GAAL-MYSTERY by A. R. Fausset To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: G GAAL Ebed’s son. He emboldened the Shechemites to rebel against Abimelech ( Judges 9:26). “Gaal came with his brethren and went over to Shechem, and the lords of Shechem (Hebrew) put their confidence in him.” He apparently was captain of a band of freebooters; and the Shechemites who were dissatisfied with Abimelech’s rule hoped Gaal would help them against him. Already they had “set liers in wait for Abimelech in the tops of the mountains” (Ebal and Gerizim, between which Shechem was situated), who robbed all passers by. By organized robbery they brought Abimelech’s government into discredit, and probably sought to waylay and kill himself.

Gaal developed their brigandage into open revolt. At the vintage ingathering feast they made praise offerings” (hillulim ), KJV made merry, margin songs; compare Isaiah 15:9,10) of their fruits, which newly planted vineyards bore in the fourth year, eating and drinking in the house of their god Baal-berith (“Baal in covenant”), answering to Jehovah’s feast ( Leviticus 19:#3 2:3-35). At the feast Gaal said, “Who is Abimelech and who is Shechem that we should serve him? is not he son of Jerubbaal?” i.e., he is son of the man who pulled down Baal’s altar at Shechem and restored Jehovah’s worship, for which the Shechemites themselves had tried to slay him ( Judges 6:27-32). Who is “Zebul his officer”? explains the previous “who is Shechem?” The might of Shechem does not consist in the might of Zebul its prefect, Abimelech’s officer. To the one officer of Abimeleeh Gaal opposes, “serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem “ the patricians of the ancient line whom the Shechemites should serve; Humor was the Hivite prince who founded Shechem ( Genesis 33:19; 34:2; Joshua 24:32). The rebellion sought to combine the aboriginal Shechemites with the idolatrous Israelites against the anti-Baalite family of Gideon. Heated with wine Gaal vaunted that he, if made leader of the Shechemites, would soon overcome and “remove Abimelech.” Zebul, jealous of Gaal, privately (literally, with deceit, i.e. feigning assent to Gaal while planning his overthrow) sent information to Abimelech, who (margin, Judges 9:37) came “by way of the wizards’ terebinths,” and “chased Gaal” in battle; and “Zebul thrust out him and his brethren that they should not dwell in Shechem.” In Judges 9:39 it is translated: “Gaal went out in the sight of the lords of Shechem,” not at their head, but leading his own men; not until the “morrow” did the Shechemites go out. [For the issue see ABIMELECH .] We know no more of Gaal. Foolhardy boasting, which he failed to make good in action, was his fault.

GAASH On the N. of Gaash hill or mount was Timnath Serach, the city given by Israel to Joshua at his request, in the region “mount Ephraim,” where also he was buried ( Joshua 19:49,50; 24:30; Judges 2:9).

GABA Geba. Joshua 18:24, etc.

GABBAI Nehemiah 11:8.

GABBATHA John 19:13. Pilate came out of his own hall to his judgment seat on the “Pavement” (Chaldee Gabbatha). Josephus (Ant. 15:8, sec. 5) implies that the temple was near the castle of Antonia, and (Ant. 15:11, sec. 5) that Herod’s palace was near the castle. Therefore, Pilate’s hall, which was part of the palace, was near the castle. From Ant. 6:1, sec. 8 it appears a pavement was near the castle; therefore it was near Pilate’s hall. Thus, Josephus circuitously confirms John that near Pilate’s residence there was a pavement. It was outside the judgment hall (Praetorium), for Pilate brought forth Jesus from the hall to it. Pilate’s “judgment seat” (beema ) was on it, whereon he sentenced our Lord to crucifixion. Gabbatha is related to gibea h, a bore round hill, implying height and roundness; a rounded elevation with tesselated mosaic.

GABRIEL (“hero of God”) ( Daniel 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19,26). As Michael represents the angels in their might in conflict with evil, so Gabriel in ministering comfort and sympathy to man in dark times. Thus, Gabriel explains to Daniel the appalling prophecy concerning the ram and he-goat, and cheers him with the prophecy of Messiah’s advent within the “70 weeks,” in answer to his prayer; and in New Testament announces to Zacharias the glad tidings of the birth of John the forerunner, and of Messiah Himself to the Virgin ( Luke 1:19,26). There is in his manifestations a simplicity and absence of terror, corresponding to his character as a comforter.

GAD (1) Jacob’s seventh son; Leah’s maid Zilpah’s firstborn; Asher’s brother. Genesis 30:11-13, for “a troop cometh,” translated “good fortune cometh,” answering to Asher, “blessedness,” the name of the next son; Genesis 46:16,18. In Genesis 49:19 translated “Gad, troops shall troop upon him (Gad , gedud ye -guddenu ), but he shall troop upon (yagud ) their rear” in retreat; alluding to the Arab tumultuous tribes near, who would invade Gad, then retire, Gad pressing on them in retreat. Gedud implies not merely a numerous “troop,” but a fierce turbulent band. The tribe’s position on march was S. of the tabernacle ( Numbers 2:14).

Eliasaph, Reuel’s’ son, was their leader.

In Numbers 2:10,14, we find Gad united to Reuben on the S. side of the sanctuary. Companionship in arms and hardships in the wilderness naturally led them to desire neighborhood in their possessions; also similarity of pursuits in tending flocks and herds led Gad to alliance with Reuben. And their respective numbers were nearly the same; at the first census, Gad 45,650, Reuben 46,500; at the last, Gad 40,500, and Reuben 43,330.

These undesigned coincidences confirm the truth of the narrative. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of the tribes they two alone remained shepherds still after the intervening centuries since Jacob left Canaan for Egypt. They therefore received the pasture lands E. of Jordan for their possession (Numbers 32), as suited for their “multitude of cattle,” but accompanied the nine tribes and a half across Jordan to war with the Canaanites; and only after their conquest and the apportionment of the whole land to their brethren “at the doorway of the tabernacle of the congregation in Shiloh, before Jehovah” ( Joshua 19:51; 22:1-8), were they dismissed “to their tents (for still they led a half nomadic life) and the land of their possession.” Gad’s allotment lay chiefly about the center of the land E. of Jordan, comprising the high land on the general level, stopping short at the Jabbok, and also the sunk valley of the Jordan itself, the whole eastern side up to the sea of Cinnereth or Gennesaret. The farthest landmark eastward is Aroer facing Rabbah, now Arabian ( Joshua 13:25). Half Gilead ( Deuteronomy 3:12), and half of the land of Ammon, the mountainous district intersected by Jabbok. [See GILEAD. ] Manasseh lay N. and E. (reaching S. as far as Mahanaim), Reuben S., of Gad. Mahanaim the ancient sanctuary was on Gad’s northern border; Heshbon lay somewhat S. of its southern border.

From western Palestine the territory of Gad looks like a wall of purple mountain with a marked horizontal outline. On a nearer approach picturesque undulating downs are seen on every side clothed with rich grass; and three rivers, the Yarmuk, Jabbok, and Arnon flow down into the Jordan and Dead Sea by deep ravines which seam the horizontal line of hills. Not the flat sheep walks of Reuben and Moab, but well wooded, especially in the N., with sycamore, beech, terebinth, ilex, cedar, arbutus, and enormous fig trees.

In the official record in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and Jeroboam king of Israel, Gad had extended its possessions to Salcah in Bashan ( Chronicles 5:11,16,17), E. of the Hauran plain, while Manasseh was pushed further N. to mount Hermon ( 1 Chronicles 5:23). Thus Gad and Gilead became synonymous ( Judges 5:17). Jephthah is called “the Gileadite,” being a native of Mizpeh of Gad ( Judges 11:31,34; Joshua 13:26).

In Deuteronomy 33:20,21, Moses said of Gad, “Blessed is He that enlargeth (i.e. God who gives a large territory to) Gad; he lieth down as a lioness, and teareth the arm, yea (aph , not with) the crown of the head (of his foes); and he provided the first part (the first-fruit portion of the land conquered by Israel) for himself, because there was the leader’s (Gad’s) portion reserved (saphun ), Gad at the head of the tribes asked Moses for the conquered land E. of Jordan ( Numbers 32:2,6,25,34, etc.), even as they took the lead above Reuben in fortifying the cities Dibon, etc. Their name accordingly is prominent on the see DIBON stone); and he came with the heads of the people (i.e., he according to his stipulation to Moses went at the head of the tribes to conquer Canaan W. of Jordan, along with them: Numbers 32:17,21,32; Joshua 1:14; 4:12), he executed the justice of Jehovah (Moses prophetically foresees Gad will do what Jehovah required of His people as righteousness) and His judgments (in fellowship) with (the rest of) Israel.”

Their prowess is vividly portrayed in 1 Chronicles 12:8, “men of might and of war, fit, for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were the faces of lions, and as swift as the roes upon the mountains”; “one of the least was a match for a hundred, and the greatest for a thousand.” In spite of the Jordan’s overflow in the first month, and of the opposition of “all them of the valleys toward the E. and toward the W.,” they joined David at Ziklag.

Their war, in concert with Reuben, against the Hagarites, with Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab, resulted in the defeat and utter spoiling of the Hagarites, and the dispossessing them of “their steads.” “The war was of God,” and the victory was because the Gadites, etc., “cried to God in the battle and He was entreated of then, because they put their trust in Him” ( 1 Chronicles 5:18-22).

Other famous men of Gilead or Gad were the loyal, generous, and unambitious Barzillai ( 2 Samuel 17:27-29; 19:31-40) and the prophet Elijah. The land of Gad was the battlefield for long between Syria and Israel ( 2 Kings 10:33). Gad finally was carried captive by Tiglath Pileser, and Ammon seized their land and cities ( 2 Kings 15:29; Chronicles 5:26; Jeremiah 49:1).

GAD (2) The “seer” of king David ( 1 Chronicles 29:29). “The acts of David” were recorded “in the book of Gad the seer.” He joined David while in “the hold,” having probably first become acquainted with David in the latter’s visits to Samuel and the schools of the prophets, and by his advice David left it for the forest of Hareth ( 1 Samuel 22:5). At the numbering of the people Gad was Jehovah’s monitor to David ( 2 Samuel 24:11-19; Chronicles 21:9). He also took part in arranging the musical services of the temple ( 2 Chronicles 29:25). Jerome compares Gad to Elijah in the abruptness of his introduction; this concentrates all attention on his work and message, none on himself.

GAD (3) Margin Isaiah 65:11, “that troop,” rather “that prepare a (sacrificial) table for the Gad,” i.e. the deity of fortune, a Babylonian idol worshipped by the Jews, answering to either the moon or Jupiter, related to Syriac gado, and Arab jad “good fortune.” The star of luck, for which a couch was laid out and a banqueting “table.” Meni (“that number,” margin Isaiah 65:11) was the lesser good fortune, Gad the greater.

GADARA The country of the Gadarenes” ( Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26,37, in Alex. manuscript; and Matthew 8:28, the Vaticanus manuscript. But the Sinaiticus manuscript has: “Gazarenes” in Matthew,” Gerasenes” in Mark, and in Luke “Gergesenes.” Vaticanus has: “Gerasenes: in Mark and Luke. [See GERASA .] The Alexandrinus manuscript has: “Gergesenes” Matthew 8. Probably Matthew, writing for those intimately acquainted with the topography, names the obscure but exact locality; Mark and Luke, writing for those at a distance, name Gadara the well-known capital of the place.

The one name is probably more specific, the other more general.) Gadara was the most strongly fortified city in Perle. It was near the river Hieromax (now the bed Sheriat el Mandhur), E. of the sea of Galilee over against Tiberius, at 16 miles Roman distance, on a hill beneath which were warm springs called Amatha. Its ruins are identified with Um Keis on an isolated hill N.W. of the mountains of Gilead. Christ coming across the lake from Capernaum lauded at the S.E. corner, where the steep bank descends from the eastern highlands into the Jordan valley. There is only the one place where the swine could have rushed down a steep into the water. Gergesa was probably under the jurisdiction of Gadara. Two demoniacs met Him near the shore. A “great herd of swine” were feeding on the adjoining slope. Upon the demons entering them they rushed down the “steep” into the lake and were drowned. Josephus (Ant. 17:13, section 4) explains the difficulty of swine being there though forbidden by the Jewish law, “Gadara was a Grecian city.” On the keepers informing the people of what had happened, “the whole city came out to meet Jesus,” and “besought Him to depart out of their coasts” ( Job 21:14,15; 22:17). Men ignore God’s word ( Hosea 9:12), “woe to them when I depart from them” ( Deuteronomy 31:17); and the awful doom, Matthew 25:41.

Contrast the cured demoniac, Mark 5:15,16,18. Gadara was reduced to ashes by Vespasian in the beginning of the Roman war which ended in the overthrow of Jerusalem.

It is an interesting coincidence that tombs still abound in the cliffs round the city, excavated in the limestone rock, some as large as 20 feet square, with side recesses for bodies. Stone slabs form the doors. Like the demoniacs, the people of Um Keis still dwell in the tombs. The ruins of Um Keis attest the greatness of Gadara anciently; from the gate a straight street, with a colonnade on each side, passed through the city; the pavement is almost perfect, marked here and there by chariot wheels; the columns are prostrate.

GADDI The spy who represented Manasseh (Nunmbers 13:11).

GADDIEL The spy representing Zebulun ( Numbers 13:10); son of Sodi.

GADI Father of see MENAHEM .

GAHAM Genesis 22:24, meaning sun-burnt.

GAHAR, THE CHILDREN OF Ezra 2:47; Nehemiah 7:49.

GAIUS Paul’s host at Corinth when Paul wrote ( Romans 16:23), “mine host and of the whole church.” Baptized by that apostle ( 1 Corinthians 1:14). The third epistle of John is addressed to “the well beloved” Gaius or Caius; probably the same, for he evidently had the means to do kindness “to the brethren and to strangers.” He was converted through John ( John 1:4,5). A Gaius of Macedonia is mentioned in Acts 19:29, and a Gaius of Derbe ( Acts 20:4); probably distinct men.

GALAL 1. 1 Chronicles 9:15. 2. 1 Chronicles 9:16. 3. Nehemiah 11:17.

GALATIA Galati is the same as Celts, of the Kymric not the Gaelic branch. These poured into Greece and pillaged Delphi 280 B.C. Some passed into Asia at the invitation of Nicomedes I, king of Bithynia, to help him in a civil war.

There they settled, namely, the Trocmi, Tolistoboii, and Tectosages (from Toulouse), and made inroads far and wide, but were checked by Antiochus I. of Syria, hence called Soter (Savior), and Attahs I of Pergamus, hence, designating himself “king.” Then they hired themselves out as mercenary soldiers.

Galatia lay in the center of Asia Minor, the province “Asia” on the W., Cappadocia on the E., Pamphylia and Cilicia on the S., and Bithynia and Pontus N. Ancyra (now Angora) was their capital; Tavium and Pessinus were leading cities. Their language was partly Gallic, partly Greek, hence they were called Gallo-Graeci. The inscriptions at Ancyra are Greek, and Paul’s epistle is in Greek.

Paul founded several “churches” in the Galatian region, not residing for long in one place and forming a central church, as at Ephesus and Corinth ( Galatians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 16:1; Acts 16:6). His first visit was about A.D. 51, during his second missionary journey. Sickness detained him among them, and he turned it to good account by becoming the first preacher of the gospel to them ( Acts 16:6; Galatians 1:8; 4:13). “On account of infirmity of flesh I preached unto you at the first” (so the Greek is). At his subsequent visit ( Acts 18:23) he “strengthened” them in the faith.

GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO Written by Paul, as the style proves. The heading and allusions to the apostle of the Gentiles in the first person throughout confirm his authorship ( Galatians 1:1,13-24; 2:1-14). Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., 3:7, sec. 2, referring to Galatians 3:19), Polycarp (Philippians 3, quoting Galatians 4:26; 6:7), Justin Martyr (Orat. ad Graecos, alluding to Galatians 4:12; 5:20), Tertullian (De Praescr., 60), uphold his authorship. The character of the Gallic Celts given by Caesar (B. G., Galatians 4:5) accords with that described in this epistle: “the infirmity of the Gauls is, they are fickle in their resolves, fond of change, and not to be trusted.” So Thierry: “flank, impetuous, impressible, eminently intelligent, but extremely inconstant, fond of show, perpetually quarreling, the fruit of excessive vanity.” This description is not altogether inapplicable to their descendants in France and Ireland. They received Paul at first with all affection, but soon wavered in their allegiance to the gospel, and hearkened as eagerly to Judaizing teachers as they had before to him ( Galatians 4:14-16).

Many Jews resided in Ancyra (Josephus, Ant. 16:62); among these probably, as elsewhere, he began his ministry, and from them perhaps emanated the Judaizers who almost induced the Gentile Christians ( Galatians 4:8,9), who constituted the majority of the Galatian church, to undergo circumcision ( Galatians 1:6; 3:1,3; 5:2,3; 6:12,13).

Accustomed, when pagan, to the mystic worship of Cybele prevalent in the neighboring Phrygia, they the more readily were led to believe that the full privileges of Christianity could only be attained by submitting to elaborate ceremonial symbolism ( Galatians 4:9-11; 5:7-12). They even gave ear to the insinuation that Paul himself observed the law among the Jews though he persuaded the Gentiles to renounce it, and that he wished to keep his converts in a lower state of privileges, excluded from the high Christian standing enjoyed by the circumcised ( Galatians 4:16; 5:11; compare Galatians 2:17), and that in “becoming all things to all men” he was but a men-pleaser, seeking to form a party for himself; moreover that he was not, as he represented, an apostle divinely commissioned by Christ, but a mere messenger of the twelve and the Jerusalem church, and that his teaching now did not accord with that of Peter and James, the acknowledged “pillars” of the church, and ought therefore to be rejected.

This design in writing then was: (1) To maintain his apostolic authority ( Galatians 1:11-19; 2:1-14. (2) To counteract the Judaizers (Galatians 3—4), and to show that their teaching undermined Christianity itself by lowering its spirituality to external ceremonialism. (3) To strengthen Galatian believers in faith toward Christ and in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5—6); already he had testified against the Judaizers to their face ( Galatians 1:9; 4:16; Acts 18:28), and now that he has heard of the increase of the evil he writes to cheek it, “with his own hand” ( Galatians 6:11), a labor which he usually committed to an amanuensis.

His sketch of his apostolic call and course confirms the history in Acts, and proves his independence of human authority however exalted. His protest against Peter’s Judaizing dissimulation disproves the pope’s, and even Peter’s, supremacy, and shows that Peter, except when especially inspired, was fallible as other men ( Galatians 2:14-21). There is much in common between this epistle and that to the Romans; but the epistle to the Romans discusses justification by faith only, not by the law, in a didactic, logical mode; the epistle to the Galatians controversially, and with special reference to the Judaizers.

The style combines sternness (Galatians 1; 3:1-5) with tenderness ( Galatians 4:19,20), betraying his strong emotions, and well adapted to move an impressible people such as the Galatians. He begins abruptly, as is suitable to the urgency of the subject and the seriousness of the evil. A tone of sadness too appears, such as is natural in an affectionate teacher who has just learned that his loved disciples are abandoning his teachings for those of others who pervert the truth and calumniate himself.

The time of writing was after the visit to Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15:1 (i.e. A.D. 50), if that visit be identical, as is probable, with that in Galatians 2:1. Moreover, as allusion seems to be made to his seceded visit to the Galatians (in autumn A.D. 54) in Galatians 1:9, “as we said before,” and Galatians 4:16, “have I become your enemy?” the epistle must have been later than A.D. 54. Acts 18:23 implies that at his second visit the Galatians were well established in the faith, which made their speedy declension the stranger. Galatians 4:13, “ye know how I preached at the first” (Greek at rite former time), implies that Paul at the time of writing had been twice in Galatia; and Galatians 1:6, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed,” implies that he wrote not long after having left Galatia the second time, possibly (Alford) soon after he began his residence at Ephesus ( Acts 18:23; 19:1), which lasted from autumn A.D. 54 to Pentecost A.D. 57. However, the resemblance of this epistle to the epistle to the Romans favors the view (Conybeare and Howson) that it was not written until his stay at Corinth ( Acts 20:2,3, during the winter of A.D. 57-58), from whence he wrote the epistle to the Romans. It seems unlikely that 1 and 2 Corinthians, so dissimilar, should intervene between those so much alike as Galatians and Romans, or that Galatians should intervene between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians. Even three years would be “soon” for their apostasy, they having betrayed no symptoms at his second visit ( Acts 18:23). A sudden exigency (tidings of Galatian Judaizing having reached him at Corinth from Ephesus) apparently called forth this epistle, for it maintains Christian liberty from carnal ceremonialism, and justification by faith only, in an admonitory and controversial tone. That to Romans written subsequently, more systematically and deliberately sets forth the same truths for a church which as yet he did not personally know. The manner suits his relations to the two churches respectively; in writing to the Galatian church, which he had founded, he rests upon his authority; to the Roman church, whom he did not know personally, wholly upon argument: an undesigned coincidence and propriety confirming the authenticity. Reproof in Galatians predominates over praise and thanksgiving.

Division. There are two controversial parts and a closing hortatory one.

I. He defends (Galatians 1—2) his apostolic authority and independence of the twelve.

II. He polemically by argument (Galatians 3), appeal ( Galatians 4:12-20), and allegorical illustration ( Galatians 4:1-7,21-30), maintains justification by faith and not by the deeds of the law.

III. He warns ( Galatians 4:31—5:12) illustrates the true fulfillment of the law by the walk in the Spirit, in contrast to the flesh ( Galatians 5:13-26), practically instructs, and recapitulates (Galatians 6).

GALBANUM An ingredient of the sacred incense, for perfume ( Exodus 30:34). The odor is disagreeable, but its gum resin enables the perfume to retain its fragrance longer. An exudation from the Galbanum official of the eastern coast of Africa. A similar gun is yielded by the Opoidia galbanifera of Durrood in Khorassan (Lindley).

GALEED (“a witness heap”). A Hebrew name given by Jacob to the heap which he and Laban reared on mount Gilead, a memorial of their brotherly covenant ( Genesis 31:47,48). Laban called it in Aramaic (Chaldee or Syriac) see JEGAR-SAHADUTHA . Apparently Nahor’s family originally spoke Syriac, and Abraham and his family acquired Hebrew in Canaan, where the Hebrew was indigenous when he first settled there, the Hamitic Canaanites having learned it from an earlier Semitic race. The memorial heap marked the crisis in Jacob’s life when he became severed from his Syrian kindred, and henceforth a sojourner in, and heir of, Canaan.

GALILEE from galil . “A circle” or “circuit” around Kedesh Naphtali, in which lay the 20 towns given by Solomon to Hiram, king of Tyre, in payment for his having conveyed timber from Lebanon to Jerusalem ( Joshua 20:7; Kings 9:11). The northern part of Naphtali (which lay N. of Zebulun) was inhabited by a mixed race of Jews and Gentiles of the bordering Phoenician race ( Judges 1:30; 1 Kings 9:11). Tiglath Pileser carried away captive its Israelite population to Assyria; then Esarhaddon colonized it with pagan ( 2 Kings 15:29; 17:24; Ezra 4:2,10). Hence called ( Isaiah 9:1) “Galilee of the nations,” or “Gentiles” ( Matthew 4:13,15,16). During and after the captivity the Gentile element became the preponderating population, and spread widely; and the province included in our Lord’s days all the ancient Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali. The most northerly of the three provinces of Palestine, namely, Galilee, Samaria, Judaea ( John 4:3,4; Luke 17:11; Acts 9:31). Galilee’s Gentile character caused the southern Jews of purer blood to despise it ( John 1:46; 7:52); but its very darkness was the Lord’s reason for vouchsafing to it more of the light of His presence and ministry than to self-satisfied and privileged Judaea. There He first publicly preached, in Nazareth synagogue. From it came His apostles ( Acts 1:11; 2:7); foretold in Deuteronomy 33:18,19,23. Compare on Pentecost Acts 2:7; Psalm 68:27,28. Jerusalem, the theocratic capital, might readily have known Messiah; to compensate less favored Galilee He ministered mostly there. Galilee’s debasement made its people feel their need of the Savior, a feeling unknown to the self right. cons Jews ( Matthew 9:13). “The Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the Glory of His people Israel,” appropriately ministered on the border land between Israel and the Gentiles, still on Israel’s territory, to which He was primarily sent ( Matthew 15:24). Places and persons despised of men are honored of God. The region the first to be darkened by the Assyrian invasion was cheered by the prophet’s assurance that it should be the first enlightened by Immanuel ( 1 Corinthians 1:27-29). Its population being the densest of any part of Palestine, and its freedom from priestly and pharisaic prejudice, were additional grounds for its receiving the larger share of His ministry.

It was bounded on the W. by the region of Ptolemais (Acre), namely, the plain of Akka to the foot of Carmel. The Jordan, the sea of Galilee, lake Huleh, and the spring at Dan, was the eastern border. The northern boundary reached from Dan westward to Phoenicia ( Luke 8:26). The southern border ran along the base of Carmel and the Samaritan hills to mount Gilboa, then along the valley of Jezreel by Scythopolis (Bethshean) to Jordan. Probably the cleansing of the ten lepers took place near Jenin, the border town of Galilee toward Samaria, near the S. of the sea of Galilee. Jebel Jermuk is the highest mountain, 4,000 ft. above the sea.

There were two divisions:

I. Lower Galilee was the whole region from the plain of Akka on the W. to the lake of Galilee on the E., including the rich plain of Esdraelon, the heritage of Issachar, who submitted to servitude, to “tribute,” for the sake of the rich plenty that accompanied it ( Genesis 49:14,15; Deuteronomy 33:18). “Rejoice Zebulun in thy going out (thy mercantile enterprises by sea and fishing in the lake of Galilee), and Issachar in thy tents (in thy inland prosperity, agriculture and home comforts) they shall suck of the abundance of the seas (the riches of the sea in general, and the purple dye extracted from the murex here) and of treasures hid in the sand” (the sand of these coasts being especially valuable for manufacturing glass, a precious thing anciently: Job 28:17). “They shall call the people unto the mountain,” etc.: Zebulun and Issachar shall offer their wealth at the Lord’s appointed mount, and invite Gentile nations to join them ( Psalm 22:27,28, etc.). The conversion of the Gentiles, brought in to Israel and Israel’s Savior, is herein prophetically typified (compare Isaiah 60:5,6,16; 66:11,12). Asher “dips his feet in oil,” i.e. abounds in olive groves. “Fat bread” and “royal dainties” are his, grain, wine, milk, butter, from his uplands and valleys ( Genesis 49:20; Deuteronomy 33:24,25). “Thy shoes iron and brass,” i.e. thy hills shall yield these metals ( Deuteronomy 8:9). “As thy days (so shall) thy strength (be),” i.e., as thy several days come (throughout life) strength will be given thee,” Compare 1 Kings 8:59 margin.

II. Upper Galilee extended from Bersabe on the S. to the village of Baca, bordering on Tyre, and from Meloth on the W. to Thella, near Jordan (Josephus, B. J., 3:3, sec. 1); in fact, the whole mountain range between the upper Jordan and Phoenicia. Its southern border extended from the N.W. of the sea of Galilee to the plain of Akka. This upper Galilee is chiefly meant by “Galilee of the Gentiles.” The ravine of the Leonres separates the mountain range of upper Galilee from Lebanon, of which it is a southern prolongation. Safed is the chief town. The scenery is bolder and richer than that of southern Palestine. On the table land of upper Galilee lie the ruins of Kedesh Naphtali ( Joshua 20:7). Bochart, altering the vowel points, translated Genesis 49:21, “Naphtali is a spreading terebinth, which puts forth goodly branches”; for the country of Kedesh Naphtali is a natural park of oaks and terebinths.

As Nazareth was the scene of our Lord’s childhood, so see CAPERNAUM in Galilee was for long the home of His manhood ( Matthew 4:13; 9:1).

The three former, or the Synoptic Gospels chiefly present our Lord’s ministry in Galilee; the Gospel of John His ministry in Judea. His parables in John and in the three Synoptists correspond to the features of Judaea and Galilee respectively. The vineyard, fig tree, shepherd, and desert where the man fell among thieves, were appropriate in Judaea; the grainfields ( Mark 4:28), the merchants and fisheries ( Matthew 13:45,47), and the flowers ( Matthew 6:28), suited Galilee. The Galilean accent and dialect were unique, owing to Gentile admixture ( Matthew 26:73).

After Herod the Great’s death Herod Antipas governed Galilee until six years after Christ’s crucifixion. Herod Agrippa, with the title of “king,” succeeded. On his death ( Acts 12:23) Galilee was joined to the Roman province of Syria. After the fall of Jerusalem Galilee became famed for its rabbis and schools of Jewish learning; and the Sanhedrim or great council was removed to Sepphoris, and then to Tiberias. Rabbi Judah Haqodesh here compiled the Mishna, to which the Gemara was subsequently added.

The remains of splendid synagogues in Galilee still attest the prosperity of the Jews from the second to the seventh century.

GALILEE, SEA OF ( Matthew 4:18; Mark 7:31; John 6:1). So called from its washing the E. side of Galilee. In Luke 5:1 “the sea of Gennesaret,” called so from the fertile plain of Gennesurer at its N.W. angle, three and a half miles long by two and a half broad ( Matthew 14:34). In Old Testament “the sea of Chinnereth” or Cinneroth, from the town so named on its shore ( Joshua 19:35), of which Gennesaret is probably the corruption, though others derive it from gannah , a “garden,” and Sarown , a plain between Tabor and the lake. “The sea of Tiberias” is another designation, from the city ( John 6:1). All its names were drawn from places on the western side. Now Bahr Tubariyeh (Tiberius, S.W. of the lake). Close to it was “His own city” Capernaum ( Matthew 4:13). Nine cities stood on the shores of the lake, of which only two are now inhabited, namely, Magdala, consisting of a few mud huts, and Tiberias, sadly changed from its ancient prosperity. Silence now reigns where formerly the din of industry was heard. On its shore Jesus called His first disciples ( Matthew 4:18; 9:9; Luke 5:1-11; John 1:43, etc.).

The bed of the lake is but a lower section of the great Jordan valley. Its depression is 653 ft. below the level of the Mediterranean, according to Lt.

Lynch. Its length is about 13 miles, its breadth is about five or six. The view from the Nazareth road to Tiberias is beautiful. The hills from the eastern side rise apparently out of the water with a uniform slope, to the height of 2,000 ft., destitute of verdure, and shut in the lake; while far to the N. is seen snowy Hermon. The eastern hills, which are flat along the summit, are the wall that supports the table land of Bashan; from which on the N. there is a gradual descent to the valley of the Jordan, and then a rise to a plateau skirting the mountains of upper Galilee. The hills on the W., except at Khan Minyeh, where there is a small cliff, are recessed from the shore. On a western recess stands Tiberias. The whole basin betrays its volcanic origin, which also accounts for the warm spring at Tiberius The cliffs are hard porous basalt. The vegetation is tropical; the lotus thorn, palms, indigo, etc. The water is sweet, sparkling and transparent; the fish abundant as of old, many species being those of the Nile, the silurus, mugil, and sparers Galiloeus. Dr. Tristram says: “the shoals of fish Were marvelous, black masses of many hundred yards long, with the black fins projecting out of the water, as thickly as they could pack. There are the European loach, bethel, blenny and cyprinodont; the African chromis, hemichromis, and eellike clarias; and the Asiatic discognathus. The cyprinodonts are viviparous, and the sexual differences marked; they can live in cold water, or hot springs up to 90ø, fresh, brackish, or briny water.

This marks a former connection between these waters and those of N.E. and S.E. Africa, the Nile, the Zambesi, and the great lakes in the interior. The papyrus also, no longer found in the Nile, is found on the shores of the sea of Galilee. As Asia, Africa, and Europe respectively were represented at Christ’s cross by the Jews, Simon of Cyrene, and the Romans respectively, so the Asiatic, African, and European fish in the sea of Galilee represent the various races of mankind gathered by the spiritual fishermen into the one gospel net. Only one little boat represents the fleets of fishing vessels that once covered the lake. The fish are now taken with a hand net jerked round the fish by the fisher, usually naked, along the shore ( John 21:7); or else crumbs of bread mixed with bichloride of mercury are scattered to poison the fish, and the floating dead bodies are picked up for the Tiberias market (Porter, Handbook, p. 432).

