A Biblical and Theological Dictionary explanatory of the history, manners, and customs of the Jews, and neighbouring nations (part 6 of 11)

Sanchoniathon represents the most ancient nations, particularly the Phenicians and Egyptians, as acknowledging only the natural gods, the sun, moon, planets, and elements; and Plato declares it as his opinion, that the first Grecians likewise held these only to be gods, as many of the barbarians did in his time. Beside these natural gods, the Heathens believed that there were certain spirits who held a middle rank between the gods and men on earth, and carried on all intercourse between them; conveying the addresses of men to the gods, and the divine benefits to men. These spirits were called demons. From the imaginary office ascribed to them, they became the grand objects of the religious hopes and fears of the Pagans, of immediate dependence and divine worship. In the most learned nations, they did not so properly share, as engross, the public devotion. To these alone sacrifices were offered, while the celestial gods were worshipped only with a pure mind, or with hymns and praises. As to the nature of these demons, it has been generally believed, that they were spirits of a higher origin than the human race; and, in support of this opinion, it has been alleged, that the supreme deity of the Pagans is called the greatest demon; that demons are described as beings placed between the gods and men; and that demons are expressly distinguished from heroes, who were the departed souls of men. Some, however, have combatted this opinion, and maintained, on the contrary, that by demons, such as were the more immediate objects of the established worship among the ancient nations, particularly the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, we are to understand beings of an earthly origin, or such departed human souls as were believed to become demons.

Although the Hindoo inhabitants of the East Indies deny the charge of idolatry, using the same description of arguments as are so inconclusively urged by superstitious Europeans in defence of image worship, it is still evident that the mass of the Hindoos are addicted to gross idolatry. The gods of Rome were even less numerous, certainly less whimsical and monstrous, than those at Benares. In Moore’s Hindoo Pantheon are given exact portraits of many scores of deities worshipped, with appropriate ceremonies, and under various forms and names, by different sects of that grossly superstitious race. Some of these portraits are of images colossal to a degree perhaps unequalled by any existing statues; others are exceedingly diminutive. Some are metallic casts, and some apparently extremely ancient, which exhibit every gradation of art from the rudest imaginable specimen, up to a very respectable portion of skill, so as to approach to elegance of form, and to ease and expression of attitude.

The principal causes which have been assigned for idolatry are, the indelible idea which every man has of God, and the evidence which he gives of it to himself; an inviolable attachment to the senses, and a habit of judging and deciding by them, and them only; the pride and vanity of the human mind, which is not satisfied with simple truth, but mingles and adulterates it with fables; men’s ignorance of antiquity, or of the first times, and the first men, of whom they had but very dark and confused knowledge by tradition, they having left no written monuments, or books; the ignorance and change of languages; the style of the oriental writings, which is figurative and poetical, and personifies every thing; the scruples and fears inspired by superstition; the flattery and fictions of poets; the false relations of travellers; the imaginations of painters and sculptors; a smattering of physics, that is, a slight acquaintance with natural bodies and appearances, and their causes; the establishment of colonies, and the invention of arts, mistaken by barbarous people; the artifices of priests; the pride of certain men, who affected to pass for gods; the love and gratitude borne by the people to certain of their great men and benefactors; and, finally, the historical events of the Scriptures ill understood. “One great spring and fountain of all idolatry,” says Sir William Jones, “was the veneration paid by men to the sun, or vast body of fire, which ‘looks from his sole dominion like the god of this world;’ and another, the immoderate respect shown to the memory of powerful or virtuous ancestors and warriors, of whom the sun and the moon were wildly supposed to be the parents.” But the Scriptural account of the matter refers the whole to wilful ignorance and a corrupt heart: “They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” To this may be added, what indeed proceeds from the same sources, the disposition to convert religion into outward forms; the endeavour to render it more impressive upon the imagination through the senses; the substitution of sentiment for real religious principle; and the license which this gave to inventions of men, which in process of time became complicated and monstrous. That debasement of mind, and that alienation of the heart from God, and the gross immoralities and licentious practices which have ever accompanied idolatry, will sufficiently account for the severity with which it is denounced, both in the Old and New Testaments.

The veneration which the Papists pay to the Virgin Mary, and other saints and angels, and to the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics, and images, affords ground for the Protestants to charge them with being idolaters, though they deny that they are so. It is evident that they worship these persons and things, and that they justify the worship, but deny the idolatry of it, by distinguishing subordinate from supreme worship. This distinction is justly thought by Protestants to be futile and nugatory, and certainly has no support from Holy Writ.

Under the government of Samuel, Saul, and David, there was little or no idolatry in Israel. Solomon was the first Hebrew king, who, in complaisance to his foreign wives, built temples and offered incense to strange gods. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who succeeded him in the greater part of his dominions, set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Under the reign of Ahab, this disorder was at its height, occasioned by Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, who did all she could to destroy the worship of the true God, by driving away and persecuting his prophets. God, therefore, incensed at the sins and idolatry of the ten tribes, abandoned those tribes to the kings of Assyria and Chaldea, who transplanted them beyond the Euphrates, from whence they never returned. The people of Judah were no less corrupted. The prophets give an awful description of their idolatrous practices. They were punished after the same manner, though not so severely, as the ten tribes; being led into captivity several times, from which at last they returned, and were settled in the land of Judea, after which we hear no more of their idolatry. They have been, indeed, ever since that period, distinguished for their zeal against it. See Image.

IDUMÆA is properly the Greek name for the land of Edom, which lay to the south of Judea, and extended from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, where were the ports of Elath and Ezion-Gaber. But the Idumæa of the New Testament applies only to a small part adjoining Judea on the south, and including even a portion of that country; which was taken possession of by the Edomites, or Idumæans, while the land lay unoccupied during the Babylonish captivity. The capital of this country was Hebron, which had formerly been the metropolis of the tribe of Judah. These Idumæans were so reduced by the Maccabees, that, in order to retain their possessions, they consented to embrace Judaism; and their territory became incorporated with Judea; although, in the time of our Saviour, it still retained its former name of Idumæa, Mark iii, 8. The proper Idumæans, or those who remained in the ancient land of Edom, became in process of time mingled with the Ishmaelites; the two people thus blended, being, from Nabaioth, or Nabath, the son of Ishmael, termed Nabathæans; under which names they are frequently mentioned in history. See EDOM.

ILLYRICUM, a province lying to the north and north-west of Macedonia, along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Gulf, or Gulf of Venice. It was distinguished into two parts: Liburnia to the north, where is now Croatia, and Dalmatia to the south, which still retains the same name, and to which, as St. Paul informs Timothy, Titus went, 2 Tim. iv, 10. St. Paul says, that he preached the Gospel from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum, Rom. xv, 19.

IMAGE, in a religious sense, is an artificial representation of some person or thing used as an object of adoration, and is synonymous with idol. Nothing can be more clear, full, and distinct, than the expressions of Scripture prohibiting the making and worship of images, Exod. xx, 4, 5; Deut. xvi, 22. No sin is so strongly and repeatedly condemned in the Old Testament as that of idolatry, to which the Jews, in the early part of their history, were much addicted, and for which they were constantly punished. St. Paul was greatly affected, when he saw that the city of Athens was “wholly given to idolatry,” Acts xvii, 16; and declared to the Athenians, that they ought not “to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device,” Acts xvii, 29. He condemns those who “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things,” Romans i, 23.

That the first Christians had no images, is evident from this circumstance,--that they were reproached by the Heathens, because they did not use them; and we find almost every ecclesiastical writer of the first four centuries arguing against the Gentile practice of image worship, from the plain declarations of Scripture, and from the pure and spiritual nature of God. The introduction of images into places of Christian worship, dates its origin soon after the times of Constantine the Great; but the earlier Christians reprobated every species of image worship in the strongest language. It is sometimes pretended by the Papists, that they do not worship the images, but God through the medium of images; or, that the worship which they pay to images is inferior to that which they pay to the Deity himself. These distinctions would be scarcely understood by the common people; and formerly an enlightened Heathen or Jew would probably have urged the same thing. The practice is in direct opposition to the second commandment, and notwithstanding every sophistical palliation, it has always led to a transfer of human trust from God to something else. Hence idolatry, in general, is condemned in Scripture; and all use of images in the worship of God, making or bowing to any likeness, is absolutely forbidden. See ICONOCLASTES and IDOLATRY.

IMMATERIALITY, abstraction from matter; or what we understand by pure spirit.

IMMORTAL. That which will endure to all eternity, as having in itself no principle of alteration or corruption. God is absolutely immortal,--he cannot die. Angels are immortal; but God, who made them, can terminate their being. Man is immortal in part, that is, in his spirit; but his body dies. Inferior creatures are not immortal; they die wholly. Thus the principle of immortality is differently communicated according to the will of him who can render any creature immortal, by prolonging its life; who can confer immortality on the body of man, together with his soul; and will do so at the resurrection. God only is absolutely perfect, and, therefore, absolutely immortal. See SOUL.

IMPOSITION OF HANDS. An ecclesiastical action, by which, among Episcopalians, a bishop lays his hands on the head of a person, in ordination, confirmation, or in uttering a blessing. In Presbyterian churches, the imposition is by the hands of the presbytery. This practice is also frequently observed by the Independents and others at their ordinations, when all the ministers present place their hands on the head of him whom they are ordaining, while one of them prays for a blessing on him and his future labours. This they retain as an ancient practice, justified by the example of the Apostles, when no extraordinary gifts were conveyed. However, Christians are not agreed as to the propriety of this ceremony; nor do they all consider it as an essential part of ordination.

Imposition of hands was a Jewish ceremony, introduced, not by any divine authority, but by custom; it being the practice among that people, whenever they prayed to God for any person, to lay their hands on his head. Our Saviour observed the same custom, both when he conferred his blessing on children, and when he cured the sick. The Apostles likewise laid hands on those upon whom they bestowed the Holy Ghost, but it was a form accompanied by prayer, through which only the blessing was obtained. And the Apostles themselves sometimes underwent the imposition of hands afresh, when they entered upon any new design. In the ancient church, imposition of hands was practised on persons when they married; which custom the Abyssinians still observe. But this ceremony of laying on of hands is now restrained, by custom, chiefly to that imposition which is practised at the ordination of ministers.

[In the Methodist Episcopal Church, a bishop is constituted by the election of the general conference, and the laying on of the hands of three bishops, or at least of one bishop and two elders; unless it happen that, by death or otherwise, there be no bishop remaining in the church: in this case, the general conference is empowered to elect a bishop, and the elders, or any three of them appointed by the general conference for that purpose, to ordain him. An elder is constituted by the election of an annual conference, and the laying on of the hands of a bishop and of two or more elders. A deacon, by the election of an annual conference, and the laying on of the hands of a bishop.]

IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. See JUSTIFICATION.

INCENSE. Thus; so called by the dealers of drugs in Egypt from thur, or thor, the name of a harbour in the north bay of the Red Sea, near Mount Sinai; thereby distinguishing it from the gum arabic, which is brought from Suez, another port in the Red Sea, not far from Cairo. It differs also in being more pellucid and white. It burns with a bright and strong flame, not easily extinguished. It was used in the temple service as an emblem of prayer, Psalm cxli, 2; Rev. viii, 3, 4. Authors give it, or the best sort of it, the epithets white, pure, pellucid; and so it may have some connection with a word, derived from the same root, signifying unstained, clear, and so applied to moral whiteness and purity, Psalm li, 7; Dan. xii, 10. This gum is said to distil from incisions made in the tree during the heat of summer. What the form of the tree is which yields it, we do not certainly know. Pliny one while says, it is like a pear tree; another, that it is like a mastic tree; then, that it is like the laurel; and, in fine, that it is a kind of turpentine tree. It has been said to grow only in the country of the Sabeans, a people in Arabia Felix; and Theophrastus and Pliny affirm that it is found in Arabia. Dioscorides, however, mentions an Indian as well as an Arabian frankincense. At the present day it is brought from the East Indies, but not of so good a quality as that from Arabia. The “sweet incense,” mentioned Exodus xxx, 7, and elsewhere, was a compound of several drugs, agreeably to the direction in the thirty-fourth verse. To offer incense was an office peculiar to the priests. They went twice a day into the holy place; namely, morning and evening, to burn incense there. Upon the great day of expiation, the high priest took incense, or perfume, pounded and ready for being put into the censer, and threw it upon the fire, the moment he went into the sanctuary. One reason of this was, that so the smoke which rose from the censer might prevent his looking with too much curiosity on the ark and mercy-seat. God threatened him with death upon failing to perform this ceremony, Lev. xvi, 13. Generally incense is to be considered as an emblem of the “prayers of the saints,” and is so used by the sacred writers.

INCEST, an unlawful conjunction of persons related within the degrees of kindred prohibited by God. In the beginning of the world, and again, long after the deluge, marriages between near relations were allowed. In the time of Abraham and Isaac, these marriages were permitted, and among the Persians much later: it is even said to be esteemed neither criminal nor ignominious among the remains of the old Persians at this day. Some authors believe that marriages between near relations were permitted, or, at least, tolerated, till the time of Moses, who first prohibited them among the Hebrews; and that among other people they were allowed even after him. Others hold the contrary; but it is hard to establish either of these opinions, for want of historical documents. The degrees of consanguinity within which marriage was prohibited are stated in Lev. xviii, 6–18. Most civilized people have looked on incests as abominable crimes. St. Paul, speaking of the incestuous man of Corinth, says, “It is reported commonly, that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife,” 1 Cor. v, 1. In order to preserve chastity in families, and between persons of different sexes, brought up and living together in a state of unreserved intimacy, it is necessary, by every method possible, to inculcate an abhorrence of incestuous conjunctions; which abhorrence can only be upholden by the absolute reprobation of all commerce of the sexes between near relations. Upon this principle, the marriage, as well as other cohabitations, of brothers and sisters, of lineal kindred, and of all who usually live in the same family, may be said to be forbidden by the law of nature. Restrictions which extend to remoter degrees of kindred than what this reason makes it necessary to prohibit from intermarriage, are founded in the authority of the positive law which ordains them, and can only be justified by their tendency to diffuse wealth, to connect families, or to promote some political advantage. The Levitical law, which is received in this country, and from which the rule of the Roman law differs very little, prohibits marriages between relations within three degrees of kindred; computing the generations, not from, but through, the common ancestor, and accounting affinity the same as consanguinity. The issue, however, of such marriages are not bastardized, unless the parents be divorced during their life time.

INCHANTMENTS. The law of God condemns inchantments and inchanters. Several terms are used in Scripture to denote inchantments: 1. לחש, which signifies to mutter, to speak with a low voice, like magicians in their evocations and magical operations, Psalm lviii, 6. 2. לטים, secrets, whence Moses speaks of the inchantments wrought by Pharaoh’s magicians. 3. כשף, meaning those who practise juggling, legerdemain, tricks, and witchery, deluding people’s eyes and senses, 2 Chron. xxxiii, 6. 4. חבר, which signifies, properly, to bind, assemble, associate, reunite: this occurs principally among those who charm serpents, who tame them, and make them gentle and sociable, which before were fierce, dangerous, and untractable, Deut. xviii, 11. We have examples of each of these ways of inchanting. It was common for magicians, sorcerers, and inchanters, to speak in a low voice, to whisper: they are called ventriloqui, because they spake, as one would suppose, from the bottom of their stomachs. They affected secrecy and mysterious ways, to conceal the vanity, folly, or infamy of their pernicious art. Their pretended magic often consisted in cunning tricks only, in sleight of hand, or some natural secrets, unknown to the ignorant. They affected obscurity and night, or would show their skill only before the uninformed or mean persons, and feared nothing so much as serious examinations, broad day-light, and the inspection of the intelligent. Respecting the inchantments practised by Pharaoh’s magicians, (see Exod. viii, 18, 19,) in order to imitate the miracles which were wrought by Moses, it must be said either that they were mere illusions, whereby they imposed on the spectators; or that, if they performed such miracles, and produced real changes of their rods, and the other things said to be performed by them, it must have been by a supernatural power which God had permitted Satan to give them, but the farther operation of which he afterward thought proper to prevent.

INDEPENDENTS, a denomination of Protestants in England and Holland, originally called Brownists. They derive their name from their maintaining that every particular congregation of Christians has, according to the New Testament, a full power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over its members, independent of the authority of bishops, synods, presbyteries, or any other ecclesiastical assemblies. This denomination appeared in England in the year 1616. John Robinson, a Norfolk divine, who, being banished from his native country for non-conformity, afterward settled at Leyden, was considered as their founder and father. He possessed sincere piety, and no inconsiderable share of learning. Perceiving defects in the denomination of the Brownists, to which he belonged, he employed his zeal and diligence in correcting them and in new modelling the society. Though the Independents considered their own form of ecclesiastical government as of divine institution, and as originally introduced by the authority of the Apostles, nay, by the Apostles themselves; yet they did not always think it necessary to condemn other denominations, but often acknowledged that true religion might flourish in those communities which were under the jurisdiction of bishops, or the government of presbyteries. They approved, also, of a regular and educated ministry; nor is any person among them now permitted to speak in public before he has submitted to a proper examination of his capacity and talents, and has been approved of by the church to which he belonged. Their grounds of separation from the established church are different from those of other puritans. Many of the latter objected chiefly to certain rites, ceremonies, vestments, or forms, or to the government of the church; while yet they were disposed to arm the magistrate in support of the truth, and regretted and complained that they could not on these accounts conform to it. But Robinson and his companions not only rejected the appointments of the church on these heads, but denied its authority to enact them; contending, that every single congregation of Christians was a church, and independent of all legislation, save that of Christ; standing in need of no such provision or establishment as the state can bestow, and incapable of soliciting or receiving it. Hence they sought not to reform the church, but chose to dissent from it. They admitted there were many godly men in its communion, and that it was reformed from the grossest errors of the man of sin; but thought it still wanted some things essential to a true church of Christ; in particular, a power of choosing its own ministers, and a stricter discipline among its members. The creed of the Independents is uniformly Calvinistic, though with considerable shades of difference; and many in Scotland and Ireland have symbolized with the Sandemanians, or the Scottish Baptist denominations. The Congregationalist and Independent have been generally considered as convertible and synonymous: many, however, in the present day, prefer the former appellation, considering it desirable, in many cases, to unite, for mutual advice and support, more closely than the term independent seems to warrant.

INDULGENCES. In the primitive church very severe penalties were inflicted on those who had been guilty of any sins, whether public or private; and, in particular, they were forbidden to partake, for a certain time, of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or to hold any communion with the church. General rules were formed upon these subjects; but as it was often found expedient to make a discrimination in the degrees of punishment, according to the different circumstances of the offenders, and especially when they showed marks of contrition and repentance, power was given to bishops, by the council of Nice, to relax or remit those punishments as they should see reason. Every favour of this kind was called an indulgence or pardon. After the bishops had enjoyed this privilege for some centuries, and had begun to abuse it, the popes discovered that in their own hands it might be rendered a powerful instrument to promote both their ambition and their avarice. They could not but perceive that if they could persuade men they had the power of granting pardon for sin, it would give them a complete influence over their consciences; and if they could at the same time prevail upon them to purchase these pardons for money, it must add greatly to the wealth of the Roman see. In the eleventh century, therefore, when the dominion of the popes was rising to its zenith, and their power was almost irresistible, they took to themselves the exclusive prerogative of dispensing indulgences, which they carried to a most unwarrantable length. Instead of confining them, according to their original institution, to the ordinary purposes of ecclesiastical discipline, they extended them to the punishment of the wicked in the world to come; instead of shortening the duration of earthly penance, they pretended that they could deliver men from the pains of purgatory; instead of allowing them gratuitously, and upon just grounds, to the penitent offender, they sold them in the most open and corrupt manner to the profligate and abandoned, who still continued in their vices. They did not scruple to call these indulgences a plenary remission of all sins, past, present, and future, and to offer them as a certain and immediate passport from the troubles of this world to the eternal joys of heaven. To give some sort of colour and support to this infamous traffic, they confidently asserted that the superabundant merits of Christ, and of his faithful servants, formed a fund of which the pope was the sole manager; and that he could, at his own discretion, dispense those merits, as the sure means of procuring pardon from God, in any proportions, for any species of wickedness, and to any person he pleased. The bare statement of this doctrine is a sufficient refutation of it; and it is scarcely necessary to add, that it has no foundation whatever in Scripture. It is an arrogant and impious usurpation of a power which belongs to God alone; and it has an obvious tendency to promote licentiousness and sin of every description, by holding out an easy and certain method of absolution. The popes derived very large sums from the sale of these indulgences; and it is well known that the gross abuses practised in granting them were among the immediate and principal causes of bringing about the reformation. They continue still to be sold at Rome, and are to be purchased by any who are weak enough to buy them. The sums required for indulgences were first published by Anthony Egane, a Franciscan friar, in 1673; and the original pamphlet was republished by Baron Maseres, in 1809, in his last volume of “Occasional Essays.”

INK. The ink of the ancients was not so fluid as ours. Demosthenes reproaches Æschines with labouring in the grinding of ink, as painters do in the grinding of their colours. The substance also found in an inkstand at Herculaneum, looks like a thick oil or paint, with which the manuscripts there have been written in a relievo visible in the letters, when you hold a leaf to the light in a horizontal direction. Such vitriolic ink as has been used on the old parchment manuscripts would have corroded the delicate leaves of the papyrus, as it has done the skins of the most ancient manuscripts of Virgil and Terence, in the Vatican library; the letters are sunk into the parchment, and some have eaten quite through it, in consequence of the corrosive acid of the vitriolic ink, with which they were written. The inkhorn is also mentioned in Scripture: “And one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side,” Ezek. ix, 2. The eastern mode and apparatus for writing differs so materially from those with which we are conversant, that it is necessary particularly to describe them. D'Arvieux informs us that “the Arabs of the desert, when they want a favour of their emir, get his secretary to write an order agreeable to their desire, as if the favour were granted, this they carry to the prince, who, after having read it, sets his seal to it with ink, if he grants it; if not, he returns the petitioner his paper torn, and dismisses him. These papers are without date, and have only the emir’s flourish or cypher at the bottom, signifying the poor, the abject Mohammed, son of Turabeye.” Pococke says, that “they make the impression of their name with their seal, generally of cornelian, which they wear on their finger, and which is blacked when they have occasion to seal with it.” The custom of placing the inkhorn by the side, Olearius says, continues in the east to this day. Dr. Shaw informs us, that, among the Moors in Barbary, “the hojas, that is, the writers or secretaries, suspend their inkhorns in their girdles; a custom as old as the Prophet Ezekiel, ix, 2.” And in a note he adds, “that part of these inkhorns (if an instrument of brass may be so called) which passes between the girdle and the tunic, and holds their pens, is long and flat; but the vessel for the ink which rests upon the girdle is square, with a lid to clasp over it.” So Mr. Hanway: “Their writers carry their ink and pens about them in a case, which they put under their sash.”

INN. The inns or caravanserais of the east, in which travellers are accommodated, are not all alike, some being simply places of rest, by the side of a fountain, if possible, and at a proper distance on the road. Many of these places are nothing more than naked walls; others have an attendant, who subsists either by some charitable donation, or the benevolence of passengers; others are more considerable establishments, where families reside, and take care of them, and furnish the necessary provisions. “Caravanserais,” says Campbell, “were originally intended for, and are now pretty generally applied to, the accommodation of strangers and travellers, though, like every other good institution, sometimes perverted to the purposes of private emolument, or public job. They are built at proper distances through the roads of the Turkish dominions, and afford to the indigent or weary traveller an asylum from the inclemency of the weather, are in general built of the most solid and durable materials, have commonly one story above the ground floor, the lower of which is arched, and serves for warehouses to store goods, for lodgings, and for stables, while the upper is used merely for lodgings; beside which they are always accommodated with a fountain, and have cooks’ shops and other conveniences to supply the wants of lodgers. In Aleppo, the caravanserais are almost exclusively occupied by merchants, to whom they are, like other houses, rented.” “In all other Turkish provinces,” observes Antes, “particularly those in Asia, which are often thinly inhabited, travelling is subject to numberless inconveniences, since it is necessary not only to carry all sorts of provisions along with one, but even the very utensils to dress them in, beside a tent for shelter at night and in bad weather, as there are no inns, except here and there a caravanserai, where nothing but bare rooms, and those often very bad, and infested with all sorts of vermin, can be procured.” “There are no inns anywhere,” says Volney, “but the cities, and commonly the villages, have a large building called a kan or kervanserai, which serves as an asylum for all travellers. These houses of reception are always built without the precincts of towns, and consist of four wings round a square court, which serves by way of enclosure for the beasts of burden. The lodgings are cells, where you find nothing but bare walls, dust, and sometimes scorpions. The keeper of this kan gives the traveller the key and a mat, and he provides himself the rest; he must therefore carry with him his bed, his kitchen utensils, and even his provisions, for frequently not even bread is to be found in the villages. On this account the orientals contrive their equipage in the most simple and portable form. The baggage of a man who wishes to be completely provided, consists in a carpet, a mattress, a blanket, two sauce pans with lids contained within each other, two dishes, two plates, and a coffee pot, all of copper, well tinned, a small wooden box for salt and pepper, a round leathern table, which he suspends from the saddle of his horse, small leathern bottles or bags for oil, melted butter, water, and brandy, if the traveller be a Christian, a tinder box, a cup of cocoa nut, some rice, dried raisins, dates, Cyprus cheese, and, above all, coffee berries, with a roaster and wooden mortar to pound them.” The Scriptures use two words to express a caravanserai, in both instances translated inn: “There was no room for them in the inn,” καταλύματι, Luke ii, 7; the place of untying, that is, of beasts for rest. “And brought him to the inn,” ϖανδοχεῖον, Luke x, 34, whose keeper is called in the next verse ϖανδοχεὺς. This word properly signifies “a receptacle open to all comers.” “The serai or principal caravansary at Surat,” observes Forbes, “was much neglected. Most of the eastern cities contain one, at least, for the reception of strangers; smaller places, called choultries, are erected by charitable persons, or munificent princes, in forests, plains, and deserts, for the accommodation of travellers. Near them is generally a well, and a cistern for the cattle; a brahmin, or fakeer, often resides there to furnish the pilgrim with food, and the few necessaries he may stand in need of. In the deserts of Persia and Arabia, these buildings are invaluable; in those pathless plains, for many miles together, not a tree, a bush, nor even a blade of grass, is to be seen; all is one undulating mass of sand, like waves on the trackless ocean. In these ruthless wastes, where no rural village or cheerful hamlet, no inn or house of refreshment, is to be found, how noble is the charity that rears the hospitable roof, that plants the shady grove, and conducts the refreshing moisture into reservoirs!”

INSPIRATION, the conveying of certain extraordinary and supernatural notices or thoughts into the soul; or it denotes any supernatural influence of God upon the mind of a rational creature, whereby he is formed to a degree of intellectual improvement, to which he could not have attained in his present circumstances in a natural way. In the first and highest sense, the prophets, evangelists, and Apostles are said to have spoken and written by divine inspiration. This inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures is so expressly attested by our Lord and his Apostles, that among those who receive them as a divine revelation the only question relates to the inspiration of the New Testament. On this subject it has been well observed:--

1. That the inspiration of the Apostles appears to have been necessary for the purposes of their mission; and, therefore, if we admit that Jesus came from God, and that he sent them forth to make disciples, we shall acknowledge that some degree of inspiration is highly probable. The first light in which the books of the New Testament lead us to consider the Apostles, is, as the historians of Jesus. After having been his companions during his ministry, they came forth to bear witness of him; and as the benefit of his religion was not to be confined to the age in which he or they lived, they left in the four Gospels a record of what he did and taught. Two of the four were written by the Apostles Matthew and John. St. Mark and St. Luke, whose names are prefixed to the other two, were probably of the seventy whom our Lord sent out in his life time; and we learn from the most ancient Christian historians, that the Gospel of St. Mark was revised by St. Peter, and the Gospel of St. Luke by St. Paul, and that both were afterward approved by St. John; so that all the four may be considered as transmitted to the church with the sanction of apostolical authority. Now, if we recollect the condition of the Apostles, and the nature of their history, we shall perceive that, even as historians, they stood in need of some measure of inspiration. Plato might feel himself at liberty to feign many things of his master Socrates, because it mattered little to the world whether the instruction that was conveyed to them proceeded from the one philosopher or from the other. But the servants of a divine teacher, who appeared as his witnesses, and professed to be the historians of his life, were bound by their office to give a true record. And their history was an imposition upon the world, if they did not declare exactly and literally what they had seen and heard. This was an office which required not only a love of the truth, but a memory more retentive and more accurate than it was possible for the Apostles to possess. To relate, at the distance of twenty years, long moral discourses, which were not originally written, and which were not attended with any striking circumstances that might imprint them upon the mind; to preserve a variety of parables, the beauty and significancy of which depended upon particular expressions; to record long and minute prophecies, where the alteration of a single phrase might have produced an inconsistency between the event and the prediction; and to give a particular detail of the intercourse which Jesus had with his friends and with his enemies;--all this is a work so very much above the capacity of unlearned men, that, had they attempted to execute it by their own natural powers, they must have fallen into such absurdities and contradictions as would have betrayed them to every discerning eye. It was therefore highly expedient, and even necessary, for the faith of future ages, that, beside those opportunities of information which the Apostles enjoyed, and that tried integrity which they possessed, their understanding and their memory should be assisted by a supernatural influence, which might prevent them from mistaking the meaning of what they had heard, which might restrain them from putting into the mouth of Jesus any words which he did not utter, or omitting what was important, and which might thus give us perfect security, that the Gospels are as faithful a copy as if Jesus himself had left in writing those sayings and those actions which he wished posterity to remember.

But we consider the Apostles in the lowest view, when we speak of them as barely the historians of their Master. In their epistles they assume a higher character, which renders inspiration still more necessary. All the benefit which they derived from the public and the private instructions of Jesus before his death had not so far opened their minds as to qualify them for receiving the whole counsel of God. And he who knows what is in man declares to them, the night on which he was betrayed, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now,” John xv, 12. The purpose of many of his parables, the full meaning even of some of his plain discourses, had not been attained by them. They had marvelled when he spake to them of earthly things. But many heavenly things of his kingdom had not been told them; and they who were destined to carry his religion to the ends of the earth themselves needed, at the times of their receiving this commission, that some one should instruct them in the doctrine of Christ. It is true that, after his resurrection, Jesus opened their understandings, and explained to them the Scriptures; and he continued upon earth forty days, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. It appears, however, from the history which they have recorded in the book of Acts, that some farther teaching was necessary for them, Acts i. Immediately before our Lord ascended, their minds being still full of the expectation of a temporal kingdom, they say unto him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” It was not till some time after they received the gift of the Holy Ghost, that they understood that the Gospel had taken away the obligation to observe the ceremonies of the Mosaic law; and the action of St. Peter in baptizing Cornelius, a devout Heathen, gave offence to some of the Apostles and brethren in Judea when they first heard it, Acts xi. Yet, in their epistles, we find just notions of the spiritual nature of the religion of Jesus as a kingdom of righteousness, the subjects of which are to receive remission of sins, and sanctification through his blood, and just notions also of the extent of this religion as a dispensation the spiritual blessings of which are to be communicated to all, in every land, who receive it in faith and love. These notions appear to us to be the explication both of the ancient predictions, and of many particular expressions that occur in the discourses of our Lord. But it is manifest that they had not been acquired by the Apostles during the teaching of Jesus. They are so adverse to every thing which men educated in Jewish prejudices had learned and had hoped, that they could not be the fruit of their own reflections; and therefore they imply the teaching of that Spirit who gradually impressed them upon the mind, guiding the Apostles gently, as they were able to follow him, into all the truth connected with the salvation of mankind. As inspiration was necessary to give the minds of the Apostles possession of the system that is unfolded in their epistles, so many parts of that system are removed to such a distance from human discoveries, and are liable to such misapprehension, that unless we suppose a continued superintendence of the Spirit by whom it was taught, succeeding ages would not have a sufficient security that those who were employed to deliver it had not been guilty of gross mistakes in some most important doctrines.

Inspiration will appear still farther necessary, when we recollect that the writings of the Apostles contain several predictions of things to come. St. Paul foretels, in his epistles, the corruptions of the church of Rome, and many other circumstances which have taken place in the history of the Christian church; and the Revelation is a book of prophecy, of which part has been already fulfilled, while the rest will no doubt be explained by the events which are to arise in the course of Providence. But prophecy is a kind of writing which implies the highest degree of inspiration. When predictions, like those in Scripture, are particular and complicated, and the events are so remote and so contingent as to be out of the reach of human sagacity, it is plain that the writers of the predictions do not speak according to the measure of information which they had acquired by natural means, but are merely the instruments through which the Almighty communicates, in such measure and such language as he thinks fit, that knowledge of futurity which is denied to man. And although the full meaning of their own predictions was not understood by themselves, they will be acknowledged to be true prophets when the fulfilment comes to reflect light upon that language, which, for wise purposes, was made dark at the time of its being put into their mouth.

Thus the nature of the writings of the Apostles suggests the necessity of their having been inspired. They could not be accurate historians of the life of Jesus without divine inspiration, nor safe expounders of his doctrine, nor prophets of distant events.

2. Inspiration was promised by our Lord to his Apostles. It is not unfair reasoning to adduce promises contained in the Scriptures themselves, as proofs of their divine inspiration. It were, indeed, reasoning in a circle, to bring the testimony of the Scriptures in proof of the divine mission of Jesus. But that being established by sufficient evidence, and the books of the New Testament having been proved to be the authentic genuine records of the persons whose names they bear, we are warranted to argue, from the declarations contained in them, what is the measure of inspiration which Jesus was pleased to bestow upon his servants. He might have been a divine teacher, and they might have been his Apostles, although he had bestowed none at all. But his character gives us security that they possessed all that he promised. We read in the Gospels that Jesus ordained twelve that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, Mark iii, 14. And as this was the purpose for which they were first called, so it was the charge left them at his departure. “Go,” said he, “preach the Gospel to every creature: make disciples of all nations,” Mark xvi, 16; Matt. xxviii, 19. His constant familiar intercourse with them was intended to qualify them for the execution of this charge; and the promises made to them have a special reference to the office in which they were to be employed. When he sent them, during his life, to preach in the cities of Israel, he said, “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you,” Matt. x, 19, 20. And when he spake to them in his prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, of the persecution which they were to endure after his death, he repeats the same promise: “For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist,” Luke xxi, 15. It is admitted that the words in both these passages refer properly to that assistance which the inexperience of the Apostles was to derive from the suggestions of the Spirit, when they should be called to defend their conduct and their cause before the tribunals of the magistrates. But the fulfilment of this promise was a pledge, both to the Apostles and to the world, that the measure of inspiration necessary for the more important purpose implied in their commission would not be withheld; and, accordingly, when that purpose came to be unfolded to the Apostles, the promise of the assistance of the Spirit was expressed in a manner which applies it to the extent of their commission. In the long affectionate discourse recorded by St. John, when our Lord took a solemn farewell of the disciples, after eating the last passover with them, he said, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come,” John xiv, 16, 17, 26; xvi, 12, 13. Here are all the degrees of inspiration which we have seen to be necessary for the Apostles: the Spirit was to bring to their remembrance what they had heard; to guide them into the truth, which they were not then able to bear; and to show them things to come; and all this they were to derive, not from occasional illapses, but from the perpetual inhabitation of the Spirit. That this inspiration was vouchsafed to them, not for their own sakes, but in order to qualify them for the successful discharge of their office as the messengers of Christ, and the instructers of mankind, appears from several expressions of that prayer which immediately follows the discourse containing the promise of inspiration; particularly from these words: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me,” John xvii, 20, 21. In conformity to this prayer, so becoming him who was not merely the friend of the Apostles, but the light of the world, is that charge which he gives them immediately before his ascension: “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” Matt. xxviii, 19, 20; I am with you alway, not by my bodily presence; for immediately after he was taken out of their sight; but I am with you by the Holy Ghost, whom I am to send upon you not many days hence, and who is to abide with you for ever.

The promise of Jesus, then, implies, according to the plain construction of the words, that the Apostles, in executing their commission, were not to be left wholly to their natural powers, but were to be assisted by that illumination and direction of the Spirit which the nature of the commission required; and we may learn the sense which our Lord had of the importance and effect of this promise from one circumstance, that he never makes any distinction between his own words and those of his Apostles, but places the doctrines and commandments which they were to deliver upon a footing with those which he had spoken: “He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me,” Luke x, 16. These words plainly imply that Christians have no warrant to pay less regard to any thing contained in the epistles than to that which is contained in the Gospels; and teach us that every doctrine and precept clearly delivered by the Apostles comes to the Christian world with the same stamp of the divine authority as the words of Jesus, who spake in the name of him that sent him.

The Author of our religion having thus made the faith of the Christian world to hang upon the teaching of the Apostles, gave the most signal manifestation of the fulfilment of that promise which was to qualify them for their office, by the miraculous gifts with which they were endowed on the day of pentecost, and by the abundance of those gifts which the imposition of their hands was to diffuse through the church. One of the twelve, indeed, whose labours in preaching the Gospel were the most abundant and the most extensive, was not present at this manifestation; for St. Paul was not called to be an Apostle till after the day of pentecost. But it is very remarkable that the manner of his being called was expressly calculated to supply this deficiency. As he journeyed to Damascus, about noon, to bring the Christians who were there bound to Jerusalem, there shone from heaven a great light round about him. And he heard a voice, saying, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. And I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; and now I send thee to the Gentiles to open their eyes,” Acts xxvi, 12–18. In reference to this manner of his being called, St. Paul generally inscribes his epistles with these words: “Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will” or “by the commandment of God;” and he explains very fully what he meant by the use of this expression, in the beginning of his Epistle to the Galatians, where he gives an account of his conversion: “Paul, an Apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. I neither received the Gospel of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Heathen: immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me; but I went into Arabia,” Gal. i, 1, 12, 15–17. All that we said of the necessity of inspiration, and of the import of the promise which Jesus made to the other Apostles, receives very great confirmation from this history of St. Paul, who, being called to be an Apostle after the ascension of Jesus, received the Gospel by immediate revelation from heaven, and was thus put upon a footing with the rest, both as to his designation, which did not proceed from the choice of man, and as to his qualifications, which were imparted, not by human instruction, but by the teaching of the Author of Christianity. The Lord Jesus who appeared to him might furnish St. Paul with the same advantages which the other Apostles had derived from his presence on earth, and might give him the same assurance of the inhabitation of the Spirit that the promises, which we have been considering, had imparted to those.

3. Inspiration was claimed by the Apostles; and their claim may be considered as the interpretation of the promise of their Master. We shall not find the claim to inspiration formally advanced in the Gospels. This omission has sometimes been stated by those superficial critics, whose prejudices serve to account for their haste, as an objection against the existence of inspiration. But if you attend to the reason of the omission, you will perceive that it is only an instance of that delicate propriety which pervades all the New Testament. The Gospels are the record of the great facts which vouch the truth of Christianity. These facts are to be received upon the testimony of men who had been eye-witnesses of them. The foundation of Christian faith being laid in an assent to these facts, it would have been preposterous to have introduced in support of them that influence of the Spirit which preserved the minds of the Apostles from error. For there can be no proof of the inspiration of the Apostles, unless the truth of the facts be previously admitted. The Apostles, therefore, bring forward the evidence of Christianity in its natural order, when they speak in the Gospels as the companions and eye-witnesses of Jesus, claiming that credit which is due to honest men who had the best opportunities of knowing what they declared. This is the language of St. John: “Many other signs did Jesus in the presence of his disciples. But these are written that ye may believe; and this is the disciple which testifieth these things,” John xx, 30, 31; xxi, 24. The Evangelist Luke appears to speak differently in the introduction to his Gospel, Luke i, 1–4; and opposite opinions have been entertained respecting the information conveyed by that introduction.

There is a difference of opinion, first, with regard to the time when St. Luke wrote his Gospel. It appears to some to be expressly intimated that he wrote after St. Matthew and St. Mark, because he speaks of other Gospels then in circulation; and it is generally understood that St. John wrote his after the other three. But the manner in which St. Luke speaks of these other Gospels does not seem to apply to those of St. Matthew and St. Mark. He calls them many, which implies that they were more than two, and which would confound these two canonical Gospels with imperfect accounts of our Lord’s life, which we know from ancient writers were early circulated, but were rejected after the four Gospels were published. It is hardly conceivable that St. Luke would have alluded to the two Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark without distinguishing them from other very inferior productions; and therefore it is probable that when he used this mode of expression, no accounts of our Lord’s life were then in existence but those inferior productions. There appears, also, to very sound critics, to be internal evidence that St. Luke wrote first. He is much more particular than the other evangelists in his report of our Lord’s birth, and of the meetings with his Apostles after his resurrection. They might think it unnecessary to introduce the same particulars into their Gospels after St. Luke. But if they wrote before him, the want of these particulars gives to their Gospels an appearance of imperfection which we cannot easily explain.

The other point suggested by this introduction, upon which there has been a difference of opinion, is, whether St. Luke, who was not an Apostle, wrote his Gospel from personal knowledge, attained by his being a companion of Jesus, or from the information of others. Our translation certainly favours the last opinion; and it is the more general opinion, defended by very able critics. Dr. Randolph, in the first volume of his works, which contains a history of our Saviour’s life, supports the first opinion, and suggests a punctuation of the verses, and an interpretation of one word, according to which that opinion may be defended. Read the second and third verses in connection: Καθὼς ϖαρέδοσαν ἡμῖν ὁι απ’ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι τοῦ λογοῦ Ἔδοξε κἀιμοὶ, ϖαρακολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν ϖᾶσιν ἀκριϐως καθεξῆς σοι γράψαι, κράτιστε Θεόφιλε, “Even as they who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the beginning delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having accurately traced,” &c. By ἡμῖν is understood the Christian world, who had received information, both oral and written, from those that had been αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται, “eye-witnesses and ministers.” Κἀιμοὶ means St. Luke, who proposed to follow the example of those αὐτόπται in writing what he knew; and he describes his own knowledge by the word ϖαρακολουθηκότι, which is more precise than the circumlocution, by which it is translated, “having had understanding of all things.” Perfect understanding may be derived from various sources; but ϖαρακολουθέω properly means, “I go along with as a companion, and derive knowledge from my own observation.” And it is remarkable that the word is used in this very sense by the Jewish historian, Josephus, who published his history not many years after St. Luke wrote, and who, in his introduction, represents himself as worthy of credit, because he had not merely inquired of those who knew, but ϖαρηκολουθηκότα τοις γεγόνοσιν, which he explains by this expression: Πολλῶν μὲν αὐτουργὸς ϖραξέων, and to state in the third verse that he, ϖλεῖϛων δ’ αὐτόπτης γενόμενος, an actor in many things, and an eye-witness of most. If this interpretation is not approved of, then, according to the sense of those verses which is most commonly adopted, St. Luke will be understood to give in the second verse an account of that ground upon which the knowledge of the Christian world with regard to these things rested, the reports of the “eye-witnesses and ministers,” having collected and collated these reports, and employed the most careful and minute investigation, he had resolved to write an account of the life of Jesus. Here he does not claim inspiration: he does not even say that he was an eye-witness. But he says that, having, like others, heard the report of eye-witnesses, he had accurately examined the truth of what they said, and presented to the Christian world the fruit of his researches.

The foundation is still the same as in St. John’s Gospel, the report of those in whose presence Jesus did and said what is recorded. To this report is added, (1.) The investigation of St. Luke, a contemporary of the Apostles, the companion of St. Paul in a great part of his journeyings, and honoured by him with this title, “Luke, the beloved physician,” Col. iv, 14. (2.) The approbation of St. Paul, who is said, by the earliest Christian writers, to have revised this Gospel written by his companion, so that it came abroad with apostolical authority. (3.) The universal consent of the Christian church, which, although jealous of the books that were then published, and rejecting many that claimed the sanction of the Apostles, has uniformly, from the earliest times, put the Gospel of St. Luke upon a footing with those of St. Matthew and St. Mark: a clear demonstration that they who had access to the best information knew that it had been revised by an Apostle.

As, then, the authors of the Gospels appear under the character of eye-witnesses, attesting what they had seen, there would have been an impropriety in their resting the evidence of the essential facts of Christianity upon inspiration. But after the respect which their character and their conduct procured to their testimony, and the visible confirmation which it received from heaven, had established the faith of a part of the world, a belief of their inspiration became necessary. They might have been credible witnesses of facts, although they had not been distinguished from other men. But they were not qualified to execute the office of Apostles without being inspired. And therefore, as soon as the circumstances of the church required the execution of that office, the claim which had been conveyed to them by the promise of their Master, and which is implied in the apostolical character, appears in their writings. They instantly exercised the authority derived to them from Jesus, by planting ministers in the cities where they had preached the Gospel, by setting every thing pertaining to these Christian societies in order, by controlling the exercise of those miraculous gifts which they had imparted, and by correcting the abuses which happened even in their time. But they demanded from all who had received the faith of Christ submission to the doctrines and commandments of his Apostles, as the inspired messengers of Heaven. “But God hath revealed it,” not them, as our translators have supplied the accusative, “revealed the wisdom of God, the dispensation of the Gospel unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God; which things, also, we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” 1 Cor. ii, 10, 12, 13. “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord,” 1 Cor. xiv, 37; that is, Let no eminence of spiritual gifts be set up in opposition to the authority of the Apostles, or as implying any dispensation from submitting to it. “For this cause, also, thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God,” 1 Thess. ii, 13. St. Peter, speaking of the epistles of St. Paul, says, “Even as our beloved brother Paul, also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you,” 2 Peter iii, 15. And St. John makes the same claim of inspiration for the other Apostles, as well as for himself: “We are of God: he that knoweth God, heareth us: he that is not of God, heareth not us,” 1 John iv, 6.

The claim to inspiration is clearly made by the Apostles in those passages where they place their own writings upon the same footing with the books of the Old Testament; for St. Paul, speaking of the ἱερα γράμματα, “Holy Scriptures,” a common expression among the Jews, in which Timothy had been instructed from his childhood, says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” 2 Tim. iii, 16. St. Peter, speaking of the ancient prophets, says, “The Spirit of Christ was in them,” 1 Peter i, 11; and, “The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Peter i, 21. And the quotations of our Lord and his Apostles from the books of the Old Testament are often introduced with an expression in which their inspiration is directly asserted: “Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias;” “By the mouth of thy servant David thou hast said,” &c, Acts i, 16; iv, 25; xxviii, 25. But with this uniform testimony to that inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures, which was universally believed among that people, we are to conjoin this circumstance, that St. Paul and St. Peter in different places rank their own writings with the books of the Old Testament. St. Paul commands that his epistles should be read in the churches, where none but those books which the Jews believed to be inspired were ever read, Col. iv, 16. He says that Christians “are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,” ἐπὶ τῲ θεμελίῳ τῶν ἀποϛόλων καὶ ϖροφητῶν, Eph. ii, 20: a conjunction which would have been highly improper, if the former had not been inspired as well as the latter; and St. Peter charges the Christians to “be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the Apostles,” 2 Peter iii, 2. The nature of the book of Revelation led the Apostle John to assert most directly his personal inspiration; for he says that “Jesus sent and signified by his angel to his servant John the things that were to come to pass;” and that the divine Person, like the Son of man, who appeared to him when he was in the Spirit, commanded him to write in a book what he saw. And in one of the visions there recorded, when the dispensation of the Gospel was presented to St. John under the figure of a great city, the New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, there is one part of the image which is a beautiful expression of that authority in settling the form of the Christian church, and teaching articles of faith, which the Apostles derived from their inspiration: “The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb,” Rev. i, 1, 10–19; xxi, 14.

These are only a few of the many passages to the same purpose which occur in reading the New Testament. But it is manifest, even from them, that the manner in which the Apostles speak of their own writings is calculated to mislead every candid reader, unless they really wrote under the direction of the Spirit of God. So gross and daring an imposture is absolutely inconsistent not only with their whole character, but also with those gifts of the Holy Ghost of which there is unquestionable evidence that they were possessed; and which, being the natural vouchers of the assertion made by them concerning their own writings, cannot be supposed, upon the principles of sound theism, to have been imparted for a long course of years to persons who continued during all that time asserting such a falsehood, and appealing to those gifts for the truth of what they said.

4. The claim of the Apostles derives much confirmation from the reception which it met with among the Christians of their days. It appears from an expression of St. Peter, that at the time when he wrote his second epistle, the epistles of St. Paul were classed with “the other Scriptures,” the books of the Old Testament; that is, were accounted inspired writings, 2 Peter iii, 16. It is well known to those who are versed in the early history of the church, with what care the first Christians discriminated between the apostolical writings and the compositions of other authors however much distinguished by their piety, and with what reverence they received those books which were known by their inscription, by the place from which they proceeded, or the manner in which they were circulated, to be the work of an Apostle. In Lardner’s “Credibility of the Gospel History,” will be found the most particular information upon this subject; and it will be perceived that the whole history of the supposititious writings which appeared in early times, conspires in attesting the veneration in which the authority of the Apostles was held by the Christian church. We learn from Justin Martyr, that, before the middle of the second century, “the memoirs of the Apostles, and the compositions of the prophets,” were read together in the Christian assemblies. We know, that from the earliest times, the church has submitted to the writings of the Apostles as the infallible standard of faith and practice; and we find the ground of this peculiar respect expressed by the first Christian writers as well as by their successors, who speak of the writings of the Apostles as “divine writings from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.”

To this general argument we may add that right views on the subject of the inspiration of the sacred writers are also necessary, because even some Christian writers have spoken obscurely and unsatisfactorily on the subject, dividing inspiration into different kinds, and assigning each to different portions of the holy volume. By inspiration we are to understand, that the sacred writers composed their works under so plenary and immediate an influence of the Holy Spirit, that God may be said to speak by those writers to man, and not merely that they spoke to men in the name of God, and by his authority; and there is a considerable difference between the two propositions. Each supposes an authentic revelation from God; but the former view secures the Scriptures from all error both as to the subjects spoken, and the manner of expressing them. This, too, is the doctrine taught in the Scriptures themselves, which declare not only that the prophets and Apostles spake in the name of God, but that God spake by them as his instruments. “The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake.” “Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet.” “The prophecy came not of old time, by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” For this reason, not only that the matter contained in the book of “the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms,” (the usual phrase by which the Jews designated the whole Old Testament,) was true; but that the books were written under divine inspiration, they are called collectively by our Lord and by his Apostles, “The Scriptures,” in contradistinction to all other writings;--a term which the Apostle Peter, as stated above, applies also to the writings of St. Paul, and which therefore verifies them as standing on the same level with the books of the Old Testament as to their inspiration: “Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.” The Apostles also, as we have seen, expressly claim an inspiration, not only as to the subjects on which they wrote, but as to the words in which they expressed themselves. Farther, our Lord promised to them the Holy Spirit “to guide them into all truth;” and that he was not to fulfil his office by suggesting thoughts only, but words, is clear from Christ’s discourse with them on the subject of the persecutions they were to endure for “his name’s sake:” “And when they bring you into the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say; for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say; for it is not ye that speak; but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” This inspiration of words is also asserted by St. Paul as to himself and his brethren, when he says to the Corinthians, “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth; but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” Thus we find that the claim which the sacred writers make on this subject is, that they were in truth what they have been aptly called, “the penmen of the Holy Ghost;” and that the words in which they clothed “the wisdom given unto them” were words “taught” by the Holy Spirit.

But it may be asked, How are we to account for that difference of style which is observable in each? that manner, too, so natural to each, and so distinct in all? with those reasonings, recollections of memory, and other indications of the working of the mind of each writer in its own character and temperament? Some persons, indeed, observing this, have concluded their style and manner to be entirely human, while their thoughts were either wholly divine, or so superintended by the Holy Ghost as to have been adopted by him, and therefore, although sometimes natural, to be of equal authority as if they had been exclusively of divine suggestion. This, indeed, would be sufficient to oblige our implicit credence to their writings, as being from God; but it falls below the force of the passages above cited, and which attribute to a divine agency their words also. The matter may be rightly conceived by considering, that an inspiration of words took place either by suggesting those most fit to express the thoughts, or by overruling the selection of such words from the common as if they had been exclusively of divine suggestion. This, indeed, would be sufficient to oblige our implicit credence to their writings, as being from God; but it falls below the force of the passages above cited, and which attribute to a divine agency the store acquired by, and laid up in, the mind of each writer, which is quite compatible with the fact, that a peculiarity and appropriateness of manner might still be left to them separately. To suppose that an inspiration of terms, as well as thoughts, could not take place without producing one uniform style and manner, is to suppose that the minds of the writers would thus become entirely passive under the influence of the Holy Spirit; whereas it is easily conceivable that the verbiage, style, and manner of each, was not so much displaced, as elevated, enriched, and controlled by the Holy Spirit; and that there was a previous fitness, in all these respects, in all the sacred penmen, for which they were chosen to be the instruments under the aid and direction of the Holy Ghost, of writing such portions of the general revelation as the wisdom of God assigned to each of them. On the other hand, while it is so conceivable that the words and manner of each might be appropriated to his own design by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it by no means follows that both were not greatly altered, as well as controlled, although they still retained a general similarity to the uninfluenced style and manner of each, and still presented a characteristic variety. As none of their writings on ordinary occasions, and when uninspired, have come down to us, we cannot judge of the degree of this difference; and therefore no one can with any just reason affirm that their writings are “the word of God as to the doctrine, but the word of man as to the channel of conveyance.” Certain it is, that a vast difference may be remarked between the writings of the Apostles, and those of the most eminent fathers of the times nearest to them; and that not only as to precision and strength of thought, but also as to language. This circumstance is at least strongly presumptive, that although the style of inspired men was not stripped of the characteristic peculiarity of the writers, it was greatly exalted and influenced.

But the same force of inspiration, so to speak, was not probably exerted upon each of the sacred writers, or upon the same writer throughout his writings, whatever might be its subject. There is no necessity that we should so state the case, in order to maintain what is essential to our faith,--the plenary inspiration of each of the sacred writers. In miracles there was no needless application of divine power. Traditional history and written chronicles, facts of known occurrence, and opinions which were received by all, are often inserted or referred to by the sacred writers. There needed no miraculous operation upon the memory to recall what the memory was furnished with, or to reveal a fact which the writers previously and perfectly knew: but their plenary inspiration consisted in this, that they were kept from all lapses of memory, or inadequate conceptions, even on these subjects; and on all others the degree of communication and influence, both as to doctrine, facts, and the terms in which they were to be recorded for the edification of the church, was proportioned to the necessity of the case, but so that the whole was authenticated or dictated by the Holy Spirit with so full an influence, that it became truth without mixture of error, expressed in such terms as he himself ruled or suggested. This, then, seems the true notion of plenary inspiration, that for the revelation, insertion, and adequate enunciation of truth, it was full and complete.

