My aim in this work is to put within the reach of all Bible students, learned and unlearned alike, the fruits of modern criticism and research, and at the same time to set forth briefly and suggestively those doctrinal and experimental truths which the Written Word itself contains.

The labors of the agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund have thrown fresh light on many obscure questions of sacred topography and history, and verified in the minutest details the accuracy of Holy Writ. Besides, in an age prone to skepticism, God has given remarkable confirmations of the truth of His own Word in raising men who have been enabled to decipher the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the cuneiform inscriptions of Babylon and Assyria, and the archaic characters of the Moabite stone. Ephesus with its Temple to the great Diana, Midian and its mines, Rome and its catacombs, have all contributed their quota of witness to the truth. The discoveries thus made, insofar as they elucidate the sacred volume, have been embodied in this encyclopedia. At the same time the commentators, ancient and modern, English and German, have been carefully consulted, and the results of reverent criticism given, in respect to difficult passages.

Many subjects which most of the Bible dictionaries omit, and which are of deep interest, are handled; as, for instance, Antichrist, The Thousand Years or Millennium, Inspiration, Predestination, Justification, Number, Divination (in its bearing on Spiritualism), etc. Yet the whole, while containing the substance of most that is valuable in other; dictionaries, and several new features, is comprised within much smaller compass, and is offered at considerably less cost.

It is a storehouse of Scriptural information in a most compact and accessible form; its alphabetical arrangement fitting it, for easy reference by teachers and students who have not, the leisure or opportunity for more extended research.

The student will find at the end an index of all the books and almost all the chapters in the whole Bible, in consecutive order, with references to the articles which illustrate them; thus, by consulting the index on a passage of Scripture, he will immediately find the article which will afford him the information that he desires.

Unity of tone and aim is better secured by unity of authorship than if the articles had been composed by different writers. If some errors have been fallen into inadvertently, the reader will remember the vastness of the undertaking by one author, and “Cum mea compenset vitiis bona, pluribus hisce, Si modo plura mihi bona sunt, inclinet.”

All pains have been conscientiously taken to ensure accuracy, and to put the earnest student in possession of the most trustworthy information on debated points.

I have to acknowledge gratefully the care which has been bestowed in the execution of this work by Messrs. Butler and Tanner, Frome and also the valuable help received from Mr. W. Lethaby, their proofreader, in revising this vast and responsible work, the fruit of my labors for the last seven years. May the Lord accept and sanctify this undertaking to His own glory, the vindication of His truth, and the edification of His church! ANDREW ROBERT FAUSSET ST.

CUTHBERT’S RECTORY, YORK A AARON (according to Jerome meaning “mountain of strength”), the oldest son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi; brother of Moses and Miriam ( Numbers 26:59; Exodus 6:20); 1574 B.C. Jochebed, mother of Moses and Aaron, bore them three centuries after the death of Levi ( Exodus 2:1); “daughter of Levi, whom her mother bore to Levi,” means” a daughter of a Levite whom her mother bore to a Levite.” The point of Numbers 26:59 is, Moses and Aaron were Levites both on the father’s side and mother’s side, Hebrews of Hebrews. He was three years older than Moses ( Exodus 7:7): born, doubtless, before Pharaoh’s edict for the destruction of the Hebrew male infants ( Exodus 1:22). Miriam was the oldest of the three, as appears from her being old enough, when Moses was only three months old and Aaron three years, to offer to go and call a Hebrew nurse for Pharaoh’s daughter, to tend his infant brother. The first mention of Aaron is in Exodus 4:14; where, in answer to Moses’ objection that he did not have the eloquence needed for such a mission as that to Pharaoh, Jehovah answers: “Is not Aaron, the Levite, thy brother? I know that he can speak well: and thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth; and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do; and he shall be thy spokesman unto the people; and he shall be instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.” His being described as “the Levite” implies that he already took a lead in his tribe; and, as the firstborn son, he would be priest of the household. The Lord directed him to “go into the wilderness to meet Moses” ( Exodus 4:27). In obedience to that intimation, after the forty years’ separation, he met Moses in the “mount of God,” where the vision of the flaming bush had been vouchsafed to the latter, and conducted him back to Goshen. There Aaron, evidently a man of influence already among the Israelites, introduced Moses to their assembled elders; and, as his mouthpiece, declared to them the divine commission of Moses with such persuasive power, under the Spirit, that the people “believed, bowed their heads, and worshipped” ( Exodus 4:29-31). During Moses’ forty years’ absence in Midian, Aaron had married Elisheba or Elizabeth, daughter of Amminadab, and sister of Naashon, a prince of the children of Judah ( Exodus 6:23; 1 Chronicles 2:10). By her he had four sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar (father of Phinehas), and Ithamar. From his first interview with Pharaoh to the end of his course he always appears in connection with his more illustrious brother, cooperating with and assisting him. On the way to Sinai, in the battle with Amalek, Aaron, in company with Hur, supported Moses’ weary hands, which uplifted the miracle-working rod of God ( Exodus 17:9-13); and so Israel prevailed. His high dignity as interpreter of Moses, and worker of the appointed “signs in the sight of the people,” and his investiture with the hereditary high priesthood, a dignity which Moses did not share, account naturally for his having once harbored envy, and joined with Miriam in her jealousy of Moses’ Ethiopian wife, when they said: “Hath the Lord spoken only by Moses? Hath He not spoken also by us?” (Compare Numbers 12:1,2 with Exodus 15:20.)

But Moses is always made the principal, and Aaron subordinate. Whereas Moses ascended Sinai, and there received the tables of the law direct from God, as the mediator ( Galatians 3:19), Aaron has only the privilege of a more distant approach with Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders, near enough indeed to see Jehovah’s glory, but not to have access to His immediate presence. His character, as contrasted with Moses, comes out in what followed during Moses’ forty days’ absence on the mount. Left alone to guide the people, he betrayed his instability of character in his weak and guilty concession to the people’s demand for visible gods to go before them in the absence of Moses, their recognized leader under Jehovah; and instead of the pillar of cloud and fire wherein the Lord heretofore had gone before them ( Exodus 13:21; Exodus 32). Perhaps Aaron had hoped that their love of their personal finery and jewelry, which is the idol of so many in our own days, would prove stronger than their appetite for open idolatry; but men will for superstition part with that which they will not part with for a pure worship. So, casting the responsibility on them, easy and too ready to yield to pressure from outside, and forgetting the precept, “thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” ( Exodus 23:2), he melted, or permitted their gold to be melted in a furnace, and “fashioned it with a graving tool into a calf.” This form was probably designed as a compromise to combine the seemingly common elements of the worship of Jehovah associated with the calf-formed cherubim, and of the Egyptian idol-ox, Mnevis or Apis. Like Jeroboam’s calves long after, the sin was a violation of the second rather than of the first commandment, the worship of the true God by an image (as the church of Rome teaches), rather than the adding or substituting of another god. It was an accommodation to the usages which both Israel and Jeroboam respectively had learned in Egypt.

Like all compromises of truth, its inevitable result was still further apostasy from the truth. Aaron’s words, “These are thy gods elohim (a title of the true God), O Israel, which brought thee up out of Egypt,” as also his proclamation, “Tomorrow is a feast toJEHOVAH,” show that he did not mean an open apostasy from the Lord, but rather a concession to the people’s sensuous tastes, in order to avert a total alienation from Jehovah.

But, the so-called “feast of the Lord” sank into gross paganness; “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play,” “dancing” before the calf, “naked unto their shame among their enemies”; they aroused Moses’ righteous anger when he descended from the mountain, so that he broke in pieces the tables out of his hand, as a symbol of their violation of the covenant. Then he burned the calf in the fire, ground it to powder (a process which required a considerable acquaintance with chemistry), strewed it upon the water, and made the Israelites drink of it. Compare Proverbs 1:31. Aaron alleged, as an excuse, the people’s being “set on mischief,” and seemingly that he had only cast their gold into the fire, and that by mere chance “there came out this calf.”

Aaron’s humiliation and repentance must have been very deep; for two months after this great sin, God’s foreappointed plan (Exodus 29) was carried into effect in the consecration of Aaron to the high priesthood (Leviticus 8). That it was a delegated priesthood, not inherent like the Messiah’s priesthood, of the order of Melchizedek, appears from the fact that Moses, though not the legal priest but God’s representative, officiates on the occasion, to inaugurate him into it. Compare, for the spiritual significance of this, Hebrews 7. Aaron’s very fall would upon his recovery make him the more fit as a priest, to have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity ( Hebrews 5:2); compare the case of Peter, Luke 22:31,32.

The consecration comprised a sin offering for reconciliation, a burnt offering to express whole-hearted self-consecration to God, and a meat offering (minchah ), unbloody, of flour, salt, oil, and frankincense, to thank God for the blessings of nature (these marking the blessings and duties of man); then also the special tokens of the priestly office, the ram of consecration, whose blood was sprinkled on Aaron and his sons to sanctify them, the sacred robes “for glory and for beauty,” breastplate, ephod, robe, embroidered coat, mitre, and girdle, and linen breeches (Exodus 28); and the anointing with the holy oil, which it was death for anyone else to compound or use ( Exodus 30:22-38), symbolizing God’s grace, the exclusive source of spiritual unction. Aaron immediately offered sacrifice and blessed the people, and the divine acceptance was marked by fire from the Lord consuming upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat, so that the people shouted at the sight and fell on their faces.

Nadab and Abihu, probably (see Leviticus 10:8,9) under the effects of wine taken when about to be consecrated, instead of taking the sacred fire from the brazen altar, burned the incense on the golden altar with common fire; or, as Knobel and Speaker’s Commentary think, they offered the incense in accompaniment of the people’s shouts, not at the due time of morning or evening sacrifice, but in their own self-willed manner and at their own time. (See FIRE .) God visited them with retribution in kind, consuming them with fire from the Lord; and to prevent a similar evil recurring, forbade henceforth the use of wine to the priests when about to officiate in the tabernacle; the prohibition coming so directly after the sin, if the cause was indeed intemperance, is an undesigned coincidence and mark of genuineness: compare Luke 1:15 and 1 Timothy 3:3 for the present application. The true source of exhilaration to a spiritual priest unto God, is not wine, but the Spirit: Ephesians 5:18,19; compare Acts 2:15-18. Nothing could more clearly mark how grace had raised Aaron above his natural impulsiveness than the touching picture, so eloquent in its brevity, of Aaron’s submissiveness under the crushing stroke, “and Aaron held his peace.” Moses, in chronicling the disgrace and destruction of his brother’s children, evinces his own candor and veracity as an impartial historian. The only token of anguish Aaron manifested was his forbearing to eat that day the flesh of the people’s sin offering: Leviticus 10:12-20. All other manifestations of mourning on the part of the priests were forbidden; compare, as to our spiritual priesthood, Luke 9:60.

Miriam, in a fit of feminine jealousy, some time afterward acted on Aaron so as to induce him to join in murmuring against Moses: the former relying on her prophetic inspiration ( Exodus 15:20), the latter on his priesthood, as though equal with Moses in the rank of their commission.

Their pretext against Moses was his Ethiopian wife, a marriage abhorrent to Hebrew feelings. That Miriam was the instigator appears from her name preceding that of Aaron (Numbers 12), and from the leprosy being inflicted on her alone. Aaron, with characteristic impressibleness, repented of his sin almost immediately after he had been seduced into it, upon Jehovah’s sudden address to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, declaring His admission of Moses to speak with Him “mouth to mouth, apparently,” so that he should “behold the similitude of the Lord,” a favor far above all “visions” vouchsafed to prophets. At Aaron’s penitent intercession with Moses, and Moses’ consequent prayer, Miriam was healed.

Twenty years later (1471 B.C.), in the wilderness of Paran, the rebellion took place of Korah and the Levites against Aaron’s monopoly of the priesthood, and of Dathan, Abiram, and the Reubenites against Moses’ authority as civil leader. It is a striking instance of God’s chastising even His own people’s sin in kind. As Aaron jealously murmured against Moses, so Korah murmured against him. Fire from the Lord avenged his cause on Korah and the 250 priestsn with him burning incense: and the earth swallowed up the Reubenites with Dathan and Abiram. Possibly Reuben’s descendants sought to recover the primogeniture forfeited by his incest ( Genesis 49:3,4; 1 Chronicles 5:1). The punishment corresponded to the sin; pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

His numbers were so reduced that Moses prays for his deliverance from extinction: “Let Reuben live, and not die, and let not his men be few.” A plague from the Lord had threatened to destroy utterly the people for murmuring against Moses and Aaron as the murderers of Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and their accomplices, when Aaron proved the efficacy of his priesthood by risking his own life for his ungrateful people, and “making atonement for the people” with incense in a censer, and “standing between the living and the dead,” so that the plague was stopped (Numbers 16). To prevent future rivalry for the priesthood, God made Aaron’s rod alone of the twelve rods of Israel, suddenly to blossom and bear almonds, and caused it to be kept perpetually “before the testimony for a token against the rebels” (Numbers 17; Hebrews 9:4).

Inclined to lean on his superior brother, Aaron naturally fell into Moses’ sin at Meribah, and shared its penalty in forfeiting entrance into the promised land ( Numbers 20:1-13). As Moses’ self-reliance was thereby corrected, so was Aaron’s tendency to be led unduly by stronger natures than his own. To mark also the insufficiency of the Aaronic priesthood to bring men into the heavenly inheritance, Aaron must die a year before Joshua (the type of Jesus) leads the people into their goodly possession.

While Israel in going down the wady Arabah, to double the mountainous land of Edom, was encamped at Mosera, he ascended Mount Hor at God’s command. There Moses stripped him of his pontifical robes, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died, 123 years old, and was buried on the mountain ( Numbers 20:28; 33:38; Deuteronomy 10:6; 32:50). The mountain is now surmounted by the circular dome of the tomb of Aaron, a white spot on the dark red surface. For thirty days all Israel mourned for him; and on the 1st of the 5th month, Ab (our July or August), the Jews still commemorate him by a fast. Eleazar’s descendants held the priesthood until the time of Eli, who, although sprung from Ithamar, received it. With Eli’s family it continued until the time of Solomon, who took it from Abiathar, and restored it to Zadok, of the line of Eleazar; thus accomplishing the prophecy denounced against Eli ( 1 Samuel 2:30). For the Jews’ opinion of Aaron, see the apocryphal Ecclesiasticus 45. His not taking the priestly honor to himself, but being called by God ( Hebrews 5:4,5), his anointing with incommunicable ointment (compare Psalm 45:7 and <19D302> Psalm 133:2), his intercession for his guilty people, his bearing the names of his people on his shoulders and breast ( Exodus 28:12,29,30), his being the only high priest, so that death visited any other who usurped the priesthood, his rod of office (compare <19B002> Psalm 110:2; Numbers 24:17), his alone presenting the blood before the mercy-seat on the day of atonement, theHOLINESS TO THE LORD on his forehead in his intercession within the veil (compare 1 Corinthians 1:30; Hebrews 9:24), the Urim and Thummim (Light and Perfection), all point to the true High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Aaron’s descendants, to the number of 3,700 fighting men, with Jehoiada, father of Benaiah, their head, joined David at Hebron ( 1 Chronicles 12:27; 27:17); subsequently, Zadok was their chief, “a young man mighty of valor.”

ABADDON The Hebrew in Job 31:12 and Proverbs 27:20, “destruction,” or the place of destruction, sheol (Hebrew); [Hades (Greek). The rabbis use Abaddon, from Psalm 88:12 (“Shall Thy lovingkindness be declared in destruction?”) (abaddon ) as the second of the seven names for the region of the dead. In Revelation 9:11 personified as the destroyer, Greek, [apolluon , “the angel of the bottomless pit,” Satan is meant; for he is described in Revelation 9:1 as “a star fallen from heaven unto earth, to whom was given the key of the bottomless pit”; and Revelation 12:8,9,12: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, for the devil is come down.”

Also Isaiah 14:12; Luke 10:18. As king of the locusts, that had power to torment not kill ( Revelation 9:3-11), Satan is permitted to afflict but not to touch life; so in the case of Job (Job 1-2). “He walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” ( 1 Peter 5:8). “A murderer from the beginning” ( John 8:44), who abode not in the truth.

Elliott identifies the locusts with the Muslims; their turbans being the “crowns” (but how are these “like gold”?); they come from the Euphrates River; their cavalry were countless; their “breastplates of fire” being their rich-colored attire; the fire and smoke out of the horses’ mouths being the Turkish artillery; their standard “horse tails”; the period, an hour, day, month, and year, 396 years 118 days between Thogrul Beg going forth Jan. 18, 1057 A.D., and the fall of Constantinople, May 29, 1453 A.D.; or else 391 years and 1 month, as others say, from 1281 A.D., the date of the Turks’ first conquest of Christians, and 1672 A.D., their last conquest. The serpent-like stinging tails correspond to Mohammedanism supplanting Christianity in large parts of Asia, Africa, and even Europe. But the hosts meant seem infernal rather than human, though constrained to work out God’s will ( Revelation 12:1,2). The Greek article once only before all the periods requires rather the translation “for (i.e. against) THE hour and day and month and year,” namely, appointed by God. Not only the year, but also the month, day, and hour, are all definitively foreordained. The article “the” would have been omitted, if a total of periods had been meant.

The giving of both the Hebrew and the Greek name implies that he is the destroyer of both Hebrews and Gentiles alike. Just as, in beautiful contrast, the Spirit of adoption enables both Jew and Gentile believers to call God, in both their respective tongues, [Abba (Hebrew in marked alliteration with [Abaddon Father (Greek, [pater ). Jesus who unites both in Himself ( Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:14) sets us the example: Mark 14:36; Galatians 4:6. Jesus unites Hebrews and Gentiles in a common salvation; Satan combines both in a common “destruction.” (See ABBA .)

ABAGTHA One of the seven eunuchs in Ahasuerus’ court; akin to the name Bigthan ( Esther 1:10; 2:21). Sanskrit, Bagadata, “given by fortune,” baga, or the sun. Sun worship prevailed early in Persia.

ABANA The chief river of Damascus, the modern Barada, called by the Greeks “the golden stream,” flowing through the heart of the city and supplying it with water. The Pharpar mentioned with it in 2 Kings 5:12 is further from Damascus, and answers to the Awaj. The Barada rises in the Antilibanus mountain range, 23 miles from the city, and has the large spring Ain Fijah as a tributary. It passes the site of Abila and the Assyrian ruin Tell es Salahiyeh, and empties itself in the marsh Bahret el Kibliyeh or Bahr el Merj, “lake of the meadow.” Porter calculates that 14 villages and 150,000 souls depend on it for their water supply. Hence, we see the significance of Naaman’s boast, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” These rivers render the environs of Damascus though bordering on a desert one of the loveliest spots on earth; whereas the Israelite streams, excepting Jordan, are dry for a large part of the year, and running in deep channels but little fertilize the land through which they flow. Amana, meaning perennial, is the reading of the Hebrew margin (the Qeri): “b” and “m” often are interchanged in eastern languages.

Soon after issuing from Antilebanon, it parts into three smaller streams, the central flowing through Damascus and the other two one on each side of the city, diffusing beauty and fertility where otherwise there would be the same barrenness as characterizes the vast contiguous plains. Spiritually, men through proud self sufficiency refuse the waters of Shiloah that go softly ( Isaiah 8:6), the gospel “fountain opened for uncleanness,” preferring earthly “waters” ( Jeremiah 2:18; Zechariah 13:1).

ABARIM Connected with Nebo and Pisgah in Deuteronomy 32:49; 34:1. Abarim was probably the mountain chain, Nebo one mountain of it, and Pisgah the highest peak of Nebo. Peor also belonged to the range. The chain east of the Dead Sea and lower Jordan commands most extensive views of the country west of the river. It was from Pisgah that Moses took his view of the promised land just before he died. Some identify mount Attarous, the loftiest hill in this region, ten miles north of the river Arnon, with Nebo. Its top is marked by a pistachio tree overshadowing a heap of stones. The7 Hebrew means “the mountains of the regions beyond,” namely, the Jordan, or else “the mountains of the passages.” They were in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho. Compare Numbers 27:12; 33:47,48; Deuteronomy 3:27. Dr. Tristram verified the observation of the landscape from Nebo, as seen by Moses according to the Scripture record. There is one isolated cone commanding a view of the valley where Israel’s battle was fought with Amalek, which may be the Pisgah of holy writ.

ABBA The Chaldaic-Hebrew form, as ab is the Hebrew form, for the Greek [pater , “father.” Instead of the definite article which the Hebrew uses before the word, the Chaldee or Aramaic adds a syllable to the end, producing thus the emphatic or definitive form. It is used to express a vocative case, and therefore is found in all the passages in which it occurs in the New Testament (being in all, an invocation): Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6. The use of the Hebrew and of the Greek appellation addressed to the one Father beautifully suggests that the Spirit of adoption from Jesus, who first used the double invocation, inspires in both Jew and Gentile alike the experimental knowledge of God as our Father, because He is Father of Jesus with whom faith makes us one, and as our God because He is Jesus’ God. Compare John 20:17, “ascend unto My Father and (therefore) your Father. and to My God and (therefore) your God”; Galatians 3:28, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, for ye are all one in Jesus Christ”; Ephesians 2:18, “through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the leather.” (Especially see ABADDON above.) “Abba” was a title not to be used by slaves to a master, nor Imma to a mistress, only by children: see Isaiah 8:4. “Before the child shall have knowledge to cry Abi, Immi.”

ABDA 1. 1 Kings 4:6. 2. Nehemiah 11:17; the Obadiah of 1 Chronicles 9:16, “the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer.” Meaning “a servant.”

ABDEEL Jeremiah 36:26; meaning “servant of El,” or God.

ABDI 1. 1 Chronicles 6:44. 2. 2 Chronicles 29:12. 3. Ezra 10:26. Meaning “my servant.”

ABDON (1) 1. The tenth judge of Israel ( Judges 12:13,15), probably the same as Bedan, 1 Samuel 12:11; for the Phoenicians often omitted the ‘ayin.

Son of Hillel, of the tribe of Ephraim. He succeeded Elon, and judged Israel eight years. His rule was a peaceful one, since no oppression of Israel during his time is mentioned. The record that he had 40 sons and nephews (or rather grandsons) who rode on young donkeys, implies their high dignity and consequence: compare Judges 5:9. He died in B.C. Of him Josephus (Ant. 5:7,15) writes: “He alone is recorded to have been happy in his children; for the public affairs were so peaceable and secure that he had no occasion to perform glorious actions.” A prophetical type of Israel’s and the world’s coming millennial blessedness ( Isaiah 1:26,27). Pirathon, the city to which he belonged, is identified by Robinson with the modern Fer’ata, six miles W. of Shechem or Nablous (Bibl. Res., 3). 2. 1 Chronicles 8:30, akin to Saul’s forefathers, 1 Chronicles 9:35,36. 3. 1 Chronicles 8:23. 4. 2 Chronicles 34:20; called Achbor 2 Kings 22:12.

ABDON (2) A city of Asher given to the Levites of Gershom’s family: Joshua 21:30; 1 Chronicles 6:74. Hebron is substituted for it in Joshua 19:28.

Many MSS. there read “Abdon”; the Hebrew letters resh ( r ) and daleth ( d ) are very similar, and therefore often interchanged.

ABEDNEGO The Chaldee name (“servant of Nego.” i.e. Nebo or Mercury, the interpreter of the gods) for Azariah, one of Daniel’s three companions, miraculously delivered from the furnace into which they were cast for not worshipping Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image (Daniel 3). A tyrant may change the name, but he cannot change the nature, of him whose God is Jehovah. “The Son of God” with the three rendered the fire powerless to hurt even a hair of their heads ( Isaiah 43:2; Matthew 10:30). The salvation He worked is herein typified: the Son of God walking in the furnace of God’s wrath kindled by our sins; connected with the church, yet bringing us faith without so much as “the smell of fire” passing on us.

ABEL Hebrew Hebel . Second of Adam and Eve’s sons, Genesis 4: meaning vanity or weakness, vapor or transitoriness. Cain means possession; for Eve said at his birth, “I have gotten as a possession a man from Jehovah,” or as the Hebrew (eth ) may mean, “with the help of Jehovah”; she inferring the commencement of the fulfillment of the promise of the Redeemer ( Genesis 3:15) herein. On the contrary, Abel’s weakness of body suggested his name: moreover prophetic inspiration guided her to choose one indicative of his untimely death. But God’s way is here from the first shown, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” ( 2 Corinthians 12:9; Hebrews 11:341. The cause of Cain’s hatred was “because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous” ( 1 John 3:12). Envy of the godly was “the way of Cain” ( Jude 1:11). “Faith” was present in Abel, absent from Cain ( Hebrews 11:4); consequently the kind of sacrifice (the mode of showing faith) Abel offered was “much more a sacrifice” (Wycliffe; so the Greek) than Cain’s. “By faith Abel offered unto God a much more sacrifice than Cain,” i.e. one which had more of the true virtue of sacrifice; for it was an animal sacrifice of the firstlings of the flock, a token of the forfeiture of man’s life by sin, and a type of the Redeemer to be bruised in heel that He might bruise the serpent’s head. God’s having made for man coats of skin presupposes the slaying of animals; and doubtless implies that Abel’s sacrifice of an animal life was an act of faith which rested on God’s command (though not expressly recorded) that such were the sacrifices He required. If it had not been God’s command, it would have been presumptuous will worship ( Colossians 2:23), and taking of a life which man had no right over before the flood ( Genesis 9:2-4). Cain in self-righteous unbelief, refusing to confess his guilt and need of atonement (typified by sacrifice), presented a mere thank offering of the first fruits; not, like Abel, feeling his need of the propitiatory offering for sin. So “God had respect unto Abel (first) and (then) to his offering.” “God testified of his gifts” by consuming them with fire from the shekinah or cherubic symbol E. of Eden (“the presence of the Lord”: Genesis 4:16; 3:24), where the first sacrifices were offered. Thus” he obtained witness that he was righteous,” namely, with the righteousness which is by faith to the sincere penitent. Christ calls him “righteous”: Matthew 23:35. Abel represents the regenerate, Cain the unregenerate natural man.

Abel offered the best, Cain that most readily procured. The words “in process of time” ( Genesis 4:3 margin), “at the end of days,” probably mark the definite time appointed for public worship already in paradise, the seventh day sabbath. The firstling and the fat point to the divine dignity and infinite fullness of the Spirit in the coming Messiah. “By faith he being dead yet speaketh” to us; his “blood crying from the ground to God” ( Genesis 4:10) shows how precious in God’s sight is the death of His saints ( <19B615> Psalm 116:15; Revelation 6:10). The shedding of Abel’s blood is the first, as that of Jesus is the last and crowning guilt which brought the accumulated vengeance on the Jews ( Luke 11:51; Matthew 23:34,35-38). There is a further avenging of still more accentuated guilt, of innocent blood yet coming on “them that dwell on the earth”: Revelation 11: In Hebrews 12:24, it is written “Christ’s blood of sprinkling speaketh better things than that of Abel,” namely, than the blood of Abel’s animal sacrifice. For Abel’s is but the type, Christ’s the antitype and one only true propitiatory sacrifice. To deny the propitiation would make Cain’s offering to be as much a sacrifice as Abel’s. Tradition makes the place of his murder and grave to be near Damascus. (See ABILA .)

ABEL-BETH-MAACHA (“Abel the house of Maaacha”) or Abel-Maim (“Abel on the waters”). A city in the extreme N. of Palestine, “a mother in Israel” ( 2 Samuel 20:19), i.e., a city of consequence having many daughters, i.e. inhabitants.

That the different names represent the same city appears from comparing 2 Samuel 20:14,15,18; 1 Kings 15:20; 2 Chronicles 16:4. Its northern border position made it an early prey to Syria under Benhadad, and 200 years later to Assyria: 2 Kings 15:29. Tiglath Pileser sent away its inhabitants captive to Assyria. The Maacha in the name implies that it adjoined the region so called E. of Jordan under Lebanon. Sheba, son of Bichri, the rebel against David, 80 years before the Syrian invasion under Benhadad, Asa’s ally, was here besieged by Joab; and the city was saved by the proverbial shrewdness of its inhabitants, who hearkened to their fellow townswoman’s wise advice to sacrifice the one man Sheba to the safety of the whole inhabitants. Probably Abel lay in the Ard el Huleh, the marshy land which the sea of Merom drains; perhaps at Abil (Robinson, 3:372), a village on the top of a little conical hill (Porter, Giant Cities of Bashan).

The Derdara from Ijon falls from the western slope of the mound, and from the neighboring mountain gushes the powerful stream of Ruahiny. Such fountains would make it a paradise of fruits and flowers, and entitle it to be called “Abel on the waters,” “a mother in Israel” (Thomson, The Land and the Book).

ABEL-CARMAIM (“plain of the vineyards”): Judges 11:33 margin. An Ammonite village, six miles from Rabbath Ammon, or Philadelphia; the limit of Jephthah’s pursuit of the Ammonites. Ruins named Abila still are found in this region.

De Sauley met with a Beit el Kerm, “house of the vine,” N. of Kerak, possibly identical with Abel-Ceramim.

ABEL-MEHOLAH (“the plain of the dance”). The birthplace of Elisha, where he was found at his plow by Elijah returning up the Jordan valley from Horeb ( 1 Kings 19:16). N. of the Jordan valley, S. of Bethshean (Scythopolis) ( 1 Kings 4:12). To its neighborhood fled the Midianites routed by Gideon ( Judges 7:22). It pertained to the half tribe of Manasseh.

