International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Adithaim — Aher

Adithaim

Adithaim - ad-i-tha'-im (`adhithayim "double ornament, passage, or prey"): A city in "the lowland" (Shephelah, not as the King James Version "valley") of Judah (Joshua 15:36). Site unknown, but possibly same as ADIDA (which see).

Adjuration

Adjuration - ad-ju-ra'-shun: The act of requiring or taking a solemn oath. In a time of military peril Saul adjured the people ('alah, "to take oath") and they took oath by saying "Amen" (1 Samuel 14:24). When Joshua pronounced a ban on Jericho (Joshua 6:26) he completed it with an oath (shabha`, "to cause to swear"). Often used in the sense of a solemn charge without the administration of an oath (1 Kings 22:16; 2 Chronicles 18:15; Song of Solomon 2:7; Song of Solomon 5:8-9; 1 Thessalonians 5:27). With reference to the withholding of testimony, see Leviticus 5:1 and Proverbs 29:24. The high priest sought to put Jesus under oath (exorkizo, "to force to an oath," Matthew 26:63). Adjure also means to solemnly implore (horkizo) as when the man with an unclean spirit appealed to Jesus: "I adjure thee by God, torment me not" (Mark 5:7); or seven sons of Sceva, exorcists, sought in the name of Jesus to expel demons (Acts 19:13).

(1) The exacting of an oath has, from time immemorial, been a customary procedure in conferring civil and ecclesiastical office and in taking legal testimony. Though often allowed to become painfully trivial and a travesty on its inherent solemnity, the taking of an official oath or the swearing of witnesses is still considered essential to the moral integrity of government, secular or spiritual. False sweating, under solemn oath, constitutes the guilt and heinousness of perjury. The universality of oath-taking is humanity's tribute, whether pagan or Christian, to the sacredness of truth.

(2) Civilized nations administer oaths under three heads: political, ecclesiastical, legal. The sovereign of England receives the crown only as he or she responds affirmatively to the solemn adjuration of the archbishop or bishop: "Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern," etc., closing with the affirmation, "So help me God." A fundamental conviction of civilized nations was expressed by Lycurgus: "An oath is the bond that keeps the state together." It is the most solemn appeal to the inviolability of the human conscience, and the sacredness of a vow as witnessed both by God and men.

Adlai

Adlai - ad'-la-i, ad'-li (`adhlay; Septuagint Adli and Adai, "lax, weary"): The father of Shaphat, an overseer of David's herds in the lowlands (1 Chronicles 27:29).

Admah

Admah - ad'-ma ('adhmah): From a root signifying red; one of the Cities of the Plain (Ciccar) (Genesis 10:19; 2, 8; Deuteronomy 29:23; Hosea 11:8) upon which Abraham and Lot looked from the heights of Bethel; destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah. Conder tentatively identifies it with the City of Adam referred to in Joshua 3:16, and thinks that perhaps the name may be preserved in that of Damieh Ford, near the mouth of the river Jabbok; but that point could not have been in view from Bethel.

See VALE OF SIDDIM .

Admatha

Admatha - ad'-ma-tha, ad-ma'-tha ('adhmatha'): One of "the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king's face, and sat first in the kingdom" (Esther 1:14); compare 2 Kings 25:19; Ezra 7:14. The Septuagint gives only three names.

Admin

Admin - ad'-min.

See ARNI.

Administer; Administration

Administer; Administration - ad-min'-is-ter ad-min-is-tra'-shun diakoneo, diakonia: Terms used in the King James Version in 1 Corinthians 12:5; 2 Corinthians 8:19-20; 9:12 respectively, and replaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by "minister" and "ministration." The root idea of both words is "service," hence to supply, or conduct or attend to anything; the performance of official duty, the conduct of affairs, the various forms of spiritual or social service. "Minister," used either of an act or of an office, is the term that best represents the apostolic thought and ideal.

Dwight M. Pratt

Admiration

Admiration - ad-mi-ra'-shun (thauma, "a marvel" or "wonder"; thaumazo, "to wonder"): A term thrice used in the King James Version in the New Testament, to express a wonder that includes approval, high esteem; replaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by three renderings better suited to convey the various kinds of surprise, wonder, admiration, expressed, by this fertile word: namely, in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, "to be admired," reads in the Revised Version (British and American) "to be marveled at"; in Jude 1:16 "having men's persons in admiration" is rendered "showing respect of persons"; in Revelation 17:6 "wondered with great admiration" is replaced by "with a great wonder." The Greek original is used frequently in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, to express marvel and wonder at the supernatural works of Jesus.

Dwight M. Pratt

Adna

Adna - ad'-na (`adhna', "pleasure"; Aidaine):

(1) An Israelite in Ezra's time who, having married a foreign wife, divorced her. He belonged to Pahath-moab (Ezra 10:30).

(2) A priest of the family of Harum, during the high-priesthood of Joiakim son of Jethua (Nehemiah 12:12-15).

Adnah

Adnah - ad'-na (`adhnach, "pleasure"; Edna):

(1) A warrior of the tribe of Manasseh, who deserted Saul and joined David's forces at Ziklag (1 Chronicles 12:20-21)

(2) An officer of high rank, perhaps the commander-in-chief of Jehoshaphat's army (2 Chronicles 17:14). Here the spelling in Hebrew is `adhnah.

Ado

Ado - a-doo': Found only in Mark 5:39 King James Version: "Why make ye this ado and weep?" Here "make ado" is used to translate the Greek verb thorubeomai (compare Matthew 9:23 the King James Version, where it is likewise rendered "making a noise"). "Ado" as a substantive is Old English for "trouble" or "fuss," used only in the sing.; and in the early English versions it combined well with the verb "make," as here, to translate the Greek word rendered elsewhere "causing an uproar," or "tumult," "making a noise," etc. (see Acts 17:5; 20:10). Compare Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,III , 4, "We'll keep no great ado;--a friend or two."

George B. Eager

Adonai

Adonai - a-do'-ni, ad-o-na'-i ('adhonay): A Divine name, translated "Lord," and signifying, from its derivation, "sovereignty." Its vowels are found in the Massoretic Text with the unpronounceable tetragrammaton YHWH; and when the Hebrew reader came to these letters, he always substituted in pronunciation the word " 'adhonay." Its vowels combined with the tetragrammaton form the word "Yahweh (Yahweh)."

See GOD, NAMES OF.

Adonibezek

Adonibezek - a-do-ni-be'-zek ('adhonibhezeq "lord of Bezek"): Lord of a town, Bezek, in southern Palestine, whom the tribes of Judah and Simeon overthrew. Adonibezek fled when his men were defeated, but was captured, and was punished for his cruelty in cutting off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings by a similar mutilation. Being brought to Jerusalem, he died there (Judges 1:5-7). This not to be confused with Adonizedek, as in the Septuagint. This is quite another name.

Adonijah

Adonijah - ad-o-ni'-ja ('adhoniyahu or 'adhoniyah, "my lord is Yahweh"):

(1) The son of David and Haggith, the forth of David's sons, born in Hebron after David became king of Judah, principally known for his attempt to become king instead of Solomon (2 Samuel 3:4; 1 Chronicles 3:2; 1 Kings 1:1-53 and 1 Kings 2:1-46). The record gives no details concerning Chileab, the son of David and Abigail. Leaving him out, Adonijah was the oldest living son of David, after the death of Amnon and Absalom.

In treating the record it has been needlessly obscured by neglecting or distorting the time data. It says that the rebellion of Absalom broke out "at an end of forty years" (2 Samuel 15:7). The natural meaning is not forty years after the last-mentioned preceding date, but at the close of the fortieth calendar year of the reign of David. Since David reigned 40 1/2 years (2 Samuel 5:4-5), the close of his fortieth calendar year was the beginning of has last year. That the date intended was at the beginning of a vernal year is confirmed by the references to the season (2 Samuel 17:19, 28). Instead of giving this number Josephus says that 4 years had elapsed since the last preceding date, which is very likely correct.

Many considerations show that the outbreak cannot have occurred much earlier than the fortieth year of David; for Amnon and Absalom were born after David's reign began, and were men with establishments of their own before Amnon's offense against Tamar, and after that the record, if we accept the numeral of Josephus, accounts for 2 plus 3 plus 2 plus 4, that is, for 11 years (2 Samuel 13:23, 38; 14:28; Ant, VII, ix, 2 Samuel 1:1-27). In the year following David's fortieth year there was ample room for the rebellions of Absalom and of Sheba, the illness of David, the attempt of Adonijah, and the beginning of the reign of Solomon. All things confirm the number forty as giving the date of the outbreak. The common assumption that the forty is to be reduced to four, on the basis of the number in Josephus, is contrary to the evidence.

On this view of the chronology all the events fall into line. David's idea of making Solomon king was connected with his temple-building idea. This is implied in Kings, and presented somewhat in full in Chronicles. The preparations described in Chronicles (1 Chronicles 22:1-19 through 1 Chronicles 29:1-30) seem to have culminated in David's fortieth year (1 Chronicles 26:31). David's policy was not altogether popular with the nation. His assembly (1 Chronicles 28:1) is mostly made up of sarim and other appointed officials, the hereditary Israelite "princes" and "elders" being conspicuous by their absence. The outbreak under Absalom was mainly a matter of skillful manipulation; the hearts of the people were really with David. And yet the party of Absalom was distinctly a legitimist party. It believed in the succession of the eldest son, and it objected to many things in the temple-building policy. Joab and Abiathar and others sympathized with this party, but they remained with David out of personal loyalty to him.

The Absalom campaign began early in the calendar year. There is no reason to think that it lasted more than a few weeks. Later in the year a few weeks are enough time to allow for the campaign against Sheba. Joab must have been more or less alienated from David by David's appointment of Amasa to supersede him. Then came David's serious illness. Abishag was brought in, not to "attend upon David during has declining years," but to put her vitality at has disposal during a few weeks. Joab and Abiathar did not believe that David would ever do business again. Their personal loyalty to him no longer restrained them from following their own ideas, even though these were contrary to his wishes.

The narrative does not represent that Nathan and Bathsheba influenced David to interfere in behalf of Solomon; it represents that they succeeded in arousing him from has torpor, so that he carried out his own wishes and intentions. Perhaps resting in bed had done something for him. The treatment by Abishag had not been unsuccessful. And now a supreme appeal to his mind proved sufficient to arouse him. He became himself again, and acted with has usual vigor and wisdom.

Adonijah is described as a handsome and showy man, but has conduct does not give us a high opinion of his capabilities. He had no real command of the respect of the guests who shouted "Live King Adonijah." When they heard that Solomon had been crowned, they "were afraid, and rose up, and went every man his way." Adonijah made has submission, but afterward attempted to engage in intrigues, and was put to death.

(2) One of the Levites sent out by Jehoshaphat, in his third year, with the Book of the Law, to give instruction in Judah (2 Chronicles 17:8).

(3) One of the names given, under the heading "the chiefs of the people," of those who sealed the covenant along with Nehemiah (Nehemiah 10:16).

Willis J. Beecher

Adonikam

Adonikam - ad-o-ni'-kam ('adhoniqam, "my lord has risen up"): The name of a family of the returning exiles (Ezra 2:13; Nehemiah 7:18). "The sons of Adonikam," men and women and children, numbered 666 according to the list as given in Ezr, but 667 according to the copy in Neh. Either included among these or in addition to them was the contingent that came with Ezr, "Ehphalet, Jeuel, and Shemaiah, and with them 60 males" (Ezra 8:13).

Adoniram

Adoniram - ad-o-ni'-ram ('adhoniram, "my lord is exalted"): An official of Solomon (1 Kings 4:6; 5:14). Near the close of the reign of David, and at the opening of the reign of Rehoboam, the same office was held by Adoram (2 Samuel 20:24; 1 Kings 12:18). The name Adoram seems to be a contraction of Adoniram, and doubtless the same person held the office in all the three reigns. The name also appears as Hadoram (2 Chronicles 10:18). In the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) the office is variantly described as "over the tribute," which is misleading, and "over the levy," which is correct, though obscure. In the American Standard Revised Version it is uniformly "over the men subject to taskwork." Adoniram was at the head of the department of forced labor for the government. The record is to the effect that peoples conquered by Israel, except the Canaanites, were to be spared, subject to the obligation to forced labor on the public works (Deuteronomy 20:11); that this law was actually extended to the Canaanites (Joshua 16:10; 17:13; Judges 1:28 ff); that David, in his preparations for the temple, organized and handed over to Solomon a service of forced labor (1 Chronicles 22:2, 15, etc.); that under Solomon this service was elaborately maintained (1 Kings 5:13 ff; 1 Kings 9:15 ff; 2 Chronicles 8:7 ff). It was not for the temple only, but for all Solomon's numerous building enterprises. In theory men of Israelite blood were free from this burden, but practically they found it a burden and a grievance. At the accession of Rehoboam they protested against it (1 Kings 12:1-33; 2 Chronicles 10:1-19). Nothing in the account is more indicative of Rehoboam's utter lack of good judgment than his sending his veteran superintendent of the forced labor department to confer with the people. The murder of Adoniram, and the ignominious flight of Rehoboam, were natural consequences.

Willis J. Beecher

Adonis

Adonis - a-do'-nis: A name for the Babylonian god TAMMUZ, which see. The word occurs only in the English Revised Version, margin of Isaiah 17:10, where for "pleasant plants" is read "plantings of Adonis." The the American Standard Revised Version rightly omits this marginal suggestion.

Adoni-zedek

Adoni-zedek - a-do-ni-ze'-dek ('adhonitsedheq, "lord of righteousness"): King of Jerusalem at the time of the conquest of Canaan (Joshua 10:1). When he heard of the fall of Ai and the submission of the Gibeonites, he entered into a league with four other kings to resist Joshua and Israel, and to punish Gibeon (Joshua 10:3-4), but was overthrown by Joshua in a memorable battle (Joshua 10:12-14). Adoni-zedek and his four allies were shut up in a cave, while the battle lasted, and afterward were taken out by Joshua's order, put to death and hanged on trees (Joshua 10:22-27). It is noticeable that the name is almost the equivalent of Melchizedek, malkitsedheq, "king of righteousness," who was ruler of Jerusalem in the time of Abraham.

Edward Mack

Adoption

Adoption - a-dop'-shun (huiothesia, "placing as a son"):

I. THE GENERAL LEGAL IDEA

1. In the Old Testament

2. Greek

3. Roman

II. PAUL'S DOCTRINE

1. In Galatians as Liberty

2. In Romans as Deliverance from Debt

III. THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE

1. In Relation to Justification

2. In Relation to Sanctification

3. In Relation to Regeneration

IV. AS GOD'S ACT

1. Divine Fatherhood

2. Its Cosmic Range

This term appears first in New Testament, and only in the epistles of Paul (Galatians 4:5; Romans 8:15, 23; 9:4; Ephesians 1:5) who may have coined it out of a familiar Greek phrase of identical meaning. It indicated generally the legal process by which a man might bring into his family, and endow with the status and privileges of a son, one who was not by nature his son or of his kindred.

I. The General Legal Idea. The custom prevailed among Greeks, Romans and other ancient peoples, but it does not appear in Jewish law.

1. In the Old Testament: Three cases of adoption are mentioned: of Moses (Exodus 2:10), Genubath (1 Kings 11:20) and Esther (Esther 2:7, 15), but it is remarkable that they all occur outside of Palestine--in Egypt and Persia, where the practice of adoption prevailed. Likewise the idea appears in the New Testament only in the epistles of Paul, which were addressed to churches outside Palestine. The motive and initiative of adoption always lay with the adoptive father, who thus supplied his lack of natural offspring and satisfied the claims of affection and religion, and the desire to exercise paternal authority or to perpetuate his family. The process and conditions of adoption varied with different peoples. Among oriental nations it was extended to slaves (as Moses) who thereby gained their freedom, but in Greece and Rome it was, with rare exceptions, limited to citizens.

2. Greek: In Greece a man might during his lifetime, or by will, to take effect after his death, adopt any male citizen into the privileges of his son, but with the invariable condition that the adopted son accepted the legal obligations and religious duties of a real son.

3. Roman: In Rome the unique nature of paternal authority (patria potestas), by which a son was held in his father's power, almost as a slave was owned by his master, gave a peculiar character to the process of adoption. For the adoption of a person free from paternal authority (sui juris), the process and effect were practically the same in Rome as in Greece (adrogatio). In a more specific sense, adoption proper (adoptio) was the process by which a person was transferred from his natural father's power into that of his adoptive father, and it consisted in a fictitious sale of the son, and his surrender by the natural to the adoptive father.

II. Paul's Doctrine. As a Roman citizen the apostle would naturally know of the Roman custom, but in the cosmopolitan city of Tarsus, and again on his travels, he would become equally familiar with the corresponding customs of other nations. He employed the idea metaphorically much in the manner of Christ's parables, and, as in their case, there is danger of pressing the analogy too far in its details. It is not clear that he had any specific form of adoption in mind when illustrating his teaching by the general idea. Under this figure he teaches that God, by the manifestation of His grace in Christ, brings men into the relation of sons to Himself, and communicates to them the experience of sonship.

1. In Galatians as Liberty: In Galatians, Paul emphasizes especially the liberty enjoyed by those who live by faith, in contrast to the bondage under which men are held, who guide their lives by legal ceremonies and ordinances, as the Galatians were prone to do (Galatians 5:1). The contrast between law and faith is first set forth on the field of history, as a contrast between both the pre-Christian and the Christian economies (Galatians 3:23-24), although in another passage he carries the idea of adoption back into the covenant relation of God with Israel (Romans 9:4). But here the historical antithesis is reproduced in the contrast between men who now choose to live under law and those who live by faith. Three figures seem to commingle in the description of man's condition under legal bondage--that of a slave, that of a minor under guardians appointed by his father's will, and that of a Roman son under the patria potestas (Galatians 4:1-3). The process of liberation is first of all one of redemption or buying out (Greek exagorasei) (Galatians 4:5). This term in itself applies equally well to the slave who is redeemed from bondage, and the Roman son whose adoptive father buys him out of the authority of his natural father. But in the latter case the condition of the son is not materially altered by the process: he only exchanges one paternal authority for another. If Paul for a moment thought of the process in terms of ordinary Roman adoption, the resulting condition of the son he conceives in terms of the more free and gracious Greek or Jewish family life. Or he may have thought of the rarer case of adoption from conditions of slavery into the status of sonship. The redemption is only a precondition of adoption, which follows upon faith, and is accompanied by the sending of "the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father," and then all bondage is done away (Galatians 4:5-7).

2. In Romans as Deliverance from Debt: In Romans 8:12-17 the idea of obligation or debt is coupled with that of liberty. Man is thought of as at one time under the authority and power of the flesh (Romans 8:5), but when the Spirit of Christ comes to dwell in him, he is no longer a debtor to the flesh but to the Spirit (Romans 8:12-13), and debt or obligation to the Spirit is itself liberty. As in Galatians, man thus passes from a state of bondage into a state of sonship which is also a state of liberty. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these (and these only) are sons of God" (Romans 8:14). The spirit of adoption or sonship stands in diametrical opposition to the spirit of bondage (Romans 8:15). And the Spirit to which we are debtors and by which we are led, at once awakens and confirms the experience of sonship within us (Romans 8:16). In both places, Paul conveys under this figure, the idea of man as passing from a state of alienation from God and of bondage under law and sin, into that relation with God of mutual confidence and love, of unity of thought and will, which should characterize the ideal family, and in which all restraint, compulsion and fear have passed away.

III. The Christian Experience. As a fact of Christian experience, the adoption is the recognition and affirmation by man of his sonship toward God. It follows upon faith in Christ, by which man becomes so united with Christ that his filial spirit enters into him, and takes possession of his consciousness, so that he knows and greets God as Christ does (compare Mark 14:36).

1. In Relation to Justification: It is an aspect of the same experience that Paul describes elsewhere, under another legal metaphor, as justification by faith. According to the latter, God declares the sinner righteous and treats him as such, admits into to the experience of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace (Romans 5:1). In all this the relation of father and son is undoubtedly involved, but in adoption it is emphatically expressed. It is not only that the prodigal son is welcomed home, glad to confess that he is not worthy to be called a son, and willing to be made as one of the hired servants, but he is embraced and restored to be a son as before. The point of each metaphor is, that justification is the act of a merciful Judge setting the prisoner free, but adoption is the act of a generous father, taking a son to his bosom and endowing him with liberty, favor and a heritage.