The principal objections to this view of the inspiration of words are well answered by Dr. Woods, an American divine, in a recent publication, from which, as the subject has been lately debated in this country, the following extracts will be acceptable, although there is in them a repetition of some of the preceding observations:--

“One argument which has been urged against the supposition that divine inspiration had a respect to language, is, that the language employed by the inspired writers exhibits no marks of a divine interference, but is perfectly conformed to the genius and taste of the writers. The fact here alleged is admitted. But how does it support the opinion of those who allege it? Is it not evident, that God may exercise a perfect superintendency over inspired writers as to the language they shall use, and yet that each one of them shall write in his own style, and in all respects according to his own taste? May not God give such aid to his servants, that, while using their own style, they will certainly be secured against all mistakes, and exhibit the truth with perfect propriety? It is unquestionable, that Isaiah, and St. Paul, and St. John might be under the entire direction of the Holy Spirit, even as to language, and, at the same time, that each one of them might write in his own manner; and that the peculiar manner of each might be adopted to answer an important end; and that the variety of style, thus introduced into the sacred volume, might be suited to excite a livelier interest in the minds of men, and to secure to them a far greater amount of good, than could ever have been derived from any one mode of writing. The great variety existing among men as to their natural talents, and their peculiar manner of thinking and writing may, in this way, be turned to account in the work of revelation, as well as in the concerns of common life. Now, is it not clearly a matter of fact, that God has made use of this variety, and given the Holy Spirit to men, differing widely from each other in regard to natural endowments, and knowledge, and style, and employed them, with all their various gifts, as agents in writing the Holy Scriptures? And what colour of reason can we have to suppose, that the language which they used was less under the divine direction on account of this variety, than if it had been perfectly uniform throughout?

“To prove that divine inspiration had no respect to the language of the sacred writers, it is farther alleged, that even the same doctrine is taught and the same event described in a different manner by different writers. This fact I also admit. But how does it prove that inspiration had no respect to language? Is not the variety alleged a manifest advantage, as to the impression which is likely to be made upon the minds of men? Is not testimony, which is substantially the same, always considered as entitled to higher credit, when it is given by different witnesses in different language, and in a different order? And is it not perfectly reasonable to suppose, that, in making a revelation, God would have respect to the common principles of human nature and human society, and would exert his influence and control over inspired men in such a manner, that, by exhibiting the same doctrines and facts in different ways, they should make a more salutary impression, and should more effectually compass the great ends of a revelation? All I have to advance on this part of the subject may be summed up in these two positions: 1. The variety of manner apparent among different inspired writers, even when treating of the same subjects, is far better suited to promote the object of divine revelation, than a perfect uniformity. 2. It is agreeable to our worthiest conceptions of God and his administration, that he should make use of the best means for the accomplishment of his designs; and, of course, that he should impart the gift of inspiration to men of different tastes and habits as to language, and should lead them, while writing the Scriptures, to exhibit all the variety of manner naturally arising from the diversified character of their minds.

“But there is another argument, perhaps the most plausible of all, against supposing that inspiration had any respect to language; which is, that the supposition of a divine influence in this respect is wholly unnecessary; that the sacred writers, having the requisite information in regard to the subjects on which they were to write, might, so far as language is concerned, be left entirely to their own judgment and fidelity. But this view of the subject is not satisfactory. For whatever may be said as to the judgment and fidelity of those who wrote the Scriptures, there is one important circumstance which cannot be accounted for, without supposing them to have enjoyed a guidance above that of their own minds; namely, that they were infallibly preserved from every mistake or impropriety in the manner of writing. If we should admit that the divine superintendence and guidance afforded to the inspired writers had no relation at all to the manner in which they exhibited either doctrines or facts; how easily might we be disturbed with doubts, in regard to the propriety of some of their representations? We should most certainly consider them as liable to all the inadvertencies and mistakes, to which uninspired men are commonly liable; and we should think ourselves perfectly justified in undertaking to charge them with real errors and faults as to style, and to show how their language might have been improved; and, in short, to treat their writings just as we treat the writings of Shakspeare and Addison. ‘Here,’ we might say, ‘Paul was unfortunate in the choice of words; and here his language does not express the ideas which he must have intended to convey.’ ‘Here the style of St. John was inadvertent; and here it was faulty: and here it would have been more agreeable to the nature of the subject, and would have more accurately expressed the truth, had it been altered thus.’ If the language of the sacred writers did not in any way come under the inspection of the Holy Spirit, and if they were left, just as other writers are, to their own unaided faculties in regard to every thing which pertained to the manner of writing; then, evidently, we might use the same freedom in animadverting upon their style, as upon the style of other writers. But who could treat the volume of inspiration in this manner, without impiety and profaneness? And rather than make any approach to this, who would not choose to go to an excess, if there could be an excess, in reverence for the word of God?

“On this subject, far be it from me to indulge a curiosity which would pry into things not intended for human intelligence. And far be it from me to expend zeal in supporting opinions not warranted by the word of God. But this one point I think it specially important to maintain; namely, that the sacred writers had such direction of the Holy Spirit, that they were secured against all liability to error, and enabled to write just what God pleased; so that what they wrote is, in truth, the word of God, and can never be subject to any charge of mistake either as to matter or form. Whether this perfect correctness and propriety as to language resulted from the divine guidance directly or indirectly, is a question of no particular consequence. If the Spirit of God directs the minds of inspired men, and gives them just conceptions relative to the subjects on which they are to write; and if he constitutes and maintains a connection, true and invariable, between their conceptions and the language they employ to express them, the language must, in this way, be as infallible, and as worthy of God, as though it were dictated directly by the Holy Spirit. But to assert that the sacred writers used such language as they chose, or such as was natural to them, without any special divine superintendence, and that, in respect to style, they are to be regarded in the same light, and equally liable to mistakes, as other writers, is plainly contrary to the representations which they themselves make, and is suited to diminish our confidence in the word of God. For how could we have entire confidence in the representations of Scripture, if, after God had instructed the minds of the sacred writers in the truth to be communicated, he gave them up to all the inadvertencies and errors to which human nature in general is exposed, and took no effectual care that their manner of writing should be according to his will?

“Let us then briefly examine the subject, as it is presented in the Holy Scriptures, and see whether we find sufficient reason to affirm that inspiration had no relation whatever to language. 1. The Apostles were the subjects of such a divine inspiration as enabled them to speak ‘with other tongues:’ here inspiration related directly to language. 2. It is the opinion of most writers, that, in some instances, inspired men had not in their own minds a clear understanding of the things which they spake or wrote. One instance of this, commonly referred to, is the case of Daniel, who heard and repeated what the angel said, though he did not understand it, Dan. xii, 7–9. This has also been thought to be in some measure the case with the prophets referred to, 1 Peter i, 10–12. And is there not reason to think this may have been the case with many of the prophetic representations contained in the Psalms, and many of the symbolical rites of the Mosaic institute? Various matters are found in the Old Testament, which were not intended so much for the benefit of the writers, or their contemporaries, as for the benefit of future ages. And this might have been a sufficient reason why they should be left without a clear understanding of the things which they wrote. In such cases, if the opinion above stated is correct, inspired men were led to make use of expressions, the meaning of which they did not fully understand. And, according to this view, it would seem that the teaching of the Spirit which they enjoyed, must have related rather to the words than to the sense. 3. Those who deny that the divine influence afforded to the sacred writers had any respect to language, can find no support in the texts which most directly relate to the subject of inspiration. And it is surely in such texts, if any where, that we should suppose they would find support. The passage, 2 Peter i, 21, is a remarkable one. It asserts that ‘holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ There is surely nothing here which limits the divine influence to the conceptions of their minds. They were moved by the Holy Ghost to speak or write. ‘All Scripture is divinely inspired,’ 2 Tim. iii, 16. Does this text afford any proof that the divine influence granted to the inspired penmen was confined to their inward conceptions, and had no respect whatever to the manner in which they expressed their conceptions? What is Scripture? Is it divine truth conceived in the mind, or divine truth written? In Heb. i, 1, it is said that ‘God spake to the fathers by the prophets.’ Does this afford any proof that the divine guidance which the prophets enjoyed related exclusively to the conceptions of their own minds, and had no respect to the manner in which they communicated those conceptions? Must we not rather think the meaning to be, that God influenced the prophets to utter or make known important truths? And how could they do this, except by the use of proper words?

“I have argued in favour of the inspiration of the Apostles, from their commission. They were sent by Christ to teach the truths of religion in his stead. It was an arduous work; and in the execution of it they needed and enjoyed much divine assistance. But forming right conceptions of Christianity in their own minds, was not the great work assigned to the Apostles. If the divine assistance reached only to this, it reached only to that which concerned them as private men, and which they might have possessed though they had never been commissioned to teach others. As Apostles, they were to preach the Gospel to all who could be brought to hear it, and to make a record of divine truth for the benefit of future ages. Now is it at all reasonable to suppose, that the divine assistance afforded them had no respect to their main business, and that, in the momentous and difficult work of communicating the truths of religion, either orally or by writing, they were left to themselves, and so exposed to all the errors and inadvertencies of uninspired men? But our reasoning does not stop here. For that divine assistance which we might reasonably suppose would have been granted to the Apostles in the work of teaching divine truth, is the very thing which Christ promised them in the texts before cited. I shall refer only to Matt. x, 19, 20, ‘When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in the same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.’ This promise, as Knapp understands it, implies, that divine assistance should extend not only to what they should say, but to the manner in which they should say it. It is not, however, to be understood as implying, that the Apostles were not rational and voluntary agents in the discharge of their office. But it implies that, in consequence of the influence of the Spirit to be exercised over them, they should say what God would have them to say, without any liability to mistake, either as to matter or manner. From the above-cited promise, taken in connection with the instances of its accomplishment which are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, it becomes evident that God may exert his highest influence upon his servants, so as completely to guide them in thought and in utterance, in regard to subjects which lie chiefly within the province of their natural faculties. For in those speeches of the Apostles which are left on record, we find that most of the things which they declared, were things which, for aught that appears, they might have known, and might have expressed to others, in the natural exercise of their own faculties. This principle being admitted, and kept steadily in view, will relieve us of many difficulties in regard to the doctrine of inspiration. The passage, 1 Cor. ii, 12, 13, already cited as proof of the inspiration of the Apostles, is very far from favouring the opinion that inspiration had no respect whatever to their language, or that it related exclusively to their thoughts. ‘Which things we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.’ The Apostle avoided the style and the manner of teaching which prevailed among the wise men of Greece, and made use of a style which corresponded with the nature of his subject, and the end he had in view. And this, he tells us, he did, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. His language, or manner of teaching, was the thing to which the divine influence imparted to him particularly referred. Storr and Flatt give the following interpretation of this text: Paul, they say, asserts that the doctrines of Christianity were revealed to him by the almighty agency of God himself; and, finally, that the inspiration of the divine Spirit extended even to his words, and to all his exhibitions of revealed truths. They add, that St. Paul clearly distinguishes between the doctrine itself, and the manner in which it is communicated.”

INTERMEDIATE STATE. Beside questions concerning the nature of the happiness of heaven, there have also arisen questions concerning the state of the soul in the interval between death and the general resurrection. If we believe, with Dr. Priestley, that the soul is not a substance distinct from the body, we must believe with him that the whole of the human machine is at rest after death, till it be restored to its functions at the last day; but if we are convinced of the immateriality of the soul, we shall not think it so entirely dependent in all its operations upon its present companion, but that it may exist and act in an unembodied state. And if once we are satisfied that a state of separate existence is possible, we shall easily attach credit to the interpretation commonly given of the various expressions in Scripture, which intimate that the souls of good men are admitted to the presence of God immediately after death, although we soon find that a bound is set to our speculations concerning the nature of this intermediate state. But when we leave philosophical probability, and come to the doctrine of Scripture, the only ground of certainty on all such subjects, a great number of passages are so explicit, that no ingenuity of interpretation has been sufficient to weaken their evidence on this point. One branch of the opinions that have been held concerning an intermediate state is the Popish doctrine of purgatory; a doctrine which appears upon the slightest inspection of the texts that have been adduced in support of it to derive no evidence from Scripture; which originated in the error of the church of Rome in assigning to personal suffering a place in the justification of a sinner; and which is completely overturned by the doctrine of justification by faith, and by the general strain of Scripture, which represents this life as a state of probation, upon our conduct during which our everlasting condition depends. The holy Lazarus is carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom; and the rich and careless sinner lifts up his eyes in hell, and is separated from the place of bliss by an impassable gulf. This at once disproves the doctrine of purgatory, and demonstrates an intermediate conscious state of happiness and misery.

IRON, ברזל; occurs first in Gen. iv, 22, and afterward frequently; and the Chaldee פרזל, in Dan. ii, 33, 41, and elsewhere often in that book; σίδηρος, Rev. xviii, 12, and the adjectives, Acts xii, 10; Rev. ii, 27; ix, 9; xii, 5; xix, 15; a well known and very serviceable metal. The knowledge of working it was very ancient, as appears from Genesis iv, 22. We do not, however, find that Moses made use of iron in the fabric of the tabernacle in the wilderness, or Solomon in any part of the temple at Jerusalem. Yet, from the manner in which the Jewish legislator speaks of iron, the metal, it appears, must have been in use in Egypt before his time. He celebrates the great hardness of it, Lev. xxvi, 19; Deut. xxviii, 23, 48; takes notice that the bedstead of Og, king of Bashan, was of iron, Deut. iii, 11; he speaks of mines of iron, Deut. viii, 9; and he compares the severity of the servitude of the Israelites in Egypt to the heat of a furnace for melting iron, Deut. iv, 20. We find, also, that swords, Num. xxxv, 16, axes, Deut. xix, 5, and tools for cutting stones, Deut. xxvii, 5, were made of iron. By the “northern iron,” Jer. xv, 12, we may probably understand the hardened iron, called in Greek χάλυψ, from the Chalybes, a people bordering on the Euxine sea, and consequently lying on the north of Judea, by whom the art of tempering steel is said to have been discovered. Strabo speaks of this people by the name of Chalybes, but afterward Chaldæi; and mentions their iron mines. These, however, were a different people from the Chaldeans, who were united with the Babylonians.

ISAAC, the son of Abraham and Sarah, was born in the year of the world 2108. His name, which signifies laughter, was given him by his mother, because when it was told her by an angel that she should have a son, and that at a time of life when, according to the course of nature, she was past child-bearing, she privately laughed, Gen. xviii, 10–12. And when the child was born she said, “God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me,” Gen. xxi, 6. The life of Isaac, for the first seventy-five years of it, is so blended with that of his illustrious father, that the principal incidents of it have been already noticed under the article Abraham. His birth was attended with some extraordinary circumstances: it was the subject of various promises and prophecies; an event most ardently desired by his parents, and yet purposely delayed by Divine Providence till they were both advanced in years, no doubt for the trial of their faith, and that Isaac might more evidently appear to be the gift of God, and “the child of promise.” At an early period of life he was the object of the profane contempt of Ishmael, the son of the bond woman, by whom he was persecuted; and as in the circumstances attending his birth there was something typical of the birth of Abraham’s greater Son, the Messiah, the promised Seed; so, in the latter instance, we contemplate in him a resemblance of real Christians, who, as Isaac was, are “the children of promise,” invested in all the immunities and blessings of the new covenant; but, as then, “he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now,” Gal. iv, 29.

When Isaac had arrived at a state of manhood, he was required to give a signal proof of his entire devotedness to God. Abraham was commanded to offer up his beloved son in sacrifice, Genesis xxii, 1. This remarkable transaction, so far as Abraham was concerned in it, has already been considered under the article Abraham. But, if from this trial of the faith of the parent we turn our attention to the conduct of Isaac, the victim destined for the slaughter, we behold an example of faith and of dutiful obedience equally conspicuous with that of his honoured parent. Isaac submitted, as it should seem, without resistance, to be bound and laid on the altar, exposing his body to the knife that was lifted up to destroy him. How strikingly calculated is this remarkable history to direct our thoughts to a more exalted personage, whom Isaac prefigured; and to a more astonishing transaction represented by that on Mount Moriah! Behold Jesus Christ, that Seed of Abraham, in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed, voluntarily going forth, in obedience to the command of his heavenly Father, and laying down his life, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

In the progress of Isaac’s history, we find him, in the time of his greatest activity and vigour, a man of retired habits and of remarkable calmness of mind. He appears to have been affectionately attached to his mother Sarah, and, even at the age of forty, was not insusceptible of great sorrow on occasion of her death. But he allows his father to choose for him a suitable partner in life; and Rebekah was selected from among his own kindred, in preference to the daughters of Canaan, in the midst of whom he dwelt. In a few years afterward, he who had mourned for his mother, was called to weep over his father’s grave; and in that last act of filial duty, it is pleasing to find the two rival brothers, Isaac and Ishmael, meeting together for the interment of Abraham. The occasion, indeed, was well calculated to allay all existing jealousies and contentions, and cause every family broil to cease, Gen. xxv, 9. After the death of Abraham, “God blessed his son Isaac;” but, though the latter had now been married twenty years, Rebekah was childless. “Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived,” Gen. xxv, 21. God also promised to multiply Isaac’s seed, and his promise was fulfilled. Two children were born to him at one time, concerning whom the divine purpose was declared to the mother, and no doubt to the father also, that “the elder should serve the younger.” A famine which came upon the country in the days of Isaac, obliged him to remove his family and flocks and retire to Gerar, in the country of the Philistines, of which Abimelech was at that time king. The possessions of Isaac multiplied so prodigiously, that the inhabitants of the country became envious of him, and even Abimelech, to preserve peace among them, was under the necessity of requesting him to retire, because he was become too powerful. He accordingly withdrew, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, where he digged new wells, and, after a time, returned to Beersheba, where he fixed his habitation, Genesis xxvi, 1–23. Here the Lord appeared to him, and renewed to him the covenant which he had made with Abraham, promising to be his God, and to make him a blessing to others. Abimelech now sought his friendship, and, to form an alliance with him, paid him a visit; on which occasion Isaac displayed his magnificence by a sumptuous entertainment, A. M. 2240.

When he was a hundred and thirty-seven years of age, and his sight had so failed him that he could not distinguish one of his sons from the other, Jacob craftily obtained from him the blessing of primogeniture. Yet Isaac survived many years after this, to him, distressing occurrence. He sent Jacob into Mesopotamia, there to take a wife of his own family, Genesis xxviii, 1, 2, and to prevent his marrying among the Canaanites as his brother Esau had done. And when Jacob returned, after a lapse of twenty years, Isaac was still living, and continued to live twenty-three years longer. He then died at the age of a hundred and eighty years, and was buried with Abraham by his sons Esau and Jacob, Gen. xxxv, 29. See ESAU and JACOB.

ISAIAH. Though fifth in the order of time, the writings of the Prophet Isaiah are placed first in order of the prophetical books, principally on account of the sublimity and importance of his predictions, and partly also because the book which bears his name is larger than all the twelve minor prophets put together. Concerning his family and descent, nothing certain has been recorded, except what he himself tells us, Isaiah, i, 1, namely, that he was the son of Amos, and discharged the prophetic office “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah,” who successively flourished between A. M. 3194 and 3305. There is a current tradition that he was of the blood royal; and some writers have affirmed that his father Amoz or Amos was the son of Joash, and consequently brother of Uzziah, king of Judah. Jerom, on the authority of some rabbinical writers, says, that the prophet gave his daughter in marriage to Manasseh, king of Judah; but this opinion is scarcely credible, because Manasseh did not commence his reign until about sixty years after Isaiah had begun to discharge his prophetic functions. He must, indeed, have exercised the office of a prophet during a long period of time, if he lived to the reign of Manasseh; for the lowest computation, beginning from the year in which Uzziah died, when he is by some supposed to have received his first appointment to that office, brings it to sixty-one years. But the tradition of the Jews, which has been adopted by most Christian commentators, that he was put to death by Manasseh, is very uncertain; and Aben Ezra, one of the most celebrated Jewish writers, is rather of opinion that he died before Hezekiah; which Bishop Lowth thinks most probable. It is, however, certain, that he lived at least to the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Hezekiah; which makes the least possible term of the duration of his prophetic office to be about forty-eight years. The name of Isaiah, as Vitringa has remarked after several preceding commentators, is in some measure descriptive of his high character, since it signifies the salvation of Jehovah; and was given with singular propriety to him, who foretold the advent of the Messiah, through whom “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” Isa. xl, 5; Luke iii, 6; Acts iv, 12. Isaiah was contemporary with the Prophets Amos, Hosea, Joel, and Micah.

Isaiah is uniformly spoken of in the Scriptures as a prophet of the highest dignity: Bishop Lowth calls him the prince of all the prophets, and pronounces the whole of his book to be poetical, with the exception of a few detached passages. It is remarkable, that his wife is styled a prophetess in Isaiah viii, 3; whence the rabbinical writers have concluded that she possessed the spirit of prophecy: but it is very probable that the prophets’ wives were called prophetesses, as the priests’ wives were termed priestesses, only from the quality of their husbands. Although nothing farther is recorded in the Scriptures concerning the wife of Isaiah, we find two of his sons mentioned in his prophecy, who were types or figurative pledges; and their names and actions were intended to awaken a religious attention in the persons whom they were commissioned to address and to instruct. Thus, Shear-jashub signifies, “a remnant shall return,” and showed that the captives who should be carried to Babylon should return thence after a certain time, Isaiah vii, 3; and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which denotes, “make speed (or run swiftly) to the spoil,” implied that the kingdoms of Israel and Syria would in a short time be ravaged, Isaiah viii, 1, 3. Beside the volume of prophecies, which we are now to consider, it appears from 2 Chron. xxvi, 22, that Isaiah wrote an account of “the acts of Uzziah,” king of Judah: this has perished with some other writings of the prophets, which, as probably not written by inspiration, were never admitted into the canon of Scripture. There are also two apocryphal books ascribed to him, namely, The Ascension of Isaiah, and The Apocalypse of Isaiah; but these are evidently forgeries of a later date, and the Apocalypse has long since perished.

The scope of Isaiah’s predictions is threefold, namely, 1. To detect, reprove, aggravate, and condemn, the sins of the Jewish people especially, and also the iniquities of the ten tribes of Israel, and the abominations of many Gentile nations and countries; denouncing the severest judgments against all sorts and degrees of persons, whether Jews or Gentiles. 2. To invite persons of every rank and condition, both Jews and Gentiles, to repentance and reformation, by numerous promises of pardon and mercy. It is worthy of remark, that no such promises are intermingled with the denunciations of divine vengeance against Babylon, although they occur in the threatenings against every other people. 3. To comfort all the truly pious, in the midst of all the calamities and judgments denounced against the wicked, with prophetic promises of the true Messiah, which seem almost to anticipate the Gospel history, so clearly do they foreshow the divine character of Christ.

Isaiah has, with singular propriety, been denominated the evangelical prophet, on account of the number and variety of his prophecies concerning the advent and character, the ministry and preaching, the sufferings and death, and the extensive permanent kingdom, of the Messiah. So explicit and determinate are his predictions, as well as so numerous, that he seems to speak rather of things past than of events yet future; and he may rather be called an evangelist than a prophet. No one, indeed, can be at a loss in applying them to the mission and character of Jesus Christ, and to the events which are cited in his history by the writers of the New Testament. This prophet, says Bishop Lowth, abounds in such transcendent excellencies, that he may be properly said to afford the most perfect model of prophetic poetry. He is at once elegant and sublime, forcible and ornamented; he unites energy with copiousness, and dignity with variety. In his sentiments there is uncommon elevation and majesty; in his imagery, the utmost propriety, elegance, dignity, and diversity; in his language, uncommon beauty and energy; and, notwithstanding the obscurity of his subjects, a surprising degree of clearness and simplicity. To these we may add, that there is such sweetness in the poetical composition of his sentences, whether it proceed from art or genius, that, if the Hebrew poetry at present is possessed of any remains of its native grace and harmony, we shall chiefly find them in the writings of Isaiah: so that the saying of Ezekiel may most justly be applied to this prophet:--

“Thou art the confirmed exemplar of measures, Full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.” Ezekiel xxviii, 12.

Isaiah also greatly excels in all the graces of method, order, connection, and arrangement: though in asserting this we must not forget the nature of the prophetic impulse, which bears away the mind with irresistible violence, and frequently in rapid transitions from near to remote objects, from human to divine. We must likewise be careful in remarking the limits of particular predictions, since, as they are now extant, they are often improperly connected, without any marks of discrimination; which injudicious arrangement, on some occasions, creates almost insuperable difficulties.

Bishop Lowth has selected the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters of this prophet, as a specimen of the poetic style in which Isaiah delivers his predictions, and has illustrated at some length the various beauties which eminently distinguish the simple, regular, and perfect poem contained in those chapters. But the grandest specimen of his poetry is presented in the fourteenth chapter, which is one of the most sublime odes occurring in the Bible, and contains the noblest personifications to be found in the records of poetry. The prophet, after predicting the liberation of the Jews from their severe captivity in Babylon, and their restoration to their own country, verses 1–3, introduces a chorus of them, expressing their surprise and astonishment at the sudden downfall of Babylon, and the great reverse of fortune that had befallen the tyrant, who, like his predecessors, had oppressed his own, and harassed the neighbouring kingdoms. These oppressed kingdoms, or their rulers, are represented under the image of the fir trees and the cedars of Libanus, which is frequently used to express any thing in the political or religious world that is supereminently great and majestic: the whole earth shouts for joy; the cedars of Libanus utter a severe taunt over the fallen tyrant, and boast their security now he is no more, verses 4–8. This is followed, verse 9, by one of the boldest and most animated personifications of hades, or the regions of the dead, that was ever executed in poetry. Hades excites his inhabitants, the shades of princes, and the departed spirits of monarchs. These illustrious shades rise at once from their couches as from their thrones; and, advancing to the entrance of the cavern to meet the king of Babylon, they insult and deride him on being reduced to the same low state of impotence and dissolution with themselves, verses 10, 11. The Jews now resume the speech, verse 12; they address the king of Babylon as the morning star fallen from heaven, as the first in splendour and dignity, in the political world fallen from his high state: they introduce him as uttering the most extravagant vaunts of his power and ambitious designs in his former glory; these are strongly contrasted, in the close, with his present low and abject condition, verses 13–15. Immediately follows a different scene, and a most happy image, to diversify the same subject, and give it a new turn and additional force. Certain persons are introduced, who light upon the corpse of the king of Babylon, cast out and lying naked upon the bare ground, among the common slain, just after the taking of the city, covered with wounds, and so disfigured, that it is some time before they know him. They accost him with the severest taunts, and bitterly reproach him with his destructive ambition, and his cruel usage of the conquered; which have deservedly brought upon him this ignominious treatment, so different from what those of his high rank usually meet with, and which shall cover his posterity with disgrace, verses 16–20. To complete the whole, God is introduced, declaring the fate of Babylon; the utter extirpation of the royal family, and the total desolation of the city; the deliverance of his people, and the destruction of their enemies; confirming the irreversible decree by the awful sanction of his oath, verses 21–27. How forcible, says Bishop Louth, is this imagery, how diversified, how sublime! How elevated the diction, the figures, the sentiments! The Jewish nation, the cedars of Lebanon, the ghosts of departed kings, the Babylonish monarch, the travellers who find his corpse, and last of all Jehovah himself, are the characters which support this beautiful lyric drama. One continued action is kept up, or rather, a series of interesting actions are connected together in an incomparable whole: this, indeed, is the principal and distinguished excellence of the sublimer ode, and is displayed in its utmost perfection in this poem of Isaiah, which may be considered as one of the most ancient, and certainly one of the most finished, specimens of that species of composition which has been transmitted to us. The personifications here are frequent, yet not confused; bold, yet not improbable; a free, elevated, and truly divine spirit pervades the whole; nor is there any thing wanting in this ode to defeat its claim to the character of perfect pathos and sublimity. There is not a single instance in the whole compass of Greek and Roman poetry which, in every excellence of composition, can be said to equal or even to approach it.

ISCARIOT, the name of that disciple who betrayed our Saviour. He was so called, probably, as belonging to Karioth, or Cerioth; that is, a man of Kerioth, Matt. x, 4.

ISHBOSHETH, a son of King Saul, and his successor in the throne. He was acknowledged king by a part of the tribes of Israel, A. M. 2949, while David reigned at Hebron, over the tribe of Judah, 2 Sam. ii, 8, 9, &c; iii. He reigned two years in peace, but the remaining eight years were spent in perpetual wars between his troops and those of David, till in the end he perished, and with him ended the royal dignity of the house of Saul.

ISHMAELITES, the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, his Egyptian bond-maid. Ishmael was born B. C. 1910, and his name, founded on a circumstance which afforded relief to his mother, when she was wandering from her master’s house toward Egypt, her native country, is derived from the Hebrew ישמעאל, formed of שמע, to hear, and אל, God, and denoting, “the Lord hath hearkened.” The heavenly messenger who appeared to Hagar in the wilderness, and instructed her by what name to call her future son, predicted also that he and his posterity would prove fierce and warlike, engaged in repeated hostilities, and yet able to maintain their independence. Hagar, deriving encouragement from this circumstance, returned to the house of Abraham, and was soon delivered of her promised son. The father regarded Ishmael as the heir of his wealth, till Sarah had the promise of her son Isaac. After the birth of Isaac, Abraham was persuaded by his wife to dismiss Hagar and her son; and the patriarch probably provided for their subsistence in some distant situation, where they could not encroach on the patrimony of Isaac. Having wandered for some time in the wilderness of Beersheba, they proceeded farther to the wilderness of Paran, which bordered on Arabia; and here Ishmael arrived at maturity, and became an expert archer, or a hunter and warrior. In process of time his mother procured for him a wife out of Egypt, by whom he had twelve sons, who eventually established themselves as the heads of so many distinct Arabian tribes. Accordingly, the descendants of Ishmael are mentioned in history under the general name of Arabians and Ishmaelites. Of Ishmael’s personal history, we merely learn from the sacred writings, that he joined with his brother Isaac in paying the last tribute of respect to the remains of their father; and that he died at the age of a hundred and thirty-seven years, B. C. 1773, Gen. xxv, 9, 18. His descendants, according to the Scripture account, spread themselves “from Havilah to Shur, that is, before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria.” From this brief statement, we may conjecture how far their territory extended; for Havilah, according to the generality of writers, was situated near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Shur, on the isthmus which separates Arabia from Egypt, now called the Isthmus of Suez. From thence we may well imagine, that they spread themselves on both sides so far as to have taken possession of the greatest part of Arabia; and, indeed, Josephus does not scruple to style their progenitor the founder of the Arabian nation. See ARABIA.

ISHTOB, a country situated at the northern extremity of the mountains of Gilead, toward Mount Libanus, 2 Sam. x, 6. See TOB.

ISRAEL, a prince of God, or prevailing, or wrestling with God. This is the name which the angel gave Jacob, after having wrestled with him all night at Mahanaim, or Peniel, Genesis xxxii, 1, 2, 28, 29, 30; Hosea xii, 4. By the name of Israel is sometimes understood the person of Jacob, sometimes the whole people of Israel, the whole race of Jacob; sometimes the kingdom of Israel, or ten tribes, distinct from the kingdom of Judah; and finally, the spiritual Israel, the true church of God.

ISRAELITES, the descendants of Israel, who were first called Hebrews by reason of Abraham, who came from the other side of the Euphrates; and afterward Israelites, from Israel, the father of the twelve tribes; and, lastly, Jews, particularly after their return from the captivity of Babylon; because the tribe of Judah was then much stronger and more numerous than the other tribes, and foreigners had scarcely any knowledge but of this tribe. See JEWS.

ISSACHAR, the fifth son of Jacob and Leah, Gen. xxx, 14–18. He had four sons, Tola, Phovah, Job, and Shimron. We know nothing particular of his life. The tribe of Issachar had its portion in one of the best parts of the land of Canaan, along the great plain or valley of Jezreel, with the half tribe of Manasseh to the south, that of Zebulun to the north, the Mediterranean to the west, and Jordan, with the extremity of the sea of Tiberias, to the east.

ITHAMAR, Aaron’s fourth son, Exod. vi, 23. There is no probability that he ever exercised the high priesthood. He and his sons continued in the rank of simple priests, till this dignity came into his family in the person of Eli.

ITURÆA, so called from Itur, or Jetur, one of the sons of Ishmael, who settled in it, but whose posterity were either driven out or subdued by the Amorites; when it is supposed to have formed a part of the kingdom of Bashan, and subsequently of the half tribe of Manasseh east of Jordan; but as it was situated beyond the southern spur of Mount Hermon, called the Djebel Heish, this is doubtful. It lay on the north-eastern side of the land of Israel, between it and the territory of Damascus, or Syria; and is supposed to have been the same country at present known by the name of Djedour, on the east of the Djebel Heish, between Damascus and the lake of Tiberias. The Ituræans being subdued by Aristobulus, the high priest and governor of the Jews, B. C. 106, were forced by him to embrace the Jewish religion; and were at the same time incorporated into the state. Philip, one of the sons of Herod the Great, was tetrarch, or governor, of this country when John the Baptist commenced his ministry.

IVORY. שנבים; from שז, a tooth, and הבים, elephants; ἐλεφάντινος, Rev. xviii, 12. The first time that ivory is mentioned in Scripture is in the reign of Solomon. If the forty-fifth Psalm was written before the Canticles, and before Solomon had constructed his royal and magnificent throne, then that contains the first mention of this commodity. It is spoken of as used in decorating those boxes of perfume, whose odours were employed to exhilarate the king’s spirits. It is probable that Solomon, who traded to India, first brought thence elephants and ivory to Judea. “For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish, with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold and silver, and ivory,” 1 Kings x, 22; 2 Chron. ix, 21. It seems that Solomon had a throne decorated with ivory, and inlaid with gold; the beauty of these materials relieving the splendour, and heightening the lustre of each other, 1 Kings x, 18. Cabinets and wardrobes were ornamented with ivory, by what is called marquetry, Psalm xlv, 8.

_Quale per artem Inclusum buxo aut Oricia terebintho Lucet ebur._ VIRGIL.

“So shines a gem, illustrious to behold, On some fair virgin’s neck, enchased in gold: So the surrounding ebon’s darker hue Improves the polish'd ivory to the view.” PITT.

These were named “houses of ivory,” probably because made in the form of a house, or palace; as the silver ναοὶ of Diana, mentioned Acts xix, 24, were in the form of her temple at Ephesus; and as we have now ivory models of the Chinese pagodas, or temples. In this sense we may understand what is said of the ivory house which Ahab made, 1 Kings xxii, 39; for the Hebrew word translated “house is used,” as Dr. Taylor well observes, for “a place, or case, wherein any thing lieth, is contained, or laid up.” Ezekiel gives the name of house to chests of rich apparel, Ezek. xxvii, 24. Dr. Durell, in his note on Psalm xlv, 8, quotes places from Homer and Euripides, where the same appropriation is made. Hesiod makes the same. As to dwelling houses, the most, I think, we can suppose in regard to them is, that they might have ornaments of ivory, as they sometimes have of gold, silver, or other precious materials, in such abundance as to derive an appellation from the article of their decoration; as the Emperor Nero’s palace, mentioned by Suetonius, was named aurea, or “golden,” because lita auro, “overlaid with gold.” This method of ornamental buildings, or apartments, was very ancient among the Greeks. Homer mentions ivory as employed in the palace of Menelaus at Lacedæmon:--

Χαλκοῦ τε στεροπὴν, καδδώματα ἠχήεντα Χρυσοῦ τ’, ἠλέκτρȣ τε, καὶ ἀργύρȣ ἠ δ’ ἐλέφαντος. Odyss. iv, 72.

“Above, beneath, around the palace, shines The sumless treasure of exhausted mines; The spoils of elephants the roof inlay, And studded amber darts a golden ray.”

Bacchylides, cited by Athenæus, says, that, in the island of Ceos, one of the Cyclades, the houses of the great men “glister with gold and ivory.”

JABBOK, a small river which falls into the Jordan below the sea of Tiberias. Near this brook the angel wrestled with Jacob, Gen. xxxii, 22. Mr. Buckingham thus describes it: “The banks of this stream are so thickly wooded with oleander and plane trees, wild olives, and wild almonds in blossom, with many flowers, the names of which were unknown to us; with tall and waving reeds, at least fifteen feet in height; that we could not perceive the water through them from above, though the presence of these luxuriant borders marked the winding of its course, and the murmur of its flow, echoing through its long deep channel, was to be heard distinctly from afar. On this side of the stream, at the spot where we forded it, was a piece of wall, solidly built upon the inclined slope, constructed in a uniform manner, though of small stones, and apparently finished at the end toward the river, so that it never could have been carried across, as we at first supposed, either for a bridge, or to close the pass. This was called by the Arabs ‘Shugl beni Israel,’ or the work of the sons of Israel; but they knew of no other traditions regarding it. The river, where we crossed it at this point, was not more than ten yards wide, but it was deeper than the Jordan, and nearly as rapid; so that we had some difficulty in fording it. As it ran in a rocky bed, its waters were clear, and we found their taste agreeable.”

JABESH, or JABESH-GILEAD, the name of a city in the half tribe of Manasseh, east of Jordan. Naash, king of the Ammonites, besieged it, 1 Sam. xi, 1, &c. The inhabitants were friendly to Saul and his family, 1 Sam. xxxi, 11, 12.

JACHIN, the name of a pillar in Solomon’s temple, 1 Kings vii, 21. See BOAZ.

JACOB, the son of Isaac and Rebekah. He was the younger brother of Esau, and a twin. It was observed, that at his birth he held his brother Esau’s heel, and for this reason was called Jacob, Gen. xxv, 26, which signifies “he supplanted.” Jacob was of a meek and peaceable temper, and loved a quiet pastoral life; whereas Esau was of a fierce and turbulent nature, and was fond of hunting. Isaac had a particular fondness for Esau; but Rebekah was more attached to Jacob. The manner in which Jacob purchased his brother’s birthright for a mess of pottage, and supplanted him by obtaining Isaac’s blessing, is already referred to in the article ESAU.

The events of the interesting and chequered life of Jacob are so plainly and consecutively narrated by Moses, that they are familiar to all; but upon some of them a few remarks may be useful. As to the purchase of the birthright, Jacob appears to have been innocent so far as any guile on his part or real necessity from hunger on the part of Esau is involved in the question; but his obtaining the ratification of this by the blessing of Isaac, though agreeable, indeed, to the purpose of God, that the elder should serve the younger, was blamable as to the means employed. The remarks of Dr. Hales on this transaction implicate Isaac also:--Thirty-seven years after, when Jacob was seventy-seven years old, according to Abulfaragi, and Isaac a hundred and thirty-seven, when he was old, and his sight had failed, and he expected soon to die, his partiality for Esau led him to attempt to set aside the oracle, and the cession of Esau’s birthright to Jacob, by conferring on him the blessing of Abraham, in reward for bringing him savoury venison to eat, before his death. In this design, however, he was disappointed by the artifice of Rebekah, who dressed her favourite Jacob in his brother’s clothes, and made him personate Esau, and thereby surreptitiously obtained for him the blessing: “Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee,” Gen. xxvii, 1–29. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the agitation of Isaac, when “he trembled very exceedingly,” at the detection of the fraud, he did not attempt to rescind the blessing, nor transfer it to Esau; but, on the contrary, confirmed it on Jacob: “Yea, and he shall be blessed.” His wishes were overruled and controlled by that higher power which he vainly endeavoured to counteract; and that he spoke as the Spirit gave him utterance, appears from his prediction respecting Esau’s family: “And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break thy brother’s yoke from off thy neck,” Gen. xxvii, 40; which was fulfilled in the days of Jehoram, king of Judah, when “the Edomites revolted from under the dominion of Judah, and made themselves a king unto this day,” 2 Chron. xxi, 8–10.

According to this view, all the parties were more or less culpable; Isaac, for endeavouring to set aside the oracle which had been pronounced in favour of his younger son; but of which he might have an obscure conception; Esau, for wishing to deprive his brother of the blessing which he had himself relinquished; and Rebekah and Jacob, for securing it by fraudulent means, not trusting wholly in the Lord. That their principal object, however, was the spiritual part of the blessing, and not the temporal, was shown by the event. For Jacob afterward reverenced Esau as his elder brother, and insisted on Esau’s accepting a present from his band in token of submission, Gen. xxxiii, 3–15. Esau also appears to have possessed himself of his father’s property during Jacob’s long exile. But though the intention of Rebekah and Jacob might have been free from worldly or mercenary motives, they ought not to have done evil that good might come. And they were both severely punished in this life for their fraud, which destroyed the peace of the family, and planted a mortal enmity in the breast of Esau against his brother: “Is he not rightly named Jacob?” a supplanter; “for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and lo, now he hath taken away my blessing. The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob,” Gen. xxvii, 36–41. And there can be little doubt of his intention of executing his threat, when he came to meet him on his return, with such an armed force as strongly alarmed Jacob’s fears, had not God changed the spirit of Esau into mildness, so that “he ran to meet Jacob, and fell on his neck, and they wept,” Gen. xxxiii, 4. Rebekah, also, was deprived of the society of her darling son, whom “she sent away for one year,” as she fondly imagined, “until his brother’s fury should turn away,” Genesis xxvii, 42–44; but whom she saw no more; for she died during his long exile of twenty years, though Isaac survived, Gen. xxxv, 27. Thus was “she pierced through with many sorrows.” Jacob, also, had abundant reason to say, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage,” Gen. xlvii, 9. Though he had the consolation of having the blessing of Abraham voluntarily renewed to him by his father, before he was forced to fly from his brother’s fury, Gen. xxviii, 1–4, and had the satisfaction of obeying his parents in going to Padan-aram, or Charran, in quest of a wife of his own kindred, Gen. xxviii, 7; yet he set out on a long and perilous journey of six hundred miles and upward, through barren and inhospitable regions, unattended and unprovided, like a pilgrim, indeed, with only his staff in his hand, Gen. xxxii, 10. And though he was supported with the assurance of the divine protection, and the renewal of the blessing of Abraham by God himself, in his remarkable vision at Bethel, and solemnly devoted himself to his service, wishing only for food and raiment, and vowing to profess the worship of God, and pay tithe unto him should he return back in peace, Gen. xxviii, 10–22; yet he was forced to engage in a tedious and thankless servitude of seven years, at first for Rachel, with Laban, who retaliated upon him the imposition he had practised on his own father; and substituted Leah, whom he hated, for Rachel, whom he loved; and thereby compelled him to serve seven years more; and changed his wages several times during the remainder of his whole servitude of twenty years; in the course of which, as he pathetically complained, “the drought consumed him by day, and the frost by night, and the sleep departed from his eyes,” in watching Laban’s flocks, Gen. xxxi, 40; and at last he was forced to steal away, and was only protected from Laban’s vengeance, as afterward from Esau’s, by divine interposition. Add to these his domestic troubles and misfortunes; the impatience of his favourite wife, “Give me children, or I die;” her death in bearing her second son, Benjamin; the rape of his daughter Dinah; the perfidy and cruelty of her brothers, Simeon and Levi, to the Shechemites; the misbehaviour of Reuben; the supposed death of Joseph, his favourite and most deserving son:--these were, all together, sufficient to have brought down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, had he not been divinely supported and encouraged throughout the whole of his pilgrimage. For the circumstances which led Jacob into Egypt, see JOSEPH.

When Jacob, at the invitation of Joseph, went down to Egypt, Joseph introduced his father to his royal master; and the patriarch, in his priestly character, blessed Pharaoh, and supplicated the divine favour for the king. The venerable appearance and the pious demeanour of Jacob led the monarch to inquire his years; to which he replied, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been; and I have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” This answer of the patriarch was not the language of discontent, but the solemn reflection of a man who had experienced a large share of trouble, and who knew that the whole of human life is indeed but “a vain show,” Genesis xlvii, 1–10. Jacob spent the remainder of his days in tranquillity and prosperity, enjoying the society of his beloved child seventeen years. The close of his life was a happy calm, after a stormy voyage. The patriarch, perceiving that his dissolution was near, sent for Joseph, and bound him by a solemn promise to bury him with his fathers in Canaan. Shortly after this, Jacob was taken ill, and it being reported to Joseph, he hastened to the bedside of his father, taking with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. On hearing that his son was come, Jacob exerted all his strength, and sat up in his bed to receive him, and to impart that blessing which, in the spirit of prophecy, he was commissioned to bequeath. He next blessed the infant children of Joseph; but, as he placed his hands upon their heads, he crossed them, putting his right upon Ephraim the younger, and his left upon Manasseh the elder. Joseph wished to correct the mistake of his father, but Jacob persisted, being guided by a divine impulse; and he gave to each of the lads a portion in Israel, at the same time declaring that the younger should be greater than the elder, Gen. xlviii, 22. When this interview was ended, Jacob caused all his sons to assemble round his dying bed, that he might inform them what would befall them in the last days, Gen. xlix, 1, 2. Of all the predictions which he pronounced with his expiring breath, the most remarkable and the most interesting is that relating to Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen. xlix, 10. One grand personage was in the mind of the patriarch, as it had been in the contemplation of his predecessors, even the illustrious Deliverer who should arise in after ages to redeem his people, and bring salvation to the human race. The promised Seed was the constant object of faithful expectation; and all the patriarchal ordinances, institutions, and predictions, had an allusion, positive or incidental, to the Messiah. Hitherto the promise was confined generally to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that from them the glorious blessing should arise; but now, under the divine direction, the dying patriarch foretels in what tribe, and at what period, the great Restorer shall come. The sovereign authority was to continue in the possession of Judah, till from that tribe Shiloh should appear, and then the royalty must cease. This was fulfilled; for the tribe of Judah possessed legislative power till the time of Christ, and from that period the Jewish people have neither had dominion nor priesthood. Jesus Christ, therefore, must either be the true Shiloh, or the prophecy has failed; for the Jews cannot prove that they have had any thing like temporal power since his crucifixion. When they were so clamorous for the execution of Jesus, and Pilate told them to take the law into their own hands, they shrunk fearfully from the proposal, and acknowledged their slavish state by saying, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death,” John xviii, 31. Here, then, we have a glorious proof of the veracity of Scripture, and an incontestible evidence of the truth of our religion.

When Jacob had finished blessing his sons, he charged them to bury him in the cave of Machpelah, with Abraham and Isaac, and, “gathering his feet into the bed, he yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people,” Gen. xlix, 33. Joseph, having closed the eyes of his father, and wept over him, commanded the physicians to embalm the body. After a general mourning of seventy days, he solicited the king’s permission to go with the remains of Jacob into Canaan, to which Pharaoh consented; and with Joseph went up all the state officers and principal nobility of Egypt, so that when they came to the place of interment, the Canaanites were astonished, and said, “This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians,” Gen. l, 1–11.

JACOBITES, a denomination of eastern Christians, who first made their appearance in the fifth century, and were called Monophysites. Jacob Albardai, or Baradæus, who flourished about A. D. 530, restored the sect, then almost expiring, to its former vigour, and modelled it anew; and hence from him they obtained the name of Jacobites. See HYPOSTATICAL UNION.

JACOB’s WELL, or fountain, a well near Shechem, at which our Saviour conversed with the woman of Samaria, John iv, 12. Jacob dwelt near this place, before his sons slew the inhabitants of Shechem. If any thing, says Dr. E. D. Clarke, connected with the remembrance of past ages be calculated to awaken local enthusiasm, the land around this city is preëminently entitled to consideration. The sacred story of events transacted in the fields of Sichem, Gen. xxxvii, from our earliest years, is remembered with delight; but with the territory before our eyes, where those events took place, and in the view of objects existing as they were described above three thousand years ago, the grateful impression kindles into ecstacy. Along the valley may still be seen, as in the days of Reuben and Judah, “a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh,” who would gladly purchase another Joseph of his brethren, and convey him as a slave to some Potiphar in Egypt. Upon the hills around, flocks and herds are seen feeding as of old; nor in the simple garb of the shepherds of Samaria, at this day, is there any thing repugnant to the notions we may entertain of the appearance formerly presented by the sons of Jacob. In the time of Alexander the Great, Sichem, or Napolose, as it is now called, was considered as the capital of Samaria. Its inhabitants were called Samaritans, not merely as people of Samaria, but as a sect at variance with the Jews; and they have continued to maintain their peculiar tenets to this day. The inhabitants, according to Procopius, were much favoured by the Emperor Justinian, who restored their sanctuaries, and added largely to the edifices of the city. The principal object of veneration among them is Jacob’s well, over which a church was formerly erected. This is situated at a small distance from the town in the road to Jerusalem, and has been visited by pilgrims of all ages, but particularly since the Christian era, as the place where Christ revealed himself to the woman of Samaria. The spot is so distinctly marked by the evangelist, John iv, and so little liable to uncertainty from the circumstance of the well itself, and the features of the country, that, if no tradition existed to identify it, the site of it could scarcely be mistaken. Perhaps no Christian scholar ever read the fourth chapter of St. John’s Gospel attentively, without being struck with the numerous internal evidences of truth which crowd upon the mind in its perusal. Within so small a compass, it is impossible to find in other writings so many sources of reflection and of interest. Independently of its importance as a theological document, it concentrates so much information, that a volume might be filled with the illustration it reflects upon the history of the Jews, and upon the geography of their country. All that can be gathered from Josephus on these subjects seems to be as a comment to illustrate this chapter. The journey of our Lord from Judea into Galilee; the cause of it; his passage through the territory of Samaria; his approach to the metropolis of that country; its name; his arrival at the Amorite field, which terminates the narrow valley of Sichem; the ancient custom of halting at a well; the female employment of drawing water; the disciples sent into the city for food, by which its situation out of the town is so obviously implied; the question of the woman referring to existing prejudices which separated the Jews from the Samaritans; the depth of the well; the oriental allusion contained in the expression, “living water;” the history of the well, and the customs illustrated by it; the worship upon Mount Gerizim:--all these occur within the space of twenty verses; and if to these be added that remarkable circumstance mentioned in the fifty-first verse of the chapter, where it is stated that “as he was now going down, his servants met him,” his whole route from Cana being a continual descent toward Capernaum, we may consider it as a record, signally confirmed in its veracity by circumstances which remain in indelible character, to give them evidence, to this day.

JAH, one of the names of God, which we meet with in the composition of many Hebrew words; as, Adonijah, Allelujah, Malachiah; that is, “My Lord,” Praise the Lord,” “The Lord is my King.”

JAIR, of the family of Manasseh. He possessed a large canton beyond Jordan; the whole country of Argob, as far as the borders of Geshur and Maachathi, Judges x, 3. He succeeded Tola in the judicature or government of the Israelites, and was himself succeeded by Jephthah. His government continued twenty-two years; from A. M. 2795 to 2817. Jair had thirty sons, who rode on asses, and were lords or governors of thirty towns, called Havoth-jair. He was buried at Camon beyond Jordan.

JAMES, Ἰάκωβος, of the same import as Jacob. James, surnamed the greater or, the elder, to distinguish him from James the younger, was brother to John the evangelist, and son to Zebedee and Salome, Matt. iv, 21. He was of Bethsaida, in Galilee, and left all to follow Christ. Salome requested our Saviour, that her two sons, James and John, might sit at his right hand, when he should be in possession of his kingdom. Our Saviour answered, that it belonged to his heavenly Father alone to dispose of these places of honour, Matt. xx, 21. Before their vocation, James and John followed the trade of fishermen with their father Zebedee; and they did not quit their profession till our Saviour called them, Mark i, 18, 19. They were witnesses of our Lord’s transfiguration, Matt. xvii, 2. When certain Samaritans refused to admit Jesus Christ, James and John wished for fire from heaven to consume them, Luke ix, 54; and for this reason, it is thought, the name of Boanerges, or sons of thunder, was given them. Some days after the resurrection of our Saviour, James and John went to fish in the sea of Tiberias, where they saw Jesus. They were present at the ascension of our Lord. St. James is said to have preached to all the dispersed tribes of Israel; but for this there is only report. His martyrdom is related, Acts xii, 1, 2, about A. D. 42, or 44, for the date is not well ascertained. Herod Agrippa, king of the Jews, and grandson of Herod the Great, caused him to be seized and executed at Jerusalem. Clemens Alexandrinus informs us, that he who brought St. James before the judges was so much affected with his constancy in confessing Jesus Christ, that he also declared himself a Christian, and was condemned, as well as the Apostle, to be beheaded.

JAMES THE LESS, surnamed the brother of our Lord, Gal. i, 19, was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, and Mary, sister to the blessed virgin; consequently, he was cousin-german to Jesus Christ. He was surnamed the Just, on account of the admirable holiness and purity of his life. He is said to have been a priest, and to have observed the laws of the Nazarites from his birth. Our Saviour appeared to James the less, eight days after his resurrection, 1 Cor. xv, 7. He was at Jerusalem, and was considered as a pillar of the church, when St. Paul first came thither after his conversion, Gal. i, 19, A. D. 37. In the council of Jerusalem, held in the year 51, St. James gave his vote last; and the result of the council was principally formed from what St. James said, who, though he observed the ceremonies of the law, and was careful that others should observe them, was of opinion, that such a yoke was not to be imposed on the faithful converted from among the Heathens, Acts xv, 13, &c.

James the less was a person of great prudence and discretion, and was highly esteemed by the Apostles and other Christians. Such, indeed, was his general reputation for piety and virtue, that, as we learn, from Origen, Eusebius, and Jerom, Josephus thought, and declared it to be the common opinion, that the sufferings of the Jews, and the destruction of their city and temple, were owing to the anger of God, excited by the murder of James. This must be considered as a strong and remarkable testimony to the character of this Apostle, as it is given by a person who did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. The passages of Josephus, referred to by those fathers upon this subject, are not found in his works now extant.

JAMES, GENERAL EPISTLE OF. Clement of Rome and Hermas allude to this epistle; and it is quoted by Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerom, Chrysostom, Augustine, and many other fathers. But though the antiquity of this epistle had been always undisputed, some few formerly doubted its right to be admitted into the canon. Eusebius says, that in his time it was generally, though not universally, received as canonical; and publicly read in most, but not in all, churches; and Estius affirms, that after the fourth century, no church or ecclesiastical writer is found who ever doubted its authenticity; but that, on the contrary, it is included in all subsequent catalogues of canonical Scripture, whether published by councils, churches, or individuals. It has, indeed, been the uniform tradition of the church, that this epistle was written by James the Just; but it was not universally admitted till after the fourth century, that James the Just was the same person as James the less, one of the twelve Apostles; that point being ascertained, the canonical authority of this epistle was no longer doubted. It is evident that this epistle could not have been written by James the elder, for he was beheaded by Herod Agrippa in the year 44, and the errors and vices reproved in this epistle show it to be of a much later date; and the destruction of Jerusalem is also here spoken of as being very near at hand, James v, 8, 9. It has always been considered as a circumstance very much in favour of this epistle, that it is found in the Syriac version, which was made as early as the end of the first century, and for the particular use of converted Jews,--the very description of persons to whom it was originally addressed. Hence we infer, that it was from the first acknowledged by those for whose instruction it was intended; and “I think,” says Dr. Doddridge, “it can hardly be doubted but they were better judges of the question of its authenticity than the Gentiles, to whom it was not written; among whom, therefore, it was not likely to be propagated so early; and who at first might be prejudiced against it, because it was inscribed to the Jews.”