ABEL-MIZRAIM (“the mourning of the Egyptians” or “the funeral from Egypt”). The threshingfloor of Atad; so called by the Canaanites, because it was the chief scene of the funeral laments of Joseph and his Egyptian retinue for Jacob ( Genesis 50:4-11). E. of Jordan. Moses, taking Canaan as the central standpoint of the whole history, uses the phrase “beyond Jordan” for east of it. The same route by which Joseph was led captive was, in the striking providence of God, that which they took to do honor to his deceased father, being the longer and more public way from Egypt to Canaan. God’s eternal principle is, “them that honor Me I will honor.” Jerome, however, places it at Beth-Hogla, now Ain Hajla, on the W. of Jordan, which would make Moses’ standpoint in saying “beyond” the E. of Jordan; but Genesis 50:13 plainly shows it was not till after the mourning at Abel- Mizraim that “Jacob’s sons carried him into the land of Canaan.” The phrase, “Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh” implies that Pharaoh and his estates in council decreed a state funeral for Jacob, in which the princes, nobles, and chief men of Egypt, with their pomp of chariots and equipages, took part. The funeral celebration lasted for seven days. The usual Egyptian rites on such occasions consisted in banquets and games, as Egyptian monuments show. These having been completed at Atad, Jacob’s sons proceeded alone to the cave of Machpelah, the final burying place of his embalmed body.

ABEL-SHITTIM (“the meadow or moist place of acacias”). In the plains of Moab, the” Arboth Moab by Jordan Jericho,” on the level of the Jordan, in contrast to “the fields” on the higher land. That is to say, it was in the Arabah or Jordan valley opposite Jericho, at that part which belonged to Moab, where the streams from the eastern mountains flourished many acacias. The last resting place of Israel before crossing Jordan ( Numbers 33:49; 22:1; 26:3; 31:12; 25:1; Joshua 2:1; 3:1; Micah 6:5). Josephus names it: “Abila, 60 stadia from Jordan, embosomed amidst palms, among which Moses delivered Deuteronomy.” The acacias still fringe with green the upper terraces of the Jordan. Near mount Peor, at Shittim, in the shade of the acacia groves, Israel was seduced to Baal Peor’s licentious rites; and here also Israel’s judges, by Moses’ direction under God, slew all the men seduced by Midian and Moab under Balaam’s Satanic counsel (24,000) into whoredom and the worship of Baal Peor ( Numbers 25:1; 31:16).

ABEL THE GREAT 1 Samuel 6:18. Keil supposes the reading ought to be “Eben” (the stone), for “Abel.” The Septuagint and the Chaldee versions so read; but “Abel” is probably right, and refers to the mourning caused by the destruction of so many Bethshemites for looking into the ark. The field in which Abel the great Stone was, on which the ark was placed on its return from the Philistines, belonged to Joshua, a Bethshemite.

ABEZ A town in Issachar ( Joshua 19:20). From a Chaldee term meaning “tin”; or else a contraction for Thebez, near Shunem.

ABI Also called Abijah, 2 Kings 18:2; 2 Chronicles 29:1. Daughter of Zechariah; the witness perhaps taken by Isaiah ( Isaiah 8:2).

ABIA OR ABIJAH (“Father Jehovah,” i.e. a man of God). 1. Son of Samuel, whose maladministration as judge furnished one plea for Israel’s demand for a king ( 1 Samuel 8:1-5). 2. 1 Chronicles 7:8. 3. 1 Chronicles 2:24.

ABIASAPH OR EBIASAPH (“whose father God took away,” namely, Korah: Numbers 16. Or else, “the father of gathering, the gatherer”). Head of a family of Korhites (a house of the Kohathites): Exodus 6:24; 1 Chronicles 6:37. Possibly Abiasaph may be a distinct person from Ebiasaph; in genealogies generations are often passed over between two persons of the same name. The descendants of Abiasaph, of whom Shallum was chief, were “keepers of the gates of the tabernacle” ( 1 Chronicles 9:19,31), and “had the set office over the things made in the pans,” in David’s time. Compare Nehemiah 12:25.

ABIATHAR (“father of abundance”). The only son of Ahimelech, the high priest, who escaped the slaughter committed by Saul at Nob, on Doeg’s information that Ahimelech had inquired of the Lord for David, and given him the shewbread and the sword of Goliath (1 Samuel 22). Eighty-five persons wearing the priestly linen ephod were killed. Abiathar, with an ephod (the high priest’s mystic scarf) in his hand, escaped to David. It is an instance of God’s retributive justice that Saul’s murder of the priests deprived him thenceforth of their services in inquiring of the Lord ( 1 Chronicles 13:3); step by step he sank, until, bereft of legitimate means of obtaining divine counsel, he resorted to the illicit course of consulting the witch of Endor, and so filled the measure of his iniquity and brought on himself destruction ( 1 Chronicles 10:13). David, on the contrary, by sheltering Abiathar was enabled to inquire of the Lord in the ordained way ( Samuel 23:6-9; 30:7; 2 Samuel 2:1; 5:19; 21:1, an undesigned coincidence with Psalm 16:7, and so a proof of genuineness).

Abiathar adhered to David during all his wanderings, and was afflicted in all wherein David was afflicted; also when he assumed the throne in Hebron, the Aaronite priestly city of refuge. He bore the ark before David when it was brought up from Obed-Edom’s house to Jerusalem ( Chronicles 15:11,12; 1 Kings 2:26). He was loyal in Absalom’s rebellion; and, subordinate to Altithophel, was the king’s counselor ( Chronicles 27:34). But in Adonijah’s attempt to be David’s successor, instead of Solomon, Abiathar, probably from jealousy of Zadok, who was on Solomon’s side, took Adonijah’s part. David had evidently for some time previous given the first place in his confidence to Zadok, a preference the more galling as Abiathar was the high priest and Zadok only his vicar, or sagan; thus it was to Zadok he gave the command to take the ark back in Absalom’s rebellion. Abiathar is mentioned subordinately 1 Samuel 15:25,29,35. Perhaps Zadok was appointed high priest by Saul after the slaughter of Ahimelech. David on succeeding, to conciliate his subjects, allowed him conjointly to hold office with Abiathar. Zadok had joined David in Hebron after Saul’s death, with 22 captains of his father’s house ( 1 Chronicles 12:28). Abiathar had the first place, with the ephod, Urim and Thummim, and the ark, in the tent pitched by David at Jerusalem Zadok officiated before the tabernacle and brazen altar made by Moses and Bezaleel in the wilderness, which were now in Gibeon ( 1 Chronicles 16:1-7,37,39,40; 27:38,34; 2 Chronicles 1:3-5). Moreover, Zadok and Abiathar represented rival houses: Zadok that of Eleazar, the oldest son of Aaron; Abiathar that of Ithamar, the youngest ( 1 Chronicles 24:3,4; 6:8). Eli, of whose family it had been foretold 150 years before that the priesthood should pass from it, was Abiathar’s progenitor fourth backward, and Abiathar would naturally fear the coming realization of the curse. All these undesigned proprieties mark the truth of the history. His own act brought the prophecy to its consummation ( 1 Samuel 2:31-35).

Solomon banished him to Anathoth, and put Zadok as high priest in his room ( 1 Kings 2:35). But in 1 Kings 4:4 Abiathar is still called the “priest” second to Zadok. The Septuagint, “the king made Zadok the first priest in the room of Abiathar,” solves the difficulty. Abiathar had been first, priest, but henceforth he was made subordinate to Zadok. Ahimelech or Abimelech, son of Ahimelech, is substituted for Ahimelech, son of Ahimelech: 2 Samuel 8:17; 1 Chronicles 18:16; 24:3,6,31. The Lord Jesus ( Mark 2:26) names Ahimelech as the high priest in whose time David ate the shewbread. Probably the sense is: “in the days of Ahimelech, who was afterward high priest,” and under whom the record of the fact would be made. Perhaps too the loaves being his perquisite ( Leviticus 24:9) were actually handed by Ahimelech to David. Both father and son, moreover, it seems from the quotations above, bore both names, and were indifferently called by either.

ABIB The month Nisan. Meaning ears of grain, namely, barley ( Exodus 13:4). [See MONTHS .] On the 15th day the Jews began harvest by gathering a sheaf of barley firstfruits, and on the 16th offered it ( Leviticus 23:4-14).

On the 10th day the Passover lamb was taken, on the 14th slain and eaten.

ABIDA Genesis 25:4; 1 Chronicles 1:33.

ABIDAN Numbers 1:11; 2:22; 7:60,65; 10:24.

ABIEL (“father of strength”).= 1. Father of Kish and of Ner; grandfather of Saul and of Abner, according to 1 Samuel 9:1; 14:51. But Abiel seems to have had “Ner” as his second name ( 1 Chronicles 8:33; 9:35,39, where Abiel is also called Jehiel and Saul is represented as his great grandson). Probably in 1 Samuel a link in the genealogy is omitted, as often elsewhere. 2. 1 Chronicles 11:32; named Abi-Albon (of the same meaning) Samuel 23:31.

ABIEZER (“father of help”). 1. Oldest son of Gilead, descendant of Manasseh; head of a leading family, of which were Joash and Gideon ( Judges 6:11,24,34; 8:2). Gideon soothed the wounded vanity of Ephraim when upbraiding him for not having called in their aid against Midian, saying “Is not the grape of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?” ( Joshua 17:2.) The form is Jeezer in Numbers 26:30, but see JEEZER . Originally Abiezer’s family must have been E. of Jordan. In 1 Chronicles 7:18 Abiezer is made son of Gilead’s sister. The family must have afterward passed to the W. of Jordan; for Joash the Abiezrite lived in Ophrah, which seems to have been on a hill, facing from the S. the Esdraelon plain, the scene of so many contests. 2. 2 Samuel 23:27.

ABIGAIL (“father of joy”). 1. The churl Nabal’s beautiful wife, of Carmel. Taking on herself the blame of Nabal’s insult to David’s messengers, she promptly, and with a discreet woman’s tact, averted David’s just anger by liberally supplying the wants of his forces, and by deprecating in person at his feet the shedding of blood in vengeance. He hearkened to her prayer and accepted her person; and rejoiced at being “kept back” by her counsel from taking into his own hand God’s prerogative of vengeance ( 1 Samuel 25:26,34,39; compare Romans 12:19). God did “plead His cause” against Nabal: compare the undesigned coincidence of phrase between the history and the independent psalm, a proof of genuineness: Psalm 35:1,7:16; 17:4; 14:1 with Samuel 25:25,36-38 with Luke 12:19-21, 1 Samuel 25:29; the image of a “sling, slinging out the souls of the enemy” with 1 Samuel 17:49. At Nabal’s death by God’s visitation David made her his wife, and by her David had a son, Chileab ( 2 Samuel 3:3), or Daniel ( <130301> Chronicles 3:1), i.e. God is my judge, a name which apparently alludes to the divine judgment on Nabal. 2. A sister of David, daughter of Nahash; wife of Jether or Ithra, an Ishmaelite, rather seduced by him [see ITHRA ]; mother of Amasa ( Chronicles 2:15-17). David was probably her and Zeruiah’s half brother, born of the same mother, but he having Jesse, she and Zeruiah Nahash, for their father. This accounts for the phrase “Abigail, daughter of Nahash, and sister of Zeruiah,” not of David. Zeruiah and she were only his step-sisters.

ABIHAIL (“father of splendor”). 1. Wife of Rehoboam, king of Judah, daughter, i.e. descendant of Eliab, David’s oldest brother. But Keil argues that Chronicles 11:19,20 shows that in 2 Chronicles 11:18 only one wife is named; therefore the sense is “Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth [son of David] and of Abihail” (the daughter of Eliab, etc.) 2. Numbers 3:35. 3. 1 Chronicles 2:23. 4. 1 Chronicles 5:14. 5. Father of Queen Esther, and uncle of Mordecai ( Esther 2:15).

ABIHU Second son of Aaron by Elisheba ( Exodus 6:23; Numbers 3:2). With Aaron, Nadab, and the 70 elders, he accompanied Moses up Sinai to a limited distance ( Exodus 24:1). On his death by fire from heaven, in punishment for offering strange fire, see AARON above. A standing example of that divine wrath which shall consume all who offer God devotion kindled at any other save the one Altar and Offering of Calvary, whereby “He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.”

ABIJAH (“father of Jehovah,” i.e. one whose will is that of God), orABIJAM <111501> Kings 15:1; 2 Chronicles 13:1 (called Abijah in Chronicles, not in Kings, because in the former his character is not represented as contrary to Jah’s will, as it is in the latter; Abia in Matthew 1:7). 1. Son and successor of Rehoboam, king of Judah (Clinton, 959 s.c.; Hales, 973); in the 18th year of Jeroboam I of Israel ( 1 Kings 14:31; 2 Chronicles 12:16). He endeavored to recover the ten tribes to Judah, and made war on Jeroboam. His speech on mount Zemaraim in mount Ephraim, before the battle, urged on Jeroboam the justice of his cause, that God had given the kingdom to David and his sons forever “by a covenant of salt,” and that Judah had the regular temple service and priesthood, whereas Israel had made golden calves their idols, and had cast out the priests; therefore “fight not ye against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper” (2 Chronicles 13). Judah’s appeal to God, in a crisis of the battle, when the enemy by an ambushment was both before and behind them, brought victory to their side; they took also Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephraim. 400,000 men are assigned to Abijah’s army, 800,000 to Jeroboam’s, of whom 500,000 fell. Kennicott thinks the numbers an error of transcribers for 40,000, 80,000, 50,000; and so Abarbanel. Elated by success, he multiplied his wives, like Solomon, and by his 14 wives had sons and 16 daughters. Prosperity tempted him into the wickedness which is attributed to him in Kings; men may boast of temple privileges, yet love carnal practices ( Jeremiah 7:4,5). His reign lasted three years. His mother was Maachah ( 1 Kings 15:2), or Michaiah ( 2 Chronicles 13:2), doubtless named from her grandmother, Absalom’s mother ( Samuel 3:3). She was daughter of Uriel, of Gibeah, and granddaughter of Abishalom, or Absalom ( 1 Chronicles 11:20). “Daughter” in Scripture often means granddaughter, a generation being skipped. Abijah thus was descended from David on both father’s and mother’s side. Uriel had married Tamar, Absalom’s beautiful daughter ( 2 Samuel 14:27). 2. Son of Jeroboam I, “in whom alone of Jeroboam’s house some good thing was found toward the Lord God of Israel” ( 1 Kings 14:13); therefore, he alone was permitted to go down to the grave in peace.

Jeroboam had sent his wife in disguise with a present to the prophet see AHIJAH (see). Blind with age, he yet knew her and announced the tidings, sad to her but honoring to her son. So Abijah died, and “all Israel mourned for him.” 3. 1 Chronicles 24:10. Only four returned of the 24 courses of the priesthood, of which Abijah’s course was not one ( Ezra 2:36-39; Nehemiah 7:39-42; 12:1). But the four were divided into the original 24, with the original names. Hence, Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, is described as “of the course of Abia” ( Luke 1:5). 4. Wife of Ahaz, and mother of good Hezekiah; perhaps a descendant of the Zechariah slain between the temple and the altar ( 2 Chronicles 24:21; 26:5; 29:1); certainly daughter of Zechariah, probably the one through whom Uzziah sought God.

ABILA Capital ofABILENE, the tetrarchy of Lysanias ( Luke 3:1), on the eastern slope of Lebanon, in a region fertilized by the river Barada (Abana). Abel (Hebrew) means “a grassy spot.” The tradition of Abel’s murder having taken place here (marked by his tomb 30 feet in length, Nebi Habil, on a hill) arose from confounding his name (properly Hebel ) with abel , a frequent name of rich meadowy places. The lively and refreshing green of the spot is noticed by Burckhardt. Abilene had originally been a tetrarchate under Lysanias, Ptolemy’s son (Josephus, Ant. 14:13,8; 18:6,10), put to death 33 B.C., through Cleopatra’s intrigues, who then took the province.

Next, it fell to Augustus, who rented it to Zenodorus, but as he did not clear it of robbers it was given to Herod the Great. At his death the southern part was added to Trachonitis and Ituraea, as a tetrarchy for his son Philip. The rest, the larger part, including Abila, was then bestowed on the Lysanias of Luke 3:1, probably descended from the former Lysanias. Ten years afterward the emperor Caligula gave it to Agrippa I as “the tetrarchy of Lysanias.” The division of Abilene between Lysanias and Philip accounts for the seeming difference between Luke who assigns it to Lysanias, and Josephus who assigns it to Philip. Abila stood in the Suk (meaning a market) wady Barada, a gorge where the river breaks down through the mountain Antilebanon toward the plain, with a semicircular background of cliffs three or four hundred feet high, between Heliopolis (Baalbec), 32 miles off; and Damascus,18. Latin inscriptions found here respecting the repairs of the road by the Abileni, and concerning the 16th legion, identify the place.

ABIMAEL Descendant of Joktan ( Genesis 10:28; 1 Chronicles 1:22). The name is preserved in Mali in Arabia Aromatifera (Theophrastus).

ABIMELECH (“father of a king, or father king”). A common title of many Philistine kings, as Pharaoh of the Egyptians, and Caesar and Augustus of the Roman: Padishah (father king) is similarly a title of the Persian king. 1. Hence, we find Achish called Abimelech in the title of Psalm 34, which explains the seeming discrepancy of name in 1 Samuel 21:11. 2. Genesis 20:1, 1898 B.C.; Hales, 2054 B.C.: the king of Gerar.

Abimelech’s taking Sarah into his harem shows that in those times kings claimed the odious despotic right of taking unmarried females, whether subjects or sojourners; compare Genesis 12:15; Esther 2:3. A divine warning that death would be the penalty of keeping her, but that Abraham’s intercession as a prophet would follow the restoring of her, led him to give her back with a present of a thousand pieces of silver (131 British pounds). With delicate sarcasm (in the English KJV) he reproved Abraham’s deception. Rather, as Keil and Delitzsch, instead of “he,” translate “this is to thee a covering of the eyes [i.e. an expiatory gift] with regard to all that are with thee” (because in a mistress the whole family is disgraced), “so thou art justified.” The closing of the wombs of Abimelech’s house then ceased. Abimelech some years after repaired, with Phichol his chief captain, to Abraham to form a treaty of friendship. He restored the well dug by Abraham, but seized by Abimelech’s herdsmen. It was thence named Beersheba, the well of the oath, and consecrated to Jehovah ( Genesis 21:22-34). 3. A son of the former, with whom a similar transaction took place in the case of Isaac’s wife Rebekah. The wells dug by Abraham, being supposed to give a proprietary right in the soil, were stopped by the Philistines, and opened again by Isaac, and the virgin soil yielded to his culture one hundred fold. Jealousy made Abimelech beg him “go from us, for thou art much mightier than we.” In the true spirit of “the meek” who “shall inherit the earth,” he successively abandoned his wells, Esek (contention) and Sitnah (hatred), before the opposition of the Gerarite herdsmen, and found peace at last at the well Rehoboth (room), where the Lord made room for him. So by loving concession shall we find peace and room at last ( Romans 12:18-21; John 14:2; Psalm 31:8; 118:5). At Beersheba Abimelech with Ahuzzath his friend, and Phichol his captain, renewed the treaty of friendship with Isaac, originally made by his father with Abraham, and for the same reason (notwithstanding his past bad treatment of Isaac in sending him away), namely, he saw the Lord was with Isaac. Compare Genesis 26:23 with Genesis 21:22,23. Plainly the Philistines had then a more organized government than the Canaanite nations, one of which had been supplanted by these foreign settlers. 4. Son of Gideon by his Shechemite concubine ( Judges 8:31). At Gideon’s death he murdered his seventy brethren, excepting the youngest, Jotham, who hid himself, and by his mother’s brethren influenced the Shechemites to make him king. Then Jotham addressed to the Shechemites the fable of the trees and the bramble (Judges 9), presaging a feud between Abimelech and Shechem which would mutually consume both. So it came to pass; for God makes in righteous retribution the instruments of men’s sin the instrument also of their punishment at last. After three years Shethem rebelled, under Gaal. At Zebul’s information Abimelech came rapidly on the rebels and slew all, and beat down their city, and sowed it with salt; he burned to death a thousand more men and women who fled for sanctuary to the hold of the idol Baalberith. Thence he marched to Thebez, nine miles eastward, and took the town; but when trying to burn the tower was struck on the head by a piece of a millstone cast down by a woman. Feeling his wound mortal, he was slain by his armorbearer, at his own request, lest it should be said a woman slew him. For the spiritual lesson read Jeremiah 2:19; Proverbs 5:22; 1:31; Job 20:5; Matthew 26:52. The friendship that is based on sin is hollow; compare 2 Samuel 13:3-5,32,33.

ABINADAB (“father of willingness”). 1. A Levite of Kirjath-jearim, (but see LEVITES for doubts as to Abinadab being a Levite,) in whose house the ark remained twenty years ( 1 Samuel 7:1,2; 1 Chronicles 13:7); Eleazar his son was sanctified to keep it. 2. Jesse’s second son ( 1 Samuel 16:8; 17:13). 3. Saul’s son, slain at Gilboa (2 Samuel 31:2). 4. 1 Kings 4:7,11.

ABINOAM Judges 4:6,12; 5:1,12.

ABIRAM (“father of height”). 1. A Reubenite, son of Eliab; conspired with Dathan and On, Reubenites, and Korah, a Levite, against Moses and Aaron (Numbers 16). (See AARON , see KORAH .) 2. Oldest son of Hiel the Bethelite ( 1 Kings 16:34); perished at his father’s laying the foundations of Jericho’s fortified walls, as Joshua’s curse predicted ( 1 Kings 6:26).

ABISHAG (“father of error”). The beautiful young woman of Shunem in Issachar, who cherished David in his old age. Adonijab persuaded Bathsheba to entreat Solomon to give her to him in marriage. This Solomon construed into virtual treason: as regal rights followed the possession in marriage of a deceased king’s wife, and caused him to be killed ( 1 Kings 1:1-4; 2:13- 25) ABISHAI (“father of gifts”). Nephew of David by his sister Zeruiah; brother of Joab and Asahel. Joab was more of the experienced general, Abishai the devoted champion for David. Thus, when David proposed to Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai the perilous visit to Saul’s camp, Abishai instantly volunteered, reckless of personal danger. His impulsive nature needed occasional checking, in his zeal for David. We find the consistency of character maintained throughout the history; the same spirit prompting the request at Hachilah,” Let me smite Saul” ( 1 Samuel 26:8), as subsequently at Bahurim, when Shimei cursed David, prompted his exclamation “Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? let me take off his head” ( 2 Samuel 16:9). He commanded one third of David’s army at the battle with Absalom (2 Samuel 18), and rescued David when waxing faint and in imminent peril from the giant Ishbi-benob ( 2 Samuel 21:15-17). In the same war probably he, as chief of the three “mighties,” chivalrously broke through the Philistine host to procure water for David from the well of his native Bethlehem ( 2 Samuel 23:14-17). Once he withstood 300 and slew them with his spear. In 2 Samuel 8:13 the victory over the 15,000 Edomites or Syrians in the Valley of Salt is ascribed to David; in Chronicles 18:12, to Abishai. Probably the commander in chief was David, but the victory actually gained by Abishai.

ABISHALOM (See ABIJAH .)

ABISHUA (“father of safety”). 1. Son of Phinehas, fourth high priest ( 1 Chronicles 6:50). The Chronicon of Alexandria shows that his pontificate included the period of Ehud’s judgeship, and probably of Eglon’s oppression. Father of Bukki ( 1 Chronicles 6:4,5,50,51; Ezra 7:4,5). Josephus (Ant. 8:1,3) says he was succeeded in the priesthood by Eli; his descendants, until Zadok, falling to the rank of private persons. 2. Son of Bela of Benjamin: 1 Chronicles 8:4.

ABISHUR 1 Chronicles 2:28.

ABITAL 2 Samuel 3:4; 1 Chronicles 3:8.

ABITUB 1 Chronicles 8:11.

ABNER (“father of light”). Son of Ner, who was the brother of Kish, the father of Saul ( 1 Chronicles 9:36). Made commander in chief by his cousin Saul.

Introduced David to Saul, after Goliath’s death ( 1 Samuel 14:51; 17:55,57). With Saul at Hachilah ( 1 Samuel 26:8-14). At Saul’s death he upheld the dynasty in Ishbosheth’s person, mainly owing to the paramount influence of the tribe Ephraim, which was jealous of Judah.

While David reigned over Judah as God’s anointed, at Hebron, Ishbosheth professedly, but Abner really, reigned in Mahanaim beyond Jordan. In Samuel 2:10 Ishbosheth is said to have reigned for two years, but David for seven. Probably for the first five years after the fatal battle of Gilboa David alone reigned in the old capital of Judah, Hebron; but the rest of the country was in the Philistines’ hands. During these five years Israel gradually regained their country, and at length Abner proclaimed Ishbosheth at Mahanaim beyond Jordan, for security against the Philistines: 2 Samuel 2:5-7 confirms this. David’s thanks to the men of Jabesh Gilead for the burial of Saul and his sons imply that no prince of Saul’s line as yet had claimed the throne. His exhortation, “Be valiant,” refers to the struggle with the Philistines, who alone stood in the way of his reign over all Israel. Ishbosbeth’s known weakness, which accounts for his absence from the battle of Gilboa, suited well Abner’s ambition. At Gibeon Abner’s army was beaten by Joab’s; and in fleeing Abner, having tried to deter Asahel, Joab’s brother, from following him (since Abner shrank from a blood feud with Joab), but in vain, was at last constrained in self defense to slay him (2 Samuel 2). Abner, presuming on his position as the only remaining stay of Ishbosbeth, was tempted to take the late king Saul’s concubine wife, Rizpah. This act, involving in oriental idea the suspicion of usurping the succession to the throne (so in the case of Absalom: Samuel 16:21; 20:3; 1 Kings 2:13-25. See ABIATHAR , see ADONIJAH , and see ABISHAG ), called forth a rebuke from even so feeble a person as the nominal king, Ishbosheth. Henceforth, in consequence of the rebuke, Abner set about bringing the northern ten tribes to David’s sway. Received favorably and feasted by David, after his wife Michal was taken from Phaltiel and restored to him, Abner went forth from Hebron in peace. But Joab, by a message, brought him back from the well of Sirah, and, taking him aside to speak peaceably, murdered him, Abishai also being an accomplice, for the blood of Asahel ( Numbers 35:19; 2 Samuel 3:30,39), and on Joab’s part also, as appears likely from Amasa’s case, from fear of Abner’s becoming a rival in the chief command ( 2 Samuel 20:4-10). David felt the sons of Zeruiah too strong for him to punish their crime; but, leaving their punishment to the Lord, he showed every honor to Abner’s memory by following the bier, and composing this dirge: “Ought Abner to die as a villain dies? Thy hands not bound, Thy feet not brought into fetters, As one falls before the sons of wickedness, so fellest thou!”

The second and third lines are connected with the last, describing the state in which he was when slain. In form, the subject in such propositions comes first, the verb generally becoming a participle. Indignation preponderates over sorrow; the point of the dirge is the mode of Abner’s death. If Abner had been really slain in revenge for blood, as Joab asserted, he ought to have been delivered up “bound hand and foot.” But Joab, instead of waiting for his being delivered up with the legal formalities to the authorized penalty (if he were really guilty, which he was not), as an assassin, stabbed him as a worthless fellow ( 1 Kings 2:5). David added that he felt himself, though a king, weakened by his loss, and that “a prince and great man had fallen.”

ABOMINATION An object of disgust ( Leviticus 18:22); a detestable act ( Ezekiel 22:11); a ceremonial pollution ( Genesis 43:32); especially an idol ( Kings 11:5-7; 2 Kings 23:13); food offered to idols ( Zechariah 9:7).

The Egyptians regarded it an abomination, i.e. ceremonially polluting, to eat with the Hebrews as foreigners ( Genesis 43:32), because, as Herodotus says ( Genesis 2:41), the cow was eaten and sacrificed by foreign nations. So when Pharaoh told Israel to offer sacrifice to Jehovah in Egypt without going to the wilderness, Moses objected: “we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes” (the cow, the only animal which all the Egyptians held sacred), “and will they not stone us?” ( Exodus 8:26) compare the Jews’ own practice in later times ( Acts 10:28). The Hebrews, not only as foreigners, accounted by the intolerant mythology of Egypt as unfit for intercourse except that of war or commerce, but also as nomad shepherds, were an “abomination” to the Egyptians ( Genesis 46:34). Therefore Joseph tells his brethren to inform Pharaoh, “Our trade hath been about cattle, both we and also our fathers,” i.e. hereditarily; for Pharaoh would be sure then to plant them, not in the heart of the country, but in Goshen, the border land. The Egyptians themselves reared cattle, as Pharaoh’s offer to make Joseph’s brethren “overseers of his cattle” proves ( Genesis 47:6), and as their sculptures and paintings show; but they abominated the nomad shepherds, or Bedouins, because the Egyptians, as being long civilized, shrank, and to the present day shrink, from the lawless predatory habits of the wandering shepherd tribes in their vicinity.

ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION “The idol [see ABOMINATION ] of the desolator,” or “the idol that causeth desolation.” Abomination refers especially to such idolatry only as is perpetrated by apostates from Jehovah ( 2 Kings 21:2-7; 23:13).

Josephus (B. J., 4:6, sec. 3) refers to the Jews’ tradition that the temple would be destroyed “if domestic hands should first pollute it.” The Lord quotes Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11, in Matthew 24:15 “the abomination of desolation,” as the sign of Jerusalem’s coming destruction.

Daniel makes the ceasing of the sacrifice and oblation the preliminary to it.