2. In Relation to Sanctification: Besides, justification is the beginning of a process which needs for its completion a progressive course of sanctification by the aid of the Holy Spirit, but adoption is coextensive with sanctification. The sons of God are those led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14); and the same spirit of God gives the experience of sonship. Sanctification describes the process of general cleansing and growth as an abstract process, but adoption includes it as a concrete relation to God, as loyalty, obedience, and fellowship with an ever-loving Father.

3. In Relation to Regeneration: Some have identified adoption with regeneration, and therefore many Fathers and Roman Catholic theologians have identified it with baptismal regeneration, thereby excluding the essential fact of conscious sonship. The new birth and adoption are certainly aspects of the same totality of experience, but they belong to different systems of thought, and to identify them is to invite confusion. The new birth defines especially the origin and moral quality of the Christian experience as an abstract fact, but adoption expresses a concrete relation of man to God. Nor does Paul here raise the question of man's natural and original condition. It is pressing the analogy too far to infer from this doctrine of adoption that man is by nature not God's son. It would contradict Paul's teaching elsewhere (e.g. Acts 17:28), and he should not be convicted of inconsistency on the application of a metaphor. He conceives man outside Christ as morally an alien and a stranger from God, and the change wrought by faith in Christ makes him morally a son and conscious of his sonship; but naturally he is always a potential son because God is always a real father.

IV. As God's Act. Adoption as God's act is an eternal process of His gracious love, for He "fore-ordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Ephesians 1:5).

1. Divine Fatherhood: The motive and impulse of Fatherhood which result in adoption were eternally real and active in God. In some sense He had bestowed the adoption upon Israel (Romans 9:4). "Israel is my son, my first-born" (Exodus 4:22; compare Deuteronomy 14:1; 32:6; Jeremiah 31:9; Hosea 11:1). God could not reveal Himself at all without revealing something of His Fatherhood, but the whole revelation was as yet partial and prophetic. When "God sent forth his Son" to redeem them that were under the law," it became possible for men to receive the adoption; for to those who are willing to receive it, He sent the Spirit of the eternal Son to testify in their hearts that they are sons of God, and to give them confidence and utterance to enable them to call God their Father (Galatians 4:5-6; Romans 8:15).

2. Its Cosmic Range: But this experience also is incomplete, and looks forward to a fuller adoption in the response, not only of man's spirit, but of the whole creation, including man's body, to the Fatherhood of God (Romans 8:23). Every filial spirit now groans, because it finds itself imprisoned in a body subjected to vanity, but it awaits a redemption of the body, perhaps in the resurrection, or in some final consummation, when the whole material creation shall be transformed into a fitting environment for the sons of God, the creation itself delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:21). Then will adoption be complete, when man's whole personality shall be in harmony with the spirit of sonship, and the whole universe favorable to its perseverance in a state of blessedness.

See CHILDREN OF GOD.

LITERATURE:

Lightfoot, Galatians; Sanday, Romans; Lidgett, Fatherhood of God; Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation.

T. Rees

Ador; Adora

Ador; Adora - a'-dor, a-do'-ra (Adora): In Idumaea, mentioned in Ant, XIII, ix, 1 as one of the cities captured by Hyrcanus, and referred to in 1 Maccabees 13:20.

See ADORAIM.

Adoraim

Adoraim - ad-o-ra'-im ('adhorayim, "a pair of knolls," perhaps): One of several cities in Judah that were fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:9). The name appears in Josephus and in 1macc as Adora or Dora or Dor. Its location is indicated in general by that of the other cities which the record in Chronicles groups with it. Common consent identifies it with Dura, about five miles West by South of Hebron.

Adoram

Adoram - a-do'-ram.

See ADONIRAM.

Adoration

Adoration - ad-o-ra'-shun: Though this word never occurs in English Versions, it represents aspects of worship which are very prominent in the Bible.

I. Etymology. The word is derived from Latin adorare = (1) "to speak to," (2) "to beseech," "entreat," (3) "to do homage," "to worship"; from the Latin, os (oris), mouth. Some have supposed that the root os points to the Roman practice of applying the hand to the mouth, i.e. kissing the hand to (a person or thing), as a token of homage.

II. Meaning. Adoration is intense admiration culminating in reverence and worship, together with the outward acts and attitudes which accompany such reverence. It thus includes both the subjective sentiments, or feelings of the soul, in the presence of some superior object or person, and the appropriate physical expressions of such sentiments in outward acts of homage or of worship. In its widest sense it includes reverence to beings other than God, especially to monarchs, who in oriental countries were regarded with feelings of awe. But it finds its highest expression in religion. Adoration is perhaps the highest type of worship, involving the reverent and rapt contemplation of the Divine perfections and prerogatives, the acknowledgment of them in words of praise, together with the visible symbols and postures that express the adoring attitude of the creature in the presence of his Creator. It is the expression of the soul's mystical realization of God's presence in His transcendent greatness, holiness and lovingkindness. As a form of prayer, adoration is to be distinguished from other forms, such as petition, thanksgiving, confession and intercession.

III. Outward Postures. In the Old Testament and New Testament, these are similar to those which prevailed in all oriental countries, as amply illustrated by the monuments of Egypt and Assyria, and by the customs still in use among the nations of the East. The chief attitudes referred to in the Bible are the following:

1. Prostration: Among the Orientals, especially Persians, prostration (i.e. falling upon the knees, then gradually inclining the body, until the forehead touched the ground) was common as an expression of profound reverence and humility before a superior or a benefactor. It was practiced in the worship of Yahweh (Genesis 17:3; Numbers 16:45; Matthew 26:39, Jesus in Gethsemane; Revelation 1:17), and of idols (2 Kings 5:18; Daniel 3:5-6), but was by no means confined to religious exercises. It was the formal method of supplicating or doing obeisance to a superior (e.g. 1 Samuel 25:23 f; 2 Kings 4:37; Esther 8:3; Mark 5:22; John 11:32).

2. Kneeling: A substitute for prostration was kneeling, a common attitude in worship, frequently mentioned in Old Testament and New Testament (e.g. 1 Kings 8:54; Ezra 9:5; Psalms 95:6; Isaiah 45:23; Luke 22:41, Christ in Gethsemane; Acts 7:60; Ephesians 3:14). The same attitude was sometimes adopted in paying homage to a fellow-creature, as in 2 Kings 1:13. "Sitting" as an attitude of prayer (only 2 Samuel 7:18 parallel 1 Chronicles 17:16) was probably a form of kneeling, as in Mahometan worship.

3. Standing: This was the most usual posture in prayer, like that of modern Jews in public worship. Abraham "stood before Yahweh (Yahweh)" when he interceded for Sodom (Genesis 18:22). Compare 1 Samuel 1:26. The Pharisee in the parable "stood and prayed" (Luke 18:11), and the hypocrites are said to "pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets" (Matthew 6:5 the King James Version).

4. The Hands: The above postures were accompanied by various attitudes of the hands, which were either lifted up toward heaven (Psalms 63:4; 1 Timothy 2:8), or outspread (Exodus 9:29; Ezra 9:5; Isaiah 1:15), or both (1 Kings 8:54).

5. Kiss of Adoration: The heathen practice of kissing hands to the heavenly bodies as a sign of adoration is referred to in Job 31:27, and of kissing the idol in 1 Kings 19:18; Hosea 13:2. The kiss of homage is mentioned in Psalms 2:12, if the text there be correct. Kissing hands to the object of adoration was customary among the Romans (Pliny xxviii.5). The New Testament word for "worship" (proskuneo) literally means to kiss (the hand) to (one).

Adorn

Adorn - a-dorn' (kosmeo): Has as its primary meaning "to arrange," "to put In order," "to decorate." It is used with reference to the manner in which Christian women were urged to dress. This was a vital question in the early church, and both Paul and Peter give advice on the subject (1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3).

See DRESS.

Figurative: In Matthew 12:44 the King James Version the word is translated "garnish" and is used in a figurative sense. It describes accurately the condition of the Jewish nation. Even though they have swept out idolatry and have adorned the life with much ceremony and endless religious prescriptions yet the evil spirit can say, "I will return to my house." This same thing has repeatedly been done by individuals and nations when reforms have been instituted, but Christ was not enthroned and the heart or nation was still dominated by evil. It is used also in a figurative sense with reference to the graces of the Christian life. When we remember how very highly Orientals esteem the adornment of the body, its use here becomes very forceful. It is this that makes Psalms 45:13 of special significance as to the beauty and glory of the church as she is presented to God. See also Proverbs 1:9; 4:9; Isaiah 61:10; 1 Peter 3:4-5. Consecration to God, the in-dwelling of His Spirit, righteousness, a meek and quiet spirit--these are the true adornments of the life. All these passages carry with them the idea of joy, the satisfaction that should be ours in these possessions.

Jacob W. Kapp

Adra

Adra - a'-dra.

See ARAD (city).

ADRAMMELECH and ANAMMELECH

a-dram'-el-ek and a-nam'-el-ek ('adhrammelekh and `anammelekh, apparently, according to Assyrian usage, "Adar is prince," "Anu is prince." By Palestinian usage it would be "Adar is king," "Anu is king"):

(1) The names given by the Israelite narrator to the god or gods imported into the Samaritan land by the men of Sepharvaim whom the king of Assyria had settled there (2 Kings 17:31). In the Babylonian pantheon Anu, the god of heaven, is one of the three chief gods, and Adar, otherwise known as Ninib, is a solar god. Concerning the statements in this verse in Kings, archaeologists differ in some important points, and it is a case in which a suspended judgment may be becoming in one who is not an expert. But at least a portion of the alleged difficulties have arisen from failures to get the point of view of the Israelite narrator. He is writing from a time considerably later than the establishment of the institutions of which he speaks--late enough to render the phrase "unto this day" suitable (2 Kings 17:34), late enough so that words and usages may have undergone modification. He is describing a mixture of religions which he evidently regards as deserving of contempt and ridicule, even apart from the falsity of the religions included in it. This mixture he describes as containing ingredients of three kinds--first, the imported religions of the imported peoples; second, the local high-place religions (2 Kings 17:32, etc.), and third, the Yahweh religion of Northern Israel (not that of Jerusalem). It is not likely that he thought that they practiced any cult in its purity. They contaminated the religion of Yahweh by introducing Canaanitish usages into it, and they are likely to have done the same with the ancestral religions which they brought with them. The proper names may be correct as representing Palestine usage, even if they differ somewhat from the proper Babylonian usage. The writer says that they "burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech," but this does not necessarily prove that he thought that they brought this practice from Babylonia; his idea may be that they corrupted even their own false cult by introducing into it this horrible Canaanitish rite. In considering the bearings of the evidence of the monuments on the case, considerations of this kind should not be neglected.

(2) The name of a son of Sennacherib king of Assyria--one of the two who slew him and escaped, indirectly leading to the accession of Esar-haddon (2 Kings 19:37; Isaiah 37:38). Mention of the incident is found on the monuments, and traces of the name appear in the writings of Abydenus and Poly-histor.

Willis J. Beecher

Adramyttium

Adramyttium - ad-ra-mit'-i-um (Adramuttion; for other forms see Thayer's lexicon): An ancient city of Mysia in the Roman Province of Asia. The only reference in the New Testament to it is in Acts 27:2 which says that Paul, while being taken a prisoner from Caesarea to Rome, embarked upon a ship belonging to Adramyttium.

The city, with a good harbor, stood at the head of the Gulf of Adramyttium facing the island of Lesbos, and at the base of Mt. Ida. Its early history is obscure. While some authors fancy that it was the Pedasus of Homer, others suppose that it was founded by Adramys, the brother of the wealthy Croesus; probably a small Athenian colony existed there long before the time of Adramys. When Pergamus became the capital of Asia, Adramyttium grew to be a city of considerable importance, and the metropolis of the Northwest part of the province. There the assizes were held. The coins which the peasants pick up in the surrounding fields, and which are frequently aids in determining the location and history of the cities of Asia Minor, were struck at Adramyttium as late as the 3rd century AD, and sometimes in connection with Ephesus. Upon them the effigies of Castor and Pollux appear, showing that Adramyttium was the seat of worship of these deities.

The ancient city with its harbor has entirely disappeared, but on a hill, somewhat farther inland, is a village of about one thousand houses bearing the name Edremid, a corruption of the ancient name Adramys. The miserable wooden huts occupied by Greek fishermen and by Turks are surrounded by vineyards and olive trees, hence the chief trade is in olive oil, raisins and timber. In ancient times Adramyttium was noted for a special ointment which was prepared there (Pliny, NH, xiii.2.5).

E. J. Banks

Adria

Adria - a'-dri-a (Westcott-Hort: ho Hadrias or ho Adrias): In Greek Adrias (Polybios i.2.4), Adriatike Thalassa (Strabo iv.204), and Adriatikon Pelagos (Ptolemy iii.15.2), and in Latin Adriaticum mare (Livy xl.57.7), Adrianum mare (Cicero in Pisonem 38), Adriaticus sinus (Livy x.2.4), and Mare superurn (Cicero ad Att. 9.5.1). The Adriatic Sea is a name derived from the old Etruscan city Atria, situated near the mouth of the Po (Livy v.33.7; Strabo v.214). At first the name Adria was only applied to the most northern part of the sea. But after the development of the Syracusan colonies on the Italian and Illyrian coasts the application of the term was gradually extended southward, so as to reach Mons Garganus (the Abruzzi), and later the Strait of Hydruntum (Ptolemy iii.1.1; Polybios vii.19.2). But finally the name embraced the Ionian Sea as well, and we find it employed to denote the Gulf of Tarentum (Servius Aen xi.540), the Sicilian Sea (Pausanias v. 25), and even the waters between Crete and Malta (Orosius i.2.90). Procopius considers Malta as lying at the western extremity of the Adriatic Sea (i.14). After leaving Crete the vessel in which the apostle Paul was sailing under military escort was "driven to and fro in the sea of Adria" fourteen days (Acts 27:27) before it approached the shore of Malta. We may compare this with the shipwreck of Josephus in "the middle of the Adria" where he was picked up by a ship sailing from Cyrene to Puteoli (Josephus, Vita, 3).

George H. Allen

Adriel

Adriel - a'-dri-el (`adhri'el, "my help is God"): The son of Barzillai the Meholathite, to whom Merab the daughter of King Saul was married when she should have been given to David (1 Samuel 18:19; 2 Samuel 21:8). "Michal" in 2 Samuel 21:8 is a textual error easily accounted for Adriel and Merab had five sons, whom David handed over to the blood vengeance of the men of Gibeon. The name Adriel seems to be Aramaic, the equivalent of the Hebrew name Azriel.

Aduel

Aduel - a-du'-el (Adouel): An ancestor of Tobit (Tobit 1:1).

Adullam

Adullam - a-dul'-am (`adhullam):

(1) A city, with dependencies, and in ancient times having a king, mentioned five times in the Old Testament, each time in a list with other cities (Joshua 12:15; 15:35; 2 Chronicles 11:7; Micah 1:15; Nehemiah 11:30). In the list of 31 kings whom Joshua smote, Adullam follows Hormah, Arad, Libnah, and precedes Makkedah. Among the 14 Judahite cities of the first group in "the lowland" Adullam is mentioned between Jarmuth and Socoh. In the list of 15 cities fortified by Rehoboam it appears between Socoh and Gath. Micah gives what may be a list of cities concerned in some Assyrian approach to Jerusalem; it begins with Gath, includes Lachish, and ends with Mareshah and Adullam. And Adullam is still in the same company in the list in Nehemiah of the cities "and their villages" where the men of Judah then dwelt. In the time of the patriarchs it was a place to which men "went down" from the central mountain ridge (Genesis 38:1). Judas Maccabeus found it still existing as a city (2 Maccabees 12:38). Common opinion identifies Adullam with the ruin `Aid-el-Ma, 13 miles West-Southwest from Bethlehem (see HGHL , 229 ff). This is in spite of the testimony of the Onomasticon, which, it is alleged, confuses Adullam with Eglon. Presumably the city gave its name to the cave of Adullam, the cave being near the city.

(2) The cave of Adullam, David's headquarters during a part of the time when he was a fugitive from Saul (1 Samuel 22:1; 2 Samuel 23:13; 1 Chronicles 11:15). Sufficient care has not been exercised in reading the Bible statements on this subject. To begin with, Hebrew syntax permits of the use of the word "cave" collectively; it may denote a group or a region of caves; it is not shut up to the meaning that there was one immense cave in which David and his 400 men all found accommodations at once. All reasonings based on this notion are futile.

Further, by the most natural syntax of 2 Samuel 23:13-17 (duplicated with unimportant variations in 1 Chronicles 11:15-19), that passage describes two different events, and does not connect the cave of Adullam with the second of these. "And three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time unto the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim. And David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Beth-lehem. And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me water," etc. Concerning these three seniors among David's "mighty men" it is narrated, first, that they were David's comrades in a certain battle, a battle which the Chronicler identifies with Pas-dammim, where David slew Goliath; second, that they joined David at the cave of Adullam, presumably during the time when he was hiding from Saul; third, that at a later time, when the Philistines were in the valley of Rephaim (compare 2 Samuel 5:18), and David was "in the stronghold" (Josephus says "at Jerusalem," Ant, VII, xii, 4), these men broke through the Philistine lines and brought him water from the home well of Bethlehem.

The cave of Adullam, like the city, was "down" from the central ridge (1 Samuel 22:1; 2 Samuel 23:13). The city was in Judah; and David and his men were in Judah (1 Samuel 23:3) at a time when, apparently, the cave was their headquarters. Gad's advice to David to return to Judah (1 Samuel 22:3, 5) was given at a time when he had left the cave of Adullam. If the current identification of `Aid-el-Ma as Adullam is correct, the cave of Adullam is probably the cave region which has been found in that vicinity.

It has been objected that this location is too far from Bethlehem for David's men to have brought the water from there. To this it is replied that thirteen or fourteen miles is not an excessive distance for three exceptionally vigorous men to go and return; and a yet stronger reply is found in the consideration just mentioned, that the place from which the men went for the water was not the cave of Adullam. The one argument for the tradition to the effect that Chariton's cave, a few miles Southeast of Bethlehem, is Adullam, is the larger size of this cave, as compared with those near `Aid-el-Ma We have already seen that this has no force.

In our current speech "cave of Adullam" suggests an aggregation of ill-assorted and disreputable men. This is not justified by the Bible record. David's men included his numerous and respectable kinsmen, and the representative of the priesthood, and some of David's military companions, and some men who afterward held high office in Israel. Even those who are described as being in distress and debt and bitter of soul were doubtless, many of them, persons who had suffered at the hands of Saul on account of their friendship for David. Doubtless they included mere adventurers in their number; but the Scriptural details and the circumstances alike indicate that they were mainly homogeneous, and that most of them were worthy citizens.

Willis J. Beecher

Adullamite

Adullamite - a-dul'-am-it: The gentilic adjective of ADULLAM, which see. It is used only of Judah's friend Hirah (Genesis 38:1, 12, 20).

Adultery

Adultery - a-dul'-ter-i: In Scripture designates sexual intercourse of a man, whether married or unmarried, with a married woman.

1. Its Punishment: It is categorically prohibited in the Decalogue (seventh commandment, Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18): "Thou shalt not commit adultery." In more specific language we read: "And thou shalt not he carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her" (Leviticus 18:20). The penalty is death for both guilty parties: "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 20:10). The manner of death is not particularized; according to the rabbis (Siphra' at the place; Sanhedhrin 52b) it is strangulation. It would seem that in the days of Jesus the manner of death was interpreted to mean stoning ("Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such," John 8:5, said of the woman taken in adultery). Nevertheless, it may be said that in the case in question the woman may have been a virgin betrothed unto a husband, the law (in Deuteronomy 22:23 f) providing that such a person together with her paramour be stoned to death (contrast Deuteronomy 22:22, where a woman married to a husband is spoken of and the manner of death is again left general). Ezekiel 16:40 (compare Ezekiel 23:47) equally mentions stoning as the penalty of the adulteress; but it couples to her sin also that of shedding blood; hence, the rabbinic interpretation is not necessarily disputed by the prophet. Of course it may also be assumed that a difference of custom may have obtained at different times and that the progress was in the line of leniency, strangulation being regarded as a more humane form of execution than stoning.