Sudden and violent storms agitate the waters, sweeping down the ravines and gorges converging to the head of the lake, from the vast naked plateau of the Jaulan and the Hauran and mount Hermon in the background. It was such a storm that Jesus stilled by a word, as He had a few hours before rebuked and cast out demons. Mark 4:39, “Peace, be still,” Greek “Be silent, be muzzled”; addressing the sea and warring elements as rebel forces; compare Revelation 21:1. The apostles were trying to reach Bethsaida on the western coast, when the gale from. the S.W. that brought vessels from Tiberias to the N.E. coast ( John 6:23) delayed the vessel of the former, until at the fourth watch Jesus came walking over the tempest tossed waves; then followed Peter’s temporary walking through faith and sinking through unbelief in the same waters, and his rescue by Jesus; then they immediately reach their desired haven for which they had set out the evening before ( Matthew 14:28,29,33; John 6:17,21; Mark 6:45). So impressed were the disciples that “they worshipped Him, saying, Of a truth Thou art the Son of God.” Bethsaida Julias, the city of Andrew and Peter, lay on the E. bank of the Jordan where it enters the sea of Galilee on the N. Close by, and on the E. of the river and N.E. of the lake, stretched the “green grass” ( Mark 6:39) plain of Batihah, the scene of feeding the 5,000. Gergesa (now Kersa) lay E. of the lake. The Jordan’s outlet is at Kerak, the S.W. extremity of the lake. The lake, mirroring heaven in its union of rest and energy, represents Him who best combined the calm repose which reflected His Father’s image with energetic labors for God and man.

GALL 1. Mereerah = bitterness. Secreted in an animal’s gall bladder. Poetically used for a vital part, Job 16:13; 20:25. Job 20:14, “the gall of asps,” i.e. their poison, contained in a sac in the mouth; Scripture uses popular language when no moral truth is thereby endangered. 2. Rosh : a bitter and poisonous herb; the poppy (Gesenius). Rosh means head, so we speak of poppy heads. Jeremiah 8:14, “water of gall,” i.e. opium, Jeremiah 9:15; 23:15. Others suggest one of the Euphorbiaceae, distasteful and deadly; the “grapes of gall” answering to the rounded three berried fruit (Imperial Bible Dictionary). Deuteronomy 29:18 (to which Hebrews 12:15, “root of bitterness,” refers; a root whose essence is bitterness), Deuteronomy 32:32. Opium water would suit well for stupefying criminals in the agony of execution ( Psalm 69:21; Matthew 27:34; Acts 8:23). The vinegar offered to our Lord was mingled with “gall” according to Matthew, with “myrrh” according to Mark ( Mark 15:23). The myrrh was the usual seasoning of Roman wine; the gall was added to stupefy, but our Lord would meet His agony in full consciousness. Bengel supposes the gall was added in wantonness.

Matthew designated the drink according to the prophetic aspect, Psalm 69:21; Mark according to its outward appearance.

GALLERIES Song 1:17, “rafters (galleries margin) of fir”; the crossbeams, the carved ceiling, fretted work: rachit . The Qeri, or Hebrew margin, has rahit , an ambulatory; not probable. In Song 7:5 translated “the king is held bound with the flowing ringlets”; compare Song 6:5. In Ezekiel 41:15; 42:3, “the galleries” are terrace buildings. Smith’s Bible Dictionary identifies the” pillars” and “galleries,” Ezekiel 42:3,5,6; “the reason of the upper chambers being shorter is ascribed to the absence of supporting pillars which allowed an extra length to the chambers of the lower story; the space included within the pillars would form an open gallery.”

GALLIM (“heaps, or else springs”). 1 Samuel 25:44; Isaiah 10:30, “daughter of Gallim,” i.e. Gallim and her sons, i.e. inhabitants. It is enumerated amidst towns of Benjamin; Laish is one. Possibly “Phalti the son of Laish who was from Gallim” was a native of Laish the town, and this a dependency only. Now the hill Khirbet el Jisr, S. of Gibeah of Saul (Valentiner).

GALLIO Junius Annaeus Gallio, Roman proconsul (Greek, KJV, “deputy “) of Achaia when Paul was at Corinth A.D. 53, under the emperor Claudius.

Brother of L. Annaeus Seneca, the philosopher. Adopted into the family, and so took the name, of the rhetorician L. Junins Gallis. His birth name was Marcus Annaeus Novatus (Pliny H. N., 31:33; Tacitus Ann., 15:73, 16:17). He left Achaia “when he began in a fever, often exclaiming that it was not his body, but the place, that had the disease” (Seneca, Ep. 104). “No mortal was ever so sweet to one as Gallio was to all,” says his brother, adding: “there is none who does not love Gallio a little, even if he cannot love him more”; “there is such an amount of innate good in him without any savor of art or dissimulation”; “a person proof against plottings.” How exactly and undesignedly this independent testimony coincides with Acts 18:12-17! The Jews plotted to destroy Paul by bringing him before Gallio’s judgment seat. But he was not to be entrapped into persecuting Christians by the Jews’ spiteful maneuver: “if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews,” said he without waiting even to hear Paul’s defense, just as the apostle was about to open his mouth, “reason would that I should bear with you; but since it is (Greek) a question of word and names (namely, whether Jesus is the Christ) and your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters. And he drove them from the judgment seat.” So the Greeks, sympathizing with the deputy’s disgust at the Jews’ intolerance, beat Sosthenes the chief ruler of the Jews’ synagogue “before the judgment seat.” And Gallio winked at it, as the Jewish persecutor was only getting himself what he had intended for Paul. Thus God fulfilled His promise ( Acts 18:10), “Be not afraid, but speak, for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city.” “Gallio cared for none of these things” does not mean he was careless about the thirsts of God (that probably he was from his easy Epicurean-like temper), but with characteristic indifference to an outbreak provoked by the spite of the Jews he took no notice of the assault. Sosthenes himself seems, by Paul’s sympathy in trouble, to have been won to Christ, like Crispus ( 1 Corinthians 1:1). Seneca’s execution by Nero made Gallio trembling suppliant for his own life (Tacitus Ann., 15:73). Jerome says he committed suicide A.D. 65. Seneca dedicated to him his treatises On Anger and On a Happy Life. The accuracy of Scripture appears in the title “proconsul” (deputy), for Achaia was made a senatorial province by Claudius seven or eight years before Paul’s visit, having been previously an imperial province governed by a legate; and the senatorial provinces alone had “proconsuls.”

GAMALIEL 1. Numbers 1:10; 2:20; 7:54,59; 10:23. 2. A Pharisee and eminent doctor of the law, who advised the council wisely to let the apostles alone ( Acts 5:34, etc.), “for if this counsel or work be of men it will come to nought; but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” He was Paul’s teacher, “at whose feet he was brought up and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers” ( Acts 22:3). The Jews celebrated him as “the glory of the law,” the first designated Rabban “our master.” Son of rabbi Simeon, and grandson of Hillel; president of the Sanhedrin under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius; he died 18 years before the fall of Jerusalem. His counsel as to the apostles was not from any leaning to Christianity, but from opposition to Sadduceeism in a case where the resurrection was the point at issue, and from seeing the folly of unreasoning bigotry ( Acts 23:6-9). Saul his pupil was a leading persecutor when Stephen opposed Pharisaism; and probably Gamaliel would not altogether disapprove of his zeal in such a cause, though his own tendency was to leave the claims of Christianity to be tested by time.

GAMES Of children, Zechariah 8:5. Imitating marriages and funerals, Matthew 11:16,17. The earnestness of the Hebrew character indisposed adults to games. Public games they had none, the great feasts of religion supplying them with their anniversary occasions of national gatherings.

Jason’s introduction of Greek games and a gymnasium was among the corrupting influences which broke down the fence of Judaism, and threw it open to the assaults of the Old Testament antichrist, Antiochus Epiphanes (1 Macc. 1:14; 2 Macc. 4:12-14). Herod erected a theater and amphitheater, with quinquennial contests in gymnastics, chariot races, music, and wild beasts, at Jerusalem and Caesarea, to the annoyance of the faithful Jews (Josephus, Ant 15:8, sec. 1; 9, sec. 6).

The “chiefs of Asia” (Asiarchs) superintended the games in honor of Diana at Ephesus ( Acts 19:31). In 1 Corinthians 15:32 Paul alludes to “fights with beasts” (though his fights were with beast-like men, Demetrius and his craftsmen, not with beasts, from which his Roman citizenship exempted him), at Ephesus. The “fighters with beasts” were kept to the “last” of the “spectacle”; this he alludes to, 1 Corinthians 4:9: “God hath set forth (exhibited previous to execution) us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle unto the world,” etc., a “gazing stock” as in an amphitheater ( Hebrews 10:33). The Asiarchs’ friendliness was probably due to their having been interested in his teaching during his long stay at Ephesus. Nero used to clothe the Christians in beast skins when he exposed them to wild beasts; compare 2 Timothy 4:17, “I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion” (namely, from Satan’s snare, 1 Peter 5:8). In 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have striven the good strife,” not merely a fight, any competitive contest as the race-course, 1 Timothy 6:12 which was written from Corinth [see TIMOTHY ], where national games recurred at stated seasons, which accounts for the allusion: “strive” with such earnestness in “the good strife” as to “lay hold” on the prize, the crown or garland of the winner, “eternal life.” James 1:12; Revelation 2:10. Philippians 3:12-14: “not as though I had attained,” namely, the prize, “or am already perfected” (Greek), i.e., my course completed and I crowned with the garland of perfect victory; “I follow after,” i.e. I press on, “if that I may apprehend (grasp) that for which I am apprehended of (grasped by) Christ,” i.e., if so be that I may lay hold on the prize for obtaining which I was laid hold on by Christ at conversion (Song 1:4; 1 Corinthians 13:12). “Forgetting those things behind (the space already past, contrast 2 Timothy 3:7; 2 Peter 1:9) and reaching forth unto those things before,” like a race runner with body bent forward, the eye reaching before and drawing on the hand, the hand reaching before and drawing on the foot. The “crown (garland) of righteousness,” “of life,” “of glory,” is “the prize of the high calling (the calling that is above, coming from, and leading to, heaven) of God in Christ Jesus” ( 1 Thessalonians 2:12), given by “the righteous Judge” ( Timothy 4:8; 1 Peter 5:4). The false teacher, as a self constituted umpire, would “defraud you of your prize” ([katabrabeueto ), by drawing you away from Christ to angel worship ( Colossians 2:18). Therefore “let the peace of God as umpire rule ([brabeueto ) in your hearts” and restrain wrong passions, that so you may attain the prize “to the which ye are called” ( Colossians 3:15).

In 1 Corinthians 9:24 the Isthmian games, celebrated on the isthmus of Corinth, are vividly alluded to. They were a subject of patriotic pride to the Corinthians, a passion rather than a pastime; so a suitable image of Christian earnestness. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians at Ephesus, and in addressing the Ephesian elders he uses naturally the same image, an undesigned coincidence ( Acts 20:24). “So (with the determined earnestness of the ONE earthly winner) run, that ye may obtain” is such language as instructors in the gymnasts and spectators on the race-course would urge on the runners with. The competitor had to “strive lawfully” ( 2 Timothy 2:5), i.e. observing the conditions of the contest, keeping to the bounds of the course, and stripped of clothes, and previously training himself with chastity, abstemious diet, anointing, enduring cold, heat, and severe exercise. As a soldier the believer is one of many; as an athlete he has to wage an individual struggle continually, as if (which is the case in a race) one alone could win; “they who run in the stadium (racecourse, oblong, at one end semicircular, where the tiers of spectators sat), run all, but one receiveth the prize.”

Paul further urges Christians, run so as not only to receive salvation but a full reward (compare 1 Corinthians 3:14,15; 2 John 1:8). Pugilism is the allusion in “I keep under (Greek: I bruise under the eyes, so as to disable) my body (the old flesh, whereas the games competitor boxed another I box myself), and bring it into subjection as a slave, lest that by any means, when I have preached (heralded, as the heralds summoned the candidates to the race) to others, I myself should be a castaway” (Greek: rejected), namely, not as to his personal salvation of which he had no doubts ( Galatians 1:15; Ephesians 1:4,7; Philippians 1:6; Titus 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:12), but as to the special reward of those who “turn many to righteousness” ( Daniel 12:3; 1 Thessalonians 2:19). So Paul denied himself, in not claiming sustenance, in view of “reward,” namely, “to gain the more” ( 1 Corinthians 9:18-23). Corinthians 9:25: “striveth for the mastery,” namely, in wrestling, more severe than the foot-race. The “crown” (garland, not a king’s diadem) is termed “corruptible,” being made of the soon withering fir leaves from the groves round the Isthmian racecourse. Our crown is “incorruptible” ( Peter 1:4). “I run not as uncertainly,” i.e. not without a definite goal, in “becoming all things to all men” I aim at “gaining the more.” Ye gain no end, he implies to the Corinthians, in your eating idol meats. He who knows what to aim at, and how to aim, looks straight to the goal, and casts away every encumbrance ( Hebrews 12:1). So the believer must cast aside not only sinful lusts, but even harmless and otherwise useful things which would retard him ( Mark 9:42-48; 10:50; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9). “He must run with enduring perseverance the race set before him.” “Not as one that beateth the air,” in a [skiamachia , or sparring in sham fight, striking the air as if an adversary. Satan is a real adversary, acting through the flesh.

The “so great a cloud of witnesses” ( Hebrews 12:1,2) that “we are compassed about with” attest by their own case God’s faithfulness to His people ( Hebrews 6:12). A second sense is nowhere positively sustained by Scripture, namely, that, as the crowd of surrounding spectators gave fresh spirit to the combatants, so the deceased saints who once were in the same contest, and who now are witnessing our struggle of faith, ought to increase our earnestness, testifying as they do to God’s faith. fullness; but see Job 14:21; Ecclesiastes 9:5; Isaiah 63:16, which seemingly deny to disembodied spirits consciousness of earthly affairs. “Looking off unto Jesus ([aforontes , with eye fixed on the distant goal) the Prince-leader and Finisher (the Starting point and the Goal, as in the [diaulos race, wherein they doubled back to the starting point) of our faith” ( Timothy 3:7).

GAMMADIMS Ezekiel 27:11. Rather, from a Syriac root (for the Tyrians were Syro- Phoenicians), “men of daring.” Foreigners would hardly be entrusted to watch “in the Tyrian towers.” Others from the Hebrew gomed , a cubit, “short swordsmen”; Ehud carried a sword a cubit long ( Judges 3:16).

Or else an arm, “men strong of arm.”

GAMUL 1 Chronicles 24:17.

GARDEN An enclosure in the suburbs, fenced with a hedge or wall ( Isaiah 5:5; Proverbs 24:31), planted with flowers, shrubs, and trees, guarded (from whence comes “garden”) by watchmen in a lodge or tower ( Isaiah 1:8, when the lodge is forsaken by the keeper, the bore poles leaning every way and the green boughs of the roof scattered, there could scarcely be a more vivid picture of Zion’s desolation, Mark 12:1) to drive away wild beasts and robbers ( Job 27:18). The quince, citron, almond, and other fruits, also herbs ( 1 Kings 21:2), cucumbers, lettuce, mustard, are mentioned as in gardens. The balsam, according to Pliny, grew only in two royal gardens of Judea, not elsewhere. Syria was so famed for gardens that the Greeks had a proverb, “the many garden herbs of the Syrians.” The rose garden W. of the temple was peculiar in being within the walls; the smell from weeds and manure was the cause of gardens being usually forbidden within the walls. A reservoir cistern, or still better a fountain of water, was essential to a good garden. Compare Song 4:15, “a fountain of gardens,” ayin ganim [see EN-GANNIM , Jenin now], i.e. a fountain sufficient to water man “gardens,” “a well of living waters?

Spiritually, the believer is the garden the Holy Spirit the living water ( Jeremiah 2:18; 17:8; John 4:13,14; 7:37-39); “A well watered garden” expresses abundant happiness and prosperity ( Isaiah 58:11; Jeremiah 17:8; 31:12), as “a garden that hath no water” ( Isaiah 1:30) expresses spiritual, national, and individual barrenness and misery. Psalm 1:3, the righteous “shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters (literally, the divisions of waters, the water being divided into rivulets to run along the rows of trees for irrigation) that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” Not only are his fruits (the tree’s proper fruit, Revelation 22:2) good in themselves, but are in season ( Ecclesiastes 3:1-11; contrast Matthew 21:19). “His leaf” also has its beauty and use and is “unwithering” ( Ezekiel 47:12); even his minor traits of character are good after their kind, and his smallest undertaking, blessed because done unto the Lord and so shall abide.

The law against mixing diverse seeds was observed by separating the various productions by light fences of reed. The “orchards” (Hebrew: paradises) were especially for fruit trees, dates, figs, sycamores, etc. The occurrence of no less than 250 botanical terms in Old Testament shows the Israelite predilection for flowers, fruits, and pleasure grounds. The vine wound round the trellis or outer staircase, the emblem of the loving and fruitful wife and the happy home ( <19C803> Psalm 128:3). The house court or area generally had its shady terebinth. Under the shadowing fig leaves Nathanael communed with his God ( John 1:48). The ripe grain in harvest joy was decorated with lilies; Song 7:2, “thy bodice (of amber color) is a heap of wheat set about with lilies” (white or scarlet, answering to her scarf round her person).

The Hebrews used gardens also as burial places ( John 19:41). Here Jesus’ sacred body was entombed in Joseph’s new sepulchre. Manasseh and Amen were buried in Uzza’s garden ( 2 Kings 21:18,26).

Machpelah’s field, Abraham’s burial ground, was a garden with “trees in it, and in all the borders round about it” ( Genesis 23:17). The garden of Gethsemane was Jesus’ favorite resort for devotion ( Matthew 26:36; John 18:1). Gardens were in idolatrous periods made the scene of superstition and image worship, the awful counterpart of the primitive Eden ( Isaiah 1:29; 65:3; 66:17).

Solomon’s gardens and orchards with all kinds of fruits and pools of water for irrigation ( Ecclesiastes 2:4-6) doubtless suggested the imagery Song 4:12-15. It was in a garden of light Adam fell; in a garden of darkness, Gethsemane, the Second Adam overcame the tempter and retrieved us.

The “streams from Lebanon” imply that the fountain is lowly, the source lofty. Christ (and so Christ’s church) springs up on the earth, but has His source in heaven; no longer “sealed” but “open” streams ( Revelation 22:10,17). The site near Bethlehem assigned to Solomon’s garden is probably correct. It is a suitable retreat, near the capital, and the names of localities about confirm the tradition: wady Urtas, “the valley of the garden”; gebel-el-Fureidis, “the hill of the little paradise”; “fig vale”; “peach hill”; “walnut walk”; “garden of nuts.” The “king’s garden” ( Kings 25:4; Nehemiah 3:15; Jeremiah 34:4; 52:7) was near the pool of Siloam, at the Tyropoeon valley, where the valleys of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom met.

GAREB 1. 2 Samuel 23:38; 1 Chronicles 2:58. 2. The hill near Jerusalem ( Jeremiah 31:39). From Hebrew [gaarab “to scrape,” Syriac, leprosy, the locality outside the city to which lepers were removed, on the N.W. side of the city, W. of the valley of Gihon. Even the localities whose name implies they are now outside shall at last be taken within the new Jerusalem ( Matthew 8:14; Luke 17:11-19).

GARLICK Numbers 11:5. Abounding in Egypt. The Allium sativum (Linnaeus). A fixed allowance of it and other vegetables was appointed to the workmen on the pyramids and publicly inscribed (Herodotus ii. 125). It stimulates the circulation and the system generally.

GARMITE Descended fromGEREM ( 1 Chronicles 4:19).

GARRISON Put in military posts to keep possession of a conquered country, as the Philistines held the land of Israel at the beginning of Saul’s reign ( Samuel 10:5; 13:3); David, Syria ( 2 Samuel 8:6,14). In Ezekiel 26:11, “thy strong garrisons” (matzeboth uzzeek ) literally, the statues of thy strength, i.e. the forts. Or rather (Maurer), the obelisks in honor of the tutelary gods of Tyre (as Melecarte, the Tyrian Hercules whose temple stood in Old Tyre) shall go down to the ground before Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror, just as he treated Egypt’s idol statues ( Jeremiah 43:11).

GASHMU Geshem. Nehemiah 6:1,2,6.

GATAM Genesis 36:11,16; 1 Chronicles 1:36.

GATE The oriental resort for business, converse, bargaining, and news ( Genesis 19:1; 23:10; Psalm 69:12), for addresses and reading the law ( 2 Chronicles 32:6; Nehemiah 8:1,3; Proverbs 1:21; Jeremiah 17:19), or administering justice ( Joshua 20:4; Ruth 4:1; Deuteronomy 16:18; 21:19). Proverbs 22:22, “neither oppress the afflicted in the gate,” i.e. in the place of justice, in lawsuits. Psalm 69:12, “they that sit in the gate speak against Me (Messiah), and I was the song of the drunkards,” i.e., not only among drunken revelers, but in the grave deliberations of the judges in the place of justice I was an object of obloquy. Amos 5:12, “they turn aside the poor in the gate,” i.e. they refuse them their right in the place of justice; ( Amos 5:10) “they hate him that rebuketh in the gate,” namely, the judge who condemns them ( Zechariah 8:16). Isaiah 29:21, “they lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate,” i.e., they try by bribes and misrepresentations to ensnare into a false decision the judge who would in public court reprove them for their iniquity, or to ensnare the prophet who publicly reproves them ( Jeremiah 7:2). “The Sublime Porte,” the title for the Sultan of Turkey, is derived from the eastern usage of dispensing law in the gateway.

The king’s or chief’s place of audience ( 1 Kings 22:10; 2 Samuel 19:8; Job 29:7; Lamentations 5:14). The object of a foe’s attack and therefore strengthened especially ( Judges 5:8; <19E718> Psalm 147:18), shut at nightfall ( Deuteronomy 3:5; Joshua 2:5,7; 1 Samuel 23:7). The market place for country produce ( 2 Kings 7:1; Nehemiah 13:16-19). The open spaces near the gates were used for pagan sacrifices ( Acts 14:13; 2 Kings 23:8). Josiah defiled “the high places of the gates in the entering in of the gate.”

The larger gates had two valves, and were plated with metal and secured with locks and bars. Those without iron plating were easily set on fire ( Judges 9:52). Sentences of the law were inscribed on and above them, to which allusion occurs Deuteronomy 6:9; an usage followed by Muslims in modern times. Some gates were of solid stones ( Revelation 21:21; Isaiah 54:12). Massive stone doors are found in ancient houses of Syria, single slabs, several inches thick, 10 ft. high, turning on stone pivots above and below. The king’s principal gate at Ispahan afforded sanctuary to criminals (Chardin, 7:368). In Esther’s time “none might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth” ( Esther 4:2). ”The Beautiful Gate” of Herod’s temple ( Acts 3:2) was the outer one, made of Corinthian brass, surpassing in costliness even nine others of the outer court, which were covered with gold and silver. It was so heavy that twenty men were required to close it, but it was found open unexpectedly shortly before the overthrow of Jerusalem (Josephus, B. J., 5:5, sec. 3; 6: 5, sec. 3; contra Apion, 2:9). The doorway consisted of lintel, threshold, and side-posts ( Exodus 12:7,22).

In Genesis 22:17, “thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies,” the sense is, shall sit in judgment on them, as in the Assyrian sculptures the king is represented sitting in judgment upon prisoners. Thus the Persian satrap in the Lycian Xanthus monument sits at the gate dictating terms to the Greek ambassadors, and Sennacherib, at his tent door, gives judgment on the Jews taken at Lachish (British Museum, 59). In front of the larger edifices in the remains at Persepolis and Nineveh (Khorsabad) are propylaea, or “porches,” like that “for Solomon’s throne where he might judge, even the porch of judgment, covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other” ( 1 Kings 7:7). The threshold in the Assyrian palaces is one slab of gypsum with cuneatic inscriptions; human-headed bulls with eagles’ wings guard the portals, like and probably borrowed from the cherubim which guarded the gate of Eden; besides there are holes 12 in. square, lined round with tiles, with a brick to cover them above and containing small baked clay idols with lynx head and human body, or human head and lion’s body, probably like the see TERAPHIM , from Arabic tarf “a boundary,” and akin to the Persian “telifin” talismans. Thus the place of going out and coming in was guarded, as especially sacred, from all evil by the inscriptions, the compound figured gods outside, and the hidden teraphim. Daniel “sat in” such a “gate” before the palace of Babylon as “ruler over the whole province of Babylon” ( Daniel 2:48,49) The courtiers of Ahasuerus attended him “in the gate” similarly ( Esther 3:2).

GATH (“a winepress”), Gath being in a vine-abounding country. One of the five great Philistine cities ( Joshua 13:3; 1 Samuel 6:17). Goliath’s abode (1 Samuel 17). Its people were the “Gittites,” of whom was David’s devotedly loyal friend Ittai ( 2 Samuel 15:19-22). In undesigned coincidence with the presence of giants in Gath, according to 1 Samuel 17; 2 Samuel 21:19-22, is Joshua 11:22: “only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod there remained Anakims.” Gath was one of the five cities to which the Philistines carried about the ark of God (the five formed one political unity), and thereby brought on the people God’s heavy visitation with emerods. It was’ represented by one of the five golden emerods and five golden inlet sent to propitiate Jehovah ( 1 Samuel 5:9; 6:4,5,10-18).

David there reigned madness to save his life; a second time he visited king Achish, and had Ziklag assigned to him as a residence ( 1 Samuel 21:10-15; 27:28). Thence he attached and drew after him 600 Gittite followers, with Ittai their chief ( 2 Samuel 15:18); probably some at the time of his sojourn in Gath, and most when he smote and subdued the Philistines ( <100801> Samuel 8:1). Though tributary to Israel, Gath still retained its own king ( 1 Kings 2:89). Hazael fought against it and took it ( 2 Kings 12:17).

Uzziah gave a heavy blow to Gath, breaking down its wall ( Chronicles 26:6; Amos 6:2). “Hamath ... Gath, be they better than these kingdoms?” Gath, once “better (stronger) than” Israel and Judah, fell; how vain then is your confidence in the strength of mounts Zion and Samaria! In Amos 1:6, etc., Zephaniah 2:4,5; Zechariah 9:5,6, Gath is omitted; probably it had lost by that time its place among the five primary cities.

Hezekiah, after Uzziah, conquered Philistia ( 2 Kings 18:8; Isaiah 14:29-81).

Tell es Safieh occupies the site of Gath, which lay on the border between Judah and Philistia, between Shocoh and Ekron ( 1 Samuel 17:1,52).

Saul came down from the hills by the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, which passes near Shocoh, and encountered the Philistines near the bend in the valley. Saul was on the E. of the valley, the Philistines on the W., as they came from the W. Gath was from its strength often alternately in the hands of Judah and of Philistia ( 2 Chronicles 11:8). It lay on a hill at the foot of Judah’s mountains, ten miles E. of Ashdod, and ten S.E. of Ekron.

GATH-HEPHER (“the winepress of the well”). Joshua 19:12,13. On Zebulun’s border, near Japhia (Yafa). Jonah’s birthplace ( 2 Kings 14:25). Now El Meshhad, where his tomb is still shown, two miles E. of Sefurieh (Sepphoris).

GATH-RIMMON (“winepress of the pomegranates”). 1. A city of Dan, given to the Levites ( Joshua 19:45; 21:24; 1 Chronicles 6:69). On the Philistine plain. 2.

A town of Manasseh, W. of Jordan, assigned to the Levites ( Joshua 21:25). But Bileam (i.e. Ibleam, Joshua 17:11) in 1 Chronicles 6:70, which is probably the true reading in Joshua, the copyist’s eye catching “Gath-rimmon” in the previous verse.

GAZA (“fortified”). One of the five Philistine cities, Mentioned in the first and latest books of Scripture, and even now exceeding Jerusalem in size. It is the most southwesterly town toward Egypt, and lay on the great route between Syria and that country, being in position and strength (as its name means) the key of the line of communication. It withstood Alexander’s siege with all his resources for five months. It is called Azzah Genesis 10:19 margin; Deuteronomy 2:23; Jeremiah 25:20. Gaza was assigned by Joshua to Judah ( Joshua 15:47), but not occupied until afterward ( Judges 1:18; compare Joshua 10:41), the Anakims occupying it still ( Joshua 11:22; 13:8). The Philistines soon recovered it ( Judges 13:1; 16:1,21), and there Samson perished while destroying his captors. Solomon ruled over it ( 1 Kings 4:24). Hezekiah gave the decisive blow to the Philistines, “even unto Gaza and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city” ( 2 Kings 18:8).

Amos (Amos 1:6) threatened from God. “for three transgressions of Gaza and for four (i.e. for sin multiplied on sin, Exodus 20:5; Proverbs 30:15. Three and four make seven, the number implying completion of the measure of guilt) I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they carried away captive the whole captivity (i.e. they carried all away and left none; see 2 Chronicles 21:17; 28:18) to deliver them up to Edom (the Philistines of Gaza, instead of hospitably sheltering the Jewish refugees fleeing before Sennacherib and other Assyrian, invaders, sold them as captives to their bitter foes, the Edomites; compare Isaiah 16:4). But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof.” “Pharaoh” Necho fulfilled the prophecy on returning from slaying Josiah at Megiddo ( 2 Chronicles 35:20) (Grotius). Or “Pharaoh” Hophra, on his return from the unavailing attempt to save Jerusalem from Nebuchadnezzar ( Jeremiah 37:5,7; 47:1) (Calvin) In Zephaniah 2:4 there is a play on like sounds; Gazah gazuwbah , “Gaza shall be forsaken.” In Zechariah 9:5 “the king shall perish from Gaza,” i.e., its Persian satrap, or petty “king,” subordinate to the great king of Persia, shall perish, and it shall cease to have one. Alexander having taken the city, and slain 10,000 of its inhabitants, and sold the rest as slaves, bound Betis the satrap to a chariot by thongs thrust through his soles, and dragged him round the city, as Achilles did to Hector.

In Acts 8:26, “go toward the S. unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which (not Gaza, but which way) is desert,” refers to the portion of the road between Eleutheropolis and Gaza, which is without villages and exposed to Bedouin marauders of the desert. The words “which is desert” are the angel’s words (not Luke’s), to inform Philip, then in Samaria, on what route he would find the eunuch, namely, on the S. route, thinly peopled, but favorable for chariots, Robinson (2:748) found an ancient road direct from Jerusalem to Gaza through the wady Musurr, now certainly without villages. The water in wady el Hasy was probably the scene of the eunuch’s baptism.

Once Gaza was the seat of a Christian church and bishop; but now of its 15,000 inhabitants only a few hundreds are Christians, the rest Muslims.

The great mosque was formerly the church of John when Gaza was a Christian city.

An extensive olive grove lies N. of the modern Ghuzzeh., from whence arises its manufacture and export of soap. Its trade in grain is considerable, and still is heard the “grinding” of grain with millstones such as Samson was forced to work with in his prison house at Gaza. The Tel el Muntar or “hill of the watchman,” east of Gaza, is the hill to which Samson carried up the gates. It commands a lovely and striking view on every side.

GAZER [See GEZER .] 2 Samuel 5:25.

GAZEZ 1. 1 Chronicles 2:46. 2. Son of Haran, Ephah’s son.

GAZZAM, CHILDREN OF Ezra 2:48.

GEBA (the hill). A town of Benjamin, on its northern boundary, from whence “from Geba to Beersheba” expresses all Judah from N. to S. as “from Dan to Beersheba” expresses all Israel and Judah from N. to S. ( 2 Kings 23:8.) Close to Ramah ( Nehemiah 7:30). As an eastern limit it stands opposed to Gazer ( 2 Samuel 5:25); Gibeon in 1 Chronicles 14:16.

Geba was garrisoned by the Philistines at, the beginning of Saul’s reign ( 1 Samuel 13:3). Jonathan dislodged them in a gallant assault with his armor-bearer alone (1 Samuel 14). Geba was on the S. and Michmash on the N. of the ravine. Now the village Jeba, crowning the steep hill on the edge of the wady Suweinit, facing Mukmas on the N. side. So in Isaiah 10:28-32, “he (Sennacherib) hath laid up his carriages at Michmash,” i.e., the “carriages” (i.e. heavy baggage) could not be got across the wady at Michmash. Then “they are gone over the passage,” i.e., the lighter part of the army pass the ravine which might have been easily guarded against them, and” lodge” malown , “rest for the night,” bivouac) at Geba on the S. side. Asa fortified it, as commanding the pass ( 1 Kings 15:22; Chronicles 16:6). KJV has rendered “Geba” into “Gibeah” rightly Judges 20:10,33; 1 Samuel 13:16.

GEBAL [See SEIR, MOUNT ] = a line, namely, of mountain boundary ( Psalm 83:7). An Idumean clan, on the right of Ammon, as Amalek was on the left; for in the psalm it is coupled with Moab, Ammon, Amalek, and Edom.

Probably the modern Djebal, mountainous region S. of the Dead Sea; the Gebalene of the Romans, the Gobolitis of Josephus. A portion of the range of Edom. The psalm, probably by Jahaziel of the sons of Asaph, is a thanksgiving for the victory anticipated by faith over the hordes of invaders who sought to root Israel out of his inheritance, and who, marching S. round the Dead Sea, let no tidings reach Jehoshaphat until he heard that a great multitude was within his territory at Engedi ( 2 Chronicles 20:2,7- 11,14,18,19). Smith’s Bible Dictionary identifies the Gebal of Psalm with Gebal in Ezekiel 27:9, “the ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy caulkers” (stoppers of chinks in ships), evidently the Phoenician city and region between Beyrut and Tripoli, famed for skilled workmen, “the Giblites” (stone carvers) ( 1 Kings 5:18 margin).