Jewish rabbis considered the prophecy fulfilled when the Jews erected an idol altar, described as “the abomination of desolation” in 1 Macc. 1:54; 6:7. This was necessarily followed by the profanation of the temple under the Old Testament antichrist, Antiochus Epiphanes. He built an idolatrous altar on the altar of burnt offering to Jupiter Olympius, and dedicated the temple to him, and offered swine’s flesh. The divine law is that where the church corrupts herself, the world, the instrument of her sin, is made also the instrument of her punishment ( Matthew 24:28; Revelation 17:3,16). The bringing of the idolatrous, Roman, image crowned standards into the temple, where they were set over the E. gate, and sacrificed to, upon the destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman Titus, 37 years after Jesus’ prophecy (A.D. 70), is not enough to meet the requirements of the term “abomination,” unless it were shown that the Jews shared in the idolatry. Perhaps the Zealots perpetrated some abomination which was to be the sign of the nation’s ruin. They had taken possession of the temple, and having made a profane country fellow, Phannias, their high priest, they made a mock of the sacred rites of the law. Some such desecration within the city, “in the holy place,” coinciding with Cestius Gallus’ encampment without, “in a holy place,” was the sign foretold by Jesus; noting it, the Christians fled from the city to Pella, and all escaped. The final fulfillment is probably future. The last antichrist, many think, is about to set up an idol on a wing of the restored temple (compare Matthew 4:5; John 5:43) in the latter half of the last, or 70th, of Daniel’s prophetic weeks; for the former three and a half days (years) of the prophetic week he keeps his covenant with the Jews; in the latter three and a half breaks it ( Zechariah 11:16,17; 12; 13; 14; Daniel 9; 11). The Roman emperor Hadrian erected a temple to Jupiter upon the site of the Jewish temple; but probably “the consummation to be poured upon the desolate” is yet future.

ABRAHAM Abraham (father of a multitude). Up to Genesis 17:4,5, his being sealed with circumcision, the sign of the covenant,ABRAM (father of elevation).

Son of Terah, brother of Nahor and Haran. Progenitor of the Hebrews, Arabs, Edomites, and kindred tribes; the ninth in descent from Shem, through Heber. Haran died before Terah, leaving Lot and two daughters, Milcah and Iscah. Nahor married his niece Milcah: Abraham Iscah, i.e.

Sarai, daughter, i.e. granddaughter, of his father, not of his mother ( Genesis 20:12). Ur, his home, is the modern Mugheir, the primeval capital of Chaldaea; its inscriptions are probably of the 22nd century B.C.

The alphabetical Hebrew system is Phoenician, and was probably brought by Abraham to Canaan, where it became modified. Abraham, at God’s call, went forth from Ur of the Chaldees ( Genesis 11:31-12). In Haran Terah died. The statement in Genesis 11:26, that Terah was 70 when he begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran, must apply only to the oldest, Haran. His being oldest appears from the fact that his brothers married his daughters, and that Sarai was only ten years younger than Abraham ( Genesis 17:17); the two younger were born subsequently, Abram, the youngest, when Terah was 130, as appears from comparing Genesis 11:31 with Genesis 12:4; Acts 7:3,4: “before he dwelt in Charran [Haran], while he was in Mesopotamia,” in his 60th year, at Ur he received his first call: “Depart from thy land, to a land which I will show thee” (as yet the exact land was not defined). In Haran he received a second call: “Depart from thy father’s house unto THE land [Heb., Genesis 12:1] which I will show thee;” and with it a promise, temporal (that God would bless him, and make him founder of a great nation) and spiritual (that in him all families of the earth should be blessed).

The deluge, the revelation to Noah, and the Babel dispersion had failed to counteract the universal tendency to idolatrous apostasy, obliterating every trace of primitive piety. God therefore provided an antidote in separating one family and nation to be the repository of His truth against the fullness of time when it should be revealed to the whole world. From Joshua 24:2,14,15, it appears Terah and his family served other gods beyond the Euphrates. Silly traditions as to Terah being a maker of idols, and Abraham having been east into a fiery furnace by Nimrod for disbelief in idols, were drawn from this Scripture, and front Ur meaning fire. The second call additionally required that, now when his father was dead and filial duty had been discharged, after the stay of 15 years in Haran, he should leave his father’s house, i.e. his brother Nahor’s family, in Haran. The call was personally to himself. He was to be isolated not only from his nation but from his family. Lot, his nephew, accompanied him, being regarded probably as his heir, as the promise of seed and the specification of his exact destination were only by degrees unfolded to him ( Hebrews 11:8). Nicolaus of Damascus ascribed to him the conquest of Damascus on his way to Canaan. Scripture records nothing further than that his chief servant was Eliezer of Damascus; he pursued Chedorlaomer to Hobah, on the left of Damascus, subsequently ( Genesis 14:15), Abraham entered Canaan along the valley of the Jabbok, and encamped first in the rich Moreh valley, near Sichem, between mounts Ebal and Gerizim. There he received a confirmation of the promise, specifying “this land” as that which the original more general promise pointed to. Here therefore he built his first altar to God. The unfriendly attitude of the Canaanites induced him next to move to the mountain country between Bethel and Ai, where also he built an altar to Jehovah, whose worship was fast passing into oblivion in the world. Famine led him to Egypt, the granary of the world, next. The record of his unbelieving cowardice there, and virtual lie as to Sarai [see ABIMELECH ] is a striking proof of the candor of Scripture. Its heroes’ faults are not glossed over; each saint not only falls at times, but is represented as failing in the very grace (e.g. Abraham in faith) for which he was most noted. Probably the Hyksos (akin to the Hebrews), or shepherds’ dynasty, reigned then at Memphis, which would make Abraham’s visit specially acceptable there. On his return his first visit was to the altar which he had erected to Jehovah before his fall (compare Genesis 13:4 with Hosea 2:7; Revelation 2:5). The greatness of his and Lot’s substance prevented their continuing together. The promise of a direct heir too may have influenced Lot, as, no longer being heir, to seek a more fixed home, in the region of Sodom, than he had with Abraham, “dwelling in tents.”

Contrast the children of the world with the children of God ( Hebrews 11:9,10,18-16). His third resting place was Mamre, near Hebron (meaning association, namely, that of Abraham, Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner; next called Kirjath Arba; then it resumed its old name, Hebron, the future capital of Judah). This position, communicating with Egypt, and opening on the pastures of Beersheba, marks the greater power of his retinue now, as compared with what it was when he encamped in the mountain fastness of Ai.

Fourteen years previously Chedorlaomer, king of Elam (the region S. of Assyria, E. of Persia, Susiana), the chief sovereign, with Amrephar of Shinar (Babylon), Arioch of Ellasar (the Chaldean Larissa, or Larsa, half way between Ur, or Mugheir, and Erech, or Warka, in Lower Babylonia), and Tidal, king of nations, attacked Bera of Sodom, Birsha of Gomorrah, Shinab of Admah, and Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela or Zoar, because after twelve bears of subordination they “rebelled” (Genesis 14).

Babylon was originally the predominant power; but a recently deciphered Assyrian record states that an Elamitie king, Kudur Nakhunta, conquered Babylon 2296 B.C. Kudur Mabuk is called in the inscriptions the “ravager of Syria,” so that the Scripture account of Chedorlaomer (from Lagsmar, a goddess, in Semitic; answering to Mabuk in Hamitic) exactly tallies with the monumental inscriptions which call him Apda martu,” ravager,” not conqueror, “of the West.” Abraham, with 318 followers, and aided by the Amorite chiefs, Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner, overtook the victorious invaders near Jordan’s springs, and attacked them by night from different quarters and routed them, and recovered Lot with all the men and the goods carried off. His disinterestedness was evinced in refusing any of the goods which Arabian war usage entitled him to, lest the king of worldly Sodom should say, “I have made Abraham rich” (compare Esther 9:15,16; 2 Kings 5:16; contrast Lot, Genesis 13:10,11). Melchizedek, one of the only native princes who still served Jehovah, and was at once king and priest, blessed Abraham in the name of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed God in Abraham’s name, by a beautiful reciprocation of blessing, and ministered to him bread and wine; and Abraham “gave him tithes of all.” Immediately after Abraham had refused worldly rewards Jehovah in vision said, “I am ... thy exceeding great reward.” The promise now was made more specific: Eliezer shall not be thine heir, but “he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels ... Tell if thou be able to number the stars; so shall thy seed be.” His faith herein was called forth to accept what was above nature on the bore word of God; so “it [his faith] was counted to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15). Hence he passes into direct covenant relation with God, confirmed by the sign of the burning lamp (compare Isaiah 62:1) passing between the divided pieces of a heifer, she goat, and ram, and accompanied by the revelation that his posterity are to be afflicted in a foreign land 400 years, then to come forth and conquer Canaan when the iniquity of the Amorites shall be full. The earthly inheritance was to include the whole region “from the river of Egypt unto the ... river Euphrates,” a promise only in part fulfilled under David and Solomon ( 2 Samuel 8:3; 2 Kings 4:21; 2 Chronicles 9:26). Tyre and Sidon were never conquered; therefore the complete fulfillment remains for the millennial state, when “the meek shall inherit the land,” and Psalm 72 shall be realized (8-10); compare Luke 20:37.

The taking of Hagar the Egyptian, Sarai’s maid, at the suggestion of Sarai, now 75 years old, was a carnal policy to realize the promise in Ishmael.

Family quarreling was the inevitable result, and Hagar fled from Sarai, who dealt hardly with her maid when that maid despised her mistress. Abraham in his 99th year was recalled to the standing of faith by Jehovah’s charge, “Walk before Me and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17). God then gave circumcision as seal of the covenant of righteousness by faith, which he had while yet uncircumcised (Romans 4). His name was changed at circumcision from Abram to Abraham (father of many nations), to mark that the covenant was not to include merely his seed after the flesh, the Israelites, but the numerous Gentile nations also, who in his Seed, Christ, should be children of his faith (Galatians 3). Sarai (my princess, or “nobility,” Gesenius) became Sarah (princess) no longer queen of one family, but spiritually of all nations ( Galatians 3:16). The promise now advances a stage further in explicitness, being definitely assigned to a son to be born of Sarah. Its temporal blessings Ishmael shall share, but the spiritual and everlasting with the temporal are only to be through Sarah’s son. Sarah laughed. more from joy though not without unbelief, as her subsequent laugh and God’s rebuke imply ( Genesis 18:12-15). Now first, Jehovah, with two ministering angels, reveals Himself and His judicial purposes (Genesis 18) in familiar intercourse with Abraham as “the friend of God” ( John 15:15; Psalm 25:14; 2 Chronicles 20:7; James 2:23; Amos 3:7), and accepts his intercession to a very great extent for the doomed cities of the plain. The passionate intercession was probably prompted by feeling for his kinsman Lot, who was in Sodom, for he intercedes only for Sodom, not also for Gomorrah, an undesigned propriety, a mark of genuineness. This epiphany of God contrasts in familiarity with the more distant and solemn manifestations of earlier and later times. Loving confidence takes the place of instinctive fear, as in man’s intercourse with God in Eden; Moses similarly ( Exodus 33:11; Numbers 12:8); Peter, James, and John on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17). A mile from Hebron stands a massive oak, called “Abraham’s oak.” His abode was “the oaks of Mamre” (as Genesis 18:1 ought to be translated, not “plains”). A terebinth tree was supposed in Josephus’ time to mark the spot. It stood within the enclosure, “Abraham’s house.” Isaac’s birth, beyond nature, the type of Him whose name is Wonderful ( Luke 1:35-37, and contrast Mary’s joy with Sarah’s half incredulous laugh and Zacharias’ unbelief, Luke 1:38,45-47,20), was the first grand earnest of the promise. Ishmael’s expulsion, though painful to the father who clung to him ( Genesis 17:18), was needed to teach Abraham that all ties must give way to the one great end. The full spiritual meaning of it, but faintly revealed to Abraham, appears in Galatians 4:22-31.

When Isaac was 25 years old the crowning trial whereby Abraham’s. faith was perfected took place ( James 2:21-23). Still it was his faith, not his work, which was “imputed to him for righteousness”; but the faith that justified him was evinced, by his offering at God’s command his son, to be not a dead but a living “faith that works by love.” Paul’s doctrine is identical with James’s ( 1 Corinthians 13:2; Galatians 5:6). The natural feelings of the father, the divine promise specially attached to Isaac, born out of due time and beyond nature, a promise which seemed impossible to be fulfilled if Isaac were slain, the divine command against human bloodshedding ( Genesis 9:5,6), -- all might well perplex him.

But it was enough for him that God had commanded; his faith obeyed, leaving confidently the solution of the perplexities to God, “accounting that God was able to raise Isaac even from the dead” ( Hebrews 11:19), “from whence he received him in a figure.” The “figure” was: Isaac’s death (in Abraham’s intention) and rescue from it ( 2 Corinthians 1:9,10) vividly represented Christ’s death and resurrection on the “third” day ( Genesis 22:4). The ram’s substitution represented Christ’s vicarious death: it was then that Abraham saw Christ’s day and was glad ( John 8:56). The scene was Moriah (i.e. chosen by Jehovah); others suppose Moreh, three days’ journey from Beersheba. His faith was rewarded by the original promises being now confirmed by Jehovah’s oath by Himself ( Hebrews 6:13,17); and his believing reply to his son, “God will provide Himself a lamb,” received its lasting commemoration in the name of that place, Jehovah Jireh, “the Lord will provide.” His giving up his only and well beloved son (by Sarah) typifies the Father’s not sparing the Only Begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, in order that He might spare us. Sarah died at Kirjath Arba, whither Abraham had returned from Beersheba. The only possession he got, and that, by purchase from the Hittites, was a burying place for Sarah, the cave of Machpelah, said to be under the mosque of Hebron. His care that he and his should be utterly separated from idolatry appears in his strict charge to Eliezer as to the choice of Isaac’s wife, not to take a Canaanite woman nor yet to bring his son back to Abraham’s original home. Abraham being left alone at Isaac’s marriage, and having his youthful vigor renewed at Isaac’s generation, married Keturah. The children by her, Midian and others, he sent away, lest they should dispute the inheritance with Isaac after his death. He died at 175 years, Isaac and Ishmael joining to bury him beside Sarah. Through his descendants, the Arabs, Israelites, and descendants of Midian, “children of the East,” Abraham’s name is still widely known in Asia. As “father of the faithful,” who left home and all at the call of God, to be a sojourner in tents, he typifies Him who at the Father’s call left His own heaven to be a homeless stranger on earth, and to sacrifice Himself, the unspeakably precious Lamb, for us: “the Word tabernacled [Greek John 1:14] among us.”

ABRAHAM’S BOSOM In Roman times, their custom of reclining on Couches at meals prevailed among the Jews. Each leaned on his left arm, and so lay, as it were, in the bosom of the next below him. This position in the bosom of the master of the house was the place of honor ( John 1:18; 13:23). To lie in Abraham’s bosom was thus a phrase for blessed repose in closest nearness to the father of the faithful in the feast of paradise ( Matthew 8:11; Luke 16:23).

ABRECH ( Genesis 41:43). Translated “bow the knee” in English Bible. Others translate “a pontifical,” or “pure prince,” a common title in ancient Egyptian tombs; Origen and Jerome, “a native Egyptian.” Thus Abrech will be a proclamation of Joseph’s naturalization, a requisite for his executing successfully his great, undertaking among a people most jealous of foreigners. Canon Cook (Speaker’s Commentary) makes it imperative, from the Egyptian,” Rejoice thou;” but Harkevy “Ap-Rach, Chief of the Rech, or men of learning.”

ABRONAH Ebronah ( Numbers 33:34,35). Israel’s halting place in the desert, just before Ezion Geber. A name perhaps meaning a ford (from abar , to cross) over the Elanitic gulf.

ABSALOM (father of peace). Third son of David, by Maachah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, a Syrian region N.E. of Palestine, near lake Merom.

Polygamy bore its fatal fruits in engendering jealousies among the families by different wives, each with a separate, establishment ( 2 Samuel 13:8; 14:24), and in fostering David’s own lust, which broke forth in the sad adultery with Bathsheba. Absalom, the fruit of David’s polygamy, was made the divine instrument of David’s punishment. Amnon, the half brother, violated Tamar, Absalom’s whole sister. David, though very wroth, would not punish Amnon, because he was his firstborn by Ahinoam the Jezreelitess. As Simeon and Levi avenged on Hamor their sister Dinah’s violation, so Absalom after two years’ dark, silent hatred, took vengeance on Amnon at a sheepshearing feast at Baal Hazor to which he invited all the king’s sons (2 Samuel 13). Then he fled to his father-in-law at Geshur for three years. Joab perceiving how the king took to heart Absalom’s exile suborned a woman of Tekoa, by an imaginary case, to extort from the king (whose justice would not allow his love for Absalom to let him escape some penalty for Amnon’s murder) the admission of the general principle that, in special cases where the life taken could not be recalled, means for restoring the loved and living banished one should be devised; just as God, considering the brevity of man’s life, weak and irrecoverable when gone, “as water spilt on the ground, does not take a (sinner’s) soul away” [so the Hebrews 2 Samuel 14:14 for “neither doth God respect any person”], but deviseth means that His banished be not (for ever) expelled from Him.” David yielded, but would not see Absalom, though living at Jerusalem, for two more years. Impatient of delay in his ambitious schemes, he sent for Joab, and, not being heeded, he burnt Joab’s grain (as Samson did to the Philistines, Judges 15:4), which drove Joab to intercede with David for Absalom’s admission to his presence. possibly he feared the succession of Bathsheba’s son to the throne, to which he had the title, being alone of royal descent by his mother’s side, also the oldest surviving son (Amnon being slain, and Chileab or Daniel dead, as his name does not occur after 2 Samuel 3:3).

Nathan’s mission from Jehovah to David, announcing that the Lord loved the child, and that his name therefore was to be Jedidiah, “beloved of the Lord,” implied Jehovah’s choice of Solomon as successor to David ( Samuel 12:24,25). This excited Absalom’s fears. At all events, directly after receiving the king’s kiss of reconciliation, he began popularity hunting, to the disparagement of his father, whose moral hold on the people had been weakened by his sin with Bathsheba, and who probably as years advanced attended personally to judicial ministrations less than is the usual policy of oriental kings. Absalom intercepted suitors, lamenting that there was no judge appointed to help them to their rights such as he would be. His beauty too, as in Saul’s case ( 1 Samuel 9:2), and his princely retinue, attracted many ( 2 Samuel 14:25,26, where probably some error of number has crept in: though doubtless 200 shekels after the king’s weight is much less weight of hair than ordinary shekels would be; <101501> Samuel 15:1-6). Judah, from jealousy of Israel, with whom they had been merged by David, seems to have been too ready to be seduced from loyalty. Accordingly, Absalom chose Hebron, Judah’s old capital, as the head quarters of the revolt. He repaired thither after four (so we ought to read instead of “forty,” 2 Samuel 15:7) years, under the hypocritical pretense of a vow like that of pious Jacob (compare 2 Samuel 15:8 with Genesis 28:20,21); David alludes to the hypocrisy of the rebels in Psalm 4:5. Amasa, son of Abigail, David’s sister, and Jether, an Ishmaelite, owing to David’s neglect of him, and preference of his other sister Zeruiah’s sons (probably because of his Ishmaelite fatherhood), was tempted to join the rebellion, and Ahithophel of Giloh also, because of his granddaughter Bathsheba’s wrong ( 2 Samuel 11:8; 23:34). Both were of Judah; Amasa became Absalom’s general, Ahithophel his counselor.

This David felt most keenly ( Psalm 69:12; 55:12-14,20; 41:9). By Ahithophel’s abominable counsel, Absalom lay with his father’s concubines, at once committing his party to an irreconcilable war, and him to the claim to the throne (according to oriental ideas: so Adonijah, Kings 2:13, etc.), and fulfilling God’s threatened retribution of David’s adultery in kind ( 2 Samuel 12:11,12). Hushai, David’s friend, defeated treachery by treachery. Ahithophel, like his anti-type Judas, baffled, went and hanged himself. Absalom, though well pleased at the counsel of “smiting the king only” and at once, was easily drawn aside by fear of his father’s bravery, and by indecision and vanity; all which Hushai acted on in his counsel to summon all Israel, and that Absalom should command in person. He waited to have himself anointed king first ( 2 Samuel 19:10).

He lost the opportunity of attacking his father that night, while weak handed. The battle in Gilead in the wood of Ephraim (called from Ephraim’s defeat, Judges 12:4) resulted in the defeat of his cumbrous undisciplined host. His locks, on which he prided himself ( Judges 14:25,26), were the means of his destruction, for they kept him suspended from a terebinth tree until Joab pierced him; and David, whom the unnatural son would have gladly smitten, but who charged Joab, Abishai, and Ittai, his three generals, to spare the youth for his sake, mourned pathetically for his death: “O Absalom, my son, would God I had died for thee; my son, my son!” His grave was a pit, over which the insulting conquerors heaped stones, as over Achan and the king of Ai ( Joshua 7:26; 8:29). After losing his three sons ( 2 Samuel 14:27; compare Psalm 21:10), he had erected in the king’s dale ( Genesis 14:17) a pillar to commemorate his name; a sad contrast to this was his dishonored grave. The so-called tomb of Absalom, in the valley of Jehoshaphat outside Jerusalem, betrays its modern origin by Ionic columns; and besides could not have outlasted the various sieges and conquests to which the city has been exposed. David seems to have been a fond but weak father; and Absalom’s and Amnon’s course showed the evil effects of such indulgence ( 1 Kings 1:6). Absalom’s fair daughter Tamar married Uriel, by whom she had Michaiah or Maachah, wife of Rehoboam and mother of see ABIJAH .

ABSTINENCE Enjoined by God, from blood ( Genesis 9:4); and by the Jerusalem council, from blood and idol meats ( Acts 15:29), not to offend Jewish brethren in things indifferent ( 1 Corinthians 9:20-22). The blood was considered as the seat of the life, and as typifying the one Blood that cleanseth from all sin therefore it was treated as a sacred thing. “The children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day, because the angel touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank” ( Genesis 32:32); modern Jews, therefore, abstain from the whole hind quarter. The law defined whole classes of animals, by the not eating of which the Israelites were distinguished from other nations (Leviticus 11); to mark the separation of the church from the world. Also certain parts of lawful animals, to teach typically that even in lawful things moderation and self control are needed ( 1 Corinthians 6:12,13; Leviticus 3:9-11). So the priests, from wine, during their ministration [see AARON ] ( Leviticus 10:1-9); also the Nazarites during their separation ( Numbers 6:3,4); also the Rechabites, constantly, by voluntary vow (Jeremiah 35). All idol meats were forbidden, namely, such as after the first portion had been consecrated to the idol were then eaten as food among the Gentiles ( Exodus 34:15; <19A628> Psalm 106:28; 1 Corinthians 8:4-10; Romans 14:3). Paul lays down the principle that Christians should act each according to his conscience in the matter, but not, even in the exercise of Christian liberty, so as to cast a stumblingblock before weaker brethren. This was the principle of the decree, Acts 15:29. In 1 Timothy 4:3,4, he foretells the rise of Gnostic heretics, the forerunners of the ascetics of the apostate Greek and Latin churches who should forbid marriage, and command to abstain from meats which God created to be received with thanksgiving. Holy Scripture does not enjoin, nor yet forbid, vows of abstinence from intoxicants. The sacrifice of one’s lawful right for our neighbor’s good accords with the law of love: “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.” ( Romans 14:21; Jeremiah 35.) [See RECHABITES .] ACCAD One of the cities in the land of Shinar, with Babel, Erech, and Calneh, the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom ( Genesis 10:10). Jerome (Onomasticon) testifies that the Jews then believed Nisibis was Accad, a city on the river Khabour, in the N.E. of Mesopotamia, midway between Orfa and Nineveh. So the Targum of Jerusalem. Nisibis’ ancient name was Acar, which the Syriac Peschito version has here. Akkad was the name of the “great primitive Hamite race who inhabited Babylonia from the earliest time, and who originated the arts and sciences. In the inscriptions of Sargon the name is applied to the Armenian mountains instead of the vernacular Ararat” (Rawlinson, Herodotus, 1:319, note). The form Kinzi Akkad is found in the inscriptions. Agadi was the great city of the earlier Sargon (G. Smith). Bechart fixes on a site nearer the other three cities in the ancient Sittacene: Akker-koof, or Akker-i-Nimrond, a curious pile of ancient buildings. The Babylonian Talmud mentions the site under the name Aggada. A tract N. of Babylon was called Aceere (Knobel).

ACCHO Ptolemais in the New Testament, Jean d’Acre (named from the knights of John of Jerusalem); called “the key of Palestine.” Its sands were employed by the Sidonians in making glass. The name is akin to the Arab Akeh, a sandy shore heated by the sun. The chief seaport in Syria, 30 miles S. of Tyre; on the N. of the only inlet on the Palestine coast, with Carmel on the S. side. The distance across is eight miles. The river Belus flows into the sea close under the town walls. Accho was Asher’s portion, but never was wrested from the original dwellers ( Judges 1:31). Paul landed here from Tyre, and stayed one day with Christian brethren, before sailing on to Caesarea ( Acts 21:7).

ACCUSER In a forensic sense. [See SATAN .] Luke 18:3; 1 Peter 5:8; Job 1:6; Revelation 12:10; Zechariah 3:1.

ACELDAMA “the field of blood.” So called because bought with the price of blood, according to Matthew 27:6-8; and because it was the scene of retribution in kind, the blood which Judas caused to be shed being avenged by his own blood, according to Acts 1:19; Revelation 16:6. The purchase of the field was begun by Judas, and was completed after Judas’ death by the priests, who would not take the price of blood from Judas but used the pieces of silver to pay for the field. He did not pay the money ( Matthew 27:5), but had agreed to pay it, with a view of securing “a habitation” to himself and his wife and children ( <19A909> Psalm 109:9; 69:25).

Stung with remorse he brought again the 30 pieces of silver, went to the field, hanged himself, and, the cord breaking, his bowels gushed out. Thus there is no discrepancy between Matthew 27:8 and Acts 1:19.

Substantial unity amidst circumstantial variety is the strongest mark of truth; for it. proves the absence of collusion in the writers. (Bengel.) Or probably Peter’s words ( Acts 1:18) are in irony. All he purchased with the reward of iniquity was the bloody field of his burial. What was bought with his money Peter speaks of as bought by him. The field originally belonged to a potter, and had become useless to him when its clay was exhausted. Jerome says it was still shown S. of mount Zion, where even now there is a bed of white clay. Matthew ( Matthew 27:9) quotes Jeremiah’s prophecy as herein fulfilled. Zechariah 11:12,13 is the nearest approach to the quotation, but not verbatim. Probably Jeremiah 18:1,2 and Jeremiah 32:6-12 are the ultimate basis on which Zechariah’s more detailed prophecy rests, and Jeremiah is therefore referred to by Matthew. The field of blood is now shown on the steep S. face of the ravine of Hinnom, on a narrow level terrace, half way up, near its E. end; now Hak-ed-damm. The chalk favors decomposition; and much of it for this reason, and for its celebrity, was taken away by the empress Helena and others, for sarcophagic cemeteries. A large square edifice, half excavated in the rock, and half massive masonry, stands on the steep bank facing the pool of Siloam, as a charnel house 20 feet deep, the bottom covered with moldering bones. “The potter” represents God’s absolute power over the clay framed by His own hand: so appropriate in the case of Judas, “the son of perdition,” of whom Jesus says, “It had been good for that man if he had not been born”; given over to a reprobate mind and its awful doom. This is the point of Jeremiah 18:6, which is therefore referred to by Matthew ( Isaiah 30:14; 45:9; Romans 9:20,21).

ACHAIA In New Testament a Roman province, including the whole Peloponnese, and most of Hellas proper, with the islands. This province, with Macedonia, comprehended all Greece ( Acts 18:12; 19:21). The name was given by the Romans, when they took Corinth and destroyed the Achaian League (146 D.C.), which, beginning with the narrow northern region of the Peloponnese called Achaia, afterward included several Grecian states. In Acts 18:12 Gallio, with the minute propriety that marks historical truth, called “deputy” (proconsul). Achaia had only just been restored under Claudius to the senate, whose representatives in the provinces were proconsuls, from having been an imperial province under Tiberius, whose representatives were procurators.

ACHAICUS A Christian of Achaia, who with Stephanas and Fortunatus was the bearer of Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, and recommended in it to their regard, as one of those who supplied his yearning for Christian fellowship and “refreshed his spirit” ( 1 Corinthians 16:17,18).

ACHAN (troubler): Achar ( 1 Chronicles 2:7). Son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, of the tribe of Judah. When Jericho was cursed, with all that was in it, Achan alone, in defiance of the curse, “saw” (compare Job 31:7; Genesis 3:6; James 1:14,15), coveted, took, and hid (see Genesis 3:8; following the first sin in the same awful successive steps downward) “a Babylonian garment” (compare Revelation 17:4,5), “two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold, fifty shekels” ( Joshua 7:21). His guilty presence alone brought from Jehovah defeat upon Israel at Ai ( Ecclesiastes 9:18). Joshua, by Jehovah’s direction, through lots detected the culprit, and having elicited his confession said, “Why hast thou troubled us?” alluding to the meaning of Achar = Achan) “the Lord shall trouble thee this day.” So all Israel stoned him, and burned with fire, after stoning with stones, his sons, daughters, cattle, and the stolen and personal effects. The God who made has the power to destroy a whole family or nation for the guilt of one ( 2 Kings 23:25-27); for the individual members are not isolated atoms, but form one organic whole, and the good or the evil of one affects the whole and is laid to the charge of the whole, as constituting one moral unity, divinely constituted, not a mere civil institution, just as the whole body suffers by the sin or suffering of a single member. Achan fell under the ban by seizing what was banned, and incurred the same penalty as a town lapsing into idolatry ( Deuteronomy 13:16,17). The whole family was involved in the guilt; indeed, the sons and daughters of an age of reason must have been privy to his hiding the spoil in the earth in his tent. Though the law ( Deuteronomy 24:16) forbade the slaying of children for their fathers’ sins, this did not apply to cases where, as here, Jehovah Himself commands execution. Achan’s children were not taken to the valley (as some explain) as mere spectators, to take warning from their father’s doom; for why then should Achan’s cattle have been taken out along with him? On the other hand, Calmet argues: (1) Had his family been stoned, would not the heap of stones have includedTHEM ALSO? Whereas it is raised over HIM. (2) His sons and daughters who, in some degree at least, acted under his authority, were certainly not punished more rigorously (by burning\parAND stoning) than the principal criminal. (3) Was not the burning applied to such things as might suffer by burning, tents, garments, etc., and the stoning to what fire would little affect, etc.?