2. Trial by Ordeal: The guilty persons become amenable to the death penalty only when taken "in the very act" (John 8:4). The difficulty of obtaining direct legal evidence is adverted to by the rabbis (see Makkoth 7a). In the case of a mere suspicion on the part of the husband, not substantiated by legal evidence, the woman is compelled by the law (Numbers 5:11-30) to submit to an ordeal, or God's judgment, which consists in her drinking the water of bitterness, that is, water from the holy basin mingled with dust from the floor of the sanctuary and with the washed-off ink of a writing containing the oath which the woman has been made to repeat. The water is named bitter with reference to its effects in the case of the woman's guilt; on the other hand, when no ill effects follow, the woman is proved innocent and the husband's jealousy unsubstantiated. According to the Mishna (SoTah 9) this ordeal of the woman suspected of adultery was abolished by Johanan ben Zaccai (after 70 AD), on the ground that the men of his generation were not above the suspicion of impurity.

See article BITTER, BITTERNESS.

3. A Heinous Crime: Adultery was regarded as a heinous crime (Job 31:11). The prophets and teachers in Israel repeatedly upbraid the men and women of their generations for their looseness in morals which did not shrink from adulterous connections. Naturally where luxurious habits of life were indulged in, particularly in the large cities, a tone of levity set in: in the dark of the evening, men, with their features masked, waited at their neighbors' doors (Job 24:15; 31:9; compare Proverbs 7:1-27), and women forgetful of their God's covenant broke faith with the husbands of their youth (Proverbs 2:17). The prophet Nathan confronted David after his sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, with his stern rebuke ("Thou art the man," 2 Samuel 12:7); the penitential psalm (Psalms 51:1-19)--"Miserere"--was sung by the royal bard as a prayer for divine pardon. Promiscuous intercourse with their neighbors' wives is laid by Jeremiah at the door of the false prophets of his day (Jeremiah 23:10, 14; 29:23).

4. Penal and Moral Distinctions: While penal law takes only cognizance of adulterous relations, it is needless to say that the moral law discountenances all manner of illicit intercourse and all manner of unchastity in man and woman. While the phrases "harlotry," "commit harlotry," in Scripture denote the breach of wedlock (on the part of a woman), in the rabbinical writings a clear distinction is made on the legal side between adultery and fornication. The latter is condemned morally in no uncertain terms; the seventh commandment is made to include all manner of fornication. The eye and the heart are the two intermediaries of sin (Palestinian Talmud, Berakhoth 6b). A sinful thought is as wicked as a sinful act (Niddah 13b and elsewhere). Job makes a covenant with his eyes lest he look upon a virgin (31:1). And so Jesus who came "not to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17), in full agreement with the ethical and religious teaching of Judaism, makes the intent of the seventh commandment explicit when he declares that "every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already In his heart" (Matthew 5:28). And in the spirit of Hosea (Matthew 4:15) and Johanan ben Zaccai (see above) Jesus has but scorn for those that are ready judicially to condemn though they be themselves not free from sin! "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7). Whereas society is in need of the death penalty to secure the inviolability of the home life, Jesus bids the erring woman go her way and sin no more. How readily His word might be taken by the unspiritual to imply the condoning of woman's peccability is evidenced by the fact that the whole section (John 7:53 through John 8:11) is omitted by "most ancient authorities" (see Augustine's remark).

5. A Ground of Divorce: Adultery as a ground of divorce. --The meaning of the expression "some unseemly thing" (Deuteronomy 24:1) being unclear, there was great variety of opinion among the rabbis as to the grounds upon which a husband may divorce his wife. While the school of Hillel legally at least allowed any trivial reason as a ground for divorce, the stricter interpretation which limited it to adultery alone obtained in the school of Shammai. Jesus coincided with the stricter view (see Matthew 5:32; 19:9, and commentaries). From a moral point of view, divorce was discountenanced by the rabbis likewise, save of course for that one ground which indeed makes the continued relations between husband and wife a moral impossibility.

Max L. Margolis

Adummim

Adummim - a-dum'-im ('adhummim, perhaps "red spots"): "The ascent of Adummim" is one of the numerous landmarks mentioned in defining the northern border of Judah westward from the mouth of the Jordan to Jerusalem, and in defining the southern border of Benjamin eastward from Jerusalem to the mouth of the Jordan (Joshua 15:7; 18:17). It is identified with the gorge part of the road from Jericho up to Jerusalem. Its present name is Tala`at-ed-Dumm, "ascent of blood." The stone is marked by "curious red streaks," a phenomenon which probably accounts for both the ancient and the modern names, and for other similar names which have been applied to the locality. It is the scene of our Saviour's story of the Good Samaritan, and tradition of course locates the inn to which the Samaritan brought the wounded man (see HGHL , 265).

Willis J. Beecher

Advantage

Advantage - ad-van'-taj (cakhan): In Job 35:3 is interpreted in succeeding clause as "profit." In Romans 3:1 perissos, is likewise interpreted by a paraphrase in the next sentence. the Revised Version (British and American) prefers to render pleonekteo by "take advantage," where the King James Version has "defraud" (2 Corinthians 7:2), or "make gain of" (2 Corinthians 12:17; compare 2 Corinthians 2:11). In Jude 1:16 "advantage" (opheleia) means "profit."

Advent

Advent - ad'-vent.

See INCARNATION; MILLENNIUM; PAROUSIA.

Adventure

Adventure - ad-ven'-tur: "To risk," "to dare," referring always to an undertaking attended with some peril (Judges 9:17: "My father adventured his life"). Compare Deuteronomy 28:56. So also Ecclesiastes 5:14: "Riches perish by evil adventure." Only once in New Testament for didomi (Acts 19:31), where Paul's friends beg him "not to adventure himself (archaic for "venture") into theater."

Adversary

Adversary - ad'-ver-sa-ri, ad'-ver-sa-ri: This word (in the singular or plural) is used in the Old Testament to render different Hebrew words. In thirty-two cases the word corresponds to the noun tsar, or the verb tsarar. This noun is the ordinary word for "foe" or "adversary." In twelve passages the Hebrew word, of which "adversary" is the translation, is saTan = noun or saTan = verb. This stem means "to oppose," or "thwart" anyone in his purpose or claims.

The angel of Yahweh was saTan to Balaam (Numbers 22:22). The word often denotes a political adversary (1 Kings 11:14, 23, 25). In four cases (namely, Prologue to Job; Zechariah 3:1-2; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Psalms 109:6) the King James Version retains Satan as the rendering. But it is only in 1 Chronicles that the word is used without the article, that is, strictly as a proper name. The Septuagint gives diabolos, as the rendering, and both in Job and Zechariah, Satan is portrayed as the "false accuser." In two cases "adversary" represents two Hebrew expressions which mean the "opponent in a suit" or "controversy" (Job 31:35; Isaiah 50:8).

In the New Testament "adversary" represents: (1) antikeimenoi, the participle of a verb which means "to be set over against," "to be opposed" (Luke 13:17; Philippians 2:8). (2) antidikos, "opponent in a lawsuit," "prosecutor" (Matthew 5:25; Luke 12:58; 18:3; 1 Peter 5:8). According to the last passage the devil is the "accuser" or "prosecutor" of believers, but according to another writer they have an "advocate" or "counselor for the defense" with the Father (1 John 2:1). In one passage (Hebrews 10:27) "adversary" represents a Greek word, hupenantios, which means "set over against," "contrary to"--a word used in classical Greek and in the Septuagint.

Thomas Lewis

Adversity

Adversity - ad-vur'-si-ti: In the Revised Version (British and American) exclusively an Old Testament term, expressing the various forms of distress and evil conveyed by four Hebrew words: tsela`, "a halting" or "fall"; tsarah, "straits" "distress," "affliction"; tsar, "straitness," "affliction"; ra`, "bad," "evil," "harmful." These words cover the whole range of misfortunes caused by enemies, poverty, sorrow and trouble. "Adversity," which occurs once in the King James Version in New Testament (Hebrews 13:3: kakouchoumenos, "ill-treated") is displaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by the literal rendering which illustrates or interprets a common phase of adversity.

Dwight M. Pratt

Advertise

Advertise - ad'-ver-tiz: This word is found twice in the Old Testament: In Numbers 24:14 (from Hebrew, ya`ats, "to advise") Balsam advises Balak of the future of Israel and its influence upon his kingdom ("I will advertise thee"). In the King James Version Ruth 4:4 (from galah 'ozen, "to uncover the ear," "to reveal") Boaz in speaking to the nearer kinsman of Ruth: "I thought to advertise thee" (the Revised Version, margin "uncover thine ear").

Advice; Advise; Advisement

Advice; Advise; Advisement - ad-vis', ad-viz', ad-viz'-ment: Aside from their regular meaning these words are peculiarly employed as follows: (1) Advice' In 2 Samuel 19:43 (from, dabhar, "word") the meaning is equal to "request" (the Revised Version, margin "were we not the first to speak of bringing back"). In 1 Samuel 25:33 the King James Version (from, Ta`am, "taste," "reason") "advice" is equal to "sagacity" (the Revised Version (British and American) "blessed be thy discretion"). In 2 Chronicles 25:17 (from ya`ac, "to give or take counsel") the meaning seems to be "to consult with oneself"; compare also Judges 19:30 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "take counsel"). (2) Advise: In 2 Samuel 24:13 the King James Version (from yadha, "to know") "to advise" means "to advise oneself," i.e. "to consider" (the Revised Version (British and American) "advise thee") Compare also 1 Chronicles 21:12 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "consider" from, ra'ah, "to see") and Proverbs 13:10 where "well-advised" is the same as "considerate" (from ya`ac; see 2 Chronicles 25:17). (3) Advisement (antiquated): Found once in the Old Testament in 1 Chronicles 12:19 (from `etsah, "counsel"), where "upon advisement" means "upon deliberation." Compare 2 Maccabees 14:20 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "when these proposals had been long considered").

A. L. Breslich

Advocate

Advocate - ad'-vo-kat (parakletos): Found in 1 John 2:1, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The Greek word has several shades of meaning: (1) a legal advocate; (2) an intercessor, (3) a helper generally. In the passage before us the first and second meanings are included. Christ in heaven intercedes for Christians who sin upon earth. The next verse declares that He is the "propitiation for our sins" and it is His propitiatory work which lies at the basis of His intercession. The margins of the Revised Version (British and American) and the American Standard Revised Version give as alternative readings Comforter, Helper, Greek Paraclete. Beyond doubt however, "advocate ' is the correct translation in the passage in the epistle. The same Greek word also occurs in the Gospel of John (14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7) referring not to Christ but to the Holy Spirit, to whom Christ refers as "another comforter" whom He will send from the Father. In the Gospel various functions are ascribed to the Spirit in relation to believers and unbelievers. The word in the Gospel is inadequately translated "Comforter." The Spirit according to these passages, is more than Comforter and more than Advocate.

See PARACLETE; COMFORTER; HOLY SPIRIT.

E. Y. Mullins

Adytum

Adytum - ad'-i-tum (Latin from Greek aduton, adjective adutos, "not to be entered"): Applied to the innermost sanctuary or chambers in ancient temples, and to secret places which were open only to priests: hence, also to the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple.

See TEMPLE.

Aedias

Aedias - a-e-di'-as (Aedeias). Mentioned in 1 Esdras 9:27, being one of those who agreed to divorce their alien wives. This name is supposed to be a corruption of the Greek Helia, there being no Hebrew equivalent for it, and in Ezra 10:26, the name occurs in the correct form as Elijah ('eliyah = "God is Yahweh").

Aelia

Aelia - e'-li-a.

See JERUSALEM.

Aeneas

Aeneas - e-ne'-as ('Aineas): A paralytic at Lydda, who, after he "had kept his bed eight years," was miraculously healed by Peter (Acts 9:33-34).

Aenon

Aenon - e'-non (Ainon): The place where John was baptizing "because there was much water there" (John 3:23). It was on the west side of the Jordan, the place where John baptized at the first being on the east (John 1:28; 3:26; 10:40). We may be sure it was not in Samaritan territory. Eusebius, Onomasticon locates it 8 Roman miles South of Scythopolis (Beisan), this stretch of land on the west of the Jordan being then, not under Samaria, but under Scythopolis. Its position is defined by nearness to Salim. Various identifications have been suggested, the most probable being the springs near Umm el-`Amdan, which exactly suit the position indicated by Eusebius, Onomasticon.omforter, Helper, Greek Paraclete. Beyond doubt however, "advocate ' is the correct translation in the passage in the epistle. The same Greek word also occurs in the Gospel of John (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) referring not to Christ but to the Holy Spirit, to whom Christ refers as "another comforter" whom He will send from the Father. In the Gospel various functions are ascribed to the Spirit in relation to believers and unbelievers. The word in the Gospel is inadequately translated "Comforter." The Spirit according to these passages, is more than Comforter and more than Advocate.

See discussion under SALIM.

W. Ewing

Aeon

Aeon - e'-on: This word originally meant "duration," "dispensation." In the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle the word is aion, from which this word is transliterated. In the Gnostic philosophy it has a special meaning and is there used to solve the problem of the world order. In the infinite separation between God and the world, it was taught, there must of necessity be mediating powers. These powers are the eons and are the successive emanations from God from eternity. They are spiritual, existing as distinct entities. They constituted the Divine fullness or the Divine Pleroma. The name was applied to these beings for two reasons: because they were thought to partake of the eternal existence of God and because they were supposed to govern the various ages. The idea of the eons in various forms may be found in nearly all oriental philosophy that attempted to deal with the problem of the world order. It appears in the writings of Philo, in Shintoism, in the old Zoroastrian religion.

See GNOSTICISM.

Jacob W. Kapp

Aesora

Aesora - e'-so-ra, the King James Version Esora, e-so'-ra (Aisora): A town in the borders of Samaria, mentioned in connection with Beth-boron and Jericho (Judith 4:4), and from this association we judge that it was in the eastern part of Samaria.

Affect; Affection

Affect; Affection - a-fekt', a-fek'-shun: The literal meaning of "affect" is to act upon (Latin ad, "to," "upon," facio, "to do"). It has various shades of meaning, and occurs in the following senses in the English Bible: (1) In its literal sense: Lamentations 3:51, "Mine eye affecteth my soul" (2) In the sense of "to endeavor after" desire," "court": Galatians 4:17, "They zealously affect (the Revised Version (British and American) "seek") you .... that ye may affect (the Revised Version (British and American) "seek") them," i.e. they earnestly court your favor, that you may court theirs. Paul means that the proselytizing zeal of the Judaizers was rooted in personal ambition. The past part. "affected" (the Revised Version (British and American) "sought") has the same meaning in Galatians 4:18. The same Greek word (zeloo) is translated "desire earnestly" in the Revised Version (British and American) (1 Corinthians 12:31; 1, 39). "Affect" has a similar meaning in Ecclesiasticus 13:11. (3) In the passive, it occurs in the sense of "to be disposed," in a neutral sense, with an adverb to characterize the nature of the disposition: Acts 14:2, "evil affected against the brethren" So also 2 Maccabees 4:21; 13:26.

"Affection" occurs in the following senses: (1) In the literal sense: the state of having one's feelings acted upon or affected in some way; bent or disposition of mind, in a neutral sense (the nature of the affection, whether good or bad, needing further description in the context). So Colossians 3:2, "Set your affection (the Revised Version (British and American) "mind") on things above"; Colossians 3:5, "inordinate affection" (here "affection" by itself is neutral; the addition of the adjective makes it equivalent to "passion' in an evil sense, as in the Revised Version (British and American)). (2) In a good sense: tender feeling, warm attachment, good will; the word in itself carrying a good meaning apart from the context. 1 Chronicles 29:3, "because I have set my affection on the house of my God"; Romans 1:31; 2 Timothy 3:3, "without natural affection", 2 Corinthians 6:12 "Ye are straitened in your own affections" (lit. "bowels," regarded as the seat of kindly feelings, compare Eng "heart' ) Song of Solomon 2 Cor 7:15. (3) In an evil sense in the plural = passions. Galatians 5:24, the flesh, with the affections (the Revised Version (British and American) "passions") and lusts"; Romans 1:26, "God gave them unto vile affections" (the Revised Version (British and American) "passions").

"Affectioned" occurs once, in a neutral sense: Romans 12:10, "affectioned (i.e. "disposed") one to another" In 1 Thessalonians 2:8, we have "affectionately," in a good sense.

D. Miall Edwards

Affinity

Affinity - a-fin'-i-ti (chathan "to join one-self"): This term is used three times in the Old Testament: (1) in 1 Kings 3:1, where we read that "Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh King of Egypt", (2) in 2 Chronicles 18:1, where it is stated that Jehoshaphat "joined affinity with Ahab," and (3). in Ezra 9:14, where it is asked "Shall we .... join in affinity with the peoples that do these abominations?" The Hebrew word thus rendered in the above three passages refers in each case to marriage alliances rather than to family or political relationships.

See MARRIAGE; FAMILY.

W. W. Davies

Affirm; Affirmatives

Affirm; Affirmatives - a-fur'-ma-tivs (diischurizomai). The verb "affirm" occurs in several passages of the New Testament in the sense of "assert" (Luke 22:59; Acts 12:15; 25:19 pha-sko; Romans 3:8 phemi; 1 Timothy 1:17; Titus 3:8 diabebaioomai. The Hebrew does not employ affirmative particles, but gives a positive reply by either repeating the word in question or by substituting the first person in the reply for the second person in the question, or by employing the formula: "Thou hast said" or "Thou hast rightly said." The Saviour used this idiom (su eipas) when answering Judas and Caiaphas (Matthew 26:25, 64). A peculiar elegance occasionally attaches to the interpretation of the Scriptures because of their use of an affirmative and a negative together, rendering the sense more emphatic; sometimes the negative occurs first, as in Psalms 118:17: "I shall not die, but live"; sometimes the affirmative precedes, as in Isaiah 38:1: "Thou shalt die, and not bye" John 1:20 is made peculiarly emphatic because of the negative placed between two affirmatives: "And he confessed, and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ."

Frank E. Hirsch

Affliction

Affliction - a-flik'-shun: Represents no fewer than 11 Hebrew words in the Old Testament, and 3 Greek words in the New Testament, of which the most common are (oni), (thlipsis). It is used (1) actively = that which causes or tends to cause bodily pain or mental distress, as "the bread of affliction" (Deuteronomy 16:3; 2 Chronicles 18:26); often in plural, as "Many are the afflictions of the righteous" (Psalms 34:19); (2) passively = the state of being in pain or trouble, as "to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction (James 1:27). The following are the chief forms of affliction referred to: (1) Individual affliction, especially sickness, poverty, the oppression of the weak by the strong and rich, perverted justice. (2) National. A great place is given in the Old Testament to affliction as a national experience, due to calamities, such as war, invasion, conquest by foreign peoples, exile. These form the background of much of the prophetic writings, and largely determine their tone and character. (3) In the New Testament the chief form of affliction is that due to the fierce antagonism manifested to the religion of Jesus, resulting in persecution.

I. The Source of Affliction. 1. God: The Hebrew mind did not dwell on secondary causes, but attributed everything, even afflictions, directly to the great First Cause and Author of all things: "Shall evil befall a city, and Yahweh hath not done it?" (Amos 3:6); "I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil (i.e. calamity); I am Yahweh, that doeth all these things" (Isaiah 45:7) Thus, all things, including calamity, were referred to the Divine operation. The Hebrew when afflicted did not doubt the universal sovereignty of God; yet, while assuming this sovereignty, he was sometimes tempted to accuse Him of indifference, neglect or forgetfulness. Compare Job passim; Isaiah 40:27; 49:14; Ezekiel 8:12; 9:9.

2. Evil Agents: Yet there are traces of a dualism which assigns a certain vague limit to God's absolute sovereignty, by referring affliction to an evil agency acting in quasi-independence of God. There could, however, never be more than a tendency in this direction, for a strict dualism was incompatible with the standpoint of Jewish monotheism. Thus Saul's mental affliction is attributed to an "evil spirit," which is yet said to be "from Yahweh" (1 Samuel 16:14; 18:10; 19:9); and the fall of Ahab is said by Micaiah to be due to the "lying spirit" which enticed him to his doom, in obedience to God's command (1 Kings 22:20-22). In the prologue of Job, Job's calamities are ascribed to the Satan, but even he receives his word of command from God, and is responsible to Him, like the other "sons of God" who surround the heavenly throne. He is thus "included in the Divine will and in the circle of Divine providence" (Schultz). After the prologue, the Satan is left out of account, and Job's misfortunes are attributed directly to the Divine causality. In later Judaism, the tendency to trace the origin of evil, physical and moral, to wicked spirits became more marked, probably because of the influence of Persian dualism. In New Testament times, physical and mental maladies were thought to be due to the agency of evil spirits called demons, whose prince was Beelzebub or Satan (Mark 1:23 ff; Mark 3:22 f; Mark 5:2 ff; Matthew 9:32 f, etc.). Christ gave His assent to this belief (compare the woman under infirmity, "whom Satan hath bound," Luke 13:16). Paul attributed his bodily affliction to an evil angel sent by Satan (2 Corinthians 12:7), though he recognized that the evil agent was subordinate to God's purpose of grace, and was the means of moral discipline (1 Corinthians 12:7, 9). Thus, while the evil spirits were regarded as malicious authors of physical maladies, they were not, in a strictly dualistic fashion, thought to act in complete independence; rather, they had a certain place assigned to them in the Divine Providence.