So “the inhabitants of Phoenician, Tyre” are numbered with the invaders ( Psalm 83:7). But the collocation of Gebal between the “Hagarenes” and “Ammon” favors the men of Gebal being Idumeans. “The Giblites” in Joshua 13:5 were from the region of Lebanon; the Septuagint term them Biblians, namely, of Byblus, on the Phoenician borders, N. of the river Adonis, afterwards a Christian see.

GEBER, SON OF 1. 1 Kings 4:13. 2. 1 Kings 4:19. Having as his commissariat district the part of Gilead forming Sihon’s and Og’s kingdom, now Belka, the great pasture E. of Jordan. Translated not “he was the only officer in the land,” for there were two others ( 1 Kings 4:13,14), but “and one (superior) officer (netsitb ) ‘achad who was in the land,” namely, to superintend the three subordinate officers (compare Hebrews 2 Chronicles 8:10).

GEBIM (“the ditches”). Isaiah 10:31. Between Anathoth and Neh.

GEDALIAH 1. Son of Ahikam, who saved Jeremiah from death ( Jeremiah 26:24); grandson of Shaphan, Josiah’s secretary, whom the king sent to inquire concerning the book of Jehovah’ s law recently found ( 2 Kings 22:12,14). Gedaliah thus inherited from father and grandfather a legacy of the fear of God. Left by Nebuchadnezzar, after the destruction of the temple (588 B.C.), to govern the cities of Judah and the farmers and vinedressers, who were allowed to remain in the land ( Jeremiah 39:10,14; 40:5,6,11; 52:16). He was stationed at the stronghold Mizpah, six miles N. of Jerusalem, with a Chaldean guard (Jeremiah 41). Jeremiah, when given his choice by Nebuzaradan where he should dwell, attached himself to Gedaliah, who was joined also by a promiscuous multitude of “men, women, and children, and of the poor of the land”; also by Ishmael of the blood royal, Johanan and Jonathan, Seraiah, the sons of Ephai, Jezaniah, and their men; also by the Jews who had been driven to Moab, Ammon, and Edom, but who now with reassured confidence began to gather, as formerly, “wine and summer fruits.” This indicates his deserved popularity, while his words imply his loyalty to the supreme monarch to whom God by express prophecy had assigned the world kingdoms, and at the same time his gentleness as a ruler. “Fear not to be servants of the Chaldees; dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.” Even reverence for the temple, though in ruins, revived under him; and men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria came with their offerings and badges of mourning for the destruction of the Lord’s house and the holy city ( Jeremiah 41:5). Johanan warned Gedaliah that Baalis (called from the idol Baal) king of Ammon had sent Ishmael to assassinate him and his retinue. With unsuspecting generosity Gedaliah refused to credit it. So Ishmael, in violation of the sacred rights of hospitality and taking advantage of the opportunity, while eating Gedaliah’s “bread” at Mizpah, smote him two months after his appointment (compare Psalm 41:9). Jealousy of Gedaliah’s presidency was Ishmael’s motive; his royal descent leading him to regard himself as the rightful ruler. Ammon, Israel’s ancient foe, gladly used such a tool. A mystery of providence that God should permit the righteous, in spite of warning, to rush in unsuspecting honesty of purpose into the trap laid for them; Isaiah 57:1 suggests a solution. An enemy’s presence appears in such anomalies. Faith, in spite of them, believes God is ordering all things for the ultimate good of His people, and at the judgment will vindicate His ways and clear up all that is now dark. All suffering nature and disorganized society as well as believers yearn for the advent of Him who shall reign in righteousness (Isaiah 11; Ezekiel 21:27). His death is commemorated in the Jewish calendar as a national calamity; and many Jews under Johanan, fearing Babylon’s vengeance, fled to Egypt, forcing Jeremiah with them ( Jeremiah 41:18). 2. 1 Chronicles 25:3,9. 3. Ezra 10:18. 4. Zephaniah 1:1. 5. Son of Pashur; one of the princes who caused Jeremiah’s imprisonment ( Jeremiah 38:1, etc.).

GEDER One of the 31 kings defeated by Joshua W. of Jordan ( Joshua 12:13). In the extreme S. Possibly the SimeoniteGEDOR ( 1 Chronicles 4:39).

GEDERAH (“the sheepcote”). A town of Judah in the shephelah, or hills between the mountains and plain ( Joshua 15:36). Near the “valley of the terebinth” [see ELAH ], near Azekah and Socoh.GEDEROTH = sheepcotes, and\parGEDEROTHAIM = two sheepcotes, were in the same region ( Joshua 15:41).

GEDOR 1. Joshua 15:58. A few miles N. of Hebron. Perhaps now Jedur between Bethlehem and Hebron, two miles W. of the road. 2. A town of Benjamin, to which belonged Jeroham, father of Joelah and Zebadiah, who “of Saul’s brethren of Benjamite” joined David at Ziklag ( 1 Chronicles 12:7). 3. Ancestor of Saul ( 1 Chronicles 8:31; 9:37). 4. Among Judah’s posterity ( 1 Chronicles 4:4,18). 5. See GEDER . ( 1 Chronicles 4:39.) Simeonite chiefs in Hezekiah’s reign “went to the entrance of (rather as Keil, ‘westward from’) Gedor unto the eastern side of the valley to seek pasture for their flocks,” and they dislodged the Hamites “dwelling there of old, and dwelt in their room.” On the way between southern Judah and mount Seir. Septuagint reads “Gerar” (but Simeon’s dwellings did not extend westward from Gerar, but were all E. of Gerar).

GEHAZI Elisha’s servant. His messenger to the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4); suggested the obtaining of a son from the Lord for her, as a meet reward for her kindness to the prophet. Trusted by Elisha with his staff to lay on the face of the lifeless youth. But reanimation was not effected until Elisha himself came: typifying that Moses the messenger, with his rod and the law, could not quicken dead souls, that is reserved for Jesus with His gospel. Gehazi proved himself lying and greedy of filthy lucre, and with his great spiritual privileges a sad contrast to Naaman’s servants, who had none (2 Kings 5). They by wise counsel induced their master to subdue pride, and humbly to wash in the Jordan, according to the prophet’s word.

Gehazi presumptuously stifled conscience with the plea that a “Syrian” pagan ought not to have been” spared,” as his master had “spared this Naaman,” and even dared to invoke Jehovah’s name, as though his obtaining money by false pretenses from him would be a meritorious act: “as the Lord liveth, I will take somewhat of him.” In his master’s name, under pretense of charity (!), as if wanting presents for “two sons of the prophets from mount Ephraim,” he obtained from Naaman two talents of silver and two changes of raiment. Coveting, lying, taking, and hiding, followed in the order of sin’s normal and awful development; as in Adam’s and Achan’s cases (Genesis 3; Joshua 7). Then God’s detection: Elisha said, “Whence comest thou?” The liar was at no loss for a reply: “Thy servant went no where.” Elisha sternly answered, “Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again, (compare Psalm 139)? Is it a time to receive money,” etc.? Compare as to our times 1 Peter 4:3. Naaman from being a leper became newborn as “a little child” by believing obedience; Gehazi from being clean, by unbelieving disobedience, became a leper: if he must have Naaman’s lucre, he must have Naaman’s leprosy: “the leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee for ever.” Still in 2 Kings 8:4 Gehazi appears as “servant of the man of God,” narrating to king Joram the great acts of Elisha and the restoration to life of the Shunammite’s son, when lo! she herself appeared. Doubtless affliction brought Gehazi to sincere repentance, and repentance brought removal of the leprosy, which otherwise would have been “for ever.” Compare Hezekiah’s divinely foretold death averted by penitent prayer ( 2 Kings 20:1-5). This seems a more likely solution than supposing that this incident occurred before Gehazi’s leprosy and has been transposed.

GELILOTH Joshua 18:17. One of the southern bounds of Benjamin, “over against the going up (ascent) of Adummim.” Gilgal occupied the same position “before the going up of Adummim” ( Joshua 15:7) on the northern boundary of Judah, which is the southern bound of Benjamin; therefore Grove would substitute “Gilgal” for “Geliloth.” Its derivation is gaalal “to roll”; like the Scotch “links,” meaning both the windings of the stream (Geliloth is near the Jordan) and the coasts; whereas Ciccar is the circle of vegetation or dwellings round the bends of the water. Conder connects Geliloth with the “tells” or mounds of Palestine, which he thinks to be the accumulated refuse of sun-dried bricks, which served as a platform on which others were baked, as at the present day in India and Egypt. They are found in the Jordan valley, and in the plain of Esdraelon. They always occur near water, and in alluvial clay plains, as in the clay lands between Succoth and Zarthan, where Solomon east his temple brasswork.

GEMALLI Numbers 13:12.

GEMARIAH 1. Shaphan the scribe’s son, Michaiah’s father. From his chamber in the Lord’s house Baruch read Jeremiah’s threatening prophecy in the people’s hearing (Jeremiah 36). Michaiah reported it, anti Baruch being summoned read it again before the princes seated in council in the scribe’s chamber in the king’s house. Gemariah, as the other princes, was “afraid” thereat, and said, “We will surely tell the king of all these words” (not a threat, but implying that so momentous a prophecy ought to be told the king).

Gemariah had some fear of God and moral courage, for he, with Elnathan and Delaiah, interceded with king Jehoiakim not to burn the roll; but he would not hear them. 2. Son of Hilkiah, the high priest who found the book of the law in the Lord’s house, and showed it to Shaphan ( 2 Kings 22:8); sent by king Zedekiah on an embassy to Nebuchadnezzar; entrusted by Jeremiah with a letter to the captives in Babylon. Inheriting from his father, like the former Gemariah, some regard for sacred things ( Jeremiah 29:1-3).

GENEALOGY Hebrew “the book of theGENERATIONS,” ceepher toledowt [see ADOPTION and see GENERATION ]. Fuller (Pisgah Sight of Palestine, 1650) says on Acts 17:26: “we may see Divinity, the queen, Waited on by three of her principal ladies of honor, namely: (1) skill inGENEALOGIES, ‘of one blood all nations,’ (2) CHRONOLOGY, in the exact computation of ‘the times appointed,’ (3) GEOGRAPHY, measuring out to the nations ‘the bounds of their habitation.’” History, in ancient times, being based on genealogies, the phrase became a title for a history; so Genesis 2:4, “these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth”; as the history of a man’s family is “the book of his generations,” so that of the world’s productions is “the generations (not the creation, which had been previously described) of the heavens and the earth.” “Generations” is the heading of every chief section of Genesis (probably they were original family memoirs preserved and used by Moses under inspiration in writing Genesis). So Genesis 5:1, “the book of the generations of Adam,” wherein his descendants are traced down to Noah; Genesis 6:9, “the generations of Noah,” the history of Noah and his sons; Genesis 10:1, “the generations of the sons of Noah,” Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the oldest and most precious existing ethnological record; Genesis 11:10-26 “the generations of Shem,” Genesis 11:27 “the generations of Terah,” Abram’s father; Genesis 25:12 “the generations of Ishmael,” Genesis 25:19 “the generations of Isaac”; Genesis 36:1, “the generations of Esau”; Genesis 37:2, “the generations of Jacob”; Genesis 35:22-26, “the sons of Jacob,” etc., repeated Exodus 1:1-5; also Exodus 46:8, a genealogical census of Israel when Jacob came down to Egypt; repeated in Exodus 6:16, etc., probably transcribed from a document, for the first part concerning Reuben and Simeon is quoted though Levi is the only tribe in question. The promise of Canaan, Israel’s separation from the Gentiles, the prophecy of Messiah’s descent from Judah, the hereditary priesthood in Aaron’s family, and the limitation of ministerial offices to Levi, the promises to David’s seed, and the division of Canaan by tribes and families, all combined to make Israel more careful of genealogies than: any other nation. Israel’s census was taken early in the wilderness 40 years sojourn, the second month of the second year, “by their generations, after their families, by the house of their fathers” ( Numbers 1:2,20, etc., Numbers 2—3). Again, 38 years later, in the plains of Moab, the names of the families being added (Numbers 26).

According to their genealogical divisions they encamped, marched, made offerings, and selected the spies; hereby Achan was detected, and Saul chosen as king; hereby Canaan was allotted.

At the same time we must remember many became incorporated in a tribe or family by marriage, service, or friendship, besides those belonging to it by birth. See BECHER , see CALEB , and 1 Chronicles 3:21, for instances. The genealogies refer often to political and territorial divisions, and not strictly to natural descent, so that “sons” of a patriarch are not necessarily restricted to those so by birth. So Manasseh and Ephraim were numbered among Jacob’s “sons,” though only grandsons ( Genesis 48:5). See BELA (whose two sons Naaman and Ard are called “sons of Benjamin,” Numbers 26:40,41) and see BENJAMIN respecting Genesis 46; Numbers 26; Exodus 6:24 enumerates Assir’s son and grandson as heads, with their father, of the Korhites. In the list (Genesis 46) grandsons (e.g. all Benjamin’s ten sons) and great grandson, s of Jacob (Hezron and Hamul, grandsons of Judah) are named, born afterward in Egypt and who came into that country in the loins of their fathers, and who there became founders of mishpachowt , i.e. independent families, and were therefore counted grandsons of Jacob as regards the national organization. By comprising Jacob himself with all the founders of tribes and families, the significant number 70 results; seven (expressing God’s covenant relation to Israel, made up of three the divine number and four the worldwide extension number) multiplied by ten the seal of completeness; implying that these 70 comprised the whole nation of God ( Exodus 1:5; Deuteronomy 10:22). Levi alone was free front foreign admixture. Iddo the seer wrote a book “concerning genealogies” ( 2 Chronicles 12:15).

Hezekiah took a census of priests and Levites according to genealogies, and apparently from 1 Chronicles 4:41; 9:1, a census also of the nation by genealogies; he had a staff of scribes for such purposes ( Proverbs 25:1). Genealogies were need in reckoning Reuben and Gad, “in the days of Jotham king of: Judah [perhaps in connection with his wars against Ammon, 2 Chronicles 27:5], and of Jeroboam king of Israel” ( Chronicles 5:17). Zerubbabel, on the return from Babylon, made it a first care to settle the people according to genealogy. Nehemiah did the same as an essential to his great work, the restoration of the national polity ( Chronicles 3:19,21-24; 9; compare Nehemiah 7:5,11; 12:1-26), which shows that the genealogical system was continued afterward. Ezra contains an abstract of the post-captivity census.

In New Testament times, when Augustus ordered the registration for taxing, the Jews went severally to the town of their tribe, family, and father; and so Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, the town of their forefather David (Luke 2). Further traces of genealogies being preserved still appear in the mention of Zacharias as of “the course of Abra,” Elizabeth as “of the daughters of Aaron,” Anna, daughter of Phanuel, as “of the tribe of Aser.”

Josephus traces his own descent to the first of the 24 courses of priests, adding “as I have found it recorded in the public tables.” He says (c.

Apion, 1:7) the priests had to verify the descent of their intended wives from the archives at Jerusalem, and to make new genealogical tables after every war, in order to ascertain what women had been made captives, as such were excluded from marrying priests; the list of high priests for 2,000 years backward was preserved in the archives in his day. The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome must have involved the loss of these registers, except such partial records of genealogy as remained in a few of the priestly families after the last dispersion. Benjamin of Tudela says that the princes still professed to trace their descent up to David. The present impossibility of verifying the genealogies of the Jews’ tribes and families is a divine indication that Christ the antitypical High Priest and the Heir of David’s throne having come supersedes the polity of typical priests and kings, which, in ancient times, required the careful preservation of pedigrees. Paul therefore condemns the study of “endless genealogies” ( 1 Timothy 1:4), though probably he aims also at Gnostic genealogies of spirits.

In interpreting a genealogy it is to be remembered that the list may represent the succession to an inheritance or headship of tribe or family, rather than natural descent. In an Assyrian inscription similarly “Jehu,” successor of Omri’s race, is called “son of Omri.” Again pedigrees are abbreviated so as to specify the generations alone which show from what leading houses the person sprang. The register of Levi in Exodus 6:16-20 gives only two links between Levi and Moses, namely, Kohath and Amram; which has been made an argument for Israel’s sojourn in Egypt only half the 430 years specified ( Exodus 12:40). But the Kohathites ( Numbers 3:27) in Moses’ time were divided into four families, Amramites, Jehezarites, Hebronites, and Ussielites, 8,600 men and boys independent of women; the fourth would be Amramites. Now Moses had only two sons; therefore if Amram his father were the Amram Kohath’s father, Moses must have had 2,147 brothers and brothers’ sons, which is impossible; therefore between the two Amrams a number of generations must have dropped out. So in Ezra’s genealogy ( Ezra 7:1-5, compare 1 Chronicles 6:4-15) five descents are omitted between Azariah Meraloth’s son and Azariah Johanan’s son; and several between Ezra himself and Seraiah, put to death 150 years before Ezra by Nebuchadnezzar. In Exodus 6 the sons of three of Kohath’s sons are given, but not of Hebron (though in 2 Chronicles 23 four sons are assigned to him), probably because no family sprang from him as the head. The object of genealogies was not chronology, but to mark ramifications of tribal and family relationship. Thus, the genealogy of Ruth 4:18-22 makes but four intervening links between Nahshon at the exodus ( Numbers 1:7) and David, namely, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse; whereas the genealogy of Levi has double that number in the same period, seven between Phinehas and Zadok, and more in Gershon’s line (1 Chronicles 6). Therefore some names must have been omitted of David’s genealogy. Genealogies are clear measures of time only when complete; and the marks of completeness are, when the mother as well as the father is named, or when historical facts define the relationship, or when a genealogy is confirmed by one or more besides, giving the same number of generations within the same bounds.

Early marriage will in the case of some, as princes, make 30 years too long for a generation. In the descending form of genealogy, when direct heirs failed collateral ones were inserted, and the heir would put his name next after his predecessor though not his father ( Ruth 4:18; 1 Chronicles 3).

The ascending form appears 1 Chronicles 6:33-43; Ezra 7:1-5.

Females were reckoned when rights or possessions were transmitted through them. Corruptions of the text are frequent in genealogies. Christ’s descent through David, from Abraham and Adam, is given in an unbroken line of genealogy.

GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST Needed, to show that redemption was no afterthought, but designed from the first. Abraham and David in Matthew’s Gospel are singled out to prove the fulfillment in Christ of the promises made to Abraham 2,000 years previously, and to David 1,000. The Old Testament begins with “Genesis” (“generation”); so also the New Testament begins with the genesis (“generation,” Matthew 1:1) of Jesus Christ. Matthew’s Gospel contains, not Joseph’s direct ancestors, but the succession of heirs to David’s and Solomon’s throne. The tracing of Christ’s descent through Judah’s royal line harmonizes with the kingly aspect of Jesus Christ in Matthew’s Gospel. The steps of Joseph’s direct parentage did not coincide with those of the succession to the throne. Solomon’s line failed, and Nathan’s and Neri’s succeeded as legal heirs. Hence the need of two genealogies, one (Matthew) of the succession, the other (Luke) of the parentage. Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 22:30) declares Jeconiah, Coniah, or Jehoiachin was to be childless. He cannot therefore have been lineal progenitor of Jesus Christ. It is at this point in the genealogy, i.e. after Jehoiachin, the same names occur in both lists, Salathiel and Zerubbabel taken (in Matthew) from the line of Nathan (Luke) to supply the failure of Jehoiachin’s issue. The promise was, Messiah was to be “of the fruit of the loins of David” ( Acts 2:30), but to Solomon only that “his throne should be established evermore” ( 1 Chronicles 17:14). So a double genealogy of Jair is given, one of the inheritance, the other of birth ( Chronicles 2:4,5,21,22; Numbers 32:41). Matthew appropriately, as writing for Jews, gives Christ’s legal descent; Luke, for Gentiles, the natural descent. Matthew downward, from Abraham the father of the Jews (naturally, but of the Gentiles also spiritually: Genesis 17:5; Romans 4:16,17); Luke upward, to Adam, “who was the son of God” and the father of Gentiles and Jews alike.

The words “as was supposed” ( Luke 3:23) imply that Christ’s sonship to Joseph was only a reputed not a real one. Yet He was God’s extraordinary gift to Joseph through his proper wife Mary, and the fruit of his marriage to her, not as natural offspring of his body but as supernatural fruit. Hence attention is drawn to Joseph’s being “son of David” ( Matthew 1:20), “of the house and lineage of David” ( Luke 2:4, compare Luke 1:32).

Matthew omits three links of the pedigree. “Joram begat Ozias,” i.e.

Uzziah. But Joram really begat Ahaziah, Ahaziah Jehoash, Jehoash Uzziah.

If the two genealogies contained anything false or mutually contradictory, Christ’s enemies would have convicted them from the public documents.

Clearly men in that day saw nothing irreconcilable in them. From Abraham to David both agree, thenceforward the names differ. Luke has 42 names from David, Matthew only 27 names. The less number in Matthew is intelligible, if he be only tracing the heir’s to the throne; for “the heir of my heir is my heir.” So intermediate heirs are omitted without risk of misconception, for spiritual reasons; e.g., Simeon is omitted in Moses’ blessing (Deuteronomy 33) on account of his cruelty, Dan in Revelation for his idolatry. The full number is given in Luke, as naming the natural line.

Mary must have been of the same tribe and family as Joseph, according to the law ( Numbers 36:8). Isaiah 11:1 implies that Messiah was the seed of David by natural as well as legal descent. Probably Matthan of Matthew is the Matthat of Luke, and Jacob and Heli were brothers; and Heli’s son Joseph, and Jacob’s daughter Mary, first cousins. Joseph, as male heir of his uncle Jacob, who had only one child, Mary, would marry her according to the law ( Numbers 36:8). Thus the genealogy of the inheritance (Matthew’s) and that of natural descent (Luke’s) would be primarily Joseph’s, then Mary’s also.

The number 14 has some mystic signification (compare Numbers 29:13; 1 Kings 8:65). It is the double of seven the number for completeness; the periods of 14 in Matthew are the sacred three. The period from Abraham to David is that of patriarchs; from David to the Babylonian captivity that of kings; from the captivity to Christ private individuals. The first and second tessaradecade have an illustrious beginning; the third not so, that its ending in Messiah might stand forth pre-eminent above all that went before. The first is that of promise, beginning with. Abraham and ending with David, the receivers of the promise; the second adumbrates Christ’s eternal kingdom through the temporary kingdom of David’s line; the third period is that of expectation.

On Cainan in Luke’s Gospel, see CAINAN . The name Jehoiakim seemingly has dropped out, Josiah’s son and Jeconiah’s father; otherwise David would have to be counted twice to make up the second 14. Five females are in Matthew’s Gospel: incestuous Tamar, Rahab the Moabitess and a harlot, Ruth, Uriah’s wife Bathsheba the object of David’s adulterous love, and above all Mary; all extraordinary monuments of God’s grace, that chooses out of the vilest to make vessels unto honor, for the bringing forth of the promised Seed, who was to save sinners of every type and race.

GENERATION Hebrew dowr , “revolution,” period of time; 100 years in the patriarchal age ( Genesis 15:13,16; Exodus 12:40), afterward 30 or 40 years ( Job 42:16; Luke 1:50). On the pluralGENERATIONS, Hebrew toledowt , see GENEALOGY . Mankind is ethnologically ranged under three heads in Genesis 10:3,6,22, “the sons of Japhet, Ham, Shem.” Modern science by independent research arrives at a similar three fold division into Semitic, Aryan, and Turanian (Allophylian). Genesis, in accordance with modern ethnology, classifies together the Cymry or Celts (Gomer), the Medes (Madai), and the Ionians or Greeks (Javan); thus anticipating the Indo- European theory, which makes the European races (represented by the Celts and the Ionians) akin to the Aryans (represented by the Asiatic Madai or Medes). Also Scripture, in agreement with ethnology, groups together as “children of Shem” (i.e. Semitics) Asshur (Assyrians), Aram (Syrians), Eber (Hebrews), and Joktan (the Joktanian Arabs). Also it rightly classifies under the “sons of Ham” Cash (Ethiopians), Mizraim (Egyptians), Sheba and Dedan (certain southern Arabs), and Nimrod (i.e. the oldest Babylonians). [See BABEL ] Sir H. Rawlinson truly terms “the generations (genealogy) of the sons of Noah” “the most authentic record we possess for the affiliation of nations” (Journal of the Asiatic Society, 15:230).

Generation means also the men of an age: as Isaiah 53:8, “who shall declare His generation?” i.e. their wickedness, in parallelism to their oppressive “judgment.” In Jeremiah 7:29, “generation of His wrath,” i.e. with whom He is angry. Also generation is used with reference to the characteristic disposition of the age, “adulterous,” “unbelieving,” “untoward” ( Matthew 11:16; 12:39; 17:17; Acts 2:40). In Luke 16:8, “the children of this world are in respect to their own (so the Greek) generation (i.e. in relation to men of their own kind, men of this world) wiser than the children of light,” are in respect to their generation (men of their kind, godly, men of the world to come). In Matthew 3:7 generation means “brood of vipers.”

In Matthew 24:34 “this generation shall not pass (namely, the Jewish race, of which the generation in Christ’s days was a sample in character; compare Christ’s address to the generation, Matthew 23:35,36, in proof that generation means at times the whole Jewish race) until all these things be fulfilled,” a prophecy that the Jews shall be a distinct people still when He shall come again.

GENESIS The Hebrew name is Bereeshit , from its opening word “in the beginning.”

Septuagint Genesis means generation, i.e. creation and birth of the universe, man, and history. It is a religious history, therefore it omits accounts in detail of other nations, and concentrates attention on the origin of that one from whom the promised Redeemer of man from the deadly consequences of the fall (which is detailed at the beginning) sprang. While a bare catalogue is given of whole genealogies of nations, minute details are given of the godly patriarchs in the line of the promised Savior, for these details are of more everlasting moment to us than the rise and fall of the mightiest empires. Again, the details in the patriarchs’ history selected for narration are not the merely personal facts, but those illustrating religious principles and furthering God’s gracious purpose of redemption.

Thus Adam’s history before and in the fall is minutely given, as affecting the whole race whom he represented; but after the fall only a few brief notices, but these of important bearing on mankind’s spiritual prospects ( Genesis 3:20-24; 4:1; 5:1-5). So the early development of the enmity between the serpent’s seed and the seed of the woman, and the separation of the church from the world ( Genesis 4:1-16,25,26). The divine prophetic germs in Genesis are the foundation of all the subsequent prophecies throughout the Bible, and receive their consummation in the restored tree of life, waters of life, communion with God face to face in the world delivered from the curse, at the close of Revelation.

Astruc, a Belgian physician (A.D. 1753), inferred from the varying use of the names of God, Elohim (E) and Jehovah (J), the existence of documents or memoirs used by Moses in compiling Genesis. Probably Moses under inspiration used such ancient memoirs, e.g. genealogies; but he certainly has composed no loosely joined chronicle, but a history with unity of plan throughout, and using the names of God not arbitrarily but with the most accurate propriety.

The oldest part of the Hindu Vedas is hardly as old as the time of Moses, and his work embodies genealogical and other memoirs, probably handed down from the earliest period of man’s history. Genesis is the first of the five parts of the Pentateuch, the grand subject of which is the setting up of the theocratic kingdom, Israel, amidst the nations as the repository of the divine promise until its fulfillment in Messiah, who should be a “light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel.” Genesis begins with creation, then proceeds to show that the Elohim of creation is the Jehovah in covenant with His people in redemption. So in Colossians 1:16,17, Christ the Head of creation, BY whom and IN whom as the divine Word carrying in Himself the arche-type of all existence, and FOR whom the universe of things have their being, is also the Head and Originator of the new creation. Appropriately therefore Elohim (the name for Divine Might, from alah “mighty”) occurs throughout the first general account of creation ( Genesis 1:1—2:3); but Jehovah (Yahweh ), the faithful covenant keeping I AM, in the special account of creation affecting His covenant with man.

The organic unity of Genesis appears from its structure: (1) introduction ( Genesis 1:1—2:3), wherein the moral superiority of the Bible cosmogony stands preeminent. Pagan cosmogonies abound in crude poetical and philosophical speculations, either representing God and matter as co-eternal, or pantheistically confounding God and matter, making Him its pervading spirit. Genesis alone recognizes God’s personality and God’s unity.

Another marked distinction between the oldest pagan compositions and Genesis is they are palpably mythical in substance and poetical in form, history not arising until a later stage of national development. But Genesis is thoroughly historical in matter and prose in its form; Hebrew developed poetry not appearing until a later age, when the mythical element could have no place; a powerful confirmation of the historical trustworthiness of Scripture. Its sublime simplicity stamps Genesis as history, not poetical myth or subtle speculation.

Moreover, Genesis alone describes creation out of nothing, as distinguished from creation out of preexisting materials. Genesis alone recognizes the law of progress in creation: first light, then order, then life, vegetable, grass, herb, fruit tree; then animal life. Again (1) the waters, (2) the dry land, (3) the heavenly bodies.

Also progressive advance in life: (1) aquatic animals and fish; (2) fowl; (3) terrestrial animals; (4) man, the apex of creation.

The advance is orderly, from the lower to the higher organizations. Genesis is distinguished from the world’s cosmogonies in connecting the Creator with His work in a relation of love; God contemplating “everything that He had. made, and behold it was very good” ( Genesis 1:31).

Traditions of widely separated nations over the earth retain fragments of the account of the fall, the tree, the serpent, the first pair, the flood. The Bible version of the story is simplest, purest, and the one that presents the only common ground from which all the others are likely to have emanated; it represents the facts in a universal worldwide aspect, and the groans of suffering creation and the sighing of every heart confirm its literal truth. The universality of the deluge over the area, then occupied by man is attested by the traditions of widely scattered nations, preserved from the times when as yet the forefathers of mankind were undispersed. Philology and ethnology remarkably confirm the oldest extant genealogy of races in Genesis 10. Egyptology similarly confirms the abundant notices of Egypt in Genesis and Exodus.

After the introduction, Genesis consists of successive genealogical histories (toledot ) [see GENEALOGY ]. The larger sections have subdivisions carefully marked (the Jewish [perashiym] or sections of the Pentateuch, as our chapters, often obscure the true divisions). In each successive genealogical portion the history is carried down to the close of the period, and generally at the commencement of the succeeding one the previous account is, so far as necessary, summarily repeated with a note of time.

Thus Genesis 2:4 refers back summarily to the previous record of creation: so Genesis 5:1; 6:9; 11:10,27; 25:12,19; 36:1; 37:1,2,3, where Jacob’s position is stated and we are taken back to the time, 12 years before Isaac’s death previously recorded, when Joseph was 17 years old, that so a new starting point for the history might be presented.

The names of God occurring are: EL , the shortened form of ELOHIM ; ELION , “Most High” (only in Genesis 14:18 EL ELION , but in Psalms found alone, and with ELOHIM andJEHOVAH Yahweh ); and SHADDAI “Almighty,” in the Pentateuch generally with EL, The plural is that of excellence and majesty; Elohim combining in Himself the several attributes assigned to distinct gods by the pagan false gods as well as to the true God; and is the word used where pagan people, as the Egyptians, or foreigners, as Hagar, Eliezer of Damascus, the Egyptians, etc., are introduced. But Jehovah is a proper name restricted to the one God in covenant with His people, and therefore is the predominant name in those sections which concern them.

From Exodus 6:2,3, “I amJEHOVAH; I appeared unto Abraham, by the name of God Almighty (El Shaday ), but by My name Jehovah was I not known to them,” rationalists infer that the passages in Genesis (e.g.

Genesis 2) containing”JEHOVAH” were a later insertion. But the Jah Yah occurs in the composition of “Jochebed,” “Joshua,” “Moriah.” Moreover, JEHOVAH is from haawah , the form of “to be” existing only in the oldest Hebrew previous to its separation from Syriac and Chaldee; for after the separation these two dialects have it, but the Hebrew has haayah not haawah . The sense of Exodus 6:2,3 must be, “I was manifested to Abraham ... as the almighty One, able to do all I promised; but in My character of Jehovah, the unchanging I AM ( Exodus 3:14), the fulfiller of My covenanted promises, I was not in act made known, as I am now about to make Myself known to My people.” In Genesis 2:4 to the end of Genesis 3JEHOVAH ELOHIM are combined, marking that the mighty Creator is the sameJEHOVAH who revealed Himself to Adam as subsequently to Moses. The tone of deliberation, “Let us make man” ( Genesis 1:26, in the so-called Elohistic portion) accords with that of Genesis 3:22, “behold the man is become as one of us” (in the so-called Jehovistic portion); also Genesis 11:6. Eve’s exclamation ( Genesis 4:1), “I have gotten a man by the help of (Gesenius)JEHOVAH,” marks her hope of her firstborn proving one link toward the birth of the Messiah covenanted by God to His people. Again, in Genesis 5:29, a so-called Elohistic portion,JEHOVAH occurs in connection with Noah, marking him as a second depository of the covenanted promise. Again, in Genesis Melchizedek, the king-priest of the Canaanite Salem, worshipsEL ELION, “God must high,” and Abram identifies Him withJEHOVAH the Hebrews’ God of the covenant, “I have lift up my hand toJEHOVAH,EL ELION, possessor of heaven and earth.” H. Browne truly says, “it is doubtful whether an author in the time of Samuel could have written the history of the forefathers of his race with all the truthfulness, simplicity, and accuracy of detail to be found in the book called the first book of Moses.”

