Quin et Marrubia venit de gente sacerdos,Fronde super galeam et felici comptus oliva,Archippi regis missu fortissimus Umbro;Vipereo generi, et graviter spirantibus hydrisSpargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat,Mulcebatque iras, et morsus arte levabat.“Umbro, the brave Marrubian priest, was there,Sent by the Marsian monarch to the war.The smiling olive with her verdant boughsShades his bright helmet and adorns his brows;His charms in peace the furious serpent keep;And lull the envenom’d viper’s race to sleep:His healing hand allay’d the raging pain,And at his touch the poisons fled again.”Pitt.
Quin et Marrubia venit de gente sacerdos,Fronde super galeam et felici comptus oliva,Archippi regis missu fortissimus Umbro;Vipereo generi, et graviter spirantibus hydrisSpargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat,Mulcebatque iras, et morsus arte levabat.“Umbro, the brave Marrubian priest, was there,Sent by the Marsian monarch to the war.The smiling olive with her verdant boughsShades his bright helmet and adorns his brows;His charms in peace the furious serpent keep;And lull the envenom’d viper’s race to sleep:His healing hand allay’d the raging pain,And at his touch the poisons fled again.”Pitt.
Quin et Marrubia venit de gente sacerdos,Fronde super galeam et felici comptus oliva,Archippi regis missu fortissimus Umbro;Vipereo generi, et graviter spirantibus hydrisSpargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat,Mulcebatque iras, et morsus arte levabat.
Quin et Marrubia venit de gente sacerdos,
Fronde super galeam et felici comptus oliva,
Archippi regis missu fortissimus Umbro;
Vipereo generi, et graviter spirantibus hydris
Spargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat,
Mulcebatque iras, et morsus arte levabat.
“Umbro, the brave Marrubian priest, was there,Sent by the Marsian monarch to the war.The smiling olive with her verdant boughsShades his bright helmet and adorns his brows;His charms in peace the furious serpent keep;And lull the envenom’d viper’s race to sleep:His healing hand allay’d the raging pain,And at his touch the poisons fled again.”Pitt.
“Umbro, the brave Marrubian priest, was there,
Sent by the Marsian monarch to the war.
The smiling olive with her verdant boughs
Shades his bright helmet and adorns his brows;
His charms in peace the furious serpent keep;
And lull the envenom’d viper’s race to sleep:
His healing hand allay’d the raging pain,
And at his touch the poisons fled again.”
Pitt.
Mr. Boyle quotes the following passage from Sir H. Blunt’s Voyage into the Levant:--
“Many rarities of living creatures I saw in Grand Cairo; but the most ingenious was a nest of serpents, of two feet long, black and ugly, kept by a Frenchman, who, when he came to handle them, would not endure him, but ran and hid in their hole. Then he would take his cittern and play upon it. They, hearing his music, came all crawling to his feet, and began to climb up him, till he gave over playing, then away they ran.”
The wonderful effect which music produces on the serpent tribes, is confirmed by the testimony of several respectable moderns. Adders swell at the sound of a flute, raising themselves up on the one half of their body, turning themselves round, beating proper time, and following the instrument. Their head, naturally round and long like an eel, becomes broad and flat like a fan. The tame serpents, many of which the orientals keep in their houses, are known to leave their holes in hot weather, at the sound of a musical instrument, and run upon the performer. Dr. Shaw had an opportunity of seeing a number of serpents keep exact time with the Dervishes in their circulatory dances, running over their heads and arms, turning when they turned, and stopping when they stopped. The rattlesnake acknowledges the power of music as much as any of his family; of which the following instance is a decisive proof: When Chateaubriand was in Canada, a snake of that species entered their encampment; a young Canadian, one of the party, who could play on the flute, to divert his associates, advanced against the serpent with his new species of weapon: on the approach of his enemy, the haughty reptile curled himself into a spiral line, flattened his head, inflated his cheeks, contracted his lips, displayed his envenomed fangs, and his bloody throat, his double tongue glowed like two flames of fire; his eyes were burning coals; his body, swollen with rage, rose and fell like the bellows of a forge; his dilated skin assumed a dull and scaly appearance; and his tail, which sounded the denunciation of death, vibrated with so great rapidity as to resemble a light vapour. The Canadian now began to play upon his flute, the serpent started with surprise, and drew back his head. In proportion as he was struck with the magic effect, his eyes lost their fierceness, the oscillations of his tail became slower, and the sound which it emitted became weaker, and gradually died away. Less perpendicular upon their spiral line, the rings of the fascinated serpent were by degrees expanded, and sunk one after another upon the ground, in concentric circles. The shades of azure, green, white, and gold, recovered their brilliancy on his quivering skin, and slightly turning his head, he remained motionless, in the attitude of attention and pleasure. At this moment, the Canadian advanced a few steps, producing with his flute sweet and simple notes. The reptile, inclining his variegated neck, opened a passage with his head through the high grass, and began to creep after the musician, stopping when he stopped, and beginning to follow him again, as soon as he moved forward. In this manner he was led out of their camp, attended by a great number of spectators, both savages and Europeans, who could scarcely believe their eyes, when they beheld this wonderful effect of harmony. The assembly unanimously decreed, that the serpent which had so highly entertained them, should be permitted to escape. Many of them are carried in baskets through Hindostan, and procure a maintenance for a set of people who play a few simple notes on the flute, with which the snakes seem much delighted, and keep time by a graceful motion of the head, erecting about half their length from the ground, and following the music with gentle curves, like the undulating lines of a swan’s neck.
But on some serpents, these charms seem to have no power; and it appears from Scripture, that the adder sometimes takes precautions to prevent the fascination which he sees preparing for him: “for the deaf adder shutteth her ear, and will not hear the voice of the most skilful charmer.” The threatening of the Prophet Jeremiah proceeds upon the same fact: “I will send serpents” (cockatrices) “among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you.” In all these quotations, the sacred writers, while they take it for granted that many serpents are disarmed by charming, plainly admit that the powers of the charmer are in vain exerted upon others.
It is the opinion of some interpreters, that the wordשחל, which in some parts of Scripture denotes a lion, in others means an adder, or some other kind of serpent. Thus, in the ninety-first Psalm, they render it the basilisk: “Thou shalt tread upon the adder and the basilisk, the young lion and the dragon thoushalt trample under foot.” Indeed, all the ancient expositors agree, that some species of serpent is meant, although they cannot determine what particular serpent the sacred writer had in view. The learned Bochart thinks it extremely probable that the holy Psalmist in this verse treats of serpents only; and, by consequence, that both the termsשחלandכפירmean some kind of snakes, as well asפתןandתנין; because the coherence of the verse is by this view better preserved, than by mingling lions and serpents together, as our translators and other interpreters have commonly done; nor is it easy to imagine what can be meant by treading upon the lion, and trampling the young lion under foot; for it is not possible in walking to tread upon the lion, as upon the adder, the basilisk, and other serpents.
To ADJURE, to bind by oath, as under the penalty of a fearful curse, Joshua vi, 26; Mark v, 7. 2. To charge solemnly, as by the authority, and under pain, of the displeasure of God, Matt. xxvi, 63; Acts xix, 13.
ADONAI, one of the names of God. This word in the plural number signifiesmy Lords. The Jews, who either out of respect or superstition, do not pronounce the name of Jehovah, read Adonai in the room of it, as often as they meet with Jehovah in the Hebrew text. But the ancient Jews were not so scrupulous. Neither is there any law which forbids them to pronounce any name of God.
ADONIS. The text of the Vulgate in Ezek. viii, 14, says, that the Prophet saw women sitting in the temple, and weeping for Adonis; but according to the reading of the Hebrew text, they are said to weep for Thamuz, or Tammuz, thehidden one. Among the Egyptians Adonis was adored under the name of Osiris, the husband of Isis. But he was sometimes called by the name of Ammuz, or Tammuz,the concealed, probably to denote his death or burial. The Hebrews, in derision, sometimes call him thedead, Psalm cvi, 28; Lev. xix, 28; because they wept for him, and represented him as dead in his coffin; and at other times they denominate him the image of jealousy, Ezek. viii, 3, 5, because he was the object of the jealousy of Mars. The Syrians, Phœnicians, and Cyprians, called him Adonis; and Calmet is of opinion that the Ammonites and Moabites designated him by the name of Baal-peor.
