),  is  used  repeatedly  in  the  Scripture 

with  the  same  ambiguity  as  its  English  representative: 
an  instance  of  which  occurs  in  Je.  li.  •_'!.  "  With  thee 
will  I  break  in  pieces  the  horse  and  /</x  /•/</<;•,-  and  with 
thee  will  1  break  in  pieces  the  chariot  and  // /x  riilcr;" 
where  in  the  original,  the  same  word  is  used  in  both 
cases. 

I)r.  Heiigsteiiberg's  argument  receives  continuation 
from  a  comparison  of  1  Ki.  iv.  -Jf..  "Solomon  had  forty 
thousand  stalls  of  horses  for  his  chariots,  and  twelve 
thousand  horsemen"  IC'^'IE.  /«ov.</< /'»<).  Here  the  same 

woi-.N  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  each  other  as  in  the 
Mosaic  narrative;  yet  common  sense  ivc|uiivs  that  we 
should  understand  that  the  twelve  thousand  wen-  chariot- 
warriors,  each  driving  a  pair  of  horses,  while  the  num 
ber  of  forty  thousand  horses,  not  quite  a  change  for 
each  chariot,  would  be  only  a  mod, -rate  proportion  to 
I  he  chariote.  rs. 

Perhaps  the  same  explanation  may  be  applied  to  an 
allusion  used  by  Jacob  ,,n  his  death-bed.  He  coin 
pares,  lie  xli.\  17,  I  >an  to  "an  adder  in  the  path,  that 
biteth  the  horse  heels,  so  that  his  rider  shall  fall  back 
ward/'  The  most  obvious  interpretation  is,  that,  the 
horse  real-inn,  the  man  will  fall  from  his  back:  but 
since  the  chariot  of  antiquity  both  in  Egypt  and  Western 
A>ia  had  no  back,  nor  any  protection  behind,  tin- 
rider  in  it  would  be  liable  to  lose  his  balance  and  fall 
backward,  when  the  \ehicle  was  tilted  up  by  the 
|ilun-iiiL;-  of  the  horse  iS.  e  engraving.-  under*  'I  I. \liluT.  i 
I  lilt  we  are  not  -ure  that  tlr-  ordinary  interpretation  is 
not  correct;  for  as  loiiu  before  this  the  ass  was  used 
for  the  saddle.  Uc  xxii  ,  it  i-  hi-Jily  probable  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Armenia  and  Syria,  where  horses  were 
abundant,  would  by  this  time  have  thought  of  cm- 
ploying  the  more  noble  animal  for  the  same  use.  Ae- 
coidingly  we  occasionally  find  horsemen  represented 
among  the  Asiatic  peoples  depicted  in  the  Egyptian 
paintings,  though  not  in  their  own  armies. 

The  idoi-ions  description  of  the  war-horse  in  the  book 
•if  Job.  .h  xxxix.  iH-i'i  the  date  of  which  we  consider 
not  later  than  the  captivity  of  Israel  in  Ey'vpt  con 
tains  no  element  by  which  we  could  certainly  decide 
whether  it  is  the  charger  or  the  chariot-horse  that  is 
meant.  I'.ut  tin-re  is  an  allusion  just  before,  which 
cannot  be  explained  otherwise  than  of  a  ridden  horse. 
It  is  said  of  the  ostrich,  "  what  time  she  lifteth  up  her 
self  on  high,  she  scorneth  the  horse  and  his  rider,"  vur.  iv 
As  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  chariot  was 
used  to  pursue  the  ostrich,  this  passage  is  sufficient  to 
show  that  in  Job's  davs,  and  in  Arabia,  the  horse  was 
sad, lied. 

Michaelis.  in  his  Lmrx  of  J/H.-.TX.  elaborately  argues, 
that  so  far  from  Arabia  being  the  original  habitat  of 
the  horse,  it  was  not  even  known  there  till  a  compara 
tively  late  era,  I  >r.  Kitto  has  ^iven  a  good  abridg 
ment  of  the  view:  ''It  is  remarkable  that,  in  the  sacred 
books,  we  have  not  till  now  met  with  the  horse  any 
where  but  in  Egypt,  and  that  now  we  find  it  in  the 
north  of  Palestine,  but  not  anywhere  immediately 
between  that  country  and  Iv^vpt.  The  most  strik 
ing  point  in  this  is  the  silence  concerning  horses  as 
used  by  the  people  of  Arabia  which  naturalists  have 


HORSE 


HOUSE 


boon  disposed  to  consider  as  the  native  country  of  that 
animal.  We  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  there 
were  no  horses  then  in  that  region.  The  omission  to 
notice  the  animal  during  the  long  period  when  the 
Israelites  wandered  in  and  on  the  confines  of  Arabia, 
might  be  supposed  to  be  accidental,  were  it  not  that, 
when  they  came  to  actual  conflict  svith  Arabian  tribes, 
as  the  Midianites,  we  find  that  they  have  plenty  of 
camels,  asses,  oxen,  and  sheep,  but  that  the  horse  con 
tinues  to  be  unnoticed;  which  would  have  been  all  but 
impossible,  had  they  brought  horses  into  action,  or  IUR! 
any  of  these  animals  been  killed  or  taken  by  the  Israel 
ites.  At  a  later  period,  ,TU.  vi.  r>,  the  same  Arabian  people 
made  annual  incursions  into  Palestine,  and  '  their 
camels  were  past  numbering1.'  and  even  their  kings 
rode  on  camels.  .Tu.  viii.  21 ;  but  they  had  no  horses.  And 
in  the  reign  of  Saul,  when  the  tribes  beyond  Jordan 
waged  war  with  four  Arabian  nations  for  the  posses 
sion  of  the  eastern  pasture  grounds,  the  victorious 
Hebrews  found  50,000  camels,  250,000  sheep,  2000 
asses,  and  100,000  slaves;  still  not  a  word  of  horses, 
2  ch.  x  20-22.  And  not  to  multiply  examples,  we  may 
safely  say  that  in  the  whole  Scripture  history  the  horse 
is  never  mentioned  in  connection  with  Arabia.  With 
all  this  ancient  history  accords;  for  it  does  not  describe 
Arabia  as  distinguished  in  any  way  for  its  horses ;  and 
even  Strabo,  who  lived  so  late  as  the  time  of  Christ,  ex 
pressly  describes  Arabia  as  destitute  of  these  animals. 
Of  Arabia  Felix,  he  says  that  it  had  neither  horses, 
mules,  nor  swine;  and  of  Arabia  Deserta,  that  it  had 
no  horses,  camels  supplying  their  place.  It  is  true  that 
the  Arabians  profess  to  deduce  the  genealogy  of  their 
best  horses  from  the  stud  of  Solomon;  but  while  this  is 
manifestly  a  fable,  resulting  from  the  Arabian  custom 
of  ascribing  everything  pre-eminently  to  Solomon,  it  is 
nevertheless  valuable  as  an  admission  that  horses  existed 
even  in  Palestine  earlier  than  in  Arabia.  This  explains 
sufficiently  why  Moses  did  not  contemplate  that  the 
Hebrews  would  ever  go  to  Arabia  for  horses,  but  that 
they  would  go  to  Egypt;  and  also,  why  Solomon,  when 
forming  a  body  of  cavalry,  obtained  his  horses  from 
Egypt,  not  from  Arabia"  (Pict.  Bible  on  Jos.  xi.  <:). 

Some  confirmation  of  these  views  may  be  found  in 
the  following  passage  from  Burckhardt's  Xotes  on  the 
Bedouins  and  Wahahys  (vol.  ii.  p.oo.seq.): — "It  is  a  general 
but  erroneous  opinion,  that  Arabia  is  very  rich  in 
horses ;  but  the  breed  is  limited  to  the  extent  of  fertile 
pasture  grounds  in  that  country,  and  it  is  in  such  parts 
only  that  horses  thrive,  while  those  Bedouins  who 
occupy  districts  of  poor  soil  rarely  possess  any  horses. 
It  is  found,  accordingly,  that  the  tribes  most  rich  in 
horses  are  those  who  dwell  in  the  comparatively  fertile 
plains  of  Mesopotamia,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  j 
Euphrates,  and  in  the  Syrian  plains.  .  .  .  The  settled 
inhabitants  of  Hedjaz  and  Yemen  are  not  much  in  the 
habit  of  keeping  horses  ;  and  I  believe  it  may  be  stated 
as  a  moderate  and  fair  calculation,  that  between  5000 
and  6000  constitute  the  greatest  number  of  horses  in 
the  country  from  Akaba,  or  the  north  point  of  the  Red 
Sea,  southwards  to  the  shores  of  the  ocean  near  Had- 
ramaut.  The  great  heat  of  the  climate  in  Oman  is 
reckoned  unfavourable  to  the  breeding  of  horses,  which 
are  there  still  more  scarce  than  in  Yemen."  Even  of 
Yemen  he  says,  "  both  the  climate  and  the  pasture  are 
injurious  to  the  health  of  horses ;  many  of  them  die 
from  disease  in  that  country ;  and  the  race  begins  to 
fall  off  in  the  very  first  generation."  He  concludes  by 


stating,  that  ''the  finest  race  of  Arabian  blood-horses 
may  be  found  in  Syria,  and  that  of  all  the  Syrian  dis 
tricts  the  most  excellent  in  this  respect  is  the  Hauran."' 

We  may  remark  that  the  Philistines,  who  were  geo 
graphically  intermediate  between  Israel  and  Egypt, 
used  chariots  and  horses,  as  appears  from  the  pictorial 
representations  of  their  combats  on  the  Egyptian  monu 
ments,  as  well  as  from  the  sacred  narrative  in  2  Sa.  i.  G. 

In  directing  the  manner  of  the  kingdom  which  was 
afterwards  to  be  set  up  in  Israel,  Jehovah,  by  his  ser 
vant  Moses,  had  expressly  interdicted  the  formation  of 
a  stud.  The  king  "shall  not  multiply  horses  to  him 
self,  nor  cause  the  people  to  return  to  Egypt,  to  the 
end  that  he  should  multiply  horses,"  Do.  xvii.  10.  Nor  were 
the  people  permitted  to  retain  for  use  such  as  came 
into  their  possession  in  the  process  of  conquering  the 
Canaanite  inhabitants  of  the  land.  We  have,  in  the 
delineations  of  the  Egyptian  battle  scenes,  abundant 
evidence  of  the  use  of  chariots  in  war  by  the  Amorite 
nations ;  and  in  the  inspired  history  the  account  of  the 
chief  stand  made  by  those  tribes  against  their  Hebrew 
invaders — that  under  king  Jabin,  at  the  waters  of 
Merom — speaks  of  horses  and  chariots  very  many.  As 
this  was  a  complete  overthrow,  here  was  an  opportunity 
of  acquiring  a  powerful  force  of  disciplined  horses  and 
effective  chariots.  But  Israel  had  been  taught  that  "an 
horse  is  a  vain  thing  for  safety/'  Ps.xxxiii.  17;  and  that 
they  had  a  mightier  defence  :  "some  trust  in  chariots. 
and  some  in  horses;  but  we  will  remember  the  name  of 
Jehovah  our  God,"  Ps.  xx.  7.  The  command  had  been 
issued  to  Joshua  before  the  battle,  "Thou  shalt  hough, 
their  horses,  and  burn  their  chariots  with  fire,"  Jos.  xi.  ti. 
It  was  a  trial  of  their  faith  and  obedience  ;  but  these 
graces  were  not  then  lacking:  "Joshua  did  unto  them 
as  Jehovah  bade  him  :  he  houghed  their  horses,  and 
burned  their  chariots  with  fire,"  Jos  xi  <». 

Though  no  reason  is  given  why  the  king  should  not 
multiply  horses  (the  last  clause  of  the  prohibition  giving 
only  the  reason  why  they  should  not  be  fetched  from 
Egypt),  we  can  have  little  doubt  on  the  subject,  from 
the  frequency  of  the  passages  that  allude  to  them.  The 
possessors  of  horses  and  chariots  are  always  described 
as  putting  their  trust  in  them;  and  as  this  was  con 
trary  to  the  path  of  faith  in  which  the  people  of  Jeho 
vah  were  expected  to  walk,  the  occasion  of  stumbling 
was  mercifully  interdicted.  Long  after  the  barriers 
had  been  broken  down,  and  Israel  had  become,  in  this, 
as  in  too  many  other  things,  "as  the  heathen/'  Ezc.  xx. 
32;  and  the  sad  results  had  become  manifest  in  the 
alienation  of  the  national  heart  from  God,  the  prophets 
faithfully  laid  bare  the  sin  and  its  occasion.  "  Woe  to 
them  that  go  down  to  Egypt  for  help,  and  stay  on 
horses,  and  trust  in  chariots,  because  they  are  many; 
and  in  horsemen,  because  they  are  strong;  but  they 
look  not  unto  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  neither  seek  the 

LORD Now  the   Egyptians  are  men,  and  not 

God  :    and   their  horses  flesh,    and   not   spirit 

Turn  ye  unto  him  from  whom  the  children  of  Israel 
have  deeply  revolted."  Is.  xxxi.  i-c. 

As  in  most  similar  cases,  defection  from  the  way  of 
obedience  was  gradual.  Saul  appears  to  have  been  the 
first  to  break  the  command;  for  Samuel,  in  announcing 
to  the  people  "the  manner  of  the  king"  who  was  about 
to  reign  over  them,  said :  "  He  will  take  your  sons, 
and  appoint  them  for  himself,  for  his  chariots,  and 
to  be  his  horsemen ;  and  some  shall  run  before  his 
chariots,"  iSa.  viii.  11.  As  we  hear  nothing  of  his  cha- 


HORSE 


I TORSK 


riots  in  any  of  his  numerous  wars  with  the  Philistines  pair  at  each  side  of  the  temple  gate.  If,  however,  thev 
—though  these  enemies  were  amply  provided  with  were  living  horses,  then  we  must  suppose  that  the 
them,  i  sa.  xiii.  5;  2Sa.  i.  0— he  probably  went  but  a  little  !  idolatrous  x.eal  of  the  presenting  monarchs  had  given 
way  in  this  path  of  disobedience.  David  followed  the  not  merely  individual  animals,  but  a  sum  of  money 
unhappy  example  of  his  predecessor;  for  after  his  defeat  '  sufficient  to  provide  for  the  constant  succession  in  the 
of  the  Syrians  under  Hadadezer.  u.su.  uii  I,  "  he  took  |  replacement  of  those  which  mi-ht  die.  Thus  the 

from  him   a  thousand    [chariots] and    David 

houghed  all  the  chariot  [horses],  but  reserved  of  them 
for  an  hundred  chariots." 

It  was  under  Solomon,  however,  that  the  spirit  of 
the  prohibition  was  completely  set  at  defiance.  Hitherto 
the  king  could  scarcely  be  said  to  have  multiplied 
horses;  nor  is  there  any  evidence  that  either  Saul  or 
David  procured  them  from  Egvpt;  but  Solomon  (as  we 
have  already  noticed)  had  the  vast  number  of  "forty 
thousand  stalls  of  horses  for  his  chariots,'  i  Ki.  iv.  _'i;; 
and  "had  horses  brought  out  of  Kgypt."  i  Ki  x.  is.  The 
text,  if  we  understand  it  rightly,  implies  that  Solomon 
opened  up  a  new  branch  of  commerce  in  horses  from 
Kgypt,  supplying  the  kings  of  the  surroundin-  nation- 
with  Egyptian  chariots  and  horses.  The  latter  are 
associated  with  something.  \XT  L'->,  which  is  translated 
linen  varn"  is»,-s~.  iii/kcc/t).  This  word  some  have 

•s  from    Koah  ;  ' 
the    manner    in 
"Solomon  had 


understood   as  a   proper  name.    "hor. 
but    others    consider    it   to   allude    to 
which  horses  are  conducted  in  string.- 
horses  brought  out  of  K-vpt  / 
chants  received  a  .-trim;  at  a  certain  pric 
[n  the  downward  progress  of  apostasy 
horse  ti-mvs  as  one  of  the  accompaniment 
able  idolatries,      .lo.-iah  in  his  rcforiiiation  "t 
the   horses   that   the  kings  of    .ludah  had    -ivi 


horses   would    still    be    the   gift   of   the  kings   who  had 
striii'/s;  the  kind's  mer-     created  the  fund:  tlnm-h  the  existin- individuals  mi-lit 

have    been     selected     even     dill-ill-    .losiah's    own     rei-ll. 
without  the  matter  comin-  under  his  co-ni/ance. 

I'.y    the   Assyrians   the    horse    was    used    from    earlv 
es    both    for    \\.-ir    and    huntin-j.    and    both    tor    the 


chariot  and  for  the  sad 


sun,  at  the  entering  in  of  the  house  of  Jehovah was  the  case  with  Israel,  it  was  in   tl 

and  burned  the  chariots  of  the  sun  with  tire." 
Some  commentators  have  assumed  that  the-e 
horses  had  been  intended  for  sacrifice;  because 
the  .Massageta-  and  other  nations  sacrificed 
horses  to  the  sun.  P>ut  the  refutation  of  this 
opinion  is  patent  in  the  text  itself.  These 
horses  had  bec.ii  given  by  the  kin;/*  of  .ludah, 
the  predecessors  of  Josiah:  but  if  they  had 
lii-en  -iveii  for  sacrifice,  tln-v  would  have  been 
sacrificed.  They  must  have  remained  for  the 
eighteen  years  already  elapsed  of  Ji.siah's 
reign,  the  two  years  of  Amon.  and  as  manv 
of  Manasseli  as  went  back  to  his  ungodly- 
days.  For  since  these  horses  had  been  given 
by  the  kiti</$,  some  of  them  at  least  must  have 
been  presented  by  Manasseli  or  his  predeces 
sors.  We  can  scarcely  then  assign  a  shorter 
duration  than  thirty  years  to  the  period 


• 


•n 
d-  of 


uyuiijik  Sculptures,  lint.  Mus 


•in-  which  these  horses  had  been  stationed  at  the 
entrance  of  the  temple.  Now.  considering  that  the 
natural  age  of  the  horse  scarcely  ever  reaches  thirty- 
years,  we  think  that  this  computation  is  conclusive 
against  the  supposition  generally  entertained  that  these 
were  living  horses  dedicated  to  the  use  of  the  sun;  and 
employed  to  draw,  in  solemn  procession,  the  chariots 
in  which  the  imago  or  emblem  of  that  luminary  was 
carried,  in  the  manner  of  the  Persians.  We  presume, 
therefore,  that  the  chariots  were  the  ordinary  vehicles. 
made  chiefly  of  wood— for  they  were  burned  with  fire: 
but  that  the  horses  attached  to  them  were  sculptured 
out  of  stone;  and  that  they  probably  occupied  a  similar 
position  to  that  so  often  assigned  to  winged  lions  or  bulls 

in  the  Assyrian  and  Persian  temples — a  chariot  and 
VOL.  ]. 


the  empire  that  cavalry  was  most  commonly  employe* 


The   sculptures   show  an   animal   of  -i 
carriage,  and  evidently  hi-h  blood. 
Horses    are    occasionally    employed 


form, 


ne  pr 


cy,  and  their  various  colours  are  then  dis 


tinctive.  Thus.  Zeeharialfs  first  vision  was  of  ''a  man 
ridingupon  a  red  ta'-tN*  admit)  horse;  ....  and  behind 

T 

him  were  three  red  (c»!2TN>  horses,  speckled  (or  bay, 
margin  D'pi'ii'?  *(''"/•'</«)  and  white  fo'JsS)  Icbonwi)" 

Zee.  i.  v  And  in  a  later  vision  the  same  prophet  was 
shown  four  chariots  —  the  first  containing  red,  the 
second  black,  the  third  white,  and  the  fourth  "grisled 
(D'Ti3>  lerudim)  and  bay  (D»STN>  amotzlm)."  Com- 

95 


HORSELEECH 


HORSELEECH 


mentators  have  lahoiirod  to  show  the  signification  of 
these  emblems,  but  with  little  success. 

\Ve  must  not  forget  that  like  symbols  are  employed 
in  tlie  latest  book  of  sacred  prophecy.  On  the  succes 
sive  openings  of  the  first  four  seals  in  lie.  vi.,  four 
horses  go  forth  in  turn,  and  the  respective  colours  of 
those  are  white,  red  (irvppos),  black,  and  "pale" 
(%Xwp6s,  literally  ''i/rcai,"  perhaps  I!  rid).  The  agree 
ment  of  interpreters  is  not  indeed  so  perfect  as  that  we 
can  authoritatively  declare  what  even  these  symbols 
mean;  but  the  general  view  is  that  the  colours  do  not 
represent  different  nations  or  kingdoms,  but  rather  the 
moral  or  .spiritual  aspects  of  successive  periods. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  a  white  horse  was  con 
sidered  an  emblem  of  triumph  and  power.  From  early 
periods  of  Roman  history,  generals  returning  victorious 
had  chosen  white  as  the  colour  of  the  horse  they  rode 
on,  ami  still  more  hud  the  emperors  affected  it  in  their 
triumphs.  Domitian  rode  on  a  white  horse  in  his 
father  Vespasian's  triumph,  and  Trajan  on  his  return 
from  his  victorious  campaigns.  And  thus  is  depicted 
in  apocalyptic  symbol  the  return  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
in  power  and  great  glory,  to  execute  vengeance  on 
liis  enemies,  lie  who  in  the  day  of  his  humiliation 
brought  salvation  to  Jerusalem,  meekly  seated  on  a 
colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass,  will  come  forth  on  a  white 
horse,  clothed  in  blood-red  vesture,  a  sharp  sword  go 
ing  out  of  his  mouth,  and  many  diadems  on  his  head, 
accompanied  by  the  armies  of  heaven  on  white  horses, 
to  rule  the  nations  with  a  rod  of  iron,  and  to  tread  the 
wine- press  of  the  fierceness  and  wrath  of  Almighty 
Cod,  lie.  xix.  11-15.  [p.  \l.  <;.] 

HORSELEECH  [rp^y,  alukah}.     There  seems  no 

reason  to  set  aside  the  received  meaning  of  this  word, 
sanctioned  as  it  is  by  the  LXX.,  who  render  it  by 
/35eXXa,  by  the  Vulgate,  which  gives  sanyuisuga,  and  by 
all  the  other  versions.  Bochart  has  made  an  elaborate 
effort  to  show  that  the  word  means  destiny,  and  that 
its  two  daughters  are  the  grave  and  hades — the  one 
clamouring  for  the  body  the  other  for  the  soul  of  every 
man.  But  the  hypothesis  rests  on  an  assumed  mis 
reading,  for  which  there  is  no  evidence,  and  on  a  doubt- 
fulArafiic  etymology;  while  the  received  rendering  gives 
an  excellent  meaning.  The  word  occurs  but  once,  viz. 
in  that  collection  of  aphorisms  in  which  is  embodied  the 
wisdom  of  Agur  the  son  of  Jakeh,  Pr  xxx. 

In  ver.  14  a  generation  is  described  who  devour  the 
poor  and  needy;  then  the  horseleech  with  her  two 
daughters  is  introduced,  and  then  three  other  things 
which  are  never  satisfied,  yea.  four,  which  say  not,  "It 
is  enough !''  That  the  horseleech  is  intended  as  an 
illustration  or  comparison  of  the  generation  in  question 
seems  clear;  and  we  may  adopt  Holden's  ellipsis,  who 
would  read  ver.  15  thus  : — 


selection  than  this  species;  for,  according  to  the  elaborate 
memoir  on  its  structure  and'  economy  by  Mr.  Quekett 
(Zoologist  for  1843,  p.  90),  the  horseleech  is  not  a  blood-suck 
ing  species,  and  cannot  be  induced  to  fasten  on  the 
human  skin.  It  is  indeed  very  voracious,  devouring 
eagerly  the  medicinal  species,  and  other  worms  and 
aquatic  insects,  but  it  has  neither  an  appetite  for  blood 
nor  an  apparatus  for  receiving  it. 

Several  species  of  leech  inhabit  the  marshes,  rivers, 
and  lakes  of  the  East,  with  the  habits  of  our  //.  mi'ili- 
cinaHs,  and  probably  they  include  that  kind.  They  are 
held  in  great  abhorrence  and  fear,  for  the  people  have 
not  learned  to  avail  themselves  of  their  peculiar  instinct 
for  the  alleviation  of  human  suffering.  They  are  very 
numerous,  and  the  domestic  animals  suffer  much  from 
their  attacks;  indeed  it  is  no  uncommon  accident  for  a 
valuable  beast  to  be  seized  beneath  the  tongue  in  drink 
ing,  in  which  case,  even  though  the  assailant  be  re 
moved,  the  blood  will  sometimes  continue  to  flow  till 
the  creature  dies  of  the  haemorrhage.  Captain  Frank- 
land  nearly  lost  a  fine  dog  in  this  manner.  Even  the 
common  people,  drinking  freely  from  the  brooks,  not 
unfrequently  take  a  leech  into  the  mouth,  which,  fixing 
in  the  cheeks  or  throat,  gives  much  annoyance  and 
trouble.  Kitto  says,  indeed,  that  under  such  circum 
stances  it  occasionally  "remains  several  days  before 
they  can  find  means  to  expel  it;"  but  this  is  probably 
an  incautious  exaggeration,  as  the  leech  would  not  take 
long  to  gorge  itself,  and  would  then  certainly  relinquish 
its  hold,  and  pass  up  or  down  in  a  lethargic  condition. 

The   mechanism   by  which  the   leech  is   enabled   to 
gratify  its   greedy  thirst   for  blood    is  highly  curious. 


There  are  numerous  species  of  the  genus  Iflrudo,  of 
which  the  best  known  is  the  medicinal  leech  (//.  medi- 
cinalis).  There  seems  no  particular  reason  why  the 
horseleech  (//.  sanguisorba)  should  have  been  selected 
by  our  translators  to  represent  the  Hebrew  word,  as 
the  more  generic:  term  "leech"  would  have  been  better. 
Indeed,  if  the  greedy  thirst  for  blood  which  marks  these 
aquatic  worms  be,  as  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  the  point 
of  the  comparison,  there  coidd  not  have  been  a  worse 


1334.  J        Throat  of  Leech  laid  open  and  highly  magnified. 
Gossu's  Evenings  at  the  Microscope. 

The  throat  is  spacious,  and  capable  of  being  everted  to 
a  slight  degree.  The  front  border  of  the  mouth  is  en 
larged  so  as  to  form  a  sort  of  upper  lip,  and  this  com 
bines  with  the  wrinkled  muscular  margin  of  the  lower 
and  lateral  portions  to  form  the  sucker.  We  may 
readily  slit  down  the  ventral  margin  of  the  sucker,  ex 
posing  the  whole  throat.  Then  the  edges  being  folded 
back,  we  see  implanted  in  the  walls  on  the  dorsal  region 
of  the  cavity,  three  white  eminences  of  a  cartilaginous 
texture,  which  rise  to  a  sharp  crescentic  edge;  they 
form  a  triangular,  or  rather  a  triradiate  figure. 

Our  readers  will  recollect  that  this  is  the  figure  of 
the  cut  made  in  the  flesh  wherever  a  leech  has  sucked, 
as  it  is  of  the  scar  which  remains  after  the  wound  has 
healed.  For  these  three  little  eminences  are  the  imple 
ments  with  which  the  animal,  impelled  by  its  blood 
sucking  instincts,  effects  its  purpose.  But  to  under 
stand  the  action  more  perfectly,  we  must  use  the  higher 
powers  of  the  microscope. 

If,  then,  we  dissect  out  of  the  flesh  one  of  the  white 
points,  say  the  middle  one,  and  apply  a  power  of  150 
diameters,  we  see  a  sub-pellucid  mass,  of  an  irregular 


HOSANNA 


too 


HOSE  A 


oval  figure',  and  of  fibrous  texture,  one  side  of  which  is 
thinned  away  apparently  to  a  keen  edge  of  a  somewhat 
semicircular  outline.  But  along  this  edge,  and  as  it 
were  embedded  into  it  fur  about  one-third  of  their 
length,  are  set  between  seventy  and  eighty  crystalline 
points,  of  highly  refractive  substance,  resembling  glass. 
These  points  gradually  decrease  in  size  towards  one  end 
of  the  series,  and  at  length  cease,  leaving  a  portion  of 
the  cutting  edge  toothless.  At  the  end  where  they  are 
largest,  they  are  nearly  close  together,  but  at  luii'_rtli 
are  separated  by  spaces  e<|Ual  to  their  own  thickness. 
The  manner  in  which  thev  are  inserted  closely  resembles, 
in  this  aspect,  the  implantation  of  the  teeth  in  the  jaw 
of  a  dolphin  or  crocodile. 

This  appearance,  however,  is  illusorv.  Uy  so  mani 
pulating  as  to  l>rini_>-  the  edi;v  to  face  our  eve,  we  discern 
that  it  is  not  an  eduv  at  all,  but  a  narrow  parallel  .-ided 
margin  of  considerable  breadth.  And  the  teeth  are  not 
conical  points,  as  they  seemed  when  we  viewed  them 
sideways,  but  Hat  triangular  plates,  \\ithadeepnotcli 
in  their  lower  edge.  Thus  they  partly  embrace  and  are 
partly  inserted  in,  the  margin  of  the  jaw. 

This  apparatus  admirably  subserves  the  purpose  for 
which  it  is  intended.  Ity  means  of  its  sucker  the  leech 
creates  a  vacuum  upon  a  certain  part  of  the  skin,  exactly 
like  that  produce,!  i,\  a  cupping-glass.  The  skin  covered 
is  drawn  into  the  hollow  so  far  as  to  render  it  quite 
t"ii>e  by  the  pressure  of  the  surrounding  air.  Thus  it 
is  brought  into  contact  \\ith  the  eduvs  of  the  three  jaws, 
to  which,  by  mean-  of  powerful  muscles  attached  to 
them,  a  see  >a\\  nioti,,n  is  communicated,  which  causes 
the  little  teeth  soon  to  cut  through  the  skin  and  ,-uper- 
licial  vessels,  from  \shich  the  Mood  begins  tofi,,w.  The 
issue  of  the  vital  tluid  is  then  promoted  bv  the  pressure 
around,  and  so  goes  on  until  the  enormous  stomach  of 
the  leech  is  distended  to  repletion. 

This  whole  contrivance,  with  the  instinct  hv  which 
i'.  is  accompanied,  has  been  asserted  to  be  for  the  ben,  'tit 
of  man.  and  not  of  the  leech.  lilood  seems  to  be  bv  no 
means  the  natural  food  of  the  leech;  it  has  been  ascer 
tained  to  remain  in  the  stomach  for  a  whole  twelve 
month  without  being  digested,  y*  t  remaining  fluid  and 
sound  during  the  entire  period:  while  ordinarilv.  such 
a  Mib.-tanec  cannot  in  one  in-tance  out  of  a  thousand 
be  swall  iwed  by  the  animal  in  a  state  of  nature. 
Whether  this  be  so  or  not:  whether  man's  relief  under 
suff'erin--  were  the  noli  object  designed  or  not,  it  was 
certainly  <>n<  object:  and  we  may  well  be  thankful  to 
the  mercy  of  (Jod,  who  lias  ordained  comfort  through 
so  strange  an  instrumentality.  [r.  ir.  ,,.| 

HOSAN'NA  is  composed  of  two  Hebrew  words  oc 
curring  in  Vs.  cxviii.  ~1~>  (x;-rj,"w;*Hb  signifying  *(ii'(J, 


/'/•'///.  or  Hoir.  The  psalm  was  sung  on  joyful  occa 
sions,  and  particularly  at  the  feast  of  tabernacles, 
which  was  the  solemnity  observed  with  the  greatest 
demonstrations  of  joy.  Verses  '_';"•  and  '2<>  were  sune; 
with  loud  acclamation;  and  the  feast  itself  was  some 
times  called  the  Hosanna.  Applied  to  the  Messiah,  as 
it  is  in  .Mat.  xxi.  !»,  "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David,"  it 
simply  means,  all  blessing  and  prosperity  attend  him: 
let  salvation  be  his  ! 

HOSE'A  [yv*r.,  'S-'iTJ?!?,  ilffircranrc,  salratto'it].     1.  A 

younger  contemporary  of  the  prophet  Amos.  To  the 
article  on  Amos  we  must  refer  the  reader  for  a  sketch 
of  the  political  and  religious  aspect  of  the  period  in 


which  Hosea  and  Amos  were  called  of  God  to  declare 
his  word  to  Israel,  and  also  for  a  notice  of  the  general 
character  of  the  prophetic  teaching  of  that  period. 

I.  The  prop/tit. — From  the  title  of  the  book  we 
learn  that  Hosea  began  to  prophesy  under  Ux.ziah. 
king  of  Judah,  and  -leroboam  II. .  of  the  family  of 
Jehu,  king  of  Israel:  and  also  that  lie  continued  to 
prophesy  until  the  time  of  Hexekiah,  the  great  grand 
son  of  I'zziah.  That  the  former  part  of  this  statement 
'•  is  correct  does  not  admit  of  doubt;  and  though  the 
whole  period  assigned  to  his  ministry  is  certainly  longer 
than  is  usually  allotted  to  the  active  life  of  man,  em 
bracing,  as  it  does,  more  than  sixty  years;  yet  this 
forms  no  suiticient  reason  for  injecting  a  tradition 
which  must  have  had  its  origin  in  most  ancient  times, 
and  \\hich  U  not  inconsistent  with  any  information 
which  may  be  derived  from  other  sources.1 

Of  the  personal  history  of  Hosea  nothing  is  known. 
Fnlikc  Amos,  he  seems  to  have  been  born  in  the 
northern  kingdom,  though  of  this  we  have  no  positive 
information  (Carpzov,  Introductio  ad  lib.  Proph.  p.  274).  It  is 
certain  that  in  t'ie  northern  kingdom  lay  the  sphere  of 
his  ministry.  The  name  Fphraim  occurs  in  his  pro 
phecies  about  thirty-live  times,  and  Israel  with  equal  fre 
quency;  \\hile  .ludah  is  not  mentioned  more  than  four 
teen  times.  Samaria  is  frequently  spoken  of,  ch.  vii.l;viii  ,>, 
i'.;  x.  :,.  7;  xiv.  l;  .Jerusalem  never.  All  the  other  localities 
introduced  are  connected  \\iththe  northern  kingdom, 
either  as  forming  part  of  it,  or  lying  on  its  borders: 
Mi/pah.  Talior.  ch.v.l;(  nlgal,  rh.iv.i :,;  i \.i.v  xii  i-jfn  :  I'.ethel, 
c.  i  lied  al-o  llethavcli.  ch.x.l.'i;  xii.  :.(P;  iv.i:,;  v.S;  \.,.,-;  .Je/.reel, 
eh  i.  I;  (  iibcall,  eh.  v  -;  ix.  !•';  Kama,  eh.  v  s;  (  Jilead.  cli.  vi.  S;xii 
I.1  II  ;  Sheehem.  ch.  vi.  •»;  Lebanon,  ch.  xiv.  l!,7;  Arbela,  eh 
\.  ii  I'M.  It  mai'.  however,  be  allowed  that  hi>  usual 
residence  lay  in  tin-  >outhern  ] parts  of  the  northern 
kingdom  in  that  border  region  t<i  the  well-known 
localities  of  which  he  makes  such  frequent  reference, 
and  which  had  l,>n_:  been  distinguished  as  the  seat  ot 
the  numerous  schools  of  the  prophets  \\  hjcli  Samuel  had 
founded.  We  know  nothing  of  I'.ccri.  \\lio  is  named 
in  the  title  as  the  father  of  Hosea. 

Still,  though  we  think  it  probable  that  Hosea  was 
connected  by  birth  and  residence  durinu  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  with  the  northern  kingdom,  it  has  been 
conjectured,  not  without  ground,  that  in  his  later  years, 
after  having  IODLT  appealed  in  vain  to  his  doomed  coun 
trymen,  he  retired  to  .ludea.  feeling  that  his  mission 
was  accomplished,  and  that  now  it  only  remained  for 
him  to  make  his  escape  from  that  Sodom  over  which 
the  destroying  angel  was  already  hovering  ( Kw;il<],  Die 
rmphoton,  i.  11-.  ir.'i.  Probably  it  was  in. ludea  his  pro 
phecy  was  committed  to  writing  in  its  present  form, 
as  may  lie  inferred  from  the  prominence  ghen  to  the 
names  of  the  khiL,rs  of  Judah  in  the  title  of  the  book. 
For  the  traditions  as  to  his  death,  see  ('«~r/i:j>/;  p.  27  $. 

It  is  probable  that  Hosea  In-longed  to  the  onlcr  .if 
prophets,  in  this  respect  likewise  differing  from  Amos, 
who  was  neither  prophet  nor  prophet's  son:  and  that 
in  the  schools  of  the  prophets  he  had  received  the  cus 
tomary  training  preparatory  to  entering  on  the  discharge 
of  the  prophetic  functions.  His  prophecy  displays  a 
very  exact,  and,  so  to  speak,  a  professional  acquaintance 
with  the  law  of  Moses,  by  which  latter  character  it  is 


1  Jernboani  II.  died,  a.s  is  commonly  thought,  about  784  B.C., 
and  Hezekiah  began  his  reign  72.">  B.C.  Hut  it,  is  possible  that 
the  death  of  Jeroboam  ou-lit  to  be  fixed  twelve  yeara  later.— 
Ewald.  (JMlucUti,  iii.  5.34. 


HOSE  A 


HOSE  A 


distinguished  from  that  of  Amos;  for  though  in  Amos 
\vt;  tiiul  not  ;i  few  references  to  the  Pentateuch,  they 
have  less  the  air  of  being  the  fruit  of  formal  and  sys 
tematic  study  and  preparation.1 

Amos  was  a  herdsman,  and  a  great  part  of  the 
imagery  lie  employs  is  borrowed  from  the  pastoral 
life.  Jt  is  not  so  with  Jlosea,  who  was  evidently 
much  more  familiar  with  agricultural  pursuits;  and 
seems,  like  Elisha,  to  have  been  called  from  the  plough 
to  be  the  Lord's  prophet,  eh.  vi  :'.;  viii.  7;  ix.  l»;  x.  1,11,  ]ii; 

xiii.  .",;  XIV.  7. 

Tl.  The  prophecy. — The  foundation  and  general 
character  and  aim  of  the  prophecies  of  Hosea  are  the 
same  as  those  of  Amos,  with  whose  history  and  writings 
he  must  have  been  acquainted.  Compare  Ho.  iv.  15  with 
Am.  v.  ">;  and  especially  Ho.  viii.  1 1  with  Am.  i.  •),  7, 10,  &c.  He 
announces  and  enforces,  as  the  only  remedy  for  the  evils 
of  the  times,  a  return  to  Jehovah.  With  this  he  be 
gins,  oh.  i.L';  with  this  he  ends,  cli.xiv. i,  Ac.;  and  to  this  he 
auain  and  again  recurs  in  the  course  of  his  teaching.  As 
a  return  to  Jehovah,  under  the  old  dispensation,  neces 
sarily  involved  the  restoration  of  the  formal  unity  of 
the  church,  and  the  abolition  of  a  separate  altar  and 
priesthood,  we  meet  with  frequent  denunciations  of  the 
calf-worship  established  at  liethel  by  Jeroboam,  on  his 
successful  revolt  from  the  house  of  David.  That  wor 
ship  had  been  introduced  by  Jeroboam  as  a  measure  of 
state  necessitv:  and  it  symbolized  the  ascendency  of  the 
political  over  the  moral  and  religious.  That  worship 
must  be  abolished,  and  the  moral  and  religious  restored 
to  their  rightful  pre-eminence:  otherwise  all  professions 
of  regard  to  Jehovah  shall  be  of  no  avail,  and  all  gifts 
and  sacrifices  He  will  abhor,  ch.  viii.  :>,  fi;  x.  n;  xiii.  a. 

Besides  this,  which  may  be  called  the  legitimate 
ecclesiastical  result  of  true  repentance  on  the  part  of 
Israel,  it  was  noticed  in  the  article  on  Amos  that  there 
were  two  other  results  no  less  essential — the  nioral  and 
iho  political.  The  return  of  Israel  to  Jehovah  must  be, 
accompanied  with  a  thorough  reformation  of  the  social 
and  national  life.  For  it  is  the  most  distinctive  prin 
ciple  of  the  prophetic  teaching  formally  announced  by 
Samuel,  the  founder  of  the  order,  that  "to  obey  is 
better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of 
rams."  This  principle  each  of  the  prophets,  as  he 
appeared,  re- announced;  and  none  more  distinctly  than 
Hosea,  whose  words  our  Lord  himself  deigned  to  make 
use  of  in  relinking  the  hypocritical  Pharisees  :  "Go  ye, 
and  learn  what  that  meaneth,  I  will  have  mercy,  and 
not  sacrifice,"  Mat.  ix.  13,  compared  with  Ho.  vt.C.  In  Hosea 
iv.  2  we  have  a  summary  of  the  second  table  of  the 
moral  law;  the  breach  of  which,  the  prophets  show, 
must  ever  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence  the  breach 
of  the  first  table.  And  in  various  parts  of  the  pro 
phecy  Israel  is  reminded  of  the  ancient  kindness  of 
Jehovah,  and  especially  of  the  great  national  deliver 
ance  by  which  he  proved  himself  to  be  indeed  Jehovah, 
and  the  record  of  which  he  placed  as  a  sanction  and 
powerful  incentive  to  obedience  in  the  very  front  of 
his  law,  Elx.xx.2,  compared  with  IIo.ii.l~Cl:));  xi.  1;  xii. 10(9);  xiii.  I. 

1  JVH3,  (berith),  covenant,  is  employed  several  times  by  Ilosea 
(ch.  ii.'20;  vi.  7;  viii.l;  x. 4)  to  describe  the  union  between  God  and 
Israel;  never  by  Amos.  Sj?S  and  D'Sj?2  (ba'al  be'aliiii),  not 
found  in  Amos,  are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  Ilosea  Cch  ii.  10, 15, 
19;  ix.  10;  xi.  2;  xiii.  1).  So  |H3  (cohcn),  priest  (Ho.  iv.  4,0,  &c). 

See  also  ch.  iv.  0;  v.  10;  and  the  root  DW  (((sham),  which  recurs 

-  T 

five  times  in  Ilose.i,  is  not  found  in  Amos. 


Compare  also,  on  the  close  connection  between  idolatry  and  immo 
rality,  ch.  iv.  12-11;  vii.  l,ic.;  xii.  sfr). 

The  po/ifinil  result  of  Israel's  repentance  and  hearty 
return  to  Jehovah,  was  the  re-establishment  nf  the  kiii'j- 
iloiii  of  David,  and  the  reunion  of  all  the  tribes  under 
one  government.  This  is  distinctly  announced  by  Ho 
sea,  ch.  ii.  a(i.ii);  iii..">;  viii.  i;  as  it  had  already  been  by  Amos, 
ch.  ix.  11.  There  is  no  safety  for  Israel  but  in  returning 
to  Jehovah  their  God  and  to  David  their  king.  Out 
of  this  reunion  alone  flows  peace  —that  promised  peace 
which  the  prophet  delights  to  anticipate,  and  which  he 
describes  in  language  of  wonderful  elevation  and  beauty, 
ch.  ii.  ls-25  (ii.  Hi-li.'i) ;  xiv.  4-8. 

Such  is  the  remedy  which  the  prophets  of  this 
period  recommend  to  their  countrymen  in  its  threefold 
aspect —ecclesiastical,  moral,  political;  a  hearty  repent 
ance  and  return  to  Jehovah  being  the  central  and 
substantial  element.  And  the  prophet  Hosea.  being 
taught  of  God,  was  quite  sure  that  this  remedy  would 
be  had  recourse'  to  at  last  that  Israel  would  yet  return 
to  Jehovah  and  to  David,  and  find  strength  and  peace, 
ch.  iii.  xiv.  P>ut  he  knew,  likewise,  that  this  return, 
with  all  its  happy  results,  could  not  be  immediate. 
The  apostate  nation  must  spend  all  her  living  upon 
other  physicians,  and  all  in  vain,  before  she  is  con 
strained  to  cry  to  Jehovah  to  heal  her.  Israel  must  be 
led  back  again  into  the  wilderness,  ch.  ii.  nm  i);  must  be 
east  once  more  into  the  iron  furnace  of  Egypt,  ch.  viii.  i:i; 
cli.ix.:;,  before  the  promised  era  of  peace  and  glory  comes. 
The  present  to  the  prophet's  eye  is  dark,  and  must  Vie 
dark;  it  is  to  the  ''latter  days"  he  looks  with  hope, 
ch.  iii.  :">. 

In  passing  from  Amos  to  Hosea,  \\e  mark  a  decided 
advance  in  the  historical  a,nd  /</•< i/i/nf!-1  development. 
With  regard  to  the  former,  the  historical  development, 
we  find  anew  power,  formerly  on  the  background,  now 
brought  prominently  to  the  front.  The  smaller  king 
doms  bordering  upon  Israel,  with  the  fate  of  which  a 
considerable  part  of  the  prophecy  of  Amos  is  occupied, 
have  passed  out  of  view — they  are  not  once  mentioned 
by  Hosea.  In  their  room  appears  the  great  northern 
power  of  Assyria,  in  which  the  prophets  have  already 
discovered  the  rod  of  God  for  the  punishment  of  his 
people's  sins.  As  yet,  however,  the  blinded  nation 
have  not  perceived  this.  Assyria  they  regard  rather 
as  a  friend  than  as  a  foe,  ch.  v.  i:i;  vii.  n  ;  viii.  9;  xii.  i!(l); 
xiv.  4  (:;).  They  are  so  infatuated  as  not  to  perceive 
that  that  power  only  helped  them  to  their  destruction, 
pursuing  a  crafty  policy  of  which  every  age  has  fur 
nished  examples;  and  that  if  Damascus  were  swallowed 
up  by  its  powerful  antagonist,  Samaria  should  soon 
share  its  fate.  God  hath  blinded  their  eyes.  But  the 
prophet  has  penetrated  into  the  divine  counsels;  and  in 
Assyria  he  beholds  not  the  ally  and  friend,  but  the 
destined  destroyer  of  his  nation.  Already  he  sees 
crowds  of  his  countrymen  led  captive  by  the  very 
power  to  which  they  had  looked  for  safety,  and  pining 
as  strangers  in  a  strange  land,  ch.  iii.  4;  x.  «;  xi.  11.  This 
is  a  new  and  most  impressive  view  which  is  opened  up 
to  us  in  the  writings  of  Hosea.  We  had  no  hint  in 
Amos  of  the  relation  of  dependence  in  which  Israel 
stood  to  Assyria,  its  destined  destroyer.  And  we  are 
thankful  for  another  historical  illustration  of  a  truth 
i  which  can  never  grow  old,  that  the  shifts  to  which  poli 
ticians  have  recourse  to  save  from  ruin  a  society  which 
is  morally  diseased  and  corrupt,  have  the  effect  only  of 
1  hastening  the  ruin  which  they  are  intended  to  avert. 


HOSEA  i 

Corresponding  to  this  development  and  advance  in 
historical  position,  is  the  aspect  which  the  prophetic 
teaching-  assumes  in  the  writings  of  Hosea.  As  Assyria 
draws  nearer  to  Israel,  and  the  crisis  more  evidently 
approaches,  the  prophet  clings  closer  to  Jehovah,  and 
realizes  more  vividly  the  intimacy  of  that  relation  in 
which  it  is  his  privilege  to  stand  to  the  Cod  of  heaven 
and  earth.  This  intimacy  of  relationship  he  can  re 
present  only  by  calling  to  his  aid  the  idea  of  marriage 
— the  closest  of  earthly  connections.  It  is  not.  indeed, 
in  the  writings  of  Hosea  that  we  first  find  this  idea  so 
employed:  Init  in  these  writings,  and  in  every  part  of 
them,  though  chiefly  at  the  commencement,  it  stands 
out  with  such  prominence  as  to  constitute  it  their  most 
marked  characteristic. 

It  is  well  to  observe  the  different  aspects  in  which 
the  Divine  Being  is  contemplated  liy  the  several  pro 
phets;  for  as  these  i;ivat  teachers  of  the  olden  time 
spoke  and  wrote  only  when  and  what  they  were  moved 
liy  the  divine  Spirit  to  speak  and  to  write,  and  thus  put 
their  whole  souls  into  all  they  uttered,  we  find  that 
there  is  just  such  diversity  in  their  modes  of  conceiving 
and  presenting  the  divine  character,  as  we  might 
expect  from  the  diversities  iii  their  own  individual 
tendencies  and  sympathies.  This  divt  r-;tv  is  vcrv 
marked  in  I  Insea  and  Am»s.  The  sublime  d<  .-oription.- 
i'f  the  maje-ty  and  unapproachable  ulory  of  (n.d  which 
we  meet  wit!)  in  the  latter,  are  not  found  in  the  former. 
Am.  iv.  13;  v.s,ic.;ix. '.,;;.  Why'  l'.c-cau>e  that  was  not 
the  aspect  of  the  divine  character  on  which  Hosea 
dwelt  most  fondly.  He  delighted  rather  to  conti  mplate 
Cod  in  his  nearness  and  love  to  his  people;  in  the  close 
and  endearing  relationship  which  he  had  form., I  with 
them:  in  his  long-suttering  and  tender  companion 
drawing  them  with  the  cords  of  lo\e,  with  the  i>ands  of 
a  man.  healing  their  hack>lidin_r.  and  >till  continuing 
to  love  them  even  when  they  had  ca>t  him  oil'  and 
"were  following  afier  other  lovers."  This  aspect  of 
the  divine  character  is  liv  no  means  wanting  in  Amos, 
ch.ii.ii;  iii.  i;  vii  :t, ii;  hut  it  is  evidently  not  the  aspecl  in 
the  contemplation  of  wliich  that  prophet  had  most 

delight.  Hi-  svinpathies  were  with  the  more  LTraild. 
and  majestic,  and  awful  manifestations  of  Cod.  Ac 
cordingly  he  never  uses  the  word  /<»'<  (3,-!N  TDrK1  in 
de-cribing  (Joel's  relation  to  Israel:  as  Hosea  so  t're- 
(lllelltlv  does.  rh.  iii  L;ix.  1.'.;  xi  1,1;  MV  ...  He  rarely  de- 
scrilies  .leliovah  as  the  (  !od  of  Israel.  Am.  iv.  ]•.';  ix.  i:..  l>ut 
very  fre([iientlv  as  Cod  of  hosts,  which  i-  altoovther  a 
favourite  appellation  with  him:  whereas  with  Ho>ea 
such  expressions  as  mil  '/•,«/.  tlni  '"«/  the  pronoun 
having  reference  to  Israel — occur  no  fewer  than  seven 
teen  times,  while  <ri»l  i>f  lnmt*  is  found  only  once,  di.  \ii. 
iii'')).  It  is  for  the  same  reason  that  the  name  Adonai.  so 
often  used  liv  Amos,  is  altogether  wanting  in  Hosea. 

Such,  then,  was  the  aspect  of  the  divine  character, 
to  present  which  in  a  very  striking  and  arresting  man 
ner  to  the  church  and  to  the  world,  Hosea  was  specially 
raised  up  and  endowed.  He  was  hy  nature  of  a  gentle 
and  tender  spirit;  his  heart  .formed  to  love.  He  was 
not  a  man  of  action,  like  Amos,  but  of  contemplation: 
in  this  respect,  as  in  some  others,  hearing  to  that  older 
prophet  a  relation  somewhat  resembling  that  of  Ezekicl 
to  Jeremiah.  The  Divine  Spirit,  who  imparts  to  each 
severally  as  he  will,  had  endowed  him  with  these  ten 
dencies  and  dispositions,  that  he  might  be  a  fitting 
instrument  for  receiving  and  communicating  a  deep  and 
lively  impression  of  the  love  of  Jehovah  to  his  people. 


/  HOSEA 

In  the  first  three  chapters  we  have  an  account  of  the 
mode  in  -which  it  pleased  Cod  to  call  him  to  be  his  pro 
phet.  These  chapters  have  long  been  a  source  of  per 
plexity  to  commentators;  and  very  different  views  have 
been  taken  of  the  transactions  recorded  in  them. 

To  understand  them  it  is  necessary  first  of  all  to  con 
sider  that  the  prophet  stood  in  the  place  (if  Jehovah: 
that  the  word  he  spoke  was  not  his  own  but  Jehovah's; 
and  that  in  order  to  speak  with  power  and  success,  he 
must  have  a  deep  insight  into  the  relation  between  Je 
hovah  and  his  people — must  realize,  so  far  as  possible, 
in  his  own  experience,  the  nature  and  the  conditions  of 
that  relation.  Hence  a  vision  of  Jehovah  usually  ac 
companied  the  call  of  each  prophet.  ]>  \i  ;Jc.i.;  K/,c.  i.  ii.; 
Am.  vii.;  the  effect  of  such  vision  being  to  impart  to  the 
mind  of  the  prophet,  in  the  most  lively  and  impressive 
manner,  a  knowledge  of  the  being  and  character  of 
Jehovah,  and  specially  of  such  aspects  of  his  character 
as  He  de-iu'iied  by  tli-  instrumentality  of  his  prophet 
to  ma  infest  more  clearly  to  the  world. 

Now.  the  revelation  which  Cod  designed  to  make  by 
the  lips  of  Ho-,.a.  related  chiefly  to  the  close  union 
between  himself  and  Israel,  the  unfaithfulness  of  Israel 
to  the  duties  arising  out  of  that  union,  and  the  course 
of  discipline  by  means  of  which  he  purposed  to  bring 
his  pe,  ,p!e  to  repentance  and  reunion  with  himself. 
And  in  order  that  the  prophet  miuht  himself  have,  and 
be  able  to  convey  to  others,  a  lively  .-elise  of  these 
thini:-.  thi  v  wen-  imparted  to  him  not  as  naked  truths, 
but  clothed  in  a  pictorial  representation— earthly  rela 
tions  and  transactions  being  employed  to  symbolize  the 
divine  and  heavenly.  Instead  of  having  revealed  to 
him  that  Israel  had  proved  unfaithful  to  Jehovah,  and 
gone  after  other  gods,  he  i>  told  to  take  to  himself  an 
-•;»;:  -•£ :x  c.-'/i  i  tli  -.1  ii>iitin<  i.  because  it  is  only  by  so  doing 

that  lie  ''an  become  a  tittin-j-  representative  of  J.-hoval; 
in  his  relation  t»  the  church  of  that  day.  cli.  i.  2.  Ami 
in.-tead  of  then  Milt-  of  Israel's  apostasy  bein-  declared 
to  him  in  plain  terms,  he  is  supposed  to  have  children 
by  his  unfaithful  wife,  and  lie  is  commanded  to  give 
them  names  descriptive  of  these  results.  The  whole  is 
simplv  a  revelation  in  symbolical  action  of  the  unfaith- 
tulness  of  Israel  and  its  certain  and  terrible  consequences. 
It  is  not  neccr-.-ary  to  suppose,  as  many  commentators 
have  done,  that  what  is  narrated  in  eh.  i.  and  iii.  really 
formed  part  of  the  outward  life-history  of  the  pro 
phet.  For  just  as  the  call  of  Uaiah  to  the  prophetic 
otlice  was  accompanied  by  the  vi>ioii  of  Jehovah  in  the 
templt — a- the  call  of  K/ekie]  was  accompanied  by  that 
other  remarkable  vision  which  he  de-cribes  in  the  first 
chapter  of  his  prophecy — so  there  i-  a  ^r'una  fac'u  pro 
bability  that  the  transactions  accompanying  the  call  of 
Hosea  also  took  place  in  vision  and  not  in  the  sphere 
of  real  life.  It  is  true  that  in  the  \isions  of  Isaiah  and 
Kzekiel  there  is  less  of  action  on  the  part  of  the  prophet 
himself:  but  that  does  not  appear  a  circumstance  of 
material  consequence.  Then;  is  more  or  less  of  action 
in  all.  K/ekicl,  for  example,  saw  a  hand  stretched  out, 
and  in  the  hand  was  a  written  roll,  which  he  was  com 
manded  to  eat:  and  he  says.  "  I  opened  my  mouth  and 
ate  the  roll,  and  it  was  in  my  mouth  as  honey  for  sweet 
ness,"  Kxc.  iii.  i-;j.  Now.  if  we  allow,  as  we  must  do,  that 
this  transaction  took  place  in  vision  and  not  in  reality, 
there  seems  710  good  reason  why  the  same  .supposition 
should  not  be  perfectly  legitimate  in  the  case  of  Hosea. 
The  object  of  both  transactions  was  the  same.  The 


HUSK  A 


HOSKA 


eating  dl  the  roll  represented  the  taking'  into  the  heart 
of  the  prophet  the  truth  which  the  roll  contained, 
K/e.  iii.  lo  And  so  Hosea's  taking  to  himself  au  rvi'N 

C'J^T  (<'xli<-tlt  zcniriiiiii)  was  a  sign  of  his  perfect  realisation 

of  the  truth  regarding  Jehovah  and  Israel,  which  he 
was  sent  to  teach,  and  also  a  means  of  presenting  that 
truth  more  vividly  and  etl'ecti\ e]  v  to  others.  Ho.  \ii.  11  (In). 
That  this  view  is  quite  admissible,  and  may  lie  taken 
without  any  violence  t<i  the  language  of  the  prophet, 
is  allowed  even  l>y  Bishop  Horslev.  notwithstanding 
Ins  decided  advocacy  of  the  opposite  view.  And  not  a 
few  similar  transactions  we  tind  narrated  in  the  writ 
ings  of  the  prophets,  which  no  judicious  interpreter 
believes  to  have  taken  place  otherwise  than  in  vision, 
Is.  xx.;  Kze.  iv. 

In  this  symbolical  representation  the  principal  parties 
are  the  prophet  and  Gomer,  the  daughter  of  Diblaim, 
the  female  whom  lie  takes  to  wife.  There  is  no  IV;I>'>M 
why  the  latter  should  not  be  regarded  as  a  person  who 
actually  lived  at  that  time,  any  more  than  the  former. 
She  may  have  been  one  whose  name  was  connected  in 
the  public  mind  with  those  lascivious  rites  which  we 
know  were  associated  with  the  then  prevalent  idolatries, 
ch.  iv.  i::,!4.  The  union  of  the  prophet  with  such  a  person 
as  a  symbol  of  the  relation  subsisting  between  God  and 
Israel,  must  surely  have  had  a  stirring  effect  on  the 
national  mind  of  Israel,  as  well  as  on  the  prophet's  own 
mind.  If  he  recoiled  from  and  loathed  such  a  union, 
what  must  Israel  be  before  God  ?  And  how  marvellous 
His  forbearance,  that  he  has  not  separated  himself 
altogether  and  for  ever  f mm  the  polluted  people;  nay. 
that  he  still  loves  them  and  has  thoughts  of  peace 
towards  them!  We  have  been  induced  to  take  this 
view  of  the  symbolical  wife  of  the  prophet,  by  the  failure 
of  all  attempts  to  give  an  explanation  of  her  name,  suit 
able  to  the  nature  and  design  of  the  vision  (see  Calvin's 
Commentary  on  Ilosea,  and  Ilerigstenber/s  Christology,  vol.  i.  p.  1st! 
of  the  Transl.) 

The  names  of  the  three  children  of  this  ill-assorted 
pair  are  ,/c  :rr<  /,  L'i-';'i/1i<ini<t  [not  lovedj.  and  L«-nnnni 
[not  my  people].  With  respect  to  the  name  Jezrcel, 
it  is  capable  of  a  double  signification,  according  as  it  is 
viewed  historically  or  etymologic-ally.  Viewed  histori 
cally,  the  name  Jezreel  calls  to  mind  the  bloody  deeds 
of  the  house  of  Ahab,  of  which  house  Jezreel  was  a 
favourite  residence,  and  the  bloody  vengeance  exacted 
by  the  hand  of  Jehu.  And  the  command  to  call  the 
chilil  by  this  name  was  intended  to  pre-intimate  that 
the  house  of  Jehu  would  speedily  perish  like  that  of 
Ahab,  which  Jehu  himself  had  destroyed,  and  that  even 
the  blood  of  the  house  of  Ahab  would  be  exacted  from 
them,  because  they  had  not  themselves  forsaken  but 
had  cleaved  to  the  sins  which  they  had  been  divinely 
appointed  to  punish,  ch.  i.  V-1  Viewed  etymologically, 
the  same  name  Jezreel  [ffu</  Kiiir.t],  contains  within  it  a 
prophecy  of  the  future  revival  of  Israel  and  the  scatter 
ing  abroad  of  the  divine  seed  over  the  whole  earth, 
eh.  ii.  a.)  (-2?,).  The  other  two  names,  Lo-nthama  and 
Lo-ummi,  are  of  more  general  import,  and  pre-intimate 
the  calamities  destined  to  overwhelm  and  destroy  the 
national  existence  of  Israel  in  consequence  of  their 
unfaithfulness  to  Jehovah;  Lo-ammi  coming  after  Lo- 
ri/Jta/iia,  as  indicative  of  a  more  formal  and  decisive 
repudiation.  And  the  predicted  change  of  these  names 

1  Some  think  there  is  a  reference  to  the  double  meaning  of 
Jezreel,  God  scatters  and  God  sou-a. 


I  into  liuJ/anin  and  Annul,  eh.  ii.:;d\  is  a  remarkable  and 
cheering  prophecy  of  the  unchanging  character  of  the 
love  of  Jehovah  and  the  everlasting  continuance  of  his 
church. 

The  vision  in  ch.  iii.  is  the-  complement  of  that  in 
eh.  i.  In  the  one  Israel's  fall  is  represented;  in  the 
other  Israel's  redemption  and  recovery  through  the  un- 
merited  Ian  of  Jehovah.  The  prophet  is  commanded, 
despite  the  proved  unfaithfulness  of  his  wife,  to  extend 
to  her  again  his  love,  and  to  buy  her  back  again.  He 
dues  so.  The  price  he  pays  is  the  price  of  a  slave,  an 
intimation  of  the  degradation  and  contempt  into  which 
Israel  had  fallen,  eh.  iii.  {-:>.  The  two  visions  are  very 
clearly  distinguished;  in  the  one,  the  guilt  of  Israel  being 
more  prominent  (eh.  i.  •>,  fur  the  land,  &c.);  in  the  other, 
the  love  of  Jehovah  (ch.  iii.  i,  according  to  the  love,  \c.( 
In  the  one  we  have  a  representation  of  the  church's 
paradise  lost;  in  the  other  of  paradise  regained,  and 
that  altogether  by  the  redeeming  grace  and  unquench 
able  love  of  Jehovah." 

The  arguments  against  the  realistic  view  of  these 
chapters  have  not  been  insisted  on,  as  they  lie  on  the 
surface.  They  will  be  found  briefly  but  emphatically 
stated  in  Calvin,  at  great  length  in  Hengstenberg's 
Clirixtoloitji.  It  may  be  noticed  here  that  Calvin  and 
others  regard  the  whole  rather  as  a  parable  than  a 
I'ision.  "Fieri  potest  ac  probabile  est,  ut  propheta; 
nulla  fuerit  objecta  visio;  sed  tantum  Deus  proninlgari 
jussei'it  hoc  mandatum."  This  he  says,  in  answer  1<> 
the  objection,  that  if  the  transactions  were  in  vision 
only,  they  would  avail  nothing  for  the  instruction  of 
the  people.  But  the  objection  has  no  weight.  The 
vision,  accompanying  as  it  did  the  call  of  Ilosea  to  be 
a  prophet,  was  intended  principally  for  his  instruction. 
But,  like  other  visions,  it  was  no  less  instructive  to  the 
people,  when  communicated  to  them.  God  was  accus 
tomed  to  speak  to  his  prophets  in  vision,  Nu.  xii.  n,  but 
for  the  benefit  of  the  people.  Indeed  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  regard  the  two  views  as  anta^oni>tic. 
For  what  was  a  vision  to  the  prophet  became  a  parable 
to  the  people. 

The  various  views  which  have  been  taken  of  this  dif 
ficult  portion  of  Scripture  will  be  found  stated  with 
great  clearness  and  impartiality  by  the  learned  Pococke 
in  his  Commentary  on  Iftwa  (p.  •>-;,).  He  concludes 
the  review  as  follows:-  "These  are  the  chief  opinions 
concerning  the  acceptation  of  these  words,  of  which, 
seeing  each  is  backed  by  great  authority,  and  the  inain- 
tainers  thereof  will  not  yield  'to  one  another's  reasons, 
but  keep  to  their  own  way,  and  accuse  those  that  go 
otherwise  either  of  boldness  or  blindness,  and  some  very 
learned  men  have  not  dared  positively  to  determine  in 
the  matter,  it  must  be  still  left  to  the  considering  reader 
to  use  his  own  judgment;  only  with  this  caution,  that 
lie  conceive  nothing  unworthy  of  God  or  unbeseeming 
his  holy  prophet,  nor  draw  from  the  word  any  unsa 
voury  or  unhandsome  conclusions." 

It  only  remains  to  notice  that  Ewald  endeavours  to 
combine  the  two  leading  views  upon  this  subject,  by 
recognizing  a  slight  historical  basis  underlying  a  narra 
tive  which  is  in  the  main  symbolical.  His  opinion  is 
that  Gomer  was  the  actual  wife  of  the  prophet,  who 
was  thus  prepared  for  the  mission  assigned  to  him  by 
the  bitter  experiences  of  his  own  domestic  life. 

-  If  the  view  we  have  taken  of  these  chapters  is  correct,  it  is 
of  little  consecjuence  whether  we  suppose  the  woman  of  eh.  iii. 
to  be  Gomer  the  daughter  of  Diblaim  or  a  different  person. 


HOSEA  I 

Of  the  second  division  of  the  prophecies  of  Hosea, 
ch.  iv.-xk.,1  we  have  not  space  even  to  offer  a  brief 
analysis.  To  the  Hebrew  student  they  present  not  a 
few  difficulties;  yet  their  general  import  is  sufficiently 
obvious.  They  are  just  an  expansion  or  commentary 
OH  the  visions  of  the  first  part;  the  dark  future  being 
the  nearest,  occupying  much  the  larger  part,  but  the 
bright  becoming  more  and  more  prominent  towards  the 
close,  until  in  the  concluding  verses  it  spreads  itself 
over  the  prophet's  whole  range  of  vision,  and  he  exults 
in  the  anticipation  of  the  peace  and  joys  of  the  latter 
days.  Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  assign 
these  chapters  to  different  periods  in  the  life  of  Hosea, 
but  without  much  success.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  origin  of  the  various  parts  of  the  prophecy,  it  is 
evident  that,  as  they  now  stand,  they  form  part  of  a 
well  connected  whole,  in  \\hic-b  we  cannot  Fail  to  ob 
serve  a  definite  aim  and  regular  M-(|iience  in  the  train 
of  thought.  Still,  it  mii-t  be  allowed,  that  some  of  the 
sections,  such  as  the  f;r>t,  ,h.r.  ,  are  marked  by  pecu 
liarities  which  seem  to  indicate  that  prophecies  of  dif 
ferent  dates  have  been  brought  together  and  wrought 
up  into  one  composition.  It  has  been  remarked,  for 
example,  that  the  view  taken  of  the  character  and 
destinies  of  .ludali  is  more  favourable  towards  the  com 
meiiceineiit  of  the  book  than  in  the  fifth  and  subsequent 
chapters.  And  while  the  fir.-t  chapter  evid--ntlv  belongs 
to  tlie  rei^-n  of  Jeroboam  II..  the  historical  allusion  in 
ch.  \.  ]  I,  it  tin;  Shalinaii  tin-re  mentioned  is  the  -aim- 
as  the  Shalinan.-/.er  if  the  hi.-torical  books,  brinu-  u> 
down  to  a  much  later  pci  iod. 

The  character  of  Hosea  as  a  writer  corresponds  vcrv 
much  with  his  theme.  His  composition  abounds  with 
those  soft  and  gentler  beauties  which  are  the  proper 
ornaments  of  a  work,  the  leading  them.-  .,f  which  is 
Jehovah's  love.  Wha'  can  I..-  more  >wvet  and  exqni-ite 
than  the  contrasted  comparisons  we  tneet  with  in  ch. 
vi.  :'>,  1  '  "//(.<  g.iin-  forth  is  prepared  as  the  morning. 

and    he  shall   come   to  us  as  the  rain.  >v<- }"«///• 

goodness  is  as  the  morning  cloud,  and  as  the  earlv  de\\ 
it  goeth  away."  So  ch.  xiii.  '.'>;  xiv.  ."i-7.  These  ^ent  lei- 
tendencies  are  bv  no  nn-ans  inconsi-teiit.  nav.  they  are 
u-nially  found  in  union,  with  a  highly  impassioned  nature; 
and  of  this  we  discover  frequent  trae.-  in  the  writings  of 
Hosea.  His  lanuiiauv  i>  inm-e  poetical  than  that  of  most 
of  the  prophets;  hence  tin-  frequent  ellipses  and  sudden 
transitions,  and  the  copious  use  of  words  and  forms  of 
construction  which  distinguish  th--  poetic  stvle,  eh.  v.  n; 
vi.  1;  vii.2;  viii.  r.';  x  l,n  There  are  also  some  traces  of  an 
Aramean  influence,  which  may  be  accounted  for  by  bis 
birth  and  residence  in  the  northern  kingdom. - 

As  Hosea  shows  an  intimate  acquaintance  with,  and 
a  close  dependence  upon,  the  law  of  Moses  and  other 
scriptures  written  before  his  time,  so  the  prophets  which 
succeeded  him  evidence,  by  their  allusions  to  his  writ 
ings,  the  high  estimation  and  authority  in  which  these 
writings  were  held  by  them,  comp.  ch.  ii.  2  (i  ID  with  K  xi. 
1L',  13;  iv.  :;\vith/cp.  i.  :!;  iv.  liwitli  Is.  v.  I.1!:  vii.  in  with  Is.  ix.  I'J,  13,  x.  12 
with  .le.  iv. :;,  Xi-.  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  especially  show 
themselves  familial'  with  his  prophecy. 

The   references   to  Hosea  in  the  New  Testament  are 

1  Kwahl  reirards  di.  iv.-xiv.  us  an  expansion  of  ch.  iii.;  in 
wliicli  view  he  is  followed  by  Dr.  Pusey. 

-  Mark  tlie  frequent  occurrence  nf  two  verbs  in  apposition  in 
the  same  tense,  &c. ,  without  any  connecting  p.irtielo,  which  is 
much  more  common  in  Syriac  than  in  Hebrew,  ch.  i.  (j;  v.  11,  \t>, 
<tc.;  see  also  x.  11.  14;  xi  8. 


HOSPITALITY 

numerous,  Mat.  ii.  15;  ix.  13  ;  xii.  7;  Lu.  xxiii.  30;  Uo.  ix.  25,  20;  1  Co. 
xv.  55;  1  Te.  ii.  10;  and  they  are  of  great  value  to  the  student 
of  prophecy  as  illustrations  of  the  connection  between 
the  Old  and  Xew  Testaments.  They  show  us  how, 
from  the  writings  of  this  Jewish  prophet,  our  Lord  and 
his  apostles  deduced  some  of  the  sublimest  revelations 
of  the  Christian  dispensation. 

|()u  Hosea  the  student  may  consult  Pococke,  Ilorsley,  Hen 
del-sou,  Pu>ey;  also  Hen^stenberg's  C '/, ,-ifl,,li /;///,  \ol.  i.;  Kwald 
on  the  l>,;,t,lM.-i;  and  the  /,<(,W<<c,'i-<,,*J.  |i..  a.  w.J 

2.  HOSEA  (or  Hosm-.O.  The  la>t  king  of  Israel: 
who  was  the  son  of  Elah,  and  having  conspired  against 
the  reigning  king  I'ekah  lie  obtained  possession  of  the 
throne,  lint  his  ill-gotten  possession  was  not  long  re 
tained:  for  the  misunderstandings  which  had  arisen  be 
tween  Israel  and  Assyria  reached  a  crisis,  and  in  tin- 
ninth  year  of  Hoshea's  reign,  Shalmanc/.er  kiiii;-  of  As- 
.-yria  came  with  a  great  force  against  Hoshe.-i.  bt--ie-e.| 
his  capital  and  took  it,  and  put  a  final  end  to  the  kin- 
doin.  The  cup  of  iniquity  had  become  full  both  with 
the  king  and  the  people  of  Israel;  and  the  wrath  of 
Heaven  fell  on  them  to  the  uttermost.  This  catastrophe 
took  place,  according  to  the  common  computation,  H.c. 
7-21.  L-K:  x,  i 

HOSPITALITY,  is  very  strongly  commended  in 
Scripture,  both  by  example  and  by  precept.  The  pa 
triarchs  of  early  times  are  set  forth  as  eminent  patterns 
of  it,  and  believers  in  the  apostolic  auv  are  exhorted  to 
tread  in  this  respect  in  their  footsteps.  Those  raised  to 
the  higher  offices  in  the  Christian  church  wen-  required, 
among  other  qualifications,  to  be  "given  to  hospitality." 
to  be  know  11  eVell  as  "  lovers"  of  it,  1  Ti.  iii.  2  ;  Ti.  i.  >;  and  the 
members  -vnerallv  of  the  Christian  community  were1 
enjoined  to  "use  hospitality  one  to  another  without 
-nidifing,"  or,  a<  it  is  again  put,  to  be  "  not  forgetful 
to  entertain  >trair_ri  r-."  i  I1.-  iv.  U;  II.-  xiii.  2  Hospitality 
is  a  virtue  which  will  always  more  or  less  di>tiii'_ruish 
men  of  humane  minds  and  charitable  dispositions,  lint 
the  extent  to  which  it  requires  to  be  exercised,  and  the 
place  it  mav  be  said  to  hold  aniono-  the  relative  and 
social  virtues,  will  necessarily  depend  on  circumstances. 
It,  will  vary  according  to  the  state  of  society  in  general, 
and  the  actual  position  of  individual  members  of  it. 
In  the  ruder  states  of  society,  when  communication  is 
>low.  and  the  public  means  of  accommodation  provided 
for  persons  moving  from  one  region  to  another  are 
scanty  and  insufficient,  the  rights  anil  claims  of  hos 
pitality  assume  a  kind  of  primary  place;  society  can 
hardly  exist  wit  bout  them:  and  any  flagrant  violation  of 
them  cannot  fail  to  be  regarded  as  a  great  social  enor 
mity.  Hence  even  the  wild  and  predatory  Aral  is  culti 
vate  hospitalitv,  and  the  stranger  among  them  counts 
himself  safe  when  he  has  been  admitted  to  the  privi 
leges  of  a  o-uest.  "  In  every  village  there  is  a  public 
room,  called  a  incnzil  or  metidafc/i,  devoted  to  the 
entertainment  of  strangers.  The  guest  lodges  in  the 
meii/il,  and  his  food  is  supplied  by  the  families  to  whose 
circle  it  belongs.  Sometimes  they  take  turns  in  his 
entertainment;  at  other  times  it  is  left  to  those  who 
offer  themselves,  or  rather  who  claim  the  privilege'.  If 
the  guest  be  a  person  of  consequence,  it  is  a  matter  of 
course,  that  a  sheep,  or  goat,  or  lamb  is  killed  for  him. 
The  guest  o-iyes  nothing  as  a  remuneration  when  he 
leaves.  To  offer  money  would  be  taken  as  an  insult; 
and  to  receive  it  would  be  a  great  disgrace.  Such 
(says  Robinson,  ii.  p.  3ir),  is  universally  the  manner  of  en- 
tainment  in  the  villages  throughout  the  provinces  of 


noru:- 


HOUSE 


Jerusalem  and  Hebron,  us  well  as  in  other  ]>!irts  of 
Syria."  But  as  eivili/.ation  advances,  and  the  speed 
and  conveniences  of  travel  increase,  other  arrangements 
to  a  large  extent  take  the  place  that  in  ruder  times  is 
supplied  by  the  rites  of  hospitality.  Without  inconi 
modin^  private  families,  people  can  usually  get  !'t  ;l 
moderate  expense  the  temporary  accommodation  and 
refreshments  they  need:  and  as  tin-  general  comfort  and 
well-being  nf  society  very  materially  depend  nn  these, 
it  hemmes  a  duty  one  owes  to  society,  as  well  as  a 
matter  of  personal  convenience  to  avail  one's  self  of 
them.  Still,  opportunities  will  often  occur  in  which 
Christian  kindness  and  liberality  can  be  fitly  exercised 
by  the  hospitable  entertainment  of  strangers.  And  in 
particular  localities,  as  well  as  on  special  occasions, 
believers  may  sometimes  find  themselves  so  situated, 
that  the  duties  of  hospitality  assume  nearly  the  same 
importance  which  belonged  to  them  in  earlier  times. 
But  such  cases  must  now  be  regarded  as  somewhat 
exceptional. 

HOURS.     ,S,  -DAY. 

HOUSE.  The  house  is  contrasted  in  Scripture  with 
the  tent,  as  indicative  of  that  which  is  permanent,  in  op 
position  to  that  which  admits  of  being  readily  moved 
from  ] place  to  place.  _<  Sa.  vii.  5-7.  It  signifies  a  dwelling- 
place  for  men  or  cattle,  or  parts  of  such  dwellings: 
the  palace  of  a  king  or  the  temple  of  a  god:  and  in  a 
figurative  wav  is  put  for  a  man's  family,  kindred, 
people,  or  posterity.  (Jesenius  says  that  in  (le.  xxxiii. 
17,  it  is  put  for  a  tent  to  dwell  in,  but  we  consider 
that  it  has  there  its  usual  sense.  It  is  however  often 
applied  to  God's  house  while  that  house  was  yet  a  tent 

or  tabernacle.  K\.  xxiii.  Hi;  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,)).  M\ 
The  permanent  house  was  built  long  before  the  tent 
came  into  use.  The  tent  was  first  devised  by  Jabal, 
the  fifth  in  direct,  descent  from  (Jain,  Go.  iv.  20;  while 
we  read  of  Cain  himself  building  a  city,  Oe.  iv.  17.  (Jain's 
fear  probably  led  him  to  change  the  simple  and  isolated 
form  of  dwellings  into  something  more  compact  and 
city-like.  From  the  very  first  the  dwelling-house  was 
known  to  men,  Gc.  iv.  7. 

Of  what  kind  the  earliest  houses  were,  very  different 
ideas  will  be  formed,  according  to  men's  notions  of  the 
primitive  state  of  man.  The  idea  of  the  rude  wig 
wam  or  the  dark  cave  as  his  original  dwelling  is 
simply  absurd.  The  poetic  descriptions  of  such  suit 
very  well  to  the  rude  tribes  who  have  from  time  to 
time  broken  off'  from  the  centres  of  civilization  and 
quickly  degenerated,  but  they  by  no  means  accord  with 
the  notions  we  are  warranted  to  form  of  mankind 
before  the  flood,  nor  of  mankind  for  some  time  subse 
quent  to  that  event.  If  building  be  an  art  attendant 
upon  civilization,  we  would  attribute  a  high  proficiency 
in  it  to  men  sprung  from  Adam  the  divinely  constituted 
head  of  mankind,  and  who  displayed  their  own  claim 
to  its  possession  by  their  inventions  in  many  of  the  arts 
that  indicate  a  high  state  of  civilization,  Ge.  iv.  21,  22.  In 
the  building  of  the  ark,  for  which  Noah  derived  no  as 
sistance  from  God  beyond  its  plan,  Ge.  vi.  14-10,  we  see 
the  great  constructive  skill  of  the  antediluvian  age  ; 
and  in  the  conception  and  partial  execution  of  the  vast 
architectural  idea  in  the  plain  of  Shinar,  Ge.  xi.  3,  4,  we 
may  well  imagine  a  building  before  whose  vastness 
the  pyramids  would  look  diminutive,  and  a  city  whose 
general  architecture  may  be  supposed  to  have  borne 
some  proportion  to  its  tower.  It  is  no  objection  to  this 
to  say  that  they  were  to  be  built  only  of  brick.  These 


ancients  understood  how  tip  prepare  that  material  in 
the  most  perfect  way,  <;e.  \i'. '.;,  and  of  the  lasting  nature 
of  such  brick  we  have  abundant  testimony  (1'liny,  Xat. 
History,  i)  xxxv.  ch.  no.  From  this  period  men  were  scat 
tered,  and  not  infrequently  sunk  into  a  degenerate 
state:  whence,  as  a  matter  of  course,  came  a  decay  in 
tin'  art  of  building,  until  at  last  in  some  places  the 
rude  hunter  was  reduced,  to  the  hut  or  cavern,  from 
which  it  required  a  fresh  influx  of  eivili/cd  ideas  to 
raise  him.  In  other  places,  however,  we  have  frequent 
mention  of  cities,  and  these  of  such  renown  that  their 
names  have  come  down  to  our  time.  We  read  of 
Babel,  and  Krech.  and  Accad,  and  Calneh,  in  the  land 
of  Shinar;  of  Nineveh,  and  Kohohoth,  and  Calali,  and 
great  Resen  :  of  Sidon.  the  earliest  of  commercial  cities 
— as  the  architectural  productions  of  the  first  genera 
tions  after  the  Hood. 

It  was  in  a  land  familiar  with  the  permanent  house 
and  city  that  Abram,  the  father  of  the  chosen  people, 
was  born  and  brought  up,  Uu.xi.3i.  God's  call  removed 
him  from  the  house  to  the  tent.  Ge.  xii.  1,  from  the  land 
where  his  fathers  had  possession,  to  where  he  himself 
had  none.  Ac.  vii.  r>.  Hence  he  lived  a  nomade  life', 
"dwelling  in  tabernacles  with  Isaac  and  Jacob."  But 
neither  he  nor  his  children  were  unfamiliar  with  the 
house  as  a  fixed  abode.  In  Egypt  when  they  went 
down  to  sojourn  there,  and  in  Canaan  where  they  chiefly 
sojourned,  they  saw  the  cities  of  Pharaoh  and  of  the 
plain,  Ge.  xii.  id;  .\\iii.2o;  and  we  have  reason  to  believe 
that  Abraham  occasionally  lived  in  a  house,  Ge.  xvii.  27. 
It  is  probable  also  that  Isaac  in  his  old  age  lived  in  one, 
GO.  xxvii.  i~>.  Y\  e  have  ne.  doubt  that  Jacob  not  only 
lived  for  a  time  in  a  house,  as  distinguished  from  a 
tent,  but  that  he  himself  built  a  house  for  his  dwelling, 
Go.  xxxiii.  17.  Whence  we  may  conclude,  that  while  the 
tent  was  the  usual  domicile  of  the  patriarchs,  they  were 
familiar  with  the  idea  of  the  house,  and  would  probably 
have  preferred  such  a  habitation  if  they  could  have 
bad  their  choice.  When  the  family  of  Jacob  went  to 
settle  in  Kgypt  until  the  time  of  the  exodus,  they  came 
into  a  land  of  majestic  buildings  and  great  architectural 

skill  (Wilkinson,  Ane.  Egypt,  iii.  24D-332;  oh.  ix.  andx.)  In  the 
works  executed  in  Egypt  during  the  sojourn  of  Israel, 
it  is  thought  the  Israelites  took  an  important  part. 
Very  much  of  this  indeed  was  the  drudgery  of  the  com 
mon  labourer.  Ex.  i.  14;  but  employed  as  they  were  in  the 
erection  of  the  treasure  cities  of  Pithom  and  (Jameses, 
it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  they  were  not  unacquainted 
with  skilled  workmanship,  Ex.  i.  n.  When  they  yot. 
possession  of  Canaan  they  came  into  a  land  of  great 
and  goodly  cities,  and  houses  full  of  all  good  things, 
DC.  vi.  in,  11 ;  Xu.  xiii.  2\  We  have  thus  reason  to  believe 
that  the  Israelites,  on  assuming  the  place  of  an  inde 
pendent  nation,  were  by  no  means  ignorant  of  architec 
ture.  The  general  plan  and  style  of  their  structures 
would  hence  naturally  be  derived  from  the  buildings 
of  Egypt  and  Canaan,  which  in  their  more  important 
features  resembled  each  other,  though  there  were  dif 
ferences,  as  we  shall  hereafter  note.  In  one,  but  that 
the  greatest  i pf  all  their  buildings,  Israel  copied  after 
no  model,  whether  of  Egypt,  Canaan,  or  Phoenicia. 
The  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness  was  erected  after 
the  pattern  shown  by  God  himself,  Ex.  xxv.  r»;  and 
Solomon's  temple  in  its  central  part  was  built  after  the 
model  of  the  tabernacle,  with  a  fitting  enlargement  of 
the  proportions.  The  part  which  the  Tynans  took  in 
this  building  is  often  exaggerated,  to  the  unjust  de- 


HOUSE  7(51 

preciation  <>f  tlu-  Israelites.  The  magnificent  idea  of 
the  building  and  its  various  details  \veiv  with  the  divine 
help  conceived  by  David,  and  by  him  communicated 
to  Solomon,  it'll,  xxviii.  2,11,12.  It  was  by  Solomon's  direc 
tions  that  the  work  proceeded  in  its  various  stages, 
1  Ki.  v.  17.  It  was  Solomon's  officers  who  presided  over 
and  regulated  the  work,  i  Ki.  v  ir,,  and  it  was  Solo 
mon's  workmen  who  executed  far  the  greater  and  chief 
parts  of  its  details. 

A    comparison    of    the    houses    depicted    on    ancient 
monuments  and  the  ancient   buildings  of   Kgvpt.  with 
modern  oriental   houses,    affords   the   most   satisfactory 
if  not  the  only  means  of  illustrating  the  house  of  the 
Bible.       Between    these    ancient    and    modern    houses 
there    is   a   strong    similarity.       When    a    traveller   in 
Palestine  describes  a  house  of   the    present   dav,  he  de 
scribes  very  much  what  existed  in  the  age 
of  our  Lord,  or  in  still  more  ancient  times. 
Tlie  climate,    which   is  one   ureat  cause   of 
the  architectural  arrangements  of  different 
countries,  is  the  same,  and   the  unchanging 
habits  of  tin-    Kast   have   always   been    pro 
verbial.       Intense  heat  and  absence  of   rain 
prevail  during  the  trivater  part  of  the  year: 
heavy    rains,     however,     fall    at    particular 
seasons,  and  the-  cold  is  occasionally  severe. 
These  circumstances,  combined  with  a  love 
ot  seclusion  and  privacy,  give  their  prevail 
ing  characteri.-tics  to  the  dwellings  of  Syria  and  Pales 
tine.      Mere  of  course  as  elseu  here  theiv  i>  every  variety 
of  house,  according  to  the  \ar\in-  requirements  of  city, 
of  country,  or  the  circumstances   of   the   owners;   from 
the  house  of  several  stories  and  numerous  chambers,  to 

that  \\hichhas  but  the  ground  tl •  and  a  single  apart  - 

ment.  The  references  in  Scripture  an-  natuiallv  made 
for  the  most  part  to  houses  of  the  better  order,  but  we 
must  not  leave  out  of  view  the  more  numerous  houses 
of  an  inferior  kind.  In  the  whole  ,,f  them,  however, 
we  find  some  leading  characteristics,  distinguishing 
them  all  alike  from  the  houses  of  northern  climates. 

The  exterior,  of  a  dwelling-house  of  the  better  kind 
in  Pale-tine  is  for  the  most  part  plain  and  unattractive, 
having  but  few  openings,  or  such  projections  as  serve 
to  uive  relief  and  variety  to  ihe  appearance.  The  part 
that  looks  to  the  street  presents  only  dull  L'ray  walls. 

with  nothing  to  relieve  them  but  the  d -way  leading 

into    the    court,    and    two    or    three    latticed    windows. 
The   roof   is   commonly  flat,    has  never  any  chimneys, 
and  does  not  overhair.'  th--  external  walls.     The  ground 
plan  is  usually  a  parallelogram,  or  a  series  of  parallelo 
grams,   the   house  consisting  of   one  or  several   courts, 
arranged   solely  with   reference   to   the  convenience  of  ; 
the   interior,    and   regardle  s   of    external    appearance.  I 
though  the  result  is  generally  highly  picturesque.      The 
various   apartments   enter  directly   from   the  court  or 


HOUSE 

dislike  to  many  stories,  naturally  endeavour,  when  in 
creased  accommodation  is  wanted,  to  gain  their  object 
by  extending  their  buildings  horizontally.  The  corre 
spondence  between  this  general  description  and  the 
houses  of  ancient  Nineveh,  engraving  No.  ?>3~>.  will  be 
at  once  apparent.  \Ve  will  now  consider  in  detail  the 
several  parts  of  which  eastern  houses  are  composed. 

The  Purcli  was  a  very  unusual  feature  in  the  houses 
of  ancient  Palestine,  if  indeed  it  was  then  in  use  at  all. 
Kxcept  in  the  case  of  the  temple  and  of  Solomon's 
palace,  we  find  no  reference  to  its  use  in  any  part 
of  the  Old  Testament.  1  Ki.  vii.  c,  7  ;  2fh.  xv  s  ;  KZL-  xl  7.  It 
was  not  uncommon  in  Egyptian  houses,  however,  where 
it  was  sometimes  supported  on  two  columns  before  the 


Egyptian   r.,ivl,<-?.  f 


front  door,  and  sometimes  consisted  of  a  double  row  of 
columns,  between  which  were  often  placed  colossal 
statues  of  the  Kgyptiail  kings  OVilkinsn,,,  Am-ient  Kgypt. 
ii  mi,  11121.  Its  absence  from  the  houses  of  Palestine,  and 
the  great  probability  that  the  Hebrew  word  for  porch 
i-^N,  '/(taut)  has  no  root  in  the  Hebrew  language  (see 
us),  makes  it  most  probable-  that  the  word  is 
Egyptian;  e.\a/x  signifying  a  portico  in  (/optic  (Jablonski 
Optiscula,  vol.  i.  page  *:,),  and  the  porch  being  common  in 
Kgypt,  The  resemblance  of  the  porch  of  Solomon's 
house  of  the  forot  of  Lebanon  (a  porch  of  pillars, 
syn  chi\xSulamhaammiidim.\K.i  \-\\  in,  to  the  porches 


Houses,  fr.mi  tlu-  triumph  of  Rardanapalus  I ; ! 


courts  of  which  the  house  is  composed,  and  the  courts 
are  frequently  surrounded  in  whole  or  in  part  by 
wooden  galleries,  from  which  the  apartments  of  the 

upper  story  directly  enter.      The   orientals   having  a 
VOL.  I 


of  Kgypt.  renders  it  still  more  probable  that  the  idea  was 
derived  from  Egyptian  architecture.  In  the  only  place 
in  the  Old  Testament  where  we  read  in  the  authorized 
version  of  a  porch  as  attached  to  any  other  house  than 
the  temple  or  Solomon's  palace,  Ju.  iii  23.  the  word  in  the 
Hebrew  is  different  (niV^DE-  mii-ili  i-iinnli}.  Torch  is 

hen-  probably  an  incorrect  translation,  the  reference 
bein._r  in  all  likelihood  to  a  colonnade  which  ran  along 
the  outside  of  the  upper  room  of  Kglon's  palace,  and 
communicated  with  the  ground  by  a  staircase.  In  the 
New  Testament  we  read  in  the  authorized  version  of  a 
porch  attached  to  the  high  -priest's  palace,  Mat.  xxvi  71.  The 
Greek  word  here  (TTV\WI>)  however  probably  means  only 
the  gate,  as  it  does  in  the  other  places  where  it  occurs 
(fur  example,  Ac.  x.  17  ;  xii.  14;  xiv.  13  ;  Re.  xxi.  12).  In  .In.  V.  '2, 
we  read  of  five  porches  (o-rodr)  as  attached  to  the  pool 
of  Bethesda.  It  is  quite  plain  however  that  these  bore 
no  resemblance  to  the  porch  of  a  dwelling-house.  The 
ffrod  was  either  attached  to  a  temple,  a  colonnade  or 
cloisters,  or  was  a  distinct  building  used  as  a  place  of 
resort  in  the  heat  of  the  day  (Liddell  and  Scott's  Lexicon) 
Such  evidently  were  the  porches  of  Bethesda,  distinct 
from  any  house,  and  built  for  the  use  of  the  sick. 
The  porch  of  the  palace  was  a  place  of  judgment  for 
the  king,  i  Ki.  vii.  7.x  (.tyf  GATK.) 

96 


HOUSE 


HOUSE 


Tin    /km,-.      Of   the   Hebrew   words   for  the   door   we 
find  r^T  (i/ilit/i)  frequently  used  in  the  dual,  signifying 

then  generally  double  or  folding-doors  Hiescnins):  we  find 
the  other  words  u-ed  only  in  the  singular  ami  plural 
(FuerstV  The  door  consisted  of  the  threshold,  the  side- 
posts,  and  the  lintel.  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  <p\ia. 
is  put  in  the  Sept.  both  for  the  side-posts  and  the  lintel 
of  the  door,  and  it 
seems  to  be  used  in  both 
these  senses  in  classical 
writers  (Ltdde',1  and  Scott's 
Lexicon).  The  doors  were 
commonly  made  of 
wood,  and  \\ht-re  ureat 
expense  was  gone  to  this 
wood  was  sometimes 
the  cellar,  C'a.  viii.  :>;  but 
doors  made  of  single 
slabs  of  stone,  some 
inches  thick,  occasion 
ally  ten  feet  high,  and 
turning  on  stone  pivots, 
are  found  in  some  of 
the  old  houses  and  se 
pulchres  of  Syria  (Buck 
ingham's  Travels,  p.  170;  MaundreH,  in  Early  Travels  in  Palestine, 
P.  447,  448).  The  doorways  of  eastern  houses  are  some 
times  ornamented  in  a  very  rich  manner,  though  they 
are  generally  mean  in  appearance  even  when  leading 
to  sumptuous  dwellings.  Wilkinson  (Anc.  Egypt,  ii.  u.'i, 
ill,  ch.  v.)  gives  us  representations  of  different  Egyptian 
doorways,  some  of  those  in  the  tombs  being  charged 
with  a  profusion  of  ornament.  But  for  this,  and  the 
kind  of  locks  and  keys  usually  employed  for  gates  or 
doorways,  see  under  (T.VTF. 

77/i    Cinn-t   is    one  of   the  great   characteristics  of  the 
eastern  house.      Everv  house  has  one,    even  the  very 


1339  ]        Part  of  the  Court  of  a  private  house  in  Cairo. 
Fivm  u  sketch  by  E.  Fulkciu-r,  Esq. 

meanest  has  something  of  the  kind.  2Sa.  xvii.  ix  No.  viii.  i«; 

1  1,  1,  4,  Bro'ise  pivot  hinges.  3,  Basalt  socket  for  pivot. 
The  originals  of  figs.  1,  2,  3,  were  found  in  the  granite  sanctuary 
of  the  great  temple  at  Karnak. 


Robinson's  Bib.  Res.  ii  270,  sec.  :;.  Some  houses  have  one 
court,  others  two,  and  three  are  not  uncommon ;  as 
many  as  seven  arc  found  in  some  very  fine  houses  at 
1  >amascus:  large  buildings  such  as  convents  are  divided 
into  a  great  many  courts  opening  by  passages  into  one 
another  (l<»t>iusc>n,Hib.  Res.  i.  130;  Wilkinson,  Anc.  Kg.  ii.  101!,  KM). 
The  passage  from  the  doorway  into  the  court  is  usually 
so  contrived  that  no  view  can  be  had  from  the  street 
into  it;  this  is  sometimes  done  by  the  erection  of  a 
wall,  or  by  giving  a  turn  to  the  passage  that  It-ads 
into  the  court.  The  court  nearest  the  entrance-  of 
an  eastern  house  is  variously  arranged,  aecordino  as 
it  is  the  onlv  court,  or  as  it  is  the  first  of  two  or 
three.  We  shall  first  speak  of  houses  which  have 
but  one  court,  and  which  differ  very  much  from  one 
another  in  comfort  and  convenience.  The  court  in 
this  case  is  an  open  space  or  quadrangle,  round  which 
the  apartments  for  the  inmates,  and  in  country  places 
also  the  sheds  for  the  cattle,  are  arranged.  In  the 
very  poorest  of  these  there  is  merely  one  apartment, 
and  a  shed  for  cattle  (Robinson,  Bih.  Res.  ii.  27'j),  and  tin- 
court  or  yard  is  surrounded  with  a  hedge  of  thorny 
boughs.  A  house-  of  A  somewhat  better  description 
nsuallv  consisted  ()f  tin  court,  three  or  four  store- rooms 
on  the  ground  floor,  with  a  single  chamber  above,  to 
which  a  flight  of  steps  leads  from  the  court  (Wilkinson, 
Anc.  Kcypt.  ii.  u>7).  But  there  are  other  houses— though 
perhaps  they  are  not  very  commonly  to  be  met  with 
having  only  one  court,  of  a  far  superior  kind.  Enter 
ing  into  the  courtyard  you  see  around  you  a  number  of 
little  buildings,  not  deficient  in  convenience,  and  oc 
casionally  presenting  a  certain  air  of  elegance — though 
frequently  constructed  on  no  regular  plan.  In  these 
are  found  various  little  chambers,  one  piled  upon  the 
other,  the  half- roof  of  which  always  forms  a  terrace  for 
walking,  from  which  a  little  flight  of  steps  or  ladder 
leads  to  the  dwelling-house,  or  to  the  upper  terrace. 
This  court  is  well  paved:  on  one  side  doors  lead  to  the 
apartments  of  the  family,  and  on  the 
other  to  those  of  the  servants  inn-mer, 
Travels  in  Holy  Land,  i.  175).  Maundrell  (in 
Ivirly  Travels,  p.  I*--)  describes  the  eastern 
courts  in  Damascus  as  very  fine.  In 
them,  he  tells  us.  you  generally  find  a 
large  square  court,  beautified  with  a 
number  of  fragrant  trees  and  marble 
fountains,  and  compassed  round  with 
splendid  apartments  and  divans.  The 
divans  are  floored  and  adorned  on  the 
sides  with  a  variety  of  inlaid  marbles 
wrought  in  interlacing  patterns.  They 
are  placed  on  all  sides  of  the  court,  so 
that  at  one  or  other  of  them,  shade  or 
sunshine  can  always  be  enjoyed  at  plea 
sure.  In  the  summer  season,  or  when  a 
large  company  is  to  be  received,  the 
Court  is  usually  sheltered  from  the  heat 
and  inclemencies  of  the  weather  by  a 
curtain  or  awning,  which,  being  expanded 
upon  ropes  from  one  wall  to  the  other, 
may  be  folded  or  unfolded  at  pleasure 

(Shaw,  Travels,!.  374,  376).     To  this  Dr.  Shaw 

supposes  the  psalmist  to  refer  when  he 
speaks  of  God  as  spreading  out  the  heavens  like  a 
curtain,  I's.  civ.  2.  At  the  side  of  the  court,  opposite 
to  tho  entrance,  is  placed  the  public  reception-room, 
or  guest-chamber,  Lu.  xxii  n,  open  in  front,  and  sup- 


HOUSE 


763 


HOUSE 


ticular  account  in  tho  .-equel.      When  the  house  has     readilv   the  bearers  of  the  sick 


man  could  brine;  liiiu 


:i,   second    or  inner   court,    it   is   generally   of   a   mud)  [to    the    roof    of    the    dwelling-house,   Ju.  iii. -J3 ;  Mar.  ii.  4, 

Wilkinson  indeed  thinks  it  probable  that  Eton's  sum 
mer  parlour  was  an  isolated  house  on  the  ground,  such 
as  were  usual  in  ancient  Egyptian  dwellings,  hut  the 


larger  size  than  the  outer,  and  more  rii  hly  decorated 
In  this  case  the  private  apartments  of  the  master  of 
the  house  are  in  the  inner  court,  and  here  is  also  the 
hareem  for  the  women  and  children,  guarded  jealously 
from  all  intrusion  (S!mv,  Trav.  p.  LM7;  Lane,  Mod  Kg.  i  179, 2M7) 
The  hareem  however  was  not  in 
use  among  the  Jews.  We  find 
it  referred  to  as  belonging  to 
the  palace  of  Ahasuerus,  Es.  ii.  3; 
but  we  nowhere  find  allusion 
to  it  in  strictly  Jewish  life. 
.V  considerable  measure  of  the 
same  freedom  which  women 
possess  in  Christian  soeietv  wa.- 
accorded  to  them  amoiu:  the 
Jews.  In  the  inner  court  there 
is  often  a  fountain  of  water: 
occasionally  there  are  trees,  very 
frequently  two  in  number,  such 
as  the  palm  or  eypre-.-.,  the  olive 
or  pomegranate.  In  some 
houses  these  courts  are  laid  out 
in  beautiful  '.gardens  (liremer'a 
.  II  ilj  Land,  ii  149,241;  I;,  b- 
insoif  -  lie  !  137,  l.»  1 11  others 
the v  are  handsomelv  paved.  A 
verandah  or  covered  gallery 
generally  runs  round  the  front 
of  the  house  within  th-'  court. 
In  tin;  woodcut  No.  ol11,  \\e  have  a  ur 
of  the  inner  court  of  a  Turkish  house. 


Hebrew   (rv^-yi   scarcely    permits 


1   illustration 

ieh  probably 

corresponds  in  its  main  features  with  the  hctt'T  houses  understand  how  public  a  plan 
of  ancient  Israel.  The  accounts  of  the  eastern  courts  must  have  been,  and  ho\\  sinta 
given  by  travellt  rs  illustrate  many  pas-a-,  -  in  Scrip 
ture.  Thus  the  olive  or  the  palm  planted  in  the  court, 
and  carefully  tended,  represent  the  righteous  planted 
in  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  flourishing  in  his  courts. 
Ps.  lii.  S;  xi-ii  13.  As  the  court,  crowdid  with  its  happy 
inmate,,  ami  beautifully  kept,  was  the  si-n  of  national 
prosperity:  so  the  court  desolate  and  forsaken,  where 
the  thorns  come  up.  and  the  nettles  and  brambles 
flourish,  the  habitation  of  jackals  and  owls,  is  the  .-i-n 
of  national  decay,  Is.  xxxiv.  in. 

The  fttalrs  of  the  house  are  generally  a  flight  of  steps 
or,  in  humble  houses,  a  ladder  leading  from  the  court 


the   stairs  are  entirely  outside  of  the 
s  Land  ;.nd  Book,  p    I.;).      We   can   also 
the    top  of    the   stairs 
le  it  would  be  for  pro 
clamations  or   addresses  of  a  public  nature  addressed 
to  those  assembled   in   the  courts  below.      Accordingly 
we  find  the  Israelite  captains  placing  Jehu  on  a  kind  of 
tribunal  on  the  top  of  the  stairs,  and  th'  re  proclaiming 
him  king,  j  Ki  ix  1:1. 

Tin  //"•'/'.      The  roof  of  an  eastern  house  is  flat.     It  is 

s [iially  in  Kgypt.  Arabia.  Syria.   Persia,  and  Africa 

(Richardson,  Trav  in  Sahara, ii.  1.11;  Thomson,  Land  and  Jiook.p  :v.>; 
Robinson.  Res.  i.  31.1;  Wilkinson,  Anc.  KL-  ii.  llliV  Dut  the  flat 

roof  of  Ko-ypt  has  peculiarities  unknoun  in  the  houses 
of  Palestine.  It  i.-  sometimes  supported  by  columns, 
sometimes  by  the  ni'Te  walls.  Within  the  roof  is  a  large 


to  the  roof  or  terrace  of  the  dwelling-house.  When  the  hole,  to  whieh  is  atiixed  the  weoden  inulguf,  or  wind- 
house  possesses  one  or  more  stories,  they  are  continued  conductor  (Wilkinson,  An.  Kg  ii  ill',  120).  The  materials  of 
from  the  gallery  fronting  on  the  court  to  the  top  of  which  the  roof  is  formed  are  of  different  kinds.  ]t 
the  house,  whither  they  lead  up  through  a  door,  that  is  is  sometimes  composed  of  boards  or  stone  slabs  (Thomson, 
constantly  kept  shut  to  prevent  the  domestic  animals  p.  3.19;  Buckn^hain.Tnn-  p.  170).  A  yery  usual  kind  of  roof 
from  daubing  the  terrace,  and  so  injuring  the  water  is  constructed  in  the  following  manner:  The  beams 

or  rafters  are  placed  about  three  feet  apart;  across 
these  short  sticks  are  arranged  close  to-ethir,  and 
covered  with  the'  thickly  matted  thorn  bush  called 
//<://«;?.  Over  this  is  spread  a  coat  of  thick  mortar,  and 
then  comes  the  marl  or  earth  which  covers  the  whole 
(Thomson,  Land  and  I',«>ok,  p.  3,09').  A  large  stone  roller  is 
i.  ;>7i-37iO.  They  are  usually  of  simple  structure,  and  kept  on  the  top  of  the  house  for  the  purpose  of  harden- 
of  stone  or  wood  :  but  those  mentioned  in  1  Ki.  vi.  8,  ing  and  flattening  the  layer  of  earth,  to  prevent  the 
and  distinguished  by  a  different  name,  seem  to  have  '  rain  from  penetrating.  Roofs  however  are  often  of  a 
been  of  a  more  complicated  kind ;  probably  these  j  very  inferior  description  to  this.  They  are  at  times 
latter  stairs  were  within,  not  outside  of  the  building:  composed  of  the  palm-leaf,  and  in  other  cases  are  made 


conducted  thence  into  cisterns  (Bremer's  Trav.  in  Holy  Land. 
i.  IT.'I;  Shaw, Trav.  i.  374-370).  In  large  houses  there  are  often 
two  or  more  sets  of  steps  from  the  court ;  but  there  is 
seldom  more  than  one  from  the  gallery  to  the  roof. 
The  stairs  arc  frequently  placed  in  the  corner  of  the 
court,  and  sometimes  at  the  entrance  (Shaw,  Travels, 


but  from  the  outer  stairs,  whieh  are  those  commonly 
used,  one  can  easily  understand  the  facility  with  whieh 


of  cornstalks  or  brushwood,   spread  over  with  gravel 
(Robinson,  nib.  Res.  i.  -.'-13;  ii.  27»\    or  of  reeds  and  heather 


HOUSE  7 

with  a  layer  of  beaten  earth  (Hartley,  Researches  in  Greece, 
p.  210).  The  roofs  of  the  great  halls  in  Egypt  are  covered 
with  flagstones  of  enormous  size.  Parapets  are  uni 
formly  placed  round  the  roof,  for  the  purpose  of 


[3ll.|        Ancient  Egyptian  House,  having;  a  terrace  and  roof 
supported  by  columns.— Wilkinson. 

guarding  against  accident  by  falling  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Kg. 

ii.  12:!;  Thomson's  Land,  &c.  39;  Home's  Introd.  to  the  Scriptures, 

iii.  388,  part  iv.  ch.  i.  7th  ed.)  The  Jews,  ere  they  entered 
Canaan,  were  strictly  commanded  never  to  build  a 
house  without  the  safeguard  of  the  battlement,  I)e. 
xxii.  8.  The  woodcut,  No.  342,  shows  examples  of 


[U-U.J        Ancient  Hatileiuunts.        1,  2,  Assyrian.    3,  Egyptia 


Assyrian  and  Egyptian  battlements,  derived  from  the 
monuments. 

The  roof  is  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  an 
eastern  house.     Every  kind  of  business  and  amusement 
at  times  proceeds  upon  it.    Thither,  after  the  business  of 
the  day  is  over,  people  retire  from  the  filth 
and  crowding  so  common  in  the  narrow- 
streets  of  an  eastern  town,   to  enjoy  the 
cool  of  the  evening,  to  refresh  the  eye  with 
the  view  of  the  surrounding  country,  and 
to  carry  on,   as  it  may  happen,   the  most 
serious  or  the  most  frivolous  occupations 
(Richardson's  Travels,  i.  154  ;   Bremer's  Travels,  ii. 
I5o).    Here  the  worshipper  says  his  evening 
prayer,  and  the  mother  sits  with  her  chil 
dren  clustered   round  her  for  supper,   or 
sporting   in   play.       Here   neighbours   as 
semble  to  learn  the  news,  and  recline  on 
carpets  and  mats  in  the  delicious  coolness 
of  the   evening.     In   the   warmer  season 
the  roof  is  a  favourite  place  of   sleeping, 
and  is  eagerly  sought  after  as  such.    Those 
who    cannot    obtain    a    place    there,    find 
themselves,  even  in  the  upper  room,  which 
is  the  coolest  in  the  house,  often  plagued 
with  heat  and  fleas,  and  look  with  envy 
through  the  lattices  on  the  sleepers  calmly 
reposing  on  the  roof    (Wilkinson's  Anc.  Eg.  ii.  120;  Robinson's 
Res.  iii.  31-33).      From   the   roof   also   proclamations  are 
made.     The  public  crier  ascends  the   highest  he  can 
find  access  to,  and  lifts  up  his  voice  in  a  long-drawn 
call  upon  all  to  hear  and  to  obey  (Thomson's  Land  and  Book, 
p.  42).      Here   corn   is  dried,  fruit  is  prepared,   linen  is 
hung  up  (Thomson,  p.  30;  Shaw,  p.  211). 


HOUSE 

Numerous  passages  in  Scripture  are  illustrated  and 
explained  by  the  description  of  the  roof  in  books  of 
travel.  "We  have  Rahab  hiding  the  spies  beneath  the 
stalks  of  flax  laid  on  the  roof  to  dry,  Jos.  ii.  o.  We  find 
the  roof  used  as  the  place  for  confidential  communin"-, 
iSa.  ix.20.  And  on  the  occasion  referred  to  it  appears 
to  have  been  used  as  a  place  for  sleeping,  for  ver.  26 
should  probably  be  translated:  "  And  it  came  to  pass 
about  the  spring  of  the  day  that  Samuel  called  Saul  on 
the  roof  (where  he  was  asleep).  Up  (i.e.  rise  from  sleep), 
that  I  may  send  thee  away''  (Thomson's  Land  and  Book, 
p.  39).  On  the  roof  of  the  upper  chamber  were  the 
altars  which  the  kings  of  Judah  had  made  for  idolatrous 
worship,  2  Ki.  xxiii.  12,  a  practice  referred  to  in  other 
parts  of  Scripture,  Jo.  xxxii.  2:);  Zep.  i.  5.  Here,  in  the  times 
of  national  calamity,  the  people  of  the  East  withdrew 
to  bewail  their  troubles,  Is.  xv.  3:Je.  xlviii.  .38;  in  times  of 
danger  to  watch  the  approach  of  the  enemv,  is.  xxii.  i ; 
or  in  anxious  moments  to  descry  the  approach  of  the 
bearer  of  tidings,  2  Sa.  xviii.  21,  33.  Here  also,  as  in  the 
most  public  place,  Absalom  spread  the  tent  for  his 
father's  concubines,  to  indicate  the  unalterable  estrange 
ment  between  himself  and  David,  2  Sa.  xvi.  21,  22.  From 
the  house-top  the  disciples  of  Christ  were  to  proclaim 
what  was  spoken  to  them  in  private,  Mat.  x.  27;  Lu.  xii.3; 
and  to  it,  as  to  a  place  retired  from  the  bustle  of  the 
house,  Peter  went  up  at  the  sixth  hour  to  pray,  and 
there  saw  the  vision  from  heaven  which  announced 
the  abolition  of  the  distinction  between  the  Jew  and 
Gentile,  Ac.  x.  9.  The  nature  of  the  eastern  roof  readily 
explains  the  transaction  referred  to  in  Mar.  ii.  4,  Lu. 
v.  19.  Several  modes  of  explanation  have  appeared. 
Dr.  Shaw  supposes  that  the  letting  of  the  paralytic 
through  the  roof  merely  means  that  the  people  drew 
away  the  awning  which  is  often  drawn  over  eastern 
courts  (Travels  in  Barbary,  i.  3*2-3*4.)  A  more  probable  ex 
planation  is  given  by  those  who  suppose  that  the  bearers 
of  the  paralytic  in  their  anxiety  broke  up  the  simple 


(310.]        1  iai-roofed  Houses  at  Gaza.  -  Laborde. 

materials  of  which  the  roof  in  question  was  composed, 
and  through  the  aperture  thus  made  let  down  the  sick 
(Thomson,  Land  and  Book,  p.  359  ;  Callaway,  Oriental  Observations 
p.  71;  Hartley,  Res.  in  Greece,  p.  240;  Neander'sLife  of  Christ,  p.  273). 
Josephus  relates  of  Herod's  soldiers  breaking  up  the 
roofs  of  houses  to  get  at  their  enemies  (Ant.  xiv.  xv.  12). 
This  explanation  suits  all  the  expressions  of  the 


HOUSE 


HOUSE 


narrative,  aptly  displays  the  faith  of  the  parties,  and  engraving  Xo.  335).  lu  the  woodcut  No.  34,x  re- 
is  quite  suitable  to  the  real  nature  of  the  eastern  roof,  presenting  modern  Egyptian  houses,  there  is  seen  in 
The  vast  size  of  the  roof  of  Dagon's  temple  may  be  one  of  them  the  master  of  the  house  sitting-  in  the 
inferred  from  the  numbers  who  assembled  on 
it  to  witness  Samson's  feats  of  strength.  Ju. 
xvi.  27.  The  flat  roof  was  of  the  greatest  use 
at  the  time  of  the  feast  of  tabernacles ;  on 
such  roofs  the  people  erected  their  booths. 
\e.  viii.  iii.  The  earth  of  the  roof  would  afford 
nourishment  to  grass  seeds  in  the  time  of  rain, 
while  the  returning  drought  and  heat  would 
wither  the  grass  before  it  had  time  to  ripen 
— a  lively  illustration  of  momentary  prospe 
rity  followed  by  ruin,  2  Ki  xix.  2ii ;  IV  cxxix.  ii. 
The  nature  of  the  roof  also  afforded  ready 
means  for  attack  or  escape.  .Joel  n  :>-,  .Mat.  xxiv  17. 
Wilkinson  represents  a  very  small  chamber 
in  a  corner  of  the  tops  of  Egyptian  houses, 
which  he  thinks  may  perhaps  illustrate  1'r. 
xxi.  (J  (Ancient  Egyptian.-,  ii.  In- 1. 

Some  travellers  have  noticed  a  peculiarity  in  the 
roots  of  J  udca,  which  gives  to  its  towns  and  \illagvs 
a  new  ami  striking  aspect:  it  is  the  erection  ,,f  two 
or  three  small  domes  on  the  roof  of  each  house. 
They  serve  for  the  purpose  of  giung  a  greater  eleva 
tion  to  the  room  beneath  them.  Robinson  did  not 
notice  them  farther  north  than  Nablous  (Hit>.  lie.-,  i.  :>i.\ 
:;2-;  in .  2!M«;,  1-11  I'.tvmer  seems  to  describe  huts  on  the 
roof  of  a  different  kind  at  Tiberias  ilne 
[. .150)  They  are  not  referred  to  in  Scripture,  and  are 
probably  of  comparatively  modern  date. 

Tin.'  n/i/i/r  i-iHiin.  or  I'lidiiilnr  ((if.  i,'Trt/iuoi>,  lleb. 
ir'-j,'.  'all  til*  It),  strictly  so  called,  is  a  sort  of  loft  on 
the  top  of  the-  roof.  It  is  often  referred  to  in  Scrip 
ture,  more  frequently  indeed  than  would  appear  from  our 
authorized  version.  This  upper  room,  which  is  the  ni"-t 
desirable  part  of  the  eastern  hou.-e,  is  titled  up  with 
greatest  care,  and  as  such  is  given  to  guests  whom  it 
is  thought  right  to  treat  with  peculiar  distinction 
(Thomson's  Laud  and  Book,  i.  100).  It  is  often  large  and 


airy,  and  forms  a  kind  of  upper  story  upon  the  Hat  roof     for    th 


upper   room,    while    his   \\if< 
court  below.      The   upper  n 

to  iii  Sc  ripture  :  and  always  in  a  manner  that  accords 
with  the'  accounts  of  modern  travel.  The  guest-cham 
ber.  \\heiv  our  Lord  partook  of  his  last  pa—  over,  is 
sometimes  ivpre>ented  as  being  an  upper  room  such 
as  this,  Yar  xiv.  1.".;  l.u.  xxii  VI;  but  that  is  incorrect, 
and  has  arisen  from  mistranslation,  as  will  1  c  mere 
II. .ly  I. and,  particularly  noticed  in  connection  \\ith  the  nm. •••/-cham 
ber.  I  -ually  in  Script  lire  the  upper  chamber  is  spoken 
of  as  if  there  was  but  one.  .In.  iii.  2:i;  1  Ki.  xxii.  Ill;  'I  Ki. 
n  1 1;  Ac.  ix  :;:>;  \\  -  In  the  larger  houses,  however, 
then-  were  several  such:  the  temple  had  many  of  them. 
2  t'ti  in  :i;  and  rich  luxurious  men  arc'  charged  with  even 
sinfully  multiplying  chambers  of  this  sort,  Jc  xxn.  i::,  1 1 
MIc-t.  l  As  -pokeii  of  by  the  prophet,  they  yvould  seem 
to  ha\e  been  both  large,  and  built  for  the  purposes 
of  comfort  and  luxury.  \\  e  find  accordingly  frequent 
mention  made'  of  tin  m  in  connection  v\ith  kings, 
who  appear  to  have  UMM]  them  a-  summer  houses 


I'l 


of   the  h 


The   favoured   guests   use   it   by  day  for 


summer  house  .-pokeii  of  in  Scripture  was  veiv 
seldom  a  separate  building.  The  lower  part  of  the 
h»use  was  the  winter  l;ou.-e  ;  the  upper  room  was 
the  -..imnier  house.  It  they  are  on  the  same  storv, 
the  outer  apartment  is  the  summer  house,  the  inner 

is  the  \\intcr  house  (Timing.  u's  Land  ami  lic.uk,  \<.  '.Vi'.i; 
lluliinsoM's  lies.  iii.  117  I  \Ve  find  them  allocated  to  the 
use  of  those  prophets  whom  it  was  wished  to  honour 
particularly,  i  Ki  .\\u.  r.i;  JKI  h.  ]«-,  used  also  on  account 
of  their  si/.e  and  <  .....  Iness  as  places  for  assembly,  Ac.  i.  i;:; 
xx  v  and  for  the  similar  reasons  the  dead  were  laid 
out  in  them.  Ac  ix  :tn.  There  appears  to  have  been  an 
upper  room  over  the  gateways  of  towns.  2  Sa.  xviii.  :i3; 
and  on  their  roofs,  as  being  the  highest  part  of  the 
house,  idolatrous  worship  was  paid  to  Baal,  2  Ki.  xxiii.  12. 
sleeping  apartment,  being,  next  to  the  open  roof  of  In  allusion  to  the  loftiness  of  the  upper  room,  the 
the  house,  the  coolest  place.  It  has  often  many  psalmist  beautifully  describes  God  as  laying  the  beams 


1 34 1  1 


all  requisite  purposes:   and  at   night  occupy  it  as   their 


latticed  windows,  as  well  for  the  sake  of  the  view, 
as  for  coolness:  and  it  resembles  a  summer  palace 
(Robinson,  Researches,!!!.  20,  32,33,  417).  Homer  speaks  of  it 


of  his  iijijiir  i-lidiii/icrx 
watering    the    hills,    IS. 
licit/lit  of  /ini/dini/a. 


the  waters,  and    from   thence 
v.  :;,  i:;  (Hc-kl 

The   houses   in  Joshuas   time 

as  a  place  for  prayer  (Od.iv.T5i).  From  the  accounts  '  are  thought  to  have  been  low,  from  no  mention 
of  travellers  there  appears  to  be  generally  but  one  i  being  made  in  Scripture  of  an  upper  story  till  a 
upper  room  to  each  house,  and  the  poorer  houses  have  j  later  time  (Jalm  and  Ackcrii..um,  Archeology  liilil.  .-uct.  xt). 
none  (Robinson, iii.  20,32,33;  Wilkinson,  An.  rig.  ii.  in-;  Thomson's  t  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  representation  given  of  them 

conveys  that  impression;  but  they  appear  to  have  been 
of  various  heights,  according  to  circumstances.     Those 


Land,&c.  p.  loo).    The  Assyrian  sculptures  represent  most 
of  the  houses  with  flat  roofs  and  an  upper  room  (see 


uorsK 


in  the  towns  would  seem  lo  he  generally  high.  The 
housrs  df  Hebron  are  of  th:it  character  (Hob.  Ke.v  i.  315); 
so  arc  those  of  Nabl<ms,  Sidon,  and  Beirout  (Robinson's 
Res.  iii.  '.Hi.  us  43-).  Those  on  the  eastern  wall  of  Sidon, 
Robinson  noticed  as  bring  of  a  remarkable  height.  At 
liamleh  he  occupied  a  house  of  three  stories  (Hi.  a;V 
Thomson  thinks  tlie  houses  of  Jerusalem,  and  of 
oriental  cities  in  general,  had  not  'ess  than  two  or 
three  stories,  each  (LanJ  nd  Book,  p.  eu2).  The  houses  in 
ancient  r.aliylon  had  each  three  and  four  stories  (Hero 
dotus,  lib.  i.  c.  iso).  Some  Egyptian  houses,  had  so  many 
as  five,  and  usually  one  or  two  (Wiikin-on,  An.  Ku'  ii. 
n.vioo).  Shaw  reprc.-cnt.--  eastern  houses  as  usually 
having  one  or  two  stories  (Travels  in  Barbary,  i.  374,3711; 


[34C.]        Assyrian  Houses  of  more  than  one  story. —Kouyunjik. 

Brenier's  Travels,  i.  191).  The  house  where  Paul  preached 
in  Troas  had  three  stories  Ac.  xx.  <i;  and  from  the  refer 
ence  in  Am.  ix.  6,  it  would  appear  that  several  stories 
were  in  use  in  the  prophet's  time.  Gesenius,  however, 
thinks  the  word  there  used  (pl'-yE,  man  loth],  equivalent 
to  "  upper  rooms." 

Rooms  and  Guest-chambers. — Houses  having  t//frl  rent 
floors,  had  the  principal  rooms  in  the  upper  floor. 
Jowett,  in  his  Christian  Researches  in  Syria  (p.  so-o.V), 
gives  an  account  of  the  several  uses  of  the  different 
floors.  The  ground  floor  was  used  as  a  store;  the  first 
floor  was  for  the  daily  use  of  the  family;  on  the  next 
floor  all  the  expense  and  care  was  lavished.  A  very 
important  apartment  in  the  eastern  house  is  the  guest- 
chamber  (Kard\v/Jia) ,  Mar  xiv.  14;  LU.  xxii.  ii.  From  the  use 
of  the  article  it  is  plain  that  each  house  of  any  pretensions 
in  Jerusalem  had  a  guest-chamber.  In  classical  usage 
the  word  designates  an  inn,  Lu.  ii.  7.  The  Septuagint 
makes  it  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  ni'^  (lishkoh), 

T  :   • 
1  Sa.  ix.  22,  where  Samuel  received  his  guests  to  dinner. 

Gesenius  is  doubtful  of  the  etymology  of  this  word;  but 

Fuerst  derives  it  from  flt'Si  "to  recline  or  lie  down.'' 

'I-  T 
The  guest-chamber  is  a  room  opposite  the  entrance  into 

the  court,  where  all  visitors  are  received  by  the  master 
of  the  house.  It  is  often  open  in  front,  and  supported 
in  the  centre  by  a  pillar.  It  is  generally  on  the  ground 
floor,  but  raised  above  the  level.  Such  would  appear 
to  have  been  the  guest-chamber  where  our  Lord  ate  his 
last  passover.  Mar.  xiv.  15,  avdyaiov.  This  evidently  signi 
fies,  not  the  "upper  room,"  hut  a  ground  room  elevated 
above  the  floor.  Before  entering,  the  guests  take  off 
their  shoes;  so  our  Lord  is  thought  to  have  had  his  feet 
naked  when  the  woman  washed  them,  Lu.  vii.  38.  There 


are  seldom  any  special  bed-rooms  in  eastern  houses. 
A  low  divan,  raised  rourtd  the  sides  of  the  room, 
serves  for  seats  by  day:  and  on  it  they  place  their 
beds  by  night:  see  woodcut  No.  112,  p.  ]W  (i;..binson, 

Res.  i  131,  242;  iii.  32;  Bremer,  ii.  120;  Shav,  Travels  in  liarbaiy, 
i.  p.  371-371);  Buckingham's  Travels,  p.  17M.  There  seems, 

however,  to  be  no  doubt,  that  at  least  in  great  houses  in 
Palestine  there  were  rooms  set  apart  as  bed  rooms. 
2  Ki.  \i.  2;  EC.  x.  L'n;  2  Sa.  iv.  5.  in  Kgypt  there  were 
such,  (Jc.  xliii.  30;  Kx.  viii.  3;  and  in  Syria.  2Ki.  \i  12.  The 
ground  floor  of  the  outer  court  is  occupied  by  the 
apartments  of  the  servants.  Where  there  i>  an  hint  r 
court,  the  kitchen  is  always  attached  to  it.  as  are  also 
the  female  servants  that  labour  in  it.  In  the  earlie.-t 
times  there  seems  to  have  been  no  place  appropriated 
as  a  kitchen,  the  cooking  being  carried  on  in  the  com 
mon  apartment,  2  Sa.  xiii.  8.  The  earlie.-t  mention  of  a 
kitchen  is  in  K/e.  xlvi.  23.  2-4.  and  that  in  connection 
with  the  temple.  There  are  seldom  fin-places  in  east 
ern  houses,  except  in  the  kitchen:  and  consequently 

j  there  are  few  chimneys.  Charcoal  is  frequently  used 
in  a  chafing-dish  ;  and  a  fire  is  sometimes  kindled 

Jin  an  open  court.  Lu.xxii.56.  The  mode  of  heating 
the  room  in.  winter  is  described  in  Je.  xx.xvi.  22:  which 
may  be  thus  translated,  "  There  was  the  fire-pan  (or 
brazier)  burning  strongly  before  him"  (Gesenius).  Hosea 
compares  the  dispersion  of  sinners  to  that  of  smoke 
when  it  issues  from  the  chimney,  HO.  xiii  3. 

L'l/litrrt  frequently  are  made  under  the  raised  plat 
form  of  the  ground  floor  for  storage  (Russell,  i.  32).  In 
most  villages  there  are  subterranean  magazines  for  grain 
(Robin-oii's  Res.  iii.  5(i).  I  iider  the  temple  were  very 
extensive  vaults  (Robinson's  Res.  i.  452.1  The  underground 
magazine  may  lie  referred  to  in  Lu.  xii.  24.  In  some 
houses  the  granary  was  on  the  ground  floor,  2  Sa.  iv.  r,; 
and  in  others  it  was  in  separate  offices.  Lu.  xii.  is. 

The   Cistern    was   a  most   important   feature  in  the 

houses    of     Palestine    (Stanley's   Sinai  and   Palestine,  p.   514). 

Where  the  wells  were  few  and  bad — where  the  towns 
were  frequently  built  on  hills,  and  so  could  not  depend 
upon  streams  for  their  supply — and  when  these,  even  if 
near,  could  be  diverted  by  an  enemy — the  cistern  was 
of  the  utmost  consequence.  Accordingly,  the  greatest 
attention  is,  and  always  has  been,  paid  to  this  source  of 
supply.  There  is  scarcely  a  house  in  Jerusalem  which 
has  not  one  or  more  of  these  excavated  in  the  soft 
limestone  rock  on  which  the  citv  is  built.  Some 
houses  have  four.  They  vary  from  8  to  30  feet  in 
length;  from  4  to  30  in  breadth;  from  12  to  20  in 

depth      (Robinson's    Res.  i.    4SO ;   Buckingham's   Travels,    p.  99). 

Into  these  the  water  is  conducted  from  the  roof  in  the 
rainy  season,  and  with  proper  care  remains  sweet  dur 
ing  the  whole  summer  and  autumn  (Robinson's  Res.  i.  4Si). 
Robinson  remarks  that  most  of  these  are  very  ancient 
(Ibid.  4^2).  The  immense  supply  of  cistern  water  accords 
with  Strabo's  description  of  Jerusalem,  "within  well 
watered,  without  wholly  dry"  (xvi.  2, 40),  and  explains 
the  fact,  that  while  besiegers  of  Jerusalem  suffered 
from  scarcity  of  water,  its  inhabitants  never  did  dur 
ing  the  longest  sieges.  Stanley  accounts  for  this  by 
a  spring  beneath  the  temple  (Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  iso)  : 
sec  woodcut  Xc.  174.  p.  336.  Similar  cisterns  are  found 
throughout  all  the  hill  country  of  Judah  and  Penjamin 
(Robinson's  Res.  i.  4Si).  The  antiquity  which  Robinson 
remarked  in  the  cisterns  of  Judea  agrees  remarkably 
with  Ne.  ix.  25,  where  we  read  that  Israel  took  posses 
sion  of  a  land  already  full  of  "  cisterns  cut  or  hewn  ;'' 


HOUSE 


for  so  it  should  be.  and  not  "  wells  digged."  From  '2  Ki. 
xviii.  31,  we  also  infer  that  every  house  in  Jerusalem 
had  at  that  time  its  cistern,  just  as  Robinson  remarks 
is  the  ease  now;  and  the  making  of  cisterns  was  a 
work  worthy  of  a  king,  2  Ch.  xxvi.  10.  The  cistern 
affords  some  beautiful  allusions  in  Scripture.  Israel's 
dependence  on  false  gods  is  compared  to  the  dependence 
on  a  broken  cistern,  Je.  ii.  13;  the  broken  wheel,  unable 
to  draw  up  the  water  of  the  cistern,  is  compared  to 
the  decay  of  life.  EC  xii. «;  and  the  blessedness  of  con 
jugal  fidelity,  to  that  of  him  who  draws  water  from 
his  own  cistern,  Pr  v.  if,. 

T/tc  Foundation  of  the  more  important  eastern  houses 
is  attended  to  with  great  care.  Jn  1  Ki.  v.  1  7.  we  read 
of  "threat  stones"  brought  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the 
temple;  and  the  accounts  of  tra \vlh-rs  fully  bear  out 
this  (Robinson,  Res. i.  423).  The  stones  are  so  gnat  that 
we  wonder  how  they  could  be  brought.  This  is  even 
more  remarkable  in  the  accounts  of  the  i-normous  ston--> 
used  by  Solomon  at  Baalhec.  \\'e  are  told  in  fact  of  one 
stone  fourteen  by  seventeen,  and  sixty-nine  feet  lon^ 
(Thomson's  Land  and  Book,  p  2:11,  2:;:.).  A  like  care  is  usual 
t'>  this  day  throughout  the  country.  They  commonly  dig 
tUl  th.-y  n-ach  the  -.olid  rock  sometimes  to  a  depth  of 
thirty  feet  (Robinson,  iii  I'.t.').  From  this  they  build  up 
arches  to  the  surface;  and  though  \\  e  do  u^t  find  any 
account  of  the  arch  in  Scripture  for  the  word  trans 
lated  '"arches"  in  F/.e.  \1.  Id,  ha*  probably  no  reference 
to  this  feature  of  architecture  (Ueseiiius)  yet  it  is  now 
allowed  that  the  an-h  was  known  in  very  ancient 
limes  in  Babylon,  Syria,  and  F.gvpt  (Wilkinson's  An  l'.^ 
ii  117,  1 'if.;  TJM.iiiS'.n's  Land  and  Hook,  (>!U;  Kobinsuii's  K. -.  i  I'.'-; 
Josephus,  Ant,  xiv.  iv  2;  J  W.  i  vii.  2;  ii  xvi  :t;  TuwnsenU's  Manual 
uf  Dates).  S'-ripture  perpetually  refers  to  the  founda 
tion  as  an  imavy  of  imp  irtant  truths  and  lessons. 
Frail  man  is  compared  to  a  foundation  in  dust.  Jubiv  r.i, 
tile  wise  man,  to  him  wh ••>  du;s  to  the  rock,  I,u.  vi.  l-;  the 
Li'ood  minister,  to  him  who  builds  on  the  true  founda 
tion  Jesus  Christ,  tfo.iii  10;  Jesus  is  the  stone  that  is 

the  -life   foundation.    1-   xxviii    I''  '  :    L'".l'v    \    2,j; 

II,-    vi     I 

Tin'  (Jo/'/tcr-xtoiU1  \\as  aKo  an  important  part  of 
the  building  Itobiiisuii,  K^  i  I-..':  and  furnishes  Scrip 
ture  illustrations,  e-peci.dly  in  the  comparison  of 
I  'lirist  a  <  the  corn.-r  r-tmi"  of  his  chiireh.  r>  c\\vih  '^2; 
L' IV  ii.  0  The  cornel1  stone  w.is  of  laruv  dimensions. 
and  ])laced  at  the  junction  of  two  walls  to  form  a  bond 
between  them.  Obviously  there  ni'i-t  hay*  been  many 
corner-stones  in  every  building:  but  the  principal  one. 
and  tint  chiefly  alluded  to  in  Scripture  illustration-., 
would  seem  to  be  that  which  formed  the  junction  of 
the  walls  at  their  uppermost  corner. 

The  \\'in<l:>it:<  of  the  eastern  house  have  no  u'lass;  l,ut 
have  instead  a  lattice'  with  small  perforations,  which 
afford  shade  from  tin.-  sun  and  fresh  air  through  its 
openings.  The  apertures  oPWie  windows  in  Fgvptian 
and  eastern  houses  generally  are  small,  in  order  to 
exclude  heat  (Wilkinson,  An.  Eg.  ii.  12l).  They  are  closed 
with  folding  valves,  secured  with  a  bolt  or  bar.  The 
windows  often  project  considerably  beyond  the  lower 
part  of  the  building,  so  as  to  overhang  the  street. 
The  windows  of  the  courts  within  also  project  (Jowett, 
Christian  Res.  \>.  w,.  i;:).  The  lattice  is  generally  kept 
closed;  but  can  be  opened  at  pleasure,  and  is  opened 
on  great  public  occasions  (Lane,  Mod.  Egypt,  i.  27).  Those 
within  can  look  through  the  lattices,  without  opening 
them,  or  being  seen  themselves;  and  in  some  rooms, 


especially  the  large  upper  room,  there  are  several 
windows.  From  the  allusions  in  Scripture  we  gather, 
that  while  there  was  usually  but  one  window  in 
each  i-ooin,  in  which  invariably  there  was  a  lattice  — 


Ju.  v.  2«,  where  "  a  window"  is  in  lleb.  "tin  window;' 
Jus  ii  .!.">;  2  Si  vi  M,  ill  Hell,  "tin  \\indoW;'  L'Ki  i\  '.W,  do.; 
Ac  \x . '..,  do.  tlnre  were  sometimes  M-veral  windows. 
.  ;<i  ,:ii  17  The  i-o, .ni  here  >poke)i  of  v.  as  pioLably  such 
an  upper  room  as  1,'ohinson  d<  scribe-  above  \\ith  many 
windows  (iii.  417)  I  >ani<Ts  room  had  several  windows; 
and  his  laMiee-  v.viv  opened  when  hi.-,  enemies  found 
him  in  prayer.  I'-i  ri  1".  'i'lie  projecting  nature  of  the 
window,  and  the  t';;et  that  a  divan  or  raised  seat 
encircles  the  interior  of  ea<  h.  so  that  usually  persons 
sitting  in  the  window  are  suited  close  to  the  aperture, 
easily  explains  h,,\\  Aha/;;oi  may  have  fallen  through 
the  lattice  of  his  upper  chamber,  and  Futychus  from 
his  \\indow  seat,  especially  if  the  lattict  s  were  open  at 
the  time,  -JK;  i  •_';  A<-.  :-.\  v  (Juwctt, Christian  Kus  p.  (Hi,*;;). 

'/'/«'  (  \iliinj.:  of  (lie   principal  ajiartments  in  eastern 
house-  are  the  parts  ,,n  the  ailoi  ning  of  whicii  the  cliief 


[:i!8.  |        Tart,  of  (Viiiiii;  of  modern  Kgyjitian  House.-    I.une. 

care  is  expended.      In  the  houses  of  the  wealthy  these 
are  much  enriched  by  tasteful  patterns,  generally  of  an 


interlacing  character,  and  often  painted  in  brilliant 
colours,  red,  blue,  gold,  and  green  being  the  favourites 
(Shaw,  Travels  in  Barbary,  i  347-37!!;  Lane.i.lS.)  Wilkinson 
gives  us  representations  of  th<-  various  patterns,  and 


f  Palace  at  Konieh  (one-fourth  of  pattern! 


gorgeous  colours  of  the  ceilings,  of  ancient  Egyptian 
houses  (Anc  Egypt  ii.  12.');  and  Scripture  indicates  that 
similar  care  was  bestowed  on  these  parts  among  the 

Jews,   Jo.  x\ii.  14  ;  Hag.  i.   I. 

The  Pillar  formed  often  a  main  feature  in  the  con 
struction  of  eastern  houses.  Mefore  the  (i reeks  had 
brought  the  pillar  to  its  ideal  perfection,  thi-  K-\p 
tians  had  imparted  to  it  very  considerable  I.euuU 
(Wilkinson, Anc.  Egypt,  iii.  309,310).  The  pillar  is  frequently 
used  to  hold  up  the  open  front  of  the  reception-room. 
Seven  pillars  appear  to  have  been  in  great  houses,  iv.  ;x.  i. 
The  architecture  of  Damon's  house,  principally  supported 
on  t\vo  middle  pillars,  has  greatly  perplexed  commen 
tators  to  explain.  Ju  xvi.-jn.  Shaw  (p.  -211)  gives  his  view 
of  its  construction.  It  is  c|iiite  j)lain  that  while  the 
two  middle  pillars  were  the  main  support,  there  were 
other,  and  probably  man*  outer  jiillars.  Like  the 
Dey's  house  at  Algiers,  and  others  of  a  similar  kind 
which  he  saw.  Dr.  Snaw  supposes  it  to  have  been  made 
in  the  fashion  of  a  pjnt-liouse,  supported  by  one  or  two 
contiguous  pillars,  or  else  in  the  centre,  the  pulling 
down  of  which  would  have  the  same  effect  as  in  tin- 
case  of  the  Philistines. 

The  Ftiriutnre  in  ancient  eastern  houses  was  usually 
very  simple,  and  is  still  so  a>  compared  with  the  house- 
of  Europe  (Jl'irne,  Introd.  iii.:iw,  .ithed.l  Wilkinson  gives 

us  representations  of  the  different  articles  of  Egyptian 
furniture  (Anc.  E-ypt  ii.  in:,  2<.i:;).  And  though  we  have  no 
exact  information  respecting  the  furniture  of  houses  in 
Palestine,  yet.  from  tin;  varietv  which  appears  to  have 
existed  in  %ypt  of  stools,  chairs,  couches,  and  tables. 
and  the  taste  displayed  in  their  construction,  there  may 
have  been  among  the  wealthier  classes  in  Palestine  an 
appro;i"h  in  this  respect  to  modern  luxury.  But  there 
could  not  be  many  of  this  description. 

Tlir  Materials  of  which  houses  are  built  are  very 
various.  A  great  many  of  the  houses  and  villages  of 
Judea  are  wholly  built  of  mud,  in  which  no  lime  has  been 
mixed.  Habitations  of  this  kind  are  very  ephemeral  in 
their  nature,  and  when  deserted  for  any  time  by  their 
inhabitants  quickly  melt  away  beneath  the  action  of 
the  elements,  as  Job  describes,  Job  xv  -2*,  and  become  un 
distinguished  heaps.  "Houses  of  this  nature  were  readily 


HOUSE 

dug  through.  Job  iv.  i<i;  xxiv  n;  It  is  to  walls  of  such  a 
kind,  some  think,  that  Cod  compares  a  people  whose 
religious  teaching  has  been  of  a  delusive  nature.  As 
the  wall  subjected  to  the  action  of  the  rains  and  snows 
and  winds  of  winter  suddenly  gives  way,  so  do  the  hopes 
and  faith  built  upon  false  doctrine  give  way  in  the  day 
of  reckoning,  K/o.  xiii  lo-Ii!  (Robim-on,  lies.  i.  37.1;  Thomson, 
Land  and  Hook,  :i'.il )  Houses,  however,  are  very  commonly 
built  of  stone  in  Judea  (Kobin.,on,  Res.  i.:;i.i;  iii  27,  W,  I3!t,  •-''>»). 
Limestone  abounds  in  its  mountains.  A  threat  variety 
of  stone  and  marble  of  different  colours,  among  which 
are  supposed  to  have  been  porphyry  and  granite  brought 
from  Arabia,  were  collected  by  David  for  the  con.-truc- 
tion  of  the  temple,  ich  xxix  2.  The  chalk  stones  which 
are  spoken  of  by  Isaiah.  «•!,.  xxvii.lt,  are  thought  by  Cese- 
nius  to  have  been  the  lime  of  the  country.  lirick  also 
was  used,  though  not  nearly  so  much  as  in  Chaldca  and 
Egypt.  Na.  iii.  ii:  Jo  xliii.  11.  We  read  of  David's  making 
,  the  captive  Ammonites  pass  through  a  brick-kiln,  but 
this  would  seem  to  have  been  in  the  country  of  Ammon. 
2  Sa.  xii.  31.  The  ancient  Egyptian  bricks  wen;  made  of 
clay,  mud.  and  straw,  kneaded  together,  and  baked 
in  the  sun.  The  bricks  of  Chaldea  and  other  places, 
when  baked  in  the  kiln,  possessed  almost  the  hardness 
and  duration  of  the  best  stone.  Though  bricks  are  not 
mentioned  as  being  in  use  among  the  Jews  in  Palestine. 
it  is  thought  that  to  some  extent  they  were  (Wilkinson, 
Anc  Egypt,  i.  f.o  ;  ii.  !Mi ;  1'liny,  Nat.  Hist,  b  xxxv.  di.  ->i>).  None 
of  the  houses  of  Palestine  are  built  of  wood,  nor  is 
there  any  indication  in  Scripture  of  their  ever  having 
been  so.  Wood  was  too  scarce  a  material  in  that 
country  to  be  used  for  such  a  purpose,  especially  where 
there  existed  an  abundance  of  other  materials  more 
easily  worked,  or  more  suitable  for  buildinu.  For  parts 
of  the  house  however  the  Jews  used  a  variety  of  timber, 
of  which  the  following  are  the  principal  kinds  :  —  Cedar. 
Ca  i.  17;  .Te.  xxii  11.  x>-;  sycamore.  Is.  ix.  Id:  olive,  1  Ki.vi.  31-33: 
fir.  iKi.  vi.  31.  As  to  the  mortar  employed,  there  are 
apparently  several  expressions  used  to  denote  it:  .tin/, 

.'/«/•.  I'hmtmer,  n/,/1, ,/•.  fn/,//iii/.  I)e.  xxvii  2;  Is.  xxvii  !l;  xii.  25; 
he  xiv.  42:  Kze.  xiii.  in.  This  variety  of  expression  probably 
arises  from  the  various  substances  of  which  mortar  was 
made,  and  from  the  different  manner  in  which  it  was 
prepared.  Some  mortar  or  plaster  was  made  of  lime, 
other  of  mud  or  earth.  The  first  was  probably  used  in 
all  houses  of  a  better  kind,  the  latter  in  the  habitations 
of  the  poor.  This  leads  us  to  remark  a  peculiar  pro 
priety  in  the  term  used  (<ipli»r)  in  Le.  xiv.  -12.  Leprosy 
would  most  frequently  appear  in  the  houses  of  the 
poor,  and  accordingly  the  command  here  is  to  plaster 
the  walls  of  the  infected  houses  with  the  mortar  made 
of  mud.  which  oplmr  certainly  is  (Fuevst,<;esenius).  Of 
course  this  would  not  prevent  the  use  of  any  better 
kind  of  mortar  if  desired.  The  mortar  spoken  of  in 
Ezekiel  (topltail,  translated  "untempered  mortar")  was 
probably  of  lime,  but  not  properly  prepared  (Gesenius). 
Considerable  question  has  been  raised  as  to  the  use  of 
iron  in  ancient  times  :  it  is  mentioned  in  Scripture  as 
used.  Xn.  xxxv.  10;  IJo.  viii.  u.  It  war,  worked  in  the  time 
before  the  Hood.  Ge.  iv.  22,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  its 
use  was  ever  wholly  lost.  Wilkinson  argues  its  use  in 
Egypt  in  the  early  Pharaonic  age,  and  that  two  kinds 
of  it  were  known  to  the  Jews  (Anc.  Egypt,  iii.  243-247). 
On  the  erection  of  a  house  it  was  the  custom  to  dedicate 
it,  DO.  xx  ,',,  a  custom  also  in  use  in  Egypt  (Wilkinson, 

Ancient  Egypt,  ii.  124  ;  Home,  hit   iii   3!Ki). 

The  Population  of  eastern  houses  is  very  dense,  much 


HTLDAH  70!)  HUSK 

greater  than  is  usual  among  Europeans.    Several  causes  Moses'  absence  on  Mount  Sinai.  KX  xxiv.  n.     No  further 

give   rise  to   this    (Rubins.m,  Res.  iii  yj ;  Ilm-no,  Int.  iii.  SM!:  notice  is  taken  of  him;   but  the  apparent  intimacy  of 

liremer,  Travels,  i.  IT.->).       In   the  poorer   houses    men    and  his  relation    to   Moses  and    Aaron    probably  gave  rise 

cattle    dwell    together     (Buckingham's  Tnvds  p    40  and  34 ;  to  the  tradition    that    he    was   the    husband 'of    .Miriam, 

[rbyamlManglt;s,ch.iv.  X.jv.Ul;  Buckim,'Iiam'sAr:.bTribos,i..17oV  and  which   is  stated    in    JoM-phns   as  a,  fact  (Aut.  iii.  :(,  4) 

Of  this  custom,  even   in  houses  of  a  superior  kind,  we  The  same  authority  reports   him  to  have  been  the  llur 

find  notices   in    Scripture.   Ge.  xxiv.  32;  1  Si   xxviii  •_>;.      Of  who  was  the  grandfather  of  Eezaleel  (Ai,t.  iii. -.',ih  which 

the  assemblage  of   houses   in  an   eastern  city  we  have  is  (mite  probable,  though,  in  the  abseiu f  any  specific 

low  in  tile  accounts  of  travellers  abundant  information  int  iin^f  I,m    .^  </.>'inf,n>,  .*   i..  1.1  :*-  r  ..        .i._  • 


"IU,>    "  an.uiuu  i.inu.   n;       ou,    uinum-.  dirty  ^.    One  ot  tile  live  kill-so]    Mldiail  slain  ;-,t  the  close  of 

streets,  or  shootin- up  on  the   town   walls;  streets  fiv-  the  sojourn  in   the  wilderness   bore  the   name  of   Hur; 

i|iiently  so    dose    that  they  almost  meet  overhead   at  lungs  in  this  case  being  equal  to  princes  or  leaders,  Nu 

their  ].rojecting  windows;  dark   covered   bazaars,   and  xxxi.  »;  Jos.  .xiii  -ji.    3.  Two  others  are  mentioned  in  later 

a  thronging  population  thronji   the   thonm  Jifaiv-.  arc  times  of  the  name  of    liur.  but   without    anv  particular 

the  general  characteristics  of  an  oriental  city,  to  which  marks  of  distinction.  I  Ki    iv.  »  :  N\-.  iii  •< 
.Jerusalem  is  no  exception  .The,,,-,  n.  Land  and  U.,uk,  p  .;-•  ,  HURAM,  another  form  of  lln;\M. 

Bremcr.Travuls.i.i^.lMjii.ir..;  K-.bin>,.n,ltt.s  i.:u,:;i.-,;iiuis).  HU'SHAI    [l«,*t;,,,i\.    denominated    the    Archite,    a 

fThe  fditimi  ..f  WilkiiK'.:  ..,•  n  —  l   in   this  friend  and  counsellor  of    Davi.l.    2  Sa   xvii   xviii.      Hewa 


artick:   is  th 


l:  I,oiid.jn.  Murray,  isiii      Tho  edition  ol      probably     called    the     Archite     from     belonging    to    the' 

.own  of  Aivhi.  mentioned  only  in  .J  os.  xvi.Vas  among 
the    places    belong,    to    tile   children    ,,f  Jow'ph.      All 

HUL'DAH  [meaning  uncertain],  a  prophetess  who  that  is  known  of  him  respects  the  parl  he  acted  in  (lie 
lived  in  .Jerusalem  in  the  earlier  part  of  .losialfs  ivi-n.  rebellion  of  Absalom  -in  \\hieh  we  liave  more  reason 
and  the  wife  of  one  Shallum  -  of  whom  nothing  i>  to  admire  the  adroitness  he  displaved  in  tlie  cause  of 
known.  She  i>  spoken  ,,f  as  residing  in  the  ,„;>•/,„,/,.  David,  and  the  effectual  service  lie  rendered,  than  to 
which  i.  rendered  ,;,ll,l,l  in  the  Knjish  liible.  L'Ki  appmve  the  course  he  took  in  order  to  eaiTy  Ins  object, 
xxii  II;  but  this  certainly  conveys  a  wrong  impression  of  1 1  is  first  intention  was  to  accompany  David  into  exile: 
the  original.  The  word  properly  means  the  .-.v.oW;  and  l,,,t  on  David's  suggesting  that  lie  mi  Jit  turn  his 
it  depends  upon  the  connection,  in  what  respect,  or  on  fidelity  and  <kill  to  more  account  l>v  remaining  behind. 

wha  t  accol  m  t     1 1  ie  1 ,  .  n  i  i    i-,  to   I  .e  i;  m  let-^t ,  >,  ,<  I          I  >. of   1 1 ,.  .>-. .       ., »,,  I   .  .1 ,.  J.  ..e. -,  .1  i,-l . ,,  .•   t . .    ,  1.  .f. ..,  4    ^1 .  .  i      /     \  i.  :*  i.    .1     i 


wliat  account,  the  term  is  to  lie  undersf I.      I'.nt  there  and  endeavouring  to  defeat  the  counsel  of  Aliithophel. 

seems  no  reason  for  disparting  from  the  only  ascertained  he  followed  the   advice,  and   resolved   to   plavthe   part, 

sense:  the    place   of    Hnldah's   residence   was   on   some  of  a  profer-s,.,!   tVieiid.  though  real  enemy  of   Absalom. 

ground  or  another  designated  the  second;   but  on  what  If  deceit  in  all   cases  is  to   be  condemned,  and   a  good 

-•round  we  are  not  t,, Id.      The  supposition  of  some,  thai  end    is    never  to    be    promoted    by    bad    means— which 

it  was  the  second   quarter  "i  the  city  i-   prol>ahle  (XH  Scripture    and    conscience    alike     teach      then    neither 

<'oi.LE(;Kl;  but  in  the  uncertainty  whicli  exists,  it  is  best,  Davi<l  nor  Tlushai   can   be   justified   in  this  course:   the 

l  M  -rl  i;i  i  >•> .   1 1 1  Tt  't  :i  1 1 1     hn* »  \vi  tnl     M  <    -i     i ,  p.  ,!,,•)•     n  •  •  >  i , . .     \\-l » I ,  .1 1  •.  >..*-..  n            .»'     t.      t  '. , . ,                  r.,ii        r     r.-i                i     ..    i 


was  done  even   by   the  Septuagint    translators:    "she  treachery,  may  go   far  to   palliate   it,   but   they  canno 

dwelt  in  Jerusalem    in   the   Mishneh."       How    lluldah  rescue   it    from    the   condemnation    which    justly   rest: 

had  given  evidence   of   possessing   prophetical    -it'ts,  we  upon   the   policy    of   doin-    evil    that   -ood    may   come, 

are  not  informed,  l,ut  the  fact  seems  to  have  been  gene-  As  matters  turned  out,    Ilu>hai  undoubtedly  served  the 

rally  known;    for  on   the  discovery  of  the  I k   of  the  cause  of    David  well;   he   did    prevail    to  overthrow  the 

law,  when  Josiah  ordered  that   inquiry  should  be  made  counsel  of  Aliithophel,  who  in  consequence  hanged  him- 

at   one   qualified    to  direct   in   such    circumstances,  the  self;  and  so  secured  breathing  time  for  David,  that  he 

•arties  sent  repaired  to  lluldah      not  certainly  because  mi-lit   have   tini"    to    rally  his   forces,  and   concert  hii- 


she  was  the  only  person  then   in   the  land  who  had  the  measures  arijit  for   ilie  decisive   action.      Still,  with   a 

Jt't.  of   prophecy  (for  .Jeremiah  and  others   then   lived),  little  more  faith  and  patience  on  the  par!  of  David  and 

but  proljably  because   she   dwelt   close   at    hand,    while  his    friends,    such   a   crooked    policy    mi-lit    have   been 

they  were  at  some   distance,  and    were  as   yet   perhaps  di>pensed    with:   Cod,  in   that  case,  would  have  found 

little  known.      The  response  given  l>y  Huldah  was  such  some  other  method   f,,r  overthrowing  tlie  plans  of  the 

as  became  a   true   prophet,  and    perfectly  suited  to   the  adversaries,  and  one  that  we  should  have  had  more  plea 

occasion:   she  assured  the  messengers  of  the  king  that  sure  in  associatingwith  the  name  and  the  causeof  David. 

the  wrath  written  in  the  book  of  the  law   would   cer-  Rut  viewed  in  respect  to  Absalom  and  his  party,  one  can 

tainly   come  down  on  the  people  of  .liidah,  on  account,  easily  see  why  it  may  have  been  permitted.       I'.y  false- 

of  the  many  sins  and  iniquities  which  defiled  the   land,  liood  and  treachery   they  expected   to   succeed    in   their 

but   that   from   regard   to  the   tenderness   of  heart,  and  guilty  plot,  and    bv  false -hood    and    treachery  they  were 

fear  of  Cod  which  had  been  manifested  by  the  king,  tlie  defeated  of  their  aim.      Their  own  measure  was  "meted 

judirment.s  should  not  be  inflicted  in  his  day.      Tl ie  word  back  to  them. 

proved  b.ith  a  solace  to  Josiah.  and  an  encouragement          HUSK.       In    the    most    tonchin-     of     all     parables 

for  him    to    proceed    with    tlie    reformation    Of   abuses,  we    are   told    that,    when   reduced    to    the   deepest  dis- 

-  Kl   xxli-  tress,  the  prodigal  would  fain  base   pa.cified  his  hunircr 
HTJR   \/n,/<-\.      1.    A    person  evidently   of  some  note   i  with  "the  husks    (Krpnria)   which    the   swine   did    eat," 

in   tlit;  camp  of    Israel,   as  he    was   chosen  along  with  l.u   xv.  n;.      Regarding  these /••>•«//«  there  is  no  dispntt'. 

Aaron  to  hold  up  the  hands   of    Moses  .luring  the  war  ft  is  on  all  hands  a-ivcd    that,   they  Were  the   horn-like 

with  Amalek,  Ex.  xvii.  in-ia.      He  is  again  mentioned  in  pods   of    the   Crrntonm    x/Y/V/,,,,.    ,,r    earob-tivo,   which 

connection  with   Aaron,    and    as  bavin-   a,  joint    share  grows  abundantly  .-don-  the  shores   of   the  Levant  and 

in  the  oversight    .if   the    people-   diii-in-   the   period  of  in  Northern  Africa.      With  its  pinnated  leaf  and  papi- 

VOL.    1. 


Hl'SK  / 

lionaeeous  blossom,  the  carol >  is  a  handsome  evergreen 
tree,  attaining  a  height  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet, 
and  projecting  a  u'ratoful  shadow.  In  Malta,  when:  it 
grows  in  perfection,  Lady  Callcott  describes  its  "dark 
green  shade"  a.s  forming  "a  curious  contrast  with  the 
white  buildings,  and  the  equally  white  tufa  of  which 
the  island  is  composed.  The  effect  of  this  contrast  is 
most  remarkable  by  moonlight.  Then,  seen  with  its 
terraced  gardens,  flat-roofed  houses,  and  long  linos  of 
fortification.  Malta  might  be  taken  for  an  island  of  the 
dead.  No  sound  is  heard  but  the  murmurs  of  the  waves, 
as  they  wash  the  rocks,  or  a  stillv  breeze  scarcely  stirring 
the  dark  carob-trees.  which  seem  like  funereal  plumes 
waving  over  the  tombs  below"  (-vTipuire  iiovbul,  j>.  ^vj). 
The  fruit  is  a  large  flat  pod.  brown  and  glossy,  bent 
like  a  sickle  or  sheep's  horn,  and  so  suggesting  the 
name  by  which  it  was  known  in  (Greece.  The  bean 


contained  in  this  pod  is  very  small,  and  it  is  said  to  bu 
the  original  of  the  carat,  or  weight  used  by  jewellers  in 
weighing  precious  stones  and  pearls.  But  apart  from 
these  beans,  the  pod  is  full  of  a  somewhat  solid  pulp. 
so  saccharine  that  it  is  constantly  compared  to  honey. 
"  It  is  so  nutritious  that  the  children  of  the  poor  live 
entirely  on  it  during  the  season,  requiring  no  other 
food;  for  it  contains  all  the  necessary  elements  for  the 
support  of  life — starch,  sugar,  oil,  &c.,  in  proper  pro 
portion.  I  found  it  when  new  rather  too  sweet  to  suit 
my  taste;  but  children  seem  to  enjoy  it,  and  they 
thrive  on  it,  eating  the  shell  as  well  as  the  seeds.  When 
the  fruit  is  stored  it  becomes  somewhat  dry.  and  less 
sweet;  but  on  being  soaked  in  honey,  it  is  like  new 
fruit.  Tlie  Arabs  all  like  sweet  food,  and  of  many  a 
man  of  Judea  and  Galilee,  as  well  as  of  John  the  Bap 
tist,  it  might  be  said,  'His  meat.'  for  a  season,  'was 
locusts  and  wild  honey'"  (Miss  Roger's  Domestic  Life  in  Pales 
tine,  p.  rs).  Some  {toils  which  we  have  had  in  our  pos 
session  many  years  still  re-aui  their  sweetness,  but  in 


UYMENEUS 

this  desiccated  state  they  have  a  very  Imxk;/  charac 
ter,  and  we  should  think  would  not  be  prized  except  by 
the  poorest  of  the  people.  On  the  other  hand,  both  when 
newly  gathered  and  when  kept  for  a  length  of  time, 
they  are  a  chief  food  of  cattle  in  the  countries  where 
they  grow.  During  the  peninsular  war,  "Algaroba" 
or  carob  beans  formed  the  chief  food  of  the  British 
cavalry  horses,  and  in  Barbary  they  are  given  to  mules 
and  asses,  who  prefer  them  to  oats  (liumott's  Hot.  sec.  liiyj). 
The  pagan  and  pork-eating  neighbours  of  the  Jews 
would  no  doubt  give  the  carobs  to  their  swine;  but 
amongst  them,  as  well  as  the  Komans,  it  must  have 
been  deemed  a  sign  of  poverty  when  people  were  driven 
to  subsist  upon  them : 


Jt  was  long  debated  whether  the  cU-pt'ocs  {'' locimtx'' 
in  (lie  unih/rri:.t:d  rerxton\,  on  which  John  the  Baptist 
partly  subsisted,  were  the  fruit  of  this  tree,  or  the  well- 
known  insect  the  locust :  and  although  it  is  no\v  gene 
rally  agreed  among  the  learned  that  the  ckp/ues  of  the 
evangelists  can  only  mean  locusts  properly  so  called, 
the  popular  impression  of  the  East  still  gives  it  in 
favour  of  the  carob.  which  is  frequently  called  St. 
John's  bread.  [j.  \\,\ 

HUZ'ZAB  appears  in  the  English  Bible  as  the  name 
of  a  queen  of  Nineveh,  Xa  ii.  7.  And  so  certain  atitho- 

'  rities,  both  Jewish  and  Christian,  have  held.  But  it  is 
not  a  probable  opinion;  as  it  is  against  the  usage  to 
bring  into  a  prophetical  description  the  name  of  any 

i  one.  especially  of  a  woman,  otherwise  unknown.      It  is 

•  better,  therefore,  to  take  the  word  as  a  participle,  and 
to  render  perhaps,  with  Gesenius,  who  joins  it  to' the 
preceding  clause,  thus:  -'the  palace  shall  be  dissolved 

|  and  melt  away.''  But  the  passage  i*  certainly  obscure. 
HYMENE'US,  or  more  correctly  HYMEN^US, 
a  heretical  teacher  in  the  church  of  Ephesus.  He  is 
mentioned  by  the  apostle  first,  more  generally,  as,  alonu 
with  Alexander,  losing  a  good  conscience,  and  in  con 
sequence  making  shipwreck  of  faith.  iTi.  i.  .'u;  and 
again  more  particularly,  as,  along  with  1'hiletus.  givi'iiy 
vent  to  profane  and  vain  babblings,  and  erring  in 
respect  to  the  faith,  by  saying'  that  the  resurrection 
is  past  already.  2Ti.  ii.  ic-i».  There  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  it  is  the  same  person  who  is  referred  to  in 
both  these  passages  under  the  name  of  Hymemeus. 
And  though  the  description  is  very  brief  respecting  his 
errors,  yet  the  probability  is,  that  he  belonged  to  the 
class  who  in  the  early  church  gave  way  to  the  Gnostic 
tendency,  as  to  the  inherent  evil  of  matter,  and  held  that 
the  only  resurrection  which  should  be  looked  for  was  the 
change  that  passed  over  the  spiritual  part  of  our  natures. 
A  tendency  in  this  direction  prevailed  very  extensively 
in  the  first  ages  of  the  gospel,  and  gave  rise  to  many  of 
the  corruptions  which  followed;  and  it  became  the 
apostle  to  denounce  it  with  earnestness  from  the  first. 
In  the  former  of  the  two  passages  referred  to  above, 
the  apostle  speaks  of  having  delivered  the  parties  over  to 
Satan,  that  they  might  learn  not  to  blaspheme;  that  is, 
he  had  solemnly  cast  them  out  of  the  visible  church, 
the  proper  sphere  of  the  Spirit's  agency,  and  sent  them 
back  to  the  world,  the  proper  sphere  of  Satan's,  with 
the  design  possibly  of  suffering  special  inflictions  of  evil 
from  this  adverse  power.  (Xfe  SATAN.)  But  it  was  still, 
if  rightly  viewed,  for  good — for  correction  and  reproof 
in  righteousness,  not  for  final  rejection.  But  whether 
it  proved  in  reality  so  or  not,  we  are  not  informed. 


HYSSOP 


HYSSOP 


HYSSOP  l_3TIN,  >••">''/<  •'  iWwTrosJ.  I'ntil  very  lately. 
although  there  might  be  some  uncertainty  as  to  the 
particular  plant  which  hears  this  name  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  in  the  Septuagint.  anil  in  the  New  Testament, 
it  was  generally  agreed  that  it  must  be  a  member  of 
the  labiate  family.  To  this  extensive  but  inconspicuous 
order,  so  named  from  its  tubular  /i/,/,i/f  corolla,  belong 
plants  like  thyme,  lavender,  rosemarv.  mint,  sau'e.  \c.. 
many  of  them  remarkable  for  their  agreeable  perfume, 
all  of  them  harmless,  and  some  of  them  noted  for  their 
healing  properties.  The  hyssop  "that  springeth  out  of 
the  wall,"  IKi.  iv  :;:;,  would  be  vcrv  well  represented  bv 
the  //// .<••••<  y//'x  i>t>ifii)t.t/is.  which  besides,  with  its  numer 
ous  small,  pointed,  downy  leaves,  i-  admirably  adapted 
for  sprinkling.  Maimonides,  however,  and  those  who 
follow  Jewish  tradition,  say  that  the  hyssop  of  the 
Bible  is  an  origanum  oir  marjoram*,  of  c  mm"ii  occur- 
rence  in  the  desert  of  Sinai,  and  \\ith  a  Mr. 'ii'_r  straight 
stalk,  downv  leaves,  and  white  blossoms.  u'i'' >\\  in_r  freely 
on  stony  soil,  dust-hills,  and  similar  places  iK;iii-,cli  on 
K.\.  xii.22) 

But  for  the  laM  fi-w  years  there  has  In-.-n  a  u'eiieral 
acquiescence  in  the  conclusion  arrived  at  bv  1  >r.  Forbes 


Uoyle.  Finding  that  <ix:t-f  or  nx/if  [nr  l<i*<if\  is  one  of 
the  names  given  by  the  Arabs  to  the  caper-plant 
((.'ap/Kirix  x/>iii».t<i),  it  struck  him  that  this  might  be 
identical  with  the  esobh  or  esof  of  Scripture,  and  in  a 
very  elaborate  memoir,  inserted  in  the  eighth  volume 
of  the  Join-nil/  <>f  tin'  Rnijal  Axiittir  Snc'n'tii,  he  has 
brought  together  a  great  mass  of  ingenious  evidence  in 
support  of  this  conclusion.  Besides  the  apparent  iden 
tity  of  name,  the  arguments  in  favour  of  the  caper 
may  be  reduced  to  these  three':  1.  It  oceui's  in  Egypt, 
in  the  desert  of  Sinai,  and  in  Palestine.  2.  By  the 


ancients  cleansing  or  healing  properties  were  ascribed 
to  it.  'A.  Its  trailing  Mem  would  easily  furnish  a  rod 
suiHciently  long  to  convey  to  the  lips  of  the  dying 
Redeemer  the  restorative  mentioned.  Jn.  xix.  •_".>.  To 
these  the  learned  author  might  have  added,  that  its 
sprawling  creeping  habit,  so  like  the  bramble,  makes 
the  caper  a  very  good  antithesis  to  the  cedar:  "Solo 
mon  spake  of  trees  from  the  cedar  to  the  esobh;" 
suggesting  a  similar  contrast  in  .lotham's  parable: 
"Let  tire  come  out  of  the  bramble,  and  devour  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon."  .in.  i\  i.v 

At  the  same  time,  after  cart  fully  pondering  the  argu 
ments  of  this  able  botanist,  we  own  that  we  are  by 
no  means  satisfied.  It  is  true  that  with  it.-  bright 
inven  foliage  the  caper  plant  sprites  from  the  rocky 
clefts  in  the  desert,  and.  its  thorns  notwithstanding,  it 
mi.ht  suit  tolerably  well  for  a  sprinkler.  But  would 
not  a  fragrant  plant  au>\\er  tin-  purpose  still  better '. 
and  one.  like  the  origanum.  also  a  native  of  the  same 
regions,  which  with  its  straight  t\\i_;-  could  readily  be 
formed  into  a  "bunch."  Kx.  xii. '.'•_>;  and  t!i<-  sliiditlv 
villous  leaves  of  \\hieh  an-  excellently  adapted  for  both 
taking  up  and  freclv  scattering  a  Huid  .'  Nor  do  we 
attach  much  importance  to  the  healing  or  cleansing 
properties  which  Plinv  ascribe  -  to  the  i-aper.  \Vln  n  he 
recommends  it  as  a  remedy  for  morphev  i"  vitiligines 
alba-"  i.  M>1,  en.  and  glandular  swellings,  he  never  dreams 

that    patient>   were  to    lie   cured    bv  drops   of    hi 1    or 

water  shaken  over  them  from  a  cape]  -spri'4.  The  root 
is  to  be  mad'-  into  a  decoction,  and  drunk:  or  the 
leaves  and  roots  are  to_  be  pounded,  and  made  into  a 
cataplasm  (I'liiiHNat  II-,-:  \\  v.»  And  even  if  any  sup 
posed  virtues  of  the  plant  had  auuht  to  do  with  its 
-I'-ctJon  fora  purpo>e  jiuri-lv  ceremonial  <>r  ^vmbolic. 
it  would  lie  easy  to  make  out  a  still  stronger  case  for 
the  mint-,  sages,  and  hyssops  which  still  retain  a  chief 
place  in  popular  pharmacy,  and  which  command  a 
large  >ali-  in  the  shop>  ,,('  Lirjlish  herbalists  and  con 
tinental  apothecaries.  As  for  the  difficulty  founded  on 
.In.  xix.  2!':  other  evangelists  mention  that  the  sponge 
\\as  attixi  (!  to  a  reed  UaXd//u.'l,  M  u  xxvii.  i^;  M;ir  \v.:;r,. 
As  Ivosenmuller  savs,  "Th'-  plain  reason  why  the 
soldiers  present!  d  to  the  liVdeemer  a  sponge  dijiped 
into  \inegar.  along  with  some  hyss.ip.  seems  to  be  this, 
that  suckini!  tin-  vinegar  from  the  ^pon •_;•!•  was  to 
•  |Ui-ncli  the  thirst  of  which  he  complained,  and  the 
aromatic  scent  of  the  hv.-sop  was  to  refresh  and  to 
strengthen  him"  (i;il,'ii-il  l',,>!;ujy,  i\-  -j>;  and  the  sponge 

with   the   hyssop    around    it    was  affixed    to   a   can • 

reed  not  a  caper-stalk,  but  a  calamus.  If  we  accept 
the  statement  of  ( ieseniu-.  there  need  be  no  diiliculty  : 
"  Under  this  name  ['esobh  |  tlie  Hebrews  appear  to  have 
comprised,  not  only  the  common  hyssop  of  the  shops, 
but  also  other  aromatic  plants,  especially  mint,  wild 
marjoram,  etc."  If  so.  \\hether  in  the  desert  or  at 
Jerusalem,  it  would  at  .-ill  times  be  possible  to  procure 
the  suitable  herb  from  which  to  make  a  sprinkler.  From 
its  being  associated,  Le.  xiv.  1, li,  r>l  ;  Xu  xix.  1-,  with  tin: 
fragrant  cedar-wood,  there  is  an  additional  presumption 
in  favour  of  its  l>eing  some  sweet-scented  plant  like  the 
hyssop  of  the  ( i  reeks  and  the  origanum  of  Jewish  tra 
dition.  I-',  n.] 


lliLiiA.M 


IDJX) 


1. 


IB'LEAM,  tin-  name  in'  ii  town  ni  the  tribe  of  .Ma 
nassch.  which  must  at  an  i-arly  period  have  been  of 
some  importance,  as  it  is  mentioned  "with  its  towns,'' 
or  villages,  Jn.  i.  -27.  It  \\as  near  this  that  Ahaziah 
received  his  mortal  wound  from  tin-  party  of  Jehu. 
•_:  ivi.  iv  -7;  but  nothing  further  is  known  of  it.  nor  has 
its  precise  position  licen  identified  hv  modern  research. 

IB'ZAN,  ;i  word  of  uncertain  meaning,  and  found 
oiilv  as  the  name  of  one  of  the  judu'es  of  Israel,  tin- 
tenth  in  order,  Ju.  xii.  S-lo.  lie  is  merely  said  to  have 
lieeii  of  Bethlehem,  to  have  judged  for  seven  years,  and 
to  have  had  thirty  sons  and  as  manv  daughters,  for 
all  of  whom  he  took  wives  and  husbands.  It  is  Ijut 
natural  to  infer  that  his  period  of  rule  was  not  dis 
tinguished  bv  remarkable  exploits  of  a  higher  kind. 


ICH'ABOD  [,r/,t,.>:  is  t/u  yiori/t  i.e.  it  is  -one]  the 
son  of  Phineiias  and  grandson  of  Kli,  no  further  dis 
tinguished  than  as  having  been  born  at  the  time  when 
the  I'hilistines  gained  one  of  their  most  memorable 
victories  over  Israel,  in  consequence  of  which  the  ark 
of  the  Lord  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  This 
calamity,  more  even  than  the  news  of  her  husband's 
death,  fell  like  a  thunder-bolt  on  the  afflicted  mother, 
and  broke  her  heart.  In  her  la>t  moments  she  gave 
tin;  name  of  lehabod  to  her  child,  in  commemoration 
of  the  disasters  which  had  befallen  her  house  and 
country,  i  Sa.  iv.  111-^:2. 

ICO'NIUM,  a  town  in  Asia  .Minor,  about  'Jo  miles 
south  of  Laodicea.  and  as  far  north  of  Lystra.  It  was 
visited  bv  the  apostle  Paul,  both  in  his  first  and  in  his 


%'fijif*  .!^§§^^. 
^i- 


second  missionary  tour  through  Asia  Minor,  At-  xiv.  i-r,; 
xv. :i(i,  11.  In  tlie  evangelical  narrative  it  is  not  expressly 
assigned  to  any  particular  province:  hut  it  is  mentioned 
so  as  to  indicate  that  it  must  have  been  either  in  I.y- 
eaonia.  or  somewhere  on  its  borders;  for  Paul  and  his 
companions  are  reported  to  have  gone,  when  driven  out  | 
of  Iconium,  " to  Lystra  and  Derbe.  cities  of  Lycaonia." 
<  >f  heathen  writers.  Xeno[ihon  connected  it  with  Phryuia 
(An^l).  i.  2):  while  by  Pliny,  Stralio,  and  others,  it  is  placed 
in  Lycaonia.  In  Pliny's  time  it  was  the  centre  of  a 
district,  or  tetrarchy,  which  comprised  fourteen  towns. 
It  must  therefore  have  been  a  place  of  considerable 
importance,  and  possessed  a  pretty  large  population. 
Such  also  is  the  impression  conveyed  by  the  account 
given  in  Ac.  xiv.  1-5.  which  makes  mention  of  "a  i 
great  multitude  both  of  Jews  and  Greeks"  receiving 
the  word  of  Paul.  The  situation  of  the  town,  which 
is  near  the.  foot  of  Mount  Taurus,  at  the  extremity  of 
a  vast  plain,  with  a  lake  in  the  centre,  and  well  sup 
plied  with  water,  rendered  it  capable  of  supporting  such 
a  population.  And  partly  on  this  account,  perhaps,  it 
is  one  of  the  few  towns  in  that  region  which  still  con 
tinue  to  exist,  and  exhibit  some  proofs  of  their  ancient 
greatness.  The  modern  name  of  the  town  is  A'miii/i, 
and  the  population  is  estimated  at  30.000.  It  is  sar-  ; 


rounded  with  lot'tv  and  ma-MVe  walls;  which,  however, 
were  built  in  mediaeval  times,  bv  the  sultans  of  the 
Seljukan  Turks,  who  resided  at  Iconium.  and  m-ide  it 
fora  considerable  period,  tin-  seat  of  government.  Man\ 
pieces  of  sculpture,  and  tablets  with  inscriptions,  be 
longing  to  the  more  ancient  city,  Lave  been  built  into 
the  walls,  and  are  distinctly  seen.  Carpets  ai'e  manu 
factured  in  the  place:  ami  from  it.  a,-  the  centre  of  a 
rich  agricultural  di-t.net.  cotton,  hides,  leather,  Max. 
and  various  kinds  of  grain  and  fruit  are  sent  to  Smyrna. 
It  is  also  the  residence  of  a  pasha. 

ID'DO  [tlunhi].  the  name.  1.  of  a  prophet  of  Jndah. 
who  lived  about  the  period  of  its  commencement  as  a 
separate  kingdom,  and  who  is  identified  by  Josephus 
with  the  prophet  who  went  to  Bethel  to  denounce  the 
sin  of  Jeroboam,  and  was  afterwards  slain  by  a  lion  on 
his  return  (Jos.  Ant.  viii.  !i,  1).  This  cannot,  however,  be 
reckoned  vt-rv  probable,  from  the  one  notice  that  is 
preserved  of  Iddo  in  Scripture;  it  is  said  that  "the  rest 
of  the  acts  of  Abijah  (Rehoboam's  son),  and  his  ways, 
and  his  .sayings,  are  written  in  the  story  (midraah, 
account)  of  the  prophet  Iddo,"  2 Ch.  xiv .•».  Living,  as 
he  thus  appears  to  have  done,  to  the  close  of  Abijah's 
reign,  he  could  scarcely  have  been  the  man  who  re 
proved  Jeroboam's  idolatry  and  immediately  thereafter 


IDOLS  i  i  '•>  IDOLS 

died;  for  that  event   seems   to   have   taken  place   at   a     in   those   countries  in    which   the   representations   were 
eoiiMdera'oiy  earlier  period.  fashioned  after  the  A/'//"/,/   type,  the  male  form,  iniag- 


2.  IDUO.   The  grandfather  of  the  prophet  Zechariah  ing  the  more  severe  and  manlv  attributes  of  deity,  re- 
also  bore  the  name  of  Iddo,  Zee.  i.  1;  Ezr.  v.  1;  but  nothing  quired  to  have  its  counterpart  in  the  female  —  where- 
more  is  known  of  him.  ever   there    was   a    Baal   there   must   be    an  Ashtoreth, 

3.  lubu.  An  Iddo  of  the  same  period  as  the  preced-  wherever  a  Jupiter  a  Juno:  nay.  in  either  division  there 
ing  appears  as  the  head  of  the  Nethinim,   settled  at  must  be  again  subdivisions  endless— images  of  men  and 
C'asiphia,   a   place  somewhere  in  Babylonia,   to   whom  women  with  the  predominant   virtue  in  their  aspect,  of 
Ezra  sent  a  message,  when  on  the  eve  of  returning  to  bravery  or  skill,  of   wisdom   or  beauty,  and   so   on,  till 
Judea.  praying  that  he  and  his  brethren  would  aceom-  every  property  of  the  human  constitution,  every  phase 
pany  them:   of  these  no  fewer  than  '2~>(>  responded   to  of  the  human   character,   and  even    every   lust  of  the 
the  invitation.  Kxr.  via.  17-L'o.  human   heart,    had    its   deified    representation   in   some 

4.  limn.    A  chief  of  the  half  tribe  of   Manas.-ch  he-  visible  object  of  worship.      It   was   pnci.-ily  similar  in 
y.md  the  Jordan,  i  Cli  xxvii.  21;  but  the  name  is  not  pre-  those  countries  in   which   the  idol  tendency  took  more 
cisely  the  same  in  Hebrew,  having  f..r  its  commencing  "f  the  *i/inl,olicul  direction,  and   the  Codhcad  was  con- 
let  t-'r  lad  not  am  cj?.i.  and  meaning  l,m  './.  °  lvwl  "f  aui1  worshipped   under  the  shadow  of   beasts. 

and  birds,  and  creeping  things.    In  every  particular  form 


IDOLS,  IJ)()LATi;V.     The  n  ferenc,  .-   to  idolatry 


the  svmbol  \\-;is   readily  perceived  to  image  but  a  part; 


in   Scripture,    especially    in   the    scriptures   of    the   "1,1  it  l>n")Uyht   ,mlv   ,,n,,   aspect  ,,f    11;lture,  or   one   depart 

Testament,  are  of  great  number  and  variety.      It  is  not  lia.nt  uf  i;,-,    i'utn  sensible  contact   with  the  Deity;  so 

quite  easy  to  classify  them;  for  they  have  respect  some  ti,.a  ,,tliei>  from  time  t<>   time  were   rei|iiire<l  to  till   up 

times   to  the   f.dse  worship  of   the  true  Cod.  sometimes  the  representati.m.  till  the  whole  cycle  of  created  being 

to   the    representations  made  of  uther   or   rival  objects  in    ;l    manner    was    ransacked    fur    its    symbols   of   the 

of    worship,  and  soni'-times    vet   a^ain  t"    these   ubjeits  divin.-.       Kv  en  this  was  fuiind    insutticielit ;   for  fanciful 

themselves      the  imaginary  deities  of  the  heatlien,  \\  liich  and  com] >< .site  form.-  were  often  de\  ised  to  supply  what 

wviv  often  identified  svith  the  material    forms  that  per-  --eiiied  lacking  in  the  actual  wurld. 

suiiated  them.  The  secund  commandment,  wliich  is  I'.ut  a-  this  pn.cess  uf  idulatrv  by  means  uf  images 
the  first  furmal  prohibition  of  idolatry,  does  not  distin-  and  symbols  advanced,  the  symbols  ins<  nsibly  liecamc 
•_;-iiisli  beuv.-en  these  different  senses;  it  -trictlv  tori. ids  realities,  and  the  images  passed  into  so  many  actual 
the  paying  uf  di\  ine  homage  to  any  linage  «r  likeness,  deitieatiuiis.  The  unity  of  the  (  MM! head  was  lust  .-iu'ht 
huwever  made,  and  whatever  b< -in.  it  mi^lit  j.urport  uf:  and  instead  uf  lifting  men's  minds  up  to  Cud.  the 
to  represent,  of  things  in  heaven,  or  on  earth,  or  in  sensible  forms  under  which  they  wui-shipp-d  him  cor 
the  luwvr  n--..iun- of  thi  deep.  I >ut  one  can  easily  con-  ni|.ted  tln-ir  very  nutiuns  ..f  hi-  nature,  dragged  him 
ceive,  that  the  evil  forbidden  admitted  of  diverse  stages,  down,  a-  it  w,-iv.  into  the  conditions  of  sense  and 
as  well  as  forms,  and  that  it  wuiild  be  the  mure  calcu-  time,  and  merged  the  Creator  in  the  creature.  Thus, 
lated  to  excite  the  divine  reprobation  the  furth'T  it  heathenism,  if  not  in  i'.s  beu-inninus  wa>  at  !ea-t  in  its 
receded  t  mm  correct  n -presentations  uf  the  truth  cmi  ultimate  issues,  but  a  furm  ut  [>antheism;  and  not 
cerninu  the  beinu  and  attributes  of  Jehovah.  Kveii  in  otherwise  than  by  its  abolition  could  the  true  knuw- 
the  simplest  and  least  obnoxious  furm,  wh.-n  emlea-  led-,-  uf  Cud  be  attained,  ur  the  distinction  be  solidly 
voiiring  to  exhibit  under  some  created  likeiies.-  th,  e>tabli>ln-d  in  men's  minds  betwi.-eii  tin-  infinite  and 
1'ivator  himself  ,,f  heaven  and  of  earth,  it  iieces.strily  the  finite,  the  invisible  Cud  and  his  visible  creation. 
lied  against  the  truth:  because  ii"  likeness  uf  any  ex-  It  is  ipiite  easy,  therefore,  to  understand  why  Scrip- 
istenee  lielon^inu  to  the  visible  cr'-ation  can  possiblv  tare  should  have  so  >ternly  prohibited  es'ery  form  of 
form  an  adequate  representation  uf  him  w  hu  i.-  nut  idol-woj-ship,  and  also  why  it  should  so  often  treat  the 
uiily  a  Spirit,  but  a  Spirit  intinite.  eternal,  and  mi-  worshippers  of  i,!,.K,  even  when  peupie  prof.-sed  tu 
i-han-val.le.  N~o  external  form  can  possibh  image  such  adore  under  them  the  ..in-  true  Cud,  as  serving  other 
a  iiein--,  and,  if  any  one  is  adopted,  it  must  inevitably  u"ds.  Tim.-,  when  the  Israelites  made  the  molten  calf 
tend  to  debase  and  pervert,  in-lead  uf  helping  men's  at  Huivb.  aithuuuh  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was 
notions  respecting  him.  So  the  apu.-tle  tu  the  Geii-  Jehovah  they  intende<l  to  worship  under  the  symbol  of 
tiles  declared  on  Mars'  Hill,  in  the  verv  presence  of  the  the  buvine  furm.  alter  the  manner  of  Kgypt.  yet  Moses 
finest  efi'orts  of  genius  that  have  ever  appeared  to  bodv  says  concerning  them.  •'  (  >h  !  this  people  have  sinned  a 
forth  under  created  forms  the  likeness  of  the  divine.  -_;ivat  sin.  and  made  them  ^ud>  ut  u"ld.  Kx.  xxxii  :;i 
After  setting  forth  tin:  infinite  greatness  and  all-pel--  And  so  at  a  later  period,  regarding  the  sin  of  Jeroboam, 
va-ling  presence  and  power  of  Cod.  he  concluded,  it  is  spoken  of  as  "the  golden  calves  wliich  Jeroboam 
••  Forasmuch,  then,  as  we  are  the  otl'spring  of  did,  we  made  for  gods,"  ^cii.  xiii.  K  lleni-e,  "  to  ,-erve  graven 
ouuht  not  to  think  that  the  Codhead  is  like  unto  gold,  images"  was  of  itself  to  turn  from  serving  the  living  God 
or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by  art  and  man's  device,"  Still,  it  was  nut  so  palpably  going  over  to  the  ranks 
AC.  xvii.  j;i.  Such  material  forms  could  but  imperfectlv  of  heathenism,  as  when  the  images  avowedly  represented 
represent  even  a  finite-  human  beinu,  and  they  altoge-  "  strange  gods,"  which  was  the  more  obnoxious  form 
ther  failed  in  respect  to  the  infinite  and  divine.  Not  of  evil  introduced  by  Ahab.  and  never  afterwards 
only  so,  but  they  also  conducted  by  a  necessary  sequence  wholly  extirpated  from  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  i  Ki.  .\vi. 
to  polytheism;  for.  as  no  image,  even  the  most  perfect,  :>n;^Ki  xvii.  ;, ic.  It  was,  however,  but  a  further  de- 
could  give  more  than  a  very  partial  and  fragmentary  velopmeiit  of  the  same  great  evil ;  and  the  sin  which 
exhibition  uf  the  idea  of  Cud  derived  by  the  human  i  Jeroboam  set  up  at  Dan  and  Hethel,  had  its  natural 
mind  from  the  phenomena  of  conscience  and  creation,  ,  consummation  in  the  foul  abominations  afterwards 
another  and  another  in  endless  succession  were  neces-  established  at  Samaria.  For  the  deity  worshipped  in 
sarily  added  to  supplement  felt  deficiences.  Hence,  j  the  former  places  under  the  merely  natural  symbol  of 


IDOLS  / 

the  calf.  howt  ver  it  might  l>c  called  liy  the1  name  of 
•  lehovah,  was  no  longer  the  pure  and  holv  Jehovah  of 
the  old  covenant  :  with  the  change  of  the  character  of 
the  worship.  th>'  oliieet  of  worship  al>o  became  essen- 
tiallv  did'en-ut:  so  that  the  way  w;:s  prepared  for  other 
kinds  of  worship,  nominally,  as  well  as  really,  opposed 
1  i  the  serviee  of  the  Lord. 

A  eonsid'-ral'lt'  pail  of  the  denunciations  of  the  pro 
phets  against  idolatry  is  d,  -voted  to  the  exposure  of  the 
senselessness  of  idol-  worship  —  its  contrariety  to  the 
views  of  right  reason  and  the  first  principles  of  a  rational 
pietv.  Thr  searching  and  vehement  expostulations 
nf  Isaiah  upon  th>'  subject  are  partieularly  striking,  Is.  xl 
l\  seq  ;xli.  0,  7,  &c.;  and  those  of  Jeremiah,  though  briefer, 
are  in  a  similar  strain,  ch.  x.  :;.  The  same  object  is  also 
sought  to  lie  accomplished  bvthe  contemptuous  epithets 
applieil  in  various  parts  of  ScripUuv  to  idols.  They 
are  called  c%u"sx  (t/i/inn.  inanities  or  nothings,  i.e.  xix.  4; 
•is  (<irc/>)  utter  emptiness,  nonentity,  whence  Beth-  el,  the 

house  of  God,  was  designated,  after  it  became  a  centre  of 

idolatry,  I'eth-aven,  hou>e  of  vanity,  Is.  Ixvi.  :t  ;  Ho.  iv.  i:.  ; 
C^sn  (hahaHni),  vapours  or  light  and  frothy  things,  L'Ki 

•T~: 

xvii.  i:>;.  Je.  ii.  :>-,  Ts.  xxxi.  j;Qiy^»^  (shik&tsim),  abominations, 

xi.5,  &c.;  als.i^.^s'r.j  (gilhlltm),  blocks  ol1  logs 


of  wood.  1,0.  xxvi.  :;o  ;  2  Ki.  xvii.  12,  ie.  Thus,  by  a  variety 
of  expressions,  all  indicating  worthlessness  and  vanity, 
a  feeling  of  contempt  and  abhorrence  was  sought  to  be 
awakened  in  the  minds  of  the  people  toward  all  sorts  of 
images  of  worship. 

The  whole,  however,  proved  insufficient  to  check  the 
tendency  to  fall  in  with  the  sensuous  and  corrupting 
forms  of  heathenish  idolatry,  until  repeated  and  deso 
lating  judgments  burned,  as  it  were,  the  impression  of 
the  truth  into  the  national  mind,  and  caused  an  anti- 
heatheiiish  spirit  to  spring  up  and  take  firm  and  per 
manent  root  in  the  Jewish  soil.  The  strength  of  that 
tendency  in  Israel,  and  the  extreme  difficulty  of  its 
eradication,  undoubtedly  arose  mainly  from  the  imperfect 
nature  of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  which  but  par- 
tiallv  revealed  the  purposes  of  God.  and  associated  itself 
in  so  many  ways  with  the  local,  the  fleshly  and  temporal. 
Serious  and  thoughtful  minds,  which  could  penetrate 
beneath  the  surface,  perceived  in  all  its  institutions  and 
services  a  manifestation  of  God,  entirely  different  in  its 
character  and  design  from  anything  that  was  to  be 
found  in  heathenism,  and  caught  a  spirit  that  was  alike 
opposed  to  the  senselessness  of  its  idolatry  and  the  foul 
ness  of  its  corruptions.  But  the  great  multitude,  who 
were  ever  prone  to  look  to  the  mere  show  and  garniture 
of  things,  naturally  paid  more  regard  to  the  resem 
blances,  than  the  differences  between  Judaism  and  hea 
thenism:  with  them  the  shell  was  in  a  manner  every 
thing.  the  kernel  nothing;  and  seeing,  as  they  did,  in 
heathenism  a  pomp  and  glory  that  fascinated  the  senses, 
and  withal  a  tendency  to  adapt  itself  to  the  corruptions 
of  the  human  heart,  while  it  had  many  resources  to 
work  upon  its  fears  and  hopes,  they  were  but  too 
ivady  to  fraternize  and  fall  in  with  such  a  worship. 
But  the  true  at  length  prevailed,  because  it  was  of  God, 
while  the  false  sunk  under  the  weight  of  its  own  vanity 
and  corruptions;  and  for  the  world  at  large  there  only 
needs  the  general  diffusion  of  the  knowledge  of  God  in 
<  'hri-it  Jesus,  to  bring  every  form  of  idol-  worship  to 
cease  from  among  men.  For  there  is  but  one  image 
which  God  can  own.  or  which  men  can  find  really  ser- 


i  I  IDTM.KA 

viceahle  to  aid  their  conceptions  of  his  being  and  charac 
ter,  one  that  he  himself  has  made;  namely,  the  intelligent, 
rational,  and  holy  nature  of  man  -an  image,  which  be 
came  marred  in  the  hands  of  its  original  possessor,  as  it 
still  is  in  those  of  his  natural  descendants;  but  which  has 
reappeared  in  all  its  completeness  in  Christ,  and  in  a 
measure  also  is  found  in  his  people,  in  proportion  as 
they  have  imbibed  the  spirit  of  his  gospel,  and  have 
become  conformed  to  his  likeness. 

IDUJVLE'A,  the  Greek  form  of  the  Hebrew  name 
Edoin  (which  signifies  m///<-.«),  derived  from  Esau,  tie. 
xxxvi  -,  the  elder  twin  brother  of  Jacob— -31  'JiV:  -J'.i  fill' 
N.  lat.:  and  :!,r  3V  H"  E.  long.  (See  Es.vr.)  \Ve  find 
Edom  as  the  name  of  the  people,  Xu.  xx.  •>»,  21:  and  of  the 
country,  Je.  xlix.  17.  The  phrase  ''land  of  Edom  "fre 
quently  appears.  Nu.  xxi.  t ;  xxxiii.  :;7,&L-.  •'  Eield  of  Edom." 
Ju.  v.  4.  The  children  of  Edom.  daughter  of  Edom,  La. 
iv.  21,  22.  Edomite,  Edomites,  Do.  xxiii.  7;  1  Ki.  xi.  1.  Jdu- 
nuea  or  Edom  was  the  mountainous  tract  between  the 
!  Head  Sea  and  the  lied  Sea.  It  was  bounded  on  the 
;  north  l>y  the  cultivated  land  of  Judea  on  one  side  of 
the  Dead  Sea.  and  that  of  the  Moabites  on  the  other. 
i  On  the  north-west  Edom  touched  upon  the  land  of 
\  the  Philistines,  and  on  the  west  it  was  separated 
from  Egypt  hv  the  Midianites  of  Mount  Sinai,  and 
by  the  desert  to  the  north  of  Mount  Sinai.  On 
the  east  and  on  the  south  the  wide  desert  of  .Arabia 
was  thinly  peopled  by  other  tribes  of  Arabs  of  the  same 
wandering  unsettled  habits,  the  nearest  being  the  Sa- 
bcans,  Hagarites,  and  other  tribes  of  Midianites.  In 
later  times  the  boundaries  of  Idiumea  extended  north 
wards  almost  to  Hebron,  and  even  included  part  of  the 
hill  country  of  Judea.  Previously  to  the  occupation 
of  Edom  by  the  descendants  of  Esau,  it  was  called 
Mount  Seir,  which  is  first  mentioned  in  the  Bible. 
(io.  xiv.  o,  where  Checlorlaomer  and  the  kings  that  were 
with  him  smote  the  Horites  in  their  Mount  Seir. 
The  Horites  of  Mount  Seir  dwelt  in  caverns  in  the 
mountains,  whence  their  name  is  derived,  "Hor,"  cave; 
and  Jerome  tells  us  that  at  his  day  "the  whole  of  the 
southern  part  of  Idunuea  to  Petra  and  Aila  was  full 
of  caverns,  used  as  dwellings  on  account  of  the  exces 
sive  heat"  (jer.  onObadiah).  Traces  of  these  abodes  are 
yet  seen  in  and  about  Petra.  To  the  Horim  succeeded 
the  children  of  Esau,  DC.  ii.  12.  Esau  had  removed 
here  during  his  father's  lifetime,  and  his  third  wife  was 
a  daughter  of  Ishmael  and  sister  of  Nabaioth,  whose 
descendants  the  Nabatheans  long  after  obtained  chief 
power  in  the  land  of  Edom.  The  northern  part  of 
Mount  Seir  is  now  called  Jebal,  and  the  southern 
E'sherah.  At  the  base  of  the  chain  are  low  hills  of 
limestone  or  argillaceous  rock  ;  then  lofty  masses  of 
porphyry,  which  constitute  the  body  of  the  moun 
tain  ;  above  these  is  sandstone  broken  into  irregular 
ridges  and  groups  of  cliffs,  and  farther  back  are  ridges 
of  limestone,  probably  nearly  3000  feet  high.  The 
porphyry  cliffs  are  estimated  to  be  elevated  fully  2000 
feet  above  the  great  valley  between  the  Dead  Sea  and 
i  the  ^Elanitic  Gulf.  The  whole  breadth  of  the  moun 
tain  tract  between  the  Arabah  and  the  eastern  desert 
above  does  not  exceed  fifteen  or  twenty  geographical 
miles.  The  mountains  on  the  western  side  of  the 
valley  are  entirely  desert  and  sterile,  while  those  on  the 
east  are  visited  by  rain,  and  are  covered  with  tufts  of 
herbs  and  occasional  trees.-  The  valleys  are  full  of 
trees,  shrubs,  and  flowers,  the  eastern  and  higher  part 
being  extensively  cultivated  and  yielding  good  crops. 


IDUM.-EA 

As  long  as  the  navigation  of  the  sea  was  difficult. 
Edom  ottered  the  readiest  route  for  the  passage  of 
merchants  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  Egypt.  The 
caravans  or  troops  of  camels  laden  with  merchandise 
passed  from  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf  to  Edom, 
and  thence  to  the  Hebrew  cities  on  the  east  of  the 
Delta.  Towns  arose  on  the  spots  which  gave  water  to 
the  camels  and  their  owners  on  the  march:  these 
flourished  for  some  centuries,  until  it  was  found  that 
the  merchandise  of  the  East  could  be  carried  more 
cheaply  along  the  southern  coast  of  Arabia  and  up  the 
Red  Se:i.  AinoiiLf  the  towns  either  within  the  boiin 
or  bordering  upon  Edom  mentioned  in  Scripture  arc 
Dinahab,  I'o/.rah,  Teiiiau,  Avith.  Pan,  Ge.  xxxvi.  :j2-35,:!!J; 
Kadesh-barnea.  Xu  xxxii.  *• ;  Elath.  2  Ki.  xiv.  _'•_';  E/.ion- 
geber,  iKi.ix.2i;;  but  the  most  important  place  in  all 
the  region  was  Sdah.  1'etra.  or  .lokthed,  the  capital  of 
Arabia  IV-lra-a.  This  eity  was  :-it  nated  about  llnmile- 
S.iS.  E.  of  Jerusalem,  in  a  small  inclosed  hollow  in 
the  range  of  Mount  Hor.  on  tin  east  .-iile  ,  ,f  \Vadv 
Arabah,  and  surrounded  by  steep  dill's  of  a  rose- 
coloured  sandstone,  but  watered  bv  a  brook  \ 
gave  the  spoi  its  value.  Tin.'  place  is  called  in  Scrip 
ture  Sdah.  the  rock,  2  K,  xiv.  7 ;  I.-  xvi  i  ;  of  which  1'etra 
is  tlh-  Greek  translation  having  the  same  meaning.  It 
is  not  easy  t»  determine  tin-  extent  of  the  ancient  city. 
thon-h  it  could  uoi  have  extended  beyond  the  natural 
boundaries  formed  by  the  mountain-.  nann-Iv.  a  ]en-th 
of  a  little  more  than  a  mile,  wiih  a  variable  breadth  ot 
half  a  mile;  but  following  the  irregular  line  formed  bv 
the  numerous  valleys  which  open  into  the  principal 
one,  the  circumference  may  have  been  four  or  five 
miles;  it  was  nevertheless  a  place  of  -Teat  ina-niticeiice 
(strabo,  1'liny,  Josi-jilius),  and  commanded  a  Iar-v  shan 
the  traffic  of  the  East.  I'.eiu-  withdrawn  fivm  all  tin 
caravan  rout,--,  the  roads  which  lead  to  it  thr 
the  dreary  mountain  passes  cannot  be  found  without 
the  help  of  a  guide.  On  one  side  the  entrance  is  through 
a  frightful  chasm,  so  narrow  that  not  more  than  two 
hoisenn-n  can  ride  a-luvast:  on  the  oilier  side,  the  road 
which  Lad.-  down  into  it  is  too  steep  for  a  loaded 
camel.  The  small  brook  ^Pliny,  N;il  ll:-t  >;  i-,v.  32)  which 
enters  the  valley  thi-ou--h  the  \Vady  S\ke  on  tin  east, 
was  paveil  at  the  bottom,  and  th--  sides  were  faced 
with  hewn  ma.-onry.  <  '.msiderab!-  remain-  of  tin 
wall  and  pavement,  and  sonic  lar-i  flagstones  beloii--- 
ing  to  a  paved  way  that  ran  aloii--  th-  side  of  the  river, 
still  remain,  as  do  the  foundations  of  several  bridges 
that  spanned  its  channel.  Labordo  and  Linant  arrived 
from  the  south  and  descended  bv  the  ravine;  advanc 
ing  a  little,  they  ••commanded  a  view  of  the  whole 
city  covered  with  ruins,  and  of  its  superb  indosnre  of 
rocks  pierced  with  myriads  of  tombs,  which  form  a 
series  of  wondrous  ornaments  all  round."  The  citv 
contains  a  number  of  remarkable  excavations.  The 
temples  hewn  out  of  the  rock  are  all  of  a  Roman  style 
of  architecture,  ornamented  with  porticos  and  Corin 
thian  columns  of  the  age  of  the  Antonines.  One 
building,  to  which  the  Arabs  have  given  the  name  of 
House  of  I'haraoh.  is  in  the  form  of  a  square  thirty-four 
yards  cadi  way.  The  four  walls  are  nearlv  entire,  and 
the  east  one  is  surmounted  by  a  handsome  cornice;  but 
the  other  details  with  which  the  interior  was  over 
loaded  were  in  stucco  plastered  on  the  walls.  The  front  j 
facing  the  north  was  adorned  with  a  colonnade,  of  which 
four  pillars  are  still  standing;  and  behind  the  colonnade 
is  a  piazza,  from  which  three  chambers  are  entered,  one 


I  DUAL*:  A 


:  -oi--e  by  w  hi  di  th-  -city  is  entered.  The  to]  id  is  in  which 
the  inhabitants  were  buried  remain  in  the  form  of 
cells  pierced  into  the  cliff's  on  all  sidt  s.  and  upon  difld- 
cut  levd-.  around  the  theatre,  tin-  market-place,  the 
temples.  ;m,l  along  the  rojuls  even  for  mii<  -  out  of  the 
city;  but  tin  <iwd!in-;-p]aoes  of  the  living  have  long 
since  disappeared,  -wept  awav  in  all  probability  by  the 
waters  of  tin-  little  -(ream,  which  in  the  winter  season 
is  often  -\\ollen  to  a  torn-nt.  (Bartlett't,  K-rly  Kays  in  the 
The  ni-i  !  remarkable  tomb:-  stand  near  the 
road  which  follows  the  course  of  the  brook.  Tin-  first 
of  these  <'ii  the  right  is  cut  in  a  ma---  of  whitish  rock 
which  is  in  some  niea-un-  insulated.  Th  -  interior  has 
been  a  place  of  .-.-pultun-.  l-'artlier  on  to  the  left  is  a 
wide  facade  of  ratln-r  a  low  proportion  loaded  with 
ornaments  in  tin-  Roman  manner,  but  in  bad  taste,  with 
an  infinity  of  broken  lines,  unnecessary  an-;les  and 
i  projections,  multiplied  pediments,  half-pediments,  and 
'  pedestals  set  upon  columns  that  support  nothing  all 
I  most  fantastical  :  what  is  ob-.-rved  of  this  front  is  ap 
plicable  more  or  less  to  e\ . TV  specimen  of  Roman  design 
at  1'etra.  The  doorway  has  triglyph-  over  the  entab 
lature,  and  flowers  in  the  metopes.  The  chamber 


IH'M.KA 


71) 


plain  moulding.  I'pon  this  are  set  in  a  recess  four  tall  |  just  conn'  from  the  hands 
a'ld  ta]>ei-  pyramids.  The  interior  of  the  mausoleum  is 
of  moderate  -i/.e.  with  two  sepulchral  recesses  upon  each 
side,  and  one  in  form  of  an  arched  alcove  at  the  upper 
end:  a  flight  of  steps  leads  up  the  narrow  terrace  upon 
ipeus  (lrl.y;i!i(l  Mutinies  I'.  !"•">- I'T).  The  engraving. 


>f  the  sculptor,  while  others 
were  fallen  into  ruin  and  coyered  with  brambles. 

The  peninsula  of  Sinai,  between  the  two  gulfs  at  the 
head  of  the  lied  Sea,  was  in  ancient  times  held  by  the 
Midianites.  a  tribe  of  Arabs  usually  at  peace  with 
Kirvpt  and  dependent  on  that  kingdom.  The  Egyptians 
not  only  worked  the  copper 
mines  in  the  peninsula  and 
held  Eeir.-m  ( 1'aran).  Xu.  x.12. 
the  chief  town,  but  also 
s>.  \eral  small  towns  on  tin- 
coast,  particularly  at  the 
head  of  the  eastern  gulf, 
named  Ezion-geber,  in  a  spot 
.-till  marked  by  its  Egyptian 
n  nue  \Vady  Tabe.  the  valley 
of  the  '•/'/,//.  and  the  only  port 
on  the  I  ted  Sea  which  natu 
rally  belonged  to  the  Kdom 
ites.  When  .Moses,  after 
escaping  out  of  Kg\  pt. 
reached  K/.ion-gvber.  and 
there  left  the  friendly  Mi 
dianites.  he  asked  leave  of 
the  Kdomites  to  pass  through 
their  land,  Xu.  x.  ^.i:  but  being 
refused,  he  ma.de  a  circuit 
through  the  countries  to  the 
east  of  .Mount  Hor,  and 
reached  the  valley  of  the 

No.  354,  represents  the  principal  monument,  the  Khasnd,  Jordan  through  the  land  of  Moab.  From  that  time 
or  Treasury  of  Pharaoh,  so  called  from  the  belief  of  forward  the  wars  of  Judea  with  the  Kdomites  were 
the  natives  that  the  wealth  of  Pharaoh,  the  supposed  almost  unceasing. 

founder  of  such  costly  edifices,  is  inclosed  within  the  Hixtorii.  The  early  Kdomitcs  were  strict  lie- 
urn  which  surmounts  its  top,  at  a  height  of  120  feet.  1  levers  in  one  true  Cod,  but  in  course  of  time  they 
Hence  whenever  they  pass,  they  discharge  their  guns  became  idolaters  (2  Ch.  xxv. 20;  Joseph.  Antiq.  xv.  r,  <)V  They 
at  the  urn  in  the  hope  of  demolishing  it  and  thereby  were  a  warlike  and  unsettled  people,  whose  whole  pro- 
obtaining  the  treasure.  This  monument  is  sculptured  pcrty  consisted  in  their  cattle,  their  waggons,  and  what 
out  of  an  enormous  and  compact  block  of  freestone,  their  waggons  could  carry.  They  did  not  cultivate  the 
slightly  tinged  with  oxide  of  iron.  Although  the  front  soil  and  had  no  respect  for  a  landmark.  Like  the 
is  so  splendid,  the  interior  appears  unfinished,  and  the  Jshmaelites  their  hand  was  against  every  man,  and 
monument  seems  to  have  been  abandoned  soon  after  every  man's  hand  against  them,  Ge.  xvi.  \->. 
it  was  executed.  There  are  two  lateral  chambers,  one 


£  tho  KhasuC.  — Laborde. 


of  which  is  irregularly  formed,  while  the  other  presents 
two  hollows,  apparently  for  two  coffins,  which  may 
have  been  placed  provisionally  in  this  little  rock  until 


\\hen  the  twelve  tribe-;  of  Israelites  fiist  placed 
their  armies  under  one  leader,  and  made  Saul  their 
king,  the  Kdomites  were  among  the  enemies  from 
whom  he  had  to  clear  the  frontier,  1  Su. \iv.  ir.  As  th 


grain  1   receptacle,   should   lie   completed.       Linant     Hebrew  kingdom  grew  stronger,  David,  after  conquer- 
tched  a  tomb  which  seemed  to  combine  in  itself  two  j  ing  the  Philistines,  the  .Moabites,  and  the  Syrians,  put 


the 

sketched  a  tomb  which  seemed  to  combine  in  itself  two  ;  mg  the  Philistines,  the  .Moabites,  and  the  Syrians,  put 
characters,  each  of  which  may  be  found  separately  in  '  garrisons  into  the  chief  cities  of  Kdom  to  stop  their 
those  by  which  it  is  surrounded,  "the  upper  part  beiiiLr  inroads  for  the  future,  L>  Sa.  via.  14.  The  Edomites  had 
in  the  Syriaco- Egyptian  style,  the  lower  part  decorated  been  living  for  many  generations  under  one  petty  chief 
in  the  ( !ra  eo-Itoman  fashion."  To  the  right  of  this  or  king,  and  the  names  are  known  of  seven  "dukes 
monument  are  two  tombs  entirely  detached  from  the  that  came  of  llori"  ( Lotan.  Sln.bal.  Zibeon,  Anal), 
rock  of  winch  they  had  formed  a  part.  An  excavation  :  Dishon,  K/er,  and  Dishan),  and  of  eight  kings  (Bela, 
in  an  unfinished  state  afforded  a  clue  to  the  plan  which  Jobab,  Tin  sham,  Hadad,  Samlah,  Saul,  I'aal-hanan, 
was  pursued  in  the  construction  of  the  other  monuments,  and  Iladar),  who  ruled  over  them  "  before  there  reigned 
The  rock  was  at  first  cut  down  in  a  perpendicular  '  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel,"  Ou.  xxxvi.  211, :«». 
direction,  leaving  buttresses  on  each  side  which  pre-  |  They  were,  however,  too  unsettled  to  allow  of  the  power 
served  the  original  inclination  of  its  surface.  The  front  !  descending  from  father  to  son;  and  the  cities  of  Ternan 
thus  made  smooth  was  next  marked  out  according  to  and  Bnzrah,  with  other  places,  in  their  turn  gave  chiefs 
the  style  of  architecture  adopted,  and  then  tin;  capitals  to  the  whole  tribe.  GO.  xxxvi.;  itli.i.  v.\.  Joab,  the  cap- 
and  columns  were  fashioned.  Thus  the  workman  began  i  tain  of  David's  forces,  put  an  end  to  this  line  of  kings, 
at  the  top  and  finished  at  the  bottom,  allowing  the  ;  and  during  the  six  months  he  remained  in  Edom,  he 
weight  of  the  material  to  rest  on  the  ground  until  the  !  slew  every  man  and  every  male  child  in  the  land. 


monument  was  completed.  A 
city  filled  with  tombs,  some  ; 
finished,  looking  as  new  and  a 


strange   spectacle!    a     who    did    not    escape    from    him   by    flight.       Among 

carcely    begun,    some  j  those  who   fled  was  Hadad,  a  son  of  the  chief,   whose 

fresh  as  if  they  had     servants  carried  him  off  in  safety,  and  brought  him  into 


1  DOLE  A 


,  i 


I DOLEA 


Egypt,  where  he  was  kindly  received  by  tlie  king  of 
Bubastis,  i  Ki.  xi.  i:>.  For  the  rest  of  David's  reign,  and 
for  the  greater  part  of  that  of  Solomon,  the  Edomites 
remained  in  quiet  obedience  to  the  king  of  Judea. 

It  is  probable  that  during  the  quiet  of  Solomon's 
reign,  the  caravans  through  the  land  of  Edom  were  metre 
numerous,  and  the  wealth  of  the  cities  greater,  than 
when  the  country  was  independent.  The  most  im 
portant  route  was  from  Dedau  on  the  1'ersian  Gulf, 
through  Teman,  and  thence  on  to  Egypt.  Another  great 
route  which  crossed  the  first  near  Petra  was  from 
Sheha.  in  South  Arabia,  to  Jerusalem,  .Jubvi.  i>j;  Is.  xxi. 
13, 14.  To  increase  the  trade  from  the  coasts  of  the  Red 
Sea  to  Jerusalem,  Solomon,  and  Hiram  kinir  of  Tvre, 
jointly  fitted  out  a  rieet  of  merchant- ships  at  Kzion- 
gebcr,  the  port  at  the  head  of  the  -Elanitic  (  iulf.  The 
ships  were  of  the  largest  class,  and  called  ships  of 
Tarsus,  taking  their  name  from  that  city  so  famous 
for  ship-building.  The  ships  were  launched  once  in 
three  years,  and  were  manned  bv  Tyrian  sailors.  As 
they  sailed  only  with  the  wind,  and  bartered  alomr  the 
coast,  th'-ir  progress  was  slow;  the  voyage  out  and 
back  probably  occupying  two  years,  the  third  heinir 
spent  in  port,  while  the  foreign  treasures  were  sent  on 
to  Tyre  and  Jerusalem.  This  new  trade  was  no  loss 
to  the  cities  of  Kdoin.  as  the  caravans  from  Ezion-geber 
all  passed  through  their  country.  Solomon's  -.hips 
brought  gold  from  Ophir.  the  port  of  the  Nubian  u'old 
mines,  witli  apes,  ivory,  (.-bony,  and  rare  birds  from  the 
countries  beyond  Abyssinia,  i  Ki.  i\.  \. 

As  Sole. limn  s  lite  drew  to  a  close  his  power  grew 
weaker.  He  bad  marrifd  an  Kirvptian  princess,  a 
daughter  of  Shishank  of  Hubastis.  and  his  first  trouble 
came  from  bis  father-in-law.  It  has  he.-n  alivadv  stated 
that  when  voting  Hadad  the  Kdomite  fli-d  from  I  >avid. 
he  was  kindly  received  in  Iv_;vpt.  Shishank  nave  him 
the  sister  of  his  own  queen  Tahpeiies  to  wife;  and 
Hadad's  son  Genubath  uas  reared  in  tin-  palac-e  with 
the  Egyptian  princes.  \Vheii  Shishank  of  Bubastis 
became  king  of  all  Egypt,  and  too  strong  to  value  his 
alliance  with  the  Israelites,  he  sent  back  Hadad.  who 
was  now  more  than  forty  years  old.  to  raise  the  Kdomites, 
in  rebellion  against  Solomon  and  to  make  himself  kiiiLf. 
The  Edomites  readily  followed  Hadad  in  an  attack  upon 
their  old  enemies  the  Israelites,  i  Ki  xi.  it,  and  at  once 
.stopped  Solomon's  trade  on  the  Red  Sea.  Eighty  years 
afterwards,  H.C.  8'J7,  Jehoshaphat  kiinr  of  Judali  airain 
made  the  Edomites  submit.  He  dethroned  their  kinir, 
sent  a  deputy  from  Jerusalem  to  rule1  over  them,  and 
attempted  to  regain  the  trade  of  the  Red  Sea.  For 
this  purpose  he  built  a  number  of  merchant  vessels  at 
Ezion-geber,  but  the  port  was  attacked  and  his  ships 
broken  to  pieces  either  by  the  Kdomiu-s  or  by  the  Egyp 
tians:  and  the  Israelites  were  never  again  masters  of 
the  trade  on  the  Red  Sea.  In  the  reign  of  Jehoram, 
the  successor  of  Jehoshaphat.  the  Edomites  revolted  from 
Judah  and  again  made  for  themselves  a  king.  Jehoram 
fought  a  severe  battle  with  them,  but  was  unsuccessful, 
and  the  Kdomites  remained  independent,  -l  Ki.  viii.  -jo. 
B.C.  838,  Amaziah  king  of  Judah  fought  another  great 
battle  with  the  Edomites,  and  slew  many  thousands  of 
them  in  the  Valley  of  Salt  near  the  Dead  Sea.  He  also 
took  the  city  of  Selah  (Petra)  afterwards  called  Jok- 
theel,  i;  Ki.  xiv.  r,  and  the  record  of  the  event  is  the  Jifyt 
mention  in  history  of  this  interesting  city. 

Uzziah  or  Azariah,  the  next  kin<_r  of  Judah,  followed 

up  this  conquest  of  Petra  by  again  acquiring  for  the 
Vor..  I. 


had   come  to   help  thos, 

ColiqUe.-t     of    ,1  Uilea     by 

Edomites    airatn    ru-hi- 
of    the    booty.      Wh.-n 


trade  of  his  nation  a  port  on  the  Red  Sea.  Solomon's  port 
had  been  at  Ezion-geber  on  the  western  side  of  the  head  of 
the  -Elanitic  Gulf,  but  there  may  have  been  reasons  for 
thinking  the  opposite  side  of  the  bay  better  suited  for 
i  ships,  and  there  Uzziah  built  the  town  of  Klath.  the 
/Elana  of  the  Romans,  and  now  called  Akabah,  not 
five  miles  from  the  old  port.  The  Jews,  however, 
were  not  stronir  enough  either  to  use  or  to  hold  these 
conquests,  and  in  a  very  few  years  Klath  and  Petra 
were  airain  in  the  hands  of  the  men  of  Edom,  •>  Ki.  xiv  2i>. 
n.c.  71-.  in  the  reign  of  Ahaz  king  of  Judah,  while 
the  land  was  invaded  on  the  north  by  the  powerful 
Syrians,  and  on  the  east  by  the  equally  powerful  Philis- 
'  tines,  the  Edomites  overran  the  southern  portion,  and 
carried  oft'  numerous  captives.  Ahaz  in  his  despair 
took  the  unwise  step  of  calling  in  the-  Assyrians  to  help 
him.  Tlie  Assyrians  readily  came,  but  they  only  added 
to  the  misfortunes  of  Judea.  and  they  carried  oft'  such 
treasure  as  had  escaped  the  former  invaders,  -j  rh.  xxviii. 
lii  Then  probably  was  \\ritten  the  prophecy  of  Joel, 
who  says  that  what  the  first  flights  of  locusts  bad  left, 
tli''  latter,  namely  the  Assyrians,  had  eaten,  rli.  i  I,  and 
also  Ps.  ixx.xiii..  in  which  the  poet  declares  that  among 
tin-  <  neinii-s  who  had  madealeague  for  the  destruction 
of  the  nation,  were  the  Kdomites  and  .Moabites.  and 
Philistines  and  Tynans:  and  that  the  Assyrians  also 
descendants  of  Lot.  On  the 
ic  Babylonians.  i:.c.  (Soil,  the 
in  to  snatch  at  their  share' 
erusalem  was  being  stormed 
and  plunder.-d  by  the  Chaldean  army,  tlie  Edomites 
cried  "  Raze  it.  ra/.e  it.  even  to  its  foundations,"  ]'s 
i-xxxvii  ;  and  the  anger  of  the  Jews  against  the  in 
sults  and  II--MT  injuries  caused  by  the  Kdomites,  was 
almost  equal  to  that  which  they  felt  against  tlie 
Piabvlonians.  It  \\:ts  then  that  the  prophet  K/ekiel 
unite  that,  in  punishment  for  the  cruelty  of  Edom 
against  Judah.  it  sin  mid  at  a  future  day  be  made  deso 
late  even  as  far  as  Teman.  and  the  in.  n  of  Dedan 
should  lie  [iut  to  the  sword,  <-h.  xxv  ,  and  that  the  cities 
of  .Me, unt  Seir  should  be  laid  waste,  i-li.  xxxv.  1 1  was  then 
that  the  prophet  Obadiali  wrote  of  the  ciiyof  Petra, 
that  the  pride  of  its  heart  had  deceived  it.  that  though 
dwelling  on  hii;h  in  tlie  clefts  of  the  n  ck.  it  should  be 
brought  low. 

When  ( 'yriis  king  of  Persia  led  his  conquering  armies 
wi'-tuanl.  and  r> -stored  tlie  Jewish  captives  in  Babylon 
to  their  country,  giving  them  leave  to  rebuild  their 
temple,  n.c.  ."»:!»!.  the  Kd'imite-  were  among  the  nations 
whom  lie  conquered.  The  Jews  rejoiced  at  hearing  of 
their  slaiiiditer.  and  thought  it  a  just  punishment  for 
former  injuries,  [s  ixiii.  The  Edomites,  with  the  rest 
of  their  Arab  neighbours,  remained  subject  to  Persia 
as  long  as  that  empire  lasted,  but  regained  their  independ 
ence  when  the  Persians  were  overthrown  by  Alexander 
the  Great.  About  this  time  we  find  the  name  of  Xa- 
hatieans,  or  Xebaioth,  given  to  the  inhabitants  of  Edom. 
This  did  not  imply  that  any  change  had  taken  place  in 
the  population,  for  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  ch.  xxv.,  among 
the  Arabs  of  the  desert,  or  sons  of  Ishmael,  we  find 
j  Xebaioth  mentioned  together  with  Kedar  and  Tema, 
and  other  tribes  of  that  neighbourhood.  It  had  been 
i  usual  for  the  Edomites  of  Petra  to  send  a  yearly  tribute 
.  of  a  lamb  to  Jerusalem,  and  Isaiah  says,  "  Send  ye  the 
I  lamb  to  the  ruler  of  the  land  from  Selah,  through  the 
desert,  unto  the  mount  of  the  daughter  of  Zion,  '  ch.xvi.  i. 
And  in  the  later  writings  of  Isaiah,  the  same  tribute  is 

98 


mr.M.EA 


IMPUTE 


said  ti>  lie  sent  from  tin-  Xabata-ans.  ch.  Ix.  7.  We  see 
therefore  that  the  Kdomit.es  of  Scla.li  or  Petra.  arc  also  i 
called  Xabata-ans:  ami  in  yet  later  times  \ve  shall  find 
the  names  ut'  Araliia  Xabata-a  and  Arabia  Petra-a  both  i 
given  to  the  desert  country  of  Kdom.  At  the  same 
time  \ve  find  an  alteration  in  tin:  limits  of  Kdom,  which 
were  now  removed  as  far  as  the  hill  country  of  Judea. 
Historians  nuvlv  speak  of  any  hut  the  L;MVI  riling  class 
in  a  nation;  so  much  so,  that,  if  from  any  cause  these 
are  removed  and  a  lower  '/lass  rises  into  notice,  the 
country  seems  peopled  hv  a  new  ra.ee  of  men:  thus  it 
was  in  this  southern  portion  of  .ludea.  When  the 
priests  and  nobles  were  carried  into  captivity  by  the 
Babylonians,  the  peasants  left  behind  readily  formed 
one  nation  with  the  Kdomites,  with  whom  they  were 
more  closely  allied  in  blood  and  feeling  than  with  their 
Jewish  masters,  and  henceforth  we  shall  find  two  mean 
ings  belonging  to  the  word  Edomite  or  Idnma:fin  ; 
sometimes  the  name  will  belong  to  the  Arabs  of  the  '< 
desert  about  Petra,  but  the( !  reek  name  of  Iduma'an  more 
usually  belongs  to  the  less  wandering  race  of  southern 
Judea,  within  twenty  miles  of  Jerusalem  ;  the  wilder 
Kdoniitcs  or  Xabatrcans  being  driven  back  to  the  south 
of  the  Dead  Sea.  The  successors  of  Alexander  never 
held  Edom.  The  Ptolemies  were  willing  to  uphold  it 
as  an  independent  state,  usefully  [placed  between  Egypt 
and  her  rival  kingdoms.  Antigonns,  when  king  of 
Asia  Minor,  wa.s  defeated  in  his  attempt  to  take  the 
citv  of  Petra.  Having  heard  that  the  Xabat;uans  had 
left  the  city  less  guarded  than  usual,  he  sent  forward 
four  thousand  lio;ht  armed  foot  and  six  hundred  horse, 
who  overpowered  the  Lruard  and  soi/cd  the  city.  The 
Arabs,  when  they  heard  of  what  had  happened,  returned 
in  the  night,  surrounded  the  place,  came  upon  the  Greeks 
from  above,  and  overcame  them  with  such  slaughter, 
that,  of  the  four  thousand  six  hundred  men.  only  fifty 
returned  to  Antigouus  to  tell  the  tale.  The  Nabata?ans 
then  sent  to  Antigonus  to  complain  of  this  crafty  attack 
upon  Petra.  He  endeavoured  to  put  them  oft'  their 
guard  by  disowning  the  acts  of  his  general,  and  sent 
them  home  with  promises  of  peace,  but  at  the  same 
time  sent  forward  his  son  Demetrius  with  four  thousand 
horse  and  four  thousand  foot  to  take  revenge.  The 
Arabs,  however,  were  on  their  guard:  and  these  eiirht 
thousand  men  under  the  brave  Demetrius  were  unable 
to  force  their  way  through  the  narrow  pass  into  the 
city  (Diod.  Sic.  lib.  xix.)  When  the  Maccabees  made  the 
Jews  again  for  a  short  time  an  independent  nation. 
they  renewed  the  old  war  with  the  Iduniseans,  but  they 
did  not  attempt  to  enforce  Jewish  authority  over  any 
portion  of  the  country,  except  that  which  had  once 
been  Judea.  Judas  Maccabeus,  B.C.  1<U.  did  not  march 
farther  southward  than  the  heights  of  Acrabattene, 
which  divide  the  valley  of  the  Dead  Sea  from  the  coun 
try  of  F.dom  ( Josephus,  Ani..  xii.  N  1.  iiiid  xiii.  !i,  1). 

Iii  the  reign  of  the  emperor  Trajan,  Arabia  Nabatsea 
was  received  into  the  bounds  of  the  Roman  empire, 
and  the  rocky  fastness  of  Petra  was  obliged  to  receive  a 
Roman  garrison.  lender  the  Komaris  the  city  once 
more  became  prosperous,  but  this  prosperity  was  only 
a  Lileani  of  brightness  before  its  death.  The  improve 
ments  in  navigation,  and  the  geographical  discoveries 
marked  by  the  voyage  of  Scylax  in  the  reiyii  of  Darius, 
by  that  of  Kudoxus  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Energetes 
II..  and  by  that  of  llippalus  in  the  reiffn  of  the  em- 
p>  ror  Claudius,  slowly  but  surely  ruined  these  cities  in 
the  desert.  The  trade  winds  had  been  discovered  between 


the  mouths  of  the  Indus  and  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  the 
Aiexandria.ii  merchants  ivjjnlarly  sailed  from  the  Red 
Sea  to  India  and  ( 'eylon.  Tyre  and  Sidon  lost  their  trade 
by  sea,  and  Petra  its  trade  by  land;  and  in  the  reign 
of  the  emperor  Valens.  about  A.I).  ~'>7(t,  Petra  wa.s  again 
recovered  by  its  native  Arabs,  but  lost  its  importance, 
and  its  fall  was  hardly  noticed  by  historians  (S., crates, 
HIM  lib  iv.i  Zozompn,  Eccl.  Hist.  lil>  vU  In  the  Greek 
ecclesiastical  Xotitia-  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  it 
appears  a.s  the  metropolitan  see  of  the  Third  Palestine. 
Of  its  bishops,  Germain  is  was  present  at  the  council  of 
Seleucia.  A.I).  :'>">'.'.  and  Theodorus  at  that  of  Jerusalem, 
A.D.  ">:!*!  (lldand).  From  that  time  the  rock  city  was 
lost  to  the  civilized  world,  and  had  no  place  in  the 
map  until  it  was  discovered  by  Burckhardt  in  our  own 
days  (sii;u-]M/.s  Historic  Notes).  Burckhardt  passed  through 
the  land  of  Edom  in  ]M'J.  entering  it  from  the  north: 
in  1818  .Messrs.  Lcgh.  Bankes,  Irby  and  Mangles 
entered  at  the  same  point,  and  ten  years  later  Lahorde 
and  Linant  entered  from  the  south,  since  when  it  has 
been  vi>itcd  and  described  by  numerous  travellers.  The 
whole  region  is  at  present  occupied  by  various  tribes 
of  Bedouin  Arabs  (HurrklianU's  Travels;  Robinson's  Hi)>. 
Researches;  Laborde,  Voyage  de  1' Arabic  POtree  ;  Olin's  Travels 
in  the  East;  Schnbert;  Stephens;  Irby  and  Mangles).  r.j  j.  1 

ILLYR'ICUM.  a  district  of  country  lying  along  the 
north-east  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  but  of  very  uncertain 
dimensions.  Even  in  ancient  times  it  appears  to  have 
been  understood  somewhat  differently  by  Greek  and 
Roman  writers;  and  among  the  Romans  it  often  shifted 
its  boundaries,  from  the  incursions  of  the  Gauls  and 
other  local  vicissitudes.  It  is  only  once  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  that  simply  as  the  extreme  limit 
to  which,  in  the  direction  toward  Koine,  St.  Paul  at  a 
particular  period  had  carried  the  preaching  of  the  gospel, 
Ho.  xv.  in.  The  inhabitants  were  a  wild  race,  the  kind  of 
mountaineers  of  Greece,  and  in  modern  times  have  their 
representatives  in  the  Albanians.  P>ut  nothing  depends 
either  on  the  exact  boundaries  of  the  district,  or  the 
particular  character  of  the  people,  for  the  elucidation 
of  Scripture:  and  it  is  enough  to  have  indicated  its  <_fene- 
ral  position. 

IMAGERY,  CHAMBERS  OF.     Sa  CHAMHEKS. 

EMMANUEL,  or  EMMANUEL  [(wl-rlfl,-,,*], 
the  name  imposed  on  the  prospective  child,  which  the 
Lord  by  Isaiah  declared  he  would  give  as  a  sign  to  tin- 
house  of  David,  is.  vji.n.  It  has  been  a  long-agitated 
question,  whether  the  child  meant  was  the  Messi.-di,  or 
a  child  born  in  the  time  of  the  prophet,  perhaps  to 
himself,  typical  of  the  birth  at  SOUR-  future  time  of  the 
Messiah:  or.  finally,  of  such  a  child  simply,  with  nothing 
more  than  a.  name  and  accompaniments,  that  admitted 
of  being  accommodated  to  Messiah's  person  and  birth. 
It  is  the  former  alone  of  these  opinions  that  we  believe 
to  be  justified  by  the  use  made  by  the  evangelist  Mat 
thew,  ch.  i.  •-'•_'.  2:i,  and  even  by  the  original  passage  itself, 
when  closely  examined,  and  viewed  in  all  its  parts. 
But  the  investigation  of  the  subject  is  too  long  and  com 
plicated  for  a  work  like  the  present.  Those  who  wish 
to  see  the  grounds  of  the  opinion  here  indicated,  will 
find  them  in  Fairbairn's  Hermerteutical  Manual,  p. 
41 1).  s>>(|.  Other  views  may  be  seen  in  Barnes  on 
Jsaiali.  t\ie  Commentaries  oi  Grotius.  Meyer.  Olshausen. 
Alford.  i\:c.,  also  the  Xrri/ijiirt  Testimony  of  Dr.  I've 
Smith. 

IMPUTE.  IMPUTATION.  The  sense  of  the  ori 
ginal  verb,  which  corresponds  to  our  impute  both  in 


IMPUTE 


779 


INCENSE 


the  Hebrew  (y?F,)  il!1d  Greek  \\crytj~o/xcu),  is  simply  to 

cnniit,  reckon,  or  he  counted,  reckoned,  dairyed  to  one. 
And  .so  (PHI-  translators  understand  them,  and  use  these 
English  equivalents  interchangeably  with  impute,  Uu. 
iv.  -J- 4,  (J,  >.  The  word  itself  (Ao7tj~o,ucu)  seems  not  to 
convey  any  meaning  beyond  this.  It  is  the.  eontext 
alone  that  determines  whether  that  which  is  said  to 
be  counted  or  reckoned  to  one  is  something  which 
actually  <  >r  personally  belongs  to  him,  or  something  which 
belongs  not  to  him  in  this  sense,  but  to  another,  and  is 
simply  set  down  to  his  account,  so  that  he  is  regarded 
and  treated  as  if  the  tiling  in  the  strict  and  proper 
sense  were  his.  The  English  word,  from  the  Latin 
i  m  pu  tare,  has  precisely  the  same  sense,  although  use 
has  confined  it  tip  matters  of  morals,  and  in  great  measure 
indeed  to  tilings  that  are  blameworthy.  Without 
doubt,  therefore,  the  true  idea  is  better  conceived  by 
the  English  reader  under  such  terms  as  cmnit,  reckon; 
for  the  allusion  seems  to  be  to  the  books  of  judgment, 
Ua.  vii.  in;  Uu.  xx.  l:.';  and  when  this  is  kept  in  mind  the 
phraseology  of  counting  or  setting  down  to  one  is  si-en 
to  be  at  once  appropriate  and  forcible.  L'ndue  stress 
seems  to  have  been  laid  by  some  on  the  mere  word, 
as  if  it  contained  in  itself  a  doctrinal  system,  or 
at  all  events  presented  an  important  proof  of  that 
system.  Whereas  tlu-n-  is  obviously  no  more  mystery  in 
the  original  term  than  in  the  English  renderings  men 
tioned  above.  Jt  scarcely  needed  the  ability  and  pains 
which  a  n-cent  \\riter  of  distinction  has  bestoued  on 
it  to  [prove  ibis  point.  Nor  is  it  altogether  clear  that 
the  divines  to  whom  he  refers  do  not  speak  of  the  use 
of  the-  Word  ut  ittt  fii/n/i''/ tun*.  His  work,  ho\\e\er. 
contains  the  most  profound  and  elaborate  critical  analy 
sis  of  the  words  with  which  we  are-  acquainted,  and 
the  reader  is  referred  to  it  as  containing  all  that  can  he 
desired  on  the  subject  —  -Si  nitons  on  Faith,  by  P>ishop 
O'P.rieli.  lid  ed.  p.  -lull— 15ti. 

What  we  are  mainly  concerned  with  is  the  use  or 
application  of  the-  words  in  Scripture.  Are  they  ap 
plied  only  to  things  strictly  personal  to  a  man.  or  ha\e 
they  the  wider  latitude  which  \\e  have  assigned  them? 
It  is  often  asserted  with  great  confidence  that  "  there- 
is  not  one  passage  in  which  the  word  is  used  in  the  sense 
of  recL-oniii'j  or  iiiijiiitiii;/  to  a  man  that  which  does  i.ot 
strictly  beloii'4'  to  him.  or  of  ehar_niiLr  on  him  that 
which  ought  not  to  be  charged  on  him  as  a  matter  of 
personal  right."  That  the  words  are  very  frequently 
used  in  relation  to  things  of  this  strictly  personal  char 
acter  is  undeniable,  Lu.  vii.  i*  :  L'  Sa.  ,\i\.  in ;  IS.  xxxii.  -j  ;  ll». 
iv. '.).  When,  in  the  second  of  these  passages.  Shimei 
says  unto  David,  "Let  not  my  lord  impute  iniquity 
unto  me."  he  acknowledges  in  the  same  breath  that  the 
sin  was  his  and  only  his — "  for  thy  servant  doth  know 
that  .1  have  sinned.''  It  is  equally  true,  however,  that 
the  words  in  question  are  frequently  applied  to  things 
that  do  not  strictly  belong  to  us.  but  which,  though 
not  belonging  to  us,  are  set  down  to  our  account.  L<.-.  \vii. 
4  ;  Nu.  xvhi  -JT  ;  1'hilu.  I*  ;  HM.  iv.  c,.  In  the  first  of  these  pas 
sages  it  is  declared  that  the  man  who  brought  not  his 
sacrifice  or  victim  to  the  door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation,  according  to  the  divine  institute,  should 
have  hlood  imputed  f<>  him.  and  should  be  cut  off  from 
among  his  people,  lie  had  committed  no  actual  murder, 
yet  that  crime  is  imputed  to  him,  and  he  is  dealt  with 
accordingly.  So  in  Paul's  letter  to  Philemon,  the  apostle- 
requests  that  the  wrong  which  Onesimus  had  done  might 


be  placed  to  the  writer's  account,  though  manifestly  he 
had  no  hand  in  committing  it  whatever.  And  in  Ko. 
iv.,  where  righteousness  is  said  to  be  imputed  without 
works,  there  is  undoubtedly  an  imputation  of  righteous 
ness  which  is  not  hi/  tcorkf.  &c.,  \\hich  does  not  per 
sonally  or  actually  belong  to  us.  but  to  another,  and  is 
set  down  to  our  account. 

Divines  find  a  threefold  imputation  in  Scripture, 
vi/.  that  of  Adam's  sin  to  his  posterity:  that  of  our 
sins  to  Christ;  and  of  his  righteousness  to  us  or  to  his 
people.  In  relation  to  the  tirst  of  these,  they  speak  of 
mediate  and  immediate  imputation — mediate  being  that 
corruption  or  depravity  of  nature  which  \\e  derive  from 
Adam:  and  immediate,  the  guilt,  or  rather  liability  to 
punishment,  which  belongs  to  us  in  consequence  of  his 
sin.  The  sin  of  Adam  is  counted  in  the  sight  of  Clod 
as  ours,  and  we  are  dealt  with  accordingly.  In  like 
manner,  the  MIIS  of  his  people  are  counted  to  Christ, 
and  lie  is  dealt  with  accordingly — made  fin  for  us.  who 
knew  no  sin.  Christ's  righteousness,  also,  is  counted 
'  in  the  sight  of  Ciod  as  ours,  and  we  are  dealt  with 
i  accordingly  /;««/.  tli>  riylikousncsi  "f  '<'"'/  in  him, 

L'Co,  v    L'l  ;  Uu.  v.  111.       (Set   JrsTlKH'ATIoN.    Sl.N,   &c.) 

This  is  not  the  place  for  anything  like  an  exposition 
of  these  co-relate  doctrines.  It  is.  however,  but  just 
to  state  that  their  advocates  are  careful  to  guard  against 
two  sources  of  mi>conceptioii.  to  one  or  other  of  which 
they  think  nearly  all  objections  may  In.-  traced.  First, 
they  deny  that  imputation  supposes  either  actual  per 
sonal  sin,  or  actual  persi  pnal  righteousness,  in  the  parties 
to  whom  sin  or  righteousness  is  imputed.  Adam's  sin 
never  can  be  ours  in  the  same  seii.-c  in  which  it  was 
his.  The  same  is  true  of  Christ's  righteousness.  In 
both  cases  there  is  simply  a  placing  to  our  account. 
Second,  they  deny  that  imputation  supposes  any 
transference  of  moral  character.  The  imputation  of 
sin  or  righteousness  is  not  the  itifmtiuit  ot  it.  Finally, 
a  denial  (pf  the  imputation  of  sin  removes  none  of  the 
ditliculties  connected  with  the  fact  of  mankind  coining 
into  the  world  with  a  liability  to  sutieriiiLr  and  death 
antecedent  to  all  personal  transgression.  The  natural 

;  depravity  out  of  which  actual  sin  springs  is  iiself  to  be 
regarded  as  penal.  Since  then  (iod  manifestly  deals 
\\ith  us  as  a  guilty  race,  or  treats  us  «,s  guilty,  this 
doctrine  of  imputation  seems  to  furnish  some  ground 
for  it.  He  can  treat  none  as  either  guilty  or  right 
eous  \vlioiii  in  some  sense  he  does  not  hold  or  count 
such.  [K.  f.J 

INCENSE.  The  compound  of  sweet  smelling  in 
gredients  denoted  by  this  term  appears  to  have  been 
employed  among  the  covenant-people  only  in  acts  of 
worship;  and  that  special  compound,  which  was  ap 
pointed  to  be  used  in  the  services  of  the  sanctuary, 
was  expressly  forbidden  to  be  applied  to  purposes  of 
common  life.  "  As  for  the  perfume  (or  incense)  which 
thou  shalt  make,  ye  shall  not  make  to  yourselves  ac 
cording  to  tin-  composition  thereof;  it  shall  lie  unto 
thee  holy  for  the  Lord,"  Kx  xxx.  T,  The  ingredients  of 
this  sacred  aroma  are  defined  to  be  equal  portions  of 
stacte.  onycha,  galbanum,  and  pure  frankincense  (for 
which  see  the  several  words);  and  these,  after  being 
beaten  small,  were  laid  up  in  the  tabernacle,  to  be 
ready  for  daily  use.  As  it  was  simply,  however,  in 
connection  with  the  altar  of  incense  that  the  article 
thus  compounded  was  employed  in  the  divine  service, 
tin-  explanations  necessary  to  bring  out  its  meaning 

[  and  design  will  be  best  given  in  connection  with  it. 


INCENSE 


780 


INCENSE 


ALTAI;  <>F  INCK.NSF,,  AND  ITS  KITUAL  OF  SKUVICE. — 
This  article  of  the  tabernacle  furniture  was  made  of 
wood-  shittim-wood,  a*  it  is  in  tin.-  English  Bible,  but 
as  it  should  rather  bo.  acacia-wood  -overlaid  with  gold; 
oil  which  account  it  was  sometimes  called  the  i/u/i/cn 
altar,  in  contradistinction  to  the  altar  of  burnt-ottering, 
which  was  made  of  brass,  Kx.  xl.  ;. ;  K.J.  viii.  ;i.  The  form 
was  square — a  cubit  in  breadth,  and  two  cubits  in  height; 
that  is,  it  was  a  stand  made  in  a  square  form,  probably 
about  'J.1,-  feet  broad  and  :!.',  feet  hi.u'li:  of  siiital)le  pro- 
portions  both  ways  for  a  pedesial,  on  which  to  place 
the  pot  or  censer  containing  the  incense.  The  top  was 
surmounted  by  a  crown  or  projecting  ornament,  and  at 
the  several  corners  were  horns-  partly  perhaps.  ai>o 
for  ornament,  but  more  especially  as  a  mark  of  cor 
respondence  and  agreement  with  the  altar  of  burnt- 
offering.  For  the  prescriptions  respecting  this  altar 
of  incense  have  throughout  a  bearing  on  the  brazen 
altar  in  the  outer  court,  and  seem  intended  to  place  the 
two  in  a  mutual  relation  to  each  other.  The  name 
alone  of  altar  (r^TC,  'iii'rJ>«t<'lt.  slaying  or  sacriticing- 

placei,  which  is  the  common  designation  of  both,  suffi 
ciently  indicates  this;  for  such  a  term  could  be  applied 
to  the  incense-table  only  on  the  ground  of  a  real  con 
nection  between  it  and  the  place  where  sacrifices  of 
slain  victims  were  actually  presented.  This  connection 
was  also  marked  by  the  sprinkling  of  its  horns  with  the 
blood  of  the  sin-offering  on  the  great  day  of  annual 
atonement — the  only  article  apparently  in  the  holy  place 
to  which  that  blood  was  specially  applied  precisely  as 
the  horns  of  the  altar  of  burnt  -  ottering  were  also 
sprinkled,  Ex.  xxx.  io;  Le.  xvi.  ii>,  is.  Then,  there  was  the 
coincidence  of  the  daily  service  at  the  two  altars — the 
offering  of  incense  on  the  one  morning  and  evening 
(when  the  lamps  were  put  out  and  lighted)  so  as  to 
afford  a  kind  of  perpetual  incense  before  the  Lord, 
corresponding  to  and  concurring  with  the  morning  and 
evening  burnt- offering  on  the  other,  by  which  there 
was  effected  a  kind  of  perpetual  burnt- offering,  Ex.  xxx.  ~, 
s,  compared  with  ch.  xxix.  38-42 — the  perpetual  incense  within 
ascending  simultaneously  with  the  perpetual  burnt- 
offering  without.  These  various  points  of  contact  be 
tween  the  two  altars  seem  plainly  designed  to  indicate  a 
close  relationship  between  them — asif  the  one  were  some 
how  the  necessary  complement  of  the  other.  And  this 
impression  is  confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  in  the  services 
specially  connected  with  each,  neither  could  proceed 
without  the  other:  the  pot  of  incense  had  every  day  to 
be  replenished  with  live- coals  from  the  altar  of  burnt- 
offering,  as  the  only  fire  by  which  the  cloud  of  incense 
was  to  be  raised  from  the  sacred  perfume;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  this  same  cloud  of  incense  had  to  be 
raised,  and  sent  by  the  high- priest  into  the  most  holy 
place,  before  he  could  enter  there  with  the  sin-atoning 
blood  that  had  been  offered  on  the  brazen  altar,  and 
sprinkle  the  mercy  -  seat.  Instant  death  was  even 
threatened  if  he  presumed  to  enter  without  the  incense 
going  before,  and  covering  the  mercy-seat,  Le.  xvi.  11-1;;. 
So  that,  as  there  could  be  no  incense  offered  without 
fire  from  the  sacrificial  altar  to  kindle  it,  neither  could 
there  be  any  acceptable  sacrifice  for  sin  without  the 
interposition  of  incense  to  open  the  way  for  its  presen 
tation. 

Wherein  then  lay  the  virtue  of  this  sacred  odour? 
What  was  expressed  or  symbolized  by  it  ?  The  per 
fume,  formed  of  the  four  ingredients  already  specified, 


we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  uinereu  in  itself  Irom 
other  tilings  of  a  like  kino,  any  farther  than  that  it 
yielded  an  odour  peculiarly  sweet  and  fragrant:  it  was 
the  best  known  of  such  compositions;  and  so  was  set 
apart  for  a  sacred  use,  and  designated  pure  and  holy. 
As  a  sign  of  this  consecration,  and  fitness  for  the  service 
of  the  sanctuary,  it  had  the  common  symbol  of  incor- 
ruptness  applied  to  it— it  was  salted,  E.\.XXX..'J~>  (nottem- 
p.  red  together,  as  in  the  Sept.  and  our  English  Bible). 
But  not  in  tin's,  nor  in  the  natural  properties  belonging 
to  it,  did  there  lie  any  virtue  entitling  it  to  such  a 
place  in  sacred  ministrations  -  for  the  idea  of  some. 
that  it  was  chosen  as  a  corrective  to  the  unpleasant 
smell  apt  to  be  generated  by  otlerinifs  of  blood,  scarcely 
deserves  to  be  mentioned.  It  was  the  symbolical  mean 
ing  of  the  perfume  which  alone  was  regarded  in  the 
important  function  assigned  to  it.  The  expressed  odours 
of  sweet-smelling  plants  are  the  breath,  as  it  were,  oi 
their  pure  and  balmy  nature — a  fragrant  exhalation 
from  their  innermost  beinu\  most  grateful  to  the  senses, 
and  refreshing  to  the  powers  of  our  bodily  frame.  And 
as  such  it  was  fitted  to  serve  as  an  appropriate  emblem 
of  that  in  the  soul  of  man,  which  is  most  grateful  to 
the  mind  of  God—  namely,  the  devout  breathing  of 
spiritual  desire  and  affection  toward  him.  What  can 
be  more  pleasing  to  the  Great  Source  of  life  and  being, 
than  to  find  the  souls  he  lias  made  turning  their  re 
gards  to  him  in  the  simplicity  and  confidence  of  faith 
-—making  him  the  sanctuary  of  their  inmost  thoughts 
and  feelings — and  pouring  out  before  him  the  varied 
expression  of  their  fears  and  hopes,  of  the  sense  they 
have  of  their  own  guilt  and  his  infinite  goodness,  and 
of  their  earnest  desires  for  his  forgiveness  or  his  help! 
This  is  emphatically  the  breathing  of  the  soul's  best, 
holiest,  heavenliest  aspirations;  and  therefore,  in  the 
sphere  of  natural  things,  was  fitly  symbolized  by  the 
ascending  odours  of  the  sweetest-scented  herbs.  The 
offering  of  incense,  then,  was  an  embodied  prayer; 
but  prayer  in  the  larger  sense,  as  comprehensive  of  all 
the  appropriate  outgoings  of  the  believing  soul  toward 
God — supplication,  indeed,  primarily,  but  along  with 
that,  adoration,  confession,  and  thanksgiving. 

So  the  matter  is  explained  in  various  parts  of  Scrip 
ture.  It  is  so  most  distinctly  in  the  book  of  Revelation, 
which  is  not  only  written  in  the  language  of  type  and 
f-vmbol.  but  often  also  accompanies  its  use  of  the.-e 
with  explanatory  statements  of  their  meaning.  Thus 
at  ch.  v.  8,  where  the  twenty-four  elders,  representa 
tives  of  the  church  of  Christ's  redeemed  ones,  appeal- 
each  with  golden  vials  or  censers,  full  of  incense  or 
odours,  "  which  are,"  it  is  added, "  the  prayers  of  saints;'' 
and  the  same  explanation  is  again  given  at  ch.  viii.  3, 
in  connection  with  the  action  of  an  angel,  and  an  ac 
tion  represented  as  taking  place  at  the  golden  altar. 
It  was,  so  to  speak,  the  old  service  of  the  earthly 
sanctuary  proceeding  in  the  heavenly  places,  and  to 
the  incense  was  given  ''the  prayers  of  saints"' — the 
reality  to  the  symbol — that  they  might  be  offered  be- 
|  fore  God.  But  in  Old  Testament  times  also  this  was 
perfectly  understood.  David  expressly  designates  his 
prayer  incense:  "  Let  my  prayer,  (incense,  so  it  is  lite 
rally)  be  set  in  order  before  thee,"  Ps.  cxli.  2 — implying 
1  that  the  one  was  but  another  name  or  form  of  the 
<  .I  her.  And  in  the  historical  statement  made  quite  inci 
dentally  at  the  beginning  of  St.  Luke's  gospel,  that  while 
Zacharias  was  offering  incense  in  the  sanctuary  "the 
j  whole  multitude  were  praying  without,"  it  is  clear 


INCENSE 


7*1 


INHERITANCE 


that  the  people  generally  had  a  correct  understanding 
of  the  symbol:  they  were  accompanying  the  priestly 
action  by  an  exercise,  which  at  once  showed  their  ap 
prehension  of  its  meaning,  and  their  sympathy  with  its 
aims. 

Now,  we  have  only  to  carry  with  us  this  view  of  the 
incense- offering,  in  order  to  see  the  propriety  and  natu 
ralness  of  the  prescriptions  respecting  the  altar  of  in 
cense  and  its  rites  of  service.  Its  connection  by  name 
and  otherwise  with  the  altar  of  burnt- offering  explains 
itself  on  the  ground,  that  prayer  also  is  a  sort  of  sacri 
fice—the  offering  up  of  the  de-sin  s  and  feelings  of  the 
heart  to  God — and,  as  such,  the  internal  counterpart 
of  the  external  offering  of  slain  victims.  Not  only  so. 
but  acceptable  prayer  on  the  part  of  the  sinner  must 
raise  itself  on  the  foundation  of  sacrifice  by  blood:  as  a 
sinner  he  could  only  approach  God  through  a  medium 
of  blood,  without  which  there  was  no  remission  of  sin; 
his  very  praver  must,  a.s  it  were,  rise  frum  the  altar 
where  such  blood  was  shed,  and  derive  thence  its  war 
rant  to  enter  into  the  presence  of  the  holiest.  And  as 
prayer  thus  leaned  on  the  atonement,  so  again  did  the 
atonement  require  for  its  actual  efficiency  the  appro 
priating  and  pleading  energy  of  prayer:  it  saved  not 
us  a  natural  charm,  hut  only  as  an  accepted  ehanni  1 
of  communion  with  heaven:  even  with  the  blood  of 
atonement  in  his  hand  the  worshipper  must  go  as  a 
suppliant  to  the  foot-tool  <  f  the  throne.  It  is  so  .-till: 
the  pattern  given  here  in  the  handwriting  of  Moses  is 
inwrou-ht  with  lessons  that  .-pe.ik  to  ;dl  times.  |-',  ,r  it 
is  in  tlie  name  of  Jesus,  and  on  tin- ground  "f  that  holy 
atonement  for  sin,  which  he  once  for  all  accomplished 
on  the  cross,  that  the  believer  must  draw  near  to(,..d: 
his  prayers,  as  well  as  his  deeds  of  righteousness,  are 
accepted  only  in  the  Beloved.  Prayer  offered  other 
wise  is  like  incense  otfl-ivd  with  strange  fire  a  virtual 
repetition  of  the  sin  of  Nadab  and  Abihu.  And  the 
action  here  al-o  i.,  reciprocal;  for  the  worshipper's  ac 
ceptance  in  the  Beloved  is  to  besought  and  obtained 
through  prayer:  so  that  neither  is  the  atoning  virtue  of 
the  cross  available  to  the  individual  sinner  without  the 
praver  of  faith,  nor  is  this  pi-aver  acccpttd  but  in  con 
nection  with  the  atonement.  Nay.  in  Christ  himself,  a- 
the  representative  of  fallen  man.  \ve  see  the  twofold 
truth  exemplified,  and  rising  to  its  fullest  nalizaiion: 
since  he  is  at  once  the  perfect  sacrifice,  and  the  all- 
prevailing  intercessor:  and  while  he  both  offered  his 
own  blood  without  spot  to  the  Father,  and  then  after 
entered  with  it  in;o  the  heavenly  places,  it  was  not 
without  the  incense  of  prayer  preceding,  as  well  as 
following  the  work  of  reconciliation.  It  is  not  less 
true  that  lie  saves  by  his  intercession,  than  that  he  saves 
by  his  death. 

A  still  further  peculiarity  in  the  account  of  the  altar 
of  incense  finds  a  ready  explanation  in  the  preceding 
remarks.  For.  while  the  altar  of  incense  had  its  posi 
tion  simply  in  the  holy  place,  ''before  the  veil,"  and  not 
actually  within  it,  language  is  used  concerning  it.  which 
might  seem  t->  imply  that  it  belonged  to  the  most  holy  as 
much  as  to  tin:  holy  place.  Thus  it  is  itself  designated 
"  most  holy, '  i,e  xxx.  id;  and  in  the  description  given  of  the 
service  of  the  great  day  of  atonement,  it  is  spoken  of  as 
"the  altar  that  is  before  the  Lord" — as  if  in  a  sense  it 
were  within  the  veil.  1  n  the  Apocalyptic  vision,  formerly 
referred  to,  it  appears  in  the  immediate  presence  of  Je 
hovah,  He.  viii.  :; ;  and  also  in  He.  ix.  4,  the  golden  censer, 
which  was  but  an  appendage  of  the  golden  altar,  is  a<- 


signed  to  the  holy  of  holies  —  not  that  it  actually  belonged 
to  the  furniture  of  that  innermost  region  of  the  taber- 
nacle,  but  that  in  its  highest  intention  and  use  it  had 
ivspect  to  the  things  therein  contained.  From  it  the 
high-priest,  on  the  great  day  of  atonement,  had  to  raise 
the  cloud  of  perfume  which  covered  the  mercy-seat;  ami 
every  day,  though  in  a  smaller  degree,  the  same  incense- 
cloud  had  to  be  sent  within  the  veil  and  made  to  fill 
the  presence-chamber  of  God.  For  this  end  the  altar 
was  placed  directly  in  front  of  the  veil,  that  the  smoke 
arising  from  it  might  the  more  readilv  penetrate  within. 
And  thus,  again,  was  a  salutary  lesson  proclaimed  for 
all  times;  namely,  that  the  believer  should  be  ever 
dwelling  beside  the  secret  place  of  the  .Most  High,  so 
as  to  have  freedom  of  access  to  the  throne  of  grace, 
and  be  in  a  manner  praying  always  with  all  prayer 
and  .-upplieation.  Jf  it  is  but  a  rare,  or  an  occasional 
work  \\itli  him,  he  too  clearly  knows  not  the  height  of 
pri\  ilc^e  to  \\hiih  IK-  is  called  in  the  Redeemer,  nor 
has  funnel  Ids  wav  to  tin-  reality  symbolized  in  this 
portion  of  the  handwriting  of  ordinances. 

1NCHANTERS,  1  M  H  A  NT.M  KNTS,  considered 
as  distinct  from  the  acts  of  divination,  and  the  persons 
who  practised  them,  had  respect  ni"iv  especially  to  the 
charming  of  noxious  animals.  Mich  as  adders,  serpents, 
\o.  Magical  arts  of  this  kind  have  from  an  early  period 
been  particularly  culti\aled  in  Kuvpt.  and  even  con- 
stituted  a  sort  ot'  separate  craft,  of  which  notice  has 
already  been  taken  under  the  article  Anniii;.  Arts  of 
this  description  were  strictly  forbidden  by  the  law  of 
Moses.  nc  \viii  :M:';  I  <  cause,  though  Ivin^  perfectly 
within  the  compass  of  human  ingenuity  and  skill,  they 
\\  eiv  eli  '-civ  allied  to  demniiolo^y,  and  most  apt  to  lie 
abused  to  purposes  of  superstition.  Inchantments  in  this 
special  sense  do  not  appear  to  have  been  practised  in 
l.-rael:  such  as  existed  belonged  to  the  more  general 
headsof  divination,  magician,  and  witchcraft  (whiehsee). 

LNDLA.  is  no  farther  mentioned  in  Sc  ripture  than  as 
one  of  the  boundaries  of  the  great  empire  of  Ahasuerus 

"from  India  unto  Kthiopia,"  i-x  i.  i;\in  n  and  as 
nothing  depends  on  it  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
Bible.  so  it  cannot  \\ith  propriety  be  made  a  subject 
of  inquiry  here.  Neither  its  precise  locality,  nor  popu- 
lation.  nor  products  are  ever  referred  to. 

INGATHERING,  FEAST  OF.     ,S<<  FKAS.T.S. 

INHERITANCE.  This,  in  the  English  I'.ible,  is  the 
translation  of  three  different  terms  in  tho  Hebrew.  There 
[s  tirst  -»•-,.  (ytrnthalt),  fnnn  *$-?  <//«,•(/.-•/,),  to  seize, 

~*  '''•  ^ 

take,  occupy;  then  -fry  l»arAafa/i),  from  Sn  (uarhal), 

to  seize,    take,    distribute:    and  ps-i  i»7,  <•/</•!,  from  p^n 

:T 
(rluilak\  to  divide.      J  he  Hebrew  word  rTrx  (achuzzali) 

very  frequently  occurs  in  connection  with  "inheritance," 
signifying  the  actual  possession  of  that  which  is  one's 
right  by  inheritance-,  but  it  is  never  so  translated,  sec 
N'u.  x\\ii  :;•-';  K/.e  xhi  n;,  is.  Inheritance  refers  chiefly  to 
the  inheritance  of  land,  Xu.  xvi.  14;  xxxiv.  i-,  not  to  the 
inheritance  of  movable  property,  or  even  of  houses, 
except  in  some  instances,  as  will  afterwards  lie  noticed. 
It  is  a  subject  of  the  greatest  social  importance,  exer- 
cising  a  powerful  influence  on  the  national  condition, 
and  is  therefore  worthy  of  the  place  it  takes  in  the 
national  constitution  of  the  Jewish  people  (ii.de  Tot  que- 

ville  <le  In  Democratic  en  AmOrique,  c.  iii.;  M'Culloch  on  the  Succes- 
sion  to  Property  p.  1  and  i'). 

Of  the  patriarchal  law  of  inheritance  we  have  very 


INHERITANCE 


INHERITANCE 


few  i It-tails,  iii IT  d»es  it  bear  much  upon  the  principal 
((in  stiou  of  tliis  article,  as  the  patriarchs  h;wl  no  Imul 
in  their  possession.  Tlu-ir  entire  property  was  mov- 
.•i.lilr,  GO.  xiii.  •_'.  Over  this  thev  appear  to  have  exercised 
\iTvconsidcrable  control  ill  its  distribution.  From  a 
comparison  of  1  ( 'h.  v.  1  with  Ue.  xlviii.  f>,  (i,  it  would 
appear  that  e\eu  then  the  eldest  son  succeeded  by  right 
of  liirth  to  a  double  portion  of  his  father's  property, 
for  Jacob's  assuming  Joseph's  two  elder  sons  as  his 
own,  and  thereby  giving  to  Joseph  a  double  portion  in 
Israel,  is  described  as  the  transfer  of  Reuben's,  his 
eldest  sou's,  birthright  from  him  to  Joseph.  And  in 
this  instance  we  find  the  father  setting  aside  the  elder 
son  for  misconduct,  and  substituting  one  of  his  younger 
sons  in  his  room.  With  regard  to  their  other  children, 
they  probaMv  gave  them  equal  shares,  unless  something 
in  their  conduct  caused  them  to  make  a  difference.  In 
the  case  of  Abraham,  it  is  easy  to  see  why  he  made  a. 
marked  distinction  between  Isaac  and  Ids  other  chil 
dren.  To  all  of  them  he  gave  gifts,  but  to  Isaac  he 
gave  the  great  bulk  of  his  property,  Ge.  xxv.  5,  G;  xxiv.  36 
This  was  evidently  on  account  of  (Jod's  promise  to 
Isaac,  Ge.  xvH.  21,  and  perhaps  also  on  account  of  his  per 
sonal  good  conduct,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  as 
some  do,  that  this  was.  made  because  Isaac  was  a  legi 
timate  son,  and  the  others  were  illegitimate.  All 
Abraham's  children  were  legitimate.  The  concubine 
of  that  early  time  had  not  the  rank  or  dignity  of  the 
wife,  but  there  was  then  little,  if  any  difference,  except 
the  name.  The  man  with  whom  she  lived  is  called  in 
Hebrew  her  husband,  as  she  also  is  sometimes  desig 
nated  wife,  Go.  xvi.  li;  Ju.  xix. :!;  xx.  4;  her  father  is  called 
his  father-in-law,  Ju.  xix.  4;  and  he  is  called  her  father's 
son-in-law,  Ju.  xix.  5;  no  distinction  was  made  in  the 
treatment  of  the  sons,  whether  by  wife  or  concubine, 
Ge.  xxxvi.  12-16;  xlix.  l,ff.;  and  the  children  of  the  concu 
bine  were  reckoned  the  children  of  the  wife,  who  also 
was  usually  the  one  to  present  the  concubine  to  her 
husband.  Ge.  xvi.  L';  xxx  ::,  i:;;  xxxvi.  ii'-ni.  The  position  of 
concubine  became  afterwards  more  degraded,  but  it 
was  .such  in  the  patriarchal  time  (sce.lahn'.s  Arch,  Hib.  c.  x. 
S  i.Vi).  The  case  of  Jeplithah,  Ju.  xi.  i,  u',  is  sometimes 
allowed  as  showing  the  radical  distinction  between  the 
children  of  wives  and  concubines  in  the  matter  of  in 
heritance,  but  it  has  no  proper  bearing  on  the  question. 
Jeplithah  was  not  the  son  of  a  concubine,  but  of  a  liar- 
lut  (niVj  -uitn/t),  a  term  never  confounded  with  that 

of  concubine,  but  distinguished  from  it.  Ju.xix.  I,L>.  The 
position  of  daughters  as  to  inheritance  is  not  so  clear, 
but  they  would  seem  to  have  usually  obtained  a  share. 
The  complaint  of  Laban's  daughters  that  they  had  no 
longer  an  inheritance  in  their  father's  house,  shows 
that  they  considered  themselves  to  have  been  deprived 
of  that  which  it  was  usual  for  daughters  to  receive, 
Gc.  xxxi.  11.  In  the  land  of  I  /.  they  sometimes,  but 
apparently  not  always,  received  their  share  of  the 
paternal  inheritance.  Jobxlii.  15.  \Vhere  there  was  no 
child,  the  son  of  Mime  confidential  servant,  such  as  a 
steward,  born  in  the  master's  house,  appears  to  have 
been  occasionally,  at  least,  made  the  heir,  Gc.  xv.i>, :;. 

The  Mosaic  law  of  the  inheritance  of  land  is  laid 
down  most  distinctly  in  Xu.  xxvii.  1-11.  and  from  this, 
taken  in  connection  with  other  passages,  we  can  form 
a  perfectly  clear  idea  of  it.  On  the  father's  death  his 
land  was  divided  among  his  sons,  his  daughters  receiv 
ing  no  share  of  it,  Nu.  xxvii.  s.  If  there  was  but  one  son, 


lie  inherited  all;  if  there  were  more  than  one.  the  eldest 
inherited  twice  as  much  as  the  younger  sons,  this  dis 
tinction  being  conferred  in  the  Mosaic  law  on  primo 
geniture.  I)c.  xxi.  17.  Up  to  Moses'  time  there  was  no 
rule  as  to  who  should  lie  reckoned  the  eldest  son,  the 
father  selecting  the  eldest  son  of  whichever  wife  he 
pleased.  This  gave  rise  to  oreat  jealousies  and  in 
trigues,  which  were  put  an  end  to  by  Moses'  enactment 
(Ue.  xxi.  17;  M'Culluch, Succession  to  Property,  p.io).  Illegitimate 
sons  did  not  share  in  the  inheritance  with  legitimate 
sons,  Ju.  xi.  2.  In  tile  division  of  the  land  disputes 
occasionally  arose,  and  wroiiLr  was  sometimes  done,  to 
remedy  which  there  would  appear  to  have  been  judges 
or  dividers  appointed,  L,u.  xii.  I.'!,  14.  The  rule  of  the  ex 
clusion  of  daughters  from  a  share  when  there  were  sons 
living,  is  sometimes  thought  to  have  been  departed 
from  in  the  case  of  Calebs  daughter,  Jos.  \v.  l\  111;  Ju.  i.  li; 
1  Ch.  iv.  15.  It  may  be  an  exception,  but  it  is  not  neces 
sarily  one.  Caleb  may  have  acquired  by  conquest 
rights  independent  of  his  inheritance  by  lot,  and  over 
which  he  may  have  had  more  control,  Jo.  xiv.ii-if).  Even 
in  the  English  feudal  system  a  liberty  of  alienation  was 
allowed  in  the  case  of  land  acquired  by  individuals, 
which  was  not  allowed  in  regard  of  patrimonial  inheri 
tance  (M'Culloch  on  Succession,  p.  y).  The  preference  of 
males  to  females  in  inheritance  was  shared  by  the 
ancient  Germanic  nations,  and  prevailed  in  England 
(M'(Ju!locli,i>.  •-% -.';).  In  Greece  and  Rome,  when  a  man 
had  no  son,  he  was  permitted  to  adopt  the  son  of  an 
other,  even  though  he  was  not  related  to  him.  The 
adopted  son  took  the  name,  and  succeeded  to  the  pro 
perty  of  his  new  father  ( Potter's  Grecian  Ant. b.  iv.  c.  xv;  Adam's 
',  1  Ionian  Antiquities).  A  similar  cust<  an  seems  to  have  pre 
vailed  in  ancient  Egypt  (Ex.  ii.  10;  Josejilius,  Ant.  ii.  9,  7). 
There  was  no  such  custom  among  the  Jews;  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  opposed  to  their  law  of  succession.  Ac 
cordingly,  while  we  have  the  term  (lioOecria  vioOcTycns, 
<i(li>i>tio},  in  Greek  and  Latin,  we  have  no  correspond 
ing  term  in  the  Hebrew;  and  while  illustrations  of  the 
new  relation  of  believers  to  God  as  their  Father  in 
Jesus  Christ,  are  not  unfrequently  taken  in  the  New 
Testament  from  the  custom  of  adoption,  they  are  ad 
dressed  to  churches  where  the  Roman  and  Grecian 
custom  was  well  understood,  Ro.  viii.  i.'»;Ga.  iv.  5;Kp.  i.  5.  The 
law  of  the  heir  while  under  age,  Ga.  iv.  i,  2,  would  natu 
rally  be  the  law  of  Judea  as  of  other  parts  of  the  World. 
This  would  give  the  parent  a  certain  amount  of  author 
ity  over  his  sons  in  protracting  or  limiting  the  time 
during  which  they  should  exercise  power. 

If  a  man  died  without  sons,  his  daughters  inherited 
equal  portions,  Nu.  xxvii.  4-s  ]>y  thus  retaining  the  land 
in  the  family  the  name  of  the  deceased  was  kept  alive, 
ver.  i.  While  other  women  might  marry  in  whatever 
tribe  they  phased,  heiresses  must  marry  within  their 
own  tribe.  Nu.  xxxvi.  •-.  As  a  oviieral  rule  they  would 
marry  their  nearest  kinsman  in  the  permitted  degrees, 
Xu.  xxxvi.  ii;  Tobit  vi.  12;  vii.  ii;  I  nit  this  was  not  required 
in  the  original  law .  If  they  failed  to  marry  within  their 
own  tribe,  their  inheritance  was  forfeited,  and  went  to 
the  parties  next  named  in  succession  (Joseph.  Ant.  iv.  7, 5). 
Under  some  circumstances  this  law  seems  to  have  been 
departed  from,  as  in  1  Ch.  ii.  34-3ti,  where  we  read  of  an 
heiress  marrying  an  Egyptian  servant,  and  their  son  in 
heriting.  There  is  another  alleged  exception  in  1  Ch. 
ii.  '21-'24,  Nu.  xxxii.  41;  but  it  is  possible  that  the  daughter 
of  Machir  may  not  have  been  an  heiress  at  the  time  of 
her  marriage.  A  considerable  liberty  of  choice  was  thus 


INHERITANCE  7 

left  to  Jewish  heiresses,  and  one  much  greater  than 
was  permitted  in  Athens,  when:  they  were  compelled  to 
marry  their  nearest  kinsman  ( Potter's  Grecian  Ant.  mi  Laws 
belongm-  to  Murri;u:c:.s  ;  M't'ullndi  nu  Succession,  p  17).  The 
oarly  Human  law  excluded  females  from  inheritance 
when  there  were  brothers,  and  their  privilege  of  adop 
tion  had  the  same  effect  i.M'Cullodi,  p.  1%  2");  the  law  of 
gavelkiiid  in  Kent  is  exactly  that  of  Moses  in  regard 
to  daughters  (M'Cullodi,  p.  2:;i;  the  law  of  Mahomet  gives 
sisters  one-half  of  their  brothers"  share  of  the  inherit 
ance.  (Sale's  Koran,  i.  !H  ami  too,  e,l.  17i;.i).  We  thus  find  the 
Mosaic  law  recognizing  the  natural  equity  of  leaving  a 
father's  inheritance  to  his  children;  while  with  respect 
to  the  apparent  injustice  of  leaving  daughters  unpro 
vided  for  when,-  they  had  brothers,  the  injury  was  only 
apparent.  Where  Jewish  women  \\viv  as  a^-ule  un- 
provided  for,  and  when-  marriage  was  all  but  universal 
among  the  men,  the  want  of  fortune  brought  no  disad 
vantage:  wliile  beauty,  and  personal  worth,  would  give 
to  individual  women  that  distinction  which  wealth  alone 
too  often  confers  with  us. 

We  come  now  to  a  remarkable  peculiarity  in  the 
Jewish  law  of  succession.  viz.  in  the  case  of  those  v,  ho 
died  without  children,  their  widows  surviving  them, 
!><•.  xxv.  n.  This  law  was.  however,  deriyeil  from  a 
much  earlier  period,  and  existed  in  full  force  in  the 
family  of  Jacob,  (;,•  xxxviii  V'  The  ]aw  was.  that  it'  a 
man  died  without  leaving  any  child.  \u-  brother  or 
nearest  kinsman  should  marry  the  widow,  their  eld. -t 
son  should  succeed  to  the  inheritance  of  the  deceased 
as  his  son.  while  the  other  children  should  belong  to 
the  actual  father,  and  succeed  to  his  inheritance,  i>,.  \\\ 
!'>,<!.  Sunn:  mi-'ht  from  the  Hebrew  raise  theqiiesfioii 
whether  this  law  did  not  come  into  force  if  a  man  died 
without  •/  aon,  for  where  the  authorized  version  trans 
lates  by  "  child,"  ill  I).-.  xxv.  :>.  the  Hebrew  is  ..,  (/„„), 

uhich  very  rarely  includes  the  female  (Gescnius,  FtuTst) 
Here  it  seems  tod,,  so.  J'.oth  Septuagint  and  Vul-ate 
thus  understand  it;  the  law  of  succession  to  da,u<_diters, 
in  the  absence  of  sons,  appears  to  require  it:  and  so 
the  Jews  all  understood  it.  Mai  xxii  23,  ami  parallels.  The 
law  that  the  nearest  kinsman  of  the  deceased  should 
marry  his  widow  was  not  absolutely  compulsory,  but 
the  refusal  to  do  so  was  looked  on  as  a  "Teat  reproach. 
De.xxv.  r-10.  In  case  of  such  refusal  the  obligation  de 
volved  on  the  kinsman  next  to  him.  who  in  such  a  case 
also  redeemed  the  land  of  the  deceased  if  it  had  been 

sold.    Ru.  ill.  12,13;  iv.  1-12.      The   instance   in    the   1 |<    of 

Ruth  is  curious.  Naomi  beinu'  past  the  auv  for  mar 
riage,  di.  i.  12,  J!oaz  marries  Ruth  her  daughter-in-law, 
and  the  widow  of  her  son.  but  the  child  born  from  this 
maiTiao-e  is  reckoned  the  son  of  Naomi,  and  of  course  ! 
of  her  husband  Klimelech,  di.  iv.  ir,  the  interveniiiL: 
generation  being  passed  over.  I'.oaz  did  not  raise  np  a 
son  to  Chilion,  but  to  Klimeleeh.  From  this  ca.se  we 
may  jud^e  that  when  a,  man  died  leaving  sons,  who 
also  died  without  issue,  the  property  reverted  to  the 
widow  of  their  father  during  her  lifetime;  for  it  is 
Naomi,  not  Ruth,  who  sells  the  land  of  Klimelech.  1 
di  iv .  :;.  On  Naomi's  death  Ruth  would  inherit,  ch.iv.fi 
From  i'r.  xxx.  -J:j  it  would  appear  as  if  a  handmaid, 
when  she  was  a  concubine,  inherited  after  the  wife,  in 
case  neither  had  children. 

On  the  failure  of  sons  and  daughters,  the  brothers 
of  the  deceased  inherited,  Nn.  xxvii.  <».  By  brothers  here 
we  must  understand  the  sons  of  his  father,  not  kinsmen. 


INHERITANCE 

'  which  the  term  is  often  put  for.    If  he  had  no  brothers. 

j  the  inheritance  went  to  his  father's  brethren,  or,  as  we 
would  say,  his  uncles,  by  the  father's  side,  Xu.  xxvii.  in. 
I'p  to  this  the  law  of  Jewish  inheritance  is  precise!  y 
the  same  as  prevailed  among  the  ancient  (Jernians, 
with  the  exception  of  the  law  regardinv;  widows;  but 
here  there  is  a  divergence.  If  there  were  no  uncles  by 
the  father's  side,  the  inheritance  went,  among  the  (Jer- 
mans.  to  the  maternal  uncles  (Tacitus  de  Mor.  xx);  but 
these  were  not  recognized  in  the  Jewish  law.  as  the 
inheritance  would  in  that  case  frequently  pass  from  one 
tribe  to  another.  In  the  absence  of  paternal  uncles 
the  inheritance  went  to  the  nearest  kinsman  of  the  de 
ceased  belonging  to  his  family  and  tribe,  Nu  \\vii.  11. 

While  the  law  of  succession  thus  kept  land  iu  the 
posse-sion  of  the  same  family  from  generation  to  gene 
ration,  the  law  of  niort-aue  had  the  same  effect.  In 
no  instance  could  a  Jew  alienate  his  inheritance  for 
ever  by  the  sale  of  it.  !.,•  xxv.  23.  A  redemption  for  the 
laud.  Lo  xxv.  21,  called  the  right  of  the  redemption 
(n*?N;r  ^rrc.  mi.--/'/"''  lnt'jiil'ili,  Je.  xxxii.  r),  must  in 

every  case  accompany  the  temporary  sale  of  the  land. 
A  kinsman  could  at  any  time  redeem  it  by  pa\nient  of 
a  regulated  charge;  or  the  ou  IUT  could  at  any  time 
redei  m  it  for  him-df  on  the  same  terms,  if  In-  had  ac 
quired  the  means,  :.,.  xxv.  24-27  This  would  act  as  a 
spur  to  industry.  In  any  case  the  land  must  return  to 
the  original  owner  or  his  heirs  at  the  ^ ear  of  jubilee, 
without  any  payment,  I.,  xxv.  as.  All  these  conditions 
would  reduce  land,  as  a  marketable  commodity,  very 
low.  The  two  cases  in  Scripture  where  details  are 
given  of  the  redemption  of  land,  acquaint  us  with 
further  particulars  Je  xxxii  ti-fij  llu  iv.  l-o.  These  do  not 
appear  to  be  tin  redemption  of  land  uhich  had  been 
sold  out  of  the  family,  but  the  sale  of  the  properties  by 
their  proper  owners.  In  both  cases  it  appears  that  the 
first  otter  of  the  land  must  be  made  to  the  nearest  kins 
man,  which  is  indeed  implied  in  the  power  he  possessed 
of  redeeming  it  any  time.  Lc.  xxv.  2:,.  From  Ruth  it 
appears  that  when-  the  land  to  be  sold  belonged  by 
p.^sc.-sjon  or  reversion  to  a  widow,  not  past  the  time 
tor  marriage,  the  kinsman  purchasing  was  obliged  also 
to  marry  her.  It  was  this  which  made  Klimelech's 
nearest  kinsman  refuse  the  ri-'lit  of  red,  niptioii.  lest  lie 
•diould  mar  his  own  inheritance.  I'.u.  h.  i;.  Jose]. bus 
(Ant  v.9,4)  think-  this  was  because  he  had  already  a 
wife  and  children.  A  more  likely  reason  is,  that  la- 
was  afraid  that  if  he  had  but  one  son,  that  son  would 
lie  the  IcM-al  son  of  Klimeleeh.  and  not  his  own.  and  so 
the  succession  of  his  own  name  should  be  endangered. 
<Jo.  xxxviii.  !.;  Do.  xxv.  <i  Klimelech's  inheritance  was  at 
this  time  probably  in  the  hand  of  the  nearest  kinsman 
i.iMsrpiius,  Ant  \.  !i,  4):  but  nothing  probably  had  been 
paid  for  it  at  the  time  of  Klimclcch's  departure,  when 
the  land.  uwiiiLT  to  the  famine,  was  of  little  or  no  value, 
'•ii  i  i.  The  inalienability  of  land  has  been  generally 
enforced:  in  Knidand  it  continued  down  to  the  rei^n  of 
Henry  V  1  I  I  .  (M'Ciillneh  on  Succession,  p  '.0.  The  IN. man 
parent  had  the  power  to  disinherit  his  son  (A.lain's 
Hoinan  Antiipiitifs — liiglit  of  'IVstanient ),  but  this  power  Was 
not  possessed  in  Judea  Over  his  movable  property  a 
Jewish  parent  had  power,  but,  not  in  the  disposition  of 
the  land.  It  is  probably  ,,f  movable  property  that 
I'r.  xvii.  '_'  speaks.  It  was  t,he  inalienability  of  the 
land  that  made  the  pious  Naboth  reject  Allah's  pro 
posal  with  horror,  l  Ki  xxi  ::  The  most,  accurate  maps 


INHERITANCE 


"84 


IXHER1TAXCE 


and  accounts  of  the  several  inheritances  of  each  family 
must  have  been  made  and  preserved,  when  we  find  each, 
after  the  seventy  years'  captivity  in  .Babylon,  returning 
to  his  own  inheritance,  Xe.  xi.  20.  It  was  not  in  the 
power  of  the  prince  to  alienate  his  own  inheritance,  or 
that  of  his  people,  E/M.  xlvi.  IG-IS.  The  inalienable  right 
of  succession  by  birth  may  illustrate  the  nature  of  our 
Lord's  sonship.  which  was  his  by  inheritance,  He.  i.  4,  .">; 
and  adds  force  to  the  frequent  declarations  of  Scripture 
that  glory  is  the  inheritance  of  the  wise,  and  folly  of 
the  simple,  Pr.  iii.  3r>;  xiv.  i-v 

The  inalienability  which  attached  to  the  land  of 
Judea  did  not  attacli  to  houses  and  movable  property. 
Houses  in  walled  towns  could  be  alienated  for  ever  if 
not  redeemed  within  one  year  from  the  day  "f  sale. 
I.e.  xxv.  2:1, :;  >.  Houses  in  unwalled  towns  and  villages 
could  not  be  alienated,  as  being  probably  essentially 
connected  witli  the  neighbouring  land,  Le.  xxv  ;n.  The 
agricultural  population  seldom  lived  out  of  villages. 
The  power  thus  given  over  houses  was  of  course  much 
more  exercised  over  movable  property,  with  respect  to 
which  there  is  no  law  in  Scripture,  and  over  which 
therefore  the  owner  had  full  control.  It  would  in  ordi 
nary  circumstances  go  to  one's  children  or  nearest 
kinsman,  but  the  owner  had  full  power  to  dispose  of  it 
during  his  lifetime  in  any  way  he  judged  best.  From 
Pr.  xvii.  2  we  judge  that  it  was  sometimes  given  to  a 
servant  in  preference  to  a  son.  The  liberty  thus  granted 
argues  great  wisdom  in  Jewish  law.  The  power  of 
alienating  movable  property  is  essential  to  progress 
(M'Culloeh  on  Succession,  p.  f>).  This  power  was  granted  in 
its  full  extent  to  the  Jews,  while  it  was  very  much  re 
strained  among  nations  accounted  more  civilized.  Xo 
kind  of  property  could  be  devised  in  Athens,  except  to 
children,  before  the  age  of  Solon;  nor  in  Rome,  except 
by  a  will  made  in  an  assembly  of  the  people;  and  the 
disposal  of  it  was  much  restrained  in  England  to  the 
reign  of  Henry  II.  (M'Culloeh,  p.  3, 4, 7,?).  Jewish  law  of 
the  remotest  period  was  framed  on  a  wiser  plan.  The 
property  spoken  of  in  Lu.  xv.  11-13,  is  by  some  sup 
posed  to  be  movable  property,  but  others  with  greater 
probability  think  it  to  be  the  landed  inheritance  (so 

Alford,Gr.  Test,  in  loco). 

As  landed  property  could  not  at  any  time  be  alien 
ated  from  children,  so  movable  property  in  Judea  would 
appear  to  have  been  disposed  of  during  the  owner's 
lifetime,  and  by  his  verbal  disposition,  rather  than  by 
written  wills  coming  into  force  after  his  death,  as  with 
us,  Ge.  xxiv.  :;ij;  xxv.  5,  G  The  will  is  not  once  mentioned 
in  the  Old  Testament;  there  is  no  Hebrew  word  for  it. 
The  SiaOriK-r]  of  the  Xew  Testament,  frequently  trans 
lated  u  testament,"  is  never  so  used  in  the  Septuagint. 
which  is  our  best  guide  to  the  Xew  Testament  Greek. 
(See  COVENANT.)  We  know  of  no  instance  of  wills  in 
use  among  the  Jews  except  in  the  case  of  the  Herods, 
and  even  these  refer  only  to  the  disposition  of  the  king 
dom  (Josephus,  Ant.  xvii.  3,  2;  Jewish  "Wars,  ii.  2,  3).  Tobit 
viii.  24  has  the  appearance  of  a  Jewish  will,  though 
not  really  one,  but  was  a  paper  drawn  up  to  guard 
against  misappropriation  after  death,  Tobit  vi.  12.  To 
suppose  the  patriarchal  blessing,  Ge.  xxvii  19, 37,  analogous 
to  a  modern  will  is  rather  fanciful,  and  Caleb's  bless 
ing,  Jos.  xv.  10,  was  the  bestowal  of  property  in  his  life 
time.  And  this  absence  of  the  will  in  Jewish  anti 
quity  is  conformable  to  general  custom.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  represent  it  as  of  immemorial  antiquity  (Townsend's 
Manual  of  Dates — Wills).  The  power  to  devise  by  will  was 


unknown  in  the  earlier  periofls  of  society  (M'Culloeh  on 
Succession,  p.  3).  There  was  no  will  at  Athens  before 
Solon,  and  even  then  it  was  only  such  as  had  no  chil 
dren  that  could  devise.  At  Rome  the  power  to  devise 
was  not  of  early  date,  and  it  was  a  very  considerable 
time  before  this  power  was  conceded  in  England  (M'Cul 
loeh,  p.  3,5,  7,  x;  i;i:ickstone'sCoin.  ii.  32). 

The  last  feature  of  the  Jewish  law  of  inheritance  that 
requires  consideration  is  the  perpetual  division  and  sub 
division  of  land  made  by  it  among  the  Jewish  proprie 
tors.  The  law  of  primogeniture,  the  grand  characteristic 
of  the  feudal  system,  was  only  so  far  recognized  in  Judea 
as  that  the  elder  son  should  inherit  a  double  portion. 
The  necessary  effect  of  this  was  to  subdivide  the  land 
an<  1  create  a  great  body  of  small  landed  proprietors,  every 
Jewish  fhale  being  born  to  land.  Political  economists 
differ  as  to  the  general  propriety  of  this  rule,  but  in 
the  case  of  Judea  we  find  that  even  those  who  deny  its 
general  propriety  allow  it  to  have  been  of  use  there. 
This  is  all  that  is  required,  as  no  one  supposes  that 
laws  of  this  kind  were  intended  for  use  elsewhere  under 
different  circumstances.  Adain  Smith  condemns  the 
law  of  primogeniture  as  most  injurious  under  present 
circumstances,  and  advocates  the  division  of  landed 
property  (Wealth  of  Nations,  p.  171,  M'Culloch's  edition).  M'Cul- 
loch  approves  generally,  and  with  much  reason,  of  the 
law  of  primogeniture.  He  shows  in  the  instances  of 
Ireland  and  France  that  endless  subdivision  of  land  is 
injurious,  and  fortifies  his  arguments  by  the  opinion  of 

Sir  Matthew  Hale  (M'Culloch,  p.  30,  34,  87-90  ;  Rale's  History 
of  Common  Law,  ch.  xi.  p.  2'>3,  Hunnington's  edit.  177ii).  The  divi 
sion  of  land  in  France  is  however  twice  as  great  as  in 
Judea:  in  France  it  is  divided  among  sons  and  daugh 
ters  i  M'Culloch,  p.  M),  while  in  Judea  it  was  divided  only 
among  sons,  when  sons  existed.  M'Culloch  notices 
cases  in  which  he  thinks  the  subdivision  of  land  useful, 
and  where  its  injurious  effects  are  prevented  by  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  times  or  country.  Many 
of  these  apply  with  peculiar  force  to  J'udea.  Thus  in 
a  hilly  country,  where  the  lands  do  not  admit  of  the 
|  easy  employment  of  horses,  or  of  improved  implements, 
he  thinks  small  farms  preferable  to  large.  Beyond 
almost  any  country  Palestine  agrees  with  this,  a  land 
of  hills  and  valleys,  where  in  ancient  times  manual 
labour  raised  terraces  up  to  the  tops  of  the  hills  (Jose- 
phus.J.  Wars,  iii  3;  DC.  viii.  7-n).  He  also  thinks  small  farms 
are  preferable  in  the  vicinity  of  large  towns  (M'Cullocli, 
p.  128).  There  are  few  countries  where  considerable 
towns  lie  so  thickly  as  they  did  in  the  two  Galilees,  the 
smallest  of  them  containing  over  fifteen  thousand  inha 
bitants  (Joseplius,  .1.  Wars, iii.  2,3;  De.  vi.  UP).  M'Culloch  men 
tions  other  circumstances  in  favour  of  the  subdivision 
of  land.  He  mentions  the  great  popularity  of  the  law 
even  in  France,  and  the  attachment  to  the  country 
which  the  proprietors  have  in  consequence :  also  in 
Germany  (p.  mi,  ISG).  It  had  of  course  this  effect  among 
the  Jews  when  every  one  ate  of  his  own  vine  and  his 
own  fig-tree.  Is.  xxxvi.  ifi.  He  also  mentions  the  extraor 
dinary  impulse  which  under  certain  circumstances  the 
subdivision  of  property  gives  to  population  (p.  137).  an 
impulse  very  desirable  in  a  land  subject  to  frequent 
wars  and  waste  of  population.  It  is  to  the  frequency 
of  war  in  the  early  state  of  Rome  that  he  attributes 
the  fact  that  there  this  subdivision  led  to  no  injurious 
consequences  (p.  IGO).  He  might  have  added  that  but  for 
this  rapid  increase  of  population  Rome  could  never 
have  sent  forth  those  native  armies  to  which  she  owed 


her  empire.  No  country  required  a  quick  increase  of 
population  on  this  account  more  than  Judea.  In  per 
petual  war  with  the  neighbouring-  smaller  nations,  her 
little  territory  was  the  battle-field  of  Kgypt  and  Assy 
ria,  of  ( Jreece  and  Koine.  With  all  this  necessary  waste, 
her  population  was  recruited  so  as  to  meet  it.  The 
law  of  inheritance,  it  may  be,  inapplicable  to  Kn-land 
or  France  in  their  present  state,  was  the  wise.-t  law  for 
the  land  for  which  it  wa>  enacted.  It  provided  a 
numerous  population  to  defend  the  soil  which  possession 
made  dear  to  every  Jew:  it  provided  food  for  an  urban 
population  of  \-a-t  amount:  it  clothed  the  ru-ged  hill 
sides  of  1'a-rea  and  Judea  with  th-j  olive  and  the  vine. 
tin;  tig-tree  and  the  palm,  and  enabled  manual  toil  to 
maintain  then-  a  population  more  numerous  tl,;m  that 
which  cultivated  the  -Teat  pl-iin  of  K-drae'on.  or  the 
fertile  valley  of  the  Jordan.  JH.  r.| 

INK  is  referred  to  in  but  a  few  passages  in  Scrip 
ture,  and  simply  as  the  fhid  used  in  writing.  That  it 
was  usually  bhe-k.  we  kiio\\  t'r  ,m  other  sources  and  from 
the  remains  of  antiquity  that  have  de.-cended  to  modern 
times.  Jt  was  ditleivntlv  composed  from  that  n,,v\  in 
current  use,  being  formed  sometimes  of  the  finest  soot 
of  lamps,  sometimes  ,,f  the  black  liquor  found  in  the 
cuttle  tidi  and  otln  r  substances,  to-,  tlier  with  a  cer 
tain  intermixture  of  -urns  and  acids,  which  pi'odu. 
composition  that  was  remarkably  durable,  even  more  so 
than  modem  ink.  but  was  thi.-k.-r.  and  less  adapted  for 
speedy  execution.  |-'or  ornamental  purposes,  h  iwever, 
other  kinds  ,,f  ink  were  employed  by  the  ancients,  and 


of  various  colours— red,  blue,  purple,  and  of  gold  and 
silver  tints.      i,s<  WHITING.) 