The immediate design of this epistle was to animate the Jewish Christians to support with fortitude and patience any sufferings to which they might be exposed, and to enforce the genuine doctrine and practice of the Gospel, in opposition to the errors and vices which then prevailed among them. St. James begins by showing the benefits of trials and afflictions, and by assuring the Jewish Christians that God would listen to their sincere prayers for assistance and support; he reminds them of their being the distinguished objects of divine favour, and exhorts them to practical religion; to a just and impartial regard for the poor, and to a uniform obedience to all the commands of God, without any distinction or exception; he shows the inefficacy of faith without works, that is, unless followed by moral duties; he inculcates the necessity of a strict government of the tongue, and cautions them against censoriousness, strife, malevolence, pride, indulgence of their sensual passions, and rash judgment; he denounces threats against those who make an improper use of riches; he intimates the approaching destruction of Jerusalem; and concludes with exhortations to patience, devotion, and a solicitous concern for the salvation of others. This epistle is written with great perspicuity and energy, and it contains an excellent summary of those practical duties and moral virtues which are required of Christians. Although the author wrote to the Jews dispersed throughout the world, yet the state of his native land passed more immediately before his eyes. Its final overthrow was approaching; and oppressions, factions, and violent scenes troubled all ranks, and involved some professing Christians in suffering, others in guilt.

JANNES and JAMBRES, or, as Pliny calls them, Jamne and Jotape, two magicians, who resisted Moses in Egypt, 2 Tim. iii, 8. He speaks, likewise, of the faction or sect of magicians, of which, he says, Moses, Jannes, and Jocabel, or Jopata, were heads. By this last word he meant probably the patriarch Joseph, whom the Egyptians considered as one of their most celebrated sages. The Mussulmans have several particulars to the same purpose. The paraphrast Jonathan says they were the sons of Balaam, who accompanied him to Balak, king of Moab. They are called by several names in several translations; by the Septuagint, φαρμακοὶ, poisoners, and ἐπαοιδοὶ, enchanters; by Sulpitius Severus, Chaldæans, that is, astrologers; by others, sapientes and malefici, wise men, that is, so esteemed among the Egyptians, philosophers, and witches. Artapanus tells us, that Pharaoh sent for magicians from Upper Egypt to oppose Moses. Ambrosiaster, or Hilary, the deacon, says they were brothers. He cites a book entitled “Jannes and Mambres,” which is likewise quoted by Origen, and ranked as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius. Some of the Hebrews call them Janes and Jambres; others, Jochana and Mamré, or Jonas and Jombros. Jerom translates their names Johannes and Mambres; and there is a tradition, they say, in the Talmud, that Juhanni and Mamré, chief of Pharaoh’s physicians, said to Moses, “Thou bringest straw into Egypt where abundance of corn grew;” that is, to bring your magical arts hither is to as much purpose as to bring water to the Nile. Some say their names are the same as John and Ambrose. Some will have it that they fled away with their father; others, that they were drowned in the Red Sea with the Egyptians; others, that they were killed by Phinehas in the war against the Midianites. Numenius, cited by Aristobulus, says that Jannes and Jambres were sacred scribes of the Egyptians, who excelled in magic at the time when the Jews were driven out of Egypt. See PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

JANSENISTS, a denomination of Roman Catholics in France, which was formed in the year 1640. They follow the opinions of Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, from whose writings the following propositions are said to have been extracted:--1. That there are divine precepts which good men, notwithstanding their desire to observe them, are, nevertheless, absolutely unable to obey; nor has God given them that measure of grace which is essentially necessary to render them capable of such obedience. 2. That no person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the influence of divine grace, when it operates upon the mind. 3. That, in order to render human actions meritorious, it is not requisite that they be exempt from necessity; but that they be free from constraint. 4. That the Semi-Pelagians err greatly, in maintaining that the human will is endowed with the power of either receiving or resisting the aids and influences of preventing grace. 5. That whoever affirms that Jesus Christ made expiation, by his sufferings and death, for the sins of all mankind, is a Semi-Pelagian. Of these propositions, Pope Innocent X. condemned the first four as heretical, and the last as rash and impious. But he did this without asserting that these were the doctrines of Jansenius, or even naming him; which did not satisfy his adversaries, nor silence him. The next pope, however, Alexander VII. was more particular, and determined the said propositions to be the doctrines of Jansenius; which excited no small trouble in the Gallican church.

This denomination was also distinguished from many of the Roman Catholics, by their maintaining that the Holy Scriptures and public liturgies should be given to the people in their mother tongue; and they consider it as a matter of importance to inculcate upon all Christians, that true piety does not consist in the performance of external devotions, but in inward holiness and divine love.

As to Jansenius, it must be confessed that he was more diligent in the search of truth, than courageous in its defence. It is said that he read through the whole of St. Augustine’s works ten, and some parts thirty, times. From these he made a number of excerpta, [extracts,] which he collected in his book called “Augustinus.” This he had not the courage to publish; but it was printed after his death, and from it his enemies, the Jesuits, extracted the propositions above named; but the correctness and fidelity of their extracts may be justly questioned. Jansenius himself, undoubtedly, held the opinions of Calvin on unconditional election, though he seems to have been reserved in avowing them.

The Jansenists of Port Royal may be denominated the evangelical party of the Catholic church: among their number were the famous Father Quesnel, Pierre Nicole, Pascal, De Sacy, Duguet, and Arnauld; the last of whom is styled by Boileau, “the most learned mortal that ever lived.” They consecrated all their great powers to the service of the cross; and for their attachment to the grand article of the Protestant reformation,--justification by faith, with other capital doctrines, they suffered the loss of all things. The Jesuits, their implacable enemies, never ceased until they prevailed upon their sovereign, Louis XIV. to destroy the abbey of Port Royal, and banish its inhabitants. It must be confessed, however, that all the Jansenists were not like the eminent men whom we have just mentioned; and even these were tinged with enthusiasm and superstition. Some of them even pretended to work miracles, by which their cause was greatly injured.

JAPHETH, the son of Noah, who is commonly named the third in order of Noah’s sons, was born in the five hundredth year of that patriarch, Genesis v, 32; but Moses, Genesis x, 21, says expressly he was the oldest of Noah’s sons, according to our translation, and those of the Septuagint and Symmachus. Abraham was named the first of Terah’s sons, “not from primogeniture, but from preëminence,” as the father of the faithful, and the illustrious ancestor of the Israelites, and of the Jews, whose “seed was Christ,” according to the flesh; with whose history the Old Testament properly commences: “Now these are the generations of Terah,” &c, Gen. xi, 27; all the preceding parts of Genesis being only introductory to this. By the same analogy, Shem, the second son of Noah, is placed first of his three sons, Gen. v, 32, and Japheth, “the eldest,” last. Compare Gen. x, 21; xi, 20. Thus Isaac is put before Ishmael, though fourteen years younger, 1 Chron. i, 28. And Solomon, the eldest, is reckoned the last of Bathsheba’s children, 1 Chron. iii, 5.

Japheth signifies enlargement; and how wonderfully did Providence enlarge the boundaries of Japheth! His posterity diverged eastward and westward; from the original settlement in Armenia, through the whole extent of Asia, north of the great range of Taurus, distinguished by the general names of Tartary and Siberia, as far as the Eastern Ocean: and in process of time, by an easy passage across Behring’s straits, the entire continent of America; and they spread in the opposite direction, throughout the whole of Europe, to the Atlantic Ocean; thus literally encompassing the earth, within the precincts of the northern temperate zone. While the enterprising and warlike genius of this hardy hunter race frequently led them to encroach on the settlements, and to dwell in “the tents of Shem,” whose pastoral occupations rendered them more inactive, peaceable, and unwarlike; as when the Scythians invaded Media, and overran western Asia southwards, as far as Egypt, in the days of Cyaxares; and when the Greeks, and afterward the Romans, subdued the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, in the east, and the Scythians and Jews in the south, as foretold by the Assyrian Prophet Balaam:

“And ships shall come from the coast of Chittim, And shall afflict the Assyrians, and afflict the Hebrews; But he [the invader] shall perish himself at last.” Numb. xxiv, 24.

And by Moses: “And the Lord shall bring thee [the Jews] into Egypt [or bondage] again with ships,” &c, Deut. xxviii, 28. And by Daniel: “For the ships of Chittim shall come against him” [Antiochus, king of Syria,] Dan. xi, 30.

In these passages Chittim denotes the southern coasts of Europe, bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, called the “isles of the Gentiles,” Gen. x, 5. And, in later times, the Tartars in the east have repeatedly invaded and subdued the Hindoos and Chinese; while the warlike and enterprising genius of the British isles has spread their colonies, their arms, their arts, and their language, and, in some measure, their religion, from the rising to the setting sun.

The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The Scripture says, that they peopled the isles of the Gentiles, and settled in different countries, each according to his language, family, and people, Genesis x, 5. It is supposed that Gomer peopled Galatia, and that from him the Cimmerians, or Cimbrians, and also the Phrygians, derived their origin; that Magog was the father of the Scythians, and Tartars, or Tatars; that Madai was the progenitor of the Medes, though some make him the founder of a people in Macedonia, called Macdi; that from Javan sprung the Ionians and Greeks; that Tubal was the father of the Iberians, and that at least a part of Spain was peopled by him and his descendants; that Meshech was the founder of the Cappadocians, from whom proceeded the Muscovites, or Russians; and that from Tiras the Thracians derived their origin. Japheth was known, by profane authors, under the name of Japetus. The poets make him father of heaven and earth. The Greeks believed that Japheth was the father of their race, and acknowledged nothing more ancient than him.

JAR, the Hebrew month which answers to our April. It consisted but of twenty-nine days.

JASPER, ישפה, Exod. xxviii, 20; xxxix, 13; and Ezek. xxviii, 13; ἴασπις, Rev. iv, 3, and xxi, 11, 18, 19. The Greek and Latin name, jaspis, as well as the English jasper, is plainly derived from the Hebrew, and leaves little room to doubt what species of gem is meant by the original word. The jasper is usually defined, a hard stone, of a bright, beautiful, green colour; sometimes clouded with white, and spotted with red or yellow.

JAVAN, or ION, (for the Hebrew word, differently pointed, forms both names,) was the fourth son of Japheth, and the father of all those nations which were included under the name of Grecians, or Ionians, as they were invariably called in the east. Javan had four sons, by whom the different portions of Greece Proper were peopled: Elisha, Tharsis, Chittim, and Dodanim. Elisha, Eliza, or Ellas, as it is written in the Chaldee, and from whom the Greeks took the name of Hέλληνες, settled in the Peloponnesus; where, in the Elysian fields and the river Ilissus, his name is still preserved. Tharsis settled in Achaia; Chittim, in Macedonia; and Dodanim, in Thessaly and Epirus; where the city of Dodona gives ample proof of the origin of its name. But the Greeks did not remain pure Javanim. It appears from history that, at a very early age, they were invaded and subjugated by the Pelasgi, a Cuthite race from the east, and by colonies of Phenicians and Egyptians from the south: so that the Greeks, so famous in history, were a compound of all these people. The aboriginal Greeks were called Jaones, or Jonim; from which similarity of sound, the Jonim and the Javanim, although belonging to two essentially different families, have been confounded together. Javan is the name used in the Old Testament for Greece and the Greeks. See DIVISION OF THE EARTH.

JEALOUSY, WATERS OF. See ADULTERY.

JEBUS, the son of Canaan, Gen. x, 16, and father of the people of Palestine called Jebusites. Their dwelling was in Jerusalem and round about, in the mountains. This people were very warlike, and held Jerusalem till David’s time, Josh. xv, 65; 2 Sam. v, 6, &c.

JEDUTHUN, a Levite of Merari’s family, and one of the four great masters of music belonging to the temple, 1 Chron. xvi, 38, 41, 42; xv, 17; Psalm lxxxix, title. He is the same as Ethan. Some of the Psalms are said to have been composed by him; such as the eighty-ninth, thirty-ninth, sixty-second, seventy-seventh; all of which go under his name. Some believe, that David, having composed these Psalms, gave them to Jeduthun and his company to sing; and that this is the reason of their going by this name. But there are some Psalms which have the name of Jeduthun, that seem to have been composed either during the captivity, or after it; and consequently the name of Jeduthun prefixed to them, can signify nothing else, but that some of his descendants, and of Jeduthun’s class, composed them long after the death of the famous Jeduthun, one of their ancestors.

JEHOAHAZ, otherwise SHALLUM, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, Jer. xxii, 11. Josiah having been wounded mortally by Necho, king of Egypt, and dying of his wounds at Megiddo, Jehoahaz was made king in his room, though he was not Josiah’s eldest son, 2 Kings xxiii, 30, 31, 32. He was in all probability thought fitter than any of his brethren to make head against the king of Egypt. He was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned about three months only in Jerusalem, in the year of the world 3395. King Necho, at his return from the expedition against Carchemish, provoked at the people of Judah for having placed this prince upon the throne without his consent, sent for him to Riblah, in Syria, divested him of the kingdom, loaded him with chains, and sent him into Egypt, where he died, Jer. xxii, 11, 12. Jehoiakim, or Eliakim his brother, was made king in his room.

JEHOIACHIN, otherwise called Coniah, Jer. xxii, 24, and Jeconiah, 1 Chron. iii, 17, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and grandson of Josiah. He ascended the throne, and reigned only three months. It seems he was born about the time of the first Babylonish captivity, A. M. 3398, when Jehoiakim, or Eliakim, his father, was carried to Babylon. Jehoiakim returned from Babylon, and reigned till A. M. 3405, when he was killed by the Chaldeans, in the eleventh year of his reign; and was succeeded by this Jehoiachin, who reigned alone three months and ten days; but he reigned about ten years in conjunction with his father. Thus 2 Kings xxiv, 8, is reconciled with 2 Chron. xxxvi, 9. In the former of these passages, he is said to have been eighteen when he began to reign, and in Chronicles only eight; that is, he was only eight when he began to reign with his father, and eighteen when he began to reign alone. He was a bad man, and did evil in the sight of the Lord, Jer. xxii, 24. The time of his death is uncertain; and the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, xxii, 30, are not to be taken in the strictest sense; since he was the father of Salathiel and others, 1 Chron. iii, 17, 18; Matt. i, 12.

JEHOIAKIM, or ELIAKIM, the brother and successor of Jehoahaz, king of Judah, was advanced to the throne by Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, A. M. 3395, 2 Kings xxiii, 34. He reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, and did evil in the sight of the Lord. When Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, this prince was also taken and put to death, and his body thrown into the common sewer, according to the prediction of Jeremiah, xxii, 18, 19.

JEHOSHAPHAT, king of Judah, son of Asa, king of Judah, and Azabah, daughter of Shilhi, ascended the throne at the age of thirty-five, and reigned twenty-five years. He had the advantage over Baasha, king of Israel; and he placed good garrisons in the cities of Judah and of Ephraim, which had been conquered by his father. God was with him, because he was faithful. He demolished the high places and groves. In the third year of his reign he sent some of his officers, with priests and Levites, through all the parts of Judah, with the book of the law, to instruct the people. God blessed the zeal of this prince, who was feared by all his neighbours. The Philistines and Arabians were tributaries to him. He built several houses in Judah in the form of towers, and fortified several cities. He generally kept an army of eleven hundred thousand men, without reckoning the troops in his strong holds. This number seems prodigious for so small a state as that of Judah; but, probably, these troops were only an enrolled militia.

The Scripture reproaches Jehoshaphat for his alliance with Ahab, king of Israel, 1 Kings xx; 2 Chronicles xviii. Some time after, he went to visit Ahab in Samaria; and Ahab invited him to march with him against Ramoth-Gilead. Jehoshaphat consented, but first asked for an opinion from a prophet of the Lord. Afterward, he went into the battle in his robe, and the enemy supposed him to be Ahab; but he crying out, they discovered their mistake, and Jehoshaphat returned in peace to Jerusalem. The Prophet Jehu reproved him for assisting Ahab, 2 Chron. xix, 1, 2, 3, &c. Jehoshaphat repaired this fault by the good regulations, and the good order, which he established in his dominions, both as to civil and religious affairs, by appointing honest and able judges, by regulating the discipline of the priests and Levites, and by enjoining them to perform their duty with punctuality. After this, in the year 3108, the Moabites, Ammonites, and other nations of Arabia Petræa, declared war against Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xx, 1, 2, 3, &c. They advanced to Hazaron-Tamar, otherwise Engedi. Jehoshaphat went with his people to the temple, and put up prayers to God. Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah, by the Spirit of the Lord, encouraged the king, and promised that the next day he should obtain a victory without fighting. Accordingly, these people being assembled the next day against Judah, quarrelled, and killed one another; and Jehoshaphat and his army had only to gather their spoils. This prince continued to walk in the ways of the Lord; yet he did not destroy the high places, and the hearts of the people were not entirely directed to the God of their fathers. Jehoshaphat died after a reign of twenty-five years, and was buried in the royal sepulchre; and his son, Jehoram reigned in his stead.

2. JEHOSHAPHAT, VALLEY OF. This valley is a deep and narrow glen, which runs from north to south, between the Mount of Olives and Mount Moriah; the brook Cedron flowing through the middle of it, which is dry the greatest part of the year, but has a current of a red colour, after storms, or in rainy seasons. The Prophet Joel, iii, 2, 12, says, “The Lord will gather all nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there.” Abenezra is of opinion, that this valley is the place where King Jehoshaphat obtained a signal victory over the Moabites, Ammonites, and Meonians of Arabia Petræa, 2 Chron. xx, 1, &c, toward the Dead Sea, beyond the wilderness of Tekoah, which after that event was called the valley of blessing, verse 26. Others think it lies between the walls of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Cyril, of Alexandria, on Joel iii, says that this valley is but a few furlongs distant from Jerusalem. Lastly, some maintain that the ancient Hebrews had named no particular place the valley of Jehoshaphat; but that Joel intended generally the place where God would judge the nations, and will appear at the last judgment in the brightness of his majesty. Jehoshaphat, in Hebrew, signifies “the judgment of God.” It is very probable that the valley of Jehoshaphat, that is, of God’s judgment, is symbolical, as well as the valley of slaughter, in the same chapter. From this passage, however, the Jews and many Christians have been of opinion, that the last judgment will be solemnized in the valley of Jehoshaphat.

JEHOVAH, יהוה the proper and incommunicable name of the Divine Essence. That this divine name, Jehovah, was well known to the Heathens, there can be no doubt. Sanchoniathon writes Jebo; Diodorus, the Sicilian, Macrobius, St. Clemens Alexandrinus, St. Jerom, and Origen, pronounce Jao; Epiphanius, Theodoret, and the Samaritans, Jabe, Javé. We likewise find in the ancients, Jahoh, Javo, Javu, Jaod. The Moors call their god Jaba, whom some believe to be the same as Jehovah. The Latins, in all probability, took their Javis, or Jovis Pater, from Jehovah.

The Jews, after their captivity in Babylon, out of an excessive and superstitious respect for this name, left off to pronounce it, and thus lost the true pronunciation. The Septuagint generally renders it Κύριος, “the Lord.” Origen, St. Jerom, and Eusebius, testify that in their time the Jews left the name of Jehovah written in their copies in Samaritan characters, instead of writing it in the common Chaldee or Hebrew characters; which shows their veneration for this holy name: and the fear they were under, lest strangers, who were not unacquainted with the Chaldee letters and language, should discover and misapply it. The Jews call this name of God the Tetragrammaton, or the name with four letters. It would be waste of time and patience to repeat all that has been said on this incommunicable name: it may not be amiss, however, to remind the reader, 1. That although it signifies the state of being, yet it forms no verb. 2. It never assumes a plural form. 3. It does not admit an article, or take an affix. 4. Neither is it placed in a state of construction with other words; though other words may be in construction with it. It seems to be a compound of יה, the essence, and הוה, existing; that is, always existing; whence the word eternal appears to express its import; or, as it is well rendered, “He who is, and who was, and who is to come,” Rev. i, 4; xi, 17; that is, eternal, as the schoolmen speak, both a parte ante, and a parte post. Compare John viii, 58. It is usually marked by an abbreviation, ו, in Jewish books, where it must be alluded to. It is also abbreviated in the term יה, Jah, which, the reader will observe, enters into the formation of many Hebrew appellations. See JAH.

JEHU, the son of Jehoshaphat, and grandson of Nimshi, captain of the troops of Joram the king of Israel, was appointed by God to reign over Israel, and to avenge the sins committed by the house of Ahab, 1 Kings xix, 16. The Prophet Elisha received a commission to anoint him; but the order does not appear to have been executed until more than twenty years afterward, and then it was done by one of the sons of the prophets, 2 Kings ix, 1–3. Jehu was then at the siege of Ramoth-Gilead, commanding the army of Joram, the king of Israel, when a young prophet appeared, who took him aside from the officers of the army, in the midst of whom he was sitting, and, when alone in a chamber, poured oil on his head, and said to him, “Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel; thou shalt smite the house of Ahab, and avenge the blood of the prophets which hath been shed by Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will make it as that of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and that of Baasha, the son of Ahijah. Jezebel shall be eaten by the dogs in the fields of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her,” 2 Kings ix, 1–10. No sooner had the prophet delivered his message, than, to avoid being known, he instantly withdrew; and Jehu, returning to the company of his brother officers, was by them interrogated respecting what had taken place. He informed them that a prophet had been sent from God to anoint him to the kingly office; on which they all rose up, and each taking his cloak, they made a kind of throne for Jehu, and then sounding the trumpets, cried out, “Jehu is king.” Joram, who at that time reigned over the kingdom of Israel, was then at Jezreel in a state of indisposition, having been wounded at the siege of Ramoth-Gilead. Jehu, intending to surprise him, immediately gave orders that no one should be permitted to depart out of the city of Ramoth, and himself set off for Jezreel. As he approached that city, a centinel gave notice that he saw a troop coming in great haste; on which Joram despatched an officer to discover who it was; but Jehu, without giving the latter any answer, ordered him to follow in his rear. Joram sent a second, and Jehu laid upon him the same command. Finding that neither of them returned, Joram himself, accompanied by Ahaziah, king of Judah, proceeded in his chariot toward Jehu, whom they met in the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Joram inquired, “Is it peace, Jehu?” To which the latter replied, “How can there be peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel, and her witchcrafts, are so many?” Joram instantly took the alarm, and, turning to Ahaziah, said, “We are betrayed.” At the same time Jehu drew his bow, and smote Joram between his shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart, and he died in his chariot. Jehu then gave orders that his body should be cast out into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite, thus fulfilling the prediction of the Prophet Elijah, 2 Kings ix, 11–26.

Jehu next proceeded to Jezreel, where Jezebel herself at that time resided. As he rode through the streets of the city, Jezebel, who was standing at her window and looking at him, exclaimed, “Can he who has killed his master hope for peace?” Jehu, lifting up his head and seeing her, commanded her servants instantly to throw her out at the window; which they did, and she was immediately trampled to death under the horses’ feet as they traversed the city. To complete her destiny, and fulfil the threatenings of Elijah, the dogs came and devoured her corpse; so that when Jehu sent to have her buried, her bones only were found, 2 Kings ix, 27–37. After this, Jehu sent to inform the inhabitants of Samaria, who had the bringing up of Ahab’s seventy children, that they might select which of them they thought proper to place upon the throne of Israel. But overwhelmed with fear, they replied that they were Jehu’s servants, and would in all things obey him. He then commanded them to put to death all the king’s children, and send their heads to him; which was accordingly done on the following day. Jehu also caused to be put to death all Ahab’s relatives and friends, the officers of his court, and the priests whom he had entertained at Jezreel, 2 Kings x, 1–11. After this, Jehu proceeded to Samaria, and on his way thither met the friends of Ahaziah, king of Judah, who were going to Jezreel to salute the children of Ahab’s family, with the death of whom they were as yet unacquainted. They were forty-two in number; but Jehu gave orders to have them apprehended and put to death. Soon after this, he met with Jonathan, the son of Rechab; and taking him up into his chariot, “Come with me,” said he, “and see my zeal for the Lord.” And when he was come to Samaria he extirpated every remaining branch of Ahab’s family, without sparing an individual. Then convening the people of Samaria, he said, “Ahab paid some honours to Baal, but I will pay him greater. Send now and gather together all the ministers, priests, and prophets of Baal.” When they were all assembled in Baal’s temple, Jehu commanded to give each of them a particular habit, to distinguish them; at the same time directing that no stranger should mingle with them; and then ordered his people to put them all to the sword, not sparing one of them; the image of Baal was also pulled down, broken to pieces, and burned, the temple itself destroyed, and the place where it stood reduced to a dunghill, 2 Kings x, 12–28.

Such were the sanguinary exploits of Jehu toward the idolatrous house of Ahab; but he acted agreeably to divine direction, and the Lord in these instances so far approved his conduct, as to promise him that his children should sit upon the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. Yet, though Jehu had been the instrument in the hand of God for taking vengeance on the profane house of Ahab, we find him accused in Scripture of not entirely forsaking the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin in worshipping the golden calves, 2 Kings x, 29, 31. It appears also that, in executing the divine indignation on the wicked house of Ahab, he was actuated more by the spirit of ambition and animosity than the fear of God, or a regard to the purity of his worship. And thus it is that God, in the course of his providence, makes use of tyrants and wicked men, as his instruments to execute his righteous judgments in the earth. After a reign of eight-and-twenty years over Israel, Jehu died, and was succeeded by his son, Jehoahaz; but his reign was embittered by the war which Hazael, king of Syria, long waged against him, 2 Kings x, 32–36. His four descendants, who succeeded him in the throne, were Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam II. and Zechariah.

JEPHTHAH, one of the judges of Israel, was the son of Gilead by a concubine, Judges xi, 1, 2. His father having several other children by his lawful wife, they conspired to expel Jephthah from among them, insisting that he who was the son of a strange woman should have no part of the inheritance with them. Like Ishmael, therefore, he withdrew, and took up his residence beyond Jordan, in the land of Tob, where he appears to have become the chief of a banditti, or marauding party, who probably lived by plunder, Judges xi, 3. In process of time, a war broke out between the Ammonites and the children of Israel who inhabited the country beyond Jordan; and the latter, finding their want of an intrepid and skilful leader, applied to Jephthah to take the command of them. He at first reproached them with the injustice they had done him, in banishing him from his father’s house; but he at length yielded to their importunity, on an agreement that, should he be successful in the war against the Ammonites, the Israelites should acknowledge him for their chief, Judges xi, 4–11.

As soon as Jephthah was invested with the command of the Israelites he sent a deputation to the Ammonites, demanding to know on what principle the latter had taken up arms against them. They answered that it was to recover the territory which the former had taken from them on their first coming out of Egypt. Jephthah replied that they had made no conquests in that quarter but from the Amorites; adding, “If you think you have a right to all that Chemosh, your god, hath given you, why should not we possess all that the Lord our God hath conferred on us by right of conquest?” Jephthah’s reasoning availed nothing with the Ammonites; and as the latter persisted in waging war, the former collected his troops together and put himself at their head. The Spirit of the Lord is said to have now come upon Jephthah; by which we are here to understand, that the Lord endowed him with a spirit of valour and fortitude, adequate to the exigence of the situation in which he was placed, animating him with courage for the battle, and especially inspired him with unshaken confidence in the God of the armies of Israel, Judges xi, 17; Heb. xi, 32; 1 Sam. xi, 6; Num. xxiv, 2. Jephthah at this time made a vow to the Lord that if he delivered the Ammonites into his hand, whatever came forth out of the doors of his house to meet him when he returned should be the Lord’s; it is also added in our English version, “and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering,” Judges xi, 31. The battle terminated auspiciously for Jephthah; the Ammonites were defeated, and the Israelites ravaged their country. But on returning toward his own house, his daughter, an only child, came out to meet her father with timbrels and dances, accompanied by a chorus of virgins, to celebrate his victory. On seeing her, Jephthah rent his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low; for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and cannot go back.” His daughter intimated her readiness to accede to any vow he might have made in which she was personally interested; only claiming a respite of two months, during which she might go up to the mountains and bewail her virginity with her companions. Jephthah yielded to this request, and at the end of two months, according to the opinion of many, her father offered her up in sacrifice, as a burnt-offering to the Lord, Judges xi, 34–39. It is, however, scarcely necessary to mention, that almost from the days of Jephthah to the present time, it has been a subject of warm contest among the critics and commentators, whether the judge of Israel really sacrificed his daughter, or only devoted her to a state of celibacy. Among those who contend for the former opinion, may be particularly mentioned the very learned Professor Michaëlis, who insists most peremptorily that the words, “did with her as he had vowed,” cannot mean any thing else but that her father put her to death, and burned her body as a burnt-offering. On this point, however, the remarks of Dr. Hales are of great weight:--When Jephthah went forth to battle against the Ammonites “he vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt surely give the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall either be the Lord’s, or I will offer it up [for] a burnt-offering,” Judges xi, 30, 31. According to this rendering of the two conjunctions, ו, in the last clause, either, or, which is justified by the Hebrew idiom, the paucity of connecting particles in that language making it necessary that this conjunction should often be understood disjunctively, the vow consisted of two parts, 1. That what person soever met him should be the Lord’s, or be dedicated to his service. 2. That what beast soever met him, if clean, should be offered up for a burnt-offering unto the Lord. This rendering, and this interpretation, is warranted by the Levitical law about vows. The נדר, or vow in general, included either persons, beasts, or things, dedicated to the Lord for pious uses; which, if it was a simple vow, was redeemable at certain prices, if the person repented of his vow, and wished to commute it for money, according to the age and sex of the person, Lev. xxvii, 1–8. This was a wise regulation to remedy rash vows. But if the vow was accompanied with חרם, devotement, it was irredeemable, as in the following cases: “Notwithstanding, no devotement which a man shall devote unto the Lord, [either] of man, or of beast, or of land of his own property, shall be sold or redeemed. Every thing devoted is most holy unto the Lord,” Lev. xxvii, 28. Here the three vaus in the original should necessarily be rendered disjunctively, or, as the last actually is in our public translation, because there are three distinct subjects of devotement, to be applied to distinct uses; the man, to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, as Samuel by his mother, Hannah, 1 Sam. i, 11; the cattle, if clean, such as oxen, sheep, goats, turtle doves, or pigeons, to be sacrificed; and if unclean, as camels, horses, asses, to be employed for carrying burdens in the service of the tabernacle or temple; and the lands, to be sacred property. This law, therefore, expressly applied, in its first branch, to Jephthah’s case, who had devoted his daughter to the Lord, or opened his mouth unto the Lord, and therefore could not go back; as he declared in his grief at seeing his daughter, and his only child, coming to meet him with timbrels and dances. She was, therefore, necessarily devoted, but with her own consent, to perpetual virginity, in the service of the tabernacle, Judges xi, 36, 37. And such service was customary; for in the division of the spoils taken in the first Midianite war, of the whole number of captive virgins, “the Lord’s tribute was thirty-two persons,” Num. xxxi, 35–40. This instance appears to be decisive of the nature of her devotement. Her father’s extreme grief on this occasion, and her requisition of a respite of two months to bewail her virginity, are both perfectly natural: having no other issue, he could only look forward to the extinction of his name or family; and a state of celibacy, which is reproachful among women every where, was peculiarly so among the Israelites; and was therefore no ordinary sacrifice on her part, who, though she generously gave up, could not but regret the loss of becoming “a mother in Israel.” And he did with her according to his vow which he had vowed, and she knew no man,” or remained a virgin all her life, Judges xi, 34–49. There was also another case of devotement which was irredeemable, and follows the former: “No one devoted, who shall be devoted of man, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death,” Levit. xxvii, 29. This case differs materially from the former: 1. It is confined to persons devoted, omitting beasts and lands. 2. It does not relate to private property, as in the foregoing. 3. The subject of it was to be utterly destroyed, instead of being “most holy unto the Lord.” This law, therefore, related to aliens or public enemies devoted to destruction, either by God, by the people, or by the magistrate. Of all these we have instances in the Scriptures: 1. The Amalekites and Canaanites were devoted by God himself. Saul, therefore, was guilty of a breach of this law for sparing Agag, the king of the Amalekites, as Samuel reproached him, 1 Sam. xv, 23: and “Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord,” not as a sacrifice, according to Voltaire, but as a criminal, “whose sword had made many women childless.” By this law the Midianite women, who had been spared in battle, were slain, Num. xxxi, 14–17. 2. In Mount Hor, when the Israelites were attacked by Arad, king of the southern Canaanites, who took some of them prisoners, they vowed a vow unto the Lord, that they would utterly destroy these Canaanites, and their cities, if the Lord should deliver them into their hand; which the Lord ratified. Whence the place was called Hhormah, because the vow was accompanied by cherem, or devotement to destruction, Num. xxi, 1–3. And the vow was accomplished, Judges i, 17. 3. In the Philistine war, Saul adjured the people, and cursed any one that should taste food until the evening. His own son, Jonathan, inadvertently ate a honey comb, not knowing of his father’s oath, for which Saul sentenced him to die. But the people interposed, and rescued him, for his public services; thus assuming the power of dispensing, in their collective capacity, with an unreasonable oath, 1 Sam. xiv, 24–45. This latter case, therefore, is utterly irrelative to Jephthah’s vow, which did not regard a foreign enemy, or a domestic transgressor, devoted to destruction, but, on the contrary, was a vow of thanksgiving, and therefore properly came under the former case. And that Jephthah could not possibly have sacrificed his daughter, according to the vulgar opinion, founded on incorrect translation, may appear from the following considerations: 1. The sacrifice of children to Moloch was an abomination to the Lord, of which in numberless passages, he expresses his detestation; and it was prohibited by an express law, under pain of death, as “a defilement of God’s sanctuary, and a profanation of his holy name,” Levit. xx, 2, 3. Such a sacrifice, therefore, unto the Lord himself, must be a still higher abomination. And there is no precedent of any such under the law, in the Old Testament. 2. The case of Isaac before the law, is irrelevant; for Isaac was not sacrificed; and it was only proposed for a trial of Abraham’s faith. 3. No father, merely by his own authority, could put an offending, much less an innocent, child to death, upon any account, without the sentence of the magistrates, Deut. xxi, 18–21, and the consent of the people, as in Jonathan’s case. 4. The Mischna, or traditional law of the Jews, is pointedly against it: “If a Jew should devote his son or daughter, his man or maid servant, who are Hebrews, the devotement would be void; because no man can devote what is not his own, or of whose life he has not the absolute disposal.”

These arguments appear to be decisive against the sacrifice; and that Jephthah could not even have devoted his daughter to celibacy against her will, is evident from the history, and from the high estimation in which she was always held by the daughters of Israel, for her filial duty, and her hapless fate, which they celebrated by a regular anniversary commemoration four days in the year, Judges xi, 40. We may, however, remark, that, if it could be more clearly established that Jephthah actually immolated his daughter, there is not the least evidence that his conduct was sanctioned by God. Jephthah was manifestly a superstitious and ill-instructed man, and, like Samson, an instrument of God’s power, rather than an example of his grace.

JEREMIAH. The Prophet Jeremiah was of the sacerdotal race, being, as he records himself, one of the priests that dwelt at Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, a city appropriated out of that tribe to the use of the priests, the sons of Aaron, Joshua xxi, 18, and situate, as we learn from St. Jerom, about three miles north of Jerusalem. Some have supposed his father to have been that Hilkah, the high priest, by whom the book of the law was found in the temple in the reign of Josiah: but for this there is no better ground than his having borne the same name, which was no uncommon one among the Jews; whereas, had he been in reality the high priest, he would doubtless have been mentioned by that distinguishing title, and not put upon a level with priests of an ordinary and inferior class. Jeremiah appears to have been very young when he was called to the exercise of the prophetical office, from which he modestly endeavoured to excuse himself by pleading his youth and incapacity; but being overruled by the divine authority, he set himself to discharge the duties of his function with unremitted diligence and fidelity during a period of at least forty-two years, reckoned from the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign. In the course of his ministry he met with great difficulties and opposition from his countrymen of all degrees, whose persecution and ill usage sometimes wrought so far upon his mind, as to draw from him expressions, in the bitterness of his soul, which many have thought hard to reconcile with his religious principles; but which, when duly considered, may be found to demand our pity for his unremitted sufferings, rather than our censure for any want of piety and reverence toward God. He was, in truth, a man of unblemished piety and conscientious integrity; a warm lover of his country, whose misery he pathetically deplores; and so affectionately attached to his countrymen, notwithstanding their injurious treatment of him, that he chose rather to abide with them, and undergo all hardships in their company, than separately to enjoy a state of ease and plenty, which the favour of the king of Babylon would have secured to him. At length, after the destruction of Jerusalem, being carried with the remnant of the Jews into Egypt, whither they had resolved to retire, though contrary to his advice, upon the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Chaldeans had left governor in Judea, he there continued warmly to remonstrate against their idolatrous practices, foretelling the consequences that would inevitably follow. But his freedom and zeal are said to have cost him his life; for the Jews at Tahpanhes, according to tradition, took such offence at him that they stoned him to death. This account of the manner of his end, though not absolutely certain, is at least very probable, considering the temper and disposition of the parties concerned. Their wickedness, however, did not long pass without its reward; for, in a few years after, they were miserably destroyed by the Babylonian armies which invaded Egypt according to the prophet’s prediction, Jer. xliv, 27, 28.

The idolatrous apostasy, and other criminal enormities of the people of Judah, and the severe judgments which God was prepared to inflict upon them, but not without a distant prospect of future restoration and deliverance, are the principal subject matters of the prophecies of Jeremiah; excepting only the forty-fifth chapter, which relates personally to Baruch, and the six succeeding chapters, which respect the fortunes of some particular Heathen nations. It is observable, however, that though many of these prophecies have their particular dates annexed to them, and other dates may be tolerably well conjectured from certain internal marks and circumstances, there appears much disorder in the arrangement, not easy to be accounted for on any principle of regular design, but probably the result of some accident or other, which has disturbed the original order. The best arrangement of the chapters appears to be according to the list which will be subjoined; the different reigns in which the prophecies were delivered were most probably as follows: The first twelve chapters seem to contain all the prophecies delivered in the reign of the good King Josiah. During the short reign of Shallum, or Jehoahaz, his second son, who succeeded him, Jeremiah does not appear to have had any revelation. Jehoiakim, the eldest son of Josiah, succeeded. The prophecies of this reign are continued on from the thirteenth to the twentieth chapter inclusively; to which we must add the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, thirty-fifth, and thirty-sixth chapters, together with the forty-fifth, forty-sixth, forty-seventh, and most probably the forty-eighth, and as far as the thirty-fourth verse of the forty-ninth chapter. Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, succeeded. We read of no prophecy that Jeremiah actually delivered in this king’s reign; but the fate of Jeconiah, his being carried into captivity, and continuing an exile till the time of his death, were foretold early in his father’s reign, as may be particularly seen in the twenty-second chapter. The last king of Judah was Zedekiah, the youngest son of Josiah. The prophecies delivered in his reign are contained in the twenty-first and twenty-fourth chapters, the twenty-seventh to the thirty-fourth, and the thirty-seventh to the thirty-ninth inclusively, together with the last six verses of the forty-ninth chapter, and the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters concerning the fall of Babylon. The siege of Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, and the capture of the city, are circumstantially related in the fifty-second chapter; and a particular account of the subsequent transactions is given in the fortieth to the forty-fourth inclusively. The arrangement of the chapters, alluded to above, is here subjoined: i-xx, xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxvi, xxxv, xxxvi, xlv, xxiv, xxix-xxxi, xxvii, xxviii, xxi, xxxiv, xxxvii, xxxii, xxxiii, xxxviii, xxxix, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth verse, xxxix, from the first to the fourteenth verse, xl-xliv, xlvi, and so on.

The prophecies of Jeremiah, of which the circumstantial accomplishment is often specified in the Old and New Testament, are of a very distinguished and illustrious character. He foretold the fate of Zedekiah, Jer. xxxiv, 2–5; 2 Chron. xxxvi, 11–21; 2 Kings xxv, 5; Jer. lii, 11; the Babylonish captivity, the precise time of its duration, and the return of the Jews. He describes the destruction of Babylon, and the downfall of many nations, Jer. xxv, 12; ix, 26; xxv, 19–25; xlii, 10–18; xlvi, and the following chapters, in predictions, of which the gradual and successive completion kept up the confidence of the Jews for the accomplishment of those prophecies, which he delivered relative to the Messiah and his period, Jer. xxiii, 5, 6; xxx, 9; xxxi, 15; xxxii, 14–18; xxxiii, 9–26. He foreshowed the miraculous conception of Christ, Jer. xxxi, 22, the virtue of his atonement, the spiritual character of his covenant, and the inward efficacy of his laws, Jer. xxxi, 31–36; xxxiii, 8. Jeremiah, contemplating those calamities which impended over his country, represented, in the most descriptive terms, and under the most impressive images, the destruction that the invading enemy should produce. He bewailed, in pathetic expostulation, the shameless adulteries which had provoked the Almighty, after long forbearance, to threaten Judah with inevitable punishment, at the time that false prophets deluded the nation with the promises of “assured peace,” and when the people, in impious contempt of “the Lord’s word,” defied its accomplishment. Jeremiah intermingles with his prophecies some historical relations relative to his own conduct, and to the completion of those predictions which he had delivered. The reputation of Jeremiah had spread among foreign nations, and his prophecies were deservedly celebrated in other countries. Many Heathen writers also have undesignedly borne testimony to the truth and accuracy of his prophetic and historical descriptions.

As to the style of Jeremiah, says Bishop Lowth, this prophet is by no means wanting either in elegance or sublimity, although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expression of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his prophecies, in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical; the middle parts are chiefly historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical, and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the lofty style of Isaiah. But of the whole book of Jeremiah it is hardly the one half which I look upon as poetical.

Jeremiah survived to behold the sad accomplishment of all his darkest predictions. He witnessed all the horrors of the famine, and, when that had done its work, the triumph of the enemy. He saw the strong holds of the city cast down, the palace of Solomon, the temple of God, with all its courts, its roofs of cedar and of gold, levelled to the earth, or committed to the flames; the sacred vessels, the ark of the covenant itself, with the cherubim, pillaged by profane hands. What were the feelings of a patriotic and religious Jew at this tremendous crisis, he has left on record in his unrivalled elegies. Never did city suffer a more miserable fate, never was ruined city lamented in language so exquisitely pathetic. Jerusalem is, as it were, personified, and bewailed with the passionate sorrow of private and domestic attachment; while the more general pictures of the famine, the common misery of every rank, and age, and sex, all the desolation, the carnage, the violation, the dragging away into captivity, the remembrance of former glories, of the gorgeous ceremonies and the glad festivals, the awful sense of the divine wrath heightening the present calamities, are successively drawn with all the life and reality of an eye-witness. They combine the truth of history with the deepest pathos of poetry.

JERICHO was a city of Benjamin, about seven leagues from Jerusalem, and two from the Jordan, Joshua xviii, 21. Moses calls it the city of palm trees, Deut. xxxiv, 3, because of palm trees growing in the plain of Jericho. Josephus says, that in the territory of this city were not only many palm trees, but also the balsam tree. The valley of Jericho was watered by a rivulet which had been formerly salt and bitter, but was sweetened by the Prophet Elisha, 2 Kings ii, 19. Jericho was the first city in Canaan taken by Joshua, ii, 1, 2, &c. He sent thither spies, who were received by Rahab, lodged in her house, and preserved from the king of Jericho. Joshua received orders to besiege Jericho, soon after his passage over Jordan, Joshua vi, 1–3, &c. God commanded the Hebrews to march round the city once a day for seven days together. The soldiers marched first, probably out of the reach of the enemies’ arrows, and after them the priests, the ark, &c. On the seventh day, they marched seven times round the city; and at the seventh, while the trumpets were sounding, and all the people shouting, the walls fell down. The rabbins say, that the first day was our Sunday, and the seventh the Sabbath day. During the first six days, the people continued in profound silence; but on the seventh Joshua commanded them to shout. Accordingly they all exerted their voices, and the walls being overthrown, they entered the city, every man in the place opposite to him. Jericho being devoted by God, they set fire to the city, and consecrated all the gold, silver, and brass. Then Joshua said, “Cursed be the man before the Lord who shall rebuild Jericho.” About five hundred and thirty years after this, Hiel, of Bethel, undertook to rebuild it; but he lost his eldest son, Abiram, at laying the foundations, and his youngest son, Segub, when he hung up the gates. However, we are not to imagine that there was no city of Jericho till the time of Hiel. There was a city of palm trees, probably the same as Jericho, under the Judges, Judges iii, 13. David’s ambassadors, who had been insulted by the Ammonites, resided at Jericho till their beards were grown, 2 Sam. x, 4. There was, therefore, a city of Jericho which stood in the neighbourhood of the original Jericho. These two places are distinguished by Josephus. After Hiel of Bethel had rebuilt old Jericho, no one scrupled to dwell there. Our Saviour wrought miracles at Jericho.

According to Pococke, the mountains to which the absurd name of Quarantania has been arbitrarily given, are the highest in all Judea; and he is probably correct; they form part of a chain extending from Scythopolis into Idumea. The fountain of Elisha he states to be a soft water, rather warm; he found in it some small shell fish of the turbinated kind. Close by the ruined aqueduct are the remains of a fine paved way, with a fallen column, supposed to be a Roman milestone. The hills nearest to Jerusalem consist, according to Hasselquist, of a very hard limestone; and different sorts of plants are found on them, in particular the myrtle, the carob tree, and the turpentine tree; but farther toward Jericho they are bare and barren, the hard limestone giving way to a looser kind, sometimes white and sometimes grayish, with interjacent layers of a reddish micaceous stone, saxum purum micaceum. The vales, though now bare and uncultivated, and full of pebbles, contain good red mould, which would amply reward the husbandman’s toil. Nothing can be more savage than the present aspect of these wild and gloomy solitudes, through which runs the very road where is laid the scene of that exquisite parable, the good Samaritan, and from that time to the present, it has been the haunt of the most desperate bandits, being one of the most dangerous in Palestine. Sometimes the track leads along the edges of cliffs and precipices, which threaten destruction on the slightest false step; at other times it winds through craggy passes, overshadowed by projecting or perpendicular rocks. At one place the road has been cut through the very apex of a hill, the rocks overhanging it on either side. Here, in 1820, an English traveller, Sir Frederick Henniker, was attacked by the Arabs with fire-arms, who stripped him naked, and left him severely wounded: “It was past mid-day, and burning hot,” says Sir Frederick; “I bled profusely; and two vultures, whose business it is to consume corpses, were hovering over me. I should scarcely have had strength to resist, had they chosen to attack me.”

The modern village of Jericho is described by Mr. Buckingham as a settlement of about fifty dwellings, all very mean in their appearance, and fenced in front with thorny bushes, while a barrier of the same kind, the most effectual that could be raised against mounted Arabs, encircles the town. A fine brook flows by it, which empties itself into the Jordan; the nearest point of that river is about three miles distant. The grounds in the immediate vicinity of the village, being fertilized by this stream, bear crops of dourra, Indian corn, rice, and onions. The population is entirely Mohammedan, and is governed by a sheikh: their habits are those of Bedouins, and robbery and plunder form their chief and most gainful occupation. The whole of the road from Jerusalem to the Jordan, is held to be the most dangerous in Palestine; and indeed, in this portion of it, the very aspect of the scenery is sufficient, on the one hand, to tempt to robbery and murder, and, on the other, to occasion a dread of it in those who pass that way. One must be amid these wild and gloomy solitudes, surrounded by an armed band, and feel the impatience of the traveller who rushes on to catch a new view at every pass and turn; one must be alarmed at the very tramp of the horses’ hoofs rebounding through the caverned rocks, and at the savage shouts of the footmen, scarcely less loud than the echoing thunder produced by the discharge of their pieces in the valleys; one must witness all this upon the spot, before the full force and beauty of the admirable story of the good Samaritan can be perceived. Here, pillage, wounds, and death would be accompanied with double terror, from the frightful aspect of every thing around. Here, the unfeeling act of passing by a fellow creature in distress, as the priest and Levite are said to have done, strikes one with horror, as an act almost more than inhuman. And here, too, the compassion of the good Samaritan is doubly virtuous, from the purity of the motive which must have led to it, in a spot where no eyes were fixed on him to draw forth the performance of any duty, and from the bravery which was necessary to admit of a man’s exposing himself, by such delay, to the risk of a similar fate to that from which he was endeavouring to rescue his fellow creature.

JEROBOAM, the son of Nebat and Zeruah, was born at Zereda, in the tribe of Ephraim, 1 Kings xi, 26. He is the subject of frequent mention in Scripture, as having been the cause of the ten tribes revolting from the dominion of Rehoboam, and also of his having “made Israel to sin,” by instituting the idolatrous worship of the golden calves at Dan and Bethel, 1 Kings xii, 26–33. He seems to have been a bold, unprincipled, and enterprising man, with much of the address of a deep politician about him; qualities which probably pointed him out to King Solomon as a proper person to be entrusted with the obnoxious commission of levying certain taxes throughout the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. On a certain day, as Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem into the country, having a new cloak wrapped about his shoulders, the Prophet Ahijah met him in a field where they were alone, and seizing the cloak of Jeroboam, he cut it into twelve pieces, and then addressing him, said, “Take ten of them to thyself; for thus saith the Lord, I will divide and rend the kingdom of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee. If, therefore, thou obeyest my word and walkest in my ways as David my servant has done, I will be with thee, and will establish thy house for ever, and put thee in possession of the kingdom of Israel,” 1 Kings xi, 14–39. Whether it were that the promises thus made by Ahijah prompted Jeroboam to aim at taking their accomplishment into his own hands, and, with a view to that, began to solicit the subjects of Solomon to revolt; or whether the bare information of what had passed between the prophet and Jeroboam, excited his fear and jealousy, it appears evident that the aged monarch took the alarm, and attempted to apprehend Jeroboam, who, getting notice of what was intended him, made a precipitate retreat into Egypt, where he remained till the death of Solomon. He then returned, and found that Rehoboam, who had succeeded his father Solomon in the throne of David, had already excited the disgust of ten of the tribes by some arbitrary proceedings, in consequence of which they had withdrawn their allegiance from the new monarch. These tribes no sooner heard of his return than they invited him to appear among them in a general assembly, in which they elected him to be king over Israel. Jeroboam fixed his residence at Shechem, and there fortified himself; he also rebuilt Penuel, a city beyond Jordan, putting it into a state of defence, in order to keep the tribes quiet which were on that side Jordan, 1 Kings xii, 1–25.

But Jeroboam soon forgot the duty which he owed to God, who had given him the kingdom; and thought of nothing but how to maintain himself in the possession of it, though he discarded the worship of the true God. The first suggestion of his unbelieving heart was, that if the tribes over whom he reigned were to go up to Jerusalem to sacrifice and keep the annual festivals, they would be under continual temptations to return to the house of David. To counteract this, he caused two golden calves to be made as objects of religious worship, one of which he placed at Dan, and the other at Bethel, the two extremities of his dominions; and caused a proclamation to be made throughout all his territories, that in future none of his subjects should go up to Jerusalem to worship; and, directing them to the two calves which had been recently erected, he cried out, “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of Egypt!” He also caused idolatrous temples to be built, and priests to be ordained of the lowest of the people, who were neither of the family of Aaron nor of the tribe of Levi, 1 Kings xii, 26–33. Having appointed a solemn public festival to be observed on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in order to dedicate his new altar and consecrate his golden calves, he assembled the people at Bethel, and himself went up to the altar for the purpose of offering incense and sacrifices. At that instant a prophet, who had come, divinely directed, from Judah to Bethel, accosted Jeroboam, and said, “O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, A child shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he sacrifice the priests of the high places who now burn incense upon thee: he shall burn men’s bones upon thee.” To confirm the truth of this threatening, the prophet also added a sign, namely, that the altar should immediately be rent asunder, and the ashes and every thing upon it poured upon the earth. Jeroboam, incensed at this interference of the prophet, stretched out his hand and commanded him to be seized; but the hand which he had stretched out was instantly paralyzed, and he was unable to draw it back again. The altar, too, was broken, and the ashes upon it fell to the ground according to the prediction of the prophet. Jeroboam now solicited his prayers that his hand might be restored to him. The man of God interposed his supplication to Heaven, and the king’s hand was restored to him sound as before. Jeroboam then entreated him that he would accompany him to his own house, and accept a reward; but he answered, “Though thou shouldst give me the half of thine house, I would not go with thee, nor will I taste any thing in this place, for the Lord hath expressly forbidden me to do so,” 1 Kings xiii, 1–10. But notwithstanding this manifest indication of the displeasure of Heaven, it failed of recovering Jeroboam from his impious procedure. He continued to encourage his subjects in idolatry, by appointing priests of the high places, and engaging them in such worship as was contrary to the divine law. This was the sin of Jeroboam’s family, and it was the cause of its utter extirpation. Some time after his accession to the throne of Israel, his favourite son Abijah fell sick, and, to relieve his parental solicitude, Jeroboam instructed his wife to disguise herself, and in that state to go and consult the Prophet Ahijah concerning his recovery. This was the same prophet who had foretold to Jeroboam that he should be king of Israel. He was now blind through old age; but the prophet was warned of her approach, and, before she entered his threshold, he called her by name, told her that her son should die, and then, in appalling terms, denounced the impending ruin of Jeroboam’s whole family, which shortly after came to pass. After a reign of two-and-twenty years, Jeroboam died, and Nadab, his son, succeeded to the crown, 1 Kings xiii, 33, 34; xiv, 1–20.

2. JEROBOAM, the second of that name, was the son of Jehoash, king of Israel. He succeeded to his father’s royal dignity, A. M. 3179, and reigned forty-one years. Though much addicted to the idolatrous practices of the son of Nebat, yet the Lord was pleased so far to prosper his reign, that by his means, according to the predictions of the Prophet Jonah, the kingdom of the ten tribes was restored from a state of great decay, into which it had fallen, and was even raised to a pitch of extraordinary splendour. The Prophets Amos and Hosea, as well as Jonah, lived during this reign.

JERUSALEM, formerly called Jebus, or Salem, Joshua xviii, 28; Heb. vii, 2, the capital of Judea, situated partly in the tribe of Benjamin, and partly in that of Judah. It was not completely reduced by the Israelites till the reign of David, 2 Sam. v, 6–9. As Jerusalem was the centre of the true worship, Psalm cxxii, 4, and the place where God did in a peculiar manner dwell, first in the tabernacle, 2 Sam. vi, 7, 12; 1 Chron. xv, 1; xvi, 1; Psalm cxxxii, 13; cxxxv, 2, and afterward in the temple, 1 Kings vi, 13; so it is used figuratively to denote the church, or the celestial society, to which all that believe, both Jews and Gentiles, are come, and in which they are initiated, Gal. iv, 26; Heb. xii, 22; Rev. iii, 12; xxi, 2, 10. Jerusalem was situated in a stony and barren soil, and was about sixty furlongs in length, according to Strabo. The territory and places adjacent were well watered, having the fountains of Gihon and Siloam, and the brook Kidron, at the foot of its walls; and, beside these, there were the waters of Ethan, which Pilate had conveyed through aqueducts into the city. The ancient city of Jerusalem, or Jebus, which David took from the Jebusites, was not very large. It was seated upon a mountain southward of the temple. The opposite mountain, situated to the north, is Sion, where David built a new city, which he called the city of David, wherein was the royal palace, and the temple of the Lord. The temple was built upon Mount Moriah, which was one of the little hills belonging to Mount Sion.