The manner in which they celebrated the festival of this false deity was as follows: They represented him as lying dead in his coffin, wept for him, bemoaned themselves, and sought for him with great eagerness and inquietude. After this, they pretended that they had found him again, and that he was still living. At this good news they exhibited marks of the most extravagant joy, and were guilty of a thousand lewd practices, to convince Venus how much they congratulated her on the return and revival of her favourite, as they had before condoled with her on his death. The Hebrew women, of whom the Prophet Ezekiel speaks, celebrated the feasts of Tammuz, or Adonis, in Jerusalem; and God showed the Prophet these women weeping for this infamous god, even in his temple.
Fabulous history gives the following account of Adonis: He was a beautiful young shepherd, the son of Cyniras, king of Cyprus, by his own daughter Myrrha. The goddess Venus fell in love with this youth, and frequently met him on mount Libanus. Mars, who envied this rival, transformed himself into a wild boar, and, as Adonis was hunting, struck him in the groin and killed him. Venus lamented the death of Adonis in an inconsolable manner. The eastern people, in imitation of her mourning, generally established some solemn days for the bewailing of Adonis. After his death, Venus went to the shades, and obtained from Proserpine, that Adonis might be with her six months in the year, and continue the other six in the infernal regions. Upon this were founded those public rejoicings, which succeeded the lamentations of his death. Some say that Adonis was a native of Syria; some, of Cyprus; and others, of Egypt.
ADOPTION. An act by which one takes another into his family, owns him for his son, and appoints him his heir. The Greeks and Romans had many regulations concerning adoption. It does not appear that adoption, properly so called, was formerly in use among the Jews. Moses makes no mention of it in his laws; and the case of Jacob’s two grandsons, Gen. xlviii, 14, seems rather a substitution.
2. Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God’s free grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God, and entitled to the inheritance of heaven. This appears not so much a distinct act of God, as involved in, and necessarily flowing from, our justification; so that, at least the one always implies the other. Nor is there any good ground to suppose that in the New Testament the term adoption is used with any reference to the civil practice of adoption by the Greeks, Romans, or other Heathens, and therefore it is not judicious to illustrate the texts in which the word occurs by their formalities. The Apostles in using the term appear to have had before them the simple view, that our sins had deprived us of our sonship, the favour of God, and the right to the inheritance of eternal life; but that, upon our return to God, and reconciliation with him, our forfeited privileges were not only restored, but greatly heightened through the paternal kindness of God. They could scarcely be forgetful of the affecting parable of the prodigal son; and it is under the same view that St. Paul quotes from the Old Testament, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
Adoption, then, is that act by which we who were alienated, and enemies, and disinherited, are made the sons of God, and heirs of his eternal glory. “If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ;” where it is to be remarked, that it is not in our ownright, nor in the right of any work done in us, or which we ourselves do, though it should be an evangelical work, that we become heirs; but jointly with Christ, and in his right.
3. To this state belong, freedom from a servile spirit, for we are not servants but sons; the special love and care of God our heavenly Father; a filial confidence in him; free access to him at all times and in all circumstances; a title to the heavenly inheritance; and the Spirit of adoption, or the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption, which is the foundation of all the comfort we can derive from those privileges, as it is the only means by which we can know that they are ours.
4. The last mentioned great privilege of adoption merits special attention. It consists in the inward witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit to the sonship of believers, from which flows a comfortable persuasion or conviction of our present acceptance with God, and the hope of our future and eternal glory. This is taught in several passages of Scripture:--
Rom. viii, 15, 16, “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” In this passage it is to be remarked, 1. That the Holy Spirit takes away “fear,” a servile dread of God as offended. 2. That the “Spirit of God” here mentioned, is not the personified spirit or genius of the Gospel, as some would have it, but “the Spirit itself,” or himself, and hence he is called in the Galatians, “the Spirit of his Son,” which cannot mean the genius of the Gospel. 3. That he inspires a filial confidence in God, as our Father, which is opposed to “the fear” produced by the “spirit of bondage.” 4. That he excites this filial confidence, and enables us to call God our Father, by witnessing, bearing testimony with our spirit, “that we are the children of God.”
Gal. iv, 4–6, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Here also are to be noted, 1. The means of our redemption from under (the curse of) the law,--the incarnation and sufferings of Christ. 2. That the adoption of sons follows upon our actual redemption from that curse, or, in other words, upon our pardon. 3. That upon our being pardoned, the “Spirit of the Son” is “sent forth into our hearts,” producing the same effect as that mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, viz. filial confidence in God,--“crying, Abba, Father.” To these texts are to be added all those passages, so numerous in the New Testament, which express the confidence and the joy of Christians; their friendship with God; their confident access to him as their God; their entire union and delightful intercourse with him in spirit.
This has been generally termed the doctrine of assurance, and, perhaps, the expressions of St. Paul, “the full assurance of faith,” and “the full assurance of hope,” may warrant the use of the word. But as there is a current and generally understood sense of this term, implying that the assurance of our present acceptance and sonship implies an assurance of our final perseverance, and of an indefeasible title to heaven; the phrase, a comfortable persuasion, or conviction of our justification and adoption, arising out of the Spirit’s inward and direct testimony, is to be preferred.
There is, also, another reason for the sparing and cautious use of the term assurance, which is, that it seems to imply, though not necessarily, the absence of all doubt, and shuts out all those lower degrees of persuasion which may exist in the experience of Christians. For, our faith may not at first, or at all times, be equally strong, and the testimony of the Spirit may have its degrees of clearness. Nevertheless, the fulness of this attainment is to be pressed upon every one: “Let us draw near,” says St. Paul to all Christians, “with full assurance of faith.”
It may serve, also, to remove an objection sometimes made to the doctrine, and to correct an error which sometimes pervades the statement of it, to observe that this assurance, persuasion, or conviction, whichever term be adopted, is not of the essence of justifying faith; that is, justifying faith does not consist in the assurance that I am now forgiven, through Christ. This would be obviously contradictory. For we must believe before we can be justified; much more before we can be assured, in any degree, that we are justified:--this persuasion, therefore, follows justification, and is one of its results. But though we must not only distinguish, but separate, this persuasion of our acceptance from the faith which justifies, we must not separate it, but only distinguish it, from justification itself. With that come in as concomitants, adoption, the “Spirit of adoption,” and regeneration.
ADORATION, the act of rendering divine honours; or of addressing God or any other being as supposing it to be God. (SeeWorship.) The word is compounded ofad, “to,” andos, “mouth;” and literally signifies to apply the hand to the mouth;manum ad os admovere, “to kiss the hand;” this being in eastern countries one of the great marks of respect and submission. To this mode of idolatrous worship Job refers, xxxi, 26, 27. See also 1 Kings xix, 18.
The Jewish manner of adoration was by prostration, bowing, and kneeling. The Christians adopted the Grecian, rather than the Roman, method, and always adored uncovered. The ordinary posture of the ancient Christians was kneeling; but on Sundays, standing.
Adorationis also used for certain extraordinary acts of civil honour, which resemble those paid to the Deity, yet are given to men.
We read of adorations paid to kings, princes, emperors, popes, bishops, abbots, &c, by kneeling, falling prostrate, kissing the feet, hands, garments, &c.