INN.  This  word  occurs  alto-ether  live  times  in  our 
Knglish  P.ibles;  but  scarcely  iu  any  of  them  can  it  be 
said  to  he  a  proper  rendering  of  the  original:  as  tun* 
in  our  sense  of  the  term  had  no  existence  in  ancient 
Palestine  and  the  adjacent  countries.  The  earliest  men 
lion  of  an  inn  is  in  connection  with  the  history  of 
Jacob's  family,  Ge.  xlii.  27;  on  their  return  homewards  his 
sons  stopped  to  give  their  asses  provender  in  the  i,i>< 
.^•p.  iiu(/un\.  literally  the  lodging-place,  where  travel 
lers  were  \\ont  to  make  a  halt  in  their  journey.  So 
again  it  occurs  at  Kx.  iv.  iM.  in  the  account  of  the  re 
turn  of  Most  s  from  .Midian  to  K-ypt.  At  the  thresh- 
"I'l  "'  the  New  Testament  history  it  meets  us  in  eon- 
nection  with  the  birth  of  our  Lc.nl  at  I'.ethleliem:  \\lio 
v  as  laid  in  a  manger  ,or  stall),  because,  it  is  said. 
'•  there  was  no  room  for  them  in  the  inn"  uV  T^  Kara- 

rt).        The   Word    here   employed,  if  vie  Wed  in  respect 

to  its  etymology,  means  a  loosing  place  a  place  where 
travellers  uugirded  their  beasts  ot  burden,  and  rested 
f"l- the  nijit.  or  din-in-  the  h.  at  of  day.  Hut  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  word  is  used  with  some  la ti 
tudt  in  the  Creek  t ran.-lalions  of  the  Old  Testament 
-eriptuiv.  and  thai  it  also  denoted  any  place  for  rest 
or  refreshment,  Mich  as  a  couch,  or  tint,  or  settled 
abode,  i  -  L  :,  IP;  i:,  v,  i.  ;  .1,,  xxx  •;.  So  that  the  mere 
use  ot  the  \\,,pl  uara.V'jiia  at  the  be^innine  of  the 
-ospcl  hist,  iv  would  not  of  it-elf  d.teimine  to  what 


I 

"131* 


class  of  buildings  the  birth-place  of  Jesus  belonged;  court,  the  entrance  to  which  is  by  an  archway  closed 

for  this,  we  are  thrown  upon  the  general  manners  and  by  a  slron-  gate.  The  walls  are  generally  lofty  and 

customs  of  the  Kast;  and  these  still  retain  so  much  of  strong,  and  sometimes  provided  with  means  of  de- 

their  ancient  type,  that  there  is  no  great  difficulty  in  fence.  The  compass  of  this  court,  and  the  number 

sketching  what  was.  at  least,  the  probable  state  and  as  \vell  as  character  of  the  apartments  which  sur- 

aspect  of  thin-s.  round  it,  differ  materially,  according  to  the  position 

I'.y  the  inn.  then,  we  are  to  understand  the  khan  or  and  plan  of  the  Imildin-.  Almost  invariably,  how- 
caravanserai  so  often  described  by  those  who  have  ever,  there  is  a  well  in  the  centre  of  the  court,  and. 
visited  the  Kast.  and  which,  unlike  the  inns  of  our  own  if  there  are  no  stalls  for  the  cattle,  then  these,  after 
country,  are  entirely  unfurnished.  It  is  a  kind  of  bein-  unburdened  of  their  load,  are  left  to  repose 
building  intended  merely  to  afford  convenient  shelter  '  in  the  inclosure,  or  to  browse  on  what  herbage  they 
and  lodging-room  for  travellers,  usually  constructed  can  find  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  lint  coin- 
in  the  form  of  a  quadran-le  surroundin-  an  open  monly  there  are  openings  in  the  surrounding  \vall 

VOL.  I.  99 


INSPIRATION 


into  a.  number  <>f  recesses,  which  contain  chambers 
both  for  the  traveller  ami  his  beast.  The  floor  of  these 
receding  apartments  rises  two  or  three  feet  above 
the  central  court,  and  consists  of  a  platform  or  bank 
of  earth  faced  with  masonry.  When  -tails  are-  at 
tached,  these  usually  run  in  covered  avemi"s  behind  the 
separate  apartments,  but  on  a  somewhat  lower  level; 
in  which  ease  the  more  elevated  floor  of  the  apart 
ments  is  made  to  project  behind  into  the  stable,  so  as 
to  form  a  bench,  toward  which  the  head  of  the  horse  or 
camel  is  turned,  and  on  which  the  nose- bag  is  allowed 
to  rest.  It  was  in  a  place  of  this  sort  that  the  Virgin 
.Mary  brought  forth  the  blessed  1,'edeemer.  The  khan 
at  Bethlehem  had  cells  or  apartments  for  the  travellers, 
as  well  as  stalls  for  the  cattle:  but  the  former  were 
already  pre-occupied  before  the  holy  family  arrived; 


and  they  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  betake  to  one  of  the 
outer  pendieles  destined  for  beasts  of  burden.  There 
the  Saviour  of  the  world  was  born,  and  on  the  pro 
jecting  ledge,  which  had  its  appropriate  use  in  sup 
porting  the  nose-bags  of  horses  and  camels,  did  he  find 
his  first  humble  bed.  With  inimitable  simplicity  the 
evangelist  merely  records  this  astounding  fact;  but  the 
thoughts  it  is  fitted  to  raise  of  the  love  and  condescension 
of  Christ,  and  of  the  aspect  borne  by  his  mission  to  the 
lowest  and  poorest  of  mankind,  it  might  take  volumes 
to  unfold.  The  caravanserais  on  the  highroads  of  the 
countries  farther  to  the  east  appear  to  have  been. 
from  ancient  times,  of  a  more  spacious  and  costly 
description  than  those  in  Palestine  and  its  immediate 
neighbourhood.  Layard  characterizes  the  khans  be 
tween  Bagdad  and  the  sacred  places  as  "  handsome 
and  substantial  edifices,  which  have  been  built  by 
Persian  kings,  or  by  wealthy  and  pious  men  of  the 
same  nation,  for  the  accommodation  of  pilgrims'"  (Xine- 
veh  and  Babylon,  p.  47*).  The  general  plan  and  struc 
ture,  however,  usually  correspond  with  the  description 
already  given.  But  a  somewhat  different  form  is  found. 
especially7  in  Asia  Minor,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  en 
gravings.  No.  8"i.r>  presents  a  considerable  elevation, 
with  apartments  entering  from  covered  galleries  for 
the  accommodation  of  the  travellers,  while  the  lower 
story  is  devoted  to  stables  for  horses  or  other  cattle, 
and  store-rooms  for  goods.  No.  350  exhibits  a  plan- 
section  of  another  building  of  the  same  description. 
In  this  plan  the  main  entrance  is  at  the  lower  part, 
the  stairs  leading  to  the  covered  galleries  from  which 
the  sleeping  apartments  enter  are  at  the  farther  end 
of  the  court.  The  pillars  that  sustain  the  flat  roof  are 
represented  in  section  by  little  dark  circles,  and  the 


structure  of  the  roof  itself  by  a  series  of  obliiaie  lines. 
Khans  of  such  a  description  are  probably  not  very 
numerous,  and  only  found  where  there  is  much  traffic. 
Manifestly  different  from  the  ordinary  khan  was  the 
inn  (iravdoKeiov)  mentioned  by  our  Lord  in  the  parable 
of  the  good  Samaritan,  Lu.  x.  :u.  A.-  a  host  ( Trcu'SoKefo) 
was  connected  with  it,  it  presents  a  nearer  approach 
than  the  other  to  what  is  now  known  as  an  inn.  But 
vhe  probability  is  that  it  is  rather  to  be  understood  of  a 
lodging  house,  than  a  place  of  public  entertainment. 

i  That  houses  of  that  description  existed  in  towns  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  although  we  possess  little  specific  in 
formation  concerning  them,  and  find  them  occasionally 
associated  with  persons  of  loose  character.  Jus.  ii.  1. 
There  is  no  reason  however  to  suppose,  why  they  may 
not  also  have  sometimes  been  kept  by  persons  of  good 
repute. 

INSPIRATION.  A  word  of  but  ran  occurrence  in 
the  English  Bible— once  only  in  the  general  sense,  of  the 

'  spiritual  influence  by  which  men  are  enabled  to  attain 
to  the  knowledge  of  divine  things,  jubxxxii.  -;  and  once 
in  tlie  more  special  sense,  of  the  supernatural  agency 
by  which  the  revelation  of  these  is  communicated  in 
sacred  Scripture,  •>.  Ti.  iii.  ic.  It  is  simply  in  this  latter 
sense  that  the  word  is  now  commonly  taken,  when  used 
of  what  pertain.-,  to  the  religious  sphere;  and  its  im 
portance,  as  connected  with  Scripture,  is  not  to  be  esti 
mated  by  the  word  itself  occurring  only  in  a  single  pas 
sage,  for  the  idea  embodied  in  it  is  expressed  in  many 
passages,  and  is  often  presented  as  of  the  highest  import 
ance.  If  the  distinctive  character  of  Scripture  con 
sists  in  its  having  been  given  by  inspiration  of  Cod,  then 
by  the  sense  attached  to  this  distinction  will  necessa 
rily  be  determined  the  place  Scripture  occupies  in  men's 
regard,  and  its  relative  position  in  respect  to  other 
writings.  The  subject,  especially  when  viewed  in  con 
nection  with  recent  speculations,  is  of  large  extent,  and 
can  only  bo  treated  here  with  reference  to  its  more 
essential  features,  and  the  main  objections  urged  by 
the  opponents  of  inspiration  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
term.  Little  more  indeed  than  an  outline  in  either 
respect  can  be  attempted  ;  but  the  sources  will  be  indi 
cated,  as  we  proceed,  where  fuller  investigations  may  lie 
found. 

J.  The  stunt  tn  lit  attached  t<>  t/n  inspiration  of  Scrip 
ture  «*  /hi*  ma  ;i  be  gathered  from  .^•/•i/i/m-c  iittlf.  In 
exhibiting  the  import  of  .Scripture  on  the  matter,  it  is 
necessary  to  make  a  distinction  between  one  portion  of 
the  sacred  writings  and  another,  in  particular  between 

'  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New.  For,  while  both 
form  properly  but  one  hook,  yet  the  one  being  com- 

:  pleted  ages  before   the   other  came   into  existence,   and 

j  also  being  distinctly  borne  witness  to,  and  authenticated 
by  the  other,  the  evidence  for  that  portion  of  Scripture 
is  in  some  sense  peculiar,  and  maybe  best  taken  apart. 
Two  lines  of  proof  seem  perfectly  sufficient  to  estab 
lish  its  plenary  inspiration. 

1.  First,  then,  tin  icritimj*  of  tin  Old  Ttstiinant 
viewed  collectively  are  characterized  by  epithets  which 
mark  them  as  emphatically  of  C4od.  They  are  desig 
nated  "holy  Scriptures"  (iepa  ypdfJ.fJ.ara),  or  simply 
"the  Scripture,"  by  way  of  eminence,  having  a  place 

|  and  a   character  altogether  its  own.   •>  Ti.  iii.  15;  K«>.  i.  2  ; 

j  Ju.  v.  :;u;  x.  :)4-:;<i.  Still  more  characteristic  and  decisive 
is  the  epithet  "oracles  of  God,"  applied  to  them  by 
the  apostle  Paul,  Ilu.  iii.  ->,  since  by  oracles  were  uni 
versally  meant  communications  bearing  on  them  the 


INSPIRATION 


INSPIRATION 


full  impress  of  the  Deity  they  were  understood  to 
come  from:  and  to  call  the  Old  Testament  writings 
(rod's  oracles  was  all  one  with  saying  they  were 
strictly  divine  utterances.  P>ut  the  most  conclusive, 
and.  as  it  may  fitly  be  called  the  classical  passage- 
on  the  subject,  is  the  one  ahvady  referred  to  in 
'1  Ti.,  in  which,  after  having  described  the  Scrip 
tures,  with  which  Timothy  had  been  familiar  from  his 
childhood,  as  able  to  make  him  wise  unto  salvation, 
the  apostle-  adds.  "  All  scripture  is  uiveii  bv  inspira 
tion  of  (Jod  (literally,  every  scripture,  that  is.  every 
particular  portion  of  the  collective  whole  designated  im 
mediately  before  'the  holy  Scriptures,  is  theopneiistic, 
God-inspired), ami  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  ivproi.f. 
for  correction,  and  for  instruction  in  righteousness. 
The  object  of  this  statement  plainly  is  to  individualize 
the  productions  1 1.  situated  immediately  brfoiv  as  "the 
holy  Scriptures."  and  to  assert  for  thorn  one  and  all 
the  same  divine,  anil  because  divine,  profitable  char- 
aeter.  To  render,  as  some  would  do,  "  every  ^crip- 
tun-  that  is  (lod-inspin-d  is  also  profitable."  so  as  to 
leave  altogether  indet.  rmined  what,  or  ho\v  much  of 
Seripture  actually  is  Mich,  Would  cibvioiisly  hrin-_:  an 
element  of  uncertainty  into  the  a]x>stle's  train  of  thought, 
strangely  inconsistent  with  its  prof'  ssed  aim.  Instead 
of  confirming  what  had  been  said  before,  and  a.-sijuiirj 
a  fundamental  reason  i',,r  it.  as  one  naturally  expects, 
the  pa»a-e  would  rath'-r  en-ate  perplexity  and  doubt; 
for  while  it  had  been  atlinn>-d  of  the  Scriptures  -vne- 
rally,  that  tin  v  an-  fitted  to  make  wise  to  -a! vatioii. 
//()/'•  it  wnuld  be  intimat'-d  that  only  such  of  them  a- 
had  been  in-pin  <1  of  (lod  are  profitable  for  spiritual 

llSes.         lillt    then    the   <|lle-tii'!l     ille\itahlv    al'ise.-.    \\llich' 
How.    or  where   is  the  line  to  be  drawn    between   the  one 

class  and  tin;  other  '  On  this  important  <\  nest  ion  not  a 
hint  isdropped,  and.  we  may  c.-rtainly  int'ei-.  there  was  no 
intention  to  raise  it.  The  passage,  however,  may  be  so 
tvad,  a-  to  throw  the  predicate  siniplv  on  the  ///v;r//<f/i/< 
(every  scripture  inspired  of  (iod  is  also  profitable,  \c.i 
-  though  not  in  our  judgment  the  natural  construction 
-but  if  so  construed  it  must  In-  after  the  manner  of 
I  iri_i'-n  in  ancient  time-,  ivo-ntlv  followed  by  Kllieot. 
Alford.  and  some  others,  by  cuniiectilii:  the  epithet 
t/n',/,11,  11. ttii-.  a.-  well  a:-  the  predicate  /,,;:ii'r,/l:/< .  with 
tin-  entire  budv  of  the  writ!  n-_f-  in  'jUestioii.  The  mean 
ing  in  this  ca-e  conies  to  be  nearly  identical  with  that 
obtained  by  the  other  mode  :  every  scripture  In  in_r  Driven 
by  inspiration  of  ( iod  is  aL-o  profitable.  ,Ve.  So  that  thus 
also  the  di  elaration.  to  use  tin-  word-  of  Kllieot.  ''enun 
ciates  the  vital  truth,  that  eyery  separate  portion  of  tin- 
holy  book  is  inspired,  and  forms  a  living  portion  of  ,--. 
living  oivanic  whole." 

'_'.  J'eside  these  more  general  testimonies  embrac 
ing  the  entire  compass  of  Old  Testament  scripture, 
tin-re  are  .--//rv/V/c  testimonies  (insert in;/  tin  fHi/ic  <>f  fnir- 
ticu/ur  portion*.  'I  lie  /an:  is  one  of  these  portions,  which 
is  constantly  represented  a--  haviiiLT  been  given  by  (lod. 
though  in-tnnneiitally  brought  in  by  Moses,  Iv  xxxiii.  :f, !: 
,In  i  i:,\.-  Its  common  name  is '' the  law  of  the  I.ord." 
and  so  sacred  was  it  deemed  on  account  of  this  high 
origin,  that  our  Lord  declared  "one  jot  or  tittle  should 
iu  no  wise  pass  from  it  till  all  should  be  fulfilled,"  Mat. 
v.l*.  Tlie  liixfi'i-ii''!/  /inrtiviiii  also  of  the  Pentateuch 
have  substantially  the  same  character  ascribed  to  them; 
they  belonged  to  the  divine  law  in  the  wider  sense,  and 
lx>re  on  them  the  attributes  of  (Sod's  supreme  authority 
and  unchanging  faithfulness.  Referring  to  some  thimrs 


contained  in  those  historical  records,  the  apostle  calls 
upon  the  persons  he  addressed  to  hear  therein  the  law, 
Ga.  iv.  21.  Pieferring  to  other  portions,  our  Lord  once 
and  again  prefaces  his  quotations  from  them  with  the 
emphatic  announcement,  "  It  is  written"—  as  if  to  have 
found  them  there  were  enough  to  insure  their  absolute 
verity  -  and  he  once  speaks  of  them  as  constituent  parts 
of  :i  scripture  which  from  its  essential  character  can 
not  be  broken.  Mat.  iv.  4.  7  :  xix.  I ;  ,ln.  x.  :;,v  If  \ve  turn  to 
the  jH-'ijifntini/  />'<rt.t  of  Old  Testament  scripture,  we 
find  them,  if  possible,  still  more  intimately  connected 
with  the  immediate  agency  of  ( lod.  Thus  Peter  affirms 
that  "  prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  (rather,  at  any 
time.  Trore'l  by  tin-  will  of  man,  but  holy  men  of  (led 
-pake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  (Ihost."  •_' IV.  i 
•Ji,  •_'•_'.  NYhatever  may  be  the  legitimate  bearing  of  this 
testimony  on  the  interpretation  of  prophecy,  there  could 
scarcely  be  a  stronger  assertion  made  of  the  divino- 
IK-SS  of  its  origin  ;  and  it  is  even  stronger  in  the  original 
than  in  our  translation,  as  >'m-in  n/n,,,^  r:ither  than 
'  by  tin-  Holy  (Jhost.  i-  the  exact  ini|iort  of  the 
expression  concerning  the  prophets.  The  testimony  is 
equally  explicit,  and  comprehensive.  <  If  the  prophetical 
writing-  generally  il  affirms  thattht-v  were  the  product, 
not  of  man's  genius  or  foresight,  but  of  the  Spirit  of 
<  o'd  operatinir  through  the  medium  of  a  human  agency. 
Nothing  short  of  this,  indeed,  is  intimated  by  the  pro 
phets  themselves,  pivfaein,  their  u'terane.  -.  as  they  so 
commonly  do.  with  "  thus  saith  tin  Lord."  or  delivering 
their  ine-sa^'i  s  of  weal  and  woe  as  "the  Lord's  burden.'' 
Nay.  we  find  them  expressly  distinguishing  their  case 
from  that  of  I'aN,  prophets,  in  that  the  latter  went  after 
their  own  spirits,  hence  saw  nothing,  and  spake  from 
their  own  hearts,  while  the  other-  foil, .wed  the  Lord's 
Spirit,  and  -aw  and  .-pake  the  Lord's  word.  K/.,_-  xiii.2,H; 
I-.  ii  l.\r  Hence,  also,  w  t  -  so  often  read  in  New  Tes- 
tam- -nt  scripture  of  the  Lord  having  spoken  by  the 
mouth  of  such  and  such  a  prophet,  or  of  tin-  Holy 
( ihost  having  through  him  uttered  what  must  needs  he 
fulfilled.  A'-  i  ii: :  iii  i-;  n  -.'.-,.  Indeed,  it  is  upon  these 
\\ritiiiLTs  of  Old  Testament  scripture,  especially  the  pro 
phetic  writin---.  that  tin-  apostles  avowedly  based  the 
chief  article.-  of  the  faith  re.-pectim:  <  hrist:  to  thesi- 
they  constantly  appealed  as  providing  an  indefeasible 
warrant  for  tin-  testimony  they  delivered,  Ac.  ii.  in,  Ac.; 
I  CM  .•  ...i:  i;.,  \vi.  -ji; ;  and  as  this  plainly  implied  the 
infallibility  of  Old  Testament  scripture,  such  infallibi 
lity  mii-t  ha\e  presupposed  as  its  ground  the  inspira 
ti"ii  i -f  tin-  \\rit-  r.-.  The  testimonies  an  thus  every 
way  full  and  explicit  :  and  bv  nn  fair  construction  can 
they  be  und'Tstood  to  import  less  than  that  the  writ 
ings  of  tin-  Old  Tes'ann-nt.  indi  \  i' 1  nail  y  am  1  <-i  illectively, 
bear  "ii  tln-ni  the  ^tamp  of  (lull's  authority,  and  are  to 
be  regarded  a-  the  peculiar  revelation  of  his  will  to 
man. 

Passing  now  to  tin-  +<-ri/>tiiri t  <if  tl«-  Xi  u-  7\sfnmf)if, 
then-  are  several  considerations  which  conclusively 
establish  for  them  tin-  same  rank.  d.)  First  of  all,  it 
may  be  inferred  from  /In  j,i  r.«mnl  xfion/inf/  of  the 
n-i-ifo-.-t  by  whom  they  were  indited,  which  places  them 
above  that  of  the  sacred  penmen  of  earlier  times. 
Apostles  and  prophets  rank  next  t<>  Christ  in  the  gospel 
dispensation:  and  apostles  as  such  stand  higher  than  those 
who  were  simply  prophets,  hence  taking  precedence  in 
the  enumeration  made  alike  of  heaven- endowed  agents 
and  of  instrumental  working  in  the  establishment  of  the 
New  Testament  church,  i  Co.  xii  'js;  Ep  ii.  2o;  iv.  11.  The 


J  NSl'lK  AT  I  ON 


INSPIRATION 


prophets  mentioned  in  such  passages  arc  those  of  the 
New  Testament,  as  is  manifest  from  their  relative  posi 
tion:  first  Jesus  Christ,  then  apostles,  then  prophets. 
Now,  in  Old  Testament  times,  the  highest  function  was 
that  of  prophet— the  highest,  if  we  except  Me c-.es,  \vh<>, 
as  mediator  of  the  old  covenant,  had  a  place  altogether 
peculiar,  liv  virtue  of  which  lie  stood  in  a  relative  corres 
pondence  with  Christ.  I5ut  in  the  new  dispensation, 
without,  including  Christ,  there  is  a  hiuh'T  class  than 
prophets — the  apostles:  whose  revelations  of  ilivine 
truth  can  in  no  respect  he  assigned  to  a  lower  sphere 
than  that  occupied  by  ancient  prophets.  Jf  regard  he 
had  to  the  measure  of  knowledge  communicated  through 
them  concerning  divine  things,  a  greatly  higher  place 
belongs  to  them,  and  one  which  it  were  utterly  incon 
gruous  to  associate  with  a  less  direct  influence  from 
above.  Kvt  n  the  prophets  of  the  New  Testament  rank 
in  that  respect  above  those  of  the  Old:  for  he  who  was 
le-s  than  the}'  was  stili  greater  than  all  \vljo  had  gone 
before  liim.  M;a.  xi.  it;  and  their  insight  into  the  mys 
teries  of  Cod's  kingdom  was  such  as  the  prophets  of 
former  times  had  not  been  able  to  reach,  Ep.  iii.  a ;  1  Co. 
H  .'.i,  lu.  .But  the  apostles  occupied  a  position  of  still 
creater  nearness  to  the  Lord,  and  were  the  more  im- 

D 

mediate  expounders  of  his  will  to  men.  So  that  what 
ever  has  been  affirmed  in  New  Testament  scripture  of 
the  writings  of  the  old  covenant,  as  to  their  strictly 
authoritative  and  divine  character,  may.  <i  fnr/i-iri,  be 
affirmed  of  the  writings  which  proceeded  from  the 
apostles  and  prophets  of  the  new.  ("2.)  Tin:  ,-•//'»•/«/ 
jii'iinii.-ic^  f/ii'ii'  l'<i  "'"'  Lfn'd  t'l  lii*  immediate  disciples 
ri-fifx-ctiiitj  tin-  xii  [>fruatn!\il  "/,</  <lir«-t  aiii  <>f  the  JI<ilij 
Xpirif  form  another  argument  for  the  inspiration  of  by 
much  the  greater  portion  of  New  Testament  scripture. 
In  the  first  recorded  promise  of  that  description  lie  so 
identifies  them  with  the  agency  of  the  Spirit,  that  the 
words  they  should  speak  were  to  be  rather  his  than 
theirs — ''not  ye  that  speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your 
father  which  speaketh  in  you,"  M:it.  x.  -•<>.  The  promise, 
indeed,  had  immediate  respect  to  the  troubles  and  dan 
gers  connected  with  persecution  for  the  cause  of  Christ: 
but  if  for  this,  then  assuredly  for  all  the  other  emergen 
cies  and  duties  connected  with  their  otfiee,  in  which 
I  hey  should  require  the  like  special  guidance  and  sup 
port — most  of  all  for  what  they  had  to  do  as  the  expo 
nents  of  Christ's  mind  to  the  church  in  all  future  time. 
To  leave  no  doubt,  however,  that  such  was  our  Lord's 
meaning,  subsequent  promises  expressly  certify  them 
of  this — Jn.  xiv.  to,  17,  L'.:>,  -_v, ;  xv.  2ii,  ->7  -,  xvi.  ii-i.r> — assuring 
them  of  the  Spirit  as  an  abiding  guide  and  comforter, 
who  should  bring  all  that  (.'hrist  had  said  to  their  re 
membrance,  should  lead  them  into  all  the  truth,  should 
also  show  them  things  to  conic,  and  should  in  all 
respects  bear  such  a  witness  for  C'hrist  in  their  souls,  as 
they  had  to  bear  for  him  to  the  world.  Jf  such  pro 
mises  were  actually  fulfilled,  as  we  cannot  doubt  they 
were,  what  could  the  result  be  but  that  the  things  they 
spoke  and  wrote,  as  thcv  were  received  by  them  from 
above,  so  they  were  again  given  forth  with  infallible 
certainty  as  the  oracles  of  God.  (3.)  Historical  testi- 
monies  still  further  confirm  the  conclusion.  On  the  day 
of  Pentecost  the  apostles  are  declared  to  have  spoken 
as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance,  Ac.  ii.  I ;  and  St.  Paul 
expressly  affirms  that  the  things  he  taught  had  been 
received  by  revelation  from  the  Lord,  and  that  he  spake 
forth  what  he  received  in  words  taught  him  by  the 
Holy  Ghost:  so  that  the  things  he  communicated  to 


the  churches  were  to  be  received  as  the  commandments 
of  the  Lord,  C'ia.i.  11,12  ;  Ep.  iii.3  ;  1  C'o.ii.  lO-i:;  ;.xiv.  17.  Or,  as 
In-  again  puts  it,  (.'hrist  spoke  in  him,  and  his  word  was 
the  word  of  God,  2  Co.  ii.  17;  xiii. '.',.  in  like  manner  the 
apostle  Peter  expressly  designates  the  gospel  which  he 
and  his  fellow-disciples  preached,  "  the  word  of  the 
I, "i-d.  which  liveth  and  abidcth  for  ever,"  1 IV  i.  2."> ;  and 
his  own  words,  and  those  of  the  other  apostles,  in  par 
ticular  1 'aid's,  he  classes  with  those  of  the  prophets, 
and  assigns  them  a  place  anioni;  "  the  scriptures,"  21V. 
iii.  1, -,u',.  It  is  as  the  writings  of  apostles,  that  this 
high  character  is  claimed  for  them— as  indeed  the  very 
otlice  of  apostle  gave  those  who  held  it  a  right  to  re 
present,  and  authoritatively  declare  the  mind  of  the 
Lord.  And  hence  also,  in  the  closing  book  of  New 
Testament  scripture,  so  completely  is  the  word  of  the 
apostle  identified  with  that  of  the  Master,  that  final 
excision  from  the  family  of  God  is  threatened  against 
any  one  who  should  either  add  to,  or  take  from,  the 
tilings  he  had  written.  K-J.  x\ii.  i-,i!i. 

The  proof  every  v, ay  is  satisfactory  and  complete; 
it  is  so  for  the  inspiration  of  the  New  as  well  as  of  the 
Old  Testament  writings;  and  the  assertion  of  Coleridge, 
that  he  ceuld  find  no  claim  to  proper  inspiration  in 
word  bv  the  sacred  writers,  explicitly,  or  by  implica 
tion  (Confessions,  p.  17),  has  probably  few  pai'allels  for  its 
utter  obliviousness  or  disregard  of  the  facts  of  the  case. 
It  is  easv,  no  doubt,  for  speculative  minds  to  start 
cavils  and  throw  out  questions  of  doubt  or  difficulty  at 
various  points  along  the  line  of  proof;  but  on  the  sup 
position  that  the  sacred  writers  were  sincere  and 
honest  men — seeking  to  convey,  not  for  sophists  and 
disputers.  but  to  plain  and  simple-minded  persons  like 
themselves,  an  impression  in  accordance  with  the  native 
import  of  their  words-— no  conclusion  may  more  cer 
tainly  he  drawn,  than  that  according  to  their  representa 
tions,  Scripture  in  its  totality  the  collection  as  a  whole, 
and  each  particular  part  of  it—  was  given  by  inspiration 
of  God,  and  is  in  consequence  to  be  regarded  as  the 
peculiar  and  authoritative  revelation  of  his  will  to  men. 
JS'ec.essari/ explanations.  It  is  not  to  be  understood  by 
what  has  been  said,  that  Scripture  is  entirely  of  a  piece. 
Written  as  it  is  with  much  variety  of  form — contain 
ing  a  revelation  from  God  made  in  divers  manners,  as 
well  as  at  sundry  times — and  assuming  often  the  form  of 
narrative  and  dialogue -it  cannot  intend,  when  assert 
ing  its  immediate  connection  with  the  Spirit  of  ( !od,  that 
every  portion,  viewed  singly  and  apart,  is  clothed  with 
divine  authority,  and  expresses  the  mind  of  Heaven. 
For  that,  it  would  require  to  have  been  cast  through 
out  into  the  form  of  simple  enunciations  or  direct 
precepts;  and  all  conversational  freedom  of  discourse, 
and  expression-*  of  thought  and  feeling  adverse  to 
the  truth,  must  have  been  withheld.  In  speaking, 
therefore,  of  the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  respect  must 
be  had  to  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  its  several 
parts.  And  where  the  sentiment  uttered,  or  the  cir 
cumstances  recorded,  cannot,  from  its  obvious  connec 
tion  or  import,  be  ascribed  to  God.  the  inspiration 
of  the  writer  is  to  be  viewed  as  appearing  simply  in  the 
faithfubioss  of  the  record,  or  the  adaptation  of  the 
matter  contained  in  it  to  its  place  in  the  sacred  volume. 
"Were  it  but  a  human  idea,  or  a  thought  even  from  the 
bottomless  pit,  yet  the  right  setting  of  the  idea,  or  the 
just  treatment  of  the  thought,  may  as  truly  require  the 
guidance  of  the  unerring  Spirit,  as  the  report  of  a  mes- 
,  sage  from  the  upper  sanctuary. 


INSPIRATION 


INSPIRATION 


This  diver.-ity,  however,  in  the  j»rni  of  tin-  ivvela- 
tion  gives  mi  countenance  to  the  idea  of  diverse  degrees 
of  inspiration — such  as  of  supervision  for  cue  kind  of 
writing,  <liivt/tion  for  another,  elevation  for  a  third, 
suggestion  for  a  fourth.  Wherever  the  uit't  <>f  inspira 
tion  \vas  actually  possessed  and  exercised,  it  was  a 
supernatural  work  of  the  Spirit:  and,  as  already  indi 
cated,  we  have  no  materials  for  determining  its  precise 
action  on  the  individual  mind,  or  any  warrant  to  say, 
here  there  was  less  of  the  element,  and  there  mure.  \\  • 
cannot  so  distinguish  even  in  the  commoner  operations 
of  the  Spirit,  of  which  everv  true  believer  is  the  sub 
ject;  and  much  less  can  it  lie  done  in  regard  to  tin- 
special  agency,  of  which  tin.-  >acred  pi .-nineli  Wire  C"ii- 
scious. 

In  one  respect  we  <•"»  distinguish  between  the  actions 
of   the   Spirit   in   this   supernatural    territory      for  it   is 
matter  of  revelation      I  mt  it  i-  °  inl  v  in  respect  tot': 
f  eivn  t  in*  * /<  .-•  of  manifestation,  or  the  respective  states  of 

those    \vhci    Were    subject   to    tin  111.         V.  ViTV  Word  'jj  \  ell  1  'V 

inspiration  ot  (iod,  and  every  document  compc  •  -.  d  mnii  r 

the  in'1: ieu i f  the  .-'in ie.  i>  eijuullv  a  w<  >rd  of  (  .  <  id.  and 

c([Uallv  entitled  to  tlie  implicit  regard  of  man;  but.  ae- 
cordinv  (o  ;he  I'urm  assumed  in  the  action  ot  the  in.-pir- 
inj  Spirit,  it  may  indicate  a  hiulnr  or  a  lower  stano 
in  tin-  development  of  the  1 1  i  \  i  i  n  counsels  a  relatively 
L'reat'  r  or  less  importance  in  the  communications  made. 
It  was  the  di-timrui-hin.;-  characteristic  of  Mo-,s  in  ( Md 
Testament  times,  that  (iod  "spake  \\ithliim  face  to 
.  as  a  man  speak'  tli  unto  hi-  friend."  and  a-rain. 
"  \\  ith  him  I  .-peak  month  to  mouth,  even  apparentlv, 
and  not  in  dark  speeches,  and  the  similitude  of  tin- 
Lord  shall  he  behold,"  Kx  vxxiii  11;  N  ..  •  111  tills 
Moses  stood  on  :t  higher  level  than  tin-  prophets,  of 
whom  it  was  at  the  same  tinn-  -aid.  by  way  of  com 
parative  depreciation,  "It  iln-iv  In-  a  proph,  t  alining 
you,  I  the  l.ord  will  make  m\-elf  known  to  him  in  a 
\i-i"H.  and  will  speak  unto  h'lu  ill  a  dream,"  Nu  xii.  o 
Tin-  mode  of  iv  vi  la t  ion  to  the  p'-oplnt-  by  \\a\  of  vision 
and  dream,  implying  a  state  of  ecstasy  on  their  part 
a  kind  of  uunat  iral  state,  in  which  they  were  for  tin- 
moment  carried  out  of  them--!'.  ••-.  -•>  that,  they  m;_ht 
i"  able  to  apprehend  the  representation  made  to  th>  m 
hLrh  as  it  rai-ed  them,  in  one  respect,  Ix.-spoke  in 
another,  a  relative  inferiority.  More  elevated  than 
tin-,  because  denoting  less  of  distance  from  ;he  ln-a\  eiilv 
sanctiiarv.  K-  -| K-akii:,'  clo-er  fellowshiji  with  <i"d.  was 
the  condition  of  him.  who.  without  needinif  to  be 
thrown  into  any  ec-tatie  trail-port,  simplv  in  the  habi- 
tual  frame  ;U1,I  temper  of  his  mind,  was  honour  d  to 
liecoine  the  channel  of  direct  communications  from 
above.  Such,  in  anen-nt  tunes,  was  the  more  distin 
guished  privilege  of  Moses.  who,  therefore,  -( 1 

above  all  the  prophets  that  lived  under  the  old  cove 
nant.  I>;it  higher  still  was  the  position  of  .le-us  ( 'hrist. 
who.  not  at  stated  times  merely,  but  perpetual! v.  and 
in  his  ordinary  moods  of  thought  and  feeling,  enjoyed 
the  freest  intercourse  with  the  Father,  and  disclosed  the 
mind  of  the  Father.  (.Sr  I'ltoi'iIlX'Y.  i  Tin-  apostles, 
too.  shared  in  a  measure  in  this  freer  mode  of  commu 
nication,  and  but  rarely  required  to  lie  raised  into  the 
ecstatic  condition.  I'.ut  whatever  diversity  there  niav 
have  been  in  the  until,,  it  does  not  at  all  affect  the 
rf.oilf  as  to  its  proper  character  and  bearing.  How 
ever  received,  and  however  uttered,  it  was  the  word 
of  the  Lord,  which  those  chosen  instruments  of  tin- 
Spirit  were  commissioned  to  make  known  ;  it  was  this. 


and   not    man's    word,    which   at    first    proceeded   from 
I  their    lips,    and    which   now   stands   recorded   in   their 
writings. 

II.  Vt>jcfti<>it.<  uri/nJ  d'jniiift  the  doctrine  of  plenary 
;  infiltration.  These  are  of  the  most  varied  and  hetero 
geneous  nature;  but  they  may  not  inconveniently  he 
ranged  under  a  threefold  division:  first,  those  which 
strike  at  the  existence  of  a  written  revelation  from 
heaven,  by  holding  it  to  be  impossible,  or  at  least  ac 
tually  impractical >Ie  and  unnecessary;  -i  c,.ndlv.  those 
which  admit  a  portion  of  the  cont,  nts  of  the  JUhle  to 
'  possess  an  inspired  character,  but  deny  it  of  others; 
and  thirdly,  those  which  own  a  kind  of  unhersal  inspi 
ration,  but  only  as  connected  with  the  spirit,  not  with 
the  letter  of  Scripture  with  its  eeiieral  scope  and 
meaning,  not  with  its  formal  utterances  and  actual 
contents. 

1.  Tin-  most  fundamental  line  of  objection  is  un 
doubtedly  that  which  stands  tir-t.  and  which  is  directed 
against  the  possible  or  actual  existence  of  a  liook- 
revelation.  bcarinir  on  it  the  stamp  of  (  iod's  authority, 
'i  In-  persons  who  lake  up  this  position  do  not  usually 
deny  a  sort  ot  in-piration,  and  are  much  in  the  habit 
of  speakin<j;  of  "heaven-taught  souls."  "  (  Mid-inspired 
linn."  lii  it  w  hat  i-  mean'  by  this  is  the  attribute  merely 
of  ;;,  nil  is  or  elevated  moral  feeling,  and  belonged  to 
Milton.  Shakspeaiv,  and  even  the  sagacious  Franklin, 
a-  well  a- to  '' the  wisdom  of  Solomon  and  the  poetry  of 
l-aiah"  ^Foxtmi).  I'ut  inspiration  of  this  sort  has  in  it 
m  it  hin_r  of  the  supernatural:  it  may  distinguish  one  man 
iroin  aiiotln  r  a.-  to  comparative  clearness  of  apprehen 
sion  or  correctness  of  \iew;  but  it  indicates  nothing  as 
t"  a  more  dir  et  communion  with  heaven,  such  as 
lie-  beyond  the  reach  ot'  nature'-  powers  and  capacities. 
Inspiration  involving  tin-  play  of  a  supernatural  ele 
ment,  lias  no  place  in  tin-  creed  of  such  men;  for  this 
is  all  one  with  tin-  miraculous,  and  the  miraculous  is 
altogether  .  xduded  from  their  |  hilosophy.  On  this 
aspect  "t  tin-  matter,  however,  it  is  IH-I dh --  to  enter 
lierc,  as  it.  will  come  into  consideration  in  it.-  proper 
place.  i.S»  M  IHACI.I..I  I'.ut  apart  from  this  ground, 
the  idea  of  inspiration  in  the  proper  sense  i-  held  by 
some  to  Ie  at  once  unnecessary  and  impracticable, 
because  i'  i-  to  the  r<  Unions  consciousness  or  spiritual 
faculty  in  man.  that  the  cognition  of  the  truth  belongs; 
to  this  it  i-  alone  con  i  pi  tent :  so  that  "an  authoritative 
•  \lernal  revelation  of  moral  and  -piritual  truth  is  essen 
tially  impos-iliit;  to  man"  i  N\-\\in:n:i  The  representation 
has  I ii -ei i  made  in  various  f.  inns;  and  of  late  it  has  more 
coinmonh  assumed  the  form  of  exhibiting  inspiration 
as  from  tin-  very  nature  of  things  incapable  of  rising 
above  tin-  subjective  acts  and  operation.-  of  human  con 
sciousness.  It  neither  is.  nor  can  be.  more  than  "a 
spiritual  apprehension  on  tin-  part  of  the -acred  writers, 
which  admitted  of  many  degrees,  some  being  more  in 
spired  than  others."  When  tin-  prophets  spoke  of  the 
word  of  tin-  Lord  coming  to  them,  or  when  they  began 
tln-ir  messages  by  "'  thus  saith  the  Lord,"  it  is  not 
meant  that  "the  1'eitv  really  spoke  to  their  external 
organs  of  hearhiL:',  or  that  they  received  a  distinct  com 
mission  to  write-.  They  wen- moved  by  their  own  spiri 
tual  impulse  to  utter  or  write  the  extraordinary  in 
tuitions  of  truth,  which  the  Spirit  enabled  them  to 
reach.  ...  I  iod  spake  to  them  not  by  a  miraculous 
communication,  foreign  to  human  experience,  lint  hy 
tlie  inwat-d  voice  of  spiritual  consciousness,  which  daily 
and  hourly  tells  every  one,  if  he  will  listen,  what  his 


INSPIRATION  7 

work  in  tliis  world  is,  and  how  he  should  do  it ''  ^Davidson, 
lutrod.  to  the  old  Test.  vol.  ii.  p.  ir-.i,  L'3n,&c.)  In  short,  there  is 
a  divine  clement  in  man,  simply  as  such,  though  it  exists 
in  some,  whether  by  natural  constitution  or  by  superior 
moral  training,  in  higher  potence  than  in  others;  and  the 
expression  given  to  this  divine  element  is  for  the  time 
tiie  voice  of  God  speaking  in  and  by  man,  but  only 
speaking  according  to  its  measure  of  light,  and  conse 
quently  giving  forth  no  absolutely  correct  and  authori 
tative  utterance — often  partially  errini;',  indeed,  in  its 
views  of  the  true  and  right. 

The  argument,  especially  when  put  in  the  first  form, 
as  directed  against  the  possibility  of  an  inspired  person 
or  volume  carrying  the  stamp  of  Heaven's  authority, 
consists  of  a  shallow  and  almost  transparent  fallacy. 
(See  Rogers' Eclipse  of  Faith,  p.  03,240.)  For,  grant  all  that 
can  be  claimed  for  a  spiritual  faculty  in  man's  nature, 
designated  the  religious  consciousness,  or  whatever 
name  may  lie  preferred,  it  can  no  more  lie  beyond  the 
reach  of  external  influences  than  any  other  innate  faculty 
of  the  soul.  It  is  common,  however,  to  one  and  all  of 
these  alike,  that  they  not  only  may  lie  addressed  from 
without,  but  must  be  so,  in  order  to  become  capable  of 
higher  attainments — they  must  lay  themselves  open  to 
the  external  sources,  which  are  fitted  to  stimulate  and 
direct  their  energies.  The  understanding,  when  grap 
pling  with  the  abstract  conceptions  of  natural  science — 
even  the  imagination,  the  most  independent  and  crea 
tive  of  all  the  faculties,  when  scorning  the  bounds  of  souse 
and  time,  and  making  for  itself  a  world  of  its  own — re 
quires  in  many  ways  to  serve  itself  of  adventitious  helps 
and  written  compositions.  And  whatever  power  there 
may  be  in  man,  capable  of  receiving  or  giving  forth 
impressions  of  spiritual  things,  it  cannot  but  be  suscep 
tible  of  like  influences  from  without,  whether  coming 
direct  from  above,  or  through  the  channel  of  human 
agencies,  nor.  judging  from  the  history  of  the  past,  can 
it  be  said  to  be  loss  dependent  on  them.  Practically, 
this  spiritual  faculty  has  not  been  able  to  save  the 
great  mass  of  its  possessors  from  the  grossest  errors  of 
superstition;  ignorance  of  God,  painful  uncertainty  in 
regard  to  the  higher  interests  of  the  soul,  wide-spread 
and  ineradicable  corruption  of  manners  have  ever  pre 
vailed  where  men  have  been  left  to  its  unaided  direc 
tion.  Should  it  seem  strange,  then,  for  God  to  have 
stepped  in  to  the  rescue,  and.  through  some  more 
select  instruments  of  his  working,  provided  for  this 
defective  attribute  of  humanity  an  unerring  light,  which 
it  had  elsewhere  searched  for  in  vain  ?  The  province  of 
this  objective  aid  (supposing  it  to  have  been  given)  is 
not  to  supersede  the  faculty  itself,  but  only  to  supply  it 
with  the  materials  needed  to  secure  its  safe  and  health 
ful  operation.  And  the  fundamental  fallacy  of  those 
who  repudiate  the  idea  of  such  aid,  consists  in  their 
groundless  belief,  that  the  subjective  action  of  the 
faculty  is  itself  sufficient — a  belief  which  is  belied  by 
the  whole  history  of  the  past,  and  which  in  former 
times  was  sharply  rebuked  by  Ezekiel,  ch.  xiii..  and  some 
of  the  other  prophets.  These  divine  seers,  it  is  held, 
did  not  mean  what,  in  one  of  the  above  quotations,  it 
is  asserted  they  did  mean,  when  they  spoke  of  seeing 
the  vision,  and  uttering  the  word  of  the  Lord. 

Leaving  this  higher  ground,  however,  of  the  possible 
or  impossible,  it  is  alleged  against  the  stricter  view  of 
the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  that  there  is  positive  evi 
dence  of  its  not  having  belonged  to  the  sacred  penmen. 
For  example,  it  is  affirmed  even  of  the  highest  of  these, 


'0  INSPIRATION 

the  apostles,  that  "  they  were  sometimes  involved  in 
minor  misconceptions,  and  tanf/kt  specific  notions  incon 
sistent  u-ith  a  pure  spiritual  Christianity,  as  Peter  did 
when  he  was  chided  by  Paul"  (Morell) .  If  such  had  really 
been  the  case,  it  must  have  furnished  a  proof  against 
much  more  than,  the  doctrine  of  plenary  inspiration; 
for  misconceptions  of  any  sort  in  regard  to  divine  truth, 
and  notions  at  variance  with  spiritual  Christianity,  in 
volve  something  else  than  merely  verbal  inaccuracy. 
But  the  statement  itself  is  groundless.  The  case  re 
ferred  to  nf  the  rebuke  administered  by  one  apostle  to 
another  (viz.  by  Paul  at  Antioeh  to  Peter),  is  no  evi 
dence  whatever  that  the  notions  of  either  of  them  were 
wrong,  but  simply  that  the  conduct  of  one  was  not  up 
right.  It  proves,  indeed,  that  Peter's  sanctification  was 
imperfect,  but  indicates  nothing  as  to  his  inspiration 
being  partial.  The  supernatural  influence  of  the  Spirit 
promised  to  him  and  the  other  apostles  guarded  their 
doctrine  against  all  error — for  otherwise  they  could  not 
have  fulfilled  their  mission  to  the  world — but  it  did  not 
secure  them  as  individuals  against  sinning.  "What  they 
spake  in  the  Lord's  name  carried  with  it  the  weight  of 
his  authority;  but  their  personal  actions  must  be  judged 
by  the  divine  standard  of  rectitude,  which  they  were 
themselves  authorized  to  set  up. 

The  individuality  stamped  upon  the  ii-ritint/x  of  the 
sacred  penmen,  is  urged  as  another  proof  against  their 
plenary  inspiration.  "It  is  inconceivable  that  each 
writer  should  manifest  his  own  modes  of  thought,  his 
own  educational  influence,  his  own  peculiar  phraseology; 
and  yet  that  every  word  should  have  been  dictated  to 
him  by  the  Holy  Spirit."  Sometimes  the  objection  is 
put  even  more  offensively,  and  we  are  told  (by  Cole 
ridge  for  example)  of  the  doctrine  turning  the  sacred 
penmen  into  "  human  ventriloquists,"  "  automaton 
poets,"  tending  to  ''petrify  the  whole  body  of  holy 
writ  with  all  its  harmonies  and  symmetrical  gradations," 
and  such  like.  The  objection  assumes  what  no  judi 
cious  advocate  of  inspiration  will  allow,  that,  as  some 
of  the  older,  especially  Lutheran,  writers  put  it,  the 
inspired  writers  were  mere  scribes  or  pens,  •'  to  whom 
every  word  was  dictated  by  the  .Holy  Spirit,  simply  to 
be  noted  down"  (llnihz).  If  this  had  been  the  case, 
then  all  Scripture  would  need  to  have  been  given  like 
the  law  of  the  two  tables  at  Sinai.  The  inspiration  of 
the  sacred  writers  undoubtedly  consisted  with  their 
freedom  and  individuality.  There  is  not  a  volume  in 
existence,  composed  by  different  authors,  more  strongly 
marked  by  the  distinctive  peculiarities  of  the  several 
writers,  than  the  Bible.  The  style,  the  language,  the 
imagery,  the  reasoning  and  the  rhetoric  were  all  such 
as  each  individual  from  his  particular  circumstances  and 
native  cast  of  mind  might  have  been  expected  to  employ; 
and  not  less  in  the  wrapt  effusions  of  the  prophet,  when 
j  disclosing  the  higher  purposes  of  God,  or  f (ire telling 
things  to  come,  than  in  the  homely  evangelist,  and 
the  apostolic  herald  of  the  gospel,  every  appropriate 
feeling  has  its  play,  and  every  distinctive  gift  its  befitting 
exercise.  This  was  necessary  to  secure  the  end  the 
Bible  has  in  view.  Tt  would  in  great  measure  have 
failed  of  its  purpose,  if  the  divine  had  not  been  thus 
tempered  by  the  human,  and  the  human  exhibited  in 
its  manifold  variety.  Being  made  far  man,  the  laws  of 
human  sympathy  required  that  it  should  come  tlrronfili 
man,  and  through  man  speaking  not  less  freely  and 
naturally,  that  the  Spirit  of  God  employed  him  as  his 
organ.  Here,  indeed,  lay  the  great  problem  which  had 


INSPIRATION 


INSPIRATION 


to  lie  wrought  "tit  in  order  to  provide  a  suitable  reve 
lation  for  the  world.  Jt  had  to  be  at  once  of  God 
and  of  man.  of  (iod  as  to  the  matter,  of  man  as  to  the 
manner— divine  in  the  doctrines  taught  and  the  tidings 
made  known,  human  in  the  form  thev  assumed  and  the 
Channel  through  which  they  were  conveyed.  And  thus 
we  have  a  P>ible  "  competent  to  calm  our  doubts,  and 
able  to  speak  to  our  fears.  It  is  not  an  utterance  in 
strange  tongues,  but  in  the  words  of  wisdom  and  know 
ledge-:  it  is  authoritative,  for  it  is  the  voice  of  (Jod;  it  is 
intelligible,  for  it  is  in  tile  huiLTiiau'e  »f  men"  lUYstc.ar, 
lutrod.  tu  Study  of  the  Gospels,  p.  7).  To  hold  a  problem  of 
this  sort  incompatible  with  the  laws  of  human  thought 
and  action,  would  be  to  limit  the  Holy  One  of  Israel, 
and  al>o  to  jud^e  otherwise  respecting  his  <  .innection 
with  the  word-;  hi-  agents  employ,  than  i<  commonly 
done  respecting  the  aetioii>  thev  perform.  \\  ii«  i,  Joseph 
discovered  him--lf  to  his  brethren  in  Ki-ypt.  he  told 
them  not  tn  }>••  irrie\ed  a'  what  had  happ'-ii--d.  for 
"  (!od  had  sent  him  befori  tin-mto  pr,--,  r\  <•  life."  So 
aUo  tin.-  apo.-tles.  w  hi  n  speaking  of  the  events  con  me  ted 
with  our  Lord's  crucifixion,  declareil  that  Herod,  and 
1'olitius  Pilat'-.  and  tin-  .l.-ws  had  only  done  what  had 
1"  en  appointed  to  be  done  bv  the  determinate  counsel 
and  foreknowled^.-  of  (lod.  The  actions,  th»u_di  in 
ditl'i'iviit  respects,  were  as  truly  <!od's  a-  man's;  mi  the 
one  side  (iod-ordained,  on  tin-  other  planned  and  exe 
cuted  by  man.  It  wa-  not  a-  m.-re  senseless  tools, 
me.-hanically  doing  tin-  \\ill  of  another,  but  with  their 
own  free  consent  ami  deliberate  choice,  that  i  itln-r  the 
children  of  .lac  .b  sold  Joseph  into  I-'gvpt.  or  the  nd.-rs 
.11  id  people  in  Judea  crucified  ( 'hrist.  And  v.-t  UP-  things 
done  in  both  cast's  alike  apart,  of  course,  from  the 
motive^  prompting  their  |i.-rformai.ee  wen  of  (iod. 
It  i.-  tin-  very  perfection  of  the  divine  administration, 
that  it  brings  about  the  ends  uhicli  it  re.|uires  to  have 
accomplished,  bv  HP  an-  of  rational  a^ent-.  without  in 
tin  least  int'rinu'iiiu  on  their  liberty  of  choice  and  action. 
And  whv  mav  not  the  same  perfection  be  displayed  in 
the  brin ^-inur  forth  of  that  Word,  which  God  delight.-,  to 
magnify  above  all  hi-  name'  Can  he  not  hen-  also 
act  upon  men'-  faculties  in  accordance  with  their  natu 
ral  laws  '  Ha\<-w.-  so  thoroughly  exploi-i-d  all  the-e 
laws,  and  all  the  mod.--  of  access  uhieh  tin-  infinite 
and  unsearchable  Spirit  has  to  th--  mind-  of  his  crea 
tures,  that  we  can  \.-nunv  on  den\  in_r  its  practicability, 
except  by  a  mechanical  dictation  of  vocables!  There 
neither  is,  nor  can  be.  any  such  necessity:  for  "where 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  i-.  then-  is  liberty."  The  soul 
never  moves  so  freely,  and  \\ith  such  buoyant  <  nerj-v 
along  its  course  of  action,  as  when  it  is  most  fully  under 
the  influence  of  that  blessed  Spirit.  There  is,  then-fi  ,re, 
no  essential  contrariety  between  the  doctrine  of  plenary 
inspiration,  and  the  free  development  of  human  indi 
viduality  in  the  writers.  (Sec  Lee's  Inspiration  of  Holy 
Scripture,  sec.  i.;  also  Westeott's  Introduction  to  the  Study  ol  the 
Gospels  ) 

It  is  furtln-r  alleged  that  Scripture  itself  shows  a 
ruiii/iurutii-i  (//.vn  <i<trd  »f  m'nnitc  /•<  rlml  <t<-<-iira/-;i,  since 
in  quotations  and  repetitions  of  previous  portions  of 
Scripture  it  often  departs  from  the  precise  words,  some 
times  gives  the  substance  only,  but  not  the  exact  mean 
ing  of  the  original.  The  question  here  also  is  not  as  to 
the  fact,  but  as  to  the  proper  explanation  of  the  fact. 
Kven  in  Old  Testament  scripture  several  examples  are 
to  be  found  of  the  kind  of  variations  referred  to.  The 
repetition  of  the  ten  commandments  in  ]  >e.  v.  differs  in 


a  few  slight  particulars  from  that  given  in  Lx.  xx.;  Ps. 
xviii.  in  like  manner  differs  frequently  in  tlie  words, 
though  very  little  in  the  sense,  from  '2  Sji.  xxii.:  so  alsj 
1's.  liii.  as  compared  with  Ps.  xiv..  \c.;  and  in  the  quo 
tations  from  the  Old  Testament  made  in  the  New, 
many  are  given  according  to  the  Septuagint,  even  when 
it  does  not  very  exactly  render  the  original,  and  others 
diifer  to  some  extent  as  well  from  the  Septuagint  as 
from  the  original.  ISeing  a  matter  of  detail,  it  is  im 
possible  to  go  at  length  into  it  here.  The  objection, 
however,  proceeds  on  a  ground  bv  no  means  to  be 
conceded  namely,  that  the  original  passage  was  so 
absolutely  the  best  for  all  times  and  circumstances, 
that  no  deviation  could  anyhow  be  made  from  the 
Liter  of  it  without  siibstitutiii'.:  a  worse  for  a  better. 
Some  of  the  deviations  are  chi.-tlv  to  I  e  regarded  as 
notes  of  time,  and  on  that  account  serve  an  important 
purpo.-e  ia-  in  1  V.  v.  compared  \\ith  Kx.  xx..  showing 
the  fi'i-mi-r  to  ha\e  b,  en  meant  to  be  a  substantial, 
thouji  not  slavish  rehearsal  of  the  latter'.  Others 
may  be  regarded  as  proofs  of  the  individuality  of  the 
writ. T-  it-elf  also  in  certain  respects  a  matter  of 
c  insiderable  importance —and  of  their  desire  to  bring 
out  .-oine  specific  -hade-  of  meaning,  which  micdit 
otherwise  have  been  overlooked.  Many  of  them  find 
their  solution  in  the  change  of  circumstances  which 
rendered  .1  -'lit  of  explanatory  or  paraphrastic  render 
ing  of  the  original  advisable  and  propel1.  And  v.hile 
nothing  in  iv-pect  to  doctrine  or  duty  is  ever  built  011 
the  variation-  introduced  into  passages  subsequently 
employed  or  quoted,  while  often  the  greatest  stress  in 
those  respects  is  laid  upon  the  precise  words  of  the 
original,  tip-  freedom  thus  manifested  in  the  handling 
of  Scripture  is  itself  fraught  with  an  important  les>on, 
serving  as  a  kind  of  pr"t->t  a-jamst  the  rigid  formalism 
and  superstition-  regard  for  the  letter,  which  prevailed 
amoii^  the  rabbinical  .lews.  I'nlike  these,  the  New 
Tost  aim  nt  w  riters  alw  a  v-  exhibit  the  deepest  and  most 
correct  in-i'_;ht  into  the  spirit  and  design  of  the  Old 
Testament  passages  they  refer  to.  e\tn  when  showing 
an  apparent  disregai'd  of  the  precise  form.  They  showed, 
a-  A  iiberleii  remarks  \  Dp'C.'Miirlic  (Ml.-iili:uuiiu:,  p  L'II;),  that 
they  knew  how  to  read,  as  \\ell  as  write  Scripture.  So 
that,  when  the  matter  is  fully  considered,  and  weighed 
in  all  its  bearing-,  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  militates 
a'_'ain-t  the  doctrine  of  the  plenary  inspiration  of  Scrip 
ture.  (See  l»r  tin.-  detail-,  l-':iirt;airnV  ll.-rinelieutical  Manual, 
part  ili.l 

( 'lost  lv  akin  to  the  preceding  objection,  is  one  founded 
j  on  the  </i*rri /><lii<-ii.--  of  Si-i-i/,  tun;  such  as  the  disagree- 
1  nients  that  oei  a.-ionally  appear  in  the  numbers  and 
dates  mentioned  in  one  place  as  compared  w  ith  another: 
thi-  verbal  differences  that  are  found  in  the  reports  of 
our  Lord's  discourses  as  given  by  the  several  evange 
lists;  and  in  various  transactions  of  his  life,  the  dissimi 
lar  notices  of  things  said  or  done,  which  seem  to  be 
speak  a  want  of  perfect  coincidence.  It  is  the  practice 
of  the  opponents  of  inspiration  to  magnify  to  the  utter 
most  such  discrepancies,  and  to  represent  them  as  in 
capable  of  any  satisfactory  explanation:  -while  careful 
inquiry,  and  sometimes  a  perfectly  probable  supposition, 
would  readily  dispose  of  the  difficulty.  Explanations 
of  this  nature  \\ill  be  found  at  their  proper  places  in 
many  parts  of  this  work.  There  are.  however,  some 
which  undoubtedly  indicate  error—  as  at  '2  Ki.  viii.  2(5. 
when-  Aha/.iah  is  said  to  have  been  twenty-two  years 
old  when  he  began  to  reign,  as  compared  with  '2  Ch. 


INSPIRATION  7 

xxii.  2,  which  gives  his  aye  at  forty-two.  Both  cannot 
lie  fight;  ami  indeed,  as  Jehoram,  the  father  of  Aha- 
/.iah,  died  at  the  aye  of  forty,  the  son  could  by  no  possi 
bility  be  forty-two  when  he  began  to  reign.  The  error 
is  so  palpable,  that  it  can  only  be  ascribed  to  an  acci 
dental  corruption  in  the  text;  and  several  others  might 
l>e  mentioned  of  a  like  description.  In  the  course  of 
transmission  from  aye  to  age  the  Scriptures  were  liable 
to  occasional  corruptions  of  this  sort,  and  could  not 
have  escaped  it.  except  by  a  perpetual  miracle.  But 
the  corruptions  are  so  few  and  unimportant,  as  in  no 
material  degree  to  affect  the  general  result. 

As  regards  the  verbal  differences  in  the  accounts  of 
our  Lord's  parables,  discourses,  and  ministerial  transac 
tions,  it  must  be  admitted  there  is  a  relative  im 
perfection;  for  the  diverse  reports,  cannot  be  equally 
exact.  The  only  question  is.  whether  the  imper 
fection  may  not  have  been  such  as  in  the  circum 
stances  was  unavoidable,  in  order  to  secure  the  main 
result ;  whether  it  miu'ht  not  be  inseparable  from  that 
human  element  which  had  here  to  be  allied  to  the 
divine  '  To  give  play  to  the  freedom  and  individuality 
attaching  to  this  element,  imperfections  of  various 
kinds  are  unavoidable.  A  human  ministry,  holding 
the  treasure  of  the  gospel  in  earthen  vessels,  must  ex 
hibit  imperfections,  as  well  in  the  unfolding,  as  in  the 
receiving  of  the  truth,  which  would  not  have  attached 
to  a  ministry  of  angels.  Vet  God  has  seen  meet  to 
prefer  the  human  to  the  angelic;  and,  as  we  can  easily 
perceive,  has  wisely  done  so.  for  the  sake  of  that  sym 
pathy  and  fellow-feeling  between  the  bearers  of  the  mes 
sage  and  those  to  whom  it  is  sent,  which  was  indis 
pensable  to  its  free  entertainment.  So,  too,  in  connec 
tion  with  particular  agents  of  God's  working,  with 
many  even  of  his  more  honoured  instruments,  there  have 
been  imperfections  in  style,  in  manner,  in  spirituality 
of  soul  or  strength  of  frame,  which  could  not  but  im 
press  themselves  more  or  less  on  the  form  of  their 
communications  from  the  upper  sanctuary.  Xo  one 
who  intelligently  holds  the  doctrine  of  inspiration  will 
deny  this;  for  apparently  it  could  not  have  been 
avoided,  without  controlling  the  liberty  of  the  indivi 
dual,  and  turning  him  into  a  kind  of  automaton  — 
whereby  a  greater  evil  should  have  been  incurred  than 
it  had  been  attempted  to  avert.  With  all  the  super 
natural  grace  and  energy  of  the  Spirit,  scope  must  still 
have  been  allowed  for  the  operation  of  personal  yifts 
and  tendencies;  so  that  what  appeared  to  one  in  our 
Lord's  words  and  actions  as  fit  to  be  noted,  did  not 
always  so  present  itself  to  another — different  epitomes 
of  his  discourses  were  adopted,  and  the  Greek  words, 
which  seemed  to  some  the  best  equivalents  for  the  ! 
original  Aramaic,  did  not  in  every  instance  precisely 
correspond  with  those  adopted  by  others.  Vet  shall 
we  err,  if  we  hold  each  sacred }  Shall  we  not  find  in 
each  something  which  expresses  the  mind  of  the  Lord  {  \ 
Doubtless  we  shall;  none  of  them  give  the  whole;  but 
what  is  more  specific  in  one  throws  light  on  what  is 
more  general  in  another;  what  is  more  full  here,  on 
what  is  more  concise  there;  and  thus,  though  each  by 
itself  is  relatively  imperfect,  the  whole  together  may 
afford  as  complete  an  exhibition  of  the  truth  as  it  was  ] 
reasonable  to  expect,  or  possible  to  obtain. 

It  is  further  to  be  noted,  that  on  the  supposition  of  i 
the  Bible  being  a  book  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  the 
analogy  of  God's  procedure  in  nature  and  providence  i 
would  lead  us  to   expect    difficulties  of  various  kinds, 


•1  INSPIRATION 

apparent  anomalies,  and  tilings  in  one  place  not  quite 
easy  to  reconcile  with  others  that  occur  elsewhere. 
Origen  in  the  comparative  infancy  of  Christianity  drew 
attention  to  this  point,  and  threw  out  the  profound  re 
flection —  "In  both  (i.e.  nature  and  revelation)  we  see  a 
self-concealing,  self-revealing  God,  who  makes  himself 
known  only  to  those  who  earnestly  seek  him  :  in  both 
we  find  stimulants  to  faith,  and  occasions  for  unbelief." 
'•'  There  are  apparent  anomalies,"  says  an  acute  living 
writer,  ''in  the  phenomena  of  the  material  world;  but 
their  general  uniformity  teaches  us  that  these  are  only 
discrepancies  in  appearance.  There  are  difficulties  in 
applying  the  great  doctrine  of  gravitation — as  in  the 
ca.->e  of  the  tides  — but  we  f/'cl  that  they  arise,  not  from 
any  want  of  universality  in  the  law.  but  from  our  igno 
rance  of  the  conditions  of  the  problem.  There  are  also 
difficulties  in  Scripture;  and  shall  we  not  rest  assured 
from  that  divine  wisdom  which  we  can  discern,  that 
they  spring  only  from  our  ignorance  of  the  circum 
stances  on  which  the  question  turns  ?  If  the  gospels 
[or  the  Scriptures  generally]  had  presented  no  formal 
offences,  how  soon  should  we  have  heard  objections 
drawn  from  the  general  course  of  God's  dealings' 
How  readily  should  we  have?  been  reminded  of  the 
plausibility  of  human  forgeries,  and  the  mystery  of 
divine  providence?  It  would  have  been  even  said, 
that  the  advance  of  Christianity  was  due  to  the  beauty 
of  its  external  form,  and  the  perfection  of  its  superficial 
smoothness,  and  not  to  the  power  of  its  inner  truth; 
whereas,  at  present,  the  discrepancies  of  Scripture  lead 
us  back  to  the  Author  of  nature;  and  as  we  do  not 
question  his  eternal  providence,  though  many  parts  of 
it  transcend  our  knowledge,  so  neither  let  us  doubt  the 
perfect  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  though  frequently 
we  may  be  unable  to  recognize  the  treasure  of  God  in 
the  earthly  vessels  which  contain  it."  (westcott,  Introd.  tu 
Study  of  the  Gospels,  p.  374,  ch  vi.  vii.  viii.  treat  this  branch  of  the 
subject  admirably.1) 

Once  more,  t/ic  rarious  readings  ii>  the  manuscript 


1  The  particular  aspects,  and,  as  such,  incomplete  represen 
tations  of  things  inseparable  from  the  Iv.ruO.n  element  in  in 
spiration,  as  above  stated,  is  probably  all  that  is  meant  by 
Auberlen  and  Delitzsch  in  the  qualifications  they  on  that 
account  connect  with  the  doctrine  of  inspiration.  Speaking  of 
the  differences  appearing  in  the  gospels,  Auberlen  says  that 
"one  report  must  be  controlled  by  the  others,  and  that  where 
such  control  is  impossible,  there  may  be  a  want  of  exactness  in 
external  things"  (Dtt  GOMiche  Ofteribarimft,  p.  210; — that  is, 
apparently,  the  impression  produced  being  only  partial  would 
necessarily  have  been  imperfect,  one  sided.  Hence,  while  he 
speaks  of  our  having  in  Scripture  "an  absolutely  true  original 
source  of  revelation."  he  yet  will  not  have  this  to  be  understood 
"in  the  sense  of  absolute  faultlessness."  Delitzsch,  finding 
fault  with  the  view  of  the  old  Lutheran  systematic  theologians 
as  too  rigid,  uniform,  and  constrained  (Bibiiscke  Psythologie, 
p.  367,  2d  ed.),  justly  says,  that  the  inspiration-act  should  and 
must  be  represented  as  an  organic  life-like  interpenetration  of 
the  divine  and  human  factors,  without  thereby  imperilling  the 
infallible  certainty  of  the  revelation  of  the  truth  made  in 
Scripture,  and  the  trustworthiness  of  the  original  history  of 
salvation  fixed  in  it  for  all  coming  time."  As  necessary  to  this, 
he  thinks  that  full  play  required  to  be  given  to  the  manifold 
individuality  and  freedom  of  the  several  writers;  which,  he 
farther  conceives,  could  not  be  done,  without  admitting  of 
certain  failure •;  in  memory  or  in  powers  of  combination — such 
failures  as  the  very  highest  and  most  spiritually  gifted  human 
agency  cannot  be  supposed  to  be  altogether  free  from.  Taken 
in  connection  with  the  other  statement  respecting  the  infallible 
certainty  and  truthfulness  of  Scripture,  the  failures  here  meant 
can  scarcely  be  more  than  what  we  understand  by  individual 
aspects  or  partial  representations  of  things— true  as  far  as  they 
go.  yet  not  the  whole  truth. 


INSPIRATION 


INSINUATION 


copiti  of  Scripture,  rendering  it  in  certain  cases  doubt 
ful  which  is  the  true  text:  and  the  necessity  of  using 
translations  for  the  great  mass  of  those  to  whom  Scrip 
ture  comes,  have  been  ur^ed  as  arguments  against  its 
plenary  inspiration:  for  practically,  it  is  alleged,  and 
as  among  the  general  readers  of  the  Bible,  it  is  not 
absolutely  the  whole,  or  every  word  of  Scripture,  but 
only  its  general  substance,  which  they  can  regard  as 
being  of  God.  In  reality,  however,  the  cases  are  essen 
tially  different.  Was  all  Scripture  -.riven  by  inspiration 
of  God?  is  a  question  of  a  far  more  fundamental  kind, 
and.  in  the  answer  to  be  -.riven  to  it,  far  more  important, 
than  this  other.  Is  such  a  version  a  faithful  repr.-sen- 
tation  of  its  meaning,  or  are  such  and  such  copies 
exact  transcripts  of  its  original  contents'  These  latter 
points  are  fair  subject.-  for  human  inquiry  and  research : 
they  In-  within  tin-  province  of  man's  powers  and  capa 
cities;  but  not  so  the  question  \\hieh  con'-.-rns  the 
fidelity  of  the  original  records  to  its  pr.ifcs-ed  obj. 
title  to  be  regarded  as  an  unerring  and  infallible  n-vela- 
tion  of  the  mind  of  (  ;.„!.  It  this  was  not  the  ehara.-t.  r 
of  the  original  Scriptures,  in>  power  of  man  can  brine; 
them  up  to  the  mark,  or  even  tell  precisely  wherein 
tln-y  come  short.  There  is  no  sure  criterion  to  fall  back 
upon,  no  higher  counsel  to  call  in  for  tin-  rectification 
of  that  wherein  it  miirht  be  erring  or  defective.  Hut 
in  respi  el  to  versions,  we  ha\.-  an  ultimate  standard  in 
tin  original  Scriptures,  so  far  as  the  true  t.-xt  is  capa 
ble  of  being  a.-ceriained:  and.  a-ain.  forth.-  ascertain 
ing  ot  this,  we  hay.-  innumerable  iv-ources  of  a  learned 
kind,  which,  as  is  \\.-ll  km>un  to  every  pi-r-on  of  mode 
rate  theological  attainments.  have  1.  ft  very  little  7o..m 
to  doubt  as  to  tin-  correct  r.-adiii-  of  all  but  a  mere 
fragment  of  Scripture.  Tin-  pa--ae,v-  are  -.-an-.-l  v  worth 
namiiiLT,  in  n-._;ard  to  which  there  is  imu  any  material 
-lilli-rence  of  opini  -n  among  tin  se  who  are  c.  .mpi  t.  nt 
to  jud'j-e  in  s-.n-h  matti  rs. 

•J.  A  second  clas-  of  objections  to  the  doctrine  under 
eon-id. -ration,  is  directed  only  airain.-t  part-  of  Scripture 

.•idmittin:r  a  partial,  but  n  jecting  a  univ.  rsal  inspi 
ration  in  tlr-  \\i-it.-i-s  of  it.  Tho-e  things  \\hicli  came 
directly  fnnn  (  lod.  such  as  tin-  words  of  (  hri-t.  and  the 
utterances  of  tb.-  pr..ph.'t-.  ar.-  ailowed  to  b--  inspir.-d: 
lint  tin-re  are  many  other  things  in  Scripture  to  \\hieli 
this  eli  iin-nt ,  it  i-  th"Uirht.  cannot  belong  partly  be 
cause  i;  wa-  not  needed,  and  partly  liecause  it  \\a-  un 
suitable.  Indeed,  tin-  authority  of  the  np.-.-tl.  is  n,,t 
unfre(|uently  ajipe.ded  to  in  support  of  this  view:  =im  e 
in  1  Co.  vii.  he  expressly  di-tiiiirui.-lies  1  etween  c.rtain 
things  he  wri  >te  a-  fr-  >in  him-elf.  and  tin-  things  enjoined 
by  the  Lord.  Tln-r.-  are  alto-vtln  r  three  advices  of 
that  sort.  The  first  has  respect  to  the  behaviour  of  mar 
ried  persons  in  respect  to  their  common  joys  in  tin  -•• 
he  says  it  would  be  well  for  them  to  airree  occasionally 
to  a  remission,  that  they  mi'_dit  the  more  unreservedly 
give  themselves  to  j .raver,  di.  vii  .-,.  But  in  so  speaking, 
he  added,  he  spake  by  permission,  not  by  comniand- 
nieiit:  that  is.  he  gave  merely  a  prudential  advice,  hut 
did  not  impose  an  authoritative  prescription.  He  still 
wrote  as  an  inspired  man -only  tin-  inspiration  under 
which  he  acted,  showed  itself  in  his  declining  to  bring 
such  a  matter  under  explicit  enactment,  and  confining 
what  he  said  to  a  piece  of  friendly  counsel.  The  same 
explanation  is  undoubtedly  to  l>e  given  in  regard  to  the 
last  of  the  points  in  question,  his  won!  to  virgins  — 
concerning  whom  he  intimates,  that  he  had  no  com-  ' 

mandment    from    the   Lord,    but   irave  his    judgment. 
VOL.  I. 


that,  on  account  of  the  existing  troubles  to  which  be 
lievers  were  exposed,  it  were  better  for  them  to  abide 
as  they  were,  di.  vii.  -.-,-2-.  Here  also  it  may  be  said 
the  matter  of  the  advice  was  not  inspired:  it  did  not 
go  forth  as  an  authoritative  deliverance,  which  as  a 
matter  of  conscience  unmarried  females  were  to  obev. 
but  was  only  a  word  of  counsel  they  were  to  consider. 
Yet  even  so  there  was  an  clement  of  inspiration  in  the 
word,  in  that  the  apostle  judged  it  a  matter  improper 
to  be  laid  as  an  obligation  on  the  conscience  a  most 
important  element,  indeed,  if  one  has  respect  to  the 
false  teaching  and  en<narinj  vows  which  on  this  very 
subject  came  in  process  of  time  to  be  prevalent  in  the 
Christian  church.  We  are  inclined  to  view  in  much  the 
same  li'_dit  al-o  the  word  spoken  by  the  apostle  on  the  in 
termediate  subject  -what  he  says  regarding  the  preser 
vation  and  disruption  of  the  marriage  tie.  c-li.  vii  i-j-i.v  Ho 
had  immediately  before  delivered  a  command,  as  from 
the  Li  'I'd,  to  person-  in  v\  cdloek,  that  tin:  \\  ife  was  7 lot  to 
d>-part  from  the  husband,  nor  the  husband  to  put  away 
his  \\it\-.  lie  j  nits  a  i -a-.  .  however,  not  embraced  in  any 
command  utt--re-l  by  "iir  Lord,  the  case  of  one  of  the 
parties  remaining  in  unbelief,  after  the  other  had  been 
converted;  and  in  iv-pect  to  such  a  case  he  gives  the 
tw. -fold  advice  as  from  himself,  imt  from  the  Lord — 
A.ihiTe  to  the  marriage  relation  if  you  possibly  can: 
but  if  tin-  other  party  absolutely  refuses  to  abide,  and 
n-solutelv  abandon-  tin-  relationship,  then  let  it  be  so; 
the  believing  brother  or  sister  is  not  bound  bv  ol.liga- 
it  i-  in.  loiiu'i-r  po-,-i!.le  to  fulfil.  Some,  among 
others  (iau--.n.  \\ould  n  i:ard  tin-  apostle  as  here  by  his 
apostolic  authority  revoking  an  order  which  had  been 
appointed  in  earlii  r  times.  \  :/..  that  a  believine;  person 
should  not  be  yoked  to  ,-.n  unbelieving  or  Inath.-n 
-poiise;  this  mi-hl  now  be,  the  apostle  states,  in  the 
circumstances  supposed  :  a  V.T\  -forced  interpretation, 
and  oin-  that  doe,  not  fairly  meet,  tin-  point  in  band: 
for  the  case  ,,f  pel-son*  under  the  old  covenant  marry- 
iiiLT  heathen  wives  is  not  at  all  parallel  to  that  of  two 
who  had  In -i  71  married  in  heathenism,  while  one  after 
wards  became  Chri-tian.  Other-;,  such  as  Haldane. 
Wardlaw.  Henderson,  A Iford,  conceive  the  apostle  as 
_i\in_;  an  authoritative  word  on  a  case,  regarding 
\\lii.-h  he  could  refer  to  no  express  deliverance  of  the 

Lord,  tl -h  tin-  word  In-  him-.lf  gave  \\as  not,  the-  less 

bindin-j-,  and  in  it-  matt,  r  i-  part  of  the  inspired  record. 
It  may.  perhaps,  be  so  taken— only  such  a  \iew  intro 
duces  a  distinction  somewhat  dangerous,  and  not  else- 
where  so  broadly  stated,  between  the  w.,rd  .-f  the  Lord 
and  the  word  of  his  apostle.  H  was  tin-  very  honour  of 
tin-  apostles,  that  tiny  were  to  ,-p.  ak  tin-  mind,  and 
give  f  i  7-th  the  commandments.  ,;f  the  Lord:  so  it  is 
stated  evi  n  in  this  epistle,  di  \i\.  :;;  Therefore,  it 
seems  better  to  regard  the  apo-tle  Inn-,  a-  in  the  other 
cases,  .jivinr  nien-ly  a  prudential  advice  on  a  matter 
that  did  not  admit  of  specific  legislation;  In-  could  advise 
as  a  Christian  man.  but  lie  could  not  as  an  apostle  im 
pose  an  authoritative  obligation;  in  this  caution  and 
reserve  his  inspiration  from  above  showed  itself. 

Uiu'htlv  understood,  then,  these  were  plainly  excep 
tional  cases,  and  afford  no  ground  for  excluding  certain 
portions  of  Scripture  from  the  inspired  record.  The 
portions  so  excluded  are  of  various  classes;  and  the 
historical  portions  «i  Scripture  may  be  regarded  as 
among  the  first  to  be  so  reckoned.  For  these,  it  in 
alleged,  nothing  more  was  needed  in  the  writers  than 
competent  knowledge  and  strict  veracity  on  the  part 

'  100 


INSPIRATION 


794 


INSPIRATION 


of  the  narrators :  it  is  simply  a  mutter  of  testimony, 
which  depends  on  the  credibility  of  the  witnesses.  Ami 
this  credibility,  it  is  sometimes  alleged .  would  even  have 
bt'un  impaired  by  supernatural  influence;  for  to  lie  trust 
worthy,  it  must  lie  independent,  and  so  "unprompted 
and  unassisted  by  human,  and  much  more  by  divine  co 
operation"  (Kitti.'s  Journal  <>f  Siu-reil  LitiTntmx,  April,  lxv>). 
This  last  form  of  the  objection,  which  has  been  urged 
with  great  confidence,  proceeds  on  the  same  false  as 
sumption  which  bar,  already  be<.  n  exposed  namely, 
that  there  could  be  no  powerful,  regulating  influence 
from  above  on  the  minds  of  the  inspired  writers  with 
out  suspending  their  freedom,  and  rendering  them  the 
unconscious  instruments  of  another's  will.  On  the 
contrary,  however  Ihe  superii;itur;d  influence  may  have 
operated,  it  must  have  consisted  with  the  entire  free 
dom  and  spontaneous  action  of  the  individuals  them 
selves.  The  principle  announced  above  has  in  its  main 
position  to  be  reversed: — the  testimony  of  the  sacred 
historians  must,  indeed,  have  been  free  from  Jmnniit 
interference  or  control,  but  was  perfectly  compatible 
with  a  full  afflatus  from  the  (.Urine;  for  the  action  in 
this  case,  unlike  the  former,  must  be  from  within,  and 
so  perfectly  harmonizes  with  the  soul's  own  movements. 
Granting,  however,  that  the  divine  element  in  inspi 
ration  does  not  neutvali/e.  or  in  anv  sense  impair,  tin 
human  character  of  the  testimony,  was  it  needful? 
Miyht  not  the  sacred  historians  have  done  their  work 
without  it?  They  do  not  themselves,  it  is  true,  briny' 
it  distinctly  forward,  or  rest  on  it  their  title  to  be  be 
lieved;  some  of  them  speak  of  the  natural  advantages 
they  had  for  obtaining  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  things 
they  relate  (St.  Luke  in  particular  does  so);  but  they  are 
silent  as  to  any  supernatural  aid  derived  from  the  Spirit 
of  ( <(>(}.  So,  indeed,  they  should  hav»  been;  as  writers  of 
history  they  come  before  us  as  witnesses,  and  in  so  far  as 
they  mention  anything  connected  with  their  testimony, 
they  mention  only  that  which  lies  within  the  cogniz 
ance  of  our  faculties,  and  which  formed  a  natural  and 
obvious  recommendation  of  their  testimony.  The  Spirit, 
in  his  higher,  as  well  as  in  his  ordinary  workings,  never 
disparages  the  human,  in  what  properly  belongs  to  it, 
but  rather  serves  himself  of  it  to  set  forth  and  exhibit  that 
which  is  divine.  The  fittest,  therefore,  even  in  a  human 
respect,  were  chosen  to  deliver  to  the  church  the  testi 
mony  she  was  to  believe  respecting  the  wonderful 
works  of  God — though  still  the  portions  containing  this 
testimony,  as  well  as  other  parts  of  Scripture,  are  de 
clared  to  have  been  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and 
the  special  supernatural  aid  of  the  Spirit  was  promised 
to  the  disciples  by  our  Lord,  for  the  express  purpose, 
among  other  things,  of  enabling  them  to  bear  faithful 
witness  to  what  they  had  seen  and  heard.  Nor  will 
any  one  be  disposed  to  question  the  propriety,  and  even 
the  necessity  of  this,  if  he  seriously  considers  how 
much  depends  upon  the  historical  portions  of  Scripture. 
A  large  part  of  God's  revelation  of  his  mind  to  men  is 
embodied  in  the  facts  of  history.  It  was  so  from  the 
earliest  times;  and  so  far  is  it  from  being  otherwise 
now,  that  there  is  scarcely  an  element  of  truth,  aground 
of  obligation,  or  an  aspect  of  Christian  hope,  which  are 
•unfolded  in  the  doctrinal  parts  of  Scripture,  that  are 
not  connected  with,  and  made  to  grow  out  of,  the 
fundamental  facts  of  Christianity.  How  important, 
then,  that  these  should  have  been  exhibited  in  a  form 
that  might  serve  as  the  proper  basis  of  what  had  to  be 
built  on  it?  The  truthfulness  of  the  narrative  was 


certainly  an  essential  property  in  it  for  such  a  purpose; 
but  it  was  by  no  means  the  only  one.  There  was 
needed,  besides,  a  principle  of  selection,  that  those 
things  only  might  be  introduced  which  were  suitable 
to  the  end  in  view:  and  ah  my  with  this,  a  mode  of  nar 
ration  which  was  in  proper  agreement  with  the  things 
recorded,  and  fit  for  being  translated  into  the  languages 
of  all  nations.  Who  without  the  special  unction  of  the 
Holy  One  could  have  decided  what,  in  either  respect, 
was  best,  or,  even  after  conceiving  the  idea  in  his  mind, 
could  have  executed  it  aright? 

Especially  may  this  be  said  of  the  history  of  Jesus, 
God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  I  low  easy,  and  how  natural 
also,  in  regard  to  such  a  life,  had  it  been  to  run  into 
endless  details:  and  into  these  details  to  crowd  many 
thinys.  which  it  would  have  been  gratifying  to  human 
curiosity  to  know?  J'.ut  to  comprise  the  whole  that 
was  needed  in  the  compass  of  a  few  chapters,  which 
might  be  read  through  at  a  sitting:  and  in  a  space  so 
brief  to  give  a  distinct  and  faithful  portraiture  of  the 
wonderful  IVing  to  whom  it  relates— to  condense  what 
i  was  to  be  transmitted  for  future  ages  of  the  words  and 
I  the  works  of  Jesus,  as  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  in- 
i  struction.  and  admonition  in  righteousness — an  under 
taking  like  this  was  immensely  too  critical  and  difficult 
for  any  merely  human  narrator  to  do  as  of  himself. 
And  least  of  all  could  it  have  been  left  to  the  compara 
tively  rude  and  unskilled  hands  to  which  it  actually 
fell  to  be  executed.  The  more  may  we  so  judge,  when 
we  think  of  the  reserve  that  had  to  be  maintained,  the 
wisdom  of  withholding  what  might  have  been  commun 
icated,  as  well  as  of  communicating  what  might  have 
been  withheld,  which  constituted  a  great  part  of  the 

difficulty  of  the  undertaking.    I kiny  back  now  through 

the  successive  tides  of  error  and  corruption,  which  at 
different  periods  have  made  way  upon  the  church — as. 
for  exam] >le.  to  the  hnire  systems  of  priestcraft  and 
Mariolatry  which  have  been  reared,  one  might  almost 
say.  in  the  marked  absence  of  anything  to  countenance 
them  in  Scripture— it  seems  marvellous  that  so  little 
should  have  been  recorded,  that  could  even  seem  to 
afford  a  handle  t«  those,  who  would  have  been  sure, 
had  it  existed,  to  seize  upon  it  for  evil.  Sacred  history 
has  hence  been  aptly  "likened  to  a  dial,  in  which  the 
shadow  as  well  as  the  light  informs  us"  (Trem-li,  Ilulscan 
Lectures). 

Vet  c-veii  this  was  not  all;  for  the  mode  of  narration, 
hardly  less  than  the  things  narrated,  required  the 
moulding  and  impress  of  a  divine  hand.  Not  only  had 
the  right  things  to  be  told,  but  they  had  to  be  told  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  affect  suitably  every  thoughtful 
mind,  become  even  a  sort  of  germinal  power  in  the 
heart  of  every  believer,  and  the  history  of  every  nation 
in  Christendom.  They  hare  been  so  written;  and  hence, 
to  use  the  words  of  Gaussen,  "that  mysterious,  and  ever 
fresh  attractiveness,  which  belongs  to  all  their  narra 
tives,  which  captivates  the  mind  in  every  clime ;  in 
which,  throughout  life,  we  find,  as  in  the  scenes  of 
nature,  a  charm  always  new;  and  which,  after  having 
arrested  and  engaged  our  affections  in  early  youth,  have 
a  still  stronger  hold  upon  the  heart  when  hoary  hairs 
find  us  on  the  verge  of  the  tomb.  There  must  surely 
be  something  superhuman  in  the  very  humanity  of 
terms  so  familiar  and  so  artless.  Men  know  not  how 
to  write  thus"  (Theopnoustia,  eh.  iii.  sect.  2;  the  whole  section 
well  worth  reading). 

Another  large  portion  of  Scripture,  which  the  advo- 


INSPIRATION  ' 

cates  of  a  partial  inspiration  would  exempt  from  its 
operation,  consists  of  such  parts  as  make  use  of  naxoit- 
iitij  in  some  form  for  the  cstablishmcn t  of  truth— iuclud- 
ing  many  sections  of  Old  Testament  scripture,  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  epistles  in  the  New.  Paley. 
in  his  Endences  (part  iii.  ch.  L'),  distinguishes  between  the 
doctrinc.es  in  the  apostolic  writings,  and  the  analogies, 
arguments,  and  considerations  by  which  thev  were 
illustrated  and  enforced  -  the  one,  he  said,  came  to 
them  by  revelation,  the  other  were  suggested  by  their 
own  thoughts,  and  mi'_:ht  In.- held  valid  or  ii"t.  Moix-li. 
in  hi.-  Philosophy  of  Jtcfii/iun,  seeks  to  carry  the  matter 
farther,  and  to  ground  it  on  a  fundamental  principle; 
namely,  that  it  is  not  the  logical,  hut  the  intuitional 
consciousness  which  ha-  to  do  with  the  perception  of 
divine  truth;  and  "to  speak  of  logic  as  such  hcinir  in 
spired,  is  a  sheer  absurdity,  because  no  amount  of  in 
spiration  can  afl'eei  tin-  formal  law-  ,,f  thought."  Put 
intuition  also  stands  related  to  th,  -e  laws,  as  \vell  as 
logic;  and  if  Cod  can,  notwithstanding,  present  to 
man's  intuitional  faculty  what  it  could  not  othervvi-e 
apprehend.  In-  may  surely  breathe  such  energetic  im 
pulse  into  the  logical,  a-  -hall  enable  il  to  reason  with 
a  precision  and  a  certainly,  which  otherwise  were  un 
attainable.  And  that  he  both  needed  to  d<>  so.  and 
a"tually  did  it.  in  the  case  of  th.-  apostles  of  the 
Christian  faith,  is  confirmed  beyond  all  reasonable 
doubt  by  the  hi-tory  of  the  past.  What  i-  the  formal 
ground  of  the  many  hc-ri.-ie-  in  doctrine  and  crude 
Hpeculations,  whi'-h  hav,-  continually  marred  the  per 
fection,  and  olten  endangered  the  ,  xi-t-nc,  of  th, 
Christian" church  What  but  the  tendency  to  misuse, 
or.  in  other  words,  to  reason  amiss  upon  th.-  ia'-t-  of 
ro.-pel  history'  No  doubt,  the  facultv  ,,f  r.-a.-on  i.- 
an  attribute  of  humanity,  and  fluudd  he  able  to  draw 
from  those  facts  the  conclusions  they  legitimately  vi.M 
in  regard  to  soundness  of  doctrine  and  int.-uritv  ..f  life. 
Put  from  ih<:  current  of  depravity  in  the  soul,  what 
should  be  done  by  the  lea.-oniiiu  powers  of  man.  and 
hypotheticallv  can  he  done,  has  never  a,-tuallv  I  veil 
accomplished;  nay.  there  is  scar.-,  ly  a  form  of  error, 
or  a  perversity  in  conduct,  which  has  n,'t  in  some  form 
or  aiioth.-r  sou-lit  it-  justification  in  the  ostensible 
realities  of  th>-  -..-pel.  And  it  is  mainly  because  of  tin- 
sound  and  unerring  logic  respecting  these,  exhibited  in 
the  epi-tolarv  vvritin-_'s  of  th--  New  T.  .-lament  tin- 
logic  of  men  who  wrote  and  reasoned  under  the  inspi 
ration  of  Cod  that  Christianity  has  stood  its  ground 
against  the  sophi-tri.--  ,,f  men.  and  has  ever  thrown  .-I!' 
the  noxious  .-pawn  of  corruption-  which  ha\c  from  til  in 
to  time  been  engeiid,  n  d  within  it-  pale.  Had  the 
apostles  left  the  church  without  such  means  of  solid 
instruction  and  infallible  guidance,  they  would  but  too 
manifestly  have  launched  the  ark  of  Cod  on  a  heaving 
and  perilous  ocean,  wanting  the  necessary  safeguards 
against  evil,  and  the  chart  requisite  to  steer  her  course 
amid  conflicting  opinions.  And  this  inestimable  ser 
vice,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  was  rendered  by  plain 
and  comparatively  unlettered  men  and  by  them,  work 
ing  not  in  a  calm  and  philosophic  retreat,  but  amid  tin- 
most  stirring  and  eventful  scenes  that  the  world  has 
ever  witnessed  in  a  time  of  marvellous  change,  when 
the  things  of  Cud's  kingdom  were  forsaking  their  old 
channels,  and  creating  for  themselves  new  forms  of  life 
and  action.  In  such  a  time,  and  with  such  elements 
boiling  and  fermenting  around  them  themselves  also 
tossed  as  from  wave  to  wave  on  a  sea  of  trouble-  it 


INSPIRATION 

was  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible  that  their  minds 
should  have  preserved  their  even  balance,  and  pro- 
duced  the  clear,  compact,  and  profound  writings  which 
proceeded  from  their  pen,  unless  they  had  been  specially 
j  qualified  for  it  by  the  inspiration  of  Cod. 

Again,  exception  is  often  taken  to  certain  things,  in 
themselves  tina!l  mid  n/u'iiijuirtaitt,  «/•  tf,i,>:/!<  /.crtainimi 
t»  //a-  natural  rat  hi.  i-  titan  tn  t/,,  /•<//</''<«'.<  .--/Jare,  in  re 
spect  to  which.it  is  thought,  the  sacred  writers  required 
no  supernatural  aid.  and  miuht  even  have  occasionally 
erred  without  at  all  interh  ring  with  their  commission, 
or  invalidating  their  authority  in  spiritual  matters. 
Of  this  sort  are  the  genealogical  tab],-,  and  such  things 
as  the  request  of  J'aul  to  Timothy  to  bring  the  cloak 
he  had  left  at  Troas,  or  to  take  a  little  wine  for  his 
stomach's  -ake:  p,  rhaps  also  his  notions,  and  those  of 
the  other  apostk-s,  a-bout  evil  spirit.-.  Viewed  by  them 
selves,  no  doubt,  notices  and  n-qm  .-I-  of  this  sort  could 
have  be,  n  written  by  any  nne  of  competent  informa 
tion:  but  incorporated,  a.-  they  are.  with  a  record 
which  claim.-  to  be,  not  m  part.  but  in  whole,  a  revela 
tion  from  Cod.  they  cannot  be  so  isolated:  and  it  would 
'"•  a  serious  matter  for  the  -.  neral  character  of  Scrip 
ture,  if  the-e  were  separated  from  the  .-acred  volume 
a-  inspired.  For  who  th.n  could  draw  the  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  inspired  portion  and  the 
in.n-inspin-d  :  "If  St.  Paul,  for  instance,  were  mis 
taken  oi-  insincere  in  his  expressions  as  to  the  existence 
o|  evil  spirit.-.  ,,|-  the  immaterial  nature  of  the  soul 
..t  man.  what  reason  have  Christians  for  their  confi 
dence  that  a  future  state  of  retribution  mav  not  be  a 
faults  inference  from  in.-uttiei,  nt  grounds,  or  a  com 
pliance  with  .lew  i-h  ermr'!  ll»w  arc  we  to  b,  sure 
that  on  the  unitv  of  Cod  himself  the  apostles  may  not 
have  mi-taken  their  .Ma-t.r.  ..r  that  the  Son  of  Cod 
ha-  not.  in  this  instance,  conformed  to  the  established 
u.-agvs  ..1"  -p»-<  ch.  and  tin-  popular  superstition  of  his 
countrymen.'  It  is  the  misfortune  of  this  Scythian 
mod,-  of  warfare,  that  it  i-  only  suited  to  a  territory 
which,  like  Scythia.  i.-  little  worth  preserving:  and  that 
the  practice  once  i«  uun  of  abandoning  to  tin-  pursuer 
whatever  part.-  of  Scripture-  it  doe-  not  exactly  suit  us 
to  .I,  fend,  no  mean-  of  defence  will  at  length  remain 
for  (ho.-,-  Unets  tln-m.-eKes  which  we  now  regard  as 
of  vital  importance"  (Heber's  «iiiui>ton  Lectures,  Ice  viii  , 

OIlCll) 

If  the  points  in  question  are  held  to  be  free  from 
mistake  or  ern  r.  v,  t  trivial  and  common,  thev  are  not 
on  thirf  account  to  be  placed  beyond  the  inspired  do 
main:  for  a.-  such  they  are  only  on  a  footing  with  the 
wilds  and  de.-erts  of  nature,  which  are  not  the  less  a  part 
of  God's  handiwork,  that  they  appear  to  human  view  to 
be  comparatively  worthies.-;  they  .-till,  beyond  doubt, 
have  their  hidden  uses.  Put  this  is  ground  we  are 
scarcely  required  to  take  up  in  regard  to  such  portions 
of  Scripture  which  have,  if  less  important  uses  than 
others,  vet  uses  that  can  quite  readily  be  discerned  and 
appreciated.  This,  at  L-ast.  belongs  to  all  of  them  of 
a  serviceable  character,  that  they  connect  the  writer 
with  the  times  and  circumstances  in  which  he  lived. 
Tln-y  were  so  many  points  of  contact  between  himself 
and  the  living  world  around  him:  and  points  that  often 
form  a  kind  of  bridge  between  the  sacred  and  the  pro 
fane  territory;  in  the  first  instance,  giving  an  air  of 
naturalness  and  verisimilitude  to  the  revelation,  and 
afterwards  supplying  data  for  the  verification  of  its 
contents,  llnvv  nrich  should  the  Bible  have  wanted 


INSPIRATION  i 

in  general  interest  and  appearance  of  truthfulness,  it 
it  were  stripped  <>f  the  miner  details  which  arc  found 
in  it?  And  ho\v  many  incidental  confirmations  of  its 
o-ciiuineness,  and  authenticity  should  have  been  lost. 
which,  mainly  in  connection  with  these  notices  of  com 
mon  affairs,  have  been  furnished  by  later  research?  It  is 
to  them,  in  great  measure,  we  owe  the  possibility  of  Mich 
works  as  Paley's  Hunt-  /'m/lina,  Smith's  Narrative  of 
/V///'.<  X/ii/, /rr<  '•/-.  and  many  similar  works.  -uluch  have 
rendered  the  most  essential  service  to  the  defence  of  the 
Bible.  Tin1  uenealo-ies  themselves  have  their  value; 
for  they  arc,  in  a  manner,  the  skeletons  of  history,  on 
whose  naked  ribs,  or  projecting  outlines,  we  can  often 
urope  our  way  to  interesting  or  important  movements 
in  the  past.  And,  besides  the  more  special  lessons 
which  it  will  always  be  found  on  careful  reflection 
can  be  derived  from  the  mention  of  tilings  compara 
tively  little  and  common,  there  is  this  instructive  lesson 
— that  the  book,  which  is  empatically  the  revelation  of 
God's  mind  to  men,  does  not  disdain  to  touch  on  even 
the  smaller  matters  that  concern  them,  and  while  it 
seeks  to  lift  them  above  earthly  and  sensuous  things, 
still  willingly  accords  to  these  the  place  that  properly 
belongs  to  them. 

Certain  portions  of  Scripture  have  yet  again  been  ex- 
cepted  to,  because  they  teach,  it  is  alleged,  a  defect  in 
mnralitii;  and  what  is  of  such  a  character  cannot,  in 
the  strict  sense,  be  ascribed  to  God.  As  instances  of 
this  description  it  is  usual  to  point  to  the  law  of  divorce 
allowed  under  the  Old  Testament,  but  absolutely  repu 
diated  under  the  New  (except  for  the  one  cause  of  fornica 
tion);  to  the  permission,  within  certain  limits,  in  former 
times  to  retaliate  against  evil,  now  also  prohibited;  to  the 
expulsion  of  the  Canaanites,  &c.  These  subjects  will 
be  found  treated  in  their  proper  places  (see  DivoRCi', 
CAXAANITES,  REVENGE,  &c.),  and  vindicated  from  the 
false  charges  often  made  against  them.  Undoubtedly, 
there  is  a  difference  in  such  things  between  the  Old  and 
the  New,  as  there  is  generally  between  preparatory 
and  ultimate  dispensations.  The  divine  economy  could 
not  lie  progressive  without  admitting  imperfections  of 
a  certain  kind  at  one  period,  as  compared  with  another. 
And  the  fallacy  of  the  objection  lies  in  this,  that  it 
supposes  what  is  fit  and  proper  for  the  more  advanced 
state  must  have  equally  been  so  for  the  immature;  it 
would  insist  upon  the  child  being  put  upon  precisely 
the  same  regimen  as  the  full-grown  man.  In  no  age  of 
the  church  can  God  sanction  or  countenance  sin ;  but 
he  may  be  more  or  less  severe,  also  more  or  less  out 
ward,  in  the  methods  he  authorizes  or  adopts  for 
checking  and  chastising  sin,  according  to  the  state  of 
privilege  enjoyed  by  his  people,  and  the  circumstances 
in  which  the  world  is  placed.  This  consideration,  fairly 
apprehended  and  applied,  will  bo  found  quite  adequate 
to  account  for  the  differences  which,  in  a  moral  respect, 
exist  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  portions  of  Scrip 
ture. 

3.  There  still  remains  a  third  class  of  objectors  to  the 
doctrine  of  inspiration,  as  now  maintained;  consisting 
of  those  who  indeed  admit  a  kind  of  universality  in 
the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  but  only,  as  they  are  wont  to 
express  it,  in  the  spirit,  not  in  the  letter.  In  the  letter 
there  may  be  much  that  is  of  no  importance,  or  that 
is  even  tinged  with  prejudice  and  error;  and  to  follow 
it  implicitly  might  be  to  fall  into  sundry  mistakes,  and 
at  all  events  to  come  greatly  short  of  an  enlightened 
and  spiritual  Christianity.  But  we  are  safe,  if  we 


C>  INSPIRATION 

imbibe  the  spirit  of  the  Bible — this,  this  alone  is  of 
God.  There  is  something  so  vagne  in  such  a  mode  of 
representation,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  grapple 
closely  with  it.  "What  it  denominates  the  spirit  of  the 
iJiljle  is  a  varying  commodity,  ever  changing  with  the 
times,  and  rejecting  now  less,  now  more  of  the  plain 
teaching  and  essential  doctrines  of  the  gospel,  as  suits 
the  caprice  of  the  individual,  or  the  moral  atmosphere 
of  the  age.  ''  Not  the  letter  but  the  spirit  of  Scripture." 
though  it  has  sometimes  been  adopted  as  a  maxim  by 
persons  who  were  substantially  evangelical  in  their 
views,  has  yet  more  commonly  been  the  watchword  of 
those  who  have  sought,  alike  in  doctrine  and  prac 
tice,  to  exalt  the  human  over  the  divine,  and  to  make 
the  Bible  teach  what  their  own  corrupt  hearts  desire 
to  rind  in  it.  It  was  the  watchword  of  the  scandalous 
party  in  Geneva,  who,  at  the  period  of  the  Reforma 
tion,  styled  themselves  spirit/ia/,*,  but  who  were  more 
commonly,  and  much  more  appropriately,  designated 
lihcrtifics;  that  also  of  the  rationalists  in  the  last  cen 
tury,  and  the  "friends  of  light," and  "German  Catholics" 
in  the  present,  who,  amid  various  specific  differences, 
have  had  one  common  characteristic,  that  little  cf 
Christian  has  belonged  to  them  but  the  name. 

This  vagueness  and  uncertainty  is  fatal  to  the  prin 
ciple  as  one  aspiring  to  throw  light  011  the  subject  of 
inspiration.  It  has  nothing  determinate  or  fixed  about 
it.  But,  apart  from  this,  the  disparaging  of  the  letter 
of  Scripture  for  the  sake  of  exalting  the  spirit,  always 
proceeds  upon  a  false  assumption — namely,  that  the 
spirit,  as  either  actually  possessed,  or  capable  of  being 
possessed,  by  men,  may  of  itself  decide  authoritatively 
upon  everything  that  is  or  should  be  found  in  a  reve 
lation  from  God.  Alike  false,  whether  the  assumption 
may  take  a  rationalistic  or  a  pietistic  direction! 
Naturally,  indeed,  there  is  a  spirit  in  man  which  gives 
him  understanding;  and  in  the  children  of  faith  there  is 
a  spirit  in  the  higher  sense,  which  they  receive  from 
above,  and  which  qualifies  them  for  knowing  and  expe 
riencing  the  things  of  God.  But  in  neither  case  does 
this  proceed  so  far  as  to  entitle  those  who  have  it  to 
decide  what  should  be  in  a  revelation  from  God,  and 
what  should  not.  There  must  still  at  many  points  be 
room  for  the  question,  "  "Who  hath  known  the  mind  of 
the  Lord  ;  or  who  hath  been  his  counsellor  ?"  "Can 
not  man  acquiesce,"  asks  a  learned  German  writer 
(Hamann't,  "  in  knowing  nothing  of  the  mysteries  of  those 
things  which  are  in  heaven  above  him — when  he  is 
compelled  to  acknowledge  that  he  knows  nothing,  even 
in  the  circle  of  this  world's  ordinary  events,  of  that  which 
is  before  him,  of  futurity?  And  if  it  be  difficult  ade 
quately  to  translate  the  phrases  of  one  Innnau  language 
into  another,  on  account  of  the  want  of  correspondence 
between  the  ideas  of  one  nation  and  another,  how  much 
more  must  it  be  impossible  to  set  forth  in  human  lan 
guage  the  mysteries  of  divine  things?"  Much  more, 
indeed,  especially  since  there  is  not  only  such  an  im 
perfect  medium  of  communication  as  human  language, 
but  also  such  a  limited  organ  of  apprehension  as  the 
human  mind.  Considering  what  the  sacred  volume 
purports  to  be,  we  may  as  fitly  expect  that  there  should 
be  certain  things  in  it,  respecting  which  we  should  have 
to  say,  '-These  are  matters  for  my  faith  to  embrace,  not 
for  my  reason  to  comprehend,"  as  that  there  should  be 
others  of  which  we  can  say,  ' '  I  acquiesce  in  them,  be 
cause  they  are  in  accordance  with  the  light  of  my  reason 
and  conscience."  Here,  therefore,  the  only  true  watch- 


INTERCESSION 


[RON 


word  is.  Scripture  at  once  in  letter  and  spirit — the  one  ' 
as  well  as  the  other,  and  indeed  for  the  sake  of  the 
other,  (iod  has  joined  both  together,  and  let  no  man 
put  them  asunder.  The  Spirit  in  his  working  among 
men  ever  links  himself  to  the  written  word  as  the 
channel  in  which  he  moves,  and  the  instrument  by 
which  he  accomplishes  his  blessed  results.  And  nothing 
contrary  to  what  is  found  there,  nothing  even  that  is 
superadditional  to  it.  can  proceed  from  him.  \\ho  has 
here  disclosed  the  vOiole  counsel  of  (.'od.  ami  sealed  it 
up  as  heaven's  treasury  of  truth  for  men  till  the  con-  ( 
summation  of  all  things. 

[Many  of  the  works  have  been  already  noticed  in  winch  the  ' 
suhji-ct  of  inspiration.  01-  particular  points  connected  with  it, 
have    been    treated    at    son,.;    icii-th.       The    work    of   Guusden, 
77<..«/'"W<",  '>'•  l'  '  ,  1S41,   I 

handles  some  [points  well,  but  as  a  win  --.  and  want- 

thoroughness  both  in  1. -arn.  d  and  scientific  exposition,  for  pre 
sent  times— not  inaptly  characteri/.ecl  by  I'lioiu -k  as  m. .re  dis 
tinguished  for  its  enthusiastic  and  brilliant  religious  rhetoric, 
than  for  profound  theological  study  (11  .art.  "  In- 

spira' 

Dublin,  ls.-,7,  I'd  ed.,  maintains  substantially  the  sain.'  \icwas 
( iaussen,  .nd  contains  mu.-h  excellent  matter  .  unhappily,  how 
ever,  t.-.K.--  the  form— imperfectly  adapted  for  such  a  tlieme- 
of  [nilpit  discourses,  supplement. -d  by  notes  so  extremely 
-  i.-.  and  often  on  points  of  such  inferior  moment,  as  both 
to  intcrtVn-  with  the  read,  r's  com  fort,  und  also  somewhat  weaken 

en   rd  impie.-sion.      Hannah's   Bampton   Le.-ture.  t'oi 
oh  tlie  H  I'  •     '  a  •   •' 

.s,  /•;,-(!!,.,  ].i-.-.sents  a  fresh  in\csti-ati..n,  in  a  thoughtful  and 
reverent  pirit,  of  many  of  the  t.-pi.-s  n..w  auitat.-d  .-n  inspira 
tion,  and  i-  an  important  contribution  t"  the  lit'-iarun-  of  the 
subject.  The  works  of  \uberlen  and  1  ).-lit/sch.  referred  to  in 
the  [preceding  article,  only  incidentally  to  ich  on  inspiration  ; 

nor  has  (.erman  ti logy  [produced  any  le.-.-nt  work  of  moment 

on  the  subj.'.-t.      i"ml"U''t'-'ily,  the  doctrine  of  ph-u.ry  in-pira 

ti..n  is  still   held  only  by  a  f--.v   in  Germany        A  g 1   article  by 

St. -u. lei,  on  the  /,.  .  :  ired  in 

,].'-    / '.  .I*  I",  and  a  translation  of 

it    in   th,-'/,  for  Oct.   1S.',L'; 

also   an   article    by    Kudclba.-h     chi.-tly   historical,   written   in   a 

h.-althy  and  \  u-orou-  tone,  at  th. ini'-ne,-m'-nt  of  Hud.  I  ha.  h'- 

•  [part  of  whi.-h  a[ppear3  in 

the  lii-itifh  find  1',, ,.,•!.,  Eding-licul  Kefiar,  f..r  Apiil,  ISuM. 
Tholu.-k's  anicle  in  Hei'zog'a  I'.  '  7.  is  al»o  chiefly  historical, 
and  in  priii'-iple  l>p'lon-_'.-  to  tie-  middle  position  u-ually  main 
taineil  by  the  author.] 

INTERCESSION.  This  word  is  commonly  em 
ployed  in  tin-  Kiiglish  Bilile  a-  the  rendering  of  a  word 
(iyTi-yx<ii'u}.  6'7-f  t^'is)  which  does  not  precisely  correspond 
with  it.  Tii<-  I'i'eek  word,  whether  a.-  a  noun  ..ras  a 
verb,  signiiti.  s  primarily  a  falling  in  with  one,  or  iv-tUng- 
close-  to  him.  then  having-  intimate  converse  or  d.  aiin-g- 
with  him.  obtaining  his  ear  for  anything  we  want.  SPP  that 
to  press  a  suit  or  make  entreaty  with  one  eaiin-  t"  b<-  a 
quite  common  meaning  of  it.  But  it  did  not  necessarily 
implv  that  what  was  sought  had  respect  to  another, 
any  more  than  to  one's  self;  and  it  might  indifferently 
be  a  'good  or  a'i  evil  that  was  the  specific  object  of  the 
entreaty.  Hence,  it  is  sometimes  coupled  with  the 
preposition  <i>/itinAt.  as  when  Elias  is  said  to  have  made 
"  intercession  against  Israel,"  HO.  xi  L',  although  the  link 
of  connection  is  usually /or,  or  in  favour  of  one.  As 
an  equivalent,  iiitirrft.iiini  is  somewhat  too  limited, 
since  it  always  carries  a  reference  to  others  as  the 
objects  of  the  entreaty.  But  in  regard  to  the  more  pre 
valent  application  of  the  term,  in  Scripture  as  well  as 
in  common  discourse  -namely,  as  regards  the  priestly 
action  of  Jesus  in  representing  the  cause,  and  seeking 
the  o-oud.  of  his  people  in  the  presence  of  the  Father  -- 
the  English  word  conveys  the  idea  with  substantial  cor 
rectness,  is  liii  i-j;  K.P  viii.  :! i;  He  vii.  -.'.i.  J'^Isewhcrc  it  is 


called  his  advocacy,  or  simply  his  praying  for  them,  l  Jn. 
n.  i  ;  i.u.  xxii.  :>•_'.  In  its  aim  and  sphere  the  intercession 
of  Christ  must  be  understood  to  lie  as  wide  as  those  of 
his  mediatorial  work  generally;  it  lias  respect  to  all  for 
whom  he  died,  and  is  specially  directed  to  the  end  of 
bringing  home  to  their  experience  the  blessings  of  his  re 
demption.  In  one  passage— though  only  in  one — the 
action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  souls  of  believers  is 
designated  by  the  same  term.  Ho.  viii.  iv,,  "  he  maketh 
intercession  for  them  with  groaning*."  The  word  intir- 
ct ,-•••'/"/(  here  plainly  does  not  quite  suit,  as  they  are 
tin  mselves  the  subjects,  as  well  as  the  objects  of  the 
operation.  The  meaning  is.  that  he  has  close  dealing 
and  intercom's.'  with  them  for  their  spiritual  good, 
raising  in  them  the  affections  and  desires  which  are 
proper  to  their  condition. 

IRA  [meaning  uncertain],  the  name  of  one  or  more 
of  l>a\id's  distinguished  men   of   valour.       In  '2  Sa.  xx. 
•J|'>,  we  read  of  "  Ira  the   .lairite"  as   a  ro/«d,  strictly  a 
priest,  but  pri  i  ha  hi  v  here,  as  in  s.  .me  other  places,  a  chief 
officer,  or  active  man  of  business  for  David     this,  rather 
than  "chief  ruler."  the  rendering-  adopted  in  the    Eng- 
lisli  Bible.      in  "2  Sa.  xxiii.  l!'>.  "  Ira  the  son  of   Ikkesli 
the  Tekoite"  appears  in  the  list  of  thirty  heroes.      And 
still  ag'ain  at  Ver.  :'.s  we  have  "  Ira   the  Ithrite"  as  an 
other  of  the  same  class.    Jt  is  po.ssi  1.1.   that  the  first  may 
have  been  identical  with  one  of  the  two  latter;  but  th<  se 
two  themselves,  occurring-  in   the  same  list,  must  have 
been  diverse  persons.      Except  the  distinction,  however, 
of  having-   attained    to  such  high  positions  in  David's 
military  or  civil  staff,  nothing-  further  is  known  of  them. 
IRON.     The  references  to   this  metal  in  Scripture 
ai'p-    both   of   verv   eaiiv   and   very   frequent  occurrence 
implving-  that  somehow  mankind  must  have  come  in 
a  comparatively  rude  state  of   sei.-nce   and  art  to  con 
siderable  skill  in  the  manufacture  of  iron,  ami  in  apply 
ing  it  to  a  variety  of   uses,      In    the    Cainite   section   of 
tin-  antediluvian  race.   Lamech's   son  by  Zillah,  Tubal- 
eain.    is   said  to    have    been  "an    artificer   in  brass   and 
iron,"  »>e.  iv.  -2'2.      And  though  no  mention  is  made  of  the 
u.-e  of  iron  in  tin-  construction  of  the  ark,  yet  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  instruments  of  iron  must  have  played 
an  important  part  in  the  erection  of    such  a  vast  struc- 
ture.      "  A  furnace   of    iron"  is  taken  as  the   image  of 
the  fearful  bondage  from  which  the  Lord  delivered  his 
people  in  Kg-vpt,  De  iv.  -js     an  image  uhich  could  never 
have  been  thought  of,  unless  furnaces  in  connection  with 
iron  had  ahvadv  been  in  familiar  u-e.      So  well  was  the 
article  known  at  that  early  period,  and  so  much  esteemed 
for  the  purposes  it   was   made  to  serve  amid  the  con 
veniences    of  life,    that   Canaan    is   said,   among   other 
natural  advantages,  to  have  possessed  hills  out  of  which 
the  people  might  dig  brass  and  iron.  De  viii.  0.      I  ron  is 
also  sp,cilicd  among  the  spoils  of  war  taken  at  the  over 
throw  of  the  Midianitcs,  which  had  to  be  purified  by 
being  pas.-od  through  the  fire.  Nu.xxxi.3L'.      And  in  tin; 
subsequent  history  of  the   covenant-people  we   read   of 
iron   being   used  as  the   material  from  which  a  great 
variety  of  implements  were  formed— axes,  harrows  and 
saws,  nails,  weapons  of  war,  bars  and  gates,  rods  and 
pillars,  \c..  De.  xi ..  5  ;  2  ki   vi.  .'.,  r, ;  L'  Sa.  xii  :u  ;  1  Cli.  xxii.  ::  ; 
1  .Si    xvii.  7  ;  IV  cvii.  H'>  ;  Is.  xlv.  '2  ;  Jc.  i.  IS  «c.       Xor  is  the  evi 
dence  of  Scripture  singular  on  this   point:  it  is  borne 
out  by  the  well-nigh   contemporary  testimony  of   the 
monuments.      "  In    the    sepulchres   of    Thebes,"    Wil 
kinson  says,  ''  I  have  had  occasion  to  remark  butchers 
sliarpenino-  their  knives  on   a  round  bar  of  metal  at- 


7«JS 


ISAAC' 


tached  to  their  apron;  and  the  blue  colour  of  tile  blades 
and  the  distinction  maintained  between  the  bronze  and 
steel  weapons  in  the  tomb  of  Remeses  J1L,  one  being 
painted  red  and  the  other  blue,  leave  little  doubt  that 
the  Egyptians  of  an  early  I'haraoiiic  age  were  ac 
quainted  with  the  use  of  iron"  (Ancient  K{,'vi>ti:m.s,  «.  ix.) 
In  Kthiopia,  he  also  states,  iron  was  even  more  abun 
dant  than  in  Egypt  :  and  that  while  among  tin:  ancient 
Latins  and  Greeks  bronze  was  much  used  in  the  fabri 
cation  of  warlike  weapons,  the  Etruscans  are  known  to 
have  almost  invariably  used  iron  for  swords,  daggers, 
spear- heads,  and  other  offensive  weapons,  confining 
bronze  to  defensive  armour.  The  remains  of  ancient 
.\iiie\eh  still  further  confirm  tin.'  testimony;  for  though 
articles  simply  of  iron  have  not  been  found  there,  any 
more  than  in  Kgypt  ion  account  of  the  rapid  decompo 
sition  it  undergoes  from  exposure  to  air  and  moisture), 
yet  coated  articles  of  iron  have  been  found  at  Nineveh, 
overlaid  with  bronze,  several  specimens  of  which  were 
discovered  by  Layard,  and  have  been  deposited  in  the 
British  Museum  (Xineveh  ana  Hab.  p.  mi).  Iron  weapons 
alr-o  were  found,  but  in  so  brittle  a  state,  that  most  of 
them  fell  to  pieces  when  exposed  to  the  air.  Frai;-- 
nit.nts.  however,  of  shields,  arrow-heads,  axes,  and  other 
things,  have  been  saved,  and  brought  to  this  country. 

There  can   be  no  doubt,  therefore,  of  the  fact,  that 
among  the  nations  of  antiquity  generally  the  use  of  iron 
was  known  from  very  remote  times,  and  in  reference  to 
purposes  which  bespoke  its  comparative  cheapness  and 
abundance.     The  difficulty  is  to  understand  how  the 
practical   skill   could  have    been   acquired,    which   was 
necessary  for  such  an  end.     Eor  it  is  rarely  found  in 
the  metallic  state,  never  in  any  quantities:  and  the  ex 
traction  of  it  from  the  ore,  and  raising  it  to  the  proper 
degree  of  hardness,    is  not  quite  a  simple  process.      It 
requires,  in  the  first  instance,  a  considerable  degree  of 
heat,  much  beyond  what  is  needed   for  melting  most  of 
the  other  metals.      Tin  melts  at  a  temperature  of  -17()= 
Fahrenheit,  copper,  silver,  and  gold  at  IMHI  ,  ,,r  from 
that  to  2000°.    But  to  melt  cast-iron  requires  a  heat  of 
30003,  and  malleable  iron  is  only  softened  by  a  heat  of 
this  temperature,     it  seems  doubtful,  however,  whether 
the  ancients  knew  cast  iron,  although  it  is  certain  they 
were  acquainted  with  malleable  iron  and  steel.      And 
it  is  supposed   that   the    process  adopted   is  much  the 
same  with  that  by  which   Indians  of  the  present  day 
smelt  the  iron  ore,  and  convert  it  into  tmot:,  or  Indian 
steel.      It  is  thus  described  in  ('re's  Dictioiiuri/  of  Arts 
and  J/ni>uf<«-titn-*,  under  "  Steel": -  — "  The  furnace  or  I 
bloomery,  in  which  the  ore  is  smelted,  is  from  four  to  ! 
five  feet  high:  it  is  somewhat  pear-shaped,  being  about  . 
five  feet  wide  at  top,  and  one   at  bottom.      It  is  built  | 
entirely  of  clay,  so  that  a  couple  of  men  may  finish  its 
erection  in  a  few  hours,  and  have  it  ready  for  use  the 
next  day.     There  is  an  opening  in  front  about  a  foot 
or  more  in  height,  which  is   built  up  with  clay  at  the 
commencement,  and  broken  down  at  the  end  of  each 
smelting  operation.     The  bellows  are  usually  made  of 
a  goat's  skin,  which  has  been  stripped  from  the  animal 
without  ripping  open  the  part  covering  the  belly.      The 
apertures  at  the  legs  are  tie  1  up,  and  a  nozzle  of  bamboo 
is  fastened  into  the  opening  formed  by  the  neck.      The 
orifice  of  the  tail  is  enlarged  and  distended  by  two  slips 
of  bamboo;  these   are  grasped  in  the  hands,  and  kept 
close  together  in  making  the  stroke  for  the  blast;  in  the 
returning  stroke  they  are  separated   t>   admit  the  air. 
P.y  working  a   bellows   of  this  kind  with  each  hand, 


making  alternate  strokes,  a  tolerably  uniform  blast  is 
produced.  The  bamboo  nozzles  of  the  bellows  are  in 
serted  into  tubes  of  clay,  which  pass  into  the  furnace. 
The  furnace  is  filled  with  charcoal,  and  a  lighted  coal 
being  introduced  before  the  nozzles,  the  mass  in  the  in 
terior  is  soon  kindled.  As  soon  as  this  is  accomplished, 
a  small  portion  of  the  ore,  previously  moistened  with 
water  to  prevent  it  from  running  through  the  charcoal, 
but  without  any  Hux  whatever,  is  laid  on  the  top  of  the 
coals,  and  covered  with  charcoal,  to  fill  up  the  furnace. 
In  this  manner  ore  and  fuel  are  supplied,  and  the  bel 
lows  are  urged  for  three  or  four  hours.  When  the 
process  is  stopped,  and  the  temporary  wall  in  front 
broken  down,  the  bloom  is  removed  with  a  pair  of 
tongs  from  the  bottom  of  the  furnace."  The  iron  thus 
made  is  converted  into  steel  by  being  cut  into  pieces, 
and  put  into  a  crucible  made  of  refractory  clay,  mixed 
with  a  large  quantity  of  charred  husk  of  rice.  In  this 
state  it  is  put  into  a  furnace  and  subjected  for  two  or 
three  hours  to  heat  urged  by  a  blast,  when  the  proce.-s 
is  considered  complete.  The  crucibles  arc  taken  out 
and  allowed  to  cool;  they  are  then  broken,  and  the  steel 
is  found  in  the  form  of  a  cake  at  the  bottom. 

The  mode  of  hardening  iron  or  steel  by  plunuine;  it 
when  red  hot  into  water  is  of  great  antiquity.  And  the 
hardness  of  iron  above  the  other  metals  was  matter  of 
frequent  reference  both  with  sacred  and  classical  writers. 
Hence,  rods,  bars,  or  yokes  of  iron  are  proverbial  ex 
pressions  for  things  of  great  firmness  and  strength.  Job 
xl.  18 ;  Ps.  ii.  9 ;  Je.  xxviii.  13 ;  and  the  fourth  kingdom  in 
Daniel's  vision  is  represented  as  being  strong  as  iron, 
which  breaketh  in  pieces  and  subdueth  all  things.  Da. 
j  ii.  10.  There  is  no  evidence,  however,  of  the  ancient 
Israelites  having  been  themselves  manufacturers  of  iron: 
and  it  is  still  doubtful,  whether  the  expression  formerly 
quoted  about  the  mountains  of  their  land  being  such, 
that  iron  and  brass  could  1  e  dug  from  them,  is  to  be 
understood  in  a  literal  or  a  metaphorical  sense.  Iron 
is  mentioned  among  the  articles  of  commerce  in  which 
Tyre  traded.  KM.  xxvii.  rj ;  and  the  allusion  in  another 
prophet  to  northern  iron  as  of  superior  value.  Jc.  xv.  1-2, 
lias  been  supposed  to  refer  to  that  produced  by  the 
Chalybes  on  the  Euxine  Sea.  who  were  celebrated  for 
their  skill  in  this  line  of  industry. 

I'SAAC  [properly  Yitsliulc.  pri'*,-  occasionally  pr'iS 

T  :  '  T  :  • 

laughing],  the  son  of  Abraham  by  Sarah,  and  emphati 
cally  the  child  of  promise.  Born,  as  lie  was.  out  of 
due  time,  when  his  father  was  an  hundred  years  old 
and  his  mother  ninety,  the  parents  themselves  laughed 
with  a  kind  of  incredulous  joy  at  the  thought  of  such  a 
prodigy,  <;e.  xvii.17;  xviii.  12;  and  referring  to  the  marvel- 
lousness  of  the  event  when  it  had  actually  taken  place, 
Sarah  said,  that  not  only  she.  but  all  who  heard  of  it, 
would  be  disposed  to  laugh,  Ge.  xxi.  o.  The  name  Isaac, 
therefore,  was  fitly  chosen  by  (iod  for  the  child,  in 
commemoration  of  the  extraordinary,  supernatural 
nature  of  the  birth,  and  of  the  laughing  joy  which  it 
occasioned  to  those  more  immediately  interested  in  it. 
Why  his  birth  should  have  been  appointed  to  take 
place  in  so  remarkable  a  manner  has  been  explained  in 
a  previous  article  (sec  ABRAHAM).  It  was  a  sign 
from  heaven  at  the  outset,  indicating  what  kind  of  seed 
God  expected  as  the  fruit  of  the  covenant,  and  what 
1  lowers  would  be  required  for  its  production — that  it 
should  be  a  seed  at  once  coming  in  the  course  of  nature, 
and  yet  in  some  sense  above  nature — the  special  gift 
and  offspring  of  God. 


ISAAC 


ISAAC 


The  first  noticeable  circumstance  in  the  life  of  Isaac  when  the  act  itself  was  in  process  of  beinsj  consummated, 

was  \v1iat  tonk   place   in    connection  with   his  weaning-  did   tln>  fearful  truth   burst   upon  his  soul  that  lie  was 

His  precise  age  at  the  time   is  not  given,  lint  we  may  !  himself  to  he  the   victim  on  the  altar.      Vet  the  sacred 

suppose  him  to  have  been  (according  to  eastern  custom)  ;  narrative  tells  of  no  remonstrant  struu'^le  on  the  part  of 

fully  two  years  old.      Tn  honour  of  the  occasion  A  bra-  this  child  of  promise,  no  strivings  for  escape,  no  cries  of 

ham  made  a  great  feast,  as  an  expression,  no  doubt,  of  avjmy  or  pleadings  for  deliverance:    he   seems  to  have 

his  joy  that  the  child  had  reached  this  fresh  stage  in  his  surrendered  himself  as  a  willing  sacrifice  to  the  call  of 

career — was  no  longer  a   suckling,  but  capable  of  self-  '   Heaven,  and   to  have   therein   showed  how  thoroughly 

sustenance,  and  a  certain  measure   of   independent   ac-  ;  in  him.  as  in  his  believing  parent,   the  mind  of  the  flesh 

tioii.      For  the  parents,  and  those  who  sympathized  with  had  Income  subordinate  to  the  mind  of  the  spirit.     To 

them,    it  would  naturally   be  a   fea-t    of  laughter  -the  .  aet  thus  was  to  prove  himself   the  fitting  type  of    Him. 

laughter  of   mirth  and    joy:   but   there   was   one   in   the  who  had  the  law  of  (!od    in  his  heart .  and   came  to  do, 

family      I.-hmael      to  whom  it  was  no  occasion  ,,f  glad-  not  his  own  will,  but  the  will  of  him  that  sent  him.      But 

ness,  who  saw  himself  supplanted   in  the  more  peculiar  the  death  itself,  which  was  to  prove  the  life  of  the  world, 

honours  ,,f  the  house  by  this  young  -r  brother,  and  who  it  belonged  to  the  antitype,  not   to  the  type,  to  accom- 

mocked  while  others  laughed      himself   indeed   lau-hed  I'1'--''-      The  ram   provided  by  God    in  the  thicket  must 

(for  il    is  the  same   Word    still,     p-v:.    <•       vxi    '.«,  but   with  '»«»>while  take  the  place  of  the  seed  of  blessing. 

A  Ion--  M-ap  again  ensues  in  the  narrathe   of    Isaac's 

the  enyious  and  seorntiii   air  which   Injtraved   tlie  alien  ...                           ,11         r  i-             -.-   •   i     ,    ,-      .-          ,- 

lite;  and   trom   the  day  ..t    Ins   sacrificial   dedication   ot 

'•  *I»"t  that  I  himself  in  spirit  on  the'altar  in  Moriah.  we  liear  nothing 

have   been    about   sixU'eu   years  old   at   the   time:   and  ,,,,,;„,   til,   tl||.  ]H.rio(1   ((f    his  mi])ti.lls   with    ];,.i,,.k.lh. 

Sara',.  descrying  in  the   manifestations  then    given   the  This  W:ls  ,„,,  ],,„_,  .„-,,.,.  tll..  ,|,,lt!|  ,,f  s.irah    w]l(,  gur. 

sure  presage   of  futmv   rivalry  and   strif.;.  nr_r--d  A  bra-  vjv,,|  ,(„.  ],;,.,],  ,,f  )„.,.  son  thirty  seven  years.  Go  xxiii  i: 

ham  to  cast  forth  the  bondmaid  and  her   son.   since  tli.-  ;m,i  wh.-n  the  mi].t.ials   were  solemni/.ed.  it  is   said   that 

one  could  u.it  be  a  co  heir  \\ith    the   other.      Abraham.  l>aae   was   fortv    v  ar-   old.    c,,-.  \\   211  -ni.-aning   proha- 

it  w,.uld  seem.  h>-<itated    for   a    time  about  the   matter.  blv  that  he  was   somewhere   in    his    fortieth   year.      We 

feeling  paiii'-d  at  the  th..ii-_lit    of   having  I-hmael  se|,a-  i  may  therefore  reasonably  infer,  that  a  period  of  twent\ 

rated  from  the  I -, -h,,ld.  and    only  complied  \\h,  n    In-  years  or  mure  had  elapsed  Miiee  the  lasteveiit  recorded 

received  an  explicit   \\arrant  and  direction    from  above.  c..nc,-niing  him.    In  this  fresh  scene  he  appears  the  same 

And.   at    the   -am.    time,    lie    got    th.-   promise,   as   th-  dutiful  and  obedient  son  as  before,  yielding  to  the  earnest 

•_'r"  mid  of  the  divine  procedure.  '•  I-',  .r  in  Isaac  shall  tliy     desire  and  purpose  of  his  father,  that  a  wife  mLdit  I b- 

seed  Recalled."  that  i-.  in  I.-aao  las  contra  di-tinguished  taiiierl  for  him  fnuu  his  father's  kindred  in  I'adan-aram. 

from   l-lnna-  1.  or  any  oth.T  son)  -hall  th"  seed  of  bless-  uh.-n-   the  uor-hip   and    manner--   of  the  people      if  n..t 

ing  that   i-    to  hold  of   the.-    as    a    fath.-r   have    its   com  strictly  pure      were   at    I'-a-t    ..rival  Iv  less   corrupt    than 

in  •nceiu    lit.       It    i-    probable    that    Abraham  needed  to  '  among  the  inhabitants  of  < 'anaaii.       I  Io  hailed  R.-hekah 

have  thi-  truth  brought   -harplv  out  to  him.   for  correc-  '   uh.-n  she  arrived.  "  took  h.-r  into  his  mother's  tent,  and 

tioii  on  the  one  side,  as  well  as  for  ci.nsolat.ion  and  hop..  .-)„.  l>ocaiiie  liis  wife;  and  hcl..v<  d  h.-r.  and  was  comforted 

on  the   other,  as  his    paternal    feelings   may  have   k.  pt  after   his    mother'.,   death,"  (ic.xxiv.  «7       S..   f  tr.   nothing 

him  from  a])prehi'iiding  the  full  scope  of  former  revela-  I  discovers   it-elf  awry  in    the  bent    of    Isaac's  mind,   or 

tions  eouc.-rnin- the  son  of  lla-'ar.      The  hi-h  purposes  blameworthy  in  his  procedure.      All  seems  to  have  gone 

of  (  ;..d  were  involved  in  th--  matter,  and  the  yearnings  of  well  with  him.  while  the  d.-w  of  hi-  youth  was  U]M.II  him. 

natural   att'.-ctn.n    mu-;    give  way,  thai  th.-s,-   mi-ht    b.-  Twenty  j'ears  more  again  pass  away,  without  any  note 

established.      In  the  transactions  themselves  the  apostle  (.f  blame  attached   to  his  behaviour,  and  indeed  with- 

I'aul  |.erc.  iv.-d  a  revi-latiou  of  the  truth  for  all  tim.-s  ,,ut  anv  r. -cords  \\hat. -ver   of   hi-    life  and  e\peri.-iict — 

especially  in  regard  to  th.-  natural  enmity  of   the  h.  art  .,,    -niooth    and   ei|iiab!.  .  apparently,   was  the    tenor  of 

to  th.-   thiiiLfs  of   Cod.  and   the  .-.  rtainty  \\  ith   \\hich.  !  his  course,  that  it  was  without  noticeable  break  or  inter- 

even  \\hen  wearing   tin    bad-_r.-  of  a  r.-liLfious  prof.'S-ioii.  :  ru].tioii  of  anv  kind.      At    the   .-nd   of    these   additional 

it  may  he  expected  to    vent   its   malic.-  and    opposition  twenty  years,  when  he  was  him-.  If  sixty  years  of  age, 

towards  the  true  children  of  (  :,,,!.     The  seed  of  blessing,  hi-  placid  life  was  varied  by  the    birth  of  the   twin  bro- 

those  who  are  supernaturally  horn  of  (io.l.   like    Isaac,  ;  thers      l-'.-au  and  .Iac..b.     St  ill.  nothing  is  said  of  Isaac's 

and  have  a  special  interest  in  the  riches  of  his  g lne-s.  '  f.  .-lin-j-s  on  the  occasi.  n      either    b.  fore  or  immediately 

are  sure  to  be  eyed    with   jealousy,  and.   in  one  form  or  snb-eipient  to  the  birth,  further   than    that   he   had   en- 

another,  persecuted  by  those  who,  with  a  name  to  live.  treat'- I    the    Lord    to    <_;iw-   him   otl'-]iriii'_:  bv   his   wife, 
still  walk  after  the  flesh,  'In   iv. -Jl  :',!        (S«    IsllMAKI..) 

The  ni'xt  recorded  event  in  the  life  of  Isaac  is  the 
memorable  one  connected  with  the  command  of  (  H..] 
to  otf'.-r  him  up  as  a  sacrifice  on  a  mountain  in  the  land 


.f  Moriah.  <;e 


The  circumstance  has  been  noticed. 


and  its  moral  import  in  connection  with  the  leading 
aim  of  the  covenant  pointed  out,  hi  the  life  of  Abra 
ham,  who  was  the  chief  a^'ent  in  the  transaction.  That 
Isaac  knew  nothing  of  the  relation  in  which  he  personally 
stood  to  the  divine  command,  came  affectingly  out  in 


mind  relatively  to  the  two  sous.  When  we  do  get  it, 
it  is  one  which  somewhat  disappoints  us,  as  it  appears 
to  indicate  in  the  declining  yeai-s  of  Isaac  a  tendency 
much  the  reverse  of  what  shone  forth  in  the  hopeful 
spring-time  of  his  life  —a  tendency  to  weak  indulgence 
on  the  fleshly  side.  "  Isaac."  it  is  said,  "loved  Esau,  be 
cause  hedid  eatof  his  venison,  but  Itebekah  loved  Jacob," 
c,i-  xxv.  •>.  It  looks  as  if  some  strange  enchantment  had 


the  question  he  put  to  his  father  while  they  journeyed  come  over  him.  causing  things  in  a  manner  to  change 
together.  "  Behold  the  lire  and  the  wood,  but  where  is  '  places  in  his  account  -as  if  the  child  that  svas  born 
the  lamb  for  a  burnt-offering  T  Kven  then  the  secret  after  the  spirit  had  somehow  degenerated  into  the 
was  not  disclosed  to  him  :  and  only,  it  would  appear,  character  of  one  born  after  the  flesh  I  To  love  the  one 


ISAAC 


sou 


ISAAC 


son  rather  than  the  other,  merely  because  that  one 
ministered  to  his  appetite  in  savoury  meat,  and  to  do 
this,  notwithstanding  the  intimation  given  before  the 
birth  of  the  sons  as  to  their  relative  place  and 
destination  in  the  divine  counsels — that  "  the  elder 
should  serve  the  younger'' — indicated  a  manifest  defect 
of  spiritual  feeling  and  discernment  —the  fruit  proba 
bly  in  some  degree  of  that  perpetual  fulness  and  ease 
ho  had  enjoyed.  The  tried  faith  of  the  father  grew  : 
under  its  trials,  till  it  reached  the  noblest  heights,  and 
achieved  what  at  one  period  might  have  seemed  im 
possibilities.  But  faith  in  the  more  favoured  son  seemed 
to  lose  its  vigour  for  want  of  robust  and  manly  exer 
cise  ;  so  that  after  exhibiting  a  fresh  and  blooming 
youth,  it  fell  into  a  premature  and  sickly  age :  the 
type  in  this  of  his  posterity,  who  too  often  in  their  ful 
ness  waxed  fat  and  kicked,  forgat  the  Rock  of  their 
salvation,  and  turned  aside  from  their  high  calling,  till 
they  were  east  into  the  furnace  of  affliction,  and  • 
through  experiences  of  sore  trouble  were  made  to  fight 
their  way  back  to  a  better  position. 

The  life  of  Isaac,  however,  was  not  passed  wholly  ' 
without  trials  coming  in  from  without.  One  entire 
chapter  is  occupied  with  these,  Go.  xxvi.;  but  there  is  j 
nothing  verv  remarkable  in  them,  nor  is  the  precise 
period  of  the  occurrence  of  any  of  them  given.  They 
commenced  with  a  visitation  of  famine,  which  is  expressly 
said  to  have  taken  place  after  the  one  that  had  hap 
pened  in  the  days  of  Abraham:  from  which  it  may 
seem  to  be  implied,  that  Abraham  had  already  deceased 
at  the  time  of  this  fresh  visitation.  And  as  Isaac  was 
seventy-five  years  old  at  the  death  of  his  father,  Ge.  xxi. 
o ;  xxv.  7,  the  famine  in  question  would  fall  subsequently, 
not  to  the  birth  merely  of  Isaac's  sons,  but  to  their 
growth  to  early  manhood ;  for  they  were  fifteen  years 
old  when  Abraham  died.  At  the  occurrence  of  this  j 
new  famine  Isaac  was  expressly  admonished  by  God 
not  to  go  down  into  Egypt,  but  to  abide  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  Promised  Land :  and  occasion  was  taken  ' 
to  renew  the  promise  to  him  and  his  seed,  and  to  con 
firm  in  his  behalf  the  oath  which  had  been  made  to  his  : 
father.  The  Lord  pledged  his  word  to  be  with  him  '. 
and  to  bless  him  in  the  land — which  he  certainly  did, 
though  Isaac  did  not  feel  so  secure  of  the  promised 
guardianship  and  support  as  to  be  able  to  avoid  falling 
into  the  snare  which  had  also  caught  his  father  Abra 
ham.  When  sojourning  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Gerar. 
during  the  prevalence  of  the  famine,  and  no  doubt 
observing  the  wickedness  of  the  place,  he  had  the  weak- 
ness  to  call  Rebekah  his  sister,  in  case  the  people  might 
kill  him  on  her  account,  if  they  had  known  her  to  be 
his  wife.  It  does  not  appear  that  any  violence  was 
offered  to  Rebekah  ;  and  the  Philistine  king,  on  dis 
covering,  as  he  did,  from  the  familiar  bearing  of  Isaac 
toward  Rebekah,  that  she  must  be  his  wife,  simply 
rebuked  him  for  having,  by  his  prevarication,  given 
occasion  to  a  misapprehension  which  might  have  led  ' 
to  serious  consequences,  Go.  xxvi.  in.  To  receive  such  a 
rebuke  from  a  Canaanite  prince,  should  have  been  felt 
to  be  a  humiliation,  and,  happening  as  the  circumstance 
did,  at  so  advanced  a  period  of  the  patriarch's  life,  it 
cannot  but  be  regarded  as  another  proof  of  the  defective 
clearness  and  energy  of  his  faith.  In  other  respects,  ' 
his  connection  with  the  Philistine  territory  was  every 
way  creditable  to  himself,  and  marked  with  tokens  of 
the  divine  favour.  He  cultivated  a  portion  of  ground.  ! 
and  in  the  same  year  reaped  an  hundred-fold — a  remark 


able  increase,  to  encourage  him  to  abide  under  God's 
protection  in  Canaan.  His  noeks'and  herds  multiplied 
exceedingly,  so  that  he  rose  to  the  possession  of  very 
great  wealth :  lie  even  became,  on  account  of  it,  an  object 
of  envy  to  the  Philistines,  who  could  not  rest  till  they 
drove  him  from  their  territory.  lie  re-opened  the 
wells  which  his  father  had  digged,  and  which  the  Philis 
tines  had  meanwhile  filled  up,  and  himself  dug  several 
new  ones,  but  they  disputed  with  him  the  right  of  pos 
session,  and  obliged  him  to  withdraw  from  them,  one 
after  another.  At  last,  at  a  greater  distance,  he  dug  a 
well,  which  he  was  allowed  to  keep  unmolested;  and  in 
token  of  his  satisfaction  at  the  peace  he  enjoyed,  he 
called  it  Rehoboth  (roo'ni),  Ge.  xxv.  2->.  Thence,  he  re 
turned  to  Beersheba,  where  the  Lord  again  appeared 
to  him,  and  gave  him  a  fresh  assurance  of  the  covenant- 
blessing;  and  Abimelech,  partly  ashamed  of  the  unkind 
treatment  Isaac  had  received,  and  partly  desirous  of 
standing  well  with  one  who  was  so  evidently  prosper 
ing  in  his  course,  sent  some  of  his  leading  men  to  enter 
formally  into  a  covenant  of  peace  with  him.  Isaac 
showed  his  meek  and  kindly  disposition,  in  giving 
courteous  entertainment  to  the  messengers,  and  cor 
dially  agreed  to  their  proposal. 

It  wa>  probably  a  period  considerably  later  still  than 
even  the  latest  of  these  transactions,  to  which  the 
next  notice  in  the  life  of  Isaac  must  be  referred.  This 
is  the  marriage  of  Esau  to  two  of  the  daughters  of 
Canaan  (Judith  and  Bashemath):  which  is  assigned  to 
the  fortieth  year  of  Esau's  life,  coeval  with  Isaac's 
hundredth.  These  alliances  were  far  from  giving  satis 
faction  to  the  aged  patriarch  :  on  the  contrary,  they 
were  a  grief  of  mind  to  him  and  his  wife  Rebekah, 
Go.  xxvi.  ;;<;;  and,  if  duly  considered,  they  might  have 
aided  him  in  obtaining  a  clearer  insight  into  the  rela 
tive  position  of  the  two  sons,  and  the  purposes  of  God 
respecting  them.  He  failed,  however,  to  obtain  the 
proper  insight:  and  the  next  recorded  transaction — 
that,  namely,  which  concerned  the  bestowal  of  the 
blessing — presents  him  to  our  view  in  the  melancholy 
attitude  of  one  pressing  blindfold  along  a  course  of  his 
own,  while  purposing  to  take  the  path  marked  out  by 
Heaven — playing  wrongfully  with  God's  counsel,  and 
himself  played  upon  by  human  intrigue.  From  notices 
occurring  in  the  life  of  Jacob  (which  see"),  the  period 
when  this  sad  exhibition  took  place  could  not  be  under 
thirty,  possibly  not  much  less  than  forty,  years  after 
Esau's  marriage  to  Canaanitish  women,  and  hence, 
when  Isaac  himself  was  well-nigh  140  years  of  age. 
The  sacred  narrative  merely  states,  that  he  was  at  the 
time  ''  old.  and  his  eyes  were  dim,  so  that  he  could  not 
see."  Gc.  xxvii.  i.  The  indications  of  spiritual  decay, 
which  have  already  appeared  in  his  later  career,  now 
reach  their  climax:  and  had  they  passed  unnoticed  in 
the  sacred  record,  the  memorable  circumstances  attend 
ing  this  transaction  would  have  warranted  us  to  infer 
that  there  had  been  such  in  the  previous  life.  For, 
whatever  allowance  may  justly  be  made  for  infirmity  of 
nature,  it  is  impossible  to  disguise  from  our  view  the 
fundamental  element  of  a  simply  natural,  or  predomi 
nating  carnal  tendency  in  Isaac's  procedure  on  the  oc 
casion,  such  as  no  child  of  faith  could  have  fallen  into 
of  a  sudden.  Not  only  does  he  hold,  in  opposition  to 
all  signs  and  intimations  to  the  contrary,  that  Esau  is 
by  reason  of  his  slight  priority  of  birth  to  be  the  heir 
of  covenant-blessing;  but  the  moment  he  selects  for 
nouring  out  his  soul  in  the  formal  bestowal  of  this 


ISAAC 


801 


ISAIAH 


Mussing,  is  one  of  fleshly  gratification — when  refreshed 
with  the  enjoyment  of  his  son's  savoury  meat — as  if  it 
were  flesh  rather  than  spirit  that  was  to  bear  sway  in  the 
transaction,  and  a  Denial  reciprocation  of  human  sym 
pathies  that  was  intended,  rather  than  the  solemn  ut 
terance  of  an  oracle  of  Cod.  Scripture  records  no  such 
other  scene  in  connection  with  the  announcement  of 
Heaven's  more  peculiar  purposes —none  in  which  tilt- 
spirit  of  the  man  of  Cod  sought  as  the  condition  of  its 
speaking  the  stimulus  of  Heshly  appetite.  The  dying 
utterances  of  Jacoli  over  his.  offspring  were  otherwise 
pronounced;  otherwise  too.  at  a  later  period,  the  last 
word-  of  David:  and.  generally,  the  soul  of  spiritually 
gifted  men  strove  to  work  itself  five  from  the  disturb 
ing-  influence  of  earthly  pas>ioii.  and  from  the  vcrv 
consciousness  of  fleshly  environments,  when  addressing 
itself  to  the  work  of  learnin  •;  or  communicating  the 
mind  of  Cod.  It  was  therefore  an  ill-omeiieil  prepa 
ration  for  what  was  to  eome,  \\heii  this  venerable,  but 
too  partial  and  errin-  patriarch,  charged  hi-  .- 
to  go  a  hunting  for  venison,  and  provide  for  him  a 
savoury  dish,  such  as  In-  lo\ed,  that  he  miuht  eat  thereof 
and  bless  his  son.  I'.ut  another  will  interposecl.  The 
Cod  of  the  covenant  could  not  all»w  his  chief  repiv 
seiitative  on  earih  thus  to  betray  the  hi-_her  int'-iv>ts  ,,f 
the  covenant,  or  sutler  through  his  imperfection  the 
carnal  to  I.,rd  it  over  the  .-pirii'ial.  The  de-dini  formed 
to  serve  L-au  heii1  to  the  special  ble--in_:  of  Abraham 
must  somehow  be  defeatetl:  and  thoirji  the  guile 
actually  employed  for  tliis  end  bv  llebekah  and  .lacob 
were  worthy  "f  the  .-tron-v-t  ivpn  >!>ation,  it  i-  impo<- 
silile  not  to  see  in  them  the  overruling  providence  of 
Coil  correcting  the  hack-lidin^  of  hi-  >.-r\ant,  and  met 
ing  back  to  him  ,-oniewhat  of  his  own  niea-uiv.  The 
infirm  patriarch  himself  >aw  it:  and  \\ith  ; 
trembling  conlirined,  in  behalf  of  Jacob,  the  word  he 
had  unwittingly  pronounced  over  him,  a-  embodying 
the  real  truth  and  pur] lose  of  lba\eii.  The  \\ord.  as 
In  meant  it,  had  l)eeli  spoken  unad\  i-edly  uith  lii.-  lip-. 


long  and  close  dalliance  with  the  bounties  of  nature. 
whereby,  in  a  spiritual  respect,  he  became  weakened  in 
the  way,  and  suffered  the  adversary  to  gain  an  advan 
tage  over  him.  Still  he  lived  and  died  in  the  faith  of 


must  ever  hang  around  his  memory,  more  especially  on 
account  of  the  marvellous  and  aftecting  things  connected 
with  the  earlier  part  of  his  history. 

ISAIAH.  J.  Position  <>f  tin  '/W,-  In  tin  Canon.— 
The  two  books  of  Kings  are  followed  by  the  so-called 
greater  prophets  (j,i-»j,/n  to  mujuroh.  with  Isaiah  at 
their  head,  alike  in  the  Hebrew  and  Alexandrian  canon. 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  K/.ekiel  -  so  they  follow  one  another 
in  our  editions  according  to  the  periods  of  their  agency. 
In  Cerman  and  French  MSS.  another  arrangement  is 
found  here  and  there  --Kings,  .Jeremiah,  K/.ckiel,  Isaiah. 


for  it    is   the  similarity   of    the  content-, 
follows   the   book  of  Kings,  because   iiis   pro- 

n  K.-an  j  plu-cies  group  them-clvc-  almost  entirely  around  the 
Clialdean  catastrophe,  with  which  the  book  of  Kings 
closi  <;  and  Isaiah  follows  Kzekicl.  because  the  book  of 
K/ekiel  closes  with  consolation,  and  the  book  of  Isaiah, 
a-  the  Talmud  .-ays.  is  consolation  throughout.  The 
opponents  of  the  authenticity  of  Is.  xl.-l.xvi.  have  made 
their  own  use  of  this  Talmudic  arrangement.  J!ut  the 
motive  for  it  is  not  a  chronological  one.  The  chrono- 
lo-ical  arrangement  is  that  of  the  Masora.  and  of  the 
MSS.  of  the  Spanish  class,  which  has  passed  over  into 
our  editions. 

In   this   way    I-aiah   commences    the    books   of    pro 
phetic  discourse,  and  the  book  of  Kin-s  closes  the  i l-;s 

of  prophetic  hi-tory.  For.  ace  >rdini;'  to  the  arrange 
ment  of  the  canon,  the  historical  books  from  Joshua 
onwards,  and  the  prophetic  book-  from  l.-aiah  onwards, 
pass  for  a  bipartite  whole  of  prophetic  literature.  These 
books  are  all  called  iiidiiin  (prophets),  f,,r  the-  history 
of  the  pa.-t  in  the  one  i-  just  a-  prophetic  as  the  history 
of  the  future  in  the  other.  The  literature  of  the  nro- 


luit  ipityinu  hi<  weakness,  and  -till  u.-in-  his  instrumen-  phetic   books  has  separated    it-elf  only  by  degrees  from 

tality)  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  had  spoken  by  him.  the  literature  of  the  prophetic  historiography,  and   be- 

\\  e  can  scarcely  doubt,  that  the  painful  but  iiistrnc-  come  independent,  \\  ithout  ever  luinu  entirely  detached 

live   experience   of   this   occasion   left   salutary    impns-  from   its   historical   basis.      The   old.  st   prophets  of   the 


<t    l.-aac.    and   that   his   concluding     series,  which  be: 
and   refre.-h' 
nub 


hSamuel 


lished   their  pro- 
form  of  eontein- 


days  wen-  a^ain   gladdei 

thing  like  the  dew  of  his  youth.  <  Vrtainly,  the  part-  jK>rarj  hi-tory.  The  independent  position  of  a  pro- 
ing  charge  and  blessing  he  gave  to  Jacob,  when  send-  phetic  literature,  in  the  narrower  sense,  begins  with  the 
ing  him  away  to  1'adan-aram  for  a  wife.  Go.  xxviii.  1-4,  pamphlet  of  Obadiah  respecting  Kdom.  Obadiah  is 
is  altogether  such  as  we  should  wish  it  tohave  been;  probably  the  .-aim-  person  with  the  learned  prince  in 
it  breathes  the  Very  spirit  of  Abraham,  and  recogni/.es  the  reign  of  Jehoshaphat.  2CU.  xvii.  7;  the  occasion  of  his 
the  proper  aim  and  objects  of  the  covenant.  We  hear,  prophecy  is  tin-  revolt  of  Kdom  under  Jorani.  which  is  re- 


nowever,  no  more 


.f  his 


In  a  feehlt 


old  age,  for  the  most  part  probably  bed  -  ridden,  he 
lingered  on  for  upwards  of  forty  years  more— lived 
till  Jacoli  returned  from  his  long  sojourn  in  J'adan- 
aram:  for  Jacob  is  reported  to  have  visited  him  at 
.Mamre,  and  the  two  brothers  joined  hands  to  commit 
his  remains  to  the  family  burying -ground.  He  died 
at  the  advanced  age  of  ISO  years,  (Jo.  xxxv.  i>7-2l).  On 
the  whole,  it  may  be  said,  that  the  laughing  joy. 


hlted  in  -2  Ch.  xxi.  In.  In  point  of  time  Obadiah  is  i'ol 
lowed  by  Joel,  who  appeared  in  the  fir.-t  half  of  the  reign 
of  Joash.  His  book  even  shows  that  the  separation  of 
prophecy  from  historiography  is  only  a  relative  one. 
For  the  two  halves  of  the  book  of  Joel  are  connected 
by  ch.  ii.  IS,  lit*  ("then  showed  the  Lord  zeal  for  his 
land,"  &e.),  as  by  a  historical  clasp.  With  the  book 
of  Isaiah  also  are  interwoven  many  pieces  of  prophetic 
history.  That  these  pieces  are  from  Isaiah's  own  hand 


which  greeted  Isaac  at  his  birth,  had  its  reflection  i  is  already  probable  on  this  account,  because  prophecy 
afterwards  in  the  prolonged,  honourable,  singularly  j  and  historiography  were  from  the  beginning  onwards: 
peaceful,  and  prosperous  career  he  was  enabled  to  lead,  sifters,  and  were  never  absolutely  separated.  This 


And  if,  for  a  time,  the  bright  sunshine  of  his  life  was 
clouded,  and  the  laughter  turned  into  sadness,  it  was 
chiefly  because  the  cup  of  outward  blessing  had  proved 
too  full,  and  the  gifts  of  grace  had  in  his  case  kept  too 


probability  is  increased  by  the  circumstance,  that  the 
chronicler,  ^Cli.  xxxii.  :u,  refers  to  a  portion  of  these  his 
torical  pieces  as  incorporated  with  the  book  of  Isaiah, 
and  that  at  '2  Ch.  xxvi.  ~2'2  he  informs  us  that  Isaiah 

101 


ISAIAH 


ISAIAH 


was  the  author  of  a  historical  monograph,  which  em 
braced  the  wholo  reign  of  king  I'zziah. 

!I.  Next  to  the  position  of  the  book  iu  the  canon, 
the  'nuntc  of  the  prophet  first  of  all  claims  our  attention. 
In  the  usual  inscription  thu  name  runs  r\*yW  (Ita'nili ). 

In  the  bnok  itself,  anil  everywhere  in  the  liolv  scrip 
tures  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  prophet  is  called  >n»j?£;» 

(fsaiahu),  while  the  shorter  form  occurs  in  the  latest 
sacred  books  as  the  name  of  other  persons.  The  shorter 
form  of  such  names  was  already  in  use  in  ancient  times 
by  the  side  of  the  longer;  but  in  later  times  it  came  to 
be  exclusively  enipluyed.  and  on  this  account  it  is  made 
use  of  in  the  ordinary  title,  rvj,»;y«  HBD  (^tc  book  of  Isaiah]. 

The  name  is  a  compound  one;  it  means  tlic  salvation  of 

Jt/iorn/i;  the  prophet  was  conscious  to  himself  that  lie 
did  not  bear  it  accidentally:  y»*  (Jc.iltrt,  and  ,-|j;V«^' 

(Jdthu.ah^,  i.e.  salvation,  are  among  his  favourite  words; 
yea,  one  may  say,  he  lives  and  moves  altogether  in  the 
future  JKSUS,  who  is  the  personal  salvation  of  Jehovah, 
and  the  incarnate  Jehovah  himself.  The  mysterious 
name  of  God— Jehovah — signifies  the  L'sistent,  not 
however  the  ever-Existent,  that  is,  the  Eternal,  in  the 
metaphysical  sense,  but  the  continually  Existent,  i.e.  the 
/-.'tit-iia/,  in  the  historic  sense;  Jehovah  means  the  God 
who,  within  the  sphere  of  history,  reveals  his  glory  in 
grace  and  truth.  The  goal  of  this  historical  process, 
into  which  God  the  absolutely  free,  Ex.  iii.  M,  has  entered, 
is  just  the  incarnation,  for  which  reason  the  divine 
name  Jehovah  disappears  in  the  Xew  Testament  before 
the  name  Jesus  ('I^o-oPs).  The  «m»  (Jahu],  in  the  name 

T 

of  the  prophet,   is  shortened  from  j-pii*   (Jehovah],  by 

T    : 

the  rejection  of  the  second  n-  One  sees  from  this 
abbreviation  that  the  quadriliteral  was  pronounced 
with  a  in  the  first  syllable,  and  thus  either  Juharch  or 
Jahavdh.  That  the  original  pronunciation  was  ,/aha- 
rah  is  evident  from  this,  that  all  proper  names  without 
exception,  which  are  formed  from  the  conjugation  Kal 
of  verbs  ,-jS  er>d  in  ith.  and  that  the  final  vowel  in  the 
oldest  Greek  renderings  is  u  (e.f/.  Je.  xxiii.  6,  'lucreSeK 
— ^"iV  n'l!T)j  the  closing  sound  was  thus  the  barytone 

kamcts.  The  pronunciation  Jihorah  has  arisen  from 
the  blending  of  the  kcri  and  ehethib,  and  has  come  into 
use  since  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  The  name  of 
the  prophet  thus  means  the  salvation  of  Jahavdh.  The 
LXX.  always  render  it  'Hcrcuas,  with  strongly  aspirated 
II,  the  Vulgate  /*•«/«*,  for  which  E.-miax  also  is  found. 
III.  We  turn  now  to  the  inner  title  of  the  book,  and 
in  connection  with  this  we  take  into  consideration  the 
linear/e  of  the  prophet  and  circumstances  in  his  life. 
Tsaiah  is  called  in  the  title,  which  the  collection  of  his  pro 
phecies  gives  to  itself,  ••'ICN-"^  (ton  of  Amos).  A  Jewish 
\  T  i... 

rule,  already  known  to  the  fathers,  asserts,  that  where 
the  father  of  a  prophet  is  named,  he  also  was  always  a 
prophet.  But  this  rule  is  an  arbitrary  invention.  An 
old  Jewish  view  also,  that  Amos  was  the  brother  of 
Amaziah,  the  father  and  predecessor  of  Uzziah,  is 
without  support;  but.  although  not  true,  is  yet  sensible. 
Isaiah's  demeanour  anil  appearance  make  an  altogether 
kingly  impression.  He  speaks  with  kings  like  a  king. 
^  itli  majesty  he  steps  forth  to  meet  the  magnates  of 
his  people  and  of  the  imperial  power.  In  his  mode  of 
representation  he  is  among  the  prophets  what  Solomon 
is  among  the  kings.  In  all  positions  and  states  of 


mind  he  is  lord  of  the  situation,  master  of  the  word, 
simple  and  yet  grand,  sublime,  without  affectation, 
splendid  without  finery.  A  Talmudic  parable  says, 
that  Ezekiel,  with  respect  to  what  is  given  him  to  see, 
conducts  himself  like  one  of  the  country  people  in  the 
procession  of  a  king,  but  Isaiah  like  an  inhabitant  of 
the  city.  J!ut  this  polished,  noble,  kingly  character 
has  its  root  elsewhere  than  in  blood.  Thus  much  only 
may  be  affirmed  with  certainty,  that  Isaiah  was  a  native 
of  Jerusalem.  For,  with  the  great  variety  of  his  pro 
phetic  missions,  we  yet  never  meet  with  him  outside 
of  Jerusalem;  here,  and  in  fact  in  the  lower  city,  as 
may  be  inferred  from  eh.  xxii.  1.  and  from  tin.'  manner 
of  his  intercourse  with  king  Uu/ckiah.  lie  dwelt  with  his 
wife  and  children;  here  he  flourished  under  thu  four  kings 
who  in  ver.  1  are  mentioned  dai'voerus  (unconnected!}7), 
just  as  in  the  titles  of  the  books  of  Hosea  and  ]\licah. 
Everything  peculiar  that  is  related  to  us  in  the  Vitu 
Prophetarum,  which  pass  current  under  the  names  of 
Dorotheas  and  Epiphanius,  is  worthless.  But  the  tra 
dition  is  credible  which  the  Talmud  communicates  from 
an  old  genealogical  roll,  found  in  Jerusalem,  and  from 
the  Palestinian  Targum  at  "2  Ki.  xxi.  10,  that  kinur 
Manasseh  put  the  prophet  to  death,  and  that  in  fact 
he  was  sawn  asunder,  (to  which  allusion  is  made  in 
He.  xi.  37  by  the  word  eirf)ia6r]ffa.v}.  There  is  no 
ground  for  denying  the  historic  credibility  of  this  tra 
ditional  determination  of  the  close  of  Isaiah's  ministry. 
That  king  Manasseh  is  not  named  in  eh.  i.  1,  does  not 
contradict  that  tradition,  especially  if  this  ver.  1 ,  as  we 
may  understand  it,  is  the  collective  title  which  Isaiah 
himself  has  given  to  the  collection  of  his  prophecies, 
when  he  collected  and  published  them  in  the  rei;_;n  of 
Hezekiah.  We  must  then  assume  that  this  publication 
fell  into  one  of  the  last  years  of  Hezekiah,  and  that  the 
prophet  in  the  very  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Manasseh 
became  a  sacrifice  to  that  heathenism  which  had  again 
arrived  at  supremacy.  But  as  respects  the  terminus  a 
quo  of  his  ministry,  the  question  is  to  be  put  to  the 
collection  itself. 

IV.  The  Mart!nf/-pohtt  of  the  M!n!at>'>/  of  the  Prophet. 
— It  has  been  asserted  that  ch.  vi.  does  not  record  the 
first  call  of  Isaiah,  but  his  call  to  a  special  mission,  or, 
as  Sebastian  Schmid,  the  teacher  of  Speller,  says,  ail 
unum  specialem  ar.tum  ojfiri!.  There  are  only  two  argu 
ments  which  seem  to  call  for  this :  first,  that  ch.  vi.  is 
not  the  commencement  of  the  collection;  and,  second, 
that  the  general  title,  ch.  i.  i,  presupposes  a  ministry  of 
Isaiah  under  Uzziah;  while  ch.  vi.  is  dated  from  the  year 
of  this  king's  death.  On  the  ground  of  these  arguments, 
Drechsler  and  Caspari  hold  the  decree  of  hardening, 
which  is  proclaimed  in  ch.  vi.,  as  the  result  of  the  fruit- 
lessness  of  the  prophetic  preaching  contained  in  ch. 
i.-v.;  the  decision  wavers  here  still,  but  the  call  to  re 
pentance  is  in  vain,  Israel  hardens  himself,  and  now, 
after  God's  goodness  has  endeavoured  in  vain  to  lead 
him  to  repentance,  and  God's  long-suffering  has  ex 
hausted  itself,  lie  is  hardened  by  Jehovah  himself. 
According  to  this  view.  ch.  vi.  stands  in  its  right  his 
torical  place.  But  why  should  not  this  judicial  char 
acter,  his  becoming  an  instrument  of  Israel's  hardening, 
have  been  stamped  on  the  prophetic  call  of  Isaiah  just 
at  the  commencement  ?  And  does  not  the  vision  with 
which  the  prophet  is  favoured,  and  which  is  without 
its  equal  in  his  lifetime,  make  on  every  unprejudiced 
man  the  impression  of  an  inaugural  vision  ?  This  im 
pression  is  confirmed  by  this  additional  circumstance. 


ISAIAH 


so,0) 


ISAIAH 


that  the  chapters  i.-v.  really  contain  all  the  elements  ' 

which  are  furnished  to  the  prophet  in  ch.  vi.  l>v  means 

" 

of  revelation,  and  that  the  result  of  these  discourses 
corresponded  to  that  which  is  judicially  determined  in 
ch.  vi.  The  first  discourse,  ch.  i  ,  lays  open  to  the  people 
the  way  of  grace,  inasmuch  as  (iod  offers  them  forgive 
ness  of  their  blood v  sins,  and  expects  new  obedience  in 
gratitude  for  this:  but  even  this  discourse,  in  considera 
tion  of  the  uselessness  of  this  evangelic  attempt  at 
restoration,  takes  the  turn  indicated  in  ch.  vi.  ll-l:!. 
The  theme  of  the  second  discourse,  ch.  ii  -iv.,  is  this,  that 
only  after  the  downfall  of  Israel's  false  "dory  will  the 
promised  true  glorv  be  reali/.ed.  and  that  onlv  a  small 
remnant  after  the  destruction  of  the  mass  of  the  people, 
will  live  to  realiz--  it.  The  parable,  with  \\hieh  the 
third  discourse,  ch  v.,  begins,  rest-  on  the  presupposition 
that  the  cup  of  iniquity  of  the  people  is  full,  and  the 
threatening  of  jud^m-nt.  which  is  introduced  bv  this 
parable,  agree-;  as  to  substance  and  in  part  \vrballv 
with  the  divine  answer,  which  th"  prophet  receives  in 
ch.  vi.  to  his  In, a-  /mi;/.  Thus  the  discourses  \\hieh 
precede:  ch.  vi.  are  not  against  but  in  favour  <.f  the 
view,  that  in  ch.  vi.  Isaiah  record-;  his  consecration  as  a 
prophet;  this  circumstance  also  is  in  favour  of  it.  that 
already  in  ch.  i.-v.  he  gives  t"  Jehovah  the  favourite 
name  , ,f  >•«!*-•;•<  ;:•'«-•:  [th  //•/./  Out  nf  f.iracf),  which  is 

"  T  :  •  ' ; 

the  echo  of  the  -, -raphii-  "  Holy,  holy,  holy,"  and  is 
among  the  peculiar  physiognomic  features  of  the  piv- 
dictions  of  this  prophet.  But  why  does  not  <-h.  \i 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  coll.-ctioii  '  This  i|Ue-tion  \\11I 
afterwards  be  solved  for  us.  And  whv  is  I'zziah  men 
tioned,  di  i.  l,  as  one  of  the  kin^s  und-T  whom  Isaiah 
flourished,  although  his  mini>try  first  bewail  in  the  vear 
of  I'xziah's  death  .'  \Veanswer:  "the  year  that  kin_: 
I'/./.iah  died."  is  the  year  in  which  l"//iah  was  -;ill 
rei<_niiii'_r.  but  his  d.-ath  was  at  hand;  the  mini-try  of 
Isaiah  thus  be^an.  of  cour-e.  not  in  the  first  vear  of 
.lotham,  but  rather  in  the  fifty-second  of  I'/xiah:  and 
although  this  eonniieneemeiit  under  I'/./iah  \va-  only 
very  short,  yet  it  conies  to  b,.  reckoned  as  an  epoch  of 
the  greatest  importance.  On  this  very  account  that 
the  time  of  I'/./iah  was  a  deoi-i\vlv  critical  one  for 
Israel,  i.-aiah  wrote  a  special  hi>torical  work  reirardini: 
this  time,  which  is  ,|u<>ted  '_'  Ch.  xxvi.  'J'J.  The  end  of 
l"x/.iah's  time,  which  coineidt-s  with  I-aiah's  call,  forms 
a  deep  section  in  Israel's  history.  I'/./.iah  reigned 
fifty-two  years  (Mi:i-7:,.>5  H.C.I  This  ],„,,_,•  j,,.ri,,,l  \vas 
for  the  kingdom  of  .ludali  exactly  what  the'  shorter  time 
of  Solomon  had  been  for  the  whole  of  Israel  a  time  ' 
of  mighty  and  blessed  peace,  duriii'_r  which  the  people 
were  loaded  with  the  love-tokens  of  their  (Jed.  But 
these  riches  of  the  divine  <_'oodni-ss  had  as  little  influ 
ence  over  the  people  as  their  earlier  calamities.  Then 
began,  in  the  relation  of  Jehovah  to  Israel,  that  mo 
mentous  change,  as  the  instrument  of  which  Isaiah  in 
special  and  above  the  other  prophets  was  chosen.  The 
year  in  which  this  happened  was  the  year  of  Uzziah's 
death.  In  this  vear  Israel  was  given  up  as  a  people  to 
hardening;  and  as  a  body,  as  a  kingdom  and  Land,  was 
given  up  to  destruction  and  devastation  by  means  of 
the  imperial  power.  The  year  of  Uzziah's  death  is,  as 
Jerome  remarks,  the  year  of  Romulus'  birth;  shortly 
after  I'/.ziah's  death.  7^4  B.C.,  according  to  Varro's 
chronology,  Rome  was  founded.  The  instruments  of 
the  outward  judgments,  which  the  inward  judgment  of 
hardening  was  to  bring  forth,  were  thus  already  set 


apart  ami  in  readiness;  not  only  Assyria,  the  earliest 
form  of  the  imperial  power,  but  also  Rome,  its  final 
form.  The  hen-inning,  which  is  marked  out  by  the 
death  of  I'zziah.  was  big  with  the  end.  Hence,  after 
r/./.iah.  the  activity  of  the  prophets  reaches  a  height 
never  before  seen.  The  prophets  appear  numerous  and 
active,  like  the  storm-heralding  birds  in  a  thunder- 
chargcd  atmosphere.  The  year  of  I'xxiah's  death 
divides  the  history  of  Israel  into  two  halves.  Amos, 
who  appeared  about  the  tenth  year  of  I'/xiah,  the 
twenty-fifth  of  .leroboam  II.:  Micah,  who  prophesied 
from  the  time  of  .lotham  (probably  tVom  the  joint-reiirn 
of  .lotham  onwards)  up  to  the  fall  of  Samaria  in  the 
sixth  year  of  He/.ekiah:  but  above  all.  Isaiah  stands  on 
the  boundary  of  the  two  halves  of  Israel's  history.  No 
prophet  marks  out  this  middle-point  of  Old  Testament 
history  as  I-aiah  does.  lie  is  the  prophet  by  wa\ 
of  eminence,  the  universal  prophet,  who  is  placed  in 
the  middle  betwixt  Moses  and  Christ,  and  rules  over 
the  periods  of  the  \\urld-empires  witli  his  prophetic 
glance.  In  the  consciousness  ,,f  this,  his  central  all- 
important  position,  he  begin-  the  discourse.  ch.  i.,  which 
forms  the  introduction,  and.  as  it  were,  the  prelude  to 
his  prophecies,  in  the  style  of  I  leuteronomy.  He  begins 
it  as  Moses  be-ins  his  si  inn1.  Iv  xxxii.  This  -Teat  song 
is  a  compendious  .-ketch  of  the  hi-tory  of  Israel  up  to 
the  end  of  days.  This  hi-tory  falls  into  four  great 
periods.  The  contents  of  the  fir-t  period  are  Israel's 
creation  and  training:  the  contents  of  the  second, 
Israel's  ingratitude  and  ap»-ta-y:  the  contents  of  the 
third.  I-raei  given  "Ver  t"  the  heathen:  the  contents  of 
the  fourth,  the  restoration  of  the  sifted,  but  not  annihi 
lated  pi  <>ple.  and  the  union  of  all  nations  in  the  prai-e 
of  Jehovah,  who  ha-  manife-ted  him-elf  in  judgment 
and  ".race.  Isaiah  stands  on  the  threshold  of  the 
third  of  these  four  periods.  What  Jehovah  says  by 
means  of  him.  and  what  he  calls  upon  heaven  and  earth 
to  hear,  coincides  in  substance  \\ith  the  address  of  ,le- 
hovah,  which  is  introduced  bv  the  nTtf'^  \<>inl  In  with, 
Jv  xxx 

V.  Now  that  we  have  ti\ed  and  characterized  the 
terminus  u  I/HH  of  Isaiah's  ministry,  let  us  figure  to  our- 
selve-  in  a  sketchv  \sav  tin •  f,mr  /;'/i' "•/<•-•  «f  tin'  Miiii.tir// 
*  if  tin  J'r<i/,/nt.  The  first  epoch  begins,  as  we  have 
shown,  with  the  last  year  of  I'x/.iah  (who  had  now 
retired  from  the  government),  and  comprehends  from 
that  point  onwards  the  sixteen  years  of  Jotham.  At 
that  time  the  kingdom  of  Israel  and  the  kingdom  of 
Judah  had  simultaneously  reached  their  highest  pros 
perity.  Since  the  time  of  I>a\id  and  Solomon  the 
people  had  not  stood  upon  so  hi-h  a  pinnacle  of  power 
and  good  fortune,  as  at  that  time  under  Jeroboam  I  I. 
and  Uzziah.  the  two  rulers  from  the  house  of  Jehu 
and  from  thehou-eof  David,  who  vied  with  each  other 
in  the  duration  and  splendour  of  their  dominion.  It 
was  not  till  after  the  death  of  these  two  kings,  and  only 
by  decrees,  that  the  glorv  of  the  two  kingdoms  \\ithered 
away.  During  the  sixteen  years  of  Jotham  the  condi 
tion  of  Judah  remained  substantially  the  same  as  under 
t'xziah.  The  extended  boundaries  of  the  kingdom  re 
mained:  capital  and  country  were  more  and  more  strongly 
fortified;  rearing  of  cattle,  agriculture,  commerce  flour 
ished;  the  Ammonites  became  tributary;  the  worship  of 
Jehovah  was  practised.  P.ut  prosperity  degenerated  into 
luxury,  and  the  worship  of  Jehovah  became  .stiffened  into 
a  dead  form  (npiis  opfrutirni}.  It  is  during  this  flourish 
ing  period  of  Judah's  history,  the  most  flourishing  since 


ISAJAH 


80 1 


ISAIAH 


th"  times  of  David  ami  Solomon,  the  longest  during  the 
whole  existence  of  the  kingdom,  the  last  before  its 
downfall,  that  Isaiah  proclaims  the  overthrow  of  the 
t';d~e  worldly  uli'iT.  and  calls  to  repentance;  but  the  call 
to  repentance  is  in  vain  as  respects  the  mass  of  the 
people:  it  moves  them  not,  but  only  hardens  them  still 
more,  and  is  therefore  exchanged  for  the  threatenings 
of  bondage,  desolation,  and  cursing.  The  second  epoch 
of  Isaiah's  ministry  extends  from  the  commencement  of 
the  reign  of  Aha/  to  that  of  Hezekiuh.  It  is  another 
sixteen  years.  Into  this  period  there  fall  three  events, 
b\  means  of  which  the  history  of  .!  udah  receives  the 
impulse  to  a  new  change,  (it.)  In  place  of  the  outward 
conformity  to  law  and  orderliness  in  the  worship  of  Je 
hovah  under  L'/ziah  and  Jotham.  open  idolatry  in  the 
most  varied  and  horrible  forms  makes  its  appearance  at 
the  commencement  of  Aha/.'s  reign.  (I/.)  In  the  next 
place,  the  hostilities  already  begun  under  .lotham  were 
continued  by  Pekah  king  of  Israel,  and  Ivezhi  king  of 
Syria  of  Damascus;  the  so-called  Syro-Ephraimitic  war 
threatened  Jerusalem,  and  in  expressed  intention  the 
continuance  of  the  kingdom  of  David,  {e.}  liithis  dis 
tress  Ahaz  summoned  the  help  of  Tiglath-pileser  king 
of  Assyria — he  made  flesh  his  arm,  and  thereby  in 
volved  the  people  of  Jehovah  in  a  hitherto  unexampled 
way  with  the  imperial  power,  by  which,  from  this  time 
onwards,  they  lost  their  independence.  The  imperial 
power  is  the  Ximrodian  form  of  the  heathen  state. 
I  ts  peculiarity  is  to  step  forth  beyond  its  natural  boun 
daries,  not  merely  for  the  purpose  of  self-defence  and 
revenue,  but  of  conquest,  and  of  throwing  itself  like  an 
avalanche  upon  foreign  nations,  in  order  to  roll  itself 
together  into  an  ever  greater  world- embracing  Colossus, 
in  this  striving  after  the  dominion  of  the  world,  Assyria 
had  the  superiority  in  Isaiah's  time,  but  the  future  heirs 
also  of  the  might  of  Assyria — the  Chaldeans,  Modes, 
Persians — were  already,  at  that  time,  stepping  upon  the 
theatre  of  history;  Greece  itself  (J(irau)  no  longer  lay 
outside  the  prophetic  horizon,  Ob.  L'O  ;  Jool  iv.  o ;  and  in 
the  far  west  I  Jome  was  being  founded  in  Jotliam' s  time. 
Assyria  and  Koine  are  the  first  and  last  members  of  the 
period  of  the  world-kingdoms.  Isaiah's  time  was  the 
prelude  to  this  period.  In  face  of  the  troubles  now  be 
ginning,  which  sweep  the  mass  of  Israel  away  without 
remedy,  Isaiah  plants  the  standard  of  Immanuel  for 
the  believers;  lie  predicts  the  divine  wrath,  of  which 
the  imperial  power  is  the  instrument,  but  he  also  pre 
dicts  the  divine  wrath,  of  which  the  imperial  power  is 
the  object,  after  it  has  served  for  its  instrument,  and  the 
divine  love,  which  embraces  Egypt  and  Assyria  with 
Israel  in  a  bond  of  holy  fellowship,  ch.  xix.  2i,2r>,  and 
the  final  world -dominion  of  Jehovah  and  of  his  Christ. 
The  third  epoch  of  the  ministry  of  Isaiah  extends  from 
the  beginning  of  Hezekiah's  reign  to  the  fifteenth  year 
of  this  king.  Under  Hezekiah  matters  improved  almost 
in  the  same  degree  as  under  Ahaz  they  degenerated. 
He  forsook  the  way  of  his  idolatrous  father,  and  restored 
the  worship  of  Jehovah.  The  mass  of  the  people,  it  is 
true,  remained  inwardly  unchanged,  but  nevertheless 
Judah  had  again  an  honest  king,  who  listened  to  the 
word  of  the  prophet  standing  by  his  side,  two  pillars  of 
the  state,  mighty  men  of  prayer,  2  Ch.  xxxii.  20.  AVhen 
it  came  to  breaking  loose  from  the  Assyrian  dominion, 
this  was  indeed  on  the  part  of  the  nobles  and  the  mass 
of  the  people  an  act  of  unbelief  in  dependence  on  the 
help  of  Egypt,  trusting  in  which  the  northern  kingdom 
came  to  ruin  in  the  sixth  year  of  Hezekiah,  but  on  the 


part  of  Hezekiah  an  act  of  faith  in  dependence  on 
Jehovah,  2Ki.  xviii.  7.  That  uiibelitjf  came  to  shame,  and 
this  faith  was  rewarded.  Sennacherib,  the  successor  of 
Shalinaneser,  marched  onwards  against  Jerusalem, 
plundering  .and  devastating  the  land --thus  the  fleshly 
defiance  of  the  nobles  and  of  the  mass  of  the  people  was 
punished.  But  .Jehovah  averted  the  worst;  the  flower 
of  the  Assyrian  army  was  destroyed  in  one  night,  so 
that  now  also,  as  in  the  Syro-Ephraimitic  war,  it  did 
not  come  properly  to  a  siege  of  Jerusalem — thus  the 
faith  of  the  king  and  of  the  better  portion  of  the  people 
resting  in  the  word  of  promise  was  rewarded.  There 
was  still  a  divine  power  in  the  state,  which  preserved  it 
from  destruction.  The  judgment  inevitable,  accord 
ing  to  ch.  vi.,  suffered  another  postponement  at  the 
point  where  one  had  to  expect  the  last  annihilating 
stroke.  In  this  miraculous  preservation,  which  Isaiah 
prophesied  and  brought  about,  the  public  mini>try  of 
this  prophet  reaches  its  highest  point.  Isaiah  is  the 
Amos  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  for  with  Amos  he  has 
the  fearful  calling  in  common,  to  see  and  to  announce 
that  the  time  of  forgiveness  for  Israel  as  a  people  and 
as  a  kingdom  is  for  ever  past.  But  he  is  not  at  the 
same  time  the  Ilosea  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah:  for  it 
is  not  the  calling  of  Isaiah,  but  it  became  that  of  Jere 
miah,  to  accompany  the  kingdom  on  the  way  to  execu 
tion  with  the  funeral-dirge  of  prophetic  announcement. 
For  it  was  permitted  to  Isaiah,  as  it  was  denied  to  his 
successor  Jeremiah,  once  more  to  overcome  with  the 
word  of  power  of  his  prophecy  from  the  depths  of  a 
mighty  spirit  of  faith  that  night,  which  threatened  in 
the  Assyrian  time  of  judgment  to  swallow  up  his  people. 
There  is  besides  also  a  fourth  epoch  of  Isaiah's  prophetic 
ministry,  which  extends  from  beyond  the  fifteenth 
year  of  Hezekiah  to  the  end  of  his  life.  We  are  not 
determined  to  accept  such  a  fourth  epoch  by  the  tradi 
tion  that  he  died  as  a  martyr  under  Manasseh,  and 
that  in  this  way  he  still  survived  the  whole  superadded 
period  of  king  Hezekiah's  reign  beyond  the  Assyrian 
catastrophe.  The  collection  of  his  prophecies  them 
selves  renders  it  necessary  for  us  to  suppose,  that  he 
was  still  active  as  a  prophet  after  the  fifteenth  year  of 
Hezekiah,  although  he  no  longer  took  to  do  with  public 
events.  For  during  this  more  contemplative  epoch  the 
cycle  of  prophecy,  ch.  xl.-lxvi.,  must  have  arisen,  where 
the  prophet  placed  iv  trvevjj.a.Ti.,  in  the  midst  of  the 
exile,  preaches  to  the  exiles.  But  several  pieces  besides, 
which  are  inserted  in  the  first  half  of  the  collection, 
ought  to  be  assigned  to  this  fourth  period.  The  imperial 
power  is  there  everywhere  no  longer  Assyria,  but 
Babylon,  and  when  it  is  called  Assyria,  yet  this  name 
is  only  emblematic;  the  representation  is  more  glorious, 
more  ideal,  and  so  to  speak,  ethereal,  for  prophecy  has 
its  footing  here  no  longer  upon  the  soil  of  the  present, 
but  soars  in  the  distance  of  the  last  times,  and  paints  its 
delineations  011  the  ether  of  the  future — these  dying 
strains  of  the  prophet  are  all  apocalyptic.  But  can  we 
really  trace  back  these  prophecies  to  that  Isaiah  who  ap 
peared  in  the  year  of  Uzziah's  death  ?  Does  not  modern 
criticism  raise  its  loud  protest  against  it,  inasmuch  as 
it  stigmatizes  the  belief  that  these  prophecies  are  rightly 
handed  down  as  Isaiah's,  as  the  nc  2^us  ultra  of  want  of 
science  ? 

VI.  This  leads  us  to  speak  of  the  Authenticity  of  the 
Pi'f^iJicetcs  of  Isaiah.  It  passes  current  in  modern  cri 
ticism,  at  least  in  Germany,  as  a  settled  point,  that 
the  second  part  of  the  collection — ch.  xl-ixvi. — is  the 


ISAIAH 


ISAIAH 


work  of  a  prophet  belonging  to  the  second  half  of  the  human  race  even  during  the  existence  of  the  Delphic 
Babylonian  exile;  secondly,  that  the  Babylonian  series  oracle  was  condemned.  "And  Ewald  remarks  on  Is.  vi. : 
of  prophecies,  wliich  runs  through  the  first  part  of  the  ;  "In  recalling  his  ministry  of  many  year-,,  it  appears 
collection,  viz.  ch.  xiii.l-s.iv. 23,  xxi.i- 10, xxiii.,  although  not  |  to  Isaiah  as  if  He,  before  whose  eye  all  connection 
to  be  assigned  to  the  author  of  the  second  part,  yet  ;  and  all  development  is  clear  from  the  beginning,  gave 
certainly  have  not  Isaiah  for  their  author;  thirdly,  him  from  the  very  first  moment  the  sad  commission  to 
that  the  eschatologic,  and,  so  to  speak,  apocalyptic  be  a  prophet  of  evil."  Thus  ch.  vi.  is  a  prophecy 
groups  of  prophecy— ch.  xxiv.-xxvii.  and  ch.  xxxiv.  xxxv.—  ;  after  the  event,  clothed  in  the  form  of  an  inaugural 
must  belong  to  a  much  later  period  than  that  of  Isaiah.  |  vision.  In  this  sense  Ernst  Meier  compares  ch".  vi. 
'I'll-;  beginnings  of  this  criticism  were  somewhat  as  with  Goethe's  consecration  as  a  prophet,  entitled 
follows.  It  started  from  tile  second  part.  Koppe  first  "Dedication."  which  also  is  not  a  youthful  piece;  and 
expressed  a  doubt  as  to  the  genuineness  of  ch.  1.;  then  remarks  that  this  classical  poem  may  well  match  Isaiah's 


Dodeiiein  gave 
the   genuineness 


utterance  to  positive   suspicion  as  to 
of  tlie   whole:    and  Justi.  at  a  later 


period    Eichhorn,   1'aulus.    Bertholdt,   rai.-ed  this  sus-     It  is  shut  up  between  the  two  preconceived  opinions— 


picion  to  certainty  of  their  being  spurious.  It  was 
impossible  that  the  result  thus  arrived  at  should  remain 
without  retrospective  infhiem  .....  n  the  first  part  of  the 
collection.  Kosenmiiller,  everywhere  verv  depcnd<-nt 
upon  his  predecessors,  was  the  first  who  denied  to  the 
oracle  upon  Babylon  -ch.  xiii.-xiv.  23  tin-  l.-aian  origin 


"there  is  no  proper  prophecy;"  and  its  correlate. 
"there  is  no  proper  miracle."  It  calls  itself  liberal. 
and  thus  free;  but.  rightly  looked  at.  it  is  in  bondage. 
In  this  bondage  it  has  two  charms  wherewith  it  fortifies 
ii  .  If  against  every  impivs.-ion  of  historic  testimonies. 
Either  it  makes  prophecy  a  retrospect,  and  history  a 


to  which  the  inscription  bears  witness;  Justi  and  Paulus  myth;  or  it  explains  the  documents  in  question  as 
undertook  the  justification  of  the  decision,  strengthen-  j  products  of  another  much  later  period.  A  biblical 
ing  him  not  a  little  in  his  opinion.  Now  the  matter  critic  \\ill  be  looked  upon  as  so  much  the  greater,  the 
went  farther:  vuth  the  prophecy  a-ainst  Babylon—  ;  more  acutely  lie  understands  how  to  apply  these  two 

-xiv.  -;;  -the    decision    with    respect    to   thf    other     artifices. 

-ch.xxi.l-iu  -was  pronounced;  and  with  reason  was  1  '.ut  although  biblical  criticism  is  stain.  -d  with  sin, 
Kosenmiiller  -really  a>tonislied.  wli.-n  Gesenius  ht  tin-  :  yet  sin  is  not  its  essence.  It  belongs  to  the  many  new 
former  fall,  but  illojcallv  let  the  latter  stand.  The  branches  of  church  science,  to  which  the  reformation  of 
oracle  respecting  Tyr-  h.  xxiii.  —  still  remain.  -d.  I  the  church  gave  the  impulse.  Were  \ve  to  wish  that  it 
which,  according  as  one  found  announced  therein  a  had  never  appeared,  this  wish  has  the  appearance  of 
destruction  of  Tyre  by  the  Assyrians  or  by  the  Chal-  j  pitiful  apprehension  lest  holy  Scripture  should  not  be 
deans,  mi^ht  remain  Isaiah's,  or  must  be  assigned  to  ;  strong  enough  to  sustain  its  tests  and  assaults.  >,'av,  it 


a  later  anonymous  author.  Eichhorn.  followed  by 
Uosenm tiller,  decided  for  the  spuriollsm  ss  ;  Ge>.  nius 
understood  by  the  destroyers  the  Assyrians,  and.  as 
the  prophecy  consequently  did  not  stretch  beyond 
Isaiah's  hori/on.  he  defended  its  ^.•nuiiieiiess.  Thus 
was  the  r.abylonian  series  set  aside,  or  certainly  ren-  i  knowl.-d-v 


is  a  well-authorized  and  necessary  member  in  the  organ 
ism  of  church  science;  and  since  its  unpleasant  results 
can  lie  overcome  only  by  eritici.-m.  there  is  no  escape 
from  it.  Far  removed,  howevir.  from  bein-'a  necessary 
evil.it  is  rather  a  source  of  more  profound  Scripture 
Without  criticism  there  is  no  iiiMuht  at 


deivd  thoroughly   suspicious;    but  the   prying  look   of  j  aU  into  the  historical  origin  of  the  sacred  writings,  and 

the  critics  made  still  further  discoveries.  Eiehhorn  j  thus  no  history  of  sacred  literature  is  possible.  The 
found  in  the  cycle  of  prophecy,  ch.  xxiv.-xxvii.,  Isaiah's  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  -  in  particular 
unworthy  puns;  Geseiiius,  a  covert  announcement  of  ^  the  books  ,,f  Kings  and  1'hronielcs,  along  with  Ezra 
the  fall  of  llabylon.  I'.oth  therefore  condemned  these  ;  and  \eh.-miah  represent  themselves  as  a  tissue  of 
four  chapters,  and  with  success;  for  Ewald  removes  i  original  writin 
them  to  the  time  of  lambse 


orgna    writngs  interwoven  one  with  another.     C'riti- 

With  the  prophetic     cal  analysis  discovers  here  a  whole  world  of  literature, 
cycle,  ch.  xxxiv.  xxxv.,  short  work  was  made,    because  of     one  part  piled  upon  another  in  cpuite  separable  portions. 

its  affinity  with  the  second  part.  Kosenmiill.  T  \\ith-  [n  the  place  where  superficial  observation  perceives  only 
out  more  ado  calls  it  carmen  ad  fincm  verycntis  cxilii  the  work  of  one  author,  criticism  shows  us  the  united 
Ba'tylonici  compos/turn.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  criti-  activity  of  many—  a  rich  mosaic  of  precious  stones  and 
cism  of  Isaiah.  Its  first  attempts  were  still  very  school-  many  fragments  from  lost  works  of  highly  distinguished 
boy  -like.  The  names  of  its  founders  have  almost  men.  Just  as  it  stands  with  the  historical  books,  so  it 
entirely  disappeared.  Gesenius  first,  and  especially  j  stands,  for  example,  with  the  book  of  I'roverbs  also, 
Hitzig  and  Ewald,  have  raised  it  to  the  dignity  of  a  !  where,  under  the  name  of  Solomon,  the  gnomic  pearls 
science.  ,  (,f  different  times  and  of  several  authors  are  arranged 

The  beginnings  of  this  criticism  were  not  fitted  to  l>eside  one  another  ;  just  as  in  the  psalter  the  poets  of 
lie-get  confidence.  It  grew  up  in  the  swaddling-clothes  many  centuries  are  collected  together  under  the  ban- 
of  rationalism—  this  Herman  form  of  French  encyclo-  ner  of  David,  the  father  of  sacred  lyric  poetry.  It 
pedi-.m  and  of  Kn^lish  deism.  And  besides,  its  more  '  might  thus  be  possible,  certainly,  that  a  book  of  pro- 


recent  Coryphooi  are  by  no  means  free  from  naturalistic 
preconceptions.  The  position  of  Gesenius  towards 
holy  Scripture  was,  as  is  well  known,  no  very  respect 
ful  one.  As  regards  Hitzig,  he  says  expressly  in  his 
Commentary  on  Ixniah,  that  a  proper  foreknowledge  is 
not  to  be  ascribed  to  the  prophets — that  over  the  eye 
of  the  Old  Testament  prophets  in  general  there  lay 
the  very  same  darkness  as  to  the  future,  to  which  the 


phecy  also,  which  bears  the  name  of  one  author,  lik< 
the  book  of  Isaiah,  on  narrower  investigation  should 
resolve  itself  into  a  plurality  of  prophetic  discourses  of 
different  authors,  comprehended  under  the  one  to  whom 
they  stand  in  more  or  less  secondary  relation.  The  pro 
phetic  discourses  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  would  not  thereby  neces 
sarily  lose  anything  of  their  predictive  character  and  of 
their  incomparable  value.  Their  anonymous  author 


ISAIAH 


ISAIAH 


might  pass  henceforward,  also,  as  the  greatest  evangelist 
of  the  Old  Testament.  We  have  no  doctrinal  reasons 
which  \\nuld  furliid  us  to  distinguish  in  tin;  bonk  of 
T.-aiah  prophecies  of  [saiah  himself,  and  prophecies  of 
anonymous  prophets  annexed  to  these.  Such  erities 
as  Gesenius,  Hitzig,  and  others,  are  compelled  by  dog 
matic  premises  of  a  naturalistic  kind  to  deprive  the 
pre- exilian  Isaiah  of  such  prophecies  as  eh.  xiii.-xiv. 
1-23,  and  especially  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  To  us,  however,  no 
sort  of  pre-concei\ed  opinion  dictates  the  iv.-ult  before 
hand,  Only  in  one  matter  will  nothing  be  able  to 
confound  us.  that  we  have  to  do  with  real,  and  not 
with  merelv  pretended  prophecies. 

If  now  we  examine  without  prejudice  the  facts  of 
the  case,  at  the  outset  we  are  met  by  the  following 
considerations  against  breaking  up  the  unity  of  the 
hook  of  Isaiah  into  an  anthology  of  several  authors. 

1.  No  single  one  of  the  canonical  books  of  prophecy  is 
compounded  in  such  a  way  of  ingredients  belonging 
to  dill'i-rcnt  authors  and  periods,  as  is  alleged  of  the 
book   of    Isaiah.       In    no    single    case  are    prophecies 
found   which   did    not    belong  to   the   prophets  whose 
names  the  books  bear.      The  later  criticism  grants  this 
even   of  tlie   books   of   .Jeremiah  and   Ezekiel.      ''We 
have  indeed  up  to  this  point  discovered  many  an  inter 
polated  passage."  says  Hit/.ig  at  Jer.  1..  ''  but  not  one 
independent    oracle   which    had    been    forged."       The 
hook  of   Ezekiel  is  not  only  in  the  recognized  way  free 
from  all  foreign  additions,  but  has  also  been  organized 
into   the  whole  which  lies    before    us   by  the   prophet 
himself.      Only  with  the  book  of   Zechariah  is  it  said 
that  the  case  is  similar;  but  the  view  that  Zee.  ix.-xiv. 
contains  the  prophecies  of   one  or   two   prophets  who 
lived   before  the  captivity  attached   to  the  book,   has 
never  obtained  so  extensive  acceptance,  as  the  view 
that  Is.  xl.-lxvi.  is  an  appendix  to  the  book  of   Isaiah 
from  the  time  of  the  exile.     Even  De  Wettc,  who  was 
so  ready  to  receive  all  the  results  of  the  negative  criti 
cism,  has  never  let  go  the  authenticity  of  Zee.  ix.-xiv. 

2.  It  would  certainly  be  a  singular  freak  of  chance,  if 
a  mixture  of  prophecies  were  to  have  remained  of  just- 
such  prophets  as  bear  in  themselves,  not  the  type  of 
Jeremiah   or   Ezekiel.    but   of    Isaiah,   and    indeed   to 
such  an  extent  that  they  might  be   confounded   with 
Isaiah  himself — so  much  the  more  singular,  since  we 
cannot  infer  from  what  lies  before  us,    that  Isaiah's 
type  of  prophecy,  which  represents  the  golden  age  of 
prophetic  literature,  had  propagated  itself  up  to  the 
exile.     Habakkuk  is  such  a  prophet  of  Isaiah's  type; 
but   Zephaniah  is  found  making  the   transition  from 
the  type  of  Isaiah  to  that  of  Jeremiah.     3.   This  also 
would  be  singular,  that  just  the  names  of  these  pro 
phets  have  had  the  common  destiny  to  be  forgotten, 
although  in  point  of  time  they  all  stood  nearer  to  the 
editors  of  the  canon  than  the  old  model  -  prophet  on 
whom  they  had  formed  themselves,   and  with  whom 
they  perfectly  harmonized;  yea,  whom  they  (especially 
the  author  of  eh.  xl.-lxvi.),  if  possible,  even  surpassed. 

These  considerations  make  the  authenticity  of  the 
disputed  prophecies  probable,  but  they  do  not  yet  prove 
it.  There  are,  however,  three  positive  arguments 
which  are  capable  of  convincing  all  those  who  do  not, 
on  extraneous  doctrinal  grounds,  hold  it  impossible  that 
Isaiah  should  have  been  the  author  of  the  disputed 
prophecies.  1.  No  one  will  deny,  that  the  chapters 
xl.-lxvi.,  compared  with  all  other  prophetic  writings 
which  have  come  down  to  us,  have  most  affinity  with 


Isaiah.  The  name  of  (Jod,  which  is  the  echo  of  the 
seraphic  sa/irtus  in  the  heart  and  .mouth,  of  Isaiah,  that 
name  peculiar  to  Isaiah — Holy  One  of  Israel — is  com 
mon  to  the  disputed  prophecies  with  those  which  are 
recognized  as  genuine.  It  is  even  found  in  the  second 
part  of  the  collection  still  oftener  than  in  the  Jirst — 
th'T*'  twelve  times,  hero  seventeen  times;  and  a  more 
recent  Jewish  expositor,  Samuel  l>avid  Lnzzato  in 
Padua,  says  beautifully  and  strikingly:  "As  if  Isaiah 
had  foreseen  that  later  scepticism  will  decide  against 
the  half  of  his  prophecies,  he  has  impressed  his  seal  on 
aU  ll^OD  ICHin  Dnn).  and  has  interwoven  the  name  of 
God,  •'  Holy  One  of  Israel."'  with  the  second  part  just 
as  with  the  first,  and  even  still  oftener."  Hut  to  this 
j  lire-eminent  common  peculiarity,  there  correspond  also 
•'  many  less  manifest  common  characteristic  features  of 
technical  form.  It  is  peculiar  to  Isaiah  to  repeat  a 
j  catch-word  used  in  the  middle  of  the  verse  at  the  end 
of  the  verse.  It  is  the  figure  of  repetition  (e/xoia- 

,  Jthora)  or  recurrence  (see  XacgulsbacVs  Remarks  on  the  Iliad, 
p.  43,  22.')),  which  outside  the  book  of  l>aiah  occurs  propor 
tionally  seldom  comp.  Gc.  xxxv.  12;  Le.  xxv.  11;  but  which  in 
the  book  of  Isaiah  occurs  as  frequently  in  the  disputed 

passages,    ch.  xiii.  10;  xxxiv.  'J;  xl.  ill;  xlii.  15,  1!);  li.  ].'{;  liii.fi,  7;  liv. 

4,  i:;;  k.  4;  Mil.  2;lix.  s;lxiv.5,  as  in  the  undisputed,  ch.  i.  r; 
xiv.  25;  XT.  S;  xxx.  20;  in  the  former  (so  far  as  our  observa 
tion  extends)  even  still  oftener.  The  observation  of 
such  Isaian  idioms,  which  run  in  equal  numbers  through 
the  whole  collection,  richly  counterbalances  the  isolated 
words  and  phrases  fished  out  of  the  prophecies  in  dis- 
1  pute — words  and  phrases  which,  because  they  do  not 
I  occur  in  the  acknowledged  prophecies,  are  to  be 
reckoned  as  proofs  of  the  spuriousness  of  those  others. 
This  mode  of  proof,  which  Knobel  especially  has  culti 
vated,  is  external  and  one-sided.  The  fair  and  just 
critic  must  have  his  eyes  as  open  for  what  is  conform 
able  as  for  what  is  discrepant,  and  must  not  count 
but  weigh  both.  We  assert  confidently,  that  what 
coincides  with  the  acknowledged  prophecies,  in  those 
which  are  disputed  preponderates;  while  many  a  thing 
which  is  singular  may  be  expected  in  them  on  this 
account,  that  they  are  the  last  productions  of  the  pro 
phet,  and,  so  to  speak,  the  children  of  his  old  age. 
Let  one  read  for  example  ch.  xiii.-xiv.  1-23.  This  oracle 
respecting  Babylon  begins  immediately,  vcr.  2,  with 
favourite  figures  of  Isaiah — the  lifting  up  of  the  banner 
and  the  shaking  of  the  hand:  and  in  ver.  3  there  meets 
us  the  peculiarly  Isaian  designation  «rflKJ  'I'Vy  ('»,'/ 

proudly  exult iny  one*),  which  Zephaniah,  ch.iii.  n,  has 
borrowed.  Or  let  one  test  the  beginning  of  the  las  i^ 
alleged  i  spurious  cycle,  ch.  xxiv.-xxvii.  It  begins  with  n«;-| 
(behold).  This  n:n  is  a  favourite  of  Isaiah:  it  always 
introduces  with  him  something  future,  e.g.  ch.iii.  i;  xvii.  1; 
\ix.  i;  xxx.  27;  and  prophecies  which  begin  thus  imme 
diately  with  ^«n>  aro  found  only  with  Isaiah,  and 
with  no  other  prophet;  for  at  Je.  xlvii.  2,  xlix.  35,  cump. 
ch.  li.  i;  r.zc.  xxix.  3,  introductory  formulas  precede  the  n;n 

(bchnhl).  To  the  "behold''  at  the  beginning  of  the 
introduction  (here  occupied  with  the  theme)  ch.  xxiv. 
1-3,  there  corresponds  at  the  end  the  confirmatory  for 
the  LORD  liaih  spoken;  which  occurs,  not  indeed  exclu 
sively  with  Isaiah,  but  yet  especially  with  this  pro 
phet,  cli.i.  2(i;  xxi.  17;  xxii.  25;  and  passim.  And  does  not 

one  recognize  Isaiah  also  in  the  detailed  enumeration, 
ch.  xxiv.  2  ?  which  may  be  compared  with  the  enumera 
tion  of  what  is  high  and  exalted,  ch.  ii.  12-1G;  of  the 


ISAIAH                                     S07  ISAIAH 

props  of  the  state,  ch.  iii.  12.  ft'.:  of  the  articles  of  a  most  reproductive-  of  all  the  prophet*  EvervthiiK" 
lady's  toilette,  ch.  iii.  1S-23  }  Or  let  one.  vice  versa,  that  was  not  yet  fulfilled  in  the  Assyrian  time  of  jud." 
take  his  stand-point  in  an  acknowledged  cycle  of  pro-  ment,  and  whose  fulfilment  impended  in  presence  of 
phecy  like  ch.  xxviii.-xxxiii..  what  striking  parallels  to  the  Chaldean  time  of  judgment,  is  by  Zephaniah  ga- 
ch.  xl.-lxvi.  meet  us  there!  Let  one  compare  eh.  thered  together  with  lively^ompendious  brevity  into  a 
xxviii.  r,,  with  Ixii.  3;  ch.  xxix.  23,  with  Ix.  :21  ;  ch.  mosaic  picture,  with  retrospective  reference' to  the 
5^  with  xiii.  8;  ch.  xxx.  i2i.i,  with  Ix.  Hi,  ff.:  earlier  prophets  from  Isaiah  to  Joel.  And  Jeremiah, 
the  finishing  sentence  (ejjijt/toitcm)  ch.  xxxiii.  i24,  with  placed  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Chaldean  time  of  judg- 
.xlv.  -2->.  Ix.  12:2:  also,  =.- — -,.  (streams  of  waters],  ch.  ment.  brings  together  in  his  book  all  the  prophecies  of 
xxx.  12.-;.  which  occurs  besides  only  at  ch.  xliv.  4.  eomp.  the  Assyrian  and  pre-Assyrian  peri.,,1  still  unfulfilled. 
ch.xli.  i*.  Indeed,  if  Isaiah  is  not  the  author  ,,f  ch.  Everywhere  here  is  the  echo  of  older  prophecies  idea-/ 
xl.-lxvi.  th.-n  must  it  have  been  a  follower  of  Isaiah  and  expressions  perceptible:  and  there  appear 'in  the 
one  who  has  so  thorou-hly  imbibed  Isaiah's  spirit  and  elegiac  flow  of  Jeremiah's  discourse,  carried  forward  by 
manner,  that  he  has  become,  as  it  were,  his  counter-  it,  and  dissolved  into  it.  parts  borrowed  sometimes 
part.  And  this  great  prophet,  who  even  outshines  from  Hosea  and  Amos,  .sometimes  from  Nalmrn  and 
the  Solomon-like  glory  of  the  old  Isaiah,  and  whose  Habakkuk.  Among  these  ingredients  there  are  also 
language  stands  in  relation  to  that  of  the  ..Id  Isaiah  found  reminiscences  from  the  disputed  prophecies 
as  a  spiritual  bod;i  to  a  lj,,d;i.  was  an  anony-  of  the  book  ,,f  Isaiah,  and  especially  from  ch.  xl.-lxvi. 
mous  person!  He  had  lived  during  the  exile,  and  in  There  are  connections  which  exclude  the  possibility  of 
fact  towards  the  end  of  the  exile,  between  r.Cn  and  chance.  And  this  only  is  matter  of  question,  whether 
f.:;s.  the  year  in  which  Cyrus  appeared  as  victor  over  in  this  case  Isaiah  is  "the  original  for  Zephaniah  and 
Astyages,  and  the  year  in  which  he  plundered  Babylon;  Jeremiah,  or  whether  a  later  pseudo  Isaiah  has  copied 
and  the  returned  people  had  forgotten  the  name  of  the  these  two  prophets.  The  latter  view  is  not  probable, 
latest  of  all  the  Old  Testament  prophets,  of  this  when  we  think  of  the  widely  extended  relation  of  de- 
evangelist  of  the  Old  Testament,  whose  lanurua-v  is  pendence  ill  which  Zephaniah  and  Jeremiah  stand  to 


Besides  this  lir-t  argument  f..r  the  au-  ch.  iii.  4.  ft.;  coinp.  Is.  xlvii.:  ch.  ii.  1,  coinp.  Is.  Hi.  ~\ 
thenticity  of  the  disputed  prophecies  of  the  fint  part.  1:.  That  Xahum  elsewhere  also  repeats  what  belong 
and  for  the  authenticity  of  the  second  part,  there  is  the  to  I.-aiah  is  clear  from  ch.  ii.  11,  coinp.  Is.  xxiv.  1;  ch. 
following  additional  one.  The  second  part  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  iii.  I:;,  com],.  Is.  xix.  H5.  •_'.  Vrmn  ZcjJtanialt,  c\i.  ii. 

with  its  theme,  its  stand  point,  its  style,  its  ideas,  is      1.1,  coinp.    Is.    xlvii.  S,   lu:    ch.  iii.  ]n,   c,,mp.    Is.   Ixvi. 
thnm-hout  ch.  i.-xxxix.  in  continual   progress  towards 
making   its  appearance.      Let   one    read,   for   example, 
ch.  xxii.   11:    xxv.  1:    xxxvii.  •_'•;.       The    thought    here 


tliis  tli.  .light,  which   is  only   hinted  at  there,  pervades  so  loud  that  Movers,   Hit/.i-    and  1  >,•  \Vette  look  upon 

ch.   xl.-lxvi.   in  manifold   echoes.      Another  example:  the  prophecy  as  interpolated  by  a  pseudo-Isaiah.      But 

what   ch.    xi.  M.   If.:   .xxx.   -2<>.   and    other  passages,    say  that    one    ].r<,ph.-t    should    have   looked    over  and   re- 

respectin-  the  future  <;lori!i.-ation  of  the  heavenly  and  touched  the  prophecy  of  another,  just  as  a  teacher  the 

earthly  creation,  this  the  second   part  repeats,  in  nobly  copy  ,,f  his  scholar,  is  in  itself  even  a  low  view,  which 

finished  pictures;  and   partly,  as  at  ch.  Ixv.  •_':,,  in   pn-  is   as   much   inconsistent    with   the   moral  as  with   the 

cisely  the  same   words.      But   as    regards  the  doubtful  supernatural    character  of  proph.-cv.        Further,    there 

prophecies  of  the  }ir>t  part.  viz.  ch.  xiii.  1-xiv.  •_':!:  xxi.  are  found  in  that  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  against   Baby- 

1-H>:  xxiii.:    xxiv.-xxvii.;   xxxiv.-xxxv.—  they  an-   in  Ion.  echoes  also  of   Is.   xiii.  xiv.;  of  ch.  xxi.  ]-ln;  and 

every  respect  a  series  introductory  to  the  second   part,  of  ch.  xxxiv.-  just  such  pieces  as  the  more  recent  criti- 

and,  as  it  were,  paving  the  way  and  serving  as  a  piv-  cism  does  not  assign  to  one  and   the  same  author  with 

hide  to  it,      Here  also  the  prophet   has  his  stand  point  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  :   one  would   therefore   be  under  the  neces- 

bey.md  the  Assyrian  period  in  the    Babylonian.     The  sity  of  assuming  several  interpolators,  which  is  absurd. 

stand-point    is    equally    ideal,    the    language    equally  Thirdly,    that    inter].olatio)i-liypolliesis     is    completely 

soaring  and  musical,  the  contents  equally  apocalyptic,  dashed   in    pieces   by    this   fact,   that  the   prophecy  of 

These   prophecies,    whose   authors    the   later    criticism  Jeremiah  against    Babylon   is   in   general   a  mosaic  of 

falsely   alleges   to    be   prophets    unknown   and    distinct  older  prophecies,   one  might  almost  say,  an  anthology; 

from  the  ureat  anonymous  writer,  are,  as  maybe  shown,  for  here  they  are  all.  as  it  were,  planted   together  in  a 

and  in  part  has  been  already  shown  by  Caspari,  up  to  the  garden,   in   which   they  again    come   into  bloom.       If, 

minutest  fibres.  Isaian.      With  respect  to  chapters  \h-  then,  Isaian  elements  meet  us  here,  we  shall  not  reckon 

Ixvi..  they  stand  in  the  collection  as  life-guards  running  them  as  original,  though  also  not  as  interpolated,   but 

on   before.      They  are   the   steps   on  which  Isaiah   has  as  again  made  use  of;   as  the  name  Holy  One  of  Israel, 

mounted  to  the  height  on  which  he  soars  inch,  xl.-lxvi.  also,  which  is  twice  applied   to  (bid  in  this  prophecy, 

'•'>.   Another  incontrovertible  argument  for  the  genuine-  has  its  ori-in  in  the  mouth  of  Isaiah.      (/,),  The  passage 

ness   of   ch.    xl.-lxvi.    and    the   other   prophecies   which  respecting  the  nothingness  of   the  gods  of   the  heathen 

stand  and  fall  with  the  second  part,  is  the  relation  of  in    comparison    with  Jehovah  of   Israel,    ch.   x.    1-16; 

dependence  in  which  later  prophets  from  N  ahum  on-  compare    especially    Is.    xliv.    1:>-1.";     xli.    7;    xlvi.   7. 

wards,   especially  Zephaniah   and  Jeremiah,   stand  to  ,'  Here  also  Movers  and  his  followers  explain  the  connec- 

these   prophecies.      Zephaniah   and   Jeremiah  are  the  |  tion  in  this  way,  that  the  pseudo-Isaiah  has  introduced 


ISAIAH 

something  of  his  own  into  the  discourse  of  Jeremiah. 
But  this  hypothesis  refutes  itself  by  this  circumstance, 
that  the  verses  alleged  to  be  smuggled  in  bear  evident 
traces  of  Jeremian  peculiarity  in   themselves,    as  has  [ 
been  shown  by  Caspari.  and  in  the  concluding  observa-  i 
tions  of  Drechsler's  Ita'tak.    (<"),  The  comforting  call,  ch. 
xxx.  10,  ff.  (repeated  ch.  xlvi.  27,  it'.)  in  which  Israel  is 
addressed  as  tr\yy  (my  tscrrant),  which  occurs  nowhere 

else  in  Jeremiah,  and  in  no  Old  Testament  book  except 
Isaiah.  I'.ut,  besides,  this  passage  has  also  such  a 
deutero-Isaian  ring,  that,  because  .-landing  alone  with 
this  peculiarity  in  the  book  of  Jeremiah,  it  is  to  be 
looked  upon  either  as  inserted  or  as  imitated.  The 
view  that  it  is  inserted,  has  against  it  in  both  passages 
where  it  occurs,  ch.  xx.v.  10,  ff.;  and  xlvi.  27,  ff.;  the  close  con 
nection  out  of  which  it  grows;  we  shall  therefore  reckon 
it  as  imitated.  The  passages  adduced  are  by  no  means 
all:  thev  are  only  the  chief  passages  which  prove  that 
Nahnm.  Zephaniah,  and  Jeremiah,  or  at  least  the  two 
last,  had  before  them  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah — the 
doubtful  not  less  than  the  undoubtedly  genuine — and 
applied  them  to  their  own  use.  We  need  not  be 
stumbled  by  this  dependent  relation.  Every  prophet 
has  indeed  his  own  individual  peculiarity,  which  the 
Spirit  of  (Jod  makes  serviceable  to  his  own  end;  but  all 
selfishly  exclusive  maintenance  of  it  is  lost  in  the  con 
sciousness  of  his  being  only  a  member  in  the  organism 
of  revelation,  and  of  the  instruments  subservient  to  it. 
Hence  a  following  prophet  does  not  think  it  beneath 
him  diligently  to  appropriate  to  himself  expressions  and 
views  of  his  predecessors;  or  he  reproduces  those  which 
have  become  his  own  spiritual  property  involuntarily. 

There  are  thus  three  proofs  by  which  the  traditional 
testimony  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  disputed  pro 
phecies  is  immovably  established  :  1.  The  disputed  pro 
phecies  are  not  so  nearly  related  to  any  prophet  as  to  the 
author  of  those  which  are  recognized  as  genuine.  2.  The 
genuine  prophecies  contain  the  Mntimi  <f  stamina  (seeda 
and  stems)  of  the  disputed  ones,  and  present  to  our  ob 
servation  the  progressive  origin  of  the  peculiarity  of  these 
latter.  3.  Zcphaiiiah  and  Jeremiah  were  acquainted  with 
the  disputed  prophecies  no  less  than  with  the  incontes- 
tably  genuine;  the  former  also  thus  date  from  before  the 
exile,  and  are  thus  by  the  old  Isaiah.  In  presence  of 
these  proofs  we  must  bring  into  subjection  every  thought 
exalting  itself  against  obedience  to  the  fact.  It  is 
certainly  singular  that  Isaiah,  in  a  time  when  the 
Assyrian  empire  still  stood,  already  predicts  the  fall  of 
the  Chaldean  by  means  of  the  Medes  and  Persians; 
and  still  more  singular,  that  everywhere  in  ch.  xl.-lxvi. 
he  speaks  as  if  he  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  exile  among 
the  exiles.  It  is  elsewhere  the  peculiarity  of  prophecy 
— the  book  of  Daniel  and  of  the  Apocalypse  included — • 
that  it  has  its  root  in  the  soil  of  the  present;  out  of 
this  it  grows,  and  from  this  it  raises  its  summit  in  the 
distant  future.  Frequently,  indeed,  is  it  the  case  that 
a  prophet  is  transported  from  his  real  present,  and 
placed  in  the  future;  but  yet  in  such  a  way  that  he 
goes  forth  from  his  real  present  and  returns  to  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  one  looks  in  vain  in  Is.  xl.-lxvi.  for  the 
prophet  anywhere  in  the  course  of  these  twenty- seven 
chapters  making  the  distinction  observable  between  his 
ideal  and  real  present.  One  has  thought  to  find  this 
exchange  of  situation  in  some  passages;  but  by  that 
self -deception  which  frequently  meets  headlong  apolo 
getic  zeal.  No,  the  author  of  Is.  xl.-lxvi.  is  through- 


ISAIAII 

out,  not  in  Judea,  but  in  Babylon.  The  exile  is  the 
stand-point  from  which  he  lookij  into  the  future;  the 
people  of  the  exile  is  the  community  to  which  he 
preaches  ;  the  outward  and  inward  circumstances  of 
the  exiles  are  the  motives  according  to  which  his  sermon 
shapes  itself.  The  exile  has  already  lasted  a  very  long 
time  (oS"^!  ljut  Cyrus  has  already  appeared,  in  whom 

the  spirit  of  prophecy  recognizes  the  conqueror  of 
Babylon  and  the  deliverer  of  Israel.  The  redemption 
is  at  the  door;  and  only  in  so  far  as  this  moves  nearer 
and  nearer,  is  the  stand-point  of  the  prophet  in  some 
measure  movable.  But  over  and  above,  the  exile  is 
and  remains  the  home  of  all  his  thoughts;  and  Hitzig 
is  right  in  this,  that  such  an  indigenousness  in  the 
future,  maintained  throughout  twenty-seven  chapters, 
is  without  example  in  prophetic  literature.  But  argu 
ments  founded  on  fact  compel  us  to  hold  what  is 
otherwise  unprecedented  as  true  and  real.  Nor  is  it 
even  absolutely  incomprehensible.  Rightly  has  Heng- 
steiiberg  compared  these  discourses  of  Isaiah,  of  which 
the  ]  precursors  are  the  contested  prophecies  of  the  first 
part,  with  the  Deuteronomic  last  discourses  of  Closes 
in  the  plains  of  Moab,  and  with  the  last  discourses  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  in  the  circle  of  his  own.  They  are  a 
last  will  and  testament  of  Isaiah  to  the  community  of 
the  exile  and  of  the  time  of  redemption.  They  have 
sprung  from  revelations  which  Isaiah  received  after  the: 
fifteenth  year  of  Hezekiah.  In  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  which  according  to  tradition  extended  to  the  be 
ginning  of  Manasseh's  reign,  Isaiah  was  no  longer  so 
publicly  active  as  before.  He  had  retired;  we  can 
understand  why :  1.  After  the  Assyrian  catastrophe, 
bv  means  of  which  Isaiah's  public  ministry  had  reached 
the  crowning  point  of  its  verification,  there  followed  a 
period  of  tranquil  and  orderly  now.  In  such  times  the 
order  of  prophets  is  accustomed  to  step  into  the  back 
ground;  the  impulses  are  wanting  which  call  forth 
their  denunciations,  threatenings,  and  consolations. 
2.  Up  to  the  fourteenth  year  of  Hezekiah  Isaiah  had 
seen,  immediately  behind  the  fall  of  Assyria,  the  rise 
of  the  time  of  Messianic  glory.  But  the  catastrophe 
took  place  without  this  time  of  glory  bursting  forth. 
The  prophet  saw  that  catastrophe  and  this  glory  to 
gether,  according  to  the  law  of  perspective  foreshorten 
ing.  Now,  however,  after  that  the  nearer  future  had 
been  realized,  the  glorious  restoration  of  Israel,  with 
the  sufferings  preceding  it,  moved  back  in  the  prophet's 
view  into  the  more  remote  distance.  His  look  was  now 
directed  away  from  Assyria  to  Babylon.  Placed  in  the 
midst  of  the  exile,  which  already,  at  ch.  v.  13,  vi.  12,  xi. 
11,  ff.,  xxvii.  13,  comp.  xxii.  18,  he  recognizes  as  the 
unavoidable  destiny  of  Judah  as  well  as  Israel,  and 
which  in  ch.  xxxix.  he  expressly  predicts  as  a  Baby 
lonian  one,  he  announces,  for  the  comfort  of  believers, 
the  fall  of  Babylon,  and  sees  in  this  catastrophe  the 
decisive  step  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  salvation. 
The  contested  discourses  of  the  first  and  second  part  have 
grown  out  of  the  same  prophetic  certainty  as  expresses 
itself  in  Mi.  iv.  10,  that  Babylon  will  become  the  place 
of  punishment  and  of  redemption  for  the  daughter  c  if 
Zion.  This  knowledge  lay  also  naturally  not  far  off. 
Since  747  (the  beginning  of  the  era  of  Nabonaszar)  the 
Chaldeans  were  in  possession  of  the  viceroyship  (sa 
trapy  1  of  Babylon,  and  in  the  time  of  Hezekiah  the 
tributary  kings  of  Babylon  sought  to  free  themselves 
from  Assyria,  and  to  drive  her  from  the  possession  of 


ISAIAH 


SIlO 


ISAIAH 


the  imperial  power:  as  is  now  attested,  also,  by  the 
royal  annals  of  the  Assyrian  monuments,  although  we 
do  not  yet  venture  to  make  use  of  these  monumental 
remains  as  historical  sources.  This  much  however  is 
certain,  that  the  kings  of  Assyria  were  in  perpetual 
conflict  with  the  satraps  of  Babylon,  and  that  they 
sought  to  secure  for  themselves  the  possession  of  Baby 
lon  by  placing  brothers  and  sons  in  the  vuvroyship. 
The  Medes  also,  the  future  heirs  of  the  Chaldean  impe 
rial  power,  stood  already  ominouslv  enough  mi  the 
theatre  of  history:  they  had  broken  loose  from  Assyria, 
and  were  forming  an  independent  kingdom.  This  be 
ginning  of  the  Median  monarchy  with  Oejoces  falls. 
according  to  the  testimonies  of  Herodotus  and  1  >iodorus. 
betwixt  the  end  of  the  summer  of  71  ]  and  the  end  of 
tile  summer  of  71".  thus  about  the  time  of  the  downfall 
of  Sennacherib.  There  were  contemporary  foreshadow- 
ings  of  this  circumstance,  that  the  Chaldeans  would  he 
the  next  heirs  of  the  Assyrian  power,  and  the  Medes 
the  next  heirs  .if  the  Chaldean.  A  prophet.  howe\vr. 
is  not  directed  to  political  combinations.  We  point  to 
this,  only  because  it  ir-  peculiar  to  prophecy  to  attach 
itself  to  the  movements  of  the  future  in  tin-  womb  of 
the  present,  and  because  it  is  called  to  point  out  the-  siVns 
of  the  times.  Besides,  we  dare  not  a>-i_'ii,  •>  priori, 
impassable  limits  to  the  working  of  the  spirit  of  pn>- 
phecv.  How  far  the  glance  of  a  prophet  extends,  is 
not  to  be  measured  according  to  the  situation  of  the 
present,  but  is  determined  according  to  the  will  of  the 
revealing  Spirit.  The  hm-i/.i m  of  a  prophet  is  al\\ay- 
narrower  or  wider  according  to  his  chari-ma. 

V  I  I .  Now  that  we  have  convinced  ourselves,  by  the 
method  of  unprejudiced  in\  v-tiuation.  that  l>aiah  is  to 
be  regarded  as  the  author  of  the  \\hole  of  the  prophetic 
discourses  which  the  collection  contains.  let  us  inquire, 
wlio  arranged  this  colled  i..n  of  l-aiah'>  discoursi 
who  is  tin  \dltor  of  tin  /,„„/•  nf  Itniaht  That  Isaiah 
himself  has  edited  his  book  of  prophf-cv  is.  at  the  out 
set,  by  no  means  mdikelv.  The  most  of  the  bonks  of 
prophecy  which  the  canon  contains  are  edited  bv  the 
prophets  themselves  whose  names  they  bear.  Tims, 
for  example,  it  is  not  to  he  doubted  that  Micah  lias  in 
his  book  gathered  together  compendiouslv,  into  a  chro 
nologically  indis  isilile  whole,  the  contents  of  his  pro 
phetic  announcements  under  .lotham.  Aha/,  and 
He/.ekiah.  And  that  K/.ekiel  arranged  and  pulili-hed 
his  prophecies,  just  as  we  have  them,  no  one  doubts. 
not  even  Ilit/.i^.  It  mav  be  a-ked,  however,  whether 

the   case    does    not    perhaps    .-tand    with    the    1 k    of 

Isaiah  precise! v  as  with  the  book  of  .leremiah.  We 
know  from  himself,  that  , leremiah  dictated  his  prophe 
cies  in  the  fourth  year  of  .lehoiakim  to  Barueh,  but 
that  Jehoiakilli  destroyed  this  roll,  and  that  the  prophet 
then  reproduced  it  with  additions,  so  that  lie  twice 
edited  his  prophecies  in  a  book.  Nevertheless,  the 
hook  of  .Jeremiah,  as  we  have  it,  cannot  be  that  second 
edition  of  the  prophet  in  its  original  form.  One  of  the 
leading  arguments,  which  tell  against  it.  is  this,  that 
the  hook  has  an  appendix,  viz.  eh.  lii.,  which  is  intro 
duced  from  the  second  hook  of  Kings,  and  that  the 
hand  of  the  collector  (Sidcr/cei'dor?};),  who  betrays  him 
self  thereby,  has  also  extended  the  text  of  Jeremiah,  at 
ch.  xxxviii.  '28-xxxix.  14.  from  the  second  book  of 
Kings.  Does  the  matter  then  stand  precisely  so  with 
the  book  of  Isaiah  •  It  also  contains  a  historical  sec 
tion,  ch.  xxxvi  -xxxiv  ,  which  we  read  a  second  time  at 

'2  Ki.  xviii.  13-xix.      This  section  describes  the  ministrv 
VOL.  I. 


'  of  Isaiah  during  the  last  years  of  the  Assyrian  epoch. 
If  it  has  been  introduced  from  the  second  book  of  Kings 
into  the  book  of  Isaiah,  then  it  would  follow  neces 
sarily  therefrom,  that  Isaiah  is  not  himself  the  editor 
of  his  prophecies.  lUit  that  premiss  shows  itself  to  be 
untenable,  and  therefore  also  this  conclusion.  Although 

;  the  text  of  this  historical  section  in  the  book  of  Kin^s, 
critically  considered,  is  in  many  respects  better  than 
the  text  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  yet  the  true  state  of 
matters  is  this,  that  the  author  of  the  book  of  Kind's 
has  taken  the  passage  in  question  from  the  book  of 
Isaiah.  The  quality  of  the  text  proves  nothini;-  either 
for  or  against,  for  the  text  also  of  the  historical  section, 
L' Ki.  xxiv.  l>->  xv  ;  .Jcr.  Hi.has  been  preserved  purer,  and 
more  faithful  in  the  book  of  .leremiah.  namdv.  in  the 
secondary  passage,  than  in  the  source  whence  it  has 
flowed  into  the  book  of  .leremiah.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  originality  of  the  section  in  the  book  of  Isaiah  results 
from  the  following  arguments:  1.  The  arrangement  of 
the  four  histories,  which  it  contains,  corresponds  to  the 
plan  of  the  book  of  Isaiah:  the  two  tir-t  of  these  narra 
tives  contain  the  clo-imr  act  of  the  .\s-vrian  drama, 
the  two  others  form  the  transition  to  the  second  part 
•  >f  the  hook,  ,-h  \!  -Ixvi.,  which  has  the  Babylonian  exile 
for  it-  stand-point  and  its  -ph. re.  '2.  The  psalm  of 

kinu  He/.kiah  is  wanting  in  the  I k  of  Kings,  and  it 

may  be  easily  conceived  why  it  was  dropped  there. 

'  .'{.  We  have  also  an  indirect  express  testimony  for  the 
view,  that  the  section  in  question  in  the  book  of  Tsaiah 
is  oii/mai.  The  chronicler  says,  at  the  close  of  the  his 
tory  of  He/ekiah's  ivi_jn.  _  ch  \\xii  :>J,  "  Now  the  rest 
of  tii«-  acts  of  He/.ekiah.  .-Hid  his  goodlle-s,  behold,  tllev 
are  written  in  //,<  rixiuii  nf  /  ..•.//.//,  tin  prophet,  tin-  *<>n 
<>f  Am<>:,  in  (InM  H«  uo»/c  of  tie  kinri»  of  Judali  «i«l, 

fxmrl."  Int. i  the  -real  I k  of  Kinu's.  \\hich  is  the 

chief  source  of  the  chronicler,  there  had  thus  passed 


iver  a  hi-torical  report  respecting  Ile/ekiah  from 
T" i,'w;>  i;:r  (fix/on  "/  /.-••"'"/',  which  i-  the  title  of  this 
look i.  .mite  iii  the  same  wav  as  into 


i  '!.' 

quite  in  the  .-ame  way  as  into  our  canonical 

1 k  of  Kin-s.  which  Iike\\i-e  was  in  (he  hands  of  the 

chronicler.  I.  That  the  author  of  the  canonical  book 
of  Kiicjx  had  our  book  of  Isaiah  before  him  among  his 
original  materials,  we  see  from  -J  Ki.  \\i.  ',.  a  passage 
which  wa-  written  \\itli  an  eve  on  Is.  \ii.  1.  fj.  Then 
we  learn  from  Is  vii.l.ti'.:  xx.,  especially  viii.  1-4;  comp. 
vi.  1,  that  Isaiah  lias  incorporated  historical  communi 
cations  with  his  prophecies,  and  that  in  these  he  related 
matt'-rs  about  himself  sometimes  in  the  first  person, 
sometime-;,  as  at  eh.  xxxvi. -xxxix  ,  in  the  third.  In 
addition  to  this,  Isaiah,  as  '2  Cliron.  xxvi.  '2 '2  attests, 
was  also  the  author  of  a  historical  monograph  mi  king 
I'z/.iah.  And  why  should  not  the  section,  ch.  xxxvi. - 
xxxix..  if  we  regard  it  without  prejudice,  !•»•  from 
I>aiah's  own  hand;  Modern  criticism  certainly  holds 
this  to  be  impossible,  because  of  the  miracles  there  re 
lated.  But  Isaiah  must  certainly  have  reckoned  himself 
as  a  wonder-worker,  since  he  offers  his  services  to  king 
Aha/  for  a  heavenly  or  earthly  miracle,  according  to 
his  likin<_T.  And  that  .Jehovah  himself  is  a  Cod  that 
doeth  wonders,  is  a  fundamental  supposition  of  pro 
phecy.  That  in  particular  he  will  loose  the  Assyrian 
knot,  which  the  unbelief  of  Ahaz  has  tied,  by  means  of 
a  miracle,  Isaiah  expressly  predicts.  This  loosing 
chapters  xxxvi.  and  xxxvii.  record  :  the  scene  of  the 
close,  as  of  the  beginning  of  the  Assyrian  drama,  is  the 
conduit  of  the  upper  pool  in  the  fiiy/tu-ai/  of  t/tc  fuller's 

'102 


fSATATI 


810 


ISAIAH 


jk/d,  di.  vii.  ?,;  xxxvi.-J.  Tlie  stylo  in  which  this  whole 
historical  section  is  written,  is  not  the  annalistic,  but 
tin-  prophetic  style  of  history,  for  these  two  types  of 
historical  style  are  to  be  distinguished:  one  is  aide 
in  tin;  canonical  book  of  Kings  to  separate  with  great 
certainty  what  belongs  to  the  one  and  what  to  the 
other  manner  of  writing  history.  And  how  worthy  of 
Isaiah  is  this  historical  section  written  with  prophetic 
pen!  The  representation  is  noble,  elegant,  pictorial, 
worthy  of  being  compared  witli  the  most  glorious  pro 
ductions  of  Hebrew  historical  writing.  The  historical 
section,  di.  xxxvi.-xxxix.,  is  thus  not  opposed  to  the  view 
that  Isaiah  himself  has  arranged  his  prophecies  just  as 
we  have  them.  That  the  collection  does  not  contain 
pseudo-fsaian  prophecies,  which  demand  a  post-isaian 
editor,  we  have  already  seen.  There  just  remains  the 
question,  whether  perhaps  the  collection  is  so  destitute 
of  plan,  that  on  this  account  its  composition  may  not  be 
traced  back  to  Isaiah.  Ewald  and  others  are  of  opinion 
that  the  collection  exhibits  itself  as  a  confused  mass.  But 
this  reproach  rests  upon  ignorance.  It  is  of  course  not 
arranged  chronologically  so  far  as  details  are  concerned. 
The  succession  of  time  forms  only  the  lowest  scaffold 
ing.  For  all  the  dates  which  meet  us,  viz.  ch.  vi.  1; 
yii.  1;  xiv.  LiS;  xx.  1;  xxxvi.  1,  are  points  in  a  progres 
sive  line.  In  other  respects  also,  on  the  whole,  chrono 
logical  progress  is  evident.  The  Uzziah- Jotham  aroup, 

O  I  C  O  i   ' 

ch.  i.-vi.,  is  followed  by  an  Ahaz  one,  ch.  vii.-xii.,  and 
this  by  a  Hezekiah  one,  ch.  xiii.-xxxix.,  and  this  bv  the 
latest  altogether  esoteric  one,  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  But  this 
chronological  arrangement  is  in  particulars  interrupted 
in  many  ways,  especially  within  the  circle  of  the  oracles 
against  the  heathen,  ch.  xiii.-xxiii.  It  may  be  asked  then, 
whether  this  interruption  also  has  motives  of  design. 
We  may  presume  so,  for  the  books  of  Jeremiah  also  (as 
we  have  it)  and  Ezekiel  are  so  drawn  up  that  the  ar 
rangement  according  to  time  is  subordinated  to  a  higher 
arrangement  according  to  matter. 

S^III.  So  is  it  also  in  the  book  of  Isaiah:  not  only 
the  contents  of  this  book,  but  also  the  disposition  of  its 
separate  parts,  bears  the  stamp  of  the  kingly  spirit  of 
the  prophet,  as  will  be  shown,  if  we  now  consider  the 
Arrangement  of  the  Cu/lcctlon.  The  book  of  Isaiah  falls 
into  two  halves,  ch.  i.-xxxix.,  xl.-lxvi.  The  first  half  is 
divided  into  seven  parts,  and  the  second  into  three. 
One  may  call  the  first  half  the  Assyrian,  for  its  goal  is 
the  fall  of  Assyria;  the  second  the  Babylonian,  for  its 
goal  is  the  redemption  from  Babylon.  But  the  first 
half  is  not  purely  Assyrian,  for  betwixt  the  Assyrian 
pieces  Babylonian  ones  are  inserted,  and  in  general 
such  as  interrupt  the  chronologically  restricted  horizon 
of  those  Assyrian  pieces.  The  seven  parts  of  the  first 
half  are  the  following,  viz.  1.  Prophecies  while  the  mass 
of  the  people  are  on  the  way  to  hardening,  ch.  ii.-vi. 

2.  The  comfort  of  Immanuel  during  the  Assyrian  cala 
mities,  ch.  vii.-xii.    These  two  parts  form  a  syzygy  (pair). 
It  ends  in  a  psalm  of  the  redeemed,  ch.  xii.,  the  echo  at 
the   end  of  days  of  the  song  by  the  Red  Sea.     It  is 
divided  into  two  parts  by  the  consecration  of  the  pro 
phet,  ch.  vi.,  which  looks  threatening  and  promising  on 
the   opposite  sides.     It  is  introduced   by  a  summary 
preface,  ch.  [.,  in  which  Isaiah,  the  prophet  placed  mid 
way  betwixt  Moses  and  Jesus  the  Christ,  begins  in  the 
manner  of  the  great  testamentary  song  of  Moses,  De.  xxxii. 

3.  This  is  folio  wed,  ch.  xiii.-xxiii ,  by  prophecies  of  judgment 
and  salvation  to  the  heathen,  belonging  for  the  most 
part  to  the  Assyrian  time  of  judgment,  but  inclosed 


and  divided  into  two  parts  by  Babylonian  pieces. 
For  a  prophecy  respecting  Babylon,  ch.  xiii. -xiv.  23, 
the  city  of  the  imperial  power,  forms  the  commence 
ment;  an  oracle  respecting  Tyre,  ch.  xxiii.,  the  city  of 
the  world's  commerce,  which  receives  its  death-blow 
from  the  Chaldeans,  forms  the  conclusion,  and  a  second 
prophecy  respecting  the  wilderness  by  the  sea,  i.e.  Baby 
lon,  ch.  xxi.  1-10,  forms  the  middle  of  this  ingeniously 
laid  out  collection  of  oracles  respecting  the  circle  of 
nations  outside  Israel.  4.  To  this  collection  is  at 
tached  a  great  apocalyptic  prophecy  respecting  the 
judgment  of  the  world  and  the  last  things,  which  gives 
it  a  background  losing  itself  in  eternity,  and  together 
with  it  forms  a  second  sy/ygv,  ch.  xxiv.-xxvii.  ~>.  From 
these  farthest  eschatologic  distances  the  prophet  then 
returns  to  the  reality  of  the  present  and  of  the  nearest 
future,  when  in  ch.  xxviii.-xxxiii.  he  discusses  the  down 
fall  of  Assyria  and  its  consequences.  The  middle 
point  of  this  group  is  the  prophecy  respecting  the  pre 
cious  cornerstone  laid  in  Zion,  and  this  group  also  is 
matched  by  the  prophet.  6.  In  ch.  xxxiv.  xxxv.,  with 
a  farther  reaching  eschatologic  prophecy  of  revenge 
and  redemption  to  the  church,  a  prophecy  in  which  we 
;  already  hear  the  key-notes  of  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  as  in  a  prelude. 
7.  After  these  three  syzygies,  in  ch.  xxxvi.-xxxix.  we 
are  put  back  by  means  of  the  two  first  histories  into 
the  Assyrian  time,  the  two  others  show  us  from 
afar  the  development  with  Babylon  then  preparing 
itself.  These  four  histories  are  on  purpose  so  arranged, 
giving  the  succession  of  time,  that  they  appear  as  it 
were  Janus-headed,  half  looking  backward,  half  for 
ward,  and  that  in  this  way  the  two  halves  are  by  their 
means  clasped  together.  The  prophecy,  ch.  xxxix.  •>-•, 
stands  betwixt  the  two  halves  like  a  finger-post,  which 
has  the  inscription  S^  (Babel).  In  that  direction 

proceeds  the  onward  course  of  Israel's  history ;  in  that 
direction  is  Isaiah  henceforth  buried  in  spirit  with  his 
people;  there  he  preaches  in  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  to  the  Baby- 

•  Ionian  exiles  the  redemption  near  at  hand. 

As  the  first  half  of  the  collective  book  is  divided 
into  seven  parts,  like  the  books  of  Hosea  and  Amos, 
and  like  Ezekiel' s  oracles  respecting  the  heathen,  ch.  xxv.- 
xxxii.,  so  the  second  half  is  tripartite.  The  tripartite 
arrangement  of  this  cycle  of  prophecy  is  scarce  doubted 
any  more  by  any  one,  since  Riickert  in  his  translation 
and  exposition  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  (1831)  gave 
utterance  to  this  observation.  Not  less  certain  is  it, 
that  each  part  in  itself  consists  of  3  X  3  discourses.  The 
;  division  into  chapters  bears  involuntary  testimony  to 
this,  without  however  everywhere  hitting  on  the  right 
beginnings.  The  first  part  of  this  great  trilogy,  ch. 
xl.-xlviii.,  falls  into  the  following  nine  discourses:  ch. 
xl.,  xli.,  xlii.,  xliii.  1-13,  xliii.  14-xliv.  1-5,  xliv.  6-23, 
xliv.  2-1-xlv.,  xlvi.  xlvii.,  xlviii.  The  second  part,  ch. 
.xlix.-lvii.,  falls  into  the  following  nine  :  ch.  xlix.,  1. ,  li., 
!  lii.  1-12,  lii.  13-liii.,  liv.,  lv.,  Ivi.  1-8,  Ivi.  9-lvii.  The 
j  third  part,  ch.  Iviii.-lxvi..  falls  into  the  following  nine  : 

•  ch.  Iviii.,  lix.,  lx.,  Ixi.,  Ixii.,  Ixiii.  1-6,  Ixiii.  7-lxiv.,  Ixv., 
Ixvi.     Only  in  the  middle  of  the  first  part  is  the  draw- 

;  ing  of  the  boundary  line  somewhat  questionable.  In 
the  two  others  a  mistake  is  quite  impossible.  This 
second  half  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  is  thus  throughout  a 
ternarius  sanctus  (a  sacred  ternary),  just  like  the  gospel 
of  John  (in  the  New  Testament),  which  is  throughout 
arranged  as  a  trilogy.  The  theme  of  ch.  xl.-lxvi.  is  the 
approaching  redemption  and  the  consolation,  but  at 


ISAIAH 


811 


ISAIAH 


the  same  time  a  call  to  repentance  which  it  includes  in 
itself.  For  the  redemption  is  for  that  Israel  which 
remains  faithful  in  confessing  Jehovah  in  calamity  also, 
and  while  the  salvation  is  delayed,  not  for  the  apostates, 
who  deny  Jehovah  in  word  and  deed  and  place  them 
selves  on  a  level  with  the  heathen  :  "  there  /.-;  no  peace, 
saith  the  Lord,  to  the  v:ich<d."'  So  ends  ch.  xlviii.  '2'2, 
the  first  part  of  the  seven-and-twenty  discourses.  The 
second  part  concludes  ch.  Ivii.  '21.  more  forcililv  and 
with  a  fuller  tone  :  "  there  if  /«>  piiff,  .--uit/i  mi/  <,<*d,  to 
the  ir'fked."  And  at  the  end  of  the  third  part,  ch. 
Ixvi.  '2-1,  the  prophet  drops  the  form  of  that  refrain,  and 
gives  utterance  with  the  deepest  pathos,  and  in  a \vfnl 
features  of  description,  to  the  miserable  final  destiny  of 
the  transgressors:  "  tin  ir  worm  slu.iH  nut  die,  iie/t/ur  ?/ta/l 
their  nre  he  q"i  n<-li<d ;  <i,,el  tin ;/  ,</«{//  be  an  al>h<.rriii<i  unto 
all  jtcsk"—  exactly  as  at  the  close  of  the  tilth  hook  of 
Psalms  the  short  form  of  the  blessing ('' M'.W  61',  &«.'') 
is  dropped,  and  a  whole  p-.i'm.  the  hallelujah  1's.  el.. 
takes  its  place.  The  three  parts,  marked  ott'  in  such  a 
way  by  the  propht-t  himself,  an-  only  variations  of  one 
theme,  but  have  each  a  peculiar  element  of  it  as  their 
middle  point,  and  a  peculiar  key-note,  which  is  struck  in 
the  verv  first  words.  In  each  of  the  three  parts  a  dif 
ferent  antithesis  stands  in  the  foreground;  in  tin-  lir^t 
part,  ch  xl. -xlviii ,  the  antithesis  of  Jehovah  and  the  idols, 
of  Israel  and  the  heathen;  in  the  second  part.  di.  xli.v- 
Ivii.,  the  antithe.-is  of  the  Mitt'erin:,'  of  Jehovah s  servant 
in  tlie  present,  and  liis  glory  in  the  future:  in  the  third 
part,  di.  iviii. -Ixvi ,  the  antithesis  within  Israel  its, -If,  \ix. 
the  hypocrites,  the  immoral,  tin-  apostates  "H  th> 
side,  the  faithful,  the  mourners,  the  per.-,  euted  ,,n  the 
other.  For  in  the  first  part  the  redemption  from  l>.-ibv- 
lon  is  represented.  i:i  which  the  prophecy  of  Jehovah, 
the  (loil  of  prophecy  and  the  framer  of  the  world's 
history,  is  fulfilled,  to  the  shame  and  downfall  of  the 
idols  ami  their  worshippers:  in  the  second  part  the  ex 
altation  of  the  humbled  servant  of  Jehovah,  which  is  at 
the  same  time  the  exaltation  of  Israel  to  the  height  of 
its  world-calling;  in  the  third  part  the  conditions  of 
sharing  in  the  future  redemption  and  glory.  In  this 
third  part  the  glory  of  the  church  and  th.-  Jerusalem  of 
the  future  are  described  more  majestically  than  in  ili<- 
two  others.  The  promise  rises  in  the  circle  of  the  :>  X  '' 
discourses  alw.ivs  higher,  until  in  ch.  !xv.  and  Ixvi.  it 
reaches  its  loftiest  height,  and  interweaves  time  with 
eternity.  ''  With  great  spirit,"  says  the  son  of  Siraeh. 
cii  xlviii.  21,  ft'.,  with  reference  to  these  chapters,  .-.• 
"did  Isaiah  look  on  tin;  last  things  and  comforted  the 
mourners  in  Zion.  Onwards  into  eternity  he  depicted 
the  future,  and  what  was  hidden  before  it  made  its 
appearance." 

IX.  The  Li/cntr;/  N/,,/,  ,-,/  Ixnln!,.  It  is  only  n,,w, 
after  we  have  convinced  ourselves  that  the  book 
of  Isaiah,  alike  in  respect  of  its  rich  contents,  and  in 
respect  of  its  well  -  conceived  arrangement,  proceeds 
from  Isaiah  himself  alone,  that  we  can  sketch  a  true 
and  warrantable  picture  of  his  literary  peculiarity. 
As  he  is,  when  we  look  at  the  contents  of  his  book, 
the  most  universal  of  prophets,  so  he  appears,  when  we 
look  at  the  forin  of  his  book,  as  a  master  in  all  the 
forms  of  style  and  representation.  In  no  prophet  do 
we  find  so  kinglike  a  mastery  of  mind  over  matter, 
so  inexhaustible  a  versatility  in  all  shades  of  discourse, 
so  pictorial  a  music  of  speech.  His  mode  of  repre 
sentation  embraces  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  style,  from 
the  most  tender  and  delicate  historical  prose  up  to  a 


dithyrambic  sublimity  and  an  ecstatic  speaking  with 
tongues,  where  he  does  not  at  all  speak  as  with  the 
tongue  of  men  but  as  with  the  tongue  of  angels. 
Whether  his  prophetic  thoughts  may  clothe  them 
selves  in  the  garb  of  psalmody,  or  of  elegy,  or  of 
gnomic  poetry,  his  performance  is  always  of  the  most 
excellent  kind.  The  prophet  shows  himself  as  a  psalm- 
writer  in  ch.  xii.,  where  he  closes  the  book  of  1m- 
manuel  (as  we  may  call  ch.  vii.-xii.)  with  a  song  of  the 
redeemed,  which  is  the  counterpart  of  the  song  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Ited  Sea.  Kx.  xv.;  and  in  eh.  xxv. 
1-.").  where,  placed  at  the  end  of  days,  he  lupins  to 
celebrate  what  he  has  seen  in  psalms  and  son^s.  for  the 
cycle  of  prophecy,  rh.  xxiv. -xxvii.  (which  we  may  call  the 
book  of  the  world's  judgment*,  is  the  finale  to  eh.  xiii.- 
xxiii.  ahe  book  of  the  oracles  respecting  the  heathen) 
in  strictest  musical  sense.  Everything  here  is  full  of 
song  and  music.  The  picture  of  the  catastrophe,  ch. 
xxiv.,  is  followed  by  a  fourfold  hymnal  echo:  the  down 
fall  of  the  imperial  city  is  suiiir,  oh.  xxv.  I-;.,  the  self- 
manifestation  ,.f  Jehovah  in  blissful  presence  is  suncr, 
i,  the  bringing  hack  and  the  resurrection  of 
Israel  is  sung.  ,-h  xxvi.  MIP,  the  fruitful  vineyard  of 
the  church  under  Jehovah's  protection  is  sunu'.  eh.  xxvii. 
-  "•.  And  this  music  runs  tlmm-h  all  keys,  from 
the  most  sublime  heavenly  hvmn  down  to  the  most 
lovely  popular  little  son-'  -it  is  a  -real  and  varied  con 
cert,  which  is  only  introduced  by  the  epic  commence 
ment,  ch.  xxiv.,  and  the  epic  conclusion,  ch.  xxvii.  7,  IV  ; 
and  in  the  inter\al  the  prophecy  is  continued  recita- 
tively.  This  whole  finale,  ch.  xxiv.  -  xxvii.,  is  a  ureat 
hallelujah,  hymnal  in  contents,  musical  in  form,  and 
that  to  such  a  degree,  that,  for  example,  ver.  il  of  ch. 
xxv.  sounds  like  joyous  music  at  a  happy  meal:  it  is  as 
if  one  heard  stringed  instruments  plaved  with  rapid 
stroke-,  ,.|  the  how.  (  hie  has  brought  up  the  frequency 
of  paraiioinasia  in  ch.  x\iv. -xxvii.  as  an  objection 
against  the  authenticity  of  this  cvclo.  and  certainly  one 
finds  In-re  more  music  leather  in  the  sound  of  the 
words  than  anywhere  else,  but  that  Isaiah  is  fond 
of  painting  for  the  ear  is  shown  by  his  undisputed 
prophecies  also,  c.y  ch.  \\ii  ft,  xvii.  i-.1,  IV.  Here  in  ch. 
x\iy.-.\x\ii.  it  occurs  to  a  <_rr,at,r  extent  than  anv- 

'  -where  cl-e.  because  this  cycle  is  to  be  a  finale,  by 
means  of  which  all  that  has  £;one  before  is  outdone. 
And  (just  to  e-|vc  prominence  to  one  Isaian  feature 
of  this  eyciei  is  not  the  tone  of  the  popular  song, 
ich  the  pn  iphet  begins  al  di.  xxvii.  ~l-~i.  just  the  same 


bewail  like  another  Moses,  steps  forth  before  his  people 
'  like    a   minstrel,  and   as   at  ch.    xxiii.  I.1*,  fl'.,    where   he 
interweaves  witli  his  oracle  respecting  T\  re  the  song  of 
'  an   Aline  or  1'ajadere  '!      And   what  a  master  is  Isaiah 
:  also  in  the  L"m«li  or  elegy  I     Approaches  to  it  are  found 
in  ch.  xxi.  :',.  ff'. :  xxii.   4:    but  in  the  oracle   respecting 
Moah,    ch.  xv.xvi,  from    beginning  to  end   all  is  elegiac, 
the   prophet  feels   in  sympathy   with  what  he  prophe 
sies,  as  if  lie  belonged  to  the  poor  people,  whose  mes 
senger    of    misfortune    he    mu.^t     be.      He    bewails   the 
laying  waste  of  the  Moabite  vine- trellises,  mingling  his 
tears  with  the  tears  of  Jaxer  : 

"Therefor,-  I  bewail  with  the  weeping  of  Jaxer  the  vine  of 

Siliinah  : 

I  wat-.-r  thee  with  my  tears,  O  Ilcsliuon  ninl  Klealeh; 
Tli.it  11)11111  thy  harvest  and  upon  thy  vintage 
The  war-cry  i.s  fallen." 

This  tetrastich,  which  forms  one  Masoretic  verse,  is  in 


ISAIAH 


ISAIAH: 


measure  and  movement   the   Hebrew  counterpart  of  a  | 
sapphic  strophe.     Prophecy,  which  is  in  general  as  much 

human  as  divine,  becomes  here  soft  and  tearful  to  a 
degree  we  are  more  accustomed  to  in  Jeremiah  than  in 
Isaiah.  As  the  plectrum,  by  touching  the  chords  of  tin- 
liar|i.  causes  them  to  tremble  violently,  so  the  fearful 
things  which  he  hears,  Jehovah  say  iv.-pecting  Moab 
touch  the  chords  of  his  inner  man.  "  Wherefore  my 
bouels  sound  like  a  harp  for  .Moab,  and  mine  inward 
parts  for  Kir  -  haresh."  How  altogether  different  a 
kev-note  is  that  with  which  the  prophet  begins  ch. 
xxviii.  '_':]  !  lie  has  often  already  spoken  the  language 
of  gnomic  poetry,  especially  in  ch.  \.\vi.,  but  here  he 
claims  the  attention  of  his  hearers  exactly  like  a  teacher 
of  wisdom.  "  (.live  ye  ear,  and  hear  my  voice;  hearken 
and  hear  my  speech  !"  I'or  the  consolation  of  the  promise- 
here  assumes  the  garb  of  a  longer  parabolic  discourse, 
ch.  x.wiii.  L'l,  a',  in  which  God's  instructive  and  peda 
gogical  wisdom  is  illustrated  by  means  of  figures  drawn 
from  husbandry.  Thus  Isaiah  sparkles  in  all  varieties  of 
poetic  speech.  Tf  we  cast  another  glance  on  ch.  xl.-lxvi., 
then  we  must  say,  there  is  in  respect  of  style  nothing 
more  finished,  nothing  more  glorious  in  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  than  this  trilogy  of  discourses  by  Isaiah.  In  ch. 
i.-xxxix.  the  language  of  the  prophet,  although  there 
also  presenting  every  variety  of  colour,  is  in  great 
measure  compressed,  massive,  plastic:  but  here  in  ch. 
xl.-lxvi.,  where  the  prophet  no  longer  has  his  footing 
on  the  soil  of  the  present,  but  is  carried  away  into  a 
distant  future  as  into  his  home,  the  language  also  ac 
quires  the  character  of  tin  ideal,  the  supernatural,  the 
ethereal,  the  infinite;  it  has  become  a  broad,  clear, 
bright  stream,  which  transports  us  on  majestic  but 
soft  and  transparent  waves,  as  it  were,  into  the  other 
world.  Only  in  two  passages  does  it  become  harsher, 
more  troubled,  clumsier,  viz.  ch.  liii.  and  Ivi.  9-lvii.  IT'. 
In  the  former  it  is  the  passion  of  grief,  in  the  latter  the 
passion,  of  anger,  which  stamps  itself  011  the  language. 
In  every  other  direction  to  which  it  turns,  the  influence 
of  the  subject  and  of  the  passion  is  evident.  In  ch. 
Ixiii.  7  the  prophet  begins  the  tone  of  liturgic  praise; 
in  ch.  Ixiii.  19!l-lxiv.  4,  it  is  sadness  which  restrains  the 
flow  of  discourse ;  in  ch.  l.xiv.  ~>,  one  perceives,  as  at 
Je.  iii.  25,  the  tone  of  i^,  or  the  liturgic  prayer  of 
confession. 

X.  In  the  second  part  of  the  collection  the  Mes 
sianic  proclamation  also  reaches  its  zenith.  In  order 
rightly  to  estimate  the  ascending  progression,  which 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  in  this  respect  also  presents, 
let  us  consider  the  Christoloyical  Character  of  the  Pro 
phecies  of  Isaiah.  If  we  compare  Obadiah.  Joel,  Amos, 
Hosea,  with  Isaiah  and  Micah,  then  it  stiikes  us  at 
first  sight,  that  the  person  of  the  Messiah  steps  into 
the  foreground  of  prophecy  with  Isaiah  and  his  later 
contemporary  Micah  in  such  a  way  as  it  had  never  before 
done  with  any  prophet.  In  the  b<  >ok  of  hardening,  ch.  i.-vi., 
threatening  and  promise  still  stand  in  their  first  sta 
dium  :  the  proclamation  of  judgment  reproduces  with 
application  to  the  present  so  ripe  for  judgment  the  curses 
of  Deuteronomy  and  Leviticus,  and  the  future  glory  of 
Israel  appears  here  only  as  the  restoration  of  the  past. 
The  prophecy  ch.  iv.  2,  the  fundamental  prophecy  re 
specting  the  n'w  HCV  (zemacli  Jehovah],  the  Branch  of 

the,  Lord,  which  is  continued  in  Je.  xxiii.  5;  xxxiii.  15; 
Zee.  iii.  8  :  vi.  12,  is  still  so  much  mixed  with  light  and 
shade,  held  forth  so  enigmatically,  that  it  is  matter  of  j 


question,  whether  zciiiach  is  meant  as  a  person  or  as  a 
thing;  the  former,  however,  is  mojre  probable:  Jehovah 
will  call  forth  a  branch,  the  land  will  produce  a  fruit, 
/.c.  heaven  and  earth  will  take  hold  of  each  other,  in 
order  to  give  Israel  a  king,  who  will  bring  true  lasting 
glorification  to  the  remnant  of  Israel,  after  that  all 
false  glory  is  overthrown.  The  book  of  hardening,  ch. 
i.-\-i.,  which  (at  least  ch.  ii.-vi.)  belongs  to  the  Uzziah- 
Jotham  period,  is  then  followed  by  the  book  of  Im- 
manuel,  ch.  vii.-xii.  Here  we  find  ourselves  at  the  be- 
giimiiig  of  the  war,  which  had  been  undertaken  by 
Svria  and  Ephraini  in  common  for  the  conquest  of 
Judah  and  for  the  destruction  of  the  dynasty  of  David. 
In  the  year  of  Uzziah's  death  the  prophet  by  means  of 
a  heavenly  vision  has  been  appointed  as  an  instrument  of 
hardening  and  its  consequences  -  rooting  out  and  ban 
ishment  for  the  mass  of  Israel,  and  now  lie  stands  with 
his  son  Shear-jashub,  whose  name  (tin  remnant  .-•//"// 
return)  shadows  forth  the  further  progress  of  Israel's 
history,  before  king  Ahaz,  to  whom  he  offers  to  pledge 
God's  faithfulness  to  his  promise  by  means  of  any 
miraculous  sign  he  might  choose,  be  it  a  heavenly  or 
an  earthly  one.  With  respect  to  this  offer  Ahaz  is 
free  to  choose,  but  he  hardens  himself  by  hypocritically 
declining  it,  because  he  is  secretly  intending  to  sum 
mon  the  help  of  Assyria  against  the  two  confederates. 
Hence  the  prophet  announces  to  him  an  ni'X  (si[/'//'\, 
which  has  a  dark  foreground  and  a  light  background, 
turning  the  former  to  the  dcspisers  of  Jehovah,  the 
latter  to  the  believers.  Before  the  s&  r-gaze  of  the 
prophet  there  stands  an  p,c^j?  (a/'/noh),  i.e.  an  unmarried 

T  :  - 

woman,  but  one  who  is  young,  capable  of  bearing  chil 
dren.  She  conceives  and  bears  a  son,  and  calls  his 
name  Immanuel.  The  prophet  now  mentions  not  the 
devastation  which  the  Syrians  and  Ephrai  mites  will 
produce  in  Judah,  but  he  predicts  forthwith  the  devas 
tation  of  the  lands  of  the  two  confederates  (i.e.  by  means 
of  Assyria),  then  however  the  concourse  of  the  swarms 
of  the  Egyptian  flies  and  the  Assyrian  bees  in  the  land 
of  David,  and  its  devastation  by  means  of  that  very- 
Assyria,  whose  help  Ahaz  has  summoned,  and  which 
Jehovah  now  summons  as  his  instrument  of  punish 
ment.  In  this  time  of  deepest  humiliation  this  is  just 
the  dark  foreground  of  the  sign  —  when  the  imperial 
power  has  turned  the  holy  land  into  wilderih  ,-s  and 
pasture,  the  son  of  the  virgin  will  grow  up.  Mercy 
comes  in  this  way  on  the  path  of  judicial  punishment, 
but  it  comes  :  the  name  and  person  of  Immanuel  are 
the  pledge  of  salvation  in  the  midst  of  that  extreme  dan 
ger  of  overthrow,  which  has  come  upon  the  house  and 
people  of  David  through  their  fleshly  self-help.  This 
is  the  light  background  of  the  sign,  which  the  prophet 
from  ch.  viii.  23  onwards  unfolds  for  the  believers.  The 
deepest  darkness  is  broken  through  by  the  rise  of  a 
i^reat  lis/lit  :  the  promised  child  is  born,  the  heir  and 
defender  of  the  throne  of  David;  joy.  freedom,  peace, 
glory  are  in  his  train.  His  names  are  N^B>  Wonderful, 
for  iiis  origin,  appearance,  and  work  are  wonderful: 
'y'l*>  Counsellor,  for  his  wisdom  leads  to  the  happiness 


of  his  people  ;  ~i'lS3  Ss>  ^ie  m'ff^!/  God,  for  Jehovah, 
the  mighty  God,  seech,  x.  21,  is  present  in  him  among 
his  people  ;  ly-^tf,  the  everlasting  Father,  for  with  a 

father's  love  and  care  he  rules  over  his  own  unto 
eternity;  oVs«>--  \-£f,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  for  universal 


ISAIAH 


ISAIAH 


peace  is  the  fruit  of  Id*  rule.  The.  sun  ot  the  virgin, 
whom  the  prophet,  oh.  vii.  it,  foresees  when  nut  yet  con 
ceived  and  born,  lies  here  already  in  the  cradle  of  the 
prophetic  word,  which  joyfully  greets  him,  and  in  ch. 
xi.  the  prophet  sees  him  grown  up  and  reigning,  and 
describes  the  universal  righteous  rule  of  peace  of  this 
second  David,  who,  after  that  the  Lebanon  of  the  im 
perial  power  is  for  ever  thrown  down,  springs  from  the 
tree  of  the  house  of  David,  which  had  become  a  root- 
stump,  but  not  without  hope.  Thus  does  Isaiah  pro 
phesy  in  presence  i  if  the  Assyrian  development,  which 
the  unbelief  of  Aha/  has  entered  into,  and  bv  whose 
consequences  the  h"ly  land  was  still  heavily  oppressed, 
when  Jesus  was  born,  for  the  imperial  power  is  essen 
tially  the  same,  \\hether  it  be  called  IJoine  or  Assyria. 
At  one  and  the  same  time  with  I>aiah  Mieah  pro 
claimed  the  Prince  of  Peace  of  Bethlehem- Ephratah. 
This  high  flight  of  the  Mes.-ianic  prophecy  in  the  time 
of  Ahaz  has  its  foundation  in  two  laws  of  sum  d  his 
tory:  in  the  first  place,  in  the  law  of  inte-n.-itv  of  all 
beginnings,  for  the  entanglement  entered  into  \\itli  As 
syria  by  Aha/,  is  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  the  im 
perial  powers:  secoiidlv.  ill  the  law  of  contrast,  fi.r  the 
worse  the  existing  rulers  were  of  the  heiii-e-  of  David, 
the  deeper  became  the  longing  aite-r  the  -ee-ond  David, 
the  clearer  and  the  brighter  he  appears  on  tin1  hori/.  >\i 
of  prophecy,  as  h.-rr  in  tin-  case  of  Isaiah  and  Micah. 
where  the  bad  character  of  Aha/,  is  the  dark  back 
ground  of  hi-  pic-tun-.  The  following  stadium  of  the- 
.Messianic  proclamation  is  weaker  and  of  a  lower 
flight,  for  in  the  time  ,,f  I  |,-/.-kiah  .1  udah  had  a  king 
walking  in  the  footsteps  of  David.  In  the  cycle  of 
prophecy,  ch  xxviii.-xxxi.i  .  Isaiah  M-'-  over  a_aiu.-t  the- 
false  supports  of  a  ( Jod-forgi-ttiiig  polii-v  the  si 
and  precious  corner- stone,  which  Jehovah  has  laid  in 
/ion  as  the  only  and  infallible  ground  of  confidence; 
this  prophecy,  oh.  xxvih  ici,  is  Me-»ianic.  but  yet  not  so 
concretely  personal  as  before-.  We  find  in  this  cycle 
comprehensive  anil  in  me  nms  portraitures  of  tin-  glorious 
time  following  the-  judgment,  i-h  xxviii.  :,,  n  ;  xxix.  ir-.i; 
xxx  in  -.-li;  xxxii.  !-!•,  15--JD;  xxxiii.  i:i-2l,  but  lio\\he-r<'  do  we 
see  the  august  form  of  the  Me-.-.-iah  stalling  forth  pro 
minently  from  that  glorious  time-  in  the  same  charac 
teristic  disunetncss  as  be-fon  .  When-  Isaiah  >|.eaks 
here  of  a  king,  who  shall  reign  in  righteousness,  and 
whom  the-  preserved  faithful  onc-s  are  reckoned  worthy 
to  see  in  his  In -a;  it  v,  e-h.  xxxii.  i;  xxxiii.  17,  romp  i; ;  there  it 
is  only  the  kill"'  wlio.  surroiine led  by  like  minded  prince--; 
and  leaders  of  th«;  pe-ople.  ,-h  xxxii  ib,  •_>;  xxviii.  r,,  stands 
at  the  head  of  a  well-ordered  state-,  so  that  one-  may 
hesitate  as  to  wli.-ther  He-/.-kiah  or  the-  Messiah  is 
meant.  From  what  other  cause  docs  that  spring  than 
this,  that  the-  contrasts  of  the  present  with  the  Messianic 
future  were  less  glaring,  aii'l  then-fore  also  the-  im 
pulses  to  the'  Messianic  prophecy  were'  not  so  strong? 
On  the-  other  hand,  we-  may  apply  to  the  author  of  ch. 
xl.-lxvi.  what  was  said  of  the  apostle'  .John—  rn/nf  tirix 
siiie  nifiit.  In  this  testamentary  book  of  consolation 
for  the  exiles  the  idea  of  the  Me-siah  appears  to  bo 
le)st  in  the.-  idea  of  Israel,  but  in  reality  it  is  by  means 
of  this  seeming  disappearance  as  it  were  born  anew. 
What  is  hitherto  wanting  to  the  prophetic  picture  of 
the  Messiah  is  the  «;-c  homo.  The  passion  of  Christ 
has  indeed  a  noble  type  in  David,  who,  pursued  by 
Saul  and  betrayed  by  Ahithophel,  prefigures  that  which 
will  be  done  to  the  future  Christ  by  the  rulers  of  his 
own  people  and  by  one  of  his  own  disciples.  This 


type  is  also  not  altogether  silent,  for  the  Spirit  of 
prophecy  mixes  in  the  words  of  David's  psalms,  respeet- 
:  ing  his  own  typical  suffering,  prophetic  words  of  the 
j  suffering  of  his  antitype,  the  second  David.  But 
a  direct  prophecy  of  the  sufferings  which  will  pre 
cede  the  glories  uf  Christ  is  up  to  this  point  not 
in  existence.  The  second  part  of  the  book  of  Isaiah 
shows  us  the  process  of  divine  logie,  by  means  of  which 
the  passion  as  prelude  to  the  glory  has  been  taken  up 
into  the  prophetic  picture  of  tin-  Messiah.  During  the 
time  of  the  exile,  in  which  throughout  ch.  xl.-lxvi. 
Isaiah  lives  and  moves,  it  was  not  tin.-  house  of  David, 
but  an  important  phenomenon  of  quite  a  different  kind, 
which  attracted  the  prophet's  gaze  to  itself,  vi/..  the  people 
of  (Jod.  who,  re-moved  from  the-  limits  of  their  narrowly 
confined  nationality,  were  now  placed  in  the  midst  of 
the  heathen  world,  in  on  lor  to  overcome  it  with  spiri 
tual  weapons.  In  the  sense  of  this  high  Messianic- 
apostolic  calling,  the  whole'  Israel  of  the  exile  is  called 
: --y.  t/«  s(rrant  of  Jchorali.  I'ut  the  mass  is  blind 

and  deaf,  and  unable  to  accomplish  this  calling,  there - 
fore  the  idea  of  the  Jehovah-servant  is  destroyed,  a 
<ii\>ioii  i.s  accomplished  within  it:  thi.s  becomes,  in  its 
full  >,  use,  not  the  mass,  which  is  so  only  by  virtue-  of 
the-  di\ine-  will,  the-  reverse,  however,  ill  respect  of 
personal  ce induct,  but  the  portion  of  the-  people  true  to 
its  calling,  which  on  this  very  account  is  pe-r.-ecuted  by 
the  mas-  of  its  ciw  n  people-  ne. t  less  than  by  the-  heathen, 
the  church  of  Jehovah,  which  amid  the  deepest  humi 
liation  in  tin-  form  of  a  servant  and  of  wretchedness 
bears  the  .salvation  of  its  people  and  the  salvation  of 
the  he-athi-n  mi  its  he-art,  vi-ihle  in  its  members,  invisi 
ble  in  as  far  a.-  it  has  not  the  outward  unity  of  a  c-om- 
monaltv.  but  mily  the  inner  unity  of  a  .similar  disposi 
tion.  This  community,  which  snffetvel  not  because  of 
its  .-in.-,  but  for  Jehovah's  honour  and  Israel's  continued 
existence,  and  which  in  its  innocent  and  willing  suiter- 
ing  and  dying  was  the-  holy  seed  of  I.-rael's  future,  is  a 
narrower  circle  within  the;  wider  one  of  collective  Israel; 
and  inasmuch  as  this  narrower  circle  concentrates 
itself  still  more  narrowly  on  tin-  one-  person  of  a  ser 
vant  of  Jehovah,  the  ide-a  of  tie-  M.-~iah.  after  it  has 
be  ,-n  exchanged  for  the  ide-a  of  Israel  as  the  .servant  of 
Jehovah,  comes  forth  again  from  this  absorption  more 
M-nilicant.  more-  spiritual,  and  more  glorious.  There  is 
no  Old  Testament  idea  of  so  wonderful  logical  develop 
ment,  as  this  idea  of  the-  servant  of  Jehovah  in  Isaiah. 
It  forms,  as  it  were,  a  pyramid:  its  lowest  base  is 
l>rael  eolli-ctively,  its  middle-  base  the  true  Israel,  its 
summit  Christ  as  the  realization  of  the  idea  of  Israel 
and  of  the  decree-  of  redemption.  The  idea  is  thus  a 
three-fold  one-,  but  inwardly  colic-rent,  and  according  to 
this  its  living  threefold  character,  it  ascends  and  de 
scends,  it  expands  and  contracts,  and  by  means  of  this 
self-movement  produces  from  itself  a  fulness  of  new. 
spiritual,  and  especially  Christological  branches  of 
knowledge.  They  are  the  following:—!.  The  know 
ledge-  of  the  mtinus  Iritis  (threefold  office).  The  ser 
vant  of  Jehovah  is  a  prophet,  for  his  most  immediate 
calling'  is  the  proclamation  of  salvation,  ch.  xlii.  1.  But 
he  is  also  a  priest,  for  he  performs  the  priestly  work  of 

•'•v  rs>;^  i'1  the  deepest,  most  universal  sense,  as  ch. 
'/ 

liii.  predicts.      And  he  is  not  prophet  and  priest  alone, 

but  also   a   king,  to  whom  the  kings  of  the  earth  do 

1  homage,  ch.  xlix.  7 ;  Hi.  i.i,  thus  King  of  kings.    His  three- 


ISC  AH  <s 

fold  office  is  the  effulgence  of  his  one  calling  as  Saviour 
and  of  his  undivided  glory.  2.  The  knowledge  of  the 
status  dxplcr  (the  twofold  state).  The  servant  of  Jehovah 
goes  through  ignominy  to  glory,  and  through  death  to 
life;  he  conquers  by  being  overthrown;  he  rules  after 
having  acted  as  a  servant;  he  lives  after  he  has  been 
put  to  death  ;  be  finishes  his  work  after  he  appears  to  he 
rooted  out.  '•'>.  The  knowledge  of  the  satisfactio  ricaria 
(vicarious  satisfaction).  The  type  of  the  blood  hitherto 
silent  begins  in  ch.  liii.  to  speak.  For  here  Israel  con 
fesses  himself  to  be  a  great  sufferer  as  having  to  otter 
satisfaction  (c^'s1)  for  the  sins  of  his  people,  which  he 

T  T 

has  taken  upon  himself,  and  his  suffering  is  expressly 
designated  a  vicarious  punishment  I  *;•:  "<svy  nc >'.),.  '.''.  as 

a  divine  punishment  endured  not  for  his  own  sake,  but 
instead  of  his  people,  and  after  he  has  offered  himself, 
he  is  in  his  exaltation  also  still  one,  who,  himself  alto 
gether  righteous,  makes  many  righteous  and  bears  their 
sins,  thus  an  everlasting  priest  on  the  ground  of  his 
offering  of  himself.  4.  The  knowledge  of  the  x/iiu 
mi/stica  capitis  ci/m  cor  pore  (mystical  union  between 
head  and  members).  In  the  older  picture  of  the  Mes 
siah  the  unity  of  the  Messiah  and  Israel  is  rather  an 
outward  one :  Israel  is  the  people  over  which  he  rules, 
the  army  which  he  leads  into  the  fight,  the  state  which 
he  regulates.  But  when  the  future  Mediator  of  salva 
tion  is  contemplated  as  the  servant  of  Jehovah,  the 
conception  of  his  relationship  to  Israel  also  is  deepened. 
He  is  Israel  himself  in  person,  he  is  the  idea  of  Israel 
in  complete  realization,  the  essence  of  Israel  in  its 
purest  manifestation,  and  therefore  he  is  called  Israel, 
ch.  xlix.  3,  as  the  New  Testament  church  is  called  Christ, 
i  Co.  xii.  12.  He  is  the  theanthropic  summit,  in  which 
Israel's  development  from  a  divine-human  basis  culmi 
nates.  Israel  is  the  stem,  he  is  the  top  of  the  tree: 
the  church  is  the  body,  he  the  head.  Such  a  fulness  of 
knowledge  has  burst  forth  in  the  second  part  of  the 
book  of  Isaiah,  this  most  sacred  book  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  which  in  its  ethereal  form  unites  the  depth  of 
idea  of  the  Gospel  of  John  with  the  figurative 
splendour  of  the  Apocalypse  of  John.  Prophecy  has 
now  expressly  and  carefully  carried  out  not  only  the 
distinction  of  Israel  according  to  his  everlasting  desti 
nation  and  his  appearance  in  time,  but  also  the  distinc 
tion  between  suffering  and  glory,  death  and  life,  depth 
and  height,  in  the  person  of  the  future  Christ.  And 
faith,  which  penetrated  to  the  understanding  of  pro 
phecy,  now  clung  not  merely  to  "the  Lion  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah,"  but  also  to  ''the  Lamb,  who  bears  the  sin 
of  the  world;"  not  merely  to  a  new  covenant,  but  also 
to  a  new  ''mediator  between  God  and  men;"  not 
merely  to  a  propitiation  of  Jehovah's,  but  also  to  a 
human  propitiator.  '•  0  the  depth  of  the  riches  both 
of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God  !"  Let  us  pray 
with  Ailred,  the  abbot  of  Itieval  (U166) :  Qxi  tanrto 
Isaice  inspirastiut  scriberct,  inspira  quceso  mihi  ut  quod 
scripsit  intellinam,  qula  jam  impirasti  ut  crcdam;  nisi 
cnim  crediderinms,  non  inteU'njimuf.  [p.  n.  | 

IS'CAH  [one  who  looks  forth],  a  niece  of  Abraham, 
the  daughter  of  Haran,  and  sister  to  Milcah  and  Lot. 
Gc.  xi.  2X  A  tradition  among  the  Jews  has  identified 
her  with  Sarah,  but  whether  entitled  to  reliance  or  riot, 
there  are  no  proper  grounds  for  affirming.  Abraham 
called  Sarah  the  daughter  of  his  father,  though  not  of 
his  mother,  Ge.  xx.  12 ;  but  he  might  possibly  have  meant 
daughter  in  the  larger  sense,  as  including  grandchildren 


I 


ISHBOSHETH 


along  with  children.  The  natural  supposition  is  rather 
against  this,  however;  and  it  is  impossible  to  say  more 
for  the  tradition  than  that  it  is  of  ancient  date,  and  is 
mentioned  both  by  Josephus  and  by  Jerome. 

ISCAR'IOT.    "Ate  J  I;DAS. 

ISH'BI-BE'NOB  OH  1SBO-BENOB  [divcllcr  at, 
Nob],  a  Philistine  giant,  son  of  liapha  (so  it  should 
rather  be,  than  '•  son  of  the  giant''),  who  on  one  oc 
casion  made  a  deadly  assault  on  David,  and  apparently 
might  have  attained  his  purpose,  but  for  the  timely  in 
terposition  of  Abishai,  who  rushed  to  the  rescue,  and 
slew  the  giant.  That  David's  life  must  have  been  in 
great  jeopardy  at  the  time  is  evident  from  the  resolu 
tion  come  to  by  his  friends,  that  he  was  no  more  to 
hazard  his  life  in  actual  conflict,  2Sa.  xxi.  10,17. 

ISHBO'SHETH  [man.  of  shame].  Boshcth  or  shame 
was  an  epithet  applied  by  the  Israelites  to  idols,  or  the 
false  gods  they  repi-esented;  and  so  a  man  of  luitlntli 
might  be  much  the  same  as  a  man  of  an  idol — of  Baal, 
for  example.  This  seems  to  be  the  explanation  of  the 
circumstance,  that  Ishbosheth,  the  surviving  son  of 
Saul,  according  to  2  Sa.  ii.  8,  &c.,  is  in  1  Ch.  viii.  3-> 
called  Exh-baal,  man  of  Baal  (for  c*h  is  merely  an  ab 
breviation  of  V'M/I).  How  either  form  of  the  name 
should  have  been  imposed  upon  one  of  Saul's  sons,  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive;  since  Saul  is  never  charged,  amid 
all  his  defections,  with  a  formal  attachment  to  idolatry. 
Possibly,  it  was  bestowed  at  first  as  a  nickname,  in 
memory  of  the  son's  false  position  and  miserable  end, 
and  gradually  supplanted  his  proper  name.  On  the 
death  of  Saul  and  his  other  sons,  Ishbosheth.  who 
appears  to  have  been  the  youngest,  was  raised  to  the 
throne  by  Abncr,  who  also  drew  over  by  much  the 
larger  portion  of  the  tribes  to  his  side,  L'  Sa.  ii.  s  ;  iii.  17,  in 
spite  of  a  strong  feeling  existing  among  them  for  David. 
After  various  skirmishes  between  the  forces  of  the  rival 
Kind's,  a  pitched  battle  was  fought,  in  which  the  army 
of  David  under  Joab  was  completely  victorious.  After 
this  the  interest  of  David  continually  waxed  stronger, 
while  that  of  Ishbosheth  declined,  2  Sa.  iii.  1.  It  was  on 
the  military  skill  and  influence  of  Abncr  that  the  latter 
chiefly  depended ;  but  a  breach  took  place  between 
them  on  account  of  criminal  intercourse  having  arisen 
between  Abner  and  one  of  Saul's  concubines,  which, 
according  to  eastern  notions,  amounted  to  a  sort  of 
treason.  On  being  charged  with  this  impropriety  by 
Ishbosheth,  Abner  strongly  resented  it,  and  threatened 
to  transfer  the  kingdom  to  David.  He  seems  presently 
after  to  have  entered  into  negotiations  for  that  purpose; 
but  in  the  midst  of  them  himself  fell  a  victim  to  the 
resentment  of  Joab  for  the  death  of  Abishai.  The  fall 
of  Abner  was  like  a  death-blow  to  the  cause  of  Ish 
bosheth;  on  hearing  it  his  hands  became  feeble,  and  all 
Israel  was  troubled,  2  Sa.  iv.  i.  Two  men  however,  cap 
tains  of  Ishbosheth  (Baanah  and  Ilechab),  sought  to 
turn  the  matter  to  good  account  for  themselves;  they 
resolved  to  cut  off  the  head  of  their  master,  and  carry 
it  in  triumph  to  David  at  Hebron — which  they  suc 
ceeded  in  doing,  but  only  to  meet  with  the  punishment 
which  their  treacherous  conduct  deserved.  David 
ordered  the  immediate  execution  of  both  of  them, 
2  Sa.  iv.  2-12.  Ishbosheth  is  said  to  have  been  forty  years 
old  when  he  was  raised  to  the  throne,  2  Sa.  ii.  10 ;  but 
this  appears  not  to  include  the  earlier  part  of  the 
struggle,  when  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  he  should  be 
recognized  as  king  by  any  considerable  portion  of  the 
people.  The  struggle  for  this  recognition,  and  the  sub- 


IS1II 


ISILMAEL 


sequent   reign,   probably  together  occupied  the   whole     clothe  itself  with  the  form   of  godliness,  the  spirit  of 


seven  years  that  David  was  at  Hebron;  for  he  appears 
immediately   on    Ishbosheth's  death   to  have  removed 


enmity  to  Cod's  cause  and  people  will  be  found  lurk 
ing:  and  it  is  the  Ishmael,  not  the  Isaac  in  Abraham'; 


the  seat  of  government  to  Jerusalem.  j  family,  that  must  be  looked  to  as  the  prototype  of  the 

ISHI.      This  name  corresponds  to  two  words  in  the     real  character  and  destiny.      But  Jshmael  was  also,  in 

original,  differently  spelled,  tin  nigh  pronounced  alike,     a  sense,  an  heir  of  promise.      Even  before  he  was  born 


spring — a  seed  that  coul 

tude.  Go.  xvi.  in.  The  assurance  was  renewed,  when  he 
and  his  mother  were  finally  separated  from  the  house 
hold  of  Abraham,  Go.  xxi.  is.  On  the  first  occasion  too, 
tlie  characteristics  were  briefly  but.  most  graphically 
given,  which  Were  to  distinguish  both  the  man  himself. 

one   a   descendant   of  Judah,  1  Ch.  ii  31;   another  of  the     :ul'1  the  multitudinous  offspring  that   were  to  proceed 

u   him.        lie    was   to    be    "a    wild    man"  —  literallv 


is  in  Jlo.  ii.  Itl,  where  the  Lord  .-ays  to  converted 
Israel,  <-In  that  day  thou  .-halt  call  me  Ism,"  that  is, 
my  husband,  returning  to  Jehovah  with  true  conjugal 
affection.  Tiie  other  i?/<!  cy^*,  .•« tin {<[,•</)  occurs  as  the 

name  of  individuals,  but  is  applied  to  none  of  any  not. •: 


same  tribe,  i  Ch.  iv.ii.i;  four  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon,  con 
nected  with  an  expedition  against  tin-  Amalekitcs. 
1  Ch  iv  rj:  one  of  the  tribe  of  .Mana.seh,  i  ch.  v  IM. 

ISH'MAEL  [ichom  (;-</  //«ov].  1.  Thes.  .11.  .f  A  braham 
by  Hagar.  the  Egyptian  bondmaid.  The  circumstances 
connected  with  the  birth  of  this  remarkable  person 
have  been  already  deseribed  in  the  articles  Ar.KAHAM 
and  Jl.\c;.u::  and  under  the  latter  those  al.-o  have  been 
referred  to  wliieh  \M.re  conneeted  with  his  earlv  life, 
and  his  expulsion,  along  with  his  mother,  from  the 
tent  of  Abraham.  The  name  was  coiuiuunicat.il  by  an 
angel  on  the  occa.-i"ii  of  her  lir>t  expulsion,  and  before 
the  child  was  born,  as  a  memorial  of  the  Lord's  com 


/(  a-  lid  n.tf!  ,,f  Hi'tii.  Go.  x\i.  ;L';  that  is.  his  relative  posi- 
tit  Hi  and  habits  should  be  like  those  of  Unit  untamed 
creature,  the  chartered  libertine  of  the  desert,  "  whose 
bands  Cod  hath  loosed,  whose  house  he  hath  made  the 
mess,  and  the  barren  land  his  dwellings:  he  scorneth 
the  multitude  of  the  city,  neither  ivgardeth  the  crying 
of  the  driver;  the  range  of  the  mountains  is  his  pasture," 
Jub  xxxix.  5-7.  There  could  not  be  a  more  exact  image 
of  the  general  character  and  habits  of  the  races  which 
occupy  the  vast  de.-erts  and  pasture  lands  of  Arabia, 
and  among  which  the  d.  r-e.  -ndants  of  Ishmael  have  ever 
be.  n  regarded  as  holding  the  chief  rank.  These  Bed 
uins,  as  they  are  now  c..mnionl\  calli  d.  of  the  desert, 


pa-ion  toward  her.   in   directing  her  to  a   well,    when     are  the  hereditary  assertors,  and  most  remarkable  types, 


f  tin'  uni>  .-trained  freedom  of  the  faniilv  or  clan,  as 
ppo-ed  to  the  seukd  order  and  regulated  liberty  of 
ivili/.ed  life.  'I'he  hand  of  eaeh.  as  was  originally 
aid  ot  l-hmael.  is  against  evi  rv  one,  and  ev.rv  one's 


she   was   ready  to    p.-ri-h    for    thir-t     in   the    \\ildern--ss 
of    Beersheba,    (J       .        r.        It     was  doubtless  also   in 
tended    to    serve    as    a    perpetual   monitor   to    her   and 
her    son.     \\heiice   to    look    for    protection   and   deliver 
ance  in  the  hour  of  need,  and  what  resources  they  might     hand  against  him  :    or.  a-   they  '-till  say  in  Nubia.   "  In 
•till    find    in    the    favour    and    lovingkindness    of    the     the   desert   .very  one  is  the   enemy  of  another."      The 
Cod  .-f  Abraham     although  from  special  circumstances     roving  habits  of  nomades,  and  something  like  the  license 

the    peculiar  place  of  honour   in  th,'   divine  covenant  j  of  free! ters,  are  the  kind  of  understood  conditions  of 

such  a  state  of  society— no  law   recogni/.ed  but  that   of 
immemorial    u.-a^e,   no    authority    beyond  that   of  each 
him  as  wen  as  to  the  oth.-r  ott-pring  of  Abraham,  was  '  ,„  Uy  chieftain;  it  is  a  state  irreconcilably  at  war  with 
expressly    signified    by    his    circumcision,    which    took  |  the  quiet  labours  of  husbandry,  ami  the  fixed  abodes  as 

well  as  peaceful  arts  of  civic  life,  for  these  are  in- 
eon-i-teiit  \\ith  that  airy  freedom  which  it  worships  as 
the  ideal  good:  and  \\heivveri'  prevails,  agriculture,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  except  on  the  most  limited  scale, 


place  when  he  was  thirteen  vears  old.  GO  v.  .  I'.ut 
he  was  not  .-ati.-ficd  with  this;  and  his  carnal  prid.-  and 
envy  w.-ie  stirred  amid  the  rejoicing's  that  celebrated 
the  weaning-day  of  1-aac,  as  if  the  exulting  hopes  en 
tertained  regarding  this  youthful  child  (.f  promise  were  ;  disappears,  cultivation  of  every  kind  languishes,  th 
so  much  taken  from  hims"lf,  GO.  x\i.  !>.  It  must  have 
appeared  to  him  ridiculous  fit  subject  for  the  laughter 
of  scorn  -that  so  much  account  should  be  made  of  the 
little,  newly  weaned  Isaac,  in  comparison  of  himself. 
who  had  become  a  stripling  on  tin;  vergv  of  manhood. 


world  becomes  a  virtual  divert.  The  wonderful  thing 
is  not  that  such  a  state1  of  society  exists  now,  and  lias 
existed  no  loii'.;-  in  Arabia  (\\liere  the  nature  of  the 
country  is  in  great  measure  adapted  to  it)  -  but  that, 


according  to  the  terms  of  the  original  prediction,  it 
In  so  thinking  and  f.-eling.  he  showed  that  he  had  an  should  have  connected  with  it  as  its  upholders  so  large, 
eye  only  to  what  was  outward  in  the  flesh,  what  met  \  igoroiis,  and,  in  a  political  respect,  powerful  a  popu- 
the  superficial  and  carnal  view  of  nature,  blind  to  the  !  latioii.  The  races  represented  and  headed  by  Ishmael's 


deeper  mysteries  of  Cod's  covenant  of  blessing;  and  in 
this  he  was  a  fitting  type,  as  he  is  designated  bv  the 
apostle,  of  those  in  after-times,  who,  like  him,  stood 
within  the  outer  circle  of  the  covenant,  but  who  knew 
if  its  higher  gifts,  had  no  sympathy  with  its 


descendants — scattered  and  disorganized  as  they  are 
among  themselves  —  are  justly  entitled  to  be  reckoned 
'•  a  great  nation,"  Go  xxi.  !•>.  and  have  played  an  im 
portant  part  in  the  world's  history.  '' "While  many  con 
querors,'1  as  remarked  by  Banmgarten,  "have  marched 


nnthin 

spiritual  aims,  and  breathed  only  envy  and  malice  toward  into  the  Arabian  wilderness,  they  have  never  been  able 

such  as  had.  Ua.  iv.  -2<\.     The  same  spirit  substantially  is  to  catch  this  grand  wild  ass  and  to  tame  him."      But  he 

ever  evincing  itself  anew  within  the  bosom  of  the  Chris-  has   done  to  others   what   they  could  not  do   to  him. 

tian  church;   though   in  its  forms  of  manifestation  it  The  victorious  arms  of  the  Arabians  have  spread  the 


perpetually  varies  according  to  the  changeful  conditions 
of  society,  and  the  moods  of  individual  men.     Where- 


terror  of  their  name  far  and  wide;   they  have  ascended 
more   than  a   hundred   thrones;  and   have   established 


ever  the  carnal    heart    remains,    even    though  it  may  i  their  colonies,  their  language,  and  their  religion  from 


1SJIMAEL 


8Ki 


ISIIMAEL 


the  Senegal  to  the  Indus,  from  the  Euphrates  to  the 
islands  of  the  Indian  Ocean. 