II. Meaning and Purpose of Affliction. Why did God afflict men? How is suffering to be explained consistently with the goodness and justice of God? This was an acute problem which weighed heavily upon the Hebrew mind, especially in the later, more reflective, period. We can only briefly indicate the chief factors which the Scriptures contribute to the solution of the problem. We begin with the Old Testament.

1. Punitive or Retributive: The traditional view in early Hebrew theology was that afflictions were the result of the Divine law of retribution, by which sin was invariably followed by adequate punishment. Every misfortune was a proof of sin on the part of the sufferer. Thus Job's "friends" sought to convince him that his great sufferings were due to his sinfulness. This is generally the standpoint of the historians of Israel, who regarded national calamities as a mark of the Divine displeasure on account of the people's sins. But this naive belief, though it contains an important element of truth, could not pass uncontested. The logic of facts would suffice to prove that it was inadequate to cover all cases; e.g. Jeremiah's sufferings were due, not to sin, but to his faithfulness to his prophetic vocation. So the "suffering servant" in Isa. Job, too, in spite of his many woes, was firm in the conviction of his own integrity. To prove the inadequacy of the penal view is a main purpose of the Book of Job. A common modification of the traditional view was, that the sorrows of the pious and the prosperity of the wicked were only of brief duration; in the course of time, things would adjust themselves aright (e.g. Job 20:5 ff, Psalms 73:3-20). But even granting time for the law of retribution to work itself out, experience contradicts the view that a man's fortune or misfortune is an infallible proof of his moral quality.

2. Probational: The thought is often expressed that afflictions are meant to test the character or faith of the sufferer. This idea is especially prominent in Job. God allowed the Satan to test the reality of Job's piety by over-whelming him with disease and misfortunes (2). Throughout the poem Job maintains that he has stood the test (e.g. 23:10-12). Compare Deuteronomy 8:2, 16; Psalms 66:10 f; Psalms 17:3; Isaiah 48:10; Jeremiah 9:7; Proverbs 17:3.

3. Disciplinary and Purificatory: For those who are able to stand the test, suffering has a purificatory or disciplinary value. (1) The thought of affliction as a discipline or form of Divine teaching is found in Job, especially in the speeches of Elihu, who insists that tribulation is intended as a method of instruction to save man from the pride and presumption that issue in destruction (Job 33:14-30; Job 36:8-10, 15 the Revised Version (British and American)). The same conception is found in Psalms 94:12; 67, 71. (2) The purificatory function of trials is taught in such passages as Isaiah 1:25; Zechariah 13:9; Malachi 3:2-3, where the process of refining metals in fire and smelting out the dross is the metaphor used.

4. Vicarious and Redemptive: The above are not fully adequate to explain the mystery of the afflictions of the godly. The profoundest contribution in the Old Testament to a solution of the problem is the idea of the vicarious and redemptive significance of pain and sorrow. The author of Job did not touch this rich vein of thought in dealing with the afflictions of his hero. This was done by the author of the Second Isaiah. The classical passage is Isaiah 52:13-15, which deals with the woes of the oppressed and afflicted Servant of God with profound spiritual insight. It makes no difference to the meaning of the afflictions whether we understand by the Servant the whole Hebrew nation, or the pious section of it, or an individual member of it, and whether the speakers in Isaiah 53:1-12 are the Jewish nation or the heathen. The significant point here is the value and meaning ascribed to the Servant's sufferings. The speakers had once believed (in accordance with the traditional view) that the Servant suffered because God was angry with him and had stricken him. Now they confess that his sorrows were due, not to his own sin but to theirs (Isaiah 53:4-6, 8). His sufferings were not only vicarious (the punishment of their sin falling upon him), but redemptive in their effect (peace and health coming to them as a result of his chastisement). Moreover, it was not only redemptive, but expiatory ("his soul guilt-offering," Isaiah 53:10)--a remarkable adumbration of the Christian doctrine of atonement.

5. The New Testament: So far we have dealt only with Old Testament teaching on the meaning and purpose of affliction. The New Testament makes no new contribution to the solution of the problem, but repeats and greatly deepens the points of view already found in the Old Testament. (1) There is a recognition throughout the New Testament of the law of retribution (Galatians 6:7). Yet Jesus repudiates the popular view of the invariable connection between misfortune and moral evil (John 9:2 f). It is clear that He had risen above the conception of God's relation to man as merely retributive (Matthew 5:45, sunshine and ram for evil men as well as for the good). His followers would suffer tribulation even more than unbelievers, owing to the hostile reaction of the evil world, similar to that which afflicted Christ Himself (Matthew 5:10 f; Matthew 10:16-25; John 15:18-20; 16:33). Similarly the Acts and the epistles frequently refer to the sufferings of Christians (e.g. Acts 14:22; 2 Corinthians 4:8-11; Colossians 1:24; Hebrews 10:32; 1 Peter 4:13; Revelation 7:14). Hence afflictions must have some other than a purely punitive purpose. (2) They are probational, affording a test by which the spurious may be separated from the genuine members of the Christian church (James 1:3, 12; 1 Peter 1:7; 4:17), and (3) a means of discipline, calculated to purify and train the character (Romans 5:3; 2 Corinthians 12:7, 9; James 1:3). (4) The idea of vicarious and redemptive suffering gets a far deeper significance in the New Testament than in the Old Testament, and finds concrete realization in a historical person, Jesus Christ. That which is foreshadowed in Second-Isa becomes in the New Testament a central, pervasive and creative thought. A unique place in the Divine purpose is given to the passion of Christ. Yet in a sense, His followers partake of His vicarious sufferings, and "fill up.... that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ" (Colossians 1:24; compare Philippians 3:10; 1 Peter 4:13). Here, surely is a profound thought which may throw a flood of light on the deep mystery of human affliction. The cross of Christ furnishes the key to the meaning of sorrow as the greatest redemptive force in the universe.

III. Endurance of Affliction. The Scriptures abound in words of consolation and exhortation adapted to encourage the afflicted. Two main considerations may be mentioned. (1) The thought of the beneficent sovereignty of God "Yahweh reigneth; let the earth rejoice," even though "clouds and darkness are round about him" (Psalms 97:1-2); "All things work together for good to them that love God' (Romans 8:28 the King James Version). Since love is on the throne of the universe, we may rest assured that all things are meant for our good. (2) The thought that tribulation is of brief duration, in comparison with the Joy that shall follow (Psalms 30:5; Isaiah 54:7 f; John 16:22); a thought which culminates in the hope of immortality. This hope is in the Old Testament only beginning to dawn, and gives but a faint and flickering light, except in moments of rare exaltation and insight, when the thought of a perfect future blessedness seemed to offer a solution of the enigmas of life (Job 19:25-27; Psalms 37:1-40; Psalms 49:1-20; Psalms 73:1-28). But in the New Testament it is a postulate of faith, and by it the Christian is able to fortify himself in affliction, remembering that his affliction is light and momentary compared with the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" which is to issue out of it (2 Corinthians 4:17 the King James Version; compare Matthew 5:12; Romans 8:18). Akin to this is the comfort derived from the thought of the near approach of Christ's second coming (James 5:7-8). In view of such truths as these, the Bible encourages the pious in trouble to show the spirit of patience (Psalms 37:7; Luke 21:19; Romans 12:12; James 1:3-4; James 5:7-11; 1 Peter 2:20), and even the spirit of positive joy in tribulation (Matthew 5:11 f; Romans 5:3; 2 Corinthians 12:10; James 1:2, 12; 1 Peter 4:13). In the New Testament emphasis is laid on the example of Jesus in patient endurance in suffering (John 16:33; James 5:7-11; 1 Peter 2:19-23; 3:17 f). Above all, the Scriptures recommend the afflicted to take refuge in the supreme blessedness of fellowship with God, and of trust in His love, by which they may enter into a deep peace that is undisturbed by the trials and problems of life (Psalms 73:1-28, especially Psalms 23:1-6 through Psalms 28:1-9; Isaiah 26:3-4; John 14:1, 27; Philippians 4:7; et passim).

D. Miall Edwards

Affright

Affright - a-frit': Designates a state of terror occasioned by some unexpected and startling occurrence; not as strong as "amazed," which refers more to the stupor resulting from fright. In the New Testament most frequently for emphobos (Luke 24:37; Acts 10:4; Revelation 11:13). The Revised Version (British and American) uses it also for pturomenoi of Philippians 1:28, a word "properly used of scared horses" (Ellicott).

Afoot

Afoot - a-foot' (pezeuo, "to go on foot"): By walking from Troas to Assos Paul avoided the tedious voyage round Cape Lectum (Acts 20:13 the King James Version; compare Mark 6:33).

Afore

Afore - a-for': Archaic for "before" of time, or "formerly"; frequently occurs as compound, as in "aforetime," "aforehand," etc.; in the New Testament most commonly for the Greek prefix, pro, in compound words (Romans 1:2; 15:4); at other times, for Greek adverb pote, "at some time," "once" (John 9:13; 1 Peter 3:5; Colossians 3:7).

Afresh

Afresh - a-fresh': Only in Hebrews 6:6, "seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh," where it stands for the prefix of the Greek anastaurountas. It has been disputed whether in this word ana has the reiterative force ("again," "anew"). In classical Greek anastauroo has always the simple sense of "to crucify," (i.e. "to rinse up on a cross," ana being merely "up"). So some would render it here (e.g. Cremer, Lexicon of New Testament Greek). Against this it is argued (1) that the classical writers had no occasion for the idea of crucifying anew (compare Winer, De verb. Comp., etc., Pt III, 9 ff, Leipzig, 1843); (2) that in many compounds ana signifies both "up" and "again," as in anablepo, which means "to recover sight" as well as "to look up"; (3) that the rendering "crucify afresh" suits the context; (4) that the Greek expositors (e.g. Chrysostom) take it so without questioning. (So also Bleek, Lunemann, Alford, Westcott; compare the Vulgate's rursum crucifigentes.)

D. Miall Edwards

Africa

Africa - af'-ri-ka: The name of this tract, as a continent, does not occur in the Bible, and it was only in later days known as one of the quarters of the world, under the name of Libya--that portion opposite the coast of Greece and West of Egypt.

1. Africa as Known to the Ancients: Naturally the most considerable part of Africa known to the Hebrews was Egypt itself, but Libya is regarded as being referred to under the names of Lehabim and Lubim (Ludim) (Genesis 10:13; 2 Chronicles 12:3)--words indicating, as often with the Semites, not the country itself, but its inhabitants. Other portions of Africa known to the Hebrews were Cush or Ethiopia, and Put, whose inhabitants they regarded as belonging to the Hamitic stock. Canaan, also Cushite and therefore Hamitic, naturally did not belong to the African continent, showing that the divisions of then known world into "quarters" (Europe, Asia, Africa) had not taken place when the Table of the Nations (Genesis 10:1 ff) was drawn up--indeed, these division were not apparently thought of until many centuries later. The Casluhim and the Naphtuhim (Genesis 10:13-14) were in all probability African peoples, though their position is in general regarded as uncertain. For the Hebrews, to all appearance, the southernmost point of Africa was Cush or Ethiopia, called by the Assyrians and Babylonians Kusu and Meluhha (Meroe), which included the district now known as the Sudan, or Black region. The sons of Cush, and also those of his firstborn, Sheba, were all Arabian tribes, nominally under the domain of Mizraim or Egypt, and on this account classed with the descendants of Ham.

2. The Cushites and the Negroes: It will thus be seen that the Negro districts were practically unknown to the ancient Hebrews, though men and women of Negro race must have come within their ken. It seems doubtful, therefore, whether there be, in the Bible, any reference to that race, either collectively or individually, the word Cushite standing, not for Negro, but for Ethiopian. This term is applied to Moses' (first) wife (Numbers 12:1), and it will probably be generally admitted, that the great Hebrew lawgiver is not likely to have espoused a Negro woman. The Ethiopian eunuch converted by Philip the Evangelist (Acts 8:26 ff) was an official of Meroe, and an educated man, for he could read the Old Testament in the Greek(Septuagint) version. Commerce must have revealed to the Hebrews the whereabouts of the various peoples of Africa with whom they came into contact, and they acquired a personal knowledge of Egypt when the 12 tribes were in bondage there. During this period, it may be supposed, they saw from time to time visitors from the South--people who are not mentioned in the sacred books of the Old Testament because the Hebrews, as a nation, never came into contact with them. Apart from Egypt, the history of the portion of Africa known to the Hebrews was a chequered one, as it came successively under Egypt, Phoenicia, Greek and Roman civilization. That it was not overrun, or even influenced, by the barbarous tribes of the South, is due to the fact that the Mediterranean tract is isolated from the central (and southern) portion of that continent by the Sahara.

3. Hebrew Tradition: In the Talmud it is related that Alexander penetrated Africa on Libyan asses to find a race of women, with whom he had conversation, and from whom, as he afterward confessed, being a fool, he learned wisdom--a legend suggesting some possible tradition of the Amazons of Dahomey. But even in the Talmud it is mainly the nearer (Northeast) portion of Africa which is referred to, the Africans, who had the reputation of being flat-footed, being associated with the Canaanites.

After; Afterward

After; Afterward - aft'-er, aft'-er-werd: The fundamental thought, in which all shades of meaning unite, is that of succession either in time or place. This succession may be immediate or remote. A very common adaptation of this conception the use of "after" to denote "according to," "after the manner of," or "in the order of," as in Genesis 1:26; Ephesians 4:24; Luke 1:59; Romans 5:14; Hebrews 4:11 (the Revised Version, margin "unto"), and in many passages where the Greek uses the preposition kata, as Matthew 23:3; Romans 8:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26, etc. "In proportion to": Psalms 28:4; compare Psalms 90:15. It sometimes correctly translates a peculiar Greek idiom of the preposition dia, with the genitive case, indicating time elapsed, as Mark 2:1, literally, "through some days," "after some days had passed"; compare Acts 24:17. While the Greek is expressed by a variety of words, the Hebrew uses 'achar for both preposition and adverb.

H. E. Jacobs

Afternoon

Afternoon - af-ter-noon' (neToth ha-yom, "the declining of the day"; Judges 19:8 the King James Version): The expression kechom ha-yom, "in the heat of the day" (Genesis 18:1) refers to the early afternoon when the sun is a little past its zenith, its rays still being very strong. The phrase le-ruach ha-yom, "in the cool of the day" (Genesis 3:8) is in contrast to the last phrase and points to the late afternoon; in the Orient a cooling breeze arises at this period of the day, and it is then that much of the day's business is transacted.

See DAY.

Agaba

Agaba - ag'-a-ba: A fortress in Judea. The first of 22 "strong places" which by its commander Galestus was given over to Aristobulus, the son of Alexander Janneus and Alexandra, when he (his mother, the queen, being dangerously ill) attempted to get control of the Judean government (Ant., XIII, xvi, 5).

Agabus

Agabus - ag'-a-bus (Agabos): A Christian prophet of Jerusalem, twice mentioned in Acts. (1) In Acts 11:27 f, we find him at Antioch foretelling "a great famine over all the world," "which," adds the historian, "came to pass in the days of Claudius." This visit of Agabus to Antioch took place in the winter of 43-44 AD, and was the means of urging the Antiochian Christians to send relief to the brethren in Judea by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Two points should be noted. (a) The gift of prophet's here takes the form of prediction. The prophet's chief function was to reveal moral and spiritual truth, to "forth-tell" rather than to "foretell"; but the interpretation of God's message sometimes took the form of predicting events. (b) The phrase "over all the world" (practically synonymous with the Roman Empire) must be regarded as a rhetorical exaggeration if strictly interpreted as pointing to a general and simultaneous famine. But there is ample evidence of severe periodical famines in various localities in the reign of Claudius (e.g. Suet Claud. 18; Tac. Ann. xii.43), and of a great dearth in Judea under the procurators Cuspius Fadus and Tiberius Alexander, 44-48 AD (Ant., XX, ii, 6; v, 2), which probably reached its climax circa 46 AD. (2) In Acts 21:10 f we find Agabus at Caesarea warning Paul, by a vivid symbolic action (after the manner of Old Testament prophets; compare Jeremiah 13:1 ff; Ezekiel 3:1-27; Ezekiel 4:1-17) of the imprisonment and suffering he would undergo if he proceeded to Jerusalem. (3) In late tradition Agabus is included in lists of the seventy disciples of Christ.

D. Miall Edwards

Agade

Agade - ag'-a-de: Ancient name for Akkad (or ACCAD, which see), one of the chief cities of Babylonia (Genesis 10:10), and the capital city of Sargon, who lived and ruled in Babylonia circa 3500 BC. Together with Shunir it formed part of one of the royal titles: "kings of Shunir (Sumer) and Accad."

Agag

Agag - a'-gag ('aghagh, or 'aghagh, meaning unknown, possibly "violent," BDB): A name, or title, applied to the king of the Amalekites, like Abimelech in Philistia and Pharaoh in Egypt. It is used of two of these kings: (1) A king of Amalek, mentioned by Balaam (Numbers 24:7) in his blessing of Israel; (2) A later king, in the days of King Saul (1 Samuel 15:1-35). Saul was sent with his army to destroy the Amalekites, who had so violently opposed Israel in the Wilderness. He disregarded the Divine command, sparing the best of the spoil, and saving Agag the king alive (1 Samuel 15:8-9). After rebuking Saul, Samuel had Agag put to death for all the atrocities committed by himself and his nation (1 Samuel 15:32-33).

Edward Mack

Agagite

Agagite - a'-gag-it, ('aghaghi, from, 'aghagh, "a member of the house of Agag"): A title of opprobrium given to Haman (Esther 3:1, 10; 3, 5; 9:24). Jewish tradition always assigned the arch-enemies of Israel membership in the house of Amalek, the hereditary foe of the nation. Compare Ant,XI , vi, 5. The word Agag has properly been taken by Delitzsch as related to the Assyrian agagu, "to be powerful," "vehement," "angry." In the Greek parts of Esther, Haman is termed a Macedonian (Esther 12:6; 16:10). The name Haman is probably of Elamitic origin. Oppert's attempt to connect the term "Agagite" with "Agaz," a Median tribe mentioned by Sargon, has found no supporters.

See AGAG.

H. J. Wolf

Again

Again - a-gen': Advb. denoting repetition; in New Testament, generally for palin, "back," "once more." Occasionally, it has the force of a connective, synonymous with "moreover," as in Romans 15:10 ff; 1 Corinthians 3:20, etc. The expression "born again" of the King James Version, John 3:3, 7; 1 Peter 1:23, translating the Greek "anothen" and "ana" in composition, becomes in the Revised Version (British and American) "anew," i.e. "over again." As these particles mean "from above" and "up," their use as indicating repetition is sometimes disputed, but without further foundation than that "again" does not exhaust the meaning.

Again; Born

Again; Born - See REGENERATION.

Against

Against - a-genst' (kata; enantion; pros): Preposition expressing contrast. When used of direction, equivalent to "toward" (Matthew 10:35; 12:14, etc.); when of position, meaning "opposite," "facing," "in front of" (1 Kings 7:5; Genesis 15:10, Romans 8:31); when of action, "opposed to" (Matthew 5:11; 26:59; 1 Corinthians 4:6); "in resistance to" (Hebrews 12:4); "provision for" (Greek eis, literally, "unto, toward" (1 Timothy 6:19). Sometimes also applied to what breaks an established order as "customs" (Acts 28:17), "nature" (Romans 1:26). Peculiar shades of meaning may be traced by careful examination of the variety of prepositions in Hebrew and Greek employed in the Scriptures, that are translated into English by this one word.

H. E. Jacobs

Agape

Agape - ag'-a-pe (agape).