The Persian manner of adoration, introduced by Cyrus, was by bending the knee, and fallingon the face at the prince’s feet, striking the earth with the forehead, and kissing the ground. This was an indispensable condition on the part of foreign ministers and ambassadors, as well as the king’s own vassals, of being admitted to audience, and of obtaining any favour. This token of reverence was ordered to be paid to their favourites as well as to themselves, as we learn from the history of Haman and Mordecai, in the book of Esther; and even to their statues and images; for Philostratus informs us that, in the time of Apollonius, a golden statue of the king was exposed to all who entered Babylon, and none but those who adored it were admitted within the gates. The ceremony, which the Greeks called ϖροσκυνεῖν, Conon refused to perform to Artaxerxes, and Callisthenes to Alexander the Great, as reputing it impious and unlawful.
The adoration performed to the Roman and Grecian emperors consisted in bowing or kneeling at the prince’s feet, laying hold of his purple robe, and then bringing the hand to the lips. Some attribute the origin of this practice to Constantius. They were only persons of rank or dignity that were entitled to the honour. Bare kneeling before the emperor to deliver a petition, was also called adoration.
It is particularly said of Dioclesian, that he had gems fastened to his shoes, that divine honours might be more willingly paid him, by kissing his feet. And this mode of adoration was continued till the last age of the Greek monarchy. When any one pays his respects to the king of Achen in Sumatra, he first takes off his shoes and stockings, and leaves them at the door.
The practice of adoration may be said to be still subsisting in England, in the custom of kissing the king’s or queen’s hand.
Adoration is also used in the court of Rome, in the ceremony of kissing the pope’s feet. It is not certain at what period this practice was introduced into the church: but it was probably borrowed from the Byzantine court, and accompanied the temporal power. Dr. Maclaine, in the chronological table which he has subjoined to his translation of Mosheim’sEcclesiastical History, places its introduction in the eighth century, immediately after the grant of Pepin and Charlemagne. Baronius traces it to a much higher antiquity, and pretends that examples of this homage to the vicars of Christ occur so early as the year 204. These prelates finding a vehement disposition in the people to fall down before them, and kiss their feet, procured crucifixes to be fastened on their slippers; by which stratagem, the adoration intended for the pope’s person is supposed to be transferred to Christ. Divers acts of this adoration we find offered even by princes to the pope; and Gregory XIII, claims this act of homage as a duty.
Adoration properly is paid only to the pope when placed on the altar, in which posture the cardinals, conclavists, alone are admitted to kiss his feet. The people are afterward admitted to do the like at St. Peter’s church; the ceremony is described at large by Guicciardin.
Adoration is more particularly used for kissing one’s hand in presence of another as a token of reverence. The Jews adored by kissing their hands, and bowing down their heads; whence in their language kissing is properly used for adoration. This illustrates a passage in Psalm ii, “Kiss the Son lest he be angry;”--that is, pay himhomageandworship.
It was the practice among the Greek Christians to worship with the head uncovered, 1 Cor. xi; but in the east the ancient custom of worshipping with the head covered was retained.
ADRAMMELECH, the son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. The king returning to Nineveh, after his unhappy expedition made into Judea against king Hezekiah, was killed by his two sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, whilst at his devotions in the temple of his god Nisroch, Isaiah xxxvii, 38; 2 Kings xix. It is not known what prompted these two princes to commit this parricide; but after they had committed the murder, they fled for safety to the mountains of Armenia, and their brother, Esarhaddon, succeeded to the crown.
Adrammelechwas also one of the gods adored by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim, who were settled in the country of Samaria, in the room of the Israelites, who were carried beyond the Euphrates. The Sepharvaites made their children pass through the fire in honour of this idol, and another, calledAnammelech, 2 Kings xvii, 31. The Rabbins say, that Adrammelech was represented under the form of a mule; but there is much more reason to believe that Adrammelech meant the sun, and Anammelech the moon; the first signifyingthe magnificent king, the secondthe gentle king,--many eastern nations adoring the moon as agod, not as agoddess.
ADRAMYTTIUM, a city on the west coast of Mysia, in Lesser Asia, over against the isle of Lesbos. It was in a ship belonging to this place, that St. Paul sailed from Cesarea to proceed to Rome as a prisoner, Acts xxvii, 2. It is now calledEdremit.
ADRIA. This name, which occurs in Acts xxvii, 27, is now confined to the gulf lying between Italy on the one side, and the coasts of Dalmatia and Albania on the other. But in St. Paul’s time it was extended to all that portion of the Mediterranean between Crete and Sicily. Thus Ptolemy says that Sicily was bounded on the east by the Adriatic, and Crete in a similar manner on the west; and Strabo says that the Ionian Gulf was a part of what, in his time, was called the Adriatic Sea.
ADULLAM, a city in the tribe of Judah, to the west of Hebron, whose king was slain by Joshua, Josh. xii, 15. It is frequently mentioned in the history of Saul and David; and is chiefly memorable from the cave in its neighbourhood, where David retired from Achish, king of Gath, when he was joined by the distressed and discontented, to the number of four hundred, over whom he became captain, 1 Sam. xxii, 1. Judas Maccabeus encamped in the plain of Adullam, where he passed the Sabbath day, 2 Mac. xii, 38. Eusebius says that, in his time, Adullam was a very great town, ten miles to the east of Eleutheropolis.
ADULTERY, the violation of the marriage bed. The law of Moses punished with death both the man and the woman who were guilty of this crime, Lev. xx, 10. If a woman was betrothed to a man, and was guilty of this infamous crime before the marriage was completed, she was, in this case, along with her paramour, to be stoned, Deut. xxii, 22–24.
When any man among the Jews, prompted by jealousy, suspected his wife of the crime of adultery, he brought her first before the judges, and informed them that, in consequence of his suspicions, he had privately admonished her, but that she was regardless of his admonitions. If before the judges she asserted her innocency, he required that she should drink thewaters of jealousy, that God might by these means discover what she attempted to conceal, Num. v, 12, &c. The man then produced his witnesses, and they were heard. After this, both the man and the woman were conveyed to Jerusalem, and placed before the sanhedrim; the judges of which, by threats and other means, endeavoured to confound the woman, and make her confess. If she persisted in denying the fact, she was led to the eastern gate of the court of Israel, stripped of her own clothes, and dressed in black, before great numbers of her own sex. The priest then told her, that if she was really innocent, she had nothing to fear; but if guilty, she might expect to suffer all that the law had denounced against her, to which she answered, “Amen, amen.” The priest then wrote the terms of the law in this form:--“If a strange man hath not come near you, and you are not polluted by forsaking the bed of your husband, these bitter waters, which I have cursed, will not hurt you: but if you have polluted yourself by coming near to another man, and gone astray from your husband,--may you be accursed of the Lord, and become an example for all his people; may your thigh rot, and your belly swell till it burst; may these cursed waters enter into your belly, and being swelled therewith, may your thighs putrefy.“
After this, the priest filled a pitcher out of the brazen vessel, near the altar of burnt offerings, cast some dust of the pavement into it, mingled something with it as bitter as wormwood, and then read the curses, and received her answer of Amen. Another priest, in the meantime, tore off her clothes as low as her bosom--made her head bare--untied the tresses of her hair--fastened her clothes, which were thus torn, with a girdle under her breasts, and then presented her with the tenth part of an ephah, or about three pints, of barley meal. The other priest then gave her thewaters of jealousy, or bitterness, to drink; and as soon as the woman had swallowed them, he gave her the meal in a vessel like a frying-pan into her hand. This was stirred before the Lord, and part of it thrown into the fire of the altar. If the wife was innocent, she returned with her husband, and the waters, so far from injuring her, increased her health, and made her more fruitful; but if she was guilty, she grew pale immediately, her eyes swelled; and, lest she should pollute the temple, she was instantly carried out, with these symptoms upon her, and died instantly, with all the ignominious circumstances related in the curses.