So  far,  however,  as  Ishinael  himself,  and  his  lineal 
descendants,  were  personally  concerned,  the  prophecy 
uttered  concerning  their  future  place  and  destiny,  has 
more  immediate  respect  to  what  should  distinguish 
them  in  their  proper  home.  They  were  to  inhalilt 
and  spread  themselves  over  the  desert  region  stretch 
ing  from  the  south  of  Palestine  onwards  through  the 
vast  Aral  nan  peninsula.  It  is  with  reference  to  this 
habitat  that  we  are  to  understand  the  somewhat  pecu 
liar  expression,  "  He  shall  dwell  in  the  presence  of  all 
his  brethren,"  Go.  xvi.  12 — an  expression  again  used  at 
Ishmael's  death,  "  He  died  in  the  presence  of  all  his 
brethren,"  Ge.  xxv.  IN  It  is  literally  upon  (fie  far<  <>f 
(>«2  ^y\  iii  si'/ftt  nf,  or  infirrc  them;  that  is,  Lshmael 

and  his  seed  were  not  to  vanish  away  into  nothing,  or 
disappear  in  some  remote  region,  but  should  maintain 
their  position  in  that  high  table-land  which  lies  to  the 
south  of  Judea,  and  toward  which  it  might  be  said 
to  look.  Hence  we  are  told  of  the  family  of  Ishmael. 
in  the  passage  last  referred  to,  and  with  the  view  ap 
parently  of  tin-owing  light  on  the  expression  under  con 
sideration,  that  "  they  dwelt  from  Havilah  unto  Shur, 
that  is  before  Egypt,  as  thou  goest  toward  Assyria." 
It  was  a  somewhat  elevated  and  at  that  time  compara 
tively  frequented  region,  connecting,  as  it  did,  the  two 
greatest  and  most  ancient  kingdoms  in  that  part  of  the 
world;  so  that,  while  separated  from  the  other  offspring 
of  Abraham,  the  son  of  Hagar  and  his  seed  had  a 
position  not  far  distant,  and  dwelt  constantly  in  front 
of  them.  To  be  assured  of  this  when  sent  forth  to 
what  seemed  a  forlorn  and  hopeless  exile,  was  a  most 
appropriate  and  seasonable  consolation. 

In  regard  to  the  domestic  relations  of  Ishmael.  we 
know  only  for  certain,  that  his  mother  took  him  a 
wife  out  of  her  native  country,  Egypt,  that  he  had 
twelve  sons  and  one  daughter,  and  that  he  died  at  the 
advanced  age  of  137  years.  Whether  all  his  children 
were  the  offspring  of  one  mother  may  be  doubted, 
both  from  what  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  the 
habits  of  Ishmael,  and  in  particular  from  his  daughter 
Mahalath  being  expressly  designated  the  sister  t.f  Xe- 
baioth,  the  eldest  son,  Go.  xxviii.  <}.  This  seems  to  point 
to  a  distinction  in  the  family  circle,  and  to  imply  the 
existence  of  brothers,  of  whom  it  could  not  be  said 
that  Mahalath  was  in  the  same  sense  their  sister  that 
she  was  of  Xebaioth.  The  daughter  referred  to  was 
married  to  Esau,  as  is  stated  in  the  last  reference,  and 
would  become,  with  her  offspring,  if  she  had  any, 
merged  in  the  vigorous  stock  of  the  Edomites.  The 
fact  of  such  a  marriage,  too,  incidentally  shows,  that 
the  separation  of  Ishmael  from  Abraham's  household 
was  by  no  means  absolute — that  he  did  not,  ultimately 
at  least,  stand  to  the  next  generation  of  the  chosen 
family  in  the  relation  properly  of  an  alien — nay,  that 
in  marrying  into  his  family  Esau  imagined  his  parents 
would  regard  him  as  cultivating  a  suitable  connexion, 
and  taking  a  step  that  might  partly  compensate  for  the 
impropriety  of  his  earlier  alliances.  Ishmael's  attend 
ance  at  the  burial  of  his  father  Abraham  is  a  further, 
and  not  less  decisive,  proof  of  the  same  thing,  Ge.  xxv.  9. 
It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  there  must  have  been  a 
formal  reconciliation;  and  we  can  scarcely  doubt,  that 
as  Abraham's  later  offspring  by  Keturah  received  each 
a  portion  of  their  father's  goods,  Ishmael  also,  who 


was  probably  more  than  any  of  them  the  object  of 
paternal  affection,  was  not  denied.his  share.  The  sons 
of  Ishmael  were  Xebaioth,  Kedar,  Adbeel,  Mibsam, 
Mishma,  Dumah,  Massa,  Hadar.  Tema,  Jetur,  Xaphish, 
Kedemah,  Ge.  xxv.  1:1-1.').  These,  it  is  said,  were  the 
names  "  of  the  sons  of  Ishmael  by  their  towns,  and  by 
their  castles,  twelve  princes  according  to  their  nations." 
In  other  words,  the  twelve  sons  of  Ishmael,  somewhat 
like  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob,  became  so  many  heads 
of  tribes;  which  implies,  that  in  the  next  generation 
they  spread  themselves  pretty  widely  abroad.  It  appears, 
from  the  passage  already  cited,  Gc.  xxv.  1--,  that  the  head 
quarters  of  the  race  lay  in  the  northern  parts  of  the 
Arabian  peninsula;  but  in  process  of  time  they  would 
naturally  stretch  more  inland,  eastward  and  southward. 
That  they  also  extended  their  journeying  northwards  is 
evident  from  the  notice  which  occurs  in  the  history  of 
Joseph,  where  it  is  said  that  the  brethren  of  Joseph 
espied  "a  company  of  Ishmcclites  coming  from  Gilead 
with  their  camels  bearing  spiceiy,  and  balm,  and  myrrh, 
to  carry  it  down  to  Egypt,"  GO.  xxxvii.  2;.  The  company 
has  afterwards  the  name  of  Midianitcs  applied  to 
it,  vev.  2*,  probably  011  account  of  its  consisting  of  more 
than  one  class  of  people,  .Midianites  also  in  part:  but 
being  first  called  Ishmeelites,  we  can  have  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  these  formed  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
caravan-party.  The  trade  of  inland  carriers  between  the 
countries  in  the  north  of  Africa,  on  the  one  side,  and 
those  in  southern  and  western  Asia  (India,  Persia, 
Babylonia,  &c.)  on  the  other,  is  one  in  which  sections 
of  the  Ishmeelite  race  have  been  known  from  the  re- 

j  motest  times  to  take  a  part.  It  suited  their  migratory 
and  unsettled  habits;  and  they  became  so  noted  for  it, 
that  others,  who  did  not  belong  to  the  same  race,  were 
not  unfrequently  called  Ishmeelites,  merely  because 
they  followed  the  Ishmeelitic  traffic  and  manners. 
It  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  the  descendants  of 
Ishmael  penetrated  into  Arabia,  or  acquired  settlements 
in  its  southern  and  more  productive  regions.  As  it  is 
certain  the  Ishmeelite  mode  of  life  has  been  always 
less  practised  there,  and  a  modified  civilization  is  of  old 
standing,  the  probability  is  that  the  population  in 
those  regions  has  little  in  it  of  Ishmeelite  blood,  lint 
with  all  their  regard  to  genealogies  the  Arabic  races 
have  for  thousands  of  years  been  so  transfused  into 
each  other,  that  all  distinct  landmarks  are  well  nigh 
lost.  And  the  circumstance  of  .Mohammed  having, 
for  prudential  reasons,  claimed  to  be  a  descendant  of 
the  son  of  Abraham,  has  led  to  an  extension  of  the 
Ishmeelite  circle  far  beyond  what  the  probable  facts 
will  bear  out.  Arabian  traditions  on  this  subject. 

.  therefore,  are  of  no  value,  and  it  is  but  to  waste  time 
to  make  search  for  them — so  far  as  the  illustration  of 
Scripture  is  concerned.  We  know  nothing  for  certain 
respecting  the  real  seed  of  Ishmael  but  what  is  re 
corded  there. 

2.  IsnM.ua.  A  son  of  Xethaniah,  who  was  "of 
the  seed  royal,"  ,Tc.  xl.  1 ;  2Ki.  xxv.  2.">;  and  a  person  of 
consummate  arrogance,  treachery,  and  deceit.  His 
proud  spirit  would  not  allow  of  his  submitting  to  the 
delegated  authority  of  Gedaliah,  whom  the  king  of 
Babylon  had  made  governor  of  Judah  on  the  overthrow 
of  Jerusalem  and  of  the  supremacy  of  the  house  of 
David.  But  he  feigned  submission  for  a  time,  in  order 
that  he  might  with  the  more  certainty  accomplish  his 
diabolical  purpose  of  effecting  the  destruction  of  Geda 
liah  and  those  who  attached  themselves  to  him.  In 


ISIITUU  S 

this  work  of  deceit  and  violence,  it  appears,  he  was  in 
concert  with  Baalis.  king  of  the  Ammonites,  who  is 
even  said  to  have  sent  him  for  the  purpose,  Jo.  xl.  4-  - 
though  what  should  have  led  him  to  do  so  we  are  not 
told.  The  actual  design,  however,  was  no  secret  to 
some  about  Cedaliah,  who  forewarned  him  of  it.  and 
counselled  decisive  measures  to  prevent  its  execution: 
but  in  vain.  Cedaliah  refused  to  entertain  any  suspi 
cion  of  the  foul  intentions  of  Ishmael.  and  admitted 
him  to  free  and  familiar  intercourse.  This,  however, 
only  served  to  furnish  Ishmael  with  the  opportunity  he 
wanted:  and  on  tin.'  occasion  of  a  feast,  at  which  he 
was  received  in  confidence,  he  and  his  men  smut-  Ceda 
liah  with  the  sword,  and  all  who  were  with  him.  Next 
day  he  met  a  company  of  spiritual  mourners,  on  their 
way  to  the  prostrate  temple  of  Jeru.-alein  \\ith  incens-j 
and  certain  offerings.  ;nit\  taking  them  a.-ide  to  the 
residence  of  Cedaliah  he  slew  them,  and  ca-t  their 
dead  bodies  into  the  pi:  which  already  contained  the 
corpses  of  (iedaliah  and  hi-  companions,  with  the  exe<  p 
tion  of  t'-n.  who  got  their  lives  for  a  piw  mi  a. -count  of 
certain  treasures  which  they  had  hid  in  a  ti-ld.  and  which 
Ishmael  no  doubt  deemed  of  more  value  than  their 
blood.  Aft,-,- the-,-  deeds  of  treachery  and  slaughter 
I-hiuael  -athered  about  him  as  many  as  he  could  of 
the  people  that  remained,  includin.:  the  daughters  of 
king  Xedekiali,  with  the  intention  of  carrying  them 
over  to  the  Ammonites,  but  he  was  attack. ,1  near 
Liibeon  by  a  company  under  Johanan  the  son  of  Kaivah. 
and  the  people  were  rescued  out  of  his  hands.  |),. 
escaped  withei-ht  ni'ii  to  the  A  inni-uiit'-s,  and  is  heard 
of  no  more. 

3.  ISHMAKI..  Several  other  persons  ,,f  this  same 
name  occur  in  th--  genealogies,  but  without  anv  note 
of  distinction  l  <  •..  .  \  •  Kzr  \  •_'_• 

ISHTOB  [men  »f  /',.', \.  It  see;,,-  somewhat  doubt 
ful  whether  l.<l,t,,l,  .-],-, uld  be  regarded  as  one  \\ord, 
the  name  of  a  petty  kingdom  connected  with  Syria:  or 
should  be  separated  int..  its  two  component  elements, 
and  rendered  mm  nfTnli.  It  occurs  only  at  ::  Sa.  x.  t',. 
\wheiv  the  se\eral  [>arties  composing  the  c-reat  Sy 
rian  armv  that  came  a_;ain-t  Davi-1  are  given.  No 
thing  is  known  of  l.-htob  as  a  region  of  country,  but 

Tob    is    mentioned    in    nie.-tioii    \\ith    the   history  of 

Jephthah,  .In.  xi  :; ;  and  the  probability  is.  that  \\hat  is 
to  he  understood  by  |-h'.,h  in -the  passage  of  Second 
Samuel  is  simply  the  people  of  that  place  or  di.-trict. 

ISLE,  most  commonly  in    the    plural    1SI.1X    ,.>s,    ,„• 


rivers,  then  shore-land,  r<,<(.<t*  ,,j  the  *«i,  or  land  in  the 
sea.  ttlaixl.  The  word  is  used  with  considerable  lati 
tude  in  Scripture,  and  may  be  found  in  all  the  senses  now 
indicated.  It  occurs  in  the  most  general  sense  in  Is. 
xlii.  l.'i.  where  it  is  fitly  rendered  <lr>/  Imul,  the  con 
verse  of  the  /•//•<•)•.<  spoken  of  inunediatelv  b,-forc.  Tint 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases  it  is  applied  to  denote 
maritime  regions  of  some  sort,  either  upon  the  coast  of 
a  mainland,  or  appearing  as  distant  and  isolated  spots 
in  the  sea.  Hence,  it  came  naturally  to  signify  places 
lying  remote  from  the  covenant-people,  which  could 
only  be  reached  by  crossing  the  seas  -as  in  Ps.  l.xxii. 
10,  "The  kings  of  Tarshish  and  the  isles:''  Is.  xli.  5. 
''The  isles  saw  it  and  feared,  the  ends  of  the  earth 
were  afraid;''  Zcp.  ii.  11.  "  All  the  isles  of  the  heathen 
shall  worship  him."  It  is  sometimes  used  of  specific 
VOL.  I. 


1  ~  I>IIAI-;L  KINGDOM  OF 

maritime  regions,  as  Chittim,  Caphtor  (l.'rete^,  Jo.  ii.  10  ; 
xlvii.  1,  ii?.;  but  the  more  general  sense  is  the  prevailing 
application  of  the  term. 

IS'RAEL  [n:,ht,  /•  or  mldier  of  God].  1.  The  name 
given  by  the  angel  of  Cod  to  Jacob,  in  commemoration 
of  the  conflict  of  faith,  which  in  deep  humility  and 
earnestness  of  soul  he  maintained  with  the  heavenly 
messenger  at  1'eniel.  Ge.  xxxii.  2< ;  "Thy  name."  it  was 
said  to  him,  "shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel; 
for  thou  hast  fought  (so  it  should  be  rendered)  with 
Cud  and  with  men.  and  hast  prevailed."  (>'«  JACOB. } 
2.  I'rom  .Jacob,  as  the  immediate  head  of  the  twelve 
tribes,  or  covenant  people,  the  name  of  Israel  became 
the  common  and  distinctive  appellation  of  the  whole 
community.  They  were  at  once  called  the  seed  of 
Jacob,  and  the  tribes  or  people  of  Israel.  3.  After  the 
unhappy  division  into  two  separate  kingdoms  in  the 
time  of  IMioboam.  it  was  chiefly  appropriated  to  the 
kingdom  comprising  the  ten  tribes  partly,  perhaps, 
because  this  di\i-i.>n  formed  considerably  the  larger 
portion  of  those  \\ho  Were  entitled  to  the  name,  and 
partly  because  it  ini^ht  have  been  invidious  to  select 
from  among  the  several  tribes  anv  less  comprehensive 
appellation  uhile.  on  the  other  side,  Judah  formed  so 
preponderating  a  part  of  those  who  adhered  to  the 
hoii.-e  of  David,  that  the  kingdom  of  Judah  became  for 
that  portion  the  tilting  designation.  4.  Notwithstand 
ing  this  actual  division,  however,  and  the  separation 
of  Judah  from  Isra.-l.  the  term  Israel  still  remained 
the  proper  designation  ,,f  the  covenant-people,  and  is 
often  so  used  in  the  prophets;  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel  -till  formed  the  ideal  representation  of  the  whole 
stock,  i  Ki  xviii  '"/I.  Kzr. vi  IT;  Jo.  xxxi  l,&c  Hence  also 
in  New  Ti  -taiiicnt  -crij.tnre  Israel  is  applied  to  the 
true  people  of  Cod.  whether  of  Gentile  or  of  Jewish 
origin.  ];.•  ix.  ii;  i;;i  vi.  11!,  ic.j  it  is  comprehensive  of  the 

entire  church  of  the  redeemed. 

ISIIAKL.  KINCDOM  OF.  The  nan,-  Israel, 
which  at  first  had  been  the  national  de-i«_nia'  ion  of  the 
twelve  tribes  collectively.  K\  Ifi,  &iv,  was.  on  the  divi 
sion  of  the  monarchy,  applied  to  the  northern  kingdom 
ia  usau'e.  however,  not  strictly  observed,  as  in  •_'  Ch. 
<li.  Ill,  in  coutradi-tlnction  to  the  other  portion,  which 
was  termed  the  kingdom  of  Judah.  This  limitation  of 
the  name  Israel  to  certain  tribes,  at  the  head  of  which 
was  that  of  Kphraim,  which,  accordingly,  in  some  of 
the  prophetical  writings,  as  f.//.  Is.  x\ii.  1.'!:  Ho.  iv.  17, 
gives  its  on  n  name  to  the  northern  kingdom,  is  dis 
cernible  even  at  so  i-arlv  a  period  ;is  the  commencement 
of  the  ivi'_;n  of  Saul,  and  aflbrds  evidence  of  the  exist 
ence  of  some  of  the  eausi-s  which  eventually  led  to  the 
si-hism  of  the  nation.  It  indicated  the  existence  of  a 
rivalry,  which  needed  only  time  and  favourable  circum 
stances  to  ripen  into  the  revolt  witnessed  after  the 
death  of  Solomon. 

1.  Cuu*cs  of  the  l>i<-'<*'«>n.—  The  prophet  Abijah.  who 
had  been  commissioned  to  announce  to  Jeroboam,  the 
Kphraimite.  the  transference  to  him  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  kingdom  of  Solomon,  declared  it  to  be  the  pun 
ishment  of  disobedience  to  the  divine  law,  and  particu 
larly  of  the  idolatry  so  largely  promoted  by  Solomon, 
i  Ki.  xi.  ,'ii -;;:..  l!ut  while  this  revolt  from  the  house  of 
David  is  to  be  thus  viewed  in  its  directly  penal  char 
acter,  or  as  a  divine  retribution,  this  does  not  preclude 
an  iinpiirv  into  those  second  causes,  political  and  other 
wise,  to  which  this  very  important  revolution  in  Israel- 
itish  history  is  clearly  referable.  Such  nn  inquiry 

103 


ISI;AKL,  KINGDOM  OF 


sis 


ISRAEL,    KINGDOM  OF 


indeed  will  make  it  evident  how  human  passions  and 
jealousies  were  made  subservient  to  the  divine  purposes. 
Prophecy  hud  eaily  assigned  a  pre-eminent  place  to 
two  of  the  suns  of  Jacob — Jndah  and  Joseph — as  the 
founders  of  tribes.  In  the  blessing  pronounced  upon 
his  sons  by  the  dying  patriarch,  Joseph  had  the  birth 
right  conferred  upon  him,  and  was  promised  in  his  son 
Ephraim  a  numerous  progeny;  while  to  Judah  promise 
was  made,  among  other  blessings,  ot'  rule  or  dominion 
over  his  brethren  — "  thy  father's  children  shall  bow 
down  before  tliee,"  Ge.  xlviii.  19,22;  xlix.  8,20;  comp.  icii.  v.  1.2. 
Those  blessings  were  repeated  and  enlarged  in  the  bless 
ing  of  Closes,  Do.  xxxiii.  7.17.  The  pre-eminence  thus  pro 
phetically  assigned  to  these  two  tribes  received  a  partial 
verification  in  the  fact,  that  at  the  exodus  their  num 
bers  were  nearly  equal,  and  far  in  excess  of  those  of  the 
other  tribes;  and  further,  as  became  their  position,  they 
were  the  first  who  obtained  their  territories,  which  were 
also  assigned  them  in  the  very  centre  of  the  land.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  advert  to  the  various  other  circum 
stances  which  contributed  to  the  growth  and  the 
aggrandizement  of  these  two  tribes,  and  which,  from 
the  position  they  served  to  acquire  for  them  above  the 
rest,  naturally  led  to  their  becoming  heads  of  parties, 
and  as  such  the  objects  of  mutual  rivalry  and  con 
tention.  The  Ephraimites  indeed  from  the  very  first 
gave  unmistakable  tokens  of  an  exceedingly  haughty 
temper,  and  preferred  most  arrogant  claims  over  the 
other  tribes  as  regards  questions  of  peace  and  war. 
This  may  be  seen  in  their  representation  to  Gideon  of 
the  tribe  of  Manasseh,  Ju.  viii.  i,  and  in  their  conduct 
towards  Jephthah,  Ju.  xii.  i.  Now  if  this  overbearing 
people  resented  in  the  case  of  tribes  so  inconsiderable  as 
that  of  Manasseh  what  they  regarded  as  a  slight,  it  is 
easy  to  conceive  how  they  must  have  eyed  the  proceed 
ings  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  which  was  more  especially  their 
rival.  Hence  it  was,  that  while  on  the  first  establish 
ment  of  the  monarchy  in  the  person  of  Saul,  of  the  tribe 
of  P>enjamin,  the  Ephraimites,  with  the  other  northern 
tribes  with  whom  they  were  associated,  silently  ac 
quiesced,  they  refused  for  seven  years  to  submit  to  his 
successor  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  2  Sa.  ii.  <)-n,  and  even 
after  their  submission  they  showed  a  disposition  on  any 
favourable  opportunity  to  raise  the  cry  of  revolt:  "To 
your  tents,  O  Israel,"  2  Sa.  xx.  i.  It  was  this  early, 
long-continued,  and  deep-rooted  feeling,  strengthened 
and  embittered  by  the  schism,  though  not  concurring 
with  it,  that  gave  point  to  the  language  in  which  Isaiah 
predicted  the  blessed  times  of  Messiah:  "The  envy  also 
of  Ephraim  shall  depart,  and  the  adversaries  of  Judah 
shall  be  cut  off;  Ephraim  shall  not  envy  Judah,  and 
Judah  shall  not  vex  Ephraim,"  Is.  xi.  13.  Indeed,  for 
more  than  400  years,  from  the  time  that  Joshua  was 
the  leader  of  the  Israelitish  hosts,  Ephraim,  with  the 
dependent  tribes  of  Manasseh  and  Benjamin,  may  be 
said  to  have  exercised  undisputed  pre-eminence  to  the 
accession  of  David.  And  accordingly  it  is  not  surpris 
ing  that  such  a  people  would  not  readily  submit  to  an 
arrangement  which,  though  declared  to  bo  of  divine 
appointment,  should  place  them  in  a  subordinate  con 
dition,  as  when  God  "  refused  the  tabernacle  of  Joseph, 
and  chose  not  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  but  chose  the  tribe 
of  Judah,  even  the  mount  Zion  which  he  loved," 
Vs.  Ixxviii  07,  OS 

There  were  thus  indeed  two  powerful  elements  tend 
ing  to  break  up  the  national  unity.  In  addition  to  the 
long- continued  and  growing  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the 


Ephraimites  to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  another  cause  of 
dissatisfaction  to  the  dynasty  of  Uavid  in  particular,  was 
the  arrangement  just  referred  to,  which  consisted  in 
the  removal  of  the  civil,  and  more  particularly  ecclesi 
astical  government,  to  Jerusalem.  The  Mosaic  ordi 
nances  were  in  themselves  exceedingly  onerous,  and 
this  must  have  been  more  especially  felt  by  such  as 
were  resident  at  a  distance  from  the  sanctuary,  as  it 
entailed  upon  them  long  journeys,  not  only  when  at 
tending  the  stated  festivals,  but  also  on  numerous  other 
occasions  prescribed  in  the  law.  This  must  have  been 
felt  as  a  special  grievance  by  the  Ephraimites,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  national  sanctuary  had  been  for  a 
very  long  period  at  Shiloh,  within  their  own  territories; 
and  therefore  its  transference  elsewhere,  it  is  easy  to 
discern,  would  not  be  readily  acquiesced  in  by  a  people 
who  had  proved  themselves  in  other  respects  so  jealous 
of  their  rights,  and  not  easily  persuaded  that  this  was 
not  rather  a  political  expedient  011  the  part  of  the  rival 
tribe,  than  as  a  matter  of  divine  choice,  i  Ki.  xiv.  21.  Nor 
is  it  to  be  overlooked,  in  connection  with  this  subject, 
that  other  provisions  of  the  theocratic  economy  relative 
to  the  annual  festivals  would  be  taken  advantage  of  by 
those  in  whom  there  existed  already  a  spirit  of  dissatis 
faction.  Even  within  so  limited  a  locality  as  Palestine, 
there  must  have  been  inequalities  of  climate,  which 
must  have  considerably  affected  the  seasons,  more  par 
ticularly  the  vintage  and  harvest,  with  which  ths  feasts 
may  in  some  measure  have  interfered,  and  in  so  far 
may  have  been  productive  of  discontent  between  the 
northern  and  southern  residents.  That  there  were  in 
conveniences  in  both  the  respects  now  mentioned,  would 
indeed  appear  from  the  appeal  made  by  Jeroboam  to 
his  new  subjects,  when,  for  reasons  of  state  policy,  and 
in  order  to  perpetuate  the  schism  by  making  it  religious 
as  well  as  political,  he  would  dissuade  them  from  at 
tendance  on  the  feasts  in  Judah:  "'It  is  too  much  for 
you  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem,"  i  Ki.  xii.  28;  and  from  the  fact 
that  he  postponed  for  a  whole  month  the  celebration  of 
the  feast  of  tabernacles,  vcr.  32 — a  change  to  which  it  is 
believed  he  was  induced,  or  in  the  adoption  of  which 
he  was  at  least  greatly  aided,  by  the  circumstance  of 
the  harvest  being  considerably  later  in  the  northern 
than  in  the  southern  districts  ^Pict.  Bible,  note  on  i  Ki.  xii.  32). 
Again,  the  burdensome  exactions  in  the  form  of  ser 
vice  and  tribute  imposed  on  his  subjects  by  Solomon 
for  his  extensive  buildings  and  the  maintenance  o?  his 
splendid  and  luxurious  court,  must  have  still  further 
deepened  this  disaffection,  which  originated  in  one  or 
other  of  the  causes  already  referred  to.  It  may  indeed 
be  assumed  that  this  grievance  was  of  a  character 
which  appealed  to  the  malcontents  more  directly  than 
any  other;  and  that  these  burdens,  required  especially 
for  the  beautifying  of  the  capital,  must  have  been  ex 
ceedingly  disagreeable  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  pro 
vinces,  who  did  not  in  any  way  participate  in  the  glories, 
in  support  of  which  such  onerous  charges  were  required. 
The  burdens  thus  imposed  were  indeed  expressly  stated 
to  be  the  chief  ground  of  complaint  by  the  representa 
tives  of  Israel  headed  by  Jeroboam,  who,  on  the  occa 
sion  of  his  coronation  at  Shechem,  waited  on  the  son 
of  Solomon  with  a  view  to  obtain  redress,  i  Ki.  xii.  4 
The  long  smouldering  dissatisfaction  could  no  longer 
be  repressed ;  and  a  mitigation  of  their  burdens  was 
imperiously  demanded  by  the  people.  For  this  end 
Jeroboam  had  been  summoned,  at  the  death  of  Solomon, 
from  Egypt;  whose  presence  must  have  had  a  marked 


ISRAEL.   KINGDOM  OF 


819 


ISRAEL.   KINGDOM  OF 


influence  on  the  issue:  although  it  may  be  a  question  i  on  Jeroboam  at  the  head  of  an  annv  of  800,000,  2Ch. 
whether  Jeroboam  should  not  be  regarded  rather  as  an  I  xiii.  3.  According  to  the  general  laws  observable  in 
instrument  called  forth  by  the  occasion,  than  as  himself  [  such  cases,  these  numbers  may  be  said  to  represent  an 
the  instigator  of  the  revolt.  With  this  agrees  the  in-  ;  aggregate  population  of  from  n'rc  and  a  half  to  six 


timation  made  to  him  from  the  Lord  many  vears  before     millions 


>f   which  about   une-t/t  ird,   or   t\vo   millions, 


by  Ahijah  the  Shilonite.     The  very  choice  of  Shechem,     may  be  fairly  assigned  to  the  kingdom  of  Judah  at  the 
within  the   territories   of  Ephraim,   as   the    coronation     time  of  the  separation. 

.'!.  Its  Pulitifi.il  and  ttclt'ttioius  7'<7rt?/o;?s.—  But  whilst 


means  of  so  grand  and  imposing  a  ceremonv. 


be  shown  also  in  various  other  respects,  the  resources 


However  this  may  have  been,  or  in  whatever  degree  of  the  northern  kingdom  were  at  the  very  least  double 
the  causes  specified  may  have  severally  operated  in  those  of  its  southern  rival;  the  latter  embraced  elements 
producing  the  revolt,  the  bivach  now  made  was  never  of  strength  which  were  entirelv  lacking  in  the  other. 
healed;  (rod  himself  expressly  forbidding  all  attempts  There  was  first  the  geographical  position  of  the  kingdom 
on  the  part  of  Rehoboam  and  his  counsellors  to  subju-  of  Israel,  which  exposed  its  northern  frontier  to  inva- 
gate  the  revolted  provinces,  with  the  intimation  -"This  sions  on  the  part  of  Syria  and  the  Assyrian  hosts.  But 
thing  is  from  me."  i  K;  xii.  ni.  Tl 
of  the  two  kingdoms 
further  estrangement. 

'2.  Kstcnt  and  llaonrcef  nf  tin  Kingdom  of  Tsrad.-  • 
The  area  of  l';d''.-tni<\  even  at  it<  utmost  extent  under 
Solomon,  was  very  circiiinscribed.  In  its  -vo^raphii-al 
relations  it  certainly  bore  no  comparison  whatever  to 
the  other  v.T<jat  empires  of  antiquity,  nor  indeed  was 
there  any  proportion  between  its  si/.e  and  the  mighty 
influences  which  have  emanated  from  its  soil.  Making 
allowance  for  the  territories  on  tlie  shop-  of  the  .Medi 
terranean  in  the  possession  of  the  I'hilistiiies,  the  area 
of  Palestine  did  not  much  <  xeeed  1,'i.umi  square  miles, 
or,  according  to  a  familiar  comparison,  le.-s  than  one- 
half  the  ext<  nt  of  Ireland,  or  about  equal  t 
the  six  northern  counties  of  Kn^land.  Tliis  limited 
extent,  it  mi'j-ht  be  shown,  howe\.-r.  did  the  present 
subject  call  for  it,  rendered  that  land  more  suitable  for 
the  purposes  of  the  theocracy  than  if  it  were  of  a  far 

larger  area.      What   precise    extent   of    territories   was     po>ed  to  the   encroachment: 
embraced    in   the    kingdom    of    Israel    cannot    he    very     extended  along  its  frontier. 
easily   determined;   but   it   may   be   safelv  estimated   as 
more   than   double   that   of   the   southern   kingdom, 
according   to  a  more  exact   ratio,  as  '.*  to   1.      \()r  is   it 
easy  to  specify  with  exactness  the  sevt  ral  tribes  which 
composed   the  respective  kingdoms.      In  the  announce 
ment  made   by  Ahijah   to  Jeroboam,    he   is   assured 
ten   tribes,  while  only  one  is  reserved   for  the   h"U>e 
I 'avid;   but  this  must  be  taken  only  in  a  general  sense, 
and  is  to  lie  interpreted  bv  1   Ki.  xii.  ~2'-j,  comp.  \vr.  ~J  I  : 
for  it  would  appear  that  Simeon,  part  of  l>aii,  and  the 
greater  part  of  I'.eiijamin.  owing   doubtless  to  the   fact 


history     more  than  this  or  any  exposure  to  attack  from  without, 
was   productive   almost    only   of     were  the  dangers  to  be  apprehended  from  the  polity  on 

which  the  kingdom  was  founded.  Jeroboam's  public 
sanction  of  idolatry,  and  his  other  interferences  with 
fundamental  principles  of  the  .Mosaic  law.  more  espe 
cially  in  the  matter  of  the  priesthood,  at  once  alienated 
from  his  government  all  who  wen-  well  all'ected  to  that 
economy,  and  who  were  not  ready  to  subordinate  their 
religion  to  any  political  considerations.  Of  such  there 
were  not  a  few  within  the  territories  of  the  new  king 
dom.  Tlie  Levites  in  particular  iled  the  kingdom, 
abandoning  their  property  and  possessions;  anil  so  did 
many  others  besides:  •'such  as  set  their  hearts  to  seek 
the  Lord  ( !od  of  Israel,  came  to  Jerusalem,  to  sacrifice 
that  of  unto  tli.  Lord  ( !od  of  their  fathers.  So  they  strengthened 
the  kingdom  nf  Judah,"  2  Ch.  xi.  KM:.  Not  only  was  one 
gn  at  source  of  strength  thus  at  once  dried  up,  but  the 
stronulv  conservating  principles  of  the  law  were  vio 
lently  shocked,  and  the  kingdom  more  ihan  ever  ex- 
t!:e  heathenism  which 
•r. 

(  hie  element  of   weakne  ;s   in   the  kingdom  of   Israel 
r,      was  the  number  of   tribes   of   which   it   was  composed, 
especially  after  they    had   renounced   those   prin 
oftho  .Mosaic  law.  \\hich.  while  preserving  the  in- 
dividuality  of  the  tribes,  served  to  bind  them  together  as 
f     one  people.      Among  other  circumstances  unfavourable 
f     to  unity  was  the  \\ant  of  a  capital  in  which  all  had  a 
common  interest,  and  \\ith  \\hich   they  \\ere  connected 
:     by  some  common   tie.      This   want    was    by  no   means 
•     compensated  bv  the  i-elii/ious  establishments  at  Bethel 
and    I)an.      But  it  is  in  respect  to  theocratic!  and  re- 


that  Jerusalem  itself  was  situated  within  that  tribe,  ligious  relations  that  the  weakness  of  the  kingdom  of 
formed  portion  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  ( Kw.il, l.ciesohirliu-,  Israel  specially  appears.  Any  sanction  which  the  usur 
pation  of  Jeroboam  may  have  derived  at  first  from  the 
announcement  made  to  him  by  the  prophet  Ahijah, 


iii  i":.i.  It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that  Judah  wa 
the  only  independent  tribe,  and  therefore  it  ini^ht  b 
spoken  of  as  the  one  which  constituted  the  kingdom  of  and  afterwards  from  the  charge  uiven  to  Kehoboam 


the  house  of  David. 


and  the  men  of  Judah  not  to  fight  against  Israel,  because 


With  regard  to  population,  again,  the  data  are  even  the  thing  was  from  the  Lord,  1  Ki.  xii.  23,  must  have 
more  defective  than  with  respect  to  territorial  extent,  been  completely  taken  away  by  the  denunciations  of 
According  to  the  uncompleted  census  taken  in  the  reign  the  prophet  out  of  Judah  against  the  altar  at  Bethel, 
of  David,  about  forty  years  previous  to  the  schism  oi  i  Ki.  xiii.  i-iu,  and  the  subsequent  announcements  of 
the  kingdom,  the  fighting  men  in  Israel  numbered  Ahijah  himself  to  Jeroboam,  who  failed  to  fulfil  the 
800,0110,  and  in  Judah  />l»0,fiOO,  2Sa.xxiv.ii;  but  in  1  Ch.  '  conditions  on  which  the  kingdom  was  given  him,  1  Ki. 
xxi.  5,  G,  the  numbers  are  differently  stated  at  1, 100,000  xiv.  7-10.  The  setting  up  of  the  worship  of  the  calves,  in 
and  470.000  respectively,  with  the  intimation  that  Levi  which  may  he  traced  the  influence  of  Jeroboam's  resi- 
and  Benjamin  were  not  included,  comp.  ch.  xxvii.  24.  And  deuce  in  Egypt,  and  the  consecrating  of  priests  who 
as  bearing  more  directly  on  this  point,  Kehoboam  raised  could  have  no  moral  weight  with  their  fellow-subjects, 
an  army  of  ISO, 000  men  out  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  .  and  were  chosen  only  for  their  subservience  to  the  royal 
to  fight  against  Jeroboam,  t  Ki.  xii.  21;  and  again,  Abijah,  will,  were  measures  by  no  means  calculated  to  consoli- 
the  son  of  Eehoboam,  with  100. 000  men,  made  war  '  date  a  power  from  which  the  divine  sanction  had  been 


ISKAEL,    KINGDOM    OK 


81' I 


ISUAEL,   K INC; DOM.  OF 


expressly  withdrawn.  On  the  contrary,  they  led,  :unl 
very  speedily,  to  the  alienation  of  many  who  might  at 
the  outset  have  silently  acquiesced  in  the  revolution, 
even  if  they  had  not  fully  approved  of  it.  The  lar^.- 
migration  which  ensued  into  .Judah  of  all  who  were 
favourable  to  the  former  institutions  must  still  further 
h;i\v  aggravated  the  evil,  as  all  vigorous  opposition 
would  thenreforth  cease  to  the  downward  and  destruc 
tive  tendency  of  the  anti-theocratic  policy.  The  natural 
result  of  the  course  appeal's  in  the  fact  that  the  step 
taken  by  Jeroboam  "was  never  retraced  by  any  of  his 
successors,  one  after  another  following  the  example 
thus  set  to  them,  so  that  Jeroboam  is  emphatically 
and  frequently  characterized  in  Scripture,  as  the  man 
"who  made  Israel  to  sin,''  while  his  successors  are 
described  as  following  in  "  the  sin  of  Jeroboam." 

Further,  as  the  calves  of  Jeroboam  are  referable  to 
Egypt,  so  the  worship  of  Baal  which  was  introduced  by 
Ahab.,  the  seventh  of  tic-  [sraelitish  kind's,  had  its 
origin  in  the  Tynan  alliance  formed  by  that  monarch 
through  his  marriage  with  Jezebel,  daughter  of  Ethbaal 
king  of  Sidon.  Hitherto  the  national  religion  was 
ostensibly  the  worship  of  Jehovah  under  the  represen 
tation  of  the  calves;  but  under  this  new  reimi  every 
attempt  was  made  to  extirpate  this  worship  entirely 
by  the  destruction  of  God's  prophets  and  the  subversion 
of  his  altars.  It  was  to  meet  this  new  phase  of  things 
that  the  strenuous  agency  of  Elijah,  Elisha,  and  their 
associates,  was  directed,  and  assumed  a  quite  peculiar 
form  of  prophetic  ministration,  though  still  the  success 
was  but  partial  and  temporary.  (See,  however,  under 
ELIJAH  and  ELISHA.) 

-i.  Dewy  and  Dix*r>liitinn  of  the  Khujdum  nf  Israel. 
The  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  is  the  history  of 
its  decay  and  dissolution.  In  no  true  sense  did  it  mani 
fest  a  principle  of  progress,  save  only  in  swerving  more 
and  more  completely  from  the  course  marked  out  by 
providence  and  revelation  for  the  seed  of  Abraham; 
and  yet  the  history  is  interesting  in  showing  how,  not 
withstanding  the  ever  widening  breach  between  the 
two  great  branches  of  the  one  community,  the  divine 
purposes  concerning  them  were  accomplished.  That  a 
polity  constituted  as  was  that  of  the  northern  kingdom 
contained  in  it  potent  elements  of  decay  must  be  self- 
evident,  even  were  the  fact  less  clearly  marked  on  every 
page  of  its  history.  Although  its  founder  Jeroboam 
himself  reigned  twenty-two  years,  yet  his  son  and  suc 
cessor  was  violently  cut  off  after  a  brief  rei^n  of  only 
two  years,  and  with  him  the  whole  house  of  Jeroboam. 
Thus  speedily  closed  the  first  dynasty  ;  and  it  was  but 
a  type  of  those  which  followed.  Eight  houses,  each 
ushered  in  by  a  revolution,  occupied  the  throne  in  rapid 
succession,  the  army  being  frequently  the  prime  movers 
in  these  transactions.  Thus  Baaslia,  in  the  midst  of 
the  army  at  Gibbethon,  slew  Xadab  the  son  of  Jero 
boam;  and  again  Zimri,  a  captain  of  chariots,  slew  Elah, 
the  son  and  successor  of  Baasha,  and  reigned  only 
aei-en  days,  during  which  time  however  he  smote  all 
the  posterity  and  kindred  of  his  predecessor,  and  ended 
his  own  days  by  suicide,  i  Ki.  xvi.  is.  Omri,  the  captain 
of  the  host,  was  chosen  to  punish  the  usurper  Zimri,  and 
after  a  civil  war  of  four  years,  he  prevailed  over  his 
other  rival  Tibni,  the  choice  of  half  the  people.  Omri, 
the  sixth  in  order  of  the  Israelitish  kings,  founded  a 
more  lasting  dynasty,  for  it  endured  for  forty-five 
years,  he  having  been  succeeded  by  his  son  Ahab,  of 
whom  it  is  recorded  that  he  "did  more  to  provoke  the 


:  Lord  CJod  of  Israel  to  auger  than  all  the  kings  of  Israel 
that  we're  before  him/'  i  Ki.  xvi.  :>i;  and  he  again  by  his 
son  Ahaziah,  who  after  a  reign  of  two  years,  died  from 
the  effects  of  a  fall,  and  leaving  no  son  was  succeeded 
by  his  brother  Jehoram,  who  reigned  twelve  years,  until 
slain  by  Jeliu  the  captain  of  the  army  at  Ramoth-Gilead. 
who  also  executed  the  total  destruction  of  the  family 
of  Ahab,  which  perished  like  those  of  Jeroboam  and 
of  I'aasha,  2  Ki.  ix.  n. 

Meanwhile  the  relations  between  the  rival  kingdoms 
were,  as  might  be  expected,  of  a  very  unfriendly  char 
acter.  ''There  was  war  between  Uehoboam  and  Jero 
boam  all  their  days."  i  Ki.  xiv.  oil;  so  also  between  A  -a 

and  Baasha,  iKi.  .\v  n,:;2.      The.  iirst  mention   of  peace 

i 

was  that  made  by  Jehoshaphat  with  Ahab,  1  Ki.  xxii.  H, 
and  which  was  continued  between  their  two  successors. 
The  kingdom  of  Israel  suifcred  also  from  foreign  ene 
mies.  In  the  reign  of  Omri  the  Syrians  had  made 
thi  njselves  masters  of  a  portion  of  the  land  of  Israel, 
1  Ki.  xx. ;;::,  and  had  proceeded  so  far  as  to  erect  streets 
for  themselves  in  Samaria,  which  had  just  been  made 
the  capital.  Further  incursions  were  checked  bvAhab. 
v,ho  concluded  a  peace  with  the  Syrians  which  lasted 
three  years,  i  Ki.  xxii.  i,  until  that  king,  in  league  with 
Jehoshaphat  kingof  Judah,  attempted  to  wrest  Eamoth- 
Gilead  out  of  their  hands,  an  act  which  cost  him  his 
]  life.  The  death  of  Ahab  was  followed  by  the  revolt  of 
the  Moabites,  2Ki.  i  j,  who  were  again  however  subju- 
|  gated  by  Jehoram  in  league  with  Jehoshaphat.  Again 
the  Syrians  renewed  their  inroads  on  the  kingdom  of 
Israel,  and  even  be.-icged  Samaria,  but  fled  through 
panic.  In  the  reign  of  Jehu  "the  Lord  began  to  cut 
Israel  short:  and  Ilazael  smote  them  in  all  the  Coasts 
of  Israel, "'  2  Ki.  x.  :>2.  Their  troubles  from  that  quarter 
increased  still  further  during  the  following  reign,  when 
the  Syrians  reduced  them  to  the  utmost  extremities, 
i'Ki.  \iii.7.  To  this  more  prosperous  days  succeeded. 
!  with  a  reverse  to  Judah,  whose  king  presumptuously 
declared  war  against  Israel. 

L'nder  Jeroboam  II.,  who  reigned  forty-two  \ears. 
the  affairs  of  the  northern  kingdom  revived.  "He 
restored  the  coast  of  Israel,  from  the  entering  of  Ha- 
math  unto  the  sea  of  the  plain:  ....  he  recovered 
,  1  >ainascus,  and  Ilamath,  which  belonged  to  Judah,  for 
Israel,"  iKi.  xiv.  L'5,  :.'*.  Damascus  was  by  this  time  pro 
bably  weakened  bv  the  advance  of  the  power  of  Assy- 
|  ria.  This  period  of  prosperity  was  followed  by  another 
'  of  a  totally  different  character.  Jeroboam's  son  and 
successor  Zarhariah,  the  last  of  the  dynasty  of  Jehu, 
perished  violently,  after  a  reign  of  six  months,  by  Shal- 
lum,  who,  after  a  reign  of  only  one  month,  was  slain 
by  Menahcin,  whose  own  son  and  successor  Pekahiah 
was  in  turn  murdered  by  Pekah  one  of  his  captains, 
who  was  himself  smitten  by  Hoshea.  In  the  days  of 
Menahem.  and  afterwards  of  Pekah,  the  Assyrians  are 
seen  extending  their  power  over  Israel;  first  under  Pul, 
to  whom  Menahem  paid  a  tribute  of  threescore  talents 
of  silver,  that  his  hand  might  be  with  him  to  confirm  the 
kingdom  in  his  hand,  2  Ki.  xv.  10.  And  now  the  Assy 
rians  are  found  pushing  their  conquests  in  every  direc 
tion;  at  one  time,  in  the  reign  of  Pekah,  leading  away 
into  captivity  a  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Israel,  2  Ki. 
xv.  29,  and  again  coming  to  the  assistance  of  Ahaz  king 
of  Judah,  then  besieged  in  Jerusalem  by  the  Israelites, 
in  conjunction  with  the  Syrians,  who  had  somehow 
recovered  their  former  ascendency.  This  interposition 
led  to  the  destruction  of  Damascus,  and  in  the  succeed- 


ISRAEL.    KINGDOM  OF 


ISRAEL,   KINGDOM  OF 


ing  weak  reign  of  Hoshea,  who  had  formed  some  secret  ;  dynasties  generally  perished  by  the  hand  of  violence, 
alliance  with  Egypt  which  was  offensive  to  the  Assyrian  ;  which  their  own  incompetent  authority  failed  to  keep 
monarch,  to  the  destruction  of  Samaria,  after  a  three  in  check.  To  this  too  is  to  1  e  added  the  character  of 
years'  sk-^e.  by  Shalmaneser,  and  the  removal  of  its  the  kings  themselves,  of  which  it  is  invariably  stated 


inhabitants  to  Assyria;  and  thus  terminated  the  king 
dom  of  Israel,  after  an  existence  of  241.  or  according 
to  another  reckoning  260  years. 

From  the  preceding  brief  sketch  of  the  troubled  his 
tory  of  the  northern  kingdom,  there  is  at  once  apparent 
the  strong  contrast  which  in  various  respects  it  pre- 


they  "did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord.''  There 
were  no  doubt  wickt  d  sovereigns  in  the  kingdom  of 
Judah,  but  the  majority  were  of  a  ditt'erent  description, 
and  so  there  were  seasons  of  national  revival  both  civil 
and  religious;  but  in  the  rival  kingdom  there  was 
nothing  of  this  character,  so  that  its  whole  history 


sented  to  the  kingdom  of  Judah.     First,  its  ever  chang-  may  be  regarded  as  little  else  than  a  decline  and  fall, 

ing  and  short-lived  dynasties  stand  in  strong  opposition  !       5.    Comparative  Chronology  of  the  Tim   Kini/iloui*. — 

to  the  regular  and  almost  continuously  direct  succession  The  following  table  contains  all   the  data   bearing  on 

in  the  line  of  David.      (".-hered  in  without  any  associa-  this  subject,  with  the  conclusions  of  the  most  eminent 


17th 
ISth 


Years  of 

I'uration     [.receding; 
of  iviun.        king  of 
Israel 


17 
3 

41 


18th 


4  tli 


HI 


''  '                                          ^  :','.< 

s:'>7         Ama/.iah 

29               2nd 

15th 

11                   J.  rohoam  11.     .         825 

$29 

MII 

SO'.!                       V 

n~*          A/.ariah   ... 

52             27th 

SStli 

1  Xachariah      .      .         77:'> 

77''           7 

70 

/,              '!      Shullmn   .      .      .           772 

771            7 

70 

39th 

I'1             _  \  .\lenahein      .                772 

771            7 

70 

5th 

2              '    /   IVkahiah       .                 7'>1 

71111      i      7 

59 

52nd 

2<»             S      IVkah       .      .      .          7.V.I 

?53            7 

•  '7 

7.">s 

7 

.'>>',          Jdlhani     .      . 

HI               2nd 

712 

711 

,  Aha/.  .... 

lii              17th 

12th 

9            '.'      [[osh<-a    .      .      .         7:;u 

729 

7'2'i 

/  2.) 

He/.ekiah      .      . 

:',rd 

. 

S;unaria  taken  .          72  1 

Sum  of  i 

241  years,                                                  r>'.is 

>]'.><>             C 

97         Manasseh 

55 

the  j.iv- 

7  months,                                                  ti  |  :', 

tui       .  r 

12         A  mon       .      .      . 

*2 

ceding  ) 

ind  7  days.j                                                   til  1 

<i:>9            (j 

4(1         Josiah       .      .      . 

31 

610 

609 

Jehoaha/. 

i 

i        61<> 

609 

j  Jehoiacim     . 

11 

:                             599 

598 

Jehoiacin 

i 

599 

598 

Zedekiah 

11 

!                                                                                    :            5  S3 

5Ni            5 

N7         Jerusalem  taken 

Duration 

of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  from  its  first  foundation.        ...... 

4S7    years. 

.,                   from  the  disruption 

y 

3S  7]      „ 

Survived 

the  fall  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel, 

1334      „ 

OBi.  1.   The  brackets  in  tlie  column  headed  "Kings  of  Israel,'    incloso  the  several  individuals  of  the  successive  dynasties,  which 

thus  appear  to  be  altogether  more  in  number. 

.,     2.  The  dotted  spaces  in  the  second  ami  third  of  the  columns  headed  "  Commencement  of  Reign,"  indicate  that  in  these 
instances  the  dates  coincide  respectively  with  those  in  the  column  immediately  on  the  leit. 


ISRAEL,    KINGDOM   OK  8 

The  chronological  data  of  this  period  furnished  in  the 
Bible  are  exceedingly  numerous  and  minute,  with  re 
spect  as  well  to  the  duration  of  the  respective  reigns  as 
to  the  year  of  the  contemporary  sovereign  of  the  other 
kingdom  in  which  in  either  ease  any  succeeded  to  the 
tin-one.  The  great  difficulty.  h<>\vrvrr,  is  that  when 
the  mutual  checks  thus  furnished  are  applied,  tin-re  is  a 
striking  discrepancy  in  the  sums  of  the  years  resulting 
in  the  two  cases.  Thus,  reckoning  the  years  assigned 
to  the  kings  of  Israel,  the  sum  is  found  to  he  -Ml 
years,  seven  months,  and  seven  days:  while  according 
to  the  years  of  the  kings  of  ,J  udah  down  to  the  same 
date,  the  fall  of  Samaria,  in  the  sixth  year  of  Hezekiah, 
2  Ki.  xviii.  2,  io,  it  amounts  to  200  years.  Various  attemp 
ted  explanations  have  been  ^-iveii  of  this  discrepancy, 
none  of  which  however  is  entirely  satisfactory;  as  on 
the  supposition  of  mistakes  by  transcribers,  or  the  use 
by  the  historian  of  round  numbers,  regardless  of  the 
fraction  of  a  year,  leading  in  some  cases  to  excess,  and 
in  others  to  the  contrary,  or  on  the  assumption  of 
interregnums  or  co-regencies.  Of  such  interregnums 
chronologers  assume  one  of  eleven  years  between  Jero 
boam  II.  and  Zachariah,  and  another  of  nine  years 
between  Pekah  and  Iloshea,  for  neither  of  which  how 
ever  is  there  any  evidence  in  Scripture,  while  the  proba 
bilities  are  entirely  in  the  contrary  direction. 

The  question  will  be  greatly  simplified  by  dividing 
the  period  into  two  parts,  as  indicated  by  the  transverse 
line  in  the  table,  the  last  date  in  the  upper  division  of 
which  marks  a  point  of  contact  in  the  two  histories,  inas 
much  as  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah  perished  simul 
taneously.  Now  up  to  that  date  the  years  assigned 
to  the  kingdom  of  Israel  amount  to  'JS  and  7  days, 
while  in  the  case  of  Judah  they  reach  only  95,  thus 
showing  in  the  former  an  excess  of  3  years  and 
7  days  over  the  latter.  Subsequently,  however,  the 
relation  is  altered,  for  the  numbers  are,  for  the  king 
dom  of  Israel  143  years  7  months,  and  for  Judah  li>5, 
an  excess  of  21  years  5  months  in  favour  of  the  latter. 
In  explanation,  in  the  first  place,  of  the  excess  of  3 
years  in  favour  of  Israel  in  the  earlier  portion  of  the 
history,  let  it  be  observed,  (1.)  that  Jeroboam  is  said 
to  have  reigned  17  years:  yet  Abijah  succeeded  him 
in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Jeroboam;  so  that  17  here 
denotes  17  and  a  fraction,  say  17  +  x;  (2.)  Ahab  again 
reigned  22  years,  for  Jehoshaphat  succeeded  to  the 
throne  of  Judah  in  his  fourth  year,  and  Ahaziah  in 
Jehoshaphat' s  seventeenth  year;  (3.)  Jehoshaphat's 
reign  also  requires  a  similar  correction.  Jehoram 
of  Israel  came  to  the  throne  in  Jehoshaphat's  nine 
teenth  year,  and  in  Jehoram's  fifth  year,  Jehoram 
of  Judah  succeeded ;  so  that  Jehoshaphat  reigned 
(18  -  x)  +  (5  -  ?/)  =  23  z.  The  excess  of  3  years 
can  be  thus  nearly,  if  not  altogether  accounted  for  from 
the  fact  of  the  historian's  use  of  round  numbers.  Such 
an  explanation  will  not  however  suffice  for  the  more 
serious  difficulties  which  are  presented  in  some  of  the 
subsequent  cases  in  the  lower  division  of  the  table. 
The  nature  of  these  will  be  sufficiently  indicated  by- 
one  or  two  instances.  Thus,  according  to  2  Ki.  xv.  1, 
Azariah,  or  as  he  is  otherwise  called  Uzziah,  succeeded 
in  the  twenty-  seventh  year  of  Jeroboam  II.,  which  would 
thus  make  his  father's  reign  to  have  lasted  more  than 
14  +  2G  years.  It  is  the  general  opinion  that  the 
number  27  cannot  he  correct,  and  is  variously  cor 
rected  to  14,  1C,  and  17.  Thus  also  there  must  be 
some  error  with  respect  to  the  41  years  assigned  as 


ISSACHAR 

|  the  reign  of  Jeroboam;  but  into  these  and  other 
details  it  is  impossible  to  enter.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  numbers  are  in  many  instances  corrupt, 
and  that  that  is  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  the  diffi 
culties  with  which  chronologers  are  here  called  upon 

\  to  contend.  [n.  M.] 

ISRAELITES,  JOURNEYINGS  OF  THE.    >Vc 


IS'SACHAR.  1.  So  the  name  of  one  of  Jacob's  sons 
is  uniformly  written  in  the  English  Bible,  according 
to  an  abbreviated  form  adopted  by  the  rabbinical 
authorities,  as  if  it  were  -o;i"»,  tlic  hired  orbovyht  (son); 

T   T  ' 

but  as  it  exists  in  the  Hebrew  text,  in  the  Samaritan 
copies,  and  in  the  Targums  of  Onkelos  and  Jonathan,  it 
reads  ISASCHAR,  n2;y\y»  —  compounded  thus  n^  '.!'", 

T          T-  T   T 

there  ix,  or  IK  !.•<  hire;  namely,  a  compensation  or  return 
for  the  good  rendered.  The  difference  in  meaning  is 
not  material  between  the  two  forms;  and  either  might 
have  been  adopted  on  the  occasion  which  gave  rise  to 
the  name.  The  occasion  was  the  conception  of  Leah's 
fifth  son  to  Jacob,  which  took  place  in  connection  with 
the  presentation  to  Rachel  of  certain  mandrakes  that 
had  been  gathered  by  Leah's  eldest  son  Reuben  ;  in 
lieu  of  these  (which  were  supposed  to  have  some  power 
in  promoting  fecundity)  Leah  obtained  fresh  access  to 
Jacob,  and  the  result  of  the  intercourse  was  the  birth 
of  a  son,  whom  she  called  Issachar:  for  "  she  said, 
God  hath  given  me  my  hire  (sachar);  and  she  called  his 
name  Issachar,"  Go.  xxx.  is.  An  additional  reason,  how 
ever,  was  thrown  in  at  the  actual  imposition  of  the  name 
—  "  because  she  had  given  her  maid  to  her  husband  :'' 
probably,  because  the  two  gifts  (viz.  of  the  mandrakes 
to  Rachel,  and  of  Zilpah  to  Jacob)  appeared  to  Leah 
but  two  phases  of  the  same  thing  —  successive  acts  of 
praiseworthy  self-denial  in  respect  to  the  multiplication 
of  offspring.  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  inconsistence 
in  the  two  reasons  for  the  name  in  question,  but  a 
perfectly  natural  ground  for  their  association,  consider 
ing  the  feelings  which  appear  at  the  time  to  have 
wrought  in  the  bosom  of  Leah  and  her  sister  Rachel. 

Nothing  whatever  is  recorded  of  Issachar  as  an  indivi 
dual,  excepting  that  he  shared  in  the  common  proce 
dure  and  fortunes  of  the  sons  of  Jacob,  and  became  the 
father  of  four  sons,  Tola,  Shuvah,  Job,  and  Shimron. 
By  the  time  of  the  exodus  the  number  of  grown  males 
belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Issachar  had  grown  to  54,400, 
Nu.  i.  2;i;  while  at  the  close  of  the  sojourn  in  the  wilder 
ness  they  reached  as  high  as  64,300,  inferior  only  to 
Judah  and  Pan,  Ku.  xxvi.  2f>.  In  the  journeyings  through 
the  wilderness,  the  position  of  this  tribe  was  on  the 
east  of  the  tabernacle,  in  company  with  Judah  and  Ze- 
bulun;  on  Gerizim  also  he  stood  beside  Judah  at  the 
ceremony  of  pronouncing  the  blessing  and  the  cursing, 
Zebulun  being  on  Mount  Ebal:  but  in  the  land  of  Ca 
naan.  the  inheritance  of  the  tribe  lay  alongside  that  of 
Zebulun  011  the  south.  With  reference  to  that  inheri 
tance,  and  the  effect  it  was  destined  to  produce  on  the 
general  character  of  the  tribe,  it  was  said  prophetically 
by  Jacob,  that  Issachar  should  be  like  '  '  a  strong  ass 
couching  down  between  two  burdens  (or  between 
panniers);  seeing  that  rest  was  good,  and  that  the 
land  was  pleasant,  and  bowing  his  shoulder  to  bear, 
and  becoming  a  servant  unto  tribute,"  Ge.  xlix.  14,15.  In 
plain  terms,  this  tribe  was  to  have  a  very  pleasant  and 
fertile  territory,  to  the  cultivation  and  enjoyment  of 
which  he  should  yield  himself  with  such  hearty  good- 


ISSACHAR  823 


ISSUE 


will,  as  to  care  for  little  besides :  to  labour,  and  do 
service,  and  make  the  most  of  his  naturally  rich  heri 
tage,  should  be  his  chief  concern — leaving  higher  con 
cerns,  and  the  me  >re  general  interests  of  the  community, 
mainly  to  the  solicitude  of  others.  The  event,  so  far 
as  we  have  the  means  of  ascertaining  it,  strikingly 
corresponded  with  this  anticipation.  The  portion  of 


char;  and  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  that  after  the 
time  of  David  idolatry  and  corruption  made  way  among 
the  members  of  that  tribe,  with  at  least  equal  rapi 
dity  to  its  progress  in  the  others.  They  went  along 
with  Jeroboam  in  his  rebellion  ami  his  sin;  and  it  wa*s 
a  man  of  Jssachar,  who  in  the  second  generation, 


wrested  the  sceptre  from  the  h 


of  Jeroboam,  and 


Issachar,  as  described  in  Jos.  xix.  1  7-23,  appears  to  set  up  a  new  dynasty  in  its  stead.  This  was  "Baasha, 
have  comprised  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Hue  plain  of  the  son  of  Ahijah.  of  the  house  of  Issaehar,"  who  smote 
Esdraelon  :  the  border  lay  toward  Jezreei,  reaching  to  Xadab,  Jeroboam's  son,  at  Gibbethon,  which  the  armies 
Tabor,  and  with  its  outgoings  at  Jordan—  or,  as  Jose-  '  of  Israel  besieged,  and  himself  took  possession  of 
phus  lias  it,  "from  Carmel  to  the  Jordan  in  length,  the  tin-one,  iKi.xv.2r.  He  executed  fearful  judgment 
and  in  breadth  to  Mount  Tabor"  (Ant.  v.  i,  22).  Zebu-  upon  the  house  of  Jeroboam,  leaving  to  him,  it  is  said, 


Inn  skirted  along  its  borders,  but  there  can  be  n 


"  nothing  that  breathed  ;"  hut   the   work  of      engeance 


that  it  was  the  special  portion  of  Issaehar.      The  rich-  was  done,  on  his  part,  in  the  prosecution  merely  of  his 

ness  of  this  plain,  even  in  its  present  state  of  compara-  personal  ambition  and   worldly  interest,  not  from  any 

tive  desolation,   has  been  celebrated   by  all  travellers,  xeal  he  had  for  the  honour  of'God;  and  in  the  course 

Robinson  calls  it  "  the  cream  of    Palestine."  and  says,  of  twenty-six  years   the   like  retribution  was  executed. 

'There  is  not  a  richer  plain  upon  earth  '  (Later  Res.  p.  ur).  and  in  no  better  spirit,  upon  his  house  by  Zimri,  who 

"The  very  weeds,"  says  Stanley  (p.  34M,  "are  a  sign  of  conspired   against  the  son    of    P.aasha  and  smote  him 

what    in   better  bauds   tin:    vast   plain   might    become,  and  all  the  house  of  P.aasha.      That  still  a   remnant  of 


The    thoroughfare   which    it  forms  for 


faithful  persons  exi>ted  in  the  tribe  of  Issachar  may  hi 


from  east  to    west,   from   north   to  south,   made  it  in     inferred  from  the  fact,  that  it  appears  to  have  furnished 

peaceful  times   the   most   available  and    eligible  posses-      not    a    few    to   the    passover  of    Mexekiah.     who    were 


sion  in  Palestine."  Its  name  alone  Jexreel.  th 
or  sowing-place  of  God  bespoke  its  surpa.-.-ing  fruit- 
fulness;  and  the.  choice  by  the  luxurious  Ahab  of  a 
seat  within  its  bounds  for  his  royal  residence,  was 
equally  significant  of  its  rare  beauty  and  manifold 
attractions.  No  \\onder,  th,  n.  that  Is.-aehar.  on  b,  in- 


allowed   to  celebrate   the    feast,    though    they  had  not 
cleansed    them-elves    according    to  the  purification  of 


tin-  sanctuary,  2  Ch.  x\x.  l.«,  10.  X<>  further  notice,  of  a 
specific  kind,  occurs  of  them;  the  tribe,  as  a  whole, 
shared  in  the  troubles  and  desolations  which  ere  long 
b,  fell  the  kingdom  ,,f  I-rad  generally:  so  that  the 
set  down  in  such  a  choice  region,  ,-ln.uld  have  said  strong  ass  had,  for  his  sins,  to  couch  under  other  bur- 

within  himself,  that  tin-   rest    was  g 1  and   tin-   land      dens  than  those   which  originally   lay    upon  him,   and 

pleasant;  and  also  but  too  natural,  however  it  might  be     for  the  good   rest   and    pleasant  land   which  God  gave 
matter  of  regret,  that   in   the   fuhie.-s  of   his  Mifiiciciicy      him  had  to  how    his   m-.-k  to  the  yoke  of  a   foreign   op- 
he  should  have  given  himself  more  to  the  pleaMir.  s  and      pro-ion  and  a  miserable  exile, 
pursuits  connected  with   tin-  ivjon.  than  to  things  of         2.    ISSAI  HAK.      Only  another  per.-on  of  the  name  of 


greater  moment  and  public  concern.    The  tribe,  how.-\  IT, 
were   not  altogether  engrossed  with  what   immediately 


Issacbar  is  noticed  in  Old  Testament  scripture,  and  he 
is  simply  de-i-nated  as  th 


•nth  son  of  Obed-edom, 
concerned  themselves;   they  had  some   place,  though   a     a  Korhite,  1  Ch.  xxvi.  5. 

comparatively  small  one,  in  the  struggles   made  by  tin-          ISSUE.      Under    this    general    bead   two   sources  of 
community  for  the  general  ur-'"d.       In  the  earl  v  conflict     defilement  are  mentioned  in  the  legislation  of  Moses- 


waged  by  Deborah  and  Barak  against  the  host  .if  Si-era 


ne  connected  with  males  the  other  with  females.   The 


-•rvice  rendered  by  the      law    respecting   the   former   is   i_d\vn   in    Le.   xv.    !-];"» 


special  mention  is  made  of  tin 
princes  or  heads  of  Issachar,  .Ju.  v.  1.1.      One  of  tin-  judges      It  is  tin  re  designated  "  a  running  issue  (or  flux)  out  of 
of  Israel  also  arose  out  of  this  tribe— Tola,  who  judged      his  flesh  ;"   and  by  flesh    is   undoubtedly  meant  flesh  in 

tin-    .-t  I'on-er    sense1,    th 


Israel  twenty-three  years,  though  n,)  special  account  is 
given  of  his  exploits,  Ju  \  I,  .'.  Several  generations 
later,  they  took  a  creditable  part  in  the  effort  to  briiiLT 
about  a  united  action  in  favour  of  David,  and  to  have 


stronger  sense,  the  instrument  of  propagation  of 
-ed:  so  that  the  flux  in  question  is  plainly  an  issue  of 
eminal  matter,  and  of  that  as  the  r> -suit  of  undue  in 
dulgence  iii  lle-hly  lust,  enervating  the  organs,  and  in- 


him  crowned   at  Hebron.      Two  hundred  of  them   who  din-in- a  certain    derive  of  diseased   action.      There   is 

went  thither  are  expressly  said  to  have  lx-en  men  ''who  no  need  for  supposing,  \\ith  Miehaelis  (I,nws  of  Muses,  art. 

had  understanding  of  the  times,  to  know  what   Israel  212),  any  reference  to  what   i-   technically  called   i/onur- 

oiight  to  do,"  and  who  had  all   their   brethren   at   their  /•//'/«    rlrnlcntn..  one   of   the   fruits  of    the  venereal  dis- 

commandment,    i  cii.  xii.  :;•>.     This  indicates   among  the  :  ease  — both  of  which  were  altogether  unknown  in  an- 

leading    men    of    the    tribe    superior    shrewdness    and  cient  times,  and   indeed    till    the   intercourse   of   Kuro- 

sagacity,   such  as  is  wont  to  distinguish   persons  who  peans  with  America.      Hut  tin:  other,  which  was  a  sort 

give   themselves    to    practical    business,    and    look    well  of  disease,  though  of  a  milder  form,  was  stamped  in  the 

after  their  own  affairs.      And  there  must  have  been  at  law  with  condemnation,  and  required  specific  purilica- 

the  period  in  question  a  great  deal  of  active  energy  in  tion,  because  it  bore,  in  a  very  peculiar  manner,  not 

the  tribe;   for,  beside  the  two  hundred  wise  heads  just  only  upon  generation  of  offspring  (which  is  throughout 

referred  to,  the  descendants  of  Tola.    Issachar's  eldest  j  marked  in   the   law   as   tainted   with  evil)  but  upon  a 


son,  could  muster  in  the  days  of  David  no  fewer  than 
22,000  valiant  men  of  might,  while  many  thousands 
besides  of  such  like  men  were  to  be  found  in  the  other 
families  of  the  tribe,  1  C'U.  vii.  i-r>. 

In  a  strictly  religious  respect,  however,  sacred  history 


vicious  and  offensive  excess  in  that  line.  It  bespoke  a 
specially  corrupt  state  of  the  generative  organs  of  hu 
man  life,  itself  corrupt:  and  on  this  account  the  per 
son  subject  to  it  was  pronounced  himself  unclean,  and 
a  source  of  uncleanness  to  whatever  he  might  come  in 


has  recorded  nothing  to  the  credit  of  the  tribe  of  Issa-      contact  with.      In  the  case  of  females,  the  issue  occa- 


ITALY 


I'iTTJEA 


sioning  uncleanness  was  that  of  ordinary  menstruation, 
or  ot'  discharges  connected  therewith  but  unduly  pro 
longed,  Lu.  xv.  i'i-:;i.  Menstruation  lasting,  at  an  aver 
age,  for  four  or  five  days,  the  legal  time  set  for  getting 
cleansed  of  its  impurity  was  seven  days  -  the  cleansing 
being  performed  simply  by  washing  the  person  and  the 
garments;  but  if  the  issue  continued  beyond  the  usual 
time,  then  it  was  treated  as  a  diseased  state  of  body  — 
symbolical  of  an  intensified  spiritual  corruption — and, 
as  in  the  case  of  males  above  described,  was  regarded 
as  calling  for  special  acts  of  purification.  In  both  cases 
alike,  there  was  not  only  to  be  a  washing  of  the  clothes 
and  person,  but  the  presentation  of  two  doves  or 
pigeons,  the  one  for  a  sin-ottering,  the  other  for  a 
burnt-ottering:  in  order  to  restore  the  individual,  as 
one  brought  into  a  certain  consciousness  of  sin,  to  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  God's  house,  Lc.  xv.  15-2!).  To 
bring  sin  to  remembrance — the  sin  of  one's  nature  and 
origin  —  miu'ht  be  said  to  be  the  design  of  all  such  or 
dinances  respecting  defilement  and  purification,  even  in 
their  commoner  and  perfectly  natural  form.  And  when 
there  came  to  be  anything  abnormal,  such  as  in  a  more 
obvious  and  palpable  manner  bore  the  impress  of  irre 
gularity  or  excess,  then  the  rite  of  purification  received 
a  corresponding  increase,  in  order  to  connect  what  ap 
peared  more  distinctly  with  the  corruption  of  nature  as 
its  cause. 

The  bloody  issue  of  the  woman  in  the  gospel,  who 
was  healed  by  the  touch  of  Christ's  garment,  .Alar.  v.  2;>-2:i, 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  was  an  extreme  case  of 
prolonged  menstruation,  and  came  under  the  legal 
prescription  given  in  Le.  xv.  2.3.  She  would  there 
fore  be  the  more  anxious  for  a  remedy,  and  might  the 
more  readily  receive  it  at  the  hands  of  (,'hrist.  as,  in 
addition  to  the  bodily  pain  and  trouble  connected  with 
it,  she  was  rendered  ceremonially  unclean  during  its 
continuance,  and  necessarily  debarred  from  access  to 
the  temple  of  God.  The  merciful  interposition  of  Jesus 
in  her  behalf,  at  once  relieved  her  of  a  distressing 
malady,  and  set  her  free  from  legal  uncleanness. 

IT'ALY,  as  used  in  the  New  Testament,  denotes 
the  same  extent  of  country  that  it  dues  in  modern 
times ;  it  comprehends  the  whole  peninsula  which 
reaches  from  the  Alps  to  the  Straits  of  Messina.  The 
term  was  originally  applied  to  only  the  more  southerly 
portion  of  the  region;  but  before  the  gospel  era  it  was 
extended  so  as  to  embrace  the  whole.  It  but  rarely 
occurs  in  New  Testament  scripture,  and  only  as  a 
general  designation,  Ac.  xxvii.  i ;  lie.  xiii.  2t. 

ITH'AMAR  [/We  of  /:,afm],  the  youngest  son  of  Aaron, 
and  one  of  the  two  heads  under  whom  the  Aaronic 
families  were  ranged — those,  however,  of  the  line  of  the 
elder  son  Eleazar  being  the  more  numerous,  1  Ch.  xxiv. 
4-c.  After  the  death  of  their  brothers  Xadab  and  Abihu 
for  attempting  to  offer  with  strange  fire,  the  duties  of 
the  priesthood  fell  to  be  discharged  by  Eleazar  and 
Ithamar,  along  with  their  father  Aaron;  and  on  the 
death  of  the  latter,  Eleazar  as  the  elder  brother  suc 
ceeded  to  the  high-priesthood.  In  process  of  time, 
however,  this  office  came  into  the  hands  of  a  descen 
dant  of  Tthamar— though  by  what  concurrence  of  cir 
cumstances  is  unknown.  As  Eli  is  the  first  person  in 
this  line  who  is  said  to  have  held  the  high-priesthood, 
the  probability  is,  that  he  was  actually  the  first,  and 
that  it  was  conferred  on  him  in  consideration  of  the 
same  high  moral  qualities  which  raised  him  to  the  dis 
tinguished  position  of  a  judge  in  Israel.  It  continued. 


!  however,  but  a  short  time  in  this  line,  as  in  the  days  of 
|  Solomon  it  again  reverted  to  tl»e  elder  branch,  in  the 
person  of  Zadok.  Eli,  Ahitub,  Ahimelech,  Abiathar, 
are  the  only  descendants  of  Ithamar  known  to  have 
filled  the  high-priest's  office;  and  it  would  seem  as  if 
Abiathar  shared  the  dignity  with  Zadok  even  before 
the  latter  was  formally  installed  in  it,  1  .Sa.  i.-iii.  xxi 
xxii.  -Jo,  Ac. 

ITH'RA,  otherwise  called  J ETHER  the  Ishmaelite, 
it'll,  ii.  17,  but  under  the  name  of  Ithra  designated  an 
Israelite,  and  by  Abigail,  the  sister  of  Zeruiah,  the 
father  of  Amasa,  who  became  the  chief  captain  of  Ab 
salom's  army,  2  Sa.  xvii.  2.">.  The  peculiarities  of  this 
connection  have  been  already  noticed  under  ABIGAIL 

irhic/i  .->/'. 

IT'TAL  1.  Tin:  ( ;  ITTITK,  as  he  is  always  called— that 
is  the  native  of  Gath.  Reappears  to  have  been  the 
ablest  and  most  devoted  of  the  friends  whom  David 
made  to  himself  during  his  residence  in  Gath.  and  was 
looked  up  to  by  the  others  as  their  leader.  That  he  was 
actually  a  native  of  ( lath,  and  consequently  a  foreigner 
by  birth,  is  expressly  intimated  by  David,  who  reminded 
him  on  the  occasion  of  Absalom's  revolt,  that  he  was 
"  a  stranger  and  an  exile,"'  and  "  had  come  but  yester 
day.''  2  Sa.  xv.  id.  Xo  one.  however,  stood  more  firmly 
by  David  in  that  time  of  shaking  and  confusion  than 
this  converted  Philistine.  He  followed  the  king  into 
his  exile  with  "  all  his  men,  and  all  the  little  ones 
that  were  with  him."  Such  was  the  confidence  re 
posed  in  him  by  David,  and  the  general  esteem  in 
which  he  was  held,  that  a  third  part  of  the  army  was 
put  under  him,  when  preparation  was  made  for  the 
decisive  conflict  at  Mahanaim,  2  Sa.  xviii.  2.  That  he 
acquitted  himself  well  on  the  occasion  may  be  inferred 
from  the  general  result  of  the  struggle,  in  respect  to 
which  no  exception  is  taken  as  to  the  part  performed 
by  the  leader  of  the  men  of  Gath.  It  would  seem, 
however,  that  while  his  services  were  cheerfully  ren 
dered  and  accepted  in  this  emergency,  no  permanent 
place  was  assigned  him  beside  the  leading  officers  of 
David's  kingdom:  this,  it  was  probably  felt,  would  be 
too  strong  a  step  to  take  in  respect  to  a  Philistine 
bv  birth,  and  might  be  fitted  to  created  jealousy  and 
distrust.  The  name  of  Ittai,  therefore,  never  occurs 
but  in  connection  with  the  rebellion  of  Absalom:  but  the 
part  he  played  then  was  alike  honourable  to  him,  and 
to  the  master  whose  cause  lie  espoused,  and  for  whom 
he  showed  himself  willing  even  to  hazard  his  life. 

2.  ITTAT.  This  name  occurs  only  once,  as  borne  by 
a  native;  Israelite.  Among  the  thirty  honourable  and 
heroic  men  of  David's  court  was  an  Ittai.  son  of  Pubai 
of  Gibeah  in  Benjamin;  but  how  he  distinguished  him 
self  is  not  specified,  2Sa.  xxiii.  21). 

ITURE'A,  a  district  on  the  north  of  Palestine, 
which  along  with  Trachonitis  formed  the  tetrarchy  of 
Philip,  one  of  the  sons  of  Herod  the  Great.  Lu.  iii  1. 
It  is  simply  mentioned  in  this  connection  by  the  evan 
gelist,  without  any  indication  of  the  region  where  it 
lay,  or  the  limits  it  occupied:  nor  are  these  anywhere 
very  exactly  defined.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  it 
stretched  from  the  base  of  Mount  Hermon  toward  the 
north-east  in  the  direction  of  Hauran,  between  Damas 
cus  and  the  northern  part  of  the  country  anciently 
called  Bashan,  including  perhaps  a  little  of  the  latter. 
It  is  supposed  to  have  derived  its  name  from  Jetur, 
one  of  the  sons  of  Ishmael,  ich.  i.  31;  and  Jetur,  along 
with  the  Hagarites  and  some  others  in  the  same  region, 


IYAH 


IVORY 


were  among  the  tribes  with  whom  the  men  of  Reuben, 
Gad,  and  the  half  tribe  of  Manasseh,  who  received  for 
their  possession  the  territory  of  Gilead  and  Bashan,  hail 
to  make  war.  The  war  was  successfully  waged  by  these 
parties,  and  the  children  of  .Manasseh  dwelt  in  the  land, 
and  spread  ''  from  Bashan  unto  Baal-hermon  and  Seir, 
and  unto  Mount  Hermon,"'  i  ch.  v.  23.  Little  compara 
tively  is  known  of  the  region  as  it  existed  in  ancient 
times,  or  of  the  changes  through  which  it  passed;  but 
a  portion  of  the  Ishmaelite  race  appear  to  have  still  held 
their  ground  iu  it.  fur  the  Itureans  were  noted  in  sub 
sequent  times  for  the  usual  Arab  propensities,  and  re 
quired  to  have  .strong  measures  taken  with  them. 
Before  the  Christian  era  the  district  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  Romans,  and  formed  part  of  the  exten 
sive  domains  given  toHeivd.  I'.y  him  it  was  de.-tined 
to  his  son  1'hilip.  and  the  arrairji-nient  was  confirmed 
by  the  Roman  emperor. 

I'VAH,  once  written  AY  A,  2  K:.  xvii.  24  ;  xviii.  ;,l; 
xix.  13,  is  mentioned  aloiiu  with  Baby  Inn.  C'uthah,  and 
Ilamath,  as  places  from  which  the  king  "t  A.-.-vna 
brought  people  to  inhabit  Samaria,  and  also  along  with 
Sepharvaim  ami  Ileiia  a<  places  whose  gods  and  people 
Sennacherib  had  conquered.  But  no  certain  trace  of 
it  has  been  found  either  in  ancient  history  or  annniir 
existing  ruins.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  to\\n  or  dis 
trict  in  the  region  of  Babylonia,  and  is  supposed  bv  some 
to  have  derived  its  name  from  a  Babylonian  deitv  of 
the  same  name. 

IVORY  [Ileb.   .-»•    (shut),  which  is  properly   tooth, 

but  is  often  Used  of  tl<i>hni/t's  /'"if/i.  or  ivory,  as  the 
tooth  bv\\av  of  eminence;  xhtnhaltliim,  a  compound  of 
sltcu,\A  employed  in  1  Ki.  x.  ~2'2:  i>  (_'h.  ix.  '21,  but  \\hvis 
still  uncertain].  The  tusk  of  the  walrus  or  sea-horse, 
as  well  as  of  the  elephant.  e"ii.-ists  nf  ivory-— of  a  kind 
also  peculiarly  hard  and  white  -  but  this  would  seldom 


overlaid  with  gold,  i  Ki.  x.  i?,  and  it  formed  part  of  the 
precious  things  which  his  Tarshish  Heet  brought  from 
the  distant  regions  with  which  it  traded,  i  Ki.  x.  22 ; 
2  Ch.  ix.  21.  As  the  taste  for  luxury  and  indulgence  grew, 
the  use  of  ivory  for  household  display  naturally  in 
creased  also.  Aliab  is  said  to  have  made  for  himself  an 
ivory  house;  and  the  prophet  Amos  denounces  couches, 
and  even  houses  of  ivory,  as  among  the  signs  of  inordi 
nate  luxurious  living  which  prevailed  in  the  later  days 


[357. J    Indian  Elephant -J 
Indicut. 


L358.J    African  Klrphant—  Eltph  i 


be  resorted  to  in  more  ancient  times.  The  projecting 
character  of  the  elephant's  tusks  gives  them  somewhat 
of  the  appearance  of  horns,  and  on  this  account  Eze- 
kiel  speaks  of  horns  of  ivory  as  among  the  articles  of 
Tyre's  merchandise,  ch.  xxvii.  i.i.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  a  great  traffic  was  carried  on  in  ivory  among  the 
nations  of  antiquity:  and  that  this  was  shared  in  by  the 
Hebrews  in  the  more  flourishing  periods  of  their  com 
monwealth,  is  manifest  from  the  allusions  made  to  it 
in  Scripture.  "Palaces  of  ivory''  are  spoken  of  as 
among  the  known  marks  of  royal  majesty  and  splen 
dour,  Ps.  xlv  b;  Solomon  had  a  throne  made  of  it. 
VOL.  I. 


"i'  tli'-  kingdom  of  Israel,  and  as  such  destined  to  be 
brought  to  de-olation.  L-  Ki.  \xii  39  ;  Am.  iii.  15  ;  vi.  4.  The 
ancient  Egyptians  and  Assyrians  are  known  to  have 
indulged  the  taste  for  ivory  from  remote  times,  and 
specimens  of  ivory  work  have  survived  to  the  present 
dav,  some  from  the  excavations  of  Nimroiid,  and  some 
fn.m  Iv_rvpt,  supposed  to  be  of  a  date  anterior  to  the 
Persian  invasion.  Herodotus  >peaks  of  Ethiopia  as 
one  of  the  ivory  producing  countries  uii.  111):  it  paid 
twenty  lar^c  lu.-ks  of  ivory  as  an  article  of  tribute  to 
the  kin^r  of  Persia  (iii  D7).  Ami  in  the  more  flourish 
ing  periods  of  Greece  and  1,'oine  the  use  of  it  for 
statues,  the  liner  articles  of  household  fur 
niture,  and  ornaments  of  various  kinds, 
was  so  general  and  is  so  well  known,  that 
it  is  needless  to  cite  authorities  on  the 
subject.  One  is  disposed  at  first  to  wonder, 
that  elephants  should  have  existed  in  such 
numbers  as  to  furnish  materials  for  so  ex 
tensive  a  trade  as  appears  to  have  been 
carried  on  inhorv.  Bufvwhen  it  is  con 
sidered,  that  for  the  last  few  years  the 
annual  importation  of  ivory  into  Great 
Britain  alone'  has  been  about  one  million 
pounds,  requiring  the  slaughter  of  probably 
,yi(Hi  elephants  to  furnish  it,  while  still 
there  is  no  a] (parent  diminution  in  the 
sources  of  supply,  there  can  be  no  room  to 
doubt,  that  means  far  more  than  sufficient  must  have 
existed  for  meeting  the  demands  of  ancient  art  and 
civilization,  when  these  were  relatively  much  smaller 
than  they  are  now.  Only  two  species  of  elephants  are 
recognized — the  African  and  the  Indian— easily  dis 
tinguished  from  each  other  by  the  size  of  the  ear,  which 
in  the  former  is  much  larger  than  in  the  latter.  The 
tusks  of  the  African  elephant  attain  sometimes  a  length 
of  S  or  even  10  feet,  and  a  weight  of  100  to  120  pounds; 
but  those  of  the  Indian  elephant  are  much  shorter  and 
lighter,  while  in  the  females  they  often  scarcely  pro 
ject  bevond  the  lips. 

104 


820 


JABESH 


J. 


J  AND  I.  It  should  be  understood,  that  while  ill 
Kii':1ish  we  distinguish  betwixt  the  letters  I  and  J, 
there  is  no  such  distinction  in  Hebrew.  It  is  the 
same  letter,  only  in  the  one  case  placed  before  a  con 
sonant,  and  in  the  other  before  a  vowel.  In  the  latler 
case,  the  proper  pronunciation  is  that  of  the  English 
Y,  not  J —  although  in  ordinary  speech  and  popular 
discourse  it  is  necessary  to  yield  to  established  usage. 

JA'ARE-OR'EGIM,  the  name,  according  to  -1  Sa. 
xxi.  10,  of  the  father  of  Elhanan,  who  slew  the  brother 
of  Goliath:  but  the  text  is  understood  to  have  suffered 
corruption.  (See  under  JAIK,  which  appears  to  be  the 
correct  name. ) 

JAAZANIAH  [properly  Jaazaii-jaliu,  or  according 
to  the  pronunciation,  YAAZAN-YAIU'.  a-hum  Jchui'a/t 
will  /«.•'»•_].  1.  A  man  of  some  note  at  the  time 
of  the  Babylonish  captivity,  and  who,  as  one  of  the 
captains  of  the  forces,  accompanied  Islnnael  the  son  of 
Xcllianiah,  when  he  went  to  pay  his  respects  to  Geda- 
Hah,  2Ki.  xxv.  L'a.  But  he  appears  to  have  taken  110  part 
with  Islnnael  in  his  treachc  ious  conduct  subsequently 
toward  Gedaliah  :  he  may  rather  be  presumed  to  have 
joined  Johanan  and  the  others  in  recovering  the  prey 
from  Islnnael,  and  then  going  to  Egypt.  ,ic.  xli.  11;  xliii.  -1,  5. 
2.  One  of  the  elders  of  Judah,  sou  of  Shaphan,  who  in 
Ezekiel's  vision  are  represented  as  conducting  the  ido 
latrous  worship  which  was  proceeding  in  Jerusalem, 
Kzo.  viii.  11.  This  person  appears  to  have  been  singled 
out  from  the  others  on  account  of  the  symbolical  im 
port  of  his  name,  and  to  render  the  flagrant  impro 
priety  of  the  proceeding  more  manifest.  The  leader  of 
the  ideal  party  of  worshippers  bore  a  name  which  sig 
nified  Jthof'i.h  u-i/l  hiar,  while  by  their  deeds  they 
were  virtually  proclaiming  "-Jehovah  seeth  us  not, 
Jehovah  hath  forsaken  the  earth,"  Eze.  viii.  in.  \See 
under  CHAMBERS  OF  IMAGERY  for  the  nature  of  the 
vision.)  3.  Another  representative  man  of  this  name 
is  mentioned  by  Ezekiel,  and  with  much  the  same 
design — Jaazaniah  son  of  Azur,  ch.  xi.  1,  dod  hear.?,  *«/< 
of  hc/j>.  It  is  in  connection  with  a  prophecy  which 
utters  God's  judgment  upon  the  sins  of  the  land,  and 
his  determination  to  bring  all  to  desolation;  so  that  the 
names  should  be  found  to  bo  like  a  bitter  mockery  of 
the  reality.  4.  A  Rechabite,  the  son  of  Jeremiah, 
with  whom  the  prophet  Jeremiah  had  some  dealings, 
and  whom  he  pointed  to  as,  along  with  his  brethren, 
examples  to  the  covenant -people,  Jc.  xxxv.  n. 

JA'AZER,  often  also  written  JA'ZER,  a  town  in 
Gilead,  taken  from  the  Amorites,  and  in  the  territory 
which  was  assigned  to  Gad,  Nu.  xx.  :;n  ;  xxxii.  ?,,  35 ;  2  Sa. 
xxiv.  «.  It  became  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Levites, 
Jos.  xxi.  ;>;.  It  is  mentioned  in  connection  with  good 
pastures,  and  also  with  the  cultivation  of  the  vine, 
NU.  x\xii.  i ;  is.  xvi.  s,9.  Its  renown  for  vines  is  also  cele 
brated  by  Jeremiah,  and  a  sea  of  Jazer  spoken  of, 
ch.  xlviii.  ^.  What  is  meant  by  this  sea  is  not  known, 
as.  according  to  what  is  regarded  as  the  probable  site 
of  the  place,  there  neither  is  now,  nor  ever  was,  any 
lake  or  expanse  of  water  that  might  with  propriety  be 
designated  a  sea.  In  the  ancient  Onomasticon  of  Euse- 
bius  the  site  is  placed  at  the  distance  of  fifteen  Roman 


mil' s  from  Heshbon,  and  ten  from  Philadelphia,  to  the 
west.  Modern  research  has  as  yet  thrown  no  certain 
light  upon  this  subject. 

JA'BAL  [jli/tciifj  stream],  one  of  the  descendants  of 
Cain,  anil  the  son  of  Lantech  and  Adah,  Gu.  h.  nn.  He 
is  described  as  the  father  of  such  as  dwell  in  tents  and 
have  cattle — the  originator,  as  we  may  designate  him 
in  modern  language,  of  the  nomade  or  wandering 
shepherd  life.  Abel,  though  a  tender  of  flocks,  was 
not  it  follower  of  this  mode  of  life:  as.  indeed,  the 
number  of  flocks  to  be  tended  in  his  day  was  not  likely 
to  have  been  such  as  to  require  his  going  to  any  dis 
tance  from  home,  or  the  cultivation  of  migratory  habits. 
Things  had  reached  a  more  advanced  stage  in  Jabal's 
time,  and  he  signalized  himself  by  the  invention  of 
articles  (formed  probably  to  a  gn -at  extent  of  skins), 
which  enabled  him  to  move  about  and  tent  it  afield. 

JAB'BOK  \_pouriiuj  out  OTCinptt/iny],  a  brook  which 
traverses  in  a  western  course  the  land  of  Gilead,  and 
empties  itself  into  the  Jordan  about  half  way  between 
tlie  Sea  of  Galilee  and  the  l)ead  Sea.  The  modern 
name  is  Zurka  or  &crka.  [Such  is  the  general  opinion, 
but  see  for  a  different  one  under JOGBEHAH  and  PEXCEL.] 
It  bounded  the  kingdom  of  Sihoii  on  the  north,  as 
Arnoii  did  on  the  south;  hence  the  children  of  Israel 
are  said  to  have  possessed  his  land  "from  Arnon  unto 
Jabbok,"  Nu.  xxi.  24.  But  it  was  also  the  border  of  the 
children  of  Ammon,  whose  possessions  reached  to  the 
Jabbok,  a  rugged  and  precipitous  region:  whence  in  the 
passage  referred  to,  the  Israelites  are  said  to  have 
possessed  Sihon's  land  up  merely  to  the  border  of  the 
children  of  Ammon,  because  that  border  was  strong. 
Various  streams  run  into  the  Jabbok  on  its  course, 
but  most  of  these  are  only  mountain-torrents,  flowing 
in  winter,  dry  in  summer ;  at  its  confluence  with  the 
Jordan  the  Jabbok  itself  never  ceases  to  flow,  and  in 
the  rainy  season  is  often  a  considerable  river.  It  was 
beside  this  brook,  and  near  one  of  its  fords,  that  the 
memorable  scene  lay  of  Jacob's  wrestling  with  the 
angel  of  the  Lord,  in  connection  with  which  his  name 
was  changed  into  Israel,  Ge.  xxxv.  22-30. 

JA'BESH,  or  more  commonly  JABESH-GILEAI), 
because  it  lay  in  the  extensive  transjordanic  region 
which  bore  the  name  of  Gilead.  It  was  in  that  por 
tion  of  the  territory  which  belonged  to  the  half  tribe 
of  Manasseh,  and  seems  to  have  been  by  much  the 
most  considerable  city  in  their  Gileadite  possessions. 
It  stood  at  the  distance  of  six  Roman  miles  from  Pella 
in  the  direction  of  Gerasa,  according  to  the  ancient 
accounts;  but  the  memorial  of  it  has  so  completely 
perished,  that  the  site  is  only  with  some  probability 
referred  by  Robinson  to  the  ruin  of  ed-Deir  on  the 
southern  brow  of  AVady  Yabis  (Later  Res.  p.  srA  The 
correctness  of  this  identification,  however,  is  liable  to 
some  doubt  (Wilton's  Necceb,  p.  lor).  On  two  or  three 
occasions  it  played  an  important  part  in  the  history 
of  ancient  Israel.  The  first  proved  to  be  an  unhappy 
one  for  Jabesh.  For  some  reason  not  explained,  it 
had  sent  no  contingent  to  the  fierce  war  which  the 
other  tribes  waged,  during  the  time  of  the  judges, 
against  the  tribe  of  Benjamin;  and  a  strong  band  in 


JABEZ 


JACIIIX 


consequence  was  sent  to  revenge  the  criminal  neglect.  ' 
Nearly  the  whole  of  the  male,  and  many  also  of  the 
female  inhabitants  of  Jabesh  perished  under  this  severe 
visitation;  but  four  hundred  unmarried  women  were 
spared  and  given  as  wives  to  the  remnant  of  Ben 
jamin's  army,  Ju.  xxi.  s-u.  The  city  appears  before 
verv  long  to  have  recovered  from  the  disaster,  and  in 
the  time  of  Saul  it  had  again  acquired  much  of  its 
former  importance.  Near  the  beginning  of  his  reign 
Xahash  the  Ammonite  brought  a  formidable  host  against 
it,  and  was  so  determined  to  reduce  the  place  to  the 
most  abject  condition,  that  he  refused  even  to  accept 
their  surrender,  unless  he  was  allowed  to  thrust  out 
their  right  eyes,  and  lay  the  matter  as  a  reproach  on 
all  Israel,  i  sa  xi.  i.  In  this  extremity  they  despatched 
messengers  to  the  recently  elected  kinu'.  who  took  in 
stant  measures  to  arouse  tin-  -pint  of  hi>  countrymen 
for  the  rescue  of  Jabcsh,  and  the  result  was.  not  onlv 
the  relief  of  the  city,  hut  the  utter  discomfiture  of  tin- 
host  of  the  Ammonites.  The  people  of  .laht-sh  oh.  r- 
ished  a  grateful  spirit  toward  Saul  fur  this  timelv  inter 
position;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  iiutie,-,  that  when  he  and 
his  sons  fell  by  the  hands  of  the  1 'hilis'iin  s,  and  their 
bodies  were  fastened  in  triumph  to  the  wall  of  I'.etli- 
shan.  the  valiant  men  of  Jabesh-(  Jilead  made  a  nuetur- 
nal  incursion,  carried  oil'  the  bodies,  and  buried  the 
hones  under  a  tree  at  Jabe-h.  i  Sa  xxxi.  n-13.  Such  an 
act  was  honourable  to  their  charaet.-r  as  \v.  11  as  to 
their  vahmr,  and  Ib.vid  did  not  fail  to  testify  his  ap 
preciation  of  it.  -J  S;i.  ii.  ;,.  The  name  of  .lahesh  lleVer 

occurs  again  in  I-raelitMi  history,  and  its  inhabitant 
doubtless  shared  the  general  fate  of  their  brethren  o|' 
the  ten  tribes. 

JA'BEZ.      The   name  ,,f   a   per-on  hrl.,nu-inu'  to  tin- 
families  of   the   tril f  .ludah.  but   mentioned    in    the 

genealogical  list  of  1  Ch.  i\'.  so  abruptlv.  tliat  ii"  indi 
cation  is  given,  either  of  tin-  familv  to  wliicli  he  be 
longed,  or  the  period  when  he  lived.  Thi-re  is  even  a 
kind  of  enigma  connected  with  his  name;  for  it  is  --aid. 
ver.  0,  that  his  mother  called  his  name  .lab.-z.  "  .-ayinu1. 
Because  I  bare  liim  with  sorrow"  ^vy:-  ;/ '":•''.  '  >iie 

would  have  thought,  in  that  case,  that  (>;<>,  or  ././;. .', 
(he  will  give  sorrow),  not  . A///< :.  would  liave  b.-eii  the 
natural  name.  I'os-ihlv  the  one  was  but  another  form 
of  the  same  word,  and  used  intei vhaii'_:eably  witli  it. 
although  no  instanee  of  the  ./"'/*:  form  i-f  the  verb 
occurs  in  Scripture.  I'.ut  however  that  may  he,  the 
person  who  bore  the  name  of  .lahez,  jud-in^  frem  tin- 
brief  notice  -jiven  of  him,  appears  to  have  been  pecu 
liarly  associated  with  experiences  of  trouble,  and  through 
these  was  led  to  seek  more  earnestly  the  protection  and 
support  of  ( lod.  Not  only  did  his  mother  bear  him 
with  sorrow,  but  afterwards  he  is  said  to  have  cried 
to  (lod,  as  from  the  midst  of  distress,  "Oh  that  thou 
wonldst  bless  me  indeed,  and  enlarge  my  coast,  and 
that  thine  hand  nn'uht  be  with  me,  and  that  thou 
wouldst  keep  me  from  evil,  that  it  may  not  grieve  me." 
The  burden  of  the  request  plainly  was,  that  notwith 
standing  the  ill  omen  of  his  name,  it  might  not  prove  a  i 
prophecy  of  his  condition;  and  God,  it  is  said,  granted 
his  request.  But  no  further  or  more  special  insight  is 
given  into  the  nature  of  his  case.  Some  of  the  rabbins 
would  identify  him  with  Othniel,  but  without  the 
slightest  foundation. 

JA'BEZ.  a   town  in  the  tribe  of  Judah,  said  to  be 
occupied  by  scribes,  i  Ch.il.  r,.;.     As  it  is  mentioned  in  , 


connection  with  Salma,  who  is  called  the  father  of 
Bethlehem,  vcr.  -,i,  and  is  also  associated  with  the  Ke- 
nites,  the  probability  is.  that  it  lay  somewhere  in  the 
south  of  Judah.  and  at  no  great  distance  from  Beth 
lehem.  But  nothing  of  a  definite  kind  is  known  of  it. 

JA'BIN  [uitcll'f.HKt}.  1.  A  king  in  the  north  of 
Canaan,  whose  capital  was  Hazor,  and  who  headed 
one  of  the  most  formidable  combinations  against  which 
Joshua  had  to  contend.  All  the  tribes  around  the  Sea 
of  (ialilee,  and  northward  towards  Hermon  and 
Damascus,  assembled  under  this  warlike  chief,  forming 
a  multitude,  as  is  said,  like  the  sand  upon  the  sea 
shore,  Jos.  xi.  t-t,  for  the  purpose  of  arresting  the  progress 
of  Joshua's  arms,  by  which  aireadv  all  the  soutlu  rn 
districts  of  the  land  had  been  subdued.  I'.ut  the  effort 
proved  altogether  unsuccessful.  Joshua  fell  upon  them 
suddenly  at  their  encampment  beside  the  waters  of 
Merom,  and  put  the  mi-Jity  force  to  the  route.  After 
pursuinu'  the  vanquished  foes  far  north,  Joshua  on  his 
return  burned  Ha/.or,  and  >lew  Jabin  the  kin--. 

2.  Another  JAISI.V,  however,  called  kincr  of  Cannan 
(plainly  meaning  th'-rehy  the  northern  and  but  par 
tially  subdued  portion  of  the  landt,  \\lio  also  had  the 
seat  of  his  kingdom  at  ila/jr.  makes  his  appearance  in 
the  time  of  the  judge-.  The  chronology  of  the  early 
period  of  the  judges  cannot  be  very  exaellv  fixed,  but 
the  common  ivekomn--  places  about  l.")0  years  between 
Joshua  and  I'arak.  in  \\ho>e  time  this  second  Jabin 
arose.  It  lias  been  thought  improbable  by  some  mo 
dern  interpn  tei-s.  that  a  kin-'  of  the  same  name,  occu 
pying  the  same  capital,  and  holding  the  same  relative 
superiority,  should  have  appeared  to  repeat  virtually 
uver  a-ain  the  story  of  the  first,  \\ithin  so  eompara- 
tivelv  brief  a  period;  and  attempts  have  been  made  to 
throw  the  two  account-  into  one.  by  the  supposition  of 
onlv  one  Jabin.  but  if  1\\o  \ietorits  over  him.  an 
earlier  gained  by  Joshua,  and  a  later  by  I'.arak.  But 
this  is  quite  ar'  itrarv,  and  indeed  irreconcilable  with 
the  accounts  themselves,  a<  we'll  as  \\ith  the  respective 
times  of  the  transactions.  For  the  latter  Jabin  not 
only  formed  a  warlike  coalition  a-jain>t  the  Israelites, 
but  for  the  period  of  twentv  years  lorded  it  over  them 

implying  a  season  of  preceding  defection,  as  well  UK 
of  prolonged  bondage  and  oppression.  The  Israelitish 
dominion  in  the  northern  parts  of  .Palestine  was  for 
generations  after  the  conquest  but  very  imperfectly 
established:  and  a-  the  A nialekites.  the  ]\Iidianites, 
and  the  J'hilistines  in  the  south,  after  having  been 
vanquished  at  the  time  of  the  conquest,  a^.'iin  and 
a-ain  rose  to  a  temporary  ascendency  over  Israel,  it  is 
even  less  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Canaanites  in  the 
north  should  have  done  the  same,  as  Israel's  power 
and  defences  were  there  weaker.  Nor  is  it  in  the  least 
derive  unlikelv.  that  the  person  who  proved  himself 
equal  to  this  task  may  have  been  a  descendant  of  the 
Jabin  of  Joshua's  time,  assuming  his  name,  and  striving 
to  reconstruct  his  empire.  The  nttempt  did  not  suc 
ceed;  for  the  covenant- people  under  the  command  of 
Barak  completely  broke  the  bonds  of  the  oppressor,  and 
scattered  for  ever  the  Canaanitish  hope  of  dominion. 
(&•?  BAHAK.) 

JA'CHIN  [he  ;/•///  cmnirm].  The  name  given  to 
one  of  the  pillars  which  were  set  up  in  the  porch  of 
Solomon's  temple — the  one  on  the  right  side,  1  Ki.vii.  21. 
It  derived  its  name,  doubtless,  from  the  stability  it 
appeared  to  give  to  the  part  of  the  building  with  which 
it  was  connected.  (Xcr  TEMPLE.) 


JACHFX 


JACOB 


JA'CHIN.  1.  The  first  person  we  meet  with  bear 
ing  this  name,  was  the  fourth  son  of  Simeon,  whose 
descendants  were  from  him  called  .lachinites,  Go.  xivi.  10; 
Xu.  xxvi.  12.  2.  '1'iie  head  of  the  twenty-first  course  of 
priests  in  the  time  of  David;  of  whom  nothing  further 
is  known,  l  c.'h.  ix.  10;  xxiv.  17. 

JACINTH  [Creek  i'dKLvOos,  ltiir«-'nit!<\,  the  name  first 
of  a  flower,  then  of  a  precious  stone  somewhat  resem 
bling  it  in  colour.  In  our  English  .Iliblo  it  occurs  only 
once  in  the  former  sense,  Ru.  ix.  17;  and  once  in  the 
latter,  indicating  one  of  the  gems  that  are  represented 
as  forming  the  foundations  of  the  New  Jerusalem, 
P.O.  xxi.  20.  The  Septuagint  has  given -tins  as  its  render 
ing  of  Icshcm  (c^S  Ex  xxviii.  i'.i),  one  of  the  stones  in 
the  high-priest's  breast-plate,  for  which  our  translators, 
following  the  Vulgate,  have  preferred  li<jure.  The 
hyacinth  or  jacinth  stone  was  of  various  colours,  from 
white  or  pale-green  to  purpk-ivd.  Pliny  speaks  of  it 
as  shining  with  a  golden  colour,  and  in  much  favour  as 
an  amulet  or  charm  against  the  plague  (H.  X.  xxxvii.  y). 
It  is  related  to  the  zircon  of  mineralogists. 

JA'COB  \suppl  anter],  one  of  the  twin  sons  of  Isaac 
and  liebckah,  and  born  in  the  sixtieth  year  of  his 
father's  life,  fifteen  years  before  the  death  of  Abraham, 
Ge.  xxv.  7, 20,  •_'(!.  The  name  of  this  son,  as  of  his  brother 
Esau,  was  imposed  on  account  of  appearances  which 
presented  themselves  at  the  birth,  and  which  were  so 
peculiar  as  to  be  deemed  typical  of  the  future  charac 
ters  of  each.  Esau  had  his  name  from  the  remarkable 
profusion  of  red  hair  which  covered  his  body;  the  indi 
cation,  it  was  thought,  of  a  wild,  somewhat  savage, 
rough  and  sensual  temperament,  such  as  certainly  be 
longed  to  him  in  after-life.  The  peculiarity  in  the  case 
of  the  other  consisted  in  an  act,  the  hand  of  the  child 
being  seen,  even  before  birth,  to  project,  and  lay  hold 
of  his  lirothcr's  heel.  The  possibility  of  such  a  thing 
has  been  called  in  question  ;  but  a  medical  authority, 
Tri/xt'ii,  quoted  by  Kurtz  (Hist,  of  Old  Cov.  sect.  69),  has 
vindicated  it:  <:We  account  for  the  circumstance  in 
this  way,  that  generally  twins  are  smaller  than  when 
there  is  only  one  child.  In  those  cases  the  delivery  is 
usually  rapid,  and  certain  parts  of  the  child  fall  for 
ward."  The  act  itself  of  taking  hold  by  the  heel  is  the 
part  of  a  wrestler,  of  the  weaker  of  the  two  com 
batants,  who  when  cast  on  the  ground  naturally  tries, 
by  seizing  the  heel  of  his  more  powerful  adversary,  to 
overturn  him,  and  so  to  effect  by  stratagem  what  he 
failed  to  accomplish  by  force.  Hence  -  to  hold  by  the 
heel  came  to  be  much  the  same  as  to  supplant — the  Jacob, 
in  the  merely  natural  sense,  would  be  one  watching 
his  opportunity  to  trip — striving  by  policy,  or  it  may 
be  by  guile,  to  prevail  over  another*.  Of  this,  certain!}', 
there  was  but  too  much  seen  in  the  earlier  history  of 
Jacob :  he  did  not  belie  his  name,  although  by  the 
grace  of  God  the  old  here  became  transformed  into  a 
new — what  was  at  first  sought  by  natural  craft  was 
at  last  won  by  a  divine  skill  -by  the  artless  simplicity 
and  strength  of  faith. 

The  double  presage  thus  given  at  the  birth  of  these 
singular  children  was  preceded  by  one  still  earlier — 
occasioned  by  the  sense  of  a  violent  struggle  in  the  womb 
of  the  mother.  Her  painful  sensations  led  her  to  make 
inquiry  at  the  Lord  concerning  the  meaning  of  what 
she  felt;  and  it  was  told  Rebekah  (though  how  she  got 
the  answer  we  know  not)  that  there  were  two  nations 
in  her  womb,  and  that  two  manner  of  people  should  be 


separated  from  her;  that  the  one  should  be  stronger 
than  1he  other,  and  that  the  el-dor  should  serve  the 
younger,  Ge.  xxv.  23.  This  plainly  bespoke  a  coming 
rivalry  and  strife  between  the  two  children,  which 
should  also  become  hereditary  in  their  offspring,  while 
the  superiority  was  to  lie  mainly  on  the  side  of  the 
younger  and  his  posterity.  The  whole  history  both  of 
the  men  themselves,  and  of  the  nations  that  sprung 
from  them,  gave  but  too  ample  confirmation  to  this 
singular  announcement. 

As  the  youths  were  ripening  to  manhood,  the  diffe 
rent  natures  displayed  themselves  in  the  modes  of  life 
they  respectively  pursued;  and  in  contrast  to  Esau, 
who  began  to  be  a  cunning  hunter,  a  man  of  the  field, 
it,  is  said  of  .Jacob,  that  "he  was  a  plain  man,  dwell 
ing  in  tents,''  Ge.  xxv.  27;  that  is,  lie  was  a  youth  of 
simple  manners  and  quiet  life,  with  nothing  about 
I  him  of  heroic  energy  or  resolute  daring,  leading  him 
to  court  scenes  of  peril  and  adventure.  Such  a  dispo 
sition  and  course  of  life  would  naturally  keep  him  much 
beside  his  mother,  and  give  him  many  opportunities  of 
growing  upon  her  affection.  It  should  also  have  done 
so,  one  is  apt  to  think,  with  the  mild,  peaceful,  and 
retiring  Isaac,  whose  image  Jacob  so  markedly  bore, 
•  and  in  whose  steps  he  so  closely  walked.  Yet  it  was 
Esau,  rather  than  Jacob,  whom  Isaac  loved,  and  this, 
i  it  is  said,  "because  he  did  eat  of  his  venison" — an 
unworthy  reason,  certainly,  for  a  strong  predilection — 
!  but  perhaps  insensibly  heightened  by  an  undue  ap 
preciation  of  the  qualities  in  Esau's  mind  (so  different 
from  Isaac's  own),  which  made  the  hunting  for  veni 
son  a  favourite  employ.  He  might  think  Jacob's  less 
'  active  and  energetic  disposition,  in  comparison  of 
Esau's,  a  symptom  of  weakness,  rendering  him  prone 
to  unmanly  compliances,  and  consequently  but  poorly 
fitted  to  head  the  fortunes  of  a  family,  which  had  to 
maintain  its  ground,  and  hold  on  its  way  to  the  ascen 
dency,  in  the  face  of  numerous  and  formidable  ene 
mies.  A  more  spiritual  sense  and  a  more  realizing 
faith  would  have  corrected  such  impressions;  but  it  was 
here  precisely  where  the  character  of  Isaac  was 
defective  (ace  ISAAC),  and  Eebekah  appears  in  some 
measure  to  have  possessed  what  her  husband,  compara 
tively  wanted.  She  had,  too,  the  advantage  of  having 
been  brought  into  closer  contact  with  Cod  from  tho 
first  respecting  her  two  children;  and  though  we  can 
not  doubt,  that  the  oracle  going  before  their  birth,  and 
the  remarkable  circumstances  by  which  the  birth  was 
accompanied,  would  be  communicated  also  to  Isaac, 
yet  it  is  but  natural  to  suppose  that  they  would  make 
a  mv'iUv  deeper  impression  upon  the  mind  of  Eebekah, 
and  dispose  her  to  read  with  a  more  thoughtful  and 
ob>ervant  eye  the  proceedings  of  the  youths  as  they 
grew  to  manhood. 

But  with  such  a  temper  as  Jacob's,  placed  alongside 
that  of  Esau,  one  might  say  it  was  his  misfortune, 
rather  than  his  privilege,  to  know  so  much  concerning 
the  future,  as  that  the  superiority  was  somehow  to 
become  his.  For,  in  order  to  make  good  what  he  more 
or  less  clearly  apprehended  to  be  in  his  destiny,  it  natu 
rally  led  him  to  anticipate  Providence,  and  to  ply  arti 
ficial  resources  which  might  hasten  forward  the  result. 
Tt  was  clear  he  could  never  cope  successfully  with  his 
brother  by  strength  of  arm,  or  by  dint  of  those  qualities 
which,  in  worldly  affairs,  usually  secure  for  a  man  the 
advantage  over  his  fellows;  but  he  might  possibly  do  it 
by  a  more  cautious,  foreseeing,  calculating  policy. 


JACOB 


829 


JACOB 


Here,  the  rough,  impulsive,  sensuous  character  of  Esau, 
formed  an  element  of  weakness,  which  Jacob  might 
readily  hope  to  turn  to  account.  And  he  found  an 
opportunity  of  doing  so  on  a  certain  occasion,  when 
Esau  came  in  from  the  field  faint  and  weary,  and  be 
sought  Jacob  with  passionate  earnestness  to  give  him 
to  partake  of  the  dish  of  lentile  pottage,  which  he  was 
at  the  time  making  ready.  An  unselfish,  generous 
spirit  would  have  promptly  complied  with  such  a  re 
quest,  thinking  of  nothing,  caring  for  nothing,  beyond 
giving  relief  to  a  brother's  necessities.  But  Jacob  had 
lost  the  frankness  ami  simplicity  of  love  toward  his 
brother,  by  fixing  his  eye  too  intently  on  the  prospec 
tive  elevation  of  his  state,  and  contriving  how  In-  miirht 
reach  it.  So.  taking  his  brother  here  by  the  weak  side, 
he  got  him  pledged  to  surrender  his  birthright,  as  the 
condition  on  which  lie  was  to  receive  of  the  desired 
pottage.  A  sin  and  folly  on  both  sides;  on  Ksau's.  to 
part,  for  so  small  a  gratification,  with  th'"-  honour  and 
advantage  connected,  by  common  usa-'e.  if  not  bv 
divine  ri'_dit,  with  primogeniture;  and  on  Jacob's,  to 

imair'me    that   a    1 n   so    ungenerously  and    stealthily 

acquired,  should  be  viewed  either  by  (  lod  or  man  as 
validly  obtained.  Not  thus  could  the  oracle  be  made 
!_">od,  that  the  elder  should  serve  the  younger;  while 
still,  in  the  thoughtless,  indifl'i  rence  of  the  one,  and  the 
eager  solicitude  of  the  other,  respecting  the  destined 
superiority,  no  doubtful  indication  was  given  of  the 
result  in  which  the  >trti°;^le  should  issue. 

A  Imi'-:  interval,  apparently,  elapses  between  this  mid 
the  next  incident  recorded  in  tin-  life  of  Jacob.  Mean 
while  Esau  has  taken  to  him-elf  wives,  first  one,  then 
another,  of  th'1  daughters  ,,f  Canaan,  '_::  vsi)1-:  thereby 
additional  proof  , ,f  hi--  <-M-ntiallv  profane,  heathenish 
tendencies,  and  deepening  the  con\iction  in  Uebekah's 
mind  of  his  untitness  to  ivpresi-nt  the  pi  euliar  interests 
of  the  covenant.  Vet  I-aae  retained  still  his  predilec 
tion  for  this  son,  and  at  length  formed,  and  announced 
the  pur] lose  of  bestowing  upon  him  the  blessing  \\  hich, 
had  the  purpose  been  allowed  t"  take  eHect,  Would  have 
conferred  on  Esau,  not  only  the  double  portion  of  o-oods, 
and  the  natural  ascendency  properly  bclonufinLr  to  the 
first-born,  but  also  the  special  favour  of  Cod  and  the 
heritage  of  ( 'anaan.  The  circumstances  connected  with 
this  unfortunate  transaction,  and  the  ^uilt  in  \\  hich  the 
several  parties  concerned  were  respectively  invoKed  bv 
it,  have  been  related  in  the  life  of  Isaac,  and  need  not 
now  be  particularly  referred  to.  Jacob's  teiidi-nev  to 
artful  and  cunning  policy  took,  on  this  occasion,  the 
form  of  deliberate  and  wilful  deception  -somewhat  re 
lieved  as  in  his  personal  guilt  by  the  urgent  solicitation 
of  his  mother  to  adopt  the  course  he  did.  I'.ut  this 
cannot  really  go  very  far  in  the  way  of  palliation.  For 
Jacob  was  now.  not  only  a  person  of  mature  years, 
but.  on  any  computation,  well  advanced  in  life.  The 
ordinary  reckoning  makes  him  near  eighty  years  old 
when  he  set  out  for  I'adan-aram:  and  as  the  necessity 
for  his  going  thither  arose  out  of  the  part  he  acted  in 
reference  to  the  blessing,  there  could  scarcely  be  more 
at  the  utmost  than  a  few  years  between  the  one  event  '. 
and  the  other.  At  the  time  of  Joseph's  birth  his  period 
of  fourteen  years'  service  for  his  two  wives  appears  to 
have  just  expired,  as  he  then  made  his  first  demand  for 
wages,  Go.  xxx.  22- 2:.,  xxxi  41;  and  about  thirty-eight  years  i 
after  (viz.  thirty  for  Joseph's  a--re  when  he  stood  before  j 
Pharaoh,  and  seven  of  plenty,  and  about  three  of  famine,  i 
Go.  xii.  40;  xlv.  45),  we  find  Jacob  declaring  to  Pharaoh  that 


lie  was  130  years  old.  The  OS  added  to  14  make  52 
for  the  time  of  his  entering  into  an  arrangement  with 
Laban;  and  allowing  1  year  between  that  and  his  de 
parture  from  his  father's  roof,  it  will  leave  77  for  the 
actual  period  of  his  departure  from  Canaan.  Between 
this  period,  again,  and  the  transactions  regarding  the 
blessing,  if  we  assign  seven  years,  we  shall  obviously 
make  a  large  allowance;  so  that  Jacob  must  apparently 
have  been  somewhere  about  seventy  when  he  £ot  the 
blessing. 

It  is.  indeed,  one  of  the  circumstances  connected  with 
the  life  of  this  patriarch,  which  it  is  not  quite  easy  to 
account  for.  that  he  should  have  passed  such  a  pro 
longed  time  of  inaction  in  his  father's  tent,  and  should 
onlv  have  entered  on  his  proper  career  at  a  period  when 
we  might  have  expected  to  hear  of  his  beginning  to 
yield  t  i  the  infirmities  of  au'e.  There  are  considerations, 
however,  which  serve  in  a  good  degree  to  lighten,  if 
not  wholly  to  remove,  the  difficulty.  It  seems  plain, 
both  in  regard  to  him  and  to  F.sau.  and  was  probably 
intended  a<  a  si^ii  "f  the  preternatural  power  inter- 
minu'linj;  with  the  atl'airs  of  the  covenant,  that  an  extra 
ordinary  measure  of  vital  force  and  energy  belonged  to 
them.  \Ve  see  thi-  in  the  unusual  appearances  at  their 
birth,  already  referred  to.  v>hich  were  also  manifesta 
tions  of  precocious  strength;  and  aurain,  in  the  longevity, 
coupled  with  continued  vigour  and  elasticity  of  frame, 
to  which  tiny  both  attained.  When  Jacob  returned 
from  .Mesopotamia,  thouuh  they  could  scarcely  have 
'he.-n  under  a  hundred  years  old.  they  both  acted  like 
men  in  the  prime  of  life;  and  even  twenty  years  later, 
\\etind  them  coining  from  some  distance  and  attending 
the  funeral  of  their  father  1 -aae.  Gc.xxxv.29.  Such  a 
sustained  virility  was  in  all  probability  connected  with 
a  comparat  i\  el\  .-low  development :  and  Jacob  at  seventy 
may  not  have  been  relatively  more  advanced — in  reality 
he  appears  to  have  bei-n  even  less  advanced  than  the 
'jvneralit  v  of  men  at.  the  age  of  fifty.  Then,  as  regards 
his  strange  delay  in  seeking  to  have  a  wife  and  family 
of  his  o\\  n  strange,  when  one  thinks  of  his  impatient 
striving  in  other  respects  after  a  personal  connection 
with  the  seed  of  blessing  the  la  1 1  L|uor  and  inactivity 
of  his  father  must  be  taken  into  account:  and  more  than 
that,  the  misdirected  bias  of  Isaac's  mind  in  reference 
to  the  two  sons.  |f  he  had  riiditlv  interpreted  the  in 
dications  of  Cod's  will  concerning  them,  and  had  care 
fully  watched  their  respective  tendencies,  he  would 
have  adopted  timely  measures  for  the  inarriai_'v  of  Jacob 
with  soine  relative  of  his  own  in  northern  Syria.  Hut 
liaviiiL'  failed  to  concern  himself  about  this,  and  Jacob, 
on  his  part,  justly  deeming  it  improper  to  enter  into 
alliance  with  the  daughters  of  Canaan,  year  after  year 
passed  on  without  any  decisive  step  being  taken.  Isaac 
too,  it  would  appear,  began  comparatively  early  to  fall 
into  an  infirm  state  of  health;  and,  from  that  time,  it 
would  naturally  seem  to  both  Isaac  and  Kehekah  the 
most  expedient  course  to  wait  till  the  termination  of 
Isaac's  life,  when,  without  raising  the  delicate  question 
as  to  the  comparative  claims  of  the  two  brothers,  the 
family  relations  of  Jacob  might  ho  quietly  adjusted. 
There  was  evidently  in  the  course  adopted  too  much  of 
the  craft  and  policy  of  human  wisdom;  and  if  the  pro 
vidence  of  God  had  not  interfered  to  force  on  a  crisis, 
worse  evils  might  have  happened  than  those  which 
actually  fell  out. 

The  immediate  results  of  the  deceit  practised  by 
Jacob  on  his  father  in  connection  with  the  blessing, 


JACOB 


JACOB 


were  such  as  to  show  the  utter  fully  of  attempting  after 
tills  manner  to  work  out  (rod's  purposes.  Instead  of 
getting  tin-  first  place  of  honour  in  the  family,  he  was 
tin-  object  of  deadly  hatred,  not  secure  even  of  life;  and 
instead  of  a  double  portion  of  the  patrimonial  posses 
sions,  lie  hail  to  go  forth  with  his  staff  in  his  hand,  a 
poor  exile  fleeing  f<>r  safety  to  a  distant  laud.  Jlis 
crooked  policy  would  have  supplanted  himself  as  well 
as  Ksau,  had  not  (rod,  out  of  regard  to  his  own  cove 
nant,  and  to  the  faith  which  still,  ,-nnid  all  that  was 
wrong  in  behaviour,  held  possession  of  the  patriarch's 
heart,  graciously  interposed  to  give  a,  new  turn  to 
atl'airs.  It  is  only  now.  when  God  begins  to  work  for 
him,  that  Jacob's  career,  as  tin-  ln-ir  of  covenant- bless 
ing,  properly  commences.  Like  his  father  Isaac  as  to 
birth,  so  Jacob,  as  to  his  position  and  forlime.  was  to 
be  emphatically  the  product  of  grace;  he  was  to  have 
all  given  him  anew,  given  direct  from  above,  as  if  in 
him,  who  was  to  be  in  the  stricter  sense  the  head  of  the 
covenant-people,  the  covenant  itself  should  find  a  fresh 
beginning'.  Therefore,  the  depths  of  his  poverty  and 
abasement  were  made  the  occasion  for  displaying  the 
riches  of  the  divine  mercy  and  goodness.  And  before 
setting  out  from  his  father's  tent,  he  gets  from  his  father 
the  full  A  hraluunie  blessing,  more  explicitly  and  roundly 
utterecl  than  before;  he  is  charged  also  to  go  and  take 
a  wife,  not  of  the  daughters  of  Canaan,  but  of  the  house 
of  Bethuel  the  Syrian,  Ge.  xxviii.  1-4.  Xot  only  so,  but 
when,  on  the  first  evening  after  his  departure  from 
Beersheba,  feeling,  as  he  could  not  fail  to  do,  desolate 
and  forlorn,  with  nothing  but  the  stones  for  h;s  pillow, 
and  the  naked  earth  for  his  couch,  the  God  of  the  cove 
nant  appeared  to  him  by  night,  for  the  purpose  of  re 
assuring  and  comforting  his  heart — gave  him,  under 
the  vision  of  a  ladder  reaching  up  to  the  highest 
heavens,  with  angels  ascending  and  descending,  to 
know,  that  however  cut  off  from  intercourse  with  men 
on  earth,  the  way  was  still  open  for  him  into  the  pre 
sence-chamber  above;  while  God  himself,  as  the  God 
of  Abraham  and  Isaac,  was  seen  standing  at  the  top. 
and  confirmed  in  his  behalf  the  covenant  made  with  his 
fathers,  assuring  him  of  the  heritage  of  Canaan,  and  a 
multitudinous  seed  of  blessing  to  occupy  it.  We  can 
easily  understand  what  another  man  Jacob  rose  from 
such  a  scene  than  when  he  lay  down.  The  God  whom 
he  had  offended  by  his  sin,  and  who  seemed  to  have 
been  frowning  on  him  in  his  providence,  was  unex 
pectedly  found  to  be  near,  with  thoughts  of  peace  and 
assurances  of  blessing;  and  Jacob,  at  once  awed  and 
gladdened  by  what  had  passed,  called  the  place  Bethel 
(God's  house),  anointed  the  stony  pillow  on  which  his 
head  had  reposed,  and  vowed,  that  if  he  was  brought 
back  in  peace,  he  would  return  to  worship  there,  and 
would  give  God  the  tenth  of  all  ho  might  eain.  (For 
the  forms  here  assumed  by  Jacob  to  give  expression  to 
his  pious  gratitude,  sec  AXOTXTTXG  and  TITHES.) 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  on  the  things  which  befell 
Jacob  when  he  reached  Padan-aram,  or  the  fortunes 
which  awaited  him  there:  his  reception,  in  the  house  of 
Laban — his  attachment  to  Rachel,  the  younger  daughter 
of  Laban — his  engagement  to  serve  for  her  seven  years 
-  -the  trick  played  upon  him  by  the  substitution  of 
Loah  for  llachel  on  the  wedding-night — his  subsequent 
marriage  to  Rachel  on  agreeing  to  serve  a  second  period 
of  seven  years — the  family  that  gradually  accrued  to 
him  through  these  wives,  and  the  two  concubines  they 
presented  to  him-  -finally,  the  possessions  in  flocks  and 


herds  which  he  acquired  during  the  six  following  years 
that  he  served  for  wages — all  these  are  narrated  with 
remarkable  naturalness  and  simplicity  by  the  sacred 
historian,  and  are  familiar  to  every  reader  of  the  Bible. 
Jacob  cannot  be  throughout  justified  in  them,  though 
he  appears  rather  as  one  pliantlv  concurring  in  what 
they  contained  of  evil,  than  himself  desiring  or  seeking 
it.  Such  was  the  case  particularly  in  respect  to  his 
polygamy  and  concubinage,  which  brought  along  with 
them  many  domestic  troubles,  the  clear  marks  in  pro 
vidence  of  their  impropriety;  but  which  Jacob  appears 
to  have  no  way  sought,  which  were  pressed  upon  him 
indeed  by  others,  and  in  respect  to  which  he  only  emd 
in  not  putting  the  proposals  from  him.  In  the  modes 
he  adopted,  however,  to  appropriate  a  larger  share  than 
iniuht  otherwise  have  fallen  to  him  of  Laban's  flocks, 
Ge.  xxx.  37-13,  we  cannot  but  observe  something  of  the 
natural  tendency  in  Jacob's  mind  to  artful  stratagem. 
But  it  is  wrong  to  charge  him  in  such  a  proceeding 
with  a  disposition  to  overreach  and  defraud;  since  he 
acted  in  conformity  with  the  terms  of  an  explicit  agree 
ment,  and  only  took  advantage  of  a  known  law  of 
nature,  which  has  after  all  but  a  limited  range  of  opera 
tion,  and  would  have  yielded  no  appreciable  result  in 
his  behalf,  unless  it  had  been  approved  and  seconded 
by  the  agency  of  a  higher  power.  Jacob  himself  knew 
L  perfectly  that  the  success  attending  the  measure  was 
]  God's  rather  than  his  own.  Go.  xxxi.  12.  It  Kaa  God's 
interposition  to  do  him  right;  and  it  had  been  better  if 
Jacob  had  simply  left  it  to  such  interposition.  But  it 
must  be  remembered,  that  in  Laban  Jacob  had  a  very 
selfish,  cunning,  and  niggardly  master  to  deal  with;  one 
who  grudged  even  the  equitable  recompenses  which  he 
was  entitled  to  for  the  eminent  services  he  had  ren 
dered  him.  And  that  Laban  was  both  faithfully  served, 
and  had  been  an  immense  gainer  in  a  worldly  respect 
by  reason  of  Jacob's  connection  with  him,  was  boldly 
asserted  by  Jacob,  in  the  altercation  that  ensued  on 
his  departure  from  Mesopotamia,  and  not  disavowed 
by  Laban  himself,  Ge.xxxi. :;:-42.  A  supernatural  element 
plainly  wrought  in  God's  dealings  at  this  time  toward 
his  servant,  showing,  in  ways  which  the  world  itself 
could  appreciate,  that  through  Jacob,  as  the  peculiar 
child  and  representative  of  the  covenant,  he  was  both 
singularly  blessed  and  made  a  blessing.  The  prosperity 
accorded  to  him,  however,  proved  more  than  Laban 
and  his  sons  could  bear;  looking  rather  to  Jacob's  gains 
in  their  service,  than  to  their  own  through  him,  they 
first  changed  his  wages,  as  he  says,  ten  times — meaning 
probably  nothing  more  than  with  considerable  fre 
quency  -  and,  when  this  failed,  they  began  to  frown  on 
him  with  displeasure,  and  speak  against  him  as  a  plun 
derer  of  their  property.  Jacob  therefore  wisely  judged 
that  it  was  time  for  him  to  leave.  But  could  he  safely 
return  to  the  land  of  Canaan?  Might  he  not  meet 
there  witli  even  worse  treatment  from  Esau  than  he 
was  doing  from  Laban?  So  he  naturally  dreaded;  but 
God  mercifully  appeared  to  relieve  him  of  his  apprehen 
sions,  and  said,  "Return  unto  the  land  of  thy  fathers, 
and  to  thy  kindred,  and  I  will  be  with  thee."  Gc.  xxxi. 3. 
Accordingly,  having  gained  the  consent  of  his  wives, 
he  concerted  measures  for  departing,  and  did  so  with 
such  secrecy,  that  he  was  three  days  on  his  journey 
before  Laban  was  even  apprised  of  his  intention.  On 
hearing  what  had  happened,  Laban  in  hot  rage  pursued 
after  them;  but  was  admonished  by  God,  before  he 
overtook  them  in  the  land  of  Gilead,  to  beware  of  doing 


JACOB 


831 


JACOP, 


anything  to  hurt  them.     The   matter  ended,   after  a 
sharp  interchange  of  words,  in  a  friendly  greeting  and 
reconciliation;  and  the  two  parties  (in  accordance  with 
a  custom  of  the  times)  raised  together  a  heap  of  stones 
as  a  witness  of  their  sincerity,  and  of  the  mutual  good 
faith  which  they  pledged  beside  it.     Laban  parted  with 
his  daughters  and  his  son-  in-  law  with  a  salutation  and 
a  blessing. 
So  far  things  have    gone  prosperously  with  Jacob; 
the  word  of  God  to  him  at  .Bethel  promising  protection 

to  establish  the  hopes  he  had  inspired  by  granting  de 
liverance  from  the  hands  of  Esau.      So  ended  the  first 
night;   but  on  the  following  day  further  measures  were 
resorted  to  by  Jacob,  though  still  in  the  same  direction. 
Aware  of  the  melting  power  of  kindness,  and  how  "a 
!  gift  in  secret  pacifieth  anger,"  he  resolved  on  invincr 
from   his   substance    a   munificent    present   to    Esau  
placing  each  kind   by  itself,  one  after  the  other,  in  a 
succession  of  droves  —  so  that  on  hearing  as  he  passed 
drove  after  drove,  the  touching  words,  "  A  present,  sent 
to  my  lord  Esau  from  thy  servant  Jacob."  it  miuht  be 
like  the  pouring  of  live  coals  on  the  head  of  his  wrathful 
enmity.      How  could  he  let  his  fnrv  explode  against  a 
brother  who  showed  himself  so  anxious  to  be  on  terms 
of  peace  with  him.'     It  could  scarcely  be.  unless  there 
were  still  in  Jacob's  condition  the  grounds  of  a  quarrel 
1  let  \vccii  him  and  his  Cod,  not  yet  altogether  settled, 
and  imperilling  the  success  even  of  the  best  efforts  and 
tiie  most  skilful  preparations, 
lluit    there   really    was    Minn-thing   of    the   sort   now 
suppo-ed   seems   plain  from  what  ensued.      Jacob  had 
made   all   his   arrangements,    and    had    -jot   his  family, 
as  w.-ll  as   his  substance,  transported   over  the  Jabbok 
a  brook  that   traverses   the   land  of  Cilead,  and  runs 
into   the  Jon  Ian   about   half   \\av  hetwvtii   the  Lake  of 
Galilee  and  the    IX.-ad  Sea  --himself  remaining  behind 
for   the  ni-_:lit.      It   is  not   said   for  what   purpose  he  so 
ivmahnd,    but   there    can    lie    little    doubt    it    was  for 
close  and  solitary  dealing  with  God.      While  thus  en 
gaged,  on.-  suddenly  appeared  in   the  form  of  a  man, 

and  blessing  has  been  wonderfully  verified  j  and  with  a 
numerous  family  and  large   possessions,  he  has  a^rain 
reached  in  safety  the  borders  of  Canaan.      .But  is  there 
still  no  danger  in  front?     Shortly  after  parting   with 
Laban,   he   met,  we  are  told,  troops  of   anu'els,   appa 
rently  a  double  Viand,  and  wearing  somewhat  of  a  warlike 
aspect,  for  lie  called  the  place  in  honour  of  them  by  tin 
name  of  Ma/tunaim—i\\-<>  hosts,  Ge.  xxxii.  i;2.      \Vin-ther 
this  sight  was  presented  to  him  in  vision,  or  took  place 
as  an  occurrence  in  tin    -pin  re  of  ordinary  life,  mav  lie 
questioned  (though  the  latter  .-imposition  seems  be.-t  to 
accord  witli  the  narrative':   but  it  is  n  -t  of   mat.  rial 
moment:   for  either  way  the  appearance  was  a   ivalitv, 
and  bore  the  character  of  a  specific  revelation  to  Jacob, 
adapted  to  the  circum>tances   in  which  lie  was  placed. 
It  formed  a  fitting  counterpart  to  what  he  formerly  liad 
seen  at  .Bethel;   angels  then  were  cmplo\ed    to  indicate 
the  peaceful  n-lation  in  which  In-  stood  to  the  heavenlv 
world,  when  obliged  to  retire  from  <  'amum:  and   now, 
on   his    return,    th.  y   are    again   employed    with   a   like 
friendly  intent      to  give   warnin'_r.   indeed,  of   a  hostile 
encounter,  but.  at   the  sum;  time,  to  assure  him  of  the 
powerful    guardian-hip   and    support    .  .f    li.av.-n.      Tin- 
former  part  of  the  design  was  not  Ion-  in  finding  con 
firmation.      For.  on  sending   nn  >-eiiu.  r-   to  his  brother 
Ksau    with  a  friendly  greeting,    and   apprising   him    of 
his  safe  return,  after  a  long  and   pr...-peruus  sojourn  in 
Mesopotamia,  he  learned  that  Ksau  was  on   his  wav  to 
meet  him  with  a  host  of  -liin  nn  n.      There  cmild  !»•  uo 
reasonable  doubt    (especially  after  tin;  preliminary  inti 
mation  given  through  the  angelic  h.md.-i  a-  to  tin;   in 
tention   of  Ksm  in  advancing   toward   his  brother  vv  ith 
such   a   force.      The    news   of  Jacob's    reappearance    in 
Canaan,  and  that  n<>  longer  a-  a  dependant  upon  others, 
but   as  possessed    of    ample   means  and   a   considerable 
retinue,   awoke   into   fiv-h   activity  the   slumbering   re 
venge  of  Ksau,  and  led  him,  on  the  spur  of  the  mom-nt, 
to  resolve  on  bringing  the   contr.iwr-y  between   them 
to  a  decisive  issue.      This  appears  from  the  whole  nar- 

and  in  the  u'ui-e  oi   an  eiu-my  wrestling  with  him  and 
contending  for  the  mastery.      Ksau  was  still  at  some 
distance,    but   ln-re  was  an  adversary  already  present, 
with  whom   Jacob   bad   to  maintain   a  severe  and  peri 
lous    conflict       and    this    plainly   an    adversary    in    ap 
pearance  only  human,   but   in   reality  the   an-_>  1   of  the 
Lord's   presence.       it    vva-   as   much   as    to   say,    '•  Yon 
have   reason  to  be  afraid  of  the  enmity  of  one  mightier 
than  Esau,  and   if  you  can   only  prevail  in  getting  de- 
hver.tiice   from   this,  there  is  no   fear   that  matters  will 
uo  vu-11  with  you  otherwise:   ri-ht   with  God.  you  may 
trust   him   to   set   you   riuht   with   voiir  brother."'      The 
ground  and  reason  of  the  matter  lay  in  Jacob's  deceit 
ful    and    wicked    conduct    before  leaving  the    land  of 
('anaan,  which  hail   fearfully  compromised   the  charac 
ter  of  God,  and   brought  disturbance  into  Jacob's  rela 
tion    to   the   covenant.      Leaving   the   laud  of  C'anaan 
covered  with    u'niii.  and   liable    to  wrath,  he  must  now 
re-enter    it    amid    sharp    contending,    such    as    might 

seems  needless   to  refer  to  other  views  that   have   been 
taken  of  it.      Hut  Jacob  was  not  the  man  at  any  time 
to  repel  force  with  force;  and  he  had  now  learned  by  a 
variety  of  experiences  where  the  real  secret  of  his  safety 
and  strength  lay.      His  first  impressions,  however,  on 

nu-nt.  and  the  renunciation  of  all  sinful  and  crooked 
devices,  as  utterly  at   variance  with   the   childlike   sim 
plicity  and  confidence  in  God,  which   it  became  him  to 
exercise.      In    the    earnest    conflict    lie   maintained   his 
ground,  till  the  heavenly  combatant  touched  the  hollow 
of  his  thigh  and  put  it  out  of   joint  —  in  token  of  the 
supernatural  might  which  this   mysterious  antagonist 
had   at   his  command,   and  showing  how  easy  it  had 
been  for  him  (if  he  had  so  pleased)  to  gain  the  mastery. 
But  even  then  .Jacob  would  not  quit  his  hold  :    nay,  all 
the  more  he  would  retain  it,  since  now  he  could  do 
nothing  more,  and  since  also  it  was  plain  he  had  to  do 
with  one  who  had  the  power  oi  life  and  death  in  his 
hand;   lie  would  therefore   not   let  him  yo  till  he  ob 
tained  a  blessing.     Faith  thus  wrought  mightily  out  of 
human    weakness  —  strong    by    reason    of    its   clinging 
affection,  and  its  beseeching  importunity  for  the  favour 

getting  tlie  intelligence  were  those  of  trembling  anxiety 
and  fear:  but  on  recovering  himself  a  little,  he  called  to 
his  aid   the  two  great  weapons  of  the    believer  —  pains 
and    prayer.       He    first    divided    his    people,    vsith    the 
iloeks  and  herds,  into  two  companies,  so  that  if  the  one 
were  attacked,  the  other  might  escape.      Then  he  threw 
himself  in  earnest  prayer  and  supplication  on  the  cove 
nant-mercy  and    faithfulness  of  God,   putting  Cod  in 
mind  of  his  past  loving-kindnesses,  at  once  great  and 
undeserved,  reminding  him  also  of  the  express  charge 
he  had  given  Jacob  to  return  to  C'anaan,  with  the  pro 
mise  of  his  gracious  presence,  and  imploring  him  now 

JACOB 


of  Heaven;  as  expressed  in  Hosea  xii.  4,  "  By  his 
strength  he  had  power  with  God ;  yea,  he  had  power 
over  the  anu'el,  and  prevailed;  he  wept  and  made  sup 
plication  unto  him."  In  attestation  of  the  fact,  and 
for  a  suitable  commemoration  of  it,  he  had  his  name 
changed  from  Jacob  to  l.-tnn-l  (combatant  or  wrestler 
with  God);  "for  as  a  prince/'1  it  was  added  by  way  of 
explanation,  "hast  thon  power  with  God  and  with 
men,  and  hast  prevailed."  Jacob,  in  turn,  a>ked  after 
the  name  of  the  person  who  had  wrestled  with  him — 
not  as  if  any  longer  ignorant  who  it  might  be,  but 
wishing  to  have  the  character  or  manifestation  of  God 
head,  as  this  had  now  appeared  to  him,  embodied  in  a 
significant  ami  appropriate  name.  His  request,  how 
ever,  was  denied  :  the  divine  wrestler  withdrew,  after 
having  blessed  him.  But  Jacob  himself  gave  a  name- 
to  the  place,  near  the  Jabbok,  where  the  memorable 
transaction  had  occurred;  lie  called  it  Pent  el  (the  face 
of  Godi;  "for,"  said  he,  "I  have  seen  God  face  to  face, 
and  my  life  is  preserved,"  Go.  xxxii.  :;j-:ii.  The  contest 
indicated  that  he  had  reason  to  fear  the  reverse;  but 
his  preservation  was  the  sign  of  reconciliation  and 

blessing. 

After  this  night  of  anxious  but  triumphant  wrestling. 
Jacob  rose  from  Peniel  with  the  sun  shining  upon  him 
—  an  emblem  of  the  bright  and  radiant  hope  which 
now  illuminated  his  inner  man  ;  and  went  on  his  way 
halting — weakened  corporeally  by  the  conflict  in  which 
he  had  engaged,  that  he  might  have  no  confidence  in 
the  flesh,  but  strong  in  the  divine  favour  and  bless 
ing.  Accordingly,  when  Esau  approached  with  his 
formidable  host,  all  hostile  feelings  gave  way;  the 
victory  had  been  already  won  in  the  higher  sphere  of 
things;  and  He,  who  turneth  the  hearts  of  kings  like 
the  rivers  of  water,  made  the  heart  of  Esau  melt  like 
wax  before  the  liberal  gifts,  the  humble  demeanour,  and 
earnest  entreaties  of  his  brother.  They  embraced  each 
other  as  brethren;  and  for  the  present,  at  least,  and 
for  anything  that  appears  during  the  remainder  of  their 
personal  lives,  they  maintained  the  most  friendly  rela 
tions.  After  residing  for  a  little  on  the  farther  side 
of  Jordan,  at  a  place  called  Succoth,  from  Jacob's 
having  erected  there  booths  (Heb.  sitccoth)  for  his 
cattle,  he  crossed  the  Jordan,  and  pitched  his  tent 
near  Shechem — ultimately  the  centre  of  the  Samari 
tans.  [In  the  received  text  it  is  said,  Gc.  xxxiii.  is,  "  He 
came  to  Shalem,  a  city  of  Shechem;"  but  some  prefer 
the  reading  Shalom,  "he  came  in  peace  to  city  of 
Shechem."]  There  he  bought  a  piece  of  ground  from 
the  family  of  Shechem,  and  obtained  a  footing  among 
the  people  as  a  man  of  substance,  whose  friendship 
it  was  desirable  to  cultivate.  But  such  unfortunate 
results  ere  long  came  out  of  this  connection,  that 
one  may  well  doubt  the  wisdom  and  propriety  of 
Jacob's  course  in  taking  it.  Xo  reason  is  assigned 
in  the  sacred  narrative  for  Jacob's  going  thus  to  take 
up  his  abode  in  the  heart  of  Canaan;  but  the  step 
was  so  peculiar,  that  we  can  scarcely  doubt  some 
weighty  considerations  influenced  him.  The  obviously 
natural  course  would  have  been  for  him  to  go  some 
where  toward  the  southern  border  of  Canaan,  where 
his  aged  father  still  lived  at  Beersheba,  and  whither, 
we  may  certainly  conclude,  Jacob  soon  repaired  to 
pa}-,  at  least,  a  temporary  visit.  But  he  probably 
dreaded  the  effects  which  might  be  produced  on  the 
mind  of  Esau,  if  he  should  settle  so  near  to  his 
father's  possessions,  in  which  Esau  would  still  be  dis 


posed  to  claim  the  largest  interest;  and  it  might  seem 
fitted  to  arouse  the  jealousy  of,  the  people  of  Canaan, 
if  the  flocks  and  herds,  the  families  and  dependants,  of 
Isaac  and  his  two  sons  should  all  congregate  together, 
and  thereby  spread  themselves  over  a  large  tract  of 
contiguous  country.  Better  that  this  junior  branch 
should  separate  himself  from  the  others,  and  try  to 
make  good  a  settlement  in  the  heart  of  the  land:  might 
it  not  also  form  a  more  advantageous  position,  from 
which  to  operate  with  effect  upon,  the  country  at  large/ 
|  Such  thoughts  would  (ante  naturally  present  themselves 
•  to  Jacob,  and  might  well  have  deserved  consideration, 
had  it  not  been  for  other  things,  which  he  seemed  for 
the  time  to  overlook — especially  a  vow  of  his  own  con 
nected  with  Bethel,  not  far  from  Beersheba,  and  the 
risks  to  his  family  from  near  relationship  and  frequent 
intercourse  with  the  inhabitants  of  Canaan.  He  had 
vowed  at  Bethel,  that  if  God  preserved  and  prospered 
him,  he  would  return  and  worship  there,  giving  the 
tenth  of  all  to  God,  GU.  xxviii.  L'L'.  .Fidelity  to  his  engage 
ments,  and  gratitude  for  the  singular  goodness  he  had 
received,  should  have  led  to  the  punctual  discharge  of 
.such  a  vow — leaving  all  consequences  to  God — and  yet 
he  allowed  it  to  fall  into  abeyance.  Itemissness  in 
duty,  if  not  presumption  011  the  divine  mercy,  appears 
to  have  sprung  up  after  his  alarms  had  passed  away. 
And  then,  as  a  natural  sequel,  came  spiritual  languor, 
relaxation  of  manners,  an  approximation  in  tone  and 
behaviour  to  those  from  whom  the  only  safety  was  to 
stand  comparatively  aloof.  Who  can  wonder,  after 
such  declension,  to  hear  of  the  defilement  of  Dinah, 
arising  from  too  free  intercourse  with  the  daughters  of 
the  land  ?  Ge.  xxxiv.  1,  2.  And  this  but  paved  the  way 
for  the  dreadful  atrocity  committed  by  Levi  and  Simeon. 
in  avenging  themselves  upon  the  family  of  Shechem 
for  the  dishonour  done  to  their  sister,  and  perpetrating 
a  kind  of  general  massacre.  How  much  this  conduct 
went  to  the  heart  of  Jacob,  appears  from  his  feeling 
and  indignant  allusion  to  it  on  his  deathbed,  Ge.  xlix.  :>,  r.; 
and  from  the  narrative  itself  it  is  clear  that  he  felt  his 
position  in  Canaan  greatly  imperilled  by  what  had 
happened,  Gc.  xxxiv.  30.  The  Lord,  however,  interposed 
again  for  his  protection,  and  safety;  but  did  so  in  a 
way  that  implied  a  certain  degree  of  censure,  and 
called  for  a  work  of  personal  and  domestic  reformation. 
Jacob  was  ordered  to  repair  to  Bethel,  where  God  had 
at  first  appeared  to  him,  to  build  an  altar  and  dwell 
there,  so  as  to  perform  what  he  had  formerly  vowed. 
He  understood  it  to  be  a  call  to  closer  fellowship  with 
God,  as  well  as  withdrawal  from  the  corrupt  neigh 
bourhood  in  which  he  had  been  living:  and,  as  a  fitting 
preparation  for  the  work,  he  urged  his  household  to 
put  away  from  among  them  the  idols  and  instruments 
of  superstition  (in  particular,  their  ear-rings,  used  as 
amulets),  and  to  sanctify  themselves  for  the  worship  of 
God.  This,  it  is  said,  they  did;  they  buried  their 
idolatrous  objects  under  an  oak  at  Shechem,  and  for 
sook  their  corrupt  practices;  so  that  the  Lord  again 
turned  to  them  in  his  mercy,  and  put  an  awe  upon  the 
minds  of  the  Canaanites  around  them,  which  admitted 
of  their  departing  in  peace  and  going  to  take  up  their 
residence  at  Bethel. 

The  return  of  Jacob  to  Bethel  was  taken  as  a  fitting 
occasion  for  giving  a  fresh  commencement  to  Jacob's 
formal  relation  to  God  and  the  covenant.  His  appearance 
there  now  answered  to  the  earlier  occasion  somewhat 
as  fulfilment  to  promise ;  the  preliminary  stage  of  his 


JACOB  » 

career  as  the  new  covenant  head  had  reached  a  certain 
completion;  and  accordingly  there  were  suitable  ac 
knowledgments  of  it  both  011  his  part  and  God's.  He 
builds  an  altar  to  God,  and  calls  it  El-bethel — thereby 
connecting  the  past  with  the  present ;  for  Bethel 
(house  of  G<«1)  had  now  cnme  to  be  regarded  substan 
tially  as  a  compound  proper  name:  and  by  putting  El 
(God)  before  it.  lie  specially  and  formally  destined  the 
altar  to  God  under  that  character  and  manifestation  of 
himself,  with  which  this  particular  place  had  previously 
been  associated.  <  Mi  the  other  side.  God  again  appears 
to  his  servant,  renews  to  him  the  distinctive  promises 
of  the  covenant  (those,  namely,  of  a  special  relationship 
to  himself,  of  the  heritage  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  and 
i'f  a  numerous  offspring i,  and  bestows  on  him  the  iiew 
name  of  Israel,  as  if  what  had  taken  place  at  1'eiiiel 
was  but  a  provisional  announcement,  which  wanted 
further  continuation.  Pivsi.-ntly  aft« T  this  return  to 
Bethel  also,  God  granted  to  Jacob  his  last  son  d',enja- 
minK  which  completed  the  tribal  number  of  the  future 
patriarchal  heads  of  the  covenant.  So  that,  as  regards 
Jacob's  personal  condition,  and  the  membership  of  his 
family,  all  had  now  attained  a  relative'  completeness. 
And  in  commemoration  of  those  fivsh  displays  of  God's 
mercy  and  faithfulness,  Jacob  set  up  another  pillar, 
and  poured  oil  on  it.  as  at  first,  and  called  it  also  by 
the  name  of  liethol  thus  giving  to  his  behaviour  tin; 
form  of  an  appropriate  counterpart  to  God's,  Go  xxxv  it. 
Tile  blessing,  however,  did  nut  stand  aloiie;  painful 
trials  were  intermingled  with  it.  He  lost  hi-  beloved 
wife  li'aehel  in  u'iviiiu;'  birlh  to  I'.MI  jaiuin:  and  I  )eho- 
rah,  the  aged  nurse  of  his  mother  Hebe-kali,  and  doubt 
less  endeared  to  Jacob  by  many  acts  of  kindii  'ss  tr<>i;i 
his  infancy,  died  about  the  .-nun-  time,  and  v.  as  buried 
amid  many  tears  under  an  oak  at  I'.elhe!.  That  she 
had  sometime  previous  become  a  member  of  Jacob'.- 
'Household,  seems  to  imply  the  death  of  1,'ebekah  during 
Jacob's  sojourn  in  Mesopotamia.  There  was  the  still 
further  calamity  befalling  Jacob  about  this  time,  that 
his  eldest  son  Ueubeii  committed  fornication  \\ith  l!il- 
liah.  his  father's  concubine.  It  is  merely  said  in  tip 
narrative,  that  his  father  heard  it.  i.e.  xxxv.  L"_';  but  the 
strong  fe"ling  to  which  he  gave  utterance!  concerning 
it  in  his  last  words.  Go.  \li\  i,  shows  plainly  enough  how 
painful  an  impression  it  must  have  made  at  the  time. 

Two  notices  are  found  immediately  after  the  record 
of  the  transactions  just  referred  to,  but  which  are  not 
to  be  regarded  as  standing  in  the  order  of  time.  The 
first  has  respect  to  the  death  of  Isaac,  \\hich  bmuulr 
together  Esau  and  Jacob  for  the  purpose:  of  burying 
him.  As  Isaac  lived  till  he  was  IMI  years  old.  and 
Jacob  was  ]:lo  when  he  went  down  to  Kgvpt,  Isaac's 
death  must  have  taken  place  only  ten  years  before 
—  for  .Jacob  being  just  sixty  years  younger  than  Isaac, 
when  Isaac  was  li>o,  Jacob  must  eif  course;  have  been 
l-jn.  But  by  the  time  that  Jacob  was  ]•><'>.  Joseph 
had  already  been  eleven  or  twelve  years  in  E^vpt. 
The  death  of  Isaac,  therefore,  must  have  happened 
long  after  the  he-avy  stroke  which  befell  Jacob  by  the 
sudden  disappearance  of  Joseph:  and  is  no  doubt  men 
tioned  so  early.  Go.  xxxv.  2«,  in  order  merely  not  to  in 
terrupt  the  narrative  of  Je>seph"s  life.  The  other  cir 
cumstance  (which  is  noticed  in  the  following  chapter, 
in  connection  with  the  generations  of  Esau.  Ge.  xxxvi.o-M 
has  more  immediate  respect  to  Esau :  it  consists  in  this. 
that  he  left  the  land  of  Canaan  with  his  wives  and 
household,  and  all  his  possessions,  from  the  face  of  his 

Vol..  I. 


6  JACOB 

brother  Jacob,  because  the  land  was  not  able  to  bear 
them  together:  and  that  lie  went  and  dwelt  in  Mount 
Seir.  Mo  specific  time  is  indicated  feu-  this  migration, 
except  that  it  was  subsequent  to  Jacob's  return  from 
Padaii-aram,  anel,  as  may  be  presumed,  after  his  settle 
ment  on  the  southern  borders  of  Canaan.  But  how 
long  previous  to  their  father's  death,  and  how  far  Esau's 
large  possessions  were  considered  as  e>ne  with,  or  as 
separate  from  Isaac's,  no  indication  whatever  is  given. 
The  probability  is,  that  the  extreme  feebleness,  the 
mental  and  boelily  de-cay,  under  which  Isaac  for  a 
lengthened  period  laboured,  ami  which  must  have  ren 
dered  him  altogether  incapable  e.f  looking  after  his 
worldly  interest,  wemld  force  on  the  necessity  of  a  dis 
tribution  of,  at  least,  the-  chief  part  of  his  ilocks  and 
herds  between  the  two  brothers,  many  years  before  the 
death  of  their  revered  parent.  The  friendly  relations 
which  had  been  re-established  between  the  two  brothers, 
we  may  naturally  suppose-,  would  make'  it  quite  possi 
ble  to  come  to  an  amicable  arrangement  eif  the  matter. 
And  that  K>au  should  till  imately  have-  taken  the-  direc 
tion  of  Mount  Seir  fur  his  settlement,  may  in  part 
have  arisen  from  the  be-tte-r  adaptation  of  that  wild 
and  mountainous  region  to  his  natural  temper  anel 
hal  its.  .lie  appears,  indeed,  to  have  been  no  stranger 
to  it  Ion1.;'  In  fore-  this.  It  \\as  from  that  elistrict  he 
came  with  a  nunieTous  host  to  meet  his  brother  near 
the  J.-d'bok.  GO.  xxxii  3;  so  that  he  must  even  at  that 
period  have  obtaine-d  partial  occupation  there,  and  not 
improbably  was  af  the  time  on  a  warlike-  expedition 
against  -ome  of  the  original  inhabitants,  whom  he  dis- 
posse'ssed.  (>'/<  Ks.U'.) 

\\hat  remains  of  the  r.  corde-d  history  of  Jacob  is 
so  e-lusely  inter\\uvcii  with  the-  life  and  destiny  of 
Joseph,  that  many  of  the  leading  incidents  will  be 
more'  titlv  noticed  in  connection  with  the  latter.  The 
incidents  the -msi'K "es  wen-  of  the  most  remarkable  and 
stirring  kind,  and  in  Jacol,'<  experience  were  associated 
with  some  both  of  tlie-  dee-pe-t.  sorrows,  and  eif  the 
liveliest,  joys,  of  his  eventful  life.  The  same  mysterious, 
but  gracious  providence,  \\hie'h  had  guided  him  by 
ways  he  knew  not,  and  through  circumstances  which 
roused  the  inmo-t  fe'i-lings  of  his  heart,  had  brought 
him  to  the  hL-li  place  he  oe-cupied,  spiritually  and 
socially,  as  the  representative  of  the  covenant,  required 
to  take  vet  more-  peculiar  measures  with  his  family,  in 
order  to  pui''_;v  out  the  evil  that  was  among  them,  and 
at  once  impress  upon  their  hearts,  and  render  manifest 
throu-h  I  heir  history,  the;  great  principles  of  truth 
and  righteousness,  to  which  the-ir  relation  to  the  cove 
nant  must  I"'  made  subservient.  In  such  a  process  it  was 
impossible  but  that  the  paternal  he-art  of  Jacob  should 
have  much  to  .sutler,  as  we-11  as  those  more  imme 
diately  concerned.  1'nt  the  issue  prove-d  not  less  joy 
ful  to  him.  than  salutary  to  them;  and  the  proceedings 
were  pregnant  with  many  fre.-h  and  wonderful  mani 
festations  of  the  covenant  love,  faithfulness,  and  wis 
dom  of  (bxl,  which  were  to  serve  as  instructive  lessons 
to  all  future  generations.  After  many  alternations  of 
sorrow  anel  joy.  of  fear  and  hope,  Jacob  was  at  last 
brought  down  in  safe-tv  to  Egypt,  when-  he  had  the 
unspeakable  satisfaction  of  seeing  his  beloved  Joseph, 
anel  of  witnessing  the  singular  honour  and  prosperity  to 
which  he  had  been  raised.  ITis  de-scent  thither  was 
performed  with  the  express  sanction  of  God,  and  the 
|  promise  that  God  would  be  with  him,  and  would  make 
i  of  his  family  a  great  nation  in  Eu'vpt,  Go.  xlvi.  1-4.  It 

105 


JACOB 


H34 


was  shortly  after  ho  Lad  set  out  on  his  journey,  while 
lie  halted  at  Beersheba,  the  favourite  abode  of  liis 
father,  and  the  srene  of  former  communications  from 
al>ove,  that  this  direction  and  assurance  were  uiven  to 
him,  in  a  vision  of  the  night.  They  were  probablv  so 
given  to  allay  the  fears  and  misgivings  which,  at  such 
a  time,  would  not  unnaturally  spring  up  in  Jacob's 
bosom;  the  rather  so,  as  he  was  now  taking  a  course 
which  isaae  hail  been  expressly  interdicted  from  fol 
lowing,  (Jo.  xxvi.  2  Having  sacrificed  there  to  the  (!od 
of  his  father  Isaac,  he  received  \\Int  was  needed  to  re 
assure  and  comfort  his  soul  in  respect  to  the  prospects 
that  lay  before  him.  "  The  first  stage  of  the  covenant 
history  was  drawing  to  an  end,  and  Israel  was  prepar 
ing  to  enter  on  a  second.  They  left  ( 'anaan  as  a 
family,  to  return  to  it  a  people.  As  a  family  they  had 
done  their  work  and  accomplished  their  end;  viz.  to 
exhibit  the  foundations  on  which  national  life  is  based. 
Henceforth  their  task  would  be  to  show  how  the 
basis  of  the  world's  history,  in  its  widest  form,  is  to  be 
found  within  the  nation.  .  .  .  At  the  conclusion  uf  it-. 
entire  history  Israel  was  to  enter  into  association  with 
heathenism,  in  order  that  its  all-embracing  destiny 
might  (to  a  certain  extent)  be  fulfilled  by  its  receiving 
from  the  latter  the  goods  of  this  world,  human  wisdom 
and  culture;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  its  imparting 
to  the  heathen  the  abundance  of  its  spiritual  posses 
sions,  the  result  of  all  the  revelations  and  instructions 
which  it  had  received  from  Clod.  And  thus  also  at  the 
period  before  us,  when  the  first  stage  of  its  history  was 
drawing  to  a  close,  Israel  joined  with  Kgypt,  the  best 
representative  of  heathenism,  bringing  to  Egypt  deli 
verance  from  its  troubles,  through  the  wisdom  of  (4od 
with  which  it  was  endowed,  and  enriching  itself  with 
the  wealth,  the  wisdom,  and  the  culture  of  that  land. 
Thus  was  it  prepared  to  enter  upon  a  new  stage  of  its 
history,  a  stage  of  far  wider  extent  and  greater  import 
ance"  (Kurtz,  Hist,  of  Old  Cov.  vol.  ii.  p.  .1). 

In  the  genealogical  list  that  is  furnished  of  Jacob's 
family,  at  the  descent  into  Egypt.  Ce.  xM.  s-27,  there  are 
certain  peculiarities  which  have  been  occasionally  ex- 
cepted  against,  which  carry,  indeed,  a  somewhat  strange 
appearance  to  persons  not  conversant  with  this  line  of 
things,  and  which  require  some  explanation.  The  list 
begins  thus:  "  These  are  the  names  of  the  children  of 
Israel  which  came  into  Egypt:  Jacob  and  his  sons, 
Reuben,''  &e. — thus  manifestly  including  Jacob  him 
self  among  the  children  of  Israel.  The  sons  and  their 
families  are  respectively  classed  under  the  different 
wives  of  Jacob;  and  at  the  close  of  those  connected 
with  Leah,  it  is  said  that  all  the  souls  of  the  sons  he 
had  by  her,  and  his  daughters,  were  thirty-three.  But, 
in  adding  them  up,  there  are  found  only  thirty-two 
(omitting  Er  and  Onan.  sons  of  Judah,  who  died  in 
Canaan);  so  that  Jacob  himself  must  have  been  assigned 
to  this  part  of  the  list.  And.  indeed,  assigned  most 
fitly  to  this  part,  since  Leah  was  both  his  first  and 
most  fruitful  wife;  and  no  other  place  so  appropriate 
could  be  found  for  him  in  a  register  which  took  one  of 
its  principles  of  arrangement  from  the  mothers  of  the 
household.  The  entire  number  of  souls  reckoned  to 
the  house  of  Israel  as  going  into  Egypt  were  sixty-six, 
which,  with  Joseph,  his  wife,  and  their  two  sons,  already 
in  !•'•_:•>  pt,  made  a  total  of  seventy,  ver.  ->7.  But  then  to 
make  out  this  number  several  names  are  obviously  in 
cluded,  which  had  no  existence  till  some  years  after 
the  settlement  in  Egypt.  Eor  example,  Benjamin,  who 


was  a  comparative  youth  at  the  time,  certainly  not 
exceeding  twenty-four  years  of,  age,  if  so  much,  is  re 
presented  as  having  ten  sons,  ver.  L'l-— most  of  whom 
must  have  been,  and  not  improbably  the  whole  were, 
born  to  him  in  Egypt.  Pharez,  too,  the  son  of  Judah 
by  Tamar,  has  two  sons  assigned  him,  ver.  11;  and  with 
A  slier  are  coupled,  not  only  four  sons,  but  two  grand 
sons  (by  Beriah),  therefore  great-grandsons  of  Jacob — 
although  Asher  himself  could  not  then  be  more  than 
about  forty  years  old.  It  is  plain  that  in  such  cases 
the  persons  named  could  not  have-  all  actually  existed 
at  the  time:  and  the  question  arises,  why  then  were 
they  reckoned  (  Is  there  not  some  historical  inaccuracy 
in  the  matter.'  So  it  has  often  been  alleged;  and  such, 
indeed,  would  have  been  the  ease,  if  the  statements  had 
belonged  to  a  strictly  historical  document.  But  there 
is  a  market!  difference  in  certain  respects  between  genea 
logical  and  historical  records,  and  particularly  in  the 
mode  of  clubbing  together  parent  and  offspring,  or  of 
Diving  sway  to  some  regulating  principle.  In  this  re 
spect  the  genealogical  registers  often  took  a  latitude 
which  was  foreign  to  history.  The  principle  followed, 
in  the  present  case,  was  to  name  all  the  sons,  grandsons, 
or  great-grandsons  of  Jacob  who  became  the  heads  of 
separate  tribes  and  of  subordinate  families  in  E^vpt. 
As  a  rule,  the  sons  were  the  heads  of  tribes,  the  grand 
sons  heads  of  families.  But  there  were  certain  excep 
tions  to  the  rule;  Joseph's  two  sons  became  each  heads 
of  tribes,  although  not  sons  but  grandsons  of  Jacob; 
arid  two  of  Jacob's  great-grandsons  by  Asher  became 
heads  of  families.  Amid  the  vicissitudes  and  judg 
ments  which  afterwards  ensued,  subsequent  deviations 
occasionally  took  place;  some  of  the  grandsons,  for 
example,  failed  to  have  permanent  and  outstanding 
families.  But  still  the  general  rule  held,  as  may  be 
seen  by  a  comparison  of  the  later  genealogical  list  in 
Nu.  xxxvi.  And  so  we  can  readily  understand  why, 
in  the  genealogy  connected  with  Jacob's  descent  into 
Egypt,  several  names  should  be  found  of  persons  that 
were  still  only  in  the  loins  of  their  fathers:  if  not  alto 
gether,  yet  nearly,  coeval  with  that  time,  was  the  exist 
ence  of  the  heads  of  the  future  nation,  in  its  smaller 
as  well  as  its  larger  divisions  (see  Hengstenberg,  Pent.  vol.  ii. 
p.  284,  trans.) 

Comparatively  few  notices  have  been  preserved  of 
Jacob's  seventeen  years'  residence  in  Euypt;  but  some 
of  them  possess  great  importance  in  the  history  of  the 
covenant- people,  and  none  more  than  the  prophetical 
utterances  which  signalized  the  close  of  his  career. 
His  joy  in  meeting  his  son  Joseph,  as  might  well  be 
expected,  was  of  the  liveliest  description;  he  even 
declared  he  should  be  content  to  die,  now  that  his 
most  intense  desire  had  been  gratified,  GO.  xivi.  so.  On 
his  part  Joseph  did  everything  he  could  to  make  the 
reception  of  his  father  honourable,  and  his  future 
sojourn  in  Egypt  pleasant.  He  had  Jacob  himself 
and  some  of  his  brethren  presented  to  Pharaoh,  who 
entreated  them  courteously,  and  in  return  received 
a  blessing  from  the  aged  patriarch,  as  from  one  who 
occupied  a  higher  spiritual  position,  eh.  xlvii.  7-10.  Such 
treatment  was  the  more  remarkable,  that  Jacob  and 
his  family  came  in  the  character  of  shepherds,  while 
shepherds  were  already  held  in  abomination  by  the 
Egyptians.  But  their  shepherd  character  was  on 
no  account  to  be  disguised  ;  it  was  rather  prominently 
exhibited,  and  made  the  formal  ground  of  asking 
from  Pharaoh  a  separate  allotment  of  territory ;  for 


JACOB 


JACOB'S  WELL 


in  sucli  separation  from  the  families  of  Egypt,  it 
was  already  foreseen  that  the  safety  of  the  children 
of  Israel  should  in  great  measure  stand.  While 
fed  and  nourished  in  Egypt,  all  would  he  lost  if  thi-y 
became  mixed  with  its  people — if  they  did  not  dwell  as 
members  of  a  distinct  community,  and  feel  as  the  deni 
zens  of  another  region.  And  it  was  accordingly  ordered,  • 
with  wise  adaptation  to  the  whole  circumstances  of 
their  case,  that  they  should  have  possessions  assigned 
them  in  the  land  of  Coshen  (though  we  know  nut  how 
room  should  have  existed  for  them  there) — a  province 
which,  beside  the  separate  dwelling  it  afforded,  had  the 
threefold  advantage  of  being  singularly  fertile,  situated 
on  the  eastern  border  of  Egypt  (hence  of  ready  access 
to  the  land  of  Canaan),  and,  from  its  immediate  proxi 
mity  to  the  tribes  of  the  desert,  less  likely  to  lie  grudged 
by  the  native  population.  Indeed,  politic  considera 
tions  would  naturally  conspire  in  this  ease  with  higher 

reasons  to  cede  to  them  such  a  territory,  since  they 

^ 

would  thus  constitute  a  certain  defence  against  inva 
sions  from  a  quarter  whence  Eu'vpt  always  appivhendi  d 
danger.  (>'•  e  ( < < >SH i;.\ . ) 

The  greatest  pains  were  taken  by  Jacob  to  have  the 
minds  of  his  offspring  impressed  with  the  reality  anil 
the  nature  of  their  culling  to  occupy  the  land  of  ( 'anaan: 
the  coneludiii'.:  aets  of  his  lit'.-  all  bore  in  this  direction. 
It  seemed  as  if  his  thoughts  and  feelings  respecting  the 
future  could  find  no  resting-place  but  in  Canaan.  As 
his  latter  end  uave  intimations  of  it-  approach,  he  took 
Joseph  solemnly  bound,  even  exacted  of  him  an  oath, 
that  he  would  not  bury  him  in  Kuypt.  hut  would  eairy 
his  bones  to  the  sepulchre  of  his  tather.-  in  the  cave  of 
Mamre,  (;e.  xhii.  i.".i-:;i.  At  a  -till  later  stage,  win  n  his 
last  sickness  had  begun  to  full  on  him.  and  Joseph 
came  with  his  sons  to  vi.-it  him,  lie  not  only  ivv<rti-d 
to  tlii-  same  subject,  hut  showed  the  char  prophetic 
insight  lie  had  obtained  into  the  respective  destini.  of 
his  posterity  in  connection  with  it.  "  I'.y  faith  he 
blessed  both  the  sons  of  Joseph,"  lie.  xi.-l  faith,  in  the 
first  instance,  apprehending  their  common  interest  in 
(  oid's  covenant,  as  the  great  thing  for  them,  to  be  pre 
ferred  before  all  the  treasures  of  Kuypt  faith,  also, 
realizing  the  certainty  with  which  the  promise  of  <  'anaan 
for  an  inheritance  should  be  fulfilled-  and  faith,  still 
further,  penetrating  \\ith  divine  skill  and  foresight  to  a 
discrimination  between  son  and  son.  so  as  to  as-iun  to 
Ephraim  the  younger,  a  higher  place  than  Mana-seh'- 
the  elder,  in  the  future  pos.-essions  and  blessings  of  the 
covenant.  So  lively,  indeed,  and  assuring  was  the  a^ed 
patriarch's  faith,  that  he.  in  a  manner,  overleaps  the 
distance  between  the  present  and  the  future —sees  the 
things  that  are  not  as  if  they  were;  for,  after  having 
blessed  Joseph's  sons,  he  turned  to  Joseph  himself  with 
the  comforting  word,  that  (.toil  would  certainly  brinu' 
them  again  to  the  land  of  their  fathers;  and  added, 
''  Moreover,  I  have  given  to  thee  one  portion  above  thy 
brethren,  which  I  took  out  of  the  hand  of  the  Amorite 
with  mv  sword  and  with  my  bow,"  eh.  xh,ii.  L'L> — not  re 
ferring,  as  some  have  supposed,  to  certain  partial  suc 
cesses  he  may  have  gained  over  the  native  inhabitants  | 
of  Canaan,  far  less  (with  others)  to  the  atrocious  severity 
practised  by  Simeon  and  Levi;  but  in  the  rapt  mood  of 
prophecy,  realizing  the  future  as  present — contemplat 
ing  the  land  as  already  occupied  by  his  posterity — and 
speaking  of  it  as  A/.-t  conquest,  because  in  living  faith 
he  had  grasped  the  divine  promise  concerning  it,  and 
so  could  identify  himself  with  his  offspring  in  the  reali 


zation  of  the  blessing.  In  spirit  he  conquered  in  them, 
and  to  them  he  divided  the  spoil.  What  was  said, 
however,  by  Jacob  when  he  was  u-dying  to  Joseph  and 
his  two  sons,  was  but  a  prelude  to  the  grand  and  com 
prehensive  prophecy,  which  he  was  enabled,  by  the 
Spirit,  to  pronounce  on  all  his  sons,  as  they  gathered 
around  his  lied  to  listen  to  his  final  testimony,  ch.  xlix. 
1-1.7.  We  refrain  from  going  here  into  the  particulars, 
as  these  will  fall  to  be  noticed  in  connection  with  the 
names  of  the  several  sons.  But  in  respect  to  all  of 
them,  it  is  to  be  observed,  the  word  is  called  a  blessing 
— although,  in  the  case  of  some,  the  things  spoken,  if 
taken  by  themselves,  might  seem  more  like  a  curse 
than  a  blessing.  But  it  was  only  relatively  such:  for 
the-  whole  were  recognized  as  standing  within  the  cove 
nant — the  proper  sphere  of  blessing — and  as  together 
destined  to  occupy  the  land,  which  was  to  be  peculiarly 
the1  Lord's,  and,  as  such,  replenished  with  the  special 
tokens  of  his  favour  and  beneficence.  All,  therefore, 
might  justly  be  said  to  be  blessed  by  Jacob,  while  yet 
there  wa>  plainly  to  be  no  uniform  or  indiscriminate 
appropriation  of  the  <_:'»od,  but  manifold  diversities 
according  to  the  moral  condition  and  behaviour  of  each, 
and  these  to  a  larje  extent  determined  by  the  impulse 
i/iveii  from  the  lir-t  by  the  tribal  heads  to  their  respec- 
tive  offspring.  In  what  <'•".•>•.  the  prophetic  spirit  descried 
the  <jtTiii  of  what  (for  the  most  part)  was  to  IK\  And 
when  it  is  said  that  the  things  announced  beforehand 
were  tho.-e  which  should  befall  tlie  children  of  Israel 
"  in  the  latter  days,"  or  in  the  end  of  days,  the  meaning 
here  also  must  be  understood  in  the  relative  sense— not 
absolutely  tlu'  last,  or  those  which  became  such  to  sub 
sequent  prophets — but  the  later  or  last  in  relation  to 
that  pro\i-ioiiul  state  of  things,  from  \\hichthe  patri 
arch  now  spake.  While  Jacob  had  a  clear  and  correct 
vision  granted  to  him  of  things  to  come,  as  regarded 
his  p.,st< Tit\.  still  that  vision  was  bounded:  and  what 
to  hi.,  view  miuht  appear  the  farthest  limit,  was  but 
the  seeming  edge  of  a  horizon,  which  should  admit  of 
successive  expansions.  This,  however,  belonged  to 
other  times  than  those  of  the  patriarch  Jacob;  and  his 
uil'ts  were  adapted  to  the  age  in  which  he  lived  and  the 
work  he  had  to  do. 

Thus  in  his  last  words  spoke  Jacob  or  Israel;  one, 
assuredly,  of  the  most  distinguished  characters  of  holy 
Writ,  and  one  who  has  left  his  name  and  his  impress  on 
the  people  of  Cod  to  all  future  times.  As  all  genuine 
In  Hovers  are  the  children  of  Abraham,  so  are  they  of 
the  family  of  Jacob  the  Israel  of  Cod.  In  them  as 
in  him  nature  and  grace  struggle  for  the  ascendency; 
and  in  them,  too,  not  less  than  in  him,  however  long 
or  varied  the  conflict,  the  victory  ever  is  on  the  side  of 
i^race.  Cod's  purpose  stands,  and  all  that  is  contrary 
to  it  ultimately  gives  way.  Jacob  died  at  the  age  of 
117;  and  after  being  embalmed,  his  body  was  carried 
by  Joseph  and  his  brethren  up  to  the  land  of  (.'anaan, 
and  laid  in  the  grave  of  .Mamre — a  witness  of  his  faith 
in  Cod's  promise,  and  a  pledge  that  the  promise  should 
in  due  time  be  verified  to  his  posterity. 

JACOB'S  WELL  is  situated  on  a  low  spur  of  Mount 
Ceri/im,  at  the  mouth  of  the  valley  of  Shechem,  where 
it  opens  out  into  the  wide  plain  of  corn- fields  leading 
down  to  the  Jordan.  It  is  thus  described  in  Murray's 
Handbook  for  >'//'•'"  (vol.  ii.  i>.  :;KI); — ''Formerly  there 
was  a  square  hole  opening  into  a  carefully  built  vaulted 
chamber,  about  in  feet  square,  in  the  floor  of  which 
was  the  true  mouth  of  the  well.  Now  a  portion  of  the 


.JACOB'S   WELL 


836 


vault  lias  fallen  in  and  completely  covered  up  the  muiuli, 
si)  that  nothing  can  be  seen  hut  a  shallow  pit,  hah" 
filled  with  stones  and  rubbish."  .1  >r.  Wilson  (Lan.lsof 
the  Bible,  vol.  ii.  p.  57),  carefully  measured  the  well,  ami 
found  it  !)  feet  in  diameter,  and  75  feet  deep.  Jt  was 
probably  much  deeper  in  ancient  times,  as  there  are 
signs  of  considerable  accumulation  of  stones  and  rub 
bish  below  its  present  bottom;  and  Maundrell  (March  2i), 
s:iys  that  ill  his  time  it  was  :>/i  yards,  or  In.')  feet  deep. 
It  sometimes  contains  a  few  feet  of  water,  but  at  others 
it  is  quite  dry.  This  is  the  only  foundation  for  the 
story  sometimes  told  to  travellers,  that  it  is  dry  all  the 
year  round,  except  on  the  anniversary  of  the  day  on 
which  our  blessed  Saviour  sat  upon  it,  but  that  then 
it  bubbles  up  with  abundance  of  wab-r. 

Over  the  well  there  stood  formerly  a  large  church, 
built  in  the  fourth  century,  but  probably  destroyed 
before  the  time  of  the  crusades,  as  S.ewulf  (j>.  43)  and 
Phoeas  do  not  mention  it.  .its  remains  are  just  above 
the  well  towards  the  south-west,  merely  a  shapeless 
mass  of  ruins,  among  which  are  seen  fragments  of  urav 
granite  columns,  still  retaining  their  ancient  polish 
(Robinson's  Biblical  Ke>c;i  relic*,  iii.  i:;2). 

In  examining  the  question  whether  the  well  now 
called  by  this  name  is  identical  with  that  of  St.  John, 
eh.  iv.,  the  following  points  have  to  be  borne  in  mind: — 

1 .  Jt.<  position. — We  should  naturally  look  for  it  near 
to  Shechem,   Gc.  xxxiu.  is.io;  Jn.  iv. :, -,  and  Gerizim  ("our 
fathers  worshipped  in  this  mountain"),  vcr.  20;  to  the 
east  of  the  city,  as  Jacob,  we  know,  approached  it  from 
the  Jordan,  Gc.  xxxiii.  17;  in  the  plain  of  corn-fields  ("  white 
already   to   harvest  '),   Jn.  iv.  :;->.     Some  have   objected 
that  the  distance   (H  mile)   from  Shechem  renders  it 
improbable  that  the  woman  would  have  come  so  far  to 
draw  water.      But  even  if  no  accident  had  brought  her 
into   its   neighbourhood,   the    sacred    site  and  Jacob's 
name,   or  the  excellence  of  the  water  drawn  from  so 
great    a    depth,    would    account    for    the    preference. 
.Mr.   Porter,  in  Murray's  ///o/r///Wr,   remarks  on  this: 
"There  is  a  well  called  Ez-Zenabyeh,  a  mile  or  more 
outside  St.  Thomas'   Gate,   Damascus,  to  which  num 
bers   of   the   inhabitants   send   for   their   daily  supply, 
though  they  have    fountains   and   wells    in  their  own 
houses,  far  more  abundant   than  ever  existed  in  the 
city  of   Shechem."     It    was  evidently  not    the  public 
well  of  the  city,  as  there  was  no  apparatus   (&VT\7jfj.a) 
to  draw  with. 

2.  Tradition  and  History . — The  tradition  is  as  old 
as  the  fourth  century,  and  common  to  ( 'liristians  and 
Mussulmans.      It  is  first  mentioned  by  Eusebius,  who 
was  born  only  150  years  after  the  death  of  St.  John; 
and  Dr.  Robinson  is  of  opinion  that  the  tradition  is 
not  likely  to  have  been  lost  in  the  interval.     Jerome 
places  it  at  the  foot  of  Gerizim,  and  so  identifies  the 
supposed  site  of  his  time  with  the  well  as  shown  to 
travellers  now. 

:'•.  Appearance  and  Depth. — There  is  no  well  in  the 
whole  plain  which  would  so  well  accord  with  the  words 
of  the  woman  of  iSamaria — "The  well  is  deep."  It 
bears  evident  marks  of  antiquity,  and  the  labour  of 
sinking  it  through  the  solid  rock  must  have  been  so 
great  that  it  would  not  have  been  undertaken  except 
by  some  one  who  had  not  access  to  the  many  streams 
and  fountains  of  the  neighbourhood.  Of  its  origin 
Mr.  Porter  writes:  "  What  need  for  a  well  here  ?  Every 
proprietor  wishes  to  have  a  fountain  or  well  of  his  own. 
A  stream  may  run  past  or  through  his  field,  yet  he 


dare  not  touch  a  drop  of  it.  Jacob  bought  a  field  here, 
doubtless  a  section  of  the  rich  plain  at  the  mouth  of 
the  valley,  but  this  gave  him  no  title  to  the  water  of 
the  neighbouring  fountain.  He  therefore  dug  a  well 
for  himself  in  his  own  field,  and  indeed  the  field  may 
have  been  bought  chiefly  with  a  view  to  the  digging 
of  a  well.  Every  attentive  reader  of  the  Bible  will 
observe,  that  the  patriarchs,  while  wandering  in 
''aiiaaii,  had  no  difficulty  about  pasture,  but  they  had 
often  serious  difficulties  and  quarrels  about  water, 
GO.  xxi.  2.v.'i";  x\vi.  i.;-i.">;  is-22,  ix\  This  is  the  case  still  in 
many  parts  of  Syria." 

Here,  then,  is  Jacob's  well,  on  which  the  Saviour, 
wearied  with  his  journey,  rested  for  a  while,  finding 
that  his  meat  and  drink  was  to  do  bis  'Father's  business. 
Few  scenes  of  sacred  history  gain  so  much  reality  and 
interest  by  a  reference  to  the  place  where  they  were 
enacted.  The  well  was  there,  its  water  more  precious 
ami  more  refreshing  than  any  other  of  the  neighbour 
hood,  fit  emblem  of  the  living  water  of  everlasting  life. 
The  mountain  rose  above  them,  probably  the  scene  of 
.Isaac's  intended  sacrifice,  and  in  those  days  the  site  of 
the  Samaritan  temple  where  their  fathers  worshipped. 
Around  were  the  corn-fields  which  served  to  .-nicest  to 
the  Saviour  "the  glorious  vision  of  the  distant  harvest 
of  the  Gentile  world,"  of  which  he  had  himself  just 
sown  the  first  seeds  (Stanley,  Sinai  &  Pal.  p.  239).  [r.T.il.] 

JAD'DUA  [a  kitnt/-in</  one;  Ge.-.  sciohis  /t'irii>/itx],  the 
name  of  two  persons,  Nc.  x.  21 ;  xii.  22,  the  latter  a  high- 
priest,  the  immediate  successor,  probably  son,  of  Jona 
than,  and  remarkable  on  this  account  that  he  was  the 
last  priest  whose  name  has  found  a  certain  record  in 
Old  Testament  scripture.  The  priests,  in  the  passage 
of  Xehemiah  referred  to,  are  said  to  have  been  given 
''to  the  reign  of  Darius  the  Persian,"  i.e.  the  Darius 
who  was  overthrown  by  Alexander.  Jaddua  is  very 
commonly  understood  to  be  the  same  who  is  mentioned 
by  Josephu-'.  as  going  out  in  his  priestly  robes  to  meet 
Alexander,  and  to  implore  his  good- will  toward  the 
people  and  city  of  Jerusalem  (Ant.  xi.  8,  sect.  7).  But  of 
this  there  can  be  no  certainty,  and  the  story  uiven  bv 
Josephus  respecting  Jaddua' s  interview  with  Alexander 
is  probably  to  a  large  extent  fabulous.  It  manifestly 
savours  too  much  of  Jewish  vanity,  like  many  other 
things  in  the  same  quarter,  to  be  entitled  to  implicit 
credit. 

JA'EL  [the  i/ie.'.;  or,  according  to  some,  the  rfiamola]. 
The  onlv  person  certainly  known  under  this  name  in 
Old  Testament  history  is  the  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite, 
and  she  comes  into  notice  simply  in  connection  with  a 
memorable  transaction — the  murder  of  Si  sera.  Her 
husband  was  evidently  a  person  of  some  importance, 
in  modern  phrase  a  sheikh,  who  belonged  to  the  family 
of  Hobab,  the  father-in-law  of  Moses;  but  who,  for 
some  unexplained  reason,  had  separated  himself  from 
his  brethren.  They  had  an  inheritance  assigned  them, 
at  the  period  of  the  conquest,  on  the  soiith  of  Canaan, 
while  he  transferred  himself,  with  his  nocks  and  herds, 
to  the  extreme  north,  not  far  from  Kedesh  (see  KEX- 
ITES").  Here  he  occupied  a  sort  of  intermediate  position 
between  the  settled  possessions  of  Israel  on  the  one 
hand,  and  those  of  Jabin,  king  of  Hazor,  on  the  other. 
But  being  of  a  peaceable  disposition,  as  the  Kenites 
appear  generally  to  have  been,  he  contrived  to  keep  on 
friendly  terms  with  both;  and  when  the  fierce  war 
broke  out,  which  ended  in  the  total  route  of  Siscra,  the 
leader  of  Jabin's  host,  the  vanquished  general  on  his 


.TAEL 


JAH 


flight  homewards  sought  a  refuge  in  the  tent  of  Jael,  ' 
Heber's  wife,  Ju.  iv.  17.  "Why  Jael's  tent,  rather  than 
Heber' s,  should  be  mentioned  as  the  asylum  he  sought 
in  this  perilous  extremity,  mav  possibly  have  arisen  : 
from  Heber  himself  having  been  absent  at  the  time: 
or,  more  probably,  from  the  female  tent  being  regarded 
among  nomade  tribes  as  the  more  peculiarly  safe  re 
ceptacle,  which  stood  comparatively  .-ecure  against  vio 
lence  and  intrusion.  So  much  indeed  was  this  the  case, 
that  Sisera  himself  could  scarcely  have  ventured,  even 
in  the  most  disastrous  circumstances,  to  press  for  admis 
sion  tin -re,  unless  the  privilege  was  readily  conceded  to 
him.  But  .Jael.  it  would  appear  from  the  narrative, 
anticipated  his  wishes,  and,  descrying  his  approach,  as 
she  had  doiibtle-s  already  heard  of  the  disaster  that  led 
to  it.  she  went  forth  to  me-  t  him.  and  invited  him  to 
turn  into  her  tent,  and  fear  not.  !t  was  more  almost 
than  he  could  have  looked  for;  and  ,i-  if  .-till  further  to 
throw  him  oti  his  ^uard.  she  ca-t  her  mantle  over  him, 
and  when  he  asked  for  a  drink  of  waU  r  io  quench  his 
thirst,  she  opened  a  bottle  of  milk,  and  :_avc  him  what 
Deborah  called  butter,  or  curdled  milk,  in  a  lordly  di-h. 
Ju.  v.  25.  In  a  word,  lie  was  treated  with  the  greatest 
apparent  cordiality  and  kindm-.-s:  the  usu.d  pledges  of 
Arab  liospitalitv  and  protection  were  gi\eii:  but  on!v 
1o  lull  him  into  a  fatal  security.  For,  during  th'-  pro 
found  sleep  which  presently  after  -tole  over  him,  .lael 
drew  a  nail  from  the  tent,  and  with  a  hammer  drove 
it  into  his  temples  with  -uch  a  deadly  aim.  as  to  pass 
entirelv  through  the  head  and  fa  .-ten  it  t"  the  tloor  on 
which  he  lav.  The  pursuer.-  of  Si-era,  witli  I'.arak  at 
their  liead.  were  not  long  in  coming  up  in  ipn  .-t  of  their 
prev:  them  also  Jael  went  out  to  meet,  and  having 
vsked  them  to  i;o  in.  that  they  mi^lit  sec  tlie  man 
whom  they  sought  alter,  they  found  Si-era  lyin^  dead 
with  the  nail  in  hi-  teui|  les. 

A  good  deal  perhaps  miuht  be  said  to  palliate  the 
conduct  of  Jael  on  tin-  occasion,  partly  on  the  ^ round 
of  the  much  more  ancient  and  intimate  alliance  which 
the  familv  of  Heber  had  with  1-rael.  than  it  could  pos- 
siblv  have  \\ithSisera  or  Jabin;  and  still  more  Irom 
the  danger  which  she  could  scarcely  fail  to  apprehend 
to  her  own  life,  it'  -he  either  r<  fused  Sisera  the  protec 
tion  he  sought,  or  r-hould  afterwards  have  been  di-- 
covered  bv  liarak  to  have  atlorded  an  asylum  to  the 
so  lately  dreaded  enemy  of  !.-ra-l.  At  >uch  a  inoiiieul 
the  neutral  position  of  her  tribe  brought  with  it  a 
double  peril:  ami  if  in  the  sudden  and  trying  emergency 
which  burst  upon  Jael,  .-he  chose  the  way  of  per.-onal 
safetv,  rather  than  of  high  honour,  regard  should  at  ; 
least  be  had  to  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  her  position 
before  judgment  is  pronounced  upon  her  conduct. 
Tiiis,  certainly,  has  not  always  been  done:  on  the  con 
trary,  everything  that  makes  against  her  has  often  been 
prominently  exhibited,  while  all  that  belongs  to  the 
other  side  has  been  industriously  kept  in  the  back 
ground.  Her  conduct  has  been  denounced  for  its  abo 
minable  treachery,  as  if  everv  step  had  been  taken  with 
the  most  deliberate  intent  and  freest  choice.  At  the 
same  time,  while  we  cannot  join  in  an  unqualified  con 
demnation,  having  regard  to  the  peculiar  circumstances 
in  which  she  was  placed,  as  little  can  we  vindicate  the  ' 
part  she  acted:  it  was  undoubtedly  marked  with  such  ! 
deceit  ami  violence,  as  no  external  circumstances  or  ! 
apprehended  results  can  justify.  How,  then,  should 
she  have  been  celebrated  in  the  song  of  Deborah  as 
blessed  above  women?  Ju.  v.  21.  Xot  certainly  as  a  ; 


pious  and  upright  person  is  blessed  when  performing  a 
deed  which  embodies  the  noblest  principles,  and  which 
goes  up  as  a  memorial  before  God;  but  merely  as  one 
who  acted  a  part  that  accomplished  an  important  pur 
pose  of  Heaven.  In  the  same  sense,  though  in  the 
opposite  direction.  Job  and  Jeremiah  cursed  the  day  of 
their  birth  —  not  that  they  meant  to  make  it  the  proper 
subject  of  blame,  but  that  thev  wished  to  mark  their 
deep  sense  of  the  evil  into  which  it  had  ushered  them  - 
mark  it  as  the  commencement  <  >i  a  life-heritage  of  sorrow 
and  u'looni.  In  like  manner,  and  with  a  closer  resem 
blance  to  the  ease  before  us.  the  psalmist  pronounces 
happy  or  ble-scd  those  who  should  dash  the  little  ones 
of  Babylon  against  the  stones,  i's.  i-xxxvii.  H;  which  no  one 
who  understands  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  pot  try  would 
ever  dream  of  construing  into  a  proper  benediction  upon 
the  ruthless  murderers  of  l>abvlon's  children,  as  true 
heroes  of  righteousness.  It  merely  announces,  under  a 
strong  individualizing  trait,  the  coming  recompense  on 
r.ahyloii  for  the  cruelties  she  had  inilicted  on  Israel; 
h-  r  own  measure  ,-hould  be  meted  back  to  her:  and 
thev  who  should  be  the  instruments  of  eti'eeting  it, 
-hoiild  execute  a  purpose  of  (lod,  whether  they  might 
tin  m-'  he-  intend  it  or  not.  .Let  the  poetical  exaltation 
of  Jael  be  viewed  iii  the  liuht  of  these  connate  passages, 
and  it,  will  be  found  to  contain  nothing  at  variance  with 
the  verdict  which  every  impartial  mind  must  be  dis 
posed  to  pronounce  upon  her  conduct.  It  is  in  reality 
the  \\oik  of  God's  judgment  through  her  inslrumen- 
talitv  that  is  celebrated,  not  IrT  mode  of  carrying  it 
into  execution;  and  it  miidit  be  as  ju.-t  to  regard  the 
heathen  Me/ties  and  1'ersians  as  a  truly  pious  people, 
because  they  are  called  God's  "sanctified  one-,"  to  do 
hi-  \\  ork  of  vengeance  on  I  >abvlon.  Is.  xiii.  .'(,  as  from  what 
i-<  said  in  Deborah's  soiiu'.  to  consider  Jael  an  example 
01'  riiihtei  insiit'ss. 

The  JAM.  mentioned  bv  Deborah  in  Ju.  v.  i!  is  siip- 
posed  bv  Winer  and  by  Geseiiius  to  be  another  person 
than  the  wife  of  Heber:  to  "he  indeed  one  of  the  judges 
of  l.-rael,  though  nowhere  ulse  mentioned.  Certainly 
the  prophetess  appears  to  be  speaking  of  those  who 
acted  as  judges  in  Israel  lie  fore  her,  when  she  speaks 
there  of  the  wavs  being  niioceupied  "in  the  days  of 
Shamj  ir.  the  son  of  A  nath.  in  the  days  of  Jael.''  Jn 
no  proper  sense  could  the  time  preceding  Deborah's 
a^vncv  lie  ivpre-en'.ed  as  the  davs  of  Jael  —  if  the  Jael 
meant  were  the  wife  of  an  extra-  Isniclitish  chief.  But 
as  no  judu'i1  of  that  name  has  been  noticed  in  the  his 
tory.  it  is  better  to  leave  the  pas-au'e  as  one  respecting 
which  no  certain  opinion  can  be  formed,  than  give  a 
positive  deliverance  as  to  the  per.-on  indicated  in  it. 

JAH.  an  abbreviated  form  of  the  peculiar  name  of  God, 
JKIIOVAH,  used  only  in  poetry,  or  in  forming  compound 
names,  such  as  Eli-jah,  Isa-jah,  Jahax-jah,  Jeremiah. 
The  genuine  pronunciation  of  the  original  word  is  taken 
bv  some  to  be  Jalinh  ("TV*;  ''V  others,  Jn/iimh;  by 


the  proper  names  of  Scripture,  in  the  latter  more  fre 
quently  than  in  the  former,  though  not  quite  so  fre 
quently  in  the  original  as  in  the  English  Bible.  Jah 
is  often  also  disguised  to  the  English  reader  by  the 
rendering  LORD,  which,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases, 
is  put  for  Jehovah  --for  example,  at  Ps.  civ.  35;  cv.  45; 
exi.  1.  etc.  It  is  thus  obscured  in  its  earliest  occur- 


JAHAZ 


JAIRITE 


rence,  Kx.  xv.  •_',  wliere  tlie  first  clause  should  run,  "  My 
strength  and  song  is  Jah."  (/VC  JEHOVAH.) 

JA'HAZ  [probably,  /roildcii  MJ)<W]  ;  also  written  JAHZA, 
JAIIAZAH,  and  .)  AHAZA;  the  first,  however,  being  the  more 
common  form.  It  was  tlie  name  of  a  town  belonging 
to  the  kingdom  of  Sihon,  king  of  the  Amorites,  near  to 
which  the  decisive  battle  was  fought,  which  transferred 
the  territories  of  Sihon  to  the  children  of  Israel.  Xu.  xxi.  i':i. 
The  place  lay  between  the  rivers  Jabbok  and  Arnon, 
in  what  was  called  "the  plain  country."  the  modern 
Belka,  .TL\  xh-iii.  i't;  is.  xv.  4.  Tlie  exact  site  is  nowhere 
defined;  though,  from  being  the  place  toward  which 
Silion  advanced  to  encounter  Israel,  we  naturally  infer 
it  must  have  been  somewhere  on  the  southern  border 
of  the  country,  probably  but  a  short  way  to  the  north 
of  the  Arnori.  Xo  certain  traces  have  been  found  of 
it  in  modern  times:  and  though  it  was  assigned  to  the 
tribe  of  Reuben,  and  was  made,  a  priestly  city  in  that 
tribe,  ic'h.  vi.  7,s,  yet,  in  later  times,  as  appears  from  the 
passages  referred  to  in  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  it  must 
have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Moabites. 

JA'IR  [he  iclll  shine,  splendid].  1.  A  son  of  Man- 
asseh,  as  he  is  several  times  called,  but  this  only  means 

V 

that  he  was  a  member  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh;  for  his 
immediate  father  was  Segub,  1  Ch.  ii.  L'-J,  comp.  with  Xu. 
xxxii.  4;  Do.  iii.  11.  The  notices  found  respecting  the  pos- 
ses>ions  of  Jair  in  different  parts  of  Scripture,  have 
such  apparent  discrepancies  in  them,  that  they  have 
formed  a  frequent  subject  of  attack  to  the  impugners  i 
of  the  Bible's  historical  accuracy.  Yet,  when  carefully 
considered,  as  they  have  been  by  several  late  writers, 
and  especially  by  Hengstenberg  (Pent.  ii.  is.-,,  trans.),  they 
are  capable  of  a  quite  satisfactory  explanation.  The 
matter  stood  shortly  thus:  the  half  tribe  of  M;ma>seh 
got  its  territory  on  tlie  east  of  Jordan,  and  in  the  part 
that  lay  farther  north  than  the  possessions  of  Peuben 
and  Gad — northern  Gilead.  In  this  Gileadite  district 
there  were  belonging  to  the  tribe  two  chief  possessions, 
those  of  Jair  and  Machir — the  former  comprising  the 
region  of  Argob,  or  the  Bashan  which  had  belonged 
previously  to  Og — and  the  latter  forming  what  was 
more  commonly  called  Gilead.  This  is  quite  distinctly 
stated  in  13e.  iii.  4,  14,  15.  It  is  further  stated  re 
specting  Jair,  in  the  first  of  these  verses,  that  there 
were  altogether  sixty  towns,  which  he  gained  possession 
of  in  Argob:  they  are  called,  however,  not  towns  or 

cities,     but    JLn-'ith,    livings     (m  English  Bible  small  towns, 

Nu.  xxxii.  41);  from  their  conqueror  they  got  the  new 
name  of  Bashan-Havoth-Jair,  or  simply  Havoth-Jair; 
and  their  number  in  Deuteronomy  is  said  to  have  been 
sixty  (as  it  is  also  in  Jos.  xiii.  31;  1  Ki.  iv.  13).  lint 
in  1  Ch.  ii.  22  Jair  is  said  to  have  possessed  only 
twenty-three  cities  in  the  land  of  Gilead;  while  yet  in 
the  very  next  verse  we  are  told  that  Gesliur  and  Aram 
took  Havoth-Jair  from  them  (viz.  from  the  descendants 
of  Jair),  with  Kenath  and  her  daughters,  or  subordi 
nate  towns,  threescore  cities.  There  still  was,  it  would 
seem,  a  sixty;  but  of  the  sixty  twenty-three  belonged 
in  the  stricter  sense  to  Jair.  And  the  difference  is 
explained  by  what  is  .-aid  in  Xu.  :;xxii.  42,  that  Xobah 
went  and  took  Kenath  and  her  villages  (lit.  daughters), 
and  called  it  Nobah  after  his  own  name.  These  vil 
lages,  which  had  been  subject  to  Jair,  were  of  the 
Havoth-Jair  in  the  wider  sense,  but  were  still  distin 
guished  from  the  twenty- three,  which  more  properly 
formed  Jair's  possession.  So  that  the  account  of 
Chronicles  merely  gives  more  specific  information  re-  1 


specting  the  subdivision  which  existed  in  the  Jairite 
possessions,  there  being  in  the  total  60—  Havoth-Jair 
23,  and  Kenath  villages  37  (although  this  last  number 
is  left  to  be  inferred,  not  distinctly  specified). 

2.  JAIU,  a  Giloadite  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  of 
whom  it  is  said,  Ju.  x.  3,4,  "After  him  [that  is,  Abime- 
lecli]  arose  Jair,  a  Gileadite,  and  judged  Israel  twenty- 
two  years.     And  he  had  thirty  sons  that  rode  on  thirty 
ass  colts;   and  they  had  thirty  cities,  which  are  called 
llavoth-Jair  unto  this  day,  which  are  in  the  land  of 
Gilead."      Rationalist  critics  have  raised  on  this  pas 
sage    another    objection,    alleging    that    as    the    name 
Havoth-Jair  is   connected   with   this  person,    it  must 
have  been   by  some  mistake  that  another  Jair  in   the 
time  of  Moses  was  supposed  to  have  existed  —  in  short, 
that  out  of  one  historical  personage  of  the  name  of  Jair, 
two  had  in  the  course  of  time  sprung  up  among  tlie  tra 
ditions  of  the  people.      But  this  is  mere  assertion,  and 
against   all  probability.      The  Jair   who   lived  in  tlie 
time  of  Moses  is  in  a  variety  of  passages  so  clearly  de- 
iincd,  and  so  closely  identified  witli  some  of   the  trans 
actions  of  the  period,  that  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  of  his  historical  existence.    And  that  there  should 
have  arisen  in  the   same  region,  after  the  lapse  of  a 
few   generations,    another   person    bearing    the    same 
name,  and  acquiring  such  distinction  that  the  region 
became  in  popular  feeling  identified  as  much  with  the 
see.  .nd  as  with  the  first  Jair,  is  not  surely  so  peculiar 
as  to  be  deemed  improbable.      It  is   in  the  nature  of 
things,   as  Hengstenberg  justly  remarks,    "  and  hence 
occurs  among  all   nations,    that  the  names  of  distin 
guished  ancestors,   especially  when  (as  in  the  case  of 
Jair,  the  ttfilniiif/  or  r/torioiix)  they  are  titles  of  honour, 
are  transferred    to   their  descendants.      A  wish  arises 
that  they  should  live  anew  in  their  grandchildren,  that 
by  them  the  family  may  again  attain  the  splendour 
which  was  shed  on  it  by  their  illustrious  progenitor. 
.   .   .    We  have  a  very  notable  instance  in  an  ancestor 
of  Jair's  —  Tola,  the  son  of  Puah,  Ju.  x.i.      Both  names 
are  found  in  Ge.  xlvi.  13,  'And  the  sons  of  Issachar, 
Tola  and  Puah.'     Xow  as  Tola,  the  son  of   Puah  [in 
the  time  of  the  judges],  furnishes  a  confirmation  of  the 
existence  of  a  Tola  and  a  Puah  in  Genesis,  so  the  Jair 
of   the  book  of  Judges  corroborates  the  existence  of  a 
Mosaic   Jair.       Xo    doubt   many  a   time  besides  the 
name  Jair  was  repeated  in  the  family,  but  only  on  this 
occasion  was  the  wish  fulfilled  which  was  expressed  bv 
the  imposition  of  the  name."     It  is  also  to  be  borne  in 
mind,  that  often,    among  the  covenant-people,    when 
circumstances  occurred  to  give  fresh  significance  to  a 
name,  the  name  was  imposed  anew,  as  if   only  now  a 
proper  reason  had  been  obtained  for  its  imposition,  Ge. 
\n\.  8;  Jn  i.  12;  xvi.  i*.     So,  in  respect  to  the  towns  and 
villages  designated  Havoth-Jair:    many  of  them  had 
come  to  acquire  a  kind  of  revived  existence  under  the 
second  Jair.  and  were  named  afresh.      Of  (he  particu 
lar  acts,  besides,  which  distinguished  the  judicial  agency 
of  this  Jair,  nothing  is  known.     It  was  probably  sig 
nalized  by  general  vigour  and  probity,  rather  than  by 
any  splendid  exploits.      His  period  is  supposed  to  have 
begun  B.C.  11  S7. 

3.  JAIR,  i  Ch.  xx.  ->,  a  different  word  from  the  preced 
ing,  not  n<S\"1  but  -vj"  —  he  Kill  raise  iq)  —  the  name,  in 

•T  -T 

probably  its  correct  form,  of  the  father  of  one  of  David's 
heroes,  Elhanan.     In  2  Sa.  xxi.  10,  it  is  Jaare-Oregim. 
JA'IRITE.     fee  IRA. 


JAIRUS 

JAI'RUS  [Gr.  'Ideipos],  a  ruler  in  one  of  the  syna 
gogues  on  the  shore  of  the  sea  of  Galilee,  whose 
daughter  was  restored  to  life  by  our  Lord,  Mat.  is.  IS; 
Lu.viii.  41.  Nothing  further  is  recorded  of  him;  and  his 
name  appears  to  have  been  the  Hebrew  Jair  with  a 
Greek  termination. 

JA'KAN  [properly  JAAKAX,  and  mice  in  auth. 
version  AKAX,  <Je.  xxxvi.  LT].  a  grandson  of  Seir  the 
Horite,  and  son  of  E/er.  The  children  of  Israel  came 
in  contact  with  the  tribe  descended  from  him  when 
they  were  encamped  at  Mosera,  near  .Mount  Hor,  where 
Aaron  died.  IK\  x.  o.  Their  fortunes  were  identified 
with  those  of  the  Edomites,  of  whom  they  formed  a 
distinct  family. 

JAMBRES.     Set  JAXXI-S. 

JAMES.  1.  The  first  person  of  this  name  in  Scrip 
ture,  and  the  one  respecting  whom  we  have  the  most 
explicit  information,  was  the  sun  of  Xebedee.  and 
brother  of  John.  Of  the  {.lace  of  his  birth,  how 
ever,  or  of  his  life  generally,  except  th;it  In-  was  a 
fisherman  up  to  the  time  that  lie  became  a  follower 
of  Christ,  nothing  is  recorded.  Our  Lord,  it  is 
said,  found  him  at  a  certain  place,  with  his  father 
Xebedee  and  his  brother  .John,  mending  their  nets  mi 
the  shore  iif  the  Sea  of  Galil>-e:  and  ha\in_;  with  his 
brother  received  a  call  to  follow  Jesus,  they  both  im 
mediately  obeyed  tli  •  call  Mr  iv.  21,22;  M;ir.  i.  n.  This 
prompt  response  seems  to  bespeak  a  piv\  ions  acquaint 
ance  with  Jesus,  and  an  incipi'-nt  conviction  that  he 
mi'_rht  be,  or  actually  was,  the  promised  .Messiah:  but 
of  this  no  historical  notice  ha-  be.'n  preserved,  though 
it  may  be  said  to  In;  implied  in  what  his  brother  John 
records  of  himself,  .in.  i. :;:,- 1  >  An  occasion  which  has 
been  regarded  by  soiiv  as  the  same,  but  by  others  as 
different,  presents  James  as,  along  with  John,  associ 
ated  in  a  fishing  expedition  with  Simon  ,nid  Andrew, 
which  was  directed  bv  our  Lord  in  person,  and  >[._.•- 
nalized  by  an  extraordinary  draught  of  fishes;  at  tin.1 
close  of  which  he  told  them  that  they  should  become 
fishers  of  men,  and  '^ave  them  to  understand  (hat  \\lut 
had  now  happened  in  the  lower  sphere1  was  to  be  tak>  n 
as  a  presage  of  what  they  mi'_rht  expect  in  the  higher 
When  matters  were,  ripe  for  the  election  of  an  npo>tle- 
ship.  we  find  James  numbered  with  the  twelve,  and  of 
these  he  formed  one  of  the  first  four.  In  two  of  tin- 
lists  his  name  stands  second,  M;ir.  nn.i  i.n  ;  and  in  the 
other  two,  third.  .Mat.  and  Ac  In  all  of  them  he  is  plaeed 
In- fore,  his  In-other  John;  and  may,  therefore,  be  re 
garded  as  in  reality  the  second  in  order,  since  pivci-d- 
ence  in  two  of  the  lists  was  given  to  Andrew  inerdv 
on  account  of  his  near  relationship  to  IVtcr.  When 
ever  a  selection  was  made  from  the  twelve  for  any 
special  purpose.  James  was  always  of  the  number. 
He  was  one  of  four  present  at  the  raising  to  life  of 
Jairns'  daughter.  Mar.  i.i:ii:  one  of  three  on  the  mount  of 
transfiguration,  Mat.  xvii.  i;  i.u.  ix. -.'ii;  one  of  four  at  the 
delivering  of  the  discourse  concerning  the  latter  days, 
Mar.  xiii.  3;  and  one  of  three  at  the  memorable  scene  in 
Gethsemaiie.  Mat.  xxvi.  :;:,sc.  'Die  only  other  incidents 
record- 'd  of  him  in  the  gospels  are —his  uniting  with 
John  in  the  request  that  fire  should  be  called  down 
from  heaven  on  a  village  of  the  Samaritans,  for  refusing 
to  entertain  Christ,  Lu.  ix.  ">1;  and  again  presenting, 
along  with  him,  through  their  mother,  the  request  that 
they  should  sit  nearest  to  Christ  in  his  kingdom,  Mat. 
x\.2u-23.  Both  requests  were  rejected,  arid  not  without 
marks  of  indignation.  They  seem  to  indicate  a  natu- 


J  AMI'S 

1  rally  ardent  and  ambitious  temper,  on  account  of  which 
they  received  from  our  Lord  the  name  of  Boanerges — 

!  sons  of  thunder,  Mar.  ii  i:;  but  the  old  leaven,  in  this 

1  respect  as  in  others,  was  purged  out  by  the  descent  of 
the  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost;  and  the  energy  of 

!  character  which  underlay  what  was  in  it,  took  hence- 

;  forth  a  higher  and  holier  direction.  It  was  probably 
owing  to  this  native  energy  that  James  owed  his  high 

i  place  ill  the  apostleship;  sine  -  this,  when  enlightened 
and  sanctified  by  grace,  would  naturally  inspire  con 
fidence,  and  tit  him  for  taking  a  prominent  position  in 
guiding  the  affairs  of  the  infant  community  amid  the 
difficulties  and  dangers  which  beset  it.  That  he  actu 
ally  did  hold  such  a  position,  may  be  certainly  inferred 
from  the  treatment  he  received  from  Herod,  when  the 
latter  began  to  persecute  the  church,  Ac.  xii.-j,  James 
being  the  first  of  the  apostles  that  were  called  to  seal 
their  testimony  with  their  blood,  and  the  only  apostle 

j  whose  martyrdom  or  death  has  found  a  record  in  New 
Testament  sc.ipture.  He  is  supposed  to  have  suffered 

i  about  ten  years  after  our  Lord's  crucifixion.  A  tradi 
tion  has  been  handed  down  by  Eiisebius  from  (.'lenient 
of  Alexandria,  that  the  soldier  who  conducted  him  to 

!  the  place  of  execution,  was  so  struck  with  the  holv 
boldness  and  serenity  of  the  apostle  when  going  to  lay 
down  his  life,  that  he  also  avowed  himself  a  Christian, 
and  shared  the  same  fate  (Eu.sob.  Hist.  Keel.  ii.  o).  What 

!  credit  should  be  attached  to  the  story,  it  is  impossible 
to  >ay.  Things  not  very  dissimilar  did  sometimes 
happ'-n  in  the  early  per.-ecutions  ;  ami  whether  true 
or  not,  th-1  undaunted  firmness  \\hieh  it  ascribes  to 
James  in  the  final  trial  that  awaited  him,  is  in  perfect 
accordance  with  what  we  otherwise  know  of  his  char 
acter.  A  man  of  resolute  purpose  and  determined 

1  action,  he  would  shrink  from  nothing  that  was  re 
quired  of  him.  as  called  to  take  a  li-adinu'  part  in  con 
ducting  tin1  church  throiiu'h  her  earlier  struggles,  for 
which  he  was  rather  lilted  than  for  ministering  to  her 
future  growth  and  development.  In  this  latter  respect 
his  yoiniu'er  brother  must  be  ranked  far  above  him. 

2.  JAMKS  TIM:  SON  <>r  Ai.rn.i-:rs  was  another  of  the 
\  apostles,  and  in  all  the  lists  of  them  uiven  by  the  evan 
gelists  stands  ninth   -the  first  of  the  last  quaternion. 
It  is  probable  that  Alpha-us.  the  father  of   this  James, 
was  but  another  form  of   what  is  elsewhere   read  Oleo- 
phas,    or,    as    it   should   be.    Clopas    (see  A  I.I'H.Kfs),  and 
whose    wife    was    called    Marv.    Jn.  xix.  .'.V       This    Mary 
appears  to  have  been  the  same  who  in  Mat.  xxvii.  fi(i, 
and    Mar.    xv.    (n,  is   called   the   mother   of   James   the 
Less  (properly  f/,,    /!///<)  and  of  Jo.-es:  so  that  James, 
the    son    of     Marv.     or    James    the    Less,     appears    to 
have   been   all   one  with  James   the  son  of   Alphauis. 
This,  however,  is  the  whole   that  can  with  any  degree 
of  certainty  be  affirmed  regarding  the  James  in  ques- 

!  tion;  and  whether  he  is  to  be  identified  with,  or  distin- 
j  guished  from,  the  person  to  be  next  named,  is  a  point 
on  which  commentators  have  differed   in  the  past,  and 
I  are  likely  to  differ  in  the  time  to  come. 

3.  JAMKS,  TUF.  Luuu's  RK<>THKI:,  Mat. xiii  :>.i: Mar.  vi.:t; 
|  fia.  i.  i!>.     By  comparing  the  last  passage  referred  to  with 

Ga.  ii.  (.i,  12,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  James  is  the 
]  same  with  the  person  of  that  name  who  is  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  cli.  xii.  17;  xv.  13; 
xxi.is  as  having,  in  the  later  notices  there  of  the  church 
in  Jerusalem,  a  place  of  chief  consideration,  if  not  of 
official  presidency.  But  was  such  eminence  accorded 
to  him  simply  on  account  of  his  relation  to  our  Lord,  or 


840 


lAMKS,  KPISTLK  OF 


dignity  I  If  the  former,  then  the  probability  would  be, 
that  the  relationship  was  of  the  stricter  kind — a  bro- 
ther-german;  if  the  latter,  then,  as  James  the  son  of 
Alplueus  was  the  only  apostle  of  that  name,  except  the 
son  of  Zebedee,  the  James  who  was  the  Lord's  brother 
must  have  been  so  called  in  the  looser  sense  —a  cousin 
perhaps  of  Jesus,  but  really  the  son  of  Alplueus  or 
Clopas  and  Mary.  Various  circumstances  are  alleged 
in  support  of  this  latter  view— in  particular,  that  the 
expression  of  Paul,  "'other  apostles  saw  1  none,  save 
James  the  Lord's  brother;"  and  the  designation  of  him, 
along  with  Peter  and  John,  as  a  pillar  in  the  church  at 
Jerusalem,  G;i.  i.  i!i;  ii.  ;>;  seem  to  imply  that  he  was  an 
apostle  in  the  proper  sense,  being  put  on  a  footing  with 
those  that  were  such,  in  a  certain  sen>e  even  above 
them;  that  the  Mary  who  was  his  mother  appears  to 
be  placed  by  St.  John  in  apposition  with  the  Virgin 


been  the  cousiii-german  of  our  Lord,  and  so  in  popular 
language  his  brother;  and  that  both  our  Lord,  and  the 
James  who  was  the  son  of  Mary  and  Clopas,  had  a 
brother  named  J  oses,  Y;ir.  vi.  3;  xv.  10.  But  the  considera 
tions  on  the  other  side  seem  at  least  equally  strong, 
and  by  many  of  the  ablest  commentators  are  thought 


as  it  is  deemed  important,  or  otherwise,  to  maintain  the 
belief  of  Mary's  perpetual  virginity.  Some,  however, 
incline  to  the  other  view,  who  have  no  doctrinal  pre 
possessions  to  bias  them.  See  that  view  advocated  in 
article  JUDE;  see  also  under  MAKY. 

It  mav  be  added  that  the  James  who  is  called  our 
Lord's  brother,  and  occupied  so  prominent  a  position 
in  the  church  of  Jerusalem,  was  known  in  later  times 
by  the  surname  of  the  Just,  and  is  reported  to  have 
been  killed  in  a  tumult  about  the  year  ii2.  The  tradi 
tions  respecting  him,  which  are  evident]}'  much  mixed 
with  fable,  are  given  in  Eusebius.  llixt.  A'<:cl.  ii.  W2',j; 
with  which  compare  Stanley's  Ajiostolir  A</e,  p.  C>'2~>, 
seq.  The  epistle  which  bears  the  name  of  James  is 
unanimously  ascribed  to  him  by  all  who  identify  this 
James  with  the  son  of  Alpbieus;  and  by  those  who 
hold  them  to  be  different,  some  prefer  the  one  and  some 
the  other.  But  on  this  point  see  under  next  article. 

JAMES,  EPISTLE  OF.  The  first  of  the  seven 
epistles  called  t'athvlic  or  General  (Ka^>o\iKal),  though 
for  what  reason  it  is  difficult  to  determine— probably 
because  they  were  addressed,  not  to  any  particular 
person  or  church,  but  to  Christians  at  large:  or,  at  all 
events,  to  Christians  of  many  countries.  The  second 
and  third  epistles  of  John,  however,  must  be  held  as 


to  preponderate.  It  is  no  way  certain,  for  instance,  exceptions,  being  both  addressed  to  particular  persons, 
that  the  Alary  spoken  of  in  Jn.  xix.  '25,  was  meant  to  !  ?.lichaelis  suggests  that  these  last  may  possibly  have 
be  represented  as  sister  to  the  Virgin  Mary:  and  it  is  been,  included  among  the  seven  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
indeed  highly  improbable  that  two  in  one  family  !  serving  epistles  in  themselves  so  brief,  as  well  as  keep- 
should  have  borne  the  same  name.  When  John  men-  ing  together  those  bearing  the  name  of  John.  The 
tions  beside  the  cross  of  Jesus  '"his  mother,  and  his  •  term,  it  is  true,  cannot  be  strictly  applied  even  to  the 
mother's  sister,  Mary  the  wife  of  Clopas,  and  Mary  epistle  of  James:  seeing  it  is  not  addressed  to  (I entile 


Magdalene,"  he  appears  rather  to  intend  four  persons 
composed  of  two  pairs — first  the  virgin  and  her  sister; 
then  two  other  Marys,  the  wife  of  Clopas  and  the 
Magdalene.  Again,  whoever  may  be  meant  in  gospel 


Christians,  nor  indeed  to  the  Jewish  Christians  of 
Palestine,  but  only  to  those  of  the  dispersion.  P>ut  if 
an  epistle  be  addressed  to  a  rcr//  lanjc  lot///  of  Chris 
tians,  and  not,  as  in  the  case  of  the  thirteen  epistles  of 


history  by  the  brothers  of  Jesus — whether  full  brothers.     Paul,  to  particular  churches  or  individuals,  it  may  cer- 


half- brothers,  or  cousins,   it  is  expressly  said  of  them 
generally,   king  after  the  calling  of   the  apostles,   that 


they  did  not  believe  in  him,   Jn 


Besides,  if  the 


James  who  rose  to  such  high  consideration  in  the 
church  at  Jerusalem  was  merely  a  cousin,  of  Christ, 
and  really  the  son  of  Alphteus  or  Clopas,  it  seems  diffi 
cult  to  understand  why  either  such  peculiar  weight 
should,  have  been  attached  to  a  relationship  of  that 
sort;  or  why  the  James,  who  originally  stood  only  in 
the  third  quaternion  of  apostles,  should  latterly  have 
been  elevated  to  so  singular  a  place.  The  position  of 
this  James  would  certainly  be  more  easily  accounted 
for  if  he  had  been  actually  of  the  same  family  with  our 
Lord — the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  or  of  Joseph  and 
another  spouse;  for,  having  this  high  claim  to  regard, 


tainly  on  that  account  be  called  catholic,  without  any 
unwarrantable  extension  of  the  strict  meaning  of  the 
word.  It  may  be,  however,  that  the  name  indicates 
ultimate  unirt-i'xal  recognition  of  all  the  epistles  in 
question.  Two  of  them,  viz.  1  Peter  and  ]  John, 
were  from  the  beginning  universally  received.  The 
remaining  five,  though  for  a  time  held  in  doubt  by 
some,  were  in  the  end  also  universally  received ;  and 
the  whole  seven,  according  to  this  view,  were  therefore 
classed  together  as  catholic  epistles.  It  does  not  seem 
probable  that  the  appellation,  as  suggested  by  Hug, 
was  Liiven  to  these  epistles  because  they  comprise  the 
writings  of  all  the  apostles  with  the  exception  of  those 
of  Paul.  But  however  accounted  for,  the  title  was 
given  to  them  as  early  as  the  days  of  Eusebius;  and 


if  he  otherwise  approved  himself  to  the  church  as  pos-  !  indeed  in  the  time  of  Origen.  a  hundred  years  earlier. 
sessed  of  the  higher  qualities  for  government,  it  was  j       Author. — Three  persons  bearing  the  name  of  James 
natural   that  they   should   concede   to  him  a  place  of  ;  occur  in  the  New  Testament — James  the  son  of  Zebedee, 


peculiar  dignity  and  honour  — should  even  lift  him  into 
the  noble  company  of  the  apostles.  In  so  honouring 
him,  the  church  would  feel  as  if  it  honoured  the  Lord; 
to  whom,  according  to  the  flesh,  he  stood  in  such  close 
proximity.  This  seems  to  us,  upon  the  whole,  the 
more  probable  view;  but  it  is  not  a  subject  on  which 
to  pronounce  with  confidence.  The  greatest  names  in 
the  church  are  divided  upon  it,  and  the  more  exact 


and  brother  of  John;  James  the  son  of  Alphseus;  and 
James  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  G;i.  i.iy.  The  two  last, 
indeed,  have  by  many  been  considered  one  and  the 
same  person.  The  design  of  this  article  does  not  lead 
us  into  the  discussion  of  a  question  which  has  been 
largely  debated  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  and 
which  must  still  be  held  undetermined.  Xeander 
strongly  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  the  two  are  dis- 


learning  of  modern  times  has  failed  to  throw  any  fresh  j  tinct  persons;  and  he  has  done  much  to  increase  the 
light  on  the  inquiry.  It  has  still  to  be  decided  by  a  weight  of  the  scale  of  evidence  on  that  side  (History  of 
balancing  of  probabilities— in  which  a  certain  bias  will  the  Planting  of  the  Christian  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  350,Bolm'sed.)  On 


JAMES,   EPISTLE  OF 


841 


JAMES,  EPISTLE  OF 


the  same  side  are  Credner.   De    \Vette,    Winor,   Stier, 

just  such  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the  Lord's 

and  a  host  of  recent  critics.     A  brief  view  of  the  ques 

brother  —  from  one  who,   in  consequence  of  close  inti 

tion  will  be  found  in  the  preceding  article.     That  the 

macy  with  Jesus,   might   be   supposed  to  have  drunk 

son  of  Zebedee  can  have  no  claim  to  the  authorship  of 

deep  into   his   spirit.      The   epistle   of   James  bears  a 

this    epistle    is    all    but    universally    admitted.       The 

striking   resemblance  to  the  sermon  on    the  mount  in 

Peshito,    or   old   Syriac  version,   indeed    ascribes   it   to 

the   purity  and   loftiness   of    its  morality,    and  in   the 

him.      But  it  is  incredible  that  the  church  in  the  davs 

i           *  • 

simple  aim  sententious  grandeur  ot  its  expression. 

of   this   James,  who  was   put  to  death  bv   Herod   A.I). 

I  kite.  —  The   date   of    the    epistle,   according    to  the 

42,   Ac.  xii.  •_',  could  have  been  so  widely  spread  as  the 

very   general    concurrence   of    authorities,    is   A.D.    01. 

inscription   to  this   epistle   implies,    ch.i.i.       As   vet   it 

shortly  before  the  death  of  the  writer;  and   the  conjec 

must  have  been  confined  within  the  limits  of  Palestine. 

ture  of   Lardner  is  probable,  that  the  pungent   rebukes 

And  if  we  suppose  with  many  that  the  epistle  makes 

contained   in  it,  and   its  fearless  exposure  of  the  sins  of 

special  allusion  to  the  doctrine  of    Paul  on   the  subject 

the  rich  and   great,    ch.  v.,   occasioned   or   hastened  his 

of  justification   by  faith  alone,    and  condemns  certain 

martyrdom.       There   are    few    marks   of    date'    in    the 

widespread   ami  mischievous   corruptions   of   that    doc- 

epistle    itself.      There   is,    however,    an  intimation   that 

trin   •       1  <>  •!   !   •  •     it   MI   if       t't      •                      1        1  •*•      1 

i                   i 

*,,      jc..  i       .     in  limit.  u  n_   tin    nil  lOuUtcCl  tiCCJlKilIliiiriCC 

tiie  destruction  <>t  Jerusalem  was  drawing  nigli,  ch.  v.  v 

with    the    writings    of    I'aul    -VIM  Tally,    it   \\ill    appear 

l'<  ;•.-•..;(,,•    f,,    tr/,,,,,1     the    (jiltf/i     /,-•    «(/<//•<  .-,•*<(/.—  On    this 

simply   impossible   that   au    apostle   \\hose  death   ante 

point  there  is  considerable  diversity  of  opinion.      They 

dates  Paul's  epistle-  bv  so  luali\   Vears  could  have  lieell 

were  the  twelve  tribes  of  the  di.-persion.  ch.i.i.     They 

the  author. 

were,    of    course,    Jews.        Moreover,    they   were    con 

On   the   supposition  that  .lames  the  son  of   Alpha  us 

verted  or   Christian  Jews.  ,l,  i  :::ii  l;v.7,ll,14.       Had  the 

or  Cleopas  and  James   tin;  Lord's   lirotlier  are  distinct 

Jeus  at  large  been  designed,  or  all  Jews  out  of  Judea, 

persons,  there   can   be  n<>   doulit    that    the  latter  is   the 

as     many     contend     iWhitby,  h.-u-.imT,  M'Kninht,  iiO,    it     is 

author  of  the  epi>tle.      None  \\ho  maintain  the  distinc 

ju.-tlv  supposed   the  epistle  would   have  contained  such 

tion  in  question  have  imagined  otherwise.      Indeed,  on 

proofs  of  the  Messiahshipof  Jesus,  and  extended  state 

this  supposition,  .lames  of  Alpha/us  entir.lv  di-ap|>e.trs 

ments   of    the    nature    of   Christianity,    as    the   apostles 

troin  the  history  of  the  clmrdi  after   his  name  is   men 

were  accustomed  to  address  to  their  unbelieving  coun 

tioned  in  the  list  of  apo>tl<  s,  Ac.  i.  i  :;.     And  after  the  mar- 
tvrdom  of  .lames   the  brother  of  .lolm    onlv  one  .l-enn  -• 

trymen.       On    the    other    hand,    those    passages    which 

figures  in  the  hUtory,  and  he  most  coiispieuouslv:  so 

evidently  imply  an  unbelieving  character,  ch.  iv.  1-10;  v.  l-">; 
are  to  be  explained  on  the  principle  that  the  apostles 

that  in  point  of  fact  the  controversy  about  the  identity 

ad'hvs-  themselves  in  their  epistles  to  professing  Chris- 

of  the  Jameses  is  really  of  less  importance  to  the  ques 

tians.  or  Christian  bodies,  amoim'  whom  (as  now)  there 

tion  of  authorship  than  mi'_dit  be  imagined:  because  all 

miirht  be  many  unworthy  of   the  name.      It  is  manifest 

allow  that  the  author  is   Umt  Jaunt  who  governed  the 

that  many  corruptions,  both  in   doctrine  anil   practice, 

church  at  Jerusalem  so   ]on^,  who  oceiijiies   so  promin- 

had    crept     into    the   Jewi>h    Christian    church    by    this 

ent  a  place  in  the  Acts,  whose  opinion  guided  the  first 

time,  which  James  found  it  necessary  severely  to  repre 

council,  and  of   whom   so  honourable   mention  is  made 

hend. 

by  ]  'aid    in    his    epistles,    Ac.  xii.  17;  xv.  13;  xxi.  !>-;<!:i.  i.  l!i;  ii. 

<  'nuuiiii-il  ii.      There  can   be  no  doubt  on  this  head. 

'.i,  1-;  1  (.'•>.  ix.  ,".;  xv.  7.        Pv    that    apostle    James     is     men 

The    epistle    was   at    once    received.      Euscbius   indeed 

tioned   as  one   of  three   pillars  of   the   church   at   .b  n; 

ranks   it    aiming  his   fi\e    dvri\ey6/J.fi>a,  or  writings  re 

salem,  and    the  fn-tt  of    the  three,  Ga  ..  9.      All  that   we 

garding   which    doubt    was    entertained    by   some   fiw 

learn  of   him,  both  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  earlv 

persons  in  the  beginning  (they  were  received  ro?s  TTO\- 

ecclesiastical   history,    goes    to    show    that    his   position 

,\0(S  Tols  TrXa'rrrotst  ;    but   it   is   found  in  the  li<.i/iito,  or 

and    character  and   vie«>   \\eiv   precisely  such  as  this 

old  Syriac  version,  which   dates   so  early  as  the  end   of 

epistle    might    be   supposed     to   demand    in    its   author. 

the    iirst.    or   be^innin^    of    \]\<-   second    century.      The 

Occupying,   as  v\  e    nave   seen,    the  duet    place   in    the 
parent  church  at  Jerusalem:    and    l:einu'  distinguished. 

epistle  was  therefore   received   in   the  place  where  its 
claims  could  be  best  canvassed,  and  by  the  people,  who 

moreover,  by  stronger  attachment  to  the  law  of    MM-,  •- 

of  all  others  were   the   most   competent   to  detect  any 

than  either    Peter  or    I'aul.  Ac.  xxi.  l^;  <i:i.  ii.  1U;  his    influ 

thing  that  might  affect  its  genuineness.      It  is  quoted, 

ence  with  the  dispersed   tribes  to  whom  he  wrote  mu.-t 

moreover,  by  Kplnvni  the  Syrian,  who  mentions  the  name 

necessarily  have  been  very  great.      Hegesippus  tells  us 
that  his  pietv  and   integrity  were  so  conspicuous,  that 

of  the   author,  by  Clement  of    Koine,  by  Hernias,  who 
has  seven  allusions  to  it,  by  Ori^en,  Jerome,  Athanasius, 

lie  obtained   the  surname  of  the  Just:    and   that  he   so 

cVc.      The   eleven   catalogues   of    the   fathers  and   coun 

set  himself   against  every  form  of  corruption  and   op 

cils  in  the  fourth  century  without  exception  recognize 

pression,  that  he  was  further  styled  the  bulwark  of  the 

it.  as  well  as  the   other   di>Ti\ey6[j.fi>a  of   Eusebius;   and 

peoplt;    (Kusuhius,  Hist.  Kcclus.  ii.  -'.'!).       The     same    author 

from  that  time  till   the  era  of   the   Reformation  there 

reports  that  from  his  childhood  he  lived   the  life  of  a 

was  no  longer  doubt  or  difference  of  opinion. 

Nazarene,    which    would    give    him     peculiar    respect 

That  an  epistle  should   not   have  been  admitted  into 

among  the  Jews;    that  he  frequently  prostrated  him 

the  number  of   sacred   hooks   till  its  claims  had  been 

self  on  his  knees  in  the  temple,  calling  upon  God  to 

sifted  and   established,   instead  of  creating  doubt  and 

forgive  the  sins  of  the  people,  and  lead  them  to  repent 

uneasiness  in  our  minds,  strengthens  our  faith  in  the 

ance  and  faith:  and  that,   after  a  life  of  stainless  in 

care  and  fidelity  of  the  ancient  churches,   and  there 

tegrity  and    eminent  usefulness,    he  was  slain  by  the 

fore  in  the  canon  itself  as  transmitted  to  us  by  them. 

leaders  of  the  Jews,  A.D.  G2  (Neander,  History  of  the  Planting, 

Very  probably  the   doubts  about  the  epistle   of  James 

&c.,vol.  ii.  p.  356,Bohn'sed.)      It  is  needless  to  say  how  the 

may    have    originated    in    the     uncertainty    to    which 

character  of  the  man  accords  with  the  contents  of  the  i  James  the  epistle  ought  to  be  ascribed  (Kirchhofen).   The 
epistle.      We  only  add  that  both  matter  and  style  are  !  afflicted  condition  of   the  Jewish  church,   too,  almost 
VOL.  I.  106 


AMES,  EPISTLE  OF 


JAXXES 


immediately  after  tlio  elate  of  the  epistle,  may  also 
have  exercised  an  unfavourable  influence.  James  had 
scarcely  written  when  the  Jewish  churches  were  in 
volved  in  the  troubles  of  war,  flight,  and  persecution. 
The  judaizing  cl lurches  were  broken  up;  and  tlie 
Jewish  converts  were  regarded  with  increasing  dislike 
,-ind  prejudice  by  the  Gentile  Christians.  It  is  not 
wonderful,  therefore,  that  some  few  of  these  last  should 
have  been  slow  to  receive  an  epistle  that  notwithstand 
ing  had  so  many  claims  to  their  respect.  (Uunssen's  Canon 
of  the  Il.ily  Scriptures,  Kns,'  tnuis.  \<  342.) 

At  the  time  of  the  Information  tlie  epistle  wtis 
again  called  in  question,  by  Luther  and  others,  from  its 
supposed  hostilitv  to  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  alone,  ch.  ii.  L'l.  The  eager  reformer,  instead  of 
resolving  the  (mestion  of  supposed  difference  between 
Paul  ami  James,  at  once  cut  the  knot,  and  styled  our 
epistle  an  epistle  of  straw.  On  more  mature  considera 
tion,  however,  he  acknowledged  his  error,  although 
this  latter  circumstance  be  sometimes  forgotten  by 
those  who  are  fond  of  parading  his  original  mistake. 
There  is  much  truth  in  an  excuse  which  has  been  made 
for  Luther  (GaussenK  It  was  not  easy  in  his  time  to 
distinguish  in  every  instance  the  real  from  the  supposed 
monuments  of  antiquity,  to  recognize  the  true  princi 
ples  of  sacred  criticism,  nor  to  consult  the  materials  for 
it,  many  of  which  were  yet  to  be  discovered.  For  ex 
ample,  the  epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome,  furnishing,  as 
we  have  seen,  so  important  a  testimony  to  James,  was 
not  discovered  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  after 
(A.D.  1628).  Doubtless  there  is  nothing  in  the  epistle 
of  James  that  in  any  way  contradicts  the  doctrine  of 
Paul  in  Romans  and  Galatians.  Attention  has  been 
called  to  this  point  under  the  article  JUSTIFICATION*,  to 
which  it  properly  belongs  ;  and  we  shall  only  observe 
here,  that  the  two  inspired  writers  deal  with  justifica 
tion  from  different  points  of  view,  and  address  persons 
occupying  opposite  extremes  of  opinion  on  the  subject. 
Paul  deals  with  the  proud  Legalist,  who  would  be  justi 
fied  by  his  works;  James  with  the  licentious  Antino- 
mian.  who  maintained  that  justification  by  faith  entitled 
him  to  dispense  with  works  altogether,  and  to  give 
them  no  place  even  in  the  believer's  life.  And  a  fair 
examination  of  the  whole  passage  shows  the  meaning 
of  James  simply  to  be,  that  the  faith  which  justifies  is 
a  faith  productive  of  works  whenever  occasion  shall 
demand,  and  containing  them  in  itself  from  the  very 
first,  as  the  principle  out  of  which  they  spring.  It  is 
the  inoperative  and  dead  faith  only  that  in  his  view 
saves  not. 

Contents  and  Mi/le. — The  epistle  contains  expositions 
and  exhortations  connected  with  various  topics  within 
the  field  of  Christian  ethics.  It  is  pre-eminently  a 
practical  epistle,  designed  to  correct  erroneous  views 
and  mischievous  perversions  of  Christianity  which  had 
sprung  up  even  in  this  early  age.  We  advert  only 
to  the  leading  topics.  Sore  trials,  as  we  have  seen. 
were  impending,  and  in  view  of  them,  the  writer  ex 
horts  to  patience  and  steadfastness,  to  believing  prayer 
and  holy  obedience.  He  condemns  respect  of  persons 
in  the  church;  cautions  against  speculative  or  notional 
religion;  and  maintains  the  operative  character  of  faith, 
in  opposition  to  the  Antinomian  notions  which  seem 
already  to  have  been  entertained  by  many,  ch.  i.  ii.  Re 
buking  the  ambitious  desire  of  being  chief  masters  and 
teachers  in  the  church,  which  naturally  belonged  to 
men  of  a  speculative  tendency,  James  next  discourses. 


with  a  view  to  check  that  ambition,  on  the  evils  of  an 
unbridled  tongue,  in  a  strain  of  eloquence  that  has  never 
been  surpassed.  At  the  same  time,  and  with  the  same 
end  in  view,  he  presents  a  noble  and  beautiful  contrast 
between  the  wisdom  of  the  world  and  that  which  cometh 
from  above,  ch.  iii.  The  epistle  next  passes  to  the  evils 
which  spring  from  the  ambitious  and  worldly  spirit  in 
the  church,  viz.  wars  and  fightings,  sinful  lusts,  cold 
and  formal  prayers,  worldly  friendships  and  alliance, 
envy,  pride,  duplicity,  evil-speaking,  and  finally  a  pre 
sumptuous  dependence  on  the  continuance  of  life,  find 
the  formation  of  plans  for  the  morrow  without  taking 
God  at  all  into  account,  ch.  iv.  Naturally  following 
these  manifestations  of  the  worldly  spirit,  we  have 
next  an  outpouring  of  eloquent  and  terrible  indignation 
against  tlie  unjust  and  ungenerous  rich;  while,  at  the 
same  time,  Christians,  however  poor  and  oppressed,  are 
comforted  by  the  near  prospect  of  their  Lord's  coming, 
find  are  therefore  exhorted  to  patience.  The  epistle 
concludes  with  a  solemn  caution  against  swearing,  with 
directions  regarding  prayer  for  the  sick,  and  an  exhor 
tation  to  zeal  in  the  conversion  of  sinners. 

In  this  brief  summary  we  have  attempted  in  part  to 
trace  the  connection  of  topics  in  our  epistle.  But  the 
style  of  James  is  bold,  rapid,  abrupt,  and  figurative, 
so  that  the  connection  is  not  always  easily  found,  and 
is  to  be  sought  more  in  the  course  of  thought  than  in 
the  language  or  form  of  expression.  Two  things,  we 
think,  distinguish  the  style  of  this  epistle,  which  are 
not  always  or  often  found  together.  It  is  not  only 
logical,  precise,  terse,  but  also  imaginative  and  rhetori 
cal  by  turns.  The  definitions,  or  descriptions  rather, 
in  ch.  i.  '11  and  iii.  17,  are  at  once  most  exact  and 
beautiful,  and  exhibit  a  wondrous  command  of  precise 
and  appropriate  language.  The  logical  compactness 
and  force  of  argument  iri  ch.  ii.  14  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter  cannot  be  too  much  admired;  while  of  beauti 
ful  and  striking  imagery  we  have  examples  in  the  rich 
passing  away  as  the  flower  of  the  field,  in  the  wavering 
soul  tossed  like  the  wave  of  the  sea,  in  the  hearer  who 
is  not  a  doer  of  the  word  likened  to  the  man  forgetting 
his  natural  face  in  a  glass,  and  in  human  life  melting 
like  a  vapour  into  air  and  vanishing  away.  The  dis 
course  on  the  tongue  is  characterized  by  extraordinary 
wealth  and  profusion  of  illustration.  We  have  in  suc 
cession  the  unruly  horse  and  the  bit.  the  great  ship  and 
small  helm,  the  little  spark  and  mighty  fire,  and  the 
wild  animals  of  earth,  air,  anil  ocean  tamed  of  man 
kind — exhibiting  the  ungovernable  character  and  terri 
ble  power  for  evil  of  the  '•  little  member.'' 

On  the  whole,  this  epistle  holds  a  place  of  its  own  in 
the  New  Testament,  and  gives  unity  and  consistency 
to  it,  as  a  collection  of  inspired  books,  containing  the 
whole  will  of  God  for  the  salvation  of  man.  [R.  r.] 

JAN'NES  A\D  JAM'BRES,  the  names  cf  two 
Egyptian  magicians,  who  are  mentioned  by  St.  Paul, 
2  Ti.  iii.  s,  !i,  as  having  headed  the  opposition  that  was 
made  to  Moses,  when  endeavouring  to  persuade  Pharaoh 
to  let  Israel  go.  The  statement  only  differs  from  the 
account  contained  in  the  books  of  Moses  in  so  far  as  it 
gives  the  individual  names  of  parties,  who  go  there 
by  the  general  designation  of  magicians;  and  all  that 
we  have  to  suppose  is,  that  those  names  had  somehow 
been  handed  down,  in  a  manner  so  generally  known 
and  so  well  authenticated,  as  to  warrant  the  familiar 
allusion  of  the  apostle.  We  cannot  justify  the  allusion 
by  an  appeal  to  the  sources  which  were  accessible  to 


JAPHETH 


843 


JAPHIA 


him;  but  neither  care  we  without  such  respectable  frag 
ments  of  evidence,  as  may  be  sufficient  almost  to  satisfy 
the  most  sceptical  on  the  subject.  The  Targum  of 
Jonathan,  at  Ex.  i.  15.  and  vii.  11.  expressly  mentions 
Jannes  and  Jambrcs  as  "  chiefs  of  the  magicians," 
who  spake  against  Moses,  and  by  their  incantations 
sought  to  withstand  him.  The  Jerusalem  Talmud. 
Tract.  M(na<-1iotli,  does  the  same,  only  instead  of  Jan 
nes  and  Jambres.  it  gives  the  variations  Joacliene  and 
Mamre.  In  several  other  Jewish  writings  the  names 
again  occur  with  slight  variations,  as  in  Tant'/ntina 
(f.  11,1, -.'i,  where  they  are  called  Jonos  and  Jombros  (see 
the  quotations  at  length  in  YVetstein  on  2  Ti.  iii.  >i. 
Origen  against  Celsus,  (1.  hO,  states,  that  Numciiius,  a 
Pythagorean  philosopher,  takes  notice  of  the  wonders 
performed  by  Moses  in  Kgvpt,  and  how  .Jannes  and 
.lambres,  sacred  scribes  and  magicians,  were  made  to 
stand  in  the  breach  against  him.  Other  stray  refer 
ences  occur,  especially  to  the  name  of  Jannes,  one  even 
in  Pliny  i  Vit.  Hist.  x\x.  it;  but  the-c  are  enough  to  show 
that  the  names  of  the  two  musicians  in  question  had 
obtained  a  world-wide  celebrity  in  ancient  times  as  the 
representatives  of  Kgvptian  arts  and  Lav.  in  the  irn-at 
conflict  that  was  waged  against  them  by  .Moses.  And 
this  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  t\\.>  persons,  w  itli  tho-e 
names,  having  actually  taken  the  part  ascribed  to  them: 
for,  in  such  a  matter,  there  was  no  temptation  to  fei^n 
what  did  not  exist,  or  to  adopt  names  ditletvnt  fn.iii 
those  of  the  real  actors  in  the  drama.  (.Vrtainlv.  a- 
Lightfoot  has  said  (Ser.non  on  2  Ti.  iii.  s),  the  apostle  i- 
not  to  be  regarded  as  taking  up  the  names  as  it  he  had 
tliem  by  revelation,  but  he  falls  in  with  the  cm-rent  use 
of  them,  there  being  no  reason  to  d.aib;  it-  correctness 
('V  validity.  And  from  the  example  of  sophistical  i  va- 
sion,  growing  into  hardened  unbelief,  which  was  known 
to  have  been  exhibited  by  those  champions  of  a  doomed 
heathenism  in  former  times,  he  warns  the  church  to 
expect  like  cases  in  the  future;  that  when  tln-v  occur, 
those  who  have  charge  of  her  a  Hairs  mav  be  on  tin-ii 
guard,  and  may  be  [stimulated  to  put  forth  the  resist 
ance,  which  if  faithfully  exerted  cannot  fail  to  be  crowned 
with  success. 

JAPH'ETH    [enlargement,    if,    as     Scripture    itself 
seems  to  warrant.  i;o.  ix.  27,  from  the  root  ~rp,   t<>  <.''>•  nil. 


regard  as  the  more  natural  derivation,  then  tlie  mean 
ing  would  be  fiiim <•-••••>•,  in  the  sense  of  lightness  of  com 
plexion,  or  beauty],  one  of  the  sons  of  Noah.  In  the  lists 
given  of  these  sons  Japheth  alwavs  stands  last:  the  order 
is — Shem,  Ifani.  and  Japheth,  Ge  v.  ::-.';  vi.  in;  vii  r.i.  1'ut 
as  Ham  is  on  good  grounds  supposed  to  have  been  the 
youngest.  <:c.  ix.  •_>»,  so,  if  the  common  rendering  of  oh. 
x.  :21 — "unto  Shem  also,  the  brother  of  Japheth  the 
elder,  even  to  him  were  born."  5cc.—  were  correct,  it 
might  with  o'[ual  certainty  be  inferred  that  Japheth 
was  the  eldest.  And  so  it  is  very  generally  under 
stood,  even  apart  from  the  testimony  of  this  verse:  but 
the  verse  itself  should  rather,  according  to  a  common 
Hebrew  construction,  he  read.  ''Shem,  the  brother  of 
Japheth—  the  elder,"  (literally  the  great1);  or  more 
plainly,  "  Shem.  the  elder  brother  of  Japheth.''  So 
the  A  ulgate :  ''fratro  Japhet  majorc."  Similar  ex 
amples  of  the  like  construction  may  be  seen  in  Ju.  i.  l'-'>; 
ix.  ;>;  De.  xi.  7.  "With  respect  to  the  races  which  were 
severally  to  spring  from  them,  the  second  place  only 
belonged  to  Japheth,  the  first  to  Shem;  namely,  when 


those  races  are  considered  in  the  relation  they  were  to 
hold  to  the  higher  purposes  of  God  and  the  nobler 
destinies  of  mankind.  According  to  the  remarkable 
prophecy  of  Xoah.  Go.  ix.  ;s-27,  it  was  in  Connection 
with  the  race  of  Shem  that  tin-  Lord  had  purposed 
to  make  the  more  peculiar  manifestations  of  himself 
to  men  ;  and  the  distinctive  characteristic  of  Jaj  heth 
was  to  be  expansive  energy  and  enlargement,  in  conse 
quence  of  which  it  should,  as  it  were,  overflow,  and  ob 
trude  itself  also  into  the  tents  of  Shem.  I\ui  this  per 
haps  points  fully  as  much  to  the  participation  the  race 
of  .lapheth  should  have  in  the  peculiar  blessing  of  Shem, 
as  to  territorial  occupation.  Looking  to  the  genealogi 
cal  tables,  however,  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  race  <  f  Japhcth  was 
characterized  by  a  remarkable  tendency  to  dill'iise  itself 
abroad  over  the  remoter  regions  of  the  earth,  and  that 
from  that  root  have  sprung  many  of  the  most  active  and 
enterprising  nations  both  of  earlier  and  later  times.  They 
took  chiefly  a  north  and  westerly  direction — first,  the 
Medes,  tin-  inhabitants  of  Caucasus,  and  of  the  regions 
about  the  I  Hack  S.  a,  the  Scythians,  the  tribes  generally 
that  oeeiipi'-d  the  north  of  Asia  and  Lurope;  then  the 
communities  of  Asia  .Minor,  (In-eee,  and  the  southern 
parts  of  Kin-op,.-:  so  that,  as  is  said  in  Ge.  x.  5,  ''by 
tli>  111  wciv  the  isles  of  the  Gentiles  divided  in  their 
lands."  that  is.  no;  merely  the  islands  scattered  through 
the  Mi  diterraiiean,  but  the  more  distant  coasts  and  re 
gions  \\hich  were  separated  by  sea  from  the  original 
seat  of  the  human  family.  1 1  the  descendants  of  Shem, 
and  of  1 1  am  also,  attained  to  an  earlier  distinction  in  the 
LO\I  rnnient  and  commerce  of  the  world,  those  of  Ja- 
pheth  both  occupied  inure  extensive  territories,  and  rose 
ultimately  to  far  greater  po\\er  and  resources;  and 
since  tin  early  Ku>|-lian  and  Assyrian  monarchies  fell 
into  decay,  the  governing  and  directing  power  in  worldly 
.•(Hairs  ma\  be  said  to  ha\e  been  chiefly  in  their  hands. 
The  Median.  Grecian,  and  Human  monarchies  were 
examples  on  a  gigantic  scale  in  ancient  times  of  the 
oH'-prinu  of  .lapheth  making  their  way  iiito  the  tents  of 
Shem:  and  the  historv  of  conquest,  coloni/.ation,  and 
commerce  in  modern  tinits  is  almost  a  continued  exem 
plification  of  the  same  tendencies.  The  details  of  this 
general  outline  will  be  found  to  some  extent  iilled  up 
under  the  several  names  of  Japheth' s  posterity,  Gomer, 
.Ma'_;o.j,  .lavaii.  \c.:  but  for  the  full,  systematic,  and 
most  L  arin-d  proof  of  it,  recourse  must  be  had  to  P>o- 
ehart's  /'/in/if/,  where  everything  in  this  line  of  inquiry 
has  n-ceived  so  thorough  an  examination,  that  later 
research  has  l.een  able  to  add  little  to  it.  But  with  all 
this  superiority  on  the  part  of  Japl.dh  in  physical 
energy,  vigorous  enterprise,  and  capacity  for  rule  and 
government,  the  races  of  this  line  have  held  but  a 
secondary  place  in  all  that  concerns  the  true  knowledge 
and  worship  of  God.  Immediate  revi  lations  from 
heaven  have  come  only  through  the  posterity  of  Shem; 
through  them  also  has  come  the  salvation  of  the  world; 
and  the  blessing,  which  they  were  the  first  to  receive, 
has  reached  the  tribes  of  Japheth  only  by  these  coming 
to  dwell,  not  as  givers  but  as  receivers,  as  captives  not 
as  conquerors,  in  the  tents  of  Shem. 

JAPHI'A  [t/./axHd].  1.  The  king  of  Lachish  at  the 
time  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan,  and  one  of  the  five 
kings  of  the  Amoritcs  (as  they  are  called,  Jos.  x.  3,  .1), 
who  conspired  together  to  cut  off  the  Gibeonites  for 
having  entered  into  a  league  with  Joshua.  The  result, 
however,  was  that  the  party  were  routed  by  Joshua, 


JAI;EB 


844 


JASHER,   BOOK  OF 


and  Jai>liia,  along  with  the  others,  handed.  2.  Japhia: 
one  of  the  sons  of  David,  the  tenth  that  was  born  to 
him  after  his  settlement  in  Jerusalem,  2  S;i.  v.  u>;  l  Cli.  iii.  7. 
No  further  notice  is  taken  of  this  son. 

J  A'REB  [2~\«J.      In  the  authorized  version.  \ve  read, 

VT 

Ho.  v.  13,  "  when  Ephraim  saw  his  sickness  and  Judah 
his  wound,  then  went  Ephraim  to  the  Assyrian,  and 
sent  to  king  Jareb :  yet  could  he  not  heal  you.''  In 
stead  of  "king  Jareb,"  the  margin  gives  "  king  uf 
Jareh,"  and  also  "  the  king  that  should  plead."  So  in 
Ho.  x.  6,  ''It  (the  calf)  shall  be  also  carried  into  As 
syria  as  a  present  to  king  Jareb."  There  is  little  doubt 
that  the  second  of  the  two  marginal  renderings  is  more 
nearly  correct  than  the  others,  though  Kuerst  (H;i;nl- 
worterbuch)  still  admits  the  possibility  of  .Jaivb  bein^ 
an  old  Assyrian  word.  (Jesenius  renders  it  adrcrfari/, 
hostile; others,  following  the  Vulgate,  vindicator — aven 
ger.  P>oth  explanations  are  admissible,  inasmuch  as 
ril>,  to  xt'i'tH:  in"  I'nittLitd,  may  be  to  contend  fur  or  to 
contend  ctf/atiixf,  according  to  the  connection  in  which 
it  stands  with  what  goes  before  and  after,  Ju.  vi.  31,32. 
Certainly  the  noun  y>-\*  (yarHrt,  with  which  yv  (!/<•<•''<-*>) 

•T  --T 

is  closely  allied,  means  (idniWi'i/  in  all  the  passauv-; 
in  which  it  is  found,  PS.  xxxv.  i ;  Is.  xiix.  2;>  •  Je.  xviii.  ID. 
Still,  the  context  in  Ho.  v.  13  favours  the  other  render 
ing;  as  also  Is.  xix.  20  ;  Pr.  xxii.  23  ;  and  the  prayer 
'3»n  ro'l-  i11  I'*-  xliii.  1:  cxix.  154.  We  do  not,  there 
fore,  greatly  err,  if  we  understand  by  y\i  'rf^c  (iiiflik 

••T      "Iw 

yare/i),  a  warrior  king,  who  in  the  days  of  Ilosea 
assumed  it  to  be  his  prerogative  and  his  mission,  like 
a  powerful  emperor  in  our  own  day,  to  right  the 
wrongs  of  nations,  and  to  act  as  umpire  of  the  world. 
No  doubt  the  king  of  Assyria  is  meant,  2  Ki.  xv.  10: 
xvi.  7.  The  explanation  i/r/af  lch)r/.  from  the  Syriae. 
which  was  once  adopted  even  by  Uesenius,  is  now 
abandoned.  [L>  H.  w.] 

JAR'HA,  probably  an  Egyptian,  name,  as  it  occurs 
only  in  connection  with  an  Egyptian  person,  the  servant 
or  slave  of  one  Sheshan,  the  head  of  a  family  in  .indah. 
who  had  daughters  only,  but  110  sons,  and  took  his 
servant  Jarha  as  a  husband  for  his  daughter  Ahlai, 
;  Ch.  ii.  34.  It  is  the  only  instance  of  the  kind  recorded 
in  the  Hebrew  annals,  and  as  such  is  deserving  of  no 
tice.  Nothing  is  known  of  the  time  when  it  took 
place;  but  the  probability  is  that  it  occurred  after  the 
settlement  in  Canaan.  Sheshaii  belonged  to  the  Jerah- 
meelites,  whose  possessions  lay  in  the  extreme  south, 
where  the  country  adjoins  to  Egypt;  and  this  probably 
had  something  to  do  with  the  origination  of  such  a  con 
nection. 

JAR'MTJTH  [exalted].  1.  One  of  the  cities  in  Ca 
naan,  whose  king,  Piram,  entered  into  the  conspiracy 
against  the  (.iibeonites  to  revenge  their  submission  to 
Joshua,  Jos.  x.3.  On  that  occasion  it  is  associated  with 
Jerusalem,  Hebron,  Lachish,  and  Dcbir;  in  another 
place  it  is  mentioned  among  the  cities  that  stood  in  the 
valley  or  low  ground  of  Judah,  Jos.  xvi.  35,  and  is 
coupled  with  Adullam,  Socoh,  and  Azekah.  It  is  set 
down  in  the  Onomasticon  as  ten  Roman  miles  from 
Eleutheropolis,  on  the  way  towards  Jerusalem,  but  this 
is  thought  too  large.  "  It  is  now  the  village  Yarmuth, 
about  40'  AV.N.W.  from  Beit  Nctif;  a  tell  rises  above 
it,  which  we  heard  called  'Ermud  or  Armuth,  evidently 
a  different  pronunciation  of  the  same  name"  (De  Velde). 


2.  J.UJMITH.  A  town  in  the  tribe  of  Issachar,  Jr?. 
xxi.  20,  apparently  the  same  place  which  in  another 
passage  is  called  Iltmclh,  Jos.  xix.  1M;  for  in  the  two  pas 
sages  the  two  names  stand  in  precisely7  the  same  con 
nection.  It  was  a  Levitical  city,  i  Ch.  vi.  73;  and  is 
thought  to  be  represented  by  the  modern  village  Ranieh, 
which  is  about  three  hours  north  of  Sebustlyeh,  on  the 
way  to  Kefr  Kud. 

JA'SHER,  BOOK  OF,   [-^S   Yadar],  is  the  name 

of  a  work  wholly  unknown  to  us  except  as  it  is  twice 
referred  to  in  Scripture:  "  Is  it  not  written  in  the 
book  of  Jasner  T  and,  ''Behold,  it  is  written  in  the  book 
f-i  Jasher,"  spoken  of  Joshua's  miracle  when,  the  sun 
and  moon  stood  stiil:  and  of  l>avid's  teaching  the 
children  of  Judah  ["the  use  of]  the  Low,"  or  lamenting 
over  Saul  and  Jonathan,  Jus.  x.  13 ;  •_>  Sa.  i.  1\  This  latter 
passage  is  translated  by  many  high  authorities  "he 
taught  them  '  the  bow,'"  which  is  understood  to  be  the 
title  of  his  lamentation  :  but  even  if  we  retain  the 
authorized  translation,  probably  the  lamentation  is  at 
least  included  in  that  which  is  written  in  the  book  of 
Jasher.  The  simple  meaning  of  the  common  Hebrew 
word  JuxJier,  rather  Jashar,  is  "  straight,"  or  "upright;" 
and  the  prevalent  idea  is  that  this  was  a  book  contain 
ing  some  histories  or  songs  in  praise  of  distinguished 
men  whom  (iod  had  raised  up  to  work  for  him  and  his 
people.  Jasher,  ''upright,"'  would  then  be  descriptive 
of  these  men.,  and  indeed  of  all  the  people  of  Israel,  so 
far  as  they  answered  to  their  profession  and  calling  to 
be  God's  peculiar  people,  and  to  walk  uprightly  before 
him;  for  this  seems  to  be  the  meaning  also  of  that  name 
JESHTJHUN,  applied  in  certain  passages  written  in  an 
'  elevated  tone  to  Israel.  Accordingly  it  is  rendered  by 
the  Vulgate  "  liber  justorum,"'  "  the  book  of  the  just 
ones;"  while  the  more  ancient  Septuagint,  with  greater 
exactness,  translates  "book  of  Llne]  upright  one."  The 
Svriac  translates  it  "  the  book  of  praises,"  or  psalms, 
and  seems  to  allude  to  another  derivation,  which  has 
found  favour  with  some  modern  scholars,  and  which  is 
possible,  though  it  involves  grammatical  irregularity  (for 
irregularities  do  creep  into  names  which  are  used  as 
titles  of  books  or  other  words  to  which  reference  is  fre 
quently  made),  from  the  Hebrew  -v^  (i/df/itf)  in  the 

•T 

beginning  of  the  song  of  Closes,  Ex.  xv.  i,  '-Then  sang." 
A  good  deal  of  interest  has  come  to  be  attached  to 
this  book  of  Jasher  owing  to  the  controversies  upon  the 
age  of  the  books  of  Scripture:  because,  as  it  is  quoted  in 
Joshua  and  2  Samuel,  the  inference  has  been  drawn 
that  the  book  of  Joshua  could  not  have  been  written 
before  the  time  of  David's  lamentation.  This,  however, 
assumes  that  the  book  of  Jasher  was  all  written  at 
once,  which  is  more  than  we  can  safely  assume  in  our 
state  of  utter  ignorance  regarding  it.  Even  if  it  were 
a  historical  work,  it  might  be  a  series  of  records  of 
theocratic  events,  written  at  various  eventful  times,  when 
the  occasion  roused  both  the  agent  and  the  writer;  and 
such  a  series  may  have  existed  in  the  later  historical 
narratives,  the  chronicles  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and 
Judah,  which  are  mentioned  very  frequently  in  later 
sacred  history.  But  as  there  are  fair  reasons  for  re 
garding  it  as  a  national  song  or  hymn  book,  we  have 
more  decided  reason  for  refusing  to  assume  that  it  was 
written  all  at  once.  Collections  of  poetry,  whether 
common  or  sacred,  are  the  very  class  of  books  which 
have  been  most  often  republished  with  additions  and 
I  alterations :  and  the  inspired  book  of  Psalms  seems 


JASHOBEAM 


JEBUS 


itself  to  have  passed  through  precisely  this  course  from 
the  days  of  David  till  probably  those  of  Xehemiah. 
In  confirmation  of  this  view,  we  find  a  reference  in  Xu. 
xxi.  14,  15,  to  a  poetical  fragment  from  ''the  Book  of 
the  Wars  of  the  Lord,"  in  which  perhaps  were  also  in 
serted  two  other  poetical  pieces  given  in  that  chapter. 
Or  if  all  these  were  separate  works,  all  the  inure  dis 
tinctly  do  they  indicate  the  fervour  of  spiritual  life 
in  the  new  generation  who  were  going  forward  to  vic 
tory  in  Canaan:  and  this  is  the  reason  apparently  for 
which  Moses  includes  them  in  his  narrative.  A  similar 
religious  fervour,  and  a  similar  wish  to  give  the  evi 
dence  of  it,  would  account  for  the  formation  of  the 
book  of  , lasher  in  the  Stirling  and  critical  age  of  Jo.-hua 
and  the  analogous  age  of  Ihivid;  as  a  similar  reason 
might  lead  the  sacred  historians  of  these  times  to  refer 
to  it. 

Josephus  has  been  understood  to  speak  of  the  hook 
of  Jaslier  as  one  of  the  books  laid  up  in  the  temple 
(Antiq.  v.  1,171.  but  it  is  not  clear  that  he  alludes  there 
to  anything  else  than  the  book  of  Jo>hua.  Certainly 
we  have  no  other  notice  of  it,  and  of  course  he  may 
have  been  mistaken.  There  is  a  miserable  English  for 
gery,  iirst  published,  it  is  said,  in  1  7."il.  and  republished 
at  Brir-tol  in  IS-!',  the  only  copy  we  have  seen:  but  it 
is  utterly  unworthy  of  notice.  [<;.c.  M.  \>.\ 

JASHOB'EAM  \t,->  whom  the  pa,,,!,  turns].  The 
name  occurs  several  times  in  connection  with  the  times 
of  1'avid,  but  whether  always  of  the  same  person 
is  not  perfectly  certain,  though  quite  possible.  In 
1  Ch.  xi.  11,  Jashobeam,  an  Haclnnonite,  >tands  lir.-t  in 
the  list  of  ]>avid's  miuhty  men,  and  is  celebrated  as 
having  lifted  up  his  >pear  against  :>nn  men  at  one  time, 
and  slain  them.  This  plate  is  assigned  in  the  cor 
responding  passage  of  '1  Sa.  xxiii.  ,\  to  "the  Tachmo- 
nite  that  sat  in  the  seat,"  as  it  is  in  the  English  Bible, 
but,  as  it  should  rather  be  read,  to  "  Josheb-basse- 
beth.  the  Tachmonite."  which  is  evidently  a  corruption, 
or  perhaps  intentional  variation,  of  Jashobeam  the  llach- 
monite.  And  though  SIMI  men  are  said  to  have  been 
slain  by  him  in  the  latter  passage,  and  only  ;jnii  in  the 
former,  the  difference  possibly  arose  from  a  different 
mode  of  computation — in  the  one  case  those  only  being 
reckoned  who  were  slain  on  the  >pot.  while  in  tin- 
other,  such  as  fella  little  afterwards  might  be  included. 
In  1  ( 'h.  xxvii.  '1.  a  Jashobeam,  who  is  called  the-  son 
of  Zabdiel,  i>  mentioned  as  head  of  the  first  monthly 
course  of  officers  and  men  who  were  appointed  to 
wait  by  turns  upon  the  king.  There  is  nothing  to 
prevent  our  supposing  this  to  have  been  the  same  per 
son  as  the  Jashobeam  already  noticed;  for  whatever 
may  be  meant  by  Haclnnonite,  or  Tachmonite,  it  can 
not  lie  regarded  as  indicating  his  father's  name.  Still 
again,  we  find  a  Jashobeam,  a  Korhite,  among  those 
who  joined  1  lavid  at  Ziklag,  1  Ch  xii.fi;  but  we  are 
without  any  definite  grounds  for  enabling  us  to  decide, 
either  for  or  against  his  identification  with  the  other. 

JA'SON.  a  common  Greek  name,  and  frequently 
borne  by  Hebrews  of  the  dispersion,  probably  from  its 
resemblance  to  Jesus.  It  occurs  only  once,  however, 
in  the  Xew  Testament,  as  the  name  of  a  believing  Jew 
resitlent  at  Thessalonica,  when  St.  Paul  first  visited 
that  place,  and  whom  the  apostle  mentions  in  his 
epistle  to  Rome,  among  those  who  sent  salutations 
from  Corinth  and  its  neighbourhood,  and  characterizes 
as  a  kinsman  of  his  own,  Ac.  xvii.  5-9;  Rc>.  xvi.  21.  A 
violent  assault  was  made  on  his  house  in  Thessalonica 


by  the  unbelieving  Jews,  but  he  was  mercifully  deli 
vered  from  the  attack. 

JASPER  [Heb.  H£'ii''«,  Gr.  t'do-Tris],  a  precious  stone, 

••  :  T 

having  much  the  same  name  in  Hebrew.  Greek,  Latin, 
and  English.  It  was  one  of  the  gems  in  the  high- 
priest's  breastplate — the  last  in  order,  Ex.  xxviii.  20.  It 
forms  also  one  of  the  foundation-stones  in  the  symboli 
cal  city  of  the  Xew  Jerusalem:  but  here  it  occupies  the 
first  place,  Re.  xxi.  is.  This  indicates  the  liiyher  value 
that  was  put  on  it  in  Xew,  as  compared  with  Old 
Testament  times,  which  might  possibly  arise  from  the 
kinds  latterly  in  use  being  of  another  and  more  precious 
description.  "NVith  John  the  jasper  plainly  ranked 
first  among  gems;  he  calls  it  "  most  precious;"  regards 
its  glitter  as  conveying  the  fittest  expression  of  the 
!  radiance  of  the  divine  glory,  Ho.  iv.  ;j ;  xxiv.  11  ;  and  speaks 
of  a  crystal  brightness  shining  from  it.  This  scarcely 
accords  \\ith  the  qualities  of  the  uciu  known  by  us 
under  the  name  of  jasper,  which  is  not  remarkable  for 
brii;htiK>s,  and  is  usually  of  a  reddish,  sometimes  yel 
low  or  green  hue;  it  is  rather  of  a  heavy  colour  than 
other\\i>e.  but  admits  of  a  high  polish.  Some  have 
.-upposcd  that  the  diamond  \\as  really  the  stone  meant; 
but  there  is  no  certain  ground  for  this;  and  two  ancient 
writers  (Dioscorides  and  Psollus)  have  mentioned  a  crystal 
kind  of  jasper.  UK-uss.  tm  Ko.  xxi.  11). 

JA'VAN  [etymology  uncertain].  Primarily  oneof  the 
son-,  of  Japhetb,  and  the  father  of  Elishah,  Tarshish, 
Kittini.  and  Dodanim.  Ge.  x  2,1.  There  is  no  reason  to 
doubt,  that  of  thoe  four  lines  of  ofl-pring  descended 
from  him,  three  formed  settlements  in  Asia  Minor 
and  Greece  tlie  Hellenes  probably  coming  from  Eli- 
>hah,  while  the  Kittim  formed  the  inhabitants  of  Cyprus 
and  other  i>lauds,  and  the  Dodanim  of  some  parts  of 
tin  Kpirus  ithe  same  probably  as  the  Dodoiuei).  Javan 
hence  became  the  Hebrew  name  for  Greece,  or  lonir., 
which  in  ancient  times  was  very  commonly  identified 
with  Greece  by  foreigners.  Indeed  the  names  were 
much  the  same-- the  one  being  p»,  pronounced  Yavan, 

TT 

Greek  'lui'av,  the  other  'Icioi'fs,  latterly  "la'i'fs.  In  l*a. 
viii.  'Jl,  the  king  of  Javan  is  undoubtedly  the  king  of 
<  ireece:  and  in  Zee.  ix.  1:5,  the  sons  of  J avail  are  just  the 
i'KS  AXCUW.  s"lls  "f  Greece,  or  the  Greeks.  It  is  said 
also  that  Ionia  has  been  found  on  the  famous  Rosetta 
stone  as  an  epithet  for  Greece,  and  Yuna  in  a  cuneiform 
title  at  IVrsepolis  for  Greeks.  (Socfiesonius, Thes.) 

JA'VAN,  a  place  mentioned  in  Eze.  xxvii.  10,  appa 
rently  a  town  in  Arabia  Eelix;  and  possibly,  as  some 
hav<  supposed,  it  got  the  name  from  a  Greek  colony 
having  settled  there. 

JEBERECHI'AH  |>/,,,,,,  //„•  /,,„-,/  „.•!(/  «,.--,«],  the 
name  of  the  father  of  a  Zeehariah  who  lived  in  the  time 
of  Isaiah:  and  a  person  of  well-known  piety,  as  maybe 
inferred  from  the  connection  in  which  he  stands,  Is. viii.  2. 
The  name  is  substantially  the  same  as  Barachiah, 
which  appears  to  have  been  in  pretty  common  use. 
The  form  Jeberechiah  is  found  only  in  the  passage  of 
I>aiah  referred  to;  and  of  the  position  or  office  of  the 
person  who  bore  it  nothing  is  recorded. 

JE'BUS.  JEB'USITES.  arc  the  names  of  a  Canaanit- 
ish  citv  and  people,  one  of  the  seven  doomed  nations. 
The  meaning  of  Jelms  has  its  simplest  explanation  in 
'•'a  trodden  place,"  to  which  there  is  possibly  an  allu 
sion  in  Is.  xxii.  i>,  ''It  is  a  day  of  trouble,  and  of 
treading  down,  and  of  perplexity,  by  the  Lord  of  hosts 
in  the  valley  of  vision,''  that  is.  Jerusalem.  Yet  some 


,)  I'X'( m All  8 

authorities  prefer  to  render  it  "a  dry  place;''  which 
again  might  receive  support  from  one  of  the  interpreta 
tions  of  Zion,  "a  sunny  or  dry  place."  Jebus  is  the 
old  name  of  Jerusalem,  Ju.  xix.  m,ii;  H'li.  xi.  I.  But  more 
frequently  it  appears  in  the  adjective  form  Jct/ic*!,  Jos. 
xv.  8;  xviii  iii,  2v  which  may  have  arisen  from  the  fuller 
form,  "city  of  the  Jebusites,"  or  "Jebusite  city,"  Ju. 
xix  11.  The  -ame  word  is  probably  used  as  a  poetical 
name  for  .Jerusalem  in  the  late  prophet  Zechariah,  di.  ix.  7, 
"He  shall  be  as  a  governor  in  Judah,  and  Ekron  as  a 
Jebusite;"  better  "as  Jebusi."  The  nation  of  the 
Jebusites  is  scarcely  ever  omitted  in  the  more  or  ]>•>> 
complete  lists  of  the  seven  nations  of  Canaan  that  were 
to  be  destroyed.  Almost  invariably  they  are  the  last 
ill  the  list.  Ge.  xv.  20;  Kx.  iii.  b  17;  xxiii.  23;  xxxiii.  2;  xxxiv.  11;  DC. 
Tii.  1;  xx.  17;  Jos.  iii.  10;  ix.  1;  xii.  8;  xxiv.  11;  Ju.  iii.  5;lKi.  ix.  20;  and 

in  all  these  passages,  except  Go.  xv.  20;  Jos.  iii.  10,  they  come 
next  to  the  Hivites.  These  remarks  do  not  apply  to  one 
or  two  cases  in  which  the  li.-ts  are  otherwise  peculiar, 
Ge.  x.  1<>;  Xu.  xiii.  2:1;  Jos.  xi.3;  Ezr.ix.  1.  Ill  Jos.  x.  ~>,  Adolii- 
zedek,  the  king  of  the  Jebusites  at  Jerusalem,  is  clashed 
as  one  of  the  kings  of  the  Amorites,  between  whom  and 
the  I  lathes  they  stand,  in  Nu.  xiii.  ii'.i.  where  all  the 
three  are  mentioned  together  as  dwelling  in  the  moun 
tains;  and  this  description,  "the  Jebusite  in  the  moun 
tains,"  is  again  given  to  them,  Jos.  xi.  3,  where  they 
stand  associated  with  the  same  two  nations  and  with 
the  Perizzites.  Although  we  can  say  nothing  further 
as  to  their  connection  with  the  remaining  nations,  and 
as  to  their  geographical  distribution,  we  may  be  assured 
that  they  occupied  a  part  of  that  mountainous  country 
in  which  their  capital  Jerusalem  was  situated.  The 
king  of  Jerusalem  was  one  of  the  five  who  united 
against  the  Gibeonites,  and  who  were  destroyed  to 
gether,  Jos.  x.;  yet  in  the  following  chapter  the  Jebusites 
appear  among  the  confederates  of  the  northern  king 
Jabin  of  Hazor,  ch.  xi.  3.  They  are  named  among  the 
nations  who  remained  in  the  land  after  the  death  of 
Joshua,  Ju  iii. .">;  and  more  particularly  in  ch.  i.  :M.  it  is 
said  that  "the  children  of  Benjamin  did  not  drive 
out  the  Jebusites  that  inhabited  Jerusalem  ;  but  the 
Jebusites  dwell  with  the  children  of  Benjamin  in  Jeru 
salem  unto  this  day."  It  was  David  who  first  suc 
ceeded  in  taking  their  stronghold  of  Zion,  which  he 
called  the  city  of  David,  and  in  which  he  fixed  the  seat 
of  government,  2  Sa,v.  o-'J;  l  Ch.  xi.  4-8.  After  this  the 
Jebusites  arc  mentioned  only  along  with  the  other 
Canaanite  nations,  the  remains  of  which  were  reduced 
by  Solomon  to  a  state  of  bond-service,  iKi.  ix.  20,21;  2Ch. 
vui.  7,  s.  Some  of  them  appear  among  those  exiles  who 
returned  from  Babylon  to  Judea,  Xe.  vii  :>7;  xi.  3.  And 
once  more  their  name  appears  in  Ezra  ix.  1,  amon™ 
other  nations,  only  half  of  whom  are  Canaanitish,  with 
whom  in  their  heathen  condition  the  returning  exiles 
contracted  mischievous  marriages.  [c..  c.  jr.  n.] 

JECONI'AH  [u-Jiom  Jdim-ah  Jias  appnintid],  also 
spelt  JECHONIAS,  and  abbreviated  in  one  memorable 
passage  into  COXIAII,  by  leaving  out  the  Je.  or  Ja.lt, 
which  stands  for  Jehovah,  Je.  xxii.  2^-30.  It  was  as 
much  as  to  say  that  Jehovah  now  withdrew  all  connec 
tion  with  him,  and  ceased  to  own  his  appointment  as 
king.  Accordingly,  he  not  only  ceased  himself  to  be 
king,  but  with  him  the  royal  house  in  that  line  came 
to  an  end.  (See  JEHOIACHIN.) 

JEDID'IAH  [darling  of  Jehorah].  the  name  given 
by  Nathan  to  Solomon.  He  called  him  so,  it  is  said, 
"because  of  the  Lord,"  2Sa.  xii.  25;  namely,  because  of 


:!»  JEGAR-SAHADUTHA 

the  Lord  looking  with  favour  upon  this  child,  and 
making  him  the  object  of  special  love,  as  is  stated  in 
the  verse  immediately  preceding.  Solomon,  however, 
which  was  the  name  imposed  by  David,  and  imposed 
with  special  reference  to  the  promise  of  peace,  which 
had  been  given  in  the  great  promise  by  Nathan  to 
David's  son  on  the  throne,  ich.xxii.9,  continued  to  be 
the  abiding  appellation — the  royal  or  covenant-name  of 
the  son.  For  David  evidently  looked  upon  this  son  by 
Bathsheba — the  next  born  after  that  first  child  which 
was  the  fruit  of  sin,  and  which  God  in  just  displeasure 
took  away — as  the  seal  of  God's  restored  mercy  to  him. 
the  peculiar  pledge  of  God's  covenant-love;  hence  the 
one  of  all  his  sons  that  seemed  best  fitted  by  the  cir 
cumstances  of  his  birth,  should  he  prove  worthy  of  the 
honour,  to  take  his  place  in  the  fulfilment  of  covenant- 
engagements.  And  this  view  of  the  royal  parent  was 
confirmed  by  the  message  brought  from  the  Lord  by 
Nathan,  that  the  Lord  loved  this  child,  so  certainly  did 
so,  that  the  love  of  which  he  was  the  object  might  fitly 
be  impressed  upon  his  name.  The  name  was  in  fact 
a  combination  of  David's  and  Jehovah's:  Ycdid  (be 
loved).  Juli  (Jehovah) — symbolizing  the  union  that 
now  existed  between  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly 
king.  (Sec  SOLOMON.) 

JEDU'THUN  [icho  gives  praises],  also  occasionally 

J  EDITHUX,    1  Ch.  xvi.  3";  Ps.  xxxix.  title;  Ixxvii.  title;  Ne.  xi.  17 — 

a  Levitc,  and  one  of  those  who  were  appointed  by 
David  to  preside  over  the  companies  of  sacred  singers. 
In  this  honourable  capacity  he  was  associated  with 
Asaph  and  H eman,  i  Ch.  xvi.  37-41;  xxv.  c;  2  Ch.  v.  12.  In 
one  place  he  is  even  designated  "the  king's  seer,"  2Ch. 
xxxv.  15;  implying  that  prophetical  gifts  to  some  extent 
belonged  to  him,  though  no  record  exists  of  any  in 
spired  productions  haying  come  from  his  hand.  In 
deed,  it  is  probable,  from  his  being  designated  the 
1,-iin.i*  seer,  that  the  supernatural  insight  which  he 
possessed,  discovered  itself  rather  in  the  divine  wisdom 
with  which,  011  particular  occasions,  he  was  enabled  to 
counsel  David,  than  in  his  being  employed  to  give 
forth  revelations  of  a  more  general  kind.  In  grateful 
commemoration  of  the  good  obtained  through  him,  and 
of  the  place  he  held  among  the  servants  of  God,  David 
inscribed  his  name  in  three  of  the  titles  to  his  psalms  : 
Ps.  xxxix.,  "to  the  chief  musician  Jeduthun :"  and 
Ps.  Ixii.  Ixxvii.,  "to  the  chief  musician,  upon  (or  over) 
Jeduthun" — such  is  the  exact  rendering.  The  expres 
sion  is  somewhat  peculiar:  but  it  probably  takes  Jedu 
thun  for  the  name  of  his  choir — q.d.  to  the  chief 
musician,  and  in  particular  under  him  to  the  choir  of 
Jeduthun.  The  sons  of  Jeduthun  were  employed  in 
the  sacred  music  of  the  temple-service  as  players  on  the 
harp,  and  also  as  porters  or  gate-keepers,  i  Ch.  xvi.  38, 42; 
xxvi.  11.  Mention  is  made  of  them  so  late  as  the  time 
of  Hezekiah.  in  the  time  also  of  Josiah,  and  even  of 
Nehemiah  in  the  same  connection,  2  Ch.  xxix.  13,  H;  i  Ch. 

ix.  lfi:  Ne.  xi.  17. 

JE'GAR-SAHADU'THA  [heap  of  testimony,  or 
v'i/iicf.-i].  the  Aramaic  name  given  by  Laban  to  the 
heap  of  stones  which  was  raised  after  his  reconciliation 
with  Jacob,  and  on  which  the  two  families  sat  down 
and  ate  together.  Ge.xxxi.  40,47.  Jacob's  name  for  it  was 
Galced,  "heap-witness."  or,  as  we  would  rather  put 
it,  "  witness-heap."  This  name  may  be  regarded  as  a 
kind  of  play  on  Gilead,  the  name  of  the  rocky  and 
mountainous  region  where  the  memorable  interview 
took  place.  (See  GILEAD.) 


JEHOAHAZ 
JEHOA'HAZ  [Heb.    Yiho-dhd;,  (7rs"irA  Jchorah- 

T  T      : 

titistainuJ].  1.  The  son  and  successor  of  Jehu,  king  of 
Israel,  who  reigned  seventeen  years — from  B.C.  850  to 
840,  2Ki.  xiii.  i-!>.  The  history  of  his  reign  was  the  re 
verse  of  prosperous;  so  that  his  name  seemed  more 
like  an  irony  than  an  expression  of  the  truth.  For 
saking  the  pure  worship  and  service  of  Jehovah  for  the 
ways  of  idolatry  and  sin,  he  was  made  to  reap  the  con 
sequences  of  his  folly  in  utter  prostration  and  threatened 
ruin,  llazael  the  king  of  Syria,  and  his  son  Beiihadad. 
ravaged  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  and  made  its  armies 
''like  the  dust  by  thrashing.''  Yet  the  name  of  Jehoa 
haz  did  not  prove  altogether  fallacious:  for  the  Lord 
did  so  far  interpose  for  his  help  as  to  prevent  total 
destruction,  ami  his  people  went  out  from  under  the 
hand  of  the  Syrians.  The  disasters  of  his  reign  were 
in  good  measure  retrieved  by  his  son  Joash. 

2.  JKHU.YHAX.    A   M.U    of    Josiah.    king  of    Judah.  ] 
and  also  his  immediate  successor  on   the  throne.      1 1  is 
said   the  people,  on   the   death  of   his   father,  took   him 
and    anointed    him.  and    made    him    king.    2  Ki.  xxiii  ;;n; 
although  it  is   clear   he  was  not  the  eldest  son.      For. 
after  a  brief  reign  of   three  months,  he  was  deposed  by  , 
Pharaoh- Necho,  and  another  brother-    Kliakim.  caii'-d 
afterwards     Jehoiakim      placed    on     the    throne,     who 
appears   to  have  been   two  years   older  than  Jehoahaz. 
th.  xxiii.  :;i>.     In  the  genealogical  table  of    1   Ch.   iii.  !.">. 
Jehoahaz   is   even   put    fourth   and  last   of    the  sons   of 
Josiah:   in  which,    however,  there  nm>t   be  some  mis 
take,  if  by  fourth  is  meant  fourth  in  tin.'  order  of  birih; 
for  in   '2  Ch.  xxxvi.  11.  the  a^v  a— igncd  to /edekiah, 
the  brother  who  ranks   third   in    1   Ch.   iii.    l."i.    makes 
him  several  years  younger  than  Jehoahaz.      N'lne  error 
must  have   crept   into  one  of   the   pas.-a^vs,    or   in    the  ' 
genealogy  the  strict  order  of   time   is  departed   from  in 
the  case  of    the  two  last   sons.       In   that   passage,  also, 
instead  of  Jehoahaz,  Shallum  is  the  name  given  to  this 
son  of  Josiah — a  name  that  occurs  again  in  Jo.  xxiii. 
11,  and  was  probably  given  to  him   in  consequence  of 
the    judgment  which  so  early  befell   him  on  account  of 
his  evil  ways,  and   probably  not  without  respect  to  his 
unbrotherly  conduct  in  grasping  at  the  throne.     The 
word  means  nlri/>itfi'»i;  and  fitly  expressed  the  fate  of 
one  who,  after  a  brief  rei-n  of   three  months.  \\as  car 
ried  away  in  chains  to  Kuvpt,  and  ultimately  died  there. 

3.  JKHDAHAX.      A  name  applied  on  one  occasion  to 
the  youngest  son  of  Jehoram.  kiu^  of  Judah,  2Ch.  x\i  i: 
But  his   proper    name   was   Ahaziah.    and    under   this 
name  he   is   known  as  king.      It  is   in  fact   the  same 
name,  only  with  the  two  compound  terms  transposed. 
(>Vr  AHA/.IAH.) 

JEHO'ASH  [Ji/t<ji-u/t-r/!jU'(l],  usually  contracted  into 
JOASH  (which  see). 

JEHOHA'NAN  [J,h»rah'*  >/ift  or  fam,,,-}.  often 
contracted  into  JOHAXAX,  and  in  New  Testament 
times  taking  the  form  of  JOAXXKS,  or  simply  JOHN. 
Various  persons  bore  the  name  in  Old  Testament 
times,  but  nothing  scarcely  is  recorded  of  them  except 
their  names  and  their  genealogies.  1.  A  Levite,  in 
the  Kuril ite  line,  and  a  door-keeper  in  the  house  of 
Hod,  1  Ch.  xxvi.  3.  2.  A  military  officer  in  the  days  of 
Jehoshaphat,  having  charge  of  a  Very  large  force. 
2<:h.  xvii.  i.j.  3.  The  father  of  another  officer.  Ishmael. 
who  took  part  with  Jehoiada  in  his  restoration  of  the 
royal  house,  2Ch.  xxiii  1.  4.  Also  of  some  others  in  later 
times.  Ezr.  x.  2<;  Xe  xii  13,  12.  (See  JoHAXAX). 


:'  JEHOIADA 

JEHOIA'CHIN  [Heb.  Yiho-JnU-la  (p.«jp.'>,  «*  or 
appointed  />//  Jehovah],  appearing  also  as  JKCOXIAH  and 
COMAH — in  Eze.  i.  2  contracted  into  JOJACHIX;  the 
Greek  uses  three  different  forms  in  different  places — 
'Iwax<X  '"Lexwias,  'IwaKeifjL.  He  was  the  son  of  Jehoia 
kim,  king  of  Judah,  ami  reigned  only  for  three  months 
and  ten  days  in  Jerusalem;  for  Nebuchadnezzar  came 
against  Judah,  to  revenge  the  alliance  that  had  been 
entered  into  by  his  father  with  Kgypt:  and  Jehoiachin, 
his  mother  Elnathan,  and  many  besides,  were  carried 
away  to  Babylon,  having  fallen  an  easy  prey  into  the 
hands  of  the  Chaldean  conqueror,  2Ki.  xxiv.  >>-iii.  In  the 
passage  just  referred  to,  Jehoiachin  is  said  to  have  been 
eighteen  years  old  when  he  became  kini;';  but  in  '_'  Ch. 
xxxvi.  9  his  age  is  given  as  only  eight,  which  is  the 
more  probable  number,  as  his  father  died  when  only 
thirty-six  years  old.  Alonur  with  him,  the  flower  of 
the  people,  the  sacred  vessels  of  the  temple,  and  all  the 
available  treasure  of  the  kingdom,  were  taken  to  Baby 
lon:  a  poor  and  feeble  remnant  was  all  that  remained 
In-hind.  Jehoiachin  himself  was  kept  not  only  in  exile 
but  in  actual  imprisonment  nearly  all  the  rest  of  his 
life.  After  thirty-six  years,  it  is  said,  Evil-Merodach, 
the  successor  of  Xebuehadnezzar,  lifted  up  his  head,  or 
restored  him  to  liberty,  and  even  elevated  him  above 
the  other  subject  kings  who  were  about  the  Chaldean 
court.  An  allowance  was  also  ^i\vn  him  to  support 
his  position  with  an  air  of  respectability,  which  con 
tinued  to  the  end  of  his  life;  but  how  long  that  might 
lie  is  uncertain.  Jehoiachin  appears  to  have  been  the 
la>t  survivor  in  Solomon's  line:  he  is  at  least  the  last 
\\lio  has  a  place  in  the  genealogies;  they  pass  over,  after 
him.  to  the  line  of  Nathan.  (>'«<  OKXKALoGY).  That 
Mich  was  to  be  the  result,  the  prophet  Jeremiah  gave 
distinct  intimation,  when  he  changed  Jeconiah — the 
name  by  which  he  called  Jehoiachin  into  C'oniah, 
withdrawing  the  ,/< .  or  abbreviated  form  of  Jehovah, 
from  it.  and  declaring,  in  the  most  solemn  manner, 
that  "this  man  was  to  be  written  childless,  and  that 
none  of  his  seed  r-hould  ever  sit  on  the  throne  of  David," 
Whether  this  means  that  he  was  actually 
without  oti>prinu'.  it  at  all  events  announces  that  the 
royal  line  was  no  longer  to  be  reckoned  from  him,  or 
the  branch  of  the  house  of  1  >a\  id  he  represented.  So 
far  as  //  was  concerned,  the  patience  of  ( Jod  was  ox- 
hau>ted,  and  no  further  account  was  to  be  taken  of  it. 
In  1  ('li.  iii.  li'i  there  are  sons  reckoned  to  Jehoiachin 

fir-t.  Zedekiah,  by  Vvhom  is  doubtless  meant  the 
uncle  who  succeeded  him:  also  Assir,  who  may  actually 
have  been  his  son;  but  the  genealogy  passes  over  him 
to  Salathiel.  who  was  of  Nathan's  line. 

JEHOIADA  [Heb.    Yeho-ydda   (yvvv>,  *•"""•»  q/ 

TT 

Ji/nifiiJi].  sometimes  contracted  into  JOFADA.  1.  Father 
of  Benaiah.  one  of  David's  well-known  chief  captains, 
iCli.  xxvii  :,.  This  Jehoiada  is  also  called  a  chief  priest: 
while  his  son  was  reckoned  among  the  captains,  and 
undoubtedly  followed  the  vocation  of  a  warrior.  2  Sa. 
viii.  i«,  though  by  his  birth  he  should  rather  have  given 
himself  to  sacred  ministrations.  His  father,  it  would 
appear  from  another  passage,  i  Ch.  xii.  27,  was  among 
those  who  came  to  David  at  Hebron,  while  still  matters 
were  in  suspense  between  him  and  the  house  of  Saul; 
and  on  that  occasion  Jehoiada  was  at  the  head  of  3700 
Aaronites,  whence,  it  may  be  inferred,  he  was  of  priestly 
rank.  The  irregularity  in  the  case  of  his  son  Benaiah 


JEHOIADA 


84  S 


JEHOIAKIM 


giving  himself  to  military  pursuits,  would  probably  bo 
regarded  us  finding  its  justification  in  thu  peculiarities 
of  the  time,  and  the  necessity  of  applying  all  available 
talents  and  resources  to  the  support  of  the  cause  of 
David. 

A  .Jehoiada,  son  of  1'enaiah,  appears  in  1  (.'h.  \\vii. 
">!.  as  one  of  David's  chief  counsellors,  next  to  Ahitho- 
piid.  The  probability  is  that  there  is  a  corruption  in 
the  text,  and  that  it  should  lie  Benaiah  the  sou  of  Je- 
hoiada,  as  in  the  preceding  notice.  If  tins  is  not  the 
case,  then  we  must  understand  .lehoiada  to  be  desig 
nated  as  the  son  of  another  Benaiah. 