1. The Name and the Thing: The name Agape or "love-feast," as an expression denoting the brotherly common meals of the early church, though of constant use and in the post-canonical literature from the time of Ignatius onward, is found in the New Testament only in Jude 1:12 and in 2 Peter 2:13 according to a very doubtful reading. For the existence of the Christian common meal, however, we have abundant New Testament evidence. The"breaking of bread" practiced by the primitive community in Jerusalem according to Acts 2:42, 46 must certainly be interpreted in the light of Pauline usage (1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:24) as referring to the ceremonial act of the Lord's Supper. But the added clause in 1 Corinthians 2:16, "they took there food with gladness and singleness of heart," implies that a social meal was connected in some way with this ceremonial act. Paul's references to the abuses that had sprung up in the Corinthian church at the meetings for the observance of the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:20-22, 33-34) make it evident that in Corinth as in Jerusalem the celebration of the rite was associated with participation in a meal of a more general character. And in one of the "we" sections of Acts (20:11) where Luke is giving personal testimony as to the manner in which the Lord's Supper was observed by Paul in a church of his own founding, we find the breaking of bread associated with and yet distinguished from an eating of food, in a manner which makes it natural to conclude that in Troas, as in Jerusalem and Corinth, Christians when they met together on the first day of the week were accustomed to partake of a common meal. The fact that the name Agape or love-feast used in Jude 1:12 (Revised Version) is found early in the 2nd century and often afterward as a technical expression for the religious common meals of the church puts the meaning of Jude's reference beyond doubt.

2. Origin of the Agape: So far as the Jerusalem community was concerned, the common meal appears to have sprung out of the koinonia or communion that characterized the first days of the Christian church (compare Acts 1:14; 2:1 etc.). The religious meals familiar to Jews--the Passover being the great type--would make it natural In Jerusalem to give expression by means of table fellowship to the sense of brotherhood, and the community of goods practiced by the infant church (Acts 2:44; 4:32) would readily take the particular form of a common table at which the wants of the poor were supplied out of the abundance of the rich (Acts 6:1 ff). The presence of the Agape in the Greek church of Corinth was no doubt due to the initiative of Paul, who would hand on the observances associated with the Lord's Supper just as he had received them from the earlier disciples; but participation in a social meal would commend itself very easily to men familiar with the common meals that formed a regular part of the procedure at meetings of those religious clubs and associations which were so numerous at that time throughout the Greek-Roman world.

3. Relation to the Eucharist: In the opinion of the great majority of scholars the Agape was a meal at which not only bread and wine but all kinds of viands were used, a meal which had the double purpose of satisfying hunger and thirst and giving expression to the sense of Christian brotherhood. At the end of this feast, bread and wine were taken according to the Lord's command, and after thanksgiving to God were eaten and drunk in remembrance of Christ and as a special means of communion with the Lord Himself and through Him with one another. The Agape was thus related to the Eucharist as Christ's last Passover to the Christian rite which He grafted upon it. It preceded and led up to the Eucharist, and was quite distinct from it. In opposition to this view it has been strongly urged by some modern critical scholars that in the apostolic age the Lord's Supper was not distinguished from the Agape, but that the Agape itself from beginning to end was the Lord's Supper which was held in memory of Jesus. It seems fatal to such an idea, however, that while Paul makes it quite evident that bread and wine were the only elements of the memorial rite instituted by Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:23-29), the abuses which had come to prevail at the social gatherings of the Corinthian church would have been impossible in the case of a meal consisting only of bread and wine (compare 1 Corinthians 11:21, 33 f) Moreover, unless the Eucharist in the apostolic age had been discriminated from the common meal, it would be difficult to explain how at a later period the two could be found diverging from each other so completely.

4. Separation from the Eucharist: In the Didache (circa 100 AD) there is no sign as yet of any separation. The direction that the second Eucharistic prayer should be offered "after being filled" (x.1) appears to imply that a regular meal had immediately preceded the observance of the sacrament. In the Ignatian Epistles (circa 110 AD) the Lord's Supper and the Agape are still found in combination (Ad Smyrn viii.2). It has sometimes been assumed that Pliny's letter to Trajan (circa 112 AD) proves that the separation had already taken place, for he speaks of two meetings of the Christians in Bithynia, one before the dawn at which they bound themselves by a "sacramentum" or oath to do no kind of crime, and another at a later hour when they partook of food of an ordinary and harmless character (Ep x.96). But as the word "sacramentum" cannot be taken here as necessarily or even probably referring to the Lord's Supper, the evidence of this passage is of little weight. When we come to Justin Martyr (circa 150 AD) we find that in his account of church worship he does not mention the Agape at all, but speaks of the Eucharist as following a service which consisted of the reading of Scripture, prayers and exhortation (Apol, lxvii); so that by his time the separation must have taken place. Tertullian (circa 200 AD) testifies to the continued existence of the Agape (Apol, 39), but shows clearly that in the church of the West the Eucharist was no longer associated with it (De Corona, 3). In the East the connection appears to have been longer maintained (see Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 102 ff), but by and by the severance became universal; and though the Agape continued for long to maintain itself as a social function of the church, it gradually passed out of existence or was preserved only as a feast of charity for the poor.

5. Reasons for the Separation: Various influences appear to have cooperated in this direction. Trajan's enforcement of the old law against clubs may have had something to do with it (compare Pliny as above), but a stronger influence probably came from the rise of a popular suspicion that the evening meals of the church were scenes of licentious revelry and even of crime. The actual abuses which already meet us in the apostolic age (1 Corinthians 11:20 ff; Jude 1:12), and which would tend to multiply as the church grew in numbers and came into closer contact with the heathen world, might suggest the advisability of separating the two observances. But the strongest influence of all would come from the growth of the ceremonial and sacerdotal spirit by which Christ's simple institution was slowly turned into a mysterious priestly sacrifice. To Christ Himself it had seemed natural and fitting to institute the Supper at the close of a social meal. But when this memorial Supper had been transformed into a repetition of the sacrifice of Calvary by the action of the ministering priest, the ascetic idea became natural that the Eucharist ought to be received fasting, and that it would be sacrilegious to link it on to the observances of an ordinary social meal.

LITERATURE:

Zahn, art "Agapen" in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopadie; Keating, Agape and Eucharist; Schaff, The Oldest Church Manual, chapter xviii; Lambert, Sacraments in the New Testament, Lect viii; Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age, etc., I. 52 ff.

J. C. Lambert

Agar

Agar - a'-gar (Agar). Found once in the Apocrypha in the Greek (Baruch 3:23) probably for the Old Testament Hagar, mother of Ishmael, whose children are mentioned with the merchants of Meran (Midian) and Teman. In 1 Chronicles 5:10 the "Hagarites" the King James Version, are located East of Gilead, and In the days of Saul were at war with the tribe of Reuben. See also 1 Chronicles 5:19-20 and 1 Chronicles 27:31. In Psalms 83:6 the name of the same people is Hagarenes.

Agarenes

Agarenes - ag-a-renz': Baruch 3:23 the King James Version. In the Old Testament the word is HAGARENES (which see).

Agate

Agate - ag'-at.

See STONES, PRECIOUS.

Age

Age - aj: A period of time or a dispensation. In the above sense the word occurs only once in the King James Version, in the sing, as the translation of dor, which means, properly, a "revolution" or "round of time," "a period," "an age" or "generation of man's life"; almost invariable translated "generation," "generations" (Job 8:8, "Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age"); we have the plural as the translation of aion, properly "duration," "the course or flow of time," "an age or period of the world," "the world" (Ephesians 2:7, "in the ages to come"; Colossians 1:26, "the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations," the English Revised Version, "from all ages," etc., the American Revised Version, margin, of geneai, "generations" (Ephesians 3:5 "generations," Ephesians 3:21, "unto all generations for ever and ever," Greek margin, "all the generations of the age of the ages"). "Ages is given in margin of the King James Version (Psalms 145:13; Isaiah 26:4, "the rock of ages").

We have "age" in the above sense (2 Esdras 3:18; Tobit 14:5; aion) "ages," aion (1 Esdras 4:40 (of Truth) "she is the strength," etc., "of all ages"), genea, the Revised Version (British and American), "generation" (Wisdom of Solomon 7:27; 1 Maccabees 2:61); Ecclesiasticus 24:33, eis geneas aionon, "generations of ages"; Wisdom of Solomon 14:6, "generations' (geneseos).

Revised Version has "age" for "world" (Hebrews 6:5); "ages" for "worlds" (the Revised Version, margin Hebrews 1:2; the American Revised Version, margin; compare 1 Timothy 1:17) (margin, "unto the ages of the ages"), "ages" for "world" (1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 9:26). the English Revised Version has "all ages" for "the beginning of the world " (Ephesians 3:9, the American Standard Revised Version "for ages"); "king of the ages" for "king of saints" (Revelation 15:3, corrected text; margin, many ancient authorities read "nations"; Jeremiah 10:7).

See EVERLASTING.

W. L. Walker

Age; Old Age

Age; Old Age - In individual lives (cheledh; helikia): We have scarcely any word in the Old Testament or New Testament which denotes "age" in the familiar modern sense; the nearest in the Old Testament is perhaps heledh, "life," "lifetime," and in the New Testament helikia, "full age," "manhood," but which is rendered stature in Matthew 6:27, etc., the King James Version; cheledh occurs (Job 11:17, "Thine age shall be clearer than the noonday," the Revised Version (British and American) "(thy) life"; Psalms 39:5, "Mine age is as nothing before thee," the American Standard Revised Version, "my life-time"); we have helikia (John 9:21, 23, "He is of age"; Hebrews 11:11 "past age," Luke 2:52, "Jesus increased in wisdom and age," so the Revised Version, margin, King James Version margin, Ephesians 4:13); yom, day, (days) is used in the Old Testament to express "age" (Genesis 47:28), the whole age of Jacob," the King James Version, "the days of the years of his life"; but it occurs mostly in connection with old age); ben, "son" (Numbers 8:25; 1 Chronicles 23:3, 24); kelah, "to be complete," is translated "full age" (Job 5:26); teleios, "complete" (Hebrews 5:14, the Revised Version (British and American), full-grown men, margin, perfect"), dor, a revolution," "a period" is translated "age" (Isaiah 38:12, "Mine age is departed and removed from me as a shepherd's tent," the American Standard Revised Version, "My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me as a shepherd's tent," the English Revised Version, "mine age," margin, "or habitation"; Delitzsch, "my home"; compare Psalms 49:19 (20); 2 Corinthians 5:8). In New Testament we have etos, "year" (Mark 5:42, the Revised Version (British and American), "old"; Luke 2:37; 3:23, "Jesus .... about 30 years of age"). "Old age," "aged," are the translation of various words, zaqen (zaqan, "the chin," the beard"), perhaps to have the chin sharp or hanging down, often translated "elders," "old man," etc. (2 Samuel 19:32; Job 12:20; 32:9; Jeremiah 6:11).

In New Testament we have presbutes, "aged," "advanced in days" (Titus 2:2; Philemon 1:9); presbutis, "aged woman" (Titus 2:3); probebekos en hemerais, advanced in days" (Luke 2:36); geras, "old age" (Luke 1:36).

Revised Version has "old" for "the age of" (1 Chronicles 23:3), "own age" for "sort" (Daniel 1:10); "aged" for "ancients" (Psalms 119:100), for "ancient" (Isaiah 47:6); for "old" (Hebrews 8:13); "aged men" for "the ancients" (Job 12:12); for "aged" (Job 12:20), "elders."

Regard for Old Age:

(1) Among the Hebrews (and Orientals generally) old age was held in honor, and respect was required for the aged (Leviticus 19:32), "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man"; a mark of the low estate of the nation was that "The faces of elders were not honored"; "The elders have ceased from the gate" (Lamentations 5:12, 14). Compare Job 29:8 (as showing the exceptionally high regard for Job). See also Wisdom of Solomon 2:10; Ecclesiastes 8:6.

(2) Old age was greatly desired and its attainment regarded as a Divine blessing (Genesis 15:15; Exodus 20:12, "that thy days may be long in the land"; Job 5:26; Psalms 91:16, "With long life will I satisfy him"; Psalms 92:14; compare Isaiah 65:20; Zechariah 8:4; 1 Samuel 2:32).

(3) A Divine assurance is given, "Even to old age I am he, and even to hoar hairs will I carry you" (Isaiah 46:4); hence it was looked forward to in faith and hope (Psalms 71:9, 18).

(4) Superior wisdom was believed to belong to the aged (Job 12:20; 15:10; 7, 9; compare 1 Kings 12:8); hence positions of guidance and authority were given to them, as the terms "elders," "presbyters" and (Arabic) "sheik" indicate.

W. L. Walker

Agee

Agee - a'-ge (aghe', "fugitive"): A Hararite, father of Shammah, one of David's "three mighty men" (2 Samuel 23:11). In 1 Chronicles 11:34 we read of one "Jonathan the son of Shagee the Hararite." The parallel in 2 Samuel 23:32-33 reads "Jonathan, Shammah the Hararite." If we read "Jonathan (son of) Shammah," then Agee is the grandfather of Jonathan. Some, however, think 1 Chronicles 11:34 to be correct, and read "Shagee" for "Agee" in 2 Samuel 23:11, and for "Shammah" in 2 Samuel 23:33. This makes Jonathan and Shammah brothers.

Ages, Rock of

Ages, Rock of - Applied to Yahweh as an encouragement for trust (Isaiah 26:4 the Revised Version, margin; the King James Version "everlasting strength").

Aggaba

Aggaba - a-ga'-ba (Aggaba, and Agraba; the King James Version, Graba) = Hagabah (Ezra 2:45) and Hagaba (Nehemiah 7:48): The descendants of Abraham (temple-servants) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem (1 Esdras 5:29).

Aggaeus

Aggaeus - a-ge'-us (Aggaios; the King James Version Aggeus). Haggai, one of the Minor Prophets. Abraham prophesied in the second year of the reign of Darius (compare Ezra 4:24; 5:1) with Zacharias in Jerusalem (1 Esdras 6:1; 7:3) In 2 Esdras 1:40 he is mentioned as one who with others shall be given as "leader to the nation from the east."

Agia

Agia - a'-gi-a (Agia; the King James Version Hagia) = Hattil (Ezra 2:57; Nehemiah 7:59): The descendants of Abraham (sons of the servants of Solomon) returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem (1 Esdras 5:34).

Agone

Agone - a-gon': In the King James Version of 1 Samuel 30:13. Old past participle of "to go." the Revised Version (British and American) has "ago," namely, "three days ago," literally, "the third day."

Agony

Agony - ag'-o-ni (agonia; Vulgate agonia): A word occurring only once in the New Testament (Luke 22:44), and used to describe the climax of the mysterious soul-conflict and unspeakable suffering of our Lord in the garden at Gethsemane. The term is derived from the Greek agon "contest" and this in turn from the Greek ago "to drive or lead," as in a chariot race. Its root idea is the struggle and pain of the severest athletic contest or conflict. The wrestling of the athlete has its counterpart in the wrestling of the suffering soul of the Saviour in the garden. At the beginning of this struggle He speaks of His soul being exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and this tumult of emotion culminated in the agony. All that can be suggested by the exhausting struggles and sufferings of charioteers, runners, wrestlers and gladiators, in Grecian and Roman amphitheaters, is summed up in the pain and death-struggle of this solitary word "agony." The word was rendered by Wyclif (1382) "maad in agonye" Tyndale (1534) and following translators use an agony." The record of Jesus' suffering in Gethsemane, in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46, and also in Hebrews 5:7-8) indicates that it was threefold:

1. Physical: The agony of His soul wrought its pain on His body, until "his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground" (Luke 22:44, omitted by some ancient authorities). He offered His prayers and supplications "with strong crying and tears" (Hebrews 5:7). The intensity of His struggle so distressed and weakened Him that Luke says "there appeared unto him an angel from heaven, strengthening him." The threefold record of the evangelists conveys the idea of the intensest physical pain. As the wire carries the electric current, so every nerve in Jesus' physical being felt the anguish of His sensitive soul as He took upon Himself the burden of the world's sin and moral evil.

2. Mental: The crisis of Jesus' career as Messiah and Redeemer came in Gethsemane. The moral issue of His atoning work was intelligently and voluntarily met here. The Gospels exhaust language in attempting to portray the stress and struggle of this conflict. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death." "Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, saying, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me." The mental clearness of Christ's vision of humanity's moral guilt and the energy of will necessary to meet the issue and take "this cup" of being the world's sin-bearer, indicate the awful sorrow and anguish of His supernatural conflict. It is divinely significant that the word "agony" appears but once in all Scripture. This solitary word records a solitary experience. Only One ever compassed the whole range of the world's sorrow and pain, anguish and agony. The shame of criminal arrest in the garden and of subsequent condemnation and death as a malefactor had to His innocent soul the horror of humanity's entire and ageless guilt. The mental and moral anguish of Jesus in Gethsemane interprets the meaning of Paul's description of the atonement, "Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

3. Spiritual: The agony of Jesus was supremely within the realm of His spirit. The effect of sin in separating the human soul from God was fathomed by the suffering Saviour in the fathomless mystery of His supernatural sorrow. Undoubtedly the anguish of Gethsemane surpassed the physical torture of Calvary. The whole conflict was wrought out here. Jesus' filial spirit, under the burden of the world's guilt, felt isolated from the Father. This awful, momentary seclusion from His Father's face constituted the "cup" which He prayed might pass from Him, and the "agony" of soul, experienced again on the cross, when He felt that God had forsaken Him.

No theory of the atonement can do justice to the threefold anguish of Jesus in Gethsemane and on Calvary, or to the entire trend of Scripture, that does not include the substitutionary element in His voluntary sacrifice, as stated by the prophet: "Yahweh hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," Isaiah 53:6; and by His apostles "who was delivered up for our trespasses," Romans 4:25; "who his own self bare our sins," 1 Peter 2:24.

The word "agony" also occurs in 2 Maccabees 3:14, 16, 21 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "distress") in describing the distress of the people at the attempt of Heliodorus to despoil the treasury of the temple in the days of Onias.

Dwight M. Pratt

Agrapha

Agrapha - ag'-ra-fa (agrapha).

1. The Term and Its History: The word agraphos of which agrapha is the neuter plural is met with in classical Greek and in Greek papyri in its primary sense of "unwritten," "unrecorded." In early Christian literature, especially in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, it was used of oral tradition; and in this sense it was revived by Koerner in a Leipzig Program issued in 1776 under the title De sermonibus Christi agraphois. For some time it was restricted to sayings of Christ not recorded in the Gospels and believed to have reached the sources in which they are found by means of oral tradition. As however graphe, the noun with which agrapha is connected, can have not only the general meaning "writing," but the special meaning "Scripture," the, adjective could signify not only "oral" but also uncanonical or "non-canonical"; and it was employed by Resch in the latter sense in the 1st edition of his great work on the subject which appeared in German in 1889 under the title, Agrapha: Extra-canonical Gospel Fragments. The term was now also extended so as to include narratives as well as sayings. In the second edition (also in German) it is further widened so as to embrace all extra-canonical sayings or passages connected with the Bible. The new title runs: Agrapha Extra-canonical Fragments of Scripture; and the volume contains a first collection of Old Testament agrapha. The term is still however used most frequently of non-canonical sayings ascribed to Jesus, and to the consideration of these this article will mainly be devoted.

2. Extent of Material: Of the 361 agrapha and apocrypha given by Resch about 160 are directly ascribed to Christ. About 30 others can be added from Christian and Jewish sources and about 80 sayings found in Muhammadan literature (Expository Times, V, 59, 107, 177 f, 503 f, 561, etc.). The last-mentioned group, although not entirely without interest, may largely be disregarded as it is highly improbable that it represents early tradition. The others come from a variety of sources: the New Testament outside of the Gospels, Gospel manuscripts and VSS, Apocryphal Gospels and an early collection of sayings of Jesus, liturgical texts, patristic and medieval literature and the Talmud.

3. Sayings to Be Excluded: Many of these sayings have no claim to be regarded as independent agrapha. At least five classes come under this category. (1) Some are mere parallels or variants, for instance: "Pray and be not weary," which is evidently connected with Luke 18:1; and the saying in the Talmud: "I, the Gospel, did not come to take away from the law of Moses but to add to the law of Moses have I come" (Shab 116b) which is clearly a variant of Matthew 5:17. (2) Some sayings are made up of two or more canonical texts. "I chose you before the world was," for example, is a combination of John 15:19 and Ephesians 1:4; and "Abide in my love and I will give you eternal life" of John 8:31 and John 10:28. (3) Misquotation or loose quotation accounts for a number of alleged agrapha. "Sodom is justified more than thou" seems to be really from Ezekiel 16:53 and its context. "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" is of apostolic not evangelic origin (Ephesians 4:26). "Anger destroys even the prudent" comes from Septuagint of Proverbs 15:1. (4) Some sayings must be rejected because they cannot be traced to an early source, for instance, the fine saying: "Be brave in war, and fight with the old serpent, and ye shall receive eternal life," which is first met with in a text of the 12th century (5) Several sayings are suspicious by reason of their source or their character. The reference to "my mother the Holy Spirit," in one of them, has no warrant in the acknowledged teaching of Christ and comes from a source of uncertain value, the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Pantheistic sayings such as "I am thou and thou art I, and wherever thou art I am"; "You are I and I am you"; and perhaps the famous saying: "Raise the stone and thou wilt find me; cleave the wood and there am I," as well as the sayings reported by Epiphanius from the Gospel of the Ebionites seem to breathe an atmosphere different from that of the canonical Gospels.