But to what effect could Achan’s family be first burned, and then stoned? “They raised over him a great heap of stones,” as cairns are still in the East heaped over infamous persons. Every passer by shows his detestation of the crime by adding a stone to the cairn ( Joshua 8:29; 2 Samuel 18:17). The valley of Achor (see Isaiah 65:10) is identified by some with that of the brook Cherith, before Jordan, now wady el Kelt ( <111701> Kings 17:1-7). The Hebrews of 1 Kings 17:24, “they brought them up unto the valley of trouble,” implies this was higher ground than Gilgal and Jericho. Thomson (The Land and the Book) on Hosea 2:15: “That valley runs up from Gilgal toward Bethel. By Achan’s stoning the anger of the Lord was turned away from Israel, and the door of entrance to the promised inheritance thrown open. Thus the ‘valley of Achor’ (trouble), ‘a door of hope,’ is not a bad motto for those who through much tribulation must enter the promised land.” A salutary warning to all Israel of the fatal effect of robbing God of His due through covetousness. [See ANANIAS .] Israel entered Canaan to take possession of land desecrated by its previous tenants, not as a mere selfish spoil, but for God’s glory. The spoil of Jericho was the firstfruits of Canaan, sacred to Jehovah; Achan’s sacrilegious covetousness in appropriating it needed to be checked at the outset, lest the sin spreading should mar the end for which Canaan was given to Israel.

ACHBOR 1. Genesis 36:38; 1 Chronicles 1:49. 2. Father of king Jehoiakim’s ready tool in evil, Elnathan ( Jeremiah 26:22,23); Achbor was, on the contrary, an instrument of good Josiah, to inquire the Lord’s will from the prophetess Huldah. Called Abdon, the son of Micah, in 2 Chronicles 34:20,21. Goodness is not always hereditary.

ACHIM In Jesus’ genealogy ( Matthew 1:14) = Jachin (i.e. he will establish), contracted from Jehoiachin. The name may express the parents’ faith that God would in His own time establish Messiah’s throne, as Isaiah 9:7 foretold.

ACHISH King of Gath, son of Maoch; called Abimelech, i.e., not merely a king, but also son of a king in the title to Psalm 34: See ABIMELECH for the seeming discrepancy with 1 Samuel 21:10-13; 27:2. Twice David fled to him. On the first occasion, being recognized as the conqueror of the Philistines, he in fear reigned madness (as the Roman L. Junins Brutus did:

Livy, 1:56), and so was let escape to the cave of Adullam. On the second he stayed at Gath, with 600 men, a year and four months, having had Ziklag assigned to him. The unbelieving propensity to calculate probabilities, instead of trusting implicitly to God, misleads even believers into self sought positions of great spiritual danger. “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul, there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines,” said David. This false step on his part necessitated gross lying to the trustful Philistine king ( <092701> Samuel 27:1,8-12). He finally escaped, only by God’s undeserved providential interposition, from having to march with Achish against his own countrymen (1 Samuel 28; 29). Achish, or his son, is again mentioned ( 1 Kings 2:40) as the receiver of Shimei when he left Jerusalem contrary to Solomon’s command.

ACHMETHA Ezra 6:2 = Ecbatana. A title applied to cities with a fortress for protecting the royal treasures (Rawlinson, in Kitto’s Cyclop.). [See ECBATANA .] ACHOR On the northern boundary of Judah ( Joshua 15:7). [See ACHAN .] ACHSAH Daughter of Caleb, son of Jephunneh, the Kenezite; given by him in marriage to his younger brother, Othniel, for having taken Debir, or Kirjath Sepher (i.e. the city of the book), or Kirjath Sanna. Like her large hearted father, she looked for great things through faith in God’s promise of the land; and lighting from her ass, and humbly asking for springs, as needed by the south land, she received “the upper and the nether springs” ( Joshua 15:15-19,49; Judges 1:11-15; 1 Chronicles 2:49). Her husband, Israel’s judge and savior from Chushan Rishathaim, had through the Spirit of Jehovah the noble faith of the race: Judges 3:8-11.

Typically hereby we are taught as children to ask humbly and expect confidently great blessings ( Luke 11:13; 1 John 3:22), both the upper or heavenly and the nether or earthly, from our Father ( Psalm 81:10; 84:11; Isaiah 33:16; John 4:13,14; 7:37-39; 15:7; Ephesians 3:20).

ACHSHAPH A Canaanite royal city, whose king was smitten by Joshua ( Joshua 11:1; 12:20; 19:25). Within Asher; perhaps the modern Chaifa, in the Septuagint Ceaph. Conder (Pal. Expl. Qy. Star., April, 1876) identifies with Yasif. The hieratic papyrus (Brit. Mus., 1842, pl. 35-61), mentioning Aksapou (identified by M. Chabas with Achshaph), is the account of an Egyptian officer’s travels in a chariot from near Aleppo to the vicinity of the sea of Saltlee, and thence to Egypt via Joppa. He is called a Mohar; his record is at least 3,000 years old. (“Voyage d’un Egypt. en Syrie, en Phenic., en Palest.”: F. Chabas, Paris, 1866.)

ACHZIB 1. In Judah, in the shephelah or plain country of Judah on the western borderland toward the Philistines and the sea; the Chezib of Genesis 38:5; Joshua 15:44; Micah 1:14, where the meaning of the name (a lie) is alluded to. 2. In Asher, but, like Accho and Sidon, never wrested from the aboriginal Phoenicians ( Judges 1:31). Ten miles N. of Acre, on the Mediterranean; considered on the return from Babylon the northernmost boundary of the Holy Land. Now Es-zib.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES The second treatise, in continuation of the Gospel as recorded by Luke.

The style confirms the identity of authorship; also the address to the same person, Theophilus, probably a man of rank, judging from the title “most excellent.” The Gospel was the life of Jesus in the flesh, the Acts record His life in the Spirit; Chrysostom calls it “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”

Hence Luke says: “The former treatise I made of all that Jesus began to do and teach;” therefore the Acts give a summary of what Jesus continued to do and teach by His Spirit in His disciples after He was taken up. The book breaks off at the close of Paul’s imprisonment, A.D. 63, without recording his release; hence it is likely Luke completed it at this date, just before tidings of the apostle’s release reached him. There is a progressive development and unity of plan throughout. The key is Acts 1:8: “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me in (1) Jerusalem, and (2) in all Judaea, and (3) in Samaria, and (4) unto the uttermost part of the earth.” It begins with Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Jewish dispensation, and ends with Rome, the metropolis of the whole Gentile world. It is divisible into three portions:

I. From the ascension to the close of Acts 11, which describes the rise of the first purely Gentile church, at Antioch, where the disciples consequently were first called See CHRISTIANS (see); II. Thence down to the special vision at Troas (Acts 16), which carried the gospel, through Paul, to Europe; III. Thence onward, until it reached Rome. In each of the three periods the church has a distinct aspect: in the first, Jewish; in the second, Gentile with a strong Jewish admixture; in the third, after the council at Jerusalem (Acts 15), Gentile in a preponderating degree. At first the gospel was preached to the Jews only; then to the Samaritans ( Acts 8:1-5); then to the Ethiopian eunuch, a proselyte of righteousness ( Acts 8:27); then, after a special revelation as Peter’s warrant, to Cornelius, a proselyte of the gate; then to Gentile Greeks (not Grecians, i.e. Greek speaking Jews, but pagan Greeks, on the whole the best supported reading, Acts 11:20); then Peter, who, as “the apostle of the circumcision,” had been in the first period the foremost preacher, gives place from Acts 13 to Paul, “the apostle of the uncircumcision,” who successively proclaimed the word in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and Rome. Luke joined Paul at Troas (about A.D. 53), as appears from the “we” taking the place of “they” at that point in his history ( Acts 16:8-10). The repetition of the account of the ascension in Acts 1 shows that an interval of some time had elapsed since writing the more summary account of it at the end of Luke 24; for repetition would have been superfluous unless some time had intervened.

Matthew’s Gospel, as adapted to Jewish readers, answers to the first period ending about A.D. 40, and was written probably in and for Jerusalem and Judaea; Mark answers to the second or Judaeo-Gentile period, A.D. 40-50, as his Gospel abounds in Latinisms, and is suited to Gentile converts, such as were the Roman soldiers concentrated at Caesarea, their head quarters in Palestine, the second great center of gospel preaching, the scene of Cornelius’ conversion by Mark’s father in the faith, Peter. Luke’s Gospel has a Greek tinge, and answers to the third period, A.D. 50-63, being suited to Greeks unfamiliar with Palestinian geography; written perhaps at Antioch, the third great center of gospel diffusion.

Antioch is assigned by tradition as his residence (A.D. 52) before joining Paul when entering Europe. Beginning it there, he probably completed it under Paul’s guidance, and circulated it from Philippi, where he was left behind, among the Greek churches. Probably Paul (A.D. 57) alludes to his Gospel in 2 Corinthians 8:18: “the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.” Certainly he quotes his Gospel as Scripture, and by inspiration stamps it as such in 1 Timothy 5:18. His having been chosen by the Macedonian churches joint trustee with Paul of their contributions to Jerusalem implies a long residence, during which he completed and circulated his work. As Acts was the fruit of his second connection with Paul, whose labors down to his imprisonment in Rome form the chief part of the book, so he wrote the Gospel through the help he got in his first connection with him, from Troas down to Philippi. (See Birks’ Horse Evarig., 192, etc., for the probability that Theophilus lived at Antioch.) Jerome says Luke published his Gospel “in the parts of Achaia and Baeotia.”

The Book of Acts links itself with the Gospels, by describing the foundation and extension of the church, which Christ in the Gospels promised; and with the Pauline epistles by undesigned, because not obvious, coincidences. It forms with the Gospels a historical Pentateuch, on which the Epistles are the inspired commentary, as the Psalms and Prophets are on the Old Testament historical books. Tertullian De Bapt., 17, and Jerome, Vir. Illustr., Luc., 7, mention that John pronounced spurious the Acts of Paul and Thecla, published at Ephesus. As Luke’s Acts of the Apostles was then current, John’s condemnation of the spurious Acts is a virtual sanction of ours as genuine; especially as Revelation 3:2 assigns this office of testing the true and the false to John’s own church’ of Ephesus. The epistle of the churches of Lyons and Vienna to those of Asia and Phrygia (A.D. 177) quotes it. Irenseus, Adv.

Hser., 1:31, Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom., 5, and Origen, in Euseb. H. E., 6:23, attest the book. Eusebius, H.E., 3:25, ranks it among “the universally recognized Scriptures.” Its rejection by the Manicheans on purely doctrinal grounds implies its acceptance by the early church catholic. Luke never names himself. But the identity of the writer with the writer of the Gospel ( Luke 1:3) is plain, and that the first person plural ( Acts 16:10,17; 21:1,18; 27:1; 28:16) includes the writer in the first person singular ( Acts 1:1). Paul’s other companions are distinguished from the writer ( Acts 20:4,5,6,15). The sacred writers keep themselves in the background, so as to put forward their grand subject. The first person gives place to the third at Acts 17:1, as Paul and Silas left Luke behind at Philippi. The nonmention of Luke in Paul’s epistles is due to his not having been with him at Corinth (Acts 18), whence the two epistles to the Thessalonians were written; nor at Ephesus (Acts 19), whence he wrote to the Romans; nor at Corinth again, whence he wrote to the Galatians. The first person is not resumed until Acts 20:5,6, at Philippi, the very place where the first person implies he was with Paul two years before (Acts 16); in this interval Luke probably made Philippi his head quarters.

Thenceforward to the close, which leaves Paul at Rome, the first person shows Luke was his companion. Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24, written there and then, declare his presence with Paul in Rome. The undesigned coincidence remarkably confirms the truth of his authorship and of the history. Just in those epistles written from places where in Acts the first person is dropped, Luke is not mentioned, but Silas and Timothy are; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:19 compared with Acts 18:5. But in the epistles written where we know, from Acts 28, the writer was with Paul we find Luke mentioned. Alford conjectures that as, just before Luke’s joining Paul at Troas ( Acts 16:10), Paul had passed through Galatia, where he was detained by sickness ( Galatians 4:13, Greek “Ye know that because of an infirmity of my flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first”), and Phrygia, and as the epistle to Colossae in Phrygia terms Luke “the beloved physician,” Luke became Paul’s companion owing to the weak state of the apostle’s health, and left him at Philippi when he was recovered, which would account for the warm epithet “beloved.”

In Acts 21:10 Agabus is introduced as if he had never been mentioned before, which he was in Acts 11:28. Probably Luke used different written sources of information, guided in the selection by the Holy spirit.

This view accounts for the Hebraistic style of the earlier parts (drawn from Hebrew sources), and the Grecian style of the latter (from Luke himself).

The speeches remarkably and undesignedly accord with all that is known of the speakers from other sources. Compare Peter’s speeches, Acts 2:23; 4:11; 10:34, with 1 Peter 1:17,19; 2:7; Paul’s, Acts 14:15-17; 17:24-31, with Romans 1:19-25; 2:5; 3:25 (Greek “the pretermission,” or passing over of sins, “winking” at them), Colossians 1:17; Thessalonians 2:4 (margin of Acts 17:23 “gods worshipped,” the same Greek); Acts 20:19,31 with Philippians 3:18; Acts 20:32 with Ephesians 2:20; Acts 20:24 with 2 Timothy 4:7; “seed according to the promise,” Acts 13:23, with Romans 4:13; Galatians 3:16.

The Hebraisms mostly found in the speeches, and not in the narrative, prove that the speakers’ very words are essentially though summarily given. Providence so ordered it that during Paul’s two years’ imprisonment in Jerusalem and Caesarea, Luke his companion had the best opportunities for ascertaining the facts of the early part of his work from the brethren on the spot. At Caesarea dwelt Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven ( Acts 21:8), the best authority for Acts 6; 7; 8; also Cornelius the centurion, or at least some witnesses of the events (Acts 10) which initiated the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Probably the portion Acts 17:15--18:5 was inserted by Paul himself, for he was then alone, and none but he could have supplied the facts. Moreover, in Acts 17:16-21 eleven expressions foreign to Luke’s style occur, and in the speech 20 besides, some of which are found nowhere else but in Paul’s epistles.

Peter, to whom the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given ( Matthew 16:19), opens it as the central figure of the first part, both to the Jews (Acts 3) and to the Gentiles (Acts 10). Another instrument was needed for evangelizing the world, combining the learning of both Hebrew and Greek, which the twelve had not, with the citizenship of Rome, the political mistress of the Gentile world; Paul possessed all these qualifications. A Jew by birth; educated in Hebrew divine truth at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem; in Greek literature at Tarsus, one of its most eminent schools (whence he derived his acquaintance with the writings of Aratus, a Cilician poet, his own countryman, Acts 17:28, and Epimenides, Titus 1:12, and Menander, 1 Corinthians 15:33); and a Roman citizen, a privilege which would gain him influence and protect him from lawless and fanatical violence everywhere. Hence Paul by his catholicity of qualifications and spirit (when his old pharisaism was completely eradicated by the revulsion of feeling attendant on his miraculous conversion) occupies the central place in which records the extension of the gospel to the metropolis of the world. Baumgarten remarks: “the twelve did not enter so fully into the catholic spirit of the new dispensation; a new intervention of the Lord was needed to create a new apostolate, not resting on the Israelite organization.” Three civilizations meet in the introduction of the gospel to the world: the polity of Rome, binding all nations together, securing peace, and facilitating the circulation of the gospel of peace; the intellectual and aesthetic culture of Greece, revealing man’s impotence by his own reasoning to find out God’s law, and yet preparing him for it when divinely revealed in the gospel; and the Judaic law, divinely perfect, but impotent to justify through man’s inability to keep it.

Alford rightly reasons that the date of composition must have been before the fulfillment of the prophecy, Acts 27:24, “thou must be brought before Ceasar”; else Luke would have recorded it, as he does Paul’s trials before Felix and Festus. The most certain date from the New Testament, Josephus, and Tacitus, is that of Porcius Festus arriving in Palestine in Felix’ room, A.D. 60. Paul therefore went to Rome A.D. 61, when Burrbus, a humane man, was captain of the guard. His successor, the cruel Tigellinus, would not have been likely to have left him “in free custody.”

Herod Agrippa’s death was A.D. 44. Therefore Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem with the contributions was about A.D. 42 ( Acts 11:30). Corinthians 12:2 (written about A.D. 55-57) refers to this visit. “Fourteen years before” will bring us to about A.D. 41-42. The visit to Antioch, and Agabus’ prophecy fulfilled in Claudius’ reign (A.D. 41) preceded Acts 11:28, namely, A.D. 40. The silence as to Paul, Acts 12:1-19, shows he was not at Jerusalem then, A.D. 43-44, but just before it, A.D. 41-42. The stoning of Stephen was probably A.D. 33, Saul’s conversion A.D. 37, his first visit to Jerusalem A.D. 40, his third visit (Acts 15) fourteen years subsequently to his conversion, A.D. 51 ( Galatians 2:1). After his conversion he went to Arabia, then back to Damascus, whence he escaped under Aretas ( 2 Corinthians 11:32); then to Jerusalem, after three years.

His first visit was then A.D. 40 or 41, being succeeded by a cessation of persecution, owing to Caligula’s attempt to set up his statue in the temple.

Next he was brought to Tarsus, to escape from Grecian conspirators in Jerusalem ( Acts 9:30; Galatians 1:21). Thus only the period from A.D. 30 to A.D. 32-33 elapses between Christ’s ascension and the stoning of Stephen. All the hints in the first six chapters imply a miraculously rapid growth of Christianity, and an immediate antagonism on the part of the Jews. The only other cardinal point of time specified is in Acts 18:2, the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius Ceasar, A.D. 52.

NO book of the New Testament has suffered more from variations of text.

Probably these are due to attempts at clearing supposed difficulties, harmonizing Paul’s different accounts of his conversion, and bringing the text into exact likeness to the Gospels and Epistles. The book of Acts was so little read in the churches publicly that there was less opportunity to expunge interpolations by comparing different copies. The principal interpolations alleged are Acts 8:37; 9:5,6; 24:6-8; 28:29.

ADADAH A city in S. of Judah ( Joshua 15:22).

ADAH (adornment, beauty). 1. One of LAMECH’S [see LAMECH see ZILLAH ] wives ( Genesis 4:19). 2. Daughter of Elon the Hittite; one of Esau’s three wives; mother of his firstborn, Eliphaz; ancestress of six of the Edomite tribes ( Genesis 36:2- 4,15,16); called Bashemath ( Genesis 26:34), meaning the fragrant.

Esau’s third wife, daughter of Ishmael, also is called Bashemath, but Mahalath in Genesis 28:9. Moses drew the genealogy from documents of Esau’s tribe, without altering them. Eastern and especially Arabian custom gives surnames (founded on some memorable event in one’s life), which gradually supersede the other name; for instance, Edom, Genesis 25:30. Women received new names when married; so both might be called Bashemath.

ADAIAH 1. 2 Kings 22:1. 2. 1 Chronicles 6:41. 3. 1 Chronicles 8:21. 4. 1 Chronicles 9:12, Nehemiah 11:12. 5. Ezra 10:29. 6. Ezra 10:39; Nehemiah 11:5. Adalia. Esther 9:8.

ADAM (1) (red earth). The name given by God to the first man, to remind him of his earthly nature; whereas Ish was the name whereby he designates himself, a man of earth (as opposed to Enosh” a man of low degree” Psalm 62:9) ( Genesis 2:23). The Hebrews Adam never assumes any change to mark the dual or plural numbers, men. Probably the Syro-Arabian is the primitive tongue, whence sprang the Hebrews and other so-called Shemitic tongues.

The names in Genesis are therefore essentially the same as were actually spoken. Adam’s naming of the animals in Eden implies that God endued Adam with that power of generalization based on knowledge of their characteristics, whereby he classified those of the same kinds under distinctive appellations, which is the fundamental notion of human language. Its origin is at once human and divine. divine, in that “God brought” the animals “to Adam to see what he would call them,” and enabled him to know intuitively their characteristics, and so not at random or with arbitrary appellations, but with such as marked the connection (as all the oldest names did, when truth logical and moral coincided) between the word and the thing, to name them; human, in that Adam, not God, was the name. “He did not begin with names, but with the power of naming; for man is not a mere speaking machine; God did not teach him words, as a parrot, from without, but gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity which He gave.” (Abp. Trench.)

As the crown of creation, he was formed at the close of the sixth day.

Adam came into the world a full grown man, with the elements of skill and knowledge sufficient to maintain his lordship over nature. The Second Adam came as an infant by humiliation to regain for man his lost lordship.

Original records are perhaps traceable as employed in the inspired record of Moses. Genesis 1:1--2:3 is one concerning creation and man in a general summary. A second is Genesis 2:4--4:26, treating in a more detailed way what was summarily given as to man (Genesis 1), his innocence, first sin, and immediate posterity. A third is Genesis 5:1- 9:29, “the book of the generations of Adam,” and especially of Noah. But the theory of an Elohist author for Genesis 1, and a Jehovist author for Genesis 2, distinct from Moses, on the ground thatELOHIM is the divine name in Genesis 1, butJEHOVAH ELOHIM in Genesis 2, is untenable. Nay, the names are used in their respective places with singular propriety; for\parELOHIM expresses the mighty God of creation, and is fitting in His relation to the whole world. (Genesis 1) ButJEHOVAH, the unchanging I AM ( Exodus 6:3), in covenant with His people, always faithful to His promises to them, is just the name that the Spirit of God would suggest in describing His relation to man, once innocent, then fallen, then the object of an everlasting covenant of love. It is just one of the undesigned proprieties which confirm Scripture’s divine origination, that theJEHOVAH of the covenant with the church is theELOHIM of the world, and vice versa.

The Elohim in man’s creation use anthropomorphic language, implying collective counsel: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” Abp. Trench remarks: “The whole history of man, not only in his original creation, but also in his after restoration and reconstitution in the Son, is significantly wrapped up in this double statement; which is double for this very cause, that the divine mind did not stop at the contemplation of his first creation but looked on to him as renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him ( Colossians 3:10); because it knew that only as partaker of this double benefit would he attain the true end for which he was made.” In 1 Corinthians 11:7 man is called “the image and glory of God.” This ideal is realized fully in the Son of man ( Psalm 8:4,5). Man is both the “image” (Greek eikon , Hebrew tzelem )), and made in the “likeness” (Greek homoiosis , Hebrew demuth ) of God ( James 3:9). “Image” (eikon ) alone is applied to the Son of God ( Colossians 1:15); compare Hebrews 1:3, “the express image of His person” (Greek character, the impress). Eicon, “image,” presupposes a prototype, as the monarch is the prototype and his head on the coin the image. But “likeness” implies mere resemblance. Thus the “image” of God remains in some degree after the fall ( Genesis 9:6; James 3:9; 1 Corinthians 11:7). The likeness of God is what we are to be striving toward. The archetype is in God; man in his ideal is molded after the model realized in the Son of Man, “the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature,” the incarnate God, already existing in the divine point of view ( Colossians 1:15), with body and animal life akin to the animal world, yet the noble temple of an immortal spirit, with reason, imagination, freewill finding its true exercise in conformity to God’s will, and a spiritual nature resembling God’s, reflecting God’s truth, righteousness, and love; capable of reasoning in the abstract which the lower animals cannot, as they have no general signs for universal ideas. Some indeed, as the parrot, can frame articulate sounds, but they have not the power to abstract ideas from the particular outward objects, so as to generalize; as their want of a general language proves. Man is the interpreter of nature’s inarticulate praises to nature’s God. The uniformity of type in the animal kingdom, including man in his bodily nature, and the affinity of structure in the homologous bones, are due not to development from a common parentage, but to the common archetype in the divine mind, of which the cherubim was probably an ideal representation. When man fell, he still is called “in the image of God,” with a view to his future restoration in the God-man. It is a “palace” in God’s design, for a while spoiled by the “strong man” Satan, but to be reinstated by the “stronger” Man with God’s archetypal image and likeness more vividly than ever standing forth ( Luke 11:21).

Adam is the generic term for man, including woman ( Genesis 1:26,27).

Christ came to reveal not only God, but MAN to us; He alone is therefore called “THE Son of man”; the common property of mankind; who alone realizes the original ideal of man: body, soul, and spirit, in the image and likeness of God, the body subordinate to the animal and intellectual soul, and the soul to the spirit ( 1 Thessalonians 5:23), combining at once the man and woman ( Galatians 3:28); and in whom believers shall realize it by vital union with Him: having the masculine graces, majesty, power, wisdom, strength, courage, with all woman’s purity, intuitive tact, meekness, gentleness, sympathetic tenderness and love, such as Roman Catholics have pictured in the Virgin Mary. So the first Adam, the type, combined both ( Genesis 1:27). The creation of woman from man (marked by the very names isha, ish) subsequently implies the same truth.

The Second Adam combined in Himself, as Representative Head of redeemed men and women, both man’s and woman’s characteristic excellencies, as the first Adam contained both before that Eve was taken out of his side. Her perfect suitableness for him is marked by Jehovah’s words, “I will make for him a help suitable as before him,” according to his front presence: a helping being in whom, as soon as he sees her, he may recognize himself (Delitzsch). The complement of man. So the bride, the church, is formed out of the pierced side of Christ the Bridegroom, while in the death sleep; and, by faith vitally uniting her to Him in His death and His resurrection, is “bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh” ( Ephesians 5:25-32.) The dominion which Adam was given as God’s vicegerent over the lower world, but lost by sin, is more than regained for man in the person of Christ. Even in His humiliation He exercised unlimited sway over man’s bodily diseases and even death itself, over vegetable nature (the fig tree), the dumb animal kingdom (the ass’s colt), the inorganic world, the restless sea, and the invisible world of demons; compare Psalm 8. In His manifested glory, His full dominion, and that of His redeemed with Him, shall be exercised over the regenerated earth: Isaiah 11; 2:4; 65:25; 35:9,10; Psalm 72; Ezekiel 34:25; Hosea 2:18; Revelation 11:15-17; 20; 21; 22. The first man Adam was made a “living soul,” endowed with an animal soul, the vital principle of his body; but “the last Adam a quickening spirit” ( 1 Corinthians 15:45). As the animal souled body (1 Cor.15:44) is the fruit of our union with Adam, an animal souled man, so the spiritual body is the fruit of our union with Christ, the life-giving Spirit. see EDEN [but see] is by Sir H. Rawlinson identified with Babylonia; the Babylonian documents giving an exact geographical account of the garden of Eden, and the rivers bearing the same names: the Hiddekel is certainly the Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates; the other two seem tributary branches, though some make Gihon the Nile and Pison the Indus (?). Any fruit tree (some have supposed, from Egyptian representations still extant, the pomegranate) would suffice as a test of obedience or disobedience, by the eating of which the knowledge of evil as well as of good would result.

To know evil without being tainted by it is the prerogative of God. Man might have attained this knowledge by making his will one with God’s, in not eating it; he then would have attained to a Godlike knowledge of good and evil, and would have exercised true liberty in conformity with his likeness, to God. But man aspired to it by his own way, and fell. Only in Christ shall he know it and triumph over it. To distinguish good and evil is the gift of a king ( 1 Kings 3:9) and the wisdom of angels ( 2 Samuel 14:17). The tree of knowledge suggested to man the possibility of evil, which in the absence of lust might not occur. If he was to be tried at all, it could only be by a positive precept; and the smaller the subject of the command was, the more it tested the spirit of obedience. Satan’s antitrinity, the lust of the flesh (“the woman saw that the tree was good for food”), the lust of the eye (“and that it was pleasant to the eyes”), and the pride of life (and a “tree to be desired to make one wise”) seduced man: 1 John 2:16; compare see ACHAN , Joshua 7:21. As this tree was the sacramental pledge of God’s requirement, so the tree of life was the pledge of God’s promised blessing.

Abp. Whately thought the tree of life acted medicinally, and that Adam and Eve ate of it; and that hence arose his longevity and that of the patriarchs, so that it was long before human life sank to its present average. Genesis 2:16 seems to imply his free access to it; but perhaps Genesis 3:22 that he had,tot actually touched it. Indeed it is only sacramentally, and in inseparable connection with faith and obedience, when tested first as to the tree of knowledge, that the tree of life could give man true immortal life. In the day that he ate he died ( Genesis 2:17, compare Hosea 13:1), because separation from God, sin’s necessary and immediate consequence, is death; the physical death of Adam was deferred until he was 930. Sin’s immediate effects on Adam and Eve, after she in her turn became a seducer, having first been seduced herself ( Genesis 3:6 end), were shame ( Genesis 3:7), concealment and folly ( Genesis 3:8,9; compare Psalm 139), fear ( Genesis 3:10), selfishness on Adam’s part toward Eve, and presumption in virtually laying the blame on God ( Genesis 3:12), the curse, including sorrow, agony, sweat of the brow in tilling the thorny ground, death. All these are counter worked by Christ. He bore our shame and fear ( Hebrews 12:2; 5:7), denied self wholly ( Matthew 20:28), resisted Satan’s temptation to presumption ( Matthew 4:6), bore the curse ( Galatians 3:13), was “the man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53), endured the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, the crown of thorns, and the dust of death ( Psalm 22:15, compare Genesis 3:19). The temporary exclusion from the tree of life was a merciful provision for fallen man, (for immortality in a lost state is a curse), until that, through Christ, he should have it restored ( Revelation 22:2,14; 2:7).

The cherubim were not outside the garden, blocking up access to it (as Genesis 3:24 is often explained), but “keeping the way to the tree of life,” doing what man had failed to do ( Genesis 2:15). So the cherubim’s position implies, not at the threshold, or even before the mercyseat, but in immediate connection with it, the throne of God ( Exodus 25:18). So in Ezekiel and Revelation they are the living ones, combining the highest forms of creaturely life, suggesting to man his interest still in life and in paradise, and even in a share of God’s throne through divine grace. As the flaming sword represents justice excluding man’s access by his own righteousness, so the cherubim represents man reunited to God upon the ground of the mercy-seat, which is Christ our propitiatory.