The objections drawn from man’s antiquity are met by the consideration that Genesis gives no sure data for fixing the time of his first appearance.

The genealogies probably present us only with the names of representative men; links probably have been omitted; and the text in respect to numbers and genealogies was open to transcribers’ errors in the transmission.

Moreover the conclusions of science are hardly yet fixed. We can afford to wait in faith; God in His own time will show the perfect harmony between true science and revelation.

GENNESARET, SEA OF [See CINNEROTH and see GALILEE, SEA OF ]. At the N.W. angle was the fertile plain “Gennesaret.” Crescent in shape, extending from Khan Minyeh on the N. to the steep hill behind Mejdel on the S., called el Ghuweir, “the little ghor,” watered by the spring Capharnaum (B. J., 3:10, sec. 8). It is also called “the Sea of Tiberias.” All its names are drawn from places on the W. side. “The land of Gennesaret” was close to see CAPERNAUM on the opposite side to the N.E. of the lake, where the feeding of the 5,000 took place ( John 6:1,17,24,25). In the land of Gennesaret was spoken the parable of the sower. There was the grainfield descending to the water’s edge, the trodden path through its midst, without fence to prevent the seed from falling on either side or on it, itself hardened with treading; there was the rich soil of the plain, the rocky hillside protruding here and there, the stony soil, and the thorn bushes springing up in the midst of the grain.

GENTILES Hebrew Gowy , “the nations” (or “pagan,” derived from the Greek [ethnee ), as opposed to Israel ( Nehemiah 5:8). In Genesis 10:5, “isles of the Gentiles,” the term is used geographically in no invidious sense. In Genesis 14:1, Tidal “king of nations” was probably chief of several nomadic wandering tribes of western Asia. In Joshua 12:23 we read, “the king of the nations (the gentile foreigners) of Gilgal,” the modern Moslem village Jiljule, six Roman miles N. of Antipatris. Goim is especially used of see GALILEE , bordering on and, even in Israelite times, much peopled with the Gilgal ( Judges 4:2; Isaiah 9:1.) ”Greeks” in New Testament is used for Gentiles ( Acts 14:1; 17:4; Romans 1:16; 10:12; 2:9,10; 1 Corinthians 10:32 margin). With all the superiority of the gentile great world kingdoms, in military prowess, commerce, luxury, and the fine arts, Israel stood on an immense moral elevation above them, in the one point, nearness to God, and possession of His revealed will and word ( Exodus 19:5,6; <19E719> Psalm 147:19,20; 148:14; Romans 3:1,2). But this superiority was in order that Israel, as priests unto God, might be mediator of blessings unto all nations ( Isaiah 61:6). The covenant from the first with Abraham contemplated that “in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed” ( Genesis 22:18). The Jews in national pride failed to see this, and despised the Gentiles Rejecting Messiah, they were “broken oft” from the olive, that the Gentiles might be” grafted in” ( Romans 11:11-35). “The times of the Gentiles” began with Judah’s depression and captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, to whom God delegated the world empire ( Jeremiah 27:6,7), from whence Jeremiah’s counsel to the Jews to submit to hint was true patriotism, not cowardice.

Jerusalem has more or less been ever since “trodden down of the Gentiles,” and shall be so “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” ( Luke 21:24). Then shall the times of Israel begin with a glory eclipsing her past glory. “All Israel shall be saved.” “The receiving of them shall be life from the dead” to the whole world ( Micah 5:7; Isaiah 2:2-4; Revelation 11:2-15). The theocracy shall be restored with unparalleled splendor at the coming of Him “whose right it is” ( Ezekiel 21:27). The times of the gentile monarchies answer to Israel’s seven times punishment ( Leviticus 26:18,21,24).

GENUBATH Son of Hadad, an Edomite of the king’s seed, by an Egyptian princess, sister of Tahpenes, queen of the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt in David’s reign ( 1 Kings 11:14-20). Born and weaned by the queen in the palace, and reckoned in the household among Pharaoh’s sons.

GERA Son, i.e. descendant, of Benjamin; enumerated in the list when Jacob went into Egypt ( Genesis 46:21); son of Bela ( 1 Chronicles 8:3, where probably but one Gera is genuine); in the loins of his grandfather Benjamin then, but not actually born until after the going to Egypt and before Jacob’s death. Numbers 26 omits Gera as not being head of a family hut being one of the Belaites; his mention in Genesis implies that ultimately he became head of a family. Gera, Ehud’s ancestor, and Gera, Shimei’s ancestor, is the same person ( Judges 3:15; 2 Samuel 16:5).

GERAR Chief city of the Philistines in Abraham’s and Isaac’s time; now Khirbet el Gerar. The fertile region between the two deserts of Kadesh and Shut; resorted to therefore by Abraham and Isaac in time of famine. On the southern border of Canaan, near Gaza and Beersheba ( Genesis 10:19; 20:1; 26:1,26). Near the deep wady Jurf el Gerar, “the rapid of Gerar” ( 2 Chronicles 14:13,14.) The people were pastoral in the times of Abraham, but warlike, with a regular “chief captain of the army,” Phichol (the “mouth of all,” implying a commanding voice as commander-in-chief.

Abimelech (“father of kings,” implying an hereditary not an elective monarchy) was the common royal title (Psalm 34 title, compare the margin). Condor (Palestine Exploration, August, 1875) identifies it rather with Tel-Jema, an enormous mound covered with broken pottery, immediately S. of Khirbet el Gerar. The name, lost to this the proper site, lingers in the neighboring Khirbet el Gerar.

GERASA ”Gerasenes” is read in Mark 5:1 by the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts; also in Luke 8:26 by the Vaticanus A city on the eastern border of Peraea amid the Gilead mountains,20 miles E. of Jordan,25 N. of Rubbath Ammon, now Philadelphia. If Gerasa be read for Gadara, “the region of Gerasa” must include Gadara and the coasts of the sea of Tiberius which lay far W. of Gerasa. The ruins are the finest on the E. of Jordan. However Dr. Thomson identifies Gerasa with the Arab Gersa, close to the shore, with a mountain rising at the back, down which the swine might rush and be unable to stop themselves from rushing into the water. In the mountain are ancient tombs which may have been the demoniac’s dwelling.

GERIZIM (See EBAL .) The mount of the Gerazim, i.e. the dwellers in a shorn (desert) land; subdued by David. 1 Samuel 27:8, “Gezrites” or “Gerzites.” Smith’s Bible Dictionary identifies Gerazim with the mount on which Abraham offered Isaac, see MORIAH ; it is objected to the temple mount being the site of Isaac’s offering that “Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off,” whereas the temple mount is not conspicuous from afar; also the Samaritans identify the site of the sacrifice with the natural altar on Gerazim. But Genesis 22:4 means simply that Abraham saw the spot at such a distance as the place admitted. Abraham had uttered an unconscious prophecy, Genesis 22:8, “God will provide (or ‘see’) a lamb.” Now in Genesis 22:14 he sees that “God” (the Elohim whose resources he knew to be infinite) proves Himself to beJEHOVAH the Provider for the people in covenant with Him, “Jehovah-jireh.” The meaning of “Moriah” = what Jehovah has made one see, alluding to “the mount of the vision of Jehovah” ( Genesis 22:14), favors the view that the name “Moriah” in Genesis 22:2 is used by anticipation, and originated in Abraham’s words, Genesis 22:14. The identity of name favors the temple mount being the site ( 2 Chronicles 3:1). The distance, two days journey from Beersheba, which would bring him in sight of the temple mount at Jerusalem on the third day whereas Gerazim could not be reached on the third day from Beersheba, favors the same view.

Gerazim commands one of the finest views in Palestine, being 2,500 ft. above the Mediterranean on the W. Hermon’s snow-clad heights lie on the N., and the trans-jordanic mountains, cleft by the Jabbok, on the E.

Manasseh, brother of Jaddua the high priest, married the daughter of Sanballat the Cuthaean ( 2 Kings 17:24), who in order to reconcile his son-in-law to this forbidden affinity obtained leave from Alexander the Great to build a temple on Gerazim (Josephus, Ant. 11:8, sections 2-4.)

Henceforward the Samaritans and Jews assumed mutual antagonism; but whereas the Jerusalem temple and worship were overthrown soon after our Lord’s crucifixion, the Samaritan on Gerazim have continued from age to age, and the paschal lamb has been yearly offered by this interesting community; they possess a copy of the law, attributed to Manasseh, and known to the Christian fathers of the second and third centuries. To Gerazim our Lord alludes: “Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem (exclusively) worship the Father” ( John 4:21). Lieut. Anderson within the ruin called “the castle” excavated the foundations and piers of an octagonal church, probably that built by Justinian. The church and castle were built on a rough platform of stones without mortar, including the so-called “twelve stones.” On this platform perhaps the Samaritan temple stood.

GERSHOM Gershon. 1 Chronicles 6:1,16. Firstborn of Moses and Zipporah = “a sojourner in a foreign land” (geer ),” sojourner,” is common to Hebrew and Egyptian; shom is not from Hebrew sham “there,” as margin, but shem, Coptic, “a strange land”); alluding to Moses’ sojourn in Midian “for, he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land” ( Exodus 2:22; 18:3). (See CIRCUMCISION and Exodus 4:25.) Gershom was founder of a family, of which was “Jonathan, son (descendant) of Gershom,” the “young man the Levite,” who became Micah’s priest to the image ( Judges 17:7; 18:18-30), and subsequently the Danites’ priest. His descendants held this priesthood until the taking of the ark by the Philistines, which is called “the day of the captivity of the land.” Gershom in the Hebrew text (kethib) is called “son of Moses.” The name is altered into Manasseh with a hanging n (raised above the line to show it might either be inserted or omitted) in the Masoretic keri, or margin Hebrew “He did the deeds of idolatrous Manasseh,” says the Talmud (Baba bathra, 109 b.), “therefore Scripture assigns him to the family of Manasseh.” Rabbabar bar Channa says “it would have been ignominious to Moses to have had an ungodly son; he was the son of Manasseh in impiety, of Moses in descent.” But other of Moses’ descendants through Gershom reflected the piety of “the man of God.” Shebuel Gershom’s descendant was “ruler of the treasures” dedicated in the sanctuary under David ( 1 Chronicles 23:15-17; 26:24- 28). One accompanied Ezra from Babylon ( Ezra 8:2).

GERSHON Oldest of Levi’s three sons, born apparently before Jacob’s going down to Egypt ( Genesis 46:11). Kohath and his descendants Moses and Aaron’s priestly line eclipsed Gershon’s line. Gershon’s sons were Libni and Shimei ( 1 Chronicles 6:17,20,21,39-43). Some of his descendants took part in the service of the sanctuary ( 1 Chronicles 23:7-11). Asaph, the famous sacred singer and seer, was one of them. Compare also under Hezekiah ( 2 Chronicles 29:12). At the Sinai census the males of the sons of Gershon were 7500 ( Numbers 3:21,22). The serving men were 2,630 ( Numbers 4:38-41). They had charge of the tabernacle, tent, covering, hangings, curtain of the door, and cords ( Numbers 3:25,26; 4:25,26).

They had two covered wagons and four oxen for the service ( Numbers 7:3,7,8). The Merarites had twice as many wagons and oxen. The reason for this unequal division is not expressed; but on turning to Numbers 2 the reason undesignedly appears (an unstudied propriety attesting the truth of the narrative); the Gershonites had the lighter parts to bear, the “curtains,” “tabernacle,” i.e. the mishkan or great woven cloth consisting of ten breadths, the “tent” of goats’ hair cloth, and the “covering” of rams’ skins, and see BADGERS (tachash ) skins, the hangings and their cords. But the Merarites had the heavier and more solid framework to bear, the boards, bars, pillars, sockets, pins, their cords and instruments. Their station was “behind the tabernacle westward” ( Numbers 3:23); on march they were in the rear of the first three tribes. Thirteen of the Levitical cities were allotted to them; all in the northern tribes, two of them cities of refuge ( Joshua 21:27-33; 1 Chronicles 6:62,71-76).

GERZITES Gizrites, or Gerizzites. A Bedouin tribe once dwelling in central Palestine, from whom mount Gerizim took its name, as another mount was named from the Amalekites when dwelling in ancient times in Ephraim ( Judges 12:15). Afterward driven to the southern border of Palestine, where with the Geshurites and Amalekites they were found by David in Saul’s days ( 1 Samuel 27:8), rich in “sheep, oxen, asses, camels, and apparel.” Read “Gerizzites.”

GESHAM 1 Chronicles 2:47.

GESHEM An Arab who, with Sanballat of Horonaim, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, opposed Nehemiah in repairing Jerusalem. ( Nehemiah 2:19; 6:1, etc.) Frustrated in this as well as in the plot against Nehemiah’s life. It was for the interest of the wandering marauders of the frontier of Palestine to prevent its restoration as a kingdom.

GESHUR (“bridge”). A region N.E. of Bashan, adjoining Argob and Aram, conquered by Jair of Manasseh, but left in the hands of the original inhabitants ( Joshua 13:13; Deuteronomy 3:14; 2 Samuel 15:8). “Geshur at Aram” (Hebrew), i.e. bordering on Syria of Damascus ( Chronicles 2:23). The Geshuri bordering on the Philistines ( Joshua 13:2), and invaded by David ( 1 Samuel 27:8), were distinct from those N.E. of Gilead. Yet there may have been some connection, a portion of the Geshurites possibly passing southwards. At least David in his wandering life formed an alliance with Talmai king of Geshur by marrying Maachah his daughter, by whom he had his handsome but worthless son Absalom and his daughter Tamar. David’s attack on the southern Geshurites, or else his stay near Moab (1 Samuel 22), may have first brought him into connection with Talmai king of the northeastern Geshur ( 2 Samuel 3:3; 13:37.) The wild nature of Absalom accords with the wild home and stock from whence he sprang; there he fled after murdering Amnon. Geshur was probably part of the rugged see ARGOB , now Lejah, where amidst those basaltic fastness the Geshurites would be secure from the Israelites in the plains.

GETHER Third of Aram’s sons ( Genesis 10:23).

GETHSEMANE (“oil-press”). Beyond the brook Kedron at the foot of the mount of Olives; where probably oil was made from the olives of the adjoining hill ( Luke 22:39; John 18:1). Called a “place” or farm (choorion ), Matthew 26:36, to which probably the “garden” was attached. E. of Jerusalem, from the walls of which it was half a mile distant. It was the favorite resort of our Lord with His disciples ( John 18:2), the shade of its trees affording shelter from the heat and the privacy so congenial to Him. Bethany lay on the E. of Jerusalem, and toward it our Lord led His disciples before the ascension. In Luke 24:50 the sense is, He led them to the side of the hill where the road strikes downward to Bethany; for Acts 1:12 shows He ascended from the mount of Olives. “Bethany probably includes not only the village but the district and side of the mount adjoining it; even still the adjoining mountain side is called by the same name as the village, el- Azariyeh. This reconciles Luke 24:50 with Acts 1:12. Gardens and pleasure grounds abounded then in the suburbs (Josephus, B.J., 6:1, section 1, 5:3, section 32), where now scarcely one is to be seen. In Gethsemane “without the city” Christ “trod the winepress alone” ( Isaiah 63:3; Revelation 14:20). In these passages, however, He is the inflicter, not the sufferer, of vengeance; but in righteous retribution the scene of blood shedding of Christ and His people shall be also the scene of God’s avenging His and their blood on the anti-Christian foe (19:14). The time of the agony was between 11 and 12 o’clock Thursday night (Friday morning in the Jews’ reckoning), two days before the full moon, about the Vernal equinox. The sites assigned by the Latins and Armenians and Greeks respectively are too near the thoroughfare to the city to be probable. Some hundreds of yards further up the vale and N.E. of Mary’s church may be the true site. The fact that Titus cut down all the trees round about Jerusalem (Josephus, B.J., 6:1, section 1) is against the contemporary ancientness of the eight venerable olive trees now pointed out. The tenth legion, moreover, was posted about the mount of Olives (5:2, section 3, 6:2, section 8); and in the siege a wall was carried along the valley of Kedron to the Siloam fountain (5:10, section 2). The olives of Christ’s time may have reproduced themselves.

GEUEL Numbers 13:15.

GEZER (“cut off,” i.e. isolated). An old Canaanite city, whose king, Horam or Elam, helping Lachish, was slain with his people by Joshua ( Joshua 10:33; 12:12). A landmark of Ephraim, between lower Beth-horon and the Mediterranean ( Joshua 16:3), on the S.W. border ( 1 Chronicles 7:28). Now Tell el Djezir near Abou Shusheh (Ganneau). Allotted to the Kohathite Levites ( Joshua 21:21; 1 Chronicles 6:67). At a short distance from Tel el Djezir, on the E. side, engraved on a horizontal rock, is a bilingual Greek and Hebrew inscription marking the limit of Gezer ( Numbers 35:5) as a Levitical city with its portion without the city. The inscription is at least as old as one century B.C.; also a second similar inscription exists on the N.W. Thus the sacred boundary was a square, having its four angles at the four cardinal points (Ganneau). The original inhabitants remained and paid tribute to Israel ( Judges 1:29; 1 Kings 9:16,17). It must have been independent when Pharaoh slew the Canaanite inhabitants, burnt the city, and gave it a present to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. Solomon rebuilt it. Gob is identified with it 1 Chronicles 20:4; compare 2 Samuel 21:18. It lay in the maritime plain, on the coast road to Egypt, an important post to fortify as it lay between Egypt and Jerusalem. It is the last point to which David pursued the Philistines ( Samuel 5:25; 1 Chronicles 14:16). Being 50 miles distant from “the S. of Judah ... and the Kenites,” it cannot be meant in 1 Samuel 27:8. (See GERZITES .) The inscription in the rock discovered by Ganneau, “the boundary of Gezer,” verifies the conjecture that Abou Shusheh on the plain between Jaffa and Jerusalem is the site of Gezer The discovery of the limit outside the city probably defines “a sabbath day’s journey.”

GIAH (“valley”). 2 Samuel 2:24. Facing Ammah, “by the way of the wilderness of Gibeon.”

GIANTS Two Hebrew terms.

I. Nephilim ; Hebrew “those who fall on” men; men of violence, robbers, tyrants; compare Genesis 6:13, “the earth is filled with violence through them.” Applied to antediluvians ( Genesis 6:4). Distinct from the gibbowrim , “mighty men of old, men of renown,” the offspring of the intermarriage of the “sons of God” (the Sethites, Genesis 4:26, margin” then men began to call themselves by the name of the Lord”; Deuteronomy 14:1,2; Psalm 73:15; Proverbs 14:26; Hosea 1:10; Romans 8:14) and the “daughters of men.” The Sethites, the church separated from the surrounding world lying in the wicked one, had been the salt of the earth; but when even they intermarried with the corrupted races around the salt lost its savor, there was no seasoning of the universal corruption; (compare Exodus 34:16; Ezra 10:3-19; Nehemiah 13:23-28; Deuteronomy 7:3; 1 Kings 11:1-4;) a flood alone could sweep away the festering mass, out of which one godly seed alone, Noah, was saved. Hence our Lord dwells on the “marrying” in the list of the things lawful, but then unlawfully absorbing men wholly, as characteristic of the age just before the flood, as it shall be of the age when the Son of man shall appear ( Luke 17:27). The Hindu tradition of two races, Suras and Asuras, and the Greek legend that the demi-gods were sons of the gods and that the Titan giants sprang from the union of heaven and earth, flow from the history of Genesis 6 corrupted. Moreover nephilim is applied to the giant see ANAKIM in the report of the spies ( Numbers 13:33); compare on the Anakim (= longnecked) about Hebron, Debir, Ahab, and the mountains of Judah and Israel, Deuteronomy 2:10,21; 9:2.

II. Rephaim : a people defeated by Chedorlaomer at Ashteroth Karnaim ( Genesis 14:5), occupying the N.E. of the Jordan valley (Peraea) before the Canaanites came. Og, the giant king of Bashan, was the last of them ( Deuteronomy 3:11). They once extended to the S.W., for the valley of “Rephaim” was near the valley of Hinnom and Bethlehem, S. of Jerusalem, “the valley of the giants” ( Joshua 15:8; 18:16; 2 Samuel 5:18,22; 23:13). Rephaim was used for “the dead,” or their “ghosts” ( Job 26:5, translated “the souls of the dead tremble; (the places) under the waters, and their inhabitants (tremble)”; Psalm 88:11; Proverbs 2:18; 21:16; Isaiah 14:9; 26:14,19) perhaps because scheol or hades was thought the abode of the buried giants. Raphah “the weak,” or “resolved into their first elements,” expresses the state of the deceased. Whether it has any connection with the tribe Rephaim is doubtful. Possibly “tall” was the primary sense (Gesenius); then the tall national Rephaim; then giants in guilt, as in might; these being doomed to gehenna , the term became the general one for “ghosts.” Or else from ghosts being magnified by fear to more than human size.EMIM = terrors; so-called from their terrible stature by the Moabites, who succeeded them in the region E. of Jordan ( Deuteronomy 2:10). Or rather the word = the Egyptian term Amu, i.e. nomadic Shemites. Smitten by Chedorlaomer at Shaver Kiriathaim ( Genesis 14:5). (See ANAKIM also.)

TheZUZIM of Ham were a northern tribe of Rephaim between the Arnon and Jabbok, smitten by Chedorlaomer. The Ammonites who supplanted them called them Zamzummim ( Deuteronomy 2:20; Gen 14:5).

Connected with the Horim. LeClerc explains the name “wanderers” from zuz “to wander.” Ham may be the original of Rabbath Ammon. The ruined cities of Bashan are thought by many to evidence their possession formerly by giant races. The success of David and his heroes against Goliath and the giants of Philistia (a remnant of the old giant races) illustrates the divine principle that physical might and size are nothing worth, nay are but beaststrength, when severed from God and arrayed against the people of God.

Samson was but of average height ( Judges 16:17), yet was irresistible by the Philistines so long as he was faithful to God. David was chosen above his brothers in spite of their “height of stature” ( 1 Samuel 16:7; 17:36,37,45-47; 2 Samuel 21:15-22).

GIBBAR, CHILDREN OF ”Gibeon” in Nehemiah 7:25.

GIBBETHON (“lofty place”). A town allotted to Dan ( Joshua 19:44), afterwards to the Kohathite Levites ( Joshua 21:23). As bordering on the Philistines, it was soon seized by them, probably when Jeroboam drove all the Levites from northern Israel to Judah. Nadab with all Israel, and afterward Omri, besieged it ( 1 Kings 15:27; 16:17). Baasha smote Nadab there.

GIBEA 1 Chronicles 2:49.

GIBEAH From a root gabah , round, gibbos ; a hill, less than a “mountain,” har .

Applied to the bore rounded hills of central Palestine. 1. A city in the mountain region of Judah, S.E. of Hebron, named with Maon and southern Carmel ( Joshua 15:55,57; 1 Chronicles 2:49). 2. GIBEATH, a town of Benjamin, among the last next Jerusalem ( Joshua 18:28), possibly the “Gibeah of Saul,” only that the latter was close to Gibeon and Ramah, five miles N. of Jerusalem, and if Saul’s Gibeah were meant we should expect it mentioned with those two towns in Joshua 18:25. “Gibeah of Saul” occurs 1 Samuel 10:26; 11:4; 15:34; Samuel 21:6; Isaiah 10:29. Now Tuleil el ful, “the hill of the beans” (a conical peak commanding an extensive view, about an hour from Jerusalem, on the road to Er-Ram, with a large heap of stones on the top, the ruins of a town built of unhewn stones), called by Josephus (B. J., 5:2, section 1) Gabath saoule, 30 stadia from Jerusalem, chosen retributively, as being Saul’s residence, for the hanging of his seven sons “before the Lord” (i.e. as in the presence of Him the righteous Judge who appointed the retributive justice, 2 Samuel 21:14 ff; 21:9), by the Gibeonites in revenge for his attempt to slay them in violation of the covenant. It is the Gibeah of Benjamin destroyed by the other tribes under the Judges (Judges 19; 20) for the flagrant abomination perpetrated there. It was then a “city” with the usual open “street” or square, having its “700 chosen men,” probably the same as the “left handed men who could sling stones at an hair breadth and not miss” ( Judges 20:15,16). The Levite left Bethlehem at “the tent pitching time of day” ( Judges 19:9, margin), about three in the afternoon. At five he would “come over against Jehus,” and at seven would be four miles N. of Jerusalem on the Shechem (Nablus) road toward mount Ephraim. Ramah and Gibeah were now near; Gibeah nearest. The suddenness of sunset in that region made him “turn aside” hither for the night, where the tragedy of the concubine ensued. The track N. of Gibeah branches into two, one leading to Bethel the “house of God,” the other to “Gibeah ( = Geba) in the field” sadeh , “cultivated ground”), now Jeba, below which at the base of the hill from whence Gibeah is named was the cave (Syriac, the Hebrew “treeless meadows” will mean not their place of ambush but the open ground across which they advanced to the town) of Gibeah “where the liers in wait hid” ( Judges 20:31-33, margin). ”Gibeah of Benjamin” was occupied by Jonathan with 1,000 chosen men, three miles in the S. rear of the Philistine camp at Geba on the S. side of the wady Suweinit ( 1 Samuel 13:2). Saul was in their front at Michmash, holding also mount Bethel on the N. side of the wady Suweinit.

Jonathan smote the garrison at Geba, and the Philistines in consequence gathering a vast host drove Saul’s little army before them out of Bethel and Michmash down the eastern passes to Gilgal near Jericho, in the Jordan valley; took Michmash, Saul’s former quarters, and sent out plunderers N.,W., and E. Jonathan however held a force in Gibeah ( 1 Samuel 14:2) where Saul, Samuel, and Ahiah the priest with the ephod joined him from Gilgal ( 1 Samuel 13:7). Then followed the gallant stealthy assault of the Philistine garrison by Jonathan and his armor-bearer, the first knowledge of which was conveyed to Saul by his watchmen in Gibeah, who at dawn saw “the multitude melting away and beating down one another.” Saul first called the muster roll to discover the absentees; next he consulted the oracle of God; but when the noise in the Philistine host increased, with irreverent impatience ( Isaiah 28:16) he desired the priest to stop the consultation, and put himself at the head of the people who, now that the Philistines fled, flocked to him from all their hiding places in Mount Ephraim.

GIBEON Chief of the four Hivite (in 2 Samuel 21 called by the general name “Amorite”) cities which obtained a league from Joshua by guile (Joshua 9). “A great city like one of the royal cities, greater than Ai” ( Joshua 10:2); “all its men were mighty.” Within Benjamin; by the main road. six and a half miles from Jerusalem; allotted to the priests ( Joshua 21:17).

Ninety-five men of Gibeon returned with Zerubbabel, and helped in repairing the wall of Jerusalem under Nehemiah ( Nehemiah 3:7; 7:25).

Here the Jews defeated Cestius Gallus and the Romans. Now el Jib, on a rounded chalk hill the limestone strata of which lie horizontally, forming terraces along which olives and vines abound, with a basin of broad valleys and plains below. E. of the hill is a spring and reservoir. The remains of a tank 120 ft. by 100 ft. are visible still amidst the trees lower down; this was “the pool of Gibeon” where Abner’s and Joab’s men had the encounter ending in Asahel’s death and issuing in Abner’s own murder.

At the “great waters of Gibeon” Johanan son of Kareah found the treacherous Ishmael ( Jeremiah 41:12). Here were encamped the five kings of the Amorites when Joshua came down on them from Gilgal (Josephus, Ant. 5:1, section 17). The “wilderness (midbar ), pasture ground) of Gibeon” lay to the E. ( 2 Samuel 2:24.) Here immediately at “the great stone in Gibeon,” some old landmark, Joab pursuing the Benjamite rebel Sheba among the towns of his tribe met and treacherously murdered Amasa ( 2 Samuel 20:5-10). Retributively it was here also that Joab met his doom from Benaiah while clinging to the brazen altar of the tabernacle at Gibeon ( 1 Kings 2:28-34; 1 Chronicles 16:39-41.) To “the great high place” (whether Neby Samwil, the highest eminence about, at a mile’s distance, or the twin mount on the S. and close to el Jib) the tabernacle was removed from Nob after Saul’s slaughter of the priests there. David put the brazen altar before the tabernacle ( 2 Chronicles 1:5) probably at the same time lie removed the ark to Zion and appointed the priests under Zadok to offer the daily sacrifices, and Heman and Jeduthun to direct the music ( 2 Chronicles 1:3). Here Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings, and God appeared in a dream by night and gave him all and more than he asked (1 Kings 3). Then in a few years the tabernacle was taken down and the holy vessels removed to the temple ( 1 Kings 8:3).

GIBEONITES Their safety was covenanted by Israel (Joshua 9), even though obtained by a deceit, their ambassadors having taken old sacks and mended wineskins (the tear being tied up like a bag) and old mended sandals (“clouted,” i.e. mended coarsely); but they were made “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” Israel’s error was in making the treaty without inquiring of the Lord; a warning to the church of all ages against the dissimulation of the world, which seeks admission and union with the kingdom of God without real conversion, faith, and sanctification, when it suits its own carnal advantage. Saul in his zeal for Israel where God sanctioned it not, though wanting in zeal against Israel’s foe Amalek ( 1 Samuel 15:18-20) where God commanded it, sought to slay them, probably (2 Samuel 21) in the dark closing period of his reign seeking to atone for his deficiency as to Amalek and to win the divine favor and popularity with his people by this mis-timed and misplaced zeal. God remembers the sins of the fathers upon the children, and vindicates His righteousness as Ruler of the nations by making an entail of curse go down from one generation to another for the unexpiated guilt of bloodshed and violation of covenants. The three years’ famine, the Lord’s answer when consulted as to the cause, that it was “for Saul and his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites,” and after the execution of Saul’s seven (seven, the sacred number, denotes the performance of a work of God) sons “the Lord being entreated for the hind,” prove that David did not contrive or eagerly fall in with this device for ridding himself of the remainder of Saul’s royal line. Nay, he showed by the honorable burial he gave their remains, and by sparing Mephibosheth, that he entertained no such feeling, nor had he by this time anything to fear from Saul’s family. The whole matter was divinely ordered to teach solemn moral lessons of God’s government to the king and the nation ( Exodus 20:5; 34:7; Leviticus 26:34-40; Numbers 14:18-34, especially Numbers 35:33, “blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it”; Isaiah 14:20,21; 65:6,7; Jeremiah 2:9; 32:18). The “water dropping upon them (the hanged or crucified seven) out of heaven” marked the cessation of the heaven sent drought and the point of time when the bodies might be taken down from the stakes and buried.

Ordinarily bodies were taken down for burial before night ( Deuteronomy 21:22,23); but in this case guilt rested on the whole land, and therefore the expiatory sacrifice was to remain exposed to birds of prey (the greatest ignominy, 1 Samuel 17:44) before Jehovah, until the cessation of the drought showed that His wrath was appeased.

GIBLITES Joshua 13:5, which shows how wide were the limits designed for Israel which as yet it has not inherited. Of Gebal on the sea coast, at the foot Of the northern slopes of Lebanon (margin 1 Kings 5:18; Psalm 83:7; Ezekiel 27:9). (But see GEBAL ). Biblus was the seat of worship of the Syrian Adonis, Tammuz, which the Jews were seduced to worship ( Ezekiel 8:14).

GIDDALTI 1 Chronicles 25:4; 6:33.

GIDDEL, CHILDREN OF 1. Ezra 2:47; Nehemiah 7:49. 2. Ezra 2:56; Nehemiah 7:58.

GIDEON (“a hewer”), i.e. warrior, or the hewer down of Baal ( Isaiah 10:33). Of Manasseh; youngest son of Joash, of the Abiezrite family at Ophrah ( Judges 6:11,15). Fifth of the judges of Israel, called by the angel of the Lord to deliver Israel from the seven years’ yoke of the Midianite hosts, which like swarming locusts consumed all their produce except what they could hide in caves and holes ( Judges 6:2,5,6,11). There they fled, and “made” artificial caves besides enlarging natural caves for their purpose, God permitting them to be brought so low that their extremity might be His opportunity. Midian had long before with Moab besought Balaam to curse Israel, and through his counsel, by tempting Israel to whoredom with their and the Moabite women, had brought a plague on Israel, and had then by God’s command been smitten sorely by Israel ( Numbers 25:17,18; 31:1-16, etc.). But now after 200 years, in renewed strength, with the Amalekite and other plundering children of the E. they were used as God’s instrument to chastise His apostate people. Crossing Jordan from the E. they spread themselves from the plain of Jezreel to the sea coast of Gaza.