2.  .1  KHOIADA.      A  person  who  tilled  the  office  of  high- 
pi-iest  ill  the  time  of  Athaliah,  and  acted  the  chief  part 
in  planning  the  overthrow  of  her  usurpation,  2Ch.  xxiii. 
The  precise  period  when  he  cute  Ted  on  his  high-priest 
hood  is  not  stated,  nor  whether  it  was  before  Ahaziah's 
ascension   to  the   throne,  or  after  it.      At  the  time  of 
Ahaziah's  death  he  appears   to  have  been  in  the  office, 
and   for  the  important   part  in   regal   affairs  which  he 
soon  after  played,  he  had  the  advantage,  not  only  of 
his  high  official  position,   but  of  Hear  affinity  to   the 
royal    family.      His  wife  Jehosheba.    or  Jehoshabeath 
(as  it  is  also  written),  was  daughter  of  the  late  king 
.lehoram.  sister  of  Aliaziah — whose  seed,  with  one  ex 
ception,  was  slain  by  the  ambitious  and  cruel  Athaliah. 
That    one  exception   was    the   child   Joash,    who   was 
secretly   conveyed   away   by    his   aunt   .Jehosheba,    and 
for  six  years  preserved   in  a  chamber   connected   with 
the  temple  buildings.      At  the  close  of  that  period,  and 
when  the  people  had   already   become   disgusted  with 
the  course  pursued   by  Athaliah,   Jehoiada   concerted 
measures  with  the  leading  men  in  the  kingdom  for  the 
destruction  of  the  murderess,  and  the  proclamation  of 
the  youthful  Joash  as  the  lawful  king.     The  measures 
were  well  laid,  and  perfectly  successful,  issuing  in  the 
sudden  death  of  Athaliah,  and  the  installation  of  Joash 
as  king  at  the  tender  age  of  seven  years.      Under  the 
advice  and  direction  of  .lehoiada,  both  king  and  people 
entered  into  a  solemn  covenant  to  be   faithful  to  the 
Lord,  and  to  put  away  from  them  the  instruments  and 
ministers  of  idolatry.      Accordingly  the  house  of  Baal 
was  broken  down,  and  Xathan  the  high-priest   slain  at 
the  altar;  while  the  service  of  Jehovah  was  again  re 
established    in    conformity    with    the    law    of    Moses. 
Matters  went   on  well   both  with  king  and   people,  so 
long  as  this  upright  and  faithful  high  priest  lived;  and 
his  life  was  prolonged  to  a  very  advanced  age.      This 
is  given  in  2  Ch.  xxiv.  l~>  as  130  years;  but  it  is  almost 
certain  there  must  be  some  corruption  in  the  text,  as 
in  that  case  Jehoiada  must  have  been  fully  90  when  he 
took    the   leading    part   in    organizing    the    conspiracy 
against   Athaliah,  which   can  scarcely  be  regarded  as 
probable.      There   would   also   have    been   50  years    of 
disparity  between  his  age  and  that  of  his  wife.      For 
the  great  services  he  had  rendered  to  his  country,  and 
especially  to  the  royal  house,  possibly  also  in  part  from 
his  affinity  to    that   house   by   marriage,   the    singular 
honour  was    granted   to  him  of    being   buried  among 
the  kings  of  Judah,  2Ch.  xxiv.  in. 

3.  JEHOIADA.     A  priest   in  the  days   of  Jeremiah, 
•Tc.  xxix.  20.      By  comparing  the  passage  referred   to  in 
the  writings  of  Jeremiah  with  2  Ki.  xxv.  18,  we  are 
led   to  infer  that  this  Jehoiada  was  succeeded  in  his 
office  by  Zephaniah,  and  that  as  Zephaniah  is  expressly 
called   "  the  second  priest,"  his  predecessor  must  have 
been  the  same — viz.  the  priest  who  stood  nearest  to 


the  high-priest,  and   who  would  naturally,  on   certain 
occasions,  have  to  act  as  a  kind  of  vice-highpriest. 
JEHOIA'KIM   [lleb.    c.p»vv    (Jeho-ydkim),   vkoni 

Jdmcnli  established],  contracted  into  JOIAKIM,  and 
in  (!r.  'Iwatd/j.  or  -ei/j..  A  king  of  Judah — the  eigh 
teenth  of  David's  line,  including  himself,  and  not 
counting  Jehoahaz — and  the  last  but  two  before  the 
captivity.  His  reign  extended  from  B.C.  (jo  LI  to  5'J8. 
ills  original  name  was  ELIAKIM,  differing  from  the 
other  only  in  the  more  general  name  of  (!od—  El  being 
placed  at  the  commencement,  instead  of  the  more 
peculiar  Jilurah.  The  change  was  made  by  Pharaoh- 
Necho,  probably  for  110  other  reason  than  as  a  memo 
rial  of  Jehoiakinfs  dependence  on  tin;  throne  of  Egypt. 
His  father  Josiah  had  lost  his  life  in  an  unwise 
attempt  to  arrest  the  progress  nf  I'haraoh's  march 
toward  the  Euphrates,  where  the  resources  of  Egypt 
and  Babylon  were  preparing  to  come  into  deadly  con 
flict.  The  little  kingdom  of  Judah  was  immediately 
laid  under  tribute  to  Egypt;  a  heavy  fine  imposed  on 
it;  Jehoahaz,  the  eldest  son  of  Josiah.  deposed,  almost 
as  soon  as  crowned,  and  Eliakim,  with  his  new  name, 
set  upon  the  throne — bound,  of  course,  in  fealty  to  the 
king  of  Egypt.  But  this  bond  was  soon  broken  by  a 
change  of  fortune  in  the  affairs  of  the  Egyptian  mon 
arch,  who  sustained  a  sad  reverse  in  the  disastrous 
battle  at  Carcheinish,  which  left  Nebuchadnezzar  virtual 
master  of  the  world.  Jehoiakim  had  been  little  more 
than  three  years  on  the  throne  dn  the  fourth  year  of 
his  reign,  savs  Jeremiah,  eh.  xhi.  2;  but  Daniel,  cli.  i.  i, 
by  a  different  computation,  probably  by  referring  to  an 
earlier  part  of  the  transactions,  makes  it  a  year  less), 
when  Nebuchadnezzar  came  to  Jerusalem,  and  after  a 
short  siege  got  possession  of  it.  The  king  and  the 
chiefs  of  the  nation  now  formally  transferred  their 
allegiance  from  the  king  of  Egypt  to  the  king  of  Baby 
lon;  and  Nebuchadnezzar  carried  with  him  to  Babylon 
some  of  the  seed  royal  and  members  of  the  best  families 
as  hostages  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  stipulations. 
Among  these  were  Daniel  and  the  three  noble  youths 
whose  faith  and  piety  shone  out  so  brightly  amid  the 
corruptions  of  the  Chaldean  court.  At  Jerusalem, 
however,  idolatry  and  wickedness  continued  to  bear 
sway.  The  humiliations  winch  had  befallen  the  king 
dom,  and  which  should  have  been  regarded  as  solemn 
chastisements  from  Heaven  for  the  sinful  courses  pur 
sued,  seemed  to  have  no  other  effect  than  to  harden 
the  heart  in  evil,  and  make  it  cling  the  more  fondly  to 
its  deceitful  confidences.  Jehoiakim,  though  the  son 
of  a  godly  father,  did  that  which  was  evil  in  the  sight 
of  the  Lord,  and  was  so  generally  followed  in  the  same 
course,  that,  as  is  plainly  intimated  by  the  sacred  his 
torian,  there  was  a  fresh  bursting  forth  in  his  reign  of 
the  abominable  idolatries  and  God- dishonouring  prac 
tices  which,  in  the  days  of  Manasseh,  had  cried  so 
loudly  to  Heaven  for  vengeance,  2  Ki.  xxiv.  2-4.  The 
guilt  was  now  the  more  aggravated,  and  argued  a  more 
resolute  spirit  of  alienation  from  God,  that  not  only 
were  God's  judgments  calling  aloud  for  repentance,  but 
the  earnest  remonstrances  and  solemn  warnings  of  the 
prophets — especially  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel — were 
continually  pressing  npon  king  and  people  the  inevi 
table  retribution  which  they  were  provoking,  and  the 
necessity  of  a  thorough  reformation,  if  they  would 
avoid  the  impending  doom.  But  so  far  from  profiting 
bv  these  wholesome  admonitions,  the  king  onlv  waxed 


JEHOTAK1P, 


JKHOXADAP- 


violent    against    the   servants   of   C-od:   Jeremiah   was     "  And  the  families,  of  the  scribes  which  dwelt  at  Jabez  : 

opposed   and    persecuted,    and    his   writings   contemp-  j  the  Tirathites,    the    Shimeathites.    [and]    Suehathites. 
tuously   burned   in  the  fire,  Jo.  xxxvi.;  Vrijah,  another  '  These    [are]  the   Kenites    that  came   of    Hemath,    the 
faithful  prophet,  was  even  pursued  into  Egypt,   slain  '  father  of  the  house  of  Kechab."      Of  the  time  and  the 
with  tlie  sword,  and  his  very  corpse  treated  with  bar-  |  place  to  which  this  notice  refers  we  are  entirely  igno- 
barity,    Jc.  xx.i.  L-I-L':;.       Such    extreme    wickedness    and  ;  rant,  except  in  MI  far  as  anv  inference  mav  be  drawn 
perversity  could  not  but  draw  down  fresh  visitations  of     from  its  standing  in  connection  witli  the  genealogies 
ivine  judgment:  and.  accordingly,  tin-  land   was  liar-     of  the  children  of  J  udah,  especiallv  with  those  of  the 
on    every   side:    bands   of    Chaldeans.    Syrian-,     '  "    ' '      '  '        " 


assei 

Moabites.  and  Ammonites  invaded  it,  •_•  Ki.  xxiv.  7,  not 
improbably  instigated  to  this  by  the  Chaldean  mon 
arch;  for,  after  three  vears'  servitude  to  ISahvlon.  Je- 
hoiakim,  in  a  spirit  of  senseless  infatuation,  proved 
false  to  his  engagements,  and  courted  anew  the  alliance 
of  Egvpt.  The  ungodliness  and  follv  of  this  course 
were  very  strikingly  portrayed  by  E/.ekiel  in  ch.  xvii. 
of  his  prophecies,  and  the  terrible  retaliation  announci  d 
which  it  was  sure  to  provoke.  It  was  also  stroi>"/lv 
denounced  by  Jeremiah,  ch.ii.  iv'Jii;  xxvii.  i-ii;  and  though 
Nebuchadnezzar  was  so  much  occupied  with  other  and 
mightier  adversaries,  that  he  could  not  fora  time  come 
personally  to  Jerusalem  to  chastise  the  kind's  unfaith 
fulness,  vet  it  was  onlv  what  might  be  expected  that 
he  would  gi\e  his  tributaries  and  allies  in  the  neigh 
bour]) 1  a  license  to  harass  Judah.  At  length  .lehoia 

kim  himself  fell  a  victim  to  his  own  sinful  and  crook, .,! 
poliev:  but  bv  what  agents,  or  in  what  precise  manner, 
is  not  recorded.  That  his  d.-ath  was  a  violent  one  there 
can  lie  no  doubt,  from  the  .-troii'j  language  used  regard 
ing  it  bv  Jeremiah,  which  speaks  even  of  indignities  of 
the  most  shameful  kind  l.ein-  poured  upon  hi-  lit'el, •-> 
body,  ,Tc.  xxii.  !•>,  lii;  xxx\i.  :,<>.:;i.  Thu-  ]ieri-hed  one  of  the 
most  worthless  princes  that  ever  sat  on  the  tin-one  of 
1  'avid;  and  within  two  or  thr-  <•  month-  alter  his  death, 
the  king  of  Habyloii  came,  and,  amid  other  severe  re 
prisals,  carried  off  his  son  Jehoiachin  and  all  the  most 
influential  people  to  liabvlon. 


if  David.  So  far  interpreters  are  generallv 
that  Kechah  belonged  to  those*Kenites  who 
.mnected  with  Israel  through  the  marriage  of 
who  at  the  exodus  cast  in  their  lot  with  Israel, 
and  who  appear  to  have  retained,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
the  roving  tent-life  of  their  forefathers:  (com^iix-  Ju.  i.  ir.; 
iv.  11).  It  has  been  Very  frequently  supposed  that  the 
house  of  Kechab  dwelt  at  this  unknown  town  of  .Jabex. 
which  again  is  connected  by  some  with  the  person 
named  1  Ch.  iv.  !».  Id;  but  even  this  much  is  not  neces 
sarily  implied  in  the  sentence  above  quoted. 

The  two  passages  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  the 
article  are  the  only  ones  from  which  scriptural  infor 
mation  can  be  derived  as  to  Jchonadah  the  son  of  Ke 
chab.  According  to  the  one  passage  Jehu,  in  the  midst 
of  his  etiort-  to  overthrow  tin  dynasty  of  Ahab.  extir 
pating  his  family  and  exp.  lling  the  worship  of  ]>aal 
which  they  had  established  in  Israel.  "  lighted  on  Jeho- 
nadab  the  son  of  L'echal*.  [coming]  to  meet  him:  and  he 
saluted  him,  and  said  to  him.  Is  thine  heart  right,  as 
my  heart  [is]  with  thy  heart.'  And  Jehonadab  an 
swered.  It  is  If  it  be,  give  [me]  thine  hand.  And 
he  v.a\e  him]  his  hand;  and  he  took  him  up  to  him 
into  th'-  chariot.  And  he  said,  Come  with  me,  and  see 
my  /cal  for  the  Lord.  So  they  made  him  ride  in  his 
chariot."  And  the  two  ap]  ear  to  haxehad  such  an 
amount  of  resemblance  in  their  /.cal.  that  Jehonadab 
took  part  with  Jtliu  in  tin  detail-  of  hi.-  stratagem  for 
destroying  the  assembled  worshippers  of  Jlaal,  without 
any  ivcordt  d  expression  of  disapprobation. 


JEHOIA'RIB     [,'•/,,,„!     Jil,n,;il,      trill     ,/,/,„,/], 

traeted   into  JniAKiii.   a  priest    in   the  time   of  David.      Jeremiah    t<  lb 

and  the  first  head  of  the  twenty-four  priestly  courses 

into  which  the  entire  priesthood  was  then  divided,  for 

alternate   service,    1  Ch.  i\.  l»;  xxiv.  7.      That    some   of   his 

descendants   returned   from    the    I'.abvloiiisli    captivitv 

seeiiH  to  be  implied  in  Xe.  xi.  In,  where  a  son  or  de 
scendant  of  his  is  mentioned;  also  in  Ne.  xii.  ii,  \\h--re 

nearly  all    the  old    heads  of    the  priestly   coiir.-e.-;   are 

enumerated   as  having   still   representatives  amoii"/   the 

returned   captives.      The   Talmudists    liad    a    different 

mode  of  explaining  things,  namely,  that   the  old  divi-       this  charge-  had  been  kept  by  all  of  them,  of  both  sexes, 

sions  merely  were  retained,  with  their  respective  names,  ;  as  they  expressly  state,  though   an  unwilling  obedience 

and  that  such  as  remained  <>f  the  priests,  though  reallv  mii/lit  perhaps  have  pled  for  its  restriction  to  the  males; 

only  when  Nebuchadnezzar's  aimy  overran  the  conn- 
try,  they  had  taken  temporary  refuge  within  the  walls 
of  Jerusalem.  This  obedience  to  the  command  of  their 
father  is  then  set  before  the  people  by  the  prophet,  and 
contrasted  with  their  disobedience  to  divine  commands: 


how  he  received  a  command  from 
the  Lord  to  briii"/ the  b'echabites  into  one  of  the  cham 
bers  connected  with  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  there 
to  give,  them  wine  to  drink.  'I  his  they  re-fused,  "We 
will  drink  no  wine  :  for  Jonadab  the  son  of  b'echab,  our 
father,  commanded  us,  saying.  Ye  shall  drink  no  wine, 
[neither]  ye  nor  your  sons  forc\er:  neither  shall  ye  build 
house,  nor  sow  seed,  nor  plant  vineyard,  nor  have  [any] : 
but  all  your  days  ye  shall  dwell  in  tents  :  that  ye  may  live 
inanv  davs  in  the  land  where  ye  [lie]  strangers."  Ami 


and  while  the  disobedient  children  of  Israel  are  assured 


belonging  only  to  four  of  the  ancient  orders,  were  dis 
tributed  anew  into  those  divisions.  Prideaux  (Conner,  i. 
Ann.  ,v:c)  adopts  this  view;  and  it  is  so  far  countenanced 
by  the  fact,  that  the  lists  in  E/r.  ii.  ?>i"i-3;i.  give  onlv  four 
heads;  and  so  also  does  Xehemiah,  in  ch.  vii.  :?f»— f'2. 

I  he  point  is  of  no  practical  moment,  and  we  want  the  .                              . 

materials    necessary   for    arriving    at    an    independent  of  impending  judgment   and   ruin,  the  narrative  closes 

judgment.  with  a  corresponding  promise  to  the  obedient  house  of 

JEHO'NADAB    (so  it  is   in   2  Ki.  x.  15,   23,   but  Keehah.    "Therefore  thus  saith   the  Lord  of  hosts,  the 

contracted   JON  ADA  n   in   Je     xxxv.    fi,    fccO.    [Jihornli  Ood  of  Israel.  Jonadab  the  son   of   Kechab  shall  not 

offers  free !>/.    or  he  whom  Jehnrali   make*  f reel >/   trill-  want  a  man  to  stand  before  me  for  ever."     On  account 

my].     The  identity  of  the  person  named  in  these  two  of  this  promise  there  has  often   been   search  made  for 

books  has  been  doubted  by  Scaliger,    but  he   appears  these  Kechabites,  who  are  supposed  to  be  a  community 

to    have    had    few    followers.       Jehonadab   is  in  both  still  subsisting,  and  maintaining  the   pure   worship  of 

cases  called  the  son  of  Kechab.  of  whom  we  know  only  the  living  Ood,  and  the   abstaining  ordinance   of  their 

from  an   obscure   verse  in  the  genealogies,    i  ch.  ii.  ~>i>,  ancestor.     Nav,  there  have  been  reports  that  they  have 

107     - 


JEHONADAB 


830 


JEHOEAM 


been  actually  discovered,  from  the  days  of  the  old 
Jewish  traveller  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  down  to  our  own 
dav  -witness  the  account  given  by  the  late  Dr.  Joseph 
Wolir':  though  sober  readers  of  tliese  reports  have  gene 
rally  concurred  in  pronouncing  them  to  be  either  mis 
takes  or  something  worse.  In  fact  it  cannot  be  justly 
inferred  that  the  Reehabites  as  a  distinct  fraternity 
lasted  longer  than  the  Jewish  commonwealth  itself: 
when  the  Jewish  nation,  to  whom  they  stood  in  a 
special  relation,  ceased  to  exist  as  the  professing  people 
of  (  Mid.  the  faithful  Reclialiites.  like  the  godly  Israelites, 
would  most  probably  embrace  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and 
thenceforth  becoming  incorporated  with  existing  Chris 
tian  communities,  they  might  fairly  enough  consider 
that  the  peculiar  institution  of  Jehonadab  had  served 
its  purpose,  and  ought  to  terminate.  Certainly  we  have 
no  historical  trace  of  them  that  is  worthy  of  any  atten 
tion ;  although  the  Septuagint  and  the  Vulgate  have 
affixed  to  I'salm  Ixxi.  (their  Ixx.)  the  title,  "A  Psalm  of 
David,  of  the  sons  of  Jonadab  and  of  those  first  carried 
captive." 

It  is  by  no  means  quite  clear  how  far  this  institution 
rested  on  religious  grounds,  and  how  far  on  grounds  of 
civil  expediency.  Witsins  is  disposed  to  make  it  to  a 
large  extent,  if  not  entirely,  the  latter :  because  the 
K(  nites  were  settled  among  the  Israelites  and  shared 
all  their  good  fortune,  while  yet  it  might  seem  prudent 
to  Jonadab  to  restrain  his  people  from  everything 
which  could  by  possibility  provoke  jealousy  in  the 
minds  of  the  Israelites  properly  so  called.  Certainly 
their  Kenite  parentage  might  lead  them  the  more 
readily  to  consent  to  retain  or  to  resume  some  such 
mode  of  life  as  he  enjoined  upon  them :  and  it  has 
been  common  to  compare  it  with  the  account  of  the 
Saracens  by  Ammianus  Marcellinus  (xiv.  4),  and  still 
more  with  the  account  of  the  Nabatheans  by  Dio- 
dorus  Siculus  (xix.  <n\  "It  is  a  law  with  them  neither 
to  sow  corn,  nor  to  plant  any  fruit-bearing  plants,  nor 
to  use  wine,  nor  to  provide  a  house."  Ewald  again 
leans  strongly  to  the  religious  aspect  of  the  rule.  He 
looks  upon  the  Reehabites  as  a  religious  sect,  whose 
origin  is  to  be  traced  indirectly  to  the  labours  of  Elijah 
and  Elisha.  While  tliese  great  prophets  had  disciples 
who  followed  in  their  steps,  the  Ivechabites  were  no  less 
strict  in  their  adherence  to  the  true  religion  as  they 
understood  it :  but  despairing  of  its  maintenance  among 
the  degenerate  people  at  large,  they  retired  into  desert 
life,  as  that  generation  of  Israelites  among  whom 
Moses  laboured  were  purified  and  trained  in  the  wilder 
ness;  and  they  copied  the  Nazarite  institution  to  a 
considerable  extent;  and  they  also  avoided  mixing  in 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  unless  some  emergency  drew 
them  forth,  like  that  revolution  of  which  Jehu  was  the 
leader,  when  his  "zeal  for  the  Lord"  met  with  a  hearty 
response  from  Jehonadab.  Neumann,  in  his  commen 
tary  on  Jeremiah,  gives  prominence  also  to  the  reli 
gious  element  in  their  character;  and  thinks  that  they 
did  not  take  their  name  from  Jehonadab,  but  from 
Ifechab,  so  that,  symbolically,  they  were  called  Recha- 
bites,  •'  riders,"  or  "pilgrims,"  to  indicate  that  they  were 
strangers  and  sojourners,  not  seeking  rest  in  Canaan 
and  the  Jewish  institutions ;  though  by  a  mistaken 
reading  of  providence  they  did  seek  rest  in  Jerusalem 
at  the  time  of  which  Jeremiah  speaks,  and  were  dis 
appointed.  There  is,  however,  no  trace  in  Jewish  his 
tory  of  anything  of  importance,  additional  to  what 
Scripture  relates;  unless  any  one  find  it  in  the  state 


ment  of  Josephus  that  Jonadab   was  a  good  and  just 
man,  and  that  he  had  of  old  been  a  friend  of  Jehu. 

(The  reader  may  consult  the  dissertation  of  Witsius,  in  his 
Mlacdlaw.n  Sacra,,  vol.  ii.  \>.  _i'i-^:}7  :  and  l-^vuJd,  (fr-schicltte, 
vol.  ii.  1>.  .004,  fi'la.j  [(;.  c.  M.  D.  | 

JEHO'RAM,  or  contracted  JO'IvAM  [Jthocah  /.s 
/n't/It,  or  lie  whom  Jchoruk  exalts].  The  name  of  two 
kings. 

1.  JKHORAM,  the  son  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  succeeded 
to  the  throne  of  the  ten  tribes  after  the   short   reign  of 
his  brother  Ahaziah.     He  reigned  twelve  years,  from 
about  H.C.  Si'tj  to  884.      Like  all  the  rest  of  their  kings, 
he  is  declared  to  have  wrought  evil  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord,  not  departing  from  the  sins  of  Jeroboam  the  son 
of  Nebat :  yet  his  evil  doing  was  "not  like  his  father 
and  like  his   mother,   for  he  put  away  the  image  of 
Baal  that  his  father  had  made."  2Ki.  iii.  L',  ;;.      It  fell  to 
him   to  punish  the  Moabites,  who  had  revolted  after 
the  death  of  his  father :   but  the  expedition  which   he 
undertook,  with  the  assistance   of  Jehoshaphat  king  of 
Judah  and  of  the  king  of  Moab.  was  saved  from  utter 
destruction   only    bv  miraculous  intervention  through 
the  instrumentality  of  Elisha,  and  was  not  successful 
to  the  extent  of  reducing  the  Moabites  to  subjection 
again,  2Ki.  iii.  t-i'7.      Some  other  instances  of  connection 
between  the  king  and  the  prophet  appear  in  2  Ki.  iv.  lo; 
v.  5-8;  viii.  4-b',    but  more   especially  in   ch.   vi.  vii. 
Erom  these  we  learn  that  Joram  was  very  much  en 
gaged  in  war  with  the  Syrians:  that  repeatedly  he  was 
laid  under  deep  obligations  by  the  miraculous  agency 
of   Elisha;  and  yet   that  he  was  at  one  time  on  the 
point  of  committing  a  judicial  murder,  as  if  the  prophet 
deserved  to  die  because  he  had  not  by  a  miracle  restrained 
the  ravages  of  famine.     At  last  the  vengeance  which 
had  been  denounced   against   the   house  of   Ahab  by 
Elijah,  on  occasion  of  the  murder  of  Naboth,  though  it 
had  been  delav.  d  on  account  of  some  manifestations  of 
penitence,  was  executed  upon  Joram  by  Jehu,   whom 
Elisha  had  sent  one  of  his  disciples  to  anoint  as  king 
for  this  very  purpose,  i;Ki.  ix.;  compare  the  original  command 
to  Elijah,  IKi.  xix.  10,17;  xxi.  17-29.     Joram  was  engaged  in 
war  with  the  Syrians  at  Ramoth-gilead,  in  struggling 
for  the  recovery  of  which  his  father  had  received  a 
mortal  wound.      Joram    being  himself  now  wounded, 
had  returned  to  Jezrcel  to  be  healed,  apparently  leav 
ing  Jehu  at  the  head  of  the  army.      And   when  Jehu 
was  anointed  king,  he  laid  his  plans  and  executed  them 
with  such  celerity,  that  Joram  had  no  intelligence  of 
them  till  Jehu  met  him  close  by  Jezreel,  and  drawing 
a  bow  shot  him  dead    in  his   chariot.      The  body  was 
thrown  out  upon  the  ground:  and  the  hand  of  God  was 
manifest  in  this,  that  the  plot  of  ground  was  no  other 
than  the  possession  of  Naboth,  in  which  it  had  been 
predicted  that  the  bloody  requital  should  take  place. 

2.  JKHOKAM,  the  son  of  Jehoshaphat,  succeeded  him 
in  the  throne  of  Judah  for  eight  years.    There  are  some 
very  considerable  difficulties  as  to  the  chronology,  how 
ever,  on  which  we  do  not  enter  here,  see  2  Ki.  i.  17 ;  iii  i ; 
viii.  10.     His  character  presented  a  melancholy  contrast 
to  that  of  his  father,  as  "he  walked  in  the  way  of  the 

j  kings  of  Israel,   as  did  the  house   of    Ahab ;    for  the 

I  daughter  of  Ahab  was  his  wife :  and  he  did  evil  in  the 

sight  of  the  Lord."     He  appears  early  to  have  given 

proofs  of  his  character  by  murdering  the  whole  of  his 

j  brothers,  to  whom  his  father  had  assigned  subordinate 

posts  in  the  government,  and  also  some  of  the  other 

"princes    of    Israel."     Such   atrocities    could  scarcely 


JEHOSHABEATH 


Sol 


JEHOSHAPHAT 


fail  to  excite  disaffection.  Accordingly,  we  read  that 
Edom  revolted  from  the  kingdom  of  Judah  during  his 
reign;  and  though  he  executed  terrible  vengeance  upon 
the  Edomitcs,  he  was  unable  to  reduce  them  to  obedi 
ence.  At  the  same  time  also  then;  were  internal 
troubles,  for  Li bn ah  revolted  "from  under  his  hand, 
because  he  had  forsaken  the  Lord  God  of  his  fathers.'' 
On  account  of  his  daring  and  persistent  wickedness, 
after  the  pattern  of  Ahab's  family,  there  came  to  him 
a  letter  with  terrible  threatenings  from  the  prophet 
Elijah.  And  accordingly  the  Lord  stirred  up  the  Philis 
tines  and  ''the  Arabian*  that  were  near  the  Ethio 
pians,"  who  carried  mi  war  successfully  against  him, 
and  spoiled  his  kingdom,  and  his  very  palace  of  its 
treasures,  and  led  captive  his  wives  and  all  his  sons 
except  the  youngest.  In  addition  to  all  this,  he  was 
smitten  with  an  incurable  disease,  and  at  the  end  of  two 
years  "his  bowel*  fell  out  by  reason  <>f  his  sickness;  so 
he  died  of  sore  diseases.'  And  his  people  marked  their 
strong  disapprobation  by  withholding  all  royal  honours 
from  his  burial,  -i  Ki.  viii .  ii;--_(t  ;  -JCli.  xxi.  f<;.  c.  M.  ]>.  | 

JEHOSHABEATH.     ,*<  JEHUSHEBA. 

JEHO'SHAPHAT  \Jil«,ral  is  jiulje,  or  perhaps 
rather,  lie  trli'mi  Jtlumilt  judycx],  is  the  name  of  one  oi' 
the  best  and  most  distinguished  of  the  kings  of  Judah. 
He  reigned  twenty-live  years,  from  about  n.r.  I'll  to 
Ns!».  His  history  is  given  briefly  in  1  Ki.  xxii.  -ll-."i:i: 
but  very  much  more  fully  in  '1  Ch.  xvii.-xx.  He  suc 
ceeded  his  pious  father  Asa.  in  whose  footsteps  he 
walked,  \\ithout  Uirniiii;-  aside.  And  the  hi_h  te-ti- 
mony  is  borne  to  his  personal  character,  and  to  the 
blessing  which  attended  on  it,  that,  ''The  Lord  was 
with  Jehoshaphat;  because  be  walked  in  the  first  wavs 
of  his  father  I >a\ id,  and  sought  not  unto  Baalim:  but 
sought  to  the  Lord  God  of  his  father:  and  walked  in 
his  commandments,  and  not  after  the  doings  of  Israel. 
Therefore  the  Lord  stablished  the  kingdom  in  his 
hand:  and  all  Jndah  brought  to  Jehoshaphat  presents. 
and  lie  had  riches  and  honour  in  abundance.  And  his 
heart  was  lifted  up  in  the  ways  of  the  Lord:  moreover, 
he  took  away  the  high  places  and  groves  out  of  Judah/' 
L'Cli.  xvii.  :!-t;.  The  closing  stateint  nt  is  confirmed  at  eh. 
xix.  '.'>;  yet  it  is  to  be  taken  in  connection  with  eh.  \x.  :'•_!. 
•  'i''>,  that  ''he  walked  in  the  way  of  A-:i  his  father,  and 
departed  not  from  it:  doing  that  whieh  was  rijit  in 
the  sight  of  the  Lord:  ln>\\  brit.  the  hi^h  places  weiv 
not  taken  away,  for  as  yet  the  people  had  not  prepared 
their  hearts  unto  the  <!'>d  of  their  fathers''— confirmed 
by  1  Ki.  xxii.  •(:!.  We  must  understand  from  the 
combination  of  these  two  accounts,  that  Jehoshaphat 
succeeded  in  removing  heathenish  worship:  but  that 
his  people  were  not  in  a  spiritual  state  so  favourable  as 
to  enable  him  to  put  down  those  high  places  in  which 
Jehovah  alone  was  worshipped.  Yet  his  own  faith 
and  obedience  were  sincere  and  scriptural,  and  it  was 
his  aim  in  every  way  to  give  full  effect  to  the  law  of 
God.  Accordingly,  he  appointed  a  commission,  con 
sisting  of  live  princes,  nine  Levites.  and  two  priests, 
to  go  round  among  the  cities  of  Judah;  carrying  the 
book  of  the  law  along  with  them,  and  giving  instruc 
tion  to  the  people.  And  he  himself  took  a  share  in 
the  work  of  going  among  the  people,  and  bringing 
them  back  to  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their  fathers.  And 
no  doubt,  in  pursuance  of  the  same  object,  he  set  up 
judges  throughout  the  land  in  all  the  fenced  cities,  to 
judge  for  the  Lord;  whilst  in  Jerusalem  itself  he 
erected  a  supreme  court  for  references  and  appeals, 


j  composed  of  Levites  and  priests,  and  chief  of  the  fathers 
of  Israel,  with  the  chief  priest  over  them  ''in  all  mat- 

'  ters  of  the   Lord,"    and    ''the   ruler   of    the   house  of 

!  Judah  for  all  the  king's  matters;"    while  the  Levites 
acted  as  "officers"'  (.ifi'lta-iiii).  L'ch.xvii.  7-<i;  Xix.  i-n. 

The  prosperity  at  home  which  accompanied  this 
faithfulness  to  God  is  mentioned  in  a  passage  already 
([noted.  Besides,  he  built  castles  and  store -cities 
throughout  his  dominions;  and  lie  aimed  at  the  restora 
tion  of  the  old  trade  from  the  ports  of  the  Red  Sea, 
though  unsuccessfully,  owing  to  a  cause  immediately 
to  be  mentioned.  He  had  also  his  kingdom  divided 
into  live  sections  for  military  purposes,  with  men 
enrolled  capable  of  bearing  arms  to  the  number  of 
TJO.imn  in  Judah,  and  :!Mt,iiiiO  in  Benjamin.  And 
the  fear  of  the  Lord  was  on  all  lands  round  about:  so 
that,  instead  of  venturing  to  make  war  with  him.  the 
Philistines  and  Arabians  brought  him  presents  and 
tribute  silver.  2  Ch.  xvii.  IIP- in.  The  land  of  Edom  was  in 
:i  subject  state.  "There  was  then  no  king  in  Edom;  a 
deputy  was  kiii'j."  iKi.xxii.47;  as  the  king  of  Edom 
seems  to  be  a  v;is>;d  jn  the  account  of  the  war  carried 
.'ii  by  Jehoshaphat  and  Jehoram.  king  of  Israel. 
against  -Moah,  -.'Ki.iii.  On  one  occasion,  however, 
Jehoshapliat  \\as  in  very  terrible  danger  on  account  of 
a  confederacy,  embracing  the  Moabites,  Ammonites, 
Edomites,  and  others:  which  was  formidable,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  nations  engaged  in  it,  but  also  on 
account  of  the  secrecy  of  their  preparations  and  the 
suddenness  of  their  attack.  But  the  pietj  of  the  king, 
and  the  encouragement  of  a  prophet  from  among  the 
Levites.  and  the  special  interposition  of  God  bv  whieh 
the  enemy  were  involved  in  jealousies,  and  became 
self -destroyed  -a\vd  Jehoshaphat  from  this  danger, 
and  increased  his  confidence  in  God  and  his  credit 
among  men,  20'h.  xx.  1-30.  This  account  was  once  re 
jected  by  the  more  daring  rationalists,  but  their  scepti 
cism  has  not  many  followers  now;  the  substantial  truth 
of  the  narrative  being  admitted,  not  only  by  Ewald, 
but  also  by  critics  like  Thenius  and  Mitzig.  To  this 
glorious  manifestation  of  Jehovah  there  is  also  con- 
iirmation  borne  bv  I's.  Ixxxiii.  xlvii.  and  xlviii.:  per- 

j  haps  also  xlvi. 

The  one  great  error  of  Jehoshaphat' s  administration 
was  the  connection  which  he  formed  with  the  idolatrous 
kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes.  it  was  natural  and  right, 
perhaps,  to  be  at  peace  with  them,  instead  of  inaintain- 
in-  CM). slant  war,  or  irritation  which  was  ever  leading 
to  war.  But  he  went  far  be  von  d  this;  and  to  cement 
the  union,  lie  formed  a  disastrous  matrimonial  alliance 
between  his  son  and  successor  Jehoram,  and  Athaliah 
the  daughter  of  Ahab.  This  led  him  first  to  go  to  war 
with  the  Syrians  at  Ramoth-gilead,  when  he  narrowly 
escaped  with  his  life:  the  risk  having  been  all  the 
ureater  on  account  of  a  cowardly  proposal  by  king 
Ahab,  to  which  he  magnanimously  but  rashly  acceded, 
1  Ki.  xxii.  i-.'i's  2(.'h.  xviii.  It  led  him,  secondly,  at  the  time 
that  he  planned  a  renewal  of  Solomon's  trade  by  sea 
between  Ezion-geber  and  Ophir,  to  entangle  himself 
with  Ahab's  son,  king  Ahaziah  ;  071  account  of  which 
unhallowed  association  his  scheme  proved  an  entire 
failure,  and  was  abandoned,  1  Ki.  xxii.  48,49;  2 Cli.  xx.  35-37. 
And  it  led  him  a  third  time  into  difficulty,  as  he  went 
with  Ahab's  other  son,  king  Jehoram,  on  an  expedition 
against  the  Moabites,  through  the  wilderness  of  Edom, 
where  they  would  have  perished  but  for  miraculous 
intervention,  L' Ki.iii.  On  each  of  these  occasions  we 


JEHOSHAPHAT,  VALLEY  <>F 


JEHOSHAPHAT,   VALLEY  OF 


find  a  prophet  interfering,  to  warn,  or  rebuke,  or  sup 
port,  as  iiii^ht  lie  necessary;  and  in  the  mutual  bear 
ing  of  these  prophets  and  the  king,  \ve  may  trace  one 
of  the  surest  evidences  of  the  high  attainments  which 
Jehoshaphat  had  made  in  the  divine  life. 

rl'he  forty-one  years  of  the  reign  of  Asa,  and  the 
immediately  succeeding  twenty-five  of  Jehoshaphat, 
may  be  regarded  as  the  climax  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
kingdom  of  Judah;  and  this  prosperous  period  stands 
out  the  more  remarkably  because  of  the  contrast  with 
the  succeeding  reigns,  which  are  characterized  by 
idolatry,  moral  degradation,  and  political  disaster. 
Yet  Jehoshaphat  could  scarcely  fail  to  see  that  he 
himself  hail  been  sowing  the  .seed  of  coming  evil,  when 
he  contracted  that  marriage  of  his  son  to  the  daughter 
of  Ahfib.  1 1  i*  impossible  to  say  what  his  misgivings 
mav  liave  been;  but  their  existence  in  si.me  shape  : nay 
perhaps  lie  inferred  from  wliat  is  stated  of  peculiar  pre 
cautions  which  lie  took  in  regulating  the  kingdom,  the 
succession  to  the  throne,  and  the  position  of  the  royal 
family  generally.  Of  his  six  younger  sons  it  is  written, 
"  Their  father  irave  them  great  gifts 
of  silver  and  of  gold,  and  of  pre 
cious  things,  with  fenced  cities  in 
Judah;  but  the  kingdom  gave  he 
to  Jehoram,  because  he  was  the 
first-born,"  2  Ch.  xxi.  3.  And  again. 
<%'Tn  the  fifth  year  of  Joram  the  son 
of  Ahab,  king  of  Israel,  ,l<]i<ixh<ii>li<it 
In'iiKj  then  liiiifi  of  J/ulu/i,  Jehoram 
the  son  of  Jehoshaphat  king  of 
Judah  began  to  reign,"  2Ki.  viii.  n;:  a 
statement  which  suggests,  perhaps, 
that  Jehoshaphat  found  reason  to 
proclaim  his  successor  before  his 
own  death  took  place,  as  David 
had  to  do  in  reference  to  Solo 
mon.  [<;.  (.'.  M.  D.  | 

JEHO'SHAPHAT,  VALLEY 
OF.  This  name  occurs  only  in 
the  prophet  Joel,  di.  Hi. 2, 12;  and  the 
question  has  been  raised  as  to 
whether  it  is  a  proper  name  at  all, 
indicative  of  a  known  locality,  and 
not  simply  the  "  valley  of  Jehovah's  judgment" — the 
place  where  Jehovah  will  execute  his  judgment.  It  is 
called  twice  over  in  verse  14  Emck  Harotz,  the  "valley 
of  decision,"  or  judgment,  or  excision,  according  to  New- 
come.  How  far  there  is  a  reference  to  Megiddo.  the 
great  slaughter  plain  of  Palestine,  or  to  Berakah,  in 
the  Tekoa  desert,  where  Jehoshaphat  assembled  his 
troops  after  the  overthrow  of  Ammon,  Moab,  and 

Edom.  and  "blessed  the  Lord,"  we  do  not  undertake 

i 
to  say. 

There  is  nothing  in  Scripture  to  fix  the  locality:  but  ; 
Jewish  tradition  has  assigned  it  to  the  neighbourhood 
of  Jerusalem.  There  is  one  peculiarity  of  expression 
in  connection  with  it  which  suggests  this.  In  the 
second  verse  of  the  chapter  above  named,  the  nations 
are  said  to  be  "  bro»i/}>t  <l.<~ni'ii  into  the  valley  of  Je 
hoshaphat  ;"  \vhile  in  the  twelfth  verse  they  a.re  said 
to  "come  up  to  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat" — which 
variation  or  contradiction  of  expression  is  only  recon 
cilable  on  the  supposition  that  the  valley  was  near 
the  capital,  "whither  the  tribes  go  up."1  The  words 
of  the  sixteenth  verse  also  describe  a  scene  which  im 
plies  that  Jerusalem,  from  which  "the  Lord  utters  his 


voice,"  and  the  valley  where  the  judgment  occurs, 
were  near  each  other. 

Whether  tradition  rested  on  those  in  fixing  the 
locality,  or  whether  the  name  and  place  were  known 
before  the  days  of  Joel,  we  have  no  means  of  ascer 
taining.  But  from  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  cen 
tury  Jew  and  Gentile  have  concurred  unanimously  in 
identifying  the  lower  part  of  the  lied  of  the  Kedron 
with  the  prophet's  valley.1  Kimchi  conjectures  that 
Jehoshaphat  built  or  did  something  here,  from  which 
it  took  its  name. 

The  French  pilgrim  (A.D.  :'>:','•'>)  mentions  it  as  be 
tween  the  eastern  wall  and  the  Mount  of  Olives;  as  in 
some  places  covered  with  vines  in  his  dav,  which  is 
not  tlit'  case  now;  as  having  in  one  part  the  rock  at 
which  Judas'  betrayal  of  his  Master  took  place,  and  at 
another  the  palm-tree  from  which  the  boughs  were 
plucked  to  strew  the  Lord's  pathway  in  the  day  of  his 
triumphal  entry  into  the  city.  Eusebius  and  Jerome 
simply  speak  of  it  as  lying  between  Jerusalem  and  the 
Mount  of  Olives.  Subsequent  writers  of  the  early  and 


middle  ages  speak  of  it  in  connection  with  Gehenna  or 
Hinnom,  as  if  the  one  were  the  place  of  judgment,  and 
the  other  of  punishment,  and  therefore  properly  adjoin 
ing  each  other;  another  of  the  many  proofs  that  the 
common  location  of  Hinnom  (to  the  south  1  is  a  modern 
idea,  founded  neither  on  Scripture  nor  tradition.  The 
present  valley  of  .Jehoshaphat  occupies  the  Kedron 
hollow  and  the  adjoining  acclivities  on  both  sides.  Its 
limits  have  not  been  defined,  but  it  is  supposed  to 
begin  a  little  above  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin  (Um- 
ed-Deraj),  and  to  extend  to  the  bend  of  the  Kedron, 
under  Scopus.  The  acclivity  to  the  eastern  wall  of 
Jerusalem  is  —  at  least  towards  the  top  —  a  Turkish 
burying- ground;  and  the  white  tombs,  with  the  Koran 
(in  stone)  at  the  one  end  and  a  turban  at  the  other, 
look  picturesque,  as  they  dot  for  several  hundred  yards 
the  upper  part  of  the  slope.  The  other  acclivity, 
ascending  the  steep  between  Olivet  and  the  Mount  of 
Corruption,  is  crowded  all  over  with  flat  Jewish  tombs, 
each  with  its  Hebrew  inscription,  and  speckled  here 

1  "Ilaec  longitmline  duovum  nrilliariuni  nb  anstro  in  aqui- 
lonem  protenditur;  latitvuline  angusta." — C'otovici  Itintrarium, 
p.  260. 


JEHOSHAPHAT,  VALLEY  OF 


$03 


JFHOSHEBA 


and  there  with  bushy  olive  trees.  Thus  Moslems  and 
Jews  occupy  the  valley  <  if  Jehoshaphat  between  them, 
with  their  dead  looking  across  the  Kedron  into  each 
others'  faces;  and  laid  there  in  the  common  belief  that 
it  was  no  ordinary  privilege  to  die  in  Jerusalem,  and 
be  buried  in  such  a  spot. 

This  traditional  spot  of  burial  and  judgment,  though 
called  an  c-ntck  or  valley,  is  more  properly  a  ravine  : 
the  declivities  on  either  side  coming  to  a  pretty  narrow 
angle  at  the  bottom,  without  any  level  ground  be 
tween  :  a  presumption  that  this  is  not  Joel's  tank, 
though  tradition  has  s<>  unvaryingly  affirmed  it.  The 
tomb  of  Jehoshaphat  is  pointed  out  on.  the  precipitous 
face  of  the  eastern  steep,  along  with  those  of  Absalom, 
Zechariah,  and  James.  I'.ut  for  these  identifications 
there  is  no  evidence;  and  as  tradition  has  varied  in 
regard  to  the  names  of  these  rocky  sepulchres,  we  are 
uncertain  whether  even  one  of  them  is  authentic. 
That  of  Absalom  seems  the  m<>-t  ancient  in  its  desig 
nation,  and  perhaps  the  most  likelv  to  lie  correct. 
Why  one  of  these  is  called  the  tomb  ..f  Jehoshaphat, 
or  when  the  name  was  given,  we  know  ii"t.  The  tra 
dition  regarding  it  is  Jewish:  and  yet  the  Je\\s  are 
sufficiently  acquainted  \\itli  their  Scriptures  to  know 
that  this  king  was  not  buried  there,  but  with  his  fa 
thers  in  the  citv  of  David,  -C'li.  xxi.  l.  It  is  just  possible 
that  it  may  be  the  tomb  of  some  old  rabbi  of  the  same 
name;  and  this  conjecture  derives  some  presumption 
from  the  fact  that  the  Jtws  bury  in  it  their  tattered 
worn-out  rolls.  \\liv  tliev  should  brint;1  their  old 
books  to  the  tomb  of  kinu  Jehoshaphat  is  not  \vrv 
evident:  but  why  they  should  deposit  them  in  the 
tomb  of  one  of  their  venerable  scribes  or  rabbis  is  plain 
enough.  The  Jews  so  venerate  every  scrap  on  \\hich 
the  word  of  Cod  is  written  that  they  will  not  burn  or 
destroy  it;  they  bury  it  as  they  would  the  dead  body 
of  a  father.  Passing  do\\  n  the  valley  one  day.  some 
few  vears  au'o.  and  examining  these  tombs,  we  observed 
that  that  of  ..Jehoshaphat.  had  been  recently  opened  : 
perhaps  an  hour  or  two  before.  The  earth  lav  fresh 
and  loose,  as  if  newly  dug.  and  the  stone  in  front 
seemed  as  if  it  had  been  removed.  \\  e  inquired  the 
reason,  and  ascertained  that  a  party  of  Jews  had  just 
left  the  tomb,  after  burying  there  some  of  their  faded 
rolls.  So  strong  is  the  Jewish  reverence  for  the  divine 
word,  and  so  striking  the  way  in  which  that  reverence 
expresses  itself,  their  scrolls  must  mix  in  decav  with 
the  dust  of  their  fathers. 

Once,  wandering  by  moonlight  in  this  valley,  we 
saw  a  Jewish  funeral,  which  had  waited  till  the  sun 
had  set.  and  the  Jewish  sabbath  was  closed.  It  came 
round  the  south-eastern  shoulder  of  Moriah,  down  the 
crooked  pathway  that  descends  into  the  Kedron  ;  then 
mounted  slowly  up  the  acclivity  of  Olivet,  some  ten 
or  twelve  torches  gleaming  among  the  tombs.  The 
procession  rested  under  an  olive-tree,  for  there  the 
shallow  grave  was  dug.  Taking  the  shrouded  dead 
from  the  bier,  they  laid  it  in  the  earth  uncoffined, 
according  to  oriental  custom.  They  then  covered  the 
body  with  a  layer  of  large  stones,  pressed  firmly  down. 
lest  the  jackals  should  dig  up  and  devour  it:  and  then, 
filling  up  the  rest  with  the  dry  grey  soil  of  Olivet,  they 
scattered  homeward  to  the  city.  Strange  did  that 
torch-light  funeral  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  seem  to 
us.  We  have  seen  many  a  more  striking  ravine  than 
this;  but  were  it  well- watered  and  well-planted,  as  of 
old.  it  would  be  a  spot  of  no  common  beauty.  But  it 


is  bare  and  wild  ;  without  verdure,  save  that  of  an 
occasional  olive-tree. 

If  the  "king's  dale"  (or  valley  of  Shaveh)  of  Oe. 
xiv.  17.  and  of  '2  Sa,  xviii.  18.  be  the  same,  and  if  the 
commonly  received  location  of  them  be  correct,  then 
we  have  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  identified  with  that 
of  Melchizedek,  ami  its  history  carries  us  back  to 
Salem' s,  earliest  days.  But  at  what  time  it  became  a 
cemetery  we  are  not  informed. 

Wady  Jus  and  Wady  >'/,«/«/,  Wady  Jtlnha/Jmf, 
and  Wady  Funn'm  are  said  to  be  its  modern  names. 
Cyril  in  the  fourth  century  mentions  it  in  a  way  which 
indicates  that  in  his  day  tradition  had  altered,  or  that 
the  valley  was  supposed  to  embrace  a  wider  sweep  of 
countrv  than  now;  for  he  speaks  of  it  as  some  furlongs 
east  of  Jerusalem-  as  bare,  and  fitted  for  equestrian 
exercises'  OMau'l's  1'ak-st.  v,.l  j.  y.  ;;;,;,).  Some  old  travel 
lers  say  that  it  was  "  three  miles  in  length,  reaching 
from  the  vale  of  Jehimioii  to  a  place  without  the  city 
which  they  call  the  Sepulchres  of  the  Kings"  (Travels  of 
two  Kti.disbmeii.  two  centuriesagu).  Some  of  the  old  travel 
lers,  such  as  Felix  Fahri  in  the  fifteenth  century,  call 
it  <  Vie  from  the  Koilas  of  Eusebius  and  the  ( 'o'le  of 
Jerome;  and  tliev  call  that  part  of  the  Kedron  which 
is  connected  with  it  Crinarius  or  Krinaritis  —  the  place 
of  judgment  (l'^;l-  v"i  i-  r-  •1|"11-  We  may  add  that  these 
old  \\riters  extend  this  valley  considerally  upwards, 
placing  (Jethsemane  and  the  traditional  tomb  of  the 
Virgin  in  it.  They  seem  to  hu\e  divided  the  Kedron 
bed  into  two  parts  the  lower,  called  the  valley  of 
Siloam  or  Siloe;  the  upper,  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 
from  which  the  eastern  '.rate  of  the  city  in  early  times 
was  ealli  d.  not  as  now  St.  Stephen's,  but  "the  gate  of 
the  \.-dle\  of  Jehoshaphat." 

The  \alli-y  of  the  present  day  presents  nothing  re 
markable.  It  is  rough  to  the  feet  and  barren  to  the 
eye.  It  is  still,  moreover,  frequently  a  solitude,  with 
nothing  to  break  the  loneliness  but  perhaps  a  passing 
shepherd  with  a  few  sheep,  or  a  traveller  on  his  way 
to  Anata,  or  some  inhabitant  of  Silwan  or  Bethany 
going  into  the  city  by  the  gate  of  St.  Stephen.  Tombs, 
and  olives,  and  rough  veidureless  steeps  are  all  that 
meet  the  eye  on  either  side. 

[Sot-  Felix  F.-ibri  K\ai.rMoninii  ;  an<l  all  tin-  early  travellers, 
Mich  as  ill.-  Italian  l.atli,  and  tin-  S].ani.-li  Antonio  del  Castillo, 
in  the  iniddle  of  the  seventeenth  century;  also  Quaresmius, 
I>..ul,,1aii.  I'n.k.-srh,  Xielmhr,  Ol.-liuusen.  Robinson.)  [n.  n.  | 

JEHOSHE'BA  [././«./•"/,'.-<  oath;  i.e.  sworn  or  de 
voted  to  him],  a  daughter  of  Jehoram,  king  of  Judah; 
but  whether  also  of  Athaliah,  his  idolatrous  and  cruel 
wife,  is  not  stated,  -JKi.xi.-J.  From  the  pious  character 
maintained  by  Jehosheba,  it  has  very  commonly  been 
supposed  that  she  must  have  been  Jehoram's  daughter 
by  another  spouse.  Of  this,  however,  there  is  no  cer 
tain  evidence;  and  it  is  quite  possible  that,  by  coming 
under  better  influences,  she  may,  even  though  the 
daughter  of  so  infamous  a  mother,  have  taken  the  part 
she  did.  She  became  married  to  the  excellent  high- 
priest  Jehoiada--  the  only  recorded  instance  of  a  female 
of  the  royal  line  marrying  into  one  of  the  families  of 
Aaron;  and  by  preserving,  in  concert  with  her  hus 
band,  the  life  of  the  young  Joash,  till  he  could  be 
brought  forth  for  the  occupation  of  the  throne,  she 
rendered  an  important  service  to  the  cause  of  rightcous- 

1  There  is  a  valley  over  the  north-east  shoulder  of  Olivet 
called  Wady  Khalut  el-Jus.  This  may  be  connected  with  the 
above  tradition,  and  indicate  the  spot  which  Cyril  speaks  of. 


JEHOSHUA  « 

ness  and  order  at  a  very  critical  and  melancholy  period. 
(>>(•  JKHOIADA.) 

JEHOSH'U A  [ii-h oxr  /< r//>  or  salrat ion  lx  Je/iorah] ,  usu- 
.-  11 .  a]  i]  iea  ring  in  the  contracted  form  JOSHUA  (which  see). 

JEHO'VAH,  nVT  (after  or  before  «jnN,  ni'.T  >•     The 

T   :  T    -:       •  v: 

name  of  God  in  most  frequent  use  in  the  Hebrew  Scrip 
tures;  in  the  Kii'/lish  Bible,  for  a  reason  to  be  after 
wards  mentioned,  it  is  commonly  represented  (we  can 
not  say  rendered)  by  the  word  LORD. 

I  n  treating  of  this  most  sacred  name,  we  shall  impure, 
I.  Whether  Jthoral  ix  the  true  (iiid  eir/'/inal  jir/n/ini- 
etafion  af  the  name.—  It  has  been  already  explained 
(*•<?<  HEBREW  LANCI:A(,K>,  that  when  the  Hebrew  lan 
guage  was  first  reduced  to  writing,  it  was  not  thought 
necessary  to  invent  signs  to  indicate  the  roin-l  sounds. 
<>ulv  the  consonants  were  expressed  in  writing  at  fir* I. 
The  vowel  signs  which  appear  in  our  Hebrew  Bibles 
were  not  introduced  for  centuries  after  the  Hebrew 
ceased  to  be  a  living  language.  Further,  it  is  neces 
sary  to  explain  that,  in  reading  the  Scriptures,  the 
Jews  were  accustomed  in  certain  cases  to  substitute 
for  the  word  in  the  written  text  another  word  which 
appeared  to  them  more  proper  to  be  used.  One  of  the 
words  thus  vrittcit  but  not  read  was  the  divine  four- 
letter  name,  -;-•  (Vnvin.  Soon  after  the  Babylonish 
captivity,  the  Jewish  teachers,  from  a  feeling  of  super 
stitious  reverence,  allowed  this  name  to  fall  almost 
entirely  into  disuse.  They  thought  it  too  sacred  to 
take  upon  their  lips,  even  when  reading  the  Scriptures 
in  the  synagogues  on  the  Sabbath.  Wherever,  there 
fore,  this  name  appears  in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  they 
substituted  for  it —  not  in  the  written  text,  but  in  read 
ing — some  other  less  sacred  and  mysterious  name  of 
God.  usually  the  name  Adona!.1  They  continued  to 
write  YHVH  (not  for  the  world  would  they  alter  the 
text  in  one  iota),  but  they  read  Admiai.  That  this 
was  the  established  practice  centuries  lief  ore  Christ  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that,  in  the  oldest  Greek  version, 
that  of  the  Seventy,  the  name  VHVH  (Jc/ioraJi)  is  not 
found  even  once,  but  instead  of  it,  Kvpios,  which  is  the 
Greek  equivalent  of  Aden/at,  .Lord.  The  Greek  trans 
lators  gave  the  equivalent  of  the  text  as  read,  not  of 
the  text  as  written.  The  sacred  name  would  have 
boon  desecrated  by  translation  into  Greek  even  more 
than  by  being  uttered  in  Hebrew.  Now,  in  order  to 
account  for  the  formation  of  the  word  Jehovah,  one 
other  explanation  is  required,  and  it  is  this:  that  when 
the  Jewish  grammarians  found  it  necessary,  in  order 
to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  the  ancient  pronunciation 
of  their  language,  to  invent  a  system  of  signs  to  repre 
sent  the  vowel  sounds,  which  had  hitherto  been  without 
any  representation  in  writing,  and  proceeded  to  attach 
these  signs  to  the  sacred  text,  the  rule  they  observed  in 
the  case  of  the  words  above  mentioned,  which  were 
written  but  not  read,  was  to  attach  to  these  words  not 
the  points  which  properly  belonged  to  them,  but  the 
points  belonging  to  the  words  which  were  read  in  place 
of  them.  Following  this  rule,  they  attached  to  nTV 
(VnvH)  the  points  of  »J'-]K  ('<V/»/>«//);  and  hence  the 

T     -; 

form  ni'ns  and  the  name  F<7/°r«A  (Jehovah).2     There 


•>1  JEHOVAH 

'  can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  the  pronunciation 
.lihemih,  notwithstanding  the  sacredness  with  which, 
from  early  associations,  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
invest  it,  is  quite  erroneous,  combining  as  it  does  the 

;  consonants  of  one  word  with  the  vowels  of  another. 
It  is  besides  comparatively  modern;  it  is  found  in  none 
of  the  ancient  versions;  it  was  known  to  none  of  the 
church  fathers;  even  Origen,  in  that  column  of  his 

'  Jfe.r<(/>/«,  in  which  he  tried  to  express,  in  Greek  ehar- 

'  acters,  the  original  Hebrew  as  pronounced  in  his  day. 

i  always,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  set  down  'Aoiavai, 
where  the  Hebrew  has  ni;r-  It  is  said  that  Peter 
Galatin,  a  learned  convert  from  Judaism,  of  the  six 
teenth  century,  was  the  first  who  suggested  the  pro 
nunciation  Jehovah." 

For  a  more  detailed  statement  of  the  argument  upon 
this  point,  we  must  refer  to  see.  I'll  of  the  \oiing.T  Bux 
torf  s  treatise  l)c  A'omuii/ius  Dei  llthn/ieix.  which  forms 
part  of  a  volume  entitled  J)!.-mcrtut!<i,i(  .•<  I'hi/i>/<if/ic<>- 
Theoloyicce,  and  is  also  included  in  Belaud,  Dr-/-ax  /,></•- 
fitationiiin,  &e.  The  only  part  of  his  statement  which 
is  defective  and  unsatisfactory  is  that  in  which  he 

j  endeavours  to  meet  the  objection  founded  upon  such 
names  as  Jcho-xluq>hat,  .Jehn-imla,  Jcho-iakim,  in  each 
of  which  the  first  part.  Jeho.  is  unquestionably  a  frag 
ment  of  the  divine  name  ^\-|».  In  these  names,  it  has 
been  alleged,  is  preserved  the  original  pronunciation  of 
the  first  part  of  the  name  JeJin-raJi.  This  argument, 
however,  is  more  plausible  than  sound,  though  Buxtorf 
fails  to  meet  it.  The  true  answer  to  it  is,  that  when  a 
fragment  of  one  word  is  incorporated  with  another 
word,  it  does  not  usually  retain  its  original  form,  but 
undergoes  a  change.  And  the  JcJio,  or  rather  Velio 
(l'n»),  which  forms  the  initial  syllable  of  the  names  just 

mentioned,  is,  as  is  now  generally  agreed,  a  contraction 
from  HTi»>  the  several  stages  in  the  process  of  corruption 

being  ^  ^  ^  (i/alr,  y'har,  y'hau,  //7<o),  compare 
»n'  =  \1*-  I'11  the  same  way  we  explain  the  termination 
W  (?/''/"'),  also  a  contraction  of  nin*>  i]1  such  names  as 

T 


1  "Where  Adonai  itself  precedes  or  follows  niHS  they  read 
Elnhim.  Hence  the  peculiar  form  rTin'i  the  points  belonging 
to  EloJti,,)  (D'riStf). 

-  That      in    nir,1'    stands   for       is   evident   from   the   forms 


- 

mi'fiJi.  Jt  is  evidently  a  corruption  oit/aJtr;  compare  >nh- 
2.  What  is  tie  true  promcnciatlon  and  import  of  thin 
diri/ie  n«me? — In  attempting  to  answer  this  question, 
we  derive  but  little  assistance  from  tradition.  The 
ancient  Jews  either  could  not  or  would  not  reveal  what 
they  regarded  as  a  sacred  mystery.  Thus,  Josephus 
(Ant.  b.  ii.  oh.  xii.  sect.  4),  in  relating  the  history  of  Moses, 
says:  "  Whereupon  God  declared  to  him  his  holy  name, 
which  had  never  been  discovered  to  men  before,  con 
cerning  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  me  to  speak."  The 
later  Jews  seem  to  have  made  the  mere  utterance  of 
the  name  on  any  occasion  a  sufficient  ground  of  exclu 
sion  from  eternal  life.^  \SeeGesenius,  Thesaurus,  p.  ;•>"),  57fi.) 
From  them,  therefore,  no  assistance  is  to  be  expected. 
The  Greek  writers,  our  only  other  source  of  informa 
tion,  are  not  quite  so  silent.  Diodorus  Siculus,  the 
earliest  to  whom  appeal  can  be  made,  gives  IAi2  as  the 

:!  Buxtorf,  De  Sominibm  Dei  Hebraicis,  sect.  20;  Gesenius, 
Thm.  s.  v.  But  the  pronunciation  Jora  was  not  unknown  before 
Galatin,  who  himself  says  :  Quidam  ex  nostris  aiunt  hoc  nomen 

in  nostris  literis  sonare  Jova Non  Jova  nee  Jeova  sed 

Jehova  cum  leni  aspiratione,  sicut  scribitur  pronunciandum 
est  (De  Arcanis  Catholicw  Vi-ritatis,  lib.  ii.  cap.  10). 

•"  Qui  prommciat  ipsum  nomen  quatuor  literarum  non  liabebit 
pa  item  in  seculo  venturo. 


JEHOVAH 


JEHOVAH 


Greek  e<[iiivalent  of  r^rr;  but,  as  he  wrote  his  history 
only  a  few  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  there 
fore  long  after  the  name  had  become  a  sacred  mystery 
among  the  Jews,  from  whom  alone  any  trustworthy 
information  could  be  had,  his  testimony  cannot  haye 
much  weight  attached  to  it:  still  less  that  of  the  later 
writers,  by  whom  the  same  form  of  the  name  is  re 
peated,  sometimes  slightly  modified,  as  IAOT,  IET£2. 
It  is  not  improbable  that  this  Greek  tradition  had  its 
origin  in  those  compound  names  referred  to  above,  in 
which  the  name  appears  under  the  abbreviated  forms 
Yc/tn,  Ya/tn.  From  such  a  name,  for  example,  as 
!|n*T3y>  ohael- ijalm  (Oladiah),  it  would  be  easy  to  infer, 
especially  after  comparison  with  Phoenician  and  other 
names  of  similar  formation  (sec  Guscnius,  Monumenta  rimjn. 
p. 354),  that  the  name  of  the  God  of  the  Jews  was  Yah*/, 
or  omitting  the  guttural,  us  the  Greeks  would  naturally 
do,  IAOT  or  IAS>.  .Mure  important  is  the  statement 
of  Theodoivt,  that  the  Samaritans  pronounced  the 
name  IAI!E.  a  form  found  also  in  Epiphanius  (see  lies. 
Thus.  p.  r>77).  This  is  regarded  by  most  modern  scholars 
as  the  nearest  approach  to  the  true  pronunciation. 

IJut,  passing  from  tradition,  and  not  delaying  to 
notice  the  futile  attempts  of  some  authors  to  illustrate 
this  name  from  heathen  sources,  let  us  make  our  appeal 
to  Scripture.  The  two  most  important  passages  f«r 
our  present  purpose  are  found  in  Ex.  iii.  and  vi.  In 
the  former  we  read  that  Hod  called  to  .Moses  from  the 
midst  of  the  burning  bush,  and  after  commanding  him 
to  put  oil'  his  shoes  from  hi-  feet,  because  the  place 
whereon  he  stood  was  holy,  proceeded  to  declare  him 
self  the  Cod  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob.  And 
when  Moses  hid  his  face,  because  he  \\  as  afraid  to  look 
upon  <;„<!,  then  tin  Lord  (;-.-.>  said  "Hum  seen,  Than 
fun  (lie  unlictloii  of  mil  jiio/,/,,  and  I  hare  Inard  their 
<•/•//,  .  .  .  and  have  come  d<i'.rn  to  deliver  them;  .  .  . 

Olid   IIOIC,    CUIIIC,    I    H-'lll   ,«uld    tin'   in   E'l'll*!."        And    \\llell 

Closes  shr.ink  back  from  the  arduous  mission,  saving  to 
t,'od,  "  \\'ho  am  I  that  I  should  >/o  to  Pharaoh,  and 
that  1  xhonld.  lir'unj  the  children  of  I  trail  forth  from 
K<J!ll>t!"  the  divine  answer  is,  "  lint  I  trill  In:  u'itli  thtt" 
("•\"y  ~"~N  '21-  -^"d  again,  when  Moses  asks  by  what 
name  he  will  speak  of  Him  to  his  people,  the  answer  of 
find  is,  "  1  AM  THAT  1  AM  (riTlS  Tw'N  HTS^ •  Thus  ."halt 
tlwn  fait  t>i  tin:  children  of  /friii/.  T'AM  (rv-x)  hath  suit 
inr  in/to  I/OK."  Ami  this  is  repeated  in  the  verse  which 
follows,  \er.  i.i,  ami  Gnu  sn'nl  mn/'con  r  nntn  ,}/os<s,  Tin  if 
}sha/t  //ion  sa;/  nntn  the  child  ra>  of  I  frail,  TlIK  LnlU) 
(-^.)  <;,,</  of  inn- father*,  the  <iod  of  A  braham,  tin:  <,',,<( 
of  If  am',  and  tin  Hod  of  Jam!,,  hath  suit  me  unto  I/,,H  ; 
THIS  IS  MY  XAMK  FOK  KVKK,  and  this  if  mif  'memorial 

nntn  all  generations"  Emm  which  it  is  evident  that 
IT  IT  is  just  another  form  of  the  name  riTlN)  I  AM;  and 
its  origin  is  thus  ascertained.  Tlie  only  difference 
between  the  two  names  is,  that  the  one  is  a  verb  in  the 
Jifft  person,  the  other  the  same  verb  in  the  third.  The 
meaning  of  the  one  is  T  AM:  the  meaning  of  the  other 
is  HE  is.  The  one  is  therefore  the  name  of  Clod 
revealing  himself,  the  other  the  name  of  this  revealed 
God  contemplated  and  adored  by  man.1 


1  Gesenius  lias  suggested  that  possibly  r.lIT  may  bo  the  fct. 
Itifihil,  and  not  the  j'nt.  k«.t,  of  the  verb  of  existence,  and  may, 
therefore,  signify  //<  can*'*  tn  be,  tin:  author  of  existence ;  but  it 
is  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  that  in  the  passage  above  quoted 
rvHN;  which  is  undoubtedly  Kal,  is  —  n"i!T>  which  cannot 
therefore  be  Jliiihil. 


In  both  names,  -^x  and  p>rr,  the  root-idea  is  that 
of  inidirind  e.ristenre.  When  it  is  said  that  God's 
name  is  HE  is,  simple  being  is  not  all  that  is  affirmed, 
//c  is  in  a  sense  in  which  no  other  being  /.-•.  "Hie  revera 
est  <mi  a  seipso  est."  lie  if;  and  the  cause  of  his  being 
is  in  himself.  He  if  liecansc  he  if.  This  is  evidently 
the  meaning  of  the  divine  utterance.  /  am  that  I  am. 
Just  as  elsewhere,  on  a  similar  occasion:  ".I  will  haye 
mercy  on  whom  1  will  have  mercy,  Ex.  xxxiii.  in,  i.e.  in 
the  exercise  of  my  mercy  I  am  under  no  constraint — 
what  1  will  I  will  what  I  do  1  do:  so  here  -That  I  am 
[  am:  I  am  lie-cause  I  a  in;  the  cause  (if  one  may  so 
speak)  of  the  being  of  (lod  is  only  in  himself.  This 
surely  was  a  wonderful  conception  for  those  early  times: 
but  indeed  it  is  in  a  simple  unpolished  age,  before  the 
mind  has  been  varnished  over  by  the  influences  of  civi 
lization,  that  such  thoughts  most  easily  find  entrance 
and  take  firmest  hold.  The  notion,  therefore,  that  the 
name  Jehovah  had  its  origin  rather  in  the  age  of  David 
and  Solomon  than  in  that  of  Moses,  is  not  less  false 
philosophical  1}"  than  critically. 

1'Yoni  the  idea  of  "ml,  rireel  and  indi  fie nduit  existence, 
which  seems  to  be  the  root-idea  in  this  divine  name. 
follows  at  once  that  of  inde/n  ndi  nt  and  uncontrolled 
ti'tll  and  ai'tion.  This  aUo  is  a  leading  thought  in  the 
narrative  ipioted  a  little  ago.  1  am  the  (!od  of  Abra 
ham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob;  and  my  name  is  I  AM. 
As  God's  beiiiLT  is  undefivcd,  so  his  will  is  uncontrolled. 
All  other  beiiiLT  Hows  from  him.  so  all  other  wills  must 
beiK I  to  his.  It  may  not  always  seem  so:  it  may  rather 
seem  as  if  the  reverse  of  this  were  sometimes  true. 
Doubtless  in  Moses"  day  the  will  of  1'haraoh  seemed  to 
be  tlie  uTeat  power  in  Egypt.  J'>ut  God  revealed  him 
self  a<  Jehovah,  tlie  self- existent,  tlie  supreme  and 
sovereign  Will:  and  1'haraoh  \\hat  pm\cd  he  then  f 
Man,  that  is  a  \\erm,  and  a  son  of  man  that  is  a  worm. 

With  the  idea  of  underived  existence  are  also  closely 
allied  those  of  ifimi///  and  unchanycablencss.  He  who 
lias  in  himsi  If  the  cause  of  his  being  can  never  cease  to 
lie;  and  he  cannot  change'.  This  has  been  thought  by 
not  a  few  to  IK;  tlie  primary  import  of  the  name  Jeho 
vah,  which  accordingly  has  been  rendered  ''The  Eter 
nal.  And  in  support  of  this  view,  the  form  of  the 
name  (a  verb  in  the  future  tense)  lias  been  appealed  to. 
-•->  hi  if;  rather,  it  has  been  said,  he  fill  lie,"  lie  shall 
never  ceam  to  be.  Mut  the  so-called  future  in  Hebrew 
ditl'i  rs  very  widely  from  our  future  (.«t  HKHKKW  LAX- 
Gl'AfiE),  expressing  as  it  does  what  has  been  wont  to  be 
in  the  past  :is  well  as  what  will  be  in  the  future — the 
ongoing  of  being  or  action  (as  opposed  to  its  completion) 
in  whatever  sphere  of  time.  And  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  in  the  present  case,  though  it  is  impossible 
to  reproduce  the  Hebrew  exactly  in  English,  the  trans 
lation  /  am  that  I  a/n,  is  much  more  accurate  than  / 
>i:itl  /,e  that  I  in'//  be. 

Still,  though  the  ideas  of  eternity  and  unchangeable- 
ness  do  not  constitute  the  primary  import  of  the  name 
Jehovah,  they  are  in  Scripture,  as  we  might  anticipate, 
very  constantly  associated  with  it.  "I  am  Jehovah; 
/  chani/c  not,''  Hal.  iii.  (i.  To  Moses  the  revelation  of 
this  name  was  connected  with  God's  covenant-promise 
to  Abraham  —the  promise  of  a  seed  in  whom  all  the 
families  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed.  I  am  the  God 
of  Abraham;  and  I  am  Jehovah — the  God  of  Abraham 


JKHOVAII 


EHOVAH 


and  of  Abraham's  seed  fur  evermore.  Hence  it  is  that 
,)  ehovah  is  pre-eminently  in  Scripture  the  covenant-God 

of  Israel:  the  God  of  grace,  and  truth,  and  love.  Though 
these  attributes  are  not,  j»rimarily  at  least,  contained 
in  the  name,  they  are  inseparably  associated  with  it. 

I'a.-sing  from  the  import  of  the  name,  we  have  still 
a  remark  to  make  on  its  pronunciation.  Being  the  fut. 
kal  of  the  old  verb  linen  (  /«/i/n),  it  would  probably 
he  pronounced  YAIIVE,  which  does  not  differ  much  from 
the  IABE  (B  in  Greek  for  V)  of  the  Samaritans,  nor 
even  from  the  1AOT  or  1A12  of  the  Creek  writers.  So 
Gesenius,  Ewald,  &c.  Others  read  \\iln~iceih  (Jahawah). 

(Sec  IX'litzsch,  C'ommcntar  iibcr  den  1'saitur,  V'>rbericht,  viii.  i.\.) 

o.  What  is  the  relation  /xttrccn  t/tc  tlirim-  names 
.'nhni-nl  ((ml  i'.lnliin!  '['his  is  an  important  question; 
important  in  itself,  and  also  in  its  bearing  upon  other 
questions  of  Scripture  criticism,  in  the  solution  of  which 
the  whole  Christian  world  is  interested.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  discussions  as  to  the  origin  and  author 
ship  of  the  I'entateucli  turn  very  much,  though  not  so 
much  now  as  formerly,  on  the  import  and  u.-e  of  these 
names.  The  fact  that  in  some  sections  of  Genesis  the 
one  name  is  almost  exclusively  employed,  in  some  the 
other;  whilst  in  one  section,  ch.  ii.  4-iii.  24,  both  are  com 
bined  in  the  compound  name  Jehoveih-Elolum,  could 
not  fail  to  attract  attention  even  at  an  earlv  period; 
but  with  the  attempts  to  explain  this  and  similar  pheno 
mena  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  we  are  at  present  con 
cerned  only  in  so  far  as  they  may  have  tended  to  throw 
light  on  the  import  and  relation  of  the  divine  names 
themselves.  The  explanation  of  Tertullian  is  the 
earliest  to  which  we  can  appeal;  but  as  that  explana 
tion  is  founded  not  upon  the  Hebrew  names  Elohim 
and  Jehoralt,  but  upon  the  Greek  Qeos  ami  K 17510?,  and 
Latin  Dcus  and  Dunlin  us,  it  is  therefore  in  so  far  erro 
neous,  as  Ki'pios  and  ./)omtiin.i  are  the  Greek  and  Eatin 
equivalents,  not  of  Jehovah,  but  of  Adoneii.  Nearer  to 
the  truth  is  the  view  which  early  found  acceptance 
among  the  Jewish  doctors,  that  Elohim  is  the  name  of 
the  Supreme  as  the  God  of  judgment,  Jehovah  as  the 
God  of  yreice  and  mercy.  But  let  iis  see  what  light  the 
Scriptures  themselves  throw  upon  this  subject. 

(I.)  The  name  Elohim  is  the  name  of  God  as  The 
Itfity.  The  plural  form  of  the  name  does  not  denote 
plurality  nor  a  trinity  of  persons,  but.  as  constantly  in 
Hebrew,  the  greatness  and  majesty  of  him  who  bears 
the  name.  It  is  the  name  of  God  rather  as  a  power, 
the  Supreme  power,  to  whom  weak  man  looks  up  with 
adoring  awe;  hence  the  frequent  opposition  in  Scripture 
of  Elohim  and  Q^S  (man),  Ue.v.  2i;iv.  3:i,&c.  In  the  name 

TT 

Jehovah,  on  the  other  hand,  the  personality  of  the 
Supreme  is  more  distinctly  expressed.  It  is  every 
where  a  proper  name,  denoting  the  personal  God  and 
him  only;  whereas  Elohim  partakes  more  of  the  char 
acter  of  a  common  noun,  denoting  usually,  indeed,  but 
not  necessarily  nor  uniformly,  the  Supreme.  Elohim 
may  be  grammatically  denned  by  the  article,  or  by 
having  a  suffix  attached  to  it,  or  by  being  in  construc 
tion  with  a  following  noun.  The  Hebrew  may  say  the 
Elohim,  the  true  God,  in  opposition  to  all  false  gods; 
but  he  never  says  the  Jehovah,  for  Jehovah  is  the  name 
of  the  true  God  only.  He  says  again  and  again  my 
God  (»nSx>N>;  but  never  my  Jehovah,  for  when  he  says 

my  Hod,  he  means  Jehovah.  He  speaks  of  the  God  of 
Israel,  but  never  of  the  Jehovah  of  Israel,  for  there  is 
no  other  Jehovah.  He  speaks  of  the  living  God,  but 


never  of  the  living  Jehovah,  for  he  cannot  conceive  of 
Jehovah  as  other  than  living.  .  It  is  obvious,  therefore, 
that  the  name  Elohim  is  the  name  of  more  general 
import,  seeing  that  it  admits  of  definition  and  limita 
tion  in  these  various  ways;  whereas  Jehovah  is  the 
more  specific  and  personal  name,  altogether  incapable 
of  limitation.  Occasionally  Elohim  is  used  in  the  verv 
general  sense  of  superhuman,  xiipi_r~natnral,  as  when  the 
witch  of  Endor  exclaimed  that  she  saw  Elohim  ascend 
ing  from  the  earth,  l  Sa.  xxviii  i:;;  she  could  never  have 
said  she  saw  Jehovah  ascending.  So  we  read  of  men 
i,f  (,,,<!  (Elohim),  i.e.  men  who  seemed  to  have  become 
partakers  in  some  measure  of  the  divine  nature,  but 
never  of  men  of  Jehovah.  And  of  man  when  first 
created  it  is  said,  that  he  was  created  in  the  image  of 
Elohim,  not  of  Jehovah. 

(2.)  But  if  Elohim  is  a  name  of  wider  import  than 
Jehovah,  the  latter  is  a  name  of  deeper  significance. 
It  is  the  incommunicable  name  of  God,  emphatically 
THE  NAME  (awn),  embodying  as  it  does  His  most  dis 
tinctive  attributes  -self- existence,  unchangeableness, 
eternity. 

(3.)  As  the  entrance  of  sin  and  suffering  was  the 
occasion  of  this  deeper  revelation  of  the  divine  nature. 
Jehovah  is  eminently  the  ('<></  of  redemption — under 
the  old  covenant,  the  God  of  Israel.  The  correlative 
of  Elohim  is  man :  the  correlative  of  Jehovah  is  redccimd 
iiiiin  (lurml).  Elohim  is  God  in  nn.tnri,  :  Jehovah  is 
God  in  yrace,  E\.  xxxiv.  <;,  7.  Elohim  is  the  God  of  pro- 
/•ii/un-e;  Jehovah  the  God  of  promise  and  ///•()/>//< /•//. 
"  Thus  saith  Je/inra/i,"  are  the  words  with  which  the 
prophet  always  introduces  his  message;  never,  ''  T/tu* 
xait/i  E/ohliii."1  (See  on  this  subject  Hengstenberg,  Genuine 
ness  of  the  Pentateuch,  i.  p.  274,  ic.;  Clark's  trans.;  Kurt/,  History  of 
the  Old  Covenant,  i.  p.  1s,  \;x  > 

1.  H7(i 'ii  did  Hoeljirxt  nan/  /i/nixiff  «.s  Jthorah  ! — If 
Jehovah  be  in  a  special  manner  the  name  of  God  as  the 
Redeemer,  it  would  seem  that  the  revelation  of  the 
name  must  have  been  coeval  with  the  promise  of  re 
demption.  Accordingly,  in  the  second  section  of 
Genesis,  in  which  sin  and  redemption  are  first  men 
tioned,  the  name  Jehovah  also  for  the  first  time  appears. 
Compare  also  GO.  iv.  1,20.  It  has  been  thought,  however, 
that  the  conclusion  most  naturally  deducible  from  this 
early  introduction  of  the  name  in  the  sacred  Scriptures 
is  shown  to  be  incorrect  by  Ex.  vi.  2,  3,  where  we  read, 
"And  God  spake  unto  Closes,  arid  said,  I  am  Jehovah: 
and  I  appeared  unto  Abraham,  unto  Isaac,  and  unto 
Jacob,  by  the  name  of  God  Almighty,  but  l>y  my  name 
Jehovah  u~as  I  not  known  to  them."  But  those  who 
think  so  have  not  studied  the  last  words  just  quoted  in 
the  light  of  other  scriptures;  otherwise  they  would  have 
perceived  that  by  name  must  be  meant  here  not  the  two 
syllables  which  make  up  the  word  Jehovah,  but  the  idea 
which  it  expresses.  "When  we  read  in  Isaiah,  ch.  Hi.  o, 
"Therefore  my  people  shall  Tcnoic  my  name;"  or  in  Jere 
miah.  ch.xvi.2i,  "  They  shall  knoio  that  my  name  isJeho- 
rah;"  or  in  the  Psalms,  rs.ix.n.ir,  "They  that  know  thy 
name  Khali  put  their  truxt  in  thee;"  we  see  at  once 
that  to  know  Jehovah's  name  is  something  very  differ 
ent  from  knowing  the  four  letters  of  which  it  is  com 
posed.  It  is  to  know  by  experience  that  Jehovah  really 
is  what  his  name  declares  him  to  be.  (Compare  also  Is.  xix. 

1  The  relation  between  th«  names  Elohim  and  Jehovah  is,  in 
some  respects,  similar  to  that  between  the  national  names 
Hebrews  and  Israel. 


JEHOVAH-J1KEH 


.IK  ITU 


2i,,2i;Eze  xx.  .-,,<•;  \x.\ix.  o,  7;  I's.  Ixxxiii.  in-,  ixxxix.  17;  2Ch.  vi.33.)  .  JEHOZ'ABAD,  must  commonly  written  Jn/Aiun, 
And  when  therefore  it  is  said  of  the  patriarchs  that  God  !  which  see. 

was  nut  known  to  them  by  his  name  Jehovah,  but  ap-  !  JEHOZ'ADAK  [./</«> ra/i  ju.xttiicx],  in  Ezra  and 
peared  to  them  in  the  character  of  God  Almighty,  what  Xehemiah  abbreviated  into  JOZADAK  ;  the  son  of  the 
is  meant  is,  that  the  aspect  of  the  divine  character  :  last  high-priest  before  the  captivity,  namely  Seraiah, 
which  was  presented  to  them  was  rather  God's  almighti-  ;  who  was  slain  with  the  sword  at  Kiblah.  oii  the  final 
ness  than  that  special  aspect  which  is  expressed  in  the  |  taking  of  the  city,  2  Ki.  xxv.  i»-2i.  The  son  was  carried 
name  Jehovah.  God  makes  himself  known  as  Jehovah  ;  into  captivity,  and  died  there:  but  his  son  Joshua  was 
when  lie  hears  the  cry  of  his  people  out  of  the  depths,  !  among  those  who  returned,  and  in  him  the  suspended 
rescues  them  from  the  fearful  pit,  from  the  iron  furnace,  functions  of  the  high- priesthood  were  a^ain  revived, 
and  fills  their  heart  with  the  joys  of  salvation;  this  was  K/r.  a;.  •_';  NO.  xii.  2r,.  In  the  writings  of  Hagirai  and 
an  experience  to  which,  outwardly  at  least,  the  patri-  Zeehariah  our  English  version  adopts  the  Greek  form 
archs  were  usually  strangers.  The  name  of  God  Al-  ot  the  name— Jozedec — which  somewhat  obscures  the 
mighty  was  thus  to  them  a  sufficient  support  of  their  |  connection  between  the  high-priest's  family  that  was 
faith;  tin:  dark  days  had  not  then  come  when  faith,  in  |  carried  into  captivity,  and  as  ngain  restored  from  it. 
order  to  endure,  must  take  a  deeper  view  and  a  firmer  It  should  have'  read.  Joshua  the  son  of  Jehozadak. 


grasp  of  Him  who  is  its  object. 

Beside.-.  (1.)  the  form  of  the  name  n'rv  has  justly 
been  appealed  to  as  furnishing  evidence  <>f  its  anti 
quity.  It  is  tlie  future  of  the  root  /<<</••?,  which,  even 
in  the  ago  of  Moses,  had  become  archaic  and  rare. 


JE'HU  f.A/,e.m/t  I*  In}.  1.  A  king  of  Israel,  the 
founder  of  tlie  fourth  dynasty,  whose  reign  extended 
from  i;.c.  ^  1  to  xlij  -  twenty-eight  years.  His  father's 
name  was  Jehoshaphat,  2  Ki  ix.  2;  but  he  is  more  fre- 
c|UentIy  called  the  son  of  N  imshi.  who  was  liis  grand- 


liaving  given  place  to  the  form   in  common  use,  liaya.  t:lli" r-  :U|(1  wh"  was  Probably  better  known  than  the 

Also.  (-2.)  the  abbreviated   form  -,.,  which  alreadv  ap-  father-      llis   a-v  w1"'"   lle   W;l<  (-"llll't-1   to  assume  the 

T  reins  of  government  is  not  mentioned;    but  he  could 

the 


pears,    Kx.  \v.  2:  xvii   10.      Anl.  (:].i  the    name  Joehehed. 
borne  by  Moses"  mother  (Kw;ii.i.  Uusduchu-,  ii.  L; 

But  though  we  believe  the  name  Jeliovali  was  known 


reins  ot  "M>V  eminent  is  not  mentionet 
iiave  been  by  no  means  VOUHL;'.  as  he  had  already  risen 
to  a  lii^h  place  in  the  army,  and  had  established  for 
himself  a  reputation  for  great  energy;  not  only  so,  but 
to  the  patriarchs  and  revealed  anew  by  Moses,  it  was  probably  as  long  as  twenty  years  before,  or  even 


tide    , 

Elijah    at    Horeb    fo 
'V  ith  an  injunction  t 
Even    then. 


not  till  the  uTeat  awaking  of  th"  prophetic  spirit 
under  Samuel,  that  its  import,  and  the  value  of  the 
revelation  embodied  in  it  were  fully  ivali/ed  by  the 
people  of  Nrael.  Jehovah  is  eminently  the  /jni^kctic 
name  of  Cod.  For  while  the  psalmists  frequently  \.\  l>; 
address  their  prayers  and  hymns  to  Elohim,  it  is  always 
Jehovah  who  speaks  by  the  prophets.  Thus  \ve  account 
for  the  fact  that,  after  the  age  of  Samuel,  the  name 
Jehovah  seems  to  have  come  into  more  common  (ami 
as  it  were  popular*  use  than  before,  and  especially  ap 
pears  wiih  much  greater  frequency  as  an  element  in 
the  names  of  individuals  -a  fact  from  which  the  ra-h 
and  erroneous  conclusion  has  recently  been  drawn,  that  exhausted,  and  reformation  has  become  hopeless.  At 
previous  to  that  age  the  name  was  altogether  unknown,  last,  however,  the  set  time  came;  and  Elisha,  who  now 
(^eeon  tlio  whole  subjoct,Reiuke,Bekr.;ige,  Hi.  1-143  )  [l).H.w.|  stood  in  the  room  of  Elijah,  de-patched  one  of  the 

JEHOVAH-JIREH    {./,/,.„;>/<    trill   proridt},    the    sons  of  the  prophets   to   Ramoth-gilead,   where  Jehu 
name  given  by  Abraham  to   the   mount  on  which  the     and   the  army    were   at    the   time    contending  against 
angel    of    th"    Lord    appeared    to    him,    and    not    only 
arrested  the  sacrifice  of   Isaac,  but  provided  a  ram  to 
be  put  in   his  place,  (le.xxii.n.        It  was  embodying  in 
a  name  the  sentiment  expressed  in  an  earlier  part  of 
the  narrative.  ''God  will  provide  for   himself  a  burnt- 
offering."      For  the   import  of  the  transactions  them 
selves,  see  under  AitUAHAM. 

JEHOVAH-NISSI  [,/</<or«/<  //<// //«/</HT],  the  name  was  the  army  for  the  change  of  dynasty  thus  initiated, 
given  by  Moses  to  an  altar  he  erected  in  the  wilder-  that  all  immediately,  and  with  loud  acclaim,  hailed 
ness,  in  commemoration  of  the  victory  gained  by  the  John  as  king,  and  in  token  of  respect  spread  their 
Israelites  tinder  Joshua  over  the  forces  of  Amalek.  garments  under  him.  King  Jehoram  was  at  the  time 
Ex.xvii  ].-,.  (Si'?  BAXXKK.)  '  lying  sick  at  Jezreel,  from  the  wounds  he  had  received 

JEHOVAH-SHA'LOM  [Jthoi-uh-pew],  the  name  in  Uamoth-gilead;  and  as  it  was  necessary,  not  only 
of  an  altar  erected  by  Gideon  in  Oplirah,  after  the  for  Jehu's  personal  success,  but  also  for  the  execution 
angel  of  the  Lord  had  appeared  to  him  with  a  message  of  the  work  of  judgment  expressly  committed  to  him, 
of  peace,  Ju.  vi.  21.  Appearing  as  the  angel  did  in  a  2Ki  ix.  7,  s,  to  sweep  away  the  house  of  Ahab,  Jehu  con- 
time  of  great  backsliding,  there  was  reason  to  appre-  sequently  lost  no  time  in  proceeding  to  Jezreel  with  a 
hend  some  manifestation  of  judgment  rather  than  of  trusty  and  chosen  band  to  aid  him  in  his  dreadful  com- 
mercy;  and  Gideon  gave  expression  to  his  feelings  of  mission.  His  approach  was  descried  from  the  watch- 
surprise  and  thanksgiving  by  associating  the  sacred  tower,  and  messenger  after  messenger  was  despatched 
erection  with  a  name  which  proclaimed  Jehovah  as  the  to  inquire  whether  he  came  peaceably;  but  he  met  them 
God  of  peace.  in  so  defi-int  a  tone',  that  they  were  fain  to  turn  round 


re,  while  Ahab  and  Jezebel  were  still  in  the  noon- 
e  of  their  power,  he  had  been  divinely  designated  to 
the  office  of  king  in  Israel, 
tin1  prophet  to  anoint  him.  1  Ki. 
therefore,  he  must  have  been 
known  to  be  a  per-Mii  pos-essed  of  qualities  which 
peculiarly  fitted  him  at  such  a  time  for  taking  com 
mand  of  the  affairs  of  Israel.  Why  his  actual  appoint 
ment  to  the  office  should  have  been  so  long  delayed, 
no  explanation  is  given:  but  it  doubtlo-  arose  mainly 
trout  that  lonu-utlerinu'  patience'  in  Clod,  which  waits 
the  execution  of  vengeance  till  every  effort  lias  been 


lla/.ael  king  of  Syria,  with  the  charge  to  anoint  Jehu 
king  in  the  name'  of  the  Lord.  .lie  was  to  do  his  work 
e.xpeditiou-lv  and  secretly,  and  then  make  haste  as  for 
his  life'  -seeing  it  was  a  perilous  step  to  take  in  such  a 
plae.  .  From  tin'  excited  manner  of  the  prophet,  how 
ever,  and  the  singular  mode  in  which  he  went  about 
lis  work,  the  secret  presently  transpired:  and  so  rip- 


VOL.  I. 


108 


anil  form  jiart  of  his  train.  At  last  .loraui  him^lf 
wont  forth,  and  at  his  arrival  the  storm  hurst  with 
irrepressible  fury.  .Joram  was  first  slain  by  Jehu's 
own  haml,  and  his  liody  ordered  to  he  east  into  the 
vineyard  of  Xahoth.  Ahaziah,  king  of  .ludah,  hrother- 
in-law  of  Joram.  who  was  with  him  on  a  visit,  received 
al-o  a  mortal  wound,  of  which  he  soon  after  died  at 
Me^'iddo.  Tlien  followed  in  rapid  succession  the 
slaughter  of  Jezebel  and  of  the  whole  seed-royal  in 
Samaria:  including  altogether  seventy  males  slain  at 
Jehu's  bidding  liy  the  nolilcs  of  Samaria.,  with  many 
hesides  of  remoter  connections,  and  of  those  who  had 
heen  chief  men  ahout  the  kin-.  Among  others  who 
fell  in  this  time  of  veii'_:v.ince.  were  certain  lirethren  of 
Ahaziah,  king  of  Judah,  whom  Jehu  met  on  his  way 
to  Samaria.,  goiivj;  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  family 
of  the  kin0;  of  Israel.  Regarding  them  as  included 
in  the  curse  pronounced  on  the  seed  of  Ahah  and 
Jezebel  (being  their  grandchildren),  Jehu  summarily 
appointed  them  to  the  slaughter— -whether  justlv, 
however,  may  be  made  a  question;  since,  while  con 
nected  with  the  house  of  Ahab,  they  more  properly 
belonged  to  that  of  David.  The  attack  was  next 
made  on  the  priests  of  ISaal.  whom  Jehu  took  by  guile, 
publicly  announcing  his  purpose  to  become  himself  a 
worshipper  of  Haal,  and  thereby  throwing  them  off' 
their  guard:  M>  that  they  readily  came  forth  to  take 
jiart  in  a  feast  and  sacrifice  which  Jehu  proclaimed  for 
Baal  at  a  set  time  and  place.  But  it  was  only  that 
they  might  be  fallen  upon  by  the  soldiery  of  Jehu,  and 
put  to  death.  The  temple  and  ima-'o  of  Baal  \\ere 
also  broken  down. 

So  far  Jehu  might  be  said  to  accomplish  faithfully 
the  solemn  work  intrusted  him.  As  a  minister  of 
divine  vengeance  against  the  house  of  Ahab  and  its 
Baal-worship,  the  sternest  retribution  had  been  in 
flicted,  and  the  work  had  been  done  with  a  promptitude 
and  an  alacrity  which  bespoke  a  hearty  good- will  in 
the  matter.  Indeed,  it  is  precisely  the  impression  made 
in  this  respect  as  to  the  spirit  of  Jehu's  procedure  which 
detracts  from  his  glory.  He  appears  throughout  more 
like  a  man  of  impetuous  ardour,  and  cold-blooded  fero 
city,  prosecuting  a  course  of  terrible  severity,  which, 
however  right  in  the  main,  was  still  one  we  should 
have  liked  to  see  somewhat  less  congenial  to  his  own 
temperament.  We  do  not  conceive  of  him,  even  when 
doing  a  work  of  God.  and  perilling  his  very  life  in  the 
accomplishment  of  it.  as  a  man  of  high  principle,  who 
values  nothing  in  comparison  of  the  establishment  of 
truth  and  righteousness.  Accordingly,  we  find  him 
stopping  short  of  the  proper  point,  whenever  the  (pies-  ! 
tion  came  to  be  what  he  was  himself  going  to  substitute  ! 
for  the  abominations  he  had  put  down;  "he  departed 
not  from  the  sins  of  Jeroboam  who  made  Israel  to 
bin."  He  could  decide  for  Jehovah  in  opposition  to 
Baal,  but  not  for  the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah  as  op 
posed  to  the  idolatrous  forms  that  had  been  set  up  at 
Bethel  and  Dan.  To  go  so  far  as  to  abolish  these, 
would  have  been  to  take  Jerusalem  for  a  religious  ] 
centre,  and  this  might  have  opened  the  way  for  a  ] 
return  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  to  the  house  of  David.  : 
Policy  therefore  dictated  an  adherence  to  the  course  [ 
pursued  by  the  founder  of  the  Israelitish  monarchy. 
And  hence,  while  a  prolongation  of  his  dynasty  was 
promised  for  the  work  of  judgment  he  had  executed 
against  the  house  of  Baal,  it  was  accompanied  with  a 
limitation  which  implied  a  want  of  approval  in  regard 


to  his  own  religious  position:  the  promise  extended 
only  to  the  fourth  generation,  ^Ki.xxix.  so.  And  before 

that  term  was  expired  his  house  had  in  turn  become 
the  subject  of  severe  threatening,  and  had  to  face  the 
prospect  of  an  exterminating  doom,  Ilo.i.4.  In  his  case, 
as  in  the  case  of  .Jeroboam,  the  worldly  policy  adopted 
utterly  failed  to  secure  its  object. 

The  name  of  Jehu,  it  is  said,  occurs  in  an  inscrip 
tion  on  an  obelisk  discovered  in  the  north- west  palace 
of  Nimroud.  which  has  been  interpreted  thus:  "Jehu 
the  son  of  Khumri" — supposed  to  be  for  Omri,  and 
taking  the  house  of  Jehu  as  successor  to  the  house  of 
Omri  (Layard,Xmeveh  and  Babylon,  p.  013).  It  may  be  so, 
but  it  certainly  does  not  wear  a  very  natural  appear 
ance,  nor  does  Scripture  u'ive  indication  of  any  inti 
mate  connection  at  that  time  with  the  Assyrian  empire. 

2.  JKHC.      The  son  of   JIanani.  a  prophet,  who  first 
appears  in   Israel  delivering  a  solemn  and   threaten  in  •_ 
message  to  Baasha,  for  following  the  sins  of  Jeroboam, 
and   killing  the  representatives  of  that  house  without 
turning  from  their  sins.  iKi..\vi.2r.     Long  afterwards, 
probably  thirty  year>  or  more,  he  appears  again  in  the 
attitude   of   admonishing   a    king;    but  it   is   now   the 
kini:"   of   , ludah,    .Tehoshaphat,  whom   he  reproved    for 
entering  into  alliance  with  the  ungodly  king  of  Israel, 
and  predicted  visitations  of  evil  in  consequence,   2Ch. 
xix.2,:;.     The  Hanani  who  prophesied  before  Asa,  father 
of  .Tehoshaphat.  and  reproved  him  for  relying,  in  a  time 
of  peril,  on  the  king  of   Syria,  was  in  all  probability 
the  father  of  Jehu,  21  h.  xvi. r-0. 

3.  JKIIT.     Three  others  of  this  name  occur  in  the 
genealogies,  but  nothing  particular  is  known  of  them, 

1  Cli.  ii.:!«;  iv.. 'i:.;  xii.  ">. 

JEPH'THAH  [rr,r,  //,>/,/«/,/,.  not  occurring  again, 

except  once  as  the  name  of  a  town  in  the  tribe  of 
.1  udah,  written  in  the  autln irized  version  J/p/ttal],  means 
"  he  will  open."  perhaps  implying  that  Jehovah  will 
open  or  set  at  liberty,  and  if  so,  having  the  same  meaning 
as  Pctlinhluli.  Jephthah  was  one  of  the  most  notable  of 
the  judges  of  Israel:  his  place  among  them,  and  some 
things  in  respect  to  his  administration,  will  fall  to  be  no 
ticed  in  the  article  JUDGES.  His  history  is  given  in 
the  book  of  Judges,  ch.  x.  n-xii.  7;  besides  he  is  named 
by  Samuel  among  the  distinguished  persons  raised  up 
by  God  for  his  people,  1  Sa.  xii.  11;  and  again  he  is 
named  as  one  of  those  ancient  worthies  in  whom  faith 
had  a  very  special  manifestation,  He.  xi.  32.  His  father 
was  Gilead,  a  man  who  lived  in  the  land  of  Gilead. 
who  had  sons  by  his  lawful  wife,  while  Jephthah  was 
the  son  of  a  harlot.  When  the  other  sons  grew  up 
they  thrust  Jephthah  out,  and  refused  him  any  share  in 
the  inheritance,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  the  son  of 
"a  strange  woman,"  literally  "an  other  woman:"  and 
since  the  elders  of  the  country  confirmed  this  proceed 
ing,  Ju.  xi. :,  while  there  is  no  express  law  of  Moses 
upon  the  point,  we  may  conjecture  that  they  were  led 
to  adopt  this  rule  on  principles  of  general  morality, 
probably  strengthened  by  the  divine  approval  of  the  act 
which  thrust  out  Tshmael  and  refused  him  a  share  of 
the  inheritance,  Gc.  xxi.  10,  to  which  the  words  in  this 
history  seem  to  allude.  The  place  to  which  he  fled  is 
not  accurately  known,  a  region  in  Syria,  not  far  off, 
called  the  land  of  Tob,  see  2  Sa.  x.  c,  and  of  which  the 
name  seems  to  survive  in  late  Jewish  history,  i  Mac.  v. 
i.'! ;  2  Mac.  xii.  17.  Here  there  were  gathered  to  him 
"  vain  men,"  or  empty  men,  men  in  difficulty,  who  had 


J  El  MIT  HAH. 


850 


JLPHTHAH 


nothing  to  lose,  with  whom  David's  men.  i  Sa.  xxii.  •>, 
have  been  often  compared  ;  and  these  men  went  out 
with  him.  though  it  is  an  unwarrantable  inference  that 


genia  and  Idoiueneus;  and  very  many  whose  convic 
tions  are  expressed  by  Luther.  "  People  will  have  it 
that  he  did  ii"t  offer  her,  but  there  it  stands  plainly  in 


he  was  just  a  captain  of  a  band  of  freebooters.     From  '  the  text." 

the  first  he  is  described  as  a  mighty  man  of  valour,  this   text 

And  when  the  Ammonites,  already  for  eighteen  years  '.  would  have  been  Luther's  own  admission,  we  are  sure:  and 

the  masters  of  Israel,  were  making  war  against  them,  '  there  has  been  an  instinctive  shrinking  from  this  opinion, 

probably  in  some  more  galling  form  of  oppression  than  which  seems 

usual,  the  elders  of  Gilead,  on  whom  the  burden  iiatu-  proportion  a 

rally  fell  with  greatest  severity,  took  the  lead  in  Israel. 


and  offered   to  anyone  who   was  willing  to  accept  it 

the  office  of  head  and  captain  < •.*-.,  qatJ,>,  Ju.  xi.  <;,  u, 

T 
compare  Jos.  x.  21);  for  in  their  present  circumstances  a 


re  and  more  to  be  justified,  in 
we  examine  the  narrative  thoroughly. 
Sonietinus  the  milder  view  has  been  vindicated  on 
the  principle  that  Jephthah  put  his  vow  intentionally 
in  such  general  terms  as  admitted  of  modification,  and 
might  even  necessitate  it.  That  which  first  came  out 
of  his  house  to  meet  him  should  be  the  Lord's;  and  if 


peaceful  judge  like  the  two  who  had  preceded  would  jt  was  a  subject  fit  to  become  a.burnt-otferin-  it  should 
not  have  met  the  emergency.  L'ut  as  no  one  volun 
teered,  they  went  to  Jephthah  and  pre 
upon  him:  which  he  generously  accepted,  as  soon  as 
they  declared  their  willingness  to  make  amends  for  past 
severity.  Everything  was  done  in  the  way  of  sol.-mn 
religious  covenant  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  at  .Miz- 
peh,  Ju.  xi.  11,  often  taken  to  be  the  same  as  M  i/peh 
of  Cilead,  ver.  *>,  from  which  however  tin;  narrative 
perhaps  rather  distinguishes  it.  His  first  effort  was 
to  secure  the  co-operation  •.  f  the  tribe  of  Kphraim, 
Ju.  xii.  2,  the  tribe  whose-  influence  was  predominant 
during  most  of  the  period  of  the  judges.  I  lax  iiiu  fail<  d 
in  this,  he  went  forward  in  the  -tr>  n_;th  of  th"  Lord: 


tiered,    while   if  this  was  in  the  nature  of  the 

1  the  ottice  case  impossible,  the  nearest  substitute  possible  should 
lie  made.  Such  puzzling  cases  will  from  time  to  time 
arise,  when  the  fulfilment  of  a  vow  liu  rally  would  u'o 
most  thoroughly  against  it  and  the  spirit  of  religion 
out  of  which  it  arose.  And  from  this  principle  lias 
s]  ruiiu  our  marginal  rendering,  "<//•!  will  oiler  it  up  for 
a  burnt-olfering:"  which  has  been  defended  by  both 
Jews  and  Christians,  though  the  grammatical  rendering 
is  not  wholly  satisfactory. 

.I'.ut  without  resting  upon  this  interpretation  there  are 
several  considerations  which  at  once  throw  the  utmost 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  common  view,  and  favour 


1   effort    to   ^ain   his  object  by     the  other  as  really  the  more  natural. 


and    alter  an   ine'l 

reasoning  with  the  kin^  of  th"  Ammonites,  he  place< 
himself  under  the  special  protection  of  the  Lord  by  ; 
peculiar  vow.  I'p'in  this  he  completely  overthrew  hi 


I.  Human  sacrifices  could  iu\er  be  contemplated  by 
any  true  Israelite  worshipper  of  Jehovah  with  any 
feeling  other  than  that  of  abhorrence.  'I'll 


recovered  twenty  cities  from  lh'-m.     No 
ites  came   in  to   claim   their    position   as 
Israel,  emboldened  perhaps  by  Gideon's  U 
with  them  in  a  similar  ease:  but  Jephthah  met  them  in 
their  own  spirit,  apparently  dealing  with  them  as  trai 
tors  to  the  cause  of  God   and    Israel,  so  that  -lii.non  of 
their  parly  fell  in  the  civil  war.      It  is  highly  improba 
ble  that  there  was  any  subsequent   resistance   to   Jeph- 
thah's  rule:   and   he  held   the  office  of    jud-_r 
years  till  his  death.      He  "  was  buried  in    [on 
cities  of  Gilead." 

The  great  point  of  interest  in  his  history  is  his  \,, 
,Iu.  xi.  2:1-1-',  and  the  manner  in  which  it  was  fultillt 
The  opinion  which  probably  occurs  to  most  people, 
they  first  read  the  narrative,  is,  that  he  put  his  daughter 


hraim-     most  det  plv 


ded  b 


if     tion:  and  the  practit 


were  corrupt"d  only  when  they  had  most  thoroughly 
turned  their  back  upon  everything  that  was  good,  l's.  cvi. 
3.V3S.  Much  less  can  we  think  this  of  Jephthah,  the 
chosen  leader  of  God's  people,  turning  them  to  the 
Cod  of  their  fathers  after  a  period  of  religious  apos- 
for  six  '  tasy  and  political  subjugation  to  the  heathen,  whose 
ot'J  the  whole  dealings  an-  thoroughly  godly.  Ju.xi.ll;  who  had 
just  before  been  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  for  his 
work,  ver  2U;  and  <rlin*t  fiiilli  if  <•<  l<  l,rnt«l  in  He.  xi.  ['>'2, 
/Jiiiii/i/  ii-if/i  n/i  f  ii'-t  to  this  rcrif  rote  and  it*  fulfilment, 
in  which  his  faith  culminated  under  a  trial  in  respect  of 
ofieriuu'  up  his  only  child,  like  Abraham  himself,  who 


to  death,  and  offered  her  upon  the  altar  of  burnt-offering,  is  celebrated  for  this  in  the  same  chapter.  To  meet 
This  is  the  account  given  by  Josephus  and  the  other  an-  i  this  overwhelming  difficulty  it  lias  been  the  practice  to 
cient  Jewish  authorities;  and  it  is  the  universal  opinion  '  assume  and  assert  that  Jeplithah  was  ignorant  of  the 
of  the  Christian  fathers.  From  the  middle  ages,  however,  i  law  and  regardless  of  it,  that  he  was  a  wild  man  in  a 
there  has  been  prevalent  among  the  .Jews  the  very  op-  '  wild  age.  and  among  the  wildest  part  of  the  Israelites; 
posite  opinion,  that  he  devoted  her  to  perpetual  vir-  Ewald  for  instance  puts  this  in  an  emphatic  way.  But 
ginity  and  the  special  service  of  Cod  at  the  temple:  :  there  is  no  evidence  of  it,  or  rather  there  is  evidence 
an  opinion  which  was  early  taken  up  by  many  I  it-formed  to  the  contrary.  The  entire  message  to  the  king  of  the 
theologians,  as  they  entered  with  alacrity  and  diligence  i  Ammonites  indicates  a  mind  very  thoroughly  disciplined, 
into  the  accurate  study  of  the  word  of  Cod.  and  which  ]  trained  to  exact  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the 


has  never  wanted  advocates  down  to  our  own  dav. 
The  old  opinion,  however,  has  much  the  more  general 
support  of  authorities;  most  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
who  follow  the  fathers ;  the  rationalist  scholars,  who 


Lord's  dealings  for  and  with  his  people,  as  given  in  the 
law  of  Moses,  and  able  to  appreciate  its  bearing  on  his 
own  age  and  circumstances.  His  language,  and  his 
daughter's,  Ju.  xi.  :n,  :;.i,  imply  a  knowledge  of  the  Mosaic 


rind  in  it  much  that  suits  their  view  of  early  Jewish  i  law  as  to  vows,  and  seem  to  refer  to  the  very  language 
history,  and  who  sometimes  say,  like  Ewald,  in  his  His-  of  these  laws,  NU.  xxx.  2  ;  De.  xxiii.  23  And  his  practice 
ton/  (ii.  p  .'ii.'ii.  that  the  opposite  opinion  "deserves  no  of  monogamy  marks  his  personal  conduct  in  very  pleas- 
refutation;"  while  they  fancy  that  they  trace  the  echo  of  j  ing  contrast  with  that  of  several  other  judges,  Ju.viii.  30; 
the  name  and  history  of  Jephthah  in  the  Greek  Iphi-  |  x.  i;  xii.  y,i4.  The  only  thing  which  could  even  seem  to 


JHPHTIIAII 


JEPHTHAH 


countenance  the  surrender  of  a  human  being  to  die  for 
God's  service  is  the  practice  of  "devoting,'1  cin  (chercin), 

Le.  xxvii.  20,  &e.  1.5 ut  by  universal  consent  this  is  hold  in 
its  very  nature  to  be  a,  forced  devoting  of  the  icicktd  to 
God's  service  in  their  destruction,  since  they  would  not 
willingly  serve  him  in  any  other  way;  and  it  was  the 
sole  prerogative  of  God  to  devote  such  persons.  Not 
only  is  all  this  utterly  inapplicable  to  the  ease  of 
Jephthah's  daughter ;  though  it  did  apply,  it  would 
be  unsuitable  to  the  vow,  because  anything  devoted 
was  aci'i/wd,  and  could  not  be  accepted  as  a  sacrhicr, 
to  the  very  notion  of  which  it  stood  in  irreconcilable 
contradiction  (com  p.  i  Sa.  xv.  21). 

II.  If  Jephthah  was  not  grossly  ignorant  of  the  laws 
of  Moses   and  the  ritual  of  his  people,  lie  must  have 
known  that  every  burnt- offering  required  to  he  a  male: 
and  supposing  that  a  rash  vow  had  entangled  him  in  a 
difficulty,  still  it  could  not  be  carried  into  effect  liter 
ally;  and  some  other  way  of  dealing  with  his  daughter 
would  be  forced  upon  him,  as  it  would  have  been  had 
an  unclean  animal  met  him. 

III.  The  expression  "  whatsoever  cometh  forth  of  the 
doors  of  my  house  to  meet  me,"   Ju.  xi.  si,  is  taken  by 
many  to  be  so  indeterminate  that  it  might  mean  beast 
or  man:   but  this  is  not  the  natural  meaning.     For  the 
Jews  were  too  exact  in  their  propriety  of  life  to  have 
brutes  herding  in  human  habitations;  and  the  expres 
sion   "whosoever  goeth   out  to  meet  me"  is  properly 
applicable  to  a  human  person,  as  appears  in  the  subse 
quent  history,   Ju.  xi.  34,   and  as  other  instances  of  the 
females  going  out  to  meet  the  triumphant  males  with 
timbrels  and  dances  occur  in  the  Old  Testament,  such 
as  Miriam,   Ex.  xv.  20,  and  the  daughters  of  Israel  after 
the  death  of  Goliath,  1  Sa.  xviii.  o.     Indeed,  such  a  vow 
at  hap-hazard  would  be  altogether  without  a  parallel; 
and  it  would  have  sounded  contemptible  if  his  vow  had 
run  thus:   "  the  first   calf,  or  kid,  or  lamb  that  shall 
meet  me  coming  out  of  my  house  shall  be  the  Lord's, 
and  I  will  offer  it  up  for  a  burnt-offering,"  when  he 
might  rather  have  promised  the  noblest  animal  in  his 
fold,   or   many   of    the    noblest.      AVe   are    irresistibly 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  in  making  his  vow,  Jeph 
thah  had  his  daughter  in  his  mind :  his  noblest  pos 
session   should   be  consecrated  to   the   Lord,    his  only 
daughter,  if  she  should  be  the  first  to  come  forth  to 
welcome  him.     Only  he  may  have  used  the  particular 
words  of  his  vow,  to  admit   of    his   being  perchance 
spared  that  sacrifice,  if  the  Lord  should  so  please  to 
direct    that   some   other,    some   favourite   domestic   or 
whoever  it  might   be,    possibly  even    "a  lamb   for  a 
burnt-offering"  introduced  as  marvellously  as  in  Isaac's 
history,  should  be  moved  to  come  first  out  from  the 
house.     So  that  whatever  antecedent  difficulties  there 
are  in  supposing  that  Jephthah  was  entangled  by  his 
rashness  into  offering  his  daughter  on  the  altar,  these 
are  immeasurably  increased  when   we   have   to   view 
this  act  as  deliberately  and  intelligently  planned   by 
him  from  the  commencement. 

IV.  The    true    interpretation,    then,   of    Jephthah's 
vow  is  not  a  literal  killing  of  his  daughter,  and  burn 
ing  of  her  body  on  the  altar  of  God,  but  a  metaphorical 
sacrifice,  and  yet   a  most  real  sacrifice,  giving  her  up 
to  the   service  of  the  Lord  exclusively  and  for  ever. 
Such  a  metaphorical    use    of    sacrifice    or   offering    is 
common    in    all   languages,   and  is    confessedly  found 
often  in  the   Psalms  and  the   Prophets,    and    also  in 


the  New  Testament.  If  we  know  that  in  such  cases 
we  must  take  the  word  metaphorically,  since  the  connec 
tion  admits  of  no  other  sense,  there  can  be  no  difficulty 
in  doing  so  here,  when  the  alternative  lies  between 
this  and  a  deliberately  planned  and  executed  immolation 
of  an  only  daughter  by  the  father's  own  hand.  Such 
metaphorical  expressions  could  not  but  arise  and  be 
come  common  among  a  people  placed  under  the 
training  of  spiritual  religion,  yet  accustomed  to  literal 
sacrifice;  and  probably  they  arose  early  all  the  more  on 
account  of  the  symbolical  sacrifice  of  Abraham,  when 
called,  in  language  to  which  there  is  manifest  allu 
sion  in  this  vow,  to  diTf  r  up  his  only  Ann  for  a  Imrnt- 
oifiriiif/,  which  he  did,  lie.  xi.  17,  though  only  in  a  figure, 
as  we  know.  Another  case  which  very  remarkably 
agrees  with  the  language  of  this  vow  occurs  in  the  dedi 
cation  of  the  Levites,  Nu.  viii.  10-16,  "  And  thou  shalt 
bring  the  Levites  before  the  Lord,  and  the  children  of 
Israel  shall  put  their  hands  upon  the  Levites;  and  Aaron 
shall  offer  the  Levites  before  the  Lord  for  an  offering 
of  the  children  of  Israel,  that  they  may  execute  the  ser 
vice  of  the  Lord;"  and  then  follows  the  act  of  the  Levites' 
laying  their  hands  upon  the  heads  of  their  animal  sacri 
fices  which  were  offered  for  a  sin- offering  and  a  burnt- 
offering,  after  their  own  heads  had  thus  had  laid  on  them 
the  hands  of  the  children  of  Israel,  who  made  a  meta 
phorical  offering  of  them.  "  Thus  thou  shalt  separate 
the  Levites  from  among  the  children  of  Israel:  and  the 
Lr rites  shall  be  mine;  ....  and  thou  shalt  cleanse 
them,  and  offer  them  for  an  ojj'crhtf/,  for  they  are  wholly 
given  unto  me  from  among  the  children  of  Israel." 
In  this  text  indeed  the  specific  word  is  "  wave  for  a 
wave  offering"  in  the  original;  as  in  other  metaphorical 
passages  it  is  a  slaughtered-oifering,  or  a  peace-offering, 
that  is  named.  But  out  of  the  variety  of  sacrifices 
whose  name  Jephthah  might  have  used,  he  chose 
burnt-offering,  because,  as  in  the  pattern  instance  of 
Abraham  and  Isaac,  it  expressed  entire  exclusive  dedi 
cation  to  the  Lord  ;  since  nothing  of  the  burnt-offering 
came  back  to  the  offerer,  whereas  a  part  of  other  kinds 
of  sacrifices  did  come  back  to  him.  The  dedication  of 
a  person  to  God's  service  by  a  peculiar  vow  was  sanc 
tioned  in  the  Mosaic  law,  and  of  females  as  well  as  of 
males — in  the  law  of  the  Nazarite  for  instance,  >*u.  vi.  2. 
Such  a  service  might  even  be  for  life,  as  Samson  and 
Samuel,  and  probably  Elijah,  Jeremiah,  and  John  the 
Baptist:  and  in  the  case  of  Samuel  it  is  seen  that  this 
dedication  to  the  Lord  implied  a  separation  from  the 
family,  an  other  children  were  promised  to  Hannah,  to 
make  up  for  this  one  whom  she  made  over  to  God's 
service,  1  Sa.  i.  n,  20,  22,  as ;  u.  20.  Pnit  in  regard  to  these 
singular  or  personal  vows,  the  law  was  careful  to  pro 
vide  a  means  of  redemption,  on  payment  of  which  the 
person  was  set  free,  Le.  xxvii.  2-8.  Yet  it  went  on  to  en 
act,  vor.  9,  "And  if  it  be  a  beast,  whereof  men  bring  an 
offering  to  the  Lord,  all  that  any  man  giveth  of  such 
unto  the  Lord  shall  be  holy.  He  shall  not  alter  it,  nor 
change  it,  a  good  for  a  bad  or  a  bad  for  a  good  :  and  if  he 
shall  at  all  change  beast  for  beast,  then  it  and  the  ex 
change  thereof  shall  be  holy."  And  the  peculiarity  of 
Jephthah's  vow  appears  accordingly  to  have  been  this, 
that  in  dedicating  his  daughter  exclusively  and  for  ever 
to  the  Lord,  he  treated  her  not  according  to  the  rule 
for  personal  vows,  but  according  to  the  rule  for  burnt- 
offerings,  and  renounced  all  possible  right  of  re 
demption. 

V.   The  common  opinion  has  compelled  its  supporters 


JEPIITHAH 


861 


JEl'HTHAII 


to  mistranslate  ver.  40,  "the  daughters  of  Israel  went 
yearly  to  lament  the  daughter  of  Jephthah  the  Gilead- 
ite  four  days  in  a  year."  If  the  sacred  writer  had 
meant  to  say  so,  there  was  no  reason  for  departing 
from  the  common  word,  which  he  had  already  used 
twice,  ver.  37,  liS  translated  "bewail,"  and  taking  a 
word  so  very  rare  that  it  occurs  again  only  in  this  book, 
ch.  v.  11.  There  it  is  translated  "  to  rehearse,"  with  the 
implication  of  praising  ;  and  this  is  the  meaning  on 
which  the  best  authorities  agree,  as  the  only  one  that 
has  clear  evidence  in  its  favour.  At  the  same  time 
there  is  a  difference  in  the  construction  of  the  two 
passages.  The  former  mentions  the  object,  "there 
shall  they  rehearse  the  righteous  acts  of  the  Lord:'' 
this  passage  throws  in  a  preposition  which  is  superfluous, 
not  to  say  inconvenient  or  misleading,  unless  it  be 
translated  somewhat  as  this,  "to  rehearse  prai.-es  to 
her,"  or  ''about  her."  Hence  the  marginal  paraphrase 
in  the  authorized  version  "to  talk  with  her,"  implying 
of  coin-si-  that  she  was  not  put  to  death.  This  rehears 
ing  of  her  praises  to  her  by  the  daughters  of  Israel  was 
the  compensation  which  they  made  to  her  for  In  -r  being 
dedicated  to  the  service  of  (iod  in  a  single  life,  when 
otherwise  she  might  have  had  praises  enough  of  a 
diflerent  kind,  as  the  only  iiau-Jit<  r  of  the  jud-.e  of 
Israel  might  have  had  the  mo-t  attractive  marriage  she 
could  desire;  compare  I's.  Ixxviii.  <'>'•',  "  their  maidens 
were  not  given  in  marriage."  literally,  "were  not 
praised,"  as  in  the  margin.  On  the  other  hand,  had 
she  been  killed  and  burin d  upon  the  altar,  no  amount 
of  perverted  feeling  could  have 
praising  of  such  an  action.  Nav. 
been,  thought  a  palliation  or  excu 
deed,  it  could  be  remembered  on 
secret  lamentation,  too  horrible  to 
even  when  the  heathi  n  king  of  Moab  in  his  extremity 
acted  so  with  his  eldest  son.  it  produced  such  indigna 
tion  against  the  victorious  aimy  of  Israel,  \\ho  \\ere 
very  indirectly  the  cause  of  it.  that  they  departed  from 
him,  and  returned  to  their  own  land,  :>Ki.  iii  L'7.  And  in 
fact,  if  rehearsing  praises  to  her  lie  not  the  meaning,  it 
is  hard  to  see  how  Jephthah  along  with  her.  it'  not  to 
the  exclusion  of  her,  should  not  hav-  been  the  person 
considered  and  celebratt  d  or  lamented:  ju-t  as  it  is 
Abraham,  ami  not  Isaac,  whose  faith  and  obedience  are 
commended  in  Scripture. 

VI.  When  we  read   that   it   was  a  custom  in  Israel 
that  the  daughters  of  Israel   annually  lamented  her  :'<T 
four  davs,  how  comes  it  that   tin  re  is  no  trace  of  such 
a  custom   in   any    part  of   Israelitish   history,    and   no 
reference  to  it  bv  anv  writer,   inspin  d  or  uninspired, 
until  we  come  to  a  late  Christian  father,    Epiphanius. 
who  is  reckoned  a  poo]- authority  on  almost  anv  subject, 
and  who  is  perhaps  universally  admitted  t»  be  involved 
in  some  confusion  or  mistake  in  this  instance?     On  our 
theory  the  answer  would   be  easy.      Thev  came  to  talk 
with  her,    or  rehearse   her  praises   to   her.   as   she  had 
gone  up  and  down  the  mountains  \\ith  IK  r  companions 
for  two  months  bewailing  her  virginity  :   they  continued 
to  spend  these  four  days  annually  with  her,  as  long  as 
she  lived:    but   in    the   nature  of  the  case  the  practice 
ceased  at  her  death,  and   no  subsequent  reference  to  it 
could  reasonably  be  expected. 

VII.  The   correctness  of  the  entire  construction  is 
liable  to  serious  doubt,  when  the  last  clause  of  ver.  39 
is  torn  from  the  rest  of  the  verse,  and  thrown  into  con 
nection  with  ver.  40,  by  supplying  a  word.      It  runs  in 


the  English  liible.  as  in  translations  generally:  "And 
it  was  a  custom  in  Israel  [that]  the  daughters  of  Israel 
went  yearly,"  tvc.  The  simple  rendering  of  ver.  39, 
standing  by  itself,  according  to  the  very  ancient  tradi 
tion  among  the  Jews,  which  divided  the  verses,  is. 
"'  And  it  came  to  pass,  at  the  end  of  two  months,  that 
she  returned  unto  her  father,  and  he  did  to  her  accord 
ing  to  his  vow  which  he  had  vowed,  and  she  knew  no 
man,  and  it  was  a  custom  in  Israel."  Had  the  writer 
wished  to  say,  "And  it  became  a  custom  in  Israel " 
that  so  and  so  should  be  done,  he  had  at  his  command 
a  very  easy  and  most  familiar  phrase  for  expressing  his 
meaning.  Connecting  the  information  given  in  the 
previous  part  of  the  verse  with  the  "CV.^IMI  in  Israel" 
(or  "statute  in  Israel."  as  the  word  is  generally  rendered 
in  our  version),  there  are  two  explanations  that  naturally 
occur,  either  of  which  is  adverse  to  her  being  killed  and 
burned,  an  action  certainly  abhorrent  to  every  Israel- 
itish  custom  or  statute.  One  explanation  may  be,  "he 
did  to  her  according  to  his  vow.  and  it  was  a  statute 
in  [.srael,"  namely,  to  perform  a  vow  faithfully,  how 
ever  painfully  trying,  Xu.  xxx.  2;seo  EC.  v.  4,5,  and  .leph- 
t hah'.s  own  words,  ver. 35.  Now  if  his  vow  was  to  eonse- 
erati-  her  for  life  to  ( lod's  service,  the  two  months'  delay 
was  a  small  matter,  a  little  relaxation  in  personal  liberty 
to  her  who  during  that  time  felt  that  God's  vows  were 
upon  her,  and  lived  in  all  the  purity  that  became  his 
handmaid,  liut  if  his  vow  had  been  to  kill  and  burn 
her  on  the  altar,  it  would  have  1  een  a  most  perilous 
trifling  \\  ith  the  principle  of  the  law,  and  the  oppor 
tunity  of  fulfilling  his  engagement,  which  might  become 
impossible  by  her  natural  death,  or  his  feelings,  or  her 
own  comin-j-  in  the  way.  or  by  the  opposition  of  the 
people:  a  consideration  the  force  of  which  becomes 
plain  by  t\\o  parallel  < -xamplt  s.  it'  we  imagine  Abraham 
announcing  his  intention  oi  saeriiiciiiLj  Isaac  two  months 
after  he  received  the  command,  instead  of  rising  and 
L'oin^  early  the-  next  morning,  whereas  Hannah  had  no 
hesitation  in  keeping  her  child  Samuel  beside  her  till 
she  had  ueain-d  him,  at  an  aue  much  more  advanced 
probably  than  is  uMial  with  us,  and  at  which  the  child 
\\as  ready  for  worshipping  the  Lord.  The  other  expla 
nation  may  be.  that  .lephthali  did  to  her  according  to 
his  vow.  she  beinga  virgin  tit  for  consecration  to  Clod's 
service;  and  it  was  a  custom  in  Israel  to  have  such 
virgins.  Females  devoted  by  a  personal  vow  did  exist, 
according  to  what  has  been  said  tinder  No.  ]V.:  and 
it'  deaconesses  «•]•>•  found  so  important  as  to  be 
practically  indispensable  in  the  early  eastern  Christian 
church,  similar  causes  would  render  similar  female 
labourers  still  more  manifestly  necessary  in  the  services 
at  the  Jewish  tabernacle  and  temple,  though  their 
position  would  be  comparatively  humble,  according  to 
the  position  of  inferiority  which  was  assigned  to  the 
female  sex  in  the  entire  economy  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Inference  is  made  to  them  in  Ex.  xxxviii.  8;  1  Sa. 
ii.  -I'l,  and  not  improbably  Lu.  ii.  37.  The  reas-on  for 
such  females  being  unmarried  or  widows,  at  least  in  the 
case  of  those  who  gave'  themselves  to  it  for  life,  is 
plain  enough:  under  a  husband  a  woman  would  not  be 
free  to  devote  herself  to  all  the  details  of  this  work,  or 
if  she  devoted  herself  to  them  she  must  neglect  her 
family  duties.  The  peculiarity  of  the  case  of  Jephthah's 
daughter  was  that  she  who  might  have  held  the  highest 
place  among  the  women  of  the  happy  homes  of  Israel, 
consented  to  become  a  doorkeeper  in  the  house  of  her 
God,  a  companion  to  the  females  among  the  Gibeonites, 


JKPHUNNKH 


J  Elf  EM  I  ATI 


i.\  -2:1 ;   only  these  were  degraded  to  these  menial  '  assigned   to  Judah  is  called   after  hi 


Da 


\  111.  The  common  opinion  is  exposed  to  difficulties 
on  account  of  several  matters  which  are  parsed  over  in 
silence,  which  \vc  should  have  expected  to  lie  mentioned, 
or  which  are  mentioned  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  naturally 
explained  only  cm  the  other  theory.  (I.)  "He  did 
with  her  according  to  his  vow,"  a  curious  circumlocution, 
when  everything  might  have  been  plain,  had  it  been 
said  that  he  killed  and  offered  her.  it  seems  the  more 
strange  that  not  a  word  should  be  said  of  the  terrible 
act,  when  we  contrast  the  details  in  the  description  of 
Abraham's  sacrifice.  And  it  is  strangest  of  all  that 


the  Jerahmeelites,  and  against  the  south  of  the  Ken- 
ites,''  i  Sa.  xxvii.  10;  i.e.  against  those  portions  of  the 
south  country  (Negeb),  pertaining  to  Judah,  which 
were  allotted  respectively  to  the  descendants  of  Jerah- 
meel  and  Jcthro.  Now  we  know  that  the  latter  were 
settled  in  "the  wilderness  of  Judah  which  lieth  in  the 
south  of  Arad,"  .In.  i.  ifl;  i.e.  in  that  part  of  the  south 
country  which  adjoined  Arad  (now  Tell  'Arad).  We 
are  justified,  therefore,  in  concluding  that  the  greater 
portion  of  "the  Negeb  of  the  Jerahmeelites,"  which  is 
mentioned  first,  lay  south-west  of  Arad:  for  a  Philistine 


there  should  be  this  silence  or  sparing  use  of  words,  \  invasion  (such  as  JJavid's  was  supposed  to  be)  was  only 
while  it  is  added,  "  and  she  knew  no  man,"  which  is  an  [  possible  from  that  quarter.  Accordingly,  we  find  that, 
unnecessary  repetition,  considering  what  lias  been  !  to  this  day,  the  extensive  plateau,  stretching  south-west 
told,  ver.  37,  .';>;  except  on  the  other  supposition  of  her  {  from  Tell  'Arad,  and  occupied  by  the  Arab  tribe  of 
living  on  to  lead  a  virgin  life;  in  which  ease  it  is  the  .Saidtyeh.  is  known  by  the  name  cr-RalJunali  (Williams, 
natural  information  to  assure  us  that  the  vow  is  to  be  '  Holy  City,  p.  4-s  KurU,  History  of  the  Old  Covenant,  iii.  221-2210. 
understood  metaphorically,  and  that  it  was  faithfully  This  is  the  Arabic  equivalent  for  the  Hebrew  Jt r<i/<- 
kept.  (2.)  There  is  not  a  word  of  the  father  repcn tin;/,  \  inert,  allowance  being  made  for  the  dropping  of  the 
or  finding  any  difficulty  about  the  principle  of  his  vo\v.  '  initial  letter  >/<>d,  and  the  (intensive)  final  syllable  ct. 
There  is  nothing  besides  sorrow  that  he  is  left  alone  IJoth  these  changes  are  of  frequent  occurrence;  it  may 


and  childless  in  his  hour  of  triumphant  exaltation  to  be 
the  leader  of  .Israel:  "  Alas,  my  daughter!  thou  hast 
brought  me  very  low,  and  thou  art  one  of  them  that 
trouble  me."  (3.)  There  is  not  a  word  of  t/aif/i,  but 
only  of  her  exclusion  from  the  families  of  Israel,  in  her 
single  request  for  two  months  in  which  to  bewail  her 
viryinity;  which,  it  is  related,  that  she  accordingly  did. 


suffice,  however,  to  adduce  the  single  instance  of  J\z- 
reel,  now  called  Zerln,  which  has  undergone  a  modifi 
cation  precisely  analogous  to  that  which  has  transformed 
Jerahmeel  into  Hakhmah.  Nor  is  this  the  only  trace 
we  have  of  the  name:  we  meet  with  it,  still  less  abbre 
viated,  in  Wady  er-Ramiiil,  (Valley  of  Jerahmeel),  and 
Helad  er-llamail  (District  of  Jerahmeel),  south-east  of 


If  we  could  believe  the  reply  to  be  satisfactory  that  her     Arad  (Van  de  Velde,  ii.  M,  85;  He  Saulcy,  i.  .>io-o!2).     This  must 
death  is  understood,  when   it  is  another  thing  that   is     be  regarded  as  the  extreme  limit  of  their  territory  north- 
actually  named,  there  M 
>he  was  to    u'o   up   and 


mid  remain  the  question  why     wards:  for  here  it  meets  the  southern  boundary  of  the 
iwn   upon  the   mountains  to     inheritance  given  to  Caleb,  afterwards  known  as   "the 
bewail  it  along  with  her  female  companions,  instead  of  :  Negeb  of  Caleb."  Jos.  xiv.  H;  xv.  10;  .\.\i.  n,  12;  i  Sa.  xxv.  2,  3; 
spending  the  time  at  least  partly  with  hur  father,  from 
whom  death  was  so   quickly  to   part  her.      Whereas,   if 
she  was  to  be   consecrated  to   service  in  the  house  of 


\\  e  are  thus  enabled  to  assign  a  definite  lo 
cality  to  those  "cities  of  the  Jerahmeelites7'  to  which 
David  sent  a  portion  of  the  Amalekite  spoil,  i  Sa.  xxx.  20. 


(rod,  her  father,  as   the   leader   of   Israel,  would  have 
many  opportunities  of  seeing  her  there. 

[The  subject  of  this  vow.  its  natuiv,  and  its  mode  of  fulfilment, 
has  been  generally  felt  to  be  interesting,  not  merely  as  a  matter 
of  curious  inquiry,  but  also  as  bavin-  an  important  bearing  on 

the  character  of  the  people  of  Israel  at  the  time  of  the  occurrence.      Jc'holakim  to  arrest  Jeremiah   and  Laruch 
A  work  specially  devoted  to  an  account  of  all  opinions  on  the 


2.  JERAHMEEL.      A  Levite,  descended  from  Mcruri. 
•ho  was  contemporary  with  David,  comp.  i  Ch.  xxiv.  27-29 

illi  xx.xiii.  21,  22. 

3.  JF.KAIIMFEL.     A   high   official    commissioned    bv 

Je.  xxxvi.  LM. 

Authorized  Version  represents  him  as  "the  son  of 


subject,  which  we  have  not   seen,   was  published  by  l>ivsde,  Haminelcch;"  but  the  margin   (in  common  with  most 

commentaries  o^irTt'ex't  of  Jud-ot  ^',1°  in*  hi*  to •'  'r'n'T'tl  "t  °^  ^le  vcrs^ons)  VC1T  properly  gives  the  literal  meaning. 

ofEwald.     Essays  on  the  subject  have  also  been  written;  among  "  tlle   son   of   tne  k'ng/'  which   would   seem   to  be  the 

the  most  accessible  of  which  are  two  in  favour  of  the  common  :  correct  rendering  here,  as  well   as  in  the  very  similar 


rievv  by  1'feiiler,  0,,6,-a,  p.  1S1-1SO,  591-5:<S;  and  two  by  livin.. 
writers  in  favour  of  the  opinion  we  have  advocated,  by  Heng- 
stenberg,  in  liis  Av.lhfn'icit;/  of  the  Pentateuch,  vol.  ii.  p.  lo.j-121 
of  the  English  translation:  and  by  Pauius  Cassell,  in  Ilerzog's 
Eiicydojiaeilie,  article  "  Jifta."]  [o.  c.  M.  D.] 

JEPHTJN'NEH,  apparently  a  Centile  name,  and 
applied  to  only  two  individuals:  1.  jEi'iirxxEH,  the 
father  of  Caleb,  who,  along  with  Joshua,  remained 
faithful  when  so  many  gave  way  (sec  CALEB).  2.  JE- 
i-nrxxEH.  the  eldest  of  the  sons  of  Jether,  who  was 
of  the  tribe  of  Asher,  icii.  vii.  3s. 

JERAH'MEEL  [ssv:m' ;  'Ic/oe^VIfW^X;  ^»'«- 
mccl].  1.  The  eldest  son  of  Hezron,  a  grandson  of 
Judah,  1  Ch.  ii.  0,  25-42.  Being  thus  at  the  head  of  the 
senior  branch  of  this  powerful  tribe,  we  are  not  sur- 
pris 


pa^ago,  1  Ki.  xxii.  20.  [E.  w.] 

JEREMI'AH,  !>n»CT  [,T£T    ch.  xxvii.  l;xxviii.  r>,  10,11,1:,; 

xxix.  i.]  The  meaning  of  the  name  is  Jchorah  throws; 
i.e.,  according  to  some,  over  throws,  casts  down.  Ex.  xv.  i; 
according  to  others,  lai/g  elown.  founds,  appoints,  or 
dains  (Ges.  Jcliova  constituit).  But  the  latter  view  has  no 
support  from  Hebrew  usage;  and  the  former,  besides 
having  this  support,  gives  to  the  name  an  import  much 
more  distinctive,  almost  prophetic  both  of  the  history 
of  the  man  and  of  the  character  of  his  time.1  "He 


ivl  .fwl    t,,  «.,  i   i  :  ,  c  i    •  •        nearlv  equivalent  to  the  common  Hebrew  verb  JriMik,  to  throw. 

Tisea  to  mm  turn  a  person  of  great  importance,  as  is     T?  T    TV-     •     n 

•  ,      ,     ,,  Ex.  xv.  1;  >e.  ix.  11.     In   this  sense  it  is  in  common   use  in. 

viclent  trom  the  fact  that  a  portion  of  the  territory  ,  Chaldee;  compare  Da.  iii.  f>,  ic.,  "throw  into  the  midst  of  the 


.IF.R  K.MIA  II 


J.KRKMIAH 


who  bore  tliis  name  \vus  consecrated  to  that  God  who, 
with  an  almighty  hand,  throws  to  the  ground  all  Ins 
enemies,  ch.  i.  10"  (Hen^st.  Clirist.  vol.ii.  i>.  .101,  Clark's  trans.) 

1.  T/tc  Pn.ijthet. — With  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah 
are  interwoven  many  minute  biographical  details,  I 
which  we  greatly  desiderate  in  the  writings  of  the 
other  prophets.  He  was  of  a  priestly  family,  being 
born  in  Anathoth.  one  of  the  towns  allotted  to  the 
priests  of  the  line  of  Ithamar.  As  the  high-priesthood 
had  passed,  in  the  reign  of  Solomon,  from  the  line 
of  Ithamar  to  that  of  his  elder  brother  Kleazar, 
and  was  never  afterwards  restored  to  the  former, 
the  eonjerture  that  .Jeremiah's  father  was  the  Hil- 
kiah  who  held  the  office  of  high-priest  under  .Josiuh 
is  groundless.  From  the  expression  2':H2r:  \2,  °f  the 
/n'iciitf,  in  eh.  i.  1,  we  rather  infer  that  he  held  no  con 
spicuous  position  in  tin'  priestly  ranks.  It  is  probable 
that  Jeremiah  continued  to  reside  at  -Anathoth  for  j 
some  years  after  his  call  to  the  prophetic  office,  which 
took  place  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  Jnsiah.  I;A'.  0:28, 
while  he  was  yet  a  youth,  ch.i.2,G.  Like  our  Lord, 
who,  residing  in  I'.ethany  under  the  friendly  roof  of 
Lazarus  and  his  sisters,  made  daily  journeys  to  and 
from  Jerusalem,  Jeremiah  //<"//  have  continued  to 
spend  quiet  evenings  iu  his  father's  house,  while  by 
day  he  laboured  in  hi.-  prophetic  mission  amid  the 
throng  and  bustle  of  the  capital.1  lint  after  sonic  years 
lie  was  compelled  by  the  bitter  hostility  of  his  fellow- 
townsmen.  \\hoM-  immoralities  he  had  exposed  ami 
denounced,  to  quit  his  native  place  and  take  up  his 
residence  in  Jerusalem,  ch.  xi.  21;  xii.  li. 

This  change  of  residence,  however,  mdv  expose* 
him  to  new  dangers,  and  brought  him  within  the 
reach  of  more  formidable  adversaries  than  the  prii-.-t- 
of  Anathoth:  for  the  death  of  Ji.siali  and  the  cap 
tivity  of  Jehoahaz  opened  up  the  way  for  the  accession 
of  the  violent  and  ungodly  Jehoiakim  to  the  tin-one  of 
Judali.  Jo.  xxii.  17.  I  nder  such  a  king  Jerusalem  was  no 
Imiger  a  safe  residence  for  the  faithful  prophet  of  the 
Lord;  yet  Jeremiah  felt  that,  at  so  momentous  a  crisis 
in  the  national  history,  it  was  not  his  part  to  purchase 
personal  safety  by  the  abandonment  of  public  duty. 
Though  naturally  of  a  timid  disposition,  so  that,  at  first 
he  shrank  from  the  responsibilities  of  the  prophetic 
office,  yet  now  the  word  of  God  which  had  come  to 
him  had  taken  such  complete  possession  of  his  soul  that 
he  could  not  but  give  utterance  to  it.  be  the  danger 
ever  so  great.  And  though  in  some  seasons  of  deep 
depression,  when  he  seemed  to  himself  to  have  laboured 
in  vain  and  .spent  his  strength  for  nought,  he  almost  ! 
resolved  to  speak  no  more  in  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
yet  this  momentary  impulse  was  speedily  overpowered; 
for  "the  word  of  God  was  in  his  heart  as  a  burning 
fire  shut  up  in  his  bones;  and  he  was  weary  with  for 
bearing  and  could  not  stay,''  ch.  xx.  ». 

Not  long  after  Jehoiakim  ascended  the  throne,  and 
probably  on  occasion  of  one  of  the  great  feasts  which 
drew  multitudes  together  from  all  parts  of  the  land,  ch. 
xxvi.  2,  Jeremiah  made  what  seems  to  have  been  his  first 
public  appearance  and  appeal  since  the  accession  of  the 

furnace;"  ch.  vi.  17,  "ctitt  him  into  the  den  of  lions;"  cli.  vii.  (i, 
"until  the  thrones  were  crift  <lo<'-ii."  Furst  (Lf.r.)  adopts  :m  old 
explanation  which  connects  ,-<///;«  with  ram,  li'uih,  and  renders, 
Jchocali  is  (xdltnl. 

'  If  we  consider  the  character  of  the  earlier  prophecies,  it  is 
probable  that  the  first  years  of  his  ministry  were  given  to  con 
templation  rather  than  to  action. 


new  monarch.  Undeterred  by  the  fate  of  a  brother 
prophet,  Urijah  the  son  of  Shemaiah,  who  had  already 
fallen  a  victim  to  the  fury  of  the  king.  Jeremiah,  in 
obedience  to  a  divine  impulse,  appeared  in  the  temple 
courts,  and  by  words  of  truth  and  judgment  stirred 
the  thronging  multitudes.  A  tumult  ensued,  the 
priests  and  prophets  inciting  the  people  to  violence. 
The  report  of  the  tumult  speedily  reaching  the  palace, 
the  officers  of  state  a])] 'eared  on  the  scene,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  investigate  the  cause  of  the  uproar.  To 
these  princes  Jeremiah  made  a  noble  appeal,  and  not 
in  vain.  Still  the  influence  of  the  priests  and  pro 
phets  (the  most  violent  antagonists  of  Juvmiaht  was 
very  great;  and  it  was  only-  by  the  interposition  of  a 
powerful  friend.  Ahikam  the  son  of  Shaphan—  a  mem 
ber  of  a  family  eminent  for  its  pietv  during  several 
successive  generations  that  he  escaped  with  his  life, 
ch.  xxvi. 

During  his  residence  at  Jerusalem.  Jeremiah  was 
doubtless  the  centre  of  the  little  circle  amid  which 
true  pietv  still  lingered:  but  there  was  one  whom  he 
singled  out  from  all  hi.-  associates,  honouring  him  with 
peculiar  marks  of  his  friendship,  and  even  admitting 
him  to  share  the  labours  of  his  prophetic  ministry. 
This  was  r.aruch,  the  son  of  Ncriah,  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  person  of  rank  and  influence,  ch.  xliii.  :;•.  li..v.); 
though,  being  also  a  man  of  worth  and  piety,  he  pre 
ferred  the  society  and  friendship  of  Jeremiah  to  the 
high  official  dignitv  and  authority  which  he  might 
have  aspired  to  and  enjoyed.  The  friendship  and 
active  co-operati<>n  of  I'aruch  proved  highly  valuable 
to  the  prophet.  For  shortly  after  the  incident  just 
mentioned,  and  probably  in  consequence  °f  it.  we  find 
that  Jeremiah  had  become  so  obnoxious,  either  to  the 
court  or  to  the  people,  or  to  both,  that  he  could  no 
longer  venture  to  appear  in  public.  In  this  exigency 
I'.aruch  came  to  his  aid:  and.  by  acting  as  his  amanu 
ensis  and  representative,  secured  the  transmission  of 
the  divine  message  to  the  rulers  and  people.  ..h.  xxxvi.;,; 
xlviii.  5. 

The  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim,  remarkable  in  Jewish 
history  ;i>  the  year  in  which  the  first  Chaldean  invasion 
took  place,  was  an  epoch  also  in  the  history  of  Jere 
miah  :  for  in  that  year  he  was  divinely  directed  to 
collect  into  one  body  the  various  prophecies  he  had 
delivered  during  the  twenty-three  years  which  had 
elapsed  since  the  commencement  of  his  ministry,  ch. 
xxv.  3;xxxvi.  1,  &c.  These  prophecies  I'.aruch,  having 
written  down  from  the  lips  of  Jeremiah,  recited  within 
the  temple"  courts  to  a  large  and  mixed  audience  of 
princes  and  people.  Some  of  the  former,  affected  by 
the  divine  message,  resolved,  though  with  but  slender 
hopes  of  success,  to  have  it  read  before  the  king.  The 
result  was  such  as  might  have  been  anticipated.  The 
headstrong  tyrant,  after  listening  impatiently  for  a 
short  time  to  words  very  different  from  those  which  he 
was  accustomed  to  hear,  started  up,  and  seizing  the 
roll,  cut  it  in  pieces,  and  threw  it  into  the  fire.  Jere 
miah  and  Baruch  would  have  instantly  fallen  victims 
to  his  fury,  had  they  not.  at  the  instigation  of  the 
princes,  shut  themselves  up  in  a  place  of  concealment. 
In  that  retreat  P.aruch  wrote  down,  from  Jeremiah's 
dictation,  the  same  series  of  prophecies  (many  like 
words,  we  are  told,  being  added  unto  them);  and 
doubtless  this  first  collection  formed  the  nucleus  around 
which  were  gathered,  from  time  to  time,  other  pro 
phecies  subsequently  delivered,  till  the  whole  assumed 


.IKRKMIAU 


804 


KREM1AIF 


tin-  form  in  which  they  now  appear  in  the  scriptural 
book  of  .Jeremiah. 

The  second  invasion  of  the  ( 'haldees,  which  issued 
in  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  and  the  captivity  of  the 
\ouiig  kin»-  Jehoiachin  (an  issue  which  Jeremiah  had 
distinctly  foretold),  may  naturally  he  supposed  to  have 
given  him  a  position  of  greater  authority  in  Jerusalem. 
And  accordingly  we  find  the  new  king  Zedekiah, 
unlike  his  brother  Jehoiakim,  not  only  listening 
patiently  to  his  prophetic  admonitions,  but  even  send 
ing  of  his  own  accord  to  consult  him  in  more  pressing 
emergencies.  Zedekiah,  however,  though  willing  to 
ask  advice,  was  not  equally  disposed  to  follow  the 
advice  the  prophet  gave.  Still  less  so  his  princes  and 
ministers,  who  were  for  the  most  part  rash  and  inex 
perienced,  proud  of  their  ne\\  dignity,  and  resolved  to 
pursue  at  whatever  hazard  the  course  of  policy  which 
had  already  brought  so  terrible  disasters  upon  the 
nation.  To  these  men  Jeremiah  speedily  made  him 
self  obnoxious,  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  experi 
enced  the  effects  of  their  hostility.  The  duty  indeed 
imposed  upon  Jeremiah  was  one  from  which  he  might 
well  have  recoiled.  The  whole  nation  was  bent  upon 
a  war  of  freedom.  Notwithstanding  their  heart- 
apostasy  from  ,J  ehovah,  they  still  retained  the  conviction 
that  they  were  the  peculiar  favourites  of  heaven;  and 
that,  however  low  they  might  sink,  they  could  not 
perish  utterly.  In  their  carnal  minds  the  permanence 
of  the  true  religion,  which  the  prophets  had  so  often 
foretold,  was  always  associated  with  the  continued 
preservation  of  the  temple  and  city  in  which  it  was 
visibly  enshrined.  It  was  to  oppose  these  strong 
national  convictions,  to  counsel  submission  to  the  yoke 
of  Babylon,  to  proclaim  the  utter  fruitlessness  and  fatal 
issue  of  the  meditated  revolt,  that  Jeremiah  stood 
forth — one  man  against  a  nation.  His  position  was 
not  an  enviable  one.  A  patriot  counselling  submis 
sion  to  a  foreign  master,  and  labouring  to  repress  the 
heavings  of  the  national  spirit  impatient  of  the  yoke ! 
This  was  a  strange  spectacle,  and  we  can  scarcely 
wonder  that  Jeremiah  was  by  not  a  few  regarded  as 
an  emissary  of  the  Chaldeans  rather  than  a  prophet  of 
the  Lord.  And  that  the  once  timid  and  shrinking 
prophet  had  the  courage  to  take  up  this  position— to 
place  himself  in  the  way  of  an  excited  and  rushing 
nation,  and  try  to  stop  and  turn  it — shows  that  God 
had  not  forgotten  his  promise :  "I  have  made  thee 
this  day  a  defenced  city  and  an  iron  pillar  and  brazen 
walls  against  the  whole  land;  .  .  .  and  they  shall  fight 
against  thee,  but  shall  not  prevail  against  thee;  for  I 
am  with  thee,  saith  the  Lord,  to  deliver  thee,"  ch.  i.  is,  in. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  reign  of  Zedekiah, 
which  continued  eleven  years,  the  pro] diet  seems  to 
have  pursued  his  work  unmolested,  at  least  without 
encountering  any  violent  persecution.  But  towards 
the  close  of  that  reign,  when  the  rebellion,  no  longer 
only  meditated,  had  actually  broken  out,  and  the 
( 'haldean  army  hastening  from  the  east  had  invested 
Jerusalem,  and  when  it  was  essential  to  the  success  of 
the  dominant  policy  (if  success  could  ever  have  been 
hoped  for)  that  the  nation  should  rise  as  one  man 
against  the  invaders,  and  not  destroy  their  cause  by 
divided  counsels — it  became  evident  that  the  conflict 
between  Jeremiah  and  the  rulers  must  speedily  come 
to  an  issue.  So  accordingly  it  was;  for  a  very  trivial 
circumstance  being  seized  upon  as  a  pretext  for  violent 
measures,  the  prophet  was  arrested  as  a  deserter  and 


traitor  to  his  country,  and  cast  into  the  common  prison. 
In  this  prison,  which  seems  to  have  consisted  of  several 
dark  underground  vaults,  <:h.  xx  vii.  in,  he  was  closely 
confined  for  "many  days."  Afterward,  by  com- 
m-uid  of  the  king,  he  was  removed  to  the  "guard 
house"  (;rVi2En  nVrs  chnt.vti'  Jiammattara)  attached  to 

T  T  -  -       --; 

the  royal  palace,  which  was  a  place  of  considerable- 
extent,  with  walls  and  gates,  having  upper  apartments 
for  the  reception  of  the  less  guilty  or  less  dreaded 
prisoners,  and  a  row  of  dungeons  underground.  At 
first  Jeremiah  occupied  one  of  the  upper  apartments, 
having  the  use  of  writing  materials,  enjoying  the 
visits  and  converse  of  his  friends,  and  being  occa 
sionally  sent  for  to  be  consulted  by  the  king,  who 
probably  expected  to  find  him  after  his  lengthened 
imprisonment  a  more  courtly  and  pliant  counsellor. 
Jf  such  was  the  king's  expectation  he  must  have  been 
greatly  disappointed ;  for  Jeremiah  still  continued 
undauntedly  to  declare  the  mind  of  God — predicting, 
as  before,  the  disastrous  issue  of  the  siege,  and  coun 
selling  timely  submission.  The  princes,  indignant 
that  the  hands  of  king  and  people  should  be  weakened 
by  the  prophet's  dark  forebodings,  resolved  on  his  de 
struction;  and  it  was  not  difficult  for  them  to  work  on 
the  fears  of  the  king,  and  extort  from  him  permission 
to  carry  their  deadly  purpose  into  execution.  Armed 
with  the  royal  mandate,  they  entered  the  court  of  the 
prison,  laid  hold  of  Jeremiah,  and  cast  him  into  one  of 
the  dungeons,  so  deep  that  it  was  necessary  to  let  him 
down  by  means  of  cords.  And  doubtless,  as  they 
turned  away  from  their  victim,  they  imagined  that  his 
voice  had  been  silenced  for  ever.  But  God,  who  had 
yet  some  work  for  his  prophet  to  do,  interposed  in  his 
behalf  strangely  and  unexpectedly.  An  Ethiopian 
eunuch  pleads  for  him  with  the  king,  and  obtains  an 
order  for  his  release.  Jeremiah,  covered  with  the  mire 
into  which  he  had  sunk,  is  drawn  up  by  means  of 
cords,  and  restored  to  his  apartment  in  the  upper 
prison.  Meanwhile  the  Chaldean  army  was  pressing 
tin-  Mrue.  Jeremiah  continued  in  prison  till  the  city 
was  taken,  when  he  was  released  by  order  of  Nebuchad 
nezzar.  Strange  fate  for  a  prophet  of  Jehovah — to 
have  his  life  saved  by  an  Ethiopian  eunuch,  and  his 
liberty  restored  to  him  by  a  heathen  conqueror ! 

The  imprisonment  of  Jeremiah  must  have  continued 
for  more  than  a  year.  It  is  remarkable  that  during 
this  period  God  favoured  him  with  some  of  the  brightest 
glimpses  into  the  future  which  he  ever  enjoyed,  ch. 
xxxii.  30-41;  xxxiii.i-20.  The  guard-house  was  his  Patmos, 
where  he  saw  the  heavens  opened,  and  read  the  glorious 
future  which  God  had  in  store  for  his  church. 

These  revelations  were  connected  with  a  somewhat 
remarkable  transaction,  which  took  place  previous  to 
liis  release.  Hanameel.  his  uncle's  son,  visits  him  in 
prison,  and  offers  him  as  next  of  kin  the  purchase  of  a 
small  property  in  Anathoth.  which  he  is  about  to  sell. 
Here  \vas  a  trial  of  his  faith.  \Vhcn  the  proposal  was 
made  to  him,  Anathoth  must  have  been  occupied  by 
the  Chaldeans;  Jerusalem,  he  knew,  would  soon  be 
a  heap  of  ruins,  and  the  whole  land  a  desolation.  Yet 
he  at  once  agrees  to  the  proposal  of  his  relative;  and, 
having  gone  through  the  various  formalities  necessary 
to  the  legal  completion  of  the  purchase,  he  weighs  out 
the  money,  and  assumes  the  proprietorship  of  the 
ground.  The  transaction,  was  a  prophecy  in  act.  For 
the  spirit  of  the  prophet,  so  often  clouded  and  over- 


JEREMIAH 


865 


JEREMIAH 


whelmed,  was  at  this  time  irradiated  by  bright  antici-  j 
pations  of  Israel's  destiny;  and  as  he  delivered  over 
the  purchase -papers  to  LSurueh,  he  said  to  him  with 
calm  confidence,  ''Take  these  and  put  them  in  an 
earthen  vessel,  that  they  may  continue  many  days; 
for  thus  saitli  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  (Jod  of  Israel. 
Houses  ami  fields  and  vineyards  shall  lie  possessed 
again  in  this  land/'  i-h.  xxxii.  i.v 

The  capture  of  Jerusalem  restored  .leremiah  to 
liberty;  but  to  him  restored  liberty  brought  no  joy. 
What  a  scene  must  have  burst  upon  him  as  he  passed 
the  prison  gates  Jerusalem  and  her  palaces  fallen  to 
the  ground:  and  that  holy  and  beautiful  house  which 
the  piety  of  a  former  age  had  reared,  and  around 
which  so  many  hallowed  associations  had  clustered, 
burned  up  with  tire!  To  a  heart  like  his,  so  tender  and 
impressible,  the  spectacle  must  have  been  overwhelm 
ing,  (.'an  we  wonder  that  the  first  gush  of  his  poetic- 
spirit  poinvd  itself  forth,  not  in  jovful  strains,  but  in 
those  Lann  ntation*  over  his  fallen  country,  which  will 
remain  an  enduring  monument  at  once  of  his  patriotism, 
liis  genius,  and  his  piety. 

The  storv  of  Jeremiah  now  draws  near  its  close. 
After  the  murder  of  <  u-daliah.  the  son  of  Ahikam, 
the  remnant  of  the  Jewish  people  still  resident  in 
Palestine  resolved,  contrary  to  the  advice  and  despite 
the  remonstrances  of  Jeremiah,  to  retire  into  E^ypt; 
and  thither  they  bore  the  prophet  along  with  them. 
There  tlie  dangers  he  had  foreboded  speedily  manifested 
themselves.  The  exiled  remnant,  contaminated  by  the 
example  of  their  Egyptian  neighbours,  f,  11  anew  ii.to 
all  manner  of  abominations;  their  wives  burned  incense 
and  poured  out  drink-offerings  to  the  queen  of  heaven  : 
so  that  Jeremiah  was  compelled  in  his  old  age  still  to 
prophesy  bitter  things:  •'  Ilehold,  1  will  watch  over 
them  for  evil,  and  not  for  ^ood:  .  .  .  and  all  the  rem 
nant  of  Judah  that  are  gone  into  the  laud  of  Egypt  to 
sojourn  there  shall  know  \\hose  word  shall  stand, 
mine  or  theirs."  ch.  xliv. 

These  were  among  the  last  prophetic  words  of  .lere 
miah.  As  more  than  forty  years  had  elapsed  since 
the  commencement  of  his  ministry,  he  could  not  have 
lived  long  after  this  period.  Hut  of  the  exact  time 
and  circumstances  of  his  death  we  have  no  record;  and 
the  Jewish  and  ( 'hristian  traditions  are  not  in  har 
mony  ^'arpzov,  Intrnrt.  in  lib  proph.  p.  137).  P>y  the  early 
fathers  of  the  Christian  church  he  was  enrolled 
among  the  martyrs,  having,  according  to  the  account 
transmitted  by  them,  fallen  a  victim  to  the  rage  of  his 
fellow-exiles,  whose  sins  he  rebuked,  and  whose  delusive 
hopes  he  unsparingly  exposed.  And  in  truth  we  may 
well  claim  for  Jeremiah  all  the  honours  of  a  martyr, 
though  we  know  not  how  he  died.  His  lift:  was  one 
continued  martyrdom.  The  forty  years  of  a  ministry 
pursued  with  unflinching  fortitude  through  dangers 
and  discouragements  under  which  many  a  braver  and 
stronger  heart  than  his  would  have  succumbed,  amid 
fightings  without  and  fears  within,  with  nothing  to 
lean  on  or  to  draw  strength  from  but  the  word  of  an 
unseen  God— surely  such  a  spectacle  of  unswerving 
fidelity,  of  invincible  perseverance,  presented  too  by  i 
one  naturally  of  a  weak  and  timid  disposition  and 
tender  heart,  is  not  less  noble  and  worthy  of  admira 
tion,  and  certainly  not  less  fruitful  of  instruction,  than 
the  awful  but  short- lived  agonies  of  the  martyr's  death.1 

1  We  cannot  wonder  that.  Jeremiah  h.'is  been  in  all  ages  of  the 
church  regarded  a*  a  type  of  Christ  (C'urjizov,  p.  ]:!!)• 


II.  The  Hool-  of  tltr  Proplttt  Jtnmnt/t.— Tiider  this 
head  we  shall  take  up  in  succession  the  following  topics: 
1.  Au(hc>r.<Iii/i;  -2.  Subject- matter  and  <j<-n<ral  cltaractu-; 
3.  Arrangement;  -L  l\.ct. 

1.  Autlwrithiji.—Tliia  question  presents  no  serious 
difficulty.  The  external  evidence  is  altogether  in  favour 
of  tlie  received  view  that  Jeremiah  was  the  author  of 
the  whole  book;  and  the  internal  evidence-  is  scarcely 
less  decisive.  Tlure  is  in  Jeremiah's  writings,  though 
not  so  strongly  marked  as  in  E/.ekicl's,  a  prevailing  and 
dominant  character—a  peculiar  east  of  thought  and 
expression;  and  this  character  pervades  nearly  every 
part  of  the  book  which  bears  his  name.  Criticism  thus 
corroborates  the  testimony  of  tradition;  and  accordingly 
the  book  as  a  whole  has  been  universally  received  as 
the  work  of  Jeremiah.  I  Kuibts  indeed  have  been  ex 
pressed  as  to  the  genuineness  of  some  portions  of  it; 
but  these  doubts,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  are  not  of 
sufficient  importance  to  merit  any  extended  notice.  It 
is  now  generally  agreed  that  the  first  forty- nine  chap 
ters  are  tlie  composition  of  Jeremiah.-  The  evidence 
in  the  case  of  the  last  three  chapters  is  not  so  decisive. 

With  regard  to  the  last  chapter,  which  is  historical 
throughout,  it  is  not  probable  that  Jeremiah  was  its 
author.  For  (1.)  it  stands  quite  apart  from  the  rest, 
of  tlie  historical  matter  in  the  book,  according  to  the 
Hebrew  arrangement:  and  the  chapter  immediately 
preceding  closes  \\ith  the  words  i-'m«  "121  n;n  "IV' 
tlin.-ifar  tin-  ii'ordx  of  J<rt  iniuli,  which  seem  intended  to 
intimate  that  the  chapter  which  follows  is  not  his. 
C-.)  Tlie  greater  portion  of  the  chapter  in  question  is 
taken  almost  verbatim  from  the  last  two  chapters  of 
'-  Ki..  where  it  evidently  forms  an  original  and  integral 
part  of  the  hi-torv.  1  n  Jeremiah  several  explanatory 
clauses  are  in-erted,  as  in  ver.  !»,  Id.  11,  1ft.  19.  I'd, 
'J.].  •_;.'!.  (3.)  The  chapter  contains  an  account  of  the 
release  of  .1  el loiaeh iii.  which  took  place  when  Jeremiah 
was  about  ninety  years  of  age. 

The1  fiftieth  and  fifty-first  chapters  contain  a  prophecy 
against  llabyloii,  with  a  brief  historical  appendix  iv- 
cording  the  date  and  occasion  of  its  composition.  .In 
that  appendix  it  is  stated  that  the  prophecy  which  p7'e- 
eedes  was  written  by  Jeremiah,  and  j  placed  by  him  in 
tin'  hands  of  Xeriah,  the  son  of  Neriah  and  brother  of 
liaruch,  who  \\as  about  to  proceed  on  an  official  jour 
ney  to  llabyloii  in  the  fourth  year  of  Zedekiah,  with 
instructions  on  his  arrival  in  Chaldea  to  read  it  to  the 
exiled  Israelites,  and  having  done  so,  to  east  it.,  with  a 
stone  attached  to  it,  into  the  Euphrates,  saying,  ''Thus 
shall  Babylon  sink  and  shall  not  rise  from  the  evil  that 
I  will  bring  upon  her."  It  must  be  allowed  that  the 
whole  of  this  transaction  is  very  much  after  Jeremiah's 
usual  manner,  especially  the  prophetic  act  which  fol 
lowed  the  reading  of  the  prophecy,  and  which  is  re 
markable  at  once  for  its  simplicity  and  its  significance. 
Of  the  prophecy  itself  four  different  views  have  been 
taken  :  some  assigning  the  entire  composition  to  a  later 
period  than  Jeremiah's;  others  holding  that  though 
Jeremiah  is  the  principal  author,  there  are  many  inter 
polations;  others  acknowledging  Jeremiah  to  be  the 


•  Some  smaller  section"  and  dances  of  these  chapters  are  slill 
in  douht:  "ch.  x.  1-lii.  when  purified  from  additions,  is  entirely 
tlie  work  of  the  pseudo-Isaiah."  ''ch.  x.xx.  xxxi.  xxxiii.  have 
been  wrought  over  by  the  psendo  Isaiah  "  (Do  Wettc,  lidi'Oil.) 
Ch.  xxvii.-xxix.  have  been  similarly  wrought  over  by  a  later 
hand.  Compare  Ue  Wette  and  Davidson  with  Ilavcrnick  and 
Keil. 

109 


JKRKMIAH 


JKREM1AI1 


author  df  tin-  prophecy,  Imt  assigning  it  to  :i  later  dale 
than  that  mentioned  in  the  historical  appendix  ;  whilst  a 
fourth  class,  including  almost  all  British  critics,  receive 
tin-  whole  as  genuine,  the  liistorical  appendix  as  well  as 
t'ne  prophecy. 

That  the  prophecy  as  a  whole  is  the  work  of  Jcre 
niiah  can  scarcely  bo  doubted.  Dr.  Davidson,  who, 
renouncing  liis  earlier  opinion,  now  holds  that  ''  it  was 
composed  by  another  than  Jeremiah."  at  the  same  time 
admits  (and  in  this  almost  all  critics  are  agreed)  that 
in  favour  of  the  Jercmiaii  authorship  ''may  be  ad 
duced,"  in  addition  to  the  testimony  of  the  title  and 
short  historical  appendix  already  mentioned,  eh.  1.  i;li.  :>:i, 
&c.,  and  the  unanimous  consent  of  antiquity,  "the  lan- 
miau'c,  style,  and  ima^'ei'v  of  the  prophecy,  adding, 
''  It  is  impossible  to  read  eh.  1.  1-20  and  not  be  struck 
with  the  correspondence  of  style"  (introduction  to  the  Old 
'iv-t.'iiu'iit,  iii.  iur).  So  De  Wette,  Ewald,  kc.  If,  there 
fore,  internal  concurs  with  external  evidence  in  point 
ing  to  Jeremiah  as  the  author,  we  are  required  by  the 
principles  of  sound  criticism  to  receive  the  prophecy  as 
his,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  by  doing  so  we  involve 
ourselves  in  some  gross  contradiction  or  palpable  error. 

P>ut  this  has  not  been  shown.  Our  readers  may  ex 
amine  for  themselves  the  arguments  relied  on  by  Dr. 
Davidson  to  prove  that  Jeremiah  was  not  the  author  of 
the  prophecy  (vol.  iii.  p.  ins-no).  They  will  be  found  to 
rest  not  upon  purely  critical,  but  mainly  upon  theolo 
gical  and  a.'sthetical  considerations,  which  have  little 
objective  and  independent  value. 

The  only  argument  of  weight  against  the  genuine 
ness  of  these  chapters  is  the  apparent  discordancy  be 
tween  the  scope  of  them  and  the  scope  of  other  writ- 
ings  of  Jeremiah  which  belong  to  the  same  period.  Ac- 
cording  to  the  historical  appendix  this  prophecy  against 
Babylon  was  written  in  the  fourth  year  of  Zedekiah, 
ch.  li.  'in,  and  it  is  wholly  occupied  with  a  prophetic  de 
scription  of  the  utter  overthrow  and  destruction  to 
which  Babylon  was  doomed.  It  contains  likewise 
several  calls  to  the  exiled  Jews,  to  whom  it  was  de 
signed  to  bo  read,  to  flee  out  of  the  midst  of  Babylon, 
lest  they  should  be  involved  in  her  ruin,  c.h.  1.  8;  li.  fi,  4.">. 
Now,  on  turning  to  the  twenty-ninth  chapter  of  Jere 
miah,  we  find  recorded  a  most  interesting  letter  ad 
dressed  by  the  prophet  to  these  same  exiles,  and  about 
the  same  period;  and  certainly  the  scope  and  drift  of  this 
letter  seem  at  first  glance  strangely  to  contrast  with 
that  of  the  prophecy.  For,  instead  of  calling  on  the 
exiles  to  flee  out  of  Babylon,  it  counsels  them  to  build 
houses  and  plant  vineyards,  to  take  wives  for  them 
selves  and  for  their  sons,  and  to  seek  the  peace  of  the 
city  and  land  to  which  they  have  been  carried  captive. 
However,  that  this  discordancy  is  only  apparent,  or, 
if  to  a  certain  extent  real,  does  not  affect  the  genuine 
ness  of  the  prophecy,  will  appear  from  the  following 
considerations : — 

('«.)  The  different  character  of  the  two  compositions; 
the  one  being  a  letter,  conveying  plain  and  prudent  ad 
vice  in  the  language  of  everyday  life;  the  other  a  pro- 
lihccy,  in  which  the  future,  rilling  the  prophet's  soul, 
is  seen  close  at  hand,  and  depicted  accordingly. 

(!>.}  In  truth,  on  closer  examination  there  does  not 
appear  to  be  any  real  discordance  between  the  letter 
and  the  prophecy  in  the  intimations  they  give  as  to  the 
duration  of  the  captivity.  For,  though  in  the  letter 
the  prophet  does  counsel  the  exiles  to  build  houses  and 
to  discharge  the  various  duties  of  good  citizens  in  the 


hind  cf  their  captivity,  he  at  the  same  time  cheers  them 
by  the  announcement  that  their  exile  is  not  to  be  per 
petual,  nay,  ho  fixes  the  very  date  of  their  restoration, 
cli.  xxix.  in.  And  so,  as  to  the  prophecy,  though  it 
may  at  first  glance  appear  to  announce  an  immediate 
deliverance,  yet  on  further  inspection  intimations  arc 
discovered  that  the  predicted  deliverance,  though  cer 
tain,  is  not  close  at  hand.  Compare  ch.  1.  4,  10,  ,'// 
thoxe  </ai/x  <did  at  that,  time,  &c.,  ch.  li.  47. 

(<•.)  \Ve  cannot  lie  quite  sure  that  the  year  is  cor 
rectly  given  in  ch.  li.  5l».  Mistakes  in  numbers,  as  is 
well  known,  are  not  uncommon  in  these  ancient  scrip 
tures.  We  find  several  such  mistakes  in  the  very  next 
chapter  as  compared  with  the  corresponding  portion  of 

the  books  of  Kings  (ronijiai-c  Jc.  Iii.  1 -,•-'-,  2">,  with  •!  Ki.  xxv.  ,->, 

17,  in).  But  supposing  the  number  to  be  correct,  and 
the  prophecy  to  have  been  written  in  the  beginning  of 
the  fourth  year  of  Zedekiah,  I.e.  only  a  short  time  after 
the  exiles  had  arrived  in  Babylon,  and  whilst  the 
heart-wounds  caused  by  separation  from  the  sacred  soil 
of  their  beloved  country  were  still  fresh,  we  can  well 
understand  how,  in  such  circumstances,  he  should  have 
been  uuided  by  the  divine  Spirit  to  choose  as  the  sub 
ject  of  his  prophecy--  "  Babylon's  fall  and  Israel's  deli 
verance."  But,  like  St.  Paul  in  writing  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians,  Jeremiah  seems  to  have  been  misunderstood 
by  many  of  the  exiles,  as  well  as  by  his  countrymen 
still  remaining  in  Judea.  For,  very  shortly  after,  in 
the  same  fourth  year  of  Zedekiah,  we  find  false  pro 
phets  misleading  the  people  by  predictions  of  immediate 
deliverance,  ch.  xxviii.  3,  within  two  full  years,  &c.; 
and  it  appears  to  have  been  for  the  express  purpose  of 
counteracting  the  etl'ect  which  such  predictions  would 
naturally  produce,  and  preventing  his  countrymen, 
whether  in  Judea  or  in  Chaldea,  from  being  hurried  by 
the  false  hopes  thus  excited  into  the  adoption  of  violent 
and  fatal  measures,  that  Jeremiah  wrote  the  letter 
recorded  in  the  29th  chapter,  in  which  he  predicts  the 
duration  of  the  captivity,  and  counsels  acquiescence 
for  the  time  in  their  present  position.  The  apparent 
discordance  between  the  letter  and  the  prophecy  is  thus 
explained,  and  the  objection  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
latter,  founded  on  this  discordance,  is  removed. 

2.  Subject-matter  and  General  Character  of  fj<e  Pro 
phecies. — The  death  of  Josiah  had  an  important  influ 
ence  011  the  prophetic  teaching  of  Jeremiah  and  his 
immediate  successors.  For  centuries  the  hopes  of  the 
Jewish  people  had  been  eagerly  directed  to  the  Prince 
of  David's  line  destined  to  arise  and  restore  the  glory 
and  pre-eminence  of  Israel.  Was  not  Josiah  just  such 
a  prince?  It  is  not  improbable  that  many  of  the 
Israelites  beheld  in  him  the  predicted  Restorer.  But 
now  he  had  fallen,  and  with  him  had  been  extinguished 
the  last  ray  of  freedom  and  hope.  And  to  the  still 
repeated  announcement  of  the  coming  Christ,  doubt 
less  the  popular  reply  would  be:  "Yon  speak  of  a 
king  yet  to  come — a  king  of  righteousness  and  peace. 
Was  not  Josiah  such  a  king — a  king  after  God's  own 
heart'  And  if  he  has  not  delivered  us,  what  hope 
have  we  more  ?  Has  not  the  word  of  the  prophets 
become  as  wind  !" 

The  prophets  of  this  age  accordingly,  in  order  to 
adapt  their  teaching  to  the  circumstances  and  wants 
of  their  times,  give  special  prominence,  not  to  the  fact 
that  the  Messiah  was  yet  to  come,  but  to  the  moral 
and  spiritual  revolution  which  his  coming  was  destined 
to  usher  in.  True,  Josiah  was  a  pious  king,  and  he 


JEKEMIAH 

hud  extirpated  idolatry  arid  restored  the  temple  wer-  ' 
ship;  but  the  Messiah — he  must  accomplish  something  ' 
greater.  The  change  he  is  to  work  is  not  an  outer  '. 
and  formal,  but  an  inward  and  spiritual  change.  The 
aim  and  end  of  his  rule  will  not  be  an  external  con 
formity  with  the  Mosaic  ordinances,  but  the  subjecting 
of  the  heart  to  God.  This  thought,  accordingly,  we 
find  specially  prominent  in  Jeremiah,  and  in  his  dis 
ciple  Ezekiel — so  prominent  that  it  may  be  regarded 
as  the  thought  which  ruled  their  prophetic  activity, 
and  to  lodge  which  in  the  national  mind  they  were 
specially  raised  up  and  supernaturally  endowed.  Com 
pare  Kze.  xxxvi.  •_!,">,  \c.,  and  Je.  xxxi.  31-31:  the  latter 
a  passage  on  which  a  great  part  of  the  argument  of  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  founded.  See  also  Je.  iii. 
1'i,  17;  iv.  3.  4,  14:  xxxiii.  7,  >K. 

Still,  though  the  jiaffi\fta  is  more  prominently  the 
subject  of  Jeremiah's  prophecy  than  the  /icitrt.Xfi's,  the 
hitter  is  bv  no  mean-  forgotten,  ch.  xxiii.f>,fi;  xxx.  !i;  xxxiii 
15,  &c. 

But  to  the  prophet's  eye  the  revelation  of  the  king 
dom  of  God  was  by  no  means  close  at  hand.  In  the 
near  future  he  saw  dark  overwhelming  clouds  of 
judgment.  <  Mdy  out  of  the  deepest  affliction  was  it 
possible  for  the  future  glory  of  Israel  to  spring.  Hence 
the  predominantly  dark  character  of  the  piophecies  of 
Jeremiah.  The  niidit  is  at  hand:  the  day  is  y<  t  afar 
off.  Airain  and  again  we  hear  from  him  the  wail  of 
despair,  alternating  with  words  of  par-sionate  remon 
strance  and  urgent  appeal.  His  call  is  no  longer  that 
of  the  earlier  prophet*  to  fi-ht  the  battles  of  the 
Lord,  but  to  submit  t»  the  Lord's  rod,  and  to  hear  its 
voice. 

The  stvle  of  the  prophet  accords  with  his  character 
and  theme.  In  the  writings  of  Jeremiah,  indeed,  we 
find  specimens  of  almost  every  description  of  Hebrew 
composition,  from  the  simplest  prose  narrative  io  the 
highly  impassioned  utt'-ranee  of  poetic  feeling.  Ituivly, 
however,  does  lie  reach  the  highest  poetic  elevation.  1 1  is 
was  not  the  eagle  eye  and  wing  of  Isaiah.  His  do\e- 
like  spirit  usually  meditated  a  humbler  flight.  We  do 
not  find  in  his  writings  the  nervous,  compressed,  ami 
abrupt  style  of  the  older  prophets.  His  language  is 
flowing,  loose,  and  one  might  almost  say  redundant. 
were  it  not  that  the  gentler  emotions  naturally  find 
utterance  in  such  language  ( r..mth  mi  IK-l.rcw -r.....m.  Uv- 
turu  xxi.;  Kwahl;  Ui'Mip/r  in  Krsch  :iml  Crulicr,  s.  v. )  As  an 
expression  in  language  of  singular  beauty  of  the  soul  s 
deep  urief.  the  book  of  Lamentations  is  without  a  rival. 

A  Chaldee  influence  begins,  as  we  might  have  anti 
cipated,  to  make  itself  perceptible  in  the  writings  of 
Jeremiah. 

3.   Armnf/fiitcitt    nf  t/ic    PrnpIiccics.—'Yhe  mode    in 

which  the  1 k  of  Jeremiah   is  arranged  lias  long  and 

often  been  complained  of  by  critics.  Thus  ( 'arpzov, 
in  his  Introduction,  has  a  section  entitled,  "Turbatus 
Vaticiniorum  ordo.''  So  JHayney,  who  talks  of  the 
'•preposterous  jumbling  of  the  prophecies  from  ch. 
xxi.  to  ch.  xxxvii.,''  and  Lightfoot  (Chnm.  Temp.)  The 
prophecies  certainly  are  not  arranged  in  order  of  time; 
but  tlu;  chronological  is  not  the  only  principle  on 
which  the  different  parts  of  a  volume  may  be  arranged. 
It  is  quite  as  natural  to  group  together  prophecies 
bearing  a  similar  character,  or  relating  to  the  same 
subject,  as  those  belonging  to  the  same  period.  And 
that  this  principle  has  determined,  in  part  at  least,  the 
present  form  of  the  book  of  Jeremiah,  is  obvious  at  a 


I  JEKEMIAH 

glance.  For  in  ch.  xlvi.-li.  we  find  the  prophecies 
against  foreign  nations  grouped  together,  as  also  in 
ch.  xxx. -xxxiii.  those  which  announce  the  final  tri 
umph  of  truth  and  religion  (at  least  the  more  important 
of  them);  and  we  cannot  fail  to  observe  that  in  the 
commencement  of  the  book  the  purely  prophetic  pre 
dominates,  while  the  latter  half  is  ehieliy  historical. 

In  investigating  this  matter  more  minutely,  there 
are  three  sources  from  which  we  receive  aid  -  1,  the 
historical  notices  met  with  in  the  book  relating  to  col 
lections  of  prophecies  formed  by  Jeremiah  himself;  '2, 
the  titles  prefixed  to  the  prophecies;  3,  their  internal 
character.  The  first  of  these  sources  of  information  is 
most  interesting  and  important;  furnishing  us,  as  it  does, 
with  at  least  one  instance  of  a  prophet  collecting  and 
arranging  his  own  writings,  or  part  of  them.  For  \\e 
are  informed  that  in  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim,  and 
twenty-three  years  after  Jeremiah  began  to  prophesy, 
he  war-  divinely  instructed  to  make  a  collection  of  all 
the  prophecies  he  had  delivered  "against  Israel,  and 
against  J  uduh,  and  against  all  the  nations,"'  ch.  xxxvi. 
xl\  .  from  the  day  when  God  called  him  to  be  a  pro 
phet.  This  injunction  he  obe\ed.  employing  llaruch 
as  his  amanuensis;  and  thus  was  formed  the  first  col 
lection  of  Jeremiahs  prophecies.  A\  e  are  further 
informed  in  the  chapters  ju-t  quoted,  that  after  the 
roll  which  contained  this  collection  was  destroyed  by 
the  kinu',  the  prophet,  again  with  the  aid  of  J'aruch  as 
amanuensis,  prepared  another  roll,  on  which  he  set 
down  all  that  was  contained  in  the  first,  (idd'ui'j  ninm/ 

Of  another  collection  of  prophecies  of  very  different 
import  we  have  an  account  in  the  beginning  of  the 
thirtieth  chapter,  where  we  read  of  a  second  command 
ivcei\ed  by  tin-  prophet  to  write  "all  the'  words  which 
(  iod  had  spoken  to  him  in  a  book."  From  the  reason 
which  is  Lriven  for  this  command.  "For  Io  !  the  days 
come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  1  will  bring  again  the  cap- 
ti\itv  of  my  people  Isratl  and  Juduh,"  \c.,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  this  new  collection  included  eh.  xxx.  - 
xxxiii..  which  constitute  th^  most  purely  .Messianic 
portion  of  the  book  as  at  present  arranged.  This  col 
lection  was  formed  towards  the  close  of  Zedekiuh's 
rei'^n,  shortly  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and 
therefore  about  twenty  years  after  the  publication  of 
tin-  first  collection. 

In  the  title  of  the  book  we  find  traces  of  a  Ilinl 
collection,  including  the  two  already  mentioned,  which 
was  formed  shortly  after  tin-  de.-truction  of  Jerusalem. 
In  ch.  i.  3.  it  is  said  that  Jeremiah  prophesied  "unto 
the  end  of  tile  eleventh  year  of  /edckiuh.  unto  the 
carry iii'_f  captive  of  Jerusalem  in  the  fifth  month."'  I'.ut 
as  we  know  that  Jeremiah  prophesied  for  some  time 
after  the  period  here  assigned,  it  is  probable  that  the 
words  just  quoted  were  originally  attached  as  a  title, 
not  to  the  whole  of  the  present  book,  but  to  a  some 
what  smaller  collection  formed  immediately  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  during  the  short  inter 
val  of  rest  which  the  land  enjoyed  under  the  govern 
ment  of  Gedaliah,  the  son  of  Ahikam,  cli.xl.fi. 

Of  this  collection  the  two  earlier  formed  the  ground 
work;  but  it  may  help  to  account  for  the  apparent 
want  of  order  in  the  collection,  if  we  suppose  that  the 
prophet,  either  on  this  or  some  earlier  occasion,  divided 
his  first  collection  into  two  parts — viz.  (1)  the  pro 
phecies  against  Israel;  and  (2)  the  prophecies  against 
the  Gentiles.  Thus  of  the  new  collection  three  docu- 


JEKKMIA1I 


JERICHO 


metil.s  would,  mi  this  hypothesis,  form  the  basis — (1)  and 
(2)  the  two  just  mentioned;  and  (3)  the  prophecies  of 
Israel's  return,  and  of  the  final  triumph  of  the  true 
religion.  No\v  a  great  part  of  the  apparent  disorder 
of  Uu>  present  arrangement  is  removed  if  \ve  adopt 
the  very  natural  supposition,  that  to  each  of  these 
three  documents  (especially  to  the  first)  the  prophet 
added  other  prophecies  subsequently  delivered,  lint  of 
a  similar  scope  and  tendency,  and  also  illustrative  his 
torical  notices.  It  is  not  improbable  that,  in  the 
original  documents,  some  ''like  words"  were  at  the 
same  time  introduced,  suggested  by  the  experience  of 
the  intervening  years. 

The  book  as  it  now  stands  must  have  been  com 
pleted  at  a  still  later  period  by  the  introduction  of  ch.  xl.- 
xlv.,  and  possibly  some  of  the  other  historical  chapters. 
According  to  the  arrangement  of  chapters  in  the  He 
brew  I.Uble,  it  may  lie  divided  at  once  into  two  portions. 

A.  Ch.  i.-xlv.     Prophecies  and  historical  notices  re 
garding  Israel. 

B.  Ch.  xlvi.-li.  -    Prophecies  against  the  nations. 

A .  may  be  subdivided,  according  to  the  character  of 
the  composition,  into  two  parts  of  nearly  equal  length 
-the  first  purely  prophetic,  ch.  i.-xxiii.;  the  second, 
ch.  xxiv.-xlv.,  in  which  the  prophetic  and  the  his 
torical  are  intermingled,  the  historical  becoming  more 
and  more  prominent  towards  the  close.  Or  it  may  be 
subdivided  into  four  parts,  according  to  the  nature  of 
its  contents,  viz.  :-- 

it.  Ch.  i.— xxiii.  -—The  diVine  judgment  on  apostate 
Israel. 

/i.  Ch.  xxiv.-xxix. — Nebuchadnezzar  the  instrument 
of  divine  judgment  on  Israel  and  the  nations ;  his 
power  meanwhile  irresistible,  hut  of  temporary  dura 
tion;  present  duty  of  submission;  superior  happiness  of 
the  exiled  portion  of  the  nation. 

i'.  Ch.  xxx.-xxxiii.  --The  glories  of  the  latter  days: 
Israel  restored;  the  Messiah  reigns  upon  the  throne  of 
David. 

(i.  xxxiv.-xlv. — Chiefly  historical.  The  prophet  re 
verts  to  the  dark  present.  His  main  design  seems  to 
be  to  illustrate  the  necessity  of  the  divine  judgments, 
by  examples  of  the  stubbornness  and  resolute  unbelief 
of  all  classes  of  the  people. 

4.  Text. --'f  he  Septuagint  differs  considerably  from 
the  Hebrew  text,  (1)  in  the  order  in  which  the  pro 
phecies  are  arranged,  and  (2)  in  the  addition  or  omis 
sion  of  words  and  clauses. 

The  most  remarkable,  and  indeed  the  only  important, 
variation  of  the  first  sort,  is  in  the  place  assigned  to 
the  prophecies  against  foreign  nations.  In  the  Hebrew 
these  prophecies  are  placed  at  the  end  of  the  book,  as 
ch.  xlvi.-li. ;  in  the  LXX.  they  are  inserted  immediately 
after  xxv.  13;  so  that  what  stands  in  the  former  as  ch. 
xxv.  15  (for  the  14th  verse  is  not  found  in  the  LXX.)  is 
in  the  latter  ch.  xxxiv.  1.  There  is  also  a  change  of  the 
order  in  which  the  several  prophecies  belonging  to  this 
division  are  arranged,  the  Hebrew  beginning  with  the 
prophecy  against  Egypt  and  ending  with  that  against 
Babylon,  the  Greek  beginning  with  Elam  and  ending 
with  Moab. 

Of  greater  moment  are  the  omissions  (the  additions 
are  few)  of  the  Greek  text  as  compared  with  the  He 
brew:  some  of  these  of  such  extent  that  they  can  scarcely 
be  ascribed  to  accident  or  carelessness  011  the  part  of 
translator  or  transcriber,  as  ch.  viii.  10-12  (repeated  from 
vi.  13-15),  xvii.  1-4,  xxvii.  12-14,  and  17-22  (much 


fuller  in  Hebrew),  xxix.  1(5-21),  xxxiii.  .11-10,  xxxix. 
4-13,  xlviii.  40-47,  lii.  28-30..  To  account  for  these 
differences  between  the  two  texts,  it  has  been  supposed, 
with  some  degree  of  probability,  that  when  the  (Jreek 
translation  was  made,  uhere  were  in  existence  two  re 
censions,  so  to  speak,  of  the  text  of  Jeremiah,  an  .Egyp 
tian,  and  a  Palestinian,  a  shorter  and  a  longer.  The 
existence  of  these,  if  allowed,  may  possibly  be  connected 
with  the  fact  that  Jeremiah  was  in  the  habit  of  revis 
ing  and  enlarging  his  prophecies,  adding  to  them  many 
like  words.  The  added  portions  do  not  contain  any 
new  matter,  but  are  in  almost  every  case  repetitions  or 
expansions  of  older  prophecies. 

An  important  question  connected  with  the  book  of 
Jeremiah  is  the  relation  of  that  book  to  the  other  Scrip 
tures,  both  earlier  and  later.  It  holds,  as  it  were,  a 
central  position,  and  affords  to  the  student  good  stand 
ing  ground,  from  which  he  may  look  back  into  the 
remote  past,  or  forward  upon  the  future.  It  is  of 
special  importance  in  the  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch 
and  of  Job  (Kueper,  Jeremias,  Librurum  Sacroruiu  intcrpres  et 
vindex). 

Besides  the  book  which  bears  his  name,  and  the 
Lamentations,  several  other  portions  of  the  Old  Tes 
tament  scriptures  have  been  ascribed  to  Jeremiah 
some  of  the  Psalms,  the  books  of  .Kings,  and  the  book 
of  Deuteronomy.  But  the  investigation  of  such  ques 
tions  does  not  properly  belong  to  the  present  article. 

[For  the.  older  commentators  and  writers  OH  Jeremiah,  >ee 
Carpzov,  whoso  list  includes  Origcn,  Theodoret,  and  Jeronio, 
Thomas  Aquinas,  Calvin,  Brent  ins.  Among  more  recent  authors 
may  be  named  Ilo.seiiniulh-r,  I0\vald,  Neumann,  Ulayney,  Hen- 
derson.J  [D.  u.  w.  | 

JER'ICHO.  An  ancient  city  of  the  Canaanites,  in 
the  valley  of  the  Jordan.  It  is  also  called  in  Scripture 

the  City  of  Palms,  Do.  xxxiv.  3;  ,Tu.  i.  Ifl;  in.  i:j;  2Cb.  xxviii.  I.',, 
on  account  of  its  magnificent  forest  of  palm-trees, 
eight  miles  long  and  three  broad.  Its  site  has  long  been 
identified  by  tradition  with  the  modern  village  of  Eeha, 
which  stands  about  six  miles  west  of  the  Jordan,  in  the 
middle  of  the  plain,  and  is  a  collection  of  miserable 
huts  surrounded  by  a  somewhat  formidable  fence  of 
thorn  bushes.  Conspicuous  among  these  hovels  is  a 
square  tower,  the  residence  of  a  detachment  of  Turkish 
soldiers  quartered  here;  and  in  spite  of  its  obviously 
modern  date,  called  by  the  pilgrims  the  house  of  Zac- 
cheus.  But  the  investigations  of  modern  travellers 
have  resulted  in  transferring  the  site  t<  >  Ain  es  Sultan, 
also  called  the  Fountain  of  Elisha,  a  copious  spring 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  Quarantana  Moun 
tain,  which  is  the  traditional  scene  of  our  Lord's  temp 
tation,  and  one  of  the  range  of  hills  which  bound  the 
Jordan  valley  on  the  west.  The  fountain  is  thus  de 
scribed  by  Dr.  Robinson  (Bib.  Res.  2d  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  5f«),  "The 

fountain  bursts  forth  at  the  eastern  foot  of  a  high 
double  mound  or  group  of  mounds,  looking  much  like 
a  tumulus  or  as  if  composed  of  rubbish,  situated  a 
mile  or  more  in  front  of  the  mountain  Quarantana.  It 
is  a  large  and  beautiful  fountain,  of  sweet  and  pleasant 
water,  not  indeed  cold,  but  also  not  warm,  like  those 
of  Ain  Jidy  and  the  Feshkah.  It  seems  to  have  been 
once  surrounded  by  a  sort  of  reservoir  or  semicircular 
inclosure  of  hewn  stone,  from  which  the  water  was 
carried  off  in  various  directions  to  the  plain  below,  but 
this  is  now  mostly  broken  away  and  gone." 

From  the  Jerusalem  Itinerary  we  learn  that  the 
.Jericho  of  the  fourth  century  was  situated  at  the  base 
of  the  mountain  range,  one  and  a  half  mile  (Roman) 


JERICHO 


861) 


JERICHO 


from  the  fountain,  find  that  the  more  ancient  citv  had 
stood  liy  the  fountain  itself  (.Murray's  Handbook  fur  Syria, 
vol.  i.  ]>.  lie).  Tlio  authority  of  Josephus  is  also  in 
iavour  of  the  ancient  city  being  near  this  spot,  for  he 
writes  of  it  (Bell.  Ju.l.  iv.  s  -'>,  ''It  is  situated  in  a  plain, 
hut  a  naked  and  barren  mountain  of  a  very  great 
length  hangs  over  it,  which  stretches  as  far  as  the 
land  about  Scythopolis  northward,  but  southward  to 
the  country  of  Sodom  and  tlio  utmost  limits  of  the 
Lake  Af.phaltitis."  And  again,  insect.:;,  "There  is 
a  fountain  by  Jericho  that  runs  plentifully,  and  is 
very  tit  for  watering  the  ground  :  it  arises  near  the  old 
city,  which  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun.  tile  general  of  the 
Hebrews,  t«ok  the  first  of  all  the  cities  of  the  land 
of  Canaan  by  right  of  war.  The  report  is  that  this 
fountain  at  the  beginnhii;-  caused  not  onlv  the  blasting 
<>f  the  earth  and  the  trees,  but  of  the  children  born  of 
women,  and  that  it  was  cntiivlv  of  a  Mcklv  and  c<>r- 
ruptive  nature  in  all  things  whatsoever,  but  that  it 
was  rendered  mild  and  very  wholesome  and  fruitful  by 
Klisha."1  He  also  fixes  the  distance  of  Jericho  from 
the  Jordan  at  sixty  stadia,  which  would  auTee  better 
with  the  position  of  Ain  es  Sultan  than  of  Kelia:  \\  hicli 
moreover  possesses  neither  the  spring  of  water  which 
would  represent  the  water  of  Jericho,  Jos.  xvi.  1,  nor  any 
traces  of  ancient  buildings,  while  these  are  abundantly 
to  be  found  to  tlio  south  and  .-otith  west  of  Ain  es 
Sultan. 

The  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  the  scene  of  the 
parable  of  the  good  Samaritan,  is  to  this  dav  infested 
by  bands  of  robbers,  who  must  either  lie  sati.-lied  by  a 
bargain  previously  arranged  with  their  a^vnt  in  the 
capital,  or  overa wed  by  superior  force.  Thetr.-u-k  leads 
through  a  succession  of  desolate  chalky  hills,  till  at  l.i^i 
the  whole  Jordan  valley  comes  Middeidv  into  view. 
Most  of  the  plain  is  desert  and  sandv,  sprinkled  with 
thin  patches  of  withered  grass,  stretching  away  to  the 
clear  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea  to  the  southward,  and 
eastward  to  the  narrow  strip  of  jungle  that  marks  the 
course  of  the  Jordan,  beyond  which  rise  the  \\hite 
mountains  of  Moab.  Immediately  at  the  foot  of  the 
steep  ravine  through  which  the  road  descends  into 
the  plain,  the  eye  is  caught  by  a  wide  oasis  reaching 
down  to  the  river,  and  formed  by  the  streams  i.-suing 
from  the  Ain  es  Sultan  and  a  neighbouring  fountain 
called  Ml  duk,  1  Mar.  \u.  1 1,  i:..  Here  was  formerly  the 
renowned  palm  forest  of  Jericho,  now  replaced  by  a 
grove  of  acacias  and  other  shrubs,  which  in  this  tropi 
cal  temperature  ami  abundant  moisture  grow  with  rank 
luxuriance. 

Such  is  the  present  aspect  of  that  city  which  Moses 
tirst  saw  from  .Mount  Nebo  ;  but  whose  towers  and 
battlements  were  surveyed  by  his  successor  Joshua 
from  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  over  the  intervening 
palm-trees.  Its  wealth  ami  importance  may  be  in 
ferred  from  the  spoils  which  were  poured  into  the 
treasury  of  the  Lord,  and  by  the  effect  the  sight  of  its 
riches  produced  on  the  unfortunate  Achan.  Jus.  vi.  24; 
vii.  21.  Jt  was  strategically  the  key  of  the  whole  coun 
try,  being  situated  at  the  entrance  of  two  passes  through 
the  hills,  one  leading  to  Jerusalem  and  the  other  to  Ai 
and  Ilethel.  Jt  was  consequently  the  first  object  of 
attack  to  the  invading  hosts  of  Israel,  and  its  miracu 
lous  conquest  was  a  fitting  prelude  to  their  victorious 
occupation  of  the  whole  land,  in  which  they  were  so 
dependent  011  the  outstretched  arm  of  the  Almighty. 
No  military  skill  or  prowess  was  allowed  to  bo  employed 


against  it.  The  armed  host  of  .Israel  was  merely  for 
six  successive  days,  and  on  the  seventh  day  for  seven 
successive  times,  to  compass  the  city  in  marching  order, 
the  priests  bearing  the  ark  of  the  Lord,  as  the  peculiar 
symbol  of  his  presence,  and  trumpets  to  make  a  blast 
in  token  of  his  power.  At  the  close  of  the  last  solemn 
march,  followed  by  an  unusually  loud  blast  from  the 
trumpets,  and  a  mighty  shout  from  the  people,  the 
walls  fell  prostrate,  laying  the  city  open  to  the  assault 
of  Israel:  so  that  by  faith -the  faith  of  those  com 
passing  priests  and  armed  hosts  -the  walls  of  Jericho 
fell  down,  IIo.  xi.  30.  The  sudden  fall  of  the  walls  has 
often  been  ascribed  to  the  effect  of  volcanic  agency,  of 
which  traces  are  common  throughout  the  Jordan  valley; 
but  such  explanation,  were  it  real,  would  in  no  way 
diminish  the  miraculous  nature  of  the  overthrow, 
which  consisted  in  its  coincidence  of  time  with  the 
conclusion  of  the  seven  days'  march  of  the  hosts  of 
Israel  round  the  besieged  citv.  There  was  an  evident 
reason  for  the  miracle:  ''The  tirst  city  of  Canaan  was 
delivered  into  tile  hands  of  Israel,  as  the  first-fruits  of 
the  land,  without  any  exertion  on  their  part,  to  show 
that  the  Lord  was  about  to  fulfil  his  promise  and  uive 
them  the  land  for  a  pos.-esMon:  also,  that  they  might 
always  regard  it  as  a  gift  of  (Jod's  mercy,  placed  in 
their  hands  simply  as  a  fief,  which  could  be  withdrawn 
whenever  they  were1  unfaithful  to  him"  (Keil). 

The  same  causes  which  led  to  the  importance  of  the 
conquest  of  Jericho,  as  giving  access  to  the  interior  of 
the  country,  no  doubt  prompted  Joshua  to  pronounce 
the  cur.-e  upon  whoever  should  rebuild  it.  .lus.vi.2i'>. 
since,  as  1'rofcssor  Stanley  observes  (Syria  .mil  Palestine, 
p.  30:;),  "a  place  of  such  strength  was  not  to  be  left  to 
lie  occupied  by  any  Inutile  force  that  might  take  pos 
session  of  it."  It  does  not  however  seem  to  have  ever 
ceased  to  lie  inhabited,  for.  (1.)  .In.  i.  Hi,  we  tind  that  "  the 
children  of  Moses' father-in-law  went  up  out  of  the 
city  of  palm-trees  with  the  children  of  Judah."  ('2.) 
Kglon  king  of  .Moab,  Ju.  iii.  i:f,  "  possessed  the  city  of 
palm-trees,'1  and  seems  to  have  made  it  his  place  of 
residence  during  his  occupation  of  the  country.  (:3.)  The 
ambassadors  of  David  who  were  insulted  by  Hanun 
king  of  Ammon  wen.-  ordered  to  "  tarry  at  .Jericho  till 
their  beards  were  grown,"  2Sa.  x.:>.  On  this  point  Doub- 
daill  (Voy.  de  la  Terre  Saiute,  ch.  3-0,  supposes  either  that 
some  houses  were  saved  from  the  fire  i>r  that  some  pool- 
people  hud  retired  thither. 

In  the  reign  of  Ahab  Jericho  was  rebuilt  by  Hiel 
the  llethelite.  and  in  him  was  the  curse  literally  ful 
filled,  for  "he  laid  the  foundation  thereof  ill  Abiram  his 
first  born,  and  set  up  the  gates  thereof  in  his  youngest 
son  Segub,  according  to  the  word  of  the  Lord  which  he 
spake  by  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun,"  1  Ki.  xvi.  :;i.  The  pre 
diction  and  its  recorded  fulfilment  have  given  rise  to 
several  rationalistic  hypotheses  and  weak  explanations. 
Hut  the  natural  purport  of  the  curse  plainly  was,  that 
Jericho — not  as  a  town  or  inhabited  place  (for  in  that 
respect  it  is  shortly  after  spoken  of  as  still  in  existence, 
Jos. . \viii.  2i; . in.  iii.  i:;),  but  as  &  fortified  city,  was  to  re 
main  unbuilt-  an  abiding  monument  of  its  miraculous 
overthrow;  and  that  he  who  should  rebuild  it  might 
justly  expect  divine  judgments  in  his  family—  a  virtual 
repetition  of  Jericho's  doom.  And  so  it  happened  in 
the  case  of  Hiel.  Soon  after  this  time  Jericho  became 
a  school  of  the  prophets,  2  Ki.  ii. '.,  over  which  Elisha 
seems  to  have  presided  for  a  time,  2  Ki.  iv.  i ;  vi.  i,  *>;  see 
also  v.  24,  whore  Stanley,  "Syria  and  Palestine,"  p.  303,  note,  sup- 


JKR1CHO,   PLAINS  OF 


870 


JEROBOAM 


joses  the  w<T>l  "opliel,"  translated  "tower,''  to  be  the  "rising 
su-ell"  nu.ir  l.ilual,  where  the  prophet,  dwelt  and  received  tlie  visit 
nf  Naaman.  Liglltfoot  (Works,  vol.  X.  p.  94)  says  tllllt  Some 
<if  tliu  courses  of  the  priests  lived  at  Jericho,  which 
would  account  for  thu  presence  of  thu  priest  and  Levite 
in  thu  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan.  I'"roni  K/,r.  ii.  34, 
\\'u  learn  that  the  children  of  Jericho  were  345  in 
nuinlier  alter  the  return  from  J'lahyloji,  ami  in  Ne. 
iii.  '_'  they  are  mentioned  as  assisting  to  rebuild  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem. 

Thu  city  was  occupied  and  plundered  by  Antigonus 
and  Herod  (Jos.  Ant.  xiv.  i:,,  ;;).  Its  revenues  were  after 
wards  s^iveii  by  Antony  to  Cleopatra,  and  fanned  from 
her  by  Herod,  who  eventually  redeemed  them,  and 
often  resided,  and  finally  died  here  (Jos.  Ant.  xvii.  fi,  ;>}. 
His  son  Archelaus  magnificently  rebuilt  the  royal 
palace  that  had  been  in  Jericho,  and  planted  palm-trees 
in  the  plain. 

While  we  have  this  testimony  of  Josephus  as  to  the 
importance  of  Jericho  in  our  Lord's  time,  the  sacred 
narrative:  itself  affords  indications  of  its  wealth  and 
consideration.  It  is  only  onco  mentioned  in  our  Lord's 
journeys;  but  when  there  multitudes  seem  to  have 
thronged  him,  pointing  to  a  populous  city,  nor  is  it  at 
all  likely  that  a  rich  publican  like  Zaccheus  would  have 
dwelt  in  any  but  an  important  place.  "It  was  this 
.Roman  Jericho,''  writes  1'rofe.ssor  Stanley,  "through 
which  Christ  passed  on  his  final  journey  to  Jerusalem 
--passed  along  the  road  beside'  which  stood  the  syca 
more-tree,  Lu.  six.  -1;  went  up  into  the  wild  dreary 
mountains;  caught  from  the  summit  of  the  pass  the 
tirst  glimpse  of  the  line  of  trees  and  houses  on  the 
summit  of  Olivet:  and  so  went  this  way  through  the 
long  ascent,  the  scene  of  his  own  parable  of  the  good 
Samaritan,  till  he  reached  the  friendly  house  perched 
aloft  on  the  mountain  side  —  the  village  of  Bethany'' 
(Syria  and  Palestine,  p.  304).  [C.  T.  M.] 

JERICHO.  PLAINS  OF  (mentioned  in  2  Ki.  XXV.  5  ;  Je. 

xxxix.  :,;  Hi.  M,  the  part  of  the  Jordan  valley  near  Jeri 
cho.  extending  from  the  mountains  to  the  river,  a  dis 
tance  of  eight  miles.  They  were  chiefly  noted  for  the 
forest  of  palm-trees  and  the  fountain  of  Elisha.  (>Vv 
Ji:i:u']io  ((.'TTY  OF).  JORDAN  (\'AU.KY  OF),  [c.  T.  jr.] 
JEROBO'AM  [Heb.  Yarab'am,  Dym',  aboundiny  in 


jiCo/i/c].  1.  The  founder  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel, 
in  its  separate  and  independent  existence.  He  was 
of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  and  the  son  of  Kebat  by 
Zeruah,  who  is  called  a  widow,  1  Ki.  xi.  20.  iS'o  other 
particulars  of  his  early  life  or  connections  have  been 
preserved  to  us  in  the  sacred  narrative.  But  when 
still  only  a  young  man.  he  is  represented  as  having  first 
risen  to  distinction  under  Solomon's  reign,  and  then 
proceeded  to  project  schemes  of  rebellion.  At  the 
building  of  Millo,  one  of  the  fortresses  connected  with 
Jerusalem,  and  in  the  repairs  generally  of  the  city, 
which  were  carried  into  effect  by  Solomon,  Jeroboam 
signali/ed  himself  as  an  extremely  expert  and  energetic 
person;  insomuch  that  Solomon  took  special  notice  of 
him,  and  even  "made  him  ruler  of  all  the  charge  of 
the  house  of  Joseph,"  1  Ki.  xi.  L'N;  that  is.  committed  to 
him  the  oversight  of  the  public  burdens  exigible  for 
such  purposes  from  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  and  perhaps 
also  of  Manasseh.  It  was  then,  we  are  told,  that  he 
began  to  lift  up  his  hand  against  Solomon,  vcr.  27,  though 
we  are  left  to  infer  how;  but  we  can  have  no  doubt, 
from  what  afterwards  followed,  that  he  took  advantage 


of  his  position  to  stir  up  disaffection  against  the  exist 
ing  government,  on  account  of,  the  heavy  exactions  it 
imposed,  and  to  insinuate  that  if  he  were  made  king,  a 
greatly  less  oppressive  regime  would  be  established. 
This  at  least  was  the  ground  he  took  up  at  a  later 
period;  and  we  therefore  cannot  wonder  that  when 
Solomon  came  to  know  of  the  seeds  of  sedition  Jero 
boam  was  sowing  in  people's  minds,  he  sought  to  slay 
him.  so  that  Jeroboam  was  obliged  to  Hee  for  his  life 
to  Egypt.  This  did  not  happen,  however,  till  a  me 
morable  interview  had  occurred  between  him  and  the 
prophet  Ahijah;  who,  during  the  time  that  Jeroboam 
was  exercising  his  function  as  overseer  over  the  house 
of  .lose] ih,  met  him  one  day  by  the  way,  and  made 
known  to  him  from  the  Lord,  that,  on  account  of  the 
idolatrous  defection  into  which  Solomon  had  fallen, 
tlie  kingdom  was  to  be  rent  asunder;  that  tw-o  tribes 
only  were  to  be  left  to  the  house  of  David;  that  Jero 
boam  himself  was  to  be  made  head  of  the  other  ten: 

i  and  that  if,  when  raised  to  this  high  position,  he 
should  walk  in  the  fear  of  (!od.  and  keep  the  com 
mandments  delivered  in  the  law  of  Moses,  the  king- 

1  dom  would  be  secured  to  his  house  for  many  a  day  to 
come.  in  token  also  of  the  certainty  of  all  this, 
Ahijah  took  the  new  mantle  which  Jeroboam  wore, 
and,  having  torn  it  into  twelve  pieces,  gave  ten  of 
these  to  Jeroboam  as  his  proper  share.  We  can  easily 
imagine  how  such  a  communication,  accompanied  and 
confirmed  by  such  an  action,  would  inflame  the  am 
bition  which  was  already  working  in  the  bosom  of 
Jeroboam;  and  would  lead  him,  instead  of  patiently 
waiting  (iod's  time,  like  David,  to  precipitate  the 
result,  which  he  not  only  ardently  wished,  but  now- 
had  certified  to  him  from  heaven.  His  selfish  zeal 
betrayed  itself  too  soon  for  his  own  ends;  and  to 

'  avoid  summary  vengeance,  he  had  to  make  his  escape 
to  Egypt. 

In  Egypt,  however,  he  found  not  only  an  asylum, 
but  apparently  a  kind  and  honourable  reception. 
Shishak,  the  Sesonchis  of  profane  history,  then  occu 
pied  the  throne  of  Egypt;  and  having,  as  is  under 
stood,  dethroned  the  Pharaoh  whose  daughter  Solomon 
had  married,  policy  would  naturally  dispose  him  to 
take  such  courses  as  might  be  fitted  to  weaken  the 
dominion  of  the  house  of  David,  which  had  attained  in 
Solomon's  hands  a  height  that  could  not  but  be  eyed 
with  jealousy  by  the  ruler  of  Egypt.  Hence  Jero 
boam,  as  well  as  Hadad,  another  enemy  and  conspira 
tor  against  Solomon,  met  with  marked  favour  at  the 
hand  of  Shishak;  and  not  improbably,  through  the 
advice  and  instigation  of  Jeroboam,  this  Shishak  at  a 
later  period  brought  war  against  Rehoboam,  and  ex 
torted  from  him  great  treasure.  But  as  soon  as  the 
commotions  arose  \\hich  grew  out  of  Solomon's  death, 
and  the  people  began  to  press  their  demands  on  Reho- 
boam,  they  sent  tidings  to  Jeroboam,  and  invited  him 
to  come  and  take  the  lead  in  urging  their  grievances, 
i  Ki.  xii.  :s.  He  was  not  slow  to  do  so;  and  the  result  was, 
through  the  folly7  of  Rehoboam  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  skilful  management  of  Jeroboam  on  the  other,  the 
accomplishment  of  Ahijah' s  prophecy  by  the  formation 
of  the  ten  tribes  into  a  separate  kingdom.  For  this 
action  Jeroboam  had  a  divine  warrant;  and  however  a 
false  ambition  may  have  morally  vitiated  the  pro 
cedure,  the  procedure  itself  was  chargeable  with  no 
blame.  This  new  kingdom,  called  into  being  for  a 
specific  aim  and  purpose,  stood  on  a  divine  promise 


JEROBOAM 


871 


JEROBOAM 


not  less  than,  the  kingdom  of  David  itself.  But  the 
misfortune  was,  that  Jeroboam  was  not  content  with 
what  that  promise  .secured  for  him  :  he  would  he  the 
founder  of  a  kingdom  which  should  acknowledge  no 
superior,  and  should  stand  in  another  relation  to  the 
kingdom  of  Judali  than  one  of  temporary  subservience 
to  its  ultimate  good.  And  so,  while  he  fulfilled  (Sod's 
counsel  in  withdrawing  his  allegiance  from  the  house  of 
David,  lie  withstood  that  counsel  in  framing  a  consti 
tution  for  his  new  kingdom,  which  was  both  designed 
and  h'tted  to  sever  the  how  divided  tribes  religiously, 
as  well  as  politically,  from  each  other,  and  that  for 
ever.  In  this  higher  respect  he  acted  the  part  of  a 
rebel  against  the  proper  Head  of  the  theocracy,  and 
changed  the  very  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth, 
ft  was  on  the  religious  side,  he  readily  preceived,  that 
tli<:  chief  danger  lay  of  a  relapse  in  the  ten  tribes  to  the 
original  unity;  for  so  l,mg  as  the  one  altar  of  sacrifice, 
and  the  one  temple  of  .lehovah,  stoud  at  Jerusalem. 
tit  en  of  necessity  would  lie  the  religious  centre  of  the 
people;  and  when  the  first  few  years  of  excitement  were 
over,  and  the  tribes  began  anew  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem, 
and  meet  together  in  solemn  festival  on  the  spot  hallowed 
by  so  many  associations,  how  likely  was  it  that  they 
should  yearn  again  after  the  old  fraternal  unity!  So 
Jerohouin  forecast  in  his  mind:  and  distrusting  the 
divine  promise,  which  assured  him  of  a  reasonable  pro 
longation  of  liis  dominion,  if  he  adhered  to  the  law  of 

MOM-S,    lie    resolved     to     make     the    separation   enmplete, 

by  setting  up  in  Dan   on  the  north,  and  Bethel  in  the 

south    (places  already  esteemed    sacred,   see    DAN   and 

BKTHKI,),     two    centres    of     Worship,    where    the    people 

might  assemble  to  pay  their  vows.  However  the  wor 
ship  established  in  these'  places  had  been  ordered,  it 
must  have  been  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  the  eon- 
stitution  introduced  by  Moses;  for,  according  to  this, 
there  was  to  he  hut  one  altar  of  burnt-offering,  and  one 
place  of  meeting,  where  (Sod  should  put  his  name. 
I 'ut  the  contrariety  became  much  greater  when  calves 
were  set  up  as  symbols,  in  the  new  temples  at  Dan  and 
Bethi  1.  through  which  .lehovah  was  to  be  worshipped: 
for  here  it  came  into  conflict  with  the  stringent  pro 
hibitions  of  the  second  commandment;  and  the  religious 
feelings  of  the  people  were  shocked  by  the  innovation. 
For  the  reasons  that  induced  .Jeroboam  to  adopt  this 
form  of  false  worship,  rather  than  any  other,  we  refer  to 
what  is  --aid  in  another  place  (.•«<•  CAI.K- WORSHIP);  but, 
however  plausible  these  might  be.  he  soon  found  that 
so  radical  a  change  could  not  stand  alone;  it  involved 
the  necessity  of  others.  Tin:  priests  refused  to  minister 
at  the  altars,  and  he  had  to  supply  their  place  from 
such  as  could  be  had,  ''the  lowest  of  the  people."  By 
virtue  also  of  his  own  authority  as  the  supreme  head  of 
the  constitution,  IK.-  changed  the  feast  of  the  seventh 
month,  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  into  one  in  the  eighth; 
and  himself  at  times  took  it  upon  him  to  minister  in 
the  priests'  office.  It  was  while  standing,  on  one  oc 
casion,  beside  the  altar  to  offer  incense,  that  a  prophet 
from  .Indah  suddenly  appeared,  and  cried  out  against 
the  altar,  predicting  its  destruction  by  a  future  king  of 
Jiulah:  a  denunciation  that  must  have  been  pecu 
liarly  galling  to  Jeroboam,  since  the  grand  object  he 
was  aiming  at  by  his  whole  policy,  was  to  vindicate 
for  his  institutions  a  stability  that  should  be  indepen 
dent  of  the  sister  kingdom.  He  stretched  forth  his 
hand  to  arrest  the  man  of  (Sod,  but  the  hand  became 
paralyzed  in  the  effort,  and  was  only  restored  to  use 


on  the  prophet's  intercession,  t  Ki.  xiii.  1-1.  Still,  he  per 
sisted  in  his  course,  even  with  the  manifest  seal  of 
Heaven's  displeasure  upon  it,  and  the  earnest  protest 
of  all  the  more  pious  and  upright  members  of  the  com 
munity.  The  multitude,  however,  followed,  and  the 
corrupt  worship  he  established  came  by  and  by  to  be 
regarded  as  the  settled  order  of  things  for  Israel,  pav 
ing  the  way  for  still  more  flagrant  departures  from  the 
faith,  which  were  also  in  due  time  introduced  :  so  that 
the  name  of  Jeroboam  stands  written  with  the  dreadful 
brand  on  it  as  that  of  the  man  "  who  made  Israel  to 
sin." 

Politically  considered  also,  the  course  of  Jeroboam 
proved  a  fatal  one  :  his  worldly-wist:  policy  weakened 
what  should  have  been  its  firmest  bonds,  subverted  the 
grand  principle  of  order  in  men's  minds,  and  present 
ing  him  to  his  subjects  in  the  light  of  a  merely  success 
ful  usurper,  naturally  encouraged  others  to  try  the  same 
perilous  course.  Accordingly,  heavy  disasters  and 
ominous  defeats  befell  him  even  in  his  own  lifetime, 
1  Ki.  \iv.  Ms;  -J  ch.  xiii.  i-'jn;  and  the  son  who  succeeded 
him  on  the  throne,  and  all  the  house  he  had  laboured 
so  much  to  consolidate,  were  within  a  brief  space  swept 
away  by  a  fresh  usurper  -  Baasha,  of  the  tribe  of  Issa- 
char,  1  Ki.  xv.-j:,-::n.  (For  several  points  very  briefly  no 
ticed  here,  see  under  AHI.IAH.  KKHOBOAM.  AIU.IAH, 
and  A];I.I.\M.) 

2.  .lKii'ii;oA.\i  II.  The  son  and  successor  of  Joash, 
and  the  la.-t  member  but  one  of  tin:  fourth  Israelitish 
dynasty.  In  the  general  principles  and  character  of 
bis  government  he  entirely  agreed  with  the  first  Jero 
boam.  Corruptions  of  all  kinds  were  rampant  in  his 
time,  and  the  prophet  Amos  ventured,  even  at  Bethel, 
to  lift  nji  liis  voice  airaiust  them,  and  to  proclaim  the 
approaching  visitation  of  divine  judgments  on  account 
of  them,  Am.vii.  I'or  this  the  high-priest  of  Bethel 
reported  him  to  Jeroboam  as  a  preacher  of  sedition,  and 
sought  the  interposition  of  the  civil  arm;  but  whether 
any  violent  measures  were  taken  against  him  is  not 
stated.  The  probability  is,  that  an  arrest  was  at  least 
laid  on  his  prophetical  agency  in  the  kingdom  of 
Israel;  for  Jeroboam  was  evidently  an  energetic  rider, 
and  was  not  likely  to  allow  so  faithful  a  reprover  as 
Amos  to  continue  bis  ministrations.  He  not  only  held 
all  the  territory  that  he  had  received  from  his  father, 
but  enlarged  its  border  toward  the  north,  and  recovered 
Hamath  of  Judah  (/'.(.  the  part  of  Hamath  which  once 
belonged  to  Judah),  and  Damascus,  which  had  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  Syrian  monarchy.  These  tempo 
rary  successes,  it  is  said,  had  been  predicted  by  the 
prophet  Jonah,  and  are  represented  as  one  of  the  last 
flickering  manifestations  of  divine  mercy  toward  Israel, 
before  the  final  extinguishment  of  their  light  as  a  people, 
L'  Ki.  xiv.  '.'.j-lis. 

Jeroboam's  rei«,fn  was  a  long  one,  forty-one  years. 
The  manner  of  his  death  is  not  mentioned  in  the  his 
tory,  and  no  intimation  is  given  of  its  being  other  than 
a  natural  one.  In  Am.  vii.ll  Amaziah,  the  high-priest 
of  Bethel,  in  reporting  what  he  called  the  conspiracy  of 
Amos  against  Jeroboam,  represents  the  prophet  as 
declaring  that  Jeroboam  should  die  by  the  sword;  and 
some  would  regard  this  as  a  prophecy  that  had  failed  of 
its  fulfilment.  But  the  probability  rather  is,  that  the 
high-priest,  who  displayed  the  true  spirit  of  a  persecu 
tor,  gave  an  unduly  specific  and  offensive  turn  to  the 
words  of  Amos,  in  order  to  inflame  Jeroboam  the  more 
against  him;  for  in  the  utterances  of  Amos,  so  far  as 


87: 


JERUSALEM 


ho  himself  reports  them,  nothing  is  affirmed  of  the 
mode  of  Jeroboam's  de;ilh.  The  Lord,  he  said,  was  to 
rise  against  llic  house  of  Jeroboam  with  the  sword,  Am. 
vii.n:  but  that  is  a  different  tiling  from  affirming  that 
Jeroboam  himself  should  die  by  it-— although  the  high- 
priest,  for  his  own  purposes,  might  very  readily  put  that 
sense  upon  the  words.  We  find  the  Jews  of  our  Lord's 
time  dcj.ling  after  the  same  fashion  with  his  words, 
Jn.  viii.  .v.',:.:; ;  Mar.  xiv.  ;~>7,;~>S  and  with  Stephen's.  Ac.  vi.  l;i,  1 1. 

JERUB'BAAL  [irhom  final-  j-f«nl.^<r i-o,/it,id.-<  n-!!h], 
a  surname  of  Gideon,  given  to  him  in  consequence  of 
Gideon's  having  thrown  down  an  altar  of  l!aal,  and 
when  the  Abi-ezrites  brought  an  accusation  against 
him  to  his  father  Joash,  the  latter  defended  his  son, 
:md  said,  Let  Baal  plead  against  him,  Jn.  \ i.  :;2.  Jerub- 
baal  was  thenceforth  applied  as  a  surname  to  Gideon. 

JERUB'BESHETH  [n-/t<wi  the  Idol.  CMituuh  vitk], 
th(!  same  term  substantially  as  Jerubbaal,  only  with  the 
general  word  for  idol  (xlnnii  f/i,  shameful  thing,  abomina 
tion)  substituted  for  Haul.  It  is  only  once,  and  at  a 
comparatively  late  period,  applied  to  Gideon,  2Sa.  xi.  LM. 

JERU'EL  [founded  bij  Hod],  occurring  only  once, 
as  the  name  of  a  desert,  lying  between  the  Dead  Sea 
and  thi!  city  of  Jerusalem,  2  I'll.  xx.  1C,.  The  combined 
forces  of  Moab  and  Ammon  were  said,  on  the  occasion, 
referred  to,  to  be  "  at  the  end  of  the  brook  twady) 
before  (or  facing)  the  wilderness  of  Jeruel."  The 
region  so  called  must  have  been  comparatively  limited 
in  extent;  it  has  not,  however,  been  identified  by 
modern  research. 

JERU'SALEM.  The  interesting  and  important 
subject  indicated  by  this  name,  naturally  falls  into  two 
main  divisions;  the  one  having  respect  to  the  origin  of 
the  name,  and  to  the  historical  notices  contained  in  Old 
Testament  scripture  of  the  place  which  bore  it;  the 
other  involving  the  discussion  of  all  that  relates  to  the 
topography  of  the  city,  and  its  present,  as  compared 
with  its  ancient,  condition.  The  latter  is  necessarily 
by  much  the  larger  division  of  the  two.  The  articles 
are  from  different  writers,  but  they  so  rarely  touch  on 
the  same  topics,  and  so  briefly  also,  when  they  do,  that 
it  is  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  notice,  that  one  or 
two  points  more  formally  treated  in  the  one  are  again 
referred  to  in  the  other.  [Ku-] 

I.  .1  F.KL'SALEM:  ORKJIN  OF  THE  NAME,  AND  HISTORI 
CAL  NOTICES  IN  OLD  TESTAMENT  SCRIPTURE. 

1 .  Name. — The  Hebrew  form  is  oSttf'n*  ( Yerushalaim}, 

•  -  T      : 

noticed  in  the  Masora  as  five  times  written  D*Sl£?!n'1  ~ 

•  ~  T      : 

this  latter  having  the  appearance  of  a  regular  dual 
noun  anil  so  it  is  understood  by  many  as  referring  to 
the  two  parts  of  the  city.  This,  however,  is  not  by 
any  means  the  common  opinion  of  scholars,  because  the 
fuller  form  occurs  only  in  Je.  xxvi.  IS,  and  once  in 
Ksther,  and  thrice  in  Chronicles,  which  appear  to  be 
two  of  the  latest  books,  and  of  least  authority  as  to 
grammatical  forms;  so  that  more  probably  the  pronun 
ciation  aim  was  a  later  usage,  the  old  true  pronuncia 
tion  being  an,  which  has  been  preserved  in  the  Chaldee 
portions  of  the  Old  Testament,  in  the  Septuagint  Greek 
version  usually,  and  often  in  the  New  Testament,  espe 
cially  in  the  writings  of  Luke  and  Paul.  There  is 
indeed  a  plural  form,  also  quite  common  in  the  Xew 
Testament,  in  Josephus,  and  in  classical  writers,  'lepo- 
ff6\v/j.a,  Hierosolyma,  which  might  be  taken  as  con 
firming  the  belief  in  a  proper  Hebrew  dual.  But  at 
the  utmost  it  evinces  nothing  as  to  the  ancient  Hebrew 


pronunciation;  and  it  does  occur  once  or  twice  in  the 
New  Testament  as  a  feminine  singular  instead  of  a 
neuter  plural;  and  it  may  have  become  the  popular 
pronunciation  on  account  of  the  identification  which 
some  made  of  Jerusalem  with  the  Kolyma  of  Homer,  as 
is  reported  by  Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  :;,  -j\  and  bv  Tacitus 
(Hist.  v.  •_'},  without  however  committing  themselves  to  it. 
and  which,  since  the  refutation  by  Bochart,  has  been 
generally  regarded  as  erroneous.  However,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  two  cities  did  exist  very  early—  the  citadel 
on  .Mount  Zion,  and  the  lower  and  less  defended  por 
tion,  as  we  find  these  two  portions  in  the  hands  of  the 
ancient  inhabitants  and  of  the  Israelite  conquerors 
respecbively;  and  again  we  find  them  in  David's  history, 
the  part  oil  Mount  Zion  being  called  "  the  stronghold," 
"the  fort,"  and  "the  hold,"  as  our  translators  have 
pleased  to  vary  the  word,  •_' Ha.  v.  7,  :i,  17. 

The  meaning  of  the  name  Jerusalem  has  been  de 
bated  more  than  the  form.  There  are,  however,  ju^t 
two  interpretations  which  at  present  find  much  approval. 
Tlie  simplest  possible  is  that  of  Gesenius  (followed  by 
Delitzsch  on  Go.  xiv.),  who  compounds  it  of  !p»  (t/c~rrn. 

and  aSi£?  (shdlem),  "  the  foundation  of  peace,"  for  which 

••   T 

there  is  some  analogy  in  other  proper  names;  as  indeed 
tiie  founding  of  Zioii  is  repeatedly  a  prominent  idea  in 
prophetic  descriptions  of  its  stability  by  the  blessing  of 
God,  r.s.  Ixxxvii.  1;  Is.  xiv.  ;J2;  Ho.  xi.  10,  though  the  Hebrew 
verb  is  different  in  these  instances  and  in  this  word. 
it  is  on  account  of  the  non-appearance  of  the  doubled 
K/I  that  Gesenius  objects,  as  a  grammarian,  to  the  com 
moner  etymology  given  by  writers  from  If  eland  and 
Simonis  down  to  Hengstenberg,  to  which  the  highest 
authorities,  like  Ewald,  nevertheless  adhere;  £>>p»  (,'/''- 
rush),  and  Q^'  (slialem),  "possession  of  peace."  Jn 

••  r 

the  Arabic  versions  of  some  Jewish  authorities  Jeru 
salem  is  translated,  by  a  paraphrase,  "the  house  of 
peace,"1  or  "the  city  of  peace."  The  former  part  of 
tlie  word  alone  presents  any  difficult}';  and  as  the  syl 
lable  llifro  occurred  repeatedly  in  Greek  renderings  of 
Hebrew  names,  it  often  misled  classical  and  early  Chris 
tian  writers  into  the  supposition  that  it  was  connected 
with  the  Greek  word  for  "sacred."  It  is  rather  too 
much,  however,  to  charge  this  error  on  Josephus,  on 
account  of  his  speaking,  perhaps  a  little  vaguely,  in  the 
passage  above  quoted,  of  the  temple  (iep6v)  being  called 
Solyma,  which  he  rightly  renders  a<r<f>d\eia,  "security," 
a  sense  included  in  the  Hebrew  conception  of  "peace," 
which  is  the  more  verbally  exact,  as  in  He.  vii.  •_>. 
"  king  of  Salem,  that  is,  king  of  peace."  Another 
derivation — "the  sight  or  vision  of  peace" — might  be 
defended  from  its  connection  with  MORTAH,  of  which 
it  was  said,  "In  the  mount  of  the  Lord  it  will  be  seen." 
SALEM,  or,  as  it  would  more  exactly  be  written, 
SHALEM,  is  the  name  given  to  Jerusalem,  I's  ixxvi.  2, 
the  first  part  of  the  word  being  dropped,  as  in  Beth- 
nimrah  and  Nimrah,  En-gannim  and  Ginfea.  This 
name  also  occurs,  Go.  xiv  is,  as  the  city  of  Melchizedek. 
And  it  has  been  identified  with  Jerusalem  by  the 
great  mass  of  scholars,  following  the  early  authority  of 
the  Targum  of  Onkelos  (Jos.  Ant.  i.  10,  2),  and  the  great 
rabbinical  authorities,  as  in  our  own  day  still  it  has 
been  supported  by  such  names  as  Gesenius,  Ewald, 
Hupfeld,  Knobel,  besides  Hengstenberg,  Delitzsch, 
Kurtz,  and  Keil.  There  have  been  a  few,  however, 
from  the  time  of  Jerome  (Epist.  73, 7,  ed.  Vallars.  i.  p.  445), 


JERUSALEM 

salt-in,  he    "built  towers  at  the  corner  gate,  and  at  the 
valley  gate,  and  at  the  turning  [of  the  wall],  and  fortified 
them,''  L'Ch.  xxvi.  9.     His  successor,  Jotliam,  "built  the 
high  gate  of  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  on  the  wall  of 
Ophel  he  built  much,"  L'Ch.  xxvii.  :;,  and  partly  in  2  Ki.  xv.  :>:>. 
The  following  reign,  that  of  Ahaz,  was  disgraced  by 
idolatrous  erections  in  Jerusalem,  as  well  as  by  deface 
ment  of   the   temple,  2  Ki.  xvi.  10,  11,  17,  18;  2  Ch.  xxviii.  24;  all 
which  mischief  was  repaired  laboriously  by  his  pious 
son  Hezekiah.    Yet  Hezekiah  was  exposed  to  imminent 
danger  from  the  invading  king  of  Assyria,  and  he  was 
induced  to  save  Jerusalem  from  capture  by  a  ransom, 
taken  once  more  from  the  treasures  of  the  palace  and 
the  temple,  2  Ki.  xviii.  i;i-ni.      The  perfidious  king  of  As 
syria,   however,   renewed    the   sieLrc,    in   the   course   of 
which  the  best  qualities  of  Hezekiah  appeared,  and   a, 
miraculous  deliverance  re  wan  led  his  faith  and  patience, 
-'Ki.  xviii.  xi.v;  L'Ch  xxxii.  i  -•_•;!.     In  this  last  chapter  we  have 
some  particulars  of  He/ekiah'.-  arrangements  about  the 
city-—  stopping  the  fountains  of  water  outside  the  city, 
building  up  the  broken  wall  and  raising  up  towers,  and 
another  wall  outside,  besides  stopping  the  upper  water- 
c-our.-e  of  Gihon,  which  lie   brought  straight  down   to, 
or   on,    the   west    side   of    the   city   of   David.    romp,  also 
Is.  xxii.  '--n.      ilanasseh  once    more  restored   the  idola 
trous    abominations   of    Ahaz,    ami    in   an   aggravated 
form,  while  he  also  tilled  the  city  from  end  to  end  with 
innocent  blood,    -2  Ki.  x\i.  ,'i-iii.       It   is   not   certain  that 
the  city  was  taken  at   the  time  that  hi-  was  carried   to 

<"•"•                                JERUSALEM 

of  Daniel   to  have  his  windows   open  in  his  chamber 
toward  Jerusalem,  and  to  kneel  three  times  a  day  and 
pray  and  give  thanks  to  Cod.  n;l.  vi.  M.      And  if  we  take 
this  in  connection  with  his  studying  the  prophet  Jere 
miah,  so  as   to  under.-tand    the  uars  of  the  desolations 
of  Jerusalem,  and   his  earnest   pleading  on   its   behalf, 
ch.  ix  i-i'.t,  and  with  the  answer  granted  to  him  in  the 
wonderful  prophecy  as  to  the  rebuilding  of  the  city  and 
the  coming  and  work  of  .Messiah  the  i'rince.  we  may 
infer  that  God's  believing  people  had  not  lost  sight  of 
"the  city  of   their  solemnities,"  nor  lost  faith  in  the 
promises  which  gave  them  as  deep  an  interest  in  it  as 
ever.      Their   affection    for  it   is  also  manifested    very 
touchingly  in  Ps.  cxxxvii.      Hence   we  understand  the 
joyful  alacrity  with  which  more  than  forty  thousand  of 
the   captives  welcomed    the  decree   of  Cyrus,    king   of 
Persia,  permitting  and  encouraging  all  who  chose  to 
return  and  rebuild   the  temple  at  Jerusalem,   K/r.  i.  \r.; 
comp.  is.  x'.iv.  -jr,-L'\      Of  course  when  the  temple  was  build 
ing,  there  would  lie  other  buildings  also  in  the  city;  but 
it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  population  was  anything 
considerable-  till  the  times  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  from 
B.C.    1.  "i  7  and  onwards.      Certainly  there  is  no  evidence 
that    there  were   serious  attempts    to  restore-    the  \\alls 
and   gates  which  Nebuchadnezzar  had   burned  and   de 
stroyed,  till    the  occasion    described.   Xe.  i.-iv.;   for  in  the 
article    on    Ezra.    \\  e    have    noticed    that    the    passage, 
K/r.  iv.  7-2:i,  iu  all  probability  belongs  to  the  time  just 
before  Nehemiah.      And  it  is  equally  manifest  that  the 
population  was.  comparatively  speaking,  small,  and  the 
buildings  insignificant,  till  Nehemiah  made  his  efforts 
to  improve  matters,  when  the  people  cast  lots  for  one- 
tenth   of    their    number    to    d\\ell    at   Jerusalem,    and 
"blessed  all  the  men  that  willingly  (.tiered  themselves  " 
to   do   so,    Xc.  vii.  4;  xi.  1,2.      He   solemnly   dedicated    the 
wall  of  Jerusalem  in  proeiice  of  the  assembled  inhabi 
tants,  e-li.  xii.  27-43;  in  celebration  of  which  event  I's.  cxlvii. 
may  have  been  written. 
Jt  is  not  necessary  to  say  much  as  to  the  history  of 
Jerusalem  during  the  intermediate  period,  of  which  we 
have  no  account   in  Scripture;   as  inde-eel  we  are  almost 
wholly  ignorant  of  the  details  of  the  half  of  that  period. 
When  Alexander   the  Great   was   in    the  height   of   his 
successes,   he   was    provoked   at    the   faithfulness  with 
which  the  .lews  adhered   to  the  cause  of   the  Persian 

"'  he  built  a  wall  wit  hi  nit  the  city  of  I>a\  id,  on  the  ue-t 
side  of  (iihon,  in  the  valley,  even    to  the  entering  in  at 
the  fish  gate,  and  con,]>a-.-ed  about  Ophel,  and  raised  it 
up  a  very  great  height,"  besides  undoing  his  previous 
idolatrous  and  ungodly  operations  as  far  a>  in  hi-  power, 
i!Ch.  xxxiii  n,l!-ir>,  1:1.      His  son  Anmn  had  re.-toivd  some 
of  the  abominations;  so  that  Josiah  had  once  more   to 
remove  them,  which  lie  may  have  done  more  etl'ectively 
than  any  of  his  predecessors,  removing  even  Solomon's 
high  places;  and  he  had  to  take  measures  for  repairing 
the  temple,  much  the  same  as  king  Jehoashhad  formerly 
taken,  2Ki.xxii.3-7;xxiii.4-14;L'C'h.xxxiv.:j-13.      in  the  miser 
able  reigns  of  the  sons  and  the  grandson  of  Josiali,  the 
city  was  taken  by  Pharaoh  Neeho   king  of  Egypt,  and 
repeatedly  by  Nebuchadnezzar  king  of    Hahylon.    and 

occasion;    but   the   tiird   catastrophe  was   in   the   year 
H.e1.  ;"iSS,  according  to  most  chron<  lingers,  or  f)>7,  or  ^.M!. 
according  to  Hales,  in  the  eleventh  year  of  Zedekiah, 
when,  after  a  siege  of  eighteen  months  (once  interrupted 
on  account  of  an  irruption  and  diversion  by  the  Egyp 
tians,  Jc.  xxxvh.  ;,,  n),  the  city  was  stormed,   the  temple 
and  the  palaces  and  the  other  principal  houses  burned, 
the  walls  broken  down,  the  citv  mercilessly  plundered, 
and  the  inhabitants  driven  into  exile,  or  carried  captive 

besieged  and  taken,  to  avenue  himself  upon  Jerusalem. 
Jaddua   the   high  priest,  however,  was  warned   by  Cod 
in  a  dream  to  go  forth  with  the  priests  in  procession  to 
meet   the  conqueror,   which  they  did;   and  Alexander 
1  received   him   most  reverently,  recognizing  him  as   the 
person  who  in  a  dream  had  exhorted  him  to  make  his 
expedition,  and   afte-rwards  he  was  shown  by  the-  liigh- 
priest    the   prophecies  regarding    him    in    the    book   of 
Daniel;  in  consequence  of  all   which  he  confirmed  the 
;  .lews  in  the  possession  of  their  privileges  according  to 
the:  laws  of  their  forefathers  (Jos.  Ant.  xi>,  :;-.">).      After  the 
partition  of   Alexander's  empire,  Ptolemy,  the  son  of 
Lagus,   to   whom   Egypt   fell,   surprised  Jerusalem  by 
treachery  on  the  Sabbath-day,  and  ruled  over  it  in  a 
cruel  manner,  also  carrying  oft'  multitudes  into  Egypt 
(Joseph,  xii.  l).      On   the   de-ath  of  the   high-priest  Onias 
111.,  about  H.C.  17;"),  he  was  succeeded  by  his  unworthy 
brother  Jesus  or  Jason,  who  had  to  contend  for  this 
dignity  with  his  still  more  worthless  brother  and   sup- 
planter,   Onias   or   Menelaus:    for   these   men    adopted 
Grecian  names,  as  well  as  Grecian  habits  and  tendencies 

passage  distinguishes  between  the  taking   of  the  city 
when   the  king   fled,   on  the   ninth  day  of   the  fourth 
month,  -ver.  ::,  and  the  final  desolation  on  the  seventh 
day  of  the  fifth  month,  vur.  s,  and   as  the  narrative  in 
Je.   xxxix..  agreeing  with  this,  mentions  besides,  that 
on  the  earlier  occasion   "all  the  princes  of  the  king  of 
Babylon  came  in  and  sat  in  the  middle  gate,"  ver.  :i,  it 
is  very  likely  that  this  month's  delay  was  owing  to  the 
superior  strength  of  Zion,  the  city  of  David,  which  had 
prolonged  the  defence  as  on  earlier  occasions. 
During  the  captivity  we  read  that  it  was  the  practice 

JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


to  Grecian  heathenism;  and  from  this  time  the  Jews  in 
general,  and  the  people  of  Jerusalem  in  particular, 
suffered  fearfully  from  the  inducements  to  apostasy  and 
the  persecutions  of  the  Syrian  king,  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes.  A  gain  and  again  he  took  the  city,  pillaged  it. 
polluted  the  temple  by  idolatrous  innovations,  and  in 
flicted  horrilile  cruellies  on  those  who  adhered  to  the 
pure  faith  of  their  fathers.  Jt  is  impossible  to  speak 
of  the  struggles  of  the  Maccabees;  but  the  crowning 
result  was  attained  by  Simon,  who  succeeded  to  the 
high-priesthood,  H.C.  113,  when  he  took  the  eitach-1 
Burls  ion  whose  site  Antonia  was  afterwards  erect' 'di, 
which  had  long  been  a  source  of  annoyance  and  danger 
to  the  worshippers  in  the  temple,  expelled  its  garrison, 
and  levelled  the  very  site  on  which  it  stood  (Jcisq.li.  xiii. 
n,  fi;i  Mac.  xiii.  -u-.vjV  The  twenty-third  day  of  the  second 
month  was  the  day  on  which  this  victory  was  gained, 
according  to  the  last-named  author,  and  was  appointed 
by  Simon  to  be  an  annual  feast:  as  Judas  had  one  in 
stituted  on  account  of  the  cleansing  of  the  temple,  OH 
the  twenty-fifth  of  ( 'isleu,  the  ninth  month,  1  Mac.  iv.  :,<>; 
sec  Jn.  x.  22.  Two  additional  calamities  befell  Jerusalem 
somewhat  later.  Jn  the  year  03  Pompey  took  the  city. 
entering  it  on  the  Sabbath  like  Ptolemy,  and  massacring 
the  worshippers  at  the  very  altars,  and  killing  altogether 
about  12,000  Jews  (Joseph,  xiv.  1,1-1).  He  however  spared 
the  treasures  of  the  temple;  1m t  these  were  all  carried 
away  a  few  years  afterwards  by  Crassus.  as  he  went  on 
his  disastrous  expedition  against  the  Parthians  (Joseph. 
xiv.  7,1).  The  outward  fortunes  of  the  city  began  to  ri>e 
from  the  time  that  Cnssar  gave  the  principality  of  Judca 
to  Antipater,  with  the  name  of  procurator,  and  per 
mitted  the  re-erection  of  the  wails,  which  Pompey  had 
demolished.  B.C.  43  (Joseph,  xiv.  s,  :>).  Antipater' s  son. 
Herod  the  Great,  executed  many  extensive  schemes  for 
ornamenting  the  city  in  general,  and  particularly  the 
temple,  which  he  actually  rebuilt  on  a  scale  of  almost 
incredible  magnificence,  see  Jn.  ii.  20;  Mar.  xiii.  1, 2;  Lu.  \\i. :.,  ii. 
Jerusalem  was  the  capital  of  Herod's  kingdom;  and 
it  accordingly  was  there  that  the  eastern  magi  appeared, 
when  they  came  inquiring  for  him  that  was  born  King 
of  the  Jews,  by  their  inquiry  throwing  both  the  king 
and  his  capital  into  perturbation,  Mat.  ii.  i-a.  It  appears 
also  to  have  been  the  capital  of  Archelaus  during  his 
brief  reign,  Mat.  ii.  22.  Afterwards  it  lost  some  of  its 
grandeur  when  Judea  was  reduced  to  a  Roman  province, 
and  the  seat  of  the  local  government  was  removed  to 
Cesarea.  At  the  termination  of  the  great  revolt  against 
their  Roman  masters,  the  Jews  saw  their  temple  burned 
and  their  ancient  capital  destroyed  by  Titus.  A.D.  711, 
according  to  the  prophecies  of  our  Lord  referred  to 
above,  see  also  Lu.  xix.  41-44.  The  unparalleled  horrors  of 
the  siege  have  been  fully  related  by  Josephus,  a  con 
temporary  and  almost  an  eye-witness.  Again  they 
rose  in  revolt,  under  the  guidance  of  P>ar-coehab.  who 
pretended  to  be  the  Messiah;  but  this  war  having  been 
brought  to  a  termination  in  A.D.  135,  the  emperor 
Adrian  rebuilt  Jerusalem  as  an  entirely  heathen  city, 
from  which  the  Jews  were  rigorously  excluded,  and 
dedicating  it  to  Jupiter,  he  named  it  .Elia  Capitolina. 
Its  subsequent  history  in  the  Roman  empire,  and  after 
wards  till  the  present  day.  under  various  Mohamedan 
rulers  (excepting  the  wonderful  episode  of  the  Chris 
tian  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  founded  and  sustained  by 
the  Crusaders1),  does  not  properly  fall  within  the  limits 
of  this  work.  The  common  modern  Arabic  name  is 
El  Qods,  "the  Holy  City."  [(,.  c.  M.  n.] 


II.    JERUSALEM.     AND     ITS    ENVIRONS:    xoro- 

URAl'HICALLY  DKSCRI  Hl-'.L)  WITH .  REFERENCE  BOTH  To 
PAST  AND  J'KESKNT  TIMES. 

Our  description  may  not  unfitly  be  prefaced  by  a  few 
words  on  the  import  of  the  name  Jerusalem,  and  the 
other  names  applied  to  the  city.  Jerusalem  has  been 
variously  rendered,  ''city  of  peace,"  ''vision  of  peace," 
••foundation,''  or  "possession,"  or  "inheritance"  of 

peace  (SimonisOnomast.  V.  T.  p.  2.">2,  If.7,  :".71).  Jerome  calls  it 
the  "three-named  or  rather  four-named  city,"  "prins 
Jcl-int,  postea  'SW'  nt,  tertio  Hierosolyma,  et  mine  „ •#//«,''' 
(<k>  Tern  pr"iii.)  In  the  da\>  of  our  Lord  it  was  called 
"the  Holy  City."  Mat.  xxvii. ;,:;;  and  this  name,  after  some 
ages,  re-appears  in  the  modern  El-Kuds  (pronounced 
/-,'/-!. 'ixn/f:).  The  crusaders  speak  of  it  sometimes  as 
Jerusalem,  and  sometimes  as  the  Holy  City:  and  the 
Mohamedan  historians  and  geographers  name  it  /It  il -t  (- 
M  nk<t<l<li->t,  the  Holy  House  (see  'ic.hadiii's  Hist,  of  Saladin; 
and  Ibn  Haukal's  Geofj.),  contracted  into  Ma/ides  or  M  ik- 
da*lt,  or  Maclctash.  It  is  also  called  AW*  .1/o-Wr/-, 
"  Sanctitas  Benedicta,"  and  /\'n</.--  ,S<7«  /•/>',  "  Sanctitas 
XobJlissima.'1  (1«1-.  (/"(/:,  and  K><z-M(>lian<'h  appear 
in  the  works  of  eastern  lexicographers  and  travellers 
of  the  olden  time. 

Fabri,  the  old  traveller  (A.I).  ]4M>,  in  giving  the 
names  of  the  city,  draws  attention  to  the  different 
names  by  which  in  his  dav  it  was  designated.  He 
remarks,  "Dicitur  etiam  Algari/a,  i.e.  mons  altissimus, 
ab  Kusrhio;  Akos>a  nominant  earn  Sarracini"  tEvagat. 
\ol.  ii.  p.  no:',).  Laffi  says,  "  Chiamano  Ii  Turchi  questa 
eitta  Uuzumufaroch  (query,  Kudx  Mubarelc},  die  vuoi 
dire  citta  sacrata"  (Viasgio,  A.D.  Hi7S  p.  4i:U.  Ouseley 
rcmarks,  "This  name  (Gong  -  i  -  Dizh)  has  also  been 
given  to  Jerusalem,  the  /n  it-<tl-M i<k<nl<l<~*.  er  Floly 
House.  It  was  a  name  for  one  of  the  imaginary  para 
dises  or  seats  of  beatitude"  (Gee 'graphical  Works  of  Isfahan!, 
translated  by  Sir  \V.  Ouseley,  p.  43).  Twice  it  is  called,  in 
prophetic  metaphor,  ''the  \alley  of  \i-ion" — Gac- 
Hazuu,  Is.  xxii.  v>;  for  though  built  chiefly  on  hills,  a 
large  portion  of  the  cit}T,  specially  its  markets,  shops,  <-r 
"  bazaars."  as  at  this  day,  occupied  the  great  valley, 
called  by  Josephus  the  TyropTon,  which  intersected 
the  city,  and  furnished  considerable  space  for  building. 
It  had  a  mount  of  ri.--ioii  :  and  a  valley  of  vision  ;  and 
itself  was  the  city  of  riaioii.  Referring  to  the  day  of 
its  siege  and  overthrow — perhaps  to  its  seventeen  deso 
lations  (for  so  many  have  been  the  waves  of  Gentile 
fury  that  have  rolled  over  it),  the  prophets  speak  of  it 
as  a  desolation,  an  astonishment,  a  hissing,  a  place  of 
dragons,  a  city  of  confusion,  as  if  it  had  been  a  second 
P>abylon,  or  Iln/rah,  as  well  as  a  second  Sodom,  Is.  i.m. 
Ezckiel  calls  it  in  one  place  "Jerusalem  the  defeiiced." 
di.xxi.  20;  in  another  "  Aholibah,"  i.e.  my  tent  is  in  her. 


1  We  should  say.  "tirst  Salem,  then  Jebus,  then  Jerusalem, 
,  ihen  .r.lia.''  It  skeins  to  be  to  its  post-Melchizedek  time  that 
Kzekiel  refers,  "thy  birth  and  thy  nativity  is  of  the  land  of 
Canaan  ;  thy  father  wa>  an  Aniorite  and  thy  mother  a  Hittite" 
(cli.  xvi.  1,  2).  It  was  called  .dvlia  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era,  from  .lOliua  Hadrianus,  the  Roman  emperor. 
While  in  the  Kast  Hadrian  was  substituting  his  name  of  ..-Elia 
for  Jerusalem,  in  the  West  he  was  affixing  it  to  an  unknown 
village  of  barbarians,  Puns  JElii  (now  Newcastle''.  It  is  re 
markable  that  it  vas  from  Britain  that  some  of  the  Roman 
legions  were  summoned,  in  one  of  the  emergencies  of  the  Jewish 
war  (whether  to  take  part  in  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  we  ki.ow 
not);  and  it  is  no  less  strange  to  hear  Jose]  hus  in  his  speeches 
to  his  fellow-countrymen,  as  he  stood  on  the  walls  of  the  city, 
once  and  again  naming  the  Britons  as  proof  of  the  invincibility 
of  the  Roman  arms,  and  the  helplessness  of  Jewish  resistance. 


,,(* 

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8.  7 


JEIU'SALEM 


Woe  to  Arl,.t,  to  Ariel.'  (lion  of  God  i 

The  city  of  the  tabernacle  of  David. 

Add  a  year  to  a  year, 

Let  the  festivals  go  their  round; 

And  then  I  will  distress  Ariil, 

And  there  shall  be  heaviness  and  sorrow  ; 

And  it  (Jerusalem)  -hall  be  to  me  as  .-(/•>./; 

(i.e.  I  will  right  against  it  as  against  a  mighty  lion;i 

Ye  i,  I  "ill  come  against  tliee  round  ub,.m  : 

Yea.  I  will  lay  siege  to  thee  with  a  mount  ; 

And  1  will  raise  forts  against  thee; 

And  thou  shalt  be  brought  low. 

I  )ut  of  tin-  ground  shalt  thoii  speak. 

And  out  of  the  du-t  .-hak  thou  bring  nj>  thy  \v..id-. 


I  into  undulating  table-lands,  such  as  the  region  round 
!  Bethel  and  the  hill  country  of  .ludah. 

This   l.roken  prolongation   of  Lebanon  is  the  great 
platform   on    which    the    eities  of    Palestine   rest;    the 
innuineralile  knolls,  hills,  hollows,  and  slopes,  furnish 
ing  their  sites,  and  the  easily- wrought  limestone  sup- 
'  plying  plentiful  materials  for  houses   and   towers  and 
,  walls.   These  white  dusters  of  humaii dwellings  perehed 

hi  ai1  ^^ » »u  conceivable  ^0*?***  at  an 

different  heights,  from  the  hillock  round  which  Kl-Jib 
coils  itself,  to  the  mountain-top  where  Sated  has  struck 
root,  form  the  most  notable  features  of  the  Syrian  land- 
>eape  of  the  present  day.  as  their  predecessors,  must 
So  has  it  b.-cn  with  the '' lion  of  (iod"  these  many  liave  done  in  the  ages  of  Joshua  and  David. 
acres,  trodden  down  and  wasted;  ,,nce  the  "gates  of  (  hi  a  section  of  one  of  these  broken  table-lands  of 
the  people."  Kze.  xxvi.  i',  "the  perfection  of  beauty,'  i..i.  limestone.  MI  me  -Jin  MI  feet  above  the  sea.  lies  .Jerusalem.1 
ii.  i;, ,  now  a  heap,  a  tomb,  a  "  uhited  sepulchre."  The  surface  of  its  platform  is  rough  and  diversified ; 

1.  Kite  of  the  pity,  uinl  <-r!m;i>n1<>tltciiio)nit<i'tnr«n<n*  an  ellipse.  runnim;  north  and  south,  of  above  four 
fif  1'iilit'iiK' .  (  If  .lerusal.-m  Abi-aham  I'erit/ol 
writes,  '•  Shem  the  son  of  Noali  was  king  ><\ 
Shalom,  which  is  .Jerusalem"  (Itinera  Mundi, 
oh.  ii.;  see  his  translator's  I-IMI;  n<>te  "i,  the  name  and 
history  df  the  rity  i.  That  Shalem  \\as  its  original 
name,  and  that  Meichi/edek  ua>  it.-  kinu. 
appears  probable  from  the  following;'  state 
ments.  ( 1 . )  'l  ho  name  of  Melchizedek's  city 
was  ,^'i/im,  lie.  \iv  i-;  whicli  corresponds  with 
JiTiiitiili  ni.  and  i.-  recognized  in  \'-.  l.\\vi.  '_'. 
"  in  .^n/i  in  i-  hi.-  talieruacle.  and  his  dwelling- 
place  in  '/.ion;  where  >''•//<  i-  connect,  d 
with  /inn.  That  several  of  the  father-  thought 
Salem  to  be  the  Shalem. if  Jacob  is  of  little 
moment.  Tlie  opininii  of  some  of  them  that 
(  leri/./.im  is  Moriah.  and  that  the  land  of 
Moriali  is  to  be  sought  for  near  Shecliem.  i- 
no  more  trustworthy  nor  satisfactory  than 
the  tradition  of  others  of  them  connecting; 
Mount  7V/"/'  with  Abraham  and  .Meiohi/edek. 
(•_'.)  1'salm  ex.  joins  Melchi/.edek  \\ith  /inn,  as 
other  passages  do  with  >'"/i  m.  il!.>  .los.  \.  1  .  :',. 
shows  the  traces  of  Melchi:»  !/'/•'.-•  name  in 
.Jerusalem,  aires  after  his  day  -"Adorn-  :<  >(</,•. 
kin-  of  Jerusalem. 

Tlie  two  great  mountain  ridges,  in  Scripture  known  '  miles  circumference  in  it.-  most  |,opulous  days.  'Ihe 
as  Lebanon,  in  classical  ovography  as  Libanus  and  Anti-  site  of  the  city  is  admirable;  more  however  for  strength, 
Libanus.  do  not  terminate,  as  many  suppose,  at  the  compactness,  visiliility,  and  an  indeseribable  tranquillity 
northern  frontier  of  1'alestine.  Tiny  project  them-  of  repose,  than  for  grandeur  or  pieturesque  attractive- 
selves  far  southward,  though  not  with  o(|iial  elevation  ness.  A  small  central  knot  of  low  hills,  three  or  four 
or  compactness,  in  two  nearly  parallel  ranges,  separated  in  number,  shut  ofT  from  the  rest  of  the  rugged  pla- 
from  each  other  by  tlie  long  depression  of  the  <  Mior  i  teau  by  ravines  and  hollo ws,  nearly  clasped  round  on 
(sfC  .ToRDAM,  which  mav  be  said  to  be-in  at  the  ba.-e  i  three  side-  by  the  Kedron.  and  then  girdled  by  an  outer 

of    TIermon      that    "g lly  mountain."   lie.  iii.  25-  now     circle   of   higher   hills,  forms  a  very  uneven  but   gently 

,Tobel-es-Sheikh.  and  end  at  the  ("iulf  of  Akabah.  'I'he  !  sloping  esplanade,  on  which  the  city  spreads  itself  out 
eastern  ridge  distributes  itself  through  Colan.  (Jilead,  \  like  a  theatre,  as  Josephus  says  (thaTpouoi]!,  Ant.  xv.  11,^:,). 
^ioab.  Tetra,  and  the  Arabian  margin  of  the  lied  Sea.  j  Thus,  while  >••<  /  upon  mountains,  J's.  Kxxvii.  i,  2,  or  hills 
I'he  western  one  pushes  right  through  the  heart  of  i  at  least,  it  was  also  aiirruinnlcl  with  these,  Fs.  cxxv.  2. 
Palestine,  as  its  backbone,  forming  successively  the  '  "  Heautiful  for  situation,"  Ps.  xlviii.  2,  it  is  to  this  day; 
hills  of  (ialilee,  Samaria,  Kphraim.  P-enjamin.  Judah:  whether  seen  from  the  .Mount  of  Olives  or  the  Bethany 
then  spreading  out  into  the  scattered  peaks  and  cliffs  |  road,  or  Scopus,  or  the  many  heights  far^and  near  from 
and  groups  of  the  Sinaitic  or  Kt-Tih  desert,  till  ab-  |  which  it  is  visible.  "  Frbs  ardua,  situ "  is  the  expres- 
ruptly  brought  to  a  point  at  Pas  .Mohammed,  in  the  sion  of  Tacitus  (Hist.  v.  uV,  and  the  Sej.t.  translating 
mountainous  angle  formed  by  the  bifurcation  of  the 
Ped  Sea. 

This  latter  rid^'e  breaks  up  considerably  as  it  passes 
through  Palestine:  throwing  out  spurs  on  both  sides 
during  its  course;  sinking  down  into  plains  such  as 


somewhat  more  accordiiis  to  aneroid  observations.      It  is  210 
feet  higher  than  Damascus;  ahout  1000  lower  than  Baalbec.— 


JERUSALEM 


Ps.  xlviii.  '1,  calls  it  ft'/ufav,  "  well-rooted."  "  Felix 
iiimis  et  formosa"  are  the  words  of  the  old  hymn. 

The  mountains  that  are  "round  about  Jerusalem" 
art-  the  following:  (1.)  On  the  north  iS'fop MS,  the  watch- 
hill  (.ins.  .1.  \v.  v.  2,  .",),  <me  of  the  many  Mi:.f<lis  and 
ZepJtathit  ui  old  times.  The  modern  name  of  the  1ml- 
lu\v  just  over  the:  brow  of  the  hill,  which  the  great 
''  north"  or  '•  Damascus"  road  climbs  on  leaving  Jeru 
salem,  is  +/t(i/Jtt/t:  a  relic  of  the  Mi:/,<li  of  Je.  xli.  ]-(!; 
the  Sqituagint  Ma.<x< iiliitti,  of  Ju.  x\.  1  :  the  Mut/i/nt  of 
1  Mac.  iii.  4t>:  v.  3/»;  and  the  Mu*i>lm.tlt<i  of  Josephus 
(Ant.  vi.  4,  •»).  Here  all  tlie  great  invaders  lirst  encamped, 
from  (Sennacherib  to  Titus;  and  here  the  coming  or  de 
parting  traveller  gets  his  first  or  his  last  look  of  the 
Holy  City.  (±)  On  the  east  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
now  Jebel-et-Tur.  i.e.  the  "fort-hill."  like  Tabor,  (it  r- 
izzim,  and  others,  which  take  the  same  luime  from  their 
once  fortified  character.  Of  its  three  peaks  or  round 
heights,  the  middle  one  is  the  highest  ('27-4  feet  above 
sea  -level),  and  is  "the  Mount  of  Olives,"  which  is  ''before 
Jerusalem,  on  the  east."  /ec.  xiv.  1.  The  northern  height 
is  nameless  (for  Stanley's  idea  that  it  is  the  Mount  of 
Corruption  is  untenable):  and  the  southern,  which  is 
opposite  Mount  Zion,  is  "the  Mount  of  Corruption," 
where  Solomon  built  the  high-places  of  Ashtoreth  and 
Chemosh.  i  Ki.  xi  7;  2  Ki.  xxiii.  13;  traditionally  named 
"minis  offuii.-ioiiis:  '  and  by  Milton  the  "opprobrious 
hill."  "hill  of  scandal,"  and  "offensive  mountain"  (Par. 
L.  b.  i.  i.  in:;, -IK;,  n:)1).  From  this  hill  the  traveller  looks 
down  on  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea,  with  theMoab 
mountains  beyond,  on  the  one  side,  and  on  Jerusalem  on 
the  other.  The  whole  ridge  is  now  known  by  the  name 
Jebel-es-Zeitun.  (o.)  On  the  south  there  are  the  low 
crags  and  broken  hillocks — half  gray,  half  green — that 
form  Akeldama,  and  run  westward  and  southward, 
passing  into  higher  ranges  beyond,  of  which  the  "  Frank 
Mountain,"  or  ancient  Betkhaccercm,  which  Herod 
fortified  and  named  Iferodlum,  is  the  most  conspicuous, 
with  its  lofty  and  truncated  top.  almost  overlooking 
Bethlehem.  (4.)  On  the  west  there  is  the  partly  level, 
partly  undulating1  ground  which  slopes  very  gradually 
upward  as  it  retreats  from  the  city- walls,  till  it  rises 
into  the  heights  around  Soba  and  .Nebi-Semwil,  from 
which  tlie  Mediterranean  is  seen,  and  which  command 
a  noble  view  of  the  city  itself.  The  rough  ground  west 
of  the  walls,  through  which  the  road  to  Jaffa  passes,  is 
called  by  the  resident  English  "the  Jaffa  Plain,"  by  the 
natives  the  Meidan.  which  in  Arabic,  Turkish,  and 
Persian  denotes  a  level  place  of  public  exorcise  adjoining 
a  city.  This  Meidan  is  now  nearly  covered  witli  the 
large  Russian  erections.  It  used  to  lie  the  place  of 
military  drill.  Few  cities  in  the  world  are  so  protected 
by  natural  bulwarks.  Its  mountain  fortification  is 
complete;  though  of  course  there  are  weak  points  in  it, 
of  which  invaders  have  availed  themselves. 

•2.  Rtlatit'ii  i  if  tin  (•////  t<>  the  tonih-nijioiis. — Within 
this  circle  of  ttillt,  there  is  another  of  t  oaths,  which  dors 
not  fail  to  attract  the  eye  of  the  stranger.1  On  the 
east,  there  is  the  Jewish  burying-ground,  one  of  the 
most  interesting  places  about  Jerusalem.  It  occupies 
a  stripe  of  the  slope  of  Olivet,  about  !»00  feet  by  ]'2<>, 
right  opposite  the  south-east  angle  of  the  mosque, -be 
tween  the  .Bethany  road  and  the  Kedron.  It  is  covered 


with  flat  tombstones,  most  of  which  have  Hebrew  in- 
i  scriptions,  with  the  well-known  Jewish  word  Txian 
(epitaph)  at  the  top,  as  the  title  of  each  (liunjamin  of 
Tn, lulu,  veil.  i.  p.  7'-',  Ashur's  cd  ;  IVtaeliia,  p.  fil,  Jienisch's  edit.) 
About  !)dO  feet  higher  up  the  hill  arc  the  Tombs  of  the 
Prophets — Kubr-cn-Nebia;  by  some  called  the  Tombs  of 
;  the  Apostles  (Do  Saulcy,  vol.  ii.  p.  ISO;  Barclay,  108).  At  tlie 
foot  of  the  hill,  an  el  immediately  below  the  Jewish 
cemetery,  are  the  monuments  of  Zecharias,  James, 
Absalom,  and  Jehoshaphat,  in  which  last  the  Jews 
bury  all  their  soiled  or  tattered  rolls,  thinking  it  crimi 
nal  to  burn  them.  There  are  probably  other  tomb- 
excavations  in  the  mount;  so  that  one  writer  affirms 
that  could  we  but  get  a  proper  section  of  this  hill  and 
the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem  all  round,  we  should 
find  tlie  rocks  exhibiting  a  succession  of  perforations 
"resembling  the  cellular  construction  of  a  hornet's 
nest  '  (I)upuis'  Holy  Places,  vol.  ii.  p.  s).  On  the  other  side  of 
tlie  Kedron,  close  under  the  eastern  wall  of  the  city, 
are  crowds  of  Moslem  gravestones,  great  and  small, 
dotting  the  steep  down  to  the  Kedron,  and  probably 
indicating  that  this  is  not  a  sl<  pc  of  solid  rock,  but  of 
ilcbri*,  from  the  frequent  ruins  of  the  city,  which  has 
converted  the  original  precipice  into  a  gradual  ascent. 
Here  "the  stones  of  the  sanctuary  have  been  poured 
out,"  La.  iv.  i  On  the  south  we  have  the  rocky  shelf  of 
Akeldama,  right  opposite  Zion,  and  overhanging  what 
we  believe  to  be  the  extremity  of  Gihon,  now  called 
"\Vady-er-Rababi,  the  "  Monk-valley."  This  shelf  of 
rocks  is  honey-combed  with  tombs  for  nearly  20(10  ftet 
along,  from  east  to  west.  These  are  very  extensive 
excavations,  some  right  down  into  the  rock  and  built 
over,  others  cut  far  into  tlie'  side  of  a  rock:  some  plain, 
others  with  carving  and  inscriptions;  but  all  of  them 
bearing  very  distinct  marks  of  their  design:  none  of 
;  them  mere  caves  or  holes  in  the  rock.  The  one  which  we 
once  carefully  explored  with  torches  was  a  very  remark 
able  piece  of  excavation.  Elite-red  by  a  well-cut  square 
aperture,  low  down  in  the  face  of  the  rock,  for  which 
there  had  once  been  a  regular  door,  probably  of  stone 
(the  rolling  of  "large  stones"  was  generally  but  a  tem 
porary  appliance),  it  retreated  we  knew  not  how  far, 
chamber  after  chamber,  each  shelved  round,  if  we  may 
call  it  so,  with  loculi.  tier  above  tier,  for  bodies  or 
sarcophagi,  many  of  which  were  filled  with  skulls  and 
1  Mines  and  human  dust.  (Wilde's  Narrative,  vol.  ii.  3:J7-:;r.7. 
This  is  tliu  fullest  and  most  curious  of  the  many  accounts  of  Akel 
dama.)  On  the  west  there  is  the  Moslem  grave- 
yarel  at  the  Mamilla  pool,  called  Turin  t  Mantilla 
(Tnrlict--  graves'),  some  7<l(i  or  hdO  yards  from  the  Jaffa 
gate.  To  the  north  there  is  another  Moha.medan  grave 
yard,  called  Turbct-es-Sahcra,  on  the  north  slope  of  the 
excavated  hill,  which  contains  "Jeremiah's  cave,"  or 
"  Mayhdret-cl-Edhamiych."  Farther  north  than  this 
there  are  several  tombs,  and  ruins;  tombs  of  the  martyrs, 
tombs  of  the  judges,  tombs  of  the  kings,  the  Wely 
(monument)  of  Sheikh  Jerrah,  and  in  the  very  valley 
of  the  Kedron,  where  the  Wady-el-J6s  begins,  the 
tomb  of  Simon  the  Just,  large,  and  much  visited  by 
Jewish  pilgrims,  as  the  Hebrew  inscriptions  on  its  walls 

testify  (Ban-lay,  p.  I'M. 

•3.  The  rarhies  and  fountains  in  the  neighbourhood  oj- 
the  city. —  Another  circle  is  that  of  ravines,  valleys,  ami 
plains.  Commencing  at  the  foot  of  Scopus,  you  have 
the  "fields  of  Kedron"  about  you,  2  Ki.  xxiii.  4;  then  you 
enter  the  hollow  of  the  Kedron  (which  first  strikes  east 
and  then  south),  called  the  Wady-cl-J6s,  or  valley  of 


JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


Jehoshaphat  ("'inter  Hierusalem  ct  Montem  Oliveti," 
Jerome);  as  you  go  farther  south,  the  bed  is  still  broad, 
but  its  banks  rise  on  both  sides,  and  in  one  of  these 
(it'eadt/tf,  just  at  the  foot  of  Olivet,  is  Gethsemane;1 
then  the  Kedron  hollow  becomes  deeper  and  narrower. 
Olivet  on  one  side,  Moriah  and  Opbel  on  the  other; 
tlien  you  come  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tyro] neon,  where 
there  is  considerable  breadth  of  ground  and  fertility  of 
SDil,  watered  by  Siloaia;  (it  is  this  last  reach  from  the 
nortli  end  of  the  Jewish  burying- ground  to  the  space 
round  Siloam  that  is  reckoned  Hinnom  and  Gehenna 
by  Jews  and  Moslems):  then  turning  westward,  and 
passing  up  the  glen  (which  in  modern  times  has  been 
named  Hinnom,  but  which  is  probably  Gihon).  as  it 
bends  round  the  south  extremity  of  Zion  and  comes  right 
up  under  the  Jaffa  gate,  you  rind  yourself  in  a  succession 
of  hollows  and  ravines,  which,  though  in  some  places 
filled  up  with  the  LTray  rubbish  of  the  oft-i-a/.ed  walls, 
are  still  deeji  enough  to  form  an  almost  impregnable 
Hue  of  natural  circumvallation  round  more  than  tlnve- 
foiirths  of  the  citv.  <  In  the  south-west,  west,  and 
noT'th-west,  you  have  more  level  ground.  Here  the 
invat  towers  stood  :  at  one  of  these  points  the  city  was 
almost  always  attacked,  save  once,  \\iien  the  crusadi-rs 
assaulted  it  from  the  east.  The  "valley  of  th>-  giants" 
I  Kmek  Rephaim,  Jos.  xv.  x  ;  xviii  ii;;  •_'  S;i.  v.  1-- ;  Is.  xvii.  ;,), 
which  Sch war/,  says  is  still  called  A'"/-//-',  but  which,  so 
far  as  we  could  learn,  is  simply  called  ll<k<\  (the  plaim, 
lies  a  little  southward  of  the  citv  i  if  the  identification 
be  correct  i.  on  the  IVthleheiii  r,  iu  1.  and  comes  up  to 
the  suburbs  of  the  citv:  and  in  the  statement  of  the 
boundary-line:  between  Judah  and  IVnjamin  (as  we 
understand  it),  was  reckoned  to  extend  a  little  fartln-r 
north  than  is  now  supposed.  Here,  \\hi-iv  1'avid  twice 
overthrew  fsrael's  enemies,  Herod  eiveted  the  amphi 
theatre  for  games,  wrestlings,  and  shows  of  wild  beasts, 
and  performances  of  the  "  Thyinclici  "  (''  li.u-i-liantii: 
I  "layers,"  sou  Suidas  in  verb.  Smith's  f]  Diet.),  by  means  of  which 
he  sought  to  corrupt  the  purity  of  Jewish  morals,  and  to 
introduce  into  the  eastern  province  the  luxuries  ami 
profligacies  of  the  western  metropolis  (Jos.  Ant.  xv.  8,  l). 
Whether  "the  plain  of  Tabor."  I  Sa.  x.  3,  be  another 
name  for  the  valley  of  Kephaim.  or  wln-ther  the  former 
lie  the  name  for  the  ground  west  of  the  city,  now  called 
the  '•  Jafl'a  plain,"  cannot  be  ascertained.  The  conjec 
ture  of  some  that  Ti'ir  is  the  contraction  for  Tn.'mr  (lie- 
cause  Mount  Tab  >r  is  now  named  Tur:  wheiva-  '/'///•  is 
simply  /"/'/.  and  a  modern  name  .  and  that  the  plain  of 
Talior  is  the  plain  near  the  Mount  of  Olives,  is  inad 
missible. 

In  this  circle  of  valleys  there  are  one  or  two  things 
reipiirin^  notice.  (1.)  Urtltxi  ilium1,  on  the  east  of  the 
Kedron,  hut  almost  in  its  bed.  called  now  ,/i:-nnnii!i/(ili  : 
though,  whether  this  be  a  genuine  relic  of  the  original 
name,  or  merely  an  Arabic  version  of  the  traditional 
one,  we  know  not.  In  the  middle  ages  there  was  a 
"  town  "  or  "  village  of  (  iethsemane  "  (Cm-Horde's  IMgrym- 

a<re,  p.  :K).  c2.)  Ermje.  Halfway  down  the  Kedron  hol 
low,  below  the  present  St.  Stephen's  gate,  and  nearly 
opposite  Gethsemane,  must  have  been  the  place  called 


1  It  is  nut  unlikely  tluif,  tin-  present  Latin  garden  called 
Gethsemane  is  the,  same  as  in  the  days  of  Kusebius  and  Jerome, 
as  they  speak  of  it  as  at  "the  routs  of  Olivet."  and  mention  a 
building  there  which  Kusebius  simply  calls  a  place  for  prayer, 
Jerome  a  church.  The  Greeks  have  a  part  of  the  hollow  which 
they  Gill  Gethsemane ;  but.  the  other  is  undoubtedly  the  older 
It  is  2081  feet  above  sea  level.—  1'n/i  <l>  V>I<IS»  .l/,,,,oiV,  p.  1x0. 


by  Josephus  Eiwic  (EpuyTj,  Ant.  ix.  lo,  4),  where,  during 
the  earthipuake  in  the  days  of  Uz/.iah  (Am.  i.  i;  Zee.  xiv.  M, 
there  occurred  a  formidable  landslip.  Josephus  says 
that  the  earthquake  shook  the  temple,  split  one  of  its 
walls,  and  so  terrified  the  kini;-  that  he  was  arrested  in 
his  impious  purpose,  2Ch.  xxix.  IS.  He  further  tells  us 
that  part  of  the  clitt'  on  the  west  side  of  the  valley  was 
splintered,  and  rolled  down  the  valley  for  four  furlongs 
to  the  east  side,  where  it  stood  still,  blocking  up  the 
roads  and  injuring  the  kind's  gardens.  \Ye  have  no 
farther  information  about  this  Kro^v,  either  as  to  site 
or  name.  One  might  have  thought  it  to  be  connected 
with  Jiiit/tl,  or  the  modern  Ik  raj,  were  it  not  that  the 
distance  between  it  and  the  king's  gardens  is  much  less 
than  four  furlongs  (see  Hudson's  note  on  the  passage,  in  his  edi 
tion  ..f  Josephus,  i.  4HH  ;  also  Sdiwar/,  p.  '-'i;:u.  L'oth  of  these 
writers  make  it  a  transposition  of  the  »-,-.  ««•  of  Xech- 

•T 

ai'iah,  ch.  xiv.  :,;  and  if  so.  then  the  Kedron  bed  at  the 
foot  of  Olivet  was  called  the  ''valley  of  the  mountains," 
or  "mountain- valley.''  I'.ut  we  suspect  that  AVo</<  is 
the  Hebrew  -;S-,y  i /;'/•";/;</<'.  a  garden-lied  or  spice-bed, 

T 

C'a.  v.  13;  vi.  2;  for  it  was  just  in  this  part  of  the  Kedron 
that  there  were  the  gardens  of  which  ( .'ethsemane  was 
one.  (I!.)  A'/i -/•('//</,  the  "fuller's  fountain."  which  we 
place  at  Um-ed  l>eraj,  as  we  have  elsewhere  stated. 
(l.)/../,r/<///.  the  stone  "by  Kn-ro-el,"  where  Adoni- 
jab  •'  slew  slieep  and  oxen,"  1  Ki.  i.  U.  The  Targumists 
translate  this  the  rolling-stone,  on  which  the  young  men 
trifd  their  strength  (J.irchi);  others  make  it  the  serpent- 
stone  (Gesen.)j  others  connect  it  \\ith  running  water; 
and  perhaps  it  may  be  "the  stone  of  the  conduit" 
(TSV77.  MI''./"  ''i/i'.  from  its  proximity  to  the  great 
rock-conduit  or  conduits  that  potnvd  their  waters  first 
into  Kn-rooel,  and  then  into  Siloam  (•..•<_•  itodiart ;  al>o  the 
Arabic  CMIIIIII.  of  TuncJiuni  of  Jerusalem  mi  Kings,  trai.sl.  by  H:iar. 
briu-ktr,  p  <;:D.  'I'll.  r.  are  several  such  stones  mentioned 
in  Scripture.  The  stones  of  Jordan,  «'f  Gilgal.  Jos.  iv. 
!>,ai,  the  stone  of  Shechem,  Jos.  xxiv.  2<i,  the  K/,i-ii-;/uI,,/,ift, 
"threat  stone,"  eall.-d  also  A  be]  -gedolah,  the  great 
weepini:.  1  Sa,  vi.  14,  Hi;  the  A'',,/,  //,,/,, :,/,  stone  of  liohaii. 

tile  soli  of  Kellbell,  Jos.  xv.  I.;  xviii.  17,  tile  KhlVllhlvitstein 
of  the  (  ;hor:  Kbeli- K/er.  the  stone  of  help.  1  Sa.  viii.  7,  II; 
xiv.  33;  the  /-.'/'i  ii  /•.':<  /  (lapis  discessus.  a  discessu  Jona- 
thanis  et  Davidis,  sim.oiiom.  p.  i:,<;;  lapis  peregrinantium, 
travellers'  stone,  according  to  Tanchum,  Comni.  Arab. 
p.  ::c,).  (.').)  Si/ini,ii.  the  "sent'  or  "missioned"  poo], 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Tyropoeon,  u  Inch  still  exists,  though 
broken  and  wasted,  "sending  out"  its  <piiet  waters 
still,  as  of  old.  to  irrigate  the  gardens  beneath  (L'll  1 
feet  above  sea  level).  I  fight  across  the  Kedron.  from 
the  pool  of  Siloam.  is  the  modern  village  of  the  same 
name,  Kifr-^il«'<ui,  a  group  of  dismal  Arab  huts  and 
tomb-like  caves,  used  now  for  bouses,  and  once  perhaps 
used  for  cells  by  the  "  Oenobites."  (,r  hermits,  who,  in 
the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  occupied  several  places  of 
the  desert  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  such 
as  Akeldama.  ('lose  by  the  pool  must  have  been  the 
"tower  in  Siloam"  which  fell.  I,u.  xiii.  I;  and  the  Kedron 
hollow  down  from  the  pool  is  that  which  Josephus  calls 
"the  valley  hard  by  Siloam"  (Kara  ri]v  ~i\ua/j,,  J.  \V.  v. 
12,  L'),  ami  which  old  travellers  call  "  the  valley  of  Siloam'' 
(I'ylurymaKe  of  Syr  K.  (iuylforde,  A.i>  1'iiKi,  ]>.  :','.',),  dividing  the 
Kedron  valley  into  two  parts:  "  Here  endeth  the  vale 
of  Josophat  and  begynneth  th<!  vale  of  Siloe,  and  they 
both  be  but  one  vale,  but  the  name  changeth "  (Ib  ) 
Whether  the  large  tank  adjoining  Silwan  on  the  east, 


JKRT SALEM 


sxo 


JERUSALEM 


now  nearly  tilled  with  soil,  and  cultivated  as  an  orchard, 
be  "  the  king's  pool,"  Xe.  ii.  n,  is  uncertain.  Us  modern 
name  is  Birket-el-Hamra.  Mr.  \Vhitty  seems  to  think- 
that  the  old  Siloam  was  here,  or  perhaps  a  little  farther 
down,  among  the  gardens  ^Proposed  Water  Supply  and  Sewer 
age  for  Jerusalem,  by  .[.  .1.  Whitty,  London,  IM;:;).  (i>.  )  'J'n/j/n  t/i , 
a  music-grove  in  the  king's  gardens,  2  Ki.  \\.\iii.  m ; 
Jo.  vii.  ;il,.'i-!;  xix.  o-ll,  in  Hinnom,  probably  not  far 
from  Siloain;  called  Tophi -t.  not  from  the  •'drums" 
employed  to  di-own  the  cries  of  the  immolated  children 
(if  such  implements  were  ever  used  heivi.  but  from  its 
being  the  royal  music-grove.  (7.)  I'u'ixtirtnn.  This 
was  a  particular  rock  or  cliff,  mentioned  by  Josephus 
as  one  of  the  points  in  the  south-eastern  side  of  the 
Mount  of  ( (lives,  which  Titus'  great  siege- wall  or  trench 
touched  in  its  circuit  (J.  W.  \.  r_>,  1,2).  .It  must  have  been 
nearly  opposite  Siloain;  for  the  rock  on  or  bv  which  it 
stood  joined  on  to  that  "hill  which  overhung  the  valley 
which  is  hard  by  Siloain  "  J.  \V.  v.  !•_>,  •>).  Whether  it  was 
really  the  site  of  a  dove-cot  (Trfpitrrepfibv,  perhaps  for 
temple  uses),  as  its  name  ini])lies,  or  whether  there  is 
some  Hebrew  name  hidden  under  this,  is  unknown. 
(8.)  The  royal  yardfitx,  or  -'King's  Paradise.''  as  Jose- 
phus  calls  them,  on  the  rich  ground  watered  bv  "the 
waters  of  Shiloah,  which  go  softly."  Is.  viii.  <;.  .in  con 
nection  with  the  ''king's  gardens,"  we  may  notice  the 
"king's  dale,"  or  Kmck-amvlvk  of  Ge.  xiv.  17  and  '2  Sa. 
xviii.  IS.  Joseplms  says  of  the  lattir  that  it  was  "two 
furlongs  from  Jerusalem,"  and  that  Absalom's  marble 
pillar  was  there  (Ant.  vii.  io,:;);  and  lie  leads  us  to  infer 
that  the  former  was  not  far  from  the-  city  (Ant.  i.  10,  •_'), 
though  he  does  not  exactly  say  so.  He  calls  the  first 
TreSiov  fiaffiXiKov,  and  the  second  /cotXds  /SacriXi/CT).  All 
the  ancient  Jewish  commentators  hold  them  identical, 
and  in  the  vicinity  of  Jerusalem  (Roland,  Pal.  vol.  i.  p.  3o(i; 
De  Sola's  Genesis,  p.  7l);  but  Stanley  and  others  take  the 
first  to  the  far  north  and  the  second  to  the  east  of  J  ordan 
(Sinai  and  Pal.  p.  246,  247),  though  upon  slender  grounds. 
We  need  not  contend  for  the  present  valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat  as  the  spot  (though  it  may  be  so);  but  we  incline 
at  least  to  accept  the  statement  of  Josephus  as  to  the 
two  furlongs,  which  would  be  verified  in  the  plain  of 
Hephaim  or  the  northern  fields  of  Kedron  as  well.  (Jf 
the  name  "Shaveh,"  which  is  connected  with  the  king's 
valley,  there  is  now  no  trace  anywhere.  (9.)  />'?/•-/;'///'/; 
(1996  feet  above  sea)  or  "well  of  Job;"  sometimes 
called  ''well  of  Nehemiah,"  where  the  Jews  say  that 
Jeremiah  hid  the  sacred  fire  when  Jerusalem  was  taken 

(Snrius,  Vuyage  do  Jerusalem,  p.  309).       It    is    at   the    bend    of 

Wady-en-Xar  (Xar  =  fire),  at  the  angle  formed  bv  the 
Kedron  and  Gihon  valleys.  It  is  not  a  "  Birket"  (pool), 
nor  an  "En"  (a  fountain),  but  a  "Bir,"  a  n-cU,  130  feet 
deep,  fed  by  springs,  and  overflowing  in  the  seasons  of 
rain;  probably  a  very  old  one,  repaired  bv  the  famous 
Saladin  or  "  Salah-ed-din,  ibn-  Ei/nl),"  who  signalized 
himself  by  digging  (/•(•//.<  and  building  k/umx;  and  who 
seems  to  have  given  to  them  sometimes  his  father's 
name  Eijnh  (as  here),  and  sometimes  his  own,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Khan  Jiihb-Yiiseph,  north  of  the  sea  of 
Galilee,  which  tradition  has  mistaken  for  Joseph's  pit 
(Bohadin's  Life  of  Saladin,  Prof.  p.  1;  Jalal-Addin's  Hist,  of  the 
Temple,  p.  :.':!!».  The  best  description  of  this  old  Bir.  ac 
companied  by  a  woodcut  of  the  interior,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Sunday  >if  Home,  for  July,  1S(J3,  p.  411;  see  Whitty 
also.  In  the  Kedron  valley  were  no  doubt  many  pools 
or  tanks,  by  which  this  hollow  below  Siloam  was  kept 
rich  and  green.  Here  to  this  day  are  the  Bistan  or 


gardens,  relics  of  the  king's  gardens  in  Jerusalem's 
golden  days,  at  the  angle  or  basin  formed  by  the  four 
hills  of  /ion,  Ophel,  Akeldama,  and  the  IMoimt  of 
Offence  (Josephus  names  it  the  King's  Paradise;  Xe.  iii.  15; 
Jo.  Hi.  7;  Jos.  Ant.  vii.  1-1, 4).  I'p  the  valley  of  the  Gihon 
'there  are  other  pools:  the  Birket- es- Sultan,  perhaps 
the  ''pool  that  was  made,"  Xe.  iii.  Hi  (close  by  which 
Solomon's  great  aqueduct  crosses  the  valley),  592  feet 
lung  by  2'JO  broad,  and  40  deep,  partly  rock-cut  and 
] tartly  built;  the  Birket- Mamilla,  perhaps  the  "upper 
pool,"  i'  Ki.  xviii.  17,  from  which  the  conduit  went  which 
brought  water  into  the  city,  2Ki.  xx.2o,  at  which  conduit 
the  Assyrian  generals  stood  in  delivering  their  insults 
to  Jerusalem,  2  Ki.  xviii.  17;  Is.  vii. :',.  Somewhere  west  or 
north-west  of  the  present  Jaffa  gate  this  parley  took 
place;  and  here  must  have  been  the  "  highway  of  the 
fuller's  field,"  i.e.  the  road  which  l«l  to  the  fuller's 
field;  not  implying  that  the  field  itself  was  here. 

Between  tile  Mamilla  pool  and  that  called  the  pool  of 
Ile/.ekiah,  there  is  a  rock-cut  duct,  in  length  790  yards 
(Whitty,  p.  70, 92, 125).  To  this  probably  is  the  reference 
in  "2  Ch.  xxxii.  ,'}0,  "'the  same  Hezekiah  stopped  the 
;  upper  water-course  of  Gihon,  and  brought  it  straight 
down  to  the  city  of  David;"  or  more  literally,  he  "stopped 
up  the  going  out  of  the  waters  of  Gihon  the  higher,  and 
|  made  them  to  come  straight  down,"  &c.  The  word 
"stopped  up"  often  means  "to  hide,"  I's.  xl.  10-,  li.  «, 
which  may  be  the  meaning  here;  referring  to  the  under 
ground  conduit  which  conveyed  the  waters  to  the  west 
of  /ion.  To  this  also  is  the  reference  of  2  Ki.  xviii.  1  7; 
Is.  vii.  :>.  This  was  "the  conduit  of  the  upper  pool 
which  is  in  the  highway  of  the  fuller's  field."  By  this 
means  Hezekiah  supplied  the  city  and  drew  off  the 
water  from  an  invader.  He  "took  counsel  to  stuji  (to 
conceal)  the  waters  of  the  fountains,  which  were  with 
out  the  city;  so  there  was  gathered  much  people  together, 
win)  stoji/>i-it  all  the  fountains  and  the  brook  that  ran 
throinjh  the  -midst  of  the  land,"  2  Ch.  xxxii.  y,  \.  Can  this 
last  be  Solomon's  aqueduct  ]  What  else  ran  through 
the  midst  of  the  land  ?  Whether  there  is  any  subter 
raneous  connection  between  Mamilla  and  the  large 
half-rockcut  dilapidated  reservoir  near  the  Damascus 
gate  (Whitty, p.  M!i),  we  do  not  know.  Aqueducts  in  this 
direction  would  have  brought  water  down  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  city,  the  Tyropceon,  where  it  was  specially 
needed  by  the  "inhabitants  of  the  ?•«//<//,"  Jo.  xxi.  13, 
who  by  their  higher  level  were  shut  off  from  the  pools 
in  the  Kedron  valley  as  well  as  in  the  southern  ravine. 
There  have  been  frequent  rumours  as  to  the  rush  of 
water  being  heard  at  the  Damascus  gate  (Saulcy,  vol.  ii. 
p.  L'.'.O;  Robinson,  iii.  p.  w~}.  The  number  of  subterraneous 
ducts,  both  for  fresh  and  foul  water,  with  which  the 
rocks  in  and  about  the  city  have  been  perforated,  is 
incredible.  The  ground  is  riddled  with  them.  Each 
year  turns  up  some  new  one;  and  with  each  such 
discovery  is  determining  some  disputed  point  in  the 
topography  of  Jerusalem. 

As  we  sweep  northward  in  this  circle,  we  come  to 
the  mounds  of  ashes,  which  (in  spite  of  our  desire  to 
believe  them  the  heaps  of  temple -ashes),  we  suspect  to 
be  the  debris  or  refuse  of  a  group  of  brick-kilns;  under 
neath  which  may  lie  relics  of  antiquity,  perhaps  the 
foundations  of  the  third  wall,  or  of  the  tower  of  Pse- 
phinus.  Somewhere  on  the  north  here  must  have 
been  the  "Erebinth-town"  of  Josephus  (J.  W.  v.  12,  2); 
though  what  this  "vetch- village"  (eptSlvOwv  OIKOS,  per- 
.  haps  Beth- Rabinoth  in  the  Hebrew)  may  mean  is  hard 


JERUSALEM 


8S1 


JERUSALEM 


to  say  iReHnd,  l'al.  p.  ;r,t;i.  In  this  north  and  north 
western  part  were  the  "Holds"  or  "field,"  a.s  they  are 
called  in  Scripture,  the  place  from  which  Simon  was 
coining  (air'  dypov).  liar.  xv.  i'i,  wlien  seized  and  forced 
to  carry  the  cross. 