4. Sayings in New Testament: When all the sayings belonging to these five classes, and a few others of liturgical origin, have been deducted there remain about thirty-five which are worthy of mention and in some cases of careful consideration. Some are dealt with in the article LOGIA (which see). The others, which are given here, are numbered consecutively to facilitate reference. The best authenticated are of course those found in the New Testament outside of the Gospels. These are (1) the great saying cited by Paul at Miletus: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35); (2) the words used in the institution of the Eucharist preserved only in 1 Corinthians 11:24 f; (3) the promise of the baptism of the Spirit (Acts 1:5 and Acts 11:16); and (4) the answer to the question: "Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:7 f). Less certain are (5) the description of the Second Advent, said to be "by the word of the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:15 ff); and (6) the promise of the crown of life to them that love God (James 1:12).

5. Sayings in Manuscripts and Versions: Of considerable interest are some additions, in manuscripts of the Gospels and versions One of the most remarkable (7) is the comment of Jesus on a man's working on the Sabbath day inserted after Luke 6:4 in Codex Bezae (D) and the Freer manuscript recently discovered in Egypt: "If thou knowest what thou doest, O man, blessed art thou, but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the law." Another (8) also found in D and in several other authorities is appended to Matthew 20:28: "But ye seek ye from little to increase and from greater to be less." In the Curetonian Syriac the latter clause runs: "and not from greater to be less." The new saying is noteworthy but obscure. A third passage (9) of less value but still of interest is an insertion in the longer ending of Mark, between 16:14 and 16:15, which was referred to by Jerome as present in codices in his day but has now been met with in Greek for the first time in the above-mentioned Freer MS. (For facsimile see American Journal of Archaeology, 1908.) In reply to a complaint of the disciples about the opposition of Satan and their request: "Therefore reveal thy righteousness even now," Jesus is reported to have said: "The limit of the years of the authority of Satan is fulfilled, but other dreadful things are approaching, and in behalf of those who had sinned was I delivered unto death in order that they might return to the truth and might sin no longer, that they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness in heaven." This alleged utterance of the risen Lord is most probably of secondary character (compare Gregory, Das Freer Logion; Swete, Two New Gospel Fragments).

6. Sayings from the Fathers, etc.: Apocryphal and patristic literature supplies some notable sayings. The first place must be given (10) to the great saying which in its shortest form consists of only three words: "Be ("become," "show yourselves to be") approved money-changers." Resch (Agrapha2, number 87) gives 69 references, at least 19 of which date from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, although they represent only a few authorities, all Egyptian. The saying seems to have circulated widely in the early church and may be genuine. Other early sayings of interest or value, from these sources, must be given without comment. (11) "The heavenly Father willeth the repentance of the sinner rather than his punishment" (Justin Martyr). (12) "That which is weak shall be saved by that which is strong" (circa 300 AD). (13) "Come out from bonds ye who will" (Clement of Alexandria). (14) "Be thou saved and thy soul" (Theodotus in id). (15) "Blessed are they who mourn for the perdition of unbelievers" (Didaskalia). (16) "He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me is far from the kingdom" (Origen). (17) "He who has not been tempted has not been approved" (Didaskalia, etc.). (18) He who makes sad a brother's spirit is one of the greatest of criminals" (Ev Heb). (19) "Never be glad except when ye have seen your brother in love" (same place). (20) "Let not him who seeks cease .... until he find, and when he finds he shall be astonished; astonished he shall reach the kingdom, and when he has reached the kingdom he shall rest" (Clement of Alexandria and Logia of Oxyrhynchus). (21) In a fragment of a Gospel found by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus (O Papyri number 655) is the following non-canonical passage in a canonical context: "He Himself will give you clothing. His disciples say unto Him: When wilt thou be manifest to us and when shall we see thee? He saith: When ye shall be stripped and not be ashamed." The saying or apocryphon exhibits considerable likeness to a saying cited by Clement of Alexandria from the Gospel according to the Egyptians, but the difference is great enough to make original identity doubtful. Another fragment found by the same explorers on the same site (O Papyri number 840) preserves two agrapha or apocrypha which though clearly secondary are very curious. The first (22) is the concluding portion of a saying about the punishment of evil-doers: "Before a man does wrong he makes all manner of subtle excuses. But give heed lest you also suffer the same things as they for the evil-doers among men receive not their due among the living (Greek zois) only but also await punishment and much torment." Professor Swete (Two New Gospel Fragments), accents zoois as the plural of zoon and thus finds a contrast between the fate of animals and that of human beings. The second saying (23) is a rather lengthy reply to the complaint of a Pharisaic stickler for outward purity. The most interesting part of it as edited by Swete runs as follows: "Woe to you blind who see not.... But I and my disciples who thou sayest have not been dipped have dipped in the waters of eternal life which come down from God out of heaven." All these texts from Oxyrhynchus probably date from the 2nd century. Other Egypt sources, the so-called Coptic Apocryphal Gospels (Texts and Studies Camb. IV, 2, 1896), contain several sayings which are of interest as coming from the same religious environment. The following three are the most remarkable. (24) "Repent, for it is better that a man find a cup of water in the age that is coming than all the riches of this world" (130). (25) "Better is a single footstep in My Father's house than all the wealth of this world" (130 f). (26) "Now therefore have faith in the love of My Father; for faith is the end of all things" (176). As in the case of the Logia these sayings are found in association with canonical sayings and parallels. Since the Logan may well have numbered scores, if not hundreds, it is at least possible that these Coptic sayings may have been taken from the missing portions of this collection, or a recension of it, and therefore they are not unworthy of notice as conceivably early agrapha. To these sayings of Christian derivation may be added (27) one Muhammadan saying, that inscribed in Arabic on the chief gateway of the city Futteypore Sikri built by Akbar: "The world is but a bridge, over which you must pass, but must not linger to build your dwelling" (In the Himalayas by Miss Gordon Cumming, cited by Griffenhoofe, The Unwritten Sayings of Christ, 128).

7. Result: Although the number of agrapha purporting to be sayings of Jesus which have been collected by scholars seems at first sight imposing, those which have anything like a strong claim to acceptance on the ground of early and reliable source and internal character are disappointingly few. Of those given above numbers 1-4, 7, 8, 10 which have mostly early attestation clearly take precedence of the rest. Numbers 11:1-35-Numbers 20:1-29 are early enough and good enough to merit respectful consideration. Still the proportion of genuine, or possibly genuine, material is very small. Ropes is probably not far from the truth when he remarks that "the writers of the Synoptic Gospels did their work so well that only stray bits here and there, and these but of small value, were left for the gleaners." On the other hand it is not necessary to follow Wellhausen in rejecting the agrapha in toto. Recent discoveries have shown that they are the remains of a considerable body of extra-canonical sayings which circulated more or less in Christian circles, especially in Egypt, in the early centuries, and the possible presence in what we possess of a sentence or two actually spoken by Jesus fully justifies research.

8. Other Agrapha: The second edition of the work of Resch includes 17 agrapha from manuscripts of Acts and 1 Jn most of which are from Codex Bezae (D), 31 apostolic apocrypha, and 66 agrapha and apocrypha connected with the Old Testament. 19 of the latter are largely taken from pseudepigrapha, a pseudo-Ezekiel for instance These agrapha some of which are really textual variants are of inferior interest and value.

LITERATURE.

The chief authorities are the German book of the American scholar J. H. Ropes, Die Spruche Jesu, die in den kanonischen Evangelien nicht uberliefert sind, and his article "Agrapha in HDB (extra vol); and the often-mentioned work of Resch. The former has great critical value, and the latter, especially in the 2nd edition, is a veritable thesaurus of material. For a full survey of the literature up to 1905 see that work, pp. 14-17. There is much criticism in Bauer's Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, chapter vii. Among smaller works special mention may be made of Prebendary Blomfield's Twenty-Five Agrapha (1900); and the book of Griffenhoofe, the title of which is given above. There are recent articles on the subject in HDB (1909), "Unwritten Sayings," and DCG, "Sayings (Unwritten)"; Am. Journal of Archaeology, XII (1908), 49-55; H. A. Sanders, New manuscripts from Egypt; also ib, XIII (1909), 130.

See LOGIA.

William Taylor Smith

Agrarian Laws

Agrarian Laws - a-gra'-ri-an loz:

1. The Sabbath Year

2. The Jubilee

3. Its Object

4. The Legal Rules

5. Ideas and Circumstances of the Legislation

6. Form of the Legislation

7. Its Operation and Extension

8. Other Laws Affecting the Land

The Mosaic provisions on this subject form one of the most characteristic and interesting portions of the legislation. The main institutions are two, namely, the Sabbath year and the jubilee, and they are closely linked together.

1. The Sabbath Year: In every seventh year the land was to lie fallow "that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat" (Exodus 23:10 f; compare Leviticus 25:2-7). `And the Sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant and for thy stranger that sojourn with thee; but for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for food' (Leviticus 25:6 f). This has been quoted at length because the rendering of English Versions of the Bible is misleading. "The Sabbath of the land" does not mean that the natural increase thereof is to be eaten by the Israelite peasant. That interpretation is excluded by Leviticus 1:1; Leviticus 25:3-5, 20-22. What is intended is clearly shown by the latter of these two passages, "I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year." The principle on which the manna had been provided for Sabbaths was to apply to the harvest of the sixth year, and this is the import of the phrase.

2. The Jubilee: After "seven sabbaths of years, even forty and tone years" a trumpet was to be blown throughout the land on the tenth day of the seventh month (i.e. the Day of Atonement) and the fiftieth year was to be hallowed and celebrated as a "jubilee." No agricultural work of any kind was to be performed, but "ye may (so correct EVV) eat the increase thereof out of the field" (Leviticus 25:12). God would so bless the land in the sixth year that it would bring forth enough for the Sabbath year, the ensuing jubilee and the subsequent period to the harvest of the ninth year (Leviticus 25:20-22).

3. Its Object: In addition to being a period in which the land was left fallow, the jubilee was intended to meet the economic evils that befell peasants in ancient societies. Wars or unfavorable seasons would soon reduce a farmer to a condition in which he would have to borrow. But money is rarely to be had without interest and security, and in early communities the rates of interest were very high indeed, while the only security the farmer could offer would consist of his land and the persons of himself and his children. Hence we find insolvency giving rise to the alienation of land and to slavery all over the world--sometimes with the retention of civil rights (as in Rome and Israel), at others in a more unalloyed form. The jubilee aims at both these evils. It is provided that in that year the peasants who had lost their full freedom through insolvency should be free (see Wiener, Studies in Biblical Law, 5 ff) and all lands that had been sold should return to the original owner or his family. "And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Leviticus 25:23). To this theory there are parallels elsewhere, e.g. in Togoland (Heinrici, Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, XI, 138).

4. The Legal Rules: Leviticus 25:1-55 containing the land laws gives effect to this view by enacting that when an Israelite was compelled to part with his land there was to be a "redemption" of land, and that in default of redemption the land should return to its original owner in the jubilee year. This "redemption" covers two ideas--a right of preemption by the next of kin the first instance, and if that were not exercised, a right on the part of the original owner to buy back the land before the jubilee (Leviticus 25:24-28). The theory did not apply to houses in walled cities. Those might be redeemed within a year of sale: in default the property passed for ever and was unaffected by the jubilee (Leviticus 25:29 f). Villages were reckoned as country (Leviticus 25:31). The Levitical cities were subject to the rules of land, not of walled cities (Leviticus 25:32 f; read with the Vulgate in the American Revised Version, margin, "if they have not been redeemed" in Leviticus 25:32), and their fields were not to be sold (Leviticus 25:34). All sales of lands to which the jubilee applied were to be made on the basis of the number of crops (Leviticus 25:14 ff); in fact, what was sold was not the property itself but the usufruct (i.e. the right of using, reaping, etc.) till the year of the jubilee. Similarly with the laws of Leviticus 27:16-25, where the general principle is that if a field be sanctified the value shall be estimated according to the number of years to the jubilee. Unfortunately the text is corrupt and it is impossible to make out the exact circumstances in which no further redemption was allowed (Leviticus 27:20).

5. Ideas and Circumstances of the Legislation: "The land laws are the product of many independent ideas and circumstances. .... First such a system as that expounded in the 25th chapter of Lev could only be put forward by one who had to work on what is so very rare in history--a clean slate. In other words, the system of land tenure here laid down could only be introduced in this way by men who had no preexisting system to reckon with. Secondly, there is (mutatis mutandis) a marked resemblance between the provisions of Lev and the system introduced in Egypt by Joseph (Genesis 47:1-31). The land is the Lord's as it is Pharaoh's; but the towns which are built on that land are not subject to the same theory or the same rules. Perhaps the explanation is that Joseph's measures had affected only those who gained their living by agriculture, i.e. the dwellers in the country. Thirdly, the system shows the enormous power that the conception of family solidarity possessed in the Mosaic age. .... And fourthly, the enactment is inspired and illuminated by the humanitarian and religious convictions to which reference has already been made" (Journal of Transactions of the Victoria Institute, XLI, 160). Undoubtedly the most striking feature of the enactment is to be found in these religious convictions with the absolute reliance on constant Divine intervention to secure the working of the law (Genesis 47:20 ff).

6. Form of the Legislation: Leviticus 26:1-46 shows clearly that this legislation was conceived as the terms of a covenant made between God and the children of Israel, and it appears from verses 42-45 that this of the covenant was regarded as being connected with the covenants with the patriarchs though it is also a covenant made with the generation that came forth from Egypt. The land was originally promised to Abraham in a covenant (Genesis 17:1-27) and it would seem that these laws are regarded as attaching to that covenant which had been renewed with his descendants. Indeed the laws appear to be presented as terms of the sworn agreement (covenant) under which God was about to give Israel the possession of Canaan.

7. Its Operation and Extension: As respects the operation of these laws we have no information as to the observance of any fallow years before the Exile: 2 Chronicles 36:21 is rather unfavorable, but so obviously echoes Leviticus 26:43 that it scarcely seems to be meant as a historical statement. But traces are to be found of the operation of other parts of the system. Ruth 4:1-22 shows us the law of redemption working, but with two notable extensions. Widows have acquired a right of property in their husbands' estates, and when the next of kin refuses to redeem, the right passes to the kinsman who is nearest in succession. Neither of these cases is contemplated by the Pentateuch: both appear to be fresh applications of the Levitical law which, like all other legislations, had to be adapted to meet new sets of facts as they arose. Similarly Jeremiah 32:1-44 illustrates the law of preemption, but here a small difficulty arises, for Leviticus 25:34 forbids the sale of the suburbs of the Levitical cities. Probably however this refers only to sale outside the family and not as here to the nearest kinsman and heir presumptive. Similarly Ezek twice refers to the jubilee (Leviticus 7:12 f and 46:17) in terms that seem to show that he knew it as an existing institution (see SBL , 96; Churchman, May, 1906, 292). Historical traces of the Levitical cities are mentioned in the article LEVITICAL CITIES. It should be added that under the monarchy a rule seems to have been introduced that derelict lands fell to the king (see 2 Samuel 9:9 f; 1 Kings 21:16; 2 Kings 8:3, 6).

In later times there are several references to the fallow of the Sabbatical year (1 Maccabees 6:49, 53; Ant, XIII, viii, 1, XIV, x, 6, etc.).

8. Other Laws Affecting the Land: In addition to these laws Moses enacted provisions favoring gleaning, on which see POOR. He also prohibited sowing a field or vineyard with two kinds of seed (Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:9) and prescribed that for three years the fruit of trees should not be eaten, while in the fourth it should be holy, and in the fifth it was to be available for ordinary purposes (Leviticus 19:23 ff).

Harold M. Wiener

Agree

Agree - a-gre' (sumphoneo, "to be of the same mind," "to come to a mutual understanding"): This is the sense of the word in Matthew 20:2; John 9:22, and other passages. In Mark 14:56 the word is isos and has the thought not only that their words did not agree, but also that the testimony was not in agreement with or equal to what the law required in such a case. The thought of being equal occurs also in 1 John 5:8.

The figurative use of the word in Matthew 18:19 makes it of special interest. The word there is sumphoneo, from which comes our word symphony, meaning a harmonious blending. This agreement therefore is complete. Three persons are introduced: two human beings and the Father. They are in perfect agreement on the subject or purpose under consideration. It is therefore an inward unity produced by the Holy Spirit leading the two into such an agreement with the Father. There will follow then, as a matter of course, what is promised in Matthew 18:19-20. In Acts 5:9 it sets forth the justice of Peter in dealing in the same manner in both cases. Ananias and Sapphira were in perfect agreement and equally guilty (Luke 5:36; Acts 15:15).

Jacob W. Kapp

Agriculture

Agriculture - ag'-ri-kul-tur, ag'-ri-kul-chur:

I. DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE

II. CLIMATIC CONDITIONS AND FERTILITY

III. AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS

1. Growing of Grain

(1) Plowing and Sowing

(2) Reaping

(3) Threshing

2. Care of Vineyards

3. Raising of Flocks

I. Development of Agriculture. One may witness in Syria and Palestine today the various stages of social progress through which the people of Bible times passed in which the development of their agriculture played an important part. To the East the sons of Ishmael still wander in tribes from place to place, depending upon their animals for food and raiment, unless by a raid they can secure the fruits of the

soil from the peoples, mostly of their own blood, who have given up wandering and are supporting themselves by tilling the ground. It is only a short step from this frontier life to the more protected territory toward the Mediterranean, where in comparatively peaceful surroundings, the wanderers become stationary. If the land which they have come to possess is barren and waterless, they become impoverished physically and spiritually, but if they have chosen the rarer spots where underground streams burst forth into valleys covered with alluvial deposits (Exodus 3:8), they prosper and there springs up the more complicated community life with its servants, hirelings, gardeners, etc. A division of labor ensues. Some leave the soil for the crafts and professions but still depend upon their farmer neighbors for theft sustenance. (1 Kings 5:11.) Such was the variety of life of the people among whom Jesus lived, and of their ancestors, and of the inhabitants of the land long before the children of Israel came to take possession of it. Bible history deals with the Hebrews at a period when a large proportion of that people were engaged in agrarian pursuits, hence we find its pages filled with references to agricultural occupations.

II. Climatic Conditions and Fertility. With climatic conditions and fertility so varied, the mode of cultivation, seedtime and harvest differed even in closely adjacent territory. On the coastal plains and in the low Jordan valley the soil was usually rich and the season was early, whereas the mountainous regions and high interior plains the planting and reaping times were from two weeks to a month later. To make use of the soil on the hillsides, terracing was frequently necessary. Examples of these old terraces still exist. On the unwatered plains the crops could be grown only In the winter and spring, i.e. during the rainy season. These districts dried up in May or June and remained fallow during the rainless summer. The same was true of the hilly regions and valleys except where water from a stream could be diverted from its channel and spread over the fields. In such districts crops could be grown irrespective of the seasons.

See IRRIGATION.

III. Agricultural Pursuits. To appreciate the many references in the Bible to agricultural pursuits and the frequent allusions of our Lord to the fields and their products, we must remember how different were the surroundings of the farmers of that day from those among which most of us live or with which we are acquainted. What knowledge we have of these pursuits is drawn from such references as disclose methods bearing a close similarity to those of the present day. The strong tendency to resist change which is everywhere manifest throughout the country and the survival of ancient descriptive words in the language of today further confirm our belief that we now witness in this country the identical operations which were used two thousand or more years ago. It would be strange if there were not a variety of ways by which the same object was accomplished when we remember that the Hebrew people benefited by the experience of the Egyptians, of the Babylonians, of the inhabitants of the land of their adoption, as well as of its late European conquerors. For this reason the drawings found on the Egyptian monuments, depicting agricultural scenes, help us to explain the probable methods used in Palestine.

Three branches of agriculture were more prominent than the others; the growing of grain, the care of vineyards (Numbers 18:30), and the raising of flocks. Most households owned fields and vineyards and the richer added to these a wealth of flocks. The description of Job's wealth (in Job 1:1-22) shows that he was engaged in all these pursuits. Hezekiah's riches as enumerated in 2 Chronicles 32:27-28 suggest activity in each of these branches.