Affliction led Israel to crying in prayer. Prayer brought first a prophet from Jehovah to awaken them to a sense of God’s grace in their former deliverances and of their own apostasy. Next the Angel of Jehovah came. i.e. Jehovah the Second Person Himself. Former judges, Othniel, Ehud, Barak, had been moved by the Spirit of God to their work; but to Gideon alone under a terebinth in Ophrah, a town belonging to Joash, Jehovah appeared in person to show that the God who had made theophanies to the patriarchs was the same Jehovah, ready to save their descendants if they would return to the covenants. His second revelation was in a dream, commanding him to overthrow his father’s altar to Baal and to erect an altar to Jehovah and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the Asherah (“grove”) or idol goddess of nature, probably a wooden pillar ( Deuteronomy 16:21). (See ASHTORETH ) In the first revelation Jehovah acknowledged Gideon, in the second He commanded Gideon to acknowledge Him. As God alone, Jehovah will not be worshipped along with Baal ( 1 Kings 18:21; Ezekiel 20:39). Gideon at the first revelation was knocking out (habat ) with a stick wheat in the winepress, sunk in the ground or hewn in the rock to make it safe from the Midianites; for he did not dare to thresh upon an open floor or hardened area in the open field, but like poor gleaners ( Ruth 2:17) knocked out the little grain with a stick. The address, “Jehovah is with thee thou mighty man,” seemed to Gideon, ruminating on the Midianite oppression which his occupation was a proof of, in ironical and sad contrast with facts. “If Jehovah be with us why is all this befallen us?” alluding to Deuteronomy 31:17. But God’s words guarantee their own accomplishment.JEHOVAH (no longer under His character. “Angel of Jehovah,” but manifested asJEHOVAH) replied, “Go in this thy might (the might now given thee byME, Isaiah 40:29), and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites; have not I sent thee?” Then followed the requested “sign,” the Angel of the Lord with the end of the staff in His hand consuming with fire Gideon’s “offering” (minchah ), not a strict sacrifice but a sacrificial gift), the kid and unleavened cakes (compare Genesis 18, the theophany to Abraham very similar). Compare and contrast the conduct of the angel and the acceptance of Manoah’s sacrifice in Judges 13:20. Gideon in gratitude built an altar and called it “Jehovah Shalom,” a pledge of “Jehovah” being now at “peace” with Israel again ( Jeremiah 29:11; 33:16). The “second” in age of Joash’s bullocks, “seven years old,” was appointed in the dream for an offering to Jehovah, to correspond to Midian’s seven years’ oppression because of Israel’s apostasy. Gideon with ten servants overthrew Baal’s altar and Asherah in the night, for he durst not do it in the day through fear of his family and townsmen. Joash, when required to bring out his son to die for the sacrilege, replied, “Will ye plead for Baal? .... he that will plead for him shall be put, to death himself, let us wait until the morning (not ‘shall be put to death while it is yet morning’) and see whether Baal, if he be a god, will plead for himself.” So Gideon got the surname “Jerubbaal,” “Let Baal fight,” i.e. vindicate his own cause on the destroyer of his altar; and as the Jews in contempt changed Baal in compounds to besheth, “Jerubbesheth,” “Let the shameful idol light.” Then the Spirit of God “clothed” Gideon as his coat of mail ( 1 Chronicles 12:18; 2 Chronicles 24:20; Luke 24:49; Isaiah 61:10). His own clan the Abiezrites, Manasseh W. of Jordan, Zebulun, and Naphtali followed him. At his prayer the sign followed, the woolen fleece becoming saturated with dew while the earth around was dry, then the ground around being wet while the fleece was dry. Dew symbolizes God’s reviving grace: Israel was heretofore the dry fleece, while the nations around were flourishing; now she is to become filled with the Lord’s vigor, while the nations around lose it. The fleece becoming afterward dry while the ground around was wet symbolizes Israel’s rejection of the gospel while the Gentile world is receiving the gracious dew. Afterward Israel in its turn shall be the dew to the Gentile world ( Micah 5:7). Gideon pitched on a height at the foot of which the fountain Harod (“the spring of trembling,” now perhaps Ain Jahlood) sprang ( 2 Samuel 23:25). Midian pitched in the valley of Jezreel ( Judges 6:33). The timid were first thinned out of Gideon’s army ( Deuteronomy 20:8). In Judges 7:3, “whosoever is fearful let him return from mount Gilead,” as they were then W. of Jordan, the mount in eastern Palestine cannot be meant; but the phrase was a familiar designation of the Manassites. To take away still further all attribution of the victory to man not God, the army was reduced to 300 by retaining those alone whose energy was shown by their drinking what water they lifted with their hands, not delaying to kneel and drink (compare as to Messiah <19B007> Psalm 110:7). Then followed Gideon’s going with Phurah his servant into the Midianite host, and hearing the Midianite’s dream of a barley cake overturning the tent, that being poor men’s food, so symbolizing despised Israel, the “tent” symbolizing Midian’s nomadic life of freedom and power. The Moabite stone shows how similar to Hebrew was the language of Moab, and the same similarity to the Midianite tongue appears from Gideon understanding them. Dividing his 300 into three attacking columns, Gideon desired them in the beginning of the middle watch, i.e. at midnight (this and the morning watch dividing the night into three watches in the Old Testament), after him to blow the trumpets, break the pitchers, and let the lamps in their left hand previously covered with. the pitchers (a type of the gospel light in earthen vessels, 2 Corinthians 4:6,7), suddenly flash on the foe, and to cry “the sword of Jehovah and of Gideon,” and to stand without moving round about the Midianite camp. A mutual slaughter arose from panic among the Midianites (a type of Christ’s final overthrow of antichrist, Isaiah 9:4-7), each trumpet holder seeming to have a company at his back. The remnant fled to the bank of the Jordan at see ABELMEHOLAH , etc. Then the men of Asher, Naphtali, and all Manasseh, who had been dismissed, returned to join in the pursuit. Gideon requested Ephraim to intercept the fleeing Midianites at the waters of Bethbarah and Jordan, namely, at the tributary streams which they would have to cross to reach the Jordan. A second fight ensued there, and they slew Oreb (the raven) and Zeeb (the wolf). Conder (Palestine Exploration, July, 1874, p. 182) observes that the nomadic hordes of Midian, like the modern Beni Suggar and Ghazawiyeh Arabs, come up the broad and fertile valley of Jezreel; their encampment lay, as the black Arab tents do now in spring, at the foot of the hill March (Nebi Dahy) opposite to the limestone knoll on which Jezreel (Zer’ain) stands. The well Harod, where occurred the trial which separated 300 men of endurance from the worthless rabble, was the Ain Jalud, a fine spring at the foot of mount Gilboa, issuing blue and clear from a cavern, and forming a pool with rushy banks and a pebbly bottom, 100 yards long. The water is sweet, though slightly tasting of sulphur, and there is ample space for gathering a great number of men.

Concealed by the folds of the rolling ground the 300 crept down to Midian’s camp in the valley. The Midianite host fled to Bethshittah (the modern village Shatta), in Zererath (a district connected with Zerthan or Zeretan, a name still appearing in Ain Zahrah, three miles W. of Beisan), and to the border of Beth Meholah (wady Maleh), a course directly down the main road to Jordan and Beisan. Thus, Midian fled ten or fifteen miles toward the Jordan. A systematic advance followed. Messengers went S. two days’ journey to Ephraim; the lower fords of Jordan at Bethbarah were taken (Bethabara of the New Testament). Meantime Gideon, having cleared the Bethshan valley of Midianites, crossed at the southern end of Succoth (now Makhathet Abu Sus), and continued the pursuit along the eastern bank. The Midianites followed the right bank S. toward Midian, intending to cross near Jericho. Here the men of Ephraim met them and executed Oreb and Zeeb, and sent their heads to Gideon “on the other side.” Thus, “the Raven’s Peak” and “the Wolf’s Den” seem identical with Ash el Ghorab and Tuweil el Dhiab.

Gideon’s victory over self was still greater than that over Midian; by a soft answer he turned aside Ephraim’s proud and unreasonable wrath at his not summoning them at the first: “is not the gleaning of grapes of Ephraim (their subsequent victory over the fleeing Midianites) better than the vintage of Abiezer?” than my first victory over them ( Isaiah 10:26; Proverbs 15:1; 16:32). Contrast the unyielding temper of Jephthah ( Judges 12:1, etc.). Then followed the churlish unpatriotic cowardice of Succoth and Penuel, in answer to his request for provisions, through fear of Midian and disbelief of God’s power to make victorious so small and so “faint” a force as Gideon’s 300. Coming unexpectedly on the host which thought itself “secure” amidst their Bedouin countrymen at Karkor, in a third battle he defeated them and slew Zebah and Zalmunnah the two kings (emirs) after battle, in just retribution for their having slain his kingly brothers in cold blood at Tabor; then he taught by corporal punishment with thorns the elders of Succoth to know their error, and beat down the tower of Penuel. Of 120,000 Midianites only 15,000 survived.

Declining the proffered kingdom because Jehovah was their king, Gideon yet made a gorgeous jeweled ephod with the golden rings the Israelites had got as booty, besides the ornaments (verse 21, golden crescents or little moons), and collars (ear pendants), and purple raiment, and collars about their camels’ necks. The ephod had the breastplate (choshen ) and Urim and Thummim. Gideon “kept” it in his city Ophrah; wearing the breastplate, he made it and the holy ‘lot his means of obtaining revelations from Jehovah whom he worshipped at the altar. His sin which became a “snare” (means of ruin) to him and his house was his usurping the Aaronic priesthood, and drawing off the people from the one lawful sanctuary, the center of theocratic unity, and so preparing the way for the relapse to Baal warship at his death. But his unambitious spirit is praiseworthy; he, the great Baal fighter, “Jerubbaal,” instead of ambitiously accepting the crown, “went and dwelt in his own house” quietly, and died “in a good old age,” having secured for his country “quietness” for 40 years, leaving, besides 70 sons by wives, a son by a concubine, Abimelech, doomed to be by ambition as great a curse to his country as his father was in the main a blessing.

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

GIDOM Judges 20:45; between Gibeah and the cliff Rimmon (Rimmon, three miles E. of Bethel).

GIER EAGLE racham = unclean ( Leviticus 11:18; Deuteronomy 14:17). The Egyptian vulture (Bruce), Neophron perenopterus; “Pharaoh’s chicken,” sacred to Isis, and noted for parental affection, which the Hebrew name, still applied commonly, ra chamah , means. Its usefulness as the scavenger of cities has secured for it legal protection, so that it is penal to kill it. It feeds on carrion, lizards, etc. Unprepossessing in look; disgusting in habits.

GIFTS So common in the East that there are 15 distinct Hebrew words for them. Minchah , from an inferior to a superior ( Judges 3:15). Maseeth , vice versa ( Esther 2:18). Berakah , “a blessing,” i.e. complimentary ( Kings 5:15). Shochad , a bribe ( Exodus 23:8; 2 Kings 16:8). Many were not voluntary, but a compulsory exaction: tribute ( 2 Kings 17:3). “To bring presents” is to own submission ( Psalm 68:29). That to a prophet was his consulting fee ( 1 Samuel 9:7), not a bribe ( 1 Samuel 12:3). To refuse a present was an insult; the wedding robe offered and slighted was the condemnation of the disrobed guest ( Matthew 22:11).

GIHON 1. Genesis 2:13. (See EDEN .) The Septuagint, Jeremiah 2:18, identify it with the Nile; but the writer of Genesis, so well acquainted with Egypt, would never have connected the Nile with the Euphrates. The Cush which the Gihon “compassed” was the Asiatic not the African Cush ( Genesis 10:7-10); The Septuagint being Alexandrian Jews, to glorify their adopted country, made the Nile one of the rivers of paradise. 2. A fountain near Jerusalem, where Solomon was anointed king ( 1 Kings 1:33,38,45). The “down” in going and “up” in returning show it was below the city. Manasseh built a wall outside the city of David from the W. of Gihon in the valley (nachal ), wady, or torrent, the word employed for the valley of Kedron or Jehoshaphat E. of Jerusalem; ge being employed for the valley of Hinnom S.W. of Jerusalem) to the entrance of the fish gate.”

Hezekiah stopped its upper source, at some distance off, at a higher level ( 2 Chronicles 32:30), and “brought it straight down to the W. side of the city of David” ( 2 Chronicles 33:14). The Targum of Jonathan, Arable and Syriac, has Siloam for Gihon in 1 Kings 1. A wall from W. of Gihon to the fish gate (near the Jaffa gate, Jerome) would be the course of a wall enclosing the city of David ( 2 Chronicles 33:14). An aqueduct discovered lately (1872) runs from near the Damascus gate, on the Bezetha hill, to the souterrain at the convent of the Sisters of Zion. It probably brought the water from the pool N. of the tombs of the kings (probably the “upper pool,” 2 Kings 18:17; Isaiah 7:3; 36:2, and “upper watercourse of Gihon” stopped by Hezekiah) to the pool of Bethesda.

Siloam was the lower Gihon. It is suggested that the city of David was on the eastern hill, so Hezekiah by bringing it W. of the city of David brought it within the city, and so out of the enemy’s reach. Psalm 48:2 confirms the view that mount Zion was to the N. of Moriah, the temple hill: “the joy of the whole earth is mount Zion, on the sides of the N. the city of the great Kine.”

GILALAI Nehemiah 12:36.

GILBOA (“bubbling fountain”), namely, of Jezreel; see below. The mountain range N.E. of the plain, and over the city, of Jezreel, extending ten miles from W. to E. ( 1 Samuel 28:4; 29:1.) The scene of the death of Saul and Jonathan ( 1 Samuel 31:1; 2 Samuel 1:6,21: “ye mountains (for there is not merely one mountain) of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you, nor fields of firstfruit offerings,” i.e. producing fruit from which firstfruits are offered; 1 Samuel 21:12; 1 Chronicles 10:1,8). The Philistines encamped on the N. side of the plain at Shunem; Saul on the S. side, round the fount of Jezreel (Harod, Judges 7:1) at the foot of Gilboa. The fountain is still to be seen half a mile from Jezreel’s ruins. The village Jelbou is on the mountain top. The height of the hill is about 500 ft. above the plain; the sides are as bore and barren as David’s poetical elegy desired them to be (excepting one green table land where perhaps the last struggle took place), and contrast strongly with the fertile plain beneath.

GILEAD (“a hard rocky region”). The mountainous range and the region E. of Jordan are meant by “mount Gilead,” not some one mountain. Bashan (“soft level soil”), a fertile plateau, bounds it on the N.; the Arabian table land on the E.; Moab and Ammon on the S. ( Deuteronomy 3:12-17); Jordan on the W.; Hieromax river (now Sheriat’el Mandhur) divides it from Bashan. The Jabbok divided Og’s northern half of Gilead (now Jebel Ajlun) from Sihon’s southern half (now Belka.). The valley of Heshbon was probably Gilead’s southern bound. Mishor, “a table land,” is used to denote the plateau S. and E. of Gilead. Thus Bezer was in the country of the Mishor (“plain country,” KJV Deuteronomy 4:43), the smooth downs of Moab contrasting with the higher districts of Bashan northwards and the rugged country W. of the Jordan. One prominent peak is still called Jebel Jil’ad, “mount Gilead,” the probable site of Ramath Mizpeh ( Joshua 13:26), and the “Mizpeh of Gilead” from whence Jephthah passed over to Ammon ( Judges 11:29), an admirable place for assembling forces for war. Es-Salt, a town close by, is on the site of “Ramoth Gilead,” the city of refuge in Gad. The mountains of Gilead, 2,000 or 3,000 ft. high, appear still more elevated from the W. owing to the depression of the Jordan valley 1,000 ft., and resemble a massive wall along the horizon; but when ascended they present a” wide table land tossed about in wild confusion of undulating downs, clothed with rich grass and magnificent forests, and broken by three deep defiles, those of the Jarmuk, Jabbok, and Arnon” (Stanley, Sinai and Palestine) The high Arabian plateau makes them look low from the E. Pasturage abounds in Gilead more than in western Palestine, from whence Reuben and Gad chose it for their numerous flocks and herds (Numbers 32). The physical nature of the country affected the character of its people, who ever retained nomadic pastoral habits. (See GAD , which lay S. and W. by Jordan, stretching N. as far as the sea of Galilee.) Manasseh lay N. and E., and stretched S. to Mahanaim. Gilead’s isolation kept its people in the background in Israel’s history. Its aromatic spices and balm were exported to Egypt ( Genesis 37:25; Jeremiah 8:22).

Chedorlaomer attacked the giant Zuzim in Ham, i.e. probably Gilead; having first attacked the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, now the Hauran, afterward the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, the country subsequently of Moab. In Gilead Saul’s son at Mahanaim tried to gain his father’s throne ( 2 Samuel 2:8,9). Here David found shelter and hospitality while fleeing from Absalom ( 2 Samuel 17:22,27-29). Elijah the Tishbite was of Gilead, and in garb, abruptness, and active energy reflected his country’s characteristics. Being a border land, it was exposed to the marauding tribes of the desert ( Joshua 17:1), and see RAMOTH GILEAD was thought the eastern key of Palestine ( 1 Kings 22:3-6). Twice our Lord withdrew to the trans-jordanic hills: after His baptism; again just before His last stay at Jerusalem ( John 10:39,40). At Pella in the same region the disciples found the refuge from the siege of Jerusalem which their Lord had told them of beforehand; Cestius Gallus having providentially retired, and so given them the opportunity of fleeing ( Matthew 24:15,16).

GILGAL 1. Hebrew: “the Gilgal,” i.e. rolling. Israel’s first encampment W. of Jordan (five miles) where they passed their first night after crossing, and set up the twelve stones taken from the river bed ( Joshua 4:3,19,20). Here they kept the first Passoverin Canaan ( Joshua 5:10). On arising ground (“hill,” Joshua 5:3,9) in the hot sunken Ghor between Jericho and the Jordan, one mile and a half E. of Jericho; five miles and a half W. of Jordan (Josephus, Ant. 5:1, 4, 11). On the N. side of wady Kelt, one mile and a third from the tower of modern Jericho (Eriha); toward the E. is a tamarisk, “Shejaret el Ithleh,” which tradition makes the site of “the city of brass,” whose walls fell on their besiegers marching round them. A pool is 150 yards S.E. of the tree, such as Israel would need in their long encampment at Gilgal; it is built with well packed pebbles without cement.

S.E. of this are twelve or more small mounds, Tell ayla’t Jiljulieh, eight or ten ft. diameter, and three or four high, possibly remains of Israel’s camp (Conder, Palestine Exploration). The distances stated by Josephus accord with this site.

The Israelites born in the wilderness were here circumcised with stone knives ( Joshua 5:2 margin; Exodus 4:25), which “rolling” away of the reproach of uncircumcision gave the name. The sons under 20 years, when at Kadesh in the second year of the wilderness journey the murmuring nation was rejected (Numbers 14), had been already circumcised; those born subsequently needed circumcision. As God abrogated at Kadesh the covenant, the sons of the rejected generation were not to receive the covenant rite. The manna and pillar of cloud were not withdrawn, because God would sustain the rising generation with the prospect of the ban being removed, and of the covenant temporarily suspended being renewed. The sentence was exhausted when they crossed the Zered and entered the Amorites’ land ( Deuteronomy 2:14; Numbers 21:12,13), when all the sentenced generation was dead ( Numbers 26:63-65). Moses, himself under sentence to die, did not venture on the steppes of Moab to direct the circumcision of the younger generation without Jehovah’s command. And the rule of divine grace is first to give, then to require; so first He showed His grace to Abraham by leading him to Canaan and giving the promises, then enjoined circumcision; also He did not give the law to Israel at Sinai until first He had redeemed them from Egypt, and thereby made them willing to promise obedience. So now He did not require the renewal of circumcision, the covenant sign of subjection to the law ( Galatians 5:3), until He had first showed His grace in giving them victory over Og and Sihon, and in making a way through Jordan, a pledge that He would fulfill all His promises and finally give them the whole land. The circumcision was performed the day after crossing Jordan, i.e. the 11th day of the first month (4:19). The Passover was kept on the 14th (verse 10). The objection that all could not have been circumcised in one day is futile. For the males in Israel at the census in Moab shortly before were 601,730 upward of 20 years old, besides 23,000 Levites of a month old and upward; at the outside all the males would be less than one million. Of these about 300,000 were 38 years old, therefore born before the census at Kadesh and circumcised already; so that only 600,000 would remain to be circumcised. The uncircumcised could easily be circumcised in one day with the help of the circumcised; the latter would prepare and kill the Passover lamb for their brethren whose soreness ( Genesis 34:25) would be no bar to their joining in the feast. The “reproach of Egypt rolled off” is (like “the reproach of Moab” Zephaniah 2:8, and “Syria” Ezekiel 16:57) that heaped on Israel by Egypt, namely, that Jehovah had brought them into the wilderness to slay them ( Exodus 32:12; Numbers 14:13-16; Deuteronomy 9:28).

This “reproach of Egypt” rested on them so long as they were under the sentence of wandering and dying in the desert. The circumcision at Gilgal was a practical restoration of the covenant, and a pledge of their now receiving Canaan. No village was, or is, at Gilgal.

In Micah 6:5, “O My people, remember ... what Balak ... consulted, and what Balaam ... answered ... from Shittim unto Gilgal,” the sense is, Remember My kindness from Shittim. the scene of Balaam’s wicked counsel taking effect in Israel’s sin, from the fatal effects of which I saved thee, all along to Gilgal where I renewed the covenant with Israel by circumcision ( 2 Samuel 19:15). 2. Gilgal from which Elijah and Elisha went down to Bethel ( 2 Kings 2:1,2). Clearly distinct from: 1. Gilgal, which is below in the Ghor along Jordan, not above Bethel, which is 1,000 ft. above Jordan. Now perhaps the ruins Jiljilieh, a few miles N. of Bethel. Another Gilgal has been found four miles from Shiloh, and five from Bethel, which is 500 ft. lower; this may be the Gilgal of 2 Kings 2:3. Gilgal not far from Shechem, beside the plains of Moreh ( Deuteronomy 11:30). Joshua 12:23, “king of the nations (goim ) of Gilgal,” i.e. of the nomadic tribes, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country whose center was Gilgal. 4. To the N. of Judah ( Joshua 15:7). (See GELILOTH ).

GILOH A town in the hills of Judah ( Joshua 15:51); the native place of Ahithophel ( 2 Samuel 15:12; 17:23).

GIMZO Taken with its dependent villages by the Philistines under Ahaz ( Chronicles 28:18). N.W. of Judah, or in Dan; now Jimzu, a large village on a height surrounded by trees, S. of the road between Jerusalem and Jaffa, where the highlands sink down into the maritime plain.

GIN A trap for birds or beasts, consisting of a net and a stick acting as a spring ( Isaiah 8:14).

GINATH 1 Kings 16:21,22.

GINNETHON Nehemiah 10:6; 12:16. The same asGINNETHO ( Nehemiah 12:4).

GIRDLE Worn by men and women. The meezach was worn by men alone ( Job 12:21, margin). The common girdle was of leather, as the Bedouins now wear a red leather girdle with a long crooked knife and a pistol stuck in.

The finer girdle was of linen ( Jeremiah 13:1), often embroidered with gold ( Daniel 10:5; Revelation 1:13). Girded up, so as to confine the otherwise flowing robes, when active exertion was needed; from whence “gird up the hands” means “be in readiness for action” ( Luke 12:35; 1 Peter 1:13; Ephesians 6:14). Fastened by a clasp, or tied in a knot, so that the ends hung in front. A costly present ( 1 Samuel 18:4). One end being folded back made a purse ( Matthew 10:9). The abneeyt was the priest’s girdle of linen embroidered with wool; the high priest’s girdle on the day of atonement was of white linen only. The “needlework” on it was figuring on one side only, “cunning work” on two sides ( Exodus 28:39; the Mishna); or the “needlework” had the figures on both sides the same girdle, the “cunning work” different (Jarchi). Exodus 26:31, “needlework” was of the embroiderer, “cunning work” of the skilled weaver. The “curious girdle” was made, as the ephod, of “gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen” ( Exodus 28:8), it was the band for fastening the ephod, which is upon it, and of the same work, of one piece with it.

GIRGASHITES (See CANAAN ) Joshua 24:11. W. of Jordan. Sprung from the fifth sea of Canaan ( Genesis 10:16).

GISPA Nehemiah 11:21.

GITTAIM (“two winepresses”). The dual of Gath ( 2 Samuel 4:3). The men of Beeroth, one of the Gibeonite towns ( Joshua 9:17), took refuge, probably when persecuted by Saul ( 2 Samuel 21:2), in Gittaim.

Benjamites occupied Gittaim with other towns N.W. of Jerusalem, on the return from Babylon ( Nehemiah 11:33).

GITTITES (See GATH ) The 600 who followed David from Gath under “Ittai the Gittites,” “a stranger and an exile” ( 2 Samuel 15:18-20). Obed Edom, being a Levite, must have derived his title “the Gittite” from some incidental connection with Gath; others derive his name from the Levitical city of Gath-rimmon ( 2 Samuel 6:10); but it seems strange if “Gittite” be used in one sense of Ittai of Gath, and in a different sense of Obed Edom ( 1 Chronicles 26:4).

GITTITH Title Psalm 8; Psalm 81; Psalm 84: An instrument, or else tune, invented in Gath, from whence David brought it after his sojourn there with Achish ( 1 Samuel 27:2). Others take it from garb, “a winepress,” being used on occasions of joy like the vintage; all three psalms having a joyous character. There may be an enigmatical reference to Messiah treading the winepress ( Isaiah 63:3; Revelation 19:15):

GIZONITE, HASHEM THE 1 Chronicles 11:34. Omitted in the parallel 2 Samuel 23:32,33.

Kennicott would read the proper name Gouni.

GLASS Job 28:17, “crystal” or glass, the only allusion to glass in Old Testament The paintings at Benihassan and in tombs show that it was known in the reign of Osirtasin I, 1600 B.C. Egypt was probably the land of its discovery. A bead of 1500 B.C. was found at Thebes, of the same specific gravity as crown glass in England. Relics of the Phoenician trade in the shape of glass beads have been found in Cornwall and Ireland. A glass bottle with Sargon’s name was found in the N.W. Nimrud palace, the oldest specimen of transparent glass, older than 700 B.C. Pliny attributes the discovery to Phoenician sailors using natron to support saucepans (H.

N., 36:65). Probably vitreous matter was formed in lighting fires on the sand in a country producing natron or subcarbonate of soda. Pliny’s story may have originated in the suitability of the sand at the mouth of the Syrian river Belus for making glass, for which accordingly it was exported to Sidon and Alexandria, the centers of that manufacture. In Deuteronomy 33:19 there seems allusion to the same: “they (of Zebulun on the N.W. seacoast) shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand”; glass being a precious “treasure” in ancient times, and the sand of that coast being especially prized for its manufacture. The Egyptians could inlay it with gold and enamel, and permeate opaque glass with variously colored designs, and make the same hue and devices pass in right lines directly through the substance; and imitate precious stones. Glass is an emblem of brightness and colored glitter, rather than transparency, which “crystal” represents ( Revelation 4:6). Hence it was not used for windows, which were simply openings furnished with shutters. LOOKING GLASSES were made of polished metal, generally tin and copper mixed, not glass ( Exodus 38:8 margin). Job 37:18, “the sky ... as a molten looking glass”; the polish of the metal representing the bright sky.

In 1 Corinthians 13:12 the sense is: “now (in our present state) we see in a mirror (the reflection seeming behind, so that we see it through the mirror) darkly (in enigma)”; the ancient mirrors being at best unequal to ours, and often being tarnished and dim. The inadequate knowledge of an object gained by seeing it reflected in the ancient mirror, compared with the perfect idea formed by seeing itself directly, happily represents the contrast between the saint’s present reflected and his future direct, immediate, and intuitive knowledge. Compare 2 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:23. The word of God is a perfect mirror; but our minds imperfectly apprehend it, and at best see but the image indirectly, not the reality face to face. The luster of some mirrors found at Thebes, though buried for centuries, has been partially restored.

GLEANING The right was secured to the poor in harvest and vintage ( Leviticus 19:9,10; Ruth 2:6,8,9).

GLEDE The kite ( Deuteronomy 14:13). Raah, so-called from its acute vision.

GLORY Hebrew kabod , “weight,” alluded to 2 Corinthians 4:17; “our lightness of affliction worketh out for us a weight of glory,” exceeding beyond all measure the affliction. “My glory” is my soul, man’s noblest part; rather my tongue, as explained in Acts 2:26. So Psalm 30:12 margin; 57:8; 108:1. The tongue, as the soul’s interpreter, is the glory of man above the brute, and the instrument of glorifying God, man’s highest glory. David not only exults inwardly, but makes his “tongue” and “flesh” sharers of his joy.

As God is the saints’ glory ( Jeremiah 2:11), so they are His glory ( Jeremiah 13:11; Isaiah 62:3).

GNAT Matthew 23:24 translated, “ye strain out a gnat,” namely, in filtering liquors. Figuratively for “ye are punctilious about trifles” while reckless of enormities.

GOAD A pointed instrument, eight feet long, often headed with iron ( 1 Samuel 13:21; Ecclesiastes 12:11). To “kick against the pricks” expresses unavailing resistance, as if cattle were to kick against the goads of their driver Who has them wholly in his power, as God has the recalcitrant sinner ( Acts 9:5).

GOAT 1. Wild goat, yeliym , the ibex of ancient Moab. 2. The goat deer, or else gazelle, aqow . 3. The atuwd , he goat, the leader of the flock; hence the chief ones of the earth, leaders in mighty wickedness; the ram represents headstrong wantonness and offensive lust ( Isaiah 14:9; Zechariah 10:3; compare Matthew 25:32,33; Ezekiel 34:17). As the word “shepherds” describes what they ought to have been, so “he goats” what they were; heading the flock, they were foremost in sin, so they shall be foremost in punishment. In Song 4:1 the hair of the bride is said to be “as a flock of goats that appear from mount Gilead,” alluding to the fine silky hair of some breeds of goat, the angora and others. Amos ( Amos 3:12) speaks of a shepherd “taking out of the mouth of the lion a piece of an ear,” alluding to the long pendulous ears of the Syrian breed. In Proverbs 30:31 a he goat is mentioned as one of the “four things comely in going,” in allusion to the stately march of the leader of the flock. 4. Sair , the goat of the sin-offering ( Leviticus 9:3), “the rough hairy goat” ( Daniel 8:21). Sa’ir is used of devils ( Leviticus 17:7), “the evil spirits of the desert” ( Isaiah 13:21; 34:14). 5. Azazeel , “the scapegoat” ( Leviticus 16:8,10,26 margin) (see ATONEMENT, DAY OF ). The “he goat” represented Graeco-Macedonia; Caranus, the first king of Macedon, was in legend led by goats to Edessa, his capital, which he named “the goat city.” The one-horned goat is on coins of Archclaus king of Macedon, and a pilaster of Persepolis. So Daniel 8:5.

GOATH Jeremiah 31:39. Named with the hill Garth. From gaah , “to low” as a cow, “the heifer’s pool” (Targum). But Syriac version, “to the eminence,” from gawah “to lose one’s breath,” namely, with ascending. S.W. outside the city of David, as Gareb was N.W. (Junius, in Poli Synopsis). Rather N.W. (Fergusson) [see JERUSALEM .] GOB (“a pit”). The scene of encounter between David’s heroes and the Philistines ( 2 Samuel 21:18,19). “Gezer” in 1 Chronicles 20:4. In Septuagint and Syriac “Gath”; compare 2 Samuel 21:20; Chronicles 20:6.

GOD (See GENESIS , on Elohim and Yahweh ) ELOHIM expresses the might of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. ELYON , His sublimity, ( Genesis 14:22), “the Most High.” SHADDAI , the “Almighty,” His all sufficiency ( Genesis 17:1; Philippians 4:19; 2 Corinthians 3:5; 12:9). JEHOVAH , His unchangeable faithfulness to His covenanted promises to His people. ADONAI , His lordship, which being delegated to others as also is His might asELOHIM,ADONAI andELOHIM are used occasionally of His creatures, angels and men in authority, judges, etc. ( Psalm 8:5; 97:7 (Hebrew); 82:1,6,7.) “Lord” in small letters stands for HebrewADONAI in KJV, but in capitals (“LORD”) forJEHOVAH.ELYON, SHADDAI, andJEHOVAH are never used but ofGOD; Jehovah the personal God of the Jews, and of the church in particular. ELOAH , the singular, is used only in poetry. The derivation is ‘aalah “to fear,” as Genesis 31:42,53, “the fear of Isaac,” or ‘aalah “to be mighty.” The plural\parELOHIM: is the common form in prose and poetry, expressing that He combines in Himself all the fullness of divine perfections in their manifold powers and operations; these the heathen divided among a variety of gods. ELOHIM concentrates all the divine attributes assigned to the idols severally, and, besides those, others which corrupt man never of himself imagined, infinite love, goodness, justice, wisdom, creative power, inexhaustible riches of excellence; unity, self existence, grace, and providence are especially dwelt on, Exodus 3:13-15; 15:11; 34:6,7. The plural form hints at the plurality of Persons, the singular verb implies the unity of Godhead. The personal acts attributed to the Son ( John 1:3; Psalm 33:6; Proverbs 8:22-32; 30:4; Malachi 3:1, the Lord the Sender being distinct from the Lord the Sent who “suddenly comes”) and to the Holy Spirit respectively ( Genesis 1:2; <19A430> Psalm 104:30) prove the distinctness of the Persons. The thrice repeated “LORD” ( Numbers 6:25-27) and “Holy” ( Isaiah 6:3) imply the same. But reserve was maintained while the tendency to polytheism prevailed, and as yet the redeeming and sanctifying work of the Son and the blessed Spirit was unaccomplished; when once these had been manifested the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity was fully revealed in New Testament.