•i.  The  modem  icalln  and  f/utexdf  tJn  <•////.  --'\Yeconie 
now  to  the  circle  of  the  walls  themselves.  ri>ing  from 
;JU  to  40  feet  high,  about  1"»  feet  thick,  with  frequent 
towers  and  twites,  with  battlements  and  loopholes  on  all 
sides  of  the  city.  The  stones  composing  these,  especially 
at  the  south-east  and  south-west  angles  of  the  Haram. 
are  very  old.  though  the  walls  themselves  lat  least  their 
upper  tiers)  have  not  an  antiquity  of  more  than  three 
centuries.  In  the  walls  there  are  some  tliinus  deserv 
ing  notice:  the  enormous  si/.e  of  thv  stones  in  some 
places  (placed  there,  as  the  Aral>  hoys  will  tell  you,  by 
the  ".linns."!  evidenth  ;la  ]••  lies  of  aurient  splendour: 


the  peculiar  rabbeting  or  grooving  (called  by  sonn- 
bevelliny),  at  the  ed<_res  in  some  parts,  marking  its 
Jewish  or  Jewish  Roman  origin  ( I'.obiusoi,,  i.  L"-<;I;  tin- 
remains  of  the  ancient  arch  at  the  south-west  angle  of 
the  Harain  wall  (Ib  i.  -j^;  Train's  Josu.phus,vol.  i.  \-.M\.  wliieh 
connected  the  temple  with  Zion:  the  wailing-place  of 
the  Jews  at  the  west  wall,  where  the  stones  are  pecu 
liarly  massive,  and  apparently  in  situ;  the  ancient  gate- 
work  inside  the  Damascus  gate  (Hadji  in  Syria,  p.  93);  the 
pillar- fragment  in  the  eastern  wall,  which  Moslem  fable 
names  Mohamed's  judgment-seat  (Fabri,  vol.  ii.  p.  us). 

In  walking  round  the  walls  upon  the  path  or  ledge 
near  the  top,  one  gets  the  best  view  of  the  interior  of 
the  city  ;  it-  churches,  mosques,  minarets,  and  houses. 
The  dinnc-roofs  of  the  last  of  these  strike  the  eye. 
Damascus,  with  the  Mrs  of  Lebanon  at  hand,  covers 
itself  with  flat  roofs;  but  Jerusalem,  with  no  wood  and 
plenty  of  stone,  betakes  itself  to  the  <trcli.  The  three 
or  four  half -grown  palms  that  rise  here  and  there  among 
the  houses  show  themselves,  as  the  only  representatives 

VOL.  I. 


of  those  which  grew  on  "the  Mount"  in  Xehemiah's 
days,  Xo.  viii.  i:>;  and  in  those  later  times  when  the  crowds 
went  forth  from  the  city  bearing  ''branches  of  palm- 
trees"  to  meet  "the  King  of  Israel,"  Jn.  xii.  13,  with 
hosannasof  triumph.  The  palm-tree  has  nearly  perished 
from  Palestine,  save  here  aud  there  a  little  group,  as  at 
Jaffa,  Jenin,  Xc.:  the  olive,  the  symbol  of  the  nation, 
Ro .  xi.  17,  remains.1  Scattered  through  the  vacant  nooks 
of  the  city  you  see  the  cactus  or  prickly  pear;  cypresses, 
olives,  and  other  irees.  springing  up  even  in  the  llarain: 
ploughed  fields  inside  the  western  and  northern  walls. 

In  the  course  of  this  walk  you  obtain  a  correct  idea  of 
the  character  of  the  city  ;  confused,  irregular,  and  un 
dulating,  with  marks  of  decay  everywhere.  The  stones 
aiv  crumbling,  the  walls  are  ragged,  but  there  is  nothing 
dingy  about  the  houses,  for  smoke  is  but  little  known 
save  at  the  morning  or  evening  cooking  time.  If  von 
descend  and  traverse  the  streets  you  o'et  a  poor  impres 
sion  i >;"  the  citv.  Its  streets  are  narrow  and  uneven 
( most  of  them  about  1  '1  feet  wideU  its  pavement  (if  the 
name  can  be  u-ed  in  such  a  easel  of  the  most  rugged 
kind,  not  rutted,  but  full  of  holes,  which  no  one  thinks 
of  filling  up.  The  ba/.aars  are  poor  and  ill  stocked;  not 
crowded  \\ith  buyers  like  th"-e  of  Cairo,  but  still  kept 
alive  by  a  small  stream  of  citizens  and  strangers  regu 
larly  flowing-  through  the  lanes,  cm  each  side  of  which 
the  shops  are  placed;  and  in  March  and  April  thronged 
with  pilgrims,  both  Christian  and  Mohamedan,  who 
annually  flock  into  Jerusalem  from  great  distances,  as 
far  as  Constantinople  on  the  north,  and  Tangier's  on 
the  west.  Though  the  streets  and  lanes  are  intricate, 
they  are  not  more  so  than  in  other  oriental  cities.  Nor 
are  they  at  all  mure  lilthy  than  most  of  these:  I  h\  Robin 
son  thinks  less  so,  remarking  that  of  all  oriental  cities 
he  had  visited.  "Jerusalem,  after  Cairo,  is  the  cleanest 
and  mo-a  -olidlv  built"  ( vol.  i.  p.  L'L'^).  it  has  no  large 
open  space,  like  the  square  at  Alexandria,  or  the  Esbe- 
kiyeh  of  Cairo;  but  the  vacant  piece  of  ground,  inside 
the  Jaffa  gate,  were  it  better  paved  and  kept,  might  be 
counted  tolerable  fora  Syrian  town.  There  is  a  certain 
amount  of  trade  and  business;  though  not  what  we  call 
bustle,  save  at  the  pilgrim  season;  and  the  city  is  not 
now  "full  of  stirs,  a  tumultuous  city,  a  joyous  city," 
Is.  xxii.  :;.  Its  inhabitants  are  in  general  poorly  clothed, 
save  "11  o-ala-davs,  wheii.  arrayed  in  every  colour,  they 
saunter  outside  the  gates  or  sit  down  in  groups  upon 
the  t'Hiibs. 

In  ancient  times  the  gates  were  more  numerous  than 
now  (sccCarpzovii  An  not.  mi  (inm  twin's  MO--XS  :in<l  Aaron,  p.:2G-  330; 
Lainy  de  1'ivit.  .K-nis.  p.  .V.rj-.v.i7;  Van  deVekle' s  Jerusalem).  At 
present  only  *i.r  are  visible,  though  there  are  fragments 
of  others.  Of  tin  -e  "the  -olden  gate"  is  built  up.  It 
is  on  the  east,  looking  riirht  up  to  the  Church  of  the 
Ascension  on  the  Mount  of  Olives.  It  is  sometimes 
called  ttah-cr-Riilnnch  (gate  of  mercy),  and  sometimes 
n<ili-c<l-D<tl«iriiiflt  (eternal  gateb  Its  double  arch  looks 
well  on  the  outside,  and  its  portico  within  (entered  only 
by  the  mosque),  with  its  Corinthian  monoliths,  is  still 
finer  (Traill's  Joseplni',  vol.  i.  p.  11:  Do  Saulcy,  vol.  ii.  p.  $3-8$  ; 

1  The  indestructible  vitality  of  the  olive  root,  even  after  the 
stem  lias  been  cut  over  or  destroyed  by  fire,  is  such,  says  Lord 
Nugent,  that  it  has  been  thought  that  the  trees  oil  Mount 
Olivet  at  this  day  are  shoots  of  the  olives  of  the  days  of  our 
Lord  (seethe  Ki/rian  Es/itnriitinii  nf  American  Gcnn.  Sue.  p.  10). 
What  makes  this  more  likely  is,  that  many  of  the  present 
Oetlisemane  trees  are  not  only  old,  but  have  two  or  three  stems, 
showing  that  they  are  shoots  of  older  trees,  which  have  been 
cut  over,  as  all  the  trees  round  Jerusalem  were  by  Titus. 

Ill 


.IKIM'SAI.KM 

Williams,  vol  ii  p.  :uv::7:.';  Kabri,  vol.  i.  p.  :ifis).  The  linl,-<l- 
Moliarlich  (near  the  south-west  angle  of  the  mosque)  is 
seldom  opened:  the  four  in  daily  use  are  the  /!<i',-i/- 
Khtilil  i  H  el  .von  or  .lalia  uate.  -J.Vil  feet  above  seal,  on 
the  south-west;  the  Kah-i-l-Amuil  \  \  );imaseus  or  I'illar 
irate),  on  the  north-west,  where  there  are  the  remains 
of  a  very  ancient  gateway:  the  H<il,-cl-  //<>/'"  (little  or 
St.  Stephen'*  gate),  to  the  east:  the  /-'"'<  rl-\,l,i-lMnl 
tZion  or  David  gate),  on  the  south.  There  is  little 
probability  that  these  have  exactly  preserved  the  origi 
nal  outlets  of  the  city  (ex'-ept  in  the  ease  of  the  "  golden 
"•ate">:  as  the  eitv  h:i-  been  so  much  contracted  from 


i.30:!.  |       Intorioi- of  the  Golden  Gate.     From 

its  former  dimensions,  that  the  gates  must  be  diil'er- 
ently  placed,  though,  it  may  be,  somewhat  in  the  old 
direction.  Several  Arabic  inscriptions,  on  tin;  .laHii 
gate  anil  elsjwhere.  mention  that  the  present  walls 
were  built  (or  rebuilt  rather)  by  Sultan  Suleiman,  in 
the  !»-J>th  year  of  the  Heirira,  or  i:,4:>>  of  our  era:  pro- 
bably  on  the  line  of  the  ol<l  \vails  of  Hadrian,  whii.h 
had  again  and  a  LSI  in  been  breached  and  shattered. 
The  peculiar  rebating  or  edge  indentation  of  the  stones 
in  many  places,  shows,  however,  that  the  materials 
claim  a  Herodian,  if  not  a  Kolomonian  antiquity.  The 
circumference  of  the  modern  \\alls  is  -l:',-2(>  yards,  or 
about  lH  Kllglish  miles  (Uubmson,  v..l  :.  p.  '.'Us;  Barclay's  Cily 
ofthe  Great  Kins:,  p  4:iu-4:;:.M.  The  inside  ledge  (a  few  feet 
from  the  topi  is  sufficiently  broad  to  allow  any  one 
with  a  steady  head  to  walk  round  with  comfort.  !;i 
the  davs  of  Josephus  the  walls  measured  •'>'•>  stadia,  or 
upwards  of  4  miles  in  circuit  (.1.  w.  b.  v.  ch.  4,  sect.  :•,-.  sii-ah., 


JERUSALEM 

says  till  stadia,  b.  xvi.  cli.  2,  sect.  :i(i).       J  11  the  days  of  the  Asa- 

moiiH'ans,  or  Asmoneans  (for  both  forms  are  used),  the 
city  was  smaller:  in  those  of  Neheniiah  yet  smaller, 
and  in  those  of  David  smaller  still;  yet  probably  occu 
pying  more  uround  to  the  west  and  south  than  at 
present.' 

:").  The.  dimensions  n.nd  configuration  of  the,  city.— 
Frequently  in  Scripture,  Zion  is  used  as  the  name  for 
the  \\hoie  four-hilled  platform:  but  more  generally, 
especially  in  the  psalms  and  prophets,  we  find  a  double' 
designation  applied  to  the  city.  ''Zion  and  Jcnisalem." 
'i'hat  this  is  not  a  mere  reduplication,  and  that  the  two 
names  point  out  separate  places  is  evident  from 
such  passages  as  the  following:  •' Solomon  as 
sembled  all  the  elders  of  Israel  unto  king  Solomon 
in  Jd-nxalt  in,  that  they  might  brini;1  up  the  ark  o»/ 
,,f  thf  fitii  <>f  l>'iriil,  which  is  /ion,"  i  Ki  viii.  I. 
"The  virgin,  the  danijltcr  <>f  Zi»)i.  hath  rj(.--j,i.--:i/ 
thee  (Ziou  the  strong  fort):  (even)  the  d<u<<ihtir 
of  Jerusalem  (the  less  fortified  city)  hath  flnlcut 
I, a-  html  at  thee,"  2  Ki.  \ix.  L'l.'2  "  ( )ut  of  Jvrt'«//<  m 
shall  go  forth  a  remnant,  and  they  that  escupc 
out  of  Mount  Zion"  (ib.  3i),  ''hi  frtliiii  is  his 
tabernacle,  and  his  dwelling-place  in  Z'n.ni,  '  I's. 
Ixxvi.  •_'.  "  Zimi  is  a  wilderness,  ./'i'/i.-'ukni  a  deso 
lation,"  Is.  Ixiv.  10.  ••Zimi  shall  be  ploughed  like 
a  field,  and  Jiru^ilcm  shall  become  heaps."  Je. 
\.\vi.  18;  Mi.  iii.  1-.  These  are  a  few  out  of  the  manv 
places  (upwards  of  forty)  in  which  the  two  places 
are  spoken  of  in  this  distinct  way.  And  thou^ii 
each  of  these  names  is.  in  other  places,  used  to 
designate  the  whole  city,  yet  this  very  frequent 
tl.  duality  of  designation  indicates  the  twofold  char 
acter  of  the  eitv.  as  made  up  of  the  fortress  iZioin 
with  the  houses  and  palaces,  Ps.  xlviii.  1",  clustering 
round  it  on  one  hill,  and  the  town  itself  (Salem)  on 
the  other;  givinu'  rise  perhaps  to  the  dual  form  of  the 
name  for  the  whole.  Jfi-titnltiiiim  (Gesen.  Lex.;  Jones' Proper 
Names  of  the  U.T.;  Shmmis  Ouomast.  V.T.  p.  L'.VJ,  4H7,  "  ob  gemimmi 
ui-bis  jiartem,  supovinrcin  et  int'eridrem;"  Simmiis  Ouomast.  X.  T. 
p.  7H,  77;  The  1'roper  Names  of  the  O.T.  arran^cil  al]ili;ibi;tically,  ic. 
P.  ii!i,  i^:>!i).  This  form  of  expression  thus  becomes  not 
tautological,  but  strictly  accurate  and  exact.  Though 
this  twofold  division  has  quite  disappeared  from  the 
modern  eitv  ithe  only  trace  of  it  being  the  depression 
which  runs  from  the  north- west  of  the  mosque  to  the 
.Damascus  sate);  it  was  recognized  by  the  rabbinical 
writers,  who  speak  of  ''the  upper  and  lower  markets," 
showing,  as  a  .Jewish  traveller  remarks,  ''that  in  the 
time  of  Jeremiah,  at  least,  and  probably  before,  this  dis 
tinction  was  known"  (S.lnvar/s  1'iil.  p.  :!!>).  The  word 
'"market  '  does  not  occur  in  the  Old  Testament  (the 


!  It  is  ditlirnlt  exactly  to  lay  down  the  additions  made  to  t  lie 
city  in  the  days  of  the  kings.  In  K it-pert' s  hirire  school  iiinji 
there  is  an  attempt  at  this,  and  al<o  in  the  may  appended  to 
the  article  in  the  Museum  of  Cl"fa><-cl  AntiijuHli-s.  These  fjivo 
an  idea  of  what  was  done  by  Uxziah  (- Ch.  x\\i.  HI),  Jotham 
(•-'  I'h.  xxvii.  3),  He/eliiah  C2  Ch.  xxxii.  .')).  and  Manas^eh  (L'  ( 'ii 
xxxiii.  11).  ^'e  learn  that  at  the  time  of  some  of  the  irivat 
eastern  invasions  there  were  breaches  in  the  "  city  of  David" 
(Is.  xxii.  0),  i.e.  in  the  old  wall  which  defended  Mount  /ion. 
and  that  for  the  repairing  of  this  wall,  the  houses  of  •  •.Jerusalem  " 
(the  city  proper)  were  broken  clown. 

"  Perhaps  there  are  tlirfe  spots  alluded  to  here  ;  thus  — 
(1)  ZKJ.I.  liath  despised  thee  (understood  though  not  expressed!. 
('2)  The  daughter  of  /ion  (the  lover  and  feebler  city). 
(3)  The  ilntnihlrr  of  this   luin-r  city   (i.<    the   outskirts  and  un 
fortified  suburbs)  hath  shaken  her  head  at  thee. 
We  know  that  in  Scripture  the  •'  daughter  of  a  city"  is  some 


a  Ijoinin;.'  suburb,  or  villas,  or  dependent  city,  a1)  ''  Bethel  and 
her  dauu'hter.-; ''  (1  Ch.  vii.  is);  "Daughter  of  Zidon '' =  Tyre 
(Is.  xxiii.  1-J);  "s:,,dom  and  Jier  daughters"  =  Gornorrlia,  ic. 
(I'.ze.  xvi.  .">:!);  "(ia/.a  and  her  daughters"  (Jos.  xv.  47).  Thus 
Zion.  or  the  "upper  eiry."  the  "city  of  David."  is  the  iitoth'-r; 
Salem  or  .lebus.  the  lower  city,  is  the  i!.<(vrilttcr  (Akro.  is  the 
mount  of  the  ilaugldcr  of  /ion.  Is.  xvi.  1;  xxxvii.  2'2) :  tl;e 
daughter  of  the  daughter  of  Zion  is  the  northern  suburb  of  the 
lower  city  on  F,<-jtl<",  which  was  afterwards  surrounded  by  the 
third  wall  Mos.  J.  \V.  v.  4,  2).  We  may  notice  that  it  is  impos 
sible  to  ascertain  the  original  heights  of  any  of  these  hills:  all 
of  them  having  been,  at  different  times,  considerably  levelled. 
Were  it  the  ease,  as  Dr.  Whitty  says,  that  Josephus  gives  the 
depth  of  the  Tyropceon  as  50  cubits  (Whitty,  p.  247).  we  could 
get  some  idea  ofthe  elevation  of  Zion  and  Akra;  but  Josephus 
does  not  make  this  statement.  He  says  that  the  rock  on  which 
Antonia  stood  was  50  cubits ;  but  that  is  all  (J.  W.  v.  5,  5). 


.iKIU'SALK.M 


•  fKlU'SALE.M 


expression  in  Eze.  xxvii.  ]:J,  17.  Xc.  meaning  mti'i-lum-  i  was  thus  >o  much  overlooked  by  the  buildings  on  the 
(life  rather  than  nwr/cct}.  and  there  are  only  three  re-  |  upper  parts  of  Akra  tliat  tlie  Asamomcans  levelled 
ferences  to  market  and  market-places  in  the  Apocrypha:  |  the  top.  which  would  appear  to  have,  been  in  clove  pro.c- 
luit  Josephus  gives  us  sum.'  very  explicit  statements  as  '  i,nii;i  to  the  temple:  fur  it  is  evident  that  it  was  the 

to  the  division  of  the  city  into  two  parts,  culled   the  /<;-o./-//,, /','//  that   m:ide   the  lu'niltt   so  unpleasant.      The 

upper  and  lower  market-place  (dyo/scO.     Thus  he  write-,  temple-hill  still  remained   lower   than  the  otlur  two, 

"The  eity  was  fortified   by  three  walls,    save  in   those  for  it  formed  a  sort  of  centre,  round  which,  and  i//>  from 

]>arts  where   it   was  girt   with  inaccessible   valleys;   for  which,    tier   upon    tier,    the    city    gently    ruse,    like   an 

there  there  was  lint  one  wall  (7Tf/3i§o\osK      The  city  was  amphitheatre  (Ami.;  xi.  n,.M.  or.  like  a  fan.  -preading  itself 

constructed   with  one   part   facing   the  other  (ajriTiy/o-  out  over   the  easy   slopes   of  /ion   and   Akra.      These 

crajTros).  upon   two  hills  (\6</)Ot>,  which  are  separated   by  t  \\in  hills  formed  the  original  groundwork  of  the  whole 

a  middle  valley,  at  which  the  houses,  rising  one  above  of  what  we  call  .Jerusalem:   the  other  heights.   Moriah, 

the  other  U7rd,\,\?;.W      not '"corresponding,"  us  Whiston  Bezi'tha.  and  <  tphel   \«r  Ophlas,   as  .Insephus   calls  it*. 

translates,  l)iit    "placed   one  above  the  other  in  great  being  quite  secondary.      On   /ion   stood   the   elvat  fort 

numbers"      •'alter    super    eL    post    altenun.    civl)er    it  of   the  .Ichusitcs    which    David  took,    j  s.i.  v.  0;   <n   Akra 

continuum    .    .    .    alia  alii.-    Miperoosita    sine   iuterces-  stood  the  city  called  .lehus.  Ju.  xix.  ii>;  ich.  xi.  f.,  or  Salem, 

sioiie  aut  interstitio  et   inteivapedine,"  .sie;ili   The;   v..|  ii.  in  the 'lays  of   .'delehi/.edek.    and   Jebtisi.  J,-s  xviii  2«,  in 

p.  1V4,  I*;:.,  Valpy'sed.)      end.      <>f   these  hills,  that    \\hich  the  time  of  the   .lohusite    possession.      In   after  ages  a 

holds    the  upper  city   is   b\    miicli   tiie   higher,    and   in  splendid   city   or'  palaces   sprung  up  round  the  fort  of 

breadth  more   ^trai-j'h;                       less  curved;   no'i  obli-  /;..n:   but  still  tlie   "City."   originally  so  called,   stood 

quu.s  vel  tortuo.sus;   - •          ;               .      :    imn)      <  >n   ac-  upon  Akra.  and  the  two,  though  often  used  the  one  for 

count  of  its  strongly  fortified   character  (6ta   '  the  other,    were  ~till   distinguished  :  much   as    London 

TrjTct.\  it  was  called  tin-  fortress  «ppoi'pi.ov^  by  1 'a\  id  the  anl  "the  City"  are  stiil    lioth  dh  tinguished   from,  and 

kin-,;,  who   was   tip-   father   of  Solomon.  \\  ho   first   built  yet  interchange.!  \\itiieaehother. 

th"   teii:ple;   among   us    it    is  called   the   upper   markit-  This  di.-tinot:»!i  i>  hroiijit  out    very  explicitly  in  the 

place.       But  the  i, tlier  hill,  called  Akra,  and  sustaining  •  tateinelit  \\hicli  .bi-epliu.--  gives  us  of  thi'  original  cap- 

the  under  city,  is  convex.  id.u^tKi'/jros,  utriiuiue  incurvus,  ture  of  tlie  fort.      lie  tell-  us  that  l>avid  tiivt  took  the 

utrinque  gibb,»;i~.    >                         used   of  the  moon   in  •' lower  city  "  b\   force;  and   then  proceeded   to  attack 

1  iiird   cjuart'-r.       Akra   was   unlike  the   upper  liill,  the  citadel      \  i/.    the    citadel    of    that    \\hioh    became 

which  was  ttraiijlil,  in  that  part  whi'.-h  \\as  opposite  i.,  afterwards   the   .;.,/..,'  city,  or  /inn  (Ant  vii.3,1);   as  we 

the  lower  hill,    thn-   broadening  the    valiev   lietween.  r-ad.  "  David  took  the  stronghold  of  /ion.  the  same  is 

Opposite'    this    was   a    third    hill,    naturally   lower   than  the  city  of  David,"  J  S;i.  v.  7;   and  he  •'  dwelt  in  the  fort. 

Akra.   and    form'  rly   separat-d    from    the   other    by   a  and    called    it    (he    city    of     David."    ch.  v.  !i;   1  Cli.  xii.  f),7. 

broad  valley.      Hut  afterwards,  when  th.-  A.-a'.uon;eans  .losephus  then  mentions  Da  vi<!'-  en  ction  of  his  palace, 

reigned,    they  filled    up  the    valley  with   earth,   wishin-j-  evidentlv  in   the  upper  city;   and    then   adds   that   ''lie 

to  join  tin.'  city  to  the  temple,  and   ha\                       ;hed  i-ncompassed   tin                •     '. .    and    having    joined    it    to 

the  top  of  Akra,  they  made   it   le.-s  elevated,   that    the  the   citadel,    made    the    \\h<>le   one  body;'1    and  having 

temple   miida   overtop  it.-      Now  the   valiev  called   the  walled  it  round,                      ;    the  chargi    of  the   walls  to 

Valiev  of   the  Cheesem                      .-'i  we  have  spoken    of  Jo, IIP"    (Ai              .            from    all    this    it    becomes    vcrv 

as  dividing  the  hii!  of  th,.  upper  from  that  of  the  mid'  r  clear  (1.)  that  the  My>//(>'  city  was   /ion;   cJ.  i  that  "the 

city,  reached  as  far  as  Silo;(m,  a   fount;. in.  swet.'t    and  castle.'1    or   "stronghold    ,,f   /ion."    is    v.hat   Josephus 

aliundant,  which  we  call  li\-  t  his  name.     (In  tiie  outside,  calls  the  r!t«ilt !  (TO  </>/ !»>'•/ it',t>,  and  also  •/'/  aKpa);   (3.1  that 

moreover,  the.-e  two  hill-  of  the  citv  were  encircletl  hv  the  /,///  Aki-a  is  quite  di-.tinct  from  this  c/tmlil,  though 

deep  valleys,  and  on  account  of   the  precipices  on   both  .loM-phus  u'ive<  the   same   name   to   both;    (1.)   that   the 

sides,  it  was  nowhere  accessible"   (Jewish  Wars,  v.  1,1).  "upper  city  "  lav  to  the  south,  as  may  be   seen   in   the 

Here  then  we  have  three  hills  described.     Thehi'dicst  details  of  the  siege.   ;M   which  Titus  first  poured  down 

(c^?;\o-rpos  ToVuji    is    that    on    which    th-    fortro  •    of  from  the  northern    hei-ht    of   Scopus,    scaled    the  outer 

David  was  built,  viz. /ion,  which  sustained  the  "  upper  or   third    wall,    pushed    through     l'><v.>'tha.     scaled    the 

market-place."  ;     Th"  second  was  called  Akra.  and  d  ''\-.,:i  which  circled  Akra,  and  then  laid  siege  to 

tained  the  lower  city:   andtheihird.  lower  than  Akra.  tho  temple;  and  la    Iv  to  the  upper  city. 

and  right  opposite  to   it,   sustained  the  temple.    whiJi  The  one  objection  to  this  is,  that  in  Ps.  xlviii.  2,  Zion 


Amud,    A-c        Jo.-oph-.is  Sjir;iks   of   th.-  shops  or  markets  of  the 

wool-merchants,   the   cloth-merchants,   the  braziers     A'c.  (J.  W 
hill  of  that  name  (J.  Y\  .  b.  v.  4,  1)— and   is   us  -d  not  onlv   bv  ,      ,., 

v    •-,  I).      J  |  ,--.-  .-  .-in   to  have  chiefly  occupied   the   lyropuon,  a 

valley  of  greater  breadth  than  many  topographers  assign  to  it. 
Jeremiah  speaks  in  one  place  of  the  inhabitant  or  inhabitreos 
of  "  the  vailoy  "  ich.  x\i.  I".),  and  in  .-.nothor  of  tho  inhabitant 
of  "  th  :  forire.-s  "  ami  his  "  wares"  ch  x.  17;,  as  ii' the  fortress 
city  a.-  well  as  the  valley  had  its  merchants.  Among  tho  many 
kind.-,  of  merchants  mentioned  both  by  .Josephus  and  the  rabbis, 
i-/nisfii'ini'ini'f  are  never  mentioned,  which  shows  that  it  was  not 


JosejiliiH,  but  also  in  the  Apocryphal  autliors  for  a  tort  :  axr-a. 
so.  TC,/.I;.  sninma  urbs.  s'uunia  nrbis  pirs.  aix,  munitio  diiol's 
Tli'tanrt'K,  vol.  i.  p.  :.s,  ;,:i|.  The  I, HI  Akra  may  t:,ko  its  name 
from  tlie  He-brew  -\TX.  i.'1.  tho  hill  "behind."  or  "western" 


hill;  "b-hind."  in  Hebrew  orientation,  signifying  "west." 
In  Talmudieal  Hebrew,  Akra  has  been  borrowed  from  the 
Crork  to  denote  "fort." 

-  l-^r.;,  C  leiinicii,  fastigiuni  .'Stepli.  T/af.)  These  levellings,  from  th.m  or  their  trade  tha;  the  Tyropo  on  took  its  name. 
which  took  place  once  and  again,  make  it  almost  impossible  for  The  rabbis  are  very  particular  in  their  allusions  to  cheese  and 
us  to  judge  of  the  original  heights  of  the  hills  of  Jerusalem  by  cheese-making,  yet  they  never  allude  to  any  pait  of  the  city  as 
their  present  elevations.  I  occupied  by  it.s  makers. 

;i  In  the  Talmudic  writings  tlie   "upper  Suk"  and   "lower          '  See    I'.-   cxxii.  .",   ''Jerusalem,  she  that  is  buildul,  is  as  a 
Suk"  are  recognized  aeeordingto  the  Josephan  division  (Sell  warz's 
Palestine,  p.  'J4S).     Suk    is   '"street"   in   Bible  Hebrew  ;   in   rab- 


of  the  original  Hebrew  ;  very  like  that  of  Josephus. 


rn_- 


JKIU'SAUvM 


srciiitf  to  lu-  spoken  of  as  norlln  and  on  this  Cellarius 
ami  Lightfoot  insist.  TJ  eland  has  fully  met  them  (Pal 
1'.  M7,  -CM!;  Aut.  Sacr.  p.  :>);  but  the  best  answer  is  the  paral 
lelism  of  the  passage;  according  to  Hebrew  structure, 
thus :  - 

Groat  U  Ji.-linv.-ih,  and  u'reatly  to  lie  praised! 

In  tin    '  ity  of  DHL-  God  (S-ilcin,  or  the  "  city  "), 
In  tin-  mountain  of  his  holiiuT-s  (Xi"ii). 
Fair  of  situation,  joy  of  all  the  laml '. 
Mount  Zinii ; 

TMK  smr.s  or  THE  Xoirm.     (AKr.-i.) 
The  rity  of  the  great  King.     (The  K/t«le.) 

Thus  ''the  sides  of  the  north"  is  the  designation  for 
'•  the  city  "  proper,  or  lower  market,  on  Akra,  as  con 
trasted  with  Zion;  and  the  two  together,  viewed  as  a 
whole,  or  as  Josephus  speaks.  "  as  one  body,"  are  called 
''the  citv  of  the  great  king."  Au'ain,  in  Is.  xiv.  13, 
we  find  the  same  division  and  designation,  when  the 
king  of  Babylon,  marching  against  Jerusalem,  thus 
boasts  himself:  — 

I  will  ;is;v;nl  into  heaven. 

1  will  exalt  my  tin-one  above  the  stars  of  God; 

I  will  sit  on  the  mount  of  ihe  congregation  (Zion.'. 

(I  will  sit)  IN  THI;  SIDF.S  OF  THK  NouTii  (Akrai. 

The  apocryphal  books  do  not  help  us  in  fixing  the 
location  of  Zion  or  Sum.  Second  Esdras  and  first 
Maccabees  give  the  prefix  Mount:  the  others  omit  it. 
Only  in  one  place  are  Zion  and  Jerusalem  spoken  of 
(ti'/i//i<r  as  in  the  Old  Testament  books,  Keelns.  xxxvi. 
13,H.  Sion  is  certainly  so  far  identified  with  Moriah 
as  to  be  spoken  of  as  the  place  of  sacrifice,  Eeclus.  xxiv. 
10;  i  M.u-.  v.  51.  But  then  the  inspired  writers  frequently 
do  the  Sam-.:-,  PS.  ixxviii.  i;<, no;  cxxxii.  i:>,;  either  recognizing 
Moriah  as  a  part  of  Zion,  or  using  Zion  as  a  designa 
tion  of  the  whole  city,  Fs.  xlviii.  r>-  cxxvi.  1;  Is.  i.  -27;  La.  i.  4. 
"  The  Mount  Zion,"  however,  of  1's.  Ixxviii.  (!8,  seems 
singled  out  and  connected  with  the  tribe  of  Judah — 
confirming  our  position  that  Zion  was  the  southern 
hill,  and  that  the  southern  part  of  .Jerusalem  belonged 
to  Judah. 

The  northern  line  of  the  first  or  old  wall  went 
straight  from  Hippicus  to  the  temple,  along  the  south 
ern  ridge  of  the  Tyropo3on,  protecting  Zion  ;  and  was 
the  strongest  of  the  three,  on  account  of  the  depth  of 
the  valley  beneath.  The  second  wall,  like  an  irregular 
semicircle,  went  round  the  curve  of  Akra,  for  the 
defence  of  that  hill  and  citv.  The  third  took  a  wide 


'  Bezetha  was  the  hill,  and  camopolis  (x«uv«frsX/f)  was  the  city 
built  upon  it,  or  on  part  of  it ;  for  Josephus  distinguishes  be 
tween  the  ciiy  and  the  hill  (J.  W.  ii.  Ill,  4);  or  perhaps  Bezetha 
was  a  suburban  village,  giving  its  name  to  the  hill,  and  signify 
ing  (not  the  "new  city,"  which  is  a  strained  etymology;  but 
''the  house  of  olives ;"  j",»7,  Zaii'tli,  an  olive:  11  th--j<:ntl,  the 

house  or  town  of  Olives  (See  Simon's  Uiin,;ii'nf.  A".  T.);  like  Beth- 
phage,  the  house  of  liris;  Bethany,  ihe  house  of  r>atet;  Bethesda 
(not  the  ''house  of  mc,-i-i/"\,  but  of  water,  or  ihe  water-spring, 
m'«y'X~JVS  (Simon's  Onoi,;ast.)  Thus  Jit:ft/<n  was  connected 

T    :  -; 

with  Githsfiiirinr;  not  only  as  adjoining  it,  with  only  the  Kedron 
between,  but  as,  the  one  the  (tlivc-rillnin;  and  the  other  the 
icine-press  or  olive-press.  Gethseniane,  Bezetha,  and  Olivet  are 
thus  linked  together. 

-  The  meaning  of  this  last  predict  io:.  is  made  clear  by  1  Mae. 
iv.  3S,  "They  saw  the  sanctuary  desolate,  and  the  altar  pro 
faned,  and  the  gates  burned  up,  and  flu-i'ljs  rirmcinr/  in  the  cfmrlf 
as  in  a  farcst  "  (see  also  Jos.  Ant.  xii.  7.  ii).  The  cypresses  and 
olive-  which  one  sees  in  many  parts  of  the  mosque  aivn  at  the 
present  day,  intimate  the  continued  fulfilment  of  this  prediction. 
Th"  prophecy  of  the  "ploughing  of  Mount  Zion"  has  .-  /  been 
fulfilled,  if  Zion  be,  as  some  think,  the  n^rtlif-rn  hill.  The  smith 
hill  has  been  ploughed  for  we  know  not  how  many  centuries, 
and  at  this  day  is  covered  with  corn,  vegetables,  especially  cauli 
flowers  of  enormous  size.  The  north  hill  has  never  been  plw.ghcd 


JERUSALEM 

and  /.ig/.ag  sweep  round  the  north  hill,  \\here  the 
new  citv,  Bezetha,1  stood.  The  temple  hill  originally 
stood  alone,  belonging  neither  to  Akra  (though  per 
haps  more  to  the  former  than  the  latter)  nor  Zion ; 
but  was  afterwards,  by  means  of  mounds  and  bridges, 
connected  with  both,  specially  with  Zion,  of  which  it 
was  reckoned  to  form  so  specially  a  part  that  Zion  is 
sometimes  ur-ed  to  denote  the  temple  hill.  Fs.  cxxxii.  is. 
The  latter  however  is  occasionally  mentioned  separately 
even  in  Jeremiah's  time  (B.C.  610),  when  the  prophet 
predicts  (1.)  that  Zion  should  lie  ploughed  as  a  field; 
t-.)  that  ,/t'i'n.X'iU-iii  (the  main  city  which  stood  on  A  km} 
should  become  heaps;  (3.)  that  the  ii<Mi/i/tiin  of  the 
house  should  become  as  the  high  places  of  a  forest.2 

lietween  Zion  and  Akra  there  was  the  valley  of  the 
Tyropoeon — the  chief  valley  of  the  citv  in  ancient  times, 
though  greatly  filled  up  in  after  ages.  From  Josephus' 
statement  as  to  the  hill  of  the  upper  city  (TO  /J.TJKOS 
iOi'Tcpos,  J.W.  v.  i,ii,  we  coin-hide  that  the.-  upper  part  of 
ihe  Tyi-o|:u;on  ran  somewhat  from  W.  to  E.,  or  rather 
from  2S.\V.  to  S.E.  :  but  that  as  it  approached 
Moriah.  it  bent  a  little  more  to  the  south,  till  it  ended 
at  Siloam,  where,  joining  itself  to  the  valley  of  the 
Kedron,  it  formed  an  open  space  of  somewhat  uneven 
ground,  in  which  the  kings'  gardens  once  were,  and 
whore  there  is  still  a  considerable  amount  of  cultivation 
and  fruitfulness. 

As  Scripture  and  the  rabbinical  writers  never  men 
tion  the  Tyropoeon,  but  speak  of  lliimom  as  the  great 
valley  of  the  city:  and  as  Josephus  never  mentions 

'  Ilinnom.3  but  speaks  of  the  Tyropu-.m  as  the  great 
valley;  the  conclusion  is  strongly  forc.ed  upon  us  that 
Iliniiom  and  the  Tyropoeon  are  identical.  The  extreme 
southern  location  usually  assigned  to  Ilinnom  is  com- 

i  paratively  a  modern  one,  and  the  deep  narrow  glen 
commencing  near  Bir-Eijub,  and  extending  first  west 
and  then  north  (in  the  tortuous  course  of  which  are  the 

j  two  large  pools  Birl:ct-d-Mamill(i  and  Birkct-es-Sultdri), 
is  more  likely  to  be  fii/ioii — "the  gorge" — the  place 

of  the    bursting   forth   of    waters.     ("V'J.      Sec  Mkhaclis 

' 

on  2  Ch.  xxxii.  30;  Gesen.  Lex.)  Scripture  places  Hinnoni, 
not  on  the  with  but  the  f;(,^-~"go  forth  unto  the 
valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,  which  is  by  the  entry  of 
the  east-gate,"  Je.  xix.  I;  rnarg.  Sun-gate.  Eusebius  tells  us 
it  lay  close  by  the  wall  of  the  city,  towards  the  cast, 

<it  nil,  but  been  always  the  chief  site  of  the  city;  and  this  city, 
j  to  this  day,  literally  built  on  "heaps."     This  is  to  us  demon 
stration  that  the  south  hill  is  Zion,  according  to  immemorial 
tradition. 

3  Unless  the  Ginndilt  of  Josephus  be  C/c/i1  the  ii(inl<  /;-pate,  as 
generally  supposed!'  but  really  the  "  (;••(! >;<n!,  ;rnt'-,"  or  "Valley- 
gate;"  the  gate  that  opened  down  from  the  111  per  city  into 
"  THE  Valley,"  i.e.  the  Valjey  of  Hinnom  or  Gehenna— y«;sn/«i,u., 
as  Fusebius  writes  it.  This  (lennath-gate  was  a  gate  of  the 
old  wall,  and  was  situated  some  little  way  eastward  (or  south 
east)  from  Hippicus,  where  the  old  wall  began.  Scripture  re 
cognizes  only  one  Gil*  (.X'j)  in  or  at  Jerusalem— Gay -Hen- Hinnom 
-  mentioned  upwards  of  twelve  times  (Jo.  xv.  S,  etc.)  Gilion  is 
never  called  a  Giie,  and  Dean  Stanley's  derivation  of  K'3  from 
r'3  (necessitating  the  alteration  of  a  radical  letter),  is' impro 
bable  (>ii<ai  and  Pal.  p.  477).  Re.,  lti<i,,i  is  not  called  a  Grit  but 
an  H.iifkcl  Sa.  v.  IS).  Ktdi-on  is  never  mentioned  in  connection 
with  either  <?</•  or  Ein'l;;  it  is  the  '-twik  Kedron  "(_Sa.  xv.  iV, 
or  "  the  jichls  of  Kedron"  ('2  Ki.  xxiii.  4).  Hence,  the  '-Valley- 
gate"  should  mean  the  Ge  Hinnom-gate.  i.e.  Gennuth-gate  'see 
Laiwi  de  C,cit.  Jeruf.  p.  />9J).  It  is  almost  impossible  to  conceive 
'  gardens  in  front  of  or  near  the  Gennath-gate  of  Robin-on. 
These  lay  to  west  and  north ;  not  in  the  valley,  which  was  the 
.  most  populous  part  of  the  city  (Je  xxi.  1.1). 


JERUSALEM  b«0  JERUSALEM 

in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  ipnomasc.)     Jerome  frequently  '  which    in   one   place  he  calls  ~a<j!>a.  from  the  Hebrew 

alludes  to  it.  as  being  at  the  foot  of  Moriah,  as  watered  !  (Ant.  xi.  >?, .'.).    an<l    in   others   LOTTOS   (J.  W.  ii.  i<>,  4;v.  •>,  3'), 

l)y  Siloam,  and  near  the  fuller's  pool  (DC  L.vis  iu-br.;  also  translating  into  Greek.      In    bis   translations  there  are 

Comm.  onMat.  x.  28;  Je.  vii.  3l);  Tophet  they  speak  of  as  ''in  several  things    which   one  cannot    help  thinking  to  be 

Hinnom."   between  the   potter's  field   and   the  fuller's  mistakes.      He  describes  in  one  place  the  o-reat  Roman 

pool).      The  old   Arabic    historians   and   travellers  are  to'/i*.  or  Kpios  (battering- ram1),  and   informs  us  that  the 

equally  explicit  as  to  its  location  (ibn  Batutah.  p.  ii'j,  i-.'4:  Jews  called  it  iti<-<>  (conqueror)  from  the  Greek.      Had 

Jalal-Addin's  Hist,  of  the  Temple,  p.  7, 143,  ISO;  Oriental  Trans.  Soc.  he  said  that  the  Ilvtnaitit   thus   named    it,   from  its  con- 

cditionV    The  older  travellers  up  till  the  sixteenth  century  queriiiLT  power,  we   could    thus    have   understood    itico: 

adhere  to  this.      The  Jewish  writers  are  no  less  distinct  but  when  it  is  the  J>  <i-ix/i   name  that  he  is  yivino;.    we 

(Liphtfoo'.'sCcnt.  Choi-  p.  77;  Travels  of  Petacliia,  edited  by  Beniseh,  incline  to  suppose  that  it  is  tlie   Hebrew  --3.   (to  smite, 

p.  oil.      Sandvs   and    Maundreil   in  the  seventeenth  are       ,   -,         ,     ,  "' T    x    .,        . 

strike,    destroy,    .  Ki.  in.  in;  ILM.  \\.  1.    see  Gesen.).  that  is 
amongst_ the  earliest  who  adopt  the  new  location;  and     ^    ^^    ^   ^    ^^       (/     ..  ^    (k.stroye,.  •<   the 

Dr.  Robinson,  while  f,.llowing  in  their  wake,  gives  no  .«  smitel...  (J.W.  v.r,^.  Again,  in  speaking  of  the 
reasons  for  departing  from  the  immemorial  topography  .-  .,  ,  ,  ,  ,,  in-, 

'.-      tornudabie  missile   projected    by    the     Uomau    balhsta 
of   Hinnom.      All    ancient  writers,    (,'hristian,  Arabic.  o  ,       '  ,  ,     ,     , 

against  the   walls   ot   Jerusalem,  lie  mentions   that  the 
arid  Jewish,  call  that  Hinnom  which  modern  travellers  .  • 

Jews  on  the  walls   watched  its  motions,  and  yavc  warn- 
call  the  mouth  of  the  Tvropo-on.  11,1  •  >  ..  ii 

m_;  or   its   Approach   ov  the   cr\   rms  tjixfrai.      the  son 

The  boundary  between  Judah  and  Benjamin,  as  (,,ilu,hf>  ]u.lv  a]>i,  tnlllsbuin.  ^accurately;  for  thev 
stated  twice  over  in  the  book  of  Joshua,  is  quite  in  ac-  cvi(Ujutl  criw,  ,„,,.  .(S  this  XVl)uM  •  j  .^  ^  „  ^ 

cordance  with  this.      That  of  Judah,  running  irreunlarlv  ,    ..  .  T.     ,.,. 

.toil    Cometh,     but  «2S  S*--       the  .•>•/«»<    cometh.         I  he 
westward,  is  thus  stated.  Jus.  xv  \  "  the  bonier  went  up  ,    .   .,        i    v  .,  •     ,  -        -  •,  ,     ,       , 

,      ,,          .,         ,    .  ....  ,,     .,  Amii'jdalvid  \ 1  ot   this  historian  mav  possibly  be  the 

l>y  the  vallev  of  thesonof  Hmnom.  unto  the  south  side  ....   .  •    ' 

•.,.,•.  i   i      •      .1  -i  Mi'/dnl-inHil,  "  tower- pool     (J.  w.  v.  11,4);  the  Utruthius 

ot  the  Jehusite  oir  Jebusi);    the  same  is  Jerusalem  inot 

the  south  side  of   //«„,    tlie    citadel;    but   of    Akru,   the  '"'"  >l^»'',w-pool  '  (l...  i  may  be  "  Hock-pool,"  or  "sheep- 

eity,  viz.  between  the  two  bills  and  the  upper  and  I""1  irnptty,  Ashtoretli:  flock,- the  word  rendered  by 
lo\v«-r  cities);  and  th-  border  went  up  t->  the  top  of  the  '  ,]„.  St.]lt  wolf.lvUlV  iu  \\-.  \  ii.  l:i.  \e.>,  which  was  near 

mountain  (Akra)  that   lieth   before  the    valley  of    Hin-  Antonia  ,.i    w    .    n,  i),    just  about  the  place  where  the 

nom,    westward    (i.e.    which  lies  «/,•?/(•«)•(/,  for  before  modern  Birket-es-Serain    called  by  old  pilgrims  p/sc/«a 

cast-east  of  the  c  tnity  of    Hinnom);    which  is  )irottuttca,    and    by    modern   traveUers     Bethcsda)    lies. 

at  the  end  of  the  valley  of  the  giants,  northward "(/.f.  T|i|.   ^^   d         ;  or    '•  Wood  market,"  as   it   has  been 

which  hill  is  at  the   end   of   the   northern    extremity  ot  ..  ,        .     , 

•  rendered    (     inaternt;   toruni.      <>\  Hudson,  vol.  ii.  p.  204), 

Rephaun).       I  hat    of    Benjamin,   runnme;   eastward,    is  ...  .  ,  .  ,      , 

.     ..     .  m.-iv  possibly  be   tin-   square   or  street  into   which  the 

similarly  stated,  Jo*,  \viii.  ut,   "the  liorder  came  down  to 

,  ',      .,   ..  .  11-11-  people    congregated,    as    when     |-./ra    addressed    them, 

the    end   of   the   mount  nn    (Akra),    that    lieth    la-fore 

,.     .,          ,,         ..   ,,  .-    ii-  .      i  •   •  viii  i.  from  '-"T  (aiii'han).  the  \M  11  known  rabbinical 

least  ot  i   the  valley  ot    the  sou  ,.f    Hinnom,  and   winch 

is  in  the  valley  of  the  giants  on  the  north  (which  is  at  word  for  the  desk  or  pulpit  trom  wliich  the  jiriests 
tin1  northern  extremity  of  Rephaim),  and  descended  to  hlessed  and  addressed  the  people  i  i.evi's  Lingua  sacra), 
tli"  valley  of  Hinnom.  to  the  side  of  Jebusi  on  the  \Vehaveiioreference  to  a  li  wood-market"  elsewhere 
so-itli  (i.e.  the  south  side  of  the  1.  >u er  city,  and  the  in  Josrphns:  and  thouuh  the  rabbins  speak  of  a  chain- 
north  of  the  upjieri.  and  d  scended  to  I'.'ii-  u'-l  "  ber  in  the  tein]ile  called  a  "wood- room,"  where  the 
Thus,  according  to  Jewish  traditi.'ii.  th  in  ;  i-  polis  of  wood  for  the  altar  \\as  examii.eil.  yet  they  mention  no 
the  land  was  divided  between  Jndah  and  iJelijamill  :  public  d~,o/ia.  of  this  kind  ( !.i.:l.il\i.,i's  'I'iMiiplo,  and  his  C'ent. 
Judah  possessing  /ion  and  Benjamin  Akra.  lieiiee  choi-.^r.  )  Thev  do,  however,  speak  verv  frequently  of 
it  is  said  tint  "the  Jebusites  dwell  \\itb  the  children  of  the  place  called  l)<i!,-«n<i,  where  the  priests  blessed  the 
Ji'duli,"  Jos  xv  tv::  and  a-ain,  that  "the  Jebusites  dwell  people  when  assembled  together  Lightfoofs Temple, p.  185). 
with  th1-  children  of  /kti/Kiit/it,"  .Iu.  i . -Ji  '  It  is  not  unlikely  then,  that  the  Tyropo-oii  was  a 

(J.    /.      ''  <f  tin    Ti/ro/,ri<>ii    !"   tin   citi/.      I'.ut    how      u,,rd     v.hicb    Josejilms     h:',d     mistranslated.        Nor    in 

do  we  account  for  the  nam.-  Tvropo-on,  as  the  Jos.--  saving  s,o  do  u.-  impeach  his  scholar-hip,  any  more 
plnn  designation  of  Ilinnoiii'  than  \\  e  do  that,  of  Ducaiiue,  \\hen  we  point  to  his 

The  iiiiuH  iirliitin-i-  of  ,|ose|ihiis  is  worthy  of  more  blunder  in  deriviiiL'  >'<//•-"'(/'  from  Kini/i  the  wife  of 
attention  than  it  has  yet  received;  and.  if  properly  in-  Abraham:  or  than  that  of  the  seventy  Alexandrian 
vestigated,  woul-1  elucidate-  some  of  the  obscurities  rabbis,  when  we  point  to  their  translation  in  I's.  l.xviii. 
of  Biblical  topography.  It  generally  keeps  pretty  close  ]i;_  ,,f  c<;:3.  (heights)  bv  TtTi'/>u,u.ivoi>.  the  "cheese- 
to  the  Hebrew;  but  like  that  of  the  Septuagint.  is  ,nade"hiil.  [f  seventy  learned  Jews  mistook  the  above 
rather  arbitrary  in  its  spelling  and  also  in  its  transla-  j|c.i,rt.w  woi-d  for  anotlier,  very  like  it  in  sound  and 
tion  of  names.  He  sometimes  gives  the  Hebrew  name  s],(,1iin,,.)  ^,-.3..  fiavnooncem,  high  Iiills,  for  -J'3_S,  ffefce- 
just  as  \ve  have  it,  or  verv  slightly  altered:  and  some- 

times  he  translates  it:  and  in  several  of  these  translations  »«/',  cheese),  vyhy  shoul(i  not  a  less  learned  Jew  mis 
his  etymolo-v  is  at  fault,  and  he  evi-lently  km-w  Greek  take  C;r;2;.  f/H>c»i>i»o>lt,  for  cheese-makers,  and  trans- 
more  intimately  than  Hebrew.  He  sometimes  gives  us  late  it  Tvpoiroius.  seeing  the  Hebrew  words  are^ so  very 
tlie  Hebrew  in  one  place  and  the  Greek  in  another,  as  j  -.-  IIt.re  ,,!-,,),,.- i,iy  ,-,„  ,,1,1  to'.-.er  st.ood  (afterwards  absorbed  in 
in  the  case  of  the  north  hill  where  Titus  encamped;  Antonia)  called  Atlttni'ct/i-toicer  —  ttock-tower.  AfMoreik  was 

.-. .11  founded  with  Strain;  and  hence  we  have  ''St rate's- tower." 
near  Antonia,  where  Antigoiius  was  assassinated  by  order  of  his 
)ir<.ther  Aristobulus  'Ant.  xiii.  II,-.'.  If  the  above  etymology 
lie  accepted,  it  will  sohe  a  x'vat  critical  \m'/.'/.\j  as  to  the  origin 
oi  the  name  "  Strain's  towi-r." 


JEKUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


similar.'  The  mistake  of  the  Heptuagiiit  is  so  like  that 
of  Josephus  as  to  give  sonic  probability  to  our  etymolo 
gical  conjecture;  and  so  to  confirm  the  universal  Jewish 
tradition  that  llhmom  and  the  Tyropceon  are  the  same. 
Schwarz's  derivation  of  it  from  the  similarity  of  uxhjiolli 
or  shephoth  (the  dung-gate,  No.  ii.  i.'i;  Hi.  i:;i,  to  shf2>hoth, 
which  is  used  to  signify  "  cheese"  in  'J  ^a.  .\vii.  -J'.i.  in 
inadmissible  (Palestine,  p.  .MLO. 

The  Tyropieon  ended  at  Siloani  (.K>s  .T.w.  v.  i,  i);  and 
it  began  at  or  ah/mf  Hippicus,  for  Josephus  nn T< -1\ 
says  that  the  old  tciill  began  at  that  tower:  but  doe.* 
not  atlinn  that  the  ni//<//  aetuallv  begun  there,  though, 
of  course,  it  must  have  commenced  somewhere  near  it. 
We  know  where  Siloam  is:  as,  notwithstanding  the 
displacements  and  doubts  of  Liglitfoot.  lieland.  and 
Alford,  it  is  one  of  the  best -ascertained  spots  of  Jeru 
salem  topography;  lviii'_r  to  the  south-east  of  the  eitv, 
and  though  in  ruins,  and  perhaps  not  the  veritable  tank 
of  Josephus.  retaining  the  name  of  Silwfin  to  this  day. 
But  where  was  liippicus?  Somewhere  northward,  :•.- 
JosepllUS  tells  us  (.1.  W.  v.  I,  -J1,  not  TT/VOS  ti^ffiv.  but  /card 
j3ofipav,  so  that  we  must  look'  for  it  somewhere  in  the 
north-west  quarter  of  the  citjl,  not  of  Zion  merelv. 
This,  of  itself,  makes  us  doubt  the  n-Mial  location  of 
this  tower— at  the  modern  AW"/',  or  castle;  for  the 
castle  lies  towards  the  i'T.--f  cntirf/i/,  or  rather  south 
west,  and  not  north  in  any  sense.  But  there  are  other 
reasons  for  the  doubt;  and  as  the  main  topographical 
controversies  reg-irding  the  city  turn  on  the  site  of  this 
tower,  we  must  examine  the  point. 

This  great  oblong  tower  has  been  in  former  times 
accounted  the  representative  of  the  castle  of  David. 


It  is  not  mentioned  by  the  Buurdeaux  "  Pilgrim,"  nor 
by  Eusebius,  nor  by  subsequent  writers  for  some  cen 
turies;  from  which  we  conclude  that  it  was  not  then 
the  commanding  object  which  it  is  now.  Tn  crusading 
times  it,  was  known  a.s  the  castle  of  the  Pisans,  becau.-e 
repaired  and  dwelt  in  by  them  in  the  crusading  age 
(Laffi,  Viaggio  al  Santo  Sepol.ro,  p.  331,  412;  W;ilia,  Laborcs  God- 
fredi.p.  .129).  Occupying  the  highest  point  of  Zion,  it  is 
the  most  elevated  building  in  modern  Jerusalem,  and 
may  well  be  the  relic  of  David's  fortress,  or  rather  of 
the  Jebusite  stronghold  which  he  took.  That  it  is 
Hippicus  rests  on  no  proof;  that  it  is  not,  admits  of 


much.  Josephus  is  our  only  informant  as  to  Hippicus; 
and  the  measurements  of  the  modern  castle  do  iiot  cor- 
rexjKjiid  ii-illt  hiss  f/a/tniciit*  in  tin;/  />''.rtift//ar.  (I.)  He 
savs  that  Hippieus  was  solid  within  up  to  the  height  of 
Uiiriv  eubits  i.i.  \v.  v.  I, ::).  The  pr.:sent  tower  is  not 
solid,  and  bears  no  marks  of  having  been  so.  (2.)  lie 
tells  us  that  Hippicus  was  a  t<  !rn</<m  or  square;  the  pre 
sent  tower  is  not,  as  the  southern  exceeds,  the  eastern 
side  bv  about  fourteen  feet.  (•}.)  He  gives  twenty- 
live  cubits  (above  forty-three  feet  as  the  length  of 
each  side  of  the  square.  The  [(reseat  tower  is  fifty- 
six  feet  I iy  seventy;  and  a-  Jo.-cpim-  never  iliiit'mifliiA 
but  sometimes  <.''/t;/;t<  i'it/i'.-f  the  dimensions  of  his  nurc.- 
/>i/ia,  we  are  quite  sure  that  his  measurements  could 
not  apply  to  the  present  castle.  (4.)  He  is  very  parti 
cular  as  to  the  size  of  the  stones  of  the  di:ii  rent  towers, 
specifying  some  as  thirty  feet  long,  fifteen  broad,  and 
eiu'ht  deep.  The  largest  stone  in  the  present  fortress 
is  thirteen  feet  long  and  three,  feet  and  a  half  broad. 
Instead  therefore  of  the  prosent  tower  ••tallying  well 
enough  with  the  description  of  Hippiei;^"  by  Josephus, 
as  Dr.  Robinson  savs  \\-<,\.  i.  p.  :;iu),  it  rant*  Jroiii  it  to 
cntirc/i/  that  we  are  warranted  in  saving,  that  there  is 
nearly  all  the  proof  that  the  circumstances  admit  of 
that  the  modern  ca>tle  is  not  /It-  ancient  toin  r  >,f  //<  ,v,(/'.< 
fi-idid.  A  square  tower  and  an  oblong  one,  a  >olid 
tower  and  a  hollow  one,  a  tower  seventy  feet  broad  and 
one  forty  feet  broad,  a  tower  0:1  the  north  of  a  city 
and  one  at  the. south,  are  very  dlit'ercnt  things. 

7.    I'x'iiiiniii'j  of  tin.    nlil  ifti//.  -  The  old  wall    then, 
and  the  Tyropicon  which  it  overhung,  did  not,  we  think, 
begin   at  the  modern  citadel.      "Where  then  did  these 
commence  ' 

The  only  still  perceptible  valley 
lit  Jerusalem,  at  this  day,  is  that 
near  the  Damascus  gate  and  in 
wards,  from  north- west  to  south 
east.  Tht. re  the  ground  falls  low. 
as  one  sees  very  distinctly  when 
standing  on  the  Mount  of  Olives; 
and  ere  the  rubbish  of  centuries 
was  poured  into  it  must  have 
been  still  lower.1  May  not  this 
be  the  Tvropcoon  '  Of  course,  it 
would  slope  upward  on  both 
sides  considerably,  and  Hippicus 
would  be  at  some  little  distance 
we>t.  or  west  by  north  of  the 
Damascus  gate.  Some  great 
tower  once  stood  at  the  present 
projecting  angle  of  the  western 
wall,  \\here  we  find  the  Kakit-c.1- 
Jalfid  (castle  of  Goliath  =  Giant- 
castle),  the  "turris  angularis"  of 
the  crusaders,  and  the  "Tancrecl's 

towel     'of    their  Successors    (Waha'sLaboi-csGodlVcdi,  p.  -ilS, 

42t).     "  It  consists  of  a  large  square  area  or  platform, 

built  up  so. idly  of  rough  stones,  fifteen  or  twenty  feet 
in  height.  At  the  south-west  corner  of  this  platform 
are  the  remains  of  a  higher  square  tower,  built  of  small 
unhewn  stones  cemented  together;  all  these  works 
seem  to  have  been  erected  on  the  ruins  of  a  still  older 

wall"  (Tlobinson,  vol.  i.  r.  31*;  vol.  iii.  103).  Dr.  RolillSOll 
suppo>es  this  to  be  a  fragment  of  the  second  or  third 
wall;  and  according  to  his  topography  it  might  be  so; 


JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


but  it  is  more  likely  to  have  belonged  to  the  first  wall,  the  city,  close  to  the  remarkable  ruins  of  the  so-called 

We   are   not   prepared   to   say   what   tower   this   was.  Xalat-el-Jalud,  which  to  me  looks  far  more  like  Hip- 

Fiut   probably  it  was  one  of  the  towers  that  Josephus  picus  than  'the  castle/      We  have  been  enabled  once 

describes  as  adjacent  to  Hippicus;  either  Phasaelus  or  more  to  justify  Josephus.      From  the   upper  room  of 

Mariamne.      F'or   vve   believe   that  these    three  towers  this    house    there    is    a  very   tine   view   of    the    Moab 

were  in  that  part  of  the  old  wall  which  went  north  and  mountains:   but  that  is  not  all.      We  have  also  a  peep 

south,  not  east  and  west,  as  some  have  supposed.1  About  of  the  Dead  Sea.  and  can  thus  testify  that  any  castle 

which  may  have  existed  here  in  Josephus'  time  must 

is  to  Liippieus  and 

the  traditional    "porta  judicialis.''  marked   ]4  on  Van     the  Tyropceon  to  mention  that  the  Chaldee  Paraphrast 

gives  Mi'/dal-Pi/dig  as  another  name  for  the  tower  of 
Hananeel  in  Je.  xxxi.  3S,  and  Zee.  xiv.  lo  (Lightfoot, 
(.Viit.  ChoiMgr.)  Schwarz  remarks,  "The  targumist  Jona 
than  IJen  I'zzicl,  a  scholar  of  the  famous  Hiliel  the 
elder,  lived  in  Jerusalem  in  tlie  time  of  kino'  Herod. 
....  We  find  that  he  renders  Hananeel  by  Mii/ditl- 
/Ji/.'tij,  evidently  tower  of  Hippicus''  (TaUstine,  p.  i.Y>o, •j;.iV 


sup 
We 

rather  take  it  to  be  a  relic  of  the  j/rat.  confirming  our 
conjecture  that  the  tir-t  wail  ran  somewhere  iu  a  line 
from  a  little  south  of  the  Damascus  gate  to  the  West 
wall  of  the  llaram.  It  could  not,  of  course,  be  the 
third  wall;  and  we  think  that  the  cur\v  »;'  the  second 
wall  must  have  eoiie  considerably  further  north.  We 
do  not  dogmatize,  we  <mlv  suggest;  a  tVw  excavations 
would  settle  the  question.  A  litter  from  a  friend  in 
Jerusalem  to  ourselves  mentions,  that  in  February  1,V>1. 
when  workmen  weiv  diguing  foundations  near  the 
"  Hcce  Homo''  arch,  they  came  on  a  large-  flat  stone, 
on  raising  which,  there  appeared  a  laruv  stream  oi 
water  running  in  the  direction  of  the  nios(|Ui'.  This 
marks  a  hollow  running  from  west  to  east;  and  indi- 
cates  pretty  nearly  the  line  of  the  first  wall,  which 
went  aloii_r  the  southern  ridu'e  of  the  Tvropeeon,  on  the 
hi/ii  ground  above  this  "stream."-  A  .-traight  lin- 
(the  tir>t  wall  wa>  straight)  commencing  a  little  west  of 
the  Damascus  gate,  then  keeping  a  little  to  the  south 
of  this  stieam.  till  it  reach  the  \\v~t  teni|ile- wall,  woiili! 
suit  well  the  piMtion  of  that  part  of  the  tir^t  wall 
which  went  ea>t\vard.  This  would,  Mli'j'ularl y  cnoiieji. 
iudieat"  the  street  /:'/•  I  !"<<</  (the  Valley- street)  as  in  pai  • 
the  line  of  t'.loTyn  ipiroll.  (Sec  Vaudeville's  map. )  It  Would 
also  follow  "the  lane'  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mills,"  which 
bewail  at  the  Mo'.direbin-gate  and  found  its  \vav  up  to 
the  Damascus- uate  \.  •  .  .  131;  Mujir-od-din,  citcU  by  Bar 
clay,  p.  :;>).  Mi 


This  is  curious,  but  determines  nothing.      Then  as  to 
the  Tyropo'oii,   the  ( 'hroiiicles    of    Rabbi    Joseph    speak 
of    "the    valley    between    the    two   mountains,    Mount 
Thrupp.  in  a  recent  letter  quoted    bv     Xion  to  the  west  and  .Mount  Moriah  to  tlie  east  '  (vol.  i. 


Dr.  \\'hittv  (Water  Supply  of  Jerusalem,  pref.  p.  :tL'),  in  a 
measure  seems  to  coincide  witli  the  above  view,  only  lie 
would  not  begin  the  Tvrop:eoii  <|iiite  so  far  up  as  the 
Damascus  '/ate. 

As  we  are   of  those    who   believe   in  the  hoin  -tv  and 
substantial   accuracy   of   Josephus,  vve   may    notice,-,   in 
passing,  a  statement  of  his   with   r<  -_rard    to   tho   tower; 
in   this   wall,  which   lias  been  set   down    hy  many  a 
exaggeration.      It  has   been  said   that    there   could    be 


li.74,7ii.  This  would  coincide  witli  Schwarz.  and  in  a 
measure  with  our  own  hypothesis;  but  it  completely 
overthrows  the  theory  of  Dr.  l.'obinson.  Mr.  Williams, 
and  Mr.  Feru'iisson.  According  to  Robinson  and  others 
the  vvi  st  wall,  extending  from  Psephinus  on  the  north, 
to  the  modern  citadel  on  the  south,  nearly  a  mile,  had 
none  of  these  great  towers:  and  yet  it  was  the  wall 
v.  Inch  of  all  others  most  needed  them,  because  built  on 
nearly  level  ground,  or  rather  t.n  ground  whose  up- 


no  such    view  of   Arabia  from  them   as  lie   describes,      ward  slope  gave  the  enemy  an  advantage.      It  was  the 


A  letter  from  a  Jerusalem  friend,  very  recently,  to  our 
selves,  gives  the  following  account.  "  Vour  question 
about  Hippicus  especially  interests  us;  for  we  are  now 
living  in  a  house  at  the  extreme  north-west  corner  of 


•itv's  weal;  point,  and,  as  such,  assailed  by  all  invaders 
from  the  Assyrians  to  the  Romans.  According  to 
these  same  topographers  the  wall  running  eastward 
from  the  citadel  to  the  temple,  not  a  quarter  of  a  mile, 
had  no  less  than  three  immense  towers!  Yet  nowhere 
\\ere  towers  less  needed,  seeing  it  could  not  be  attacked 
till  the  other  two  walls  had  been  carried,  and  was  besides 


1  A   I'reneh  author,  in   14_i,  refers  to  a  castle  a  little  west  of 

the  city,  in   disrepair — "ail  dehors  de  la  ville  ver  ponent  il  y  a 

uu  petit  chastel  de-empare  ail  get  d'un  canon  Ue  la  ville"  (."-Vr- 

xy  of  L'v.uj't  "i>d  Sfn-ia,  by  Sir  Gilbert  de  Laiuioy).     What  fort     on  the  high  ridire  of  tlie  Tyropo'oli,  with  a  deep  valley 

was  this'.'  llippicii^.  s-iys  D'Anvill.t.  There  is  no  trace  of  any  underneath.  The  crowding  of  towers  oil  the  city's 

strong  point  into  a  short  line  of  wall  where  they  were 
useless,  and  the  abstraction  of  them  from  tlie  city's 
weak  point,  viz.  the  long  line  of  western  wall  where 
they  were  indispensable,  is  a  species  of  fortification 
which  strikes  even  the  unmilitary  eye  as  not  a  little 


such  ruins  outside  the  city  now.  But  as  Laiinoy's  visit  was  a 
century  before  the  present  walls  were  built,  the  Kalat  el  Jalud 
might  have  been  then  considerably  outside,  and  may  be  the 
ruin  reform!  to  by  this  old  traveller 

-  Whitty  visited  this  (p.  107),  and  reckons  it  the  mere  leakage 
of  water  through  a  partition  wall,  deep  underground,  into  an 
ancient  vault,  which  was  descended  to  by  a  ladder.  lie  thinks 
the  vault  may  have  been  a  subterranean  military  passage  leading 
to  Antonia,  though  afterwards  converted  into  a  cesspool. 


JERUSALEM 

topography)  tin-  towers  were  I't'ti/li/  /nii/f  (<>  if  eft  nil  (tie 
citji.  ami  not  the  fit,/  tf>  </<'ft  /«/  tlir  tourrx. 

^.  Sit<  of  tin  iTncins'ion. —  Mat  the>e  questions  :is 
to  Hippieus  ;tn<l  the  Tyropieun,  load  un  to  the  nivat 
ecclesiastical  question — the  site'  of  the  crucifixion,  which 
we  must  now.  ;is  briefly  as  possible,  discuss. 

This  point  has  of  late  years  Keen  aruned  with  much 
warmth,  sonio  dogmatism,  and  no  inconsiderable  re 
search.  For  centuries  the  spot  was  regarded  us  the 
best  ascertained  in  Palestine:  men  had  no  more  mis 
givings  as  to  it  than  as  to  .Jerusalem  itself.  But  the 
belief  <>l  au'es  has  ln-en  disturbed;  and  with  this 
disturbance  much  topographical  information  has  been 
brought  to  the  surface,  most  of  it  however  tending,  as 
yet,  rather  to  unsettle  than  to  settle  old  questions; 
while  awakening,  at  the  same  time,  a  most  unexpected 
amount  of  ecclesiastical,  historical,  antiquarian,  and 
architectural  zeal.  Mr.  Fcrgusson's  recent  theorv, 
founded  chiefly  on  the  architecture  of  the  present 
•'mosque  of  Omar."  lias  added  fresh  complications, 
while  it  lias  called  attention  to  several  points  hitherto 
overlooked. 

In  discussing  the  rhorography  of  Jerusalem  some 
warmth  maybe  excusable:  but  dogmatism  is  out  of  place. 
Anil  this  for  two  reasons-  (1.)  because  the  questions 
are  intricate  and  the  information  imperfect:  :!  }>••- 
cause  a  far  well-directed  ejcartttioiix  mi;////,  in  a  week 
or  two.  xiipply  nx  n-itl,  facts  «:liicli  ironlil  at  once  conjirnt 

or  I'dnfnti  dni'ii  nt  t  i'ii<lit  iuii  Unit  i/tniftrn  iirt/n  ,/ii'nl .  'I'his 
second  reason  will  weigh  most  strongly  with  those  who 
have  sifted  the  questions  most  thoroughly,  and  especially 
with  those  \vhohavc  examined  them  on  the  spot.  They 
will  be  cautious  as  to  their  conclusions,  if  not  out  of  re 
spect  to  their  present  deficient  information,  at  least  from 
salutary  dread  of  emerging  facts.  The  localities  of  a 
city  so  often  razed,  burned,  and  reduced  "to  heaps,"  IV 
Ixxix.  i;  whose  ''ruins  are  multiplied,"  F./.c.  xxi.  i;,;  whose 
valleys  have  been  filled  up:  whose  precipices  rounded 
off  into  mere  slopes;  and  which  is  now  built  upon  a 
dee]>  and  undulating  substratum  of  debris,  from  thirty 
to  fifty  feet  in  thickness,  are  not  so  easily  determined 
as  those  of  one,  like  Athens,  never  exposed  to  such  de 
solating  reverses,  occupied  without  a  break  by  its  ori 
ginal  possessors,  and  retaining  in  its  present  monu 
ments  the  full,  sharp  outline  of  its  own  great  national 
story. 

Xot  that  the  transformations  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
changes  in  its  topographical  physiognomy  are  due  to 
enemies  alone.  No  doubt,  in  terrible  retribution  the 
city  has  been  •'turned  upside  down,"  2Ki.  xxi.  13;  and 
the  mounds  of  its  ruins  are  the  monuments  of  its  trans 
gression.  Xo  doubt  the  rubbish  poured  into  its  interior 
hollows,  and  shot  down  into  the  exterior  valleys  of  the 
east  and  south  by  the  rage  of  successive  destroyers, 
has  converted  depressions  into  levels,  cliffs  into  slopes, 
and  greatly  effaced  the  features  of  Agrippean,  and  still 
more  of  Asamonaean  Jerusalem;  but  many  of  the  leVel- 
lings  and  fillings  up.  age  after  age.  recorded  so  carefully 
in  the  Maccabzean  and  Josephan  annals,  were  for  defence, 
convenience,  and  necessity,  nay.  also  for  ornament,  and 
show  us  that  the  effacing  of  some  of  the  old  lines  and 
landmarks  was  the  work,  not  of  the  invader,  but  the  I 
patriot.  The  levelling  of  Moriah  for  the  building  of  , 
the  temple,  and  that  of  Akra  to  prevent  its  overlooking 
the  sacred  fane,  was  the  work  of  friendly  hands. 

We  do  not  mean  to  detail  the  items  of  a  long  and  | 
often  wearisome  discussion;  nor  do  we  at  all  entertain  '• 


JERUSALEM 

the  hope  of  settling  the  site  of  Golgotha.  We  wish 
merely  to  give  the  general  facts  and  reasonings  of  the 
case,  so  far  as  these  can  be  condensed  within  the  limits 
of  an  article.  A  continuous  historical  statement  will 
perhaps  lie  the  best  way  of  putting  our  readers  in  pos 
session  of  this  entangled  controversy. 

\Ve  must  begin  with  Scripture.  \Ve  shall  not  cite 
Je.  xxxi.  :',H,  where  timttli  is  named,  as  there  is 
some  uncertainty  whether  this  is  the  root  of  (lalijutha. 
Yet  it  may  lie;  for  as  we  do  not  know  the  authentic 
Hebrew  spelling  of  the  latter  word,  the  words  may 
really  lie  cognate,  if  not  identical.1  }'ui  we  come  at 
once  to  the  Xew  Testament. 

Theiv.'  is  no  such  word  as  ( 'n/i-urt/  in  the  original 
Scriptures.  Uolyotha  is  the  Hebrew  name.  Mat.  xxvii.:«; 
Mar.  xv.  iH;  Jn.  six.  1";  and  Kpaviov  TOTTO?  is  the  Greek. 
.Mat.  xxvii.  ;!3 ;  Mar.  xv.  22  ;  Lu.  xxiii.  :;:: ;  Jn.  xix.  17.  C'alvarv 
is  the  .Latin  translation,  which,  through  the  Vulgate 
chiefly,  has  come  to  be  the  special  name  for  the  place 
of  crucifixion,  (iolgotha  is  nowhere  called  a  mount  in 
Scripture.  In  the  early  fathers  iinntticii/nx  is  sumo 
times  used,  but  its  name  with  them  is  generally  "rock" 
or  "  place 

t'rux  ad  locum  Galg'ata 

Silii  ferri  datur.  — (.MmieV  /////« »i  L<n,nt.  vol.  i.  p.  11U.; 

and  again — 

ICt  in  rupe  t 'alvaria; 

Til  matrem  prope  stanteni. — (Ib.  p.  1'Jo.) 

and   again — 

Kr  ail  locum  Calvaria- 

'IV  inortnum  yideruut.— (Ib.  p.  1-.M.) 

There  is  no  evidence  that  it  was  the  usual  place  of 
execution,  though  the  fact  of  the  two  thieves  being 
taken  thither  along  with  ( 'hrist  would  rather  suggest 
this.  It  is  not  the  place  of  tknlh.  but  of  a  *••/•('//--- 
indicating  either  its  shape  or  the  discovery  of  some 

skull    there    (see  Alturd's  Greek  Testament,  vol.  i.  p.  209).       (]  •) 

Jt  ti'ax  vitJiont  tin.  r/'/ij.  Mat.  xxvii.  ::2.  "as  they  were 
coming  nut"  (t^epxo/nevoL),  i.e.  of  the  city,  for  the  pre 
vious  verse  mentions  their  leaving  the  judgment- hall, 
I"  lav.  xv.  20,  "they  led  him  out"  ({^dyovffti'}',  Jn.  xix.  17, 
'•he.  bearing  his  cross,  went  forth"  (ej-rj\6ev).  The  fact 
also  that  "  a  great  company  (TroXt;  ir\T)0os)  of  people" 
followed  him,  J.u.  xxiii.  iir,  would  indicate  that  he  was 
outside  the  streets  and  walls.  ('-'.)  It  fax  not  far  from 
tfie  rift/.  Jn.  xix.  L'n,  "  the  place  where  Jesus  was  crucified 
was  iitr/Jt  to  the  city"  (fyyvs);  not  necessarily  in  juxta 
position:  for  the  Mount  of  Olives,  which  was  a  Sab 
bath-day's  journey,  is  said  to  be  "nigh,"  Ac.  i.  i^.  The 
transference  of  the  cross  from  J  esns  to  Simon  would 
intimate  that  the  distance  was  too  o-reat  tor  the  sufferer. 
It  irtix  iint  till  Ihfji  f/fit  niitx/'ili  that  the  transference 
took  place.  Mat.  xxvii.  32;  which  obviously  implies  a  dix- 
tuui't  ii-itJtniit  the  >in/lx,  for  which  the  victim  was 
unequal.  This,  with  the  subsequent  running  to  and 
fro  of  disciples  and  women,  gives  the  impression  that 
there  was  considerable  space  between  the  city  and  Gol 
gotha.  (?>.)  Tli ere  ims  room  for  a  garden,  a  tomb,  and 


1  Tin-  dirk'  ilescrilieil  by  the  prophetic  measuring  line  would 
be  thus  traced— (1)  Oareb,  south-west  of  the  city.  (2)  Gnutl,. 
westward,  to  the  south  of  the  present  asli-moiinils.  (3)  VaWy 
nf  tie  (had  bodlea,  north,  within  the  third  wall,  where  the 
Assyrians  were  destroyed,  2  Ki.  xix.  ?,'>:  Is.  xxxvii.  36;  the  word 
in  all  these  places  being  the  same  as  in  Jeremiah,  D'ljSE, 

*'.*'.  dead  bodies.  (4)  The  ro.Ueii  of  the  ashet,  in  the  same  direction, 
but  more  eastward.  (5)  The  fields unto  the  Kfdrcm.  (6)  Theanglt 
of  horse  gate,  at  the  temple. 


JKIU'SALKM 


JERUSALEM 


would  be  such  danger  of  contracting  ceremonial  unclean- 
ness,  especially  if  such  tomb  were  near  the  temple.  The 
sin-offering  required  to  be  burned  at  son 


•7  place  of  (Mention.     Joseph  of  Arimatha-a,   being  a 

rich  man,  would  not  be  content  with  a  small  patch  of 

ground  for  a  garden,  nor  a  bare  rock  fora  sepulchre: 

and   this,  of  itself,  seems   to  be  irreconcilable  with   tlie  '  from  the  city,  and  towards   the  north,   Lev.i.ll;  iv.m;  at 

theory  which  makes  the  dome  of  the  rock  the  sepulchre. 

There  was  no   r<jmii   there   for  a  garden,  even   had   the 

want  of  soil  been  no  barrier:  "  fcir  yards  of  rock  are 

all  that  the  rich  man  couM   have  had   for  yard  en  and 

tomb!      |!esiili-s.  the  rock-cut  tombs  around  Jerusalem 


visite 


adorning  their  exterior,  and  cutting  out  their  interior; 
floor,  sides,  and  roof.  The  tombs  on  Akeldama  are 
specimens  of  internal  heumu:  thus,.  ,,f  ihe  kinys  and 
judges,  of  external  adornment.  The  rock  under  the 
great  dome,  which  .Mr.  Fer-_;-u>se.n  claim-  for  the  sepul 
chre,  has  not  been  touched  by  a  chisel.  Then-  is  no 
shaping,  nor  squaring,  nor  earviny  about  anv  part.  It 
is  so  rugged  and  uncouth  that  one  fee]-  nearlv  e.-rtain 
that  a  rich  man  like  Jo-,-ph  \\oiild  never  have  been 
content  with  such  an  iinshapcd  block  and  >i;ch  an 
uiicarvfd  hcile  in  a  rock;  and  that  the  evangelists 
would  nut  have  referred  so  pccjntedlv  to  the  iieifiH-Ka 


the 

antitype  may   be  supposed  to  have  suffered.       (5.)    It 
ii-rtx  nan-  .«)//?,    t/io,'oii://if,,i;  .       It    is   said    that    "  they 

and   these 


public   thoroughfare. 


oming  and  m>in^  along  a 
reat    highways    of    Jeru 


which  has  led  many  to  look  for  Golgotha  somewhere  in 
the  suburban  slopes  and  hollows  which  lie  plentifully 
in  these  directions.  In  leading  our  Lore!  to  execution, 
the  soldiers  met  Simon  the  C'yreiiian  "coming  from 
the  country,"  literally,  "fivm  the  field"  (air  d-y/ior1),  and 
laid  the  cross  mi  him.  Mm-  \v-.-i;  and  it  mav  be  noticed 
that  in  l!  Ki.  xxiii.  1,  the  ••_"'//(/.-•  of  Kedron"  are  men 
tioiu-d  ithe  Sept.  turns  thi>  into  a  proper  name  ^a<5?;- 
^,i  p,.,...^;.  Kn-e'hius  also  uive-s  Saclt  moth'::  as  il' 


stone  which  no  tool  had  evt  r  tone-he  d.      St.  Matth.-w '.- 
statement   is,  that  Joseph   laid    the-    bodv  in    "his  own 
new  tomb  which  he  hail   hewn  out  (f \arou ija(i')    in   tin       il 
rock,'  rli.  \\ui.  in      St.   Mark's    i<    that   In-  laid  him    in  a  i  o'1 
sepulchre  \\hich  was   hewn   out  e.i'   a   roe  k  (\r\uTo/.irjy.t-  |   II 
vuv  t\  7r/r/>as>  ch.  xv. -in.      St.    Luke's    is   that    lie  laid  the 
bodv  ina  sepulchre  that  w  a-  "  ln-w  n  in  stone"  (AaffiTu) 
-;£.    Is.  ix.  in,    to    build:    and          >--P.    K\    \\\i-,    i    I;  ]>e 

\.  i,  to  hew  or  carve.)  St.  John's  is  that  "in  the  place 
win-re;  he  was  crucified  then-  was  a  -anl.  n,  anil  in  the 
garden  a  new  sepulchre"  (^.vrjaiiuv  /v  enrol',  rli.  \:\.  III. 
The-e  remarks,  as  to  the-  hewing  and  carvini:,  applv 
quite  as  much  to  tin-  <  'hurch  of  th--  Sepulchre  as  to  the 

mosque  rock.        The    two    gra\es     in     the    tl •    of    the 

church  mention, -d  by  Mr.  I 'ur/on  ( Kastern  Monasi  p.  iia;), 
anel  experimented  on  by  1  >r.  Stanley  (Sinai  and  1 
l;V>),  could  not  possibly  be  the  rich  man's  well  In -w  n  tomb. 
Whether  Machpelah  was  hewn  w--know  not.  I'robablv, 
at  least,  loculi  or  shelves  \\  ill  be  found  in  it  for  con 
taining  the  bodies,  as  the  very  old  -epulrhiv  on  tin- 
opposite  side  of  the  present  town,  known  a-  A'".-r- 
\<i</,--//,in,-i'iii  (the  watch-castle  . if  Kphroii',  has  five  or 
six  of  these  carefully  executed,  still  in  beautiful  piv- 


w.  i'Jit,  it  would  bid  us  |, ink  tei  the.  north  or  north-west 
of  tlie  city  for  the-  site  of  Golgotha.  The  builders  of 
the  present  church  would  seem  in  that  case  to  have 
•  in  the  true  direction,  but  not  far  enouoh  out. 
Having  got  hold  of  the  old  tradition  as  to  the  site, 
they  wished  perhaps  to  build  there:  but  were  driven 
into  the  citv  from  inconvenience  and  danger,  and  took 
the  site  nearest  to  it  within  the  shelter  of  the  walls. 
This  is  implied  in  the  following  statement  of  the  old 
traveller  Willihal.l,  A.D.  I'l'l  :  "They  visited  the  spot 
wh'Te  the  holv  cro-s  was  found,  where  there-  is  now 
a  church  which  is  called  the  plat-.-  of  (  'alvary.  and  i/'/iif/i 
imitforwi-rlii  uiitn'uli  of  Jerusalem;  but  when  St.  Helena 
found  the  cross,  the  place  n;i.-<  t«l.;  „  into  //«'  circuit  of 
tin  oV//"  i  Karly  Tr.  in  Palestine,  p  i*b  This  last  clause  may 
mean,  either  that  the  walls  were  extended  so  as  to 
embrace  the  sepulchre,  or  that  t  he  churdi  which  marked 
it  was  transferred  within  the  walls.  Tilt:  latter  of  the 
two  changes  seems  the-  more  likely:'  and  we  believe  that 
IJobinsun  has  expressed  the  judgment  of  many  modern 
t.opo-raphers  when  he  says,  "  The  place  was  probably 
u poii  a  oTeat  road  leading  from  one  of  the  gates;  and 
such  a  speit  would  onlv  be  found  upon  the  western  or 
northern  sides  of  the  citv,  on  the  roads  leading  towards 


servation,  though  older  than  any  in  Jerusalem.      Any-  ,  Juppa  and  Damascus''  (veil.  i.  p.  n--). 


ne  whtj  has  visited  the  Sakhrah  and   the  sepulchres  of 


tlie  kings  will  feel  the  fo 


statement.      What 


ever  the  cave  under  the  great  mosque-rock  was  meant 
for,  it  tdt.-i  .inrffi/  not  iitfcinlni  for  <i.  toinli,  at  least  bv 
anyone  who  had  shekels  enough  to  pav  for  its  being 
decently  hewn,  if  not  adorned.  (4.)  //  must  lian  been 
at  a  certain  /,,/„/  ,r,*ta,i<-<  from  tin  rift/.  \\' 
maintain  that  the  same  law  applied  to  the 


Jerusalem  which  did  to  th--  forty-eight  Levitical  cities. 
prohibiting  the  dead  beiny  buried  within  their  suburbs. 
(.c.  within  about  a  mile  of  the  city-walls.  I!ut  some 
law  there  must  have  been  as  to  burial  and  the  distance 


of  tombs  from  the  citv  (  Liirhtfm  >t  shows  that  no  bodv 


Cent.  Chorugr.  on  Mat.  p.  17:0,    and  it  is  not  likely  that  even 
Joseph  would   be  allowed  to  have  a  tomb  so  close  te 


-en  strmiulv  argued  by  some,  that  the  minute 


It  h 

ness  and  accuracy  of  the  L'oman  provincial  "surveys'' 
(see  Finlay's  Essay  on  Site  of  II.  S.)  are  security  for  believ 
ing  that  the  site  of  Golgotha  was  correctly  ascertained 
bv  the  first  builders  of  tin-  church.  To  this  there  are 
four  objections:  (1.)  There  is  no  proof  that  so  insig 
nificant  an  event  in  L'oman  eyes,  as  the  execution  of 
three  malefactors,  was  noted,  or  was  likely  to  have  its 
place  noted,  in  the  survey  of  Jerusalem.  ('2.}  If  such 
a  survev  fixed  Golgotha,  it  fixed  the  otl  er  localities; 


«vords   are,    •'colloravit    ilium    locum  intus  in 
which  Messrs.  Michaud  and  roujulat  remark, 

was  alloweel    to    be  buried  within   fiftv  cubits  of   a  city,      ''"^   this  was  regarded  as  a  great  miracle,  "comme  un  miracle 

dn del" (Corresp-tf Orient, \o\.v.  p.H.'i;  Ferfrusfon,  p.  isl;  Museum 
nfC'liitficol  Anti<i.\o\.  ii.  ]>.  HSU).  The  old  traditionists  evidently 
believed  in  the  transference  of  the  iii-nvwl  awl  md;  and  are 


the  walls  as  some  would  have  it:  as  in  such  a  case  there 

Vol..   1 


thus  witnesses  against  the  authenticity  of  the  present  site. 

112 


KlU'SALIvM 


JERUSALEM 


:iiid  should  have  prevented  some  gross  ecclesiastical 
mistakes.  >uch  as  the  site  of  the  ascension  and  St. 
Stephen's  martyrdom.  (^5.)  This  argument  might  he 
i(|iiall\  pleaded  liy  all  parties,  unites  one  of  them 
eoni'l  take  i![>  th  •  Roman  sur\ev  eliart,  ami  point  to 
the  spot  as  laid  di.wn  there,  \\hich  nobody  pretends  to 
he  able  to  do.  ( -J.)  It  is  useless  to  speak  of  the  first 
founders  being  guided  to  the  true  spot  hy  a  Roman  sur 
vey  map:  when  they  themselves  tell  us  that  the  site  had 
been  utterly  lost,  and  that  they  were  guided  to  it  solely 
by  miracle.  The  miracles  described  as  accompanying 
the  finding'  of  the  cross  by  Helena,  show  that  the 
finders  saw  no  necessity  for  any  imperial  chart,  and  are 
inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  such  a  guide  being-  used. 
(See  Kusebius,  <  >mf.  in  l.uucl.  ( Ymstantini:  Kuseb.  ile  Vita  Const. 
Atlrichouiins,  ],.  i;i;.  Pressing's  Golgotha.) 

As  the  site  liad  been  l.>ng  unknown,  and  could  onlv 
lie  discovered  by  a  miracle,  we  an-  warranted  in  con 
cluding'  that  conjecture  or  convenience  had  the  chief 
hand  in  fixing-  it.  A  tradition  may  have  lingered  as 
to  tin  i/t'/iern/  lufii/iti/:  but  the  exact  spot  had  disap 
peared,  hidden,  if  wemav  believe  Kusebius  and  Jerome, 
under  earth  and  rubbish.  In  A.n.  :5'J(i  this  was  mirn- 
rn/otix/i/  discovered,  and  the  church  built  by  Con- 
stantiiie.  It  occupied  nine  vears  in  its  erection  (fie 
Sacris  -KJil'.  a  Const,  construttis>  Synopsis  hUtoriru  I.  Ciainpini,  p. 
14G-7.) 

This  begins  the  history  of  the  Church  >.f  the  Holy 
Sepulchre.  Just  seven  years  after  this,  .\.1>.  :i'.]'-\,  and 
before  the  church  was  linished  and  consecrated,  which 
was  in  o3,">,  Jerusalem  was  visited  by  a  traveller  from 
Bourdeaux:  and  his  statement  shows  us  that  the  church 
was  toward  the  ii-itt,  not  the  cuxf  side  of  the  city. 
Eusebius  had  spoken  of  it  as  being  in  the  middle  of 
the  city  (et>  /may.  ''in  ipso  urbis  meditullio."  as  his 
translator  Valesius  gives  it  rather  strongly),  and  the 
French  traveller's  description  coincides  with  this.  He 
first  takes  us  to  the  temple  of  Solomon,  and  describes 
at  considerable  length  the  objects  of  interest  there. 
concluding  with  the  two  statues  of  Hadrian  near  the 
"lapis  pertnsus  ad  quern  veniunt  Jud;ei"  (p.  27:<):  which 
statues  Jerome  speaks  of  as  existing  in  his  day,  along 
with  an  image  of  Jupiter1  (Com.  nn  is  ii.  -,  and  Mat.  xxi.  i.V>. 

1  In  the  E/'itoine  of  Chronology  of  tlie  seventh  century,  knu'.vn 
as  the  Fufti  Sirv.li,  ov  ('/irn-uici'm  Al<.r<nnlriiniw.  occurs  the  fol 
lowing  piece  of  curious  information,  \vhicli  we  do  not  observe 
usually  quoted — (we  find  it  in  Cellarius'  Nutitirr-  Orbis  Anfiqai, 
vol.  ii.  p.  40'2).  The  writer  tells  us  that  Hadrian  built  OM  or,u.oi7ix, 

$u$tx<imi)iOv  TO  TO/V  cvo«ajou.?n)v  xtxSxtiuti,  zxi  -rr,v  xo'bfa.v.  These 
were  singular  structures  for  .Jerusalem — two  forums,  a  theatre, 
a  three  domed  building,  a  four  hailed  building,  a  twelve-gated 
building,  and  a  kodi'u,  or  ijimili-n  i'-.\  .•.•<,,'»,•<•).  The  '•  twelve-gated  " 
structure  was  constructed  out  of  tlie  ruins  of  what  hud  been  tlie 
it.:xSxtlfMi,  which  is  the  word  used  in  Ac.  xxii.  :','.',  for  tlie  stairs 
between  the  temple  and  Antonia.  Could  Hadrian's  splendid 
erection  have  been  at  the  north  of  the  temple  area? 

'-  It  is  clear  also  that  tlie  >ion  of  the  fourth  century  is  just  tlie 
Zion  of  the  present  day;  and  that  the  chief  places  of  interest 
were  tlie  same  then  as  now,  and  in  the  same  localities.  Tradition, 
though  not  so  true  as  Williams  and  ( 'hateauhriand  would  have 
it,  has  not  proved  so  entirely  false  as  Clarke  and  Llr.  Robinson 
affirm.  The  topographical  reaction  at  present  seems  rather  in 
favour  of  tradition. 

3  This  shows  us  that  in  his  day  tlie  supposed  Golgotha  was 
tcithlii  the  city.  This  is  clear  also  from  Cyril's  many  references 
(Cuteclt.  Lectci-'f,  iv.  lo  ;  iv.  in  ;  x.l!>;  xiii.  -J2).  He  speaks, 
moreover,  of  tlie  marks  of  the  great  earthquake  as  still  visible 
in  the  rent  rocks.  This  father  mentions  also  two  caves,  an 
outer  and  an  inner,  tlie  outer  ha\ing  been  hewn  away  for 
the  sake  of  adornment  ixiv.  !ii.  It  is  plain  that  these  early 
fathers  and  historians  understood  Zion  to  be  the  southern  hill; 


He  then  brings  us  to  Siloam;  then  up  Mount  Zion  to 
the-  house  of  ('aiaj)has;  then,  vyithin  the  walls,  to  the 
palace  of  1'avid  and  the  synagogues  of  the  .Jews. 
Then  lie  brings  us  from  tin  ./<  n-ix/i  //unr/ir  <JH  Mount 
/,!,,,,,  r'i'ilit  tliromjh  tin  i-itii,  t»  tin  y/m«  nt  /><i)i>(ti«;t.<  <„• 
.\<ili/iix  i/d/i  :  and  points  to  the  palace  of  J'iiate  on  the 
riglithand  (at  the  north-west  angle  of  the  great  mosque), 
and  on  the  left  to  "  Monticulus  (lolgotha  ubi  Dominus 
erucifixus  est"  (p.  _'7!»).  Anyone  who  has  been  in  Jeru 
salem,  or  \\lio  is  well  acquainted  with  its  sites  and 
streets  on  a  map.  will  see  that  flic  L'/iin-/'li  of  tlie  <SV- 
/iii/r/n'(  ruiifi/  nut  in  tlnit  crate  linn  IIKH  on  tin:  na*t.  at 
the  Sakhrah.  but  just  in  the  place  where  we  find  it  at 
this  day.-  Eusebius  next  (about  .A.D.  :>:'><>)  gives  us 
the  site  of  (iolgotha:  and  he  is  equally  explicit:  "Gol 
gotha  ....  is  shown  in  ,-Elia.  to  the  north  of  Mount 

Zioll."  TT/x'iS  TOtS  fioptioiS  Tor  —l&V  0/)Ol'S  (Onoinust.  p.  lUn. 
Berlin  ed.  iMi'.'),  just  where  we  ii"\v  see  the  <  hurch  of 
the  Sejiulehre. '  Jerome  makes  the  same  statement, 
but  adds  this  piece  of  information,  which  seems  to  us 
quite  conclusive:  "  Hierusalem  ....  qu;e  mine  all 
.-lOlio  Adriano,  quod  earn,  a  Tito  destructam  latiore  situ 
instauraverit.  -lOlia  eognominata  est:  cujus  opere  factum 
est  ut  loca  sancta,  id  est  Dominicfe  passionis  et  resurrec- 
tionis.  et  inventionis  sanctie  crucis.  quondam  istra  urbeiii 
j'd't'ntlit,  nunc  f'/iiuldit  tn-liia  nturo  SKI'TKNTUIOXALI 
circumdentur.'"4  The  next  witness  is  Arculf  (A.u.  700), 
whose  description  of  Jerusalem  sites  and  scev.es  cor 
responds  very  much  to  what  we  find  in  subsequent  ages. ' 
He  places  Zion  on  the  south,  as  others  do:  and  the 
holy  places  "to  the  north."  but  "in  the  middle  of  the 
city,"  exactly  as  Kusebius  had  done.  His  description 
of  the  tomb  itself  does  not  in  the  least  correspond  to 
the  Sakhrah,  either  internally  or  externally:  while  the 
lofty  column  with  the  cross  and  the  figure  of  Christ  on 
it,  surrounded  by  the  globe,  described  in  his  text,  and 
exhibited  in  his  curious  map,  shows  tl/af  flic  Clnin'li  of 
tin  Sepulchre  wrts  eonsddfvdbly  to  tlif  iccxt  i if  tlie  tem/i/e, 
just  where  it  now  is.  This  is  the  first  of  three  old 
maps  published  by  Van  de  Yelde  in  his  planography  of 
Jerusalem,  with  accompanying  memoir:  and  is  very 
curious  and  valuable.  Cutting  off  its  enormous  towers 
and  o'ates,  which  puzzle  one  ft  first,  and  taking  the 

and  that  therefore  tlie  S"liii-('li  could  not  have  been  the  site  of 
the  sepulchre  in  the  fourth  century,  if  we  are  to  credit  Eusebius 
and  Jerome  inasmuch  as  they  place  the  sepulchre  i<r>?tli  of  Zion. 
Kusebius  elsewhere  places  it  in  the  middle  (iv  usvu',  but  this  is 
a  coincidence,  not  a  discrepancy.  The  present  church  is  literally 
north  of  Zion,  and  yet  in  the  ,niildlf  of  tlie  city.  The  Sakhrah  is 
certainly  not  tlie  latter,  and  only  in  a  vague  sense  the  former. 
Certainly  Kusebius  could  not  have  meant  it,  when  he  spoke  of 
the  church  being  north  of  Zion  and  yet  in  the  middle  of  the  city. 

1  /)<•  I'.o's  lltlii:  'If  Act  if  A/inft.  Some  have  doubted  the 
genuineness  of  this  work,  because  at  one  part  it  quotes  Jerome 
himself.  But  this  addition  no  more  discredits  the  rest  of  the 
treatise,  than  the  mention  of  Joshua's  death  discredits  the  book 
of  Joshua.  If  the  treatise  be  not  Jerome's,  it  is  about  his  age; 
which  is  the  same  thing  for  our  argument,  as  giving  us  the 
information  of  Jerome's  day.  The  mention  of  the  northern  wall 
shows  that  he  had  the  /./w'/jf  site  in  view. 

:>  It  may  be  worth  while  to  quote  the  following  sentence  from 
a  well-known  historical  work,  referring  to  Jerusalem  in  .A.D.  fi37 
when  it  first  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Saracens.  "The 
caliph  (Omar)  desired  the  patriarch  to  assign  him  a  place  where 
hemight  build  a  mosque,  the  patriarch  showed  him  where  Jacol'n 
xtfiui-  lay.  The  stone  was  covered  with  dirt.  In  a  short  time 
they  had  removed  all  the  rubbish  and  dirt,  and  cleared  the 
stone.  After  this,  the  caliph,  leaving  their  churches  to  the 
Christians,  built  a  new  temple  in  the  place  where  Solomon's 
stood,  and  consecrated  it  to  the  Mahometan  superstition. "- 
Ockley's  Hixtorti  rif  tlie  Saracens  (Bohn's  ed.).  p.  214.  "Jacob's 
stone"  was  the  Sakhr.ih. 


— 1 1 


JERUSALEM  * 

simple  outline  of  its  walls,  we  find  the  contour  of  the  city 
wonderfully  like  what  we  see  it  now.  The  names  of  its 
gates  form  the  chief  feature  of  difference;  the  gate  of 
David  corresponds  to  the  modern  Jaffa  gate,  and  that 
of  the  Fuller  to  the  modern  Damascus  gate.  As 
Arculfs  plan  seems  to  us  to  settle  one  part  of  the 
controversy — viz.  the  site  of  the  church  in  the  seventh 
and  eighth  centuries — we  give  a  rough  outline  of  it. 
\o.  :>67,  oniittintr  it-  enormous  towers  and  '.rates. 


JERUSALEM 


Crrtti  of\ 
Dm-i'd   -, 


The  pillar  represents  the  site  of  the  church,  near  tin- 
west  of  the  city,  as  Arculf  tells  us  in  his  description. 
It  is  surmounted  by  the  cross  and  an  imaire  of  (  lirist, 
with  beams  goiiiLT  forth,  and  the  world  encircling  all. 

We  add  an  outline  of  a  plan  of  the  twelfth  century. 
No.  '.'>>>*.  which,  though   not   pit-serving  the  eoiiti^ura 
tion  of  the  citv,  show-  us  clearlv  the  iclativc   positions 


w 


|3<S  1       Plan  of  Jerusalem,  twelfth  century. 

of  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre  and  the  temple,   just 
as  in  Arculfs. 

Willihald.  in  A.r.  7--.  shows  us  that  the  rock  of 
the  sepulchre,  in  his  day.  was  "  square  at  the  bottom, 
but  tapering  above,"  quite  unlike  the  Sakhrah.  P>er- 
nard  the  Wise,  in  A.I).  Sl>7.  expressly  homologates 
Arculfs  account,  which  we  have  already  noticed  as 


proving  that  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre  at  that  time 
was  on  the  same  spot  as  at  present.  He  speaks  also  of 
the  temple  of  Solomon  being  north  nf  Zimi,  showing 
that  in  his  day  Zioii  was  accounted,  as  now,  the 
soittftirit  hill  of  Jerusalem. 

After  this  conies  the  period  when  .Mr.  Fergusson 
supposes  the  transference  took  place  of  the  Church  of 
the  Sepulchre  from  the  east  to  the  west  of  the  city, 
somewhere  during  the  seventeen  years  from  lo:>>!  to 
lobs,  when  the  Christians  were  tiereely  persecuted. 
Hut  as  there  is  «//,Wi^r///  //./  ltift<n-i<'<.il  ///•(»</.  not  so 
much  as  a  hint  (except  a  Moslem  fa!  le,  which  mav 
mean  anything.  Museum  nf  Classical  Antiq.  IL  :iS4)  that  any 
change  took  place.  \s  e  leel  ourselves  at  liberty  to  set 
aside  conjectures,  even  were  they  many  times  more 
plausible  than  they  are.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century  to  the  piv-ciit  day  there  is  a  continuit  v  of 
historical  testimony  as  to  the  site  of  (Jolgotha.  which 
nothing  sa\  >•  more  explicit  counter  testimonies  can 
shake.  We  arc  not  contending,  like  Mr.  Williams, 
for  the  veritable  Hible  Golgotha;  we  are  simply  investi 
gating  the  historical  and  traditional  site.  We  strongly 
suspect  that  the  present  spot  is  not  the  Hible  one;  but 
we  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that,  since  the  year  :!:>(>,  it 
has  been  regarded  as  such,  and  that  the  present  Church 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  was  reared  out  of  the  debris  and 
upon  the  ruins  of  Constantino's  erection:-. 

A  brief  notice  of  this  celebrated  sanctuary  the  focus 
of  all  traditional  ecelesiasticism.  tin-  gravitating  point 
of  both  superstition  and  devotion  to  the  whole  Chris 
tian  world  tor  at  least  tiftt  on  centuries  is  needful. 
Jerusalem  is  -t.udded  with  holy  places,  within  and 
\\itliout  its  walls:  all  of  them  tilled  with  articles  of 
eccli  siastical  /•/;•//',  and  as  lucrative  as  they  are  sacred. 
These  are  in  part  the  relics  of  the  crowds  of  churches 
and  firuftiii'liit  which  sprung  up  all  over  Palestine  in 
the  earlv  centuries,  and  in  part  memorials  of  the 
crusades.  There  is  the  Church  of  the  Ascension 
perched  on  the  top  of  Olivet,  close  neighbour  to  a  Mos 
lem  mosque  and  to  the  Arab  village  <  f  Ki-Tur.  There 
is  the  tomb-chapel  of  Sitti-.Miriam  (Lady  Mary)  in  the 
Kedroii  vallcv.  half  underground.  There  is  the  Latin 
garden  of  ( letlisemane  with  its  picturesque  olives. 
There  is  the  <Venacuhim  on  Mount  '/Ann.  forming  part 
of  Nebi-Daiid:  a  vaulted  room  which  tradition  calls 
tin-  upper  chamber  of  the  Last  Supper.  There'  is  the 
F.cce  Homo  arch,  near  the  north-west  corner  of  the 
Harani:  and  the  Via  I'olorosa.  along  which  the  Lord  is 
said  to  have  been  led  from  Pilate's  hall  to  <  Jolgotha. 
The  Church  of  the  Flagellation  is  in  this  said  Via,  with 
its  well  of  pure  water.  There  is  the  house  of  Dives, 
the  house  of  Veronica,  the  house  of  Lazarus.  P.ut  tfie 
holy  place  of  Jerusalem  is  "the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre."  It  stands  considerably  within  the  city, 
quite  surrounded  by  houses,  close  to  the  bazaars,  and 
overlooked  by  the  two  minaret-  of  Omar  and  Saladin. 
It  is  not  one  building,  but  a  clumsy  assemblage  of 
buildings,  and  these  again  built  upon  the  ruins  of  others; 
for  Constantino's  church,  or  group  of  churches,  was 
destroyed  by  the  Persians  under  Chosrc  es  11 .  in  A.I). 
1)14;  and  again  in  !»(>'.»  by  the  Khalef  Mue/.,  and  again 
by  another  Moslem  chief  in  1010:  and  yet  again  by 
fire-  in  1808  Rebuilt  and  restored  in  subsequent 
years,  it  stands  now  with  its  truncated  square  tower 
and  its  double  dome,  a  conglomeration  of  all  that  the 
traditions  of  ages  have  been  able  to  scrape  together  in 
the  shape  of  sites,  and  chapels,  and  relics.  Of  shrines 


JERUSALEM 


JERTSALEM 


there   are   about  forty   in  that   one  pile,    such  as   the  ;  the  holy  wares;    who  make  this,  as  they  do  the  church 

tomb  of  Melchi/.edek,  tomb  of  Adam,  tombs  of  Joseph  I  of  the   Nativity  at   Bethlehem,   their  special  house  of 

and  .Nicodemus.  tomb  of  Godfrey,  chapel  of  the  Angel,    ;  merchandise.     Pushing  through  the  crowds  of  pilgrims. 

chapel   of  the   Mocking,  chapel  of  tl 

chapel   of   the  Virgin,   and    the  like.      Of   this   edifice, 

Creeks.    Latins,  Armenians.  Syrians.  Copts,  all  claim  a      you 

share,    though   in    it   they   are    am  thing    but    brothers. 

At    the    one    double-arched    gate    which    looks    toward 


th 


Penitent  Thief,   ;  and    passing    the   Turkish    guard   on   the    left    recess, 
placed    there    to    keep    the    peace    among    the    sects, 
i  to  the  flat  marble;  slab  called   the    "  stone  of 
anointing;"   and    then   leaving   the    vestibule  you   find 
yourself   in    the   large   rotunda  which  forms   the   main 
-it    the    sellers    of      body  of  the   building,  about   lIMI   feet   in   diameter,  set 


[3U'J.  |        The  Church  of  the  Holy  Sciiulcluv.     From  a  photograph. 


round  by  a  fine  colonnade,  which  supports  the  galleries 
and  dome.  1'nder  the  skylight  of  this  great  dome 
there  is,  on  a  slightly  elevated  platform,  the  little  marble 
church  containing  the  supposed  sepulchre  of  the  Lord. 
The  massive  Gothic  architecture  of  the  pile  strikes  the 
eye;  and  would  do  so  more  were  it  isolated  from  the 
houses  of  the  city.  But  the  interior,  with  its  pictures, 
statues,  images,  candles,  lamps,  censers,  altars,  and 
priests  of  the  seven  Jerusalem  sects,  can  impose  on 
none.  If  that  be  the  place  whore  the  Lord  lay,  it  has 
the  misfortune  of  not  looking  like  it  in  any  sense. 
Superstition  lias  done  its  utmost  to  prevent  the  possi 
bility  of  realizing  here  the  great  scene  of  Golgotha. 
East  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  near  the 
ecclesiastical  rock  of  Calvary,  in  the  Coptic  convent, 
is  Helena's  cistern,  which  is  said  to  contain  a  large 
water  supply.  Professor  Porter  speaks  of  it  as  cut 
out  of  the  solid  rock,  reached  by  a  long  descent  of 
steps;  and  Dr.  Barclay  says  it  is  about  sixty  feet  long- 
by  thirty  wide. 

(For  views  of  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre,  sec  Salzmann's  Jiru- 
fdleni,  and  other  modern  photographs.  For  plans  of  it,  see  Ber 
nan  line's  Trattato  dillc  j.ic/ifc  </  immagini  </•  >'"<•/•;  Ediiizi,  etc., 
1(>L'0,  and  many  modern  works.  For  the  literature  and  contro 
versy  of  the  subject,  see  Williams'  ll»l<i  Ctt<i;  Plessing's  6'i//</"(/«/.- 
Robinson's  Biblical  Researches;  Newman's  _£'.««/,'.<  mi  the  JUirucltf 
i  if  Krcli/tiriftical  History;  Fergusson's  Es,iav  nn  the  Ancient  T<>j><>- 
(/<•('/</(//  of  Jerusal  ,,t  :  his  article  on  the  subject  in  Dr.  Smith's 
Bible  Dictionary,  and  his  pamphlet  in  answer  to  the  Edinburgh 
reviewers,  Dublin  University  Magazine  for  Sept.  1845,  and  April, 
1843;  The  Museum  of  Clafsiccil  AntiquHint,  May,  1853,  which 
contains  a  very  able  and  in  mam  respects  satisfactory  resume 
of  the  whole  discussion;  Pierotti's  two  splendid  folios  (Loud. 
Isfi4),  which  however  do  not  add  much  to  our  information, 
though  the  views,  plans,  and  sections  are  admirable. 

Mr.  Fergusson  thinks  that  the  present  "  Mosque  of 
( hiiar"  (the  Kubbet-es-Sakhrah)  corresponds  so  much 
more  to  the  descriptions  preserved  to  us  of  Constan 
tino's  original  church  than  the  present  "Church  of  the 
Sepulchre,"  that  we  must  accept  the  mosque  as  the 
authentic  church.  But  there  misdit  be  two  similar 


churches,  and  the  Christians  might  build  the  church  on 
the  temple-site  after  the  model  of  the  other.  Constan 
tino's  original  church  was  moreover,  we  know,  utterly 
destroyed,  and  the  mosque  cannot  lie  his. 

The  following  difficulties  occur  to  us  in  regard  to 
Mr.  Fergusson's  theory.  (1.)  Arculf's  description  and 
map  are  so  explicit  as  to  compel  us  to  believe  that  the 
Church  of  the  Sepulchre  was  in  the  seventh  century 
just  where  it  is  now.  (±)  Mr.  K.'s  theory  requires  us 
to  believe  that  our  Lord  and  the  two  thieves  were 
crucified  close  by  the  temple-wall:  and  that  the  tomb 
was  less  than  '2W  feet  from  the  temple,  and  right 
opposite  one  of  its  gates.  (3.)  It  requires  us  to  believe 
that  a  tomb  was  allowed  to  be  excavated  close  by  the 
temple:  and  also  that  there  was  room  enough  for  a 
garden  round  it.  (4.)  It  requires  us  to  believe  that  at 
this  short  distance  from  the  east  gate  of  the  temple 
there  was  a  large  rock,  17  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
rest  of  the  ground,  40  feet  in  breadth,  by  (JO  in  length; 
and  that  this  was  allowed  to  remain  thus,  while  all 
round  it  was  levelled,  till  Joseph  of  Ariruatluea  chose 
it  for  his  tomb,  and  cultivated  the  bare  rock  as  a  gar 
den.  (~>.)  It  requires  us  to  believe  that  there  was  no 
thoroughfare,  and  but  scanty  room  for  a  crowd,  in  the 
place  where  the  Lord  was  crucified,  which  seems  at 
variance  with  the  Bible  narrative.  (6.)  It  requires  us 
to  believe,  not  only  that  Christians,  Jews,  and  Mo- 
hamedans  are  all  mistaken  as  to  the  true  position  of 
the  temple  and  the  sepulchre,  but  that  they  all  once 
knew  it  perfectly,  and  had  their  churches  and  mosques 
accordingly:  yet  about  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh 
century,  they  all  unaccountably  lost  sight  of  their  pre 
vious  knowledge,  made  a  complete  mistake,  and  with 
one  consent  transferred  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Se 
pulchre  from  the  eastern  to  the  western  side  of  the 
city,  and  began  to  acknowledge  the  original  church  as 
a  mosque  built  over  the  old  temple  site.  A  mistake 
like  this  is.  we  think,  without  a  parallel  in  history. 


j  EII  i:  SALEM 


JEllTSALEM 


(7.)  It  requires  us  to  believe  that  of  this  transference 

neither  history  nor  tradition  has  taken  any  notice; 
and  that  the  traditions  of  a  thousand  years  as  to  the 
site  of  the  tonilj  were  completely  reversed  and  set 
aside,  without  a  murmur  as  to  the  sacrilege,  or  even  a 
hint  as  to  the  hare  fact.  (>.)  It  requires  us  to  believe 
that  this  transference  of  site  was  made  iritlmut  a  /•<.  <'.-•"/< 
(for  the  reasons,  given  are  mere  conjectures),  and  under  , 
no  pressure  or  instigation,  so  far  as  history  records.  '• 
('.'.)  it  requires  us  to  believe  that  a  certain  persecution  ! 
of  Christians.  \vhich  took  place  in  the  century  referred 
to,  drove  the  Christians  from  their  time-honoured 
church  and  site;  and  made  not  only  them,  lint  their 
enemies,  liuth  Jews  and  Moslems,  I.-HM  1  where  these 
had  stood.  1'cTsecutioii  \\a*  not  likely  to  do  this.  It 
would  endear  the  old  .-pot  to  them,  and  fix  it  deeper  in 
their  inelii'irv:1  nor  would  th.  y  ha\e  failed  to  hand 
flown  to  us  the  fact  < if  tin'  change,  and  their  iva-on.- 
for  it.  We  have  historians  and  travellers  of  that  a_:e, 
ami  after  it  -  Christian.  Jewish,  and  Modem,  yet  no 
one  of  these  alludo  to  any  such  remarkable  change  as 
this  must  have  lieeii;  but  all  assume  that  the  tradi 
tional  localities  of  the  city,  internal  and  i. \ternal.  cnn- 
timied  tn  he  as  they  had  aKvay.-  been.  "U".)  It  n  quin  s 
us  to  believe  that  the  present  K  ul.liet  -  e.-  -Sakhrah  is 
the  original  church  of  ( 'onstantine  (the  "  Anastasis'  ); 
and  y>  t  it  found-  it.-e!f  .ui  tin-  as-umptioii.  that  all 
the  Christian  edifices  were  demolished  dnrini;-  the 

persecution.          If     the     Alia-tasis     Were    destroyed,    then 

the  present,  mo.-qiie  cannot  lie  Cfiustantiiie'.s  original 
church.  If  it  were  not  destroyed,  is  it  possible  that 
the  Christian.-  .-uh.-equently  eonld  have  made  any 
mistake  about  it.  and  stippo-i  d  that  th.v  w  t  re  re- 
liuildino;  the  ruineil  ehureh  on  the  original  .-pot,  when 
the  church  it-elf,  consecrated  in  the  memory  of  cen 
turies,  vva-  standing  some  four  hundred  vard-  "IT 
before  tln-ir  eyes  '  ill.)  It  requires  us  to  transfer  Zion 
to  the  north  of  the  temple,  and  to  make  both  it  and 
Moriah  little  more  than  hillocks:  boides  reducing  the 
temple-area  to  a  very  small  si/.e.  and  plaeinu  it  in  Midi 
a  po.-iti'in  on  the  ureat  nio,-(|Ue  platform  a-  to  uive 
space  tor  the  sepulchre  outside.-  d-.>  It  require-  uw 
to  believe  that  the  present  mosque  wa-  originally  a 
Christian  church,  when  Mo-lem  hi-torians  and  in- 
-cription-  in  the  mo-(|iie  it-elf  allirm  that  it  was 
built  for  .Mohamedan  purpose*.  do.)  It  requires 
us  to  lielieve  that  w hen  (  'on-t ant ine  demolished  the 
temple  of  \' ei in-  in  order  to  make  room  fur  the  Chureli 

1  Yet  .-t  range  to  say,  tin-  <'hri-tian  settler.-,  in  .leru-alein  after 
the  first  crusade,  tind.-r  (iodfi.-y.  iiliunl.-r.-il  tin-  rhun-h  ,,f  the 
Sepulchre  ;  "Helms  suis  spolia\it  (.'hristianus  populu>."  is  the 
line  of  a  contemporary  rhymer,  (..in  of  a  |  oein  still  preserved 
in  thu  Bodleian.-  Webb's  Notes  to  Lannoy's  .V,v//  of  Hyrlu, 
,\.l i.  IfJ-J. 

-  It  must  11. . l  be  forgotten  that  while  .los-phus  in  .mi-  place 
(lives  the  area  < it'  the  temple  as  six  furloii'_-s  ( including  A  nt  on  ia). 
.1.  \V.  b.  v.  :,,  -2;  in  another  place  he  tells  us  that  tin.  /,«<r  of 
ijn.ni.ud  "n  <'•/<«.-/<  it  «•«.<  In',  ill  in  if  1>r,<;  <ix  /<!/•;/(  "K  l»  !',,;•<,  n  ml  ««<;•• 
',•„,<,.</•«•  li;i  'l  <'•«'/  (-1.  \V.  b.  i.  HI.  1\  This  quite  coincides  with 
the  statements  c.f  Robinson  (vol.  i.  p.  'Jsr, ;  Barclay's  City  of  tin 
(•',-<  nl  K  1,11.1.  p.  4'.'ii)  with  regard  to  the  anlic|uity  c.f  the  mn-Ui- 
«tft  aiiyle  nf  the  Haram,  as  well  us  of  the  south-east  and  south 
west.  The  n. i-'d.  inclosed  by  llen«l  (within  which  his  temple 
stood)  will  thus  coincide  pretty  nearly  with  the  present  Ilitrfun 
lilatform.  It  i-  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  tliecity  wall  and  thu 
temple  wall  were  the  same.  It  is  evident  that  there  was  a 
strong  city-wall  inrlnsini:  the  temple -wall,  tor  ''Simon  and 
Jonathan  resolved  to  restore  the  walls  of  .Jerusalem,  and  to 
rebuild  the  wall  which  encompassed  the  temple"  (Ant.xiii.5,  11; 
see  also  Ui.  xv.  11,  :',).  '  The  walls  of  the  temple  inclosure  (says 
a  scientific  and  able  writer  in  the  Tone*,  1S57),  which  Mr.  Wigley 


of  tlie  Sejitildire,  he  left  untouched  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  and  other  heathen  monuments  hard  by  his 
splendid  Christian  structure.  For  even  in  Jerome's 
days  the  temple  area  v,as  still  dishonoured  by  these 
heathen  idols  (Comment,  on  Isaiah,  eh.  ii.  t-).  "Yet  Constan 
tino  seems  to  have  been  most  zealous  in  destroying  the 
idols  which  desecrated  the  neighbourhood  (see  his  letter 

Ui  Mat-arms,  in  Theoduret.  Keel.  Hist.  ch.  xvii.  I;  the  Works,  as 
Eusebius  says,  not  so  much  of  impious  men,  as  "of 
the  whole  race  of  devils''  (De  Vita  (/oust,  iii  -M).  d-1.1)  It 
requires  us  to  believe  that  Ji  seph  of  Arimatha'a,  a  rich 
man.  and  evidently  desirous  of  a  costly  tomb,  chose  a 
mere  cave  for  a  sepulchre;  and  left  ev  erv  part  of  the 
cave,  out.-ide  and  inside,  unhewn.  unM(iiared,  micarved. 
in  all  its  original  roughness;  for  though  many  a  change 
has  passed  over  the  old  rock,  \et  no  one  who  has  seen 
it  can  fail  to  conclude  that  it  .-lands  in  its  natural  con 
dition  to  this  day.  It  is  not  time-worn,  nor  broken, 
nor  crumbling  down,  like  the  tombs  of  the  kings  or 
the  caves  of  AUeldama.  It  is  just  \vhat  it  was  -JlKKi  or 
3UINI  years  ago.  A.-Mircdly  it  \vas  not  the  rich  man's 
tomb.  If  it  flionld  be  said  that  the  original  hewing 
and  carving  have  been  defaced,  we  answer--  -m)  that 
the  rock  bear-  no  marks  of  defacement:  •/'  that  the 
idea  of  ,-ueh  violence  is  a  mere  hypothesis,  contradicted 
by  appearances,  and  unsupported  by  history;  (<•)  that 
th.  remarkable  fracture  at  the  one  extremity-  saiil  to 
be  the-  work  of  crusaders,  but  po-sii.ly  earlier,  retaining 
its  freshness,  whiteness,  and  sharpness  to  this  day.  in 
contra-t  to  the  re-t  of  the  rock  demonstrates  the 
unlikelihood  of  the  disappearance  of  all  marks  of  vio 
lence  from  the  other  parts,  if  such  marks,  ever  existed: 
</  that  while  there  are  many  defacements  in  the 
numerous  tomb.-  around  the  city,  the  marks  of  the 
chisel,  and  the  indications  of  a  tomb,  are  distinctly 
leoible  in  each  of  them  to  this  day;  (t)  that  as  the  only 
partie-  who  could  have  attempted  this  supposed  dese 
cration  were  the  lioinaiis,  and  as  we  are  expressly  told 
that  th.-v  merdv  covered  over  the  sepulchre  with  earth, 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  such  deliberate 
defacement  ever  took  place.1  Hut  we  must  refer  our 
readers  to  Mr.  Fcrgus.-on's  able  ami  learned  work. 
l-^fnii  ,,ii  tl<  Aid-nut  Topoi/raji/rt/ of  Jerusalem,  to  his 
article  in  \>r.  Smith's  HHili  Dietionmij,  ami  to  his  sub- 
:-ei|iient  pamphlet  in  answer  to  his  reviewers,  for  the 
statement  ami  vindication  of  his  peculiar  theory;  the 
chief  argument  of  which  is  certainly  the  architectural 


slated  have  a lv\a\s  existed,  in  contradistinction  to  the  temple 
I  roper  or  inner  inclosure,  are  in  the  opinion  of  M.  Salxmann, 
nothing  more  or  les-  than  'he  remaining  constructions  built  by 
Solomon,  to  support  the  foundation*  on  which  the  siipei>tructure 
of  hin  temple  was  raised.  This  opinion  is  fortified  by  the  fact, 
that  the.-e  constructions  nowhere  assume  the  character  and 
appearance  of  an  inclesing  wall,  except  at  sonie  \  ortions  of  the 
side  to  the  west  of  the  temple,  where  it  separates  the  latter  from 
the  town." 

-'  Mr.  I.ewin  enumerates  other  difficulties  equally  conclusive 
again*t  Mr.  Fer-iisson's  theory,  such  as  that  Kusebius  desciil.cs 
the  sepulchre  as  looking  tastrard,  whereas  the  Sakhrah -cave 
cannot  he  sai.l  to  l.«-k  any  way.  being  underground,  and  entered 
by  a  descent  of  twenty  steps  at  the  south  east  angle;  that  the 
basilica  w-is  built  on  an  excavation,  whereas  the  mosque  stands 
on  an  eminence;  that  the  vestibule  of  the  l.asilica  terminated 
eastward  at  a  market-] .lace,  which  is  utterly  impossible  if  it  were 
on  the  present  mosque  platform  ;  that  (according  to  Dositheus) 
the  church  could  not  be  extended  westward  because  of  a  I, 'ill, 
which  would  not.  have  been  the  case  had  it  been  on  the  mosque- 
• -round,  whose  west  edge  neither  has  nor  ever  had  a  hill  to  Hank 
it,  but  a  valley.— /ei'iwatoil,  ny  Thomas  I.ewin,  Ksq .,  London, 
'  1S(>1,  1>.  148,  11!'. 


JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


1».  Tin  triii-trf  ,,_/'  Jii-tixaltni.—  We  now  pass  en  to 
thi.1  towers  of  Jerusalem.  The  only  verv  ancient  tower 
in  Jerusalem  is  the  "castle  of  Zion,"  i  c'h.  \\.  :>,  metztidah, 
ine!~<i<l,  vcr.  7.  Whether  this  was  the  same  as  ''  the  ^/»v  ;• 
of  David,''  Ca.  iv.  4  (migdah/),  is  uncertain.  Probablv 
this  lasr,  was  some  subsequent  structure,  adjoining  to 
the  othe'1,  "  builded  Idr  an  armoury,  whereon  there  bang 
a  thousand  bucklers,  all  shields  of  mighty  men."  The 
less  ancient  towers  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament 
are  the  following:  (1.)  Tlic  /owir  of  Hummed,  Xe.  iii.  1; 
xii.  :;ii;  Je.  xxxi.  >:  Zee.  \iv.  lo,  Sept.  ' Ava,uei}\,  some  little 
way  to  the  north  of  the  temple  in  the  second  wall.  It 
is  connected  with  the  building  of  the  "sheep-gate," 
and  with  that  part  of  the  wall  which  Eliashib  the  priest 
and  his  brethren  the  priests  built  and  consecrated. 
(2.)  Tin-  tower  /if  Mm/i.  No.  iii.  l;  xii.  ;-;:>,  Sept.  e/caroi' — 
the  "tower  of  the  hundred,"  perhaps  from  its  height 
or  its  builders.  It  was  next  the  sheep-gate;  between 
it  and  Ilananeel.  about  the  north-east  sweep  of  the 
second  wall.  (•>.)  The  tower  of  the  f  urnacfs,  Xe.  iii.  n. 
Adriehomius  thinks  this  was  a  beacon  to  night-wan 
derers  (his  old  translators  call  it  "  laiiterne- tower"), 
and  was  on  the  north;  Lamy  that  it  was  "  bakers'- 
towrr"  i;i  furnis  panificorum),  or  "the  tower  of  the  lime 
kilns.''  Certainly  the  ash  -  mounds.  Tel  -  cf -mu.-nnihin, 
north-west  of  the  city,  may  be  the  representatives 
of  such  kilns,  the  "  lime- burnings"  mentioned  in  Is. 
xxxiii.  12.  But  perhaps  the  furnaces  may  be  those  of 
the  (tsurefikim)  smelters,  Je.  vi.  2:);  Xc.  viii.  :>i,  32,  or  (i:lm- 
rasim)  the  mechanics  who  formed  the  molten  metals 
into  vessels,  Ex.  xxviu.  n;  •>  t'h.  xxiv.  12.  (4.)  The  tourr 
which  "  lieth  out,'"  the  projecting  tower,  Xe.  iii.  20.  This 
was  near  Ophel,  not  far  from  Siloam;  and  perhaps  was 
"  the  tower  in  Siloam"  which  fell,  Lu.  \iii.  4.  Whether 
it  was  the  same  as  •'  the  i/rcat  tower  that  lieth  out,"  is 
not  clear,  Ne.  iii.  '27.  Perhaps  there  were  really  three  of 
these  massive  projections,  not  far  from  each  other: 
(a)  The  "  tower  which  lieth  out  from  the  king's  high 
house,"  Xe.  iii.  24 ;  (l>)  The  "tower  that  lieth  out,"  vcr.  2ii; 
(r)  "The  great  tower  that  lieth  out, "  ver. 27.  (6.)  I'z- 
zidh'K  tower*.  For  we  read  that  "  Uzziah  built  towers 
in  .Jerusalem,  at  the  corner- gate,  and  at  the  valley-gate, 
and  at  the  turning  of  the  wall,"  2Ch.  xxvi.  <i. 

The  towers  mentioned  by  Josephus  are  as  follow : 
(].)  The  tower  of  Anton ia.  This,  like  the  Acradina  of 
Syracuse,  was  both  palace  and  fortress;  in  later  years 
occupied  by  a  Roman  garrison,  mentioned  in  tlic  his 
tory  of  Paul,  and  called  "the  castle,"-^  Trape/.<,€o\r;, 
Ac.  xxi.  34,  37  ;  xxii.  24  ;  xxiii  i",  K;,  32;  originally  called  by  the 
Greek  name  Bapts  (—-fj-eyaXtj  ot/ca,  Stepu.  Thes.;  Zroa, 
TTVpJOS,  Suidas ;  Turrita  domus,  Jerome  in  Je.  xvii.  27)  ill 
the  time  of  the  Maccabees.  Probably  it  sprung  from 
the  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  nn'S  (Bireih);  and  it  is  re- 

T     • 

markable  that  whilst  in  some  sixteen  other  places 
where  this  word  occurs  the  Sept.  translate  it  "  castles" 
or  "houses,"  in  others  they  do  not  translate  it,  but 
take  the  Hebrew  word,  as  in  Ps.  xlviii.  3,  "God  is 
known  in  her  palaces'"  (ei>  Tois~Bdpecn);  in  Ezr.  vi.  2  it 
is  rendered  Bdpis;  in  Ne.  i  1,  '  Apipd  (the  Heb.  article 
prefixed);  and  in  Ne.  vii.  2.  Kipa.  This  Birah  was 
"the  palace"  over  which  Hanaiiiah  was  appointed  ! 
ruler,  Xe.  vii.  2;  and  it  belonged  to  "the  house"  or 
temple.  \e.  ii.  v,  which  not  merely  intimates  that  the 
palace  was  in  connection  with  the  temple,  but  leads 
us  to  infer  that  it  was  the  palace-fort,  which  sub 
sequently  became  the  Asamonasan  Baris  and  the  He- 


rodian  Anloiiia,  and  in  modern  times  the  house  of  the 
pasha,  hard  by  which,  but  round  the  angle  of  the 
Haram,  is  the  traditional  house  of  Pilate.  This  is 
greatly  confirmed  by  recent  underground  researches, 
which  go  to  identify  the  north-west  corner  of  the 
Haram  with  Antonia.1 

I'lerotti  has  found  a  subterraneous  passage  extend 
ing  from  the  golden  gate  in  a  north-westerly  direction 
(Jerusalem  Explored,  vol.  i.  p.  64).  He  could  not  trace  it 
completely  ;  only  in  two  unconnected  fragments,  one 
].'5n  feet  long,  and  another  ITdi  feet.  This  may  be  the 
secret  passage  (Kfit'Trr'/i  5iupv£)  which  Herod  excavated 
from  Antonia  to  the  eastern  gate,  where  he  raised 
a  tower,  from  which  ho  might  wateli  any  seditious 
movement  of  the  people;  thus  establishing  a  private 
communication  with  Antonia.  through  which  he  ini^ht 
pour  soldiers  into  the  heart  of  the  temple  area  as 
need  required.  This  tower  was  probably  opposite  the 
great  gate  of  the  holy  place  ;  but  whether  near  it,  or 
near  the  outer  gate  leading  down  to  the  Kedroii,  we 
do  not  know.  The  expression  of  Josephus,  p-fXP1  T0l~ 
tcrwOcv  lepov,  may  not  even  refer  to  the  holy  place  at 
all,  but  merely  to  the  inner  part  of  the  temple  (in  rela 
tion  to  Antonia),  especially  as  he  uses  ifpov  and  not 
vaos,  nor  5ei're/>oi>  icpbv.  His  statement  is  simply  that 
Herod  prepared  a  secret  excavation  from  Antonia  to 
the  inner  part  of  the  temple,  towards  the  eastern-gate 
(not  for  the  purpose  of  his  own  escape  however),  but 
for  watching  the  populace.  Hence  we  do  not  see  the 
necessity  for  altering  the  reading  from  HffuQev  to  Z^wOfv, 
as  Mr.  Williams  suggests,  in  the  synopsis  which  he  has 
given  of  Pierotti's  discoveries.  This  is  the  more  likely  tn 
be  the  meaning  of  ZauOev.  because  there  turns  out  to  lie 
another  subterraneous  passage  outward*  from  Antonia. 
which  joins  the  present  Haram  inelosure  at  the  north 
west  angle,  and  extends  224  feet  under  the  Via  Dolo- 
rosa.  We  may  add  that  the  above  is  the  frequent  use 
of  tcrwOev  in  the  Septuairint.  In  Ex.  xxxix.  H»  (Stpt. 
xxxvi.  27)  we  are  told  that  the  two  golden  rings  were  to 
be  put  on  "the  top  of  the  hinder  part  of  the  ephod 
within;"  TT}S  eVw/xiSos  tauOev,  not  the  inner  ephod,  as  if 
there  were  two  ephods,  but  the  inside  of  the  ephod. 
So  Le.  xiv.  41.  "he  shall  cause  the  house  to  be  scraped 
within"  (effwOfv],  not  as  if  there  were  two  houses,  but 
"the  inner  part  of  the  house."  Antonia  was  so  much 
altered  and  improved  by  Herod,  that  he  calls  it  his  work 
in  one  place  (J.  W.  v.  ">,  s),  though  in  another  he  speaks  of 
it  as  merely  repaired  by  him,  cTrecr/cei'-aere  (J.  w.  i.  21,  i),  and 
named  Antonia  in  honour  of  Antony.  It  was  quadran 
gular  and  rose  at  the  north-west  angle  of  the  temple, 
connected  with  both  the  northern  and  western  porches, 
yet  not  (originally  at  least)  forming  part  of  the  great 
area,  but  projecting  from  it  and  overlooking  all  its 
courts  (Lightfoot's  Temple,  eh.  vii.)  It  was  near  Bezetha 
(not  A  km,  according  to  Mr.  Fergusson's  plan),  perched 
011  a  small  spur  of  it,  yet  separated  from  it  by  a  valley, 
dug,  or  at  least  deepened,  in  order  to  make  it  more  im 
pregnable  on  the  north,  and  inaccessible  from  Bezetha 
(J.  w.  v.  4,  2).  Its  height  was  fifty  cubits  of  rock  and 
forty  of  building.  (See  1  Mac.  xiii.52;  LamydeTabernaculo,  p. 
G50;  Biel's Thesaurus,  sub  voce  Bapts).  (2. 'I  P^hhuis.  This 
was  on  the  extreme  north -west  of  the  city,  at  the 


1  There  was  another  1'ort  upon  Akra,  which  the  Asamonreans 
demolished,  levelling  the  hill  also  on  which  it  stood,  a  work  of 
three  years  (Jos.  Ant.  xiii.  (3,  (i).  The  Zion  fort  Josephus  calls 
qeoiem:  the  Akra  fort.  'A«^a:  the  temple  fort,  ]?«»/£,  afterwards 
Antonia. 


JERUSALEM: 


corner  of  tlio  third  or  Agrippean  wall,  hard  by  which  i 
Titus  first  encamped  when  descending  from  Scopus  to 
commence  the  siege   (.1.  \v.  v.  4,  :;).     Psephinus  —  Tsephi- 
nus  =  •'•>?¥.  north.  <>r  perhaps  ->*£t,  Zephah  =  Scopus  — 

the  "  watch-tower,'' as  Scopus  was  the  ''watch-hill. 
Mr.  Lewin's  conjecture  that  Psephinus  is  from  i/-/)0os, 
a  calculus  or  pebljle.  because  hastily  run  up  of  "rubble- 
work  "  and  irregularly  hewn-stones,  has  no  historical 
foundation  (Jerusalem,  p.  17-t).  Jt  was  seventy  cubits  about 
120  feet  high),  and  commanded  a  view  of  .Arabia  on  the 
east  and  the  limits  of  Palestine  on  the  west,  towards 
the  Mediterranean,  Josephus  dues  nut  exactly  say 
that  that  sea  was  visible,  but  the  ''extreme  bounda 
ries"  of  the  Hebrew  territory,  "wliich  stretch  to  the 
swi"  (J.  w.  v.  i,:;!.  Yet  his  words  almost  imply  this;  and 
as  the  site  of  I'sephinus  was  hi'jli  oiilv  some  fifty  feet 
lower  than  th--  hills  around  Xebi-Samuel./Vow  n-Iinli  tin 
Mtd/teri'untuit  ix  //*////<  itlmuuh  a  ha/.e  obstructed  our 
view  once  when  we  climbed  them  to  sec  it  i  and  as  th. 
tower  itself  was  upwards  of  a  hundred  feet  liiuh,  it  is 
not  unlikely,  notwithstanding  J  >r.  Uohin.-on's  decided 
statement  (v,,i.  i.  p.  :nn).  that  "the  great  sea  '  \\as  visible 
from  Psephinns:  and  in  this  case-  miidit  he  used  as  a 
beacon  or  signal-tower  to  the  si  a  coa.-t.  which  in  a 
direct  line  i-  not  thirty  miles  di.-tun!  from  Jerusalem. 
('•'>.}  Hi/i/tii'ii.i.  It  was  built  liv  Herod,  ami  named  in 
honour  of  his  friend.  It  was  "opposite  '  (&vriKpvs) 
I'sejiliinus;  they  looked  each  cither  in  the  face1  on  the 

tiji/ni.ii/i     -ides    of    tile    Tvi'iipil-oll.    alld     Wt   1V    probably    licit 

very  far  from  each  other:  for  P-ephinus  is  said  to  be 
at  the  inn-tlt-tn.it  corner,  and  Hippieus  at  tin  /<«/•///  of 
the  citv.  wlie-re-  tin1  old  wall  began.  Kara  fioppav  (.1.  W.  v 
4,  Jt;  and  the-  historian  '•«"/</  m,t  /,n.i.ii/i/it  have-  intended 
itort/i  to  mean  the  present  J  atta  gate,  while- he  intended 

noftlt-in.it  to  mean  the-  lie  iuhhourh 1    of   the-  tombs  of 

the  kind's  the  one-  nearly  a  mile  from  the  other'  It 
"  north-wc-t  "  uith  him  means  "north- west "  in  n-fer- 
c-nc.-e  to  the.-  II-/HI/I  citv.  as  we-  know  it  doe-s.  "north" 
must  have  a  similar  reference,  and  cannot  mean  merely 
north  of  ///ill,  which  tile-  llece-Mtie-s  of  some-  topo 
graphical  theories  rec|iiire-  it  to  do,  thereby  making 
north  mean  mie  tiling  in  iriu-  pa-_;e  of  Joseplius  and 
another  in  another.1  Hippieus  must  have  stood  a 
little  wav  south  of  Psephinus;  not  MI  far  liowever  as  to 
j)revent  its  being  called  mn-llt  of  the  city.  (  t.)  ri,nt,i,  - 
Inn:  called  so  from  Herod's  brother,  was  ninety  cubit-; 
hiu'h,  and  ,-t I.  as  we  mule  r-tand  .Insephus.  a  little- 
way  south  (not  east)  of  Hippieus,  ami  was  meant  as  a 
defence  of  the  n'l.ittru  part  of  the  old  wall:  for  that 
part  of  the  citv  wall  running  north  ami  south  //•<»;» 
Psephlnug  to  t/tf  /iftxtitt  Jdjl'n  <intr,  which  Dr.  Robinson 
ami  others  make  part  of  the  thinl  wall,  and  leave 
unprotected  by  towers  (just  where  most  protection  was 
needed),  we  understand  to  be  part  of  the  nltl  wall, 
defended  by  the  towers  described  by  .losephus.  (fi.i 
Mariamiu  :  so  called  from  his  queen,  whom  in  jealousy 
he  caused  to  be  murdered.  It  was  quadrangular,  fifty 
cubits  high,  and  in  inner  adornment  more  magnificent 
than  the  rest.  It  stood,  as  we  understand  the  his 
torian,  still  farther  south  in  the  western  segment  of 


1  Dr.  l!nl>m-<>M  says,  "  The  tower  of  Hippicus  must  be  sought 

at  tlie  nnrth-wfst  nf  y.inn  .'"  (vol.  i.  280).  Tlie  words  of  Josephus 
eviilentlv  imply  that  Hippicus  lay  to  the  north  of  the  city  which 
was  in  existence  when  this  tower  was  built;  i.'-.  to  t/tf  umih  of 
l>',th  thf  n/i/tr  nut!  \mi-n- c\t,i,  which  he- desciil.es  as  forming  "erne 
body."  Dr.  Koliiiison's  statement  seems  to  us  a  contradiction 
of  ami  not  a  quotation  from  .losephus. 


the  old  wall,  perhaps  not  far  from  the  angle  where 
the  ruins  of  the  Kalat-el-.)alud  now  are.  ((!.)  The 
injiiicit'tt  ttjim-.t.  They  must  have  stood  semewhere  in 
the  northern  stretch  of  the  third  wall:  for  Josephus 
mentions  that  when  Titus  was  riding  down  from  Sco 
pus  towards  the  city,  in  the  direction  of  I'sephinus, 
the  Jews  rushed  down  from  the  "women's  towers."  at 
the  gate  opposite  the-  tomb  of  Helena  (.1.  w.  v.  •_',  -J).  Jose 
phus'  name  for  these  towers  is  yi'vaLK(toi  Trtyi-yot ;  but 
whether  he  is  giving  the  exact  name  or  attempting  the 
translation  of  a  Hebrew  word  we  cannot  say.  (7.1  ,/<>/< n'* 
toii-cr.  This  was  built  by  John  in  his  conflict,  with 
Simon,  over  the  gates  that  led  to  the  Xvstus,  at  the 
western  porch  of  the  temple  e.i.  w  \i  :;,  2).  (S.I  Tin1 
/ii/rt  /•  <(/'  tin  rill-in  >-.  This  must  have  been  at  the  north 
east  angle  of  Aurippa's  wall,  a  little  eastward  of  the 
tmiilis  of  the1  kings,  and  hard  by  the  fuller's  monu 
ment:  above  tile-  Vaiie-Vof  the-  Kedroll  (.1.  W.  v.  ), -j). 

These  are  the  great  towers  mentioned  by  Joseplius. 
Of  smaller  and  unnamed  ones  he  mentions  many, 
which  however  were  rather  turnlcd  battlements  or 
fortitieel  elevations  of  tin-  wall  than  towers:  not  unlike 
perhaps  what  we  see  in  the  walls  at  this  day."  The 
third  wall  had  niuetv  of  these',  the  middle  wall  forty, 
and  the  old  wall  sixty.  In  modern  Jerusalem  the  only 
tower  i.-  that  at  the  Jaffa  gate,  which  we  have  alreadv 
noticed.  There  arc  projections,  some  broader  and 
some  narrower,  in  all  the  walls:  there1  are  towers  at  the 
•_;ates,  rising  a  little  above  the  walls;  and  there  are 
doino.  minaret.-,  and  low  sphvs.  in  every  c|iiarter  of  tlie 
citv:  but  that  is  all.  There  is  nothing  left  to  indicate 
the  turreted  magnificence  of  Jerusalem  in  the-  days  of 
I  Icrod  and  Aurippa. 

Jerusalem  in  it-;  last  davs  had  three  wall--,  as  we 
have-  alreadv  s,-i  n.  The  first  or  old  wall  was  for  the 
di-t'e-iiiv  of  /ion,  curving  irregularly  round  the  south  ot 
that  hill,  alum:  the  ridge  that  overlooks  its  southern 
and  south-western  vallevs;  but  on  the  north  of  it 
runniiie-  almost  straight  from  north-west  to  south-east, 
from  Hippieus  to  the  temple.  The  second  wall  was  for 
the  defence  of  Akra,  on  which  stood  "the  city  "- 
Salem,  .Jehus.  Jerusalem  as  distinguished  from  the 
citaoVl  or  /ion.  and  took  a  pn  tty  wide  curve  round 
tin-  north,  from  the  ( ie-nnath-uate  on  tin-  north-west  to 
the  tower  Antonia  on  the  south-east,  thereby  completely 
compassing  the  northern  part  of  the  old  wall,  and  thus 
forming  a  double  line  of  defence  to  "the  upper  city."'1 
The-  third  was  for  the  deft-nee  of  "the  new  city,"  a 
UTeat  part  of  which  lav  farther  north,  and  was  built 
upon  the  hill  P.e/.ctha.  It  began,  like  the  old  wall,  at 
Hippieus;  lir>t  went  north  to  the  tower  Psephinus; 
then  bent  north-east:  then  riidit  eastward  to  the 
Kedron.  and  then  it  turned  south,  and  "joined  to  the 
old  wall  at  the  valley  of  Kedron  (J.  W.  v.  4,  2),  though 
at  which  part  of  the  valley  the  junction  was  effected 
the-  historian  does  not  specify.  Probably  it  swept 
round  the  * '/.-•-'  side  of  the  temple,  and  united  with  the 
old  wall  somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Siloam. 

It  would  appear  that  a  large  part  of  the  walls  (that 
round  /ion)  was  built  by  David.  2Sa.  v.  9;  1  Ch.  xi.  *, 
another  part  that  round  Akra)  by  Solomon.  Sub- 

'-'  "  He  that  connteth  the  towers"  (Is.  xxxiii.  IS),  was  probably 
the  captain  who  had  chaw  of  tin-  towers  ami  telling  off  the 
tronps  for  manning  them 

3  "The  way  nf  the  -rate  between  the  two  walls  \\hiuh  was  by 
the  king's  garden"  Me.  lii.  7),  seems  t,,  have  l,e.-n  the  street  or 
way  between  the  Zion  wall  and  the  western  temple  wall,  down 
the  Tyrnpieon  to  Siloam. 


JERUSALEM 


S9r> 


JERTSALIvM 


sequent  kings  added  to  a-nd  strengthened  the  walls. 
.In  consequence  of  attacks  from  besiegers  or  neglect, 
"breaches"  were  made  in  the  walls  of  "the  city  ni' 
David,"  Is.xxii.d,  which  were  repaired  in  the  days  of 
Hezekiah.  and  for  the  repair  of  which  the  bouses  in  the 
neighbourhood  were  pulled  down,  Is.  xxii.  in.  It  was  at 
this  time  that  the  ditch  (or  reservoir.  nipC.  niil,-rnli  - 

place  of  gathering)  was  made  between  the  two  walls 
(or  double  wall — the  Hebrew  dual)  for  the  waters  of 
the  old  pool,  is.  xxii.  ll.  Whether  this  established  a 
connection  between  the  present  .I5irket-el-  Mamilla  and 
the  Tyropceon  is  not  easily  determined.  Certainly  the 
sound  of  underground  water  has  been  heard  at  the 
Damascus  gate,  which  implies  the  existence  of  some 
invisible  conduit.  The  walls  which  Nehemiah  rebuilt 
were  probably  the  second  wall  (round  Akra)  and  the 
irregular  curve  round  the  south  of  /ion.  and  the  old 
wall  running  down  the  Tyropu'on.  from  Hippieus  to 
the  temple.  The  walls  standing  in  the  days  of  our 
Lord  were  only  the  first  and  second;  though  the  city 
had  by  that  time  crept  northward  beyond  its  walls. 
Herod  began  the  third  wall  about  the  year  i~>.  but  it 
was  Agrippa  who  completed,  or  almost  completed  it: 
for  Josephus  intimates  that  it  was  not  wholly  finished, 
affirming  that  had  it  been  so,  not  all  the  powir  of 
Liome  could  have  taken  the  city.  Titus  destroyed 
the  greater  part  of  the  wall,  leaving  only  a  part  of 
the  western  wall  with  some  of  its  towers  as  monu 
ments  of  its  strength  and  greatness.  The  spoiler  left 
not  "a  stone  upon  a  stone"  (\i0os  eiri  \iOov]  which  has 
not  been  "displaced"  (KaTaXvO-^fffrai,  loosened,  dis 
placed),  Mat.  xxiv.  •>.  All  parts  of  the  tcnij>lc.  and  of  the 
c'/7// too,  as  was  predicted,  Lu.xix.4i,  have  been  levelled, 
— "  laid  even  with  the  ground"  (cSaffiioi'ffL  erf);  and  the 
remarkable  thing  about  the  present  walls,  specially  of 
the  temple,  is  that  in  many  places  two  distinct  portions 
can  be  traced,  one  more  ancient,  the  lower  tiers  which 
were  on  a  level  with  the  soil;  another  more. modern, 
which  has  been  erected  on  the  old  foundations.  This 
upper  portion  is  manifestly  of  a  later  date,  of  a  diffe 
rent  character;  containing  here  and  there  the  remains 
of  ancient  masonry — the  original  materials,  which  have 
been  worked  into  the  modern  walls.  Every  portion  of 
the  walls  that  rose  above  the  level  of  the  interior  plat 
form  has  been  thrown  down  into  the  valley,  where 
perhaps  some  of  the  largest  stones  now  lie  buried; 
while  the  lower  parts  or  tiers,  which  were  merely  built 
for  retaining  the  soil  and  furnishing  a  platform,  have 
remained  almost  untouched,  save  in  one  or  two  places 
where  the  breaches  (made  perhaps  by  the' Romans) 
have  been  large  and  deep.  "  The  most  «n<'iait  part  of 
these  constructions"  writes  an  able  observer,  "accord 
ing  to  3Ir.  Wigley,  but  only  the  ln-xt  pnncn-ed  accord 
ing  to  31.  Salzmann,  is  the  western  wall — Heit-el- 
3Iorharby — under  the  shadow  of  which  the  Jews  bewail 
the  fall  of  /ion.  It  is  an  enormous  mass  of  wall,  about 
thirty  yards  in  length,  and  perfectly  preserved.  The 
aspect  of  the  construction  is  the  strangest  that  eye  has 
ever  seen.  The  stones  are  nine,  twelve,  and  fifteen  j 
feet  long — sometimes  more.  The  surfaces  are  perfectly 
smooth,  exhibiting  no  trace  of  the  chisel,  and  are  in-  i 
closed  within  a  border.  Nowhere  has  the  author  ever 
seen  stones  of  such  dimensions,  forming  an  exterior 
inclosure  and  retaining  wall,  worked  with  so  much 
care,  and  so  perfect.  Neither  Rome  nor  Greece  has 
left  us  any  like,  except  at  Jebail,  a  Phoenician  city, 


whence  the  workmen  employed  by  Solomon  came. 
Quoting  the  book  of  Kings,  .which  says,  'And  the 
foundation  was  of  costly  stones,  even  great  stones, 


'il . 

'''' 


[370.  ]    The  Jews'  Wailing-place,  western  wall.     From  a  photograph. 

stones  of  ten  cubits,  and  stones  of  eight  cubits,'  31. 
Salzmann  concludes  that  the  stones  of  the  place  of 
wailing  are  those  described  in  the  text.  Stones  of  like 
dimensions  and  character  may  be  seen  scattered  about 
and  worked  into  the  outside  wall  of  the  close.  To 
wards  the  south,  the  wall  is  screened  from  view  by 
modern  buildings  and  plantations,  but  beyond  them  it- 
appears  quite  changed  in  character,  and  romanized, 
except  at  tin;  basement.  Farther  on,  about  fifteen 
yards  from  the  south-western  angle,  is  the  bridge  dis 
covered  by  Dr.  Robinson,  which  is  considered  by  3Ir. 
I'Yrgusson  undoubtedly  to  belong  to  the  ITerodian  era, 
hut  to  which  both  31.  de  Saulcy  and  31.  Salzmann 
assign  an  earlier  date  "  (Letter  in  the  Times,  isr>r). 

lU.  Tin  f/iifix  i  if  the  el/ 1/.—  In  describing  an  eastern 
city,  specially  such  a  city  as  Jerusalem,  it  is  of  some 
moment  to  specify  its  gates;  much  of  its  history,  both 
in  grandeur  and  ruin,  being  connected  with  these. 
Here  we  find  kings,  judges,  merchants,  beggars,  lepers; 
the  siege,  the  triumph,  the  tumult,  the  funeral  proces 
sion,  the  royal  proclamation,  the  shout,  the  song,  the 
weeping.  The  "gates  of  Ekron,''  1  Sa.  xvii.  :>•>,  the 
"  gate  of  Bathrabbim,"  Ca. vii.4,  the  "gate  of  Samaria,"' 
1  Ki.  xxii.  10,  may  be  passed  by,  but  the  "gates  of  /ion," 
Ps.  Ixxxvii.  2,  the  "gates  of  the  daughter  of  /ion,"  Ps.  ix.  14, 
the  ''gates  of  Jerusalem,"  Ju.  xvii.  in,  the  ''gates  of 
righteousness,"  Ps.  cxviii.  i!i,  the  "gate  of  Jehovah," 
Ps.  cxviii.  20,  once  glorious,  soon  "  desolate,"  La.  i.  4, 
"  burned,"  Xe.  i. ::,  "  consumed,"  Xe.  ii.  3,  "  sunk  into  the 
ground,"  La.  ii.  »,  are  not  to  be  so  forgotten.1  Jt  is  not 


1  The  iiuti  (whether  jjuiua  or  porta,  v^Xr,  or  tt/e«)  is  equally 
noted  in  classical  as  in  sacred  story  or  poetry.  Virgil's  claustra 
ingentia  portarum — porta  bipatens — portae  sacree — porta  eburna 
--)i.irt:<-  sublimes — the  porta  terata  of  Ovid — the  porta  ahena  and 
cornea  of  Statins— will  suggest  themselves  (along  with  the  story 
of  the  hundred-gated  Thebes)  to  the  readers  of  the  history  of 


JERUSALEM 


897 


JERUSALEM 


easy  to  fix  their  localities:  but  let  us  enumerate  them. 
The  Bible-gates  were  in  the  first  and  second  walls; 
some  of  the  Josephan  gates  of  course  in  the  third.  Let 
us  take  them  according  to  Nehemiah's  order  in  ch.  iii. 
and  xii.  (1.)  The  ^hccp-'/ute,  Xe.  iii,  l;  Jn.  v.  2,  a  little 
way  north  of  the  temple,  and  not  far  from  the  pool  of 
Bethesda,  which,  notwithstanding  the  objections  of 
Dr.  Robinson,  is  probably  identical  with  the  modern 
Birket-es-Serain,  near  St.  Stephen's  gate.  c2.i  /•V,</<- 
</atc,  2C'h.  xxxiii.  14.  Following  the  curve  of  the  second 
wall,  we  come  to  the  tower  of  Meah,  then  to  that  of 
Hananeel,  ami  then,  probably  round  the  bend,  we  have 
the  fish-gate,  by  which  the  Mediterranean  traffic  found 
its  way  into  the  city:  "porta  piscium  qtue  est  porta  de 
parte  Joppen  "  (Jerome, truest.  Ih-i.r.h  for  it  was  not  from 
Jordan  that  the  city  was  .--applied  with  fish,  as  some 
suggest  (Museum. .re],  Antiq  vol.  ii.  p.  113),  but  I'mm  the  sea 
coast.  It  wa>  "the  nu-n  of  Tyre"  \\lio  "  brought  fish 
and  all  manner  of  waiv."  S'c  \:  i.  Hi.  to.)  < )lil-<i<ii< . 
Here  the  Sept.  'jives  '{(waved,  as  a  proper  name,  instead 
iif  translating  the  Hebrew  r^'w'T  ("the  old").  This  wa> 

a  little  farther  south  or  .-outh-Wcst  than  tin-  lish-gute.1 
U.)  Tin  <jah  of  fy/imltit.  Tliis  was  a  little  farther 
smith,  -Inn  cubits  from  "  the  corner- u'ate,"  L'Ki  <dv.  1,;,  a 
little  north  perhaps  of  tin-  present  Dama-cus  urate. 
•  leMiine  thinks  that  the  Ephraim  gate  and  the  vallcv- 
-ate  wei>-  the  same  ((purest,  liebr.)  (."J.i  Tin  corner-i/atc. 
Nehemiah  dues  nut  mention  this:  Init  it  must  have  b< •, -n 
in  this  part  nf  his  line  nf  wall,  at  some  anule,  .'(  h  xxv.  -;. 
It  was  probably  not  far  t'nim  the  valley-^ate,  JC'li  xxvi  :i 
(•I.)  The  n>//<  >/->/<itt.  ver.  i:  We  have  elsewhere  indi 
cated  that  this  is  likely  to  have  been  identical  with  the 
(ri-iniat/t-i/att'  of  Joseplms;  the  ^ate  opening  from  the 
upper  city  down  into  tin  Liivat  vallev  of  .1  eru-ali  m.  \i/. 
Hiiiiiiiin  (the  Tvropieoiii.  at  it-  north  west  e\tivmit\. 

(7.1    '/'/(( •  i/n,ii/-i/iiti  .  UT   II:  .-h.  a    l:.        Thiswas    III llbit.- 

iViiin  the  vallev-uate.  hut  in  \\liieh  direction  '  This  ir. 
the  ditliculty.  The  able  writer  in  the  .!//'.<.  of  Cftixxli'itl 
A  nti'/i'i/it.<  gives  it  a-  south,  nearly  oppo-ite  the  pn  sent 
H!rket-ex-&Hlt(in  tp  nt  and  nnp>  I  f  he  In-  correct,  then 
thi-iv  i.-  nn  notice  et'  the  Tvropceon  part  of  the  nlil  \\all 
by  Nehemiah.  This  pu/./les  us.  and  leads  us  to  ask. 
May  not  Nehemiah  be  taking  the  course  of  the  old 
wall,  down  the  Tyropieon  south-east,  towards  the  west 
wall  of  the  temple'  May  not  the  dung-u'ate  be  M.me- 
where  in  the  direction  of  the  modern  dunn  gate,  or 
Hab-el-Mogharibch.  only  farther  up.  on  the  we-t  of 
the  mosque?  If  as  may  be)  the  ancient  gateway 
inside  the  Damascus  ^ate.  mentioned  and  sketched 
bv  Barclay  \\<.  !.';•-'),  lie  the  remains  of  the  valle\  -".ate 
(Oennath-gate),  then  IUIHI  cubits  or  about  1'inii  feet 
from  the  above  gateway,  in  that  south-easterly  direction 
in  which  we  think  the  Tyropo'on  must  have  gone,  would 
bring  us  more  than  half-wav  down  the  west  side  of  the 


Jerusalem's  gate*,  whether  in 
Josephus. 

1  Is  this  the  Josephan  "Rate  nf  the  Egtentf?"  And  was  he 
confounding  tlie  Hebrew  I'mltiDK'l,  (..1.1;  with  the  iiiime  of  tin- 
"  Essenian"  sect?  It  is  very  unlikely  that  a  gate  nf  Jerusalem 
should  get  its  name  from  that  sect  of  Jewish  stoies,  (1)  because 
it  w;x.-  the  smallest  ami  least  known  of  all  the  sects  (Leusden's 
P/nlol"fius  Jlili.-ii'ii-misti'*,  p.  l:;s);  C2)  because  that  sect  did  not 
come  into  notice  till  the  time  of  the  Maccabees (Hottinger,  Tina. 
Pk'd.  p.  :i9:  see  Jk-er's  Ilixt.  <n' Ju'-ifli  Sect*  in  ihfo:  fao'tor,  vol. 
iii.  p.  12.'!):  ('.">)  because  tin-  "  Kssen-gate"  must  have  been  in  the 
nbl  wall,  which  was  in  existence  long  before  the  Kssenes  were 
known.  Besides  all  this,  the  fact  of  there  having  been,  for  ages, 
a  gate  in  the  old  wall,  called  \\tlMnalt,  just  about  the  place 

VOL.  I. 


mosque,  not  far  from  the  southern  extremity  of  El-  Wad. 
about  the  E*-Mujali  bath  and  fountain,  which  name. 
Es-Shefah,  is  curiously  like  Nehemiah's  for  the  dung- 
gate,  viz.  A  xhj,I,ot]i .  (Fur  an  account  of  Es-Sliethh, see  Williams, 
ii.  457;  Barclay,  328;  Whitty,  p.  us).  (M  Th(  f<miitaiii-r/atc, 
\  ver.  li;  ch.  ii.  M.  There  is  but  one  fi»i.jit(tiii  mentioned  in 
'  connection  with  Jerusalem — En-rogel.  the  fountain  of 
Rogel.  which  we  believe  to  be  the  modern  Cm -ul-  Ikraj, 
the  "fountain  of  the  virgin,"  already  noticed.  ,V//o«//i 
is  never  called  a  fountain,  but  a  pool.  Of  pools  there 
are  many  around  and  in  the  city:  of  tanks,  a  large 
number  in  all  directions,  specially  to  the  north;  of  wells, 
there  are  one  or  two  that  deserve  that  name:  but 
Eii-ni'jil  is  the  only  En  or  fountain  :  and  it  has  been 
known  from  the  days  of  Joshua.  Tin  fun nfiiin->iatc. 
then,  must  have  been  in  connection  with  this,  thouuli 
not  necessarily  close  by  it:  opening  out  on  some  path 
that  led  immediately  to  it:  and  if  so.  mi  the  south 
east  of  the  city.  Nehemiah  now  (following  the  old 
wall)  takes  us  tirst  south  and  then  west.  Adjoining 
tlf  fountain-gate  was  "the  wall  of  the  pool  of  Siloah," 
or  more  properly  ' '  Shelach  :"  then  "the  king's  gar 
den."  ver.  i:.;  then  "the  stair>  that  go  down  from  the 
city  of  David"  lib.);  then  "the  place  over  against  the 
sepulchres  of  David."  \vr.  ii1.;  then  "the  poo]  that  was 
made."  the  modern  Birket-e.s- Sultan;  then  the  "house 
of  the  miuhty,"  perhap-  the  modem  castle  at  the  Jaffa 
u'ate:  then  "  the  piece  over  against  the  going  up  to  the 
armoury."  ver  10;  then  "the  turning  of  the  wall"-  (ib.) 
i!i.)  Tin  ii'<itn'-;.'i(>i .  ver  -•;;  ch.  xii. :;:.  We  are  unable  to 
li\  the  places  specified  in  \vr.  •Jii-iW;  lint  our  conjecture 
is.  that  having  taken  us  to  the  fountain-gate  and  city 
of  David,  and  led  us  round  to  the  point  in  the  "•(.•</ 
wall  where  he  left  "li',  that  is.  having  completely  swept 
(mind  /ion.  he  turns  back  to  win  re  lie  Mopped  on  the 
.:<>nt/i-<ii.<t.  at  Ophel,  where  we  have  both  "the  turning 
of  the  \\all.  and  the  corner:'  and  it  ir-  at  tin-  \vrv  point 
that  we  find,  to  this  day.  such  numerous  /.i^/.a^s  in  the 
wall.  The  water  gati.1  \\as  somewhere  .-miih  of  tlie 
temple:  the  city  water  gate  and  the  temple  water-gate 
beiii'_r  perhaps  in  the  same  neighbourhood,  though  dis 
tinct  from  each  other  t  l.vliti'n..!'>  Temple,  p.  l.">n)  The 
"place  over  against  the.  water-gate,  toward  the  east,'' 
mentioned  as  connected  with  the  Nethinims  and 
me  further  idea  of  the' 
Tin-  Iior*t-;/utc,  ver.  28; 
"by  the  king's  house," 
the  temple,  on  the  west 
Josephus  mentions  (Ant. 
ix.  7,3),  as  "the  -ate  of  the  king's  mules."  which  led  out 
into  the  valley  of  the  Kedn.n.  Solomon's  stables  were 
.-outh  of  the  temple  IHuiyamin  ..fTudela,  Asher'scd.  vol.  i  p.7">. 
if  not  under  the  southern  part  of  its  area.  Thus  the 
"king's  house."  the  "kind's  stables."  and  the  "horse- 
gute.''  were  close  to  each  other.  Josephus  speaks  of  the 


where   the   !•:>» 

Mlspcct  that  Ih 

-  The   writer 

after  Psalman; 


Hi. • 


ivc   been,  leads  us  to 

-.«  cat    -•(  /''"/.    maintains 
•2-21)  That  J,'T5C  means 


an  internal  m- re-ent  ivint  ,-niu'le  ()'.  -117).  Hut  the  fact  of  one  of 
its  cognates  meaning  a  carving-tool,  shows  that  the  word  may 
signify  any  n.iti/li—  anvtliing  made,  as  it  were,  by  "cutting  off." 
The  inttsmi/1  of  the  wall  may  refer  either  to  the  projecting  or 
receding  angle,  so  that  the  word  determines  nothing.  There 
was  an  armoury  in  the  temple  (i  Ch  xxiii  !>:  Jos.  Ant.  ix.  7,  2), 
but  there  was  aho  "the  tower  of  David,  buihled  for  an 
armourv"  (Ca.  iv.  4). 

113 


KKUSALKM 


S9S 


JERUSALEM 


hipp  >drome  :is  on  the  south  side  of  the  temple  (J.  \v.  ii. 
3,1).  (11.)  Tin-  (n.ft-iiittc,  ver.  2'j.  Probably  the  same  as 
in  .Ic.  xix.  "2  is  translated  cast- gate,  and  in  the  margin 
sun -gate;  though  by  other*  potter's- u'ate  I.ICTD'.I.C  on  .lor.; 
Spolm  ou  the  Sept.  version  of  Jcr.  p.  203).  It  led  into  Hinnoin, 
as  the  passage  shows.  (l'_>.)  The  ;/<(tc  M ijiliL-nil,  ver.  31. 
This  was  the  u'ate  of  judgment,  somewhere  near  that 
part  of  the  temple  where  the  Sanhedrim  sat:  perhaps 
not  far  from  where  the  modern  Mckltemcli  or  Moslem 
judgment-hall  is.  (13.)  7'/i<  prison-gate,  >:li.\ii.yj.  Ap 
parently  not  far  from  the  sheep-gate,  near  the  king's 
high  house,  ch.  iii.  -i:>;  perhaps  at  the  spot  referred  to  in 
.Ie.  xxxii.  '1.  where  the  prophet  was  "shut  up  in  the 
court  of  the  prison  which  was  in  the  king  of  Judah's 
house." 

There  are  some  other  <_ate>.  nut  in  Nehemiahs  cir 
cuit,  which  we  merely  name,  as  it  is  not  easy  to  assign 


the  Via  |)olorosa;  but  in  general  these  have  remained 
much  the  same  from  the  fourth  century,  in  spite  of 
the  sieges  and  desolations  to  \\hieh  the  city  has  been 
subjected.  The  tenacious  inemorv  of  traditionalism, 
even  in  the  absence  of  history,  has  proved  itself 
wonderfully  faithful  and  consistent. 

10.  Pool*  "//(/  tctid'K.  The  pools  and  tanks  of  ancient 
.Jerusalem  \\ere  very  abundant;  and  each  house  being 
provided  with  what  we  may  call  a  bottle-necked  cistern 
for  rain-water,  drought  within  the  city  was  rare;  and 
history  shows  us  that  it  was  the  besiegers,  not  the 
besieged,  that  generally  suffered  from  want  of  water 
<  •  il.  Tyr.  1>.  vi'i.  ]..  7;  DC  Waha,  Labores  (i-ut'ix-iii,  p.  fJl  I,  though 
occasionally  this  was  reversed  Jos.  J.  w.  v.  <i,  4,.  Vet 
neither  in  ancient  nor  modern  times  could  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Jerusalem  be  called  "  \\aterless."  as  Strabo 
describes  it  (Gcogr.  b.  xvi.  2,3ti).  In  summer  the  fields  and 


their  places,  nor  to  say  how  far  some  of  them  may  hills  around  are  verdureless  ;ind  gray,  scorched  with 
not  be  different  names  for  the  same  gale,  or  not  city-  months  of  drought:  yet,  within  a  radius  of  t-even  miles. 
gates  at  all,  but  temple  gates.  (1.)  The  king's-gate  |  there  are  some  thirty  or  forty  natural  springs  lUarclay's 
eastward,  1  ch.  i\.  i*.  ('2.)  The  higher-  gate.  2  Ki.  xv.  :;:,.  ;  CityoftheG-reatKing,  p.  2!ia).  Consul  Finn  informed  us  that 


2  Ki.  xxv.  -i;  Jo.  xxxix.  4.  (5.)  The  high-gate,  2  Ch.  xxiii.  20.  perhaps  the  completes!  and  most  extensive  ever  under- 
((].}  The  gate  of  the  Lord's  house,  2  Ch.  xxiv.  8;  Je.  vii.  2.  taken  for  a  city.  Till  lately  this  was  not  fully  credited  ; 
(7.)  The  high-gate  of  the  Lord's,  house,  2  ch.  xxvii.  ?,-,  but  Barclay's,  and  more  recently  Whitty's  and  Pierotti's, 
rs.  cxviii.  20.  (8.)  The  city-gate,  2  C'h.  xxxii.  o.  (0.)  The  subterraneous  investigations  have  proved  that  Tacitus 
gate  of  Benjamin,  Je.  xxxvii.  13  ;  xxxviii.  7.  (10.)  Tho  was  not  exaggerating  when  he  said  of  its  supplies: 
high-gate  of  Benjamin,  ,Tc.  xx.  2.  (11.)  The  new-gate,  "  fons  perennis  aquae,  cavati  sub  terra  inontes;  et  pis- 
Je.  xxvi.  10;  xxxvi.  io.  (12.)  The  middle-gate,  Jc.  xxxix.  3.  cin;e  cisteriueque  servandis  imbribus  "  (Hist.  v.  12).  The 
(Ii!.)  The  first-gate,  Zee.  xiv.  KI.  aqueduct  of  Solomon  (winding  along  for  twelve  miles 

Of  the  temple-gates  we  do  not  speak,  referring  the  t  and  a  quarter),  pours  the  waters  of  the  three  immense 
reader  to  Lightfoot's  Temple,  and  LamyZ>c  Taiicrnai'iilo,  !  pools  into  the  enormous  temple  wells,  cut  out  like 
or  to  TEMPLE  in  this  Dictionary.  In  the  Xew  Testa-  caverns  in  the  rock  (see  woodcut,  No.  174,  under 
ment  the  gates  of  the  city  arc  not  mentioned;  and  Jose-  CISTERN);  and  the  pools,  which  surround  the  city  in 
phus  does  not  give  us  much  information  regarding  '  all  directions,  supply  to  a  great  extent  the  wa*it  of  a 
them.  He  mentions  a  "secret"  or  obscure  (d^avrjs)  river  or  a  lake  (Train's  Joseph  us,  vol.  i.;App.  p.  57,  Go). 
gate  near  Hippicus,  out  of  which  the  Jews  sallied  i  The  ancient  pools  were:  (1.)  The  upper  pool,  2  Ki. 
(j.  w.  v.  o,  a)  ;  a  gate  opposite  the  monuments  of  Helena,  xviii.  17.  ('2.)  The  king's  pool,  xe.ii.u.  (3.)  The  pool 
near  Psephinus  (J.  w.  v.  2,  2);  the  gate  of  the  Essencs,  of  Siloah.  Xe.  iii.  15.  (4.)  The  pool  that  was  made, 
which  we  have  already  noticed  (J.  w.  v.  4,  2).  In  the  '  Xe.  iii.  1C.  (o.)  The  lower  pool,  is.  xxii.  0.  (6.)  The  old 
fourth  century  the  French  pilgrim  mentions  the  Xablus  '  pool,  Is.  xxii.  4.  (7.)  The  pool  of  Bethesda,  Jn.  v.  2.  (8.)  The 
gate,  and  gives  us  the  impression  that  it  and  the  rest  pool  of  Siloam.-  Jn.  ix.  7.  The  chief  modern  pools  are: 
of  the  city  were  very  much  as  they  were  in  Hadrian's  i  (1.)  Sihrdu,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tyropo?on,  with  its 
time  and  as  they  are  now.  Arculf  in  the  seventh  cen-  |  ante-chamber  which  receives  the  waters  from  Um-Deraj, 
tury  has  given  us  (as  we  have  seen)  both  a  map  and  a 
description  of  the  city;  from  which  we  gather  that  on  the 
north  were  two  gates  —  St.  Stephen's,  towards  the  west, 
and  Benjamin,  towards  the  east.  In  the  east  wall  we 
find  the  "little  gate/'  by  which  they  went  down  into 
the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  and  the  Tekoite  gate,  farther  and  which  perhaps  corresponds  to  the  "  pool  that  was 
south.1  On  the  south  are  no  gates.  On  the  west,  the  made,'"  Xo.  iii.  in.  ':>.'•  Birket-el-Mamilla,  to  the  west 
gate  of  David,  southward,  and  the  gate  of  the  fuller,  of  the  present  Jaffa  gate,  which  may  perhaps  represent 
northward  (see  Van  <le  Velde's  rianography  of  Jerusalem).  \  the  waters  of  the  upper  pool,  from  which  Hezekiah 
During  the  middle  ages  there  were  some  changes  in  the  ,  made  a  conduit,  and  led  the  water  into  the  heart  of 
gates,  which  we  have  not  room  to  specify,  but  which  the  citv,  down  the  Tyropcaon.  May  not  Mamilla  (the 
the  reader  will  find  in  Van  de  Velde.  There  have  been  etymology  of  which  is  so  obscure)  be  a  relic  of  Millo  '] 
some  alterations  in  the  traditional  localities,  such  as  2Sa,  v.  9;lKi.  ix.  15,  24;xi.  27;2Ki.  xii.  20;lCh.  xi.  8;2Ch.  xxxii.  5;t.e. 


through  the  rocky  conduit,  and  its  large  square  reser 
voir,  at  the  east  end,  once  a  pool  (perhaps  the  king's 
pool),  now  filled  up  with  soil,  and  cultivated  as  part  of 
a  fig-yard.  (2.)  Birket-es- Sultan,  to  the  south  of  the 
city,  along  the  side  of  which  the  Bethlehem  road  runs, 


1  For  the  discussion  as  to  the  age  and  architecture  of  the 
golden  gate,  see  Tipping,  Traill.  Robinson,  and  Fergnsson. 

-  Whether  the  Siloah  of  Isaiah  and  the  Siloam  of  John  are  the 
same  as  the  Siloah  (properly  £/*•  Inch  —  fleece-pool,  as  the  Sept. 
gives  it)  of  Xehemiah,  is  perhaps  doubtful ;  but  we  strongly  in 
cline  to  believe  in  their  distinctness.  That  the  Silla  connected 
with  Bethmillo  ('2  Ki.  xii.  20)  is  Siloam,  is  unlikely  on  etymo 
logical  grounds;  though  otherwise  there  is  nothing  improbable 
in  their  identification.  Xehemiah's  Slida.ch  may  be  the  sub 
sequent  Bethesda.  Dr.  Whitty  rather  resolutely  affirms  that 


the  modern  Siloam  and  Virgin's  fount  were  temple  cesspools  ! 
The  conduit  which  has  recently  been  traced  from  the  Bir  Aruach, 
under  the  mosque  rock  to  the  latter,  may  be  considerable  evi 
dence  that  it  (Virgin's  fount)  had  been  converted  to  such  a  pur 
pose.  But  we  still  are  of  the  belief  that  it  was  originally  a 
fountain:  perhaps  perverted  from  its  original  use  by  Solomon, 
when  he  obtained  sufficient  water  supply  from  other  sources, 
as  many  a  good  well  has  been  turned  into  a  soil-pit  when  no 
longer  needed.  It  is  curious  that  the  last  mention  of  En-rogel 
(which  we  believe  it  to  be)  is  in  David's  history. 


JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


the  pool  c«f  Millo  <>r  Bethmillo  .P.abilla.  as  Mamillo  is  tojn  (Horn,  injoaim.  Mi.)  The  subsequent  allusions  are 
sometimes  called;.  This  Millo  was  a  fortress  of  Zion,  frequent.  Some  have  accounted  for  it  by  the  existence 
Jebusite  in  its  origin,  rebuilt  by  Da.vid.  enlarged  by  of  some  natural  siphon  in  the  rocks;  but  the  numerous 


Solomon,  and  strengthened  by  Hezekiah:  perhaps  the 
present  castle.  '-l.i  The  Birket-Hammam-el-Batrak, 
within  the  city  walls,  called  traditionally  the  pool  of 
Hezekiah.  (5.  The  Birket-es-Xcmui,  w"j3irket-Iirael, 

as  it  is  called,  near  the  modern  St.  .Stephens  gate, 
which  very  probably  represents  Hethesda:  Dr.  Robin 
son's  conjecture  of  its  being  the  trench  of  Antonia 
being  without  proof;  though  it  niv_dit  possibly  have 
served  this  double  purpose. 

There    have    been    pools    also    in    former    a^e-.    and 
these  not  small  in  si/.c,  which  have  disappeared.      The 
French  pilgrim  speaks  of  two   '•  lar-v   pools,"  one   on 
the  right  and  another  on  the  left  of  the  temple    ],.  277  : 
and   inside   the   citv  two   twin-pools,    "piscina.-   ijcnu  1 
lares,"  which    Kusebiu-   calls   Xiui/cu   otoi'uoi.   \\ith  line 
porches,     and     called     I!'  thesda      Onomust.  art.  Bethesda  . 
This  mav  be  the  [>n  -.-h*  Uirket   l.-rael.      .leroine.  speak 
ing  of  Tophet  as  beiir.:  in   '•  the  suburbs  of  .Elia."  and 
retaining    its  name   in    hi-  dav,  describes    it  as    "j\i\ta 
[piscinam  fullonis   it 
indicates  a  pool   fartl 
Siloam. 

These    pools   and    \\eli.s   are   UPP),   kept   in    very   u 1 

repair,  and  seldom  contain  much  or  -i,,,d  ssater.  S.inn 
of  them  are  freijueiitlv  empty.  The  four  haiid-onn 
Saracenic  drinking  fountains  b.-iut  iiullv  pliotoorapheil 


bv    Sal/.mann 


I'm  cd-Dcrai     lit. 


[371.1        Fountain  of  the  Virgin  il'm-, 

••  Mother  of  Ste] 

of  the  Virgin." 

svater  to  the  inhabitants  of  JerusaK 

to  those  of   the   village  Silwan,  a  rud 


conduits  which  hue  been  discovered  by  Barclay, 
Whitty.  and  Pierotti,  terminating  here,  through  which 
the  surplusage  of  the  city  and. mosque  wells  and  pools 
gets  outlet,  and  the  tntttc  n-ati >•  from  the  puHic  Ixtt/is 
discharges  itself,  sufficiently  account  both  for  the  sudden 
swelling  and  the  iid'uliar  ta.-tff  of  the  water  (see  whitty, 

It  is  to  tanks  or  pools  that  Jerusalem  has  to  look  for 
its  water-supply;  and  since  its  annual  rainfall  is  twice 
as  much  as  that  of  England,  there  ouu'ht  not  to  be  any 
lack.  Perhaps  deep  wells,  like  Piir-Eyuh,  might  be 
sunk  in  some  places;  not  in  the  bed  of  the  Kedron,  cer 
tainly,  where  the  water  would  percolate  through  de 
posits  of  tilth  and  decomposed  human  bodies;  but  farther 
north,  between  Scopus  and  the  city.  Dr.  \Vhittv  pro 
nounces  artesian  wells  an  impossibility,  from  the  svant 
of  the  uudi  riving  and  overlyini;'  impervious  strata,  with 
the  water-bearing  deposit  between:  but  the  conclusion 
seems  hasty;  especially  that  part  of  it  which  founds  upon 
the  chasm  of  the  Kedron  in'owin^  deeper  and  deeper 
as  it  moves  tosvard  the  Dead  Sea,  thereby  fracturing 
the  side  of  the  basin.  Xosv  we  were  informed  by  parties 
on  the  spot  that  there  is  some  mistake  about  the  Kedron 
channel,  at  least  that  part  of  it  which  is  supposed  to  pass 
dosvn  by  St.  Saba  to  the  Dead  Sea.  \Ve  were  told  that 
less  than  a  mile  be  loss1  Jerusalem,  there  is  a  remarkable 
elevation  in  the  bed  of  the  torrent,  sshidi  cuts  it  off 
from  the  wadv  which  is  usually  reckoned  its  continua 
tion;  so  that  the  ru^ued  gulley  which  cuts  its  way  down 
to  the  Dead  Sea  pa-t  the  rocky  battlements  of  St.  Saba 
is  not  the  Kedron.  Whatever  may  be  the  geological 
unlitue.s  ot  the  -round,  hossvser,  for  artesian  wells, 
surface-springs  e\i-t  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  the 
-teep  hill  --ides  froiitinu'  each  other  with  a  narrow  line 
pit  vallev  bi-tweeii.  oiler  ^ivat  facilities  f.,r  the  construe 
tioii  of  ponds  and  tanks  (Whilty,  p.  l'.i::j. 

11.  .Miwim-s  />»„«  of  the  Rork.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable  sights  in  .1  em-alt  in  is  tin;  rock  over 
which  the  <4T«-at  dome  of  the  mosipie  is  built.  It  rises 
17  feet  above  tlw  level  of  the  Haram  or  great  area; 
and  i-  perhaps  the  old  top  of  Moriali  .-pared  by  Solo- 
moll  when  levelling  the  rest  of  the  hill.  Id  feet  by  GO; 
a  run'u'eil  mass  of  limestone,  svhich  no  tool  has  ever 
touched:  save  at  the  one  end,  where  there  has  been  a 
rouo'h  cleavage,  which  Moslems  ascribe  to  the  cru- 
-aders  i.i  a  d- A.i.iin, ).  ism.  'i'liis  "rock,"'  or  "x«/-/m</<," 
is  ai-cppiinted  saeivd  by  all  sects,  the  Mahometans  hold 
ing  it  the  holii-st  -pot  in  the  world,  and  associating 
with  it  the  most  marvellous  traditions  in  their  Pro 
phet's  history.  It  seems  to  be  the  "lapis  pertusus" 
alluded  to  bv  the  P.ourdeaux  traveller,  svhich  the  Jews 
used  to  visit  annually  and  anoint  with  wailing  and 
rending  of  garments;  probably  before  they  were  driven 
r  of  filthy  out  by  the  erection  of  a  church  or  mosque,  and  obliged 


a  j)      B-irclu.v. 


huts,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Kedron.1  It  has  pecu 
liar  risings  and  fallings,  sshich  -ome.  with  little,  either 
of  reverence  for  Scripture  or  attention  to  facts,  have 
tried  to  identify  svith  tin-  troubling  of  the  water  by  the 
angel,  Jn.  v.  1.  This  phenomenon  was  noticed  in  the  early 
centuries:  and  \ve  have  allusions  to  it  even  in  Chrysos- 


to  betake  themselves  to  the  outside  of  the  Haram,  to 
the  west  wall  of  which  they  come  every  Friday  at 
three  o'clock,  the  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice,  with 
lamentations  over  their  ruined  and  polluted  shrine." 


1  Whether  it  is  to  the  village  of  Sihvfm,  <>r  to  the  rocky  tonilis 
of  AkeM;tm;i.  that  the  Moslem  writer  of  the  twelfth  century 
(quoted  by  Barclay,  p.  :100)  refers  as  inhabitod  by  "  piovi.s  co'iio 
bites,"  does  not  appenr. 


-  They  reverenced  it  as  Jacob's  stone  pillow  ;  as  the  thrashing 
11.. or  of  Ar.innah  the  Jebusitu  (Bernardino,  Tntltatn  <le  Sucrl 
/•:<ln!.::i.  p.  47):  ns  the  site  of  the  brazen  altar  (Barclay,  p.  407). 
In  the  cave  under  it  there  is  a  well  or  condnft,  which  is  said  to 
lead  down  to  the  Kcdron.  The  .lews  certainly  could  not  have 
reckoned  it  the  s.-j  nli-hre  of  Christ.  The  cave,  according  to  a 


JFRTSALK.M 


HOO 


JERUSALEM 


This  large  rock,  as  we  have  noticed  already,  has  no 
appearance  of  having  been  a  tomb.  The  cave  below-, 
at  the  south-east  corner,  is  evidently  a  natural  hollow. 
About  the  centre  of  the  floor  of  this  cave,  there  is  a 
dec})  shaft,  or  narrow  pit.  carefully  covered  over  with 
a.  limestone  slab,  called  Hir  A  much,  "the  well  of 
souls.  It  is  now  ascertained  to  communicate  with 
the  Kedron:  and  probably  was  the  conduit  down  which 
the  blood  of  the  sacrifices  was  conveyed  away.  If  if 
be  an  old  Jewish  name,  its  reference  ma\  l»  to  the 

blood    beillu'    the    life    or    soul,    Le.  xvii, 

ago,  when  the  pasha  invited  all  sects 

enter  the  mosque  to  pray  for  rain,  the  Jews  declined,  on 

the  ground    that    thev  were   ceremonially  unclean,  and 


added    gleams    from    the    variegated    dome    above,    it 
must  look  wild  and  ^rand. 

The  mosque  takes  its  name  from  the  rock,  and  is 
known  in  Jerusalem,  not  as  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  but 
as  the  Kubbet-es-Sakhrah— the  dome  of  the  rock. 
This  is  the  most  splendid  of  the  Jerusalem  shrines; 
though  the  mosque  Kl-Aksa.  a  little  south  of  it,  is  the 
most  venerable.  The  dome  of  the  rock  is  the  Moslem 
substitute  for  the  temple  of  Solomon:  and,  seen  as  it 
is  from  far  in  all  directions,  it  invcs  some  idea  of  what 
Some  years  that  temple  must  have  been,  as  an  object  of  wonder 
erusalem  to  and  attraction,  to  every  one  approaching  Jerusalem.  A 
full  description  of  its  exterior  and  interior  is  quite 
beyond  our  limits.  The  reader  must  consult  the 


also  because  their  law  was   buried  under  the  temple,     numerous  writers  who  have  entered  into  details  respect- 
In  a   dry  shaft   (perhaps   the  same  described  above)  a  j  ing  it.      From    I'.arclay  we  extract  a  single  para-Tapir 

lin'ce    is    situated    rather    belt 


skin  of  a  roll  of  the  I'entatench  was  found,  and  is  now 
in  the  possess!, .n  of  Dr.  Treadles,  ft  runs  from  (Je. 
xxii.  1,  to  the  middle  of  the  'J 4th  verse;  and  is  written 
in  three  columns.  How  did  it  come  there?  For  a 
description  and  drawing  of  the  duct  between  the  ]!ir- 
Aruach  and  the  Kedron.  see  NVhittv.  p.  lln.  How 
Mr.  Fer^usson's  theory  can  be  made  to  assort  with 
this  duct,  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  A  great  part  of  the 
pavement  of  the  Harani,  especially  in  the  north 
western  quarter,  is  the  hare  surface  of  the  levelled  hill: 
and  in  walking  over  this  singular  floor  of  :54  acres, 
which  is  not  entirely  level:  or  ga/ing  down  into  some 
of  the  thirty-two  well-mouths  that  pierce  it  all  over; 
or  descending  into  that  most  singular  of  all  rock-cut 


•'This  superb  edifice  is  situated  rather  below  th 
middle  of  the  platform  -  being  nearest  the  western, 
and  farthest  from  the  northern.  It  is  about  17(1  feet  in 
diameter,  and  the  same  in  height.  The  lower  story  or 
main  body  of  the  building  is  a  true  octagon  of  (ij  feet  on 
a  side:  but  the  central  and  elevated  portion  is  circular. 
A  more  graceful  and  symmetrical  dome  is  perhaps 
nowhere  to  be  found;  and  the  lofty  bronze  crescent 
that  surmounts  the  whole  gives  a  pleasing  architectural 
finish.  'The  dome  appears  to  be  covered  with  copper: 
but  l<il<  rn/lii  with  porcelain  tiles  of  richest  colour;  ex 
cept  the  lower  half  of  the  octagonal  sides,  which  are 
encased  with  rich  marble  of  various  colours  and  de 
vices.  A  vei  v  'dim  religious  light"  is  shed  throiiirh 


\ 

<r\ 

c 

\ 

H 

*J*     < 

-*          ! 

A 

<;     B 

|    \ 

\  '•    \  s 

&\ 

,^l 

^         ' 

';           t 

W^i 

(        N 

.     1 

\    '  0 

t  ' 

\s       •) 

/~^r; 

,  &~ 

••    <  ) 

reservoirs,  supposed  to  be  the  royal 
cistern,  formerly  fed  by  'an  aque 
duct  of  twelve  miles  long,  out  of 
Solomon's  pools,  and  capable  of 
containing  two  millions  of  gallons, 

and  736  feet  in  circuit;  or  visiting  vv  ""       j  f  c   O 

the   vast   arched    substructions    at  /sx  *  ^ 

the  south-east  angle,  which  formed, 
in  all  likelihood,  the  stables  of  the 
Jewish  kings  —  one  feels  brought 
into  direct  contact  with  the 
handiwork  of  Solomon's  builders 
and  Hiram's  stone- squarers. 

This  rock  is  one  of  the  hidden 
treasures  of  Moslemism.    We  have 

seen   it   more    than    once,    though  /' 

by  Mohaniedaii  law  it  is  death  for 
any  Jew  or  Christian  to  approach 

r"~*~is_/ 

it.     Surrounded  with  a  screen,  and  I 

shone  upon  only  through  the  pecu-  . 

liar  light  of  coloured  windows,  in 

the  very  centre  of  the  great  mosque, 

it  is  an  imposing  object.      It  has 

a    sombre    and    venerable    aspect. 

which  the  simplicity  of  a  mosque. 

and  the  grandeur  of  the  lofty  dome. 

greatly  heighten.      There  are  none 

of  the  mockeries  of  idolatry  about 

it  to  offend:   and  you  can  believe 

or  not  as  you  please  that   the    Prophet's  horse  left  a  j  sixteen  windows  of  the  richest  stained  glass,  with  which 

hoof-mark   on   it.    as   it   sprang   with   its   rider   up   to    the  circular  body  of  the  building  is  pierced.     The  lower 

heaven.      Its  colour  is  a   dingy  -ray.      Its  surface  is     story  is  46  feet  high,  and  has  seven  windows  of  stained 

uneven,  though  in  a  measure  level:  and  when  lighted     glass:  fifty- six  in  all.      Just  above  the  windows,  numer- 

up  with  the  glare  of  live  hundred  coloured  lamps,  with  ous  extracts  from  the  Koran,  in  very  large  Turkish 

letters,  run  all  round  the  building.  There  are  four 
doors,  and  as  many  porches,  each  facing  a  cardinal 
point,  the  southern  one  affording  the  main  entrance" 


Uj 
•      \ 


FEET 


of  Quarries  under  the  City.- Stewart's  Tent  and  Khan. 


Modern  writer  of  the  tw 

five  in  width,  uud  more  than 

P-  3(35>- 


tur      i,  "ten  cubits  in  length. 
a  fathom  in  height"  (Barclay, 


JERUSALEM 


.IEKUSALKM 


(p.  4:i.r>-t;).      This    splendid    structure    is   from   its    height  '  to  abutment,  across  the  Tvropo-on.      The  radius  of  the 
and    its   elegance  the  most   striking  object  about   the  ,  arch  is  -Jo  feet  (j  inches;  the  span  was  therefore  41  feet, 
city.      The  Castle  of   David  and  the  Church  of   the  Se-  i 
pnlchre  are  next  in  visibility.    And  these  three  are  all  the 
representatives  of  the  princely  fabrics  that  once  adorned 
•  Jerusalem.       From   that    city   .Judaism    has   perished: 
altar  and  temple  are  gone.      Christianity,  the  only  true' 
representative  of  the  altar  and  the  mercy-seat,  is  here 


and  church.  The  crescent  surmounts  the  cross,  (i  Ki 
V.  lv;.Ic,*eplnis,  Ant.  viii.  •>,<>;  Iiaivlay.  .c':,;  Une  visile  an  temple  de 
.Jerusal.'m:  par  le  Dr.  K.  Isambert.  1-xin;  K-urait  du  bulletin,  de  la 
Sumete  de  (Jeo^rapiiie  1 

Connected  with  these  .structures  are  the  immense 
underground  quarries1,  mi  which,  as  well  as  nut  ni 
which,  the  citv  may  be  said  to  be  built.  l-'rom  them 
have  been  hewn,  in  past  a_vs.  the  massive  liniestoiii 
blocks  which  appear  in  tin-walls  and  elsewhere.  In 
these  dark  chambers  one-  niav.  with  tin-  In  lp  of  torches, 
wander  for  bours.  scrambling  over  mounds  of  ruhbi-h: 
now  climbing  into  one  chamber,  now  descending  into 
another,  in-tini;'  tin-  various  cutting-,  grooves,  cleav 
ages  and  hammer-marks:  and  wondering  at  the  dif- 
ferent  shapes  liars  here,  slices  then-,  lioulders  then-, 
thrown  up  together  in  utter  confusion.  (  inlv  in  one 
corner  do  we  find  a  few  drippings  of  water,  and  a  tinv 
spring:  f, ,r  these  -.insular  excavations,  like  the  grea* 
limestone  caveat  l\'li »  n  itn  n  ,  beyond  I '.ethlelnin.  pro 
bably  AdiiMann.  are  eiitirelv  free  from  damp:  and 
though  the  only  bit  of  intercourse  with  the  upper  air  is  I'rom  tin  top  of  the  pier  where  the  arch  springs  to  the 
by  the  small  twenty-inch  hole  at  the  Damascus  gate,  corresponding  level  on  the  opposite  side,  is  but  little 
through  which  the  enterprising  traveller  writes  into  more  than  :'><iu  feet,  though  it  is  about  "CO  from  the 
them  like  a  serpent,  yet  tin  air  is  fresh  ami  somewhat  level  of  the  Haram  yard  above  to  the  convspondinu 
warm  (Dr.  Stewart's  Tent  ind  Khan,  p  LTO-SiHi)  These  are  level  on  the  opposite  cliff  of  Zion.  There  were  probably 
no  doubt  the  subterranean  ivtr.  ats  referred  to  bv  five  or  six  arches  across  tin-  Tvropu'on.  One  of  the 
.losephus  as  oceiijiied  bv  the  despair 
ing  Jews  ill  the  last  dav-  of  Jerusalem 
I.I.  W  vi  :,:;;  vi  x,  U;  and  to  w  Inch  Tasso 
alludes  when  relating  the  wizard's  pro 
mise  to  conduct  the  "  Soldan"  throuirh 
Godfrey's  learner,  into  the  heart  of 
Tin-  native 
!/<«//"'/•' '  •  •'- 

Knltnn.      the     (  'ottoll     CaVe.         \V1;, 

it  was  ever  used  as  a  place  of  stowage 
for  goods,  and  had  an\  connection 
with  the  ('otton  I'.axaar,  we  cannot  <ay. 
The  conjecture  of  l.ev-:n  and  I'ierotli. 
that  it  was  "the  roval  caverns"  men 
tioned  by  Jose]iluis,  is.  for  many  rea 
sons,  untenable. 

The  south-east  anu'le  of  the  Haram 
wall  is  remarkable  for  the  size  of  its 
stones;  several  of  them  belli'/  about 
eighteen  feet  by  four.  Not  far  from 
this  point,  in  the  south  wall,  is  the  half 
arch  of  an  old  and  beautiful  -atewav  ':!74  '  l'«  mams  ,,f  an  An,i,nt  \n:h  near  the  south  west  ant.de  "f  the  Ilaram  Wall. 

Kr,.m  ;>  ilr:nMt>K  l.y  Archilalil  Cainplu'll    Ksq. 
(supposed   to  be   the  gate  of    Huldaln. 

which  may  have  once  been  an  entrance   to  the  temple,  blocks  in  the  remaining  port! f  the  bridge  measures 

Koundinu'   the   south-west  angle     where  the   stones  are  -J]   feet,  and   another  :Ti  by   f.-',1   in   breadth"1    (Barclay,  p. 

even    more  colossal   than   the    south-east  ,   we   find  the  in-j.  l'.«:  Kobinson,  i.  •>:.  I;IH;,.      'I'he  in  xtrrii  abutment  of  the 

remains  of  an  arch,  probably  that  which  connected  the  bridge  has.  we   believe,  been   discovered  verv  recently. 
temple  with  Mount  Zion:  three  massive  tiers  of  stone. 

one  of    the  most    genuine   fragments  of   antii|llitV  about  '  A.-i  this  aivh  crossed   the  TyTo|i.i-on.  it  uives  us  Tin'   il'n-fi-tion 

the   citv.       It   is    thirtv-nine    feet    from   the   south-west  ^  ofthjit  valley  n],  tn  a  certain  i-iint  (near  the  mi.l.lle  of  the  west 

Ilaram  wall):  ami  in  so  (loin;;  shows  it  to  lie  almost  impossible- 
angle  of  the  Haram  wall  "  It  was  olA  feet  in  width.  t]iat  it  c(111|,i  ]rive  romim-med  -it  die  present  J-itl'a  »ate  -is 
and  extended  at  least  tt/JO  feet  in  length,  from  abutment  R<ibin:-on  and  others  maintain.  IV<_'innin-  about  the  Damascus 


JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


This  and  the-  gateway  discovered  by  Barclay,  about  7(ltl 
feet  from  the  south-west  angle,  are  discoveries  of  great 
importance  in  tracing  out  the  ancient  topography  of 
Jerusalem  (Barclay,  p.  4xi).  We  ought  to  mention,  how 
ever,  that  1'i.Totti  denies  that  this  arch  is  the  fragment 
of  the  Solomoniaii  bridge  (which  he  places  farther 
north).  He  ascribes  it  to  Justinian  (vol.  i.  p.  TO). 

Tlie  number  of  mosques  in  Jerusalem  is  eleven;  and 
the  number  of  minarets  above  this,  as  the  great  mosque 
has  four  minarets.  The  different  churches,  convents, 
and  hospitals,  with  their  spires  and  domes,  need  not 
be  enumerated  or  named.  Barclay  gives  the  fullest 
statement  as  to  these  (\>  4:;r-4:>4).  There  are  three 
divisions  or  "quarters"  of  the  city-  (1.;  The  Jewish. 
JIarct  Yehndi;  (2.)  The  Christia.n,  Hunt  A',i-Xi/.^iti-n- 
nch;  (3.)  The  Mohamedan,  //ant  tl-M nx*cliniit.  To 
these  some  add  a  fourth,  the  Armenian  quarter,  J//ir</ 
cl-Arntfit.  Near  the  Zion  gate,  Bah-en-Nehi-Daud. 
close  under  the  wall,  is  a  small  row  of  leper  huts,  the 
tenants  of  which,  though  separated  in  their  dwellings 
from  the  community,  generally  during  the  day  take 
their  seat  upon  some  hillock  or  rubbish-mound  at  the 
Jaffa,  gate,  to  beg  from  the  passers- bv;  stretching  out 
their  discoloured  or  corroded  limbs,  and  uttering 
piteously  the  unwearied  cry  of  "  Buckshish."  As  to 
ttatht,  Barclay  gives  full  information1  (\>.  44<s  47-,  .ML':. 
For  the  tanks  and  canals,  see  Robinson  (vol.  iii.  w]  -. 
and  for  consulates,  prisons,  minarets,  wells,  streets. 
markets,  ba/aars,  see  Barclay,  \\lio  gives  a  great  deal 
of  local  information,  such  as  only  a  resident  can. 

The  sewerage  of  Jerusalem  is  only  beginning  to  be 
understood;  and  it  would  appear  that  under  the  Jewish 
kings  great  attention  had  been  paid  to  this.  Sewers 
have  been  discovered  in  various  parts  of  the  city,  large 
and  well  built,  in  some  places  cut  out  of  the  rock,  in 
others  constructed  of  masonry,  and  well  cemented.  Jt 
is  not  in  all  cases  easy  to  say  what  has  been  a  sewer 
and  what  a  water  conduit  (seu  Whitty's  work'.  We  uive 
the  latest  piece  of  intelligence  in  reference  to  the 
conduit  which  was  discovered  in  the  year  Lb4U,  on 
the  south,  not  far  from  the  castle,  but  not  explored 
till  recently.  The  mouth  of  it,  which  is  in  the  incum 
bent's  house,  had  been  covered  for  fear  of  accident  for 
twenty-one  years;  but  by  the  courtesy  of  the  .Rev.  Mr. 
Barclay  it  was  uncovered  for  ]\Ir.  Lewin's  gratifica 
tion.  A  party  of  eight  made  the  descent  of  the  shaft 
by  means  of  a  rope  ladder.  Lighted  by  candles  they 
traced  the  course  of  the  conduit  eastwards,  and  found 
it  about  high  and  wide  enough  to  admit  of  them  pass 
ing  along  in  single  file,  with  a  roof  covered  with  Hat 
stones,  having  openings  in  it  at  intervals,  as  if  for 
buckets.  The  stalactites  formed  by  the  drip  through 
the  limestone  soil  were  soft,  and  crumbled  at  the  touch. 
After  proceeding  some  '200  or  300  feet,  their  progress 


gate,  the  Tyropueon  would  run  south-east,  with  nearly  a  straight 
course,  down  past  the  temple  to  Siloam  ;  but  if  beginning  at  the 
Jaffa  gate,  it  would  require  to  take  a  very  peculiar  bend  at  an 
acute  angle  in  order  to  get  under  the  arch. 

1  The  mention  of  baths  reminds  us  of  what  may  turn  out  to 
lie  a  valuable  discovery.  Two  or  three  years  ago.  Mrs.  Finn,  in 
carrying  on  her  benevolent  work  at  Artass,  came  upon  a  place 
in  the  garden  of  Solomon,  called  Liyet  el  Hummam,  tin-  "  ]  oint 
of  Hummam;"  and  in  digging  came  upon  marble  baths  of  all 
kinds.  It  struck  her  that  this  might  be  Kmmaus,  which  is 
equivalent  to  Hummam.  It  is  precisely  the  scriptural  distance 
of  Emmaus  from  Jerusalem.  It  occurs  to  ask  here.  May  it  not 
merely  be  Emmaus,  but  also  "the  habitation  of  Chim/tam" 
(Greek  yixu.xx.ij.),  which  we  know  must  have  been  near  this? 
(2  Sa.  xix.  37,  38  ;  Je  xli.  17). 


was  blocked  up  by  a  disruption  of  the  soil,  when  they 
faced  about  and  groped  their  way  westward  for  some 
1(50  feet.  The  sides  generally  had  been  cemented;  but 
in  one  place  the  cutting  was  ascertained  to  be  through 
solid  rock.  A  low  and  narrow  passage  brought  them 
to  a  !-har|i  turn  in  the  conduit,  which,  at  a  little  dis 
tance  in  advance,  was  blocked  up  bv  a  wall  built 
across  it. 

12.  Particular  tomb*.—  The  tombs  round  about  Jeru- 
.-alein  are  numerous,  and  need  not  be  further  specified 
than  has  been  done  at  the  outset.  But  there  are  one 
or  two  which  deserve  a  separate  notice — (1.)  The  tomb* 
<>f  the  Klnus—Kubr-Moluk,  quite  to  the  north,  about 
half  a  mile  from  the  modern  Damascus  gate,  near 
the  northern  bend  of  the  Kednm.  as  vou  descend 
from  Scopus;  not  far  from  the  line  of  the  third  wall 
Jewish  Wars,  v.  4,  •_:).  There  is  no  reason  for  doubting 
the  identity  of  Josephus'  "royal  caves"  and  the  pre 
sent  tombs  of  the  kings;  and  the  arguments  by  which 
Kobinson  and  others  have  tried  to  identify  these  latter 
with  the  monuments  of  Helena  arc  very  unsatisfactory. 
Helena  s  monuments  were  evidently  some  structure 
above;  ground  (/ui^/xtta: ;  the  royal  tombs  were  excava 
tions  (cnn'i\aia},  just  as  at  this  dav  :  and  they  are 
mentioned  as  being  at  some  little  distance  the  one 
from  the  other.  Besides  a  foreii/u  queen  would  not 
think  of  excavating  a  sepulchre  of  tti'ent//  ttichm  for 


herself,  whatever  a  nut  in  prince  might  do.  To  set 
aside  the  statement  of  Josephus,  and  the  unbroken 
tradition,  both  native  and  ecclesiastical,  on  the  mere 
ground  of  a  slight  architectural  peculiarity  in  the  con 
struction  of  the  door,  supposed  to  be  alluded  to  in  a 
vague  statement  of  Pausanias,  is  to  admit  a  principle 
which  would  set  afloat  all  authentic  history.  The 
tombs  are  evidently  not  the  royal  tombs  of  the  house  of 
David  (as  1  )e  Satdcy  maintains) ;  but  as  several  kings 
were  buried  in  their  own  gardens,  and  others  in  later 
ages  were  buried  in  different  places,  there  is  no  difficulty 
in  finding  kings  for  the  tenants  of  this  splendid  burying- 
place,  whose  front  alone  (apart  from  the  inner  cells,  all 
hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock)  is  a  noble  and  truly  royal 
relic  of  Jewish  sculpture.  (See  woodcuts  Nos.  146,  147. 
under  Hi  UIAL.)  (2.)  Knbr  Nebi  Duud — the  tomb  of  the 
prophet  David.  To  the  extreme  south  of  the  city,  out 
side  the  walls,  on  the  height  above  the  Birket-es-Sultari. 
There  seems  no  sufficient  reason  for  doubting  the  cor 
rectness  of  the  tradition  and  the  name.  This  is.  like 


•TEK  U.SAL  KM 


JERUSALEM 


the   cave   of   Machpehdi,   a  very    inaccessible   ^brine  OH  See  Stanley's  Appendix  to  his  Sermons  in  the  Kast,  p    l4s-i:,oV 

account  oHts  supposed  sanctity  in  Moslem  eyes.      Hen  Pierotti    describes    it    more    fully,    and    also    narrates 

jamiu    of    Tudela    refers    to   it      vol.  i.  p.  72,  73,  Ashct'sed.)  his    descent    into    the    cave    beneath    (vol.  i.  p.  210,  215). 

harday  describes   it   (p. -.•..s-aii) ;   and   his   daughter,   in  :!.     AV>rW-AWM«— the  tombs  of  the  J\idgW  west  of 

her  little  work  //W,V  ,'„   S,,rm.  relates  her  visit  (p.  1*0.  the  tombs  of  the  kin-s.   and  north- west   .'^    the   eitv 


These  are   probably  the   se]nilchres  of   the    Nasi-lVth- 
l>m.  the  head>  of   the  Sanhedrim:   a  noble  specimen  of 
sepulchral   excavation   'nearly  as  ornate  as  the   tombs 
of    tlie  kings  ,  containing   no   h-.s   than    sixty  niches  or 
shelves  for  the  dead.      The  carving  on    the  oui>ide  and 
the  hewing  in   the  inside  are  oaivfullv  executed  and  in 
admirable  preservation    iv  Sauloy.ii.  I')::-.  \Vi; 
li.  l.'.l;  Sal/maim  has  mveii  us  a  splendid  phot,  graph 
of  the  entrance,  in  his  Jerusalem,  I'.iris,  l-'jii  .      Th'1 
tombs  of  the  prophet  ^  on  the  Mount  of  (  (live- 
and  others  in  the  neighbourhood  vv  e  have 
already   named.      Tiny  are  all   line  speci 
mens  of  that  rock-architecture   which    tin- 
East,   both   for  tombs   and   temples,    seem- 
always    to    have    cieli-hte  1    in.        Unhewn 
rock -tombs     no    doubt    vvv    have,    such    as 
Machpelah:  but  it  was  the   object   of  ambi-  i 

tion  with  kings  and  rich  men  to  hew  out 
costlv  sepulchres  for  themselves  and  their 
children.1  If  they  found  a  natural  cave, 
they  carved  and  adorned  it;  if  thev  did 
not.  they  made  one.  grudging  no  cost.  It 
is  with  this  ambition  that  the  proud 
"treasurer"  or  "favourite"  is  reproached, 
Is.  xxii.  10  -. — 


for  several  year*  past  Jerusalem  has  been  provided 
with  excellent  accommodation  for  travellers.  There  is 
the  Prussian  hospice,  the  Austrian  hospice  not  far 
from  the  Damascus  gate,  tlie  Jewish  hospice  near  the 
end  of  the  I'.ethleheln  road,  erected  a  few  years  ago  bv 
Sir  Moses  Montdioiv;  ;U1,|  tlie  ground  to  the  west  of 
the  eitv  has  1  M!  I  been  lar-vlv  bought  up  bv  Russia 


Wlint  hast  thou  here?  (in  Jerusalem) 

( >r  whom  hast  tlmu  here? 

That  thou  hast  here  hewn  thee  out  a  tomb. 

As  out!  hewing  on  high  his  sepnlehre, 

(.'arving  in  the  rock  a  dwelling  for  himself? 

18.    <'f>nrciitf.   /in.ijtii-cs.   anil   wlifxilf.-  The   convents 

and  hospices  of  Jerusalem  have  always  heen  celebrated;  for   similar  erections.-  each   nation    and   each   church 

They  were   in   former   times   the    only  hotels   for   the  striving  to  make  as  large  an  investment  as  possible  in 

traveller:  and  thev  are  still  so  to  some  extent,  though  Israel's  land.     The  Creeks  and   Latins  have  excellent 


1  "Corpora  condere  quam  erernare,  e  more  .Iv.'yptio."— Tai-i-  regarding  it:— "An  inclosure  of  Hi,  000  square  yards  has  been 

tus,  //;.«(.  v.  5.  '  made,  with  houses  and  four  tanks  completed.  The  Cathedral 

MVhitty  maps  out  this  Russian  establishment  in  his  recent  of  the  Holy  Trinity  is  ready  to  receive  its  cupolas,  and  a  large 

plan  of  Jerusalem.  It  is  on  the  .Tafia  road,  not  far  from  the  house  for  the  mission  nearly  completed,  a  large  hospital  pro- 

Kalat  Jalftd,  and  right  west  of  the  Damascus  gate.  A  Russian  grossing,  and  the  foundations  of  an  extensive  asylum  for  male 

journal,  some  short  time  ago,  gave  the  following  statement  pilgrims  excavated.  In  carrying  out  some  works  belonging  to 


JERUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


schools,  which  educate  sonic  three  or  four  hundred 
children  in  each.  <  If  the  present  thirst  for  education 
among  all  sects  and  classes  in  the  East,  these  churches 
are  availing  themselves;  gathering  roiin<l  them  tlie 
youth  of  Jerusalem,  and  sei/.ing  the  education  of  lv_:A  pt 
and  Syria.  The  governments  of  IJussia,  France,  and 
Austria,  seem  fully  alive  to  the  ini|n >r;anee  of  the  po-i- 
tioii,  contributing  energetic  and  substantial  support 
both  of  money  and  intlueiice  to  such  institutions.  There 
are  also  Protestant  schools  on  a  smaller  scale,  for  mis 
sionary  operations,  sue  "  Jewish  Intelligence;"  and  l>arcla\,  ,'.--ii,.V.U.; 

14.  P<>i>nl«ti<ni.  — The  population  of  Jerusalem. 
three  centuries  before  Christ,  was  reckoned  1:20,000. 
In  the  days  of  Agrippa  it  is  given  a.s  <;ott,ooo.  JUit 
taking  Josephus'  circumference  of  thirty-three  stadia, 
and  the  very  densest  rate  of  population  in  London, 
eleven  square  yards  to  each  individual,  there  could  not 
have  been  much  above  12(10. (K)0  inhabitants  in  ordinary 
times.  Josephus  .-talcs  that  at  passovcr  times  more 
than  2,000,000  have  been  crowded  into  it.  These  are 
exaggerations;  but  it  must  be  considered  that,  living  as, 
they  do.  so  much  xidj  din.  orientals  pack  their  houses 
more  densely  than  westerns  do;  and  when  one  sees  the 
crowds  of  pilgrims  filling  Jerusalem  in  the  months  of 
.March  or  April,  there  will  be  less  incrednlitv  as  to 
some  of  these  numbers  than  has  sometimes  been  indi 
cated.1  The  present  population  has  been  variously 
estimated— from  10,000  to  26. ooo.  Eastern  statistics 
are  uncertain  and  conflicting;  but  after  examining  <lc 
tails,  one  is  disposed  to  reckon  the  population  as  cer 
tainly  not  under  18,000.  I)r.  I '.a relay  is  very  minute 
in  regard  to  the  Christian  sects,  and  his  details  slum 
that  Robinson  greatly  under  -  estimated  them  when 
he  gave  their  number  as  o.jOO.  J'.arclay  shows  them 
to  be  in  all  -lf>18  (p.  r,s>).  His  details  are  worth 
abridging.  "  (V/v  (•/.>•.•-  —  l  patriarch,  1  archimandrite, 
ti  bishops.  l.Vi  priests.  SMI  nuns.  1 00  boys  training  for 
the  priesthood,  T  theological.  :'>  common  schools.  1  ~1 
convents  with  1  2  churches  attached,  1  dispensary;  total 
membership,  22f).  Littiiix:  —  }  patriarch,  100  priests, 
10  nuns,  2  churches,  2  convents,  2  hospitals.  1  alms- 
house,  1  house  of  hospitality,  1  printing  establishment, 
1  theological  seminary.  2  common  schools,  superiors, 
vicars,  procurators,  &<•.;  total  members.  K550.  J  >•//«.- 
niunx: — 1  patriarch,  2  bishops,  ;>2  priests,  10  deacons, 
f>l  subdeacons,  2")  nuns.  1  printing  establishment,  2 
schools,  3  convents  with  churches;  total,  -Ji>4.  ('<>//(*: 
-  -3  priests,  1  convent  with  church;  total,  100.  Greek 
Catholics: — 1  bishop,  2  priests.  ]  nun,  1  convent  and 
church;  total,  20.  ^'i/rit/n  Jaro/ii/i*:—]  bishop.  2  priests, 
1  nun,  1  convent  and  church;  total.  4.  Pnttcxtmi/x:—- 
1  bishop.  2  priests,  ~>  missionaries:  total  membership. 
250." 

The  latest  estimate  of  the  population  is  that  of  Dr. 


tlie  Russian  consulate  within  the  city,  ground  near  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  was  excavated  to  a  depth  ot'.'ifi  feet,  \vlieii  tlie  remains 
of  pillars  and  porticoes  whieh  fonneil  part  of  the  principal 
entraiiee  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre  in  Coiistantine's  time  xvere  conn' 
upon.  The  pasha's  engineer,  Sigiior  Pierotti,  has  done  inueh  to 
enlighten  us  upon  the  subterranean  topography  of  Jerusalem. 
He  has  diseo\ered  that,  built  upon  successive  layers,  so  to  say, 
of  ruins,  the  modern  city  rests  upon  'deeply  bevelled  and  enor 
inous  stones,'  which  he  attributes  to  the  age  of  Solomon;  that 
above  it,  to  tlie  age  of  Xorobabel ;  that  following,  to  Herod's 
rime.  Siiperimpo.-ed  upon  this  tlie  remnants  of  the  city  of  Jus 
tinian  come,  to  be  hidden  in  turn  by  those  from  that  of  the 
Saracens  and  crusaders.  He  traced  a  series  of  conduits  or 
sewers  leading  from  the  '  dome  of  the  rock,' a  mosque  on  the 
site  of  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  in  the  temple,  to  the  Valley  of 


1'ierotti.  who  gives  the  entire  sum  as  2o,:jyi);  sub 
divided  as  follows: — Christian  sects,  5tliiS;  Moslems 
(Arabs  and  Turks),  75;Ai;  Jews,  77o(i.  The  extent  of 
the  present  city  within  the  walls  is  ],0:!2,11S  square 
yards,  or  21 :!',  acres,  g'uing  50^  .square  yards  to  each 
person.  The  number  of  square  yards  within  the  walls 
of  the  city  in  the  days  of  Josephus  was  2,:jl!i,.XjO. 

Jerusalem  is  one  of  the  four  cities  in  Palestine 
where  Jews  dwell;  the  other  three  being  Hebron,  Ti 
berias,  and  Safed.  In  the  day  of  Israel's  splendour 
there  were  said  to  be  4»io  synagogues  in  the  Holy  City  ;* 
now  there  are  but  six  or  seven,  belonging  to  the  three 
sects,  the  S< /i/i 'ti-d  in/  or  Spanish  Jews,  the  Ax/(f>-init~t'jit 
or  European  Jews,  and  the  L'uruitt:*,  a  very  small 
bod}r,  whose  peculiarity  is  their  anti-Talmudism,  or 
adherence  to  the  Scriptures,  without  tradition  or  gloss. 
The  synagogues  are  poor,  but  some  of  them  tolerably 
large. 

Consulates  from  numerous  nations,  far  and  near, 
iia\e  been  established  in  Jerusalem  of  late  years.  l"p 
till  IMo  there  were  only  vice-consuls.  All  the  great 
Centile  nations  are  now  represt  nted  in  the  Holy  City 
Tin-  Jew  alone  has  no  national  defender  of  his  rights, 
lie  crouches  for  protection  beneath  some  (Jen tile  wing. 
On  some  gala-day  may  be  seen  the  flags  of  the  nations. 
Britain,  France,  Austria.  IJussia,  Prussia,  Italy  (for 
merly  Sardinia),  floating  here  and  there,  amid  the 
crescents  that  surmount  mosque  and  minaret.  But 
the  Jew  has  no  banner  here.  Not  suffered  to  enter 
mosque  or  church  (save  the  Protestant),  nor  even  to 
cross  the  outer  threshold  of  his  own  temple,  he  wanders 
about,  poor  and  idle,  with  timid  step,  hollow  cheek, 
and  the  one  dark  ringlet  falling  down  from  under  his 
white  tarboosh,  with  1101:0  save  a  few  Protestants  to 
show  him  favour.  The  Jew  alone  is  a  stranger  in 
Jerusalem. 

Strangers  in  their  own  metropolis:  gates  and  towers 
in  the  keeping  of  the  (i entile;  not  an  inch  of  soil  be 
longing  to  a  Jew  save  that  which  Sir  Moses  Montefiore 
has  purchased  on  the  liethlehem  road;  they  yet  have 
one  peculiar  right  to  Jerusalem,  the  origin  of  \\hich  we 
know  not.  At  the  death  of  each  sultan  they  claim 
tiu-  keys  of  the  city.  As  this  fact  is  not  generally 
known,  and  is  not  a  little  curious,  we  give  the  account 
of  the  matter  from  a  private  letter  to  ourselves,  dated 
Jerusalem,  July  5,  1JS(>1.  ''On  tlie  :>d  of  July  we 
heard  of  the  death  of  the  sultan,  ami  the  accession 
of  his  brother  Ahd-el-Azi/.  who  is  a  great  fanatic 
and  very  much  dreaded  and  disliked  by  all  .Jews.  So 
soon  as  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem  heard  of  the  sultan's 
death  they  went  to  the  pasha  and  demanded  the  keys 
of  the  city:  saying  that  they  had  a  finnan  which  gave 
them  a  right  to  claim  and  keep  the  keys  for  a  few 
hours  at  the  deatli  of  every  sultan.  When  they  get 


.lehoshaphat,  by  means  of  which  the  priests  were  able  to  flush 
the  whole  temple  area  with  water,  and  so  carry  off  the  blood 
and  offal  of  the  sacrifices  to  the  brook  Kedron." 

1  Dr.  liarelay  estimates  these  at  SOCO,  which  is  too  low;  Fuad 
Pasha  at  (!0,OUU,  which  is  too  high.  "The  pilgrims  in  1852. 
Mr.  Finn  writes  to  us,  when  I  made  exact  inquiries  from  the 
convents,  amounted  to  l.ri,000  and  upwards;  but  this  was  an 
unusiialh  full  year,  as  was  also  ISriT.'' 

'-'  The  rabbis  say  that  in  every  town  of  Israel  there  was  a 
school  and  a  sti/imiiu'it'-f:  and  in  Jerusalem  above  400  of  these, 
some  say  4i>u.  Probably  all  the  edifices  which  the  translator  of 
the  Targum  calls  synagogse,  a-des,  concionatorise,  schoUc,  are 
included.  It  is  interesting  to  find  this  point  referred  to  by 
Bishop  Jewel,  in  his  controversy  with  Harding.  Parker's  Sue.  Ed. 
vol.  ii.  p.  (179. 


JEKUSALEM 


JERUSALEM 


them  they  take  a  bottle  of  new  oil  and  go  through  a  I 
ceremony  of  anointing  the  new  sultan   as  their  king,  : 
after  which  the}'  pour  the  oil  back  into  the  bottle,  set  | 
it  away  with  the  law.  ami   leave   it  till  the  judymciit- 
day.    Strict  and  fanatical  as  Surraya  Pasha  is,  he  gave 
them  the  kevs.  whieh  they  carried  to  the  chief  rabbi 
and  kr  pt  for  sunn;  time."      The  origin  of  the  claim  is 
unknown,  and  the  meaning  of  the  oil- ceremony  is  un-  i 
explained,  and  its  details  are   kept   a   profound   secret. 
J'.ut  the  facts  are  too  curious  to  be  left  unnoticed  in  a 
sketch  of  .Jerusalem. 

!.">.  \'litr  Ji'niii  //if  rifi/. — The  view  from  Jerusalem 
is  not  extensive  oil  any  side.  Tin-  farthest  is  that  to 
ward  the  east,  where  in  spite  of  Olivet  and  its  fellow 
heights,  the  yivat  wall  of  the  Moab  mountains  is  visi 
ble;  and  the  many-coloured  yhuv  on  its  wild  peaks  at 
sunset  is  beyond  measure  and  h.-vond  description  yrand. 
To  the  tnnili.  l'>ethleh.-m  is  hidden  by  tin-  ri.-iny  ground 
at  Mar-K!ias,  about  thn •>-  miles  fi-.im.leni-.alem:  the 
undulating  irntfi-rii  h.-i-Jit-  narrow  it  in  tint  direction: 
Scopus  and  tin1  hills  of  i'.eiijamin  yreatly  coiiiine  it  on 
the  it'irt/i.  which  one  notices  the  more,  because  from 
the  more  northern  pails  of  that  ran  ye  Mount  Hermoii 
is  distinctly  visible,  and  but  for  tii'  se  hills  woiilii  be 
seen  from  Jerusalem  itself :  so  far  the  eye  ean  easily 
ivaeh  in  that  dry  clear  air.1 

II'L  L'limatc.-  'i'he  winds  in  Jerusalem,  as  in  l'a!.-s- 
tine  yenerallv,  are  very  variable;  the  rainy  wind  beiny 
-till  th'-  west,  wind.  l.u.  xii.  :.i;  and  the  withi-riny  bla-t. 
the  sirocco  or  south  wind,  l.'i.  \ii.  :.:..  We  remember  a 
sever'1  l>la-t  once  \\hi-n  climbiny  some  of  the  h.-i_ht- 
around  the'  citv.  remindiny  u-  of  more-  northern  hr-exi  s; 
and  Josephus  records  a  strong  and  vehement  storm  of 
wind  whieh  in  the  days  of  Myrcanus  destroyed  the  fruits 
of  the  \\liole  country  Ant  xiv.  2,  2).  l».-ws  and  foys  are 
not  unfrei|neiit:  and  the  air  i<  ot'ti-n  .|nite  Mack  with 
low  clouds.  The  ra'nv  season  i<  between  November  and 
March,  the  earlv  rain  bi-jiniiini;'  in  the  tirs!  ot  the-.- 
months,  the  latter  rain  in  th"  second.  If  is  at  intervals, 
ditriny  this  season,  specially  in  February  or  March, 
that  the  copious  showers  descend,  and  the  K.-dron 
assume-  for  a  few  weeks  the  appearance  of  a  river:  the 
soil  is  saturated,  and  the  sprinys  till  Iftr-Ejlitb.  All 
.leriisalem  then  comes  out  for  a  holiday  to  the  bank-  of 
the  torrent  and  the  slope*  of  Olivet.  The  winter 
months  of  Jerusalem  are  humid  oiioiiyh.  ami  v.-idure 
shows  itself  on  Olivet  or  the  fields  of  l\edr<>n:  but  for 
seven  or  eiyht  months  all  is  aridity.  Yet,  according  to 
r,eardnioi-e's  hydraulic  tables,  the  average  rainfall  ot 
England  is  only  one-half,  and  in  some  parts  one  third. 
that  of  Jerusalem;  the  former  beiny  about  '2  1  inches, 
the  latter  (if).  It  is  not  under  the  want  of  rain  that 
Palestine  groans  (though  it  has  its  dry  seasons),  but  under 
the  want  of  proper  means  for  its  preservation  and  dis 
tribution,  as  in  the  Sinaitic  desert.  Snow  falls  with 

1  \Ve  ni-iy  intice  here  two  dissertations  of  the  last,  century, 
little  known,  but  of  niiu-li  value  in  eastern  topography.  The 
lirst  is  by  D.  C.  I!.  Miehaelis.  and  is  entitled.  !>;.<?•  ,-tnfi,,  Cln,;.f,Y. 
r/,;i.  di  Locorum  Dlff.rrntin  Hutio,,,  Antietr,  i:«tlr<i,  Dt.ctra>, 
X'mistrir.  It  is  to  show  lliat.  in  llelirew  orientation,  the  person 
is  always  suppo-ed  to  l,e  looking  rtiittieard  (not  northward,  as 
with  us);  so  that,  before  =  oast  ;  l».-hind  =r  west;  left  =  north; 
right  =  south  (.-.-e  vol.  v.  of  Pott's  N-///O./.  C'mnnintdtlimt',,!  ri,(»- 
logicarum.  p  s(>-141).  The  seeond  is  l.y  A.  O.  HaHin-arr.-a. 
and  is  entitled,  />-'*>•.  C/n,roci,:  Xvtiwex  Kv,,,erl  it  1,,/cri,  Ecotf.us, 
A:c.  The  olijeet  is  to  show  the  exact  sijfiiifications  of  up  and 
down,  aliove  and  l.eneath,  in  sieved  geography  (see  Co,n,i,>  utn- 
tioneeTheol.  editie  a  .1.  C.  Velthusen.  fee.  vol.  v.  p.  :t'.c  -17-1). 

-  As  to  the  weathev  in  Jerusalem  (and  Palestine  generally). 

Vol..  I. 


some  severity  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city,  though 
it  does  not  lie.  and  the  Mount  of  Olives  is  sometimes 
covered  with  it.  Josephus  mentions  a  snow-storm 
which  blocked  up  the  roads  throughout  the  country  in 
the  days  of  Simon  the  Maecabee  'v.\nt.  xiii.  <;,  o;  see  1  Mac. 
xiii.  22),  but  in  what  month  of  the  year  is  not  said.  Sum 
mer-snow  and  harvest- rain,  Pr.  xxvi.  i,  were  reckoned 
incongruities  if  not  impossibilities.  P>ut  cold  as  the 
weather  may  be.  there  is  no  fire-place  in  Jerusalem; 
stoves  are  confined  to  a  few  "  Franks;"  and  the  natives, 
when  cold,  sit  round  a  clay  crucible  or  furnace,  not 
much  above  a  foot  in  diameter,  where  some  embers  of 
charcoal  which  had  been  used  in  cooking  are  dying 
out.  The  average  temperature  of  the  different  months, 
as  founded  on  the  observations  of  five  years,  was 
lomittiiu;  fraction-. 

Jan.  Apiil  fil  July    7!'  Oet.    71' 

I  eb.   .   :.f  M,i\     7  i  Aug.   7'.'  Nov.  .,  , 

.March    ','<  June   7.'.  Sept.  77"  Dee.    .vf 

P.e    lowe-t    temperature   registered   1>\    Man-lay  was  -JS    in  Jan.; 

the  highest  '.'-'    in  the  shade,  and   14:1    in  the  sun  in  August 

17.  Plant*  and  rfmccr.*.-  There  are  very  few  plants  or 
(lowers  peculiar  to  Jerusalem  and  its  neiyhbourhood. 
as  contract,  d  with  the  rest  of  Palestine.  There  an1 
plants  of  tli.-  bullion--  kind,  all  round  it.  especially  in 
the  vallev  of  Kedron:  also  such  Mowers  as  the  ••com 
mon  cyclamen"  Ci/clanirn  eitrnpcviun),  with  its  droop- 
iny  \\heel-shaiied  corolla:  the  "star  of  ll.-thh-hem" 

( >/-,i/f/iiii/n/ii,i/  a ni^i  /lulu ni''  ;  the  common  anemone, 
which  with  its  crimson  petals  sprinkles  so  beautifully 
til.-  neighbourhood  of  (  iethsemane:  the  wild  mignonette, 
and  a.  few  others:  but  these  are  to  be  found  in  most 
parts  of  the  laud.  Those  whieh  are  more  peculiar 

thouyh  not  exclusively  so)  to  Jerusalem  are  the 
adianthmn.  with  delicate  -teni  and  serrated  leaf;  the 
(tfini-iiiitlni^  Inline,  with  yellow  long  flowers;  the 
Iliifn  i'i,ii,ii  <  I'/ t'/i>ni.  which  is  found  in  mosque  grounds. 

See  Osl.um's  Plants  of  Ihe  Holy  Land;  also  his  Palestine,  Past  and 
Present;  Uo.-hart's  [lievozoic<in;Clnsius,  Hicroboticon;  Suheiichzer's 
1'hysiea  Sacra;  and  Call. -'it's  Scripture  Herbal. 1  <  >f  trees  around 
th«-  city,  olives  are  the  most  common ;  but  terebinths, 
sycamores,  eve.,  are  scattered  here  and  there.  The 
prickly  pear  is  abundant:  an  1  part  of  Mount  Zion 
is  occupied  with  "  yardcns  of  herbs."  in  which  our 
common  lentiles  and  veyetables  flourish,  particularly 
the  caulillo\\er.  which  yrows  to  an  enormous  si/.e  both 
in  the  kiny's  yardens.  and  in  the  cultivated  ]>atches  of 
yround  immediately  under  the  south  and  western  walls, 
beneath  the  shadow  of  the  ruined  arch  which  once 
-pauii.-d  the  Tvropo-on.  Thorny  shrubs  and  plants 
yr..\\  in  considerable'  numbers  all  around;  one  or  two 
we  i-ecoyni/eil  as  natives  of  the  Sinaitic  desert,  yrow- 
in_  there  v.ry  luxuriantly.  Here  also  is  found  the 
mandrake,  Ca.  vii.  31,  or  MHI,I/I-II</I»->I  uti-n/m,  called  by 
the  Arabs  tufach-esh-Sheitan.  Satan's  apple  (oslmni; 
llosenmiiller  on  Genesis;  Hasselqnist,  Itiner.  Terr.  Sancta:;  Mr 

see  Carpenter's  r,ilmt'.ariw,>  Pi'lcstinti;  a  s,.rt  of  almanac.,  which 
ischielly  compiled  from  Uuhle's  Ci'iendarium  Palestine  (Econo- 
micuiii;  also  the  K,,l,  ,,,l(i :-i,n;i  J,'<l<'in>,,,  in  I. amy's  .-/,,/, nmtvs 
li'ililii'Vf,  i.  eh.  .I.  In  several  rabl.iniral  works  these  calendars 
are  to  be  found.  The  oldest,  is  said  to  be  MfiiiUnth  TiMW'Hi. 
the  "Volume  of  Affliction,"  in  which  (as  in  the  records  of  no 
other  nation)  the  anniversaries  of  Jev-i-h  defeats  and  humilia 
tions  and  sorrows  are  recorded.  Of  late  years  the  barometer, 
thermometer,  and  rain-irauge  have  been  in  requisition  by 
many  of  the  Kuropean  residents;  and  the  results  of  observa 
tions  have  been  published  from  time  to  time.  But  there  is  no 
complete  work  upon  this  subject,  giving  the  results  of  recent 
meteorological  observations  during  the  last  twenty  or  thirty 
years. 

114 


JKRUSALKM 


ESHIMON 


Stewart's  Tent  mid  Khan,  p.  .');..">).  The  roses  are  few;  ami 
"  Syria's  land  of  roses"  is  no  longer  what  it  was  in 
this  respect.  Other  flowers  have,  if  not  died  out,  at 
least  become  seantv:  still  thoro  are  enough  to  feed 
''the  wild  bees  of  Palestine-;"  though  one  wonders 
sometimes  how.  with  such  poor  gardens  and  Mich  very 
scanty  verdure  everywhere.  bees  either  wild  or  tame 
can  subsist  her.'  at  all.  Yet  they  do. 

Of  wild  beasts,  the  jackal  and  hvena  prowl  round 
the  Mount  of  Olives;  and  of  birds,  while  the  si>;,rro\\ 
flutters  about  from  wall  to  wall,  and  the  turtle-dove 
utters  its  moan  in  the  olives  of  (  fet.hscmano.  the  </ier- 
eagle  hovers  over  the  hill,  attracted  perhaps  by  the 
otl'al  filing  from  time  to  time  into  the  Ivedron  gullev. 

More  than  once  have  earthquakes  shaken  the  citv: 
in  the  days  of  I'/./.iah,  Am.i.  ]•.  in  the  days  of  our  Lord; 
more  than  once  in  subsequent  ;iLr'-s;  ami  within  our 
own  times  there  was  th"  memorable  earthquake  of 
1  V!S.  so  fully  described  in  the  journals  of  the  mission 
ary  Nicolayson.  Yet  it  is  not  the  earthquake  that 
has  laid  the  city  waste,  but  thr  hand  of  the  spoiler. 

18.  Ei'iilences  «j  interest  fill  in  Jerit.-wleiii  ilnr'ni'i 
t>ust  aries. — Jerusalem  has  been  a  citv  of  wide  interest 
to  the  world.  Its  name,  and  the  name  of  the  nation 
whose  metropolis  it  was,  have  trone  over  many  lands, 
and  have  been  wondered  at,  not  merely  in  Babylon 
and  Nineveh,  but  in  Athens  and  liomc.  by  not  a  few 
to  whom  Judaism  was  a  superstition.  Christianity  a 
fable.  Not  the  hopes  and  faiths  of  the  world  alone 
have  gravitated  towards  it.  but  its  enmities  and  it- 
mockeries  as  well.  Homer  does  not  name  it,  though 
he  speaks  of  Sidon  and  its  war-contingent  at  the  siege 
of  Troy.  Herodotus  I'R  <;.  4SU)  refers  to  Palestine,  but 
does  not  specify  Jerusalem:  the  name  /\m///tis  (i>.  a.  i:V.i; 
h.  iii.  5\  which  some  identify  with  Jerusalem,  being  more 
probably  identical  with  Kadesh-Naphtali  (Mus.  ofCl.  i.;; 
vol.  ii.  p.  93,  9") .'  Lysimachus  (B.C.  -J-iM).  names  it:  an<l 
Manethon  (B.C.  ^<n.  Cicero  (B.C.  70)  speaks  of  it  and 
of  its  capture  by  Pompey  i  I'ro  Flaeco);  and  of  the  Jews 
as  a  nation  ''nata  servituti."  Strabo  o-ives  it  a  place 
in  his  geography,  ami  Diodorus  in  his  history.  Tacitus 
praises  and  sneers.  Other  heathen  writers  both  before 
ami  after  Christ  refer  to  it.  but  very  briefly.  Still 
Jerusalem  was  a  name  which  had  gone  through  hea 
thendom. 

Very  early  after  apostolic  times  it  resumed  the  mag 
netic  power  which  persecution  had  interrupted;  and  in 
the  third  century  Christian  men  from  other  lands  visited 
the  holy  city.  Helena,  mother  of  ( 'onstantine,  comes 
next  (A.D.  :>,-2fir.  and  then  "the  Christian  traveller 
from  Bourdeaux,"  as  Hakluyt  calls  him.  Kusebius 
mentions  generally  the  fact  of  such  pilgrimages  being- 
made  both  in  and  before  his  time  (l)emonstr.  Kvung.  vi.  ]<;: 
vii.  4).  But  Jerome  is  more  minute,  and  mentions  not 
only  Christians  from  linnJ,  but  from  liritnin.  as  flock 
ing  to  Jerusalem  Marcellie  Epitapuiuin).  After  this  we 
have  the  Plaeentine  Itinerary  .which  Dempster,  in  his 
.Votes  to  Accoltiii*  ile  Hello  pro  Christ  i  Fepttli'hrn. 
claims  as  the  work  of  a  Scotchman),  about  ii'di;  the 
French  Arculf  in  697  :  Willibald  from  Kichstadt  in 


1  Dr.  Giles  gives  as  his  reason  for  identifying  it  with  Jeru 
salem,  the  similarity  of  the  modern  name  Kl-Kuds  (Heathen 
Records,  p.  9),  a  singular  <uiacltroniaiii  in  nomenclature;  Meier 
makes  it  Gaza  (Judaicu,  p.  1),  and  in  this  lie  is  followed  by 
Rawlinson  in  his  Hti-odfttin>  (vol.  ii.  p  24(>.  :i90).  We  incline  to 
Kadesh  (Xaphtali),  from  a  consideration  both  of  the  narrative 
of  Herodotus  and  of  the  sacred  writer  (2  Ch.  xxxv.  20). 


7'i^:  Bernhard  the  'Wise  in  870;  Swamis.  son  of  Karl 
(iodwin,  in  .Iti.VJ;  A  lured,  Bishop  of  Worcester,  in 
lU/iS:  Ino-ulphus,  abbot  of  Croiland,  in  K>G4:  with  very 
many  others  in  the-  middle  ages.  who  liave  left  no 
itineraries  to  posterity. 

I  In  Hits  IV  Caumont  travelled  in  Palestine,  and  has  left  a 
work,  which  \\u*  reprinted  a  few  years  ago  in  Paris,  VoyatK 
d'ouUi-emei-  e,,  Jkentsalem.  In  I4M  Felix  fabri  went  on  an 
eastern  pilgrimage,  and  has  left  behind  him  a  work,  which,  with 
all  its  traditionalism,  is  one  of  the  best,  eoniplctest,  and  most 
learned  works  ever  published  on  I'alestine;  ii  lias  recently  been 
printed  in  throe  Svo  vols.  at  Stuttuard.  and  edited  by  11  ussier. 
In  U'.io  Von  Hai-ir  travelled  through  the  Fast,  and  has  given  us 
hi>  narrative,  latch  published  at  ( 'bin,  and  edited  b\  VonGroote, 
l>;<  Pilfifrfulirt  tl,-s  letters  Arnold  von  llnrff.  The  literature  of 
pilgrimages  and  travels  after  this  time  becomes  so  extensive 
that  we  can  only  mention  one  or  two  of  the  chief  works,  which 
will  be  f.mnd  useful  in  studying  the  topography  of  Jerusalem: 
Jalal-Addin's  History  of  the  T<;i,-,<.l<  nf  Jcrusntm;  Itinerariv.ni 
;'•'  ,-:-ti  Smicttf  per  Bartholnmcewn  >i  Salifmiaco,  !•':.'.;  7V.  •  Chroni 
r/.x  o/Ji.fepfi  tin-,  X/Aanli.,  1530;  lieisner's  ./.  ,-,w//<  „-,  (Frankfort), 
l.jii::  a  lolio  of  7(Mi  pages— one  of  the  most  minute  ami  curiou- 
books  on  Jerusalem  ever  published;  liadxivil's  Pcrtgrinatio,  a 
Latin  folio  of  ;inn  [.ages  (Antwerp,  KilM):  Adrichomius'  Theatritm 
'!'•  ,>•'  Sa.iclcr,  IfiSO;  Vlllamont,  Voyager,  IWT ;  Besol.l's  Historia 
•t'.rliis  <t  retnti  Hii-r'ntnlmnitani,  I<;SG:  /•:/  dn-<,t<,  Peniiri.-io.  ]K,rel 
,M.  H.  Pa.lre  !•'.  Antonio  del  Castillo,  1(504,  full  of  plates  and 
maps;  Witsiu-'  Hixtoria  Bierofolynin-.  We  need  not  repeat  the 
titles  of  those  i|uoted  in  the  eourse  of  this  article;  nor  do  more 
than  refer  to  the  names  of  Kortens,  1'lessing.  Williams,  Sehaffter, 
Tobler,  Sehwarx,  /impel,  '/.mi/.,  Stanley.  Thrup]),  \'an  de  Velde, 
Robinson,  Thomson.  Stewart,  Buchanan,  1'eruusson,  Lewin, 
Whitty,  ami  I'ierotti.  j  [H.  B.] 

JESHA'NAH   [n.-^,    old}.      A   city  of  Eenjamin, 

T  T  : 

and  therefore  claimed  as  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Jndah. 
It  was  evidently  a  place  of  some  importance;  both 
from  the  mention  of  its  dependent  towns  or  villages, 
and  from  the  fact  that  its  capture  bv  Abijah  is 
recorded  as  one  of  the  fruits  of  his  remarkable  victory 
over  Jeroboam,  which  enabled  him  to  recover  his  pro 
per  frontier.  2('h.  xiii.  in.  Its  juxtaposition  with  Bethel 
and  Kphraim  tor  Ophrahl  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  its 
identity  with  the  'A  in  Slti'ta  of  modern  Palestine,  de 
scribed  by  Dr.  Robinson  as  a  well-watered  village, 
surrounded  by  vineyards,  fruit-trees,  and  gardens  (Bib 
lies.  iii.  SM).  Its  position,  about  throe  miles  north  of 
Beit'm,  near  the  main  route  between  Jerusalem  and 
Shecliem,  explains  its  importance  to  Abijah.  inasmuch 
as  it  commanded  the  principal  approach  to  his  capital. 
The  name  has  undergone  little  alteration,  beyond  the 
usual  omission  of  the  initial  i/o</  (as  Jericho,  now  JxihaK 
and  the  still  more  common  change  of  final  all  to  a  (as 
Hou-lah.  now  Hajla).  [E.  w.] 

JESH'IMON  |y^"»on,  tl,f  dwrt  or  ti;,*ff].     This 

word,  derived  from  a  root  signifying  "to  be  desolate," 
is  a  much  stronger  one  than  -\£1C  (niidl>i'h\  "wilder 
ness"),  and  always  comes  after  it  in  a  poetical  paral 
lelism.  Do.  xxxii.  10;  Fs.  Ixxviii  4i>:  cvi.  14:  cvii.  4;  Is.  xliii.  10,  2u). 

It,  in  fact,  answers  completely  to  our  idea  of  a  desert  ; 
whereas  mi/Hn'tr  is  more  analogous  to  our  common. 
With  the  article  prefixed,  it  is  distinctively  applied  to 
the  desolate  region  which  skirts  the  north  and  north 
west  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea,  between  the  mouth  of  the 
Jordan  (near  to  which  Beth-jeshimoth  appears  to  have 
been  situated)  and  the  neighbourhood  of  'Aiii  .Tidy 
(Engedi).  This  is  described  by  Dr.  Robinson  as  ''a 
horrible  desert,"  consisting  partly  of  "cliflfsof  chalky  fria 
ble  limestone,  without  a  trace  of  herbage,"  and  partly  of 
"  a  dead  level,  covered  with  a  thin  smooth  nitrous 
crust,  through  which  the  feet  of  men  and  horses  broke 
and  sank,  as  in  ashes,  up  to  the  ankles.  All  traces  of 


JESH1MOX  9 

vegetation  ceased,  except  occasionally  a  lone  sprig  of  the 
/nibcibch  or  alkaline  plant.  The  tract  continued  of  this 
character,  with  a  few  gentle  swells,  until  we  reached 
the  banks  of  the  .Ionian"'  i nib.  Res.  ii.  L'U,  lii-n.  That 
these  were  the  limits  of  the  Jeshimon,  strictly  so  called, 
would  appear,  il.)  From  Nu.  xxi.  ^ii;  xxiii.  28,  which 
represent  it  as  opposite  Pisgah  and  Poor,  both  of  which 
must  have  been  at,  or  near  the  northern  end  of  the 
I  >ead  Sea.  cJ.t  From  1  Sa.  xxiii.  l!.i.  which  speaks  of 
"the  hill  of  Hae-hihh."  in  the  wilderness  of  7.\[A\  or 
Maon.  as  ••  »niitli  of  .leshiinon:"  thus  explaining  the 
more  general  term  "before"  or  "  opposite  Jeshimon," 
u»ed  in  1  Sa.  xxvi.  !.  :;.  i:>.)  From  1  Sa.  xxiii.  '24, 
where  reference  is  made  to  "the  plain  \/ni-'iir<it/i!/i\  on 
the  fini'Ji  of  Jeshimon:"  \\hie-h  shows  that  the  name 
ceases  to  apply  to  the  nior,ntains  wlien  they  beidn  to 
receile  from  the  shore,  and  leave  a  space  of  level  ground 
far  down  at  their  foot.  (4.)  From  the  statement  of 
Fnsebius.  wlio  jilaces  Je-himon  ten  miles  .-onth  of 
.lericho  near  tlie  |)i-ad  Sea.  'I  hi-  a_..iin  limits  it  to 
aliout  the  latitude  of  Kngi-eli.  'I'he  remainder  of  this 
\\ilddistrict.  from  Fn_;edi  southwanls.  be-in_r  more  or 
less  adapted  to  pastoral  purposes,  was  known  as  "the 
wilderness  (w<W/«?n  of  Judi  :  ,vith  its  local 

subdivisions,  taken  troin  the  neighbouring  touiis  oi 
.Maon.  Engedi.  Xiph.  Tekoa,  Bethlehem,  fcc. 

.Any  notice  of  Je-hime>n  \\oM:d  he-  ii. 
oiil  .-]ieeial  allu.-ion  to  a  spot  \\hi.-li.  a 
materially  a--i-t-  in  fixing  its  localitv. 
pineal  references  t<>  the  ••  Hill  ,,f  Haehiiah 
so  remarkably  that  combination  of  fulness 
sioii  which  distinguishes  the  sacred  writers  above  all 
others,  that  thev  demand  more  than  a  passing  tribute. 
'I'he  .-ix  points  incidi  ntallv  broiiLi'lit  out  m  the  course  oi 
the  narrative  conclusively  demonstrate-  the  aecuraev  of 
(  'almet's  happy  conjecture,  that  it  ivprese'iits  the  roekv 
fastiie:-.-  mow  called  Sebbehi  \\hich  \\.-is  the  scene  of 

the  la-t  act  in  th'-  hi ly  drama    of    the   .le-uish  \\ar   of 

independence.  (1.)  The  word  ••  .-tronuhoids"  (tiutfii- 
i/n/li],  i  s-i  \.\iii  i!',  is  simplv  the  plural  form  of  the  \e  TV 
name  (Masadal  by  which  it  is  de-iu-nat.  d  in  tin  pa-es 
of  .losephus.  I'J.i  The  term  rendered  "  wood"  o7/>'/y .<// 1 
in  the  same  verse,  i.-  not  the  one  generally  used  to  ex 
press  what  \\  e  understand  bv  a  wood  or  forest  (<i<xir). 
1  nit  import.-  ''a  dense  and  intricate  th  ;<•!.•< /,"  the  identi 
cal  word  \\hich  cverv  traveller  aloii:^  the  shores!  of  the 
Dead  Sea  instinctive!}  employs  to  de.-cribe  the  luxu 
riant  vegetation  of  the  deltas  formed  by  the  impetuous 
winter- torrents,  and  \\hicli  h.-.s  <_i\en  it-  name  to  a 
ravine  closely  adjoining  Masada  (\\  adv  Seiv.il.  "  Valle-v 
of  Acacias").  It  is  only  used  once  more  in  the  histori 
cal  liooks.  \\7..  1  Cli.  xxvii.  1,  where  ibein'_r  plural)  it  is 
erroneously  translated  ''forests  Tlie  present  passage 
enables  us  to  locate  .lotham's  "castles  and  towers'" 
in  the  principal  oases  of  the  Jtldtean  (ihor.  and  thus  an 
unexpected  light  is  tin-own  on  the  numerous  traces  of 
piv-IJoman  fortifications  which  are  still  found  at  .Ain 
Fi  shkhah.  'Ain  .lidy,  \\"ady  Muhnghik.  tVc..  C'..)  The 
original  for  "hill"  (r/iltiT/i  i  denotes  just  such  an  isolated 
eminence  as  Masada:  not  with  a  pointed  nor  yet  a 
rounded  summit — for  each  of  which  the  Hebrew  lias  its 
appropriate  term— but  a  truncated  cone  or  pyramid, 
with  a  level  summit  of  sufficient  area  to  aflbrd  a  site 
for  a  town  or  fortress.  (4.)  The  appellative  "  Jlachi- 
lah"'  signifies  a  "  dark  red  colour,"  as  of  wine  or  blood 
(.compare  Uc.  xiix.  12,  'Murker  than  wine,"  with  Ui.  iv.  7;  and  sue 
I'r.  xxiii.  2:0.  \Voleott.  the  lirst  explorer  of  Sebbeh.  was 


''  JESHTA 

struck  with  it-  ' '  ricli  reddish-brown  colour"  (Bib.  Cab. 
\liii.30M:  anel  Lieut.  Lyiie-h  says.  "There  was  that  pecu 
liar  purple  line  eif  its  weather-worn  rock,  u  tint  so  like 
that  of  cva'julatal  lihxnl,  that  it  tWeed  the  mind  back 

'  u]ion   its  early   history,  and   summoned  images  of  the 

:  fearful  immolation  of  Eleazar  and  the  1107  Siearii,  the 
blood  of  whose  self- slaughter  seemed  to  have  tinged  the 

!  indestructible  cliff  fe>r  ever"  y.\\>.  u>  the  Dead  sea,  p.  jua). 

j  ',.">.)  We  have  -dreaeiy  refe-rreel  to  "  the  ///«///  on  the 
south  of  Jeshiniein."  1  SL  xxiii. -J!.  The  Hcbn-w  Cara/iM), 

\  when  preceele-el,  as   here-,  by   the   article',    is   exclusively 

'  applied  to  the  ilepresseil  vaile  v  of  tile  Jordan  anel  its 
lakes;  there  is  the  strictest  propriety.  therefore,  in  cm- 
pleiying  it  here  to  describe  the  strip  of  land  at  the  base 
of  the  mountains,  which,  beginning  at  Kiiu'cdi,  expands 
at  >ebhe-h  inte>  a  plain  "of  more  than  two  miles  in 

;  wielth"  (l.uedit.  to.)  l)avid,  v.  ho  had  here  taken  re- 
fuge.  at  Saul's  appivach  "  \\ent  elown  the  eliti'"  (.-TfV/< } 
into  the-  wiliieriK-s  of  .Maon:  by  which  is  most  vixiilly 
depicted  the  perilous  f<  at  involve  el  in  threading  the  two 
path.-  \\hich  alone  tJosephus  tells  us)  le<l  up  anel  down 
its  pivcipiteiiis  sides  I:., I  \;i .-,:'.  Lynch  observes,  "It 
is  a  pt)'jn-ini!cit/ar  r/iji',  i'joo  to  l.'.oii  fee-t  high,  with 
,i  de-ep  ravine  I>IV,;K  UIL:  ile>wn  e>u  each  side,  so  as  te> 
lea\e  it  isolateel."  In  such  a  spot.  Ihivid  was  secure 
against  a  sudden  attack:  but  \\In-n  oiu-e  surrounded 
by  such  a  tore-e  as  Saul  had  at  his  command,  escape 
weiiilel  have-  'he-en  impossible.  |K.  \\ .  | 

JESH  UA.       A     Hebrew  cepiiti-actioii    for  .1  i  iioSlU'A. 

I 1  occurs  only  ill   tin-   later  books  of  Scripiuic:   in   the 
e-arlie-r  Joshua  is  used.      (if    the-    se:ii  of   Nun   it  occurs, 
once,    N'c.  viii.  17  ;  and    not    unfre-e (Uelitly   of   others,    1  C'h. 

ii:  -je  1:  xxxi.  I"';  l-:/i'  ii.  -i»;  iii.'J.eScc  The  only  person  of 
note,  jn  iai'T  limes,  be-arinu'  tin-  name.  \\  as  the  se>n  of 
Jozadak.  s-  "/«/<  /•  JOSHTA.) 

JESH'UA.      We  iind  a  city  of  this  name  mentioned 

III  the  el, M!n.  e-atioii  of    |ilaei'S    oeeil]iie-d     by  the  children 
of  Judah.  e.n  t  in-ir  re-!  I'm  from   i'ahvloii,  No  xi   liei.     'I  he- 
list    i.-    not    elrawn    up    topographically    \*<r    K.\li7,i:i:i.), 
so  that  no  clue  is  thereby  aHordcd  tep  its  actual  position. 

!   All  thai  we  can  infer  from  it  is.  that  it  was  situated  in 
tin-    te-rritorv    of    Jiid.di.    not    F'.eii  jamin.      Its  absence 
from  the  catalogue  of  Juela-an   cities  in  Jos.  xv.  would 
;  leael  to  the   sup[iosition  that   it   was   not   an   aboriginal 
si-ttle-me-nt.    but    was    toiiiielcd    by    the    Israelites   them- 
selves;  and  the  meaning  of  the-  word  o-ither  "  deliver- 
I  ance"  or  "Joshua,"  of  which  it  is  a  late)'  form.   No.  \iii.  17) 
im])lies  a  dcsiirn   to  comme morale-  some  extraordinary 
interposition  of  (he  J)i\ine  I'.i  in-:  on  their  be-half.     The 
I  most   remarkable    event  of  this  nature  (which  has  the 
i  aelditional    merit    of    satisfying    both    significations  of 
I  Joshua)    was    the   battle-    of   the  five-  kings  at    (.ibeon. 
when,  in  aiisWe-r  to  the-   prave  r  of  Joshua,  the  daylight 
was  supernaturally  prolonged,   "anil  it  came  to  pass  as 
th'-v  tle-d  be-fore,'  Israel,  that    the   Lo'el  cast  down  great 
!  stones  from  heaven  upon  them  unto  Azekah,"'  Jos.  x.  n. 
i  Neiw  it  is  interesting  to  note-  that,   midway  between 
the  lower  Bi-th-he.ron    (Jieit-'nr  et-tahta)   and  Shochoh 
(Shuweike-h).   which  was  certainly  near  Azekah — and 
thus   in    the-   very  line    of   retreat,  nay,  perhaps  on   the 
verv  spot  where  .Joshua's  memorable   words   were   ut 
tered —  stands    at  this   moment   a  lange  village   called 
Veshu'a,  "  with  well-tilled   fields  anel  many  fruit-trees 
around   it"    (Robinson's  Luter  Bib  lies  j. .  i.v,).      The   name 
1  has  undergone  ne>  change,  and  may  well  be  supposed  to 
;  signalize  a  day  which  is  thus  emphatically  characterized 
I  bv  the  inspired  writer-  -'' And  there  was  no  day  like 


.IKS  111' RUN 


JKZKUKL 


tli;it,  before  it  or  after  it,  that  the  Lord  hearkened  unto 
the  voice  of  ;i  111:111:  fi.r  the  Lord  fought  for  Israel," 
Jus.  x.  11.  [  !•;.  \v.  | 

JESHU'RUN  [dimiu.  ,,f  ,i,^h(u;  ^>-i;,h/\,  applied 
poetically  on  some  occasions  to  Israel,  DC.  xxxii.  !.,;  xx.xiii. 
:•,  L'li ;  Is.  xliv.  2.  Some  have  thought  it  !l  dilnill.  of  Israel, 

and  Gesenius  took  th.-it  view  at  our  time,  'out  latterh 
abandoned  it  for  the  other,  and  undoubtedly  correct  one 

according  to  which  it  is  as  much  as  nctx/iix,  jtixtuliix, 
tlie  deal',  good  people.  The  ancient  translators  took 
this  view  of  it,  and  render,  Sept.  r/yairri/j.ti'os,  VU!L:'. 
rtcftpx/iiiux,  dtlectlis.  By  such  a  designation  the  Lord 
reminded  Israel  at  once  of  what  should  form  their 
peculiar  character,  and  of  what,  if  possessed,  would 
make  them  peculiarly  dear  to  himself. 

JESSE  [lleb.  lrisha;,w,  mauln\,  the  son  of  obed, 
of  the  tribe  of  .ludah.  and  the  father  of  David  conse 
quently,  the  immediate  progenitor  of  the  kiii'/s  of 
Judah.  It  is  singular  that  while  so  distinguished 
in  his  posterity,  his  name  never  appears  auaiii.  The 
line  to  which  Jesse  belonged  was  descended  from 
1'harez,  through  He/.ron  his  eldest  son:  and  being  him 
self  the  grandson  of  i  loa/.,  who  was  one  of  the  wealthi 
est  persons  in  the  south  of  Judah,  the  family  mi^ht  lie 
regarded  as  occupying  a  respectable  place  amid  a  rural 
population.  I'.ctbleliem  was  the  home  of  Jesse,  as 
formerly  of  Boaz;  and  he  is  hence  called  "Jesse  the 
Bethlemite,"  ISa.xvtl;  once,  the  Kphrathite  of  I'.^th- 
lehem- Judah,  isu.  xvii.  12.  Nothing  is  heard  of  him  till 
the  memorable  period  when  Samuel  was  instructed  to 
go  and  anoint  one  of  his  sons  to  be  king  over  Israel  in  the 
room  of  Saul;  and  he  is  then  spoken  of  as  an  old  man, 
having  no  fewer  than  eight  sons,  most  of  them  in  full 
manhood.  The  name  of  his  wife  is  never  mentioned: 
but  that  she  lived  to  a  considerable  age  appears  from 
the  notice  in  1  Sa.  xxii.  '•'>,  which  mentions  the  provision 
made  by  David  for  the  safety  of  his  father  and  mother, 
by  placing  them  under  the  protection  of  the  king  of 
Moab.  \\"e  never  hear  of  them  again:  and  the  tradi 
tion  among  the  Jews  was,  that  the  king  of  Moab  be 
trayed  his  trust,  and  put  them  and  some  of  the  other 
members  of  the  family  to  death.  Of  this,  however, 
there  is  no  intimation  in  Scripture.  The  grand  honour 
and  distinction  of  the  family  was  that  it  gave  birth  to 
David,  who  rose  to  be  the  most  gifted  member  and 
the  noblest  representative  of  the  old  covenant. 

JESUS,  in  the  New  Testament  the  corresponding 
term  to  Joshua  in  the  Old;  but  with  only  two  exceptions 
it  is  there  used  only  of  our  Lord.  The  chief  exception 
is  in  Heb.  iv.  8.  where  the  English  Bible  retains  Jesus 
for  the  usual  Joshua;  but  in  Col.  iv.  11,  mention  is 
also  made  of  a  Jesus  called  Justus.  In  the  Apocrypha 
Jesus  is  often  employed.  (Sec  CIIHIST  JESUS.) 

JE'THER  [abundance,  excellence].  It  appears  to  be 
much  the  same  as  Jethro:  and  in  one  of  the  first  pas 
sages  in  which  the  father-in-law  of  Moses  is  named. 
Jether  is  the  word  employed  in  the  Hebrew,  and  this 
is  given  in  the  margin  of  the  English  Bible.  I  Jut  as 
his  common  name  was  Jethro,  notice  will  be  taken  of 
him  under  that  form  of  the  name. 

1.  JKTHKK.  The  first-born  of  Gideon's  sons,  who  is 
only  noticed  in  connection  with  Zebah  and  Zalmunna. 
whom  his  father  commanded  him  to  put  to  death;  but 
in  the  modesty  of  comparative  youth  he  shrunk  from 
the  task,  Ju.  viii.  20.  He  perished  with  nearly  all  the  rest 
of  his  father's  family  by  the  cruel  hand  of  Abimelech. 


2.  JKTHKI;,  the  father  of  Amasa,  as  given  in  ]  (.'h. 
ii.  17:  but  the  more  common  f/jrm  of  the  name  was 
ITU  HA  (which  see).  3.  J  KTHKK,  a  son  of  K/.ra,  uh.h. 
17;  occurring,  however,  somewhat  strangely  in  the 
midst  of  a  genealogical  table  belonging  to  Judah.  4. 
JKI'HKI;,  a  son  of  Jada,  of  the  family  of  Hezron,  who 
died  childless,  i  ch.  ii.  :)_•.  5.  JlCTHEK.  a  chief  in  the  line 
of  A. -her.  1  Ch.  vii.38. 

JETHRO,  the  same  as  JKTHKK:  the  name  of  the 
father-in-law  of  Moses,  Kx.  iv.i^  \viii.  i,  who  is  also 
'called  Holm;,  Nu.  x.  31;  Ju.  iv.  n.  In  the  first  notice  of 
the  family,  Rcuel  or  Ragucl  (for  these  are  properly 
but  one  name'.  i>  said  to  have  been  the  head  of  it. 
whose  daughter  Moses  married,  Ex.  ii.  is.  But  \>\  j'/il/n  r 
there  appears  to  be  meant  ijiaiidfallifr.  as  in  ,\u.  x. 
•j'.t,  Hobab  is  expresslv  called  hir-  son.  (See  RAGUKL.) 
With  this  also  accord  Jewish  and  Mohamedan  tradi 
tions. 

JEW,  contraction  for  JKIIUUT,  or  tln^t  «f  Judah; 
the  Greek  is  'lovdaios.  It  occurs  first  in  '2  Ki.  xvi.  (!. 
where  the  king  of  Syria  is  spoken  of  as  driving  the 
Jeltudim,  Jews,  from  Elath.  In  Jeremiah  wo  fre 
quent!  v  meet  with  it:  and,  from  the  time  of  the 
IJabylonish  captivity,  as  the  members  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah  formed  by  far  the  larger  portion  of  the  remnant 
of  the  covenant -people,  Jew  became  the  common 
appellation  of  the  whole  body,  and  as  such  is  found 
both  in  the  New  Testament  and  among  classical  writers. 
!n  the  p'Spe!  of  John  the  term  occurs  much  more  fre 
quently  than  in  the  other  gospels:  while  in  these 
scribes  and  pharisees  form  the  usual  designation  of 
our  Lord's  opponents,  in  his  gospel  it  is  Jews:  for  bv 
the  time  he  wrote,  the  Jews  as  a  people  had  taken  up 
an  attitude  of  determined  antagonism  to  the  cause  of 
Jesus;  and  in  the  earlier  opposition  of  the  scribes  and 
pharisees  the  apostle  saw  the  spirit  of  the  people  gene 
rally  reflected. 

JEWRY,  the  land  of  Judea,  strictly  so  called;  that 
is,  the  territory  lying  around  Jerusalem,  or  the  southern 
portions  of  Palestine.  It  is  only  twice  so  used,  Lu. 
xxiii.  5;  Jn.  vii.  i,  and  in  each  case  with  a  marked  distinc 
tion  between  that  part  of  the  country  and  the  reui»ns. 
such  as  Galilee,  which  stood  le.-s  closely  connected 
with  the  capital.  (Sic  JUDAH,  LAND  OF.) 

JEZ'EBEL  [probably,  free  from  carnal  /Wmw/or. 
chaste'],  in  the  Greek  lezabel — the  daughter  of  Eth- 
baal  king  of  the  Zidoniaiis,  and  wife  of  Ahab  king  of 
Israel.  Her  father  had  proved  himself  to  lie  a  person 
of  much  mental  vigour  and  capacity  for  rule — having, 
after  a  period  of  anarchy  and  disorder,  succeeded  in 
making  himself  master  of  Tyre,  which  again  attained 
under  him  to  a  settled  and  prosperous  condition:  and 
his  daughter  inherited  not  a  little  of  his  energetic 
spirit  and  resolute  character.  Unfortunately  it  was 
all  turned  in  a  wrong  direction.  Not  only  was  Jeze 
bel  a  heathen,  and  as  such  given  to  the  worship  of 
idols,  but  she  was  a  devoted  worshipper  of  Baal  and 
Astarte  or  Ashtoreth,  the  Syrian  deities  whose  service 
was  in  a  peculiar  manner  offensive  to  the  mind  of 
Jehovah;  and  she  came  to  Israel  apparently  with  the 
determination  of  supplanting  his  worship  by  theirs. 
Ahab's  alliance  with  her  consequently  proved  a  most 
disastrous  step,  both  for  his  own  and  his  people's  wel 
fare.  That  lie  entered  into  the  alliance  with  his  eyes 
open  to  the  religious  change  it  was  likely  to  draw  after 
it,  seems  plain  from  the  statement  made  concerning  it. 
"It  came  to  pass,  as  if  it  had  been  a  light  thing  for 


JEZEBEL  .TEZREEL 

him  to  walk  in  the  sins  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat.  part  of  her  life,  when   she   found  she  could  accomplish 

that  he  took   to  wife  Jezebel,  the  daughter  of    Ethbaal  less  by  open  acts  of  violence.      The  same  also  is  implied 

king  of  the  Zidonians,  and  went  and   served  llaal,  and  in  the  symbolic  use  that  is  made  of  the  name  of  Jezebel 

worshipped  him,"  i  Ki.  xvi.  ,n.     1'resently  the  worship  of  in  Rev.  ii.  '_'o,  where  a  party  in  the  church  of  Thyatira, 

Ashtoreth   followed;   and    the  king  of    Israel   and   his  which  stood  much  in  the  same  relation  to  the  governing 

house  went   formal! v  over   to  the  service  of   false   LTods.  power,  that  Jezebel   had  done  to  Ahab  ("sutlerest   tluj 

Then    came    the    fearful    struggle    between    truth    and  »'<Ji    Jezebel."    so    the    correct    reading   is.    not    "that 

error— the  faithful  remnant  of   Jehovah's  worshippers  ,  woman  Je/.ebel."  as  in  the    Eng.  llil.le),  is  accused  of 

and  the  zealots  of  the  new  faith  -—in  which  Elijah  acted  allowing    the    party    in   question,    under  a   pretence   of 

the  leading   part   on   the   one  sid_-.  and   Jezebel   on   the  prophetical  gifts,  to  teach   and   seduce  the  members  of 

other.      Viewed   in   a  worldly   respect   the  contest   was  the    church    to    commit    fornication    and   to   eat   things 

altogether  unequal:    for  with  her  there  were  all  the  ex-  sacrificed  to  idols— that  is.  to  prove  unfaithful  to  Christ 

ternal  resources  of   the  kingdom,  and   these.-  wielded  by  by  entering  into  improper  compliance.-  \vitli   the  world, 

an  imperious  temper  and  a  mind  that  could  bring  to  its  No  pretensions,  no  arts  of  .-uch  a  kind  should  have  been 

aid  whatever  deceit,    malice,    or  revenue  might   be  re-  listened  to  for  a  moment,  by  those  who  had  the  charge 

quired  to  accomplish  its  end-:   while  her  adversary  was  of  maintaining  order  in  the  house  of  God,  when  the  object 

a  poor  unfriended  man,  strong  only  in  the  name  and  toward  which  they  were  directed  was  so  plainly  contrary 

faith  of  Jehovah.      No  wonder   that  she  thought  -he  to  the  mind  of  Clmst;  and  to  do  so  was  virtually  to  repeat 

could  easilv  stand  her  ground   against  such  an  opp.m-  over  again  the  guilt  and  folly  of  Ahab,  who  gave  himself 

cut.       Hut    the    iv-u!t    provt'l    otherwise.      At    Elijah's  a  tool,  when  he   should   have   done   the  part   of  a  linn 

word    the   land    was   smitten    with    a   irrievou-    dearth,  reprover  and  a  righteous   judge.       Hut   it   liy  no   means 

while  he  was  himself  wrapt   in   secresy,  and  could  no-  follows  from  the  designation   of  the  offending  party  as 

where   be    found.      Then,    at   .Mount   Carim.  1.    after   the  the   angel's    wife,  that    the   an-el    was    a    single  person, 

decisive  trial  bv  tire,  all  llaal's   followers  were   slain  at  and   that  the    seducer    was   actually   his   spouse.      This 

the  word   of   tliis   same  prophet,   ami   in   the  very  pre-  were  to  confound  symbol  and  reality.   One  might  as  well 

sence  of    Ahab,  the    Ini.-band  and   tool  of    Je/.ebel.      So  maintain   tliat  Ji-zcb.  1    al.-o   was   to    betaken   literally, 

far  from  bein-\  like  him.  humble, I  and  awed   b\-  such  a  and  that  by  implication  (he  .-eat  of  authority  was  filled 

catastrophe,  Jezebel  was  onl\  roused   to  fresh  indi-na-  by  an  Ahab.   The  proper  and  only  warrantable  inference 

tion  and  fury,  and  vowed  liy  her   -oil-  to  have  Elijah's  i-     as    in   the   case   of    I'.abylon   and    Euphrates,  which 

life    taken    before   another  day    i,..d    elapsed.    1  Ki.  xix.  L';  see  .  that  in  the  church  of  Thyatira  there  were   parties 

but  au'ain,  bv  hi.-  tli-ht  to  II, .r-  b,  he  eluded  her  grasp,  standm--  to  each  other  in   similar  relations  to  those  of 

She  next  reappears  as  the  instigator  of  Ahab  in  regard  Jezebel  and  Ahab,  and  in  spirit  enacting  the  old  iniqui- 

to   the   seizure  of    Naboth'-  \  im-vard    in    Samaria:    and  ties  o\vr  avaim 

was  herself    the    plotter    of    the    stratagem    by    which  JEZ'REEL,  CITY  OF  [Heb.  v^-^,,  (,W /<««  SOM-H; 

Nabotirs  life  was  sacrificed,  and  his  possession  forfeited  .                                                    .        ,,        ',"'            ,.  .  , 

riii                                      •  lu   ;>  I'1-    I'.s/<u<.V  in  Joscphus    u<rpaijXa,  or    Ifapa,  in 

to  the  crown.      the  dreaunilrcliuke  aim  threatening  of  ,,,    „     ,         .     ,, 

,.    ,    .,,..   ,                         ,,       .,     ,  J  udlth,  di.  i.  b  ami  iv.  <;,   LffopijXuH' or    hcrO/i?/,\w/.(,  ill  Euse- 
future  vengeance  which  Eli jah  announced  to  Ahab  when 

meeting  him  on  the  fatal -pot.  ,  K,  xxi.  ,„-,,.  and  in  which  l""^'-»'1  •'• '•"">"  EaSpe^Xa,  and  in  Latin  l/nuMa\,  a 
Jezebel  also  was  included,  probably  had  some  effect  in  cit?  '"'  Lower  Oalilee,  clearly  identified  by  l»r.  Robin- 
softening  her  mind  for  a  time,  as  it  certainly  had  with  S(">  wilh  tht'  ""Hl«n  village  of  Zerm,  which  lies  at  the 
Ahab:  and  the  death  of  Ahab.  bringing  a  partial  fulfil-  1):we  "'  <;ilboa.  ten  miles  south  by  east  of  Nazareth. 
ment  of  the  word,  which  followed  at  no  great  distance,  'I''"'  true  site  was  known  to  the  crusaders,  but  has 
might  tend  still  further  to  subdue  her  spirit.  The  etti-  since  been  lost  sight  of  and  confused  with  Jeiiin, 
cient  power  was  at  all  events  gone  from  her;  and  though  the  ancient  En-annim.  Jerome  and  Eusebius  rightly 
Elijah  tor  vears  afterwards  continued  to  prosecute  his  place  it  between  Ee-i"  and  Scytlmpolis. 
peaceful  mi.—ion  within  the  bound- of  Fsrael,  attended  .1, /.reel  is  first  mentioned  as  belonging  to  Issachar, 
by  Elisha  and  the  son- of  the  prophet-,  in.  fiv-h  attempts  Jos.  xix.  is  It  was  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Jshbosheth, 
on  the  part  of  Je/.ebel  and  h  r  accomplices  appear  to  though  the  fact  of  the  name  occurring  in  a  list,  not  of 
have  been  made  on  hi-  life.  Yet.  while  she  ceased  to  towns,  but  of  tracts  of  country,  renders  it  probable  that 
act.  as  -he  had  done,  the  part  of  a  persecutor,  she  the  plain,  iml  the  town  of  Jezreel,  is  intended,  2  Sa.  ii.  9. 
persisted  not  the  less  in  lie]- idolatrous  and  seductive  But  its  chief  importance  arises  from  its  having  been  the 
courses;  and  when  the  final  hour  of  retribution  came  to  royal  residence  during  the  reigns  of  Ahab,  Ahaziah, 
the  house  of  Ahab  by  the  hand  of  Jehu,  the  stroke  fell  and  Jehoram.  i  Ki.  xviii.  10;  'J  Ki.  ix.  15,  thoii-h  Samaria 
with  peculiar  mark.-  of  horror  and  severity  on  Je/.ebel,  seems  still  to  have  been  the  capital  of  the  country,  l  Ki. 
as  being  still  fullv  set  on  her  whoredoms  and  witch-  xvi.  1 ;  xxii.  m;  xxxviii.  51 ;  2Ki.  x.  1, 17.  The  royal  palace 
crafts,  •_•  Ki.  ix.  L%  :;•_'- :s7.  The  previous  warnings  and  seems  to  have  been  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  city, 
judgments  had  utterly  failed  to  wean  her  from  the  looking  down  the  valley  towards  the  Jordan,  and  pro- 
worship  of  her  Syrian  idols,  and  the  foul  abominations  bably  contained  the  ivory  IK. use  of  Ahab.  iKi.xxii.39, 
connected  with  it:  and  from  what  followed  it  would  and  the  watchman's  tower,  2  Ki.  ix.  17.  Near  to  the  palace 
a] i] tear  that  the  priests  of  l>aal  were  as  many  as  they  was  the  vineyard  of  Nabot.h  the  Je/.reelite,  from  its 
had  been  at  the  be-'inninu-  of  her  course.  ,  situation  convenient  as  a  garden  of  herbs  to  Ahab,  and 
Jezebel  has  the  reputation  among  the  Jews  of  having  i  therefore  coveted  and  seized  liy  him.  i  Ki.  xxi.  There 
been  nearly  as  noted  for  her  sorceries  or  witchcrafts  as  are  however  two  passages  which  might  lead  us  to  sup- 
for  her  idolatries;  and  this  charge  is  countenanced  in  :  pose  that  the  vineyard  of  Naboth  was  at  Samaria,  not 
Scripture.  The  crimination  of  Jehu  just  referred  to  Jezreel.  In  the  first  of  these,  1  Ki.  xxi.  is,  the  word 
clearly  implies  that  she  was  given  to  practices  of  that  |  Samaria  would  seem  to  be  put  for  the  whole  country, 
description,  and  probably  plied  them  more  in  the  latter  |  not  for  the  capital  city.  In  the  other  passage,  i  Ki. 


J  EZREEL 

xxii.  :;\  we  read  one  washed  the  chariot  in  the  pool  of 
tfaiiiuria  and  the  dogs  licked  up  his  blood,  whereas  the 
prophecy  of  Klijah  was,  ''In  tlie  place  where  dogs 
licked  the  biood  of  Naboth,  shall  dogs  lick  thy  blood, 
even  thine/'  i  Ki.  x.\i.  rj.  This  may  be  explained  either 
by  supposing  Naboth  to  have  been  taken  to  Samaria 
for  his  trial  and  execution,  or  by  adopting  the  reading 
of  Josephus  (Ant.  xviii.  ?,:>),  "  "\Vhen  they  had  washed  his 
chariot  in  the  fountain  of  Jc~rccl,  which  was  bloody  with 
the  dead  body  of  the  king,  they  acknowledged  that  the 
prophecy  of  Elijah  was  true,  for  the  dogs  licked  his 
blood.''  By  this  fountain  of  Jezreelthe  army  of  Israel 
pitched  before  the  fatal  battle  of  Gilboa,  i  sa.  xxix.  i,  and 
it  was  probably  near  the  vineyard  of  Naboth,  for  it  is 
now  to  be  seen  on  the  northern  base  of  Mount  Gilboa, 
about  a  mile  cast  of  Zerin.  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  K.  ii.  32,;, 
2d  ed.)  thus  describes  it,  ''  A  very  large  fountain  flow 
ing  out  from  under  a  sort  of  cavern  in  the  wall  of 
conglomerate  rock  which  here  forms  the  base  of  Gil- 
boa.  There  is  every  reason  to  regard  this  as  the  an 
cient  fountain  of  Jezreel.'" 

The  modern  village  of  Zerin  contains  about  twenty 
houses,  and  a  square  tower,  which  may  be  seen  from  a 
great  distance,  and  its  immediate  neighbourhood  has 
still  a  park -like  appearance.  Of  its  situation  .Dr. 
Robinson  writes  (n.  R.  vol.  ii.  321),  "Zerin  itself  lies  com 
paratively  high,  and  commands  a  wide  and  noble  view, 
extending  down  the  broad  low  valley  on  the  east  to 
Beisan  and  to  the  mountains  beyond  the  Jordan,  while 
towards  the  west  it  includes  the  whole  great  plain 
quite  to  the  long  ridge  of  Carmel.  It  is  a  most  magni 
ficent  site  for  a  city,  which  being  thus  a  conspicuous 
object  in  every  part  would  naturally  give  its  name  to 
the  whole  region."'  Dr.  Stanley  (Syria  and  Pal  p.  :m)  writes 
as  follows,  ;- We  see  how  up  the  valley  from  the  Jordan 
Jehu's  troop  might  be  seen  advancing — how-  in  Naboth's 
field  the  two  sovereigns  met  the  relentless  soldiers- 
how  whilst  Joram  died  on  the  spot,  Ahaziah  drove  down 
the  westward  plain  towards  the  mountain  pass  by  the 
beautiful  village  of  Engannim  (translated  in  Eng.  version 
garden-house),  but  was  overtaken  in  the  ascent  and 
died  of  his  wounds  at  Megiddo;  how  in  the  open  place 
which,  as  usual  in  eastern  towns,  lay  before  the  gates  of 
Jezreel.  the  body  of  the  queen  was  trampled  under  the 
hoofs  of  Jehu's  horses — how  the  dogs  gathered  round 
it,  as  even  to  this  day  in  the  wretched  village  now 
seated  on  the  ruins  of  the  once  splendid  city  of 
Jezreel,  they  prowl  on  the  mounds  without  the  walls 
for  the  offal  and  carrion  thrown  out  to  them  to  con 
sume."  [y.  T.  Ji.] 

JEZ'REEL,  VALLEY  OF,  properly  signifies  the 
branch  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  between  ( Hlboa  and 
El  Duhy.  or  the  Little  Hermoii.  It  is  a  broad  deep 
plain  about  three  miles  across,  and  runs  from  Jezreel 
in  an  E.S.E.  direction  to  the  plain  of  Jordan  at  Beisan. 
It  was  the  scene  of  Saul's  defeat  and  Gideon's  victory 
(see  below),  and  of  Jehu's  encounter  with  Jehoram 
(see  last  article).  But  probably  in  Ho.  i.  5,  and  cer 
tainly  under  its  Greek  form  Esdraelon  in  the  book  of 
Judith,  and  in  modern  times,  this  name  is  given  to  the 
great  plain  of  central  Palestine,  which  is  called  by 
Josephus  TO  irtdiov  /j.tya,  and  by  the  Arabs  Merj  ibn 
Amir,  and  extends  from  Jenin  (Heb.  Engannim)  on 
the  south  to  the  hills  of  Nazareth  on  the  north,  and 
from  Gilboa  on  the  east  to  Carmel  on  the  west.  Its 
form  is  well  described  by  Mr.  Porter  (Handbook  to  Syria, 
vol.  ii.  p.  357),  •'  The  main  body  of  the  plain  is  an  irregu- 


JIPHTAH 

lar  triangle,  its  base  to  the  east  extending  from  Jenin 
to  the  foot  of  the  mountains  below  Nazareth,  about 
fifteen  miles,  one  side  formed  by  the  hills  of  Galilee, 
about  twelve  miles,  the  other  some  eighteen  miles, 
running  along  the  north  foot  of  the  Samarian  range. 
The  apex  is  a  narrow  pass  not  more  than  half  a  mile 
wide,  opening  into  the  plain  of  Akka.  The  vast  ex 
panse  is  open  and  undulating;  in  spring  all  green  with 
corn  where  cultivated,  and  weeds  and  grass  where  ne 
glected,  dotted  with  a  few  low  gray  tells,  and  towards 
the  sides  with  olive-groves.  It  is  the  ancient  plain  of 
Megiddo,  ....  the  Armageddon  of  lie.  xvi.  10.  The 
river  Kishon,  'that  ancient  river,'  so  fatal  to  the  army 
of  Sisera,  drains  it,  and  flows  oif  through  the  pass  west 
ward  to  the  plain  of  Akka.  and  the  Mediterranean. 
But  from  the  base  of  this  triangular  plain  three  branches 
stretch  out  eastward  like  fingers  from  a  hand,  divided 
by  two  bleak  gray  ridges,  one  bearing  the  familiar 
name  of  Mount  Gilboa,  where  Saul  and  Jonathan  fell, 
the  other  called  by  the  Franks  Little  Hermon,  but  by 
the  natives  Jebel  ed  Duhy.''  The  traveller  who  ap 
proaches  the  plain  from  southern  Palestine  is  struck  at 
once  with  its  richness,  after  the  gray  hills  of  Judith  and 
the  rocky  mountains  of  Ephraim.  The  grass  is  green 
and  luxuriant,  and  the  crops  of  grain  in  the  few  spots 
where  it  is  cultivated  are  magnificent-.  But  amid  all 
this  fertility  there  is  an  air  of  extreme  desolation.  In 
the  main  portion  of  the  plain  there  is  not  a  single  in 
habited  village,  and  not  more  than  a  sixth  of  its  soil  is 
in  cultivation,  but  it  is  ever  a  prey  to  the  incursions  of 
Bedouins  from  the  Jordan  valley,  who  often  reap  the 
crops  which  the  fellahin  of  the  plain  have  sown.  This 
insecurity  has  always  been  its  chief  feature,  it  was 
invaded  by  the  Canaanites.  Ju.  iv.  3-7,  by  the  Midianites, 
Ju.  vi.  3,  4,  by  the  Philistines,  1  Sa.  xxix.  1 ;  xxxi.  ID,  by  the 
Syrians,  i  Ki.  xx.  26;  2  Ki.  xiii.  17.  In  the  distribution  of 
the  land  under  Joshua  the  plain  became  the  frontier  of 
Zebulun,  DC.  xxxiii.  is,  but  was  the  main  portion  of  Issa- 
char's  inheritance.  Jos.  xix.  17;  Gc.  xli.x.  15.  But  its  chief 
importance  in  history  arises  from  its  having  been  the 
great  battle-field  of  the  Israelites,  not  indeed  in  their 
original  conquest  of  the  country,  but  in  repelling  the 
hosts  of  invaders  who  at  various  times  were  raised  up 
against  them.  These  battles  are  fully  described  by 
Stanley  (Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  330,  seq.),  and  can  only  be 
enumerated  here.  1 .  Between  Sisera  and  Barak  in  the 
south-west  of  the  plain,  Ju.  iv.  v.  2.  Between  Gideon 
and  the  Midianites,  in  the  valley  of  Jezreel,  Ju.  vii. 
3.  Between  Saul  and  the  Philistines  at  Gilboa,  iSa. 
xxix.  xxxi.  4.  Between  Josiah  and  Pharaoh-Necho  at 
Megiddo,  2  Ki.  xxiii.  29;  2  Ch.  xxxv.  2n,  22.  The  villages  on 
the  borders  of  the  plain,  Shunem,  Taanach,  Megiddo, 
Nain,  Endor,  together  with  the  river  Kishon,  are  sepa 
rately  noticed.  [c.  T.  M.] 