Through the reigns of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was the metropolis of the whole Jewish kingdom, and continued to increase in wealth and splendour. It was resorted to at the festivals by the whole population of the country; and the power and commercial spirit of Solomon, improving the advantages acquired by his father David, centred in it most of the eastern trade, both by sea, through the ports of Elath and Ezion-Geber, and over land, by the way of Tadmor or Palmyra. Or, at least, though Jerusalem might not have been made a depot of merchandise, the quantity of precious metals flowing into it by direct importation, and by duties imposed on goods passing to the ports of the Mediterranean, and in other directions, was unbounded. Some idea of the prodigious wealth of Jerusalem at this time may be formed by stating, that the quantity of gold left by David for the use of the temple amounted to £21,600,000 sterling, beside £3,150,000 in silver; and Solomon obtained £3,240,000 in gold by one voyage to Ophir, while silver was so abundant, “that it was not any thing accounted of.” These were the days of Jerusalem’s glory. Universal peace, unmeasured wealth, the wisdom and clemency of the prince, and the worship of the true God, marked Jerusalem, above every city, as enjoying the presence and the especial favour of the Almighty. But these days were not to last long: intestine divisions and foreign wars, wicked and tyrannical princes, and, last of all, the crime most offensive to Heaven, and the one least to be expected among so favoured a people, led to a series of calamities, through the long period of nine hundred years, with which no other city or nation can furnish a parallel. After the death of Solomon, ten of the twelve tribes revolted from his successor Rehoboam, and, under Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, established a separate kingdom: so that Jerusalem, no longer the capital of the whole empire, and its temple frequented only by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, must have experienced a mournful declension. Four years after this, the city and temple were taken and plundered by Shishak, king of Egypt, 1 Kings xiv, 26, 27; 2 Chron. xii, 2–9. One hundred and forty-five years after, under Amaziah, they sustained the same fate from Joash, king of Israel, 2 Kings xiv; 2 Chron. xxv. One hundred and sixty years from this period, the city was again taken, by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria; and Manasseh, the king, carried a prisoner to Babylon, 2 Chron. xxxiii. Within the space of sixty-six years more it was taken by Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, whom Josiah, king of Judah, had opposed in his expedition to Carchemish; and who, in consequence, was killed at the battle of Megiddo, and his son Eliakim placed on the throne in his stead by Necho, who changed his name to Jehoiakim, and imposed a heavy tribute upon him, having sent his elder brother, Jehoahaz, who had been proclaimed king at Jerusalem, a prisoner to Egypt, where he died, 2 Kings xxiii; 2 Chron. xxxv. Jerusalem was three times besieged and taken by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, within a very few years. The first, in the reign of the last mentioned king, Jehoiakim, who was sent a prisoner to Babylon, and the vessels of the temple transported to the same city, 2 Chron. xxxvi. The second, in that of his son Jehoiachin; when all the treasures of the palace and the temple, and the remainder of the vessels of the latter which had been hidden or spared in the first capture, were carried away or destroyed, and the best of the inhabitants, with the king, led into captivity, 2 Kings xxiv; 2 Chron. xxxvi. And the third, in the reign of Zedekiah, the successor of Jehoiachin; in whose ninth year the most formidable siege which this ill fated city ever sustained, except that of Titus, was commenced. It continued two years; during a great part of which the inhabitants suffered all the horrors of famine: when, on the ninth day of the fourth month, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, which answers to July in the year B. C. 588, the garrison, with the king, endeavoured to make their escape from the city, but were pursued and defeated by the Chaldeans in the plains of Jericho; Zedekiah taken prisoner; his sons killed before his face at Riblah, whither he was taken to the king of Babylon; and he himself, after his eyes were put out, was bound with fetters of brass, and carried prisoner to Babylon, where he died: thus fulfilling the prophecy of Ezekiel, which declared that he should be carried to Babylon, but should not see the place, though he should die there, Ezekiel xii, 13. In the following month, the Chaldean army, under their general, Nebuzaradan, entered the city, took away every thing that was valuable, and then burned and utterly destroyed it, with its temple and walls, and left the whole razed to the ground. The entire population of the city and country, with the exception of a few husbandmen, were then carried captive to Babylon.

During seventy years, the city and temple lay in ruins: when those Jews who chose to take immediate advantage of the proclamation of Cyrus, under the conduct of Zerubbabel, returned to Jerusalem, and began to build the temple; all the vessels of gold and silver belonging to which, that had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar, being restored by Cyrus. Their work, however, did not proceed far without opposition; for in the reign of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, who in Scripture is called Ahasuerus, the Samaritans presented a petition to that monarch to put a stop to the building, Ezra iv, 6. Cambyses appears to have been too busily engaged in his Egyptian expedition to pay any attention to this malicious request. His successor, Smerdis, the Magian, however, who in Scripture is called Artaxerxes, to whom a similar petition was sent, representing the Jews as a factious and dangerous people, listened to it, and, in the true spirit of a usurper, issued a decree putting a stop to the farther building of the temple, Ezra iv, 7, &c; which, in consequence, remained in an unfinished state till the second year, according to the Jewish, and third, according to the Babylonian and Persian account, of Darius Hystaspes, who is called simply Darius in Scripture. To him also a representation hostile to the Jews was made by their inveterate enemies, the Samaritans; but this noble prince refused to listen to it, and having searched the rolls of the kingdom, and found in the palace at Acmetha the decree of Cyrus, issued a similar one, which reached Jerusalem in the subsequent year, and even ordered these very Samaritans to assist the Jews in their work; so that it was completed in the sixth year of the same reign, Ezra iv, 24; v; vi, 1–15. But the city and walls remained in a ruinous condition until the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, the Artaxerxes Longimanus of profane history; by whom Nehemiah was sent to Jerusalem, with a power granted to him to rebuild them. Accordingly, under the direction of this zealous servant of God, the walls were speedily raised, but not without the accustomed opposition on the part of the Samaritans; who, despairing of the success of an application to the court of Persia, openly attacked the Jews with arms. But the building, notwithstanding, went steadily on; the men working with an implement of work in one hand, and a weapon of war in the other; and the wall, with incredible labour, was finished in fifty-two days, in the year B. C. 445; after which, the city itself was gradually rebuilt, Neh. ii, iv, vi. From this time Jerusalem remained attached to the Persian empire, but under the local jurisdiction of the high priests, until the subversion of that empire by Alexander, fourteen years after. See ALEXANDER.

At the death of Alexander, and the partition of his empire by his generals, Jerusalem, with Judea, fell to the kings of Syria. But in the frequent wars which followed between the kings of Syria and those of Egypt, called by Daniel, the kings of the north and south, it belonged sometimes to one and sometimes to the other,--an unsettled and unhappy state, highly favourable to disorder and corruption,--the high priesthood was openly sold to the highest bidder; and numbers of the Jews deserted their religion for the idolatries of the Greeks. At length, in the year B. C. 170, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, enraged at hearing that the Jews had rejoiced at a false report of his death, plundered Jerusalem, and killed eighty thousand men. Not more than two years afterward, this cruel tyrant, who had seized every opportunity to exercise his barbarity on the Jews, sent Apollonius with an army to Jerusalem; who pulled down the walls, grievously oppressed the people, and built a citadel on a rock adjoining the temple, which commanded that building, and had the effect of completely overawing the seditious. Having thus reduced this unfortunate city into entire submission, and rendered resistance useless, the next step of Antiochus was to abolish the Jewish religion altogether, by publishing an edict which commanded all the people of his dominions to conform to the religion of the Greeks: in consequence of which, the service of the temple ceased, and a statue of Jupiter Olympus was set up on the altar. But this extremity of ignominy and oppression led, as might have been expected, to rebellion; and those Jews who still held their insulted religion in reverence, fled to the mountains, with Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus; the latter of whom, after the death of Mattathias, who with his followers and successors, are known by the name of Maccabees, waged successful war with the Syrians; defeated Apollonius, Nicanor, and Lysias, generals of Antiochus; obtained possession of Jerusalem, purified the temple, and restored the service, after three years’ defilement by the Gentile idolatries.

From this time, during several succeeding Maccabean rulers, who were at once high priests and sovereigns of the Jews, but without the title of king, Jerusalem was able to preserve itself from Syrian violence. It was, however, twice besieged, first by Antiochus Eupator, in the year 163, and afterward by Antiochus Sidetes, in the year B. C. 134. But the Jews had caused themselves to be sufficiently respected to obtain conditions of peace on both occasions, and to save their city; till, at length, Hyrcanus, in the year 130 B. C., shook off the Syrian yoke, and reigned, after this event, twenty-one years in independence and prosperity. His successor, Judas, made an important change in the Jewish government, by taking the title of king, which dignity was enjoyed by his successors forty-seven years, when a dispute having arisen between Hyrcanus II. and his brother Aristobulus, and the latter having overcome the former, and made himself king, was, in his turn, conquered by the Romans under Pompey, by whom the city and temple were taken, Aristobulus made prisoner, and Hyrcanus created high priest and prince of the Jews, but without the title of king. By this event Judea was reduced to the condition of a Roman province, in the year 63 B. C. Nor did Jerusalem long after enjoy the dignity of a metropolis, that honour being transferred to Cæsarea. Julius Cæsar, having defeated Pompey, continued Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, but bestowed the government of Judea upon Antipater, an Idumæan by birth, but a Jewish proselyte, and father of Herod the Great. For the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, see JEWS.

Jerusalem lay in ruins about forty-seven years, when the Emperor Ælius Adrian began to build it anew, and erected a Heathen temple, which he dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus. The city was finished in the twentieth year of his reign, and called, after its founder, Ælia, or Ælia Capitolina, from the Heathen deity who presided over it. In this state Jerusalem continued, under the name of Ælia, and inhabited more by Christians and Pagans than by Jews, till the time of the Emperor Constantine, styled the Great; who, about the year 323, having made Christianity the religion of the empire, began to improve it, adorned it with many new edifices and churches, and restored its ancient name. About thirty-five years afterward, Julian, named the Apostate, not from any love he bore the Jews, but out of hatred to the Christians, whose faith he had abjured, and with the avowed design of defeating the prophecies, which had declared that the temple should not be rebuilt, wrote to the Jews, inviting them to their city, and promising to restore their temple and nation. He accordingly employed great numbers of workmen to clear the foundations; but balls of fire bursting from the earth, soon put a stop to their proceeding. This miraculous interposition of Providence is attested by many credible witnesses and historians; and, in particular, by Ammianus Marcellinus, a Heathen, and friend of Julian; Zemuch David, a Jew; Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose Ruffinus, Theodoret, Sozomen, and Socrates, who wrote his account within fifty years after the transaction, and while many eye-witnesses of it were still living. So stubborn, indeed, is the proof of this miracle, that even Gibbon, who strives to invalidate it, is obliged to acknowledge the general fact.

Jerusalem continued in nearly the same condition till the beginning of the seventh century, when it was taken and plundered by the celebrated Chosroes, king of Persia, by whom many thousands of the Christian inhabitants were killed, or sold for slaves. The Persians, however, did not hold it long, as they were soon after entirely defeated by the Emperor Heraclius, who rescued Jerusalem, and restored it, not to the unhappy Jews, who were forbidden to come within three miles of it, but to the Christians. A worse calamity was, however, speedily to befall this ill fated city. The Mohammedan imposture arose about this time; and the fanatics who had adopted its creed carried their arms and their religion with unprecedented rapidity over the greater part of the east. The Caliph Omar, the third from Mohammed, invested the city, which, after once more suffering the horrors of a protracted siege, surrendered on terms of capitulation in the year 637; and has ever since, with the exception of the short period that it was occupied by the crusaders, been trodden under foot by the followers of the false prophet.

2. The accounts of modern Jerusalem by travellers are very numerous. Mr. Conder, in his “Palestine,” has abridged them with judgment; and we give the following extract: The approach to Jerusalem from Jaffa is not the direction in which to see the city to the best effect. Dr. E. D. Clarke entered it by the Damascus gate: and he describes the view of Jerusalem, when first descried from the summit of a hill, at about an hour’s distance, as most impressive. He confesses, at the same time, that there is no other point of view in which it is seen to so much advantage. In the celebrated prospect from the Mount of Olives, the city lies too low, is too near the eye, and has too much the character of a bird’s eye view, with the formality of a topographical plan. “We had not been prepared,” says this lively traveller, “for the grandeur of the spectacle which the city alone exhibited. Instead of a wretched and ruined town, by some described as the desolated remnant of Jerusalem, we beheld, as it were, a flourishing and stately metropolis, presenting a magnificent assemblage of domes, towers, palaces, churches, and monasteries; all of which, glittering in the sun’s rays, shone with inconceivable splendour. As we drew nearer, our whole attention was engrossed by its noble and interesting appearance. The lofty hills surrounding it give the city itself an appearance of elevation less than it really has.” Dr. Clarke was fortunate in catching this first view of Jerusalem under the illusion of a brilliant evening sunshine; but his description is decidedly overcharged. M. Chateaubriand, Mr. Buckingham, Mr. Brown, Mr. Jolliffe, Sir F. Henniker, and almost every other modern traveller, confirm the representation of Dr. Richardson. Mr. Buckingham says, “The appearance of this celebrated city, independent of the feelings and recollections which the approach to it cannot fail to awaken, was greatly inferior to my expectations, and had certainly nothing of grandeur or beauty, of stateliness or magnificence, about it. It appeared like a walled town of the third or fourth class, having neither towers, nor domes, nor minarets within it, in sufficient numbers to give even a character to its impressions on the beholder; but showing chiefly large flat-roofed buildings of the most unornamented kind, seated amid rugged hills, on a stony and forbidding soil, with scarcely a picturesque object in the whole compass of the surrounding view.” Chateaubriand’s description is very striking and graphical. After citing the language of the Prophet Jeremiah, in his lamentations on the desolation of the ancient city, as accurately portraying its present state, Lam. i, 1–6; ii, 1–9, 15, he thus proceeds: “When seen from the Mount of Olives, on the other side of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, Jerusalem presents an inclined plane, descending from west to east. An embattled wall, fortified with towers, and a Gothic castle, encompasses the city all round; excluding, however, part of Mount Zion, which it formerly enclosed. In the western quarter, and in the centre of the city, the houses stand very close; but, in the eastern part, along the brook Kedron, you perceive vacant spaces; among the rest, that which surrounds the mosque erected on the ruins of the temple, and the nearly deserted spot where once stood the castle of Antonia and the second palace of Herod. The houses of Jerusalem are heavy square masses, very low, without chimneys or windows: they have flat terraces or domes on the top, and look like prisons or sepulchres. The whole would appear to the eye one uninterrupted level, did not the steeples of the churches, the minarets of the mosques, the summits of a few cypresses, and the clumps of nopals, break the uniformity of the plan. On beholding these stone buildings, encompassed by a stony country, you are ready to inquire if they are not the confused monuments of a cemetry in the midst of a desert. Enter the city, but nothing will you there find to make amends for the dulness of its exterior. You lose yourself among narrow, unpaved streets, here going up hill, there down, from the inequality of the ground; and you walk among clouds of dust or loose stones. Canvas stretched from house to house increases the gloom of this labyrinth. Bazaars, roofed over, and fraught with infection, completely exclude the light from the desolate city. A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view; and even these are frequently shut, from apprehension of the passage of a cadi. Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labour, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious soldier. Aside, in a corner, the Arab butcher is slaughtering some animal, suspended by the legs from a wall in ruins: from his haggard and ferocious look, and his bloody hands, you would suppose that he had been cutting the throat of a fellow creature, rather than killing a lamb. The only noise heard from time to time in the city is the galloping of the steed of the desert: it is the janissary who brings the head of the Bedouin, or who returns from plundering the unhappy Fellah. Amid this extraordinary desolation, you must pause a moment to contemplate two circumstances still more extraordinary. Among the ruins of Jerusalem, two classes of independent people find in their religion sufficient fortitude to enable them to surmount such complicated horrors and wretchedness. Here reside communities of Christian monks, whom nothing can compel to forsake the tomb of Christ; neither plunder, nor personal ill treatment, nor menaces of death itself. Night and day they chant their hymns around the holy sepulchre. Driven by the cudgel and the sabre, women, children, flocks, and herds, seek refuge in the cloisters of these recluses. What prevents the armed oppressor from pursuing his prey, and overthrowing such feeble ramparts? The charity of the monks: they deprive themselves of the last resources of life to ransom their suppliants. Cast your eyes between the temple and Mount Zion; behold another petty tribe cut off from the rest of the inhabitants of this city. The particular objects of every species of degradation, these people bow their heads without murmuring; they endure every kind of insult without demanding justice; they sink beneath repeated blows without sighing; if their head be required, they present it to the scimitar. On the death of any member of this proscribed community, his companion goes at night, and inters him by stealth in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, in the shadow of Solomon’s temple. Enter the abodes of these people, you will find them, amid the most abject wretchedness, instructing their children to read a mysterious book, which they in their turn will teach their offspring to read. What they did five thousand years ago, these people still continue to do. Seventeen times have they witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, yet nothing can discourage them, nothing can prevent them from turning their faces toward Sion. To see the Jews scattered over the whole world, according to the word of God, must doubtless excite surprise. But to be struck with supernatural astonishment, you must view them at Jerusalem; you must behold these rightful masters of Judea living as slaves and strangers in their own country; you must behold them expecting, under all oppressions, a king who is to deliver them. Crushed by the cross that condemns them, skulking near the temple, of which not one stone is left upon another, they continue in their deplorable infatuation. The Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, are swept from the earth; and a petty tribe, whose origin preceded that of those great nations, still exists unmixed among the ruins of its native land.” To the same effect are the remarks of Dr. Richardson: “In passing up to the synagogue, I was particularly struck with the mean and wretched appearance of the houses on both sides of the streets, as well as with the poverty of their inhabitants. The sight of a poor Jew in Jerusalem has in it something peculiarly affecting. The heart of this wonderful people, in whatever clime they roam, still turns to it as the city of their promised rest. They take pleasure in her ruins, and would kiss the very dust for her sake. Jerusalem is the centre around which the exiled sons of Judah build, in imagination, the mansions of their future greatness. In whatever part of the world he may live, the heart’s desire of a Jew is to be buried in Jerusalem. Thither they return from Spain and Portugal, from Egypt and Barbary, and other countries among which they have been scattered: and when, after all their longings, and all their struggles up the steeps of life, we see them poor, and blind, and naked, in the streets of their once happy Zion, he must have a cold heart that can remain untouched by their sufferings, without uttering a prayer that God would have mercy on the darkness of Judah; and that the Day Star of Bethlehem might arise in their hearts.”

“Jerusalem,” remarks Sir Frederick Henniker, “is called, even by Mohammedans, the Blessed City (El Gootz, El Koudes.) The streets of it are narrow and deserted, the houses dirty and ragged, the shops few and forsaken; and throughout the whole there is not one symptom of either commerce, comfort, or happiness. The best view of it is from the Mount of Olives: it commands the exact shape and nearly every particular; namely, the church of the holy sepulchre, the Armenian convent, the mosque of Omar, St. Stephen’s gate, the round-topped houses, and the barren vacancies of the city. Without the walls are a Turkish burial ground, the tomb of David, a small grove near the tombs of the kings, and all the rest is a surface of rock, on which are a few numbered trees. The mosque of Omar is the St. Peter’s of Turkey, and the respective saints are held respectively by their own faithful in equal veneration. The building itself has a light pagoda appearance; the garden in which it stands occupies a considerable part of the city, and, contrasted with the surrounding desert, is beautiful. The burial place of the Jews is over the valley of Kedron, and the fees for breaking the soil afford a considerable revenue to the governor. The burial place of the Turks is under the walls, near St. Stephen’s gate. From the opposite side of the valley, I was witness to the ceremony of parading a corpse round the mosque of Omar, and then bringing it forth for burial. I hastened to the grave, but was soon driven away: as far as my on dit tells me, it would have been worth seeing. The grave is strown with red earth, supposed to be of the Ager Damascenus of which Adam was made; by the side of the corpse is placed a stick, and the priest tells him that the devil will tempt him to become a Christian, but that he must make good use of his stick; that his trial will last three days, and that he will then find himself in a mansion of glory,” &c.

The Jerusalem of sacred history is, in fact, no more. Not a vestige remains of the capital of David and Solomon; not a monument of Jewish times is standing. The very course of the walls is changed, and the boundaries of the ancient city are become doubtful. The monks pretend to show the sites of the sacred places; but neither Calvary, nor the holy sepulchre, much less the Dolorous Way, the house of Caiaphas, &c, have the slightest pretensions to even a probable identity with the real places to which the tradition refers. Dr. E. D. Clarke has the merit of being the first modern traveller who ventured to speak of the preposterous legends and clumsy forgeries of the priests with the contempt which they merit. “To men interested in tracing, within its walls, antiquities referred to by the documents of sacred history, no spectacle,” remarks the learned traveller, “can be more mortifying than the city in its present state. The mistaken piety of the early Christians, in attempting to preserve, has either confused or annihilated the memorials it was anxious to render conspicuous. Viewing the havoc thus made, it may now be regretted that the Holy Land was ever rescued from the dominion of Saracens, who were far less barbarous than their conquerors. The absurdity, for example, of hewing the rocks of Judea into shrines and chapels, and of disguising the face of nature with painted domes and guilded marble coverings, by way of commemorating the scenes of our Saviour’s life and death, is so evident and so lamentable, that even Sandys, with all his credulity, could not avoid a happy application of the reproof conveyed by the Roman satirist against a similar violation of the Egerian fountain.” Dr. Richardson remarks, “It is a tantalizing circumstance for the traveller who wishes to recognise in his walks the site of particular buildings, or the scenes of memorable events, that the greater part of the objects mentioned in the description both of the inspired and the Jewish historian, are entirely removed, and razed from their foundation, without leaving a single trace or name behind to point out where they stood. Not an ancient tower, or gate, or wall, or hardly even a stone, remains. The foundations are not only broken up, but every fragment of which they were composed is swept away, and the spectator looks upon the bare rock with hardly a sprinkling of earth to point out her gardens of pleasure, or groves of idolatrous devotion. And when we consider the palaces, and towers, and walls about Jerusalem, and that the stones of which some of them were constructed were thirty feet long, fifteen feet broad, and seven and a half feet thick, we are not more astonished at the strength, and skill, and perseverance, by which they were constructed, than shocked by the relentless and brutal hostility by which they were shattered and overthrown, and utterly removed from our sight. A few gardens still remain on the sloping base of Mount Zion, watered from the pool of Siloam; the gardens of Gethsemane are still in a sort of ruined cultivation; the fences are broken down, and the olive trees decaying, as if the hand that dressed and fed them were withdrawn; the Mount of Olives still retains a languishing verdure, and nourishes a few of those trees from which it derives its name; but all round about Jerusalem the general aspect is blighted and barren; the grass is withered; the bare rock looks through the scanty sward; and the grain itself, like the staring progeny of famine, seems in doubt whether to come to maturity, or die in the ear. The vine that was brought from Egypt is cut off from the midst of the land; the vineyards are wasted; the hedges are taken away; and the graves of the ancient dead are open and tenantless.”

3. On the accomplishment of prophecy in the condition in which this celebrated city has lain for ages, Keith well remarks:--It formed the theme of prophecy from the death bed of Jacob; and, as the seat of the government of the children of Judah, the sceptre departed not from it till the Messiah appeared, on the expiration of seventeen hundred years after the death of the patriarch, and till the period of its desolation, prophesied of by Daniel, had arrived. It was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the time of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. The time of the Gentiles is not yet fulfilled, and Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. The Jews have often attempted to recover it: no distance of space or of time can separate it from their affections: they perform their devotions with their faces toward it, as if it were the object of their worship as well as of their love; and, although their desire to return be so strong, indelible, and innate, that every Jew, in every generation, counts himself an exile, yet they have never been able to rebuild their temple, nor to recover Jerusalem from the hands of the Gentiles. But greater power than that of a proscribed and exiled race has been added to their own, in attempting to frustrate the counsel that professed to be of God. Julian, the emperor of the Romans, not only permitted but invited the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and their temple; and promised to reëstablish them in their paternal city. By that single act, more than by all his writings, he might have destroyed the credibility of the Gospel, and restored his beloved but deserted Paganism. The zeal of the Jews was equal to his own; and the work was begun by laying again the foundations of the temple. It was never accomplished, and the prophecy stands fulfilled. But even if the attempt of Julian had never been made, the truth of the prophecy itself is unassailable. The Jews have never been reinstated in Judea. Jerusalem has ever been trodden down of the Gentiles. The edict of Adrian was renewed by the successors of Julian; and no Jews could approach unto Jerusalem but by bribery or by stealth. It was a spot unlawful for them to touch. In the crusades, all the power of Europe was employed to rescue Jerusalem from the Heathens, but equally in vain. It has been trodden down for nearly eighteen centuries by its successive masters; by Romans, Grecians, Persians, Saracens, Mamelukes, Turks, Christians, and again by the worst of rulers, the Arabs and the Turks. And could any thing be more improbable to have happened, or more impossible to have been foreseen by man, than that any people should be banished from their own capital and country, and remain expelled and expatriated for nearly eighteen hundred years? Did the same fate ever befall any nation, though no prophecy existed respecting it? Is there any doctrine in Scripture so hard to be believed as was this single fact at the period of its prediction? And even with the example of the Jews before us, is it likely, or is it credible, or who can foretel, that the present inhabitants of any country upon earth shall be banished into all nations, retain their distinctive character, meet with an unparalleled fate, continue a people, without a government and without a country, and remain for an indefinite period, exceeding seventeen hundred years, till the fulfilment of a prescribed event which has yet to be accomplished? Must not the knowledge of such truths be derived from that prescience alone which scans alike the will and the ways of mortals, the actions of future nations, and the history of the latest generations?

JESHURUN, a name given to the collective political body of Israelites. Some derive the word from ישר, just or righteous, and so make it to signify a righteous people. Montanus renders it rectitudo, and so does the Samaritan version. But it seems a considerable objection against this sense, that Israel is called Jeshurun at the very time that they are upbraided with their sins and their rebellion: “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked,” &c, Deut. xxxii, 15. It is replied, Jeshurun is the diminutive of ישר, (for nomen auctum in fine est nomen diminutivum,) and so imports, that though, in general and on the whole, they were a righteous people, yet they were not without great faults. Perhaps Cocceius has given as probable an interpretation as any. He derives the word from שור, which signifies to see, behold, or discover; from whence, in the future tense, plural, comes ישורו, which, with the addition of nun paragogicum, makes Jeshurun; that is, “the people who had the vision of God.” This makes the name of Jeshurun to be properly applied to Israel, not only when Moses is called their king, but when they are upbraided with their rebellion against God; since the peculiar manifestation which God had made of himself to them was a great aggravation of their ingratitude and rebellion.

JESSE. See DAVID and RUTH.

JESUITS, or the society of Jesus, one of the most celebrated monastic orders of the Romish church, was founded in the year 1540, by Ignatius Loyola, Forsaking the military for the ecclesiastical profession, he engaged himself in the wildest and most extravagant adventures, as the knight of the blessed virgin. After performing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and pursuing a multitude of visionary schemes, he returned to prosecute his theological studies in the universities of Spain, when he was about thirty-three years of age. He next went to Paris, where he collected a small number of associates; and, prompted by his fanatical spirit, or the love of distinction, began to conceive the establishment of a new religious order. He produced a plan of its constitution and laws, which he affirmed to have been suggested by the immediate inspiration of Heaven, and applied to the Roman pontiff, Paul III. for the sanction of his authority to confirm the institution. At a time when the papal authority had received so severe a shock from the progress of the Reformation, and was still exposed to the most powerful attacks in every quarter, this was an offer too tempting to be resisted. The reigning pontiff, though naturally cautious, and though scarcely capable, without the spirit of prophecy, of foreseeing all the advantages to be derived from the services of this nascent order, yet clearly perceiving the benefit of multiplying the number of his devoted servants, instantly confirmed by his bull the institution of the Jesuits, granted the most ample privileges to the members of the society, and appointed Loyola to be the first general of the order.

2. The simple and primary object of the society, says a writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, was to establish a spiritual dominion over the minds of men, of which the pope should appear as the ostensible head, while the real power should reside with themselves. To accomplish this object, the whole constitution and policy of the order were singularly adapted, and exhibited various peculiarities which distinguished it from all other monastic orders. The immediate design of every other religious society was to separate its members from the world; that of the Jesuits, to render them masters of the world. The inmate of the convent devoted himself to work out his own salvation by extraordinary acts of devotion and self-denial; the follower of Loyola considered himself as plunging into all the bustle of secular affairs, to maintain the interests of the Romish church. The monk was a retired devotee of heaven; the Jesuit a chosen soldier of the pope. That the members of the new order might have full leisure for this active service, they were exempted from the usual functions of other monks. They were not required to spend their time in the long ceremonial offices and numberless mummeries of the Romish worship. They attended no processions, and practised no austerities. They neither chanted nor prayed. “They cannot sing,” said their enemies; “for birds of prey never do.” They were sent forth to watch every transaction of the world which might appear to affect the interests of religion, and were especially enjoined to study the dispositions and cultivate the friendship of persons in the higher ranks. Nothing could be imagined more open and liberal than the external aspect of the institution, yet nothing could be more strict and secret than its internal organization. Loyola, influenced, perhaps, by the notions of implicit obedience which he had derived from his military profession, resolved that the government of the Jesuits should be absolutely monarchical. A general, chosen for life by deputies from the several provinces, possessed supreme and independent power, extending to every person, and applying to every case. Every member of the order, the instant that he entered its pale, surrendered all freedom of thought and action; and every personal feeling was superseded by the interests of that body to which he had attached himself. He went wherever he was ordered; he performed whatever he was commanded; he suffered whatever he was enjoined; he became a mere passive instrument incapable of resistance. The gradation of ranks was only a gradation in slavery; and so perfect a despotism over a large body of men, dispersed over the face of the earth, was never before realized.

The maxims of policy adopted by this celebrated society were, like its constitution, remarkable for their union of laxity and rigour. Nothing could divert them from their original object; and no means were ever scrupled which promised to aid its accomplishment. They were in no degree shackled by prejudice, superstition, or real religion. Expediency, in its most simple and licentious form, was the basis of their morals, and their principles and practices were uniformly accommodated to the circumstances in which they were placed; and even their bigotry, obdurate as it was, never appears to have interfered with their interests. The paramount and characteristic principle of the order, from which none of its members ever swerved, was simply this, that its interests were to be promoted by all possible means, at all possible expense. In order to acquire more easily an ascendancy over persons of rank and power, they propagated a system of the most relaxed morality, which accommodated itself to the passions of men, justified their vices, tolerated their imperfections, and authorized almost every action which the most audacious or crafty politician would wish to perpetrate. To persons of stricter principles they studied to recommend themselves by the purity of their lives, and sometimes by the austerity of their doctrines. While sufficiently compliant in the treatment of immoral practices, they were generally rigidly severe in exacting a strict orthodoxy in opinions. “They are a sort of people,” said the Abbé Boileau, “who lengthen the creed and shorten the decalogue.” They adopted the same spirit of accommodation in their missionary undertakings; and their Christianity, chamelionlike, readily assumed the colour of every religion where it happened to be introduced. They freely permitted their converts to retain a full proportion of the old superstitions, and suppressed, without hesitation, any point in the new faith which was likely to bear hard on their prejudices or propensities. They proceeded to still greater lengths; and, beside suppressing the truths of revelation, devised the most absurd falsehoods, to be used for attracting disciples, or even to be taught as parts of Christianity. One of them in India produced a pedigree to prove his own descent from Brama; and another in America assured a native chief that Christ had been a valiant and victorious warrior, who, in the space of three years, had scalped an incredible number of men, women, and children. It was, in fact, their own authority, not the authority of true religion, which they wished to establish; and Christianity was generally as little known, when they quitted the foreign scenes of their labours as when they entered them.

These detestable objects and principles, however, were long an impenetrable secret: and the professed intention of the new order was to promote, with unequalled and unfettered zeal, the salvation of mankind. Its progress, nevertheless, was at first remarkably slow. Charles V., who is supposed, with his usual sagacity, to have discerned its dangerous tendency, rather checked than encouraged its advancement; and the universities of France resisted its introduction into that kingdom. Thus, roused by obstacles, and obliged to find resources within themselves, the Jesuits brought all their talents and devices into action. They applied themselves to every useful function and curious art; and neither neglected nor despised any mode, however humble, of gaining employment or reputation. The satirist’s description of the Greeks in Rome has been aptly chosen to describe their indefatigable and universal industry:--

_Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus; omnia novit Græculus._ Juvenal, lib. iii, 76.

“A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call, Which shifts to every form, and shines in all: Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, Rope-dancer, conjuror, fiddler, and physician,-- All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts.” GIFFORD.

They laboured with the greatest assiduity to qualify themselves as the instructers of youth; and succeeded, at length, in supplanting their opponents in every Catholic kingdom. They aimed, in the next place, to become the spiritual directors of the higher ranks; and soon established themselves in most of the courts which were attached to the papal faith, not only as the confessors, but frequently also as the guides and ministers, of superstitious princes. The governors of the society pursuing one uniform system with unwearied perseverance, became entirely successful; and, in the space of half a century, had in a wonderful degree extended the reputation, the number, and influence of the order. When Loyola, in 1540, petitioned the pope to authorize the institution of the Jesuits, he had only ten disciples; but in 1608 the number amounted to 10,581. Before the expiration of the sixteenth century they had obtained the chief direction of the education of youth in every Catholic country in Europe, and had become the confessors of almost all its noblest monarchs. In spite of their vow of poverty, their wealth increased with their power; and they soon rivalled, in the extent and value of their possessions, the most opulent monastic fraternities. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, they obtained from the court of Madrid the grant of the large and fertile province of Paraguay, which stretches across the southern continent of America, from the mountains of Potosi to the banks of the river La Plata; and, after every deduction which can reasonably be made from their own accounts of their establishment, enough will remain to excite the astonishment and applause of mankind. They found the inhabitants in the first stage of society, ignorant of the arts of life, and unacquainted with the first principles of subordination. They applied themselves to instruct and civilize these savage tribes. They commenced their labours by collecting about fifty families of wandering Indians, whom they converted and settled in a small township. They taught them to build houses, to cultivate the ground, and to rear tame animals; trained them to arts and manufactures, and brought them to relish the blessings of security and order. By a wise and humane policy, they gradually attracted new subjects and converts; till at last they formed a powerful and well organized state of three hundred thousand families.

Though the power of the Jesuits had become so extensive, and though their interests generally prospered during a period of more than two centuries, their progress was by no means uninterrupted; and, by their own misconduct, they soon excited the most formidable counteractions. Scarcely had they effected their establishment in France, in defiance of the parliaments and universities, when their existence was endangered by the fanaticism of their own members. John Chastel, one of their pupils, made an attempt upon the life of Henry IV.; and Father Guiscard, another of the order, was convicted of composing writings favourable to regicide. The parliaments seized the moment of their disgrace, and procured their banishment from every part of the kingdom, except the provinces of Bourdeaux and Toulouse. From these rallying points, they speedily extended their intrigues in every quarter, and in a few years obtained their re-establishment. Even Henry, either dreading their power, or pleased with the exculpation of his licentious habits, which he found in their flexible system of morality, became their patron, and selected one of their number as his confessor. They were favoured by Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu, on account of their literary exertions; but it was in the succeeding reign of Louis XIV. that they reached the summit of their prosperity. The Fathers La Chaise and Le Teltier were successively confessors to the king; and did not fail to employ their influence for the interest of their order: but the latter carried on his projects with so blind and fiery a zeal, that one of the Jesuits is reported to have said of him, “He drives at such a rate, that he will overturn us all.” The Jansenists were peculiarly the objects of his machinations, and he rested not till he had accomplished the destruction of their celebrated college and convent at Port Royal. Before the fall, however, of this honoured seminary, a shaft from its bow had reached the heart of its proud oppressor. The “Provincial Letters of Pascal” had been published, in which the quibbling morality and unintelligible metaphysics of the Jesuits were exposed in a strain of inimitable humour, and a style of unrivalled elegance. The impression which they produced was wide and deep, and gradually sapped the foundation of public opinion, on which the power of the order had hitherto rested. Under the regency of the duke of Orleans, the Jesuits, and all theological personages and principles were disregarded with atheistical superciliousness; but under Louis XV. they partly recovered their influence at court, which, even under Cardinal Fleury, they retained in a considerable degree. But they soon revived the odium of the public by their intolerant treatment of the Jansenists, and probably accelerated their ruin by refusing, from political rather than religious scruples, to undertake the spiritual guidance of Madame de la Pampadour, as well as by imprudently attacking the authors of the “Encyclopêdie.” Voltaire directed against them all the powers of his ridicule, and finished the piece which Pascal had sketched. Their power was brought to a very low ebb, when the war of 1756 broke out, which occasioned the famous law-suit that led to their final overthrow.

In the mean time the king of Portugal was assassinated; and Carvalho, the minister, who detested the Jesuits, found means to load them with the odium of the crime. Malagrida, and a few more of these fathers, were charged with advising and absolving the assassins; and, having been found guilty, were condemned to the stake. The rest were banished with every brand of infamy, and were treated with the most iniquitous cruelty. They were persecuted without discrimination, robbed of their property without pity, and embarked for Italy without previous preparation; so that, no provision having been made for their reception, they were literally left to perish with hunger in their vessels. These incidents prepared the way for a similar catastrophe in France. In March, 1762, the French court received intelligence of the capture of Martinico by the British; and, dreading a storm of public indignation, resolved to divert the exasperated feelings of the nation, by yielding the Jesuits to their impending fate. On the sixth of August, 1762, their institute was condemned by the parliament, as contrary to the laws of the state, to the obedience due to the sovereign, and to the welfare of the kingdom. The order was dissolved, and their effects alienated. But in certain quarters, where the provincial parliaments had not decided against them, Jesuits still subsisted; and a royal edict was afterward promulgated, which formally abolished the society in France, but permitted its members to reside within the kingdom under certain restrictions.

In Spain, where they conceived their establishment to be perfectly secure, they experienced an overthrow equally complete, and much more unexpected. The necessary measures were concerted under the direction of De Choiseul, by the Marquis D'Ossun, the French ambassador at Madrid, with Charles III., king of Spain, and his prime minister, the Count D'Aranda. The execution of their purposes was as sudden as their plans had been secret. At midnight, March 31st, 1767, large bodies of military surrounded the six colleges of the Jesuits in Madrid, forced the gates, secured the bells, collected the fathers in the refectory, and read to them the king’s order for their instant transportation. They were immediately put into carriages previously placed at proper stations; and were on their way to Carthagena before the inhabitants of the city had any intelligence of the transaction. Three days afterward, the same measures were adopted with regard to every other college of the order in the kingdom; and, ships having been provided at the different sea ports, they were all embarked for the ecclesiastical states in Italy. All their property was confiscated, and a small pension assigned to each individual as long as he should reside in a place appointed, and satisfy the Spanish court as to his peaceable demeanour. All correspondence with the Jesuits was prohibited, and the strictest silence on the subject of their expulsion was enjoined under penalties of high treason. A similar seizure and deportation took place in the Indies, and an immense property was acquired by the government. Many crimes and plots were laid to the charge of the order; but whatever may have been their demerit, the punishment was too summary to admit of justification; and many innocent individuals were subjected to sufferings beyond the deserts even of the guilty. Pope Clement III. prohibited their landing in his dominions; and, after enduring extreme miseries in crowded transports, the survivors, to the number of two thousand three hundred, were put ashore on Corsica. The example of the king of Spain was immediately followed by Ferdinand VI. of Naples, and soon after by the prince of Parma. They had been expelled from England in 1604; from Venice in 1606; and from Portugal in 1759, upon the charge of having instigated the families of Tavora and D'Aveiro to assassinate King Joseph I. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, was the only monarch who showed a disposition to afford them protection; but in 1773 the order was entirely suppressed by Pope Clement XIV., who is supposed to have fallen a victim to their vengeance. In 1801 the society was restored in Russia by the Emperor Paul; and in 1804, by King Ferdinand, in Sardinia. In August, 1814, a bull was issued by Pope Pius VII., restoring the order to all their former privileges, and calling upon all Catholic princes to afford them protection and encouragement. This act of their revival is expressed in all the solemnity of papal authority; and even affirmed to be above the recall or revision of any judge, with whatever power he may be clothed; but to every enlightened mind it cannot fail to appear as a measure altogether incapable of justification, from any thing either in the history of Jesuitism, or in the character of the present times.

3. It would be in vain to deny that many considerable advantages were derived by mankind from the labours of the Jesuits. Their ardour in the study of ancient literature, and their labours in the instruction of youth, greatly contributed to the progress of polite learning. They have produced a greater number of ingenious authors than all the other religious fraternities taken together; and though there never was known among their order one person who could be said to possess an enlarged philosophical mind, they can boast of many eminent masters in the separate branches of science, many distinguished mathematicians, antiquarians, critics, and even some orators of high reputation. They were in general, also, as individuals, superior in decency, and even purity of manners, to any other class of regular clergy in the church of Rome. But all these benefits by no means counterbalanced the pernicious effects of their influence and intrigues on the best interests of society.

The essential principles of the institution, namely, that their order is to be maintained at the expense of the society at large, and that the end sanctifies the means, are utterly incompatible with the welfare of any community of men. Their system of lax and pliant morality, justifying every vice, and authorizing every atrocity, has left deep and lasting ravages on the face of the moral world. Their zeal to extend the jurisdiction of the court of Rome over every civil government, gave currency to tenets respecting the duty of opposing princes who were hostile to the Catholic faith, which shook the basis of all political allegiance, and loosened the obligations of every human law. Their indefatigable industry, and countless artifices in resisting the progress of reformed religion, perpetuated the most pernicious errors of Popery, and postponed the triumph of tolerant and Christian principles. Whence, then, it may well be asked, whence the recent restoration? What long latent proof has been discovered of the excellence, or even the expedience, of such an institution? The sentence of their abolition was passed by the senates, and monarchs, and statesmen, and divines, of all religions, and of almost every civilized country in the world. Almost every land has been stained and torn by their crimes; and almost every land bears on its public records the most solemn protests against their existence.

JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Messiah, and Saviour of the world, the first and principal object of the prophecies, prefigured and promised in the Old Testament, expected and desired by the patriarchs; the hope of the Gentiles; the glory, salvation, and consolation of Christians. The name Jesus, or, as the Hebrews pronounce it, יהושוע, Jehoshua, or Joshua, Ἰησούς, signifies, he who shall save. No one ever bore this name with so much justice, nor so perfectly fulfilled the signification of it, as Jesus Christ, who saves even from sin and hell, and hath merited heaven for us by the price of his blood. It is not necessary here to narrate the history of our Saviour’s life, which can no where be read with advantage except in the writings of the four evangelists; but there are several general views which require to be noticed under this article.

1. Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or Messiah promised under the Old Testament. That he professed himself to be that Messiah to whom all the prophets gave witness, and who was, in fact, at the time of his appearing, expected by the Jews; and that he was received under that character by his disciples, and by all Christians ever since, is certain. And if the Old Testament Scriptures afford sufficiently definite marks by which the long announced Christ should be infallibly known at his advent, and these presignations are found realized in our Lord, then is the truth of his pretensions established. From the books of the Old Testament we learn that the Messiah was to authenticate his claim by miracles; and in those predictions respecting him, so many circumstances are recorded, that they could meet only in one person; and so, if they are accomplished in him, they leave no room for doubt, as far as the evidence of prophecy is deemed conclusive. As to MIRACLES, we refer to that article; here only observing, that if the miraculous works wrought by Christ were really done, they prove his mission, because, from their nature, and having been wrought to confirm his claim to be the Messiah, they necessarily imply a divine attestation. With respect to PROPHECY, the principles under which its evidence must be regarded as conclusive will be given under that head; and here therefore it will only be necessary to show the completion of the prophecies of the sacred books of the Jews relative to the Messiah in one person, and that person the founder of the Christian religion.

The time of the Messiah’s appearance in the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined, says Keith, by a number of concurring circumstances, which fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen. xlix, 10. The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time during which the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people, while a king should reign among them, while they should be governed by their own laws, and while their judges should be from among their brethren. The prophecy of Malachi adds another standard for measuring the time: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall come suddenly to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts,” Mal. iii, 1. No words can be more expressive of the coming of the promised Messiah; and they as clearly imply his appearance in the second temple before it should be destroyed. In regard to the advent of the Messiah before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this place will I give peace,” Hag. ii, 7. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire, but the express number of years that were to precede his coming are plainly intimated: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks,” Dan. ix, 24, 25. Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year; seventy weeks, thus amounted to four hundred and ninety years. In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of Messiah, the Prince; so entirely is all ambiguity done away. The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity; accord in perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different lines terminate at once,--the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were extinct or dispersed among the nations. Judah alone remained, and the last sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was then unmoved; it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for ages. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passed away. During the very year, the twelfth of his age, in which Christ first publicly appeared in the temple, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished; Coponius was appointed procurator; and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria. The sceptre was smitten from the tribe of Judah; the crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. After the lapse of nearly four hundred years posterior to the time of Malachi, another prophet appeared who was the herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of Josephus confirms the account given in Scripture of John the Baptist. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah was erased soon after the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed. And with respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote period, how little discrepancy of opinion has existed among the most learned men, as to the space from the time of the passing out of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, after the Babylonish captivity, to the commencement of the Christian era, and the subsequent events foretold in the prophecy.

The predictions contained in the Old Testament respecting both the family out of which the Messiah was to arise, and the place of his birth, are almost as circumstantial, and are equally applicable to Christ, as those which refer to the time of his appearance. He was to be an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, and of the town of Bethlehem. That all these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ; that he was of that country, tribe, and family, of the house and lineage of David, and born in Bethlehem, we have the fullest evidence in the testimony of all the evangelists; in two distinct accounts of the genealogies, by natural and legal succession, which, according to the custom of the Jews, were carefully preserved; in the acquiescence of the enemies of Christ in the truth of the fact, against which there is not a single surmise in history; and in the appeal made by some of the earliest Christian writers to the unquestionable testimony of the records of the census, taken at the very time of our Saviour’s birth by order of Cæsar. Here, indeed, it is impossible not to be struck with the exact fulfilment of prophecies which are apparently contradictory and irreconcilable, and with the manner in which they were providentially accomplished. The spot of Christ’s nativity was distant from the place of the abode of his parents, and the region in which he began his ministry was remote from the place of his birth; and another prophecy respecting him was in this manner verified: “In the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined,” Isaiah ix, 1, 2; Matt. iv, 16. Thus, the time at which the predicted Messiah was to appear; the nation, the tribe, and the family from which he was to be descended; and the place of his birth,--no populous city, but of itself an inconsiderable place,--were all clearly foretold; and as clearly refer to Jesus Christ; and all meet their completion in him.

But the facts of his life, and the features of his character, are also drawn with a precision that cannot be misunderstood. The obscurity, the meanness, and the poverty of his external condition are thus represented: “He shall grow up before the Lord like a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Thus saith the Lord to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship,” Isaiah liii, 2; xlix, 7. That such was the condition in which Christ appeared, the whole history of his life abundantly testifies. And the Jews, looking in the pride of their hearts for an earthly king, disregarded these prophecies concerning him, were deceived by their traditions, and found only a stone of stumbling, where, if they had searched their Scriptures aright, they would have discovered an evidence of the Messiah. “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not this the son of Mary? said they and they were offended at him.” His riding in humble triumph into Jerusalem; his being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffeted, and spit upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet; the last offered draught of vinegar and gall; the parting of his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture; the manner of his death and of his burial, and his rising again without seeing corruption, were all expressly predicted, and all these predictions were literally fulfilled, Zech. ix, 9; xi, 12; Isaiah l, 6; Psalm xxii, 16; lxix, 21; xxii, 18; Isaiah liii, 9; Psalm xvi, 10. If all these prophecies admit of any application to the events of the life of any individual, it can only be to that of the Author of Christianity. And what other religion can produce a single fact which was actually foretold of its founder?

The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life; and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb, which was to be killed every year in all the families of Israel, which was to be taken out of the flock, to be without blemish, to be eaten with bitter herbs, to have its blood sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it should be broken; not only did the offering up of Isaac, and the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, by looking upon which the people were healed, and many ritual observances of the Jews, prefigure the manner of Christ’s death, and the sacrifice which was to be made for sin; but many express declarations abound in the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. But Isaiah, who describes, with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, characterizes, with the accuracy of a historian, the humiliation, the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer of a world; and the history of Christ forms, to the very letter, the commentary and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage, Isaiah lii, 13, &c; liii, the connection of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity indisputable, and its application obvious, the sufferings of the servant of God (who under that same denomination, is previously described as he who was to be the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the elect of God in whom his soul delighted, Isa. xiii, 10; xlix, 6) are so minutely foretold, that no illustration is requisite to show that they testify of Jesus. The whole of this prophecy thus refers to the Messiah. It describes both his debasement and his dignity; his rejection by the Jews; his humility, his affliction, and his agony; his magnanimity and his charity; how his words were disbelieved; how his state was lowly; how his sorrow was severe; how he opened not his mouth but to make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical opposition to every dispensation of Providence which is registered in the records of the Jews, it represents spotless innocence suffering by the appointment of Heaven; death as the issue of perfect obedience; God’s righteous servant as forsaken of him; and one who was perfectly immaculate bearing the chastisement of many guilty; sprinkling many nations from their iniquity, by virtue of his sacrifice; justifying many by his knowledge; and dividing a portion with the great and the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul in death. This prophecy, therefore, simply as a prediction prior to the event, renders the very unbelief of the Jews an evidence against them, converts the scandal of the cross into an argument in favour of Christianity, and presents us with an epitome of the truth, a miniature of the Gospel in some of its most striking features. The simple exposition of it sufficed at once for the conversion of the eunuch of Ethiopia. To these prophecies may, in fact, be added all those which relate to his spiritual kingdom, or the circumstances of the promulgation, the opposition, and the triumphs of his religion; the accomplishment of which equally proves the divine mission of its Author, and points him out as that great personage with whom they stand inseparably connected.

2. But if Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, in that character his Deity also is necessarily involved, because the Messiah is surrounded with attributes of divinity in the Old Testament; and our Lord himself as certainly lays claim to those attributes as to the office of “the Christ.” Without referring here to the Scriptural doctrine of a Trinity of divine Persons in the unity of the Godhead, (see Trinity,) it is sufficient now to show that both in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, the Messiah is contemplated as a divine Person. In the very first promise of redemption, his superiority to that great and malignant spirit who destroyed the innocence of man, and blighted the fair creation of God, is unquestionably implied; while the Angel of the Divine Presence, the Angel of the Covenant, who appears so prominent in the patriarchal times, and the early periods of Jewish history, and was understood by the early Jews as the future Messiah, is seen at once as a being distinct from Jehovah and yet Jehovah himself; bearing that incommunicable name; and performing acts, and possessing qualities of unquestionable divinity. As the “Redeemer” of Job, he is the object of his trust and hope, and is said to be then a “living Redeemer;” to see whom at the last was to “see God.” As “Shiloh,” in the prophecy of Jacob, he is represented as having an indefinitely extensive reign over “the people” gathered to him; and in all subsequent predictions respecting this reign of Christ, it is represented so vast, so perfect, so influential upon the very thoughts, purposes, and affections of men, that no mere creature can be reasonably supposed capable of exercising it. Of the second Psalm, so manifestly appropriated to the Messiah, it has been justly said, that the high titles and honours ascribed in this Psalm to the extraordinary person who is the chief subject of it, far transcend any thing that is ascribed in Scripture to any mere creature. But if the Psalm be inquired into more narrowly, and compared with parallel prophecies; if it be duly considered, that not only is the extraordinary person here spoken of called, “the Son of God,” but that title is so ascribed to him as to imply, that it belongs to him in a manner that is absolutely singular, and peculiar to himself, seeing he is said to be begotten of God, verse 7, and is called, by way of eminence, “the Son,” verse 12; that the danger of provoking him to anger is spoken of in so very different a manner from what the Scripture uses in speaking of the anger of any mere creature, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little;” that when the kings and judges of the earth are commanded to serve God with fear, they are at the same time commanded to kiss the Son, which in those times and places was frequently an expression of adoration; and, particularly, that, whereas other Scriptures contain awful and just threatenings against those who trust in any mere man, the Psalmist nevertheless expressly calls them blessed who trust in the Son here spoken of;--all these things taken together make up a character of unequivocal divinity: and, on the other hand, when it is said, that God would set this his Son as his King on his holy hill of Zion, verse 6, this, and various other expressions in this Psalm, contain characters of that subordination which is appropriate to that divine Person who was to be incarnate, and engage in a work assigned to him by the Father. The former part of the forty-fifth Psalm is by the inspired authority of St. Paul applied to the Christ, who is addressed in these lofty words, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” In the same manner Psalm cii, 25–29, is applied to Christ by the same authority, and there he is represented as the Creator of all things, changing his creations as a vesture, and yet himself continuing the same unchanged being amidst all the mutations of the universe. In Psalm cx, David says, “Jehovah said unto my Lord, (Adonai,) Sit thou upon my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” And in Isaiah vi, the same Adonai is seen by the prophet “seated upon a throne, high and lifted up,” receiving the adoration of seraphs, and bearing the title, “Jehovah, Lord of Hosts,” of which passage St. John makes a direct application to Christ. Isaiah predicts his birth of a virgin, under the title of “Immanuel, God with us.” The same prophet gives to this wonderful child the style of “the Mighty God,” the Everlasting Father,” and the “Prince of Peace;” so that, as Dr. Pye Smith justly observes, “if there be any dependence on words, the Messiah is here drawn in the opposite characters of humanity and Deity,--the nativity and frailty of a mortal child, and the incommunicable attributes of the omnipresent and eternal God.” Twice is he called by Jeremiah, “Jehovah our righteousness.” Daniel terms him the “Ancient of Days,” or “The Immortal;” and Micah declares, in a passage which the council of the Jews, assembled by Herod, applied to the Messiah, that he who was to be born in Bethlehem was “even he whose comings forth are from eternity, from the days of the everlasting period.” Thus the prophetic testimony describes him, as entitled to the appellation of “Wonderful,” since he should be, in a sense peculiar to himself, the Son of God, Psalm ii, 7; Isaiah ix, 6; as existing and acting during the patriarchal and the Jewish ages, and even from eternity, Psalm xl, 7–9; Micah v, 2; as the guardian and protector of his people, Isaiah xl, 9–11; as the proper object of the various affections of piety, of devotional confidence for obtaining the most important blessings, and of religious homage from angels and men, Psalm ii, 12; xcvii, 7; and, finally, declares him to be the eternal and immutable Being, the Creator, God, the Mighty God, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah.

In perfect accordance with these views, does our Saviour speak of himself. He asserts his preëxistence, as having “come down from heaven;” and as existing “before Abraham;” and as being “in heaven” while yet before the eyes of his disciples on earth. In the same peculiar manner does he apply the term “Son of God” to himself, and that with so manifest an intention to assume it in the sense of divinity, that the Jews attempted on that account to stone him as a blasphemer. The whole force of the argument by which he silenced the Pharisees when he asked how the Messiah, who was to be the Son of David, could be David’s Lord, in reference to the passage in the Psalms before quoted, arose out of the doctrine of the Messiah’s divinity; and when he claims that all men should honour him as they honour the Father, and asserts that as the Father hath life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself, that he “quickeneth whom he will,” that “where two or three meet in his name he is in the midst of them,” and would be with his disciples “to the end of the world;” who does not see that the Jews concluded right, when they said that he made himself “equal with God,”--an impression which he took no pains to remove, although his own moral character bound him to do so, had he not intended to confirm that conclusion. So numerous are the passages in which divine titles, acts, and qualities, are ascribed to Christ, in the apostolical epistles, and so unbroken is the stream of testimony from the apostolic age, that the Deity of their Saviour was the undoubted and universal faith of his inspired followers, and of those who immediately succeeded them, that it is not necessary to quote proofs. The whole argument is this: If the Old Testament Scriptures represent the Messiah as a divine Person; the proofs which demonstrate Jesus to be the Messiah, demonstrate him also by farther and necessary consequence to be divine. Yet, though there is a union of natures in Christ, there is no mixture or confusion of their properties: his humanity is not changed into his Deity, nor his Deity absorbed by his humanity; but the two natures are distinct in one Person. How this union exists, is above our comprehension; and, indeed, if we cannot explain how our bodies and souls are united, it is not to be supposed that we can comprehend the mystery of “God manifest in the flesh.” So truly does Christ bear the name given to him in prophecy,--“Wonderful.”