1. Growing of Grain: In this and following descriptions, present-day methods as far as they correspond to ancient records will be dealt with.

(1) Plowing and sowing. On the plains, little or no preparation for plowing is needed, but in the hilly regions, the larger stones, which the tilling of the previous season has loosened and which the winter's rains have washed bare, are picked out and piled into heaps on some ledge, or are thrown into the paths, which thus become elevated above the fields which they traverse. (See FIELD.) If grain is to be planted, the seed is scattered broadcast by the sower. If the land has not been used for some time the ground is first plowed, and when the seed has been scattered is plowed again. The sower may keep his supply of seed in a pocket made by pulling up his outer garment through his girdle to a sufficient extent for it to sag down outside his girdle in the form of a loose pouch. He may, on the other hand, carry it in a jar or basket as the sowers are pictured as doing on the Egyptian monuments. As soon as the seed is scattered it is plowed in before the ever-present crows and ravens can gather it up. The path of the plow in the fields of the hilly regions is a tortuous one because of the boulders jutting out here and there (Matthew 13:3 ff) or because of the ledges which frequently lie hidden just beneath the surface (the rocky places of Christ's parable). When the plowman respects the footpaths which the sufferance of the owner has allowed to be trodden across his fields or which mark the boundaries between the lands of different owners, and leaves them unplowed, then the seed which has fallen on these portions becomes the food of the birds. Corners of the field where the plow cannot reach are hoed by hand. Harrowing-in as we know it is not practiced today, except on some of the larger plains, and probably was not used in Palestine in earlier times.

See HARROW.

(2) Reaping. After the plowing is over, the fields are deserted until after the winter rains, unless an unusually severe storm of rain and hail (Exodus 9:25) has destroyed the young shoots. Then a second sowing is made. In April, if the hot east winds have not blasted the grain (see BLASTING ) the barley begins to ripen. The wheat follows from a week to six weeks later, depending upon the altitude. Toward the end of May or the first week in June, which marks the beginning of the dry season, reaping begins. Whole families move out from their village homes to spend the time in the fields until the harvest is over. Men and women join in the work of cutting the grain. A handful of grain is gathered together by means of a sickle held in the right hand. The stalks thus gathered in a bunch are then grasped by the left hand and at the same time a pull is given which cuts off some of the stalks a few inches above ground (see STUBBLE) and pulls the rest up by the roots. These handfuls are laid behind the reapers and are gathered up by the helpers (see GLEANING), usually the children, and made into piles for transporting to the threshing-floor.

(3) Threshing. The threshing-floors are constructed in the fields, preferably in an exposed position in order to get the full benefit of the winds. If there is a danger of marauders they are clustered together close to the village. The floor is a level, circular area 25 to 40 ft. in diameter, prepared by first picking out the stones, and then wetting the ground, tamping or rolling it, and finally sweeping it. A border of stones usually surrounds the floor to keep in the grain. The sheaves of grain which have been brought on the backs of men, donkeys, camels, or oxen, are heaped on this area, and the process of tramping out begins. In some localities several animals, commonly oxen or donkeys, are tied abreast and driven round and round the floor. In other places two oxen are yoked together to a drag, the bottom of which is studded with pieces of basaltic stone. This drag, on which the driver, and perhaps his family, sits or stands, is driven in a circular path over the grain. In still other districts an instrument resembling a wheel harrow is used, the antiquity of which is confirmed by the Egyptian records. The supply of unthreshed grain is kept in the center of the floor. Some of this is pulled down from time to time into the path of the animals. All the while the partly threshed grain is being turned over with a fork. The stalks gradually become broken into short pieces and the husks about the grain are torn off. This mixture of chaff and grain must now be winnowed. This is done by tossing it into the air so that the wind may blow away the chaff (see WINNOWING). When the chaff is gone then the grain is tossed in a wooden tray to separate from it the stones and lumps of soil which clung to the roots when the grain was reaped. The difference in weight between the stones and grain makes separation by this process possible (see SIFT ). The grain is now poled in heaps and in many localities is also sealed. This process consists in pressing a large wooden seal against the pile. When the instrument is removed it leaves an impression which would be destroyed should any of the grain be taken away. This allows the government offers to keep account of the tithes and enables the owner to detect any theft of grain. Until the wheat is transferred to bags some one sleeps by the pries on the threshing-floor. If the wheat is to be stored for home consumption it is often first washed with water and spread out on goats' hair mats to dry before it is stored in the wall compartments found in every house (see STOREHOUSES). Formerly the wheat was ground only as needed. This was then a household task which was accomplished with the hand-mill or mortar (see MILL).

2. Care of Vineyards: No clearer picture to correspond with present-day practice in vine culture (see VINE) in Palestine could be given than that mentioned in Isaiah 5:1, 6. Grapes probably served an important part in the diet of Bible times as they do at present. In the season which begins in July and extends for at least three months, the humblest peasant as well as the richest landlord considers grapes as a necessary part of at least one meal each day. The grapes were not only eaten fresh but were made into wine (see WINE PRESS ). No parallel however can be found in the Bible for the molasses which is made by boiling down the fresh grape juice. Some writers believe that this substance was meant in some passages translated by wine or honey, but it is doubtful. The care of the vineyards fitted well into the farmer's routine, as most of the attention required could be given when the other crops demanded no time.

3. Raising of Flocks: The leaders of ancient Israel reckoned their flocks as a necessary part of their wealth (see SHEEP). When a man's flocks were his sole possession he often lived with them and led them in and out in search of pasturage (Psalms 23:1-6; Matthew 18:12), but a man with other interests delegated this task to his sons (1 Samuel 16:11) or to hirelings. Human nature has not changed since the time when Christ made the distinction between the true shepherd and the hireling (John 10:12). Within a short time of the writing of these words the writer saw a hireling cursing and abusing the stray members of a flock which he was driving, not leading as do good shepherds.

The flock furnished both food and raiment. The milk of camels, sheep and goats was eaten fresh or made into curdled milk, butter or cheese. More rarely was the flesh of these animals eaten (see FOOD). The peasant's outer coat is still made of a tawed sheepskin or woven of goats' hair or wool (see WEAVING). The various agricultural operations are treated more fully under their respective names, (which see).

James A. Patch

Agrippa

Agrippa - a-grip'-a.

See HEROD.

Ague

Ague - a'-gu (qaddachath): In Leviticus 26:16 the King James Version is one of the diseases threatened as a penalty for disobedience to the law. The malady is said to "consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away." The word means burning (Vulgate "ardor") and was probably intended to denote the malarial fever so common now both in the Shephelah and in the Jordan valley. In Septuagint the word used (ikteros) means jaundice, which often accompanies this fever. the Revised Version (British and American) translates it "fever."

See FEVER.

Agur

Agur - a'-gur ('aghur, seeming, from comparison with Arabic roots, to mean either "hireling," or "collector," "gatherer"): One of the contributors to Proverbs; his words being included in Proverbs 30:1-33. He takes an agnostic attitude toward God and transcendent things, and in general the range of his thought, as compared with that of other authors, is pedestrian. He shows, however, a tender reverence and awe. His most notable utterance, perhaps, is the celebrated Prayer of Agur (Proverbs 30:7-9), which gives expression to a charming golden mean of practical ideal. His sayings are constructed on a rather artificial plan; having the form of the so-called numerical proverb.

See under PROVERBS,THE BOOK OF ,II , 6.

John Franklin Genung

Ah

Ah - In proper names.

See AHI.

Ah; Aha

Ah; Aha - a, a-ha': Interjections of frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, representing different Hebrew words and different states of feeling. (1) 'ahah, expressing complaint and found in the phrase "Ah, Lord Yahweh" (Jeremiah 1:6; 4:10 etc.; Ezekiel 4:14 etc.). Elsewhere the word is translated "alas!" (Joel 1:15). (2) 'ach, occurs once (Ezekiel 21:15), expressing grief in contemplating Israel's destruction. (3) he'ach, usually expresses malicious joy over the reverses of an enemy, and is introduced by the verb "to say" (Brown-Driver-Briggs' Lexicon); so in Psalms 35:21, 25; Ezekiel 25:3; 26:2; 36:2; in the repeated Psalms 40:15; 70:3. It expresses satiety in Isaiah 44:16; and represents the neighing of a horse in Job 39:25. (4) hoy, expresses grief or pain, (Isaiah 1:4; Jeremiah 22:18). In 1 Kings 13:30 it is translated "alas!" More frequently it is used to indicate that a threat of judgment is to follow (Isaiah 10:5; 29:1; or to direct attention to some important announcement (Isaiah 55:1), where the Hebrew word is translated "Ho." (5) Greek oua, in Mark 15:29, used by those who mocked Jesus, as He hung upon the cross. All of these words are evidently imitative of the natural sounds, which spontaneously give expression to these emotions of complaint, grief, pain, exultation, etc.

Edward Mack

Ahab

Ahab - a'-hab ('ach'abh, Assyrian a-cha-ab-bu; Septuagint Achaab, but Jeremiah 29:21 f, Achiab, which, in analogy with '-h-y-m-l-k, (')-h-y-'-l, etc., indicates an original 'achi'abh, meaning "the father is my brother"): The compound probably signifies that "the father," referring to God, has been chosen as a brother.

1. Ahab's Reign: Ahab, son of Omri, the seventh king of Israel, who reigned for twenty-two years, from 876 to 854 (1 Kings 16:28 ff), was one of the strongest and at the same time one of the weakest kings of Israel. With his kingdom he inherited also the traditional enemies of the kingdom, who were no less ready to make trouble for him than for his predecessors. Occupying a critical position at the best, with foes ever ready to take advantage of any momentary weakness, the kingdom, during the reign of Ahab, was compelled to undergo the blighting effects of misfortune, drought and famine. But Ahab, equal to the occasion, was clever enough to win the admiration and respect of friend and foe, strengthening the kingdom without and within. Many of the evils of his reign, which a stronger nature might have overcome, were incident to the measures that he took for strengthening the kingdom.

2. His Foreign Policy: In the days of David and Solomon a beneficial commercial intercourse existed between the Hebrews and the Phoenicians. Ahab, recognizing the advantages that would accrue to his kingdom from an alliance with the foremost commercial nation of his time, renewed the old relations with the Phoenicians and cemented them by his marriage with Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre (the Ithobalos, priest of Astarte mentioned by Meander).

He next turns his attention to the establishment of peaceful and friendly relations with the kindred and neighboring kingdom of Judah. For the first time since the division of the kingdoms the hereditary internecine quarrels are forgotten, "and Jehoshaphat," the good king of Judah, "made peace with the king of Israel." This alliance, too, was sealed by a marriage relationship, Jehoram, the crown-prince of Judah, being united in marriage with the princess Athaliah, daughter of Ahab.

Perhaps some additional light is thrown upon Ahab's foreign policy by his treatment of Benhadad, king of Damascus. An opportunity was given to crush to dust the threatening power of Syria. But when Benhadad in the garb of a suppliant was compelled to sue for his life, Ahab received into kindly as his brother, and although denounced by the prophets for his leniency, spared his enemy and allowed him to depart on the condition that he would restore the cities captured from Omri, and concede certain "streets" in Damascus as a quarter for Israelite residents. No doubt Ahab thought that a king won as a friend by kindness might be of greater service to Israel than a hostile nation, made still more hostile, by having its king put to death. Whatever Ahab's motives may have been, these hereditary foes really fought side by side against the common enemy, the king of Assyria, in the battle at Karkar on the Orontes in the year 854, as is proved by the inscription on the monolith of Shalmaneser II, king of Assyria.

3. His Religious Policy: Ahab's far-sighted foreign policy was the antithesis of his short-sighted religious policy. Through his alliance with Phoenicia he not only set in motion the currents of commerce with Tyre, but invited Phoenician religion as well. The worship of Yahweh by means of the golden calves of Jeroboam appeared antiquated to him. Baal, the god of Tyre, the proud mistress of the seas and the possessor of dazzling wealth, was to have an equal place with Yahweh, the God of Israel. Accordingly he built in Samara a temple to Baal and in it erected an altar to that god, and at the side of the altar a pole to Asherab (1 Kings 16:32-33). On the other hand he tried to serve Yahweh by naming his children in his honor--Ahaziah ("Yah holds"), Jehoram ("Yah is high"), and Athaliah ("Yah is strong"). However, Ahab failed to realize that while a coalition of nations might be advantageous, a syncretism of their religions would be disastrous. He failed to apprehend the full meaning of the principle, "Yahweh alone is the God of Israel." In Jezebel, his Phoenician wife, Ahab found a champion of the foreign culture, who was as imperious and able as she was vindictive and unscrupulous. She was the patron of the prophets of Baal and of the devotees of Asherab (1 Kings 18:19-20; 1 Kings 19:1-2) At her instigation the altars of Yahweh were torn down. She inaugurated the first great religious persecution of the church, killing off the prophets of Yahweh with the sword. In all this she aimed at more than a syncretism of the two religions; she planned to destroy the religion of Yahweh root and branch and put that of Baal in its place. In this Ahab did not oppose her, but is guilty of conniving at the policy of his unprincipled wife, if not of heartily concurring in it.

4. The Murder of Naboth: Wrong religious principles have their counterpart in false ethical ideals and immoral civil acts. Ahab, as a worshipper of Baal, not only introduced a false religion, but false social ideals as well. The royal residence was in Jezreel, which had probably risen in importance through his alliance with Phoenicia. Close to the royal palace was a vineyard (1 Kings 21:1) owned by Naboth, a native of Jezreel. This piece of ground was coveted by Ahab for a vegetable garden. He demanded therefore that Naboth should sell it to into or exchange it for a better piece of land. Naboth declined the offer. Ahab, a Hebrew, knowing the laws of the land, was stung by the refusal and went home greatly displeased. Jezebel, however, had neither religious scruples nor any regard for the civil laws of the Hebrews. Accordingly she planned a high-handed crime to gratify the whim of Ahab. In the name and by the authority of the king she had Naboth falsely accused of blasphemy against God and the king, and had him stoned to death by the local authorities. The horror created by this judicial murder probably did as much to finally overthrow the house of Omri as did the favor shown to the Tyrian Baal.

5. Ahab and Elijah: Neither religious rights nor civil liberties can be trampled under foot without Divine retribution. The attempt to do so calls forth an awakened and quickened conscience, imperatively demanding that the right be done. Like an accusing conscience, Elijah appeared before Ahab. His very name ("my God is Yah") inspired awe. "As Yahweh, the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years," was the conscience-troubling message left on the mind of Ahab for more than three years. On Elijah's reappearance, Ahab greets into as the troubler of Israel. Elijah calmly reforms him that the king's religious policy has caused the trouble in Israel. The proof for it is to be furnished on Mount Carmel. Ahab does the bidding of Elijah. The people shall know whom to serve. Baal is silent. Yahweh answers with fire. A torrent of rain ends the drought. The victory belongs to Yahweh.

Once more Elijah's indignation flashes against the house of Ahab. The judicial murder of Naboth calls it forth. The civil rights of the nation must be protected. Ahab has sold himself to do evil in the sight of Yahweh. Therefore Ahab's house shall fall. Jezebel's carcass shall be eaten by dogs; the king's posterity shall be cut off; the dogs of the city or the fowls of the air shall eat their bodies (1 Kings 21:20-26). Like thunderbolts the words of Elijah strike home. Ahab "fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly." But the die was cast. Yahweh is vindicated. Never again, in the history of Israel can Baal, the inspirer of injustice, claim a place at the side of Yahweh, the God of righteousness.

6. Ahab's Building Operations: In common with oriental monarchs, Ahab displayed a taste for architecture, stimulated, no doubt, by Phoenician influence. Large building operations were undertaken in Samaria (1 Kings 16:32; 2 Kings 10:21). Solomon had an ivory throne, but Ahab built for himself, in Jezreel, a palace adorned with woodwork and inlaid with ivory (1 Kings 21:1; 22:39). Perhaps Amos, one hundred years later, refers to the work of Ahab when he says, "The houses of ivory shall perish" (Amos 3:15). In his day Hiel of Bethel undertook to rebuild Jericho, notwithstanding the curse of Joshua (1 Kings 16:33-34). Many cities were built during his reign (1 Kings 22:39).

7. Ahab's Military Career: Ahab was not only a splendor-loving monarch, but a great military leader as well. He no doubt began his military policy by fortifying the cities of Israel (1 Kings 16:34; 22:39). Benhadad (the Dadidri of the Assyrian annals; Hadadezer and Barhadad are Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic forms of the same name), the king of Syria, whose vassals the kings of Israel had been (1 Kings 15:19), promptly besieges Samaria, and sends Ahab an insulting message. Ahab replies, "Let not him that girdeth on his armor boast himself as he that putteth it off." At the advice of a prophet of Yahweh, Ahab, with 7,000 men under 232 leaders, inflicts a crushing defeat upon Benhadad and his 32 feudal kings, who had resigned themselves to a drunken carousal (1 Kings 20:1-43 through 1 Kings 21:1-29).

In the following year, the Syrian army, in spite of its overwhelming superiority, meets another defeat at the hands of Ahab in the valley, near Aphek. On condition that Benhadad restore all Israelite territory and grant the Hebrews certain rights in Damascus, Ahab spares his life to the great indignation of the prophet (1 Kings 20:22 f).

In the year 854, Ahab with 2,000 chariots and 10,000 men, fights shoulder to shoulder with Benhadad against Shalmaneser II, king of Assyria. At Karkar, on the Orontes, Benhadad, with his allied forces, suffered an overwhelming defeat (COT, II, i, 183 f).

Perhaps Benhadad blamed Ahab for the defeat. At any rate he fails to keep his promise to Ahab (1 Kings 22:3; 20:34). Lured by false prophets, but against the dramatic warning of Micaiah, Ahab is led to take up the gauntlet against Syria once more. His friend, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, joins him in the conflict. For the first time since the days of David all Israel and Judah stand united against the common foe.

8. Ahab's Death: Possibly the warning of Micaiah gave Ahab a premonition that this would be has last fight. He enters the battle in disguise, but in vain. An arrow, shot at random, inflicts a mortal wound. With the fortitude of a hero, in order to avoid a panic, Ahab remains in his chariot all day and dies at sunset. His body is taken to Samaria for burial. A great king had died, and the kingdom declined rapidly after his death. He had failed to comprehend the greatness of Yahweh; he failed to stand for the highest justice, and his sins are visited upon has posterity (1 Kings 22:29 f).

9. Ahab and Archaeology: (1) The Moabite Stone

The Moabite Stone (see MOABITE STONE) bears testimony (lines 7, 8) that Omri and his son (Ahab) ruled over the land of Mehdeba for forty years. When Ahab was occupied with the Syriac wars, Moab rose in insurrection. Mesha informs us in an exaggerated manner that "Israel perished with an everlasting destruction." Mesha recognizes Yahweh as the God of Israel.

(2) The Monolith of Shalmaneser II

The Monolith of Shalmaneser II (Brit Mus; see ASSYRIA) informs us that in 854 ShalmaneserII came in conflict with the kingdom of Hamath, and that BenhadadII with Ahab of Israel and others formed a confederacy to resist the Assyrian advance. The forces of the coalition were defeated at Karkar.

(3) Recent Excavations. Under the direction of Harvard University, excavations have been carried on in Samaria since 1908. In 1909 remains of a Hebrew palace were found. In this palace two grades of construction have been detected. The explorers suggest that they have found the palace of Omri, enlarged and improved by Ahab. This may be the "ivory house" built by Ahab. In August, 1910, about 75 potsherds were found in a building adjacent to Ahab's palace containing writing. The script is the same as that of the Moabite Stone, the words being divided by ink spots. These ostraca seem to be labels attached to jars kept in a room adjoining Ahab's palace. One of them reads, "In the ninth year. From Shaphtan. For Ba`al-zamar. A jar of old wine." Another reads, "Wine of the vineyard of the Tell." These readings remind one of Naboth's vineyard. In another room not far from where the ostraca were found, "was found an alabaster vase inscribed with the name of Ahab's contemporary, Osorkon II of Egypt." Many proper names are found on the ostraca, which have their equivalent in the Old Testament. It is claimed that the writing is far greater than all other ancient Hebrew writing yet known. Perhaps with the publication of all these writings we may expect much light upon Ahab's reign. (See OSTRACA; Harvard Theological Review, January, 1909, April, 1910, January, 1911; Sunday School Times, January 7, 1911; The Jewish Chronicle, January 27, 1911.)