JIPH'TAH  [it  OT  he  opens].  A  city  in  the  '"Low  coun 
try"  or  maritime  plain  of  Judah,  Jos.  xv.  43.  Although 
mentioned  but  once,  we  are  not  without  materials  for 
approximating  to  its  real  position.  ( 1 . )  Its  meaning 
implies  that  it  was  situated  at  or  near  some  "opening" 
or  "  defile.''  This,  of  course,  precludes  our  looking  for 
it  on  the  plain,  strictly  so  called;  but  points  rather  to 
the  swelling  uplands  into  which  the  Shephelah  breaks 
as  it  approaches  the  great  central  range,  and  through 
which  access  is  given  to  the  proper  ''Hill  country,"  (i.e. 
mountains)  of  Judah.  (2.)  The  same  result  is  obtained 
by  observing  its  juxtaposition  with  Ashnah  (strong), 
Nezib  (garrison),  Keilah  (fortress),  and  Mareshah 


JIPHTHAII-KL 


911 


JOAB 


(that  which  is  at  the  head,  viz.  of  the  ravine  of  !  in  which  Josephus  speaks  of  Jotapata,  as  nearly  "  sur- 
Zephathah,  2  Ch.  xiv.  i>,  i<>):  all  equally  suggestive  of  spots  rounded  by  rarlnex  of  such  extreme  depth,  that  in  look- 
which  commanded  the  several  passes  leading  from  ing  down,  the  sight  fails  before  it  can  fathom  them" 
the  plain  to  the  mountains,  and  therefore  clearly  be-  ,  <B.  J.  iii.  7,  7).  While  the  name  thus  survives  at  the 
longing  to  the  former  as  its  natural  protection.  It  has  j  eastern  outlet  of  Wady  'Abilin.  it  is  not  a  little  curious 
recently  been  asserted  that  the  group  of  cities  in  which  that  there  is  a  similar  trace  of  it  where  the  valley 
the  name  of  Jiphtah  occurs.  .1. 
they  havt 

mountains,  and  not  in  the  Lowland,  to  which  they  ar> 
here  assigned.  The  error,  however,  lies  not  with  th 
sacred  writer,  but  with  those  who  would  impugn  hi 
accuracy.  At  _\ezib  ( Beit-Xusib).  the  moft  taster/ 


"opens  out"  upon  the  fruitful  plain  of  Acre.      There 
en    ascertained,    really    situated    on  the  !  we  find  a  site  still  bearing  the  suggestive  name  Etliplut- 


nuit  Midway  between  the  two  extremities  of  the 

wady,  and  near  its  southern  hank,  is  a  third  site, 
called  'Ain  K'hukn,  which  represents,  with  more  pro 
bability  than  'Abilin.  the  <•////  of  Zebnlon,  referred  t< 


city  of  tin's  -TO up  which   has    been  identified  with  cer-  immediate  connection  with  Jiplithah-el  (Jus.  xix.  27).  and 

tainty.    I 'r.    Robinson    writes,    "Thus    far  to-day  our  twice  mentioned  by  Josephus  (B.  J.  ii.  is,  <i;  m.  3,  i).    There 

journey  (from  el-Burp  has  been  through    the  region   of  is  a  peculiar   propriety   in    this  lingering  association   of 

hills,  between  the  mountains  and  the   plain,  approach-  the  very  name  of  the  tribe  with  the  most  striking  of  its 

ing  the  former.    .           .   At  Btit-Xnxih  in' u:en   nrii  near  physical  characteristics:  especially  when  we  place  side 

the  steep  asrcut  of  tin   inointfaht*"  (Rib.  Res  iii.  i::i.      (3.)  by   side   the    prophetic    utterance   of    Moses    with  the 

When  this  district  shall  have  been  thoroughly  explored,  graphic  narrative  of  the  sacred  topographer.      "  And  of 

it  will  probably  be  found   that   Jiphtah  answers   to  tin-  Zebulon   he   said.    Rejoice,  Zebulon.  in   t\\y  >/oin(/ out," 

modern  lintllntli ,  a  ruined   site  of   which  Dr.   Roliinsoii  rv.  xxxiii.   i-       "And    the   <,ii1i/<,;,<<t*  thereof  are   in   the 

heard,  somewhere   in   the   province  of  Oaza.1      In   this  valley  < if  Jiphthah  el,"  Jos.  xix.  u.                          JK.  w.| 

case,  there  \\ill   have  been  the  usual  loss  of  the  initial  JOAB   \./<i/i-f«t/i,  r\.  the  son   of  Zeruiah.   the  sister 

f    David.      Probably,    from  this  relationship,   lie   and 


Mh.-  [,:.  w.| 

JIPH'THAH-EL  |>W  o/v,/*].  The  name  of  a  gorge 
or  ravine  (not  valley,  as  the  Authorized  Version  render* >. 
and  probably  (from  the  analog  of  the  preceding  word), 
of  a  citv  also,  on  the  confines  of  Zelnilon  and  A-her: 


cause  of  David,  and  shared  his  perils  and  persecutions 
from  the  hand  of  Said,  i  s.i  xxvi.  G.  Indeed,  a  regard  to 
their  own  safety  \\ould  in  a  manner  obli-e  them  to 
cast  in  their  lot  \\ith  David,  1  sa  xxii.  :i,  i;  and  their 
history,  so  far  as  it  is  recorded,  is  throughout  closely 


for  it  is  mentioned   in    the  specification  of  the   boiinda-      inteitwined  with  that  of  their  royal  kinsman.      Of  the 


nes  of  both  these  tribes,  Jos  xix.  1 1,  -.-7.  The  meanin-  of 
the  word  i"  the  opening  of  (Jod."  i.e.  tlie  great  or  im 
portant  openin--i  -'ives  additional  \\ei-ht  to  tin-  conjec 
ture  that  Wady  'Abilin  is  the  locality  here  indicated. 
This  fine  pass,  which  connects  the  rich  plain  el-  MuUanf 
on  tin-  east  with  tin-  yet  mure  fertile  plain  of  Acre  on 
tin-  West,  is  described  by  tin-  Scottish  Deputation  as 
"inclosed  with  steep  wooded  hills;  sometime*  it  narrow* 

almost  to  tin  stra'ttneM»fcnl<-iile The  valley  is 

Ion--,  and  declines  very  -vnth'  towards  tin-  west;  the 
hills  on  either  side  are  often  finely  wooded,  sometimes 
The  road  is  one  of  the  best  in 


as  tl 

thah-el,"  independently  of  its  supposed  relation  to  the 
recently  discovered  site  of  Jntapata  now  ,/</-//  .  which 
first  led  Dr.  Robinson  to  throw  out  the  suggestion. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  latter  place,  so  well 
known  as  the  scene  of  a  most  protracted  and  deter 
mined  struu-le  between  the  Jews,  under  their  great 
historian  Josephus.  and  the  Romans  under  Vespasian, 
is  identical  with  the  ancient  city  which  derived  its 
name  from  the  important  pass  now  under  considera 
tion.  The  etymological  affinity  of  the  several  forms.  '  Joab.  more  ambitions  than  deserving  of  the  distinc- 
Jiphthah,  Jotapata,  Jefat.  is  itself  all  but  decisive;  and  tion,  went  up  first  and  won  it.  The  city,  thus  subdued, 
to  this  must  be  added  the  position  of  Jefat.  at  the  head  was  from  this  time  called  the  "  city  of  David,"  with 
of  Wady  'Abilin,  and  the  terms  (doubtless  exaggerated)  whom  Joab  laboured  to  build  and  repair  it.  thus  laying 

the  foundation  of  the  future  Jerusalem,  alway  beautiful 

'  Append.  117.     In  the  same  list  occur  'Attarah,  almost  iden       fl,r  s;tuatiolli  :ul,l  for  a,res  the  "excellency  and   praise 
-yf,  another  city  of  this  group,  and  B,          of   t]u;   ^   ^^r    ,  ch   xi  4.8       Tt   was   al)],arently, 
ite  and  name  ot  .Maro      however,  some  time  previous  to  this  that  the  encounter 
1  See  Zimmermanii's  map.    We  may  compare  this  modification 


three  brothers,  xxlm  were  all  of  "David's  mightics," 
Joah  was  the  most  distinguished,  l  Sa.  xxvi.  i;;-_<  sa.  ii  L'-J. 
I  nhappily,  his  distinction  did  not  arise  from  his  moral 
or  religious  wortli.  but  from  his  natixe  power  and  his 
martial  exploits.  Though  not  devoid  of  those  senti 
ments  and  dispositions,  which  sometimes  made  him 
mod,  rate  and  generous  and  even  magnanimous  in 
victory,  as  well  as  always  bold  and  resolute  in  light, 
he  \\.-is  ambitions  and  crafty,  jealous  and  revengeful, 
without  check  or  control.  All  this  stands  out  con 
spicuously,  and  with  little  relief,  in  his  conduct  as 
''captain  of  tin-  host"  in  the  successive  wars  which 

already  ivferred  to  clearly  imply,  that 
ab  stood  next  in  command    to   David 
truggles    of    his  earlier  life;    but 

it  was  at  Jebus  the  ancient  Jerusalem  and  shortly 
after  1'axids  accession  to  the  kingdom,  that  Joab 
properly  acquired  a  ri-'ht  to  the  military  command 
which  In-  held  through  life.  On  David's  going 
thither,  the  Jebusites,  an  idolatrous  remnant  of  the 
old  inhabitants  of  ( 'anaan.  refused  their  submission. 
To  stimulate  the  courage  and  enterprise  of  his  soldiers, 
he  promised  that  the  man  who  should  first  go  up  and 
subdue  them  "should  lie  chief  and  captain,"  when 


(Tufileh),  Tirzali  (Tulhlzn 


tonk  place  between  .loah  ami  Aimer,  captain  of  Saul's 
host,  who  had  made  Ishbosheth,  Sauls  son.  king  over 
tin-  tribes  that  refused  suhinission  to  1  )avid.  These 
rival  chiefs  met  at  (iilieon.  a  few  miles  north  from 
Jerusalem,  on  a  challenge  given  1>\-  Aimer,  in  terms 
which  read  as  if  nothing  more  serious  liad  heen  intended 
than  a  u'ame  at  fence.  Twelve  young  heroes  oa  either 
side  joined  in  fierce  a.iid  deadly  combat,  each  of  them 
burying  his  weapon  in  the  bowels  of  his  adversary. 
This,  as  miuht  be  supposed,  proved  the  provocation 
and  prelude  to  a  general  battle,  in  which  Al'iier  was 
beaten,  and  fled  before  the  servants  of  David.  Asahel. 
urged  by  his  ambition  to  slay  the  leader  of  the  rebel 
lion  against  his  master,  pursued  after  Abner,  and. 
being  ''swift  as  a  roe."  quickly  came  up  with  liini.  and 
persisting  in  his  attempt  despite  of  warning  and  en 
treaty.  Abner.  who  was  much  liis  superior  in  strength 
or  skill,  smote  him  dead  with  his  spear.  While  many 
stood  still  to  look  on  his  dead  body,  Joab  and  Abishai. 
pi'obably  not  apprised  of  their  brother's  death,  con 
tinued  tin1  pursuit  till  the  going  down  of  the  sun.  On 
the  morrow,  when  .loab  would  have  renewed  the  battle, 
Abner  stood  on  a  hill  over  against,  and  pleaded  power 
fully  for  peace.  "Shall  the  sword  devour  for  ever! 
Knowest  thou  not  that  it  will  be  bitterness,  in  the  end  : 
How  long  shall  it  be  ere  thou  bid  the  people  return 
from  following  their  brethren  '."  2Sa.  ii.  I'd.  Though  this 
appeal  was  made  by  the  man  who  had  caused  and  com 
menced  the  slaughter  which  he  affected  to  deplore, 
Joab  generously  yielded  to  it.  It  might  have  been 
otherwise  had  he  known  that  Asahel  had  fallen  bv 
Abner's  hand;  but.  satisfied  to  throw  back  the  blame 
of  yesterday's  battle  upon  Aimer's  challenge,  and 
wisely  unwilling  to  create  any  unnecessary  exaspera 
tion  among  the  dissentient  tribes,  lie  forbore  to  push 
his  advantage  against  them,  and  led  back  his  victorious 
army  to  Hebron.  When  next  they  met.  .loab  failed  to 
exhibit  the  same  moderation.  Aimer  had  then  quar 
relled  with  Tshbosheth  and  deserted  him.  and  had  gone 
to  Hebron  to  offer  to  David  the  submission  and  alle 
giance  of  all  Israel.  This  offer  was  more  than  wel 
comed,  and  Abner  was  treated  with  highest  considera 
tion  and  respect.  When  .Toab.  who  \\as  absent  at  the 
time  from  Hebron,  heard  on  his  return  of  Aimer's 
errand  and  reception,  he  was  filled  with  sudden  fury. 
which  vented  itself  in  vehement  and  insolent  invective 
both  against  David  and  against  Abner:  and,  sending 
messengers  to  recall  him  (for  Abner  seems  to  have  left 
Hebron  as  .loab  returned  to  it),  he  waited  for  him  at 
the  gate  of  the  city,  and.  taking  him  a>ido  with  a 
deceitful  show  of  friendship,  he  treacherously  slew  him. 
Nothing  can  be  alleged  to  extenuate  this  deed  of  blood. 
The  ''blood  of  Asahel,"  as  was  alleged,  might  have 
embittered  or  whetted  .loab's  enmity  against  Abner: 
but  this  sudden  deadly  hate  can  only  be  accounted  for 
by  his  envy  of  the  man  whose  signal  service  had  ingra 
tiated  him  with  the  king,  and  by  burning  jealousy  of 
him  as  his  future  and  dreaded  rival  for  royal  favour 
and  official  honours.  This  atrocious  deed,  as  impolitic 
as  wicked.  David  deeply  mourned  over;  and.  in  token 
of  his  grief  and  abhorrence,  commanded  a  national 
mourning,  which  Joab  himself  was  enjoined  to  observe. 
liut  this  censure  and  humiliation  was  all  the  punish 
ment  he  suffered.  So  necessary  were  these  sons  of 
Zeruiah  to  David,  or  so  formidable  their  enmity,  that 
he  did  not  dare  to  inflict  upon  them  the  desert  of  their 
wickedness. 


In  David's  war  with  the  Ammonites,  when  he  now 
reigned  over  all  Israel,  and  .loab-was  overall  the  host, 
he  was  sent  to  avenge  the  indignity  which  Hanim  had 
oll'ered  to  David  in  the  persons  of  his  ambassadors. 
On  this  occasion  .loab  conducted  himself  with  distin 
guished  wisdom  and  valour.  On  leading  his  army  to 
battle,  he  said,  "  lie  of  good  courage,  and  let  us  play 
the  men  for  our  people  and  for  the  cities  of  our  (Jod. 
and  the  Lord  do  as  scemeth  him  good,"  -i  Sa.  x.  l.'.  There 
could  be  no  finer  model  of  a  martial  speech.  .It  is 
worthy  of  the  pat  riot  and  the  soldier  and  the  man  of 
(•od.  Doubtless  in  this  view  it  misrepresents  Joab's 
true  character:  yet  it  might  truly  express  the  feelings 
of  the  moment,  now  deeply  slirred  by  a  sense  of  immi 
nent  danger.  And  to  this  public  recognition  of  (iod 
may  reasonably  be  ascribed  the  victory  which  crowned 
the  fight,  just  as  the  feigned  humiliation  of  Ahab.  as 
homage  paid  to  <  !od  before  his  people.,  led  to  the 
deferring  of  the  evil  threatened  against  his  idolatrous 
house.  This  victory,  however,  did  not  terminate  the 
war:  and  on  the  return  of  the  year  Joab  w<  nt  forth  to 
renew  it.  and  sat  down  in  siege  against  Ilabbah,  the 
chief  city  of  the  Ammonites.  While  so  engaged. 
David,  who  remained  at  home,  had  fallen  into  sin  with 
Bathsheba,  the  wife  of  Uriah,  a  brave  soldier  and  a 
loyal  subject.  Having  committed  this  sin,  he  must 
hide  it,  especially  from  Uriah:  and  having  failed  in 
sevt ral  sinful  efforts,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Joab.  and 
made  Uriah  the  bearer  of  it,  saying.  "Sit  ye  Uriah  in 
the  front  of  the  hottest  battle,  and  retire  ye  from  him. 
that  he  may  be  smitten  and  die."  The  devout  heart 
quails  as  it  reads  this  perfidious  and  blood-guilty  pro 
posal  coming  from  David.  How  manifest  is  it  that  the 
Holy  Spirit,  grieved  by  his  sin.  had  now  departed  from 
him !  Joab  lent  himself  to  the  execution  of  the 
mournful  proposal,  and.  under  show  of  assigning  to 
Uriah  the  post  of  honour,  lit;  set  him  in  the  place, 
which  proved,  as  it  was  intended,  the  post  of  death. 
He  thus  made  himself  partak'T  of  David's  crime.  His 
subserviency  cannot  be  ascribed  to  mistaken  loyalty; 
for  he  showed  in  his  conduct  to  Aimer  that  he  did  not 
scruple  to  resist  the  king's  will  and  sacrifice  the  king's 
interest  when  he  had  his  own  passions  to  gratify  or 
his  own  interests  to  serve:  and  his  present  compliance 
must,  therefore,  have  proceeded  from  some  selfish  end, 
possibly  thi'  better  to  secure  himself  against  David's 
revenue  upon  him  for  the  blood  of  Abner.  not  un 
willing  that  the  conscience  of  David  should  thus  have 
upon  it  the  blood  of  Uriah. 

When  the  fall  of  Kabbah  seemed  at  hand,  and 
indeed  had  partially  taken  place,  Joab  sent  for  David, 
who  was  still  at  home,  that  he  might  repair  thither  and 
appropriate  the  honour  of  the  conquest.  This  recog 
nition  and  transference  of  the  spoils  and  honours  of 
victory,  after  the  toils  and  sufferings  of  the  siege,  may 
claim  the  credit  of  rare,  if  not  unrivalled  magnanimity. 
He  certainly  appears  in  favourable  contrast  to  David, 
who.  in  consenting  to  appropriate  what  was  due  to  his 
captain,  exhibits  the  symptoms  of  a  degenerate  spirit. 
We  cannot  but  be  slow  to  impute  aught  that  is  generous 
or  noble  to  Joab;  but  the  worst  of  men  not  seldom 
exhibit  these  better  impulses  when  they  do  not  interfere 
with  their  ruling  passions. 

The  part  acted  by  Joab  in  the  affair  of  Absalom  is 
the  next  circumstance  of  any  moment  that  meets  us  in 
his  history.  Having  slain  his  brother  Amnori  in  revenge 
for  the  dishonour  done  to  his  sister,  Absalom  fled  to 


.((JAR 


-IOAXXA 


Geshur,  the  residence  of  his  grandfather;  and  David.  | 
from  undue  paternal  indulgence,  or  it  may  lie  from 
consciousness  of  his  own  similar  offence,  ceased  to 
pursue  him.  .loab,  who  was  ijuick  to  discern  in  David  , 
that  longing  for  the  restoration  of  his  favourite  son  I 
which  yet  lit.-  was  ashamed  or  afraid  to  express,  set  his 
wits  at  work  to  devise-  the  means  of  effecting'  it.  l'>v 
pandering  to  the  pride  and  passions  of  Absalom,  and 
bv  working'  on  the  weakne—  of  his  too  indulg>  nt  father, 
he  bv  and  by  succeeded:  but  the  means  of  his  success  j 
betrav  too  plainly  the  craft v  poliev  designed  to  ingra 
tiate  himself  at  once  with  the  king  and  the  heir  of  his 
throne.  Absalom,  whose  professed  improvement  was 
all  a  pretence,  was  not  Ion-  re-admitted  to  his  father's 
presence  when  he  abused  hi.-  indulgence  to  excite  dis 
affection  and  organize  conspiracy  and  rebellion  against 
his  father'.-  rule.  It  i-  doubtful  what  part  .loab  took 
in  the  be--iniiiii-  of  this  affair.  i;  i-  said  that  I;  Absa 
lom  made  Amasa  captain  of  the  host  instead  of  .b 
2S-1  xvii  •>:,  This  seems  to  imply  that  both  were  at  hi- 
eall.  and  that  Amasa  was  pi-  ferred.  If  -o.  it  ,  xpl 
both  whv  Joali  was  now  found  on  thi  side  of  David,  and 
whv  he  was  su  relentless  a  foe  to  Ab.-alom.  (  >n  sending 
out  hi-  army  to  oppos  •  an  1  to  -uppr.  s-  this  unnat 
rebellion.  D.i\id  Lrave  them  charge  to  deal  genth  with 
til.-  v  on  1 1 '^  man  Ab-alom  for  his  sake.  Notwithstanding, 
when  lie  was  found  in  hi-  tii-hl  before  David's  servants, 
cau-ht  and  suspelidi  d  amid  the  houghs  of  an  oak,  .loab 
ha-ted  to  pluii.-e  the  deadly  arrow  into  his  heart,  and 
when  dead.  -t<  rnh  di-nii-d  him  the  rites  of  burial. 
David's  sorrow  for  hi-  death  was  so  .  xcessive,  that  .loab 
hotlv  resented  it  a.-  a  censure  of  the  service  for  which 
he  and  liis  ,-oldier-  -hoidd  have  been  approved,  and 
with  a  dreadful  oath  threatened  him.  if  h-  ceased  not 
from  hi-  weeping,  witli  the  <i<  sc-rtioii  of  all  his  people. 
This  severity,  it  not  resented  at  the  time,  wa-  not  f,  >r 
gotten:  and  soon  after,  on  th-  n  volt  of  the  ten  ;. 
under  Sheba.  David  manifested  his  alienation  from 
.loab  by  appointing  Ama-a  "  tir-t  and  chiet  of  the 
armv.  Ama-a  was  I  )a\  id's  nephew,  son  of  another 
sister,  and  had  been  Absalom's  general  in  ih- 
rebellion.  From  some  cause  he  wa-  dilatory  in  acting 
upon  his  commis-ioii.  .loab  and  Abisliai  had  taken 
the  field  before  him:  and  on  hi-  coming  to  take  the 
command,  .loab.  impelled  bv  his  jealousy  and  revenge, 
perpetrated  the  same  deed  of  treachery  and  murder 
which  he  had  done  to  Aimer,  meeting  Ama-a  with  the 
ki--  of  friendship,  and  then  .-mitin-;  him  dead  w  ith  one 
violent  stroke.  These  things  may  po--ibl\-  have  made 
him  the  ideal  of  "the  bloody  and  deceitful  man."  from 
whom  D.I  vid  so  often  prayed  to  be  delivered.  It  marks 
a  demoralized  people,  in  which  a  man  so  deeply  stained 
with  crime  could  hold  up  his  head,  and  even  maintain 
an  exalted  place,  yet  .loab  immediately  assuming  the 
ci  .niniaud,  pursued  after  Sheba  to  .Abel-  Maaehah.  where 
he  sought  and  found  refuge;  and  having  laid  sie^e  to 
the  citv.  in  a  manner  which  the  I'n-njamites  felt  they 
could  not  long  withstand  (.-;«'  uml/i'  Fnirn  —  they  threw 
the  head  of  Shelia  over  the  wall,  on  which  Joab  raised 
tlie  siege-,  and  returned  to  Jerusalem,  expecting —nor 
was  he  mistaken  in  his  expectation — ''with  Sheba's 
head  to  pay  the  price  of  Amasa's  blood."  So  -reat  was 
this  man,  and  so  necessary  to  David  and  his  people, 
that  they  connived  at  the  wickedness  which  they 
could  not  but  in  their  hearts  abhor,  and  still  deferred 
the  punishment  which  by  divine  and  human  law  he 
deserved  to  sutler. 

Vol..    [. 


The  next  service  to  which  .loab  was  appointed  was 
in  numbering  the  people.  This  procedure,  as  conducted 
by  David,  was  sorely  displeasing  to  (bid.  The  offence 
was  not  in  itself;  for  once  and.  again  it  had  been  clone 
by  Cod's  own  command.  Nu  xxvi.  4,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
pride  and  vainglory,  which  moved  him  to  it,  and  the 
tendency  to  measure  his  power  by  the  thousands  of 
Israel,  rather  than  bv  the  presence  and  support  of 
Israel's  God.  The  word  of  the  king  in  this  matter  was 
abominable  to  .loab,  and  he  remonstrated  against  it 
with  great  address,  and  on  true-  religious  grounds. 
"The  Lord  make  the  people,"  said  he  to  David,  "a 
hundred  times  many  more  than  they  be;  but  my  lord 
the  km";,  are  they  not  all  thv  servants'  Why  then 
doth  my  lord  require  this  thin-.'  whv  will  he  be  a 
cause  of  trespass  to  Israel:"  The  strain  and  tone  of 
thi-  remonstrance  mi-lit  have  led  us  to  hope  that  in  the 
interval  he  had  become  another  man  so  spiritual 
seems  his  denouncement  of  the  sin  of  David's  course, 
and  so  just  his  apprehension  of  the  danger  which  would 
result  fr.  in  it.  and  so  tender  and  earnest  his  anxiety  to 
these  evils,  both  fioin  his  king  and  nation;  and 
if  '_;-.  iod  deeds  Were  always  more  than  good  words  tin- 
proof  of  the  ne\v  nature,  this  impiv  — ion  miu'ht  be  eoii- 

lir 1    by  the    fact   recorded  of   him.  that    he  dedicated 

his  spoils  to  maintain  the  house  of  the  Lord.  J!ut. 
i;  soon  provi  d  to  be  nothing  better  than  one  of 
those  titful  moods,  which  ,-oinetiines.  under  the  light 
and  po\vt  r  of  natural  conscience,  vi-it  the  sternest  and 
most  ruthless  souls  for  soon  au'ain  lie  appears  in  his 
lifelong  character.  In  the  last  days  of  Da\id.  Adoni- 
jah,  his  eldest  son  after  Absalom,  conspired  to  rei-n 
upon  the  throne  of  the  kingdom,  and  Joab  and  Ahiathar 
the  hMi-pri--;  were  th-  chi'-f  instigators  and  supporters 
unnatural  attempt. 

di  -i  r;ion  of  }\\.~  kin-man  and  king  in  his  old  a-.e. 
which  deprives  him  of  almost  his  only  semblance  of 
virtue,  was  the  immediate-  forerunner  of  his  fall.  The 
conspiracy  ef  Adoiiijah  came  to  nought,  and  Solomon 
ivi-'iied.  David,  who  had  long  been  alienat.  d  in  heart 
from  .loab.  now.  delivered  fnni  his  bar  and  irritated 
nv  his  pertidv,  charged  Solei.ioii  to  \i-it  upon  him  the 
crimes  which  he  had  been  too  timid  and  too  tardy  to 
avenge.  Solomon  showed  himself  resolved  to  execute 
his  father's  dvinu' charge,  and  .loab.  fore.-eeing  hiseoming 
doom,  tied  to  the  tabernacle  of  the  Lord,  and  caught 
hold  of  the  horns  of  the  altar.  Though  intended  as  a 
refuse  for  the  penitent,  the  altar  aflbrded  no  asylum 
for  the  wicked.  Thus  is  i<-  written  in  the  law  of  .Moses, 
"If  a  man  come  presumptuously  upon  his  neighbour, 
to  -lav  him  with  -idle:  thou  .-halt  take  him  from  mine 
altar,  that  he  may  die,"  r.:-.  xsi.it.  When-fore  Solomon 
sent  I'.enaiah,  \\lio  went  up.  and  fell  upon  him.  and 
slew  him  :  thus  returning  in  tardv  but,  ri-hteous  recom 
pense,  "his  blood  upon  his  own  head,  who  fell  upon 
two  men  more  ri-hteous  than  he,  and  slew  them  with 
the  sword,  to  wit,  Abner,  the  son  of  Nor.  captain  of 
the  host  of  Israel,  and  Amasa.  the  son  of  .Tether,  cap 
tain  of  the  host  of  Judah."  |-l.  He.] 

JOAN'NA.  the  original  of  the  modern  JOAN,  the 
wife  of  Cur/A,  the  steward  of  Jlemd  Antipas,  Lu.  viii.  :i, 
xxiv.  to.  She  is  mentioned  only  by  St.  Luke:  but  from 
the  notices  given  by  him  she  appears  to  have  been  a 
devoted  follower  of  Jesus,  having  a  place  among  the 
women  who  ministered  to  him  of  their  substance,  and 
who  had  prepared  spices  to  anoint  his  body  in  the 
tomb. 

115 


,K)AS1F 


JO'ASH  (  contracted  fur  JKHO'ASIT.  ,/<.•/,, >ni/,- 
f/i_1/t</\.  1.  The  father  of  Gideon,  who  appears  to  have 

lircii  a  111:1,11  of  wealth  and  consideration  among  the 
Abiezritcs.  That  lie  was  by  no  mean-*  free  from  tlie 
prevailing  idolatry  of  the  time,  is  clear  from  there 
lining  idols  of  I'aal  and  Aslierah  on  bis  property:  but, 
bis  subsequent  conduct  in  defending  bis  son,  who  broke 
them  down,  shows  that  he  was  not  wedded  to  it,  .Tu.  vi. 
2.  JOASH.  A  king  of  Judah,  son  of  Ahaziah,  and  the 
only  one  of  his  children  who  escaped  the  murderous 
policy  of  Athaliah.  Jt  would  seem  that  this  child. 
whom  the  pity  and  affection  of  a  pious  aunt  bad  pre 
served  (.Tehoshabcath)  was  the  onlv  surviving  male  re 
presentative  of  the  line  of  Solomon,  .lehoram.  his  grand 
father,  who  married  Athaliah,  in  order  to  strengthen 
his  position  on  the  throne,  slew  all  his  brethren,  2  ch. 
xxi.  4;  and  all  his  own  sons  were  slain  in  an  incursion 
by  tlu-  Arabians,  except  Ahaziah,  the  youngest,  who 
succeeded  him,  L'Ch.  xxii.  I  ;  while,  on  the  death  of  Aha- 
x.iah,  his  wicked  mother  Athaliah  "arose  and  destroyed 
all  the  seed  royal  of  the  house  of  .ludah,"  2  rli  xxii.  in— 
excepting  the  little  child  Joash.  who  was  rescued  from 
her  grasp.  So  that  the  unholy  alliances  formed  bv  the 
descendants  of  Solomon,  and  the  manifold  disorder^ 
thence  accruing,  had  reduced  everything  to  the  verge 
of  ruin.  Measures  were  concerted  by  .lehoiada.  the 
high-priest,  for  getting  rid  of  Athaliah.  and  ], lacing 
.loash  on  the  throne,  after  he  had  attained  to  the  age 
of  seven  W  .IKHOIADA);  and  having  in  his  youth  the 
wise  and  the  faithful  around  his  throne,  the  earlier 
part  of  the  reign  of  , loash  was  in  accordance  with  the 
great  principles  of  the  theocracy.  The  Lord's  house 
was  repaired  and  set  in  order,  while  the  temple  and 
idols  of  Baal  were  thrown  down.  lint  after  .lehoiada's 
dea.th  persons  of  a  different  stain])  got  about  him:  and 
notwithstanding  the  great  and  latidabl"  zeal  which  he 
had  shown  for  the  proper  restoration  of  <  Jod's  house 
and  worship,  a  return  was  made  to  idolatry  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  draw  forth  severe  denunciations  from 
Zechariah  the  son  of  . lehoiada.  Kven  this  was  not  the 
worst;  for  the  faithfulness  of  Xechariah  was  repaid 
with  violence:  be  was  even  stoned  to  death,  and  this. 
it  is  said,  at  the  express  command  of  the  kin"1.  -2  (.'!>. 
xxiv.  21.  The  martyred  priest  uttered,  as  he  expired. 
"The  Lord  look  upon  it  and  require  it,;"  and  it  irtts 
required  as  in  a  whirlwind  of  wrath.  For.  a  Syrian  host 
under  Hazael  made  an  incursion  into  Judea.  and  both 
carried  off' much  treasure,  and  executed  summary  judg 
ment  on  many  in  Jerus'-Hn  not  excepting  Joash 
himself,  whom  they  left  in  an  enfeebled  -tate.  and  who 
was  shortly  afterwards  fallen  upon  and  slain  by  his 
servants.  Such  was  the  unhappy  termination  of  a  career, 
which  b(M,-an  with  much  promise  of  <,'ood:  and  the  cloud 
under  which  be  died  even  followed  him  to  the  tomb; 
for  while  he  was  buried  in  the  city  of  David,  it  was 
not  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings  of  Judah.  He  reigned 
forty  years,  from  B.C.  ,s;s  to  838. 

3.  JOASH,  king  of  Israel,  son  and  successor  of  Je- 
hoahaz.  lie  was  for  a  short  period  cotemporary  with 
.loash  king  of  Judah,  roigninu;  from  B.C.  S40  to  v2.~. 
about  sixteen  years.  The  kingdom  of  Israel  was  in  a 
very  reduced  and  enfeebled  state  at  the  time  of  his 
ascension  to  the  throne,  e-peciallv  from  the  severe 
devastations  made  on  it  by  Tfazael.  and  the  repeated 
conquests  gained  by  him.  Joash.  however,  proved 
himself  to  be  a  person  of  energy,  and.  though  he  still 
clave  to  the  .sins  of  Jeroboam,  one  mav  infer  from  the 


respect  he  paid  to  Klisha.  that  he  was  not  so  far  gone 
from  the  way  of  holiness,  as  either  his  father  on  the 
one  side,  or  his  son  on  the  other.  .Klisha  was  in  ex 
treme  old  age.  and  on  his  death-bed,  at  the  time  he 
received  a  visit  from  Joash:  but  the  visit  appears  to 
have  been  marked  by  sincere  respect  on  the  part  of  the 
kiiiL1.  and  to  have  been  dnlv  reciprocated  by  the  pro 
phet.  A  promise  was  given  that  he  should  smite 
Syria,  and  when,  after  arrows  bad  been  put  into  his 
band  to  smite,  and  lie  smote  only  thrice.  Klisha  was 
displeased  that  the  smiting  was  not  more  frequent. 
as  there  miidit  then  have  been  the  assurance  of 
greater  successes  over  Syria,  2  Ki.  xiii.  H-iit.  But  as 
it  was,  Joash  was  enabled  to  turn  the  tide  against 
Syria:  and  not  only  so.  but  in  a  conflict,  which  be  was 
not  the  first  to  provoke,  with  Ama/.iab  king  of  Judah, 
lie  Lfaiiied  a  complete  victory — took  Amaziah  prisoner 
— went  to  Jerusalem,  and  carried  off  immense  treasure, 
as  well  as  broke  down  JdO  cubits  of  the  wall,  leaving 
the  city  in  a  reduced  and  defenceless  condition.  (.See 
AMAZIAH.)  Joash  seems  to  have  died  in  peace,  and 
was  buried  in  the  sepulchre  of  bis  fathers. 

4.  JOASH.  The  name  of  several  persons,  of  whom 
little  more  is  known  than  their  genealogy — a  son  of 
Ahab,  2  Ch.  xviii.  •>'>—  a  descendant  of  Sin  lab,  i  Ch.  iv.  22— 
a  hero  of  Benjamin,  son  of  Shemaah,  icii.xii.:: — another 
Benjamite,  son  of  Bccher.  i  ch.  vii.  -—  an  officer  in  David's 
household,  l  ch.  xxvii.  ;;--. 

JOB,  BOOK  OF.  ].  The-  ,;rohl,-M  of  the  book.-  The 
canonical  Scriptures  have  been  divided  into  three  sec 
tions,  the  I,aw.  the  Prophets,  and  the  Kethubim,  that  is 
writings,  or  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Jewish  church, 
Hagiographa.  -A  principle  far  from  artificial  under- 
runs  this  division.  There  is  a  tine  correspondence  be 
tween  it  and  the  various  phases  of  the  human  spirit, 
which  it  is  the  object  of  Scripture  to  reach  or  to 
create.  The  /,<'</•.  starting  from  the  sad  consciousness 
that  the  human  spirit  has  not  preserved  its  original 
fine  eiiuipoise  of  powers,  or  its  normal  attitude  towards 
its  (!od  and  Creator,  comes,  announcing  this  mournful 
deflection,  lays  down  rules  to  regulate  the  spirit's  in 
tercourse  with  (iod,  and  exhorts  to  the  keeping  of  these 
rules  by  promises  of  rich  rewards  to  obedience  and 
threatenings  of  fearful  evils  on  neglect.  J'l'HjJm-i/. 
again,  of  which  prediction  forms  the  least  and  no  essen 
tial  part,  embraces  all  that  activity  of  (-Jod's  messen 
gers,  by  which  they  sought  to  vivifv  the  seeds  of  the 
divine  law  in  the  human  consciousness  of  the  people. 
a,nd  turn  it  into  principles  of  conduct  and  religious 
life.  The  history  of  the  Jewish  people,  behiL:  itself  as 
it  rolled  itself  out  evolution  after  evolution,  a  grand 
divine  phenomenon,  specially  contrived  and  specially 
directed,  afforded  opportunities  far  more  numerous  and 
fittiiiL;-  than  ordinary  history  for  linking  on  ureat  moral 
teachings  to:  and  it  was  the  business  of  the  prophet,  as 
the  peaceful  stream  of  events  moved  slowly  past,  or 
lifted  itself  up  into  the  menacing  attitude  of  a  national 
crisis,  to  take  the  public  mind  down  with  him  into  the 
midst,  of  this  stream,  to  make  it  conscious  of  the  ten 
dencies  and  currents  of  the  time,  and  the  far-distant, 
point  towards  which  they  were  struggling,  to  interpret 
to  it  the  meaning  of  the  forces  which  were  wrestling 
with  each  other  and  thus  acting  out  its  history,  and  so 
impress  deep  religious  convictions  upon  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen,  awakening  in  them  the  strong  conscious 
ness  of  the  divinity  of  their  history,  and  greater  longing 
for  fuller  manifestations  of  the  Messianic  redemption. 


The  law  lifts  into  prominence  only  one  mind,  that  of  the  ' 
Lawgiver,  prophecy  only  the  minds  and  activities  of  a  few 
men  exjiressly  selected  and  deputed  by  God  with  his  words 
to  the  people:  We  want  still  the  /•(.-•//<»//.•.•<  of  the  popular 
religious  life  to  this  complicatt  d  divine  teaching.  This 
we  ha  vein  many  of  its  phases  in  the  books  sty  led  II  '/•/'//<;/>•. 
No  doubt  the  prophets  were  often  representative  men, 
children  of  the  people,  deeply  national  in  their  sym 
pathies,  the  poets  and  patriots  of  the  land  of  Israel: 
and  behind  the  loud  wail  of  Jeremiah  we  mav  hear  the 
stilled  sob  wrung  from  the  universal  heart  of  the  people: 
and  in  the  glorious  visions  of  Isaiah  may  see  the  per 
fection  of  tho.-e  dreams  which  haunted  the  sleeping 
and  waking  hours  of  a  nation,  all  of  whom,  from  their 
Messianic  hopes,  win-  seers;  and  in  th--  unparalleled 
energy  of  F.lias  may  discern  the  culmination  of  the 
activity  of  this  nation  of  divir,ei\  strengthened  workers. 
Yet  the  prophets,  from  th-  were  somewhat 

separated  from  th«-  people,  and  raised  above  them,  and 
were  ilt  signed  rather  as  teachers  and  models,  than  re 
presentatives  "f  the  precise  thoic.ht  and  life  of  any 
given  era.  This  p'.-mon  i-  nccupii  i  by  the  writers, 
many  of  them  unknown,  of  the  !  lagio-jraplia.  And  it 
is  in  a  way  fitlhrj  that  those  Voices  of  the  people,  those 
sobs  by  the  rivers  of  Pab\lon,  those  Jon--  low  mournful 
monologues  over  th"  unatoiied  contradictions  of  man's 
destiny,  thai  mei  '  us  in  Jo  •  liere,  -hould  be 

borne  to  our  ears  anonymously;  the\  belong  no*  to  any 
man:  they  are  expressions  oi  the  griefs  and.  the  pro 
blems  which  were  shaking  the  ,1,-,-p  h- art  of  a  whole 
nation. 

The   Semitic   nations    never   possi d    a   philosophy. 

The  strength  of  their  monotheism  o\,  rp,.wered  all  the 
ri-inu  be-iuninu-  of  philosophy  or  mythology.  Such 
an  abstraction  as  "nature  '  they  could  never  create. 
I'.c.-ides  lieini;-  de-litute  of  a  nietaph\-ic,  lie  \  never 
approacheil  the  idea  of  a  science  oi  ethics,  or  indei  d 
the  idea  of  any  science.  And  apart,  too,  from  the 
appar-  lit  incapacity  of  the  Semitic  mind  for  philo.-o- 
phi/.ing  (.'Veil  on  morals,  such  attempts  would  be  tjuile 
foreign  to  the  genius  and  d.-si-n  of  S.-ripture.  'i'he 
I'.ible  occupies  itself  with  that  phase  of  the  human 
mind  which  w v  usually  name  religion.-,  and  interferes 
with  others  only  in  so  far  as  they  a. rise  out  of  this  or 
contribute  to  it-  icoditicatioii.  Scripture  will  not  dis 
cus-  a  moral  problem  nakedly  and  for  it-  own  sahi  : 
but  if  the  perplexities  of  this  problem  tighten  them- 
sclvi  s  around  the  heart,  impeding  its  free  action,  Scrip 
ture  will  ease  the  pressure  and  loosen  the  ligatures  so 
far  as  to  allow  the  pulse  of  spiritual  life  to  beat  freely. 
Thus  we  should  not  expect  any  book  of  the  I'.ible  to  In- 
devoted  to  the  discussion  of  any  mere  speculative  i|iies-  , 
tion.  A  speculative  question  may  be  discussed,  but  it 
will  be  from  a  religious  point  of  view;  its  discussion 
will  be  thrown  as  an  element  into  the  general  current 
of  some  religious  life,  its  eil'ect  upon  which,  for  good  or 
evil,  will  chiefly  be  exhibited.  The  book  of  Job,  there 
fore,  will  not  contain  a  theodicy  or  vindication  of  the 
ways  of  God  to  man.  nor  a  philosophical  proof  of  the  doc 
trine  of  immortality  (J.  D.  Jliolitielis;  and  in  other  connections, 
Kw.iiai,  much  less  a  refutation  of  the  so-called  Mosaic 
doctrine  of  retributive  justice  (Hirzel,  Do  Wette.u.  s.w.);  nor 
will  its  chief  aim  be  to  teach  the  truth  that  man  dare 
not  pry  into  the  deep  designs  of  Providence  (Hui>fi:M,«c.), 
though  this  hist  strikes  deeper  into  its  essence  than  any 
other  of  the  above  views,  all  of  which,  though  much  too 
contracted,  contain  an  element  of  truth.  Put  the  real 


problem  of  the  book  is  the  determination  of  the  reli 
gious  attitude  of  the  patriarch,  and  all  these  problems 
come  up  merely  as  elements  that  tend  to  determine 
Jobs  mind  in  one  way  or  other.  That  this  is  the  cor 
rect  view  of  the  book  may  be  seen  from  various  things. 
First,  what  is  chiefly  exhibited  in  the  poem  is  this  state 
of  Job's  mind.  In  the  prologue  the  writer  draws  our 
attention  chiefly  to  Job's  devotion  and  trust  in  God. 
AlV  r  his  lirst  ureat  loss,  he  points  out  how  his  devotion 
and  submission  remain  unaltered.  After  his  second 
affliction,  he  points  out  his  steadfastness  once  more. 
During  the  discussion  w  ith  the  friends  he  exhibits  to 
us  the  conflict  in  Job  s  mind:  how  it  sometimes  veered 
iii  the  direction  of  infidelity,  but  ever  auain  recovered 
id  came  back  to  steadfast  ness  and  tru-l.  What 
raises  such  tides  of  agony  in  Job's  soul  is  not  that  he 
has  been  stripped  barer  than  the  tree  in  winter:  not 
that  hi-  friends  misunderstood  him:  not  even  that  his 
life  and  hopes  were  extinguished:  it  is  that  God  has 
forsaken  him:  that  he  is  cast  out  from  his  presence:  and 
that  he  i-  so.  all  the-e  calamities  are  proofs  too  sun-lv 
What  restores  him  to  peace  and  blessed 
ness  one  •  more  is  not  that  any  of  his  speculative  dilti- 
euitie-  have  been  removed,  for  they  have  not;  it  is  that 
lie  has  recovered  the  lost  countenance  of  God,  and 
before  this  li-ht  all  the  shadows  flee  awav.  Second. 
the  final  arbiter  ,.f  the  strife  was  not  the  friends,  for 
Job  had  put  them  to  silence;  nor  Klihu--  though,  under 

the     deeper     sea  ivlli  !!•_;     of    his    hallll.    Job    was     Sobcri/Cll 

and    found    no  Words    more    ioivph       the   final    arbiter 

d.         And     it    is   to   Job   exclll-ivelv    in   tile    first     ill- 

stance  that  he  addresses  himself.  It  is  his  attitude 
towards  himself  thai  he  impugns.  It  is  this  attitude 
which  he  corrects  by  a  sighl  of  his  glory.  Only  when 
all  this  perturbation  in  Job's  religious  condition  is 
stdlid.  is  any  allu-ion  made  to  the  friends  and  the 
.  dialectical  probh  m  in  debate  between  them 
and  Job.  Third,  the  author  of  the  book  tells  us  that 
Job's  afflictions  were  sent  upon  him  as  the  trial  of  his 
faith,  llewa-  afflicted  to  discover  whether  his  religion 
was  selfish;  whether,  on  -etlinu'  nothing  from  God.  he 
would  renounce  (  lod. 

Tim-  the  I k  (sh!/i!t.i  the  trial  of  Job.  and  this  trial 

is  exhibited  progressively  in  three  particular  tempta 
tions,  the  tirsi  two  di  tailed  hri<  flv  in  tin-  prologue,  the 
third  ili-plaved  very  fullv  in  tin-  poem. 

2.  /tereluf>iitiii(  of  tin  !dta  <>f  the  IXXIH.  The  problem 
of  the  book  of  Job  is.  Dues  Job  mm  (rod  for  nought? 
'I'iiis  problem,  accord  in-'  to  the  view  of  the  author,  in 
debate  between  Satan  and  God.  is  naturally  the  ques 
tion  of  human  virtue:  but  as  this  cannot  be  tried  ab 
stractly  but  in  a  case,  this  ease  exhibits  the  temptation 
of  Job.  the  trial  of  the  righteous;  which  temptation, 
victoriously  resisted,  and  the  means  of  securing  victory 
progressively  and  finally,  displayed,  illustrates  the  doc 
trine,  th,  jiitt  *l,«H  I'm  "tii/  hi'xffii'lli..  The  book  chiefly 
exhibits  Job's  temptations  and  the  progressive  eil'ect 
they  exert  on  his  heart:  this  progressive  efl'ect  is  the 
progressive  solution  of  the  problem  between  God  and 
Satan.  Does  Job  serve  God  for  nought.'  and  the  pro 
gressive  exhibition  to  us  of  the  principle  of  all  religious 
life,  cspeiiallv  in  trouble,  the  just  shall  live  by  faith  in 
God. 

(I.;  'I'he  author,  starting  from  the  law  lying  as  a 
necessity  at  the  basis  of  all  our  thinking,  the  haw  that 
it  is  well  with  the  righteous  and  ill  with  the  wicked, 
brings  before  us  a  man  who.  having  attained  the  summit 


JOY,,  BOOK  OT 


of  virtue,  reaches  thereby  tin-  suiniiiit  <.f  happiness,  in 
family  felicity,  in  wealth,  ami  \\orldlv  respect.  The 
inaii  knows  his  religious  elevation,  liis  friends  know  it, 
the  m'.uth  of  God  confesses  it.  .Ml  which  docs  not 
mean  that  the  man  was  sinless  ab>oluMy,  for  Job 
throughout  the  poem  never  claims  this,  but,  that  lie  was 
sincerely  pious.  Having  shown  us  this  lovely  scene  of 
simple  faith  and  human  felicity,  the  author,  with  deep 
instinct  of  the  connection  of  all  parts  of  God's  universe 
with  all  other  parts,  and  how  even  the  most  lawless 
powers  are  in  his  hand,  and  how  he  is  making  good 
somehow  the  goal  of  ill,  carries,  us  elsewhere,  and  dis 
closes  to  us  a  heavenly  cabinet,  an  ire  Is  and  ministers  of 
grace  assembled,  and  among  them  the  minister  of  wrath 
and  grace  disguised.  And  as  the  atl'airs  of  earth  are 
passed  in  review,  the  virtue  of  Job  is  extolled  by  the 
Supreme,  and  for  this  and  other  reasons  subjected  to 
malevolent  detraction  by  the  Satan- -  Toes  Job  serve 
God  for  nought?  The  question  thus  raised  becomes 
one  for  the  universe,  and  must  be  set  at  rest.  Job  is 
given  into  the  hands  of  Satan:  let  his  integrity  be  tried. 
I'nliko  ns,  for  whom  the  author  lifts  the  vail,  Job 
knows  nothing  of  the  cause  of  his  sorrows.  lie  knows 
only  that  God  afflicts;  his  simple  religions  faith  teaches 
him  that  lie  afflicts  in  anger;  he  feels  within  him  no 
cause  for  this  sudden  change  in  ( lod's  dealing  with  him: 
inexplicable  utterly  were  his  woes.  Hut  one  or  rnany 
things  inexplicable  will  not  shake  his  i'aith  in  God  — 
Tin  I. nr/l  gave,  '"'<"/  ilr  L<n-<>  Imtlt  taken;  /,/<.S-SK/  be  the 
1'iini'  <>f  tin  Lin1''.  Job  remains  victorious  over  Jus 
temptation. 

('-.'•  Meanwhile  the  heavenly  cabinet  again  assemblt  s, 
and  .lob  becomes  again  the  subject  of  God's  approba 
tion,  and  again  of  new  and  deeper  detraction  on  the 
side  of  Satan,  who  insinuates  now  not  merely  irreligion 
but  inhumanity.  Job  cared  little  for  family  or  friend, 
be  he  well  himself — Toi"'/t  /n't  (nrn  i/niir  and  flex  ft  find 
lie  will  renounce  tliec  1<>  fit//  fmr.  Gl\eu  again  into  the 
hand  of  Satan,  and  thrown  down  under  a  most  loath 
some  disorder,  Job  still  retains  his  integrity.  He  ac 
knowledges  God's  ri'.ht  to  deal  as  pleases  him.  not  only 
with  his  but  with  him.  Satan  is  foiled  anew.  Job. 
like  a  tree  shaken  by  the  wind,  but  wraps  his  roots 
closer  around  the  llock  of  Ages. 

('•'>.)  Now  the  conditions  of  the  temptation  somewhat 
alter.  In  the  former  temptations  the  author  gave  us 
no  view  of  Job's  mental  struggles.  He  entered  the 
shadow  and  came  forth  from  it  chastened,  but  strong. 
Now  he  will  exhibit  to  us  the  whole  mental  panorama, 
in  all  its  varying  phases,  from  despair  to  triumphant 
and  final  trust.  Three  friends  of  Job  having  heard  of 
his  calamities,  make  an  appointment  to  come  and  con 
dole  with  him.  And  it  is  in  the  view  taken  by  these 
men  of  his  afflictions  that  Job's  third  and  most  bitter 
temptation  consists.  The.-o  friends  were  men  of  pious 
life  and  honest  purpose,  sincere  in  their  efforts  to  con 
sole,  but  possessed  of  only  superficial  theories  of  the 
meaning  and  uses  of  adversity.  Theirs  was  the  simple 
creed  that  all  suffering  is  for  sin,  all  for  the  immediate 
sin  of  the  immediate  sufferer.  The  man  who  suffers 
grievously  must  have  sinned  heinously.  And  the  appli 
cation  to  Job  of  their  principle  was  brief  and  inevitable; 
sadly  afflicted,  he  has  doubtless  terribly  sinned.  This 
is  their  fundamental  position  on  which  all  their  exhor 
tations  are  based:  and  it  is  this  fundamental  position, 
held  too  by  .Fob  himself  previous  to  his  afflictions,  which 
he  assails,  and  thus  around  it  gather  all  the  strife  and 


conflict  of  the  debate  between  the  sufferer  and  his 
Friends. 

i'.:it  \ve  must  not  forget  that  this  question  of  the 
meaning  of  Job  s  sufferings,  or  of  sufFerin_r  in  general, 
by  no  means  forms  the  problem  of  the  book  of  Job. 
This  outer  problem  between  Job  and  the  friends  is 
merely  a  question,  the  discussion  of  which  contributes 
to  determine  the  state  of  Job's,  mind,  and  the  determi 
nation  of  this  state  is  the  solution  of  the  e/reat  problem 

Does  Job  serve  God  for  nought?  If  Job.  driven  to 
despair  under  the  assaults  of  his  friends,  and  out  of 
antagonism  to  them  and  there-fore  to  God.  who.-v  cause 
they  so  harshly  plead,  should  finally  declare  that  God 
is  unjust  in  punishing,  the  prediction  of  the  Satan  shall 
come  true:  if  he  shall  succeed  in  silencing  the  friends. 
or  in  separating  between  God's  .lealinu'  \\it.li  him  and 
bheir  interpretation  of  it.  and  so  conclude  that  God  is 
not  unjust  even  in  afflicting  a  man  guilty  of  no  heinous 
sins,  then  he  shall  retain  his  integrity  and  Satan  be 
defeated.  Thus  looked  at,  two  threads  have  to  be  fol- 
! . iwed  the  one  the  thread  of  discussion  of  the  mere 
speculative  question  of  the  meaning  of  suffering — the 
other  thread  the  more  important  result  this  discussion 
produces  on  the  mind  of  .Fob.  This  hitter  is  the  real 
subject  of  the  book.  The  discussion  of  the  question  of 
suffering  falls  into  three  cycles,  in  each  (if  which  the 
faith  of  the  friends  assumes  a  somewhat  different  phase. 
In  the  iir.-t  cycle,  ch. iv.-xiv.,  the  doctrine  is  put  as  gene 
rally  and  Leniently  as  possible  God  is  righteous,  who 
propers  the  just  and  punishes  the  wicked:  and  Job  is 
left  todra\\  the  conclusion  for  himself.  To  this  theory 
Job  opposes  facts:  himself,  who,  being  just,  is  yet  af 
flicted;  the  appearance  man  everywhere  presents,  the 
just  oppressed  and  the  wicked  triumphant:  even  the 
lower  creatures,  suffering  innocently  under  the  rapa 
cious  cruelty  of  the  stronger.  And  to  complete  the 
friends'  discomfiture.  Job  charges  their  defence  of  God 
with  dishonesty  and  sycophancy.  They  stood  on  Gorl's 
-ide  only  because  he  was  strong  and  Job  was  weak. 
In  the  second  cycle,  ch.  xv.-xxi ,  the  doctrine  assumes 
this  more  direct  form:  It  is  the  wicked  who  are  afflicted  : 
from  which  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  by  Job  is  yet- 
easier.  With  even  greater  ease  and  scorn  Job  crushes 
to  the  ground  this  feeble  argument.  Facts  speak  the 
contrary-  -Ike  tcic/ced  lire,  ijrov:  uld,  //(",  /n/'niiir  /ii/<//iti/ 
': a  /in/i'cr:  not  the  most  miserable,  but  often  the  most 
fortunate  of  men  are  transgressors.  Thus  the  friends 
having  failed  to  show  the  double- sidedness  of  their  prin 
ciple  in  the  first  cycle,  and  the  validity  of  that  side  of 
it  which  involved  Job  in  the  second,  have  nothing  left 
but  assert  Job's  ^iiilt  without  disguise,  which  Kliphaz 
proceeds  to  do  in  the  third  cycle  in  a  series  of  mere 
distracted  inventions.  To  this  Job  replii  s  that  the 
righteous  are  often  oppressed,  as  already  he  had  replied 
i  hat,  tbe  wicked  were  often  triumphant,  and  thus  routs 
both  flanks  of  the  enemy's  array.  He  then  proceeds 
to  deny  that  the  theory  of  providence  advocated  by  the 
friends  is  true;  to  deny  even  that  any  theory  is  possible 
to  man,  whose  wisdom  consists  not  in  knowing  God's 
ways,  but  in  doing  his  will;  and  ends  with  imprecating 
curses  on  himself,  if  guilty  of  the  crimes  laid  to  his 
charge,  and  with  a  bitter  cry  for  God's  appearance  to 
justify  him  before  the  eyes  of  men.  Thus  Job  is  victor 
in  the  human  strife. 

More  interesting  still  is  it  to  follow  the  other  thread, 
and  watch  the  progressive  effect  of  these  conflicts  with 
the  friends  on  the  religious  condition  of  Job's  mind. 


JOB,  BOOK  OF 


(J1 


JOB.    HOOK   OF 


In  the  first  cycle  he  falls  deepest  into  despondency  and 
drifts  furthest  away  from  God.  He  had  expected  con 
solation  from  the  friends,  they  rebuke  him  sharply. 
Bildad  crushes  into  frenzy  the  father's  heart  by  laying 
the  death  of  Job's  children  at  their  own  door,  thus  add 
ing  to  their  ruin  here,  their  ruin  hereafter:  and  in  answer 
ing  him  Job's  words  and  bearing  reach  the  climax  of 
audacity.  What  has  to  be  particularly  observed  is. 
that  at  the  end  of  Job's  answer  to  each  speaker  he  falls 
into  a  monologue  or  remonstrance  with  God,  and  that 
this  appeal  to  God  reflects  always  the  passion  and  the 
fury  of  the  suifcrer's  conflicts  with  his  friends.  And 
thus  it  is  that  much  of  the  temerity  of  Job's  word-  is 
to  be  accounted  for.  and  for  this  rea-oti  to  be  excused: 
and  just  hen-  lay  Job's  danger  of  excci  ding  all  religious 
limits  and  renouncing  God  finally. 

At  the  close  of  the  first  cycle  ,,f  debate,  Job  rises  out, 
of  the  necessity  of  thinking  some  other  condition  the 
o-oal  of  man  than  his  piv-eiit  wretchedness,  to  the  hope 
and  the  vision  of  a  future  of  hli--  and  immortality. 
13.  Thi.-  hope  is  hardly  able  to  su.-tain  itsell 
against  the  tide  of  troubles  and  misapprehensions  of 
the  present,  yet  it  cannot  le  altogether  o\ercome. 
Already  Job  had  expressed  his  assurance  that  God 
knew  his  innocence,  di  x  7:  already  he  felt  tnat  it  he 
could  come  before  God  his  guiltlessness  would  display 
itself,  di.  xiii  is;  speedily  he  ri-e-  to  the  certainty  that 
God  in  heaven  i-  watching  and  witnessing  to  hi-  integ 
rity,  di  v.i  i>'>:  immediately,  so  sure  is  he  of  thi-  secret 
sympalhv  "I  God'.-  heart,  that  he  ventures  to  ;ipp.  al  to 
him  to  be  his  surety,  cli  wi  ji;  and  at  la-t  all  doubt  ^u\>- 
sides.  and  he  utters  his  so], -nin  belief,  /  L'ixi'1'  that  my 
Redeemer  li\eth,  oh  \ix  - ..  Hut  even  this  assurance  of 
the  future  cannot  reconcile  Job  to  the  trouble,  of  the 
[.resent,  and  his  cries  for  God's  appearance  becomi  even 
more  importunate  than  In-fore,  i-li  xxiii  ::;  and  alt.  r  sol' 
rowfully  describing  man  s  inabilit  v  to  fathom  the  divine 
plans,  di.  xx-.ai  .  and  mournfully  contrasting  his  present 
with  the  f,  licit\  of  hi-  former  life,  he  ends  with  appeal 
ing  a'jain  to  <  !od  to  unriddle  ;he  m\  stery  oi  his  sorrow's, 
ch.  \xx.  ', 

To  a  dispassionate  listener  it  could  not  but  appear 
that  both  Job  and  the  three  friends  \\ere  uuilty  of  error. 
.Fob  asserted  hi-  own  piety  to  the  exelu-ioii  of  God's 
justice:  and  the  friend.-  defended  God's  justice  at  the 
expense  of  Job's  inte_;nt  v.  It  could  surely  be  shown 
that  Job's  pietv  beiir_;-  admitted.  God.  who  inflicted 
suffering,  was  not  unju-t:  and  on  the  other  side,  that 
God's  justice  hein^  admitted.  Job.  who  was  aliliete.l. 
need  not  be  impious.  Job  must  bo  shown  to  lie  in 
fault,  because  he  arrnmifi<l  /<//».-•<//  ttiorr  jn.<f  tlmn  Clod; 
and  the  friends  to  be  in  fault  because  flirt/  finnul  mi 
(iiiniri  ;•  to  Jol/s  assertions  of  innocence,  and  >/<  f  rn/i- 
d<  in ii'il  ./"'>,  ch.  xxii.  •_'.  This  is  the  task  which  Klihu, 
hitherto  a  listener  to  the  debate,  sets  before  him.  lint 
though  Klihu  enters  upon  the  di  bate  as  an  arbiter,  yet 
true  to  the  great  idea  of  the  poem,  he  directs  his  words 
chiefly  to  Job,  because  it  is  his  religious  attitude  which 
has  to  be  determined  by  them.  Now.  (1  ,\  though  there 
was  deep  need  expressed  in  the  cry  of  Job's  heart  and 
flesh  for  the  living  God,  it  had  too  much,  even  to  the 
end,  the  nature  of  a  demand,  and  a  complaint  that  God 
was  heedless  of  man's  necessities  and  appeals.  c2.)  He- 
had  denied  God's  rectitude  in  his  own  sufferings,  and 
in  the  world  generally.  (3.)  Finally,  he  had  subsided 
into  the  mournful  conviction  that  the  scheme  of  Pro 
vidence  was  beyond  the  reach  of  man's  endeavours. 


The  speeches  of  r.lihu  are  designed  to  meet  these  main 
positions  of  Job.  To  Job's  first  complaint  of  God's 
heedlessness.  Klihu  answers  in  his  first  section,  di.  xxxh. 
xxxiii.,  that  God  speaks  to  man  once,  yea  twice  (often 
and  in  many  ways',  in  dreams  to  instruct,  in  afflictions 
to  chastise.  di.  xxxr.i.  14;  leniently,  and  when  that  avails 
not.  severely,  to  cover  pride  from  man.  To  the  patri 
arch's  second  charge  of  injustice  on  God's  part.  Klihu, 
in  his  second  section,  da.  xxxiv.  xxxv.,  answers,  that  the 
mere  existence  of  man  and  nature  implies  not  selfish 
ness  but  goodness  on  God's  part;  if  he  thought  of  him 
self  alone,  he  would  withdraw  his  Spirit,  and  all  flesh 
would  perish,  di.  xxxiv.  i.::  further,  that  the  idea  of  gov 
ernment  re-ts  on  the  idea  of  justice.  and  injustice  in 
(  lod  would  he  dissolution  of  nature,  i-li.  .xxxiv.  ir.  To 
Job's  third  complaint,  that  God's  providence  is  .mite 
unsearchable,  Klihu  replies  in  his  third  section,  cli.  xxxvi. 
that  its  general  tendency  may  be  seen,  suffering' 
is  educational.  •  h.  xxxvi  -1-1  And  while  he  is  describing 
the  storm-cloud,  suddenly  he  is  interrupted,  and  God 
speaks  out  of  tin  cloud. 

When  (  oid  appears  he  addresses  himself  immediately 
to  Job.  Klihu  had  >aid  so  much  on  sutt'cring  and  on 
>in  that  Job's  conscience  smote  him  into  silence,  and 
he  answered  nothing.  His  heart  was  prepared  by  a 
deepi  r  knowledge  of  it.  -elf  to  meet  God  ami  know  him. 
God  came  with  no  explanation  of  the  general  problem 
of  sol-row;  with  no  li^ht  on  the  .|iiestion  of  Job  s  sor- 
rows:  with  only  a  few  u.-nU  of  upbraiding  tor  Jobs 
hard  words  regard  hi";  himself,  and  then  he  makes  all 
liis  glor\  [iass  before  Job'-  eyes,  who,  at  every  new 
-iuht  of  (iod's  miuht  and  gi'ace.  is  thrown  lower  down. 
••  \o\\  mine  eye  seeth  thee,  wherefore  I  abhor  myself, 
and  repent  in  du-t  and  ashes. 

l''inall\'.  true  to  the  -real  law  of  retribution,  Job, 
now  doubly  pious  and  linn  in  faith  by  his  trial,  i.- 
blessed  with  double  happiness  and  wealth.  And  the 
friends,  at  hi-  intercession,  are  pardoned:  for,  though 
both  some\\  liat  shallow  and  .-ojne  \\hat  insincere  in  their 
defence  <>f  God's  justice,  they  spoke  according  to  their 
li-ht  and  for  the  best. 

:;.  '/'//.•  intcijritij  and  autkcnticitti  of  lite  Iwk.     Objec 

tion-   have   been   raised   against    the   originality   of  the 

prologue  from  misunderstanding  its  integral  connection 

with  the  poem.      The  opinion  that  the  poem  had  origi 

nally  no  prologue  cannot  be  reasonably  maintain,  d.  the 

poem  would  thus  have  been  unintelligible.     The  (.pinion 

that  it   had  oriuinally  another   prologue  has  no  positive 

support,  but   is  founded   on  the  following  objections  to 

the   present    prologue.        I.    The   prologue  is   in   prose. 

Hut  all   narrative  is  usually  in    prose  in  Semitic   books, 

and  hi^h-wrou-ht  sentiment  in  poetry.      (iM  The  names 

\   Kloah,   Kl.  Shaddai,  are  chiefly  employed   in  the  poem, 

while  Jehovah  occurs   in    the   prologue.      But   the   dis 

tinction  is  not  uniformly  kept   up,  and   is  explainable 

.  where  it  occurs  by  the  design  of   the  writer.      He  lays 

'  the  scene  of  his  work  in   the  patriarchal  time,  before 

the  name  Jehovah  had   attained  to  extended   currency. 

i   ;:5.i  The  alleged   contradiction   between  what  is  said   in 

the  prologue,  of  Job's  resignation   and  his  demeanour 

i  in  the  poem.      Hut  his  bearing  under  his  first  two  temp 

tations  is  quite  reconcilable  with  his  different  bearing 

under  the  protracted   torture  of  the  third.      The   objec 

tion  arises  from  misconception  of  the  progressive  char 

acter  fif  the  book.      (4.}  The  alleged   contradiction  be 

tween  the  account  of  the  death  of  Job's  children  in  the 

!  prologue,  and  passages  in  the  poem,  such  as  ch.  xix.  1  7, 


-I OP.,    BOOK    OK 


018 


.FOP,,   BOOK  OF 


where  they  ;ire  still  alive.  P.ut  tin:  contradiction  here 
is  not  between  the  prologue  and  the  poem,  but  between 
one  part  of  the  poem  ami  another.  Ch.  viii.  1  ami 
xxix.  f>  agree,  with  the  account  in  the  prologue,  and 
eh.  xix.  17  is  to  lie  explained  in  accordance  with  this. 
(.">.)  The  peculiar  aspect  of  the  doctrine  of  Satan.  Put 
there  is  nothing  in  the  prologue  that  contradicts  the 
teaching  of  other  Scripture  regarding  Satan.  Indeed, 
the  prologue  is  now  universally  admitted  to  be  an  origi 
nal  and  integral  part  of  the  book. 

.Difficulty  has  been  experienced  in  reconciling  the 
sentiments  uttered  by  Job,  ch.  xxvii.  1:1,  Ml.,  with  those 
expressed  by  him  elsewhere.  Hence  some  think  this 
piece  must  be  the  lost  third  reply  of  Zophar,  to  whom 
only  two  speech.es  are  assigned  by  the  present  arrange 
ment  of  the  book.  Others  attribute  the  change  in  Job's 
sentiments  to  forgetfulncss  and  inconsequential  writing 
on  the  part  of  the  author.  Others  again  fancy  that 
Job  wishes  to  modify  the  roundness  of  his  former 
words,  which  were  uttered  in  the  heat  of  debate,  and 
were  felt  by  him  to  go  too  far,  and  not  to  represent 
fairly  his  calm  convictions.  None  of  these  views  fairly 
accounts  for  this  peculiar  passage.  And  Job  is  far 
enough  from  retracting  any  of  his  former  statements. 
The  true  explanation  no  doubt  will  be  found  in  con 
sidering  the  passage  in  question  to  be  a  kind  of  sum 
mary  Ly  Job  of  the  views  of  the  friends  on  Providence, 
which  views  he  characterizes  as  Ssn>  eh-  xxvii.  12,  utter 

vanity,  and  quite  insufficient  to  explain  the  facts. 
Having  run  over  these  views,  rer.  i;;-.';;,  he  proceeds  to 
controvert  them.  No  theory  of  Providence  can  be 
formed.  Men  may  discover  all  earthly  things,  but 
wisdom  i;;  beyond  their  reach.  Man's  wisdom  is  practi 
cal,  not  theoretical.  The  latter  God  has  kept  to  him 
self;  and  to  man  he  has  said,  The  fear  of  the  Lord,  that 
is  wisdom;  and  to  depart  from  evil,  that  is  understand 
ing,  ch.  xxviii. 

More  difficult  to  meet  are  the  objections  urged  against 
the  originality  of  the  speeches  uttered  by  Elihu.  Many 
critics  regard  these  as  the  product  of  a  niaturer  religious 
faith,  and  indicative  of  a  deeper  insight  into  the  mean 
ing  of  suffering  than  is  shown  by  the  other  portions  of 
the  book,  and  licncc  to  be  attributed  to  an  age  consider 
ably  (perhaps  a  century)  later  than  that  which  gave 
rise  to  the  chief  elements  of  the  poem.  These  discourses 
certainly  do  exhibit  a  marked  difference  both  in  tone 
of  thinking  and  colour  of  language  from  the  other  por 
tions;  but  this  difference  may  perhaps  be  explained  on 
other  grounds  than  those  of  a  change  of  author  and  era. 
Among  the  less  important  objections  to  the  authenti 
city  of  ch.  xxxii.-xxxvii.  are  the  following:  (1.)  Elihu 
does  not  appear  in  the  prologue  among  the  dramatis 
perxoitfe.  Put  the  author  does  not  enumerate  the 
•speakers  and  actors  as  such.  He  introduces  them  just  at 
the  time  they  are  going  to  act.  (2.)  Elihu  is  not  named 
in  the  epilogue.  But  there  was  nothing  to  say  of  him. 
So  far  as  he  agreed  with  God  he  has  his  reward  in 
hearing  his  sentiments  re-echoed  from  the  divine  lips: 
so  far  as  he  agreed  with  Job  he  is  commended  in  his 
commendation,  and  if  he  shared  in  some  degree  the 
misapprehensions  of  the  friends,  he  is  corrected  in  their 
correction.  The  grand  figure  of  the  poem  is  Job:  no 
more  than  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  progress  of  the 
drama,  is  related  of  the  subordinate  persons.  (3.)  Job 
makes  no  answer  to  Elihu.  Because  he  had  no  answer 
to  make.  He  felt  smitten  bv  Elihu's  words.  And 


I  immediately  on  Klihifs  last  utterances,  Jehovah  him 
self  called  to  Job  out  of  the  storm-cloud. 

Of  greatly  more  consequence  are  the  following  objec 
tions  :  !  1 .)  The  speeches  of  Klihu  interrupt  the  connec 
tion  between  the  final  cry  of  .Job  for  the  appearance  of 
God  and  that  appearance  itself.  I.ut  this  interruption 
is  grounded  very  deeply  in  the  author's  feeling  of  what 
is  God- beseeming.  That  cry  of. Job,  with  all  its  over 
whelming  pathos,  had  something  too  much  of  a  chal 
lenge  in  it.  Jj(;t  his  heart  be  softened  by  the  deeper 
words  of  Elihu;  let  him  feel  that  God's  appearance  is 
not  a  thing  of  right  but  of  grace,  and  (Jed  will  then 
appeal-.  (2.)  These  speeches  of  Elihu  are  said  to  fore 
stall,  by  the  sentiments  they  contain,  the  appearance 
and  words  of  Jehovah.  Jt  is  true  that  Elihu  ami  God 
himself  both  wield  the  same  arguments;  but  it  is  \\ith 
very  different  effects.  Elihu  no  more  forestalls  the 
work  of  God  when  lie  appeal's,  than  the  preacher  fore 
stalls  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  when  he  comes.  Elihu 
appeals  to  Job's  conscience  and  reason  and  brings  him 
to  silence;  Jehovah  reveals  himself  and  brings  him  to 
confession  and  peace  by  contact  with  the  heart.  (-3.) 
The  language  of  this  portion  of  the  book  is  said  to 
betray  a  different  authorship.  But  it  is  very  precari 
ous  to  rest  much  on  this  subjective  ground.  The  chief 
peculiarity  of  these  chapters  lies  in  their  very  numerous 
Arameisms:  but  such  Arameisms  characterize  all  He 
brew  poetry.  And  it  may  be  supposed  that  they  are 
more  frequent  in  this  portion  of  the  book  than  in  others, 
because  Elihu  was  himself  an  Aramean,  ch.  xxxii.  2 
And  careful  attention  to  the  oilier  parts  of  the  poem 
will  show  that  the  author  puts  favourite  expressions 
into  the  mouth  of  each  speaker,  and  thus  the  strong!}' 
marked  language  of  Elihu  may  be  only  in  keeping  with 
his  otherwise  very  strongly  marked  character  and  func 
tions.  And  if  we  compare  the  relations  of  this  portion 
of  the  book  to  the  other  portions,  we  shall  find  many 
threads  that  run  through  the  latter  ending  in  this  part 
(compare  ch.  vi.  2.">  with  ch.  xxxiii.  ,');  eh.  ix.  ?,•>  with  ch.  xxxiii.  <;) ; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  the  affinities  between  the  other 
portions  of  Scripture,  such  as  the  Psalms  and  .Proverbs, 
and  these  speeches  are  quite  as  close  as  those  existing 
between  such  books  and  other  parts  of  Job. 

Objections  have  been  urged  by  Ewald  and  others 
against  some  parts  of  the  discourses  put  into  the  month 
of  Jehovah,  but  they  are  frivolous;  the  portions  of  the 
book  in  question,  as  well  as  the  epilogue,  being  con 
sidered  by  nearly  all  critics  to  be  integral  elements  of 
the  book. 

4.  Historic  truth,  era,  and  authorship  of  the  poem. — 
On  the  historic  character  of  the  book  various  opinions 
have  been  entertained.  (1.)  Some,  such  as  Spanheim, 
have  held  that  the  whole  poem,  both  poetry  and  prose, 

!  is  strictly  historical,  the  events  detailed  occurred  pre- 

!  cisely  as  they  are  described,  the  speeches  attributed  to 
the -different  speakers  were  delivered  precisely  as  they 

,  now  appear.  That  this  is  possible,  perhaps  not  many 
will  deny;  that  it  is  credible,  few  indeed  will  admit. 
The  book  bears  the  impress  of  a  single  intellect  upon  it; 
and  skilful  as  the  oriental  extemporisers  are,  we  shall 
hardly  attribute  the  sublimest  poetry  the  world  pos 
sesses  to  the  efforts  of  a  few  Idnmean  improvisator!. 
Xot  only  are  the  poetical  elements  poetry  of  the  most 
exalted  order,  but  plainly  the  prose  parts  are  idealized 
and  to  some  extent  lifted  above  the  sphere  even  of 
miraculous  occurrences.  (2.)  Others,  such  as  several 
Jewish  doctors,  and  among  modern  critics  Ilengsten- 


.JOTX  BOOK  OF 


919 


JOB.  BOOK  OF 


berg,  deny  the  book  to  have  any  historic  basis.  Jt  ir-  logue  to  Job.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the  eom- 
purely  allegorical,  all  its  elements  and  characters  being-  position  of  these  psalms  was  anterior  to  the  appearance 
due  to  the  imagination  of  its  author.  It  would  thus  '  of  Job.  On  the  other  hand,  the  state  of  development 
stand  on  a  parallel  witli  the  parables  of  our  Lord,  in-  ;  which  the  idea  of  the  diciiir  n-'oxlom  had  reached  when 
tended  to  convey  some  great  religions  lessons,  and  Pr.  viii.  was  written,  implies  that  the  passage  on  wisdom, 
clothing  itself  in  the  drapery  of  historic  occurrences  Job  xxviii.,  preceded  the  composition  of  this  part  of  the 
only  the  better  to  attract  the  eye  and  win  the  heart  of  |  Proverbs.  And  in  like  manner  the  eleaniess  with 
the  listener.  But  such  elaborate  allegories,  so  unlike  which  1'A-clesiastes  grasps  and  sets  forth  the  doctrine  of 
the  divine  simplicity  of  the  .Master's  parables,  seem  not  ;  a  final  judgment,  shows  a  Livat  advance  over  its  posi- 
only  something  foreign  to  the  character  of  Scripture.  ;  tion  in  our  book,  where  it  comes  to  be  recognized  by 
but  something  ouite  hevond  the  reach  i.f  the  Semitic  .lob  only  after  a  protracted  struggle.  "We  cannot 
genius.  And  the  allusion-  to  .L,b  by  K/.ekicl  and  ,  -really  err,  therefore,  if  we  place  the  composition  of 
James.  Eze. . \iv.i  i;Ja  v.n.as  a  historic  jursonage  equally  the  In, ok  of  .lob  at  a  period  not  lonu'  afltr  the  death  of 
with  other  well-known  historic  personages,  such  as  David. 

Noah  and  Daniel,  seem  to  imply  that  the  reality  of  tin  No   competent    scholar  can  doubt    that    the  work  is 

circumstances  of  his  hi-tory  was  never  ouestioiied  by  the  production  of  a  nativi  of  rale-tine.  ;md  perhaps 
the  national  mind.  i.",.  >  The  opinion  held  by  all  mode  nothing  more  particular  can  lie  said.  Stickel.  followed 
rate  critics  now.  is  no  doubt  correct,  that  there  is  both  by  Schlottmann,  considers  the  author  to  have  been  a 
a.  historic  and  an  ideal  element  in  the  book,  and  that  native  of  the  south  of  Palestine,  from  some  resemblances 
I ioth  elements  are  fused  together  as  well  in  the  prose  as  which  lie  detects  between  hi-  language  and  that  of 
in  the  poetic  portions.  The  hi-tory  is  not  all  fact,  much  Ann  is.  !1ir/.ol  think-  the  work  must  have  been  written 
of  it  is  poetry:  the  poetry  is  not  all  allegory,  much  of  in  Kgvpt.  on  account  of  the  knowl.  d:;v  -hown  of  the 
it  is  fact.  To  M-parate  one  element  from  another  i-  productions,  living  and  dead,  of  that  country.  The 
obyioii-ly  impracticable.  Some  doubt  whether  the  more  probable  opinion  is,  that  the  author  was  a  man  of 
miraculous  at  all  had  a  place  in  the  events  of  ,1 ,,!,'.-.  wide  culture,  who  had  observed  diligently  and  travelled 
history.  It  is  probable  from  the  age  at  which  he  lived,  much,  to  whom  all  the  tradition-  of  antiquity  had  a 
and  from  the  renown  to  which  he  attained,  that  hi-  deep  significance,  and  all  life,  in  the  desert  as  well  as  in 
afflictions  weiv  altogether  <if  a  peculiar  kind,  that  they  the  centre  of  civilization,  was  strangely  fascinating: 
were  even  more  than  extraordinary.  Hi-  history  and  though  one  problem  ;ih.-orhed  him  most,  and  one 
and  Mitlenii'j--  were  no  doubt  the  centre  around  uhich  :  tradition  floated  about  him.  with  its  terrible  tVagments, 
some  supernatural  di\  me  revelation  was  u'ath.-ivd.  the  mo-it  tenaciously,  vet.  when  he  In-an  to  discuss  that 


by  tli--  author  of  onr  pn-,  nt  hook,  from  whose  hands 
t!;e.v  llow  ~tr  ni"  "ut  to  enlight,  n  all  land-  will,  a  dh  ine 
eifulgenee. 

As  to  the  authorship  of  the  ! k    nothing   is  known  I.'.i»,-Mi  (\M«>\.  Ratav.  iT.'iT);   Stiekel,  Dun  Bt>rl,  l/:,.i,  (Leip. 

\\ithcertaiiitv.      Some   have  attributed    it   to  .lob   him-  '*•->:    Aug.  Halm                                                       Berlin,  IS.'.n); 

self:   some  to'  Klihu:   other-   to   some   unknown    vrabic  <"il1  ••""""">./'<••••/<••••''•  //,v>/,  (Berlin,  ls,5l);    Hir/ei.  //;. /,,/;,. 

«»«-.   7!"  ^e  impress-in  that   the   , k    has   , n  ^ro?K^^^ 

translated  into  Hebrew.  I'.ut  ii"  competent  llebre\\  ,,,,./,  ,/,,/,,  by  .  am.  LCP.  I>.1>.  (I.on<l  ISIJT'),  js  \v<n-se  tliaii  worth- 
scholar  can  doubt  that  the  poem  i-  an  original  1 1  e  brew  less;  <  urev's  /.'  n  nfjnl,(].,m>\.  lsr,S)is;i  croilitulilo  |  ,-i  ii  innancc; 
work.  Others,  followinu  the  Jewish  tradition  have  m<l  <'"»»»<  (I..m<l.  IS.V.D,  is  a  inodt-l  of  scliolai-ship 
attribute,!  the  I k  to  Moses:  while  some  have  dis-  'I1;  ^ >  ^  ^"*  ^\*  'l*t'"«™l™"?.™* 

,  •ainiiritic    fur    younger  studi-lits;      //,.•    Hunk  "I   Juli,  }>y  ur. 

covered    in  the    philosophic  cast  <si    the    poem  the   hand  Cnily  (Li.n.l    isciij.'iulds'notlnn- to  tl.e  rriticism  nr  uii.lorstand- 

of   Solomon.       lloth    the    autliorsliip  and    the   ei-;l    mn.-t  iii«  of  ill.'  bunk:    Tin    !!"••    nf  Jnb     b\  JI.  II.   H,-ni:inl  (late  of 

•vi-r  remain  involv.  d    in  doubt.      There  is  no  reason   to  '  'anibri.lj,'.?),  eilite.l,  with  a  translatioii  an.l  additional  notes,  by 


insider  it  very  modern,  except  the  occnrrence  of  many  below  that    ..f  Conant,   the    M-holarly  delieai-y  ,.f  which   th 

dark  pictures  of  misery,  which  it  is  supposed  niu-t  have  1  "•>  jl  of  ;l  •'"  v-  •  ellla  """We  '"  understand     both  the  author': 

been    drawn    from    the    dissolving    scenes    of  the  Jewish  "'."7  .:"1'1    tl"-."lli"y    translation     seek    to   ,1raj.    the   critici.l. 

.   .  ,,  n i    .Tob    Lark    into    th,-    rabbinical     mire    out    "t    which    it    ha 

commonwealth.       I- or  arguments   from    the    Aramca 


the  tran-lati.in  without  not,  s  i-  b:i*ed  on  the   I'.xepesis  of  II  ir/el. 

in.,  it  appears  that  the  1 k  was  known  and  much  read,  [  .„„,  .„,,,„„..„,!„._,  „,  ,,,„.  kllim  i,.,],,,_i,  fm,,,,.,,*iy  i<  very  prosaie, 

as  was  his  habit,   by  that    prophet.        It  is  probable  that  |  and   alto.'.-th.-r  th.-  1 k   ha-  been   overpraised    in   this  rountry. 

Isaiah  was  acquainted  with  it.  Is  xix.  ;,  with  Job  xiv.  11  ,  Valuable  contributions  to  the  general  criticism  of  the  book  are, 
luirther.  the  book  forms  the  chief  element  in  the  Hebrew  l^™]\  »*•  "  "i^',"  i"  llorzog's  Rwl-ZncuUojiidie,  and 

,,,     ,         ,          ...  .,  ,  ...  ...  another   in  the    '/.I'lta-li.    i'iir  }',-«!•. *t.  ,*.  K'u-<-l>    f.Tahr^ing   1S51); 

Lhokmali  or  I  hilosophy,  and  from  the  relation  ,„  which  r)t,  VVetto  .,  Hi(lb>-i  ;„  K,.s,.,,  .,,,,1  Omher's  1-,,,-,,1-i,,,,. .-  Gleiss. 
it  stands  to  other  fragments  of  this  Wisdom,  whose  era  :  /;.,/-•*/•  dlamb.  ]s.r,l;  a!l  article.  "The  Hook  of  Job,"  in  i;,-;t. 
is  better  known,  its  own  date  can  be  approximately  de-  \  "<"'  I''1"'-  Kt<<i><t.  It"''"  "'.  -Inly,  Is.'.T:  l-'ionde.  H<n,l-  <,f  Jr,l,,  re 

terminc-d.      Several   psalms,  such  as  xxxvii.  and  Ixxiii.,  |  lirinted  fr'""  the  l("'s/"  ;""'"'  R "''"""•    IItll'l-'l'b  "Die  Stellmi- 

1  n.   Hedeutiinu'  d.-s   H.  Iliob  u.  «.  w. ."  in   the   1).  ,<U<:l,r  Ztilf.    rii,- 

discuss  the  same  problem:  but  th,-  solution  winch  they  j  rlli,^  „-,,.,;„,,./,„/,  „.  ch.  l,h  „  (.luhr^an-  1R50.  Angnrt  and 
leach  is  one  less  advanced  than  that  u'iyen  in  the  pro-  j  September.)]  [A.  n.  n.J 


JOCHEBKD 


JOCH'EBED  [whose  u/un/  is  Jc/ioral,],  the  wife  of 
Ainram,  :ui<l  mother  of  Moses  and  .Aaron,  K\.  vi.  L>O. 
She  is  expressly  said  to  have  been  the  sister  of  Ani- 
ra  m's  father,  liis  own  aunt,  and  the  relation  \\  as  conse 
quently  of  a  kind  which  afterwards  came  within  the 
forbidden  degrees.  The  Sept..  by  a  loose  translation, 
instead  of  father's  x/'x/Vr  makes  fatlier's  cousin:  but 
this  is  quite  unwarranted,  :uid  adopt<  d  no  donlit  to 
yet  rid  of  the  apparent  impropriety  of  the  connection. 

JO'EL  [s.Vv.  ,/<'/»»•«/,  <;<><!.  or  God  /x  Jchoralt],  the 

sec.  nid  of  the  twelve  minor  prophets,  as  they  are  ar 
ranged  in  our  Knglish  Hible  afb  r  the  Hebrew:  though 
in  the  Septuagint  the  order  i.-.  llosea.  Amos.  Mie.ih. 
.Joel,  &c.  We  read  that  he  was  the  son  of  J'ethuel.  hut, 
except  tiiis.  we  have  no  information  as  to  his  family, 
his  native  place.  i'ne  time  at  which  he  flourished,  ami 
the  events  of  his  personal  history.  The  tradition  that 
he  belonged  to  the  tri'oe  of  lioiiben.  and  to  a  town 
variouslv  named  Hethom,  Theburan,  and  Bethomcron. 
is  of  late  and  uncertain  authority;  and  the  conjecture 
that  he  was  a  priest,  because  he  has  spoken  so  much 
of  the  temple  and  the  sacrifices,  may  lie  dismissed 
without  much  consideration.  A  more  reasonable  con 
jecture  is.  that  his  ministry  was  exercised  within  the 
kingdom  of  Judah,  on  account  of  the  very  frequent 
references  to  .iudah,  Jerusalem,  Zion,  and  the  temple: 
while  there  is  no  reference  to  the  ten  tribes,  unless 
possibly  once.  ch.  iii.  -i  aicbre-.v,  iv  .'_•),  "My  heritage  I.-nn/. 
whom  they  have  scattered  among  the  heathen,  and 
parted  my  land''— a  statement,  however,  which  we 
interpret  as  referring  to  the  whole  twelve  tribes. 

The  age  in  which  he  lived  lias  furnished  matter  for 
great  discussion,  and  very  widely  varying  opinions 
have  been  put  forward.  Thus  Bunson  conjectured 
that  he  wrote  about  fifteen  or  five  and  twenty  years 
after  the  invasion  of  .Iudah  by  Shishak  king  of  Iv^vpt 
during  the  reign  of  Rehoboam ;  while,  at  the  other 
extreme.  .] .  1).  Aliohaelis  made  him  a  contemporary  of 
the  ^Maccabees.  Hut  critics  have  chiefly  leant  to  one 
of  two  opinions-  either  that  he  was  a  contemporary  of 
J[osra  and  Amos,  between  whom  he  stands  in  tin- 
arrangement  of  the  prophetical  writings  by  the  .lews 
— that  is.  in  the  reigns  of  Jeroboam  11.  of  Israel  and 
("zziah  of  Jndah;  or  else  under  the  reign  of  Joash  of 
Judah.  about  fifty  or  seventy  years  earlier.  That  lie 
occupies  a  pretty  early  place  is  almost  universal! v  be 
lieved,  because  of  the  freshness  of  his  style,  which  is 
pronounced  to  be  easy,  independent,  and  beautiful: 
wherea  •  the  marks  of  a  somewhat  later  age  in  other 
prophets  are  awanting,  especially  the  names  of  Assyria 
and  Babylon — the  great  heathen  empires  which  exe 
cuted  vengeance  on  God's  apostate  people.  The  earlier 
of  the  two  dates  above  mentioned  has  been  approved 
by  the  very  highest  of  recent  authorities,  and  these  of  i 
the  most  thoroughly  different  theological  tendencies: 
such  as  Credner,  Hitzig.  Kwald.  Hofman,  Delit/sch, 
Keil;  and  there  have  been  verv  subtle  arguments  in 
favour  of  it  from  the  contents  of  the  book,  chiefly  1  i 
because  there  is  reference  made  directly  to  the  Tyrians, 
Sidonians,  and  Philistines,  as  the  enemies  of  Israel,  ch. 
iii.;  Ituiirc.v, iv.  r,  whose  enmity,  however,  came  to  be 
less  prominent  in  succeeding  ages,  when  attention  was 
chiefly  turned  to  the  groat  worldly  monarchies:  (2)  , 
because  no  mention  is  made  of  the  Syrians,  who  in  the 
later  days  of  Joash  made  a  successful  irruption  into 
Judah,  and  were  turned  awav  from  Jerusalem  onlv 


by  receiving  a  very  heavy  ransom.  •_' Ki.  xii.  17,  is  (Hebrew, 
18,  in1';  2  Ch.  xxiv.  i.'i-iTi;  and  (i'>)  because  "the  valley  of 
Jehoshaphat,"  in  which  is  to  take  place  the  decisive 
c. .ntest  with  the  enemies  of  Cod's  people,  points  to  the 
vivid  recollection  of  the  great  victory  granted  to  Je 
hoshaphat  over  the'  heathen,  iCh.xx.,  as  of  an  event  not 
yet  far  away  from  the  prophet's  time.  This  last  argu 
ment  is  certainly  very  doubtful .  The  second  argument 
loses  much  of  its  force,  or  all  of  it,  when  we  consider 
that  Syria  was  not  an  enemy  of  the  kingdom  of  Jndah 
in  the  way  in  which  it  was  the  enemy  of  the  ten  tribes; 
and  that  the  inroad  upon  Joash  \\as  a  solitary  event, 
and  expressly  spoken  of  as  somewhat  incidental.' and 
so  it  might  leave  little  impression  on  the  people  at  the 
distance  of  half  a  century,  or  something  more.  And 
as  for  the  mention  of  the  Tyrians,  Sidonians.  and 
1'hilistines.  on  which  the  first  argument  rests,  it  an 
swers  precisely  to  the  mode  of  speaking  in  Amos, 
whom  they  refuse  to  call  his  contemporary.  Kwald, 
indeed,  and  others  after  him.  dwell  upon  the  faith  and 
piety  of  the  early  times  in  which  Joel  lived,  very  dif 
ferent  from  the  degeneracy  of  the  times  of  llosea  and 
Amos.  Hut  though  a  difference  of  character  were  estab 
lished  'which  there  has  not  been),  it  would  furnish  no 
criterion  for  the  chroiiologv.  since  we  are  not  aware  of 
any  new  causes  of  corruption  amon<i'  the  people  between 
the  days  of  .loash  and  those  of  r/./.iah;  and  in  the 
time  of  the  former  kins  they  were  so  powerful  as  to 
carry  him  away  into  openlv  idolatrous  courses,  alon^ 
with  his  nobility.  On  the  whole,  as  Tmbreit  says, 
there  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  throwing  aside  the  old 
tradition  which  places  Joe]  along  with  llosea  and 
Amos:  and  this  appears  to  be  still  the  prevailing 
opinion.  Onlv,  it  is  likelv  that  Joel's  prophecies  [ire- 
ceded  those  of  Amos,  who  as  a  herdsman  in  Tekoah 
may  have  had  opportunities  of  hearing  him.  as  it  is 
almost  certain  that  he  borrows  trom  him;  coinparu 
Joul  iii.  Id  and  Am.  i.  2.  Besides,  there  are  very  many 
passages  which  establish  a  close  resemblance  ol  senti 
ment  and  expression  among  those  three  prophets  whom 
we  consider  contemporary.  There  is  no  reference  in 
Joel  to  anything  in  the  characters  of  the  king  and  the 
princes  of  his  time,  whatever  conclusion  we  may  infer 
from  this. 

Another  and  more  keenly  conducted  discussion 
among  critics,  has  been  as  to  the  nature  of  the  pro 
phecy  of  Joel— whether  the  locusts  of  which  he  speaks 
at  groat  length  be  literal  or  symbolical  locusts.  The 
symbolical  interpretation  was  that  which  the  ancient 
Jews  and  the  Christian  fathers  adopted,  with  seine 
inconsiderable  exceptions;  but  since  the  Reformation 
the  literal  interpretation,  which  was  adopted  by  Luther 
and  Calvin,  has  been  greatly  more  in  favour,  and  is 
adopted  by  almost  all  the  scholars  of  Cermany  in  the 
present  day.  The  decision  indeed  involves  very  great 
i  difficulties:  so  that  T'mbreit  declares  that  he  often 
wavered  between  the  two  opinions,  and  ended  in  think 
ing  that  the  prophet  meant  to  include  both.  We 
do  not  feel  disposed  to  quarrel  with  this  settlement 
of  the  question,  if  it  is  meant  that  the  prophet  started 
from  the  threatening  by  Moses  of  locusts,  along  with 
other  evils,  captivity  itself  among  the  rest,  to  be  sent 
upon  the  disobedient  people.  De.  xxviii.  ss-42,  as  locusts 
and  captivity  are  mentioned  successively  among  the 
threatened  evils  by  Solomon  in  his  dedication  prayer, 
1  Ki.viii.  ,'!7,  id  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  terrible  suffer 
ings  from  locusts  may  have  given  occasion  to  the  form 


JOEL 


921 


JOEL 


of  his  description.  But  it  is  pre-eminently  the  symboli-  !  does  not  see  why  the  people  were  to  be  reproached  and 
eal  locusts  that  are  before  him,  as  in  the  cognate  pas-  j  made  a  proverb  by  the  heathen,  on  account  of  their 
sa^e,  lie.  ix.  1-1 'J.  For,  if  there  lie  something  strange  '  having  endured  the  ravages  of  locusts:  whereas  the 
in  a  sustained  description  of  enemies  under  this  figure,  !  reproach  is  obvious  enough,  leading  on  to  the  question 
it  is  at  least  no  less  strange  to  have  in  the  prophets 


such  a  lengthened  description  of  a  present  or  past  evil 
that   is   merely  of  an   external  and   transient   nature. 


The  imagery  <>f  locusts  for  enemies  is  familiar  to  very 


in  reference  to  them,  "Where  is  now  their  God?"  if 
the  heathen  bad  been  ruling  over  them,  when  tliey 
ought  rather  to  have  had  rule  over  the  heathen,  ac 


cording   to    the    very    words   of    the    promise,    Do.  xv. 


in   Joel.      Nor   do   we  feel   the  force  of  the  exception  ;  literal  interpreters  is.   that  the  locusts  were  a  present 
taken  to  this  reasonii:'_'.    that  these  are  in   symbolical     actual  calamity :   but  that  in  them  the  prophet  saw  the 

harbingers  or  prognostics  of  a  greater  evil  in  the  dis 
tance  -the  coming  day  of  the  Lord.  This  theory 
escapes  from  certain  difficulties;  but  it  introduces  a 
formidable  one  peculiar  to  itself — namely  this,  that  the 
prophet  does  not  distinguish  the  day  of  the  Lord  from 
the  visitation  of  the  locusts;  nay.  he  mixes  them  up  as 
inseparable,  rh.  ii  MI,  and  speaks  of  their  ravages  as  the 
last  from  which  the  people  were  to  sutler  before  the 
time  of  !_'!,, i-jous  deliverance  and  of  judgment  on  their 
enemies,  ch  ii.  -ji.  KC. 

The  arrangement  of  the  prophecy  on  the  symbolical 
rinciple  of  interpretation,  is  therefore  of  the  following 


-''!)  In  the  description  of  the  locusts  th-iv  is  nothing 


said  of  their  flight,  always  a  most  remarkable  feature 
in  the  real  incursions  <  >f  these  en  atun-s:  their  teeth  are 
•'the  teeth  of  /ion*."  <-h.  i  i;  —  a  common  and  natural 
metaphor  in  reference  to  \\arlik«-  hosts.  b\it  unsuitable 
to  locusts  jiroper:  and  their  ravages  are  directed,  noj 
against  fields,  but  a-jainM  cities  and  men,  who  endea 
vour  to  meet  them  \\ith  swords  or  darts,  cli.ii.  C-9.  ('2 
'1'he  mischief  is  caused  bv  lire  as  well  a-  bv  locusts,  <-h 


r  the  form  of  four  invasions  of  locusts,  perhaps  with 
r.  Ference  to  the  four  ^vat  worldly  powers  as  set  forth 
In  Daniel  and  /.-chariali;  terminating  in  a  call  to 
thorough  and  universal  repentance.  Second,  ch.ii.  1S-2U 
i  Hebrew,  ii  i-- iii  iM.  an  announcement  of  salvation  to  the 
repentant  people;  i\ storing  everything  that  they  had 
lost,  and  giving  them  richer  blessings.  Third,  ch.  ii.  30- 
iii.  21  (Hebrew,  iii.  2-iv  -'1  ,  the  Contrast  between  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  nations  who  had  been  instruments  of 
vengeance  in  scattering  1-r.u-l.  and  the  restored  people 
of  Cod  laden  with  inconceivable  and  everlasting  bless 
ings.  The  continuity  of  the  prophecy  lias  been  inter 
rupted  by  those  w-ho  have  taken  ch.  ii.  IS,  111,  or  part 
of  these  verses,  to  be  a  historical  parenthesis.  And 

11.20,  is  simple  c  noue-h.  if  understood  metaphorically:  !  though  they  are  grammatically  riuht  in  taking  the 
but  it  presents  several  serious  difficulties  to  the  literalist,  verbs  in  them  as  preterites,  yet  the  English  version 
For  locusts  are  brought  by  the  wind,  and  are  carried  ,'ives  the  general  force  and  impression  of  the  pas-age 
away  by  it  when  it  changes,  as  they  have  no  power  to  re-  perhaps  more  correctly  to  the  reader;  because  it  is  an 
sist  it :  yet  there  they  are  represented  as  being  carried  in  ideal  preterite,  but  a  real  future  in  the  continuous 
three  different  directions  to  tin;  Mediterranean  on  (he  vision  which  is  spread  out  before  the  prophet  s  eye,  and 
west,  and  the  Dead  Sea  on  the  east,  and  "a  land  bar-  expressed  according  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  Hebrew 
ren  and  desolate."  apparently  the  desert,  on  the  south,  consecution  of  tenses 

Especially  they  are  called  "the  northern  army."  which  Joel  has  left  his  influence  upon  succeeding  prophets; 
well  describes  the  nations  who  invaded  Palestine,  but  there  is  little  appearance  of  his  being  much  in- 
entering  from  the  north,  as  they  habitually  did.  and  are  '  debted  to  the  inspired  writ  'rs  who  preceded  him.  There 
described  accordingly  in  a  multitude  of  texts  in  J.-re-  are,  however,  some  references  to  the  law  of  Moses,  as 
miah  and  E/.ekiel  :  whereas  it  is  totally  unsuitable  for  in  the  descriptions  of  the  LTraciousness  of  God,  ch.  ii.  13, 
locusts,  who  come  from  the  south  or  the  east;  but  |  from  F.x.  xxxiv.  t;;  \xxii  ii:  the  allusion  to  the  heathen 


a  metaphorical  sen^e,  di.  ill.  i1-;  and  the  same  sense 
oii<_rht  to  be  attached  to  the  preceding  miseries.  <  ',  > 
Tliis  is  confirmed,  d.  iii.  17,  ''So  shall  ye  know  that  I 

am  tie-  Li  nl  via-  (  !od,  dwelling  in  '/.\«\\.  my  holy 
mountain:  then  .-ball  Jerusal.  m  be  holy,  and  tin  re 
fhn'l  ito  strau</ci:-i  ,,-/,-.-•  tliromjh  himtnj  mure."  These 
stranirers  had  been  described  as  swarms  of  locusts,  with 
whose  destruction  the  mi-cri.  s  of  .l.-ni-alem  \\ere  to 
close.  This  is  plainer  a^ain  in  the  original  than  in 
the  authori/.cd  translation,  at  '-h.  iii.  -.  "  1  will  aLo 
gather  all  nations;"  accurately  it  is.  "all  the  nations." 
who  oiiirht  th.  refoi-e  to  be  detiniti-ly  known;  and,  it' 
so,  can  only  be  the  nations  represented  by  tlie.-e  ]ocu.-ts. 
t.ri)  The  description  ..f  the  j  ,  i-i>hin--  of  the  locusts,  ii 


whose  coming  from  the  north,  if  not  altogether  incre 
dible,  would  at  least  be  so  rare  as  to  forbid  the  use  of 


ruling  over  them  noticed  above,  as  also  to  the  various 
nurses  denounced  upon   the  disobedient  in  DC.  xxviii.; 


this  word  as  a  descriptive  attribute,  if,)  The  metaphor  'the  promise  of  the  Spirit  to  be  poured  out  on  all 
is  discovered  in  the  prayer  which  the  priests  are  j  flesh,  ch.  ii.  2<,  according  to  the  design  of  the  covenant- 
taught  to  use,  ch.ii.ir,  "Spare  thy  people.  ()  Lord;  and  people  and  the  wish  of  Moses,  Nu.  xi.  29;  and  the  cleans- 
give  not  thine  heritage  to  reproach,  that  the  heathen  <  ing  of  the  land  from  its  blood  by  its  gracious  God  and 
should  rule  over  them."  The  marginal  translation  ]  Avenger,  ch.  iii.  19-21,  compared  with  Do.  xxxii.  42,  43.  ^Espe- 
has  indeed  been  adopted  by  recent  writers,  "that  !  cially,  the  description  of  the  locusts  is  so  similar  to 
the  heathen  should  take  up  a  proverb  against  them."  ;  that  of  the  plague  of  locusts  in  Exodus,  including  the 
But  all  traditionary  authority  is  against  this,  and  so  is  J  statement,  ch.  ii.  2,  "There  hath  not  been  ever  the 
the  analogy  of  every  other  passage  where  the  phrase  like,  neither  shall  be  any  more  after  it,"  as  to  force 
occurs.  And  after  all,  it  creates  the  difficulty,  that  one  !  upon  us  the  conviction  that  the  writer  of  the  one  was 


116 


JOG BE HAH  1) 

familiar  with  the  other.  Wo  believe  that  .Joel  de 
scribes  the  sufferings  of  guilty  Israel  in  Language  bor 
rowed  from  the  later  and  severer  plagues  of  Egypt;  but 
addressing  to  them  an  effectual  call  to  repentance,  he 
sees  them  saved  from  the  final  stroke,  such  as  fell 
upon  the  impenitent  king  of  Egypt,  and  which  now 


finally     ledg 


falls  upon  the  enemies  of  Israel:  while  1 
a  plentiful  rain  of  grace  coming  down  on  the  oppressed 
and  humbled  covenant -people,  who  are  brought 
triumphantly  through  something  like  tin  ir  old  rxperi- 


JOGBEHAH 

ninirah.  neither  of  which  was  far  from  'Amman,  it 
must  also  have  been  situated  somewhere  in  that  neigh 
bourhood.  Accordingly,  we 'find  "a  ruined  place, 
called  ./</((>///«,,"  noticed  by Burckhardt,  as  observed  by 
him  about  four  mile's  to  the  north  of  'Amman  (Syr.  p.oGi; 
Bib.  Res.  Apn.  p.  His);  which,  so  far  as  our  scanty  know- 
>f  it  extends,  bears  every  mark  of  being  the  site 


in    the  wilderness,  and  so   IK 


to   their  land  of 


rest,  which  is  seen  to  be  purified  and  glorified-— a  para- 
restored.       The   conclusion   of    his    prophecy   has 


always  been  undersk 


a  promise  of  blessings 


the  church  under  Messiah's  reign.  And  the  very 
remarkable  promise  of  the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  eh.  ii.  L;-,  L'II, 
was  quoted  and  applied  by  the  apostle  I'eter  to  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  although  we  do  not  conceive  that  he 
e-iiifines  its  fulfilment  to  that  day.  Whether  Joel 
uttered  any  specific  prophecy  of  the  person  of  Messiah 
will  he  answered  in  the  affirmative  or  the  negative, 
according  as  we  adopt  or  reject  the  marginal  trans 
lation  in  ell.  ii.  -I:'-!,  "  He  "'lad,  then,  ye  children  of 
/ion.  mid  rejoice  in  the  l,»nly<>ur  God:  for  he  hath 
given  you  the  Teacher  of  Righteousness."  &c.  This  is 
the  rendering  of  the  ancient  Jewish  versions  generally, 
except  the  Septuagint,  and  it  is  followed  by  the  Vul 
gate:  hut  it  is  abandoned  by  recent  scholars  with  a 
few  distinguished  exception-. 

["Commentaries  (in  Joel  are  of  course  to  In:  found  in  uommen 
taries  mi  the  Old  Testament  generally,  or  on  the  Prophets,  or 
the  minor  Prophets,  at  least,  in  particular.  Among  recent 
works  may  lie  named  those  of  Ksvald,  Umhreit,  Hitzig,  and 
Henderson.  Two  especial  commentaries  on  this  individual  book 
may  be  mentioned;  one  by  Poroeke,  prof,  of  Arabic  at  Oxford, 


\vlin  died   ill   li'.'U;  and   one   pul 


i:il,   by  Oredner  of 


(iiessen,  an  able  scholar,  hut  a  thorough  rationalist.  llenj;- 
stenberg  discusses  the  age  of  Joel,  defends  the  symbolical  inter 
pretation,  and  explains  his  view  of  the  passages,  di.  ii.  23,  2.S-32, 
at  length,  in  his  ','/, ,vV</ IHI/II,  vol.  i.  p.  .-{31-4H3,  maintaining  the 
personal  reference  h.  the  Teacher  of  Righteousness.]  [a.  C,  M.  D.J 

JOGBE'HAH  [irJiidi  a/tnl/  be  exalt «l\.  a  name  men 
tioned  twice  in  connection  with  transactions  occurring 
on  the  east  of  the  Jordan.  From  the  contexts  of  the 
respective  passages,  it  would  appear  that  two  different 
places  are  intended;  nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at, 
when  it  is  considered  that  Joylichtili  (which  signifies 
"lofty'')  conies  from  the  same  root  as  the  Gcbnx  and 
(.rtiicahs,  which  are  so  numerous  in  Palestine  proper. 

1.  It  first  occurs  in  an  enumeration  of  cities  rebuilt 
or  fortified  by  the  Gadites,  after  they  (together  with 
Reuben  and  half  Manasseh)  were  allowed  by  Moses  to 
occupy  the  conquered  territories  of  Sihon  and  <V.  but 
before  the  exact  limits  of  each  tribe  were  defined.  Xu. 
xxxii.35.  As  it  is  mentioned  between  Jazer  and  Beth- 


in  question.      Except  the  usual  loss  of  the  feeble  i/ud, 
the  word  has  scarcely  undergone  any  alteration. 

2.  We  next  meet  with  the  name,  Jn.  viii  n,  in  the 
account  of  (Gideon's  victory  over  the  combined  forces 
of  the  "  Midianites,  Amalekites,  and  children  of  the 
East."  The  direction  which  the  panic-stricken  host 
took  in  attempting  to  effect  their  escape,  is  laid  down 
very  minutely  by  the  sacred  historian.  They  are  de 
scribed  as  fleeing  from  the  battle-field  in  the  valley  of 
•Tezreel  "unto  Beth-shittah  (now  H/uttta/t)  towards 
Zererah,"  which  was  near  Bethshan,  iKi.iv.ii';  and  so 
onwards  ''to  the  brink  of  ''the  Jordan  valley,  where 
was  situated'  Ahd-mcholah."  above  (or  rather,  as 
several  MSS.  read,  ••unto,  Tabbath.  '  The  meaning 
of  Abel-meholah  appears  to  be  "the  Meadow  of  the 
Whirlpool;"1  and  thus  points  to  the  ford  near  the  falls 
of  el-Buk'ah.  whence  there  is  still  a  direct  route  by 
et-  '/'ii'//i/,,/,  Tabbath:,  to  the  eastern  wilderness. 
Assuming  <A-A'crnJ,;  midway  between  Tell  'Ashtereh 
(Ashtaroth)  and  Busrah  (Bozrah)  to  be  the  Karkorof  the 
narrative,  the  distance  is  such  as  may  well  be  supposed 
to  have  inspired  the  fugitives  with  a  sense  of  security. 
Great,  therefore,  must  have  been  their  surprise  and 
consternation,  when  Gideon,  by  a  rapid  and  circuitous 
march,  suddenly  attacked  them  on  their  exposed  Hank 
or  rear:  and  thus,  like  a  skilful  general,  reaped  the 
full  advantage  of  his  victory.  The  line  of  his  pursuit 
is  given  as  minutely  as  that  of  the  Midianitish  flight: 
•'  And  Gideon  went  up  by  the  way  of  them  that  dwell 


in  tents,    on   the   east 
smote  the  host;  for  th 


if  Xobah   and  Jogbehah,    and 
host  was   secure.''      The  men 


1  The  root  signifies  primarily,  "to  twist,  writhe,  turn  round 
and  round,"  and  is  applied  by  Jeremiah  (ch.  xxiii.  19;  xxx.  23) 
to  the  action  of  a  whirlwind,  and  by  the  Psalmist  (Ps.  Ixxvii.  Hi 
to  the  violent  lashing  of  water  occasioned  by  a  mighty  convulsion 
of  nature,  with  evident  allusion  to  the  miraculous  recoil  of  the 
Jordan  stream  at  this  very  spot  (Jos.  iii.  1C,),  which,  like  the 
kindred  event  at  the  Red  Sea,  appears  to  have  been  accompanied 
by  earthquake  and  tempest  (comp.  Ps  cxiv.  with  Hah.  iii.)  It  is 
not  unlikely  that  the  vast  accumulation  of  pent-up  waters,  thus 
assisted,  caused  some  change  in  the  channels  bo'h  of  the  Jordan 
and  its  important  tributary  the  Yarmuk.  See  Robinson's  L<itt.,- 
ISi'i.  ll<s.  p.  :;ir,;  I.i/nel,,  p.  -2.111,  and  comp.  Hab.  iii.  0,  "Thou  didst 
cleave  the  rivers  of  the  land,"  with  the  modern  name  of  the 
whirlpool,  el  Buk'ah,  ''the  Cleft."  The  language  in  which  Lynch 
refers  to  the  probable  site  of  Abel-meholah  is  the  exact  counter 
part  of  that  significant  compound.  The  first  part  of  the  word 


tion  of  Xobah.  a  city  of  Manasseh,  proves  this  to  be  a 
different  Jogbehah  from  the  one  already  referred  to, 
and  points  in  a  direction  north-east  from  Bethshan; 
where,  up  the  valley  of  the  Sherlat-el-Mandhur,  and 
thence  by  Fik  (Aphek  ,  ran  anciently,  and  still  runs, 
the  great  road  leading  from  central  Palestine  to  Damas 
cus.  This  route  was  followed  by  Burckhardt  oil  one 
occasion,  and  his  simple  details  strikingly  yet  uncon 
sciously  illustrate  the  several  stages  of  Gideon's  forced 
march.  Tie  informs  us  that  the  valley  of  the  Man- 
dhvlr  (or  Yarmuk)  is  inhabited  by  an  Aral)  tribe,  '•'dm 
lire  undar  tents,  and  remove  from  place  to  place,  but 
without  quitting  the  banks  of  the  river.  They  sow- 
wheat  and  barley,  and  cultivate  pomegranates,  lemons, 
grapes,  and  many  kinds  of  fruit  and  vegetables,  which 


is  illustrated  by  the  remark,  that  the  district  which  skirted  the 
western  bank  of  the  Jordan  around  el-Buk'ah  was  "  an  extensive 
plain,  liirnrinnt  in  vrrjetntinn,  and  presenting  to  view,  in  uncul 
tivated  spots,  a  /•;<•/(  iiivM  of  nllm-idl  smi,  the  produce  of  which, 
with  proper  agriculture,  might  nourish  avast  population"  (Ex/i. 
tn  Df-nd  Kffi,  p.  1S2).  We  read,  then,  without  surprise  of  Elisha, 
with  his  twelve  yoke  of  oxen,  being  engaged  in  ploughing,  when 
Elijah  here  encountered  him  on  his  way  to  the  wilderness  of 
Damascus  (1  Ki.  xix.  15-21).  The  second  part  (Meholah)  admits 
also  of  a  ready  explanation  from  such  expressions  as  these  : 
"  The  river  foamed  over  its  rocky  bed  with  the  fury  of  a  cataract" 
(p.  183);  and  again,  "This  rock  was  on  the  outer  edge  of  the 
whirlpool,  which,  a  caldron  of  foam,  swept  round  and  round 
in  circling  eddies"  (p.  189).  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  so 
striking  a  scene  as  this  did  not  give  name  to  some  neighbouring 
locality. 


JOHAXAN 

they  sell  ill  the  villages  of  the  Hauran  and  Jaulan" 
(Syr.  2:;;,-.'74K  Considerably  beyond  Fik,  he  passed  "  7V// 
.li'iliicl,  with  a  village,"  and  shortly  afterwards  he  came 
to  A'"C'((.  where  he  slept  ;p.  ->.'J>.  The  latter  has.  with 
great  probability,  been  identified  by  Ilavernick  and 
Ewald  with  Nobah  (formerly  Kenath  .  which  was  re 
built  by  a  Manassite  of  that  name,  Nu.  xxxii.  4:.';  but  the 
former  does  not  appear  to  have  attracted  the  attention 
which  it  deserves.  Its  name,  its  proximity  to  Xowa. 
the  Arabic  prefix  7'i//.  implying  alike  the  existence  of 
ruin-  and  the  elevation  which  is  denoted  by  the  He 
brew  root  all  go  to  prove  that  here  we  have  the  spot 
where  stood  the  Jogbehah  of  Manasseh,  as  distinguished 
from  that  of  Gail.  This  is  still  further  confirmed  by 
the  fact,  that  at  Nowa  the  Damascus  road  is  joined 
by  another  from  the  south-east,  by  following  which 
Gideon  would  arrive  at  the  place  which  has  been  indi 
cated  as  the  probable  site  of  Karkoiv  i  K.  w.] 

JOHAN' AN  [contracted  form  of  JKHUHAXAN,  truil'it 
;/!ff    or   fnrnin-].       1.    Th,      iiist     who    bears    thi-    ah 
breviated  form   of    the   name  wa.-  a  priest,  son   of  A/a 
riah,   who  belonged  to  the  line   of   Xad»k.  and  who   ap 
pears  to  have  been  high-[iriest  in  the  reign  of  Solomon. 

.f  offi 


JOHN   THE    BAPTIST 


rcign.  or  in  the  days  of  If.'hoboam. 
by  a  son  of  the  name  of  A/ariah. 

2.  JniiANAN.    sou   of    Kaivah.  .-..-     ...    ...    ..... 

captains  of  .ludah.  at    the   time   Jerusalem    wa>  finall) 
taken  and  destroyed  by  tin-  Chaldeans,  and  was  among 
those  who  tied  into  the  regions  ,,n  the  i  a.-t   ..f  .lordan. 
the  mountains  of  Moaband  Aim  noli.  \\  here  he  waited  till 
he  should  sec  what  miuht  be  the  issue  of   tiling-  for  hi- 
unha]ipy    country.       When    order    was    a^ain    re-estab 
lished,  and  Gedaliah   held  the  oftice  of   governor   under 
the    king   of    llabyloii.  .lohanaii    repaired  to  Mi/.p>  h    to 
teiid.-r  his  allegiance,  and  seems  to  have  been  actuated 
bv  an  honest  desire    to    preserve    \\hat    was    now  estab 
lished,    as    the    best    in    the    circumstances.       A-    soon, 
tlierefore.  as  he  learned  the  pnrpo.-eof  Ishmael  to  mur 
der  (  u-daliah.  lie  gave  notice  of   it,    but   unfortunately 
his  warning-  was  slighted,  and  the  dread. -d   catastrophe 
took  place.     .Johanaii  was  justly  filled  with  indignation 
at  tin;   perpetration    of   this    crime,    and    pursued    after 
l-limacl  for  the  purpose  of  avenging  it.      In  this,  how- 
evt;r,  he  failed,  though  lie  recovered  the  captives  whom 
Ishmael  carried  away  with  him:  and  now.  dreading  the 
furv  of  the  Chaldeans  on  account  of  Gedaliah's  murder, 
he  refused  to  follow  tile  advice  of  .lereiniah  to  abide  in 
the  land  of  . ludah,  but  fled   with   a  considerable  com 
pany  to  Egypt,  carrying  Jeremiah  along  with  him.      In 
this  timid  policy  he,  of  course,  erred,  especially  when  it 
was  pursued  in  direct  disobedience  of  a  divine  word,  and 
we  can  scarcely  doubt  he  lived  to  repent  of  it.    Hut  we 
lose  sight  both  of  him  anil  of  the  company  who  went 
with  him,  shortly  after  they  entered  the  land  of  Egypt. 

3.  Various  persons  of  this   name   are  mentioned  in 
the   genealogies,    but    without    any    specific    historical 
notices  -a  son  of   Elioneai,  in  the  line  of  Zerubbabel, 
l  Ch.  iii.  i!4     eldest    sou    of    Josiah.    who    probably    died 

'  It  is  necessary  tu  a.lil.  that  this  \ie\v  of  Gideon's  route  is 
incompatible  with  the  position  usually  assigned  to  the  .labbok, 
and  requires  that  river  to  be  identified  with  the  Yarmuk,  whose 
claims  to  be  so  regarded  are,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  much 
stronger  than  those  of  the  Xurkn.  This,  of  course,  gives  Succoth 
and  Pemiel  also  a  more  northerly  position  ;  a  result  which  the 
scriptural  notices  encourage  rather  than  forbid. 


vi — an   Ephraimite, 

father  of  Axariah.  in  the  time  of  Ahaz,  -j  ch.  xxviii.  12 -- 
a  Levite.  son  of  Eliashib,  and  a  returned  captive, 
Ezr.  x.  i; — another  returned  captive,  son  of  Hakkatan, 
Kzr.  viii.  i:!-  the  son  of  Tobiah  the  Ammonite.  Ne.  vi.  t\ 

JOHN  [the  New  Testament  form  of  JI>HANAN|. 
This  name  is  found  in  the  New  Testament  of  four 
different  persons—  but  once  of  a  person,  who  is  only  inci 
dentally  mentioned,  as  a  relative  of  the  high-priest,  and 
of  whom  nothing  further  is  certainly  known;  and  again 
also  only  once  of  the  evangelist  Mark  "John,  whose 
surname  was  Mark,"  Ae  xii.  11'  -John  being  the  origi 
nal,  the  Jewish  name,  while  that  of  Mark,  which  had 
somehow  come  to  him  from  the  Latin,  became  his 
common  and  prevailing  designation  (>•«  MAKKJ.  There 
remain  only  two  who  bore  the  name  of  John,  and  who 
under  that  name  have  been  known  to  the  church  as 
occupying  a  place  of  di-thnniished  honour  Jnlni  tin' 
/:,i/,t;.<t  and  John  tin  .!//«.-•//.  . 

JOHN  THE  BAPTIST.  II,  was  the  son  of 
Xediaria.-  and  Elisabeth,  who  were  both  of  the  house 
of  Aaron.  I.u.  i  .".,  and  both  distinguished  for  their  God 
fearing  di-ppp.-itioti  and  upright  character,  "walking  in 
tiie  commandments  and  ordinances  of  the  Lord  blame 
le>-.'  They  wore  well  advatict  d  in  life  before  they 
appear  on  the  stage  of  _o-pd  hi-tory,  though  not  in 
tin  ordinary  sense  old:  for,  ministering  as  Xeeharias 
did  in  th,-  priest's  oHiee  at  the  golden  altar,  he  must 
still  have  been  iii  the  full  (possession  of  his  faculties. 
But  in  addition  to  the  advanced  age  of  both  parents, 
Elisabeth  was  barren:  so  that  if  any  child  was  now  to 
procee.l  from  them,  it  could  only  be  as  a  wonder  ac 
complished  by  the  special  graee  and  interposition  of 
God.  What  wa.-  n,e, led.  however,  in  this  respect, 
was  not  to  be  withheld:  for  while  Xoeharias  was 
engaged  in  tin •  ptv.-entati'pn  of  incense,  in  the  temple, 
the  angel  (iabricl  appeared,  and  announced  to  him, 
that  his  wife  should  bear  a  son.  and  that  they  should 
call  his  name  John.  Eor  the  an-,  lie  appearance  and 
message  on  this  occasion,  see  under  GABIUEL  ;  and  for 
the  relation  in  which  Xccharias  stood  to  it.  and  his 
(procedure  under  it.  see  Xi:<  ll  \ui  A.-.  The  proper  ground 
and  reason  of  the  (procedure  lay  in  the  divine  purpose 
to  be  accomplished  by  this  offspring  of  Xeeharias,  since 
in  him  was  to  be  found  the  commencement  of  a  new 
era  in  God's  dispensations,  and  one  that  should  at  once 
fulfil  and  antiquate  the  old.  But  this  new  era  was  to 
be  piv-cniinentiv  the  day  of  grace,  for  which  the  people 
of  (  Hid  had  been  waiting  in  hopeful  expectation — grace 
rising  above  nature,  and  with  its  God- empowered, 
redemptive  agencies  working  out  the  good,  which 
nature  was  altogether  unable  to  accomplish.  Hence, 
as  here  all  was  to  be,  in  a  manner,  wonderful,  and  in 
the  centre  of  the  whole  there  was  to  appear  the  greatest 
of  all  svonders  — the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God- 
a  divine  wonder  fitly  opened  the  series,  in  the  birth  of 
him.  who  was  to  herald  the  new  era,  the  son  of  a 
barren  mother,  and  of  parents  both  already  stricken 
in  years.  In  this  respect  he  was  emphatically  a  John 
--Johanan,  Jdtocnli's  ////>.  or  favour — in  his  very  birth 
the  sign  and  token  of  divine  goodness,  showing  that 
Gotl  had  now  again  begun  to  visit  his  people  with  the 
peculiar  gifts  of  his  grace,  and  was  setting  in  operation 
the  agencies  which  were  to  bring  the  higher  tlesigns  of 
his  covenant  into  effect. 


JOHN  THE  BAPTIST 


.JOHN   THE   BAPTIST 


The  fitness  of  the  name,  however,  appointed  to  be 
borne  by  this  divine  messenger  becomes  more  apparent, 
when  wo  look  at  the  account  given  of  the  mission  to 
\\liich  he  \\as  destined.  Pointing-  back  to  the  predic 
tion  contained  in  the  concluding  verses  of  Alalachi, 
the  angel  said  to  Zccharias,  ''Many  of  the  children  of 
Israel  shall  he  turn  to  the  Lord  their  God;  and  he 
shall  go  before  him  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias.  to 
turn  the  heart*  of  the  fathers  to  the  children.  ;aid  the 
disobedient  to  the  wisdom  of  the  just ;  to  make  ready 
a  people  prepared  for  the  Lord.'1  Lu.  i.  ir,,  17.  The  man 
who  should  do  such  a  work  as  this,  must  have  been  in 
the  highest  sense  a  gift  of  grace  from  the  Lord  ;  the 
more  so.  as  his  work  was  not  to  stand  alone,  but  to  Vie 
the  prelude  and  harbinger  of  something  peculiarly  great 
--the  immediate  presence  of  the  Lord  himself.  Jt 
was  John's  singular  honour  to  have  been  made  ages 
before  his  birth  the  siiliject  of  prophecy,  and  in  respect 
to  the  purpose  for  which  he  was  announced,  placed  in 
such  close  juxta-position  with  the  Lord  of  glory.  Pmt 
the  reverse  of  honour  was  implied  in  that  purpose,  as 
regards  the  generation  for  \\hich  and  among  which 
ho  was  to  appear;  since  it  betokened  their  general  and 
deep-rooted  alienation  from  God.  His  relation  to  Klias 
should  have  put  this  beyond  a  doubt,  and  made  it 
patent  to  all;  for  Elias  was  the  great  prophet-reformer, 
whose  whole  striving  was  directed  to  the  object  of 
reclaiming  a  backslidden  people  to  the  worship  and 
service  of  Jehovah.  They  had  become  degenerate 
plants  of  a  strange  vine,  or  unworthy  descendants  of 
a  godly  ancestry;  and  he  would  at  the  very  hazard  of 
his  life  have  them  brought  back  to  the  right  spiritual 
condition,  lest  Jehovah,  as  the  God  of  the  covenant, 
should  come  near  and  consume  them.  This  was  most 
impressively  exhibited  in  his  prayer  on  Mount  Carmel, 
when,  addressing  Jehovah  as  the  God  of  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob  (the  recognized  fathers  of  the  covenant- 
people)  he  besought  the  answer  of  firo  from  heaven  on 
his  sacrifice,  in  proof  that  he  was  accepted,  and  that 
the  Lord  was  now  turning  the  hearts  of  the  people 
back  again,  i  Ki.  xviii.  sn,  37 — back,  namely,  to  Jehovah 
himself,  in  the  first  instance,  as  the  grand  centre  of 
life  and  blessing ;  and  secondarily,  to  their  righteous 
fathers :  from  both  alike  they  were  alienated,  and  the 
return  to  the  one  should  necessarily  involve  a'so  the 
return  to  the  other.  Such,  precisely,  was  the  work  to 
which  the  son  of  Zecharias  was  destined ;  the  hearts 
of  the  people,  amid  all  their  outward  respect  for  the 
name  and  worship  of  God,  were  again  in  a  state  of 
alienation;  and  this  new  prophet-re  former  was  to  have 
it  for  the  main  object  of  his  striving  to  '•turn  them 
back  to  the  Lord  their  God. "  In  doing  this  he  should 
also  of  necessity  turn  the  hearts  of  fathers  and  children 
toward  each  other,  so  that  the  godly  fathers  should 
again,  as  it  were,  embrace  their  degenerate  offspring;  : 
which  is  all  one  with  saying,  what,  indeed,  is  said  in  | 
the  explanatory  clause,  that  he  should  bring  "the  dis 
obedient  to  the  wisdom  of  the  just:''  i.e.  should  make  the 
disobedient  children  become  like  their  just  or  righteous 
parentage.  In  a  word,  both  should  again  become — so 
far  as  the  work  was  really  accomplished — of  one  heart 
and  mind,  having  the  God  of  the  covenant  for  the 
common  object  of  their  homage  and  affection. 

With  this  high  promise  of  future  service  and  glory, 
the  expected  child  was  in  due  time  born  to  Zecharias, 
and  according  to  the  divine  command  was  named  John. 
From  the  day  of  his  circumcision  till  the  period  of  his 


entering  on  the  discharge  of  his  reforming  agency,  we 
hear  nothing  of  him,  except  that,  ''he  grew,  and  waxed 
strong  in  spirit,  and  was  in  the  deserts, ''  Lu.  i.  so.    T/tcrc, 
doubtless,    in  those   wild   solitudes,  which   lay  around 
his    native   region    in   the   hill   country   of    Judea,    he 
nursed  his  soul  to  holy  contemplation  on  the  state  of 
tilings  among  his  countrymen,  and  the  high  calling  in 
respect  to  them,  which  the  divine  word  had  marked 
out  for  him.      But  that  he  did  not  join  himself,  as  has 
sometimes   been   supposed,    to  the   Essenes,    who   had 
settlements  in  certain  parts  of  the  wilderness  on  the 
south  of  Judea,  is  manifest  from  the  far  deeper  insight 
he  afterwards  displayed  into  the  divine  economy  than 
they  possessed,  and  from  his  entering  on  a  course  of 
public  procedure,    which  was   entirely  alien   to   their 
quiescent  spirit  and  rigid  ceremonialism.    ..s'rr  ES.SKXES. 
While  still  in  the  wilderness,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
began  to  move  him  to  his  enterprise;  there  "the  word 
of  God  came  to   him,"'  Lu.  iii.  2;   and  he  gave  forth  at 
once  what  lie  received,  but  in  doinir  so  naturally  ad 
vanced  toward  the  edge  of  the  wilderness  till  he  ap 
proached  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  as  thus  only  could 
he  get  a  sufficient  audience  to  listen  to  his  proclama 
tion.      Even  when  moving  thither,   however,   he  did 
not  altogether  quit  his  connection  with  the  desert ;  ho 
wished,  arid  no  doubt  acted  so  as  to  appear,  still  in 
some  sense  a  sojourner  in  it;  for  when  the  authorities 
of  Jerusalem  were  startled  by  the  excitement  he  was 
raising,  and  sent  to  inquire  what  lie  said  of  himself,  he 
gave  answer  in  the  words  of  Isaiah.  "  I  am  the  voice 
of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way  (>i 
tho  Lord,  '  &C.     His  appearance  in  such  a  place  wa  < 
itself  a  sign- -  the  natural  wilderness  being  intended  to 
serve  as  a  symbol  of  the  moral  condition  of  the  people, 
with  whom  all,  in  a  manner,   lay  desert,  no  spiritual 
highways  for  the  Lord  to  move  up  and  down  in,  no 
|  fields  of  righteousness  from  which  he  might  receive  the 
fruit  he  desired   to  reap.      It  was  Heaven's  voice,  in 
deed,   that  cried   in   him.   but   it  cried  as  in  a  waste 
howling  wilderness;  therefore,  cried  in  loud  and  earnest 
peals,   that  men  would   repent,   and   prepare  to  meet 
their  God.     With  this,   also,  corresponded  his  dress, 
which  was  made  of  camel's  hair,  and  girt  about  with  a 
leathern  girdle— the  coarsest  attire,  the  garb  of  peni 
tents,  i  Ki.  x>:i.  27;  and  his  food  locusts  and  wild  honev 
(see  under  the  words)  -the  spontaneous   products  of 
waste  or  uncultivated  places  -the  diet  of  one  who  was 
keeping,  as  far  as  possible,  a  continual  fast,  Jint.  iii.  4. 
As  John's  earnest  cry  was  a  call  to  repent,  so  his  ap 
pearance  and  mode  of  life  were  a  kind  of  personified 
repentance;  and  if  the  people  had  understood  aright, 
and  responded  to  his  mission,   they  would  have  con 
formed  themselves  to  the  type  and  pattern  which  they 
saw  in  him.      This,  however,  was  what  few  compara 
tively  did,  and  even  they  in  a  very  imperfect  manner. 
One  can  easily  conceive  how  the  singularity  of  John's 
appearance,  the  earnestness  of  his  manner,  and  above 
all,  the  solemn  announcement  he  made,  that  the  king 
dom  of  heaven  was  at  hand,  would  strike  an  awe  into 
men's  minds,  and  raise  a  deep  wave  of  religious  feeling 
through  the  community.     Such  evidently  was  the  case; 
and  as  men's  acquaintance  with  John  grew,  and  they 
saw  more  distinctly  into  the  nature  of  his  aims  and 
operations,   their  interest  and   concern  would   be  tho 
more  profoundly  awakened.     For,  they  could  not  but 
perceive  a  terrible  energy  in  his  words;  what  he  spake 
must  have  rung  almost  like  the  knell  of  doom  in  their 


JOHN  THE  BAPTIST 


JOHN  THE  BA1TIST 


ears;  the  time,  ho  said,  was  gone  for  lair  pretexts  ami 
hypocritical  observances  ;  now.  all  must  be  matter  of 
stern  reality,  since  the  Lord  himself  was  presently  to 
appear,  with  supreme  authority  and  prompt  decision, 
to  deal  with  all  according  to  their  real  state,  and  either  , 
draw  them  to  himself  in  love,  cir  cast  them  from  him 
as  refuse.  In  further  proof  of  his  sincerity,  and  as 
indicative  of  the  greatness  of  the  crisis  that  had  arrived, 
John  came  not  only  preaching  these  stirring  doctrines, 
but  scaling  them  by  an  appropriate  ordinance,  the 
baptism  of  repentance.  ^'«  BAPTISM.)  The  result 
was  th.it  people's  hearts  were  everywhere  moved:  and 
from  all  parts  of  Judea.  including  Jerusalem,  they 
flocked  to  Jordan,  and  were  baptized  confessing  their 
sins.  Saddueees  were  shaken  from  their  worldliness. 
and  Pharisees  made  for  the  moment  to  feel  the  insuf 
ficiency  of  their  outward  ub.-i Tvaiire-  :  so  that  John 
himself  seamed  a.-tonished  at  the  anxiety  that  was 
evinced,  and  the  kinds  of  per.--.'!)-  who  applied  to  him. 
Mat.  iii.  7.  Xor  did  lie  leave  them  in  doubt  as  to  the 
thoroughly  practical  nature  of  the  reformation  which 
was  needed;  the  heart  u'eii'Tallv  inu.-t  be  turned  t"\vard 
God,  and  the  sins  which  nmiv  easily  and  commonly 
beset  particular  classes  of  men  must  be  f>r>ak--n.  that 
each  miirht  be  found  walking  in  his  uprightness,  Lu.  hi. 
l"-H.  While  he-  and  his  di.-cipi.  S  practised  fasting,  and 
seem  to  have  adh'  r.  d  generally  to  tii  •  traditions  of  the 
elders,  as  to  the  form  of  ^odliiie.-s  maintained  by  them, 
there  is  noth'mi;  in  John'-  recorded  utt'-raiic.  s  to  imply 
that  he  laid  stress  upon  Mich  things  l>v  themselves,  or 
even  counted  th'-m  anything'  apart  from  the  feelings 
and  principles  of  a  sincere  pietv.  I'M  side  the  intro 
duction  of  baptism,  h'-  attempted  no  change  in  existing 
usages,  but  sought  merely  to  have  tip-  life,  which  these 
ought  to  have  expressed,  formed  in  men's  souls,  and 
everything  in  practice  inconsistent  therewith  aban 
doned. 

The  temporary  success  which  attended  John's  mis 
sion  produced  no  undue  elation  in  his  own  mind;  like 
a  divinely  taught  man  he  k.  pt  steadfastly  to  his  propi  r 
place;  and  work.  Wlun  the  people  began  to  doubt 
whether  he  mi^ht  Hot  be  him~c  If  the  loliLf-eXpected 
.Messiah,  and  the  authorities  at  Jerusalem  sent  a  formal 
message  of  inquiry  to  learn  who  he  was,  he  announced 
in  the  most  explicit  manner,  that  he  was  but  a  servant 
and  foivruii'it  r  of  Him  who  was  to  come,  unworth\ 
even  to  loose,  or  to  bear  his  shoes.  When  Jesus  prc- 
sented  himself  at  Jordan  for  baptism.  John,  with  a 
becoming  consciousness  of  his  own  inferiority,  though 
still  without  any  certain  assurance  of  the  proper  Sonship 
of  Jesus,  sought,  as  unworthy,  to  be  excused  from  the 
service,  Jn.  i.  31;  Mat.  iii.  ll.  And  when,  after  having 
received  such  assurance,  and  publicly  pointed  out  Jesus 
to  his  followers  as  the  coming  Saviour,  he  heard  that 
the  multitudes  were  by  and  by  crowding  to  Jesus  rather 
than  to  himself,  he  meekly  acquiesced  in  the  result, 
and  even  expressed  his  joy  on  account  of  it.  as  seeing 
therein  the  great  end  of  his  mission  reaching  its  accom 
plishment,  .in.  iii.  2r>-r.fi.  By  the  time  this  circumstance 
had  occurred  —the  circumstance  which  drew  forth  the 
last  recorded  testimony  of  John  respecting  Jesus —he 
had  moved  considerably  upwards  from  the  region  where 
he  commenced  his  ministry,  and  was  probably  cither 
within  the  bounds  of  Galilee,  or  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood.  He  is  said  to  have  been  at  ^Knon, 
near  to  Salem  or  Salim:  the  exact  position  of  which, 
however,  is  uncertain.  But  that  his  ministry  actually 


extended  to  the  precincts  of  Galilee,  if  not  within 
Galilee  itself,  and  that  some  of  his  more  regular  dis 
ciples  were  gathered  thence,  we  know  from  the  account- 
in  St.  John's  gospel,  ch.  i.  '.'IMS;  and  also  from  the  fact  of 
his  imprisonment  by  Herod  Antipas,  which  implied  his 
having  come  within  the  bounds  of  Herod's  jurisdiction. 
He  must,  therefore,  have  ultimately  extended  his 
labours  into  Galilee,  or  have  passed  into  Pcrooa.  on  the 
farther  side;  of  Jordan,  near  the  southern  extremity  of 
the  Lake  of  Galilee.  The  evangelical  narratives  are  too 
indefinite  to  enable  us  to  determine  his  course  more 
precisely;  nor  do  they  enter  into  the  details  of  his 
connection  with  Herod.  In  all  of  them  the  fact  of  his 
imprisonment  is  mentioned:  and  in  the  gospel  of 
.Matthew-,  di.  iv.  i-j,  it  is  even  represented  as  the  starting 
point  of  our  Lord's  more  public  career,  and  in  part  also 
thi  reason  of  ( ialilee  being  chosen  for  the  more  peculiar 
theatre  of  its  operations:  when  the  herald  was  silenced, 
the  Master  himself  took  up  the  word,  and  carried  it 
onward  to  the  higher  stages  of  development.  But  John 
must  previously  have  laboured  for  some  time  in  Galilee 
or  its  neighbourhood,  and  produced  there  also  a  deep 
wave  of  religious  feeling;  otlurwise,  he  could  never 
have  uaiiied  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  there  held. 
and  the  profound  respect  entertained  toward  him  by 
such  a  man  as  Herod.  For  we  are  told  that  "Herod 
feared  John,  knowing  that  he  \\as  a  just  man,  and  an 
holv.  and  observed  him:  and  when  ho  heard  him,  he 
did  manv  things,  and  heard  him  gladly."  lie  would 
not,  however,  do  the  one  tiling,  which  John  doubtless 
pressed  upon  him  as  most  especially  requiring  to  be 
done,  if  Herod  would  attain  to  the  character  and  posi 
tion  of  a  true  penitent— namely,  dissolve  his  adulterous 
connection  with  Hcrodias.  his  brother  Philip's  wife. 
But  to  press  this  was  to  touch  upon  the  tender  point, 
which  Herod  and  his  guilty  partner  could  not  bear  to 
be  named;  and  John  presently  found,  that,  as  he  was 
the  new  Klias.  so  he  had  to  confront  a  new  Aliab  and 

Je/.ebel,    who   Would   seek   to   do    W  itll   ll'llll  .'IS   tllCy  might 

list.  Accordingly,  he  was  cast  into  prison  the  deed 
of  Herod,  though  probably  done  at  the  instigation  of 
lierodias:  who  was  not  (Veil  satisfied  with  this  measure 
of  violence,  but  watched  h«  r  opportunity  to  consummate 
the  matter  by  -vttin^  Herod  in  an  unguarded  moment 
committed  to  the  execution  of  John.  This  she  found 
on  the  occasion  of  Herod's  birthday,  and  through  the 
instrumentality  of  her  daughter,  who  won  so  much 
upon  the  favour  of  Herod  by  her  danciiiL'.  as  to  obtain 
the  promise  from  him  of  whatsoever  she  should  ask. 
At  the  instigation  of  her  mother  she  asked  and  received 
the  head  of  the  Baptist,  Mat.  xiv.  C-ll;  Mar.  vi.  21-2S. 

This  is  altogether  a  more  natural  account  than  that 
L'iven  by  Josephus  (Ant.  xviii.  5,  2  ,  which  so  far  agrees, 
however,  that  it  represents  John  as  a  just  man,  and 
had  in  great  honour  among  the  people,  but  connects, 
first  his  imprisonment,  then  his  death,  with  jealous 
apprehensions  on  the  part  of  Herod,  lest  John's  ex 
treme  popularity  should  prove  the  occasion  of  political 
disturbances.  On  this  suspicion,  it  is  said,  John  was 
"taken  up,  and  being  sent  bound  to  the  castle  of 
Machserus,  was  slain  there."  It  is  by  no  means  im 
probable,  and  is,  indeed,  the  general  belief,  that  the 
castle  of  Machterus  (which  stood  in  Peraea.  toward  the 
extreme  south-east  of  the  district,  and  not  very  far 
from  the  top  of  the  Dead  Sea)  was  the  place  of  John's 
confinement  and  death.  But  from  all  that  we  know 
both  of  John  and  Herod  it  is  greatly  more  probable. 


-IOIIN   TIIK   P>  APT  1ST 


JOHN   TJIK  APOSTLE 


narrative.  The  disciples  are  expressly  said  to  havi 
been  se.nt  by  .John  on  this  errand;  or,  as  it  is  still  more 
explicitly  given  in  what  appears  to  be  the  correct  read- 


period,  cither  of  .lolm's  imprisonment  or  of  his  death,     inu  of   .Mat.  xi.  -2.  hi'  scut  thmti'/lt  (Sia  not  oi'-o)  his  dis- 


'1'lie  occasion  also,  which  is  represented  as 
led  to  the  sending,  namely,  John's  having  heard 
Hi  of  the  wonderful  works  of  Jesus,  connects  it 
peculiarity  in  his  condition,  not  theirs.  And 


cannot  be  ascertained.  ]t  seems  plain,  that  all  the 
events  and  discourses  related  in  the  gospel  of  Matthew, 
from  eh.  iv.  1 '_!  to  the  commencement  of  eh.  xiv.,  lay 
between  the  one  and  the  other:  and  this  included  the 


in  pri 
with 


calling  and  appointment  of  the  twelve  apostles,  partly  then  the  specific  and  personal  form  given  to  our  Lord's 
preceded  and  partly  followed  by  an  extensive  missionary  reply,  "Go  and  tell  John  the  things  which  ye  do  see 
tour  through  the  synagogues  and  towns  of  Galilee,  and  hear,"'  fix  the  matter  as  distinctly  upon  him  as  it 
ch.  iv.  17-25— the  delivering  of  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  is  possible  for  language  to  do.  By  sending  such  a 
followed  by  a  series  of  miraculous  cures,  and  a  visit  to  .  message,  however,  John  had  not  lost  his  confidence  in 
the  farther  side  of  the  lake  -another  series  of  discourses  '  Jesus  as  the  great  representative  of  Heaven,  whose 
and  miracles,  followed  by  a  second  extensive  tour  j  coming  he  had  heralded;  the  very  application  to  him 
through  the  cities  of  Galilee,  with  much  teaching  in  for  an  authoritative  direction  betokened  the  reverse; 
the  synagogues,  ch.  ix.  the  sending  forth  of  the  twelve  but  In;  could  not  understand  how,  while  such  mighty 
on  their  separate  missionary  tour.  ch.  x.  the  message  '  works  were  shosving  themselves  forth  in  him,  there 
from  John  himself,  and  the  discourses  to  which  it  gave  should  be  so  little  seen  of  that  decisive  action  on  the, 
rise,  ch.  xi.-  the  return  of  the  disciples,  with  many  side  of  righteousness,  and  against  iniquity,  which  John 
transactions  and  discourses  ensuing,  and  in  particular  j  had  been  led  by  tin  •  writings  of  Malachi.  and  by  his  own 
the  formal  commencement  of  speaking  in  parables.  !  spiritual  insight,  to  connect  with  the  coming  Messiah. 


di.  xii.  xiii.  Wicslcr,  and  those  who  follow  his  chrono 
logical  order  ichron.  Synopsis,  p.  2! .'-'),  would  crowd  all  this 
part  of  our  Lord's  ministry  into  what  seems  an  in 
credibly  short  period,  and  would  place  the  P.aptist's 


Manifestly,  it  was  from  no  want  of  power,  that  the 
work  was  not  done — why,  then,  did  it  not  appear  ] 
Might  there  not  be  still  some  other  and  future  mani 
festation  of  the  Holy  One  to  be  looked  for?  In  short, 


imprisonment  in  March,  and  his  death  in  April,  of  the  \  the  Baptist  had  been  fixing  his  eye  too  exclusively  on 
same  year.  The  reasons  for  this  are  to  a  large  extent  j  one  aspect  of  the  Lord's  work,  and  overlooking  others, 
fanciful  ami  unsatisfactory,  but  need  not  here  be  in-  which  required  equally  to  be  taken  into  account.  He 
quired  into.  Looking  simply  at  the  variety  and  fulness  hence  got  bewildered  in  his  views,  and  received  from 
of  the  evangelical  narrative,  as  now  noticed,  stretching  Christ  a  message  in  reply,  which  was  exactly  fitted  to 
between  the  two  events,  the  natural  conclusion  is,  that  !  rectify  them;  since  it  reminded  him  of  things  being  in 
John's  imprisonment  must  have  lasted  several  months,  progress,  which  ancient  prophecy  had  distinctly  asso 
and  may  even  have  continued  for  the  best  part  of  a  ciated  with  Messiah's  agency,  and  of  the  necessity  of 


year.  By  comparing  Mat.  xiv.  1/5-21  with  Jn.  vi.  4, 
it  would  appear  that  the  execution  of  John  took  place 
shortly  before  the  passover  which  preceded  the  <>n<. 


allowing  him.  who  had  so  great  a  work  to  do.  to  take 
his  own  way  of  doing  it— "blessed  is  he,  whosoever 
shall  not  be  offended  in  mo.''  But  lest  those  around 


at  which  our  Lord  suffered  ;  so  that  very  little  more  should,  from  what  John  did.  or  what  our  Lord  said  in 
than  a  year  must  have  elapsed  between  the  two  deaths.  !  reply,  take  up  disparaging  views  of  this  great  messen- 
Resembling.  though  John  did,  in  so  many  things  •  ger  of  Heaven,  Jesus  proceeded  in  very  strong  and 
the  Elijah  of  former  days,  the  exit  of  the  one  from  his  animating  language  to  discourse  to  the  people  concern- 
field  of  labour  was  as  remarkable  for  its  humiliating  ing  him,  and  declared  him  to  be,  not  only  a  true  pro- 
eireumstanees.  as  the  other  for  its  singular  glory — the  phet  of  God,  but  greater  even  than  a  prophet,  in  the 
one  dying  as  a  felon  by  the  hand  of  the  executioner,  ordinary  sense,  the  greatest  that  up  till  his  time  had 
the  other,  without  tasting  at  all  of  death,  ascending  to  been  born  of  women,  because  standing  the  nearest  in 


heaven  in  a  chariot  of  fire.     But  in  John's  case  it  could 


his  work   and  calling  to  the   Lord  himself.      Yet   still 


not  be  otherwise  ;  the  forerunner,  no  more  than  the  !  only  relatively  greatest ;  for  the  very  circumstance 
disciple,  could  be  above  his  Master;  and  especially  in  j  which  raised  him  above  those  who  had  gone  before  — 
the  treatment  of  the  one  must  the  followers  of  Jesus  :  his  proximity  to  Christ— depressed  him  in  respect  to 
be  prepared  for  what  was  going  to  be  accomplished  in  those  who  were  to  follow;  so  that  the  least  (or  rather, 
the  other.  After  John's  death,  and  growing  out  of  it.  the  comparatively  little)  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven 


a  whole  series  of  special  actions  and  discourses  were 
directed   to  this   end   by  our   Lord.     The   manner  of 


should  be  greater  than  he  who  stood  only  at  its  thresh 
old.      Knowing  more,   and   receiving  more  of   Christ 


John's  death,  therefore,  is  on  no  account  to  be  regarded  and  his  glorious  work,  they  should  stand  higher  in  the 
as  throwing  a  depreciatory  reflection  on  his  position  ,  endowments  and  privileges  of  grace.  Viewed  thus, 
and  ministry.  He  was,  as  Christ  himself  testified,  "a  ;  the  circumstance  which  at  first  sight  appears  so  strange, 
burning  and  a  shining  light,"  Jn.  v.  35;  and,  with  one  '  is  perfectly  explicable.  And  though  it  does  involve  a 
slight  exception,  he  fulfilled  his  arduous  course  in  a  certain  weakness  or  defect,  in  respect  to  John's  appre- 
truly  noble  and  valiant  spirit.  The  exception  referred  hension  of  divine  things,  yet  not  more,  certainly,  than 
to  was  the  message  he  sent  from  his  prison  to  Jesus,  appeared  for  a  time  in  the  apostles  themselves,  who 
asking  whether  Jesus  was  he  that  should  come,  or  they  were  relatively  greater  than  he,  Mat.  xvi.  2i,&c.;  and  it 
should  still  look  for  another?  The  question  has  ap-  leaves  untouched  his  integrity  and  honour  as  a  special 
peared  so  unsuitable  for  John,  that  a  large  proportion  |  messenger  of  Heaven,  in  whom  and  in  whose  work 
of  commentators  from  the  earliest  times  have  thought  divine  wisdom  was  justified. 

that  it  must  have  been  suggested  by  John's  disciples,  JOHN  THE  APOSTLE,  LIFE  OF.  The  life  of 
and  that  for  their  satisfaction,  rather  than  his  own,  he  this  eminent  apostle,  though  in  many  respects  highly  in- 
agreed  to  send  it.  But  there  is  nothing  of  this  in  the  \  teresting,  does  not  furnish  any  great  variety  of  incident. 


JOHX  THE  APOSTLE 


JOHX  THE  APOSTLE 


His  character  was  rather  contemplative  than  energetic;  |  and  said,.  Behold,  the  Lamb  of  God,"  and  that  thus, 
his  taste  led  him  rather  to  spiritual  communion  with  j  under  the  training  of  that  great  teacher,  he  had  already 
his  beloved  Lord,  than  to  vigorous  action  in  the  world,  j  received  instruction  which  might  well  prepare  his  mind 
The  knowledge  conveyed  to  us  in  the  Scripture  of  the  !  to  look  for  a  Messiah. 

history  of  John  is  not  large.  Tradition  may  seem  to  j  After  following  Jesus  to  his  own  home,  it  would 
furnish  us  with  much;  but  this,  after  all,  contains  little  appear  that  John  accompanied  him  from  Galilee  to 
that  is  trustworthy:  and.  like  traditionary  history  in  '  Jerusalem,  and  again  upon  his  return  through  Samaria 
general,  becomes  more  abundant  as  it  gets  farther  from  J  to  Galilee;  again,  it  would  seem,  accompanying  him  on 
its  source;  as  if  it  would  make  up  by  its  fulness  of  his  second  visit  to  Jerusalem.  A  t  least  the  narrative  in 
detail  for  its  weakness  of  foundation.  i  chapters  ii.-v.  seems  to  be  the  report  of  one  who  \\as 

We  will  first  notice  the  principal  facts  which  may  be  <  either  himself  present  at  the  scenes  described,  or  who 
gathered  from  tin-  Xe\v  Totamont.      St.  John  would  >  had  received  information  of  the  particulars  while  they 

were  yet  fresh. 

It    would    appear    that  John,   after   the   miracle  at 

Lake  of  Gennesaret.  At  least,  we  know  that  Both-  j  Bethesda.  was  permitted  for  a  while  to  return  to  Galilee, 
saida  was  ''the  city  of  Andrew  and  Peter."  Jn.  i.  it: 
and  that  James  and  John  were,  in  their  fishing-trade, 
"partners  with  Simon,"  i.-.\  v  i".  John,  and  James 
his  In-other,  were  sons  of  Zebedoe.  a  fisherman  on  the 
lake.  There  is  a  tradition  that  Zebedee  was  uncle  to 
the  Baptist.  All.  however,  that  we  really  know  of 
him  seems  t>  be.  that  he  w;is  tin  nwn<T  of  a  tishiiiu'- 
vessel,  and  that  he  had  "hired  servants,"  M:\r .  j  -^, 
Salome,  the  mother  of  John,  was  one  of  those  women 
who  ministered  to  Jesus  of  their  substance,  and  who 
purchased  spices  to  anoint  his  b.-dy.  All  this  would 
lead  to  the  belief,  that  the  familv  were  b\-  im  mean- 
of  the  louv-t  class;  that  they  were  not  dc-pUed  by 


and  to  pursue  his  ordinary  occupation;  and  that,  after 
wards,  with  his  own  brother  James,  and  with  Andrew 
and  Peter,  he  was  again  summoned  to  attend  imme 
diately  upon  the  Saviour.  Very  few  particulars  how 
ever  are  afforded  us.  We  find  his  name  in  the  list  of  the 
twelve  apostles.  With  Petir  and  with  James  he  shares 
the  honour  of  being  admitted  to  peculiarly  close  inti 
macy  with  his  Master,  and  of  being  present  at  scenes 
from  which  others  were  excluded —the  raising  of  the 
daughter  of  Jairus.  the  transfiguration,  and  the  agony. 
He  was  .specially  beloved  by  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  was 
allowed  the  peculiar  honour  of  reclining  next  to  him  at 
the  filial  paschal  supper  — of  '-leaning  on  Jesus'  bosom;" 


their  own  countrymen;  and  that  their  circumstance-  while  through  him  was  made  known  to  the  rest  the 
were  not  sue],  a-  to  prevent  their  Diving  to  their  chil 
dren  a  sufficient  education.  We  may  couple  with  this 
the  circumstance  that  John  is  spoken  of  (at  least  there 
seems  no  reason  to  discredit  the  ordinary  notion  that 
the  disciple  spoken  of.  .In.  xviii.  i:,,  was  our  apostle)  as 
personally  known  unto  the  hiuh-prie-t.  a  fact  which 
anyhow  implies  respectability  of  station;  and  further, 
that  when  the  Saviour  had  consigned  to  him  th"  care 
of  Mary  his  mother,  he  "took  her  to  his  nun  home." 
from  which  we  should  infer  that  he  wa>  possessor  of  a 
house  somewhere,  if  not  at  Jerusalem.  Thus  we  con 
clude,  upon  the  whole,  that  St.  John  belonged  from  the 
first  to  what  may  be  termed  the  middle  class  of  Jewish 
society,  and  that  probably  when.  Ac.  iv.  13,  it  is  said  that 


intended  treachery  of  Judas.  In  a  few  hours  after- 
wan  Is  a  distinction  was  afforded  him  yet  more  honourable 
and  more  touching.  The  Saviour  on  the  cross  commits 
to  him  the  can-  of  his  beloved  mother.  "Hesaith 
unto  his  mother.  Woman,  behold  thy  son:  and  to  the 
disciple.  Pehold  thy  mother;  and  from  that  hour  that 
disciple  took  her  to  his  own  home."  Jn.  xix  ^r,,  •_'? 

A  few  more  particulars  respecting  him  may  be 
gathered  from  his  own  Gospel,  and  from  the  Acts  of 
tlie  Apostles  his  early  visit  with  Peter  to  the  sepulchre 

his  retiring  for  a  while,  after  the  resurrection,  to  his 
former  occupation  on  the  Sea  of  Tiberias — his  meeting 
again  with  his  Lord  — and  the  words  uttered  with  regard 
to  him  by  the  Saviour  to  Peter,  which  might  seem 


it  merely  means  that  they  had  not  been  re^ularlv 
trained  in  the  schools  of  Talmudic  theology,  ami  not 
that  they  were  destitute  of  fair  ordinary  education. 

Of  the  character  of  Zebedee,  the  father  of  the  apostle, 
nothing  is  known  to  us,  except  indeed  the  negative 
feature  of  it — that  he  made  no  opposition  to  his  ,-nns' 
obeying  the  call  of  Jesus  and  following  him.  Salome 
seems  to  have  been  a  woman  of  piety,  and  probably 


Thus  much  is  told  us  in  the  Gospels 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  we  gather  that  he  was  with  his 
brethren  at  the  great  day  of  Pentecost — that,  in  con 
nection  with  Peter,  he  was  made  the  instrument  ot 
curini:  the  man  who  was  lame  from  his  birth,  and  was 
joined  with  Peter  also  in  nobly  defending  his  Master's 
cause  before  the  assembled  council.  He  is  found  again, 
company  with  Peter,  in  Samaria,  confirming  th 


had  long  been  "waiting  for  the  consolation  of  Israel."  work  which  Philip  the  evangelist  had  begun.  All  that 
Her  somewhat  selfish  ropiest  that  her  "sons  might  '  is  further  reported  concerning  him  in  the  notices  of 
sit,  the  one  at  his  right  hand  and  the  other  at  his  left.  Scripture,  is  that  Paul  met  with  him  at  Jerusalem 
in  his  kingdom,"  would  at  least  show  her  full  belief  j  (probably  about  the  year  52),  and  received  from  him 
that  his  kingdom  would  ere  long  come.  From  his  the  right  hand  of  fellowship,  Ga.  iui;  and  that  he  was 


mother's  character,  and  perhaps  his  father's,   it  would 
seem  likely  that  St.  John  was  early  made  acquainted 


afterwards  in  the  island  of  Patmos,  "for  the  word  of 
God,  and  for  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ,"  Re  i. !). 


with  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  led  to 
see  in  them  many  a  promise  of  a  future  anointed  De 
liverer. 

It    has    usually   been   thought,    and    probably    with  '  ing  him  upon  which  antiquity  is  pretty  well  agreed, 
justice,  that  John  was  the  companion  of  Andrew  when     and  which  at  all  events  are  not  inconsistent  with  the 


The  above  is  perhaps  all,  or  nearly  all.  which  can  be 
directly  gathered  from  the  Scripture  concerning  St.  John. 
We  shall  now  briefly  refer  to  the  circumstances  concern- 


the  Baptist  (of   whom,   in  that  case,    they  must  both 
have  been  disciples)   "looked  upon  Jesus  as  he  walked, 


New  Testament.    It  seems  universally  allowed  that  the 
latter  years  of  the  apostle's  life  were  principally  spent  at 


JOHN  THE  APOSTLE 


JOHN  THE  APOSTLE 


Ephesus;  while  also  there  is  a  tradition  that  he  made 
Jerusalem  his  ordinary  place  of  residence  till  after  the 
death  of  -Mary,  an  event  which  Eu.sebius  places  in  the 
year  58.  There  is  no  allusion  whatever  to  St.  John 
in  the  accounts  given  us  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
of  St.  Paul's  ministry  at  Ephesus  (which  probably 
lasted  from  56  to  60),  nor  in  the  epistle  to  the  Ephe- 
sians,  nor  in  either  of  the  epistles  to  Timothy.  Again, 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  John  was  at  Jeru 
salem  during  Paul's  final  visit  to  that  city  in  60  or  01. 
His  absence  might  possibly  be  merely  temporary;  but 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  he  might  have  ceased  to  reside  at 
Jerusalem  considerably  before  lie  removed  to  Ephesus, 
though  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  tradition  as  to 
his  place  of  sojourn.  In  fact,  it  is  not  by  any  means 
likely  that  he  removed  to  Ephesus  till  after  the  death  of 
Paul,  which  took  place  probably  in  66.  The  general 
voice  of  history  seems  to  make  him,  from  shortly  after 
that  period,  the  great  centre  of  authority  and  spiritual 
light  in  Asia  Minor,  and  especially  the  opponent  of 
those  floating  notions  and  fancies  which  ultimately 
ripened  into  the  Gnostic  heresies,  and  with  reference  to 
which  St.  Paul  had  already  said  to  the  elders  of  Ephe 
sus —  "Also  of  your  own  selves  shall  men  arise  speaking 
perverse  things,  to  draw  away  disciples  after  them." 
His  banishment  at  Patmos,  during  which  he  was 
favoured  with  the  wondrous  visions  of  the  Apocalypse, 
probably  took  place  during  the  latter  part  of  the  reign 
of  Domitian,  perhaps  about  the  year  95,  though  some 
have  referred  it  to  the  reign,  of  Nero.  An  account  is  i 
given  in  Tertullian,  and  adopted  by  Jerome,  of  St.  John's  j 
being  taken  to  Rome  under  Domitian,  of  his  being  cast  | 
into  a  caldron  of  boiling  oil,  of  his  miraculous  deliver 
ance  from  it,  and  of  his  being  afterwards  removed  to 
Patmos.  This  mode  of  punishment  however  was,  as 
far  as  we  can  ascertain,  never  customary  at  Rome; 
and  the  account  rests  upon  the  sole  authority  of  Tertul 
lian,  who  was  by  no  means  remarkable  for  his  critical 
powers.  He  is  therefore  usually  considered  as  mis 
taken.  The  death  of  St.  John  is  supposed  to  have 
taken  place  at  Ephesus  in  the  reign  of  Trajan;  his  age 
being  stated  by  various  writers,  on  authority  perhaps 
little  more  than  conjectural,  at  from  90  to  120  years. 

With  regard  to  the  peculiar  character  and  disposition 
of  St.  John,  it  will  be  desirable  for  us  to  say  a  little, 
and  perhaps  to  illustrate  what  we  say  by  one  or  two 
other  traditionary  incidents.  His  tendencies,  as  we 
have  already  remarked,  seem  much  more  towards  con 
templation  than  towards  external  action.  In  the  little 
that  is  told  of  him  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  discover  anything  which  he  actually 
did,  or  even  actually  said.  He  is  associated  always 
with  Peter,  and  to  Peter  all  that  is  said  or  done  may 
naturally  be  assigned.  A  contrast  might  be  drawn, 
not  without  its  interest,  between  John  and  Peter 
on  the  one  side,  and  John  and  Paul  on  the  other 
— the  quiet  unobtrusive  love  of  John  with  the  ardent 
and  sometimes  rash  forwardness  of  Peter:  the  calm 
meditative  style  of  writing  of  St.  John  with  the  style 
of  St.  Paul,  at  once  logical  arid  warmly  energetic.  The 
character  of  John  might  appear  at  first  sight  almost 
feminine — gentle,  well-nigh  to  the  borders  of  weakness. 
Combined,  however,  with  this  is  another  element,  that 
of  earnest  and  quick  wrath.  His  desire  to  call  for  fire 
from  heaven  to  consume  those  Samaritans  who  declined 
to  receive  Jesus,  as  he  was  journeying  towards  Jerusa 
lem,  may  serve  as  an  instance  of  this,  Lu.  ix.  si-sc.  It 


may  perhaps  be  from  this  peculiarity  of  character  that 
Jesus  gave  to  John  and  to  his  brother  James  the  name 
of  Boanerges,  '"'Sons  of  Thunder."  His  epistles,  too, 
are  remarkable  for  the  pointed  energy  with  which  lie 
expresses  censure.  We  may  take  as  instances  1  Jn.  i. 
6,  and  ii.  9;  to  which  we  may  add  the  cutting  censure 
upon  Diotrephcs,  2  Jn.  10,11.  As  an  illustration  of  the 
severity  of  his  hatred  of  opposition  to  the  truth,  we 
may  take  the  well-known  story,  narrated  by  Ireiueus, 
on  the  authority  of  those  who  had  received  it  from 
Poly  carp:  that,  while  he  resided  at  Ephesus,  on  going 
to  the  public  baths,  he  perceived  that  Cerinthus,  the 
heretical  leader,  was  there.  He  came  out  again  with 
haste,  saying,  that  he  feared  the  building  would  fall, 
while  Cerinthus,  an  enemy  of  the  truth,  was  within  it. 
As  an  illustration  of  the  tender,  untiring  love  which 
animated  him  as  a  pastor  of  the  flock,  we  may  refer  to 
what  is  told  us  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  his  book 
Tt's  6  crws'o/zei'os  TrXoiVtos.  The  narrative  is  given  at 
considerable  length,  and  we  must  abridge  rather  than 
translate.  While  addressing  the  brethren  in  a  city 
near  Ephesus,  the  apostle  was  greatly  attracted  by  a 
certain  youth  of  noble  appearance,  and  committed 
him  to  the  special  care  of  the  bishop  of  the  place.  The 
latter  took  him  home,  educated  and  trained  him,  and 
finally  admitted  him  to  baptism.  When  this  was  done, 
the  pastor  abated  his  watchfulness,  and  the  youth  was 
drawn  aside,  and  from  one  evil  course  went  on  to 
another,  till  finally  he  renounced  all  hope  in  the  grace 
of  God-- -organized  a  band  of  robbers,  placed  himself  at 
their  head,  and  surpassed  them  all  in  cruelty  and  vio 
lence.  After  a  time  St.  John  again  visits  the  city. 
He  inquires  for  the  young  man.  He  says  to  the  bishop, 
"Restore  the  pledge  which  the  Saviour  and  I  intrusted 
to  you  in  the  presence  of  the  congregation."  The 
bishop  at  first  cannot  understand  him,  but  at  length 
says  with  tears,  "He  is  dead."  ''How  did  he  die  ?" 
says  the  apostle.  "He  is  dead  to  God,"  says  the  bishop, 
"  he  became  godless,  and  finally  a  robber."  St.  John 
rent  his  clothes,  and  cried,  "  To  what  keeper  have  I 
intrusted  my  brother's  soul !"  He  procures  a  horse  and 
guide,  and  hastens  to  the  robber's  fortress.  He  is 
seized  by  the  sentinels.  "  Take  me,"  says  he,  "  to  your 
captain."  The  captain,  at  the  sight  of  him,  flees  from 
sense  of  shame.  "  Why  do  3-011  flee  from  me — from  me 
— your  father,  an  unarmed  old  man  1  You  have  yet 
a  hope  of  life.  I  will  yet  give  account  to  Christ  for 
you.  If  need  be,  I  will  gladly  die  for  you."  With 
many  such  words  he  prevailed  upon  the  prodigal.  He 
finally  led  him  back  to  the  church,  pleaded  with  him, 
strove  with  him  in  fasting,  urged  him  with  admoni 
tions,  and  never  forsook  him,  till  he  was  able  to  restore 
him  to  the  church,  an  example  of  sincere  repentance 
and  genuine  renewal. 

We  may  add  one  more  characteristic  fact  recorded  by 
Jerome.  "  When  John  had  reached  extreme  old  age, 
he  became  too  feeble  to  walk  to  the  meetings,  and  was 
carried  to  them  by  young  men.  He  could  no  longer 
say  much,  but  he  repeated  the  words,  '  Little  children, 
love  one  another.'  When  asked  why  he  constantly 
repeated  the  same  words,  he  would  reply,  '  Because 
this  is  the  command  of  the  Lord,  and  because  enough 
is  done  if  but  this  one  thing  be  done.'" 

Perhaps,  however,  the  most  remarkable  characteristic 
of  the  mind  of  St.  John  was  his  power  of  appreciating 
the  character  of  Jesus.  In  fact,  we  have  scarcely  in  the 
English  language  a  word  which  exactly  conveys  the 


JOHN.  GOSPEL  01 


929 


JOHN.   GOSPEL  OF 


whole  of  what  we  mean.  lie  seems  as  if  he  eutiiely  tinent,  in  particular  by  Bretschneider,  who,  however, 
thought  with  and  felt  with  his  Master,  so  that  their  ;  afterwards  retracted  them.  The  mythical  theory  of 
minds  became  almost  as  one.  ]t  is  possible  that  this  Strauss  was  not  specially  directed  against  the  apostolic- 
might  not  so  fullv  be  the  case  with  him  at  all  times,  authority  of  this  gospel,  any  more  than  of  the  others; 
or  under  all  circumstances.  It  was  especially  so  when  j  but  endeavouring  to  subvert  the  entire  credibility  of 
our  Lord  was  discoursing  on  matters  peculiarly  tender  the  gospel  history,  it  necessarily  impugned  the  histori- 
or  peculiarly  spiritual.  The  intense  love  which  he  cal  character  and  apostolic  authorship  of  them  all. 
entertained  for  his  Master  showed  itself,  among  other  The  most  elaborate  attempt  to  establish  its  spuriousness 
ways,  by  his  Master's  discourses  being  treasured  up  in  lias  proceeded  from  the  Tubingen  school  (Baur.  and  his 
liis'lieart,  and  that  in  a  way  so  natural  and  so  com  coadjutors  Liitzelbergen,  Sehweglerl  who  would  trans- 
plete.  that  they  miu'ht  appear  almost  like  the  pourings  fer  the  production  of  this  gospel  to  the  middle  or  end 
forth  of  liis  own  mind.  This,  however,  will  naturally  of  the  second  century,  and  account  for  its  appearance 


lead  us  to  what  must  be  said  in  our  next  article.  |r.  s.] 
JOHN.  THE  GOSPEL  OF.  I.  The  fienuinenega  ami 
authenticity  of  tliis  gospel  is  the  first  point  that  here 
calls  for  consideration.  And  on  this,  so  far  as  con 
cerns  the  proofs  of  it  afl'orded  by  the  »(/•///  church,  our 
business  will  be  very  simple.  It  was  scarcely  contro 
verted  at  all  in  ancient  days.  It  w< 
there  was  unlv  one  very  obscure  sect  in  Asia  Minor, 
known  as  the  Alogi,  who  called  it  in  question.  These. 
it  seems,  from  excessive  oppo-ition  to  the  heivsv  of 


then  by  the  mediating  influence  of  Gnostic 
tion  pressing  into  the  church,  and,  under  the  gtiise  of 
apostolic  history  and  discourse,  trying  to  reconcile  the 
discordant  elements  which  prevailed  in  it.  So  that,  ac 
cording  to  this  view,  the  writer  of  John's  gospel  (as  of 
many  other  books  of  the  New  Testament)  was  an  art- 
appear  that  ful  impostor:  and  Christianity  as  we  now  know  it  arose 
at  the  close  of  the  second  century,  as  the  result  of  a 
mcivlv  human  and  intellectual  development,  not  only 
with. ml  holiiu -s  of  aim  or  purpose,  but  in  league  with 


. 

Montanus,  were  disposed  to  doubt  the  gospel  of  St.  John,  deliberate    hypocrisy    and   fraud.     Such    a    monstrous 

and    indeed   th.-    Apocalypse    also,   through   a    notion,  scheme  needs  no  refutation   here,  and  the  less  so,  as  it 

sutlicieiitlv  absurd,   that   the   writer   favoured   some  of  has  well-nigh  ceased  to  attract  notice  in  the  land  of  its 


the  views  of  that  heretic.  The  accounts,  however, 
which  we  have  of  the  Alo^i  at  all  are  of  a  very  doubt 
ful  character. 

'•Tliis  gospel."  to  i|iiote  from  Home's  Introduction, 
"  is  alluded  to  once  by  ( 'lenient  of  Koine,  and  once  by 
Barnabas:  and  four  time.-  by  Ignatius,  bishop  of  An 
tioch,  who  had  been  a  disciple  of  the  evangelist,  and 
had  converged  familiarly  with  several  of  the  apo-tl 


birth.  It  would  subordinate  the  facts  of  Christianity 
and  the  character  of  its  writings  to  the  mere  demands  of 
a  logical  process. 

Several  <>f  the  objections,  which  were  urged  against 
tliis  ,_,-,, sj,,.]  l,y  th.'  parties  just  referred  to  have  recently 
been  reproduced  | ,y  Kenan,  in  what  he  designates 
the  IV.  i/,  Jt'xi/x,  but  what  has  been  more  fitly  called 
The  K'omance  of  the  LilVof  Jesus.  For  while  professing 


It  was  also  received   by  Justin   Martyr,  by  Tatian,    b\  |  to  hold   by  the  historical   character   of  this  gospel,  as 

the  churches  of  Vienna  and    Lyons,  by   livnaus.   Athe- 

nagoras,  Thei>philus  of  Antioch,  Clement  of  Alexandria. 

Tertullian,  Amnionius.  Origen,  F.usebius.    Kpiphanius. 

Augustine.  Chrysostom,  and  in  short  by  all  sub.-e(  jii.-nt 

writers    of    the   ancient    Christian   church."      \\V   may 


therefore    \  i.-W    till'     -Vliuillcll 


is] i.  1  as  trium- 


the    others,    he    thwarts   from    such   a   view 
lits  his   purpose,  and  regards  th'-ni  as  in 
part  onlv  historical,  in  part  also  legendary.     The  gospel 
is   taken   bv   him.    as   it   was 


after  the  stvle  or  mode  of  that  one  (.<«<    tint 


phantly  proved,  so  far  as  regards  the  testimony  of  an  but  with  the  addition,  perhaps,  of  considerable  parts 
tiquity  Not  only  did  the  church  thus  from  the  earliest  from  other  hands;  while  still,  he  conceives  these  to  have 
times  bear  testimony  to  the  existence  of  the  gospel  of  bed,  made  so  early,  that  even  the  Gospel  of  John,  the 
John,  but  the  influence  of  this  gospel  has  always  been  latest  of  the  whole,  existed  substantially  in  its  present 
of  the  most  powerful  kind,  and  has  in  a  manner  car-  form  before  the  close  of  the  first  century.  It  issued, 

ried  the  evidence   of   its   divii ritual  alon^   with    it.  |  he  conceives,  about  that  time  from  what  he  calls  "the 

It  is  as  Thierch  has  justly  said,  in  his  Church  l/ittory  '  great  school  of  Asia  Minor,  which  attached  itself  to 
{v  2X\  an  utter  impossibility  in  ecclesiastical  history  to  '  John,"  a  school,  namely,  of  Gnostic  disciples,  to  whom 
imagine  another  author  to  have  composed  this,  (he  John  communicated  certain  reminiscences  of  his  own 


most    influential    of     Christian    documents,    and    then 

hurch  lias 


respecting  Jesus;  these,  it  is  supposed,  they  cast  into  a 

ascribed  it  John:  we  might  as  well  say.  the  church  has     <  ^ostic  mould,  and,  employing  them  in  the  interests  of 
not  come  forth  from  Christ.  their  peculiar  views,  they   sent,  the   result  forth  under 

Modern  criticism,  however,  has  by  no  means  uniformly  the  name  of  John  though  it  presented  Jesus  in  a  very 
concurred  in  this  view,  and  the  Gospel  of  John  has  not  different  light  from  that  given  of  him  in  the  other 
escaped  from  the  attacks,  which  in  various  forms  have  gospels  („  «xli  )  Such  a  gospel,  for  winch  John  mere  y 
been  directed  against  the  other  aposfolic  productions.  '  contributed  some  of  the  materials.  but_  itself  properly 
The  objections  that  have  been  raised  a-ainst  it  are.  in  i  the  fabrication  of  an  unscrupulous  coterie  of  Lphesian 
our  ju.lgn.ent,  peculiarly  futile,  and  in  almost  every  Gnostics,  yet  breathed  the  loftiest  spiritual  tone-,  and 
instance  are  the  offspring  of  philosophic  or  historical  rose  almost  immediately  to  the  h.ghest  estimation  and 
speculation.  Some  of  the  doctrinal  opponents  of  our  influence  in  the  church,  and  that  too,  while  she  was 
Lord's  divinity  toward  the  close  of  last  century  began  resisting  to  the  uttermost  all  other  manifestations  of 
to  throw  discredit  on  the  authenticity  of  the  gospel,  i  the  Gnostic  spirit,  and  had  still  amongst  her  members 
but  even  Priestley  and  other  leading  Socinian  writers  '  many  who  had  received  the.r  impressions  of  the  truth 
discoursed  the  attempt:  they  sought  rather  by  their  fresh  from  the  eye -witnesses  and  companions  o  the  Lord  . 
own  peculiar  exegesis  to  get  rid  of  the  testimony  it  This  is  in  the  highest  degree  incredible;  and  the  mow 
yields  to  the  divinity  of  Christ.  In  the  first  quarter  of  so,  as  it  is  not  till  the  middle  or  end  of  the  second  con- 
this  century  similar  objections  were  urged  on  the  Con-  tury.  that  the  Gnostic  spirit  could  (from  anything  we 


JOHN.   COS  PET,  OF 


JOHN,  COMPEL  OF 


know  of  its  history)  be  conceived  capable  of  even  mak 
ing  such  an  attempt.  If  ever  made,  the  product  would 
assuredly  have  borne  a  very  different  character  from 
that  of  this  gospel,  which  is  equally  remarkable  for  its 
nuluralness  and  simplicity,  and  for  the  deep  Hebraistic 
cast  of  its  thought  and  language  peculiarities  certainly 
found  elsewhere  than  in  any  school  ot'  Gnosticism. 
Kveu  Ksvald,  who  deals  so  arbitrarily  with  many  other 
parts  of  Scripture,  and  in  some  things  also  with  this 
gospel,  yet  holds  it  to  be  the  genuine  writing  of  the 
apostle  John;  and  regards  it  as  "to  us  important  and 
singularly  instructive  from  being  the  production  of  this 
very  author,  the  beloved  disciple  among  the  twelve, 
who,  though  not  trained  in  his  youth  to  learning  and 
book-making,  yet  in  advanced  aue  determined  on  com 
posing  an  evangelical  narrative,  and  was  capable  of 
making  one  so  wonderfully  complete.  For  that  the 
apostle  John  was  really  the  author  of  this,  gospel,  and 
that  no  other  conceived  and  executed  it  than  he,  who 
in  every  age-  has  been  known  as  its  author,  cannot  be 
doubted  or  denied  (however  often  it  lias  been  so  in  our 
times  on  grounds  quite  foreign  to  the  matter):  on  the 
contrary,  to  whatever  side  one  looks,  all  grounds,  and 
traces,  and  memorials  conspire  to  prevent  us  from  allow 
ing  any  such  doubt  to  obtain  serious  regard"  (Die 
Johanneische  Schril'ten,  i.  j>.  4.'i). 

There  are  points,  however,  urged  by  Llenan.  ns  they 
have'often  been  by  others,  which  call  for  some  degree 
of  attention.  There  are,  it  is  alleged,  certain  indica 
tion  of  a  metaphysical  turn  of  thinking,  savouring  of 
the  Gnostic  spirit  of  speculation,  which  cannot  be  re 
garded  as  natural  to  a  fisherman  of  Galilee,  or  likely  to 
have  found  expression  in  his  writings.  To  this  we 
would  merely  reply,  that,  as  will  afterwards  appear, 
John  had  long  been  residing  at  Ephesus,  where  the 
Gnostic  tendency  began  early  to  show  itself;  that  while 
there  he  could  not  but  be  familiar  with  its  workings,  and 
that  nothing  was  more  likely,  «  priori,  than  that  he 
should  pronounce  his  judgment  upon  them,  while,  un 
less  we  take  it  for  granted  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  the  inspiration  from  above,  we  can  consider  nothing 
more  likely  than  that,  in  treating  of  the  loftiest  themes, 
his  language  should  rise  fully  to  the  occasion. 

There  are  however  arguments  perhaps  more  difficult 
than  this;  and  the  principal  one  is  the  alleged  discre 
pancy  of  character  between  the  discourses  of  our  Lord 
as  given  by  St.  John,  and  those  narrated  by  the  other 
evangelists,  especially  by  Matthew.  M .  Ke'nan  ventures 
to  assert  this  difference  in  a  style  sufficiently  bold. 
He  says,  "  The  difference  is  such  that  one  must  make 
a  decided  choice:  if  Jesus  spoke  as  Matthew  represents, 
he  did  not  speak  as  John  represents."  And  n^ain  he 
says,  speaking  of  our  Lord's  discourses  as  told  us  by 
St.  John,  "The  mystical  tone  of  these  discourses  does 
not  in  the  least  correspond  to  the  character  of  the  elo 
quence  of  Jesus,  as  this  is  exhibited  in  the  synoptical 
gospels.''  Now.  we  cannot  but  think  such  a  mode  of 
arguing  destitute  of  any  solid  foundation.  We  fully 
admit,  and  none  can  help  admitting,  that  the  discourses 
of  Jesus  as  reported  by  St.  John  are  considerably  dif 
ferent  in  style  from  those  of  the  other  gospels;  but  vet 
we  consider  such  difference  to  be  little  more  than  might 
reasonably  be  expected.  The  discourses  in  the  other 
gospels  are  for  the  most  part  those  addressed  to  the 
multitude  at  large  (the  multitude  listening  in  ignor 
ance),  or  else  to  his  own  disciples  in  the  less  advanced 
portion  (if  their  course.  The  discourses  in  St.  John 


are  of  a  very  different  class.    They  are  usually  addressed 
either  to  his  opponents — opponents  who,  however  desti 
tute  of  really  spiritual  discernment,  were  most  largely  in 
formed  in  the  theology  or  theosophy  of  their  age;  or  else 
they  were  addressed  to  his  apostles,  or  his  very  dearest 
friends  not  apostles,  and  in  moments  of  peculiar  ten 
derness  and  confidence,      in   the  other  evangelists  we 
I  Hud  occasionally  expressions   very  similar  in  character 
1  to    those-    in  St.    John    (e.g.  Lu.  x.  LM,L'L',  with   Mat.  xi.  27,  and 
[  perhaps  the  lamentation   over  Jerusalem,   Lu.   xix.  41,  &c.)        It 

seems  to  us  that  there  is  little  greater  difference  in  the 
discourses  than  would  naturally  be  expected  from  the 
difference  of  circumstances  and  of  hearers.  Farther 
than  this,  the  peculiar  disposition  of  St.  John  would 

I  lead  him  to  treasure  up  those,  discourses  which  affected 
most  deeply  his  own  heart.  \Ve  \\ill  add  another 
thought.  What  would  a  Christian  man  (Kern  more 
likely  than  that  the  eye  of  our  ^reat  .Mast*  r  himself 
should  have  been  looking  upon  the  necessities  of  Ids 
church  •  At  the  earlier  period  when  the  synoptic  u<>s- 
pels  were  probably  set  forth,  it  is  likely  not  only  that 
little  positive  good  should  follow  from  the  publica 
tion  of  the  deeper  discourses  of  the  Saviour,  but  actu 
ally  there  might  be  positive  injury.  Believing,  as  we 
most  fully  do,  in  the  Spirit  of  inspiration,  may  we  not 

1  consider  that  the  Spirit  operated  in  the  case  of  the 
earlier  evangelists,  partly  by  /'(.-f/rai/il.  keeping  them 
from  setting  forth  what  it  was  as  vet  too  soon  to  make 
known;  while,  in  the  latter  days  of  the  beloved  disciple, 
the  same  Spirit  opened  and  revived  his  memory  to 
bring  forth  for  the  church  just  those  treasures  of  her 
heavenly  Master's  converse  of  which  she  was  beginning 
to  have  especial  need  '< 

Even  in  regard  to  critical  taste —that  exquisite  re 
finement  of  judgment  by  which  one  instinctively  per 
ceives  what  is  suitable  and  becoming  in  thought  and 
style  -writers  of  the  school  now  referred  to  often  give 
forth  opinions  which  betray  their  false  position  and 
superficial  discernment.  M.  Kenan  finds  "nothing 
Hebrew,  nothing  Jewish"  in  the  style  of  our  Lord's 
discourses  as  given  by  John  (p.  xxxv.)  Far  more  truly 
and  profoundly  Luthardt  says,  "  The  whole  circle  of 
thought  and  imagery  in  the  gospel  of  John  has  its  root 

j  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  the  outgrowth  of  its  pro 
phecy"  (p.  (;:>).  But  if  we  look  from  the  mode  of  ex 
pression  to  the  thoughts  themselves,  misjudgments  are 
apt  to  be  made  by  those  writers  still  more  palpably 
wrong,  as  may  be  perceived  by  comparing  the  state 
ments  they  sometimes  set  forth  with  the  actual  feelings 
of  the  genuine  Christian.  They  find  fault  with  the 
disposition  which  appears  in  St.  John's  representation 
of  OUT-  Lord  to  dispute,  to  enter  into  long  argumenta 
tions,  to  preach  himself,  &c.,  as  if  the  occasions  were 
sought  for  the  purpose  of  discourse,  and  the  discourse 
thrown  into  artificial  or  even  harsh  forms,  such  as  any 
one  of  taste  must  see  to  differ  widely  from  the  delicious 
sentences  of  the  synoptists  (Runan,  p.  xxxiv  )  To  this 
class  are  assigned  some  of  the  portions — such  as  ch.  iii. 
v.  and  even  xvii. — which  sincere  and  earnest  believers 
of  all  times  have  ever  delighted  to  meditate,  and  have 
found  among  the  most  precious  and  solemn  utter 
ances  of  their  divine  Master.  It  is  impossible  that 
persons  who  occupy  the  wrong  point  of  view,  and  want 
the  spiritual  sense,  which  alone  can  enable  any  one  to 
sympathize  with  the  higher  aim  and  spirit  of  Jesus, 
should  form  correct  judgments  in  regard  to  many  of  the 
matters  contained  in  this  pre-eminently  spiritual  gospel. 


JOHN,  GOSPEL  OF 


.)()HX.   GOSPEL  OF 


And  so,  when  all  is  done  which  mere  dry  argument 
can  effect,  we  feel  as  if  the  matter  can  only  and  entirely 
be  set  at  rest  by  a  portion  of  the  same  Spirit  existing 
in  the  reader  which  \ve  believe  to  have  inspired  the 
beloved  evangelist.  Our  own  sentiments  are  exactly 
conveyed  by  the  well-known  words  of  Urigen.  TO\/J.TJ- 
rtov  TOIVVV  fiirtlv  d.Trapxrjv  fj.ti>  iraauv  ypaifidiv  eii>ai  ra 
(L'ayye\ia,  rSjv  oe  fi'dyytXiuv  dirapx^jv  TO  Ka.Ta.'\u6.vv^i'' 
of1  TUV  voL'f  oi'Oeis  OVVU.TO.L  \a/j(iv  ,a};  dvaireffuiv  tiri  TO 
crTTJ^os'ir/ffov.  Ernesti  (as  quoted  by  Tholuck),  calls 
this  gospel  Tin'  lu.art  «f  Chritt.  Herder  exclaims,  "  It 
is  written  />;/  the  hand  of  an  unf/cl." 

H.  IkiJc  u ml  I'urfxift  of  tl,'t$  <V<>,>7></.- The  general 
tradition  of  the  early  church  seems  clearly  to  lie,  that 
John  wrote,  or  at  least  put  forth,  his  gospel  at  Ephesus. 
This  is  stated  hv  Jrclia-us  iA.lv.  Il;or.  iii.  I  in  a  passt-e 
whicli  is  al.-o  quoted  by  Ku~.-l.iu-.  The  testimony  is 
repeated  bv  Jerome  and  oth<  r  authorities.  Now  it 
is  nearly  certain  that  St.  John  did  not  commence  his 
residence  at  Eph.-us  till  after  the  d.-.ah  of  >t.  Paul. 
which  we  may  plac.-  in  t',i;:  and  thus  it  is  anyhow  very 
improbable  that  his  gospel  should  be  composed  before 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  7". 

Th"  eviileuce  of  the  gospel  itself,  though  in  great 
part  negative,  M-CIUS  so  far  pretty  decisive.  The  tre- 
<|iielit  explanations  of  Jewish  customs  and  localities  as 
well  as  the  tran-latim;  into  Creek  some  very  ordinary 
Aramaic  Words,  seems  clearly  to  p-,int  out  that  this 
--o-p,-l  was  not  written  for  those  familiar  wiili  Palestine 
or  its  people.1  The  very  lan^ua-e  al-o  of  the  opening 
sentences,  and  eviileut  references  throughout  to  modes 
of  thought  i>v  no  mean-  Jewish,  but  much  ivsi-mMini:- 
what  we  miu-ht  expect  to  he  common  amoiiu'  the  philo- 
sophers  of  Kph«-Mi>  tend  to  eoiitirm  the  iradilion. 

As  regards  the  date  of  the  gospel,  allow-ill"-  it  to  be 
written  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  there  lias 
be  H  some  dith'.Tciiee  of  opinion.  It  has  been  usual  to 
consider  the  u-ospi-1  as  written  a  litile  before  or  a  little 
after  tlii-  Apocalypse  the  latter  heinu,  without  doubt, 
wiitten  during  the  apo-tle's  banishment  at  Patinos. 
It  has  been  ahno-i  universally  agreed,  and  indii-d 
livna-ii-  seems  cxpiv--ly  to  assert  it.  that  this  banish 
ment  took  place  in  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of 
Domitian.  who  died  in  '.»;.  I  leiiee  the  -o.-p.-l  is  usually 
considered  as  ,\ritten  some  time  between  |i  I  and  !'8; 
and  we  have  scarcely  anv  doubt  that  this  opinion  is 
correct.  Certain  critical  writers,  however.  ha\e  been 
of  opinion,  that  the  style  of  the  gospel  is  so  very  much 
less  Arama-ic,  and  so  much  more  Hellenistic,  than  the 
stvle  of  the  le.-velation.  that  it  must  have  been  written 
greatly  after  the  latter,  when  the  apostle  had  resided 
much  longer  in  Kphesus.  They  therefore,  without 
much  altering  the  date  of  the  gospel,  consider  the 
banishment  at  J'atmos  to  have  taken  place  at  a  greatly 
earlier  period— perhaps  in  the  reign  of  Galha  A.D.  'iy 
or  o'.i'i.  For  ourselves  we  do  not  rest  much  weight 
upon  these'  arguments.  The  style  of  the  Apocalypse 
was  probably  preserved  throughout  to  correspond  with 
the  numerous  (r,,/v/.s  actually  addressed  to  St.  John  by 
the  inspiring  Spirit;  and  these  words  were  probably 
Hebrew,  and  arranged  in  Hebrew  form.  Being  also 
emphatically  the  prophetical  book  of  the  New  Testa 
ment,  it  naturally  partook  more  of  the  style  of  the 
ancient  prophets,  as  it  freely  appropriates  their  imagery. 

1  Alfonl  gives  rh.  ii.  <';  13;  iii.  -•'•;  iv.  1;  v.  '2;  vi.  4;  x.  2'J;  xi.  IS, 
4!t  51,  54,  5.0;  xviii.  1,  i:i,  -JS;  xix.  13,  :U. 


(-)n  the  other  hand,,  we  cannot  see  that  the  gospel  is 
remarkably  infused  with  the  character  of  the  Hellenistic 
school.  It  certainly  is  peculiarly  free  from  the  complex 
character  of  Creek  syntactical  construction;  turning 
continually,  as  has  so  often  been  remarked,  upon  the 
particles  5t  and  ovv.  and  only  adopting  those  few  pecu 
liarities  of  (ireek  construction  with  whicli  a  very 
moderate  residence  in  Ephesus  would  be  sufficient  to 
furnish  the  writer.  Thus  perhaps  we  may  not  be 
wroiiLT  in  considering  the  gospel  to  be  written  not  far 
from  the  date  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  the  Apocalypse 
to  be  written  quite  towards  the  close  of  the  first  century. 
The  next  question  whicli  will  naturally  come  before 
us  regards  the  especial  ]i>/r/it>.«  with  which  this  gospel 
was  \\ritteii.  It  is  often  maintained  that  it  was  in- 
ti/n/iil  to  be  <•(,,,!/,/(  i/itiititt  to  the  other  gospels;  and  as 
often  tli.it  it  \\as  .-ti, i  i-'mlhi  intended  to  confute  certain 
heresies  then  arising  in  the  church.  In  both  these 
elas>e>  nf  supposition  there  is  probably  a  certain  degree 
of  truth:  thouuh  neither  hypothesis  shows  fully  \nor 
in  tact  do  both  combined'  the  purpose  of  the  gospel. 
Alton  1  is  of  opinion  that  St.  John  had  never  actually 
seen  either  of  the  other  gospels:  hut,  considering  the 
facility  of  communication  at  that  time  between  different 
parts  of  the  lloman  empire,  we  cannot  consider  this 
likelv.  Mill  we  do  not  think  that  his  gospel  was  for 
mally  intended  to  be  a  mere  supplementary  or  even  a 
complementary  work.  To  a  certain  degree,  of  course, 
such  is  the  case  \\ith  it.  It  is  only  very  rarely  that 
h.  enters  upon  Around  already  occupied  by  his  prede 
cessors;  and  u-ually  it  is  evident  that  this  is  merely 
fur  the  purpo.-e  of  recording  SOUK.'  discourse  of  our 
L. 'i-d  \\hich  hir-  |in  deeessors  had  omitted.  In  the  nar 
rative  of  the  crucifixion  he  uoes  over  much  of  the  same 
-round  with  the  other  evangelists;  but  then  he  intro 
duces  many  fn-h  points  of  detail,  rind  places  many 
t  hi  HITS  already  narrated  in  a  clearer  liuht.  Still  th" 
mode  of  writing  does  by  no  means  indicate  the  formally 
complementary.  It  does  not  sound  as  if  he  had  the 
other  uospels  before  his  eye.  or  even  in  his  immediate 
recollection,  when  he  wrote.  It  mi  rely  conveys  to  us 
the  notion  that  lie  was  narrating  matters  with  which 
his  mind  was  full,  and  ju>t  pacing  by  that  portion  of 
event-  of  uhidi  he  had  (he  -i-neral  impre .-sioii  that  his 
readers  were  already  informed. 

With  regard  to  the  gospel  of  St.  John  as  written 
with  the  special  object  of  counteracting  heresy,  we  are 
inclined  to  take  the  same  modi-rate  view.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  long  before  the  death  of  St.  .John  the  far- 
rauf"  of  false  opinions,  ultimately  termed  Cnostic,  had 
begun  to  he  largely  diiiused.  Philosophers  of  the  later 
Platonic  school  and  Jewish  metaphysicians  had  come 
into  contact  -particularly  at  Alexandria):  and  portions 
of  the  tenets  of  each  had  gradually  become  combined, 
and  formed  a  most  curious  system  of  tlieosophy.  Into 
this  mixture  had  been  further  poured  a  certain  quan 
tity  of  Christian  doctrine;  and  the  result  of  this  triple 
combination,  leavened  possibly  with  some  fancies  from 
Persia  and  India,  had  been  a  varied  system  of  heresy, 
differing  according  to  the  proportion  of  the  ingredients. 
This  was,  it  is  pretty  clear,  making  great  havoc  of  the 
church:  and  had  especially  extended  its  influence  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  particularly  at  Ephesus,  whoso  philo 
sophers  had  long  been  much  connected  with  those  of 
Alexandria.  Among  the  various  fancies  of  this  school, 
one,  and  perhaps  the  most  constant,  was  that  matter 
was  essentially  evil,  and  that  the  generation  of  matter 


JOHN.   GOSPEL  OF 


.JOHN,  GOSPEL  OF 


was  therefore  of  necessity  defiling.  ]u  practice  this  no 
tion  seems  to  have  led  some  to  monastic  asceticism,  and 
to  have  been  made  by  others  an  excuse  for  the  grossest 
sensuality.  Again,  the  eit'ect  of  these  views  upon  be 
lief  of  Christian  doctrine  was  remarkable.  To  some  it 
seemed  absolutely  incredible1  that  the  .Messiah  should 
really  be  a  man-  be  a  being  connected  with  matter, 
and  thus  essentially  impure.  They  therefore  con 
sidered  that  bis  human  nature  was  utterly  unreal — 
that  lie  merely  appeared  to  lie  a  man,  and  merely  in 
appearance  suffered  and  died.  This  section  was  called 
the  Docetoi.  Others  contended  that  Jesus  was  indeed 
man,  but  was  not  originally  the  Christ;  and  merely  be 
came  so  upon  his  baptism,  when  an  aeon — a  peculiar 
emanation  from  the  .Father — descended  upon  him,  and 
rendered  him  the  anointed.  The  creation  of  the  world 
would,  according  to  the  same  system,  be  considered  as 
ill  suited  either  to  the  Messiah  or  to  the  great  and  good 
First  Cause.  Jt  was  therefore  pronounced  that  matter 
\vas  created,  neither  liy  God  himself,  nor  by  any  im 
mediate  emanation  from  God.  but  by  some  subsequent 
aeon  a  good  way  removed  from  the  first  great  cause  of 
all.  It  were  vain  to  attempt  here  to  enumerate  the 
various  forms  of  Gnostic  error.  Xow  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  time  of  St.  John  these  notions,  whether 
they  had  or  had  not  been  consolidated  into  regular 
systems,  were  assuredly  rife;  and  many  expressions  in 
his  gospel,  and  still  more  in  his  first  epistle,  are  so 
fully  contradictory  of  them,  that  we  can  scarcely  doubt 
that  the  apostle  had  them  partially  before  his  mind  as 
he  wrote. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  gospel,  for  instance,  he 
opposes  the  notion  of  the  Docetie,  cli.  i.  14,  "The  Word 
was  (really  and  truly)  made  flesh."  To  their  errors, 
moreover,  the  strongest  opposition  is  made  by  the  par 
ticularity  with  which  he  lays  down  all  the  details  of 
the  crucifixion,  and  the  especial  care  which  he  uses  in 
proving  the  actual  and  real  death,  €.//.  ch.  xix.  34, 35. 
Against  the  floating  notions  of  the  creation  being  an 
unholy  thing,  and  unworthy  of  being  the  work  of  a 
real  emanation  from  God,  we  have — "All  things  were 
made  by  him,"  &c.,  ch.  i. :;.  In  fact  there  is  scarcely  an 
expression  in  the  introduction  to  this  gospel  which  is 
not  opposed  to  some  variety  or  other  of  Gnostic  error. 
Frequent  also  is  the  opposition  to  the  notion  that 
Jesus  was  not  the  Son  of  God  and  equal  with  the 
Father;  e.g.  cli.  x.  no;  xiv.  in;xvii.  2::;  xx.  31. 

The  very  term  AOTO2,  so  remarkably  introduced 
in  the  opening  of  the  gospel,  seems  not  improbably  to 
derive  its  origin  from  the  phraseology  which  these 
theosophists  had  adopted.  The  AOF02,  the  Word. 
seems  to  have  been  used  by  them  for  some  inferior 
emanation — for  some  aeon  of  lower  rank.  St.  John 
adopts  the  term;  but  raises  it  and  ennobles  it,  and 
applies  it  to  him  who  was  equal  with  the  Father.  On 
this  whole  subject  we  may  refer  the  reader  to  Dr. 
Burton's  Hampton  Lecture*,  Xo.  vii.:  also  Dorner  on 
the  Person  of  Christ,  Introd. 

Thus,  then,  we  are  fully  prepared  to  admit  that  the 
gospel  of  St.  John  was  in  some  degree  intended  to  be 
complementary  to  the  earlier  gospels,  and  also  was 
intended  in  some  degree  as  a  confutation  to  those 
Gnostic  notions  which  were  now  widely  disseminated. 
Still  we  do  not  consider  either  of  these  to  be  its  high 
est  or  its  principal  object.  The  principal  design  of  the 
writer  we  consider  to  have  been  perfectly  simple.  He 
was  drawing  near  to  the  end  of  his  course.  There  was 


much  to  be  told  concerning  his  divine  Master — much 
which,  if  not  told  by  himself,  could  not  lie  told  at  all. 
There  were  errors  also  afloat,  and  becoming  daily  more 
numerous  and  more  corrupting;  and  those  cherished 
thoughts  and  those  beloved  discourses  of  his  Master 
which  lingered  as  yet  untold  in  the  apostle's  mind, 
were  many  of  them  exactly  calculated  to  confute  these 
errors  were  exactly  the  medicine  which  the  church 
required  to  recruit  her  strength,  and  to  cast  out  the 
principles  of  disease.  He  desired  to  leave  a  bequest  to 
the  church,  the  preciousness  of  which  should  never  be 
exhausted.  Accordingly  he  leaves  these  confidential 
discourses,  which  perhaps  could  scarcely  at  an  earlier 
period  have-  been  made  public  with  advantage — those 
terrible  reproofs  of  powerful  opponents,  which  perhaps 
could  not  earlier  have  been  repeated  without  exciting- 
undesirable  wrath;  and  with  these  he  couples  those 
blessed  thoughts  which  bad  resulted  in  his  own  mind 
from  the  seeds  which  his  Lord  had  sown  there,  as 
made  to  fructify  and  increase  unto  perfection  by  the 
Lord  the  Spirit.  Thus,  then,  without  denying  either 
the  complementary  character  of  this  gospel,  or  the 
intention  of  the  apostle  to  confute  certain  heresies,  we 
consider  that  beyond  these  he  had  a  simpler  and  a 
wider  purpose — the  showing  forth  the  glory  of  his 
Lord,  and  the  edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ. 

III.  I)ite;/riti/  of  the  (iosptl. — The  question  respect 
ing  the  integrity  of  our  gospel,  as  it  stands  in  the 
English  Bible  and  the  received  text  of  the  original, 
has  respect  chiefly  to  two  passages.  The  first  is  eh. 
v.  4,  which  speaks  of  the  moving  of  the  waters  in  the 
pool  of  Bethesda  by  an  angel,  to  the  effect  of  impart 
ing  healing  virtue  to  the  person  who  first  thereafter 
plunged  into  them.  This  point  has  been  already  dis 
cussed  under  BETHESDA — to  which  the  reader  is  re 
ferred—  nothing  further  having  since  emerged  as  to 
the  evidence  on  either  side,  excepting  that  the  Sinaitic 
MS.  («),  by  omitting  the  passage,  must  now  be  added 
to  the  authorities  which  were  there  specified  as  adverse 
to  its  genuineness. 

The  other  passage  embraces  the  last  verse  of  ch.  vii. 
("and  every  man  went  to  his  own  house"),  and  the 
first  eleven  verses  of  ch.  viii.,  containing  the  account 
of  the  woman  who  had  been  taken  in  adultery.  The 
authorities  here  singularly  vary.  Two  of  the  older 
Uncial  MSS.  A  and  ('  are  defective  at  this  part  of 
the  gospel;  but  by  calculating  the  space  that  would  be 
required  for  the  other  portions,  Tischendorf  holds  it 
for  certain  that  neither  of  them  could  have  contained 
this.  He  therefore  reckons  against  the  passage  A,  B, 
0,  L,  T,  X,  A,  to  which  must  now  be  added  N  tbut 
L  and  A  have  both  a  vacant  space  at  the  passage 
in  question,  showing  that  they  were  cognizant  of  its 
existence  in  certain  copies).  It  is  omitted  also  in  the 
titles  or  headings  prefixed  to  some  of  the  ancient  MSS., 
in  particular  A,  C,  A;  and  in  about  sixty  cursive 
MSS.;  also  in  the  better  copies  of  the  Peshito,  in  the 
Sahiclic  and  Gothic  versions,  and  is  passed  over  by 
Origen,  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  Chrysostom,  Cyril, 
and  various  others  of  the  Greek  fathers;  in  like  man 
ner  by  Cyprian  and  Tertiillian  among  the  Latins.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  found  in  D,  F,  G,  H,  K,  U,  T,  also 
in  E,  M,  S,  A,  but  marked  with  asterisks  or  oboli  on  the 
margin  to  indicate  its  doubtful  character;  three  hundred 
cursives,  and  more,  exhibit  the  passage,  and  some 
besides  place  it  at  the  end  of  this  gospel,  or  of  the 
gospel  of  Luke.  Of  versions  the  Old  Latin,  the  Vul- 


JOHN.   GOSPEL  OF 


JOHN.   GOSPEL  OF 


gate,  and  the  Ethiopia  contain  it:  and  among  the 
fathers,  we  have  the  testimony  of  .Jerome  that  he 
found  it  in  many  Greek  and  Latin  copies  \Adv.  lYlag. 
ii.  17),  while  it  is  also  vindicated  l>y  Ambrose  and  Au- 
gustins — the  latter  attempting  to  account  for  its  omis 
sion  in  some  copies  (De  A<lult.  Couj.  ii.  ti,  7).  Certainly 
the  early  rise  after  the  apostolic  age,  and  the  general 
spread  of  the  ascetic  tendency,  must  have  operated 
against  either  the  fabrication  of  such  a  story,  or  its  too 
facile  recognition;  and  if  nut  really  a  genuine  part  of 
this  gospel,  it  must  have  been  in  existence  at  a  very 
early  period.  As  might  be  supposed,  from  the  conflict 
ing  state  of  the  evidence,  opinions  have  been  much 
divided  respecting  it.  Must  of  the  Reformed  divines 
eyed  it  with  suspicion,  in  particular  Calvin.  Me/a. 
Pt-llican.  P.ucer,  Grotius,  \r.,  air-.,  Kra.-mus.  And  in 
recent  times  the  prevailing  tendency  aiuonir  biblical 
critics  has  undoubtedly  been  unfavourable  to  its  autho 
rity —  Laehmaim.  Tiseheiidorf,  Tn-vll.-s  (-.incurring  in 
its  rejection  from  a  place  in  the  gospel  of  John:  'Ire 
gelles,  however,  .-till  holding  it  to  he  a  true  u'ospel 
narrative,  though  improperly  connected  with  this  par 
ticular  gospel.  But  the  passage  has  not  wanted  in 
later  times  its  strenuous  defenders:  ammiir  whom  may 
be  mentioned  1.,-tinpe,  .Mill.  I'.enuvl.  Michaelis,  Scholz, 
Him-,  Storr,  Kuinoel,  Stier,  Kbrard,  Scrivener.  cxc. 
Luthai.lt.  aloii'_f  with  not  a  few  others,  in  particular 
Liicko.  Knapp,  Baumgarten.  Crusius.  Kwald,  hold  it 
to  I"-  a  '.renuine  apostolic  tradition,  but  probably  com 
mitted  to  writing  bv  some  one  who  heard  it  from  John, 
or  from  one  of  the  other  evangelists.  I  'pon  the  whole, 
the  evidence  is  so  contlietin--,  and  the  story  itself  comes 
in  so  abruptlv,  that  the  relation  of  the  narrative  to  our 
gospel  mu.-t  be  pronounced  somewhat  doubtful.  \\h',l.- 
still  there  seems  good  reason  for  holding  the  fact.-  re 
lated  in  it  to  be  authentic. 

It  may  be  added,  that  not  on  the  -'round  of  diversity 
in  the  MSS.  or  versions  ifor  h.  re  all  are  substantially 
agreed  ,  but  from  the  structure  of  the  -osp.  1  itself, 
some  have  been  disposed  to  view  the  concluding  cliapt.-r. 
oh.  xxi.,  as  not  properly  an  integral  part  of  the  g.^p, •]. 
but  a  kind  of  appendage  or  posfx-ript  written  at  a  lat>  T 
date,  acconlin-.:'  to  a  tew  by  another  hand,  but  in  the 
opinion  of  most  bv  the  evangelist  himself.  Certainly, 
the  two  last  verses  of  ch.  x\.  have  much  tin-  appear 
ance  of  a  formal  conclusion  of  the  gospel,  and  it  is 
scarcelv  po.-.-ihle  to  think  of  the  next  chapter  other 
wise  than  as  a  later  addition  to  the  narrathe.  Hut  as 
both  the  matter  contained  in  it.  and  the  style  of  nar 
ration,  are-  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  body  of  the 
gospel,  and  distinguished  by  the  same  marked  charac 
teristics,  then-  is  no  ground  whatever  for  ascribing 
them  to  another  hand  than  that  of  the  apostle-.  Even 
the  final  attestation  ("this  in  the  disciple  which  testifi- 
etli  of  these  things,  and  wrote  these  things;  and  we  know 
that  his  testimony  is  true:  and  there  are  also  many 
other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the  which  if  they  should 
be  written  every  one.  I  suppose  that  even  the  world 
itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that  should  be  writ 
ten")  has  much  of  the  same  simple,  naive,  half-reveal 
ing,  half- concealing  character,  which  discovers  itself  in 
various  other  parts  of  the  apostle's  writings  (comp.  Gospel 
xiii.  23-2.%  xviii.  1.%  xix.  -jn,  3f>;  also  1st  Ep.  i.  •.', :',).  If  the  ''  we 
know"  (oi'oa/zei')  in  one  part  seems  to  imply  a  plurality 
of  persons  concerned  in  it,  the  "  I  suppose"  (oi/icu)  in 
another  carries  not  less  an  individual  aspect;  and  the 
probable  explanation,  we  conceive,  is  that  the  apostle, 


when  finally  delivering  up  his  written  testimony  to  the 
church,  did.  as  it  were,  in  the  presence  of  those  about 
him,  and  with  their  approval,  confirm  the  whole  with 
this  seal  of  truthfulness  from  his  own  hand. 

IV.  A/ui/i/.*!*  of  Contents. — It  may  perhaps  be 
not  without  advantage  to  present  to  our  readers  an 
analysis  of  the  gospel  of  St.  John,  with  a  notice  of 
those  portions  of  our  Lord's  history  in  which  he  comes 
into  contact  with,  and  those  in  which  he  does  not  come 
into  contact  with,  the  other  evangelists.  We  may  first 
notice  the  i>ru/<ii/uc,  ch.  i.  i-i\  in  which  he  sets  forth  the 
original  olorv  of  the  \\'nr<t ;  introducing  also,  vcr.  i.% 
a  few  words  from  the  Baptist  in  testimony  of  his  pre- 
existelice.  St.  John  upon  this  omits  all  mention  of 
the  birth  of  our  Lord,  of  his  circumcision,  and  of  his 
earlier  vears;  and  at  once  passes  to  events  which  must 
have  taken  place  a  little  after  the  temptation  in  the 
wilderness.  He  tells  us  of  the  testimony  of  the  .Bap 
tist,  as  uiven  to  the  deputation  from  the  council,  and 
afterwards  to  two  of  his  own  disciples,  with  the  cir 
cumstances  that  follow— the  attachment  formed  to 
Jesus  bv  .Andrew,  and  probably  by  John  himself,  by 
Peter  and  Philip  and  Xathanael.  cli.  i.  19-Sl.  I 'pon  this 
we  have.  ch.  ii.,  the  journey  of  Jesus  into  Galilee,  and 
the  miracle  at  Cana.  with  our  Lord's  removal  fn  m 
Caua  to  Capernaum:  the  speedy  return  to  Jerusalem 
for  the  passover.  \\ith  the  first  purifying  of  the  temple, 
and  the  prediction  of  his  rearing  again  the  temple  of 
his  liodv  in  three  days.  During  the  same  visit  to 
Jerusalem  took  place  the  conversation  with  Nieodemus, 
ch.  iii.  1-21.  I'pon  this  our  Lord  appears  to  have  gone, 
ch  in  J2.  from  the  metropolis  of  Judea  into  its  rural 
districts;  and  thus,  though  Jesus  and  the  Baptist  pro- 
hahlv  did  not  meet,  their  disciples  came  into  contact 
with  each  other:  and  <|uer-tions  arose  between  them 
which  led  to  the  noble  testimony  of  the  Baptist,  ch.  iii. 
:.;-.,.;.  It  is  probable  that  soon  after  this  John  was  cast 
into  prison;  and  that  the  journey  \\hich  our  Lord 
made  from  Judea  into  Galilee,  as  now  narrated  by  St. 
John,  is  the  Mime  with  the  journey  in  -Mat.  iv.  1'2. 
The  fourth  chapter  is  occupied  with  this  journey  and 
its  circumstances  the  interview  with  the  Samaritan 
woman  and  with  her  fellow  townsmen  at  Sychar,  and 
the  wonderful  discourse  \\ith  the  disciples  on  the  har- 
vest  and  the  reapers.  To  this  is  added  in  the  same 
chapter  our  Lord's  short  resilience  iu  Galilee,  with  the 
heal'iim  of  tin-  nobleman's  son  at  Capernaum. 

The  fifth  chapter  contains  an  account  of  our  Lord's 
return  to  Jerusalem  to  a  festival  (probably  that  of 
I'lirimi,  with  the  healing  "f  the  man  at  the  pool  of 
Bethoda,  and  the  sublime  discourse  with  the  Jews, 
who  were  offended  because  that  cure  was  accomplished 
on  the  Sabbath-day. 

The  matters  narrated  by  St.  John  have  been  hitherto 
such  as  were  passed  over  almost  entirely  by  the  other 
evangelists.      They  have  intervened  between  the  temp 
tation  and    the    point   of   our   Lord's   public   ministry, 
where   the   others  commence    their  narrative.       Upon 
this  there  appears  to  be  a  very  considerable  period  in 
that    ministry   which    St.    John    himself    passes    over. 
j  There  seems  in  fact  no  point  of  contact  between  them 
till  after  the  death  of  the  Baptist  and  the  return  of  the 
twelve  from  their  mission.      In  the  sixth  chapter  we 
have  a  simple  and  short  account  of   the  feeding  of  the 
five   thousand,   and  of   our   Lord's    walking   upon  the 
j  water.     It  would  appear,  however,  as  if  this  narrative 
'  (common  as  it  is  to  the  other  evangelists),  was  merely 


JOHN,  GOSPEL  OF 


034 


JOHN,  EPISTLES  OF 


given  as  the  groundwork  of  the  discourse  with  the  half- 
believing  Galikeans  (probably  held  in  the  synagogue  at 
('aperna.ui)ij  on  the  bread  of  life,  ch.  vi.  22-t;5.  In  the 
few  remaining  verses  of  eh.  vi.  is  given  us  the  short 
diseourse  with  the  twelve  as  to  whether  thev  would 
forsake  him  like  many  other  of  his  former  disciples, 
the  earnest  testimony  of  Peter,  and  the  prediction  of 
the  treachery  of  Judas,  oh.  vi.  tiii-n. 

The  next  event  in  the  history  of  Jesus,  as  told  us  by 
St.  John,  is  the  Lord's  going  up  to  the  feast  of  taber- 
nacles— probably  the  hist  festival  of  the  kind  before 
the  passover  at  which  IK;  was  cru<  ificd.  Many  events 
narrated  by  the  other  evangelists  had  probably  occurred 
before  this  time  and  since  the  feeding  of  the  five  thou 
sand:  and  none  more  remarkable  than  the  transfigura 
tion,  which  St.  .John  passes  in  silence,  though  he  had 
himself  been  a  spectator  of  it.  Several  chapters  which 
follow  are  almost  entire! v  occupied  with  various  dis 
courses  of  our  Lord.  The  discourse  with  his  brethren 
connected  with  his  journey,  rh.  vii.  i-in;  and  his  discourse 
in  the  temple,  at  the  midst  of  the  feast,  as  to  his  divine 
mission,  ch.  vii.  11-31;.  Ills  discourse  in  the  last  day  of 
the  feast  upon  the  Holy  Spirit  under  the  figure  of 
rivers  of  living  water.  This,  with  the  opinions  formed 
of  him  by  the  Jews  at  large,  by  the  rulers,  and  by 
Nicodemus,  occupies  the  rest  of  the  chapter,  ch.  vii.  ::r-f>:i. 

For  reasons  already  stated  in  the  preceding  section, 
we  refrain  from  doing  more  than  simply  noticing  the 
account,  at  the  beginning  of  ch.  viii.,  of  the  woman, 
taken  in  adultery.  Thereafter  follows  our  Lord's  dis 
course  in  opposition  to  the  Jews,  or  his  own  record, 
and  his  Father's  testimony  of  him,  ch.  viii.  12-20;  upon 
his  origin  and  his  departure,  vcr.  2i-:s2;  upon  their  vain 
boast  of  being  descended  from  Abraham,  while  they 
did  not  the  works  of  Abraham,  with  the  fact  that 
Abraham  himself  rejoiced  to  behold  by  faith  the  day 
of  Christ,  \cr.  ,"3-j9. 

During  the  same  residence  at  Jerusalem  our  Lord 
gives  sight  to  the  man  who  was  born  blind;  and  upon 
the  rulers  casting  the  man  out  of  their  communion  for 
believing  on  Jesus,  he  points  out  that  he  had  come  for 
judgment  into  this  world;  and  proceeds,  apparently  on 
the  same  occasion,  to  speak  of  himself  as  the  good 
Shepherd,  and  to  lay  down  the  distinction  between  the 
hireling  and  him  whom  the  Master  had  indeed  sent,  ch. 

ix.  1-41;  X.  1-21. 

Upon  this  is  added  a  discourse  of  our  Lord,  bearing 
upon  the  same  subject,  but  not  delivered  for  several 
months  afterwards,  at  the  feast  of  the  dedication,  ch.  x. 
22-3S.  A  few  words  are  here  said  on  our  Lord's  with 
drawing  himself  to  a  place  beyond  the  Jordan,  ver.  211- 12; 
upon  which  follows  what  perhaps  is  the  most  remark 
able  event  in  the  whole  period  of  our  Lord's  ministry, 
and  which  yet  seems  entirely  passed  over  by  the  other 
evangelists — the  raising  of  Lazarus,  ch.  xi.  1-40.  A  suffi 
cient  reason  for  this  omission  may  perhaps  be  found  in 
the  fact  that,  when  the  earlier  gospels  were  put  forth, 
Lazarus  might  be  still  living,  and  his  enemies  still 
powerful,  so  that  public  notice  might  have  exasperated 
his  enemies,  and  have  exposed  him  to  their  violence. 

The  machinations  of  the  Pharisees  against  Jesus,  and 
his  withdrawing  to  "a  city  called  Ephraim,"  are  men 
tioned  at  the  conclusion  of  the  chapter,  ch.  xi.  47-.">4. 

A  vast  number  of  most  interesting  circumstances  are 
narrated  by  the  other  evangelists,  and  omitted  by  St. 
John,  when  they  come  once  more  into  contact  (with 
the  exception,  indeed,  of  St.  Luke,  who  probably  omits 


the  event,  from  having  given  us  a  somewhat  similar  one 
at  an  earlier  portion  of  his  history;,  in  their  account  of 
the  feast  at  Bethany,  and  the  anointing  by  Mary  of  the 
Saviour's  feet,  ch.  xii.  1-n.  Here  St.  John  differs  little 
from  Matthew  and  Mark,  except  in  his  greater  precision 
and  clearness  of  narration.  The  solemn  entry  into  J  eru- 
s:dem  is  told  us  by  all  the  four — but  John,  in  this  in 
stance,  touches  more  slightly  upon  the  circumstances 
than  the  rest,  ch.  .\ii.  12-111.  An  interesting  circumstance 
is  next  told  us  of  certain  (ireeks  who  desired  to  see  our 
Lord— with  his  discourse  on  his  approaching  departure, 
and  the  voice  from  heaven,  ch.  xii.  ai-yo.  And  again, 
after  a  short  interval,  a  few  words  on  the  obstinacy  of 
the  Jews  and  the  divine  truth  of  Christ,  ch.  xii.  :;fl-50. 

What  follows  of  St.  John  is  indeed  a  treasure  to  the 
church.  The  paschal  supper,  and  the  mystic  washing 
of  the  disciples"  feet —the  denunciation  and  departure 
of  Judas,  and  the  warning  to  Simon.  This  forms  ch. 
xiii.  Then  the  wonderful  discourses  of  ch.  xiv.  xv. 
xvi. — his  own  departure,  with  the  promise  of  the  Com 
forter — the  vine  and  the  branches,  with  comfort  under 
the  hatred  and  persecution  of  the  world — with  many 
other  sweet  and  precious  words.  Then,  in  ch.  xvii., 
that  most  noble  specimen  of  praver  and  intercession, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  provokes  the  dislike  and  affected 
contempt  of  modern  pseudo-criticism.  The  narrative 
of  the  crucifixion,  ch.  xvi;;.  xix.,  is  given  in  a  manner  pre 
cisely  in  unison  with  the  other  evangelists,  hut  with 
some  additional  particulars.  The  account  of  the  resur 
rection  follows,  and  abounds  in  fresh  matter — the  ex 
quisite  narrative  of  the  appearance  of  our  Lord  to  Mary 
Magdalene,  and  of  his  condescension  to  the  incredulous 
Thomas,  ch.  .\x. 

Regarding  the  twenty- first  chapter  as  a  sort  of  post 
script  to  the  whole,  but  a  postscript  from  the  apostle's 
own  pen,  it  winds  up  the  narrative  with  some  most 
interesting  and  important  notices.  The  last  time 
when  Peter  and  hi.s  associates  were  engaged  in  their 
old  employment  of  fishermen,  the  Lord  making  what 
was  nearly  the  last  of  his  interviews  with  them  so 
nearly  resembling  what  had  occurred  in  one  of  his 
earliest — the  ardent  love  of  Peter — the  thrice-repeated 
tender  questioning,  and  thrice-repeated  charge  to  feed 
the  flock — the  semi-prophetic  hints  as  regards  St.  John 
himself,  and  half-implied  reproof  of  the  curiosity  of 
Peter — these  form  the  touching  postscript  to  this  most 
interesting  of  all  the  gospels. 

[Beside  the  general  commentaries  ou  the  whole  of  the  Xcw 
Testament,  which  comprise  the  gospel  of  John,  there  are  OH  this 
gospel  alone  a  great  many  works,  and  some  of  them  well  deserv 
ing  of  consultation;  in  particular.  Lampe's  great  work,  which, 
though  partaking  of  some  of  the  defects  of  the  Dutch  school, 
possesses  also  in  a  high  degree  some  of  their  excellencies;  the 
exposition  of  Tittmann,  forming,  as  a  translation,  part  of  Clark's 
Ji'Uical  Caliiw.t;  of  Liicke,  of  Tiioluck,  of  I.uthardt,  and  Heng- 
stenberg — the  two  latter  quite  recent,  and  greatly  surpassing 
their  immediate  predecessors  in  spiritual  insight  and  soundness 
of  view.  Expositions  have  also  appeared  in  English,  ljut  usually 
of  a  more  practical  nature,  those,  for  example,  of  Ilutcheson, 
Sumner,  and  Jaco'ous.]  [T.  s. ] 

JOHN,  EPISTLES  OF.  Of  the  three  epistles  of 
St.  John,  the  first,  of  which  we  shall  speak  somewhat 
fully,  seems  to  have  been  at  once  received  by  the  church 
with  little  or  no  hesitation,  while  the  two  others  were 
for  a  time  considered  as  less  certain. 

Genuineness  and  authenticity  of  first  epistle. — Poly- 
carp  (Ad  Philipp.  c.  7),  employs  the  words,  TTO.S  yap  5s  fie 
'Irjcrovv  XpLffTov  ev  aapKi  £\i)Xv6frai,  O.VTI- 
(for  whosoever  does  not  confess  that  Jesus 


.TOHX.    EPISTLES  OF 


i)35 


JOHX,   EPISTLES  OF 


Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,  is  antichrist),  which  seems 
evidently  to  refer  to  1  Jn.  iv.  3.  Papias  is  said  by 
Eusebius  ill.  E.  iii.  'A<),  to  have  given  his  testimony  to 
this  epistle,  and  Ireiueus  to  have  frequently  made  quo 
tations  from  it  (II.  E.  v.  8).  "We  have  also  the  testimony 
of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  of  Tertulliaii,  of  Cyprian,  of 
Origen ;  after  whose  time  consent  seems  universal. 
The  Peschito.  the  Syrian  version,  made  probably  at  the 
close  of  the  first,  or  beginning  of  the  second  century, 
contains  this  epistle,  though  it  omits  the  second  epistle 
of  Peter,  the  second  and  third  epistles  of  John,  and  the 
Apocalypse.  We  may  thus  consider  the  external  evi 
dence  as  complete. 

As  regards  the  internal  evidence,  the  difliculty  is 
even  still  less.  It  is  impossible  to  read  this  epistle 
without  beinii'  struck  with  its  stronv.  res.  mblance  to  the 
e-ospel  of  St.  John.  it  seems  evident  that  the  writer 
of  each  had  the  same  da-s  of  opponents  in  his  mind 
those  whit,  like  the  I)oc,ta-.  d.uied  the  true  humanity 
of  Christ  ;  those  au'ain  who  denied  that  the  man  Je-u.- 
was  the  ( 'lirist.  and  Sou  of  I  o»l  :  and  those  who.  und.  r 
pretence  of  be  in  :i  his  disciples,  were  habitually  iix'in^ 
in  violation  of  his  commands.  The  very  style  also  and 
manner  of  the  epistle  bear  tin  strongest  mark-  of  iden 
tity  with  the  gospel.  In  both,  the  same  deeply  loving 
and  contemplative  nature;  in  both,  a  hear!  completely 
imbtied  with  the  teaching  of  the  Saviour  :  in  both.  al-o. 
the  same  tendency  to  abhorrence  t.f  those  who  oppo-cd 
his  Lord. 

I;. -m.-;rk::i.le.  t to  use  tin-  words  of  Ebrardl,  is  the 

"  similarity  of  the  riri-/t  .,/'/</.</>  in  both  writing.  The 
notions.  I'ujlit,  lifi.  </'</•/•//(  xx.  trntli.  fie.  m.  et  us  in  the 
epistle  with  the  same  broad  and  di •<•]>  meaning  which 
they  bear  in  the  eo-pd  :  so  also  the  notions  of  /,/•,-/,/- 
tin/iuii  d\afff-i.iii  ,  of  doiii'_r  righteousness,  sin.  or  iniquity 
\an.a/irtai'.  dvoi.ua.i>  .  aii'l  the  sharply  pr.-->-nted  anti 
theses  of  liuht  and  darkness,  truth  and  lie.  life  and 
death,  of  loving  and  hatinu'.  the  love  of  the  Father  and 
of  the  world,  children  of  <  !od  and  of  the  devil,  spirit  of 
truth  and  of  error."  In  short,  in  whatever  way  we  ex 
.•inline  both,  whether  as  to  their  peculiarities  of  lan.j'ua'.'e 
or  of  thought,  whether  as  to  the  disposition  and  char 
acter  of  the  writer,  or  of  tin-  Sa\iour  whom  they  each 
represent,  we  must  arrive-  without  doubt  at  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  epistle  and  the  gospel  had  one  and  the 
same  author. 

Time  nml  filH'-e  at  ti-liii-lt  it  i<;i,-t  written,  mul  f»r  n-lmt 
i-cadcl'A  it  H-iix  in/i  mini.  As  regards  its  dufi.  there  have 
been  great  differences  of  opinion.  It  has  not  been 
unusual  to  refer  it  to  the  year  tiS.  or  thereabout.  This, 
however,  seems  to  arise  from  a  mistaken  notion  that  it 
must  have  been  written  before  the  destruction  of  Jeru 
salem.  This  notion  seems  partly  derived  from  the 
expression.  Hi.  ii  1\  "  //  /.-•  tin  laxt  tinn ,"  which  has  been 
interpreted  to  mean  the  period  immediately  before  our 
Lord's  coining  to  execute  judgment  upon  that  apostate 
city.  We  confess  we  see  no  force  whatevi  r  in  this 
conclusion.  Again,  it  has  been  assumed  by  some 
authors  as  well  ni^li  certain,  that,  if  the  epistle  had 
been  written  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  St. 
John  would  have  made  allusion  to  that  event.  For 
ourselves,  we  are  rather  of  opinion  that  both  the  gospel 
and  epistle  wen:  written  towards  the  year  J»8  ;  and 
between  7"  and  It 8  there  would  evidently  have  been 
space  enough  for  the  dying  away  of  the  impression 
made  even  by  so  considerable  an  event  as  the  fall  of 
the  ancient  capital  of  Judiea. 


The  general  belief  of  antiquity  seems  to  be  that  the 
epistle  was  published  at  Ephesus.  Epiphanius,  Ireiiaus, 
as  quoted  by  Eusebius,  Chrysostom.  and  others,  appear 
to  agree  in  this  testimony:  and  though  there  was  a 
tradition  somewhat  widely  diffused  that  the  gospel  and 
epistle  were  both  written  in  Patmos,  during  the  apostle's 
exile  there,  yet  this  need  not  interfere  with  the  other 
view.  In  fact,  several  ancient  writers  state  that  St. 
John  ir >•<>((  his  gospel  (and  perhaps  his  epistle  too"), 
while  he  was  in  Patmos.  but  jiid/lit/nd  it  at  Ephesus, 
having  sent  it  thither  by  means  of  his  dyaTnjrb?  KCII 
£eco56xos,  the  deacon  (iaius  ( Khnu-a,  Introd.  to  his  Commen 
tary,  ice.  v.) 

As  regards  the  persons  for  \\hom  it  was  especially 
intended,  we  have  very  little  to  say.  We  believe  that 
this  epistle  was  cut /ml  i<-  in  a  more  complete  sense  than 
perhaps  any  otln  r  of  those  usually  distinguished  by 
that  name.  'I  here  is  indeed  an  expression  in  some 
editions  of  Augmtine  which  mi^ht  lead  us  to  believe 
that  this  epistle  \\as  addressed  to  the  Parthians.  Au 
gustine  appears,  after  quoting  1  Jn.  iii.  '_'.  to  represent 
(lie  words  as  spoken  (/  Jimiun  in  Cjiiftnlii  ad  J^toi/tott. 
There  seems,  however.  Lfn-at  doubt  \\hetherthesewords 
were  originally  written  l-\  Augustine  at  all.  and  whether 
the  \\ord  J 'art /«'.*•  is  not  either  an  error  of  transcription 
for  rii//>ini".-i  uhe  peojilcof  Patinosi.  or.  as  others  have 
conjectured,  an  abbreviation  of  the  word  Tra/;0(vavs, 
"  younu'  Christians,  yet  uneorrupted  both  as  to  Hc-shly 
and  spiritual  fornication."  At  all  events,  we  may 
fairly  assume  that  our  epistle  was  not  addressed  to  the 
Parthians;  and  as  it  has  no  distinctive  signs  whatever 
of  beiiiLf  directly  addressed  to  anv  one  individual  church, 
we  may  consider  it  pun  ly  Ka('o\(/,»;.  and  intended  for 
the  beneiit  of  the  church  of  Chri.-t  at  l:;r::e. 

It  has  been  frequently  observed,  with  regard  to  this 
work,  that  it  has  little  or  im  siv.n  of  beinu'  an  ejiisth-  at 
all  that  it  i-  entirely  destitute  of  the  epistolary  form, 
and  inertly  a  u.  m-ral  essay  or  treatise  intended  for 
universal  circulation  within  the  church.  If  this  were 
the  ease,  it  would  in  no  degree  detract  from  its  validity. 
\\t-.loiiot.  however,  think  that  it  is  so.  He  aims  at 
the  benefit  of  the  church  universal;  but.  to  a  certain 
degree,  thron-h  the  medium  of  individual  churches, 
with  whose  state,  dangers,  and  hopes,  he  was  especially 
conversant.  We  are  not  absolutely  confident  of  this, 
but  there  are  expressions  which  lead  us  to  such  a  view. 
There  seems  to  be  an  express  relation  between  the 
writer  and  the  readers,  cli  ii  27;  v.  13.  ITe  seems  to  be 
writing  to  a  definite  class,  whose  faith  he  knows.  Hi.  ii. 
20,£c.;iv.  4;  some  body  of  men  whose  history  is  in  his 
immediate  thought.  Hi.  ii.  I'.i,  and  which  he  finds  it  neces 
sary  to  warn  against  specific  dangers,  cli.  ii.  is,  2<;;  iv.  l,&c.; 
v  n;,  •_'!.  The  general  style,  too.  is  scarce  suited  to  a 
mere  traitisr.  To  use  a  sentiment  of  Diisterdieck, 
quoted  by  Ebranl,  "  With  all  its  regularity,  there  reigns 
throughout  a  certain  easy  naturalness,  and  that  un 
forced  simplicity  of  composition  which  harmonizes  best 
with  the  immediately  practical  interest  and  paracletic 
tendency  of  an  epistle." 

There  is  an  opinion  of  Ebrard.  so  plausible,  and  in 
deed  so  inteiestin--,  that  we  think  it  desirable  to  notice 
it.  He  considers  that  this  epistle  has  in  it  the  character 
of  an  epistle  dedicatory,  of  an  address  to  the  churches 
intended  to  accompany  the  gospel.  The  nature  of  the 
work— really  an  epistle,  but  with  little  of  the  epistolary 
form,  would  be  consistent  enough  with  this  hypothesis; 
and  its  most  marked  union  in  spirit  with  the  gospel 


JOHX,  EPISTLES  OF 


JOHN,   EPISTLES  OF 


would  favour  the  notion  also.  For  the  working  out  of 
the  thought,  we  must  refer  to  Ebrard  himself,  the  fourth 
section  of  whose  introduction  to  his  commentary  on  the 
epistles  of  St.  John  (on  the  relation  of  the  epistle  to  the 
gospel i,  is  to  us  peculiarly  interesting.  At  all  events, 
we  may  very  readily  conceive  the  aged  apostle  to  have 
penned  this  epistle  immediately  after  he  had  completed 
the  gospel,  when  his  whole  soul  was  penetrated  with 
the  ]•( 'collections  of  his  Lord,  while  not  unoccupied  with 
the  peculiar  dangers,  errors,  and  necessities  of  the 
church,  sixty  years  after  his  Lord's  departure  to  his 
glory. 

Ann/ i/sis. — An  analysis  of  this  beautiful  epistle  we 
find  it  by  no  means  easy  to  supply;  nor  indeed  are  we 
at  all  sure  that  any  precise  system  of  arrangement  was 
intended.  Calvin,  in  his  ari/nmcuf  to  his  commentary 
on  this  epistle,  after  describing  the  various  matters 
which  arc  treated  in  it,  says  -"  Verum  nihil  horum 
continua  serie  facit.  Nam  sparsim  docendo  et  exhort- 
ando  varius  est."  The  following  slight  attempt  may 
perhaps  suffice. 

lie  assorts  the  pre-existent  glory  and  the  real  hu 
manity  of  our  Lord,  in  opposition  to  false  teachers,  and 
for  the  comfort  of  the  church,  ch.  i.  i-r.  The  sinfulness 
of  man,  and  the  propitiation  of  Christ — this  propitiation 
being  intended  to  stir  us  up  to  holiness  and  love,  ch.  i.  s- 
ii.  17;  Jesus  and  the  Christ  asserted  to  be  one,  in  op 
position  to  the  false  teachers,  ch.  ii.  is- 211.  The  third 
chapter  seems  devoted  to  the  singular  love  of  God,  in 
adopting  us  to  be  his  sons,  with  the  happiness  and  the 
duties  arising  out  of  it,  especially  the  duty  of  brotherly 
love,  ch.  iii.  The  fourth  chapter  is  principally  occupied 
with  marks  by  which  to  distinguish  the  teaching  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  from  that  of  false  teachers,  and  of  anti 
christ,  with  repeated  exhortations  to  "love  as  brethren," 
ch.  iv.  The  apostle  then  shows  the  connection  between 
faith,  renewal,  love  to  God  and  to  the  brethren,  obedi 
ence  and  victory  over  the  world  ;  and  concludes  with  a 
brief  summary  of  what  had  been  already  said,  ch.  v. 

Integrity  of  tlte  epistle. — Two  passages  in  this  epistle, 
as  they  stand  in  what  is  called  "  the  received  text," 
differ  from  the  texts  found  in  the  better  manuscripts, 
and  in  all  recent  critical  editions.  One  is  the  second 
clause  of  ch.  ii.  2.'5.  "  He  that  confesseth  the  Son  hath 
the  Father  also"  (6  b^o\oy<Jov  rbv  vlbv  Kal  TOV  iraT^pa 
e'X«),  which  is  entirely  wanting  in  the  received  text, 
but  is  exhibited  in  codices  ABC,  beside  many  others, 
also  in  the  ancient  versions,  and  generally  in  the  writ 
ings  of  the  fathers:  so  that  there  can  lie  no  doubt  about 
its  title  to  a  place  in  the  text.  It  had  doubtless  dropped 
out  in  a  few  MSS.  (among  which  are  only  two  uncial 
GK)  from  the  preceding  clause  ending  with  the  same 
words,  which  the  eye  of  the  copyist  confounded  with 
those  of  the  suceeding  clause,  and  so  passed  on  to  the 
next  verse.  In  the  English  Bible  the  clause  is  retained, 
though  printed  in  italics,  as  if  it  were  only  inserted  to 
complete  the  sense.  It  ought  to  be  printed  in  the 
ordinary  type. 

The  other  passage  is  one  that  has  given  rise  to  a 
more  lengthened  controversy  than  perhaps  any  other 
single  text  of  Scripture.  It  is  that  which  refers  to  the 
three  heavenly  witnesses,  ch.  v.  7,  and  runs  thus — the 
words  within  brackets  forming  the  disputed  portion — 
"On  rpets  eiffiv  oi  /j.apTvpovi>Tes  [fv  TUJ  ovpava  6  irarrip,  6 
\oyos,  Kal  TO  ciyiov  irvevp-a.'  Kal  OVTOI  ol  rpels  %v  eiai.  Kai 
Tpels  tlffLV  ol  fj.apTvpovvTfs  fv  rfi  yfj],  TO  Trvev/j-a.  Kal  TO 
vSwp,  Kal  TO  at/xa'  Kal  oi  rpels  «'s  Tb  fi>  elaiv.  In  English 


thus  "There  are  three  that  bear  record  fin  heaven, 
the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  .Holy  Spirit,  and  these 
three  are  one;  and  there  are  three  that  bear  record  on 
earth],  the  spirit,  and  the  water,  and  the  blood:  and 
these  three  agree  in  one."  Perhaps  few  controversies 
have,  in  their  time,  been  more  zealous  or  more  elaborate. 
At  present,  we  believe,  there  are  not  many  learned  men 
who  will  deny  that  the  words  in  question  are  interpo 
lated,  though  they  will  admit  the  interpolation  to  be 
early,  and  probably  will  consider  it  as  made  with  no 
dishonest  intent. 

The  facts  of  the  case  are  much  as  follows.  There  is 
not  one  Greek  MS.  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  down 
to  the  sixteenth  century,  which  contains  the  doubtful 
words.  It  is  said  that  of  the  various  codices  of  the  six 
teenth  century  itself,  only  four  contain  the  words — 
that,  of  these,  one  is  a  copy  from  the  Complutensian 
Polyglot,  and  with  regard  to  the  other  three  there  is 
reason  to  believe  they  received  the  words  by  retransla- 
tion  from  the  Vulgate.  Erasmus,  when  attacked  by 
Stunica,  one  of  the  four  editors  of  the  Complutensian 
Polyglot,  for  omitting  the  clause  (as  he  did  in  the  first 
and  second  editions  of  bis  Greek  Testament,  though  he 
inserted  it  in  the  third,  as  he  says,  "to  avoid  calumny") 
challenged  his  opponent  to  produce  his  authority  for 
inserting  it.  Stunica,  in  reply,  made  no  appeal  to 
Greek  MSS.,  but  affirmed  that  the  Greek  were  corrupt, 
and  that  the  Vulgate  contained  the  truth — a  sufficient 
proof  that  the  clause  was  not  to  be  found  in  the  vast 
mass  of  MSS.  which  were  collected  for  the  use  of  these 
editors  by  the  great  influence  of  Cardinal  Ximenes. 

It  appears  also  that  the  clause  is  not  to  be  found  in 
the  old  versions,  the  Peschito,  Arabic,  Coptic,  /Ethiopia, 
nor  indeed  in  Latin  copies,  down  to  A.D.  Ci'iO.  Among 
the  ante- Niceiie  fathers  none  appears  to  mention  it  but 
Cyprian.  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  absolutely  certain 
that  even  he  is  referring  to  this  passage.  Very  soon, 
however,  after  his  time,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Latin 
ecclesiastical  writers  do  frequently  refer  to  it.  We 
seem  therefore  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  among 
the  Greek  and  eastern  churches,  the  clause  was  abso 
lutely  unknown  ;  that  perhaps  before  the  end  of  the 
fifth  century,  it  was  introduced  as  a  gloss  into  the  mar 
gin  of  some  copies  of  Latin  versions,  and  thus  gradu 
ally  found  its  way  into  the  Latin  text ;  while,  in  later 
ages,  it  was  translated  from  the  Latin,  and  introduced 
into  some  of  the  more  modern  Greek  codices. 

Did  space  permit,  we  might  go  into  the  internal  evi 
dence  on  each  side  of  the  question.  This,  however, 
could  scarcely  be  done  in  few  words,  and  does  not  seem 
to  add  much  to  us.  The  whole  question  may  be  studied, 
among  other  authorities,  in  the  well-known  work  of 
T.  Hartwell  Home,  and  in  the  editions  of  the  Greek 
Testament  of  Aford  and  Tischendorf,  to  which  may  be 
added  Person's  Letters  to  Travis,  and  Bishop  Turton's 
Vindication  of  Porson. 

We  candidly  confess  that  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion 
that  the  clause  is  interpolated  with  anything  but  plea 
sure.  We  are  confident  that  no  dishonesty  was  in 
tended  ;  that  a  gloss,  entirely  in  the  spirit  of  St.  John, 
was.  with  the  most  upright  views,  placed  in  the  margin 
of  some  Latin  copies,  and  came,  by  mistake,  rather 
than  by  fraudulent  design,  to  be  received  by  degrees 
into  the  text ;  and  it  is  with  a  kind  of  melancholy  feel 
ing  that  we  part  with  wrhat  the  western  church  has 
received  as  a  treasure  for  perhaps  well  nigh  fourteen 
hundred  years. 


JOHN,  EPISTLES  OF 

SECOND  AND  THIRD  EPISTLES  OF  ST.  J<>HX. — These 
two  epistles  may,  on  one  account  at  least,  be  properly 
coupled  together ;  there  having  never  been  any  dispute 
as  to  their  being  the  work  of  the  same  author.  On 
other  points  with  regard  to  them  we  only  wish  there 
were  the  same  freedom  from  disputation. 

In  the  first  place,  there  has  been  doubt  as  tn  whether 
they  were  the  work  <  >f  the  same  writer  as  the  first  epistle. 
It  is  probable  that  the  expression  6  Trpecrfii'Tepos  (the 
elder)  has  done  much  to  cause  this  doubt,  and  to  suggest  | 
the  notion  that  they  were  the  work  of  one  John  the  pres 
byter,  whose  sepulchre  is  stated  by  .lerome  to  exist,  or 
at  least  to  be  pointed  out  as  existing,  at  Ephesus  in 
liis  time.  One  is  tempted  to  doubt,  however,  whether 
the  very  existence  of  this  John  tin;  1'resbyter  were 
ever  satisfactorily  established;  and  whether  tin:  various 
traditions  concerning  him  were  not  men-  fancies,  taking 
their  primary  origin  from  the  peculiar  title  which 
our  author  has  assumed.  For  ourselves,  we  view  this 
title  as  little  more  ivmaikable  than  that  adopted  by 
St.  1'eter  (6  ffv/jLirptffpi'Tfpos.  ll'e.v.l);  while  the  sup 
pr.--.-ion  of  his  own  name  seems  in  exact  accordance 
with  the  custom  of  St.  John. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  these  epUtles  were  loin: 
placed  among  the  A  nti/i  ;i<>,,ii  nn — those  works  which 
were  not  with  confidence  inserted  in  the  sacred  canon. 
This  is  stated  in  effect  by  Eusebius  Ul  K  iii. -j:,l,  who 
speaks  of  them  as  "the  so-called  second  and  third 
epistles  of  John,  whether  they  are  the  \\,-rk  of  the 
evangelist,  or  of  some  other  person  of  the  same  name. 
(I  would  seem,  however,  that  earlier  than  the  time  of 
Kusebins  thev  are  fivi|iiently  alluded  to  by  ecclcsias- 
tical  writers.  Iivnirus  i.\.h  M;«T.  i.  if.:;\  speaks  ,,f  John, 
tlie  disciple  of  the  Lord,  prononncim:  In-  judgment 
against  them  (i.f.  certain  heretics),  and  wishing  "that 
none  should  bid  them  Cud-speed;  for  he  (say-  lie)  that 
wishes  him  Cod-speed  is  partaker  of  his  evil  deeds." 
i;  .In.  1»,  11.  ('lenient  of  Alexandria,  it  seems,  cites  the 
first  epistle  thus:  Iwdwfj*  fv  rf;  /.if  t'jow  ewiaTo\fi  thus 
evideiitlv  showing  that  he  knew  of  other  and  less  im 
portant  epistles.  Diunysiiis  of  Alexandria,  as  quoted 
by  Eusebius  ill.  K.  vii.  •_<:,),  speaking  of  John's  liabit  of 
never  naming  himself  in  his  writings,  says,  that  "not 
even  to  what  are  handed  down  to  us  as  the  second  and 
the  third  epistles  (oi'ot  <V  r?t  (ii  I'Tf'p?  ij>(pou.('i>r]  }udi>v<>\' 
Kai  Tpinj)  is  tlie  name  of  John  expressly  appended: 
but  without  a  name  the  «  Ider  «'>  ir,»  s.:<er<7<osi  is  writ 
ten." 

A  few  instances  more  of  direct  testimony  might  be 
brought  forward  of  this  early  date.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Pescliitu  appears  to  have  omitted  these 
epistles,  while  Origeii  and  one  or  two  more  speak  of 
their  authorship  with  doubt. 

In  the  middle  ages,  it  would  appear,  there  was  no 
question  entertained  upon  the  subject,  till  Erasmus 
revived  the  notion  of  their  being  the  work  of  John  the 
Presbyter.  For  ourselves,  we  confess  we  see  little  in 
the  whole  discussion  but  proofs  of  the  caution  which 
the  church  employed  in  admitting  works  into  her  canon: 
while  nothing  would  be  more  likely  than  for  these  two 
brief  epistles  long  to  have  remained  concealed  in  the 
possession  of  the  families  of  those  to  whom  they  had 
been  addressed;  and  upon  their  public  exhibition,  for  the 
church  to  hesitate  for  a  time  as  to  the  validity  of  the 
proofs  of  their  authenticity.  As  to  internal  evidence, 
there  is  little  which  needs  be  said.  There  appears  never 
to  have  been  any  doubt  as  to  the  third  epistle  being  by 


i  JOHX,  EPISTLES  OF 

the  same  writer  as  the  second ;  while  that  second 
epistle,  though  written  with  every  appearance  of  ease 
and  naturalness,  is  in  fact  verv  much  in  character  like 
an  abridgment  of  the  first  epistle;  and  looks  like  the 
letter  of  one  who  was  writing  to  a  private  friend  at  a 
time  when  his  mind  was  rilled  with  the  thoughts  which 
he  had  just  been  more  fully  communicating  to  the 
church  at  laru'e. 

Time  and  place  of  tn-itiii;/,  and  fm-  vlmf  readers  in 
tended.—  If  our  opinions  are  correct  as  to  the  second 
epistle  of  John  being  written  while  the  writer's  mind 
was  still  imbued  strongly  with  the  sentiments  of  the 
first:  and  if.  as  seems  probable,  the  second  and  third 
epistles  were  written  nearly  at  the  same  time,  we  must 
of  course  refer  them  both  to  the  same  period  of  the 
apostle's  life  as  that  in  which  he  wrote  the  first  epistle, 
and  to  the  same  place  i.e.  we  must  consider  that 
thev  were  probably  written  at  Ephesus,  and  about  the 
Near  '.'s. 

A-  to  their  intended  readers,  in  the  case  of  the  third 
epistle  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever.  It  was  ad 
dressed  to  Oaius  -  who.  howcvi  r.  Cains  might  be  is 
uncertain.  \Ve  read,  Ac.  xix.  •».*.  of  Cains,  a  man  of 
.Macedonia,  who  was  travelling  with  Paul:  and.  Ai-.  xx. -I, 
of  Cains  of  Derbc:  1  Co  i  1 1,  of  Cains,  an  inhabitant 
of  Corinth:  and  in  the  epistle  to  the  lo.mans.  which 
probably  was  written  at  Corinth,  of  the  same  man,  as 
"Cains,  mine  host,  and  of  the  whole  church,"  i:<>.  xvi.  •_>:!. 
To  this  last  Cains,  from  the  commendation  bestowed 
by  St.  John  also  on  his  hospitality.  3  Jn.  5,0,  we  should  . 
naturally  be  inclined  to  assign  this  epistle.  At  the 
same  time  we  must  recollect  that  scarcely  any  name 
was  more  common  than  Cains  or  Cains;  while  perhaps 
nearly  fort\  year-  mi-lit  have  elapsed  from  the  date  of 
the  epistle  to  the  Humans  to  that  of  the  third  epistle 
of  St.  John. 

The  (|uestioii  to  whom  the  second  epistle  was  writ 
ten  is  not  nearly  so  plain.  It  is  addressed  tYXeKT?; 
Ki'pia.  ^al  rofs  TIKVOIS  avrfj^.  The  rtKva.  are  mentioned 
au'ain  in  tlie  fourth  verse;  and  Kvpia.  in  the  vocative, 
occurs  in  the  tifth  verse.  FurtluT  than  this  we  have 
in  the  last  verse.  TO.  rc'/o'ct  TTJS  ctOf ,\</>?5s  <rov  TT?S  e'/cXf/CT?}?. 
Opinions  upon  the  question  who  the  person  is  who 
is  thus  addressed  have  been  very  various.  Some  have 
been  of  opinion,  with  our  own  translators,  that  it  means 
the  elect  lady;  and  have  considered  that  the  person 
addressed  was  some  private  friend  of  St.  John — a 
Christian  lad\  of  eminent  excellence,  and  perhaps  con 
siderable  influence.  Others,  adopting  the  same  trans 
lation,  have  thought  that,  under  the  figure  of  "  the 
elect  ladv  and  her  children,"  the  church  of  Christ  was 
intended,  with  its  various  individual  members --  the 
"elect  sister"  being  perhaps  the  church  at  Ephesus; 
while  others  have  made  the  "elect  lady"  to  mean  some 
definite  Christian  church:  though  they  have  differed  as 
to  what  church  was  intended--  whether  Corinth,  Phila- 
|  delphia,  or  Jerusalem. 

There  are  however  other  difficulties  besides  these — 
difficulties  of  translation  as  well  as  of  interpretation. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  very  many  that  one  of  the  two 
words,  (K\fKTfj  Kvpia,  is  to  be  taken  as  a  proper  name, 
though  which  of  the  two  is  not  so  clear.  Some  would 
render  it  "  the  lady  Eclecta'' — an  opinion  which  seems 
to  us  not  easy  to  maintain,  when  we  consider  that  her 
sister  is  also  called  ^/cXe/crT?,  and  that  it  is  scarcely  likely 
either  that  the  two  sisters  should  both  be  named 
Eclecta,  or  that  the  same  word  should  be  used  in  one 

118 


.JOT  A  I) A 


JOKTHKEL 


ease  as  ;IH  adjective,  and  in  the  other  as  a  propel1 
name.  Others  are  of  opinion  (and  \ve  are  inclined  upon 
the  whole  to  think  they  are  in  the  right),  that  Kvpia  is 
in  fact  the  proper  name,  and  that  the  address  of  the 
epistle  should  lie  rendered.  "To  the  elect  Cyria."  An 
objection  has  been  made,  that  in  this  case  it  would 
have  been  expressed,  not  (K\eKrrj  Kvpia,  but  Kvpia  T?J 
fK\tKrrj  as  in  the  third  epistlr  it  stands  J'cuco  TLC 
d.ya.Trr)T&.  We  fancy,  however,  that  it  has  been  suc 
cessfully  argued  that  this  objection  is  irrelevant.  We 
think,  on  the  whole,  that  the  person  addressed  is  any 
how  an  individual  female;  and  that,  more  probably 
than  otherwise,  Cyria  was  actually  her  name. 

Of  epistles  so  short  it  seems  needless  to  give  an 
analysis.  The  second  epistle,  as  we  have  said  already, 
seems  to  contain  little  more  than  an  epitome  of  the 
iirst,  though  given  in  a  natural  and  familiar  form. 
The  third  epistle  commends  the  piety  and  hospitality 
of  (iaius.  especially  as  shown  to  faithful  teachers;  com 
plains  in  vehement  language  of  the  opposition  of  Dio- 
trephes;  and  alludes  to  the  excellent  character  borne 
by  Demetrius.  Of  these  two  men  we  appear  to  knou 
absolutely  nothing. 

I  Comparatively  few  separate  eonmientanes  have  been  pub 
lished  on  the  Kpistles  of  John;  but  Kbrard's  may  be  regarded 
as  such,  though  published  in  continuation  of  OLshausen's  Genera! 
Commentary,  forming  in  English  part  of  ( 'lark's  /'.)/•</>,)  77,,,, 
logical  Library;  Dusterdieck's  (18,~>2),  Liicke's  :;d  edit.  (IS.Oii), 
forming  a  considerable  improvement  11)1011  former  editions;  and 
Iluther's,  in  Meyer's  General  Coiniii.  ]  |T.  s.  | 

JOI'ADA,  the  contracted  form  of  ,)  KHOIAUA,  but  in 
that  form  appears  as  the  name  of  a  high-priest,  son  of 
Eliashib,  who  lived  not  very  long  after  the  return  from 
Babylon,  and  whose  son  married  the  (laughter  of  San- 
ballat  the  Horonite,  NO.  xi.  22. 

JOI'AKIM,  the  contracted  form  of  JEHOIAKTM.  son 
ot  .leshua  the  high-priest,  and  his  successor  in  office. 
No.  xii.  id. 

JOI'ARIB,  the  contracted  form  of  JEHOIAKIB,  the 
founder  of  one  of  the  courses  of  the  priesthood,  Xe.  xi.  in; 
xii.  0;  also  the  name  of  two  others  belonging  to  different 
tribes,  No.  xi.  5;  Ezr.  viii.  n;. 

JOK'SHAN  [foxier],  a  son  of  Abraham  and  Kelu- 
rah,  the  father  of  Sheba  and  Dedan.  Qe.  xxv.  i,  2,     J.t  is 
by  these  sons,  rather  than  by  Jokshan  himself,  that  we  ' 
obtain  any  trace  of  the  future  residence  and  destiny  of  : 
his  race.      (.See  under  DEDAN  and  SHEBA). 

JOK'TAN  [shaft  be  diminishid],  one  of  the  two  sons 
of  Eber,  Ge.  x.  2.3.  The  offspring  of  Joktan  indicate  any 
thing  Init  diminution  or  littleness;  for  he  appears  as  the 
father  of  no  fewer  than  thirteen  sons — Almodad,  She- 
leph,  &c..  whose  dwelling  is  said  to  have  been  "from 
Mesha,  as  thou  goest  unto  Sephar,  a  mount  of  the  east." 
The  position  of  Mesha  is  unknown;  but  Sephar  is  under 
stood  to  be  the  same  as  Zhafar.  or  Zafsiri  (seeGcs.  Tiics.), 
an  old  Himyaritic  royal  city,  a  sea- port  in  the  southern 
extremity  of  the  Arabian  peninsula,  on  the  east  side  of 
Yemen.  It  was  one  of  the  great  centres  of  the  ancient 
traffic  that  was  carried  on  between  India  and  Arabia. 
From  the  specification  of  this  local  boundary  in  the  far 
south  of  Arabia,  and  the  names  of  several  of  his  sons 
(such  as  Sheba,  Ophir,  Havilah),  Joktan  is  regarded  as 
the  parent  of  the  primitive  races  that  peopled  the  south 
of  Arabia.  His  name  is  still  preserved  among  the 
Arabs,  but  takes  the  form  Kachtan.  These  Kachtanite 
Arabs  themselves  claim  to  be  among  the  earliest  settlers 
in  Arabia;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  both  a  pretty 
extensive  dominion  and  an  active  commerce  were  main 


tained  by  them  for  many  a  generation,      i  lint  see  under 
the  names  of  his  several  sons.) 

JOK'THEEL  [whdiml  l>,,'(iod\.  1.  A  city  in  the 
Shephelah  or  .Lowland  of  Judah,  Jos.  ,\v  ;\*.  Gesenius 
and  others  derive  the  word  from  an  unused  root  hdtlali. 
whence  is  obtained  the  generally  received  meaning. 
"subdued  by  God."  A  more  expressive  signification, 
however,  is  gained  by  referring  it  rather  to  the  cognate 
verb  kiitltatli  (  -  Lat.  quatio),  which  means.  "  to  break 
in  pieces,"  as  e.ff.  a  potter's  vessel.  Is.xxx.  14;  and  which 
is  used  especially  of  the  destruction  of  idols.  Mi.  i.  7. 
V\  e  are  not  without  warrant,  therefore,  in  concluding 
that  the  name  .loktheel  was  imposed  by  the  Israelites 
on  this  city,  to  commemorate  the  signal  triumph  of 
Cods  people  over  the  idolatrous  Canaanites;  just  as 
the  word  Mi/jothjah  (''despised  by  Jehovah")  was 
prefixed  to  the  neighbouring  city  of  Baalah,  Jos.  xv.  2\2:>, 
in  order  to  mark  the  Divine  abhorrence  of  the  worship 
of  I'.nal  (Ncgeb,  p.  149,150).  In  this  view  of  the  etymology 
of  .loktheel.  as  a  continual  assertion  of  God's  power 
over  idols,  what  an  additional  significance  is  imparted 
to  the  language  of  Jlicah,  himself  a  native  of  the  She 
phelah,  who  may  well  be  supposed  to  have  had  this 
expressive  and  familiar  designation  in  his  mind  as  he 
uttered  the  words,  "All  the  graven  images  thereof 
shall  be  lientfn  to  pieces.'1' 

The  occasion  on  which  this  city  was  thus  re-named, 
is  doubtless  referred  to  in  Ju.  i.  it,  IS.  when  "the  chil 
dreii  of  .ludah  went  down  to  fi-ht  against  the  Canaan 
ites  that  dwelt  in  the  low  country,  and  took  Gaza,  and 
Askelon,  and  Ekron.  with  the  coast  thereof." 

It  now  only  remains  to  indicate  the  probable  position 
of  . loktheel,  which  we  are  enabled  to  do  by  noticing  its 
connection  with  Mizpeh  (Tell-es-Safieh).  Eglon  f  Ajlfun, 
IJeth-dagon  (  Beit-dejan),  and  other  cities  of  the  Philis- 
tian  plain.  Among  the  ruined  sites  in  that  district  of 
which  Dr.  Robinson  heard  (Bib.  Res.  App.  120)  is  Kdtii- 
/ilnch,  situated  apparently  not  far  from  es-Safieh,  and 
thus  suiting  exactly  the  topographical  requirements  of 
the  case.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  show  a  similar  congruity 
in  regard  to  the  name  itself.1  Taking  these  points  into 
consideration,  we  are  naturally  brought  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  two  words,  thus  seen  to  harmonize  with 
each  other,  represent  one  and  the  same  place. 

2.  JOKTHEEL.  The  name  given  by  Amaziah,  kino- 
of  .Tudah,  to  Selah  or  Petra,  the  capital  of  Iduma-a, 
after  his  decisive  victory  over  the  Edomites  in  the 
"Valley  of  Salt."  south  of  the  Dead  Sea;  which  evi 
dently  led  to  the  submission  of  the  whole  country,  and 
made  it  once  more  a  province  of  the  Judsean  mon 
archy.  L'Ki.  xiv.  7.  As  this  state  of  dependence  did  not 
continue  more  than  eighty  years,  see  2  Ki.  \vi.  C; 2  cii. xxviii.  ir, 
Keil  justly  observes  (Comm.  H.  12),  that  the  expression  of 
the  sacred  writer,  ''  And  called  the  name  of  it  Joktheel 
unto  this  daj/C'  proves  the  history  of  Amaziah's  reign 
to  have  been  written  within  the  period  thus  defined. 
The  name  does  not  appear  in  any  subsequent  record. 

1  A  feeble  initial,  like  yo(>,  is  notoriously  liable  to  be  dropped; 
comp.  Jericho  (now  Rilia),  Joknenm  (Kaimon),  Jezreel  (Zer'm), 
etc.;  and  while  there  is  a  general  tendency  in  modern  Arabic  to 
lengthen  proper  names  (as  in  Dor.  now  Tantura),  this  is  specially 
exemplified  in  the  terminations  an,  iineh,  and  the  like;  as  e.ti. 
Shiloah  (Selwfm),  Shelomoh  (Suleiman),  Rimmoii  (RumnulnelO, 
Jiphthah  el  (Ethphahaneh).  This  last,  it  will  be  observed,  is 
almost  identical  with  Joktheel,  in  the  transformation  it  has 
undergone  after  passing  into  the  Arabic.  It  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  remark  on  the  habitual  interchange  of  the  liusruals  teth  and 
than. 


JOXA 


939 


JONAH 


and  \v;is  doubtless  superseded  by  the  older  designation 
when  the  Edomites.  during  the  inglorious  reign  of  Ahaz, 
reasserted  their  independence.  There  is  a  propriety, 
therefore,  characteristic  of  truth,  in  the  omission  of  this 
circumstance  by  the  later  writer  of  2  C'h.  xxv.,  although 
the  narrative  is  in  other  respects  much  more  detailed. 
One  incident  recorded  in  this  latter  account  confirms 
the  opinion  already  expressed,  as  to  the  real  signifi 
cance  of  the  word  Joktheel:  "Now  it  came  to  pass, 
after  that  Amaziah  was  come  from  the  slaughter  of  the 
Edomites,  that  lie  brought  tin  ;/<>d.-<  <>f  t/tc  c/uUli'tn  of 
>'<//•,"  vrr.  11.  The  zeal  which  prompted  the  commemo 
ration  of  his  victory  over  the  idolatrous  Kdomites  by 
the  devout  acknowledgment  implied  in  the  name  Juk- 
theel,  imposed  on  the  conquered  capital,  but  which  was 
so  grievously  sullied  bv  the  barbarous  treatment  of  his 
defenceless  prisoners,  ami  by  the  idolatrous  use-  he  sub 
sequently  made  of  the  very  idols  whose  impotence  he 
bail  proclaimed,  finds  its  faithful  counterpart  in  the 
testimony  of  the  sacred  historian:  "  lie  did  that  \\hirli 
was  right  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  /mt  nut  vith  "  />»•- 

/(•'/  lifit ft."  .'Cb.  x\v.  -  I  K.  \V.  i 

JO'NA,  or  JONAS  [dun],  the  father  of  tile  apostle 
Peter,  from  whom  the  latter  \\as  called  I'.ar-joiia. 
.In.  i.  4--';  M;it.  xvi.  17.  Nothing  of  a  personal  description 
is  indicated  concerning  him.  hut  the  probability  is,  that 
he  was,  like  hi-  son.  a  fisherman  on  the  sea  of  lialilee. 
JONAH  [,-;*'•  <  •!'.  I  tovas,  same  in  import  as  pre 
ceding],  a  prophet  in  l-rae].  tin-  -on  of  Amittai.  and 
of  tin.1  town  of  C  a  tli  h'-pher  in  the  tribe  .if  Xebulon,  Jonah 
i.  1,  2  Ki  xiv  2,"i;  .!  -  .-.:•.  i::.  It  admits  of  110  reasonable 
doubt,  that  the  pi  r.-on  mentioned  under  this  name  in 
the  second  bonk  "f  Kind's  \\  as  the  same  as  he  whose 
mission  to  Ninevcli  ainl  marvellous  historv  therewith 
c  iimected  form  the  .-ubject  of  the  little  book  of  Jonah. 
Two  prophet-  of  the  name  of  Jonah,  and  both  sons  of 
an  Amittai,  both  also  tlourishini:'  in  the  latter  stages  ot 
the  kingdom  of  J-rael,  i-  altogether  improl'able.  'I'lie 
historical  notice  respecting  him  in  the  book  of  King- 
is  extremely  brief,  and  not  very  definite  as  to  the  exact 
time  and  place  of  his  prophetic  agency  in  I.-rael.  ile 
is  introduced  only  incidentally,  in  connection  \\ith  a 
t  mporarv  recoverv  of  the  power  and  dominion  ot  the 
fsraelitish  kingdom  under  the  second  Jeroboam.  This 
prince,  it  is  said,  ''restored  the  coast  of  Israel  from 
the  entering  of  Hamath  unto  the  sea  of  the  plain  (i.e. 
the  Salt  or  Dead  Sea  .  according  to  the  word  of  the 
Lord  Cod  of  Israel,  which  he  spake  by  the  hand  of  his 
servant  Jonah,  the  .-on  of  Amittai,  the  prophet,  which 
was  of  Gath-hepher."  The  word  itself  of  the  prophet 
is  not  given,  nor  is  the  time  specified  when  it  was 
uttered — whether  about  the  commencement  of  Jero 
boam's  reiuii,  or  towards  the  close  of  the  preceding 
reign.  That  it  was  pronounced  some  time  before  the 
conquests  of  Jeroboam,  which  verified  it,  may  be 
deemed  certain:  but  the  period  is  not  fixed  to  which 
these  conquests  belong — although  we  can  scarcely  avoid 
referring  them  to  the  earlier  rather  than  the  later  half 
of  Jeroboam's  government.  It  is  by  no  means  pro 
bable,  that  a  person  of  so  much  vigour  and  warlike 
prowess  as  he  proved  himself  to  be,  would  be  long  on 
the  throne  till  he  set  about  the  recoverv  of  the  king 
dom  from  the  depressed  condition  in  which  he  found  it. 
P.nt  if  we  should  even  allow  one  half  of  his  reign  to 
have  passed  (which  was  in  all  forty-one  years)  before 
Jonah  announced  the  prophecy  destined  to  be  fulfilled 


by  Jeroboam,  the  prophet  of  Gath-hepher  would  still 
have  been  some  time  at  work  on  the  sacred  territory 
before  Hosea.  The  latter  was  also,  it  is  said,  prophesy 
ing  in  the  time  of  Jeroboam,  but  it  must  have  been 
only  toward  the  very  close  of  his  reign;  for  Hosea's 
prophetic  agency  extended  to  the  time  of  He/ekiah, 
Ho.  i  i,  and  between  even  the  last  year  of  Jeroboam's 
reign  and  the  beginning  of  Hezekiah's  there  was  a 
period  of  about  sixty  years  (twenty-six  remaining  of 
LTzziah's,  sixteen  of  Jotham's,  anil  sixteen  of  Aha/'s). 
This  was  a  long  stretch  for  prophetical  activity,  and 
yet  it  does  not  carry  us  back  farther  than  the  last 
year  of  Jeroboam's  reign,  while  Jonah,  as  we  have 
seen,  must  have  been  at  work  probably  before  its 
middle  period.  The  more  distinctive  and  characteristic 
portion  of  his  work,  however,  that,  namely,  recorded 
in  the  book  which  bears  his  name,  may  not  have  been 
accomplished  till  some  time  after  Hosea  had  entered  on 
hi-  labours,  and  the  prophecies  also  of  Joel  and  Amos 
were  partly,  at  least,  delivered.  The  Jewish  authori- 
ties,  therefore,  mav  have  been  ehietlv  guided  bv  a  re 
gard  to  historical  considerations  in  assigning  the  book 
of  Jonah  the  place  it  now  occupies,  although  it  is 
by  no  means  unlikelv  that  they  were  (tartly  influenced 
also  by  the  peculiar  character  of  the  prophet  and  his 
l...ok.  That  he  lirt/uil  to  prophesy  in  Israel  before 
Hosea  seems  certain;  but  as  (iod's  ambassador  to 
Nineveh  lie  was  contemporary  with  I  lo-ea,  Joel.  Amos, 
and  Ohadiah.  and  in  portions  of  their  writings  probably 

preceded    by    tllelll. 

That  Jonah's  mis>ioii  to  Nineveh  belonged  to  the 
later  period  of  his  prophetical  life  may,  with  some  pro- 
bahilitv,  be  inferred  even  from  the  manner  in  which 
his  book  opens:  '•  A, a/  the  word  of  the  Lord  came,"  &c. 
The  commencement  with  "/«/  imports  a  continuation- 
some  .-uppose  of  prophetic  revelations  generally;  Heng- 
stenhcru;  K 'hnMnl  v..).  i.  L'dnl  I  would  even  connect  it  with 
Obadiah,  the  immediately  preceding  book  in  the  canon, 
a-  if  Jonah  wished  himself  to  be  understood  as  taking 
up  the  te>timonv  of  Hi  a\  ei i  where  Obadiah  had  left  it 

a  somewhat  arbitrary  and  fanciful  mode  of  connec 
tion!  The  continuation  indicated,  it  is  more  natural  to 
-uppose.  had  respect  to  the  prophet's  own  agency:  he 
had  been  employed  previously  in  the  more  common 
labours  of  the  prophetical  calling  —  labours  of  a  kind 
which,  however  important  for  the  time  then  present, 
called  for  no  detailed  or  permanent  record  but  now  a 
work  of  another  description  was  to  be  devolved  upon 
him:  and  of  his  entrance  upon  this  work,  and  of  what 
befell  him  in  connection  with  it,  as  it  is  pregnant  with 
meaning  for  all  future  time,  so  it  took  place  on  this 
wise.  The  same  conclusion  appears  to  follow  from  the 
nature  of  the  mission  itself,  which,  having  immediate 
respect  to  a  heathen  city,  lying  beyond  the  proper  ter 
ritory  of  an  Israelitish  prophet,  could  only  have  stood 
in  a  somewhat  incidental  relation  to  his  regular  calling, 
and  must  have  been  designed  for  some  special  purposes 
to  be  supplementary  to  it.  This  is  still  only  a  relative 
determination  of  time;  but  it  is  quite  sufficient  to  show 
the  incorrectness  of  the  date  usually  connected  in  our 
English  Bibles  with  the  mission  to  Nineveh— B.C.  862; 
for  this  would  place  it  thirty- seven  years  before  Jero 
boam  II.  began  to  reign,  a  considerable  period  before 
it  is  at  all  probable  that  Jonah  entered  on  his  prophe 
tical  calling,  or  was  even  born.  For  the  real  time 
we  must  come  down  to  a  period  subsequent,  rather 
than  anterior,  to  Jeroboam's  death  (which  is  assigned 


JONAH 


940 


JONAH 


to  the  year  n.c.  784),  when  Assyria,  under  Pul  or  his 
immediate  predecessor,  was  beginning  to  concern  itself 
in  the  affairs  of  Israel,  and  to  aim  at  a  general  ascen 
dency.  The  materials  are  waiitin 
determination. 

General  <7/<>m<7<r  and  o/ijcrt  of  thin  hoolc. In 


for    any  nearer 


himself  bear  the  penalty.  Therefore,  judgment  overtakes 
him;  as  if  all  Nineveh's  guilt  were  his,  he  is  met  with 
the  manifestations  of  God's  wrath,  and  is  east  forth 
like  a  propitiatory  victim  into  the  deep — yet  (with 


another  marvellous  turn  in  the  counsels  of  God)  not  to 
d     perish,  but  to  resume  his  suspended  mission  to  Nineveh, 


to  the  story  itself  contained  in  the  book  of  Jonah,  it  and  appear  there  as  a  prodigy  and  a  witness  at  once  of 
must  undoubtedly  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  sacred  riddle.  God's  displeasure  against  its  sins,  and  of  his  merciful 
It  wears  this  aspect  most  distinctly  in  the  original  nar-  desire  to  have  it  saved  from  the  impending  retribution. 
rative,  and  such  alt-o  is  the  impres.-ion  conveyed  by  The-  message,  with  this  wonderful  experience  in  the 
the  allusions  made  to  it  in  Xew  Testament  scripture,  background  to  confirm  its  tidings,  somehow  disco- 
Once  and  again  our  Lord  points  to  it  as  a  sign,  which  vercd  to  the  Ninevites  (for  our  Lord  expressly  testi- 
being  carefully  scanned  might  enable  the  men  of  his  fies  Jonah  was  in  the  first  instance  a  sign  to  them, 
generation  to  obtain  some  glimpse  or  foreshadowing  of  Lu.  xi.  :>,<>),  had  the  intended  effect.  They  see  revealed 
the  yet  greater  riddle  of  his  own  mysterious  humilia-  in  him  the  severity  and  goodnos  of  God"  on  their  ac 
count,  and  repenting  of  their  wickedness  they  crv  to 
the  Lord  with  such  united  and  solemn  earnestness, 
that  He  also,  on  his  part,  turns  from  the  fierceness  of 
his  anger,  and  revokes  the  doom  which  within  forty 
days  was  to  have  laid  their  city  in  ruin.  Sin  el  v  t}ii^ 
was  a  result  to  be  hailed  by  the  prophet !  Could  he  be 


tion,    and    tl 
to   take   in  1 


remarkable    course  affairs   were  goinu 

kingdom,    Mat.  xii.  4o,  H  ;  xvi.  4  ;  Lu.  xi.  •>() 


Ill  such  a  case,  therefore,  we  must  not  expect  to  find 
the  meaning  of  the  transactions  lying  on  the  surface:  it 
must  be  searched  for  in  the  depths;  since  only  bv 
awakening  profound  and  earnest  inquiry  into  the  mind 


of  God  could  the  transactions  have  accomplished  either  ,  otherwise  than  satisfied  now  that  he  saw  so  remarkably 
their  immediate  or  their  prospective  design.  Why  should  '  of  the  travail  of  his  soul?  It  is  perhaps  the  strangest 
a  prophet  of  Israel  have  been  ordered  by  the  Lord  to  thing  of  all  in  this  marvellous  story,  that  the  greatness 


transfer  the  scene  of  his  operations  to  a  heathen  city, 
not  merely  to  utter  a  cry  against  it,  but  to  deal  with  it 
so  as  that  it  might  be  penetrated  with  a  sense  of  sin 
and  brought  to  serious  consideration?  This  was  alto- 


of  his  success  proved  the  source  of  his  deepest  sorrow, 
and  that  on  seeing  the  blessed  triumph  of  his  labours 
the  same  feeling  crept  over  his  soul,  which  disappointed 
hope  awoke  in  the  bosom  of  Elijah — he  would  have 


gether  an  unusual  course,  and  in  any  circumstances  God  to  take  his  life  from  him,  as  it  was  now  better  for 
would  have  betokened  some  peculiar  movement  in  the  him  to  die  than  to  live.  What  should  have  moved  him 
divine  economy;  but  hosv  much  more  when  viewed  in  j  to  such  grief,  is  not  stated;  that  he  was  wrong  in  en- 
connection  with  the  actual  state  of  things  in  Israel!  j  tertaining  it,  and  became  himself  conscious  that  he  was 
It  was  from  no  want  of  occasion  there  for  a  prophet's  i  wrong,  the  record  of  God's  expostulation  with  him  in 
reforming  agency,  that  Jonah  was  commissioned  to  go  ,  regard  to  it,  and  the  special  discipline  applied  to  him 
and  labour  in  a  foreign  field;  on  the  contrary,  the  wor-  through  the  rapid  growth  and  equally  rapid  decay  of 


ship  and  manners  of  heathenism  were  prevailing  all 
around  in  his  native  region,  and  notwithstanding  the 
severe  judgments  of  God,  and  the  earnest  contendings 
of  a  long  succession  of  prophets,  continued  still  to 
hold  their  ground.  Yet,  Go  to  Nineveh  the  great 


the  sheltering  gourd,  plainly  evince;  but  all  besides  is 
left  in  uncertainty.  The  story,  taken  bv  itself,  ends  as 
it  began,  in  an  unexplained  riddle.  Yet  no  one  could 
suppose  (though  some  commentators  have  come  very 
near  to  supposing  it)  that  a  man  capable  of  being  en- 


heathen  city,  was  the  word  that  came  from  the  Lord  i  trusted  with  such  a  mission,  and   going  through  such 
to  Jonah,  and  cry  against  it,  for  its  wickedness  is  come     experiences    in    its    execution,    could    be    conscious  of 
up  before  me.     Why  go  there,  since  there  was  so  much 
wickedness  near  at  hand,  too  plainly  ripening  for  ven 
geance?     And  if  among  men   of  his  own  kindred  and 
tongue  his  crying  had  prevailed  so  little,  what  speed  was 
he  likely  to  come  when  repairing  as  a  solitary  stranger 


vehement  sorrow  or  indignation,  simply  because  a 
populous  city  was  saved  from  destruction.  We  must 
rather  conceive  there  were  other  considerations  brood 
ing  on  his  mind  and  deriving  fearful  emphasis  from  this 
new  phase  of  the  divine  dispensations,  that  proved  the 


to  the  mighty  centre  of  Assyrian  wealth  and  greatness  >     real  source   of   his  anguish.      Was  it  concern  for  God's 


His  soul  recoiled  from  the  attempt;  oft  repeated  dis 
couragements  and  signs  not  to  be  mistaken  of  approach 
ing  ruin  at  home  had  left  him  without  heart  for  so  for 
midable  an  enterprise;  and,  besides,  if  the  lamp  of 
heaven,  as  seemed  all  too  certain,  was  going  out  in  his 
own  dear  Israel,  how  could  he.  think  of  going  to  light  it 
in  a  foreign  clime?  Let  some  other  be  sent  to  do  it, 
if  the  will  of  God  were  that  it  should  be  done.  So  the 
prophet  seems  to  have  felt — improperly,  indeed,  yet 
not  very  unnaturally  in  the  circumstances  of  his  posi 
tion,  and  with  so  strange  and  arduous  a  mission  laid  to 
his  hand.  He  will  flee  to  Tarshish  and  escape  from 
its  difficulties  and  troubles.  But  this  only  serves  to 
bring  out  a  fresh  element  in  the  strangeness  of  the 
divine  procedure — the  terrible  energy  which  now  ap 
peared  in  God's  determination  to  have  Nineveh  dealt 
with  for  its  wickedness.  The  burden  of  its  sin  is  laid  on 
Jonah,  and  if  he  will  not  acquit  himself  of  it  by  trans 
acting  in  the  Lord's  name  with  the  Ninevites,  he  must 


glory,  or  for  his  own  fame  as  a  prophet,  in  the  appa 
rent  failure  of  the  prediction  uttered?  So  many  have 
thought,  yet  without  clue  regard  to  the  whole  circum 
stances  of  the  case,  and  to  the  interests  most  likely  to 
affect  the  mind  of  an  Israelitish  prophet  in  that  crisis 
of  his  country's  history.  Jerome,  at  the  very  outset 
of  Christian  exposition,  has  the  merit  of  opening  the 
path  in  the  right  direction:  "  Seeing  that  the  fulness  of 
the  Gentiles  is  gliding  in,  and  that  the  word  in  Deuter 
onomy  is  verified,  which  says,  '  They  have  moved  me  to 
jealousy  with  that  which  is  not  God,  and  I  will  move 
them  to  jealousy  with  those  which  are  not  a  people,  I 
will  provoke  them  to  anger  with  a  foolish  nation,'  he 
despairs  of  the  salvation  of  Israel,  and  is  convulsed 
with  great  sorrow,  which  breaks  forth  into  speech,  and 
declares  after  this  fashion  the  cause  of  its  sadness, 
'  I  alone  of  so  many  prophets  have  been  chosen  to  pro 
claim  through  the  salvation  of  others  destruction  to 
my  own  people.'  He  is  not  therefore  grieved,  as  some 


JONAH 


941 


•ION  AH 


think,  because  the  multitude  of  Gentiles  is  saved,  but 
because  Israel  perishes.  Whence  also  our  Lord  wept 
over  Jerusalem,  and  was  unwilling  to  take  the  children's 
bread  and  cast  it  to  the  dugs.  The  apostles,  too,  first 
preached  to  Israel,  and  Paul  wished  to  be  accursed 
for  his  brethren's  sake,  who  are  Israelites,"  &C. 

Such  appears  in  the  main  to  have  been  the  real  state 
of  Jonah's  mind — oppressed  with  a  kind  of  incurable 
sorrow,  because  in  Nineveh's  repentance  and  preserva 
tion  lie  somehow  descried  the  prelude  of  Israel's  doom. 
Possibly,  it  was  not  (as  Jerome  supposes)  the  mere  ad 
mission  of  these  penitent  Gentiles  to  a  share  in  the 
divine  mercy  and  forgiveness,  which  affected  him  so 
deeply,  but  along  with  this  the  disappointment  of  his  ex 
pectation,  that  a  terrible  example  of  severity  in  the  case 
of  such  a  city  as  Nineveh  (the  <| nailer  of  political  danger 
to  Israel)  might  have  had  tin-  effect  »f  musinghis  coun 
trymen  from  their  fatal  letliar_T.  Kveii  before  quitting 
the  land  of  Israel  the  thought  of  (Mai's  tender  forbear 
ance  and  readiness  to  forgive,  seems  to  have  weighed 
upon  his  mind  as  a  discouragement,  i-h.  iv.  2;  and  when 
liis  burden  to  Nineveh  took  the  specific  form  of  an 
announcement  of  its  speedv  overthrow,  the  hope  could 
scarcely  fail  to  arise  in  his  bosom,  that  a  blow  was  goinir 
('i  lie  struck  which  should  compel  men  to  consider  the 
righteous  judgment  of  (!od,  and  which  should  arm  him 
with  weapons  mightier  than  lie  had  yet  been  able  to 
employ  in  warring  with  the  ungodliness  of  his  country 
men.  Disappointed  in  this  expectation,  lie  felt  as  one 
who  had  shot  his  last  arrow  in  the  conflict,  and  had 
now  to  Miccumb  to  the  necessity  of  seeing  Israel  perish 
in  her  wickedness,  and  others  rising  to  the  place  she 
should  have  held.  So  that  his  state  .if  mind  in  this 
latter  stage  appears  to  have  closely  resembled  Klijah's 
at  the  most  critical  moment  of  his  .-trundle,  i  K;  MX., 
and  to  have  run  out,  only  in  a  more  extra  vacant  man 
ner  in  the  same  direction.  For.  the  passionate  aii'jvr 
that  is  ascribed  to  him  in  the  Kimlish  Hi  Me  "it  dis 
pleased  .lonah  exceedingly  and  he  was  very  angry," 
ch.  iv.  l,  and  "doest  tlmu  well  to  be  aiiLfry."  ch.  iv.  I 
seems  to  do  him  injustice.  The  original  import  of  the 
word  is  to  be  hot  very  often,  no  doubt,  hot  with  ra_e. 
but  also,  as  in  I  >av  id's  ease.  2  Sa  vi  \  hot  with  vexation 
and  disappointment.  So  here,  as  correctly  rendered 
by  the  Septua'/mt  ((\vTrrjO-rjHri  'lu>.  \i'iiri]i>  p.f,a.\r]v,  Jo. 
was  affected  with  a  great  <_rrief ;  rh.  iv.  i,  Kt  <rr/)uo//a  ,V- 
Xt'TTTjcrcu  err.  art  thou  very  much  grieved  '.  and  absented 
to  by  .Jerome,  who  think*  the  affection  of  grief  more 
in  accordance  both  with  the  name  of  Jonah,  and  with 
the  circumstances  in  which  lie  was  placed,  than  the  petu 
lance  of  anger.  Not  that  even  this  view  of  the  pro 
phet's  case  altogether  justifies  him:  it  still  bespoke  an 
imperfectly  sanctified  mind:  for  it  must  ever  be  the 
part  of  a  servant  of  God  to  fall  in  with  the  settled  pur 
pose  of  Heaven,  and  to  say  with  cheerful  acquiescence, 
Let  God's  will  be  done,  M;it.  \i.  2:.,  20.  Yet  there  is  a 
difference;  and  if  the  affection  of  Jonah  —as  we  have 
reason  to  believe — was  akin  to  what  has  often  been 
experienced  by  the  wise  and  good,  when  baffled  in 
regard  to  the  immediate  object  of  their  contending*, 
and  arose  from  keeping  the  eye  too  intently  fixed  upon 
a  specific  aim,  rather  than  from  giving  way  to  a  self- 
willed  and  fractious  humour,  his  conduct  will  present 
both  a  more  intelligible  and  a  more  instructive  aspect. 
Nor  should  it  be  overlooked,  that  the  very  depth  of 
that  recoil  of  feeling  into  which  he  sank,  was  itself  a 
sif-nificaiit  thing,  and  was  fitted,  when  thoughtfully 


|  considered,    to  impress  the  minds   of   his  countrymen 
with   the  extraordinary,   and  for  them  ominous,  crisis 

i  that  had  arrived  in  the  affairs  of  God's  kingdom. 

The  rtsult  but  too  clearly  showed,  that  whatever 
there  was  in  Jonah's  mission  to  Nineveh,  and  his  own 
marvellous  experiences  connected  with  it.  of  a  pre 
monitory  and  warning  tendency  to  Israel,  failed  of  its 
object:  they  did  not,  as  a  people,  apprehend  its  mean 
ing  or  listen  to  its  voice.  Nor  do  the  Jews  of  later 
times  seem  to  have  ever  penetrated  into  its  design. 
Our  Lord  sought  to  lead  the  men  of  his  generation 
through  the  shell  into  the  kernel  by  connecting  the 
marvels  of  Jonah's  history  with  those  waiting  for  their 
accomplishment  in  himself;  but  this  also  proved  in  vain. 
It  is  only,  however,  by  means  of  such  a  connection 
that  anything  like  a  full  anil  satisfactory  explanation  can 
be  found  of  the  circumstances  in  question,  or  of  others 
not  altogether  unlike  in  kind — the  meeting,  for  exam 
ple,  of  Abraham  with  Melchizedek,  the  sacrifice  of 
l-aac.  the  lifting  up  of  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness — 
transactions,  of  which  we  can  never  sic  the  ultimate 
reasons  of  the  appointment,  nor  perhaps  cease  to  as 
sociate  them  with  what  is  strange  and  arbitrary, 
till  we  contemplate  them  as  the  initial  steps  of  a 
course,  or  the  provisional  movements  ,,f  a  plan,  which 
was  to  reach  it.-  culmination  in  the  \\ork  and  kingdom 
of  Christ.  When  vv e  see  how  lie,  when  charged  with 
the  burden  of  a  world's  guilt,  was  treated  as  a  sinner, 
while  himself  pi  r-onally  free  from  its  pollution  how, 
when  so  treated,  lie  was  made  by  his  vicarious  death 
and  descent  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth  a  propitiation 
for  the  wrath  thereby  provoked  how  he  was  again 
restored  to  life,  and  became  by  his  resurrection  the 
author  of  eternal  life  to  sinners  of  the  Gentiles,  while 
those  who  outwardly  stood  nearest  to  him,  and  among 
whom  he  more  especially  laboured  during  bis  earthly 
ministry,  for  the  mo.-t  part  perished  in  the  r  sins; 
when  we  see  how  all  this  took  place  in  connection  with 
the  person  and  the  work  of  ('hrist.  and  did  so,  not  by 
accident  or  caprice,  hut  in  .-ubservirnce  to  the  great 
principles  of  truth  and  righteousness,  we  can  well 
enough  understand  how.  amid  the  many  earlier  exem 
plifications  of  these  and  premonitory  si^ns  of  what  was 
to  come,  occasion  should  have  been  taken  of  so  pecu 
liar  a  crisis  in  Israel's  affairs  to  give  the  singular  exhibi 
tion  of  them  that  appears  in  the  history  and  mission  of 
Jonah.  Differences,  no  doubt,  there  were  between  the 
two  cases,  as  well  as  resemblances  here  also  the  im 
perfect  shadow  only,  not  the  very  image  of  the  things, 
could  be  presented  in  what  went  before.  P>ut  had  the 
Jews  of  our  Lord's  time  more  thoughtfully  considered, 
and  become  better  acquainted  with,  the  spirit  arid 
design  of  that  shadow,  they  would  not  have  so  per 
versely  tempted  Christ  with  solicitations  about  signs 
from  heaven,  nor  have  so  obstinately  closed  their  minds 
against  the  nature  and  objects  of  his  mission,  and 
against  the  possibility  of  the  kingdom  of  God  being 
transferred  from  them  to  heathen  lands.  In  these 
things  they  would  have  seen  their  own  Scriptures  con 
demned  them:  and  the  very  strangeness  that  hung 
around  the  preparatory  movements,  viewed  in  connec 
tion  with  the  palpable  results  to  which  they  led,  should 
but  have  made  them  the  more  careful  to  learn  from 
the  past,  when  their  attention  was  called  to  it,  arid  to 
beware  of  repeating  the  folly  of  their  fathers. 