The unity of the human race is plainly asserted in Acts 17:26 [see CREATION ]. The co-extensiveness of sin’s curse upon all men as Adam’s offspring, and of Christ’s redemption for all men ( Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22-47) implies the same. “That the races of men are not species of one genus, but varieties of one species, is confirmed by the agreement in the physiological and pathological phenomena in them all, by the similarity in the anatomical structure, in the fundamental powers and traits of the mind, in the limits to the duration of life, in the normal temperature of the body, and the average rate of pulsation, in the duration of pregnancy, and in the unrestricted fruitfulness of marriages between the various races.” (Delitzsch.)

The brain of the lowest savage is larger than his needs require, usually five sixths of the size of a civilized man’s brain. This implies the latent, power of intellectual development, which proves he is essentially one with his more favored brethren.

ADAM (2) A city beside Zarthan ( Joshua 3:16), on the Jordan. Near the present ford Damieh, which possibly is derived from the ancient name Adam; the northern extremity of Israel’s passage ( Joshua 22:11). Probably Reuben’ s altar of ED, or witness, was near, on the Kurn Surtabeh. Near Damieh the remains of a Roman bridge are still found. Kurn Surtabeh was more than 15 miles from Jericho, which tallies with the words “very far from the city Adam.” Knobel thinks the name Sartabeh preserves the name Zarthan, a long rocky ridge S.W. of Damieh ford. [See ED.] ADAMAH A fenced city of Naphtali, N.W. of the sea of Galilee ( Joshua 19:36).

ADAMANT (the English = unconquerable). Unusually hard stones, as the diamond, which is a corruption of the word adamant; Hebrews shamir ; Greek [smiris . Probably the emery stone or the uncrystallized corundum ( Ezekiel 3:9). Image for firmness in resisting the adversaries of the truth of God ( Zechariah 7:12). Image of hard heartedness against the truth ( Jeremiah 17:1). The stylus pointed with it engraves deeper than the common iron; with such a pen is Jerusalem’s sin marked. Its absence from the high priest’s breastplate was because it could not be engraven upon; or perhaps it had not been introduced at that early time. [See DIAMOND .] ADAMI A place on the border of Naphtali ( Joshua 19:33); afterward Damin.

ADAR (1) HebrewADDAR. Southern boundary of Judah and the Holy Land, called alsoHAZARADDAR: Joshua 15:3.

ADAR (2) The 6th month of the civil, and the 12th of the ecclesiastical, year. [See MONTHS .] ADBEEL (Arabic = miracle of God) one of Ishmael’s 12 sons, and founder of an Arab tribe ( Genesis 25:13; 1 Chronicles 1:29).

ADDAN A place from which some of the Jewish captives returned with Zerubbabel to Judaea: these “could not show their father’s house, nor their seed (pedigree) whether they were of Israel” ( Ezra 2:59).ADDON, or\parAALAR.

ADDAR CalledARD ( Genesis 46:21; Numbers 26:40): 1 Chronicles 8:3.

ADDER Five times in the Old Testament KJV, and thrice in margin for “cockatrice” ( Isaiah 11:8; 14:29; 59:5 ). Four Hebrews terms stand for it. (1) Akshub, (2) Pethen, (3) Tziphoni, and (4) Shephiphon . (1) Meaning one that lies in ambush, swells its skin, and rears its head back for a strike. <19E003> Psalm 140:3 quoted in Romans 3:13, “the poison of asps.” (2) Psalm 58:4; 91:13, “adder” (compare margin), but elsewhere translated asp; from a Hebrews root “to expand the neck.” The deadly haje naja, or cobra of Egypt, fond of concealing itself in walls and holes.

Serpents are without tympanic cavity and external openings to the ear. The deaf adder is not some particular species; but whereas a serpent’s comparative deafness made it more amenable to those sounds it could hear, in some instances it was deaf because it would not hear ( Jeremiah 8:17; Ecclesiastes 10:11). So David’s unrighteous adversaries, though having some little moral sense yet left to which he appeals, yet stifled it, and were unwilling to hearken to the voice of God. (3) Translated adder only in Proverbs 23:32: “at the last wine biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder,” In Jeremiah 8:17 “cockatrices,” from a root “to dart forward and hiss.” The Greek basilisk , fierce, deadly; distinct from the “serpent” (nachas h), Isaiah 14:29; oviparous ( Isaiah 59:5); subterranean in habits ( Isaiah 11:8). (4) From a root “to creep”; Jacob’s image of Dan ( Genesis 49:17), lurking on the road, and biting at the horses’ heels; the Coluber cerastes, a small and very venomous snake of Egypt. The charmers, by a particular pressure on the neck, can inflate the animal so that the serpent becomes rigid, and can be held out horizontally as a rod. The Egyptian magicians perhaps thus used the haje species as their rod, and restored life to it by throwing it down; at least, so the serpent charmers do at the present day.

Shrill sounds, as the flute, are what serpents can best discern, for their hearing is imperfect. Music charms the naja (cobra di capello, hooded snake) and the cerastes (horned viper). Moses’ really transformed rod swallowed their pretended rod, or serpent, so conquering the symbol of Egypt’s protecting deity. That the naja haie was the “fiery serpent,” or serpent inflicting a burning bite, appears from the name Ras-om-Haye (Cape of the haje serpents) in the locality where the Israelites were bitten ( Numbers 21:6).

ADDI ( Luke 3:28). In Jesus’ genealogy. A shortened form of Adiel, or Adaiah, from adi , “ornament.”

ADER 1 Chronicles 8:15.

ADIEL 1 Chronicles 4:36. 2. 1 Chronicles 9:12. 3. 1 Chronicles 27:25.

ADIN Ezra 2:15; 8:6. 2. Nehemiah 10:16.

ADINA 1 Chronicles 11:42.

ADINO (his pleasure in the spear). The Ezmte, the Tachmonite; who slew with his spear 800 at once ( 2 Samuel 23:8). [See JASHOBEAM .] But Luther reads, to accord with 1 Chronicles 11:11, arer for Adino ; and, for ha ezni , eth hanitho , i.e., not a proper name but “Jashobeam swung his spear”; compare 1Chronicles11:18. Gesenius reads ye’adno ha’ ezno , “he shook it, even his spear.”

ADITHAIM A town in Judah, on a height overlooking the shephelah or low hill country ( Joshua 15:36). Probably the same as that called later Hadid and Adida.

Vespasian used the latter as one of his outposts in besieging Jerusalem.

ADJURATION The judge, king, or high priest with official authority putting one on his solemn oath; entailing the obligation of witnessing ( Leviticus 5:1). So Saul adjured the people not to eat until evening ( 1 Samuel 14:24-28).

And Ahab adjured Micaiah to tell the truth, which elicited from him the real result of the approaching battle, after a previous ironical reply.

Compare Song 2:7 margin; Mark 5:7; Acts 19:13; Thessalonians 5:27 margin. Paul “adjuring” the Thessalonians “by the Lord that the epistle might be read to all the holy brethren.” Jesus, who, as the meek “Lamb dumb before His shearers,” would not reply to false charges, when “adjured (exorkizo se ) by the living God,” by the high priest, to tell the truth whether He be the Christ the Son of God, witnessed the truth concerning His Messiahship and His future advent in glory as the Son of man, which immediately brought on Him sentence of death. We Christians can so far join with the high priest’s reply, “What further need have we of witnesses?” ( Matthew 26:63-65.) Christ’s own witness alone is enough to assure us of His Godhead, the truth which He sealed with His blood.

ADLAI Near Socoh; a hill side burrowed with caves ( 1 Chronicles 27:29); now Aid el Mieh (Ganneau). [See ADULLAM .] ADMAH One of the cities of the plain, having its own king, linked with Zeboim ( Genesis 10:19; 14:2,8; Deuteronomy 29:23; Hosea 11:8).

Destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah ( Genesis 19:24).

ADMATHA Esther 1:14.

ADNA One of the sons of Pahath-Moab, who, on Ezra’s ( Ezra 10:30) monition (after that God had by great rains intimated His displeasure), put his strange wife away.

ADNAH 1 Chronicles 12:20. 2. Chief over 300,000, under Jehoshaphat ( Chronicles 17:14).

ADONI-BEZEK (Lord of Bezek, a city of Canaan.) Leading the confederated Canaanites and Perizzites, he was conquered by Judah and Simeon, who cut off his thumbs and great toes. Conscience struck, he confessed that 70 kings (petty princes) had gleaned (margin) their meat under his table, deprived of thumbs and great toes: “As I have done, so God hath requited me” ( Judges 1:4-7). Brought a prisoner to Jerusalem, he died there. God pays sinners in their own coin ( 1 Samuel 15:33). Judah was not giving vent to his own cruelty, but executing God’s lex talionis ( Leviticus 24:19; Revelation 16:6; Proverbs 1:31). The barbarity of Canaanite war usage’s appears in his conduct. The history shows that Canaan was then parceled out among a number of petty chiefs.

ADONIJAH [see ABIATHAR and see ABSALOM ] = My Lord is Jehovah, or, Jah my Father. 1. Fourth son of David, by Haggith, born at Hebron. Very goodly in looks, like Absalom. Foolishly indulged by his father, who “had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” Never crossed when young, he naturally expected to have his own way when old; and took it, to his father’s grief in his old age, and to his own destruction.

Compare Proverbs 13:24; 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go;” not in the way he would go: 1 Kings 1:6. When David was seemingly too old to offer energetic resistance, Adonijah as now the oldest son, about 35 years old (compare 2 Samuel 3:2-4 with 2 Samuel 5:5), Amnon, Chileab, and Absalom being dead, claimed the throne, in defiance of God’s expressed will, and David’s oath to Bathsheba that Solomon should inherit the throne ( 1 Chronicles 22:9,10). Like Absalom ( 2 Samuel 15:1) he assumed regal state, with chariots, horsemen, and 50 men to run before him (2 Kings 1; 2). Nathan the prophet, Zadok (Eleazar’s descendant, and so of the older line of priesthood), Benaiah son of Jehoiada, captain of the king’s guard, Shimei and Rei (= Shimma, Raddai), David’s own brothers, supported Solomon.

Adonijah was supported by Abiathar, Eli’s descendant of Ithamar’s (Aaron’s fourth son’s) line, the junior line, and Joab who perhaps had a misgiving as to the possibility of Solomon’s punishing his murder of Abner and Amasa, and a grudge toward David for having appointed the latter commander in chief in his stead ( 2 Samuel 19:13). Adonijah had also invited to a feast by the stone Zoheleth at En-rogel all the king’s sons except Solomon, and the captains of the host, the king’s servants, of Judah.

A meeting for a religious purpose, such as that of consecrating a king, was usually held near a fountain, which En-rogel was. Nathan and Bathsheba foiled his plot by inducing David to have Solomon conducted in procession on the king’s mule to Gihon, a spring W. of Jerusalem ( 2 Chronicles 32:30). On his being anointed and proclaimed by Zadok, all the people hailed him, God save the king! Adonijah’s party, surprised suddenly amidst their feasting, typify sinners’ carnal security, from which the Lord’s coming suddenly shall startle them to their destruction ( Matthew 24:48; Luke 12:45; 1 Thessalonians 5:2,3; compare 1 Kings 1:49).

Adonijah, at the tidings announced by Jonathan, Abiathar’s son, fled for sanctuary, to the horns of the altar. Solomon would have spared him had he shown himself “a worthy man.” But on David’s death he, through the queen mother Bathsheba, now exalted to Special dignity, sought Abishag, David’s virgin widow, to be given him, a contemplated incest only second to that perpetrated by Absalom, whom he so much resembled, and also a connection which was regarded in the East as tantamount to a covert claim to the deceased monarch’s throne. [See ABNER and see ABSALOM .] Benaiah dispatched him. 2. A Levite in Jehoshaphat’s reign ( Chronicles 17:8), sent with the princes to teach the book of the law throughout Judah. 3. Nehemiah 10:16, called Adonikam in Ezra 2:13, whose children were 666 (compare Revelation 13:18, the numerical mark of the beast), Revelation 8:13; Nehemiah 7:18; 10:16, but 667 in Nehemiah 7:18.

ADONIKAM [See ADONIJAH .] ADONIRAM Son of Abda; over the tribute for about 47 years under David, Solomon, and Rehoboam; also over Solomon’s levy of 30,000 sent by ten thousands monthly to cut timber in Lebanon ( 1 Kings 4:6). Contracted into\parADORAM ( 2 Samuel 20:24) andHADORAM. Stoned by the people of Israel when sent by Rehoboam to collect the tribute which had been their chief ground of complaint against the king ( 1 Kings 12:18; Chronicles 10:18).

ADONI-ZEDEK (lord of righteousness). An Amorite king of Jerusalem, answering to the ancient king of it, Melchizedek (king of righteousness); one of many proofs that the Canaanite idolatry was an apostasy from the primitive truth of God which they once had. He headed the confederacy against Joshua, which the kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon also joined. Attacking Gebeon for having made peace with Israel, they in turn were attacked by Joshua, who came by forced march from Gilgal to the relief of his ally.

Routed they fled to Bethhoron, thence to Azekah and Makkedah, amidst the fearful hailstorm from God, followed by the sun’s standing still at Joshua’s command. Brought forth from their hiding place, a cave at Makkedah to the mouth of which Joshua had caused great stones to be rolled, they had their necks trodden down by his captains, and then were slain and hung on trees until sunset ( Deuteronomy 21:23), and their bodies were buried in the cave.

ADOPTION The taking of one as a son who is not so by birth. (I.) Natural: As Pharaoh’s daughter adopted Moses; Mordecai Esther; Abraham Eliezer (as a slave is often in the East adopted as son) ( Genesis 15:2,3); Sarai the son to be born by Hagar, whom she gave to her husband; Leah and Rachel the children to be born of Zilpah and Bilhah, their handmaids respectively, whom they gave to Jacob their husband. The handmaid at the birth brought forth the child on the knees of the adoptive mother ( Genesis 30:3); an act representative of the complete appropriation of the sons as equal in rights to those by the legitimate wife.

Jacob adopted as his own Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, on the same footing as Reuben and Simeon, his two elder sons ( Genesis 48:5). Thereby he was able to give Joseph his favorite son more than his single share, with his brothers, of the paternal heritage. The tribes thus were 13, only that Levi had no land division; or Ephraim and Manasseh were regarded as two halves making up but one whole tribe. In Chronicles 2 Machir gives his daughter to Hezron of Judah; she bore Segub, father of Jair. Jair inherited 23 cities of Gilead in right of his grandmother. Though of Judah by his grandfather, he is ( Numbers 32:41) counted as of Manasseh on account of his inheritance through his grandmother. So Mary, being daughter of Heli, and Joseph her husband being adopted by him on marrying his daughter, an heiress (as appears from her going to Bethlehem to be registered in her pregnancy), Joseph is called in Luke’s genealogy son of Heli.

By the Roman law of adoption, which required a due legal form, the adopted child was entitled to the father’s name, possessions, and family sacred rights, as his heir at law. The father also was entitled to his son’s property, and was his absolute owner. Gratuitous love was the ground of the selection generally. Often a slave was adopted as a son. Even when not so, the son adopted was bought from the natural father. A son and heir often adopted brothers, admitting them to share his own privileges; this explains beautifully John 8:36, compare Hebrews 2:11; or else the usage alluded to is that of the son, on coming into the inheritance, setting free the slaves born in the house. The Jews, though not having exactly the same customs, were familiar with the Roman usage’s. (II.) National: as God adopted Israel ( Romans 9:4; Deuteronomy 7:6; Exodus 4:22,23; Hosea 11:1); compare Jeremiah 3:19, “How shall I put thee among the children (Greek [huio -thesia ) ... thou shalt call Me, my Father.” The wonder expressed is, how shall one so long estranged from God as Israel has been be restored to the privileges of adoption? The answer is, by God’s pouring out on them hereafter the Spirit of adoption crying to God, “Father” ( Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Hosea 3:4,5; Zechariah 12:10). (III.) Spiritual and individual. An act of God’s sovereign grace, originating in God’s eternal counsel of love ( Ephesians 1:4,5; Jeremiah 31:3); actually imparted by God’s uniting His people by faith to Christ ( John 1:12,13; Romans 8:14-16; Galatians 3:26; 4:4,5).

The slave once forbidden to say father to the master, being adopted, can use that endearing appellation as a free man. God is their Father, because Christ’s Father ( John 20:17). Sealed by the Holy Spirit, the earnest of the future inheritance ( Ephesians 1:13). Producing the filial cry of prayer in all, Jew and Gentile alike [see ABBA ] ( Galatians 4:6); and the fruit of the Spirit, conformity to Christ ( Romans 8:29), and renewal in the image of our Father ( Colossians 3:10). Its privileges are God’s special love and favor ( 1 John 3:1; Ephesians 5:1); union with God, so perfect hereafter that it shall correspond to the ineffable mutual union of the Father and Son ( John 17:23,26); access to God with filial boldness ( Matthew 6:8,9; Romans 8:15,26,27), not slavish fear such as the law generated ( Galatians 4:1-7; John 4:17,18; 5:14); fatherly correction ( Hebrews 12:5-8); provision and protection ( Matthew 6:31-33; 10:29,30); heavenly inheritance ( 1 Peter 1:3,4; Revelation 21:7).

The “adoption” is used for its full manifestation in the resurrection of the believer with a body like Christ’s glorious body ( Romans 8:23). Christ was Son even in His humiliation; but He was only “declared [definitively, Greek] the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” ( Romans 1:4), “the first begotten from the dead” ( Revelation 1:5).

Hence Paul refers, “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee” ( Psalm 2:7) to the day of His resurrection. Not that He then first became Son, but His sonship was then openly vindicated by the Father’s raising Him from the dead ( Acts 13:33). So our “adoption” is still waited for, in the sense of its open manifestation ( Romans 8:11,19; 1 John 3:2). It is now a reality, but as yet a hidden reality. Our regeneration is now true ( Titus 3:5), but its full glories await Christ’s coming to raise His saints. The first resurrection shall be the saints’ manifested regeneration ( Matthew 19:28). They have three birthdays: the natural, the spiritual, the glorified. Sonship and the first resurrection are similarly connected ( Luke 20:36; 1 Peter 1:3). By creation Adam ( Luke 3:38) and all men ( Acts 17:28,29) are sons of God; by adoption only believers ( 1 Corinthians 12:3). The tests are in 1 John 3:9; 4:4,6; 5:1,4,18-21.

ADORAIM A fortress built by Rehoboam in Judah ( 2 Chronicles 11:9). Probably now Dura, a large village on a rising ground W. of Hebron.

ADORE “To kiss the hand with the mouth” in homage ( Job 31:26,27 “If I beheld the sun when it shineth, or the moon, ... and my mouth hath kissed my hand”). The earliest idolatry, that of the sun, moon, and heavenly hosts (Hebrews tsaba ), Sabeanism. Laying the hand on the mouth expresses deep reverence and submission ( Job 40:4). So “kiss the Son,” i.e. adore ( Psalm 2:12). Portrayed in the sculptures of Persepolis and Thebes.

Falling down and worshipping prostrate was the worship subsequently paid to Babylonian idols ( Daniel 3:5,6). In the sense of divine worship, it is due to God only, and was rejected by angels and saints when offered to them ( Luke 4:8; Acts 10:25,26; Revelation 19:10; 22:9).

ADRAMMELECH 1. The idol of the Sepharvite colonists of Samaria planted by Assyria ( Kings 17:31) = burning splendor of the king (compare Molech). The male power of the sun; asANAMMELECH is the female, sister deity. Astrology characterized the Assyrian idolatry. Adrammelech was represented as a peacock or a mule; Anammelech as a pheasant or a horse. Children were burnt in his honor. 2. Son and murderer of Sennacherib in Nisroch’s temple at Nineveh. He and Sharezer his brother escaped to Armenia ( 2 Kings 19:36; Chronicles 32:21). Named so from the idol.

ADRAMYTTIUM A seaport in Mysia ( Acts 27:2). Its gulf is opposite the isle Lesbos, on the Roman route between Troas and the Hellespont, and Pergames, Ephesus and Miletus. The centurion escorting Paul took an Adramyttian ship, as a vessel going the whole way from Palestine to Italy was hard to find, and as it would bring them so far on their journey toward Rome, and in that coast they would be likely to find another ship to take them the rest of the way. At Myra in Lycia accordingly they found an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy.

ADRIA The gulf bounded on the E. by Dalmatia and Albania, and on the W. by Italy. It was often however understood in a wider sense, as by Paul’s almost contemporary geographer, Ptolemy, namely, the Mare Superum, including the Ionian sea, between Sicily on the W., and Greece and Crete on the E., and Africa on the S., the “Syrtic basin” ( Acts 27:17). So that the Melita of Acts 28 need not be looked for in the present Adriatic gulf, but may be identified with Malta. Adria, a town near the Po, gave its name.

Malta marks the division between the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian (Mare Inferum) sea; the Corinthian isthmus divides the AEgean from the Adriatic.

ADRIEL Son of Barzillai the Meholathite, to whom Saul gave Merab his daughter in marriage, previously promised to David ( 1 Samuel 18:19). Five sons from this union were of the seven slain as a blood satisfaction to the Gibeonites whose blood Saul had, in violation of Israel’s covenant ( Joshua 9:15), shed. 2 Samuel 21:8: “Michal brought up for Adriel:” namely, Merab the mother died young, and her sister brought up her five nephews, as if she were their own mother. The Jewish targums favor this view. But as the Hebrews yalad means to bring forth or bear children, and Michal seems to have had no children ( 2 Samuel 6:23), perhaps Michal is a transcriber’s error for Merab. Still the term “bare” (margin) may mark how completely Michal, evidently a woman of strong affections ( Samuel 19:11,12; 2 Samuel 3:16), acted as a true mother to them.

ADULLAM A city in the shephelah, or low country between the hill country of Judah and the sea; very ancient ( Genesis 38:1,12,20); the seat of one of the petty king smitten by Joshua ( Joshua 12:15). Fortified by Rehoboam ( 2 Chronicles 11:7) Called for its beauty “the glory of Israel” ( Micah 1:15). Reoccupied on the return from Bahyhm ( Nehemiah 11:30). The limestone cliffs of the shephelah are pierced with caves, one of which was that of Adullam, David’ s resort ( 1 Samuel 22:1; 2 Samuel 23:13; 1 Chronicles 11:15). Tradition fixes on Khureitun as the site, S. of the wady Urtas, between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea. This cave on the borders of the Dead Sea six miles S.E. of Bethlehem (his parents’ residence) would be more likely as the place whence David took his parents to Moab close by, than the region of the city Adullam in the far West. Names of western places are sometimes repeated in the East.

David’s usual haunts were in this eastern region. The cave’s mouth can only be approached on foot across the cliff’s edge; it runs in by a long winding narrow passage, with cavities on either side; a large chamber within, with very high arches, has numerous passages to all directions, joined by others at right angles, and forming a perplexing labyrinth. The air within is dry and pure. David’s familiarity with it, as a Bethlehemite, would naturally lead him to it. Lieut. Conder (Palest. Explor.) at first fixed on the cave Mogharet Umm el Tumaymiyeh, five miles N. of Ayd el Mieh; agreeing with the position assigned by Eusebius 10 miles E. of Eleutheropolis; but the cave with its damp hot atmosphere is unfit for human habitation. In a later report Conder, after surveying the ground, fixes on Ayd el Mieh (feast of the hundred) as the site of the cave and city of Adullam, eight miles N.E. of Beit Jebrin (Libnah), 10 miles S.W. of Tell es Safyeh (Gath), and half way between Socoh and Keilah: 500 feet above wady Sumt (valley of Elah); barring the Philistines’ progress up this valley to Judah’s grain lands. Tombs, wells, terraces, and rock fortifications are to be traced. It is connected by roads with adjoining places, Maresha (El Marash), Jarmuth (Yarmuk), and Socoh (Suweikeh), and has a system of caves close to its wells still inhabited, or used as stables, and large enough for all David’s band. On the top of the city hill are two or three caves which together could accommodate 250 men. The darkness, scorpions, bats, and flies are against Khureitun and Deir Dubban caverns as a residence. From Gibeah (Jeba) David fled to Nob, thence down the valley to Gath (Tell es Safyeh); from Gath he returned to Judah. On the edge of the country between Philistia and Judah, he collected his band into Adullam (Ayd el Mieh); thence, by the prophet’s direction, to the hills, a four miles’ march to Hareth, still within reach of his own Bethlehem. To the present day the cave dwelling peasantry avoid large caves such as Khureitun and Umm el Tuweimin, and prefer the drier, smaller caves, lighted by the sun, such as Ayd el Mieh, meaning in Arabic “feast of the hundred.” The expedition of David’s three mighty men from Ayd el Mieh to Bethlehem would be then 12 leagues, not too far for what is described as an exploit ( 2 Samuel 23:13-17; 1 Chronicles 11:15-19).

ADULTERY A married woman cohabiting with a man not her husband. The prevalent polygamy in patriarchal times rendered it impossible to stigmatize as adultery the cohabitation of a married man with another besides his wife.

But as Jesus saith, “from the beginning it was not so,” for “He which made male and female said, They twain shall be one flesh.” So the Samaritan Pentateuch reads Genesis 2:24, as it is quoted in Matthew 19:5. A fallen world undergoing a gradual course of remedial measures needs anomalies to be pretermitted for a time ( Romans 3:25 margin; Acts 17:30), until it becomes fit for a higher stage, in its progress toward its finally perfect state. God sanctions nothing but perfection; but optimism is out of place in governing a fallen world not yet ripe for it. The junction of the two into one flesh when sexual intercourse takes place with a third is dissolved in its original idea. So also the union of the believer with Christ is utterly incompatible with fornication ( 1 Corinthians 6:13-18; 7:1-13; 1 Timothy 3:12). The sanctity of marriage in patriarchal times appears from Abraam’s fear, not that his wife will be seduced from him, but that he may be killed for her sake. The conduct of Pharaoh and Abimelech (Genesis 12; 20), implies the same reverence for the sacredness of marriage. Death by fire was the penalty of unchastity ( Genesis 38:24).

Under the Mosaic law both the guilty parties (including those only betrothed unless the woman were a slave) were stoned ( Deuteronomy 22:22-24; Leviticus 19:20-22). The law of inheritance, which would have been set aside by doubtful offspring, tended to keep up this law as to adultery. But when the territorial system of Moses fell into desuetude, and Gentile example corrupted the Jews, while the law nominally remained it practically became a dead letter. The Pharisees’ object in bringing the adulterous woman (John 8) before Christ was to put Him in a dilemma between declaring for reviving an obsolete penalty, or else sanctioning an infraction of the law. In Matthew 5:82 He condemns their usage of divorce except in the case of fornication. In Matthew 1:19, Joseph” not willing to make [the Virgin] a public example (paradeigmatisai ) was minded to put her away privily”; i.e., he did not intend to bring her before the local Sanhedrim, but privately to repudiate her. The trial by the waters of jealousy described in Numbers 5:11-29 was meant to restrain oriental impulses of jealousy within reasonable bounds. The trial by “red water” in Africa is very different, amidst seeming resemblance’s. The Israelite ingredients were harmless; the African, poisonous. The visitation, if the woman was guilty, was from God direct; the innocent escaped: whereas many an innocent African perishes by the poison. No instance is recorded in Scripture; so that the terror of it seems to have operated either to restrain from guilt, or to lead the guilty to confess it without recourse to the ordeal.

The union of God and His one church, in His everlasting purpose, is the archetype and foundation on which rests the union of man and wife ( Ephesians 5:22-33). [See ADAM .] As he ish ) gave Eve (isha ) his name, signifying her formation from him, so Christ gives a new name to the church ( Revelation 2:17; 3:12). As He is the true Solomon (Prince of peace), so she the Shulamite (Song 6:13). Hence idolatry, covetousness, and apostasy are adultery spiritually ( Jeremiah 3:6,8,9; Ezekiel 16:82; Hosea 1; 2; 3; Revelation 2:22). An apostate church, the daughter of Jerusalem becoming the daughter of Babylon, is an adulteress ( Isaiah 1:21; Ezekiel 23:4,7,37). So Jesus calls the Jews “an adulterous generation” ( Matthew 12:39). The woman in Revelation 12, represented as clothed with the Sun (of righteousness), and crowned with the 12 stars (i.e. the 12 patriarchs of the Old Testament and the 12 apostles of New Testament), and persecuted by the dragon, in Revelation 17, excites the wonder of John, because of her transformation into a scarlet arrayed “mother of harlots,” with a cup full of abominations, riding upon a “scarlet colored beast”; but the ten horned beast finally turns upon her, “makes her naked, eats her flesh, and burns her with fire.” The once faithful church has ceased to be persecuted by conforming to the godless world and resting upon it. But the divine principle is, when the church apostatizes from God to intrigue with the world, the world, the instrument of her sin, shall at last be the instrument of her punishment. Compare as to Israel (Aholah ), and Judah (Aholibah ), Ezekiel 23. The principle is being illustrated in the church of Rome before our eyes. Let all professing churches beware of spiritual adultery, as they would escape its penalty.

ADUMMIM ( Joshua 15:7; 18:17) = the red pass, or “pass of the red men,” the aboriginal inhabitants; on the border between Benjamin and Judah, on a rising ground; whence the phrase is, “the going up of Adummim.” S. of the torrent, and looking toward Gilgal. The road still passes the same way, leading up from Jericho (four miles off) and the Jordan valley to Jerusalem, eight miles distant, S. of the gorge of the wady Kelt. It was believed to be the place where the traveler fell among robbers in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10). The order of Knights Templar arose out of an association for guarding this road, which has always been infested by robbers; Jerome indeed derives from the Hebrews “bloodshed.”

ADVERSARY The meaning of Satan ( 1 Peter 5:8); also divine justice ( Luke 12:58,59).