On this law of Moses, Michaëlis has the following remarks:--
“This oath was, perhaps, a relic of some more severe and barbarous consuetudinary laws, whose rigours Moses mitigated; as he did in many other cases, where an established usage could not be conveniently abolished altogether. Among ourselves, in barbarous times, theordeal, or trial by fire, was, notwithstanding the parity of our married people, in common use; and this, in point of equity, was much the same in effect, as if the husband had had the right to insist on his wife submitting to the hazardous trial of her purity, by drinking a poisoned potion; which, according to an ancient superstition, could never hurt her if she was innocent. And, in fact, such a right is not altogether unexampled; for, according to Oldendorp’sHistory of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren, in the Caribbee Islands, it is actually in use among some of the savage nations in the interior parts of Western Africa.
“Now, when in place of a poisoned potion like this, which very few husbands can be very willing to have administered to their wives, we see, as among the Hebrews, an imprecation-drink, whose avenger God himself promises to become, we cannot but be struck with the contrast of wisdom and clemency which such a contrivance manifests. In the one case, (and herein consists their great distinction,) innocence can only be preserved by a miracle; while, on the other, guilt only is revealed and punished by the hand of God himself.
“By one of the clauses of the oath of purgation, (and had not the legislator been perfectly assured of his divine mission, the insertion of any such clause would have been a very bold step indeed,) a visible and corporeal punishment was specified, which the person swearing imprecated on herself, and which God himself was understood as engaging to execute. To have given so accurate a definition of the punishment that God meant to inflict, and still more one that consisted of such a rare disease, would have been a step of incomprehensible boldness in a legislator who pretended to have a divine mission, if he was not, with the most assured conviction, conscious of its reality.
“Seldom, however, very seldom, was it likely that Providence would have an opportunity of inflicting the punishment in question. For the oath was so regulated, that a woman of the utmost effrontery could scarcely have taken it without changing colour to such a degree as to betray herself.
“In thefirstplace, it was not administered to the woman in her own house, but she was under the necessity of going to that place of the land where God in a special manner had his abode, and took it there. Now, the solemnity of the place, unfamiliarized to her by daily business or resort, would have a great effect upon her mind. In thenextplace, there was offered unto God what was termed anexecration offering, not in order to propitiate hismercy, but to invoke his vengeance on the guilty. Here the process was extremely slow, which gave her more time for reflection than to a guilty person could be acceptable, and that, too, amidst a multitude of unusual ceremonies. For the priest conducted her to the front of the sanctuary, and took holy water, that is, water out of the priests’ laver, which stood before it, together with some earth off its floor, which was likewise deemed holy; and having put the earth in the water, he then proceeded to uncover the woman’s head, that her face might be seen, and every change on her countenance during the administration of the oath accurately observed: and this was a circumstance which, in the east, where the women are always veiled, must have had a great effect; because a woman, accustomed to wear a veil, could, on so extraordinary an occasion, have had far less command of her eyes and her countenance than a European adulteress, who is generally a perfect mistress in all the arts of dissimulation, would display. To render the scene still more awful, the tresses of her hair were loosened, and then the execration offering was put intoherhand, while the priest held inhisthe imprecation water. This is commonly termed thebitter water; but we must not understand this as if the water had really been bitter; for how could it have been so? The earth of the floor of the tabernacle could not make it bitter. Among the Hebrews, and other oriental nations, the wordbitterwas rather used forcurse: and, strictly speaking, the phrase does not meanbitter water, but thewater of bitternesses, that is, of curses. The priest now pronounced the oath, which was in all points so framed that it could excite no terrors in the breast of an innocent woman; for it expressly consisted in this, that the imprecation water should not harm her if she was innocent. It would seem as if the priest here made a stop, and again left the woman some time to consider whether she would proceed with the oath. This I infer from the circumstance of his speech not being directly continued in verse 21st, which is rather theapodosisof what goes before; and from the detail proceeding anew in the words of the historian,Then shall the priest pronounce the rest of the oath and the curses to the woman; and proceed thus.--After this stop he pronounced the curses, and the woman was obliged to declare her acquiescence in them by a repeatedAmen. Nor was the solemn scene yet altogether at an end; but rather, as it were commenced anew. For the priest had yet to write the curses in a book, which I suppose he did at great deliberation; having done so, he washed them out again in the very imprecation water, which the woman had now to drink; and this water being now presented to her, she was obliged to drink it, with this warning and assurance, in the name of God, that if she was guilty, it would prove within her an absolute curse. Now, what must have been her feelings, while drinking, if not conscious of purity? In my opinion she must have conceived that she already felt an alteration in the state of her body, and the germ, as it were, of the disease springing within her. Conscience and imagination would conspire together, and render it almost impossible for her to drink it out. Finally, the execration offering was taken out of her hand, and burnt upon the altar. I cannot but think that, under the sanction of such apurgatorium, perjury must have been a very rare occurrence indeed. If it happened but once in an age, God had bound himself to punish it; and if this took place but once, (if but one woman who had taken the oath was attacked with that rare disease which it threatened,) it was quite enough to serve as a determent to all others for at least one generation.”
This procedure had also the effect of keeping in mind, among the Jews, God’s high displeasure against this violation of his law; and though some lax moralists have been found, in modern times, to palliate it, yet the Christian will always remember the solemn denunciations of the New Testament against a crime so aggravated, whether considered in its effects upon the domestic relations, upon the moral character of the guilty parties, or upon society at large,--“Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
Adultery, in the prophetic scriptures, is often metaphorically taken, and signifies idolatry, and apostasy from God, by which men basely defile themselves, and wickedly violate their ecclesiastical and covenant relation to God, Hos. ii, 2; Ezek. xvi.
ADVOCATE, Παράκλητος,a patron, one who pleads the cause of any one before another. In this sense the term is applied to Christ our intercessor, 1 John ii, 1. It signifies also acomforter, andan instructer; and is used of the Holy Spirit, John xiv, 16, and xv, 26.
ADYTUM is a Greek word, signifyinginaccessible, by which is understood the most retired and secret place of the Heathen temples, into which none but the priests were allowed to enter. Theadytumof the Greeks and Romans answered to thesanctum sanctorumof the Jews, and was the place from whence oracles were delivered.
ÆRA, a series of years, commencing from a certain point of time called anepocha: thus we say, the Christian æra; that is, the number of years elapsed since the birth of Christ. The generality of authors use the terms æra and epocha in a synonymous sense; that is, for the point of time from which any computation begins.
The ancient Jews made use of several æras in their computation; sometimes they reckoned from the deluge, sometimes from the division of tongues; sometimes from their departure out of Egypt; and at other times from the building of the temple; and sometimes from the restoration after the Babylonish captivity: but their vulgar æra was from the creation of the world, which falls in with the year of the Julian period 953; and consequently they supposed the world created 294 years sooner than according to our computation. But when the Jews became subject to the Syro-Macedonian kings, they were obliged to make use of the æra of the Seleucidæ in all their contracts, which fromthence was called the æra of contracts. This æra begins with the year of the world 3692, of the Julian period 4402, and before Christ 312. The æra in general use among the Christians is that from the birth of Jesus Christ, concerning the true time of which chronologers differ; some place it two years, others four, and again others five, before the vulgar æra, which is fixed for the year of the world 4004: but Archbishop Usher, and after him the generality of modern chronologers, place it in the year of the world 4000.
The ancient Heathens used several æras:
1. The æra of the first olympiad is placed in the year of the world 3228, and before the vulgar æra of Jesus Christ 776. 2. The taking of Troy by the Greeks, in the year of the world 2820, and before Jesus Christ 1884. 3. The voyage undertaken for the purpose of bringing away the golden fleece, in the year of the world 2760. 4. The foundation of Rome, in 2856. 5. The æra of Nabonassar, in 3257. 6. The æra of Alexander the Great, or his last victory over Darius, in 3674, and before Jesus Christ 330.