3. The doctrine of the Deity of Christ derives farther confirmation from the consideration, that in no sound sense can the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments be interpreted so as to make their very different and often apparently contradictory statements respecting him harmonize. How, for instance, is it that he is arrayed in the attributes of divinity, and yet is capable of being raised to a kingdom and glory?--that he is addressed, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and yet that it should follow “God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?”--that he should be God, and yet, by a human birth, “God with us?”--that he should, say, “I and my Father are one,” and, “My Father is greater than I?”--that he is supreme, and yet a servant?--that he is equal and yet subordinate?--that he, a man, should require and receive worship and trust?--that he should be greater than angels, and yet “made lower than the angels?”--that he should be “made flesh,” and yet be the Creator of all things?--that he should raise himself from the dead, and yet be raised by the power of the Father? These and many other declarations respecting him, all accord with the orthodox view of his person; and are intelligible so far as they state the facts respecting him; but are wholly beyond the power of interpretation into any rational meaning on any theory which denies to him a real humanity on the one hand, or a real and personal divinity on the other. So powerfully, in fact, has this been felt, that, in order to evade the force of the testimony of Scripture, the most licentious criticisms have been resorted to by the deniers of his divinity; such as would not certainly have been tolerated by scholars in the case of an attempt to interpret any other ancient writing.

4. Being, therefore, not only “a teacher sent from God,” but the divine Son of God himself, it might be truly said by his wondering hearers, “Never man spake like this man.” On our Lord’s character as a teacher, therefore, many striking and just remarks have been made by different writers, not excepting some infidels themselves, who, in this respect, have been carried into admiration by the overwhelming force of evidence. This article, however, shall not be indebted to a desecrated source for an estimate of the character of his teaching, and shall rather be concluded with the following admirable remarks of a Christian prelate:--

“When our Lord is considered as a teacher, we find him delivering the justest and most sublime truths with respect to the divine nature, the duties of mankind, and a future state of existence; agreeable in every particular to reason, and to the wisest maxims of the wisest philosophers; without any mixture of that alloy which so often debased their most perfect production; and excellently adapted to mankind in general, by suggesting circumstances and particular images on the most awful and interesting subjects. We find him filling, and, as it were, overpowering our minds with the grandest ideas of his own nature; representing himself as appointed by his Father to be our Instructer, our Redeemer, our Judge, and our King; and showing that he lived and died for the most benevolent and important purposes conceivable. He does not labour to support the greatest and most magnificent of all characters; but it is perfectly easy and natural to him. He makes no display of the high and heavenly truths which he utters; but speaks of them with a graceful and wonderful simplicity and majesty. Supernatural truths are as familiar to his mind, as the common affairs of life are to other men. He revives the moral law, carries it to perfection, and enforces it by peculiar and animating motives: but he enjoins nothing new beside praying in his name, mutual love among his disciples, as such, and the observance of two simple and significant positive laws which serve to promote the practice of the moral law. All his precepts, when rightly explained, are reasonable in themselves and useful in their tendency: and their compass is very great, considering that he was an occasional teacher, and not a systematical one. If from the matter of his instructions we pass on to the manner in which they were delivered, we find our Lord usually speaking as an authoritative teacher; though occasionally limiting his precepts, and sometimes assigning the reasons of them. He presupposes the original law of God, and addresses men as rational creatures. From the grandeur of his mind, and the magnitude of his subjects, he is often sublime; and the beauties interspersed throughout his discourses are equally natural and striking. He is remarkable for an easy and graceful manner of introducing the best lessons from incidental objects and occasions. The human heart is naked and open to him; and he addresses the thoughts of men, as others do the emotions of their countenance or their bodily actions. Difficult situations, and sudden questions of the most artful and ensnaring kind, serve only to display his superior wisdom, and to confound and astonish all his adversaries. Instead of showing his boundless knowledge on every occasion, he checks and restrains it, and prefers utility to the glare of ostentation. He teaches directly and obliquely, plainly and covertly, as wisdom points out occasions. He knows the inmost character, every prejudice and every feeling of his hearers; and, accordingly, uses parables to conceal or to enforce his lessons: and he powerfully impresses them by the significant language of actions. He gives proofs of his mission from above, by his knowledge of the heart, by a chain of prophecies, and by a variety of mighty works.

“He sets an example of the most perfect piety to God, and of the most extensive benevolence and the most tender compassion to men. He does not merely exhibit a life of strict justice, but of overflowing benignity. His temperance has not the dark shades of austerity; his meekness does not degenerate into apathy. His humility is signal, amidst a splendour of qualities more than human. His fortitude is eminent and exemplary, in enduring the most formidable external evils and the sharpest actual sufferings: his patience is invincible; his resignation entire and absolute. Truth and sincerity shine throughout his whole conduct. Though of heavenly descent, he shows obedience and affection to his earthly parents. He approves, loves, and attaches himself to amiable qualities in the human race. He respects authority, religious and civil; and he evidences his regard for his country by promoting its most essential good in a painful ministry dedicated to its service, by deploring its calamities, and by laying down his life for its benefit. Every one of his eminent virtues is regulated by consummate prudence; and he both wins the love of his friends, and extorts the approbation and wonder of his enemies. Never was a character at the same time so commanding and natural, so resplendent and pleasing, so amiable and venerable. There is a peculiar contrast in it between an awful greatness, dignity, and majesty, and the most conciliating loveliness, tenderness, and softness. He now converses with prophets, lawgivers, and angels; and the next instant he meekly endures the dulness of his disciples, and the blasphemies and rage of the multitude. He now calls himself greater than Solomon, one who can command legions of angels, the Giver of life to whomsoever he pleaseth, the Son of God who shall sit on his glorious throne to judge the world. At other times we find him embracing young children, not lifting up his voice in the streets, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax; calling his disciples, not servants, but friends and brethren, and comforting them with an exuberant and parental affection. Let us pause an instant, and fill our minds with the idea of one who knew all things heavenly and earthly, searched and laid open the inmost recesses of the heart, rectified every prejudice, and removed every mistake, of a moral and religious kind, by a word exercised a sovereignty over all nature, penetrated the hidden events of futurity, gave promises of admission into a happy immortality, had the keys of life and death, claimed a union with the Father; and yet was pious, mild, gentle, humble, affable, social, benevolent, friendly, affectionate. Such a character is fairer than the morning star. Each separate virtue is made stronger by opposition and contrast; and the union of so many virtues forms a brightness which fitly represents the glory of that God ‘who inhabiteth light inaccessible.’ Such a character must have been a real one. There is something so extraordinary, so perfect, and so godlike in it, that it could not have been thus supported throughout by the utmost stretch of human art, much less by men confessedly unlearned and obscure.” We may add, that such a character must also have been divine. His virtues are human in their class and kind, so that he was our “example;” but they were sustained and heightened by that divinity which was impersonated in him, and from which they derived their intense and full perfection.

5. A great deal has been written concerning the form, beauty, and stature of Jesus Christ. Some have asserted, that he was in person the noblest of all the sons of men. Others have maintained, that there was no beauty nor any graces in his outward appearance. The fathers have not expressed themselves on this matter in a uniform manner. St. Jerom believes that the lustre and majesty which shone about our Saviour’s face were capable of winning all hearts: it was this that drew the generality of his Apostles with so much ease to him; it was this majesty which struck those down who came to seize him in the olive garden. St. Bernard and St. Chrysostom contend in like manner for the beauty of Jesus Christ’s person; but the most ancient fathers have acknowledged, that he was not at all handsome. Homo indecorus et passibilis, says Irenæus. Celsus objected to the Christians, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was little, and ill made, which Origen acknowledged in his answer to have been written of him. Clemens Alexandrinus owns, in several places, that the person of Jesus Christ was not beautiful, as does also Cyril of Alexandria. Tertullian says plainly, vultu et aspectu inglorius; that his outward form had nothing that could attract consideration and respect. St. Austin confesses, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was without beauty and the advantage of person; and the generality of the ancients, as Eusebius, Basil, Theodoret, Ambrose, Isidore, &c, explain the passage in the Psalms, “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” as relating to the beauty of Jesus Christ according to his divinity. This difference in opinion shows that no certain tradition was handed down on this subject. The truth probably is, that all which was majestic and attractive in the person of our Lord, was in the expression of the countenance, the full influence of which was displayed chiefly in his confidential intercourse with his disciples; while his general appearance presented no striking peculiarity to the common observer.

JEWS, the appropriate denomination of the descendants of Judah, which soon included under it the Benjamites, who joined themselves to the tribe of Judah, on the revolt of the other ten tribes from the house of David. After the Babylonish captivity, when many individuals of these ten tribes returned with the men of Judah and Benjamin to rebuild Jerusalem, the term JEWS included them also, or rather was then extended to all the descendants of Israel who retained the Jewish religion, whether they belonged to the two or to the ten tribes, whether they returned into Judea or not. Hence, not only all the Israelites of future times have been called Jews, but all the descendants of Jacob, from the earliest times, are frequently so called by us at present, and we speak even of their original dispensation as the Jewish dispensation. The history of this singular people is recorded in the sacred books of the Old Testament; and in place of epitomizing the accounts of the sacred writers, it will be more useful to fill up the chasm between the close of the historical books there contained, and the coming of our Lord.

When the kingdom of Judah had been seventy years in captivity, and the period of their affliction was completed, Cyrus, (B. C. 536,) under whom were united the kingdoms of Persia, Media, and Babylon, issued a decree, permitting all the Jews to return to their own land, and to rebuild their temple at Jerusalem. This decree had been expressly foretold by the Prophet Isaiah, who spoke of Cyrus by name, above a hundred years before his birth, as the deliverer of God’s chosen people from their predicted captivity. Though the decree issued by Cyrus was general, a part only of the nation took advantage of it. The number of persons who returned at this time was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, and seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven servants. They were conducted by Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zerubbabel, frequently called in Scripture Shashbazzar, was the grandson of Jeconias, and consequently descended from David. He was called “the prince of Judah,” and was appointed their governor by Cyrus, and with his permission carried back a part of the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out the temple of Jerusalem. The rest of the treasures of the temple were carried thither afterward by Ezra. Joshua was the son of Josedec, the high priest, and grandson of Seraiah, who was high priest when the temple was destroyed. Darius, the successor of Cyrus, confirmed this decree, and favoured the reëstablishment of the people. But it was in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, called in Scripture Ahasuerus, that Ezra obtained his commission, and was made governor of the Jews in their own land, which government he held thirteen years: then Nehemiah was appointed with fresh powers, probably through the interest of Queen Esther; and Ezra applied himself solely to correcting the canon of the Scriptures, and restoring and providing for the continuance of the worship of God in its original purity. The first care of the Jews, after their arrival in Judea, was to build an altar for burnt-offerings to God: they then collected materials for rebuilding the temple; and all necessary preparations being made, in the beginning of the second year after their return under Zerubbabel, they began to build it upon the old foundations. The Samaritans, affirming that they worshipped the God of Israel, offered to assist the Jews; but their assistance being refused, they did all in their power to impede the work; and hence originated that enmity which ever after subsisted between the Jews and Samaritans. The temple, after a variety of obstructions and delays, was finished and dedicated, in the seventh year of King Darius, B. C. 515, and twenty years after it was begun. Though this second temple, or, as it is sometimes called, the temple of Zerubbabel, who was at that time governor of the Jews, was of the same size and dimensions as the first, or Solomon’s temple, yet it was very inferior to it in splendour and magnificence; and the ark of the covenant, the Shechinah, the holy fire upon the altar, the Urim and Thummim, and the spirit of prophecy, were all wanting to this temple of the remnant of the people. At the feast of the dedication, offerings were made for the twelve tribes of Israel, which seems to indicate that some of all the tribes returned from captivity; but by far the greater number were of the tribe of Judah, and therefore from this period the Israelites were generally called Judæi or Jews, and their country Judea. Many, at their own desire, remained in those provinces where they had been placed by the kings of Assyria and Babylon. The settlement of the people, “after their old estate,” according to the word of the Lord, together with the arrangement of all civil and ecclesiastical matters, and the building of the walls of Jerusalem, were completed by Ezra and Nehemiah. But we soon after find Malachi, the last of the prophets under the Old Testament, reproving both priests and people very severely, not for idolatry, but for their scandalous lives and gross corruptions.

The Scriptural history ends at this period, B. C. 430; and we must have recourse to uninspired writings, principally to the books of the Maccabees, and to Josephus, for the remaining particulars of the Jewish history, to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Judea continued subject to the kings of Persia about two hundred years; but it does not appear that it had a separate governor after Nehemiah. From his time it was included in the jurisdiction of the governor of Syria, and under him the high priest had the chief authority. When Alexander the Great was preparing to besiege Tyre, he sent to Jaddua, the high priest at Jerusalem, to supply him with that quantity of provisions which he was accustomed to send to Persia. Jaddua refused, upon the ground of his oath of fidelity to the king of Persia. This refusal irritated Alexander; and when he had taken Tyre, he marched toward Jerusalem to revenge himself upon the Jews. Jaddua had notice of his approach, and, by the direction of God, went out of the city to meet him, dressed in his pontifical robes, and attended by the Levites in white garments. Alexander, visibly struck with this solemn appearance, immediately laid aside his hostile intentions, advanced toward the high priest, embraced him, and paid adoration to the name of God, which was inscribed upon the frontlet of his mitre: he afterward went into the city with the high priest, and offered sacrifices in the temple to the God of the Jews. This sudden change in the disposition of Alexander excited no small astonishment among his followers; and when his favourite Parmenio inquired of him the cause, he answered, that it was occasioned by the recollection of a remarkable dream he had in Macedonia, in which a person, dressed precisely like the Jewish high priest, had encouraged him to undertake the conquest of Persia, and had promised him success: he therefore adored the name of that God by whose direction he believed he acted, and showed kindness to his people. It is also said, that while he was at Jerusalem the prophecies of Daniel were pointed out to him, which foretold that “the king of Grecia” should conquer Persia, Dan. viii, 21. Before he left Jerusalem he granted the Jews the same free enjoyment of their laws and their religion, and exemption from tribute every sabbatical year, which they had been allowed by the kings of Persia; and when he built Alexandria, he placed a great number of Jews there, and granted them many favours and immunities. Whether any Jews settled in Europe so early as while the nation was subject to the Macedonian empire, is not known; but it is believed that they began to Hellenize about this time. The Greek tongue became more common among them, and Grecian manners and opinions were soon introduced. See ALEXANDER.

At the death of Alexander, (B. C. 323,) in the division of his empire among his generals, Judea fell to the share of Laomedon. But Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagus, king of Egypt, soon after made himself master of it by a stratagem: he entered Jerusalem on a Sabbath day, under pretence of offering sacrifice, and took possession of the city without resistance from the Jews, who did not on this occasion dare to transgress their law by fighting on a Sabbath day. Ptolemy carried many thousands captive into Egypt, both Jews and Samaritans, and settled them there: he afterward treated them with kindness, on account of their acknowledged fidelity to their engagements, particularly in their conduct toward Darius, king of Persia; and he granted them equal privileges with the Macedonians themselves at Alexandria. Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have given the Jews who were captives in Egypt their liberty, to the number of a hundred and twenty thousand. He commanded the Jewish Scriptures to be translated into the Greek language, which translation is called the Septuagint. (See Alexandria.) After the Jewish nation had been tributary to the kings of Egypt for about a hundred years, it became subject to the kings of Syria. They divided the land, which now began to be called Palestine, into five provinces, three of which were on the west side of the Jordan, namely, Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, and two on the east side, namely, Trachonitis and Peræa; but they suffered them to be governed by their own laws, under the high priest and council of the nation. Seleucus Nicanor gave them the right of citizens in the cities which he built in Asia Minor and Cœlo-Syria, and even in Antioch, his capital, with privileges, which they continued to enjoy under the Romans. Antiochus the Great granted considerable favours and immunities to the city of Jerusalem; and, to secure Lydia and Phrygia, he established colonies of Jews in those provinces. In the series of wars which took place between the kings of Syria and Egypt, Judea, being situated between those two countries, was, in a greater or less degree, affected by all the revolutions which they experienced, and was frequently the scene of bloody and destructive battles. The evils to which the Jews were exposed from these foreign powers were considerably aggravated by the corruption and misconduct of their own high priests, and other persons of distinction among them. To this corruption and misconduct, and to the increasing wickedness of the people, their sufferings ought indeed to be attributed, according to the express declarations of God by the mouth of his prophets. It is certain that about this time a considerable part of the nation was become much attached to Grecian manners and customs, though they continued perfectly free from the sin of idolatry. Near Jerusalem places were appropriated to gymnastic exercises; and the people were led by Jason, who had obtained the high priesthood from Antiochus Epiphanes by the most dishonourable means, to neglect the temple worship, and the observance of the law, in a far greater degree than at any period since their return from the captivity. It pleased God to punish them for this defection, by the hand of the very person whom they particularly sought to please. Antiochus Epiphanes, irritated at having been prevented by the Jews from entering the holy place when he visited the temple, soon after made a popular commotion the pretence for the exercise of tyranny: he took the city, (B. C. 170,) plundered the temple, and slew or enslaved great numbers of the inhabitants, with every circumstance of profanation and of cruelty which can be conceived. For three years and a half, the time predicted by Daniel, the daily sacrifice was taken away, the temple defiled and partly destroyed, the observance of the law prohibited under the most severe penalties, every copy burned which the agents of the tyrant could procure, and the people required to sacrifice to idols, under pain of the most agonizing death. Numerous as were the apostates, (for the previous corruption of manners had but ill prepared the nation for such a trial,) a remnant continued faithful; and the complicated miseries which the people endured under this cruel yoke excited a general impatience. At length the moment of deliverance arrived. Mattathias, a priest, (B. C. 167,) eminent for his piety and resolution, and the father of five sons, equally zealous for their religion, encouraged the people by his example and exhortations, “to stand up for the law;” and having soon collected an army of six thousand men, he eagerly undertook to free Judea from the oppression and persecution of the Syrians, and to restore the worship of the God of Israel; but being very old when he engaged in this important and arduous work, he did not live to see its completion. At his death, his son, Judas Maccabæus, succeeded to the command of the army; and having defeated the Syrians in several engagements, he drove them out of Judea, and established his own authority in the country. His first care was to repair and purify the temple for the restoration of divine worship; and, to preserve the memory of this event, the Jews ordained a feast of eight days, called the feast of the dedication, to be yearly observed. Judas Maccabæus was slain in battle, and his brother Jonathan succeeded him in the government. He was also made high priest, and from that time the Maccabæan princes continued to be high priests. Judas Maccabæus and his brothers were so successful, by their valour and conduct, in asserting the liberty of their country, that in a few years they not only recovered its independence, but regained almost all the possessions of the twelve tribes, destroying at the same time the temple on Mount Gerizim, in Samaria. But they and their successors were almost always engaged in wars, in which, though generally victorious, they were sometimes defeated, and their country for a short time oppressed. Aristobulus was the first of the Maccabees who assumed the name of king. About forty-two years after, a contest arising between the two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, the sons of Alexander Jaddæus, relative to the succession of the crown, both parties applied to the Romans for their support and assistance. Scaurus, the Roman general, suffered himself to be bribed by Aristobulus, and placed him on the throne. Not long after, Pompey returned from the east into Syria, and both the brothers applied to him for his protection, and pleaded their cause before him, (B. C. 63.) Pompey considered this as a favourable opportunity for reducing Palestine under the power of the Romans, to which the neighbouring nations had already submitted; and therefore, without deciding the points in dispute between the two brothers, he marched his army into Judea, and, after some pretended negociation with Aristobulus and his party, besieged and took possession of Jerusalem. He appointed Hyrcanus high priest, but would not allow him to take the title of king: he gave him, however, the specious name of prince, with very limited authority. Pompey did not take away the holy utensils or treasures of the temple, but he made Judea subject and tributary to the Romans; and Crassus, about nine years after, plundered the temple of every thing valuable belonging to it. Julius Cæsar confirmed Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and granted fresh privileges to the Jews; but about four years after the death of Julius Cæsar, Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, with the assistance of the Parthians, while the empire of Rome was in an unsettled state, deposed his uncle Hyrcanus, (B. C. 41,) seized the government, and assumed the title of king.

Herod, by birth an Idumean, but of the Jewish religion, whose father, Antipater, as well as himself, had enjoyed considerable posts of honour and trust under Hyrcanus, immediately set out for Rome, and prevailed upon the senate, through the interest of Antony and Augustus, to appoint him king of Judea. Armed with this authority, he returned, and began hostilities against Antigonus. About three years after, he took Jerusalem, and put an end to the government of the Maccabees or Asmonæans, after it had lasted nearly a hundred and thirty years. Antigonus was sent prisoner to Rome, and was there put to death by Antony. Herod married Mariamne, who lived to be the only representative of the Asmonæan family, and afterward caused her to be publicly executed from motives of unfounded jealousy. Herod considerably enlarged the kingdom of Judea, but it continued tributary to the Romans; he greatly depressed the civil power of the high priesthood, and changed it from being hereditary and for life to an office granted and held at the pleasure of the monarch; and this sacred office was now often given to those who paid the highest price for it, without any regard to merit: he was an inexorable, cruel tyrant to his people, and even to his children, three of whom he put to death; a slave to his passions, and indifferent by what means he gratified his ambition; but to preserve the Jews in subjection, and to erect a lasting monument to his own name, he repaired the temple of Jerusalem at a vast expense, and added greatly to its magnificence.

At this time there was a confident expectation of the Messiah among the Jews; and indeed, a general idea prevailed among the Heathen, also, that some extraordinary conqueror or deliverer would soon appear in Judea. In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Herod, while Augustus was emperor of Rome, the Saviour of mankind was born of the virgin Mary, of the lineage of David, in the city of Bethlehem of Judea, according to the word of prophecy. Herod, misled by the opinion, which was then common among the Jews, that the Messiah was to appear as the temporal prince, and judging from the inquiries of the wise men of the east, that the child was actually born, sent to Bethlehem, and ordered that all the children of two years old and under should be put to death, with the hope of destroying one whom he considered as the rival of himself, or at least of his family. He was soon after smitten with a most loathsome and tormenting disease, and died, a signal example of divine justice, about a year and a quarter after the birth of our Saviour, and in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, computing from the time he was declared king by the Romans. See HEROD.

Herod made his will not long before his death, but left the final disposal of his dominions to Augustus. The emperor ratified this will in all its material points, and suffered the countries over which Herod had reigned to be divided among his three sons. Archelaus succeeded to the largest share, namely, to Judea Propria, Samaria, and Idumea. Herod Antipas, called Herod the Tetrarch, who afterward beheaded John the Baptist, succeeded to Galilee and Peræa; and Philip, to Trachonitis, and to the neighbouring region of Iturea. The sons of Herod the Great were not suffered to take the title of king: they were only called ethnarchs or tetrarchs. Beside the countries already mentioned, Abilene, which had belonged to Herod during the latter part of his life, and of which Lysanias is mentioned in Luke iii, 1, as tetrarch, and some cities were given to Salome, the sister of Herod the Great, (A. D. 7.) Archelaus acted with great cruelty and injustice; and in the tenth year of his government, upon a regular complaint being made against him by the Jews, Augustus banished him to Vienne, in Gaul, where he died.

After the banishment of Archelaus, Augustus sent Publius Sulpitius Quirinus, who, according to the Greek way of writing that name, is by St. Luke called Cyrenius, president of Syria, to reduce the countries over which Archelaus had reigned, to the form of a Roman province; and appointed Coponius, a Roman of the equestrian order, to be governor, under the title of procurator of Judea, but subordinate to the president of Syria. The power of life and death was now taken out of the hands of the Jews, and taxes were from this time paid immediately to the Roman emperor. Justice was administered in the name and by the laws of Rome; though in what concerned their religion, their own laws, and the power of the high priest, and sanhedrim, or great council, were continued to them; and they were allowed to examine witnesses, and exercise an inferior jurisdiction in other causes, subject to the control of the Romans, to whom their tetrarchs or kings were also subject; and it may be remarked that, at this very period of time, our Saviour, who was now in the twelfth year of his age, being at Jerusalem with Joseph and Mary upon occasion of the passover, appeared first in the temple in his prophetic office, and in the business of his Father, on which he was sent, sitting among the doctors of the temple, and declaring the truth of God to them. After Coponius, Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus, and Pontius Pilate, were successively procurators; and this was the species of government to which Judea and Samaria were subject during the ministry of our Saviour. Herod Antipas was still tetrarch of Galilee, and it was he to whom our Saviour was sent by Pontius Pilate. Lardner is of opinion that there was no procurator in Judea after Pontius Pilate, who was removed A. D. 36, but that it was governed for a few years by the presidents of Syria, who occasionally sent officers into Judea. Philip continued tetrarch of Trachonitis thirty-seven years, and died in the twentieth year of the reign of Tiberius. Caligula gave his tetrarchy to Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, with the title of king; and afterward he added the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, whom he deposed and banished after he had been tetrarch forty-three years. The Emperor Claudius gave him Judea, Samaria, the southern parts of Idumea, and Abilene; and thus at last the dominions of Herod Agrippa became nearly the same as those of his grandfather, Herod the Great. It was this Agrippa, called also Herod Agrippa, and by St. Luke Herod only, who put to death James, the brother of John, and imprisoned Peter. He died in the seventh year of his reign, and left a son called also Agrippa, then seventeen years old; and Claudius, thinking him too young to govern his father’s extensive dominions, made Cuspus Fadus governor of Judea. Fadus was soon succeeded by Tiberius, and he was followed by Alexander Cumanus, Felix, and Festus; but Claudius afterward gave Trachonitis and Abilene to Agrippa, and Nero added a part of Galilee and some other cities. It was this younger Agrippa, who was also called king, before whom Paul pleaded at Cæsarea, which was at that time the place of residence of the governor of Judea. Several of the Roman governors severely oppressed and persecuted the Jews; and at length, in the reign of Nero, and in the government of Florus, who had treated them with greater cruelty than any of his predecessors, they openly revolted from the Romans. Then began the Jewish war, which was terminated, after an obstinate defence and unparalleled sufferings on the part of the Jews, by the total destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, by the overthrow of their civil and religious polity, and the reduction of the people to a state of the most abject slavery; for though, in the reign of Adrian, numbers of them collected together, in different parts of Judea, it is to be observed, they were then considered and treated as rebellious slaves; and these commotions were made a pretence for the general slaughter of those who were taken, and tended to complete the work of their dispersion into all countries under heaven. Since that time the Jews have no where subsisted as a nation.

2. JEWS, MODERN. The Jews divide the books of the Old Testament into three classes: the law, the prophets, and the hagiographa, or holy writings. They have counted not only the large and small sections, the verses and the words, but even the letters in some of the books; and they have likewise reckoned which is the middle letter of the Pentateuch, which is the middle clause of each book, and how often each letter of the alphabet occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures. Beside the Scriptures, the Jews pay great attention to the Targums, or Chaldee paraphrases of them. It seems probable that these were written either during the Babylonish captivity, or immediately afterward, when the Jews had forgotten their own language, and acquired the Chaldee of the Targums, at present received by the Jews. The most ancient are that of Onkelos on the law, and that of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the prophets: the former is supposed to be of greater antiquity than the latter, and it approaches, in simplicity and purity of style, to the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra. The Targum on the prophets is believed to have been written before the birth of Christ; and, though inferior in respect of style to the Targum of Onkelos, is much superior to any other Targum.

The Jews also regard with great veneration, what is called the Talmud. This work consists of two parts: the Mishna, which signifies a second law; and the Gemara, which means either a supplement or a commentary. The Jews suppose that God first dictated the text of the law to Moses, which he commanded to be put in writing, and which exists in the Pentateuch, and then gave him an explication of every thing comprehended in it, which he ordered to be committed to memory. Hence the former is called the written, and the latter the oral, law. These two laws were recited by Moses to Aaron four times, to his sons three times, to the seventy elders twice, and to the rest of the people once: after this, the repetition was renewed by Aaron, his two sons, and the seventy elders. The last month of Moses’s life was spent, according to the Jews, in repeating and explaining the law to the people, and especially to Joshua, his successor. A prophet might suspend any law, or authorize the violation of any precept, except those against idolatry. If there was any difference of opinion respecting the meaning of any law or precept, it was determined by the majority. When Joshua died, all the interpretations he had received from Moses, as well as those made in his time, were transmitted to the elders: they conveyed them to the prophets, and by one prophet they were delivered to another. This law was only oral till the days of Rabbi Jehuda, who, perceiving that the students of the law were gradually decreasing, and that the Jews were dispersed over the face of the earth, collected all the traditions, arranged them under distinct heads, and formed them into a methodical code of traditional law; thus the Mishna was formed. It is written in a concise style, chiefly in the form of aphorisms, which admit of a variety of interpretations. On this account, a Gemara or commentary was written by a president of a school in Palestine, which, together with the Mishna, forms the Jerusalem Talmud. The Jews in Chaldea, however, not being satisfied with this Gemara, one of their rabbies compiled another; which, together with the Mishna, forms the Babylonian Talmud.

One of the principal branches of modern Judaism is the cabala, the study of which is regarded as the sublimest of all sciences. By the cabala, the Jews mean those mystical interpretations of the Scripture, and metaphysical speculations concerning the Deity, angels, &c, which they regard as having been handed down by a secret tradition from the earliest ages. In the eleventh century, the famous Rabbi Maimonides drew up a summary of the doctrines of Judaism, which every Jew is required to believe, on pain of excommunication in this world, and condemnation in the next. This summary consists of thirteen articles, which he calls foundations or roots of the faith. The articles are as follows: 1. That God is the Creator and active Supporter of all things. 2. That God is one, and eternally unchangeable. 3. That God is incorporeal, and cannot have any material properties. 4. That God must eternally exist. 5. That God alone is to be worshipped. 6. That whatever is taught by the prophets is true. 7. That Moses is the head and father of all contemporary doctors, and of all those who lived before or shall live after him. 8. That the law was given by Moses. 9. That the law shall always exist, and never be altered. 10. That God knows all the thoughts and actions of men. 11. That God will reward the observance, and punish the breach, of the laws. 12. That the Messiah is to come, though he tarry a long time. 13. That there shall be a resurrection of the dead, when God shall think fit.

The Jewish religion is, perhaps, more a religion of minute and trifling rites and ceremonies than even the Catholic religion. The minutest circumstances in dressing and undressing, washing and wiping the face and hands, and other necessary actions of common and daily life, are enjoined by the rabbies to be performed exactly according to the prescribed regulations. Their prayers also are numerous, and some of them relate to the most trifling circumstances. Those esteemed the most solemn and important are called Shemoneh Esreh, or the eighteen prayers, though they actually consist of nineteen, the last having been added against heretics and apostates. They are enjoined to be said by all Jews above the age of thirteen, wherever they may be, three times a day. The members of the synagogue are required to repeat at least a hundred benedictions every day. A son who survives his father is enjoined to attend the nocturnal service in the synagogue every evening for a year, and to repeat the Kodesh, in order that his father may be delivered from hell. This service may be suspended by any person going up to the desk and closing the book. This is not unfrequently done in case of quarrels; and the prayers cannot be renewed till a reconciliation takes place.

Nothing is to be undertaken on Friday which cannot be finished before the evening. In the afternoon they wash and clean themselves, trim their hair, and pare their nails. Every Jew, of whatever rank, must assist in the preparation for the Sabbath. Two loaves, baked on the Friday, are set on a table. This is done in memory of the manna, of which a double portion fell on the sixth day of the week. The table remains spread all the Sabbath. Before the sun is set the candles are to be lighted; one, at least, with seven wicks, in allusion to the number of days in a week, is to be lighted in each house. The Talmudical directions respecting the wicks and oil form part of the Sabbath evening service; they are most ridiculously and childishly minute. The lesson appointed for the Sabbath is divided into seven parts, and read to seven persons at the altar. The first called up to hear it is a descendant of Aaron, the second of Levi, the third an Israelite of any tribe; the same order is then repeated: the seventh may be of any tribe. The portion read from the law is followed by a portion from the prophets. There are three services; morning, afternoon, and evening.

Of the festivals of the Jews we can mention only a few, and those merely in a cursory manner. The principal are those of the new moon, of the passover, of pentecost, of the new year, the fast of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles. That the festival of the new moon might be celebrated as nearly as possible on the day of the moon’s conjunction with the sun, most of the months contain alternately twenty-nine and thirty days; and the feast of the new moon is held on the first, or on the first and second days of the month. The women are not allowed to work: the men may. Good eating and drinking particularly distinguish this festival. The feast of the passover commences on the fifteenth day of the month Nisan, and continues among Jews who live in or near Jerusalem seven days, and elsewhere eight days. The Sabbath preceding is called the great Sabbath, and is kept with most scrupulous strictness. The mode and materials for making the unleavened cakes for the passover are most minutely described by the rabbies, as well as all the ceremonies of this feast. It is customary for every Jew to honour it by an exhibition of the most sumptuous furniture he can afford. The table for the feast is covered with a clean linen cloth, on which are placed several dishes: on one is the shank bone of a shoulder of lamb or kid, and an egg; on another, three cakes, wrapped in two napkins; on a third, some lettuce, parsley, celery, or other herbs: these are their bitter herbs. Near the salad is a cruet of vinegar, and some salt and water. There is also a dish representing the bricks which their forefathers were required to make in Egypt: this is composed of apples, almonds, nuts, and figs, formed into a paste, dressed in wine and cinnamon. The first two days, and the last two, are kept with particular solemnity and strictness. Contracts of marriage may be made, but no marriage is to be solemnized during this festival. The feast of pentecost, on the sixth day of the month Sivan, continues two days, and is kept with the same strictness as the first two days of the passover. It is a received opinion of the Jews, that the world was created on the day of their new year; and they therefore celebrate the festival of the new year by a discontinuance of all labour, and by repeated services in the synagogue. The fast of atonement is on the tenth day of Tisri: the first ten days of the month are called days of penitence during which the Jews believe that God examines the actions of mankind; but he defers passing sentence till the tenth. On the eve of the fast, a ceremony, evidently designed as a substitute for their ancient sacrifices, is performed. This consists in killing a cock with great formality. The cocks must on no account be red: white is the preferable colour. Before the fast begins, they endeavour to settle all their disputes. In the afternoon they make a hearty meal, to prepare for the fast, which is of the most rigid kind. The feast of tabernacles commences on the fifteenth of Tisri, and is kept nine days. Every Jew who has a court or garden is required to erect a tabernacle on this occasion; respecting the materials and erection of which the rabbies have given special directions. The eighth and ninth are high days, particularly the last, which is called the day of the rejoicing of the land.

Such are the opinions, traditions, rites, and ceremonies of the great majority of the modern Jews; but, beside these, there is a small sect denominated Caraites, that is, textualists,--persons attached to the text of the Scriptures. They reside chiefly in the Crimea, Lithuania, and Persia; and at Damascus, Constantinople, and Cairo: their whole number is very inconsiderable. They agree with other Jews in denying the advent of the Messiah. The principal difference between them consists in their adherence to the letter of the Scripture, and in the rejection of all paraphrases and interpretations of the rabbies. They also differ from the rabbies in various particulars respecting the feasts of the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles. They observe the Sabbath with far greater strictness. They extend the degrees of affinity within which marriage is prohibited; but they are more strict in matters of divorce.

3. JEWS, CALAMITIES OF THE. All history cannot furnish us with a parallel to the calamities and miseries of the Jews: rapine and murder, famine and pestilence within, fire and sword, and all the terrors of war without. Our Saviour wept at the foresight of these calamities; and it is almost impossible for persons of any humanity to read the account without being affected. The predictions concerning them were remarkable, and the calamities that came upon them were the greatest the world ever saw. See Deut. xxviii, xxix; Matt. xxiv. Now, what heinous sin was it that could be the cause of such heavy judgments? Can any other be assigned than that which the Scripture assigns? “They both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and persecuted the Apostles,” 1 Thess. ii, 15; and so filled up their sins, and wrath came upon them to the utmost. It is hardly possible to consider the nature and extent of their sufferings, and not conclude their own imprecation to be singularly fulfilled upon them: “His blood be on us, and on our children,” Matt. xxvii, 25. At Cæsarea twenty thousand of the Jews were killed by the Syrians in their mutual broils. At Damascus, ten thousand unarmed Jews were killed; and at Bethshan, the Heathen inhabitants caused their Jewish neighbours to assist them against their brethren, and then murdered thirteen thousand of these inhabitants. At Alexandria, the Jews murdered multitudes of the Heathens, and were murdered, in their turn, to about sixty thousand. The Romans, under Vespasian, invaded the country, and took the cities of Galilee, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, &c, where Christ had been especially rejected, and murdered numbers of the inhabitants. At Jerusalem the scene was most wretched of all. At the passover, when there might have been two or three millions of people in the city, the Romans surrounded it with troops, trenches, and walls, that none might escape. The three different factions within murdered one another. Titus did all in his power to persuade them to an advantageous surrender, but they scorned every proposal. The multitudes of unburied carcasses corrupted the air, and produced a pestilence. The people fed on one another; and even ladies, it is said, boiled their suckling infants, and ate them. After a siege of six months, the city was taken. They murdered almost every Jew they met with. Titus was bent to save the temple, but could not: six thousand Jews who had taken shelter in it were all burned or murdered. The outcries of the Jews, when they saw it, were most dreadful: the whole city, except three towers, and a small part of the wall, was razed to the ground, and the foundations of the temple and other places were ploughed up. Soon after the forts of Herodian and Machæron were taken, the garrison of Massada murdered themselves rather than surrender. At Jerusalem alone, it is said, one million one hundred thousand perished by sword, famine, and pestilence. In other places, we hear of two hundred and fifty thousand that were cut off, beside vast numbers sent into Egypt, to labour as slaves. About fifty years after, the Jews murdered about five hundred thousand of the Roman subjects, for which they were severely punished by Trajan. About A. D. 130, one Barcocaba pretended that he was the Messiah, and raised a Jewish army of two hundred thousand, who murdered all the Heathens and Christians that came in their way; but he was defeated by Adrian’s forces. In this war, it is said, about six hundred thousand Jews were slain, or perished by famine and pestilence. Adrian built a city on Mount Calvary, and erected a marble statue of a swine over the gate that led to Bethlehem. No Jew was allowed to enter the city, or to look to it at a distance, under pain of death. In A. D. 360, the Jews, encouraged by Julian, Constantine’s nephew, and now emperor, wishing to give Jesus the lie, began to rebuild their city and temple; but a terrible earthquake, and flames of fire issuing from the earth, killed the workmen, and scattered their materials. And after the death of Julian, the edict of Adrian being revived against them, and Roman guards prohibiting their approach, till the seventh century they durst not so much as creep over the rubbish to bewail the destruction of the city, without bribing the guards. In the third, fourth, and fifth centuries they were many of them furiously harassed and murdered. In the sixth century, twenty thousand of them were slain, and as many taken and sold for slaves. They were severely punished, A. D. 602, for their horrible massacre of the Christians at Antioch. In Spain, A. D. 700, they were ordered to be enslaved. In the eighth and ninth centuries they were greatly derided and abused; in some places they were made to wear leathern girdles, and ride without stirrups upon asses and mules. In France and Spain they were much insulted. In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, their miseries rather increased; and they were greatly persecuted in Egypt. Beside what they suffered in the east by the Turkish and sacred war, it is shocking to think what multitudes of them the eight crusades murdered in Germany, Hungary, Lesser Asia, and elsewhere. In France multitudes were burned. In England, A. D. 1020, they were banished; and at the coronation of Richard I. the mob fell upon them, and murdered a great many of them. About one thousand five hundred of them were burned in the palace in the city of York, which they themselves set fire to, after killing their wives and children. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, their condition was no better. In Egypt, Canaan, and Syria, the crusaders still harassed them. Provoked with their mad running after pretended Messiahs, Califf Nasser scarce left any of them alive in his dominions of Mesopotamia. In Persia, the Tartars murdered them in multitudes. In Spain, Ferdinand persecuted them furiously. About 1349, the terrible massacre of them at Toledo forced many of them to murder themselves, or change their religion. About 1253, many were murdered in, and others banished from, France, but in 1275, recalled. The crusades of the fanatic shepherds, A. D. 1320 and 1330, who wasted the south of France, massacred them; beside fifteen thousand of them that were murdered on another occasion. They were finally banished from France, A. D. 1358; since which, few of them have entered that country. King Edward expelled them from England, A. D. 1291, to the number of a hundred and sixty thousand. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, their misery continued. In Persia they have been terribly used; from 1663 to 1666, the murder of them was so universal, that but a few escaped to Turkey. In Portugal and Spain they have been miserably treated. About 1492, six or eight hundred thousand of them were banished from Spain. Some were drowned in their passage to Africa; some perished by hard usage; and many of their carcasses lay in the fields till wild beasts devoured them. In Germany, they have endured many hardships. They have been banished from Bohemia, Bavaria, Cologne, Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Vienna; they have been terribly massacred in Moravia, and plundered in Bonn and Bamberg. Except in Portugal and Spain, their present condition is generally tolerable.

4. JEWS, PRESERVATION OF THE. The preservation of the Jews, says Basnage, in the midst of the miseries which they have undergone during one thousand eight hundred years, is the greatest prodigy that can be imagined. As most religions depend on temporal prosperity, they triumph under the protection of a conqueror; they languish and sink with sinking monarchies. Paganism, which once covered the earth, is, in the civilized world, extinct. The Christian church was considerably diminished by the persecutions to which it was exposed; nor was it easy to repair the wastes made in it by those acts of violence. But here we behold a people hated and persecuted for one thousand eight hundred years, and yet sustaining itself, and widely extended. Kings have often employed the severity of edicts and the hand of executioners to ruin it. The seditious multitudes, by murders and massacres, have committed outrages against it still more violent and tragical. Princes and people, Pagans, Mohammedans, Christians, disagreeing in so many things, have united in the design of exterminating it, and have not been able to succeed. The bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, ever burns, and is not consumed. The Jews have been expelled, in different times, from every part of the world, which hath only served to spread them in all regions. From age to age they have been exposed to misery and persecution; yet still they subsist, in spite of the ignominy and the hatred which hath pursued them in all places, while the greatest monarchies are fallen, and nothing remains of them beside the name. The judgments which God hath exercised upon this people are terrible, extending to the men, the religion, and the very land in which they dwelt. The ceremonies essential to their religion can no more be observed: the ritual law, which cast a splendour on the national worship, and struck the Pagans so much that they sent their presents and their victims to Jerusalem, is absolutely fallen; for they have no temple, no altar, no sacrifices. Their land itself seems to lie under a never-ceasing curse. Pagans, Christians, Mohammedans, in a word, almost all nations have, by turns, seized and held Jerusalem. To the Jews only hath God refused the possession of this small tract of ground, so supremely necessary for them, since, as Jews, they ought to worship on Mount Zion. In all this there is no exaggeration: we are only pointing out known facts; and far from having the least design to raise an odium against the nation from its miseries, we conclude that it ought to be looked upon as one of those prodigies which we admire without comprehending; since, in spite of evils so durable, and a patience so long exercised, it is preserved by a particular providence. The Jew ought to be weary of expecting a Messiah, who so unkindly disappoints his vain hopes; and the Christian ought to have his attention and his regard excited toward men whom God preserves, for so great a length of time under calamities which would have been the total ruin of any other people. The whole is a standing proof of the truth of the word of God; as it so signally, and beyond all contradiction, fulfils, even to particulars wonderfully minute, its ancient and numerous predictions.

The long protracted existence of the Jews as a separate people, is not only a standing evidence of the truth of the Bible, but is of that kind which defies hesitation, imitation, or parallel. Were this people totally extinct, some might affect to say, that they never had existed; or, that if they had existed, they never practised such rites as were imputed to them; or, that they were not a numerous people, but merely a small tribe of ignorant and unsettled Arabs. The care with which the Jews preserve their sacred books, and the conformity of those preserved in the east with those of the west, as lately attested, is a satisfactory argument in favour of the genuineness of both; and farther, the dispersion of the nation has proved the security of these documents; as it has not been in the power of any one enemy, however potent, to destroy the entire series, or to consign the whole to oblivion.

JEZEBEL, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and wife of Ahab, king of Israel, 1 Kings xvi, 31. This princess introduced into the kingdom of Samaria the public worship of Baal, Astarte, and other Phenician deities, which the Lord had expressly forbidden; and with this impious worship, a general prevalence of those abominations which had formerly incensed God against the Canaanites, to their utter extirpation. Jezebel was so zealous, that she fed at her own table four hundred prophets belonging to the goddess Astarte; and her husband Ahab, in like manner, kept four hundred of Baal’s prophets, as ministers of his false gods. The name of Jezebel is used proverbially, Rev. ii, 20. See JEHU.

JEZREEL, a royal city of the kings of Israel, who sometimes resided here as well as at Samaria. Ahab, in particular, is known to have made this his residence; near to whose palace was the vineyard of the unfortunate Naboth. The name of Jezreel was by the Greeks moulded into that of Esdraela; which is described by Eusebius and Jerom, in the fourth century, as a considerable town. In like manner, the valley of Jezreel obtained the name of the valley or plain of Esdraelon; which is still described as very fertile, and much frequented by the Arabs for its fine pasturage. This is the largest, and at the same time the most fertile, plain in the land of Canaan; and is called, by way of eminence, the Great Plain. It may be estimated at thirty miles in length, and twenty in breadth. The river Kishon flows through it. See ESDRAELON.

JOAB was the son of Zeruiah, David’s sister, and brother to Abishai and Asahel. He was one of the most valiant soldiers and greatest generals in David’s time; but he was also cruel, revengeful, and imperious. He performed great services for David, to whose interests he was always firm, and was commander-in-chief of his troops, when David was king of Judah only. His history is related in the second book of Samuel and the first book of Kings. See DAVID, ABNER, and AMASA.

JOANNA, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, was one of those women who, having been cured by our Saviour, followed him as disciples, and ministered to his necessities, Luke viii, 3.

JOASH, son of Ahaziah, king of Judah. When the impious Athaliah undertook to extinguish the race of the kings of Judah, that she might seize the crown herself, she ordered all the princes, her grandchildren, to be murdered. But Jehosheba, the sister of Ahaziah, and wife to the High Priest Jehoiada, rescued young Joash, then a child, from the cruelty of Athaliah, and lodged him in the temple with his nurse. Here he abode six years. In the seventh year Jehoiada procured him to be acknowledged king, and so well concerted his plan, that young Joash was placed on the throne, and saluted king in the temple, before the queen was informed of it. She was killed without the temple, 2 Kings xi, 1, &c. Joash received the diadem, together with the book of the law, from the hands of Jehoiada, the high priest, who, in the young king’s name, made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people, for their future fidelity to God. He also obliged the people to take an oath of fidelity to the king. Joash was only seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years at Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. He governed with justice and piety, so long as he was guided by the High Priest Jehoiada. Yet he did not abolish the high places.

Jehoiada, during the king’s minority, had issued orders for collecting voluntary offerings to the holy place, with the design of repairing the temple; but his orders were ill executed till the twentieth year of Joash. Then this prince directed chests to be placed at the entrance of the temple, and an account to be given him of what money was received from them, that it might be faithfully employed in repairing the house of God. Jehoiada dying at the age of a hundred and thirty years, Joash was misled by the evil counsel of his courtiers, who had before been restrained by the high priest’s authority. They began to forsake the temple of the Lord, and to worship idols, and groves consecrated to idols. Then the Spirit of the Lord coming upon the High Priest Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, he reproved the people; but they who heard him stoned him, according to orders from their king. It was not long before God inflicted on Joash the just punishment of his ingratitude to Jehoiada, whose son he had so lately murdered. Hazael, king of Syria, besieged Gath, which belonged to Judah; and having taken it he marched against Jerusalem. Joash, to redeem himself from the difficulties of a siege, and from the danger of being plundered, took what money he could find in the temple, which had been consecrated by Ahaziah his father, Jehoram his grandfather, and himself, and gave the whole to Hazael. It is believed by some, that the next year the Syrian army marched again into Judah; but Hazael was not there in person. The Syrians made great havoc, defeated the troops of Joash, entered Jerusalem, slew the princes of Judah, and sent a great booty to the king of Syria at Damascus. They treated Joash himself with great ignominy, and left him extremely ill. His servants then revolted against him, and killed him in his bed, by which the blood of Zechariah the high priest was avenged. He was buried in Jerusalem, but not in the royal sepulchre. Amaziah his son succeeded him.

JOB, a patriarch celebrated for his patience, and the constancy of his piety and virtue. That Job was a real, and not a fictitious, character, may be inferred from the manner in which he is mentioned in the Scriptures. Thus, the Prophet Ezekiel speaks of him: “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God,” Ezek. xiv, 14. Now since Noah and Daniel were unquestionably real characters, we must conclude the same of Job. “Behold,” says the Apostle James, “we count them happy which endure: ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy,” James v, 11. It is scarcely to be believed that a divinely inspired Apostle would refer to an imaginary character as an example of patience, or in proof of the mercy of God. But, beside the authority of the inspired writers, we have the strongest internal evidence, from the book itself, that Job was a real person; for it expressly specifies the names of persons, places, facts, and other circumstances usually related in true histories. Thus, we have the name, country, piety, wealth, &c, of Job described, Job i; the names, number, and acts of his children are mentioned; the conduct of his wife is recorded as a fact, ii; his friends, their names, countries, and discourses with him in his afflictions are minutely delineated, Job ii, 11, &c. Farther: no reasonable doubt can be entertained respecting the real existence of Job, when we consider that it is proved by the concurrent testimony of all eastern tradition: he is mentioned by the author of the book of Tobit, who lived during the Assyrian captivity; he is also repeatedly mentioned by Arabian writers as a real character. The whole of his history, with many fabulous additions, was known among the Syrians and Chaldeans; and many of the noblest families among the Arabs are distinguished by his name, and boast of being descended from him.

Since, then, says Horne, the book of Job contains the history of a real character, the next point is the age in which he lived, a question concerning which there is as great a diversity of opinion, as upon any other subject connected with this venerable monument of sacred antiquity. One thing, however, is generally admitted with respect to the age of the book of Job, namely, its remote antiquity. Even those who contend for the later production of the book of Job are compelled to acquiesce in this particular. Grotius thinks the events of the history are such as cannot be placed later than the sojourning of the Israelites in the wilderness. Bishop Warburton, in like manner, admits them to bear the marks of high antiquity; and Michaëlis confesses the manners to be perfectly Abrahamic, that is, such as were common to all the seed of Abraham, Israelites, Ishmaelites, and Idumeans. The following are the principal circumstances from which the age of Job may be collected and ascertained:--1. The Usserian or Bible chronology dates the trial of Job about the year 1520 before the Christian era, twenty-nine years before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt; and that the book was composed before that event, is evident from its total silence respecting the miracles which accompanied the exode; such as the passage of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptians, the manna in the desert, &c; all of which happened in the vicinity of Job’s country, and were so apposite in the debate concerning the ways of Providence that some notice could not but have been taken of them, if they had been coeval with the poem of Job. 2. That it was composed before Abraham’s migration to Canaan, may also be inferred from its silence respecting the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain, which were still nearer to Idumea, where the scene is laid. 3. The length of Job’s life places him in the patriarchal times. He survived his trial one hundred and forty years, Job xlii, 16, and was probably not younger at that time; for we read that his seven sons were all grown up, and had been settled in their own houses for a considerable time, Job i, 4, 5. He speaks of the sins of his youth, Job xiii, 26, and of the prosperity of his youth; and yet Eliphaz addresses him as a novice: “With us are both the gray-headed and very aged men, much elder than thy father,” Job xv, 10. 4. That he did not live at an earlier period, may be collected from an incidental observation of Bildad, who refers Job to their forefathers for instruction in wisdom:--

“Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, And prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:”

assigning as a reason the comparative shortness of human life, and consequent ignorance of the present generation:--

“For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing; Because our days upon earth are a shadow.” Job viii, 8, 9.

But the fathers of the former age, or grandfathers of the present, were the contemporaries of Peleg and Joktan, in the fifth generation after the deluge; and they might easily have learned wisdom from the fountain head by conversing with Shem, or perhaps with Noah himself; whereas, in the seventh generation, the standard of human life was reduced to about two hundred years, which was a shadow compared with the longevity of Noah and his sons. 5. The general air of antiquity which pervades the manners recorded in the poem, is a farther evidence of its remote date. The manners and customs, indeed, critically correspond with that early period. Thus, Job speaks of the most ancient kind of writing, by sculpture, Job xix, 24; his riches also are reckoned by his cattle, Job xlii, 12. Farther: Job acted as high priest in his family, according to the patriarchal usage, Gen. viii, 20; for the institution of an established priesthood does not appear to have taken place any where until the time of Abraham. Melchizedec, king of Salem, was a priest of the primitive order, Gen. xiv, 18; such also was Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, in the vicinity of Idumea, Exod. xviii, 12. The first regular priesthood was probably instituted in Egypt, where Joseph was married to the daughter of the priest of On, Gen. xli, 45. 6. The slavish homage of prostration to princes and great men, which prevailed in Egypt, Persia, and the east in general, and which still subsists there, was unknown in Arabia at that time. Though Job was one of the greatest men of all the east, we do not find any such adoration paid to him by his contemporaries, in the zenith of his prosperity, among the marks of respect so minutely described in the twenty-ninth chapter: “When the young men saw him, they hid themselves,” (rather, shrunk back, through respect or rustic bashfulness,) “the aged arose and stood up” in his presence, (more correctly, ranged themselves about him,) “the princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand upon their mouth; the nobles held their peace,” and were all attention while he spoke. All this was highly respectful, indeed, but still it was manly, and showed no cringing or servile adulation. With this description correspond the manners and conduct of the genuine Arabs of the present day, a majestic race, who were never conquered, and who have retained their primitive customs, features, and character, with scarcely any alteration. 7. The allusion made by Job to that species of idolatry alone, which by general consent is admitted to have been the most ancient, namely, Zabianism, or the worship of the sun and moon, and also to the exertion of the judicial authority against it, Job xxxi, 26–28, is an additional and most complete proof of the high antiquity of the poem, as well as a decisive mark of the patriarchal age. 8. A farther evidence of the remote antiquity of this book is the language of Job and his friends; who, being all Idumeans, or at least Arabians of the adjacent country, yet conversed in Hebrew. This carries us up to an age so early as that in which all the posterity of Abraham, Israelites, Idumeans, and Arabians, yet continued to speak one common language, and had not branched into different dialects.