The sanctions of the law are temporal rather than spiritual, because a specimen was to be given in Israel of God’s present moral government. So long as they obeyed, Providence engaged national prosperity; dependent not on political rules or military spirit, as in worldly nations, but on religious faithfulness. Their sabbatical year, in which they neither tilled nor gathered, is a sample of the continued interposition of a special providence.

No legislator without a real call from God would have promulgated a code which leans on the sanction of immediate and temporal divine interpositions, besides the spiritual sanctions and future retributions.

GOG 1. 1 Chronicles 5:4. 2. GOG AND MAGOG. Magog was second son of Japhet, connected with Gomer (the Cimmerians) and Madai (Medes). In Ezekiel 38; 39, these two appear in the N. country, their weapon the bow, their warriors horsemen and notorious for cruel rapacity; probably the Scythians, the dominant Japhetic race between the Caucasus (Ghogh and Moghef are names still applied to its heights) and Mesopotamia from 630 to 600 B.C., who invaded Palestine and besieged Ascalon under Psammeticus. Gog is the ideal head of Magog the land and people; also prince of Rosh (Roxolani), Mesech (Moschi), and Tubal (Tibareni); Ezekiel 38:2, “the chief prince,” rather “prince of Rosh” (the Scythian Tauri). Hengstenberg supports KJV. The names resemble Russia and Moscow, but Slavi and Wends were the ancient name of the Russians. In Revelation 20:8 Gog and Magog are both peoples. The Scythians were expelled 596 B.C., just before Ezekiel wrote, after making their name a terror to Asia. The prophet naturally uses their name taken from familiar history to represent the anti- Christian confederacy about, to assail the Jews in the Holy Land before the millennium; Revelation 20:7-9, to represent the confederacy headed by Satan, and about to assail the beloved city after the millennium. Antiochus Epiphanes, the Old Testament antichrist, the “little horn” of the third world empire, who defiled Jehovah’s temple and altar with swine sacrifices and set up Jupiter’s altar there, prefigures the “king of fierce countenance” who, “when the transgressors shall come to the full, shall destroy the holy people” ( Daniel 8:10-26); “the king of the N.” (compare Ezekiel 39:2), who “shall do according to his will, and exalt and magnify himself above every god, and speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall enter also into the glorious land and plant the tabernacles of his palaces between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, and shall come to his end,” through Michael’s interposition, after a “time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation” ( Daniel 11:21-45; 12:1; Zechariah 13:9; 14:2,3). Gog represents antichrist the beast; Magog the ten kingdoms leagued under him (Revelation 16—17). Haughty, blasphemous self confidence is his characteristic (2 Thessalonians 2).

Sheba, Dedan, Tarshish, mercantile peoples, though not openly joining his invasion of Israel, yet from selfish love of gain, sympathize with it secretly ( Ezekiel 38:13; 39:6, “the isles”); they shall therefore share antichrist’s doom, the robber shall be robbed in righteous retribution, the spoiler spoiled, and the slayer slain. Where antichrist thought to find an inheritance he shall only find a grave, and that near his prototypes, the fire blasted cities of the Dead Sea. No weapon formed against God’s people shall prosper ( Isaiah 54:17); not a fragment shall be left to defile the Holy Land.

GOLAN A city of Bashan ( Deuteronomy 4:43), allotted out of Manasseh to the Levites; one of the three cities of refuge E. of Jordan ( Joshua 20:8; 21:27). Gaulanitis the province was named from it; E. of Galilee, N. of Hieromax separating it from Gadaritis. Jordan, from the sea of Galilee to its source at Dan and Caesarea Philippi, was its western boundary. Now Jaulan, bounded on N. by Jedur (Ituraea) and on E. by Hauran. It is a well watered, grassy table land, once densely peopled, having numerous towns and villages, of which 11 are now inhabited. The western side, the supporting wall of the plateau, along the sea of Galilee, is steep and rugged. Og or his predecessors united principalities that were before distinct; after the Babylonian captivity the four provinces of Bashan became distinct; Gaulanitis, Trachonitis, Auranitis, and Batanaea.

GOLD Emblem of purity ( Job 23:10), of nobility ( Lamentations 4:1). Zaahaab , “yellow gold,” as geld from gel , yellow. Sagur , “treasured gold “ ( 1 Kings 6:20). Paz , “native gold” ( Job 28:17; Song 5:15). Betser , “gold earth,” i.e. raw ore ( Job 22:24). Kethem , figuratively ( Job 37:22 margin) “golden splendor”; but Maurer literally, “gold is to be found in northern regions, but God cannot, be found out because of His majesty” (compare Job 28). Charuts , “dug out gold” ( Proverbs 8:10). It was not coined in ancient times, but is represented on Egyptian tombs as weighed out in the form of rings of fixed weight ( Genesis 43:21). Simon Maccabeus (1 Macc. 15) was the first who coined Jewish money. Arabia, Sheba, and Ophir, Uphaz, and Parvaim (used for “gold” in Job 22:24), were the gold producing countries. It is no longer found in Arabia. The Asiatics have always possessed more gold in ornaments than in money.

GOLGOTHA Aramaic, Gulgaltha, Hebrew Gulgoleth . (See CALVARY , Latin) Greek ( Luke 23:33) Cranion, “a skull”; “Calvary” is from Vulgate The “place” of our Lord’s crucifixion and burial, not called in the Gospels a mount, as it is now commonly. “In the place where He was crucified was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, ... hewn in stone wherein never man before was laid” ( Luke 23:53; John 19:41). The stone or rock perhaps suggested the notion of a hill. Moreover, the derivation of Golgotha (not “a place of skulls,” but “of a skull,” Matthew 27:33) implies a bald, round, skull-like mound or hillock, not a mount literally, but spiritually entitled to the name as being that sacred elevation to which our lifted up Lord would draw all hearts ( John 12:32). “Without the gate” ( Hebrews 13:12); “nigh to the city” ( John 19:20); near a thoroughfare where “they that passed by reviled Him” ( Matthew 27:39), and where “Simon a Cyrenian who passed by, coming out of the country,” was compelled to bear His cross ( Mark 15:21). Ellicott thinks the arguments in favor of its proximity to the present traditional site preponderate; the nearness of the assumed site to that of Herod’s palace is important. (But see JERUSALEM ) The explorations of Capt. Warren favor a site N. of Jerusalem.

GOLIATH Perhaps a descendant of the old Rephaim, a remnant of whom, when dispersed by Ammon, took refuge with the Philistines ( Deuteronomy 2:20,21; 2 Samuel 21:22). Hebrew golleh means an exile. Simonis derives it from an Arabic root, “stout.” Gath is incidentally mentioned in Samuel as Goliath’s city. Now Moses records the spies’ report ( Numbers 13:32,33) of Canaan, “there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which came of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers.” Again in Joshua 11:21,22 it is written, “Joshua cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, ... there was none of the Anakims left in the land of Israel, only in Gath and in Ashdod there remained.” Thus three independent witnesses, Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, in the most undesigned way confirm the fact that Goliath was a giant of Gath. His height, six cubits and a span, would make 9 ft. 2 in. Parisian measure, a height not unparalleled. But Septuagint and Josephus read four cubits and a span. His coat of mail, covering chest, back, and lower parts of the body, was “scale armor,” qasqeseth (compare Leviticus 11:9,10).

Keil and Delitzsch for “target of brass” translated (kidown ) “a brazen lance.” Goliath needed no target to cover his back, as this was protected by the coat of mail. [On the scene of battle see ELAH ; on the battle, etc., see DAVID and see ELHANAN .] GOMER 1. Japhet’s oldest; son; father of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah ( Genesis 10:2,3). A warlike ally of Magog (Scythia) Gog ( Ezekiel 38:6), coming from the N. The Cimmerians warred in northwestern Asia from 670 to 570 B.C. Originally dwelling in what is now southern Russia, the Ukraine (the Crimea betrays their name, the Cimmerian Bosphorus); then being dispossessed by the Scythians, they fled across the Caucasus into Armenia and Asia Minor; they warred with Lydia, and burnt the temple of Diana of Ephesus. They are the stock of the Cymry (as the Welsh call themselves; the English gave them the name “Welsh,” i.e. foreigners, though originally they occupied the whole of the British isles but were driven back by succeeding invaders to the northwestern extremities, which their two divisions, the Gael of Ireland and Scotland and the Cymry of Wales, occupy), and gave their name to Cumber-land. They once occupied the Cimbrie Chersonese (Denmark). The Galatians were Celts, and so sprung from Gomer. 2. Daughter of Diblaim. Gomer = completion or ripeness, namely, of consummate wickedness; daughter of doubled layers of grape-cake ( Hosea 1:3). One completely given up to sensuality. Hosea in vision (not in external act, which would be revolting to purity)takes by God’s command Gomer to wife, though a woman “of whoredoms”; symbolically teaching that out of this world, which whorishly has departed from the Lord, God takes a church to be sanctified by communion with Himself in Christ, as Gomer was sanctified by communion with the prophet, ( Corinthians 7:14). The Savior unites to Himself the unholy, to make it holy. [But see HOSEA .] GOMORRAH Traces of the catastrophe recorded in Genesis 19 are visible in the whole region about the Dead, or as Scripture calls it, the see SALT SEA .

Volcanic agency and earthquake, accompanying the fire shower, may have produced the deep depression of the sea, and so arrested the Jordan’s original onward course through the Arabah into the gulf of Akabah. The northern end of the lake is 1,300 ft. deep, the southern only 13 ft. below the surface. The southern division or bay of the sea most probably was formed at a late date. It abounds with salt, throws up bitumen, sulphur, and nitre on its shores. This answers to the vale of Siddim, “full of slime pits” ( Genesis 14:10); and it accords with the destruction of the four cities of the plain by fire and brimstone, and with the turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Scripture does not say the cities were immersed in the sea, but that they were destroyed by fire from heaven ( Deuteronomy 29:23; Jeremiah 49:18; 50:40; Zephaniah 2:9; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 1:4-7, “an example unto those that after should live ungodly”; Amos 4:11).

So Josephus, B. J., 4:8, section 4. The traditional names of Usdum, and site of Zoar, the hill of salt, said to have been Lot’s wife, favor the view that the cities lay either in or around the present southern bay. Grove argues for the northern site that Abram and Lot near Bethel could not have seen the southern valleys ( Genesis 13:10) but could see the northern, and that what they saw was “the Ciccar of the Jordan,” whereas Jordan flowed into the northern end of the Dead Sea but not into the southern.

But Genesis 13 probably means only that Lot, seeing the Jordan N. of the Dead Sea, and knowing the whole valley N. and S. to be well watered, chose it. Moreover, the catastrophes palpable to sight all round the southern end imply that the Jordan once flowed to the S. of that sea.

Gomorrah means submersion; Arabic ghamara, to “overwhelm with water.” Gomorrah was one of the five cities of the vale of Siddim whose forces were routed by Chedorlaomer, until Abram helped them. Zoar or Bela alone of the five, at Lot’s request, escaped destruction by the fire from the Lord.

Jerusalem when corrupted (for “the corruption of the best is the worst of all corruptions”) is termed Sodom and her people Gomer ( Isaiah 1:9,10); as the church apostate corrupted is termed “Babylon” (Revelation 17). Worse still are they who see Christ’s “mighty works” yet “repent not,” and who receive not the apostles’ teaching ( Matthew 10:15; Mark 6:11). The profound depression of the plain of Gomorrah, the deepest on the earth, and its stagnant tropical air, answered to its sunken morals.

DeSaulcy thinks that in Usdum and Um Zoghal traces of Sodom exist; and in Ain Feshkah (Goumran, Arabic) on the N.W. traces of Gomorrah.

Rather in wady Amrah is to be sought a connection with Gomorrah.

Tristram objects to the southern site for Sodom and Gomorrah that Chedorlaomer marching from mount Seir to Hazezon Tamar (Engedi) afterward meets the king of Sodom in the vale of Siddim, which therefore in the order ought to be rather at the northern end of the Dead Sea. Also Moses saw Zoar from mount Nebo ( Deuteronomy 34:3), which he could not had it been at the S.E. of Dead Sea. He thinks that the southern bed of the sea was formerly deeper than now, and that it was raised by deposits brought from the Arabah. Lightning probably kindled the masses of sulphurous bitumen abounding around. Combining with an earthquake, the storm cast showers of ignited bitumen on the cities, so that “the smoke of the country” was “as the smoke of a furnace,” as beheld by Abraham.

God often uses natural means in His most supernatural interventions.

GOPHER WOOD Genesis 6:14. Perhaps cypress, kupar resembling gopher; suitable for shipbuilding; abounding in Babylonia and Adiabene, the region which may have been that of Noah’s building. It was here Alexander obtained timber for building his fleet.

GOSHEN 1. Three Egyptian homes in the Delta, and extending over part of Goshen, bore a name beginning with ka or ga, “a bull,” namely, Mnevis, worshipped at On, representing Turn the unknown source of all existence. N.E. of Lower Egypt, having the Mediterranean on N., the desert on E., the Delta and the Tanitic branch of the Nile on W. (hence called the field of Zoan or Tanis, Psalm 78:12,43), extending S. to the head of the Red Sea and nearly to Memphis. Also called the land of Rameses, in which Israel built (i.e. fortified anew) for Pharaoh Raamses and Pithom as treasure cities ( Genesis 47:11; Exodus 1:11). Joseph naturally placed his family on the border land between Egypt and Palestine, the promised land, and at the same time near himself at Tunis or else Memphis the capital of Egypt.

Goshen corresponded to Wady-’t-Tumeylat. The fresh water canal runs through it from the Nile to Ismailia. From El Wady to the head of the gulf of Suez is three days’ journey, the distance assigned in Exodus. The answer of Joseph’s brethren to Pharaoh ( Genesis 46:28,34), “thy servants have been herdsmen from our youth,” (Joseph so instructing them “that ye may dwell in ... Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians,”) proves that Goshen was regarded by Egyptians as scarcely Egypt proper, though having many Egyptians in it, as is recorded during the ten plagues; also foreigners. [See BERIAH .] The names of sonic places in Goshen are Semitic, as Migdol and Baal-zephon. Joseph lived under the 12th or 13th dynasty, a native not a shepherd dynasty (as Genesis 46:34 proves). Pharaoh calls Goshen “the best of the land” ( Genesis 47:5-11), namely, for a pastoral people as Israel; for in tillage the parts of Egypt next the Nile are more fertile than Goshen. In Goshen Pharaoh implies he kept some of his cattle, over which he proposes to set Israelites as rulers of herdsmen. The separation of Israel from the plagues marks the distinctness of the land. Israel setting out from Rameses in Goshen in two days reached the edge of the Wilderness, and in one day more the Red Sea, i.e. from Rameses (on the old canal from the Tanitic arm of the Nile to lake Timsah) 30 miles direct to the ancient western shore. The Septuagint call Goshen “Gesen of Arabia;” and Pliny “the Arabic nome” from its bordering on Arabia. Now Esh-Shurkiyeh, well intersected by canals; Egypt’s best province, yielding the largest revenue. 2. A district in S. Palestine, between Gaza and Gibeon ( Joshua 10:41; 11:16), and a city ( Joshua 15:51); between the S. country (the Negeb) and the shephelah (the low hills between the mountain and plain, not as KJV “the valley “) of Judah.

Doubtless named in remembrance of Israel’s original place of sojourn in Egypt.

GOSPELS From the Old English god spel, “good news.” The providential preparations for the gospel attest its divine origin. (1) The translation at Alexandria of the Old Testament into Greek (by the Septuagint), rendering the Jewish Scriptures accessible through that then universal language of the refined and polite to the literary of all nations. All possibility of questioning the existence or falsifying the contents of Old Testament prophecy was precluded thereby, however much the Jews who rejected Jesus would have wished to alter the prophecies which plainly identified Him as the foretold Messiah. The canon of the Old Testament having been completed, and prophecy having ceased before the Sept. translation, they could not deny that the divine knowledge derivable from it was complete. (2) Greek and oriental philosophy had drawn attention to religious and moral speculations, which at once exposed and undermined paganism, and yet with all its endless labors gave no satisfactory answer to the questionings and cravings of man’s spiritual being. (3) The Roman empire had broken down the barriers between E. and W. and united almost the whole world, Asia, Africa, and Europe, in one, and established peace and good order, making possible the rapid transmission of the glad tidings from country to country; compare Luke 2:1; Matthew 22:21. (4) The universal expectation in the East of a great king to arise in Judea, probably due to fragments of revelation (as the prophecy of Balsam, Numbers 24:17) such as led the wise men of the East to conic seeking “the king of the Jews.” (5) The settling of the Jews, and the consequent erection of synagogues, throughout all the towns of Asia. Greece, Italy, Africa, and western Europe. Hence by the reading of the law and the prophets in the synagogues everywhere each sabbath proselytes of righteousness were gathered from the Gentiles, such as the eunuch or chamberlain of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, a student of Scripture, Cornelius the centurion who “feared God with all his house, and gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.” These not being bound under the ceremonial yoke, as the original Jews, formed a connecting link with the Gentiles; and hence at Antioch in Pisidia, when the Jews rejected the preaching of Paul and Barnabas, these proselytes, with the Gentiles, “besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath, ... and on that day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God” ( Acts 13:15-44). So at Iconium ( Acts 14:1), and at Thessalonica ( Acts 17:1-4).

Such were the “devout men, out of every nation under heaven,” the collected representatives of the world, to whom Peter preached with such success ( Acts 2:4-11). The 3,000 converts of that day and the 5,000 of a few days after ( Acts 4:4) would act as missionaries on their return to their several nations. To the Jews first in each synagogue abroad the apostles preached, and gathered many converts from among them; and then to the Gentiles. The Jews’ national rejection of Jesus is no valid objection to the gospel, since He foretold it Himself (Matt 16:21; 26:2), and the Old Testament prophets did so too ( Isaiah 49:16; 21; 52; 53; Psalm 22); so that, fixing their eyes on the prophecies of Messiah’s glory and kingdom which they wrested to mean His setting up a temporal kingdom at Jerusalem and overthrowing the Roman existing dominion, and shutting their eyes to the prophecies of His humiliation, “they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath,” and yet in spite of themselves, like their types Joseph’s brethren ( Genesis 50:20), “they have fulfilled them in condemning Him” ( Acts 13:27; 3:18). The harmony in Christ of prophecies seemingly so opposite, His temporal and temporary humiliation, and yet His spiritual dominion now and His final visible and everlasting kingdom, furnish conclusive proof of the Divinity of prophecies which no human sagacity could have anticipated or human agency fulfilled. The correspondence of the gospel event to the predictions of the Old Testament is thus established by the Jews, unwilling witnesses and therefore beyond suspicion. Graves (Pentateuch, 2:3,6) well says, had they universally embraced the gospel at its first publication, the sceptic might allege the prophecies to have been fabricated or altered to fit them to the events; the contrary is now certain. This is one great cause why the national conversion of the Jews is delayed “until the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in” ( Romans 11:35). They continue guardians of the prophetic records until these shall have had their contents examined, and their application ascertained, by every other nation in the world.

Genuineness and inspiration of the Four Gospels. The “prophets” in the Christian church who had the spiritual gift of “discerning spirits” were an effectual check on the introduction of a pseudo-inspired writing. Paul appeals to them on the inspiration of his letters ( 1 Corinthians 14:37; 12:10; compare 1 John 4:1). Thus, by the two-fold inspiration, that of the authors and that of the judges, the canonicity of the four Gospels, as of the other books of New Testament, is established. The anonymous fragment of the canon of the New Testament attributed to Caius a presbyter of Rome (published by Muratori, Antiq. Ital., iii. 854, and known as the Muratorian Fragment), recognizes the Gospels (Luke and John, the sentences as to Matthew and Mark are obliterated) as inspired, and condemns as uninspired the Shepherd by Hermes, “written very recently in our own times,” i.e. in the first part of the second century, the age in which John the last apostle died. Theophilus (Ad Autol., iii. 11), Bishop of Antioch A.D. 168, refers to “the evangelists” and “the Holy Scriptures” of the New Testament. Clement of Alexandria in the latter part of the second century refers to the collection of Gospels as one whole, “the gospel” (Quis Dives Salvus?). The anonymous letter to Diognetus (sec. 11 ed.

Hefele) attributed to Justin Martyr refers to “the Gospels and the Apostles” (i.e. the letters). Ignatius of Antioch, a hearer of John (Ep. ad Philad., sec. 5), calls “the (written) Gospel the flesh of Jesus,” and classes it with the Old Testament prophets. Tertullian (Adv. Marc. iv. 2), mentioning the Four Gospels two as the work of apostles and two as that of apostolic men (A.D. 208); Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., ii. 27; iii. 11, sec. 7); martyred A.D. 202; Origen, speaking of the four Gospels as “the elements of the church’s faith”; Eusebius; and not only these orthodox writers but heretics, Marcion dud others, appeal to the Gospels as the inspired standard [see CANON].

They were translated into Syriac in the second century, and into Latin and the two Egyptian dialects by the fourth century. We have better evidence for their genuineness than for any other ancient writing. Theophilus arranged the Four Gospels so as to form one work (Jerome, Ep. ad Algas., iv. 197). Tartan, who died A.D. 170, formed a Diatessaron or harmony of the Four Gospels. Barnabas (Paul’s companion), Clement of Rome ( Philippians 4:3), and Polycarp quote the Gospels, though not with verbal exactness. Justin Martyr quotes Matthew, Luke, and John largely and exactly. As the heretic Gnostics and Marcion arose early in the second century their acceptance of the Gospels proves that these had been promulgated some time before (i.e. in the apostolic age itself), for after the dissensions between the orthodox and heretics had arisen the Gospels would never have been accepted by mutually hostile parties. A distinct line was drawn between the apocryphal and the genuine Gospels. Unbelievers, as Celsus in controversy with Origen, could not deny the genuineness of the four even while rejecting their contents. The fathers’ large quotations (Origen’s especially) prove our Gospels were the same as theirs. Our Saviour wrote nothing Himself, the alleged letter to Abgarus, king of Edessa, being probably spurious. If He had (like Muhammed) recorded His own miracles and teachings, internal consistency would have been nothing marvelous. People would have deified the form, while failing to discern the inner essence. “If I bear witness of Myself My witness is not true” ( John 5:31). There would be lost the powerful proof we now have, from the mutual coherency of writings not composed by the Founder of Christianity nor in His lifetime, but by Jews, unlearned mostly, giving independent yet marvelously agreeing accounts of miraculous works, and a spiritual system of doctrine unheard before, themselves willing to lay down their lives for the truths they witnessed to; these writings received and accepted too by numerous congregations, living at the time and in the very places where the miracles alleged in proof of their inspiration were wrought, and producing worldwide effects now for ages. The reality of their inspiration alone can account for all this. The Jews and Gentiles had attained high civilization when Christ came; it is not in such an age that myths spring up and are accepted, but in a people’s infancy ( 2 Peter 1:16).

Mutual relationship of the Four Gospels. — They differ in language and details, so that the later cannot have been mere copyists of their predecessors. Their accordance in unusual expressions and in choice of incidents implies at the same time that the later evangelists were acquainted, with the Gospels that preceded. The four have by the Holy Spirit’s design, if not by that of the writers, a supplementary relation to each other. Each later evangelist has a two-fold aim: (1) to confirm by his own independent witness the facts recorded in the preceding Gospel; (2) to give new facts, and to place those already recorded in a new light.

The former aim accounts for the agreements, the latter for the variations.

In the first three, called the Synoptic Gospels, from the main outline being the same and the scene of Christ’s ministry mainly Galilee, the first aim is prominent. In the fourth, written long after, all is new except the events of passion week and the feeding of the 5,000 (and the storm at sea) recorded to introduce the discourse in Galilean Capernaum (John 6); and the scene is mainly not in Galilee but Judea. But they hint also at Christ’s ministry in Judea ( Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34); John too occasionally describes His Galilean ministry (John 2; John 6; John 7; John 21). Of portions in Matthew and 93 portions in Mark, 78 sections are common to both Matthew and Mark; also, of 65 particulars in Mark, 54 of them appear in Matthew in the same relative order. Yet that Mark does not copy Matthew appears from his restoring the true order of events before the Baptist’s death, from which Matthew had departed to give prominence to the Sermon on the Mount and the apostolic commission, and to make less prominent the narrative, which is but one third of the whole. Mark too, of all Four Gospels, abounds in the most minute graphic touches as an eyewitness of the scenes, though his Gospel is the shortest. In 42 sections the three Synoptists coincide; 12 more sections are given by Matthew and Mark alone; five sections are given by Mark and Luke alone, 14 sections are given by Matthew and Luke. Besides, five sections are unique to Matthew, two sections are unique to Mark, and nine sections are unique to Luke. The verbal coincidences are chiefly in reciting the words of Jesus or of others in connection with, Him, seldom in the narrative of the evangelists themselves. In Matthew the proportion is as one to more than two, in Mark one to four, in Luke one to ten (Norton, Genuineness, I. 240). Stroud thus tabulates the four, taking 100 as the sum:

PORTIONS UNIQUE TO COINCIDENCES TOTAL EACH GOSPEL Mark 7 93 Matthew 42 58 Luke 59 41 John 92 8 John’s narrative of Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet combines her actions drawn from Luke, the ointment and its value from Mark, and the admonition to Judas from Matthew. His chief aim is to set forth Jesus as the Incarnate Word, the everlasting Son of God, a truth which some gnostics preceding Cerinthus even already began to impugn. Yet he omits facts recorded by the Synoptists which would have suited his purpose, just; because he knew they had sufficiently recorded them already.

That Luke wrote chronologically in his general facts is probable from his phrase “in order” ( Luke 1:1; unique to him, expressing succession Luke 8:1, “afterward,” Greek “in order,” Acts 18:23). His “Acts” are in chronological order. Notes of time occur in his Gospel ( Luke 1:26,56; 3:1,23; 6:1). Of the 44 particulars in Mark and the 42 particulars in Luke, (forming the latter’s main part ending with Luke 9:50,) particulars are common to both gospels, and with one exception in the same order; the more remarkable as 10 new particulars are inserted into Luke, 12 particulars are in Mark; the true succession alone would admit of such insertions without irregularity ensuing. At Luke 18:15, the blessing of the children, Luke’s narrative rejoins Matthew and Mark. The middle portion relates to the last half year of Jesus’ ministry, Luke 9:51 refers to His last journey to Jerusalem. His mission of the 70 (the better manuscripts have: 72) before Him (Luke 10), also Luke 13:22,23; 17:11; 23:5 confirm this. His route was through Samaria into Galilee from Ephraim ( Luke 9:51, John 11:54) as the starting point, then along the border between Galilee and Samaria into Peraea ( Luke 17:11; 13:31), so by Jericho to Bethany and Jerusalem (Birks’ Horae Evangel. and Greswell; but see JESUS CHRIST ).

Mark wrote before Luke, for except 24 verses all his Gospel is in one of the two other Synoptists; he never, if he was after Luke, would for the sake of 24 verses of original matter have published a distinct Gospel. His graphic vividness indicates an eyewitness not a compiler. Matthew, the earlier, omits the ascension as involved in the resurrection. Luke, the later writer, supplies the omission. Matthew, writing for Judea, dwells on facts less known there, Christ’s appearing in Galilee, omitting the ascension as known to most of his readers. Luke, writing for Gentile converts, describes facts less familiar to them which occurred after the resurrection in and about Jerusalem. Matthew selects facts suitable for Jews, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Jesus’ descent from Abraham and David and His legal title to Solomon’s throne. Luke shows the Gentiles that He was sprung from Adam, the common father of Gentiles and Jews. Matthew is more copious in discourses, the facts being taken for granted as notorious to his readers, the first thing needed being to show the Jews in what relationship with Christ’s teaching had with the law. Luke is copious in facts less known to the Gentiles and on Christ’s later ministry; Matthew having already dwelt more on His earlier ministry. Mark uses “gospel” for Christ’s doctrine; a later usage, not in Matthew [see MATTHEW and see MARK ]. Matthew in naming the twelve ( Matthew 10:3) modestly places himself after Thomas as “Matthew the publican.” Mark and Luke place him before Thomas and omit the humiliating epithet also they do not join his former profession with the apostolic name Matthew, but hide it under his lesser-known name Levi ( Matthew 9:9, Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27). This is an undesigned propriety and mark of truth.

John by his greater fullness on Jesus’ Godhead composed a doctrinal supplement to the Synoptics, who dwelt more on His ministry as the “Son of man” (though they too declare plainly His Godhead: Matthew 16:16,17; Luke 1:32, etc.). John marks Christ’s going up to the feasts at Jerusalem, which they do not. He also supplies the interval, omitted in them, from the temptation to Jesus’ second return to Galilee when His public ministry began, after John was cast into prison. He inserts in this interval Jesus’ “earlier” return to Galilee ( John 1:43) and visit to Jerusalem ( John 2:13) and Judea ( John 3:22,24), before the Baptist’s imprisonment. Then, at John 4:3,43, his Gospel coincides with the Synoptists at Christ’s second visit to Galilee ( Matthew 4:12, Luke 4:14). In John 7:1 he alludes to His 18 months’ ministry in Galilee, recorded by them and therefore omitted by him, between the visit to Jerusalem at the feast of tabernacles ( John 7:2,10) and the former visit ( John 5:1), for John 6:4 compared with John 7:1 implies Christ omitted attending the Passover occurring in that interval lest the Jews should kill Him before the time. John 21:1 evidently supplemerits Matthew 28:16, which it precedes in time. John 21:6,7 supplements Luke 5:6,8, the corresponding miracle before His resurrection.

There are three periods marked in Acts: (1) From the ascension to the rise of the first purely Gentile church at Antioch where the disciples were first called Christians ( Acts 11:26); the first Gospel, Matthew, corresponds to this first and Jewish period, between A.D. 30 and A.D. 41. The second period is from the rise of the Gentile church at Antioch to Paul’s passing over to Europe in obedience to the vision at Troas; the second Gospel, Mark, answers to this Judaeo- Gentile transition period, A.D. 41 or 44 — A.D. 50; hence, there occur (Mark 7) adaptations to Gentile converts by explanations of Jewish usages.

The third period extends from Paul’s first entering Europe down to his reaching Rome; the third Gospel, Luke, answers to this third period, A.D. 50-63, being suited to Greeks not familiar with the geography of Judea; it must have been written before Acts 1:1 which refers to it (Acts being written probably soon after A.D. 63, the date of the close of Paul’s imprisonment with which it abruptly breaks off). Theophilus probably lived at Antioch (Birks’ Hor. Evang., 192), and Luke perhaps published his Gospel at the close of his first connection with Paul, whom he joined at Troas A.D. 53, and who seems to have helped him as Peter helped Mark.

Philippi, where Luke was left behind, was perhaps the center from which he circulated it among the Greek churches. Compare 2 Corinthians 8:18, “the brother whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the churches.”