Object  i o» K  in  respect,  to  the  authorship  of  Jonah  and 
the  credibility  of  its  content*. — \Ve  have  deemed  it  best 


JONAH 


942 


JONAH 


haracter  and  mission  ]  here,  ch.  i. .'.;  in  Hebrew,  a  word  for  sailor  i,n7C>  iiiallacli). 
also  quite  regularly  formed,  but  occurring  only  here, 
ch.  i.  5,  and  in  Eze.  xxvii.  26;  rah  (3-1),  for  chief  or 
captain,  in  ch.  i.  (!.  as  at  2  Ki.  xxv.  8;  Da.  i.  :>;  Fs.  i.  8; 
the  use  of  abridged  forms  of  the  relative  in  ch.  i.  7; 


to  present  a  u'eiieral  \ie\v  of   tl 

of  Jonah,  as  exhibited  in  the  book  that  bears  his  name, 

without  turning    aside  to  anything  respecting  it  that 

might  be,  or  has  been,  started  in  the  form  of  objection 

to  its  authenticity  or  truthfulness.      Wo  have  the  rather 

done  so,  because  one  main  cause  of  the  doubts  that  are 

freely  expressed  in  certain  quarters  on  the  subject,  have 

in  no  small  degree  arisen  from  a  partial  and  defective 

view  being  taken  of  the  proper  import  and  bearing  of 

the   tilings   recorded.       Beyond   doubt,    also,    both    the 

original   record   itself,  and   the  allusions  made  to   it   by 

our  Lord,   assume   that   the   matters   therein   contained     issued    by   the   king   of  Nineveh,   a  Syriac   word.    and. 

are  to  be  taken  in  their  literal  verity:  and  not  as  fanci-      since  the  Assyrian   language  was  a  dialect  of  Syriac.  it 


i.  1  '2.  of  which  examples  occur  in  the  Canticles,  Psalms, 
of  Day  ill.  and  even  the  Pentateuch;  and  one  or  two 
nmre,  still  less  deserving  of  notice  in  such  a  connection. 
The  only  word  strictly  peculiar  is  gyjj  (taum),  ch.  iii.  7, 

the  term   employed    to  designate   the  order  or  decree 


fid  representations  or  fabulous  talcs,  but  as  actual  facts 


in   all    probability   the    precise   term    employed   at 


in  the  divine  procedure,  did  they  carry  the  deep  prac-  Nineveh.  More  commonly,  however,  the  appropriation 
tical  significance,  alike  for  the  present  and  the  future,  in  the  prayer  of  Jonah  of  certain  passages  in  the  Psalms, 
which  is  plainly  attached  to  them  in  Scripture.  "\\hat  ,  is  urged  in  evidence  of  the  late  origin  of  the  book. 
has  a  learned  scepticism  to  say  in  opposition  to  such  Sonic  even  carry  it  so  far  as  to  find  in  such  free  use  of 
apparently  conclusive  evidence'  (1.)  The  narrative,  |  other  Scriptures  a  proof,  not  only  that  the  other  portions 
first  of  all,  is  written  throughout  in  the  third  person,  of  the  book  were  written  long  subsequent  to  the  time 
without  the  slightest  indication  that  the  hero  of  the  '  of  the  prophet,  but  that  this  portion  was  later  still,  and 
story  was  himself  the  writer,  and  in  a  style  that  seems  forms  an  interpolation  by  another  hand  (DeWette,  Ewald, 
to  point  to  the  remote  past.  So,  for  example,  Lwald,  Knobcl).  This  idea  is  rejected  by  Hitzig  as  an  unwar- 
Krahmer,  and  Hitzig,  the  latter  of  whom  thinks  the  ranted  extreme;  and  justly,  for  the  appropriation  _in 
earliest  period  it  can  be  assigned  to  is  about  two  him-  question  was  perfectly  natural  and  proper.  The  devout 
dred  years  after  the  time  of  Jonah  (Vorbem.  sect.  i).  The  breathings  of  (Jod-inspired  men  have  ever  delighted  to 
expression  respecting  Nineveh  in  ch.  iii.  3,  "And  Nine-  l)1;lco  themselves  in  accord  with  the  sentiments  of  former 
veh  was  (nn»n)  a  very  great  city,"  he  deems  alone  decisive  witnesses  of  the  truth,  and  to  employ  the  language 
T:T  which  is  embalmed  in  their  minds  by  the  most  hallowed 

of  the  comparative  lateness  of  the  account— pointing,  associations.  From  the  time  especially  that  the  I '.-alms 
as  he  conceives  it  necessarily  does,  to  what  Nineveh  i,(.n:lll  t«,  have  a  place  in  the  public  service  of  the  sanc- 
once  had  been,  as  contrasted  with  what  it  had  since  tuary,  they  were  sure  to  become  as  household  words  to 


become;  its  greatness  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  But 
why  may  it  not  have  been  contemplated  simply  in  rela 
tion  to  Jonah's  visit?  Its  greatness,  as  existing  at  that 
time,  required  to  be  specified.  Jonah  went  there  as  a 
solitary  stranger — ignorant  beforehand  of  the  proper 
magnitude  of  the  city;  having  only  perhaps,  in  common 
with  his  countrymen,  very  indefinite  and  vague  notions  ances  which  came  from  him  on  the  cross,  expressed 
either  of  its  extent,  or  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  himself  more  than  once  in  the  well-known  and  hallowed 
laid  out;  and  it  would,  in  such  a  case,  be  quite  natural  language  of  the  sanctuary,  Mat.  xxvii.  u;;  Lu.  xxiii.  M.  And 
for  him,  writing  at  a  subsequent  period,  to  give  his  that  Jonah,  whose  case  and  circumstances  were  alto- 
impressions  of  the  place  as  it  tnia  when  he  visited  it.  gether  so  peculiar,  should  throw  himself  back  upon  the 


all  pious  Israelites,  and  could  not  fail  both  to  influence 
the  spirit  and  mould  the  expression  of  their  devotional 
utterances.  Even  the  apostles,  who  stood  on  the  high 
est  level  of  spiritual  insight  and  supernatural  endow 
ments,  were  thus  influenced, 

Nay,  our  Lord  himself,  amid  the  few  utter- 


He  might  no  doubt  have  spoken  of  Nineveh  without 
respect  to  any  time  prior  to  that  at  which  he  wrote; 
and  if  he  had  done  so,  he  would,  in  accordance  with 
the  common  Hebrew  usage,  have  probably  altogether 
omitted  the  substantive  verb;  thus,  "  And  Nineveh,  a 
very  great  city."'  All  we  contend  for  is,  that  there 
was  nothing  unnatural  or  improbable  in  his  connecting 
his  description  with  the  precise  period  of  his  visit,  and 
giving  his  readers  to  know  it  as  it  then  was.  As  to 
the  use  of  the  third  person  throughout  the  narrative, 
this  argues  nothing  of  another  than  the  prophet  himself 
being  the  writer.  For  it  is  the  common  usage  among 
the  prophets,  when  narrating  the  things  which  befell 
them  in  the  execution  of  their  mission — for  example, 


somewhat  similar  experiences  of  former  saints,  and 
make,  as  fur  as  possible,  their  language  his  own,  was 
so  natural  and  befitting,  that  instead  of  calling  into  sus 
picion  the  genuineness  of  his  prayer,  it  should  rather 
be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  verisimilitude.  He  found  it 
a  relief  that  even  the  figurative  language  of  others  so 
exactly  suited  his  case,  while  the  thoughts  and  language 
alike  became  his  own,  when  nothing  else  would  suit. 
Then  the  Psalms  employed — cxx.  1,  for  first  clause  of 
ver.  2;  xlii.  7,  for  last  clause  of  ver.  3;  xxxi.  22,  for 
first  clause  of  ver.  4;  Lxix.  1,  for  first  clause  of  ver.  5; 
exlii.  3,  for  first  clause  of  ver.  7'.  xxxi.  (J,  for  ver.  8;  iii.  8, 
for  the  last  clause  of  ver.  9 — can  with  no  probability  be 
shown  to  be  later  than  the  time  of  Jonah  (most  of  them, 


is.  vii.  xx  .  xxxvii.;  Am.  vii.;  Jo.  xx.;  Rag  i.  i , 1 3, i-c.     (2.)   Again,  i  indeed,  belonging  to   the  earliest  period  of  psalmodic 
there  are  certain  words  and   other  indications  in  the     literature) ;  and,  what  is  not  less  important,  the  language 

is  not  slavishly  copied,  but  used  with  such  slight  varia 
tions  as  would  naturally  be  employed  by  one  who  was 
freely  adapting  to  his  own  spiritual  use  existing  scrip 
tures,  not  stringing  together  a  set  of  passages  for  a  lite 
rary  purpose.  Thus,  instead  of  "  the  waters  are  come 
in,"  Jonah  says,  "the  waters  compassed  me  about;" 
instead  of  "I  am  cut  off  from  before  thine  eyes,''  he 
has,  "I  am  cast  out  from  before  thine  eyes;''  instead 


book  which  seem  to  point  to  a  later  age  than  that  of 
Jonah.  Of  specific  words  recent  critics  have  not  been 
disposed  to  make  so  much  in  this  respect  as  was  done 
some  time  ago.  There  is  really  very  little  peculiar  to 
Jonah;  a  word  for  ship,  a  decked  or  covered  vessel 
(nj'BDj  sepkinaJt),  but  a  genuinely  formed  Hebrew  word, 

used  also  in  Aramaic  and  Arabic,  though  found  only 


-TON  AH 


JONAH 


of   "i  hate  them  that  observe  lying   vanities,"  he  has. 
"They  that  observe  lying  vanities  forsake  their  own 
mercy,"  Ac.      Such  things  bear  on  them  the  impress  of 
reality.      (3.1  The  dimensions  of  the  cilv,  as  indicated 
in  the  narrative,  have  often   been  adduced  in  support 
of  the  fabulous  view  of  its  contents,  and  the  objection 
is  still  pressed  by  Hitzig.      He  conceives  that  the  three 
days'  journey  mentioned  in  ch.  iii.  8.  must,  when  com 
pared   witli  the  one  day's  journey.  Jonah  is  presently 
said  to  have  advanced   preaching,  be  understood  of  the 
extent  of  the  city  in  a  straight  line,  not  of  its  entire 
compass;  while  the  4bU  stadia,   or  o'n  miles,    ^iven  bv 
Diodorus  as   the   measurement   of  its  boundary-walls'. 

enemies  generally  of  Cod's  cause  and   people.      It  may 
fairly  be   admitted    that   there  is   a  certain  degree   of 
strangeness   in  such  things,   which,   if    it  were  not   in 
accordance  with  the  character  both  of  the  man  and  of 
the  mission,  and  in  these  found  a  kind  of  explanation, 
might  not  unnaturally  have  given  rise  to  some  doubts 
of   the    credibility    of    what    is    written.      But   Jonah's 
relation   to   Nineveh  was  altogether  of    a   special  and 
peculiar  nature;  it  stood  apart  from  the  regular  calling 
of   a   prophet   and   the   ordinary  dealings   of   God:    and 
having  for  its  more  specific  object  the  instruction  and 
warning  of  the  covenant-  people  in  a  very  critical  period 
of  their  afi'airs.  the  reserve  maintained  as  to  local  and 

been   only   about    three   days'    journev.       Reasoning   of 
tliis  sort  evidently  proceeds  upon  the  idea  that  Nineveh 

certainly  1itt-d.  to  make  them  think  less  of  the  parties 
imniediateU    concerned,   more  of  what    through  these 
d'od    was    seekin-.    to   impress    upon    themselves.      The 
whole  was  a  kind  of  parabolical   action;  and  beyond  a 
certain    limit    circumstantial    minuteness    would    have 
tended    to    mar,    rather   than    to    promote,   the    leading 
aim.      Then,  a-  to  the  chan-e  produced  upon  the  Nine- 
vites,  \\  e  are    led    from  the  nature  of  the  case  to   think 
ehietly  of  thi'  more  Ha-rant  iniquities  as  the  evils  more 

city.      What  if  it   was   less  regularly  constructed,  and 
lay,    perhaps,  in    tluvi-  somewhat    distant  and    separate 
portion-;,  requiring  a  day's  journev  for  each  to  pervade 
their   leading    thoroughfares'     This    is    uo    improbable 
supposition.      Speakin-'  of    the   space  occupied    bv  the 
remains  of  the  citv    Mr    I.avard  sfites    that  "from  the 

northern  extremity  of  Kouvunjik  to  Nimroud  is  about 
Is  miles,  tile  di-tanc"  from  Nimrouil  to  Karamles  about 
1'J.   tile    opposite    -ides    of    the    square    the    same."        lie 

thinks  this  remarkably  accords  with  the  measurement 
of    I>io(|orus,   and    the    three   davs"     juiriiev   of    Jonah, 
taking  this  to  apply  to  the  ciivnmferenee.       Hut  he  adds 
\\hat   sliows  there  mav  be.  at   lea.-t.  no  necessity  for  so 
understanding  it.      ''  \\  ithin  the  space  there  are  many 
lar-v  mounds,  including  the  principal  ruins  in  Assyria. 
and  the  face  of  the  eonntr\  is  strewed  \\  ith  the  remains 
of    pottery,    bricks,    and    either    fra-n,.-nts.      Tiie    space 
between  the  great  public  editices  \\  as  probably  occupied 
by  private  houses,  standing  in   the   midst  of  gardens, 
and    built    at   di-tances    from    one   another,    or    form  in-' 

of   which  little   or   no  trace  was   to   be  found   in 
the  course'  even  ot   a  single   generation.      .Much  more 
mi-lit    such  be  expected    to  ha\e  happened    in  the   case 
of  Nineveh.       5.J  The  grand  objection,  however,  against 
the  historical  verity  of  the  things  recorded  in  the  Look 
ot  Jonah,  and  the  main  reason  for  ascribing  it  to  a  later 
age    than  that  of  its  reputed   author,  is  undoubtedly  to 
be  sought  in  the  miraculous  events  interwoven  with  the 
story.      Tin--.-,   in    the   account    of   rationalistic'  writers, 
bv  their  very  nature  challenge  disbelief;  they  are  only 
to  be  explained  as  the  legendary  marvels  which,  in  pro- 
cessof  t  line,  'j-athered  around  the  names  of  distinguished 

and   even  arable  land."        >'«  <    XlXKVKH.)      It   is  plainly 
w  ith  reference  to  the  population,  or  to  t  he  more  densely 
inhabited   portions,  that   it   is  spoken  of  in  connection 
with  three  davs"    journey;   and  knowing  so  little,  a--  we 

a-  the  fabulous  accretions  of  a  later  a-v. 
There   can    be   im   doubt   that   a   miraculous  element 
pervade^  the  account  of  Jonah's  connection  with  Nine 
veh.      Our  Lord  refers  to  one  portion  of  it,  and  at  once 
characterizes   and   accredits   it   as   a    si^n    (ffijufcov)    or 
supernatural  transaction,  which  had  a  significance  alike 
for  the  present  and    the  future,  and  which  was   to  find 
its  counterpart  in  his  own  yet  more  marvellous  history, 
[,u.  xi.:;n,  ,vc.       If  in  a  less  marked  de-ree,  still  in  a  mea 
sure    not   to    be   mistaken,    there    is    in    the   singularly 
rapid  and    general    repentance   of    Nineveh,   as  also   in 
the  history  of   the   -mini   so  marvellously  quick  in  its 
•_Towth  and  decay,  what  must  be  assigned  to  the  super 
natural.      This   element,    however  has  sometimes   been 
needlessly    auuTavated.        Kixing    definitely    upon    the 
whale  as   the   species  of  fish   in  which  Jonah  is  said   to 
have    been    for    a    time    entombed,     unbelievers    have 
aggravated  the  improbabilities  of  the  story,  by  pointing 
to  the  narrowness  of  the  whale's  throat,  which  is  incap 
able  of  admitting  a  human  body  through  it.      Of  course, 
if  such  hml  been  the  creature  employed  by  God  for  the 
occasion,  he  could  as  easily  have  manifested  his  divine 
power  in  widening  the  throat  to  receive  Jonah,  as  in 
afterwards  adapting  the  belly  of   the  whale  for  his  safe 
preservation.      But  the  "great  fish"  of  the  narrative  is 
not  necessarily  a  whale;  nor  is  KTJTOS,  the  corresponding 
term  in  the   New  Testament  and  in  the  Septuagint  ; 
for  this  word  is  used   by  Greek  scientific  writers  of  a 
whole  class  of  fishes,  which  includes  the  whale  and  many 

the  manner  in  which  its  population  was  distributed,  no 

to  the  actual   Mate  of   tiling.      The  same   substantially 
may  be   said   of  rji).  (Hid  souls   in  ch.  iv.  11.  who   could 
not   discern  between    their  ri^ht    hand  and    their  left 
children,  that  is,  of  about  four  years  old  and   under 
implying  a  total  population  of  half  a  million  or  so;  for 
there  is  no   improbability  whatever  in    such  a  mass  nf 
human    beings  having    been   congregated    within   such 
ample  bounds.      (1.)  It  has  appeared  to  some,  in  parti 
cular  to  lileek    (Kinlcit.  p  :i7i),  improbable,    and   against 
the  historical  verity  of  this  book,  that  on  the  supposi 
tion  of  all  that  is  here  related  having  actually  occurred, 
there  should  lie  in  the  relation  of  them  such  a  paucity 
of  circumstantial  details  --nothing  said,  for  instance,  of 
the  place  where  Jonah  was  discharged  on  dry  land,  or 
of  the  particular  king  who  then  reigned  at  Nineveh  — 
and  not  only  so,  but  no  apparent  reference  in  the  future 
allusions  to  Nineveh  in  Scripture,  to  the  singular  change 
(if  so  be  it  actually  took  place)  wrought  through  the 
preaching  of  Jonah  on  the  religious  and  moral  state  of 
the  people.     These  are  still  always  regarded  as  idolaters, 
and  the  judgments  of  God  uttered  against  them,  as  if 
thev  stood  in  much  the  same  position  with  the  heathen 

.ION  AH 


944 


JOXAH 


others  besides  (the  viviparous)  ;  and  very  coninioiily 
sharks  and  tunnies  are  enumerated  under  it.  I'hotius 
(Lex.)  expressly  applies  it  to  the  t'archarias,  which  is  a 
species  of  shark,  usually  called  the  white  shark.  This 
fish  abounds  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  is  very  probably 
the  particular  kind  of  creature  referred  to.  Its  vora 
city  is  notorious;  and  growing,  as  it  often  does,  to  tin- 
size  of  from  20  to  30  feet  in  length,  and  3000  or  -KKin 
Ibs.  weight,  it  is  quite  capable  of  swallowing  an  entire 
man.  Indeed,  specimens  have  been  caught — one  with 
a  sen -calf  in  it— of  the  size  of  an  ox;  another  with  a 
horse  entire;  and  several  others  with  the  body  of  a  man, 
unmutilated  and  dressed  (see  the  authorities  in  Pusey's  In- 
trod.  to  Jonah).  Such  facts  amply  meet  the  sh;illo\\ 
objection  that  has  sometimes  been  raised  against  the 
credibility  of  Jonah's  being'  received  for  a  time  into  a 
fish's  bellv,  on  the  ground  of  there  hein^  no  fish  larev 
enough,  or  with  a  throat  capacious  enough,  for  such  a 
purpose.  But  it  leaves  untouched  the  miraculous 
nature  of  Jonah's  preservation  for  three  successive  days 
(or  parts  of  these)  in  such  a  habitation,  and  his  subse 
quent  ejection  upon  dry  land.  This  necessarily  involved 
a  supernatural  interposition  in  his  behalf.  And  so 
with  the  other  things  standing  in  a  certain  connection 
with  it— the  change  wrought  upon  the  Xinevites,  and 
the  rapid  transitions  undergone  by  the  gourd;  though 
both  doubtless  appeared  as  the  result  of  agencies  cal 
culated  to  produce  them  ;  yet  in  the  power  and 
efficiency  with  which  these  were  accompanied,  there 
was  the  indication  of  a  supernatural  interference. 
With  those  who  on  philosophical  grounds  are  opposed 
to  any  action  that  can  properly  lie  called  miraculous, 
110  arguments  of  a  moral  kind  could  avail  to  convince 
them  of  the  reality  of  the  things  narrated.  But  for 
those  who  are  open  to  conviction  on  the  matter,  the 
main  question  will  be,  whether  the  occasion  appears  to 
have  been  such  as  to  call  for  the  special  interference  of 
Heaven  to  accomplish  the  results  under  consideration. 
If  the  history  and  mission  of  Jonah  are  looked  at  merely 
by  themselves,  the  tendency'  will  probably  be  to  answer 
such  a  question  in  the  negative;  it  will  not  be  easy  to 
understand  why  the  course  of  providence  should  have 
moved  in  such  strange  and  mysterious  ways  to  reach 
its  end  in  connection  with  a  person  and  a  people  who 
occupied  otherwise  so  subordinate  a  place  in  the  divine 
kingdom.  But  let  them  be  contemplated  as  special 
movements  of  this  kingdom  at  an  important  crisis  of 
its  history,  and  movements  destined  to  stand  in  a  pro 
found  relation  to  its  ulterior  acts  and  operations,  and 
what  appears  miraculous  here  will  be  found  entirely  in 
its  place.  It  was  required  to  mark  distinctly  the  hand 
of  God  in  the  marvellous  series  of  events,  and  draw 
men's  attention  to  them  as  pregnant  with  principles  and 
interests  of  incalculable  moment.  Still  more  was  it 
required,  in  order  that  the  transactions  into  which  it 
entered  might  serve  as  the  divinely  ordained  sign  of 
the  central  facts  in  gospel  times,  in  which  all  might  be 
said  to  partake  of  the  supernatural.  Thus  onlv  could 
the  one  series  fitly  correspond  with,  and  prepare  for, 
the  other. 

This  view — the  natural  and  unquestionably  scrip 
tural  view  of  the  subject — receives  no  small  confirma 
tion  from  the  arbitrary  and  unsatisfactory  explanations 
which  rationalistic  critics  have  offered  of  the  story  of 
the  book.  This  betrays  itself  in  the  endless  diversity 
of  the  modes  of  explanation,  no  one  apparently  being 
able  to  rest  in  that  of  another.  The  semi-heathen 


account  of  its  origin,  which  approved  itself  to  some  of 
the  elder  rationalists  (Geseniqs,  De  Wette,  Rosen- 
miiller,  &c.),  who  supposed  it  to  have  been  a  kind  of 
Jewish  edition  of  the  heathen  myths  respecting  the 
deliverance  of  Hesione  by  Hercules,  or  of  Andromeda 
by  Perseus,  from  the  sea  monsters  to  which  they  were 
exposed  may  now  be  regarded  as  exploded.  Bleek 
justly  says  (Kinleit.  p.  576)  that  there  is  not  the  smallest 
probability  of  the  story  of  Jonah's  temporary  sojourn 
in  the  belly  of  the  whale  having  been  either  mediately 
or  immediately  derived  from  those  Greek  fables.  F. 
von  Baur's  hypothesis  of  the  story  of  the  book  being 
a  compound  of  some  popular  .Jewish  traditions  and  the 
I'abylonian  myth  respecting  a  sea  monster  Oaimes.  and 
the  fast  for  Adonis,  is  now  universally  assigned  to  the 
same  category.  Hit/.ig  (first  in  a  separate  treatise, 
then  in  his  commentary  on  the  minor  prophets)  would 
identify  the  author  of  Jonah  with  that  of  Obadiah,  and 
supposes  it  to  have  been  written  by  some  one  in  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ  ''in  Euypt,  that  land  of 
wonders,"  and  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  vindicating 
Jehovah  for  having  failed  to  verify  the  prophecy  in 
Obadiah  respecting  the  heathen  Edomites — a  theory 
which,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  made  no  converts,  and 
certainly  needs  no  refutation.  A  slender  basis  of  fact 
has  been  allowed  by  some — by  Bunsen,  for  example, 
who,  strangely  enough,  fixes  upon  the  very  portion 
which  to  most  of  his  rationalistic  countrymen  bears  the 
clearest  murks  of  spuriousness,  as  the  one  genuine  part 
of  the  whole — Jonah's  thanksgiving  from  the  perils  of 
shipwreck  (as  Bunsen  judges);  and  thinks  that  some 
one  had  mistaken  the  matter,  and  fabricated  out  of  it 
the  present  story; — by  others,  such  as  Krahmer  (Das 
Buch  Jonas,  I'm;),  who  suppose  that  Jonah  was  known  to 
have  uttered  a  prophecy  against  Xineveh,  to  have  been 
impatient  at  the  delay  which  appeared  in  the  fulfilment, 
and  was  hence  for  didactic  purposes  made  the  hero  of 
the  story.  But  the  more  common  opinion  in  the  pre 
sent  day  with  this  school  of  divines  is,  that  the  story  is 
purely  moral,  and  without  any  historical  foundation; 
nor  can  any  clue  be  found  or  imagined  in  the  known 
history  of  the  times  why  Jonah  in  particular,  a  pro 
phet  of  Israel  in  the  latter  stages  of  the  kingdom, 
should  have  been  chosen  as  the  ground  of  the  instruc 
tion  meant  to  be  conveyed.  So  Ewald,  Bleek,  &c, ; 
who,  however,  differ  in  some  respects  as  to  the  specific 
aim  of  the  book,  while  they  agree  as  to  its  non-historical 
character.  Ewald,  for  instance,  would  make  it  quite 
general — namely,  to  show  how  the  true  fear  of  God 
and  repentance  brings  salvation — first,  in  the  case  of 
the  heathen  sailors;  then  in  the  case  of  Jonah;  finally, 
in  that  of  the  Xinevites.  Bleek.  not  differing  materi 
ally  from  Krahmer,  conceives  it  to  have  been  written 
by  an  intelligent,  liberal-minded  Jew,  for  the  purpose 
of  exposing  the  narrow  religious  particularism  which 
prevailed  among  his  countrymen,  as  if  God  were  only 
known  and  honoured  by  them — as  if  they  alone  had  a 
right  to  expect  his  favour,  and  might  justly  hate  and 
hope  for  the  perdition  of  all  the  heathen.  On  the  con 
trary,  they  are  here  taught  to  regard  Jehovah  as  in 
his  fatherly  love  ready  to  embrace  all  in  every  place 
who  sought  to  him  with  true  hearts.  But  why  any 
prophet  should  have  been  represented  as  going  through 
such  a  marvellous  experience  to  teach  these  truths,  not 
unknown  in  the  other  Scriptures — why,  especially 
Jonah  should  have  been  thought  of  in  such  a  connec 
tion — living,  as  he  did,  in  a  region  and  at  a  time 


JONATHAN 


945 


JONATHAN 

remarkable  for  the  very  reverse  of  that  particularism—  Bible,    Gesdi.  ii  s.  4o2,  note  s:  turned  to  usury.     Terrified 

remains  a  mystery,  of  which  no  solution  either  has  been  apparently  by  the  awful  curses  of  the  woman  over  her 
or  ever  can  be  given.     It  is  in  fact  inconceivable  that  :  lost  treasure,   he   soon   after  restored  it,  and  the  two 

anything  but  the  known  realities  of  the  case  could  have  agreed  to  turn  a  considerable  portion  of 'the  coin  into 

led  any  respectable  Jewish  writer  to  attribute  to  a  true  an  image,  to  serve  which  Micah  consecrated  one  of  his 

prophet  tlie  part  from  first  to  last  ascribed  to  Jonah  sons  as  priest.      But   the  advent  of   the   Levite— alto- 

in   this  singular  book;    and    scarcely  less   conceivable  gether  a  more  proper  and  formal  servant  of  the  altar— 

that  the  Jewish  authorities  would  have  received  such  permitted  him   to  set   aside  this  hastily  extemporized 

a  book  into  the  canon  of  Scripture   without  the  most  priest.      The  young  man  amved,  for  some  thirty  shil- 

conclusive  evidence  of  its  genuineness  and  authenticity,  lings  a  year,   a  suit  of  apparel,   and   his  victuals,    to 

Not  only  has  this  view  in  its  favour  all  reasonable  pro-  minister  in  the  Ephraimite's  private  Bethel,  Ju.  xvii.  10. 

babilities.  and  in  its  fair  import  the  express  testimony  How   long  this  arrangement  lasted  we  are  not  in- 

of  our  Lord:  but  it  may  well  also  claim  in  its  support  formed;  it  was  brought  to  an  en.  1  in  a  way  not  very  agree - 

the   utter  failure   of   all    attempts  to  account   for  the  able  to  Micah,  and  not  quite  creditable  to  the  character 

story  of  the  book  otherwise,  so  as  t<>  secure  any  general  of  Jonathan  the  young  priest.      The    Danites.   nndino- 

concurrence.      It  is  proper  to  add,  that  on   the  side  of  themselves  straitened  for  want  of  room  in  the  localities 


its   strictly   historical   character   there   aiv   still 


to 


reckoned  some  of  the  greatest 

eluding  Sack.  Hei iirsten berg.    Delltzsch.   Baumu'artci 

[Much  of  the    litevauu-.->    th;ir    has   ,q,pe:uvd   on   th,.   1 k   "t 

Jonah  lias  alr-':tdy  been  ivt'.'riV'l  TH;  treatises  <>f  a  practical  and 
popular  kind,  ,.f  «),ich   there  i>  a  considerable  nuinlior,  it   is 
1  or  [.oints  connected  with  Jonah's  pie- 
n  event  which  did   in.it   take 


to  them  in   the  south,  or  unable  to  cope  with 


needless  t 

dicti-in.  as  exi>i'oit  !y  annonn 
place,  s-.-e  article'  I'r.m-m.cv.] 

JON  ATHAN  !•,-;*-.  or  %-;v,  whom  God  yar 

T  1  :  T  T 

name  of  several  nan  in  Je\\ish  history  more 
distinguished.  1.  Of  a  Levite  ll.b.  Jehonathan),  a 
nativ. •  of  Bethlehem  J  udah,  of  whom  a  somewhat 
curious  history  is  related,  and  a  charact'-r  not  too  scru 
pulous  exhibited,  in  tin-  tir.-t  half,  Ju.  xvii.  \\iii,  of  the 
app.-ndix  to  the  book  of  Judges.  The  episode  in  the 
history  of  the  Danite-;  with  which  the  name  of  this 
yoiinir  pri.-st  is  connected,  mu-t  hav.-  occurred  verv 
early  in  tin-  time  of  the  Judges,  in  all  probability  soon 
alter  the  death  of  Joshua,  a  time  of  comparative  anar 
chy  and  freebooting  licentiousness,  before  any  tix.-.l 
authority  had  arisen  to  supply  the  plae.-of  the  deceased 
leader  -"in  those  days  there  was  in,  kin--  in  Israel. 
but  every  man  did  that  which  \\as  riu'ht  in  hi-  o\\n 
eyes,"  Ju.  xvii.  c.  And  if  the  e»nj.vtur.'  of  critics  be 
right,  that  this  Levite  was  the  urandsou  ,,f  Moses  see 
below,  the  .vents  detailed  ri--ariliii-  him  cannot  have 
occurred  Ion--  after  tho  entry  into  the  promised  land, 
as  he  was  still  a  younu'  man  when  they  happened.  The 
.Mo-aii'  law  had  already  in  many  places  beo-tm  to  be 
disregarded,  and  m<-n  who  could  afford  it  erected  pri 
vate  temples  to  themselves,  and  fashioned  and  setup 
teraphim  and  irraven  ima-vs  for  worship:  the  L.-vit.-s 
too  do  not  stem  to  have  confined  themselves  to  the 
cities  assigned  them  or  to  the  duties  prescribed  them, 
but  were  ready  fora  livelihood  to  minister  to  the  idola 
trous  proclivities  of  any  man  sufficiently  affluent  to 
maintain  them.  Such  at  least  was  the  character  of  tin 
man,  wlio  travelling  northward  in  search  of  employ 
ment,  came  opportunely  for  him  to  a  house  in  th'- 
Mount  of  Ephraim.  tenanted  by  a  person  of  the  name 
of  Micah  and  his  mother,  people  of  peculiar  character. 


in  Germany,  in-  the  Philistines  and  Amorites,  ,iu.  i.  34,  sought  an  outlet 
for  their  numbers  ami  energies  in  the  far  north.  Five 
men  were  sent  to  spy  out  the  land  in  the  extremest 
north  of  the  country,  and  became  acquainted  with  Micah 
and  his  valuable  images  and  accommodating  priest  on 
th.'ir  way.  Having  returned  to  their  countrymen  and 
reported  favourably,  six  hundred  warriors  of  Dan  ac- 

j-]u,  conipanied  them  as  guides  to  the  new  home  in  the  north. 
Micah 's  house  lay  in  the  way,  and  the  six  hundred  kept 

less  .rnard.  and  watched  the  priest,  a  needless  precaution, 
while  the  five  rifled  the  sanctuary  of  its  images  and 
carried  them  off.  The  priest  being  flattered  by  an  in 
vitation  t»  minister  to  the  new  colony,  showed  sufficient 
alacrity  in  accepting  the  proposal;  and  the  poor  Eph- 
raimite  whos- home  had  he«'it  so  ruthlessly  harried  had 
his  complaints  answered  by  the  circumspect  advice  to 
U'i  home,  "lest  angry  fellows  run  upon  theeand  thou  lose 
thy  life.''  Am!  this  Levite,  ''Jonathan  son  of  ( iershoin, 
son  of  Manasseh  .Mos.-s  ,  he  ami  his  sons  were  priests 
to  tho  tribe  of  Pan,  until  the  day  of  th"  captivity  of  the 
land."  .hi.  xviii.  .-HP. 

The  expression  "captivity  of  the  land."  has  been 
variously  explain.-d.  Some  refer  it  to  tlie  general  cap- 
tivity  of  the  northern  tribes  at  the  hands  of  Assyria., 
and  conclude  that  the  narrative  is  of  very  late  au 
thorship:  or  else,  as  Kwald,  that  this  verse  has  been 
inserted  by  a  very  late  manipulator  of  the  earlier  do- 
ciinn-iit.  Others  consider  the  expression  to  be  ex 
plained  by  Ju.  xviii.  ;',] ,  and  think  the  <-(i/,t!rif>/  to  be 
the  subjugation  of  the  country  by  the  Philistines.  Bleek 
agrees  with  this  view,  but  instead  of  tlie  ln,i<l.  would 
read  //H  •//•/'liii  I  lebrew  uro/i  for  (i)'(ta}  ( Kinleit.  s.  .11*). 
This  latter  date  is  no  doubt  the  true  one.  Of  more 
difficulty  is  the  determination  of  the  question,  AVhic.li  is 
the  true  name  of  Jonathan's  grandfather.  Manasseh  or 
MOM-S  '  These  names  in  Heb.  are  spelled  by  the  same 
letters  except  the  //  in  Manasseh.  which  in  the  tradi 
tional  text  is  a  lit(-r<i  s/'.</>r».-«i  'nvin.).  The  traditional 


explanation   of  this   suspended   letter,   in  the  Talmud. 
the    rabbinical  commentators   (and  the  explanation  is 


though  possessed  of  considerable  wealth,  Ju.  xvii.  2,  and     so  far  accepted  by  modern  criticism),  is  that  Moses  is 

influence.    Ju.  xviii.  22,  having   a  private   sanctuary  like     tho  true  reading,  but  to   avoid   coupling  the   name  of 

(liileon.   Ju.  viii.  27.      The  mother  had  in  her  possession  a 

large  si 

the  Bhilistinian   lords   to   Delilah. 

the  woman   has  been  thought,  foolishly  enough,  to  be      Richter.  s.  2111.)       Hiivernick   t< 


reant  as  Jonathan  with  a  name  so  sacred   as 
money    1  loo  shekels,  tlie  sum  promised  by     his.  the  name  of   tlie  idolatrous  and   bloody  king  Ma- 


and  hence     nasseh   was  substituted    for    it. 


Samson's  betrayer),  which  the  son  appropriated  —  some 
think  stole,  others.  e.<j.  Kwald  (who  charges  those  who 


(See  Berthean,  Buch  der 
(Kirileit.  ii.  1,  s.  107),  and 
Kwald  ''ii.  s.  4.v)i,  both  agree  in  tracing  the  reading 
Manasseh  to  a  Jewish  conceit.  That  Gershom  was  the 


differ  from  him  with  finding  their  own  stupidity  in  the     son  of  Moses,  of  course  is   well  known,  Kx.  ii.  22,  but  it 
VOL.  I.  119 


JONATHAN 


JONATHAN 


is  quite  possible  that  there  may  have  been  another 
Gersl'om.  son  of  some  Manasseh,  so  well  known  to  the 
writer  and  his  readers  that  he  i>  not  further  described. 
It  is  quite  a  common  tiling  for  transcribers  to  leave  out 
letters,  and  insert  them  over  the  word  when  aware  of 
their  mistake;  it  is  a  rare  occurrence  indeed  to  lind  any 
one,  however  crammed  with  conceits,  tampering  with 
the  letter  of  the  text.  The  insertion  of  the  n  may  he 
a  mistake,  it  is  hardly  to  be  explained  with  Tanchum 
as  a  tir/>~/>'n  sopherim^i.e.  a  second  thought  of  the  ori 
ginal  writer,  nor  an  intentional  play  with  the  letter  of 
the  text,  on  the  part  of  some  subtle  scribe. 

2.  JONATHAN.     The   oldest  of  the  three,  i  sa.  xiv.  u>, 

Or    rather    four   (compare  1   Sa.  \.\xi.2,  with  1  Ch.  viii.  3.'!,  and 

•2Sa.ii.fi)  legitimate  sons  of  Saul  (Ilcb.  Jonathan  and 
Jehonatkan).  heir  to  the  throne,  and  constant  friend 
aud  attendant  of  his  father,  who  was  deeply  attached 
to  him,  and  jealous  of  anything  that  seemed  to  inter 
fere  with  his  prospective  succession  to  the  kingdom. 
Jonathan  was  beautiful  in  form,  graceful  and  athletic, 
chivalrously  brave  like  his  father,  with  the  same  ardent 
temperament  as  he.  but  the  influences  of  religion,  and 
a  far  truer  conception  of  the  idea  of  the  theocratic 
government,  restrained  and  softened  his  nature,  and 
ho  was  from  the  first  ready  to  sacrifice  his  own  claims, 
and  give  way  to  the  man  whom  God  had  appointed 
to  be  the  root  of  the  new  line  of  kings,  whose  final 
blossom  should  be  the  Messiah.  And  so,  while  Saul's 
rejection  worked  upon  the  untamed  passions  of  his 
heart  and  threw  him  into  despondency  and  fits  of 
furious  madness,  beneath  all  which  we  catch  glimpses 
of  that  mournful  sense  of  loneliness  which  oppressed 
him,  and  cannot  but  be  moved  by  the  pathos  of  his  cries 
for  aid  and  sympathy,  i  SR.  xxiii.  21,  of.  xxii.s,  Jonathan 
on  the  other  hand  was  calm  and  strong,  though  he 
foresaw  the  issue  of  the  unequal  conflict  between  his 
father  and  the  purpose  of  God.  i  s-i.  xxiii.  17;  and  when 
he  could  not  turn  him  from  it  by  any  means  he  tried, 
i  Sa.  xix.  4,  with  xx.  28,  foil.  &c.,  he  yet  clung  to  the  way 
ward  man.  even  at  the  risk  of  personal  violence,  i  Sa. 
xx.  33,  and  subjected  to  the  bitterest  reproaches,  i  s.i. 
xx.  so,  which  for  his  father's  and  his  friend's  sake  he  bore 
with  patience,  only  once  losing  self-command  and 
rising  ''from  the  table  in  fierce  anger,  '  1  Sa.  xx.  34;  and 
though  from  the  time  that  the  kingly  government  was 
turned  in  the  hands  of  his  father  into  an  instrument 
of  private  vengeance,  instead  of  a  public  defence,  he 
could  not  but  foresee  dissolution  at  home  and  disgrace 
abroad,  he  never  abandoned  his  own  post,  or  failed  to 
do  what  he  could  to  retard  the  coming  ruin,  and  when 
it  came  he  went  forth  to  meet  it  with  the  calmness  of 
a  hero,  and  the  consciousness  that  his  work  was  done. 
No  truer  son,  or  braver  man.  or  warmer  friend,  need 
be  looked  for  in  the  pages  of  history  than  this  devoted 
and  self- forgetful  heir  to  a  throne. 

The  details  of  Jonathan's  career  furnished  in  the 
Bible  relate  to  two  events  in  his  life — his  exploit  at 
Gibeah,  and  his  attachment  to  David.  He  appears 
first  in  history,  i  Sa.  xiii.  2,  as  commanding  one  thousand 
men  in  Gibeah  of  Benjamin,  while  his  father  lay  with 
a  small  army  of  two  thousand  more  northward  at  Mich- 
mash  and  along  the  hills  of  Bethel.  This  small  com 
mand  was  all  the  troops  the  new  king  could  oppose  to 
the  overwhelming  hosts  of  the  Philistines.  Saul's 
policy  was  to  seize  the  main  passes,  and  prevent  the 
enemy  from  penetrating  eastward  (on  the  strategic 
value  of  Michmash,  cf.  Is.  x.  28),  till  he  gathered  toge 


ther  sufficient  strength  to  strike  an  effective  blow  at 
their  army.  Jonathan  was  the  first  to  come  into  colli 
sion  with  the  enemy,  though  the  nature  of  his  move 
ment  is  not  easy  to  ascertain.  He  smote  a  2»v;  (netzib) 

of  the  Philistines  in  Geba,  ch.  xiii.  r.,  some  think  an  out 
post  or  garrison  1C.  Y.),  others  a  pillar  or  standard  of 
po>sc>nion  illertheau),  most  probably  some  officer,  or 
small  advanced  post,  from  the  accidental  way  in  winch 
the  thing  seems  to  have  occurred,  and  the  indefinite 
way  in  which  it  is  referred  to.  The  collision,  however, 
was  the  signal  for  active  operations  on  both  sides. 
The  Philistines  mustered  in  great  force  and  seized  the 
Israelitish  camp  at  Michmash,  which  Saul  had  perhaps 
previously  evacuated,  for  the  purpose  of  betaking  him 
self  to  the  old  trysting- place  at  Gilgal.  where  Samuel 
had  promised  to  meet  him  to  inaugurate  the  war,  ch.x.  8. 
It  does  not  seem  certain  whether  Jonathan  had  aban 
doned  his  post  in  Gibeah,  or  held  it  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  open  the  communications,  in  all  likelihood  the 
latter,  as  Saul  (the  reading  in  ver.  15  seems  false  and 
he  made  Gibeah  the  headquarters  of  their  little  army, 
which  had  now-  melted  away  to  six  hundred  men,  the 
terror  of  the  people,  who  were  without  weapons,  except 
Saul  and  Jonathan  and  their  immediate  attendants, 
ver.  22,  being  so  great  that  many  of  them  fled  over  Jordan, 
cli.  xiii.  7.  The  Philistines  greatly  harassed  the  country 
by  sending  out  marauding  parties  in  various  directions, 
ch.  xiii.  IT,  and  the  misery  and  disgrace  became  so  keen, 
that  Jonathan,  with  the  deep  religious  faith  in  the  God 
of  Israel  and  in  Israel's  destinies  winch  marked  him, 
resolved  to  make  some  effort  in  behalf  of  his  country, 
single-handed  —  "  for  there  is  no  restraint  to  the  Lord 
to  work  by  many  or  by  few."  ch.  xk.  6.  With  the  chival 
rous  devotion  of  this  stormy  time,  his  armour-bearer 
was  ready  to  second  his  wildest  project,  and  having, 
like  the  servant  of  Abraham,  fixed  on  a  sign  wherebv 
they  should  know  that  God  would  prosper  them,  ver.  10, 
they  clambered  over  the  rocks  and  discovered  them 
selves  to  the  Philistines.  The  sign  fell  out  as  they  had 
hoped:  the  Philistines,  partly  in  scorn,  and  partly  with 
a  secret  dismay,  that  sought  to  conceal  itself  by  boast 
ful  words,  cried,  "  Come  up  and  we  will  show  you  a 
thing;"  and  Jonathan,  interpreting  the  sign  as  given  by 
God,  fell  upon  them,  and  slew  about  twenty  men. 
This  discomfiture  ended  in  a  panic;  thinking  themselves 
outnumbered  and  surprised  by  the  Hebrews,  who  were 
coming  "out  of  their  holes,''  and  being  assailed  at  the 
same  time  within  their  own  ranks  by  the  Hebrews 
whom  they  had  with  them  as  captives,  ch.  xiv.  21,  a  wide 
spread  confusion  communicated  itself  to  the  ranks  of 
the  Philistinian  host,  and  the}7  went  on  exterminating 
each  other  as  mutual  foes  in  their  blindness  and  sur 
prise.  The  Israelitish  army  immediately  fell  upon  the 
retreating  foe,  and  boing  increased  to  about  ten  thou 
sand  men,  a  desultory  pursuit  commenced  throughout 
the  forest  of  Ephraim,  which  ended  only  when  the 
Philistines  had  been  driven  as  far  west  as  Ajalon. 
Jonathan,  unaware  of  an  oath  by  which  Saul,  in  his 
eagerness  for  the  foe's  extinction,  had  unwisely  bound 
the  people  not  to  taste  anything  till  the  evening,  put 
a  little  honey  by  his  staff  to  his  mouth;  and  when  the 
priest  inquired  of  God  in  the  evening  whether  they 
should  renew  the  pursuit,  no  answer  was  vouchsafed. 
It  was  found  that  there  was  sin  among  the  people,  and 
the  lots  being  cast,  Jonathan  was  found  to  be  the  trans 
gressor.  Saul,  surely  not  thinking  such  a  thing  pos- 


JONATHAN 


JONATHAN 


sible,  hud  already  declared  that  the  offender,  even  j 
should  it  be  himself  or  his  son.  should  die:  and  now,  , 
with  the  sternness  of  a  Roman,  he  condemned  Jonathan  j 
to  death.  In  all  likelihood  the  words  of  Jonathan,  j 
ver.  43,  imply  that  he  willingly  lent  himself  to  death, 
without  repining:  "Behold  me.  1  shall  (am  ivady  to) 
die;"  but  the  people,  with  a  diviner  instinct  than  the 
impulsive  king,  interposed,  and  redeemed  Jonathan  out 
of  his  hands.  The  LXX.  render  "interceded"  for 
Jonathan --a  translation  which  weakens  the  strong  in 
tervention  of  the  people  intolerably;  and  as  little  ground 
is  there  for  Kwald's  conjecture,  that  some  other  victim 
must  have  been  substituted  in  Jonathan's  stead  iiii.s.-iM. 
The  story  of  the  friendship  of  David  and  Jonathan 
is  the  most  pathetic  in  history.  That  Jonathan  should 
give  so  much  to  David,  and  that  David  could  briii'_r 
himself  to  accept  so  much  t'n>m  Jonathan,  for  the  ditii- 
culty  lav  most  on  his  side,  cannot  be  explained  on  any 
thing  but  tln-ir  mutual  i-eli'/iou*  insight  into  the  need 
of  til.;  times  and  the  destiny  of  tin,'  nation.  The  iir.-t 
time  the  two  heroes  met  was  wlu-n  David  returned 
froiii  the  slaughter  of  the  I'liilistine,  and  was  <-\plain- 
intr  hi-  early  history  to  tin-  kin:1':  his  mode:-ty.  and 
yiiuthful  beautv.  and  his  unparalleled  boldness,  charmed 
tin!  heir-apparent,  "and  the  soul  of  Jonathan  was  knit 
with  the  soul  of  David,  and  Jonathan  lov.-d  him  as  his 

own  sold,"   ch.  xviii.  1;  and.    like    Homeric  Ihloes,   the  two 

friends  exchanged  anus  (ver.  !,  n'  li.  •;,•_•  ;n-:;."ii,  K«-;iM>.  And 
thus  commenced  a  friend-hip  uhidi  la-ted  unbroken 
all  the  life  of  Jonathan,  and  the  m>  mories  of  which 
lived  ill  Da\id'>  In-art  lon^  after  death  had  separated 
the  friends.  This  alli-ctioii.  which,  on  Jonathan's  part. 
"passed  the  lo\i-  of  women."  2  Su  \  •-•>:.  not  only  in  its 
ardour,  but  even  in  it.-  patience  and  self  sacrifice,  wa> 
returned  l>\  David  \\ith  a  vehemence  and  tenderness 
and  tearfulness  over  tlie  sail  eli  lilelits  of  conflict  in  tin- 
king's  In-art  and  in  the  state,  making  the  life  of  all  M> 
mournful  that  had  to  take  a  part  in  rule,  that  even 
''exceeded"  Jonathan,  l  s  t.  xx  ll.  Jonathan  appear- 
at'ter  this  tir-t  meeting  with  l>a\id  only  t'oiir  times  in 
historv.  thr.-c  of  the.-.-  times  in  ivlation  to  Da\id.  and 
once  again  on  the  hattl.-  tield  of  (Jilhoa.  His  eon-taut 
effort  was  to  soothe  the  rnlHed  feelings  of  his  father, 
and  moderate  his  jealousy  against  David.  l-'roin  tin- 
time  that  tin-  women  of  I.-i-ai-l  sung,  "Saul  hath  slain 
liis  thousands  and  l>a\id  his  tens  of  thou-amk"  Said 
was  uneasy  in  tin-  presence  of  l>a\id.  and  more  than 
once  made  attempts  upon  his  life.  At  ev<  ry  new  suc 
cess  of  the  youthful  r.«-tidehi-mite.  and  every  new  ad 
vance  he  made  in  popular  ia\our,  Said's  dark  spirit 
grew  darker  and  more  troubled.  N  et  lie  wa-  not  \>  t 
unsusceptible  to  thi'  influence  of  his  son;  and  though 
he  now-  tmdisguisedlv  sought  to  induce  both  Jonathan 
and  his  servants  to  take  David's  life,  on  Jonathan's 
represeiitations  he  was  reconciled  to  him.  and  sware. 
"He  shall  not  be  slain,"  l  Su.  xix.  u.  I'>ut  once  more 
there  was  war.  and  once  more  David  was  victorious, 
and  Saul  "eyed"  him  with  increased  suspicion,  and 
David  tied  to  Kamah  to  Samuel,  escaping  both  the 
open  violence,  and.  through  the  faithfulness  of  Aliehal 
his  wife,  the  daughter  of  the  king,  the  secret  plots  of 
Saul.  Soon  he  returned  from  Kamah.  and  Jonathan 
made  renewed  efforts  to  appease  his  father's  madness 
against  David,  but  now  without  success:  and  then 
occurred  that  scene  of  terrible  violence  between  Jona 
than  and  the  kinu,  to  which  we  have  already  alluded, 
when,  under  the  bitter  invectives  of  his  father,  di.  xx  3i>. 


Jonathan  lost  command  of  himself,  and  left  the  king's 
presence  in  tierce  anger,  vev.  31;  and  this  scene  was  fol 
lowed  by  that  other  most  touching  parting,  when  the 
two  friends,  feeling  all  hope  of  reconciliation  with  the 
king  gone,  "kissed  one  another,  and  wept  one  with 
another,  till  David  exceeded.''  \vr.  41.  Only  once  again 
did  the  brothels  meet,  in  the  forest  of  Ziph,  where 
David  was  in  hiding  from  Saul.  Jonathan  stole  away 
from  the  side  of  his  father  and  found  David;  and  for  a 
time  he  seemed  to  entertain  brighter  hopes,  and  looked 
forward  to  a  time  \\heii  Saul  being  gone.  David  should 
till  the  throne,  and  he  himself  be  happy  in  subordina 
tion  to  him.  ch.  xxiii  17.  Hut  Jonathan  could  not  desert 
his  father,  even  in  his  extremest  folly,  nor  seek  to  pre 
cipitate  his  fall  in  selfishness,  nor  even  in  devotion  to 
David.  Tlu-re  was  a  more  sacred  duty  of  humanity  to 
fulfil.  He  could  not  he  untilial,  even  for  religion's 
sake,  and  the  curtain  falls  upon  him  and  Saul  —the  one 
battled,  and  violent,  and  wretched— the  other  calm,  and 
h.-lpful.  and  thoughtless  of  himself,  and  though  able 
now  surelv  to  forecast  the  mournful  issue  of  things,  yet 
resolute  to  share  the  ruin  \\hich  he  could  not  avert  -- 
only  to  rise  once  more  to  shou  tln-m  --till  united,  when 
the  noise  of  battle  had  been  laid  among  the  mountains 
of  (tilboa.  i  s.i  x\xi.  And  David,  in  no  vein  of  flattery 
then,  and  with  no  t  xa^vration.  but  mindful  of  the 
bettor  nature  of  Saul  a  clear  and  noble  soul  once,  but 
for  loiiLf  sadly  overcast  v.ith  sudden  tempests;  and 
mindful  of  the  dee],,  pure  heart  of  Jonathan,  who.  with 
the  tenderness  of  a  woman,  had  loved  him — ^ung  that 
ele-v  over  their  graves,  that  stands  unmatched  for 
pathos  and  elevation  among  the  effusions  even  of  the 
-weet  psalmist.  2  Sa.  i.  IS,  full.;  and  to  perpetuate  the 
honour  of  his  friends,  he  cans 
to  learn  i:  . 

Jonathan  left  a  son  callei 
called  also  Meribbaal.  1  Ch.  vii 
uett'iil  of  his  covenant  with  .Jonathan,  i  sa.  xx.  11,  to  show 
kindness  to  himself  and  to  all  that  should  survive  him. 
sent  for  \\hi-n  he  was  e-tal  ilir-hed  in  the  kingdom  at 
Jerusalem,  and  restored  to  him  all  the  possessions  of 
Saul,  and  made  him  dwell  in  Jerusalem,  and  eat  at  the 
kind's  table. 

3.  JuNA'IHAN     |lleb.   ./nitilt/iilii    and  ./i/nni'ltltHii\.        A 

Mm  of  Abiathar  the  priest,  who  took  an  active  part  in 
the  trout iles  d  u  rim:  Absalom'.-  revolt,  and  rendered 
material  service  to  David  as  a  spv,  2  Sa.  xv.  36;  xvii.  17,  foil. 
In  the  troubles  that  ensued  upon  the  usurpation  of 
Ailonijah  he  a]>] tears  again,  on  the  side  of  legitimate 
succession,  like  his  father,  1  Ki.  i.  li'. 

4.  JONATHAN  (  Heb.  ./<•/«>««'/(«;< |.     A  valiant  soldier, 
son  of  Shimeah,  brother  of  David,  famed  for  his  exploit 
in  killine-  a  yjaantic   Philistine  of  Oath,  who  "had  on 
every   hand   six   lingers,  and   on   every  foot  six  toes." 

L'Sil.    XXI.   L'll,    n,!l.;    1   Cll.    XX.  7. 

5.  JONATHAN    |lleb.    .Ji-/<oit(ttfi(nt\.       An    uncle    of 
David's,    "a    counsellor,    a    wise    man.    and   a   scribe,' 

l  Ch.  xxvii.  :!•_',  whom  critics  are  inclined  to  identify  with 
the  hero  last  mentioned  (4)  — so  (Jes.   (Thesaurus,  s.  v  }- 
:  the  word  <(/</</>  rendered    "uncle."  signifying  any  near 
relative  or  friend,  is.  v.  l 

6.  JONATHAN   |  licit.   ,l,li>,inill,<in\.     One  of  David's 
miulitv  men,  said    to  be  the   son  of  J  ashen,  -i  Sa.  xxiii.  ;r_', 
apparently  to  be   identified  with  the  hero  (Heb.  Jona 
than)    who  is  called   the  son  of  ShaLje.   the   Hararite. 
i  eli.  xi.  31,  from  which  it  appears  that  he  was  merely  a 
descendant  of  J  ashen  or  Hashed. 


the  children  of  Judah 

Mephihosheth.    'J  Sa.  ix.  C. 

;;i,  whom  Da\id.  not  for- 


JOPPA 


it  4  8 


JorrA 


7.  JoXATHAX.      A  person  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  son  | 
of  Jada.  of  wlimu  nothing  is  related,  i  Ch.  ii.  32,33. 

8.  JONATHAN.      A  brother  of  ()oh;uiau.   and  son   of 
K  a  reah.  Je.  xl.  ••:  ci.  UKi.  xxv.  -I'.',.     Of  Jonathan  little  is  .-a id. 
but  ,luli;ui;iii  was  a  man  of  some  note,  friend  of  Geda-  • 
liah  the  Jewish  governor,  left  by  tlio  king  of  Babylon, 
whose  untimely  fate  he  sought  to  avert  in  vain,  Je.  xl.  13; 
cf.  ch.  xli. 

9.  JONATHAN  [Ileb.  Jchvmitbu,/].     A  scribe,  several 

times    alluded    to    as    the    person    whose    house   was    the   ' 

dungeon  in  which  Jeremiah  was  confined,  Je. xxxvii.  i.j,2"; 

cl'.  oh.  xxxviii.  -<"'. 

10.  JONATHAN.     The  father  of    KU-d,  a  chief  who 
returned  with  Kzra  from  Babvlon,  K/v  viii.  t;. 

11.  JONATHAN.      Also  an  exile:  the  son  of  Asahel. 
one  of  the  commissioners  appointed  to  examine  into  the 
ease  of  the  men  who  had  taken  foreign  wives,  Ezv.  x.  i:>. 

12.  Several  Levites  bare  this  name;  two  are  called  ' 
Jonathan,  Ne.xii.il,  14,  and  a  third  Jehonathan,  Xe.  xii.i>; 
cf.  vcv. 35.  [A.  B.  D.] 

JOP'PA.     In   the    Hebrew    Sr    (Japho),    and    Nfe' 

T  T 

(J'/jJtuh)  ;    in   the    Greek   'IOTTTTT^S   (both   in   Sept.   and  ; 
N.  T.);  now  Jafa,  or  Jaffa,  or  Yafa.      It  is  supposed 
to  have  got  its  name  from  its  beauty  (^r,»,  to  be  beauti- 

TT 

ful,  or  to  shine  ;  and  so  the  name  may  be  from  the  mass 
of  sunshine  which  its  houses  exhibit),  like  the  Schon- 
bergs,  the  Bellevilles,  and  Formosas  of  more  recent 

times  (Jus.  xi.x.  -IC;  2  Ch.  ii.  1C;  Exr.  iii.  7;   Jonah  i.  3;   )  Esd.  v.  53;  j 
1  Mac.  x.  74;  xiv.  35;  xv.  2S,«c.;  Josh.  J.  \V.  ii.  IS,  Hi;    iii.  9,  3).       It  i 
is  not  to   be   confounded  with   Japhia.  in   the  tribe  of 
Zebulon.  Jos.  xix.  12,  near  Nazareth,  now  Yafo. 

It  is  one  of  the  oldest  cities  in  the  world,  and  ranks 
with  Hebron,  Zoan,  and  Damascus;  and  such  is  its 
repute  for  antiquity,  that  early  geographers  ascribe  to 
it  an  antediluvian  paternity,  and  regard  its  name  as 
derived  from  Japheth  (Cotovici  Itiner.  p.  130;  Cellar.  Not.  Orb. 
Ant.  vol.  ii.  p.  442).  Being  a  city  of  the  Philistines,  who 
were  a  Mizraimite  colony  of  Caphtorim,  GO.  x.  H;  De.  ii. 
2::;  i  ch.  i.  12;  Je.  xhii.  4;  Am.  ix.  7,  the  name  iiiav  be  Egyp 
tian,  not  Hebrew:  and  the  etymology  given  above  may 
require  to  be  superseded  by  another,  gathered  from  the 
hieroglyphics  of  Egypt.  Cc/Jim*.  its  earliest  king,  may 
have  been  a  representative  of  ancient  L'aphtor,  and  : 
Ovid's  ''Cepheia  arva'"  may  be  the  Philistiaii  sea-board, 
the  plain  of  Sharon.  Pit  inn/*,  brother  of  Cepheus. 
fabled  to  have  been  turned  into  stone  by  Perseus,  may 
have- left  his  name  to  Pha:nicta.  for  the  usual  derivation 
of  that  word  from  the  palm  is  untenable.  It  is  the 
"  local  habitation"  for  the  Ovidian  im  th  of  Andromeda 
and  the  sea-monster,  which  no  doubt  lias  some  founda 
tion  in  the  early  story  of  the  city,  though  whether 
grafted  on  Jonah's  miraculous  deliverance  is  question 
able. 

It  is  set  down  in  the  inheritance;  of  Dan,  who  there 
"remained  in  his  ships,''  Ju.  v.  17,  selfishly  imperilling 
the  nation's  weal  in  not  coming  to  the  help  of  Jehovah 
against  the  mighty.  To  this  Hiram  floated  down  from 
Tyre  the  fir- trees  of  Lebanon,  for  the  temple  of  Jerusa 
lem:  and  about  five  hundred  years  after,  /••rubbabel.  act 
ing  on  the  edict  of  Cyrus,  which  must  have  applied  to 
Phoenicia  as  well  as  Judea,  caused  the  cedar-trees  from 
the  same  mountains  to  be  brought.  '  •  They  gave  money 
also  unto  the  masons,  and  to  the  carpenters;  and  meat,  '• 
and  drink,  and  oil.  unto  them  of  Zidon,  and  to  them  of 
Tyre,  to  bring  cedar-trees  from  Lebanon  to  the  sea  of  : 
Joppa.  according  to  the  grant  that  they  had  of  Cyrus 


kinx;  of  Persia."  Kzr.  iii.  r.  Here  Jonah  embarked  in 
his  Tarshish-bound  vessel — the  (.'il Irian  Tarshish,  ac 
cording  to  Josephus.  Here  the'  Jewish  patriots,  in  the 
days  of  the  Maccabees,  waged  not  a  little  of  their  war- 
tare:  for  Modin,  the  place  of  the  Maceabean  nativity 
and  sepulchres,  was  not  far  off'  (l  Mac.  x.  75;  xi  0;  xii.  3,-,; 
xiii.  11;  xiv.n,  :H;  xv.  2S, 35;  2  Mac.  xiv.  21 ;  xii.  3,  7.  Here  Peter 
wrought  the  miracle  on  Tabitha;  here  he  tarried  many 
days  with  one  Simon  a  tanner,  whose  house  and  stone 
skin- vat.  on  the  shore,  tradition  still  kindly  points  out. 
Here  the  apostle  saw  the  heavenly  vision  which  told 
him  that  Jew  and  Gentile  Were  one  in  ( 'hrist,  Ac.  x.  i:,,  io; 
and  hero  he  received  the  summons  from  Cornelius. 

Karly  in  the  Christian  era  it  became  the  haunt  of 
robbers  and  pirates  (strabo,  Geog  x\i.  2, 2-0,  whose  marine 
depredations  provoked  the  Romans,  that  a  first  time 
under  Cestius.  and  a  second  under  Vespasian,  it  suf- 
t'<  red  destruction  (Jos.  J.  W.  iii.  0,3).  It  is  said  to  have 
been  early  the  seat  of  a  Christian  bishopric ;  and  it  ap 
pears  in  the  lists  of  "  sedes  suffraganeae "  along  with 
Lvdtla,  Ascalon.  and  Gaza,  <kc.  \Miraei  Xotitia  Patnardia- 
tuum,  ic.  p.  H2).  But  others  mention  it  as  attached  to  the 
Church  of  the  Sepulchre,  "suberat  priori  et  canonicis 

S.   Sepulchri  "   (Vitriaco.  Sedes  Apost.  in  Terra  Sancta,  ch.  Iviii.) 

it  continued  to  be  a  port,  but  did  not  rise  into  import 
ance  till  the  era  of  the  crusades,  when  it  became  the 
scene  of  many  a  conflict  (Bohadin'sVita  et  ResGestae  Saladini, 
ch.  cxx.  &c.);  and  for  more  than  half  a  century  it  was 
alternately  built  and  destroyed. 

The  Franks  were  at  last  expelled  from  Syria,  and 
•  loppasank  into  ruin  and  poverty,  though  still  a  port 
at  which  travellers  and  pilgrims  landed  for  Jerusalem. 
Here  we  find  De  Caumont  landing  in  1418  (Voyage 

Jj'Oultremer  en  Jherus-ilem,  Paris  ed.  p.  40),    and    De    Lamioy 

in  1422,  telling  us  that  Jaffa  is  entirely  in  a  state  of 
decay,  "tonte  desroquie,"  having  only  three  uninhabited 
vaults,  where  the  pilgrims  lodge,  on  their  way  to  the 

Holy  Sepulchre"  (Survey  of  Egypt  and  Syria,  p.  55  and  122,  Lon 
don  reprint,  1S20).  Herein  14*4  Felix  Fabri  came  with 
his  fellow-pilgrims,  in  their  Venetian  galley,  singing  as 
they  rushed  through  the  rock-gate  of  Andromeda — In 
Gottes  nahmen  f ah  rat  vir — "cum  gaudio  magno,  altis 
voeibus,"  the  roar  of  the  breakers  drowning  the  old 
melody  (Kvagat.  vol.  i.  p.  194).  The  description  which  this 
last  traveller  gives  us -of  the  port,  and  of  the  sufferings 
of  his  two  hundred  brethren,  thrust  by  "the  Sarracens" 
into  one  of  the  three  great  cellars  or  caves,  remnants  of 
ancient  Joppa,  for  nine  days,  amid  filth  and  damp,  and 
every  form  of  indignity,  is  very  graphic.  As  they  dis 
embarked,  the  shore  was  lined  with  ••Sarracens."  be 
tween  whom  they  were  marched  slowly  in  single  file, 
that  their  names  might  lie  taken  down.  Thrust  into 
these  horrid  cellars  (of  which  Breydenbach  and  Coto- 
vicus  have  given  a  drawing),  they  would  have  been 
suffocated  with  the  stench,  had  not  some  traders  got 
access  to  the  prisoners,  and  filled  the  place  with  sweet 
odours,  "unguentis  aromaticis  et  liquoribus  destillatis." 
Through  the  kindness  of  a  native.  Felix  himself  was 
brought  out  for  a  little,  and  shown  the  ruins  of  the  city, 
"magnas  ruinas."  and  two  towers  still  standing.  Walk 
ing  another  day  along  the  shore,  he  comes  to  a  fountain 
of  living  water — to  a  jutting  rock,  where  he  was  told 
Peter  used  to  sit  and  fish  ;  he  finds  on  the  shore  vast 
numbers  of  oyster- shells,  "  pulchrai  et  mirabiles."  But 
he  is  indignant  at  the  natives  for  carrying  off' a  flask  of 
Malvasy  wine,  which  one  of  the  pilgrims  had  hung  on 
the  wall;  and  annoyed  beyond  measure  at  the  grins  and 


JOPPA 


'J-t'J 


jokes  which  the  native  urchins  poured  in  upon  the  com-      still  ii 
pany.      He  almost  despairs  of   even  reaching  the  Holy 
City. 

The  description  which  Felix  Fabri  thus  gives  of 
Joppa  in  his  day  applies  to  a  long  period  both  before 
and  after  that.  The  harbour  was  wretched,  the  city 
in  ruins,  and  the  natives  bent  on  extorting  money  from 
the  pilgrims.  Two  centuries  after,  the  Franks  be^an 
to  be  better  treated  (Le  Emu,  Voyages,  ch.  xlv.h  and  the 
Armenian  convent,  in  which  they  were  accommodated. 
was  said  to  contain  four  or  five  thousand  people  But 


the  days  of  \\\-y  and  Sandys,  the  town  was  A 
run.  After  that  it  began  to  revive  ;  but  it  had  hardly 
risen  when  it  was  assailed.  It  was  greatly  damaged 
by  All  Viey  in  1771,  and  .Mohammed  Abudahab  in 
177''.  The  French  besieged  and  took  it  in  171*9.  It 
is  fortified,  as  may  be  supposed  from  the  preceding 
statements  — that  is,  after  oriental  fashion,  but  its 
battlements  are  ruinous.  Many  a  siege  has  it  stood — 
many  a  conflagration  has  it  experienced,  from  the  days 
of  the  Romans  to  those  of  the  French,  who  took  it.  and 
laid  all  its  gardens  waste.  i'.v  it.  Napoleon  entered 


I'r 


Syria:  here  he  poisoned  hi-  sick  on  h;-  retreat,  to  pre 
vent  their  falling  into  Turkish  hand.-  ;  here  he  m:)  sacred 
the  defenceless  inhabitants,  encamping  hard  by  the 
town,  .hulas  Maee.-i'Urns,  A  111  i.  lehu-.  !  I  •  n  "I.  (  'e-t  ins, 
Vespasian.  (  >mar,  Saladin.  l.'idiar.l.  ( Jodfr.  y.  Napoleon, 
have  all  in  th.-ir  turn  laid  siege  to  it.  IVrhaps  no  city 
save  .lerusalem  ha-  seen  so  many  foes,  anil  stood  so 
manv  a-saults.  \Vithiu  this  century  it  has  risen  con 
siderably,  bin  especially  within  the  last  thirty  years. 

Its  .jv.._:raphical  p.-itioii  is  hit.  N.  '.'>'!  '!' .  lon-_r.  F.  of 
Cr.  ,  nwieh.  :.>4"  47'  '!'"  (Vim  (1..  VeMe's  Memoir,  [•.  •;::  ;  <>•- 
tmniu's  I'ulcsthie.  p.  '>73,  •>:>;)  It  is  thoroughly  a  Inarii  iine 
town,  wa-hed  by  and  almost  overhanging  the  -ea,  like 
it-  southern  neighbour  A.-k.-lou.  and  iis  northern  neigh 
bour  Ciesarea ;  not  like  .-..me  others  on  the  ^reat  sea 
plain  of  1'hilistia.  such  as  (  ea/a,  Ashdod.  and  .lamnia. 
!••  moved  considerably  from  the  shore.  It  lies  about 
thirty  six  miles  north  west  from  Jerusalem,  and  Strabo 
affirms  that  from  Joppa  Jeru.-alein  was  visible  (c  ogr 
xvi.  2,  i-1.  This  has  been  aHirmed  to  be  impossible,  on 
account  of  intervenint;-  heights,  as  Josephus'  stateni.  nt 
of  the  sea  being  vi-ihle  fr..m  Mi-rod's  tower.  1'sephinus. 
has  been  declared  to  be  -,,.  As  this  is  a  ime-.ti.in  oi' 
facts,  not  of  conjecture,  nor  of  reasoning,  we  -hall  not 
attempt  to  decide  the  question  further  than  that,  as 
both  Jerusalem  and  Joppa  stand  high,  the  thing  is  not 
so  impossible  as  some  think,  especially  as  the  "slacks" 
or  depressions  of  the  hills,  at  particular  places,  often 
reveal  the  very  object  which  the  ran^v  as  a  whole  seems 
bent  on  shutting  out.  By  moving  a  few  yards  east  or 
west,  as  the  ease  may  be,  one  sees  an  object  which  he 
had  concluded  was  invisible,  by  reason  of  the  interpos 
ing  ridges.  More  than  once  we  had  occasion  to  notice 
this  in  the-  Fast:  as.  for  instance,  in  tin;  case  of  .Mount 
Sinai,  which  seems  alternately  to  be  visible  and  invis 
ible,  as  you  move  through  the  windings  of  Wady-Sheikh; 
or  in  the  case  of  the  Dead  Sea.  which  is  seen  or  con 


view,    according   as    \oti    may   happen    to 
-land  a  few  yards  north  or  south,  on  the  heights  around 


In    th 


tern. 

he   neighbourhood   of    Joppa   are   many   of   tht 
noted  place-    in    Scripture  story.      Tli"  >•'•"'"  »f   ^>" 
•ncireles  it.       hydda  or  l.od.  Ar  ix. 


ain  of  Sharon 

ncrces     .         ya  o  ,     c.  x. S,  now  l.udd:    Ono, 

c  vi.  -',  now  Anna:  Kkron.  Jn  i.  i\  now  Akir:  Beth- 
dagon,  now  lleit-dejan.  are  all  in  its  neighbourhood. 
I'.eiiii:  the  only  sea- port  on  the-  southern  coast  of  I'ales 
tine,  it  dn-w  int!u.-nee  round  it,  and  raised  up  towns: 
.-o  that,  though  the  notices  of  it  are  not  minute,  we 
never  lose  siirht  of  it  from  the  days  of  Jonah.  ]t 
figures  in  the  history  of  the  Maccabees,  and  Jo-.ej.hus 
refers  to  it,  frequently.  It  comes  before  us  in  the 
historv  of  1'eter:  in  the  wars  of  the  crusaders:  and  in 


the  it 


tiiieraries  of  pil-rims  and  travellers  of  all  ages  to 
the  jireseiit  day.  The  havens  along  the  I'ale-tine  coast 
are  I'.eirut.  Maifa.  and  Jaffa:  at  these  the  French  and 
Russian  steamers  touch  week  after  week,  bringing  to 
;lie  Mi  dit.-rr;.nean  and  .Ivjean  something1  of  their 
ancient  traffic  and  importance.  These  harbours  are  poor 
and  unsafe  Jaii'a  the  poorest  and  most  perilous;  yet 
-oine  place  of  debarkation  and  embarkation  was  need- 
fid,  and  on  the  whole  Jaffa  was  the  best. 

[n  front  of  the  harbour  the  rocks  rise,  over  which 
the  north  west  wind  dashes  the  waves  in  fury;  the 
rocks  on  which  Andromeda  was  fabled  to  have  been 
chained,  and  where-  according  to  Josephus  the  frag 
ments  of  the  iron  links  remain.  They  are  gloomy  and 
inhospitable.  Many  a  brave  vessel  has  been  broken 
there.  They  might  indeed  become  a  protection,  not  a 
peril:  and  at  some  cost  might  be  a  natural  breakwater 
to  the  harbour.  But  with  only  a  small  opening  through 
which  vi'ii  shudder  to  pass,  borne  upon  some  shoreward 
breaker,  they  only  create  danger:  and  indeed  with  a 
sea  on  or  a  north  gale  blowing,  they  render  landing 
impossible;  so  that,  the  steamer,  after  lying  off  for  half 


,10PPA 


a.  day.  passes  on  to  Alexandria  or  Haifa,  without  touch 
ino-  at  . I  alia.  Even  with  no  sea  on,  it  tries  one's  nerves 
to  be  rowed  through  the  narrow  rock-gate,  upon  the 
Mediterranean  swell:  for  the  slightest  c  irelessness  or 
unskilfulness  on  the  part  «f  your  Arab  seamen  mav 
dash  you  on  the  rocks. 

Joppa  is  built  on  an  eminence  which  slopes  backward 
from  the  sea.  and  with  its  ca-tle  i-  reckoned  I'.'H  feet 
high.  ( >n  it  the  houses  are  so  placed  as  to  seem  tip 
rise  up,  tier  upon  tier,  irregular,  but  still  beautiful, 
especially  when  approached  from  the  sea  at  sunset. 
The  interior  is  as  di.-pie.-i^no' as  the  exterior  is  pleasing, 
though  it  is  not  worse  than  the  usual  rim  of  oriental 
towns.  Perhaps  its  steep  streets,  which,  like  those  of 
\alelta.  you  ascend  by  stairs,  are  an  advantage,  as 
helping  to  carry  off  its  impurities. 

Its  environs  are  exquisite:  and  the  endless  Droves  of 
olive,  orange,  lemon,  citron,  mulberry,  tig,  and  palm. 
delight  the  traveller  with  their  shade  and  their  fra 
grance'.  Jaffa  oranges  are  the  finest  specimens  of  that 
kind  of  fruit  we  ever  saw;  and  Jaffa  water-melons 
equal,  if  they  do  not  surpass,  those  of  St.  I 'aid's  Bay. 
Its  hedges  of  cactus  or  prickly  pear,  some  fifteen  feet 
high,  are  remarkable,  though  not  perhaps  beautiful, 
except  when  in  flower.  It  is  the  most  formidable  of 
all  inclosures,  and  seems  preferred  to  any  other,  not 
here  only,  but  elsewhere  throughout  Palestine.  Each 
garden  has  here,  as  in  Egypt,  its  well,  its  reservoir, 
and  its  wheel  -  the  last  worked  by  a  nude  or  ox,  and 
bringing  up  water  for  so  manv  hours 
each  day,  to  fill  the  little  trenches 
and  irrigate  the  garden.1 

Its  population  is  variouslv 
reckoned.  lluetschi  says  oOiiti  : 
Robinson,  7000;  Lynch,  13,00(1; 
Dr.  Thomson,  1.3,000.  We  should 
be  inclined  to  the  second  of  these 
estimates,  were  it  not  that  Dr. 
Thomson's  authority  is  great.  Of 
these  about  a  half  are  ''Christians  ;" 
that  is.  Greeks.  Latins.  Armenians. 
Maronites,  Greek  Catholics.  Of 
these  the  Greeks  are  the  most  nume 
rous.  The  -Moslems  amount  per 
haps  to  4000  ;  the  Jews  are  verv 
few:  though  not  perhaps  so  few  as 
in  the  i  lays  of  Benjamin  of  Tndela, 
who  only  found  one  Jew,  a  dyer, 
here.  Jt  lias  three  convents  — 
Greek,  Latin,  and  Armenian;  and 
three  or  four  mosques.  But  cer 
tainly  Joppa  has  within  the  last 
twenty  or  thirty  years  made  won 
derful  advances  —  commerce  as  well  as  population 
increasing:  as  in  all  the  towns  of  the  Syrian  coast — 
Haifa,  Acre,  Tyre,  Sidon.  and  Beyrut.  Commerce  is 
returning  to  Syria  as  well  as  to  Egypt.  The  corn 
fields  of  Philistia  and  the  pastures  of  Sharon  may  ere 
long  become  of  importance  to  Europe,  and  the  East 
again  become  the  granary  of  the  West.  Its  present 


exports  are  a  few  native  productions,  such  as  soap; 
and  these  chiefly  to  Kgypt.  Jt£  imports  are  from  the 
manufactories  of  England.  Jt  is  likely  to  rise — 
especially  if  modern  skill  and  capita]  will  o-ive  it  a 
harbour  —  for  which  it  possesses  first-rate  natural 
capacity  and  materials—  and  construct  a  railway  be 
tween  it  and  Jerusalem,  which  competent  engineers 
who  have  surveyed  th..-  ground  have  pronounced  quid; 
practicable. 

l-loseplm- ;  Jerome;  HewMppus  :  Kabri  ;  Cotovinw;  Hitt.tr. 
J!auim>r:  Winer;  Buckingham ;  Van  de  \Vlde;  Stanley;— tin.--.; 
will  supph  ample  informal] |  fn.  n.  | 

JO'RAM.  contracted  form  of  .1  KHOKAM.  which  see. 
JORDAN.  RIVER  OF.  almost  always  in  Hebrew 
\\ith  the  article,  p-v-.  lit  Jarden,  the  descender,  is  now 

called  El  l.'rdan  or  Esli  Sheryah,  or  the  watering-place. 
The  oldir  derivation  from  ^>,  Jor,  and  «•?.  dan,  is  now 

generally  abandoned.  It  has  three  sources.  Of  these 
the  northermost,  and  geographically  speaking  the  most 
important,  occupies  but  a  small  share  of  the  attention 
either  of  history  or  of  modern  travellers.  ]t  is  situated 
near  llasheiya.  between  Hermon  and  Lebanon,  at:d  is 
thus  described  by  Van  de  Velde  (vol.  i.  u-'.O,  "  When 
you  have  descended  the  wild  ravine  of  Hasboiya,  for  a 
road  I  cannot  call  it.  you  turn  to  the  right,  crossing  a 
grassy  plain  where  the  olive-trees  offer  at  all  times  a 
most  refreshing  shade,  you  then  come  by  a  most  ro 
mantic  way  along  the  river  to  the  first  bridge  built  over 


"Water  to  any  amount  can  bo  procured  in  every  garden. 
The  entire  plain  seems  to  cover  a  river  of  vast  breadth,  per 
colating  through  the  land  ea  route  for  the  sea.  A  thousand 
Persian  wheels,  working  niu'ht  and  day.  product'  no  sensible 
diminution;  and  this  inexhaustible  source  of  wealth  underlies 
the  whole  territory  of  the  Philistii.es.  down  to  Gaza  at  least, 
and  probably  much  farther  south."— Thomson's  Land  and  JJoof.. 
vol.  ii.  p.  27 j. 


Van  de  Velde,  Le  Pays  d'israel. 


it.  A  few  yards  above  is  the  basin  or  source,  where 
the  water  comes  bubbling  up  from  under  steep  project 
ing  rocks.  It  is  of  a  transparent  dark  colour,  and  ap 
pears  to  be  of  immense  depth."  The  stream  from  this 
the  highest  permanent  source  is  called  the  Hasbany. 
The  source  at  Banias  (Cajsarea  Philippi)  is  best  known 
of  the  three,  and  is  described  by  Josephus  (Ant.  xv.  10,0), 
and  Stanley  (Syria  and  Pal.  p.  39o).  At  the  foot  of  a  high 
cliff  there  is  a  large  pool  fed  by  numerous  gushing 
streamlets,  which  rise  near  the  entrance  of  a  deep 
cavern,  now  half  filled  with  rubbish.  Out  of  this  pool 
the  Jordan  flows,  already  a  fair-sized  stream.  Here 
Herod  erected  a  temple  in  honour  of  Augustus,  and 
Philip  his  sun  the  capital  of  his  tetrarchy.  Here  also, 


JO.SEDEC  !.» 

compared  to  the  long  range  of  mountains  which  inclose 
the  Ghor;  and  it  is  therefore  only  by  comparison  that 
this  part  of  the  Ghor  is  entitled  to  be  called  a  valley." 
Lower  down,  near  Jisr  Mcjamia.  he  writes  (p.  in.'). 
"  The  Ghor  or  valley  now  began  to  bear  a  much  better 
and  more  fertile  aspect.  It  appears  to  be  composed  of 
two  different  platforms— the  upper  one  on  either  side 
projects  from  the  foot  of  the  hills  which  form  the  great 


JOSEPH 

not  certainly  know,  but  might  well  pray  and  hope,  that 
God  would  grant  to  her  a  second  son. 

His  father  Jacob  was  about  ninety- one  years  of  age 
when  Joseph  was  born,  compare  ch.  xli.  40,  -17;  xlv.  n;  xJvii.  0. 
This  in  part  accounts  for  the  endearing  expression  which 
calls  him  "the  son  of  Jacob's  old  age,"  eh.  xxxvii.  3.  But 
it  does  not  seem  to  account  for  it  altogether.  He  had 
another  son.  Benjamin,  born  to  him  at  a  still  late 


valley,  and  is  tolerably  level,  but  barren  and  unculti-  period  of  life.  Not  only,  however,  was  Joseph  a  son  of 
vated.  It  then  falls  away  in  the  form  of  rounded  sand  his  old  age.  he  was  also  the  stay  and  comfort  of  his  old 
hills,  or  whitish  perpendicular  dirt's,  varying  from  lf.0  ;  age  in  a  manner  which  none  of  the  older  sons  were,  and 
to  2uu  feet  in  height,  to  the  lower  plain,  which  should  which  Benjamin  could  not  at  this  time  be,  on  account 
more  properly  be  called  the  valley  of  the  Jordan.  The  of  his  extreme  youth.  But  Joseph,  at  the  age  of  seven- 
river  here  and  there  washes  the  foot  of  the  dirt's  which 
inclose  this  smaller  valley,  but  generally  it  wind,-  in 

the  most  tortuous  manner  between  them About 

this  part  of   the  Jordan   the   lower   plain   might  he  per 
haps  one  and  a  half  or  two  miles   broad;   aiu; 
the  most  rank  and   luxuriant  vegetation,  lik< 
that   in  a   few  .-pots 

banks.  Some  of  the  bn-h.  .-  and  terns  are  very  beauti 
ful,  particularly  a  feathery-It  av  .  d  tree  (something  like 
tin  cedar  oi  Lebanon),  of  which  there  i-  a  great  quan 
tity." 

Again,  above  Jericho  hi- writes  (ji  i_  i,  "The  lower 
v.dl'-y  is  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  I  road,  an  1 
wilhin  these  bounds  the  river  wind-  extivin, -1 
dirt's  on  either  side  have  -till  the  same  whitisl 
appearance,  and  fall  away  abruptly  from  the  upper 
land:  which  both  to  the  uast  and  west  oi'  the  river,  for 
the  la-t  thirty  miles  of  it-  course,  \i'd<  a  barren  and 
desolate  appearance,  and  i-  but  liltl--  cultivate  d.  Near 
Jericho  the  formation  of  the'  ground  bee-ome-  1-  --  n-gu- 
lar:  the'  we-ste.rn  mountain.-  in  one  op  (wo  j.lae,  -  jul 
out  considerably  into  tin-  Ghor;  the  dills  less  exactly 
mark  the  bouiul.-  of  the  lower  plain;  and  ju-i  abrea  t 
of  Jericho,  near  the-  bathing  ]elac.  .  the  descent  i'mm 
the  higher  ground  is  by  a  number  e  if  rounded  -and  hills." 

The  Jordan  valley"  fell  to  the  lot  of  seVe  ral  ,  4  the 
tribes.  Its  eastern  terraces  were  pastured  b\  the-Hoek- 
•  'f  Gael  mid  lu  ubeii :  and  its  western  plains  were  occu 
pied  bv  l--ae-liar.  Jus.  \ix  _-,  Manassi-h,  J,<s.  xvii.  :i,  and 
Benjamin.  Jus  xviii.  1>.  Jts  hi>torv  is  (hat  of  the  ri\er 
who-e  name  it  bears:  and  ino-t  of  the-  ivmarkabl-- 
events  which  leiik  place  in  it  aiv  referred  to  in  the 
pivrrdin:;'  article-,  ami  in  that  em  Jericho,  [•  .  T.  M  j 

JOS'EDEC.     >M.  JEHOZADAK. 

JO'SEPH  [eithe-r  n  taker  aicay,  viz.  e,f  reproach,  or 
/«•  will  ///<vi<ev<,  m/i/\.  1.  Tiieel.le'st  of  the-  two  sons  of 
Jacob  by  Rachel.  His  niothe-r  had  be-e  n  marrieel  for  a 
lejng  time-  without  be-aring  children — a  circumstance 
which  had  most  deeply  grieveel  her,  lie  xxx  i.  And  em 
the  birth  of  her  first-born  child,  she 


teen,  wa.s  the  great  comfeirt  of  his  father,  and  gave 
promise  even  then  of  that  sincere,  pious,  and  prudent 
disposition,  \\hich  marked  his  career  through  life. 

1'Yir  these-  reasons  Joseph  became,  at  a  comparatively 
early  peried.  the  chief  object  of  endearment  to  his  aged 
father,  and  the  more  so.  probably  after  the  death  of  the 

can  anything  approach  it-  bdeivcd  L'ache-1,  ch.  xxxv  in.  Je-scpli's  moral  cemrage 
and  rectitude  appear  strongh  markeel  from  the  opening 
years  of  lil<  maiiheeod.  Living  chiciK  with  his  half- 
broth,  -rs,  the-  sons  of  liilliah  and  /ilpah,  all  of  them 
oleier  than  him.-. 'If.  lie  resoluteh  ivfnse-d.  theui^h  alone. 
to  join  in  the  evil  practice.--  in  which  they  seem  all  to 
have-  inelid.^eel.  ,-uiel  had  even  the  courage — arising  pro 
bably  from  a  sense  <>f  duty — to  te,-ll  his  father  of  their 
evil  practices,  ch  xxxvii.  2.  As  an  especial  mark  of  his 
love  and  favour.  Jacob  made  for  his  son  a  garment, 
which  the  authorized  version,  following  some  ancient 
authorities,  renders  "a  coat  <;/  nniiii/  caluurx."  The 
Hebrew  '2'SS.  />"•••••«''«  >.  however,  from  its  etymology. 

si-ems  ratheT  tei  de-noV  a  long  flowing  robe,  reaching 
down  to  the  ankles,  and  so  the  best  authorities  consider 
it  (see  Ousenieis,  t'uurst).  The-  word  only  occurs  here,  and 
iii  J  Sa.  \iii.  1  -.  il'.  wheTe  we-  are  fold  that  it  was  such 
a  garment  a.-  the  royal  virgin-  of  the-  house1  of  David 
weTe-  accustomed  to  wear,  w  In-ne'e1  we  may  infer  it  to 
have  lie-e-n  a  bailee1  at  oiie-e  of  modesty  and  of  dignity. 
\\  e-  take  it  (he'ii  iii  the  case  of  Jos,  ph  to  me-an  a  long 
flowing  robe,  indicative'  of  tin1  mode  sty  of  hi-  character, 
and  of  tin-  elevation  which,  from  his  strength  of  purpose 
and  other  noble  qualities,  his  father  thought  him  des 
tined  to  attain  anionu  his  hivthren.  The  peculiarly 
strong  love  and  apparent  partiality  evinci'il  in  the  be- 
ste>wal  of  such  a  garment,  drew  forth  the  hatred  of 
Jose-ph's  brothers  against  him;  nor  was  it  a,  silent  hatred, 
but  a  hatred  which  perpetually  elisplayi-d  itself  in  con- 
tunie-lv  and  reproach,  eh. xxxvii. 4,  But  another  and  still 
higher  distinction  now  added  to  their  hatred.  In 
heaven-sent  dreams  God  neiw  signifies  to  Joseph  his 


•  him  a  name  future  pre-eminence'.  The  distinction  which  had  been 
indicative  at  once  of  her  gratitude  for  the  removal  of,  conferred  upon  him  by  his  earthly  father  is  ratified  by 
tin-  reproach  which  was  attached  to  childless  women  in  his  Father  in  heaven,  and  pointed  to  a  greatness  such 
Israel,  and  e,f  her  earnest  hope:  that  the  birth  of  at  least  ^  •l:«'l>l>  h:l(1  never  dreamed  of  for  him.  and  such  as 
add  still  further  te>  her  happiness 


another  son  woitle 

and  respect,  eh  xxx.  •j;;,-.'-i.     This  double-  etymology  of  the' 

name  (from  PCX.  to  tah  «»v///.  ami   from  pjn»,  to  ai/il), 

is  plainly  indicated  in  the-  verses  just  referred  to.      Our 
authorized  version,  in  ver.  '24,  "the  Lord  xluill  add  to 


>"deej>  when  it  was  first  mentioned,  he  did  not  desire. 

'!'"<-'  «rst  of  his  dreams  indicated  that  he  was  to  be  at  a 

flto  tinie  ai1"r''  a»(1  ruluf  °™  a11  ^  tetim*;  the 
second,  that  his  fatlier  and  his  mother,  to  whom  by 
,-j^ht  of  birth  he  was  himself  subject,  should,  with  his 
brethren,  come  and  bow  down  themselves  to  him  to 


me  another  son,"  would   probably  be  better  rendered  1  the  earth,  eh.  xxxvii.  in. 

bv  putting  it  in  the  fe>rm  of  a  lieipefnl  prayer,  "may!       Joseph  is  sometimes  charged  with   vaingWiousness 

the  Lord  aeld  to  me  another  seen."     This  is  in  perfect 

agreement  with  the  usage  of  the  Hebrew,  ami  is  more 


suitable 

Vol..   I. 


circumstances    of    Rachel,   win 


mid 


for  relating  the  dreams  thus  indicative  of  his  future 
greatness.  It  is  possible  of  course  that  he  may  have 
felt  unduly  elated,  but  nothing  of  this  appears  in  the 

120 


JOSEPH 


\)~>  I 


JOSEPH 


narrative:  nor  (loos  his  conduct  expose  him  at  all  to 
tin  dun-go.  (iod  did  not  give  him  a-  revelation  to  hide 
hut  to  make  known,  and  it  would  only  have  argm  d 
false  modesty  and  a  disregard  of  the  divine  favour,  if 
he  had  kept  the  supernatural  intimations  hidden  within 
his  own  hosom.  What  (!od  had  made  known  to  him 
it  was  his  duty  to  make  known  to  those  whom  the  in 
formation  concerned,  and  this  he  accordingly  did.  His 
father  was  at  first  at  least,  disposed  to  view  .lose])] i'.- 
indication  with  anger,  as  subversive  of  the  submission 
which  a  sou  ought  to  render  to  his  parents;  but  after 
wards  lie  came  to  a  wiser  mind,  and  "observed  the  say 
ing."  as  being  perhaps,  and  very  probably.  from  (iod,  and 
therefore  not  to  be  resisted.  The  feelings  of  his  brothers 
towards  him  would  seem  to  have  been  of  a  mixed  and 
varied  kind.  There  was  great  anger  at  what  thev  chose 
to  regard  as  the  arrogance  of  a  younger  brother:  tin/re 
was  envy  at,  a  distinction  which,  it  sometimes  occurred 
to  them,  might  be  in  store  for  their  brother:  and  there 
was  also  unbelief  in  the  truth  of  the  claims  which, 
through  his  dreams,  he  made  to  future  pre-eminence, 
ch.  xxxvii.  \  11,  in.  There  may  appear  to  lie  contrariety 
between  some  of  these  feelings,  but  it  is  a  contrariety 
which  is  very  often  met  with  in  human  nature,  and 
which  need  not  therefore  surprise  us. 

Joseph's  ready  obedience  to  his  father's  wishes,  even 
when  the  execution  of  them  might  be  personally  dis 
agreeable  to  himself,  appears  as  the  narrative  proceeds. 
When  Jacob  proposed  to  send  him  to  his  brethren  to 
Shechem,  to  inquire  after  their  welfare  and  that  of  the 
flocks,  there  is  no  reluctance  displayed,  but  the  ready 
answer  is.  "  Here  am  I,"  oh.  xxxvii.  i::.  Joseph's  happi 
ness  and  peace  were  in  his  father's  house,  while  in 
mixing  with  his  brethren  he  had  nothing  to  expect  but 
reproaches  and  contumely,  if  not  worse;  but  he  at  once 
and  unhesitatingly  proceeds  on  the  disagreeable  mission. 
Its  object  was  not  only  to  see  how  his  brothers  were. 
but  also  how  the  flock,  of  which  they  were  in  charge, 
was.  and  to  report  on  both  matters,  vev  n.  This  mission 
it  was  which  led  directly  to  all  the  strange  events  that 
marked  the  future  life  of  Joseph.  It  put  him  within 
the  power  of  his  brethren,  and  led  to  his  trials,  his  exal 
tation,  and  to  his  consequent  capacity  to  benefit  those 
who  had  injured  him.  After  some  trouble  in  looking 
for  his  brethren,  for  they  had  wandered  in  search  of 
fresh  pastures  from  Shechem,  ho  finds  them  at  last  in 
Dothan,  vev.  ir.  Xo  sooner  is  the  opportunity  afforded 
them  than  they  resolve  to  take  it.  Even  before  he 
came  up  to  them,  while  he  was  yet  a  distance,  they 
resolved  to  kill  him.  And  their  principal  reason  for 
doing  so  is  told  us.  ver.  20.  It  was  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  putting  an  end  for  ever  to  that  future  pre 
eminence  which  his  dreams  foretold.  "  We  will  see." 
they  said,  "what  will  become  of  his  dreams."  These 
dreams  were  their  grand  cause  of  hatred  and  envy,  and 
they  determined  at  any  risk,  and  at  all  cost,  to  defeat 
their  signification.  Various  providential  circumstances. 
however,  alter  their  method  of  injuring  their  brother, 
and  their  final  treatment  of  him.  intended  by  them  to 
destroy  all  his  hopes,  while  at  the  same  time  it  relieved 
them  of  the  guilt  of  shedding  his  blood,  led  to  the  very 
supremacy  against  which  they  were  vainly  striving. 
Reuben  first  persuades  them  not  to  kill  him.  but  to 
cast  him  into  a  pit.  which  they  do;  while  he  goes  awav. 
intending  after  they  had  left  the  place  to  return,  take 
up  Joseph,  and  restore  him  to  his  father  unhurt.  But 
neither  is  Reuben's  plan,  however  well  meant,  to  suc 


ceed.  While  he  is  absent,  a  company  of  Ishmaelites, 
or.  as  they  are  also  called,  Mid^anite  merchants,  came 
from  (iilead,  with  their  camels,  the  ships  of  the  desert, 
bearing  down  to  the  great  centre  of  traffic,  Egypt, 
spicery,  and  balm,  and  myrrh.  At  once:  a  new  thought 
occurs  to  one  of  the  brothers.  Judah.  He  proposes  a 
plan  which  is  to  relieve  them  of  blood-guiltiness,  and 
throw  upon  those  strange  merchants  the  onus  of  rem ox- 
ing  Joseph  for  ever  from  their  sight,  and  from  his  own 
hopes  of  future  -reatness  :  "  let  us  >.•!!  him  to  the  Ish- 
;  maelites,"  he  says,  "and  let  not  our  hand  be  upon 
him.'  This  proposal  was  accepted;  for  twenty  pieces 
of  silver  Joseph  is  sold  as  a  slave,  carried  off  into  Egypt. 
j  and  when  Reuben  returned  to  the  pit,  he  found  that  lie 
I  was  gone,  and  that  his  plan  of  deliverance  had  whollv 
f  ailed. 

Joseph's  anguish  of  mind  at  his  separation  from  his 
father  i>  not  told  us  in  the  direct  narrative.  It  appears 
ineid>  utally,  however,  at  a  later  period,  from  a  conver 
sation  that  occurred  among  his  brethren  in  Egypt:  ''we 
are  verily  guilty  concerning  our  In-other."  they  said  one 
to  another,  "in  that  we  saw  the  anguish  of  his  soul, 
when  ho  besought  us,  and  we  would  not  hear,"  oh.  xlii  -21. 
His  being  sold  into  slavery  into  a  strange  land  wounded 
the  best,  and  strongest  feelings  of  his  heart.  It  was 
separation  from  his  father  -from  all  the  love  which  that 
father  had  from  infancy  shown  to  him — separation  from 
the  home  with  which  all  his  feelings  were  closely  bound 
up.  \or  were  his  feelings  in  this  respect  stronger  than 
his  father's  were  at  losing  him.  When  his  brethren 
came  back  to  the  old  man  with  their  artful  and  cruel 
tale,  showed  him  Joseph's  coat  stained  with  blood, 
which  they  insinuated  was  his.  and  persuaded  him  of 
his  violent  death,  his  sorrow  was  a  sorrow  that  refused 
to  lie  comforted.  All  his  sons  and  all  his  daughters 
sought  to  comfort  him,  but  they  could  not  do  so.  His 
thoughts  were  all  with  the  son  of  his  heart,  his  best 
loved  son,  who.  in  obeying  his  command,  had  been  lost 
to  him.  and  lie  said,  in  reply  to  all  the  motives  of  com 
fort  that  were  urged,  ''I  will  go  into  the  grave  for  my 
son  mourning:  thus  his  father  \\ept  for  him." 

The  price  at  which  Joseph  was  sold  to  the  merchants, 
viz.  twenty  pieces  of  silver,  appears  to  have  been  the 
sum  at  which  a  slave  was  valued  at  that  time  and  sub 
sequently.  We  find  from  he.  xxvii.  5,  that  such  was 
the  estimated  value  then  of  a  male  from  five  years  old 
to  twenty,  and  we  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
Joseph  had  not  a,t  this  time  reached  his  twentieth  year. 
Tf  he  had  arrived  at  that  time  of  life  his  estimated  value 
would  have  been  fifty  shekels  of  silver.  Lc.  xxvii. :;.  Of 
course  the  sum  for  which  he  was  sold  in  Egypt  to  Poti- 
phar  was  considerably  over  twenty  pieces  of  silver,  as 
the  only  object  of  the  merchants  in  buying  him  was  to 
make  a  profit  by  his  sale. 

When  Joseph  arrived  in  Egypt  he  was  sold  by  the 
Ishmaelites  to  one  of  Pharaoh's  officers,  called  Potiphar. 
This  man  occupied  a  very  important  office  in  the  court 
of  Egypt.  He  is  first  designated  "an  officer  of  Pha 
raoh,''  Go.  xxxix.  i — the  word  for  officer,  o>iD  (saris),  being 

*  T 

that  which  is  elsewhere  commonly  used  for  eunuch. 
although  from  Potiphar  being  a  married  man.  eunuch, 
in  the  strict  sense,  cannot  possibly  be  meant;  and  chief 
officer,  or  court  attendant,  must  be  understood:  he  is 
also  ca'led  "captain  of  the  guard."  more  properly  of 
the  executioners  (D»nSC3>  talmltiiii} — the  trusty  head  of 

•  T   ~ 

the  military  force,   who  had   the  charge  of   executing 


.JOSEPH 


JOSEPH 


capital    punishment    on    offenders.         But    see    under 

POTIPHAR). 

Wherever  Josepli  was,  he  seems  to  have  applied  him 
self  diligently  and  faithfully,  and  without  useless  repin 
ing,  to  tile  duties  of  his  post.  He  did  so  in  the  house 
of  Potiphar.  and  Cod  prospered  his  efforts  to  such  a 
degree  as  to  attract  towards  him  in  an  especial  manner 
the  attention  of  his  master.  Potiphar,  after  due  and 
careful  consideration  of  Joseph's  conduct  for  ;;  con 
siderable  time,  i-!i.  xxxix. :;,  saw  that  lie  wa-  a  man  who 
might  well  he  trusted  in  a  higher  office ,  and  accordingly 
he  made  him  overseer  over  his  house,  and  all  that  he 
had  he  put  into  his  hand.  His  confidence  in  hi-  in 
tegrity  and  his  capacity  was  unlioimded.  From  the 
time  he  made  him  overseer,  so  thoroughly  did  he  rely 
upon  him  in  lioth  the*"  qualifications,  that  he  ceased  to 
exercise  any  personal  supervision  ovtr  his  pro  pert  v  or 
domestic  affairs,  and  ^ave  himself  up  wholly  to  other 
business.  His  fields,  and  gardens,  and  cattle,  and 
fisheries,  and  servants,  all  were  placed  under  the  con 
trol  of  Joseph:  and  he  truly  and  ably  fulfilled  his  trust, 
and.  through  Cod's  Messing,  everything  prospered  in 
his  hands.  He  laboured  as  a  steuard  with  the  same 
Z'-al,  fidelity,  and  discretion,  that  he  would  have  done 
as  though  all  had  been  his  own  propertv:  and  in  doin^ 
so  he  probably  incurred  the  resentment  of  some  at  least 
of  tho.-e  under  his  charge,  as  dishonesty  was  one  of  the 
chief  failings  of  Egyptian  servants. 

In  this  state  of  comparative  prosperity  the  sorest 
trial  of  Joseph's  obedience  to  Cod  was  successfully 
endured.  It  is  harder  to  bear  prosperity  than  adver 
sity:  but  Joseph,  through  hi-  fear  of  Cod  and  the  divine 
U'race.  was  able  to  In-art  lie  temptations  of  prosperity 
as.  he  had  borne  those  of  adversity.  He  was  now  in  a 
situation  of  power,  in  all  the  vigour  and  beaut  v  of  early 
manhood,  as  eminently  endowed  with  the  Braces  of 
person  as  he  was  of  mind,  uh.  xxxix.  i;.  i-'emale  profli 
gacy  would  appear,  from  ancient  written  accounts,  and 
from  the  evidence  of  the  Egyptian  monuments,  to  have 
been  fearfully  common.  In  perfect  airreeinent  with 
this  we  find  the  conduct  of  Potiphar  s  wife.  Induced 
by  Joseph's  beauty,  this  shameless  woman  openly  and 
unblushiiiuly.  and  with  repeated  importunity,  solicits 
him  to  sin.  In  such  a  situation  most  would  have  fallen, 
but  Joseph  held  fast  to  his  integrity.  His  reasons  were 
twofold.  The  first  was  the  gratitude-  he  felt  towards  a 
confiding  master:  the  second,  and  chief,  was  his  reve 
rential  fear  of  that  Cod  \\lio  saw  all  secret  things,  and 
who  regarded  adultery  as  a  terrible  sin.  ,-h.  xxxix.  -,  n. 
And  in  guarding  against  this  sin  he  used  the  only  means 
by  which  he  could  hope  to  succeed.  He  would  not 
remain  in  the  situation  of  temptation,  tearful  lest  he 
should  be  overcome;  "  he  hearkened  not  unto  her  to  lie 
by  her.  or  t<>  In  ir'ith  /«/-.'  He  hated  the  sin,  and  he 
shunned  the  society  that  would  necessarily  lead  to  it. 
And  so  he  was  able  to  endure  the  solicitations  of  un 
lawful  pleasure  when  every  circumstance  would  induce 
to  it. 

The  unholy  love  of  Potiphar's  wife  was  by  Joseph's 
conduct  turned  into  the  bitterest  hatred.  The  garment 
which  he  had  left  in  her  hands,  when  escaping  from  her 
presence,  is  used  by  her  as  an  evidence  of  his  guilt.  She 
first  summons  the  men  of  her  house,  and  with  this  in  her 
hands  she  rouses  up  their  strong  Egyptian  prejudices 
against  a  foreigner,  and  probably  with  ease  succeeds  in 
persuading  them  of  Joseph's  guilt,  eh.  xxxix.  it.  The 
belief  of  the  household  would  have  weight  with  their 


master.  She  then  awaits  her  husband's  return,  and 
the  same  artful  tale  succeeds  with  him.  Joseph  doubt 
less  denied  the  crime,  but  he  was  not  listened  to. 
I  Potiphar  throws  him  into  the  prison  over  which  he  had 
personal  control,  with  what  ultimate  views  we  are  not 

i    told. 

The  narrative  in  Cenesis  tells  us  nothing  of  Joseph's 
!  treatment  when  lie  was  first  cast  into  prison.  From 
IV.  cv.  IS.  however,  we  learn  that  it  was  severe.  We 
will  use  the  translation  in  the  English  P>ook  of  Common 
J 'raver,  as  more  agreeable  to  the  Hebrew  than  the 
authorized  version:  it  runs  thus:  "whose  feet  they  hurt 
in  the  stocks;  the  iron  entered  into  his  soul/'  This 
verse  certainly  intimates  that  Joseph's  treatment  in  the 
beginning  of  his  imprisonment  was  severe;  nor  can  we 
suppose  it  to  have  been  otherwise  in  a  prison  over 
which  Potiphar  had  direct  control,  and  in  the  first  burst 
of  his  resentment  for  a  great  supposed  wrong.  The 
second  clause  of  the  verse  seems  to  us  to  intimate  the 
length  of  the  imprisonment,  which  was  so  loiiy  con 
tinued  that  the  iron  entered  into  the  prisoner's  soul,  as 
the  stocks  had  hurt  his  feet.  And  there  are  other  cir 
cumstances  which  lead  to  the  opinion  that  his  imprison 
ment  was  of  very  Ion-'  continuance.  At  the  time  when 
the  chief  butler  and  baker  of  Pharaoh  were  put  into 
prison,  uh.xl  :>.-!,  there  would  appear  to  have  been  a  new 
eaptain  of  the  guard  in  the  place  of  Potiphar.  He  is 
no  longer  called  Potiphar.  while  his  conduct  in  reposing 
confidence  in  Joseph  is  (mite  inconsistent  with  the  sup 
position.  If  he  thought  him  innocent,  he  would  have- 
brought  him  out  of  prison:  if  he  still  thought  him  guilty, 
he  would  have  shown  him  no  mark  of  trust.  Very 
probably  Potiphar  lost  his  post  ere  the  "keeper  of  the 
prison"  would  have  shown  so  high  a  mark  of  favour  to 
Joseph  as  to  commit  to  his  care  all  the  prisoners  that 
\\eiv  in  the  prison.  He  could  scarcely  have  done  so 
while  Potiphar  was  still  the  captain  of  the  guard.  The 
imprisonment  of  Joseph  would  seem  then  to  have  occu 
pied  a  very  considerable  portion  of  that  period  of  thir 
teen  years  \\hich  elapsed  between  the  time  when  the 
history  of  .losi-pli  commences  and  the  time  when  he 
stood  before  Pharaoh,  cli.  xxxvii.  ••.;  xli.  Hi. 

In  the  pri.-on  .Joseph's  great  administrative  powers 
and  fidelity  were  a^ain  made  so  manifest  that  the  entire 
prison  discipline  was  put  under  his  control.  And  here 
another  extraordinary  event  occurred  in  his  life,  which 
led.  not  immediately  indeed,  but  remotely,  to  his  ad 
vancement.  "After  these  things,''  we  read,  cli.  xl.  i, 
i.e.  after  the  period  of  time  already  spent  by  Joseph  in 
prison,  during  which  the  change  in  his  personal  treat 
ment  took  place,  two  of  Pharaoh's  great  officers,  his 
chief  butler  and  his  chief  baker,  had  in  some  way 
ott'eiided  the  king,  if  not  in  the  same  way,  yet  about 
the  same  time,  and  were  both  cast  into  prison,  and 
placed  by  the  captain  of  the  guard  under  Joseph's 
charge.  They  continued  "a  season"  (Q«r:»,  i/ainun}  in 

prison,  an  expression  which  probably  means  an  entire 
year,  and  they  had  each  then  a  dream.  We  are  all 
familiar  with  the  dreams,  and  there  is  no  occasion  to 
enter  into  them.  They  were  similar  in  structure,  but 
were  indicative  of  a  very  different  issue  to  each  of  the 
dreamers.  They  tell  their  dreams  to  Joseph,  and  he, 
being  informed  of  their  meaning  by  Cod,  interprets 
them.  The  event  was  according  to  his  interpretation. 
The  chief  butler  was  in  three  days  restored  to  his  office; 
the  chief  baker  was  hanged.  Ere  the  chief  butler  left 


JOSEPH 

the  prison  Joseph  made  to  him  a  vt  ry  pathetic  appeal 
to  intercede  for  him  to  Pharaoh,  and  to  bring  him  out 
of  the  prison.  This  great  officer  in  all  probability  pro 
mised  to  do  a  kind  office  to  his  benefactor;  but,  like 
many  other  courtiers  before  and  since,  in  the  sunshine 
of  courtly  favour  he  forgot  the  prisoner  and  his  appeal. 
Two  more  weary  years  in  full  were  spent  by  Joseph 
in  his  prison.  At  first  he  would  look  for  his  delivery 
through  the  intercession  of  the  chief  butler:  but  as  time 
wore  on  he  must  have  given  up  hope  from  this  source. 
At  length  God's  time  came.  Jn  dreams  of  the  night 
the  great  king  of  Egypt  stood  by  the  banks  of  "the 
river."  The  river,  in  the  mind  of  an  Egyptian,  could 
only  mean  that  mighty  stream  the  Nile,  which,  swollen 
by  the  rains  in  the  mountains  of  Abyssinia,  overflows 
its  banks  in  Egypt  and  enriches  the  old  land  of  the 
Pharaohs.  By  this  river  the  king  stood,  and  saw  what 
perplexed  his  mind  sorelv  when  he  awoke.  Jn  the  first 
dream,  seven  fat  kiiie  came  up  out  of  the  stream  ami 
fed  in  the  meadow  on  its  banks.  While  they  were 
feeding,  seven  lean  kine  came  up  out  of  the  river,  ate 
up  the  fat  kine.  and  yet  seemed  no  fuller  or  fatter  than 
they  were  before.  And  again,  in  his  dream  he  saw 
seven  ears  of  corn  come  up  in  one  stalk,  full  and  good, 
and  after  them  sprung  up  seven  ears,  withered,  thin, 
and  blasted  with  the  east  wind,  and  these  latter  de 
voured  the  seven  good  ears.  The  dream  was  intended 
by  God  to  effect  a  great  purpose,  and  therefore  Pharaoh 
did  not  dismiss  it,  and  could  not  dismiss  it,  from  his 
thoughts.  He  felt,  and  rightly,  that  it  indicated  some 
important  event  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  kingdom. 
He  accordingly  sends  for  "  the  magicians  "  (ace  MAGI 
CIANS)  and  all  the  wise  men  of  Egypt,  to  learn  from 
them  the  meaning  of  his  dream.  Their  inability  to 
interpret  it  makes  the  chief  butler  remember  Joseph, 
not  from  any  kindness  towards  him,  but  merely  to 
gratify  the  king,  and  probably  advance  his  own  interest. 
He  relates  the  prison  dreams  and  their  fulfilment,  and 
at  once  Pharaoh  sends  to  bring  Joseph  out  of  the  prison. 
He  only  delays  to  make  himself  presentable  at  court. 
He  had  allowed  his  beard  to  grow  while  in  the  prison, 
which  was  a  sign  of  mourning  in  Egypt,  and  therefore 
ought  not  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  the  kinir;  he 
shaves  himself,  therefore,  and  puts  off  the  prison  dress 
for  one  suitable  for  a  court,  and  came  in  unto  Pharaoh. 
The  young  Hebrew  stood  in  the  royal  presence,  calm 
and  self-possessed,  for  he  was  ever  used  to  feel  himself 
in  the  presence  of  the  King  of  the  whole  earth,  and 
Pharaoh  addresses  him.  He  tells  him  that  he  hears 
he  can  interpret  dreams,  and  Joseph,  denying  that  any 
such  power  was  in  him,  tells  him  that  God  will  give 
him  an  answer  of  peace.  Upon  this  Pharaoh  tells 
Joseph  the  dream,  and  he  interprets  it  as  signifying 
the  immediate  approach  of  seven  years  of  extraordinary 
plenty,  to  be  followed  by  seven  years  of  famine.  He 
then  suggests  the  appointment  of  an  officer  to  provide 
for  the  coining  famine  by  laying  up  during  the  years  of 
plenty  one-fifth  part  of  the  produce  of  the  land,  storing 
it  up  in  the  cities  of  Egypt,  ch.  xli.  34.  Pharaoh  on  this 
wisely  judges  that  none  could  be  so  fit  for  this  office  as 
he  who  had  God's  wisdom  to  guide  him,  and  at  once 
makes  him  the  lord  over  Egypt:  "Thou  shalt  be  over 
my  house,"  he  says  to  him,  "  and  according  unto  thy 
word  shall  all  my  people  be  ruled;  only  in  the  throne 
will  I  be  greater  than  thou.  And  Pharaoh  said  unto 
Joseph,  See,  I  have  set  thee  over  all  the  land  of  Egypt; 
and  Pharaoh  took  off  his  ring  from  oft*  his  hand,  and 


<>  JOSEPH 

put  it  upon  Joseph's  hand,  and  arrayed  him  in  vestures 
of  fine  linen,  and  put  a  gold  chain  about  his  neck:  and 
he  made  him  to  ride  in  the  second  chariot  which  he 
had;  and  they  cried  before  him,  Bow  the  knee  (fl-ON, 

njn'ik;  by  Luther  rendered  -the  father  of  the  country"),- 
and  he  mad',.-  him  ruler  over  all  the  land  of  Egypt. 
And  Pharaoh  said  unto  Joseph,  I  am  Pharaoh,  and 
without  thee  shall  no  man  lift  up  his  hand  or  foot  in 
all  the  land  of  Egypt." 

On  any  remarkable  change  of  position  or  fortune  it 
wa--  usual  in  the  East  to  change  the  name.  'We.  find 
many  instances  of  this  in  Scripture.  On  Joseph's 
exaltation  1'haraoh  changed  his  name  to  Zaphnath- 
paaneah.  This  would  seem  to  be  an  Egyptian  word, 
corrupted  in  the  Hebrew,  and  its  most  probable  signi 
fication  is,  "the  revealer  of  what  is  secret"  (Salvator- 
em  Mundi,  Vulgate).  Tt  bore  reference  of  course  to 
\\li.tt  Joseph  had  done',  and  that  which  struck  Pha 
raoh's  mind  chiefly  was  his  power  of  revealing  the  un 
known  (secGcsenius  on  the  word,  and  Fucrst).  '\  he  marriage 
< 'f  Joseph  followed  immediately  on  his  elevation.  The 
king,  to  do  him  honour,  himself  provided  him  with  a 
wife,  doubtless  one  of  the  noblest  virgins  of  the  land. 
Her  name  was  Asenath,  the  daughter  of  Potipherah, 
priest  of  On.  The  name  of  this  Egyptian  grandee 
(ynjj  »{£>JES  signifying,  ''he  who  belongs  to  the  sun,"'  is 

very  common  on  the  Egyptian  monuments  tHentsten- 
berg,  ch.  i.)  I!a.  or  "tile  Sun/'  was  the  chief  god  of 
On,  which  is  the  same  city  as  Heliopolis,  or  the  city  of 
the  sun;  and  the  chief  priest  of  On,  which  this  Poti 
pherah  was.  was  the  chief  priest  of  Egypt,  and  there 
fore  ranked  very  high  in  the  land.  Idolatry  doubtless 
existed  at  this  time  in  Egypt,  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
have  attained  to  anything  like  the  height  at  which  we 
find  it  afterwards  in  the  time  of  Moses;  nor  can  we 
judge  exactly  to  what  degree  Joseph's  father-in-law  was 
tainted  with  it.  The  worship  of  the  sun  was  probably 
the  earliest  lapse  into  idolatry  in  Egypt,  and  probrdily 
the  grosser  forms  of  Egyptian  idolatry  were  now  absent. 
The  sun  may  have  been  only  venerated  as  a  symbol  of 
the  deity.  Some,  however,  instead  of  "priest,"  trans 
late  ''prince,"  and  the  Hebrew  is  certainly  at  times 
used  in  a  civil  sense  (see  Fuerst,  and  2  Sa.  viii.  18).  "We 
prefer,  however,  to  regard  it  here  as  signifying  a  min 
ister  of  religion. 

Joseph  loses  no  time  in  providing  against  the  coming 
famine.  He  first  made  a  careful  survey  of  the  entire 
land,  ch.  xli.  !<;.  He  then,  during  each  one  of  the  seven 
years  of  plenty,  when  the  earth  brought  forth  by  hand- 
fuls,  took  as'  a  tribute  or  tax  from  the  people  the  fifth 
part  of  the  produce  of  the  land,  as  he  had  recommended, 
ch.  xli.  34.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  word 
(w'ChV-  which  the  authorized  version  translates  ''taking 

up  a  fifth  part."  It  is  very  possible,  and  indeed  very 
probable,  that  he  collected  a  far  greater  part  of  the 
produce,  either  by  gift  or  purchase,  than  this  fifth  part; 
for,  if  that  was  at  all  able  to  supply  the  wants  of  the 
seven  years'  famine,  the  remaining  four-fifths  would  far 
exceed  the  wants  of  the  people  in  the  years  of  plenty, 
and  would  be  sold  at  a  very  low  price,  ch.  xli.  48. 

During  the  years  of  plenty  Joseph  had  two  sons  born 
to  him  by  Asenath,  and  their  names,  and  the  reasons 
they  were  given,  shows  us  that  his  feelings  as  a  father 
were  equally  strong  with  his  feelings  as  a  son.  The 
eldest  he  called  Manasseh  (a  forgetter],  meaning  that 


JOSEPH 


Do  7 


JOSEPH 


tlio  joy  at  his  birth  made  him  forget  his  past  toil  and 
the  misery  of  his  separation  from  his  father's  house. 
The  younger  he  called  Ephraim  (fruitful),  indicative 
of  the  abundance  of  blessing  which  God,  by  giving  him 
a  second  son,  had  given  him  in  the  land  where  he  had 
suffered  so  much. 

And  now  the  years  of  plenty  were  over,  and  the  years 
of  famine  began.  It  was  a  famine  at  once  extensive 
in  its  sweep,  and  lasting  in  its  operation.  It  not 
only  afflicted  Egypt,  but  it  affected  "all  lands,"  ..h.  xii.r.r. 
It  is  quite  sufficient  for  all  the  purposes  of  language 
that  we  und' -r.-tand  by  this  expression  all  the  countries 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Egypt,  and  closely  connected 
with  it  in  the  way  of  commerce,  and  as  deriving  from 
it  in  ordinary  years  a  portion  of  their  food,  as  Ethiopia 
and  Canaan.  The-e  lands  suttering  from  famine,  and 
all  sending  from  evi-ry  quarter  to  lv_ivpt  for  relief,  would 
fully  justify  the  expression  from  an  Egyptian  point  of 
view.  This  famine  affecting  Canaan,  where  Joseph's 
father  and  his  brethren  dwelt.  becomes  the  means  of 
accomplishing  the  dreams  dreamed  so  lonv,'  a^'o,  as  well 
as  of  carrying  forward  '.ivnerally  the  purposes  of  (hid 
towards  his  prop].-  Israel.  .Joseph  was  already  in  the 
position  of  power,  the  famine  reduces  his  father  and 
hi-  brethren  to  the  nio-t  abject  want,  and  brings  them 
as  suppliant:'  for  life  to  his  feet.  The  vianaries  of 
Euypt  are  thro\\n  open  to  supply  the  wants  of  everv 
people;  there  is  abundance  there  not  only  for  EyVpt 
but  for  all  suffering  lands;  none  are  ivr.'sed  who  apply; 
de.ith  awaits  those  v.  ho  do  not  come;  but  all  who  do 
pome  find  abundance  to  nouri-h  life.  In  the  terrible 
want  t  >  v,  hicli  .laeob  and  his  family  were  brought  by 
famine — in  their  looking  to  E^ypt  and  to  Joseph  as  the 
sole  means  for  sustaining  life  in  t  heir  praying  him  for 
their  necessary  food,  and  hi.-  supplying  it  to  them  we 
iind  the  full  accomplishment  of  Jacob's  own  true  inti  r- 
pretation  of  hi-  son's  second  dream,  that  "father  and 
mother  and  brethren  would  all  come  and  bow  do,\u 
themselves  to  him  to  the  earth,"  ch.  xxxvii.  10.  They 
\\ere  ail  a.-  dead  men,  looking  to  him  for  life,  and  re 
ceiving  it  at  his  hands.  The  father  and  the  mother 
bowecl  down  before  the  governor  of  Egypt  when  their 
sons,  sent  by  them  and  for  them,  literally  and  in  person 
did  so,  ch.  xlii.  <!.  With  tile  story  of  Joseph's  brethren 
•;'oinv;'  clown  to  Kgvpt  for  food  -their  standing  in  the 
pivseiiee  of  their  brother  without  knowing  him  hi- 
ro;iudi  treatment  of  them  his  finally  making  himself 
known  to  them,  and  brinuinu'  down  all  his  family  into 
Kg\pt  every  child  is  familiar.  To  go  through  all  this 
in  detail  would  be  useless;  while  to  attempt  to  describe 
it  in  any  other  words  than  the  simple  touChing  words 
of  Scripture,  would  be  to  spoil  it-  ell'ect.  We  will  only 
attempt  to  classify  the  narrative,  and  to  account  for 
what  mav  appear  .-trance  and  cruel  in  the  conduct  of 
Joseph. 

The  visits  paid  by  Joseph's  brethren  to  Egypt  were 
three  in  number.  The  two  first  were  for  the  purpose 
of  procuring  food  for  their  households  in  Canaan,  and 
at  the  second,  Joseph  made  himself  known  to  them;  the 
third  visit  was  made  in  company  with  their  families, 
and  bringing  with  them  all  their  possessions,  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  up,  at  least  during  the  remainder  of 
the  famine,  ch.  xlv.  11,  their  abode  in  Egypt.  On  the 
first  of  these  visits  Joseph  put  on  an  appearance  of 
great  roughness  to  them;  accused  them  of  coming  to 
spy  out  the  land  for  the  purpose  of  invading  it  at  its 
weak  side  towards  Canaan:  affects  not  to  believe  their 


account  of  themselves:  insists  that  they  shall,  in  proof 
I  of  their  truth,  bring  at  their  next  visit  the  younger 
;  brother  of  whom  they  spoke;  and  that,  in  order  to  retain 
a  hold  over  them,  he  will  put  them  all  in  prison  save 
one,  who  is  to  go  and  fetch  this  brother.  During  seven 
|  days  he  puts  them  all  in  prison,  but  at  the  end  of  it  he 
tells  them  that  his  fear  of  God — the  God  whom  they 
worshipped— will  not  allow  of  his  treating  them  with 
cruelty,  that  he  will  accordingly  send  them  all  away 
;  with  food  for  their  families,  retaining  only  one  of  them 
a-  a  pledge  of  their  return.  This  is  done,  and  they 
depart,  carrying  with  them,  at  first  without  knowing 
it,  their  money,  which  Joseph  had  commanded  to  be 
put  into  their  sacks.  Their  treatment  by  Joseph  in 
Egypt  had  the  effect  of  bringing  to  their  memory  their 
treatment  of  him  long  au'o,  and  of  convincing  them  that 
their  guilt  was  being  now  visited  upon  them,  ch.  xlii.  21. 
The  terror  of  Joseph's  brethren  at  finding  their  money 
in  their  sacks  was  very  great,  as  they  thought  it  would 
expose  them  to  bad  consequences  on  their  return  visit; 
and  the  anguish  of  Jacob  on  finding  that  the  governor 
"f  Kjvpt,  incensed  with  his  .-ons  already,  demands  that 
Benjamin  shall  also  go.  is  excessive.  He  says  that 
nothing  shall  induce  him  to  permit  him  to  go.  But 
the  pressure  of  famine,  and  the  earnest  assurances  of 
Judah.  at  length  change  his  mind;  and  with  gifts  to  the 
governor,  and  double  money,  they  present  themselves 
the  second  time  before  Joseph.  lie  is  overcome  by 
the  si^ht  of  his  brother,  and  hastens  to  a  secret  place 
to  weep,  and  then  commands  an  entertainment,  alter 
the  Egyptian  fashion  of  separation,  to  be  made,  at 
which  his  brethren,  and  Benjamin  in  particular,  are 
treated  with  great  distinction,  to  their  utter  astonish 
ment,  lie  after  this  directs  them  to  be  provided  with 
corn,  and  directs  that  his  own  silver  cup  and  the  pur 
chase  money  of  Bt.njamin's  corn  shall  be  placed  in  the 
sack  of  the  latter,  in  order  that  he  may  have  the  pre 
text  of  keeping  his  favourite  brother  with  him  while 
th<  n  st  of  his  brethren  return  to  their  father.  They 
all  depart,  are  pursued,  the  eup  is  found  with  Benjamin, 
and  all  the  brothers  return  to  Joseph.  Whatever  had 
been  his  intention,  the  agony  of  his  brethren  prevents 
his  carrying  it  out,  and  induces  him  to  make  himself 
known  Mioner  than  he  had  intended,  c-li.  \H  2.  He  com 
mands  all  his  attendants  to  go  out  while  he  makes  him- 
:  self  known.  He  tells  them  who  he  is;  asks  at  once  for 
his  father;  comforts  them  with  the  assurance  that  all 
the  past  had  been  God's  own  doing  for  the  merciful 
purpose  of  preserving  their  lives:  tells  them  that  they 
are  to  return  to  his  father  and  bring  him  and  all  they 
had  into  E^ypt,  there  to  be  nourished;  and  finally,  with 
the  sanction  and  co-operation  of  Pharaoh,  sends  them 
back  laden  with  the  good  things  of  Egypt  and  the 
means  of  carriage  for  their  household  and  their  goods. 
So  ended  their  second  visit.  Jacob  at  lirst  does  not 
believe  the  good  tidings:  but  as  soon  as  he  is  convinced 
of  their  truth,  he  is  overpowered  with  joy.  No  delay 
is  made  to  return.  Any  doubts  in  his  mind  as  to  the 
propriety  of  going  are  removed  by  God  himself,  who  tells 
him  of  his  purpose  in  bringing  him  down,  ch.  xlvi.  :<,  i- 
and  in  the  border  land  of  Egypt,  in  Goshen,  the  long 
separated  father  and  son  meet  again.  The  hatred  of 
the  Egyptians  for  shepherds,  which  was  the  occupation 
of  Joseph's  brethren,  enables  him  to  place  them  per 
manently  in  Goshen.  one  of  the  extremities  of  Egypt, 
yet  near  to  the  royal  city,  and  fit  for  cattle,  and  rich 
in  agricultural  produce;  and  thus  Joseph,  through  the 


•JOSEPH 


1)58 


JOSEPH 


wrong  done  him  by  his  brethren,  is  the  means  uf  .saving 
their  lives  by  a  great  deliverance. 

The  motive*  of  Joseph  in  his  treatment  of  his  brethren 
are  variously  considered  by  different  commentators. 
They  certainly  were  not  those  of  either  a  cruel,  or  a 
careless,  or  a  revengeful,  or  an  unloving  spirit,  cli.  xhi.  21: 
xlv.  .->,!.•>,  They  appear  to  Lave  been  these,  in  the  iirst 
placj,  they  seem  designed  for  chastening,  to  bring  them 
to  a  sense  of  the  terrible  sin  they  Lad  been  guilty  of 
towards  himself,  and  of  which  he  had  no  reason  to 
think  they  hail  repented.  His  treatment  of  them  had 
this  effect,  eh.  xlii.  21.  He  seems  also  to  have  wished  to 
keep  between  him  and  his  father's  house  an  additional 
bond  beside  the  famine,  and  for  this  purpose  to  have 
wished  always  to  retain  one  of  them  with  himself. 
During  this  period  he  was  maturing  his  plans  as  to 
what  lie  was  to  do  for  his  father  and  his  family,  it 
does  not  appear  that  he  had  intended  from  the  first  to 
bring  down  his  family  to  live  in  Egypt.  He  may  have 
had  his  doubts  on  this,  as  his  father  had,  ch.  xhi.  .",  1. 
.Ynd  when  lie  had  intended  to  bring  them  down,  he 
probably-  was  planning  how  to  do  so,  and  where  to  place 
them.  There  were  difficulties  in  the  way.  The  shep 
herd  was  an  abomination  to  the  Egyptians,  and  it 
would  offend  the  prejudices  of  the  latter  to  have  Israel 
dwelling  among  them,  di.  xM.  33,  :il.  -Nor  was  it  every 
part  of  Egypt  that  would  suit  the  requirements  of  a 
pastoral  people.  The  land  of  Gosheii  seems  to  have 
been  the  only  place  that  would  answer  every  purpose. 
It  afforded  good  pasturage,  and  lay  away  from  the 
central  parts  of  Egypt  on  the  borders  of  Canaan, 
ch.  xlvii.  i.  In  order  to  place  them  there  Joseph  had  to 
consult  Pharaoh,  and  to  be  guided  by  his  wishes,  ch.  \M. 
31-31;  xh-ii.  i-o.  Now  a  provident  mind  like  Joseph's 
must  have  been  planning  all  these  things,  and  there 
fore  he  probably  required  that  delay  in  making  himself 
known,  which  may  appear  cruel,  but  which  was  de 
manded  by  prudence.  Considerations  of  this  kind  in 
all  likelihood  influenced  Joseph  in  his  treatment  of  his 
brethren. 

Joseph's  administration  of  the  government  of  Egypt 
remains  to  be  considered.  It  was  marked  with  great 
prudence.  The  provision  which  he  had  made  was 
ample  for  all  the  wants  of  the  country  itself,  as  well  as 
of  the  neighbouring  countries.  His  method  had  the 
effect  of  bringing  power  to  Pharaoh,  while  it  sustained 
the  people,  and  finally  placed  them  in  a  condition  of 
comfort.  While  their  money  lasted  he  gave  them  corn 
for  it.  When  their  money  was  expended  he  gave  them 
corn  in  exchange  for  their  cattle.  When  this  resource 
was  expended  he  bought  them  and  their  land,  brought 
them  out  of  the  country  parts  into  the  cities  where  the 
supplies  were,  and  fed  them;  and  finally,  he  placed 
them  again  as  tenants  to  Pharaoh  on  their  lands,  re 
quiring  from  them  the  very  moderate  rent  of  one- fifth 
of  the  produce,  while  the  remainder  was  for  their  own 
use,  ch.  xlvii.  24.  This  one-fifth,  while  it  was  a  small  rent, 
most  probably  exempted  them  from  any  other  tax,  and 
loft  the  occupiers  of  the  land  in  a  state  of  comfort. 

Joseph's  prosperity  continued  down  to  the  close  of 
his  life.  The  mourning  for  his  father  on  the  part  of 
the  Egyptians,  ch.  1.  r-io,  seems  to  have  been  almost  as 
great  as  if  it  were  for  one  of  their  own  kings,  doubtless 
from  honour  to  Joseph.  His  filial  piety  continued  to 
the  close  of  his  father's  life;  Le  was  still  in  grandeur,  as 
he  had  been  in  youth,  the  child  of  his  old  age,  ch.  xlvii.  29; 
xlviii.  i.  In  token  of  the  divine  favour  Jacob  declared 


to  him  that  he  should  have  two  part*,  instead  of  one. 
in  the  future  fortunes  of  the  great  people,  that  were  to 
spring  from  him,  his  two  sons  being  constituted  heads 
of  two  tribes,  cli.  xlviii.  -,.  Joseph's  kindness  to  his 
brethren  also  survived  his  father's  death,  and  continued 
unabated,  di.  1.  1^-21.  And  when  he  himself  died,  at  the 
age  of  one  hundred  and  ten  years,  he  displayed  the  same 
faith  in  God,  which  was  the  mainstay  of  his  whole 
extraordinary  life,  by  reminding  his  brethren  that  the 
time  was  surely  coming  when  God  would  visit  them, 
and  bring  them  to  the  land  of  their  fathers,  and  by 
taking  an  oath  of  them  that  when  that  time  came,  they 
would  carry  up  his  bones  out  of  Egypt  with  them.  In 
the  hour  of  death  he  looked  on  with  firm  faith  to  that 
which  God  would  do  for  him  and  his  people,  and  has 
I  therefore  been  ranked  among  the  great  examples  of 
faith  which  are  to  stimulate  and  encourage  the  Chris 
tian  church,  lie.  xi.  22. 

Joseph  is  now  to  be  briefly  considered  as  a  type  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Even  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament 
sometimes  spoke  unconscious  of  the  full  import  of  their 
words,  1 1'c.i.  a.  P>ut  to  that  Holy  Spirit  who  spoke  by 
historian,  and  psalmist,  and  philosopher,  and  prophet, 
Jesus  Christ,  the  representative  of  humanity,  was  ever 
present.  \Yhere  we  find,  then,  in  the  great  characters 
or  occurrences  of  the  Old  Testament,  striking  resem 
blances  to  Christ,  there  we  are  to  take  them  as  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  the  coming  Saviour.  It  is 
remarkable  how  much  of  this  we  find  in  the  life  of 
Joseph. 

In  the  first  place,  Joseph,  marked  out  by  his  father's 
choice  from  all  his  brethren  as  the  son  of  his  love,  calls 
to  our  mind  Jesus  Christ  marked  out  from  his  brethren 
as  the  well- beloved  Son  of  the  Father,  in  whom  he  was 

well  pleased  (lie.  ii.  11, 12;  Mat.  iii.  17;  Pascal,  l'ensees,2,  P.  A.  ix.) 

The  hatred  of  Joseph's  brethren  caused  by  this  distinc 
tion,  and  their  unbelief  in  his  claims  to  be  a  revealer 
of  God's  secret  will,  points  to  him  who  came  to  his  own, 
and  his  own  received  him  not,  and  whose  nearest  kins 
men  in  the  flesh  rejected  his  supernatural  claims,  Jn.  i.  11; 
vii.  5.  The  sending  of  Joseph  by  his  father  to  visit  his 
brethren,  and  to  examine  how  they  were,  and  how  their 
flocks  were,  Joseph's  ready  obedience,  and  the  issue  of 
this  in  placing  Joseph  in  the  power  of  his  brethren,  are 
indicative  of  God  sending  Jesus  Christ  in  the  fulness  of 
time  to  visit  his  people  and  his  brethren,  the  ready  sub 
mission  of  the  Son  to  the  Father's  will,  and  its  issue  in 
placing  him  in  the  power  of  those  who  hated  him.  The 
separation  of  Joseph  from  his  father  and  his  father's 
house,  by  him  so  bitterly  lamented,  and  resulting  from 
his  father's  "mission,  brings  to  mind  the  overpowering 
sorrow  of  Christ,  when,  as  the  consequence  of  that 
work  which  his  Father  had  sent  him  to  perform,  he 
felt  himself  separated  from  that  Father,  and  exclaimed, 
"My  God,  my  God,  why  Last  thou  forsaken  me?" 
Mat.  xxvii.  40;  Ts.  .\xii.  i.  The  wonderful  elevation  of  Joseph 
from  his  great  depression,  and  brought  about  by  that 
very  means,  his  becoming  lord  over  a  mighty  empire, 
his  saving  the  lives  of  its  inhabitants,  and  of  those  of 
other  lands,  and  especially  saving  the  lives  of  those 
who  had  been  the  guilty  means  of  oppressing  him.  his 
supremacy,  and  the  bowing  down  to  him  even  of  his 
parents,  is  the  exact  parallel  to  the  elevation  of  Christ 
to  his  mediatorial  tLrone,  his  becoming  through  Lis 
suffering  the  Saviour  of  the  whole  world,  and  first  of 
all  his  becoming  such  to  the  people  who  Lad  oppressed 
him,  Lis  supremacy  over  tLe  whole  human  family,  his 


JOSEPH 


959 


JOSEPH 


earthly  parents  calling  him  Lori  I  and  Saviour,  and  de 
riving  from  him  life  and  salvation  jnst  as  much  as  any 
others.  1,11.1.47.  The  opposition  of  Joseph's  brethren  to 
his  supernatural  claims,  and  the  means  they  took  to 
overthrow  them,  tie.  x.xxvii.  20,  resulting  in  their  perfect 
establishment,  calls  t<i  mind  that  the  very  means  the 
Jews  took  ti>  prove  that  Jesus  (,'hrist  was  not  the  Son 
sent  by  God  to  make  known  his  \\ill.  were  the  niean.- 
by  which  lie  was  proved  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  and  by 
which  God's  will  in  sending  liim  was  accomplished. 
Ro.  i.  4;  r.  C-10  The  endeavour  of  Joseph's  brethren  to 
throw  upon  the  Ishmaelites  the  oppression  of  their 
brother,  calls  to  mind  ho\\  the  Jews  threw  upon  tlie 
Piomans  the  burden  t.f  crucifving  Christ.  I.u  xx.  2n; 
Mat.  xxv'i  i'.  And  lastly,  the  permanence  of  Jo-.-ph  in 
the  favour  of  1'liaraoli.  and  hi.-  retention  of  that  favour 
while  he  lived,  is  a  .-imi  of  that  mediatorial  kingdom  of 
Christ  which  the  Father  gave  him.  and  of  which  there 
was  to  be  no  end.  i.u  . 

Me  niiuht  eiiumera'e  moiv  particulars,  but  w  v  deem 
it  better  not  to  r.-fer  t>  what  mi-ht  be  disputed,  or 
might  appear  weak.  The  circumstances  ju-t  referred 
to  are  the  leading  events  of  J,.-eph'-  life  from  the  time 
\ve  lirst  read  of  him  to  his  di-ath.  They  certainlv  fi.rm 
striking  illustration-  of  the  lit',  of  Jt-sus  (  hri-t  in  h:.- 
eapaeity  as  mediator  between  God  and  ni.in.  partaker 
of  our  nature,  and  Saviour  of  our  race. 

Tin-  life  of  Joseph  is  also  of  -ivat  interest  and  im 
portance  in  another  point  of  view,  nainelv.  as  illustra- 
tive  of  the  history  and  manners  of  lv_;vpt  at  the  piriod 
of  which  it  treat-.  So  far  as  tln-v  go.  tin-  incidents 
of  his  life  throw  as  much  li-ht  upon  Egyptian  history 
as  do  tile  unveiled  temple-  and  monuments  of  tin  land. 
And  their  testimony  is  the  m<  .re  satisfactory,  ina-nr, u-h 
as  it  is  undesigned,  it  is  e>t;dili.-hed  tliat  the  nanit  s 

of    son f    the    tomb-    of     Eg\pt     have    bed, 

from  vanity  or  other  reasons,  but  the  account  of  Eu'vpt 
and  it-  manners  incidentally  u'iven  to  us  in  the  life 
of  Joseph  is  open  to  no  >i;ch  Mi.-pieion.  \\  .  -l,;,li 
very  brietlv  -ketch  K-'vptian  life  a-  it  iniau'.  <  itself 
before  us  in  the  narrative  of  Genesis.  \\  e  tiud  Ivj'v  pt. 
then,  at  this  time  one  of  the  uivat  centn  s  of  tratlic.  to 
which  the  products  of  various  countries,  -picerv.  and 
balm,  and  myrrh,  and  human  -lav  .•>.  werehrou-hl.  and 
found  a  ivadv  market  \\  e  :ii-o  gather  tY«m  our  nar 
rative  that  Kgvpt  \\a-  at  tlii-  time  under  the  dominion 
of  a  single  monarch  of  .-mne  native  line  of  kinu-. 
Sonic  writers  indeed  think  th>  v  liave  evidence  that 
Eu'Vpt  was  now  'iivenied  bv  -e\,ral  dvna-tie-.  and 
that  annum  these  the  shepherd  kiii'->  bore  pre-eminence. 
'J'he  whole  tone  of  the  narrative  in  Genesis'  is  opposed 
to  this.  \Ve  there  read  of  but  one  king,  who  repre 
sents  himself  as  ruler  over  "  all  the  land  ,,f  Eg\  pt."  and 
appoints  Joseph  to  rule  over  this  whole  land  under 
him,  c;e.  xli.  i:;.  Instead  of  this  monarch  bein^  one  of 
the  shepherd  kiiuj's  who  cruelly  oppressed  the  Egyp 
tians,  and  wounded  all  their  most  sacred  feelings,  we 
find  him  to  be  one  who  hatl  native  Egyptians,  c-h.xxxix.i, 
employed  in  the  most  trusted  offices  near  his  person: 
whose  prime  minister.  Joseph,  is  surrounded  with  na 
tive  Egyptians,  ch.  xliii. :«;  that  he  is  a  king  who.  if  he  did 
not  personally  share  in  the  hatred  and  scorn  which  the 
Egyptians  entertained  f',i-  nil  .-•  // <  ,,},i  rdt.  yet  did  most 
strictly  and  scrupulously  respect  their  prejudices  in  tl/ia 
respect,  which  no  shepherd  king  could  or  would  have 
done,  ch.  xhi.  :;i-:i4.  We  find  from  this  latter  passage 
that  Egyptian  prejudices  against  shepherds  were  now 


strong,  universal,  and  I'dnanUcd  by  the  ruling  monarch. 
All  this  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  Egvpt  was 
now  under  the  rule  of  the  shepherd  kings.  The  time 
seems  to  have  been  shortly  after  the  rule  of  these 
shepherd  kings  had  been  terminated,  when  Egypt  keenly 
remembered  their  cruelty,  and  had  still  strong  apprehen 
sions  lest  they  might  again  be  invaded  by  them  through 
that  open  border  of  Canaan  by  which  they  had  come 
before,  c-h.  xlii  l,'.  We  also  find  that  at  this  time  the 
law  seems  to  have  been  administered  in  a  verv  despotic 
way.  Not  only  does  Pharaoh  cast  into  prison  from  his 
own  will,  and  brinu1  out  of  prison,  his  i  tTieers.  without 
any  appearance  of  a  trial  of  their  guilt  or  innocence, 
di.  xl  l-2.'i,  but  Pharaoh's  ofticirs  do  much  the  same. 
Potiphar  throws  Joseph  into  prison  without  any  trial, 
retain-  him  there,  leaves  him  there  to  his  successor, 
and  .lo-cph's  onlv  hope  of  deliverance  seems  to  lie,  not 
in  any  appeal  to  the  laws  of  the  land,  but  to  the  man 
date  of  Pharaoh,  procured  through  the  intercession  of 
a  favourite  minister,  ch  xxx  x  2i>:  xl.  I!  The  ready  sub 
mission  of  the  K-vptian-  to.,  in  the  time  of  tin-  famine, 
their  parting  with  mmii  v  and  cattle,  and  land  niul 
liberty,  apparently  without  a  murmur,  point  to  a  despotic 
rule  and  an  abject  peep!,.  \Ve  find  that  before  the 
time  of  Jo>eph  the  whole  land  of  Kgvpt  was  owned  in 
fee  bv  its  occupv'.ng  cultivators,  bein^  divided  into  the 
royal  lands,  the  lands  of  the  priests,  and  the  lands  of 
tin-  cultivators,  but  that  the  famine  reduced  these  latter 
from  beini:  owners  in  fee  to  beinu  ti  nants  of  the  king. 
With  respect  to  the  religion  of  E-ypt.  we  tind  it  at  this 
time  much  le-s  pure  than  it  seems  to  have  been  in  the 
time  of  Abraham,  but  less  corrupted  than  it  after 
wards  appears  in  the  time  of  Musts.  The  worship  of 
the  -mi.  perhaps  onlv  as  a  visible  symbol  of  the  un- 
sei-n  1  »'  ilv.  i-  the  form  of  idolatry  which  is  brought 
before  us  in  the  life  of  Joseph.  This  was  probably 
the  earli.-st  form  of  idolatry.  .i..i.  xxxi.  -jr..  Again,  Joseph 
opeidv  professed  the  wor.-hip  of  the  true  (lod  without 
molestation,  Go.  . xlii  K  Ayain.  Pharaoh  seems  to  ac 
knowledge  :»s  the  true  God  the  G..d  of  Jo>eph.  and 
calls  him  by  the  same  name,  ch.  xli.  ::L',  :;-,"!!.  Again,  an 
order  of  idolatrous  and  superstitious  ministers,  who 
figure  in  the  history  of  Moses  itln-  c%tUT?:,  Ex.  vii.  1l), 
do  not  appear  in  the  history  of  Joseph:  and  while  we 
find  at  both  times  those  whom  our  authorized  version 
calls  "magicians,"  ic'-.E^r.  literally  "writers''  or  "en- 
UT.-IVITS."  <,<•  \:i  »:  I-A.  vii.  ii',  tin-  kartumim  of  Genesis 
do  not  a]  p.  ar  to  have  used  the  same  idolatrous  and 

superstitions    rites    of    tin     hart  inn  hn    of    the    1 k   of 

Exodus.  The  power  of  the  priesthood  in  Joseph's  time 
was  \ery  gredt,  tic.  xli.  4r>;  xlvii.  22.  \\  c  also  iind  that 
the  cities  of  I/jv  pt  were  th.n  so  numerous  and  large  that 
they  wt  re  capable  of  holding  the  entire  population, 
ili.  xhii.  ui:  that  the  danger  of  invasion  lay  in  the  direc 
tion  of  Canaan,  c-h.  xlii.  ii;  that  Euypt  depended  on  the 
Nile  for  its  food,  and  that  the  blast  of  the  east  wind 
was  what  was  chiefly  dreaded  as  producing  blight, 
ch.  xli.  c  We  also  gather  that  female  seclusion  was  at 
this  time  not  strict,  in  Egypt,  and  that  female  morals 
were  verv  low.  ch.  xxxix .7- 1 4.  We  infer  that  at  this 
time  the  vine  was  cultivated  in  Egypt,  ch  xl.  lo;  that 
a  usual  mode  of  carrying  articles  was  in  baskets  on 
men's  head*,  ch.  xl.  Hi:  that  the  custom  of  shaving  the 
heard  was  practised,  and  that  not  shaving  was  the 
sign  of  mourning,  ch.  xli.  M.  We  find  that  sitting 
was  the  Egyptian  posture  at  table,  and  that  the 
Egyptians  carefullv  avoided  eating  in  the  company  of 


JOS  El 'R 


JOSEPH 


foreigners,  cli.  xiiii.  .",-.',  ;,3.  We  find  that  tlie  investiture 
of  a  hiii'li  official  in  Egypt  was  performed  with  the 
ceremony  of  a  ring,  a  garment  of  fine  linen,  a  gold 
chain  about  the  neck,  ami  the  causing  him  to  ride  in 
a  royal  chariot,  ch.  xli.  4i,  4.'!;  that  on  such  occasions  a 
change  of  name  was  not  uncommon,  oh.  \ii.  4.";  and  that 
the  Egyptian  -nuidees  had  many  physicians  in  their 
houscli'ild,  eh.  l.i'.  \Ve  find  that  seventv  days  was  the 
time;  of  mourning  in  Egypt,  that  it  was  then  the  prac 
tice  to  emlialm  the  body,  and  that  funeral  procosioiis 
on  a  Ljreat  scale  accompanied  the  burial  of  great  men, 
cli.  1.  2, :(,  <>.  And  we  also  learn  that  famines  in  Kuypt 
sometimes  extended  to  other  countries,  di.  xli.  57. 

This  is  a  great  deal  of  information  to  learn  in  the 
incidental  way  in  which  it  is  brought  In  fore  us  in  the 
bunk-  i if  (  icnesis.  Snine  of  it  has  appeared  so  strange 
and  unlikely  that  it  has  been  objected  to  as  disproving 
the  claims  of  Genesis  to  inspiration,  or  even  to  ordinary 
historic  truth.  P.ut  history  and  the  discoveries  of  recent 
explorers  have  .~-ho\\n  that  what  was  once  thought  im 
probable  or  impossible,  is  an  exact  account  of  ancient 
Egyptian  life  and  manners.  Thus  we  learn  that  the 
superintendence  of  executions  belonged  to  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  military  caste,  as  we  saw  in  the 
case  of  I'otiphar  (R. Bellini,  ii.  p.  :.'ni,  27.'i);  that  the  mnraU 
of  the  Egyptian  women  were  scandalous,  and  their 
seclusion  not  at  all  so  strict  as  was  common  in  the 
East,  ladies  and  gentlemen  mingling  together  with  the 
social  freedom  of  modern  Europeans  (ii> -rod.  ii.  m;  Wilkin 
son,  it.  p.  ii>7; ;  that  the  art  of  baking  was  carried  to  a  verv 
high  degree  of  perfection,  while  the  custom  of  men's 
carrying  burdens  on  the  head  is  spoken  of  by  Herodotus 
as  peculiar  to  the  Egyptians  (ii.35).  We  find,  in  accord 
ance  with  Pharaoh's  dream,  that  the  co\v  was  con 
sidered  as  the  symbol  of  the  earth  audits  cultivation,  and 
it  therefore  represents  plenty  or  famine  according  to  its 

condition  (tleni.  Alex.  Strom,  v.  p.  t',71,  eel.  Potter).  The  Cus 
tom  of  consulting  wise  men  and  magicians,  common  to 
many  countries,  was  especially  so  in  Egypt  (jablonski 
Panth.  Prol.  p.  314).  While  other  eastern  people  allowed 
the  beard  to  grow,  it  is  mentioned  as  a  peculiar  trait  of 
the  Egyptians  that  they  shaved,  while  when  mourning 
they  suffered  the  beard  to  grow,  and  slovenly  persons  are 
represented  by  their  artists  with  beards  (Herod,  ii.  s:>-, 
Wilkinson,  iii.  p.  357,  35s).  Pharaoh's  investiture  of  Joseph  is 
in  exact  agreement  with  the  account  given  by  Herodo 
tus.  The  gift  of  the  seal-ring  was  common  in  the  East, 
the  garment  of  fine  linen  was  the  badge  of  purity  and 
rank,  and  the  gold  chain  put  round  Joseph's  neck  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  tombs  of  Beni  Hassan,  where  a  slave 
is  represented  as  carrying  a  necklace  belonging  to  a 
man  of  high  rank,  and  over  it  is  written,  "necklace  of 
gold"  (Russell,  ii.  -I, p.  404).  The  name  of  Potiphera.  mean 
ing  "he  who  belongs  to  the  sun,"  is  very  common  on 
the  ancient  monuments  of  Egypt;  and  On,  or  Helio- 
polis,  took  precedence  in  a  religious  point  of  view  of  all 
other  Egyptian  cities  :  while  the  priesthood  were  in  a 
manner  hereditary  princes,  who  stood  by  the  side  of 
the  kings,  and  enjoyed  almost  equal  privileges,  and 
when  they  are  introduced  in  historv  they  appear  as 
the  first  persons  of  the  state.  As  the  Pharaohs 
were  themselves  invested  with  the  highest  sacerdotal 
dignity,  they  could  of  course  bring  about  the  marriage 
of  Joseph  with  the  daughter  of  the  priest  of  On,  more 
especially  as  Joseph  had  been  naturalized  by  the  king, 
had  assumed  the  Egyptian  dress,  and  taken  an  Egyp 
tian  name.  (See  authorities  in  Hengs.  Eg.  and  Books  of  Moses, 


c.  i.  p.  :«•: ;;;>.)  The  storing  up  by  Joseph  of  the  corn,  and 
the  measuring  of  its  quantity,  i.s.  brought  vividly  before 
us  in  the  paintings  on  the  monuments,  where  we  find 
men  carrying  the  corn  from  "  the  writer  or  registrar 
of  bushels"  to  the  store-houses,  where  they  lay  them 
down  before  an  oHicer.  who  stands  ready  to  receive  them 
(Rossell.  ii.  p.  324,  &i-.)  The  extending  of  the  famine  in 
Egypt  to  other  countries  is  known  to  be  quite  in  ac 
cordance  with  natural  laws;  the  tropical  rains  which 
fall  upon  the  Abyssinian  mountains,  and  on  which  the 
rising  of  the  Nile  depends,  having  the  same  origin  with 
those  in  Palestine:  while  there  are  scarcely  anv  coun 
tries  \\hero  famines  have  raged  so  often  and  so  terribly 
as  hi  Egypt.  (Sec  in  llengs.  j>.  37.)  The  ascribing  the 
blast  to  the  east  wind  is  alleged  to  be  a  proof  of  ignor 
ance  on  the  part  of  the  writer  of  Genesis,  since  it  is 
the  south  wind  which  is  the  hot  wind  of  Egypt;  but 
from  the  accounts  of  modern  travellers  we  find  that  a 
wind,  generally  called  by  them  the  south-east  wind, 
and  sometimes  simply  the  east  wind,  occasionally  blows, 
when  the  heat  becomes  insupportable,  the  doors  and 
windows  of  the  houses  are  closed,  the  fine  dust  penetrates 
everywhere,  everything  dries  up.  even  the  wooden  ves 
sels  warp  and  crack.  (See  in  Hengs.  p.  10, 11.)  With  regard 
to  their  entertainments,  we  are  toll  1  that  the  Egyptians 
carefully  attained  from  familiar  intercourse  with 
foreigners,  for  the  especial  reason  that  these  latter  slew 
and  ate  the  sacred  animals  of  Egypt,  while,  from  the 
sculptures  we  see  that  sitting,  not  reclining,  was  their 
posture  at  table  (Herod,  ii.  41 ;  Wilkinson,  ii.  p.  20l).  The 
practice  of  divining  by  cups  was  an  ancient  one  in 
Egypt,  and  traces  of  it  remain  even  to  the  present 
time.  (>V<-  DIVINATION.)  M'ith  regard  to  the  hatred 
for  shepherds  entertained  by  the  Egyptians  and  men 
tioned  in  Genesis,  the  monuments  afford  abundant 
proof  of  it.  The  artists  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt 
vie  with  each  other  in  caricaturing  them  (Wilkinson,  ii.  ifi; 
Rosscll.  i.  p.  17\.  The  account  of  the  land  of  Goshen 
given  by  Closes  agrees  in  all  its  particulars  with  the 
geographical  features  of  the  country,  as  the  eastern 
border  land  of  Egypt,  lying  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
its  chief  city.  (ie.  xiv.  10,  affording  excellent  pasture, 
and  also  fit  for  tillage,  and  agreeing  in  all  these  par 
ticulars  with  the  region  east  of  the  Tanaitic  arm  of 
the  Nile  as  far  as  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  or  the  border 
of  the  Arabian  desert.  (>'«:  GOSHEN.)  The  proprie 
torship  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  as  brought  before  us, 
and  accounted  for  in  Genesis,  agrees  with  the  accounts 
of  profane  writers,  who  represent  a  rent  as  paid  by 
the  tillers  of  the  soil  to  the  king,  while  the  land  be 
longed  either  to  the  priests,  or  the  kings,  or  the  mili 
tary  caste,  while  the  same  fact  appears  from  the  sculp 
tures  (Herod,  ii.  109;  Diofl.  Sic.  i.  73).  The  practice  of  em 
balming  is  universally  known  to  have  been  ancient  in 
Egypt:  while  the  custom  of  having  many  physicians 
attached  to  a  single  household,  unknown  in  other 
countries,  appears  to  have  been  usual  in  Egypt,  where 
Herodotus  tells  us  they  had  a  physician  for  each  kind 
of  sickness,  and  these  physicians  it  would  appear  in 
Joseph's  time  practised  the  art  of  embalming.  The 
seventy  days'  mourning,  and  the  funeral  procession 
of  Genesis,  derhe  abundant  confirmation  from  the 
accounts  of  classical  writers,  Diodorus  and  Herodotus 
giving  narratives  in  exact  agreement:  while  on  the 
oldest  tombs  at  Eilethyas  we  see  representations  of 
funeral  processions  which  call  to  mind  that  which  ac 
companied  the  dead  body  of  Jacob  from  Egypt  to 


JOSEPH 


JOSEPH 


the  cave  of  Machpelah  (Herodotus,  ii  M-Mi ;  Uk.dorus,  i.  HI  ; 
Kosselliui,  ii.  p.  30C). 

We  thus  find  from  other  sources  proof,  if  we  wanted 
it,  of  the  truth  of  the  narrative  of  Moses,  and  of  his 
perfect  acquaintance  with  what  lie  professes  to  tell  us. 
Fur  further  information  we  refer  to  Sir  (Jardiner  Wil 
kinson's  Ancient  £i/t/ptictn$,  and  to  Hengstenberg's 
/;>//////  ami  the  ttwkx  nf  Musct.  English  translation. 

The  date  of  Joseph's  arrival  in  Egypt  is  variously 
given  Ijy  different,  writi-rs.  \\'ilkinsoh  places  it  in  the 
sixteenth  dynasty,  that  <>f  Taiiites,  u.c.  17"'i:  this  also 
is  adopted  by  Hengstenberg.  I11-1-] 

2.  JOSI.PH.    Oiieof  the  spies  who  were  despatched  to 
search  out  the  promised  land  —the  representative  of  the 
tribe  of  Is^achar,   Nu.  xiii   :. 

3.  J'isi.i'H.    A  pt-rsnii  of  the  family  "f  Hani,  who  was 
aninnu'  those  that  had  married   heathen  wives  after  the 
return   from    Jlabvloii.  and  were  compelled    by  E/ra  (,i 
part  with  them,  K/r  \.  IL'. 

4.  JosF.ril.      Nu  fewer  than  four  of  the  ancestors  ,,f 
( 'lirist  bore  this  name.  l.u.  ;•:   .' ;.  .1, -_v., :,",  the  oiilv  one  of 
whom  that  ma\   be  said   tnhave   historical  importance 
i-  tin-  la-t  in  iH.int   uf   tinn-    -the   Jo-eph    M'li    of    HiTi. 
\\lin    wa-   the    liusband   of    the    Virgin    .Mary,    and   the 
reputed  or  l.-^al  father  of  JCMIS.      Km-  tin-   relation   in 
which  this  Joseph  stands  to  the  <|iiestion  of  our  Lord'-. 
descent    from    l>a\id,    and    the    differences    in   tracing 
that    descent     between    the    eva  i  life]  i  - 1  s    Matthew   and 
Luke,  .see  GKNKALIHJY  oi-1  Jnsrs  (.'HKIST.     <  >f  his  per- 
-onal  history  in-xt  to  nothing  j,   known,  except,  \\hat  i- 
i'i  cord  i  d  in  cuniiectiiiii   \\  ith   t  he  birth  and  childhood  of 
Jesus.     Kveii  this  comprises  but  a  limited  number  of  par 
ticulars;    he    wa>   in    liiimble   circumstances,    though  of 
nival  lineage:  re.-idi  lit  at    Na/areth.  thouuh  retaining  a 
eivil   connection  with    Hethleln  m.  \\hei-e   In;   sought  to 
have  his  name  taken  at  the  general  enrolment  i.-p"  CYRK- 
XM's   ;    followed  the  trade  of  a  carpenter;  was  a  man  ot 
devout    and    upright   character;    bv   divine   admonition 
received  Marv.  tc  >  whom  he  had  been  previously  espoused, 
as  his  wedded  wife,  kno\\  ing  her  to  be  with  child  of  the 
Holy    (Ihii.-t;    tied    \\itli    her    and    th.     infant    Je-us   to 
lv_:vpt  i  having  been  so  instructed  .  to  escape  the  violence 
of  Herod:  on  ivtimiiiii;,  deemed  it  prudent  to  pa-s  be 
yond  the  jurisdiction  of  Archelaus.  and  si  tiled  a^ain  at 
Na/.ar.  th;   and  there,  after   the   mention    by   St.   Luke, 
rli.  ii.  11  -:.:!,  of  a  visit  paid  by  him  t<>  Jerusalem  together 
with  Marv  and  Je-u>.   when  the   latt.-r  had  reached  Ins 
twelfth  year,   we  alt  o<_vt  her   lo-.,-  >i-ht    of    him.      \\  In  n 
the  period  arrived  fm-  .le>us  >howi]iLt  liim-ell'  to    Israel. 
we  read  not  unfreqiieiitly  of  Mary,  and  of  the  brothers 
and  sisters  of  Jesus,  but  never  of  Joseph.   The  natural  in 
ference  is  that  he  had  mean  while  died;  which  is  rendered 
in  a  manner  certain  by  the  charge  given  bv  our  Lord  on 
the  cross  to  John  to  view  Marv  henceforth  as  his  mother 
—  a  charge  which   he   carried   out  bv  takinu  her  to  his 
own    home,    Jn.    \ix.  L7.       \Ve    cannot    imagine  such   a 
thing  should  have  taken  place,  or  haveeveii  been  thought 
of.  if  Joseph  had  been  still  alive.      This  reserve  in  gos 
pel  history  is  remarkable,  and  contrasts  strikingly  with 
the  numerous  legends  concerning  Joseph  which  sprung 
up   in   after  times,  and   which  have  found  a   record   in 
some  of  tin.-  apocryphal  gospels.      It  shows  how  intent 
the  evangelists  were  on  their  one  grand  theme,  and  how 
little  they  thought  of  gratifying  the  curiosity  of  their 
readers  on  points  but  incidentally  connected  with  it. 
For  the  questions  which  have  been  raised  respecting  the 
family  relations  of  Joseph,  see  MAUV. 


5.  JUSKPH    UK  AIUMATHKA.     A  singular  obscurity 
hangs   around    this    person,    considering    the    part    he 
acted  in   the  great  crisis   of  our  Lord's  history.      The 
place  with  which  his  name  is  associated  occurs  in  no 
other  connection,  and  has  never  been  identified.      (»S'«J 
AKIMATHKA.)     Joseph  himself  belongs  to  that  class  of 
persons,    who   appear   for   a  moment  on   the   stage  of 
sacred  history,  to  teach  some  great  lesson  or  perform 
some  special   service,  and  then  cease  to  be   heard  of 
All  we  know  of  him   is   simply  that  he  was  of  Arima- 
thea:  that  he  was   a   man   of  wealth  and  a  member  of 
the  Mipivmo  council   of   the  Jews;    that   he   was   a  per 
son  of  enlightened  views  and  godly  character,  secretly, 
indeed,   a   disciple    of   Jesus;    that   the   fear  which   had 
hitherto   prevented   him  from  avowing  his  belief  gave 
way  when   he  saw    the  things  which   happened  at  the 
close    of   ChrUt's   earthly    eaivir,    so    that    he   received 
courage  to  ask  from  I'ilate  the  dead  body  of  his  Master, 
and  had  the  unspeakable   honour    laloiiu1  with    Nicode- 
miis)  of  laying  it  in  his  owti  new  tomb,  that  had  been 
hewn  from   a   rock    in  the  immediate   precincts  of  the 
city.   Mat.  xxvii.  57-C.O  ;  l.u    \\i;i   50-33;  Jn.  xix.  38.       Ill  him,  it 
i.-  seen,  how  at  t  imes  faith,  when  it  ivallv  exists,  though 
onlv  as   a    feeble   germ,  can    rise   with    the  occasion  to 
confront  the  most   formidable   diflicultics  -  how  again 
such    faith,    with    its    mighty  action    and    triumphant 
results,  is  at  times  found  in  quarters  where  bv  men  it 
mav  have  least  been   expected:   and.  viewed  in  connec 
tion    \\ith    the    predetermined    and    even    formally    an 
nounced  purpose  of  ( !od  respecting  ( 'hri>t.  the  example 
-hows  how  certainly  the  means  and  instruments  will  be 
forthcoming    .however    apparently    impossible)   at  the 
proper   time    to   execute   the    counsels   of    Heaven.      It 
had  been  written    ceiiturie-    before  the  gospel  age,  that 
M'Hiehow    the    promi-ed    Messiah,  even   when   despised 
and    rejected    of    men.    and   amid    the   darkest,   siyns   of 
condemnation  and   urief  pouring  out  his  soul  an  otter 
ing  for  sin,  was  yet  to   be  with  the  rich  in   his  death, 
Is  liii.'.i.     I'p  till  the  moment,  when  it   became  necessary 
to  dispose  of  our  Lord's  mortal  remains,  it  seemed  as  if 
this  announcement  had  failed  to  come  in  remembrance, 
and  as  if  it  were   impossible    in    the  circumstances   that 
anv  one   could    be  found   to   do   tin;    part   it  indicated. 
Hut,    lo !    precisely   at    that    crisis    there    appeared  in 
Joseph  of  Arimathea.  with  his   associate   Nicodemus, 
the  very   instrumentality  needed  for  the   occasion;  so 
that,  in  the  face  of  all  appearances  to  the  contrary,  the 
word  of  Cod  uas  found  to  stand  sure,  and  meet  respect 
was  at  the  same  time  secured  toward   the   lifeless  body 
uf  the  now  ofleivd  and  perfected  Redeemer. 

6.  JosKIMI.  called  I'>ARSAI5.VS    iinost   probably  son   of 
Sabas  .  and  surnamed  Justus,      lie  was  one  of  the  two 
per.-ons   named    by  the  apostles  and   their  companions 
at  Jerusalem,  one  of    whom   was   to    be   chosen   by  the 
Lord.'s  lot  to  supply  the  vacant  office  of  Judas,  Ac.  i.  23. 
The  lot  fell,  not  upon   him,  but   upon  Matthias.      He 
was,  therefore,  not  numbered  with  the  apostles;  although, 
as  he  had,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Peter,  "com- 
panied  with  them  from  the  baptism  of  John  unto  the 
day  that  Jesus  was   taken   up  from   them,''  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  he  continued  still  to  be  much  with 
them,  and  to  lend  his  aid  toward  the  establishment  of 
Christianity  in  his  native  land.      His  name,  however, 
is  not  again  mentioned,    and   the  traditions  given  by 
Eusebius,  that  he  was  one  of  the  seventy  disciples,  and 
also  that  having  drunk  some  deadly  poison  he  sustained 
no  harm,  however  probable,  cannot  be  deemed  certain. 

121 


JOSHUA 


JO'SES  [probably  a  variation  of  'l-rjaoi'S,  -Jesus].  1. 
A  progenitor  of  Joseph,  the  husband  of  Mary,  the 
fifteenth  in  descent  from  Pavid.  Lu.iii.2u  2.  A 
brother  of  Jesus.  Mat.xiii.no.  \Vhether  a  brother  in 
the  strict  sense,  or  in  that  more  general  application 
which  was  sometimes  made  of  it  to  relations  of  the 
second  or  third  degree,  has  been  and  still  is  a  matter  of 
dispute.  (.See  Kiiiler  JAMES.)  3.  Suniuined  BARNABA.S. 
(.S.  c  BARNABAS.) 

JO'SHUA     (tfv 


.j«Vi'»)    iii   the   later    book? 

'l?;<7or?.  1.  The  son  of  .Nun.  lie  was  of  the  tribe 
of  Kphraim,  as  is  repeatedly  mentioned  in  the  Pen 
tateuch;  and  his  genealogy  is  given  at  full  length  in 
the  passage  which  ends  in  1  ( 'h.  vii.  :27.  though  there 
is  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  way  of  inter 
preting  the  context,  so  as  to  fix  the  line  of  descent 
and  the  number  of  generations.  The  earliest  occasion 
on  which  we  read  of  him  is  the  time  of  the  attack 
on  Israel  in  Rephidim  by  the  Amalekites.  EX.  xvii., 
and  there  he  is  abruptly  mentioned,  as  if  he  were  a 
person  so  well  known  that  no  description  of  him  to  the 
reader  was  necessary.  But  probably  his  first  public 
service  was  the  command  which  he  took  of  a  chosen 
body  of  Israelites  that  day:  and  his  work  was  so  well 
performed,  that  the  Lord  virtually  pointed  him  out  as 
the  successor  of  Moses,  who  was  to  lead  oil  the  people 
in  a  career  of  victory,  as  he  bade  Moses  write  in  "  the 
Book"  what  Amalek  had  dolk.  and  rehearse  it  in  the 
ears  of  Joshua.  It  is  on  the  whole  most  probable  that 
this  was  also  the  time  at  which  he  received  from  Moses 
his  name  Jehoshua.  meaning  "he  whose  help  or  salva 
tion  Jehovah  is,"  by  a  mollification  of  his  original 
name,  Hoshea,  ".salvation,"  although  this  change  is 
mentioned  incidentally  only  at  a  later  period,  when 
he  was  chosen  to  be  one  of  the  twelve  spies.  Nu.  xiii.  id. 
And  there  are  other  brief  notices  which  point  out  that 
he  was  a  young  man:  an  intimate  friend  of  Moses  and 
attendant  upon  him:  and  of  excellent  principles,  who 
would  not  depart  out  of  the  tabernacle  which  Mose.-.  was 
to  pitch  for  himself,  as  a  met  ting  place  for  God  and  the 
people  after  the  sin  of  making  the  golden  calf,  hv 
which  act  of  apostasy  he  was  wholly  untainted.  Ex. 
xxiv.  13  :  xxxii.  17  ;  xxxiii.  11.  He  is  there  called  "Moses' 
minister,"  and  he  is  introduced  to  us  by  the  same  title 
in  the  book  which  bears  his  name:  while  the  expres 
sion  is  varied  and  explained,  1^.  i.  :i-,  "Joshua,  the 
son  of  Nun,  which  standeth  before  thee:"  and  again, 
Nu.  xi.  2%  ''Joshua,  the  servant  of  Moses,  one  of  his 
young  men."  This  last  passage  mentions  his  excessive 
attachment  to  Moses,  to  an  extent  so  unwarrantable 
that  he  would  have  restrained  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
in  his  acting  on  some  persons,  who  prophesied  in  an 
irregular  manner,  and  were  in  some  measure  disrespect 
ful  to  Moses. 

On  occasion  of  the  next  great  act  of  national  pro 
vocation,  which  drew  down  the  curse  of  wandering  and 
dying  in  the  wilderness,  Joshua  and  Caleb  alone  were 
excepted,  and  had  the  noble  testimony  borne  to  them 
that  they  had  fully  followed  the  Lord,  both  in  their 
work  as  spies,  and  in  their  endeavour,  at  the  risk  of 
their  own  lives,  to  recover  the  people  from  unbelief. 

Nu.  xiv.  (J-lM,  ;;M,  ,>  ;  xxxii.  12;  loiiiparc  Jos.  xiv.  U-9.  Hence.  Oil 
a  third  occasion  of  great  dishonour  done  to  God.  when 
Moses  himself  had  been  found  wanting  at  the  waters 
of  Meribah-Kadesh,  and  was  solemnly  warned  that 


even  he  must  be  excluded  from  the  land  of  promise, 
Joshua  was  set  apart  to  be  life  successor.  And  the 
Scripture  describes  him  as  already  a  man  in  whom  the 
Spirit  was.  though  Moses  was  to  lay  his  hand  upon 
him.  that  he  might  be  eminently  qualified  for  his  work, 
N'u.  xxvii.  15-23.  And  several  times  in  the  book  of  Deu 
teronomy  it  is  recorded  that  God  ratified  this  appoint 
ment,  and  encouraged  Joshua  to  undertake  the  great 
task  assigned  to  him,  of  conquering  the  land  of  Canaan 
and  dividing  it  among  the  tribes  of  Israel. 

In  liis  person  and  his  work  there  has  been  often  no 
ticed  a  singular  combination  of  completeness  and  in 
completeness.  His  office  and  its  work  was  one  of  com- 
pletion:  for  .Moses  had  only  commenced  to  execute  the 
plan  of  God,  by  bringing  the  people  forth  from  Kgvpt 
and  conducting  them  through  the  wilderness;  but 
Joshua  led  them  into  the  land  of  promise,  defeated  all 
their  enemies  with  terrible  destruction,  divided  all  the 
land,  set  up  the  tabernacle  with  its  services  of  public 
worship,  and  was  able  to  call  the  people  to  witness 
I  that  nothing  had  failed  of  all  the  goodness  which  the 
Lord  had  promised  to  them,  Jos.  xxi.  43- 4f..  His  personal 
and  official  life  is  also  without  a  blemish  recorded  in 
Scripture,  unless  when  he  envied  the  unruly  prophets 
for  Mo--es  sake,  to  which  act  allusion  has  already  been 
made',  and  again  when  he  precipitately  or  heedlessly 
permitted  a  covenant  to  be  concluded  with  the  Gibeon- 
ites.  Xor  had  he  in  one  single. instance,  so  far  as 
known,  any  tumult  or  disobedience  of  the  people  to 
contend  with,  as  Moses  often  had:  but  on  the  con 
trary,  they  gave  him  willing  and  uninterrupted  sup 
port  in  all  his  labours,  unless  an  exception  is  to  be 
made  on  account  of  a  certain  ''slackness"  in  taking 
possession  of  the  allotted  land,  Jos.  xviii.  3.  So  that  it 
may  be  affirmed  that  the  actual  Israel  with  their 
earthly  head  never  came  nearer  the  ideal  of  the  people 
of  God  than  during  the  administration  of  Joshua, 
Jos.  xi.  i;. ;  xxiv.  31.  And  it  is  said  again  and  again 
that  the  people  honoured  and  obeyed  him  not  less 
than  they  had  honoured  and  obeyed  Moses:  as  it  is 
also  said  that  tin.  Lord  magnified  him  by  the  working 
of  miracles  as  stupendous  as  those  of  Moses.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  perfection  is  only  that  of  a  person 
occupying  a  subordinate  position.  It  is  always  Moses 
who  is  put  forward  as  the  model  whom  he  imitated 
and  approached,  but  to  whose  position  he  never  attained. 
From  the  first,  the  account  of  his  appointment  bears 
that  he  was  to  continue  to  be  "Moses'  minister."  car 
rying  out  his  written  law,  as  he  had  personally  done 
service  to  him.  And  whereas  Moses  had  been  himself 
the  great  organ  of  communication  between  the  Lord 
and  the  people,  Joshua  was  to  make  his  inquiries  and 
to  receive  his  instructions  through  Eleazar  the  high- 
priest.  Therefore  he  had  only  fo/ne  of  Moses'  honour 
put  upon  him,  Nu.  xxvii.  20.  And  while  he  is  de 
clared  to  have  been  full  of  the  Spirit  of  wisdom,  in 
consequence  of  the  imposition  of  Moses'  hands,  and  to 
have  met  with  all  the  respect  which  it  was  compe 
tent  for  him  to  receive,  it  is  expressly  added  that 
there  had  not  arisen  a  prophet  since  in  Israel  like  unto 
Moses,  DC.  xxxiv.  <),  10.  Neither  were  the  Canaanites  so 
destroyed  by  him.  and  the  land  so  fully  taken  into  pos 
session,  as  to  allow  the  Israelites  to  say  that  the  work 
was  complete :  rather  it  might  be  said  that  Joshua's 
work  was  essentially  imperfect,  a  mere  commencement 
and  introduction,  which  never  was  succeeded  by  any 
thing  more  perfect  in  the  history  of  Israel,  because 


JOSHL'A 

of  bitterness    t. 


Of)3 


JOSHl'A.   BOOK  OF 


they    sunered    roots    of    bitterness    to    spring    tip 
trouble  them. 

The  general  conviction  of  the  Christian  church  has 
always  been  that  Joshua  was  very  eminently  a  type  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whose  prerogative  alone  it 


xii.  s,  24;  also  a  man.  Xe.  iii.  111,  perhaps  the  same  as  in 
ch.  vii.  11. 

5.  JESHI.'.V  is  the  name  of  a  city  of  Judah,  Xo.  xi.  20. 
(>'((-  «//</(/•  JKSHTA.)  [c,.  c.  M.  D.] 

JO'SHUA,  THE  BOOK  OF.     The  object  of  this 


to  bring  things  to  perfection  which  the  administration  ;  book,  as  Keil  expresses  it.  is  to  glorify  the  truthfulness 
of  the  law  of  Moses  could  never  perfect.  Even  in  his  j  of  Jehovah  in  his  covenant  which  cannot  fail,  by  a 
office  of  captain  of  the  Lord's  host.  Joshua  did  homage  to  j  historical  proof  of  the  fulfilment  of  his  promises.  And 


him  to  whom  this  office  rightfully  belongs,  whom  hi 
in  vision  as  he  was  commencing  his  enterprise,  Jos 


the  opening  paragraph  "f   the   b 
taken  as  a  table  of  the  contents, 


ok,  lie  says,  may  be 
oh.  i.  •>-<>;   the  promise 


since  his  new  name  Joshua,  in  later  H.l.r.w  pn>- 
nouuced  Jeshua.  is  that  which  was  given  to  our  Lord, 
though  tlie  fact  is  parti-,  disguised  to  us  ouing  to  the 
(4 reek  form  of  it,  Je.-us.  t"  uhich  we  are  accustomed. 
We  may  be.  tin-  inc. re  satisfied  that  this  is  not  a  fanci 
ful  or  accidental  resemblance,  since  \\  e  h:t\e  expiv-s 
warrant  from  Scripture  \«r  considering  the  other  famous 
Jo.-h-.ia,  the  hi::h piv--t  at  tin-  tinn-  of  the  second  na 
tional  redemption  of  L-ra.1.  a  typ.-  of  our  Lord  in  hi- 
prie.-tly  i.iii.-e.  '/.,  •  ;ii.  The  reason  ha-  been  alreadv 
sirjgc-te.'.  whv  there  i-  n  .  such  re-emi.lainv  in  the 


i.-xxii.;  and  the  direction  as  to  the  means  of  suc 
cess,  by  studying  the  law  of  .Moses,  oh.  i.  7,  s,  repeated 
and  ehtoiv.  d  at  larue  upon  the  people  by  Joshua  before 
he  died,  oh.  xxiii.  xxiv.  Adopting  this  threefold  arrange 
ment,  we  might  give  some  such  analysis  of  the  book  as 
th..-  full.. \\hii: :  — 

I .    Tin-  conquest,   oh.  i.-xii 

1.  ich.  i.  ii.l  Tlie  call  of  Joshua  and  preparations 
f.  >r  entering  the  land,  including  the  mission  of  the  spies. 
This  latter  event  is  scarcely  t..  be  put  before  some  of 
the  events  of  tli.'  first  chapter,  as  in  the  margin  of  our 


tl 


in  eh.  i.  11 


name  among  tin-  prophets  aNo.  namely,  that  o-.ir  Lord     translation;   that  is  to  say.  tin 
was  tin-  prophet  emphatieallv  like  unto  Moses. 

The  particular*  of  Joshua's  public  historv  may  ho 
more;  suitably  noticed  in  tin-  article  on  the  book  \\hich 
b.-ar.-  his  name.  [|e  received  a  -.p.-cial  mark  of  the 
affect  ion  of  tlie  people,  aft.-]-  In-  had  completed  tin- 
allotment  of  the  land  anion-  tin-  tribe-:  for  tln-v  i:  ran  ted 
him  a  piece  of  -round  which  he  selected  to  be  his  own 
inheritance,  Timnath  S.-rah.  or  Timnatli  lLre-.  in 
Mount  Ephraim,  \vln-n-  h--  built  tin-  city  that  bears  this 
name,  where  also  he  ditd  and  received  a  public  burial. 
as  it  would  seem,  after  h--  bad  attained  tin-  age  of 
llll.  .I--,  xix.40,50;  xxiv.  211,30;  Ju.  ii.  \  '.';  the  same  age  as 
that  of  his  givat  ancestor  Jo-.-ph.  and  onlv  ten  vears 
less  than  that  of  Moses.  [c.  c.  .M  n.] 

2.  JOSHI  \,  or  J  Ksnf  \.  .-on  of  Josedech.  or  J../adak  <  iod  in  IPS  character  of  ( 'aptain  of  the  Lord's  ho-t.  and 
(who  was  pn.bablv  tin-  high-prn-st  carried  captive  bv  his  directions  to  Joshua  regarding  the  miraculous  cap- 
Nebuchadue/.zar,  I  Ch.  vi.  1:1,  tiioiifh  in  this  case  scarcely  lure  and  utter  destruction  of  Jericho,  which  was  the 


seem  to  ivf.-r  to  the  time  till  the  crossing  should  begin, 
or  t:!l  the  people  shouid  be  ready  for  crossing,  at  least 
tln-re  are  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  identifying 
them  with  the  three  days  in  ch.  iii.  -. 

•_'.  ich.  iii.  iv.)  The  actual  miraculous  crossing; 
marked  bv  tuelve  stones  set  up  in  the  channel  of  the 
river  where  the  priests  had  stood  with  the  ark,  and  by 
otln  r  twelve  carried  out  ..f  the  bed  of  the  river  and  set 

Up  oil  the  Western  side. 

:•!.  (ch.  v.  1-1 1>  '  The  renewal  of  the  Lord's  covenant 
of  circumcision;  the  consequent  rolling  away  of  the 
reproach  of  Kgypt,  owing  to  which  the  place  was  called 
(  lilual.  t;iat  i-.  rolling;  and  the  ceasing  of  the  manna. 

•1.    ich.  v.  l:>-vi.  L'7.)      The  appearance  of  the  Son  of 


the  literal  fatlu  r  of  Joshua),  the  hi^h-prie-t  at  the  timi      key  of  tin-  country 

of  the  return  from  Bab\ 

a-tical  head  of  th--  p.-op 

their  civil  lit  ad,  l-'./r.  ii.  2;  iii.  2;  iv 

markalile   as   the  person,  along   with    Zerubbabel,  who 

had  to  bear  the  anxieties  connected  \\itli  the  rebuilding 

of  the  temple,  to  whom  therefore  comfort  and  direction 

d  up     nant    and 


d  t 


lishment  of  this. 


lie  i-  chiefly  re-  of  Ai.  and  probably  Bethel:  the  Crst  firm  footing  in 
the  central  country,  after  coming  up  from  the  deep 
valley  of  the  Jordan. 

i).  ich.  viii.  :;n-:i.,.       The  sol.  mn  renewal  of  the  cove- 
reading    of    tin-    law    at   Shechem,    between 
Mounts   l-'.bal  and  (Jeri/.im;  this  central  country  being 


were  administered  bv  tin-  prophets  whom  (l..d  rai.- 
in  that  critical  period,  H;u  i  t,ii;  ii.  2,4;  Zee.  iii  i.S'j 

His  typical  character,  as  set  forth  in  the  two  last-named  now  in  tin-  hainU  of  J.islma.  and  this  district  being  not 

passages,  has   been  alluded    to  towards   tin-   end  of  tin-  improbably   tin-    locality   in    which  we    are   to    look    for 

article   on   the  history  of  Joshua     1).       Some    gene;.  t  hat  <  iilv-'al   at  which  the   camp  appears  in  the  subse- 

logical   statements   in   connection  with   him   arc   made  qin-nt  history. 

in  No.  xii.  1-^ii.  7.  (ch.ix.  x.)    The  great  southern  confederacy  against 

3.  JOSIICA  appears  as  the  name  of  certain   persons  Joshua,    which  he  utterly  destroyed.      It  included  all 

known  to  us  only  in  the  most  casual  way:  the  owner  of  the   ( 'anaanitish    tribes   to   the   south   of   his    position, 

the  field  at    Beth-shemesh.   in   which  the  ark  was  set  except  the  (iibeonites.    who  made  a    league  with  the 


down  on  its  return  from  the  land  of  the  Philistines, 
lS:i.  vi.  14,  i*;  also  a  governor  of  Jerusalem,  at  whose  gate 
there  were  idolatrous  high  places,  which  king  Josiah 
broke  down,  2  Ki  xxiii.  s. 

4.  JKSHTA  is  in  like'  manner  the  name  of  one  of 
the  twenty-four  priests  at  the  head  of  the  courses  ap 
pointed  by  David,  1  Ch.  xxiv.  ii;  Kzr.  ii.  30;  also  of  certain 
Levites,  2  Ch.  xxxi.  1.1;  E/.r.  ii.  40;  viii  3:;;  XL 


Israelites  by  a  stratagem,  but   were  reduced  to  servi 
tude  in  connection  with  the  tabernacle. 

8.  (ch.  xi.  1-:i('u  The  great  northern  confederacy; 
similarly  bi-oken  up;  so  that  the  Canaanites  were  every 
where  discomfited.  The  war  lasted  "a  long  time," 
vtv.  is  which  is  interpreted  to  be  about  seven  years  from 
the  time  of  crossing  Jordan,  by  comparison  with  the 
dates  furnished  by  Caleb,  oh.  xi\.  7, 1<>. 


JOSHUA,   BOOK  OF 

!"i.  (cli.  xi.  '2l-'2'-j).  Apparently  a  third  war  carried  on 
with  the  broken  forces  of  the  ( 'anaanites  in  the  south, 
reinforced  and  commanded  by  the  dreaded  giants  the 
Anakim.  The  result  of  Joshua's  successes  was,  that 
"the  land  rested  from  war,"  when  Joshua  had  taken 
the  whole  land,  not  by  utterly  exterminating  the  natives, 
as  some  have  fallen  into  the  mistake  of  supposing,  but 
''according  to  all  that  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,"  ver. 
2!,  namely,  that  he  woidd  drive  the  enemy  out  by  little 
and  little,  not  all  at  once.  Kx.  xxiii.  ->7-:;i>;  DO.  vii.  -1-2. 

10.  (ch.  xii.)     A  list  of  the  conquests,  including  those 
of  Moses  beyond  Jordan. 

11.  The  distribution  of  the  land,  ch.  xiii.-xxii. 

1.  (ch.  xiii.  1-xiv.  5.)  The  directions  for  dividing 
the  land,  including  a  notice  of  what  Moses  had  done. 
It  is  here  expressly  stated  that  Joshua  was  to  divide 
land  which  was  not  yet  in  actual  possession,  but  from 
which  the  Lord  \\ould  drive  out  the  Canaanites.  ch. 
xiii.  1,  (!. 

•2.  (ch.  xiv.  (5-15.)  The  preferable  claim  which  Caleb 
presented  on  his  own  behalf,  supported  by  the  elders  of 
.Judah,  and  sustained  by  Joshua. 

3.  (ch.  xv.-xvii.)      The  allotments  to  Judah  and  to 
Joseph  in  the  two  tribes  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh. 

4.  (ch.  xviii.  1-7.)      The  setting  up  of  the  tabernacle 
in  Shiloh  within  the  tribe  of  Ephraim.    by  the  entire 
congregation ;  their  slackness  in  proceeding  with  the 
allotments ;   and  the  command  of  Joshua  to  make  a 
survey  of  the  land,  so  as  to  allot  the  portions' of  the 
remaining    tribes    at    once,   and   without    the    risk   of 
further  mischievous  procrastination. 

[It  is  of  little  use  to  speculate  as  to  the  immediate 
causes  of  this  delay  or  change  of  plan  in  the  division. 
These  may  possibly  have  been  jealousies  of  the  two 
great  houses  of  Judah  and  Joseph;  or  a  certain  sacrifice 
of  the  interests  of  the  other  tribes  to  theirs:  or  a  general 
carelessness  of  the  people  about  settling  down  in  sepa 
rate  homes,  after  long  living  together  a  wandering  life 
in  the  desert:  or  fear  of  attacks  by  the  enemy  if  they 
separated.  Possibly  Joshua's  third  war  with  the  Ana 
kim  in  the  south  may  have  intervened  unexpectedly, 
and  interrupted  the  allotment;  a  new  campaign  in  the 
south  might  make  the  people  better  aware  of  the  exces 
sive  size  of  the  portion  assigned  to  Judah,  \rhoaeposition 
was  therefore  to  remain,  vcr.  5,  since  the  lot  from  God 
had  determined  it;  while  the  imi'/)iiti<dc  was  reduced 
by  giving  a  portion  to  Simeon  after  the  survey  had 
been  made,  ch.  xix.  9.] 

5.  (ch.  xviii.  8-xix.  51.)     The  allotments  to  the  seven 
remaining  tribes,  in  accordance  with  the  survey.     The 
descriptions  of  all  of  these,  except  Benjamin's,  are  com 
paratively  brief,   and  these  northern  tribes  never  did 
take  the  place  in  the  history  of  Israel  which  they  might 
have  taken;  so  that  the  Spirit  of  God  has  adjusted  the 
history  and  the  geography  to  one  another.      And  there 
are  difficulties  in  understanding  how  some  of  the  boun 
daries  ran,  and  in  reconciling  the  number  of  cities  be 
longing  to  a  tribe,  as  given  in  the  mini  and  in  detail,  which 
our  ignorance  incapacitates  us  for  wholly  removing. 

6.  (ch.  xx.)     The  cities  of  refuge. 

7.  (ch.  xxi.)     The  cities  of  the  Levites;  completing 
the  promised  apportionment. 

8.  (eh.  xxii.)     The  dismissal  of  the  two  tribes  and  a 
half  to  their  land  beyond  Jordan,  after  they  had  faith 
fully  aided  their  brethren;  and  the  removal  of  danger 
of  a  civil  war  in  connection  with  their  supposed  tendency 
to  idolatrv. 


JOSHUA,   BOOK  OF 

]  1  1.  The  parting  addresses  of  Joshua  before  he  died, 
ch.  xxiii.  xxiv.  There  is  a  considerable  similarity  between 
(hose;  but  the  second  seems  to  have  been  of  a  more 
public  and  solemn  kind,  before  the  Lord  in  Shechem, 
ver.  1, 25,  26,  where  the  first  altar  in  the  land  had  been 
erected  by  their  father  Abraham,  Ge.  xii.  t;,  7,  where 
Jacob  had  purified  his  household  in  preparation  for  the 
renewal  of  his  covenant  with  God,  Ge.  xxxv.  2-:>,  and  where 
they  themselves  had  built  an  altar  and  renewed  the 
covenant,  as  they  were  commanded  to  do,  on  their  first 
taking  possession  of  Canaan,  Jos.  viii.  sn, :i.3.  In  agree 
ment  with  this  view,  the  second  address  is  more  his 
torical,  going  into  all  the  details  of  the  covenant  with 
their  fathers  as  well  as  with  themselves;  and  altogether 
it  is  perhaps  tinctured  with  gloom,  as  if  Joshua  foresaw 
approaching  evil,  and  suspected  that  the  leaven  of 
wickedness  was  already  at  work.  It  makes  little  dif 
ference  if  we  prefer  to  reckon  this  third  division  a  part 
of  the  second  division  of  the  book,  as  is  more  commonly 
done :  such  numberings  are  almost  always  to  some 
extent  artificial. 

The  sceptical  criticism  which  has  busied  itself  with 
all   tlh'  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  has  not  neglected 
to  attack  the  book  of  Joshua:  but  its  efforts  have  been 
singularly  ineffective.      For  a  considerable  time  it  was 
the  fashion  to  assert  that  this  book  was  a  compilation 
more  recent  than  the  Babylonish  captivity,  an  opinion 
held   indeed   by   Masius,    a   learned    Horn  an   Catholic, 
whose  posthumous  work  on  Joshua  appeared  in  1574, 
but  chiefly  urged  into  notice  by  the  father  of  modern 
pantheism,  Spinoza,  and  from  him  transmitted  to  the 
unbelieving  critics,  by  whom  it  is  defended  with  argu 
ments,  or  assumed  without  arguing,  down  to  the  days 
of  Maurer.  Oesenius,  Ewald,  Bleek,  and  Knobel.     The 
arguments  in  favour  of  this,  from  peculiarities  of  the 
language  and  grammatical  construction,  are  of  the  most 
insignificant  value:  so  unquestionable  is  this,  that  emi 
nent  later  sceptical  critics  have  rushed  to  the  opposite 
extreme,   and   on  the  same    grounds  of   language  and 
grammar  have  pronounced  it  to  be  originally  a  part  of 
the  same  work  as  the  Pentateuch.      Of  course  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  this  concession  is  not  quite  so  re 
markable  a  change  of  opinion  as  at  first  sight  it  appears 
to  be,  since  these  men  do  not  admit  that  the  Pentateuch 
is  the  work   of  Moses,  at  least  as  a  whole  and  in  its 
present  form.    Accordingly,  most  of  the  speculations  of 
De  Wette,  Ewald,  Stahelin,  Bleek.  &c.,  upon  the  com 
position  of  the  Pentateuch,  especially  the  hypothesis  of 
two  documents  wrought  into  one  another  with  certain 
enlargements,   have  been   reproduced  in   dealing  with 
this   book    of  Joshua.      They  have   been  circulated   in 
England,  chiefly  by  Dr.  Davidson;  but  if  any  one  wishes 
more  minute  refutation  of   them  than  his  own  good 
sense  might  supply,  he  may  find  the  materials  briefly 
and  comprehensively  arranged  in  Keil's  Introduction  to 
the  Old  Testament.     In  general  it  is  enough  to  say  here 
that   such  notions   are  mere  unsupported   hypotheses; 
that  so  far  from   any  trace  occurring  of  the   book  of 
Joshua  having  once  belonged  to  the  document  which 
(as  they  fancy)  lies  at  the  basis  of  our  Pentateuch,  it 
is  plain  throughout    the  book  that  the  law  of  Moses 
already  existed  in  a  written  form,  and  was  the  acknow 
ledged  standard  of  all  faith  and  practice;  and,  in  the 
words  of  Keil,  that   ' ;  the  book  contains  neither  traces 
of  fragments,  nor  contradictions  of  matters  of  fact,  nor 
varieties  of  thinking  and  expression,  which  could  justify 
hypotheses  of  this  kind,  but  is  closely  bound  together 


JOSHUA.   BOOK  OF 


it  65 


JOSHUA.    J'.OOK  OF 


ill  all  its  parts,  and  pervaded  and  directed  by  one  and  quiet  and  freedom  which  were  requisite  for  observing 
the  same  idea,  so  that  its  original  us  well  as  its  actually  j  the  passover  ami  the  preparatory  rite  of  circumcision, 
existing  unity  lies  under  no  well-grounded  suspicion.''  ;  i>ut  when  that  terror  had  been  renewed  and  deepened 
In  fact,  the  chief  objections  made  to  the  antiquity  ;  by  the  downfall  of  the  walls  of  Jericho,  no  further 
and  unity  of  the  book,  are  on  account  of  the  miracles  miracle  was  wrought:  but.  on  the  contrary,  the  very 
which  it  records,  while  it  has  been  assumed  that  <  next  city.  Ai,  had  to  be  taken  by  the  ordinary  attacks 
miracles  are  impossible.  Hence  the  attempt  to  thrust  and  stratagems  of  war. 

the  date  of  composition  down  to  a  comparatively  recent  The  author  of  the  book  cannot  be  positively  deter- 
atce,  as  Bleek  and  Ewald  venture  to  fix  its  authorship  :  mined;  and  in  this  respect  it  is  like  the  other  historical 
and  that  of  Deuteronomy  so  far  down  as  the  time  of  ,  books  of  its  class  to  which  the  Jewish  church  gave  the 
Manasseh:  and  others,  with  as  little  reason,  have  made  name 
it  later  than  the  davs  of  Ahab.  so  that  Joshua's  cur.-i 
upon  the  man  who  should  rebuild  the  walls  of  Jericln 
maybe  regarded  a>  a  raticiiiium  /">•<?  cvutttnit.  Any 
fair  sceptic  must  allow  that  it  is  -rievouslv  wrai-  thib 


"the   former   prophets."    that   is,   the    books   of 


to  prejudge  a  case  of  criticism  on  account  of  a  deter 
mination  to  reject  what  is  miraculous.  And  the  be 
liever  in  iwel-ition  \\ill  rather  have  his  faith  confirmed 
when  h<-  sees  tin-  miracle.-  .-f  the  days  of  Moses  termi 
nating  gradually  in  the  hands  of  his  successor,  especially 
•Alien  lie  considers  uhat  the  nature  of  them  is.  The 
drvin.Lf  up  of  the  Jordan,  as  the  peopl,-  passed  throu-h 
it  from  the  wilderness  into  (  'anaan  under  Joshua  as 

th'-ir  li-ad'  r.  is  the  cnunt'Tpart  "f  tile  drying  up  of  the  by  a  companion  and 
Iv'id  St-a  a-  they  passed  out  of  Lu\  pt  into  tile  uiM<  r- 
ness  under  Moses.  And  th>-  overthrow  of  the  walls  of 
Jericho,  the  tir.-t  frmts  of  those  conquests  which  were 
as  a  whole  to  be  "in  >t  1>\  their  own  sword,  nor  by  their 
o\\  n  arm.  but  by  ( I  mi's  "  riidit  liand.  and  his  arm,  and 
the  liuht  of  hi-  countenance,''  wa-  parallel  to  the  over- 


the  older  writers,  borrowed  perhaps  from  writers  in  the 
Talmud  and  several  of  the  fathers,  yet  continued  so  far 
by  internal  evidence,  is.  that  Joshua  himself  was  the 
writer.  To  this  the  learned,  pious,  sober-minded  Wit- 
sius  '_;ives  his  approbation,  while  he  admits  that  there 
arc  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  supposition.  These 
ditticulties  have  restrained  some  of  the  most  trustworthy 
among  our  latest  \\riters  from  going  further  than 
lla\criiick.  \\ho  asserted  that  the  first  half  was  written 
hv  Joshua;  and  Keil.  \\lio  thinks  that  Joshua  supplied 
the  materials  tor  the  most  part,  which  were  put  together 
\\  itness  after  his  death.  The 

ature  of   the  1 k    is  such,  that   the   minute  details   of 

places,  times,  and  numbers,  &(•..  favour  the  supposition 
of  a  \\riter  at  first  hand:  and  the  importance  of  an 
authoritative  .-tat'-meiit  of  the  boundaries  of  the  tribes 
was  such,  that  we  cannot  well  suppose  either  Joshua 


after  that  day  when  they  stood  -till  and  saw  the  saKa 
tion  of  the  Lord,  as  he  foughl  for  them  and  they  ln-ld 
their  peace.  Tin-  standing  --till  of  tin-  MIII  and  moon  at 
tin-  \\ord  of  Joshua  is  certainly  a  mii-acle  without  a 
parallel,  and  is  declared  to  be  so  in  the  passa-e  \\hich 
\cral  ivspi  ct- 


trace,  direct  or  indirect,  of  any  other 
than  this  book,  or  of  any  dissent  from  the  authority  of 
it-  statements.  Auain.  some  weight  is  due  to  the  use 
of  the///-.-.-/  personal  pronoun,  di.  v.  1,1;,  about,  the  <  'anaan- 
Ites  hearin.:  how  the  Lord  "dried  up  the  waters  of 
Jordan  from  before  the  children  of  Israel,  until  «•«  were 
toundin-.  pas-ed  over:"  and  about  that  -eiieration  dying  in  the 
wilderness,  "to  whom  the  Lord  swan-  that  he  would 
not  show  them  the  land  which  the  Lord  sware  unto 


from  the  hvnin  in  the  bo  ~k  nf  Jasher,  to  be  undcrst 1     their  father.-  that 

like  the  do.-enptioiis  of  tin-  i -i-'nte. -nth  psalm  and  other 
such  portions  of  Scripture.  And  there  are  difficulties 
in  the  -rammatic;,]  construction  of  the  narrative  and 
in  it-  -eo^raphv,  which  stand  in  tin-  vs  ay  of  those  who 
interpret  it  as  a  simple  -tateineiit  in  prose.  Yet  we  do 


miirht   be 


over." 


it. 


And   once  more,  in   eh.  vi.  ".").  it  is  said  of  Rahab  the 
harlot,  that  she  and  her  family  ami  property  were  saved 


of   those  who  read    the  Scriptures    is  err -ous; 

has  been  a-reed   by  some  of   the  ablest   scholar: 

day,  like  I'.aum-arten.  that   there  was  a  special  fitness  alive,  "and  she  dwelleth  in   Israel  even  unto  //</.s  day;'' 

in  such  a  miracle  being  v.rought  by  the  word  of  Joshua,  a    -tat<  nu -nt    which  must   have  come   from  a  contem- 

so  that  the  -lory  of  divine  working  in  the  economy  of  porary,  and  one  in  which  the  phrase,  "  unto  this  day," 

the  Old  Testament   might   culminate  in  tin-  act  of   his.  cannot  refer  to  any  great  length  of  time,  any  more  than 

Certainly  no  believer   in  the  word    oft.od  will  hesitate  it    can    in   some   other    passa-es   of    the   book,  although 

to  admit  that  such  a  miracle  mi-ht  be  wrought  in  per-  many  objectors  fancy  that  it  is  evidence  of  much  more 

feet  conformity  with  the  plans  of  him  who  subordinates  recent  composition. 

the  firmest  physical  laws  to  the  purposes  of  his  moral         Mut  the  simplest  and  strongest  possible  evidence  that 

administration,'  and  who  asserts  that  heaven  and  earth  Joshua  was  the  author,  would  seem  to  be  his  own  sub- 


shall  pass  away,  but  that  his  word  shall  not  pass  away. 
Moreover,  there  is  no  lavishing  of  miracles  in  this  book; 
there  is  that  economy  of  them,  if  we  may  so  speak,  that 


might    be    expected    from    other    b 


)f   Scripture. 


scription.  like  that  of  Moses  in  lie.  xxxi.:  these  sub 
scriptions  being  in  both  cases  followed  by  a  brief 
appendix  giving  the  account  of  the  authors  death.  It 
And  Joshua  wrote  these  words  in 


After  this  astounding  miracle  (assuming  that  it  is  such),  ,  the  book  of  the  law  of  Cod,  and  took  a  great  stone, 
throughout  the  chapter  in  which  it  is  related,  and  the  j  and  set  it  up  there,  under  an  oak  that  was  by  the  sane- 
following  one,  we  read  oidy  of  the  ordinary  exertions  j  tuary  of  the  Lord.''1  Yet  it  is  not  certain  that  this 
of  an  energetic  general  and  his  army.  The  passage  of  |  TMore  ikerallv.  this  clause  woTud  run.  "  The  oak  that  was  in 


the  Jordan  struck  such  terror  and  amazement  into  the 


the   sanctuary   of  the   Lord,"  ooinp.  cli.  viii.  :iu  ."5;  Go.,  xii. 


hearts  of  the  enemy,    that   the  Israelites  enjoyed   the     De.  xi.  30,  in  which  two  last  passages  "plain"  is  a  mistranslation 


e\pn -s.-ions  ot  the  writer  identifying  hini.-elf  with  a  past 
generation,  as  in  1's.  Ixvi.  fi:  but  the  balance  of  proba 
bility  mu.-t  lean  towards  the  first  impression  from  the 
.-imple  historical  language;  to  avoid  which,  perhaps,  a 
tran.-crili'-r  unconsciously  gave  rise  to  the  various  read- 


JOSHUA,    BOOK  OF  !) 

testimony  is  decisive,  because  it  is  alleged  by  many 
good  authorities  to  refer,  not  to  our  book  of  Joshua, 
but  to  the  covenant  which  Joshua  made  with  the  people, 
and  the  statute  and  ordinance  which  he  set  for  them  that 
day  in  Shechem,  as  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  verse. 
Certainly  it  is  difficult  to  demonstrate  that  this  con 
struction  is  erroneous,  though  we  look  on  the  other  as 
more  natural. 

The  circumstance  which  has  chiefly  led  to  hesitation 
in  ascribing  the  whole  book,  or  more  than  the  materials 
of  the  book,  to  Joshua  himself,  is,  that  a  comparison  of 
some  of  its  statements  with  statements  in  the  book  of 
Judges,   favours  the   belief  that   the  erents  //if rein  re- 
forded  are  later  than  the  death  of  Joshua.     Chieflv  this 
applies  to  the  conquests  of  Caleb  and  his  nephew  Oth- 
niel,   ch.  xv.  i:>iy,   which   appear  to    he   expressly  dated 
after  Joshua's  death.  Ju.  i.  i,  2,  iu-ir>;  in  connection  with 
which  we  have,  in  ver.  8,  the  account  of  Judah  fighting 
against  Jerusalem,   taking  it.   burning  it,  and  putting 
the  inhabitants  to  the  sword;  whereas  it  is  said,  Jos.  xv.  c;j, 
that  the  children  of  Judali  could  not  drive  the  Jebusites 
out  of  Jerusalem,  but  dwelt  along  with  them   "  unto 
this  day."     Yet  the  difficulty  might  disappear  if  we 
had  fuller  knowledge  of  the  details;  for  plainly  the  first 
chapter  of  Judges  is  a  very  condensed  tabular  state 
ment  of  the  relative  position  of  the  children  of  Israel 
and  the  Canaanitish  nations  at  the  time  of  Joshua's 
death,  when  he  left  his  people  in  that  loosely  organized 
condition  in  which  they  appear  throughout  the  time  of 
the  Judges.     Such  a  tabular  statement  can  scarcely  lie 
distinct  and  comprehensive  if  it  be  confined  to  a  mere 
point  of  time  like  that  of  Joshua's  death;  and  the  im-  j 
pression   has  been  common  that   there  is  some  going  ! 
back  to  a  point  a  little  earlier,  as  well  as  forward,  per-  i 
haps,  to  a  corresponding  distance,  so  as  to  give  a  view  ! 
of  a  period  of  several  consecutive  years.     This  has  been 
expressed  on  the  part  of  our  English  translators  by  the 
use  of  the  pluperfect  tense,  Ju.  i.  s.     No  surprise  need  be  ] 
felt  at  the  mention  in  Jos.  xvi.  10;  xvii.  11-13.  of  Gezer. 
and  Beth-shean,  and  neighbouring  towns,  being  left  by 
the  children  of  Joseph  unmolested  on  account  of  a  pay-  ! 
ment  of  tribute,  facts  which  are  repeated  in  the  first  j 
chapter  of  Judges.     Joshua  may  have  mentioned  the 
continuance  of  these  wealthy  and  powerful  states,  not 
as  in  itself  remarkable  or  wrong,  for  the  general  de 
claration  by  God  was  that  the  Canaanites  should  be 
only  gradually  extirpated:   but  as  remarkable  in  this 
respect  that  there  was  a   certain   degree   of  peaceful 
recognition  of  these  by  receiving  tribute  from  them,  a 
policy  which  he  could  not  help  considering  dangerous, 
and  which  was  abundantly  proved  to  be  so  during  the 
period  of  the  Judges,  and  against  which  he  appears  to 
have  endeavoured  to  rouse  these  two  tribes,  who  were 
his  own  kindred,  ch.  xvii.  14-18.     The  difficulty  is  greater 
when  we  read  of  the  children  of  Dan  seizing  the  town 
of  Leshem,  and  calling  it  Dan,  ch.  xix.  4r;  for  the  full 
account  in  Ju.  xvii.  xviii.  of  the  taking  of  Laish,  un 
folds  to  our  view  a  state  of  society  which  we  scarcelv 
expect  to  find  till  after  the  death  of  Joshua.     Some 
writers  have  denied  that  these  expeditions  are  the  same: 


for  "oak."  Attention  to  this  would  have  obviated  objections 
which  have  been  made  to  the  verse,  as  if  it  were  inconsistent 
with  the  account  of  the  sanctuary  being  fixed  at  Shiloh,  ch. 
xviii.  1.  That  was  the  ordinary  sanctuary,  where  the  people 
assembled  at  the  tabernacle  ;  but  this  was  a  solemn  place  of 
meeting,  proper  for  a  parting  memorial  of  the  covenant,  on 
account  of  historical  associations.  See  also  Ge.  xxxv.  4. 


JOSHTA,   BOOK  OF 

and  this  is  not  an  unfair  position  to  assume,  consider 
ing  the  diversity  of  name,  the  extreme  brevity  of  the 
statement  in  .Joshua,  and  the  frequency  with  which  we 
may  believe  that  inroads  were  made  by  the  hostile  races 
on  each  other,  and  familiar  and  endeared  names  were 
given  to  new  settlements,  as  happens  continually  in 
our  own  colonies — yet  we  incline  to  identify  them,  as 
is  commonly  done.  Nevertheless  it  is  confessed  on  all 
hands  that  the  narrative  in  Judges  cannot  be  dated 
long  after  Joshua's  death;  and  it  may  be  only  our  pre 
conceptions  which  have  led  to  the  assumption  that  it  is 
unsuitable  to  his  lifetime.  The  last  speech  of  Joshua, 
ch.  xxiv.,  has  a  certain  anxiety,  foreboding,  gloom,  and 
suspicion  of  idolatry  being  cherished  secretly  by  the 
people;  which  state  of  mind  does  not  appear  in  his 
former  speech,  though  it  has  warnings  too,  perhaps 
occasioned  by  that  tribute  taken  from  the  Canaanites, 
to  which  allusion  has  been  made.  And  the  idolatrous 
worship  of  Mieah.  mentioned  in  Ju.  xvii.,  was  plainly, 
to  some  extent,  a  secret  thing,  practised  bv  him  in 
domestic  privacy,  and  perhaps  intended  to  be  subordi 
nate  to,  and  consistent  with,  a  supreme  reverence  for 
Jehovah.  The  same  state  of  mind  may  have  existed 
among  the  six  hundred  Danites  who  stole  his  idols;  and 
at  all  events,  this  lawless  company,  passing  on  to  settle 
in  the  very  outskirts  of  civilized  and  sacred  society,  like 
the  squatters  in  some  of  our  colonies,  must  not  be  taken 
as  a  sample  of  the  religious  sentiments  which  prevailed 
among  the  tribes  of  Israel.  In  short,  Joshua  must  have 
been  aware  that  there  was  evil  at  work,  the  particulars 
of  which  he  might  never  know,  but  which  was  such  as 
to  ripen  very  quickly  after  he  and  his  fellow- elders  had 
passed  away. 

In  fact  the  death  of  Joshua  is  often  placed  earlier 
than  we  think  likely,  though  the  materials  for  an  abso 
lute  determination  are  not  within  our  reach.  He  must 
have  been  more  than  twenty  years  old  when  he  was 
sent  to  be  a  spy,  else  his  surviving  to  enter  Canaan 
would  not  have  had  the  exceptional  character  which  is 
attributed  to  it,  Nu.  xiv.  20,  :;o;  xxvi.  64,  GO.  Yet,  as  he  is 
again  and  again  called  a  j/ottny  man.  we  should  take 
him  to  be  the  junior  of  Caleb,  to  whom  that  epithet  is 
never  applied,  and  who  at  that  time  was  forty,  Jos.  xiv. ;. 
Suppose  him  midway  between  these  ages,  or  thirty: 
then  at  the  death  of  Moses  he  would  be  sixty- eight. 
DC.  ii.  14;  and  as  he  was  one  hundred  and  ten  when  he 
died,  by  this  calculation  he  lived  forty-two  years  in  the 
land  of  Canaan.  This  would  afford  ample  time  for  his 
writing  all  these  things,  with  the  record  of  many 
changes  before  his  death;  though  it  is  likely  that  he 
was  little  inclined  for  active  interference  in  the  govern 
ment  during  the  last  years  of  his  life,  if  indeed  his 
commission  did  not  expire  when  he  had  divided  the 
land  among  the  tribes,  leaving  him  at  liberty  to  spend 
the  evening  of  his  days  in  retirement. 

There  is  certainly  nothing  in  the  book  of  Joshua 
which  requires  us  to  place  the  composition  many  years 
after  his  death,  and  there  is  much  that  gives  proba 
bility  to  the  opposite  opinion.  Besides  the  considera 
tions  already  adduced,  there  are  some  minor  ones  which 
may  be  merely  enumerated.  (1.)  The  repeated  use  of 
double  names  for  places,  as  in  a  period  of  revolution, 
Hebron  and  Kirjath-arba,  Debir  and  Kirjath-sepher, 
and  Kirjath-sannah,  and  others.  (2.)  The  title  of  "the 
great,"  given  to  Sidon,  ch.  xi.  s;  xix.  2S,  a  city  which,  at  a 
very  early  period,  became  eclipsed  by  Tyre.  (3.)  The 
inclusion  of  these  cities  among  the  towns  to  be  taken 


JOSIAH 


JOSIAH 


by  the  Israelite.-;,  nncl  their  inhabitants  of  course  to  be 
destroyed,  i-h.  xiii.  U;  xi\.  i>,  29;  whereas,  by  the  time  of 
David  and  Solomon,  they  were  recognized  as  intimate 
allies,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  reduce  them  to 
bondage  like  the  remainder  of  the  Canaanites  proper. 
\i.)  The  antiquity  of  the  names  of  towns  assigned  to 
Simeon  and  to  Levi.  compared  with  the  names  as  given 
in  1  L'h.  iv.  L^-O^.  and  vi.  5-l->l,  though  these  must 
also  have  been  taken  from  pretty  ancient  records.  pro 
bably  in  David's  or  Solomon's  time. 

In  the  same  way  there  are  one  or  two  circumstances 
which  ought  to  make  it  impossible  for  even  a  sceptical 
critic  to  place  the  composition  later  than  the  time  of 
Saul  or  David.  Such  are,  il.i  The  aceoimt  of  the 
Uibeonites.  as  bond  servants  to  the  tabernacle,  which 
we  have  no  reason  to  think  they  ueiv  siill  eomp'  lied 
to  be  after  the  massacre  by  Said:  and  the  .-ileiiee  as  to 
any  settled  place  for  that  tabernacle.  \\h<Teus  such  u 
place  existed  notoriously  from  the  time  of  David. 
(~2.)  The  fact  that  Bethli  hem  is  not  mentioned  aniou^ 
the  cities  of  Judah,  which  it  would  have  been,  if  at  the 
time  of  composition  David  had  come  to  the  tin-one: 
that  is,  uii  the  supposition  that  our  llebr--w  text  U  to 
be  pivfeiivd  to  that  of  the  Septua'jint.  which  in.-erts 
Iv-thlchem  and  ten  other  cities  after  eh.  xv.  ;V.'. 
(•j.\  'J'he-  account  of  the  .1  clinches  and  the  men  of  .)  udah 
dwelling  too-ether  in  Jerusalem.  on  account  of  the  in 
ability  of  the  latter  to  dispossess  the  former:  whereas 
David  stormed  it  in  the  very  e,  innm-ne,  im-nt  of  lii> 
i-i-ii/n  over  all  Israel.  il.  The  like  may  be  said  of 
(Je/cr.  which  I'liaraoh  took,  and  burned.  and  gave  as  a 
dowry  to  his  danuht'-r,  whom  Solomon  had  married. 
1  Ki  ix.  If,. 

The  Samaritans  had  a  work,  not  however  reckoned 
canonical  aniom:  them,  to  which  thev  u'ave  the  name 
of  the  book  of  Joshua.  'I'll  ere  was  a  copy  ,jf  it  obtained 
and  conveyed  to  Kurope  by  Scaliu'-r  in  l.'^-l.  of  wliich 
an  account  has  been  given  by  many  writers:  and  this 
mamiscri]it  has  at  last  been  published  at  Leydi  n  by 
.luvnholl  in  IMv  It  is  wi-itten  in  Arabic,  contains  a 
paraphrastic  account  of  the  life  of  Joshua,  and  is  mixed 
up  with  multitudes  of  fables,  and  contains  a  chronicle 
of  Samaritan  and  Jewish  history,  written  in  a  spirit 
\\hieh  suited  the  purposes  of  the  si  ct.  It  is  said  to  be 
a  very  late  production,  I,,HL:  posterior  to  the  a 
Mohamed. 

I'll  I'll  10  1'   i  lit',,  I'll!   it  inn    ll|..,|l    tllO  SlllijC'-t    11)'  ill''    I  HTM  '11   a  1,  1  1    liook 

i.f  ,l"-nu:i   may  U>  t',,ini,l   l,y  roiisiiltinx   ill'-  ''"innieiitarie-;  tin- 
l.iti-st  ami  l.i-  1    being   IA   Keil  (Erlangeii,  1  ••  !7i.  tnuislaieil  into 
KnylUli   in   Clark'-  series,  iviiro.lm.v.l  in  a  -onu-wliMt  romli 
form   in   tli.  •'  "lii'li  In'  .'iti'l   I)t-lit/s,-h  are 

at  invM'iit  nlitiiu;  ami  K  imliol  I  rat  ionaliM  )  in  t  i,,-  Ejccritt 
llnndlnd-h.  which  h.i.s  I.ei-n  publishing  fur  a  nuniU'r  of  VIMI-S,  anil 
is  now  complete;  ul.-o  in  tin-  Inn-oilin-tiuns  to  tin-  (  Mil  Te.ttament 
,it'  Keil,  Bleek.  ami  U.-iviilson—  tlie  first  eminently  touinl  tin' 
secoii'1  very  far  from  souinl  Imt  the  lust  nuu-li  more  aiivaiuvl  in 
its  rritical  view-.;  also  KwuM,  (!<t<:l,i<-lit(.}  [<:.  c.  M.  i>.| 


JOSI'AH  [properly 


<>r 


hcah-d  lit/  Ji./xirult\,  in  the  Sept.  and  New  Testament 
JOSIAS.  1.  A  king  of  Judah,  the  lifteenth  in  order, 
son  of  Amon,  who  reigned  thirty-one  years,  B.C.  G41- 
(JIO  i  or,  as  some  make  it,  (J39-GU9).  By  the  untimely 
death  of  his  father,  who  was  murdered  by  his  servants, 
after  a  brief  reign  of  two  years,  Josiah  came  to  the 
throne  when  a  mere  child,  eight  years  old.  The  his 
tory  of  his  times  is  comparatively  brief,  and  very  little 
insight  is  i_riven  us  into  the  chain  of  events  or  moral 
influences  which  contributed  to  render  his  character 


what  it  became.  Notwithstanding  the  corruptions 
which  prevailed  at  the  time,  and  the  extreme  wicked 
ness  of  those  who  had  immediately  preceded  him  on 
the  throne.  Hod-fearing  and  pious  persons  must  have 
been  around  him  in  his  youth;  for.  in  the  eighth  year 
of  his  reign,  when  he  was  still  but  sixteen  years  old, 
he  began,  we  are  told,  to  seek  after  the  God  of  David 
his  father,  L>  cii.  xx\h  3.  Four  years  later,  when  he  had 
reached  his  twentieth  year,  he  proceeded  to  carry  out 
his  convictions  of  duty  in  religious  matters  to  the 
general  purgation  of  the  land  from  the  grosser  forms  of 
superstition  and  idolatry.  Images  of  Baal  and  Ash- 
taroth.  which  appear  to  have  existed  in  great  number, 
and  all  the  implements  of  idolatry  connected  with  the 
places  of  false  worship,  wire  broken  in  pieces,  and 
treated  as  objects  of  pollution.  For  several  years  this 
reforming  process  was  carried  on:  and  when  he  reached 
the  eighteenth  year  of  his  rei^n.  lie  took  the  further 
step  of  getting  all  tin'  loading  persons  of  the  land  as 
sembled  at  Jerusalem,  and,  after  the  solemn  reading  of 
the  law,  engaging  them  in  a  formal  covenant  before 
the  Lord,  to  walk  in  the  commandments,  and  be  faithful 
to  the  testimony  they  had  heard.  Nor  did  he  rest  with 
that,  but  proceeded  to  pur^e  out  whatever  he  found 
still  remainine;  of  former  pollutions:  and  taking  advan 
tage  of  the  disorganized  and  comparatively  desolate 
state-  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  hi-  waged  the  same 
vigorous  war  against  idolatry  in  Bethel,  and  many 
harts  ,,f  the  Ur;u  litish  territory.  L'Ki  \\iii.  'Ju.  It  is  in 

the  1 k  of  Chronicles,  -jii,  xxxiv.,  that   tin.-  successive 

stages  of  this  \\ork  of  reformation  is  most  distinctly 
rehiUd.  and  connected  with  specific  years  in  the  reign 
of  the  kino".  In  the  book  of  Kings  the  account  in  the 
earlier  pait  is  less  minute:  and  we  are  simply  told  in  a 
general  way.  that  he  did  what  was  riuht  in  the  siedit  of 
the  I. old.  and  walked  in  all  the  wav  of  David  his 
father;  after  which  we  have  a  detailed  representation 
of  what  took  plaee  iii  the  eiu'htci  nth  year  of  his  reign, 
much  as  in  the  corresponding  passage  of  Chronicles. 
^  Ki'xxu.  \.\iii  It  is  quite  clear,  however,  even  from 
the  account  in  l\iir_  .  that  a  o-reat  deal  must  have  been 

d •   of  a   preparatory  kind,  toward    the   e<  rrectien   of 

abuses  and  restoring  the  institutions  of  the  law.  before 
Josiah  could,  with  the  slightest  probability  of  success, 
have  attempted  to  carry  out  the  public  measures  wliich 
distinguished  the  eighteenth  year  of  his  reign.  For, 
the  idolatrous  abominations  \\hich  had  come  in  from 
the  ditlerent  quarters  of  heathenism,  and  to  a  large 
,-xtent  supplanted  the  sen  ice  of  Jehovah,  were  now  of 
old  standiiiL!':  they  had  continued  for  the  best  part  of 
two  '.'enerations;  and  that  all  at  once  the  tide  should 
have  been  so  completely  turned,  that  the  necessary 
repairs  and  purgations  upon  the  temple  should  have 
been  executed,  the  mass  of  the  people  brought  to  re 
nounce  the  corruptions  in  which  they  had  been  nursed, 
and  covenant  together  before  the  Lord,  induced  also  to 
eno-age  in  a  hearty  and  nearly  unanimous  celebration 
of  the  feast  of  the  passover.  all  in  the  course  of  a  single 
year,  is  not  to  be  conceived.  AVe  are  rather  to  suppose 
that  the  detailed  account  of  the  reforms  executed  by 
Josiah  is  connected  with  that  particular  year,  because 
it  was  the  period  when  things  were  brought  to  a  kind 
of  formal  consummation:  it  being  understood  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  that  much  in  the  same  line  had 
already  preceded,  and  that  the  general  description 
given  of  the  pious  and  God-fearing  disposition  of  Josiah, 
had  found  its  realization  in  a  suitable  course  of  action 


.TOST  AH 


!M58 


JOSIAH 


from  his  youth  upwards.  There  is.  therefore,  no  incon- 
sistenee  between  tlie  two  accounts — only  the  one  is 
somewhat  more  specific  than  the  other,  in  regard  to 
the  progress  made  by  the  Youthful  kinu.  and  the  snc- 
eessive  steps  in  his  reforming  agency. 

Taking,    then,   the   more   particular,    to   supplement 
tlie  more  general  account,  and  regarding  .losiali  in  his 
sixteenth  year  as  already  a  sincere  worshipper  and  ser 
vant  of  the  (  o>d  of  I  >a\  id;  in  his  twentieth  as  a  zealous 
reformer  of  abuses  and  restorer  of  the  pure  worship  of 
God,  both  in  Jerusalem  and  throughout  the  countiy. 
as  far  north  even  as  Naphtali.  it  is  clear  that  he  must 
have  come  at  an  early  period  to  a  considerable  :tcquaint- 
ance  with  the  law  of  Cod.      He  should  otherwise  have 
wanted   both  the  spirit  to  enter  on   such  a  reforming 
career,  and  the  information  needed  to  direct  it  into  a 
proper   channel;   and,  as   a   necessary  consequence,   the 
book  of  the  law,  which,  in   the   midst  of  repairs   upon 
the  temple,  was  discovered   by  Hilkiah  the  priest,  can 
only  be  understood   to  have  been  the  temple-copy — tlie 
''"I'}"  lj.v  th°  band  of  Moses  (as  it  is  said  in  :>  L'li.  xxxiv. 
14.},  that  is.  either  of  his  handwriting,  or  standing  in 
the  nearest  relation  to  his  hand,  what   bore  on  it  the 
full  impress  of  his  authority— not  the  only  copy  at  the 
time  existing  or  known  in  tlie  land,  far  less  such  a  copy 
as  Hilkiah  and  those  about  him  then  for  the  first  time 
invented.       This    latter    idea,    which  many  rationalist 
writers  have  eagerly  taken  up.  is  utterly  at  variance  as 
well  with  the  plain  import  of  the  narrative,  as  with  the 
whole   probabilities  of    the   case.     The   historian  does 
not  say  Hilkiah  produced  or  forged  the  book,  but  that 
he  found  it;  and   both  he  and  Huldah  the  prophetess 
had  no  difficulty  in  recognizing  its  proper  character — 
as  the  authoritative  record  of  what  God  had  spoken  to 
their  fathers  by  .Moses.      The  very  ground  on  \\hich 
Huldah  proceeded  to  announce  the  coming  judgments 
of  the  Lord,  was,  that  the  king  and  people  had  failed 
to   observe    what   was  written    in   this    book — a   book, 
therefore,  which  they  are  presumed  to  have  all  along- 
had  in  their  possession,  and  stood  bound  to  obey.  •  A 
more  palpable  misreading  of  the  narrative  in  question 
than  that  made  in  this  rationalist  hypothesis,  cannot 
well  be  conceived.     But  apart  from  this,  and  looking 
merely  to  the  probabilities  of  things,  the  conduct  of  the 
king  and  those  about  him,  as  justly  remarked  by  Haver- 
nick,   ''would   be  inexplicable,   on   the    supposition   of 
their  having  now  for  the  first  time  heard  of  this  book. 
We  find  no  sign  in  the  narrative  of  mistrust  or  aston 
ishment  on  their  part  at  the  existence  of  such  a  book. 
Would  the  king  have  been  seized  with  such  terror  when 
he  heard  the  words  of  this  book?     Would  he  imme 
diately  have  adopted  such  energetic  measures,  if  he  had 
not  recognized  it  at  once  as  authentic?     Not  only  so, 
but  it  is  read  out  of  in  the  presence  of  the  priests,  the  ; 
prophets   (2  Ki.  xxiii.  -2;  but  2  C'h.  xxxiv.   3  has  Levites. 
which  is  the  more  probable  reading),   and  the  whole 
people.     What    a   conjoint    plot   must    this   concerted 
scheme  have   been !     Who   are   the    persons   deceived 
here,  since  all  appear  to  have  nothing  else  in  view  than 
to  deceive?"  (introd.  to  Pent.  sect.  3o).     To  these  improba 
bilities   have  to  be  added,  as  the  author  just  quoted 
goes  on  to  state,  the  want  of  any  conceivable  motive  in 
the  men  of  that  generation  to  practise  the  deception  in 
question,  or  fall  in  with  it  when  attempted.     For,  the 
age  was  one  sunk  in  idolatry,  and  pervaded  by  the  vices 
which  idolatry  never  fails  to  engender,  while  here  was 
a  book  which  unsparingly  denounced  all  these,  and  pro 


claimed  the  heaviest  woes  against  them!  Was  this  a 
book  to  have  met  with  general  recognition,  and  to  have 
produced  on  the  minds  of  all  a  solemn  awe,  unless  there 
I  had  been  the  evidence  of  the  highest  authority  and  the 
most  indubitable  certainty  on  its  side  .'  Jt  is  altogether 
incredible. 

The  discovery  of  this  book,  indeed,  is  represented  as 
I  coming   with  a  certain   surprise   on   the   parties  imme 
diately   concerned;    and  the   king   in    jiarticular,    as  if 
(  something  new  had  fallen  upon  his  ear,  when  he  first 
:  heard  the  words  of  the  book,  rent  his  clothes,  and  sent 
;  to  ask  counsel  at  the  prophetess.     But  this  by  no  means 
armies  an  entire  strangeness  on  his  part  in  regard  to 
'  the  contents  of  the  hook:  it  only  indicates  that  these 
were  now  brought  more  fully  or  continuously  before 
him,  and,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  moment,  made 
a  greatly  deeper  impression  upon  his  mind  than  had 
|  been  produced  by  his  previous  reading  or  instruction. 
\   lie  could  not  but  have  already  known  much  that  was 
written  there,  as  his  past  course  indeed  had  rendered 
manifest:    but    by    the   discovery   of   this    book   in    the 
chambers  of  tlie  house  of  Cod.  he  was  suddenly  and 
I  unexpectedly  brought  into  a  kind  of  immediate  contact 
with  the  groat   lawgiver  of  the  nation,   and  the  Cod 
whose  mind  he  revealed.      No  wonder  that  in  such  a 
i  case  the  things  written  in  the  book  of  the  law  came 
,  with   a   freshness   and    power  to  his  soul   he  had   not 
'.  felt  before,  and  that  he   seized  the   occasion  as  a  h't- 
j  ting  one  for  summoning  the  whole  nation  to  his  side, 
and  concerting  measures  with  them  for  consummating 
the  work  of  reformation.      If  hitherto  Josiah  had  him- 
j  self  read  little  in  the  law.  there  certainly  were  those 
!  about   him  who   knew  it    well,    and    there   can   be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  the  pi-ophetess  Huldah,  the  pro 
phet  Jeremiah  (who  began  to  prophesy  in  the  thirteenth 
year  of  Josiah's  reign,  five  years  before  the  period  in 
question),  and  others  of  like  spirit  in  the  land,  had  in 
their  possession  copies  of  the  law,  by  which  they  could 
compare  and  verify  the  book  found  by  Hilkiah. 

We  see  from  the  earlier  writings  of  Jeremiah,  which 
.  relate  to  much  about  the  period  of  the  finding  of  the 
book  of  the  law,  how  far  the  spirit  of  apostasy  and  cor 
ruption  had  spread,  and  how  entirely  the  foundations 
had  come  to  be  out  of  course.  It  was  by  no  means 
likely  that,  in  such  a  state  of  things,  a  reform  originat 
ing  in  high  quarters,  would  ever  penetrate  to  the  core 
of  the  evil,  and  restore  the  constitution  on  a  solid  basis. 
Many  indications  of  this  are  given  in  the  utterances  of 
that  earnest,  but,  from  the  first,  almost  despairing,  pro 
phet;  and  the  prophetess  Huldah,  in  the  message  she 
sent  back  to  Josiah,  plainly  intimated  that  matters  had 
gone  too  far  in  the  wrong  direction  to  leave  room  for 
a  thorough  and  abiding  reformation  being  at  that  time 
effected.  The  tenderness  of  heart  displayed  by  Josiah 
should  not,  indeed,  be  without  its  reward;  he  should  go 
to  his  grave  without  seeing  his  land  becoming  a  scene  of 
desolation;  but  the  curses  written  in  the  law  should 
still  certainly  be  accomplished,  and  the  provocations  by 
which  God  had  been  so  long  and  so  grievously  offended. 
must  be  visited  with  their  deserved  recompense.  Dis 
cerning  spirits  even  then  saw,  that  the  apparent  readi 
ness  and  good-will  with  which  the  people  fell  in  with 
the  reforming  plans  of  Josiah.  had  no  living  root  of 
godliness  in  it,  and  was  to  a  great  extent  but  a  servile 
compliance  with  the  altered  spirit  of  the  times;  nay, 
that  amid  the  fair  show  of  outward  conformity,  there 
was  no  doubtful  evidence  of  the  old  spirit  still  holding 


.TOS1AH 


JOTBATH 


possession  of  the  hearts  of  most.  If  there  was  any 
marked  defect  in  the  character  of  Josiah,  it  was  his 
failure  (no  doubt  somewhat  natural  in  the  circumstances) 
to  perceive  this,  and  his  want  even  of  due  regard  to  the 
distinct  announcements  made  respecting  it  by  those 
endowed  with  prophetical  gifts;  whence  he  presumed 
too  much  upon  the  external  reformation  that  had  been 
accomplished,  and  adventured  into  a  course  which 
he  should  never  have  meditated  without  the  express 
warrant  and  the  promised  aid  of  Heaven.  We  refer 
to  the  hostile  attempt  made  by  him  to  arrest  the  pro 
gress  of  Pharaoh- Xecho.  when  on  his  way  to  join  battle 
with  the  king  of  Assyria  at  (,'archemish.  No  motive 
is  indicated  in  the  history  for  this  rash  interference, 
which  implies  that  none  of  a  proper  kind  could  be  as 
signed;  the  rather  so.  as  \\v  are  told  of  the  kindlv  re 
monstrance  of  Pharaoh,  \\lio  sent  to.losiah  to  dissuade 
him  from  the  conflict,  on  the  L:  found  that  it  was  another, 
not  he,  against  whom  the  present  <  nt<  •  r prise  \\as  din-cted. 
•1  <Jh.  xxxv.  i!i.  The  remonstrance,  however,  proved  in 
vain,  and  Josiah,  per-i.-tii:o  in  his  purpose,  but  disguis 
ing  himself  in  battle,  witli  the  view  of  better  secur 
ing  his  protection,  recthed  in  the  \alleyot  Mcuid'lo 

a  mortal  wound,  of  \\hich  he  died,  though  not  exactly 
on  tin  II.  1,1  of  battle,  yet  apparently  not  Ion- -after  he 
left  it  on  the  way  to  .Jerusalem.  A  memorable  example 
and  warning  for  future  times!  It  \\as  the  calling  of 
Israel  then,  as  of  the  church  now,  to  exercise  a  pot,  lit 
influence  in  the  world,  and  e\eli  to  rule  in  the  atiair- 


but 


to  th 


for  such  ends  as  the  world  aims  at  wielding  the  world  s 
own  Weapons.  In  Mich  conflicts  the  church  is  sure  to  be 
the  loser;  by  mingling  in  them  she  profanes  her  sacred 
banner,  and  has  reason  to  expect  nothing'  but  that  she 
shall  be  in  turn  profaned,  and  iu'iiominiou-lv  cast  to  the 
Around.  Josiah  lighting  with  the  kino;  of  K,_rvpt  and 
fallin,_r  at  Me^iddo.  was  the  symbol  of  a  church,  not 
altogether,  it  mav  be.  without  a  /eal  for  (tod.  but 
deeply  inwrought  with  carnal  elements,  prompted  by 
carnal  motives,  and  without  having  had  her  own  con 
troversy  with  Cod  properly  adjusted,  going  needlessly 
to  embroil  herself  in  the  strifes  of  men.  Such  precisely 
is  the  spiritual  use  made  of  thi.-  unhappy  ca.-e  in  tliu 
symbolical  delineation.-  of  the  Apocalypse:  the  battle 
of  Armageddon  there  (i.e.  of  the  hill  of  Megiddo,  with 
reference  to  the  scene  of  .Jo-iah's  downfall1,  is  the  con 
flict  in  which  Babylon,  the  corrupt  church  of  modern 
times,  falls  before  the  embattl.  d  force,-  of  the  worldly 
power,  lie  xvi  14- Iv 

Though  Josiah  fell  in  battle,  yet  the  word  spoken 
concerning  him  by  the  prophetess  lluldah  was  not 
falsified;  for  his  remains  were  buried  in  his  fathers' 
sepulchres  in  peace,  and  he  did  not  see  the  evil  which 
was  destined  soon  to  fall  on  J  udah  and  Jerusalem.  It 
was  natural  that  so  good  a  king,  meeting  such  an  end. 
should  be  much  lamented,  Zee.  xii.  n. 

2.  JOSIAH.  A  son  of  Zephaniah.  in  whose  house  the 
symbolical  crowning  of  Joshua  the  high-priest  was  re 
presented  by  the  prophet  Zechariah  as  going  to  take 
place  in  the  presence  of  the  representatives  from  Baby 
lon.  But  nothing  is  known  besides  respecting  either 
Zephaniah  or  his  son  Josiah,  nor  why  the  house  of  the 
latter  in  particular  should  have  been  chosen  for  such 
an  action,  Zee.  vi.  in.  In  ver.  14  other  sons  of  Zephaniah 
are  mentioned,  some  of  them  with  quite  peculiar  names: 
and,  perhaps,  as  the  action  was  symbolical,  probably 
also  to  be  understood  as  taking  place  only  in  vision. 


the  names  were  symbolical  too;  in  that  case  Josiah 
i  [Jehovah  supjjvi-t.i  or  entablisheit],  and  Zephaniah  [Ji'Jiu- 
'  <\th  c<jin-i_ulx\,  must  be  viewed  simply  with  reference  to 
:  their  import. 

JOT'BAH  [i/ooiliic**].  The  native  place  of  Haruz, 
and  of  his  daughter  Meshullemeth,  wife  of  Manasseh, 
and  mother  of  Amon,  kings  of  Judah,  2  Ki.  x.\i.  in.  The 
mere  fact  of  such  an  alliance  as  is  here  indicated,  shows 
this  to  have  been  an  important  citv;  and,  independently 
of  other  considerations,  disproves  its  supposed  identity 
with  Jotbath,  which  was  the  name,  not  of  a  city,  but 
of  a  district  and  watering-place  in  the  desert.  The 
Arabic  equivalent  for  Jotbah  is  i-t-'J'itii/ib,  or  ut-Taii/i- 
Lilt,  and  no  less  than  three  sites  of  this  name  are  met 
within  modern  Palestine.  One  is  considerably  south 
of  Hebron  (Bii>.  lies.  :i  -\~-i\-.  another  to  the  west  of  that 
city  lib.  4L'7-iL".<  ;  and  the  third  is  north  of  Jerusalem,  in 
the  country  of  Benjamin.  This  last  is  most  likely  to 
answer  to  Jotbah.  for  two  reasons:  (1.)  The  two  first- 
named  places  are  very  insignificant,  and  neve)'  can  have 
been  of  much  importance;  whereas  this  is  described  by 
I  >r.  Robinson  as  crowning  a  conspicuous  hill,  skirted 
by  "fertile  basins  of  some  breadth,  ....  full  of 
'jardeiis  of  oli\e>  and  iiu-trees.  The  remarkable  posi 
tion  ihe  adds)  would  not  probabK  have  been  left  unoc 
cupied  in  ancient  times"  ( u.  H.  ii.  1.11,  IL'-I).  In  a  subse 
quent  visit  to  the  place,  he  was  struck  both  with  the 
depth  and  qualiu  of  the  soil,  which  were  "more  than 
one  would  anticipate  in  so  rocky  a  region"  iL-iu-r  Iiil>. 
Res.  p  -•",!.  These  extract-  explain  »\hile  they  justify 
the  signification  "goodness,"  which  belongs  both  to 
Jotbah  and  Taiyibeh.  cJ.)  Of  the  many  persons  men 
tioned  in  Scripture  who  bear  the  name  of  Meshullam 
the  masc.  form  of  .Meshullemeth),  nearly  all  are  either 
Levit,  -  or  r.enjaiiiitc.-.  If.  therefore,  as  is  likely, 
Meshullemeth  belonged  to  one  of  these  two  tribes,  the 
probabilities  are  greatly  in  favour  of  the  royal  house  of 
Judah  contracting  an  alliance  with  the  ex-royal  tribe 
of  Benjamin,  rather  than  with  the  priestly  tribe  of 
Levi.1  '  [E.  w.| 

JOT'BATH.  or  JnlBATHAll  |  ,/„,„/„<  .w].  One  of 
the  stations  of  the  Israelites  during  their  wanderings 
in  the  wilderness,  NH.  .xxxiii :;::.  It  is  evidently  the  name 
of  a  district,  not  of  a  particular  spot;  for  it  is  called  ''a 
/inn/  of  w  inter- torrents  (itai'liatlin)  of  waters,"  Ue.  x.  7. 
Slender  as  are  the  Scriptural  notices  of  this  locality, 
they  furnish  three  landmarks  which  enable  us  to  fix  its 
position  with  moral  certainty  I.)  The  signification  of 
tiie  name,  "goodness;"  cJ.)  The  abundant  water-supply; 
•:',.  Its  relation  to  the  two  Israelitish  stations  between 
which  it  occurs.  It  will  lw  found  that  these  several 
conditions  arc  completely  satisfied  by  the  modern 
\\'iu[\-u\-'AJl,Mi.  (1.)  It  is  described  by  Dr.  Kobin- 
son  as  a  "broad  sandy  wady  or  rather  plain,"  which 
falls  into  the  oreat  Wady-el-Jerafeh  (nib.  Kes.  i.  L'IU).  The 
name  is  identical  in  meaning  with  Jotbath:  the  Arabic 
root  (like  the  Hebrew)  signifying  "good."  ('2.')  Dr. 
Robinson,  on  reaching  this  spot,  remarks  on  the  un 
wonted  appearance  of  vegetation,  ''indicating  that 
more  rain  had  fallen  here  than  farther  south  in  the  pen 
insula."  Then  he  speaks  of  a  collection  of  rain  water 
in  a  deep  gully,  which  is  "one  of  the  chief  watering- 
places  of  the  Arabs  in  these  parts,"  and  observes,  "This 

1  One  instance  only  is  recorded  of  tlie  hitter,  in  the  case  of 
Jehosheba.  See  Dr.' Stanley  in  Smith'.-  DM.  of  B',bl(,  i.  952. 
This,  too.  favours  the  hypothesis  which  locates  Jotbah  in  the 
territory  of  JViijuinin. 

122 


JOTHAM 


970 


JUBILEE 


was  tlie  sro  mil  time  we  had  seen  grass  since  leaving 
the  region  of  the  Nile.  The  Jerafeh  (he  adds)  exhibits 
traces  of  a  large  volume  of  water  in  the  rainv  season, 
and  is  full  i >f  herlis  and  shrubs,  with  many  Seyal  (aca 
cia)  and  Turfa  (tamarisk)  trees"  (B.  K.  i.  2t;i-2i;<;;.  (li.)The 
Israelites  are  represented  as  journeying  from  Hor- 
\\'A'jid<jud  (  =  (indi/oi/dfi .  lie  iw  W  a<  ly-  el- 1  Hi  udltdt/h  idli  \ 
to  .Icitbatli.  and  from  Jotliath  to  Kbronah  ("a  pass,"  = 
the  Nukb  or  Pass,  west  of  Ailahi.  Now  it  is  very 
remarkable  that  J)r.  Robinson,  when  travelling  from 
Ail  ah  to  B;r-es-S<-h'a,  had,  during  two  days,  precisely 
the  same  halting-places,  only  in  the  opposite  direction. 
One  day's  journey  began  at  the  I 'ass  en-Nukb.  and 
ended  at  'Adhbeh;  while  the  next  began  at  'Adhheh. 
and  ended  at  Ghudhaghidh.1  [i:.  \\ .  | 

JO'THAM  [./(7/o/W,  /.<  upri'ilt}.  1.  The  youngest 
son  of  (Hdeon.  who  escaped  with  his  life  when  his  sixty- 
nine  brothers  fell  under  the  murderous  hand  of  Abime- 
lech,  Ju.  ix.  :V  That  he  was  a  person  of  some  discern 
ment  and  foresight  may  be  inferred  from  the  parabolical 
speech  he  addressed  from  Mount  Gerizim  to  tlie  people 
of  Shechem.  Nothing  is  known,  however,  of  his  fu 
ture  history,  except  that  he  took  up  his  abode  at  Beer. 

2.  JOTHAM.  The  son  and  successor  of  I'zziah.  king  of 
Judah.      From   tlie   time   that  his  father  was  smitten 
with  leprosy,  .lotham  had  the  administration  of  affairs 
much  in  his  hand,  iCh.  xxvi.  21,  but  on  his  father's  death, 
and  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  he  ascended  the  throne, 
and  reigned  sixteen  years,  B.C.  7/>S-74'2.      He  is  repre 
sented   as   walking   uprightly   before    (iod,    and    bt  iuu 
prospered  in  his  reign.      He  made  some  addition  to  the 
defences   of    Jerusalem,    and   in  various  parts   of    the 
country  built  fortifications.      Jn  a  war  with  the  kin^-of 
the  Ammonites  he  was  successful,  and  imposed  on  them 

a  tribute,    2  Ki.  xv.;  2  C'h.  xxvii. 

3.  JOTHAM.     A    descendant    of    Judah.    of    whom 
nothing  is  known  except  that  he  was  the  son  of  Jahdai. 

1  Cli.  ii.  47. 

JOZ'ABAD,  contracted  for  JKHOZAHAD  [didotrej  or 
[lifted  by  Jehovah].  Tlie  name  of  a  considerable  num 
ber  of  persons  belonging  to  different  tribes,  but  of 
whom  nothing  very  particular  is  known,  ich.  xii.  20 ;  xxvi. 

4;  2  <J1).  xvii.  IS;  xxxi.  14  ;  xxxv.  II;  Kzr.  viii.  3.'!,  Xe        It  Was    also 

the  name  of  one  of  the  servants  in  the  royal  household, 
who  conspired  against  Joash  and  slew  him,  2  Ki.  xii  21. 
His  mother  is  said  to  have  been  a  Moabitess,  2C'h.  v  xiv.  M. 
Both  conspirators  were  afterwards  slain  by  Amaziah, 

2  K'i.   Xiv.  a. 

JOZ'ACHAR  [ri'intnbfred  /-//  Jdtoml],  the  son  of 
an  Ammonitess.  Shimeath,  and  the  person  who  con 
spired  with  the  Jozabad  last  mentioned  to  kill  Joash. 
Being  both  by  the  mother's  side  the  offspring  of  a  foreign 
and  hostile  race,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  this  had 
something  to  do  with  the  wicked  conduct  they  pursued 
toward  their  master.  Very  possibly,  the  deed  was 
committed  in  revenge  for  some  insult  done,  or  sup 
posed  to  be  done,  toward  themselves,  or  the  people  to 
whom  they  respectively  belonged.  In  '2  Ki.  xii.  21. 
the  name  Jozachar  is  given,  but  in  2  Ch.  xxiv.  2b'  it  is 

1  On  these  several  identifications  see  Ji,<ir.  Knr.  Lit.  April.  ISf.i). 
p.  47-49;  N,(i<t>.  p.  130  1 82,  Iri.i.  That  of  Jotbath  with  'Adhbeh  | 
is  disputed  in  Smith's  Dirt,  of  Bible,  iii.  17(55,  on  the  ground 
that  tlie  Arabic  letter  £  is  not  represented  in  the  Hebrew  l.v 
the  corresponding  y.  Sneh  instances,  however,  as  Jattir  (now 
'Attir),  Ophni  (Jufna',  Askelou  f  Askulun),  Beth-IIoron  (Beit 
'Ur).  &e. ,  prove  conclusively  that  tlie  letter  nhi  is  not  so  tenacious 
a  radical  as  is  commonly  supposed,  and  that  it  regularly  inter 
changes  with  certain  other  letters. 


Zabad.  This  is  understood  to  be  a  corruption  of  the 
text.  The  Jo  of  the  preceding  word  (v'-y)  being  con 
founded  with  the  Jo  of  this,  it  came  to  be  omitted  in 
the  latter  case,  and  the  other  two  letters  da/etk  and  resh 
in  the  proper  name  are  so  like  the  corresponding  ones, 
which  have  been  substituted  for  them,  that  the  one 
might  readily  be  mistaken  for  the  other. 

JOZ'ADAK.     .See  JKHOXADAK. 

JLJ'BAL  (from  sa»,  yubid,   to  exult,   to  n/iout  jubi- 

luntli/}.  son  of  Lamech  by  Adah,  of  the  Cainite  branch 
i  of  Adam's   family,    celebrated   as  the  inventor  of  the 
I  harp  and  organ,    lie.  iv.  21-     not   organ,  however,  in   the 
j  modern  sense,  but  some   simple  wind-instrument,  pro- 
\  bably  a  sort  of  fife  or  flute— so  the  word  by  its  etymo 
logy  appears   to   import.     Cultivating  a  natural  taste 
for  music.  .Jubal    succeeded  in    making  some  stringed 
and  wind  instruments  for  the  purpose — both,  no  doubt, 
of  a  comparatively  rude  description, 

JUBILEE.  The  law  of  the  year  of  jubilee  is  so 
closely  connected  with  the  other  law  of  the  seventh 
year,  commonly  called  the  sabbatical  year,  that  it  has 
been  usually  found  convenient  to  treat  of  them  together: 
and  so  we  shall  do  in  this  article. 

I.  Ldn'of  tfa  Sabbatical  Year.— This  is  first  given 
somewhat  briefly,  and  without  applying  a  special  name 
to  it.  in  Ex.  xxiii.  10.  11.  "And  six  years  thou  shalt 
sow  thy  land,  and  shalt  gather  in  the  fruits  thereof: 
but  the  seventh  year  thou  shalt  let  it  rest  and  lie  still ; 
that  the  poor  of  thy  land  may  eat:  and  what  they  leave, 
the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  eat.  In  like  manner  shalt 
thou  deal  with  thy  vineyard,  [and]  with  thy  oliveyard." 
Tt  is  however  repeated  at  greater  length  in  Le.  xxv. 
1-7.  yet  without  any  inconsistencies  such  as  the  per 
verse  ingenuity  of  the  self-styled  critical  school  has 
endeavoured  to  establish.  This  latter  passage  presents 
new  matter,  (1)  By  fixing  the  time  for  the  law  coming 
into  operation:  ""When  ye  come  into  the  land  which  I 
give  you."  (2.)  By  giving  prominence  to  the  sacred 
nature  of  this  rule:  "Then  shall  the  land  keep  a  sab 
bath  unto  the  Lord."  (.S.i  By  assigning  a  kind  of  moral 
character  to  the  promised  land  of  Canaan:  "In  the 
seventh  year  shall  be  a  sabbath  of  rest  unto  the  land,  a 
sabbath  for  the  Lord,"  ''it  is  a  year  of  rest  unto  the 
land."  (4.)  By  explaining  that  the  kindly  provision  in 
Exodus  was  not  to  be  strained,  as  if  it  excluded  the 
owner  of  the  soil  from  sharing  with  the  poor  in  that 
which  was  the  common  good  of  all:  "The  sabbath  of 
the  land  shall  be  meat  for  you  ;  for  thee,  and  for  thy 
servant,  and  for  thy  maid,  and  for  thy  hired  servant, 
and  for  thy  stranger  that  sqjourneth  with  you,"  &c.; 
in  which  enumeration  we  have  first  the  proprietor, 
then  his  household,  and  then  the  hired  servant  and  the 
sojourning  stranger,  who.  of  course,  were  not  counted 
in  the  household,  see  Kx.  xii.  4,i,  but  constituted  the 
•'  poor,"  more  usually  translated  "needy,"  in  the  shorter 
form  of  the  law.  The  distinct  prohibition  to  sow  can 
scarcely  be  considered  new  matter:  it  is  probably  in 
cluded  grammatically  in  the  law,  as  briefly  given  in 
Exodus,  but  at  least  it  is  included  inferentially.  since 
no  one  would  labour  to  cultivate  that  which  he  was 
prohibited  from  turning  to  account. 

There  are  also  two  passages  in  Deuteronomy  which 
bear  upon  the  observance  of  the  sabbatical  year;  though, 
like  other  regulations  occurring  in  this  book,  they  pre 
sent  features  which  evince  its  dependent  and  supple 
mentary  character.  The  first  and  more  important  of 


.JUBILEE 


these  passages  is  eh.  xv.  1-11.      Jt  bears  a  character  of 
tenderness  and   provision  for  the  poor,  as  may  be  in-  ; 
icrred  from  the  connection  in  which  it  stands,  between 
the  directions  for  spending  the  triennial  tithe  in  behalf  j 
of  the  poor,  and  those  for  displaying  liberality  to  the 
Hebrew  servant  at  the  end  of  his  or  her  six  veal's  of  ] 
hard  service.     But  more  manifestly  is  it  a  law  which  ! 
contemplates  the  welfare  of  the  poor  (exhibiting,  it  will  j 
be  noted,  a  tendency  towards  a  state  of  society  in  which 
there  should   be  no  poor,  yet  a  tendency  never  wholly 
successful,  ver.  4,n\  inasmuch  as  it  concentrates  atten-  ', 
tion  upon  a  single  circumstance,  ''At  the  end  of  [every]  ' 

seven  years  thou  shalt  make  a  release.     And  this  is  the 

i 
manner  of    the  release  :    every   creditor  that   lendeth  , 

[aught]  unto  his  neighbour  shall  release  [it]  :  he  shall 
not  exact  [itj  of  his  neighbour  or  of  his  broth'-r:  because 
it  is  called  the  Lord's  release."  Plainly  this  release 
from  debt  was  in  consequence  of  the  interruption  to 
sowing  and  reaping,  \\hich  deprived  the  debtor  of  the 
means  by  which,  in  other  circumstances.  In-  miirht  have 
expected  to  discharge  his  debt  ;  \\he-n-as  this  favour 
wus  expressly  withheld  from  the  foreigner,  ver  :!,  who 
acknowledged  no  sacretlness  in  the  year,  and  who.-e 
occupations  were  likely  to  lie  unconnected  with  the 

land  of  which  the  Israelites  held  exclusive  peissess'oll. 
This  enactment  is  perfectly  clear  and  natural,  on  the 
supposition  that  the  debts  were  meivlv  not  liable  to  be 
enforced  during  the  course  of  the  sabbatical  vear.  which 
was  then  a  blank  vear  in  this  respect,  as  the  Sabbath 
day  has  in  like  manner  been  enjoyed  by  debtors  as  a 
day  of  freedom  fn>]n  arrest;  while  the  indebtedness  re 
mained,  and  was  sure  to  be  enforced  when  the  year  of  , 
rest  was  over.  And  this  is  all  that  the  terms  of  the 
law  fairly  implv,  as  nn>st  modern  scholars  a^i'ee.  N  et 
there  are  some  who  prefer  to  understand  that  debts 
were  absolutely  cancelled  every  seven  years,  which  is 
also  the  prevalent  view  amon^  the  Jewish  authorities, 
from  Josephus  downwards  Jos.  Aiitiq.  iii.  12, :)).  .And  in 
a  matter  which  admitted  < if  some  duubt.  it  is  conceiv 
able  that  a  later  age.  anxious  to  observe  every  formality 
of  the  law  to  the  uttermost,  may  have  preferred  to 
establish  this  wider  interpretation  bv  human  usage, 
though  not  indisputabK  by  divine  riuht:  a  course,  too. 
which  might  lie  the  rather  preferred,  if  this  more  com 
prehensive  arrangement  was  regarded  as  a  certain  com 
pensation  for  the  loss  of  the  year  of  jubilee  in  these 
later  times.  The  nunn  "f  sabbath  is  not  applied  to  the 
year  in  this  passage,  and  hence  a  double  error  might 
arise,  against  which  a  passing  caution  is  needed.  On 
the  one  hand,  this  seventh  yt  ar  regularly  returning 
mitrht  be  confounded  with  that  seventh  vear  spoken  of 
in  the  next  law:  which  however  was  the  year  at  the  end 
(if  six  Years'  service  by  a  Hebrew,  no  matter  when  it 
came:  which  is  still  further  indicated  to  be  different 
from  the  sabbatical  year,  by  the  reference  to  the  pro 
duce  of  the  floor  and  of  the  wine-press,  ver.  1 1.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  absence  of  the  sabbatical  name  might 
lead  some  one  to  question  the  identity  of  this  seventh 
year  with  the  sabbatical  year:  but  its  sacred  character. 
like  the  sabbath  of  the  land  to  the  Lord,  is  made  pro 
minent  bv  this  being  emphatically  named  the  Lord'* 
release,  ver.  2;  and  the  very  peculiar  word  for  "release,  ' 
used  both  in  its  verbal  and  its  nominal  forvi,  sufficiently 
identifies  this  law  with  that  in  Exodus,  where  the  word 
occurs  differently  translated,  "thou  shalt  let  it  reft." 
The  name  given  to  the  year  in  De.  xv.  9,  "  the  year  of 
release,"  is  of  course  taken  from  this  regulation  as  to 


debts.  And  the  same  name  is  given  in  the  remaining 
passage,  De.  xxxi.  10-13,  where  the  additional  direction  is 
given,  that  "  at  the  end  of  [every]  seven  years,  in  the 
solemnity  of  the  year  of  release,  in  the  feast  of  taber 
nacles,  when  all  Israel  is  come  to  appear  before  the 
Lord  thy  God  in  the  place  which  he  shall  choose,  thou 
shalt  read  this  law  before  all  Israel  in  their  hearing." 

11.  Lav  (i/  the  Year  <>/  Jn/>l/ec. — The  law  on  this 
point  is  given  once  for  all,  with  the  exception  of  some 
very  few  additional  notices,  which  may  be  called  inci 
dental,  in  Le.  xxv.  6-55.  When  the  sabbatical  years 
had  returned  seven  times,  that  is.  after  seven  times 
seven  years,  there  was  to  be  observed  a  still  more  re 
markable  year,  the  jubilee.  The  two  great  features  in 
this  observance  are  given  in  ver.  Id.  "  Ye  shall  return 
every  man  unto  his  possession,  and  ye  shall  return 
every  man  unto  his  family."  In  other  words,  it  was  a 
year  of  restoration  or  restitution,  which  extended  not 
">il\  to  /terxons,  the  children  of  Israel,  but  also  to  /(Did, 
the  land  of  Canaan,  which  was  their  promised  posses 
sion,  and  which  had  a  moral  significance  on  their  ac 
count:  and  we  have  already  seen  that  the  common 
sabbatical  vear  had  the  same  twofold  aspect,  to  the 
land  and  to  the  people. 

i  As  for  the  hind.  ver.  i:;-ii',  there  was  properly  no 
sale  of  it  permitted  to  the  children  of  Israel — what  was 
called  a  sale  i.f  the  land  was  nothing  more  than  a  sale 
of  the  produce  of  it  for  an  unbroken  series  of  years, 
fr<>m  the  elate  of  the  transaction  to  the  year  of  jubilee 
at  the  farthest.  This  was  a,  transaction  which  admitted 
of  easv  settlement  on  equitable  principles,  according  to 
the  number  of  years  till  the  jubilee;  but  solemn  warn 
ings  were  u'iven  not  to  entangle  and  oppress  any  one, 
perhaps  some  simple-minded  peasant  to  whom  this  cal 
culation  iniuht  be  intricate.  The  only  real  cause  of 
intricacv.  however,  over  and  above  the  usual  uncer 
tainties  about  weather  and  crops,  arose  from  the  chance 
nf  tlii'  original  proprietor  resuming  possession  before 
tin  time  of  the  jubilee;  I'M]-  he  had  a  right  to  do  this  if 
he  pleased,  and  had  the  pecuniary  ability,  and  the  same 
rL'ht  belonged  to  any  of  his  kin.  But  if  it  were  not 
redeemed  sooner,  at  all  events  in  the  year  of  jubilee, 
without  any  pa\ment.  it  levelled  to  the  original  pro 
prietor.  "The  land  shall  not  be  sold  for  ever;  for  the 
land  is  mine:  fi>r  ye-  an-  strangers  and  seijourners  with 
me.  And  in  all  the  land  of  yeiur  possession  ye  shall 
-rant  a  redemption  tor  the  land,"  vev  2:1,21.  The  parti 
culars  in  working  out  this  principle  are  explained  in 
the  followini:  verses,  ver.  2.1-34.  Two  eif  these  alone  call 
tor  special  notice.  The  one  was,  that  this  regulation 
as  to  the  land  \\hich  their  (iod  had  eiven  to  them  was 
not  applicable  to  houses  in  walled  towns,  which  ought 
to  be  regarded  as  so  thoroughly  artificial,  that  they 
wen-  reckoned  the  mere  work  of  man.  alienable  like 
anything  else  which  lie  made-  for  selling;  and  as  to 
these-,  therefore,  a  right  of  redemption  was  conceded 
only  feir  a  single.'  year,  and  they  were  unaffected  by  the 
jubilee.  The  other  noticeable  particular  was  that  the 
possessions  of  the  Levites  were  a  public  trust,  which 
might  not  be  sold  for  ever;  even  though  they  were 
houses  within  walled  cities,  they  were  redeemable  at 
any  time,  and  at  all  events  they  did  revert  to  their 
owners  at  the  jubilee.  The  following,  however,  are 
additional  regulations,  which  we  learn  from  other  pas 
sages  of  Scripture.  F'/rxt,  i.e.  xxvii.  1024,  If  a  person 
chose  to  sanctify  a  field  to  the  Lord,  this  gift  was  treated 
on  the  same  principle  as  a  sale  of  land:  that  is  to  say. 


JUBILEE 


JUBILEE 


tht:  produce  was  the  Lord's  until  the  year  of  jubilee. 
But  as  it  might  neither  IK:  convenient  nor  decorous  to 
have  patches  of  ground  throughout  the  country  in  the 
hands  of  the  priests  for  purposes  of  cultivation,  there 
was  a  fixed  price  at  which  the  proceeds  were  to  be  con 
verted  into  money  —fifty  shekels  of  silver  for  a  homer 
of  barley  seed,  that  is.  for  the  entire  forty-nine  years: 
for  a  shorter  period  it  would  be  proportionally  less. 
This  was  the  case  whether  the  field  which  the  man  had 
sanctified  was  his  own  originally,  or  whether  he  had 
bought  it  from  another;  and  in  the  latter  case,  at  the 
jubilee  it  returned  to  the  proper  owner.  But  if  it  was 
originally  his  own,  he  who  made  the  vow  had  the  ordin 
ary  right  of  redemption  earlier  than  the  time  of  the 
jubilee:  yet  burdened  with  the  condition,  which  applied 
to  all  cases  of  redeeming  anything  sanctified  to  the 
Lord,  that  he  must  pay  a  fine  of  twenty  per  cent. 
Further,  if  he  did  not  choose  to  redeem  it  (which  he 
could  have  done  the  year  before  the  jubilee  at  a  most 
trivial  cost),  and  had  sold  it  to  another  man.  he  was 
reckoned  to  have  deliberately  renounced  all  right  to  it: 
and  in  the  jubilee  it  did  not  return  to  him.  but  was 
treated  as  "a,  field  devoted,"  and  became  the  perpetual 
posM'.-.-ion  of  the  priest,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  (see  as 
to  devoting,  in  the  article  ANATHEMA',  fri'mdli/,  We 
learn  from  Nu.  xxxvi.  that  an  instance  of  heiresses  in 
their  own  right  occurred  among  the  Manassites,  whose 
elders  made  an  application  to  the  Lord  through  Moses, 
on  the  ground  that  this  provision  for  land  at  the  jubilee 
would  be  no  safeguard  for  its  restitution,  but  the  very 
contrary,  if  the  heiress  married  into  another  tribe;  since 
she  would  be  counted  to  that  tribe,  and.  at  least  in  the 
case  of  a  marriage  without  children,  it  would  pass  into 
the  hands  of  her  husband's  relatives.  In  consequence, 
the  rule  w7as  laid  down  that  an  heiress  might  not  marry 
beyond  her  own  tribe.  Thirdly,  We  have  nothing  in 
the  law  of  Moses  bearing  on  the  case  of  a  gift  of  land, 
though  analogy  suggests  the  same  rule  for  it  as  for  a 
purchase.  Such  cases  might  become  frequent  and  im 
portant  under  the  kingly  government,  see  I  Sa.  viii.  14 ; 
xxii.  7;  2  Sa.  ix.  9;  xvi.  4;  xix.  2ft;  and  we  have  no  means  for 
determining  whether  the  kings  arrogated  the  power  of 
perpetual  gift  or  not.  In  the  directions  for  the  reno 
vated  church  and  state,  Ezekiel  touches  on  this  matter, 
cii.  xlvi.  ic-i  s,  in  such  a  way  a*s  to  imply  that  the  people 
had  been  thrust  out  oppressively,  and  scattered  from 
their  possessions.  And  for  the  future,  he  distinguishes 
two  cases :  a  gift  by  the  prince  to  any  of  his  sons,  ex 
pressly  said,  however,  to  be  from  his  own  inheritance, 
and  this  might  be  in  perpetuity  ;  and  a  gift  to  one  of 
his  servants,  which  reverted  to  the  prince  at  "  the  year 
of  liberty,"  that  is,  the  jubilee. 

(2.1  As  for  the  persons,  while  a  sort  of  bond- service 
was  permitted,  which  in  some  of  its  features  bore  a 
resemblance  to  slavery,  there  were  other  points  of 
essential  difference:  first,  in  special  provisions  tending 
to  prevent  a  person  becoming  so  reduced  as  to  need  to 
sell  himself:  next,  in  acknowledging  no  bond-service 
but  that  of  voluntary  sale  of  oneself  (at  least  the  case 
of  penal  servitude  is  not  noticed  herel;  and  thirdly,  in 
maintaining  throughout  the  bondsman's  rights  as  an 
Israelite,  one  of  God's  people  whom  he  had  redeemed 
from  Egypt,  that  they  might  be  his  servants,  and  might 
not  be  sold  as  bondmen.  This  principle  secured  that 
he  should  all  along  be  treated  like  a  hired  servant,  like 
one  whose  normal  state  was  liberty;  and  also  that  at 
any  time  the  bond- servant  might  redeem  himself,  or  be 


redeemed  by  his  friends,  on  the  same  plan  as  that  on 
which  the  redemption  of  land  proceeded,  at  least  this 
right  was  secured  to  him  in  the  case  of  having  a  stranger 
or  sojourner  for  his  master;  but  above  all,  that  at  the 
year  of  jubilee  he  should  depart  in  freedom,  "both  he 
and  his  children  with  him,  and  return  unto  his  own 
family,  and  unto  the  possession  of  his  fathers  shall  he 
return.''  This  subject  is  expounded,  ver.  .•?;•>- 5;>. 

(3.)  A  third  characteristic  of  the  year  of  jubilee  must 
be  mentioned  in  connection  with  these  two.  as  in  the 
law  it  is  stated  very  briefly,  vur.  11,12,  between  the  short 
general  announcement  of  them  and  the  fuller  explana 
tions  which  follow.  "Ye  shall  not  sow,  neither  reap 
that  which  groweth  of  itself  in  it,  nor  gather  the  grapes 
in  it  of  thy  vine  undressed,  for  it  is  a  jubilee:  it  shall 
be  holy  unto  you;  ye  shall  eat  the  increase  thereof  out 
of  the  field."  In  this  respect,  in  fact,  it  followed  the 
pattern  of  the  sabbatical  year — a  circumstance  which 
coincides  with  what  we  might  have  anticipated,  from 
the  intimate  relationship  of  the  one  institution  to  the 
other,  and  from  the  consideration  that  it  would  be 
almost  impossible  to  cultivate  the  soil  amidst  so  many 
changes,  both  among  the  occupants  and  among  the 
servile  tillers  of  the  land.  Josephus.  in  the  place 
before  referred  to,  states  that  debts  were  remitted  in 
the  jubilee  year,  which  would  be  an  additional  resem 
blance,  in  fact  it  would  assimilate  them  entirely. 
This,  however,  is  not  stated  in  Scripture,  and  it  is  said 
to  be  contrary  to  the  teaching  of  the  rabbins.  Indeed, 
on  his  understanding  of  the  sabbatical  la\v,  as  cancel 
ling  all  debts  the  year  before,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive 
that  there  could  be  many  new  debts  contracted  to  give 
an  opportunity  of  cancelling  them;  but  on  the  other 
view,  to  which  we  incline,  that  the  debts  were  merely 
not  to  be  enforced  during  tin:  sabbatical  yeai',  it  is  in 
telligible  enough  that  the  same  rule  might  be  applied, 
and  for  the  same  reason. 

According  to  ver.  9.  the  jubilee  was  announced  on 
the  day  of  atonement,  the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh 
month  (afterwards  called  Tisri),  by  sounding  through 
all  the  land  "the  trumpet  of  jubilee,"  ynl>rl  in  Hebrew, 
from  which  the  name  has  passed  into  other  languages 
without  translation,  chiefly  perhaps  through  the  influ 
ence  of  the  Latin  Vulgate.  The  precise  meaning  of 
the  word  is  indeed  uncertain.  The  old  Jewish  tradi 
tionary  rendering,  adopted  by  the  authorized  version 
in  the  account  of  the  fall  of  Jericho,  is  "the  trumpet 
of  rams'  horns;"'  and  this  is  still  defended  bv  a  few- 
scholars,  such  as  Fiirst,  to  some  extent,  though  most 
scholars  would  shrink  from  rendering  it  so  in  a  passage 
like  Ex.  xix.  1H.  On  the  other  hand,  the  favourite 
explanation  of  recent  writers  is,  that  the  word  is  merely- 
imitative  of  the  loud  sound  of  a  horn.  Finally,  the  pre 
valent  opinion  of  earlier  Christian  scholars  is,  that  it 
suggests  a  protracted  sound  as  it  swells  out  from  the 
trumpet,  which  is  the  view  still  of  many,  for  instance 
Keil  and  Oehler;  although  the  latter  scholar  suggests 
that  it  may  possibly  mean  "free  emission,"  and  hence 
"liberty.'  two  significations  which  would  make  it  pre 
cisely  synonymous  with  deror,  the  word  applied  to  the 
liberty  proclaimed  in  the  year  of  jubilee,  ver.  in,  as  also 
in  the  spiritual  jubilee,  is.  ixi.  i,  and  from  which  the 
year  received  a  name,  Eze  xlvi.  17,  "  the  year  of  liberty." 
Certainly  "liberty"  is  the  explanation  of  the  %vord 
which  Josephus  gives  in  the  passage  already  noticed: 
and  the  Septuagint  uses  &<j>fffis,  "dismissal/'  for  both 
deror  and  yobel  in  Le.  xxv.  10. 


JUBILEE 


073 


J  r  131  LEE 


There  are  chronological  disputes  in  regard  to   both  that  it   began   upon   the   day  of  atonement,  the   tenth 

these  years.      (1.)  The  jubilee  came  in  at  the  close  of  day   of   the   seventh    month    (counting   as   usual   from 

seven  sabbatical  periods;  was  it  then  the  seventh  sab-  about  the  spring  equinox),  when  the  trumpet  sounded 

batical  year,  or  the  year  following?     In  other  words,  through  the  land.  Le.  xxv.  n.      At  least  there  is  something 

was  it  the  forty-ninth  or  the  fiftieth  year'     One  class  unnatural  in  supposing  that  this  sacred  year  was  half 

of  Jews,  called  the  (ieonim,  adopted  the  first  view,  as  over  before  the  proclamation  of  its  advent  took  place: 

did   also  the   eminent  Christian   chronologers,   Joseph  and  especially  as  the  work  of  restitution  would  ill  agree 

Scaliger   and  Petavius;   and  it  is  still   the  opinion    of  with    being    crushed    into   the   last    six   months   of   it. 

Ewald.  whose  learning  and  subtilty  are  sometimes  the  About  the  sabbatical  year  it  is  less  easy  to  pronounce 

means  of  misleading  him.  as  for  instance  here,  where,  dogmatically.      Yet  it  is  most  natural  to  think  of  it  as 


by  making  the  jubilee  begin  in  autumn- -six  months 
later  than  the  sabbatical  year,  be  hopes  to  escape  from 
the  force  of  ver.  f^-ll ,  which  speak  of  the  jubilee  as  the 
fiftieth  year.  But  the  impression  left  by  these  verses 
upon  the  great  majority  of  readers  of  the  Bible,  both 


Beginning  at  the  same  period  as  the  jubilee,  which  suc 
ceeded  it  immediately,  and  in  fact  sprang  out  of  it,  and 
reproduced  its  peculiarities  in  a  higher  form.  The  lan 
guage  used  in  describing  it,  Lc  xxv.  3,  i,  is  also  favourable 
to  the  belief  that  it  was  calculated  according  to  the 


plain  men  and  scholar.-,  has  been  that  it  was  the  year     agricultural   year.      There  were  six  labouring  years  in 

the    corn-field    and    the    vineyard,    succeeded    by   the 
seventh  of  rest  from  the  round  of  agricultural  employ 
ments.      Some   confirmation   of    this   may   perhaps   be 
the  last  words  of  De.  xv.  -J,  "because  it 


after  the  seventh  sabbatical  year,  that  is,  the  fiftieth 
year.  And  this  opinion  is  confirmed  by  Jewish  autho 
rity,  including  1'hilo  and  Josephus;  as  it  is  also  by  the 
analogy  of  computation  for  the  feast  of  weeks,  \\hich 
fell  on  the  fiftieth  day  from  the  passover.  that  is.  the 
•lay  after  seven  tunes  seven.  fj.l  The  tea-Is  ot  the 
Jewish  church  were  arranged  in  a  year  that  began 
about  tin-  spring  equinox;  and  the  opinion  has  been 
gaining  favour  more  and  more,  that  what  \\a-<  called 
the  rifil  year,  as  oppo-ed  to  the  sacred  year,  which 
he^an  about  the  autumnal  equinox,  and  by  which  we 
find  calculations  made  in  the  later  books  of  the  Old 
Te-tament.  \sas  not  in  Use  ainoii^  the  Jews  till  they 
learned  it  from  the  neighbouring  nations  of  Asia.  pr< 


derived  from  the  last  words 
is  called  the  Lord's  release."  which  may  as  well  be  ren 
dered,  "  because  they  have  /ii'oc/iiinud  a  release  in 
relation  to  the  Lord."  like  the  />rnc/<iii<<iti<iii  of  the  year 
of  liberty  on  the  day  of  atonement,  Le.  xxv.  10.  Even 
assuming,  however,  that  it  began  in  autumn,  UK  we 
have  no  doubt  it  did,  it  might  be  questioned  whether 
the  day  of  atonement  was  the  beginning  of  it.  or  indeed 
\\hetherthat  loose  agricultural  year  hail  any  fixed  new- 
year's  day  whatever:  certainly  -oo  1  living  authorities, 
like  Knobel  and  Keil.  are  averse  to  the  common  opinion 


bably  during  the  Babylonish  captivity.     Nevertheless,     that  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  at  which  the  law  was  read 


t 


it  is  impo 
earlier  kncA\le-i_.  of  a  \ 
although  it  may  not  ha\ 
calendar,  either  for  sacred 


admitting  that  t 


re  was  some 

in    autumn: 

iii    any    book- 

s,  vet  it  must 


this  year.  Do.  xxxi.  \<>,  fell  at  the  beginning  of  the  year, 
instead  of  at  the  end  of  it,  according  to  the  ordinary 
computation,  Kv  xxiii.  n;,ic.  The  uncertainty  as  to  the 
commencement  of  the  sabbatical  year  has  not  been 


have  been  known  to  the  people  as  the  most  natural  year  removed    by   three    verses    which   treat   of   the   case 

for  agricultural   calculation,-,  beginning  with  ploughing  which  the  sabbatical   year  was  followed  by  the  jubilee, 

and    sowing  about   September  or  October,   and   ending  L 
with  th 


f  fruits.  ,vc..  in  August  or  Sep 
tember.  Observe  tile  expression,  "the  feast  of  in 
gathering  \\hich  is  in  tin  < ,,,/  <>j  tin  i/car,  \\\i<-i\  tlum 
hast  ^tillered  in  thy  labours  out  of  the  field,'1  Ex.  xxiii.  ir,; 
and  the  like  at  eh.  : \\xiv.  'I'l.  According  to  \\hich 


the    seventh 
•jather    in   on 
blessing  upon 
forth  fruit  toi 


And  if  ye  shall  say.  AN' hat  shall  we  eat 
year'       I'.ehold,    we1    shall    not    sow.    nor 


increase.      Then    I    will    command    my 
you  in  the  sixth  year,  and  it  shall  bring 
hree  years.      And  ye  shall  sow  the  eighth 
year,  and  eat   [yet]  of  old   fruit  until  the  ninth  year; 


calculation  did  the  jubilee'  and  sabbatical  years  begin  .'     until  her  fruits  come  in,  ye  shall  cat  |ofj  the  old  [store]." 

Mo.-t  simply,  however,  we  may  reckon  thus: 


fir  i     half  of  sixth 

tvuml   half  of  KJXth        'l 

tirst   half  of  seventh    i 
-cond  half  of  st-veirth  ' 

first    half  of  fi-hth      I 
Toncl  half  oft  iut.th 
tirst  half  (it  nintli 


in;_'.-il  h>  rin;_'. 

lilank  in  agnailtmv. 

blank  in  agriculture. 

s  i  vi  in::. 
ingathering. 


/In 'i- far  n-ii-e  t lit. if  lax:*  carried  into  f/trt  in  tin  xu/t- 
*«/ucnf  liiftnrji!  This  is  a  (|uestion  not  easily  an 
swered.  Some  sceptical  writers  have  doubted  whether 
to  look  upon  them  as  more  than  an  ideal  arrangement: 
and  on  their  principles  this  opinion  is  not  surprising, 
since  it  would  be  difficult  to  believe  that  the  nation 
could  obtain  food  with  fallow  years  so  frequently  re 
turning,  and  sometimes  two  of  them  together;  not  to 
speak  of  the  difficulty  of  bringing  a  nation  to  consent 
to  such  a  hazardous  experiment.  Yet  others,  even  of  , 
rationalist  interpreters,  have  shrunk  from  denying  the 
historical  truth  of  the  institution,  and  have  admitted  that 
there  are  cases  on  record  which  go  to  prove  that  toler 
able  crops  were  not  impossible,  and  that  the  legislation 
mi«'ht  be  carried  into  effect  by  a  process  of  frugal  and 


provident  storing.  Of  eour.-e  we  take  higher  ground, 
and  insist  upon  the  promised  special  blessing  of  Clod, 
ami  upon  the  faith  of  a  people,  who  had  good  grounds 
for  trusting  in  him.  Neither  do  we  feel  much  difficulty 
from  the  silence  of  Scripture  in  the  course  of  the  history; 
for  this  is  explicable  according  to  the  manner  in  which 
that  history  is  written,  and  there  are  parallel  examples 
of  silence.  In  addition  to  this  there  are  incidental 
notices  which  confirm  the  belief  that  the  laws  were 
carried  out  so  far.  at  all  events,  and  were  known  and 
acknowledged  to  be  laws  even  when  they  were  disre 
garded.  The  history  of  the  redemption  of  the  land 
which  Naomi  had  sold,  Hu.  iv.,  and  the  transaction  be 
tween  Jeremiah  and  his  uncle's  son,  Je.  xxxii.,  are  in 
stances  of  the  right  of  recovering  sold  land  in  the 


JUBILEE 


! 


JUBILEE 


manner  prescribed  liy  the  law  of  the  jubilee:  and  the 
inalienable  possession  of  the  soil  as  allotted  to  him  by 
the  Lord,  was  the  ground  on  which  Naboth  refused  to 
sell  (in  our  sense  of  the  word)  his  vineyard  to  be  a 
kitchen  garden  for  king  Ahab,  1  Ki.  xxi.  3,  1.  The  disre 
gard  of  these  laws  is  the  burden  of  many  prophetic 
denunciations,  see  Mi.  u.  2.  The  promise  given  by  Isaiah 
to  Hezekiah  and  the  sign  connected  with  it,  is.  xxxvii.au, 
"  Ye  shall  eat  this  year  such  as  groweth  of  itself;  and 
the  second  year  that  which  springeth  of  the  same; 
and  in  the  third  year  sow  ye,  and  reap,  and  plant 
vineyards,  and  eat  the  fruit  thereof,"  in  its  language 
throughout  is  at  least  an  allusion  to  the  laws  for  the 
sabbatical  year  and  year  of  jubilee;  nay,  it  is  an  opinion 
natural  in  itself,  and  not  easily  refuted,  that  the  pro 
phet  speaks  of  the  current  year  as  sabbatical,  and  of 
the  coming  one  as  the  year  of  jubilee.  In  ch.  Ixi.  1.  2 
he  describes  the  work  of  the  coming  Saviour  in  lan 
guage  full  of  reference  to  the  jubilee,  as  to  an  institu 
tion  familiar  to  the  people.  Whether  "  the  thirtieth 
year''  in  which  Ezekiel,  ch.  i.  1,  dates  the  commencement 
of  his  visions,  be  counted  from  the  last  jubilee,  is  ex 
tremely  doubtful;  if  it  be  so,  it  is  indeed  a  very  strong 
testimony  in  favour  of  the  jubilee  being  observed  with 
considerable  regularity.  But  Ezekiel  certainly  refers  to 
it,  as  he  threatens  the  cessation  of  all  its  blessings, 
ch.  vii.  12,  13;  and  the  same  reference  seems  to  be  made  in 
the  corresponding  promise,  ch.  xi.  is-ir,  to  the  men  of  the 
prophet's  "kindred,"  or  more  correctly,  of  his  "redemp 
tion.''  And  notice  has  been  already  taken  of  his  in 
corporating  the  law  of  the  jubilee  in  his  visions  of  the 
future,  ch.  xlvi.  ir. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that 
a  law  so  peculiar,  and  requiring  the  exercise  of  so  much 
faith  and  truthfulness  and  self-denial,  was  thoroughly 
and  uninterruptedly  obeyed.  Some  of  the  passages  to 
which  we  have  referred  rather  suggest  the  contrary. 
And  Moses  himself  expressly  couples  the  desolation  of 
the  land  of  Israel  during  their  captivity  with  their  guilt 
in  robbing  it  of  the  sabbaths  which  the  Lord  had 
given  to  it,  Le.  xxvi.  ?A, 3:>,  "Then  shall  the  land  enjoy 
her  sabbaths,  as  long  as  it  lieth  desolate,  and  ye  [bej 
in  your  enemies'  land:  [even]  then  shall  the  land  rest 
and  enjoy  her  sabbaths.  As  long  as  it  lieth  desolate 
it  shall  rest:  because  it  did  not  rest  in  your  sabbaths, 
when  ye  dwelt  upon  it."  And  this  is  noticed  accord 
ingly  in  the  history  of  the  event,  2  Ch.  xxxvi.  21,  "until 
the  land  had  enjoyed  her  sabbaths;  [for]  as  long  as 
she  lay  desolate  she  kept  sabbath,  to  fulfil  threescore 
and  ten  years."  Yet  the  meaning  is  overstrained  by 
those,  like  Bertheau,  who  calculate  7x  70  or  490  years 
as  the  time  during  which  the  sabbatical  and  jubilee 
years  had  been  neglected,  which  they  therefore  trace 
back  to  about  the  time  of  the  commencement  of  the 
kingdom. 

After  the  return  from  the  captivity,  we  have  an  un 
mistakable  testimony  to  the  practice  of  observing  the 
sabbatical  year,  in  the  engagement  of  the  people,  under 
the  guidance  of  Nehemiah,  to  respect  the  rest  of  the 
seventh  year  and  to  leave  the  exaction  of  debts,  just 
as  much  as  they  would  observe  the  rest  of  the  seventh 
day,  Ne.  x.  31  (32  in  Heb.)  Reference  to  its  observance  is 
made  in  the  history  after  the  close  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment  canon,  1  Mao.  vi.  49,  53,  as  also  in  Josephus,  Antiq.  xiii.  8, 1; 
xiv.  10,  G;  xiv.  16,  2;  xv.  1,  2;  and  Jewish  War,  i.  2,  4.  Some  of 

these  passages  indicate  the  regularity  of  the  observance, 
as  when  remission  of  taxes  was  granted  to  them  by  their 


i  heathen  masters  for  that  year;  and  another  passage 
(Antiq.  xi.  8,  6)  evinces  that  it  wa§  observed  also  by  the 
Samaritans.  But  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  attempt  to 
carry  the  law  of  the  jubilee  into  execution  after  the 
return  from  Babylon. 

What  teas  the  object  of  this  laid — Plainly  it  was  an 
extension  of  the  sabbath,  or  a  regulation  analogous 
to  it :  the  six  working  days  were  succeeded  by  the 
seventh,  a  day  of  holy  rest  to  the  Lord,  and  so  with 
the  working  years.  The  natural,  moral,  and  spiritual 
uses  of  the  sabbath-day  suggest  those  of  the  sabbath- 
year  :  and  as  the  tenderness  with  which  God  has 
provided  the  sabbath-day  that  the  toiling  multitude 
may  secure  their  rest  has  been  sometimes  put  very 
prominently  forward,  De.  v.  14,  so  in  like  manner  his 
provision  for  the  wants  of  these  classes  was  noticed 
in  the  terms  of  the  institution  of  the  sabbatical  year, 
Ex.  xxiii.  10, 11,  compare  verses  o,  12.  A  sabbath-year  cannot 
however  be  carried  out  in  a  country  which  is  not 
under  the  special  care  of  the  Lord  as  its  King  as  well 
as  its  ( Jod,  who  can  secure  a  blessing  adequate  to  meet 

j  the  strain  which  this  law  laid  upon  the  productive 
energies  of  the  country,  Le.  xxv.  is- 22;  and  because  the 
land  was  his,  he  claimed  a  moral  character  for  it  as  well 
as  for  the  people,  and  gave  a  sabbatical  rest  to  it  as  well 
as  to  them.  Nor  should  it  be  overlooked,  as  Keil 
says,  that  in  the  year  of  holy  rest  the  ground  returned 
as  it  were  to  its  primeval  state,  and  yielded  its  increase 
to  man  as  it  did  before  the  curse  was  pronounced  upon 
it  and  him,  that  he  should  wring  a  subsistence  out  of 
it  only  by  the  sweat  of  his  face.  When  its  spontaneous 
produce,  unconnected  with  his  labour  and  his  anxiety, 
yielded  him  what  was  necessary,  in  consequence  of  the 
promised  special  blessing  of  God,  the  true  Israelite  had 
opportunity  of  being  impressed  by  the  truth,  De.  viii.  3, 
'  •  that  man  cloth  not  live  by  bread  only,  but  by  every 
[word]  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Lord 
doth  man  live,"  as  strikingly  as  his  forefathers  who 
were  nourished  on  manna  in  the  wilderness.  Yet  the 
concession  of  the  rest  in  its  highest  form,  at  the  jubilee 
after  seven  sabbatical  years,  \vas  rendered  glorious  by 
being  united  with  the  nobler  blessing  of  restitution, 
(rod,  who  instituted  the  sabbatical  3*ear,  among  other 
reasons,  as  a  kindly  pro  vision  for  the  poor  and  the  sunken, 
and  with  the  tendency  towards  limiting  their  distress 
and  lessening  their  numbers,  DC.  xv.  4,  did  much  more 
than  this  when  he  revealed  himself  as  the  Redeemer 
of  his  people,  who  recovered  them  from  poverty  and 
bondage,  who  made  the  solitary  dwell  in  families  and 
gathered  the  dispersed  of  Israel,  and  brought  them 
even  back  as  near  as  might  be  to  the  condition  in 
which  they  were  when  he  first  settled  them  as  his 
ransomed  people  in  the  land  of  promise.  The  full 
meaning  of  this  jubilee  could  not  indeed  come  out  in 
the  administration  of  the  "  beggarly  elements"  of  the 
old  economy;  it  was  reserved  for  our  dispensation  of 
grace  and  truth,  now  that  the  Son  of  God  has  come 
as  our  Kinsman  and  Redeemer.  This  illustrates  the 
beauty  and  value  of  the  description  of  him,  is.  Ixi.  1-3, 
"The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me,  because  the 
Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  unto 
the  meek;  he  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken 
hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the 
opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound;  to  pro 
claim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of 
vengeance  of  our  God;  to  comfort  all  that  mourn,"  &c. 
And  the  Saviour  read  and  appropriated  to  himself 


JUBILEE 


JUDAH 


this  passage,  when  in  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth  he 
said.  "This  dav  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears,'' 
Lu.  iv.  in.  To  this  there  art-  many  allusions  in  the 
New  Testament:  for  instance,  Ro.  viii.  m,  ie.,  the  deli 
verance  and  redemption  of  creation  from  the  bondage 
of  corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of 
God:  Mat.  xix.  -_'S,  2.i;  xxv.  :;4,  the  regeneration  and  the 
glorious  kingdom  to  be  inherited  by  Christ's  people 
with  himself,  when  they  shall  receive  back  a  hundred 
fold  all  that  they  have  lust;  1  IV  i.  4,  the  inheritance  in 
corruptible,  undefiled,  unfading,  reserved  in  heaven  for 
those  who  are  kept  bv  the  power  of  (rod  through  faith 
unto  salvation:  Ac.  iii.  i\i-~>i,  the  times  of  refreshing  and 
the  times  of  restitution  of  all  things,  spoken  of  by  all 
the  prophets,  and  granted  in  ( 'hrUt  Jesus.  And  there  are 
tliree  circumstances  in  connection  with  the  law  of  the 
jubilee  which  sufficiently  mark  its  spiritual  nature,  and 
carry  us  forward  from  the  form-;  of  .ludaism  to  Un 
realities  in  the  gospel  of  < 'hrist.  (1.  It  heo-.-m  on  the 
day  of  annual  atonement  i',,r  all  tic  -in>  of  the  people, 
the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month.  Lc.  xxv  n.  For 
only  when  sin  had  been  blotted  out  and  reconciliation 
had  been  secured  and  announced  typically  on  that 
o-reat  dav  to  Israel,  ivallv  to  all  men  bv  the  obedienei 
and  satisfaction  of  ('hrist  .  \\as  then-  a  possibility  that 
"  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord"  should  be-in.  ;'2.< 
It  was  announced  bv  the  sound  of  "  the  trum]iet  of  ju 
bilee."  the  same  expression  we  have  noticed  in  Jos.  \i. 
4,  &c.,  in  the  account  of  the  Lord  going  before  his 
people  to  overthrow  the  walls  ot'.lericlio  and  giv.-them 
possession  of  the  hind  of  promise;  and  earlier,  i-'.x  \ix.i::, 
iu  the  directions  for  the  people  to  meet  their  Redeemer 
and  Lawgiver,  whose  approach  or  presence  tliis  trumpet 
announced.  1'nciselv  in  like  manner,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  fulfilment  in  the  antit\pe.  "The  Lord  himself 
shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  >hoiit,  with  the 
voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  ( iod:  and 
tlie  dead  in  ( 'hrist  shall  ri«-  first  then  \\e  which  are  alive 
[and]  remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in 
the  clouds  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air:  and  so  -hall  we 
be  ever  with  the  Lord,"  1 'I'll  iv.  It;,  ir.  .'').  The  rules 
for  the  jubilee  occur  in  the  second  part  of  the  book  of 
Leviticus,  in  a  position  entirely  corresponding  to  the 
position  of  the  rules  for  the  day  of  atonement  in  the 
first  part  of  that  book:  see  the  analvsis  in  the  article 
LKVITHTS.  Tims  the  written  word  made  it  manifest 
that  what  the  dav  of  atonement  was  in  the  sacrificial 
system  of  the  church  of  Israel,  that  same  tiling  the 
year  of  jubilee  was  in  the  history  of  the  nation  as 
called  to  a  life  of  fellowship  with  the  Lord.  And  in 
like  manner  it  is  said  of  all  who  have  trusted  in  ('hrist 
for  forgiveness  in  his  blood,  after  hearing  the  word  of 
truth,  the  gospel  of  their  salvation.  ''  In  whom  also, 
after  that  ve  believed,  ve  were  sealed  with  that  Holy 
Spirit  of  promise,  which  is  the  earnest  of  our  in 
heritance,  until  the  redemption  of  the  purchased  pos 
session,"  F.p  i.  }'.',.  1 1. 

Ft  onlv  remains  to  add,  that  these  years  of  sab 
bath  rest  and  of  jubilee  may  have  been  laid  aside  in 
the  history  of  Israel,  not  onlv  through  their  want  of 
faith  to  trust  in  (iod  amidst  so  peculiar  a  mode  of 
living,  but  also  through  the  moral  corruption  of  the 
people,  wearying  of  a  year  of  sacred  rest  (compare  ;is  to 
the  day  of  rest.  Am.  viii.  5»,  or  turning  it  to  purposes  of  idle 
ness  and  then  of  profligacy,  till  they  became  like  Sodom, 
K/e.  xvi.  4ii.  Hut  this  evil  would  be  avoided  so  long  as 
the  commands  of  God  were  obeyed  in  the  spirit  in  which 


lie  gave  them.  The  year  of  jubilee  would  present  suffi 
cient  occupation  in  its  work  of  recovery  and  restoration. 
And  the  sabbatical  year  ought  to  have  been  a/<o/?/rest, 
though  not  excluding  occupations  which  are  unsuitable 
for  the  shorter  and  more  sacred  rest  of  the  Sabbath- 
day.  Ewald  may  be  riuht  in  conjecturing,  for  instance, 
that  much  time  might  be  devoted  to  school  and  the 
general  instruction  of  the  people.  The  religious  ser 
vices  also  would  he  more  fully  attended  and  more  de 
liberately  improved  in  such  a  year  of  leisure.  And  a 
special  charm,  at  once  sacred  and  patriotic,  would  be 
thrown  around  the  year  by  the  reading  of  the  law  to 
the  assembled  multitudes  in  the  fea>t  of  tabernacles 
already  mentioned,  whether  we  reckon  the  year  to  have 
commenced  at  this  solemnity,  as  is  coinmoidv  thought, 
or  \\hether.  with  Keil  and  others,  we  consider  that  feast 
to  ],a\e  crowned  this  year  like  any  other,  and  in  the 
solemnity  see  the  consummation  of  all  its  privileges. 

[Information  upon  the-e  years  \vill  be  1'oiiml  in  the  coininen- 
taiir.-  noon  tin-  l>a^-a_:es  relating  to  them;  in  Looks  of  Jewish 
Antiquities,  such  a-  Kwal.t  ami  K.-il;  in  Hiihr's  .v>,,M,7-  and 
l-'aii'liaini's  'i •  .••  '/</  ,  1'riotly.  ainl  in  a  lueiil  and  comprehensive 
article  h\  Oehler,  "Sabbat-  uml  Jobel-Jahr,"  in  llcrzoy's  A'/KV/- 
//,,,-(,,/;,,  xiii.  'Jo4  •_'!::.  Hi'  ami  other-,  refer  Ui  two  pri/e  essays, 

pul.lishe.l  at  t,o;tinu'en  in  !-;;:,  /*.  .-/ H-lt  ffuru,,,  Jubilwo,~by 

Kranulil  ami  \Vokle.  which  »e  have  not  seen.  ]  {<:.  c.  M.  i>.\ 


JUDAH  |  prop 


1.   The   fourth 

name  \\as  -rounded  upon 
>i  nted  by  his  mother  to  Je- 
hirth :  "  Now  \\ill  1  praise 


th 


th 


da."  t.v  \xix  ::.',.  which  means  celebrated  or  praised.  He 
v.  as  the  most  distinguished  of  all  the  sons  of  Jacob 

with  the  exception  of  Joseph,  but  although  Joseph 
rose  to  greater  personal  honour  and  wielded  princely 
authority  over  all  the  land  of  Kgypt.  y  t  in  connection 
with  his  father's  family  Judah  occupied  the  most  pro 
minent  position,  and  became  the  founder  of  the  most 
powerful  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  From  the  very  first. 
although  he  wa-  younger  than  Reuben.  Simeon,  and 
Levi,  he  took  the  lead  in  all  transactions  that  con 
cerned  the  M-eiieral  interests  of  the  family. 