AERIANS, a sect which arose about the middle of the fourth century, being the followers of Aërius, (who must be distinguished from Arius and Aëtius,) a monk and a presbyter of Sebastia, in Pontus. He is charged with being an Arian, or Semi-Arian; but the heaviest accusation against him is an attempt to reform the church; and, by rejecting prayers for the dead, with certain fasts and festivals then superstitiously observed, to reduce Christianity as nearly as possible “to its primitive simplicity; a purpose, indeed, laudable and noble,” says Dr. Mosheim, “when considered in itself: though the principles fromwhenceit springs, and the meansbywhich it is executed, are sometimes, in many respects, worthy of censure, andmayhave been so in the case of this reformer.” This gentle rebuke probably refers to a report that the zeal of Aërius originated in his being disappointed of the bishopric of Sebastia, (conferred on Eustathius,) which led him to affirm that the Scriptures make no distinction between a presbyter and a bishop, which he founded chiefly on 1 Tim. iv, 14. Hence he is considered by many, as the father of the modern Presbyterians.--“For this opinion,chiefly,” says Dr. Turner, “he is ranked among the heretics, by Epiphanius, his contemporary, who calls it a notionfull of folly and madness. His followers were driven from the churches, and out of all the towns and villages, and were obliged to assemble in the woods, caverns, and open defiles.”
AETIANS, another branch (as it is said) of Arians, so called from Aëtius, bishop of Antioch, who is also charged with maintaining “faith without works,” as “sufficient to salvation,” or rather justification; and with maintaining “that sin is not imputed to believers.” It is added, that he taught God had revealed to him things which he had “concealed from the Apostles;” which, perhaps, is only a misrepresentation of what he taught on the doctrine of divine influences.
AFFINITY. There are several degrees of affinity, wherein marriage was prohibited by the law of Moses: thus the son could not marry his mother, nor his father’s wife, Lev. xviii, 7, &c. The brother could not marry his sister, whether she were so by the father only, or only by the mother, and much less if she were his sister both by the same father and mother. The grandfather could not marry his granddaughter, either by his son or daughter. No one could marry the daughter of his father’s wife; nor the sister of his father or mother; nor the uncle, his niece; nor the aunt, her nephew; nor the nephew, the wife of his uncle by the father’s side. The father-in-law could not marry his daughter-in-law; nor the brother the wife of his brother, while living; nor even after the death of his brother, if he left children. If he left no children, the surviving brother was to raise up children to his deceased brother by marrying his widow. It was forbidden to marry the mother and the daughter at one time, or the daughter of the mother’s son, or the daughter of her daughter, or two sisters, together.
It is true the patriarchs, before the law, married their sisters, as Abraham married Sarah, who was his father’s daughter by another mother; and two sisters together, as Jacob married Rachel and Leah; and their own sisters, both by father and mother, as Seth and Cain. But these cases are not to be proposed as examples; because in some they were authorized by necessity; in others, by custom; and the law as yet was not in being. If some other examples may be found, either before or since the law, the Scripture expressly disapproves of them; as Reuben’s incest with Balah, his father’s concubine; and the action of Amnon with his sister Tamar; and that of Herod Antipas, who married Herodias, his sister-in-law, his brother Philip’s wife, while her husband was yet living; and that which St. Paul reproves and punishes among the Corinthians, 1 Cor. v, 1.
AGABUS, a prophet, and as the Greeks say, one of the seventy disciples of our Saviour. He foretold that there would be a great famine over all the earth; which came to pass accordingly, under the emperor Claudius, in the fourth year of his reign, A. D. 44, Acts xi, 28.
Ten years after this, as St. Paul was going to Jerusalem, and had already landed at Cæsarea, in Palestine, the same prophet, Agabus, arrived there, and coming to visit St. Paul and his company, he took this Apostle’s girdle, and binding himself hand and feet, he said, “Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles,” Acts xxi, 10. We know no other particulars of the life of Agabus. The Greeks say that he suffered martyrdom at Antioch.
AGAG. This seems to have been a common name of the princes of Amalek, one of whom was very powerful as early as the time of Moses, Num. xxiv, 7. On account of the cruelties exercised by this king and his army against the Israelites, as they returned from Egypt, a bloody and long contested battle took place between Joshua and the Amalekites, in which the former was victorious, Exod. xvii, 8–13. At the same time, God protested with an oath to destroy Amalek, verses 14–16; Deut. xxv, 17–19, A. M.2513. About four hundred years after this, the Lord remembered the cruel treatment of his people, and his own oath; and he commanded Saul, by the mouth of Samuel, to destroy the Amalekites. Saul mustered his army, and found it two hundred thousand strong, 1 Sam. xv, 1, &c. Having entered into their country, he cut in pieces all he could meet with from Havilah to Shur. Agag their king, and the best of their cattle, were however spared, an act of disobedience on the part of Saul, probably dictated by covetousness. But Agag did not long enjoy this reprieve; for Samuel no sooner heard that he was alive, than he sent for him; and notwithstanding his insinuating address, and the vain hopes with which he flattered himself that the bitterness of death was past, he caused him to be hewed to pieces in Gilgal before the Lord, saying, “As,כאשר,in the same identical mode as, thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women.” This savage chieftain had hewed many prisoners to death; and, therefore, by command of the Judge of the whole earth, he was visited with the same punishment which he had inflicted upon others.
AGAPÆ. SeeLove Feast.
AGAR, mount Sinai, so called, Gal. iv, 24, 25. But this reading is doubtful, many MSS. having the verse, “for this Sinai is a mountain of Arabia.” Some critics however contend for the reading of the received text, and urge thatAgar, which signifies “a rocky mountain,” is the Arabic name forSinai.
AGATE,שבו, Exod. xxviii, 19; xxxix, 12. In the Septuagint ἀχάτης, and Vulgate,achates. A precious stone, semi-pellucid. Its variegations are sometimes most beautifully disposed, representing plants, trees, rivers, clouds, &c. Its Hebrew name is, perhaps, derived from the country whence the Jews imported it; for the merchants of Sheba brought to the market of Tyre all kinds of precious stones, Ezek. xxvii, 22. The agate was the second stone in the third row of the pectoral of the high priest, Exod. xxviii, 19, and xxxix, 12.
AGE, in the most general sense of the term, denotes the duration of any substance, animate or inanimate; and is applied either to the whole period of its existence, or to that portion of it which precedes the time to which the description of it refers. In this sense it is used to signify either the whole natural duration of theLIFEof man, or any interval of it that has elapsed before the period of which we speak. When age is understood of a certain portion of the life of man, its whole duration is divided into four different ages, viz. infancy, youth, manhood, and old age: the first extending to the fourteenth year; the second, denominated youth, adolescence, or the age of puberty, commencing at fourteen, and terminating at about twenty-five; manhood, or the virile age, concluding at fifty; and the last ending at the close of life. Some divide the first period into infancy and childhood; and the last likewise into two stages, calling that which succeeds the age of seventy-five, decrepit old age. Age is applicable to the duration of things inanimate or factitious; and in this use of the term we speak of the age of a house, of a country, of a state or kingdom, &c.
Age, inchronology, is used for a century, or a period of one hundred years: in which sense it is the same withseculum, and differs fromgeneration. It is also used in speaking of the times past since the creation of the world. The several ages of the world may be reduced to three grand epochas, viz. the age of the law of nature, called by the Jews the void age, from Adam to Moses. The age of the Jewish law, from Moses to Christ, called by the Jews the present age. And the age of grace, from Christ to the present year. The Jews call the third age, the age to come, or the future age; denoting by it the time from the advent of the Messiah to the end of the world. The Romans distinguished the time that preceded them into three ages: the obscure or uncertain age, which reached down as low as Ogyges king of Attica, in whose reign the deluge happened in Greece; the fabulous or heroic age, which ended at the first olympiad; and the historical age, which commenced at the building of Rome. Among the poets, the four ages of the world are, the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron age.
Age is sometimes used among the ancient poets in the same sense asgeneration, or a period of thirty years. Thus Nestor is said to have lived three ages, when he was ninety years old.