ADVOCATE (paraklete ); one who pleads another’s cause, exhorts, comforts, prays for another. The Holy Spirit ( John 14:16; 15:26; 16:7); though our KJV always translates it “Comforter” when applied to Him, and “Advocate” when to Christ ( 1 John 2:1). But all the ideas included in the word apply both to the Holy Spirit and to Christ. For if Christ intercedes with God for us above, the Holy Spirit does so in us below; compare Romans 8:26,34 with Hebrews 7:25. The Holy Spirit, testifying of Christ within us, answers, as our Advocate before our consciences, the law’s demands; He, as the Spirit of prayer and adoption, inspires in us prayers which words cannot fully utter. If the Holy Spirit be named “another Comforter” by Jesus, yet He implies that Himself also is so, as indeed the Holy Spirit is His Spirit; absent in body, He is still present by His Spirit ( John 14:16,18). Tertullus (Acts 24) is a sample of the advocates usually employed by clients in the Roman provinces.

AENEA A paralytic, healed at Lydda by Peter ( Acts 9:33,34).

AENON Near Salim, where John baptized ( John 3:22,23,26; compare John 1:28), W. of Jordan. The name (= springs) implies” there was much water there.” Robinson found a Salim E. of Nabulus, or Shechem, with two copious springs: compare Genesis 33:18. This would require AEnon to be far W. of Jordan; it agrees with this that, had it been near Jordan, John would scarcely have remarked that “much water” was there: but if far from the river, it explains how the plentiful water at AEnon was convenient for baptisms. There is an Ainun still near Shechem or Nabloos, with many beautiful streams and brooks. Ainun is as distant N. of the springs (three or four miles) as Salim is S. of them. The valley is called the wady Farah. [See SALIM .] The Ainun site is on the main line from Jerusalem to Nazareth.

Here most probably, at the upper source of the wady Farah stream, between Salim and Ainun, was John’s AEnon. The Palestine explorer, Lieut. Conder, confirms this; moreover, this would explain John 4:4, “Jesus must needs go through Samaria; ... one soweth and another reapeth,” etc. ( John 4:37,38.) John Baptist, the forerunner, prepared the way in Samaria; Jesus and His disciples must needs follow up by preaching the gospel there.

AGABUS (from Hebrews agab , “he loved”). A Christian prophet ( Acts 9:28; 21:10). He came from Judaea to Antioch while Paul and Barnabas were there, and foretold the famine which occurred the next year in Palestine (for a Jew would mean the Jewish world, by “throughout all the world.”).

Josephus records that Helena, queen of Adiabene, a proselyte then at Jerusalem, imported provisions from Egypt and Cyprus, wherewith she saved many from starvation. The famine was in the procuratorship of Cuspius Fadus and Tiberius Alexander, A.D. 44, and lasted four years. In the wider sense of “the world,” as the prophecy fixes on no year, but “in the days of Claudius Caesar,” it may include other famines elsewhere in his reign, one in Greece, two in Rome.

AGAG (fiery one; Arabic = burn). A common title of the Amalekite kings; as Pharaoh of the Egyptian. Numbers 24:7 implies their greatness at that time. Saul’s sparing the Agag of his time ( 1 Samuel 15:32) contrary to God’s command, both then and from the first ( Exodus 17:14; Deuteronomy 25:17-19), because of Amalek’s having intercepted Israel in the desert, so as to defeat the purpose of God Himself concerning His people, entailed on Saul loss of his throne and life. Agag came to Samuel “delicately” (rather contentedly, pleasantly), confident of his life being spared. But Samuel executed retributive justice (as in the case of Adonibezek, Judges 1), hewing him to pieces, and so making his mother childless, as he had made other women childless by hewing their sons to pieces (in consonance with his fiery character, as Agag means). This retribution in kind explains the unusual mode of execution. Haman the Agagite ( Esther 3:1-10; 8:3-5) was thought by the Jews his descendant, whence sprung his hatred to their race.

AGATE Hebrew kadkod , from kadad , to sparkle. The “windows” being of this gem ( Isaiah 54:12) implies transparency. Gesenius thinks the ruby or carbuncle is meant. It was imported from Syria to Tyre ( Ezekiel 27:16).

Hebrew Sheba (from Sheba whence it came to Tyre), Exodus 28:19; 39:12, is rightly translated “agate,” a semi-transparent uncrystallized quartz, mainly silica, with concentric layers of various tints; the second stone of the third row on the high priest’s breastplate. The English term is drawn from that of the Greeks, who found agate in the river Acheres, in Sicily, and hence named it.

AGE A period of time characterized by a certain stage of development of God’s grand scheme of redemption (aion ) ( Ephesians 2:7; 3:5). The people living in the age. There is the patriarchal age; the Mosaic age or dispensation; the Christian age, in which “the kingdom of God cometh without observation” (and evil predominates outwardly); and the future manifested millennial kingdom: the two latter together forming “the world (Greek age) to come,” in contrast to “this present evil world” (age) ( Ephesians 1:21; Galatians 1:4). The Greek for the physical “world” is kosmos , distinct from aion , the ethical world or “age” ( Hebrews 6:5).

If the 1260 prophetical days of the papal antichrist be years, and begin at A.D. 754, when his temporal power began by Pepin’s grant of Ravenna, the Lombard kingdom, and Rome to Stephen II., the beginning of the millennial age would be A.D. 2014. But figures have in Scripture a mystical meaning as well as a literal; faith must wait until the Father reveals fully “the times and seasons which He hath put in His own power” ( Acts 1:7). Messiah is the Lord by whom and for whom all these ages, or vast cycles of time, have existed and do exist ( Hebrews 1:2), “through whom He made the ages” (Greek) ( Isaiah 26:4), “the Rock of ages” ( <19E513> Psalm 145:13). “This age” (Greek for “world”) is under the prince of darkness, the god of this world (Greek “age”) so far as most men are concerned ( Ephesians 2:2; Luke 16:8; Matthew 13:22; Corinthians 4:4). “The world” when representing the Greek “age” (aion ) means not the material “world” (Greek kosmos ), but the age in its relation to God or to Satan. Continuance is the prominent thought; so “the ages of ages,” expressing continuous succession of vast cycles, stands for eternity; e.g., Messiah’s kingdom ( Revelation 11:15), the torment of the lost ( Revelation 14:11).

AGE (OLD) The reward of filial obedience, according to the fifth commandment; remarkably illustrated in the great permanence of the Chinese empire; wherein regard for parents and ancestors is so great that it has degenerated into superstition. Patriarchal times and patriarchal governments have most maintained respect for the old. The Egyptians followed the primeval law, which Moses embodies in Leviticus 19:32: “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God.”

Their experience made them to be regarded as depositories of knowledge ( Job 15:10); they gave their opinion first ( Job 32:4). A full age was the reward of piety ( Job 5:26; Genesis 15:15); premature death was a temporal judgment for sin ( 1 Samuel 2:32); (spiritually, and as a taking out from the evil to come, it was sometimes a blessing; as in the case of Abijah, Jeroboam’s son, 1 Kings 14; Isaiah 57:1). In the millennium, when there shall be a worldwide theocracy, with Israel for its center, the temporal sanction of exceeding long life (as in patriarchal times) shall be the reward for piety, and shortened years the penalty of any exceptional sin ( Isaiah 65:20; Zechariah 8:4). The rulers under Moses required age as a qualification; hence they and those of the New Testament church are called elders (presbyters), until the word became a term of office, and not necessarily of age. Disobedience to parents and disrespect to seniors and “dignities” ( Jude 1:8; 2 Peter 2:10) are foretold characteristics of the last apostate age ( 2 Timothy 3:2-4; Romans 1:30).

AGEE 2 Samuel 23:11.

AGONY (Greek conflict in wrestling; figuratively, a struggle with intense trials.)

Used only in Luke 22:41. Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, “so that His sweat was as it were great clotted drops of blood” (thromboi ), namely, blood mixing with the ordinary watery perspiration, medically termed diapedesis, resulting from agitation of the nervous system, turning the blood out of its natural course, and forcing the red particles into the skin excretories. The death of Charles IX. of France was attended with it. Many similar cases are recorded, as the bloody sweat of a Florentine youth, condemned to death unjustly by Sixtus V. (De Thou 82 4 44.) Compare Hebrews 5:7,8; Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42. Each complements the other, so that the full account is to be had only from all compared together. Luke alone records the bloody sweat and the appearance of all angel from heaven strengthening Him, Matthew and Mark the change in His countenance and manner, and His complaint of overwhelming soul sorrows even unto death, and His repetition of the same prayer. The powers of darkness then returning with double force, after Satan’s defeat in the temptation ( Luke 4:13, “for a season,” Greek “until the season,” namely, in Gethsemane, Luke 22:53), the prospect of the darkness on Calvary, when He was to experience a horror never known before, the hiding of the Father’s countenance, the climax of His vicarious sufferings for our sins, which wrung from Him the “Eli Eli lama sabacthani,” apparently caused His agonizing, holy, instinctive shrinking from such a cup. Sin which He hated was to be girt fast to Him, though there was none in Him; and this, without the consolation which martyrs have, the Father’s and the Savior’s presence. He must tread the winepress of God’s wrath against us alone. Hence the greater shrinking from His cup than that of martyrs from their cup ( John 12:27; Luke 12:49,50).

The cup was not the then pressing agony; for in John 18:11 He speaks of it as still future. There is a beautiful progression in the subjecting of His will to the Father’s: “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt” ( Matthew 26:39): “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee,” (lest His previous IF should harbor a doubt of the Father’s power) “take away this cup from Me, nevertheless not what I will but what Thou wilt” ( Mark 14:86): “Father, if Thou be willing” (marking His realizing the Father’s will as defining the true limits of possibility), remove this cup from Me, nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done” ( Luke 22:42): “Oh My Father, if [rather since] this cup may [can] not pass away from Me except I drink it, [now recognizing that it is not the Father’s will to take the cup away], Thy will be done” ( Matthew 26:42): lastly, the language of final triumph of faith over the sinless infirmity of His flesh, “The cup which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it?” ( John 18:11.) A faultless pattern for us ( Isaiah 50:5-10).

AGRICULTURE While the patriarchs were in Canaan, they led a pastoral life, and little attended to tillage; Isaac and Jacob indeed tilled at times ( Genesis 26:12; 37:7), but the herdsmen strove with Isaac for his wells not for his crops. The wealth of Gerar and Shechem was chiefly pastoral ( Genesis 20:14; 34:28). The recurrence of famines and intercourse with Egypt taught the Canaanites subsequently to attend more to tillage, so that by the time of the spies who brought samples of the land’s produce from Eshcol much progress had been made ( Deuteronomy 8:8; Numbers 13:23).

Providence happily arranged it so that Israel, while yet a family, was kept by the pastoral life from blending with and settling among idolaters around.

In Egypt the native prejudice against shepherds kept them separate in Goshen ( Genesis 47:4-6; 46:34). But there they unlearned the exclusively pastoral life and learned husbandry ( Deuteronomy 11:10), while the deserts beyond supplied pasture for their cattle ( 1 Chronicles 7:21). On the other hand, when they became a nation, occupying Canaan, their agriculture learned in Egypt made them a self subsisting nation, independent of external supplies, and so less open to external corrupting influences. Agriculture was the basis of the Mosaic commonwealth; it checked the tendency to the roving habits of nomad tribes, gave each man a stake in the soil by the law of inalienable inheritances, and made a numerous offspring profitable as to the culture of the land. God claimed the lordship of the soil ( Leviticus 25:23), so that each held by a divine tenure; subject to the tithe, a quit rent to the theocratic head landlord, also subject to the sabbatical year. Accumulation of debt was obviated by prohibiting interest on principal lent to fellow citizens ( Leviticus 25:8- 16,28-87). Every seventh, sabbatic year, or the year of jubilee, every 50th year, lands alienated for a time reverted to the original owner. Compare Isaiah’s “woe” to them who “add field to field,” clearing away families (1 Kings 21) to absorb all, as Ahab did to Naboth. Houses in towns, if not redeemed in a year, were alienated for ever; thus land property had an advantage over city property, an inducement to cultivate and reside on one’s own land. The husband of an heiress passed by adoption into the family into which he married, so as not to alienate the land. The condition of military service was attached to the land, but with merciful qualifications (Deuteronomy 20); thus a national yeomanry of infantry, officered by its own hereditary chiefs, was secured. Horses were forbidden to be multiplied ( Deuteronomy 17:16). Purificatory rites for a day after warfare were required ( Numbers 19:16; 31:19). These regulations, and that of attendance thrice a year at Jerusalem for the great feasts, discouraged the appetite for war.

The soil is fertile still, wherever industry is secure. The Hauran (Peraea) is highly reputed for productiveness. The soil of Gaza is dark and rich, though light, and retains rain; olives abound in it. The Israelites cleared away most of the wood which they found in Canaan ( Joshua 17:18), and seem to have had a scanty supply, as they imported but little; compare such extreme expedients for getting wood for sacrifice as in 1 Samuel 6:14; 2 Samuel 24:22; 1 Kings 19:21; dung and hay fuel heated their ovens ( Ezekiel 4:12,15; Matthew 6:30). The water supply was from rain, and rills from the hills, and the river Jordan, whereas Egypt depended solely on the Nile overflow. Irrigation was effected by ducts from cisterns in the rocky sub-surface. The country had thus expansive resources for an enlarging population. When the people were few, as they are now, the valleys sufficed to until for food; when many, the more difficult culture of the hills was resorted to and yielded abundance. The rich red loam of the valleys placed on the sides of the hills would form fertile terraces sufficient for a large population, if only there were good government. The lightness of husbandry work in the plains set them free for watering the soil, and terracing the hills by low stone walls across their face, one above another, arresting the soil washed down by the rams, and affording a series of levels for the husbandman. The rain is chiefly in the autumn and winter, November and December, rare after March, almost never as late as May. It often is partial. A drought earlier or later is not so bad, but just three months before harvest is fatal ( Amos 4:7,8). The crop depended for its amount on timely rain. The “early” rain ( Proverbs 16:15; James 5:7) fell from about the September equinox to sowing time in November or December, to revive the parched soil that the seed might germinate. The “latter rain” in February and March ripened the crop for harvest. A typical pledge that, as there has been the early outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, so there shall be a latter outpouring previous to the great harvest of Israel and the Gentile nations ( Zechariah 12:10; Joel 2:23,28-32). Wheat, barley, and rye (and millet rarely) were their cereals.

The barley harvest was earlier than the wheat. With the undesigned propriety that marks truth, Exodus 9:31,32 records that by the plague of hail “the flax and the barley were smitten, for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled [i.e. in blossom], but the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not grown up.” Accordingly, at the Passover (just after the time of the hail) the barley was just fit for the sickle, and the wave sheaf was offered; and not until Pentecost feast,50 days after, the wheat was ripe for cutting, and the firstfruit loaves were offered. The vine, olive, and fig abounded; and traces everywhere remain of former wine and olive presses. Cummin (including the black “fitches,” Isaiah 28:27), peas, beans, lentils, lettuce, endive, leek, garlic, onion, melon, cucumber, and cabbage also were cultivated. The Passover in the month Nisan answered to the green stage of produce; the feast of weeks in Sivan to the ripe; and the feast of tabernacles in Tisri to the harvest home or ingathered.

A month (Veader) was often intercalated before Nisan, to obviate the inaccuracy of their non-astronomical reckoning. Thus the six months from Tisri to Nisan was occupied with cultivation, the six months from Nisan to Tisri with gathering fruits. The season of rains from Tisri equinox to Nisan is pretty continuous, but is more decidedly marked at the beginning (the early rain) and the end (the latter rain). Rain in harvest was unknown ( Proverbs 26:1). The plow was light, and drawn by one yoke. Fallows were cleared of stones and thorns early in the year ( Jeremiah 4:3; Hosea 10:12; Isaiah 5:2). To sow among thorns was deemed bad husbandry ( Job 5:5; Proverbs 24:30,31). Seed was scattered broadcast, as in the parable of the sower ( Matthew 13:3-8), and plowed in afterward, the stubble of the previous crop becoming manure by decay.

The seed was trodden in by cattle in irrigated lands ( Deuteronomy 11:10; Isaiah 32:20). Hoeing and weeding were seldom needed in their fine tilth. Seventy days sufficed between sowing barley and the wave sheaf offering from the ripe grain at Passover. Oxen were urged on with a spearlike goad ( Judges 3:31). Boaz slept on the threshingfloor, a circular high spot, of hard ground, 80 or 90 feet in diameter, exposed to the wind for winnowing, ( 2 Samuel 24:16-18) to watch against depredations ( Ruth 3:4-7). Sowing divers seed in a field was forbidden ( Deuteronomy 22:9), to mark God is not the author of confusion, there is no transmutation of species, such as modern skeptical naturalists imagine. Oxen unmuzzled ( Deuteronomy 25:4) five abreast trod out the grain on the floor, to separate the grain from chaff and straw; flails were used for small quantities and lighter grain ( Isaiah 28:27). A threshing sledge (moreg ), Isaiah 41:15) was also employed, probably like the Egyptian still in use, a stage with three rollers ridged with iron, which cut the straw for fodder, while crushing out the grain. The shovel and fan winnowed the grain afterward by help of the evening breeze ( Ruth 3:2; Isaiah 30:24); lastly, it was shaken in a sieve. Amos 9:9; Psalm 83:10, and 2 Kings 9:37 prove the use of animal manure. The poor man’s claim was remembered, the self sown produce of the seventh year being his perquisite ( Leviticus 25:1-7): hereby the Israelites’ faith was tested; national apostasy produced gradual neglect of this compassionate law, and was punished by retribution in kind ( Leviticus 26:34,35); after the captivity it was revived. The gleanings, the grainers of the field, and the forgotten sheaf and remaining grapes and olives, were also the poor man’s right; and perhaps a second tithe every third year ( Leviticus 19:9,10; Deuteronomy 14:28; 26:12; Amos 4:4). The fruit of newly planted trees was not to be eaten for the first three years, in the fourth it was holy as firstfruits, and on the fifth eaten commonly.

AGRIPPA [See HEROD .] AGUR From agar , “to collect.” “The collector,” a symbolical name, like Ecclesiastes, “the preacher” or “assembler.” Son of Jakeh (obedience); author of inspired counsels to Ithiel and Ucal (Proverbs 30). Called “the prophecy;” rather “the weighty utterance” (Hebrew massa ), “burden.”

Hitzig imaginatively makes him son of the queen of Massa, and brother of Lemuel. An unknown Hebrew collector of the wise sayings in Proverbs 30, and possibly as Ewald thinks in Proverbs 31:1-9; the three sections of this portion are mutually similar in style. Lemuel = “devoted to God” is probably an ideal name. The rabbis, according to Rashi and Jerome, interpreted the name as symbolizing Solomon the Koheleth. [See ECCLESIASTES .] AHAB 1. Son of Omri; seventh king of the northern kingdom of Israel, second of his dynasty; reigned 28 years, from 919 to 897 B.C. Having occasional good impulses ( 1 Kings 21:27), but weak and misled by his bad wife Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Zidon, i.e. Phoenicia in general. The Tyrian historians, Dius and Menander, mention Eithobalus as priest of Ashtoreth. Having murdered Pheles, he became king of Tyre. Menander mentions a drought in Phoenicia; compare 1 Kings 17. He makes him sixth king after Hiram of Tyre, the interval being 50 years, and Eithobalus’ reign 32; thus he would be exactly contemporary with Ahab (Josephus c. Apion, 1:18.) Ahab, under Jezebel’s influence, introduced the impure worship of the sun-god Baal, adding other gods besides Jehovah, a violation of the first commandment, an awful addition to Jeroboam’s sin of the golden calves, which at Dan and Bethel (like Aaron’s calves) were designed (for state policy) as images of the one true God, in violation of the second commandment; compare 2 Kings 17:9: “the children of Israel did secretly things [Hebrews covered words] that were not right [Hebrews so] against the Lord,” i.e., veiled their real idolatry with flimsy pretexts, as the church of Rome does in its image veneration. The close relation of the northern kingdom with Tyre in David’s and Solomon’s time, and the temporal advantage of commercial intercourse with that great mart of the nations, led to an intimacy which, as too often happens in amalgamation between the church and the world, ended in Phoenicia seducing Israel to Baal and Astarte, instead of Israel drawing Phoenicia to Jehovah; compare 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. Ahab built an altar and temple to Baal in Samaria, and “made a grove,” i.e. a sacred symbolic tree (asheerah ), the symbol of Ashtoreth (the idol to whom his wife’s father was priest), the moon-goddess, female of Baal; else Venus, the Assyrian Ishtar (our “star”). Jehovah worship was scarcely tolerated; but the public mind seems to have been in a halting state of indecision between the two, Jehovah and Baal, excepting 7000 alone who resolutely rejected the idol; or they thought to form a compromise by uniting the worship of Baal with that of Jehovah. Compare Hosea 2:16; Amos 5:25-27; 1 Kings 18; 19.

Jezebel cut off Jehovah’s prophets, except 100 saved by Obadiah. So prevalent was idolatry that Baal had 450 prophets, and Asherah (“the groves”) had 400, whom Jezebel entertained at her own table. God chastised Israel with drought and famine, in answer to Elijah’s prayer which he offered in jealousy for the honor of God, and in desire for the repentance of his people (1 Kings 17; James 5:17,18). When softened by the visitation, the people were ripe for the issue to which Elijah put the conflicting claims to Jehovah and Baal at Carmel, and on the fire from heaven consuming the prophet’s sacrifice, fell on their faces and exclaimed with one voice, “Jehovah, He is the God; Jehovah, He is the God.” Baal’s prophets were slain at the brook Kishon, and the national judgment, through Elijah’s prayers, was withdrawn, upon the nation’s repentance.

Ahab reported all to Jezebel, and she threatened immediate death to Elijah.

Ahab was pre-eminent for luxurious tastes; his elaborately ornamented ivory palace ( 1 Kings 22:39; Amos 3:15), the many cities he built or restored, as Jericho (then belonging to Israel, not Judah) in defiance of Joshua’s curse ( 1 Kings 16:34), his palace and park at Jezreel (now Zerin), in the plain of Esdraelon, his beautiful residence while Samaria was the capital, all show his magnificence. But much would have more, and his coveting Naboth’s vineyard to add to his gardens led to an awful display of Jezebel’s unscrupulous wickedness and his selfish weakness. “Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? ... I will give thee the vineyard.” By false witness suborned at her direction, Naboth and his sons (after he had refused to sell his inheritance to Ahab, Leviticus 25:23) were stoned; and Ahab at Jezebel’s bidding went down to take possession (1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9:26). This was the turning point whereat his doom was sealed.

Elijah with awful majesty denounces his sentence, “in the place where dogs licked Naboth’s blood, shall dogs lick thine” (fulfilled to the letter on Joram his offspring, 2 Kings 9, primarily also on Ahab himself, but not “in the place” where Naboth’s blood was shed); while the king abjectly cowers before him with the cry, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” All his male posterity were to be cut off, as Jeroboam’s and Baasha’s, the two previous dynasties, successively had been [see ELIJAH ]. Execution was stayed owing to Ahab’s partial and temporary repentance; for he seems to have been capable of serious impressions at times ( 1 Kings 20:43); so exceedingly gracious is God at the first dawning of sorrow for sin.

Ahab fought three campaigns against Benhadad II., king of Damascus. The arrogance of the Syrian king, who besieged Samaria, not content with the claim to Ahab’s silver, gold, wives, and children being conceded, but also threatening to send his servants to search the Israelite houses for every pleasant thing, brought on him God’s wrath. A prophet told Ahab that Jehovah should deliver to him by the young men of the princes of the provinces (compare 1 Corinthians 1:27-29) the Syrian multitude of which Benhadad vaunted, “The gods do so to me and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me” (1 Kings 20). “Drinking himself drunk” with his 32 vassal princes, he and his force were utterly routed. Compare for the spiritual application 1 Thessalonians 5:2-8. Again Benhadad, according to the prevalent idea of local gods, thinking Jehovah a god of the hills (His temple being on mount Zion and Samaria being on a hill) and not of the plains, ventured a battle on the plains at Aphek, E. of Jordan, with an army equal to his previous one. He was defeated and taken prisoner, but released, on condition of restoring to Ahab all the cities of Israel which he held, and making streets for Ahab in Damascus, as his father had made in Samaria (i.e. of assigning an Israelites’ quarter in Damascus, where their judges should have paramount authority, for the benefit of Israelites resident there for commerce and political objects). A prophet invested with the divine commission (“in the word of the Lord”: Haggai 1:13) requested his neighbor to smite him; refusing, he was slain by a lion. Another, at his request, smote and wounded him. By this symbolic act, and by a parable of his having suffered an enemy committed to him to escape, the prophet intimated that Ahab’s life should pay the forfeit of his having suffered to escape with life one appointed by God to destruction. This disobedience, like Saul’s in the case of Amalek, owing to his preferring his own will to God’s, coupled with his treacherous and covetous murder of Naboth, brought on him his doom in his third campaign against Benhadad three years subsequently. With Jehoshaphat, in spite of the prophet Micaiah’s warning, and urged on by an evil spirit in the false prophets, he tried to recover Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22).

Benhadad’s chief aim was to slay Ahab, probably from personal hostility owing to the gratuitousness of the attack. Conscience made Ahab a coward, and selfishness made him reckless of his professed friendship to Jehoshaphat. Compare 2 Chronicles 18:2: feasting and a display of hospitality often seduce the godly. So he disguised himself, and urged his friend to wear the royal robes. The same Benhadad whom duty to God ought to have led him to execute as a blasphemer, drunkard, and murderer, was in retribution made the instrument of his own destruction ( 1 Kings 20:10,16,42). That false friendship which the godly king of Judah ought never to have formed ( 2 Chronicles 19:2; 1 Corinthians 15:33) would have cost him his life but for God’s interposition ( 2 Chronicles 18:31) “moving them to depart from him.” Ahab’s treachery did not secure his escape, an arrow “at a venture” humanly speaking, but guided by God really, wounded him fatally; and the dogs licked up his blood, according to the Lord’s word of which Joram’s case in 2 Kings 9:25 was a literal fulfillment ( 1 Kings 21:19), on the very spot, while his chariot and armor were being washed ( 1 Kings 22:38). The Assyrian Black Obelisk mentions “Ahab of Jezreel,” his ordinary residence, and that he furnished the confederacy, including Benhadad, against, Assyria 10,000 footmen and 2000 chariots, and that they were defeated. At first sight this seemingly contradicts Scripture, which makes Benhadad Ahab’s enemy. But an interval of peace of three years occurred between Ahab’s two Syrian wars ( 1 Kings 22:1). In it Ahab doubtless allied himself to Benhadad against the Assyrians. Fear of them was probably among his reasons for granting Benhadad easy terms when in his power ( 1 Kings 20:34). When the Assyrians came in the interval that followed, Ahab was confederate with Benhadad. Hence arose his exasperation at the terms granted to Benhadad, whereby he gained life and liberty, being violated in disregard of honor and gratitude ( 1 Kings 22:3). The Moabite stone mentions Omri’s son; “He also said, I will oppress Moab,” confirming Scripture that it was not until after Ahab’s death that Moab rebelled ( 2 Kings 1:1; 3:4,5). [See DIBON .] 2. A false prophet, who deceived with flattering prophecies of an immediate return the Jews in Babylon, and was burnt to death by Nebuchadnezzar ( Jeremiah 29:21,22). The names of him and Zedekiah, his fellow deceiver, were doomed to be a byword for a curse.

AHARAH 1 Chronicles 8:1.

AHARHEL 1 Chronicles 4:8.

AHASAI ( 1 Chronicles 9:12JAHZERAH.) Nehemiah 11:13.

AHASBAI 2 Samuel 23:34.

AHASUERUS 1. The Graecised form is Cyaxares; king of Media, conqueror of Nineveh; began to reign 634 B.C. Father of Darius the Mede = Astyages, last king of Media, 594 B.C. Tradition says Astyages’ grandson was Cyrus, son of his daughter Mandane and a Persian noble, Cambyses, first king of Persia, B.C. Cyrus having taken Babylon set over it, as viceroy with royal state, his grandfather Astyages, or (as chronology requires) Astyages’ successor, i.e. Darius the Mede. 2. Cambyses, Cyrus’ son, is the second Ahasuerus, 529 B.C. ( Ezra 4:6.)

A Magian usurper, impersonating Smerdis, Cyrus’ younger son, succeeded; = Artaxerxes ( Ezra 4:4-7). The Jews’ enemies, in the third year of Cyrus ( Daniel 10:12,18; Ezra 4:5), sought by “hired counselors” to frustrate the building of the temple, and wrote against them to Ahasuerus (Cambyses) and Artaxerxes (Pseudo-Smerdis) successively.

Ahasuerus reigned seven and a half years. Then the Magian Pseudo- Smerdis, Artaxeres, usurped the throne for eight months. The Magi being overthrown, Darius Hystaspis succeeded, 521 B.C. ( Ezra 4:24.) 3. Darius Hystaspis’ son was Ahasuerus the third = Xerxes [see ESTHER ], father of Artaxerxes Longimanus ( Ezra 7:1). The gap between Ezra and Ezra 7 is filled up with the book of Esther. The character of Ahasuerus III. much resembles that of Xerxes as described by Greek historians.