Mark probably wrote while having the opportunity of Peter’s guidance in Palestine, between his return from Perga and his second journey with Barnabas in or for Caesarea, the second center of gospel preaching as Jerusalem was the first and Antioch the third, the scene of Cornelius’ conversion by Peter, Mark’s father in the faith, the head quarters of the Roman forces in Palestine, where Philip the evangelist resided. Latin idioms and Roman energy are characteristic of Mark, whose very name is Roman. Many centurions are honourably noticed in the Gospels and Acts, so that it is likely the gospel made much way among the Romans at Caesarea. In Colossians 4:10 be is identified with John (Hebrew) Mark (Latin) by the addition “sister’s son to Barnabas.” He was with Peter in Mesopotamian Babylon (A.D. 58) when Peter ( 1 Peter 5:18) calls him “Mark (Marcus) my son.” Peter, after escaping from Herod’s prison, went to the house of John Mark’s mother first ( Acts 12:12). Eusebius, from Papins or John Presb., (Hist. Eccles., iii. 39; v. 8) calls Mark “Peter’s interpreter,” “handing down in writing what Peter preached.” Justin Martyr, Dial. Tryph., 106, quotes Mark’s Gospel as “Records (or Memorials, [apomnemoneumata]) of Peter.” Tertullian (Marcion iv. 5) and Jerome (Ad Hedib.) say, “Peter narrated, Mark wrote.” Internal evidence favours this tradition. Mark’s Gospel, except a few verses, is limited to the time of Peter’s attendance on our Lord. The blessing pronounced on him after his confession of Christ is omitted, while the ensuing reproof is retained; his fall is recorded, but not his bitter tears of repentance. For other instances of omitting what tends to Peter’s honour compare Matthew 14:29, 17:24-27; Mark 9:30-33, 14:47; John 18:10; Luke 5:10, 24:34. The angel’s words addressed to Mary Magdalene after Christ’s resurrection, “Go, tell His disciples and Peter,” are recorded owing to Peter’s deep sense of Christ’s pardoning grace after his grievous fall; delicacy forbade his recording his own repentance, gratitude can never forget that Jesus’ first words of special comfort were sent to him, “tell Peter” specially, for his Saviour has risen even for his justification ( Mark 16:7). Mark’s Gospel, brief, vivid, and abounding in acts rather than discourses, was best suited to the Roman character, with fewer Old Testament quotations than Matthew who wrote for the Jews. The tradition of its being written in Rome arose probably from its Roman character; from Caesarea it would soon pass to Rome through Romans sailing from Caesarea there. Mark’s shortcoming was that of his spiritual father — Peter — slowness to admit uncircumcised Gentile Christians to the privileges of full fellowship ( Acts 13:13; 15:38; compare Acts 10:14, Galatians 2:11-14). Mark, from love of ease and home, as well as Jewish prejudice, shrank from carrying the gospel to the heathen of Pamphylia; but by subsequent zeal he so regained Paul’s favour that the apostle desired Luke to bring him, saying “he is profitable to me for the ministry” ( 2 Timothy 4:11).

Matthew presumes his readers are familiar with Jewish usages and localities, and appeals to their prophets continually. This accords with the earliest period of church history. The closing charge “Go ye, teach all nations,” accords with the church’s circumstances at its opening the door to Cornelius and Gentile proselytes, A.D. 41. Eusebius’ Chronicle in some manuscripts gives this date. A written Gospel was not needed when all the apostles were in Jerusalem; but just when they were going abroad a record such as Matthew’s was needed. Isidore and Nicephorus (Hist. Ecclesiastes, ii. 15) fix on 15 years after the ascension as the date.

Thus, in the Jewish aspect of Matthew’s Gospel, the Roman of Mark’s, and the Greek of Luke’s, we observe the conflux of the three chief human civilizations, the Hebrew theocracy, the Roman polity, and the Greek literary and artistic refinement; while in John’s the spiritual verities of the Son of God predominate. The same significant union appears in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin inscription on the cross.

Gospel harmonies: spiritual relations. Discrepancies have been alleged in the Gospels. But they are not irreconciliable; granting that the ways of harmonizing proposed are not always the true ways, the very variations disprove collusion. Reconciliable diversity is a confirmation of the truth, as alleged by mutually independent witnesses. Entire sameness in all four would make all but the first mere copies. Contradictions would prove one or other inaccurate. Substantial unity, with circumstantial diversity, partial and reconciliable, is the highest kind of internal evidence. As in architecture a front and a side view, a ground plan and an elevation, are different, yet harmonize in viewing the connected whole, so the four, though not facsimiles, have an inner harmony when one first looks to the purpose and the individual spiritual character of each, and then to the mutually connected whole in its fourfold aspect. The variation in the order of the same events as recorded in different Gospels ( Matthew 8:28 compare Mark 5:1, Luke 8:26; Matthew 8:19-22 compare Luke 9:57-61) does not imply discrepancy unless it could be shown that all the evangelists designed a chronological record throughout. The spiritual sequence and connection is the essential thing in a revelation, and is as true in those Gospel passages which do not observe the chronological order as in those which do; for the same truth is manifold in its spiritual bearings, and is therefore put in various connections, under the Spirit’s guidance, for the church’s edification. Fuller information as to all the facts of the case would clear away seeming discrepancies. It is enough for the harmonist to show a possible reconciliation (in the absence of fuller knowledge); this is sufficient even to meet a priori objections against the accurate truth of details, and such objections have no force against the gospel as a whole. “Substantial truth under circumstantial variety” is the most conclusive testimony, as proving the mutual independence of the witnesses, for had all four been alike their testimony would have been that of but one witness. At the same time all four, being supervised by the Spirit of God, are true in their order of events spiritually, though but one order is true chronologically. Mechanical uniformity is no necessary result of inspiration.

The four are not mere annals or biographies, but spiritual records, “memoirs” adapted to various wants of the Christian life. A diatessaron, or continuous record compiled chronologically out of the four, fails in this, viz. the setting forth of the events under their mutual, manifold, spiritual relations. Christ’s life, death and resurrection are represented from four different aspects to complete the view. Each Gospel has its distinctive character; the progression of the four reaches its climax in John, who portrays the divinity of the Son of God, as the former three portray His humanity. They are not four different Gospels, but one fourfold Gospel from the Holy Spirit, through four intelligent agents, each giving that view of the Lord Jesus which belonged to his own character and circumstances, and those of his immediate readers, and so by Divine Providence meeting severally the church’s wants in all ages. Seeming discrepancies area test of faith, whether in spite of difficulties we will, because of the preponderating probabilities, believe all God’s word. They are incentives for us more diligently to “search the Scriptures,” which contain within themselves their own best vindication and harmony. The Gospels are fragmentary, complete spiritually but not historically; hence the seeming discrepancies. Those early churches which collected the canon saw the alleged discrepancies, but saw nothing in them incompatible with inspiration and truth; otherwise they would not have transmitted them: as in nature the seeming variations in the orbits of some planets are found, on fuller knowledge, to be in harmony with the general law. FOURFOLD GOSPEL. — Irenaeus (iii. 11), Athanasius (Syn. Scr., p. 55), Jerome (Matt., prooem.) regarded the four living see CHERUBIM united in one as representing the fourfold gospel. Both are the chariot of God bearing Him into all lands ( Psalm 99:1; 19:4), guided by the Spirit, intertwined with wheels in wheels of coincidences and variations, full of eyes, discerning the thoughts. The four in their spiritual ideal reveal the Saviour under a fourfold aspect. (1) The lion denotes Christ’s kingship, as “lion of the tribe of Judah.”

Matthew traces His line of succession to the throne from “David the king.”

The wise men (Matthew 2), according to Balaam’s prophecy of the “sceptre to arise out of Israel,” sought “the king of the Jews.” The climax of the three temptations (Matthew 4) is Satan’s offer of the kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount has the sententious tone of an authoritative king.

Seven parables illustrate the true nature of the kingdom, for the Jews for whom Matthew writes looked for Messiah’s kingdom. His claim of exemption from tribute, recorded in Matthew alone ( Matthew 17:24), marks Him Son and Heir of the kingdom. Matthew closes with His universal dominion ( Matthew 28:18-20). (2) The ox or calf typifies patient toil ( 1 Corinthians 9:9,10). Mark’s representation of Christ corresponds; homely, earnest, minutely graphic, full of action rather than discourse, suited to the Roman practical character, it. abruptly carries us at once into Christ’s ministry of unceasing toil (Mark 1). The word variously translated “straightway,” “immediately,” “forthwith,” “anon,” “as soon as,” “by and by” (eutheoos occurs 27 times, though in Matthew but eight times, in Luke twice; an illustration of its energetic tone. Minute details are peculiar to his vivid style: “Jesus was with the wild beasts” ( Mark 1:13); “Zebedee with the hired servants” ( Mark 1:20); Boanerges ( Mark 3:17); Jesus’ gestures ( Mark 3:5); His successive acts in curing the deaf ( Mark 7:33,34); the lingering glory on His countenance, and the people’s amazement ( Mark 9:15). It presents the best picture of Jesus’ daily outward life. (3) A man’s face denotes human sympathy. Luke’s Gospel presents the lowly humanity of the Son of man’s conception, birth, and childhood; it traces Him up to Adam, the common father of all men. The parables and miracles unique to Luke exhibit Christ’s human tenderness; the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the grateful Samaritan leper, the publican’s prayer, Zaccheus, the raising of the Nain widow’s son. (4) The eagle denotes high soaring heavenliness. John’s Gospel, say the fathers, is “the Gospel after the Spirit,” as the others are “after the flesh.”

John supplies details of Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, Thomas, and Judas, unmentioned by the others; also details of time, place, and numbers; also supplemental matter ( John 2:19), “destroy this temple,” accounting for the charge of the false witnesses unexplained in Matthew 26:61. In the prologue and elsewhere Christ’s characteristic aspect is His Divine glory breaking forth the brighter amidst the darkness of the Jews’ opposition.

Each of the four, while recognizing the Lord’s other aspects, has one aspect prominent; and the four combine in one harmonious whole, joined by a spiritual not a mechanical unity. “Mutual intertexture is characteristic of Scripture. The second and third evangelists warranted the genuineness of each former Gospel with all the authority of the latter, by quoting its words. Thus they became joint vouchers for the genuine Gospels and joint opposers of the spurious. John authenticates the foregoing ones not by adopting but by omitting what they had related, and supplying what they omitted.” (Wordsworth.)

GOURD 1. Jonah 4:6-10. So Augustine, the Septuagint, and the Syriac explain the Hebrew qiqayown ; so modern Jews and Christians at Mosul (Nineveh).

In gardens the arbor is often shaded with leaves of the bottle gourd; but the treelike sudden growth of the Ricinus, Palma Christi, or castor oil plant make it the more likely; so Jerome describes it, “within a few days you see the plant grown into a little tree”; and Celsius identifies it with the Punic and Syriac el keroa, or Ricinus, and the Hebrew is evidently from the Egyptian kiki, the same plant. The leaves are large and palmate, like a hand with outspread fingers (whence comes the name, Palma Christi), with serrated lobes. Castor oil is made from the seeds. 2. Wild gourds ( 2 Kings 4:38-41), paqot . It resembles the vine; and as several of the Cucurbitaceoe, melons, pumpkins, etc., from their juiciness, in a hot climate are favourite articles of food, a noxious sort might easily be mistaken for a wholesome kind. The squirting or wild cucumber (Ecbalium elaterium; the fruit opening, from paaqah “to open,” and scattering its seeds when touched) and the colocynth (about the size of an orange) are such. The latter is favoured by the old versions, and its derivation also suits the dry gourds, when crushed, bursting or opening with a crashing noise.

Gozan. A river ( 1 Chronicles 5:26; 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11). There the captive Israelites were transported by Shalmaneser and Esarhaddon. Now the Kizzit Ozan, the golden river of Media, which rises in Kurdistan and ultimately falls into the White River, and so into the Caspian Sea. A country also bore the name of the river, Gauzanitis (Ptolemy, Geog. v. 18); Mygdonia is the same name with the “M” prefixed. So Habor was a region and a river (the Khabour, the affluent of the Euphrates). The region is one of great fertility (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon). G. in G. Rawlinson’s view was the district on the river Habor or Khabour.

GRASS Its rapid fading in the heat of Palestine is a frequent image of man’s frailty ( <19A314> Psalm 103:14,15; 90:5,6; Isaiah 40:6,7). In Jeremiah 50:11 for “the heifer at grass” (i.e., fat and frisky), since the gender of “at grass” dasha , confounded with desha “grass”) does not agree with eglah “a heifer,” translated “a heifer threshing (treading out) grain.” The strongest were used for threshing, and as the law did not allow their mouth to be muzzled in threshing ( Deuteronomy 25:4) they waxed wanton with superabundant food, an image of Judea’s insolent destroyers.

It is a coincidence undesigned, and therefore a mark of genuineness, that by three evangelists the “grass” is noticed in the miraculous feeding of the 5,000; John ( John 6:10) saying, “there was much grass in the place” (a notable circumstance in Palestine, where grass is neither perennial nor universal; the latter rain and sunshine stimulate its rapid growth, but the scorching summer soon withers it and leaves the hills bare); Mark ( Mark 6:39), with his usual graphic vividness, mentioning “the green grass”; Matthew ( Matthew 14:19) simply stating Christ’s command to “sit down on the grass.” But in the feeding of the 4,000 the multitude in both Gospels ( Matthew 15:35; Mark 8:6) are commanded to “sit down on the ground.” This delicate distinction disproves the notion that the two miracles are really different versions of the same miracle, as also that of the 12 (small) baskets (kofinoi ) in the miracle of the 5,000, and the seven (larger) baskets (spurides ) in that of the 4,000. Compare Matthew 16:9,10 with Matthew 14:20, Luke 9:17; [kofinoi ] being uniformly applied to the former miracle, [spurides ] to the latter (Blunt, Undesigned Coincidences). In Matthew 6:30 “the lily” is classed with “the grass of the field.” “Grass” must here be used for all that grows in the field, wild flowers as well as grasses, herbage.

GRASSHOPPER [See LOCUST .] GRECIANS; GREEKS; GREECE Called “Javan” Genesis 10:2. The Ionia on the W. of Asia Minor, whence perhaps emigrants originally passed to Attica and the Peloponnese.

The Ionians of secular history however were a colony from Attica. Being the most eastern of the Greeks they were the first known to the Asiatics.

Joel ( Joel 3:6) mentions the Grecians as the purchasers to whom the Tyrian slave merchants sold the children of Judah (800 B.C.). Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 27:13) mentions Javan (Greece) and Tyre as “trading in the persons of men.” Daniel ( Daniel 8:5,21; 11:3) foretold the rise of Alexander the Great, “the great horn between the eyes of the rough goat” which “came from the W. on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground (overrunning the earth with incredible swiftness, the ‘leopard’ 7:6), and smote the ram” (Medo-Persia). Zechariah ( Zechariah 9:13) represents Judah and Ephraim as the arrows filling God’s bow, “when I have raised up thy son, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece” (Javan) thus foretelling that the Jewish Maccabees would punish Greece in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes, one of Alexander’s successors, in just retribution for her purchasing from Tyre as slaves” the children of Judah and Jerusalem.” Isaiah ( Isaiah 66:19) foretells that the Jews who survive His judgments He will send as missionaries to Javan to “declare My glory among the Gentiles.”

The most important function Greece performed in the gospel scheme was that it furnished the language adapted by its wide use among the refined of all nations, as also by its marvelous flexibility, capability of forming new theological terms, and power of expressing the most delicate shades of meaning, for conveying to the world the glad news of salvation through Christ. Orally, it was generally used by the apostles in preaching, being then widely spoken; and it is the sole medium of the New Testament written word. The Greek of the New Testament and of the Grecians or Hellenist Jews was not Classical Greek, but Hebrew modes of thought and idiom clothed with Greek words. The Septuagint and the Hebrew are a necessary key to this New Testament Hellenistic Greek. The Grecians or Greek-speaking Jews were at once Jewish missionaries to the pagan, witnessing everywhere against the prevalent polytheism, and pioneers to prepare unconsciously the way for the gospel missionary. They formed the connecting link between the Hebrew Jews and the Gentiles.

In Acts 20:2 “Greece” (Hellas) means Greece Proper, or “Achaia,” i.e. southern Greece including the Peloponnese, as opposed to Macedonia on the N.

In New Testament “Greek” (HElleen is distinguished from “Grecian” (Hellenist). “Greek” means either a native of Greece or else a Gentile in general ( Romans 10:12; 2:9,10, margin) “Grecian” is a foreign Jew, literally, one who speaks Greek, as contrasted with a home Jew, a “Hebrew,” dwelling in Palestine, or rather one speaking the sacred tongue, Hebrew, whether dwelling in Palestine or elsewhere. So Paul though of the Greek city Tarsus, calls himself a “Hebrew” and “of the Hebrews,” i.e. having neither parent Gentile ( Philippians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 11:22).

The first church at Jerusalem was composed of these two classes, the “Hebrew” and the “Grecian” Jews; from whence, when the Grecian widows complained of being “neglected in the daily ministrations” of alms, the seven chosen to rectify matters were all “Grecians,” judging from their Greek names, Stephen, Prochorus, etc. ”Greeks” in the strict sense, whether native Greeks or Gentiles in general, were not admitted to the Christian church until later. Acts 11:20, “Greeks” is the reading of the Alexandrinus manuscript rightly for “Grecians,” for the “Grecians”,were long before a recognized portion of the church ( Acts 6:1), and some of those “scattered abroad” were among them (for none of the seven” Grecian” deacons, except Stephen, was as yet martyred) [see CHRISTIAN ]; the new name marking the new epoch in the church. At first those scattered abroad “preached to, the Jews only” (the word is not “Hebrews” but “Jews,” including “Grecians”); afterward some of them preached to pagan “Greeks.” Their conversation was a new thing, a special “grace of God,” tidings of which reaching the Jerusalem church constrained them to send Barnabas as far as Antioch, who “when he had seen the GRACE of God was glad” and enlisted the cooperation of Paul who had been in vision already called to “bear Christ’s name unto the Gentiles” ( Acts 9:15). “Spake ALSO unto” is the true reading ( Acts 11:20, the Alexandrinus, the Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus manuscripts, and the Vulgate version). The “also” marks a further step than their “preaching unto the Jews (including ‘Grecians’) only.” It was with the Grecians (Hellenists) that Paul came into controversy at his first visit to Jerusalem ( Acts 9:29). Their Grecian or foreign culture and education made them clever disputants; hence, their keenness in controverting the new convert who had before sided with them against Stephen; the latter also was once a Grecian (Hellenist) Jew before his conversion to Christianity ( Acts 7:58; 6:9-14).

GREYHOUND Proverbs 30:31, margin, “girt in the loins,” referring to the slenderness of its body at the loins, as if tightly girt for grace and swiftness in running, so that it is classed among the “things which go well.” The ancient Egyptian paintings represent such close-girt hounds used in coursing.

Gesenius understands Proverbs 30:31 “a war horse with ornamental trappings girt on its loins.” Maurer, “a wrestler with loins girt for the struggle.” Grove. [See ASHTORETH .] Translated rather “Asherah,” the image of the goddess. So 2 Kings 23:6, where it is nonsense “Josiah brought out the grove (Asherah) from the house of the Lord”; Manasseh had “set this graven image of Asherah in the house” ( 2 Kings 21:7; 22:7; compare Judges 3:7). Also a “grove” could not be “set up under every green tree” ( 2 Kings 17:10; 1 Kings 14:23; 18:19; Exodus 34:13). In Genesis 21:33 it is a different word, “Abraham planted a grove (eshowl ) in Beersheba,” rather “a tamarisk tree,” a hardy evergreen fitted to be a memorial to his posterity that the well was theirs. The Asherah was upright, fixed or planted in the ground; of wood, so that it was capable of being “cut down and burned” ( Judges 6:25,26; see Kings 15:13). “Maacbah had made an idol Asherah” (not” IN grove”). The worship of Asherah like that of Astarte or Ashtoreth, was associated with Baal worship. Astarte is the personal goddess, Ashcrah her conventional symbol in some one of her attributes. The sacred tree in Assyrian sculptures is similar, a symbol of the goddess of nature. The stone “pillar” (as the Hebrew for “image” ought to be translated, Exodus 34:13) was Baal’s symbol; as the wooden pillar or tree was Astarte’s ( 2 Kings 18:4). The attempt to combine this with Jehovah worship is the subject of the prohibition ( Exodus 34:13).

The Hebrew word translated “plain” (elon ) signifies a grove or plantation; that of Mamre ( Genesis 13:18), of Moreh ( Genesis 12:6), of Zaanaim ( Judges 4:11), of the pillar in Shechem ( Judges 9:6), of Meonenim ( Judges 9:37), of Tabor ( 1 Samuel 10:3).

Groves were associated with worship from ancient times, as the passages just quoted show. Pliny states that trees were the first temples. Their shade, solitude, and solemn stillness suggested this use. The superstitious abuse of them to idolatry and licentious rites caused the Divine prohibition of them for religious purposes; which prohibition Israel disregarded ( Jeremiah 17:2; Ezekiel 20:28). Trees were also used for national assemblies ( Judges 9:6,37), for burying the dead ( Genesis 35:8; 1 Samuel 31:14). Some trees are specially-noted: the tamarisk (eeshel ) under which Saul abode in Gibeah ( 1 Samuel 22:6); the terebinth in Shechem under which Joshua, after writing the law of God, set up ( Joshua 24:26) a great stone as a witness; the palm tree of Deborah ( Judges 4:5); the terebinth of enchantments ( Judges 9:37 margin, see MEONENIM ); of wanderers ( Judges 6:11, see ZAANAIM ); 1 Samuel 14:2, “a pomegranate tree in Migron” ( 1 Samuel 10:3). Tree worship, perhaps a distortion of the tradition of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge (Genesis 3), may be traced in Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Assyria, Persia, India, Thibet, Siam, China, Japan, Ceylon, the Philippine isles. The Druids venerated oak groves (Pliny, H. N., xvi. 44; Tacitus, Annals xiv. 30). The black priests in Africa alone may enter the sacred groves. The Etrurians worshipped a palm-tree.

GUARD tabbach . The king’s executioner, literally, cook ( Genesis 37:36, margrin; 2 Kings 25:8; Daniel 2:14). Rats = “the runner” who carried dispatches ( 2 Chronicles 30:6), and also acted as military guard to the Jewish kings ( 2 Samuel 15:1). Mishmereth = “watchmen” ( Nehemiah 4:9,22).

GUDGODAH see HOR HAGIDGAD Deuteronomy 10:7.

GUNI 1. Genesis 46:24; 1 Chronicles 7:13; Numbers 26:48. A patronymic, the plural name implying a family as well as an individual. 2. 1 Chronicles 5:15.

GUR, THE GOING UP TO i.e., ascent to Gur or the lion’s whelp, where Ahaziah was killed while fleeing from Jehu ( 2 Kings 9:27). It was “by Ibleam” (now Bel’amek), between Jezreel and “the garden house” (Beth-hag-gan, now Jenin). Now Kefr Kud. The similarity of the Hebrew letter daleth (d) and the Hebrew letter resh (r) led to their frequent interchange.

GUR-BAAL Where Arabians dwelt ( 2 Chronicles 26:7). Between Palestine and Arabia.

H HAASHTARI 1 Chronicles 4:6.

HABAIAH Ezra 2:61; Nehemiah 7:63.

HABAKKUK ”The cordially embraced one (favorite of God), or the cordial embracer.” “A man of heart, hearty toward another, taking him into his arms. This Habakkuk does in his prophecy; he comforts and lifts up his people, as one would do with a weeping child, bidding him be quiet, because, please God, it would yet be better with him” (Luther). The psalm (Habakkuk 3) and title “Habakkuk the prophet” favor the opinion that Habakkuk was a Levite. The closing words, “to the chief singer on my stringed instruments,” imply that Habakkuk with his own instruments would accompany the song he wrote under the Spirit; like the Levite seers and singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun ( 1 Chronicles 25:1-5). A lyrical tone pervades his prophecies, so that he most approaches David in his psalms. The opening phrase ( Habakkuk 1:1) describes his prophecy as “the burden which,” etc., i.e. the weighty, solemn announcement.

Habakkuk “saw” it with the inner eye opened by the Spirit. He probably prophesied in the 12th or 13th year of Josiah (630 or 629 B.C.), for the words “in your days” ( Habakkuk 1:5) imply that the prophecy would come to pass in the lifetime of the persons addressed. In Jeremiah 16:9 the same phrase comprises 20 years, in Ezekiel 12:25 six years. Zephaniah 1:7 is an imitation of Habakkuk 2:20; now Zephaniah ( Zephaniah 1:1) lived under Josiah, and prophesied (compare Zephaniah 3:5,15) after the restoration of Jehovah’s worship, i.e. after the 12th year of Josiah’s reign, about 624 B.C. So Habakkuk must have been before this. Jeremiah moreover began prophesying in Josiah’s 13th year; now Jeremiah borrows from Habakkuk (compare Habakkuk 2:13 with Jeremiah 51:58); thus, it follows that 630 or 629 B.C. is Habakkuk’s date of prophesying (Delitzsch).

Contents. — Habakkuk complains of the moral disorganization around, and cries to Jehovah for help ( Habakkuk 1:2-4); Jehovah in reply denounces swift vengeance ( Habakkuk 1:5-11) by the Chaldeans.

Habakkuk complains that the Chaldees are worse than the Jews whom they are to be the instruments of chastising; they deal treacherously, sweep all into their net, and then “they sacrifice unto their net and burn incense unto their drag,” i.e. idolize their own might and military skill, instead of giving the glory to God ( Deuteronomy 8:17; Isaiah 10:13; 37:24,25).

Habakkuk therefore, confident that God is of purer eyes than to behold evil ( Habakkuk 1:13), sets himself in an attitude of waiting for the Lord’s own solution of this perplexing apparent anomaly ( Habakkuk 2:1); Jehovah desires him accordingly, “write the vision” of God’s retributive justice plainly, so “that he may run that readeth it,” namely, “run” to tell to all the good news of the foe’s doom and Judah’s deliverance, or, as Grotius, run through it, i.e. run through the reading without difficulty. The issue must be awaited with patience, for it shall not disappoint; the lifted up soul, as that of the Chaldean foe and the unbelieving apostatizing Jew, is not accounted upright before God and therefore shall perish; but the just shall be accounted just by his faith and so shall live. The Chaldeans’ doom is announced on the ground of this eternal principle of God’s moral government. The oppressed nations “shall take up a parable,” i.e. a derisive song (compare Isaiah 14:4; Micah 2:4), whom Habakkuk copies, against their oppressor. It is a symmetrical whole, five stanzas; three of three verses each, the fourth of four, and the last of two verses. Each stanza, except the last, begins with “woe.” All have a closing verse introduced with “for,” “but,” or “because.” Each strophe begins with the character of the sin, then states the woe, lastly confirms the woe ( Habakkuk 2:2-20). The prayer-song (Habakkuk 3) is the spiritual echo, resuming the previous parts of the prophecy, for the enlightenment of God’s people. Prayer, thanksgiving, and trust, are the spiritual key to unlock the mysteries of God’s present government of the earth. The spirit appears tumultuously to waver (from whence the title “Shigionoth” from shagah, “to wander”) between fear and hope; but faith at the end triumphs joyfully over present trials ( Habakkuk 3:17-19). Upon God’s past manifestations for His people, at Paran, Teman, and the Red Sea, Habakkuk grounds the anticipated deliverance of his people from the foe, through Jehovah’s interposition in sublime majesty; so that the believer can always rejoice in the God of his salvation and his strength. The interests of God’s righteous character, seemingly compromised in the Chaldees’ successful violence, are what Habakkuk has most at heart throughout; to solve this problem is his one grand theme.

Paul quotes Habakkuk1:5 in his warning to the unbelieving Jews at Antioch in Pisidia. Thrice Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4, “the just shall live by his faith” (one fundamental truth throughout the Bible, beginning with Abram in Genesis 15:6); first in Romans 1:17, where the emphasis rests on “just,” God’s righteousness and the nature of justification being the prominent thought; secondly in Galatians 3:11, where the emphasis is on “faith,” the instrument of justification being prominent; thirdly in Hebrews 10:38, where the emphasis is on “live,” the continued life that flows from justification being prominent.

HABAZINIAH Head of the Rechabites ( Jeremiah 35:3).

HABERGEON Coat of mail, covering the neck and chest. Exodus 28:32: “as the hole of an habergeon,” namely, for the head and neck to go through; the sacerdotal meeil or robe of the ephod resembling it in form, but of linen. Job 41:26, margin, “breastplate.”

HABOR (See GOZAN ). Now the Khabour; omitting “by” in 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11.

But “Halah” a province, going directly before Habor in the same connection, favors KJV It would be awkward to say he put them “in Halah,” a province, and “in Habor,” a river. Probably the river Habor gave its name to the province. It joins the Euphrates at Circesium; the country adjoining abounds in mounds, the remains of Assyrian cities. The Khabour is mentioned in an inscription of the 9th century.

HACHALIAH Nehemiah’s father ( Nehemiah 1:1; 10:1).

HACHILAH, THE HILL In a wood in the untilled land near Ziph, facing ( 1 Samuel 23:19,24, “south” of) the Jeshimon, i.e. the waste district. David and his 600 men lurked in the fastnesses of the hill; but as Saul approached withdrew to the wood (rather the choresh or village attached to see ZIPH ) below. Saul bivouacked by the way or road which passed over or at the side of the hill.

Then ensued David’s taking of Saul’s spear and cruse (23:14; 26:13). See the title of Psalm 54. There is an undesigned coincidence between David’s language in Psalm 11:1, “how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain,” and the independent history ( 1 Samuel 26:20),” the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains,” a confirmation of the genuineness of both psalm and history.

From the rock of Ziph David came down to “the wilderness of Maon.”

Both names are still found in southern Judah. Conder (Palestine Exploration) identifies Hachilah with a high hill bounded by deep valleys N. and S. on which stands the ruin Yekin or Harbin, facing Jeshimon on the right. The “trench” where Saul pitched tent is the flat low plot between steep cliffs, the head of a large wady with water. David crossed the valley, and from either of the hill tops called to the hosts. There is only one hill E. of Ziph overlooking the desert, the rest are rolling downs at a lower level; on this one is Yekin, which is “Hachil,” the liquids l and n being interchanged as often. The “trench” in which Saul lay ( 1 Samuel 26:5) was the hollow, with a spring and cave in it, still to be seen beneath the crest of the hill. Another knoll is beyond this hollow; just as the Bedouins take up their quarters, not on a hill where they can be seen, but in a slight hollow so as at will to emerge forth at the right moment on a foe. It is contrary to their customs of war to lie in a trench of an encampment; however the sense may probably be (see margin), he lay within the wagon rampart.

HACHMONI, SON OF THE HACHMONITE ( 1 Chronicles 27:32; 11:11). The former is the correct rendering; the Hebrew in both passages is the same. In 2 Samuel 23:8 “the Tachmonite” names, in Chronicles given with “son of” (ben), are given without it, but with the definite article. Hachmonite was founder of a family; for the actual father of Jashobeam (a Korhite) was Zabdiel ( Chronicles 27:2; 12:6).

HADAD A name often recurring in the Syrian and Edomite dynasties, meaning the sun; so applied as the official title to the king, as supreme on earth as the sun is in the sky. It appears in Ben-hadad, son, i.e. worshipper, of Hadad; Hadad-ezer, helped by Hadad. It appears as see HADAR ( Genesis 25:15; compare 1 Chronicles 1:30,50). Nicolaus of Damascus (Fragm. 31), friend of Augustus Caesar (Josephus, Ant. 7:5, sec. 2), confirms Samuel 8:3 as to David’s defeating Hadadezer or Hadarezer, king of Zobah, “when he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates”; Nicolaus says, “a certain Hadad, a native Syrian, had great power, ruling over Damascus and all Syria except. Phoenicia (this accords with Samuel 8:5, ‘the Syrians of Damascus came to support Hadadezer,’ being his vassals); he contended against David king of Judea in many battles; in the last, which was by the Euphrates, he suffered defeat (making his third defeat: 2 Samuel 8:3,5; 10:18), showing himself a prince of the greatest prowess.” 1. Son of Ishmael ( Genesis 25:15). The Attaei, Attene, Chateni, on W. of Persian gulf, seem his descendants (Ptol. 6:7, section 15; Plin. 6:32).

Hadad, a mountain belonging toTEMA on the borders of the Syrian desert N. of el-Medeenah, corresponds to the dwelling of this tribe. 2. King of Edom; conquered Midian on the field of Moab ( Genesis 36:35); see AVITH was his capital. 3. King of Edom (Pan was his capital: Genesis 36:39); probably living when Moses wrote, for Moses does not record his death as he does that of his predecessors; last of the kings. In the later written 1 Chronicles 1:50 Hadad’s death is recorded. The dukes that follow were not successors, but hereditary sheikhs who chose one emir or king to preside. Hadad’s death does not therefore, as Smith’s Bible Dictionary supposes, mark a change to the dukedom (see EDOM ). “Hadad could hardly have been living after the times of the kings of Israel, to which period those who consider Genesis 36:31-48 an interpolation would assign the genealogy” (Speaker’s Commentary). 4. Of the royal house of Edom ( 1 Kings 11:14, etc.). In childhood escaped the massacre of every Edomite male by Joab, and fled into Egypt.

Pharaoh gave him house, victuals, and land, and his wife Tahpenes the queen’s sister in marriage, who bore him Genubath. At David’s death, in spite of Pharaoh’s entreaties he left Egypt for his own country. The Septuagint read Edom for Aram (Syria), 1 Kings 11:25, thus making Hadad succeed in his attempt to regain rule over Edom, from whence he harassed Israel; but the Septuagint omits all as to Rezon, so that its authority is worth little here. Josephus (Ant. 8:7, section 6) reads as KJV; Hadad thus having failed to recover Edom joined Rezon in assailing Israel and received from him a portion of Syria; “he reigned over Syria” refers to Rezon, and is a repetition of verse 24.

HADAD-RIMMON A city in the valley of Megiddo, or plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon; named from Hadad the Syrian sun god and see RIMMON , another Syrian idol.