The country in which the scene of this poem is laid, is stated, Job i, 1, to be the land of Uz, which by some geographers has been placed in Sandy, and by others in Stony, Arabia. Bochart strenuously advocated the former opinion, in which he has been powerfully supported by Spanheim, Calmet, Carpzov, Heidegger, and some later writers; Michaëlis and Ilgen place the scene in the valley of Damascus; but Bishops Lowth and Magee, Dr. Hales, Dr. Good, and some later critics and philologers, have shown that the scene is laid in Idumea. In effect, nothing is clearer than that the history of an inhabitant of Idumea is the subject of the poem which bears the name of Job, and that all the persons introduced into it were Idumeans, dwelling in Idumea, in other words, Edomite Arabs. These characters are, Job himself, of the land of Uz; Eliphaz, of Teman, a district of as much repute as Uz, and which, it appears from the joint testimony of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and Obadiah, Jer. xlix, 7, 20; Ezek. xxv, 13; Amos i, 11, 12; Obadiah 8, 9, formed a principal part of Idumea; Bildad, of Shuah, who is always mentioned in conjunction with Sheba and Dedan, the first of whom was probably named after one of the brothers of Joktan or Kahtan, and the two last from two of his sons, all of them being uniformly placed in the vicinity of Idumea, Gen. xxv, 2, 3; Jer. xlix, 8; Zophar of Naama, a city importing pleasantness, which is also stated by Joshua, xv, 21, 41, to have been situate in Idumea, and to have lain in a southern direction toward its coast, on the shores of the Red Sea; and Elihu, of Buz, which, as the name of a place, occurs only once in Sacred Writ, Jer. xxv, 23, but is there mentioned in conjunction with Teman and Dedan; and hence necessarily, like them, a border city upon Uz or Idumea. Allowing this chorography to be correct, (and such, upon a fair review of facts, we may conclude it to be,) there is no difficulty in conceiving that hordes of nomadic Chaldeans as well as Sabeans, a people addicted to rapine, and roving about at immense distances for the sake of plunder, should have occasionally infested the defenceless country of Idumea, and roved from the Euphrates even to Egypt.

The different parts of the book of Job are so closely connected together, that they cannot be detached from each other. The exordium prepares the reader for what follows, supplies us with the necessary notices concerning Job and his friends, unfolds the scope, and places the calamities full in our view as an object of attention. The epilogue, or conclusion, again, has reference to the exordium, and relates the happy termination of Job’s trials; the dialogues which intervene flow in regular order. Now, if any of these parts were to be taken away, the poem would be extremely defective. Without the prologue the reader would be utterly ignorant who Job was, who were his friends, and the cause of his being so grievously afflicted. Without the discourse of Elihu, Job xxxii-xxxvii, there would be a sudden and abrupt transition from the last words of Job to the address of God, for which Elihu’s discourse prepares the reader. And without the epilogue, or conclusion, we should remain in ignorance of the subsequent condition of Job. Hence it is evident, that the poem is the composition of a single author; but who that was, is a question concerning which the learned are very much divided in their sentiments. Elihu, Job, Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, an anonymous writer in the reign of Manasseh, Ezekiel, and Ezra, have all been contended for. The arguments already adduced respecting the age of Job, prove that it could not be either of the latter persons. Dr. Lightfoot, from an erroneous version of Job xxxii, 16, 17, has conjectured that it is the production of Elihu; but the correct rendering of that passage refutes this notion. Ilgen ascribes it probably to a descendant of Elihu. Another and more generally received opinion attributes this book to Moses; this conjecture is founded on some apparent striking coincidences of sentiment, as well as from some marks of later date which are supposed to be discoverable in it. But, independently of the characters of antiquity already referred to, and which place the book of Job very many centuries before the time of Moses, the total absence of even the slightest allusion to the manners, customs, ceremonies, or history of the Israelites, is a direct evidence that the great legislator of the Hebrews was not, and could not have been, the author. To which may be added, that the style of Job, as Bishop Lowth has remarked, is materially different from the poetical style of Moses; for it is much more compact, concise, or condensed, more accurate in the poetical conformation of the sentences; as may be observed also in the prophecies of Balaam the Mesopotamian, a foreigner, indeed, with respect to the Israelites, but not unacquainted either with their language, or with the worship of the true God. Upon the whole, then, we have sufficient ground to conclude that this book was not the production of Moses, but of some earlier age. Bishop Lowth favours the opinion of Schultens, Peters, and others, which is adopted by Bishop Tomline and Dr. Hales, who suppose Job himself, or some contemporary, to have been the author of this poem; and there seems to be no good reason for supposing that it was not written by Job himself. It appears, indeed, highly probable that Job was the writer of his own story, of whose inspiration we have the clearest evidence in the forty-second chapter of this book, in which he thus addresses the Almighty: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.” It is plain that in this passage some privilege is intended which he never had enjoyed before, and which he calls the sight of God.

The book of Job contains the history of Job, a man equally distinguished for purity and uprightness of character, and for honours, wealth, and domestic felicity, whom God permitted, for the trial of his faith, to be suddenly deprived of all his numerous blessings, and to be at once plunged into the deepest affliction, and most accumulated distress. It gives an account of his eminent piety, patience, and resignation under the pressure of these severe calamities, and of his subsequent elevation to a degree of prosperity and happiness, still greater than that which he had before enjoyed. How long the sufferings of Job continued, we are not informed; but it is said, that after God turned his captivity, and blessed him a second time, he lived one hundred and forty years, Job xlii, 16. Its style is in many parts peculiarly sublime; and it is not only adorned with poetical embellishments, but most learned men consider it as written in metre. Through the whole work we discover religious instruction shining forth amidst the venerable simplicity of ancient manners. It every where abounds with the noblest sentiments of piety, uttered with the spirit of inspired conviction. It is a work unrivalled for the magnificence of its language, and for the beautiful and sublime images which it presents. In the wonderful speech of the Deity, Job xxxviii, xxxix, every line delineates his attributes, every sentence opens a picture of some grand object in creation, characterized by its most striking features. Add to this, that its prophetic parts reflect much light on the economy of God’s moral government; and every admirer of sacred antiquity, every inquirer after religious instruction, will seriously rejoice that the enraptured sentence of Job, xix, 23, is realized to a more effectual and unforeseen accomplishment; that while the memorable records of antiquity have mouldered from the rock, the prophetic assurance and sentiments of Job are graven in Scriptures that no time shall alter, no changes shall efface.

JOEL, the second of the twelve lesser prophets. It is impossible to ascertain the age in which he lived, but it seems most probable that he was contemporary with Hosea. No particulars of his life or death are certainly known. His prophecies are confined to the kingdom of Judah. He inveighs against the sins and impieties of the people, and threatens them with divine vengeance; he exhorts to repentance, fasting, and prayer; and promises the favour of God to those who should be obedient. The principal predictions contained in this book are the Chaldean invasion, under the figurative representation of locusts; the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; the blessings of the Gospel dispensation; the conversion and restoration of the Jews to their own land; the overthrow of the enemies of God; and the glorious state of the Christian church in the end of the world. The style of Joel is perspicuous and elegant, and his descriptions are remarkably animated and poetical.

JOHN THE BAPTIST, the forerunner of the Messiah, was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, and was born about six months before our Saviour. His birth was foretold by an angel, sent purposely to deliver this joyful message, when his mother Elizabeth was barren, and both his parents far advanced in years. The same divine messenger foretold that he should be great in the sight of the Lord; that he should be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb; that he should prepare the way of the Lord by turning many of the Jews to the knowledge of God; and that he should be the greatest of all the prophets, Luke i, 5–15. Of the early part of the Baptist’s life we have but little information. It is only observed that “he grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel,” Luke i, 80. Though consecrated from the womb to the ministerial office, John did not enter upon it in the heat of youth, but after several years spent in solitude and a course of self-denial.

The prophetical descriptions of the Baptist in the Old Testament are various and striking. That by Isaiah is: “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God,” Isaiah xl, 3. Malachi has the following prediction: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,” Mal. iv, 5. That this was meant of the Baptist, we have the testimony of our Lord himself, who declared, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias who was to come,” Matt. xi, 14. The appearance and manners of the Baptist, when he first came out into the world, excited general attention. His clothing was of camel’s hair, bound round him with a leathern girdle, and his food consisted of locusts and wild honey, Matt. iii, 4. The message which he declared was authoritative: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” and the impression produced by his faithful reproofs and admonitions was powerful and extensive, and in a great number of instances lasting. Most of the first followers of our Lord appear to have been awakened to seriousness and religious inquiry by John’s ministry. His character was so eminent, that many of the Jews thought him to be the Messiah; but he plainly declared that he was not that honoured person. Nevertheless, he was at first unacquainted with the person of Jesus Christ; only the Holy Ghost had told him that he on whom he should see the Holy Spirit descend and rest was the Messiah. When Jesus Christ presented himself to receive baptism from him, this sign was vouchsafed; and from that time he bore his testimony to Jesus, as the Christ.

Herod Antipas, having married his brother Philip’s wife while Philip was still living, occasioned great scandal. John the Baptist, with his usual liberty and vigour, reproved Herod to his face; and told him that it was not lawful for him to have his brother’s wife, while his brother was yet alive. Herod, incensed at this freedom, ordered him into custody, in the castle of Machœrus; and he was ultimately put to death. (See Antipas.) Thus fell this honoured prophet, a martyr to ministerial faithfulness. Other prophets testified of Christ; he pointed to him as already come. Others saw him afar off; he beheld the advancing glories of his ministry eclipsing his own, and rejoiced to “decrease” while his Master “increased.” His ministry stands as a type of the true character of evangelical repentance: it goes before Christ and prepares his way; it is humbling, but not despairing; for it points to “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.”

The Jews had such an opinion of this prophet’s sanctity, that they ascribed the overthrow of Herod’s army, which he had sent against his father-in-law, Aretas, to the just judgment of God for putting John the Baptist to death. The death of John the Baptist happened, as is believed, about the end of the thirty-first year of the vulgar era, or in the beginning of the thirty-second.

The baptism of John was much more perfect than that of the Jews, but less perfect than that of Jesus Christ. “It was,” says St. Chrysostom, “as it were, a bridge, which, from the baptism of the Jews, made a way to that of our Saviour, and was more exalted than the first, but inferior to the second.” That of St. John promised what that of Jesus Christ executed. Notwithstanding St. John did not enjoin his disciples to continue the baptism of repentance, which was of his institution, after his death, because, after the manifestation of the Messiah, and the establishment of the Holy Ghost, it became of no use; yet there were many of his followers who still administered it, and several years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, did not so much as know that there was any other baptism than that of John. Of this number was Apollos, a learned and zealous man, who was of Alexandria, and came to Ephesus twenty years after the resurrection of our Saviour, Acts xviii, 25. And when St. Paul came after Apollos to the same city, there were still many Ephesians who had received no other baptism, and were not yet informed that the Holy Ghost was received by baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, Acts xix, 1. The Jews are said by the Apostle Paul to have been “baptized unto Moses,” at the time when they followed him through the Red Sea, as the servant of God sent to be their leader. Those who went out to John “were baptized unto John’s baptism;” that is, into the expectation of the person whom John announced, and into repentance of those sins which John condemned. Christians are “baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” because in this expression is implied that whole system of truth which the disciples of Christ believe; into the name of the Father, the one true and living God whom Christians profess to serve; of the Son, that divine person revealed in the New Testament whom the Father sent to be the Saviour of the world; of the Holy Ghost, the divine person also revealed there as the Comforter, the Sanctifier, and the Guide of Christians.

JOHN THE EVANGELIST was a native of Bethsaida, in Galilee, son of Zebedee and Salome, by profession a fisherman. Some have thought that he was a disciple of John the Baptist before he attended Jesus Christ. He was brother to James the greater. It is believed that St. John was the youngest of the Apostles. Tillemont is of opinion that he was twenty-five or twenty-six years of age when he began to follow Jesus. Our Saviour had a particular friendship for him; and he describes himself by the name of “that disciple whom Jesus loved.” St. John was one of the four Apostles to whom our Lord delivered his predictions relative to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the approaching calamities of the Jewish nation, Mark xiii, 3. St. Peter, St. James, and St. John were chosen to accompany our Saviour on several occasions, when the other Apostles were not permitted to be present. When Christ restored the daughter of Jairus to life, Mark v, 37; Luke viii, 51; when he was transfigured on the mount, Matt. xvii, 1, 2; Mark ix, 2; Luke ix, 28; and when he endured his agony in the garden, Matt. xxvi, 36, 37; Mark xiv, 32, 33; St. Peter, St. James, and St. John were his only attendants. That St. John was treated by Christ with greater familiarity than the other Apostles, is evident from St. Peter desiring him to ask Christ who should betray him, when he himself did not dare to propose the question, John xiii, 24. He seems to have been the only Apostle present at the crucifixion, and to him Jesus, just as he was expiring upon the cross, gave the strongest proof of his confidence and regard, by consigning to him the care of his mother, John xix, 26, 27. As St. John had been witness to the death of our Saviour, by seeing the blood and water issue from his side, which a soldier had pierced, John xix, 34, 35, so he was one of the first made acquainted with his resurrection. Without any hesitation, he believed this great event, though “as yet he knew not the Scripture, that Christ was to rise from the dead,” John xx, 9. He was also one of those to whom our Saviour appeared at the sea of Galilee; and he was afterward, with the other ten Apostles, a witness of his ascension into heaven, Mark xvi, 19; Luke xxiv, 51. St. John continued to preach the Gospel for some time at Jerusalem: he was imprisoned by the sanhedrim, first with Peter only, Acts iv, 1, &c, and afterward with the other Apostles, Acts v, 17, 18. Some time after this second release, he and St. Peter were sent by the other Apostles to the Samaritans, whom Philip the deacon had converted to the Gospel, that through them they might receive the Holy Ghost, Acts viii, 14, 15. St. John informs us, in his Revelations, that he was banished to Patmos, an island in the Ægean Sea, Rev. i, 9.

This banishment of the Apostle to the isle of Patmos is mentioned by many of the early ecclesiastical writers; all of whom, except Epiphanius in the fourth century, agree in attributing it to Domitian. Epiphanius says that John was banished by command of Claudius; but this deserves the less credit, because there was no persecution of the Christians in the time of that emperor, and his edicts against the Jews did not extend to the provinces. Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that John was banished to Patmos in the time of Nero; but even the authority of this great man is not of sufficient weight against the unanimous voice of antiquity. Dr. Lardner has examined and answered his arguments with equal candour and learning. It is not known at what time John went into Asia Minor. Lardner thought that it was about the year 66. It is certain that he lived in Asia Minor the latter part of his life, and principally at Ephesus. He planted churches at Smyrna, Pergamos, and many other places; and by his activity and success in propagating the Gospel, he is supposed to have incurred the displeasure of Domitian, who banished him to Patmos at the end of his reign. He himself tells us that he “was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ;” and Irenæus, speaking of the vision which he had there, says, “It is not very long ago that it was seen, being but a little before our time, at the latter end of Domitian’s reign.” On the succession of Nerva to the empire in the year 96, John returned to Ephesus, where he died at an advanced age, in the third year of Trajan’s reign, A. D. 100. An opinion has prevailed, that he was, by order of Domitian, thrown into a caldron of boiling oil at Rome, and came out unhurt; but this account rests almost entirely on the authority of Tertullian, and seems to deserve little credit.

2. The genuineness of St. John’s Gospel has always been unanimously admitted by the Christian church. It is universally agreed that St. John published his Gospel in Asia; and that, when he wrote it, he had seen the other three Gospels. It is, therefore, not only valuable in itself, but also a tacit confirmation of the other three; with none of which it disagrees in any material point. The time of its publication is placed by some rather before, and by others considerably after, the destruction of Jerusalem. If we accede to the opinion of those who contend for the year 97, this late date, exclusive of the authorities which support it, seems favoured by the contents and design of the Gospel itself. The immediate design of St. John in writing his Gospel, as we are assured by Irenæus, Jerom, and others, was to refute the Cerinthians, Ebionites, and other heretics, whose tenets, though they branched out into a variety of subjects, all originated from erroneous opinions concerning the person of Christ, and the creation of the world. These points had been scarcely touched upon by the other evangelists; though they had faithfully recorded all the leading facts of our Saviour’s life, and his admirable precepts for the regulation of our conduct. St. John, therefore, undertook, perhaps at the request of the true believers in Asia, to write what Clement of Alexandria called a spiritual Gospel; and, accordingly, we find in it more of doctrine, and less of historical narrative, than in any of the others. It is also to be remembered, that this book, which contains so much additional information relative to the doctrines of Christianity, and which may be considered as a standard of faith for all ages, was written by that Apostle who is known to have enjoyed, in a greater degree than the rest, the affection and confidence of the divine Author of our religion; and to whom was given a special revelation concerning the state of the Christian church in all succeeding generations.

We have three epistles by this Apostle. Some critics have thought that all these epistles were written during St. John’s exile in Patmos; the first, to the Ephesian church; the others to individuals; and that they were sent along with the Gospel, which the Apostle is supposed also to have written in Patmos. Thus Hug observes, in his “Introduction:” If St. John sent his Gospel to the continent, an epistle to the community was requisite, commending and dedicating it to them. Other evangelists, who deposited their works in the place of their residence, personally superintended them, and delivered them personally; consequently they did not require a written document to accompany them. An epistle was therefore requisite, and, as we have abundantly proved the first of John’s epistles to be inseparable from the Gospel, its contents demonstrate it to be an accompanying writing, and a dedication of the Gospel. It went consequently to Ephesus. We can particularly corroborate this by the following observation: John, in the Apocalypse, has individually distinguished each of the Christian communities, which lay the nearest within his circle and his superintendence, by criteria, taken from their faults or their virtues. The church at Ephesus he there describes by the following traits: It was thronged with men who arrogated to themselves the ministry and apostolical authority, and were impostors, ψευδεις. But in particular he feelingly reproaches it because its “first love was cooled,” τὴν ἀγάπην σου τὴν ϖρώτην ἀφῆκας. The circumstance of impostors and false teachers happens in more churches. But decreasing love is an exclusive criterion and failing, which the Apostle reprimands in no other community. According to his judgment, want of love was the characteristic fault of the Ephesians: but this epistle is from beginning to the end occupied with admonitions to love, with recommendations of its value, with corrections of those who are guilty of this fault, 1 John ii, 5, 9–11, 15; iii, 1, 11, 12, 14–18, 23; iv, 7–10, 12, 16–21; v, 1–3. Must not we therefore declare, if we compare the opinion of the Apostle respecting the Ephesians with this epistle, that, from its peculiar tenor, it is not so strikingly adapted to any community in the first instance as to this?

The second epistle is directed to a female, who is not named, but only designated by the honourable mention, ἐκλεκτὴ κυρία, “the elect lady.” The two chief positions, which are discussed in the first epistle, constitute the contents of this brief address. He again alludes to the words of our Saviour, “A new commandment,” &c, as in 1 John ii, 7, and recommends love, which is manifested by observance of the commandments. After this he warns her against false teachers, who deny that Jesus entered into the world as the Christ, or Messiah, and forbids an intercourse with them. At the end, he hopes soon to see her himself, and complains of the want of writing materials. The whole is a short syllabus of the first epistle, or it is the first in a renewed form. The words also are the same. It is still full of the former epistle: nor are they separated from each other as to time. The female appears before his mind in the circumstances and dangers of the society, in instructing and admonishing which he had just been employed. If we may judge from local circumstances, she also lived at Ephesus. But as for the author, his residence was in none of the Ionian or Asiatic cities, where the want of writing materials is not conceivable: he was still therefore in the place of his exile. The other circumstances noticed in it, are probably the following: The sons of the ἐκλεκτὴ κυρία had visited John, 2 John 4. The sister of this matron wishing to show to him an equal respect and sympathy in his fate, sent her sons likewise to visit the Apostle. While the latter were with the Apostle, there was an opportunity of sending to the continent, 2 John 13, namely, of despatching the two epistles and the Gospel.

The third epistle is written to Caius. The author consoles himself with the hope, as in the former epistle, of soon coming himself, 3 John 14. He still experiences the same want of writing materials, 3 John 13. Consequently, he was still living in the same miserable place: also, if we may judge from his hopes, the time was not very different. The residence of Caius is determined by the following criteria: The most general of them is the danger of being misled by false teachers, 3 John 3, 4. That which leads us nearer to the point, is the circumstance of John sometimes sending messages thither, and receiving accounts from thence, 3 John 5–8, that he supposes his opinions to be so well known and acknowledged in this society, that he could appeal to them, as judges respecting them, 3 John 12, and that, finally, he had many particular friends among them, 3 John 15. The whole of this is applicable to a considerable place, where the Apostle had resided for a long time; and in the second epoch of his life, it is particularly applicable to Ephesus. He had lately written to the community, of which Caius was a member, ἔγραψα τῆ ἐκκλησία, “I wrote to the church,” 3 John 9. If this is to be referred to the first epistle, (for we are not aware of any other to a community,) then certainly Ephesus is the place to which the third epistle was also directed, and was the place where Caius resided. From hence, the rest contains its own explanation. John had sent his first epistle thither; it was the accompanying writing to the Gospel, and with it he also sent the Gospel. Who was better qualified to promulgate the Gospel among the believers than Caius, especially if it was to be published at Ephesus?

The above view is ingenious, and in its leading parts satisfactory; but the argument from the Apostle’s supposed want of “writing materials” is founded upon a very forced construction of the texts. There seems, however, no reason to doubt of the close connection, in point of time, between the epistles and the Gospel; and, that being remembered, the train of thought in the mind of the Apostle sufficiently explains the peculiar character of the latter.

JONAH, son of Amittai, the fifth of the minor prophets, was born at Gath-hepher, in Galilee. He is generally considered as the most ancient of the prophets, and is supposed to have lived B. C. 840. The book of Jonah is chiefly narrative. He relates that he was commanded by God to go to Nineveh, and preach against the inhabitants of that capital of the Assyrian empire; that, through fear of executing this commission, he set sail for Tarshish; and that, in his voyage thither, a tempest arising, he was cast by the mariners into the sea, and swallowed by a large fish; that, while he was in the belly of this fish, he prayed to God, and was, after three days and three nights, delivered out of it alive; that he then received a second command to go and preach against Nineveh, which he obeyed; that, upon his threatening the destruction of the city within forty days, the king and people proclaimed a fast, and repented of their sins; and that, upon this repentance, God suspended the sentence which he had ordered to be pronounced in his name. Upon their repentance, God deferred the execution of his judgment till the increase of their iniquities made them ripe for destruction, about a hundred and fifty years afterward. The last chapter gives an account of the murmuring of Jonah at this instance of divine mercy, and of the gentle and condescending manner in which it pleased God to reprove the prophet for his unjust complaint. The style of Jonah is simple and perspicuous; and his prayer, in the second chapter, is strongly descriptive of the feelings of a pious mind under a severe trial of faith. Our Saviour mentions Jonah in the Gospel, Matt. xii, 41; Luke xi, 32. See NINEVEH and GOURD.

JONATHAN, the son of Saul, a prince of an excellent disposition, and in all varieties of fortune a sincere and steady friend to David. Jonathan gave signal proofs of courage and conduct upon all occasions that offered, during the wars between his father and the Philistines. The death of Jonathan was lamented by David, in one of the noblest and most pathetic odes ever uttered by genius consecrated by pious friendship. See 1 Sam. xiii, 16, &c; xiv, 1, 2, &c.

JOPPA, called also Japho in the Old Testament, which is still preserved in its modern name of Jaffa or Yafah, a sea port of Palestine, situated on an eminence in a sandy soil, about seventy miles north-west of Jerusalem. Joppa was anciently the port to Jerusalem. Here all the materials sent from Tyre for the building of Solomon’s temple were brought and landed: it was, indeed, the only port in Judea, though rocky and dangerous. It possesses still, in times of peace, a considerable commerce with the places in its vicinity; and is well inhabited, chiefly by Arabs. This was the place of landing of the western pilgrims; and here the promised pardons commenced. Here St. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead, and resided many days in the house of one Simon, a tanner, Acts ix, 36–43; and it was from this place that the Prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish.

JORAM, the son and successor of Ahab, king of Israel. See JEHU

JORDAN, the largest and most celebrated stream in Palestine. It is much larger, according to Dr. Shaw, than all the brooks and streams of the Holy Land united together; and, excepting the Nile, is by far the most considerable river either of the coast of Syria or of Barbary. He computed it to be about thirty yards broad, and found it nine feet deep at the brink. This river, which divides the country into two unequal parts, has been commonly said to issue from two fountains, or to be formed by the junction of two rivulets, the Jor and the Dan; but the assertion seems to be totally destitute of any solid foundation. The Jewish historian, Josephus, on the contrary, places its source at Phiala, a fountain which rises about fifteen miles from Cæsarea Philippi, a little on the right hand, and not much out of the way to Trachonitis. It is called Phiala, or the Vial, from its round figure; its water is always of the same depth, the bason being brimful, without either shrinking or overflowing. From Phiala to Panion, which was long considered as the real source of the Jordan, the river flows under ground. The secret of its subterraneous course was first discovered by Philip, the tetrarch of Trachonitis, who cast straws into the fountain of Phiala, which came out again at Panion. Leaving the cave of Panion, it crosses the bogs and fens of the lake Semichonitis; and after a course of fifteen miles, passes under the city of Julias, the ancient Bethsaida; then expands into a beautiful sheet of water, named the lake of Gennesareth; and, after flowing a long way through the desert, empties itself into the lake Asphaltites, or the Dead Sea. As the cave Panion lies at the foot of Mount Lebanon, in the northern extremity of Canaan, and the lake Asphaltites extends to the southern extremity, the river Jordan pursues its course through the whole extent of the country from north to south. It is evident, also, from the history of Josephus, that a wilderness or desert of considerable extent stretched along the river Jordan in the times of the New Testament; which was undoubtedly the wilderness mentioned by the evangelists, where John the Baptist came preaching and baptizing. The Jordan has a considerable depth of water. Chateaubriand makes it six or seven feet deep close at the shore, and about fifty paces in breadth a considerable distance from its entrance into the Dead Sea. According to the computation of Volney, it is hardly sixty paces wide at the mouth; but the author of “Letters from Palestine” states, that the stream when it enters the lake Asphaltites, is deep and rapid, rolling a considerable volume of waters; the width appears from two to three hundred feet, and the current is so violent, that a Greek servant belonging to the author, who attempted to cross it, though strong, active, and an excellent swimmer, found the undertaking impracticable. It may be said to have two banks, of which the inner marks the ordinary height of the stream; and the outer, its ancient elevation during the rainy season, or the melting of the snows on the summits of Lebanon. In the days of Joshua, and, it is probable, for many ages after his time, the harvest was one of the seasons when the Jordan overflowed his banks. This fact is distinctly recorded by the sacred historian: “And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water; for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,” Joshua iii, 15. This happens in the first month of the Jewish year, which corresponds with March, 1 Chronicles xii, 15. But in modern times, whether the rapidity of the current has worn the channel deeper than formerly, or whether its waters have taken some other direction, the river seems to have forgotten his ancient greatness. When Maundrell visited Jordan on the thirtieth of March, the proper time for these inundations, he could discern no sign or probability of such overflowing; nay, so far was it from overflowing, that it ran, says our author, at least two yards below the brink of its channel. After having descended the outer bank, he went about a furlong upon the level strand, before he came to the immediate bank of the river. This inner bank was so thickly covered with bushes and trees, among which he observed the tamarisk, the willow, and the oleander, that he could see no water till he had made his way through them. In this entangled thicket, so conveniently planted near the cooling stream, and remote from the habitations of men, several kinds of wild beasts were accustomed to repose, till the swelling of the river drove them from their retreats. This circumstance gave occasion to that beautiful allusion of the prophet: “He shall come up like a lion, from the swelling of Jordan, against the habitation of the strong,” Jer. xlix, 19. The figure is highly poetical and striking. It is not easy to present a more terrible image to the mind, than a lion roused from his den by the roar of the swelling river, and chafed and irritated by its rapid and successive encroachments on his chosen haunts, till, forced to quit his last retreat, he ascends to the higher grounds and the open country, and turns the fierceness of his rage against the helpless sheep cots, or the unsuspecting villages. A destroyer equally fierce, and cruel, and irresistible, the devoted Edomites were to find in Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

The water of the river at the time of Maundrell’s visit was very turbid, and too rapid to allow a swimmer to stem its course. Its breadth might be about twenty yards; and in depth, it far exceeded his height. The rapidity and depth of the river, which are admitted by every traveller, although the volume of water seems now to be much diminished, illustrate those parts of Scripture which mention the fords and passages of Jordan. It no longer, indeed, rolls down into the Salt Sea so majestic a stream as in the days of Joshua; yet its ordinary depth is still about ten or twelve feet, so that it cannot even at present be passed but at certain places. Of this well known circumstance, the men of Gilead took advantage in the civil war, which they were compelled to wage with their brethren: “The Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites:--then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan,” Judg. xii, 6. The people of Israel, under the command of Ehud availed themselves of the same advantage in the war with Moab: “And they went down after him, and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab, and suffered not a man to pass over,” Judg. iii, 28. But although the state of this river in modern times completely justifies the incidental remarks of the sacred writers, it is evident that Maundrell was disconcerted by the shallowness of the stream, at the time of the year when he expected to see it overflowing all its banks; and his embarrassment seems to have increased when he contemplated the double margin within which it flowed. This difficulty, which has perhaps occurred to some others, may be explained by a remark which Dr. Pococke has made on the river Euphrates: The bed of the Euphrates, says that writer, was measured by some English gentlemen at Beer, and found to be six hundred and thirty yards broad; but the river only two hundred and fourteen yards over; then they thought it to be nine or ten feet deep in the middle; and were informed that it sometimes rises twelve feet perpendicularly. He observed that it had an inner and outer bank; but says, it rarely overflows the inner bank; that when it does, they sow water mellons and other fruits of that kind, as soon as the water retires, and have a great produce. From this passage, Mr. Harmer argues: “Might not the overflowings of the Jordan be like those of the Euphrates, not annual, but much more rare?” The difficulty, therefore, will be completely removed, by supposing, that it does not, like the Nile, overflow every year, as some authors, by mistake, had supposed, but, like the Euphrates, only in some particular years; but when it does it is in the time of harvest. If it did not in ancient times annually overflow its banks, the majesty of God in dividing its waters to make way for Joshua and the armies of Israel, was certainly the more striking to the Canaanites; who, when they looked upon themselves as defended in an extraordinary manner by the casual swelling of the river, its breadth and rapidity being both so extremely increased, yet, found it in these circumstances part asunder, and leave a way on dry land for the people of Jehovah. The common receptacle into which the Jordan empties his waters, is the lake Asphaltites, from whence they are continually drained off by evaporation. Some writers, unable to find a discharge for the large body of water which is continually rushing into the lake, have been inclined to suspect it had some communication with the Mediterranean; but, beside that we know of no such gulf, it has been demonstrated by accurate calculations, that evaporation is more than sufficient to carry off the waters of the river. It is, in fact, very considerable, and frequently becomes sensible to the eye, by the fogs with which the lake is covered at the rising of the sun, and which are afterward dispersed by the heat.

JOSEPH, son of Jacob and Rachel, and brother to Benjamin, Gen. xxx, 22, 24. The history of Joseph is so fully and consecutively given by Moses, that it is not necessary to abridge so familiar an account. In place of this, the following beautiful argument by Mr. Blunt for the veracity of the account drawn from the identity of Joseph’s character, will be read with pleasure:--I have already found an argument for the veracity of Moses in the identity of Jacob’s character, I now find another in the identity of that of Joseph. There is one quality, as it has been often observed, though with a different view from mine, which runs like a thread through his whole history, his affection for his father. Israel loved him, we read, more than all his children; he was the child of his age; his mother died while he was yet young, and a double care of him consequently devolved upon his surviving parent. He made him a coat of many colours; he kept him at home when his other sons were sent to feed the flocks. When the bloody garment was brought in, Jacob in his affection for him,--that same affection which, on a subsequent occasion, when it was told him that after all Joseph was alive, made him as slow to believe the good tidings as he was now quick to apprehend the sad; in this his affection for him, I say, Jacob at once concluded the worst, and “he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days, and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”

Now, what were the feelings in Joseph which responded to these? When the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt, and Joseph knew them, though they knew not him; for they, it may be remarked, were of an age not to be greatly changed by the lapse of years, and were still sustaining the character in which Joseph had always seen them; while he himself had meanwhile grown out of the stripling into the man, and from a shepherd boy was become the ruler of a kingdom; when his brethren thus came before him, his question was, “Is your father yet alive?” Gen. xliii, 7. They went down a second time, and again the question was, “Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?” More he could not venture to ask, while he was yet in his disguise. By a stratagem he now detains Benjamin, leaving the others, if they would, to go their way. But Judah came near unto him, and entreated him for his brother, telling him how that he had been surety to his father to bring him back; how that his father was an old man, and that this was the child of his old age, and that he loved him; how it would come to pass that if he should not see the lad with him he would die, and his gray hairs be brought with sorrow to the grave; for “how shall I go to my father, and the lad be not with me, lest, peradventure, I see the evil that shall come on my father?” Here, without knowing it, he had struck the string that was the tenderest of all. Joseph’s firmness forsook him at this repeated mention of his father, and in terms so touching: he could not refrain himself any longer; and, causing every man to go out, he made himself known to his brethren. Then, even in the paroxysm which came on him, (for he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard,) still his first words uttered from the fulness of his heart were, “Doth my father yet live?” He now bids them hasten and bring the old man down, bearing to him tokens of his love and tidings of his glory. He goes to meet him; he presents himself unto him, and falls on his neck, and weeps on his neck a good while; he provides for him and his household out of the fat of the land; he sets him before Pharaoh. By and by he hears that he is sick, and hastens to visit him; he receives his blessing; watches his death bed; embalms his body; mourns for him threescore and ten days; and then carries him, as he had desired, into Canaan to bury him, taking with him, as an escort to do him honour, “all the elders of Israel, and all the servants of Pharaoh, and all his house, and the house of his brethren, chariots, and horsemen, a very great company.” How natural was it now for his brethren to think that the tie by which alone they could imagine Joseph to be held to them was dissolved, that any respect he might have felt or feigned for them must have been buried in the cave of Machpelah, and that he would now requite to them the evil they had done! “And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil.” And then they add of themselves, as if well aware of the surest road to their brother’s heart, “Forgive, we pray thee, the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.” In every thing the father’s name is still put foremost: it is his memory which they count upon as their shield and buckler.

It is not the singular beauty of these scenes, or the moral lesson they teach, excellent as it is, with which I am now concerned, but simply the perfect artless consistency which prevails through them all. It is not the constancy with which the son’s strong affection for his father had lived through an interval of twenty years’ absence, and, what is more, through the temptation of sudden promotion to the highest estate;--it is not the noble-minded frankness with which he still acknowledges his kindred, and makes a way for them, “shepherds” as they were, to the throne of Pharaoh himself;--it is not the simplicity and singleness of heart which allow him to give all the first-born of Egypt, men over whom he bore absolute rule, an opportunity of observing his own comparatively humble origin, by leading them in attendance upon his father’s corpse to the valleys of Canaan and the modest cradle of his race;--it is not, in a word, the grace, but the identity, of Joseph’s character, the light in which it is exhibited by himself, and the light in which it is regarded by his brethren, to which I now point as stamping it with marks of reality not to be gainsayed.

Some writers have considered Joseph as a type of Christ; and it requires not much ingenuity to find out some resemblances, as his being hated by his brethren, sold for money, plunged into deep affliction, and then raised to power and honour, &c; but as we have no intimation in any part of Scripture that Joseph was constituted a figure of our Lord, and that this was one design of recording his history at length, all such applications want authority, and cannot safely be indulged. The account seems rather to have been left for its moral uses, and that it should afford, by its inimitable simplicity and truth to nature, a point of irresistible internal evidence of the truth of the Mosaic narrative.

2. JOSEPH, the husband of Mary, and reputed father of Jesus, was the son of Jacob, and grandson of Matthan, Matt. i, 15, 16. The place of his stated residence was Nazareth, particularly after the time of his marriage. We learn from the evangelists that he followed the occupation of a carpenter, Matt. xiii, 55; and that he was a just man, or one of those pious Israelites who looked for the coming of the Messiah, Matt. i, 19. It is probable that Joseph died before Christ entered upon his public ministry; for upon any other supposition we are at a loss to account for the reason why Mary, the mother of Jesus, is frequently mentioned in the evangelic narrative, while no allusion is made to Joseph; and, above all, why the dying Saviour should recommend his mother to the care of the beloved disciple John, if her husband had been then living, John xix, 25–27.

3. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA, a Jewish senator, and a believer in the divine mission of Jesus Christ, John xix, 38. St. Luke calls him a counsellor, and also informs us that he was a good and just man, who did not give his consent to the crucifixion of Christ, Luke xxiii, 50, 51. And though he was unable to restrain the sanhedrim from their wicked purposes, he went to Pilate by night, and solicited from him the body of Jesus. Having caused it to be taken down from the cross, he wrapped it in linen, and laid it in his own sepulchre, which, being a rich man, he appears to have recently purchased, and then closed the entrance with a stone cut purposely to fit it, Matt. xxvii, 57–60; John xix, 38–42.

JOSHUA, the son of Nun. He was of the tribe of Ephraim, and born A. M. 2460. He devoted himself to the service of Moses, and in Scripture he is commonly called the servant of Moses, Exodus xxiv, 13; xxxiii, 11; Deuteronomy i, 38, &c. His first name was Hosea, or Oshea; Hoseah signifying saviour; Jehoshua, the salvation of God, or he will save. The first opportunity which Joshua had to signalize his valour was in the war made by the divine command against the Amalekites, Exodus xvii, 9, 10. He defeated and routed their whole army. When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the law of the Lord, and remained there forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking, Joshua remained with him, though, in all probability, not in the same place, nor with the same abstinence, Exod. xxiv, 13; xxxii, 17. Joshua was “filled with the spirit of wisdom,” qualifying him for the arduous and important station of governing Israel, to which he was called by the special command of God, Num. xxvii, 18–20; Deut. xxxi, 7, 14; xxxiv, 9; Joshua i, 5. His piety, courage, and disinterested integrity are conspicuous throughout his whole history; and, exclusive of the inspiration which enlightened his mind and writings, he derived divine information, sometimes by immediate revelation from God, Joshua iii, 7; v, 13–15; at others from the sanctuary, through the medium of Eleazar, the high priest, the son of Aaron, who, having on the breast plate, presented himself before the mercy seat on which the Shechinah, or visible symbol of the divine presence, rested, and there consulted Jehovah by the Urim and Thummim, to which an answer was returned by an audible voice.

Joshua succeeded Moses in the government of Israel about the year of the world 2553, and died at Timnath-serah in the hundred and tenth year of his age, A. M. 2578. He was about the age of eighty-four when he received the divine command to pass over Jordan, and take possession of the promised land, Joshua i, 1, 2. Having accomplished that arduous enterprise, and settled the chosen tribes in the peaceable possession of their inheritance, he retired to Shechem, or, according to some Greek copies, to Shiloh; where he assembled the elders of Israel, the heads of families, the judges and other officers; and, presenting themselves before God, he recapitulated the conduct of Divine Providence toward them, from the days of Abraham to that moment; recounted the miraculous and gracious dispensations of God toward their fathers and themselves; reminded them of their present enviable lot, and concluded his solemn address with an exhortation in these emphatic words: “Now, therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord,” Joshua xxiv.

The book of Joshua continues the sacred history from the period of the death of Moses to that of the death of Joshua and of Eleazar; a space of about thirty years. It contains an account of the conquest and division of the land of Canaan, the renewal of the covenant with the Israelites, and the death of Joshua. There are two passages in this book which show that it was written by a person contemporary with the events it records. In the first verse of the fifth chapter, the author speaks of himself as being one of those who had passed into Canaan: “And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted.” And from the twenty-fifth verse of the following chapter, it appears that the book was written before the death of Rahab: “And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day; because she hid the messengers which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” Though there is not a perfect agreement among the learned concerning the author of this book, yet by far the most general opinion is, that it was written by Joshua himself; and, indeed, in the last chapter it is said that “Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God;” which expression seems to imply that he subjoined this history to that written by Moses. The last five verses, giving an account of the death of Joshua, were added by one of his successors; probably by Eleazar, Phinehas, or Samuel.

JOSIAH, king of Judah, deserves particular mention on account of his wisdom and piety, and some memorable events that occurred in the course of his reign. He succeeded to the throne, upon the assassination of his father Amon, at the age of eight years, B. C. 640; and at a period when idolatry and wickedness, encouraged by his father’s profligate example, very generally prevailed. Josiah, who manifested the influence of pious and virtuous principles at a very early age, began, in his sixteenth year, to project the reformation of the kingdom, and to adopt means for restoring the worship of the true God. At the age of twenty years he vigorously pursued the execution of the plans which he had meditated. He began with abolishing idolatry, first at Jerusalem, and then through different parts of the kingdom; destroying the altars which had been erected, and the idols which had been the objects of veneration and worship. He then proceeded, in his twenty-sixth year, to a complete restoration of the worship of God, and the regular service of the temple. While he was prosecuting this pious work, and repairing the temple, which had been long neglected, and which had sunk into a state of dilapidation, the book of the law, which had been concealed in the temple, was happily discovered. This was, probably, a copy of the the Pentateuch, which had been lodged there for security by some pious priest in the reign of Ahaz or Manasseh. Josiah, desirous of averting from himself and the kingdom threatened judgments, determined to adhere to the directions of the law, in the business of reformation which he had undertaken; and to observe the festivals enjoined by Moses, which had been shamefully neglected. With this view he assembled all the elders of the people in the temple at Jerusalem; and, having ascended the throne, read the book of the Mosaic law, and then entered into a solemn covenant to observe the statutes and ordinances which it enjoined. To this covenant the whole assembly testified their consent. The ark was restored to its proper place; the temple was purified; idolatrous utensils were removed, and those appropriate to the worship of God substituted in their room. After these preparations, the passover was observed with singular zeal and magnificence. This took place in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign: but, in pursuing his laudable plans of reformation, he was resisted by the inveterate habits of the Israelites; so that his zealous and persevering efforts were ineffectual. Their degeneracy was so invincible, that the almighty Sovereign was provoked to inflict upon them those calamities which were denounced by the Prophet Zephaniah. In the thirty-second year of Josiah’s reign, Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, advanced with his army against Carchemish, a city situated on the river Euphrates. He was opposed by the king of Judah; so that a bloody battle ensued at Megiddo, in which Josiah received a mortal wound, which terminated in his death, after he had been conveyed to Jerusalem, in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, B.C. 609. His death was greatly lamented by all his subjects; and an elegy was written on the occasion by the Prophet Jeremiah, which is not now extant, 2 Kings xxii, xxiii; 2 Chronicles xxxiv, xxxv.

JUBAL, a son of Lamech, the inventor of musical instruments, Gen. iv, 21.

JUBILEE, among the Jews, denotes every fiftieth year; being that following the revolution of seven weeks of years; at which time all the slaves were made free, and all lands reverted to their ancient owners. The jubilees were not regarded after the Babylonish captivity. The political design of the law of the jubilee was to prevent the too great oppression of the poor, as well as their being liable to perpetual slavery. By this means the rich were prevented from accumulating lands for perpetuity, and a kind of equality was preserved through all the families of Israel. The distinction of tribes was also preserved, in respect both to their families and possessions; that they might be able, when there was occasion, on the jubilee year, to prove their right to the inheritance of their ancestors. Thus, also, it would be known with certainty of what tribe or family the Messiah sprung. It served, also, like the Olympiads of the Greeks, and the Lustra of the Romans, for the readier computation of time. The jubilee has also been supposed to be typical of the Gospel state and dispensation, described by Isaiah lxi, 1, 2, in reference to this period, as “the acceptable year of the Lord.”

The word jubilee, in a more modern sense, denotes a grand church solemnity or ceremony celebrated at Rome, in which the pope grants a plenary indulgence to all sinners; at least, to as many as visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome. The jubilee was first established by Boniface VII., in 1300, which was only to return every hundred years; but the first celebration brought in such store of wealth, that Clement VI., in 1343, reduced it to the period of fifty years. Urban VI., in 1389, appointed it to be held every thirty-five years, that being the age of our Saviour; and Paul II. and Sixtus IV., in 1475, brought it down to every twenty-five, that every person might have the benefit of it once in his life. Boniface IX. granted the privilege of holding jubilees to several princes and monasteries; for instance, to the monks of Canterbury, who had a jubilee every fifty years; when people flocked from all parts to visit the tomb of Thomas-a-Becket. Afterward, jubilees became more frequent: there is generally one at the inauguration of a new pope; and he grants them as often as the church or himself have occasion for them. To be entitled to the privileges of the jubilee, the bull enjoins fasting, alms, and prayers. It gives the priests a full power to absolve in all cases even those otherwise reserved to the pope; to make commutations of vows, &c; in which it differs from a plenary indulgence. During the time of jubilee, all other indulgences are suspended.

JUDAH, the son of Jacob and Leah, who was born in Mesopotamia, Genesis xxix, 35. It was he who advised his brethren to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite merchants, rather than stain their hands with his blood, Gen. xxxvii, 26. There is little said of his life, and the little that is recorded does not raise him high in our estimation. In the last prophetic blessing pronounced on him by his father Jacob, Gen. xlix, 8, 9, there is a promise of the regal power; and that it should not depart from his family before the coming of the Messiah. The whole southern part of Palestine fell to Judah’s lot; but the tribes of Simeon and Dan possessed many cities which at first were given to Judah. This tribe was so numerous, that at the departure out of Egypt it contained seventy-four thousand six hundred men capable of bearing arms, Num. i, 26, 27. The crown passed from the tribe of Benjamin, of which Saul and his sons were, to that of Judah, which was David’s tribe, and the tribe of the kings, his successors, until the Babylonish captivity.

JUDAISM, the religious doctrines and rites of the Jews, the descendants of Abraham. With Abraham Judaism may be said, in some sense, to have begun; but it was not till the promulgation of the law upon Mount Sinai, that the Jewish economy was established, and that to his posterity was committed a dispensation which was to distinguish them ever after from every other people on earth. The Mosaic dispensation consisted of three parts; the religious faith and worship of the Jews, their civil polity, and precepts for the regulation of their moral conduct. Their civil government, as well as their sacred polity, was of divine institution; and, on all important occasions, their public affairs were conducted by the Deity himself, or by persons bearing his commission. The laws of the Jews, religious and moral, civil, political, and ritual, that is, a complete system of pure Judaism, are contained in the books of the Old Testament, and chiefly in the five books of Moses. See GOVERNMENT OF THE HEBREWS.

The religion of the ancestors of the Jews, before the time of Moses, consisted in the worship of the one living and true God, under whose immediate direction they were; in the hope of a Redeemer; in a firm reliance on his promises under all difficulties and dangers; and in a thankful acknowledgment for all his blessings and deliverances. In that early age, we read of altars, pillars, and monuments raised, and sacrifices offered to God. They used circumcision as a seal of the covenant which God had made with Abraham. As to the mode and circumstances of divine worship, they were much at liberty till the time of Moses; but that legislator, by the direction and appointment of God himself, prescribed an instituted form of religion, and regulated ceremonies, feasts, days, priests, and sacrifices, with the utmost exactness. The rites and observances of their religion under the law were numerous, and its sanctions severe. Notwithstanding God’s prophets, and oracles, and ordinances, and the symbol of his presence, were among them, the Jews were ever very prone to idolatry, till the Babylonish furnace served to purify them from that corruption. After their seventy years’ captivity, many among them gave too much place to the Greek idolatries, but as a nation they were never again guilty of the crime. Their religious worship and character in our Saviour’s time had become formal and superstitious; and such it still continues to be, in a greater or less degree, at the present day. Ancient Judaism, compared with all religions except the Christian, was distinguished for its superior purity and spirituality; and the whole Mosaic ritual was of a typical nature. See JEWS.

JUDAIZING CHRISTIANS. Concerning the divine origin of the religion of Moses, there was among the Jews no diversity of sentiment, and they not unnaturally drew the conclusion, that, as it had proceeded from God, it must be of perpetual obligation. They were indeed fully aware, that another communication from heaven was to be made to mankind, and that this was to be announced by a messenger more distinguished than even the lawgiver whom they revered; but they had satisfied themselves, that the great design of the Messiah’s mission would be to rescue them from the oppression of a foreign yoke, and to lay in Jerusalem the foundation of universal empire. For accomplishing these purposes, it was requisite that their Messiah should be invested with temporal power; and in this idea, which so many circumstances in their history tended to endear to them, they were confirmed by those passages in the books of their prophets which described him as destined to sit on the throne of David, to sway a righteous sceptre, and to establish an everlasting kingdom. When, accordingly, Christ appeared in the humblest condition of life, and when, after the commencement of his ministry, he declared, that the hopes of empire which his countrymen had long cherished were fallacious, the predictions on which they had been rested suggesting, when combined with other predictions, a very different view of the designs of the Almighty, they were filled with indignation, and the greater part of them, although they saw the miracles which Jesus wrought, and heard those appeals to their own Scriptures which, however eager to do so, they found themselves unable to confute, rejected his pretensions on account of the meanness of his situation, and reprobated him as a deceiver of the people.

There was, however, a considerable number who could not adopt this conclusion, and who, satisfied that the mighty works which he performed fully established the reality of the divine commission to which he laid claim, relinquished their prejudices respecting a temporal sovereignty, and embraced his doctrine as the revealed will of God. But, notwithstanding this, they do not seem to have formed the most distant conception that there was any thing in that doctrine to set aside the system which had been transmitted to them by their fathers. They regarded the two dispensations as forming one whole; and believed that the rites which had distinguished from the rest of mankind those who belonged to the commonwealth of Israel, would in the same manner mark the disciples of the Messiah’s kingdom. Agreeably to this, as they conceived, they saw that Jesus conformed to their ceremonial institutions, he frequented the temple, he purified it from abuses by which it had been profaned, and they interpreted, in the sense most in harmony with their favourite notions, the declaration which he had publicly made, that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. Even the apostles who had constantly attended him, who had listened not merely to his public discourses, but to the interpretation of them, which, in tender condescension to their weakness, he often in private gave, were so thoroughly established in this opinion that it required a peculiar revelation to be made to him before Peter would open the kingdom of God to a Gentile. It cannot, therefore, be matter of surprise that the sentiment prevailed among the whole of the Jews who had been converted to Christianity; or that even after it was opposed by the declaration of the Apostles as individuals, and by their solemn determination, when assembled to decide with respect to it, that the law was not binding upon Gentile converts, they should still have adhered to it, when from not having a written record of faith they might have imagined, either that the representation of the apostolic decision was erroneous, or that the sanction which it gave to their own adherence to their ceremonies virtually confirmed the doctrine which they felt such aversion to relinquish. They accordingly displayed much zeal in support of the Mosaical economy, represented the strict observance of what it required as essential for justification, and looked with a kind of abhorrence upon that large proportion of believers who paid to this no respect, and who even did not hesitate to condemn it as subversive of the fundamental principle of the Gospel dispensation. A great part of the epistles of St. Paul is directed against the Judaizing teachers who inculcated the original tenet of their brethren. The Apostle earnestly presses upon the churches, that by the works of the law we cannot be justified, that circumcision is of no avail, that by grace we are saved, and that Christ hath redeemed us by his blood. He, indeed, uniformly represents the idea which he opposed as inconsistent with Christianity, as an idea which could not be held without detracting from what our Saviour has done to accomplish our redemption. What effect his writings produced upon the Jewish believers, cannot be accurately ascertained; but it is quite certain that a very large proportion of them adhered to their ritual observances either as national, or as instrumental in obtaining the divine favour; and this survived the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem,--events which might have been expected to convince every one of the temporary nature of the Mosaical economy.

But after Adrian, by again directing the Roman arms against the Jews, blasted the hopes which had been fondly cherished, that their city would be rebuilt, and their temple opened with greater splendour than before, a vast number of them, either from being convinced by what they had seen, or from their eagerness to gain admission into the city which the emperor had erected, but from which he had ordered that all who persisted in Judaism should be excluded, for the first time embraced the religion of Christ; and many, who had previously done so, abandoning the Jewish ritual, acquiesced fully in the representation of the faith given by St. Paul, choosing as their bishop a Gentile convert. There were, however, not a few who remained steadfast in their principles, who were now consequently separated from the great body of their believing countrymen, and who retained the appellation of Nazarenes, which had probably been given to the whole of the Jewish Christians. This remnant soon split into two parties. The one party, although they held that the law of Moses was obligatory upon the descendants of the house of Israel, did not extend it to those who had never been of the family of Abraham; they revered Jesus as being more than man, and in fact approached so near to the prevailing sentiments of the church, that, notwithstanding their peculiar sentiments in relation to the Mosaical law, they were not ranked by the earliest writers among heretics. The other party, who were called Ebionites, either from Ebion, the name, it is alleged, of their leader, from their poverty, or from the low notions which they entertained of Christ, for all these reasons have been specified, showing sufficiently that the matter is really uncertain,--maintained the original tenet that their law was binding upon all men, and that without observing what it required it was impossible to be justified. As this was in direct opposition to the declarations of St. Paul, instead of submitting to apostolic authority they set it at defiance, rejecting his epistles, and branding him as an enemy to the truth. They disregarded even the Gospels which were received by the generality of Christians, and used a gospel of their own which they had so modelled as to support the tenets to which they were attached. One of these tenets, one which, indeed, naturally followed from their conceptions of the Gospel dispensation, was, that its author was merely a man raised solely by the commission with which he had been honoured above the rest of his fellow creatures.