Proud, self willed, impulsive, amorous, reckless of violating Persian proprieties, ready to sacrifice human life, though not wantonly cruel. As Xerxes scourged the sea and slew the engineers because his bridge over the Hellespont was swept away by the sea, so Ahasuerus repudiated his queen Vashti because she did not violate female decorum and expose herself to the gaze of drunken revelers; and decreed the massacre of the whole Jewish people to please his favorite, Haman; and, to prevent the evil, allowed them in self defense to slay thousands of his other subjects. In the third year was held Ahasuerus, feast in Shushan ( Esther 1:3): so Xerxes in his third year held an assembly to prepare for invading Greece. In his seventh year Ahasuerus replaced Vashti by marrying Esther (Est. 2:16), after gathering all the fair young virgins to Shushan: so Xerxes in his seventh year, on his defeat and return from Greece, consoled himself with the pleasures of the harem, and offered a reward for the inventor of a new pleasure (Herodotus 9:108). The “tribute” which he “laid upon the land and upon the isles of the sea” ( Esther 10:1) was probably to replenish his treasury, exhausted by the Grecian expedition. The name in the Persepolitan arrow-headed inscriptions is Kshershe. Xerxes is explained by Herodotus as meaning martial; the modern title shah comes from ksahya, “a king,” which forms the latter part of the name; the former part is akin to shir, a lion. The Semitic Ahashverosh = Persian Khshayarsha , a common title of many Medo-Persian kings. Darius Hystaspis was the first Persian king who reigned “from India (which he first subdued) to Ethiopia” ( Esther 1:1); also the first who imposed a stated tribute on the provinces, voluntary presents having been customary before; also the first who admitted the seven princes to see the king’s face; the seven conspirators who slew Pseudo-Smerdis having stipulated, before it was decided which of them was to have the crown, for special privileges, and this one in particular.

AHAVA A place ( Ezra 8:15); a river ( Ezra 8:21) where Ezra assembled the second band of returning captives, for prayer to God as he says “to seek of Him a right way for us, for our little ones, and for all our substance.” The modern Hit, on the Euphrates, E. of Damascus; Ihi-dakira, “the spring of bitumen,” was its name subsequently to Ezra’s times. Perhaps the Joab of 2 Kings 17:24.

AHAZ Ahaz (possessor). Son of Jotham; ascended the throne of Judah in his 20th year ( 2 Kings 16:2), a transcriber’s error for 25th year; as read in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic ( 2 Chronicles 28:1); for otherwise Hezekiah his son would be born when Ahaz was 11 years old. Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah of Israel leagued against Judah, to put on the throne the son of Tabeal, probably a Syrian ( Isaiah 7:6). Isaiah and Shear-jashub his son (whose name = the remnant shall return was a pledge that, notwithstanding; heavy calamity, the whole nation should not perish), together met Ahaz by Jehovah’s direction at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, and assured him that Rezin’s and Pekah’s evil counsel should not come to pass; nay, that within 65 years Ephraim (Israel) should cease to be a people.

It is an undesigned propriety in Isaiah 7, and therefore a mark of truth, that the place of meeting was the pool; for there it was we know, from the independent history in Chronicles, that Hezekiah his son, subsequently in Sennacherib’s invasion, with much people stopped the waters without the city to cut off the enemy’s supply ( 2 Chronicles 32:3-5). The place was appropriate to Isaiah’s message from God that their labors were unnecessary, for God would save the city; it was also suitable for addressing the king and the multitude gathered for the stopping of the waters there. Isaiah told Ahaz to “ask a sign,” i.e. a miraculous token from God that He would keep His promise of saving Jerusalem. Ahaz hypocritically refused to “tempt the Lord” by asking one. What mock humility in one who scrupled not to use God’s brazen altar to divine with, and had substituted for God’s altar in God’s worship the pattern, which pleased his aesthetic tastes, of the idol altar at Damascus ( 2 Kings 16:11-15); perhaps the adoption of this pattern, an Assyrian one, was meant as a token of vassalage to Assyria, by adopting some of their religious usage’s and idolatries; indeed Tiglath Pileser expressly records in the Assyrian monuments that he held his court at Damascus, and there received submission and tribute of both Pekah of Samaria and Ahaz of Judah. To ask a miraculous sign without warrant would be to tempt (i.e. put to the proof) God; but not to ask, when God offered a sign, was at once tempting and distrusting Him. Ahaz’s true reason for declining was his resolve not to do God’s will, but to negotiate with Assyria and persevere in idolatry ( 2 Kings 16:7,8,3,4,10). Thereupon God Himself gave the sign: “a virgin should bring forth Immanuel.” [For the primary fulfillment in the birth of a child in Isaiah’s time, see IMMANUEL .] The promise of His coming of the line of David guaranteed the perpetuity of David’ s seed, and the impossibility of the two invaders setting aside David’s line of succession. Ahaz is named Jeho-Ahaz (or Yahu-Khazi) in the Assyrian inscriptions.

Pekah slew 120,000 valiant men of Judah in one day, “because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers”; Zichri of Ephraim slew the king’s son Maaseiah, and Azrikim the governor of his house, and Elkanah next to the king. Israel carried captive 200,000, and much spoil, to Samaria. But Oded the prophet constrained them to restore the captives fed, arrayed, and shod, and the feeble mounted upon asses, to their brethren at Jericho.

Pekah took Elath, which Uzziah or Ahaziah had restored to Judah, a flourishing port on the Red Sea; “the Syrians” according to KJV “came and dwelt in it”: or, reading ( 2 Kings 16:6) Adomim for Aromim, “the Edomites”; who also came and smote Judah on the E., and carried away captives ( 2 Chronicles 28:17,18), while the Philistines were invading the. S. and W., the cities of the low hill country (shephelah), Bethshemesh, Ajalon, Gederoth, Shocho, Timnah, Gimzo. The feeble Ahaz, retributively” brought low,” even as he had “made naked” (stripped of the true defense, Jehovah, Exodus 32:25, by sin) Judah, sought deliverance by becoming Tiglath Pileser’s vassal ( 1 Kings 16:7-10). The Assyrian king “distressed him, but strengthened him not.” For Ahaz had to present his master treasures out of the temple, his palace, and the houses of the princes. It is true the Assyrian slew Rezin, and carried captive the Syrians of Damascus to Kir; but their ruin did not prove Ahaz’s safety, “the king of Assyria helped him not.” Isaiah ( Isaiah 7:17; 8:1,2) had warned him against this alliance by writing in a roll Maher-shalal-hashbaz, i.e., hasting to the spoil he hasteth to the prey. To impress this on Ahaz as the coming result of Assyrian interference, he took with him two witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah. Who Uriah was we learn from the independent history ( 2 Kings 16:15,16), the ready tool of Ahaz’s unlawful innovations in worship. Zechariah, the same history tells us ( 2 Kings 18:2), was father of Abi, Ahaz’s wife, mother of Hezekiah. The coincidence between Isaiah’s book and that of Kings in these names is little obvious and so undesigned that it forms a delicate mark of truth. Isaiah chose these two, as the king’s bosom friends, to urge on Ahaz’s attention the solemn communication he had to make. Distress, instead of turning Ahaz to Him who smote them, the Lord of hosts ( Isaiah 9:12,13), only made him “trespass yet more,” sacrificing to the gods of Damascus which had smitten him, that they might help him as he thought they had helped the Syrians; “but they were the ruin of him and of all Israel.” Ahaz cut in pieces God’s vessels, and shut up the doors of the temple, and made altars in every grainer of Jerusalem, and burnt incense on high places in every several city of Judah. He also “cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them, and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen and put it upon a pavement of stones,” putting God off with inferior things and taking all the best for his own purposes, whether of idolatry or selfish luxury. The brazen oxen were preserved whole, not melted (compare Jeremiah 52:17-20). “The covert for the sabbath,” i.e., a covered walk like a portico or standing place, to screen the royal worshippers in the temple, and the king’s private entry, he removed into the temple, to please the king of Assyria, that none might go from the palace into the temple without the trouble of going round. Ahaz seems to have practiced necromancy ( Isaiah 8:19) as well as making his son pass through the fire to Moloch (2 Kings 16; 23:11,12; 2 Chronicles 28), and setting up altars on his roof to adore the heavenly hosts. He adopted the Babylonian sun dial (which he probably erected in the temple, perhaps in “the middle court,” where Isaiah saw it and gave its shadow as a sign to Hezekiah), becoming acquainted with it through the Assyrians ( 2 Kings 20:11,4,9). After reigning 16 years (740-724 B.C.) he died and was buried in the city of David, but was, because of his wickedness, “not brought into the sepulchers of the kings.”

AHAZIAH (whom Jehovah holds). 1. Son of Ahab and Jezebel; king of Israel; a worshipper of Jeroboam’s calves, and of his mother’s idols, Baal and Ashtoreth. After the Israelite defeat at Ramoth Gilead. Syria was master of the region E. of Jordan; so Moab ( 2 Kings 1:1; 3:5), heretofore tributary to Israel, refused the yearly tribute of 100,000 rams with their wool, and 100,000 lambs ( 2 Samuel 8:2; Isaiah 16:1; 2 Kings 3:4). Ahaziah was prevented by a fall through a lattice in his palace at Samaria from enforcing it; but Jehoram his brother subsequently attempted it. Ahaziah sent to Baalzebub (lord of flies), god of Ekron, to inquire, should he recover? Elijah, by direction of the angel of the Lord, met the messengers, and reproving their having repaired to the idol of Ekron as if there were no God in Israel, announced that Ahaziah should die. The king sent a captain of 50 and his men to take Elijah. At Elijah’s word they were consumed by fire. The same death consumed a second captain and his 50.

The third was spared on his supplicating Elijah. Elijah then in person announced to the king what he had already declared to his messenger. So accordingly Ahaziah died. He was in alliance with Jehoshaphat in building ships at Ezion Geber to go to Tarshish; but the ships were wrecked, the Lord, as He intimated by Eliezer son of Dodavah of Mareshah, thereby manifesting disapproval of the alliance of the godly, with Ahaziah “who did very wickedly. Jehoshaphat therefore, when he built a new fleet of merchant ships (as the phrase “ships of Tarshish” means; the other reading is “had ten ships”), in which undertaking Ahaziah wanted to share, declined further alliance; bitter experience taught him the danger of evil communications ( 1 Corinthians 15:33). Let parents and young people beware of affinity with the ungodly, however rich and great ( Corinthians 6:14, etc.). 2. Nephew of the former. At first viceroy during his father’s sickness, then king of Judah, son of Jehoram of Judah and Athaliah, Ahab’s cruel daughter ( 2 Kings 9:29, compare 2 Kings 8:25). Called Jehoahaz ( 2 Chronicles 21:17-19). Azariah (meaning “whom Jehovah helps,” substantially equivalent to Ahaziah = Jehoahaz by transposition, a name sadly at variance with his character), in Chronicles 22:6, may be a transcriber’s error for Ahaziah. In Chronicles 22:2, for 42 there should be, as in 2 Kings 8:26, “twenty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign,” for his father Jehoram was only 40 when he died ( 2 Chronicles 21:20). Ahaziah walked in all the idolatries of Ahab his maternal grandfather, his mother being his counselor to do wickedly. He allied himself with Jehoram of Israel, brother of the former Ahaziah (in spite of the warning God gave him in the fatal issue of the alliance of godly Jehoshaphat, his paternal grandfather, with wicked Ahab), against Hazael of Syria at Ramoth Gilead. Jehoram was wounded, and Ahaziah went to see him at Jezreel. There his destruction from God ensued by Jehu, who conspired against Joram. Akin to Ahab in character, as in blood, he might have overspread Judah with the same idolatry as Israel, but for God’s intervention. Fleeing by the garden house, he was smitten in his chariot at the going up to Gur by Ibleam, and he fled to Megiddo and died there. God’s people must separate from the world, lest they share the world’s judgments ( Revelation 18:4). In Chronicles 22:9 we read Ahaziah was hid in Samaria, brought to Jehu, and slain. The two accounts harmonize thus. Ahaziah fled first to the garden house (Bethgan), and escaped to Samaria where were his brethren; thence brought forth from his hiding place to Jehu, he was mortally wounded in his chariot at the hill Gut beside Iblcam, and reaching Megiddo died there.

Jehu allowed Ahaziah’s attendants to bury him honorably in his sepulchre with his fathers in the city of David, “because, said they, he is the son [grandson] of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart.”

Otherwise “in Samaria” may mean “in the kingdom of Samaria,” or Chronicles 22:9 may mean merely, he attempted to hide in Samaria, but did not reach it. The recurrence of the same names Joram and Ahaziah in both the dynasties of Israel and Judah is a delicate mark of truth, it being the natural result of the intermarriages.

AHBAN 1 Chronicles 2:29.

AHER 1 Chronicles 7:12.

AHI 1 Chronicles 5:15. 2. 1 Chronicles 7:34. From Hebrews ach , “a brother”; or contracted fromAHIJAH, orAHIAH.

AHIAM (or Sacar, 1 Chronicles 11:35). 2 Samuel 23:33.

AHIAN 1 Chronicles 7:17.

AHIEZER 1. Hereditary prince captain of Dan under Moses ( Numbers 1:12; 2:25; 7:66). 2. 1 Chronicles 12:3.

AHIHUD 1. Prince of Asher; assisted Joshua and Eleazar in dividing Canaan ( Numbers 34:27). 2. 1 Chronicles 8:7.

AHIJAH 1. Son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, son of Phinehas, Eli’s son, the Lord’s priest in Shiloh, wearing an ephod ( 1 Samuel 14:3,18). The ark of God was in his charge, and with it and the ephod he used to consult Jehovah. In Saul’s later years, probably after the slaughter of the priests at Nob the ark was neglected as a means of consulting Jehovah. It lay in the house of Abinadab in Gibeah of Benjamin ( 2 Samuel 6:3), probably the Benjamite quarter of Kirjath-jearim, or Baale, on the borders of Judah and Benjamin ( Joshua 18:14,28). Saul’s irreverent haste of spirit appears in his breaking off in the midst of consulting God through Ahijah with the ark and ephod, because he was impatient to encounter the Philistines whose approach he discerned by the tumult. Contrast David’s implicit submission to Jehovah’s guidance in encountering the same Philistines ( 2 Samuel 5:19-25, compare Isaiah 28:16 end). His rash adjuration binding the people not to eat all day, until he was avenged on the Philistines, involved the people in the sin of ravenously eating the cattle taken, with the blood, and Jonathan in that of unwittingly sinning by tasting honey, and so incurring the penalty of death. Saul ought to have had the conscientiousness which would have led him never to take such an oath, rather than the scrupulosity which condemned the people and Jonathan instead of himself. His projected night pursuit was consequently prevented; for the priest met his proposal, which was well received by the people, by suggesting that Jehovah should be consulted. No answer having been given, owing to Jonathan’s sin of ignorance for which Saul was to blame, Saul’s wish was defeated. As Ahijah is evidently = Ahimelech the son of Ahitub (unless he was his brother), this will account for a coldness springing up on Saul’s part toward Ahijah and his family, which culminated in the cruel slaughter of them at Nob on the ground of treasonous concert with David (1 Samuel 21). 2. 1 Chronicles 8:7. 3. 1 Chronicles 2:25. 4. 1 Chronicles 11:36. 5. 1 Chronicles 26:20. 6. A prophet of Shiloh.

He met outside of Jerusalem in the way, and foretold to, Jeroboam, the transfer of ten tribes to him from Solomon, for Solomon’s idolatries, by the symbolic action of rending the garment on him into twelve pieces, of which he gave ten to Jeroboam. Further he assured him from God of “a sure house, such as He had built for David,” if only Jeroboam would “walk in God’s ways,” as David did. Jeroboam fled from Solomon to Shishak, king of Egypt, where he stayed until Solomon died. The other prophecy of his ( 1 Kings 14:6-16) was given to Jeroboam’s wife, who in disguise consulted him as to her son Abijah’s recovery. Though blind with age he detected her, and announced that as Jeroboam had utterly failed in the one condition of continuance in the kingdom rent from David’s house, which his former prophecy had laid down, namely, to keep God’s commandments heartily as David did, Jeroboam’s house should be taken away “as dung”; but that in reward for the good there was found in Abijah toward God, he alone should have an honorable burial (compare Isaiah 57:1,2), but that “Jehovah would smite Israel as a reed shaken in the water, and root up and scatter Israel beyond the river,” Euphrates. Reference to his prophecy as one of the records of Solomon’s reign is made in 2 Chronicles 9:29.

Probably it was he through whom the Lord encouraged Solomon in building the temple ( 1 Kings 6:11).

AHIKAM Son of Shaphan the scribe, sent by Josiah to Huldah the prophetess ( Kings 22:12). In Jehoiakim’s subsequent reign Ahikam successfully pleaded for Jeremiah before the princes and elders, that he should not be given to the people to be put to death for his fearless warnings ( Jeremiah 26:16-24). God rewarded Ahikam by the honor put upon Gedaliah, his son, by Nebuchadnezzar’s making him governor over the cities of Judah, and committing Jeremiah’ to him, when the Babylonians took Jerusalem ( Jeremiah 40:5; 39:14).

AHILUD 2 Samuel 8:16; 20:24; 1 Kings 4:3; 1 Chronicles 18:15.

AHIMAAZ (brother of anger, i.e. choleric). 1. 1 Samuel 14:50. 2. Zadok the priest’s son; the messenger in Absalom’s rebellion, with Jonathan, Abiathar’s son, to carry tidings from Hushai, David’s friend and spy. Zadok and Abiathar, who took back the ark to the city at David’s request, were to tell them while staying outside the city at Enrogel whatever Hushai directed. They told David the counsel of Ahlthophel for an immediate attack, which David should baffle by crossing Jordan at once. They narrowly escaped Absalom’s servants at Bahurim, the woman of the house hiding them in a well’s mouth, over which she spread a covering with ground grain on it, and telling the servants what was true in word, though misleading them: “they be gone over the brook of water.” Bahurim, the scene of Shimei’s cursing of David, was thus made the scene of David’s preservation by God, who heard his prayer ( 1 Samuel 16:12; <19A928> Psalm 109:28). David’s estimate of Ahimaaz appears in his remark on his approach after the battle ( Samuel 18:27): “he is a good man, and cometh with good tidings.” Though Cushi was later in arriving he announced the fate of Absalom, which Ahimaaz with courtier-like equivocation evaded announcing, lest he should alloy his good news with what would be so distressing to David. Joab, knowing David’s fondness for Absalom, had not wished Ahimaaz to go at all on that day, but youths will hardly believe their elders wiser than themselves. Good running was a quality much valued in those days, and Ahimaaz was famous for it. The battle was fought on the mount of Ephraim W. of Jordan, and Ahimaaz ran by the plain of the Jordan to David at Mahanaim. Compare as to Asahel 2 Samuel 2:18; Elijah, Kings 18:46. Compare as to runners before kings 2 Samuel 15:1; Kings 1:5; as to courier posts, 2 Chronicles 30:6,10; Esther 3:13,15; 8:14. Comparing 1 Kings 4:2 with 1 Chronicles 6:10, some infer that Ahimaaz died before he attained the priesthood, and before his father Zadok, who was succeeded by Ahimaaz’s son, Azariah. [See ABIATHAR ] 3. 1 Kings 5:7,15.

AHIMAM (my brother, who? i.e. who is my equal?). 1. He, Sheshai, and Talmai were the three giant Anakim brothers seen by Caleb and the spies in mount Hebron ( Numbers 13:22,23). The three were slain by the tribe of Judah, and the whole race was cut off by Joshua ( Joshua 11:21; Judges 1:10). 2. 1 Chronicles 9:17.

AHIMELECH 1. [See ABIATHAR , see AHIJAH .] 2. The Hittite who, with Abishai, was asked by David: “Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?” He lost a precious opportunity of serving the king ( Isaiah 6:8); Abishai alone volunteered ( 1 Samuel 26:6).

AHIMOTH 1 Chronicles 6:25. For Ahimoth stands Mahath in 1Chronicles6:35, as in Luke 3:26.

AHINADAB 1 Kings 4:14.

AHINOAM (brother of grace, i.e. graceful). Of Jezreel. David’s wife; along with Abigail, accompanied him to Achish’s court ( 1 Samuel 25:43; 27:3).

Taken by the Amalekites at Ziklag, but rescued by David (1 Samuel 30).

With him when king in Hebron ( 2 Samuel 2:2; 3:2). Mother of Amnon.

Beauty was David’s snare; the children consequently had more of outward than inward grace.

AHIO 1. Son of Abinadab. While Uzzah walked at the side of the ark, Ahio went before it, guiding the oxen which drew the cart, after having brought it from his father’s house at Gibeah (the Benjamite quarter of Kirjath-jearim) ( 2 Samuel 6:3,4; 1 Chronicles 13:7). 2. 1 Chronicles 8:14. 3. 1 Chronicles 8:31; 9:37.

AHIRA Prince captain of Naphtali the year after the exodus: Numbers 1:15; 2:29; 7:78,83; 10:27.

AHIRAM Numbers 26:38. Called Ehi Genesis 46:21.

AHISAMACH Exodus 31:6; 35:34.

AHISHAHAR 1 Chronicles 7:10.

AHISHAR 1 Kings 4:6.

AHITHOPHEL [See ABSALOM. ] Of Giloh, in the hill country of Judah. David’s counselor, to whose treachery he touchingly alludes Psalm 41:9; 55:12-14,20,21.

His name means brother of foolishness, but his oracular wisdom was proverbial. David’s prayer “turned his counsel” indeed into what his name indicated, “foolishness” ( 2 Samuel 15:31; Job 5:12,13; Corinthians 1:20). Ahithophel was the mainspring of the rebellion.

Absalom calculated on his adhesion from the first ( 2 Samuel 15:12); the history does not directly say why, but incidentally it comes out: he was father of Eliam (or by transposition Ammiel, 1 Chronicles 3:5), the father of Bathsheba ( 2 Samuel 11:3; 23:34,39). Uriah the Hittite and Eliam, being both of the king’s guard (consisting of 37 officers), were intimate, and Uriah married the daughter of his brother officer. How natural Ahithophel’s sense of wrong toward David, the murderer of his grandson by marriage and the corrupter of his granddaughter! The evident undesignedness of this coincidence confirms the veracity of the history.

The people’s loyalty too was naturally shaken toward one whose moral character they had ceased to respect. Ahithophel’s proposal himself to pursue David that night with 12,000 men, and smite the king only, indicates the same personal hostility to David, deep sagacity and boldness.

He failed from no want of shrewdness on his part, but from the folly of Absalom. His awful end shows that worldly wisdom apart from faith in God turns into suicidal madness ( Isaiah 29:14). He was the type of Judas in his treachery and in his end. [See JUDAS .] AHITUB 1. [See AHIMELECH or see AHIJAH , whose father he was.] 2. Amariah’s son, and Zadok the high priest’s father, or rather grandfather ( 1 Chronicles 6:7,8; 2 Samuel 8:17). Called “ruler of the house of God,” i.e. high priest, 1 Chronicles 9:11. In Nehemiah 11:11 Ahitub appears as grandfather of Zadok and father of Meraioth, of the house of Eleazar. Thus there would seem to have been in the same age Ahitub of the house of Eli, sprung from Ithamar, and also Ahitub of the house of Eleazar. 3. The mention of a third Ahitub, son of another Amariah, and father of another Zadok ( 1 Chronicles 6:11,12), may be a copyist’s error.

AHLAB A city of Asher, whence the Canaanites were not driven out ( Judges 1:31). More recently Gush Chaleb, or Giscala, whence came John, son of Levi, leader in the siege of Jerusalem; said to be the birthplace of Paul’s parents. Now Eljish, near Safed, in the hills N.W. of the lake of Tiberias.

AHLAI 1. 1 Chronicles 11:41. 2. Sheshan’s daughter given to the Egyptian servant Jarha in marriage ( 1 Chronicles 2:31-35).

AHOAH ( 1 Chronicles 8:4). Hence the patronymic “the Ahchite” ( 2 Samuel 23:9,28; 1 Chronicles 11:12,29; 27:4).

AHOLAH (her own tent). i.e., she (Samaria, or the northern kingdom of Israel) has a tabernacle of her own; namely, Jeroboam’s golden calves of Dan and Bethel; “will worship” ( Colossians 2:23). See Ezekiel 23: Aholibah (Aholah’s sister). “My (Jehovah’s) tent is in her,” Judah: so far superior to Aholah that her worship was not self devised but God appointed. Compare Psalm 78:67-69; 1 Kings 12:25-33; 1 Chronicles 11:13-16. But both were false to Jehovah their true husband ( Isaiah 54:5). Aholah (Samaria) gave her heart to the Assyrians, trusting in their power, and imitating their splendid luxury, and following their idols. Now God’s just principle is, when the church corrupts herself with the world, the instrument of her sin is the instrument of her punishment. The Assyrians on whom she had leaned carried her away captive to Assyria, whence she has never returned ( 2 Kings 15:18-29; 17). Aholibah (Judah) was worse, in that her privileges were greater, and she ought to have been warned by the awful fate of Samaria. But she gave herself up to be corrupted by the Babylonians; and again the instrument of her sin was also the instrument of her punishment ( Jeremiah 2:19; Proverbs 1:31).

AHOLIAB Of Dan; with Bezaleel, inspired with artistic skill to construct the tabernacle ( Exodus 35:34).

AHOLIBAMAH One of Esau’s three wives. Daughter of see ANAH , or see BEERI [see both], a descendant of Seir the Horite. Through her Esau’s descendants the Edomites became occupants of mount Seir. Each of her three sons, Jeush.

Jaalam, Korah, became head of a tribe. Her personal name was Judith ( Genesis 26:34). Aholibamah was her married name, taken from the district, in the heights of Edom, near mount Hor and Petra; Aholibamah is therefore the name given her in the genealogical table of Edom ( Genesis 36:2,18,25,41,43; the names here are of places, not persons; 1 Chronicles 1:52). Each of Esau’s wives has a name. in the genealogy different from that it, the history.

AHUMAI 1 Chronicles 4:2.

AHUZZATH “Friend” (oriental kings have usually such favorites) of the Philistine king Abimelech in his interview with Isaac ( Genesis 26:28). Jerome and the Chaldee Targum explains “a company of friends.” The ending -ath appears in other Philistine names, Gath, Goliath, Timnath.

AI (heap of rains). 1. HAI, i.e. the Ai ( Genesis 12:8); a royal city ( Joshua 7:2; 8:9,23,29; 10:1,2; 12:9); E. of Bethel, “beside Bethaven.” The second Canaanite city taken by Israel and “utterly destroyed.” The nameAIATH still belonged to the locality when Sennacherib marched against Jerusalem ( Isaiah 10:28). “Men of Bethel and Ai,” (223 according to Ezra 2:28, but 123 according to Nehemiah 7:32,) returned from Babylon with Zerubbzbel. Ezra’s list was made in Babylon; Nehemiah’s in Judaea long after. Death and change of purpose would make many in Ezra’s list of intending returners not appear in Nehemiah’s list of those actually arriving.

Aija is mentioned among the towns reoccupied by the Benjamites ( Nehemiah 11:31). Perhaps the site is at the head of Wary Harith. [See BETHEL .] There is a hilltop E. of the church remains on the hill adjoining and E. of Bethel (Beitin); its Arab name, et Tel, means “the heap,” and it doubtless is the site of Ai, or Hai (on the east of Abraham’s encampment and altar, Genesis 12:8). In the valley behind Joshua placed his ambush.

Across the intervening valley is the spot where Joshua stood when giving the preconcerted signal. The plain or ridge can be seen down which the men of Ai rushed after the retreating Israelites, so that the men in ambush rose and captured the city behind the pursuers, and made it. “a heap” or tel for ever. 2. A city of Ammon, near Heshbon ( Jeremiah 49:3).

AIAH AJAH. 1. Genesis 36:24. 2. 2 Samuel 3:7.

AIJALON orAJALON, a place of gazelles ( Joshua 19:42; 21:24). 1. Originally of Dan; which tribe, however, could not dispossess the Amorites ( Judges 1:35). Assigned to the Levite Kohathites, among the 48 Levitical cities ( 1 Chronicles 6:69). Fortified by Rehoboam of Judah, in his war with Israel, the northern kingdom, though sometimes, as being a border city, mentioned as in Ephraim ( 2 Chronicles 11:10; 28:18).

Taken by the Philistines from the weak Ahaz ( 1 Chronicles 6:66,69).

Now Yalo, N. of the Jaffa road, 14 miles from Jerusalem, on the hill side, bounding on the S. the valley Merj-ibn-Omeir. Alluded to in the memorable apostrophe of Joshua, “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon” ( Joshua 10:12). 2. The burial place of the judge ( Judges 12:12) Elon in Zebulun.

AIJELETH SHAHAR Hebrews ayyeleth hasshachar , “the hind of the morning dawn” (title of Psalm 22). Aben Ezra explains as the name of the melody to which the psalm was to be sung, equivalent to tide rising sun, some well known tune.

Rather, allegorical allusion to the subject. The hind symbolizes a lovely and innocent one hounded to death, as the bulls, lions, dogs in the psalm are the persecutors. The unusual Heb., Psalm 22:19, ejulathi , “my strength,” alludes to aijeleth , “the hind,” weak in itself but having Jehovah for its strength. The morning dawn represents joy bursting forth after affliction; Messiah is alluded to, His deep sorrow ( Psalm 22:1-21) passes to triumphant joy ( Psalm 22:21-31).

AIN (eye). 1. Fountain, spring, which flashes in the landscape like a gleaming eye.

Distinguished from beer, a dug well ( Exodus 15:27), “wells,” rather springs. Generally in compositions En-gedi, “fountain of kids,” En-dor, “fountain of the house,” etc. Plural in John 3:23, AEnon; like the Yorkshire Fountains Abbey. Riblah, E. of Ain (Hebrews the spring), marks the eastern boundary of Palestine ( Numbers 34:11). Riblah is identified as on the N. E. side of the Hermon mountains; and Ain answers to Ain el ‘Azy (nine miles from Riblah, on the N.E. side), the source of the Orerites. 2. A southern city of Judah, afterward of Simeon, then assigned to the priests ( Joshua 15:32; 19:7; 21:16).

AKAN orJAKAN. Genesis 36:27; 1 Chronicles 1:42.

AKKUB 1. 1 Chronicles 3:24. 2. 1 Chronicles 9:17. 3. Ezra 2:45. 4. Nehemiah 8:7.