The period preceding the birth of Jesus Christ has been generally divided into six ages. The first extends from the creation to the deluge, and comprehends 1656 years. The second age, from the deluge to Abraham’s entering the land of promise, A. M. 2082, comprehends 426 years. The third age from Abraham’s entrance into the promised land to the Exodus, A. M. 2512, includes 430 years. The fourth age, from the Exodus to the building of the temple by Solomon, A. M. 2992, contains 480 years. The fifth age from the foundation of Solomon’s temple to the Babylonish captivity, A. M. 3416, comprehends 424 years. The sixth age, from the Babylonish captivity to the birth of Jesus Christ, A. M. 4000, the fourth year before the vulgar æra, includes 584 years. Those who follow the Septuagint, or Greek version, divide this period into seven ages, viz. 1. From the creation to the deluge, 2262 years. 2. From the deluge to the confusion of tongues, 738 years. 3. From this confusion to the calling of Abraham, 460 years. 4. From this period to Jacob’s descent into Egypt, 215 years; and from this event to the Exodus, 430 years, making the whole 645 years. 5. From the Exodus to Saul, 774 years. 6. From Saul to Cyrus, 583 years. 7. From Cyrus to the vulgar æra of Christians, 538 years; the whole period from the creation to this period containing 6000 years.
AGRIPPA, surnamed Herod, the son of Aristobulus and Mariamne, and grandson of Herod the Great, was born A. M. 3997, three years before the birth of our Saviour, and seven years before the vulgar æra. After the death of his father Aristobulus, Josephus informs us that Herod, his grandfather, took care of his education, and sent him to Rome to make hiscourt to Tiberius. Agrippa, having a great inclination for Caius, the son of Germanicus, and grandson of Antonia, chose to attach himself to this prince, as if he had some prophetic views of the future elevation of Caius, who at that time was beloved by all the world. The great assiduity and agreeable behaviour of Agrippa so far won upon this prince, that he was unable to live without him. Agrippa, being one day in conversation with Caius, was overheard by one Eutychus, a slave whom Agrippa had emancipated, to say that he should be glad to see the old emperor take his departure for the other world and leave Caius master of this, without meeting with any obstacle from the emperor’s grandson, Tiberius Nero. Eutychus, some time after this, thinking he had reason to be dissatisfied with Agrippa, communicated the conversation to the emperor; whereupon Agrippa was loaded with fetters, and committed to the custody of an officer. Soon after this, Tiberius dying, and Caius Caligula succeeding him, the new emperor heaped many favours and much wealth upon Agrippa, changed his iron fetters into a chain of gold, set a royal diadem on his head, and gave him the tetrarchy which Philip, the son of Herod the Great, had been possessed of, that is, Batanæa and Trachonitis. To this he added that of Lysanias; and Agrippa returned very soon into Judea, to take possession of his new kingdom. The emperor Caius, desiring to be adored as a god, commanded to have his statue set up in the temple of Jerusalem. But the Jews opposed this design with so much resolution, that Petronius was forced to suspend his proceedings in this affair, and to represent, in a letter to the emperor, the resistance he met with from the Jews. Agrippa, who was then at Rome, coming to the emperor at the very time he was reading the letter, Caius told him that the Jews were the only people of all mankind who refused to own him for a deity; and that they had taken arms to oppose his resolution. At these words Agrippa fainted away, and, being carried home to his house, continued in that state for a long time. As soon as he was somewhat recovered, he wrote a long letter to Caius, wherein he endeavoured to soften him; and his arguments made such an impression upon the emperor’s mind, that he desisted, in appearance, from the design which he had formed of setting up his statue in the temple. Caius being killed in the beginning of the following year, A. D. 41, Agrippa, who was then at Rome, contributed much by his advice to maintain Claudius in possession of the imperial dignity, to which he had been advanced by the army. The emperor, as an acknowledgment for his kind offices, gave him all Judea, and the kingdom of Chalcis, which had been possessed by Herod his brother. Thus Agrippa became of a sudden one of the greatest princes of the east, and was possessed of as much, if not more territory, than had been held by Herod the Great, his grandfather. He returned to Judea, and governed it to the great satisfaction of the Jews. But the desire of pleasing them, and a mistaken zeal for their religion, induced him to put to death the Apostle James, and to cast Peter into prison with the same design; and, but for a miraculous interposition, which, however, produced no effect upon the mind of the tyrant, his hands would have been imbrued in the blood of two Apostles, the memory whereof is preserved in Scripture. At Cæsarea, he had games performed in honour of Claudius. Here the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon waited on him to sue for peace. Agrippa being come early in the morning into the theatre, with a design to give them audience, seated himself on his throne, dressed in a robe of silver tissue, worked in the most admirable manner. The rising sun darted his golden beams thereon, and gave it such a lustre as dazzled the eyes of the spectators; and when the king began his speech to the Tyrians and Sidonians, the parasites around him began to say, it was “the voice of a god and not of man.” Instead of rejecting these impious flatteries, Agrippa received them with an air of complacency; and the angel of the Lord smote him because he did not give God the glory. Being therefore carried home to his palace, he died, at the end of five days, racked with tormenting pains in his bowels, and devoured with worms. Such was the death of Herod Agrippa, A. D. 44, after a reign of seven years. He left a son of the same name, and three daughters--Bernice, who was married to her uncle Herod, her father’s brother; Mariamne, betrothed to Julius Archelaus; and Drusilla, promised to Epiphanius, the son of Archelaus, the son of Comagena.
AGRIPPA, son of the former Agrippa, was at Rome with the emperor Claudius when his father died. The emperor, we are told by Josephus, was inclined to give him all the dominions that had been possessed by his father, but was dissuaded from it, Agrippa being only seventeen years of age; and he kept him therefore at his court four years.
Three years after this, Herod, king of Chalcis, and uncle to young Agrippa, dying, the emperor gave his dominions to this prince, who, notwithstanding, did not go into Judea till four years after, A. D. 53; when, Claudius taking from him the kingdom of Chalcis, gave him the provinces of Gaulonitis, Trachonitis, Batanæa, Paneas, and Abylene, which formerly had been in the possession of Lysanias. After the death of Claudius, his successor, Nero, who had a great affection for Agrippa, to his other dominions added Julias in Peræa, and that part of Galilee to which Tarichæa and Tiberias belonged. Festus governor of Judea, coming to his government, A. D. 60, king Agrippa and Bernice, his sister, went as far as Cæsarea to salute him; and as they continued there for some time, Festus talked with the king concerning the affair of St. Paul, who had been seized in the temple about two years before, and within a few days previous to his visit had appealed to the emperor. Agrippa wishing to hear Paul, that Apostle delivered that noble address in his presence which is recorded, Acts xxvi.
AGUR. The thirtieth chapter of Proverbs begins with this title: “The words of Agur,the son of Jakeh;” and the thirty-first, with “the words of king Lemuel;” with respect to which some conjecture that Solomon describes himself under these appellations; others, that these chapters are the productions of persons whose real names are prefixed. Scripture history, indeed, affords us no information respecting their situation and character; but there must have been sufficient reason for regarding their works in the light of inspired productions, or they would not have been admitted into the sacred canon.
They are calledMassa, a term frequently applied to the undoubted productions of the prophetic Spirit; and it is not improbable that the authors meant, by the adoption of this term, to lay claim to the character of inspiration. A succession of virtuous and eminent men, favoured with divine illuminations, flourished in Judea till the final completion of the sacred code; and, most likely, many more than those whose writings have been preserved. Agur may then have been one of those prophets whom Divine providence raised up to comfort or admonish his chosen people; and Lemuel may have been some neighbouring prince, the son of a Jewish woman, by whom he was taught the Massa contained in the thirty-first chapter. These, of course, can only be considered as mere conjectures; for, in the absence of historic evidence, who can venture to pronounce with certainty? The opinion, however, that Agur and Lemuel are appellations of Solomon, is sanctioned by so many and such respectable writers, that it demands a more particular examination.