The  earliest  affair  with  which  we  lind  Judah  con 
nected.  is  highly  honourable  both  to  him  and  to  Iveuben. 
When  their  brethren,  through  envy  of  the  favour  with 
which  their  father  regarded  Joseph,  and  displeasure  at 
the  dreams  winch  seemed  to  portend  his  elevation  above 
them  all.  were  plotting  to  kill  him.  first  Keubeii  pre 
vailed  upon  them  rather  to  cast  him  into  a  pit.  intend 
ing  to  come  secretly  and  rescue  him.  and  then  Judah. 
afraid  apparently  that  the  original  purpose  of  murder 

!  illicit  still  lie  carried  out.  advised  them  to  sell  him 
to  certain  Alidianitish  merchantmen  \\ho  were  passing 
at  the  time  on  their  way  to  Egypt.  And  thus  the 
life  of  Joseph  was  saved,  and  that  connection  of  Israel 
with  Egypt  began,  which  exerted  so  mighty  an  influ 
ence  upon  their  whole  subsequent  history.  The  argu 
ment  employed  by  Judah,  while  pleading  with  his 
brethren  for  Joseph  "  What  profit  is  it  if  we  slay  our 
brother  and  conceal  his  blood?  come,  let  us  sell  him  to 
the  Tshmaelites.  and  let  not  our  hand  be  upon  him; 

1  for  he  is  our  brother,  and  our  flesh."  Go.  xxxvii.  2C,  27  — 
has  sometimes  been  viewed  as  indicating  a  mercenary 
disposition:  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  subsequent 
life  of  Judah  to  warrant  this  idea.  He  preferred 
that  Joseph  should  be  sold  rather  than  cruelly  mur 
dered.  and  he  suggested  the  one  course  as  the  means 


JUDAH 


JUDAH 


of  preventing  the  other  more  dreadful  alternative. 
What  he  says  of  profit  and  selling  is  descriptive  not 
so  much  of  the  motives  that  influenced  himself,  as 
of  the  considerations  by  which  he  conceived  lie  could 
best  move  his  brethren.  And  yet  his  words  embody 
an  appeal  to  their  brotherly  feelings,  which  should  be 
viewed  as  indicating  what  his  own  motives  really  were. 
Doubtless  both  he  and  Ixeuben  were  sincerely  desirous 
of  saving  their  brother's  life,  both  for  his  own  sake,  and 
out  of  regard  for  the  feelings  of  their  venerable  father. 

Fora  time  Judah  resided  at  Adullam,  in  the  district 
of  country  which  was  afterwards  called  by  his  name,  and 
became  the  seat  of  his  descendants.  Here  he  married 
a  Caiiaanitish  woman,  the  daughter  of  Shuah,  by  whom 
he  had  three  sons,  Er,  Onan.  and  Shelah,  Go.  xxxviii.  2-:>. 
And  it  is  in  connection  with  them  that  we  find  the  first 
trace  of  the  Levirate  law,  which  was  afterwards  em 
bodied  in  the  Mosaic  code,  and  brought  under  fixed  re 
gulations,  (tite  MAHKIAGK.)  Er  having  died  childless, 
his  wife  Tamar  was  married  to  Onan  at  the  instance  of 
Judah  himself;  and  Onan  also  having  been  cut  off  for 
his  unnatural  sin,  the  widow  expected  that  the  youngest 
brother  Shelah  would  become  her  husband,  to  raise  up 
seed  to  the  two  who  were  gone.  Judah  however  delayed 
complying  with  her  wishes,  on  the  plea  that  Shelah 
was  of  too  tender  age;  and  as  the  delay  was  protracted 
long,  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  disposed  to  withhold  him 
from  her  altogether.  "When  Tamar  began  to  suspect 
that  this  might  be  his  design,  she  fell  upon  a  stratagem, 
under  the  influence  apparently  of  that  ardent  desire  for 
offspring  which  was  common  to  eastern  women,  to 
accomplish  her  wishes,  and  at  the  same  time  to  make 
Judah  sensible  of  his  fault.  Disguised  as  a  harlot  she 
waylaid  her  father-in-law,  7iow  a  widower,  on  the  road 
to  Timnath,  whither  he  was  proceeding  to  superintend 
the  shearing  of  his  sheep;  and  having  obtained  from 
him  his  signet,  bracelets,  and  staff  as  a  pledge  for  the 
kid  which  he  was  to  send  to  her  from  the  flock,  she 
disappeared,  after  consenting  to  his  wishes,  and  returned 
home  to  resume  the  garments  of  her  widowhood,  so 
that  she  was  not  found  by  Judah's  messenger,  Hirah 
the  Adullamite.  After  a  time  the  rumour  spread  that 
Tamar  was  with  child  by  whoredom,  and  when  it 
reached  the  ears  of  Judah  he  was  highly  incensed  at  the 
dishonour  brought  upon  his  family,  and  in  the  exercise  of 
that  patriarchal  authority  with  which  he  was  invested, 
he  was  about  to  inflict  upon  her  the  punishment  of  death 
by  fire.  But  when  she  produced  the  articles  which 
had  been  given  to  her  in  pledge  as  a  token  who  was  the 
father  of  her  child,  he  acknowledged  that  she  was  more 
righteous  than  he,  and  that  he  had  been  wrong  in  not 
giving  her  to  Shelah,  according  to  his  promise,  Ge.  xxxviii. 
20,  and  the  custom  in  such  cases,  Ge.  xxxviii.  11.  From 
this  connection,  which  brought  so  foul  a  blot  upon  the 
character  of  Judah,  sprang  twin  sons,  Pharez  and  Zarah, 
who,  although  illegitimate,  yet  became  the  leading  men 
in  the  tribe  of  their  father.  From  Pharez  was  descended 
the  royal  house  of  David,  and  in  the  fulness  of  time 
the  great  Messiah  himself,  Ge.  xivi.  12;  Mat.  i.  :j. 

The  influence  of  Judah  among  his  father's  family 
becomes  very  apparent  in  connection  with  the  visits  to 
Egypt  which  were  rendered  necessary  by  the  widespread 
famine  that  visited  the  land.  When  Jacob  refused  to 
allow  Benjamin  to  accompany  the  rest  of  his  sons  on 
their  second  journey  for  corn,  it  was  Judah  who  con 
vinced  him  of  the  necessity  of  parting  with  his  favourite 
for  a  season,  and  who  also  undertook  to  be  responsible 


for  the  safety  of  the  lad,  Ge.  xliii.  :!-io.  When  again  Ben 
jamin  was  about  to  be  detained  in.  Egypt  as  the  servant 
of  Joseph  on  account  of  the  cup  found  in  his  sack's 
mouth,  it  was  Judah  who,  alarmed  at  the  thought  of 
the  anguish  with  which  the  loss  of  Benjamin  would 
wring  his  father's  heart,  offered  himself  as  a  bondman 
in  the  room  of  his  younger  brother.  What  a  beautiful 
picture  is  exhibited  of  his  filial  piety  in  the  eloquent 
appeal  which  he  made  to  the  supposed  Egyptian  prince! 
His  touching  declaration  that  he  could  not  return  home 
and  witness  his  father's  gray  hairs  brought  down  witli 
sorrow  to  the  grave,  quite  unmanned  Joseph,  so  that 
with  tears  and  sobs  he  made  himself  known  to  his 
conscience-stricken  and  terrified  brethren,  Ge.  xliv.  18-34; 
xlv.  1-4.  And  when  Jacob  came  down  to  Egypt  at  the 
invitation  of  the  sovereign  himself,  to  meet  the  long- 
lost  Joseph,  and  to  spend  the  few  remaining  years  of  his 
life  beside  him,  it  was  Judah  whom  he  sent  before 
him  unto  Joseph,  that  he  might  be  directed  to  the  place 
where  it  was  most  desirable  for  him  to  reside,  Ge.  xlvi.  -_:8. 
And  when  at  length  the  dying  patriarch  summoned  his 
numerous  family  around  his  bed  for  a  final  interview, 
and  moved  by  the  Spirit  of  prophecy  exhibited  to  them 
a  glimpse  of  the  destinies  which  awaited  them  "  in  the 
last  days,"  it  is  a  conspicuous  place  which  he  is  led  to  as 
sign  to  Judah:  "  Judah,  thou  art  he  whom  thy  brethren 
shall  praise;  thy  hand  shall  be  in  the  neck  of  thine 
enemies;  thy  father's  children  shall  bow  down  before 
thee.  Judah  is  a  lion's  whelp:  from  the  prey,  my  son, 
thou  art  gone  up :  he  stooped  down,  he  couched  as  a 
lion,  and  as  an  old  lion.  Who  shall  rouse  him  up ! 
The  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah,  nor  a  law 
giver  from  between  his  feet,  until  Shiloh  come,  and  unto 
him  shall  the  gathering  of  the  people  be,"  Ge.  xlix.  s-io. 
Accordingly  it  is  declared  long  afterwards  that  Judah 
prevailed  above  his  brethren,  and  that  of  him  came 
the  chief  ruler,  i  ch.  v.  2.  (.SV-e  SHILOH.) 

The  tribe  of  Judah  in  point  of  numbers  always  kept 
considerably  ahead  of  the  others.  At  the  first  num 
bering,  after  the  exodus,  they  counted  74,600  males, 
about  8000  above  Dan,  which  stood  next;  while  at  the 
close  of  the  wilderness- sojourn  they  had  grown  to 
76,500,  Nu.  i.  26,27;  xxvi.  22.  Their  position  in  the  march 
through  the  wilderness  was  011  the  east  of  the  taber 
nacle,  and  in  the  van  of  the  host,  bearing,  according  to 
rabbinical  tradition,  the  emblem  of  a  lion's  whelp  on 
their  standard.  [w.  L — y.] 

2.  JUDAH.   A  person  apparently  of  some  note  among 
the  Levites,  whose  sons  Jeshua  and  Kadmiel,  with  their 
families,  are  mentioned  with  honour  for  the  part  they 
took  in  helping  to  build  the  house  of  God  after  the  re 
turn  from  Babylon,  Ezr.  iii.  u.     In   two  other  passages, 
Ezr.  ii.  40;  Xe.  vii.  43,  Jeshua  and  Kadmiel  are  again  noticed, 
but  as   the   sons,  in  the  former,  of  Hodaviah  (rnvn. 

praise  Jehovah),  and  in  the  other  of  Hoderah  (niTin) — 

T  : 

the  latter  probably  a  modification  of  the  former — and 
both,  there  is  reason  to  think,  variations  of  the  original 
name  Judah. 

3.  JUDAH.     A   Levite  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  whose 
name    occurs    in   the    list  of   those  who  had  married 
heathen   wives,   and  who  agreed    to  put  them  away, 
Kzr.  x.  23 — probably  the  same  that  is  mentioned  also  in 
Xe.  xii.  8,  36. 

4.  JUDAH.     One  of  the  Benjamites  who  in  the  time 
of  Nehemiah  resided  in  Jerusalem,  and  stood  second 
in  charge  over  the  members  of  his  tribe,  Ne.  xi.  u, 


JUDAH,   TRIBE  OF 


1)77 


JUDAH,  TRIBE  OF 


JU'DAH,  TRIBE  AND  TERRITORY  OF.  Be 
fore  the  conquest  of  Canaan  the  descendants  of  Judah, 
as  stated  at  the  close  of  the  article  on  Judah  (I),  ex 
ceeded  in  number  those  of  any  other  tribe:  yet  the 
difference  was  not  very  great  between  them  and  Dan 
— the  former  possessing  76,500  grown  men,  and  the 
latter  64,400;  or  even  Issachar.  who  numbered  04.300. 
Nu.  xxvi.  22,  25,  43.  It  could  not.  therefore,  have  been 
inferred  from  the  relative  position  of  the  tribes,  that 
Judah  was  to  hold  in  Canaan  any  place  of  peculiar 
predominance  among  the  tribes  of  Israel.  And  when 
the  inheritance  came  to  be  divided  by  lot.  the  portion 
which  fell  to  Judah  only  seemed  to  surpass  the  rest  in 
extent  of  surface;  while  in  richness  of  soil,  and  manv 
natural  advantages,  the  territories  of  Ephraim,  of  Zebu- 
Ion.  Xaphtali,  and  some  others,  rose  greatly  above  it. 
Hut  tlie  very  extent  of  Judah's  possession  bespoke  a 
relative  superiority  -reaching,  as  it  did.  from  the  moun 
tains  of  Edom  on  the  south-east,  up  bv  the  head  of  the 
Dead  Sea  and  Jerusalem  to  Ekron  on  the  .Mediter 
ranean,  and  southwards  to  the  wil.lerni.-s  of  Sin.  Ka- 
desh-Bamea.  and  the  river  of  Egypt,  .i.is  \v  ;  in  short, 
the  whole  of  that  division  of  Palestine  which  lies  south 
of  the  line  that  passes  from  Joppa  to  the  top  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  This  large  territory,  however,  the  tribe  of 
Judah  was  not  allowed  to  enjoy  altogether  alone,  for 
the  tribe  of  Simeon  had  its  inheritance  assigned  "out 
of  the  portion  of  the  children  of  Judah,"  Jos.  xix.  a. 
This  i>  stated  to  have  been  because  ••  the  part  of  the 
children  of  Judah  was  too  much  for  them."  But  the 
question  naturally  occurs.  Why  then  assign  them  a 
territory  MI  large,  and  so  much  beyond  their  proper 
wants?  \\  hv  especially  appoint  a  \\liol"  tribe  to  be- 
eome.  in  a  manner,  swallowed  up,  by  obtaining  a  settle 
ment  within  their  borders'  Simeon  was  eertainiv  one 
of  the  smallest  of  the  tribes  next  to  Levi,  indeed,  the 
very  smallest,  numbering  only  •J'J.'Jou  uroun  men  at 
the  period  of  tlie  eonqiie-t;  so  that  a  comparatively 
limited  territory  mi^ht  have  sufficed  for  them.  Yet 
this  could  not  of  itself  have  accounted  for  the  pecu 
liarity  of  the  whole  region  in  question  being  regarded 
as  properly  ,1  ndah's.  while  Simeon  was  niei-'-iy  a>  a 
matter  of  convenience  iveeived  to  a  plaee  in  its  proper 
domain.  It  can  only  be  explained  by  the  valiant  part 
performed  ],\  the  tribe  of  Judah  in  subduing  the  war 
like  occupants  of  this  more  southern  district,  and  Bet 
ting  possession  of  iis  strongholds.  A  somewhat  de 
tailed  account  of  their  particular  conquest.-,  in  some  of 
which  they  were  asMiciated  \sith  Simeon,  is  given  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Judaes.  Thev  did  not  sueeee.l  in 
ever}-  case:  hut  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  their 
arms  triumphed;  and  the  more  hiliv  portion  of  the  dis 
trict,  which  necessarily  to  a  large  extent  commanded 
the  rest,  became  nearly  their  undivided  possession. 
.in.  i  10.  It  is  possible  that  this  very  circumstance  con 
tributed  to  their  future  prosperity  and  greatness;  for. 
dwelling  chiefly  in  the  more  elevated  and  bracing  parts 
of  the  country,  and  obliged  there  also  to  maintain  the 
vigilant  attitude  of  conquerors,  who  had  still  powerful 
adversaries  in  their  neighbourhood,  they  were  in  the 
best  position  for  retaining  their  pristine  vigour  and 
making  successive  inroads  on  the  still  unsubdued  terri 
tory  around  them.  Then,  the  vast  extent  of  this  terri 
tory,  and  the  large  tracts  of  pasture-land,  in  the  direc 
tion  of  Egypt  and  Arabia,  to  which  it  gave  them  access, 
formed  sources  of  wealth  beyond  what  most  of  the 
tribes  had  at  their  command. 

Vol..    I. 


It  was  doubtless  in  good  measure  owing  to  the  cir 
cumstances  just  mentioned,  that  the  tribe  of  Judah  came 
to  be  reckoned  very  much  by  itself;  and  though  little 
noticed  in  some  of  the  earlier  struggles  of  the  nation, 
yet  it  came  by  and  by  to  play  the  most  prominent  part. 
Othniel,  the  first  judge,  was  of  this  tribe ;  but  no 
mention  is  made  of  it  in  the  great  conflicts  with  Barak, 
Gideon,  or  Jephthah,  which  more  directly  concerned 
the  middle  and  northern  divisions  of  Israel;  while  from 
the  time  of  Saul,  and  especially  of  David,  it  rose  into 
great  prominence  and  power,  and  appeared  to  occupy 
a  place  above  that  of  a  single  tribe.  Thus  even  in 
Saul's  time,  when  the  available  force  of  fighting  men  was 
ascertained  with  a  view  to  the  approaching  war  with 
Ammon.  Judah  was  numbered  apart  from  the  other 
tribes  :',(MI,(IUU  of  the  children  of  Israel  were  num 
bered  at  Bc/ek,  and  30, (Kin  of  Judah,  iSa.  xi.8.  In 
like  manner,  at  the  unhappy  numbering  which  took 
place  toward  the  latter  part  of  David's  reign,  the 
returns  were  presented  by  Joab  for  Judah  separate 
from  the  others;  and  the  proportion  for  Judah  also  had 
now  vastly  increased  (reaching  even  to  about  f>00.000) 
doubtless  from  the  singular  prosperity  of  David's 
reiuii.  and  the  desire  of  many  to  lie  associated  with  the 
tribe  and  region  that  stood  nearest  to  him.  The 
fortress  of  Jerusalem  and  nearly  all  the  remaining 
strongholds  within  the  territory  of  Judah  fell  under 
his  arms;  their  former  possessors,  in  many  cases  pro 
bably  as  in  Jerusalem,  becoming  converts  to  Judaism, 
and  consequently  reckoned  in  the  tribe  of  Judah,  2  Sa. 
\\iv.  L'II- •_';,;  Zee.  i.\.  ~.  But  this  vast  intlux  of  power  and 
•_;ri  atness,  still  further  increased  and  confirmed  in  the 
hand  of  Solomon,  proved  too  much  for  tile  other  tribes, 
especially  for  the  once  ascendant  and  still  powerful 
and  jealous  tribe  of  Ephraim.  to  bear  with  equani 
mity.  And  as  suoii  as  Solomon  was  removed  from  the 
scene,  the  fire  that  had  been  smouldering  for  two 
generations  broke  out  with  such  violence  that  it  could 
not  again  be  extinguished.  Thenceforth  Judah  (in 
cluding  the  adjoining  tribe  of  Benjamin,  with  probably 
the  greater  part,  if  not  the  whole  of  Simeon,  which 
seems  to  have  become  well-ni^h  merged  in  Judah, 
i  ch.  iv.  27-31,  and  many  refugees  also  from  the  other 
tribes;  formed  a  distinct  kingdom,  of  which  some 
account  v,  ill  lie  given  in  the  next  article. 

The  merely  circumstantial  greatness  and  temporal 
power  of  Judah  passed  away:  but  it  had  elements  of 
glory  peculiar  to  itself,  and  which  may  be  said  to  be 
the  heritage  of  the  church  of  God  in  every  age  and 
clime.  To  this  tribe  belonged  by  divine  appointment 
the  honour  of  bearing  swav  within  the  sphere  of  God's 
kingdom  an  honour  whieh  came  iirst  to  realization  in 
David  and  his  immediate  successors;  and  though  after- 
wards  suil'ering  a  capital  abridgment  and  temporary 
Mispension,  yet  only  that  it  mia'ht  in  the  fulness  of  time 
rise  to  its  complete  and  perpetual  establishment  in 
the  hands  of  him  who  was  to  be  David's  Son  and 
Lord.  It  was  in  the  person  of  a  Jew  of  David's  house 
and  lineage  that  Deity  became  incarnate  to  accomplish 
the  redemption  of  the  world.  Jews — descendants  for 
the  most  part,  though  not  exclusively,  of  the  same  tribe 
— were  his  immediate  representatives  and  instruments 
in  planting  his  kingdom  of  grace  and  blessing  in  the 
world.  And  when  the  time  comes  for  their  future 
conversion  and  final  ingathering,  Jews  shall  still  be,  in 
a  manner  altogether  peculiar,  ''the  life"  of  the  world. 
Ro.  xi  I.',. 

123 


Jl'DAIl,    KINGDOM  OF 

The  territory  of  Judah  did  not  differ  very  greatly 
from  what  iu  later  times  went  by  the  name  of  Judea, 
or  Jiuhea  (which  seu),  though  the  latter  as  generally 
understood  was  somewhat  more  extensive.  It  seems 
from  the  period  even  of  the  conquest  to  have  been  dis 
tributed  into  three  main  divisions,  "  the  Hill  country, 
the  Negeb  (or  south-country),  and  the  Shefelah  (valley 
or  low  land)/'  Jos.  xv.  L'o-o;;;  and  in  Ju.  i.  9,  &e.,  an  account 
is  given  of  the  operations  of  Judah  in  these  diii'eivnt 
sections  of  their  inheritance.  Hebron,  Debir.  the 
regions  of  Aracl.  and  Zepath  or  Hormah,  all  distinctly 
specified  in  that  brief  record  of  successful  occupation, 
belong  to  the  Hill  country.  The  cities  of  Gaza,  Aske- 
lon,  Ekron,  which  were  for  the  time  taken,  but  not 
properly  possessed  and  occupied,  lay  in  the  low  coun 
try —  the  tract  of  Hat  land  stretching  along  the  Medi 
terranean,  which  continued  for  generations  after  the 
conquest,  as  it  had  been  before,  to  be  chiefly  occupied 
by  the  Philistines.  For  a  description  of  these  divi 
sions,  see  under  JVDEA,  and  PHILISTINES.  The  third 
chief  division  was  called  Xegeb  or  the  South  country. 
It  was  of  very  considerable  extent,  no  fewer  than 
twenty- nine  cities  with  their  dependent  villages,  in  all 
thirty-seven,  being  enumerated  in  it.  Jos.  xv.  -M-:i-2 — the 
first  of  which  was  Kalweel  on  the  south  east,  and  the 
last  Rimmon.  near  the  north-west  extremity.  It  fell 
into  two  or  three  subdivisions.  But  see  under  Sorm 
COUNTRY,  also  Tie  Xajeb,  by  the  Hev.  Ed.  Wilton. 
Beside  these  principal  divisions  in  the  territory  of 
Judah,  there  was  a  narrow  tract,  which  appears  to 
have  been  in  some  respects  distinct — the  M'tdhar,  or 
wilderness,  in  connection  with  which  six  towns  are 
named,  all  lying  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Salt  Sea. 
Jos.  xv.  r>!i-(iL'.  Very  little  is  known  of  them ;  but  for 
the  nature  of  the  country  in  which  they  were  situated, 
see  under  SALT  SEA. 

JU'D AH.  KINGDOM  OF.  1.  Extent  and  resources. 
— Much  that  properly  belongs  to  this  head  has  been 
treated  of  by  anticipation  in  connection  with  the  king 
dom  of  Israel.  This  was  necessary,  as  it  was  only  from 
a  comparison  of  the  respective  resources  and  character 
of  the  two  kingdoms  that  a  correct  idea  could  be  formed 
of  the  state  of  either.  Recapitulating  briefly  the  state 
ments  already  made  so  far  as  they  bear  on  the  present 
subject,  it  was  shown  that  while,  so  far  as  regards  ex 
tent  of  territory  and  other  material  resources,  as  also 
population,  the  kingdom  of  Israel  more  than  doubled 
its  southern  rival  of  Judah,  the  latter,  on  the  contrary, 
far  surpassed  it  in  everything  which  constitutes  moral 
greatness  and  gives  promise  of  a  national  stability.  By 
the  policy  of  Jeroboam  the  old  conservating  principles, 
civil  and  religious,  had  been  cast  aside  in  the  kingdom 
of  Israel,  while  nothing  of  a  corresponding  character 
had  been  substituted.  In  such  circumstances  it  is  not 
at  all  surprising  that  the  larger  and  more  populous  king 
dom  did  not  even  in  a  material  aspect  greatly  exceed 
the  smaller  but  better  consolidated  power.  Of  course 
in  regard  to  moral  and  religious  matters  the  advantages 
were  all  on  the  side  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  which 
alone  retained  its  theocratic  constitution.  It  may  be 
here  added  to  what  has  been  elsewhere  stated,  that  the 
progress  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  may  be  discerned  in 
the  increase  of  the  armies  which  its  successive  rulers 
were  able  to  raise.  Thus,  while  under  David  the  fight 
ing  men  of  Judah  numbered  500,000,  2  Sa.  xxiv.  9,  Reho- 
boam  could  raise  only  180,000  men.  1  Ki.  xii.  21,  from 
which  time  however  there  is  a  constant  augmentation; 


JUDAH,  KINGDOM  OF 

for  Abijah,  eighteen  years  thereafter,  raised  an  army  of 
400,000,  2Ch.  xiii.  3;  his  successor  Asa  580,010.  2Ch. 
xiv.  8;  while  Jehoshaphat's  host  amounted  to  no  less 
than  double  that  number.  2fh.  xvii.  14-10.  It  must,  how 
ever,  be  admitted  that  the  genuineness  of  these  numbers 
has  been  questioned.  However  this  may  be,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  a  variety  of  causes  concurred  to  in 
crease  the  population  of  Judah  in  a  higher  ratio  than 
that  of  the  sister  kingdom,  irrespective  of  the  great 
numbers  who  abandoned  their  homes  and  possessions 
in  Israel  on  the  establishment  of  idolatry  by  Jeroboam, 
and  sought  refuge  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah.  The  fre 
quent  revolutions  and  changes  in  the  ruling  dynasty 
in  the  kingdom  of  Israel  must  have  been  unfavourable 
to  its  growth:  and  to  this  may  be  added  the  sparse 
and  scattered  condition  of  a  great  part  of  its  population 
engaged  in  pastoral  pursuits. 

•2.  It*  history.-  Although,  strictly  speaking,  the 
kingdom  of  Judah  began  only  with  the  revolt  of  the 
northern  tribes  and  the  establishment  of  their  indepen 
dence  under  Jeroboam,  yet  it  may  be  regarded  as  a 
continuation  of  the  kingdom  of  Saul,  or  more  correctly 
of  David,  the  first  proper  theocratic  ruler,  and  in  whose 
family  it  was  promised  the  government  should  continue. 
It  was  thus  no  new  institution,  but  was  bound  up  with 
old  associations  and  based  on  a  national  desire.  The 
Israelites  had  been  subjected  to  various  successive  forms 
of  government,  and  one  great  principle  of  their  consti 
tution  was  its  inculcation  of  obedience  and  reverence 
to  rulers  and  magistrates,  Ac.  xxiii.  5.  A  regal  govern 
ment  to  arise  in  the  course  of  time  was  anticipated  in 
the  Pentateuch,  and  directions  were  given  for  the  con 
duct  of  the  future  king.  Indeed  it  may  be  said,  there 
needed  to  be  some  visible  institution  of  this  kind  fully 
to  express  the  theocratic  idea.  When  the  proposal  of 
a  monarchy  was  made  by  the  people  to  Samuel,  that 
they  might  be  like  the  other  nations,  he  received  it 
with  displeasure;  but  afterwards,  by  divine  directions, 
acquiesced  in  it,  and  proceeded  to  carry  out  the  popular 
will.  To  mark  the  representative  character  of  the  king. 
God  retained  the  election  in  his  own  hands.  This 
elective  right  he  exercised  in  the  case  of  Saul,  and 
afterwards  and  more  expressly  in  rejecting  Saul  and 
substituting  David  in  his  stead.  It  was  thus  em 
phatically  declared  that  the  Israelitish  king  ruled  for 
God  and  by  his  will.  It  is  necessary  to  advert  to  this 
circumstance,  in  order  to  show  with  what  authority  the 
actings  of  such  as  might  be  thus  properly  designated 
constitutional  or  theocratic  rulers,  would  lie  viewed,  as 
compared  with  the  rule  of  those  who  had  no  higher 
claim  than  that  of  Jeroboam  and  his  successors  on  the 
throne  of  Israel. 

Of  the  pro- disruption  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah 
nothing  need  here  be  said;  and  indeed  only  very  brief 
notice  can  be  taken  of  the  more  important  incidents 
and  features  of  the  succeeding  period,  and  that  with 
respect  chiefly  to  the  state  of  religion  and  the  national 
prosperity.  The  humiliation  of  liehoboam,  in  the  loss 
of  more  than  half  his  kingdom,  was  farther  deepened 
by  the  plunder  of  his  palace  and  the  temple  by  Shishak. 
king  of  Egypt,  yet  his  distresses  did  not  teach  him  to 
rely  on  the  Lord,  as  did  his  son  Abijah.  He  made  war 
on  Jeroboam,  over  whom  he  gained  a  brilliant  victory. 
His  theocratic  spirit  appears  in  the  address  which  he 
delivered  to  the  hostile  army.  2  Ch.  xiii.  It  was  the  same 
with  his  son  Asa,  at  least  in  the  commencement  of  his 
reign,  as  may  be  seen  in  his  war  with  Zerah.  king  of 


JUDAH.   KINGDOM  OF 

Ethiopia,  whose  immense  army  he  defeated.  More  dis 
tinguished  than  any  of  his  immediate  predecessors  on 
the  throne  of  Judah  for  his  theocratic  zeal  was  Jeho- 
shaphat,  the  son  of  Asa.  This  prince  was  largely 
imbued  with  a  theocratic  spirit,  and  made  great  efforts 
personally,  and  by  a  commission  of  Levites  sent  with 
the  "book  of  the  law"  throughout  the  countrv.  to 
instruct  the  people  and  to  revive  the  worship  of  Jeho 
vah.  A  grave  error,  however,  was  his  alliance  with 
the  house  of  Ahab,  and  the  marriage  of  his  son  Jehoram 
with  Athaliah,  the  daughter  of  Jezebel.  Jehoram  him 
self  commenced  his  reign  by  murdering  his  brethren, 
and  under  the  influence  of  Athaliah,  who  inherited 
much  of  her  mother's  character,  introduced  the  worship 
of  P.aal  in  Judah,  as  Jezebel  had  clone  in  Israel.  The 
Philistines  and  the  Arabians  plundered  Jerusalem,  and 
carried  away  all  the  kind's  treasure,  and  his  children, 
with  the  exception  of  his  youngest  son  Ahaziah.  To 
complete  the  calamities  of  this  reiun.  the  kin^  himself 
died  of  an  incurable  disease,  and  was  siieo-eded  bv 
Ahaziah,  who  still  kept  up  the  friendly  intercourse 
with  the  house  of  Ahab.  and  it  was  when  on  a  visit  to 
Jehoram,  who  had  been  wounded  bv  the  Svrians  at 
Ii'amah.  that  both  p.-riMn-d  by  the  hand  of  J(  hii. 

Now  be-j-an  a  time  of  sore  trouble  for  Judah:  for,  on 
the  death  of  Ahaziah,  his  mother  Athaliah  usurped  the 
government,  having  destroyed  all  tin-  seed  royal  with 
the  exception  of  one  of  tin-  king's  sons,  Joash  —  a  child 
one  year  old,  who  had  been  secreted  in  tin  temple  by 
his  father's  sister,  the  wife  of  the  high-priest  Jehoiada,  : 
who  at  the  end  of  six  years  succeeded  in  placing  him  ' 
on  tin-  throne,  when  Athaliah  was  slain,  and  the  wor-  j 
ship  of  I'.aal  suppressed,  the  priests  dedicating  their1 
income  to  the  n-pair  of  the  temple  of  the  Lord.  The 
hopes  entertained  of  the  yoiui'.r  king  were  soon  disap 
pointed,  for,  on  the  death  of  his  -uardian  and  coun 
sellor  Jehoiada,  he  restored  the  worship  of  I'.aal,  and 
showed  no  favour  to  the  son  of  his  benefactor,  who  was 
stoned  by  the  people  on  his  rebuking  tin-in  for  their 
idolatry,  and  warning  them  of  the  calamities  which 
their  conduct  would  certainly  brinir  upon  them.  These 
predictions  were  soon  realized.  Th.  S\  rians  came 
against  Jerusalem,  shed  much  blood,  and  carried  awav 
much  sjH.il.  Joash  himself  was  slain  by  his  own 
servants.  His  son  and  successor,  Ama/.iah,  also  per-  > 
i.-hed  through  a  conspiracy  of  his  own  jn-ople.  He  had  : 
been  successful  in  a  war  against  the  Edomites;  but  in 
a  subsequent  war  against  Israel,  he  was  defeated  and 
taken  prisoner,  the  conquerors  breaking  the  wall  of 
Jerusalem  and  robbing  the  temj>le  and  palace.  The 
character  of  this  ruler  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  he 
brought  with  him  to  Jerusalem,  in  his  campaign  against 
the  Edomites,  the  gods  of  the  vanquished,  and  burned 
incense  to  them.  His  successor,  Azariah,  was  a  devout 
and  prosperous  monarch  during  the  early  part  of  his 
reign.  He  promoted  in  various  ways  the  best  interests 
of  his  country:  he  also  successfully  waged  war  with  the 
Philistines  and  Arabians.  His  prosperity,  however. 
so  lifted  up  his  heart,  that,  not  satisfied  with  the  royal 
dignity,  he  sought  to  usurp  the  priesthood  also.  In 
this  unhallowed  attemj)t  he  was  smitten  with  an  in 
curable  leprosy,  and  was  thus  wholly  incapacitated  for 
all  business,  whereupon  Jotham  carried  on  the  govern 
ment  as  regent  in  his  stead.  This  prince,  who,  after 
the  death  of  his  father,  reigned  as  sole  king  for  sixteen 
years,  did  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord. 
He  rejiaired  the  temple,  compelled  the  Ammonites  to 


JUDAH,   KINGDOM  OF 

pay  tribute,  and  otherwise  made  his  authority  felt.  His 
son  Ahaz,  however,  was  of  a  totally  different  character. 
The  religious  aspect  of  this  reign  will  be  seen  from  the 
fact  that  the  temple  of  Jehovah  was  formally  dedicated 
as  a  temple  of  idols,  the  king  himself  practising  all  the 
worst  abominations  of  heathenism.  Nor  were  civil 
affairs  in  a  more  prosperous  condition.  Pekah,  king 
of  Israel,  in  conjunction  with  Kezin,  king  of  Syria, 
besieged  Jerusalem;  while  Ahaz  summoned  to  his  aid 
Tiglath-Pileser,  king  of  Assyria.  This  aid  Tiglath- 
Pileser  rendered  so  far  by  conquering  Syria,  carrying 
also  into  captivity  a  portion  of  the  Israelites,  and  im 
posing  tribute  on  the  remainder:  but  afterwards  he 
came  up  against  Jerusalem  itself,  although  at  that 
time  he  did  not  succeed  in  taking  it.  Hezekiah,  the 
son  and  successor  of  Aha/.,  was  as  devoted  to  the  wor 
ship  of  Jehovah  as  his  father  had  been  in  his  idolatrous 
practices.  In  his  reign  the  kingdom  of  .Israel  fell,  and 
with  it  ceased  the  strife  and  rivalry  of  centuries. 

The  remaining  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  now 
alone  surviving,  and  to  which  the  fate  of  her  sister  was 
a  solemn  warninu'  to  repentance,  does  not  call  for  many 
remarks.  On  the  deportation  of  the  great  body  of 
Israel  by  the  conquerors,  and  the  cessation  of  all  proper 
government.  He/.ekiah  assumed  a  certain  sovereignty 
over  such  Israelites  a.-  still  remained  in  the  land.  It 
must  be  in  consequence  of  this  that  he  issued  invita 
tions  to  them  to  repair  to  Jerusalem  to  take  part  in  the 
celebration  of  the  passover.  '-'fii.  xx.v.i-rj.  But  the  state 
of  affairs  in  Judah  itself  was  fast  hastening  to  a  crisis. 
In  the  midst  of  the  reformation  so  auspiciously  begun 
and  carried  on  by  Hezekiah.  the  country  is  threatened 
by  the  Assyrians,  but  is  delivered  by  a  remarkable  in 
terposition,  God  smiting  the  Assyrian  host.  The  work 
however  was  Mopped  on  the  accession  of  Manasseh, 
who  undid,  as  far  as  lay  in  his  power,  the  good  which 
his  father  had  effected.  He  seduced  the  people  "to  do 
more  evil  than  those  nations  whom  the  Lord  destroyed 
before  the  children  of  Israel."  L' Ki.  xxi.  !>.  In  conse 
quence  of  this.  Cod  passed  a  seiilence  similar  to  that 
on  Samaria,  vcr.  i::.  Manasseh  himself  tasted  for  a 
time  the  bitterness  of  captivity  in  Mabylon.  whither  he 
was  carried  by  Ksar-haddoii.  Sennacherib's  successor. 
Amon's  reign  of  two  years  was  of  the  same  character 
as  that  of  his  father.  On  his  death,  which  was  occa 
sioned  by  a  conspiracy  of  his  own  servants,  his  younger 
brother  Josiah,  eight  years  old,  was  chosen  as  his  suc 
cessor.  His  reiun  of  thirty-one  years  was  chiefly  de 
voted  to  the  restoration  of  the  worship  of  Jehovah  and 
the  reformation  of  morals.  His  character  is  recorded 
in  these  expressive  t.  rms  :  ''  Like  unto  him  was  there 
no  king  before  him,  that  turned  to  the  Lord  with  all 
his  heart,  and  with  all  his  soul,  and  with  all  his  might, 
according  to  all  the  law  of  Moses;  neither  after  him 
arose  there  any  like  him."  2Ki.  xxiii.  •>:,.  This  exemplary 
prince  perished  in  battle  in  a  war  into  which  he  need 
lessly  rushed  with  Pharaoh-Nechoh,  king  of  Egypt, 
who  had  undertaken  an  expedition  against  the  king  of 
Assyria.  The  people  made  Jehoahaz,  a  younger  son 
of  Josiah.  their  king — a  man,  however,  of  a  different 
character  from  his  father.  Three  months  afterwards, 
Nechoh,  who  had  now  conquered  Phoenicia,  gave  the 
throne  to  his  elder  brother  Eliakim,  whom  he  named 
Jehoiakim,  and  carried  Jehoahaz  himself  captive  to 
Egypt.  After  Jehoiakim,  who  also  did  evil  in  the  sight 
of  the  Lord,  had  reigned  eleven  years.  Nebuchadnezzar, 
king  of  Babylon,  who  had  defeated  Nechoh  near  Car- 


.IUDAU.    KINGDOM   OK  •'* 

chemish,  B.c1.  000,  appeared  before  Jerusalem.      Jehoia-  ' 
kim  surrendered  himself  to  him:  the  king  of  Babylon 
carried    away  the  vessels   of    the  temple,   and  several 
noble  youths,  among  whom  was  Daniel.      Scion  after 
wards  Jehoiakim  rebelled,  and   the  (.'haliUes  again  be 
sieged  Jerusalem:   he  lost  his  life,  and   was  succeeded  j 
by  his  son  Jehoiachin,  who  reigned  only  three  months, 
when  he  too  surrendered  to  the  king  of  Babylon.      The  j 
king  and  his  nobles,  witli  the  military  men  and  crafts 
men,    we're  carried   captive;    to    Babylon.      Among   the 
captives    was    Kzekicl    the   prophet.     Nebuchadnezzar 
made  Mattaniah,  the  youngest  son  of  Josiah,  king  of 
Judah.  and  changed  his  name  to  /edekiah.  who.  rely-  i 
ing  on  a  covenant  with  Pharaoh- Hophra,  rebelled  in 
the  ninth  year,  contrary  to  the  repeated  remonstrances  , 
of   Jeremiah.       Nebuchadnezzar  now   commenced  the  ; 
third  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and  prosecuted  it  during  two 
years.     A  terrible  famine  ensued.     Zedekiah  fled,  but  ! 
was  pursued  and   st-i/cd.  and  as  Ezekiel  had  foretold,  j 
Eze.  xii.  18,  his  eyes  were  put  out.  and  he  was  carried  to  , 
Babylon.      Jerusalem  was  totally  destroyed,   B.C.  588,  j 
and  387  years  after  the  division  of  the  kingdom.     This  ; 
destruction   was    not    without    numerous  and    express 
warnings   by   the    prophets.       (Compare    what   is   said 
under  KINGS,   BOOK  OK.) 

3.  Ejj'tcts  of  tin  i/it<niji/ioii  on  lit  /iii/;/((o/n  nf  Judah. 
— These  must  have  been  great  and  varied.  The  defec 
tion  of  by  far  the  larger  portion  of  the  empire  must 
have  inflicted  a  terrible  blow  on  whatever  related  to 
the  outward  power  and  splendour  of  the  house  of  David.  . 
The  kingdom  which  David,  by  the  might  of  his  arms,  ' 
had  done  so  much  to  consolidate  and  extend,  when  he 
stretched  its  borders  to  the  Euphrates,  and  which  his 
successor  Solomon  had  enriched  by  his  commercial 
and  trading  enterprise,  shrunk  all  at  once  within  ex 
ceedingly  narrow  limits,  and  became  altogether  so 
enfeebled  as  to  be  at  once  exposed  to  an  attack  on  the 
part  of  the  Egyptians,  and  a  successful  revolt  of  its 
dependencies.  It  had  henceforth  enemies  on  its  own 
borders  and  among  its  own  people. 

It  may  be  questioned,  however,  whether  the  falling 
away  of  the  ten  tribes  had  any  very  injurious  effects 
on  Judah  in  a  theocratic  aspect,  or  did  in  any  way 
hasten  the  decadence  and  fall  of  the  kingdom.  Although 
it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  ''  a  kingdom  divided  against 
itself  is  brought  to  desolation,"  yet,  in  this  instance, 
the  views  and  feelings  of  parties  differed  so  much,  that 
such  a  political  excision  may  have  been  not  only  neces 
sary  for  the  mere  preservation  of  the  economy  under 
which  Israel  was  placed,  but  also  salutary  for  its  pro 
gress.  There  was  obviously  considerable  danger  that  in 
the  glory  of  the  Davidic  and  Solomonic  reigns,  the  true 
object  and  character  of  the  kingdom  established  in 
Israel  might  be  lost  sight  of,  in  the  eager  desire  to  secure 
for  it  an  influential  place  among  earthly  kingdoms;  and 
accordingly,  like  the  army  of  Gideon,  there  may  have 
been  a  necessity  for  its  outward  diminution.  It  was 
also  necessary  to  intensify  its  theocratic  elements,  by 
concentrating  them  more,  and  bringing  them  into  more  j 
immediate  contact  with  the  mass  on  which  they  were  : 
to  operate.  Now  all  this  was  effected  in  various  ways 
by  the  revolt  and  the  establishment  of  the  rival  king 
dom.  Eirst,  indirectly,  by  bringing  the  covenant-people, 
and  especially  the  tribe  expressly  designated  as  the 
line  of  blessing,  into  a  position  where  there  would  be 
formed  a  distinct  line  of  demarcation  between  it  and 
any  other  rival  tribe,  just  as  between  Israel  at  large 


I  .11  'DA  If,    KINGDOM  OF 

and  the  world:  and  more  directly  by  the  absorption 
within  itself  of  the  more  theocratic-ally  disposed  of  the 
other  tribes,  who  could  not  endure  the  policy  of  the  new 
kingdom.  J  low  the  conduct  of  Jeroboam  in  this  matter 
weakened  his  own  kingdom,  and  on  the  other  hand 
strengthening  that  of  Judah,  by  the  accession  to  it  of 
such  as  could  not  endure  his  anti-theocratic  policy,  has 
been  already  indicated  under  the  article  KINGDOM  OF 
ISKAKI..  These  refugees — sufferers  for  conscience — 
could  not  fail  to  have  a  powerful  influence  on  the  people 
among  whom  tliov  came  to  sojourn,  and  on  whose  sup 
port  they  unreservedly  cast  themselves. 

In  other  respects,  too,  the  northern  kingdom  may 
have  proved  beneficial  to  J  udah.  It  for  along  time 
formed  a  bulwark  against  the  advancing  power  of  the 
Syrians  of  Damascus,  and  completely  prevented  its 
aggressions  upon  Judah:  while  at  the  same  time  their 
own  exposure  to  so  powerful  an  enemy  on  their  northern 
frontiers,  would  necessitate  Israel  to  cultivate  peace  as 
much  as  possible  with  their  southern  brethren.  It  was 
only  when  in  alliance  with  Syria  that  they  could  with 
safety  venture  on  an  open  rupture  with  Judah.  In 
the  early  contests  between  the  two  kingdoms,  Judah 
was  invariably  the  aggressor;  and  indeed  in  one  in 
stance,  under  Asa,  engaged  the  armed  intervention  of 
Benhadad  I.,  king  of  Damascus,  against  Baasha,  king 
of  Israel.  After  this,  and  for  about  eighty  years,  the 
relations  of  the  two  kingdoms  were  of  a  peaceful  char 
acter,  Damascus  being  then  regarded  as  the  common 
enemy.  After  the  conquest  of  the  Syrians,  Jehoash, 
provoked  to  war  by  Amaziah,  entered  and  plundered 
Jerusalem;  but  the  Israelites  were  so  occupied  in  com 
pleting  the  conquest  of  Damascus,  that  they  did  not 
for  a  considerable  time  give  much  annoyance  to  Judah. 

The  greatest  danger  to  Judah  was  from  the  south. 
from  Egypt,  and  it  was  from  this  quarter  that  the  first 
aggression  was  made  on  the  kingdom  soon  after  its 
being  weakened  by  the  revolt.  The  condition  of  Egypt 
itself  afterwards  prevented  for  a  considerable  time  the 
renewal  of  these  aggressions. 

Nothing  however  could,  humanly  speaking,  effec 
tually  save  the  Jewish  state,  or  avert  the  punishment 
impending  over  it.  Warnings  w-ere  unheeded,  reproofs 
despised;  both  people  and  rulers  were  pursuing  a  course 
which  could  not  fail  to  be  disastrous.  The  character 
of  the  riders  will  be  evident  from  the  fact,  that  of  the 
twenty  kings  who,  after  the  separation  of  the  kingdom, 
occupied  the  throne  of  Judah.  only  seven  walked  in  the 
ways  of  their  father  David;  and  as  is  almost  invariably 
the  case,  their  wickedness  increased  in  the  ratio  of 
their  weakness— Manasseh,  for  instance,  slaughtering 
his  own  subjects,  as  the  easiest  gratification  for  a  cruel 
temper,  and  not  perceiving  that  the  position  and  pro 
spects  of  his  kingdom  were  sufficiently  reduced  already. 
Still,  even  in  this  inevitable  ruin,  God's  faithfulness 
did  not  fail;  his  purposes  and  promises  were  realized; 
and  wicked  and  disobedient  as  their  rulers  were,  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases,  they  were  all,  without  excep 
tion  (for  the  usurper  Athaliah  is  not  to  be  included;, 
of  the  house  and  lineage  of  David,  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  divine  promise  made  to  him,  that  he  should 
not  want  a  man  to  sit  upon  his  throne. 

4.  The  fall  of  the  Icinydotti  and  the  captivity. — The 
destruction  which  overtook  the  Jewish  state  w-as  not  a 
sudden  and  unexpected  calamity;  but  was  a  judgment 
repeatedly  and  expressly  predicted.  It  was  also  pre 
ceded  by  various  intimations  that  it  should  be  followed 


Jl'PAS 


981 


1'UA.S 


by  a  captivity  in  Babvlon,  extending  to  seventy  years, 
after  which  there  should   he  a  restoration  to  their  own 
land,  with  the  resumption  of  the  worship  of  Jehovah  ! 
in  a  purer  spirit  than  before.      On  the  character  of  the  j 
captivity  and  the  condition  of  the  captives,  on  which  : 
the  hook  of  Ezekiel,  himself  one  of  their  number,  throws  | 
so   much   liaht.    see  also  PS  cxxxvii.,  it   is  unnecessary  to  ! 
enlarge.      Suffice  it  to  say.  that    "the  discipline  of  the 
captivity  produced  abundant  fruits:   the  inclination  ot 
the  Israelites  to  worship  strange  gods,  which  had  pre 
viously  been  invincible,  disappeared,  and  was  succeeded 
by  a  faithful  and  inflexible  adherence  to  the  law  of  the 
fathers,    which   was.   however,   often    characterized   by 
formality  and  self -righteousness"  Mvum,S;icrtM  Hist,  p.  24:  I. 

;").  The  '•uiid/tiuii  <>f  tin  i\,ini<iiit  in  tin-  Innil.  —  Nebu 
chadnezzar  left  a  small  portion  ot  the  rural  population 
behind  when  he  carried  away  the  principal  inhabitants 
to  Babylon,  and  made  <  Jedaliah  uoveriioi-of  the  country, 
(iedaliah  resided  at  Mispah:  ho  maintained  friendly 
relations  with  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  who.  having  bci.ii 
permitted  bv  Nebuchadnezzar  to  select  hi>  own  place 
of  re.-idence.  remained  in  the  Holy  Laud.  .Many  fiiyi- 
tives  gradually  ^atlu-red  themselves  to  tin-  governor, 
who  exercise. 1  his  authority  with  -Teat  uvntleiiess. 
IVace  and  order  were  heini:'  re-established,  \\hen  (ieda- 
liah.  wlio.  notwitli.-taudiuu  repeated  warnings,  refused 
to  entertain  any  suspicions  to  his  prejudice,  uas  a>>as 
-inatcd,  tuo  months  aiter  he  bad  assumed  office,  by 
Ishmael.  a  fanatical  .leu.  who  \\a-  connected  \\illi  'lie 
royal  family.  All  the  people,  who  .-till  remained,  fear 
ing  the  vengeance  of  the  <  'halders.  presently  after  tied 
to  lv_;\  pt.  whither  they  were  accompanied  by  Jeremiah, 
wlio,  tlioiiji  lie  did  not  approve  of  the  -tep  they  were 
taking,  would  not  separate  himself  from  the  fortunes 
of  his  c  iimtrymeii.  I  n.  M.  | 

JUDAS  [the  (JreeU  and  New  Testament  form  of 
Jriuil],  a  name  borne  by  several  persons  in  the  gospel 
age,  but  liv  none  wlio  made  himself  so  conspicuous  as 
the  person  \\honi  on  that,  account  we  place  tir-t. 

1.  ,)rn.\s  1st. \UK>T  |(ir.  'lovca/HtirTjs],  one  of  the 
twelve  disciples  of  our  l.ord.  and  the  one  to  \\liom  be 
longs  the  unhappy  notoriety  of  having  betrayed  him. 
In  regard  to  his  family  relationship  no  further  account 
is  Driven,  than  that  lie  \\;is  tile  son  of  Simon,  .In  vi.  71; 

xiii.  i. -.'(-,;  luit  of  Simon  himself  the  history  is  altogether 
silent.  Nor  does  the  epithet  hi'ariot  throw  any  <vr- 
t;iin  lijit  .on  the  early  hi-tory  and  connections  of  the 
traitor;  for  the  derivation  of  the  word  is  involved  in 
some  ohseuritv.  The  more  L^nera!  opinion.  however, 
in  which  we  are  disposed  to  concur,  connects  it  with 
the  place  of  his  birth,  and  finds  this  mot  with  Kwald 
in  K  art  ha  of  (Jaliloe.  but)  in  Kerioth  of  Judah.  Jos. 
xv. '_'.•>;  so  that  Iscariot,  or  in  Ifeli.  i$h-Kertoth  ir'M"i[3  w'\<)- 
would  be-  the  Kerioth-man.  It  would  be  unite  natural 
to  apply  such  a  patronymic  to  Judas,  on  the  supposi 
tion  of  his  being  by  birth  connected  with  such  an  an 
cient  town  in  the  territory  of  Judah;  since  it  would 
serve,  not  only  to  distinguish  him  from  the  other  Judas 
ainonff  the  disciples,  but  also  to  denote  a  point  of  dis 
similarity  between  him  and  the  others  -  they  natives 
of  Galilee,  he  a  man  of  Kerioth  in  Judah.  The  con 
nection,  too,  in  which  by  his  guilty  conduct  he  came 
ultimately  to  stand  with  the  Jews  more  distinctively 
so  called,  in  relation  to  the  Messiah,  might  render  it 
not  unimportant  that  he  should  bear  even  this  external 
symbol  of  it.  On  the  whole,  such  a  view  is  decidedly 


to  be  preferred  to  those  mentioned  by  Lightfoot,  ob 
tained  from  rabbinical  sources,  which  would  derive  it 
either  from  iskortja,  a  leathern  apron  (with  reference 
to  the  office  of  Judas  as  the  purse-bearer),  or  from 
ftsrnra,  strangling  (with  reference  to  the  form  of  death 
he  inflicted  on  himself ).  <  )ther  derivations  are  not  worth 
noticing. 

The  first  mention  of  Judas  is  in  the  formal  lists  that 
are  given  by  the  evangelists  of  the  twelve  apostles:  in 
all  of  these  he  is  placed  last,  doubtless  from  the  un 
worthy  part  he  afterwards  acted,  and  which  is  also 
noted  from  the  outset.  M;it.  v  4:  .Mar.  iii.  Hi;  F,u.  vi.  It,. 
.After  his  designation  to  the  apostolic  office,  however, 
nothing  for  a  considerable  time  transpires  respecting 
him.  a.-  indicative  of  a  spirit  and  behaviour  materially 
dittereiit  from  what  appeared  in  the  rest.  From  the 
silenci  of  th"  evangelists,  rather  than  from  any  posi 
tive  information,  we  are  left  to  infer  that  he  took  his 
own  proper  part  in  the  labours  of  the  apostleship;  and 
that  he  should  ha\e  been  appointed  to  hear  the  com 
mon  ba_r  \\hieli.  however,  only  c<  me.-  out  incidentally 
quite  near  to  the  close  of  our  Lord's  earthly  course, 
.in.  \ii.  ii;  xiii.  29  plainly  implied,  that  he  was  perceived 
to  lie  a  person  of  active  habits,  of  a  sagacious  turn  of 
mind,  and  regular  in  his  attendance  on  the  ministry  of 
Jesus.  The  first  intimation  we  have  of  there  being 
something  fundamentally  wrong  occurs  in  the  strong 
declaration  of  Jesus,  uttered  in  a  time  of  general  back- 
slidiiig1,  and  about  a  year  before  his  crucifixion,  in  which 
he  said.  "  Have  not  1  chosen  you  twelve,  and  yet  one 
of  you  i>  a  devil'"  .in  u  :.  Kvcn  this  fearful  word 
rather  bespoke  the  divine  insight  of  Jesus,  than  revealed 
anything  specific  c..ncerninu-  Judas  for  no  one  was 
named,  and  it  was  only  from  the  event  that  the  other 
disciples  knew  Judas  to  have  been  the  individual 
pointed  to.  The  Master  himself  knew  perfectly,  knew 
it.  no  doubt,  fioni  the  first,  \\hat  manner  of  spirit 
this  disciple  was  of;  yet  he  was  allowed  to  retain  his 
place  anion<_-  1  he  chosen  band:  and  not  only  so,  but 
cairied  himself  so  respectfully  toward  Jesus,  to  all  out- 
\\ard  seeming  bore  his  part  so  creditably  in  the  affairs 
and  movements  of  the  little  company,  that  till  the  last 
week,  or  we  may  even  say  the  very  last  night  of  their 
connection  together,  the  suspicion  of  a  false  heart  and 
of  foul  plav  seems  never  to  have  fallen  particularly 
upon  him.  So  late  as  the  last  supper,  when  the  sad 
announcement  was  heard  from  our  Lord  that  one  of 
them  should  betray  him,  the  word  struck  them  all 
with  amazement,  and  it  was  only  by  a  private  sign 
that  even  I'eter  and  John  came  to  know  who  was  the 
individual  meant,  Jn.  xiii.  2C.  But  before  many  hours 
had  elapsi  d.  the  fact  uas  patent  to  the  whole  fraternity; 
for  Judas  appeared  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  officers  in 
the  garden  of  Gethsemane.  and  after  saluting  Jesus 
witli  an  appearance  of  friendship,  he  was  met  with  the 
cutting  reply,  "  Judas,  bctrayest  thou  the  Son  of  man 
with  a  kiss  T  So  brief  was  the  interval  between  the 
secret  discovering  itself,  and  reaching  its  fatal  consum 
mation:  and  all  the  direct  information,  besides,  given 
us  concerning  it  is.  that  two  or  three  days  before  he 
had  gone  to  the  chief-priests,  and  bargained  with  them 
to  deliver  JCMIS  up  to  them  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver, 
Mut.  xxvi.  I.',.  V,\\i  as  to  the  sequel,  we  learn  that  this 
paltry  sum.  the  mere  price  of  a  slave,  which  Judas  got 
for  his  treachery,  instead  of  proving  a  gain  to  its  pos 
sessor,  became  as  uall  and  wormwood  to  his  soul;  for, 
when  he  saw  the  condemnation  which  befell  Jesus,  his 


JUDAS 

heart  smote  him  for  having  betrayed  the  innocent;  and 
either   immediately    before,    or,    as   is    more  probable, 
.shortly  after  the  crucifixion,  he  threw  down  before  the 
priests  in  the  temple  the  thirty  pieces  he  had  received  from 
ilu'iu,  and  in  a  fit  of  despair  hanged  himself,  Mat  xxvii.  :>. 
Such  are  the  melancholy  facts  respecting  the  case  of 
Judas:  and  the    question   arises,  How  are  they  to  be 
accounted  for !      What  seems  to  be  the  most  probable 
theory  of  this  man's  character?     The  common  opinion 
now, 'and  in   all  ages,  has  certainly  been,  that  he  was 
in  the   strict   sense  of  the   term  a  traitor,  and  conse- 
(|uently  an  apostate— one,  who  from  false  motives  had 
originally  joined  himself  to  the  company  of  Jesus,  and 
who,  when  he  saw  things  turning  out  otherwise  than 
lie  expected,  took  advantage  of  his  position  to  secure 
a  little  sain  to  himself  before  all  was  over,  though  at 
the  expense  of  proving  faithless  to  the  Master  and  the 
cause  he  had  hitherto  professed   to  support.      This  un 
doubtedly  is  the  impression  naturally  produced  respect 
ing  him  by   the   language   of   Scripture,    especially  by 
that  of  our  Lord  himself,  who  alone  could  fathom  the 
depths  of  such  a  character.      In  his  very  first  allusion 
to  the  evil  that  was  lurking  in  the  bosom  of  this  dis 
ciple,  he  employed  a   designation,  which  bespoke  the 
nearest  connection  with  the  wicked  one— represented 
him  even  as  an  impersonation  of  the  prince  of  darkness; 
"he  is  a  devil."      Nor  is  the   expression  scarcely  less 
strong,   which   was   used   in   our  Lord's  last  moments, 
when  in  his  solemn  address  to  the  Father,  he  named 
tins  apostle    by  the  emphatic  term,  "  the  son  of  per 
dition,"  Jn.  xvii.  12— the  very  epithet  applied  by  St.  Paul 
to  that   full  development  and  consummation  of  apos 
tasy   which   was   to  appear  in  the   antichrist,   2  Th.  ii.  3. 
Even  this  is  not  all;  for  both  by  our  Lord  himself,  and 
by    the    eleven   afterwards,    Judas    is    associated  with 
those    portions    of    prophetic    Scripture    which    spake 
beforehand  of  the  deep-rooted   enmity  and  treacherous 
behaviour  of  which  the   Messiah  was  to  be  the  object, 
and  which  was  also   to   find   a  peculiar  culmination  in 
sonic    one   individual — Judas  Iscariot  is   identified  by 
them  as  that  individual,  Ps.  xli.  0;  Ixix.  *->;  cix.  8;  comp.  \vitv 
Jn.  xiii.  18;  Ac.  i.  19-21.      He  did  within   the  narrow  circle 
of  discipleship,   in   the  most   intensely   personal  form, 
and  under  the  most  aggravating  circumstances,  what 
in  the  larger  circle,  the  heads  and  rulers  of  the  people 
did—  with  spiteful  and  bitter  feeling  betrayed  the  Hoh 
One  to  his  enemies— the  former  to  unbelieving  Jews 
the  latter  to  godless  Gentiles. 

These  representations  seem  decisive  enough  as  to  tin 
bad  pre-eminence  of  Judas  in   guilt;  they  mark  hin 
out  as  one  of  the  most  worthless  and  reprobate  of  men 
Yet  there  are  some  who  have  felt  disinclined  to  aecredi' 
this,  unable  to  conceive  how  a  character  so  hardenec 
in  iniquity  should  have  formed  itself  so  rapidly,  or  how 
if  it  had  been  formed,  there  should  have  followed  clos< 
upon  the  fatal  act  .such  bitter  and  intolerable  relent 
ings.     Hence,  ingenious  and  softening  hypotheses  have 
been  framed.     It  has  been  thought  that  Judas,  while 
basely  yielding  to  the  love  of  filthy  lucre,  possibly  con 
ceived  no  u'reat  evil  might  arise  out  of  his  treachery, 
that  Jesus  might  be  able  to  establish  his  innocence,  nay 
rise  higher  by  the  very  ordeal  to  which   he  was  sub 
jected  (so  substantially,  Panlus,  Hase,  Winer,  Thiele, 
&c.)    Latterly  some  have  gone  even  farther,  and  are  of 
opinion  that  policy  rather  than  avarice  was  the  prompt 
ing  influence  in    the  mind   of   Judas;  that  he  wished 
merely  to  force  on  a  crisis  in  his  Master's  affairs,  which 


e  perceived  to  be  suffering  by  undue  delay;  that  he 
xpeeted  thus  to  bring  Jesus  into  a  position  which 
vould,  in  a  manner,  compel  him  to  vindicate  his  cause, 
o  quell  opposition,  and  set  up  his  kingdom  in  power 
nd  ulory.  which  being  accomplished,  Judas  of  course, 
vhose  boldness  and  sagacity  should  have  done  such 
•ood  service,  could  not  but  receive  some  worthy 
icknowledgment  (Neandev,  Whattly,  I)c  Quincoy,  Denhain, 

launa,  «.)    Views  of  this  sort,  however,  will  not  stand  a 
erious  examination.      For,  (1.)  they  are  entirely  hypo- 
hetical.     There  is  not  a  word  to  countenance  them  in 
he  whole  of  the  sacred  narrative;  nor  so  much  as  a  hint 
Iropped.  that  Judas  had  any  thought  of  continuing  his 
onnection  with  Jesus  after  the  fatal  night,  much  less 
Jreamed  of  promoting  by  a  dexterous  stroke  the  inte- 
•est  of  his  Master.     If  such  palliations  existed,  could 
;he  inspired  record  have  utterly  ignored  them  ?    (2. )  The 
part  ascribed  to  Judas  is  far  too  subtle,  intricate,  and 
remote  from  common  apprehension,  to  have  been  in  the 
least  degree  probable.      Judas,  like  the  other  disciples, 
was  a  man  in  humble  life,  and,  as  such,  neither  capa 
ble  of  concocting,  nor  likely  even  to  think  of,  any  plan 
which  was  to  depend  for  its  success  on  a  skilful  manage 
ment  of  political  parties,  and  the  violent  movements  of 
a   public  convulsion.      His  natural  position  in  society 
and  his  apostolical  training  formed  no  preparation  for 
h  an  adventurous  project;  and  the  idea  seems  not 
less  fanciful  than  groundless.      Besides,  if  such  really 
had  been   the    object  in   view,  why  the  stipulating  for 
a  pecuniary   recompense  beforehand;  and   why  again, 
when    the    season    of    remorse    came,    did    the    burn 
ing  agony  connect  itself  so  closely  with  the  ill-gotten 
treasure,  and  the   guilty  work   for  which  it  was  paid' 
This,   surely,    bespoke    something    else    than    the    far- 
reaching  look  of  a  sagacious  and  calculating  politician. 
(3.)  The  view,  still  farther,  stands  in  irreconcilable  op 
position  to  the  plain  testimonies  of  Scripture.      Were  it 
well-grounded,  the  difference   between  J  udas  and  his 
fellow- disciples  had   been  quite  a  measurable  one;  he 
was  but  a  shade  more  worldly  in  his  aspirations,   and 
less  wise  in  his  procedure,  than  the  rest — while  at  bot 
tom  his  heart  might  be  as  leal  and  his  intentions  as 
good  as  any  of  them.     But  it  is  far  otherwise  when  we 
turn  to  Scripture.     There  we  find  no  such  wire-drawn 
distinctions;  he  belongs  to  a  totally  different  class,  and 
appears  wedded  to  a  rival  interest.   The  others  are  weak, 
indeed,    and  vacillating,   perplexed  and  faint-hearted, 
still  dreaming  of  earthly  prospects  that  are  never  to  be 
realized;  but  he  is  entirely  off  in  a  counter  direction;  the 
spirit  of  love  and  fidelity  have  gone  out  of  his  heart; 
the  spirit  of  the  wicked  one  has  taken  its  place,  render 
ing  him  a  traitor,  an  apostate,  a  son  of  perdition.     If 
we  are  asked,  how  we  can  account  for  such  a  rapid 
growth   and    development  of    evil?    we  ask    in  reply, 
how  can   you    dispose    of  such  representations?     We 
know  nothing  of  Judas  but  from  the  testimony  of  Scrip 
ture;  and  a  theory  that  would  explain  the  facts  of  his 
case  in  a  manner  not  consistent  with  this  testimony, 
is  not  to  explicate  the  difficulties  of  a  character  that 
:  we  know,  but  to  exhibit  a  character  which  we  have  made 
for  ourselves.     (4.)  Finally,  the  actual  circumstances  of 
the  case,  when   fairly  taken  into  account,  render  the 
common  view  by  much  the  most  natural  and  consistent. 
What   were  those    circumstances?      Judas    stands  all 
along  much  in  the  same  relation  to  Christ,  that  Ahi- 
thophel  did  to  David.     He  is  a  prudent,   active,  saga 
cious,  but  withal  thoroughly  selfish  and  worldly  man. 


JTDAS  $ 

His  religion,  like  other  things,  is  made  subservient  to 
his  temporal  interest;  the  godliness  he  cultivates  is  that 
oidy  which  appears  to  be  conducive  to  gain.  In  attach 
ing  himself  to  the  cause  of  Jesus  he  had,  no  doubt,  to 
count  the  cost;  but  the  evidences  of  marvellous  power 
and  greatness  which  showed  themselves  forth  in  Jesus 
begot  the  assurance  that  it  was  a  safe  adventure,  and 
formed  the  surest  road  to  future  aggrandisement.  A 
change  however  ensued:  from  the  time  that  Jesus  began 
plainly  to  discourage  the  expectations  of  his  followers 
in  respect  to  an  earthly  kingdom,  and  even  to  give 
intimations  of  his  own  sufferings  and  death  (i.e.  from 
near  the  beginning  of  the  last  year  of  his  ministry),  a 
recoil  took  place  in  the  minds  of  all  the  disciples,  and 
pre-eminently,  we  may  well  suppose,  in  the  mind  of 
Judas.  Their  faith  now  became  weak  and  inconstant, 
but  that  of  Judas  altogether  gave  way:  and  when,  during 
the  closing  months  of  our  Lord's  course,  the  announce 
ments  became  nmre  di-tinrt.  and  the  .-inns  altogether 
more  manifest,  of  a  e,,min_r  catastrophe.  Judas  resolved 
to  turn  to  account  the  opportunities  he  had.  lie 
therefore  commenced  thief,  and  stole  from  the  com 
mon  bag,  \\liich  had  been  intrusted  to  him.  Jn.  xii.  u 
As  the  base  appetite  was  thus  stealthily  fed,  it  u'lvw  in 
imperiousness,  and  ^rud^vd  whatever  seemed  to  take 
from  the  means  on  \\  hich  it  had  to  operate.  Hence  it  was 
Judas  who  chiefly  complained  of  the  expenditure  con 
nected  with  the  precious  ointment  which  was  poured 
by  Mary  at.  liethany  on  the  person  of  Jesus:  since  if 
turned  into  cash  it  mi_h»  have  added  three  hundred 
pence  to  the  resources  at  his  command,  Jn  xii  i  It  was 
now.  at  last,  that  matters  on  both  sides  visibly  tended 
to  a  crisis.  Nut  only  did  Jesus,  on  the  occasion  in 
question,  vindicate  the  loving  devotion  of  Mary  and 
rebuke  the  grudging  spirit  of  Judas,  but  he  declared 
his  satisfaction  with  the  anointing  speciallv  on  th< 
ground  that  it  was  to  serve  for  his  burial-perfume-  so 
certain,  and  so  near  also,  was  the  period  for  his  succumb 
ing  to  the  stroke  of  death.  Other  things,  too.  pointed 
pretty  plainly  in  the  same  direction;  fur,  instead  of 
improving  the  favourable  nunm  nt  which  had  recciitlv 
occurred  at  his  triumphal  entrance  into  Jerusalem,  for 
publicly  asserting  his  claims  and  erecting  his  throne. 
Jesus  shrunk  back  auain  into  comparative  retirement 
— thus  letting  slip  another,  and  what  mi^ht  well  seem 
to  be  the  last,  opportunity  for  establishing  his  temporal 
dominion.  I  low  could  a  man  like  Judas  fail  now 
especially  to  be  conscious  that  he  was  altogether  in  a 
wrong  position  '  The  game  was  manifestly  up  for  him; 
he  must  somehow  be  out  of  the  concern;  and  since  lie 
had  been  so  sharply  taken  up  at  Bethany  respecting  the 
cost  of  the  ointment,  whv  should  he  be  scrupulous 
about  the  mode  of  doing  it!  If  defeated  of  his  aim  in 
one  direction  he  will  make  up  for  it  in  another.  And 
so  quitting  his  hold  of  the  good,  he  falls,  in  just  retri 
bution,  under  the  grasp  of  evil;  Satan  uoads  him  on 
to  a  compact  with  the  chief-priests,  which  is  presently 
detected  and  exposed  by  the  all-seeing  Master;  and  the 
traitor  and  his  accomplices  are  hurried  forward  with 
precipitate  haste  to  consummate  their  design. 

There  is  nothing  incredible,  or  even  very  singular,  in 
all  this;  it  is  what  in  substance  has  been  often  repeated; 
and  if  the  downward  progress  was  here  speedier  than 
usual,  and  the  culminating  act  more  dreadful,  is  not 
this  amply  explained  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  in 
which  the  course1  of  iniquity  was  pursued  '  Who  ever 
sinned  thus  under  the  eye  of  such  a  Master,  and  amid 


>j  JCDAS 

such  wonderful  manifestations  of  divine  grace  and 
majesty  '-.  Clinging  in  spite  of  all  that  was  daily  seen 
and  heard  but  the  more  closely  to  its  iniquity,  the 
heart  of  Judas  must  have  become  hardened  beyond 
measure  in  evil,  as  the  guilt  in  which  it  involved  him 
contracted  the  deepest  aggravation.  And  yet.  \\licn 
the  terrible  act  was  committed,  and  the  bloody  tragedy 
to  which  it  led  rose  fully  on  his  view,  those  same  in 
fluences  could  scarcely  fail  to  come  back  with  vengeful 
power  on  the  troubled  conscience  of  the  traitor,  and 
awake  to  action  the  better  thoughts  and  feelings  that 
slumbered  in  his  bosom.  They  did  so.  as  similar 
though  less  potent  influences  have  often  done  since; 
and  life  itself  became  intolerable  to  him  under  the  re 
collection  of  such  senseless  infatuation  and  amazing 
hardihood  in  crime. 

I !ut  if  the  conduct  of  Judas  himself  be  thus  in  some 
decree  explicable,  ho\\  shall  we  explain  the  conduct  of 
Jesus  in  choosing  such  a  person  into  the  number  of  his 
apostles,  .Hi  the  supposition  that  from  the  first  he  knew 
u  hat  was  in  the  man'  Important  reasons,  we  maybe 
sure,  were  not  wanting  for  the  procedure,  and  they  are 
not  very  far  to  seek.  The  presence  of  such  a  false 
friend  in  the  company  of  his  immediate  disciples  was 
needed,  first  of  all,  to  complete  the  circle  of  Christ's 
trials  and  temptations.  He  could  not  otherwise  have 
known  by  personal  experience  some  of  the  sharpest 
wounds  inflicted  by  human  perverseness  and  ingratitude, 
nor  exhibited  his  superiority  to  the  evil  of  the  world  in 
its  most  offensive  forms.  I'.ut  for  the  deceit  and 
treachery  of  Judas  he  should  not  have  been  in  all 
thiiiLfs  tempted  like  his  brethren.  Then,  thus  only 
could  the  things  undergone  by  bis  great  prototype 
I 'avid,  find  their  proper  counterpart  in  him  who  was 
to  enter  into  I>avid's  heritage,  and  raise  from  the 
dust  llavH's  thnnie.  Of  the  things  written  in  the 
I'salms  concerning  him—  written  there  as  derived  from 
the  depths  of  David's  sore  experience  and  sharp  con 
flict  with  evil,  but  destined  to  meet  again  in  a  still 
greater  than  he—  few  have  more  affecting  prominence 
Driven  to  them  than  those  which  relate  to  the  hardened 
wickedness,  base  treachery,  and  reprobate  condition  of 
a  false  friend,  whose  words  were  smooth  as  butter  but 
whose  actions  w-re  drawn  swords,  who  ate  of  his  meat 
but  lifted  up  the  heel  against  him.  Other  prophecies 
also,  especially  two  in  Zechariah,  eh.  x.  rj,  l.'J;  xiii.  (>, 
waited  for  their  accomplishment  on  such  a  course  of 
ingratitude  and  treachery  as  that  pursued  by  Judas. 
Further,  the  relation  in  which  this  false  but  ungenial 
and  sharp-sighted  disciple  stood  to  the  rectitude  of 
Jesus,  afforded  an  important  reason  for  his  presence 
and  agency.  It  was  well  that  those  who  stood  at  a 
greater  distance  from  the  Saviour  failed  to  discover 
any  fault  in  him;  that  none  of  them,  when  the  hour  of 
trial  came,  could  convict  him  of  sin,  though  the  most 
watchful  inspection  had  been  exercised,  and  the  most 
anxious  efforts  had  been  made,  to  enable  them  to  do  so. 
But  it  was  much  more,  that  even  this  bosom-friend., 
who  had  been  privy  to  all  his  counsels,  arid  had  seen 
him  in  his  most  unguarded  moments,  was  equally  in 
capable  of  finding  any  evil  in  him;  he  could  betray 
Jesus  to  his  enemies,  but  he  could  furnish  these  enemies 
with  no  proof  of  his  criminality;  nay.  with  the  bitter 
ness  of  death  in  his  soul,  he  went  back  to  testify 
to  them,  that  in  delivering  up  Jesus,  he  had  betrayed 
innocent  blood.  What  more  conclusive  evidence  could 
the  world  have  had.  that  our  Lord  was  indeed  without 


'.IS  I 


Jl'DAS 


spot  :md  blameless  .'      Finally,  the  appearance  of  such  a 
person  as  Judas   among  the   immediate  attendants  of 
Jesus  was   needed  as  an   example   of   the   strength  of 
human    depravity— how   it   can   lurk   under   the  most 
sacred  professions,  subsist  in  the  holiest  company,  live 
and  UTOW  amid  the  clearest  light,  the  solemnest  warn 
ings,  the  tenderest  entreaties,  and  the  divinest  works. 
The  instruction  afforded  hy  the  incarnation  and  public 
ministry  of  the  Son  of  God  would   not  have  been  com 
plete  without  such  a  memorable  exhibition  by  its  side 
of  the  darker   aspects  of  human    nature;    the  church 
should  have  wanted  a  portion  of  the  materials  required 
for  her  future  warning   and   admonition:   and  on  this 
account  also,  there  was  a  valid  reason  for  the  calling  of 
one  who  could  act  the  shameful  part  of  Judas  Iscariot. 
Jt   only   remains  to   notice,  in   connection  with  the 
treachery    of    Judas,    the    two    accounts    given  of  his 
death  and  of  the  disposal  of  his  thirty  pieces  of  silver, 
which  present  some  notable  differences.     St.  Matthew 
simplv  tells  us  that  having  thrown  down  the  money  in 
the   temple   before   the   chief -priests.   Judas  went  and 
hanged  himself  idTr/h-faro.  lit.  he  choked  or  strangled 
himself):  that  the  priests  deemed  it  improper  to  put 
the  money  into  the  treasury  of   the  Lord,  since  it  \\as 
the  price  of  blood,  but  applied   it  to  the  purchase  of  a 
piece  of  ground   in  the  potter's  held   for  the  burial  of 
strangers,  which  hence   became   known  as  the  field  of 
blood,  ch.  xxvii.  a-».      P.ut  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Acts 
it  is   stated   by    way    of  explanation,   in  the  midst  of 
Peter's  speech,  that  Judas  purchased  a  field  with  the 
reward  of  iniquity,  that  the  field   was   in  consequence 
called  Aceldama,  or  the  field  of  blood,  and  that  Judas 
himself  falling  headlong  (it  is  not  said  where  or  how; 
burst  asunder  in  the  midst,  and  his  bowels  gushed  out. 
This  statement,  occupying  two  verses,  and  interrupting 
the  thread  of  Peter's  address,  was  evidently  thrown  in 
as  a  parenthesis  by  the  historian,  for  the  information 
of  people  at  a  distance,  and  is  so  regarded  by  the  great 
body  of  interpreters.      Tt  should,  therefore,  be   viewed 
as  a  representation   taken  from  a  remoter  period  than 
the  account  presented  by  the   other  evangelist,    which 
partly   explains   the   peculiarity   of   its   form.      It  was 
natural  that  in  process  of  time  Judas  should  lie  virtually 
identified  with  the  chief- priests,  to  whom  he  had  sold 
himself  to  do  iniquity,  and  that  he  might  be  regarded 
as  in  effect  doing  what  they  did   with   the  money  that 
accrued  to  him   for  his  share  in   the  foul  transactions 
between   them.      In  other  parts  of  Scripture  we  iind 
quite  similar  identifications    i.tm-  ex  .Mat.  viii.  :.  comp.  with 
I,u.  vii.  3;  Mar.  x.  lij  comp.  with  Mat.  xx.  2",  also  Acts  vii.  16);and 

it  was  the  more  natural  here,  as  in  the  psalms  applied  by 
Peter  to  Judas  there  was  by  anticipation  the  same  sort 
of  identification  of  the  traitor  and  his  unbelieving  coun 
trymen.  Then,  in  regard  to  what  befell  Judas  himself, 
there  is  no  need  for  going  to  the  extreme  of  Lightfoot, 
who  seems  to  think  the  worst  imaginable  here  hardly 
bad  enough.  He  thinks,  that  while  ''Judas  was  re 
turning  to  his  mates  from  the  temple,  the  devil,  who 
dwelt  in  him.  caught  him  up  on  hiu'li,  strangled  him, 
and  threw  him  down  headlong:  so  that,  dashing  upon 
the  ground,  he  burst  in  the  midst,  and  his  guts  issued 
out,  and  the  devil  went  out  in  so  horrid  an  exit.  This 
agrees  very  well  with  the  deserts  of  the  wicked  wretch, 
and  with  the  title  of  Iscariot.  The  wickedness  he  had 
committed  was  above  all  example,  and  the  punishment 
he  suffered  was  beyond  all  precedent."  In  the  present 
day  such  an  explanation  will  hardly  be  deemed  in  ac 


cordance  with  the  laws  of  probability;  nor  is  it  needed. 
The  discrepance  between  the- two  narratives  must  be 
understood  to  arise  from  our  having  the  story  in  frag 
ments;  but  it  is  perfectly  explicable  on  the  ordinary  sup 
position,  that  the  rope  with  which  Judas  hanged  nimself 
broke,  and  he  fell  and  burst  his  abdomen. 

The  question  has  been  often  agitated  whether  Judas 
was  present  at  the  first  celebration  of  the  Lord's  supper, 
or  left  the  assembly  before  the  institution  actually  took 
place;  but  with  no  very  decisive  result.      The  conclu 
sion  reached  on   either  side  has   very  commonly  been 
determined  by  doctrinal  prepossessions,  rather  than  by 
exegetical  principles.   Of  the  three  synoptic  evangelists, 
Matthew  and  Mark  represent  the  charge  of  an  inten 
tion  to  betray  on  the  part  of  Judas,  as  being  brought 
against  him  between  the  paschal  feast  and  the  supper, 
while  Luke  does  riot  mention  it  till  both  feasts  were 
finished;  yet  none  of  them  say  precisely  when  he  left 
the  chamber.     From  this  surely   it  may  be  inferred, 
that  nothing  very   material   depended  on  the   circum 
stance.       If   Judas    did    leave    before    the    commence 
ment  of  the  supper,  it  was  plainly  not  because  he  \\as 
formally  excluded,  but  because  he  felt  it  to  be  morally 
impossible   to  continue  any  longer  in  such  company. 
As.  however,  it  seems  certain  from  Jn.  xiii.  30,  that 
he  left   the   moment  Jesus   brought  home  the  charge 
to  him.  and  gave  him  the  sop,  and  as  it  is  next  to  cer 
tain  that  the  feast  then  proceeding  was  not  that  of  the 
supper,  the  probabilities  of  the  case  (and  we  can  only 
speak  of  such)  must  be  held  to  be  on  the  side  of  his 
previous  withdrawal.      The  requisitions   of   time.   too. 
favour   the   same  view:   since,  if  Judas  did  not  leave- 
till   so   late   as  the   close  of  both  feasts,  it   is  scaively 
possible  to  conceive  how  he  should  have  had  time  to 
arrange  with  the  chief- priests  for  proceeding  with  the 
arrest  of  Jesus  that  very  night.      The  matter  in   this 
shape   came   alike  on   him   and  on  them  by   surprise; 
fre>h  consultations,  therefore,  required  to  be  held,  fresh 
measures    to    be    adopted;    and    these   necessarily  de 
manded  time,   to   the  extent  at  least   of  some  hours. 
Altogether  the  probability  of  his  departure  before  the 
institution  of  the  supper  seems  the  greater. 

2.  JUDAS,  "not  Iscariot,"  another  of  our  Lord's  dis 
ciples.      (.S'ef  JUDK.) 

3.  JUDAS,  surnamed  BAKSABAS.      He  was  a  person 
of  some  note  in  the  church  of  Jerusalem,  probably  one 
of  the  elders  there,  who,  along  with  Silas,  was  chosen 
to  accompany  Paul  and  Barnabas  on  their  return  to 
the  church  at  Antioch,  to  explain  to  the  brethren  there, 
and  commend  the  decree  which  had  been  come  to  re 
specting    circumcision.      Judas,    as    well    as    Silas,    is 
spoken  of  as  occupying  the  position  or  possessing  the 
gifts  of  a  prophet,  Ac.  xv.  :u,  in  the  sense  in  which  this 
was  commonly  understood  in  the  apostolic  church;  that 
is,  so  far  furnished  with  spiritual  endowments,  as  to  be 
able,   authoritatively,  to  speak  forth  the  mind  of  the 
Lord,  whether  or  not  with  reference  to  things  to  come. 
After  remaining  for  a  little  at  Antioch  he  returned^  to 
Jerusalem.     His  name  does  not  occur  again  in  New 
Testament  history. 

4.  JUDAS,   a   person   at  Damascus,   in  whose  house 
Paul  lodged  for  some  time  after  the  memorable  period 
of  his  conversion,  Ac.  ix.  n.     Whether  this  Judas  was  a 
believer  in  Jesus  is  not  said;  but  it  may  be  probably 
inferred  that  he  was,  otherwise  the  continued  sojourn 
of  Paul  in  his  house  till  Ananias  had  administered  to 
him   the   rite   of  baptism,    could   scarcely  have  taken 


JTDE 


JUDE 


place.  We  are  simply  told  of  him  that  he  lodged  in 
the  street  which  was  called  Straight.  (f<.c  DAMASCUS.) 
5.  JUDAS  OF  GALILEE.  This  Judas  stood  altogether 
beyond  the  circle  of  Christian  discipleship,  and  in  point 
of  time  was  prior  to  any  of  those  already  mentioned, 
though  his  name  dues  not  occur  till  after  the  beginnings 
of  the  Christian  church.  He  is  simply  referred  to  by 
Gamaliel  in  his  speech  to  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  as 
having,  in  what  he  calls  "the  days  of  the  taxirg," 
drawn  much  people  after  him.  and  perished,  Ac.  v.  37. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Judas  indicated  is  the 
one  who  took  occasion  of  the  census  made  under  (,u)uiri- 
nus  (or  Cyrenius,  in  the  year  A.M.  »'>  i.e.  about  ten 
years  after  the  real  birth-year  of  our  Lord  .  t<>  raise  the 
standard  of  revolt  against  the  Humans.  He  is  some 
times  styled  Judas  Gaulonitis,  having  been  a  native  of 
Gamala  (Jus.  Ant.  xvi::.  i,  sect  i  ,  and  the  <  Galilean,  or  of 
Galilee,  from  having  commenced  his  insurrectionary 
movements  in  that  part  of  the  country.  It  is  onl)  in 
Josephus  that  we  have  am  of  bis  j  rineipl,  ~ 

and  proceedings,  and  ev<  n  there  the  account  is  some 
what  broken  and  fragmentary.  According  t  •  i!  Juda- 
was.  in  iv_rard  to  state  matters,  merely  a  bold  and 
'•nthusiastic  J'harir-o,-  a  great  i  national 

libertv  and  independence  declaring  the  taking  of  an 
assessment  to  be  an  introduction  to  downright  slavery 
—and  proclaiming  (  ind  alone  to  be  the  Lord  and 
nor  of  the  Je\vi-h  people.  These  principles,  tin  hi-to- 
rian  tells  us.  were  eauvrk  embraced  by  many,  anil  even 
though  the  disturbance*  inum  <!iati  ]v  raised  by  •' 
were  soon  Mippiv— ed.  yel  the  principles  of  the  p.-irty 
long  survived.  Josephus  even  goes  so  far  as  to  re<  kon 
Judas  the  founder  of  a  dis'inet.  sect  or  p;:rt v  anion- 
the  Jews,  ditlerin-'.  ho\\v\er.  from  the  Pharisees  only 
in  the  extent  to  which  tln-v  carried  their  vi<  us  of  poli 
tical  freedom  A  lild'-id,  there  .-eelll.- 

little  rear-on  to  doubt  that  tbe  principl.  s  of  .Judas  w  vr< 
perpetuated  in  l  be  party  u  ho  afterwards  bore  the  name 
of  Zealots,  and  who.  bv  their  extravagance  and  atro 
cities,  hurried  on  the  tinal  calami  tie-  and  utter  downfall 
of  the  Jewish  poli'  x.  in  . 

JUDE.      Little  can  be  certainly  affirmed  respecting 
.Inde   or  Judas,  the   writer  of   the   epi-tlo.      Tbe   name 
was  a  common  one;  and   several   are   mentioned  ' 
New  Testament  who  1,  ire  it. 

[Ie  describes  him. -elf  as  the  "brother  of  James, ' 
Juclcl.  It  is  reasonable  to  bi  iieve  tliat  the  Jan.: 
ferred  to  was  a  distinguished  man  one  so  \\vil  know;: 
in  the  church  that  the  naminu  <>f  the  relationship  would 
at  once  identifv  the  writer.  Now  there  was  such  a 
James  of  special  note  among  the  brethren  at  Jeni.-a.lem. 
Ac.  xii.  17;xv.  i:t-2l;  xxi.  I1-;  whom,  too,  St.  Tan]  describes 
as  "the  Lord's  brother,"  Ga.  i.  IP;  Ii.  !>,  12.  We  can 
scarcely  avoid  tbe  conclusion  that  this  was  the  James 
of  whom  Jude  speaks,  ami  consequently  that  Jude 
was  one  of  the  brethren  of  the  Lord.  Further,  we 
find  in  the  Gospels  these  identical  names  designating 
persons,  there,  too.  called  the  brothers  of  Jesus,  Mut. 
xiii.  u't;  liar  vi.3.  We  may  fairly  suppose,  then,  that 
they  were  the  same — the  Jude  of  the  epistle,  and  his 
brother  James. 

It  is  questioned  whether  these  were,  properly  speak 
ing,  our  Lord's  brothers,  or  (according  to  the  frequent 
larger  ii.-e  of  the  term  in  both  Testaments;  his  more 
distant  relatives.  Some  have  imagined  them  Joseph's 
children  by  a  former  wife;  but  this  is  mere  conjecture. 
We  must  rather  ricei  pt  one  or  other  branch  of  the  follow- 

VOL.   I. 


ing  alternative:  they  were  the  sons  of  Joseph  and  Mary, 
or  else  they  were  our  Lord's  cousins.  Xow  we  find 
that  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus  had  a  sister  also  called 
Mary,  and  described  as  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses, 
Mat.  xxvii.  :,<:,-,  M;XV.  xv.  40, -17;  xvi.  i;  jn.  xix.  2,j;  these  being  the 
names  of  two  of  those  enumerated,  in  the  places  cited 
above,  among  Christ's  brethren.  It  is  of  course  quite 
possible  that,  as  there  were  two  sisters  each  called 
Mary,  there  might  be  four  cousins — two  bearing  the 
name  of  James,  and  two  that  of  Joses.  We  must 
therefore  see  if  we  can  collect  any  other  evidence. 
And  there  is  this  strong  presumptive  proof  that  Mary 
the  mother  of  Jesus  had  no  other  son:  when  the  Lord 
was  on  the  cross,  he  committed  her  to  the  charge  of 
John  the  beloved  disciple,  who  took  her  from  that 
hour  to  his  own  home,  .In.  xix.  20,  27.  Joseph  her  hus 
band,  it  is  to  be  supposed,  was  then  dead;  but  it  is 
most  improbable  that  ii  she  had  sous  of  her  own  she 
would  be  carried  to  tlie  house  of  another,  who  was  to 
become  a  son  to  her,  however  dear  and  honoured  that 
other  mi'_:'ht  be.  If  it  be  objected  that  the  "  brethren" 
of  Jesus  did  not  yet  believe  a  point  on  which  some- 
thin-'  shall  soon  be  said  the  objection  is  not  sufficient 
as  a  reason  why  she  should  not  dwell  with  them. 
For  his  "brethren'  were  verv  shortly  alter  in  full 
communion  of  heart  and  spirit  with  Mary  and  the 
apostles.  Ac  i.li  The  whole  matter  fairly  considered, 
tin;  inference'  seems  most  probable  that  the  James  and 
Jude,  called  brothers,  were  our  Lord's  cousins. 

There  is  another  .jiie-tion  more  difficult  to  decide: 
were  they  apostle-'  iii  tlie  list  funiislied  by  St. 
Luke  \\  e  tind  besides  James  the  son  of  Zebedee) 
"James  the  son  of  Alpheiis,"  and  "Judas  the  brother 
of  .lame..."  i.u  vi  13, 1C;  Ac.  i  i:  "  Truthcr"  is  here  in 
serted  in  tiie  aulhori/ed  version:  there  being  an  ellipsis 
in  the  original.  Hut  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  this  is 
the  ri'Jit  word,  "  lather "  and  "son."  the  other  pos- 
-ible  supplements,  under  the  circumstances,  being  each 
unlikely.  Is,  then,  this  pair  identical  with  that  desig 
nated  our  Lord's  brethren  or  cousins?  James  the 
apo.-t!e  i>  the  .-on  of  Alplietis;  and  Mary  the  Virgin's 
sisti  i,  the  mother  of  a  James,  is  the  wife  of  Clcophas, 
more  correctly  Clopas,  Jn. xix. L'.J.  Now  Clopas  and 
Alpheus  are  but  varving  Cn. i  h  form-  of  one  Hebrew 
word.  So  that,  even  from  the  de.-ignatioli  of  James  in 
the  apostolic  lists,  it  would  seem  that  lie  was  identical 
wit',  the  -on  of  the  second  Mar\.  There  is  additional 
pre-emption  from  the  fact,  that  the  James  at  Jeru 
salem  takes  a  prominent  part — almost  the  precedence 
-  in  tli>'  council  of  apostles  and  ddcrs,  Ac.  xv.  i:{-:'i; 
which  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would  have  done,  had  lie 
not  been  an  apostle  himself.  Moreover,  St.  Taul  ranks 
him  with  Teter  and  John  as  a  pillar,  Ga.  ii.f;  implies 
his  apostolic  position,  I  Co.  \\.~-,  and  almost  asserts 
it,  <;;i.  i.  i'.'.  The  suggestion  that  James,  not  being  one 
of  the  twelve,  might  be  one  of  those  afterwards  like 
Barnabas  accounted  apostles,  is  not  satisfactory. 

Reasons  such  as  those  just  urged  seem  well-nigh 
decisive.  There  is,  however,  something'  to  be  said  in 
o] (position  to  them.  For  neither  James  nor  Jude 
designates  himself  an  apostle,  Ja.  i.  1;  Jude  1.  But  this 
is  not  of  much  weight.  It  is  true  that  St.  Paul,  in 
his  letters  to  various  churches,  always  announces  his 
npostleship,  except  when  he  joins  others  not  apostles 
with  himself,  1'lii.  i.  1;  1  Th.  i.  1;  2Th.  i.  1;  and  that  Peter 
does  the  same.  But  even  Taul  writing  to  Philemon, 
and  John  to  the  elect  lady  and  to  Gaius,  and  yet  more 

124 


.JUDE,   EPISTLE  OF 


.HM>E,  EPISTLE  OF 


remarkably  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia,  drop  the 
apostolic  title,  1'lnlc.  i;  2  ,In.  i;  :;  Jn.  i;  lie.  i.  4.  And  we 
cannot  in  such  a  matter  argue  from  the  usage  of  one 
writer  to  that  of  another.  But  there  is  a  yet  stronger 
objection.  Our  Eord's  "  brethren"  did  not  believe  in 
him.  .In.  vii  .">.  And  this  unbelief  was  posterior  to  the 
time  of  the  appointment  of  the  twelve  (omni>.  Mar.  iii.  21, 
:(i).  It  was  not  the  fatal  obstinacy  of  the  Phar'iM-es; 
but  possibly  it  was  such  that  persons  xu  incredulous 
would  not  have  been  selected  as  apostles.  If,  then, 
James  and  Jude  were  among  the  unbelieving  brethren, 
we  cannot  imagine  them  the  same  with  the  apostolic- 
pair.  But  four  brethren  are  named,  and  also  sisters. 
Mat.  xiii.  5.'),  .36.  Joses,  and  possibly  Simon,  and  the 
''sisters,''  might  very  well  be  the  persons  designated, 
Mai-,  iii.  m, 32;  and  there  is  nothing  in  Jn.  vii.  3,  5.  which 
makes  it  necessary  to  confine  the  word  ''brethren"  to 
the  four  elsewhere  specially  named.  Relatives  gene 
rally  might  be  intended  there. 

It  is  not  becoming  to  speak  positivelv  upon  a  matter 
respecting  which  the  most  learned  and  conscientious 
scholars  have  differed.  While,  therefore,  it  is  hardly 
to  be  doubted  that  James  and  Jude  were  our  Lord's 
cousins,  not  literally  his  brothers,  it  can  only  be  said 
that  the  probability  is  strong  that  they  were  the 
apostles  who  bore  those  names.  The  whole  question  is 
well  argued  by  Dr.  Mill  (Observations  on  Panth.  Princ.  part 
ii.  chap.  11.  sect.  3,  pp.  219-274,  edit.  I86l).  Dr.  Alford  main 
tains  the  opposite  opinion  (Proleg.  to  Epistle  of  St.  James, 
sect,  i.);  see  also  in  this  Diet,  at  JAMES  (3).  On  the 
'other  hand,  see  Bishop  Ellicott's  admirable  note  (Hist. 
Lcct.  on  the  Life  of  our  Lord,  pp.  97,  <K,  L'd  edit.) 

Assuming  the  Jude  of  the  epistle  to  lie  one  of  the 
apostles,  we  find  that  he  had  two  other  names  — 
Lebbeus  and  Thaddeus,  Mat.  x.  :-\;  Mar.  iii.  is.  Some 
modern  critics  have  puzzled  themselves  in  regard  to 
these;  but  there  can  surely  be  no  difficulty  in  admit 
ting  the  received  opinion,  that  the  three  appellations 
belong  to  the  same  person.  Of  this  apostle  no  other 
record  is  preserved  in  the  Gospels  than  that  on  one 
occasion  he  addressed  a  question  to  our  Lord,  Jn.  xiv.  22. 

But  it  would  not  be  proper  to  omit  the  interesting 
story  told  by  Eusebius,  out  of  Hegesippus,  of  the  grand 
sons  of  Jude.  our  Lord's  brother — that  the  "brethren" 
were  married  the  Scripture  tells  us,  i  Co.  ix.  5.  The  em 
peror  Domitian  was  harassed  by  guilty  fear,  like  another 
Herod,  Mat.  ii.  3,  by  what  he  heard  of  the  coming  king 
dom  of  Christ.  And  so  the  grandsons  of  Jude  were 
placed  before  him,  and  confessed  themselves  of  David's 
seed.  Domitian  inquired  their  position  and  means  of 
living,  and  found  that  they  were  plain  men,  culti 
vating  their  own  piece  of  ground;  and  the  hardness  of 
their  hands  sufficiently  proved  that  they  lived  by  their 
personal  labour.  Questioned  of  Christ's  kingdom, 
they  declared  that  it  was  of  a  spiritual  nature;  for  that 
he  in  the  end  of  the  world  was  to  be  the  Judge  of 
quick  and  dead.  The  emperor,  perceiving  that  his 
apprehensions  were  groundless,  dismissed  them  without 
injury;  and  they  lived  till  the  reign  of  Trajan,  hon 
oured  in  the  church  as  confessors  and  relatives  of  the 

Lord   (Hist.  Ecclos.  lib.  iii.  cap.  xix   xx.)  [j.  A.] 

JUDE,  EPISTLE  OF.  It  has  been  explained  in 
the  preceding  article  that  the  writer  of  this  piece  must  [ 
be  taken  to  be  the  brother  of  that  James  who  presided 
over  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  and  also  one  of  our  Lord's 
cousins.  This  last  relationship,  however,  the  sacred 
penman  would  not  be  likely  to  put  forward.  It  has 


further  been  shown  that  there  is  probable  ground  for 
believing  Jude  to  be  the  apostle  of  the  name. 

Canonical  authority. — There  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  of  the  right  of  this  epistle  to  a  place  in  the  in 
spired  canon.  Supposed  evidence  against  it  is  merely 
negative,  and  would  never  have  been  allowed  any 
weight  but  fin-  the  apparent  citation  of  apocryphal 
writings—  a  matter  to  be  afterwards  noticed — and  for 
the  presumed  obscurity  of  the  author.  This,  as  some 
other  epistles,  is  not  in  the  Peshito  Syriac:  few  of 
the  earlier  writers  mention  it;  and  Eusebius  classes  it 
among  the  avTi\fyo/j.fi'a — books  not  universally  received 
(Hist.  Ecclcs.  lib.  ii.  cap.  2;>;  lib.  iii.  cap.  25).  But  over-against 
all  this  can  be  placed  a  sufficient  mass  of  positive  proof; 
and  there  are  certainly  as  frequent  references  to  this 
letter  as,  considering  its  brevity,  could  be  expected. 

We  have  the  clear  repeated  testimony  of  Clement  of 
Alexandria  (Stromat.  lib.  iii.  cap.  2,  p.  515,  edit.  Potter;  Piedag. 
lib.  iii.  cap.  s,  p.  2So);  several  verses  (5,  (i,  11)  being  actually 
cited  in  the  last-named  place. 

Tertullian  expressly  ascribes  this  production  to  the 
|  apostle  Jude.  "  Eo  accedit  quod  Enoch  apud  Judam 
aposfcolum  testimonium  possidet"  (De  Hab.  Mul.  cap.  3,  p. 
102,  edit.  Franek.  1597). 

Origen  says  that  it  contained  but  a  few  verses,  but 
was  replete  with  the  nervous  words  of  heavenly  grace 
(Comm.  in  Mat.  xiii.  55,  5(>,  toin  iii  p.  .1(13,  edit.  Boned.) 

Jerome  gives  a  candid  attestation  :    "Judas,  frater 

•  lacobi,  parvam  quidem,  qme  de  septem  catholicis  est, 

enistolain  reliquit.     Et  quia  de  libro  Enoch,   qui  apo- 

I  cryphus   est,    in  ea  assumit   testimonium,  a  plerisque 

rejicitur:    tamen    auctoritatem    vetustate    jam   et  usu 

I  meruit,  ut  inter  saeras  scripturas  computetur"  (Catalog. 

Script.  Ecoles.  cap.  1,  JudaO. 

These  are  but  samples  of  the  testimonies  which 
might  be  adduced.  More  of  the  same  kind  may  be 
seen  in  De  Wette  (Einleit.  X.  T.  sect.  1S4,  b);  Alford  (Pro 
log,  to  Jude,  sect,  ii.);  Gaussen  (The  Canon  of  the  Holy  Script, 
part  i.  book  iv.  chap.  v.  sect.  0, 7,  s).  And,  if  any  of  these 
ancient  writers  spoke  at  any  time  doubtfully,  it  was 
not  because  they  questioned  the  genuineness  of  the 
epistle;  but  they  were  at  first  slow,  for  the  reasons  above 
mentioned,  to  allow  it  at  once  the  authority  of  Scrip 
ture.  But  the  very  obscurity  of  Jude,  apostle  or  not, 
is  some  argument  in  favour  of  the  work.  A  forger 
would  probably  have  prefixed  a  more  distinguished 
name,  rather  than  have  fathered  his  composition  on  a 
man  of  whom  the  Scripture  record  says  literally  no 
thing. 

But  there  is  evidence  most  weight}'  which  yet  re 
mains  to  be  alleged.  In  the  ancient  catalogues  of  the 
sacred  books  we  almost  invariably  find  the  epistle  of 
Jude.  Thus  the  Muratorian  Fragment :  "  Epistola 
sane  Judse  et  superscript!  Johannis  dua?  in  catholicis 
habentur"  (Westcott  on  the  Canon  of  the  X.  T.  app.  C.  p.  563). 
See  also  the  Laodicean  catalogue,  363  A.D.  (the  authority 
of  which,  however,  must  be  admitted  to  be  question 
able);  the  Carthaginian,  397  A.D.;  and  the  Apostolic 
(Ibid.  pp.  567-569) ;  and  a  variety  of  others  proceeding 
from  both  the  eastern  and  the  western  churches.  It 
is  not  surprising  that,  after  testimonies  like  these,  few 
even  among  modern  critics  have  ventured  to  question 
the  authority  of  this  epistle;  which,  it  may  be  added, 
has  been  defended  by  Jessien  (De  Authentia  Epist.  Judaj, 
Lips.  1821);  and  by  Schott  (Der  Zweite  Brief  Fetri  und  dcr 
Brief  Judii  erklart,  Erlangen,  1863) . 

Purpose,  contents,  and  style. — The  purpose  which 


.TTDE.  EPISTLE  OF 


087 


JUDE,  EPISTLE  OF 


the  writer  had  in  view  is  stated  l>y  himself.  For  after 
the  inscription,  which  is  of  a  general  cast,  not  singling 
out  any  particular  class  or  local  body  of  Christians,  he 


the  reference  to  them  prove  that  the  writer  was  not  an 
apostle  himself.  A  man  perpetually  speaks  of  a  class 
to  which  he  belongs  without  any  indication  in  the 


says  that,  intending  to  write  •' of  the  common  salva-  j  form  of  his  expressions  that  this  is  the  case.  The 
tion.''  he  found  himself,  as  it  were,  compelled  to  utter  i  alleged  citation  of  apocryphal  writings  furnishes  no 
a  solemn  warning  in  defence  of  the  faith,  imperilled  by  !  note  of  time.  \Ye  know  too  little  of  their  date,  even 
the  evil  conduct  of  corrupt  men.  ver.  3.  Possibly  there  i  if  quotation  was  intended,  to  draw  any  conclusion 
was  some  observed  outbreak  which  gave  the  occasion,  i  therefrom.  lUeek  is  disposed  to  place  this  epistle  after 
ft  was  not  so  much  depravation  of  doctrine,  as  impurity  ;  the  death  of  James.  His  reason  is  curious:  Jude 

>rk-      would  otherwise  have  had  no  inducement  to  write  such 

No  weight  can  be  allowed 
a  very  vamie  conclusion. 


ver.  4;  I  a  letter  (Kinleit.  in  X.  T.  p  .',;.?). 
:T  showed  itself.      The  crisis  must  be  '  to  such  an  argument.      It 


but  now  the 

met  promptly  and  resolutely.  And  therefore  the 
sacred  writer,  in  a  strain  of  impassioned  invective,  de 
nounces  those  who  turned  the  grace  of  (Jod  "into 
lasciviousness,"  virtually  denying  t  lod  by  disobeying 
his  law.  He  alarms  by  holding  out  three  examples  of 
such  sin  and  its  punishment  the  Israelite's  that  sinned 
in  the  wildernes-;  the  angels  that  "kept  not  their  first 
estate:"  and  the  foul  '-ities  of  Sodom  and  <  •oniorrha. 
ver.  5-7  He  nex;  de-cribes  minutely  the  character  of 
those  whom  he  censures,  and  shows  how  of  old  they 
had  been  prophetically  marked  out  as  objects  of  de 
served  vengeance,  ver.  "-10  '['hen.  turning  to  the 
faithful,  he  reminds  them  that  the  apostle-  hail  fore 
warned  them  that  evil  ni"n  \\ould  rise  in  the  church. 
\ur.i7-r.':  exhort-  them  to  maintain  their  own  stead 
fastness,  ver  2n,2l;  and  to  do  their  utmost  in  rescuin- 
others  from  contamination,  ver  22,2:;;  and  concludes 
with  an  ascription  of  praise  to  him  who  alone  could 
keep  his  people  from  falling.  ••<•'•'  -',  -'•'>  The  wh..!< 
was  thorough  applicable  ton  time  when  iniquity  was 
abounding,  and  the  love  of  manv  waxing  cold.  M:U 


then,  which  can  be  reached:  and  we  can  but  say  that 
the  probability  is.  that  Jude  wrote  before  the  polity 
and  city  and  temple  of  the  Jews  had  been  destroyed. 

AHeynl  referem't  to  apocryphal  writings. — The  notice 
of  the  contention  of  .Michael  with  the  devil  about  the 
body  of  .Moses,  has  been  said  to  be  borrowed  from  a 
work  called  '/'/«  AxsK,ii/it!uii  •;/'  .l/«.--<  *.  No  such  book, 
however,  is  now  extant.  The  passage,  ver.  !i,  is  con 
fessedly  difficult  of  interpretation.  Some  would  explain 
it  symbolically,  and  some  believe  it  an  allusion  to  Zee. 
iii.  1.  '1.  Takinu  it.  however,  as  the  statement  of  a 
literal  fact,  it  can  only  be  reckoned  as  one  of  that  class 
of  statements  which,  unnoticed  by  earlier  sacred  writers, 
are  made  by  later  ones.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  allege 
two  example-.  St.  Paul,  addressing  the  Ephesian 
elders,  cited  as  well  known  to  them  a  saving  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  which  \\c  do  not  find  recorded  in  any  of  the 
(lospels.  AC  \\  ::.'.  The  same  apostle  mentions  to  Timo 
thy  two  persons  who  withstood  .Moses.  2Ti.  iii.  8.  Timo 
thy,  of  course,  was  perfectly  aware  who  were  meant. 
\Ve  ha\e  in  these  cases  plain  proof  that,  besides  the 
w  ritteii  \\ord.  certain  truths  had  been  handed  down,  and 


,ish  tone  perceptible  in  this  epistle;  were  generally  known  in  the  church.  They  were  tra 
ditions,  but  not  vain  traditions;  and  there  can  be  no 
more  objection  to  an  inspired  penman's  making  use  of 


There  is 

not  merelv  markinu  the  nationality  of  the  writer,  but 
also  e\  ideucinu'  his  conviction  that  those  he  addressed 
were  familiar  with  Hebrew  history  and  Hebrew  tradi-  these,  than  to  his  statement  of  any  natural  fact  learned 
tions.  and  likely  to  be  influenced  by  exhortation  based  by  observation  (e.g  iv  xiii.  i;  civ.  10-2:;).  The  divine 
upon  them.  Possibly  he  was  then  residing  in  I'ales-  Spirit  would  preserve  him  from  chronicling  error. 

There  is  something  more  perplexing  in  the  reference 
to  Enoch,  ver  ii,  i.'i.      For  there  is  an  apocryphal  book  yet 
xtant.  in  which  Enoch's  prophecy,  as  St.  Jude  gives  it. 


tine.  Some  have  imagined  an  Aramaic  ca-t  in  the 
language,  as  if  there  was  an  Aramaic  original.  Hut 
the  style  i-  certainly  that  of  one  familiar  with  (Jreek. 

See  be  Wette,  Kiuluit.  in  X.  T.  sect.  1M,  ;i,> 


is  t..  be  found.    It  was  taken  for  granted  by  early  writers 


imilarity  of  this  epistle  to  that  known     wh 
aped  any 


The  strikin 

a-   the   second  of  St.    IVter.   cannot   hav 
reader's  attention.      Tin-  relation   between  the  two  will 
be  examined  in  the  article  PETEK    SECOXD  EPISTLE  01   . 

Dati .      There  is  little  t 

time  when  this  letter  was  written.      It   could   not  have 
been  at  a  very  early  period.      The  eorruptioiis  described 
did  not  show  themselves  at  once 
but   newlv  detected.      They  had 


re  acquainted  with  it.  that  Jude  distinctly  cited 
this.  The  book  had,  however,  in  the  course  of  time  dis 
appeared;  and  it  was  not  till  the  close' of  the  last  century 
that  it  was  discovered  in  an  Ethiopic  version  by  the 
terminiiiu'  the  traveller  F.nuv.  Some  editions  of  it  have  been  published, 
in  this  country  by  Archbishop  Laurence.  1821,  1833. 
1838;  in  ( Jei-maiiN  bvDillman,  1  >.".  1 ,  lNl.">.  The  work 


And  yet  they  were     consists  of  revelations  said  to  be  made  to  Enoch  and  to 
it  as  vet  had  opjior-      Noah.      Its   object  is   to  vindicate  the  action  of   divine 
e   in  both  the  physical  and  the  moral  world. 


tunity   to  ascend   into   the   teacher's    chair.      We   may 

reasonably  believe,  moreover,  that  the  epistle  must  be     It  is  eloquent,  and  full  of  poetic  vigour  (See  account  of  ita 

dated  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.      It  is  indeed  pre-  |  contents  in  Westc.r.tfs  introd.  t..  the  study  of  the  Gospels  pp. 

sumptuous  for  us  to  reason  from  our  own  conceptions     !»2-ioi). 

upon  what  an  inspired  writer  would  say:   still,  seeing  j       Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  book  of  Enoch 

that  St.  Jude  was  recounting  heavy  judgments,  it  was  ;  is  apocrypha,!.      Hut  why  should  not  an  inspired  author 

natural  for  him  to  mention  one  of  the  greatest,  if  it  !  appropriate  a  piece  of  an  apocryphal  writing?     If  it 

had  just  occurred:,  more  especially  if  he.  as  suggested     was  truth,  why  should   he  not  use  it'      It  is  never  ob- 


above,  and  those;  he  addressed,  were  resident  in  Pales 
tine.  Little  can  be  gathered  from  the  mention  of  the 
apostles,  ver.  ir.  It  by  no  means  follows  that  they  or 
most  of  them  were  dead.  The  language  is  fully  appo 
site,  if  they  had  left  Judea,  and  were  preaching  in 
other  lands.  Neither,  it  may  be  observed  here,  does 


jected  in  derogation  of  the  apostle  Paul,  that  both  in 
speech  and  in  writing  he  cited  heathen  authors,  some 
times  with  a  special  reference,  Ac.  xvii.  «s;  ico.  \\.  33;  Ga. 
v.  23;  Tit  i.  12.  And  it  has  been  asserted  that  in  various 
parts  of  the  New  Testament  there  are  allusions  (if  not 
formal  citations)  to  several  of  the  books  commonly 


JUDEA 

called   apocryphal,    and   to   other  Jewish  productions. 

(See  lists  of  supposed  references  in  Gouglrs  >".  T.  Quotations,  pp. 

2"0-29(jK  Common  proverbs,  wo  know,  have  been  intro 
duced  into  Scripture  'i  sa.  xxiv.  ]::;  -2  IV  ii.  ."J.  where  the 
former  part  alone  of  tin:  proverb  cited  is  from  the  Old 
Testament  i.  That  which  is  true  may  very  well  be 
adopted  liv  a  writer  under  the  iniiu'-iie.-  <>t'  the  guiding 
Spirit. 

But  we  are  not  compelled  to  rest  on  argument  of 
this  kind.  There  is  no  decisive  proof  that  St.  .hide 
could  have  seen  the  so-called  book  of  Knocb.  .For, 
though  this  has  been  ascrihed  in  part  to  the  Macca- 
bean  times,  and  is  said  to  have  assumed  its  present  shape 

prior  to  our  Lord's,  advent  (see  Westcott,  Introd.  p.  '.1:1,  note), 
vet  this  is  a  theory  on  which  critics  are  by  no  means 
agreed.  One  of  the  latest  who  has  investigated  the 
question.  Prof.  Volkmar  of  Zurich  (Zeitschrift  der  Doutsch. 
morgenl.  Gesellsdnft,  isiiiO.  maintains  that  it  was  composed 
by  one  of  the  disciples  of  Habbi  Akiba,  in  the  time  of 
the  sedition  of  Barchochebas,  about  }'o~2  A. P.  1  >r. 
Alford  is  convinced  by  Volkmar" s  arguments,  and 
infers  hence  that  "the  book  of  Kuooh  was  not  only  of 
Jewish,  but  of  distinctly  antirhristian  origin"  I'roleg.  to 
Jude,  p.  196).  \\'e  are  authorized,  then,  in  believing 
that  Jude  was  induced  to  incorporate  into  his  epistle 
the  true  tradition  of  Knoeh's  prophecy,  directed,  it  is 
likely,  by  that  patriarch  originally  against  the  evil 
o-eneration  destroyed  by  the  Hood,  but  of  such  a  com- 


prehensive  character  as  really  to  threaten  ungodly 
sinners  through  all  time  witli  the'just  vengeance  of  the 
almighty  Judge.  Into  the  book  of  Enoch  this  same 
prophecy  was  introduced — either  from  tradition,  for  it 
must  have  been  well  and  generally  known:  or  from 
this  very  epistle  of  Jude.  which  all  evidence  (as  touched 
above)  ifoes  to  prove  •  \\asof  an  earlier  date  than  132  A.D. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  a  word  upon  vcr.  0; 
where  again  a  rcfnvnco  has  been  supposed  to  the  book 
of  Enoch.  .It  is  helicvt  d  by  some  writers  that  St. 
Jude  means  that  alliance  described,  c.c.  vi.  1-4,  as  made 
by  "the  sons  of  ( lod"  with  "the  daughters  of  men"  (see 
Alford  in  loe )  But  the  discussion  of  this  matter  belongs 
rather  to  the  province  of  the  commentator. 

[The  epistle  of  .Tmle,  being  very  short,  has  naturally  less  en 
gaged  the  attention  of  commentators  than  larger  books.  But 
there  are  valuable  expositions  of  it,  which  may  be  consulted 
with  advantage.  Such  are  those  of  Luther,  with  Bucer's  pre 
fatory  notice,  Argrnt.  I'lL'/i;  .M. -niton  in  Sv.mJr/i  7 Ft e Id  11  Lectures, 
•Ito,  l.oud.  Jtl.>:  .Kiikyn.  reprinted,  Edinb.  1SOJ.  The  following 
\\oi~ks  may  also  lie  mentioned,  H.Witsius,  Cn>ii,n.iii  Ep.  /i!c?<t:,  4to, 
1703;  Stier,  Do-  Jlriif  Ji«Hi  ni'.i;nlf'it,  svo,  l.-.'O:  and  those  of  Jes- 
sien  and  Schott.  referred  to  al«,ve.]  [J.  A.\ 

JUDE'A.  sometimes  also  in  authorized  version  JEWRY 
( Jn.  vii.  i),  properly  signilics  the  southernmost  of  the  three 
later  divisions  of  Palestine.  Its  boundaries  are  thus  de 
scribed  by  JoSephus  (iiell.  Jud.  iii.  3,  .">)  •.  "In  the  limits  of 
Samaria  and  Judea  lii-s  the  village  Anuath.  which  is 
also  named  P>orceos.  This  is  the  northern  boundary 
of  Judea.  The  southern  parts  of  Judea,  if  they  be 


[331 


The  Desert  of  Judea  between  Masada  and  Zuweirah.  with  a  distant  glimpse  of  the  Dead  Sea.     Van  de  Velcle,  I.e  Pays  d'Israel. 


measured  lengthways,  are  bounded  by  a  village  adjoin 
ing  to  the  confines  of  Arabia.  The  Jews  that  dwell 
there  call  it  Jardan.  However,  its  breadth  is  extended 

from  the  river  Jordan  to  Joppa Nor  indeed  is 

Judea  destitute  of  such  delights  as  come  from  the  sea. 
as  its  maritime  places  extend  as  far  as  Ptolemais."  In 
other  words,  Judea  may  be  said  to  extend  from  Samaria 
on  the  north  to  the  desert  of  Arabia  Petrsea  on  the 
south,  and  from  the  Jordan  and  Dead  Sea  on  the  east 
to  the  Mediterranean  on  the  west. 

We  first  find  the  name  Judea  in  Ezr.  v.  S.  and  Jewry 
in  Da.  v.  13.  They  are  substituted  for  "  Judah."'  or 
"the  land  of  Judah,"  concurrently  with  the  gradual 
change  of  the  Hebrew  m*rv  mto  ^ne  Syriac  INT-  They 

T  : 

are  constantly  to  be  found  in  the  Apocrypha,  and  are 


invariably  used  in  the  New  Testament.  Generally 
speaking,  when  the  tribe  is  named  we  find  Judah ;  for 
the  district  or  province  which  in  later  times  occupied 
the  ancient  possessions  of  Dan,  Judah,  Simeon,  and 
Benjamin,  the  name  Judea  is  employed. 

Apart  from  Jerusalem,  Judea  occupies  but  a  small 
part  of  New  Testament  history.  We  read  of  St.  John 
the  Baptist  born  in  the  hill  country  of  Judea,  and 
living  in  the  adjoining  deserts  until  the  time  of  his 
showing  unto  Israel  :  but.  besides  Jerusalem  and 
Jericho,  only  two  of  its  cities  and  villages,  as  far  as 
we  know,  were  tracked  by  the  footsteps  of  our  Lord 
himself— Bethlehem,  the  inhospitable  scene  of  his  in 
fancy:  Bethany,  the  friendly  home  of  his  last  days  on 
earth.  It  may  be  that  the  passage  mentioned  above, 
Jn.  vii.i,  gives  the  key  to  this  desertion  of  David's  tribe 


.1  rDGES 


080 


JUDGES 


by  David's  Son.  ''The  .Tows  sought  to  kill  him."  so 
he  would  not  walk  in  Jewry:  but  in  distant  Galilee, 
and  (.•  veil  in  unfriendly  Samaria,  most  of  his  mighty 

Works  Were  done.       On  this  see  GALILEE  (CuTXTKY  OF). 

And,   strangely  enough,   this   land  of  Judea,   thus  un 
blessed  by  the  Saviour's  footsteps,  is  in  point  of  scenery 
the  least  attractive  district  of   Palestine.      To  the  eye 
of  one  who  enters  it  from  the  north,  there  is  nothing 
to  compare  witli  the  forests  of   Lebanon  or  (Jihad,  the 
hills  of  Galilee,  the  wide  expanse  of  Gennesaret.  or  the 
deep  valley*  and   fertile   plains  of   Samaria.       On   the 
other  hand,  he  who  approaches  from  the  south  passes 
imperceptibly  from    the   desert   into  the  midst  of  the 
country;  and  while  he  loses  the  grandeur  of  Sinai,  and 
the  rocky  desolation  of   Petra.  lie  iind,  instead  none  of 
the  beauty  of   a  civili/..  d   country.      The  hill-  are  low 
and  conical,  uniform  in  shape  even   to  weariness;   the 
vegetation,    save  in    early   >prin--.    i>  dry   and  parched; 
the  valleys   are    broad    and    featureless.       Everywhere 
are  sLms  that  the  land  of   corn  and  \\ine  and  oil   i-.  be 
come  desolate.     Tlie  fenced  cities  and  villages  surmount 
the   hill>,   but   they   are   in   ruin>  ;    the   terraces   when 
once  were-  vineyard-  and  cornfields  can  be  traced  along 
the  mountain  side-,  but   they  are   neglected;    wdU  and 
pools  of  water  are  to  be  found  in  ever)  valley,  but  there 
is  none  to  drink  of  them.     The  prophecy  of  Jeremiah 
is   fuliilled:    "the  cities  of  Judah"  are    "a  desolation 
without  inhabitant,"  Jo.  xxxi^  22.      Nor  is  the  scenery  of 
the  wild  and  rocky  region  which  borders  the  Dead  Sea 
more  attractive.     *  iraud  and  striking  as  it  is,  the  moun 
tains  rising  to  the  height  of  nearly  "> feet,  the  val 
leys  Idled  with  huge  calcareous  boulders  in  every  variety 
of  form,  it  was  better  suited  to  allbrd  a  hiding  (place  to 
David,  when  hunted  as  a  partridge  by  Saul,  and  to  be 
the  abode  of  the  I'.aptM  during  his  earh  years,  than  to 
be  frequented  by  the  u-p-ntle  loving  Sa\  iour.     Some  idea 
of   the  character  of   this  wilderness  of   Judea  may  be 
formed   from  the  accompanying  sketch  of  a   scene  be- 
tween  Ma>ada  and  ez  Zuweirah.  [•  .  T.  M.| 

JUDGES.  Much  that  mi-nt  have  been  said  about 
these  officers  in  the  H«  brew  commonwealth  \\ill  fall  to 
be  stated  more  conveniently  in  the  article  on  the  book 
of  .luduvs.  A  few  tilings,  however,  may  here  be  men 
tioned  separately. 

There  were  of  course  judges  among  the  Israelites  in 
the  sense  in  which  such  persons  are  to  be  found  in 
every  nation.  It  appears  from  Kx.  xviii.  that  Moses 
was 'the  great  and  only  regular  judge  after  the  people 
came  out  of  Kgypt:  but  that  he  introduced  a  systematic 
arrantrement  of  inferior  judicatures,  with  an  appeal 
finally  to  himself,  in  order  that  he  might  bring  any 
hard  "case  before  God.  This  arrangement,  which  was 
made  on  </<  ni-a/«;ii<-'(l  principles,  among  tens  and  hun 
dreds  and  thousands,  seems  to  have  been  modified,  with 
a  regard  to  lontllti/  as  the  leading  (principle,  after  the 
people  took  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  in  accord 
ance  with  the  direction  of  Moses  himself  before  he  left 
the  world,  Do.xvl.i8,  '•Judges  and  officers  shalt  thou 
make  the'e  in  all  thy  gates  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
giveth  thee  throughout  thy  tribes;  and  they  shall  judge 
the  people  with  just  judgment."  And  the  Levites  seem 
to  have  had  much  to  do  with  these  tribunals,  since  they 
were  the  very  men  who  made  the  law  of  God  then- 
study.  DC.  xvii.  8-13.  Thus  we  read  in  David's  days  of 
six  thousand  who  were  set  apart  to  be  officers  and 
judges,  i  ci..  xxiii.  4.  Probably  they  acted  along  with  the 
local  magistrates,  the  elders  of  every  city:  who  are  very 


1  frequently  described  as  sitting  in  the  gates  of  the  city, 
and  executing  judgment  there.  We  find  these  Levites 
also  in  Jehoshaphat's  tribunals.  2  Ch.  six.  S-n. 

P>ut  there  is  a  restricted  technical  sense  of  the  word 
'l<id'j',.  in  which  it  means  that  officer  who  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  Hebrew  state  in  the  intermediate  period 
between  the  times  of  Moses  and  Joshua  and  those  of 
the  kings.  We  cannot  determine  much  from  the  name 
judnvs.  which  is  in  Hebrew  the  participle  of  the  verb 
•J!3w;:  though  some  writers  have  attributed  to  this  word 


a  very  wide  meaning  (compare  '2  Sa.  xviii.  1!>,  where 
our  version  renders  it,  ''the  Lord  hath  uc<  H'jal  him  of 
his  enemies"  .in  contrast  with  another  word  commonly 

translated    "to    iud-'V."   •••n.    so   that   thev  understand 

\  , 

this  title  of  office  as  describing  a  helper  or  protector. 
We  should  prefer  to  keep  to  the  strict  meaning  of  the 
word,  considering  ho\\  the  "righteous  acts"  and  the 

•  •  ri'diteousiiess "    of  the    Lord  are  bound  up  with  the 

Welfare  and  deliverance  of  his  people.  Ju.  v.  11;  Is.  xlv.  S; 
li.  ,VS;  so  that  inexact  and  careless  expositors  have 
merged  the  proper  meaning  of  this  word  •'righteous 
ness0"  also  into  the  general  one  of  safety  or  victory. 
Neither  is  it  possible  to  ascertain  much  about  their 
office  from  the  Carthaginian  commonwealth,  in  which 
%Vl  r,  M,i  ,,f  >,./;;/.„•  (or  Kitfettg),  obviously  the  latinized 
f,,nii  ,,f  the  Hebrew  *l<>f<:thii,  as  in  fact  the  original 
word  has  been  found  on  an  inscription.  Livy  indeed 
call>  them  iadias  (.xxxiii.  K)),  an.l  lie  compares  their 
position  to  that  of  the  consuls  at  Io  me  ixxx.  7),  and  he 
mentions  the  existence  of  such  officers,  as  characteristic 
(pf  the  Punic  or  Phu>nieian  system  at  Gades,  for 
instance  (xx<  Josephus  also  (Against  Apion,  i.  21) 

mentions  a  time  at  which  there  were  no  kings  in  Tyre, 
but  the  e-overninent  was  in  the  hands  of  SiKaarai—  a 
Creek  \\ord  d.  rived  from  the  common  term  for  justice. 
I'ut  all  this  does  not  determine  their  portion  in  the 
Hebrew  commonwealth.  It  dots  not  even  settle  the 
preliminary  question  whether  the  office  was  intended 
to  be  ordinary  or  extraordinary --that  of  the  highest 
magistrate  in  the  republic,  by  whom  the  confederate 
twelve  tribes  were  to  have  been  preserved  in  unity;  or 
that  of  the  man  raised  up  in  an  emergency  to  restore 

•  independence   and    order   and    religious   purity.      It  is 
even  uncertain  how  far  the  judges,  so  called,  were  in 
the  habit   of   judging   the    people    in    our   sense   of    the 
word;  though  we  think   they  did.      For  this  seems  to 
lie  expressly  attributed  to  Deborah.  Ju.  iv. ;,;  as  it  is  to 
Samuel,  i  Sa  vii  15-vili.  3;  so  that  the  (presumption  is  in 
favour  of  all  of   them  acting  so,  unless   the  contrary 
can   be  shown;   and   judging  always  has  been  a  great 
part  of   the  office  of  kings  and  magistrates  in  the  East 
(compare  '2  Ch.   xxvi.   21,  Jotham  as  viceroy  judging 
the  people  of  the  land).     Moreover,  if  this  is  denied  to 
have   been  their  work,  we   have   no  notion  what  was 
the  occupation    of    those    judges   in    connection    with 
whom  we  have  no  accounts  of  servitudes  or  wars;  for 
instance,  it  is  said   that  Tola  "judged   Israel  twenty 
and  three  years,  and  died,"  eh.  x.  2. 

To  each' individual  of  those  whom  we  are  accustomed 
to  call  judges,  the  name  is  nut  expressly  applied;  but 
it  is  -riven  \o  them  in  general  by  the  prophet  Nathan 
in  a  review  of  the  period,  2  Sa.  vii.  li;  as  it  is  in  the  pre 
liminary  statement.  Ju.  ii.  1C-19;  and  also  Ac.  xiii.  20.  All- 
other  title  which  seems  to  be  given  to  the  order  of 
judges  in  the  last  verse  of  Obadiah  is  that  of  saviours, 
which  title  is  given  directly  to  the  two  first  in  the 


JI;D<;KS  (. 

book  of  Judges,  di.  iii.  ;>,  i.-,;  and  in  general  it  is  said,  cli. 
ii.  10,   that   "  tlio    Lord  raised   up  judges   which   saved 
them   out   of   the   hand  of  those  that  spoiled   them." 
Shamgar  and   Gideon   and  Tola  are  also  said   to  have 
meed  .Israel,  ch.  iii  31;  vi.  iri;  vii.  7:  \.  \-   while  in  the  disas 
trous  period   before  Jephthah  was  raised  up.  God  de 
clared  that  lie  would  not  .wire  the  people  any  more,  hut 
would  leave  them  to   he  saved  by  the  gods  whom  they 
had  chosen  for  themselves,  cl,.  x.  12,  i.i;  and  finally,  it  is 
said  that  Sam.-on  began  to  xim-  Israel  outof  the  hand  of 
the  Philistines,  ch.  xiii  :,.      This,  however,  is  less  plain  to 
the  reader  of  our  English  Bible  than  it  might  he;  because 
our  translators  have  preferred  the  word    "deliver"  in 
almost  every  instance,  and  often  without  even  noticing 
the  strict  rendering  in  the  margin.     The  origin  of  their 
authority   must   in   all   cases    he    traced    ultimately   to 
Jehovah,  owing  to  the  very  nature  of  the  theocracy. 
And  thus  Nathan  said  to  David,  in  the  name  of  God. 
•2  SH.  vii.  7,    "In  nil    the  places  wherein   1    have  walked 
with  all  the  children  of  Israel,  spake  L  a  word  with  any 
of  the  tribes  (in  Chronicles  it  is  explained  by  substitut 
ing  the  word  "judges")  of  Israel.  ,/•//<>„>  I  commanded  to 
fnd  my  people  Israel,"  &e.     Vet  this  might  not  prevent 
differences  of  detail  in  the  manner  of  the  appointment. 
In  Ju.  ii.  16,  it  is   distinctly  asserted  that  "the   Lord 
raised  H/I  judges  ;"  as  we  find  him  from  time  to  time  cal 
ling  the  most  eminent  of  them  by  a  special  -ift  of  his 
Spirit  to  them,  ch.  iii.  m:  vi.  :M;  xi.  :!!i;  xiii.  2.I.      \Ve  find  one. 
Barak,  nominated  by  a  prophetess,  who  was  h.-r>elf  ac 
knowledged  as  the  judge  of  Israel  -  :\  solitary  instance  of 
female  administration,  eh.  iv  5,fl.      <  )f  others  it  is  simply 
said  that  they  arose,  eh.  x.  i.  .:      And  in  Jephthah's  his 
tory  we  have  a  clear  instance  of  /m/ni/i/,'  <  lection,  ch.  x.  I*- 
xi.  :,,  ti;  though  he  was  also  called   by  the  Spirit.      There 
is  nothing  said  of  the  length  of  time  during  which   the 
judges  retained  their  office,  until  the  cast-  of   Gideon; 
and  his  refusal  to  rule  over  the  people,  di.  viii  -l-i,  •>:;,  has 
been  interpreted  by  some  to  mean  that  he  retired  into 
private  life  after  having  delivered  his  country  from  its 
enemies.      But  even  those  who  hold  such  an    opinion 
agree   that   the   judge  would    receive  great   deference, 
and    have   much    indirect   influence    oxer    the    pcop],.. 
From   Gideon's   time   and   forward,    however,  there   is 
some  trace  of  a  more  consolidated  government;  for  the 
years  of  the  judge's  administration  are  always  given: 
and  of  Eli  and  Samuel  it  is  said  in  explicit  terms  that 
thev   judged    the    people   till   the    day   of    their  death, 
i  Su.  iv  i>;  vii.  i:,;  though  in  Samuel's  case  this  is  remark 
able,    considering  that   Saul   had  been  anointed  to   lie 
king.      Moreover,  in  Gideon's  time  the  offer  which  the 
people   made  to  him  evinces  an  inclination  for  a  here 
ditary  office;  and  his  son  Abimeleeh  assumed  that  one 
or    other   of    Gideon's    family   would,   as   a  matter   of 
course,  be  acknowledged  as  ruler  over  Israel,  Ju.  ix.  1-3. 
But   of    this  there  is   no    further   trace  until   Samuel 
associated  his  sons  with  himself  as  judges,  i  Sa.  viii.  i    - 
an  act  which  precipitated  the  change  to  a  hereditary 
kingdom. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  with  some  writers  to  speak 
of  the  period  of  the  judges  among  the  Hebrews  as 
being  like  the  heroic  period  in  Grecian  history.  Ex 
cept  for  the  circumstance  that  the  judges,  in  several 
instances  at  least,  were  heroes,  there  is  no  foundation  j 
on  which  the  parallel  can  be  rested.  It  was  a  period 
succeeding  one  of  distinct,  well-regulated  legislation  - 
the  giving  of  the  law  by  Moses,  and  the  establishment 
of  the  people  according  to  their  constitution  in  the 


JUDGES.   BOOK   OF 


;  land  of  Canaan  by  Joshua.  It  was  itself  a  period  cer 
tainly  of  much  lairlcMiiesg  and  ttjnoraitce.  But  the 
lawlessness  was  less  than  would  appear  to  a  hasty 
reader.  if  we  remember  that  the  servitudes  lasted  only 
111  years  out  of  the  390  of  which  we  have  an  account 
in  the  book  of  Judges,  and  during  the  great  part  of 
which  the  land  was  <|iiiet  and  orderly;  so  that  this 
book  is  very  much  a  record  of  the  diseases  of  the  body 
politic,  as  ,lahn  has  expressed  it  in  his  lhl,rct>-  Com 
monwealth,  while  the  years  of  health  are  passed  over 
almost  in  silence.  Nor  have  we  any  right  to  call  that 
an  «</e  of  iijuorani'f,  in  which  a  young  man  of  Succoth, 
whom  Gideon  caught  without  any  selection,  was  able 
to  write  (as  properly  rendered  in  the  margin)  to  him 
the  princes  and  elders  of  the  town  to  the  number  of 
seventy-seven  persons.  Neither  are  there  any  fabulous 
•narratirfs  in  the  history  analogous  to  the  Grecian 
stories  of  gods  and  demi-gods  in  their  heroic  period. 
The  only  individual  in  whom  the  most  irreverent  critics 
have  pretended  to  (hid  an  analogy  is  Samson;  and  their 
supposition  shows  how  ill  they  understand  his  character 
and  work.  And  finally,  there  is  no  political  resem 
blance  between  the  Greek  and  the  Hebrew  histories. 
The  commencement  of  the  Greek  heroic  period  intro 
duces  to  us  a  multitude  of  petty  kingdoms,  and  at  its 
termination  we  find  these  transformed  into  republics. 
But  in  the  Hebrew  history  we  have  a  well-arranged 
republican  form  of  government  before  any  judges  "are 
mentioned:  and  at  its  close  the  confederated  republics 
are  seen  to  be  drawn  closer  together  under  a  constitu 
tional  monarchy.  |^;  ,-  M  D  i 

JUDGES.  THE  BOOK  OF.  This  book  imme 
diately  follows  that  of  Joshua,  and  immediatelv  pre 
cedes  those  of  Samuel,  in  the  arrangement  of  the  He 
brew  Bible,  from  which  our  English  arrangement 
deviates  to  a  slight  extent  by  inserting  the  little  hook 
of  Ruth  at  the  end  of  Judges,  on  account  of  the  inti 
mate  connection  which  subsists  between  them.  The 
chronological  relation  of  these  books  corresponds  with 
the  order  in  which  they  are  arranged.  The  subjects 
noticed  in  this  article  may  be  distributed  under  five 
divisions:  the  name  and  the  object  of  the  book;  the 
analysis  of  its  contents:  the  chronology  of  the  period: 
(  the  unity  of  the  composition;  and  the  authorship 
!  date.  dtc. 

X(D,if  (Hid  o/>jfrt.~-1n  the  original  Hebrew,  as  well 
as  in  all  the  translations,  this  hook  hears  the  name  of 
Judges;  and  this  name  has  obviously  been  given  to  it 
because  relating  the  transactions  connected  with  the 
deliverance  and  government  of  Israel  by  the  men  who 
bear  this  title  in  the  Hebrew  polity.  This  much  is 
obvious,  whatever  opinion  be  adopted  as  to  the  nature 
of  their  office.  But  there  are  many  considerations 
which  make  us  certain  that  this  book  is  not  intended 
to  be  a  mere  history  of  the  period  between  Joshua  and 
Samuel.  We  are  convinced  hy  these  that  the  author 
has  given  us  the  plan  of  his  work.  <-h.  ii.  n,ic.,  in  which 
he  sums  up  the  lessons  which  the  record  of  the  period 
has  been  meant  to  teach:  the  calling  of  Israel  to  be  the 
Lord's  people,  with  all  the  advantages  and  instructions 
necessary  for  their  situation;  their  rebellious  and  idola 
trous  behaviour:  the  chastisements  which  followed  upon 
disobedience,  namely,  loss  of  independence  and  related 
evils;  their  repentance  and  return  to  the  Lord;  his 
mercy  in  raising  up  judges  to  deliver  and  reform  them; 
and  their  renewed  disobedience  when  the  judge  was 
dead,  followed  by  the  same  consequences  as  before. 


.71"  DUES,   BOOK  OF 


991 


JUDGES.   HOOK  OF 


The  book  give*  us  glimpses  uf  the  history  of  Israel  from  j 
the  time  of  their  early  youth  as  a  nation  until  their 
adult  age;  but  only  glimpses  for  enabling  us  to  study 
this  one  subject — their  self-education  in  the  law  of  the 
Lord,  at  one  time  neglected,  at  another  resumed,  and 
the  false  and  true  progress  which  thus  continually  alter 
nated  during  their  time  of  greatest  liberty  and  most 
decisive  formation  of  national  character.      The  national 
aspect  of  their  eliaractrr  does  certainly  very  much  pre 
dominate:  but  ever  and  again  we  notice  the  root  of  this, 
the  indiridii'il  character  in  relation  to  the  fear  uf  God. 
As  a  whole,    the  people   surely  made   progress  durin- 
the   time  that   they  possessed   their  liberty  along   with 
the  law  of  God.      And   yet   this  hook   makes  it  e\id.-nt 
that   the  pro-iv-s  \\as  very  slight,  every  advance  being 
retarded,  it   not   neutralized,  by  a   retrogression.      The 
true   object  of    tin-  book  ma\   therefore  be  -aid    I"  be  to 
exhibit  the  theocracy,  the  presence  and  working  of  (.Joel 
in  the  administration  o|  the  attairs  of  his  people,  though 
the   name,  "the    bouk    of  Judges,"  is   taken   from   .me 
ivmarkablf    etKct   «r  manifestation  uf   this,  because  he 
raised  them  up  judges  to  deliver  them.      In  accordance 
\\ith  this  view,  we  must  observe,  J.     'I  hat    the  history 
takes  for  granted    the   existence   and   authority  uf   the 
law  of  .Moses  among   the  ]ieu])le.      An  able  and  sugges 
tive  essay  in  lleiigstenberg's  J  ('//(i/if/nY?/  nj  tin  /'m/n- 
/i  IT/I  disposes  of  many  appari  nt  exeeptions  and  viula- 
tions  in  regard  to  persons,  place--,  times,  and  ordinances. 
of  which  ad\antage  had  been  taken  by  unbeliever.-  a.-  a 
means  uf  assaultmu  the  common  belief  in  Muses  as  tin- 
writer   uf   the   1'eiitateueh;   although  his   hyputhe-i-    ,  i 
the  chronology  encourages  him   to  look  upon  the   hunk 
too  much  as  an  outward  political  iveurd.       -J. )  That  the 
liolitii-dl   events   are    subordinated    tu    those   \\hioh    are 
Hint-ill    and    .</>ii-i>nnt.      One    striking    example    uf    this 
occurs  in  Gideon's   hi>tury.  where  the   narrative  i.-  con 
cerned  almost  exelusivelv  with  him  and  his  three  hun 
dred   men,  \\ho  did    indeed  win  the  mural    victory,  and 
were   Clod's    chosen    instruments  fur  delivering    Israel. 
Now  reason  >ugu'ests  the  probability  uf  greater  achieve 
ments,     phy>ically    "i-    politically    considered,    by    the 
powerful  tribe  uf  Kphruim,  at  the  battle  in  \\hicli  On  \< 
and  7.Lcb  fell:    and    this    presumption    is   continued   by 
Gideon's  own  t<  .-timony,  cli  viii.  •:,:;,  and  by  then  ferenoe 
of    a    subsequent    inspired    writer.    Is.  x.  20.       Vet    this 
Kphraimite    \ietory   is  notice.!    merely  in  a    brief   and 
almost    incidental    manner   in  the  body  of   the   history. 
That    hi.-torical   events    and    ci\il   advantages    are 
traced   to  the  purposes  of  the  L<>rd.      Tim.-  his  leaviiu 
some  of   the  nations  in  Canaan  was  at  once  a  means  of 
teaching  Israel  the  necessary  art  of  war.  and  an  occa 
sion  of  proving  them  whether  they  would   walk  in  the 
Lord's   way-  or  not,  since  faith  and  holiness  were  as 
necessarv  as  courage,  if  the  Israelites  were  to  prevail 
in  the  struggle  for  pre-eminence;  and  so  al.-o  the  con 
tinuance  of  these  nations,  and  the  proof  to  \\hich  Israel 
was    subjected  in   reference  to  them,  were  themselves 
a  consequence  of   Israel's  sin   and   sloth,   i-h.  ii.  2";  iii.  4. 
(4.)  That  the  arrangement  of  the  hook  is  mainly  chrono- 
loo-ical;  and  yet  two  long  accounts  are  thrown  in  at  the 
end,  in  the  form  of  an  appendix,  because  of  their  rela 
tion  not  merely  to  the  early  period  at  which  the  events 
occurred,  before  any  judge  had  been  raised  up.  but  to 
the  whole  period  of  the  judges.     They  throw  light  upon 
the  condition  <.f  the  people  through  the  entire  duration 
of  the  vicissitudes  of  this  book,  and  show  us  the  work 
ings  of  that  degeneracy  (the  one  in  regard  to  religion, 


the  other  in  regard  to  practical  morality),  which  was 
continually  calling  down  chastisements,  and  yet  con 
tinually  checked  by  these,  so  that  the  people  returned 
to  the  Lord  their  ( lod  who  smote  them.  And,  (5.}  That 
the  size  of  the  book  is  so  small,  considering  the  long 
period  of  time  which  it  embraces;  thus  contrasting  with 
the  full  systematic  accounts  of  the  earlier  book  of 
Joshua  and  the  later  books  of  Samuel.  Nay,  the  his- 
torv  of  the  judges  themselves  is  given  in  some  instances 
so  much  at  large,  and  in  others  so  briefly,  that  no  ex 
planation  can  be  ottered  by  those  who  suppose  that  it 
is  a  connected  history.  For  it  is  idle  to  speculate  upon 
the  compiler  being  at  a  loss  for  materials,  while  we 
read  the  details  about  Deborah  and  llarak,  Gideon  and 
Abimelech.  Jephthah,  Samson,  and  the  remote  times 
and  obscure  localities  to  which  the  appendix  relates; 
uhcivas  tin  prominence  a.-signed  to  certain  judges  is 
easily  explained  by  a  correct  analysis  of  the  book,  which 
points  them  out  as  persons  whose  history  is  intended  to 
arrest  attention,  on  account  of  the  position  which  they 
occupied  in  critical  times. 

.1  itii/i/xi'.*.  The  book  of  course  is  universally  admitted 
to  consist  ot  three  uivat  parts  an  introduction,  an 
appendix,  and  the  bods  of  the  \\urk.  There  is  no 
question  about  the  appendix,  from  cli.  xvii.  to  ch.  xxi.,  con 
taining  two  narratives:  first,  of  Micah's  gods,  which 
were  carried  oit'  by  those  Itanitcs  who  settled  in  the 
north;  and  next  of  the  abominable  outrage  at  Gibeah, 
and  the  severity  with  which  it  was  punished.  Rut 
there  lias  been  some  httle  ditl'civncc  of  opinion  as  to 
the  place  at  \\hich  the  introduction  ends.  Yet  the 
most  natural  division  is  certainly  at  eh.  iii.  6,  where 
Keil  has  placed  it:  for  what  is  mentioned  previously  is 
not  at  all  in  the  way  of  regular  history,  but  is  cither 
preliminary  information  on  certain  points  requisite  to 
be  known,  or  else  general  statements  which  give  a  key 
to  the  course  of  the  history  properly  so  called,  and  to 
tin;  writer's  mode  of  presenting  it.  The  first  chapter 
i-  chiefiv  uvu-Taphical,  containing  a  statement  of  what 
the  several  tribes  had  done  or  failed  to  do;  the  .second 
chapter,  together  with  the  opening  verses  of  the  third, 
are  predominantly  moral  and  reflective:  or  otherwise, 
the  first  gives  the  political  relations  of  Israel  to  the 
( 'anaanites;  and  the  second  gives  the  religious  relation 
of  Israel  to  the  Lord.  Sonic  have  said.  Ileiigstenberg, 
for  instance,  that  the  first  chapter  presents  a  view  of 
the  events  before  Joshua's  death,  and  that  the  second 
narrates  the  death  itself  and  the  events  which  followed 
it.  \Ve  incline  to  the  belief  that  this,  which  might  be 
quite  in  harmony  with  the  previous  statement,  cannot 
bo  shown  to  involve  any  inaccuracy,  for  the  reasons 
alreadv  suggested  in  the  article  on  Joshua.  On  this 
supposition,  the  account  in  Jos.  xxiv.  is  the  last  act  of 
his  public  life:  whether  he  fiTin'ill ;i  resigned  office  or 
not.  is  a  matter  about  which  we  have  no  information; 
but  lie  did  so  pr/H-tiral/i/:  and  the  elders  who  overlived 
him,  and  in  whose  days  the  people  continued  to  serve 
the  Lord,  carried  on  their  administration,  perhaps 
chiefly  during  his  natural  life,  and  dropped  into  the 
o-rave  very  soon  after  their  leader  and  associate  in  arms 
and  administration. 

There  are  difficulties  in  arranging  the  chronology  of 
the  first  chapter  of  Judges  on  any  hypothesis:  but  they 
appear  at  first  sight  to  be  least  if  we  proceed  straight 
forward,  making  the  order  of  time  and  of  narration  the 
same.  And  since  the  opening  words  are,  "Now,  after 
the  death  of  Joshua."  and  since  again  events  are  men- 


JUDGES,  BOOK  OF 


JUDGES,  BOOK  OF 


tioned  in  this  chapter  which  are  also  mentioned  in  the 
hook  of  Joshua,  it  has  been  a  common  opinion,  even 
among  the  soundest  critics,  that  Joshua  is  not  the 
author  of  the  book  which  bears  his  name.  But  we 
prefer  to  think  that  he  is  the  author,  till  some  stronger 
reason  to  the  contrary  has  boen  presented;  and  we  do 
not  think  it  safe  to  assume  that  the  order  of  time  is 
the  same  as  the  order  of  narration  in  this  chapter, 
which  is  confessedly  not  a  chronological  but  a  geogra 
phical  table.  And  this  view  has  been  taken  by  our 
translators,  who  introduce  the  pluperfect  tense  at  ver.  8. 
By  this  scheme  the  course  of  events  would  be  somewhat 
as  follows.  After  wars  had  been  carried  on  by  single 
tribes,  to  which  the  book  of  Joshua  has  borne  witness, 
on  the  death  of  that  leader,  the  question  was  put  to 
the  Lord,  ''Who  shall  go  up  for  us  against  the  Canaan  - 
ites  first  to  fight  against  them?"  But  perhaps  local 
and  temporary  jealousies  interfered  with  the  acknow 
ledgment  of  Judah,  to  whom  God  assigned  the  foremost 
place;  just  as  similar  feelings,  after  the  great  Persian 
invasion,  kept  the  several  states  of  Greece  apart  from 
Athens,  though  the  leading  place  had  been  assigned  to 
her.  At  any  rate  there  is  no  appearance  of  combined 
action  among  the  tribes;  only  the  feeble  tribe  of  Simeon 
went  with  Judah.  on  condition  of  a  corresponding  ser 
vice  to  themselves.  The  two  tribes  carried  ou  a  suc 
cessful  campaign,  in  ending  which  they  took  vengeance 
on  Adoiiibezek,  '  •  and  they  brought  him  to  Jerusalem, 
and  there  he  died.''  Vet  this  sentence  might  have 
been  readily  misunderstood,  as  if  his  own  people  had 
brought  him  there;  for  it  was  a  well-known  heathen 
city,  as  is  expressly  said,  ver.  21.  Therefore  a  digression 
to  an  earlier  time,  ver.  8,  explains  that  Judah  had  already 
taken  Jerusalem  by  their  own  unaided  arms.  From 
this  earlier  point  of  time  the  narrative  now  proceeds  to 
tell  what  more  the  single  tribe  of  Judah  had  done,  these 
being  the  conquests  to  which  Joshua  has  made  reference 
with  that  brevity  which  suits  his  narrative  of  the  first 
conquest  and  division  of  the  laud.  And  the  early  date 
of  this  entire  paragraph  is  evinced  by  the  closing  sen 
tence,  vov.  in,  about  the  Keiiites  "coming  up  out  of  the 
city  of  palm-trees  with  the  children  of  Judah  into  the 
wilderness  of  Judah,"  which  must  have  happened  either 
on  the  first  entrance  into  Canaan,  or  on  occasion  of 
Judah  first  coming  from  the  united  camp  to  take  pos 
session  of  their  allotted  portion;  unless  we  agree  with 
those  critics  who  understand  this  verse  otherwise,  so  as 
to  impugn  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  book  of  Joshua. 
The  close  of  the  digression,  and  the  date  to  which  it 
refers,  having  been  thus  unmistakably  marked,  the 
narrative  of  the  joint  enterprises  of  Judah  and  Simeon, 
subsequent  to  Joshua's  death,  is  resumed  at  ver.  17. 
Certain  recent  grammarians  would  pronounce  this 
change  to  the  pluperfect  at  ver.  8  arbitrary,  as  indeed 
they  altogether  reject  a  pluperfect  in  Hebrew.  But  in 
some  form,  indirectly  if  not  directly,  they  must  admit 
it.  For  instance,  if  they  adhere  to  strict  chronological 
progress  in  ver.  7,  8,  they  must  make  a  pluperfect  at 
ver.  16,  and  translate,  "  Now  the  children  of  the  Ken- 
ite  had  gone  up,''  &c.  Other  cases  of  necessity  for  a 
pluperfect  in  this  book  may  be  seen  in  ch.  xiv.  15-17; 
xx.  36. 

The  division  of  the  main  body  of  the  work  has  been 
variously  made.  Of  late  there  has  been  a  tendency  to 
make  seven  groups,  under  some  influence  connected 
with  supposed  important  and  prevailing  numbers. 
One  of  the  latest  of  these  has  been  constructed  bv  Keil. 


in  his  Introduction  (1859).  (1.)  Othniel,  cb.  iii.  7-11. 
(2.)  Ehud  and  Shamgar,  ch.  iii. -12-31 ;  (3.)  Deborah  and 
Barak,  ch.  iv.  v.  (4.)  Gideon,  ch.  vi.  i-viii.32.  (5.)  Abime- 
lech,  Tola,  Jair,  ch.  via.  sa-x.  :,.  (fi.)  Jephthah,  Ibzan, 
Elon,  Abdon,  ch.  x.  o-xii.  K>.  (7.)  Samson,  ch.  xiii.-xvi. 
Yet  it  may  be  questioned  whether  any  light  is  thrown 
on  the  book  by  this  division;  whether  any  principle  in 
the  book  is  at  the  foundation  of  it ;  and  whether  it 
does  not  rather  do  violence  to  the  history,  in  tearing 
Abimeleeh  away  from  Gideon  and  associating  him  with 
Tola  and  Jair.  This  last  objection,  however,  does  not 
apply  to  another  scheme  which  unites  the  fourth  and 
fifth  sections,  which  he  adopts  in  his  commentary ; 
though  he  there  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  real  principle  of 
division. 

The  true  arrangement  of  the  book,  in  this  the  main 
body  of  its  history,  brings  out  the  theocratic  govern 
ment  of  God.  Moses  had  been  commissioned  by  the 
Son  of  God,  the  A  nr/e.l.  of  the  Corcnunt,  who  went  before 
the  people  in  all  their  marches,  EX. iii.  i-6;xiii.  21;  xiv.  I9,&c.; 
and  to  fit  him  for  his  office  Moses  was  filled  with  the 
Kjtirit  of  the  Lord,  who  was  given  to  him  in  a  measure 
apparently  not  given  to  any  mere  man  after  him.  But 
the  Spirit,  who  was  communicated  in  a  certain  degree 
to  men  for  various  tasks  in  connection  with  the  church 
and  people,  was  especially  communicated  from  Moses, 
in  whom  the  fulness  resided  (fulness  such  as  was  pos 
sible  under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation),  to  the 
seventy  elders  who  assisted  him  in  the  administration, 
and  to  Joshua,  who  was  called  to  be  his  successor,  Nu.  xi. 
17,  •_'.>:  xxvii.  ifl,is,2o.  Agreeably  to  this,  the  true  grouping 
of  the  events  in  the  time  of  the  judges  must  be  looked 
for  in  connection  with  the  com/ a;/  forth  of  the  An  yd  of 
the  Covenant,  and  the  corresponding  'niixtion  of  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  into  the  hearts  of  his  instruments. 
[No  arguing  is  needed  to  establish  the  erroneousness 
of  our  translation,  "an  angel  of  the  Lord,"  ch.  ii.  i, 
vi.  ii;  "an  angel  of  God,"  ch.  xiii.  6,9,13.  The  only  possible 
rendering  is.  "the  Angel  of  the  Lord,"  "the  Angel  of 
God;"  and  this  is  amply  confirmed  by  the  attributes  of 
Godhead  which  appear  in  the  narratives.]  Yet,  while 
we  notice  these  epochs  of  special  manifestation,  we 
must  remember  that  God  was  always  present  with  his 
people,  at  the  head  of  their  government,  and  working 
in  a  more  ordinary  manner  in  calling  out  agents  for 
preserving  and  recovering  the  visible  church  and  holy 
nation.  And  besides,  there  was  the  standing  method 
of  consulting  him  by  Urim  and  Thummim,  through  the 
high-priest,  and  there  was  his  way  of  extraordinarily 
addressing  the  people  by  prophets;  of  both  of  these 
there  are  recorded  instances  in  this  book,  although  the 
prophetical  agency  is  rare  and  feeble  till  the  time  of 
Samuel,  iSa.  iii.  i,  19-21,  with  whom  the  succession  of  pro 
phets  began,  Ac.  iii.  24. 

But  the  appearance  of  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  and  the 
mission  of  the  Spirit  in  a  special  manner  is  four  times 
noticed  in  the  body  of  the  history,  and  nowhere  else.1 
(1.)  The  Angel  of  Jehovah  went  up  from  Gilgal  to 
Bochim,  and  reproached  the  people  for  neglecting  his 
work  of  redemption;  threatening  to  help  them  no  more; 
yet  in  reality,  by  the  utterance  of  this  threat,  suggest- 


1  He  is  indeed  mentioned  as  saying,  "Curse  ye  Meroz,"  &c., 
ch.  v.  2.3.  .But  this  should  be  taken  either  as  a  prophetic  state 
ment  in  this  inspired  song,  of  the  same  import  as  "thus  saith 
the  Lord,"  in  the  course  of  the  messages  of  later  prophets;  or 
else  it  is  an  inspired  application  to  the  present  case  of  that 
general  message  of  the  Angel,  ch.  ii.  1-3. 


JUDGES,  BOOK  OF 


993 


JUDGES.  BOOK  OF 


ing  that  his  free  grace  would  help  them,  as  in  fact  they 
immediately  gained  a  victory  over  their  own  sinful 
selves,  eh.  ii.  1-5.  The  outward  victory  over  oppressors 
was  soon  gained  by  Othniel.  ch.  iii.  10.  when  "  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  came,"  literally  was,  "upon  him,  and  he 
judged  Israel,  and  went  out  to  war."  r_>.)  The  Angel 
of  the  Lord  came  and  crave  a  mission  to  Gideon  to 
deliver  Israel,  ch.  vi.  n,\c.;  and  to  fit  him  for  it,  vcr.  34, 


to  lead  the  people;  and  as  on  the  two  earlier  occasions, 
ch.  xi.  2:1,  "The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came,"  literally  was, 
"upon  Jephthah."  (-L)  The  Angel  of  the  Lord  appeared 
to  the  parents  of  Samson,  announcing  the  birth  of  their 
son,  who  was  to  begin  to  •'deliver/'  or  rather  "save," 
Israel,  ch.  xiii.3-23.  And  with  the  usual  correspondence, 
ver.  24,  2.3,  ''The  child  grew,  and  the  Lord  blessed  him; 
and  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  began  to  move  him  at  times;" 


"  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon."  literally  clothed,  while  of  him  alone,  as  one  peculiarly  chosen  by  the 
"Gideon,  and  lie  blew  the  trumpet."  ,3.)  A  passage.  Lord  and  given  to  him  from  his  birth,  it  is  said  rcpeat- 
ch.  x.  10-10,  is  so  similar  to  the  account  of  the  Angel  at  edly  afterwards,  that  "the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came 
Bochim,  that  we  do  not  know  how  to  avoid  the  impres-  mightily  upon  him." 

sion  that  it  is  the  Ancrel  himself  who  speaks  in  that  im-  This  arrangement  suggests  the  four  following  periods 
mediate  manner  which  is  p<-culiar  to  this  book:  certainly  of  history.  The  appearance  <>f  the  Angel  of  the  Lord 
there  is  no  hint  of  any  prophet  in  the  case,  and  a  mes-  and  the  mission  of  the  Spirit,  however,  belong  not  to 
sage  like  this  from  tin-  Trim  and  Tlmmmim  is  nowhere  the  very  commencement  of  the  period,  but  rather  to 
on  record  in  Scripture.  The  cio>in^  \vur<!<.  that.  aft>-r  the  continuance  or  close  of  a  term  of  sin  and  disgrace. 

Perhaps  in  Gideon's  and  Jephthah' s  cases  the  appear 
ance  of  the  Angel  and  the  mission  of  the  Spirit  were 
almost  contemporaneous:  but  in  the  first  case  and  in 
tin-  hist  there  must  have  been  some  distance  of  time 
between  them,  not  now  ascertainable,  but  possibly 
amounting  to  several  years,  and  determined  in  each 


having  refused  to  "save"  them  mot  merely  ''deliver." 
as  in  our  version i,  on  the  repentance  oi  the  people. 
"his  soul  was  grieved  t'"i-  the  misery  of  Israel,' 
the  same  interpretation,  in  the  li-'ht  of  the  commentary. 
Is.  Ixiii.  B,  9.  ">o  he  said.  Surely  they  are  my  people, 
children  that  will  not  lie:  so  he  \vus  their  Saviour.  In 

ir  ailliction   In-  was  afliicted.  and  tin-    Vngel  of  his 
Presence-  sa\  vd  them.7      I'poii  thi-.  .lephthah  was  called 


case   by  the   particular* 
these  manifestations. 


>t'   th 


demanded 


i    I.    v ..,-,',...'..     ('hushan  Rishathaim.  of  Mesopotamia,     . 

",    1.  Jud   e.     Otlmiel.       ...  

.  II      -  Kglon,  uf  Mn:.li:   Animon,  Auialek,       .     .      is  i 

-     2.  Ju.l  •••.      Fluid 

(    :>,    Judge.     Shamir!  r    "     ew  uf  the  Philistines";  ) 

([II.   >,-,.',"/..     Jaljin    of  Hazor  in  Canaan,  .     .  •_'  •  ) 

1.   Judjre.     Deliorali.  < 
>          .'.  id.  :      Barafc 

Si  i  OXD    I'rin.in.      i  'h.  \  11 

,  i\.  ferritu'le.  .Midian.  Vinalek,  and  children  of  the  East.  71 
,  ti  Judge.  Gideon.  .  .  -I") 

Aliinu-lecli,  . 

7.   Judge.     Tola. 

S.    I  u  i   ••      .lair. 


,     v     >      ••':»..      Ammonites,  \vitli  I'liilUtinc- 

i.  Judge.  Jephthah 
lu  Judge.  Il.zau. 

11.  Judge.     El' m.      . 

12.  Jud.--.      Abdfdi. 


IS  i 
••  . 


10(1 
1018 


A  mere  glance  at  this  table  will  bring  mit  many 
facts  in  regard  to  the  state  of  Israel  under  the  judges. 
During  the  first  period  there  occurred  three  servitudes, 
to  chastise  the  rebellion  and  idolatry  of  the  people; 
and  these  chastisements  became  in  several  ways  more 
and  more  severe,  They  became  so  in  point  of  dura 
tion;  being  eiidit  years,  eighteen,  and  twenty  respec 
tively.  They  became  so  in  point  of  vicinity  to  their 
oppressors:  the  first,  a  distant  king  from  Mesopo 
tamia.  \\liose  visits  miirht  be  rare,  and  his  oppressions 
Ikdit.  if  only  a  tribute  were  paid  to  him:  the  second,  a 
king  of  the  neighbouring  country  of  Moab,  supported 
by  adjoining  tribes,  and  setting  up  his  throne,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  at  the  city  of  palm-trees,  among  the 

VOL.  I. 


Israelites,  whom  he  may  have  been  willing  to  incor 
porate  with  his  original  subjects:  the  third,  a  king 
within  Canaan  itself,  living  wholly  among  the  Israelites, 
and  animated  towards  them  by  the  bitterness  of  here 
ditary  warfare,  since  he  himself  belonged  to  a  race 
doomed  to  extirpation  by  Israel.  The  chastisements 
became  also  more  and  more  disgraceful :  first,  by  that 
Mesopotamia!!  monarch,  who  had  unknown  resources, 
but  probably  very  powerful:  next  by  the  king  of  Moab, 
who  ought  to  have  been  little  (if  at  all)  more  powerful 
than  a  single  tribe  in  Israel;  but  thirdly,  by  a  remnant 
of  one  of  the  nations  whom  they  ought  to  have  de 
stroyed,  as,  in  fact,  a  former  Jabin  king  of  Hazor  was 
destroyed  by  Joshua.  Again,  there  is  no  evidence  in 

125 


BOOK  OF 


'J9-t 


JTDGES,   BOOK  OF 


the  book  that  these  five  judges  held  their  office  for 
life:  far  from  this,  tin-  language  is  perfectly  general 
that  "the  land  had  vest"  forty  or  eighty  years,  and 
during  these  years  of  rest  the  corrupting  leaven  was  at 
work  which  brought  a  new  servitude  upon  them.  There 
is  not  even  a  coupling  of  that  rest  with  the  name  of 
the  judge,  unless  in  eh.  iii.  11.  "  And  the  land  had  rest 
forty  years;  and  Othniel  the  son  of  Kenax,  died  ;''  where 
the  connection  of  the  two  statements  is  very  loose,  and 
the  death  of  Othniel  has  as  much  at  least  to  do  with 
the  following  statement  about  the  relapse  into  idolatry, 
which  in  all  likelihood  occurred  before  tin-  forty  years 
of  rest  were  succeeded  by  another  bondage.  Hence 
the  objection  to  F.hud  judging  the  people  eighty  years  is 
seen  to  be  unfounded,  although  the  Septiiagint  tells  u-~ 
that  he  judged  l.-rael  till  he  died.  Neither  need  there 
have  been  any  difficulty  on  account  of  the  circumstance 
that  no  time  is  assigned  to  Shanigar.  He  came  after 
Ehud,  ch.  iv.  :si;  but  during  the  eighty  years  of  rest,  which 
was  not  interrupted  by  any  servitude,  though  he  had  a 
struggle  with  the  Philistines.  One  other  remark  is, 
that  these  three  first  servitudes  brought  Israel  into 
contact  with  the  nations  who  were  to  be  its  chief 
scourges  in  succeeding  times.  The  Mesopotamians  of 
the  first  servitude,  indeed,  retired  into  the  background, 
until,  in  the  last  days  of  the  monarchy,  they  carried 
the  people  into  captivity;  but  the  Moabites.  and  their 
associates  the  Ammonites  and  Amalekites.  were  much 
the  same  as  the  Midianites.  Amalekites.  and  children 
of  the  East,  in  Gideon's  days,  as  Alidian  and  Aloab 
were  at  an  earlier  time  associated  in  the  days  of  Moses 
and  r.alaam;  and  the  Philistines,  with  whom  Shamyar 
had  apparently  but  a  skirmish,  rose  continually  in 
power,  co-operating  with  the  Ammonites  in  the  fifth 
servitude,  and  able  without  assistance  to  bring  upon 
Israel  the  sixth  servitude,  which  was  the  longest  of  all. 
It  is  plain  that  these  three  first  servitudes  greatly 
broke  the  power  and  spirit  of  the  Israelites.  Their 
subjection  to  .Fabin  the  Canaanite  was  especially  sinful 
and  disgraceful;  and  the  people  were  mightily  oppressed 
by  him,  ch.  iv.  :>,,  while  he  had  disarmed  them,  and  per 
haps  seduced  them  extensively  into  idolatrous  unity 
with  his  own  people,  ch.  v.  s.  To  meet  this  emergency 
we  observe  two  peculiarities — the  one  that  God  be 
stowed  the  gift  of  prophecy  upon  Deborah,  the  first 
instance  recorded  since  the  death  of  Moses,  at  least 
two  centuries  anil  a  half  previous;  the  other,  that  the 
people  had  recourse  to  this  woman  for  deliverance. 
She  was  judging  Israel  (the  participle  in  the  original 
marks  that  it  was  going  on)  before  the  bondage  was 
actually  broken. 

The  second  period  presents  several  important  con 
trasts  to  the  first.  There  is  only  one  servitude  at  the 
commencement  of  it,  and  this  the  briefest  of  all — for 
seven  years.  But  it  was  very  grinding,  being  inflicted 
by  the  neighbouring  nations  of  the  east  and  south: 
spreading  systematically  from  beyond  Jordan  to  the 
south-western  extremity  at  Gaza;  destroying  regularly 
both  the  tillage  and  the  pasturage  of  the  Israelites;  and 
driving  them  from  their  ordinary  habitations  to  take 
refuge  in  mountains  and  caves.  The  number  of  that 
army  with  which  Gideon  had  to  fight  was  135,000. 
The  prophetess  and  psalmist  Deborah  must  have  had 
a  blessed  influence  upon  the  people  of  her  own  genera 
tion  and  that  which  succeeded.  And  there  were  other 
spiritual  agencies  besides  her  own;  for  the  only  other 
prophet  mentioned  in  the  book  was  he  who  was  sent  to 


reprove  the  people  before  Gideon  was  raised  up,  ch.  vi.  8; 
whose  designation  (as  given  in  tke  margin) — ''a  man,  a 
prophet" — is  by  no  means  destitute  of  emphasis,  con 
sidering  how  the  An'jel  of  the  Lord  speaks  in  the  same 
chapter  and  elsewhere  in  the;  book.  The  very  fact  that 
God  was  raising  up  inspired  persons  during  those  forty  - 
seven  year>  which  close  the  first  period  and  commence 
the  second,  marks  it  out  as  a  memorable  era  of  ereat 
striving  on  the  part  of  God.  as  well  as  great  sinning  on 
the  part  of  the  people,  who  had  in  some  localities 
openly  established  the  worship  of  Baal.  And  the  stir 
ring  of  their  minds,  both  by  calamity  and  by  the  work 
of  God's  messengers,  is  plain  from  what  is  related  of 
Gideon's  family  and  personal  history,  and  from  the 
response  he  met  with  when  he  blew  the  trumpet. 
But  the  chastisements  of  Israel  now  assumed  a  differ 
ent  shape:  no  longer  servitude  to  foreigners,  but 
tyranny  on  the  part  of  one  of  their  own  number.  Even 
Gideon  himself  had  not  been  absolutely  clear  of  blame, 
though  on  the  whole  his  heart  was  eminently  right 
with  God.  For  there  was  his  ephod  in  his  city,  "and 
all  I  srael  went  thither  a  whoring  after  it;  which  thing 
became  a  snare  unto  ( iideon,  and  to  his  house,"  ch  viii.  27. 
lie  himself  escaped  the  worst  of  the  snare;  but  "as 
soon  as  Gideon  was  dead,  then  the  children  of  Israel 
turned  again,  and  went  a  whoring  after  Baalim,  and 
made  Baal-berith  their  god."  ver.  .".'!,  and  all  his  sons 
were  murdered;  except  one  who  escaped,  and  one  who 
instigated  or  perpetrated  the  crime,  and  who  was  left 
by  God  to  be  a  scourge  to  the  people  worse  than  any 
foreign  despot,  before  he  himself  received  the  due 
reward  of  his  deeds.  Probably  we  may  trace  a  change 
in  the  style  of  the  administration  from  the  commence 
ment  of  this  period;  since  now  we  read,  ch.  viii.  '^,  that 
"  the  country  was  in  quietness,''  or  had  rest,  ''forty 
years  in  the  davs  of  (iideon."  This  suggests,  if  it  does 
not  actually  assert,  that  his  office  and  his  life  and  the 
rest  of  the  land  ended  at  the  same  time,  of  which  there 
is  no  hint  in  the  case  of  his  predecessors.  And  the 
disposition  of  the  people  towards  a  more  permanent 
form  of  government  is  apparent  from  their  request  to 
(iideon,  that  he  would  rule  over  them,  and  make  that 
rule  hereditary  in  his  family.  Though  hi;  refused  this, 
from  a  conviction  deeply  felt  and  strongly  expressed 
by  him,  that  the  Lord  alone  should-  be  their  king,  he 
ruled  without  the  title;  and  his  son  Abimelech  easily 
seized  both  the  office  and  the  title,  and  with  a  standing 
army  may  have  rendered  himself  extremely  powerful: 
as  we  read  of  his  taking  cities  by  storm,  and  destroy 
ing  them.1  Three  years  brought  his  reign  to  an  end; 
but.  without  any  interregnum — compare  the  return  to 
consular  government  on  the  overthrow  of  the  decem- 
virate  at  Rome — the  government  by  judges  seems  to 
have  been  restored  under  Tola  and  Jair.  Here  were 
no  foreign  enemies;  yet  Tola  rose  "  to  defend  Israel," 
or  rather,  as  in  the  margin,  "to  save  it ;"  for  the  evils 
of  Abimelech's  reign  were  probably  as  bad  politically 
as  a  servitude,  and  morally  and  religiously  they  might 
be  worse.  But  fifty-five  years  under  two  good  judges 
may  have  gone  far  to  restore  Israel.  The  picture  of 
J  air's  thirty  sons  on  their  thirty  ass- colts  is  quite 
worthy  of  the  patriarchal  times;  and  his  gift  of  a  city 


1  Abimelech  should  not  be  reckoned  among  the  judges  of 
Israel,  but  among  the  scourges,  holding  the  people  in  servitude, 
ami  to  a  domestic  enemy,  much  as  in  the  case  of  Jabin,  king 
of  Hazor.  Certainly  the  vurb  and  the  noun  "judge"  are  never 
applied  to  him  and  his  administration. 


JUDGES,  BOOK  OF 


JUDGES.  "ROOK  OF 


to  each,  whilst  to  the  whole  district  the  name  of  Havoth- 
Jair  was  assigned,  ch.  \.  4,  obviously  carried  an  allu 
sion  to  the  happy  victorious  days  of  the  conquest  under 
Moses,  Nu.  xxxii.  4i;  compare  perhaps  David's  reference 
to  past  mercies  in  the  original  conquest  and  settlement 
of  the  land,  appropriated  as  a  ground  of  faith  and  hope 
in  reference  to  his  own  times,  iv  Mi. 

But  that  second  period  lasted  scarcely  half  as  Ion;/ 
as  the  first;  and  the  narrative  of  a  new  manifestation 
of  the  Son  of  Clod,  and  a  new  descent  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  suggests  that,  in  spite  of  outward  appearances, 
the  real  life  of  Israel  a-  ('.id'.-  people  \vas  onlv  half  as 
strong  in  the  second  period  as  in  the  first;  while  au'ain 
this  third  period  approximates  to  being  half  as  lone1  as 
the  second.  Each  intu-i'  ,1,  ,  ,\  grace  gave  anew  impulse 
to  the  spiritual  life  of  the  nation;  but  on  each  occasion 
that  impulse  acted  only  half  as 
preceded  it.  clearlv  indicatin'_r 
str"ir_;th  which  resided  in  l.-rae! 
like  the  second,  contain*  oiilvoni-  .-er\  itude.  lint  it  is 
l"ir_r-  for  eighteen  years.  It  is  iuflictt  d  by  two  a-yn- 
cies  combined:  tor  the  Philistines  appear  as  the  assist 
ants  of  th'-  Ammonites-  a  ca-e  like  that  in  Is.  ix.  1'J. 
"The  Syrians  before,  and  the  Philistines  behind,  and 
thev  shall  devour  Israel  with  open  inoutli."  The 
double  agency  in  chastising  is  suitable  after  the  com 
plicated  sinning,  uh.  x.  0  And.  in  short,  thea^-_i-a\a 
lion.-  "f  the  ca-e  were  siieh.  tliat  iii  lanu'na_;e  \a-Hv 
stronger  than  that  of  eh.  ii.  1.  &c.,  or  ch.  \\.  >.  \c., 
the  Lord  reproached  them,  and  refused  to  save  them. 
At  l'-nj;th.  when  ho  LSIVC  tln-m  a  jud^e.  h--  p.  rniined  a 
treasonable  spirit  to  manifest,  itself  in  the  leading  tribo 
of  Kphraim:  >o  that  .1.  phthah  w  as  compelled  to  exe 
cute  such  vengeance  on  them,  di.  xii  l-ti,  as  at  an  <  arly 
period  had  been  executed,  for  like  offences,  on  the 
tribe  of  I'.enjamin  and  the  citv  of  .lab.  -'n  <  -Head.  eli.  \v 
u.  i  :.  .v  ,  xxi.  --i.j.  This  fearl'ul  judgment  \\ithin  the 
tribes  theiu.-'-lvi'S  is  a!-o  to  be  looked  at  as  a  chas 
tisement  not  less  severe  than  foreign  servitude,  as,  was 
remarked  of  Abiineleeh's  de-poti.-m  durin'_r  the  sccoml 
peri. id.  And  as  in  that  period  t\\o  judges  followed  in 
imnie.li.it'  succession,  though  then-  bad  been  no  external 
enemy;  sober.-  there  were  three  in  addition  to.leph- 
thah.  lint  the  entire  term  of  these  four  administra 
tions  was  only  thirtv-one  years. 

The  fourth  period  call-  for  no  lengthened  remarks. 
though  it  is  ditt'erent  from  all  the  rest.  It  is  tin- 
shortest  . if  the  whole.  Again,  there  is  but  one  servi 
tude,  as  in  the  two  previous  periods;  but  those  servi 
tudes  have  been  increasing  alarmingly  in  length  and  in 
proximity  far  beyond  the  increase  of  the  three  which 
fall  within  th.-  first  period.  Nay,  this  fourth  period  is 
entirely  one  of  servitude:  for  though  then-  is  a  judge, 
Samson,  the  greatest  in  his  personal  exploit-,  and  se 
parated  to  his  work  from  before  his  birth;  yet  \\  e  have 
no  account  of  the  nation,  or  of  any  part  of  it,  deliber 
ately  acknowledging  and  following  him.  He  only 
''began  to  deliver,"  rather  to  save,  "  Israel  out  of  the 
hand  of  the  Philistines."  di  xiii  .v.  "and  he  judged 
Israel  in  the  days  of  the  Philistines,  twenty  years.''  ch. 
xv.  20 — that  is,  during  the  time  that  their  dominion 
lasted.  Samson  was  in  fact  an  individual  who  repre 
sented  the  entire  people  of  Israel — their  calling,  their 
privileges,  their  achievements,  their  moral  weakness. 
The  combination  of  all  this  is  seen  emphatically  in 
their  history  during  the  time  of  the  judges.  And  in 
spite  of  the  continual  presence  of  God  their  king,  and 


the  repeated  awakenings  and  revivals  on  the  part  of 
his  Son  and  his  Spirit,  the  end  of  the  history  presents 
Israel  to  us  feebler  than  the  beginning,  though  no 
doubt  educated  and  enriched  by  so  much  varied  expe 
rience  in  the  divine  life. 

It  was  thus  that  the  transition  became  necessary  to 
an  earthly  kingdom ;  not  that  it  was  better  in  itself, 
but  it  was  better  for  the  carnal  people,  and  it  was  made 
to  subserve  important  purposes  in  the  administration 
of  the  covenant  of  grace.  The  history  of  the  transition 
period  is  given  in  the  books  of  Samuel,  with  which  we 
have  not  here  to  do.  Yet  a  few  sentences  may  express 
all  that  is  necessary  in  order  to  complete  the  history  of 
the  judges,  of  whom  there  were  two  more.  Eli  and 
Samuel.  The  people  w.  re  deeply  depressed  at  the  time 
of  Samson's  death;  and  yet  his  prowess  all  through  life 
had  been  breaking  the  yoke  of  bondage,  and  the  finish 
ing  stroke  was  given  by  him  as  he  died.  They  had  no 
living  deliverer,  therefore,  whom  they  could  acknow 
ledge  as  their  judge.  They  must  look  on  recovered 
independence  as  a  gift  immediately  from  God's  own 
hand:  and  ( iod's  high-priest  was  the  man  on  whom 
they  united  to  be  tli'-ir  governor.  Perhaps  another 
motive  might  combine  with  this.  P.y  putting  them 
selves  under  the  high-priest,  they  might  hope  to  draw 
nearer  to  God.  and  to  escape  renewed  chastisements  for 
neglect  of  his  law  and  service:  or  otherwise,  taking 
refuse  with  <o,d,  they  might  hope  to  terrify  their  op 
pressors  the  Philistine.-,  as  they  afterwards  carried  down 
the  ark  into  the  battle  with  th.  m.  Eli  did  judge  Israel 
for  forty  y.-ars.  and  we  have  no  reason  for  supposing 
that  this  was  not  a  time  of  rest  from  outward  enemies. 
root  of  the  evil  continued  to  be  untouched: 
and  the  very  expedient  of  uniting  the  offices  of  judge 
and  priest  in  one  person,  threw  light  upon  the  terrible 
hopelessness  of  tin-  disease.  The  priesthood  itself  was 
incurably  .  orrnpt:  the  aged  high-priest  and  his  two 
sons.  \\ho  acted  under  him.  died  on  that  same  day  on 
which  Israel  was  smitten  and  the  ark  of  God  was  taken, 
as  had  been  announced  to  Kli  by  a  threatening  prophet, 
i  >:i  ii  2T-30;  iv.  17,  i-.  And  a  p.-riod  of  utter  anarchy  and 
he|ple-,  exposure  1o  all  enemies  ensued  for  twenty 
years,  i  Sa.  vii  -j,  which  some  have  called  a  seventh  ser- 
vitude  a  second  Philistine  servitude,  hut  for  which  a 
better  name  is  that  found  in  the  book  of  Judges  itself, 
ch.  xviii  ;;<>,  "the  captivity  of  the  laud."  The  worship  of 
( ;..d  was  violently  interrupted:  Shiloli  was  made  a  deso 
lation.  1's.  Ixxviii.  ,-iii-iii;  .I..',  vii.  rj-ii,  and  the  ark  went  into 
captivity  among  the  Philistines,  when  the  land  of  Israel 
ceased  to  be  the  Lord's  land,  the  glory  of  all  lands. 
That  the  people  themselves  were  considerably  broken 
up  and  scattered  at  tin's  time,  so  thai  it  was  a  political 
as  well  as  a  spiritual  captivity,  is  probable  from  the 
language  of  that  seventy-eighth  psalm,  as  well  as  from 
the  language  of  another  which  David  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  people,  after  God  had  restored  the  ark  to  the 
position  which  had  been  lost,  1  Ch.  xvi.  r:t, ::;.,  "0  give 
thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  is  good:  for  his  mercy 
endureth  for  ever.  And  say  ye,  Save  us,  ( )  (Jod  of  our 
salvation,  and  gather  us  together,  and  deliver  us  from 
the  heathen,  that  we  may  give  thanks  to  thy  holy  name, 
and  glory  in  thy  praise."  If  this  do  not  refer  to  a 
scattering  at  Eli's  death,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  know  to 
what  it  can  refer.  In  agreement  with  this  there  is,  in 
the  Septuagint  and  Vulgate,  a  title  to  the  ninety-sixth 
psalm,  which  was  also  used  by  David  on  that  occasion, 
j  "A  psalm  of  David,  when  the  house  was  built  after 


JUDGES,   BOOK  OF 

the  captivitv."  which  title,  as  well  as  the  inspired  lan- 

cfuaufe  in  ( 'hronicles,  would  he  understood  of  the  Baby-  : 

I 
lonish  captivity  only  on  the  supposition  of  a  monstrous 

blunder. 

Amid  very  many  things  in  the  condition  of  the  gov 
ernment,  the  priesthood,  the  sanctuary,  and  the  people, 
which  are  parallel  on  occasion  of  this  earlier  and  little 
noticed  "'captivity  of  the  land,"  and  that  great  captivity 
in  Nebuchadnezzar's  time,  to  which  parallel  Jeremiah 
calls  attention,  cii.  vi;.,  one  important  element  of  good 
was  the  activity  of  prophetic  inspiration,  so  that  on  j 
Loth  occasion:-;  prophets  denounced  the  evils,  and  pro 
phets  became  the  great  re-constructors  of  society.  Pro 
phecy  had  been  met  with  in  the  times  of  the  judges,  in 
one  generation  at  least,  ch.  iv.  i,  v.;  vi.  s.  But  now  the 
gift  of  prophecy  appeared  in  richer  abundance:  Samuel's 
mother  was  a  psalmist  like  Deborah,  i  Sa.  ii.  1,  &c.;  a  pro 
phet,  who  is  not  named,  denounced  (rod's  curse  upon 
the  priesthood  and  people,  ch.  ii.  27-30;  and  above  all, 
Samuel  himself  was  called  by  <lod.  to  whom  he  had 
been  dedicated  from  before  his  birth,  "  and  all  Israel, 
from  Dan  even  to  Beersheba,  knew  that  Samuel  was 
established  to  he  a  prophet  of  the  Lord.  And  the 
Lord  appeared  again  in  Shiloh:  for  the  Lord  revealed 
himself  to  Samuel  in  Shiloh  by  the  word  of  the  Lord," 
ch.  iii.  20,  -21,  and  this  after  a  period  in  which  "the  word 
of  the  Lord  was  precious,"  and  "there  was  no  open 
vision."  In  several  respects  Samuel,  the  ISTazarite  from 
his  birth,  must  have  reminded  the  people  of  Samson, 
only  that  his  piety  and  services  were  of  an  unspeakably 
higher  tone  and  character.  And  during  these  twenty 
years  of  anarchy  and  captivity,  in  which  "  the  whole 
house  of  Israel  lamented  after  the  Lord,"  they  must 
have  felt  that  they  were  passing  through  an  experience 
like  their  fathers,  and  that  they  were  being  shut  up  to 
Samuel  as  the  Lord's  instrument  for  saving  them.  A 
priest  and  judge  combined  in  one  had  failed:  but  they 
were  delivered  by  their  last  hope,  a  prophet  and  judge 
in  one,  who,  in  the  remarkable  age  of  confusion  and 
restoration  in  which  he  lived,  was  also  called  to  be  a 
priest  in  some  degree,  and  thus  gathered  into  his  own 
hands  the  threefold  theocratic  authority  which  in  or 
dinary  times  was  kept  strictly  apart  and  distributed. 
But  of  the  details  of  his  official  life  \ve  have  scarcely 
anything,  nor  any  intimation  of  the  length  of  time 
during  which  it  continued.  Only  when  he  grew  old, 
he  made  his  sons  judges  along  with  him,  i  Sa.  viii.  i,  2. 
However,  the  people,  who  had  wished  such  a  hereditary 
office  in  the  family  of  Gideon,  refused  it  in  the  family 
of  Samuel,  as,  in  fact,  his  sons  were  unworthy  of  it. 
But  the  hereditary  notion  being  thus  anew  presented 
to  them,  it  was  not  difficult  for  their  minds  to  cling- 
once  more  to  the  desire  for  an  earthly  king.  And  God 
directed  Samuel  to  gratify  their  wishes,  though  not 
without  warning  them  of  the  carnality  of  their  minds, 
the  unreasonableness  of  their  expectations,  and  the 
bitter  disappointment  that  was  awaiting  them. 

Chronology. — There  is  a  great  difficulty  in  adjusting 
the  chronology  to  the  data  furnished  by  Scripture;  but 
in  the  table  given  in  the  previous  section  we  have  pre 
sented  specimens  of  three  computations,  according  to 
three  leading  systems,  one  longer,  the  other  twro  shorter, 
yet  abbreviating  the  time  on  two  different  principles. 
The  data  in  Scripture  are  these  three : — 1.  The  state 
ment,  i  KI.  vi.  i,  that  Solomon  began  to  build  the  temple 
in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign,  and  "the  four  hundred 
and  eightieth  year  after  the  children  of  Israel  were 


0  JUDGES,.  BOOK  OF 

come  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt."  2.  The  statement  bv 
Paul,  Ac.  xiii.  17-21,  "The  God  of  this  people  of  Israel 
chose  our  fathers,  and  exalted  the  people  when  they 
dwelt  as  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  with  an 
high  arm  brought  he  them  out  of  it.  And  about  the 
tinu;  of  forty  years  suffered  he  their  manners  in  the 
wilderness.  And  when  he  had  destroyed  seven  nations 
in  the  land  of  Canaan,  he  divided  their  land  to  them 
by  lot.  And  after  that,  he  gave  unto  them  judges, 
about  the  space  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  years,  until 
Samuel  the  prophet.  And  afterwards  they  desired  a 
king:  and  God  gave  unto  them  Saul  .  .  .  by  the  space 
of  forty  years/'  &e.  3.  There  arc  the  details  in  this 
book  of  Judges  which  appear  to  give  390  years  from 
the  beginning  of  the  first  servitude  till  the  end  of  the 
sixth,  or  the  death  of  Samson.  It  is  plain  to  any  one 
who  looks  at  the  figures,  that  these  three  computations 
are  irreconcilable;  and  the  <pie>tioii  arises,  to  which 
of  them  is  a  treatment  to  be  applied  that  shall  bring 
orit  a  result  different  from  what  appears  at  first  sight ! 

i'lwald  applies  a  favourite  method  to  this,  as  to  some 
other  portions  of  the  history  of  Israel.  He  finds  a 
mythological  element  in  it,  a  series  of  twelve  heroes, 
whose  labours  the  book  records,  as  indeed  he  has  a  pas 
sion  for  discovering  the  number  twelve  throughout  the 
early  Hebrew  histories  and  genealogies.  He  also  argues, 
from  some  of  the  tables  of  descent  in  the  Chronicles, 
that  there  were  twelve  generations  from  Moses  to 
David's  and  Solomon's  time;  and  since  40  years  occurs 
repeatedly  in  the  history  of  these  judges  and  the  servi 
tudes  (in  Ehud's  case,  SO.  or  twice  40),  he  supposes 
that  40  years  was  then  the  allowance  for  a  generation, 
at  one  time  a  generation  being  under  oppression,  and 
at  another  time  a  generation  being  at  rest.  Thus  he 
makes  up  12  x  40  =  480  years  from  the  exodus  to  the 
building  of  the  temple;  though  in  this  second  calcula 
tion  he  includes  Moses  and  Joshua  as  two  of  the  twelve 
heroes,  not  very  consistently.  Tins  hypothesis  has  been 
elaborated  with  certain  differences  of  detail,  and  with 
refinements  about  judges  of  whom  there  were  many 
traditions,  to  whom  these  round  numbers  were  assigned, 
and  of  others  with  a  more  accurate  historical  term  of 
years,  but  of  whom  there  was  not  much  more  to  relate  (!), 
in  Bertheau's  Commentary  on  Ji'df/cs.  But  this  is  a 
mere  hypothesis.  It  is  irreverent  in  its  treatment  of 
the  word  of  God.  It  needs  to  do  violence  to  the  record 
in  order  to  arrive  at  the  number  of  twelve  judges  on 
which  it  is  based,  since  the  book  gives  thirteen,  and  Eli 
and  Samuel  ought  to  be  inserted,  if  not  Joshua,  i?i  this 
list  of  "  heroes.'1  And  though  the  frequency  with  which 
the  number  40  occurs  in  periods  of  ruling,  from  Moses 
down  to  king  Jehoash,  may  surest  the  thought  of  a 
special  overruling  providence,  it  cannot  shake  any 
sensible  person's  belief  in  the  historical  accuracy,  when 
he  observes  that  three  kings  in  succession  reigned  each 
40  years — Saul,  David,  and  Solomon,  in  the  very  age 
in  which  literature  flourished  most  and  contemporary 
annals  were  abundant.  So  afterwards  king  Joash 
reigned  40  years,  and  Asa  and  Jeroboam  II.  each  41. 

The  Jews,  again,  have  a  simpler  problem,  because 
they  assign  no  weight  to  the  New  Testament.  They 
therefore  naturally  take  their  stand  upon  the  sum  480 
years,  and  they  endeavour  to  readjust  the  details  to 
suit  this.  Without  going  into  other  matters  beyond 
the  book  of  Judges,  it  will  be  observed  from  the  table 
that  they  include  the  servitudes  in  the  years  during 
which  the  land  had  rest  and  the  judges  ruled.  This 


JUDGES,   ROOK  OF 


997 


JUDGES,   BOOK  OF 


is  a  monstrous  perversion  of  common  sense:  and,  be 
sides,  the  solitary  case  of  Samson,  in  whose  days  the  land 
is  not  said  to  have  had  any  rest,  but  who.  on  the  con 
trary,  •'judged  Israel  in  the  days  of  the  Philistines 
twenty  years."'  ch.  xv.  2<>,  has  this  emphasis  put  upon  it, 
to  show  how  anomalous  it  was.  In  fact,  the  Masoretic 
authorities  came  to  a  difficulty  in  the  case  of  the  pre 
vious  servitude,  which  lasted  18  years,  and  therefore 
could  not  he  included  under  Jephthah's  administration, 
which  lasted  only  7.  But  there  had  been  probably  an 
attempt  to  do  something  in  this  case  also;  for  Eusehius 
gives  us  the  earliest  specimen  of  the  short  computation 
in  his  C/ir<'i/ii'""n,  written  ab"tit  A.IJ.  '•>-'>,  and  then-  In: 
is  said  to  make  the  Ammom'tf  -er\  itude  la-t  •>  years. 
and  Jephthah's  administration  also  ;],  that  is,  0  in  all. 
the  time  assigned  to  his  judging  l-rael  in  the  sacred 
history.  Though  this  .Jewish  scheme  had  defenders 
amoni:'  the  Christian  chronologers  of  the  sevei 
centiirv,  it  is  probably  now  abandoned. 

Another   scheiii''    i-;    adopted    on    the    margin  of   our 
I.  B        .          >nliii^  to  \vaieli  some  of  the    jud_re.- 

lontemporary  with  others,  each  of  them  rulinir 
overs  certain  pan  of  the  tribes,  not  over  all  tsrael; 
and  of  course  suppositions  may  be  made  a-  loin;-  a.-  the 
inuvnuiiy  <>f  the  person  u!'ues.-in:,r  is  not  exhausted  all 
having  the  .-aim.'  virtue  of  keeping  within  the  numb.-r 
of  -Jsu  years,  and  all  bein^  alike  entirely  arbitrary. 
Tin-  lea.-t  objectionable  of  tliese  with  which  we  are  ac 
ipiaint.-d  is  tint  of  1\.-:1.  t  i  which  1 1  eilu'steiihi-ru'  lias 
given  in  hi-  adli'Teiice,  botii  following  to  some  extenl 
t!,..  suggest!'  'ii-  '  it'  the  illusti  i>  MIS  \"itrin_:a.  Th.-y  uTan; 

<  narrative  proceeds  in  straightforward  chronolo 
gical  order  till  the  death  of  .lair.  di.  x.  fi,  for  3ol  years. 
From  that  point  they  reckon  that  tin  iv  are  two  parallel 
streams  of  history,  so  that  the  oppr.  ssion  by  thi-  Phi! 
istines  and  Aniniomte-.  meiitioni'd  in  ver.  7.  is  not  one 
Conjoint  act.  but  two  iiide|>eiid''ii'  calamities,  though 
occurring  simultaneou-Iv  :  the  Ammonites  oppress])!1.:' 
the  eastern  tri !>••.-  fur  Is  \-ears.  and  then  deliverance 
eominu'  bv  .lephthah.  at  the  same  time  that  the  Philis- 
tines  oppressed  the  western  tril"-.-  durinur  Jn  years,  in 
part  of  which  they  were  held  in  cheek  by  Samson. 
Mop  .  iver,  they  under-t.-nid  thi-  Philistine  oppi-i  ssion  in 
Samson's  days,  mentioned  in  eh.  xiii.  1.  to  be  id'  ntica! 
with  that  from  which  Samuel  ddivi  red  the  people, 
,-;  ..  for  otherwi-e.  they  say,  the  servitude  men 
tioned  in  the  bonk  of  Judges  wants  a  dctiniti'  termina 
tioii,  and  tin-  servitude  mentioned  in  first  Samuel  wni'ts 
a  beginning.  Finally,  this  gnat  servitude  to  the  Phil 
istincs  for  in  year-  was  oraduallv  be  inc.'  broken  duiiiu.: 
the  last  half  of  it  by  Samson,  who  thus  "  began  to  de 
liver  Israel;"  and  the  first  half  of  it  \\a.-  at  the  same 
time  the  la.-t  half  of  Eli'.-  term  of  ollie.  .  By  this  ar 
rangement  the  account  of  150  years  from  the  exodus  to 
tin  building  of  the  temple,  would  stand  as  follow-: 
The  administration  of  Moses  lasted  4"  years.  The 
division  of  lands  in  Canaan  did  not  commence  till  7 
years  after  his  death.  Jos  \iv.  7,  in.  Then  Saul  and 
David  reigned  each  40  years,  and  the  temple  began  to 
be  built  in  the  fourth  year  of  Solomon.  Besides,  there 
aro  two  periods  between  the  extreme  points,  whose 
duration  is  not  determined  in  the  Bible:  the  one  the 
length  of  Joshua's  administration  and  that  of  the  elders, 
his  companions,  from  the  commencement  of  the  division 
of  lands  to  the  commencement  of  the  first  servitude; 
the  other  the  length  of  Samuel's  administration.  But 
at  the  very  least,  from  4SO  we  must  cat  oft'  130  years, 


as  shown  in  the  margin,  leaving  350.  Of  these,  301 
elapsed  till  J air's  death,  and  40  dur-  JIose..  40 

ing  the  Philistine  servitude.  This  To  the  divi- )  , 
leaves  9  years  to  be  distributed  sjon  of  lancU<  '" 

T  '      i  *  T   T  'vl'lg*,         ...        83 

among     .Joshua,     the    elders,     and  

Samuel,     an     incongruously    short  13° 

period,  when  we  consider  that  Eli  was  "very  old"  at 
the  time  of  Samuel's  extreme  youth,  not  to  say  infancy, 
and  that  Samuel  himself  was  "old''  before  he  associated 
his  sons  in  office  with  himself,  1  Sa.  ii.  22;  viii.  i.  His  only 
plan  of  escape  from  this  will  be  noticed  afterwards. 

Tins  scheme  i-  therefore  not  workable,  even  if  its 
suppositions  could  be  conceded.  Of  these  the  only  one 
for  which  something  may  be  said,  is  that  the  Philistine 
oppression  in  the  days  of  Samson  was  contemporaneous 
with  the  Ammonite  oppression  in  the  days  of  Jephthah. 
But  there  is  nothing  in  the  book  of  Judges  to  warrant 
t'ue  supposition  that  the  national  unity  was  completely 
broken  up.  so  that  there  were  ever  two  independent 
jud.es  ruHu.  ditt'eivnt  'parts  of  Israel:  such  a  schism 
first  appeared  in  the  days  of  Islibosheth  and  Jeroboam, 
and  then  our  attention  is  strongly  called  to  it.  The 
Ammonite  oppression  i.-  distinctly  stated  to  have  ex 
tended  far  beyond  the  eastern  tribes,  into  Judah  and 
Benjamin  and  Ephraim,  all  being  included  in  that 
"Israel  which  they  oppressed."  And  there  is  nothing 
in  the  history  which  siiuuests  the  restriction  of  Jeph 
thah's  jurisdiction  to  the  ea.-t  of  Jordan.  On  the  con- 
trarv.  Mi/peh  of  (.'dead.  ch.  \i.  -".>,  seems  to  be  distin 
guished  from  Mi/qieh,  simply  so  called,  where  he  took 
up  his  house,  ier.  ."I,  where  he  uttered  all  his  words 
before  the  Lord,  vi-r.  11,  and  where  the  children  of  Israel 
had  as.-einblcd  themselves  together  and  encamped, 
oh  x  17;  and  it  will  be  difficult  to  assign  a  reason  for 
tiiinkin-  that  this  was  not  the  Mizpeh  in  Benjamin, 
where  at  ether  times  the  p.  ople  of  the  Lord  were  used 
to  meet  in  those  day.-,  ch.  xx.  1;  1  Sa  vii.  5,6;  x.  17.  Jeph 
thah's  successors,  whose  rule  must  also  be  made  con 
temporary  with  the  Philistine  oppression  during  40 
years,  had  no  special  connection  whatever  with  the 
ea-tern  trih'-s.  Ib/m  belonged  to  Bethlehem,  and 
wa.-  buried  there;  I-'.lon  stood  in  the  same  relation  to 
the  tribe  of  /ebuloii.  and  Abdon  t«  Pirathon,  in  the 
land  of  Ephraim.  So  far  as  we  know,  these  are  fail- 
specimens  of  the'  con  IK  ctions  which  the  jud-jes  had  with 
the  did'erent  localities  of  the  land  of  l-rael;  and  there 
i-  no  u'l'ound  for  restricting  the  rule  of  one  of  them 
more  than  of  another  to  a  part  of  the  land.  We  are 
pretty  sure  that  this  was  not  the  case  with  Deborah  and 
Barak,  nor  with  Gideon,  nor.  certainly,  with  Samuel — 
Why  imagine  it  with  any  of  the  rest?  What  time 
could  be  suggested  le-s  likely  for  such  a  revolution  in 
the  constitution  of  Israel,  than  the  close  of  5">  years  of 
peaceful  government,  under  two  successive  judges,  in 
whose  administration  there  was  so  little  to  record  for 
the  instruction  of  po-terity  ?  Or  if  there  had  been 
a  threatening  of  such  disintegration  of  the  common 
wealth,  would  it  not  be  prevented  by  the  nomina 
tion  of  the  high-priest  Eli  to  the  office  of  judge?  Yet 
that  other  supposition  of  Eli's  last  20  years  falling 
under  the  first  20  of  the  Philistines,  compels  us  to 
suppose  that  his  first  20  were  contemporaneous  with 
Jair's  government,  down  to  whose  death  Keil  admits 
that  there  is  no  trace  of  division:  hence  he  is  driven  to 
the  desperate  resource  of  denying  that  Eli  was  a  judge 
at  all,  except  in  the  sense  in  which  every  high-priest 
miffht  be  called  bv  this  name.  But  had  Eli  been  only 


.IUDGES,   BOOK  OF  £ 

a  judge  during  the  Philistine  servitude,  \ve  should  ex 
pect  this  to  be  stated,  as  in  Samson's  case.    Neither  is  it 
easily  credible  that  four  judges,  Jephthah.  Ilwan,  Elon, 
and  Ahdon,  should  rule  the  eastern  tribes  in   uninter 
rupted  succession,  without  attempting  to  drive  out  the 
Philistines,    and    support    Samson    in    his    marvellous 
struggle.      Or.  if  there  be  nice  accuracy  in  Kcil's  dates, 
would  the  eastern  tribes  keep  up  a  disastrous  schism 
by  electing  a  judge  in  opposition   to  Samuel  the  year 
after  his  glorious  victory  over  the  Philistines,  and  his 
investiture  with  the  office  of  judge  (  and  would  the  per 
son  chosen  to  rival  Samuel  belong  to  the  same  terri 
torial  division,    the   tribe   of   Ephraim,    and   lie  buried 
there  a  few  miles  from  the  spot  where   Samuel  resided 
and  judged  the  people  ?   And  it  is  utterly  incredible  that 
Jephthah  should  engage  in  such  a  bloody  civil  war  with 
Ephraim  as  he  did,  at  the  very  time  that  the  Philistines 
were  unmolested  in  their  rule  over   Israel;   \\herea.-  his 
conduct  is  in  the  main  justifiable,  though  probably  too 
severe,  if  lie  was  the  judge  appointed  by  God  over  the 
people  of   Israel   whom   he   had  saved.      ]t  is   utterly 
incongruous   to   imagine   that   the    children    of    Israel 
"lamented   after  the   Lord."   the   very  twenty   years 
of  Samson's  judging  Israel  by  his  unsupported  efforts, 
during  the  whole  of  which  the  people  looked  on  with 
indifference   or  positive   hostility.       And    finally,    the 
identification  of  the  Philistine  oppression  in  Judges  and 
first  Samuel  is  altogether  without  warrant.      The  servi 
tude  mentioned  in  Judges  came  to  an  end  by  Samson's 
heroic  death :   he  thus  achieved  the   liberation  of  his 
country,  for  which  he   had  striven  in  vain  during  his 
life.     The   people  naturally  turned  to  the  high-priest 
Eli,  and  made  him  their  judge  in  this  remarkable  con 
juncture,    as   has   been   already   explained.       And   the 
period  of  anarchy,  which  was  terminated  by  Samuel's 
victory  over  the  Philistines,  had  commenced  when  the 
Philistines  gained   their  great  victory  over  Israel,  on 
which  occasion  Eli  died.      By  a  process  of  extreme  com 
pression,  Keil  is  forced  to  crowd  into  the  same  40  years 
the  last  half  of  Eli's  office,  the  whole  of  Samson  s,  and 
the  20  years  of  "all  Israel"   lamenting  after  the  Lord, 
which   preceded   Samuel's   victory.     The   only  one   of 
these  three  events  which  Scripture  places  in  this  period 
is  Samson's  administration:  and  it  is  improbable  that 
on  the  one  hand  he  would  have  fallen  into  such  grievous 
sins  as  he  did,  and  that  on  the  other  hand  the  people 
would   have   so  ill  supported  him,  if  that  period  had 
been  one  of  generally  prevailing  penitence  under  the 
ministry  of  Samuel.     In  a  sentence,  Keil  sacrifices  the 
order  of  history  in  the  book  of  Judges,  and  leaves  it 
without  the  natural  termination  which  we  have  pre 
sented  in  the  analysis  of  the  book,  while  he  transforms 
a   period   of   anarchy  into   a   regular  servitude   to   the 
Philistines,  in  order  to  crush  the   events  within  the 
available  portion  of  the  480  years,  which,  after  all,  can 
not  be  done:  granting  all  his  suppositions,  9  years  can 
not  be  the  time  of  Samuel's  rule  and   that  of  Joshua 
and  the  elders,  after  the  division  of  the  land  of  Canaan. 
Moses,  .    40      And  finally,  the  scheme  stands  in  marked 

Judges,    4oO      contradiction  to  Paul's  chronologv.  which 
Kings,   .     bo  ,  .,  Oi/ 

au  the  very  least  implies  573  years,  as  in 

5i  3      the  margin,  and  probably  a  considerably 
Linger  time. 

To  escape  from  this  difficulty  recourse  has  been  had 
to  a  various  reading  in  the  book  of  Acts,  as  if  Paul 
said,  "when  he  had  destroyed  seven  nations  in  the 
land  of  Canaan,  he  divided  their  land  to  them  by  lot. 


JUDGES,   BOOK  OF 

iu  about  450  years;  and  after  that  he  gave  them 
judges  until  Samuel  the  prophet."  This  reading  has 
the  support  of  our  four  oldest  manuscripts  and  of  the 
Vulgate,  and  it  has  been  adopted  by  Lachmaun.  But 
the  various  readings  of  the  passage  are  in  such  a  form 
as  suggests  that  there  had  been  tampering  with  the  text 
by  the  scribes,  plainly  for  the  very  reason  that  they 
felt  the  chronological  difficulty:  and  no  one  would  have- 
altered  the  text  into  the  present  form,  for  which  there 
is  the  authority  of  the  versions  generally,  and  of  the 
fathers  who  quote  it,  so  as  to  create  a  difficulty  for 
themselves.  And  the  sense  is  very  unsatisfactory,  the 
450  years  being  then  understood  to  run  from  the"  birth 
of  Isaac  to  the  division  of  the  land,  a  computation  for 
which  no  reason  can  be  given,  and  which  ill  agrees 
with  the  other  statements  of  time  in  the  context,  where 
there  is  surely  a  chronological  sequence.  Of  course  it 
would  also  compel  us  to  suppose  that  430  years  were 
not  ^pent  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  but  only  half  as  much; 
an  opinion  certainly  prevalent  from  an  early  period  in 
the  Christian  church,  owing  to  a  n  adinir  of  the  Sep- 
tuagint,  but  which  is  doubtful,  to  say  the  least,  while 
it  is  now  most  commonly  abandoned  by  both  critics 
and  chronologists,  including  Keil  himself. 

In  this  extremity  there  seems  no  remedy  but  that 
last  resort,  the  conjecture  of  a  corruption.  Thenius, 
one  of  the  latest  commentators  on  1  Kings  vi.  1.  agrees 
with  the  majority  of  living  Hebrew  scholars,  in  up 
holding  the  integrity  of  the  number  480  years.  Appa 
rently  he  attaches  no  weight  to  the  apostle's  testimony, 
except  as  a  testimony  to  the  amount  of  years  deducible 
from  the  detailed  history  of  the  judges ;  but  as  he  feels  that 
the  480  years  do  not  harmonize  with  these  details,  and 
that  combinations  like  Keil's  are  more  arbitrary  and 
violent  than  any  supposition  of  a  clerical  error,  he  cuts 
down  some  of  the  long  periods  towards  the  beginning 
of  the  history,  since  he  thinks  that  we  have  round  and 
exaggerated  numbers  until  the  time  of  Abimelech.  But 
it  is  a  milder  remedy  to  suppose  an  error  in  the  one 
number  480  than  in  these  repeated  instances,  as  he 
does.  And  besides,  Keil  preserves  the  period  of  300 
years  in  which  Jephthah  said  the  Ammonites  had  not 
tried  to  recover  the  land  from  Israel,  eh.  xi.  20,  which 
Thenius  is  forced  to  reduce  to  266  years.  He  says, 
indeed,  that  Jephthah's  was  a  statement  which  one  was 
entitled  to  make  by  a  little  boastful  exaggeration;  but 
this  defence  only  betrays  his  ignorance  of  Jephthah's 
spirit,  and  of  the  duty  of  God's  servants.  The  right 
view  unquestionably  is,  that  Jephthah  would  under 
state  rather  than  overstate  his  case,  which  was  abun 
dantly  strong  after  every  imaginable  deduction. 

If  critical  conjecture  be  unavoidable  here,  as  we  be 
lieve  it  to  be  (Bunsen  has  no  hesitation  m  cutting- 
down  the  period  of  the  judges  to  187  years),  the  choice 
must  lie  between  the  480  years  in  Kings  and  the  450 
in  Acts.  Keil  indeed  indulges  in  the  conjecture  that 
Saul's  reign  was  much  less  than  40  years,  perhaps  only 
half  as  much,  and  thus  he  finds  room  for  Samuel's 
administration.  But  this  is  to  give  up  his  case :  if 
the  40  be  a  corrupt  number,  why  not  the  480?  As 
suming  then  that  the  error  lies  either  in  Kings  or  in 
Acts,  some  of  our  older  writers  followed  the  sugges 
tions  of  Luther  and  Beza,  and  thought  the  error  might 
be  in  the  latter :  but  it  might  more  easily  creep  into 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  than  into  the  Greek;  and  the 
longer  period  is  demanded  by  the  implicit  testimony 
of  the  book  of  Judges  itself.  There  are  some  slight 


JUDGES.  BOOK  OF 


JUDGES.  BOOK  or 


indications  either  of  4*0  being  an  erroneous  writing 
for  a  larger  number,  or  of  the  whole  clause  "  in  the  four 
hundred  and  eightieth  year  after  the  children  of  Israel 
were  come  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt"  being  a  marginal 
note  which  hail  crept  into  the  text.  For  the  first  trace  of 
a  reference  to  it  is  in  the  (.'hruiticun  of  Eusebius.  written 
about  A.D.  :_i25.  while  in  other  works  of  his  he  ex 
pressly  draws  out  a  chronology  on  the  longer  basis,  as 
had  been  done  by  all  the  earlier  Christian  chronologers 
from  the  time  of  Theophilus.  A.U.  180.  without  a  hint 
of  any  difficulty  such  as  this  testimony  would  ob 
viously  have  created.  Next,  the  text  is  quoted  bv 
Origen  (.flourished  A.D.  2:>ih  without  this  clause.  And 
further,  Jo.-ephus  was  entirely  ignorant  of  it.  for  in  his 
history  he  also  refers  to  this  text  very  plainly,  and 
yet  his  chronology  contradicts  the  short  reckoning. 
There  are.  indeed,  some  difficulties  about  tin-  chrono 
logy  of  Jos.-phus.  furnishing  evidence  either  that  there 
are  clerical  errors  in  his  numbers,  or  that  he  fluctu 
ated  coii.-ielcrablv  in  his  calculations,  owing  to  tin-  ab 
sence-  of  any  explicit  statement  in  the  Old  Testann-nt. 
except  what  i.-  deduciblc  from  the  details  of  this  book 
of  Judges.  That  such  fluctuations  did  exist  we  know, 
because  some  i-arly  fathers  erroneously)  supposed  that 
Sain-on  judge-el  Israel  2"  years  nioiv.  from  a  com 
parison  of  ch.  xv.  2n  and  xvi.  :',  1 .  and  made  the  term 
of  servitudes  and  administration  by  judg.  -  to  be  -lln 
years  instead  of  :'/.<«  ;  and  some  overlooked  tin-  2n 
years  of  anarchy,  or  included  Samuel's  administration 
within  the  In  years  of  Saul.  lint  tin-  differences  in 
Josephus  range  from  .",;cj  years  (Antiquities,  vii.  3,  2;  viii. 
3,1;  and  x  (-,  51  to  '112  (Api.m,  ii.  •_';  Antiquities,  xx.il,  l,  perhaps 
too  ix  11,  i,  if  tl  .  and  to  i  ;•_'!,  which 

Dr.  Hales  .1, -dace-  from  him  (Jewish  War,  vi.  m,  0  All  of 
these  are.  however,  obviously  based  upon  tin- same  prin 
ciple  a- tin-  l.">n  years  of  Judges  .  strictly  so  called)  in  Acts. 
and  furnish  evidence  that  this  wa-  the  r.  e-.-iv.  d  calcula 
tion  annm-_  the-  Jews  about  the-  time  .,f  our  Lord,  and 
that  it  obtained  deliberate  sanction  from  the  apostle 
Paul.  The  de-tail-  as  given  by  J.i-t-phus  himself  amount 
to  1 1 o^i ;  a  ml  w  ith  the  insertion  of  the  2"  years'  anarchy, 
and  the  subtraction  of  1  y.-ar  addeel  unauthori/edlv 
for  Shamgar,  his  reckoning  of  tin-  whole-  period  from 
tin-  ex.  "In-  to  the  building  of  the  temple  w  ..nld  be  as 
follows,  and  may  perhaps  be  adoptcel  hv  us  as  the 
in-ai'e •-(  approximation  to  exact  truth.  Alongside  of  it 
we  place  tin-  somewhat  shorter  chronology  of  Clement 
of  Alexandria  i  flourish,  d  A.D.  I'.'l  i.  as  gat  In -red  by  Clin 
ton  from  his  details,  whose'  allowance  of  only  2U  years 
to  Saul  is  attributable  to  a  various  reading-  in  the  Se-p- 
tuagint,  ami  iAln.se  sum  of  ~>~~,  mav  have  been  fa\oun  d 
by  its  u/i//arc/i/  nearness  to  tin-  numbers  mentioned  in 
Acts,  though  Josephus  rmllii  conn-s  closer  to  the 
reckoning  tin -re: 

I'l.KMKVT.  JosKI'HUS 

Moses.  .  .     .       40 in 

Joshua .     .       -_'7     .     .     .  .      25)     .., 

The  Fl.lers IS  f 

The  servitudes  and  times  of  deliver-  /  ,     . 
uncein  the  b,,,,k  of  Ju.k'.-s,         )  6' 

Eli, ".      .      .       -40  ....      40  '4 

Captivity  or  Anarchy, 20  I 

Samuel  alone y 1- 

.  i  with  Samuel,  .      .      .  Is )     ,, 

•ul  ,  alone 2  i"    ' 

Davi.l -Hi     .      .      . 

Solomon,  till  the  building  of  the  i      . 
temple  began,  I 


is  > 

'2-2  r 


Lastly,   on   this   subject   it   may    be   added    that   the 


older  critics  were  justly  suspicious  of  all  attempts  at 
tampering  with  the  text  of  Scripture,  and  would  rather 
resort  to  any  explanation,  however  forced,  than  multi 
ply  those  conjectures  in  which  many  of  their  successors 
have  prodigally  indulged.  Accordingly,  while  some 
Christian  critics  adopted  the  Masoretic  scheme  of  in 
cluding  the  servitudes  within  the  administration  of  the 
judges,  so  as  to  save  the  credit  of  this  number.  4SU 
years;  others,  like  I'emoiiius,  aimed  at  the  same  ob 
ject  by  the  equally  inadmissible  scheme  of  kactnij  the 
years  of  servitude  unt  of  an'ouut  altogether,  as  if  these 
periods  of  subjection  to  a  heathen  yoke  \\ere  not 
worthy  to  be  mentioned  in  tin-  annals  of  God's  people, 
who  "were  never  in  bondage  to  any  man."  These 
servitudes  lasted  111  years:  and  thus  they  obtained  in 
:dl  1s"  •  1  1  1  -""'I'l  y.-ars.  that  is  substantially  the  592 
of  Josephus'  shortest  reckoning.  This  cannot  be  ac 
cepted  a.-  a  legitimate  method  of  calculating:  yet  it 
would  not  surprise  us  should  a  notion  of  this  sort  have 
led  to  the  Jewish  reckoning  of  (MI  years,  which  when 
once  se.t  down  as  a  marginal  gloss,  might  readily  pass 
into  the  body  of  the  text. 

('iiiti/.  -  The  attempt  has  been  made  to  cut  this  book 
up  into  shred.-,  more  or  less  minute,  according  to  the 
taste  of  the  critic.  In  general,  however,  there  is  an 
inclination  to  admit  the  unity  of  the  main  bod\  of  the 
history.  \\'e  think  that  the  analysis  of  it  which  we 
have  gi\eii  establishes  that  unity  beyond  all  question, 
especially  when  the  natural  chronological  order  is  left 
umlistigured  by  attempts  to  reconcile  it  with  the  short 
ened  .Masoivtic  period  of  4su  years  from  Moses  to 
Solomon.  We  see  the  working  of  the  theocracy  from 
tin-  tinn-  that  that  generation  died  out  which  had  been 
trained  to  faith  and  obedience-  in  the  wilderness,  and 
hail  experienced  the  truth  and  goodness  of  God  as  they 
took  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  down  to  that 
generation  which  was  so  sunken  as  to  h-a\<  Samson, 
tin  last  judge  who  had  not  tin-  additional  support  of 
the  high  priesthood  or  the  prophetical  office,  to  struggle 
single-handed  with  tin-  em-mv:  and  here  the  narrative 
is  concluded  by  tin.-  i/ml/i  of  *<un.*o/i.  which  was  God's 
nit  ans  of  accomplishing  what  the  liri.i  of  previous  judges 
had  failed  to  accomplish.  The  secret  influences  which 
had  been  at  work  all  the  time-  of  tin-  judges,  eating  out 
tin-  In-art  of  religion  ami  patriot  ism,  an  \  hen  exemplified 
in  tile  details  of  the  last  five  chapters.  These  might 
have  been  placed  at  the  coinnn -nceineiit .  in  their  chro 
nological  position,  for  the  early  date-  is  undoubted: 
since-  I'hinehas  the  sou  of  Klca/ar  was  high-priest  dur 
ing  the  time  of  the  civil  war  with  I'.eiijalnin.  <h.  xx.  28; 
and  there  are  not  wanting  good  reasons  for  suspecting 
that  the  Levite  who  became  priest  at  Dan  was  the 
grandson,  not  of  Manasseh.  hut  of  Moses,  ch.  xviii.  :w. 
But  if  these  long  accounts  had  been  introduced  in  their 
chronological  place,  they  would  have  interrupted  the 
close  connection  which  the  writer  plainly  wished  to 
render  prominent  between  his  general  statement  of 
the  course  of  rebellion  ami  recovery  by  saviours  whom 
God  raised  up,  ch.  ii.  n-ifi,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  evidence  of  this  in  the  particulars  which  im 
mediately  follow.  The  unity  of  the  book  and  the 
credibility  of  its  statements  here  confirm  one  another. 
It  is  according  to  the  general  principles  of  administra 
tion  by  God  in  his  church,  that  repeated  declensions 
should,  on  the  whole  and  at  the  end,  leave  the  guilty 
community  lower  than  it  was  at  first,  in  spite  of  revi 
vals  which  retarded  the  mischief  in  some  measure  :  as 


JTDGES,  BOOK  OF 


1000 


JTDGES,  BOOK  OF 


it  is  also  in  accordance  with  his  way  of  dealing,  that 
the  marvellous  works  of  Samson  should  come  in  towards 
the  end  of  that  downward  course,  to  prove  that  the 
Lord  was  still  the  .salvation  of  Israel,  if  any  remnant, 
however  small,  were  trusting  in  him.  And  the  infu 
sion  of  new  grace  and  strength,  from  time  of  time,  by 
the  special  interposition  of  his  Son  and  his  Spirit,  is 
analogous  to  his  work  all  through  the  period  of  the 
Old  Testament  economy.  If  we  may  cling  to  that 
ancient  interpretation  of  the  obscure  name  Bedan,  in 
Samuel's  parting  speech  to  the  people,  1  S:i.  xii.  c-n,  that 
it  is  Samson  (namely  Ben-dan,  "ho  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan,"  which  is  as  likely  as  the  later  suppositions  that 
it  is  a  corruption  for  Barak  or  Abdori),  we  should 
have  a  striking  confirmation  of  the  unity  of  the  book, 
and  of  the  division  into  periods  which  we  have  pre 
sented.  Samuel  speaks  like  that  old  prophet  in  the 
critical  period  just  before  Gideon  arose,  "It  is  the 
Lord  that  advanced  Moses  and  Aaron,  and  that  brought 
your  fathers  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.  And  when 
they  forgat  the  Lord  their  God,  he  sold  them  into 
the  hand  of  Sisera  captain  of  the  host  of  Hazor,  and 
into  the  hand  of  the  Philistines,  and  into  the  hand  of 
the  king  of  Moab;  and  they  fought  against  them."  All 
these  belong  to  the  first  period,  and  deliverance  was 
given  by  Deborah  and  Barak,  by  Shamgar  and  by 
Ehud :  Othniel's  is  not  mentioned,  as  having  to  do  with 
a  distant  nation,  from  whom  Israel  did  not  suffer  any 
more  for  centuries  after  Samuel's  time,  and  far  beyond 
the  horizon  of  Israelitish  history  at  the  time  when  he 
was  speaking.  ' '  And  they  cried  unto  the  Lord,  and 
said,  We  have  sinned,  because  we  have  forsaken  the 
Lord,  and  have  served  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth:  but  now 
deliver  us  out  of  the  hand  of  our  enemies,,  and  we  will 
serve  thee.  And  the  Lord  sent  Jerubbaal,  and  Be 
dan,  and  J  eplithah,  and  Samuel,  and  delivered  you  out 
of  the  hand  of  your  enemies  on  every  side,  and  ye 
dwelled  safe.''  All  the  enemies  of  the  first  period, 
except  Othniel's,  have  been  referred  to,  because  that 
first  period  was  an  epitome  and  representation  of  all 
that  followed.  But  only  one  judge  is  named  for  each 
succeeding  period,  since  each  of  them  had  only  a  single 
servitude,  and  the  three  persons  are  named  whom  the 
Spirit  of  God  raised  up,  Jerubbaal  or  Gideon,  Bedan  or 
Samson,  and  Jephthah;  while  Samuel  cannot  but  add 
his  own  name,  as  that  of  the  man  who  was  filled  with 
the  Spirit,  and  raised  up  in  a  succeeding  period  to  do  a 
work  for  which  others  would  have  been  insufficient. 
This  argument,  however,  we  do  not  press,  because  there 
really  is  no  certainty  as  to  Bedan. 

The  attacks  upon  the  unity  of  the  book  are  rested 
on  very  trifling  grounds.  The  chief  one  is  the  exist 
ence  of  this  appendix,  though  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  the 
two  great  reasons  for  this  part  of  the  book  assuming 
such  a  form:  the  one,  that  the  historical  development 
according  to  plan  was  not  to  be  interrupted;  the  other, 
that  the  two  events  which  it  narrates  are  to  be  looked 
on  less  as  single  events  then  as  permanent  influences. 
The  permanence  of  the  worship  at  Dan  is  expressly 
mentioned,  ch.  xviii.  30,  31,  and  "  the  captivity  of  the  land" 
for  the  twenty  years  before  Samuel  assumed  office,  is 
traced  to  it  with  tolerable  distinctness.  The  permanence 
of  the  moral  evil  which  came  out  at  Gibeah  is  not  so 
plainly  intimated:  on  the  contrary  it  might  have  been 
supposed  to  be  eradicated  by  the  vengeance  taken  on 
Benjamin.  Yet  the  evil  to  be  found  in  the  whole 
tribes  is  indicated  by  their  share  in  the  terrible  chas 


tisement;  and  there  is  a  hint  of  the  continuance  of 
some  equally  potent  mischievous  influence,  in  the  simi 
lar  slaughter  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  by  Jephthah. 
And  the  prophet  Hosea  in  so  many  words  informs  us 
that  the  days  of  Gibeah  never  ceased  in  Israel,  and 
that  the  root  of  the  evil  had  not  been  taken  away, 
Ho.  ix.  <),  x.  9.  There  have  been  indeed  some  very  unsuc 
cessful  efforts  to  establish  a  difference  of  the  words  in 
use  and  the  style  of  composition  in  the  appendix  and 
in  the  body  of  the  book;  but  there  has  been  little  ap 
pearance  of  success  in  the  undertaking.  And  even 
these  objectors  have  frequently  admitted  a  resemblance 
and  unity  between  the  appendix  and  the  introduction, 
on  account  of  which  some  of  them  have  gone  so  far  as 
to  say  that  both  these  may  belong  to  a  later  editor, 
who  prefixed  and  annexed  his  new  materials  to  a  pre 
viously  existing  work,  the  history  of  the  judges  strictly 
so  called.  Such  hypotheses  are  not  worthy  of  refuta 
tion;  and  in  truth  ''  the  book  of  Judges,"  in  their  view 
of  it,  would  be  a  miserable  fragment,  without  conclu 
sion,  and,  still  stranger,  without  beginning,  a  worthy 
subject  for  investigation  by  sceptical  critics.  The  at 
tempts  to  discover  contradictions  in  the  book  have  also 
siu'iialty  failed. 

Di.it>>  of  composition,  authorship,  d-c. — On  these  sub 
jects  we  can  say  very  little;  though  a  certain  class  of 
writers  have  run  riot  in  speculations  on  sources,  writ 
ten  as  well  as  traditional,  and  on  the  blending  of  ma 
terials  by  the  editors.  On  such  ground  we  shall  not 
tread.  Yet  on  the  one  hand  the  date  of  composition 
could  not  be  earlier  than  the  end  of  that  servitude  to 
the  Philistines  which  is  understood  to  have  terminated 
at  the  death  of  Samson.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  ground  for  thinking  that  it  must  have  been 
written  before  David  took  Jerusalem  and  expelled  the 
Jebusites,  at  the  beginning  of  Ids  reign  over  all  Israel, 
2Sa.  v.  fi;  for  it  is  said,  "And  the  children  of  Ben 
jamin  did  not  drive  out  the  Jebusites  that  inhabited 
!  Jerusalem;  but  the  Jebusites  dwell  with  the  children  of 
•  Benjamin  in  Jerusalem  unto  this  day,"  ch.  i.  21.  More 
over,  Tyre  is  not  mentioned,  while  Zidon  is  named  as 
the  city  of  those  parts  which  was  likely  to  oppress  ihe 
Israelites  or  to  protect  the  Canaanite  remnants,  ch.  x.  V2; 
i  xviii.  7;  an  argument  arises  from  this  fact  for  the  antiquity 
:  of  the  book,  similar  to  one  in  favour  of  the  antiquity  of 
j  the  book  of  Joshua.  So  also,  Asher  is  blamed  for  not 
j  driving  out  the  people  of  Zidon,  ch.  i.  si,  which  refers  to 
a  state  of  feeling  that  must  have  been  altered  when  the 
people  of  Tyre  and  Zidon  became  allies  of  David  and 
Solomon.  Yet  it  is  likely  that  the  kingdom  was  set  up, 
and  that  the  benefits  of  settled  government  were  being 
felt,  owing  to  the  repeated  statement,  "  In  those  days, 
when  there  was  no  king  in  Israel.''  ch.  xviii.  1;  xix.  1, 
,  which  occurs  with  the  addition  that  "  every  man  did 
that  which  was  right  in  his  own  eyes."  ch.  xvii.  C;  xxi.  fo. 
From  these  marks  it  is  likely  that  the  book  was  written 
in  the  reign  of  Saul,  or  the  early  part  of  David's.  But 
we  cannot  attach  any  great  confidence  to  the  opinion 
of  the  Talmudists  that  Samuel  \vas  the  author.  He 
may  have  been  ;  and  excellent  scholars  down  to  our 
own  time  think  that  he  was.  However,  it  is  enough  to 
know  that  in  the  schools  of  the  prophets  which  Samuel 
organized,  there  were  likely  to  be  many  instruments 
well  fitted,  under  the  guidance  of  God's  Spirit,  to  write 
this  history  of  their  nation,  in  that  modified  sense  in 
which  it  may  be  called  a  history,  as  we  explained  at 
the  beginning  of  this  article. 


JUDGES.   BOOK 


Lwald,  Stahelin,  and  other  critics  of  the  present 
day,  have  assigned  the  book  to  the  age  of  Asa  and 
Jehoshaphat,  in  accordance  with  an  elaborate  theory, 
which  embraces  the  whole  literary  history  of  the  Israel 
ites,  and  attributes  very  much  both  of  the  historical 
writing  and  of  tlie  Psalms  to  that  period.  But  we 
reject  the  theory  as  arbitrary,  unfounded,  and  against 
evidence,  to  a  lar^'e  extent  the  conscious  or  unconscious 
product  of  the  unsound  views  which  they  have  un 
happily  taken  of  the  Word  of  God:  while  we  gladly 
acknowledge  that  they  assume  much  hiuh'-r  •_- -round 
than  the  old  infidels  did,  who  were  profoundly  ignorant 
of  the  whole  subject.  The  solitary  proof  text  in  the 
book  of  Jud-vs  to  \\hich  t  Key  appeal  in  evidence  of 
late  composition,  i>  ch.  xviii.  :;o.  ;;].  "And  the«chil- 
di-.-n  of  Dan  set  up  the  graven  ima^e:  and  Jonathan. 
the  son  of  (J el-shorn,  the  son  ...f  Manage],,  he  and  his 
sons  were  priests  to  the  tribe  of  Dan.  until  the  day  of 
th'-  captivity  of  tin-  land.  And  they  set  them  up 
Mieah's  graven  imav.v.  which  lie  made,  all  th--  time 
that  the  house  of  God  was  in  Shiloh."  This  would 
carry  the-  compo-ition  down  as  late  as  the  tinn-  of  th.- 
captivity  of  the  two  tribes  in  I'.abvlon,  oral  least  of 
i  he  ten  tribe,  in  Assyria,  unless  it  could  have  ivfi  rence 
to  those  local  devastations  whii-h  are  r-eonh-d  in  1  Ki. 
xv.  -ju;  •_'  Ki.  xv.  '_'!':  and  as  there  are  not  many  critics 
who  have  as<i'ji ii-d  the  book  as  a  whole  to  the  age  of  the 
captivi'v.  they  make  these  two  abatement-;,  thai  th>- 
body  of  the  work  is  of  an  earlier  ori-in  than  the  appen 
dix,  and  that  even  the  appendix  may  have  been  written 
earlier,  though  it  continued  to  be  retouched  till  later 
times.  I '.ut  in  reply  to  this  line  of  argument  it  is  said, 
and  we  believe  with  justice,  that  th--  two  verses  explain 
one  other,  and  show  that  "  until  the  dav  of  tin-  capti 
vity  of  the  land"  is  intiiided  to  mark  the  limit  of  the 
period,  "  all  the  time  that  the  house  of  God  was  in 
Shiloh;'' as  in  this  article  the  ''captivity  of  tin 
lias  been  id.'initii-d  with  the  twenty  vear- aft.  r  Kli's 
death,  cspecia.ily  the  seven  months  that  the  ark  was  in 
the  hands  ,,f  'the  Philistines.  P.l.-ek  feels  this  so 
strongly  that  he  speak-  with  approval  of  Hoiibigaiit's 
conjectural  reading,  ''the  eaptivitv  of  the  ark."  And 
this  interpretation  is  continued  by  the  consideration 
that  David  and  Solomon  would  ct  rtainl.v  never  have 
tolerated  such  a  rival  schisinatical  worship  at  Dan,  at 
the  very  period  in  which  tln-y  were  u'.ithering  the 
people,  from  Dan  to  1',,-eivheba.  I"  \\  ni-ship  the  Lord  in 
Jerusalem,  to  \\hidi  they  carried  up  the  ark.  and  in 
which  they  built  the  tempi'-.  Neither  is  any  weight 
to  be  attributed  to  the  geographical  description  of 
Shiloh  in  ch.  xxi.  1±  I'.',  as  if  it  indicated  that  the 
author  must  have  been  a  foreigner:  such  an  inference 
is  a  mere  fancy. 

[Information  on  tlie  b<«jk  of  Judy-  in  general  U  u ell  bunmieil 
up  in  Keil's  Introduction  (Eiiil-ituiiri  in  dus  alte  T> .-'",,-  ,,t>  and 
— mixed  with  rationalist  vi.-ws  often  very  painfully— in  I)e 
Wette,  Bleek,  and  Dr.  David.-,  n;  .-ils.i  nnu-li  will  be  found  in  ih«- 
old  large  commentaries;  and  s-ome  sug-estive  thoughts,  witli  the 
usual  amount  of  learning,  caprice,  and  dogmatism,  in  Kwald  s 
history  (Gfschichte  tlr*  Volkas  hnirl),  vol.  ii.  p.  4t34 -oGi.  l-'or  t«" 
r-.-cent  German  commentaries,  painstaking  and  scholar-like,  «e 
are  indebted  to  Studer  (2d  edition — only  the  title  altered  from 
the  edition  of  1S:J5— 1842),  and  Bertheau  (lS4o);  the  latter  in 
eludes  also  Ruth,  and  forms  a  part  of  the  Kv.nge/afttet  £.c't/e- 
titc/tfs  Iliiiuibuch,  which  has  been  in  course  of  publication  for 
some  years,  and  is  now  completed.  But  the  views  expressed  by 
these  writers  are  often  very  reprehensible,  and  entirely  arbitrary. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  orthodox  commentary  edited  by  Keil 
and  Delitzsch  is  now  so  far  advanced  as  to  embrace  Judges,  Keil 
himself  being  the  commentator.  Information  upon  the  ehrono- 
VOL.  I. 


JUDITH 

Males'  Analysis  »f  <'/<,o,toto,,:,,,  vols.  i.  ii., 
ffelleniel,  i.  ;;ul,  <te. ;   also  in   Kuhioel's 
ii.,  from  whom  Me\er  Las  copied  pretty 
lews  of  the  general  character  of  tlio 

book,  rnd  its  p"sitii>n  in  the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  are,  to 
be  found  in  Hengstenberg  OH  the  Pentateuch  (Clark's  translation 
of  the  Ji<;/t,-a<i''),  vol.  ii.  p.  1-121,  tlie  Di.*ft,-tation  on  the  Pc-nta- 
tCMh  and  rh(  Time  t-f  th(  J,:'.lf/..-:\  [,-,.  e.  M.  D.] 

JUDGMENT-HALL.  This,  in  our  English  Bible, 
is  the  conniion,  though  not  the  uniform,  rendering  of 
the  Greek  Tr/mira'/xo!',  j,i-(i  farinm.  It  is  so  rendered  in 
•  In.  xviii.  -J>.  :;:/,;  xix.  u:  Ae.  xxiii.  :>5:  hut  in  Mat.  xxvii. 
27,  Mar.  xv.  1C.  ••  common-hall "  is  the  expression 
employed;  and  in  I'hi.  i.  1 :!.  the  term  '"palace"  is 
employed.  Theiv  appears  in  be  some  diversity  in  the 
New  Testament  use  of  tlie  original  word,  to  which 
nothing  altogether  similar  is  fonnil  in  classical  writers. 
Its  original  mi-ailing  v,as  that  of  the  general's  tent  in 
a  camp:  but  by  and  by  it  came  also  to  signify  the  house 
or  palace  "f  the  governor  of  a  province.  Herod,  though 
bearniu  the  name,  and  possessing  many  of  the  preroga 
tives  of  a  kin-,  vet  bein^r  still  subject  to  the  Romans, 
consequently  stood  in  a  certain  relation  to  the  governors 
of  Roman  provinces,  and  his  palace  in  Jerusalem  might 
not  unnaturally  1  e  called  a  pra-torium,  especially  after 
tin'  time  th.'t  it  came  to  be  occupied  by  the  Roman 
governors,  uho,  in  process  of  time,  took  the  place  of 
the  Hi-rod-;.  1'ilate  \\  as  the  provincial  governor  of 
•liulea  at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  death:  and  the  house 
he  occupied,  which  was  in  all  probability  the  palace  of 
Herod  though  some  doubt  tliisi.  \\a-iitlyenouuh  de 
signated  the  pra-torinm.  It  was  one  of  the  apartments 
of  that  in  which  our  Lord  appeared  before  him,  was 
examined,  and  condemned.  The  provincial 
e  u1  Caesarea  might,  in  like  manner,  be  called 
saiii'1  I'ame.  though  originally  a  palace  in  the 
sense  that  is.  as  built  and  occupied  b\  Ilcrodi: 
.  by  tin-  time  1'aul  appeared  there'  1» -fore  Felix 
tus.  the  palace  had  pa>-ed  Into  tlie  hands  of 
the  governor  for  the  time  beiu--.  As  applied,  however, 
to  some  domicile  in  Koine,  in  I'hi.  j.  1 ;;.  it  could  scarcely 
be  the  palace,  as  designating  the  residence  of  the  em 
peror,  that  was  meant,  but  either  the  pnetorian  camp, 
or.  as  is  mi-r.'  probable,  the  barracks  of  that  detach 
ment  of  the  pnetorian  guard  which  was  in  immediate 
attendance  mi  the  emperor  (-w  <'<>nyheare  ami  Howson 
i-h  s\vi  *  I'm  nothing  ijuite  certain  can  be  determined 
on  the  subject.  It  is  cl<  ar,  ho\\ever,  from  the  saluta- 
;  tion  sent  by  1'aul  from  those  of  Ca-sar's  household, 
I'hi.  iv.  •>•!.  that  the  pra-torium  In-  had  access  to  did  some 
how  briii',:  him  into  contact  with  persons  who  held  posi 
tions  in  the  domestic-  establishment  of  the  emperor. 
So  that  the  statement  in  the  Knglish  Bible,  that  the 
bonds  of  1'aul  had  become  manifest  in  all  the  palace, 
if  not  formally  correct,  conveys  a  sen-e  which  is  in 
substantial  conformity  with  the  truth  of  tilings. 

JU'DITH  [the  fern,  form  of  JrD.-i-rs,  Jc tress.]  1. 
One  of  the  wives  of  K-au,  the  daughter  of  Bceri  the 
\  Hittite,  who  bore  also  the  name  of  Aholibamah, 
(k-.  \\vi.  34;  xxxvi.  2.  Judith  appears  to  have  been  the 
original  name;  and  in  her  case  it  must  have  been  em 
ployed,  not  in  the  later  acquired  sense  of  Jewess,  but 
in  the  original  sense  of  "the  praised  one."  (See  for 
the  change  of  name  under  AHOLIBAMAH.) 

2.  Ji'DiTH.  The  only  other  person  in  ancient  He 
brew  story  bearing  this  name  beside  the  preceding,  is 
the  person,  whether  fabulous  or  real,  whose  history  and 
exploits  are  celebrated  in  the  apocryphal  book  JUDITH. 

12G 


JL'DITM 


According  L»  the  ac 
dant  i if  Simeon,  eh 
widow,  of  ..Mana.— , 


tohcr  country  in  n  time  of  peril,  and  her  duterinination  |  writers,  \vho  accept  tlie  Apocrypha  as  Scripture,  have 
to  rid  it  by  stratagem  from  the  hand  of  its  adversaries,  endeavoured  to  li.\  mi  particular  periods,  when  they 
issuing-  in  speedy  and  triumphant  success,  absorbed  in  f  think  the  events  narrated  may.  without  violation  of  the 
a  manner  all  other  grounds  of  merit,  and  rendered  her  ;  known  circumstances  of  the  time,  have  taken  place; 
the  glory  ef  her  age.  The  period  in  which  the  story  is  '  but  without  much  success,  or  e\vn  any  proper  agree- 
laid  is  not  very  precisely  indicated,  but  is  expre-sly  ment  among  themselves.  They  have  commonly  thrown 
said  to  have  been,  after  the  children  of  Israel  had  themselves  back  upon  the  times  preceding  the  Baby- 
"  newly  returned  from  the  eapi  ivity.  and  all  the  people  lonish  ca.ptivity,  and  have  supposed,  some  the  Nebu- 
ofJudea  were  lately  gathered  together,"  ch.iv. 3.  About  ohadiie/./.ar  of  Scripture,  others  Merodach-Baladan, 
this  time  a  Nebuchodouosor  is  said  to  have  reigned  in  others  ai>;ain  Esarhaddoji.  ,'tc..  to  be  the  Xebuehodo- 
grcat  power  and  splendour  in  Xine\ch.  while  also  nosor  who  is  represented  as  reigning  in  Nineveh.  Hut 
Arphaxad  reigned  over  the  Medes  in  Ecbatane.  He  the  narrative  itself,  which  so  explicitly  refers  t<>  the 
made  war  upon  Arphaxad,  took  his  capital  city,  and  :  return  from  Babylon,  and  represents  the  state  of  things 
sle'.\  him  \\iih  the  sword.  'I'iieii,  turning  his  regards  in.ludca  as  it  only  existed  subsequent  to  that  event, 

is  utterly  irreconcilable  with  any  such  hypothecs. 
Even  Jahn,  a  Catholic,  and  also  Movers,  admit  the  dif 
ficulties  to  be  insuperable  in  the  way  of  any  adequate 
historical  explanation,  and  regard  it  as  an  historical 
the  passages  shut  aga.in.-t  him,  and  the  mountain  tops  romance.  There  is  no  evidence  of  such  a  kingdom  of 
fortified.  Astonish. •([  at  this  resistance  by  a  compara-  Xineveh,  with  a  domain  so  extensive  at  once  toward  the 
tively  small  people,  Holofernes,  after  various  prelimin-  !  east  and  the  west  of  Asia,  having  ever  existed,  either 
ary  inquiries  and  movements,  determined  to  subdue  before  or  after  the  captivity  in  Babylon;  and  subse- 


touanl  the  west,  he  commanded  his  general,  Holofernes, 
to  u'o  forth  with  an  immense  army,  and  subdue  all 
under  his  sway.  Success  everywhere  crowned  his  arms 
till  he  came  to  the  hill  country  of  Judea,  where  he  found 


them,  and  for  that  purpose  took  possession  of  many  of 
the  heights,  and  encamped  before  Bethulia,  in  a  vallev 
with  a  copious  fountain.  The  cits-  was  bv  and  l>v 
reduced  to  the  greatest  straits,  and  was  on  the  point 
of  being  surrendered  by  its  governor,  when  Judith  con 
ceived  and  boldly  undertook  a  plan  of  rescue.  Without 
disclosing  the  nature  of  her  plan,  but  promising,  with 
the  help  of  God,  to  deliver  the  citv  in  five  days,  she 
was  allowed  to  leave  Bethulia.  taking  with  her  a  maid 
and  a  quantity  of  provisions.  Appearing  before  Holo 
fernes,  he  and  his  attendants  were  captivated  with  her 
beauty:  and  as  she  professed  to  have  left  Bctimlia.  lie- 
cause  she  saw  the  cause  was  hopeless — the  people  who 
would  have  been  invincible  if  they  had  remained  faith 
ful  to  God,  having,  by  their  profanation  of  sacred  things 
and  other  sins,  provoked  him  to  prepare  destruction 
for  them — she  met  with  a  welcome  reception,  and 
readily  obtained  what  she  sought—permission  to  abide 
in  the  camp,  and  to  go  out  every  night  for  prayer  and 
purification  to  the  fountain,  till  the  hour  of  vengeance 
should  corne.  When  that  time  came,  she  promised  to 
conduct  Holofernes  into  the  city,  and  afterwards  into 
Jerusalem  itself.  After  the  lapse  of  a  day  or  two, 
Holofernes,  being  taken  with  the  charms  of  J  udith, 
makes  a  splendid  entertainment  in  her  honour,  drunk 


to  excess  in  wine,  and  being  at  last  left  with  her  alone  spirit  certainly  opposed  to  the  general  teaching  of  Old 
in  the  tent,  she  seized  her  opportunity,  when  he  had  as  well  as  New  Testament  scripture,  and  incapable  of 
sunk  into  a  profound  sleep,  to  strike  off  his  head  with  :  being  embodied  in  a  heroic  story,  except  by  one  who 
his  falchion.  Hearing  off  the  head,  she  and  her  maid  had  much  more  regard  for  the  political,  than  the  moral 

and  religious,  elements  in  Judaism.  The  composition 
of  the  book  is  therefore  most  fitly  assigned  to  a  period 
shortly  before  the  Christian  era,  when  political  aims  in 

in  triumph  the  head  of  Holofernes.  The  people,  seeing  the  minds  of  many  became  too  predominant.  The 
the  advantage  that  had  been  gained  for  them  by  a  j  prior  existence  of  an  Aramaic  original  has  often  been 
woman's  prowess,  took  courage,  and  fell  next  day  on  questioned,  but  is  now  generally  believed  by  critics  (for 


went  forth  professedly  for  the  usual  purposes  of  devo 
tion,  hut  in  reality  with  the  design  of  stealing  away 
into  I'.cthulia,  where  she  soon  appeared  and  displayed 


the  Assyrians,  who,  on  account  of  what  bad   befallen 


example  by  De  Wette,  Fritzsche,  Vaihinger),  chiefly  on 


their  general,  were  seized  with  a  panic,  and  fled  from  the  ground  of  some  apparent  mistranslations  from  it 
the  country  disconcerted  and  routed.  Tlie  Jewish  '  in  the  Greek.  But  the  Greek  is  the  only  form  in  which 
people,  along  with  Judith,  assembled  in  Jerusalem  to  the  story  has  been  transmitted  to  later  times. 


quent  to  the  latter  event,  which  is  unquestionably  the 
era  contemplated  in  the  story,  there  is  conclusive  evi 
dence  of  the  relations  of  Assyria  and  the  surrounding 
countries  having  become  entirely  different.  Tip 
which,  in  other  respects  also,  is  full  of  improbabilities. 
must  therefore  be  assigned  to  the  category  of  fable. 

It  is  not  quite  easy,  even  on  the  supposition  of  its 
fabulous  character,  to  assign  adequate  reasons  for  its 
composition.  Some  luue  understood  it  to  be  an  allego 
rical  representation  of  the  Jewish  people,  widowed  as 
to  earthly  resources,  yet,  by  favour  with  God  and  man, 
prevailing  over  the  powers  of  the  world.  Were  it  so, 
this  would  not  relieve  the  fable  from  grave  moral  ob 
jections.  An  intelligent  Jew,  well  read  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  could  not  have  thought  of  setting  up  a 
Judith  as  a  proper  embodiment  of  female  heroism  and 
virtue.  Her  plan  of  procedure  is  marred  throughout 
with  hypocrisy  and  deceit:  she  even  prays  to  God  that 
he  would  prosper  her  deceit,  ch.  ix.  12,  and  praises  the 
cruelty  of  Simeon  in  slaying  the  Shechemites,  as  if  h>s 
deed  bore  on  it  the  sanction  of  Heaven,  though  -Jacob, 
the  father  of  Simeon,  had  consigned  it  in  the  name  of 
God  to  eternal  reprobation.  The  spirit  of  vengeance. 
resolute  in  its  aim,  unscrupulous  in  the  means  taken  to 
accomplish  it,  is  the  pervading  animus  of  the  story — a 


JULIA 


JUSTIFY 


JU'LIA,    a  Christian    female    at   Rome,    to    whom  j 
St.  Paul  sent  a  salutation,  llo.  xvi.  i;..      She  is  mentioned  \ 
along  with  Philologus.  to  whom  she  is  very  generally  j 
supposed    to    have    stood    in    some    near   relationship, 
though  of  what  sort  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining. 

JU'LIUS.  the  centurion  of  •'  Augustus'  band,"  who 
had  the  charge  of  conducting  Paul  to  Rome  from 
Caisarea.  and  by  whom  the  sacred  prisoner  was  treated 
courteously,  Ac.  xxvii.  1,3.  Why  the  band  with  whicli 
he  was  connected  should  have  borne  the  name  of 
Augustus,  is  not  known.  Wioseler.  Meyer,  and  others, 
suppose  it  to  have-  hf-n  so  cal!e<l  from  havinir  either 
done  some  special  service  to  the  emperor,  or  served  a> 
a  bodyguard.  I'.ut  this  can  only  he  si-t  down  as  con 
jecture. 

JUNIA.  or,  as  it  should  rather  be.  Ji'Ni  vs.  a  Chris- 
tian  rcsidiiiv,-  at  Rome,  wh.-n  St.  Paul's  epistle  to  the 
church  there  was  written,  and  whom  In-  salutes,  alouo- 
with  And  roi  liens,  a-  ''his  kin-men  and  fellow  -prison*:  rs, 
who  are  of  note  am-i:j  tliu  apostles,"  I  Hut 

tin-  relationship  is  not  more  closely  indi" 

JUNIPER.  The  lowly  plant,* allied  to  the  cypress 
lamilv.  t  '  which  tiii-  name  i*  given,  ai-d  which,  with 
its  pn.cmnbeiit  branches  an  1  aromatic  "  berries."  occurs 
so  abundantly  on  tin-  rocky  -oil  and  sandy  heath  of  our 
own  r  iinitn  .  is  al  o  r.  pri  -•  :.:. --i  in  •  Bui 

there  is  now  no  .loiibt    thai    thi    ~r'^    rnltln  ,n\  (S  \    Ki. 

;ix.  I.  i>;  .fob  xxx.  1.  and  1'-.  exx.  i.  is  th, •',.„;.</./ 
,  r/na,  n  white- blossomed  broom,  abundant  in 
Spain,  P.arhary.  Svria.  and  the  desert  oi  Sinai,  known 
in  our  shrubberies  a-  Spanish  broom,  and  amount  the 
Arabs  .-till  r.-:a:nin-_r  it-  scriptural  iiam.-  ritt'm.  "it 
was  under  this  tree  that  Llijah  sat  down  to  take  shelter 
from  the  'neat,  and  more  than  once  did  We  do  th.-  -am.-; 
for  some  of  these  shrub-  are. -.bushy  and  tall,  perhaps 
ei^lit  or  t.-n  feet  hi-jh.  Th.  v  f.  rmed  a  -ha. low-  some 
times  fr..m  the  heat,  sometimes  fr..m  the  wind,  and 
sometimes  from  the  rain,  both  for  man  and  beast.  It 
was  about  the  b.-st  shadow  the  desert  could  afford,  save 
when  we  could  ••;. -t  under  some  great  rock  or  -ha-jgv 
palm"  (Doiiur's  Sinai,  i>  iv-  'I'o  this  day  the  Pedawm 
of  t  hat  region  make  charcoal  of  the  wood,  and  a  capital 
charcoal  it  is.  eiowin--  int.n-elv,  and  illustrating  I'-. 
,  \\.  |.  Kv.-ii  without  the  cariioni/inu'  proce.-s,  few 
things  burn  inoiv  brilliantly  or  with  a  more  vehement 
heat,  than  this  kind  of  brushwood  the  dried  tw  ius  and 
larger  stems  of  the  broom.  it  is  more  diilicult  to  under 
stand  how  its  harsh  and  hitter  roots  could  be  eaten. 
As  the  Very  depth  of  poverty,  Job  de-eribe-  people  as 
c'.ittiun'  up  mallow  s  by  tin-  bu-he--.  and  rohthom-roots  for 
their  food,  .-h.  \x\.  i  \\etearthat  Dr.  W.M.Thomson's 
ingenious  conjecture  that  the  mallow-  were  the  fm id. 
and  the  broom-roots  the  fuel  employed  to  cook  them. 
is  scarce!  v  admissible.  Tin;  1/uul  ami  the  n.j..k.  i-.rt  iv  di.  1"); 
the  language  of  Job,  rightly  rendered  by  J)r.  S.  Lee, 
'•whose  bread  is  the  broom-root,1'  shows  that  these 
roots  were  eaten.  Compared  with  such  fare,  the  fern- 
roots  eaten  by  the  New  Zealanders  are  nutritious;  and 
the  cakes  of  saw-dust  formerly  devoured  by  the  Nor 
wegians  in  times  of  famine,  may  lie  deemed  a  "plea 
sant  bread; "  and  it  sets  in  the  strongest  light  the  misery 
of  these  poor  outcasts,  that  they  were  fain  to  appease 
the  fierceness  of  hunger  by  a  substitute  for  food  so 
worthless  and  distasteful. 

Approaching  the  borders  of  Palestine  by  the  'Wady- 
el- Kuril,  Dr.  Robinson  especially  notices  this  broom, 


which,  as  he  rightly  remarks,  must  be  the  same  plant 
which  the  Vulgate,  Luther,  and  the  English  version  have 
erroneously  rendered  a  ' '  juniper.' '  ''  This  is  the  largest 
and  most  conspicuous  shrub  of  these  deserts,  growing 
thickly  in  the  water-courses  and  valleys.  Our  Arabs 
always  selected  the  place  of  encampment  (if  possible)  in  a 
spot  where  it  grew,  in  order  to  be  sheltered  by  it  at  night 
from  the  wind;  and  during  the  day,  when  they  often 
went  on  in  advance  of  the  camels,  we  found  them  not 
unfrequently  sitting  or  sleeping  under  a  bush  of  i-ittm. 
to  protect  them  from  the  sun.  It  was  in  this  very 
desert,  a  day's  journey  from  P.eersheha,  that  the  pro 
phet  Klijah  lay  down  and  slept  beneath  the  same  shrub'' 
'  Researches,  i.  21CV  [.I.  H.I 

JU'PITER  [the  Latin  form  of  the  Creek  Zers],  the 
supreme  god  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  mythology — 
fa  i  li.T.  as  lie  was  very  <  if  ten  styled,  of  gods  and  men; 
u-ually  represented  as  seated  on  an  ivory  throne,  with 
a  sceptre  in  his  left  hand  and  a  thunderbolt  in  his  right. 
liYfcivnco  is  made  to  him  only  once  in  Scripture; 
nam.-ly.  in  connection  with  the  visit  of  Paul  and  Bar 
nabas  to  Lystra,  Ac.  xiv.  12.  Taking  tin  in  for  celestial 
•.;nt  of  the  cure  wrought  on  the  poor 
cripple,  the  people  et'  Lystra  called  Barnabas  Jupiter 
(heii)LT  the  more  diu'nitied  in  appearance  and  the  less 
tivi  of  the  two),  and  Paul  Mercury.  Jn  Jewish 
liistorv,  the  attempt  of  Antiochus  Kpiphanes  to  suit- 
plant  the  worship  of  Jehoxah  by  that  of  Jupiter  Olym- 
piiis,  was  one  main  cause  of  the  dreadful  sufferings  and 
heroic  strii'_r:_rles  related  in  the  books  of  the  .Maccabees. 

JUSTIFY,  JUSTIFICATION.  Two  words  of 
vi-rv  frequent  occurrence  in  Scripture-,  and  undoubtedly 
1  in  connection  with  matters  of  greatest  moment. 
\\  e  shall  tir-t  endeavour  to  e-tablish  the  precise  im 
port  of  the  words;  then  state  briefly  the  doctrinal 
truth  usua  d  by  them;  and  finally,  indicate 

chief  erroi  .  or  objections  by  which 

nipts  have  been  made,  whether  by  Protestant  or 
b-  ('  ilogians.  to  qualify  or  reject  the  truth. 

1.    .]/,•,!„ !,);/    of    tin     !'•••<!•<.      [Hob.    p-V,    p-nvn,  Or. 

o/',cuoi.j|.       The    Romanists    insist   on    the   etymological 
sense  (juitinii  fanri]  of  ///"/•///,'/  just  or  righteous,  with 
the  vi.-w    of   supportin-    their  doctrine  that  the  thing 
intended    i-   an    infusion,    and    not   an    imputation,    of 
righteousness      a    moral  and  not    a   l.-jal  chanu'e,   or  a 
i  han^e  of   character  and   not  of  condition  (lic.-lhmmn,  Ue 
e  argument  from  etymology  j. roves  no 
thing.      Or   if    it   prove  anything,    it   proves   too  much; 
tor  with  equal  reason  we  might  maintain   thai  glorify- 
in-'  and  ma-nifyiiiu'  Cod  are  to  be  understood  of  actu- 
aiiv  making  him  great  and   glorious,  instead  of  .simply 
,  declaring  that  he  is  so.      The  appeal   must  be  made  to 
the  meaning  or  use  of  the   original  terms.      They  are 
,  used  in  a  Icsral  or  forensic  sense:  and  denote  the  act  by 
which  the  judu'e.  sitting  in  the  forum  or  place  of  judg 
ment,  pronounces  that  the  party  arraigned  is  innocent. 
Hence  justification  is  opposed  to  condemnation,  and  is 
therefore  no  more  an  infusion  of   righteousness,  than 
condemnation  is  an   infusion  of  wickedness.      Ihe  fol 
lowing  passages  set  the  matter  at  rest,  in  so  far  as  the 
,  ( )ld  Testament  is  concerned  :  "  If  there  be  a  controversy 
among  men.   and   they  come  into  judgment  that  the 
:  judges  may  judtre  them,  they  shaft,  justify  the  righteous, 
j  and  condemn  the  wicked,"    De.  xxv.  i.      "He  that  jus- 
•  tnltth  the  wicked,  and   he  that  coiiddmuth    the  just, 
even    they  both   are  abomination    to    the    Lord,  '    Pr. 


JTHTIFY 


1 00 


JUSTIFY 


xvii.  is.  "  Woo  unto  them  which  justify  the  wicked 
for  reward,  and  take  away  the  righteousness  of  the 
righteous  from  him,"  Is.  v.  22,2:;.  ''Kilter  not  into 
judgment  with  thy  servant,  0  Lord;  for  in  thy  sight 
shall  no  man  living  l>o  justified,''  l's.  cxliii.  2.  We  have 
cited  tlu>c  passages  at  length,  ln'cause  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importune'.'  to  ascertain  precisely  the  proper 
use  of  the  word.  We  have  only  to  add  that  the  word 
occurs  upwards  of  forty  times  in  the  Old  Testament, 
but  not  once  in  any  conjugation  in  the  sense  of  making 
rii/hteonx  or  /iciii;/  made  rir/hteous.  Attempts,  indeed, 
liave  been  made  bv  Bellarinin,  Orotius  (introductory  An- 
iiot.  in  Epist.  adRomanos),  and  others,  to  fix  on  a  very 

fe\v     passages     that      seli<e.      Is.  liii.    11;    Da.   viii.  11;    xii.  2,3. 

An  examination  of  the  pas-au'es.  however,  will  con 
vince  the  inquirer  that  they  form  no  exception  to  the 
general  rule  or  use.  In  the  first  of  them  Christ  is  said 
to  justify  many,  and  to  justify  by  the  Icnowled'ie  of 
himself  &&  the  means  of  justification:  that  is,  "involving 
faith  and  a  self -appropriation  of  the  Messiah's  righteous 
ness."  It  is  vain  to  give  to  the  word  justifii  here 
the  sense  of  converting  to  the  true  religion  (Gesenius); 
because  the  forensic  sense  is  clear  from  the  entire  con 
text,  in  which  the  Messiah  appears,  not  as  a  teacher, 
but  as  a  priest  and  .sacrifice;  and  also  from  the  parallel 
expression,  '' tlieir  hiif/uit/es  fie  in  I/  iic/ir'  (.1.  A  Alex 
ander  in  loco).  In  the  second  passage,  instead  of  an  in 
timation  that  the  sanctuary  shall  be  r/e<tn.<ed  (Eng. 
trans.)  we  have,  if  we  maintain  the  uniform  sense  of 
the  Hebrew  word,  an  intimation  that  the  sanctuary 
should  then  be  rimlirati  d,  i.e.  from  the  long  oppro- 
bium  to  which  it  had  been  subjected  (Calvin);  and  we 
leave  any  one  to  judge  which  is  the  more  just  and 
appropriate  sense.  The  third  and  last  passage  refers 
simply  to  ministerial  or  instrumental  justification.  Min 
isters  and  others  may  be  said  to  justify  tlieir  converts 
(Kng.  trans.,  turn  many  to  righteousness)  in  the  strict 
legal  sense  of  that  term,  inasmuch  as  they  are  instru 
mental  in  bringing  them  to  God  who  justifies.  There 
is  no  need  in  any  one  of  the  passages  for  the  introduc 
tion  of  the  moral  sense  to  the  exclusion  of  the  legal  or 
forensic.  But  even  if  these  alleged  exceptions  could 
be  maintained,  and  others  by  more  successful  scrutiny 
were  added  to  the  number,  the  prevailing  sense  or  use 
of  the  word  would  after  all  be  very  little  affected  by 
it.  For  a  master]  v  examination  of  the  original  terms, 
which  seems  to  have  left  nothing  further  to  be  desired 
or  expected,  sec  O'Brien.  .Yofni't  un<l  /-jft-i'tx  of  Faith, 
note  L,  p.  387. 

Precisely  the  same  sense  is  attached  to  the  (4 reek 
word  SiKaiou  in  the  New  Testament.  It  never  signifies 
to  make  pure.  It  is  a  juridical  word,  and  has  Kara- 
Kpivw  (rondcinn)  for  its  opposite.  "It  is  God  that 
justijieth,  who  is  he  that  condemneth  ?  Ro.  viii.  33,  34. 
"Judgment  was  by  one  to  condemnation;  but  the  free 
gift  is  of  many  offences,  U:Y'-<;  justification,"  Ro.  v.  10. 
The  publican  "  went  down  to  his  house  justified 
rather  than"  the  Pharisee,  Lu.  xviii.  u.  And  where 
there  is  no  doctrinal  reference,  and  the  word  is  used 
quite  in  a  general  way,  the  legal  or  declarative  sense  is 
sufficiently  obvious,  as  when  it  is  said.  "Wisdom  is 
justified  (vindicated)  of  her  children,"  Mat.  xi.  19.  See 

also  Mat.  xii.  37;  Lu.  viu  2'J;  Ro.  ii.  l.'i. 

Ill  contending  for  the  forensic  sense  of  the  terms,  it 
may  be  necessary  to  offer  a  caution  against  pressing 
the  analogy  too  much  between  the  procedure  of  human 
tribunals  and  the  justification  of  a  sinner  by  God. 


There  are  many  points  of  dissimilarity,  and  inattention 
to  these  has  been  a  fruitful  source,  of  error.  \  Jn  justifi 
cation  at  the  bar  of  an  earthly  judge  the  element  of 
juii-ilini  has  no  place,  because  it  can  be  needed  only  by 
one  who  has  been  condemned.  The  man  who  lias 
Keen  justified  scorns  it.  But  in  the  justification  of  a 
sinner  by  God  it  form-  an  essential  element.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  necessarily  associated  with  acceptance 
and  honour,  whereas  pardon  at  the  hands  of  man  is 
almost  as  necessarily  dissociated  from  these.  Kvcn 
ito/nift((/-  at  the  bar  of  man  does  not  always  carry 
acceptance  and  honour  with  it:  because  through  defi 
cient  evidence  or  imperfection  in  human  laws  and 
administration  one  may  be  acquitted  on  whom,  never- 
theli  ss,  very  grave  suspicions  rest.  Justification  at 
the  liar  of  man  is  matter  of  right.  The  innocent  claims 
it  as  his  due.  At  the  liar  of  God  it  is  matter  of  free 
grace.  The  subject  of  it  has  110  claim  of  right  what 
ever.  In  the  one  case  the  justifying  righteousness  is 
necessarily  personal,  in  the  other  it  is  imputed:  and  so 
on  throughout  many  more  differences  that  might  be 
stilted.  The  analogy  holds  in  the  great  fact  of  a  judicial 
sentence  or  declaration  of  innocence. 

•J.  ^I'i-i/itni'f  doctrine  of  justification. — The  doctrine 
is  verv  fully  stated  and  expounded  by  Paul  in  his 
epistles,  particularly  in  the  epistles  to  the  Ilomans  and 
Galatians.  In  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  the  apostle 
lays  the  foundation  of  his  argument,  by  establishing 
the  guilt  both  of  Jew  and  Gentile.  Every  mouth  is 
stopped,  and  the  whole  world  is  brought  in  guilty  be- 
fi'iv  God.  And  as  the  law  cunnot  justify  those  whom 
it.  ccindi  mn-..  it  i-  concluded  that  "by  the  deeds  of  the 
law  there  shall  no  flesh  be  justified  in  God's  si<_dit,"  ch. 
iii.  2(i.  Justification  implies  a  righteousness  or  con 
formity  to  law:  on  which  alone  it  can  proceed,  and  of 
which  man  has  been  proved  destitute.  "  But/'  con 
tinues  the  apostle,  "  now  (under  the  gospel)  the  right 
eousness  of  God  without  the  law  is  manifested  even 
the  righteousness  which  is  by  faith  of  Jesus  Christ 
unto  all  and  upon  all  them  that  believe."  ch.  iii.  21,  22. 
We  cannot  go  with  the  apostle  throughout  his  leng 
thened  argument,  extending  over  so  great  a  part  of 
this  epistle.  But  the  doctrine  cannot  lie  fully  appre 
hended,  save  by  those  who  will  be  at  pains  to  follow 
the  great  master  step  by  step  in  his  discussion.  In 
view  of  the  entire  discourse  of  Paul  here  and  elsewhere, 
as  well  of  the  statements  of  Scripture  generally,  we 
remark  that  justification  is  -  a  judicial  act  of  God.  Ro. 
viii.  33,  31,  springing  from  free  grace,  ch.  iii.  21,  by  which 
the  sinner  or  the  ungodly,  ch.  iv.  ;,,  is  declared  innocent; 
that  is,  not  only  acquitted  on  the  charge  of  having 
transgressed  the  law,  but  accepted  also  as  if  he  had 
perfectly  obeyed  it.  and  therefore  entitled  to  eternal 
life,  ch.  iv.  C-R;  v.  is.  This  act  proceeds  not  on  the 
ground  of  works  in  any  sense  whatever,  ch.  iii.  20;  iv.  5; 
Ga.  ii.  ir,;  iii  10,  H;  but  on  the  ground  of  Christ's  righteous 
ness  imputed  to  US  of  God,  Ro  v.  6;  viii.  3,  4;  2 Co.  v.  21;  1  Co. 

i.  ::i>:  Je.  x.\iii.  «>.  The  instrument  or  means  by  which  we 
apprehend  this  righteousness  is  faith.  Hence  we  are 
said  to  be  justified  by  faith  and  fhrour/h  faith.  Ro.  iii.  28; 

iv.  .1;  Ga.  ii.  1C;  iii.  S. 

It  is  not  consistent  with  the  design  of  this  work  to 
enter  into  the  province  of  theological  discussion,  other 
wise  the  doctrinal  statement  given  above  might  be 
largely  illustrated  and  defended.  (See  IMPUTATION'. 
FAITH.) 

The  view  now  given  of  the  Scripture  sense  of  justi- 


JUSTIFY 


1005 


JUSTIFY 


tication  is  confirmed  by  the  adoption  of  that  sense,  and  :  ture  doctriiie. — The  offensive  element  in  this  doctrine  is 

its  prominent  exhibition  in  all  the  more  stirring  and  the  total  exclusion  of  works:  and  various  theories  have 

important  periods  of  the  church's  history.     That  it  was  been  put   forth  to  reconcile  the  Scripture  statements 

so  especially  at  the  Reformation  is  well  known,  when  with  the  idea  of  merit  in  man.     The  words  employed 

Luther  made  it  in  a  manner  the  heart  of  his  preaching,  about  the  doctrine,  viz.  justification,  u-urks,  faith,  have 

and  announced   it  as   ''the  article  of  a  standing  or  a  all  been  subjected  to  ingenious  handling.     The  forensic 

falling  church."     But  the  doctrine  was  by  no  means  a  sense  of  justification  has  been  assailed;  works  have  been 

novelty  of  that  particular  time.  limited  so  as  to  include  only  the  ceremonies  of  the  law; 

The  teaching  of  the  fathers  was  in  exact  accordance  and  faith   has   been  restricted   to  Julclit//,  or  again  ex- 

with  that  which  we  have  stated  as  the  doctrine  of  Paul,  tended  so  as  to  embrace  the  whole  round  of  evangelical 

The   most    illustrious   of    them   have   left    behind    the  j  obedience.      In  the  following  brief  summary  of  errors 

clearest  and  fullest  testimony  on  the  subject.      ''God  or  evasive  theories,  we  shall  follow  the  order  suggested 

U'ave  his  own   Son."    savs  Justin  Martyr,    "a  ransom  by  the  above  remarks,  and  therefore  shall  direct  atten- 

for  us  -the  Holy  One   for   the  transgress  TS;    the  inno-  lion 

cent  for  the  wicked;  the  righteous  for  the  unrighteous.          First.  To  theories  founded  on  false  views  of  the  word 

....     Fur    what    else    could    cover   our    .-ins    but    his  justification.      There  is  an  error,  indued,  which,  though 


righteousness:  Jnwhom  could  we  transgressors  and 
ungodly  be  justified,  but  onlv  in  the  Son  of  Cod'  <> 
sweet  exchange!  O  unsearchable  contrivance!  that  the 
transgressions  of  many  should  be  hidden  in  one-  righ 
teous  person,  and  the  righteousness  of  one  should 
justify  inanv  transgressors!"  i.  .  >  To  the 

-ante  etl'i.  ct,  in    hi.-   e-'inmeiitarv  on    '2  Co.  v.  'J  1 ,  Chry- 


it  does  not  spring  so  much  from  a  mistaken  idea  of  the 
meaning  of  the  word,  as  from  a  mistake  regarding  the 
ti/iit  of  jiistitieation,  we  shall  take  the  liberty  of  noticing 
here,  in  default  of  a  more  appropriate  place.  It  holds 
justification  to  be  an  act  immanent  in  the  divine  mind. 
It  is  his  eternal  purpose  to  justify.  But  this  manifestly 
confounds  the  decree  of  (.oil  with  the  execution  of  it, 


sostom      "  What  word,  what  speech  is  this  ?  what  mind     and    so  contradicts  the   Scripture,    which  very  clearly 
can  comprehend  or  express   it        For  he  saith  he  made     distinguishes  these  in  relation   to  this  very  matter,  Ro. 
him  who  was  righteous  to   be  made  a  .-inner,  that   he     viii  ;)o,  and  moreover,  constantly  represents  justification 
might  make  sinm  r-   ri-hteou.-.       Nay  this   i-   not  \\hat     as  taking  place  innnediately  on  faith, 
he  savs,  but   something   greater.       He  do.  s   not    say  he          The  <_: rand    error,  based   on  a  mistake   regarding  the 

ni'-anin--  of  the  term,  is  that  which  supposes  a  first 
and  second  justification.  The  first  justification,  accord 
ing  to  the  Church  of  1,'oine.  i-  tin  infusion  of  righteous- 


made   him  a  sinner,  but    sin:    tli.it   we   mi-lit    be  made. 
not  righteous  but  righteousness,  and  that  the  righteous 
ness  of  God"  (cap.  \   (lorn  .         Til     •    '•      iinonies  might  be 
multiplied  to  almost  any  extent.       sue  suiet-r'.-,  The>;iuvus.)      ,,,.<.•<  /,,/  tin    ,^/iiril 
The  doctrine  of  the  Hefi.rmers  has  found  a  prominent     conferred    at   tin 


«l ;  and  the  second  is  the  reward 
if    judgment,    h'-eause    of    good 


d  confessions  of  the     works  done  under  the  influence  of    this  infusion  (Conc.il. 
Uefonn.-d  churches.    The  eleventh  article  of  the  (  hurch  •  vii.-xvi.)      We  have  only  space  to  remark 

of    Fn-land  declare.-   that    justification    by  faith  only  is     on  thi-  theory  that  it  confounds  justification  with  sanc- 
"  a  most  wholesome  doctrine,  and  very  full  of  coin  fort.' 
The   twelfth    article    speaks    of    - 1    works   as    "tin 


ivo-arding  them  that  "the\  manifestly  cannot  combine  cial  sentence  and  spiritual  change,  &c.  It  assigns  an 
with  it  in  the  work 

from   it,   they  follow   aj  .'       The  homi 

to  which   reference    is   made   in    the   ele\  eiith  article 

most  emphatic  in  its  statement  of  the  truth      "St.  Paul  which   the  sinner  works  out  righteousness  for  himself, 

declareth  nothing   upon   the  behalf  of   man   .-one.  ruing  and  is  justified,  not  now.  but  only  at   the   close  of  his 

his  justification,  but  only  a  true  and  lively  faith.      And  probation,  provided   it.  terminate  successfully;   whereas 

yet  that  faith  doih  not  shut  out  repentance,  hope,  love,  Scripture  justification  is    "  without  works,''    "excludes 

dread,  and  the  fear  of  God  in  every  man  that  is  justi-  boasting/'  and  is  the  privilege  of  the  believer  nou;  with 

fied:  but  it  shutteth  them  out  from  the  office  of  justi-  all  its  bless,,!  concomitants  of  peace,  and  joy,  and  hope: 

fyintr.     So  that  although  they   be  all   present  in  him  "  Being  justified  by  faith,  we  Inn  peace,    .    .    .    much 

that"  is  justified,    they   justify   not  altogether."     The  more  then  being  HOW.- justified  by  his  blood,  we  shall  be 

Westminster  Confession    is   equally  explicit      "Those  saved   from  wrath   through  him,"  P.O.  v.  i-<t;  in .  v.  21;  Ro. 

whom  God  effectually  calleth.  he  also  freely  justifieth;  viii.  i.     Some    Protestant  divines  have  also  maintained 

not  by  infusing  righteousness  into  them,   but  by  par-  the   idea  of  a  first  and   second   justification,  with   this 

donin^  their  sins,    and    by  accounting  and  accepting  difference,  however,  that  the  first  is  merely  the  admis- 

their  persons  as  righteous.   ....    Faith  receiving  and  sion  of  the  Gentiles  into  the  church  of  God,  or  of  the 

resting  on   Christ   and   his  righteousness  is  the  alone  unconverted  into  Christian  fellowship:  and  the  second, 

instrument  of  jiittincation;  yet  is  it  not  alone  in  the  person  their  being  put  in  possession  of  eternal  life,  after  having 

justified,  but 'is  ever  accompanied  with  all  other  saving  qualified  themselves  for  it  by  a  due  improvement  of 
'graces:  and  is  no  dead  faith,  but  worketh  by  love"  (ch.  '  their  Christian  privileges  (Key  to  Apostolic  Writings,  in  Tav- 

xi.1,2).  So  the  Helvetic  Confession  (adopted  by  the  lor's  Commentary  on  Romans).  This  modification  of  the 
church  at  Geneva  in  15;iG.  and  in  i:,C>(\  by  the  churches  ,  error  in  question  is  of  course  liable  to  the  objections 
in  Switzerland  at  large),  and  the  Reformed  confessions  '  already  stated;  and  we  need  only  add  that  to  confound 

generally;    for  a  full  account  of  which  in  connection  the  justification  of  which  Paul  speaks,  and  of  which  he 

with  this  doctrine,  see  the  work  of  Dr.  O'Brien  already  speaks  so  great  things,  marking  it  particularly  as  the 

referred  to  ip.  4C-).  exclusive  and  lofty  privilege  of  faith,  with  something 
3.  Erroneous  rictrs  or  evasion*  of  the  Pautlw  or  Scrip-  \  that  is  common  to  all  hearers  of  the  gospel,  or  members 


USTJL-'Y 


JUSTIFY 


of  the  visible  church,  is  an  outrage  on  common  sense, 
which  it  cannot  be  necessary  seriously  to  refute. 

Another  theory  based  on  a  mistake-  regarding  the 
meaning  and  extent  of  justification,  is  that  which  con- 
lines  it  to  the  mere  extension  of  pardon.  It  is  difficult 
to  account  for  the  adoption,  on  the  part  of  so  many 
divines,  of  an  idea  which  falls  so  far  short  of  justification, 
unit  ss  on  the  principle  of  its  leaving  larger  room  for 
works.  If  to  justify  be  to  pronounce  innocent  or  right 
eous  in  respect  of  law.  as  we  have  shown  it  to  be,  then 
justification  must  regard  the  law  in  its  whole  extent  as 
a  system  of  duties  to  be  discharged,  as  \\ell  as  of  pro 
hibitions  to  be  respected.  It  luUst  suppose  US  Hot  only 
relieved  from  the  charge  of  guilt,  but  invested  with 
positive  righteousness,  and  received  in  all  respects  as  if 
we  had  actually  and  personal!}  obeyed.  Accordingly, 
when  we  look  into  the  Bible,  we  find  that  justification 
comprehends  both  the  non-imputation  of  sin  and  the 
imputation  of  righteousness,  \\«.  iv.  c,  7.  These  are  not 
to  be  regarded  as  one  and  the  same  thing,  but  as  dis 
tinct,  though  inseparable,  privileges  of  the  believer. 
Uu  any  other  view,  the  sinner,  though  pardoned,  would 
-till  be  left  in  a  stale  of  probation,  and  required  to 
work  out  righteousness  in  the  way  of  personal  <>li<.diciu-r; 
and  his  ultimate  justification  must  turn  on  works,  and 
be  left  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  till  the  end  of  his  career 
on  earth,  in  opposition  to  the  entire  current  of  Scripture, 
a-  shown  above.  The  condition  of  the  justified  man 
would  be  very  different  from  that  which  Paul  asserts  it 
to  be  when  he  speaks  of  him  as  being  made  righteous 
through  the  obedience  of  Christ,  and  as  having  a  title, 
because  of  his  being  justified,  to  the  heirship  of  the  hope 
of  eternal  life.  Uu.  v.  iii;  •>  Cu.  v.  -_'i;  Tit.  iii.  7. 

Little  need  be  said  on  the  second  form  of  evasion, 
which  limits  works  to  works  of  the  ceremonial  law,  as 
if  these  only  were  excluded  in  the  matter  of  justification. 
That  the  Jews  placed  ^rcat  dependence  on  circumcision 
and  the  Ceremonies  of  the  Mosaic  law.  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  and  that  Paul  designed  to  bring  them  oil'  from 
this  dependence  is  just  as  little  to  be  doubted.  But 
the  question  is,  '•'  whether  when  he  denies  justification 
by  works  of  law  he  is  to  be  understood  only  of  the 
ceremonial  law,  or  whether  the  moral  law  be  not  also 
implied  and  intended"  (K'-l'.vurds'  Five  Discourses  on  Justifica 
tion).  Leaving  the  reader  to  consult  the  long  and 
elaborate  argument  of  the  great  theologian  who  thus 
states  the  question,  it  is  enough  for  our  purpose  that 
the  law  of  which  Paul  speaks,  in  the  epistle  to  the 
Romans,  is  that  under  which.  'JfntlUn  as  well  as  Je\\s 
are  brought  in  guilty  before  God ;  is  that  which  is 
violated  by  the  fearful  list  of  moral  offences  with  which 
the  epistle  opens;  is  that  by  which  is  the  "  knowledge 
of  sin;"  is  that  which  says,  "Thou  shalt  not  covet," 
and  which  is  declared  to  be  "holy.  just,  and  a'ood." 

\\  e  come,  thirdly,  to  the  evasions  which  spring  from 
misunderstanding  or  perversion  of  faith.  We  say 
nothing  of  the  notion  that  faith  stands  for  f/diliti/,  nor 
of  some  other  perversions  of  the  word,  but  limit  our 
selves  to  that  which  extends  faith  so  as  to  embrace  the 
whole  round  of  Christian  duty  (suo  ambitu  omnia 
Christianas  pietatis  opera  amplecti).  Faith  is  evan 
gelical  obedience,  and  by  that  we  are  justified.  This 
theory  is  usually  accompanied  with  the  explanation, 
that  perfect  obedience  is  not  required;  that  the  effect 
of  Christ's  death  has  been  to  bring  in  a  new  remedial 
law,  which  will  be  satisfied  with  sincere,  instead  of 
perfect,  obedience.  But  of  this  law  there  is  no  trace  in 


the  Bible.  The  design  and  effect  of  Christ's  coming 
was  "not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  the  law."  Instead 
of  lowering  its  demands,  he  exhibited  the  law  in  a 
spirituality  and  purity  unknown  before,  Mat.  v.  His 
work  is  described  as  "  magnifying  the  law,  and  making 
it  honourable."  The  definition  of  faitli  which  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  this  error  is  altogether  faulty,  for 
though  it  be  true  that  faitli  is  the  spring  or  principle  of 
repentance,  love,  and  evangelical  obedience,  it  is  not  to 
be  confounded  with  these  things,  so  as  to  exalt  them 
inte.  a  province  they  were  never  designed  to  occupy, 
and  thus  under  another  name  to  introduce  justification 
by  works.  On  the  remedial  law,  see  Kdwards  (ibid.) 

Objections.  We  must  deal  \cry  briefly  with  these. 
It  is  alleged  that  inasmuch  as  faitli  is  an  act  of  the 
mind,  it  is  just  as  much  a  work  as  anything  else,  so  that 
even  on  the  principle  of  justification  by  faith  alone 
\\orks  are  not  excluded.  Tin-  is  the  excess  of  refining 

whatever  faith  be,  it  is  certainly  not  a  work  of  merit. 
The  apostle  asserts  that  "it  is  of  faith  that  it  might 
be  by  grace,"  and  surely  there  can  be  no  merit  in 
that  which  is  simply  reception  of  the  righteousness  of 
another,  any  more  than  there  is  merit  in  the  hand  of 
the  destitute  receiving  alms,  or  of  the  drowning  man 
grasping  the  arm  that  is  held  out  to  save  him.  Faith 
justifies  no  otherwise  than  as  it  unites  us  to  Jesus; 
and  its  peculiar  adaptation  seems  to  lie  in  the  simple 
circumstance  that  it  secures  an  active  and  willing  re 
ception  of  salvation  on  the  part  of  man,  and  contains 
at  the  same  time  an  utter  abnegation  of  merit.  There 
is  no  other  grace  of  which  the  same  thing  can  be  said. 
Faith  is.  indeed,  said  to  lie  "counted  for  righteous 
ness."  But  the  meaning  is  not  that  the  fa  it  it  it.<iJf 
was  reckoned  righteousness,  for  justification  is  always 
said  to  be  bii  faitli  or  tliniiujli  faith,  never  fur  it.  The 
sense  seems  to  be  correctly  given  by  those  expositors 
who  explain  that  Abraham's  faith  was  regarded  by  Mod 
///  order  to  a?  his  justification.  It  was  not  as  •'  one 
:  who  works,"  but  as  a  believer,  that  dod  regarded  Ab 
raham  in  his  justification  (Hodge). 

Vv  e  do  no  more  than  allude  to  the  common  objection 
that  the-  doctrine  is  hostile  to  the  interests  of  holiness. 
Certainly  the  faith  which  justifies  is  the  root  of  all 
holiness;  and  the  apostle  is  at  pains  to  show  that  justi 
fication  and  sanctification,  though  distinct,  are  insepara 
bly  connected,  Ro.  vi. 

We  conclude  with  some  remarks  on  the  objection 
that  the  apostle  James,  <-ii.  a.  14-1:0,  advocates  justifica 
tion  by  works  in  the  most  express  terms.  The  true- 
key  to  this  difficult  passage,  and  true  theory  of  recon 
ciliation  between  Paul  and  James,  seems  to  lie  in  the 
different  point  of  view  from  which  the  two  apostles 
regard  the  subject.  Paul  is  dealing  in  his  epistles 
with  those  who  insisted  on  justification  by  works, 
.fames  with  such  as  dispensed  with  works  altogether, 
even  in  the  believer's  life,  and  clung  to  a  dead  inopera 
tive  faith.  Accordingly,  he  introduces  one  of  this  class 
saying  or  pretending  he  had  faith,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  was  destitute  of  works;  and  he  asks,  "Can 
this  faith  (T/  Tri'ems)  save  him?"  Further,  he  likens  this 
pretended  faith  to  lip-love,  and  asserts  of  it  that  it  is 
equally  unproductive,  Ja.  ii.  14-17.  Yea,  he  likens  it  to 
the  faith  of  devils,  which  produces  no  other  effect  than 
trembling,  ver.  w.  It  is  true,  he  asserts  that  ''Abra 
ham  was  justified  by  works,"  and  that  a  "man  is  justified 
by  works  and  not  by  faith  only,"  vor.  21, 24.  But  the 
meaning  obviously  is  (taking  the  language  in  connec- 


JUSTUS                                     1007  JT-TTAH 

tion  with  the  previous  discourse,,  that  Abraham,   and  other.      Here,  f.,j.  Chronicles  is  indebted  to  Joshua  for 
like  faith  with  him,  are  justified  by  a  faith  which  the  restoration  of  the  clause,    "and  Juttah   with  her 
is  productive  of  goo,  1  works,  and  contain*  them  in  itself  ,  suburbs:"  Joshua,  on   the  other  hand,   is  under   equal 
ir  principle  or  dement.     This  is  evident  from  the  j  obligations  to  Chronicles  for  supplyino-   the  means  of 
proof   he  alleges,  Go.  xv.  c,  •'  The  scripture  was  fulfilled  rectifying  Ain.  which  clearly  ought  to  be   \shair  as  is 
which  saith,  Abraham  BELIEVED   God,  and  it   was  in,-  proved,  irrespectively  of  other  considerations,  by  com 
puted  to  him  for  righteousness,"  Ja.  ii.  -       This  act  of  parison  with  theSeptuagint,  which  reads'Ao-d  in  Joshua, 
faith  on  the   part  of   Abraham   was  twenty  years  pre-  as  well  as 'A<rdc  in  Chronicles. 

vious  to  the  act  of  obedience  mentioned  by  the  apostle.  The  selection  of  dattah  as  a  city  of  the  prie-ts,  stK>-- 

Therefore  the  faith  alone  was  that  which  was  imputed  gests   the  idea  of  its  having   already  been  a  place  of 

for  righteousness       !',ut  the  subsequent  act   or  work  of  importance,  which  is  seemingly  confirmed  by  early  and 

obedience— the  offering  up   of    Isaac— proved   that  the  numerous   allusions    to   it   in 'the    inscriptions   on   the 

faith  by  whieh  Abraham  long  before  had  been  justified  Kgvptian  monuments.     There  it  appears  to  be  described 

was  an   operative   faith.       The   question    regarded   the  under  the  name.  Tali.   '/"./A-,/,  and  Tah-n-nn,  as  a  for- 

kind  of  faith  which  justified,  and    in   this  way  .lames  tress  of  the  Anakim   near  Arba  or  Hebron;  and  it  is 

settles  it.      His  doctrine  is  not  that  works  justify,  and  not   a   little  remarkable   that   another    Kgyptian   docu- 

that  faith  does  not:   n<                  I   faith  and  works  pom  ment,  the   -                  .  expresses  the  word  in  almost  the 

bine  in  the  matter:  but  thai  the  faith  which  justitii  -  i-  a  selfsame   manner.  'Irdv  and  Tavv  Uouv.  sac.  i.it   Aj.vi]  au.l 
working,  living  faith,  and  mu.-t  so  prove  it -elf  wlieni  ver 

wcasion  demands.  I  ,  ,'  ,  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  IMand,  .Michaelis, 
passage,  we  should,  as  one  has  justly  remarked.  "  have  and  otln  rs.  ar.  upposing  Juttah  to  be  the 
as  much  difficulty  in  reconciling  dames  to  him-elf.  as  nvd  to  in  l.n.  i.  :;;i.  and  improperly  trans- 
some  have  had  in  reconciling  I'aul  to  him:  for  he  1  ited  in  the  Authorized  Version  "a  city  of  Juda." 
adduces  the  same  example,  and  quotes  the  same  scrip-  The  absence  of  the  article  is  fatal  to  its  being  regarded 
tare,  in  illu-tration  of  this  point  thai  I 'a  d  did."  This  as  the  name  of  a  c/,W/vV/.-'  as  i-  also  the  use  of  the  word 
vil'"'-  «'e  think,  i-  •  ,  be  pn  f.  -Ted  to  that  v  '  Juda  at  all.  which  h;  LI  superseded  by.ludrea 
!>aul  to  treat  of  ju  before  (iod  mid  as  a  territorial  dcHgnation.  S;  Luke  employs  the 
James  of  ju.-til  '  h  :  |,  treal  latter  term  twin  in  this  very  chapter  see  vev.  ;i,  and 

hill  c      utry  of  ,.'•„/,/„ '\   as  well   as 

but  with  a  differon!  object  in    view:   and   both  together  elsewhere:   ;ind  this  is  the  invariable  practice  of  all  the 

us  tha    while  justification  is  by  faith  alone  with-  Xew  Testament   writer-,   including  St.  ."Matthew   him- 

out   works,  the  faith  whieh    ;                                         done,  self,  notwithstanding  his  Hebrew  predilections.8 

but  is  followed  by  all  acts  of  hoi  |,    js  ll(,t  absolutely  m  ccssary,  however,  to  conclude 

JUSTUS  occurs   twice  as  the  name  of  believers   in  that,/»<A<  is  an  error  of  transcription  for /i/f/ia  or /«Mi 

apostolic    tin                                   h    n,  of   whom  nothing  (both of  which  readings  are  foundin  the M.SS.),  although 

particular  is  known,  IM  Ii  may  well    i.                                          pccially  when    it 

thi     Joseph    who    \va.-    call   i    Barsabas.       .S,    JOMCPH  i    considererl  th;                                          I   survives  in  the 

modem    village   of    )""//•'    (with   ruins),    di-covovd   b\- 

JUTTAH.    .1    J     i.ui    \-i,:i, •/,,,/    ,.,i'\.       A    riu-   in  Dr.   Kobin.-on   near  M'ain.   Kurmnl.  and  Teli   /ii 

•'hill   country  "of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  el  Still,  it    is  well  known    (hat   the  lin- 

in    the'   same  category  \\ith    Maon.   < 'armel,  and    .-  /,//,    ami    r/n/ctJt     constantly    interchange:    and 

Ii    was   assigned    to  the   prie.-ts,  and,  as   Mien,  i-   men  such  a  modification  would  be  far  less  considerable  than 

tinned   in   a, if  of  the  two  catalogues  of  priestly  cities,  has  actually  taken    place  in    the  neighbouring  cities  of 

•'"-  xxi.  !>;,  hut  not   in  the   other.   :•                                 •    (,,  Kshtemoa    and    Moladah.    now    respectively    corrupted 

the   pr  <en1    Hebrew  t    xt.      In   the  earlier  li-t.  we  iin-1  into  SenuVa  and  Milh. 

Juttah  ii    erti    :   ;    tween  Aia  and   I'   :'                       n  the  Juttah  ma\   therefore   fairly  claim,  in   addition  to  its 

later,     '    ;•                      ether   (the  omission    o,  in-    ca>ilv  inilita                                          n>  nee  in  the  olden  time,  the 

explained  by  an  .  rror  .                                                     .   the  honour  or   Itecoming,  al  a  later  period,  the  n-i.iencc  of 

frequent,   recurrence  of  the  words   rendered    '•  with  her  Xacharia-  and   l-;ii.-abeth.  and  tli(-  birthplace  of  the  har- 

suburbs''i;    while    for   Ain    r-yi    We   have  Ar-han     •-••-.  Linger  of  our  Lord.                                                       |  ;:.  w.] 
This   apparent   d^eivpaney  aptly  exemplifies   riot   only 


F.\r>  o;.-  VOL.   ;. 


GLASGOW:  w.  <-,.   Bi.AfKir  AND  ro..  TRINTRRS,  viu.AFii:i.n. 


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