JUDAS ISCARIOT, or, as he is usually called, the traitor, and betrayer of our Lord. “The treachery of Judas Iscariot,” says Dr. Hales, “his remorse, and suicide, are occurrences altogether so strange and extraordinary, that the motives by which he was actuated require to be developed, as far as may be done, where the evangelists are, in a great measure, silent concerning them, from the circumstances of the history itself, and from the feelings of human nature. Judas, the leading trait in whose character was covetousness, was probably induced to follow Jesus at first with a view to the riches, honours, and other temporal advantages, which he, in common with the rest, expected the Messiah’s friends would enjoy. The astonishing miracles he saw him perform left no room to doubt of the reality of his Master’s pretensions, who had, indeed, himself in private actually accepted the title from his Apostles; and Judas must have been much disappointed when Jesus repeatedly refused the proffered royalty from the people in Galilee, after the miracle of feeding the five thousand, and again after his public procession to Jerusalem. He might naturally have grown impatient under the delay, and dissatisfied also with Jesus for openly discouraging all ambitious views among his disciples; and, therefore, he might have devised the scheme of delivering him up to the sanhedrim, or great council of the nation, (composed of the chief priests, scribes, and elders,) in order to compel him to avow himself openly as the Messiah before them; and to work such miracles, or to give them the sign which they so often required, as would convince and induce them to elect him in due form, and by that means enable him to reward his followers. Even the rebukes of Jesus for his covetousness, and the detection of his treacherous scheme, although they unquestionably offended Judas, might only serve to stimulate him to the speedier execution of his plot, during the feast of the passover, while the great concourse of the Jews, from all parts assembled, might powerfully support the sanhedrim and their Messiah against the Romans. The success of this measure, though against his Master’s will, would be likely to procure him pardon, and even to recommend him to favour afterward. Such might have been the plausible suggestions by which Satan tempted him to the commission of this crime. But when Judas, who attended the whole trial, saw that it turned out quite contrary to his expectations, that Jesus was capitally convicted by the council, as a false Christ and false prophet, notwithstanding he had openly avowed himself; and that he wrought no miracle, either for their conviction or for his own deliverance, as Judas well knew he could, even from the circumstance of healing Malchus, after he was apprehended; when he farther reflected, like Peter, on his Master’s merciful forewarnings of his treachery, and mild and gentle rebuke at the commission of it; he was seized with remorse, and offered to return the paltry bribe of thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders instantly on the spot, saying, ‘I sinned in delivering up innocent blood;’ and expected that on this they would have desisted from the prosecution. But they were obstinate, and not only would not relent, but threw the whole load of guilt upon him, refusing to take their own share; for they said, ‘What is that to us? see thou to that;’ thus, according to the aphorism, loving the treason, but hating the traitor, after he had served their wicked turn. Stung to the quick at their refusal to take back the money, while they condemned himself, he went to the temple, cast down the whole sum in the treasury, or place for receiving the offerings of the people; and, after he had thus returned the wages of iniquity, he retired to some lonely place, not far, perhaps, from the scene of Peter’s repentance; and, in the frenzy of despair, and at the instigation of the devil, hanged himself; crowning with suicide the murder of his Master and his friend; rejecting his compassionate Saviour, and plunging his own soul into perdition! In another place it is said that, ‘falling headlong, he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out,’ Acts i, 18. Both these accounts might be true: he might first have hanged himself from some tree on the edge of a precipice; and, the rope or branch breaking, he might be dashed to pieces by the fall.”

The above view of the case of Judas endeavours ingeniously to account for his conduct by supposing him influenced by the motive of compelling our Lord to declare himself, and assume the Messiahship in its earthly glory. It will, however, be recollected, that the only key which the evangelic narrative affords, is, Judas’s covetousness; which passion was, in him, a growing one. It was this which destroyed whatever of honest intention he might at first have in following Jesus; and when fully under its influence he would be blinded by it to all but the glittering object of the reward of iniquity. In such a mind there could be no true faith, and no love; what wonder, then, when avarice was in him a ruling and unrestrained passion, that he should betray his Lord? Still it may be admitted that the knowledge which Judas had of our Lord’s miraculous power, might lead him the more readily to put him into the hands of the chief priests. He might suppose that he would deliver himself out of their hands; and thus Judas attempted to play a double villany, against Christ and against his employers.

JUDE, EPISTLE OF, a canonical book of the New Testament, written against the heretics, who, by their impious doctrines and disorderly lives, corrupted the faith and good morals of Christians. The author of this epistle, called Judas, and also Thaddeus and Lebbeus, was one of the twelve Apostles; he was the son of Alpheus, brother of James the less, and one of those who were called our Lord’s brethren. We are not informed when, or how, he was called to be an Apostle; but it has been conjectured, that, before his vocation to the Apostleship, he was a husbandman, that he was married, and that he had children. The only account we have of him in particular, is that which occurs in John xiv, 21–23. It is not unreasonable to suppose that, after having received, in common with other Apostles, extraordinary gifts at the pentecost, he preached the Gospel for some time in several parts of the land of Israel, and wrought miracles in the name of Christ. And, as his life seems to have been prolonged, it is probable that he afterward left Judea, and went abroad preaching the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles in other countries. Some have said that he preached in Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia; and that he suffered martyrdom in the last mentioned country. But we have no account of his travels upon which we can rely; and it may be questioned whether he was a martyr.

In the early ages of Christianity, several rejected the Epistle of St. Jude, because the apocryphal books of Enoch, and the ascension of Moses, are quoted in it. Nevertheless, it is to be found in all the ancient catalogues of the sacred writings; and Clement, of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen quote it as written by Jude, and reckon it among the books of sacred Scripture. In the time of Eusebius it was generally received. As to the objections that have been urged against its authority, Dr. Lardner suggests, that there is no necessity for supposing that St. Jude quoted a book called Enoch, or Enoch’s prophecies; and even allowing that he did quote it, he gives it no authority; it was no canonical book of the Jews; and if such a book existed among the Jews, it was apocryphal, and yet there might be in it some right things. Instead of referring to a book called the “Assumption or Ascension of Christ,” which probably was a forgery much later than his time, it is much more credible that St. Jude refers to the vision in Zech. iii, 1–3. It has been the opinion of several writers, and, among others, of Hammond and Benson, that St. Jude addressed his epistle to the Jewish Christians; but Dr. Lardner infers, from the words of the inscription of the epistle, verses 1, 3, that it was designed for the use of all in general who had embraced the Christian religion. The last mentioned author supposes that this epistle was written A. D. 64, 65, or 66.

JUDEA, a district of Asia Minor, which is described both by ancient and modern geographers under a great variety of names, and with great diversity of extent. In the most extensive application of the name, it comprehends the whole country possessed by the Jews, or people of Israel; and included, therefore, very different portions of territory at different periods of their history. Upon the conquest of the country by Joshua, it was divided into twelve portions, according to the number of the tribes of Israel; and a general view of their respective allotments (though the intermediate boundaries cannot be very precisely ascertained) may convey some idea of its extent at that period. The portion of the tribe of Judah comprised all the country between Edom, or Idumea, on the south, the Mediterranean on the west, the Salt Sea on the east, and an imaginary line on the north, from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the Mediterranean. The portion of Simeon was included within that of Judah, and formed the south-west corner of the country; comprehending the towns of Bersaba, Gerar, Rapha, Gaza, Ascalon, and Azotus. The portion of Benjamin was situated to the north of Judah, near the centre of the kingdom, bounded on the east by the river Jordan, and containing part of Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethel, Rama, &c. The portion of Dan lay to the north-west of Judah, between that of Benjamin and the Mediterranean, reaching as far north as the latter, and containing Accaron and Jamnia. The portion of Ephraim stretched along the northern limits of Dan and Benjamin, between the river Jordan on the east, and the Mediterranean sea on the west; containing Sichem, Joppa, Lydda, Gazara, &c. The portion of the half tribe of Manasseh was situated north of Ephraim, between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean, reaching as far north as Dora, at the foot of Mount Carmel. The portion of Issachar stretched northward from Manasseh, and westward from Jordan, as far as Mount Tabor. The portion of Asher comprehended the maritime tract between Mount Carmel, as far as Sidon. The portion of Zebulon, bounded by Asher on the west, and Mount Tabor on the south, joined on the east the portion of Naphtali, which occupied the borders of the lake Gennesareth, or sea of Tiberias. The portion of Reuben lay to the eastward of the river Jordan, bounded on the south by the torrent of Arnon, and on the north by the river Jabok. The portion of Gad, also on the east of the Jordan, stretched from the Jabok toward the north, where it was bounded by the other half tribe of Manasseh, which occupied the country east of the lake Gennesareth, to the northern limits of the country. The whole of this extent between Cœlo-Syria on the north, and Arabia Petræa on the south, the Mediterranean on the west, and Arabia Deserta on the east, may be considered as situated between 31° 10´ and 33° 15´ of north latitude, about a hundred and forty miles in length, and nearly a hundred in breadth. Reckoning from Dan to Beersheba, which are often mentioned in sacred Scripture as including the more settled and permanent possessions of the Israelites, its length would not exceed a hundred and twenty miles. But, if estimated from its boundaries in the reigns of David and Solomon, and several succeeding princes, its extent must be enlarged more than threefold; including both the land of Palestine, or of the Philistines, on the south, and the country of Phenice on the north, with part of Syria to the north-east. All this extent was originally comprehended in the land of promise, Genesis xv, 18; Deut. xi, 24; and was actually possessed by David and Solomon, 1 Kings ix, 20; 2 Chron. viii, 7. It is described in numerous passages of the sacred writings, as all comprised in the Holy Land, from Hamath on the north, to the river of Egypt on the south; and from the Great or Mediterranean Sea on the west, to the deserts of Arabia on the east; a tract of country at least four hundred and sixty miles in length, and more than a hundred in breadth, Joshua xv, 2, &c; xix, 24, &c; 1 Chron. xiii, 5; 2 Chron. vii, 8; Ezekiel xlvii, 16, 20; Amos vi, 14.

After the death of Solomon, when the kingdom of the Hebrews had attained its greatest extent, it was divided, in consequence of a revolt of ten tribes, into two distinct sovereignties, named Israel and Judah; the former of which had its seat of government in Samaria, and the latter in Jerusalem. The territories of both were gradually curtailed and laid waste by the revolt of tributary princes, and the incursions of powerful neighbours; and both were at length completely overthrown; that of Israel, by the king of Assyria, about B. C. 720; and that of Judah, by Nebuchadnezzar, about a hundred and fourteen years later.

After a captivity of seventy years, the Jews, who had been the subjects of Judah, having received permission from Cyrus to return to their native country, not only occupied the former territories of that kingdom, but extended themselves over great part of what had belonged to the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel; and then, for the first time, gave the name of Judea to the whole country over which they had again established their dominion. The same name was given to that kingdom as possessed by Herod the Great under the Romans; but, in the enumeration of the provinces of the empire, it was recognised only by the name of Palestine. All traces of its ancient division among the twelve tribes were now abolished, and it was distributed into four provinces; namely, Judea Proper in the south, Galilee in the north, Samaria in the centre, and Peræa on the east of the river Jordan. Judea Proper, situated in 31° 40´ north latitude, was bounded on the north by Samaria, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the east by the river Jordan, on the south by Arabia Petræa; and comprised the ancient settlements of Judah, Benjamin, Dan, and Simeon, with Philistia and Idumea. It is divided by Josephus into eleven toparchies, and by Pliny into ten; but these subdivisions are little noticed by ancient writers, and their boundaries are very imperfectly ascertained. The principal places in the north-east quarter of the province were Jerusalem, the capital, which was entirely destroyed in the reign of Hadrian, and replaced by a new city named Ælia, a little farther north, which is now the site of the modern Jerusalem; Jericho, the city of palm trees, about nineteen miles eastward of Jerusalem, and eight from the river Jordan; Phaselis, built by Herod in memory of his brother, fifteen miles north-west of Jericho; Archelais, built by Archelaus, ten miles north of Jericho; Gophna, fifteen miles north of Jerusalem, in the road to Sichem; Bethel, twelve miles north of Jerusalem, originally called Luz; Gilgal, about one mile and a half from Jericho; Engeddi, a hundred furlongs south south-east of Jericho, near the northern extremity of the Dead Sea; Masada, a strong fortress built by Judas Maccabeus, the last refuge of the Jews after the fall of Jerusalem; Ephraim, a small town westward of Jericho; Anathoth, a Levitical town, nearly four miles north of Jerusalem. In the south-east quarter of the province were situated Bethlehem, or Ephrath, about six miles south from the capital; Bethzur, now St. Philip, a strong place on the road to Hebron, ten miles south of Jerusalem; Ziph, a small town between Hebron and the Dead Sea; Zoar, at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, near the situation of Sodom; Hebron, formerly Kirjath-arba, a very ancient town in a hilly country, twenty-five miles south of the capital; Arad, about twenty-four miles southward from Hebron, and near the Ascensus Avrabim, or Scorpion Mountains, on the border of Arabia Petræa; and Thamar, on the southern limit of the province, near the south extremity of the Dead Sea. In the north-west quarter were Bethshemesh, or Heliopolis, a Levitical city, about ten miles west of the capital; Rama, six miles north from Jerusalem; Emmaus, a village eight miles north north-west from Jerusalem, afterward called Nicopolis, in consequence of a victory gained by Vespasian over the revolted Jews; Bethoron, a populous Levitical city on the road to Lydda, a few miles north-west of Emmaus; Kirjath-jearim, on the road to Joppa, nine miles westward from the capital; Lydda, now Lod, and called by the Greeks Diospolis, about twelve miles east of Joppa; Ramla, supposed to be the same as Arimathea, about five miles south-west of Lydda; Joppa, a maritime town, now Jaffa, about twelve leagues north-west of Jerusalem; Jabne, a walled sea-port town between Joppa and Azotus; and Ekron, a town on the north boundary of the Philistines. In the south-west quarter of Judea were Gath, about twenty miles west from Jerusalem, near to which were the city of Eleutheropolis, a flourishing place in the second century; Makkedah, a strong place, eight miles north-east from Eleutheropolis; Bersabe, or Beersheba, about twenty-six miles south from Eleutheropolis; Gerar, between Beersheba and the sea coast; Azotus, or Ashdod, to the west of Eleutheropolis, within a few miles of the sea, and the seat of a bishop in the first ages of the Christian church; Ascalon, a considerable maritime town, above forty-three miles south-west of Jerusalem; Gaza, fifteen miles southward from Ascalon; and Raphia, between Gaza and Rhinocurura, remarkable for a great battle in its neighbourhood, in which Philopater, king of Egypt, defeated Antiochus, king of Syria.

Samaria, lying between Judea and Galilee, in 32° 15´ north latitude, extended along the sea coast from Joppa to Dora, and along the river Jordan from the rivulet of Alexandrium to the southern extremity of the sea of Tiberias; comprehending the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, of the half tribe of Manasseh, and part of Issachar. Its principal cities were Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel, north of Sichem, and equally distant from Jordan and the sea coast, afterward named Sebaste by Herod, in honour of Augustus; Jezrael, or Esdraelon, about four leagues north from Samaria; Sichem, or Sychar, called by the Romans Neapolis, eight miles south of Samaria, in a valley between the mountains Gerizim and Ebal; Bethsan, called by the Greek writers Scythopolis, about twenty miles north-east of Sichem; Cæsarea of Palestine, anciently called Turris Stratonis, greatly enlarged by Herod, and long the principal city of the province, about nineteen leagues north north-west from Jerusalem; Dora, now Tartura, nine miles north from Cæsarea, on the road to Tyre; Apollonia, now Arzuf, on the sea coast, twenty-two miles south of Cæsarea; and Hadadrimmon, afterward called Maximianopolis, about seventeen miles eastward of Cæsarea.

Galilæa, in 33° north latitude, bounded on the south by Samaria, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the north by Syria, on the east by the river Jordan and the lake Gennesareth, comprehended the possessions of Asher, Naphtali, and Zabulon, with part of the allotment of Issachar. The northern division of the province was thinly inhabited by Jews, and was sometimes called Galilee of the Gentiles; but the southern portion was very populous. Its principal towns were Capernaum, at the northern extremity of the lake of Gennesareth; Bethsaida, a considerable village a few leagues south of Capernaum; Cinnereth, south of Bethsaida, rebuilt by Herod Antipas, and named Tiberias; Tarichæa, a considerable town at the efflux of the river Jordan from the sea of Tiberias, thirty stadia south from the town of Tiberias; Nazareth, two leagues north-west of Mount Tabor, and equally distant from the lake of Gennesareth and the sea coast; Arbela, six miles west of Nazareth; Sepphoris, or Dio-Cæsarea, now Sefouri, a large and well fortified town, about five leagues north north-west of Mount Tabor; Zabulon, a strong and populous place, sixty stadia south-east of Ptolemais; Acre, or Accon, seven miles north from the promontory of Carmel, afterward enlarged and called Ptolemais by Ptolemy I., of Egypt, and in the time of the crusades distinguished by the name of Acre, the last city possessed by the Christians in Syria, and was taken and destroyed by the Sultan Serapha, of Egypt, in 1291; Kedes, or Cydissus, a Levitical city at the foot of Mount Panium, twenty miles south-east of Tyre; Dan, originally Laish, on the north boundary of the Holy Land, about thirty miles south-east of Sidon; Paneas, near to Dan, or, according to some, only a different name for the same place, was repaired by Philip, son of Herod the Great, and by him named Cæsarea, in honour of Augustus, with the addition of Philippi, to distinguish it from the other town of the same name in Samaria; Jotapata, the strongest town in Galilee, about four leagues north north-east of Dio-Cæsarea; and Japha and Gischala, two other fortified places in the same district.

Peræa, though the name would denote any extent of country beyond Jordan, is more particularly applied to that district in 32° north latitude, which formerly composed the territories of Sihon, the Amorite, and Og, king of Bashan; extending from the river Arnon (which flows through an extensive plain into the Dead Sea) to the mount of Gilead, where the Jordan issues from the sea of Tiberias; and which fell to the lot of the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. This province was about sixty miles from north to south, and forty from east to west. The principal places were Penuel, on the left of the Jabbok, which forms the northern border of the country; Succoth, on the banks of the Jordan, a little farther south; Bethabara, a little below Succoth, where was a place of passage over the river; Amathus, afterward named Assalt, a strong town below the influx of the torrent Jazer; Livias, between Mount Nebo and the northern extremity of the Dead Sea, a town which was so named by Herod, in honour of Livia, the wife of Augustus; Machærus, a citadel on a steep rock, south of Livias, near the upper end of the Dead Sea; Lasa, or Calle-rhoe, celebrated for its hot springs, between Machærus and the river Arnon; Herodium, a fort built by Herod a few miles farther inland, as a protection against the Moabites; Aroer, a town of Moab, seven leagues east of the Dead Sea; Castra Amonensia, a Roman station, supposed to be the ancient Mephoath, seven leagues north-east of Aroer; Hesbon, or Esbus, the capital of Sihon, anciently famed for its fish pools, seven leagues east from the Jordan, three from Mount Nebo, and nearly in the centre of the province; Madaba, now El-Belkaa, three leagues south-east of Hesbon; Jazer, or Tira, a Levitical city on a small lake, five leagues north-east of Hesbon. To the south of Peræa lies a territory called Moabites, the capital of which was Rabbath-Moab, afterward named Areopolis; and to the south-west of which was Charac-Moab, or Karak, a fortress on the summit of a hill, at the entrance of a deep valley.

To the north of Peræa were situated several districts, which, as forming part of the kingdom of Judea under Herod the Great, require to be briefly noticed in this account; and which do properly come under the general name of Peræa, as being situated on the eastward of the river Jordan. These were Galaadites, or Gileadites, in 32° 20´ north latitude, now Zarca, east from Jordan, and north from the Jabbok; containing the cities of Ramoth-Gilead, Mahanaim, Jabesh-Gilead, at the foot of Mount Gilead. Batanæa, anciently Basan, now Bitinia, in 32° 25´ north latitude, formerly celebrated for its oaks and pastures, was situated to the north of Galaadites, and contained the cities of Adrea, or Edrei, Astaroth, and Bathyra. Gaulonitis, a narrow strip of land between Batanæa and the shore of the sea of Tiberias, stretching northward to Mount Hermon, and containing Gamala, a strong town near the southern extremity of the sea of Tiberias; Argob, between this sea and Mount Hippos; Julias, supposed to be the same as Chorazin, and by others to be Bethsaida; and Seleuca, a fortified place on the east border of Lacus Samochonitis. Auranitis, or Ituræa, a mountainous and barren tract north of Batanæa, and bounded on the west by a branch of Mount Hermon, contained Bostra, or Bozra, about fifty miles east from the sea of Tiberias, bordering on Arabia Petræa, afterward enlarged by Trajan, and named Trajana Bostra; and Trachonitis, in 33° 15´ north latitude, between Hermon and Antilibanus, eastward from the sources of Jordan, and containing Baalgad, Mispah, Paneas, or Cæsarea Philippi, and Ænos, nearly twenty-five miles east of Panæas, and as far south south-west of Damascus. There remains to be noticed the Decapolis, or confederation of ten cities in the last mentioned districts, which having been occupied during the Babylonish captivity by Heathen inhabitants, refused to adopt the Mosaic ritual after the restoration of the Jews, and found it necessary to unite their strength against the enterprises of the Asmonean princes. One of them, namely, Scythopolis, already described in the account of Samaria, was situated to the west of Jordan; but the other nine were all to the east of that river, namely, Gadara, or Kedar, a strong place on a hill, the capital of Peræa in the time of Josephus, about sixty stadia east from the sea of Tiberias, and much frequented for its hot baths: Hippos, sometimes called Susitha, thirty stadia north-west of Gadara; Dium, or Dion, of which the situation is unknown, but conjectured by D’Anville to have been about seven leagues eastward from Pella, a considerable town supplied with copious fountains, on the river Jabbok, fourteen miles south-east of Gadara, and celebrated as the place to which the Christians retired, by divine admonition, before the destruction of Jerusalem; Canatha, south-east of Cæsarea, and between the Jordan and Mount Hermon; Garasa, afterward Jaras, three leagues north-east from the upper extremity of the sea of Tiberias, and much noted during the crusades; Rabbath-Ammon, the capital of the Ammonites, south-east of Ramoth, and near the source of the Jabbok, on the confines of Arabia, afterward called Philadelphia by Ptolemy Philadelphus, from whom it had received considerable improvements, of which the ruins are still visible; Abila, four leagues east from Gadara, in a fertile tract between the river Hieromax and Mount Gilead; and Capitolais, a town in Batanæa, five or six leagues east north-east of Gadara.

JUDEA, WILDERNESS OF, a wild and desert country along the southern course of the river Jordan, east of Jerusalem; that which by St. Matthew is called the wilderness of Judea, being described by St. Luke as “all the country about Jordan;” from whence this wilderness extended southward along the western side of the Dead Sea. This is a stony and desolate region, of hopeless sterility, and most savage aspect; consisting almost entirely of disordered piles of rocks, and rocky mountains. This was the wilderness in which John first preached and baptized, and into which our Lord, after his own baptism, was led by the Spirit to be tempted, Matthew iv; Luke iv. Here, also, the mountain was situated which formed the scene of one of the most striking parts of this temptation. Maundrell describes this region as a most miserable, dry, and barren place; consisting of high rocky mountains, so torn and disordered, as if the earth had here suffered some great convulsion. Mr. Buckingham, who visited the same part in 1816, says, “As we proceeded to the northward, we had on our left a lofty peak of the range of hills which border the plain of the Jordan on the west, and ended in this direction the mountains of Judea. This peak is considered to be that to which Jesus was transported by the devil during his fast of forty days in the wilderness; ‘after which he was an hungered.’ Nothing can be more forbidding than the aspect of these hills; not a blade of verdure is to be seen over all their surface, and not the sound of any living being is to be heard throughout all their extent. They form, indeed, a most appropriate scene for that wilderness in which the Son of God is said to have dwelt with the wild beasts, ‘while the angels ministered unto him.’”

JUDGES is applied to certain eminent persons chosen by God himself to govern the Jews from the time of Joshua till the establishment of the kings. For the nature and duration of their office, and the powers with which they were invested, see JEWS. The judges were not ordinary magistrates, but were appointed by God on extraordinary occasions; as to head the armies, to deliver the people from their enemies, &c. Salian has observed, that they not only presided in courts of justice, but were also at the head of the councils, the armies, and of every thing that concerned the government of the state; though they never assumed the title either of princes, governors, or the like.

Salian remarks seven points wherein they differed from kings: 1. They were not hereditary. 2. They had no absolute power of life and death, but only according to the laws, and dependently upon them. 3. They never undertook war at their own pleasure, but only when they were commanded by God, or called to it by the people. 4. They exacted no tribute. 5. They did not succeed each other immediately, but after the death of one there was frequently an interval of several years before a successor was appointed. 6. They did not use the ensigns of sovereignty, the sceptre or diadem. 7. They had no authority to make any laws, but were only to take care of the observance of those of Moses. Godwin, in his “Moses and Aaron,” compares them to the Roman dictators, who were appointed only on extraordinary emergencies, as in case of war abroad, or conspiracies at home, and whose power, while they continued in office, was great, and even absolute. Thus the Hebrew judges seem to have been appointed only in cases of national trouble and danger. This was the case particularly with respect to Othniel, Ehud, and Gideon. The power of the judges, while in office, was very great; nor does it seem to have been limited to a certain time, like that of the Roman dictators, which continued for half a year; nevertheless, it is reasonable to suppose, that, when they had performed the business for which they were appointed, they retired to a private life. This Godwin infers from Gideon’s refusing to take upon him the perpetual government of Israel, as being inconsistent with the theocracy.

Beside these superior judges, every city in the commonwealth had its elders, who formed a court of judicature, with a power of determining lesser matters in their respective districts. The rabbies say, there were three such elders or judges in each lesser city, and twenty-three in the greater. But Josephus, whose authority has greater weight, speaks of seven judges in each, without any such distinction of greater and less. Sigonius supposes that these elders and judges of cities were the original constitution settled in the wilderness by Moses, upon the advice given him by Jethro, Exod. xviii, 21, 22, and continued by divine appointment after the settlement in the land of Canaan; whereas others imagine that the Jethronian prefectures were a peculiar constitution, suited to their condition while encamped in the wilderness, but laid aside after they came into Canaan. It is certain, however, that there was a court of judges and officers, appointed in every city, by the law of Moses, Deut. xvi, 18. How far, and in what respects, these judges differed from the elders of the city, it is not easy to ascertain; and whether they were the same or different persons. Perhaps the title elders may denote their seniority and dignity; and that of judges, the office they sustained. The lower courts of justice, in their several cities, were held in their gates, Deut. xvi, 15. Each tribe had its respective prince, whose office related chiefly, if not altogether, to military affairs. We read also of the princes of the congregation, who presided in judiciary matters. These are called elders, and were seventy in number, Num. xi, 16, 17, 24, 25. But it does not appear whether or not this consistory of seventy elders was a perpetual, or only a temporary, institution. Some have supposed that it was the same that afterward became famous under the appellation of sanhedrim; but others conceive the institution of the seventy elders to have been only temporary, for the assistance of Moses in the government, before the settlement in the land of Canaan; and that the sanhedrim was first set up in the time of the Maccabees. See SANHEDRIM.

JUDGES, BOOK OF, a canonical book of the Old Testament, containing the history of the Israelitish judges, of whom we have been speaking in the preceding article. The author is not known. It is probable the work did not come from any single hand, being rather a collection of several little histories, which at first were separate, but were afterward collected by Ezra or Samuel into a single volume; and, in all likelihood, were taken from the ancient journals, annals, or memoirs, composed by the several judges. The antiquity of this book is unquestionable, as it must have been written before the time of David, since the description, Judges i, 21, was no longer true of Jerusalem after he had taken possession of it, and had introduced a third class of inhabitants of the tribe of Judah. Eichorn acknowledges that it does not bear the marks of subsequent interpolation. Dr. Patrick is of opinion that the five last chapters are a distinct history, in which the author gives an account of several memorable transactions, which occurred in or about the time of the judges; whose history he would not interrupt by intermixing these matters with it, and therefore reserved them to be related by themselves in the second part, or appendix.

JUDGMENT, DAY OF, is that important period which shall terminate the present dispensation of grace toward the fallen race of Adam, put an end to time, and introduce the eternal destinies of men and angels, Acts xvi, 31; 1 Cor. xv, 24–26; 1 Thess. iv, 14–17; Matt. xxv, 31–46. It is in reference to this solemn period that the Apostle Peter says, “The heavens and the earth which now exist are by the word of God reserved in store unto fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men,” 2 Peter iii, 7. Several eminent commentators understand this prophecy as a prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. In support of their interpretation, they appeal to the ancient Jewish prophecies, where, as they contend, the revolutions in the political state of empires and nations are foretold in the same forms of expression with those introduced in Peter’s prediction. The following are the prophecies to which they appeal:--Isaiah xxxiv, 4, where the destruction of Idumea is foretold under the figures of dissolving the host of heaven, and of rolling the heaven together as a scroll, and of the falling down of all their host as the leaf falleth off from the vine. Ezekiel xxxii, 7, where the destruction of Egypt is described by the figures of covering the heaven, and making the stars thereof dark; and of covering the sun with a cloud, and of hindering the moon from giving her light. In Joel ii, 10, the invasion of Judea by foreign armies is thus foretold: “The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” And in verses 30, 31, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is thus predicted: “I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” God, threatening the Jews, is introduced saying, “In that day I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day,” Amos viii, 9. The overthrow of Judaism and Heathenism is thus foretold: “Yet once and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land,” Haggai ii, 6. Lastly: our Lord, in his prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, has the following expressions: “After the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken,” Matt. xxiv, 29.

Now it is remarkable that, in these prophecies, none of the prophets have spoken, as Peter has done, of the entire destruction of this mundane system, nor of the destruction of any part thereof. They mention only the rolling of the heavens together as a scroll, the obscuring of the light of the sun and of the moon, the shaking of the heavens and the earth, and the falling down of the stars: whereas Peter speaks of the utter destruction of all the parts of this mundane system by fire. This difference affords room for believing that the events foretold by the prophets are different in their nature from those foretold by the Apostle; and that they are to be figuratively understood, while those predicted by the Apostle are to be understood literally. To this conclusion, likewise, the phraseology of the prophets, compared with that of the Apostle, evidently leads: for the prophetic phraseology, literally interpreted, exhibits impossibilities; such as the rolling of the heavens together as a scroll; the turning of the moon into blood, and the falling down of the stars from heaven as the leaf of a tree. Not so the apostolic phraseology: for the burning of the heavens, or atmosphere, and its passing away with a great noise; and the burning of the earth and the works thereon, together with the burning and melting of the elements, that is, the constituent parts of which this terraqueous globe is composed; are all things possible, and therefore may be literally understood; while the things mentioned by the prophets can only be taken figuratively. This, however, is not all. There are things in the Apostle’s prophecy which show that he intended it to be taken literally. As, 1. He begins with an account of the perishing of the old world, to demonstrate against the scoffers the possibility of the perishing of the present heavens and earth. But that example would not have suited his purpose; unless, by the burning of the present heavens and earth, he had meant the destruction of the material fabric. Wherefore, the opposition stated in this prophecy between the perishing of the old world by water, and the perishing of the present world by fire, shows that the latter is to be as real a destruction of the material fabric as the former was. 2. The circumstance of the present heavens and earth being treasured up and kept, ever since the first deluge, from all after deluges, in order to their being destroyed by fire at the day of judgment, shows, we think, that the Apostle is speaking of a real, and not of a metaphorical, destruction of the heavens and earth. 3. This appears, likewise, from the Apostle’s foretelling that, after the present heavens and earth are burned, new heavens and a new earth are to appear, in which the righteous are for ever to dwell. 4. The time fixed by the Apostle for the burning of the heavens and the earth, namely, the day of judgment and punishment of ungodly men, shows that the Apostle is speaking, not of the destruction of a single city or nation during the subsistence of the world, but of the earth itself, with all the wicked who have dwelt thereon. These circumstances persuade us that this prophecy, as well as the one recorded, 2 Thess. i, 9, is not to be interpreted metaphorically of the destruction of Jerusalem; but should be understood literally of the general judgment, and of the destruction of our mundane system.

But “it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment.” These two events are inseparably linked together in the divine decree, and they reciprocally reflect importance on each other. Death is, indeed, the terror of our nature. Men may contrive to keep it from their thoughts, but they cannot think of it without fearful apprehensions of its consequences. It was justly to be dreaded by man in his state of innocence; and to the unrenewed man it ever was, and ever will be, a just object of abhorrence. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has brought life and immortality to light, is the only sovereign antidote against this universal evil. To the believer in Christ, its rough aspect is smoothed, and its terrors cease to be alarming. To him it is the messenger of peace; its sting is plucked out; its dark valley is the road to perfect bliss and life immortal. To him, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” Phil. i, 21. To die! speaking properly, he cannot die. He has already died in Christ, and with him: his “life is hid with Christ in God,” Romans vi, 8; Col. iii, 3.

With this conquest of the fear of death is nearly allied another glorious privilege resulting from union with the Redeemer; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and “not be ashamed before him at his coming,” 1 John ii, 28. Were death all that we have to dread, death might be braved. But after death there is a judgment; a judgment attended with circumstances so tremendous as to shake the hearts of the boldest of the sons of nature. Then “men shall seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them,” Rev. ix, 6. Then shall come indeed an awful day; a day to which all that have preceded it are intended to be subservient; when the Lord shall appear in the united splendour of creating, of governing, and of judicial majesty, to finish his purposes respecting man and earth, and to pronounce the final, irreversible sentence, “It is done!” Rev. xxi, 6. Nothing of terror or magnificence hitherto beheld,--no glory of the rising sun after a night of darkness and of storm,--no convulsions of the earth,--no wide irruption of waters,--no flaming comet dragging its burning train over half the heaven, can convey to us an adequate conception of that day of terrible brightness and irresistible devastation. Creation then shall be uncreated. “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up,” 2 Peter iii, 10. The Lord shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, 2 Thess. i, 7, 8, arrayed in all the glory of his Godhead, and attended by his mighty angels, Matt. xvi, 27; xxv, 31. All that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, John v, 28, 29. Earth and sea shall give up the dead which are in them. All that ever lived shall appear before him, Rev. xx, 12, 13. The judgment shall sit; and the books shall be opened, Dan. vii, 10. The eye of Omniscience detects every concealment by which they would screen from observation themselves, or their iniquity. The last reluctant sinner is finally separated from the congregation of the righteous, Psalm i, 5; and inflexible justice, so often disregarded, derided, and defied, gives forth their eternal doom! But to the saints this shall be a day of glory and honour. They shall be publicly acknowledged by God as his people; publicly justified from the slanders of the world; invested with immortal bodies; presented by Christ to the Father; and admitted into the highest felicity in the immediate presence of God for ever. These are the elevating, the transporting views, which made the Apostle Paul speak with so much desire and earnest expectation of the “day of Christ.”

JUSTICE is in Scripture taken for that essential perfection in God, whereby he is infinitely righteous and just, both in himself and in all his proceedings with his creatures, Psalm lxxxix, 14. 2. That political virtue which renders to every man his due; and is first, distributive, which concerns princes, magistrates, &c, Job xxix, 14; secondly, communicative, which concerns all persons in their dealings one with another, Gen. xviii, 19.

JUSTICE, ADMINISTRATION OF. According to the Mosaic law, there were to be judges in all the cities, whose duty it was likewise to exercise judicial authority in the neighbouring villages; but weighty causes and appeals went up to the supreme judge or ruler of the commonwealth, and, in case of a failure here, to the high priest, Deut. xvii, 8, 9. In the time of the monarchy, weighty causes and appeals went up, of course, to the king, who, in very difficult cases, seems to have consulted the high priest, as is customary at the present day among the Persians and Ottomans. The judicial establishment was reorganized after the captivity, and two classes of judges, the inferior and superior, were appointed, Ezra vii, 25. The more difficult cases, nevertheless, and appeals, were either brought before the ruler of the state, called פחה, or before the high priest; until, in the age of the Maccabees, a supreme, judicial tribunal was instituted, which is first mentioned under Hyrcanus II. This tribunal is not to be confounded with the seventy-two counsellors, who were appointed to assist Moses in the civil administration of the government, but who never filled the office of judges. See SANHEDRIM.

Josephus states, that in every city there was a tribunal of seven judges, with two Levites as apparitors, and that it was a Mosaic institution. That there existed such an institution in his time, there is no reason to doubt, but he probably erred in referring its origin to so early a period as the days of Moses. (See Judges.) This tribunal, which decided causes of less moment, is denominated in the New Testament κρίσις, or the judgment, Matt. v, 22. The Talmudists mention a tribunal of twenty-three judges, and another of three judges; but Josephus is silent in respect to them. The courts of twenty-three judges were the same with the synagogue tribunals, mentioned in John xvi, 2; which merely tried questions of a religious nature, and sentenced to no other punishment than “forty stripes save one,” 2 Cor. xi, 24. The court of three judges was merely a session of referees, which was allowed to the Jews by the Roman laws; for the Talmudists themselves, in describing this court, go on to observe, that one judge was chosen by the accuser, another by the accused, and a third by the two parties conjunctly; which shows at once the nature of the tribunal.

The time at which courts were held, and causes were brought before them for trial, was in the morning, Jer. xxi, 12; Psalm ci, 8. According to the Talmudists, it was not lawful to try causes of a capital nature in the night; and it was equally unlawful to examine a cause, pass sentence, and put it in execution on the same day. The last particular was very strenuously insisted on. It is worthy of remark, that all of these practices, which were observed in other trials, were neglected in the tumultuous trial of Jesus, Matt. xxvi, 57; John xviii, 13–18. The places for judicial trials were in very ancient times the gates of cities, which were well adapted to this purpose. (See Gates.) Originally, trials were every where very summary, excepting in Egypt; where the accuser committed the charge to writing, the accused replied in writing, the accuser repeated the charge, and the accused answered again, &c, Job xiv, 17. It was customary in Egypt for the judge to have the code of laws placed before him, a practice which still prevails in the east. Moses interdicted, in the most express and decided manner, gifts or bribes, which were intended to corrupt the judges, Exod. xxii, 20, 21; xxiii, 1–9; Lev. xix, 15; Deut. xxiv, 14, 15. Moses also, by legal precautions, prevented capital punishments, and corporal punishments which were not capital, from being extended, as was done in other nations, both to parents and their children, and thus involving the innocent and the guilty in that misery which was justly due only to the latter, Exod. xxiii, 7; Deut. xxiv, 16; Dan. vi, 24.

The ceremonies which were observed in conducting a judicial trial, were as follows: 1. The accuser and the accused both made their appearance before the judge or judges, Deut. xxv, 1, who sat with legs crossed upon the floor, which was furnished for their accommodation with carpet and cushions. A secretary was present, at least in more modern times, who wrote down the sentence, and, indeed, every thing in relation to the trial; for instance, the articles of agreement that might be entered into previous to the commencement of the judicial proceedings, Isaiah x, 1, 2; Jer. xxxii, 1–14. The Jews assert that there were two secretaries, the one being seated to the right of the judge, who wrote the sentence of not guilty, the other to the left, who wrote the sentence of condemnation, Matt. xxv, 33–46. That an apparitor or beadle was present, is apparent from other sources. 2. The accuser was denominated in Hebrew שטן, or the adversary, Zech. iii, 1–3; Psalm cix, 6. The judge or judges were seated, but both of the parties implicated stood up, the accuser standing to the right hand of the accused: the latter, at least after the captivity, when the cause was one of great consequence, appeared with hair dishevelled, and in a garment of mourning. 3. The witnesses were sworn, and, in capital cases, the parties concerned, 1 Sam. xiv, 37–40; Matt. xxvi, 63. In order to establish the charges alleged, two witnesses were necessary, and, including the accuser, three. The witnesses were examined separately, but the person accused had the liberty to be present when their testimony was given in, Num. xxxv, 30; Deut. xvii, 1–15; Matt. xxvi, 59. Proofs might be brought from other sources; for instance, from written contracts, or from papers in evidence of any thing purchased or sold, of which there were commonly taken two copies, the one to be sealed, the other to be left open, as was customary in the time of Jerom, Jer. xxxii, 10–13. 4. The parties sometimes, as may be inferred from Prov. xviii, 18, made use of the lot in determining the points of difficulty between them, but not without a mutual agreement. The sacred lot of Urim and Thummim was anciently resorted to, in order to detect the guilty, Joshua vii, 14–24; 1 Sam. xiv; but the determination of a case of right or wrong in this way was not commanded by Moses. 5. The sentence, very soon after the completion of the examination, was pronounced; and the criminal, without any delay, even if the offence were a capital one, was hastened away to the place of punishment, Joshua vii, 22, &c; 1 Sam. xxii, 18; 1 Kings ii, 23.

A few additional remarks will cast some light upon some passages of Scripture: the station of the accused was in an eminent place in the court, that the people might see them, and hear what was alleged against them, and the proofs of it, together with the defence made by the criminals. This explains the reason of the remark by the Evangelist Matthew, concerning the posture of our Lord at his trial: “Jesus stood before the governor;” and that, in a mock trial, many ages before the birth of Christ, in which some attention was also paid to public forms, Naboth was set on high among the people, 1 Kings xxi, 9. The accusers and the witnesses also stood, unless they were allowed to sit by the indulgence of the judges, when they stated the accusation, or gave their testimony. To this custom of the accusers rising from their seats, when called by the court to read the indictment, our Lord alludes in his answer to the scribes and Pharisees, who expressed a wish to see him perform some miracle: “The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it,” Matt. xii, 42. According to this rule, which seems to have been invariably observed, the Jews who accused the Apostle Paul at the bar of Festus the Roman governor, “stood round about,” while they stated the crimes which they had to lay to his charge, Acts xxv, 7. They were compelled to stand as well as the prisoner, by the established usage of the courts of justice in the east. The Romans often put criminals to the question, or endeavoured to extort a confession from them by torture. Agreeably to this cruel and unjust custom, “the chief captain commanded Paul to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging,” Acts xxii, 24. It was usual, especially among the Romans, when a man was charged with a capital crime, and during his arraignment, to let down his hair, suffer his beard to grow long, to wear filthy, ragged garments, and appear in a very dirty and sordid habit; on account of which they were called sordidati. When the person accused was brought into court to be tried, even his near relations, friends, and acquaintances, before the court voted, appeared with dishevelled hair, and clothed with garments foul and out of fashion, weeping, crying, and deprecating punishment. The accused sometimes appeared before the judges clothed in black, and his head covered with dust. In allusion to this ancient custom, the Prophet Zechariah represents Joshua, the high priest, when he appeared before the Lord, and Satan stood at his right hand to accuse him, as clothed with filthy garments, Zech. iii, 3. After the cause was carefully examined, and all parties impartially heard, the public crier, by command of the presiding magistrate, ordered the judges to bring in their verdict. The most ancient way of giving sentence, was by white and black sea shells, or pebbles. This custom has been mentioned by Ovid in these lines:--

_Mos erat antiquis, niveis atrisque lapillis, His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpa._

“It was a custom among the ancients, to give their votes by white or black stones; with these they condemned the guilty, with those acquitted the innocent.” In allusion to this ancient custom, our Lord promises to give the spiritual conqueror “a white stone,” Rev. ii, 17; the white stone of absolution or approbation. When sentence of condemnation was pronounced, if the case was capital, the witnesses put their hands on the head of the criminal, and said, “Thy blood be upon thine own head.” To this custom the Jews alluded, when they cried out at the trial of Christ, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Then was the malefactor led to execution, and none were allowed openly to lament his misfortune. His hands were secured with cords, and his feet with fetters; a custom which furnished David with an affecting allusion, in his lamentation over the dust of Abner: “Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put in fetters,” 2 Sam. iii, 34; that is, he was put treacherously to death, without form of justice.

2. Executions in the east are often very prompt and arbitrary, when resulting from royal authority. In many cases the suspicion is no sooner entertained, or the cause of offence given, than the fatal order is issued; the messenger of death hurries to the unsuspecting victim, shows his warrant, and executes his orders that instant in silence and solitude. Instances of this kind are continually occurring in the Turkish and Persian histories. When the enemies of a great man among the Turks have gained influence enough over the prince to procure a warrant for his death, a capidgi, the name of the officer who executes these orders, is sent to him, who shows him the order he has received to carry back his head; the other takes the warrant of the grand signior, kisses it, puts it on his head in token of respect, and then, having performed his ablutions and said his prayers, freely resigns his life. The capidgi, having strangled him, cuts off his head, and brings it to Constantinople. The grand signior’s order is implicitly obeyed; the servants of the victim never attempt to hinder the executioner, although these capidgis come very often with few or no attendants. It appears from the writings of Chardin, that the nobility and grandees of Persia are put to death in a manner equally silent, hasty, and unobstructed. Such executions were not uncommon among the Jews under the government of their kings. Solomon sent Benaiah as his capidgi, or executioner, to put Adonijah, a prince of his own family, to death; and Joab, the commander-in-chief of the forces in the reign of his father. A capidgi likewise beheaded John the Baptist in prison, and carried his head to the court of Herod. To such silent and hasty executioners the royal preacher seems to refer in that proverb, “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death; but a wise man will pacify it,” Prov. xvi, 14: his displeasure exposes the unhappy offender to immediate death, and may fill the unsuspecting bosom with terror and dismay, like the appearance of a capidgi; but by wise and prudent conduct a man may sometimes escape the danger. From the dreadful promptitude with which Benaiah executed the commands of Solomon on Adonijah and Joab, it may be concluded that the executioner of the court was as little ceremonious, and the ancient Jews, under their kings, nearly as passive, as the Turks or Persians. The Prophet Elisha is the only person on the inspired record who ventured to resist the bloody mandate of the sovereign; the incident is recorded in these terms: “But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him; but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? Look ye, when the messenger cometh, shut the door and hold him fast at the door; is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” 2 Kings vi, 32. But if such mandates had not been too common among the Jews, and in general submitted to without resistance, Jehoram had scarcely ventured to despatch a single messenger to take away the life of so eminent a person as Elisha.

Criminals were at other times executed in public; and then commonly without the city. To such executions without the gate, the Psalmist undoubtedly refers in this complaint: “The dead bodies of thy saints have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven; the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth; their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them,” Psalm lxxix, 2, 3. The last clause admits of two senses: 1. There was no friend or relation left to bury them. 2. None were allowed to perform this last office. The despotism of eastern princes often proceeds to a degree of extravagance which is apt to fill the mind with astonishment and horror. It has been thought, from time immemorial, highly criminal to bury those who had lost their lives by the hand of an executioner, without permission. In Morocco, no person dares to bury the body of a malefactor without an order from the emperor; and Windus, who visited that country, speaking of a man who was sawn in two, informs us, that his body must have remained to be eaten by the dogs if the emperor had not pardoned him; an extravagant custom to pardon a man after he is dead; but unless he does so, no person dares bury the body. To such a degree of savage barbarity it is probable the enemies of God’s people carried their opposition, that no person dared to bury the dead bodies of their innocent victims.

In ancient times, persons of the highest rank and station were employed to execute the sentence of the law. They had not then, as we have at present, public executioners; but the prince laid his commands on any of his courtiers whom he chose, and probably selected the person for whom he had the greatest favour. Gideon commanded Jether, his eldest son, to execute his sentence on the kings of Midian; the king of Israel ordered the footmen who stood around him, and who were probably a chosen body of soldiers for the defence of his person, to put to death the priests of the Lord; and when they refused, Doeg, an Edomite, one of his principal officers. Long after the days of Saul, the reigning monarch commanded Benaiah, the chief captain of his armies, to perform that duty. Sometimes the chief magistrate executed the sentence of the law with his own hands; for when Jether shrunk from the duty which his father required, Gideon, at that time the supreme magistrate in Israel, did not hesitate to do it himself. In these times such a command would be reckoned equally barbarous and unbecoming; but the ideas which were entertained in those primitive ages of honour and propriety, were in many respects extremely different from ours. In Homer, the exasperated Ulysses commanded his son Telemachus to put to death the suitors of Penelope, which was immediately done. The custom of employing persons of high rank to execute the sentence of the law, is still retained in the principality of Senaar, where the public executioner is one of the principal nobility; and, by virtue of his office, resides in the royal palace.

JUSTIFICATION, in common language, signifies a vindication from any charge which affects the moral character; but in theology it is used for the acceptance of one, by God, who is, and confesses himself to be, guilty. To justify a sinner, says Mr. Bunting, in an able sermon on this important subject, is to account and consider him relatively righteous; and to deal with him as such, notwithstanding his past actual unrighteousness, by clearing, absolving, discharging, and releasing him from various penal evils, and especially from the wrath of God, and the liability to eternal death, which, by that past unrighteousness, he had deserved; and by accepting him as if just, and admitting him to the state, the privileges, and the rewards of righteousness. Hence it appears that justification, and the remission or forgiveness of sin, are substantially the same thing. These expressions relate to one and the same act of God, to one and the same privilege of his believing people. Accordingly, St. Paul clearly uses justification and forgiveness as synonymous terms, when he says, “Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses,” Acts xiii, 38, 39. Also in the following passage: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin,” Rom. iv, 5–8. Here, the justification of the ungodly, the counting or imputation of righteousness, the forgiveness of iniquity, and the covering and non-imputation of sin, are phrases which have all, perhaps, their various shades of meaning, but which express the very same blessing under different views. But (1.) the justification of a sinner does not in the least degree alter or diminish the evil nature and desert of sin. For we know “it is God,” the holy God, “that justifieth.” And he can never regard sin, on any consideration, or under any circumstances, with less than perfect and infinite hatred. Sin, therefore, is not changed in its nature, so as to be made less “exceedingly sinful,” or less worthy of wrath, by the pardon of the sinner. The penalty is remitted, and the obligation to suffer that penalty is dissolved; but it is still naturally due, though graciously remitted. Hence appear the propriety and duty of continuing to confess and lament even pardoned sin with a lowly and contrite heart. Though released from its penal consequences by an act of divine clemency, we should still remember that the dust of self-abasement is our proper place before God, and should temper our exultation in his mercy by an humbling recollection of our natural liability to his wrath. “I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: that thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God,” Ezek. xvi, 62, 63. (2.) The account which has been given of justification, if correct, sufficiently points out the error of many of the Roman Catholic divines, and of some mystic theologians, who seem to suppose that to be justified is to be, not reckoned righteous, but actually made righteous, by the infusion of a sanctifying influence, producing a positive and inherent conformity to the moral image of God. This notion confounds the two distinct though kindred blessings of justification and regeneration. The former, in its Scriptural sense, is an act of God, not in or upon man, but for him, and in his favour; an act which, abstractedly considered, to use the words of Dr. Barrow, “respects man only as its object, and translates him into another relative state. The inherent principle of righteousness is a consequent of this act of God; connected with it, but not formally of it.” (3.) The justification extends to all past sins; that is, to all guilt contracted previously to that time at which the act of justification takes place. In respect of this, it is, while it remains in force, a most full, perfect, and entire absolution from wrath. “All manner of sin” is then forgiven. The pardon which is granted is a “justification,” not merely from some things, from many things, from most things, but “from all things,” Acts xiii, 39. God does not justify us, or pardon our innumerable offences, by degrees, but at once. As by the law of works he is cursed, who “continueth not in all things” which that law enjoined, so he who is truly absolved by the Gospel is cleared from all and every thing which before stood against him; and “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” Well may that Gospel which reveals and offers such a benefit be termed a “great salvation!” (4.) Another remark, which it may not be unnecessary to make, is, that justification, however effectual to our release from past guilt, does not terminate our state of probation. It is not irreversible, any more than eternal. As he who is now justified was once condemned, so he may in future come again into condemnation, by relapsing into sin and unbelief, although at present “accepted in the Beloved.” Thus Adam, before transgression, was in a state of favour; but as he had not then fulfilled, to the end of his probation, the righteousness of that law under which he was placed, his ultimate and final acceptance was not absolutely certain. His privilege, as one accepted of God, might be forfeited, and was actually forfeited, by his subsequent sin. Now our own justification or pardon only places us, as to this point, in similar circumstances. Though ever so clearly and fully forgiven, we are yet on our trial for eternity, and should “look to ourselves, that we lose not the things which we have gained.” That justification may for our sin be reversed, appears from our Lord’s parable of the two debtors, in which one who had obtained the blessing of forgiveness is represented as incurring the forfeiture of it by the indulgence of an unforgiving spirit toward his fellow servant, Matt. xviii, 23–35. Let us therefore “watch and pray, that we enter not into temptation.”

2. The immediate results of justification are (1.) The restoration of amity and intercourse between the pardoned sinner and the pardoning God. For, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God,” and, consequently, unforbidden access to him. The matter and ground of God’s controversy with us being then removed by his act of gracious absolution, we become the objects of his friendship. “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness; and he was” immediately “called the friend of God,” Jas. ii, 23; and so are all those who are similarly justified. This reconciliation, however, does not extend to their instant and absolute deliverance from all those evils which transgression has entailed on man. They are still liable, for a season, to affliction and pain, to temporal suffering and mortality. These are portions of the original curse from which their justification does not as yet release them. But it entitles them to such supports under all remaining trouble, and to such promises of a sanctifying influence with it, as will, if embraced, “turn the curse into a blessing.” Whom the Lord loveth, he may still chasten, and in very faithfulness afflict them. But these are acts of salutary discipline, rather than of vindictive displeasure. His friendship, not his righteous hostility, is the principle from which they all proceed; and the salvation, not the destruction, of the sufferer is the end to which they are all directed. (2.) Another immediate result of justification is the adoption of the persons justified into the family of God, and their consequent right to eternal life of body and soul. God condescends to become not only their Friend, but their Father; they are the objects not merely of his amicable regard, but of his paternal tenderness. And, admitted to the relation of children, they become entitled to the children’s inheritance; for, “if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together,” Rom. viii, 17. (3.) With these results of justification is inseparably connected another, of the utmost value and importance; namely, the habitual indwelling of the Holy Spirit. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,” Gal. iii, 13, 14. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,” Gal. iv, 6. With the remission of sins, St. Peter also connects, as an immediate result, as a distinct but yet a simultaneous blessing, “the gift of the Holy Ghost,” Acts ii, 38. And in the fifth verse of this chapter, the Holy Ghost is said to be given to those who are justified by faith. Of this indwelling the immediate effects are, (i.) Tranquillity of conscience. For he testifies and manifests to those in whom he dwells their free justification and gracious adoption. The spirit which such persons have received is “not the spirit of bondage to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God,” Rom. viii, 15, 16. (ii.) Power over sin; a prevailing desire and ability to walk before God in holy obedience. No sooner is the Holy Spirit enthroned in the heart, than he begins to make all things new. In his genuine work, purity is always connected with consolation. Those to whom he witnesses their freedom from condemnation he also enables to “walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” Rom. viii, 1. (iii.) A joyous hope of heaven. Their title results from the fact of their adoption; their power to rejoice in hope, from the Spirit’s testimony of that fact. “We, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith,” and “abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost,” Gal. v, 5; Rom. xv, 13.