The knowledge of names was anciently regarded as a matter of the highest importance, in order to understand the nature of the persons or things which they designate; and, in the opinion of the rabbins, was preferable even to the study of the written law. The Heathens paid considerable attention to it, as appears from the Cratylus of Plato; and some of the Christian fathers entertained very favourable notions of such knowledge. The Jewish doctors, it is true, refined upon the subject with an amazing degree of subtilty, grounding upon it many ridiculous ideas and absurd fancies; yet it is unquestionable that many of the proper names in Scripture are significant and characteristic. Thus the names Eve, Cain, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Israel, &c, were imposed by reason of their being expressive of the several characters of the persons whom they represent. Reasoning from analogy, we may infer that all the proper names in the Old Testament, at their original imposition, were intended to denote some quality or circumstance in the person or thing to which they belong; and though many, from transference, have ceased to be personally characteristic, yet are they all significative.
As the custom of imposing descriptive names prevailed in the primitive ages, it is not impossible that Agur and Lemuel may be appropriated to Solomon, and Jakeh to David as mystic appellations significative of their respective characters. It is even some confirmation of this opinion, that Solomon is denominated Jedidiah (beloved of the Lord) by the Prophet Nathan; and that in the book of Ecclesiastes, he styles himself Koheleth, or the Preacher. Nevertheless, this hypothesis does not appear to rest upon a firm foundation. It is foreign to the simplicity of the sacred penmen, and contrary to their custom in similar cases, to adopt a mystic name, without either explaining it, or alleging the reasons for its adoption. In the names Eve, Cain, Seth, Noah, &c, before alluded to; in the appellation Nabal; in the enigmatical names in the first chapter of Hosea; in the descriptive names given to places, as Beersheba, Jehovah-jireh, Peniel, Bethel, Gilgal; and in many other instances, the meaning of the terms is either explained, or the circumstances are mentioned which led to their selection. When Solomon is called Jedidiah, it is added that it was “because of the Lord;” and when he styles himself Koheleth, an explanatory clause is annexed, describing himself “the son of David, the king of Jerusalem.” But if Solomon be meant by the titles Agur and Lemuel, he is so called without any statement of the reasons for their application, and without any explanation of their import; a circumstance unusual with the sacred writers, and the reverse to what is practised in the book of Proverbs, where his proper name, Solomon, is attributed to him in three different places. Nor is anything characteristic of the Jewish monarchs discoverable in the terms themselves. Jakeh, which denotesobedient, is no more applicable to David than to Nathan, or any other personage of eminent worth and piety among the Israelites. The name of Agur is not of easy explanation; some giving it the sense ofrecollectus, that is, recovered from his errors, and become penitent; an explanation more applicable to David than to Solomon. Simon, in his lexicon, says it may perhaps denote “him who applies to the study of wisdom;” an interpretation very suitable to the royal philosopher, but not supported by adequate authority; and in his Onomasticon he explains it in a different manner. Others suppose that it meanscollector; though it has been argued, that, as it has a passive form, it cannot have an active sense. But this is not a valid objection, as several examples may be produced from the Bible of a similar form with an active signification. If such be its meaning, it is suitable to Solomon, who was not the collector or compiler, but the author, of the Proverbs. With respect to the name Lemuel, it signifies one that is for God, or devoted to God; and is not, therefore, peculiarly descriptive of Solomon. It appears, then, that nothing can be inferred from the signification of the names Agur and Lemuel in support of the conjecture, that they are appellations of Solomon. The contents, likewise, of the two chapters in question strongly militate against this hypothesis.
When all these circumstances are taken into consideration, together with the extreme improbability that Solomon should be denominated three times by his proper name, and afterward, in the same work, by two different enigmaticalnames, we are fully warranted in rejecting the notion, that the wise monarch is designed by the appellations Agur and Lemuel. And it seems most reasonable to consider them as denoting real persons.
AHAB, the son and successor of Omri. He began his reign over Israel, A. M. 3086, and reigned 22 years. In impiety he far exceeded all the kings of Israel. He married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Zidon, who introduced the whole abominations and idols of her country, Baal and Ashtaroth.
2.Ahabthe son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, were two false prophets, who, about A. M. 3406, seduced the Jewish captives at Babylon with hopes of a speedy deliverance, and stirred them up against Jeremiah. The Lord threatened them with a public and ignominious death, before such as they had deceived; and that their names should become a curse; men wishing that their foes might be made like Ahab and Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon roasted in the fire, Jer. xxix, 21, 22.
AHASUERUS was the king of Persia, who advanced Esther to be queen, and at her request delivered the Jews from the destruction plotted for them by Haman. Archbishop Usher is of opinion that this Ahasuerus was Darius Hystaspes; and that Atossa was the Vashti, and Artystona the Esther, of the Scriptures. But, according to Herodotus, the latter was the daughter of Cyrus, and therefore could not be Esther; and the former had four sons by Darius, besides daughters, born to him after he was king; and therefore she could not be the queen Vashti, divorced from her husband in the third year of his reign, nor he the Ahasuerus who divorced her. Besides, Atossa retained her influence over Darius to his death, and obtained the succession of the crown for his son, Xerxes; whereas Vashti was removed from the presence of Ahasuerus by an irrevocable decree, Esther i, 19. Joseph Scaliger maintains that Xerxes was the Ahasuerus, and Hamestris his queen, the Esther, of Scripture. The opinion is founded on the similitude of names, but contradicted by the dissimilitude of the characters of Hamestris and Esther. Besides, Herodotus says that Xerxes had a son by Hamestris that was marriageable in the seventh year of his reign; and therefore she could not be Esther. The Ahasuerus of Scripture, according to Dr. Prideaux, was Artaxerxes Longimanus. Josephus positively says that this was the person. The Septuagint, through the whole book of Esther, uses Artaxerxes for the Hebrew Ahasuerus wherever the appellation occurs; and the apocryphal additions to that book every where call the husband of Esther Artaxerxes; and he could be no other than Artaxerxes Longimanus. The extraordinary favour shown to the Jews by this king, first in sending Ezra, and afterward Nehemiah, to relieve this people, and restore them to their ancient prosperity, affords strong presumptive evidence that they had near his person and high in his regard such an advocate as Esther. Ahasuerus is also a name given in Scripture, Ezra iv, 6, to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus; and to Astyages, king of the Medes, Dan. ix, 1.
AHAVA. The name of a river of Babylonia, or rather of Assyria, where Ezra assembled those captives whom he afterward brought into Judea, Ezra viii, 15. The river Ahava is thought to be that which ran along the Adabene, where a river Diava, or Adiava, is mentioned, and on which Ptolemy places the city Abane or Aavane. This is probably the country called Ava, whence the kings of Assyria translated the people called Avites into Palestine, and where they settled some of the captive Israelites, 2 Kings xvii, 24; xviii, 34; xix, 13; xvii, 31. Ezra, intending to collect as many Israelites as he could, who might return to Judea, halted in the country of Ava, or Aahava, whence he sent agents into the Caspian mountains, to invite such Jews as were willing to join him, Ezra viii, 16. The history of Izates, king of the Adiabenians, and of his mother Helena, who became converts to Judaism some years after the death of Jesus Christ, sufficiently proves that there were many Jews still settled in that country.
AHAZ succeeded his father Jotham, as king of Israel, at the age of twenty years, reigned till the year before Christ, 726, and addicted himself to the practice of idolatry. After the customs of the Heathen, he made his children to pass through fire; he shut up the temple, and destroyed its vessels. He became tributary to Tiglath-pileser, whose assistance he supplicated against the kings of Syria and Israel. Such was his impiety, that he was not allowed burial in the sepulchres of the kings of Israel, 2 Kings xvi; 2 Chron. xxviii.