AKRABBIM also, the going up to, or ascent of, Akrabbim.MAALEH-AKRABBIM = the scorpion pass, between the S. of the Dead Sea and Zin: Judah’s and Palestine’s boundary on the S. ( Numbers 34:4; Joshua 15:3). The boundary of the Amorites ( Judges 1:36). The scene of Judas Maccabens’ victory over Edom. Perhaps now the pass Es-Sufah, the last step from the desert to the level of Palestine. Wilton makes it Sufah.

ALABASTER Not our gypsum, but the oriental alabaster, translucent, with red, yellow, and gray streaks clue to admixture of oxides of iron with a fibrouscarbonate of lime. A calcareous marble like spar, wrought into boxes or vessels, to keep precious ointments from spoiling (Pliny H. N., 13:8). Mark 14:3: “broke the box,” i.e., broke the seal on the mouth of it, put there to prevent, evaporation of the odor ( Luke 7:37).

ALAMETH 1. 1 Chronicles 7:8. 2. 1 Chronicles 8:36. Son of Jehoadah, who is called Jarah in Chronicles 9:42.

ALAMMELECH (king’s oak). A place in Asher’s territory ( Joshua 19:26).

ALAMOTH (Psalm 46) Title, 1 Chronicles 15:20; i.e., after the virgin manner; a soprano key in music, like the voice of virgins. Others interpret it an instrument played on by virgins, like our old English virginal.

ALEMETH or Almon. A priests’ city in Benjamin ( 1 Chronicles 6:60; Joshua 21:18). Now Almit, a mile N.E. of Anata, the ancient Anathoth.

ALEXANDER 1. THE GREAT. Born at Pella, 356 B.C., son of Philip, king of Macedon; not named, but described prophetically: “an he-goat [symbol of ogility, the Graeco-Macedonian empire] coming from the W. on the face of the whole earth and not touching the ground [implying the incredible swiftness of his conquests]; and the goat had ANOTABLE HORN [Alexander] between his eyes, and he came to the ram that had two horns [Media and Persia, the second great world kingdom, the successor of Babylon; under both Daniel prophesied long before the rise of the Macedon-Greek kingdom] standing before the river [at the river Granicus Alexander gained his first victory over Darius Codomanus, 334 B.C.] and ran unto him in the fury of his power, moved with choler against him [on account of the Persian invasions of Greece and cruelties to the Greeks], and smote the ram and broke his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him; but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him, and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand: therefore the he-goat waxed very great, and when he was strong the great horn was broken, and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven” ( Daniel 8:5-8). The “he-goat” answers to the “leopard” ( Daniel 7:6) whose “wings” similarly marked the winged rapidity of the Greek conquest of Persia. In 331 B.C. Alexander finally defeated Darius, and in 330 burned Persepolis, the Persian capital. None, not even the million composing the Persian hosts, could deliver the ram, Persia, out of his hand. But “when he was strong, the great horn [Alexander] was broken.” The Graeco- Macedonian empire was in full strength at Alexander’s death by fever, the result of drunken excesses, at Babylon. At the time it seemed least likely to fall it was “broken.” Alexander’s natural brother, Philip Aridaeus, and his two sons Alexander AEgus and Hercules, in 15 months were murdered; “and for it [the he-goat] came up four notable ones, toward the four winds of heaven”: Seleucus in the E. obtained Syria, Babylonia, Mede-Persia; Cassander in the W. Macedon, Thessaly, Greece; Ptolemy in the S. Egypt, Cyprus, etc.; Lysimachus in the N. Thrace, Cappadocia, and the northern regions of Asia Minor. The” leopard” is smaller than the “lion” ( Daniel 7:4,6); swift ( Habakkuk 1:8), cruel ( Isaiah 11:6), springing suddenly on its prey ( Hosea 13:7). So Alexander, king of a small kingdom, overcame Darius at the head of an empire extending from the AEgean sea to the Indies, and in 12 years attained the rule from the Adriatic to the Ganges. Hence the leopard has four wings, whereas the lion (Babylon) had but two. The “spots” imply the variety of nations incorporated, perhaps also the variability of Alexander’s own character, by turns mild and cruel, temperate and drunken and licentious. “Dominion was given to it” by God, not by Alexander’s own might; for how unlikely it was that 30,000 men should overthrow hundreds of thousands. Josephus (Ant. 11:8, section 5) says that Alexander meeting the high priest Jaddua ( Nehemiah 12:11,22) said that at Dium in Macedonia he had a divine vision so habited, inviting him to Asia and promising him success. Jaddua met him at Gapha (Mizpeh) at the head of a procession of priests and citizens in white.

Alexander at the sight of the linen arrayed priests, and the high priest in blue and gold with the miter and gold plate on his head bearing Jehovah’s name, adored it, and embraced him; and having been shown Daniel’s prophecies concerning him, he sacrificed to God in the court of the temple, and granted the Jews liberty to live according to their own laws, and freedom from tribute in the sabbatical years. The story is doubted, from its not being alluded to in secular histories: Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius. But their silence may be accounted for, as they notoriously despised the Jews. The main fact is strongly probable. It accords with Alexander’s character of believing himself divinely chosen for the great mission of Greece to the civilized world, to join the east and west in a union of equality, with Babylon as the capital. “Many kings of the East met him wearing (linen) fillets” (Justin). Jews were in his army. Jews were a strong element in the population of that city which he founded and which still bears his name, Alexandria. The remission of tribute every sabbatical year existed in later times, and the story best explains the privilege. When Aristotle urged him to treat the Greeks as freemen and the Orientals as slaves, he declared that “his mission from God was to be the more fit together and reconciler of the whole world in its several parts.” Arrian says: “Alexander was like no other man, and could not have been given to the world without the special interposition of God.” He was the providential instrument of breaking down the barrier wall between kingdom and kingdom, of bringing the contemplative east and the energetic west into mutually beneficial contact. The Greek language, that most perfect medium of human thought, became widely diffused, so that a Greek version of the Old Testament was needed and made (the Septuagint) for the Greek speaking Jews at Alexandria and elsewhere in a succeeding generation; and the fittest lingual vehicle for imparting the New Testament to mankind soon came to be the language generally known by the cultivated of every land. Commerce followed the breaking down of national exclusiveness, and everywhere the Jews had their synagogues for prayer and reading of the Old Testament in the leading cities. preparing the way and the place for the proclamation of the gospel, which rests on the Old Testament, to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles. 2. Son of Simon of Cyrene ( Mark 15:21). He and his brother Rufus are spoken of as well known in the Christian church. 3. A kinsman of Annas the high priest ( Acts 4:6); supposed the same as Alexander the alabarch (governor of the Jews) at Alexandria, brother of Philo-Judaeus, an ancient friend of the emperor Claudius. 4. A Jew whom the Jews put forward during Demetrius’ riot at Ephesus to plead their cause before the mob who suspected that the Jews were joined with the Christians in seeking to overthrow Diana’s worship ( Acts 19:33). Calvin thought him a convert to Christianity from Judaism, whom the Jews would have sacrificed as a victim to the fury of the rabble. 5. The coppersmith at Ephesus who did Paul much evil. Paul had previously “delivered him to Satan” (the lord of all outside the church) ( 1 Corinthians 5:5; 2 Corinthians 12:7), i.e. excommunicated, because he withstood the apostle, and made shipwreck of faith and of good conscience, and even blasphemed, with Hymenaeus. The excommunication often brought with it temporal judgment, as sickness, to bring the excommunicated to repentance ( 1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 4:14,15).

ALEXANDRIA Founded by Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., successively the Greek, Roman, and Christian capital of Lower Egypt. Its harbors, formed by the island Pharos and the headland Lochias, were suitable alike for commerce and war. It was a chief grain port of Rome, and the grain vessels were large and handsome; usually sailing direct to Puteoli, but from severity of weather at times, as the vessel that carried Paul, sailing under the coast of Asia Minor (Acts 27). At Myra in Lycia ( Acts 27:5) the centurion found this Alexandrian. ship bound for Italy; in Acts 27:10 Paul speaks of the “lading,” without stating what it was; but in Acts 27:38 it comes out casually. The tackling had been thrown out long before, but the cargo was kept until it could be kept no longer, and then first we learn it was wheat, the very freight which an Alexandrian vessel usually (as we know from secular authors) carried to Rome: an undesigned propriety, and so a mark of truth. The population of Alexandria had three prominent elements, Jews, Greeks, Egyptians. The Jews enjoyed equal privileges with the Macedonians, so that they became fixed there, and while regarding Jerusalem as “the holy city,” the metropolis of the Jews throughout the world, and having a synagogue there ( Acts 6:9), they had their own Greek version of the Old Testament. the Septuagint, and their own temple at Leontopolis. At Alexandia the Hebrew divine Old Testament revelation was brought into contact with Grecian philosophy. Philo’s doctrine of the word prepared men for receiving the teaching of John 1 as to the Word, the Son of God, distinct in one sense yet one with God; and his allegorizing prepared the way for appreciating similar teachings in the inspired writings (e.g. Galatians 4:22,31; Hebrews 7). Hence Apollos, born at Alexandia, eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, being instructed in the way of the Lord and fervent in the spirit, taught diligently (Greek accurately) the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John ( Acts 18:25); i.e., his Alexandrine education would familiarize him with Philo’s idea of the word as the mediating instrument of creation and providence; and John the Baptist’s inspired announcement of the personal Messiah would enable him to “teach accurately the things of the Lord” up to that point, when Aquila’s and Priscilla’s teaching more perfectly informed him of the whole accomplished Christian way of salvation. Mark is said to have been the first who preached and founded a Christian church in Alexandia.

Various forms of Gnostic and Arian error subsequently arose there. [See ALLEGORY .] ALGUM ( 2 Chronicles 2:8; 9:10,11) (ALMUG 1 Kings 10:11). From the Arabic article al and mica, “red sandalwood,” or Sanskrit valgu, in the Deccan valgum, “sandalwood.” Brought from Ophir, and from Lebanon.

Used for pillars and stairs in the Lord’s house and the king’s house, and for harps and psalteries. The cedars and firs came from Lebanon, but the almug trees from Ophir, an Arabian mart on the Red Sea, for eastern produce intended for Tyre and the W. The algums would come with the firs and cedars cut from Lebanon, and so all would be described collectively as “from Lebanon.” The red sandalwood of China and India still used for making costly utensils. Else, the common sandalwood (Santalum album of Malabar coast), outside white and without odor, but within and near the root fragrant, fine grained, and employed still for fancy boxes and cabinets, and used as incense by the Chinese.

ALLEGORY Once in Scripture ( Galatians 4:24): “which things [the history of Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac] are an allegory;” (are, when allegorized, etc.) not that the history is unreal as to the literal meaning, (such as is the Song of Solomon, a continued allegory); but, besides the literal historical fact, these events have another and a spiritual significance, the historical truths are types of the antitypical truths; the child of the promise, Isaac, is type of the gospel child of God who is free to love and serve his Father in Christ; the child of the bondwoman, Ishmael, is type of those legalists who, seeking justification by the law, are ever ill the spirit of bondage. Origen at Alexandria introduced a faulty system of interpreting Scripture by allegorizing, for which this passage gives no warrant. In an allegory there is (1) an immediate sense, which the words contain; and (2) the main and ulterior sense, which respects the things shadowed forth.

In pure allegory the chief object aimed at is never directly expressed.

ALLELUIA (Praise ye Jehovah). Never found in the palms of David and his singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun: but in later psalms, namely, those of the captivity and the return, the Fifth Book. So “Selah” is restricted to his and their psalms. Used in the temple liturgy; at the beginning, close, or both, of Psalm 106; 111; 113; 117; 135. So in the heavenly perfect liturgy ( Revelation 19:1,3,4,6), the triumphant shout of the great multitude, the 24 elders, and four living creatures at the judgment on the whore. The Hebrew form may imply the special interest of the Jews in the destruction of antichrist ( <19E908> Psalm 149:8,9). Psalm 113--118 were called by the Jews the Hallel: sung on the first of the month, at the Feast of Dedication, that of Tabernacles, that of Weeks, and that of Passover. They sang Psalm and Psalm 114 before the supper (according to Hillel’s school, or only Psalm 113 according to Shammai’s school), the rest after the last cup. This was the hymn sting by Christ and His disciples ( Matthew 26:30). As the full choir of Levites in the temple service took up the Alleluia, so in heaven the multitude in mighty chorus respond Alleluia to the voice from the throne, “Praise our God, all ye His servants,” etc. ( Revelation 19:1-6.)

ALLIANCES Framed by dividing a victim into two parts, between which the contracting parties passed, praying the similar cutting up of him who should violate the treaty ( Genesis 15:10; Jeremiah 34:18-2)). Hence the Hebrews and Greek for to make a treaty is “to cut” it. Forbidden with the doomed Canaanites ( Deuteronomy 7:2; Judges 2:2). But peaceable relations with other nations as distinguished from copying their idolatries, were encouraged ( Deuteronomy 2:25; 15:6; Genesis 27:29). Solomon’s alliance with Tyre for building the temple and other purposes was altogether right ( 1 Kings 5:2-12; 9:27); and Tyre is subsequently reproved for not remembering the brotherly covenant (Amos 1:9). But alliances by marriage with idolaters are reprobated as incentives to latitudinarianism first and at last, to conformity with paganism ( Deuteronomy 7:3-6). Solomen’s alliance with Pharaoh by marriage was the precursor of importing horses contrary to the law, leaning too much on human forces, and of contracting alliances with Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite wives, who seduced him from God. Hence the care to guard against the same evil, at the return from Babylon (Ezra 9; 10; Nehemiah 13; Malachi 2:11-17). When pagans renounced idolatry for Israel’s God, Israelites might lawfully wed them, as Rahab, Ruth, Zipporah. Shishak’s invasion of Rehoboam’s kingdom was probably due to Shishak’s alliance with Jeroboam of Israel (2 Chronicles 12; 1 Kings 14:25, etc.). Ahaz’ appeal to Tiglath Pileser for help against Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria opened the way to Assyrian and Babylonian predominance (2 Kings 16). Asa’s alliance with Benhadad against Baasha was the turning point from good to evil in his life ( Chronicles 14:15,16; 1 Kings 15:16, etc.). Jehoshaphat’s alliance with ungodly Ahab and Ahaziah his son was the only blot on his character, and involved him in loss and reproof from God (2 Chronicles 18; 19:2; 20:35- 87). Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram’s marriage with Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah, was fatal to him and to Ahaziah and his other sons except Joash (2 Chronicles 21; 22). Hoshea’s alliance with So or Sabacho of Egypt was his encouragement to rebel against Assyria, and brought on him the overthrow of Israel by Shalmaneser ( 2 Kings 17:4). Hezekiah was tempted to lean on Egypt against the Assyrian Sennacherib ( Isaiah 30:2), and Tirhakah of Ethiopia did make a diversion in his favor ( Kings 19:9). Josiah on the other hand was Assyria’s ally against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, and fell a victim to meddling in the world’s quarrels ( Chronicles 35:20-25). Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, leant on Egypt, and Pharaoh Hophra raised the siege of Jerusalem for a time; but Nebuchadnezzar returned and took it ( Jeremiah 37:1-5; 39).

A “covenant of salt” ( Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles 13:5) expresses one indissoluble and incorruptible, as salt was sprinkled on the victim, implying incorruption and sincerity ( Leviticus 2:13). A pillar was sometimes set up ( Genesis 31:45-52). Presents were sent by the seeker of the alliance ( 1 Kings 15:18; Isaiah 30:6). Violation of it brought down divine wrath, even when made with a pagan ( Joshua 9:18; Samuel 21; Ezekiel 17:16).

ALLON (oak). 1. Or Elon, a city of Naphtali ( Joshua 19:33); others translate “the oak by Zaanaim” or “the oak of the loading of tents” (compare Judges 4:11), “the plain of Zaanaim [the swamp, Ewald] by Kedesh.” 2. ALLON BACHUTH, “the oak of weeping,” namely, for Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse: corrupted into Tabor ( 1 Samuel 10:3; compare Judges 4:5).

ALMODAD First of Joktan’s descendents ( Genesis 10:26; 1 Chronicles 1:20).

His name is preserved in El-Mudad, famous in Arab history, reputed father of Ishmael’s Arab wife, Mir-at-ez-Zeman, and chief of Jarhum, a Joktanite tribe that passed from Yemen to the vicinity of Mekkeh. The Al is the Arabic article.

ALMON-DIBLATHAIM One of the last stages of the Israelites, between Dibon-Gad (= Dhiban, N. of the Arnon) and the Abarim range ( Numbers 33:46,47); probably the same as Beth-Diblathaim of Moab ( Jeremiah 48:22), which Mesha mentions in the famous Moabite stone as “built” by him and colonized with Moabites.

ALMOND TREE ( Jeremiah 1:11,12; Hebrews “I see a rod of the wakeful tree [the emblem of wakefulness] ... Thou hast well seen: for I will be wakeful [Hebrews for “hasten”] as to My word.”) It first wakes out of the wintry sleep and buds in January. In Ecclesiastes 12:5, instead of “the almond tree shall flourish,” Gesenius translates “(the old man) loathes (through want of appetite) even the (sweet) almond;” for the blossom is pink, not white, the color of the old man’s hair. But as the Hebrews means “bud” or “blossom” in Song 6:11 it probably means here “the wakefulness of old age sets in.” Or the color may not be the point, but the blossoms on the leafless branch, as the hoary locks flourish as a crown on the now arid body. Exodus 25:33,34: in the tabernacle the candlesticks had “bowls made in the form of the almond flower” or “nut,” most graceful in shape; perhaps the pointed nut within was the design for the cup, the sarcocarp containing the oil, and the flame shaped nut of gold emitting the light from its apex.

Luz, the original name of Bethel, was derived from one species of almond ( Genesis 28:19; 30:37), luz. It was almond, not hazel, rods wherewith Jacob secured the ringstraked and speckled offspring from the flocks.

Jordan almonds were famed. The almonds growing on Aaron’s rod, when laid up over night before the Lord, denote the ever wakeful priesthood which should continue until the Antitype should come; type also of the vigilance and fruitfulness which Christ’s ministers should exhibit;. also of the rod of Christ’s strength which shall finally destroy every adversary ( Numbers 17:8; <19B002> Psalm 110:2,5,6).

ALMS From Greek eleemos yne . The Hebrews “righteousness” in Old Testament and the Greek in many manuscripts of Matthew 6:1, stands forALMS.

So Daniel 4:27, “Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor.” The poor were entitled to leavings from the produce of the field, the vineyard, and the olive yard ( Leviticus 19:9,10; 23:22; Deuteronomy 15:11; 24:19; 26:2-13), the third year’s tithing for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow.

Compare Job 31:17; 29:16: “I was a father to the poor.” Nehemiah 8:10; Proverbs 10:2; 11:4; Esther 9:22; Psalm 41:1; 112:9.

Dorcas ( Acts 9:36). Cornelius ( Acts 10:2). God prefers such neighborly love to fasting ( Isaiah 58:7). Thirteen receptacles for free offerings were in the women’s court of the temple ( Mark 12:41-44).

Begging was a practice only known after the captivity. In every city there were three collectors who distributed alms of two kinds: 1. Of money collected in the synagogue chest every sabbath for the poor of the city, “the alms of the chest.” 2. Of food and money received in a dish, “alms of the dish.” The Pharisees gave much alms, but with ostentation, figuratively blowing the trumpet before them (the figure being from the trumpet blowing in religious feasts): Matthew 6:1,2. The duty was recognized among Christians as a leading one ( Luke 14:13; Romans 15:25-27; Galatians 2:10). A laying by for alms in proportion to one’s means on every Lord’s day is recommended ( 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; Acts 11:29,30; 20:35). Jesus and the twelve, out of their common purse, set the pattern ( John 13:29). Not the costliness, but the love and self denial, and the proportion the gift bears to one’s means, are what God prizes ( Mark 12:42-44). Such “come up as a memorial before God” ( Acts 9:36; 10:2,4). The giving was not imposed as a matter of constraint, but of bounty, on Christians ( Acts 5:4). The individual was not merged in the community, as in socialism; each freely gave, and distribution was made, not to the lazy who would not work, but to the needy ( Acts 2:45; Thessalonians 3:10). A mendicant order is the very opposite of the Christian system. The Jewish tithe was not imposed, but the principle of proportionate giving having been laid down, the definite proportion is left to each one’s faith and love to fix ( 2 Corinthians 9:5-7). Love will hardly give less than legalism. An ecclesiastical order of widowhood attended to charitable ministrations in the early church ( 1 Timothy 5:10). The deacons were appointed primarily for the distribution of alms (Acts 6). Alms are “righteousness,” not that they justify a man (which Romans 3; 4; 5 prove they do not), but they are the doing that which is right and which our neighbor has a rightful claim upon us for, in the court of God’s equity, though not of human law. God gives us means for this very end ( Ephesians 4:28).

ALOE LIGN ALOE. Hebrews ahalim , ahaloth ; Greek agallochus , from the native name aghil; “eaglewood,” imitating the sound. Not the common aloes, disagreeable in odor and taste. The more precious kind grows in Cochin China and Siam, and is not exported, being worth its weight in gold. The perfume is from the oil thickening into resin within the trunk. The inferior kind, garo, grows in the Moluccas, the Excoecaria agallocha of Linnaeus.

The best aloe wood is called calambac, the produce of the Aquilaria agallochum of Silhet in N. India. Used for perfuming garments ( Psalm 45:8) and beds ( Proverbs 7:17). An image for all that is lovely, fragrant, flourishing, and incorruptible ( Numbers 24:6; Song 4:14). Used by Nicodemus, along with myrrh, 100 lbs. in all, to enwrap amidst linen the sacred body of Jesus ( John 19:39).

ALOTH A district with Asher, under the ninth of Solomon’s commissariat officers ( 1 Kings 4:16).

ALPHA Greek (ALEPH, “chief,” “guide,” Heb.) The first letter, asOMEGA is the last, of the Greek alphabet. So Christ is the First and the Last, including all that comes between, the Author and Finisher of the visible and invisible, and of the spiritual creations ( Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13; Hebrews 12:2; Isaiah 41:4; 44:6). As He made originally, so will He complete the whole.ALPHABET comes from the first two Greek letters, Alpha, Beta = Hebrews Aleph, Beth.

The Moabite stone of Dibon, probably of the reign of Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, who died 896 B.C., exhibits an alphabet so complete that at that early date it can have been no recent invention. It has been discovered as mason’s marks on the foundation stones of Solomon’s temple. Yet even it was not the earliest form of the Palestinian alphabet. The fine discrimination of sounds, implied in inventing an alphabet, could hardly be brought to perfection at once Rawlinson fixes the invention 15 centuries B.C. The language of the Dibon stone, and the Hebrew of the Bible, most closely agree. Mesha’s victories are recorded there in the same character, and even the same idiom, as in 2 Kings 3.

In symbols of the early Christian church A and were often combined with the cross, or with Christ’s monogram, e.g., on a tablet in the catacombs at Melos, of the early part of the second century. The rabbis (Jalkut Rubeni, fol. 17, 4, Sohoettgen, Hor. Heb., 1:1086) say, “Adam transgressed the whole law from Aleph to Tau” (the last Hebrews letter); so Christ fulfilled it from Alpha to Omega ( Matthew 3:15).

ALPHAEUS Father of James the Less, the apostle, and writer of the epistle, and “brother (i.e. cousin) of our Lord” ( Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13); also of Joses ( Mark 15:40). Husband of the Mary who with Jesus’ mother stood at the cross ( John 19:25). The same as Clopas (as it should be written, not Cleophas), both names being Greek variations of Hebrews Chalpai , or Hhalpai . Possibly the Cleopas of Luke 24:18. If the translation Luke 6:16 be correct, “Jude, brother of James,” Alphaeus was his father also. In Mark 2:14 Levi (Matthew) is called the son of Alphaeus. Whether he be the same is not certain: probably not.

ALTAR The first of which we have mention was built by Noah after leaving the ark ( Genesis 8:20). The English (from the Latin) means an elevation or high place: not the site, but the erections on them which could be built or removed ( 1 Kings 12:7; 2 Kings 23:15). So the Greek [bomos , and Hebrews bamath . But the proper Hebrews name mizbeach is “the sacrificing place;” Septuagint thusiasterion. Spots hallowed by divine revelations or appearances were originally the sites of altars ( Genesis 12:7; 13:18; 26:25; 35:1). Mostly for sacrificing; sometimes only as a memorial, as that named by Moses Jehovah Nissi, the pledge that Jehovah would war against Amalek to all generations ( Exodus 17:15,16), and that built by Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, “not for burnt offering, nor sacrifice, but as a witness” ( Joshua 22:26,27). Altars were to be made only of earth or else unhewn stone, on which no iron tool was used, and without steps up to them ( Exodus 20:24-26). Steps toward the E. on the contrary are introduced in the temple yet future ( Ezekiel 43:17), marking its distinctness from any past temple. No pomp or ornament was allowed; all was to be plain and simple; for it was the meeting place between God and the sinner, and therefore a place of shedding of blood without which there is no remission ( Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22), a place of fellowship with God for us only through death. The mother dust of earth, or its stones in their native state as from the hand of God, were the suitable material. The art of sinful beings would mar, rather than aid, the consecration of the common meeting ground. The earth made for man’s nourishment, but now the witness of his sin and drinker in of his forfeited life, was the most suitable (see Fairbairn, Typology). The altar was at “the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation” ( Exodus 40:29). In the tabernacle the altar of burnt offering was made of shittim (acacia) boards overlaid with brass, terming a square of five cubits, or eight feet. three cubits high or five feet, the hollow within being probably filled with earth or stones. A ledge (Hebrews karkob ) projected on the side for the priest to stand on, to which a slope of earth gradually led up on the S. side, and outside the ledge was a network of brass. At the grainers were four horn shaped projections. to which the victim was bound ( <19B827> Psalm 118:27), and which were touched with blood in consecrating priests ( Exodus 29:12), and in the sin offering ( Leviticus 4:7). The horn symbolizes might. The culmination’s of the altar, being hornlike, imply the mighty salvation and security which Jehovah engages to the believing worshippers approaching Him in His own appointed way. Hence it was the asylum or place of refuge ( 1 Kings 1:50; Exodus 21:14).

So the Antitype, Christ ( Isaiah 27:5; 25:4). To grasp the altar horns in faith was to lay hold of Jehovah’s strength. In Solomon’s temple the altar square was entirely of brass, and was 20 cubits, or from 30 to 35 feet, and the height 10 cubits. In Malachi 1:7,12, it is called “the table of the Lord.” In Herod’s temple the altar was 50 cubits long, and 50 broad, and 15 high; a pipe from the S.W. grainer conveyed away the blood to the brook Kedron. Except in emergencies (as Judges 6:24; 1 Samuel 7:9,10; 2 Samuel 24:18,25; 1 Kings 8:64; 18:31,32) only the one altar was sanctioned ( Leviticus 17:8,9; Deuteronomy 12:13,14), to mark the unity and ubiquity of God, as contrasted with the many altars of the manifold idols and local deities of pagandom. Every true Israelite, wherever he might be, realized his share in the common daily sacrifices at the one altar in Zion, whence Jehovah ruled to the ends of the earth. Christ is the antitype, the one altar or meeting place between God and man, the one only atonement for sinners, the one sacrifice, and the one priest ( Acts 4:12; Hebrews 13:10). Christ’s Godhead, on which He offered His manhood, “sanctifieth the gift” ( Matthew 23:19), and prevents the sacrifice being consumed by God’s fiery judicial wrath against man’s sin. To those Judaizers who object that Christians have no altar or sacrificial meats, Paul says, “we have” (the emphasis in Greek is on have; there is no we) emphatically, but it is a spiritual altar and sacrifice. So Hebrews 4:14,15; 8:1; 9:1; 10:1,19-21. The interpretation which makes “altar” the Lord’s table is opposed to the scope of the Epistle to the Heb., which contrasts the outward sanctuary with the unseen spiritual sanctuary. Romanisers fall under the condemnation of Hosea 8:11. The Epistle to the Hebrews reasons, servile adherents to visible altar meats are excluded from our Christian spiritual altar and meats: “For He, the true Altar, from whom we derive spiritual meats, realized the sin offering type” (of which none of the meat was eaten, but all was burnt: Leviticus 6:30) “by suffering without the gate: teaching that we must go forth after Him from the Jewish high priest’s camp of legal ceremonialism and meats, which stood only until the gospel times of reformation” ( Hebrews 9:10,11). The temple and holy city were the Jewish people’s camp in their solemn feasts.

The brass utensils for the altar ( Exodus 27:3) were pans, to receive the ashes and fat; shovels, for removing the ashes; basins, for the blood; flesh hooks, with three prongs, to take flesh out of the cauldron ( 1 Samuel 2:13,14); firepans, or censers, for taking coals off the altar, or for burning incense ( Leviticus 16:12; Numbers 16:6,7; Exodus 25:38); the same Hebrews maktoth means snuff dishes, as “tongs” means snuffers for the candlesticks.

Asa “renewed” the altar, i.e. reconsecrated it, after it had been polluted by idolatries ( 2 Chronicles 20:8). see AHAZ (see) removed it to the N. side of the new altar which Urijah the priest had made after the pattern which Ahaz had seen at Damascus ( 2 Kings 16:14). Hezekiah had it “cleansed” ( 2 Chronicles 29:12-18) of all the uncleanness brought into it in Ahaz’ reign. Manasseh, on his repentance, repaired it ( 2 Chronicles 33:16). Rabbis pretended it stood on the spot where man was created. In Zerubbabel’s temple the altar was built before the temple foundations were laid ( Ezra 3:2). After its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes, Judas Maccabaeus built a new altar of unhewn stones. A perpetual fire kept on it symbolized the perpetuity of Jehovah’s religion; for, sacrifice being the center of the Old Testament worship, to extinguish it would have been to extinguish the religion. The perpetual fire of the Persian religion was different, for this was not sacrificial, but a symbol of God, or of the notion that, fire was a primary element. The original fire of the tabernacle “came out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat” ( Leviticus 9:24).