S. K. Mosiman

Ahab and Zedekiah

Ahab and Zedekiah - a'-hab, zed-e-ki'-a ('ach'abh, "uncle"; tsidhqiyahu, "Yahweh is my righteousness"): Ahab, son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah, son of Maaseiah, were two prophets against whom Jeremiah uttered an oracle for prophesying falsely in the name of Yahweh, and for immoral conduct. They should be delivered over to Nebuchadrezzar and be slain, and the captives of Judah that were in Babylon should take up the curse concerning them. "Yahweh make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the King of Babylon roasted in the fire" (Jeremiah 29:21 ff).

S. F. Hunter

Aharah

Aharah - a'-har-a, a-har'-a ('achrach; A, Aara; B, Iaphael, "brother of Rach," or, a brother's follower, though some regard it as a textual corruption for Ahiram): A son of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:1).

See AHIRAM.

Aharahel

Aharahel - a-har'-hel ('acharchel, "brother of Rachel"; Septuagint adelphou Rechab, "brother of Rechab"): A son of Harum of the tribe of Judah (1 Chronicles 4:8).

Ahasai

Ahasai - a'-ha-si, a-ha'-si.

See AHZAI.

Ahasbai

Ahasbai - a-has'-bi ('achacbay, "blooming"): The father of Eliphelet, a Maacathite, a soldier in David's army (2 Samuel 23:34). He was either a native of Abel-beth-maacah (2 Samuel 20:14) or, more probably, of Maacah in Syria (2 Samuel 10:6). The list in 1 Chronicles 11:35-36 gives different names entirely. Here we have Ur and Hepher, which simply show that the text is corrupt in one or both places.

AHASUERUS or ASSEURUS

a-haz-u-e'-rus, (Septuagint Assoueros, but in Tobit 14:15 Asueros; the Latin form of the Hebrew 'achashwerosh, a name better known in its ordinary Greek form of Xerxes): It was the name of two, or perhaps of three kings mentioned in the canonical, or apocryphal, books of the Old Testament.

1. In Esther: There seems to be little reasonable doubt, that we should identify the Ahasuerus of Est with the well-known Xerxes, who reigned over Persia from 485 to 465 BC, and who made the great expedition against Greece that culminated in the defeat of the Persian forces at Salamis and Plataea. If Est be taken as equivalent to Ishtar, it may well be the same as the Amestris of Herodotus, which in Babylonian would be Ammi-Ishtar, or Ummi-Ishtar. Amestris is said to have been the daughter of Otanes, a distinguished general of Xerxes, and the grand-daughter of Sisamnes, a notorious judge, who was put to death with great cruelty by the king because of malfeasance in office. Sisamnes may be in Babylonian Shamash-ammanu-(shallim). If he were the brother and Otanes the nephew of Mordecai, we can easily account for the ease with which the latter and has ward Esther, were advanced and confirmed in their Positions at the court, of Xerxes.

2. In Ezra: An Ahasuerus is mentioned in Ezra 4:6, as one to whom some persons unnamed wrote an accusation against Judah and Jerusalem. Ewald and others have suggested that this Ahasuerus was Cambyses, the son and successor of Cyrus. It seems to be more probable that Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius Hystaspis, is meant: first, because in the following verse Artaxerxes, the son and successor of Xerxes, is mentioned; and secondly, because we have no evidence whatever that Cambyses was ever called Ahasuerus, whereas there is absolute certainty that the Pets Khshayarsha, the Hebrew 'achashwerosh, the Greek Assoueros or Xerxes, and the Latin Ahasuerus, are the exact equivalents of one another.

3. In Tobit: In the apocryphal book of Tobit (14:15, the King James Version) it is said that before Tobias died he heard of the destruction of Nineveh, which was taken by Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus. This Assuerus can have been no other than Cyaxares, who according to Herodotus (i.196) took Nineveh and reduced the Assyrians into subjection, with the exception of the Babylonian district. As we shall see below, he was probably the same as the Ahasuerus of Daniel 9:1. The phrase "which was taken by Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus" is not found in the Syriac version of Tobit.

4. In Daniel: An Ahasuerus is said in Daniel 9:1 to have been the father of Darius the Mede, and to have been of the seed of the Medes. It is probable that this Ahasuerus is the same as the Uvakhshatara of the Persian recension of the Behistun inscription, which in the Babylonian is Umaku'ishtar, in the Susian Makishtarra, and in Herod Cyaxares. It will be noted that both the Greek Cyaxares and the Hebrew Akhashwerosh omit the preformative uwa- and the "t" of the Persian form Uvakhshatara. That this Median king had sons living in the time of Cyrus is shown by the fact that two rebel aspirants to the throne in the time of Darius Hystaspis claimed to be his sons, to wit: Fravartish, a Median, who lied saying, "I am Khshathrita of the family of Uvakhshatara" (Behistun Inscr, col. II, v); and Citrantakhma, who said, "I am king in Sagartia of the family of Uvakhshatara" (id, II, xiv). If we accept the identification of Gubaru with Darius the Mede, then the latter may well have been another of his sons, at first a sub-king to Astyages the Scythian, as he was later to Cyrus the Persian.

R. Dick Wilson

Ahava

Ahava - a-ha'-va ('ahawa'): The river in Babylonia on the banks of which Ezra gathered together the Jews who accompanied him to Jerusalem. At this rendezvous the company encamped for three days to make preparation for the difficult and dangerous journey (Ezra 8:15 ff). On reviewing the people and the priests Ezra found no Levites among them; he therefore sent to Iddo, "the chief at the place Casiphia," a request for ministers for the temple. A number of Levites with 220 Nethinim returned to the rendezvous with the deputation. Ezra had expressed to the king his faith in the protection of God; being, therefore, ashamed to ask for a military escort he proclaimed a fast to seek of God "a straight way." To 12 priests Ezra assigned the care of the offering for the temple in Jerusalem. When all was ready the company "departed from the river Ahava," and journeyed in safety to Jerusalem.

This river, apparently called after a town or district toward which it flowed (Ezra 8:15), remains unidentified, though many conjectures have been made. Rawlinson thinks it is the "Is" of Herodotus (i.79), now called "Hit," which flowed past a town of the same name in the Euphrates basin, 8 days' journey from Babylon. Some identify the district with "Ivvah" (2 Kings 18:34, etc.). Most probably, however, this was one of the numerous canals which intersected Babylonia, flowing from the Euphrates toward a town or district "Ahava." If so, identification is impossible.

S. F. Hunter

Ahaz

Ahaz - a'-haz ('achaz, "he has grasped," 2 Kings 16:1-20; 2 Chronicles 28:1-27; Isaiah 7:10 ff; Achaz).

1. Name: The name is the same as Jehoahaz; hence appears on Tiglath-pileser's Assyrian inscription of 732 BC as Ia-u-ha-zi. The sacred historians may have dropped the first part of the name in consequence of the character of the king.

2. The Accession: Ahaz was the son of Jotham, king of Judah. He succeeded to the throne at the age of 20 years (according to another reading 25). The chronology of his reign is difficult, as his son Hezekiah is stated to have been 25 years of age when he began to reign 16 years after (2 Kings 18:2). If the accession of Ahaz be placed as early as 743 BC, his grandfather Uzziah, long unable to perform the functions of his office on account of his leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:21), must still have been alive. (Others date Ahaz later, when Uzziah, for whom Jotham had acted as regent, was already dead.)

3. Early Idolatries: Although so young, Ahaz seems at once to have struck out an independent course wholly opposed to the religious traditions of his nation. His first steps in this direction were the causing to be made and circulated of molten images of the Baalim, and the revival in the valley of Hinnom, south of the city, of the abominations of the worship of Moloch (2 Chronicles 28:2-3). He is declared to have made his own son "pass through the fire" (2 Kings 16:3); the chronicler puts it even more strongly: he "burnt his children in the fire" (2 Chronicles 28:3). Other acts of idolatry were to follow.

4. Peril from Syria and Israel: The kingdom of Judah was at this time in serious peril. Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, had already, in the days of Jotham, begun to harass Judah (2 Kings 15:37); now a conspiracy was formed to dethrone the young Ahaz, and set upon the throne a certain "son of Tabeel" (Isaiah 7:6). An advance of the two kings was made against Jerusalem, although without success (2 Kings 16:5; Isaiah 7:1); the Jews were expelled from Elath (2 Kings 16:6), and the country was ravaged, and large numbers taken captive (2 Chronicles 28:5 ff). Consternation was universal. The heart of Ahaz "trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind" (Isaiah 7:2). In his extremity Ahaz appealed to the king of Assyria for help (2 Kings 16:7; 2 Chronicles 28:16).

5. Isaiah's Messages to the King: Amid the general alarm and perturbation, the one man untouched by it in Jerusalem was the prophet Isaiah. Undismayed, Isaiah set himself, apparently single-handed, to turn the tide of public opinion from the channel in which it was running, the seeking of aid from Assyria. His appeal was to both king and people. By Divine direction, meeting Ahaz "at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field," he bade him have no fear of "these two tails of smoking firebrands," Rezin and Pekah, for, like dying torches, they would speedily be extinguished (Isaiah 7:3 ff). If he would not believe this he would not be established (Isaiah 7:9). Failing to win the young king's confidence, Isaiah was sent a second time, with the offer from Yahweh of any sign Ahaz chose to ask, "either in the depth, or in the height above," in attestation of the truth of the Divine word. The frivolous monarch refused the arbitrament on the hypocritical ground, "I will not ask, neither will I tempt Yahweh" (Isaiah 7:10-12). Possibly his ambassadors were already dispatched to the Assyrian king. Whenever they went, they took with them a large subsidy with which to buy that ruler's favor (2 Kings 16:8). It was on this occasion that Isaiah, in reply to Ahaz, gave the reassuring prophecy of Immanuel (Isaiah 7:13 ff).

6. Isaiah's Tablet: As respects the people, Isaiah was directed to exhibit on "a great tablet" the words "For Maher-shalal-hash-baz" ("swift the spoil, speedy the prey"). This was attested by two witnesses, one of whom was Urijah, the high priest. It was a solemn testimony that, without any action on the part of Judah, "the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria" (Isaiah 8:1-4).

7. Fall of Damascus and Its Results: It was as the prophet had foretold. Damascus fell, Rezin was killed (2 Kings 16:9), and Israel was raided (2 Kings 15:29). The action brought temporary relief to Judah, but had the effect of placing her under the heel of Assyria. Everyone then living knew that there could be no equal alliance between Judah and Assyria, and that the request for help, accompanied by the message, "I am thy servant" (2 Kings 16:7-8) and by "presents" of gold and silver, meant the submission of Judah and the annual payment of a heavy tribute. Had Isaiah's counsel been followed, Tiglath-pileser would probably, in his own interests, have been compelled to crush the coalition, and Judah would have retained her freedom.

8. Sun-Dial of Ahaz: The political storm having blown over for the present, with the final loss of the important port of Elath on the Red Sea (2 Kings 16:6), Ahaz turned his attention to more congenial pursuits. The king was somewhat of a dilettante in matters of art, and he set up a sun-dial, which seems to have consisted of a series of steps arranged round a short pillar, the time being indicated by the position of the shadow on the steps (compare 2 Kings 20:9-11; Isaiah 38:8). As it is regarded as possible for the shadow to return 10 steps, it is clear that each step did not mark an hour of the day, but some smaller period.

9. The Lavers and Brazen Sea: Another act of the king was to remove from the elaborate ornamental bases on which they had stood (compare 1 Kings 7:27-39), the ten layers of Solomon, and also to remove Solomon's molten sea from the 12 brazen bulls which supported it (compare 1 Kings 7:23-26), the sea being placed upon a raised platform or pavement (2 Kings 16:17). From Jeremiah 52:20, where the prophet sees "the Jeremiah 12:1-17 brazen bulls that were under the bases," it has been conjectured that the object of the change may have been to transfer the layers to the backs of the bulls.

10. The Damascus Altar: To this was added a yet more daring act of impiety. In 732 Ahaz was, with other vassal princes, summoned to Damascus to pay homage to Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 16:10; his name appears in the Assyrian inscription). There he saw a heathen altar of fanciful pattern, which greatly pleased him. A model of this was sent to Urijah the high priest, with instructions to have an enlarged copy of it placed in the temple court. On the king's return to Jerusalem, he sacrificed at the new altar, but, not satisfied with its position, gave orders for a change. The altar had apparently been placed on the east side of the old altar; directions were now given for the brazen altar to be moved to the north, and the Damascus altar to be placed in line with it, in front of the temple giving both equal honor. Orders were further given to Urijah that the customary sacrifices should be offered on the new altar, now called "the great altar," while the king reserved the brazen altar for himself "to inquire by" (2 Kings 16:15).

11. Further Impieties: Even this did not exhaust the royal innovations. We learn from a later notice that the doors of the temple porch were shut, that the golden candlestick was not lighted, that the offering of incense was not made, and other solemnities were suspended (2 Chronicles 29:7). It is not improbable that it was Ahaz who set up `the horses of the sun' mentioned in 2 Kings 23:11, and gave them accommodation in the precincts of the temple. He certainly built the "altars .... on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz," perhaps above the porch of the temple, for the adoration of the heavenly bodies (verse 12). Many other idolatries and acts of national apostasy are related regarding him (2 Chronicles 28:22 ff).

12. Recurrence of Hostilities: In the later years of his unhappy reign there was a recurrence of hostilities with the inhabitants of Philistia and Edom, this time with disaster to Judah (see the list of places lost in 2 Chronicles 28:18-19). New appeal was made to Tiglath-pileser, whose subject Ahaz, now was, and costly presents were sent from the temple, the royal palace, and even the houses of the princes of Judah, but without avail (2 Chronicles 28:19-21). The Assyrian `distressed' Ahaz, but rendered no assistance. In his trouble the wicked king only "trespassed yet more" (2 Chronicles 28:22).

13. Death of Ahaz: Ahaz died in 728, after 16 years of misused power. The exultation with which the event was regarded is reflected in Isaiah's little prophecy written "in the year that King Ahaz died" (Isaiah 14:28-32). The statement in 2 Kings 16:20 that Ahaz "was buried with his fathers in the city of David" is to be understood in the light of 2 Chronicles 28:27, that he was buried in Jerusalem, but that his body was not laid in the sepulchers of the kings of Israel. His name appears in the royal genealogies in 1 Chronicles 3:13 and Matthew 1:9.

W. Shaw Caldecott

Ahaz, Dial of

Ahaz, Dial of - See DIAL OF AHAZ.

Ahaziah

Ahaziah - a-ha-zi'-a ('achazyah and 'achazyahu, "Yah holds, or sustains"):

I. Ahaziah. Son of Ahab and Jezebel, eighth king of Israel (1 Kings 22:51 through 2 Kings 1:18).

1. His Reign: Ahaziah became king over Israel in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and he reigned two years, 854-853 BC. There is, here an incongruity between the synchronism and the length of the reigns of the kings. Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fourth year of Ahab (1 Kings 22:41), and he reigned 22 years (1 Kings 16:29). Accordingly Ahaziah's first year, in the twenty-second year of Ahab, would fall in the nineteenth year of Jehoshaphat. The chronological statement in 2 Kings 1:17 is probably taken from the Syriac, and both are in harmony wrath a method of computation followed by certain Greek manuscripts.

2. His Character: A good name does not insure a good character. Ahaziah, the "God-sustained," served Baal and worshipped him, and provoked to anger Yahweh, the God of Israel, Just as his father before him had done. He appears to have been weak and unfortunate, and calamities in quick succession pursued him.

3. The Revolt of Moab: Ahab had sought the good and became an enemy to the best. His house and the nation suffered the consequences. "Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab." Ahaziah appears to have been too weak to offer resistance. The Moabite Stone dates the revolt in the days of Ahab. No doubt it began at the time of Ahab's last campaign against Syria.

4. His Maritime Alliance: According to 1 Kings 22:48 f Ahaziah attempted to form an alliance with Jehoshaphat of Judah to revive the ancient maritime traffic, but failed. According to 2 Chronicles 20:35-37 the alliance was consummated, in consequence of which the enterprise came to nothing.

See JEHOSHAPHAT.

5. His Sickness and Death: Ahaziah suffered a severe accident by falling through the lattice in his upper apartment in Samaria, and lay sick. As a worthy son of Jezebel and Ahab, he sent messengers to consult Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, regarding his recovery. But Israel belonged to Yahweh. Accordingly the messengers were met by the prophet Elijah who for the last time warns against the corrupting moral influences of the Baal religion. "Thus saith Yahweh, Is it because there is no God in Israel, that thou sendest to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? therefore thou shalt not come down from the bed whither thou art gone up, but shalt surely die" was the message which he sent back to the embassy, and the death of the king speedily followed.

II. Ahaziah. Sixth king of Judah (2 Kings 8:25-29; 9:16 f = 2 Chronicles 22:1-9); also written Jehoahaz (2 Chronicles 21:17; 25:23), which is merely a transposition of the component parts of the compound. The form "Azariah" (2 Chronicles 22:6) is an error, fifteen Hebrew manuscripts and all the versions reading Ahaziah.

1. His Brief Reign: Ahaziah, youngest son of Jehoram, began to reign in the twelfth year (2 Kings 8:25) of Jehoram of Israel. In 2 Kings 9:29 it is stated as the eleventh. The former is probably the Hebrew, the latter the Greek method of computation, the Septuagint Luc also reading eleventh in 8:25. He was 22 years old when he began to reign and he reigned one year (2 Kings 8:26). The reading "forty two" (2 Chronicles 22:2) is a scribal error, since according to 2 Chronicles 21:5, 20 Jehoram the father was only 40 years old at the time of his death. Syriac, Arabic and Luc read 22, Septuagint Codex Vaticanus 20.

See CHRONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

2. His Character: (Compare 2 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 22:3-4.) In view of the disaster which befell the royal house (2 Chronicles 21:16-17), the inhabitants of Jerusalem placed Ahaziah the youngest son upon the throne. That "he walked in the way of the house of Ahab" is exemplified by Chronicles to the effect that his mother, the daughter of Jezebel, counseled him in the ways of wickedness and that the house of Ahab led him to his destruction. The influence of Jezebel was at work in Judah. Ahaziah dedicated "hallowed things" to Yahweh (2 Kings 12:18), but he did evil in Yahweh's eyes.

3. His Alliance with Jehoram of Israel: (Compare 2 Kings 8:28, 29; 2 Chronicles 22:5-6.) Ahaziah cultivated the relations which had been established between the two kingdoms by Ahab. Accordingly he joined his uncle Jehoram of Israel in an expedition against Hazael, king of Syria. Ramoth-gilead was captured and held for Israel against the king of Syria (2 Kings 9:14). However, Jehoram of Israel was wounded and returned to Jezreel to be healed of his wounds. It appears that the army was left in charge of Jehu at Ramoth-gilead. Ahaziah apparently went to Jerusalem and later went down to Jezreel to visit Jehoram. In the meantime Jehu formed a conspiracy against Jehoram.

4. His Death: The death of Ahaziah, as told in 2 Kings 9:16 f, differs from the account in 2 Chronicles 22:7-9. According to the account in Kings, Ahaziah who is visiting Jehoram, joins him in a separate chariot to meet Jehu. Jehoram suspecting treachery turns to flee, but an arrow from the bow of Jehu pierces his heart and he dies in his chariot. Ahaziah tries to escape, but is overtaken near Ibleam and mortally wounded by one of Jehu's men. He fled to the fortress of Megiddo, where he died. His servants conveyed his body in a chariot to Jerusalem, where he was buried. According to the Chronicler, this account is very much abbreviated (2 Chronicles 22:7 f). His destruction is of God because of his alliance with Jehoram. Jehu, who was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, first slew the kinsmen of Ahaziah. He then sought Ahaziah who was hiding in Samaria. When he was found, he was brought to Jehu and put to death. He was buried, but where and by whom we are not told.

That there were other traditions respecting the death of Ahaziah, is proved by Josephus, who says that when Ahaziah was wounded he left his chariot and fled on horseback to Megiddo, where he was well cared for by his servants until he died (Ant., IX, vi, 3).

S. K. Mosiman

Ahban

Ahban - a'-ban ('achban, "brother of an intelligent one"(?) Achbar): The son of Abishur of the tribe of Judah (1 Chronicles 2:29).

Aher

Aher - a'-her ('acher, "another"; Aer): A man of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 7:12), apparently a contracted form, perhaps the same as Ahiram (King James Version) (Numbers 26:38) or Aharah (1 Chronicles 8:1).