The scene of the national lamentation for Josiah’s death in the battle fought here with Pharaoh Necho ( 2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:23).

Jerome calls the city Maximianopolis, from the emperor Maximian; not far from Jezreel.

HADAREZER, HADADEZER Son of Rehob, king of Zobah. Helped by the Damascus Syrians (see HADAD ); driven by David beyond the river Euphrates ( 2 Samuel 8:3,5; 10:6-9; 1 Chronicles 18:3; 19:7-19). After Joab’s first repulse of Ammon and their Syrian allies Hadarezer, undaunted by defeat twice ( Samuel 8:3,5), sent a host under the command of Shophach to assist his kinsmen of Maachah, Rehob, and Ishtob; David in person routed them completely at see HELAM ; thus, the Syrian confederacy was overthrown, Hadarezer’s subordinate princes submitted to David who dedicated to Jehovah the 1000 “shields” or” weapons (shelet) of gold” taken in the first war; these were long known as king David’s ( Song of Solomon 4:4; 2 Chronicles 23:9). See REZON of Hadarezer’s retainers escaped, and with “bands” marauded the thinly-peopled district between the Jordan and the Euphrates ( 2 Kings 5:2; 1 Chronicles 5:18-22), then became master of Damascus, and as an “adversary” did “mischief” to Israel in Solomon’s days ( 1 Kings 11:28-25). Edom invaded Israel during David’s absence at the Euphrates; Psalm 44 by the sons of Korah alludes to this. Psalm 60 by David was composed after victory in part had been gained over Aram Naharaim (Syria of the two floods) and Aram (Syria) of Zobah the kingdom of Hadarezer, who had come to help his vassals of Mesopotamia, the region of the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates; after having conquered the two Syrias, Joab returned and smote Edom in the valley of Salt; Psalm 60 refers to the expedition subsequently undertaken to occupy Edom in revenge for Edom’s invasion of Israel.

HADASHAH A town in the shephelah or low hills of Judah ( Joshua 15:37).

HADASSAH Esther’s original name ( Esther 2:7). Possibly the same name as “Atossa,” Cyrus’ daughter.

HADATTAH A town in the extreme S. of Judah ( Joshua 15:25), the Qeri (the Hebrew margin) reads Hazor-hadattah, i.e New Hazor. So Eusebius and Jerome; but they place it near and E. of Ascalon, which is in the shephelah, whereas Joshua places it among towns of S. Judah. Now El-Hudhaira, S. of Jebel Khulil (Robinson).

HADID =“sharp,” as being on a craggy height. Aditha, named by Eusebius, E. of Diospolis (Lydda or Lod, with which it is named Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:34), is probably Hadid. In Van de Velde’s map el- Hadithah, three miles E. of Lydda.

HADLAI 2 Chronicles 28:12.

HADORAM 1. Son of Tou or Toi, king of Hamath; sent to congratulate David on his victory over Hadarezer ( 1 Chronicles 28:10), bearing costly presents in gold, silver, and brass (antiques according to Josephus). More likely to be the true name than “Jeram,” which contains the name of Jehovah ( Samuel 8:10). 2. The contracted form of Adoniram ( 2 Samuel 20:24; 1 Kings 4:6; 12:18). Over the tribute, under David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. Stoned to death when sent as one of the old or moderate party, to appease the sedition; the choice of the superintendent of taxes for the purpose was consistent with the general lack of tact in Rehoboam.

HADRACH, THE LAND OF A region of Syria. ( Zechariah 9:1,2). Derived probably fromHADAR or see HADAD . Possibly another name forBIKATH AVEN (Amos 1:5).

Maurer says it means in Syrian enclosed, i.e. Coelo-Syria, the western interior part of Syria; or its capital (Jerome). Hengstenberg makes it a symbolical name of Persia, Zechariah thereby avoiding offence to the government under which he lived; from haad strong, and raq weak; strong then, but soon to be weakened by Alexander its conqueror. But the context implies a Syrian region. Gesenius thinks Hadrach. a Syrian king.

HAGAB, THE CHILDREN OF Ezra 2:46. Also see HAGABAH ( Nehemiah 7:48; Ezra 2:45).

HAGAR Perhaps related to the Arabic hegira, “flight.” Genesis 16; Genesis 21; 25:12. Abram’s bond-woman; an Egyptian received into his household during his sojourn in Egypt,. Taken as legal concubine at Sarai’s suggestion to raise a seed, in hope of his being the promised heir, when Sarai’s age seemingly forbade hope of issue by her. The marriage law was then less definitely recognized than at the beginning, and than subsequently. Lack of faith moved Sarai to suggest, and moved Abram to adopt, a fleshly device instead of waiting the Lord’s time and way. It was punished by consequent family disquiet, and the bad example copied by the Ishmaelites has proved morally and physically a curse to the race. Abraham gave up Hagar, in violation of eastern custom, to Sarai’s ill usage; so Hagar fled toward her native land Egypt, by the way through the wilderness toward Shur, probably Suez. The wilderness is identified with the N.E. part of that of Paran, now Al-jifar. The angel of Jehovah reminded her that as “Sarai’s maid” she owed her submission, and promised that her son Ishmael should be father of a numerous nation. So she called Jehovah that spoke unto her “Thou God seest me” (Hebrew: “Thou art a God of seeing,” a God who allows Himself to be seen), for she said, “Have I also seen (i.e. am I yet living and seeing) here, after seeing (God)?” ( Genesis 32:30; Judges 13:22; Exodus 20:19; 33:20). The adjoining well was named Beer-lahai-roi, “the well of the seeing alive,” i.e. at which one saw God and lived. This explanation involves a change of accents; but the KJV explanation involves a grammatical difficulty; Chald. supports KJV, “Thou art a God of seeing,” i.e. the all seeing, from whose eye the helpless is not hidden in the lonely desert, and Beer-lahairoi, “the well of the living One who sees me,” i.e. of the ever living omnipresent Providence. In either view the words show Hagar was now no pagan, but had become in some degree a believer in the God of Abraham. Ishmael’s mocking at the feast which celebrated Isaac’s weaning was the occasion of Sarah’s saying, “Cast out this bond-woman and her son, for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son ... Isaac.” As Abram had laughed for joy at the promise of Isaac ( Genesis 17:17), and Sarai for incredulity ( Genesis 18:12-15), but afterward, at Isaac’s birth, for joyful gratitude, so Ishmael in derision and in the spirit of a persecutor, mocking (which contains the germ of persecuting) Isaac’s faith in God’s promises. Being the elder he prided himself above “him that was born after the Spirit,” i.e. by the Spirit-energized promise of God, which made Sarah fruitful out of the course of nature.

The history typifies the truth that the spiritual seed of Abraham by promise, Gentile as well as Jewish believers, take the place of the Jews the natural seed, who imagined that to them exclusively belonged the kingdom of God.

Paul expounds Hagar to answer to Sinai and the law, which generates a spirit of “bondage,” as Hagar was a bond-woman, and that this must give place to the gospel dispensation and the church of grace, the “Jerusalem which is above.” The carnal and legalists shall not be heirs with the free New Testament believers ( Galatians 4:22-31). Abraham, at God’s command, did what Sarah said, though grievous to him. H. wandered with her child (15 years was childhood when human life was so long, he was old enough to “mock”) in the wilderness of Beersheba; the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast him, soon worn out as a growing lad, under a shrub, having previously led him by the hand (for Genesis 21:14 means that Abraham put the bread and bottle, but not also the child, “on her shoulder”; so Genesis 21:18, “hold him in thine hand”). The lad’s own cry, still more than the mother’s, brought “the angel of God” (here only in Gen., usually “angel ofJEHOVAH”), i.e. GOD, the second Person ( Genesis 21:17,19,20), to his and her help. The child’s cry is the more potent with the Omnipotent, just because of its helplessness ( Isaiah 40:29; 41:17,18). God opened her eyes to see water where she had supposed there was only a dry wilderness. In our greatest extremity God has only to open our eyes and we see abundant help near. Real prayer will bring Him to our side ( 2 Kings 6:17-20; Luke 24:16,31). Hagar “took him a wife out of Egypt,” the land of idols and worldliness; untaught by the piety of Abraham and by God’s mercy to herself.

HAGARENES; HAGARITES E. of Palestine. Fell by the hand of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, in the time of Saul; these occupied their tents and land in eastern Gilead ( Chronicles 5:10,18-20). Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab, Hagarites, are mentioned as “delivered into their hand, and all that were with them: for they cried to God in the battle (and they were helped against them), and He was entreated of them; because they put their trust in Him. And they took away their cattle ... camels ... sheep ... donkeys ... for there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads, until the captivity.” The spoil shows their wealth as nomadic tribes. In Psalm 83:6-8 “the tabernacles of the Hagarenes” are mentioned as distinct from the “Ishmaelites,” with whom and Moab, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, Tyre, and Assur, they confederated to invade suddenly Jehoshaphat’s land and take it in possession. The Hagarenes probably were named not from Ishmael’s mother Hagar directly, but from a district or town so-called; possibly now Hejer, capital and subdivision of the province el-Bahreyn in N.E. Arabia, on the Persian gulf.

HAGGAI =“my feast.” A name given in anticipation of the joyous return from exile.

Perhaps a Levite, as the rabbis say he was buried at Jerusalem among the priests. Tradition represents him as returning with the first exiles from Babylon his birthplace, under Zerubbabel 536 B.C., when see CYRUS , actuated by Isaiah’s prophecies concerning himself (44: 28; 45:1), decreed the Jews’ restoration and the rebuilding of the temple, for which he furnished all necessaries. (See EZRA , see AHASUERUS , see ARTAXERXES , see DARIUS ). In spite of Samaritan opposition the temple building went on under Cyrus and Cambyses (Ahasuerus Ezra 4:6); but under the Magian usurper Smerdis (Artaxerxes Ezra 4:7-23) the Samaritans procured a royal decree suspending the work. Hence, the Jews became so indifferent about it that when Darius came to the throne (521 B.C.), whose accession virtually nullified the usurper’s prohibition, they pretended that as the prophecy of the 70 years applied to the temple as well as to the captivity in Babylon ( Haggai 1:2), they were only in the 68th year, and that, the time not yet having come, they might build splendid cieled mansions for themselves. Haggai first, and Zechariah two months later, were commissioned by Jehovah ( Haggai 1:1) in Darius’ (Hystaspes) second year, 520 B.C., to rouse them from their selfishness to resume the work which had been suspended for 14 years.

The dates of his four distinct prophecies are given.

I. (Haggai 1). On the first day of the 6th month of Darius’ second year of reigning, 520 B.C. Reproves their apathy in leaving the temple in ruins; reminds them of their ill fortune because of their neglect of God’s house. In consequence, within 24 days they began building under Zerubbabel ( Haggai 1:12-15).

II. ( Haggai 2:1-9). Predicts that the new temple’s glory will exceed that of Solomon’s temple; therefore the outward inferiority which had moved the elders to tears at the foundation laying ( Ezra 3:10-13) ought not to discourage them. Isaiah (Isaiah 60; 2:2-4), Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 3:16-18), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40—48), similarly, had foretold the glory of the latter house; but the temple then being built so far showed no signs of glory, Haggai shows wherein the glory should consist, namely, in the presence of Him who is “the Desire of all nations.” Many object that the Hebrew “desire” (chemdath ) being singular, and “shall come” being plural (bauw ), the singular must be collective for “desirable things shall come,” namely, silver and gold. But when two nouns come together, one singular the other plural, the verb may agree with the latter. Besides Messiah is “all desires,” containing collectively all desirable things in Himself such as they missed in the present temple, splendor, riches, etc. (Song 5:16). The desires of all nations can find their satisfaction in Him alone. He embodies the “good things to come,” “to Him shall the gathering of the people be” ( Genesis 49:10). He comes in His veiled glory to the temple at His first advent ( Matthew 21:12-14), in His revealed glory at His second advent ( Malachi 3:1). The glory of the latter house did not exceed that of the former except in Messiah’s advent; the silver and gold brought to it scarcely equaled those of Solomon’s temple, and certainly all nations did not bring their desirable things to it. The KJV is therefore right. The masculine plural verb implies that the feminine singular noun is an abstract for a masculine concrete.

III. ( Haggai 2:10-19). On the 24th day of the 9th month, when building materials were collected and the workmen had begun to build; from this time God promises to bless them. He rectifies their past error of thinking that outward observances cleanse away the sin of disobeying God, as for instance in respect to the temple building. (Holy flesh of sacrifice sanctifies the skirt in which it is carried, but cannot sanctify anything beyond, as bread: Leviticus 6:27. On the other hand, an unclean person imparts his uncleanness to anything he touches. So ceremonialism cannot sanctify the unclean person, but the unclean defiles all he touches).

IV. ( Haggai 2:20-23). On the same day as III, addressed to Zerubbabel, the representative of the theocracy, who asked about the national revolutions foretold in II. ( Haggai 2:7). Judah, whose representative Zerubbabel was, shall remain, as a signet ring secure, while God makes an end of other nations ( Jeremiah 46:28). The time occupied by Haggai’s prophecies is three months. The temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius’ reign, 515-516 B.C. ( Ezra 6:14).

The style of Haggai is prose-like but pathetic in exhortation, vehement in reproof, and lofty in contemplating the glorious future, Repetitions (e.g., “saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts” Haggai 1:2,5,7; 2:4 thrice; “the Spirit” thrice in Haggai 1:14) and interrogations impart a simple earnestness of tone calculated to awaken from apathy to solemn attention.

Haggai is referred to in Ezra 5:1; 6:14, and in New Testament, Hebrews 12:26: compare Haggai 2:6,7,22. The final earthly shaking of kingdoms is preparing the way for the “kingdom that cannot be moved.”

The Septuagint associate Haggai and Zechariah in the titles of Psalm 137; Psalm 145—148; the Vulgate in the titles of Psalm 111; 145; the Syriac in those of Psalm 125; Psalm 126; Psalm 145—148. Haggai according to Pseudo-Epiphanius (De Vitis Proph.) first chanted the Hallelujah, the hymn of Haggai and Zechariah, in the second temple. The Hallelujah psalms belong certainly to the period after the return from Babylon.

HAGGERI 1 Chronicles 11:38. But 2 Samuel 23:36 has “Bani the Gadite,” of which Kennicott thinks Haggeri to be the corruption.

HAGGI Genesis 46:26; Numbers 26:15. A patronymic.

HAGGIAH 1 Chronicles 6:30.

HAGGITH =“a dancer”. One of David’s wives, Adonijah’s mother ( 2 Samuel 3:4).

HAI ( Genesis 12:8; 13:3) = Ai, with the Hebrew article [ha ], which always accompanies Ai.

HAIR Shaved closely by men, worn long by women, in Egypt. The Hebrews wore long beards; the Egyptians only in mourning did so. At the same time the Hebrews kept the distinction of sexes by clipping the hair of men (though hardly so much as we do; Leviticus 10:6; Hebrew: “let not loose (the hair of) your heads,” not “uncover,” etc.), but not of women ( Corinthians 11:6, etc.; Luke 7:38). The law forbad them to “round the corners of their heads, or mar the cornners of the beard”; for the Arabs in honour of the idol Orotal cut the hair from the temples in a circular form, and in mourning marred their beards ( Leviticus 19:27; Jeremiah 9:26 margin, Jeremiah 48:37). See BALDNESS , being often the result of leprosy, disqualified for the priesthood ( Leviticus 21:20, Septuagint).

Absalom’s luxuriant hair is mentioned as a sign of beauty, but was a mark of effeminacy; its weight perhaps was 20, not 200 shekels, the numeral resh (r) having by a copyist’s error been substituted for kaph (k) ( 2 Samuel 14:26). Nazarites wore it uncut, a sign of humiliation and self-denial, at the same time of dedication of all the strength, of which hair was a token, to God ( Numbers 6:5; Judges 13:5; 16:17). Shaving the head was often practiced in fulfillment of a vow, as Paul did, the shaving being usually followed by a sacrifice in 30 days ( Acts 18:18); probably his vow was made in some sickness ( Galatians 4:13). Black was the favorite color.

Song 5:11, the bridegroom’s locks are “bushy” (curled), betokening headship; Son 4:1, the hair of goats in the East being fine like silk and flowing, the token of the bride’s subjection; Song 1:5; 7:5, “purple,” i.e. glossy black. Ecclesiastes 12:5, “the almond tree shall flourish.” does not refer to white hair on the old, for the almond blossom is pink, but to the almond (lit. the wakeful) tree blossoming in winter, i.e. the wakefulness of old age shall set in. But Gesenius, “(the old man) loathes the (sweet) almond.” In Song 7:5, for “galleries” translated “the king is held (fascinated) with the flowing ringlets.” The hair was often platted in braids, kept in their place by a fillet. So Samson’s “seven locks” ( Judges 16:13,19; compare 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3). Egyptian women swear by their sidelocks, and men by their beards; the Jews’ imitation of this our Lord condemns ( Matthew 5:36). Hair represents what is least valuable ( Matthew 10:30); innumerable to man, but “all numbered” by God’s providence for His children. “Hair as the hair of women” ( Revelation 9:8), long and flowing, a mark of semi-barbarous hosts ( 1 Corinthians 11:14,15).

HAKKATAN = Katan, with [ha-], the article. ( Ezra 8:12).

HAKKOZ 1 Chronicles 24:10. In Ezra 2:61 Koz is a family of priests, the [ha-] being the article.

HAKUPHA, CHILDREN OF Ezra 2:51.

HALAH The name appears in Chalcitis (Ptolemy, 5:18), and Gla, a mound on the upper Khabour ( 2 Kings 17:6). A Median district and city.

HALAK, THE MOUNT = “the smooth mountain,” “which goeth up to Seir” ( Joshua 11:17; 12:7); the southern extremity of Joshua’s conquests. Keil identifies it with the chalk cliffs crossing the valley of the Ghor, six miles S. of the Dead Sea; the southern limit of the Ghor, the northern limit of the Arabah.

HALHUL A town in the Judah mountains. The hill is still so named, with ruins of walls and foundations, a mile to the left of the road from Jerusalem to Hebron, four miles front the latter. A mosque stands there, named Nebi Yunus, the prophet Jonah ( Joshua 15:58). Close to Beitsur (Bethzur) and Jedur (Gedor).

HALI A town on Asher’s boundary ( Joshua 19:25).

HALL = aulee , the court or uncovered space, on a lower level than the lowest floor, in the midst of a house, as the high priest’s ( Luke 22:55). The “porch” (proaulion ) was the vestibule leading to it ( Mark 14:68). Also called puloon , the “gate” or “porch” ( Matthew 26:71).

HALLOHESH Lohesh with the article. Sealed the covenant with Nehemiah (10:24).

Father of Shallum (3:12).

HAM = “hot”. 1. The Egyptian see KEM (Egypt is singularly the land of Ham, Psalm 78:51; 105:23), “black”; the sun-burnt and those whose soil is black, as Ethiopia means. Father (i.e. ancestor) of Cush (Ethiopia), Mizraim (see EGYPT ) , Phut (Libya), and Canaan. These mean races. not individuals.

Egypt being the first civilized was singled out as the chief country of Hamite settlements. (On the Hamitic or Cushite origin of Babylon, alleged by Scripture and confirmed by the vocabulary in ancient remains, see CUSH and see BABEL ). Solid grandeur characterizes the Hamitic architecture, as in the earliest of Egypt, Babylonia, and S. Arabia. The first steps in the arts and sciences seemingly are due to the Hamites. The earliest empires were theirs, their power of organization being great. Material rather than moral greatness was theirs. Hence their civilization, though early, decayed sooner than that of the Semitic and Japhetic races. Egypt, fenced on the N. by a sea without good harbours, on the E. and W. by deserts, held its sway the longest. The Hamites of S. Arabia were at a very early date overcome by the Joktanites, and the Babylonians yielded to the Medes. Ammon, the god of N. Africa, is related to Ham. Ham is supposed to be youngest of Noah’s sons from Genesis 9:24, but “younger (Hebrew: little) son” there probably means Noah’s grandson, namely, Canaan, not Ham. Shem is put first, having the spiritual eminence of being father of the promised seed. The names Shem (the man of name or renown), Ham (the settler in hot Africa), and Japbet (father of fair descendants, or of those who spread abroad), may not have been their original names, but derived from subsequent facts of their history. 2. A place where Chedorlaomer smote the Zuzim ( Genesis 14:5). If Zuzim be the same as Zamzummim, who dwelt in the territory afterward occupied by Ammon ( Deuteronomy 2:19-21), Ham answers to Rabbath Ammon. Septuagint and Vulgate read baheem for bHam , i.e. with them, but KJV seems correct. 3. Simeonites went to the eastern entrance of the valley of Gedor in quest of pasture, and dispossessed the previous inhabitants, being men “of Ham” ( 1 Chronicles 4:40). Perhaps an Egyptian settlement, Egypt being closely connected with this southern part of Palestine.

HAMAN (See ESTHER ). Son of Hammedatha “the Agagite,” probably of Amalekite origin ( Numbers 24:7,20; 1 Samuel 15:8). The Amalekites had from the first pursued Israel with unrelenting spite ( Exodus 17:16, margin; Deuteronomy 25:17-19), and were consequently all but exterminated by Israel ( 1 Samuel 15:8; 30:17; 2 Samuel 8:12; 1 Chronicles 4:43).

A survivor of such a race would instinctively hate Israel and every Jew.

Elevated by one of those sudden turns which are frequent in despotic states where all depends on the whim of the autocrat, he showed that jealousy of any omission of respect which is characteristic of upstarts. These two motives account for his monstrous scheme of revenge whereby he intended to exterminate a whole nation for the affront of omission of respect on the part of the one individual, Mordecai. God’s retributive judgment and overruling providence are remarkably illustrated; his wicked plot backfired on himself; the honours which he designed for himself he, in spite of himself, heaped on the man whom he so scornfully hated; and the gallows on which he meant to hang Mordecai was that on which he was hanged himself ( Psalm 7:15,16).

HAMATH The chief city of upper Syria, in the valley of the Orontes, commanding the whole valley, from the low hills which form the watershed between the Orontes and the Liturgy, to the defile of Daphne below Antioch; this was “the kingdom of Hamath.” An Hamitie race ( Genesis 10:18). Akin to their neighbours the Hittites. “The entering in of Hamath,” indicates that it (the long valley between Lebanon and Antilebanon) was the point of entrance into the land of Israel for any invading army, as the Assyrians and Babylonians, from the N. The southern approach to Hamath from Coelosyria between Libanus and Antilibanus formed the northern limit to Israel’s inheritance ( Numbers 13:21; 34:8; Joshua 13:5).

It was an independent kingdom under Tou or Toi in David’s time; Toi sent presents to David who had destroyed the power of Hadarezer, Toi’s enemy ( 2 Samuel 8:9-11). Tributary to Solomon who built “store cities” in it ( 2 Chronicles 8:4) as staples for the trade which passed along the Orontes valley. Mentioned as an ally of the Syrians of Damascus in the Assyrian inscriptions of Ahab’s time. Jeroboam II “recovered Hamath” ( 2 Kings 14:25); but it was subjugated soon by Assyria (18:34; Amos 6:2,14), Who calls it “Hamath the great.” Solomon’s feast congregated all Israel “from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt” ( 1 Kings 8:65). The same point from which Solomon’s kingdom began was the point from which, according to Amos’ prophecy, began the triumph of Israel’s foes for Israel’s sin. From Antiochus Epiphanes it afterward got the name Epiphaneia. It has resumed its old name little changed, Hamah; remarkable for its great waterwheels for raising water from the Orontes for the gardens and houses. The alah or high land of Syria abounds in ruins of villages, 365 according to the Arabs. Hamath stones have been found, four blocks of basalt inscribed with hieroglyphics, first noticed by Burckhardt in 1810; the characters in cameo raised from two to four lines, not incised, as other Syrian inscriptions. The names of Thothroes III and Amenophis I are read by some scholars in them. Burton thinks these inscriptions form a connecting link between picture writing and alphabetic writing. Probably they were Hittite in origin.

HAMATH-ZOBAH Conquered by Solomon ( 2 Chronicles 8:3). Distinguished from “Hamath the great.”

HAMMATH A fortified city in Naphtali ( Joshua 19:35). Meaning “hot baths,” namely, of Tiberias. Three hammam still send up hot sulphureous waters about a mile S. of the modern town, at the extremity of the ancient ruins.

In Joshua 21:32 it appears as the Gershonite Levite city of refuge, HAMMOTH DOR. In 1 Chronicles 6:76HAMMON, Hammam Tubariyeh (Chabas).

HAMMEDATHA Haman’s father. Medatha with the definite article. (See ESTHER and see HAMAN ). In Persian = double.

HAMMELECH Jeremiah 36:26; 38:6. Jehoiakim at this time (the fifth year of his reign) had no grown up son. Jeconiah his successor was then but eleven ( Kings 23:36; compare 2 Kings 24:8). We must not then, with Smith’s Bible Dictionary, translated “the king,” but as a proper name, Hammelech, father of Jerahmeel and Malchiah.

HAMMER Besides its ordinary sense, used for any overwhelming power, earthly ( Jeremiah 50:23, “the hammer of the whole earth,” Babylon, as Martel, “little hammer,” was a title of the Frank king) or spiritual ( Jeremiah 23:29, “is not My word like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”).

Compare Nahum 2:1 margin HAMMOLEKETH Mother ofABIEZER; meaning “the queen.” She reigned, according to tradition, over part of Gilead ( 1 Chronicles 7:17,18).

HAMMON 1. A city in Asher near great Sidon ( Joshua 19:28). 2. A Levite city of Naphtali ( 1 Chronicles 6:76).

HAMMONAH Ezekiel 39:16. The place near which Gog’s multitudes shall be buried, from whence it gets its name, meaning multitude. Grotius makes Jerusalem to receive the name Hammonah from the multitude of slain. After the cleansing of the land Jerusalem shall be known as the conqueror of multitudes.

HAMMON GOG, THE VALLEY OF =“the ravine (gey of Gog’s multitude.” After the burial of Gog and his multitude there, the ravine shall be so named, which bad been called “the ravine of passengers (from Syria to Petra and Egypt) on the E. of the Dead Sea” ( Ezekiel 39:11,15). Gog shall find a grave where he expected spoil. The publicity of the road, and the multitude of graves, will arrest the many passers by to observe God’s judgments, executed nigh the scene of judgment on Gog’s prototypes, Sodom and Gomorrah.

HAMOR = “a large he-ass.” So ( Genesis 49:14) Issachar. A Hivite; but Alex. manuscript, Septuagint, a Horite; prince of Shechem and the adjoining district, probably named from his son. Head of the clan named from him while yet alive “the children of Hamor.” ( Genesis 33:19.) From them Jacob bought for 100 kesita (i.e. bars or rings of silver of a certain weight, perhaps stamped with a “lamb,” see margin, all the versions translated “lambs,” which were the original representative of wealth) a parcel of a field. Abraham bought only a burying place, Jacob a dwelling place, which long after was also Joseph’s burial place ( Joshua 24:32) referred to by Stephen ( Acts 7:16). “Jacob and our fathers were carried over into Sychem and laid in a sepulchre that Abraham bought ... of the sons of\parEMMOR” (the Greek form of Hamor). Stephen with elliptical brevity sums up from six chaps, of Old Testament in one sentence the double purchase (by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite, Genesis 23; and by Jacob from the children of Hamor), the double burial place ( Abraham’s cave of Machpelah and Jacob’s ground near Shechem), and the double burial (of Jacob in the cave of Machpelah, and of Joseph in the ground at Shechem), just because the details were familiar to both himself and the Jewish council; not, as rationalism objects, because he was ignorant of or forgot the historical facts so notorious from the Old Testament In Judges 9:28 Hamor’s name is made to Shechemites the signal of revolt from Israelite rule. The cruel retaliation by Simeon and Levi of Shechem’s wrong to Dinah (Genesis 34) left a lasting soreness in the minds of the Hivite remnant, who even without such ancient grudge would be ready enough to cast off Israel’s yoke and revert to their original government by Hivite sheikhs. (See GAAL ).

HAMUEL 1 Chronicles 4:26.

HAMUL Genesis 46:12. TheHAMULITES sprang from him ( Numbers 26:21).

HAMUTAL Daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, wife of king Josiah, mother of Jehoahaz and Mattaniah or Zedekiah ( 2 Kings 23:31; 24:18).

HANAMEEL Son of Shallum, Jeremiah’s cousin, from whom the prophet in prison bought a field in Anathoth while Jerusalem was being besieged by the Chaldeans, as a token to assure the Jews that a time of security would hereafter come when their land would once more be a safe possession ( Jeremiah 32:7-12,44). Anathoth being a sacerdotal city with a thousand cubits of suburban fields, the land could not be alienated ( Leviticus 25:25,34); but this did not prevent sales within the tribe of Levi, on the failure of the owner the next of kin could redeem the land.

HANAN 1. 1 Chronicles 8:23. 2. 1 Chronicles 8:38; 9:44. 3. 1 Chronicles 11:43. 4. CHILDREN OF Hanan: Ezra 2:46. 5. Nehemiah 8:7; 10:10. 6. Ezra 10:22. 7. Ezra 10:26. 8. Storekeeper of the tithes (“treasurer of the treasuries”), Nehemiah 13:13, where priests, scribes, Levites, and laymen are represented. 9. Son of Igdaliah, “a man of God” ( Jeremiah 35:4), so reverenced that none would call in question what was transacted in his chamber.

HANANEEL, TOWER OF Nehemiah 3:1,24,32; 12:39. Either the same as “the tower of Meeah,” i.e. the hundred, or next it, between the sheep gate and fish gate S. of Jerusalem. A breach reaching from it to the “gate of the corner” ( Kings 14:13; 2 Chronicles 26:9) Jeremiah foretells ( Jeremiah 31:38) shall be “rebuilt to Jehovah,” and “not thrown down any more for ever.”

Connected with “the corner gate” (which was on the other side of the sheep gate), also in Zechariah 14:10, where Ewald translated “on to the corner gate and tower of Hananeel on to the king’s wine presses.”

HANANI 1. 1 Chronicles 25:4,25. 2. The seer who rebuked see ASA king of Judah, 941 B.C., for buying the alliance of Benhadad I. of Syria, to help him against Baasha of Israel, instead of “relying on the Lord his God,” “whose eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him” ( Jeremiah 17:5). So Asa lost the victory over Syria itself which faith would have secured to him. Hanani was imprisoned for his faithfulness ( 2 Chronicles 16:1-4,7-10; compare Jeremiah 20:2; Matthew 14:3). But Asa only thereby sealed his own punishment; by compromising principle to escape war he brought on himself perpetual wars ( 1 Kings 15:32). Jehu his son was equally faithful in reproving Baasha and Asa’s son Jehoshaphat ( 1 Kings 16:1,7; 2 Chronicles 19:2; 20:34). 3. Ezra 10:19,20. 4. Nehemiah’s brother, who returned from Jerusalem to Susa and informed him as to Jerusalem, 446 B.C.; afterward made governor of Jerusalem under Nehemiah (1:2; 7:2). 5. Nehemiah 12:31,36.

HANANIAH 1. One of the singer Heman’s 14 sons; chief of the 16th of the 24 courses into which the 288 Levite musicians were divided by king David; employed chiefly to “lift up the horn” ( 1 Chronicles 25:4,5,23). 2. 2 Chronicles 26:11. 3. Jeremiah 36:12. 4. Son of Azur, the prophet of Gibeon, a priests’ city (Jeremiah 28). In the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign Hananiah, in opposition to Jeremiah, foretold that Jeconiah and the captives at Babylon would return with all the vessels of the Lord’s house within two years. This hope rested on Pharaoh Hophra (Apries). Judah already had designed a league with Edom, Ammon, Moab, Tyre, and Sidon against Babylon. Their ambassadors had therefore come to Jerusalem, but were sent back with yokes and a divine message from Jeremiah that their several masters must submit to Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke, to whom God had given these lands and the very beasts of the field, or else be punished with sword, famine, and pestilence (Jeremiah 27). Hananiah broke off the yokes on Jeremiah’s neck, in token of God’s breaking off Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke. Compare 1 Kings 22:11,24,25. Jeremiah said Amen, praying it might be so; but warned him that for the broken wooden yokes he should have iron yokes, adding “Hananiah, the Lord hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people trust in a lie ... therefore ... this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord. So Hananiah died the same year in the 7th month.” In Zedekiah’s 6th year the league with Pharaoh Hophra tempted Zedekiah to open revolt in violation of his oath to Nebuchadnezzar ( Ezekiel 17:12-20). A temporary raising of the siege of Jerusalem, through the Egyptian ally, was soon followed by the return of the Chaldaean army, the capture of Jerusalem, and the blinding of Zedekiah and his removal to Babylon ( Ezekiel 37:5). Each claimant to inspiration, as Hananiah, must stand two tests: does his prophecy accord with past revelations of God’s word? does the event verify it? Hananiah failed in both. Moreover, he promised sinners peace and safety without repentance.