3. To have a complete view of the method by which justification and all its consequent blessings are attained, we must consider the originating, the meritorious, and the instrumental cause of justification. (1.) The originating cause is the grace, the free, undeserved, and spontaneous love of God toward fallen man. He remembered and pitied us in our low estate; for his mercy endureth for ever. “After that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. The grace of God bringeth salvation,” Titus ii, 11; iii, 4, 5. We are “justified freely by his grace,” Rom. iii, 24. But God is wise, and holy, and just, as well as merciful and gracious. And his wisdom determined, that, in order to reconcile the designs of his mercy toward sinners with the claims of his purity and justice, those designs should be accomplished only through the intervention of a divine Redeemer. We are justified “through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Rom. i, 5. (2.) Our Lord Jesus Christ is the sole meritorious cause of our justification. All he did and all he suffered in his mediatorial character may be said to have contributed to this great purpose. For what he did, in obedience to the precepts of the law, and what he suffered, in satisfaction of its penalty, taken together, constitute that mediatorial righteousness, for the sake of which the Father is ever well pleased in him. Now, in this mediatorial righteousness all who are justified have a saving interest. It is not meant that it is personally imputed to them in its formal nature or distinct acts; for against any such imputation there lie insuperable objections both from reason and from Scripture. But the collective merit and moral effects of all which the Mediator did and suffered are so reckoned to our account when we are justified, that, for the sake of Christ and in consideration of his obedience unto death, we are released from guilt, and accepted of God. From this statement of the meritorious cause of justification, it appears that while our pardon is, in its origin, an act of the highest grace, it is also, in its mode, an act most perfectly consistent with God’s essential righteousness, and demonstrative of his inviolable justice. It proceeds not on the principle of abolishing the law or its penalty; for that would have implied that the law was unduly rigorous, either in its precepts or in its sanctions. But it rests on the ground that the law has been magnified and vindicated, and that its penalty, or sufferings, which were fully equivalent to that penalty in a moral view, when the dignity of the sufferer is considered, have been sustained by our voluntary Substitute. Thus “grace reigns through righteousness,” not at the expense of righteousness. “Now, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus,” Romans iii, 21–26. (3.) As to the instrumental cause of justification, the merit of the blood of Jesus does not operate necessarily so as to produce our pardon as an immediate and unavoidable effect, but through the instrumentality of faith. The faith by which we are justified is present faith, faith actually existing and exercised. We are not justified by to-morrow’s faith foreseen; for that would lead to the Antinomian notion of justification from eternity, a notion which to mention is to confute. We are not justified by yesterday’s faith recorded or remembered; for that would imply the opinion that justification is irreversible. The justification offered in the Scriptures is a justification upon believing, in which we are never savingly interested until we believe, and which continues in force only so long as we continue to believe. On all unbelievers the wrath of God abides. The atonement of Jesus was indeed accepted, as from him, at the time when it was offered; but it is not accepted, as for us, to our individual justification, until we individually believe, nor after we cease to believe. The OBJECT of justifying faith may be inferred from what has been before said, as to the originating and meritorious causes of justification. It has respect, in general, to all that Christ is set forth in the Gospel as doing or suffering, by the gracious appointment of the Father, in order to our redemption and pardon. But it has respect, in particular, to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, as exhibited by divine authority in the Scriptures, and as attested to be acceptable and sufficient by his resurrection from the dead, and by his mediatorial exaltation at the right hand of God. The acts or exercises of this faith seem to be three; or rather, that faith which is required in order to our justification is a complex act of the mind, which includes three distinct but concurrent exertions of its powers. It includes, (1.) The assent of the understanding to the truth of the testimony of God in the Gospel; and especially to that part of it which concerns the design and efficacy of the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. (2.) The consent of the will and affections to this plan of salvation; such an approbation and choice of it as imply a renunciation of every other refuge, and a steady and decided preference of this. Unbelief is called a disallowing of the foundation laid in Zion; whereas faith includes a hearty allowance of it, and a thankful acquiescence in God’s revealed method of forgiveness. (3.) From this assent of the enlightened understanding, and consent of the rectified will, to the evangelical testimony concerning Christ crucified, results the third thing, which is supposed to be implied in justifying faith; namely, actual trust in the Saviour, and personal apprehension of his merits. When, under the promised leading and influence of the Holy Ghost, the penitent, sinner thus confidently relies and individually lays hold on Christ, then the work of justifying faith is complete; then, and not till then, he is immediately justified. On the whole, it may be said that the faith to which the privilege of justification is annexed, is such a belief of the Gospel, by the power of the Spirit of God, as leads us to come to Christ, to receive Christ, to trust in Christ, and to commit the keeping of our souls into his hands, in humble confidence of his ability and his willingness to save us.

The grand doctrine of the Reformation was that of justification by faith, and was therefore held by all the Lutheran and Reformed churches. The Papists assert that man’s inherent righteousness is the meritorious cause of his justification; many Protestant divines have endeavoured to unite the two, and have held that men are justified by faith and good works; and others have equally departed from the opinions of the earliest reformers on the subject of justification, in representing it as resulting from the imputation of Christ’s active and passive righteousness to those that believe, instead of confining the imputation to the moral consequence and effect of both. In other words, that which is reckoned to us in our justification for righteousness is our faith in Christ’s merits, and that not because of any intrinsic value in faith; but only for the sake of those merits. In a mere moral sense man’s sin or righteousness is imputed to him, when he is considered as actually the doer of sinful or of righteous acts. A man’s sin or righteousness is imputed to him in its legal consequence, under a government of rewards and punishments; and then to impute sin or righteousness signifies, in a legal sense, to reckon and to account it, to acquit or condemn, and forthwith to punish, or to exempt from punishment. Thus Shimei entreats David, that he would “not impute folly to him,” that is, that he would not punish his folly. In this sense, too, David speaks of the blessedness of the man whose “transgression is forgiven,” and to whom the Lord “imputeth not sin,” that is, whom he forgives, so that the legal consequence of his sin shall not fall upon him. This non-imputation of sin, to a sinner, is expressly called the “imputation of righteousness, without works;” the imputation of righteousness is, then, the non-punishment, or the pardon of sin; and if this passage be read in its connection, it will also be seen, that by “imputing” faith for righteousness, the Apostle means precisely the same thing: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness; even as David also describeth the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin.” This quotation from David would have been nothing to the Apostle’s purpose, unless he had understood the forgiveness of sins, and the imputation of righteousness, and the non-imputation of sin, to signify the same thing as “counting faith for righteousness,” with only this difference, that the introduction of the term “faith” marks the manner in which the forgiveness of sin is obtained. To have faith imputed for righteousness, is nothing more than to be justified by faith, which is also called by St. Paul, “being made righteous,” that is, being placed by an act of free forgiveness, through faith in Christ, in the condition of righteous men, in this respect, that the penalty of the law does not lie against them, and that they are the acknowledged objects of the divine favour. See FAITH.

KADESH-BARNEA, a station of the Israelites, to which they returned again after thirty-eight years, is said to be in the wilderness of Zin, Num. xiii, 21; xx, 1; Deut. xxxii, 51; but in the wilderness of Paran, Num. xii, 16. In the Itinerary it is simply called Rithmah, “the wilderness.” Dr. Hales observes, that Wells, Shaw, the authors of the “Universal History,” &c, have greatly perplexed and obscured the geography of this Itinerary, by supposing that there were two places of this name distinct from each other. They consider the latter of them as situated on the western side of Mount Hor, toward the land of Canaan, and thus confound it with that Kadesh in the land of the Philistines, where Abraham sojourned, Gen. xvi, 13; xx, 1. But that it lay on the east side of Mount Hor, is evident; for why should Moses send messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, requesting permission to pass through his territories in the way to Canaan, if they were already at the verge of Palestine, Num. xx, 14? This application, however, was necessary if his territories were situated between Canaan and the Israelites. The true situation of Kadesh is ascertained beyond a doubt, from its lying between Mount Hor and Ezion-Geber, on the Elanitic Gulf, Num. xxxiii, 35–37.

KADMONITES, ancient inhabitants of the land of Canaan, whose habitation was beyond Jordan, to the east of Phenicia, Gen. xv, 19. The Kadmonites were descended from Canaan, the son of Ham. It has been conjectured that the celebrated Cadmus, the founder of Thebes in Bœotia, was originally a Kadmonite; and that his wife, Hermione, was so named from Mount Hermon.

KEDAR. This name signifies black in the original; and hence Bochart concludes that it refers to a people or tribe of Arabs who were more than others burned by the sun; but none of the Arabs are black. The name is also supposed to refer to the black tents made of felt, which are still in use; and Cant. i, 5, is quoted in support of this usage of the word: “I am black, but comely as the tents of Kedar.” But the Arabic root is by some said to signify power and dignity. Kedar was the second son of Ishmael, whose family probably became more numerous, or more warlike, than those of his brethren, and so took precedence of name. This latter supposition appears probable from the manner in which they are mentioned by Isaiah, xxi, 16, 17, who speaks of “the glory of Kedar,” and “the archers and mighty men of Kedar.” Their flocks are also spoken of by the same Prophet, Isaiah lx, 7, together with those of Nebaioth, whose tribe or family both shared and outlived the glory of Kedar.

KEDRON, a small brook which, rising near Jerusalem, runs through the valley on the east of the city, between it and the Mount of Olives. Descending into the valley from St. Stephen’s gate, the traveller comes to the bed of the brook Kedron, which is but a few paces over. This brook is stated by Pococke to have its rise a little way farther to the north, but its source does not appear to have been ascertained. Like the Ilissus, it is dry at least nine months in the year; its bed is narrow and deep, which indicates that it must formerly have been the channel for waters that have found some other and probably subterranean course. There is now no water in it, except after heavy rains. A bridge is thrown over it a little below the gate of St. Stephen; and they say, that when there is water, unless the torrent swells much, which very rarely occurs, it all runs under ground to the north of this bridge. The course of the brook is along the valley of Jehoshaphat, to the south-west corner of the city, and then turning to the south, it runs to the Dead Sea.

KENITES, people who dwelt westward of the Dead Sea, and extended themselves pretty far into Arabia Petræa; for Jethro, the priest of Midian, and father-in-law to Moses, was a Kenite, Judges i, 16; 1 Chron. ii, 55; 1 Sam. xv, 6. When Saul was sent to destroy the Amalekites, the Kenites, who had joined them, perhaps by compulsion, were ordered to depart from them, that they might not share in their fate; and the reason assigned was, that they “showed kindness to the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt,” 1 Sam. xv, 6. Which, according to the margin of our Bible, is to be understood of the father-in-law of Moses and his family. From the story of Jethro, who is expressly said to be a Midianite, they appear to have retained the worship of the true God among them; for which, and their kindness to the Israelites when passing their country, they were spared in the general destruction of the nations bordering on Canaan. Of these Kenites were the Rechabites, the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and the Suchathites, mentioned in 1 Chron. ii, 55, whose chief office was that of scribes. (See Rechabites.) Balaam, when invited by Balak, king of Moab, to curse Israel, stood upon a mountain, whence he addressed the Kenites, and said, “Strong is thy dwelling place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock; nevertheless, the Kenite shall be wasted until Ashur shall carry thee away captive,” Num. xxiv, 21, 22. The Kenites dwelt in mountains and rocks almost inaccessible. They were conquered and carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. After Saul the Kenites are not mentioned; but they subsisted, being mingled among the Edomites and other nations of Arabia Petræa.

KENIZZITES, an ancient people of Canaan, whose land God promised to the descendants of Abraham, Gen. xv, 19. It is thought that this people dwelt in the mountains south of Judea.

KETURAH, the name of Abraham’s second wife. Abraham married Keturah, when he was one hundred and forty years of age, and by her he had six sons, Zimram, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Some chronologers, as Bishop Clayton, Hallet, &c, thinking it improbable that Abraham should marry again at such an advanced age, have dislocated the chronology of this period, by supposing that Abraham took Keturah as a concubine, in consequence of his wife Sarah’s barrenness, even before he left Charran; and that Keturah’s children were among the souls born to him and Lot during their residence in that country. But it seems evident from the whole tenor of the history, that Abraham was childless until the birth of Ishmael, Gen. xv, 2, 3; that he had no other son than Ishmael when he received the promise of Isaac, Gen. xvii, 18; and that Isaac and Ishmael jointly, as his eldest sons, celebrated his funeral, Gen. xxv, 9. His second marriage, at the age of one hundred and forty years, shows his faith in the divine promise, that he should be “a father of many nations;” for which purpose his constitution might be miraculously renewed, as Sarah’s was. Beside, Abraham himself was born when his father Terah was one hundred and thirty years of age. Abraham settled the sons of Keturah in the east country of Arabia, near the residence of Ishmael.

KEY is frequently mentioned in Scripture, as well in a natural as in a figurative sense. The keys of the ancients were very different from ours; because their doors and trunks were closed generally with bands, and the key served only to loosen or fasten these bands in a certain manner. In a moral sense key has many significations: “And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder: so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open,” Isaiah xxii, 22,--he shall be grand master and principal officer of his prince’s house. Christ promises to St. Peter, that he should first open the gate of his kingdom, both to Jew and Gentile, in making the first converts among them, Matt. xvi, 19. It is observable that no supremacy is here given to St. Peter; as the power of binding and loosing belonged equally to all the Apostles, Matt. xviii, 18. The term binding and loosing was customarily applied by the Jews to a decision respecting doctrines or rites, establishing which were lawful and which unlawful. (See Bind.) And it may also denote, to bind with sickness, and to loose by restoring to health. Jesus Christ says that he has the key of death and hell, Rev. i, 18; that is, it is in his power to bring to the grave, or to deliver from it; to appoint to life or to death.

KIBROTH HATAAVAH, one of the encampments of the Israelites in the wilderness, Numbers xi, 34, 35.

KID, גדי, the young of the goat. Among the Hebrews the kid was reckoned a great delicacy; and appears to have been served for food in preference to the lamb. (See Goat.) It continues to be a choice dish in the neighbouring countries. “After drinking,” says Salt, “café à la Sultane, as it is termed by French writers, hookahs were offered to us; and soon afterward, to my great surprise, dinner was announced. We accordingly retired with the dola of Aden to another apartment, where a kid, broiled and cut into small pieces, with a quantity of pillaued rice, was served up to us, agreeably to the fashion of the country. No people in the world is more straitened than the Abyssinians with respect to the necessaries of life: a little juwarry bread, a small quantity of fish, an adequate supply of goat’s and camel’s milk, and a kid on very particular occasions, constitute the whole of their subsistence. As soon as we arrived at the village of Howakil, a very neat hut was prepared for me; and as the evening was far advanced, I consented to stay for the night. Nothing could exceed the kindness of these good people; a kid was killed, and a quantity of fresh milk was brought and presented in straw baskets made of the leaves of the doom tree, seared over with wax, a manufacture in which the natives of these islands particularly excel.” The village of Engedi, situate in the neighbourhood of Jericho, derives its name from the Hebrew word עין, a fountain, and גדי, a kid. It is suggested by the situation among lofty rocks, which, overhanging the valleys, are very precipitous. A fountain of pure water rises near the summit, which the inhabitants called Engedi, “the fountain of the goat,” because it is hardly accessible to any other creature.

KINGDOM, in Scripture, is a term of frequent occurrence, and variously applied. Thus we read of the kingdom of God, Psalm ciii, 19; Dan. iv, 3; or his universal empire and dominion over all creatures; in reference to which it is said, “Jehovah is a great God, and a great King above all gods,” Psalm xcv, 3. “His throne is established in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all.” Again: we frequently read in the evangelists of the kingdom of heaven; a phrase, says Dr. Campbell, in which there is a manifest allusion to the predictions in which the dispensation of the Messiah was revealed by the prophets in the Old Testament, particularly by Daniel, who mentions it as “a kingdom which the God of heaven would set up, and which should never be destroyed,” Dan. ii, 44. The same prophet also speaks of it as a kingdom to be given, with glory and dominion over all people, nations, and languages, to one like unto the Son of man, Dan. vii, 13, 14. And the Prophet Micah, speaking of the same era, represents it as a time when Jehovah, having removed all the afflictions of his people, would reign over them in Mount Zion thenceforth even for ever, Micah iv, 6, 7. According to the prophecy of Daniel, this kingdom was to take place during the existence of the Roman empire, the last of the four great monarchies that had succeeded each other, Dan. ii, 44. And as it was set up by the God of heaven, it is, in the New Testament, termed “the kingdom of God,” or “the kingdom of heaven.” It was typified by the Jewish theocracy, and declared to be at hand by John the Baptist, and by Christ and his Apostles also in the days of his flesh; but it did not come with power till Jesus rose from the dead and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, Acts ii, 32–37. Then was he most solemnly inaugurated, and proclaimed King of the New Testament church, amidst adoring myriads of attendant angels, and “the spirits of just men made perfect.” Then were fulfilled the words of Jehovah by the Psalmist David, “I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion,” Psalm ii, 6. This is that spiritual empire to which he himself referred when interrogated before Pontius Pilate, and in reference to which he said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” John xviii, 36, 37. His empire, indeed, extends to every creature; for all authority is committed into his hands, both in heaven and on earth,” and he is head over all things to the church;” but his kingdom primarily imports the Gospel church, which is the subject of his laws, the seat of his government, and the object of his care; and, being surrounded with powerful opposers, he is represented as ruling in the midst of his enemies. This kingdom is not of a worldly origin, or nature, nor has it this world for its end or object. It can neither be promoted nor defended by worldly power, influence, or carnal weapons, but by bearing witness unto the truth, or by the preaching of the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Its real subjects are only those who are of the truth, and hear Christ’s voice; for none can enter it but such as are born from above, John iii, 3–5; nor can any be visible subjects of it, but such as appear to be regenerated, by a credible profession of faith and obedience. Its privileges and immunities are not of this world, but such as are spiritual and heavenly; they are all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ Jesus, Ephesians i, 3.

KINGS. This word does not always imply the same degree of power, nor the same degree of importance; nor does it imply the magnitude of the dominion or territory of these officers. In Scripture many persons are called kings, whom we should rather denominate chiefs or leaders; and many single towns, or, at most, together with their adjacent villages, are said to have had kings. Not aware of this lower sense of the word king, or unwilling to adopt it, many persons have been embarrassed by the following passage: Moses commanded us a law,--he was king in Jeshurun,” Deut. xxxiii, 4, 5, or king among the Israelites; that is, he was the principal among the assembly of the superiors of the Israelites. Some refer this to Jehovah. Moses was the chief, the leader, the guide of his people, fulfilling the duties of a king; but he was not king in the same sense as David or Solomon was afterward. This remark reconciles the following observation: These kings reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel,” Gen. xxxvi, 31; for Moses, though he was king in an inferior sense, did not reign, in the stronger sense, over the children of Israel, their constitution not being monarchical under him. Beside, we find in Joshua, that almost every town in Canaan had its king; and we know that the territories of these towns must have been very inconsiderable, Joshua xii, 9–24. Adonizedek, himself no very powerful king, mentions seventy kings whom he had subdued and mutilated.

KINGS, BOOKS OF. The first book of Kings commences with an account of the death of David, and contains a period of a hundred and twenty-six years, to the death of Jehoshaphat; and the second book of Kings continues the history of the kings of Israel and Judah through a period of three hundred years, to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. These two books formed only one in the Hebrew canon, and they were probably compiled by Ezra from the records which were regularly kept, both in Jerusalem and Samaria, of all public transactions. These records appear to have been made by the contemporary prophets, and frequently derived their names from the kings whose history they contained. They are mentioned in many parts of Scripture; thus 1 Kings xi, 41, we read of the book of the Acts of Solomon, which is supposed to have been written by Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo, 2 Chron. ix, 29. We elsewhere read that Shemaiah the prophet, and Iddo the seer, wrote the Acts of Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xii, 15; that Jehu wrote the Acts of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xx, 34; and Isaiah those of Uzziah and Hezekiah, 2 Chron. xxvi, 22; xxxii, 32. We may therefore conclude, that from these public records, and other authentic documents, were composed the two books of Kings; and the uniformity of their style favours the opinion of their being put into their present shape by the same person.

KISHON. That ancient river, the river Kishon,” falls into the bay of Acre, and has its source in the hills to the east of the plain of Esdraelon, which it intersects. Being enlarged by several small streams, it passes between Mount Carmel and the hills to the north, and then falls into the sea at this point. In the condition we saw it, says Maundrell, its waters were low and inconsiderable; but in passing along the side of the plain, we discerned the tracts of many lesser torrents, falling down into it from the mountains, which must needs make it swell exceedingly upon sudden rains, as doubtless it actually did at the destruction of Sisera’s host.

KISS, a mode of salutation, and token of respect, which has been practised in all nations. It was also in ordinary use among the Jews; hence Judas in this way saluted his Master. But there was also the kiss of homage, as one of the ceremonies performed at the inauguration of the kings of Israel. The Jews called it the kiss of majesty. Psalm ii, 12, seems to be an allusion to this. St. Paul speaks frequently of the kiss of peace, which was in use among believers, and was given by them to one another as a token of charity and union, publicly in their religious assemblies, Heb. xiii, 24. Kissing the feet is in eastern countries expressive of exuberant gratitude or reverence.

KITE, איה, Lev. xi, 14; Deut. xiv, 13; Job xxviii, 7. Bochart supposes this to be the bird which the Arabians call the ja-jao, from its note; and which the ancients named æsalon, the merlin,” a bird celebrated for its sharp-sightedness. This faculty is referred to in Job xxviii, 7, where the word is rendered vulture.” As a noun masculine plural, איים, in Isaiah xiii, 22; xxxiv, 14; and Jer. 1, 39, Bochart says that jackals are intended; but, by the several contexts, particularly the last, it may well mean a kind of unclean bird, and so be the same with that mentioned above.

KOHATH, the second son of Levi, and father of Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, Gen. xlvi, 11; Exod. vi, 18. Kohath’s family was appointed to carry the ark and sacred vessels of the tabernacle, while the Israelites marched through the wilderness, Num. iv, &c.

KORAH was the son of Izhar, of the race of Levi, and father of Asher, Elkanah, and Aliasaph, and head of the Korites, a celebrated family among the Levites. Korah, being dissatisfied with the rank he held among the sons of Levi, and envying the authority of Moses and Aaron, formed a party against them, in which he engaged Dathan, Abiram, and On, with two hundred and fifty of the principal Levites, Num. xvi, 1–3, &c. Korah, at the head of the rebels, went to Moses and Aaron, and complained that they alone arrogated to themselves all the authority over the people of the Lord. Moses falling with his face on the earth, answered them as follows: Tomorrow, in the morning, the Lord will discover who are his. Let every one of you take, therefore, his censer, and to-morrow he shall put incense into it, and offer it before the Lord; and he shall be acknowledged priest whom the Lord shall choose and approve.” The next day, Korah, with two hundred and fifty of his faction, presenting themselves with their censers before the Lord, the glory of the Lord appeared visibly over the tabernacle, and a voice was heard to say, Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” Upon this, Moses and Aaron, falling with their faces to the ground, said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?” And the Lord said unto Moses, Command all the people to depart from about the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.” When, therefore, the people were retired, Moses said, If these men die the common death of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me; but if the earth open and swallow them up quick, ye shall know that they have blasphemed the Lord.” As soon as he had spoken, the earth opened from under their feet, and swallowed them up with what belonged to them. There was one thing which added to this surprising wonder, and which was, that when Korah was thus swallowed up in the earth, his sons were preserved from his misfortunes. We know not the exact year in which the death of Korah and his companions happened. The sons of Korah continued as before to serve in the tabernacle of the Lord. David appointed them their office in the temple, to guard the doors, and sing the praises of God. To them are ascribed several psalms, which are designated by the name of Korah; as the forty-second, forty-fourth to the forty-ninth, eighty-fourth to the eighty-seventh; in all, eleven psalms.

LABAN, the son of Bethuel, grandson of Nahor, brother to Rebekah, and father of Rachel and Leah, Gen. xxviii, 2, &c. Of this man, the first thing we hear is his entertainment of Abraham’s servant when he came on his errand to Rebekah. Hospitality was the virtue of his age and country. In his case, however, it seems to have been no little stimulated by the sight of “the ear ring and the bracelets on his sister’s hands,” which the servant had already given her, Gen. xxiv, 30; so he speedily made room for the camels. He next is presented to us as beguiling that sister’s son, who had sought a shelter in his house, and whose circumstances placed him at his mercy, of fourteen years’ service, when he had covenanted with him for seven only; endeavouring to retain his labour when he would not pay him his labour’s worth, himself devouring the portion which he should have given to his daughters, counting them but as strangers, Gen. xxxi, 15. Compelled, at length, to pay Jacob wages, he changes them ten times, and, in the spirit of a crafty, griping worldling, makes him account for whatever of the flock was torn of beasts or stolen, whether by day or night. When Jacob flies from this iniquitous service with his family and cattle, Laban still pursues and persecutes him, intending, if his intentions had not been overruled by a mightier hand, to send him away empty, even after he had been making, for so long a period, so usurious a profit of him.

LACHISH, a city of Palestine, Joshua x, 23; xv, 39. Sennacherib besieged Lachish, but did not make himself master of it. From thence it was that he sent Rabshakeh against Jerusalem, 2 Kings xviii, 17; xix, 8; 2 Chron. xxxii, 9.

LAMAISM, the religion of the people of Thibet. The Delai Lama, Grand Lama,” is at once the high priest, and the visible object of adoration, to this nation, to the hordes of wandering Tartars, and to the prodigious population of China. He resides at Patoli, a vast palace on a mountain near the banks of the Burampooter, about seven miles from Lahasse. The foot of the mountain is surrounded by twenty thousand lamas, or priests, in attendance on their sovereign pontiff, who is considered as the viceregent of the Deity on earth; and the remote Tartars are said to regard him absolutely as the Deity himself, and call him God, the everlasting Father of heaven. They believe him to be immortal, and endowed with all knowledge and virtue. Every year they come up from different parts to worship, and make rich offerings at his shrine. Even the emperor of China, who is a Mantchou Tartar, does not fail in acknowledgments to him in his religious capacity; and entertains in the palace of Pekin an inferior lama, deputed as his nuncio from Thibet. The grand lama is only to be seen in a secret place of his palace, amidst a great number of lamps, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, and decked all over with gold and precious stones; while, at a distance, the people prostrate themselves before him, it being not lawful for any so much as to kiss his feet. He returns not the least sign of respect, nor ever speaks, even to the greatest princes; but only lays his hand upon their heads, and they are fully persuaded that they thereby receive a full forgiveness of their sins. The Sunniasses, or Indian pilgrims, often visit Thibet as a holy place; and the lama entertains a body of two or three hundred in his pay. Beside his religious influence and authority, he is possessed of unlimited power throughout his dominions, which are very extensive. The inferior lamas, who form the most numerous as well as the most powerful body in the state, have the priesthood entirely in their hands, and, beside, fill up many monastic orders, which are held in great veneration among them. The whole country, like Italy, abounds with priests; and they entirely subsist on the rich presents sent them from the utmost extent of Tartary, from the empire of the great mogul, and from almost all parts of the Indies. The opinion of the orthodox among the Thibetians is, that when the grand lama seems to die, either of old age or infirmities, his soul, in fact, only quits a crazy habitation to enter another, younger and better; and is discovered again in the body of some child, by certain tokens, known only to the lamas, or priests, in which order he always appears. Almost all the nations of the east, except the Mohammedans, believe the metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul, as the most important article of their faith; especially the inhabitants of Thibet and Ava, the Peguans, the Siamese, the greater part of the Chinese and Japanese, and the Monguls and Kalmucks. According to their doctrine, the soul no sooner leaves her old habitation than she enters a new one. The delai lama, therefore, or rather the god Foe or Fuh, residing in the delai lama, passes to his successor; and he being a god, to whom all things are known, the grand lama is therefore acquainted with every thing which happened during his residence in his former bodies. This religion, which was early adopted in a large part of the globe, is said to have been of three thousand years’ standing; and neither time, nor the influence of men, has had the power of shaking the authority of the grand lama. This theocracy, which extends as fully to temporal as to spiritual concerns, is professed all over Thibet and Mongalia; is almost universal in Greater and Less Bucharia, and several provinces of Tartary; has some followers in the kingdom of Cashmere, in India; and is the predominant religion of China.

It has been observed that the religion of Thibet is the counterpart of the Roman Catholic, since the inhabitants of that country use holy water, and a singing service. They also offer alms, prayers, and sacrifices for the dead. They have a vast number of convents filled with monks and friars, amounting to thirty thousand, and confessors chosen by their superiors. They use beads, wear the mitre, like the bishops; and their delai lama is nearly the same among them as the sovereign pontiff was formerly, in the zenith of his power, among the Roman Catholics. So complete is the resemblance, that, when one of the first Romish missionaries penetrated Thibet, he came to the conclusion that the devil had set up there an imitation of the rites of the Catholic church, in order the more effectually to destroy the souls of men. Captain Turner, speaking of the religion of Thibet, says, It seems to be the schismatical offspring of the religion of the Hindoos, deriving its origin from one of the followers of that faith, a disciple of Bouddhu, who first broached the doctrine which now prevails over the wide extent of Tartary. It is reported to have received its earliest admission in that part of Tibet, or Thibet, bordering upon India, which from hence became the seat of the sovereign lamas, to have traversed over Mantchieux Tartary, and to have been ultimately disseminated over China and Japan. Though it differs from the Hindoo in many of its outward forms, yet it still bears a very close affinity with the religion of Brumha in many important particulars. The principal idol in the temples of Tibet, or Thibet, is Muha-Moonee, the Booddhu of Bengal, who is worshipped under these and various other epithets, throughout the great extent of Tartary, and among all nations to the eastward of the Brumhapootru. In the wide-extended space over which this faith prevails, the same object of veneration is acknowledged under numerous titles: among others, he is styled Godumu, or Gotumu, in Assam and Ava, Shumunu in Siam, Amida Buth in Japan, Fohi in China,” &c.

LAMBETH ARTICLES. See PREDESTINATION.

LAMECH, a descendant of Cain, the son of Mathusael, and father of Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-Cain, and Naamah, Gen. iv, 18–20, &c. He stands branded as the father of polygamy, the first who dared to violate the sacred command, Gen. ii, 24; giving way to his unbridled passion, and thus overleaping the divine mound raised by the wisdom of our great Creator; which restraint is enforced by the laws of nature herself, who peoples the earth with an equal number of males and females, and thereby teaches foolish man that polygamy is incompatible with her wise regulations. He married Adah and Zillah: the former was the mother of Jabal and Jubal, and the latter of Tubal-Cain and Naamah, his sister.

2. LAMECH, the son of Methuselah, and father of Noah. He lived a hundred fourscore and two years before the birth of Noah, Gen. v, 25, 31; after which he lived five hundred and ninety-five years longer: thus the whole term of his life was seven hundred and seventy-seven years.

LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH. This book was formerly annexed to his prophecies, though it now forms a separate book. Josephus, and several other learned men, have referred them to the death of Josiah; but the more common opinion is, that they were applicable only to some period subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. But though it be allowed that the Lamentations were primarily intended as a pathetic description of present calamities, yet while Jeremiah mourns the desolation of Judah and Jerusalem during the Babylonian captivity, he may be considered as prophetically painting the still greater miseries they were to suffer at some future time: this seems plainly indicated by his referring to the time when the punishment of their iniquity shall be accomplished, and they shall no more be carried into captivity, Lam. iv, 22. The Lamentations are written in metre, and consist of a number of plaintive effusions, composed after the manner of funeral dirges. They seem to have been originally written by their author as they arose in his mind, and to have been afterward joined together as one poem. There is no regular arrangement of the subject, or disposition of the parts: the same thought is frequently repeated with different imagery, or expressed in different words. There is, however, no wild incoherency, or abrupt transition; the whole appears to have been dictated by the feelings of real grief. Tenderness and sorrow form the general character of these elegies; and an attentive reader will find great beauty in many of the images, and great energy in some of the expressions. This book of Lamentations is divided into five chapters; in the first, second, and fourth, the prophet speaks in his own person, or by an elegant and interesting personification introduces the city of Jerusalem as lamenting her calamities, and confessing her sins; in the third chapter a single Jew, speaking in the name of a chorus of his countrymen, like the Coryphæus of the Greeks, describes the punishment inflicted upon him by God, but still acknowledges his mercy, and expresses some hope of deliverance; and in the fifth chapter, the whole nation of the Jews pour forth their united complaints and supplications to almighty God.

Every chapter, with the exception of the third, contains twenty-two verses, corresponding in number with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; and each verse commences with a different letter, the first with aleph, the second with beth, the third with gimel, &c. The third chapter, consisting of sixty-six verses, has three verses together beginning with the same letter, the following three with the next letter, &c. This peculiarity may be seen in Psalm cxix; the first eight verses in which commence with aleph, the next eight with beth, &c, till the whole alphabet has been consecutively taken. This mode of versification, which has some distant resemblance to the modern acrostic style, seems to have been employed by the Hebrews in some of their elegiac poetry, perhaps to assist the memory.

LAMP, λαμπας. There is frequent mention of lamps in Scripture, and the word is often used figuratively. The houses in the east were, from the remotest antiquity, lighted with lamps; and hence it is so common in Scripture to call every thing which enlightens the body or mind, which guides or refreshes, by the name of a lamp. These lamps were sustained by a large candlestick set upon the ground. The houses of Egypt, in modern times, are never without lights: they burn lamps all the night long, and in every occupied apartment. So requisite to the comfort of a family is this custom reckoned, or so imperious is the power which it exercises, that the poorest people would rather retrench part of their food than neglect it. As this custom no doubt prevailed in Egypt and the adjacent regions of Arabia and Palestine in former times, it imparts a beauty and force to some passages of Scripture which have been little observed. Thus, in the language of Jeremiah, to extinguish the light in an apartment is a convertible phrase for total destruction; and nothing can more properly and emphatically represent the total destruction of a city than the extinction of the lights: I will take from them the light of a candle, and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment.” Job describes the destruction of a family among the Arabs, and the desolation of their dwellings, in the very language of the prophet: How oft is the candle of the wicked put out, and how oft cometh their destruction upon them!” Job xxi, 17. Bildad expresses the same idea in the following beautiful passage: Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him,” Job xviii, 5, 6. A burning lamp is, on the other hand, the chosen symbol of prosperity, a beautiful instance of which occurs in the complaint of Job: O that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness,” Job xxix, 2, 3. When the ten tribes were taken from Rehoboam, and given to his rival, Jehovah promised to reserve one tribe, and assigns this reason: That David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem,” 1 Kings xi, 36. In many parts of the east, and in particular in the Indies, instead of torches and flambeaux, they carry a pot of oil in one hand, and a lamp full of oily rags in the other.

LANGUAGE, the faculty of human speech, concerning the origin of which there have been entertained different opinions among philosophers and learned men. The Mosaic history, which gives us an account of the formation and first occupations of man, represents him as being immediately capable of conversing with his Maker; of giving names to the various tribes and classes of animals; and of reasoning consecutively, and in perfectly appropriate terms, concerning his own situation, and the relation he stood in to the other creatures. As in man’s first attempt at speech, according to this account, there appear no crudeness of conception, no barrenness of ideas, and no inexpressive or unappropriate terms, we must certainly infer, that God who made and endued him with corporeal and mental powers perfectly suited to his state and condition in life, endued him, also, not only with the faculty of speech, but with speech or language itself; which latter was as necessary to his comfort, and to the perfection and end of his being, as any other power or faculty which his Creator thought proper to bestow upon him.

Among the antediluvians there was but one language; and even now the indications that the various languages of the earth have had one common source are very convincing. Whether this primitive language was the same with any of the languages of which we have still any remains, has been a subject of much dispute. That the primitive language continued at least till the dispersion of mankind, consequent upon the building of Babel, there seems little reason to doubt. When, by an immediate interposition of divine power, the language of men was confounded, we are not informed to what extent this confusion of tongues prevailed. Under the article Confusion of Tongues some reasons are given to show that the primitive language was not lost at that event, but continued in the form of the Hebrew.

There are, however, other opinions on the oft disputed subject as to the primitive language. The Armenians allege, that as the ark rested in their country, Noah and his children must have remained there a considerable time, before the lower and marshy country of Chaldea could be fit to receive them; and it is therefore reasonable to suppose they left their language there, which was probably the very same that Adam spoke. Some have fancied the Greek the most ancient tongue, because of its extent and copiousness. The Teutonic, or that dialect of it which is spoken in the Lower Germany and Brabant, has found a strenuous patron in Geropius Becanus, who endeavours to derive even the Hebrew itself from that tongue. The pretensions of the Chinese to this honour have been allowed by several Europeans. The patrons of this opinion endeavour to support it, partly, by the great antiquity of the Chinese, and their having preserved themselves so many ages from any considerable mixture or intercourse with other nations. It is a notion advanced by Dr. Allix, and maintained by Mr. Whiston, with his usual tenacity and fervour, that the Chinese are the posterity of Noah, by his children born after the flood; and that Fohi, the first king of China, was Noah. As for those which are called the oriental languages, they have each their partisans. The generality of eastern writers allow the preference to the Syriac, except the Jews, who assert the antiquity of the Hebrew with the greatest warmth; and with them several Christian writers agree, particularly Chrysostom, Austin, Origen, and Jerome, among the ancients; and among the moderns, Bochart, Heidegger, Selden, and Buxtorf. The Sanscrit has also put in its claims; and some have thought that the Pali bears the character of the highest antiquity. All these are however useless speculations. The only point worth contending for is, that language was conveyed at once to the first pair in sufficient degree for intellectual intercourse with each other, and devotional intercourse with God; and that man was not left, as infidel writers have been pleased to say, to form it for himself out of rude and instinctive sounds. On this subject the remarks of Delaney are conclusive: “That God made man a sociable creature, does not need to be proved; and that when he made him such, he withheld nothing from him that was in any wise necessary for his well being in society, is a clear consequence from the wisdom and goodness of God; and if he withheld nothing any way necessary to his well being, much less would he withhold from him that which is the instrument of the greatest happiness a reasonable creature is capable of in this world. If the Lord God made ‘Adam a help meet for him,’ because ‘it was not good for man to be alone,’ can we imagine he would leave him unfurnished with the means to make that help useful and delightful to him? If it was not good for him to be alone, certainly neither was it good for him to have a companion to whom he could not readily communicate his thoughts, with whom he could neither ease his anxieties, nor divide or double his joys, by a kind, a friendly, a reasonable, a religious conversation; and how he could do this in any degree of perfection, or to any height of rational happiness, is utterly inconceivable without the use of speech.

“If it be said, that the human organs being admirably fitted for the formation of articulate sounds, these, with the help of reason, might in time lead men to the use of language. I own it imaginable that they might: but still, till that end were attained in perfection, which possibly might not be in a series of many generations, it must be owned that brutes were better dealt by, and could better attain all the ends of their creation. And if that be absurd to be supposed, certainly the other is not less absurd to be believed. Nay, I think it justly doubtful, whether, without inspiration from God in this point, man could ever attain the true ends of his being; at least, if we may judge in this case, by the example of those nations who, being destitute of the advantages of a perfect language, are, in all probability, from the misfortune of that sole defect, sunk into the lowest condition of barbarism and brutality. And as to the perfection in which the human organs are framed and fitted for the formation of articulate sounds, this is clearly an argument for believing that God immediately blessed man with the use of speech, and gave him wherewithal to exert those organs to their proper ends; for this is surely as credible, as that when he gave him an appetite for food, and proper organs to eat and to digest it, he did not leave him to seek painfully for a necessary supply, (till his offence had made such a search his curse and punishment,) but placed him at once in the midst of abundant plenty. The consequence from all which is, that the perfection and felicity of man, and the wisdom and goodness of God, necessarily required that Adam should be supernaturally endowed with the knowledge and use of language. And therefore, as certain as it can be, that man was made perfect and happy, and that God is wise and good; so certain is it, that, when Adam and Eve were formed, they were immediately enabled by God to converse and communicate their thoughts, in all the perfection of language necessary to all the ends of their creation. And as this was the conduct most becoming the goodness of God, so we are assured from Moses, that it was that to which his infinite wisdom determined him; for we find that Adam gave names to all the creatures before Eve was formed; and, consequently, before necessity taught him the use of speech.”

It is true that many languages bear marks of being raised to their improved state from rude and imperfect elements, and that all are capable of being enriched and rendered more exact; and it is this which has given some colour to those theories which trace all language itself up from elemental sounds, as the necessities of men, their increasing knowledge, and their imagination led to the invention of new words and combinations. All this is, however, consistent with the Scripture fact, that language was taught at first by God to our first parents. The dispersion of mankind carried many tribes to great distances, and wars still farther scattered them, and often into wide regions where they were farther dispersed to live chiefly by the chase, by fishing, or at best but an imperfect agriculture. In various degrees we know they lost useful arts; and for the same reasons they would lose much of their original language; those terms being chiefly retained which their immediate necessities, and the common affairs of a gross life, kept in use. But when civilization again overtook these portions of mankind, and kingdoms and empires were founded among them, or they became integral parts of the old empires, then their intercourse with each other becoming more rapid, and artificial, and intellectual, their language was put into a new process of improvement, and to the eye of the critic would exhibit the various stages of advancement; and in many it would be pushed beyond that perfection which it had when it first began to deteriorate. See LETTERS.

LANTERN. The word occurs, John xviii, 3: μετὰ φανῶν καὶ λαμπάδων: with torches and lanterns:” but both terms appear to signify torches; the former of a ruder kind than the latter, being formed of split laths bound into bundles, throwing around a strong glare of light. They came thus furnished to apprehend our Lord, lest he should escape through the darkness of the night.

LAODICEA. There were several cities of this name, but the Scripture speaks only of that in Phrygia, upon the river Lycus, near Colosse. Its ancient name was Diospolis: it was afterward called Rhoas. Lastly, Antiochus, the son of Stratonice, rebuilt it, and called it Laodicea, from the name of his wife Laodice. It became the mother church of sixteen bishoprics. Its three theatres, and the immense circus, which was capable of containing upward of thirty thousand spectators, the spacious remains of which (with other ruins buried under ruins) are yet to be seen, give proof of the greatness of its ancient wealth and population; and indicate too strongly that in that city where Christians were rebuked, without exception, for their lukewarmness, there were multitudes who were lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The amphitheatre was built after the Apocalypse was written, and the warning of the Spirit had been given to the church of the Laodiceans to be zealous and repent. There are no sights of grandeur, nor scenes of temptation around it now. Its own tragedy may be briefly told. It was lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot; and therefore it was loathsome in the sight of God. And it has been blotted from the world. It is now as desolate as its inhabitants were destitute of the fear and love of God. It is, as described in his Travels by Dr. Smith, utterly desolated, and without any inhabitant except wolves, and jackals, and foxes.” It can boast of no human inhabitants, except occasionally when wandering Turcomans pitch their tents in its spacious amphitheatre. The finest sculptured fragments are to be seen at a considerable depth, in excavations which have been made among the ruins. And Colonel Lake observes, There are few ancient cities more likely than Laodicea to preserve many curious remains of antiquity beneath the surface of the soil. Its opulence, and the earthquakes to which it was subject, render it probable that valuable works of art were often there buried beneath the ruins of the public and private edifices.”

LAPWING, דוכיפת, Levit. xi, 19; Deut. xiv, 18. The bird intended by the Hebrew name in these places is undoubtedly the hoopoe; a very beautiful, but most unclean and filthy, species of birds. The Septuagint renders it ἔποπα; and the Vulgate, upupa; which is the same with the Arabian interpreters. The Egyptian name of the bird is kukuphah; and the Syrian, kikuphah; which approach the Hebrew dukiphath. It may have its name from the noise or cry it makes, which is very remarkable, and may be heard a great way.

LATITUDINARIANS, a term applied to those divines who, in the seventeenth century, attempted to bring Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, into one communion, by compromising the differences between them. The chief leaders of this party were the great Chillingworth and John Hales; to whom may be added More, Cudworth, Gale, Tillotson, and Whitchcot. They were zealously attached to the church of England, but did not look upon episcopacy as indispensable to the constitution of the Christian church. Hence they maintained that those who adopted other forms of government and worship, were not on that account to be excluded from the communion, or to forfeit the title of brethren. They reduced the fundamental doctrines of Christianity to a few points. By this way of proceeding, they endeavoured to show that neither the Episcopalians, who, generally speaking, were then Arminians, nor the Presbyterians and Independents, who as generally adopted the doctrines of Calvin, had any reason to oppose each other with such animosity and bitterness; since the subjects of their debates were matters non-essential to salvation, and might be variously explained and understood without prejudice to their eternal interests. This plan failing, through the violence of the bishops on one hand, (though sanctioned by the Lord Chancellor Clarendon,) and by the jealousy of the more rigid on the other, the name Latitudinarian became a term of reproach, as implying an indifferency to all religions, and has been generally so used ever since.

LAVER. Between the altar and the tabernacle, a little to the south, stood a circular laver, which, together with its base, was made of the brazen ornaments which the women had presented for the use of the tabernacle, and was thence called כור נחשת, Exodus xxx, 18; xl, 7. The priests, when about to perform their duties, washed their hands in this laver.

LAW, a rule of action; a precept or command, coming from a superior authority, which an inferior is bound to obey. The manner in which God governs rational creatures is by a law, as the rule of their obedience to him, and this is what we call God’s moral government of the world. The term, however, is used in Scripture with considerable latitude of meaning; and to ascertain its precise import in any particular place, it is necessary to regard the scope and connection of the passage in which it occurs. Thus, for instance, sometimes it denotes the whole revealed will of God as communicated to us in his word. In this sense it is generally used in the book of Psalms, i, 2; xix, 7; cxix; Isaiah viii, 20; xlii, 21. Sometimes it is taken for the Mosaical institution distinguished from the Gospel, John i, 17; Matt. xi, 13; xii, 5; Acts xxv, 8. Hence we frequently read of the law of Moses as expressive of the whole religion of the Jews, Heb. ix, 19; x, 28. Sometimes, in a more restricted sense, for the ritual or ceremonial observances of the Jewish religion. In this sense the Apostle speaks of the law of commandments contained in ordinances,” Eph. ii, 15; Heb. x, 1; and which, being only a shadow of good things to come,” Christ Jesus abolished by his death, and so in effect destroyed the ancient distinction between Jew and Gentile, Gal. iii, 17. Very frequently it is used to signify the decalogue, or ten precepts which were delivered to the Israelites from Mount Sinai. It is in this acceptation of the term that the Lord Jesus declares he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” Matt. v, 17; and he explains its import as requiring perfect love to God and man, Luke x, 27. It is in reference to this view that St. Paul affirms, By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified; for by the law is the knowledge of sin,” Rom. iii, 20. The language of this law is, The soul that sinneth it shall die,” and Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written,” or required, in the book of the law, to do them,” Gal. iii, 10. To deliver man from this penalty, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being himself made a curse for us,” Gal. iii, 13. The law, in this sense, was not given that men should obtain righteousness or justification by it, but to convince them of sin, to show them their need of a Saviour, to shut them up, as it were, from all hopes of salvation from that source, and to recommend the Gospel of divine grace to their acceptance, Gal. iii, 19–25. Again, the law often denotes the rule of good and evil, or of right and wrong, revealed by the Creator and inscribed on man’s conscience, even at his creation, and consequently binding upon him by divine authority; and in this respect it is in substance the same with the decalogue. That such a law was connate with, and, as it were, implanted in, man, appears from its traces, which, like the ruins of some noble building, are still extant in every man. It is from those common notions, handed down by tradition, though often imperfect and perverted, that the Heathens themselves distinguished right from wrong, by which they were a law unto themselves, showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness,” Rom. ii, 12–15, although they had no express revelation.

The term law, is, however, eminently given to the Mosaic law; on the principles and spirit of which, a few general remarks may be offered. The right consideration of this divine institute, says Dr. Graves, will surround it with a glory of truth and holiness, not only worthy of its claims, but which has continued to be the light of the world on theological and moral subjects, and often on great political principles, to this day. If we examine the Jewish law, to discover the principle on which the whole system depends, the primary truth, to inculcate and illustrate which is its leading object, we find it to be that great basis of all religion, both natural and revealed, the self-existence, essential unity, perfections, and providence of the supreme Jehovah, the Creator of heaven and earth. The first line of the Mosaic writings inculcates this great truth: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” When the lawgiver begins to recapitulate the statutes and judgments he had enjoined to his nation, it is with this declaration: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi, 4; or, as it might be more closely expressed, Jehovah our Elohim, or God, is one Jehovah. And at the commencement of that sublime hymn, delivered by Moses immediately before his death, in which this illustrious prophet sums up the doctrines he had taught, the wonders by which they had been confirmed, and the denunciations by which they were enforced, he declares this great tenet with the sublimity of eastern poetry, but at the same time with the precision of philosophic truth: Give ear,” says he, O ye heavens, and I will speak: and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop rain: my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass,” Deut. xxxii, 1, &c. What, is that doctrine so awful, that the whole universe is thus invoked to attend to it? so salutary as to be compared with the principle whose operation diffuses beauty and fertility over the vegetable world? Hear the answer: Because I will publish the name of Jehovah; ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the rock, his work is perfect: a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he.”

This, then, is one great leading doctrine of the Jewish code. But the manner in which this doctrine is taught displays such wise accommodation to the capacity and character of the nation to whom it is addressed, as deserves to be carefully remarked. That character by which the supreme Being is most clearly distinguished from every other, however exalted; that character from which the acutest reasoners have endeavoured demonstratively to deduce, as from their source, all the divine attributes, is self-existence. Is it not then highly remarkable, that it is under this character the Divinity is described on his first manifestation to the Jewish lawgiver? The Deity at first reveals himself unto him as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; and therefore the peculiar national and guardian God of the Jewish race. Moses, conscious of the degeneracy of the Israelites, their ignorance of, or their inattention to, the true God, and the difficulty and danger of any attempt to recall them to his exclusive worship, and to withdraw them from Egypt, seems to decline the task; but when absolutely commanded to undertake it, he said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you,” Exod. iii, 13, 14. Here we observe, according to the constant method of the divine wisdom, when it condescends to the prejudices of men, how in the very instance of indulgence it corrects their superstition. The religion of names arose from an idolatrous polytheism; and the name given here directly opposes this error, and in the ignorance of that dark and corrupted period establishes that great truth, to which the most enlightened philosophy can add no new lustre, and on which all the most refined speculations on the divine nature ultimately rest, the self-existence, and, by consequence, the eternity and immutability, of the one great Jehovah.

But though the self-existence of the Deity was a fact too abstract to require its being frequently inculcated, his essential unity was a practical principle, the sure foundation on which to erect the structure of true religion, and form a barrier against the encroachments of idolatry: for this commenced not so frequently in denying the existence, or even the supremacy, of the one true God, as in associating with him for objects of adoration inferior intermediate beings, who were supposed to be more directly employed in the administration of human affairs. To confute and resist this false principle was, therefore, one great object of the Jewish scheme. Hence the unity of God is inculcated with perpetual solicitude; it stands at the head of the system of moral law promulgated to the Jews from Sinai by the divine voice, heard by the assembled nation, and issuing from the divine glory, with every circumstance which could impress the deepest awe upon even the dullest minds: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other gods beside me,” Exod. xx, 2, 3. And in the recapitulation of the divine laws in Deuteronomy, it is repeatedly enforced with the most solemn earnestness: Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi, 4. And again: Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him. Know, therefore, this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath: there is none else,” Deut. iv, 35, 39.

This self-existent, supreme and only God is moreover described as possessed of every perfection which can be ascribed to the Divinity: Ye shall be holy,” says the Lord to the people of the Jews; for I the Lord your God am holy,” Lev. xix, 2. Ascribe ye,” says the legislator, greatness unto our God; he is the rock; his work is perfect; a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he,” Deut. xxxii, 4. And in the hymn of thanksgiving on the miraculous escape of the Israelites at the Red Sea, this is its burden: Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” Exod. xv, 11. And when the Lord delivered to Moses the two tables of the moral law, he is described as descending in the cloud, and proclaiming the name of the Lord: And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty,” Exod. xxxiv, 6, 7.

But to teach the self-existence, the unity, the wisdom, and the power of the Deity, nay, even his moral perfections of mercy, justice, and truth, would have been insufficient to arrest the attention, and command the obedience of a nation, the majority of which looked no farther than mere present objects, and at that early period cherished scarcely any hopes higher than those of a temporal kind,--if, in addition to all this, care had not been taken to represent the providence of God as not only directing the government of the universe by general laws, but also perpetually superintending the conduct and determining the fortune of every nation, of every family, nay, of every individual. It was the disbelief or the neglect of this great truth which gave spirit and energy, plausibility and attraction, to the whole system of idolatry. While men believed that the supreme God and Lord of all was too exalted in his dignity, too remote from this sublunary scene, to regard its vicissitudes with an attentive eye, and too constantly engaged in the contemplation of his own perfections, and the enjoyment of his own independent and all-perfect happiness, to interfere in the regulation of human affairs, they regarded with indifference that supreme Divinity who seemed to take no concern in their conduct, and not to interfere as to their happiness. However exalted and perfect such a Being might appear to abstract speculation, he was to the generality of mankind as if he did not exist; as their happiness or misery were not supposed to be influenced by his power, they referred not their conduct to his direction. If he delegated to inferior beings the regulation of this inferior world; if all its concerns were conducted by their immediate agency, and all its blessings or calamities distributed by their immediate determination; it seemed rational, and even necessary, to supplicate their favour and submit to their authority; and neither unwise nor unsafe to neglect that Being, who, though all-perfect and supreme, would, on this supposition appear, with respect to mankind, altogether inoperative. In truth, this fact of the perpetual providence of God extending even to the minutest events, is inseparably connected with every motive which is offered to sway the conduct of the Jews, and forcibly inculcated by every event of their history. This had been manifested in the appointment of the land of Canaan for the future settlement of the chosen people on the first covenant which God entered into with the Patriarch Abraham; in the prophecy, that for four hundred years they should be afflicted in Egypt, and afterward be thence delivered; in the increase of their nation, under circumstances of extreme oppression, and their supernatural deliverance from that oppression. The same providence was displayed in the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea; the travels of the thousands of Israel through the wilderness, sustained by food from heaven; and in their subsequent settlement in the promised land by means entirely distinct from their own strength. Reliance on the same providence was the foundation of their civil government, the spirit and the principle of their constitution. On this only could they be commanded to keep the sabbatic year without tilling their land, or even gathering its spontaneous produce; confiding in the promise, that God would send his blessing on the sixth year, so that it should bring forth fruit for three years, Lev. xxv, 21. The same faith in Divine Providence alone could prevail on them to leave their properties and families exposed to the attack of their surrounding enemies; while all the males of the nation assembled at Jerusalem to celebrate the three great festivals, enjoined by divine command, with the assurance that no man should desire their land when they went up to appear before the Lord their God thrice in the year, Exodus xxxiv, 24. And, finally, it is most evident, that, contrary to all other lawgivers, the Jewish legislator renders his civil institutions entirely subordinate to his religious; and announces to his nation that their temporal adversity or prosperity would entirely depend, not on their observance of their political regulations; not on their preserving a military spirit, or acquiring commercial wealth, or strengthening themselves by powerful alliances; but on their continuing to worship the one true God according to the religious rites and ceremonies by him prescribed, and preserving their piety and morals untainted by the corruptions and vices which idolatry tended to introduce.

Such was the theology of the Jewish religion, at a period when the whole world was deeply infected with idolatry; when all knowledge of the one true God, all reverence for his sacred name, all reliance on his providence, all obedience to his laws, were nearly banished from the earth; when the severest chastisements had been tried in vain; when no hope of reformation appeared from the refinements of civilization or the researches of philosophy; for the most civilized and enlightened nations adopted with the greatest eagerness, and disseminated with the greatest activity, the absurdities, impieties, and pollutions of idolatry. Then was the Jewish law promulgated to a nation, who, to mere human judgment, might have appeared incapable of inventing or receiving such a high degree of intellectual and moral improvement; for they had been long enslaved to the Egyptians, the authors and supporters of the grossest idolatry; they had been weighed down by the severest bondage, perpetually harassed by the most incessant manual labours; for the Egyptians made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field,” Exod. i, 14. At this time, and in this nation, was the Mosaic law promulgated, teaching the great principles of true religion, the self-existence, the unity, the perfections, and the providence of the one great Jehovah; reprobating all false gods, all image worship, all the absurdities and profanations of idolatry. At this time, and in this nation, was a system of government framed, which had for its basis the reception of, and steady adherence to, this system of true religion; and establishing many regulations, which would be in the highest degree irrational, and could never hope to be received, except from a general and thorough reliance on the superintendence of Divine Providence, controlling the course of nature, and directing every event, so as to proportion the prosperity of the Hebrew people, according to their obedience to that law which they had received as divine.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

A Biblical and Theological Dictionary explanatory of the history, manners, and customs of the Jews, and neighbouring nations (part 6 of 11)

Cite this passage

MLA

APA

Chicago

A Biblical and Theological Dictionary explanatory of the history, manners, and customs of the Jews, and neighbouring nations (part 6 of 11)