AHAZIAH, the son of Ahab, king of Israel. Ahaziah reigned two years, partly alone, and partly with his father Ahab, who appointed him his associate in the kingdom a year before his death. Ahaziah imitated his father’s impieties, 1 Kings xxii, 52, &c, and paid his adorations to Baal and Ashtaroth, the worship of whom had been introduced into Israel by Jezebel his mother. The Moabites, who had been always obedient to the kings of the ten tribes, ever since their separation from the kingdom of Judah, revolted after the death of Ahab, and refused to pay the ordinary tribute. Ahaziah had not leisure or power to reduce them, 2 Kings i, 1, 2, &c, for, about the same time, having fallen through a lattice from the top of his house, he was considerably injured, and sent messengers to Ekron to consult Baalzebub, the god of that place, whether he should recover, 2 Kings i, 1–17. Elijah met the messengers, and informed them he should certainly die; and he died accordingly.
2.Ahaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoram and Athaliah. He succeeded his father in the kingdom of Judah, A. M. 3119; being in the twenty-second year of his age, 2 Kings viii, 26, &c; and he reigned one year only in Jerusalem. He walked in the ways of Ahab’s house, to which he was related, his mother being of that family. Joram, king of Israel, 2 Kings viii, going to attack Ramoth Gilead, which the kings of Syria had taken from hispredecessors, was there dangerously wounded, and carried by his own appointment to Jezreel, for the purpose of surgical assistance. Ahaziah, Joram’s friend and relation, accompanied him in this war, and came afterward to visit him at Jezreel. In the meantime, Jehu, the son of Nimshi, whom Joram had left besieging the fortress of Ramoth, rebelled against his master, and set out with a design of extirpating the house of Ahab, according to the commandment of the Lord, 2 Kings ix. Joram and Ahaziah, who knew nothing of his intentions, went to meet him. Jehu killed Joram dead upon the spot: Ahaziah fled, but Jehu’s people overtook him at the going up of Gur, and mortally wounded him; notwithstanding which, he had strength enough to reach Megiddo, where he died. His servants, having laid him in his chariot, carried him to Jerusalem, where he was buried with his fathers, in the city of David.
AHIJAH, the prophet of the Lord, who dwelt in Shiloh. He is thought to be the person who spoke twice to Solomon from God, once while he was building the temple, 1 Kings vi, 11, at which time he promised him the divine protection; and again, 1 Kings xi, 11, after his falling into his irregularities, with great threatenings and reproaches. Ahijah was one of those who wrote the history or annals of this prince, 2 Chron. ix, 29. The same prophet declared to Jeroboam, that he would usurp the kingdom, 1 Kings xi, 29, &c; and, about the end of Jeroboam’s reign, he also predicted the death of Abijah, the only pious son of that prince, as is recorded 1 Kings xiv, 2, &c. Ahijah, in all probability, did not long survive the delivery of this last prophecy; but we are not informed of the time and manner of his death.
AHIKAM, the son of Shaphan, and father of Gedaliah. He was sent by Josiah, king of Judah, to Huldah the prophetess, 2 Kings xxii, 12, to consult her concerning the book of the law, which had been found in the temple.
AHIMAAZ, the son of Zadok, the high priest. Ahimaaz succeeded his father under the reign of Solomon. He performed a very important piece of service for David during the war with Absalom. While his father Zadok was in Jerusalem, 2 Sam. xv, 29, Ahimaaz and Jonathan continued without the city, xvii, 17, near En-Rogel, or the fountain of Rogel; thither a maid servant came to tell them the resolution which had been taken in Absalom’s council: whereupon they immediately departed to give the king intelligence. But being discovered by a young lad who gave information concerning them to Absalom, that prince sent orders to pursue them: Ahimaaz and Jonathan, fearing to be taken, retired to a man’s house at Baharim, in whose court-yard there was a well, wherein they concealed themselves. After the battle, in which Absalom was overcome and slain, xviii, Ahimaaz desired leave of Joab to carry the news thereof to David. But instead of him Joab sent Cushi to carry the news, and told Ahimaaz that he would send him to the king upon some other occasion; but soon after Cushi was departed, Ahimaaz applied again to Joab, praying to be permitted to run after Cushi; and, having obtained leave, he ran by the way of the plain, and outran Cushi. He was succeeded in the priesthood by his son Azariah.
AHIMELECH. He was the son of Ahitub, and brother of Ahia, whom he succeeded in the high priesthood. He is called Abiathar, Mark ii, 26. During his priesthood the tabernacle was at Nob, where Ahimelech, with other priests, had their habitation. David, being informed by his friend Jonathan that Saul was determined to destroy him, thought it prudent to retire. He therefore went to Nob, to the high priest Ahimelech, who gave him the shew bread, and the sword of Goliath. One day, when Saul was complaining of his officers, that no one was affected with his misfortunes, or gave him any intelligence of what was carrying on against him, 1 Sam. xxii, 9, &c, Doeg related to him what had occurred when David came to Ahimelech the high priest. On this information, Saul convened the priests, and having charged them with the crime of treason, ordered his guards to slay them, which they refusing to do, Doeg, who had been their accuser, at the king’s command became their executioner, and with his sacrilegious hand massacred no less than eighty-five of them; the Septuagint and Syriac versions make the number of priests slain by Doeg three hundred and five. Nor did Saul stop here; but, sending a party to Nob, he commanded them to slay men, women, and children, and even cattle, with the edge of the sword. Only one son of Ahimelech, named Abiathar, escaped the carnage and fled to David.
AHITHOPHEL, a native of Giloh, who, after having been David’s counsellor, joined in the rebellion of Absalom, and assisted him with his advice. Hushai, the friend of David, was employed to counteract the counsels of Ahithophel, and to deprive Absalom, under a pretence of serving him, of the advantage that was likely to result from the measures which he proposed. One of these measures was calculated to render David irreconcilable, and was immediately adopted; and the other to secure, or to slay him. Before the last counsel was followed, Hushai’s advice was desired; and he recommended their assembling together the whole force of Israel, putting Absalom at their head, and overwhelming David by their number. The treacherous counsel of Hushai was preferred to that of Ahithophel; with which the latter being disgusted he hastened to his house at Giloh, where he put an end to his life. He probably foresaw Absalom’s defeat, and dreaded the punishment which would be inflicted on himself as a traitor, when David was resettled on the throne. A. M. 2981. B. C. 1023. 2 Sam. xv, xvii.
AHOLIBAH. This and Aholah are two feigned names made use of by Ezekiel, xxiii, 4, to denote the two kingdoms of Judah and Samaria. Aholah and Aholibah are represented as two sisters of Egyptian extraction. Aholah stands for Samaria, and Aholibah for Jerusalem. The first signifies atent, and the second,my tent is in her. They both prostituted themselves to the Egyptians and Assyrians, in imitating their abominations and idolatries; for which reason the Lord abandoned them to those very people for whose evil practices they had shown so passionate an affection. They were carried into captivity, and reduced to the severest servitude.
AI, called by the LXX, Gai, by Josephus Aina, and by others Ajah, a town of Palestine, situate west of Bethel, and at a small distance north-west of Jericho. The three thousand men, first sent by Joshua to reduce this city, were repulsed, on account of the sin of Achan, who had violated the anathema pronounced against Jericho, by appropriating a part of the spoil. After the expiation of this offence, the whole army of Israel marched against Ai, with orders to treat that city as Jericho had been treated, with this difference, that the plunder was to be given to the army. Joshua, having appointed an ambush of thirty thousand men, marched against the city, and by a feigned retreat, drew out the king of Ai with his troops; and upon a signal given by elevating his shield on the top of a pike, the men in ambush entered the city and set fire to it. Thus the soldiers of Ai, placed between two divisions of Joshua’s army, were all destroyed; the king alone being preserved for a more ignominious death on a gibbet, where he hung till sunset. The spoil of the place was afterward divided among the Israelites. The men appointed for ambush are, in one place, said to be thirty thousand, and in another five thousand. For reconciling this apparent contradiction, most commentators have generally supposed, that there were two bodies placed in ambuscade between Bethel and Ai, one of twenty-five thousand and the other of five thousand men; the latter being probably a detachment from the thirty thousand first sent, and ordered to lie as near to the city as possible. Masius allows only five thousand men for the ambuscade, and twenty-five thousand for the attack.